She wrote to say she had fallen in love with a man she met online. He told her he had been separated for years from his wife. Their relationship progressed to a physically intimate one. She met some of his friends and family and he met hers. He bonded with her young daughter. She was in love and pushed for commitment. He said he would rather work things out with his wife. “Why do men lie?” she asked in her email.
It’s not just men who lie. She was guilty of telling quite a large lie. “This married man is being honest with me” was the biggest lie she told herself. And then she wrapped her future around that lie.
She was angry that he had been having sex with her at the same time he was attempting to reconcile with his wife. She was angry that he was dumping her to return to his wife.
Why did this man tell her he was separated and then start an intense relationship with her? Perhaps because he actually was separated, or considering divorce, when they met online. Maybe he wanted to experience the “green the grass” outside of marriage and perhaps he experienced enough to decide that his marriage wasn’t so bad after all.
Why did he lie to her? Because that’s what it took to keep her “on the hook” until he was ready to let her go.
Will she believe the next married man who tells her he is unhappily married and going to get a divorce? She might. But even if she doesn’t, there are plenty of other women who will lie to themselves and believe anything a married cheat says.
© Pat Gaudette. All rights reserved.
Order Pat’s books from Amazon.com: How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis: Strategies and Stories from the Midlife Wives Club and Midnight Confessions: True Stories of Adultery.