My husband has been cheating on me for three years now. His mistress is 26 years younger than him. Their daughter is one and a half years old. At the same time, he doesn’t want to leave me. He says that he loves, but is not ready to choose one of us. My mistress is happy with this kind of life, but I don’t want to put up with the situation. What should I do?

Irina, 46 years old

Irina, no one but you can answer the question of what to do. Decide what you want. Your husband is an adult, thinking person and has been cheating on you for a long time. Moreover, he has a child from his mistress, he allowed you to find out about the relationship on the side. If you do not have an open marriage, then such actions can be interpreted as betrayal.

Your husband shifted responsibility for the situation onto you and the other woman. Admit it to yourself, how many couples do you know in which the loving partner has a second family on the side? Perhaps there was a difficult period in your relationship and your husband decided to have an affair. But what it turned into shows his attitude towards you. And this cannot be called love.

You write that you cannot come to terms with the situation, but do not reveal in more detail what exactly is bothering you: having a child, the presence of another woman in your life, your husband’s position in the current situation? There are a lot of questions that you need to answer for yourself.

The financial side of the relationship is also interesting. Do you have somewhere to live? Do you earn enough or is your husband providing for you? Do you live in your own country or does your stay depend on your husband? The situation is very complicated, you are confused. A competent psychotherapist will help you understand what you want. Will tell you how to find a way out. If there are no such specialists where you live, you can always find a psychologist who works via Skype or correspondence.

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Married for eight years. My husband is eleven years older, very caring and reliable, we have a good relationship. But for four years now I have been in a relationship with a young man younger than me. Now he wants me to leave my husband and start a family with him. I just can’t choose: I love both, but in different ways. My husband is more like a father to me. And I feel a strong attraction to another man. We have many common interests, but with him there is no confidence in the future. Help me decide.

Vera, 29 years old

Vera, you’ve been leading a double life for four years now, does your husband still not notice anything? You partly answered your own question: it all depends on what you expect from life. If you want imaginary stability, choose a husband. Imaginary, since such a union may unexpectedly fall apart. One day, one of you - perhaps this time the husband - will get tired of the lack of feelings, the parent-child relationship, or simply decide that he is more comfortable alone.

It is hardly possible to predict how the relationship with your lover will develop if you choose him. Now there seems to be more honesty and openness between you than in your relationship with your husband.

Eight years of marriage is a lot. I think a consultation with a family psychologist would be useful. Do you think your husband will be surprised if you tell him that there are problems in the family? Consider what you would do if another man did not propose marriage to you. Would you dare to decide to leave your husband?

The situation is not easy. There are three people in this relationship, and one of you will definitely get hurt, no matter what decision you make.

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There may come a point in many couples' relationships when they are tempted to find something else. Most often, it is men who begin to be tempted to have a mistress. Every marriage, no matter how strong and lasting it may be, has its ups and downs. Life changes, circumstances change. So is it really worth being tempted by cheating on your closest and dearest person? We will tell you a story to remind you that there is no compelling reason to cheat on your partner.

Wife and mistress - which one to choose?

A man who was happily married was tempted and began to build a relationship with another woman. He felt good with his mistress, but he couldn’t leave his wife either. Then he decided to ask a wise man for advice. Who should he be with - his wife or his mistress? The sage handed him two pots and said: in one of them there is a rose, and in the other there is a cactus. Which plant will you choose? This question did not cause any difficulty for the man, and he immediately chose a rose. After all, it is obvious that a rose is a more beautiful flower. The sage just shook his head and replied that he deserved neither one nor the other.

Cactus or rose?

In fact, the rose and the cactus were fictitious. There were no plants in the pots. Very often, in pursuit of bright and new relationships, many men forget about their faithful and devoted wife in order to have a mistress. The cactus will always remain this way, but the capricious rose needs to be carefully looked after, creating special conditions for it. Some men, chasing beauty, choose what is brighter. They completely forget that their mistresses can also find someone more interesting and richer. But if you take care of a cactus, it can also bloom. Just like the woman you live with. From tender and affectionate treatment she will only become more beautiful and desirable. Think about it, is it worth changing something in your life? After all, your wife loves you for who you are. Knowing your shortcomings, she still stays by your side. She is interested in your joys and victories, she will support you in difficult times. While the mistress is not at all interested in this. And the sage also said that a man does not deserve a single flower! After all, a diamond is waiting for him at home, but for some reason he started searching for and collecting stones.

Finally

It is very easy to destroy relationships, but getting them back is not at all easy, and sometimes even impossible. Think about this before you pursue a vibrant relationship. After all, you risk failure in both cases!

Between two fires: choose a mistress or a wife?

Women regularly come to me asking for help - they need to “discourage” their husband’s mistress and return him to the family. Or, in other words, how to make my husband decide to choose me.

And I tell everyone who applies the same thing - the psychologist is powerless here. Because a person (in this case, the husband) cannot solve anything in such situations. He just can’t physically.

Let me explain it in my fingers.

We live among systems

In human life there is such a phenomenon as the systems in which we are included. For example, a member of a work team, a resident of a building, a member of a theater studio, a son, a grandson, a friend, a matchmaker, a godfather, a brother, and so on.

A person belongs to these systems with varying degrees of attachment. And – what’s important! – the more attractive the system is for him, the more attached he is to it, the more the system attracts him.

Moreover, the attractiveness may not be very bright - say, it may be a childhood memory (from the first grade together, at the same desk) and nothing more. But even such a memory may be enough to make the system attractive enough to become attached to it.

I talked in more detail about the systems themselves in the article “How to unravel in your life,” but here we’ll simply state that a person lives in such systems and these systems differ in the degree of attractiveness.

When the mind is powerless

As long as we live in a situation where different systems have different degrees of attractiveness, everything is fine - priorities are set, goals are subordinated, first the first, then the second, and finally the third.

The problems start where both systems become equally attractive.

For example, a mistress. She is younger than her wife, not overwhelmed by children and everyday life, always happy and available in a sexual sense. The "mistress" system is certainly attractive.

But the wife - she had a long (and in some places very good) history of relationships, children together, an established life, a fair amount of familiarity. The “wife” system is attractive in a different way, but no less.

This is where this crazy swing begins, when a man decides, that’s it, I’ll go to my mistress, crosses the threshold, leaving behind his crying wife and confused children, comes to his mistress to live with her forever... And within a week he is going back - home, to his wife.

At this moment, the wife is happy, the children are relaxed, everything is back to normal…. And within a week the man is going back to his mistress.

It seems that he is playing with the feelings of these women or is simply weak-willed since he cannot make up his mind (and if so, then something can be done to help him make a decision).

In fact, he is torn apart between two equally attractive systems and no amount of willpower will work here. Simply because a person will not be able to use it.

It is extremely natural for a person to be torn in such a situation. It is also natural not to be able to fly or throw off a tail (for lack of a tail).

A person cannot, simply cannot, take and choose in such a situation - he does not have sufficient resources in his head for this.

Be patient and wait

And here we come to the most difficult moment - the solution to this situation.

I assure you, you won't like it. However, I believe that the bitter truth is better than a sweet lie, at least in certain matters.

Therefore, keep the bitter truth - if a wife has the task of keeping a man (although why is he needed?), then she must wait and endure.

The effectiveness of this strategy is not absolute, but of all others it is the most effective. So to speak - the best among the worst.

Here's the thing - in such a clash of systems, the one that remains attractive wins. And to remain attractive, you need to not put pressure.

After all, at some point the mistress will say, they say, it’s enough to live in two houses, it’s time to make a decision, and then her attractiveness to a man will begin to sharply decrease (I know what I’m talking about, I constantly encounter this at work).

And the wife is silent at this time and does not demand anything. And then the choice happens as if by itself - the attractiveness of the mistress has decreased, the attraction to her is no longer so strong, but the attractiveness of the wife has remained at the same level, one is drawn to her.

There’s no need to choose here - he’s back, he doesn’t want to go anywhere else, everything is the same again. That's the end of the fairy tale.

The only problem is that it is very, incredibly, exceptionally, monstrously difficult to endure and wait (and, by the way, usually for a very long time - up to three years, sometimes). Few people can survive all this.

And here the question for the woman is whether she is ready for such tests for the sake of this man. There is no correct answer here, everyone decides for themselves.

One thing I can say for sure is that other options are even more hopeless in terms of results (but not so difficult). How to deal with this is, of course, not for me to decide.

Total. When a man is torn between his wife and his mistress, he does this not out of malice or weakness of will, but because of a kind of “failure” in the functioning of his head. This “failure” cannot be cured in any way, it can only be experienced. This experience can last for several years, and it is difficult for both the man and his wife. If she does not put pressure on her husband, the chances that their marriage will survive are quite high (but, of course, not absolute). Whether a woman has enough strength for this and whether she needs it at all is not for me to decide.

That's all I have, thanks for your attention.

Pavel Zygmantovich