DEAR EMILY,

I’ve been separated from my wife and am now living with my only child.

My problem is about a woman I met in college and had a relationship with her before I got married. She got married herself and is now living with her gifted daughter and husband.

Her husband is frequently out of town, himself a product of a broken family. It is perhaps that issue and their pride in their daughter that has kept them together to this day. She has stayed married but has also kept her relationship with me borderless. I’ve introduced her to my family and friends, spent time talking for hours, and had had our fair share of intimacy.

For 10 years now, I’ve supported her emotionally, physically and financially, paying for her needs like clothes, gadgets and even the condo she lives in with her husband. She always said that in due time we two will be together. She also says that though she cannot be with me physically, her heart will always belong to me. She laments that she cannot leave her family now because her daughter, while she’s doing well, could suffer and she fears that the burden of blame will be on her if she does.

Is it possible to live with a husband and stay friends with him even if he knows she’s having an affair? Is it possible as she professes that they haven’t been intimate the past seven years? And lastly, is it possible for a wife who wants to separate badly to do nothing about it?

Isn’t this woman extremely lucky to have the best of both worlds—a fool for a husband, and a sucker for a lover?

Is that remorse dripping from your letter?

How blind are you that you can’t see how she’s twirling you round her little scheming finger and having the ride of her life—at your expense? Are you so hopelessly enamored with her that you’re throwing away your life—kitchen sink and toilet included—and not know a fig about it? All these luxury from you without even anyone putting a gun to your head!

You have only yourself to blame for your myopia and failing to see the warts growing on her. Are you this pathetic, hungry for love, lonely fool, content to accept bits of ersatz affection, just to sate his loneliness?

How can you live like so for 10 years and allow her to take advantage of you! Is she a femme fatale in bed? A Mata Hari you’re dying to tame? A fantastic cook perhaps who has wormed her way through your stomach? Or are you just this forsaken, poor little rich boy whom every one had abandoned, and thus became eternally grateful to this woman for her promise of a beautiful tomorrow—all the while sucking your very soul dry?

Rather than pour your wealth down the sewer on someone best described as “user-friendly,” why not redeem your sanity and put more value on yourself? Take your mind off her once in a while and focus into doing something more meaningful in your life. Spend time to perhaps volunteer on causes where your largesse and generosity will be put to better use?

Try shedding your masochistic tendencies and doormat mentality while you’re at it. Don’t you want to make some radical changes in your life? Truly and honestly? Would you rather continue being this profligate sucker content to be in this limbo of a relationship till kingdom come?

Don’t be too much of a victim or pushover. That life isn’t too fulfilling—it’s depressing, actually. So what’s it going to be, lover boy?

E-mail [email protected] or [email protected]—Subject: Lifestyle.