Our resident agony aunt Niamh Fitzpatrick joins us every week to offer advice to listeners on a range of problems.
This week she addressed the issue of a married man who has strong feelings for another woman.
Dear Neil and Niamh,
I'm not really sure if you can help me or not. It might just help me to figure things out if I write it down to you. I'm a married man, married for 10 years and together for about 4 years before that. I can’t say for sure that I was ever totally in love with my wife. I do love her but am maybe not IN love with her. Anyway, about a year ago I started chatting to women on social media, just for fun at the start. Then I meet this one woman and we were making plans to meet up for coffee, but we just couldn't get our times sorted. While waiting to get our schedules together she met a fella on a night out, she fell for him but we kept chatting. I felt we had a great connection. We eventually did meet up for a day and I really fell for her that day. We have so much in common, she really ticks all the boxes for me and we have been chatting every day since. But she has really fallen for this other guy and they are going steady now. We still talk every day and we are really good mates, but I still have strong feelings for her. I can't get her out of my head. I told her yesterday that I wasn't going text her for a few weeks. I feel as though I've cut off my right arm though. I know that even if she wanted me, I couldn't leave my life here. But how do I get over her? It's all in my head but it's torturing me. I'd be so happy for any small bit of advice you could give me.
Niamh's Advice:
Most people hearing your email will now be saying “REALLY?” as they wonder how you can feel tortured about a woman that you cannot have because she is with someone else, while all the time you are married yourself and therefore not available anyway. But from your wider communication it’s clear that you are a decent man who is just not seeing what is really going on here, rather than being a serial player. So, my first piece of advice is to step back and read your email as though it were written by someone else and see it as we can all see it. Re-write it in the third person, change some details, then see it for what it is.
Because what’s going on here is that this other woman is a distraction that allows you to put your head in the sand about your marriage. The torture you feel may be a sadness not necessarily just about this woman, but about you not having been in love up to now. So, my second piece of advice is that I want you to see this whole thing as a signal that you have emotions that need your attention – not that it is simply that you prefer one woman over the other, there’s more layers to this than that.
Thirdly therefore, you need to take the focus off any torture you feel about this other woman and deal with your marriage first. You told us about not being in love with your wife and then you said “Anyway” and went on to tell us about meeting this other woman. But your wife and your marriage aren’t an ‘anyway’. They are front and centre stage and if something is wrong in the marriage then your first port of call is to address this. It may not be easy, or pleasant, but it is the right thing to do.
You love your wife but are not in love with her, but in honour of the love that you do feel for her, don’t you owe her more than ignoring the issues and looking elsewhere? You have loved this woman for a decade and a half, so a bit of time and investment can either invigorate this marriage or if it is to end it could end it without adding to the pain. So, my next bit of advice is to talk to your wife, see how she feels in the marriage, get a barometer for where things are in her heart. You are there in the house but you aren’t present with her so she is unlikely to be happy with the marriage, but see where she’s at and start from there.
It would be useful for you both to consider seeing a relationship therapist. Check out www.iacp.ie (Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) to find a relationship therapist in your area or if you are Dublin based check out MargaretDunne (www.sextherapydublin.com) or Allison Keating (www.bwell.ie), both are excellent.
It would also be worth you getting a book called "I love you but I’m not in love with you” by relationship therapist Andrew G. Marshall. It will shed further light on what is happening and what can be done.
Next, you and this other woman aren’t really ‘mates’, you are two people who like each other on several levels (mates included) but who are skirting around the possibility of something more happening. BUT, you are not available right now. So, help yourself by pushing your not texting thing out to farther than a few weeks. You don’t need to feel like it in order to be able to do the behaviour that you know is right – which is to step away from this other woman, let her be with this guy she met and you go put your own house in order. That is the emotionally smart thing to do here. The behaviour of re-engaging in the contact will maintain the feelings of torture, so ceasing contact will help you to get over her.
Finally, give yourself a break. You didn’t get to the point of a full-on affair with this woman (even though emotionally you are absolutely invested in her) so if you can see this as a wake-up call and address the issues in the marriage to resolve them one way or another, then that is at least treating your wife and your marriage with the respect they deserve. Otherwise if you continue with contact with the other woman, you will end up having an affair, getting found out, losing her as she will likely leave in the complicated fallout and your marriage will end acrimoniously. Whatever moments of pleasure that relationship might bring they are not worth that, so please listen to the advice and take action now. It is possible for you to be happy, just go about it in a useful way.
For an appointment with Niamh, go to niamhfitzpatrickpsychology.ie or if you want her advice on the show, email problem@todayfm.com
You can also book Niamh as a speaker for your event or company by visiting outlaw.ie
