Hi maggieblack,

Since you are 1000 miles away, how do you know any of the bad stuff is true? At age 50, you surely know 9/10 the man always claims “They haven’t slept together in years” (Right).

“I’m in the office all day, I only go home to sleep.” (Sure.)

Some variation of “My wife is crazy.” ( “20K” in therapy? Yeah, OK.)

For a mistress to be upset because “he” pays for “her” elective surgery seems a little over the top. (Dollars to donuts she works and it’s from the household account.)

I know it’s hard, but you are just the girlfriend. The only correct thought you have in all this is to scale back the relationship until he leaves her. (If he “allows her to get her way to avoid all conflict” I’m sorry to say he won’t.)

Maggieblack, you’re not a kid anymore, so please don’t kid yourself.

You Can’t Go Wrong when you Do the Right Thing,

Inky

Hi

We never blast each other on TinyBuddah, that’s why I love it! Hopefully I’m not too harsh, sorry if I am!!

OK,

1. I don’t care if she’s unemployable, a slob, bad with money, frigid, and burns the house down trying to make toast, she’s the wife. You are just the girlfriend. This bears repeating: You’re just the girlfriend. Know your place. If you don’t like your place, change your title: Friend or Fiancee (once divorce is final).

2. Once again, of course he only shows you the bad stuff. But let me ask you this: Clearly something good was going on with her or he wouldn’t have married her! And now, gradually or suddenly, she has a mental disorder and won’t cook or clean and has a litter of puppies. Maybe some of it’s him. I know if I wanted to raise dogs, couldn’t work, didn’t want to clean and didn’t have fun times with DH, I guarantee you, some of it’s him. If he’s all that, she would make more of an effort. In fact, if she had a lover next door you would bet that that house would be amazing so she could invite him to a Super Bowl party LOL.

3. If she doesn’t know about you, surely she senses someone else is in the air. Once again, puppies and messy nest. She doesn’t want him either! Why reward a no good husband??

4. What man is (sorry) desperate enough to drive 1000 miles away for true love or even a fun time and not even begin to leave the wife?

5. This is so easy to do because of distance. Tell him you can be together WHEN he is legally divorced. Separated or her keeping him in the courts for years doesn’t count.

It’s Not just the Wife, it’s Him,

Inky

Just be careful he’s not using you as just an escape, maggieblack. I love watching seasons of shows on Netflix (hours and hours ~ the same amount of hours I could spend commiserating on the phone) and am absolutely interested in staying married to my DH, for example.

Also, men are great at compartmentalizing.

So stop being his sounding board on the phone. We call it “barring” ~ when men at the bar complain about their no good wives but are all “Hi Honey” when they get home. If you stop “feeding” him, then more time can be spent on him fixing the marriage, getting a divorce, finding a new you (or watching Netflix). He sounds kind of wimpy. It’s just as easy to find a strong man who’s single.

And you’re absolutely right about resources ~ men give $$ to those and what they love. He loves her. I know that’s hard to hear.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by Inky.

Your situation sounds tough and I can totally empathize. I get the sense that you are letting him call the shots in all of this. Have you been totally honest with him? Are you being totally honest with yourself?

Much love xxxx

I read the entire page and got my self registered just to reply here. maggieblack open your eyes sweetheart and think more rationally, I can see that you are very much in love with him, but I agree with each and every word of inky, she is hitting the nail on the head.
men are no fools but they know how to fool a woman.
they will never leave their woman but they will always want a Stephaney or a punching bag in front of whom they can play their sympathy cards.
open your eyes honey, remember he has his wifey with him and you are just a girlfriend. some day he might tell you that you were just a good friend of mine, you misunderstood our relationship.

you are here asking strangers like me and inky for solution about your boyfriend just because a part of you is in doubt.

godbless you and show the right path

(I am new here, so please let me know if my posting is not ok for any reason…I think I’m getting long winded and will eventually have to start my own post so I’m not seemingly hijacking another’s)

I can relate to many things in your post. I hope that sharing a bit of my situation is not out of the purpose of this thread, but can be helpful.

I am with a man whose ex has BPD. They were together over 10 years before the divorce. I met him two months after he moved out of their house.

I look back now, after five years of us together, and see such a different view than what was possible for me to see that first year together. I have to say, I still love him and feel in my heart that we could be wonderful, however, things have fallen apart for us.

I see today that the man I spent time with our first year together, has slowly settled into different ways.

He used to be attentive, endlessly grateful, endlessly patient, caring, all that, etc.

While he did not exactly change, the conditions around us did, and as he responded to this, I have seen and experienced things about him that wouldn’t have been possible that first blissful year.

To be more direct, I feel that the dynamic of the toxic relationship that he was in for so many years became so much a part of him. When the “honeymoon” phase of our relationship shifted into more of a husband/wife dynamic he regressed and became fearful. I honestly think that he was a bit traumatized by his ex wife and as my role became more like a wife, he began responding to me more like he did in his marriage.

It was very difficult for me to anticipate a shift like this in his behavior. In the beginning of our relationship there was still much going on with wrapping up divorce issues of properties and parenting. My support made him grateful at this time. Our partnership grew strong as a result. He got much fill of re establishing his identity and esteem through our time together. Looking back, I wonder about this fact as I now see much of his desire for me was actually maybe a hunger more for esteem and identity in a time of emotional crisis and devastating loss for him. (It was not one sided, he was supportive of me too)

However, the past several years he keeps having regressions and his fear seems to take over him and he now responds to me as though I am like his ex and as though I am acting against him, when I clearly am not. He spent many years in a dynamic that stunted any emotional growth that may have otherwise happened.

So essentially this patient, easy going guy who almost never fights that I fell in love with…..is also a guy who…. Can’t deal with conflict, was agreeing with me to avoid conflict but I thought was excellent at compromise and I thought was excellent at hearing my perspective; he compartmentalizes to cope to the point of denial that has put me and my son in harms way…not intentionally…but just because he won’t stand up to his wife and sacrifices himself and us all as a result. If I disagree, he feels he is a victim of something and gets angry at me and becomes unreasonable. He still cannot express his anger toward his child and wife and takes it out on me in a passive aggressive manner that he is even unaware of. He is still tied emotionally to her in a way that makes me feel like he is still more her ex husband than my partner. He only listens when someone causes drama, and because I am not abusive to him I get tuned out.

I think that it was moving in together and the inability for him to leave and get days of space that revealed more of his ways to me. Also when things settled with his divorce and he no longer had the unending gratitude to me, he acted like he wanted to overcompensate and put me in a weak position. I think the dating phase was a rather safe one, a time of putting ones best foot forward, a time of fun, of little expectations or relationship responsibilities and when a couple spends lots of time expressing and discovering each other and loving each other together. When things shifted and responsibilities and expectations were added to the dynamic, things regressed slowly and slowly.

I hope you do not see this as me being judgmental that things for you would follow a similar path. I hope that there is some insight in this though on some things to help in some way.