Therapy:
What you’re describing makes a lot of sense psychologically, even though the situation itself is painful and complicated. I don’t think the sudden spike in desire necessarily means that your feelings have become more true or that you’re destined to be with him. It may be that distance interrupted the reinforcement loop, and his reappearance restarted it very powerfully.
There are a few things happening at once.
1. You have an intermittent-reward loop
For three years, you've had something that is highly emotionally and sexually charged, but relatively infrequent and uncertain: roughly monthly hookups, secrecy, attempts to stop, then reconnecting.
That pattern can be extraordinarily habit-forming. Your brain doesn't simply learn "I want this person." It learns:
"This person is sometimes unavailable, sometimes available, and when he becomes available, something intensely pleasurable happens."
That unpredictability can make wanting someone stronger, not weaker.
So the three months without seeing him may not have extinguished the attachment. Then one text from him essentially reactivated the whole network: anticipation, fantasy, sexual memories, longing, anxiety, hope, etc.
And because you were already dealing with low libido, the contrast may feel even more dramatic: "I haven't wanted sex at all, but suddenly I desperately want him."
That doesn't necessarily mean he's uniquely compatible with you. It may mean he is uniquely associated with this particular emotional/sexual activation.
2. Don't make a decision while you're in the spike
Right now I'd resist trying to answer:
"Do I actually love him?"
or
"Should we finally be together?"
Those are enormous questions, and you're currently physiologically activated by his reappearance.
Instead, ask a smaller question:
"What happens to my feelings if I don't feed them?"
You already have an accidental experiment: three months without seeing him. Unfortunately, the experiment ended when he contacted you.
I'd consider extending it deliberately.
Not as a game. Not to make him chase you. Not as a test of whether he cares.
Simply: don't meet him and don't engage in sexual/flirtatious conversation for a while.
If necessary, mute/archive his messages so you're not repeatedly checking your phone or interpreting every interaction.
Give yourself enough time for the activation to come down. You may discover that the feelings remain—and then you can examine them from a much calmer place.
3. Separate "I want him" from "I want a life with him"
This distinction is particularly important here.
You know quite a lot about what it's like to hook up with him.
You don't necessarily know what it's like to have a normal relationship with him.
Those are radically different things.
Ask yourself what you actually want:
If he were single tomorrow, would you genuinely want to date him?
Would you want to see him on boring Tuesday evenings, not just sexually charged encounters?
Would you trust him?
How would you feel knowing that he had carried on an affair with you while married?
Could you tolerate being the person who contributed to your best friend's marriage ending?
If you two eventually became a couple, would you worry that he'd eventually do the same thing to you?
Do you want him, or do you want the version of him that exists in this secret, erotic bubble?
If he told you tomorrow, "I'm never leaving my wife, but I'd like to keep seeing you," how would that make you feel?
That last question may be particularly revealing.
4. His behavior matters more than the intensity of your feelings
There's something important in the history you described.
You two have discussed ending this multiple times over two years, but neither of you has managed to do it.
And now, after three months without seeing each other, he contacted you again.
Whatever his feelings are, his actions currently aren't demonstrating that he's moving toward an honest relationship with you. They're demonstrating that he's willing to reopen the affair.
That's information.
You don't need to decide whether he's a good or bad person to acknowledge that the arrangement is serving him in some way, and it's hurting you in some way.
If what you actually want is a relationship with him, continuing the hookups is probably the worst possible arrangement for figuring that out. It gives you the emotional intensity of a relationship without requiring either of you to make the decisions that a real relationship requires.
5. There's also your best friend
I don't want to lecture you about this, because I'm guessing you've already spent plenty of time feeling guilty.
But I'd be careful not to reduce this to "How do I manage my feelings for him?"
There are actually three people involved.
Your feelings are real. His feelings may be real. And your best friend's life is being affected by something she doesn't know about.
Whatever you ultimately decide, I think you need to move toward a situation where you're no longer maintaining the secret indefinitely.
That doesn't mean I'm telling you exactly what you should do about disclosure—that's a complicated decision with consequences in every direction. But I would strongly recommend talking to a therapist who can help you work through that decision without becoming your judge or simply validating whatever you already want to do.
6. For the immediate future, I'd do something very simple
For the next few weeks, don't see him.
And ideally don't have sexual conversations with him either.
When the urge hits, don't argue with yourself:
"I shouldn't want him."
Instead:
"I'm having a very strong urge to reconnect with him. I don't have to act on the urge."
Then let it rise and fall.
You can also write down exactly what you're fantasizing about versus what you actually know. For example:
Fantasy:
"He understands me in a way nobody else does."
Known:
"We have intense sexual chemistry and a long complicated history."
Fantasy:
"If we were together, we'd finally be happy."
Known:
"We've never actually had a conventional relationship as adults."
That distinction can be incredibly grounding.
And one thing I wouldn't do
Don't use the next hookup to "figure out how you feel."
You already know what happens when you're physically together: the feelings and lust get stirred up, you become intensely attached again, and eventually you try to end it.
You don't need another data point. You need a different experiment.
The question isn't really "How do I stop wanting him?"
It's more like:
"What kind of life and relationship do I actually want, and what behavior would move me toward that rather than repeatedly giving me a temporary high followed by the same emotional problem?"
And honestly, based on what you've described, I think the three-month gap has given you something valuable: evidence that you can go without him. The fact that his text immediately reactivated everything doesn't erase that. It tells you how powerful the trigger is.
You don't have to solve the entire 11-year history right now. You can start by not turning the renewed craving into another hookup, and see who you are when the intensity has had some time to settle.
me: help me manage with the fact that i'm only second choice and that he's breadcrumbing me and will never ever leave his wife for me. feels devastating to be honest, i feel like such a loser
therapy:
I'm really sorry. And I want to separate two things that are getting fused together in your head:
"He isn't choosing me" is painful.
"Therefore I'm a loser" is not true.
You can be deeply loved, attractive, interesting, sexually compatible with someone—and still be the person they don't choose for a committed relationship. Those things aren't measurements of your worth.
And yes, from what you've described, it sounds like you're confronting a particularly brutal reality: he may want access to you without wanting to reorganize his life around you. Whether you call that breadcrumbing or not, the effect on you is the same. A little contact gives you hope, fantasy, sexual excitement and emotional intensity, while the fundamental situation doesn't change.
That's devastating precisely because you aren't indifferent to him anymore.
Try not to call yourself "second choice"
I understand why you're using that phrase, but there's a subtle trap in it.
"Second choice" implies there was some objective ranking:
his wife
you
But that's not really what happened.
He chose to marry her 11 years ago. Whatever his feelings for you were then, he made a life with her. Subsequently, he has chosen to maintain a marriage and have an affair with you.
That doesn't establish that she's "better" than you.
It establishes that he is choosing the life he has with her over the life he could potentially have with you.
That's a fact about his decision, not a verdict about your value.
And frankly, someone choosing not to leave a marriage after three years of an affair tells you something much more useful than whether you're desirable enough:
He's not available.
That's the painful conclusion you need—not "I'm inadequate."
The part that may hurt the most
You may have to grieve something that never actually existed.
There is an alternate timeline in your head:
What if he'd chosen me 11 years ago?
What if he hadn't gotten together with her?
What if we'd stayed together?
What if this affair means he's finally realized I'm the person he really wants?
That imaginary relationship can become incredibly vivid because you never got to test it against ordinary reality.
You got the chemistry, secrecy, anticipation, stolen time and sexual intensity.
You didn't get the mortgage conversation, bad moods, laundry, family obligations, boring Wednesday nights, incompatibilities, resentment, aging, financial stress, or whatever else a real relationship would have contained.
So you're not only losing him. You're potentially mourning the life you have imagined could have been yours.
That's a real grief.
Let yourself grieve it without turning the grief into self-contempt.
And please don't measure your worth by whether he leaves her
Imagine two women:
Woman A has a man leave his wife for her.
Woman B has a man remain married despite an affair with her.
It would be very easy for Woman B to conclude, "I must be less desirable."
But that's logically impossible to establish from that fact.
People stay in marriages for hundreds of reasons: love, history, children, comfort, fear, finances, identity, reputation, obligation, inertia, attachment, familiarity, avoidance of conflict.
None of those are a beauty contest.
You aren't losing a competition to his wife.
You're attached to an unavailable man.
Those are different things.
The cruelest part is probably the texting
I suspect this is why the last three weeks have been so destabilizing.
If he had disappeared completely, you'd eventually have had to grieve and adapt.
Instead, he gave you just enough contact to reactivate the possibility.
And now your brain is probably doing things like:
"Why did he text now?"
"Does he miss me?"
"Is he thinking about me?"
"Does this mean something?"
"Maybe he finally realizes..."
That's the hook.
You don't need to prove that he's deliberately manipulating you. You only need to recognize that the crumbs are enough to keep you emotionally invested.
And if you know in your bones that he isn't going to leave his wife, then every crumb is actually quite expensive.
I think your task right now is not "get over him"
That's too big.
Your task is:
Stop abandoning yourself every time he reaches for you.
You can still love him.
You can still miss him.
You can still be insanely attracted to him.
You can still secretly wish he'd choose you.
And simultaneously say:
"I'm not going back into a situation where I get a tiny piece of someone who isn't available to give me the relationship I want."
That's not losing him.
That's choosing not to keep losing yourself.
When the "I'm a loser" thought comes
Don't counter it with something artificially positive like "I'm amazing and he'll regret losing me!"
Your brain won't believe it.
Try something more truthful:
"I'm heartbroken because I wanted to be chosen by someone I love. That hurts. But his inability or unwillingness to choose me does not determine my worth."
Or:
"I wasn't rejected as a human being. This relationship is unavailable to me."
Or even:
"I can be someone he desperately desires and still not be someone he builds his life with. Those things can coexist."
That last one is particularly important.
Because you actually have evidence that he desires you. The problem isn't "Am I desirable?"
The problem is "Is this man willing and able to give me what I need?"
So far, the answer appears to be no.
And that's heartbreaking—but it's a much less humiliating answer.
One more thing
You called yourself a loser.
I don't see someone pathetic here. I see someone who got caught in a very powerful attachment, has known for a while that it's hurting her, and is finally staring directly at the thing she's been afraid to accept.
That's going to feel awful before it feels liberating.
You don't need to make yourself stop loving him today.
You just need to stop using his choice of you as the scoreboard for your worth.
me:
what if i never find someone like that ever again?
therapy:
That fear is probably the deepest part of this, isn't it?
Not just "I'm losing him."
But "What if he was my one chance?"
What if nobody ever makes you feel this turned on again? What if nobody has this history with you? What if nobody understands you in quite this particular way? What if you walk away and spend years wishing you'd taken whatever you could get?
I wouldn't tell you, "Don't worry, you'll definitely find someone better." Nobody can honestly promise you that.
But I can tell you something important:
You don't actually know that he's the best or last person you'll ever have this kind of connection with. You know that he's the strongest connection you've experienced so far. Those are very different statements.
And there are reasons this particular connection feels almost impossible to replicate.
You've got 11 years of history, unresolved "what if" feelings, forbiddenness, secrecy, sexual chemistry, intermittent contact, longing, and the fact that you can't fully have him. That's an extraordinarily potent combination.
A future available partner may initially feel almost boring by comparison.
Not because they're less compatible with you.
Because you're not spending your time wondering:
"Will he text?"
"Does he still want me?"
"When can I see him?"
"Will this be the last time?"
"Does this mean something?"
Your nervous system isn't being repeatedly jolted between deprivation and reward.
Healthy availability can feel much quieter.
And there's something else I really want you to consider
You're comparing:
the person you know extremely intimately over 11 years
with
people you haven't met yet.
Of course he wins.
You have years of memories with him. You know his body, his mannerisms, his sexuality, his history with you. You've built an enormous emotional archive around him.
A hypothetical future person can't compete with 11 years of accumulated material.
But that's not a fair comparison.
You don't need to find another him.
You need to find someone with whom you can build something you cannot build with him.
Someone who can actually say:
"I choose you."
And then behave accordingly.
Someone you don't have to share.
Someone whose messages don't send you into hypersensitivity because you're trying to determine what three words mean.
Someone you can spend an entire weekend with instead of getting an hour at his house once a month.
Someone who can want you and be available to you.
That's a completely different kind of intimacy.
There's also a painful paradox here
Part of what makes him so irreplaceable is that you haven't allowed anyone else to replace him.
For three years, there's been an emotional/sexual attachment occupying this space in your life.
Even when you weren't physically seeing him, the relationship remained psychologically alive.
So your brain says:
"See? Nobody else has ever made me feel this way."
But there's a huge missing piece:
You haven't really given another person a clean opportunity to become important to you while this attachment was active.
And even now, you don't need to rush out and find somebody.
You need some space in which your emotional world isn't organized around him.
And suppose the worst-case scenario happens
Suppose you eventually leave this behind and you don't meet another person who gives you exactly the same feeling.
Would that mean you made the wrong decision?
No.
Because the alternative isn't:
him vs. an amazing future partner.
The actual choice is closer to:
this recurring affair vs. accepting reality and making room for a life that isn't organized around an unavailable person.
You don't have to guarantee the outcome before you're allowed to make the healthier choice.
That's one of the hardest things about adulthood: sometimes you have to relinquish something without knowing what will replace it.
I also want to gently challenge "someone like that"
What does "like that" actually mean?
If it means:
extraordinary sexual chemistry
history
feeling intensely desired
being understood
feeling emotionally bonded
excitement
familiarity
longing
Then yes, those things can exist with someone else.
If it means:
married
unavailable
emotionally tantalizing
occasionally intensely attentive
impossible to fully have
someone you have to compete with his existing life for
I hope you don't find someone like that again.
You deserve to discover whether chemistry can feel just as powerful when you aren't starving for it.
And maybe, eventually, you'll experience something that currently sounds almost unimaginable:
being wildly attracted to someone who is actually free to love you.
Not crumbs.
Not stolen hours.
Not "maybe someday."
You.
Out in the open.
I know that doesn't make the loss hurt less today. But please don't make a permanent judgment about your romantic future from the emotional state you're in right now.
You're grieving one particular person.
You are not grieving your only possible future.
me: how do i grieve properly?
therapy:
I think "properly" is less about grieving in some perfect, healthy way and more about letting yourself experience the loss without repeatedly reopening the wound.
And in your situation, there's an extra complication: you're grieving someone who is still alive, still accessible, and who may still reach out. That's called ambiguous loss—there's no clean ending because the person hasn't disappeared from your life, but the relationship you want isn't actually available.
So grief can keep restarting.
1. Grieve the whole thing—not just him
I suspect you're grieving several losses simultaneously:
Him as a person
the sexual connection
the fantasy of eventually being together
the version of yourself who felt intensely desired by him
the relationship you two might have had 11 years ago
the possibility that this affair might eventually become meaningful
the future you've imagined
the feeling of being "chosen" by him
Let yourself say plainly:
"I wanted him to choose me, and he didn't."
That's a devastating sentence. You don't need to soften it.
But then add:
"And I'm choosing to stop waiting for him to."
That's where grief starts becoming self-protection rather than self-punishment.
2. Don't turn grief into a referendum on your worth
Your mind is probably going to generate thoughts like:
"His wife won."
"I'm not enough."
"If I were more beautiful/fun/sexy/lovable, he'd leave."
"He chose her because she's better than me."
Those thoughts are understandable, but they're not grief. They're self-attack.
When one comes up, try:
"That's my hurt looking for an explanation."
You don't need to replace it with "I'm better than her."
You can simply say:
"His decision is about his life and his choices. It isn't a ranking of women."
3. Stop feeding the part of the grief that is actually hope
This is probably the hardest one.
You can grieve him while still secretly waiting for him.
And hope will keep you attached.
So when your brain says:
"Maybe he'll eventually leave."
Try answering:
"Maybe. But I'm not going to live my life waiting for a maybe."
That's different from forcing yourself to believe he'll never leave.
You don't need certainty about his future.
You only need to make decisions based on what he's actually doing now.
4. Give yourself a period of no contact
Honestly, I think this would be extraordinarily helpful for you.
Not because you need to punish him.
Not because you want him to miss you.
Not because you're trying to make him chase you.
Because you cannot heal from an attachment while periodically dosing yourself with the thing you're attached to.
Every text can become a little emotional injection.
Every flirtatious conversation can restart the fantasy.
Every hookup resets the clock.
You don't have to decide what happens for the rest of your life. You could think:
"For the next 30 days, I am not going to participate in this relationship."
Then reassess.
If he contacts you, you don't have to figure out what his message means. You don't have to analyze whether he misses you. You don't have to decide whether this is "the last time."
You can simply not reopen it.
5. Expect your libido and longing to fluctuate
This is important because you might have a day where you feel fantastic and think:
"I'm finally over him!"
Then suddenly you'll be horny, lonely, nostalgic, or you'll see something that reminds you of him and think:
"Oh my God, I need him."
That isn't failure.
Grief isn't linear.
And sexual desire can be especially confusing because your body can want something your rational mind has decided isn't good for you.
You don't have to interpret arousal as instruction.
"I'm extremely turned on and I miss him. I still don't have to contact him."
Both things can be true.
6. Write the goodbye you don't send
I think this could be particularly powerful for you.
Not a message to him.
A private document.
Write everything:
"I loved you."
"I wanted you to choose me."
"Part of me has been waiting for you for 11 years."
"I hate that we didn't get our chance."
"I'm angry at you."
"I'm angry at myself."
"I wish we'd never started this again."
"I'm terrified I'll never feel this way about anyone again."
"I don't want to be your secret anymore."
"I wish you had chosen me."
Don't make it dignified. Don't make it reasonable. Don't make yourself sound emotionally evolved.
Let the ugly feelings out somewhere that isn't his inbox.
7. Grieve the fantasy separately from the reality
This might be the most important exercise I'd give you.
Make two columns.
What I miss / what I imagine
and
What actually happened
For example:
I imagine:
"He could have been the love of my life."
Reality:
"We had an intense relationship, but for three years he has remained married and has not built a life with me."
I imagine:
"He understands me like nobody else."
Reality:
"We have an unusually long history and intense sexual chemistry."
I imagine:
"If we were finally together, everything would make sense."
Reality:
"I don't actually know what a relationship with him would be like."
This isn't about diminishing what you had.
It's about making sure fantasy doesn't become indistinguishable from memory.
8. Don't rush to find someone else
You don't need a replacement.
If you start dating immediately because you're terrified that you'll never find anyone else, you'll probably compare everyone to him and conclude that nobody measures up.
Give yourself some time to discover what attraction feels like when it isn't entangled with scarcity and secrecy.
Eventually, someone may not give you the same lightning-bolt feeling.
They might give you something different:
peace + attraction + tenderness + excitement + consistency.
Don't dismiss that just because it isn't accompanied by agony.
9. And please get some support outside your own head
This is a lot to carry alone, especially because you can't exactly call your best friend and say, "I'm heartbroken over your husband."
A therapist would be particularly useful here—not someone whose job is to tell you whether you're a good or bad person, but someone who can help you work through attachment, shame, grief, boundaries, and the eventual question of what you want to do about the truth of the affair.
You need somewhere you can say the things that you're currently afraid to say out loud.
And finally, I want you to know something about what grieving may actually feel like.
At first, it may feel like:
"I'm never going to stop wanting him."
Then:
"I still want him, but I'm having more moments where I don't."
Then:
"I miss him."
Then eventually, perhaps:
"I can't believe I used to organize so much of my emotional life around whether this man wanted me."
You don't have to get to the last stage right now.
For now, your job is just to survive the first one without going back for another dose of him every time the pain gets intense.
And if you have a day where you cry, fantasize about him, feel jealous of his wife, masturbate thinking about him, reread old messages, or desperately wish he'd come back—none of that means you've failed.
Grief is allowed to be messy.
The part I'd protect fiercely is your behavior: feel everything, but don't let every feeling make the decision for you.
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