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June 18, 2024 at 8:29 am #433925AnonymousInactive
I am a 49 year old IT Professional with a family of my wife of 21years and 2 lovely kids – 12 & 17 yrs old. Our marriage has been a problem for many years now, we are not compatible, no common interests and our fights have been escalating lately. On one evening my wife gets angry and says : “I dont consider you my husband anymore”. I spoke with my wife the next day and we agreed that we are heading towards divorce. I initiated the proceeding with our head priest. The priest wanted to conduct counselling before even considering divorce. This would easily take anywhere between 2 to 3 months.
I was so disappointed, I gave everything into this relationship and still get to hear this. Fast Forward, I start looking for an online relationship and registered myself with an indian matrimonial website. I registered myself as “Awaiting divorce” candidate in my profile, everything mentioned as is. I got friendly with a lady (myself in US and she is based in india) which exactly matched my vibes, on asked about my marital status, I lied and mentioned : “seperated from my wife, she is not staying with me anymore and we are awaiting divorce.” We went ahead with our conversations, on post 3 weeks this friend (Muns) introduced me to her kids online, she is a divorcee and a successful banking professional. She got attached with me and shared everything, everything about her kids sports activities and how they are faring? Her daily Good morning, Good evening lovely messages. On the 4th week she travels to a shrine for pilgrimage and confesses her love for me. She shares her pics, her messages turn lovey dovey. She expressed her desire to meetup with me, I plan to meetup with her as well. She returns from holiday and on that sunday plans to have a video call. She chats with me for about 30 min or so, we talk about various aspects. she discloses her past relationships, her health background and everything. I provide details about my family as well. We wrap up the call with a promise to meetup later. Post 1 week to that, she starts avoiding me, she does not get time to talk to me, suddenly her messages turn cold and then i confront her directly on message. We spoke the next day and she tells me that currently she does not feel the love connection and most of the times she feels judged when she speaks to me. I explain to her that lets give each other more time (as its only been 1.5 months) and i proposed that i should travel to meet her by end of june. She hesitates at the beginning but agrees and says that she feels obligated to meet me which threw me back. I also explained her that we could still remain friends and do not rush in as she felt rushed into this relationship. I spoke about this to my brother as well and he suggested that i should not visit her in June as she is not ready yet. I wrote the message on the following monday that i am dropping the plan to visit her in June and she seemed to be okay with it but she still wanted to meetup in 4 to 5 months time. We then spoke on phone and then our conversation was getting better on Wednesday the same week. She also mentioned that she loved flowers and I decided to send her flowers by online order and those flowers got delivered to her on Friday morning. Since she was away for work her mom accepted the delivery and on her return had to explain and share all the details about me with her mom. Her mom, on the pretext that she would like to move forward with this relationship, enquired about me in a system (community app) and that threw up that i was still married and living with my wife. That was the culmination of my relationship with her. She then posted some weird messages like : “Would you like to share with me about something? Are you missing something that you must or should have shared with me?” She refused to pick up my calls claiming she is not well which was strange. She then started asking weird questions like : “Do you feel physically intimate to me?” As I truly like her i responded that my connection is purely soulful and i would like to take care of her and hug her, the sex and kissing is an advanced stage in physical intimacy. I told her that i truly liked her and loosely mentioned that ” I am seperated with my wife and She is with me and she will go away in July” (my wife). she responded saying that “I had already told her”, at this point I dont know that she was pretending on this or she did not understood the full context of my wife staying with me. The next day I asked when could we speak on the weekend as promised and she did not respond, suddenly she responded that she wants to talk to me now and i obliged. She disclosed that she came to know that i am still married and living with my wife and i accepted but tried to calm her down saying that my intent was not deceit but to stay connected with her but she blasted me to the fullest and hung up on me. From there onwards no amount of explanation helped, I tried to explain that there was no solace at all. She felt that she opened up so much with me and shared every details and she felt about it. She started questioning all stuff including that i claimed to falsely take care of my kids (as she assumed that i was a single father). She started pulling up my pics that i shared and asking if my wife was also present in that location that i visited and took pics. Next day I requested her to reconsider but obviously she had made up her mind : ” I do not want to settle down with anyone…” I am good being single” To this I wished her good luck and assured her that her opening to me and sharing details with me is precious and it will stay with me. The next Monday morning, I texted her to say sorry and asker her forgiveness and she said sorry for blasting me on phone and that was too much. I responded saying that she had every right to be upset and at the end wrote : “Enjoy your day” she got upset and thought this was very insensitive from my side. And then this statement broke my heart (I dont know if she was nicely insulting me : ” Stay happy with your Corporate IQ – thats all i can say”. At the indian matrimonial website i cancelled the invitation of hers and that led to further escalation, she then shared the screenshot and said “F-off” and blocked me on whats app. I confronted her on text and she was very mean : ” I dont know if you deserved to even speak to me, forget about friendship.” I closed that conversation with dignity. Its been almost 9 days now and I am trying to move on. I have visited the therapist as well. I am seeking a closure, couple of questions that comes to my mind is that she really loved me or she was trying to mold herself so that she can get married, she was looking at this as an opportunity? During my final conversation when she blasted me, she never cared to ask me : “Why did you do this Abde”? Can you help me understand? I have kept in touch with her and she has finally unblocked me on Whatsapp but obviously we dont message anymore, and my greetings are met with polite response. the messages have stopped. I feel devastated as I truly connected with her. How do i come out of this? Is there a semblance of a chance to get back once she knows that i have divorced? This may take around 2-3 months time, I suspect she has already moved on. I feel that God has punished me severely for lying to her, she has a wonderful soul and i wish her only best. I spoke to my brother, mom and they all tell me if it is destined that you will surely meetup but for now you have to let her go and move on. Any thoughts or suggestions on how do i close this?
June 18, 2024 at 9:35 am #433958anitaParticipantDear Abde:
“Any thoughts or suggestions on how do I close this?“- I’d close it with lessons learned: (1) to not pursue a relationship with a woman for as long as you are still living with another woman (your wife), (2) when in a dating/ matrimonial site, once you are no longer living with your wife, register the truth about your marital status, ex., separated, not yet divorced.
“Is there a semblance of a chance to get back once she knows that I have divorced?“- I think so, particularly if she is considering moving to the U.S. You living in the U.S., being a legal resident or citizen, having a good-paying job: that would be a big attraction for lots of women in other countries who are interested in moving to the U.S. And an honest woman who has this interest should be upfront about it. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean that this is all of her interest in you. There ought to be a meeting of the minds between you and the woman you will be dating: shared values, honesty, trust, respect, consistency of behavior.
anita
June 18, 2024 at 12:09 pm #433962HelcatParticipantHi Abde
I would consider how you value your own feelings vs someone else’s. A mean comment during an argument is enough for you to want to divorce. Whereas you lie to a woman you are courting while you are still undergoing marriage counselling with your wife about your circumstances and you minimize her feelings, blame her for being upset at you and suggest that she should get over it and take you back.
Does your wife even know that you are dating? Or are you lying to her too?
Love means respecting your partner. You have been disrespectful on so many levels.
I would suggest that you swallow your pride and treat your wife with respect by not dating in the 2 months it will take you to get permission for a divorce. Forget about the woman you lied to. Learn from your mistakes and vow to treat people with the respect they deserve.
Wishing you all the best! â¤ď¸đ
June 18, 2024 at 12:16 pm #433963AnonymousInactiveHi Helcat – Thank you for your valuable advise. Yes, I have confessed to my wife that i am dating and i profusely cried and apologized to her as well.
But, my soulful connection with Muns will never go away and I only wish I could get her back, of course in the right away post seperation or divorce.
Thank you once again,
Abde
June 18, 2024 at 1:35 pm #433966HelcatParticipantHi Abde
How did your wife react to your confession? Did she react how you thought she would or differently?
You havenât known Muns for very long and you are rushing into a relationship very quickly because of the upcoming divorce. These feelings can pass if you let them.
How are you feeling about the argument, the looming divorce and the marriage counselling? It cannot be easy for you right now. Everything has happened so quickly, you haven’t really had a chance to process how you feel.
June 18, 2024 at 9:10 pm #433981TommyParticipantWell, being dishonest and self centered did get you into this situation. Lying and manipulation ended hurting someone and you only think about how you feel and how you hurt. Only men have a way of compartmentalizing parts of their lives to suit the way they feel at the moment.
For example, a man cheats on his wife with another woman. Then goes to his wife to confess. Does the confession make his wife feel better? No, it only makes him feel better. Then the excuses comes. “She didn’t mean anything”. Well, if she didn’t mean anything then why did you throw away the marriage for her? Where are the values placed?
So, instead of working with your wife and priest to work on your marriage, you strike out on a dating app and meet another woman. Lie about your marriage. Fool her. And then, you don’t know why this relationship went this way? Seriously, you knew what you were doing. Knew it was wrong. But did it anyway.
As a man, living inside a marriage. I know how tough it can be to live as last in line. Putting my wife and child first. Being happy or not isn’t the reason to stay or go. It is about being the man. Living up to my responsibilities, duties. If you are not happy in your marriage then change. If you change then your marriage will change. If you need to do the divorce then do it.
I am sorry that I have no sympathy for you. You are suffering due to your own actions and your own choices. Looks like I have lost my compassion. I can not give you a kind word. Seems I will have to spend more time working on myself. To find a way to open my heart to people who cheat and lie.
June 19, 2024 at 2:38 am #433990AnonymousInactiveTommy – for the last 9 days I have been dying of guilt. I am not a person with these values, I have never lied or cheated ever. I am serious about Muns and having a relationship with her but realize that I lost her. With my wife, we have decided to move on as this marriage has been a problem for many years and we stuck along so that our kids are not impacted. Now that they are grown up it’s time to move on. Yes I did a mistake, I apologized sincerely to Muns and to my wife. I would like to move on and seek closure. I don’t know if my real intent was to fool Muns, our conversations werent utterly romantic but purely conversations around various topics, she intellectually stimulated me. In my mind and hers was to take this relationship forward but I was waiting for my wife to get separated and then fully commit to Muns. Yes I should have been transparent to Muns that my wife is staying with me and we are in the process of separation somewhere in July then she could have opted to just keep in touch and not pulled into building future with me, it’s a huge huge expectation failure and I am aware of that. I have now stopped dating and hope to get the separation done as the first step and then take it forward step by step.
In my mind, marriages work as a team, it is never about man or woman. Your post is making it more of making someone more guilty, I am here to seek closure because deep down I am kind, honest and my values are different. I would like to leverage that in my next relationship, I would have loved to get back to Muns but as faith has it, that chapter looks closed, it would take a miracle for her to revisit this relationship in my mind.
June 19, 2024 at 5:39 am #433997HelcatParticipantHi Abde
Tommy is not wrong. You may be having difficulties in your marriage but in this situation, the lying and the cheating you are the one at fault. No one forced you to do that, you chose to do that intentionally knowing that it would be hurtful. You manipulated Muns by intentionally misrepresenting your situation so a relationship could even occur knowing that you would have been rejected otherwise.
You donât really seem to care that you have hurt people. Only complaining about your own pain.
This is not kindness. Perhaps you are usually kind. But for whatever reason in this situation you are not being kind. Only you know the reason for this. You have been considering only yourself and if you had not been caught out you would have continued to do so.
To think that you are the good guy in this situation is misguided. Guilt can be a good thing when you have hurt someone, it helps you to learn from your behaviour. Lying to yourself only prevents you from growing past this situation.
June 19, 2024 at 5:59 am #434001HelcatParticipantFor clarity, that you are serious about a relationship with someone when you are still married is part of the problem. You should not be mentally shopping for a new wife.
June 19, 2024 at 6:03 am #434002AnonymousInactiveManipulating Muns is a mean thing to say, I really respect her and feel for her. I understand that she is hurt and I have let her go. I have also apologized to her. It seems my goal of seeking closure is not working out here, maybe your intent is right but you guys seem to have misread the whole situation a bit. I have learned from this experience, I have apologized to Muns and my wife. I will move on from this, especially after this encounter. Good luck everybody!
June 19, 2024 at 7:20 am #434007HelcatParticipantHi Abde
Part of apologising is being genuinely sorry for your actions. You don’t even see your actions as wrong.
June 19, 2024 at 11:16 am #434009anitaParticipantDear Abde:
I didn’t thoroughly read, process and respond to your original post yesterday, so I will do so today. I will also read and respond to your following posts:
You shared (the boldfaced are your words) that you’ve been married for 21 years, since you were 28 (now 49) and have two children a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old, that your marriage has been a problem for many years and fights have been escalating lately. The two of you agreed that you are heading towards divorce, Â but still living in the same home, in the U.S.
In this situation, you signed in to an Indian matrimonial website as Awaiting divorce. Online, you started communicating with a divorcee living in India, you call her Muns. Muns asked you about your marital status, and you lied and mentioned: ‘separated from my wife, she is not staying with me anymore.
By 3 weeks of communicating with you, Muns shared everything with you, everything about her kids’ sport activities and more. She messaged you Good morning, Good evening lovely messages and seemed like she got attached to you. She even introduced you to her kids, and her kids to you (online). On the 4th week of communicating with you, she was confessing her love for you, and she shared more with you, about her health background and everything.
A week or so later, 1.5 months into the online romantic relationship, Muns started avoiding you and her fewer messages turned cold. She then told you that currently she does not feel the love connection and most of the times she feels judged when she speaks to you. Some time later, you figured that Mun’s mother inquired about you in a community app and found out that you were living with your wife. Next, Muns, seeming very hurt, posted some weird messages like: ‘Would you like to share with me about something? Are you missing something that you must or should d have shared with me?’
You then loosely mentioned to her that your wife “is with me and she will go away in July“. Later, she told you that she has known for some time that you were living with your wife. You told her that your intent was not deceit. She got very angry with you and hung up on you.
Later, she shared that she felt that she opened up so much with you and shared every detail (while you didn’t share that you were living with your wife). She started questioning all stuff that you told her, and pulling up photos you shared with her, she asked if your wife was also present in that location, or in that location. Later, you texted her to say sorry and asker her forgiveness and at the end you wrote: ‘Enjoy your day’. She got upset that you ended your text that way, saying it was insensitive of you.
At the Indian matrimonial website, you cancelled the invitation of hers and that led to further escalation, and she blocked you on what’s app. Next, you confronted her on text and she was very mean: ‘I don’t know if you deserved to even speak to me, forget about friendship.â That was 9 days ago.
You ended your original post with: “Couple of questions that come to my mind is that she really loved me or she was trying to mold herself so that she can get married, she was looking at this as an opportunity? During my final conversation when she blasted me, she never cared to ask me : ‘Why did you do this Abde’? Can you help me understand?… I feel devastated as I truly connected with her… I feel that God has punished me severely for lying to her…”
Your 2nd post: “For the last 9 days I have been dying of guilt. I am not a person with these values, I have never lied or cheated ever… Yes I did a mistake, I apologized sincerely to Muns and to my wife… I donât know if my real intent was to fool Muns, our conversations weren’t utterly romantic… Yes, I should have been transparent to Muns that my wife is staying with me…Â then she could have opted to just keep in touch and not pulled into building future with me… I am here to seek closure because deep down I am kind, honest and my values are different...”.
Your 3rd post, in regard to a suggestion that you manipulated Muns: “Manipulating Muns is a mean thing to say, I really respect her and feel for her. I understand that she is hurt and I have let her go. I have also apologized to her…Â you guys seem to have misread the whole situation a bit. I have learned from this experience, I have apologized to Muns and my wife. I will move on from this, especially after this encounter. Good luck everybody.”
My reply today: imagine, Abde, that you were a divorced man, lonely and looking for a spouse in a matrimonial dating site. You get to know a woman online, you like her very much, you get very excited about her being.. The One. You share everything with her, being honest and upfront about everything because you want her to make informed decisions regarding you. You daydream about her, imagining meeting her in-person and having romantic dates and asking her to marry you, and then.. you find out that.. she is living with another man, and that she is married to him.
How would you feel?
Imagine this happens to your 17-year-old, or your 12-year-old when they grow up.. how would you feel as their father?
Empathy is the ability to place yourself in someone’s else’s shoes and imagine what they may be feeling, and then to care about how they are feeling, not wanting them hurt. It’s about considering the likely emotional consequences of your words and actions on others, before you speak and act.
When you lied to Muns about your wife not staying with you anymore, your motivation was to keep Mun interested in you, to not lose her interest. You knew that the consequence of telling her the truth, would likely be that she’d withdraw from you. You didn’t want that consequence, so you lied to her. It may have crossed your mind that if she finds out that you lied, that the consequence- to her- would be that her feelings will be hurt. If that crossed your mind, you lied anyway because, for the moment, it served your interest: she showed real interest in you, lovely, warm messages, confessed her love, introduced her kids to you.
You told her that your intent was not deceit, and I agree that your primary motivation was not to deceive her. Deceit was just a.. means to an end.
You texted her to say sorry and asker her forgiveness and at the end you wrote: ‘Enjoy your day’. She got upset that you ended your text that way, saying it was insensitive of you- it was indeed insensitive. If you really felt regret for having hurt her feelings so badly, you wouldn’t think of ending your apology with wishing her joy.
You confronted her on text and “she was very mean“- if you had empathy for her, you would know that her anger was valid, not mean. You’d know that you owned the mean.
You ended your original post with: “Couple of questions that come to my mind is that she really loved me or she was trying to mold herself so that she can get married, she was looking at this as an opportunity?“- you are suspecting her of wrong intention, of being selfish, while there is no evidence- from what you shared- that she’s been selfish, while there is plenty of evidence that you own selfish.
2ndpost: “For the last 9 days I have been dying of guilt. I am not a person with these values, I have never lied or cheated ever…Â deep down I am kind, honest and my values are different“- this is how you presented yourself in your 2nd post, after being criticized by responders. No mention of dealing with guilt, let alone dying of guilt for the 1.5 months or so, following the lie (original post).
3rd post: “Manipulating Muns is a mean thing to say, I really respect her and feel for her”– manipulating Muns is not a mean thing to say to you. It’s a mean thing to do to Mun.
Mun told you (original post): âStay happy with your Corporate IQ â that’s all I can say“- she was referring to you being an IT Professional, I imagine, and she was suggesting that (big) corporations are.. heartless, and so are you.. Was that her message?
A bit about myself: I too suffered and made others suffer because of empathy-deficiency on my part. My empathy was specific to a few others, but lacking for most. I was too troubled, feeling too guilty inside to .. avail myself to everyday empathy. As a result, I lived a very lonely life. Decades later, now that I feel and express empathy for others, what a difference it is making in my life. My emotional experience of life has greatly improved. I highly recommend that like me, you too will adopt empathy as a way of life, one day at a time, in small ways and in big ways.
anita
June 19, 2024 at 11:48 am #434015TommyParticipantTommy â for the last 9 days I have been dying of guilt. I am not a person with these values, I have never lied or cheated ever.
Dear Abde,
I am sorry I could not find a kind word for you in your time of pain and looking for closure. If a man comes to me looking for some food then I should ne kind enough to give some food to the man. It doesn’t matter if the man was a cheat or liar even when they say they have never lied or cheated ever. (When your own words in your first post betray your actions!) The sun shines on everyone. Everyone will have pain. And so, I should have been kind. I am sorry. Please feel better and hope you can move forward.
I have spent the past month in meditation. Having spent much time with reflections and insights into myself. I think this is very good for people to go thru this kind of experience. When the revelation that we are really so insignificant in the universe comes upon us, we can realize that our lives are such a short piece of life as a whole. That to remain stuck in a mode or feeling that is wasteful of the time we have left in this world. Move forward. Namaste.
June 20, 2024 at 7:01 am #434049AnonymousInactiveHelcat – My apologies are well directed to Muns and my wife, I have mentioned this couple of times too. I am here to seek closure and thanks for all your feedback, really appreciate. The online messages will not portray the pain that i have gone through, at least doesnt seem like you acknowledge.
Anita – Nice attempt to draw out an attack against me, let me tell you. you were not successful. I have apologised to myself and Muns / my wife. The content written by you is full of inaccuracies and you have misinterpreted so many actions. While you have tried to show me the mirror but your claim of empathy is nowhere to be seen. This was a sure attempt to attack me personally. But I have still learned from this negativity, this has given me a different perspective. Thank you for this perspective.
June 20, 2024 at 7:02 am #434050AnonymousInactiveThanks Tommy. I will move on from this, learn from this experience and come out a much better person. I am looking forward towards the next phase of my life.
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