[Nia]

I have decided for myself that I want to end both my affair and my marriage because now that I think about it both of the relationships make me more miserable than happy. However, I am very scared. I am scared or doing the first step. I wanted to actually talk to my neighbor today and end it, but apparently he is too busy today with work and family stuff, so I can’t even talk to him today and I didn’t want to do it over text. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him anything and just start ignoring him like he was ignoring me before?
In regards to my husband I am scared to tell him I want a divorce and I think it might be not fair to him if I do it while he is on the road, but the next time he is coming home will be next Friday and we are meeting with friends for my birthday on Saturday, so seems to be a really bad timing too. He is leaving 2 days after that and his mom is coming a week after. I know that seems like lame excuses trying to avoid the issues and postponing dealing with it. I also don’t know how to talk to the kids about it. I tried talking to one of them yesterday who is the most mature of the 3 sighting the controlling behavior and the last incident about swimming. But I think he is so used to the controlling that he doesn’t even see anything wrong with it and he told me about the jealousy, “mom, just put yourself in his shoes, he is away for a month and doesn’t really know what’s going at home while he is gone”. So seems the bad example has already been settling on the boys too if he thinks there is nothing wrong.
But most difficult is how to bring myself to talk to my husband about the divorce. I have always had a hard time breaking up with my previous boyfriends and if they didn’t break up with me and I wanted to break up with them I would start behaving in such a way that would either prompt them to break up or at least prompt them to start the conversation that would end in break up. So any advice on how to build up the courage for breaking up is highly appreciated. I am scared of the conflict that would be associated with the divorce and I am the kind of person that tries to avoid conflicts. I am scared of being alone and not being able to afford the lifestyle me and the kids have. The way my husband makes money and considering he only started making that much starting last summer, I probably can’t expect much child support, especially since 2 of the kids are not even his and he doesn’t have official custody. I am also scared of breaking up with my neighbor. I know he doesn’t seem much interested in having this as a serious long term relationship anyway and I know that if I don’t end it, he will at some point (if he is not trying already and him being busy is just an excuse and he will start avoiding me again). But I am scared of not being able to feel the way he makes me feel again. I have started talking to the therapist but seems a therapist doesn’t really give advice and more just trying to talk to me so that I would make the right decision but I think I really need an advice on what to do and how to approach it.

[Nia]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for your response. It makes a lot of sense, but doesn’t make me feel much better. I have, however, decided to go with the therapist with whom I had the initial evaluation session as he does take my insurance. I do feel guilty but for wrong reasons I think. My mother in law is coming in 2 weeks and she should stay with us for a few months and my husband is making all these plans about her stay expecting her to stay for 6 months and all these plans for the kids’ vacations, but what am I thinking about? No, it is not about feelings for my neighbor but about me contemplating a divorce. I feel guilty because he is making all these plans and thinking that everything is fine, but I am thinking that I need to get out. He thinks my life should be easier when his mom is here because she will be helping with cooking, but in reality it will make it harder. Yes, I’ll spend less time on cooking and will have a little more time for work and less opportunity to meet with my neighbor, which might potentially make it easier to end it. But then besides my husband I’ll have pressure from his mom as she has very strong opinions about everything just like him and they are often the opposite of mine due to her growing up in a different socioeconomic environment from mine and not just different family values, except that I think her husband was controlling too as it is common to the culture of our country. We live in a different country now with a different culture which seems a lot closer to me.

[Nia]

I tried to start doing therapy through our employee assistance program but they approved only one session for me because they think that a short term counseling of up to 12 sessions would help me and they want me to go through my regular insurance, which pretty much means paying out of pocket for it since I have a high deductible plan. So I am debating if I should continue or try to work it out myself. The therapist told me something similar to what you are saying. He told me that one way to deal with an unhappy marriage is to have an affair but if I continue with it I need to expect nothing except that I am likely to be hurt again. I saw him today and I asked him what changed his mind and he said that when he saw me that day when we were selling cookies he realized that he couldn’t stay away. Also he pretty much acknowledged that it will have to end at some point, so maybe you are right and I would probably feel better if I end it instead of waiting for him to end it. But it is very hard to do because it does make me feel very good, even if it isn’t right or healthy or a real relationship.
In regards to my husband I just had another situation which I am quite unhappy about. As I mentioned before my kids swim and the team has a “master” group, aka a group for adults that gets a lane during the kids’ practice. I am not very horrible swimmer, just slow 🙂 so I wanted to try out for that. My husband didn’t want me to do it and his argument was that because it is the same time as kids a bunch of 17-20+ year old boys will be looking at my butt and he thinks it is not appropriate. I said it was a stupid argument and went anyway. He came home yesterday and said that he really didn’t want me to go and asked me not to go because it upsets him if I do. His argument changed however. Now he says that if I start going there I will start talking to people including coaches and other fathers and that we don’t go to the team to become friends with anyone but only so that the kids swim. And he also implied that if I start talking to men I might end up sleeping with them because he is away a lot. Ok maybe he has a point there :), but what pushed me into someone else’s arms so to speak is not him being away a lot (even though that did make it easier) but this controlling behavior. He says it would be different if he was home more and that if he was home maybe he wouldn’t mind as much but because he can’t see what’s going on at the pool he doesn’t want me to go there. I personally doubt he would feel different about me going to the pool if he was home and I don’t see what’s wrong with being friends with other parents or coaches or neighbors (not counting the kind of friendship I have with one neighbor). The way he put his argument was more like pleading and an attempt to make me feel bad about going swimming so I am slightly at a loss on what I should do. My mom was visiting me last week and I told her I was contemplating divorce (didn’t tell her about the neighbor of course) but she thinks I have a very good husband and that a divorce would be hard on the kids, especially on our daughter and so I just should stay with him, but I should just go swimming and not tell him and lie if he asks. So not much support there.

[Nia]

Sorry no question mark intended after “thank you for reply” 🙂

[Nia]

Hi Heidi,

Thank you for your long reply? I wouldn’t say that our house is not exactly safe, or do you mean it is emotionally not safe? However, I think you are right that the men I’ve been with long term throughout my life has not respected me. My ex husband kept trying to change me and then ended up leaving me, my current husband is too controlling and my neighbor thinks it is ok to just ignore me for a while and then text me like nothing happened, but in his case it is not like I’ve been long term with him. The boyfriends I had before getting married probably were not treating me to good either, but that was long time ago. I am thinking that there could be several underlying issues here. My dad was cheating on my mom until they eventually got divorced when I was 14 and my mom’s second husband is also very controlling but my mom thinks it is normal and better than being alone and she stayed with my father for a long time “for me” but I could see them fighting all the time or my mom threatening my dad that she would jump out of the window (we lived on 9th floor). Then there is another thing. The first time I had sex I was basically forced to do it, by this guy I really liked back then. Wouldn’t say I was really in love. The guy dumped me next day after having sex. But how do I break out of it if these seem the type of men I am attracted too? My neighbor is very different from other men I’ve been with in terms of that he listens to me or maybe he listened so that he could get into bed with me? Before we started having any physical contact we could just talk for hours and it felt like I’ve known him for a very long time. We seemed to have a very strong emotional connection which is what I miss now and what I don’t have with my husband. What do you think would be my best course of action now? To get a divorce and to “dump” my neighbor? My husband wouldn’t even consider a marriage counseling. I understand that I can’t expect anything from my neighbor, but I do enjoy his company.

[Nia]

Now I am even more confused. The neighbor reached out that he wants to see me. Not sure how I should behave. I want to see him of course but don’t want to be just a booty call.

[Nia]

I am sorry this is not my post and I am not a coach, but I felt like commenting on deal breakers. I really don’t like when a man smokes either, but I am married to a former smoker. We have our own issues but I am sure they have nothing to do with the fact that he used to smoke. He gave up smoking when he started dating me. My ex husband didn’t exercise before meeting me but because I was into running back then he joined me there and started running too and I think he is more fit than me now. And in regards to garbage truck drivers or any other truck drivers, many people do that for various reasons and it might only indicate a strength of character. My friend works for the City and she told me garbage truck drivers there not only make a lot of money on overtimes, but also many of them have college or even graduate degree. Another example, the former first horn from NY symphony is driving a truck. And how do I know it? My husband has a doctors degree in music and guess what he is doing for a living because almost all the music stopped with the pandemic. So I wouldn’t rush to judge people based on their habits as that can be changed, or based on how they make money.

[Nia]

I am contacting him on internal messenger, which is a chat program, and only with completely innocent messages because that is where we first started chatting after talking outside and not because I want anyone to see it. No one can see it because we are both working from home and it is not really monitored. In a way it is more secure than the phone because no one at home could accidentally see it either. Also it is harder to ignore. My WhatsApp messages to him were staying unread so I think he was deleting them without reading.

I did like the sex with him a lot, but I can do without it and really I do miss the friendship most because as I said I don’t exactly have too many friends and the openness I had with him is something I don’t have with anyone, not even my girlfriends.

I was thinking of sending a personal message that I miss the friendship but I am afraid it would stay unread and it is not something I could send on corporate messenger either unless I really carefully craft it in a way it doesn’t imply we had anything more in case it is ever monitored, because I am afraid of getting in trouble for that as much as him. I know I contradict myself and I said it wasn’t, but basically it is monitored by a robot for key words and sometimes messages get blocked and reported to compliance because of some random words (I had it happen before to messages to other people that were polite and work related and happened to other people in our team too, and we had to change wording to get it through). And when that happens I think the message does get read by a human being, but since I’ve never said anything offensive or inappropriate I was never contacted about it.

[Nia]

Hi Coach Spyce,

Thank you for getting back to me. What you are saying makes a lot of sense and I fully understand that his silence means he wants nothing to do with me. But this is what I am looking how to change. I don’t expect him to say anything specific, but all I want is to see how I can get back on speaking terms with him. Yes I miss the sex, but what I miss most is having a friend that I can talk to about anything in the world and that is what I had with him before it turned into an actual affair and I think this is what I want back and not the affair. I actually saw him yesterday again because my daughter was selling Girl Scout cookies door to door and it would be strange if we would have skipped his house out of the blue. He has ring so he knew who was at the door. I half expected him not to open an pretend no one was home but he did and he bought some cookies from her too, so I might have to see him again when we go to deliver the cookies at the end of February. He was nice and cordial, but then when we got back home I send him a thank you for buying the cookies on the corporate messenger which I know I shouldn’t have done, because I got an ignore in return. And now I feel as upset as with his initial ignoring me, but I have realized what I really miss from that relationship, which is I miss having a friend.

[Nia]

I understand that I am not getting an advice on how to get back with my neighbor, but can I get an advice on how to get him to start talking to me again?

[Nia]

Btw, how do you know that if my neighbor leaves his wife for me he would leave me shortly too? My ex husband left pregnant me for a woman he was dating for about 2 months and they’ve lived happily ever after (15 years so far and counting)

[Nia]

Would I still be considering divorce if I knew for sure I would be alone? I probably would. I am alone most of the time anyway because of the way his work is organized. He is away for a month and then home for a week and it is way more quiet and everyone is way more content and happy at home when he is not there. By everyone I mean me and the kids. The way my husband is acting is not something new that happened in the last few months since I met that neighbor. He has always acted that way and I think I just became more sensitive to it lately. We moved to this country 7 years ago and during this time I made almost no friends because I can almost never socialize with anyone. I am not saying I would have tons of friends if I did but I didn’t even get a chance. Due to the nature of my work (I am in IT) most of my coworkers are male so any attempt to be friends with them is taken by my husband as an attempt to cheat. And as I mentioned in my previous post s nothing good happens when I try to socialize with other parents either, more like I don’t get to do that. I’ve only managed to become friends with one swim mom because our kids have been swimming together for 4 years already and are really good friends and I think because the father there is almost never in the picture when we hang out. (Yes my friend has her own issues with her husband.) When I tried to be friends with another swim mom whose kid is also friends with mine the friendship with that family had to stop when my husband met the father there because my husband didn’t like him. And as I started dating him I lost almost all the friends that I had before I met him because either they were also friends of my ex or because they were guys 🙂 I seemed not like o care that much back then, but do you think he was sensing something wrong from the start? That I would cheat on him in 12, 10 or whatever number of years with my neighbor? Or do you think he knew that I was never in love with him and has been acting that way all along for that reason? In regards to my neighbor I do see a lot of logic in what you are saying but it is not really making me feel any better.

[Nia]

Sorry to keep posting just a small note, I’ve been trying to resist contacting my neighbor since Friday but it is very hard considering there are so many communication channels available in spite of him ignoring me on all of them. There is another detail about him. We work for the same company (which we didn’t know before we met on the street) and technically in the same building, but on different floors (neither of us is going to the office though) so besides the traditional text messages, WhatsApp and just walking around the corner there is also a corporate messenger and I can see when he is online there too. So when I see him “green” there it is especially tempting to say hello.

[Nia]

So to summarize my ranting, this is how I feel: I am very much in love with my neighbor and want our relationship back. On one hand I love my husband as my daughter’s father and I do respect him for everything he is doing for us, but I feel suffocated by him and my marriage and I am afraid of getting divorced because that would be very messy I think and would probably hurt my daughter, though she is afraid of her father. A divorce would as well as put me in a difficult financial situation, but nothing I can’t manage. I am not really afraid to be left alone with 3 kids and I don’t think that I would not be able to find another man, in spite of my age and 3 kids, but I don’t think I can feel that strongly, as I feel my neighbor, about any other man again.

[Nia]

Hi Coach Spyce,

Thank you for getting back to me. I still want that relationship with my neighbor back even if it is just a fantasy that can’t go anywhere serious and is probably unhealthy.

In regards to my husband he started calling me again as if we never had that conversation. I don’t think he actually believes I am cheating because he has no evidence and because he had been doing it once in a while too (deciding for himself that I was cheating on him and blaming some random man as the other party). For example last winter he suddenly decided that I was cheating on him with my boss because that guy was working with me in one company and then I changed jobs and worked for him in a different company. Mind there was never anything even close to it there – not even intentional flirting. And there was no cheating back then with no other party and no interest to do so. And there were episodes like that through out our relationship once in a while. He was always overprotective or possessive. For example I could never go to any corporate event for longer than 30 minutes if he wasn’t going with me or for drinks with colleagues after work. Basically could never socialize with other people if he wasn’t there, which btw killed my management career too. I am not really complaining because I am happy in my current role at work, as it is less stressful than a management role and I have plenty of stress without it 🙂 Now that I am working from home because of the pandemic, the only adult human beings that I can socialize with are other kids’ parents, but my husband would try to limit that too. My kids started new schools this year and my older ones signed up for a swim team for the school and then there was one week when I went with the kids to a school football game and then the same week there was a dinner at school for the swim team and the parents and I signed up and paid to go there. However when the time came to go to the dinner my husband said that he thinks that me and my daughter are already too involved in the live of the school and we shouldn’t go there. (Really too involved by going to just one football game?) so the older kids went and me and our daughter stayed home. He was away again during that time too, so he didn’t go either and I don’t think he would if he was home, because he was home and when we went to the football game but didn’t want to go with us and went fishing instead. Basically he has always been very antisocial. (He needs one of those t-shirts “I was social distancing before it was popular” :)) He doesn’t think it is appropriate to become friends with people at work (for me), he doesn’t think being friends with other parents or neighbors is appropriate either. He even thinks that having neighbors help each other out is wrong too. For example, whenever we get snow, we shovel and our neighbor (a different one) has a snow blower and he always helps us out with clearing the pathway. Every time the snow comes and if my husband is home he tries to clear all the snow himself before the neighbor comes out with the snow blower and if he is not home (which happens most times we get snow) he calls me to make sure we clear the snow ourselves and don’t use our neighbor’s help. I still let the neighbor help us of course, because it is hard to shovel and takes a long time, while it takes him 5 minutes to do our path with the snow blower.

In order for me to do something like cheating I really had to have very strong feelings towards the man. And as I am trying to say again, I wasn’t looking for it or trying to find a way to escape my problems with my neighbor. It was more like it just happened and I still have very strong feelings for him and before he broke it off with me in this way he was saying he had very strong feelings for me too, which is why it is even more confusing that if he had strong feelings how could they just disappear because of too many texts. I personally haven’t felt so strongly about anyone in over 20 years and he said the same thing to me too. He had similar strong feelings for someone before marriage and he decided to walk away back then because his friend convinced him that his wife was a better choice for him.

[Author]

Posts