Wondering how to let go of a married man? Well, dating someone who is committed to someone else is not healthy for you, so to leave your married man, below are 5 steps on how to stop dating them!
Did you set a new year’s resolution to leave your married man? Have you just had enough and do you know that you need to move on?
Good for you!
As you know, because you have probably tried to do so 1000 times, breaking up with, and staying broken up with, your married man can seem impossible.
But, if you are reading this, I am guessing that now that you have set a new year’s resolution to leave your married man, you really want to follow through because you want your 2023 to be better than your 2022.
To that end, here are 5 things that you can do to stick to your new year’s resolution to leave your married man so that you can move forward and find the love that you desire.
Related: What You Need To Know About Surviving Long Term Infidelity
How To Stop Dating A Married Man? 5 Things To Do To Leave Your Married Man This New Year
1. Be firm in your decision.
First and foremost, as with any resolution, it is important that you are determined to do this. That you know that it’s time to break up with him and that you are 100% clear that you are ready to do so.
I know that when I was having an affair with a married man, I tried to break up with him many times.
I wanted to break up with him because he wouldn’t leave his wife. I wanted to break up with him because I wasn’t a priority. I wanted to break up with him because I was lonely on holidays. I wanted to break up with him because our relationship was distracting me from my life and making me isolate from my friends.
So, I told myself that I would break up with him and that I would be done with him.
But, if I am honest with myself, I broke up with him for one reason. I believed that if I broke up with him, he would miss me and leave his wife and we would live happily ever after.
With an attitude like that, I wasn’t really leaving him. I was hoping that by breaking up with him I would spur him into action. By breaking up with him, I was actually hoping to cement our relationship, not let it go.
So, this time, if you are going to keep your new year’s resolution to leave your married man, you must decide that you are truly ready to do it. That you are doing it so that you can have the life that you want, to be happy and to find love, not because you are hoping that he will get lonely and jealous and come back to you, promising you happily ever after!
2. Do things differently this time.
So, I am sure that you have tried to break up with your married man before.
And you have failed to do so. Maybe even failed to do so over and over.
It is essential that, if you want to keep your new year’s resolution to leave your married man, you do things differently this time.
Take stock of what you have done before. Have you invited him to your house to have the conversation privately? Have you reached out to him a few days later for some ‘closure?’
Have you done something that would make him want to break up with you? Have you broken up with him only to reach out to him on his birthday or your anniversary, believing that you can do so as a ‘friend?’
Have you begged him to not let you go and then broken up with him when he doesn’t fight for you?
Have none of those things worked in the past? I bet they haven’t.
It is essential that, if you want to have success breaking up with him this time round, you do things differently. Something that will make the break up stick this time.
If talking to him face to face hasn’t worked before, because you see him and you lose your resolution to break up, talk to him over the phone instead.
If talking to him over the phone, hearing the sound of his voice begging you to not break up with him, makes you feel bad and prevents you from breaking up with him, text him that you need this to be over. You can even ghost him.
If you know that he is going to reach out on holidays, block him everywhere.
If you have begged him before to not let you go, don’t show any emotions during this break up. Be clear and concise and businesslike – don’t give him an opportunity to appeal to your emotions.
What I always recommend to my clients is that they text their married man to tell them that they are done, for good this time, and then, before they respond, to block them everywhere.
This seems to make it easier for women because they don’t feel like they are being rude by ghosting their married man but are being clear by blocking them.
If that doesn’t work, you have my permission to ghost them.
Whatever it takes for you to not make the same mistakes again and get the break up to stick!
Related: When To Walk Away After Infidelity: 5 Ways To Know
3. Recognize why he won’t let you go.
Another thing that you can do to stick to your new year’s resolution to let go of your married man is to take stock of why he doesn’t want to let you go.
Most likely, if you are trying to break up with him, the reason is because he won’t leave his wife. And, you are totally justified in doing so. You need to take care of yourself and your own happiness.
Unfortunately, while your married man says he loves you, the reasons that he doesn’t want you to break up with him have nothing to do with that love. They have to do with what he wants.
If your married man truly put you and your happiness first, he would know that breaking up with him would be the best thing that he could do for you.
He knows that you are miserable and that he can’t keep his promises to you and that he most likely never will. It would be a gift to you that he let you go so that you can get on with your life.
BUT, your married man most likely isn’t putting your needs first. Your married man wants you around for his own selfish reasons. He wants you around because you make him feel loved and taken care of.
He gets regular, probably exciting, sex from you. When he is with you, he gets to step out of his mundane life and feel alive. And he can have all that and stay with his family too.
I encourage you to take stock of the reasons that your married man wants to keep you around. Maybe if you see that they have nothing to do with you, it might make it easier to keep your resolution this time around!
Related: 5 Reasons He Won’t Leave His Wife But Won’t Let You Go
4. Fill your life with other things.
I am guessing that your married man takes up a considerable amount of your time.
Even if you aren’t actually with him, you are most likely making sure that you are available whenever he wants you.
That you keep your phone close, distracting you from being present with your friends. That you don’t do things with your friends because you want to keep the time open in case he is free.
I am guessing that, over the course of this relationship, you have increasingly isolated yourself from those you care about and neglected the things you like to do.
If you want to stick to your new year’s resolution to leave your married man, I would encourage you to get back to the life you had before you met him, the person you were before he came along.
What does that look like? Perhaps taking up running again. Having Sunday brunch with your friends. Planning a hiking trip with your sister. Volunteering for that time consuming project at work that you know will bring you lots of accolades if you successfully pull it off.
Whatever you can do to fill the time that you would have spent with or waiting around for him. And to not only fill the time but to do so with things that will make you feel good about yourself.
Things that make you feel accomplished, that make you feel loved, that make you feel worthy of happiness and true love.
Breaking up with your married guy and sitting around like you have for months, keeping space open for him, will only prevent you from following through with the break up with way you want to.
Related: 5 Strategies For Surviving The Guilt Of Infidelity
5. Don’t reinvent history.
Whenever I broke up with my married guy, I found that I was reinventing who he was and what our relationship was like.
I remember missing all of the love and support he gave me, how he used to listen to me when I needed him to and guide me when I was feeling lost. This made me miss him and seek to get back together with him. Over and over.
And then, during another break up, I stumbled upon a diary that I had kept a few months back. In it were some things that really surprised me.
I wrote about how he never listened to me – that whenever I talked I felt like he was always waiting for me to finish so that he could say something. I read about all of the times that he wasn’t there for me when I needed him. I read about the loneliness that I would feel when I got off the phone with him as he headed home to his family.
Reading those things changed things for me. Instead of missing things that I had created in my head, I was able to clearly see the truth about how he treated me. I was able to remember the things that he did that made me feel bad and that were most likely a big reason why I broke up with him.
Remembering those things made me not want to reach out to him to reconcile. They only reinforced my determination to stay steady in my desire to break up and I stayed away from him.
I know that, without a doubt, you can stick to your new year’s resolution to leave your married man.
Even if you have failed to do so since New Years Day, you still can do it now and keep it going forward.
When I finally broke up with my married man, I did so by ghosting him. He had hurt me one time too many. Ghosting him felt very mean but I did so remembering the hurt that caused me and recognizing that it was okay for me to hurt him back.
I blocked him but he still managed to get to me via email. I didn’t respond.
About 8 weeks in, he called. That had always been our routine – after 8 weeks he would call and I would take him back. This time, I didn’t answer the phone. I sent him a text and told him that I wasn’t ready to talk yet. This ‘yet’ seemed to satisfy him and he left me alone, most likely because he thought I would reach out down the road. I never did.
Letting go of my married man was one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do but I did it. And what happened when I did? I met the person who I am going to marry in July.
I never would have met him if I hadn’t, once and for all, ended a relationship that was sucking me dry.
I know that you can stick to your new year’s resolution to leave your married guy. Even if you haven’t done so before, I know that you can do it now!
Be determined, do things differently, take stock of his motivations and the truth behind your relationship and stay busy.
You can do this! I promise!
Related: How You Can Rebuild, Realign And Save An Unhappy Marriage
Breaking up with a married man is a difficult but necessary process. By accepting reality, cutting off contact, surrounding yourself with support, focusing on self-care, finding closure, and moving forward, you can begin to heal and move on from this experience.
Written By: Mitzi Bockmann
Originally Appeared On: Let Your Dreams Begin
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