You found “the one who got away” on Facebook. I trusted you to be sane about it. You started buying her things and spending time with her, helping her with her innumerable crises, leading up to the day you told me, “I love her.”

Why would you throw away 20 years of a happy, strong relationship and a solid life together for a bullshit fantasy? She has not been there for 20 years to take care of you, to listen to you, to understand you, to share VOWS with you, and to accept you AS YOU ARE and not as some savior. She is not real. What you have with her is not real. It is fantasy and it is poison for everyone involved. The smartest thing you could do would be to cut off contact, but you say no—”It hurts too much.”

You won’t even commit to us trying to stay together, just to “figuring out what you want.” I feel like you are only hoping that you come out of this at the other end with permission to be with her, and that I will be okay with that and let you go off to be happy.

I am not going to let you do this to us. I am being as understanding as I can, but I cannot sit by and allow you to tear our lives apart. You need someone to stop being understanding and tell you to stop what you are doing before you ruin the lives of at least three people.

STOP IT.

—Anonymous

71 replies on “I, Anonymous”

  3. Not necessarily DTMFA. Unless there’s something we’re not being told, there’s a good chance that Anon’s partner really just needs to smarten up and realize that this woman is not worth throwing away a life partner for. People who are tempted to leave their long-term SO for someone new and shiny often do come to this realization. This is one of the more sane-sounding I, Anons I can remember.

  6. I sympathize with your situation – it’s terrible – but I don’t think you “not letting” it happen will keep it from happening. It sounds as if his mind is made up, so either he will remain with you or leave you, but either way, he’ll be with her. If you aren’t ok with him being with her, DTMFA.

  7. Smells like a mid-life crisis. He doesn’t even want the fantasy of her now; he wants to go back in time and be twenty again, and the twenty-year-old version of him was with her.

    Tell him to get his ass into therapy.

  9. I’ll add that “It hurts too much” is the lamest fucking excuse I’ve ever heard. Man up and take your medicine.

  10. Put me in the “DTMFA” column.

    It wasn’t cool when Kelsey Grammer did this…and it’s not cool this time either.

    You…deserve…better…

  13. I understand with a relationship that long there is a certain amount of patience involved. It sounds like he’s gone, however. Let him go live his adolescent fantasy.

    Remember, the best revenge is living well. I hope the last scene from Swingers happens for you.

  14. Dear Anon,

    Put me firmly in the DTMFA column…also, find yourself a good lawyer and clean him out. 20 years of wiping his baby-man ass means you’re entitled to alimony (and probably child support).

  15. Oh, and once you do clean him out, Anon, I have a feeling The One Who Got Away will get gone again for greener, more gullible pastures.

  16. I don’t think the stripper cares one way or the other so long as he’s picking up her bills for her, so only two lives are being ruined here.

  17. Other question…do you really know for sure that he’s actually even TALKED to “the one who got away”?

    Most of us would should “DTMFA” even louder if it turned out he was just stalking her.

  18. The “one who got away” means the one he was always wishing he was with the last 20 years. He’s trying to tell you he doesn’t love you, but doesn’t want you falling apart. Get over it and get rid of him. He may be holding on to a fantasy, but so are you.

  23. Irony aside, 23 has a point. This is not anonomous. It’s just a public “fuck you” looking for anonomous support. Dtmfa… But also suck it up, make some friends and find a new codependent relationship. Preferably wth somone else who wants to bitch about their ex too.

  24. I can see why this would be anonymous.

    If they are married, it could be very embarrassing for her to admit that her husband is doing this.

    If they have kids, can you imagine them reading something like this if her name were attached?

  28. What a selfish fucking asshole! To bad this shit is happening after 20 years and it sounds like a kid is involved. Oh well kick him the fuck down the road. Keep your pain to a minimum.

  29. @31/32

    Wow, yes, don’t go with the hipsters, it’s not like they give good non-psychopathic advice. Feed your husband’s new old fire a plate of feces, that will endear him to you and make you not look like a fucking psycho…

    “Then tell the bitch to GTFO and never come back. Guaranteed you will become his object of affection once again.”

    Do you subscribe to your own fucking insanity world?

    You’re an idiot.

  32. @31: ALL CAPS, liberal use of exclamation points, and claiming that if she “take[s] a HUGE DUMP on a dinner plate,” she is “[g]uaranteed [to] become his object of affection once again”? You really are hitting all the “crazy sauce” points, aren’t cha?

    Commitment to a relationship requires that there be a relationship in the first place. If he’s flagrantly ignoring her feelings to pursue an ex he dated more than two decades ago, then there is no relationship to salvage. In other words, he’s already ended the relationship, but didn’t have the balls to tell her. She’s just making it official.

  33. I’ve just witnessed a similar situation play out with a close friend who had been married for ten years. His wife made contact with an ex-lover for whom she still had strong feelings and what followed were the two ugliest years I’ve ever seen. Their marriage eventually ended, but not before he had lost nearly all of his sanity and self-respect and had alienated most of the people close to him. Save yourself and your loved ones a whole lot of grief and suffering and DTMFA. Get out while your dignity is still intact.

  35. It’s easy to say DTMFA but they’ve been married 20 years, and clearly he’s not really in love with this other woman and he just needs to see reason. Sometimes that happens and the couple ends up staying together, and the person who strayed realizes what a stupid shit they were. It happens more often than you think. Check out marriagebuilders dot com.

  37. “I am not going to let you do this to us.”

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that you can’t prevent other people from fucking their lives up if they’re intent on doing so.

    On the bright side, you know what’s going on. At least you’re not finding out about it like the proverbial bolt out of the blue.

    Let him go. If he’s choosing a fantasy over reality, you’re better off in the long run.

  39. Oh dear. This happened to someone I am very close to after almost 20 years of marriage. The guy went back and forth, jerked her around and then finally “saw reason” as some other posters say (I suspect the second woman backed out). He came back. And you know what? The relationship imploded anyway. It was too hard for her to tolerate knowing that he could just up and treat her that way, after all she had done for him (and that was a lot!). And who can say there isn’t ANOTHER “one who got away” lurking out there? He is disloyal. He tried to better deal you once, he’s capable of doing it again. Sorry, but DTMFA.

  40. I just had a similar experience and my spouse finally did pull his head out of his ass and made a commitment to work on our issues. It was one of the worst times of my life; I wouldn’t say we’re out of the woods yet but it has gotten exponentially better. One thing that helped me was getting information on mid-life crisis’. He was practically a textbook case. At any rate, Being as peaceful as possible and taking care of yourself is your best option. The only chance you have to stay with him at this point is to do your best to separate from his craziness and keep yourself sane i.e. take good care of yourself, go about your business, start something you’ve always wanted to work on…. As it turns out this is also the best thing you can do in the event that you do split up. Remember you’re dealing with someone who is off their rocker. Good luck.

  41. I just had a similar experience and my spouse finally did pull his head out of his ass and made a commitment to work on our issues. One of the main reasons I’ve stayed is because I love him as a friend too. It was one of the worst times of my life; I wouldn’t say we’re out of the woods yet but it has gotten exponentially better. One thing that helped me was getting information on mid-life crisis’. He was practically a textbook case. At any rate, Being as peaceful as possible and taking care of yourself is your best option. The only chance you have to stay with him (if you really think it’s worth it) at this point is to do your best to separate from his craziness and keep yourself sane i.e. take good care of yourself, go about your business, start something you’ve always wanted to work on…. As it turns out this is also the best thing you can do in the event that you do split up. Remember you’re dealing with someone who is off their rocker. Good luck.

  42. Stop telling him it’s not real and start telling yourself it is real.

    For some reason you are clinging to this asshole and it’s making you look rather pathetic. Whatever you thought your relationship was and whoever you thought your husband was, it was not real.

  43. For those saying “but they’ve been together 20 years, you guys don’t know commitment, she should work on it, he should man up, etc.”

    Fine, tell him exactly what he needs to do (cut off all contact with her and get his ass to a therapist) and what the consequences will be if he doesn’t (she leaves immediately) and see what happens.

    Meanwhile, she should start separating herself from him: get her own bank account, change beneficiaries, look around for places to live (in case he’s an ass and refuses to move out), etc.

    Give him… oh, how about four weeks. If he’s still talking with her or anyone else, if he’s pouty, if he’s angry, out you go.

    But that’s all just dressing… my guess is, he’s already gone. Her DTMFA is just making it ‘official.’

    Sure, their relationship might survive if they try to work on it, but hey, you also might just hit ’00’ on roulette too. Just sayin.

  44. Please take this very seriously. Close all joint accounts and change them to be in just your name, and make new passwords to everything that is yours, including email and Facebook. Protect yourself. Then DTMFA. Make him leave, keep the children in the marital home. If you pack his stuff up, and have it waiting for him when he gets to the house from work or wherever, maybe, just maybe, he’ll get that you’re serious, and maybe agree to stop contacting her and go into marriage counseling. Or it might just drive him to her, or drive their relationship more underground. Whatever happens with your relationship with him, protect yourself, your children and your assets. I regret not taking my own situation more seriously, and I really regret trusting him even after I realized how infatuated he was. I am now bankrupted as well as dumped.

  45. This is the perfect example of people wanting what they can’t have. As soon as you cut him off and ignore him and move on…he will want you back. And the sad pathetic cycle will continue. Think of all the wasted energy you have put into this loser and what does that make you? You could have spent your energy and time caring for people who deserve your help and concern. I hope you do get back together and cause each other heart ache for the rest of your pathetic wasted lives.

  46. @50: My god, you’re a moron. If Anonymous and her husband divorce, they still would have been together for 20 years. Does that constitute a relationship?

    Let me try to simplify for you: a relationship requires two people. If he’s already checked out, then there is no longer a relationship.

    And since you apparently equate knowledge about commitment with shitting on a plate and serving it for dinner, then I will take your assumption of my ignorance as a compliment.

  48. DTMFA – even if he comes back to you … he willingly walked away from you once. What’s to stop this from happening again?

  50. Give spinecrusher her own advice column. I wouldn’t take her advice, but it’s not like I need Dan Savage’s or anyone else’s advice. And spinetingler’s advice is the most entertaining.

    Teach us more about commitment for commitment’s sake and why it’s so important. It’s like a badge of honor all by itself. Sounds like commitment means: 20 years is too long to admit you’ve made a mistake, so buck up and carry on (unless the shit casserole trick doesn’t work – but TRUST, it WORKS).

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