Ask Marwa: In love with a married man

This article was published in Identity Magazine – June 2012

Dear Marwa

I am a 24 year old girl working in the media. People say that I am good looking and smart, and that I have a great future ahead of me. In terms of previous relationship

s, I could easily say that nothing was serious enough to leave me damaged or scared but I have experienced some sort of love a couple of times. Now let me tell you about my problem! There is this guy at work … he is successful, a few years older than I am, handsome, and he loves me deeply and sincerely. The only thing that is wrong with that guy is that he is married! Well, he is married and his wife is pregnant! He wants to marry me! He loves his wife but he wants to marry me. At first I refused all his advances and resisted any attraction towards him then I discovered that I love him just as much as he loves me. My family would never accept him as a husband … whether he is married or divorced with a kid. What do I do?

In love with a married man

Dear In love with a married man,

I will not give you the typical speech that focuses on you being a home-wrecker and him being an irresponsible jerk who does not deserve his wife and coming baby. I will do my best to explain to you why things are the way they are, and hopefully through gaining such insights into your situation you would be able to do what's right for you.

Let me start by talking about him and his relationship with his wife. He says he loves her but he is also in love with you too. How could this happen? It happens when you provide what he is lacking at home in his marriage. It happens when his wife is losing glamour and their marriage is losing its luster. This man got married to a woman he loves but pregnancy changes a lot in the relationship between a man and his wife; sometimes the wife is too tired and nauseous to even look at her husband, other times she is too happy with the baby and her attention shifts to motherhood early on.

There are also restrictions on their lifestyle; no smoking, shisha, drinking, or anything that might harm the baby. Restrictions also include some activities they might have enjoyed before – like horseback riding or safaris and desert trips. I don't know much about what he used to share with his wife but what I know for sure is that the pregnancy has changed their relationship. Unfortunately he is not as involved or as changed by their coming baby and this is why he got attracted to you. He feels neglected and bored!

Why did you fall for him? Because you tried so hard not to fall for him! Yes! When you focus on something so much you end up doing that exact thing. Instead of ignoring him and his advances, you made it a point to monitor and record everything he said or did! This is exactly how anyone falls in love! You also feel flattered! Women feel flattered when young a married man who is in love with his wife is attracted to them – it is a feline sense of victory that is very typical of most women.

Let me simplify things a bit for you; you are not in love with him! You like the idea of him being in love with you and you got addicted to the attention he is showering you with. Let's assume that you got married to him, will you not have kids? Because obviously pregnancy is a turn off for him! Will he leave you for another attractive catch? His wife is pregnant now which means she has 9 months or less to have a baby, will he get married to you before or after the baby? Will his family acknowledge this marriage? Will he have that guts to face the world as a man who dumped his newly born baby and got married? If he does so, would you feel secure being married to a man who is capable of hurting his wife that much?

 If you want to get over him, focus on the facts I mentioned above instead of living the dream that will turn nightmarish for everyone involved including him. You have your whole life ahead of you and this will not be the only love you will encounter … keep telling yourself that it will pass … everything passes and this too will pass. If you want to continue flying in his world for a little longer, go ahead just remember that he might walk away from you anything once his baby is born or he might fail to fulfill his marriage promise to you because of the reasons I stated earlier. Guard your heart, stay alert, and do what's right for you.