Hey, you've got company. Doesn't it seem like (practically) everyone is totally terrified? Any time someone invokes a high moral order, and then recommends that the person who violates it should die, I have to wonder what is going on. It seems so schizo. Why are people so eager for a stoning? Hester Prynne got off way to easy, evidently, merely ostracized with her letter "A." I imagine a lot of things, but mostly I can't help thinking that a lot of people feel incredibly fragile in their relationships/marriages. I'm not at all against monogamy, but the spouse-as-property assumption that seems to animate so many of these comments is, for me, just icky. That it seems to require so many people to propose so much cruelty, contributes to that repugnance. And you are so right -- few things in this world are as closed to casual observation, or easy understanding, as the intimacies between people, wherever those intimacies occur. In my sadder moments, I think maybe people are not experiencing much true intimacy, and that all they have to assure themselves that they are in a "real" relationship is a generic contract, signed in the presence of a petty official. But that is too sad, so it can't be true.

Anyway, thanks for writing. I was feeling lonely.

I can love more than one person, but my husband is always the one I that will be there for me at the end of the day, year, decade. He wins the ultimate battle for my heart always.

I really feel for the LW because I can imagine what he is going through. Emotions are what they are and we cannot turn them off like a light switch. So lovely to hear the 78 + posters here have soooo much self control.

My marriage is open on one end, mine. Hubby doesn't desire outside relationships but endorses mine. I make it a rule that I do not have relationships with men who are cheating on their wives or significant others. To me, that is bad karma, but I am also cognizant that I am not the reason for their attempting to "cheat" on their partner.

I've read nothing in the letter that says her spouse ia aware of what's going on with the tow of them, so I can'y condone it, yet can't stone them to death either.

I just wish people would have more compassion for those who are in unconventional, uncomfortable relationships.

Oh, please. Marriage is only as sacred as the two people in it consider it to be. Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. People get married all the time who then go on to treat their spouse like crap. Sometimes the spouse on the receiving end of that behavior ends up getting their needs met elsewhere. Life is not that black and white. Is everyone here sure they know the true state of each marriage with which they are acquainted? Is everyone here sure they don't know at least one marriage that started as an affair?

Now, I am not defending affairs, cheating or lying. If your spouse is being emotionally abusive, best to address that one way or another within the marriage. Some people don't have the wherewithal to do that due to personality or circumstance. They are wrong for cheating, but even with that, don't all deserve the stark condemnation shown here. What if you do address it within the marriage and they still keep dishing it out? If someone can't treat their spouse properly, there will be consequences.

One thing's for sure: people will always rise to the challenge laying out judgment.

LW, leave this woman. As someone else said, it isn't your job to keep your girlfriend in her marriage vows. But, dude, this isn't good. At this point you have to know she isn't going to give you any more. DO NOT waste your time waiting around for her. You are being used and won't be happy when you wake up to that fact some years down the road. She doesn't respect you and you won't respect yourself in time either. Even if you don't move on to another relationship, it's better for your girlfriend to be in competition with nothing and lose out to it. Make this about you. Get out.

You mentioned that you are 39 years old. You may not realize it, but certain doors are starting to close for you. You could continue in this relationship for years, but in means that you'll be trading-away the opportunity to have kids, for instance. That may not seem important to you. But if it is (or will be), just realize that you're not going to get a "do over". Sometimes, indecision is still a decision. As such, you need to actively decide if what you have now is truly what you want for your life.

1) Essentially, you are a cat toy.

2) She doesn't say "i love you" because she doesn't love you.

3) She's probably seeing other men that she doesn't tell you about.

She is very independent, a free spirit, and has attributes of a cat. Whenever we quarrel she finds subtle ways to come back to me slowly.

1. She isn't a free spirit. She's married and has very little free time to mess around with you.

2. You can't be independent and married.

3. She doesn't find subtle ways to come back to you as much as she is sneaking around on her husband and has to sneak back to you slowly. She very well can't walk out of her home, jump into her car, go to your side of town, take out her boom box and do the grand gesture a la Say Anything.

LW writes as if Married Chick is a naturally a loner who picks and choses when to see him. How about the fact that how she moves and sees you is DEPENDENT on her husband and what's she's up to with him. As in, when she's not having sex with you, she's having sex with him.

that this guy should simply back off, especially since he never tells us he loves her either, and doesn't want to marry her, so he offers her nothing in terms of leaving her husband. However, he's not forcing himself on her. It seems more like she keeps reeling him back in.

So he is responsible for his own behavior, but she will likely just find someone else if he backs off. His problem, and his association with this sordid stuff, would be over, but the cheating will probably continue with someone else.

Still he needs to be realistic. If she's willing to cheat on her husband, how much does saying "I love you" actually mean coming from her? She said "til death" and all that jazz when she married her husband, right? And she presumably tells her husband she loves him, right? And she probably tells him she's not cheating, too.

So her "I love you's" are not worth the breath they take to say. It's all bullshit. She can't possibly love you in any adult way, since your relationship is all about texting and flirting (while apart) and monthly sexual trysts.

That's not a relationship, you have no real-life experience together, so how can she say she's in love -- and mean it?