I Am The Other Woman Forum & Chat Board | Affair ended but still working together. I'm beyond broken...

I knew he was very married with young kids when we met. He's my coworker, I developed feelings for him quickly and eventually felt in love with him, hard. For the entire last year, we went through hell of an emotional roller coaster ride, break up and make up countless of times. 
He went as far as seriously offering to leave his family multiple times to start a new life with me, if I give him some assurance that I will be there and wanting to build a life with him as well. But I couldn't, I can't never trust him based on how our relationship started. I don't want to be the reason his family falls apart - even though I'm sure he's been having problems long before he met me.

Finally we decided to really end it yesterday, we were both getting too emotionally drained at this point. He didn't want to put a hold on my life anymore, its unfair and I was getting too miserable. I hope he really meant that, but I guess it doesn't matter anyways...I felt the whole world was collapsing on me, I knew we went through this break up cycle many times before - but this time I'm certain that we have reached a point of no return, we are too exhausted over this whole dilemma. At first I got terrified of the feeling if loosing "us". He's everything I got - I hardly have any friend or family around. But then I started to feel the sense of freedom, I've been trapped in this affair for way too long which at times thinking there was just no way out..

I'm relieved but I'm also severely depressed and broken. I'm so alone, it's extremely difficult turning your life around for the better when you don't really have many loved ones around. I'm not planning to change my career to another place anytime soon. I like my company, not because of him, but in general.

From now on we will still be seeing each other everyday. He's no longer my co-worker but he's my supervisor now - so whether I like it or not, there will be times we both have to interact with each other. I don't know how I will be able to do it, but one thing i have to do is not to have another relapse like the last 50 times.

Anyone broke up with the MM but still have to see him everyday at work? What advices do you have and how did it work out for you? I've been through quite a few break ups before, but this time it feels so far worse, maybe because of a different type of relationship? I used to have so many future dreams, we talked about different "what ifs" scenarios of sharing our lives together before. He's the first man I've ever dreamed of the future like that with it's crazy.

It's been years since I felt this crappy over a break up, Im seriously feeling physically and mentally ill at this point... 

 

You both are in a really, really difficult situation and it will make it challenging (dare I say impossible), to stay broken up with you both working together.  You will need a tremendous amount of will power to keep this end final; if that it is indeed what you truly want.  A close friend who had an affair with a co-worker had to leave and move across country for it to end (10 years later he still calls and texts periodically).  I also had an affair for about a year and one half with my mm co-worker and we both had to leave for other jobs.  He left his marriage and we continued to date for 10 months before our relationship finally self-destructed.  Trust, betrayal and guilt broke us as I knew it eventually would.  However I do also know that if he was still married and we were still working together; chances are high we would, unfortunately, still be together.  My advice would be to think of getting another job...if you were the one to end it, he will be back - they always are!!

 

Those casual "drive by" texts are the worst!  However, if you can just continue to ignore them and focus on yourself and moving forward, you are doing great!  Time and space will heal everything and it is only possible to gain perspective with some distance.  Just take things day by day and allow your heart the time it needs to heal.

 

Wow, this sounds eerily similar to my situation. I also got involved with my married co worker with young children. At first we both tried to convince ourselves it was just lust and nothing more. Who were we kidding?!? Our relationship escalated rather quickly and we became completely enthralled with each other. To the point where we were quite a bit ridiculous. Like your situation, he made countless promises (empty promises) to leave his wife and be with me....always saying "it's gonna be really hard for a while, but I promise it will be worth it." yea right! So that is what kept me hanging on for so long. Did your co workers find out? Oh, ours did and they all just asually called him my boyfriend....so strange. It took me a long time to accept hearing those words coming from other people, I guess because I knew it was wrong!! How is working with him going? If you are still? There was no way that we could have made that work....we both quit that job. I totally relate to your feelings toward the break up. I have had a few boyfriends too, and have never felt so broken and depressed when **** hit the fan with him!! I couldn't eat or sleep for the longest time and my mind was just constantly racing with "what ifs what ifs". Anyway, hope your situation worked out better!! Good luck to ya

 

Hi

I'm in the same situation. I began a relationship with my colleague more than a year ago and it went on and off several times during that year. But he was really in doubt about his kids. He told his girlfriend rather quickly that he was in love with someone else, that it was someone from work. So, as every woman would, she quickly found out who it was, me. She started to threaten me and I understood her partly... So we parted but after 2 months we missed each other so badly so we started meeting again. During the summer of 2012 the situation at his home got so out of hand that he really wanted to leave her but he was still doubting for the kids. They were in therapy, but that didn't work (according to me they really didn't take that seriously as they stopped this after 2 months, and she believes everything that went bad in their relationship is his fault, even if it was already not going well before he met me) He said I was the love of his life and he wanted to be with me... blablabla ... And when she threatened him again to take away the kids he decided to stay with her anyway. That, in a way shocked me, because he already asked me several times if was going to be there for him and we had talked about a future. 

So, that was it. I was devastated, because what we had was a really deep and emotional bond and all of this was gone in a moment. I have thought of leaving work, but I can't because it's my first job that I really like (I live in Europe) and a lot of my colleagues are also friends. I really wanted to talk about it and how he good just change his mind setting 180° and shortly after we broke up we met a couple of times just to talk this through and figure out how we were going to do this at work as no one wants to leave. So we found a good consensus. But I believe some three months ago sth happened at his home and all of sudden we was totally distant and he acted like nothing ever happened, like we never got along even. He was like a perfect stranger. Again this was really hard for me. Because what I mainly feel in this situation is that he always decided how things went and go and I just have to accept it.

During all this time (and for much longer, actually) I'm seeing a therapist who helps me cope with this situation. After my MM's last change, I decided to change my own mind setting and focus on myself. If someone doesn't want to be in my life then I shouldn't spend time on then as they are not worth it. This is really hard to live by, as I am an emotional person, but it helps. Also I have a good friend/colleague who knows about the whole situation and she's always been a good support through this whole time. We are now 6 months away and some days I really feel sad and on other days I am more in a "fighting" mood. When I feel so sad and I miss him too much I think about the fact that I can still meet someone new and have a nice new relationship, where he is in a situation where I don't think it would be so nice coming home. I don't think that she can ever trust him again and he must always feel guilty towards her. 

I am angry with him because of how he treated me (he was also the one who made the first move). Also because now he barely talks to me, it's like I don't even exist. We had such a click. I know he does this because he made a click in his head that he has to focus on his family (I don't understand how you can just make a click of 180°, but also he is a man and I don't have kids so I don't know the impact of that).
On the other hand I knew he wasn't available and I still went along... because I was (and actually still am) in love. But I learnt from this situation. Luckily I also have good friends who support me and a loving family (mom and sisters). 
My therapist says that for me the situation is harder as I am single and I have nothing to go to and he has his family. 

I know I will get through this... but now I'm still curious if he regrets hurting me so much and if he misses me... But this I won't know.

 

This is all to familiar for me right now. I'm just sorting through all of the emotions that come along with ending my affair with a MM(who is also my boss, was my attorney, my best friend, etc.) I put everything into US the past year. He was ALL that I had the past year. He was everything to me. It be and unbearable though. I