I am married with kids and I've been having a long term (3+ years) affair with a friend who lives out of town so actual sex has been sporadic, sometimes fraught, and I tried for a long time to make myself end it. I love my husband. My kids are incredible. I love them deeply and I don't want to get out of my marriage. I do, however, have an incredible passion for this guy. And it's been deeply troubling and blissful and scary and great and hot and terrible and stupid and guilt-making and sexy. He is not a family man but has an on again/off again girlfriend to whom he's committed—but only because he can't be with me, he says. She lives in the same city where I live. He will be living here soon. She's a terrifically uninteresting person but she's a serious care-taker (let me do it!) and she has a cute "dancer's body" and is something of a hottie and she has unquestioningly loved this guy even though he's dumped her, not taken her out (because people will realize she's a bore), and has fucked her forever without ever once telling her he that he loves her. So she's sort of an idiot. But he LOVES to fuck her. AND I AM SICK WITH JEALOUSY. Which means I'm risking so much—the honesty of my marriage, my kid's emotional health, my own emotional health—to be with a guy who loooooves to have sex with someone else! He came to town this weekend for work and obviously stayed with her but we made a plan to get together in a hotel on the first day he arrived. I was so excited. We love each other so much, the passion is so intense. We've planned our meeting—and the sex we would have—for weeks. And then I suddenly ask myself, "Do you think he'd fuck her before seeing me?" He gets in on the red eye, goes to her apartment, and then, after she leaves for work, he meets me in the hotel for six hours of sex. Okay? Then I call him and ask him, "Please tell me the truth: Did you sleep with X this morning?" The answers is YES. He fucked her three hours before meeting to fuck me all day. When we next meet in person he tells me he has often fucked her the same day as fucking me. I am so jealous and saddened by this I nearly vomit. I cry all day and still fuck him and of course he swears I am so wonderful and that fucking her JUST HOURS BEFORE FUCKING ME doesn't take away from how much he loves fucking me. And I am thinking I'm an idiot. He is with a woman he loves to fuck. And me. And I am hot and all that too. And its hot. But it's so devastating. Now I am with a man who loves to fuck another woman and my marriage—which is so amazing in a hundred way but SHIT MONOGAMY SHIT SHIT it's hard—is now trashed because I have been lying to this wonderful guy, my husband, who I don't want to fuck all the time but who ALWAYS goes down on me and gives me thundering orgasms and is seriously brilliant and insightful and wonderful. And this relationship, the one with my husband, even if I GO BACK TO IT and STOP THE AFFAIR is now fucked up. And I am just dejected and sad and feel totally guitly and lost and alone. Is this guy a kackass for the sloppy seconds treatment or is he just a lucky fucker? And should I tell my husband? My shrink told me not to tell him! She said it would hurt him too much and she wanted me to get over the idiot affair but nearly four years in... and even with the humiliation of sloppy seconds... I still feel, well I feel utterly fucked and utterly alone and I don't know what to do!

WOULD LOVE ANY ADVICE

My response after the jump...

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A few short years ago I would've opened my response to your letter with this: "And... you can get married and I can't." But, hey, I can get married now—I am married now—so I don't have to open my response with gripes about the cosmic unfairness political injustice of it all. Instead I'll leave the griping to queer commenters living in states (come on, Oregon!) or countries (come the fuck on, Australia!) that have not yet achieved marriage equality.

Okay, WLAA, on to you and your problem...

So. The other woman. The care-taking hottie/bore with the dancer's body? How can you state with certainty that your lover has never once said "I love you" to Hottie Bore? You don't know that, WLAA, and you can't know that. And I'll bet you anything you like that your lover says "I love you" to Hottie Bore just as often as he says it to you. More often, WLAA, if Hottie Bore will be paying his rent once he moves to the city where you live.

Now why would a man who was honest enough to tell you that he fucked Hottie Bore hours before he fucked you lie about whether he said "I love you" to her? Maybe because he knows you attach great significance to being the only woman to whom he says "I love you," WLAA, so he lies to you, lest he have one less place to park his dick.

But here's what I don't get: You love your husband—you say you love your husband, at any rate, and I'm going to take you at your word—and you love this other dude too. So you know it's possible for a person to be in love with more than one person at the same time. Why then, WLAA, are you placing so much importance on your lover not being in love with this other woman? Why can't he be in love two women at the same time, for different reasons/qualities/amenities, just as you're in love two men at the same time?

La la la. What a shit show. Anyway...

I agree with your shrink: Don't say anything to your husband. Because odds are good that your relationship with the lying user will wind down just as soon as he moves to town. The more you see of this guy, I'm thinkin', the sooner you'll see through this guy.

But your problems won't end when this affair does. If I may quote you: "SHIT MONOGAMY SHIT SHIT." You are not cut out for monogamy—clearly—and guess what? Your lover isn't cut out for it either. THAT'S WHY HE'S FUCKING OTHER WOMEN. And now that you know this fact about yourself, WLAA, I think your husband has a right to know. I wouldn't recommend going into detail about your affair, as that may end your marriage and turn your children's lives upside down. Instead I would recommend that you have a talk with your husband about cheating and monogamy as abstractions. Say something like this to your husband: "Affairs happen and I would hate to see our marriage end—and I would hate to be deprived of those thunderous orgasms you give me—over something so stupid and commonplace as an affair. So if you ever cheat on me, honey, I don't want to know about it. Just do it discreetly so you don't mess up our marriage and our family life. And I'll do the same."

Giving that little speech doesn't provide you with retroactive immunity—you're still a CPOS—but it'll provide you with a some butt cover if and/or when your husband finds out about this affair or any one of the affairs you're going to have in the future.

And finally, WLAA, I'm pretty sure it was a typo—the J is right next to the K on the keyboard—but I love the term "kackass." I plan on using it constantly.