Dear Joe:

First, I will retell some of what you shared, with quotes; second, I will offer you my thoughts.

You shared you were “very close friends” with a woman you lived with for many years and had kids with, but “she’d started something with a new man”, and left you damaged, heartbroken. A year and a half after the separation, you fell for a beautiful, fun, bold, interesting woman (M) whom you met at a gig in London, “Sex was amazing. A dream come true for a 40-something dad”. But you “always knew it would end”, and had doubts about the new relationship: “doubts as to whether it was enough for me… I felt she depended on me for her happiness… The relationship wasn’t fulfilling my needs either, other than sexually.. and I was becoming emotionally dependent on her”.

At the end of December 2020, 48 hours after the two of you “made love and it was the best ever”, “she called and finished it. She said she couldn’t do it anymore”. A few days later, you were “in pieces. I went through a depression like I’ve never felt before.. I was moaning with the physical pain”. Four weeks after you saw her last, and two weeks since you last talked with her, you are “grieving.. jealous. The sadness is overwhelming… I’d die of excitement if she texted. Help! I’m a grown man with kids acting like I did when I was 16”.

My thoughts: it seems to me that you never wanted a relationship with M, beyond the sex,  and that you are not over having been betrayed by a woman you trusted, a woman who was your very close friend before she got involved with another man, a woman who is the mother of your children. I think that what you’ve been grieving in regard to M is the sexual distraction that she provided for you- a distraction from your heartbreak and misery about your former best friend turning her back on you.

Interesting, the title of your thread is “I’m struggling with this break up”, referring to the breakup with M. I think that you are struggling still with the other breakup, the one from the mother of your children.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by .