The other love interest

I have been with my childhood sweetheart since the age of 16 and we have now been together for 23 year, married for 19 years and have 2 lovely daughters aged 16 and 17.

I thought that we were fine, all of our friend use to look at us as the perfect benchmark as a couple should be. We both may have are little annoyances but nothing we could not have ever talked through and rectified, or so I thought. I was away in another country, which I only do once a year for a few days for my job. When I am away we always phone each other to talk, but this year the conversations were short and I asked what was wrong, after a lengthy conversation late at night I managed to finally get her to tell me what the problem was, basically it was us and she needed to think. The next morning I phoned her to try and make sense of it all and this time she let it all out.
She says that she loves me as a friend and father to our daughters but not a full whole body love she should feel for a husband, and that she does not want to be with me any more and that she has felt like this for 18 months.
When I get back she takes me somewhere to talk and proceeds to tell me it all again and this time question her for more details. The final straw was when I stopped helping around the house as much and on the computer till late, and this I do not deny, But she has been staying up till late to do her OU course work, but then bombshell.
18 months ago she bumped into someone that she fancied when she was 14 but as she put it “never went there”, they went over old times and met up a few more times over the next 15 months but over the last 3 months they would meet up more to just talk over her and his problems as he was in a rocky relationship. She now admits that she loves him but he wants to work out his relationship and does not love her but will be her close friend. It hurts me to think that she could confide in him our problems instead of in me, where it actually mattered and could be resolved together. I have felt that she was my soul mate and that I would do anything to make things right. But she says it is too late and regardless of what I did would not change the way she felt for him. She knows that the love with him is only one way but she says that she would rather be happy in a flat on her own than live a lie with me, she says that it would upset her too much to know it was upsetting me. So leaving me doesn’t I guess? It turns out that her feelings for me changed 18 months ago when he came on the scene, which she even cannot understand as we were happy then.
She is also now meeting up with some of his friends with piercings and strong makeup and they think that him and her would be great together. When she is with me I see a new cold side to her and everyone that knows us says that it is not the women they know, it is if she is trying to relive her teenage years with this new group of friends and that they too do not know what she is doing.
We are still in the same house and sometimes I get to see the warm woman I new and a glimmer that we could try again, but then she confides in her new friends and I get the same cold response that its over. She cries too but says it is because she knows that it is tearing me apart. I would understand if we gave it a go and failed but I am not even being given the option. All she wants is the sell up and live on her own, which is fine for her as she earns twice what I do and the children want a base with both of us, but on my wage I cannot see that happening.

All of our close friends now know and are all in shock. We have talked more and both are unable to understand why she fell for him, as 18 months to up to the last few months we were both very happy especially over the last 23 years. What hurts is that if he does make a go of his relationship, she says that she could not come back to me as we would not have what we originally had, that regardless of whether she was with him she would still love him.

She still says that if I am unable to cope that its too upsetting, she has a friends she can stay at, but she would rather not. I am so confused and I know that it is a decision that only I can make, I would love tell her to go, and to see if being on her own would change things but she seems so adamant about what she want, I think that I would then lose her as a friend.
She has contacted a solicitor on our behalf to start to get things sorted but we do not want the potential he said/she said and letters flying around, can we be jointly advised as this is what we both agree on as we want to stay close friends.

Sorry for the rant but I needed to speak to someone

Hi Soulmate,
I'm so sorry for the predicament her life cloices have placed you in.
I hear there is something called collaborative law that a small number of solicitors firms practice; it is supposedly less adversarial, but there are also some draw-backs so it is worth researching.
Also you will probably both be encouraged to try mediation which is a voluntary process that can cut the solicitor's bills and get to agreement quicker. It isn't legally binding, but some courts set a lot of store by it.

I am sure from what you write that you would try couple counselling, but I doubt that she would. Still it's a suggestion I suppose.

I wish you, and all of us, luck on this rocky road. I think most of us seem to find a place of peace at the end of it all.

sorry to hear your story, to put it bluntly she sounds very very selfish, i wouldn't trust a word of what she's saying. You have got to start thinking about yourself as your wife obviously thinks only of herself & not the impact it will have on you & your children. Her tears are guilt,don't for a minute think they are out of pity for you.

Apart from the former sweetheart, your story is chillingly familiar. We were together 22 years, married 14 and have 3 children. I really feel for you at the moment, but I have to agree with Jay - Think about you and your children's future. It takes two to make a relationship, but only one to break it. If your wife has made the decision, wild horses are not going to turn back the clock. For me, the next step was all about damage limitation - Whatever the outcome, you are still both parents to your children, and their lives will be much better for having two parents that sing from the same hymn sheet and get on, albeit in different houses. Don't do anything that might jeapordise that. But look after your needs too. As to reconciliation, if it happens, great, but nothing you say or do right now will help that process - only time will tell. Get used to the idea of living a separate life - God it hurts, but only time will help that. Remember that the hurt that you are going through right now will alter the way you see and feel about your wife and you may feel very differently about her in six months time. She has had 18 months to set out her stall and get her feelings and emotions in order - you are playing a monstrous game of catch up. Good luck, whatever you decide to do and remember that it wasn't you that decided to pull the plug! A Fait Acomplis is a tough one to face

Hi Soulmate. Soulmate is just a word mate like betrayed and ditched. The last two words mean somthing. There are no soulmates. She is not your soulmate. If she was then she would not have done this to you. To be brutaly honest she got bored. She got to a certain age and her tits started to sag a bit and so on. Now along comes this bloke she had a fling with years ago and sweeps her off her feet. Her new friends who are ever so fasionable love to stir the sh1t and fu** her life up. Its good fun knocking down a 20 storey building and they just love it. So they fuel the fire.

How do I know this? Cos it happned to me. My ex hit 40. Her mum died. All her mates hated that she was in a succesful relationship and had it all. So when the fat coach driver came along she was swept off her feet. Her mates wanted to knock down the great big building that had been around for ages and stuck the knives in. Me I was happy as a pig in sh1t. I didnt see it coming.

I suspect you didnt see it coming as well.

Let me tell you another thing. People have the habit of making the history match up with the current event. What I mean by this is that she was happy and content. Her bits started to fall off but hey thats OK. Then along comes this twat and sweeps her up. Her new found mates stick the old knives in and she thinks to herself I have been unhappy for __ (insert a value here) years. She gives you the good news while you are away so that you cant do her. Her mates say to her "you can milk this bloke and still keep the new guy" And this is what she is doing.

Now nobody is realy totaly absolutly heartless. Even Hitler liked his dog. She cries becuase she is guilty. She is also trapped by events. She has no choice but to see it thru. Not you not me not the man in the moon will change her mind. The die is cast.


My advice to you from someone that had a supposed soalmate and all that bullshit is to ride the rollercoaster. Keep the moral high ground. Think of yourself and your kids. Sort your future out and get what you can.

One last tip. Buy some fish before you leave and stick it behind the radiator. Chris.

Chris, you were brutal, but you summed it up perfectly.

We have talked more about our life together and tried to get some answers out of the confusion. She admits that she is unsure as to when it all started to go wrong. We are actually now getting on quite well but she says that she could never love me how she use to, and even though "he" is trying to make his relationship work, and she may never ever be with him, she still loves him.
I have his e-mail address, mobile number and would love to give him my side in all this, to see how much he really knows how she feels about him, but my extb says that it would confuse things in his relationship, especially if his other half found out. (do I care)The knock on effect would probably be that I would then lose my extb as a friend.

It tears me apart to think that if only I had not taken our love for granted, I may have possibly seen the gap growing between us. I still wish she had come to me sooner when it could have made a difference instead of confiding in him.
The problem we face now is that nether of us can afford to move out until the house is sold, and that in itself causes problems. What we will get out of the house sale and what we earn means that we will both have to rent, especially me as I earn half what she does and the children want to stay with both of us.
It also pains me that, towards new people I am quite shy, all of my friends are "our" friends that are all married, so for me meeting someone else is going to be hard.