In love still after 12 years...but married to another

Hi, this is long but bare with me...
I have been in love with the guy for the past 12 years, he is also the first man I ever slept with..the bad part being he has always been in a relationship and was also married once in the past 12 years. We have been together on and off in all these years, and for some reason I cant let him go! I have no idea why, it seems he feels the same..because I would assume he would of let me go by now ( as he has no problems in the ladies department) I recently married and all of a sudden he tells me how he feels...for the FIRST time ever..but says he doesn't want to come between me and my family (in general hes very quiet when it comes to feelings and opening up) What I'm confused about is, does he actually love me?? why is he not just forgetting about me?? could he possibly be playing me after all these years??
I was 15 when we slept together the first time and he was a 20.
Its not like me to be naive, I make responsible choices in all other aspects of my life..its just THIS! it eats me alive..I can erase him from my mind but not my heart for some reason. At times we go over a year without seeing each other...but thinking about him will always make me smile, I miss him so much...but right now have declined seeing him. Please help me sort this out!!!

You make menton that you just married. Do you not love your husband? Why would you consider seeing this guy again if you just married and love your husband? Why did you get married if you have loved this guy all along? It comes down to who do you love. Either stay faithful to your husband or get a divorce and be with this guy. It's a choice you have to make. Just because you have feelings for this man does not mean you have to act on them. You can put them in the past if you choose to. I've been in your shoes and it's not an easy place to be but it is a choice.

Hi Essiefisher
Welcome to Psych Central. You are in quite the predicament, but there must be a reason the two of you have never got together all these years. the big question is, why did he wait till after you were married to reveal how he feels about you? there is an excitement to be had in forbidden love that blinds one to all the negative consequences. why have the two of you never got together if you were meant to be? is he asking you to leave now to be with him? if so, make a pro/con list and choose carefully. if he is still only out for a fling, you need to consider the commitment you made to your husband and whether that is worth giving up should he find out. either way, you have to live with the consequences. choose where your happiness is going to lie. take care.

I think it is quite normal to have feelings and/or curiosities, but I agree with Gayle, if you are married do you not love your husband? Does he not love you? I know that I love my wife more than any other women out there, but that doesn't mean that I don't find others attractive, or think about times in the past. Because you never really dated or were in a serious relationship with this other man, you have filled in the gaps with assumptions about how the two of you would be together if you were or could. The assumptions you make will almost always be rosier than the reality.

I do believe it is possible to have feelings for more than one person, definitely, but you have to ask yourself, how would you feel if your husband loved another woman more than you?

My suggestion is to love your husband, unless there is some other reason not to, then you should confront him and tell him the truth.... otherwise just keep it to yourself and move forward. DO NOT SLEEP with this other guy!

This person put you in an extremely unfair position to tell you his feelings when he knew that you were now unavailable.

It also disturbs me that the first time you were together, he was an adult and you were still a minor.

honestly, he doesn't sound like a good person to be involved with.

Horrible behavior to play with your mind this way. You do not see it for what it is?

It is possible that seeing you married has evoked a feeling of being threatened in him - threatened that you might leave him altogether, and, feeling threatened and apprehensive of the possibility of losing you has, in turn, made him realize how deeply he feels for you, but he should have kept it to himself - he should not have burdened you with this twisted "love confession". Horrible behavior!!!

More likely, he is not even acting on the fear of losing you - he is just playing mind games with you. What is surprising is that you do not see it for yourself. You wrote that you are not naive, but you are being very naive. Look - if he truly did not want to come between your and your new husband, he would not have uttered his "love confession". Walking the walk and not just talking the talk, anybody? I think he is either being cruel, or, being extremely immature. In neither case does he love you - a cruel man cannot love you, and an extremely immature man has not developed the capacity for loving in the first place.

I think you did the right thing declining to see him.

sounds to me like you're between a rock and a hard place

I am sorry, but you are unbelievably naive.

You slept with him when you were 15 which was 12 years ago so you are 27 - an adult.

You are saying that his not having problems in the ladies department should have caused him to forget you. May I ask why so?

A guy has not told you he loves you while he has had ample time (12 years) to do so, and only told this when you got married, and you are still entertaining the possibility (illusion) that he might indeed love you?

It is incredibly naive on your part. If you indeed aren't naive in other areas of your life but just in this one area, it is almost as if he had put you under his spell.

you can not fully understand why he would tell you that now because you don't understand what's been going on for all these years. I'm not the one to judge but if I had to give you some advice just from what you've written I'd tell you to leave him in the past. He was too old to be having sex with you in the first place and that may have made you feel more of a woman than you really were which in turn gave you this silly idea that you were in love. And undoubtedly, you may have foolishly fell in love with him but if he loved you he would have been made his move. He's only saying that because he doesn't want to risk losing you, not because he cares for you. It's his big ego that he thinks with not his brain so leaving him alone is wise and moving forward with a man who loves you dearly will make your life so much better. That's if you can move forward. If not, don't hurt your husband by prolonging a relationship you know will never work out because of your feelings for another man. He doesn't deserve that. Choose wise and remember from a far diamonds and cubic zirconium both flash sparkly lights but only one will last forever.

thank you all for our words of advice!! I have no idea what my issue is with this man!! i know hes been unfair to me, i guess I just have no idea why he would do this with me?? doesn't make any sense. how do i move on from him, and not have such strong feelings?? I do love my husband..ive only ever loved these two men in my life.

he has never asked me to leave, we have never been together because he always lived his life (the age difference at the time) why would he just want a fling!! he has chances with tons of women..and we always end up arguing when we do meet up again, so really i can only say ive been a "hassle" so to speak.

I think of all the consequences, I think of EVERYTHING!! i rack my brain doing it..it causes me a lot of stress at times. I just wish I didnt feel this way about him, its crazy..I feel like ive never felt before when Im with him, or even when I just see him!! even though i know he has hurt me, and "played games" with me. I just dont know why he would be doing this..for this long..hes in his thirties now!! seems odd to me.

you won't be able to move on until you separate those issues completely:

1) that you have strong feelings for him
2) that you are trying to understand his motivation

the issues are not related to one another at all, with only one caveat - that you cannot comprehend his motivation makes him enigmatic - in your mind - that can fuel your strong feelings for him.

well you say that you rack your brain but it does not appear so because you continue lapsing in your logic.

you said:


So it follows that you love two men. That is more than one. So it is possible - you have proven it. Let us generalize from this finding - you have proven that it is possible to be interested in more than one man (this is a huge generalization because love is a very narrow, special case of being interested, but it is OK - we will generalize broadly).

While I do not believe that the guy from 12 years ago loves you, he clearly shows some interest in you. So you have proven to yourself that it is possible to show some interest in more than one man at once. Now turn the tables - would it be possible for him to show some interest in more than one woman at once?

...

And if so, why does it matter that

?

See?

Looks to me like you were his back up plan the entire time. Your devotion was obvious because you were a child when you 2 first met, so he read you like a book.

You were only ever involved with him when he was inbetween women no?

He never made a serious move toward a relationship with you no?

Yet when you get married he has a lightbulb moment?

Yeah, wreaks of back up plan.

Your devotion and naivity were easy to exploit and you were available when he wanted. So your marriage caught him off guard.

If he loved you, it would not have taken him 12 years, a string of woman and a husband for him to figure it out.

Your hang up with him? Not love. How can you love someone you don't know? You love the idea of him, you love the times you did spend together and your mind filled in the blanks. When in reality he's nothing like you imagine. You're hung up because he keeps coming back, you think that means he loves you when in essence that is not a good criterion to base anything on since he never actually came back for you. He came back for what you were willing to provide. Be it solace, comfort, sex or friendship. If he came back to you for you, you'd be married to eachother ages ago. Or atleast in some sort of relationship.

Mystery of hang up solved, enigma erased, now please direct your focus to the man you promised to love and cherish.