A
male
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:I just ended an year-long emotional affair with a woman I truly cared about. I am married and I have two daughters. She is married with a family of her own. I saw her at work everyday but have since asked for a transfer to another office in a nearby city.It has been killing me. I have not seen her or talked to her in a month. I am planning on rebuilding my marriage with my wife because we have had some problems for the last few years. I was honest with my wife about my relationship with this woman. I am a committed family man who loves his family. I felt this connection with the woman would soon become physical and I decided to end it before it really got out of hand. But my heart is hurting terribly. I did not realize I would miss her so much. I feel that I hurt her and this is so difficult to deal with.How do I get through this? How do I know that I did not let somebody go that I fell in love with?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (5 February 2011): I think you owe it to your wife to leave her. You're still disrespecting her by saying you're trying to rebuild the marriage when you're still obsessed with the other woman and having doubts about ending the affair. You are not giving your marriage a fair chance. this is stringing along your poor wife.
If you're going to work on your marriage you must be committed to it, and you can't do this if you're still looking over your shoulder.
take control of your thoughts. Push out all thoughts of the other woman, don't indulge in memories. Stop second guessing if you shouldn't have ended the affair.
I don't know if you really did give up your true love, maybe you did, maybe you didn't...but since you have chosen to stay with your wife you must not look back and still be asking this question.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (5 February 2011): Emotional affairs are often even more devastating to a marriage than physical ones because they involve your heart and your mind, your soul, in other words, the very essence of a relationship.
Right now your head is not clear because you're missing your friend too much and comparing her with the disappointment of your marriage. Her good qualities, and your marriage disappointments, are magnified. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between. You need time to pass before you can see this more clearly and make a more honest judgment of whether you gave up the one you truly love, or not.
keep the contact ended and work on your marriage and monitor your marriage closely. And some time later - maybe a few months or a few years from now, whatever is right for you - honestly assess your marriage again and if you STILL feel that you gave up the woman you love, then leave your marriage and find her and see if she feels the same as you.
Whether or not she feels the same as you, you shouldn't be in a marriage if your heart belongs to someone else. Marriage is not just a contract of living arrangements, shared finances and planned weekend activities. Implicit in the marriage agreement is that your heart belongs to your wife and no one else. If you know that this is not the case, then leave your wife out of respect for her. It can really destroy you slowly over time to be married to someone you don't actually love, or in your wife's case to be married to someone who doesn't love you.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): Maybe you did let a woman go that you love. Just because you married someone long ago it doesn't mean that was the right choice. Clearly your marriage has been deteriorating. You got to ask why, and you have to face the truth of what can be done about it. What do you need from your marriage, and is there ever any hope of getting it.
Maybe you made a mistake in letting this woman go, because you are too afraid to face the truth about your marriage and your life.
It's always easier to just stay in your marriage than to face the hard truth that maybe you're living a half- life because of being married to someone who you should not have been married to. Staying married is always easier than facing the truth. You don't have to go through the upheaval of divorce, splitting assets, moving out of the house, reorganizing the children's lives, explaining to your kids and seeing the look of pain on their faces when they realize their dad doesn't love their mom and vice versa. It's always easier to just pretend this truth doesn't exist.
that's why people in situations like yours end up staying in their marriage, because they're too afraid to be true to themselves and their spouse and say look this marriage is sucking the life out of me and I really would be much happier with someone else. And if you've met someone who treats you better than your spouse, still you refuse to pursue happiness because you believe it would be selfish. So you resign yourself to a life of being bitterly and resentfully married.
For your sake I hope you can improve your marriage so it's not so horrible to stay in it.
You did the right thing of stopping your affair before it got physical.
But also you need to examine yourself and ask yourself are you truly OK to be in your marriage? Are you sacrificing your emotional health by being with someone who does not meet your needs thus driving you to find comfort elsewhere? Are you giving up a huge part of your personality just to stay married? Do you truly believe you can be fulfilled in your marriage if you work at it or are you just staying because it's the easiest thing to do?
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A
male
reader, CaringGuy +, writes (4 February 2011):
What you have to remember is that you're not missing this woman. You're missing a feeling - love/lust, whatever it is. The woman represents whatever it is you think you're missing. It's not the woman you miss. You have to work with your wife (you a bit harder) to try and get that feeling back with her. That means honesty, understanding and both of you putting a huge amount of effort in, including even counselling if need to be, to make sure that you and your wife get back on track.
How do you know that you didn't let a woman go that you loved? Easy - if you've truly loved her, you'd have left your wife and daughters and been with her. You didn't do that. You made a concious decision to be with your wife and daughters to try and make it work.
The majority of affairs start because something is missing, and not because the 'cheater' has fallen in love with someone else. This can also be proved, since 88% of relationships that start as affairs fail, nearly all within 2 years.
You're not missing the woman. You're missing the feeling. Find out what it is with your wife, and work your ass off to prove to your wife you're a good guy at heart, even if you made a mistake.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): You made the right decision but of course it is very painful. The only way to look at it is that, as you both have families, the fall-out should things go too far, would be enormous. So to continue would have only caused pain in the end anyway. Time will help ease what you feel. And if you throw yourself into your family and trying to save your marriage, thoughts of this woman should be pushed out of your mind eventually. Do not be tempted to weaken and contact her. You are doing to right thing.
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