[Anonymous]

April, I hope you can help this probably doomed relationship. I am 50 (unhappily married), dating a man 40 (also unhappily married) for almost a year now. Our relationship happened after we had known each other casually for about a year, neither of us ever having had thoughts of an affair before. It was the most joyous, fun, passionate, loving, surprising and exciting relationship I have ever experienced, both of us for that matter, for the first 9 months, and we have very different personalities and needs. I am an emotional person and need emotional reassurance from time to time to feel secure in a relationship. What helps me achieve that is communication, and his emails and texts numerous times a day to talk about what he was doing made me very secure without him having to do anything special. He is not that outwardly emotional, sometimes very detached and can seem very cold, and needs space and alone time periodically, but it had never been an issue until a couple months ago. He needed to be completely focused on a work project and told me it was going to take up the weekend, Fri., Sat., Sun. This was the first time he had ever been that busy since we had started seeing each other. I thought I would be perfectly fine with that and could handle not seeing or communicating much, since I knew what was coming. I WAS fine until day 4, then day 5, having sent numerous messages yet receiving no replies. My emotions immediately went crazy, I lost my security and I snapped. I sent a panicked message asking if he was trying to push me away because he wouldn’t answer my messages. He did send a message stating that he had no intentions of that, and he had just needed to keep focused. He then got really scared and shoved his feelings behind that fear, thought he didn’t know who I was after all and knows he can’t handle a needy, clingy, weak partner. I couldn’t stop being clingy and needy in my messages because I “needed” my emotions nurtured, all the while he needed to back away and could give none. Since that time, he has made many requests to try to help ease his fear of this happening again. He has asked me to show a little less “need” by keeping my messages less emotional, and in the past 2 weeks, said that he feels we had lost some of our important friendship by focusing on the love part of our relationship, and waned to try to focus on getting that back without the emotions of the “relationship” involved, suggesting that we go out to lunch, meet to play pool, etc., but he does not want to be intimate right now thinking the emotions would cloud his thinking, so we do not kiss nor have sex. He says he doesn’t want to walk away, that he still has the same feelings for me but needs to know he has nothing to fear. I know I love this man tremendously and feel the relationship is worth it and am willing to try this, but since the request, I am the one who has to intitiate the communication. We did see each other one evening in the past 2 weeks, but throughout that period of time, he only responds to my messages, never initiates contact and makes no plans to see me unless I ask. I don’t want to walk away, but I know I am emotionally taxed right now and can’t keep this up much longer. He has been withdrawing his feelings a little bit every week for the last 2 months in response to my increased need. We seem to be in a viscious cycle and I just don’t know what to do. I have tried withholding communications for as much as 4 days, but then my “need” kicks in and I have to message him. We have talked so much about all this for the last 2 months, but talking has not had any success. It feels like I am pushing him farther away every time I “slip up” and say something about “us” or express that I miss him. Can you help me?

[Ask April Masini]

Your boyfriend is ending the affair with you, and he’s doing it gradually so as to avoid an emotional drama. He no longer feels the two of you are compatible, and it’s no use arguing with him. He’s made up his mind.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I think it may help you to hear this.

What’s really the problem here is not your boyfriend or your marriage. The real problem is that your need for attention, communication, intimacy and connection is not being met. It’s not being met by your husband and it’s not being met by your boyfriend. If you can get this need met, you won’t be uncomfortable, unhappy and panicked.

You haven’t really said why you’re unhappy in your marriage, but my guess is that you don’t want to do the work required to get your needs met in the marriage. And you don’t want to do the work to end your marriage and try to get your needs met outside of the marriage with someone who’s ready and willing to be with you the way you want.

My prescription for your happiness is to roll up your sleeves, and do the work that most people don’t want to do. It’s easy to see that a snowy walk has to be shoveled in order to walk it comfortably and safely. It’s easy to see a task your boss hands you needs to be done in order to continue to be employed. What is less easy for many people to see is that making relationships work is just as much work, and the same intensity of work as shoveling a snowy walk or completing a work project! The structure of work in relationships, however, isn’t always as clear, and the pitfalls of not doing the work are equally invisible for many people.

Since you already know that your needs are intimacy and communication, you have to find a way to get those needs met. The easiest place to do that work is in the marriage you already have! But to do that work you have to face your fear of discomfort and find a way to sit down with your husband and talk to him about what you miss in your marriage, why you married him in the first place, and what you’d like to have happen now.

One talk isn’t going to do it. It’s going to be a process to get your feelings across to him — especially if you haven’t [i]really talked [/i] in a while. You’re also going to have to practice listening and hearing your husband’s thoughts and concerns about why your needs aren’t being met, and what’s going on with him. Again, this is a process, and if you think it’s going to be easy or “candy-like” in enjoyability, you’re mistaken. It’s work. Treat it as work. And do it! 😉

You’re going to have to practice spending time with your husband during which you can get your needs met. You may have to schedule date nights during the week, and while it may feel forced and cumbersome, it’s a way to start getting to know each other, enjoying each other, and taking care of each others’ needs. You’ve probably been having a “silent divorce” within your marriage where you don’t communicate or even care about each others’ needs for some time now. It’s time to bridge that gap and reconnect with him.

Next, find common projects that you and your husband mutually enjoy. They may be giving dinner parties together, re-decorating a room or taking on a home improvement project, planning a trip — or something else that you both will like doing. Then do it together.

Try texting your husband multiple times a day, and ask him to text you back. Send him the e-mails, give him the phone calls and get the reciprocal communication from him that you have wanted and not gotten for some time, from your lover.

If you find that there is no reason to stay in your marriage, and just can’t do what I’m suggesting above, then you have to (once again) roll up your sleeves and start divorce proceedings so that you can accept your failed marriage, get divorced, and be single and available to find love, romance, companionship and intimacy with a man who is ready, willing and available! For someone who is afraid to do work, or who is too lazy to do work, divorce is going to seem super scary. My point is that you’re going to be unhappy in your marriage if you don’t do the work, and unhappy and scared as a divorcee if you don’t do the work. So while the relationship work may seem distasteful to you, it’s the lesser of all possible evils right now. And besides — once you get over your work-phobia, you may even find life long happiness as as result!

Either way, I’m asking you to accept the reality that your lover is leaving you and it’s time for you to accept your needs and get them met.

I hope that that helps. The holidays are a wonderful time to start fresh and focus on renewing your life and giving it the jump start it sounds like it’s needed for some time now.

😀

[Anonymous]

April, I do thank you for your reply and advice, however, I am just so confused by what my boyfriend has said, that it seems I would be making a mistake to believe he wants out and walk away myself. I, not so long ago, opened the door wide for him in a very calm, unemotional way and made it very easy for him to walk away from the relationship then. He seemed very upset that I thought that was what he wanted and he told me he did not want to walk away and did not want me to give up on us.

[Ask April Masini]

You are the only person who is making yourself confused. You are doing it because you don’t want to accept reality. Here are the facts:

1. He doesn’t want to kiss you.

2. He doesn’t want to have sex with you.

3. He hasn’t contacted you in 2 weeks.

You can twist the facts in your head to make yourself believe he’s still there for you, all you want. The reality is you’re both married to other people, and he is afraid you are going to make drama and put his marriage in jeopardy. He’s breaking up with you, and that’s the bottom line. You knew it, deep down, when you wrote me, and I want you to understand the reality so you can help yourself — realistically.

Your “confusion” and denial of the facts are the same behavior that has kept you in this relationship and brought you to write me because you are scared he’s “quickly drifting away.” You’re right. He is. And your fear is the problem you need to deal with. That fear comes not from this particular man drifting away, but from your needs for attention not being met by this man, or by your husband.

Focus on you. Focus on your needs — and not the derivative need of keeping this guy on the hook, but your REAL needs for security, communication and intimacy. Those are needs everyone has to some degree. Respect yourself by taking care of yourself. You can do it — but if you keep pulling the wool over your eyes, you’ll stay in the same pattern you’re in.

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