DEAR EMILY,

I had an affair with an office mate before I met my wife. Although my office mate was already engaged, working closely together made it easy for us to become lovers. To fend off suspicions, she introduced me to a woman from another company and encouraged me to date her. I did.

My office mate got married eventually, but we continued our affair. It stopped only when she got pregnant by her husband.

I got myself married to the girl she introduced me to. I left the company shortly, and she did, too, a year later. We had no contact for several years and I learned she and her husband migrated to the United States.

Five years ago she came home for the funeral of her father. A year later she wrote to say she was coming back to attend to family matters and said we could see each other if I wanted. She added that her marriage was on the rocks.

On the pretext that I had to go on a business trip out of town, we spent time alone for three days. That was four years ago. She came back two years later and again three months ago. We got together on each of her visits.

My wife recently discovered the truth about my supposed business trips. “Don’t get mad if I get even. If you can do it, so can I,” she warned.

She had a suitor before we met but her family rejected him because he was poor. But he worked for his master’s degree in engineering, got hired by an American multinational, was posted in the US, and most recently, was sent back here as an expat. His wife and children have remained in the US, though.

I sense that he and my wife have been in contact secretly.

I can accept any way she wants to punish me, except her getting even by having an affair with this former suitor.

Am I being unfair or unreasonable if I do everything I can to prevent my wife from getting together with him?

It’s too late now to rewind events, and way too much spilt milk to cry over. You and your office mate started on the wrong foot from the start. Why couldn’t she have canceled her engagement then, let your office romance be known and not hidden—by introducing a third party to be her surrogate!

If the two of you didn’t have the courage then to confess that you didn’t love each other enough to marry, where is your insensitivity continuing this affair coming from, knowing that innocent people are being terribly hurt?

You could have prevented spoiling the lives of people, had you both just been honest with your feelings for each other at the start. You had the freedom then. Didn’t you both see the wide-open door before you? Was getting married first to other people, and then cheating on them later, a better option?

Is this going to be a never-ending zig for your zag, a tit for your tat marriage? How long will the getting even go on? Will a lifetime be enough? And if you say you can accept any way she wants to punish you, accept her having an affair with ex-boyfriend, what difference does it make who the guy is? He is still a man. She’s not choosing from another species! And she’ll still be fooling around.

Is this the kind of marriage you want? Are you trying to have a contest on who can be the more vile? Can you possibly start over again with your wife, even if you initiated the crack in your marriage? These wranglings are going to have absolutely no winners. Shouldn’t enough be enough?

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