# The (painful) end of an emotional affair



## Qwertyuiop (Oct 18, 2009)

Lorna

After today, with any luck, you and I will never see each other again. What began four years and eleven months ago as a friendship between two well-meaning but emotionally vulnerable work colleagues has ended with one of us handing in his resignation. You will, I’m sure, be relieved to see the back of me, seeing as you have gone five months without even saying a word to me. But I suspect you won’t regard the last two years as particularly unpleasant. For me, they have been the worst of my life.

It is with an awful lot of anger that I’m writing this: destructive, primitive anger. But a lot of it, I suspect, is rooted in guilt, and I think I should deal with that first. 

How and why our friendship came apart so spectacularly is something I am still paying a very clever woman to help me come to terms with. I have lots of female friends, and for a time I thought you were just one more to add to the list. But our friendship pushed itself into a direction that was dangerous and exciting, like nothing I had ever known. For you, there was probably never any subtext to it, not even to the times we treated each other to lunch at a favorite restaurant; but for me, it made up for the high-school romances I never experienced. This much is certain: we flirted; we confided in each other; we texted each other every day. And it’s equally certain that I should have pulled away, from the moment I’d begun to think more about you than about my wife. Instead, I waited until you’d become an obsession, a cause of sleepless nights and intense sexual fantasies. I have paid dearly for this, Lorna, and there are still nights when I go to bed hoping not to see another sunrise. Nothing really happened between us; nothing we did together causes me any embarrassment or regret. But in my mind everything happened, and it still makes me feel awful to think about that now. 

What’s choking me, though, is anger, not guilt. Two years have passed since I told you of my inappropriate feelings and put and end to our lunches and texts; and for the past four months – once it became clear to you that I would no longer serve any purpose to you – you have not said anything more than hello to me. In pulling away, I did the right thing; yet I have been subjected to a punishment beyond any I have known. There is still a child-like part of me that refuses to see life as unfair, that believes good people are rewarded with good lives. Whether I am good is a matter of opinion, but I know I do not deserve the sort of environment that I am now being forced to work under. Two members of our six-person team are not on speaking terms with you; apart from that, everyone else gets on with each other. You’ll be aware of this, I’m sure; but I’m just as sure you’ll see yourself as the victim. 

And yet back in the day, when we went out for lunch, you left the third button on your blouse undone and leaned forward; at times, it was quite a show. To be fair, I suspect you weren’t even aware what you were doing: it was a subconscious act, as was the way you walked past me at my desk and placing your hand on my shoulder; and sent me text messages that ended with _oops, sorry, forgot I wasn’t supposed to text you anymore_. For any sentient male, there’s a seductive element to this kind of behavior; but because there was no seduction in it for you, you kept it going. In your relationships, the emotional boundaries are always set by yourself.

Before I met you, I didn’t even know what narcissism was; now I’m halfway through writing a novel about it. When I backed off from you, I confronted it head-on – and in particular the narcissist’s desire for revenge, your need to put yourself back on the pedestal I’d built just for you. Maybe I was a little too aloof; but was there any need to drag me into a private meeting with our boss and make an accusation of unprofessionalism that he refused point-blank to accept? And so you panicked, and tried to throw me under the bus. _I still have all those e-mails and texts you sent me_, you blurted through the tears. Sweet Jesus, what a side I saw to you that day – and yet it was completely predictable. Cross the narcissist at your peril. 

It’s hard for me to look past that, Lorna, though I suspect it didn’t take you long. But maybe I shouldn’t forget how pleasantly things had started, the long chats we had first thing in the morning when no one else was around, about the emotional stuff, the stuff that matters. And with this, you soon discovered that you weren’t sitting next to a confident, charming man, you were sitting next to someone in the middle of a major depressive episode. The more we talked, the more I wanted to confide in you, thinking that you cared. But narcissists can’t offer empathy; they merely view people like me with a fascination, because we experience emotions they have long boxed themselves off from. What was important to you, what cemented the relationship for you, was how wonderful I thought you were. _I’m not the woman I used to be_, you’d text me in the evening, knowing the flattering answer I, your smitten friend, would text back. But why couldn’t you tell this to your husband, Lorna? Why did you have to confide in me?

And so you led me on, without even knowing it, the yin and yang of two dysfunctional personalities. I kept wondering: what does she see in me? We have almost nothing in common, I’m twelve years older than you, and certainly I’m no match physically for the photo of George Clooney you’ve pinned to your desk. 

To my cost, I realized it too late. What you saw was yourself, the glorious reflection of you I had created. Of course you saved all those e-mails and texts about how attractive you I found you, how wonderful you were, how I’d found such a special friend. But let’s not forget you were having difficulties yourself: with your osteopath, remember? How his marriage was breaking up, and you thought you were being so helpful by taking him out to dinner, exchanging texts with him late into the night as he bared his troubled soul? He must have thought you were pretty wonderful, too. I told you to Google “emotional affair” but you refused to believe there was such a thing; how could you believe it, with that limited emotional capacity of yours? And when he realized he’d fallen for you (and sweet Jesus, he must have), he backed away just like I would do a year or so later. And all you wanted to do was take him to court for crossing some sort of professional line …

That seems a very long time ago now, the morning he drove you to tears and I ended up giving you a big hug in private and thought I’d become your best friend. Now I have realized that not only can we never be friends, but that we never really were. This is a big city, but it’s small enough that I might run into you one day, and at the moment that thought cannot be erased from my mind. I hope time and distance will change that to the point where I don’t think of you at all. But I suspect that day will never come, that all I have is physical distance to try to keep myself away from you.

Do I wish you well? If I’m honest, I don’t; I want you to hurt as badly as I do. Perhaps you do, perhaps even to the point where you still feel something toward me. But I can’t be thinking about that anymore. My attraction to you was less a function of your charm and physical beauty than problems with my own self-esteem and things that weren’t working in my own relationship. 

I have come a long way, Lorna – but I still have a long way to go.

Qwertyuiop


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Dude. You need to move on.


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## Lon (Jun 6, 2011)

qwerty, I hope you are just venting and needing a place to express this, and not actually intending for this recipient to read this? No good would comes from doing so.


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Yea....uh....I wouldn't say it's over. Seems to me it's just buying time and creating drama.


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## omega (Aug 2, 2011)

Please, please don't send this letter to anyone. You'll regret it later, and it will be too late. I speak from experience on this one


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## HerToo (Oct 3, 2011)

The end of an emotional affair is painful for the cheater from many angles. Most important is the pain that the cheater causes others. The loss of someone you actually thought you loved (OW or OM) is painful too. Even though it wasn't based in the reality of life, it still feels like a loss. But it's a loss worth having if the cheater wants to try and fix the damage done. 

Leaving the person's name in the letter was a little bit much though. But then again, you provided so much detail, I'm sure people can easily figure out who is who. 

Admit it, you screwed up too. Stop blaming her for the decisions you made. Get yourself some help, and encourage her to do the same.


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## Almostrecovered (Jul 14, 2011)

And I thought I was long winded
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## sigma1299 (May 26, 2011)

Almostrecovered said:


> And I thought I was long winded
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


:rofl:


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## FieryHairedLady (Mar 24, 2011)

Please just be venting here and dont send this to her. Besides if your wife were to see this she would be crushed. 

You are giving that gal way too much power. 

Move on, patch it up with the wife.


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## Soccerfan73 (Jul 30, 2011)

Well, you are certainly feeling what you are feeling. But it would be a big mistake to send that letter. Way too much power being given to the other woman. 

When I was divorcing from my wife after she cheated on me, I kept a journal of all my thoughts. Some of the letters I wrote to her were just like the one you wrote here. 

Now that I look back on it, I'm EXTREMELY glad I didn't ever send her any of them.


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## lordmayhem (Feb 7, 2011)

I can understand the need for closure, but there's no need to actually send this.


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## Qwertyuiop (Oct 18, 2009)

Not sending. Just venting. Sorry, it's been tough going.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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