Hey everyone, I came here because I am hoping to get some insight and advice without being judged. First, let me tell you I am a severe overthinker who also suffers from anxiety. I am 36 years old, never married, no children. I typically am not one to have a sexual only relationship and have only had “intercourse” with a total of 4 men in my life, including the one I am about to seek advice on.
This past December I started sleeping with and having a FWB situation with a co-worker. It was totally out of character for me, but at the same time I loved the risks we took and the convenience of it as we saw each other at least 5 days at week at work. He, however, is married. He has always been upfront with me and told me from the beginning that this is all it was, just sexual. He has no intentions of leaving his wife and no feelings were involved from either side.
I felt bad about what I was doing at first, but I overlooked it because of the excitement and fun I was having - now let’s fast forward to current day, he recently, no longer works with me. This upsets me more than I could EVER imagine. For someone who doesn’t have feelings for someone I find myself miserable at work and crying nonstop. I am worried we will no longer see each other, he is not accessible for me to talk to as easily and I am worried he will just stop talking to me all together.
I have only seen him once since we stopped working together, granted, it’s only been about 2 weeks since our working together ended. I am a utter mess over this! I can’t quit thinking about him and I do not know when it is safe to text or try to get a hold of him because of his home situation. I really want to stay friends with him.
I feel like now that we no longer work together he is done with our arrangement and it really hurts me, maybe because I was so out of character with him and I invested more than I should have as far as how much I care.
What should I do? Should I continue to try to talk to him? And how do I stop being so depressed and miserable? I literally cry ALL THE TIME to the point where my eyes are swollen and I make up lies about having a headache or my sinuses bother me.
Any suggestions or insight is greatly appreciated. I just ask that you please do not judge me in a negative manner. I have enough I am constantly worried about.
What you need is to talk to somebody neutral, such as a good therapist, instead of getting advice from strangers on the internet. You are clearly emotionally attached to this man who has made it clear that he is not attached to you. You need to find out at the very least how to get over him and possibly try to analyze why you got so emotionally entangled with somebody unavailable. I am making no judgments about FWB arrangements (although the odds are against things working out with a married man ever); I suppose they can work for some people, but giving the fact that you are miserable, this is clearly not working for you.
You can’t really ask advice then tell people what they are and are not allowed to say. “Don’t judge me” is what people say when they’ve been crappy human beings and want to continue being crappy human beings. Stay out of other people’s marriages and you won’t have problems like this. I’m sorry but my sympathy goes to his wife, not you. How you feel is a small percentage of the pain you have had no problem helping to cause an innocent spouse behind her back. Why should you get off scot-free.
Thank you all for at least being honest. I’m not gonna fight back as I know I am not doing anything morally right in the situation. That is weighing heavy on my mind as well. You’re all entitled to your opinion, as for finding another message board, I will. I’m very new at this and didn’t know where to start. My apologies for wasting your time.
he’s a terrible person for cheating on his partner, you’re a terrible person because you knew what you were getting into. and you want to beg for validation of your bad behavior.
yeah, here that’s going to go over about as well as a fart in church.
This. You need to work with a therapist to explore why you got involved with someone who can’t be available to you. I think FWB is a really difficult situation for most women. Much easier for men IMO.
I don’t really care about the morality of the situation. But in any case, you were involved with a man who was unavailable, a coworker, who had made very clear that this relationship was only sexual (to which you agreed), that he had no feelings for you, and who didn’t contact you since he left your workplace. Frankly, what can you possibly expect?
What you can do about it? Nothing. If you keep trying to talk with him, if you’re lucky, he’ll tell you that this relationship is over. If you aren’t lucky, you will resume this relationship, and you’ll be more miserable and for longer. This FWB, no string attached, with a married man thing obviously isn’t for you given your reaction. I would suspect that your love life has been quite empty for a long while if the end of a relationship like the one you describe puts you in such an emotional turmoil.
How to stop being depressed and miserable? If your emotional state is only the result of this break up, nothing to do but wait. Pretty much everybody at some point felt terrible after the end of a relationship, most of the time a relationship much more consequential than yours, and we mostly all survived and eventually got over it. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if your reaction was rather the symptom of a deeper issue, like depression, since this reaction seems disproportionate with the apparent cause, and I would in fact suggest to seek professional advice.
The other thing you should do is to start dating, preferably men who are interested in a bit more than a purely sexual fling, since you’re quite obviously in need of a relationship less superficial than the one you were having. It should also distract you from your current turmoil.
So, here’s the thing about people. People do stupid things sometimes. Sometimes they know it’s stupid, and they do it anyway. I think you recognize that this relationship was not the wisest thing to do. You’ve probably known that all along, and you definitely know it now. However, you can’t change the past, no matter how hard you beat yourself up about it. As a fellow overthinker, one who has done a lot of dumb things, I can tell you that it’s going to be really hard to find the balance between accepting that you’ve made a mistake and wallowing in guilt. This will just be compounded by the loss you’re experiencing as the relationship draws to a close. In other words, things are going to suck for a little while. They don’t have to suck forever, though.
It sounds to me like right now, you’re more upset about the relationship ending than you are feeling guilty about messing around with a married man. If that’s the case, you’re not going to get much sympathy from anyone. As was suggested earlier, you might want to seek out a therapist. If you’re not going to do that, you could try writing him a goodbye letter. I don’t think you should send it, but just writing it might help you get some closure. You probably shouldn’t keep trying to contact him.
You’ll get good advice here, but it’s common-sense real-world advice that you may not have been looking for. If you want validation and people to agree with you, then yes, another message board may suit your needs better. But don’t think you’ve wasted our time. Sometimes the best advice you can get may not have been what you were looking for initially, but if you stick around, you’ll probably learn something that’ll help. IMO, getting professional help is very good advice and not meant to put you down. You realize continuing your relationship with this man isn’t good for either of you, and speaking one-on-one with a dispassionate professional therapist may be what you need.
Hi. My name is Olentzero, and I am polyamorous. And yes, I think that’s relevant.
First off, I’m sorry you’ve ended up in this kind of crappy situation. Emotional attachments are never controllable and they’re a stone-cold bastard to deal with when they do show up. I second those who have said talk to a therapist if you’re able, at least to give yourself the opportunity to try to deal with these feelings in a relatively neutral environment.
The big red flag here for me is not that you were seeing a married man, but that you were seeing a married man who apparently was not being honest with his spouse. I don’t want to give him kudos for being honest with you, although that kind of thing is important; if this were truly something that he were being honest about with everyone involved either directly or indirectly he would not have broken it off the day he quit working at the same company.
That’s where the polyamory comes in. I know people who are quite happily married and who both have romantic and sexual partners outside of the marriage, and both spouses and partners know of each other (or know each other) and there’s a whole lot of communication and honesty thrown into the mix.
If, for you, the fact that someone is married is not an obstacle to building an intimate relationship with them, I would strongly suggest seeing if there is some sort of poly community wherever it is you live, and meeting people who handle multiple relationships with the honesty and openness such things require. You’ll be a lot less likely to end up with the kind of heartbreak you’re currently experiencing, in which what was clearly an exciting experience for you suddenly ends because the other person involved no longer had an acceptable cover story.
Good luck with it. I hope you find the healing you need.
OP, don’t worry. He will call you. It will be a booty call. That’s what you signed up for. You definitely have emotional attachment to him, but you rationalized it with him, because you got to have the relationship side of things by seeing him at work, when you weren’t having sex.
You now have to decide if you’re going to continue the FWB relationship, when he calls, and he will call. From what you describe of yourself, you aren’t cut out for this type of relationship. So you can continue and be miserable, or you can cut-off ties, and try and find a normal relationship where you aren’t contributing to the deceit of your partner’s partner.