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female
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anonymous
writes: I've recently started seeing a guy I met at work, we get on so well and just seemed to click the first time we met. The trouble is, he's not single. He desperately wants to leave his partner but he can't leave because of the children. He is their primary carer and is the most devoted father I have ever met, his world revolves around his kids. His partner is very abusive towards him, not only does she control all the money, make him produce bank statements/petrol receipts/phone bills and openly tell him how much she hates him, she also regularly beats him with an iron poker and every time I see him he has fresh wounds. She has also lunged at him with a carving knife. Again, he'd rather take the beatings than lose his kids. He is not a bad person at all, he's never had an affair before me and has never retaliated to her violence. He won't go to the police because he believes children need both a mother and a father, no matter what she's done he can't be the one to take their mum away from them (she hasn't hurt the kids).Any ideas at all about how we can make this situation any better?! This can't carry on, but I just don't know what I can do to.
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reader, anonymous, writes (4 January 2006): I am also involved with a married man who won't leave his wife. I am an idiot. I know that. For a year and a half he has never wavered in his claim that I am the great love of his life, and yet he has yet to leave his wife who he claims he does not love. What seems clear to me is that he's hooked on the drama between them; her abuse is precisely what lets him off the hook of his guilt, a guilt that predates his marriage. I have just today told him that I'm fed up, that I deserve more, that I have had enough and that I'm moving on. I have told him this many times over the last year, refusing to see him again until he's single (we live in separate cities). But I have agreed to be in touch with him by phone, he calls me virtually every day to tell me that he loves me. The fantasy of me is the drug he takes in order to endure the sham of his marriage, and the contact with me is precisely what makes making his marriage no longer a sham absolutely impossible. What I've realized is that he's a coward and a liar, if I was his wife I would want to kill him in his sleep for lying to me the ways that he has lied to her. I'm no great believer in the institution of marriage, I think it's a diabolical institution actually, but I am a huge believer in the truth. I have asked him repeatedly to tell her the truth, and my fear is that he has done precisely that: by not telling her that he's in love with me, by not ending his relationship with her, and by insisting on continuing his contact with me, he has told the cleanest truth he knows how to tell: he's a liar and a coward.
So, while I'm devastated to discover that the man I thought was really, truly the great love of my life, the perfect lover/interlocutor I had been looking for my whole life is not that, I have been more devastated by continuing to be engaged in, continuing to participate in something that diminishes me (and his wife too, for that matter). I am stunned to discover that this has been a cliche. Unfucking believable. Me. Sophisticated, highly educated, attractive, fabulous, I have settled for this dreck for so so long.
Wish me luck in my attempt to be okay with myself. Wish me luck in my resolve to walk away from this crap. Wish me luck in my desire that I not be finished forever with love.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 November 2005): Your lover needs to get out of the situation for his own sanity and well being. No matter how badly he wants to remain a great father for his kids, he can't be that six feet under (which is where he is headed if his wife doesn't learn to control herself). Although you say she's never hurt the kids, if they are witnessing this abuse she has hurt them emotionally, far worse than any physical pain you could ever experience. Takes years to heal those types of wounds. No one should have to endure the type of treatment he's experiencing at home. And no matter what, even if he loves you, he can never be the best anything to or for you until he becomes complete again as a man. That will only happen when he gets himself out of that situation.
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reader, anonymous, writes (20 October 2005): Thank you, anonymous (19/10/05), I can't help that I fell in love with him, it would be easier if I hadn't! He isn't actually married, and she has said if he ever leaves he will never see the kids again. She persuaded him to have 'the op' so they are the only kids he can ever have. The bruises on his back are 'poker shaped', not many things could cause 7" long stripes on his back. I don't believe he's just using me for sex as we have only slept together once, we both agreed it was too soon in our relationship and have decided to wait before sleeping togerther again. What we have is more than just physical, mostly we just talk, laugh and cuddle up. I hope this changes some people's opinion that I'm a tramp and he's a lying scumbag who will say anything to get a girl into bed! Thanks for all replys.
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reader, anonymous, writes (19 October 2005): This is a really tricky subject! I don't think married men are off limits because no one is off limits. If a married man is having an affair then it is most likely because he is unhappy with the relationship he is in with his wife. I can understand why he wouldn't want to leave his kids because there is a chance that just to get back at him, she would not let him see the kids. Although, if his kids are being abused then you need to tell him to do something about it because only and a morally bad person could stand around and watch their kids get hit. Another thing to consider is... are you sure you can believe what he's telling you. Has his actions in the past proven that you can or can't trust him. I know a guy that cheated on his wife and he told me that he would tell the woman he cheated with anything she wanted to hear to keep her around. Don't let him "have his cake and eat it to." I don't think you are a "tramp or deserve to be miserably" because no one does. You can't help who you fall in love with. You should give it a certian amount of time, and if you remain second for longer then that time, then you need to move on. If it doesn't work out then that's how things where supposed to be. It will hurt if you call it quits but in the long run, it will be better for you and that's who you need to think of. I wish you the best! Don't go on though, even if things don't work out(not saying that they won't), with out helping those kids.
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reader, eyeswideopen  +, writes (19 October 2005):
 You are a sucker and a tramp. Married men are off limits, period. You deserve your misery.
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (19 October 2005):
 I want to believe you. Really I do. I can see that you're totally convinced of what he's telling you.
But step away from the stories and try to be objective. Imagine that you're reading this the first time, on a computer screen, written by a stranger. And imagine that you don't already have an emotional connection with the storyteller, before you read the following:
1. He "desperately wants to leave his partner", but he believes that his kids having an openly-hateful, control-mad abuser of a mother is better than reporting her to the authorities and having them "take their mum away".
Question: If she's so violent and abusive, why would she stop at hating and abusing just her husband? Is he expecting you to believe that she's a wonderful mum, except when she's spitting venom at him and thrashing him with a lump of metal? I can't think of anything better for his kids than having a frightening madwoman removed from their lives.
2. He's the most "devoted father" you've ever met, so he'll let his kids watch him submit to a woman who'd use an iron poker to beat their dad.
Question: How is he going to be a devoted dad, once she's beaten him to death? Or, if the beatings aren't severe enough to leave bruises/put him in hospital/keep him from getting to work, why doesn't he just take the poker away from her? Or remove it from the house?
This is just lunatic. If he's telling you the truth, then he has NO IDEA about the best way to protect his children and negotiate his life.
He's guilty of reckless child endangerment, leaving them with a woman that insane, right? If he loves them that much, why doesn't he take them with him and leave?
But if he's lying, these are the clumsiest whoppers I've read in a long time.
What stands out to me is that this man is making excuses for not leaving his family, so he can have them *and* your unqualified love.
Trust me, no matter what, he won't leave his wife and kids. You'll always be his Number Two Woman. If you want to be that, and if you don't mind a cheating two-timer as your partner, good luck to you.
Personally, I'd hope that you have more dignity than that and will leave him alone, with his wild stories and simulated drama.
Sorry hon. I'm skeptical about every word out of his mouth, and unless you have something concrete to base your belief on - police reports, poker-shaped bruises, eyewitness accounts from a non-biased source - I don't think you should buy it, either.
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reader, schlottjl +, writes (19 October 2005):
 Wow, such a great guy, lets his children be raised and abused (they must hear or see these beatings) and is so inocent of anything that is wrong in the marriage, I mean except lying and cheating. I want him if he starts to blame you for his life of hell and wants to cheat on you too. Come on!
If this is true, then he calls the police before the most recent beating marks fade and ensures she never is alone with the kids again. If it takes longer than one week, call him a liar to his face and tell him you will not see anyone who is either so much scum as to be a cheating bastard while blaming his wife or who is a cheater and a wimp who won't protect his kids. Either way, if he is an adult, or any kind of man, he has options and he is choosing the wrong one right now.
NEVER NEVER NEVER believe any story expalaining why you should be second best of why he should sleep with more than one person at a time.
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