My husband doesn’t want to give up his mistress. Should I settle for half his heart? | Relationships

I just discovered by chance, and to my great surprise, after more than 20 years of what I thought was a happy and faithful marriage, that my husband had a passionate year-long affair with an accomplished, charming and successful career woman who I also considered a friend. I too am accomplished, but not at her level, and I’m also a little older and have less panache than her. I don’t think I can compete with her, and I feel too proud to try anyway.

Here’s the problem: he says he doesn’t want to abandon her, but he also says he doesn’t want to marry her (she’s married anyway, although apparently in an open marriage). He also says he loves me and wants to stay married to me. I think if I demand that he give it up, eventually he won’t be able to love me anymore. I also think I will barely, if at all, be able to handle the pain of him continuing to see her. I really don’t know what to do or even what I can bear to do. I really don’t want to lose him. I have been deeply in love with him since we first met. Should I give him the world in exchange for half his heart?

Eléonore says: “I really don’t want to lose him.” I could reach through the screen and hug you.

It would be one thing if your question was “Should I take a chance on a non-monogamous arrangement when I’m not sure how I’ll feel?” » or: “Should I stay married after love ends because leaving it is too costly socially and financially? (I think we too easily dismiss the possibility that this is good.)

Your question was, “Should I do something that I’m pretty sure I can’t handle?” Even the way you phrased it, as if you were the one demanding, “If I demand that he give her up, eventually he won’t be able to love me.” » Why isn’t he the one imposing demands on you? Why isn’t he afraid that you won’t be able to love him?

I know you don’t want to lose him. I know true love can do this to us. You still feel deeply in love with someone after they hurt you; in some ways it is the truest love there is. People might yell simplistic insistences that you shouldn’t continue to love someone who hurt you, but I think you can. I think there are situations where it is precisely thanks to our deep respect for a person that we can love them even if it hurts us.

But it seems like you’re so afraid of losing him that you’re considering losing yourself. This bit is the error. It’s at least possible that there will be a life for you after him. There is no life for you after you.

You wonder how he will react if you say no. But how are you You react if you say yes? What will you teach yourself by doing this?

You learn that enduring unbearable pain is an acceptable price to pay. You learn that it’s okay to be married to someone who doesn’t view your unbearable pain as a disqualifying consideration. You teach yourself that your well-being is less important than theirs.

There is a part of ourselves that we respond to with our self-respect. It’s the part that existed before and outside of our relationships, outside of our careers, outside of the panic of what we might lose right now. This is the part that seems rather fixed, eternal. We all really know if we can look this part of ourselves in the eye.

If you said yes, might you feel like you took the lead in making that decision? Could you tell that deep part of yourself that you had tried to do right by them?

If you say no, it’s not impossible that he will blink first. If he actually feels the possibility of losing you, it could ultimately make him afraid. Many spouses have entered paroxysms of realization once the house is finally empty. It is also possible that your prediction is correct and that, in a forced choice, he leaves you. It would be catastrophic pain. But that’s not the person you need to focus on the most to avoid losing; You are.

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