This question is going to take me a loooooong time to ask and explain. I will try very hard to simplify. I am afraid that I already know what most of you will say, but here goes...

10 years ago or so in high school I was on again/off again with this guy I- I will call him Ben... he and I had a "friends with perks" kind of relationship. It was nothing real substantial... in fact I was more like a "booty call" to him for a while. But for two young kids, I guess I didn't see anything wrong with us not committing to each other or "talking" about our true feelings.
We went on to college, and it just so happened that he and I went to the same college. When we attended orientation together, he signed up for ALL the same classes as me. I couldn't believe he wanted to be around me THAT much.

Our first semester there was weird. It was fun, and we enjoyed eachother's company... but we still hadn't taken whatever it was we were - to the next level. We remained this unofficial thing - friends who hung out, spent lots and LOTS of time together, slept together... and just enjoyed being around each other. Now I don't know if it was the fear in both of us that we didn't want to admit what we felt, if it was a combination of relationship phobia... or what. But the lack of our talking ended in jealousy and ultimately us going our separate ways. I met a different guy there in college, I will call him Tim. I could definitely sense the jealousy in Ben - but again there was nothing there to stop me. My relationship with Tim caused me and Ben to become estranged. We stopped talking and it was altogether not a good situation. By the end of our first year in college, I had completely stopped talking to him. I soon found out that he was going to be moving, his parents had moved out of state - several states away, and he felt he had no reason to stay - so he thought he should relocate as well.

I accepted this and over time I swallowed some pride and called him. We made a mends and started having late night long conversations... meanwhile I was still dating Tim.
I finally decided to go out to visit Ben, so I could see if what we had was real... when I did, it still was just the same thing. We had fun together and there were definitely sparks... but we had a hard time defining that. So I came home with nothing accomplished. Tim was waiting there for me, and I felt that I needed to commit more to him. I placed Ben on the back burner. A few months later... I GOT PREGNANT with Tim.
I faced the reality that Tim was "the one" and it was time to be done with Ben. But still, I could not leave behind my feelings that were so strong and real with him. When I told Ben the news, he too was shocked and he was not supportive of me having it. I went on to have the baby and soon enough almost a year later I was going to marry Tim. I called Ben and told him the news and he told me I was dumb for marrying him, that he didn't like him and that it wasn't a good idea. He asked me if I would still come visit him when I was married... (he was kidding - I think). I let Ben go for a while after that... but then - a year or two later, I began contacting him again. When I did, he would say things to me - such as, "Oh I can hear your baby in the background, I bet he wishes I was his daddy"... and "I'm not with anyone, I am waiting for you....your marriage is based on circumstances.." and last but not least... when I said I was looking for closure he said "you wont get closure with us....you can't get closure"

So it was an unsaid thing, these feelings between us. And it became an "every-few-months" thing where I would call him or email him. I never actually admitted my feelings... it was more just casual hellos. That was until a year ago... exactly ONE YEAR AGO from this week. Last year just before Easter I sent Ben a letter. I could not handle these feelings inside me. Days would go by where I would fantasize about seeing him... I would think about him all day and dream about him at night. It almost became an obscession.

In the letter I told him that even though my husband is not a bad guy, in fact he is a good guy and a wonderful father... but I am IN LOVE WITH Ben! I said it... I finally came out with it. I told him in the letter that if he is serious with someone else, or doesn't feel the same about me... not to respond. I just needed to get it off my chest. Well, he responded. And we talked... at first it was very awkward... you know - these feelings finally coming out. I told him that I really wanted to see him... he said " yeah, I guess then you can see if its what you really want" and I said "yeah and you can see if its what you want..." his response was "I already know THATS WHAT I WANT". Then I said to him - as cheesy as it sounds, that I feel like he and I are soulmates... he said that its not cheesy, it's just the best way to describe it.

Well the first few weeks of talking were great. That is, until he got all weird and stopped talking to me. Then he finally sent me an email... saying that he wishes he would have told me a long time ago how he felt about me, and that he wouldn't have moved away or I would have moved with him. But now that things are not that way, it's so complicated... and I have kids and he doesn't want to be the "guy who stole mommy away from daddy". He said I need to work this out... and if I want to leave my husband I need to do it for me and not because of him... But then "on the otherhand" he says "I think it....I know you and I could pick up right where we left off..."

So needless to say my marriage was rocky all last summer. I contemplated leaving my husband. I didn't tell him about Ben I just told him I was unhappy. I started seeing a counselor. I finally realized that I couldn't do it, I couldn't leave... and screw up my kids lives. Ben took note of this and became real distant to me. I would occasionally text him and tell him how I felt or ask how he was doing... then I would leave him alone again. I told him that if he didn't want me to bother him anymore, I understood - but that I needed him to tell me that. When he would ignore or not respond... I would still return with a text a couple months later and this cycle would repeat itself over and over.

Well this week it finally came to a head. He and I were casually text messaging and we were having good and fun conversations...

All of a sudden he just disappeared and wouldn't reply. I finally said, after a few days, that it would be nicer of him to just tell me to "get lost" rather than ignore me, if that is what he wanted. He responded "Get Lost"... I broke into tears and now here I sit thinking he never did love me and that I am this pathetic person who fell for this for ten years. And why can't I get over him?? Why would he want to end it this way? Even if it is the best thing for us to go our own ways... couldnt he have done it with some emotion??

I am so broken up, I hope someone will respond and actually read this novel of mine. If you do, please do not automatically respond with the typical "what about your husband..."

There is a lot here I need help with!

Thanks!

I don't think him messaging you "get lost" means that he never did love you. Quite the contrary, it appears he has had feelings for you all along and through both of yours fault you never took that next step.

It appears that he got sick of the cycle and it hurt him too much to hear from you every two months or so and it never come to anything. Although he was slow in learning, I think he finally realises that you would never leave your husband and kids and he finally gave up hope.

In a way he broke up with you after all these years. And what we advise to people who go through a break up is to completely cut contact with the other person. It is needed so each can get on with their lives and move on. Begin to heal.

Having said that we don't fully know his reasons. He could have met someone else and is committed to them. Who knows. But what we do know that after 10 years he has finally taken some control and ended something that should have ended the day you fell pregnant and decided to marry Tim.

I suggest to you that it is now time you took some control of the situation too and ended this cycle before it completely destroys your marriage and along with it hurts a lot more people in the process. Although you aren't entirely to blame you have already hurt one person you care about. Do you want to hurt any more? Especially those as dear to you as your husband and children...

And he did end it with emotion. What did you want from him? To come to your doorstep and pour his heart out to you and then walk away in the sunset like a movie. Come on... He has done it the most emotional way he could have. Finally (and I hope it is final) ending this messed up relationship you guys have developed.

So let Ben go. Let him move on with his life and stop giving him this false hope. He should have been wise enough to give up on you a long time ago but he didn't. Now he has please leave him be.

You have bigger issues to deal with. And that is in your own home!!

Ben was not your soul mate but you two did have a very intense physical and emotional relationship. The problem was you never broke it off and neither of you went through the healing process and all those years of texting and talking continued. If you had had no contact from the beginning then you both would have gotten over each other and just had memories between you. As it is even through marriage and kids Ben was always there. I guess he finally figured how unhealthy this thing between you was and decided to end it for good so he can move on. You need to do the same thing and its hard but fair, as you have a life of your own to tend to. Stay away from Ben at all cost and focus on making your life happy. Good Luck as I know you have a long tough road ahead, but you can do this.

To Solid357, No your question did not go through.

Well I thank you for the bits of advice. They all do make sense... a lot of sense. I had sent Ben a message last night. I said, while he may have his reasons for this, in my opinion - he did it very cold-heartedly and I couldn't believe he would do it w/ no emotion whatsoever. He has since responded and here is what he said:

"I was not going to leave it at that, I didnt expect you to take me that seriously...you always dare me to say things and I said it....." then he said "You need to work out whatever this is with your husband, if you want to leave him...you have to do it for YOU, not for ME." He said that he will always be there to listen. He says that me talking about "him and I" is "waaaaayyyy too down the road". He said I put the chicken before the egg. Basically I need to sort out my stuff here and not have Ben be a part of the picture.

He's right.

Thing is, no matter how good or so-so my marriage is, the majority and real reason for my unhappiness is the result of my feelings for Ben. I love him, and that's that. I do have a good husband, for the most part. But we have some things missing... emotional intimacy... affection... wholesome full-filling love! I don't know why, but my heart tells me it still belongs to Ben, even after all these years. I know I can't expect Ben to want me to leave my husband for him, and change both of our lives at the drop of a hat. But I am afraid that if I go away and try to make this work w/ my husband (and I don't think what I said before will ever change) but then 5 years from now or more I finally do leave him. I go back to Ben because he is the REAL love of my life and guess what... he's married. I'm afraid to wait. What do I do? In my heart I could do this right now, to be with Ben.

And so the cycle begins again...

I know... I doubt it will ever end :(

It will end if you take some control of your life and end it. But you don't want it to end. So why the sad face? This is exactly what you want. If it wasn't then you would end it.

I feel sorry for your husband and children.

I don't blame you for your response... however, no matter how control in my life I am - I cannot change feelings that are deep within me. If you have ever loved someone you would understand. Feel sorry all you want for my husband and children, but why not feel sorry for me? My heart is clearly not where it should be. I am hurting too.

I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you that you can't control your emotions. I feel sorry for you that you are living a lie. I do feel sorry for you.

And yes I have been in love. Only once, but it was love none the less. And having lost that love and the pain it causes I can tell you right now that you do have more control over you feelings than you think. You just don't know how to take that control.

There has been advice offered here about the best way to take that control but I doubt you will listen.

Im not being critical of you or judgmental. Just stating the truth.

I do find it hard to believe though that you want people to offer you the same sympathy to that of your husband and children who are innocent bystanders to this whole mess. Leave them and see if that is the case. I doubt it though!

Take a step back and look at this from an outsiders point of view.

I actually think that should you leave your husband that things may not be as rosy as you think they will be on the other side. There will be a lot of issues that you and Ben will need to sort through and it may be tougher to come out the other side in a healthy relationship than you think. Thinking someone is your soulmate doesn't guarantee a thing!!

<<Thinking someone is your soulmate doesn't guarantee a thing!! >>

Amen to that.

You know what? I've been in love with two men at the same time.

One of them is my husband, who I made a commitment to. It doesn't matter who the other is... what matters is that when I realized that I was torn, I made a decision to be happy with my husband, to be fully committed to him. Maybe I think about "what ifs" every now and again, but I think that everyone does that with their life.

The difference between you and I is that I MADE THE DECISION TO BE HAPPY. Regardless of how terrific the other person may or may not have been---I also love my husband, and I made a promise to him that I will honor.

You need to just decide and then DO IT. If you don't love your husband, then you owe it to him to be honest and leave your marriage. If that means hooking up with Ben, then so be it. If you want to spend your life with your husband, then you need to let Ben go.

You can not have your cake and eat it too. Thinking you can isn't fair to anyone involved.

Yes, I know... I think I am searching for something that is missing in my marriage and that is "Emotional Intimacy". My husband is overall a good guy,a hard-worker, a great father and loyal to his family. But something that we have always (and I mean ALWAYS) lacked is Emotional Intimacy. The affection, the holding, the "feeling". I genuinely love my husband for the person that he is, but I feel like if I live a lifetime without that internal emotional link that a man and wife should have... it will lead me to continue searching for it elsewhere. My husband knows I need this. He tries doing it when we talk about it and it lasts a day or two. For him, to touch me means we must have sex. Otherwise, he does not hold me or kiss and caress me. I guess it is something I NEED. Isn't that enough reason to leave?

Feeling empty...

Get help. Professional help. Cheating will not solve your marital problems only make them worse. Or leave before you cheat on him. If you two can' work this out, then this will not be a loving fulfilling relationship. Maybe he needs to be taught or maybe you need to know how to ask, maybe he has needs and doesn'tknow how to ask you. I don't know but if you two cannot communicate your in big trouble anyway.

It may be, but a decision has to be made one way or the other. The cycle you are stuck in now is not helping anyone involved here!

Good luck!

Hello. I understand everything your saying but can you see Ben's point of view as well. He did tell you in a nice way he wanted to end it. He said that if you wanted to leave your husband that had to be your choice and after a time of thinking on it you decided to stay with your husband. That may be the right choice but did you ever think that after making that decision and then keeping in contact with Ben every once in a while, you were hurting him. Think about it. Imagine Ben had been the one married and decided that he would make it work with his wife as if the rejection of that wasn't painful enough.. Then every once in a while he would write to you or call you and let you know that he was thinking of you and wanted to be with you or whatever but he had already rejected you and chose the other woman. It seems to me that Ben is tired of being second best and doesn't want to be in your life if he can't have all of you. Is it really fair to ask him to? So he had to hurt you. So that you would just forget about him and leave him alone. That is why it had to end so coldly... You either need to be with your husband and be completely devoted to that or you need to leave your husband and be with Ben.. No more of this back and fourth.. Its hurting everyone including YOU... Good Luck with everything... I hope you find your way

Hi Irishgirl. I saw your post to me about your situation and read your novel. Don't feel bad I have a site where I posted a novel of my own. It is hard to get advice from people who have not gone through a similar situation themselves. The advice is well meaning but often not applicable to the situation. Although I do have to say that there has been some valid advice given in the earlier posts. Your situation is complicated, most situations like this are. So what do you do?

I think the post to another member that you read from me earlier is very applicable to your situation as well. You have to break up this complicated situation into parts and deal with the first part first. Making choices based on the possible relationship you might have with the person you feel is your soul mate is not really a good choice, it is a choice indeed, but not one that will ultimately leave you with a good taste in your mouth, I believe.

First you have to solve the current problem at hand and that is your dissatisfaction with your current marriage. You have to ask yourself honestly if you want to continue it. You probably will say that you don't want it to go on if it is going to stay the way it is. Then you have to communicate this to your spouse. Again if doing this in the past resulted in a bad scene then I would suggest you do it with the help of a therapist that is not judgmental and can keep it from spiraling out of control. And definitely don't do it with the kids around... as I am sure you know by now. Figure out what it is you want from your husband in concrete terms and communicate this to your husband. Tell him what you want to change and be prepared for him to have requests of his own. If those things did start to change would you stay or would that not be enough for you? Sometimes situations can be remedied and sometimes things have gone so far that they cannot be. Only you can make that decision.

I think that because things are so confused right now and neither you nor your husband seem to be able to know your own mind or are able to deal with it head on it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to have some kind of trial separation. For no other reason than it will give you both some time to think and experience what life would be like on your own. Are you able to do this? I think it would be a good idea. Sometimes we have to get away from the patterns of life (if our current life is not how we wish it was) to get clarity.

Then with this time on your own you have to figure out what you want for your life. I would not even try and figure out anything about the soul mate right now. I think you need to come to terms on if your soul mate was not in the picture would you stay married or would you choose to not stay married and be alone. This is a very important question you need to answer for yourself in a totally honest manner. Sometimes just answering a question like this for ourselves (with no other opinions) can be frightening since the answer we can come to may make us feel bad about ourselves... who wants to admit that the thing they want will hurt others... that implies selfishness... who wants to think of themselves as selfish? Not many people. However, this is not about finding fault or placing blame... this is about finding out the truth... which is a far more valuable thing.

At the end of the day there are only so many choices even in a situation as complicated as this. They are... 1) Stay with your husband in the current situation with nothing being discussed or changed - not really a good option I think and I am certain you will agree.
2) Stay with your husband and get counseling so you can begin to work through some of your issues to see if they are resolvable. 3) Have a trial separation and think through issues with the help of a therapist seeing if you can work through your issues to see if they are resolvable. 4) Leave your husband and see a therapist on your own to see if you can't figure out what you want from life now that you are alone. 5) Leave your husband and not confer with a therapist and try and figure out life on your own. 6) Leave your husband, hook up with your soul mate either emotionally or actually physically, see a therapist to try and help work through the issues surrounding your failed marriage and issues that arise because of all the past baggage regarding your soul mate, as well as all your own personal issues. 7) Leave your husband, hook up with your soul mate either emotionally or physically, not see a therapist and not resolve any past, present, or future issues concerning yourself, your ex, or your soul mate.

Like anything else in life the extremes - choices at one end or another of the spectrum - are usually not a good idea. Usually a moderate choice that allows you to deal with things in a more balanced fashion are the best... because they promise the most chance for success. This is my opinion.

So where does the soul mate fit into the picture. Just as I stated before... who knows? The situation is in your life for a reason... you can use the situation to make your life more complicated and filled with anguish... or you can make lemonade out of lemons and use it to generate an understanding of yourself and what you want from life. Once you do this and really know yourself then you can move forward with how the soul mate fits into the picture. This may take some time however and you have to trust that all things happen for a reason. You can tell your soul mate that you are trying to figure things out and that it is in your best interest and his best interest to let this process unfold on its own without the interference of the background noise of a possible future relationship. I do believe that if it is meant to be in this lifetime that it will find a way... as the song goes... what's meant to be will always find a way.

I know it would be nice to be able to eliminate all the negative and gain all the positive in a short span of time but that is not really realistic... and anything not based in reality will not last long. So you have to steel yourself to do the hard work that is ahead of you... taking it one step at a time and moving forward. Realizing that this in fact may be the real purpose of the soul mate experience... self growth and awareness against what feels like insurmountable odds. Best of luck to you.

Your message BY FAR has been the most helpful and insightful! THANK YOU! I will be reading and re-reading it as I try to find my way. I think you are right, everything happens for a reason and there must be a reason why this soulmate of mine is in my life. I know some people say that I "choose" this, but I really do not think so - as I have tried and tried again to choose NOT to feel this way,and have failed miserably each time.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message AND express such well-thought out suggestions. You are very kind!

I don't think you can expect your husband to make the changes you desire, because I think his lack of emotional involvement with you stems from knowing or feeling that you are not as invested in him as you are in Ben. I suggest individual therapy for the two of you. He can talk about why he feels unable to make an emotional, intimate connection with you. You can try to figure out why you are still stuck on your ex. I know you said you have tried marriage counseling, and that may be worth trying again, AFTER you both go to individual counseling and are both ready to face your problems head on. I believe if you get your feelings sorted out, and he does the same, you'll both know what you each want. The next step will be to discuss saving or bailing on the marriage. Then, if you are both committed to correcting the problem, marriage counseling may have a shot at being helpful. I wish you luck and success.

Vlee, you brought up a good point since you never know what her husband knows or feels, and he may be reacting to his wife putting her attention on the ex. Something to consider.