I'm going to make a huge generaliztion about straight people versus gay people. I feel entitled, being a gay person myself and therefore having been the subject of many such generalizations, some positive and some negative (well...mostly negative), some deserved and some completely irrational.

Straight people seem to think that adultery begins and ends with sex outside of marriage. Gay people, on the other hand, understand implicitly that adultery is primarily about emotional abandonment, about sharing with others romantic and intimate feelings that you are supposed to reserve for your partner. In most gay relationships I know, if you say you're "in love" with someone else, the relationship is over, CAPUT. Having sex with someone else is having sex with someone else. But being in love with someone else and carrying on with them romantically (even without sex)? That's an absolute abandonment of your primary relationship.

This LW and Cary both seem to buy into this shiboleth that you can be repeatedly emotionally adulterous but, if you're not screwing around, the primary relationship is still besically intact and it's just a question of sorting out the "madness". I think that's a crock. These people have nothing like what I consider to be a marriage, which is probably why they've both been married multiple times.

Tell me again why this straight institution of marriage is so perfect that I as a gay person am not allowed to participate in it?

clearly this is not a matter of is she cheating/should i forgive her/where are the bright lines. clearly this is a matter of two people who are VERY screwed up. the question of whether love is madness is moot here. these people are both mad. and since the guy is writing...this isn't even about whether the wife is crrrazy or not. it's about why in hell this guy would put up with this for multiple decades, and what kind of mental help he needs, since it is clearly not a defined/consensual/"normal" kind of crazy for either party. and it's not nice to write off this woman as awful evil and crrrrazy, dear letter writers. she clearly has deep rooted emotional probs as well that need to be adressed with compassion. this stuff should've and could've been resolved decades ago, if problems were addressed instead of glossed over, but at this point...wow. what a mess. this is why people shouldn't subscribe to bs theories like "the madness of love" without knowing what the heck they're talking about. there's truth to it, but i doubt most people *ahem cary* could actually use that train of thought meaninfully or to any use or advantage.

I'm usually in awe of your insight Cary, but I disagree on this one. I've been there, dealing with drama after drama, becomeing obsessed with what to do next. It's not worth it. Dump her. Take the time to hurt. Figure out what it is in yourself that was attracted to this kind of emotional complexity. Develope a healthy relationship with your self. Then, and only then, if you still want a relationship, look for a woman who has done the same. I'm in the last phase of this process. It was a rough road. And, I have never been happier in my life.

please don't waste all your free love/ alternative lifestyles bs on this LW - he's not worth it. This is not an open relationship and the LW is NOT HAPPY. If he wants one, fine. But someone in the relationship has to stand up for HONESTY and INTEGRITY. You can probably do that in many different kinds of relationship, but not one in which one partner lies and the the other feels violently angry (duh!). Btw - they can both be happy in their sick twisted little games but their daughter will grow up with NO ROLE MODELS. Love for her will mean uncertainty and jealousy - checking peoples pockets, slamming of doors, multiple sex partners, tearful recriminations. The fact that this selfish knob doesn't even care enough to wonder what kind of effect this is having on his daughter makes me wish his wife was riding everyne he's ever met. Stupid asswipe.

It was stipulated that she didn't actually cheat on him physicallly, so I will go on that premise. If she did, then if its a different story. The only reason that I say this is because physical cheating is a BRIGHT LINE violation. If you believe there is no way that she was not actually in a physical affair, and that she is just bullshitting him, then I agree with you, and the relationship is most likely done. But we don't know that she physically cheated on him.

I became aware of this "emotional affair" business fairly recently. I didn't know that you could have an "emotional affair" and still call it cheating. It seems like murky territory to me and I'm not sure how one can tell that something is an emotional affair, or if something is just jealousy or ups and downs in a relationship. It is usually what people call a platonic relationship. When does a platonic relationship go into an "emotional affair"? I really don't know. But I devised a new bright line-----if you are even thinking about cheating, then it is cheating. This is simply because even these thoughts can be DEVASTATINGLY HURTFUL to your spouse. It's that persons responsibility to cut off the relationship with the paramour, as much as possible, before it goes any farther. LW should break up with her for the simple reason that she has broken his trust, over and over, and doesn't appear to be capable of changing her hurtful ways. But people can change, and hopefully she will do so, and LW will stand up for himself.

I also wonder if this is just a product of the electronic age with a person just being a click away, rather than a written letter and post office away. I think people can get caught in these e-trysts because of the ease of communication, and the misperception that it e-flirting can't be hurtful to your spouse.

Without that bright line, it is hard to tell.