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Predicament of the Week
In which Breakup Girl addresses the situation that has, this week, brought her the most (a) amusement, (b) relief that it is happening to someone else, and/or (c) proof that she could not possibly be making this stuff up.

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am in the midst of one of the oldest crises known to the modern world...I am in love with a married man. He is 14 years my senior and feels the same about me. (We have talked but never done anything more than a passionate kiss on my last day at work--I used to work with him.) He was hastily married 4 years ago(knew her for 6 weeks) to a woman with a serious disease. He says he saw it as his opportunity to do "the right thing" for someone after years of being a bad alcoholic and drug user who hurt everyone close to him. He had been sober for 7 years when he met his wife and she was the first person that showed him that there could be love in the world. Now they are in a comfortable but passion-less marriage and he had resigned himself to an early aging process until I came into his life. He had given up on the notion of ever having kids (she can't) and now he is realizing that is something he really wants....

He is a serious outdoors enthusiast (so am I) and all of our tastes in music, life, dogs, houses, food, politics, ethics are the same. (If we were sleazier people we would have already conjugated the verb.) I don't know what to do. We speak on the phone quite often...my new job has taken me out of his immediate circle so we don't see each other in person any more. I know he isn't sleeping or eating...I think he is seeking counselling and I think I should too. I can't decide if I am a potential homewrecker or if he and I have a chance for a soulmate that we should both grab for, no matter the cost. He hasn't said anything to his wife but I know if he does she will insist on counselling for both of them. I think this is probably best. He lives in the city but wants to live more rurally. I have just left the city for a lovely small rural town...and have embarked on a biology career with lots of potential. He and I could easily settle here and make a wonderful life. My family would love him (they don't know anything about him now) but his family would disown him.

I have no one to talk to that can give me anything more than the typical advice about staying away from married men because they are all liars in affairs. I don't want an affair. He visits me in my dreams every night. He makes me want to grow up and have kids (I am 29). Being close to him (even sitting next to him at lunch at work) feels so right...like we put off a glow together. Everyone we worked with noticed it...those closest to us felt he and I were perfect for each other but understood the complexities of the situation. Leaving his wife might kill her as her health is so fragile. But on the flip side I wonder how good he is for her if his heart is elsewhere. He stays with her out of respect and duty but there is no passion and they haven't had sex in 2 years (she can't). I just want your thoughts...I don't want to feel so damn textbook. Thank you.

-- C-Monster

Dear C-Monster,

"Conjugate the verb?" I don't think sex can ever be sleazy when you put it like that.

Still, yes, it's good that you haven't ... and it's one of the main things that intrigues me here. On the one hand, the fact that this non-affair has remained potential, dreamlike, subjunctive, if you will ... is indicative, if you will, of how seriously you take it and each other (and his ring). You aren't trying vainly to convince me that you're soulmates when you're really just ... mating-mates. This would seem to bode well, would seem to make a case for making an actual go of it, however messy and heinous the getting-there would be.

That said, well, here's the flipside of same. Given what you've said, it's fairly clear that he didn't take vows of marriage; he took vows of penance. Not to mention chastity. He is doing time.

Which is why I am not going to give you the same old same old "stay away from married men" line. This one's more specific, more nuanced. If he is indeed still in "I must expiate my sins" mode, then not only must he not leave his wife (and not only because she's his wife, but also because she's ill), but he also must deny himself an potential good loving two-way passionate relationship (hint: you). Ergo. He will not come through for you until / unless he stops punishing himself.

Perhaps this is the direction in which his therapy will take him. But I really don't want you to wait around for some sort of future perfect that may never form. At some point, C-Monster, you could ask him a (the) question. In the conditional, not the imperative: would he ever leave her? Could you ever be together? Listen. He'll probably tell you the truth. If he says no (alas and alack!), at least you'll have the words you need to start living in first person, present.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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