Emotionally, I’m a wreck because I miss him when we aren’t together. He asks me to give him time to leave her because he has a lot of assets and needs to prepare before the separation. I never planned for any of this and nether did he. We just got along so well and now have both fallen. What should I do now? Do I wait? He doesn’t want me dating anyone else and swears that, if he leaves her and then he and I don’t work out, he’ll hurt himself.

I care about him and I know I’m not ready to walk away, but I’m hurt and tired of sharing him. I just know he’s someone I can see myself with, but this living in a limbo for four months is becoming stressful and painful. — The Other Woman

He isn’t going to leave his wife for you. You two are not going to get an apartment and have a perfect life together. And he’s already told you if it isn’t perfect – and it won’t be – he’ll hurt himself. You think things are stressful and painful now? Just wait until you have the burden of his life hanging over you. And there are so many reasons this relationship won’t be perfect.

You think his wife is going to go quietly into the sunset never to be heard from again? Hell no. They have kids together. There will be court dates, fighting over those assets he says he needs to “prepare,” and trying to figure out how to co-parent in a way that best supports his kids.

And let’s talk about those kids. You think they’re going to think kindly of the woman who broke up their home? You think it’s going to be a cake walk dealing with them and that they won’t affect your relationship? As I said already, if you think this limbo period is stressful and painful, just wait until you’re dealing with a scorned ex-wife and two girls who blame you for wrecking their parents’ marriage.

I don’t think you’re a bad person — I don’t know you. But I do think that you’re in over your head, that you haven’t thought about how your actions are affecting other people, and that you do not have a clear idea what your future looks like with this man. It’s not an easy future, I can tell you that. And if you can’t even handle the four months of banging another woman’s husband because it’s just so painful and stressful for you, then you’re not going to be able to handle what comes next in this scenario if you stay with him. MOA. Save yourself the grief and get off this train wreck now, before even more people are hurt.

LW1 – No. Just no. You’ve only been in this for four months, leaving now won’t hurt nearly as badly as it will when it’s been 5 years and he’s still making excuses about why he needs more time to leave.

Spoiler alert: he’ll probably never leave her. And he won’t hurt himself if you leave. And everything Wendy said was true. Plus, if by some miracle, he does decided to leave, and his wife finds out about you, you’ll be dragged into the divorce proceedings.

Fast forward several years. Let’s say you hang on through all of this, and your relationship survives, and he marries you. What did you win? A guy who cheats on his wife. A guy who deals with difficulties in his relationships by drowning his sorrows in a sweet young thing who’s almost young enough to be one of his kids. Is that what you want? Do you really think it’s going to be different with you? You’d be getting a selfish, thoughtless baby-man who’d rather find a sidepiece than stick with you through the hard stuff.

That sure isn’t anything I’d want.

I’ve been the other woman in a similar scenario, and have to disagree slightly, but only slightly. Sometimes it is possible to fall truly in love with someone while you are still married to someone else. Sometimes age differences don’t matter as much as you think they do, as long as both of you are adults. In my case, as soon as we got together (both married to other people at the time) we told our spouses and started making plans to divorce. We were living together 7 months later and have now been married for 30 years. That having been said, the fact that four months have gone on and he has made no move is a huge red flag. Emotionally, he may be attached to you. But if he isn’t willing to follow that up with action, and is too afraid to leave what may be stable and comfortable to him, or is simply lying to you, waiting around and torturing yourself over this is not productive. At the very least, you should tell him you need to cool things off and not interact with him until/unless he is truly ready to back his vague promises up with action. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’m sorry. It really stinks to feel like you’ve found the person and maybe it’s just not going to work out.

I have ZERO respect for people who cheat on their spouses. So you’ve been together for 30 years. Do you 100% trust him, or is there a little voice in the back of your head questioning where he’s at when he didn’t come home in time? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to lose him how you got him? Are there kids involved? What are those relationships like. What about your ex spouses? How are those relationships?

I’d be willing to bet that the last 30 years haven’t been totally smooth.

I have a similar story. My marriage was irretrievably broken when I met and fell in love with someone else. I got a divorce. My partner and I are wildly happy together. My kids adore my partner. My ex-spouse and I still get along very well and still consider each other family. My partner and I completely trust one another; there is no question at all that we are happy and belong together and would never betray one another.

BUT…I was prepared that things may not be this smooth when I told my ex-spouse we needed a divorce. I was prepared that things with my partner may not work out. I knew my kids might be very sad and that I would have to go through a lot of extra work to make them feel supported and loved. And I knew that I had to do all of this because I was slowly dying in my marriage. I truly had no other choice. I was miserable.

The LW’s scenario sounds nothing like this. LW’s boyfriend isn’t taking steps toward separation or divorce, and the fact that he is telling LW he will harm himself if things don’t work out between them is the reddest of flags. LW is also quite young. There are so many good people in the world that LW can partner with who won’t come with this amount of baggage and mess. LW should drop this guy and run fast before she’s a decade in, still waiting for the guy to get a divorce.

LW #1- WWS!!!If he treats the woman that he’s been married to for years, who is the mother of his children this shitty. What do you think he’s going to do to you when he’s no longer interested in you?.Any dude who’s miserable in his marriage, who needs time to ‘prepare’* his assets in order to end his marriage is a dude who is…a) shady as hell, b) lying to you in order to keep sleeping with you or c) probably both..Please end the relationship, it’ll be hard but staying with him for years waiting for him to leave his wife will be infinitely harder.

*Let’s be honest, ‘prepare his assets’ is code for try to hide the money so his wife doesn’t find out he’s got a side piece, and take his ass to the cleaners in divorce court.

LW1: you are in your twenties? Please don’t waste a minute more in this false situation. Get yourself a good available partner, this is so much better!

LW2: That is terrible! For her sake, you can’t tell her you are happy that this man is out of her life, even if you think so. He was a wreck and toxic and crazy, but she loved him and a death is traumatic. It is very meaningful that she chose you: it shows she somehow agreed with you. I think you can be there for her, listen to her, but only a therapist can really give her the necessary help in this shock.

LW – He is manipulating you!!! You need to end this immediately. I dated a man 8 years older when I was in my early 20s and this is so so similar. Everyone told me to not get involved, but “we were so connected” and “we had never felt this way about anyone else.” With perspective I now see just how dysfunctional this relationship was. It still fills me with shame that I was so naive. Please don’t make the same mistakes I did and get away from this guy before you end up pregnant.

LW – You barely know this man. 4 months? A man who is unhappy in his marriage needs to end his marriage before he starts sleeping with someone else. And why is he so unhappy in his marriage – because his wife is caring for his children while he is out and about not taking care of his marriage, his kids or his home because he’s with you. Grow up. Even if he leaves his family – you are always going to be waiting for him to lie to you.

LW: There are so many red flags here. I’ll try to break them down. 1) He doesn’t want you to date anyone else, but he is still married. He wants you to make a commitment to him, without him making one to you. Never make a commitment to someone who isn’t willing to give you the same. It’s unbalanced. He gets all the benefit and you do all the work. No. 2) He’s married. “My marriage is over anyway” is literally the oldest story in the book. If he’s that unhappy, he needs to leave. Never mind “assets”. An honest man will leave before he starts dating other people. 3) If it doesn’t work out, he says he will hurt himself. This is emotional blackmail. He is trying to manipulate you, don’t fall for it. 4) He is a cheater. Rather than do the decent thing and leave, he wants to cheat on his wife with you. Think about that. If he cheats on her, he will cheat on you. 5) You will have contributed to the breakup of a marriage. Do you want to do that? 6) You’ve known him for four months. Four months is not long enough to get a true picture of who someone is. Although, he is showing you a lot. You need to open your eyes at look very hard at what he is showing you. (See all above.)

Couldn’t have said this better.

LW read Wendy’s and the other comments here. He’s lying to you.

I foresee a column in fifteen years where this woman is outraged that his daughter won’t invite her to their wedding.

“I stayed for the kids” + “We’re nothing more than roommates” + “I need time to get my assets in order” + 15 years younger + “I’m so in love that I’ll hurt myself if you leave me” = a guy who is NEVER going to leave his wife, but wants to make absolutely sure that you’re trapped into being his hot young side piece du jour, at his beck and call. The oldest, most tacky and tawdry trick in the book.

It’s only been FOUR MONTHS! Moving in with someone after four months, even in the best of circumstances, is a bad idea. It doesn’t even sound like you’re super into each other. “We both claim to have fallen in love”? “I miss him when we’re not together” well yeah, no shit, so does everyone else with a crush. Just think, if you guys DO end up together, you can have the stain of being “the other woman” hanging over your head for the rest of your life! Sounds great!

Sweetie. I’ve been right where you are and I know exactly how it feels – the joy of finding a “soulmate”, the pain of sending him back to her, the delight when he comes back to you.

In my case, we made it through (together) but we still have the scars. The ex will be even more awful than you imagine during the divorce. He might leave and then go back to her “for the sake of the kids/to wrap it all up” several times and it will break your heart every time. The question of “how did you meet” will still make you feel shame 15 years later. The ex will play the sick kid kid/need you here for family Christmas post-divorce in a ploy to get him to choose her and the kids over you again. His family may never accept you – he and the kids will get celebratory cards from his brother with no mention of you, even though you’ve been married for 5 years. It will be so hard for him to co-parent, because the nature of your beginning means that you’ll never be welcome at soccer games and graduations – always leaving him feel like he needs to choose between supporting the kids or being with you (and he’s not a very good dad if he chooses you). The tension of that will nearly kill him. And you’ll have to work so hard to be recognized as being worthy of influencing the kids as they grow given that you’ll always be stained as a homewrecker in their eyes.

Had you told me how soul crushingly hard it was going to be when I was trying to back out of it at the four month mark way back when, I would have listened and stayed away. I would have begged him to take care of ending the the marriage then we could see if we could begin again. I would have made that the beginning of my self-exploration with a therapist (why was I prepared to settle for less than a full and honest relationship) instead of finally invoking that when I realized I had married a man who could never really place me first, had step-kids and in laws that despised me for ruining a happy home and where I need to lie regularly about how we met and when we started to date to save face,

Please be gentle with yourself. I hope that you see that while a break now would hurt for a spell, telling him to finish his business then check in to see where you are at gives this the best chance to flourish if he really is the one you are meant to be with. And I’m just not saying this for myself. My husband, whom I love dearly and who I know loves me as much, says often that the biggest mistake he made during that who time was allowing “before” and “after” to coexist. He would have ended the marriage and for the real reason much sooner and much more definitely had I not been there to make him feel good sometimes. I know it would have broken me less while it happened….

Love this transparency! Thank you. Everything you said is real and raw.

LW: Usually when guys say this, they are the one that thinks their relationship with their spouse is just roommates, while the spouse thinks it’s a marriage. If they were truly just roommates, then it wouldn’t be so difficult to divorce because all that would be left was signing on the dotted line. You’re letting yourself be manipulated badly. Based on the timeline, he’s been “trying” to get a divorce for what, a year? How long before the past four months has he been trying? You’ve got a guy who claims he will leave his wife but has no evidence he will who won’t let you date anyone else and is blackmailing you into it by threatening his safety. Even if he left his wife, surely you know you deserve better than a loser like that, right?

LW, this is the oldest story in the books. Young girl takes up with married man … (1st BIG Mistake), and he’s in a bad marriage (Come on girl …you must be smarter than that) and he needs “time…” Make a rule for yourself so that you can maintain some self-respect. Don’t date married men. Ever. This is a disaster and you need to MOA … now. Not next week, now. I honestly don’t have any compassion for you. Wendy is too kind. You’re in your 20’s and the mistress. Just not smart. On any level. One more tidbit – Once a cheater, always a cheater. He has no moral compass.

LW, Leave this guy. He is bad news. He lives with his wife but expects you not to date anybody else? Is this fair to you? And he would hurt himself if things did not work out between the two of you? Talk of a controller and emotional blackmailer! Run!By the way, you are not “the other woman”. (Who invented this stupid expression?) You are a naive woman who fell for an entitled, inconsiderate and irresponsible man who does not have the decency to terminate his marriage contract before engaging in a new relationship. Do you really think he is the ideal partner for you?

LW: this is easy. Show yourself some respect and do the right thing. Tell him when he has 100% finalized his divorce and has his own place of residence he may contact you again to see if you still want a relationship with him. Only then will you begin to date him again. Don’t talk to him or see him in person until that happens. Walk away. Personally, I would dump him and never look back. This is because even if he did do the right thing and divorce his wife, his kids and family will always see YOU as the home-wrecker. And it will be true…you were the catalyst.

No, HIS decision to go looking for a gullible young side piece to cheat on his wife with was the catalyst.

Why is the single woman always referred to as the person who broke the family unit up? It’s his family surly he is 100% in charge of breaking the news to said family so why isn’t he the one to blame? Yes it takes two to tango, but can we all at least admit that to a large number of people today marriage is no longer the life long partnership it once used to be? Why do people even get married, some have said that they just want the big day, whilst others claim they have met their soulmate. Does anyone actually get married now and truly believe that God and religious beliefs are the back bone of any good solid commitment? I got married in church but I am not religious, I got divorced because my husband left me for a younger woman. I didn’t blame God and I didn’t blame him or her 100% either, it just so happens I married the wrong person and pretty sure his partner didn’t set out to break up my family or try to damage my kids. It happened, these things do, it’s life. I now focus on having a healthy relationship with both my ex and his partner in the hope that my son is not scared from this experience, too often these so called damaged kids get forgotten about whilst the parents tear each other apart. If you’re happily married and believe in the constitution then great, but please don’t judge others or spread hate on matters you nothing about.

This is so true. When a married man is the instigator, he will pursue and pursue and does not want to take no for an answer. After repeated noes, the woman might give in in a moment of weakness, so why does that make her the bad one? He started it and she tried to shut it down, well she should have been stronger in resisting his advances. Why is he absolved of any responsibility to be strong enough to resist urges? I know this is not the case in every infidelity scenario, but it sure happens a lot of the time.

No, Carolanne, marriage still serves a purpose and over half of first marriages last until the death of one of the partners. (Virtually?) every study says that marriage provides increased financial success, and increased life expectancy, as well as a better situation to successfully raise children (not to say that divorce in the case of emotional or physical abuse in the house doesn’t benefit children over sticking it out in dysfunction, or that single moms can’t be great parents, but on average…)

Ladies, we need to NOT PUT UP WITH THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT FROM MEN. If a married man flirts with you, tell him to piss off. We also need to raise our daughters not to put up with this bullshit.We need to quit giving any man the benefit of the doubt. When they show you who they are, BELIEVE THEM!!!!!!

DO NOT DATE MARRIED MEN!!!! If he wants you so much, date him after he gets divorced.

Been there, done that. Adorable “older” man who absolutely was going to leave his wife and family for me. Fortunately, I figured out early what a mistake I had made and how wrong it was of me to think I had the right to break up his family. And I realized that I only ever saw him for the romantic moments — I never lived with him and got to see what a lousy partner he was to his wife. So I told him to go decide what to do about his marriage on his own and leave me out of it. Best decision I every made.

That man is taking advantage of your naivety. You are and will always be the side piece. They are not roommates or divorcing. They are a family and will continue to be as long as she is either unaware or chooses to ignore him stepping out on the side.

You’re in your twenties. Date someone closer to your age. This man is playing you and getting what he wants.

LW1: just remember…. If he can do this to the wife he has kids with, it’s only a matter of time before he’s doing this to you. And by then, you will have put your own needs aside for so long you won’t even know what your own needs are anymore. You will question every moment of what you think is real love now. You will lose confidence in your ability to discern what is real and what is manipulations and lies. You will ask yourself how you were so blind. If you choose this path, know the ride you’re on and how it ends. Choose this experience for what it will teach you, NOT because it will be a fairy tale where his 1st wife is the evil villain and you ride off into the sunset as the pure of heart princess with the misguided prince who finally found his 1 true love. Men like this have 1 true love whenever their fairy tale gets real. She’s always the innocent damsel standing in front of him that hasn’t lived the nightmare of being with him when shit got hard. He’s not your unicorn. Go find yourself a horse and choose the sunset that will suit the life you actually want…. Not the stolen life of another woman because some court jester sold you some nonsense. Feel bad for her as you ride off. She already got duped and had kids with this loser. Save yourself.

Oooooh honey. Girl. No.WWS, but I really urge you to talk to someone mature and healthy in your life to help support you and give accountability as you LEAVE HIM. A therapist would be great. They can hopefully also help you figure out WHY you have such low self esteem that you’d allow yourself to be a side piece for a married father.It’s not just that what you’re doing is wrong, it’s also emotional abuse. He’s threatening you with his own suicide! This is a huge red flag and you need to run far and fast. Get some support and get moving.

Yes, agreed. Threatening suicide if someone leaves is a huge huge no. It IS abuse. If she had written in about an unmarried boyfriend doing that, I would advise therapy and ending it.

Falling in love is a fairy tale. Making life with a married man is who is 15 years older than you is also a fairy tail. He has waaaay to much baggage, is a self-serving ego-manic with a trophy on his arm. He treated his wife like crap and you like a young piece of meat who is very naive. Grow up girl. And run as fast as you can. He’ll be old and sick soon, too, and you will always be 15 years younger than him – so guess what – you will be a nurse, too. THis situation has nothing be misery in it for you, girly. Put on your grown woman pants and start working on developing your own integrity.

and BTW, I can’t believe women are still falling for this stupidity. Go find yourself a real man, or stay single. I know I am being blunt, but this is an emergency.

Take away the he’s married part, and you still would be unwise to stay with someone who threatens to kill tyemself if you leave. That’s manipulative at best, mentally unstable at medium, and a violent abuser at worst. Now add that he’s married a likely lying to you, plus has kids. End it. Take some time to process by what about the idea of being with someone who wasn’t truly available was appealing to you. Then pursue relationships with available, non-manipulative, stable men.

(Please excuse the typos – typing quickly on a phone.)

It will hurt if you end the relationship now, sure. But the hurt you experience now will be NOTHING compared to the heartache of either (a) hanging around in the background while he carries on his marriage or (b) hanging around in the background while he dissolves his marriage – this can take years, by the way – and eventually ending up with a lying, cheating, manipulative nightmare of a man.

You are young, with your whole life ahead of you. There are plenty of lovely, available young guys with whom you actually stand a chance of a worthwhile relationship. Don’t waste any more time with this loser.

He’s not a catch. He’s lying to his wife and cheating behind her back. He’s not making moves to divorce her. He’s probably lying to you to keep you around as long as possible. Be happy that you’re clearly not cut out to be someone’s affair partner (you are so stressed you wrote in only 4 months in). Learn from this that you should leave someone the moment they say they’re married.

I actually don’t believe in once a cheater always a cheater, but I do believe that a serious relationship with an affair partner will never work out well. At the very least the step kids and the in-laws will always dislike you. And most relationships won’t last through all that hostility.

You’re the side chick. He will never leave his wife, and he thinks that you’re stupid because you are so much younger than him; therefore, he can tell you whatever bullshit he wants and you are going to believe him. And you are proving him right. You are committing adultery with a married man. He is still having sex with his wife, he is still treating her AS his wife, and he is lying to you to keep you as the side chick and to keep you from moving on and finding someone who is actually AVAILABLE. Grow up, woman up, and leave him. Jiminy Cricket.