Neediness for outside flattery risks family

Q - I’m a man, married with kids, and my spouse is a really nice person. Like any other relationship, we encounter challenges.

However, I have a problem. I usually find myself in situations where I meet other attractive females on the outside, who I eventually - because of flirting back and placing myself in certain situations (not sexual intercourse) - allow their feelings to develop.

On most occasions, I never let the individuals know that I’m married, which I know is really bad.

Many times, it’s because I really do not want to hurt their feelings, or perhaps I just want to have my cake and eat it too.

I’m currently in a situation like that, and I genuinely, urgently need help!

My question: How can I break-up this relationship with the “outside female,” while also revealing to her in a nice way that I’m married, without making her feel bad or even hate me?

Asking the Impossible?

A - No, you are asking the improbable.

There’s no way to “have your cake and eat it” by cheating (even if emotionally, not sexually).

Or by being totally self-serving in your excuses.

You tell yourself you’re trying not to hurt these “outside women.” Yet every encounter risks hurting your “really nice wife” and your kids, should it be discovered that you’ve been playing around in many such situations.

The urgency of your need for help shows you’re already gotten in too deep with this current one.

Time to face reality and be honest: You are married. You regret that you didn’t tell her sooner.

You are truly sorry about this but won’t be able to have a personal relationship with her again.

If she hates you, too bad. You have another relationship to focus on.

Having “challenges” in a marriage doesn’t excuse you from going walkabout with other women and misleading them.

Get marital counselling with your wife to learn how couples deal with challenges together and build an honest, caring, and respectful bond to help face difficult periods.

Also, probe your own counselling needs.

The real question here is why you are so needy that you seek flattery and desire from so many women, that you’re dishonest and false both with them and at home?

Get professional help, or else chasing around to fill that void in yourself, will soon hurt you a lot harder than one woman not liking hearing that you’re married.

Q - I go to the same hair salon every week. Initially, while my hair was being blown dry, I enjoyed quiet time and read.

Now the stylist continuously tells me about Chinese medicine, repeating everything over and over, in poor English I don’t easily understand.

She even stops working on my hair to explain and make sure that I’m listening.

How can I get her to stop trying to make me understand how Chinese medicine works? She won’t stop talking.

I’m totally uninterested in her ideas of how to keep my body healthy.

Distracted Blow-Dry

A - Three options: 1) Ask the salon for another stylist. It can be awkward initially, but you seem to have the personality to not care about that.

2) change salons. This one may be convenient in distance, but inconvenient for your level of tolerance.

3) A kinder choice. Tell her you need the time for quiet thinking and/or reading.

Good health is her passion, not yours.

Thank her for caring, but say that peace and quiet are good for your mental health.