He says 99% of the reason he's staying with his wife is for his daughter.<P>I can't blame him at all though...I am the one calling and he's trying his best to work on his marriage. The problem is that I don't think he really wants to work on his marriage he's just doing it because it's the right thing to do. (at least that's what he tells me)<P>I know I've got to stop...I swear it's like a drug! He makes me feel good for about 20 minutes then I feel like total crap! I will get over this one day...I can feel it's getting a little easier. The problem is my feelings towards the whole situation change at every heartbeat...why?

Oh Holly... I do know how you feel, and it's the worst feeling in the world. Trying to work it out with your H *and* work something out with the OM. It will never work that way, though, you know that. I know that too. It's a tough lesson to learn. New Woman has it right, your OM IS trying to work it out with his W. No matter what the reason. And that hurts like hell, huh? How could he have loved you so much and hurt you like this... you are the one in pain, not him. You know, from our past conversations, that I feel the same way about my OM. My family is in such pain and turmoil, and my OM's family is lalalalala... happy, no pain, just going nicely along. I could punch him in the nose. I'm at the point that just the sight of him makes me want to barf! What a fool I've been... and by the way, since I work with the OM, I do occasionally HAVE to speak with him. I told him that he makes me want to vomit... he didn't appreciate that too much. <P>Hang in there, Holly. Nobody said it would be easy... and we put ourselves here by our choice to love the OM. And I believe it was a choice BEFORE it got too far. I'm where you are, and it hurts... it REALLY hurts. But we can do this!<P>

Holly,<P>Haven't been checking this thread, but I see that it's been busy lately.<P>Sorry that you caved in and contacted your OM. What you experienced is almost exactly, to the tee, what happened to me last week. Deja Vu!!<P>Hopefully, the fact that he is trying to get on with his life has some effect on your need to call him. Hopefully the fact that he said he can live without you was the slap in the face you needed to start forgetting about your feelings for him.<P>--airheart

Well this is for everyone but mostly holly,god girl what are we going to do?I feel at times that i am going crazy here and before anyone mentions antidepressants too late i am on them already......;-)I am so in love with om that i don't know what to do,the difference is that he is single and i am married for 17 years to a guy that is a great person but maybe not for me.I keep asking myself why are we having such a hard time trying to let someone go,and is this a good thing to just throw love away,i mean how often in your life is there someone who comes along and just means the world to you,we have so many things in common and can talk nonstop which is something that hubby and i could never do.I know you guys will say well you married hubby for a reason and you can get it back but to be honest here i never ever felt love like this not even in beginning of my relationship or marriage to hubby.I was married at 19 and all i ever wanted to do was have kids in my life so when i met hubby who by the way was my first serios boyfriend and he was a nice guy i kept bugging him to get married so we did and to this day when i ask him something he gives in,kinda like the saying goes u say jump they say how high?I am not trying to be rude here but stating a fact......i have felt this wasn't the right kind of marriage for years now but wasn't sure what was missing until meeting om,then i found out that i was missing the love i had with someone else and it felt good.Hubby knows all about this and i don't know where i am at but i can not even think of not having om in my life,like someone else said is it normal to have to work to fall in love with someone when you have all this natural love with someone else,would it not be better giving the spouse up so they can be loved the way they deserve to be?Any suggestions..........holly please if u have icq i am 23012047.......JANICE

Holly,<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The problem is that I don't think he really wants to work on his marriage<BR> he's just doing it because it's the right thing to do. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>But he wants to work on it because it is the right thing to do. What better reason could there possibly be? If you found a wallet in the street with $100 in it, you would return it to its rightful owner because it is the right thing to do, not because you wouldn't like to have the money.

Chatwithu35,<P>As I read your post, I feel like I am reading something I could have wrote. I too married young, had kids and knew from day one that something was missing, then OM kind of accidently crossed my path. We were friends first and last. But somehow we feel deeply in love. Not lust, but love. Some people have tried to convince me that this is just lust and it can never work. I am so glad I read your story....because in my heart this is the first time I have ever fallen in love and it is so great. I can not imagine ever leaving OM. We had this conversation about death the other day, how the world just keeps rotating after someone dies....during this conversation, I realized just how much I really do love him, at just the thought of him not being alive made me cry. He has shown me how to let someone love me and how to love someone back. I know you really do love you other man. And I am too still married and H has no idea about om. Hard place to work out of. OM is married with kids also, makes it hard to know what you are supposed to do. Wait till our kids are out of high school, my baby is four! Long wait, or upset two families for the hope of the Brady Bunch. Sometime life bites.<P>I hope you find your happiness. Happiness is something everyone needs in their lives, maybe even deserves.<BR>God Bless you.

god I need help!! Its only been a week since the OM dumped me. He has contacted me several times telling me he misses me but this is the way things must be. I am dying inside. I keep reliving the things that we did and I keep hearing the things that he said. I went for counseling today with my husband...my feelings for him or gone. I feel crazy inside..like I need to run away...from the OM and my husband. The OM said his heart is aching...yet he dumped me. What is this crap all about?

Well,i have been reading and reading and reading all the posts here-mostly those pertaining to Holly. I have soooooooo much to say and hope it all comes out without sounding harsh.<BR>I am a wife that was betrayed!! And I do understand your feelings but I do not understand so much of what you are saying. It sounds like you are living in a fantasy land to me. Sure the OM makes you feel "in love". That my dear is because you and he aren't trying to make ends meet week to week. No family pressures, no financial pressures. It is all "love" or "lust". You say that you are trying to work it out with your H but it doesn't sound that way to me. It sounds as though you are dwelling on the OM. I think that you need to find something-wether it be walking, a friend, an outside interest of some sort that will start to occupy your mind and keep you from thinking constantly about the OM. Doesn't you H deserve more than this from you? My H says that it was the 'BIGGEST" mistake he has ever made in his life and he regrets it deeply. He has tried to basiclaly kiss my *** - but i told him I didn't want life with him on those terms. All I wanted was our love back-and never to worry about another woman trying to take him away from me again. The OW in this case just so happened to be one of my best friends. We took a fmaily vacation with them over 1000 miles one way, we watched each others kids, camped together. You name it we did it. Do you have any idea how I feel? I feel like dirt. This is a second marraige for me and after the jerk I was married to for 13 1/2 yrs I thought I was in heaven. I had my H up on a pedestal so high I didn't think he would ever fall off. But he did. And boy do I dwell---------i ask myself and him over and over and over again-WHY. We get along great, have the same interests, have young children, the works. What went wrong. His answer was that number one he felt I didn't love him any more (long story but if you insist I will explain) and also my friend was flirting with him big time and it shot his ego up sky high. His affair lasted for 2 years-beginnging on my 40th birthday-and ending on the anniversary of my only brothers death. It left scars that I wonder if they will ever heal. But I do know that since he is being honest and wants to never see OW again and work on our marriage that things will in time ease up and maybe be better than ever before.<BR>Take a look at your H again. Do you really love him? If not why bother stringing him along? If you do love him then go give him a hug and start putting the "spark" back in the marriage. It takes two ya know ;-) <BR>I hope you can come to terms with your life because all you are doing is tearing yourself up inside. Do something that you know will be to the benifit of all that you care for.<BR>I wish you the best-and I am gald you aren't my H's OW - I am not sure how I would handle things if you were.<P>If I can find a reason to smile again then so can you :-))) Let's try together!!

Ladies please. Your posts seem like they are coming right out of the book. I beg of you again. Please read...<P>“Tempted Women: The Passions, Perils and Agonies of Female Infidelity” (1994) by Carol Botwin<P>Written by a woman strictly for women. Highly respected author.

Heartache--<P>You're right about not being fair to my husband...I've been very selfish lately, only focusing on my needs and happiness. I've also been unfair to the OMs family...how could I honestly think that getting in the middle of a family could make me happy!<P>I have been in a fantasy land and although I still love the OM the strong feelings are starting to diminish, so I think it's time for me to move on and work on my marriage. Honestly, my marriage really isn't that bad...it's just me who's unhappy. If you knew my husband you would think I was nuts ever wanting to leave him.<P>Please don't place all the blame on me however...the OM did have a part in all of this. I wouldn't just fall in love with anybody.<P>I'm glad for you that your husband can say it's the BIGGEST mistake he's ever made!

Holly,<P>I certainly wasn't trying to blame everything on you. I was hoping to open your eyes. I could tell that you were hurting badly. But I felt that it was you inflicting the pain on yourself. I wanted you to see that.<BR>I wouldn't think you were nuts for leaving your husband even if I knew him. Men are men-unfortunatly :-)) They aren't always what we need them to be even if they are wonderful people.<BR>Won't your husband say that he has any regrets? You said at least my husband admits that is was the biggest mistake he ever made. I have to say-I am very very lucky as he does admit it and I know he emans it. I think one big reason he says it though is because he found out after he told me about the affair that she had used him all along. she wrote him notes all the time and then gave him a hard time for not writing her any notes. So he wrote some and they both said that after they were read they destroyed the notes-well he did but she didn't. Also, she told husband that she didn't have caller ID-but they did. Basically-for whatever reasons I do not know-she lied to my husband and set him up. It was almost as if she planned on getting caught and had it all worked out to make it look as though he were the persuer. When I confronted her via e mail about the affair she in turn had to tell her husband. Then she pulled out all the "evidence" that she had kept. Well-let me tell you-I am not blonde and I am not stupid!!! It takes two-no matter what she says or no matter what they think. The whole reason my husband told me was that the OW called him that day-and he knew he wanted it to end. The only way to end it all was by telling me. She hasn't even come close to admitting that she chased him. What a *bleep*.<BR>Anyhow dear Holly-I just wanted to help you see that you are tearing yourself apart. I believe in true love-at almost any expense. However-it appears that you are more in love with the OM than he is with you. At least from what I have read. I just don't want you to keep hurting yourself when you are lucky to have a chance at rebuilding your relationship with your H. Can you and H get away fro a night or two alone? Go somewhere fun and romantic-no one but you two? Thats what we did-and it was wonderful!!!!!!!!!<P>Keep me posted-I will be thinking about you.

I stopped reading when I read the part about using you for a "fix".<P>This man is a loser, user, and worthless. You are worth so much more than a "fix".....<P>You need to be accountable to someone to keep you from contacting him. What are the bad things about him? Concentrate on those things. Also, do not refer to him is "your" OM. He is so and so's husband. Maybe that will help.<P>When I was trying to get over my first husband, I stopped calling him "my x" and started using his name. That helped in detaching. <P>GRRRRRRRRRR you deserve a better life than this. Go for the better life. Go for the gusto. Get rid of the negatives in your life, like the jerk that only comes around to steal your future.<P>Call him the FS for Future Stealer?<P>I don't know if that helped. But you hang in there. Congratulations on your ability to restrain.

Trustntruth/Heartache--<P>Okay, now I am sitting here all teary eyed at work!<P>Usually I'm crying over him, but this time I feel like crying for myself.<P>I keep wanting to defend myself by saying he is in love with me just as much as I am with him...but obviously that is not true.<P>I am hurting myself every day and I don't like what it's doing to me anymore...I'm just not myself!<P>Thanks for all your encouraging words...

Ah Holly <P>I think if you start thinking about what we are all saying to you that you will be yourself again in no time. maybe we can all act like that song "Don't worry, Be Happy" LOL I have had my share of bad days too. Let me tell you I have. I began to hate myself for the crabby way I was acting all the time-and it made me so angry that I felt as though I didn't have any control over it. I felt as if I was ugly, fat, mean, hateful. You name it-that was me But I turned it around again-and I hope it won't come back to haunt me. Just try to tell yourself that you would rather be happy than sad-and then do your very best to smile-every time you feel like being sad or down or on edge just smile-think of all the wonderful people here that are pulling for YOU.<P>Here's a hug to get you started