Please help I'm the other woman and am desperate for help (2025)

OK so this is going to be a long post, I am in such an emotional mess right now and I need advice at this time I have no one in real life I can talk to about this and I feel so isolated and alone. I am an other woman I am 46 years old. MM is 8 years older than me.
I am going to go back in time to the start so that you all have the full picture.

When I was 12 years old I met my current MM, he was 20 at the time.
The first time we met (he's a relative of my best friend who is still to this day my best friend) I was wearing a short skirt and this obviously got his attention.
The chemistry and flirting was high, and he was my first love/crush, over time our relationship became sexual in nature, but obviously it was always a secret because I was underage and he had a girlfriend.

I never saw anything wrong at the time, I had all those firsts and all the feelings that go with that. I looked back with fondness at those times.

As we grew up we all drifted apart as you do he got married to the girlfriend I mentioned before, I met someone at 19 years old and then got married (aged 23) myself.

My marriage turned out to be a nightmare, my children and I becoming victims of domestic violence, and in my mid 30s the police got my children and I out of the house and we returned to my home town. I went to criminal court and my ex was convicted of 7 different counts of domestic violence and I was granted a permanent restraining order. I don't want to go into too much detail about this but needless to say I was traumatised, I have anxiety, depression and CPTSD.
Needless to say this left me terrified of men, and I had no relationship with any man for the last 13 years.

Current MM and I were still In touch mostly via Facebook, at this point in time we were only friends. He remarried someone else, but we'd check in with each other every now and then.

Earlier this year we started to message a bit more frequently, things weren't going well in his life.
He was having problems with his extended family, in laws and his home life we'd both lost our dad's in recent years, (my Dad had died of Covid and I got long covid and had a complete mental break down I am now medicated for my mental health issues)

In any case the texting was getting more and more frequent, he was eventually texting me from first thing in the morning all the way to good night texts.
I initially thought he just needed a friend, I have very little experience with men, and the experience I do have wasn't good.
In hindsight I should have seen what was happening, but after a decade living with an abusive man who constantly told me I was ugly, useless, no one would ever want me and so on, you start to believe that, and I genuinely thought MM just wanted a friend and as we had known each other some 35 years this didn't seem all that wrong.

Of course texting every day as we were I was starting to get attached, I assume he was too, either that or he was a very good actor. But he was gaining my trust at any rate.
Eventually he came over to mine for a coffee, nothing happened that first visit,
But over the following week my feelings for him were getting stronger.
We continued texting every day, and the conversation eventually got a bit more shall we say spicy.

The following week he came over and it was clear the old chemistry was still there.
And that's how I found myself the other woman..
It's been 7 months, we almost had a D day
And though for short time we couldn't see each other by the next day he was texting me every day again.

Things lately have been harder, I feel like I love him, but I don't think he feels the same, he's not good with talking about feelings and is avoidant if we have disagreements.
He sometimes acts in a way that makes me think he cares, but then other times I think maybe he's just using me and taking advantage of the feelings I had for him when we were younger.

Recently we've been arguing over communication. And because of this he has been giving me the silent treatment for the last two days.

My head is in such a mess, and I just fear he doesn't care at all, I can't talk to anyone else about my worries, and when I try to talk to him he says I'm moody or goes radio silent...

I feel like I need to talk to someone and because he's left me so isolated giving me the silent treatment, I'm pretty close to just blowing the lid on all of it, telling everyone, come what may, and getting the support I need.
I thought I'd look for online support here before going nuclear.

Please I need outside eyes and ears and support. I don't know what to do, or to think, or how I feel.
Please be gentle with me.

Please help I'm the other woman and am desperate for help (2025)
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