A
female
age
51-59,
*ope37
writes:I have been married for over 13 years and have a 8 year old daughter. For the last 3 years I found myself being attracted to a coworker and I am still desperately in love with him. He on the other hand has indicated he likes me many times but at the same time asserts that he is happily married (he has 2 beautiful kids). I am not fooling myself into believing and waiting for this man to leave his world and come to me. But in my defense, I strongly believe this happened to me because of my marriage not being a happy one. Things happened in the past 13 years and I think I unknowingly distanced myself emotionally from my husband. If it was not this guy, it would be some other or something else.My problem started about a year back when I could not get intimate with my husband any more. All hell broke loose and finally I had to tell him the truth. Though he calls it an affair (there was none), he has been very sportive about it. He has admitted to all his mistakes from the past and is making a very serious attempt to change. He is probably a dream husband right now. So what is my problem? Like I said before I am not naïve to wait or hope for this other guy, but I am not being able to love my husband either. I respect him as a friend but getting intimate is intolerable. He is obviously very upset about all these and asked me several times about a divorce. I do not want to separate since my daughter simply adorns him. He has also told me that if we separate he will not only be out of my life but also my daughter’s. This torments me. I told him he is trying to blackmail me into having sex by dragging her. My husband thinks I am wasting his time and that there are 3 people in the bed. I cannot argue against any of those points. The bottom line is though he could be my best friend right now, I cannot let him get any closer physically. I have asked for time but he wants me to tell him with certainty that after that time period we will be off the plutonic relationship. I am not being able to promise anything. So, right now I feel all bruised with the emotional relationship I had with the other guy, anger for all the past with my husband and also guilt for not being able to save the marriage.
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reader, anonymous, writes (26 March 2008): I think you are very angry about the things you accuse your husband of and have withdrawn your intimacy to punish him. It probably can't go on and it is your responsibility to get counselling to see if you can save anything. Some of your words make it sound as though you have already decided that you are not able to save the marriage. Perhaps you just want out and are being horrible to your husband to excuse it. Whatever he as done wrong ( you don't say what it is) you somehow need to make a decision about whether to try or give your husband up so that you can both seek more fulfiling lives. It looks from the outside as though you are giving up reality for a dream. There is no substance to your alternative life.
A
female
reader, gemmalinix  +, writes (26 March 2008):
First things first, the worst thing you can do to your marriage is allow yourself to find interest elsewhere. you have already done that, so that creates a problem.
Your husband makes good points, you are wasting his time, because you aren't fully in your marriage, however that does not give him the right to threaten you with cutting your daughter out of his life. It is his daughter too.
Though you claim that you did not have a physical affair, you did have and are currently having an emotional affair. And emotional affair is almost more dangerous than a physical one, because with a physical affair, it is generally more about satiating physical needs without a connection, however with an emotional affair, your affections for your husband are replaced with affections for someone else.
This fact is what is making it hard for you to have sex with your husband.
If your husband is trying, then you need to try too.
The first thing you need to do is stop being selfish and faces facts:
1. This other man that you are into has a family. He is happily married and has children. There is no chance of you two having a relationship, and even if he was interested, would you really want to sacrifice your marriage, your daughter's well-being, this other man's marriage, his kid's well-being and his wife's sanity just to make yourself happy? You would basically be uprooting two families and creating a mess of lies and hurt feelings. Are you really that selfish? I somehow doubt it.
2. You husband is being supportive and trying to make things better in your marriage. He is trying to fill the void that made you unhappy to begin with, he trying to be a better husband to you. That is very honorable. Albeit, he has his faults in "blackmailing" you with your daughter, however, look at things from his perspective. he is afraid of losing you. He loves you. he deserves respect from you and he deserves your attention.
3. You need to let go of this other guy and stop comparing your relationship with your husband to your relationship with him. You are so head over heels mentally for this other guy that your husband is paling in comparisons to him, and as long as that is going on, you will never fix your relationship with your husband. Once you really accept that this other relationship will not work, and you really give it up (stop thinking, dreaming and scheming about it)you will be able to focus back on your husband. You have already said that you and your husband are best friends....that is the foundation of a good marriage. If you went into marriage thinking that you would always be head over heels, butterflies in the stomach for each other, you were mistaken. Being in love (like you were with your husband when you married him, or like you supposedly are with this other man now) is that head over heels feeling of euphoria, the constant happiness, the passion...that is all fine, but it is fleeting. As your relationship matures, you experience real love, true love. Love is different than being "in love" because it is lasting. it's that best friend relationship, that comforting secure feeling you get from being with someone that you know will always be around to catch you if you fall. it sound like that is what you and your husband have, but you are too interested in feeling that fleeting "in love" euphoria that you can't appreciate that you have the real thing.
4. Just think of what a divorce would do to your daughter.
5. You husband is wrong to ask you to promise something that you have no way of predicting, (such as staying together after the break, or becoming intimate again or whatever it is you are doing). You cannot promise this, however you can promise him something else. If you are truly interested in saving your marriage for the sake of your daughter and for yourselves, then you can promise that you want to return to intimacy and stay together. It is not a guarantee that you will, but it is a guarantee that you want to, which in turn means you will try to be constructive in improving your marriage and generally, if both partners try to fix things, i mean, really try, things usually get fixed. it might take longer than your husband would like it too, but he needs to be patient, and you need to work at it.
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reader, anonymous, writes (26 March 2008): I would like to add to my other statement, because I feel your at a point that you can either help the relationship, which will take courage, humility on your part, or, it can sink the ship.
Your husband acknowledged guilt, but if both of you can go deeper into the problem, you might find that both of you participated in the overall problems your now facing.
It is also imperative, that you refrain from placing any guilt onto your husband, this will only make the situation irreversible. I say this from my experience with my wife. She laid a guilt trip on me that sent me spiraling down, but after I was able to work through the what’s and whys, I realized that although I played a small part, it was her that permitted herself to think such things that were not true, in other words, her imagination enlarged the problem.
You both have many years together, and no stranger, no matter how well he behaves will ever be able to replace this in a short time. Meeting people will always feel good, because were on our best behavior. All of us, men and women, carry with us the potential for the relationship you now have with your husband. Without good communication with your spouse, your thoughts will run uncontrolled and will take you on a path of destruction. My wife did this, and we are in the same boat as you and your husband. Our problem, is she refuses to accept the fact that I have feelings to.
I think this is why our forefathers were so smart in including the marriage vows: “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.”
They understood the many problems marriages would go through, even the one you have now. Were human, and our modernistic society has made it more difficult for the marriage to survive.
Your both in a critical stage, and if the pain is not resolved, and the pain transfered between you, the marriage will be lost. Marriage counseling is a good concept and direction, a mediator can work to keep the conversations safe, but finding one who can really connect the two of you is questionable. You need all your senses to work through this. This is the time that the compassion of Jesus will help you both through this bumpy road.
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reader, anonymous, writes (26 March 2008): I think what you are feeling is normal, and not something you need to punish yourself with. When relationships go sour, it takes time to heal. There are many things we try to figure out, why it happened, what is the true reasons/problems that makes me feel this way. Over time, things may have been said to each other that just adds up, then blows up.
One good sign, is that he acknowledges his mistakes. Your warning is that you don't punish him to long, and make him resent or hurtful. I've seen in my own relationship the saying "for ever action there is a reaction", is very true. If I'm distant, then she feels rejection.
You do need your space from your husband to work through these pains and issues, to much of him will slow the healing process down. Him understanding this will help him feel less rejected.
Wanting someone else, such as this other married man is also a normal reaction to turmoil within a current relationship. It should be avoided at all cost, because current issues have not been resolved and having an affair (sexual or not) may feel empty afterwards or cheap, and the void you feel in your heart will still not be mended. What needs to happen, I think and based on my own experience, is to heal the turmoil inside you, understand what caused the friction between you and your husband, and why it even occured. Communication of feelings and needs is the most likely culprit. We get caught up with kids and work and other things, forgetting to nuture our own relationship with our spouse, the neglect factor. What you and your husband are going through is the reason I think 50% of marriages fail.
For your husband, he saying he wouldn't be around for you or your daughter if you divorced, tells me he is hurting to, and the non-physical contact is damaging to him. I know as a man, and having a wife cut off all physical contact is like a nife in the heart. As you hurt, your action will increase his hurt, whether deserving or not, it is the path that will eventually ruin the relationship for good, and he may be the next to actually have an affair of his own because of the pain he will feel.
Both of your situation is like a bomb on a timer, without extremely good communication, working together and sharing your feelings, then giving it a break for it to soak in and permit adjustment in behavior, it will only get worse.
Take care, and good luck to the whole family.
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