Don’t waste your emotional energy

STEPH SAYS:

YOUR first sentence pretty much tells me everything about your dilemma. You know what you’re doing is so very wrong, the question you are asking us is why you’re doing it.

You know exactly what you should do now — it’s blindingly obvious that you must stop your affair with this man, keep quiet and stop sending him endless texts.

What is surprising to me is that you might be expecting anything other than that advice.

If you’re asking for my thoughts on how you can physically keep in contact with your lover on ‘lockdown’, or how you can keep the flame burning from a distance, then I’m afraid you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

You should most definitely not be looking for ways to keep him in your life, and I am certainly not going to help you find them. What I can do, though, is try to help you understand why you think you need him at all.

The most striking thing to me from your letter is the screaming lack of any mention of love. It is crystal clear that you are not ‘in love’ with this man. Even through your university years he barely registered on your radar. He is not the love of your life.

Furthermore, this is not the story of two people who were destined to be together. To my untrained eye this feels like a rather grubby fling — he’s been married for a good while and he most probably liked the idea of some exciting extracurricular sex (or, let’s be honest, if he’s been married for a while, just some sex).

It is clear that he’s not planning a divorce. He’s not even talking about the future. He admits that he fancied you at university — and that is about it, I’m sorry to say.

I fully understand how flattering that must have been to hear, but now is the time to be honest with yourself.

Accept that you have created a relationship based on a fantasy, that you are not madly in love and, I would venture to say, that neither is he.

You have asked us what we think you should do. Well, I think you should stop wasting your emotional energy on this rather futile fling. We do not have the luxury of endless time.

I am fully aware that being alone is scary — especially now — but you should allow him to be where he needs to be, which is with his wife and family.

Be kind to yourself and to him. There is nothing to be gained by keeping this relationship going, and there is nothing to be gained by ruining a perfectly innocent person’s life by telling her that her husband is being unfaithful.

Say goodbye gracefully. I promise you will like yourself so much more when you do.