Essie
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I don’t see how you have any choice but to tell your girlfriend.
This is already affecting your feelings about the relationship. Your GF is going to pick up on that. You’re hesitant to get a place together. You’re not sure that you trust her anymore. She’ll feel it, and it will hurt, and she won’t know why you’re pulling away.
If her relationship with the relative is damaged, well, so be it. That’s between the two of them.
If it’s a lie or exaggeration, your GF needs to know her relative is spreading lies behind her back.
If it’s all true, now the GF knows that you know about her history of addiction, and you’ll hopefully have a long-overdue talk about it.
Will it be that simple? Maybe, maybe not. But it needs to be talked about. Or the weight of it will break the two of you up anyway.
You are overthinking. To an extreme. This didn’t need seven pages of analysis.
“I’m talking to a guy, found out he’s married, claims it’s an open marriage, but the way he talks about his wife makes me uncomfortable. So I’m going to back off.”
“Hey, guy, I’ve enjoyed our talks, but they’re getting a little too personal for me, so I’m going to say goodbye now.”
See? That took about thirty seconds to resolve.
There’s a simple reason that you’re giving this situation so much headspace, and resisting our advice to stop talking to him. You’re really into him, and you’re trying to justify continuing to talk to him. You don’t want to let go. You wrote in hoping that we’d tell you it was ok to keep talking to him. You’re not being honest with yourself.
There are billions of people on this earth. I’m pretty sure you can find someone to talk to who isn’t married.
An open marriage has NOTHING to do with inappropriately sharing someone else’s intimate, personal, emotional issues with a stranger. Nothing. Having an open marriage doesn’t mean that it’s OK to betray your partner’s confidences to some rando you met on the internet several weeks ago.
What this guy is doing is 100% wrong, open marriage or not. And you’re encouraging it because you’re into him, no matter how much you want to insist that you’re blameless. You’ve encouraged the closeness and the emotional intimacy. If you weren’t, as soon as he started to share personal information about his wife and his marriage you would have told him that he shouldn’t be sharing that stuff and you didn’t want to hear it.
You know it’s wrong, and you’re twisting yourself into knots to come up with a justification for doing it anyway.
There isn’t a justification. It’s not different, it’s not special. It’s a garden-variety emotional affair. You’re falling for him. And all you know about this guy is what he’s telling you. Why not ask him to have his wife give you a call and confirm that they have an open marriage? The odds are good that you’d never hear from him again.
In fact, I’ll bet the “something” that happened is that she looked at his phone and saw your conversations.
How do you stop talking to him? You just do. You tell him what you’ve told us. You say that you’ve realized that what’s happening is inappropriate, and it makes you uncomfortable when he shares intimate details of his relationship with his wife. And talks about “her issues.” If I were her, I’d divorce his sorry ass on the spot if I found out he was talking to some random chick on the internet about “my issues.”
And then you say goodbye, and you block him. Then you find someone who isn’t in a relationship to chat with.
While you’re at it, I think you also should google “bullying.”
You’re the one who mentioned (more than once) that the two of you were having intimate talk, so don’t be calling us disgusting and sordid for referring to something you wrote.
But anyway, emotional affairs are about emotional intimacy, not physical intimacy. You had a deep emotional connection with him that both of you were hiding from your spouses. It’s not appropriate to have that kind of emotional intimacy with someone when you’re married to someone else. It’s cheating, you were both wrong to do it, and he realized that and put a stop to it.
Google “emotional affair.” You’ll find the description very familiar.
I wrote a response earlier, but it disappeared when I edited it. LW, I’m so very sorry for your loss. I can’t even imagine the pain of losing a child, and on top of that to have another child with such a troubled life. And I’m sorry if what I’m about to say sounds hurtful, I don’t intend it to be.
I have the feeling that the only one who really wants this paternity test is you. If your son was as obsessed about it as you say, he’d be hiring a lawyer, going to court, moving heaven and earth to get that test. I’m wondering if he’s simply saying that he wants the test because he’s worried about you, knows it’s what you want to hear, and says it to soothe you.
There’s magical thinking all over your posts. If the mother had only told your son about the baby, he wouldn’t have died. If your other son could only be declared the father, he’d straighten his life out. If your living son is the father, your grief will be eased. This is really, really common thinking when people grieve. It’s a form of self-soothing.
This crusade you’re on to get your living son declared the father needs to end. It’s not your place to press for this, and it’s not the mother’s job to fix your son’s life or manage your grief. And it won’t help the way you think it will. No matter how the test turns out, one of your sons will still have growing up to do, and the other son will still be gone. And if continue down the road you’re on, your granddaughter and her mother will disappear from your life.
The answer here is to stop looking for a magical solution, and work on learning to live with your grief. Find a grief counselor. Join a support group for parents who’ve lost a child.
I hope you can find peace.
Carol, THAT is the reason I called you out on the use of “beta males.” YOU chose to use a term that was originated by the incels and is a core part of their nasty ideology, if you can call it that, so you don’t have much call to be threatening anyone with a lawsuit for simply noticing what you said.
Linguistics aside, the point everyone is trying to make is that you are seeing men (and yourself) on a very shallow level. You lump men into one of two groups – neanderthals or wimps. You call yourself a catch based on very superficial characteristics that frankly, most people don’t care about when choosing a partner.
Don’t choose your dates based on superficialities. Don’t jump to conclusions based on stereotypes. Take your time getting to know a man and consider his entire personality and character before you write him off. Trying dating against your “type.” Attraction isn’t always instant, and it’s not always all about appearances.
You group men into stereotypes. Try seeing them as people.
And I’m sorry, but hearing a woman use an MRA term like “beta males” is just repulsive. I’m out.
@Ron, I can’t tell if she’s dating these guys because she finds that super-macho, come-on-strong type attractive, or it’s because she’s reacting to the positive attention (“This guy thinks I’m hot!), and she’d go out with anyone who pursued her intensely. I mean, anyone would find that kind of pursuit flattering on some level.
I think a lot of her problem is inexperience, personally. She’s not yet realized that sexual interest does not equal romantic/relationship interest, or that all men who find you hot are not potential boyfriends or husbands.
It’s a common mistake, if the letters we see on this site are any clue.
Everything you described that happened on that date screamed that you were wildly incompatible. Incompatible interests, incompatible values, incompatible personalities. You weren’t into him at all. Why are you surprised that he also realized that this was going nowhere?
“macho-type men see me, pursue me intensely, seem very physically attracted to me, there is a lot of sexual chemistry”
Guys who pursue you that intensely before they know anything about you are looking for a hookup. That’s it.
I’m with everyone else.You’re dating the wrong men. Just about all the guys I had relationships were people I knew, at least a little. Men I was in class with, or worked with, or were friends of friends. We got together because our personalities clicked. Sure, there was physical attraction there, too, but that was only one part of a larger picture.
Me too, @MMR. I find it absolutely baffling that someone could put getting married on a timeline, as if it’s a thing that exists by itself. Thoughts of marriage come *after* you’ve built such a strong, committed relationship with someone that you know you’ll be together for the rest of your lives. It’s not a natural next step in all relationships, even in the really good ones. Lots of people have lifelong, deeply loving relationships and never marry.
When you say “I have to be married by the time I’m X years old,” you set yourself up to settle. Look at what you’re doing in this relationship. You’re not even sure the guy loves you – you’re looking for proof – and yet you’re so desperate for him to propose to you that you’re talking about ultimatums and babies. You look at marriage as something you’re owed for supporting his dreams. You put in your time, now you deserve a ring.
Break up with this guy and spend some time learning what marriage is really all about.
