loren's story

my confusing story

Hello. I recently found this website and am relieved to find a group of others who are dealing with similar issues. I separated from my husband of 12 years last August and have a 3.5 year old with him. It was an abusive relationship from the beginning, but I never felt strong enough to get out until last summer. I developed a crush on a man at work and couldn't let go of the obsessive thought that I needed to either leave my job and give my marriage a chance or leave my marriage and let this man know my feelings. I had a crush on him because I felt flattered and respected by him more than I had felt in a really long time, and I fell for it. My crush on him developed after I read a staff evaluation he gave of me. In one of his evaluations of me as an infant room teacher, he said that there are very few people he would rather have taking care of his own children(if he were a parent). He would also ocasionally make comments to the effect that I was one of the most impressive and intelligent persons he had met. I'm very insecure about my intelligence, and this coming from a man that I believed to be very intelligent and particular about the friends he chose was a HUGE compliment to me. I had never felt respected by my husband as a parent. He constantly criticized my parenting, even though he rarely helped me. He never offered to take my daughter for an evening or a day so that I could spend time with my friends without him telling me that I was a bad parent and that all I wanted to do was to go out with friends. I worked in a daycare that I had worked in for 12 years(as long as my marriage) and my daughter attended free. I tried 2 counseling sessions with my husband that went horribly, with him blaming a lot of our marital problems on me. So, I decided to start the divorce process. Shortly after the divorce, I made the horrible decision of letting my crush know that I had a crush on him. I had wanted to wait, but I felt so awkward around him, and thought that he probably already knew. When I told him that I had a crush on him, I told him that I couldn't act on it, but that I wanted to be friends. Of course you don't tell a person this and expect them not to respond in kind if they also have a crush on you. Stupid me! There were other complications as well. He had a relationship with a female coworker that worked in the same classroom that I was unsure about. He was the flirtatious type, even having another woman who worked in the school who he lived in a co-op type living situation with who had been his girlfriend six years ago. I would see him flirting with her and her flirting with him, even though she had a boyfriend. He claimed that he never dated anyone since then, and his other friends maintained this as well. The woman who worked in our classroom had recently gone through a break up with her female partner, but sometimes mentioned being attracted to men. She would say things to people about not being ready to date, and whenever it seemed that this man(N) that I had a crush on was flirting with her, she seemed really turned off by it. I'm not really familiar with these type of relationships, because I'm a horrible flirt and the type of person that bonds with one other person and focuses my attention on them, so I thought that maybe I was just confused because I was a big square when it comes to dating. I asked another coworker about it before I told him that I had a crush and she said she thought they were just friends. Anyhow, he and I ended up in a relationship that became very serious, very fast. It was extremely sexual, and according to him he hadn't had sex in 6 years. I hadn't had good sex in 12. My husband didn't really like sex, and would criticize my body(I'm actually rather slim). Before this man and I had sex he had already told me that he loved me and made a CD with songs on it that would suggest that he had really intense feelings for me. I also wrote a letter to him explaining my feelings in detail. I was incredibly shy and quiet around him, because I noticed that he would criticize others harshly if he thought they were unintelligent. I also knew that he had been abused horribly as a child and that he had bouts of extreme paranoia and bad moods, and that rather than telling a person why he was upset, he would tease them in very tricky ways and he would even attest to this.... I had told him that I didn't want to have sex until after the divorce (still not finalised) but whenever we would kiss, he would take it farther and I never told him to stop. I was afraid that he wouldn't like me. After sex(about 2 months in to the relationship) it became very awkward. I would come in to work every morning to find him and my other female coworker whispering with each other. They would take frequent cigarette smoke breaks together as well, but whenever I wanted to arrange for he and I to have a lunch break together he seemed angry and irritated. He was a pot smoker, but that's really the norm rather than the exception in Austin, Texas. I'm a bit of a hippy type myself, but hadn't smoked pot or even drank alcohol since my early 20s(I'm 35). I still can't say I blame his mood swings on the pot, except on the days where he mentioned he had smoked a lot then I would notice that he seemed more irritable(this didn't happen until after our break up). He became increasingly more and more uncomfortable to be around, and my female coworker became really quiet and sometimes unfriendly with me. One day he even made a comment about needing to get "two monkeys off his back." On the days he was mean to her, he was nice to me, and vice versa. It felt like he was trying to play a jealousy game with us. She and I had gotten along really well beforehand. A little before Christmas he broke up with me, claiming that he still loved me but that he feared that if he were in a relationship with me longer then he would start being mean. He said that he thought that I wanted a fairy tale marriage and that he just didn't think that was the kind of person he could be. I never said that I wanted a fairy tale marriage, but I guess somehow I conveyed that, even though I felt that he conveyed that too. Shortly after he and I broke up, he and this woman started spending more and more time together. They would whisper in front of me, sing songs that seemed to convey some hidden message, write things up on the dry erase board that were most likely veiled references to me. It was awful! I can't explain how torturous it was. Still at the end of every day, he and I would hug each other good bye. Sometimes I initiated it, and sometimes he did. I finally decided to leave, and move out of state to live with my sister(still not there yet). Before I left, he and I went out to dinner and he tried to make it sound like he still loved me, although he also made it sound like he loved OW. She even seemed sad that I was leaving and kept wanting to get togther before I left. It's so effing confusing. They even made a goodbye CD for me, with songs in it that I suppose are supposed to tell me their thoughts on the whole relationship. I haven't heard from them since I last told them that my last day here was 3 weeks ago. I live in fear that they'll find out that I haven't left yet, and in fear that when I come back that I'll see them again and not know what to do. I have to come back in 90 days, because my husband is not agreeing to me living out there and he and I still need to finalise the divorce(that's a whole other complicated story). I had told this man and OW that I was moving out there for two years, because initially that's what my husband agreed to, before changing his mind. I really hope that I can reamin NC from both this man and woman. I still have romantic fantasies about him, and it's so torturous.. I hope I can stop obsessing over it. Thank you to everyone on this blog for listening..