No future, living in limbo

Madly in love…very confused…. I am a 44 year old, very active female that was married at the age of 18 to my high school sweetheart. We were married for 25 years. My husband, Tom, suffered from depression and bi-polar diseases all his adult life. His disorders got better as the years went on as medicines improved and he had a very good psychiatrist. But, he still spent many days in depression, just not severe. He also had issues with insomnia that would sometimes last for months and then go away. As the years went on, I ended up taking care of all of our financial and day to day issues because he could only share these chores when he was in an upward trend. I have an alpha personality, so instead of waiting for his moods to change, I would take over tasks to the point that Tom really did not have to worry about day to day issues. Tom was a farmer as a boy and after we got married, continued to farm and also drove an oil truck in the winter time. He had jobs as a tractor trailer driver (owned his own for a while), a concrete mixer driver and still continued to farm on the side. I was a teacher for 15 years and together Tom and I ran an equine facility for boarding, training, showing and breeding horses for about 18 years of our married life. During the last 8 years of my life, I became a Technology Specialist for a school system and Tom actually started to work with me about 5 years ago and went from a truck driver/farmer to a computer technician all on his own. This job helped his self-esteem, which I should mention, was always on the low side both of his intelligence and his looks. He was both intelligent and good looking, but did not see himself that way. We were fortunate to become financially secure in the years after selling the equine facility and did not have the financial burdens that many people suffer from. We sold our farm and moved to my mom’s farm as she had a big house and lived by herself (my dad died in 1993). This allowed us to keep an eye on her as she is getting a bit older and we were able to build a cottage on a creek. I still raise dogs on my mom’s farm. We also did not have children because of my husband’s disorders. We were worried that his being a father would be difficult as he could not always predict his moods and that would not be fair to a child. We were both fine with this decision. Tom was a very personable person when he was in a good mood and everybody liked him. He was funny and polite. What people did not realize about him was that when he was not in a good mood, he would retreat so that no one would be around him. Only a few people saw the other side of him. When he was in a good mood, he was also very affectionate to me, but when he wasn’t, he didn’t want to talk to be touched and just wanted to be left alone. For years, especially in the beginning, I took all of this personally and felt that I had done some to make Tom mad and put him in a bad mood. I learned, as the years went by, that for the most part, it was not me that caused the moods, but Tom’s chemical imbalances. But, as the years went on, I began to feel somewhat cheated in that I felt I was always “waiting” for the good moods, so that we could merge into the “life” lane. I found patience by reading and have read books by the bagsful. I don’t know if the time came that I was going through a mid-life crisis, but I started to feel like life was passing us by and we were not really living. Also to mention, because of Tom’s disorders, we ended up not having many outside friends. Many times, people would ask us to functions or dinners or such and Tom would not want to go either because he wasn’t in the mood, or he just didn’t want to be around a lot of people. As years went by, Tom and I became very isolated. We really were best friends to each other as we didn’t have others close to us and we worked together. Really, we did everything together. Around April of 2009, I was having some back and shoulder problems (nothing new, I work around the farm a lot and end up with a lot of aches and pains). There was a new salon in town that offered massages. I started going about 2 times a month and the massage therapist was able to help me quite a bit with my problems. “Carl” and I struck up a friendship as he was a very caring, knowledgeable person. I was very drawn to him for many reasons. He spoke about all of the adventurous things that he had done in his life. It made me start thinking more about what Tom and I were missing by not getting out and trying new things. Carl was also very good to talk to about my relationship with Tom as he had suffered from some depression and bi-polar all of his life and actually took several of the same medications that Tom did. I found out that I could talk to Carl about just about anything. He was very helpful and trying to help me “motivate” Tom to get out and do more things. Our 25th wedding anniversary was coming up in late July, so I convinced Tom to go on a short cruise to Cozemel, Mexico. Neither of us had been on a cruise together. Needless to say, I was very excited and felt that Tom was also. I was hoping that I could instill some life back into our lives. On the cruise, I became very disheartened as most of the time, Tom would not want to get out and about. He would want to stay in the room. I was torn between staying with him and wanting to get out and see everything. I felt cheated from not being able to do all of the things that a cruise offers. I think that this was the beginning of the end of my patience with him. I wanted more out of life. I was only 43 and did not want to sit on the sidelines for the rest of my life. I tried to talk to Tom about how I felt. He did not seem to listen. Discussions continued with Carl and over the next few months, and we discussed his life more and more. He had a very difficult childhood with alcoholic and sometimes abusive parents. He married young, had 2 children, now grown. He divorced that wife as he caught her cheating on him. He did stay with her for several years after the incident in order to keep the home together for the children. After that, he was already friends with his second wife. She was getting out of an abusive marriage and had 2 very young children. Carl fell in love with her and made a commitment to marry her and raise her 2 children as his own. That was 12 years ago and the children are now 18 and 15. One just went to college and the other is in high school. Carl confided to me that his wife worked long hours, hardly talked to him and he felt that he was just the handyman and rule enforcer in the house. He felt that she “loved” him because she depended on him, much like Tom depended on me. Carl and his wife had not even had a sexual relationship in quite some time. The boys were off on their own most of the time doing teenager things. In the later part of 2009, we continued to see each other as friends and for me to get regular massages. Neither of us wanted to admit that we had fallen in love with each other as we were committed to our spouses and did not want anyone to get hurt. I looked forward to my, now weekly, massages so that I could spend time with Carl. At some point in the late fall, we finally admitted to each other how we felt. But, we both swore that nothing could come of it as we both “loved” our spouses and never wanted to hurt them. Then, as anyone would guess, our relationship turned into a sexual one. Also, as we learned more and more about each other, we discovered how much of a perfect match we were for each other; intellectually, spiritually, sexually, in our sense of humor, in our dreams. BUT, we both kept telling each other that we had to not hurt our spouses and we both did try to rekindle our love at home in hopes that that would take us away from our forbidden love and send us back where we belonged. Both of us made a committed effort to this, but we both failed. Around mid-March of 2010, Carl declared that he was going to leave his wife. They already had 2 homes as his wife had a house in the city and he had a family home closer to me on the water. They had been spending a lot of time apart in the year before I met him and even more after I met him. He felt that his wife no longer loved him and the boys had their own interests and ignored him most of the time. Even at this point, he kept telling me that I could not leave my husband. He knew that Tom did love me, he just couldn’t function in a normal relationship. As a tangent, in the course of our marriage, there had been a couple of times where Tom was at the point of committing suicide. I had seen him put a gun to his head at least 2 times and he took a great deal of pills one time. Carl and I discussed that even if I wanted to leave Tom, there was a possibility that he would actually commit suicide. We discussed the idea of “could we live with ourselves if I left Tom and he did this?” For about a week, we struggled with what to do. We knew that we wanted to be together, but how could we hurt our spouses? On the evening of Friday, March 26th, we were in our cottage and Tom happened to hear my phone receive a text. I was upstairs sleeping and he checked my phone thinking it was from a friend that I had texted earlier in the evening. I was from Carl and was just personal enough to make Tom suspicious. He then went through my phone and found a couple of more texts that clued him into the fact that there was something going on between the two of us. Early Saturday morning, he confronted me with the evidence. I did not lie. I told him that I was tired of living the way I was and that I had met someone else. I had actually made the decision to tell Tom late the night before. I wasn’t sure about how to go about it, but I knew I couldn’t live with myself by lying to him any longer. To make a long story short and not give a lot of details, Tom left and went pretty crazy and on Sunday morning, we met to talk. He asked me to give him another chance and I said I could not go back to the person I was. He then committed suicide with a gun to his head right in front of me. His last words were, “you did this to me”. Needless to say, I was a reke. Carl came and got me and on that same day, told his wife that he was leaving her. Carl’s wife then went crazy and seemed to have no idea that there had been problems between them and proceeded to profess her great love for him. Over the course of the next few months, we tried to survive the emotional fallout. In addition to Carlisle’s wife having an almost total emotional breakdown, the 2 boys became aware of the conflict and proceeded to begin to act out and get in trouble. In this time, Carl found out that his wife did indeed love him very much as well as the 2 boys. Now, Carl is in a bind because of the commitment that he made to his wife and the 2 boys and his love for me. There is no question of his love for me. I do not doubt that. The problem is that if he now leaves his wife, he will forever feel a guilt for not fulfilling his commitments. We have talked almost daily about his feelings and in desperation, I told him to go back and try to make his marriage work. I thought that the only way for our relationship to ever survive would be for him to find out that the other was over for sure. In the meantime, I have been in counseling for the emotional guilt that I have been suffering because of what Tom did. It has taken several months and many discussions for me to realize that my marriage was not a normal relationship and that I was the one doing all the work because of Tom’s problems. I have come to terms with this somewhat. I’m sure it will haunt me for the rest of my life. The visual images are still very graphic and I have a hard time sleeping most nights. Five months later, this is where we are: About 3 weeks ago, Carl told his wife that he was going to come back to the marriage and try to make it work. He and I decided that we were such good friends and really the only people that know the whole story of “us”, that it would be difficult to not have ANY contact. We decided that we would be just friends. The only problem is that if we do not see each other for a couple of days or talk every day, we start to go crazy. We were not going to have sexual contact, but that didn’t last very long. Now, Carl is lying to his wife about seeing me. I have asked him over and over how this is “trying to make his marriage work”. In our discussions, I get the feeling that he hopes that his wife will make the decision herself that the marriage is over. She no longer trusts him. He told her months ago just how he really feels about me. He told her he could not just turn these feeling off. I feel that Carl has such a fear of hurting her now, that he will never be the one to end the marriage. I know deep in my heart that he wants to be with me, but he was always such and true and honest person that he cannot go back on his promises now that he knows that his wife really loves him. We now fight every day. I feel that he has changed and I am losing respect for him because he still lies to his wife even though he told her they would try to make the marriage work. Here is my dilemma: I love Carl with a love that I never thought could exist. We really are soul mates. Others may scoff at that, but I know it is true. He does feel the same way. But, I know the kind of man he is or was and his sense of decency may keep him in his marriage. I have asked many times…”at what point will you decide if the marriage will work”? He does not seem to know the answer to this. He may end up staying with his wife. I am at the point, and I have told him this, that I would rather he just tell me it is over with us so that I can move on with my life. He cannot tell me this because we both know that we cannot spend more that a day or so away from each other. We have tried. What do I do? I know that even if I had never met Carl, I am better off out of my marriage with Tom. I know I was slowly dying inside. I just wish that had not ended as it had. His suicide has caused a lot of pain to me and his family. I want a lot of things in my life. I want a partner to share my hopes and dreams. I know that I cannot be a “mistress” in Carl’s life forever. I am not that kind of person. On the other hand, I know what his leaving has done to his wife and the 2 boys. I have no wish to cause pain in their lives. I feel like I have no future right now. I am living in limbo.

You have a future because you are alive. Tom decided how he wanted to live his life, chemical imbalances or not. He was the one who killed himself. He was not willing to deal with his problems, and he cheated himself out of having a life. There are certain problems that we individuals have that cannot be fixed by someone else. If we don’t deal with those problems in effective ways, then it takes its toll. In your life, you need to look for what is best for you, because it seems like you have been neglecting a part of yourself. You feel unfulfilled, and it goes beyond what Carl or anyone can do for you. In fact, the only one who can solve this feeling of limbo is you because your life needs to be happier. You need to find something that you can do that is only about you, so that you can say “This is what I can do. Despite everything that has happened, no matter what, I am here, and I want to be the best person I can be.” Carl has commitments that he does not want to compromise for you. You are not a mistress, and you deserve better than this. THE IDEA OF SOULMATES: If Carl and you are truly soulmates, then Carl would have to have you in his life publicly and privately, regardless of the fallout. There would be no way around it. Now, I’m not talking about ideals or fairy tales, I’m talking about what you deserve and what you should have since you feel that Carl is your soulmate. I, too, believe that I have a soulmate, and I hope to meet him someday. But you can get so caught up in that idea that you neglect yourself and end up hitting rock bottom. If you are at rock bottom, there is something wrong and you must do something to get out of it. While Carl is figuring out what he wants to do, do the things you have always wanted to do. Set goals and make them happen. You don’t need Carl in order for you to solve your own problems. As for Carl, he should not neglect his kids, but I think it would be better for him to divorce his wife if he is only with his wife to spare her feelings. If he is in a marriage just because of his obligations, then it is not a marriage at all. It’s just a business contract, really. That hurts his kids more than breaking up, and it hurts all involved, including you. PLEASE THINK ABOUT YOURSELF: Think about you for a minute. If you can’t take being a mistress, don’t put yourself in that situation. If Carl really loved you, he wouldn’t put you in that situation. I mean, shouldn’t he be committed to you? NOW THINK ABOUT OTHERS: If he really cared about his wife and his kids, he wouldn’t live a lie. He would do whatever he could for them, and that would not change if he divorced his wife. At the same time, he would treat you right. BOTTOM LINE: Carl has not changed at all, what he does (good or bad) is a part of who he is. Everything he does is a part of who he is. You may not agree, and that’s okay. But be clear about what you want. If the “other woman” thing is not working for you, leave Carl for good, mean it, commit to it, make a future for yourself. Go live your life, regardless of what Carl decides to do. And if he ever decides to treat you like a life partner should be treated, then you two can be together as soulmates should be. TILES P.S. The life you had with Tom will always be a part of you. Look to the happier times. Life is not hopeless. Reflect on your life and see what you can improve. That may help you more than anything.

Tiles: Thank you so much for your in-depth response. I am thinking about what defines me. Since I was 8 years old, I lived and breathed horses. I started showing and spent the next 28 years immersed in this life. I really burnt out on that I don’t want to go back to the life of horses as it is too expensive and I guess I just don’t want to do that anymore. But, in looking back, I see that the horse show life did define me most of my life. When I got out of it, Tom got a nice boat and he got into fishing. I was fine with that. As long as I was outside doing something and on the water, I was happy. The problem was that with his moods, the trips out fishing were few and far between. I was told by my grief counselor to find things that interest me. I am finding a hard time with that. I really am an independent person, or so I thought, but I’m finding out that I want to share what I do with someone else. Even when I am watching TV at night, I want to turn to someone and discuss a show or share a laugh at something on the tube. I am trying to notice other women that live alone and see how they live. It’s not at all that I need to depend on a man to do things for me. I don’t. I am a farm girl and can hook up farm equipment, work on fences, birth puppies and horses, etc. I just really want the companionship of someone that wants to share their life with me, both in work and play. Another thing that I really enjoyed in life was line dancing. I did that because Tom would never dance with me. I was part of a group that did performances at country county fairs. I really loved the music, the fellow dancers and the challenge of many and complicated dances. I would love to do this again, but unfortunately, line dancing has gone out of style. Most other dances require a partner, so thus, again, I need someone to go with me. Also, I live way out in the country where opportunities for social gatherings are limited. A couple of weeks ago, I actually did tell Carl that I was out of his life. It almost killed me. I had made the decision that if he couldn’t commit to me, then I needed to move on. (This is going to sound like a soap opera…) (Another tangent…maybe 6 weeks ago, I actually called Carl’s wife and we have had 3 long conversations about Carl. I know, sounds crazy. In another life, I think we could be good friends. Anyway, I wanted to talk to her and see what she had to say. Did she really love him as much as Carl thought? And, the answer was Yes.) Anyway, apparently, the morning after I told Carl that I was out of his life, he caught his wife snooping on his phone. He got a bit mad and threw the phone on the floor and it broke. He left from her house and went to his house. Later that evening, I got a text from his wife stating that even if he was with me, she needed to know that Carl was ok. Could I please let her know because she couldn’t get a hold of him and was worried. I told her that I had not had any communication since the day before when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. But, since I was closer to his house than she, I would ride over there to see if he was ok. I did and he was ok. But then we started talking again and from then on, we have not been able to stay away from each other. Carl is going to see his psychiatrist today, whom he has a lot of respect for. He is going to lay everything out and see what the doctor says. He seems to think that the doctor will give him good advice. I am going to let him read what you wrote also. I think both of us feel the same way and already know what you said, but it is good to see that someone else sees it as we do. In talking to him yesterday, I understand that his greatest fear is that he will have to hurt someone and he does not want to hurt either of us. But, it is going to have to happen. We cannot go on as we are. I will try hard to think about myself and what will make me happy not as a couple, but as an individual. I guess, since I was married for so long, I always saw myself as part of a pair. It’s hard after all that time to change gears. Again, thank you so much for the time that you took to write to me. It really means a lot.