Help, sexual development gone weird...

There are two major differences between your childhood situation and the current situation.

-1- You were a child with little to no ability to control your circumstances. Now you are an adult with 100% autonomy. You have choice.

-2- The current situation involves a married couple. This is completely different than being a child of parents.

In other words, you are drawing a false equivalency. You are using your childhood to draw comparisons to the current situation, when the situations are vastly different.

Think of it another way. What if no man was involved? What if two women were married? What if one woman was abusive towards the other and expected everything? You would be an adult 3rd party inserting yourself into a marriage. Gender would be irrelevant. You would not be a child competing for attention for a parent. For lack of a better term, you would be the “mistress” in an extramarital affair.

Anyway, it is not necessarily clear what issue you are wanting to resolve? What is the issue with sexual development? It doesn’t sound like you have an issue with being lesbian.

Hi and thanks for the reply.
I am bothered by the idea of her sleeping with him even though I was asked by people "whats the big deal? She's not into it, she's just doing it to survive in that environment. Accept it and understand why."

So I'm not sure if it's jealousy based on my feelings for her or if it's jealousy based on exclusion. Do not misinterpret - if it is exclusion then it doesnt mean that I want to be involved with both. When I was a kid, it was jealousy based on exclusion. (Like how dare you play without me? Even though I didnt understand what sex meant, I just felt excluded and unwanted.)
What I feel now feels very familiar with what I felt then and thats why I wrote about this. Maybe that's why I have a hard time accepting it while others could accept it simply by understanding her reasons.

I have a friend with a similar situation.

He was with a married man. The wife of his lover was controlling and emotionally abusive. They both had jobs. He continued to have sex with his wife because she demanded it and he was unwilling to leave the marriage. This went on for years.

What advice would you give my friend?

Think about it. My friend is claiming that his male lover is in an unhappy, abusive marriage, but at the same time his lover refuses to leave the marriage and continues to have sex with his wife? He has a job, the only child they have together is now an adult, what is stopping him from leaving? Nothing, right? He is an adult male. If he isn't in love, if he is so unhappy, if he is being abused, LEAVE! Get a divorce like over 50% of the population does. Is it her threats to expose him as gay? She isn't raping him. She is demanding sex because according to her it is part of being married. It is what husbands and wives do.

So one day my friend finally realized what was really going on. He had actually believed everything his lover had been telling him. His lover was unfaithful, weak, and a coward. His lover never had any real intentions of leaving his wife. My friend was the "mistress" the "side piece" and his lover was just trying to balance the two relationships. His lover would tell him what he wanted to hear and at the same time tell his wife what she wanted to hear.

Note, his lover was not devious or intentionally manipulative. His lover was just a weak person that wanted to avoid conflict. His lover had made a mistake starting an extramarital affair and then was not strong enough to break off the affair and not strong enough to get a divorce.

In my opinion, your situation sounds similar. It sounds to me like your lover is unfaithful and weak. She cheats on her husband with you and at the same time cheats on you with her husband. And let's say she was to get a divorce to be with you, then what? Do you seriously think she will not do the exact same thing again? You think because you are loving and not abusive that she would not have yet another affair? Of course, she would. Because of who she is you would need to be careful of her "friends" and their intentions. She might not want to have an affair, she might love you, but still have an affair because she is not strong enough to resist and she doesn't have the fortitude to do the right thing.

My advice is to accept your lover for who she, end the relationship and move on.

Thank you for the patience of writing this. Yes, no matter how many times I try to solve this situation, I always get to the same conclusion, that I need to end this. That regardless of my feelings or hers, as long as she is married and living there, we can't do anything. It's not a relationship, it's just pain.

If I call her and ask her to come over she can't. She's always doing something, the dishes, washing clothes, cooking, house stuff. If she CAN leave then 30 minutes into her coming over he calls to ask her to bring him beer or whatever and to hurry cause he's hungry and crap like this. On her birthday she said she was going out with her girl friends and he had the guts to call her and ask her to leave to buy him cigarettes. And guess what? She did. It's insane! And she's always stressed out bc of him. I tried, really tried, for 4 years. But now, as she stopped sleeping with him for so long and started confronting him I had hope. But now he made his condition clear that if she wants to continue to live there she has to sleep with him and she can't handle the tension at home, mentally so she agreed to once a month. And I cant take this anymore, it's just over my capabilities of being ok with it. It's easier, healthier to break up. I told her last night, she cried, I cried... well, cry babies everywhere, we are both weak. But this time it needs to stick. What sucks for me is that even though I'm 30, I was always scared of being gay and I've never had a relationship except for this one. I'm also overweight so it's not like I'm gonna find someone else soon. But I guess that no matter what, it's better to be single and surrounded by friends than being constantly bearing this pain.

Its been 4 days since the break up and even though I cried every day and had puffy eyes to the point where people thought somethings wrong with me, I'm doing a little better. Yesterday we talked on messenger, she asked to see me and I said no. She's not the kind of person with whom you make plans - like: I told her on Sunday we are breaking up and she said ok and she went home even though I wanted to talk about it more. She took the ego route - the one where she was sure I would change my mind as he days go by. But I think it hit her now. Today was odd cause she called and begged me to reconsider and I told her that we cant continue with this while she needs to sleep with him and that she doesnt think about the big picture here: She sleeps with him, everything becomes happy at home and im on the outside thinking of her? What is that? Then her voice broke with despair as she was saying "you're all I think about and I dont know what to do". Which pains me deeply but I still think this is the correct answer here. The thing is, I said that if she talks to him and explains to him that she wont sleep with him, then we may continue but as the days go by, I'm starting to think that even if she does this - I wont continue. She may need help because there were many times where I felt I was a crutch of help for her, something to help her endure her life at home, and my hero complex wants to save her from all that but I really tried for almost 5 years now and it all led nowhere. I needed to tell someone because I'm avoiding all my friends with this topic, they advised me long ago to get out and I didnt and I dont want to say something to them and do different. At this point, I think getting out and letting her face her own demons is the best solution. I taught her a lot about standing up to people and about saying no, and I lost myself along the way. Im confident its time for a new chapter and thank you for your support.

RoxyCookie wrote: Then her voice broke with despair as she was saying "you're all I think about and I dont know what to do". Which pains me deeply but I still think this is the correct answer here. The thing is, I said that if she talks to him and explains to him that she wont sleep with him, then we may continue...

STOP IT!

Listen, while I can feel empathy for your emotional pain, I can't fathom how on earth emotions can make a person so blind and manipulative. NOT JUST HER. You are both trying to manipulate each other.

There is ONE correct solution here. ONE. She leaves her husband. You stop being the side piece. You don't manipulate her, you don't try to control her and provide rules for how she can have sex with HER HUSBAND. And I don't care if you say she is only doing it because he demands it. She isn't being violated. She consents. She could leave, but she wants the easy path. She wants to keep you sniffing around because that is the path of least resistance. She is wants to maintain the status quo and you are entertaining the idea.

Now, you can argue that giving some ultimatum that she leave him or the relationship is over is manipulative. It isn't. It is making a very clear demand. It's not a negotiation. You have some respect for yourself and stop being her mistress. Heck, you shouldn't even be continuing to cry on each other's shoulders.

Again, I can empathize that you're going through a tough time. But this idea that if you set some rules for her that she says she will abide that you can continue is utter nonsense. Have some damn respect for yourself.

I'm not setting rules anymore, I just said that - when I said that I wont continue regardless. And I need to tell it to her too. And we still "cry on eachothers shoulders" because we didnt talk it through and she is still trying but Im not. And I dont think simply not answering my phone at all, considering we work together (different departments) - is the solution here. Especially since she came upfront to me to tell me the truth. She could've lied. I told you i understood a lot of stuff in the beginning some of which were her lying to me about it.

RoxyCookie wrote: And we still "cry on eachothers shoulders" because we didnt talk it through and she is still trying but Im not.

I've been there. I dated someone for a few years. When it first ended she kept calling and I kept answering to maintain the friendship. And every conversation went something like, "Hi, how are you? How is your family? How is the weather? Now about our relationship, what can we do to make it work?"

It was never-ending. She was never done "talking it through". The call was always a pretense that she needed to ask an innocent question, or help with this or that, or just to talk for a few minutes, but it was the same each time...after exchanging pleasantries and a few minutes of chit chat she would circle back to our relationship and what we could do to continue.

As long as you keep giving her your shoulder she will still be trying and crying.

This started roughly 4 years ago, right? You may not realize it, but she has been in one form or another crying on your shoulder the entire time. She had to justify her infidelity and staying in the marriage, not once, not twice, but four years worth of crying, explaining to you how she is "trapped" and simply can't possibly escape. Occasionally she hands you a nugget, telling you how she stood up to him and this gave you hope, it strung you along just another few months. It's so bad that she cries to you that she "must" have sex with her husband. At the same time, she has been finding the time and means to slip around behind her husband's back and have sex with you.

And now she continues to string you along. What other choice does she have? She isn't going to ever be done "talking it through" as there is only one acceptable outcome for her, to keep you as her side piece.

I'm not suggesting you ghost her. I'm not suggesting you don't pick up the phone. But you can control what you are willing to discuss. And the relationship is not one of those things. And like I went through she will invent reasons to call you. She will "need your help" but her real reason will be to circle back to how she needs you, wants you, and asking you to reconsider, again, and again, and again.

Don't go down that path. I've done it. It's miserable and full of pain.

Im going to try to be on good terms, especially since without the relationship we still speak on the phone on a daily basis about work proiects, our departments work together.
But I find that doing things helps.
Usually I was the one who ended up calling if we had spats after a few days because I was weak and thought I wasnt capable of ending it. But today I did things, went out, talked to friends (not about this) and i am hopeful now. It wasnt easy but I think I may get used to it. Fingers crossed. Thanks!