Dear April,
I have been married for 8 years. We have always had a rough marriage which I have always attributed to the fact that we are very different and not at all compatible. I am 35 and this is my second marriage. I have children from each marriage. I currently lead a perfect life except, I do no and have not ever loved my husband. Sometimes the loneliness I feel is unbearable.
Anyway, I have tried so hard to be faithful as I firmly believe staying married is best for everyone — but me. About a month ago, I answered an online ad placed by a man looking for a strictly platonic friend. He is new to the area and had gone through a really tough break up a few months before. He still isn’t entirely over his ex, but has come far in the past months. He is wonderful. Like everyone, he has flaws but all in all he is just a sweet, caring, sensitive guy. Initially our conversations were very open and honest because neither one of us every thought we would be a party to an affair. Our initial emails have progressed to also including emails, Facebook, text messaging, etc. We spend hours everyday communicating with each other. He lives only about 20 minutes away, but has been out of town for work for the past two weeks. He is flying in this weekend so we can spend some time together, in person.
How compatible do we seem at this point, right?
Signed,
LoverGurl
Dear LoverGurl,
Come on, now. You’re too smart to buy your own bologna! If you’ve tried so hard to be faithful, then why on earth would you start up an affair with a random guy on the internet? The answer is that you haven’t tried that hard at all to be faithful. If you had, you wouldn’t have actively sought out a strange man to create a fantasy romance with. In fact, it was easier for you to have a faceless fantasy internet romance than to face the real life marriage you committed to where you claim you have never loved your husband!
But this tendency to take the easy road out is what landed you in this situation in the first place. Relationships require work, and you can’t be lazy! If you married a man you never loved, and with whom you’ve never been compatible, it seems like you really didn’t want to do the work that is required in dating to find someone who is your Mr. Right. Dating is a process, and if you date smart, you can win big. But you chose this man, as a single mother, and now you have to make the best of what seems like a situation that is not really all that bad, but merely uncomfortable. I don’t mean to discount loneliness, but if you committed to him, had a child with him, and are raising your child from your first marriage with him, it’s time for you to make this work — not to cop out with some stranger from the internet. Taking the easy way out where you replace an uncomfortable feeling of loneliness with a guy you’ve never even met yet, is too risky, the stakes are too high, and this pattern of behavior is exactly what you need to stop doing.
Understand the real reasons that you married your husband and work harder at the relationship you’re in. Man up and dig deeper to find the best in your husband, your marriage and yourself. Every marriage needs a tune up or even a jump start now and then, and you need to start treating your husband like a valued man. Don’t let yourself go, and start flirting with him, as you would a guy you’d be interested in having a date with! Shake things up within your marriage by taking him away for a weekend or spicing up your lingerie wardrobe and letting him be the beneficiary of your new things. Walk in the park together and get to know and appreciate everything that is wonderful about the man you chose to be your husband the father to your children. Become a woman who is responsible for choices and grateful for what is good in her life. It’s certainly not to late to save this marriage, but it is going to require you work at this.
