Sorry fo this being a long post, but there is much to this story and i want to put out all the details.
I am in my 40's, was married for over 16 years, 2 sons. my marriage was in a bad place, like many sotries i have read here there are similiarities how we began the tyical downward decline, and loss of communciation. I watched my wife change, toxic friends, shallow and self absorbed behaviors.mayeb i mid life crisis, but just a total decline and change of who she was and the person i though i married.
I coped by working harder, burying myslef in activities. we had disagreements on how are life was turning out. i could no longer realte to my wife and did not like the person she had become. i see now this was my single biggest failure, not forcefully adressing the issues or ending the realtionship. we had a nice life, good jobs, plenty of money, nice home, vactaions etc. all she saw is what we didnt have.
I started a new hobby, learning to fly, something i alwasy wanted to do and had been fasicinated with aircraft my entire life. i wasnt getting any younger and the time just seemed ripe to do it and keep my mind from trouble at home.
during this time of flight training, i met a beautiful and intriging young woman. we hit it off instantly. she asked if i was married as i am 20 years older than her. I told her yes. I told her my marriage was in decline and i didnt see a way out of it. with out a doubt, i was in an emotional afffair.
it wasnt long and then a bomb went off......i caught my wife in an affiar. it was the worst it could possibly be, full PA, lengthy, and with the husband of her best friend at the time. the tye of people we went on vacations with, knew their children and so forth.
well i looked at my marriage as over from that point. I went full speed ahead with this young woman, i wont go into details, but im sure you can imagine what that means. i went through a brief period of living in my RV, but almost immediately moved in with this woman.
but the pain and stress of my world that i built with my wife was building. I even told this to my GF. I felt horrible that my sons would have a broken home. i felt like everything i worked my whole life for went down the drain. i felt obligated to make it work. friends encouracged me to go back and at least try to salvage my marriage and life. I lost t total respect and love for my wife and didnt really want to, but in the end felt i was obligated to beacuse of my sons.
I really didnt want to loose the GF. I lied to her and began a realtionship again with my wife. I didnt have the strentgh to look her in the eye, break her hart, and tell her what i was doing. i feel tremendous guilt for that. But she caught on quickly and figured it out.
i moved back home. my hart was never really in it. all i thought about was the girl i hurt. but being home did come to an understanding that i did not love my wife, she was incapapble of being the person i needed her to be. she blame-shifted the affair on to me. this went on for about 8 months. i had reached out to the GF, who now had a boyfriend of her own at the time.
i told my wife that i wanted out. it told her i saw no future for us. i told her i no longer loved her the way i used to. i immediately moved back into my RV.
i tried to patch things up with my GF. I told her how sorry i was, that i made a huge mistake. not long after, she brke up with her BF and we began to re-connect and rekindle.
the love and euphoria began to grow. we had a few bumps in the road though. i was still married, but working towards a negotiated divorce settlement. it drug on and began to build tension between us. distance began to grow and i could sense it. i began to push very hard to get my divorce complete, and in fact did so. this eased things between us considerably as now that chapter if my life was closed.
fast forward another year or so. my divorce left me pretty much broke. i came out of it with some assets, my 401k, no debt, but very little actual available cash. i began working very hard to recover financially. The GF has a nice apartment, but my goal is to be in a financial position to buy a home by the end of this year. long hours, weekends etc were paying off in that i was making good money and setting this up to happen.
this is when trouble began with my current GF. i again sensed distance between us. she is getting a pretty raw deal at her work, i feel like they are trying to get her to quit and she agrees. they are making her life miserable. she is only one semester away from a colledge degree. i encouraged her to quit, struggle through next semester (and i would help) and she would have plenty of jobs offers having a degree and already 3+ years with a fortune 500 and most of them very successful. i could see the stress getting to her, going out drinking many nights of the week with friends, coworkers and clients. This was putting pressureon us and causing fights. I even caught her, begining to lie to me. l called her on it and she excused it by say she didnt want to casuse a fight and that i had lied "bigger". I told her i was wrong for lying to her and that it doesnt excuse her to do it.
still the pressure was building. soon i got the "i need space speech"..... i agreed and moved out. i was still tryin gto reach out to her, probably too much so. we went out on a dinner date and it all came to a head late that night. i figured out she was still lying to me, had shared some very personal comminucation between her and i with a her best friend in a very "look how pathetic tone" and i lost it. i was in the iddle of writing her a break up letter while she was sleeping. i felt i couldnt ride this into the ground and drag it out. well she woke up and another fight ensued.
the next day, i finished the letter and outlined about 6 reasons why i felt compelled to permanatly end the realtionship. this brought me no joy, i love this woman, but recognize things simply cant continue the way they were.
the next day, i couldnt sleep, and woke very ealy in the morning. i went to her house to gather the rest of my belongings. a brief fight began, but we both cooled off and confessed that we loved each other, wanted the realtionship to work, and agreed to give it some time and adress the issues.
i wrote to her that i didnt think being seperated was the answer. i told her i believed that if we wanted to adress the issue than we should be actively working on them. i felt like "space" was nothing more than a cooling off period and our issues would be right there when that was over. kind of a rug sweep in a way.
i also wrote to her about how seeing her lie to me had a huge impact on me. it made me feel emotion i have beeen totally out of touch with my entire life. I told her how i really now knew how lousy and slefish it was. and that i wanted to be a better erson to her bacuse of it.
i also wanted her to believe i was not going to go back to my EW when we failed. She always and rightfully so was threatend by my X especially so after i went back home.
I then wrote my EW and came clean about many things she was in the dark on. how i began in a relationship just bfore i discovered her affair. she somewhat knew, but i layed it all out there. i told her i was trying to turn over a new leaf, be a better person, close that chapter of my life and go on to better things. that the wrong things i did to her i was sorry for but they are now behind me.
I shared this letter with my GF. my intention was to show her that i was serious about not just the worngs i did to her, but other people in my life as well. she took it the worng way and accused me of trying to reconcile with my EW, when in fact that was not even a remote consideration. i certainely would not have shared it with her if it was! she accused me of simply trying to be vindictive and rub her nose in it..... it really hurt when you try to no do the right and honorable things and its veiwed as anythign but that.
so here i am, tryin gto reach out to my GF and it feels like everything i am doing is simply backfiring and ushing her away even more. im at a loss for what to do.
I am in my 40's, was married for over 16 years, 2 sons. my marriage was in a bad place, like many sotries i have read here there are similiarities how we began the tyical downward decline, and loss of communciation. I watched my wife change, toxic friends, shallow and self absorbed behaviors.mayeb i mid life crisis, but just a total decline and change of who she was and the person i though i married.
I coped by working harder, burying myslef in activities. we had disagreements on how are life was turning out. i could no longer realte to my wife and did not like the person she had become. i see now this was my single biggest failure, not forcefully adressing the issues or ending the realtionship. we had a nice life, good jobs, plenty of money, nice home, vactaions etc. all she saw is what we didnt have.
I started a new hobby, learning to fly, something i alwasy wanted to do and had been fasicinated with aircraft my entire life. i wasnt getting any younger and the time just seemed ripe to do it and keep my mind from trouble at home.
during this time of flight training, i met a beautiful and intriging young woman. we hit it off instantly. she asked if i was married as i am 20 years older than her. I told her yes. I told her my marriage was in decline and i didnt see a way out of it. with out a doubt, i was in an emotional afffair.
it wasnt long and then a bomb went off......i caught my wife in an affiar. it was the worst it could possibly be, full PA, lengthy, and with the husband of her best friend at the time. the tye of people we went on vacations with, knew their children and so forth.
well i looked at my marriage as over from that point. I went full speed ahead with this young woman, i wont go into details, but im sure you can imagine what that means. i went through a brief period of living in my RV, but almost immediately moved in with this woman.
but the pain and stress of my world that i built with my wife was building. I even told this to my GF. I felt horrible that my sons would have a broken home. i felt like everything i worked my whole life for went down the drain. i felt obligated to make it work. friends encouracged me to go back and at least try to salvage my marriage and life. I lost t total respect and love for my wife and didnt really want to, but in the end felt i was obligated to beacuse of my sons.
I really didnt want to loose the GF. I lied to her and began a realtionship again with my wife. I didnt have the strentgh to look her in the eye, break her hart, and tell her what i was doing. i feel tremendous guilt for that. But she caught on quickly and figured it out.
i moved back home. my hart was never really in it. all i thought about was the girl i hurt. but being home did come to an understanding that i did not love my wife, she was incapapble of being the person i needed her to be. she blame-shifted the affair on to me. this went on for about 8 months. i had reached out to the GF, who now had a boyfriend of her own at the time.
i told my wife that i wanted out. it told her i saw no future for us. i told her i no longer loved her the way i used to. i immediately moved back into my RV.
i tried to patch things up with my GF. I told her how sorry i was, that i made a huge mistake. not long after, she brke up with her BF and we began to re-connect and rekindle.
the love and euphoria began to grow. we had a few bumps in the road though. i was still married, but working towards a negotiated divorce settlement. it drug on and began to build tension between us. distance began to grow and i could sense it. i began to push very hard to get my divorce complete, and in fact did so. this eased things between us considerably as now that chapter if my life was closed.
fast forward another year or so. my divorce left me pretty much broke. i came out of it with some assets, my 401k, no debt, but very little actual available cash. i began working very hard to recover financially. The GF has a nice apartment, but my goal is to be in a financial position to buy a home by the end of this year. long hours, weekends etc were paying off in that i was making good money and setting this up to happen.
this is when trouble began with my current GF. i again sensed distance between us. she is getting a pretty raw deal at her work, i feel like they are trying to get her to quit and she agrees. they are making her life miserable. she is only one semester away from a colledge degree. i encouraged her to quit, struggle through next semester (and i would help) and she would have plenty of jobs offers having a degree and already 3+ years with a fortune 500 and most of them very successful. i could see the stress getting to her, going out drinking many nights of the week with friends, coworkers and clients. This was putting pressureon us and causing fights. I even caught her, begining to lie to me. l called her on it and she excused it by say she didnt want to casuse a fight and that i had lied "bigger". I told her i was wrong for lying to her and that it doesnt excuse her to do it.
still the pressure was building. soon i got the "i need space speech"..... i agreed and moved out. i was still tryin gto reach out to her, probably too much so. we went out on a dinner date and it all came to a head late that night. i figured out she was still lying to me, had shared some very personal comminucation between her and i with a her best friend in a very "look how pathetic tone" and i lost it. i was in the iddle of writing her a break up letter while she was sleeping. i felt i couldnt ride this into the ground and drag it out. well she woke up and another fight ensued.
the next day, i finished the letter and outlined about 6 reasons why i felt compelled to permanatly end the realtionship. this brought me no joy, i love this woman, but recognize things simply cant continue the way they were.
the next day, i couldnt sleep, and woke very ealy in the morning. i went to her house to gather the rest of my belongings. a brief fight began, but we both cooled off and confessed that we loved each other, wanted the realtionship to work, and agreed to give it some time and adress the issues.
i wrote to her that i didnt think being seperated was the answer. i told her i believed that if we wanted to adress the issue than we should be actively working on them. i felt like "space" was nothing more than a cooling off period and our issues would be right there when that was over. kind of a rug sweep in a way.
i also wrote to her about how seeing her lie to me had a huge impact on me. it made me feel emotion i have beeen totally out of touch with my entire life. I told her how i really now knew how lousy and slefish it was. and that i wanted to be a better erson to her bacuse of it.
i also wanted her to believe i was not going to go back to my EW when we failed. She always and rightfully so was threatend by my X especially so after i went back home.
I then wrote my EW and came clean about many things she was in the dark on. how i began in a relationship just bfore i discovered her affair. she somewhat knew, but i layed it all out there. i told her i was trying to turn over a new leaf, be a better person, close that chapter of my life and go on to better things. that the wrong things i did to her i was sorry for but they are now behind me.
I shared this letter with my GF. my intention was to show her that i was serious about not just the worngs i did to her, but other people in my life as well. she took it the worng way and accused me of trying to reconcile with my EW, when in fact that was not even a remote consideration. i certainely would not have shared it with her if it was! she accused me of simply trying to be vindictive and rub her nose in it..... it really hurt when you try to no do the right and honorable things and its veiwed as anythign but that.
so here i am, tryin gto reach out to my GF and it feels like everything i am doing is simply backfiring and ushing her away even more. im at a loss for what to do.
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