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I am married with 2 children. I had an on/off affair with a girl for a number of years with no contact since last year. More recently some contact led to lunch and further emails with her actively pursuing to see me.
Historically the affair was quite complex and was probably not physical for a long time with her coming to me for support at times when she was physically abused and then later when a controlling boyfriend sent her into a place where she tried to take her own life. She had me arrested when she got back with the same guy, told a pack of lies to the police about her not wanting contact which were easy to defend given technology and retrieval of emails. She was mixed up and during the course of knowing each other could become very nasty and abusive towards me and probably still is and the contact ended as soon as it had begun with more abuse of me. Complicated background!
The more recent contact has now ended and I have again sent her an email message telling her to not contact me that I want my wife etc etc and nothing to do with her. I would say that I have been trying with my wife. She has known everything since the real affair ended and we have both taken steps to improve things at home and to add that is where I want to be.
I cant help feeling bad and I am struggling with getting closure. I know all about the fantasy of what it all was and what I have done and I have taken my responsibility.
I have no reason to believe she wont contact me again and I didn't like the way it was all left and I get that this is different and respect goes out the window, but I cant help still feeling loss and other feelings which I wish I could just get rid of. Any ideas or help from anyone would be much appreciated.
Hi There,
I would say relate would be a good idea, although I would think in a different way to ACTD I would tread carefully asking your wife to help you through this, it seems as ACTD has said she is standing by you and working hard to keep things together, If you start to tell her how you are feeling and are finding it difficult to gain closure the help and support may net extend that far. I know you must feel bad for what you got yourself into, and I'm sure you are grateful for the loving support of your wife, But put yourself in her shoes, imagine it was here that had the affair, and you that stood by her, then think about her asking you for further support as she couldn't gain closure on the affair.
If it were me I would be thinking you still had feelings for this girl and that you wanted it to continue, hence the lack of closure.
I would try relate or even some one on one councilling for yorself,
This is just my spin on the situation though.
GTTS
Thanks for the honest reply. I probably do have feelings for the girl yes but I never left when they were at their strongest and I think that time has gone. But they are there, loss, guilt to all parties etc etc. I think relate may be a good option as a problem in these situations is you have to keep everything inside, it's not like you can talk with anyone!
Having read GTTS's comments - I have to say I agree with his thinking.