"am willing to bet that you are still struggling with contact with OW, maybe even talked to her recently." You read me like a book. It really is impossible for me to break off all contact, as we are in a work environment together. I was deliberately vague about how it ended. Let me explain.
Things were going along "merrily", but I had been getting a weird vibe from her for about a week. Suddenly, she wrote me an email basically telling me that she didn't want to talk anymore, that I was bad for her. I was absolutely devastated and wrote back several emails asking for an explanation ... none came. I was about to send a very bad email (in hindsight) expressing ALL of my deepest secrets and feelings to her, when a mutual friend contacted me. She didn't tell me straight out, but from the tone of her email to me, I figured out that the OW's husband had been reading OW's email and confronted her. He made her write the "Dear John" email to me, and made her promise not to say anything more or tell me that he knew about us. Well, since then, the mutual friend has been giving me updates and has actually been a good sounding board for some of my feelings (she went through an EA/PA in the past). Apparently, OW and husband have been trying to patch things, and have been somewhat successful, for which I am happy, believe it or not. One of the big issues of guilt I had was the possibility that I might have ruined her marriage.
I know what everyone is going to say, drop all conversation about OW with mutual friend, and maybe even back off mutual friend. But I just can't right now, now while things are so bad with W, and I still have so many problems with my self-esteem. That small link, even though it is not direct contact feels like a lifeline to me. One other thing I held back was that I was suicidal for a few days after OW sent me the "Dear John" email. Never did anything, but came awful close. You must know the thoughts that were going through my head. Here was my once chance at happiness, at feeling alive, and it only lasted two months. I saw a bleak future ahead of myself. You know the one thought that really stopped me from ending it, that my kids wouldn't remember me.
Go ahead everyone. Fire away. Tell me how stupid I am. I think I'm strong enough to take it ... now anyway.
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
