‘The man I’m cheating on my husband with won’t commit to me’

Dear Roe,

I am a 38-year-old educated person, having spent almost my entire life studying and focusing on my career. I have been married for 10 years to a man I care about but with whom I was never in love. We have a son. Soon after my son was born, I started to feel depressed, as there was no sex life and no romantic feelings. I had therapy and got better, getting my life busy for four years.

Then I fell in love with someone else. He made me feel so happy, like I have never felt before. At first, I felt like I could cope in the marriage for my son, even if I did not get anything out of the marriage as a woman, or even as a person. With time, my feelings changed. I want to get divorced and be open about my relationship. I am a better person and a better mom (happier, more fun, full of life) with my loved one. I need to move on. 

Even though we talked over and over again about how we could do this with minimal damage to everyone involved, he seems reluctant to change his own life. He is not married, but in a relationship with high social stakes, and he is extremely visible having an important position in his work life. He constantly talks about fear of a scandal and social consequences. It's been three years. I am hurting deeply. Am I so stupid letting him use me as a distraction?

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You’re not stupid. But you’re not being honest – to other people, or yourself. You’re looking at the problem of your life, love and happiness and trying to come up with the solution while overlooking the most important part of this equation: you.

You’re looking at a man you love and wondering if you’re stupid to be with him, stupid to stay with someone who doesn’t seem anywhere close to splitting from his partner, stupid to put up with this disrespect and dishonesty and lack of commitment – and ignoring the fact that you are doing the exact same thing. To not just one man, but two.

You’re not leaving anyone either. You’re not making any firm commitments. You’re not willing to surrender the safety and security and ego-boost of your marriage and suffer the consequences. You say you want to get divorced and start living honestly – but you haven’t. Just like this man has said he wants to leave his relationship – but hasn’t. Whatever stagnant, lie-filled, cowardly, hurtful holding pattern this man has created, you’ve created one all your own. And you need to start acknowledging that; acknowledging your agency, your choices and your very active role in this dynamic. No-one is doing this to you. You’re doing it to yourself. And to other people.

It doesn’t feel like that because you’ve suffered. You’ve been in a marriage that has never fulfilled you, you had depression, you sacrificed, it’s been hard. And when a man who excited you came along, you saw him as your belated, well-earned chance to feel wanted and romanced, to feel like your best self, and you jumped at it. After everything you’ve been through, don’t you deserve to be happy?

But this isn’t the way to happiness. And you know that. Because you’re not happy. You’ve jumped from having one relationship where you never felt fully loved, fully understood, fully yourself, fully committed – to having two of those relationships. You’re not being completely honest or authentic with anyone, not being entirely open and vulnerable with anyone, not fully committing to anyone. And so you don’t feel fully loved by anyone. And because of that you’re too scared to leave anyone.

This situation would be sad even if it was just hurting you. But it’s not. It’s also hurting your husband, your son and this man’s partner. They mightn’t all know how much they’re being hurt yet, but they will, eventually. Pursuing your own happiness at the expense of other people’s happiness is cruel – but you’re doing something worse. You’re pursuing your own unhappiness at the expense of other people’s happiness. That’s a tragedy.

Stop. Stop making choices that perpetuate your own unhappiness, your own negative beliefs about yourself. Stop hiding in relationships where you don’t have to fully love anyone, where you will never be fully loved.

Leave the husband you haven’t fully loved in 10 years. Leave the man who doesn’t fully love you after three years. Go back to therapy and figure out why you married a man you never truly loved, why you had an affair with a man who couldn’t truly love you. Ask why, even when you were feeling your best, you pursued dynamics that would hurt you and those around you.

It’s time to emotionally commit to yourself. Focus on becoming the best possible version of yourself on your own. Focus on learning how to offer and accept love that isn’t stifling, dishonest or incomplete. Focus on holding yourself accountable for your actions, and treating those around you with respect, and honesty. Focus on being a loving, happy, fun mother to your son. Look at that young boy and think about what you want to teach him about how we love ourselves, and how we love other people. Then lead by example.

Commit yourself to learning how to love better. Learn it so well that you can teach it. Learn it so well that you’ll never settle for being half-loved or half-loving, ever again.

Roe McDermott is a writer and Fulbright scholar with an MA in sexuality studies from San Francisco State University. She is researching a PhD in gendered and sexual citizenship at the Open University and Oxford

If you have a problem or query you would like her to answer, you can submit it anonymously at irishtimes.com/dearroe