Dear B. Scott,

I’m in love with my ex and I know he’s in love with me. We don’t interact aside from text messages and phone conversations almost every day — but he’s married to the mother of his three kids.

We’re not having an affair physically, but I guess you could say we’re having an emotional affair and I just don’t know what I’m doing. He says he isn’t happy in his marriage, and I encourage him to do what he feels he should do and divorce her…am I foolish for waiting around for him to leave his wife?

 

– Confused

 

Dear Love Muffin,

 

It doesn’t take late-night rendezvous and secret “lunch meetings” for something to be considered an affair, so there’s no guessing — you’re definitely having an emotional affair.

To most people, sitting around plotting on a married man is considered wrong and if he’s keeping his interactions with you a secret from his wife, there’s a problem.

At the core of every relationship there’s a friendship, and it sounds like to me that you two have managed to maintain a strong connection after your relationship ended. However, because you’re an ex and he is unhappy in his current marriage, no matter how innocent and platonic things may be now, you’re automatically going to be considered ‘the other woman’.

You asked if you were foolish for waiting around for a married man with three kids, the answer is “yes.” Whether or not you choose to stick around is something you have to decide for yourself, but I will say that from my experience, the odds of this situation working out in your favor are slim.

How you get them is how you lose them, and if he’s having an emotional affair with you because he’s tired of his wife — if and when he does leave her, it’s likely that when he gets tired of you he’ll begin to favor someone else.

 

Love,

B. Scott