Confused between a good friend and family

**mainpreshan** · 01-06-2012, 02:11 PM

Hi Preeto Mam and other readers. I am sharing my life story and I seek few opinions, but strictly no cheap stuff.

I am from Mumbai, married with two beautiful daughters. Am close to 40 yrs old and i got married when I was 17 yrs old. It was an arrange marriage but that time I did not know even meaning of marriage. My ordeals started with marriage. I was treated like a kid, was forced to do and eat and wear, whatever my inlaws wanted. Had no freedom of whatsoever nature. Slowly things started to worsen and they all started abusing me physically and mentally, including beating me at times. I had 8 miscarrages during this period. Finally I was blessed with two daughters with age gap of two years, but abuses did not stop. I went into deep depression at the age of 25 due to all this and till today am dependent of medicines. My husband did not support me during those days and used to be either a mute spectator or part of them. Once I caught him red-handed flirting with a female employ of his and when I objected he beat me red and blue and called all kind of names.

When I was going thru all this, three years back I met a guy on net, who is 4 years older than me. he is nice and caring, married with two kids and well settled in life. We started with chat, which turned into an excellent friendship and we are talking almost daily for last three years. He has turned out to be good emotional support, but beyond a limit he also can't do anything for me. After one year of friendship, he said one day that he has started loving me, but his priority would be his family. I liked him from begining and after two years, I realised that I also have started loving him, although I have not accepted this thing till now. But somehow he knows this and want me to accept my true feelings. He wants me to be his best friend, who loves him also very much. (Let me add that he is from Banglore and we have never met). He says love has two aspects - emotional bond and physical intimicay and because of distance getting physically involve is not easy. I really enjoy my real life with him. I feel loved, cared, pampered and he is available whenever I need him. He had been an excellent friend to fallback on during my hard times. He provides me everything a female expect from a male at emotional level, but still he can't help me in every problem of life.

Now, the situation at family front has improved a lot. Kids have grown-up, physical abuses have stopped because of kids and my refusal to allow them to treat me badly, but mental abuses have not. My hubby and me have almost nil physically relations for many years for various reason primarily loss of desire in me because of depression medicines. He has given me full freedom and fulfill all my financial needs. Sometime I feel he loves me but he does not know how to handle emotional need of a woman and remain busy in his business and end up ignoring me. Because of his ignorance, I feel totally alone at times, since the kids have also moved to hostel. Also irrespective of my hubby's shortcomings, I have not done anything, which can be called cheating, except befriending this guy. I still love my hubby.

Now things have become serious. This guy wants me to accept my feelings but when I look at my family I end up feeling guilty for having this guy in my life. This guilt feeling in-turns push this guy in depression, as he feel bad and say that I have used him as a stapnee, when I was going thru bad times and I don't need him anymore, so I am behaving like this now. Whereas I have not used him or treated him like a stapnee and I have big respect and regard for him, but yes I have not expressed any love. I am totally confused and don't know what to do. I have following options -

- Dump him for the sake of society and family, the society which never cared for me

Or accept my feelings and tell him that I also love him very much and he is very important for me but we would always maintain certain boundaries. Although am not sure how easy it is to maintain those boundaries once you surrender yourself emotionally to someone. I fear accept of love, would eventually leads to physical relations.

I seriously don't want to cheat on my husband and my kids, but I don't want to loose this guy also. When I see families falling apart becuase of such relations, I get scared. I know if I dump him, we both would be very very miserable and nobody would be able to fill the gap in mylife. I need this guy and if he goes, it would be a big loss. Gosh If we could have remain only friends, life would have been much more beautiful. But as per him, we had crossed that boundary long back and now it is not possible to remain only friends, but yes we can remain friends, who love each other very much and respect each others boundaries. Please suggest me how to take this further.

**sens** · 02-06-2012, 02:40 AM

HIii!!!

It is really sad how u were treated. at that time u should ahve taken some help. ANyways good to hear all things are fine now..

& men enevr understand that this kind of emotional neglect on their part would let other mean men grab oppurtunity of wooing thier wife..
anyways... whatever pains u ha, are not excuse for having affair.

the guy si married, & he i just looking for amusement on net. why u wanna be his muse?? why u wanna ruin his fmaily.,..

right now ur life is good. take care of your daughters.. & enjoy life with them..

do not get involved with stranger men... & ruin ur chaacter & morals.. u have two daughters to imbibe good morals into.. & best way is to set an example.

**~~**Colonel Hannibal Smith**~~** · 02-06-2012, 11:33 AM

there's nothing unethical or immoral in being an online friend wid a married guy n letting him close to urself or discussing ur private life wid him n seeking an emotional support from him...so stop thinking of it as an assumed cheating, u have all d rights to decide d pool of ppl u interact wid n d intimacy n trust u allow them based on ur judgment n liking for them!! there's no need to dump a trusted n confidant friend, tell him straight forward dat he's d only person u feel comfortable wid discussing ur life n u do respect d unrequitted support n emotional strength he provides to u! but at d same time, u hv certain duties n responsibilities towards ur married life, family n kids n u don't want to be accused of adultery or commit to something which can destroy ur family life or hurt ur kids at a tender age...respect d fact dat d guy got attracted to u during this long bonding phase n now professes his love to u n tell him dat neither him nor u possess d right to fall in love while being in an ongoing marriage wid ur respective partners...some relations shud never go beyond a nice trusted emotionally supporting friendship n ur relation seems to be one of d same kind!! i won't suggest u both divorcing ur respective partners n makin' ur kids suffer d pain of a bad divorce in ur mid 40s or getting physical wid dis guy due to lack of a healthy sex life over d years...such decisions lead to extreme chaos n hurt in most of d cases!

**imeggz_leoness** · 02-06-2012, 12:08 PM

**dAIC** · 02-06-2012, 01:03 PM

Eight miscarriages? - if that was because of physical assault - then I don't feel sorry for you.

There is an old saying: "Evil prevails when good men fail to act". You repressed your feelings then and you certainly are repressing your feelings now - although now it not exactly evil. But there is a patten in your behavior for repressions, which probably is the cause for your deep depression and dependency on medication till date. And of course as you suggested - your negligible physical relation with your husband is also a factor.

One of the reasons I can assume for you not taking the matters of physical assaults and mental trauma to concerned authorities - was perhaps because you did not have conceivable alternative back then. Regardless of whether you had or not, the act is condemnable and punishable by law. Your inaction was not the right approach and please be advised that no father, mother, sibling, husband, in-laws or anyone for that matter is greater than the law and choosing the right path over them is more important.

Moving on, irrespective of whatever transpired, you did not seem to have a problem with your husband for 20 (i.e. 37-17) years of your life and for a three-year relationship now, you want to use his past wrongdoings as the pretext for an affair (Good Job). You allege that your husband doesn't share that emotional bonding with you, but have YOU taken any measures to rectify that. You mention you "love" him and if he is inconsiderate of your feelings, some initiative on your part would have been appropriate. Don't get me wrong but if you can make a person fall for you online then surely you can do the same in real life too, can't you?

Supposedly you did try but to no avail and now you developed the same with this online friend. From the way you have written this post - it evident that you want to take option 2, that is accepting your feelings and telling him that you love him. It is also understood that you want to continue to be friends with him, at least and are not ready to cheat on your husband. Now allow me to give you another option.

When I was in grade 11, my physics teacher once said: "The problem only exists when you think of it as a problem. Should you get down to solving, irrespective of the outcome, it doesn't seem so formidable and you improve your chances of learning something new". So what may seem as a problem here is actually not a big deal. I don't think there is anything wrong with telling your friend about your true feelings, its not like he is not going to abduct you thereafter. There is nothing wrong in having feelings for something or someone, it is common human behavior. Now I wish and really love Scaglietti(Ferrari) but can I afford it, hehe.. that is totally a different story. We are responsible for our own actions and all actions come with consequences, so it is up to you to choose what you want to do. If you feel like telling your friend about you feelings - tell him. If you feel the need to tell your friend that you are with your husband, whom you "love" as well and that you still want to be with him despite of all his shortcomings - tell him that too. What happens after that is totally up to you 2 to decide. However, I would never suggest you or your friend to cheat on your respective spouses. Besides if it is primarily fore physical relationship then it may not be even love. Think - what if you do choose to have an affair and later he ditches you?

Be-friends-and-not-cheat is the best option considering your affection and fondness for him. Should he disagree and want more, then depending on your choice consider to ditch him or end your marriage. Make sure whatever you do, do it with right intent. That is if you choose your friend over your husband then you both (you and your friend) get divorced and thereafter get legally married to each other. Thereby removing doubt and exhibiting conviction in your love.

Finally, consider all pros and cons before you make a decision, for instance - children, financial security, future etc. I end this post with a question : Is it right to place your needs before all these factors? - think about it.

Good luck.

**snighda** · 02-06-2012, 02:48 PM

Are not you complicating a simple matter. In your post, you have not mentioned anywhere that your friend is forcing you for physical relations. Your friend told you two years back that he has fallen in love with you, which is a normal thing for anybody. When you did not have any problem for two years, why you have now? Is it because he wants something in return for his love, which you are not comfortable to part with OR now your family life has improved and you don't need him anymore? Why you feel love would leads into physical relation automatically? Yes it is POSSIBLE, but it is not CERTAIN.You have mentioned that you are from Mumbai and he is from Banglore, do you think going into regular physical relation is easy for both of you? THINK LOGICALLY. And the last thing, it is always in your hands to allow somebody to get physical with you, so if you control yourself, things would remain under control automatically. BUT if you have reasons to suspect him, then you should not be his friend in first place.

See I am not ADVOCATING that having extra marital relation is good, but every friendship with male is not extra marital relation. It is good that your relations with your husband are improving and you must invest more energy and efforts towards that but don't dump a friend, who had been with you during your thick and thin, based on few wrong believes. If you feel he is a good guy and a good friend, then you should not kill a friendship, just on suspicion or fear of what society would think.

**snighda** · 04-06-2012, 01:11 PM

Well my Saturday's post was harsh, let me give you my opinion today. You have mixed many many issues in your post- your life, your husband, family, kids, your friend and society. It is just not possible to live the way, all these people would like you to live. It is your life and you have all the rights to choose how you want to lead it. Your family life is still not good, although it has improved, and therefore you don't want to loose this guy, who has been an excellent emotional support as per you. See he loves you for two years and you also love him for a year. You may not have accepted or told him, but your day to day behavior must have expressed your feelings many many times. Now it is just a matter to accept and move forward. Do you think all hell would cut loose, if you do that? If I had been in your place, I would have accepted my feelings and would have discussed with him how to take the friendship forward under the given circumstances, instead of seeking opinion from third person, who do not know and understand your situation or who are not concerned. Am sure if you are best friend and understand each other, then this should not be a big issue for both of you. Be informed that a male, who loves you, would sooner or later expect physical relations also from you, but accepting or rejecting that should be purely your decision. You both are mature people, discuss and sort it out. Why complicate the life so much. All the best dear.