Hi mehatanatasha6,

I don’t think that is a sign of a toxic relationship. It looks more like the sign of mourning, loss and denial. You absolutely do not want to let him go with all your heart. It is a nightmare, and you desperately seek reassurance that he won’t go, a reassurance he can only give. Unfortunately this will not happen, he has commitments and looks very pleased to respect them. After all you both knew in advance things may not go that way forever. This is something you will heal with time, you need to stay away from him and try to replace what you lost with something else. I know, it is easier said than done, especially in this very moment. But these are the thoughts and things you may try to hang on, while you move yourself out of this pain:

1)What he gave you can be replaced with something else. Were you good friends, did you share intimate details about your thoughts? You can find plenty of other good friends and share your mind with them. Were you passionate and physically attracted? I don’t have the heart to tell you that you may find somebody else, but you got an husband: push that man out of his comfort zone and physical laziness. I’m sure you learned a trick or two during this experience.

2)Try to interact with him as little as possible. If your mind drifts that way stop it, think about something else. If someone talks about him, ask them to not mention your colleague. Do not look for him in that intimate way (or at least not always). If you cannot keep your emotion in check and just his sight makes you sad, do not look for him at all. Move in another office or somewhere new far away from him. If you want to be nice, explain him that you want to move out from this need of him and that now you should stay separated. It is not something personal, but now you have to protect yourself from this feelings and only distance can keep them in check. Maybe he will actually help you out and collaborate by making things easier on you and appearing less often in your life or hiding from you some details of his life you find hard to accept.

3) Think about the time you spent with him as a blissful past, as a time that made its course and changed. It is something you had and can always carry with you as a memory, but it cannot be back again in the future. However, there are things you can still live. Find them, morph them, adapt them to a present without him, and make them suitable to live them with somebody else (like I explained in point 1). Talk to somebody else like you talked to him, you never know, you may find a reply you may actually like.

4) Remain active, do as much as you can, find a new hobby, find a friend you can speak all your heart out to or maybe a friend whose hand you can hold when you are crying and feel really lost. Go to the gym, go to the library, change your hair style, listen to the music, write a poetry, reply to people in this forum, compose a song, learn to play an instrument, try to make a new dish, change duties on your job, do something you stopped doing and that used to like before meeting him.

5)If you want to make things more gradual. Enjoy the time you still have with him, but talk with him about where you are heading. Get ready to let him definitively go when the time will come. Start to fill the empty time with something else and start to move away.