I’ve written before, but I didn’t hear back from you—probably because my e-mail didn’t contain flogging or santorum or whatever. But I won’t be IGNORED, Dan.
I’m a 32-year-old female. Second marriage, two kids: one kid with my ex and one with the man I cheated on my ex with (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 16 years. This person was a jerk who left me for one of my friends back in high school. But he was and still is the love of my life. Always has been. Always will be. He is not married, has never 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 have 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 he 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 is such a thing, is passing me by. I’ve never felt for anyone as I do for this man. Every man who 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
I’ve read what you’ve written before, SCIL, but I didn’t respond because I didn’t have much to say to you and I still don’t. I had the same reaction reading your e-mail today that I had reading all the other e-mails you’ve sent. 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—nowhere near the level of respectful professionalism that people expect of me—and so now I’m going to have to make amends by scrounging up some of that advice shit you’re after. But I’m going to offer you my advice on one condition: You don’t write to me ever again.
Okay!
You say you’ve cheated on every man you’ve ever been with, with the exception of your “first love,” SCIL. You seem to be engaged in a little circular reasoning/magical thinking here—you’ve concluded that he must be the love of your life because you didn’t cheat on him, and you didn’t cheat on him because he’s the love of your life. No. You didn’t cheat on him, SCIL, because you didn’t get around to it. You two broke up when you were 15 years old. If you’d been with him a little longer, you would’ve cheated on him like you’ve cheated on everybody else.
If you leave your current husband and break up your first child’s second home and your second child’s first home, it won’t be long before you get around to cheating on the love of your life, too. Because you’re a cheater, SCIL, a habitual, serial cheater. You’re precisely the kind of person who 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. Stay or go, it’s not going to make a fuck of a lot of difference. Your personal life is a mess, SCIL, and it always will 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 and wants to put your children first, then I think you should stay with him for the sake of your kids. They deserve whatever stability and continuity you can provide for them between infidelities. 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. I know it, you know it, everyone out there reading this knows it, even your current husband seems to know it.
So just stay put, okay?
My girlfriend of two years, my first real relationship, broke up with me a month ago. Although I felt like shit for most of that month, we somehow managed to struggle through to a close friendship. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely over her, but I understand why it happened and that we won’t be getting back together. All in all, I’ve felt like we’ve both been pretty mature and things are going well.
The complication: We still find each other attractive and we work very well together sexually. So she proposed an FWB arrangement, and I said yes. We laid down ground rules—we are not together, we are just friends who fuck, so no “I love you,” no commitments, no expectations—and we started having hot sex. Is this foolhardy? We both know that I’d prefer something more. So the question remains: Should we keep fucking?
Can’t Recall Acronym Procedure
How are you going to feel when your ex-girlfriend/
current-fuck-buddy finds a new boyfriend and ends your FWB arrangement? If you can honestly answer, “I’ll be happy for her,” then keep fucking—but don’t forget to ask for your balls back when she dumps you that second time.
If you can’t say that and you decide to keep fucking the ex anyway, CRAP, you wouldn’t be the first lovesick dumpee who agreed to enter into an FWB arrangement with an ex. If the short-term rewards (all that hot sex) and the potential long-term payoff (getting back together) make the risk seem worthwhile, then keep fucking.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
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For C.R.A.P., I do think that while you continue your FWB situation, you should try and date other people too. Maybe you’re different than I am, but if I were in your position I would not be able to separate the feelings for the Ex, and I would still “think” we are together even though it is officially over. So maybe that would help you to keep things in perspective.
Plus, it will make her jealous! (Aren’t I mature!!)
And for S.C.I.L. – what a self-involved, narcissistic jerk. She feels ENTITLED to be answered by Dan?!? And claims he is IGNORING her, without any regard for the mountains of mail he gets? She things Dan has a responsibility to answer her mundane letter just because she is a cheating jerk?
I feel sorry for all the men she torments.
win
I love the advice to the first one, SCIL, cause Dan said what I wish I could say to serial cheaters… and what I wish an advice columnist would say. Go Dan!!
Dan, your comments to SCIL are dead on. Up to and including “THIS BITCH CAN GET LEGALLY MARRIED AND I CAN’T?!?!”
I read the rest of your advice, think your points are good, but, really, I don’t care about anything after that. We are (being forced to) “preserving” and “protecting” marriage for that shit to happen?
Whatever Dan is paid to read letters like the first one, it isn’t enough.
Sorry Dan, but in the ratings between you and SCIL, you are NOT the one who’s selfish.
I guess she deserves some credit for at least considering the others involved, but then again, it sounds as if she’s just as concerned with losing her cushy lifestyle as she is about her family.
Maybe she’ll change. Maybe there’ll be world peace. You’ll probably be getting married first.
We can only hope… And keep trying!!
Re SCIL – having the Question of the Day on the SL app appear several weeks later as the lead letter in (and comprising the bulk of) the column is kind of a letdown, and maybe an indication that someone is spreading himself a little thin?
As someone whose parents “stayed together for the kids,” I think that may have been one of the worst decisions either of them made. That wasn’t stability. And it took me a long time after the fact to realise that that wasn’t love.
That first letter sounds like a deluded ex-friend of mine. She creates a multitude of dipshit “dramas” and then when she ends up making a “mess” of her relationships, she rings or texts me in London, UK (she lives in Olympia) to do the “woe is me” and ask for “support” and my words to her never change: “you’re either with your husband or you’re not with him. Make a choice.” This falls on deaf ears and I’ve tried to get rid of her 4 TIMES!!! Hopefully, this time, after I was once again accused of “not being supportive” when she texted me at 3:00 am to tell me about fucking some guy she “had a crush on” and I texted back: “tell someone else.”
That letter REALLY sounds like her but her situation is slightly different in players but the delusions are your basic drama Queen/King, “how-do-I-get-into-these-messes?” type personality.
@11 I’ve never thought I was alone in my personal experiences, but it’s comforting to read the exact thing that once happened to me happen to someone else. I mean, it sucks that this stuff goes on, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but the fact is there are people out there like that and dealing with their bs is never fun, nor beneficial. “We broke up. Respect my goddamn boundaries already or gtfo (of my life).”
Great response and advice to serial cheater in love, but there’s something I’d like to add. It is possible for a serial cheater to reform herself. I know because I’ve done it.
First of all, she needs to realize that the person she is now is not the person she was in high school, and the same goes for the supposed “love of her life”. So what this means is that her feelings are really based on a fantasy. She’s confusing the feelings of “being in love” with actual love. Even though we call it “love” or even “true love” it’s really just infatuation. It’s a hormone-caused illusion, really. Affairs are really about fantasy, not real love.
Real love is you’ve already been sharing your life with someone, you know each other better than anyone else could, the honeymoon phase has worn off, and you still want to be together. When you have real love, you don’t want to screw that up for some brain chemical induced fantasy.
So what do you do? Well you know you have a natural tendency, maybe stronger than most, to become infatuated so you need to take precautions – maybe more precautions than most married people. You should have NO contact with any exes. Some people can remain friends with exes but not people like me or you. And never be alone with someone you might be attracted to or put yourself in a situation where you might be tempted. In short, don’t be stupid. If you find yourself becoming infatuated with someone new, reduce contact and spend more time with your husband. Also, tell your husband. Just knowing he knows can cool things off and make you realize you don’t have to act on every feeling. In matters of love, it’s still important to use your brain.
To #9: I for one don’t care if it’s recycled, it’s one of my all-time favorite Letters of the Day and I’m glad to see it reach a wider audience!
I’m with @1. If he can fuck the ex and still be social enough with other people to have a life and possibly meet someone new, then no harm done.
@9 – Agreed. Only 2 letters and 1 of them was a SLLOTD weeks ago?! Totally weak!
I’m backing @1 CRAP and am going one further: it’s not a FWB relationship unless you’re both dating other people. If one of you is in a committed monogamous relationship that you tell other people, especially your partner, is FWB, you’re both going to get hurt. If both of you are together and tell other people it’s just FWB, it’s not just FWB and that kind of lying isn’t good for anyone.
The phrase “But what about the children?!” has never been more appropriate.
To CRAP,
Start dating others while you can keep her as a FWB. 1) You won’t feel pressured to try to sleep with those others while you can get release with FWB, so you may make better (i.e. not lust-b beclouded) choices in your dating; 2) With other women interested in you, you can relax and let go of FWB emotionally, which will free you up to enjoy completely uninhibited sex with FWB. Bang the crap out of her, CRAP; you’ll end up leaving with fonder memories of her than you have now!
Awsome answers but only 2 letters?
Dan may have finally convinced me on gay marriage with this bitch.
As for the FWB: Agreed he should fuck everything in sight. It is a whole lot easier to get over the last good thing when you are already fucking the next good thing.
I hated that first letter the first time I read it. It feels like a waste of space. Dan’s response, OTOH, yes. I’ve always pointed out the hot-mess, quickie marriages of Britney Spears, Larry King, et al, are legal, & laughable, yet my pals who are gay & been together for decades can’t wed. Messed up.
No sympathy for that spoiled-sounding drama queen, at all, period. Her kids are gonna need some major therapy. I’ve whined before at re-run LOTD’s, but that one in particular..grrrr. The gnashing of teeth ensues. No more words for her.
& FWB guy..when you ask yourself how you’d feel if she hooked up w/ another guy, be honest. I agree that post-relationship sex can be hot, but your feelings are still tender & vulnerable. Tread with care.
Dan’s right about the first letter. That woman might consider trying meditation/yoga/other mindfulness practices. I know that sounds woo-woo and new-agey, but those techniques are designed to help you pay attention to the present moment and dispassionately take stock of what is an isn’t making you happy. As opposed to constantly chasing imaginary future experiences that will give you exactly what you want & make all your problems to away. Which is what she’s doing. Might help, might not, but it’s better to try something than resign herself to dragging her kids through endless failed relationships.
*sigh*
People who are not monogamous should just figure it out and get over their shit already. I’ve never been able to remain monogamous in a relationship. But I married a man who’s also non-monogamous. We’ve had our spats, as non-monogamy can be messy, but we haven’t left a wake of ex-marriages to people we promised to be monogamous to, let alone dragged several children through that mess.
For as bitchy as she is though, she has somehow found herself in the perfect position. She’s married to an attentive, stable man who loves their kids AND has been ok with her sleeping with someone else for months. A simple talk about polyamory, and she’s got a marriage and a fun sex life on the side. What’s not to like?
Oh, and shut up bitch for calling him the “worst person in the world” for her and then complaining that he’s poor without an actual “worst” flaw in sight. Fuck off.
*sigh*
People who are not monogamous should just figure it out and get over their shit already. I’ve never been able to remain monogamous in a relationship. But I married a man who’s also non-monogamous. We’ve had our spats, as non-monogamy can be messy, but we haven’t left a wake of ex-marriages to people we promised to be monogamous to, let alone dragged several children through that mess.
For as bitchy as she is though, she has somehow found herself in the perfect position. She’s married to an attentive, stable man who loves their kids AND has been ok with her sleeping with someone else for months. A simple talk about polyamory, and she’s got a marriage and a fun sex life on the side. What’s not to like?
Oh, and shut up bitch for calling him the “worst person in the world” for her and then complaining that he’s poor without an actual “worst” flaw in sight. Fuck off.
The FWB situation is simple. If CRAP is screwing his ex while waiting for/trying to find a new relationship partner, he’s golden. If he’s screwing his ex while waiting for his ex to want a relationship with him again, then he’s an idiot.
I suspect that he may be the “worst person in the world for her” because he dumped her once already.
First its me C.R.A.P.
Second: i can say that i would be happy were she to find another. that i want to/will be looking for another relationship not just hoping for my ex/fwb/friend to decide she wants to be my GF.
Third: the other half of the question; in many ways the more important half; is what rules do we need to ensure that things don’t go sour? Said question seems to have gotten edited out and while i cede that Dan knows more about the column than i do it still seems important.
so given that what do we and i need to do, what rules should we (and other FWBs) establish to make sure things stay good? more generally what are the rules for a good FWB? Thanks
“Serial Cheater in Love” sounds like too much of a self-absorbed asshole to even be capable of actual love. I feel sorry for her children and hope they grow up to be strong and self-reliant despite their absolute dipshit of a selfish mother.
I have no sympathy for shitty parents.
@27: It helps to be actual, genuine friends. I also think you don’t need any specific set of rules as long as you both are clear on things. For instance, you could agree to talk to each other about other people you’re dating or having sex with, or to not talk about them, as long as you agree.
The main rule, though, is to not try to exclude all emotions. You will have feelings for each other, that’s what friends do, especially FWB. It’s useful to develop ways of communicating that to each other, e.g., “You’re such a great friend,” “I care about you,” since you’ve said you don’t want to say “I love you.”
For reruns I think SCIL is a great choice. I really enjoyed that comment thread. I doubt she’ll read this one though, since she’s either in total denial or still working through therapy from the last time 200+ people tore her ego to shreds.
@27: Remember to regularly check in with yourself about how you feel about the arrangement. It’s great that you feel strong and level headed about it at the moment, but breakup emotions tend to oscillate wildly from the ‘I’m over her’ end of the spectrum to ‘I’ll never love again’, so remember to look after yourself.
However, there’s a lot to be said for winding a relationship down, too. Maybe the sex is necessary at the moment, perhaps it’ll actually help you get over her.
@30: I often wonder how many LWs are totally shell shocked after they’re ripped to shreds on Slog!
@ 9 I have to agree, very disappointing. I have noticed this is quite frequent, especially recently. I wish I could be as positive as 14 but I clearly don’t have enough of a life.
While I agree with most of the advice given to SCIL, I think that this kind of person is where Dans logic falls down. The world does not divide into the monogamous and the non-monogamous so simply. She is a cheater, I am sure part of the enjoyment and satisfaction she derives from this is the cheating, something you can’t get in an agreed non-mongamous relationship. If she didn’t enter into monogamous relationships she couldn’t do this. I really don’t believe it would solve anything if she was in an open relationships, she would just find the way to cheat in that one too. I also don’t think she is unique in this respect.
I think some people are just unable to have a functional relationship. She is delusional, her true love? went out for almost no time when she was 15 and treated her like shit? I take back delusional, she is bat shit crazy. She needs to get into therapy and try to create stability for her children. Also stop being so fucking selfish and put her children’s wellbeing ahead of her own for once. Based on this she should stay with the current husband, since he will be able to pay the huge quantity of money required for this process
First time commenter Dan but I had to say something. There was NOTHING cunty about being pissed that she (first letter bitch who demanded your attention like the self centered bitch she is) can be married and you can’t. I’m going to use her as an example when people talk about protecting marriage from “the gays”. Who’s protecting marriage from this bitch?
Man I’m all kinds of black-girl-upset right now …
First time commenter Dan but I had to say something. There was NOTHING cunty about being pissed that she (first letter bitch who demanded your attention like the self centered bitch she is) can be married and you can’t. I’m going to use her as an example when people talk about protecting marriage from “the gays”. Who’s protecting marriage from this bitch?
Man I’m all kinds of black-girl-upset right now …
I don’t get LOTD, so this is good.
I heart Dan. I’m waiting, after many years, to read something I don’t agree with.
for CRAP — really important rule: wear a condom, no matter what your birth control strategy was before. almost as important rule: don’t SLEEP together. Just have sex and leave. As the “still in love” party in a FWB relationship with an ex, no matter how much we said “we’re not together”, the feelings took over when we were hanging out all the time (as friends!) and sleeping together, (just like we used to!). It made things much too complicated.
@22. As a 10-year practitioner of yoga, I have to express my serious doubts that yoga or meditation would make a difference with people like SCIL.
In some of the less serious yoga places, entitled drama queens like SCIL (of both sexes) still manage to make it “all about them”, whether it is vomiting their personal issues all over the class, or constant groaning and demanding of the teacher’s attention. And finally, the class can just become another opportunity to cheat and find affairs – maybe with the instructor.
It wouldn’t hurt to try of course, and so it’s still good advice in case it helps.
SCIL – Better yet, leave the kids with your current husband, get your tubes tied so you don’t wreck any more little lives, and go do whatever.
CRAP, let me be brutally blunt, like you father would be if this nation still had fathers: she has actually just given you notice that when a more preferable mate appears, and she can snag that more-enticing-than-you male, she is going to stop fucking you, and start fucking him.
If that relationship craters, though, she will then call you up, as you are her “dick under glass”, which she will break free every time she is lonely or needing some emotional buck-up.
You need to understand that she sees you as a back-up while she sifts through all other males to see if she can get a better deal. That will never, ever change, however; even if you “get back together” and even marry, at some level she will always be thinking (increasingly unreasonably as she ages), that she settles for you, even though someone better may still come along.
Don’t be that guy. Find another woman. I would dump her and move on.
CRAP, I would advise against your FWB set-up with your ex because by using each other as your rebound relationship (which is what you two are doing), you are losing the benefits (the exciting single time where you have a good excuse to date a lot without worrying about intense romantic entanglements) while still having the drawbacks (rebounds only delay the process of mourning the lost relationship, when the rebound ends the mourning comes roaring back, for both relationships). Find another great rebound girl out there, don’t cheat yourself out of the exciting fun.
Serial Cheater in Love has, as I like to think of it, “Bad boy Syndrome.” This guy supposedly isn’t good for her, he doesn’t make enough money, he entered an affair with her….but she wants to throw away someone stable who seems to care about her.
Sounds like S.C.I.L. needs to get busy holding down a decent job or get a hobby that takes up more time that cheating does.
I don’t like when commenters complain about Dan using the same letters from lotd. Dan’s not obligated to write anything. Maybe if he’s spreading himself too thin and needs to cut something, then he’ll just stop lotd. How horrible would that be? I like having Savage daily. If it’s the same Savage I had a couple of weeks ago, well, better than nothing.
@13
“she needs to realize that the person she is now is not the person she was in high school”
normally I’d agree with this statement, but in this dumb bitch’s case, she IS the same person: a self-obsessed drama addict. I agree that she’s not in love with her “first love”, she’s addicted to the chemical hormonal reactions he caused and the ensuing drama of his douchey behavior.
still, i can’t get too mad at her. like i said when this letter first ran, oh you silly junkie, what the fuck have you done to your life?
That first letter is possibly the best SLLotD pull ever (well, so far). Shame on you haters: would you prefer to go back to the days before SLLotD, where you had to wait a whole week to see two or three letters? The occasional repeat (hell, the regular repeat) is worth the trade.
@43 – ” Dan’s not obligated to write anything.”
Huh? Actually, he is cuz it’s, ya know, his job.
“I will not be ignored!” is exactly what Glenn Close snapped at Michael Douglas in “Fatal Attraction” — so unless she’s brandishing a meat cleaver or boiling a bunny, I doubt she’s worth a whole lot of attention.
Oh, and I think Dan’s mistaken when he says people expect a “level of respectful professionalism” from him. He almost never provides it, so why would we expect it?
It was worth Dan’s time to answer just in case he’s made life better for SCIL’s kids….I just hope that if she does leave, her current husband has the balls to fight for primary custody.
@46, actually, Dan gets to choose *who* he writes back to.
And the first letter is such a fucking clusterfuck I can only imagine why he didn’t write back the first time. This woman doesn’t want to hear what he really has to say, and obviously has no emotional maturity to make her own decisions.
Spot on response to SCIL Dan… particularly with her having kids. 2 kids with 2 guys and she is banging another and writing woe is me to Dan. I cant stand people like her, not only because they make dating hell, but because eventually her ignored kids are going to be in school bullying my kids.
@46, actually, Dan gets to choose *who* he writes back to.
And I can only imagine, with what a clusterfuck that first letter was, why he didn’t want to write back. This woman has no emotional maturity and probably wasn’t happy with what he wrote back anyway.