Friends, we have one of our beautiful sisters who is literally begging for our help! You can read her question below (edited for readability), along with my personal response, but she is also asking for advice from our community. Please help her by giving her any advice that you can offer in the comments.
Her Letter…
I beg you all to help me. I have been in a relationship for 8 months with a married man who was supposed to be in divorce proceedings. He had a big problem, a sickness, in lying to me all the time. I moved in with him, as he's no longer living with his wife and child, then I discovered from his wife after calling her (I was suspicious so I got her contact info) that she is the one who wants the divorce and until now he didn't. We suspect he didn't want to pay her money rights which is quite a big figure and he can't afford it now. I discovered that he used to call her and go to their home for the sake of his kid no more, but when I asked him he said that he never calls or goes over there, and he just sees his kid at the club!! I confronted him after finding out the truth from her, he didn't utter a word and started saying that it was just for the sake of the kid and that he never planned to return to her at all. I took my stuff and left him and I pray to god never to bless him, I love him still so much and I'm so depressed and I don't know what to do. Please for the sake of God help me, I am dying.
Signed, Strawberry
My response…
Know that you made the right decision, Strawberry, and be so proud of yourself for standing up so strongly for yourself and what you deserve, even though you feel like you are dying inside right now. You deserve so much more than what this married man was giving you, and it's only in standing up for yourself and refusing to settle for this type of treatment of your beautiful self, that you will find the love that you truly deserve.
This is the hardest part; right when you make this decision to leave him. But you will get through this, you truly will, even if it seems so hard and sad right now. Focus on you, Strawberry, and the beautiful woman you truly are, with so much to offer someone who proves himself deserving of you. Someone who is available to you now, not in a loosely promised distant future. Someone who is honest with you that you can truly trust with your tender heart.
Take this time to do those things you never knew you could do, stretch yourself, take advantage of new opportunities and try some new activities that give you an opportunity to meet new people, both male and female, and do new things. Give yourself a fresh new look, update your wardrobe, or do whatever else that gives you a fresh outlook on life, and the confidence that you can do anything. There is so much more in store for you.
Surround yourself with support, from people who truly care for you, and that support your decision, and know that you also have my support and the support of everyone here. This will get easier, over time, so be gentle with yourself. We all make mistakes, we all learn, and we all get to the other side only from learning some things the hard way. You are so not alone, Strawberry, even if it feels so lonely right now.
Love,
Jane
What do you think? Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for Strawberry? Please share them with her in the comments!
it will get better with time and stay Blessed
I am very curious Strawberry what you have done these days. Did you get in contact with him?
I can only tell you that it is wrong from him not telling you the truth and hurting you. Jane her words can help you, it helped me!
But you will not die, it is going to feel that way and maybe for a long time. My last break up, i felt for months very miserable! And i did not have anything, not even friends. I was living in a strange city!
But One day you will wake up and feel better, stronger!
And it depends if there are people who are going to support you and help you. Because it helps to talk to someone and to go out and have fun. Read blogs or books, listen to music, pray. Let yourself cry and feel the hurt. But do not dwell in it! You will look at life from a different perspective, it takes a while!
I can only advice you to not look for love in drugs, unsafe sex,food or alcohol. Be healthy!
He is not worth it to make your life miserable, nobody is!!
And you wil feel again love and happy in your heart! Just hold on.
Hello Maris:
thx a lot for ur words and to answer ur question , yes he s a jerk , he tried to call me many times and i know the reason , he wants me around in case he decided to be back or know well my value , he dont want me to be with someone else just in case !! , listen first i didnt answer many calls then honestly i became more weak and stupid me i answered him which got me back many steps and i regret what i did as i returned depressed again and i cried a lot and remembered memories , the point is that i really loved him so much and scarified a lot as for me he was my bf and my dad at the same time , iam trying to cope and survive sometimes i can and mostly i can not , i just need all ur prayers......
Aloha Strawberry,
You sound like a beautiful soul. It sounds to me like you have a few deep wounds that this man was acting as a Band-Aid for. He represented both a best friend and a father figure in your world. The lack of both must certainly feel devastating . I invite you to ask yourself this question: "If this situation with this man is as good as its ever going to get...is that good enough for you?"
If your answer is no, then congratulations on beginning to find your true happiness. He sounds like he will not stop trying to reach out to you when he does not want to be alone or he feels abandoned and afraid. This is unfortunately indicating that he is acting selfishly, as I'm sure he knows he is hurting you in all this confusion he is drowning in.
You mentioned he is having health problems. This can make it extremely painful for you to turn him away as a friend, so don't (at least not in your heart and spirit). You can still love someone and want the best for them, but not compromise yourself. On the days that he calls and tries to have you there for him (not thinking of what is best for you) just keep asking yourself this important question...if this is as good as its ever going to get...is it good enough? I advise not answering his calls, as it cannot end well letting him open up that deep wound that is your heart. Hearing his voice and seeing him will only bring you back to square one. I strongly advise holding nothing but good intentions for him in your heart, but cutting him off from contacting you.
Pray for him, hold good intentions for him and truly want peace for him, but you need to put on your oxygen mask first and save yourself, just like on an airplane in an emergency. He sounds like he is spiraling downward at a rapid rate. Only you can choose NOT to follow him down into the darkness. Again I advise no contact for at least six months. This time will allow you to heal and grow stronger. Nature abhors a vacuum and if you take a timeout for your heart and yourself, the Universe will bring you a greater love to fill that void. If you hang strong you will discover the greatest love of all which is learning to love yourself. Your first step in finding true love. You must love yourself first if you are to find a true love in this world. You can do it Strawberry.
I'm not saying it will be easy. It will feel like torture at times. Just keep asking yourself what is the best and good enough for you. You deserve love and happiness. Just start with yourself, the rest will follow. And keep listening to Jane. She sounds amazing and really cares about you. And so do a lot of people on here. You can do this Strawberry!!!
Aloha,
Mykala
Wow, what a supportive community you have created, Jane! I congratulate and thank all the sisters who are helping Strawberry with their stories and opinions... I cannot imagine the level of pain you´re going through, when just having someone emotionally unavailable hurt way enough in my life... But let me pitch in with what I know for sure: take Jane´s advice, because she knows what she´s talking about... And to empower yourself, do yoga & workouts, even if it means crying or yelling out the pain... It works, and it produces transformational breakthroughs ; ) xoxo
Thank you, Monica, for your kind words. As women who feel and give and cry and feel and give some more, and come to this journey from so many different places in our lives, we really are all in this together. It is through empowering each other with our own stories of courage and strength that we will also all get there together! 🙂
I would like to say 'Cheers' to all of us beautiful, strong women who have made the incredibly difficult decision of living our lives in truth and being mindful of reality. Deb please know that you are an incredibly strong person and should be proud of yourself for getting out after 11 years.I do believe that once we do what is right doors begin opening for us because of how we grow through the pain and as time passes we can look back on the experience as one that has taught us invaluable lessons and caused us to become BEAUTIFUL compassionate people.
cheers to all my lovely friends and support.
deb i really cant imagine that u got out after 11 years , this gives me hope as i feel that iam unable till now to cope in my life without the guy and feeling deep depression even to go out with friends as every place i go remind me of him , i started to hate my kindness and my emotional self a lot .
i need ur all prayers plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sisters for gods sake.
Strawberry....believe me when I tell you that I know exactly how you feel. I couldn't go anywhere without being reminded of him either but as the days go by, it is getting easier. My focus is on me right now and how to improve my life. If you can, try to go out with your friends as this really helps out so much. Go walking or do something that you like or buy yourself something. It takes your mind off him! Please don't hate yourself for being kind. He is the one with the problems, not you. It will get better as time goes by. I know. You will be in my prayers!
Ann....thank you for your encouraging words.
Dear Strawberry.....After being involved with a married man for 11 years (finally divorced 2 years ago). I can tell you this from my experience...things don't get better and they never will. They tell you everything you want to hear so you will stay with them and hope that everything will be okay. But that never happens! You have to believe me. He always had one foot out the door every time we had a disagreement. Somehow we always got back together because I believed that we were meant to be together like some stupid fairy tale. He was never there emotionally for me. He sat around in his own little world and it was just torment. No matter what I did, I couldn't feel his love. Don't waste another second thinking twice about it. Once they hurt you and lie to you, there is no going back you will never forget ....all the hurt just keeps coming back over and over again. I was blamed for him not spending time with his kids (in their twenties) at holidays which was a lie. He always picked a fight with me before any special event so that I would be excluded from participating. It was as if I was being punished over and over again. It has only been a few months for me and it hurts like hell but it was the right thing for me to do. I know that I am beautiful inside and out and have a lot to offer to the right person and reading this blogs really helps make me a stronger person.
Strawberry,
Time heals and know in your heart that you've done the right thing for "you"! It may not feel like it now but you will look back on this time and be so much better for walking away....trust yourself.
Stay strong....
Melanie
I honestly don't have any advice on what Strawberry should do.We all know and even she knows that she needs to rid herself of this very selfish man, ( there are some people in the world that do not have the ability to love, it is a gift and not everyone has it) We know that we would never treat someone we love and care about like this but we also know that she will allow herself to be yo yo ed back and forth until she is sick and tired of being treated like dirt. She will then see the light and let him go permanently or he will find someone else , but not matter they will have wasted 1-2 yrs in the process. The question I ponder is the WHY. Why do we stick around with toxic people WHY do we allow ourselves to be used lied too and even when the truth is staring us in the face we hold out hope that somehow he will change and be the man of our dreams When all rational thought tells us otherwise.
Strawberry as no one else but herself to blame she made herself the victim here, people treat you the you allow them too. You always always always have to love yourself more! and she should of never ever ever got involved with a man that was not already divorced and single for at least a year . Anyone who has gone through a divorce knows what an emotional tug of war that you have with yourself through the whole process...two people that married, lived, loved and had children together will always hold a lot of meaning. The only thing she could of hoped for out of this was to be a rebound relationship anyway. That man didn't know who he was what he wanted and he was in her bed before he had anytime to figure it out. and obviously still had some very real feelings for his wife. Recovering from divorce takes time and no one coming out of a divorce is ready for a new serious relationship...male or female.
first i need to thank u all for ur replies and supporting me,
summerrain i know u r right but let me tell u all guys something , what i knew or what i noticed so far is that he dont love his wife as shes somehow a different style than him and that he was only waiting all this for the sake of his kid , i wont get ashamed of u all my friends to tell u that i reached a point that i was crying kissing his hands to tell me the truth earlier and tell me if he loves her or want her but he use to tell me NO at all to the extent i told him that i have no problem to know the truth even if he wants both of us but he always tell me no way and that he will never live for thousand years to lose his life with her again unhappy and i believed him !! beside the feeling of his love now i feel cheap and hurted and abused and i dont know what to do , shall i go for anti depression ?? iam unable to even work and i lost appetite for my whole life , iam so much emotional person and broken , do u think god will leave him !!!! is that fair guys that he might return happy and i live destroyed that much although iam the victim !!??
oh, Strawberry, sometimes there are times in our life where we need some extra help, some extra support from someone who can meet us right where we're at and understand and advise us in a way that can only be done in person with someone who can offer that one on one support. It sounds like this is one of those times, so I would strongly recommend you seek out some professional help to help you get through this most difficult time.
There is absolutely no shame in realizing you are in over your head and need some extra support from a professional counselor or therapist in your area. No one should ever have to go through this alone, my beautiful friend, and you will get through this. We just sometimes need some outside help to get us back to our beautiful selves that never deserve to go through this on account of any man, no matter how much he means to us, or how much we think we can't live without him. You can!
You are saying this exactly as it is, Summerrain, and your honesty is refreshing, but unfortunately, when someone is in the thick of it, they are rarely ever open to seeing it for what it is, as you have so aptly done for us here with such insight. I have learned time and time again, though, that unless someone is open to hearing the truth, so much of what we say just falls on deaf ears. So I have learned to give someone an honest outside perspective if they ask for it, but then, to give them the space to do what they choose to do with that information. We only become co-dependent if we keep after them, trying to get them to change, to see it the way that everyone else clearly sees it.
I've come to realize that we are all on our own unique journeys, and each of us comes to that level of awareness when we finally see things the way you've laid them out here, in their own timing. The point is to share our own unique perspective, and then let them be to discover this in the way that is meant to be for them. Just like we can't make anyone love us, we also can't make anyone else see the truth of what's really going on if they refuse to see it, no matter how much we see themselves only hurting themselves more this way. It is such a personal choice to choose to come into the light of what is instead of being guided by our deep inner longings and deepest hurts that influence our decisions more than any degree of logic.
The "why" of why we we do this to ourselves, why we find ourselves so attracted to someone like this in the first place, and then remain in such a relationship even after we've heard the truth, is because these subconscious needs we have at the core of us are stronger than any conscious rational thinking. We are never drawn to these men because they are so attractive, or so intelligent, or so wealthy, or so charming, or seductive, or whatever it is for each one of us; we are drawn to them because they trigger in us something familiar so that we sense a unique opportunity to right a wrong, or make good on something that we didn't get or was done to us in our distant past, usually from our earliest childhoods, so great is the pull towards someone like this. We are drawn to the opportunity to finally affect the outcome, to prove ourselves worthy and loveable enough to finally have the person this person outwardly represents to love us in the way we know we deserve. And yet what takes so long for us to recognize, is that it is not our issue, it is theirs. That they were never capable of loving us the way we deserved to be loved had nothing to do with our lovableness or worthiness, but everything to do with their own issues and demons that they never learned to deal with before we were in their lives.
And once we're there, it becomes so hard to leave, we will come up with every excuse to keep us there, to keep the reality of the truth away before we're ready to hear it. Because it means everything to make it work, we are talking about love here, and because it runs so much deeper than this particular man, we feel like we are dying without it. Because as a child, we could actually die without love, but we forget we're no longer children, we no longer have to be victims, we can choose to end all this pain and misery with a simple word. Enough!
But it's only when we are willing to go deep, to see the reality of what is and not what we want it to be, that we see any of this. And that is why we do this to ourselves and it never feels like a conscious choice until we get to that point where we can say those words and mean it, my beautiful friend, and that is also why we keep repeating these same patterns over and over again until we finally get to this deeper level of awareness where there is nothing left to prove; there never was.
We may not change anything immediately by sharing our stories with each other and reminding each one of us that none of us are alone, but in doing so, we each have a chance to heal ourselves that much more, and offer another opportunity to provide the words that finally click with a hurting sister and help her to finally see the truth the way we learned this the hard way, too.
Strawberry
As Brenda and Mary have said above YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I was involved with a married man too.He told me he had nothing to do with his wife and kids,and i believed him.One year down the line I found out that not only was he with his wife but he had been coming on to my best friend behind my back.
I was crushed too, as i had just been abandoned by my husband and am going through a divorce .But when i spoke to his wife and found out about the lies, I just cut contact.
I am now 1 year out of the relationship and sooo glad for it. As difficult as it may be to believe this right now , the pain does get better and look at it this way do you envision spending the rest of your life with a habitual liar walking on eggshells? FInd one person to vent with( in my case it was my mom) and then do look on this as a learning experience. As Mary said have your boundaries firmly in place and KNOW that you can make it.You definitely deserve better.And you will have it in time.
Strawberry,
Be glad this happened in under a years time as you will heal with the realization that this could be a pattern with him and it's not you.
I made the foolish mistake of seeing a married man for nearly 10 years thinking he too was going to leave his wife. I thought for sure he was going to. She was cranky toward him often and he was certainly frustrated.. I think they call it the seven year itch and then later I learned he was just looking for an open marriage partner. When I realized that I wanted no part of him.
I was crushed too and have vowed to myself to never allow myself to see a married man nor a separated man for that matter, as they are ever finished with their issues. Know that this happened for a reason as hard as it is.. Pull yourself up and work on you... Find a guy that truly deserves you and don't stand for being second fiddle!! ~MHZ
Strawberry: I make two promises to you right now, right at this very second:
1) I promise I know exactly how you feel. I was in love with a man for 3 years, more than I had ever loved another, so in love that I didn't think I could make it without him. He also lied to me, every chance he got. Please, please, please understand that, even if you stay with this man, you will NEVER trust him because of his lies. Please know that, without trust, you have nothing.
2) I promise that you WILL get through this, with time. I know it doesn't help the pain at this very moment, but if you will hold on to that TRUTH no matter what, think about it each and every day, talk to yourself as much as you can, and STAY ON THIS SITE! Read through Jane's blogs every single day (or evening). I found more strength, the VERY strength, it took for me to get past my pain and overcome the hurdle I thought I would never, ever cross. Believe it or not, but the strength Jane's insightful words and worldly knowledge gives you is so very empowering.
Please trust me, Strawberry. You will overcome, and when you get to the other side, when you finally arrive there (and you surely will), you will feel so good about yourself that nothing will stop you from finding the happiness you, and all of us, know you deserve.
Hang in there, sister. Brighter days are ahead. I promise.