Dump Him!

Lately for some reason, I seem to have a lot of friends who are involved with married (or otherwise taken) men, I find it interesting that it’s more often women who go after the married men, rather than men hankering for married women.

I don’t think most men have the patience to wait around. They’d simply prefer to continue hunting.  Many women, on the other hand, have “passionate longing” down to an art. They can fritter away many an hour with passionate longing and its attendant activities: trying on various iterations of the perfect outfit for the next meeting, reading and re-reading cards and letters, listening to the song that reminds them of him over and over again. Dreaming about what might be, until what IS whacks them over the head.

He’s not leaving her after all.

He can’t leave his wife/girlfriend for the much lusher and greener pastures of you. And with extremely heavy heart, you finally tell him you simply can’t continue this way, when the pleasure of being in his arms is greatly outweighed by the pain of him tap-dancing all over your heart, deftly dashing your dreams of a perfect future together. Even though you absolutely know to the very core of your being that YOU are perfect for him rather than the fairly haggish, unexciting, frigid beast with whom he is preferring to stay.

My friend, (and I apologize for the shameless plug for my book, but…) Do I Need To Slap You? This turd is doing you a favor! He is a spineless bag of slime! He is a liar! And he cares way more about his own feelings than he cares about yours. How can you possibly believe the boatloads of baloney he shoveled your way, when in the end, he’s still right where you found him? Stuck in the same sad rut.

As soon as you can stop shedding tears for what you hoped might have been, it’s time for you to PITY him. Pity him for being the weenie he is. The gutless wimp who is too weak to take charge of his life and be honest with himself and everyone around him.  Why oh why would you want to attach yourself to someone like that? I’m quite certain that’s not what attracted you to him in the first place. But deep down, that’s who he is. And as much as you hoped you could change him, and make his life better, you could not.

So often I meet women who seem to feel their mission in life is to earn love from a man:  “He has never been loved properly, and I can show him what true love truly is. His love for me will be intense and appreciative because in all the world, only I will understand his every need.”

But you see, to me that sounds more like you’re providing a service rather than sharing a relationship. Girls, we MUST stop thinking about showing and earning love based on what we provide, whether it’s hot meals or hot sex. I think most men LOVE being served! They’re not going to turn it down. They will enthusiastically receive your dish of the day – no matter what their circumstances. But rave reviews for your offerings are not the same as love for YOU.

If he truly loved YOU more than the person he’s with, he would not be staying in his current relationship. If being with you was worth more to him than the heartache and effort of changing his current situation, he would do it. But he hasn’t.

He likes you enough to sneak off with you from time to time, but not enough to give up the rut he’s in. He knows exactly what to say to you to keep you coming back over and over again.

And you’re sad about ending it with this creep? As I said before, you’re not sad about ending what IS, you’re sad about ending what might have been. Your perfect dream is not going to come true, and that’s a big sucky disappointment.

Now I know I’m going to get lots of emails from gals saying “but I can’t help who I fall in love with.” I’m not going to argue about whether or not that’s true, but I will say this: you CAN control whether or not you get yourself into an affair with someone and allow it to drag on and on for months or years. You’re the one who makes yourself available. You’re the one who agrees to meet when he calls.

Let me put it a bit more simply. As long as you’re available to him, he has no incentive to change his current situation. If you take yourself out of his picture, there are three possible scenarios:

1. He stays in his current relationship, which means you really didn’t rock his world like you thought you did, or he’s too spineless to make a change. Eeeuuw.
2. He stays in his current relationship and you later find out he’s with someone else. Boy, he really IS a slime bucket.
3. He ends his current relationship to be with you. Bingo!

The way I look at it, it’s all win-win for you no matter what the result. How long should you stick around before dumping him? Your warning sign should be as soon as you think he’s the one for you. As soon as you find yourself dreaming about a future with this man, RUN. But tell him this first: “I think you’re wonderful, but you are not available to me. As soon as you’re out of that relationship, call me.”

You have far too much to offer, to settle for offering it to someone who doesn’t really want it bad enough. Remember, if he doesn’t want you bad enough, he’s bad for you.