SelfHelpCollective.com

Partner Or Mistress?...

by Anon
(New South Wales, Australia)

I can't believe it, but I'm in a classic quandary of deciding between my partner and my lover - both of whom I love dearly. I am torn, and really don't know what to do about this situation...

QUESTION: Help, I Love Both My Fiance And My Mistress?...

MORE FROM Anon...

I am 35yrs old, and I have been in a relationship for 10 years with a great 30yr old woman whom I love. We have been engaged for 7 years, have bought a house together and have no children. She is caring, kind, selfless, beautiful has a heart of solid gold and she has an innocence that I just can't truly describe.

About 5mths ago, I changed jobs in the hope of improving myself and earning some extra money. The hours were very long and stressful, sometimes up to 70hrs a week, more often 60hrs. Over this time, I was tired and irritable and she never pressured me and she was always there for me, even though I had next to no interest in sex.

I had to quit the job after 3mths as it was taking a huge toll on me. I am currently looking for work.

Not long after starting this job a 20yr old woman that I am acquaintances with and have known for a couple of years and I started talking more frequently and hanging out when we got the chance, discovered we have a lot of common interests, and we just got closer and closer, eventually becoming lovers.

We soon found ourselves in love with each other. She had a boyfriend who did not appreciate her the whole time.


I looked back and found that my interest in my fiance had been dwindling for quite a while, well before I changed jobs, something I had barely noticed while it was happening, but in hindsight is plain as day.

I love her dearly, but my passion for my fiance is all but gone.

I have been having trouble "performing" in the bedroom with her over the last 6mths or so, progressively getting worse, twice being unable to even start.

She is a beautiful and attractive woman and I love her, but I just have no interest in intimacy with her, a problem I don't have with my mistress. I am hurting her and that is something she does not deserve.


I have talked to my fiance about my lack of desire, and she took it pretty hard, I did not mention my affair, as it didn't start until well after I was losing interest.

She tried dressing up in lingerie a couple of days later, but as gorgeous as she looked, I could not get aroused, even though I had not had sex in almost a week.

She has tried being extra sweet, but it is not working. I still don't feel any passion.


I love my fiance very much, but I feel she is more of a friend than my future wife and mother of my children, and I fear that if I feel this way now, even if I do stay in my relationship, that I will hurt her more down the road.

She loves me very deeply and I am already hurting her. We don't have a whole lot in common, almost living at different ends of the house for the last year, only really seeing each other for meals and in bed, or when we go outside for a cigarette.


My mistress is quite a bit younger than me, I know. She is an incredibly wonderful woman, funny, smart, compassionate, beautiful and has told me that I am the only thing she wants in life and she is hopelessly in love with me for more than a month. I feel the same way about her. She makes me feel alive and so happy, something that I have not felt in so long.

We often talk about just packing our bags and starting again somewhere else together. Just last week, her and her boyfriend broke it off. We are both against cheating, I know this sounds silly after what I have just written, but it is true.


I am torn. I love both women and don't know what to do. Can I really stay in a relationship that I believe is broken?..

 

 

STEVE'S ANSWER

"Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come."
-- Robert H. Schuller


Dear Anonymous, you've shared so much detail with us above, maybe in the hope that such detail will be able to help us know the right decision for you to make.

Or maybe you've tried to show us who you are (and what you really think about yourself, more importantly), and how you've found yourself in such a difficult situation.

Or maybe you've shared here simply because you are desperate for a way out!

And, yes, there IS a way out indeed, but it involves doing the very thing you've been frightened of doing ever since meeting your 20 year old lover: facing yourself, and being honest (to yourself, and your partner) about what it is you truly want.

And, sooner or later, you WILL have to face this 'terrible' moment - either it will be forced on you, by one of the parties involved, or you simply be unable to NOT face it.


So. This is YOUR decision and your decision only to make.

I am hoping that simply sharing your quandary above has helped clear things for you, but if it hasn't this is what seems clear to me...

You are trying to make the 'right' decision, when there is really is only decision A) or decision B).

So, try not to think about the best choice to make in terms of what will work.

Instead, think of the choice you yearn to make, you yearn to risk ALL for, and make that choice.

Do not think of consequences, do not think of what others might say; think about what decision makes YOU come alive?


And if you cannot decide this 'choice' between partner and mistress like this, then simply continue trying to make the impossible possible, to not hurt one over the other, and good luck with that!

Rightly or wrongly, you are where you are, and you have to make a decision one way or another, even if you decide only to be completely honest with both parties so that they can decide for you.

Good luck, and I'm sorry for where you find yourself right now, I really am

With love,
Steve