Narcissa

I was young and came from a strict family who didn’t allow boyfriends before marriage. My family found out I was seeing someone only after they discovered I was five months pregnant. I moved out, had my daughter, got married and bought a house.

My husband is a good person. He works hard for us. He loves his kids and his life consists of working and being at home. I’ve always taken care of everything within the home and I mean absolutely everything. I also have my own business where I work from home.

Two years ago I found myself suffering from depression and anxiety. Work was quiet due to the recession and I felt unloved. One night I logged onto a website for affairs. I met someone the complete opposite to my husband: tall, privately educated, well-spoken and articulate.

We fell head over heels in love, and he asked me to marry him. I couldn’t sleep every night thinking of ways to be with this man. I worried about breaking up my marriage for the kids’ sake. I even felt sorry for my husband.

I am not making excuses, but I will say the affair brought me back to life. I learnt what it felt like to have intelligent conversations with a man, to have a man cook for me and love me so much. On my 30th birthday my lover arranged a surprise trip on the Orient Express. My husband didn’t even get me a card.

Yet financial stability for my kids kept me to the marriage. I couldn’t bear to lose what I had built up over the years.

In the end my lover ended our relationship. I lied to him and told him my husband moved out, just to see whether he would make a move towards me. He didn’t because I hadn’t left and his trust was gone.

I am an intelligent professional woman yet this man reduces me to a nervous wreck. I cannot bear him being with anyone else. Why is he turning his back on something that was so brilliant?

I am enrolling in university part-time to fulfill my lifelong ambition of being a lawyer, but I feel so empty without him. Each time I think he is gone forever I feel sick in the pit of my stomach and can’t breathe. My friends beg me to walk away forever but I can’t.

The last time we spoke he said he never stopped loving me but something in him broke months ago and he can’t be with me right now. The cynical side to me says I am being used as a backup plan if he can’t find someone else.

Heather

Heather, you want us to tell you that you should continue to torture this man. We won’t tell you that. We are pleased he got loose from you because you prevent him from having a wife and family of his own.

Your lover finally realized you used and lied to him because you “couldn’t bear to lose what I had built up over the years.” You ask only one question in your letter: why did my lover turn his back on something so brilliant? The answer is, that is exactly what you did to him.

But you have turned this around in your head to make him a villain. There is no indication in your letter you will leave your husband. Rather you want your lover as compensation for what is not in the marriage, and you intend to use your husband to get your law degree.

Your fear is your lover will find someone else and be happy. That is the height of selfishness. That is why your friends told you, if you won’t leave your husband, at least leave this man alone.

It is as if you believe, for your happiness others should suffer.

Wayne & Tamara