As to your question “Do you think everything happens for a reason?” No, I do not. It is a good idea to use opportunities in life to learn more about ourselves and other people and about life, but there is no master manipulator that determines how things will be with a reason behind it. Lots and lots of random things happen, no reason behind, but good use can be made from those things in learning.

As to “Should I keep the hope?” No.

I do have a way that can help you and it has to do with the LEARNING thing, learning from opportunities to learn. There is something or some things very important that you can learn from the whole ongoing story with Andrew.

I will ask a question or two in the direction of encouraging you, the best I can, to start the journey of learning what you can from this. If you answer, we will keep going:

this PASSION, this Spark and Chemistry and feeling of being soulmates, forever-love thing- the things missing from your current relationship- what about Andrew triggered those feelings and convictions in you? Try to answer with whatever comes to mind, just type without evaluating and re-thinking what you type.

anita

I’m not innocent either because I did get with a couple other guys), but we were each other’s number one choice when it came to making love and spending intimate time together.

tiffany
call me old-fashioned but I find this part confronting. the rest seems OK though.

* intuitivemind: I find your post very interesting and would like to experiment here with a different take on what you wrote here: “Andrew”, with your husband, a different take on “I KNEW something was missing in my life: PASSION. That feeling of emptiness surfaced countless times throughout my marriage and was a big source of my problem.”

And here: “There was a reason why he came into your life – it was to remind you what your soul desires. It is also telling you that you deserve passion in your life!” in the context of your whole story above. This take is a possibility, not a certainty, of course. It is POSSIBLE that…

Your husband was not only KIND but also very passive. When you told him after 25 years of marriage and three children that you did not have passion for him throughout those 25 years, he understood, accepted it passively. You wrote that you are blessed (that he accepted it passively)- but this is exactly the opposite of blessing for you. You needed passion, his passion throughout the 25 years so you were not blessed that he was passive (and therefore reacted passively to the ending of the marriage).

The passion you were missing in those 25 years was LOVE from him, caring, a personal kind of caring. He was kind but that wasn’t love. You need a personal kind of … kindness, kindness delivered with emotion, with ENERGY-IN-MOTION. With your husband there was STATIC kindness, in place, not moving kindness. The hug with Andrew, that rush was that MOTION you needed all along.

anita

Interesting insight anita

The passion you were missing in those 25 years was LOVE from him, caring, a personal kind of caring. He was kind but that wasn’t love. You need a personal kind of … kindness, kindness delivered with emotion, with ENERGY-IN-MOTION. With your husband there was STATIC kindness, in place, not moving kindness. The hug with Andrew, that rush was that MOTION you needed all along.

Honestly, I have no sympathy for women like Tiffany Lucia, intuitivemind. Why? Because they settle. They settle in a nice comfortable life knowing that the person they are with doesn’t make their hearts pound but instead validates them and just makes them not feel alone. They know if they’re with a man who cares for them and understands them than they are probably doing the right thing by just staying and absorbing it. A few years into it they start wondering why they don’t feel they way they should for the guy they are with. Then it turns into a depression, especially if already married. Eventually, they make their life miserable and waste a good man’s life. I cannot imagine that intuitivemind’s husband didn’t know it in his gut that his wife wasn’t happy with him. This is why he let her go, not because he didn’t love her.

Good luck to you ladies. I have no advice for you but to stop wasting your good man’s time and do what you feel is right.

@anita,

Absolutely. I have no idea how this doesn’t torture either person in the relationship. The woman who feels like she’s with the wrong man and the man who knows his wife is miserable with him. What in the world keeps this “relationship” going? Is it children in this case? I don’t know… But very sad for both parties involved, indeed.

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by TriangleSun.

* Dear intuitivemind:

The thing with your Andrew affected you so intensely because you were 15 and your hormones were such and everything was NEW, the sexual attraction and all the emotions directed at the experience with Andrew. That experience at 15 made you forget your troubles from before, whatever depression and emptiness and any such feelings from before. When you were with Andrew it was not ALL magical, there were still those other feelings but the attraction to him and the hopes it brought was like an electrical shock to your brain: you most often forgot all your troubles and were fully alive, fully feeling alive.

When you met Andrew at 50, the feeling-memory was triggered.

When you met your husband, you were older. The sexual attraction was not NEW anymore. Over time, nothing was new. No electrical shock to the system. The troubles from before 15 and after Andrew (and during Andrew but most often overwhelmed with the newness) were there in your mind and in your life. There was no electrical shock to distract you from those troubles.

You went on anti depressants not because your husband was not Andrew: you would have gone on them if your husband was Andrew.

You needed healing. You needed a relationship in which to HEAL, together as a team. It could have been with Andrew and it could have been with your husband: I do not know if and how much either one of them would have been able and willing. This was not done.

You divorced your husband after the hug with Andrew because you want to feel well, alive, like you felt when you were 15 with Andrew. Only problem is, you still need to heal from what happened BEFORE Andrew.

Your divorce may have been a good idea, depending who your husband is. But now, it is too late to find a new Andrew and even the old Andrew will not do… because you are not 15 and this thing that happened can not be new again. Maybe for one night, maybe a week, maybe.

Wish you healing.

anita