Need advice on navigating FA / AP breakup
TW: suicidal ideations/threats
Long post ahead... So I've (41M) been in an extramarital affair with a partner (43F) more on than off for the better part of 4 years. I'm more anxious attached and she's more fearful avoidant. It's also long distance...
We initially ran a business together and would meet at conferences every 2-3 months. She would (what I know now was deactivation) need space every 3-4 weeks with gradually increasing intensity and this predictably made me very anxious. We agreed early on neither of us were willing to leave our spouses so that never factored into those initial fights.
The intimacy and chemistry between us has always been very strong, esp sexually - which isn't surprising given the dynamic and that both of us have ADHD as well.
After a little more than a year, she left our business and blocked me for the first time. I used our business social accts to contact her and I threatened suicide for the first time. She eventually calmed down and we apologized to each other but didn't resolve anything (mostly because we didn't actually know what the underlying issue was).
6 months later (March of 2024), her sister killed herself after a lengthy battle with a benzo chemical dependency. I was the first person she called - not her husband. And we basically stayed on FaceTime for a week until the funeral including me helping write the eulogy. She deactivated again the day of the funeral and I spiraled hard.
We saw each other about a month after and everything seemed copacetic (the irony of ironies for an anxious-avoidant trap). Then she melted down a couple weeks after that and initiated the first break up screaming at me telling me she hated me, threatened a restraining order, told me she never wanted to see or hear from me again. She blocked me but I found a way to maintain comms via Google Doc which she eventually blocked too. Finally got her to talk by sending an info request on her website 11 days later and her first tearful words were "I love you. I miss you. I'm so sorry." We had a joint session with my therapist and tried to establish a backdown protocol for when things got out of hand (April of 2024).
The backdown protocol didn't really work because neither of us followed it so things were bumpy off and on with dozens of mini-deactivations for the next year until the next break-up which was actually peaceful and I offered to step back, let her block me and said when she was ready to reach out, I'd be there. then i see that she's watching my stories through her own biz IG acct and so i message her and get no response even though she read it. I didn't realize that the day I sent the message was the one year anniversary of her sister's death... When she finally replied via WhatsApp, it was from a place of deep hurt and anger but she agreed to meet with my therapist and me again. the meeting was productive and we slowly re-engaged (which for us, slowly was 3-4 days...)
We saw each other a few weeks later and had a great weekend together (March of 2025).
We maintained more of a detached but overall stable co-existence and saw each other 2 more times in 2025 (May and June) and then at the end of July, we had another meeting with my therapist and tried to split amicably - which worked for about 11 days before I broke the silence on my birthday. We facetimed for a bit and she broke down sobbing uncontrollably and had to go. I was calm about it and we talked again for a few days and then she ghosted me and I melted the fuck down sending threats and awful messages for several days with no response. She messaged my therapist that we needed to meet and when we did, she just screamed at me for an entire hour while i cried so hard i couldn't breathe. then she blocked me. i reached out with a goodbye letter via google drive a few weeks later and got no response, then again a couple weeks after that, and then from fake numbers and finally after 65 days, I gave up and stopped trying.
during this time, she was periodically messaging my therapist and corresponding with a mutual friend, keeping tabs on me on twitter, and listening to my podcast.
i was an absolute mess almost the entire time because my assumption was that everything she said in the meeting was true and that she hated me, never wanted to see or hear from me again etc.
on christmas day, she told our mutual friend to tell me merry christmas which was the first olive branch 4 months later.
then on Jan 8, 2026, I decided to risk messaging on WhatsApp. As soon as I saw her profile pic pop up, I knew I was unblocked. So I told her I was going to be close to where she was more than likely going to be for work in a week and a half and that I'd love to meet up. She responded about an hour later telling me she was going to be somewhere else and I told her I could adjust my travel plans to meet her there.
she got upset pretty quickly but i gave her the space to process and the next day, she said she'd love to see me. so we ended spending most of the following weekend together and it was about as magical and intimate as you could imagine to the point where i even told her i wanted to get a divorce (irrespective of my involvement with her) and that id eventually want to marry her. she asked if i was asking her to leave her husband (in a way that was like her begging me to say yes) but i told her i couldn't do that and she said that she wouldn't leave him. regardless, for the next month and a half, things were better than ever and we even survived several potential fights.
then we got into one that ended up last 5-6 weeks off and on, including during an in-person visit.
at one point she accused me of being a narcissist whose whole plan was to control and manipulate her to get what i wanted.
eventually we calmed down enough to see each other one more time and we fought almost the whole time culminating with her agreeing with what some troll said about me online being the worst person in our profession and me threatening to jump off the same parking garage as her sister (which was 3 blocks away).
we had sex twice after that fight in the middle of the night and the next morning and had a calm convo over breakfast and as she took me to the airport. we didn't really conclude or resolve anything but when i got out of her car after she hugged me like she never wanted to let go, i said "i guess this is it" and walked away with tears in my eyes.
a couple days later, she spiraled and said she was done and i asked if we could have one more therapy session which she agreed to but said it wouldn't change her mind.
As i walked into the session and got my computer ready to get her on zoom, i asked my therapist if i should even include her based on her saying it wouldn't change anything and he said probably not. so i messaged her that i didn't want her to come and put my phone on DND and went into the session. she messaged me in disbelief and tried to facetime multiple times and then said that she was going to block me if i didn't respond in 5', which i obviously didnt (this was May 11, 2026).
this was upsetting but understandable and i was actually stable for the first 10 days or so. then i sent a letter via google doc apologizing and explaining why i didn't want her to come and asking for us to go no contact for the next couple weeks. She didn't respond but she was reading it every few hours for several days, so i tagged her and asked to talk and she immediately blocked me.
we were planning on meeting at a conference june 18-20 and i didn't have clarity on whether or not that was still happening so i kept trying various ways to reach out.
finally, 2 weeks before she sends a message through our mutual friend that she had a minor surgery that was more involved than anticipated and that she was cancelling the trip. i was predictably devastated but also skeptical given how many times she threatened to do that before. i tried reaching out a week later and then she sent another message through my friend confirming that she was in fact canceling because she was on antibiotics and her recovery was pretty rough. that was 20 days ago. i sent one final goodbye letter through a google acct she hadn't blocked and she blocked it soon after. i decided to go NC that day (19 days ago).
i went to the conference without her which was extremely hard, but i survived. i published a podcast shortly after that i'm 99% sure she listened to based on analytics data, but i'm not on twitter anymore and she blocked me on IG from all accts so she has no way to keep tabs on me. our friends wife doesn't want him texting women she doesn't know so that's out the window and she hasn't messaged my therapist.
i'm pretty determined to use NC to heal and work on myself but I'm still devastated from the breakup and would love to reconnect because I know we love each other deeply and have a deeper connection than with anyone else we've ever been with, including our spouses.
during each breakup, she told me after that she was monitoring me, checking on me, thinking about me constantly, missing me, never stopped loving me etc. but i still find myself spiraling about my worst fears being true and that she's not doing any of that this time.
And I know some of you are going to read this and be like "this is super fucked up" and while i don't disagree, those comments aren't constructive.
and yes i know that if there's any potential long-term future, we both need to leave our marriages.
what i really need is reassurance that reconnection is possible, and how to chart a path towards that reconnection given that i have zero comms with her in any way, shape or form. do i maintain NC? and for how long?
and maybe some reassurance that my worst fears aren't actually true and that she's still thinking about me, monitoring me (somehow?), misses me and loves me...
TIA