DEAR CHRISTINE, I AM IN LOVE with a married man who says how much he loves me. It has been three years of seeing him if I can arrange the meeting and only to make love, and then he is up and gone until the next day when he calls me two or three times.
I have asked him on many occasions to let us stop what is going on between us but he said he just cannot stop because he loves me.
He has never given me a gift, a card or anything else for my birthday, Christmas or anything.
I have two grown children and I am not that badly off for him to support me, but a little gift shows appreciation.
I don’t want to break up his home. He has some stepchildren he thinks the world of.
Don’t you think that if he loves me he would make some time to see me when we can be together for a little while?
My husband passed away some years ago and this man is the only person I have known since then although I have been asked out quite a few times.
I keep refusing because of him, for when we are together he makes me feel so good.
What do you think is the best thing to do?
– CB
Dear CB,
I think it would help if you widen your circle of friends and give up this relationship. It may not be easy to get him out of your life, but seeing other people is one way that it is possible to do so.
As important as sex is, you also need companionship and tiny tokens of affections. It would not appear that there is any hope for a more companionable and closer relationship with this man.
I do hope you’ll find the strength to make a complete break. And please don’t tell me that he refuses to break from you because he loves you.
Talk is cheap. In any case, I see no reason why you cannot leave him if he cannot leave you. Leaving is the only way you’ll be able to look around and make new friends from among people who are unattached.
You can’t be altogether at peace with yourself either, knowing that you are contributing to the pain of another woman . . . his wife.
– CHRISTINE
