Somebody stop me!

OK, so I told you all about what happened with my new next door neighbours: in a nutshell – he is flirtatious, she is paranoid.

I was good to go to cut them both loose and after hearing nothing from either of them for the best part of a week I thought it was done but then he turned up on my doorstep again and told me that I should speak to her and reassure her that everything is OK because it would be a shame for the kids to pick up on bad vibes and be excluded from the dog walks, etc.

She turned up while he was standing outside my door and he tried to call her over but she was slamming doors and appearing un-cooperative – kind of awkward. Then eventually she came to my door and began to chastise me and I lost it a bit and became quite emotional and told her that frankly, I was tempted to just stop talking to them both.

She stepped inside my house and closed the door and then we had a massive heart to heart about what was going on, what he’s like, his problems, abuse he suffered from his step father as a child. I told her that I believe in ‘the sisterhood’ – that all of my female friends (and quite a few new ones) had gathered round me since my break up and been wonderfully supportive and shared their own stories. (Some lovely men – blogging friends and friends’ husbands have been there too which is also amazing).

I told her that I have never been adulterous or slept with someone who is in a relationship with someone else and that it is not my intention to do so with him.

I assured her that I would let her know if he texted me or called me. And then, next time he texted me and I responded I screen-shotted the whole conversation and forwarded it to her.

But since then…

Well, this is the weird thing with mutual attraction and fantastical obsession – I have gone against my better instincts and gradually allowed him to pretty much pick up where he left off with the calls and texts. Still nothing overtly sexual but he has said things that don’t sit right with me – kind of half imagined non-promises about holidays with the kids and binning off ‘the dragon’.

He’s said more than once that he feels he has more in common with me than he does with her because she doesn’t have children (he’s got one 9 year old son who doesn’t live with him), and also because he’s gone through divorce and because he has a connection with the organisation I work for.

I don’t work on Fridays and he knows that so he came home early today and I actually invited him into my house for tea and a biccie because heaven knows I didn’t want a repeat of the last time – me in her house without her knowledge.

He brought his laptop in and commenced fiddling about with work emails whilst at the same time talking to me – telling me stuff about what’s wrong with the relationship with her; how unhappy he is and how he’s planning to break up with her by telling her he’s met someone else (not me!).

I asked him why they had broken up and got back together three times. He said the last time she was struggling with her mortgage so he moved back in to sleep in the spare room and help her pay the bills but then she’d discovered pictures of him, and I quote “having sex with other girls” on his phone.

Hearing him say that made me feel quite sick. But for some reason I let him hug me; I let him believe that something could potentially happen between us (it didn’t).

Why? Why did I do that? I genuinely like his girlfriend and I feel like I am colluding in a web of deceit with a guy who’s moral compass has no true North.

Yes, I’m sexually frustrated, yes I feel worried that there may be no hope for a woman of my age to attract a decent, attractive, real man who might actually want to be a part of my *real* world and muck in with the kids and at the same time get who I am as a person but is that enough of a reason to get myself caught up with someone who I could never trust?

Someone who I feel probably needs (a lot of) counselling; who seems to be, at heart, a nice guy, but maybe has some sort of – if not sex addiction then addiction to the idea of behaving like a sexual butterfly; who has found a way to make it sound *almost* plausible that there is a non-sexual reason why we should be together, but at the same time isn’t coming close to convincing me that he knows the real me – not one little bit.

I feel like I need to go on a date with someone else or something – a way of showing them both that my life goes on without their drama – that I don’t need him, that I don’t want him, that I am a self-sufficient, strong, single woman – someone who needs to put her children first and foremost and not become embroiled in some kind of soap opera.

I don’t want to morph into her – playing the role of the spurned lover, the one who is always wanting to check their partner’s phone but scared of what they might find; someone who detects the smell of another woman’s perfume in the car and just can’t accept the innocent explanation.

It’s a helluva situation and only more complicated by the fact that we are all going out together on a jolly ‘family’ type outing tomorrow to celebrate his son’s 10th birthday.

Sheesh. Somebody give me a good talking to please.