I've written before, but didn't hear back from you. Probably because my email didn't contain flogging or santorium or whatever. But I won't be IGNORED, Dan.I'm a 32-year-old female. Second marriage, two kids. One with my ex and one with the man I cheated on him with and my current husband. My problem: a year ago I found my "first love" on a social network. I'd been looking for him off and on for more than sixteen years. This person was a jerk who left me for one of my friends back in high school. But he was and still the love of my life. Always has been. Always will be. He is not married and never has been married and has no children. We began an affair about seven months after finding each other. My marriage, my second marriage, had been rocky before this. My second husband, of three years, stopped having sex with me after I became pregnant and this continued after our child was born. We tried counseling. It didn't help. In no way am I using this as an excuse. I know what I've done is wrong. But I also have a pretty bad track record and I've cheated on every man I've ever been with except for my "first love."
This man, my first love, is the worst person in the world for me. Yet I'm in love with him. I have ALWAYS been in love with him. He wants me to leave my white-collar husband for him, a very-blue collar guy. I live in a nice home in the suburbs, my first love lives in a small apartment in the city. Five months after we began having sex with each other my current husband found out. Instead of leaving me, he has turned into a different man. Extremely loving and attentive. He says this experience has made him realize how much he loves me and that doesn't want to lose me.
My other problem: I didn't begin this affair to get my second husband's attention. I began it because I'm in love with my first love and always have been. My husband knows of my deep feelings for my "first." I mention divorce often, but it falls on deaf ears. I want to do what is best for my kids and that would be staying right where I am. But I feel my only chance for "true" love, if there's such a thing, is passing me by. I've never felt for anyone as I do for this man. Every man who that has come into my life AFTER him knew about him and knew that if he ever came back for me, I was gone. This includes my current husband. Dan, pull out all the stops on this one, as you famously do, and please tell me what to do.
Serial Cheater In Love
My response after the jump...
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I didn't respond to your earlier pleas for help, SCIL, because I didn't have much to say to you. I still don't. I had the same reaction reading your email today that I had reading all the other emails you've sent me about your situation. My reaction is a little selfish and I'm a little embarrassed to share it with you. But you keep pressing me, SCIL, and so here it is:
THIS BITCH CAN GET LEGALLY MARRIED AND I CAN'T?!?!
Sorry, sorry, sorry. That was cunty of me, I realize, nowhere near the level of respectful professionalism that people expect of me. So I'm gonna make amends by scrounging up some of that advice shit you're after—my readers will doubtless have lots to say to you too—but on one condition: that you don't write me ever again.
Okay!
You say you've cheated on every man you've ever been with the exception of your "first love," SCIL. You seem to be operating under the assumption that you never cheated on him because he's the love of your life and that he's the love of your life because you never cheated on him. No. You never cheated on him, SCIL, because you never got around to it. You two broke up when you were fifteen. If you'd been with him a little longer, you would've cheated on him like you've cheated on everybody else. And if you leave your current husband and break up your first child's second home and your second child's first, it won't be long before you're cheating on the love of your life too. Because you're a cheater, SCIL, you're the kind of person who couldn't and shouldn't make monogamous commitments.
Or get married. Or have children.
So what should you do. Stay? Go? Frankly, SCIL, I don't give a fuck what you do. And, stay or go, it's not going to make fuck of a lot of difference. Your personal life is a mess, SCIL, and always be. Because, you see, wherever you go, there you are.
That said: If your current husband doesn't mind being cheated on, if he can put up with your affairs, I think you should stay with him for the sake of your kids. They deserve whatever stability and continuity you scrounge up between infidelities. And, again, if you leave your current husband for the love of your life, SCIL, it won't be long before you're cheating on your third husband and preparing to uproot your kids a third/second time again. I know it, you know it, everyone reading this knows it.
So just stay put, okay?
