Feeling lost and heartbroken

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This topic has 22 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by Maya.

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October 16, 2018 at 3:12 pm #231367

Katylee
Participant

Apologies in advance, this will probably be a long one. Please try not to judge either…

Just over 2 years ago I met a man through work that I connected with straight away. I was married at the time and he was in a relationship, we both have children. Our friendship quickly developed into something more, although we didn’t sleep together for a long time. I knew I loved him within weeks of meeting him. Because of the nature of our job we spend a lot of time together. I left my work place as I was there as part of a rotation. Our relationship ended after about 4 months because we both struggled with the sneaking around and the lies. We never met for sex, although we were intimate. We just loved being together. I didn’t see him for a further 6 months but we kept in regular contact and the feelings we had for each other didn’t change. During that time I ended my marriage with my husband. I felt that if I truly loved him the way I should then I would never have had the capacity to fall in love with someone else . Our relationship started up again as soon as I went back to work .We became more intimate and more emotionally attached to eachother. His partner eventually found out what was happening between us and they split up. For the last 6 months we have been together. During that time he has ended our relationship twice. After the first time I was devastated. We had told our colleagues we were together and I thought we were happy, despite it being a difficult situation. I began to feel a little better and then he said he’d made a mistake and that he wanted us to try again. It was so hard to trust him after the last time but I love him and I wanted us to try. He has just ended things again and I feel completely heartbroken. We work together so still have daily contact and I’m just not coping. The split came out of nowhere and was completely unexpected. I don’t want to leave my job but seeing him on a daily basis is torture. I know a lot of people reading this will think I’m a terrible person for getting involved with him in the first place, maybe I do deserve this pain that I’m living through now. I honestly believed that what we felt for each other was real and that we met for a reason. I can’t really describe our relationship. But he was literally my best friend and the person that I love most in the world (apart from my children)Has anyone experienced anything similar?

October 17, 2018 at 6:34 am #231489

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Katylee:

I didn’t experience something similar enough, and I hope if anyone has (and I am sure there are people out there with a similar story), I hope they reply. My posting will at least move your thread from page two to the first page and make it more visible that way.

Would you like my input even though I don’t share your particular experience (there will be no judgment)?

anita

October 17, 2018 at 2:49 pm #231607

Katylee
Participant

Thank you. I would appreciate your thoughts. I’m feeling very lost atm.

October 17, 2018 at 9:44 pm #231623

Mayra
Participant

Katylee, Thank you for sharing your story.

I believe that we humans are very complex and so our relationships, also that complexity gives place to an infinite possibilities in our experience of love. It is also very mysterious (at least for me) why and who we fell in love with. So, in my perspective you’re not a terrible person, you are just human. And it’s not that YOU deserve to suffer because of what “you did”, you just gave a shot to that person, you felt it was the right thing to do because of that love that you felt. Now you’re in a painful situation where you can find something, some truth about yourself, something that will make you grow.. Maybe you did met for a reason, maybe he is actually teaching your soul something, it wasn’t what you expected for sure but maybe you can discover something.

I’ve heard similar stories, myself included fell in love with someone while being engaged, I’ve known people that fell in love while married and decided to stay together, people leaving their marriages for some new love and being very happy, others completely the opposite. So this is your own experience, your are not alone, you are not terrible, you are just learning and living. I think that we can’t control the result of the choices that we give a shot to, we decide expecting the best outcome, but life it’s like that. You made a choice, he made a choice and even though you love him, he is not fully compromising with you for whatever reason he has, so if you need to be heartbroken, be heartbroken, live your pain and do something nice for you everyday. What works for me is to sit with that discomfort and pay attention to my feelings and write how I feel everyday, being very honest with myself, going for walks, talking to friends, taking it easy on a daily basis. Still I have days I feel so confused is overwhelming but in the end I know everything is temporary no matter how hard it feels, everything changes. 🙂

I hope you feel more clear as the time goes by.

October 18, 2018 at 8:53 am #231685

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Katylee:

When I read your post yesterday I thought of the words in the song: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right”.

I don’t know the nature of your marriage at the time, the relationship with your then husband. What I do understand is that with your co worker you were led by your feelings and placed rational thinking aside. You wrote: “I honestly believed that what we felt for each other was real and that we met for a reason“-

I am sure that what you and he felt were real feelings. But the reasons shouldn’t be left for the … universe to figure out. That reason should have been discussed by the two of you.

You wrote: “During the time he has ended our relationship twice. After the first time I was devastated”- but did you ask him for his reason for ending the relationship? If you did ask him, you didn’t share his reason.

“Has anyone experienced anything similar?”- viewing your question in a different context this morning, my answer is: yes, I too placed rational thinking aside, and I too was led by my feelings alone. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t experienced this.

What was his reason or reasons for ending the relationship?

anita

October 19, 2018 at 10:42 am #231959

Katylee
Participant

Hello. Thank you all for taking the time to read and reply. The reason he ended our relationship before was a lot to do with guilt, as is the reason again this time. He was challenged by a family member last time, they asked whether in 10 years if he boys asked whether he’d done everything to save his family, would he be able to say yes. His reply was no as he was with me at the time. He then decided that he should maybe try. This didn’t happy and 3 weeks later he told me he’d made a mistake and he wanted us to be together, that he’d never been able to let me go but he just hadn’t had the courage to go for it properly before. But that he was in, 100%. We spoke about how I was scared that he would have second thoughts again and he promised me he would never hurt me in the same way he had before .

He then moved into his new flat, I helped and we had happy times together .His ex partner wanted to introduce the children to his new home slowly so he was still looking after them at his house. He evemeventuhad them over for tea, he had been so excited. I went around the same evening after they had left and he seemed a little quiet. The next morning I asked him what was wrong. We had a mini argument, nothing major, and he ended it. I feel like something happened that night. I know his ex partner was there for part of the time the children were. He’s since said that it keeps popping in his head that us is the reason his family broke up and the reason his children don’t have a dad that lives at home. And that no matter how good things are with us, it makes him feel terrible. He’s never said anything like that before. We’ve spoke a little since we ended. He has now said he doesn’t know if he loves me anymore and feels lost. I’m also feeling lost and devastated. Up until that Friday night there had been nothing to suggest his feelings had changed. I asked him how long he’d felt like this and he said he doesn’t know. I can’t help thinking that something was said that night which has effected him massively. He has massive hang ups on guilt and how other people view him as everyone knows his as such a lovely and good person.

October 19, 2018 at 10:57 am #231965

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Katylee:

It seems like I misunderstood until now. So far I thought that when you met your co worker who became your lover, he was in a relationship but not with the mother of his children. And later, his girlfriend (not the mother of his children) left him when she found out he was seeing you.

I am trying to clarify at this point: when you met him and an intimate relationship between you and him began, he was living with the mother of his children (a woman he is not married to), and she left him when she found out that he was intimately involved with you?

anita

October 19, 2018 at 1:43 pm #232043

Katylee
Participant

He was in a relationship and living with the mother of his children. And yes, she asked him to leave when she found out that we were seeing each other.

October 19, 2018 at 1:44 pm #232045

Katylee
Participant

And no, they are not married.

October 19, 2018 at 4:41 pm #232059

Mark
Participant

Katylee,

I am not sure what are you looking for here. You asked if others experienced something similar. Are you looking for empathy? Or reasons why he left you?

He was cheating on his partner when you two got together. He did not know how to commit with her. He does not know how to commit with you. He jumped from one relationship to another. I would not stress about the “why” he ended it with you for it is his pattern it seems.

Mark

October 19, 2018 at 11:55 pm #232075

Katylee
Participant

No I wasn’t looking for empathy or for the reasons he left me. I’m aware that only he can tell me that.

October 20, 2018 at 5:11 am #232091

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Katylee:

“I wasn’t looking for.. the reason he left me. I’m aware that only he can tell me that”-

But he already told you: “he’s since said that it keeps popping in his head that us is the reason his family broke up and the reason his children don’t have a dad that lives at home. And that no matter how good things are with us, it makes him feel terrible“.

In your original post you wrote: “Please try not to judge… I know a lot of people reading this will think I’m a terrible person”- see, you also feel terrible, part of you does. And so, the two of you shared an attraction and loving feelings for each other as well as guilt, feeling like terrible people.

There are children involved, his and yours. His primary responsibility is to do right by the children he brought into the world. Yours is the same, do what is right by your children, because you brought them into this world.

What was done, was done. Now what?

I suggest that you do not try in any way to reignite the relationship with him, be a good person by making it easier for him to be a good person. If the two of you separately act in such a way that promotes the best interests of your respective children, then the two of you will feel good (not terrible). This type of good feeling is not the same as a passionate, romantic kind of good feeling, but it is good. Good enough?

If it is not good enough, have that passion and romance where it doesn’t conflict with being a good person.

anita

October 20, 2018 at 9:43 am #232101

Anyi
Participant

Dear Katylee

I think only those of us who have been through this kind of torment can understand. It is all too easy for those who cannot know such pain never having gone through it to judge, no matter how well intentioned they may be. And I do understand. I just wanted to let you know we are here, you are not alone… I cannot reply much right now but I wanted to reach out, and send you the warmest embrace

Anyi x

October 20, 2018 at 1:10 pm #232291

Katylee
Participant

Thank you Anyi, I really appreciate you reaching out x

Anita, you have no idea. You are however entitled to your opinion.

October 20, 2018 at 1:48 pm #232299
Anyi
Participant
Hi Katylee

My healing is only now just beginning after many years of being in a relationship not dissimilar to yours. And my healing began the moment I could say to him (silently, in my mind): “I love you, but I love myself more”.

Anyi x
- This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by Anyi.
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