Letters to the Editor
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She's just not that into you
Sorry, I couldn't resist. But most likely, she started with the younger guy as a fling, and things unexpectedly developed. She probably read you (correctly) as wanting something more serious, and didn't want to go there.
Even if she and Younger Guy end up dating for a while, the odds of that relationship becoming permanent are not good.
You're better off getting involved with a woman who wants to be involved with you, and knows it from the start. Good luck out there.
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Not sure that's right...
She may have been into you, but had more 'complicated' needs. For example, she may not have been able to extend herself to meet you half way or a quarter of the way when you merely mentioned dating. She may have needed an outright question: 'Will you go out with me?' Break ups can make people retract and sometimes they are too wary to extend themselves at all. I know as I'm one of these fearful, 'obtuse', probably terribly unreasonable women.
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Courting trouble
I wonder how old the LW is? He sounds like a floundering mature gent behaving like an emotionally juvenile Pinnochio in short pants. I guess desire and emotional longing infantilise even the most outwardly staid of adults.
Alas, the crude reality is, she did not reciprocate the subtle gestures you partially made clear. Accordingly, the lack of her encouraging response to your old fashioned chocolates and flowers WAS the answer. You did not even need to ask the question out loud.
I can't help but get the impression she is a modern, sassy woman enjoying an ongoing bedroom romp with her bold, youthful Lothario. Elsewhere on the property, there you are standing on the porch, in your stuffy grey suit hesitantly clutching your fussy flowers. At this point in her life, this woman appears to want escapist fun and visually stimulated lust, whereas you are offering formal courtship with all it's serious and considered motivations and behaviours. You may even represent the constraint of the marriage she is perhaps only temporarily leaving.
Most likely elsewhere awaits a single, available woman who will smile a gesture of encouragement in response to your traditional overtures. She is the one least likely to stealthily stash the heart shaped box of candies in the trash can as soon as you leave, before donning sexy lingerie in anticipation of her nubile lover.
Good luck and choose wisely.
Jen
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I may be on the verge of a similar sitch
I'm going on a second date with a married woman. She's said that her husband's left her for another woman, but they aren't yet divorced.
I am determined to make sure that divorce is well in progress before we go to first base. We'll see what happens...
Another friend of mine was relentlessly hit upon by a woman who was married to someone else. They did everything but have sex until she got a divorce - my friend drew the line there. Once she got a divorce, things worked out pretty well, actually; they married, made probably a mil in real estate, and now have a daughter plus the woman's daughter from a previous marriage.
So it's not impossible, but it certainly seems it can require some careful and clear communication and managing...
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Suppose you'd explicitly asked her out. Then what?
So you ask her out, just like she wanted you to. And she says yes. And now you're going out. So now you're in a relationship with a woman who is open and amenable to being asked out by third parties while in a relationship. Now what?
The whole adultery thing aside, the fact that she doesn't seem to get your hesitancy to ask her out while she was still married, and the fact that she said "No, I'm still married" and you backed off and she interprets that as an error on your part, that all raises some red flags. There's just something...off about someone who can't appreciate that you were respecting their marriage.
Please don't let this incident turn you into one of those assholes who doesn't take no for an answer. There are enough of those around already.
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Or you could try the opposite tack
She said "You should have explicitly asked me out with the stated intention of starting an intimate relationship," even though she was married at the time.
Since she doesn't feel her marriage deserved any respect, why should her current relationship be any different? If you're still interested in her despite her odd behaviour, try "explicitly asking her out with the stated intention of starting an inimate relationship." Do it only once, just as an experiment, to see what happens.
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dude
she's just not into you!
(Sorry, any woman who gets flowers and chocolates is VERY clear what you're after. Please.)
Kay
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My favorite Cary line in a long time:
"Without meaning to be insulting, I'd say it was a little creepy..."
I love that. Because to me, this guy sounds CREEPY. (and btw, we only really use that word when we mean to be at least a little insulting, right?).
LW sees himself as noble and respectful, but come on. He "falls" for a married woman right off the bat. He waits till she's estranged from her husband, and starts hanging around giving her chocolates and flowers -- calling that subtle -- and then feels cheated and wronged that she takes up with some other dude? And chalks it up to his lack of "aggressiveness"? His letter smacks of victimhood, but flowers and candy and hanging around and then feeling pissed when the object of your affection chooses someone else is practically the textbook definition of creepy.
LW, you tried for a taken woman (pretty overtly, not "passively")and got shot down. And instead of accepting reality, you cast it all as a mistake. Very ego-preserving and fantasy-perpetuating.
Take some responsibility and have some respect for other people's decisions. The answer is not. That's a fact to take in, not an obstacle to manipulate.
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She is giving you an 'out'
LW
I understand why you feel lied to - your actions of chocolate and flowers etc. have a clear if obtuse intention. She acted ignorant of the main thrust of that intention while enjoying some of the subtle benfits (your obvious admiration, etc). Then she starts a relationship you thought was rightly meant for YOU - and you 'feel' lied to. She says well, if that's what you wanted, you shoulda said, thus preserving the fiction that you weren't in FACT lied to. But we aren't dealing in FACT, are we? We are dealing in nuance. So - her nuance led you, deliberately, up the alley with flowers and chocolates. But! she cries. I never promised you a rose garden at the end of said alley! True enough - but she abused your attention for the sake of her vanity, leading you on by accepting your attentions and using the rationale "you didn't ask, so how could I have known" to give herself plausible deniabilitiy.
I agree with Cary- you took the wrong journey to end up in the right place. She wants something different than you are offering, thus she gave you the face saving (albeit slightly lame) 'out' of acting like, if only you'd just came right out and asked for ain intimate romantic sexual relationship, that is iwhat you'd find yourselves embroiled in now, but, alas, you did not, the young swain did, yada yada.
You seem like a nice, ethical and caring guy. I don't say this to hurt you or diminish you in any way - but chances are th young guy was in the picture before the separation - maybe even caused it. Women seem to need the reassurance of somewhere to land before they make that jump out of marrriage - I might be wrong on that, but it's an observaton based in a lot of facts in my own surroundings.
Don't take this rejection to heart. It has very little to do with the specificity of you. Take the gentle (if unwelcome) letdown, count yourself lucky not to have gotten more embroiled in a relationship that would not have gone where you want/need at this stage in your life..and reserve the flowers and chocolate for someone whose affections are more obviously unencumbered.