Chels' Story

I've been married since I was 16. We have 2 boys, 19 and 8. For the past several years, I haven't been happy. Not unhappy mind you, but definitely not happy. I was content enough to stay, especially having a very young child, though. That was until I met Chad.

I manage a small IT consulting company, and he showed up one day to interview for a VP of Marketing position. It was lust at first sight LOL. This was Aug 2007. He was an amazing guy! We'd never had anyone in marketing who could get the business this guy got. It was possible to sit and listen to him talk for hours. Everything came of his tongue so smoothly. He was smart, confident, and had more business talent in his pinky than anyone I had ever met! We became friends. He would come out to happy hour occasionally with my best friend and me on Fridays after work. We would flirt, but it was never that serious.

Our relationship changed one night in April 08. My girl friend and I had gone out to happy hour. Chad and a buddy of his met us out. A couple of hours and several drinks later, he kissed me out of the blue. It was nice. Really nice. The rest of the night was spent kissing, dancing, talking, and laughing. That weekend, we sent a few texts back and forth. The next Friday we all did the happy hour thing again, but this time, Chad and I ended up having a make-out session in his truck. During the week, work was a little strange, but in a good way. There were the quick glances, racy texts while we were in meetings, all the things that make a new relationship exciting and fun. A couple of weeks later we arranged to meet at a local hotel. My "fate" was sealed. He was an amazing and attentive lover. He said afterward that he could "fall in love with me". I told him not to, that I came with way too much baggage.

Things went on pretty uneventfully for the next few months. I let my guard down, I let him woo me. We got to the point of "I love you's". He told me how broken he was by his first marriage in his 20's, and how was the exact opposite of his ex. I told him, I was at a point of being ready to leave my marriage, but the though of starting over was scary, but with him, I felt like I could do anything.

June 08, my mom passed away. I was an emotional basketcase. Shortly after, Chad, told me that he couldn't be with me anymore because I was married and it was going to cause problems at work. He also brought up having problems with the fact that I'm an atheist. I was heartbroken. I told him I didn't understand how he could love me one day and then have no feelings for me the next. We went round and round. He still claimed to want to be my friend but I needed to "get over things before there was a problem at the office."

At the beginning of Sept, I found out from our boss that he was sleeping with our receptionist. Not just sleeping with, but had moved her and her daughter in with him at his brother's house (he had moved in with his brother after his brother's divorce to help with the mortgage payments). I felt like someone had twisted the knife that was already in my chest. He couldn't understand why I was so upset. I told him that I wasn't over him yet, and that he knew it. He's response was "I made a mistake.. You're married. Everything is relative and atheist, married, and he loyalty thing.. Aren't for me regardless. Im not trying to be mean.. Facts chelsea. Yeah I have feelings for you but you're married and I should not have messed with that, not to mention work. I have enuf on my plate carrying the freaking company without this too."...

It took everything I had to get up in the morning and come in to the office. Some mornings I would just sit in the garage and cry because I couldn't face seeing "them" together. Things got better though. He and the OW, stopped seeming so close. I heard him gripping about her more often than not. He told other people that he was really just with her so she could act as a mother figure for his 17 year old daughter (the OW was 23 not quite what I'd call a mother figure for a 17yr old).

Toward the end of October, he was back to flirting with me. Sat me down one afternoon and told me OW was a mistake, he wasn't attracted to her, she was too young, he couldn't get me off his mind...blah, blah, blah. By December 08 we had picked up where we left off. He kicked OW out of the house and she was fired from the company. It was just us again.

After a strange chain of events, He ended up quitting in January. After a few weeks, He went to another company. I helped him out with $$ while he was in between jobs. We still had the "relationship" going. The new job didn't last long and by the end of April, he was back at my company. He started getting distant with me again. Said it was stress from work and that it had nothing to do with me. He always called me his "Angel". I did whatever I could to help ease his stress level, but it all seemed in vein. We were back to "just friends" by the end of the year (he had brought up my being married and an atheist again as his reason that he "couldn't keep doing it".

In Feb '10, he hadn't been to work in several days (he's also very bi-polar, so this was common when he would get very depressed) and ultimately overdosed one night (while texting me) on Xanax and vodka. I found out the next morning that he had been sleeping with his daughter's best friend. I went and visited him while he was in rehab and we talked about the latest OW. He told me that it didn't mean anything and "what is he suppose to do? The woman I'm in love with is married to another man...". I felt horrible, like I was the cause of his downward spiral. He assured me that I wasn't, and that everything was over with the OW and had been for a month.

When he got out of rehab, he decided that he needed to start his own company. That part of his stress issues were caused by working for our boss. We started making plans. I would help him get his business going, help him get an apt and help with bills, and then once things got off the ground, he would help me pay for a lawyer to start separation from my husband.

For 16 months, I was his sole support. I was a really good sugar momma. He started getting distant and weird again toward the end of May. He started bring up me being married (and an atheist) again. I ended up showing up at "our" apartment one night and demanding an explanation. He was drunk and pulled me into bed with him and kept begging me not to leave. I eventually got up and looked through his phone. That's when I saw all the texts from OW#3. She was a friend of a friend. When I woke him back up and confronted him, first he said it didn't mean anything, then he said he'd break it off with her in the morning, then he said "I'm in love with her...". That caught me off guard. He said it had only been going on for a few days but that he was totally in love with her and wanted to marry her. He said that he still loved me, that I was one of his best friends and that he wasn't willing to give up my friendship, but then he told me that I was the cause of all of his emotional issues over the past year and that I had damaged his psyche.

Over the next few days, there were a lot of heated texts and I admit I said somethings out of anger. But, I calculated up that I had spent over $45k supporting him because I believed every lie that came out of his mouth. I found out about a month later that he was telling our mutual friends that I "went evil on him". The last contact I had with him was after I heard about the "evil" bit from a friend. I sent an email pointing out that I had never done anything evil to him. Quite the opposite, that everything I had done was to try and help him. He responded by sending me back scripture about adultery and saying that he couldn't have me in his life anymore.

I'm at the point, that some days are good, some are bad, and there's a day goes by that I don't think about him. But, I do feel like things are getting better. I've told him I don't want him to repay me (he offered, but I don't think it would really happen), that everything I did for him and everything I gave to him was out of love, and I chose to remember it that way.

I just happened to stumble on this site. I've known for along time that Chad had some very deep emotional problems. He's a bi-polar alcoholic. And he will admit that he's had issues since his 20's. There still seemed to be a piece missing. I think I've found that piece.