I am guessing that, if you are reading this article, you are in a relationship with a married man and that it’s not going well. Or, perhaps, you are considering getting involved with a married man and you are doing some research ahead of time.
Good for you. Because getting involved with a married man is one of the most heartbreaking, soul crushing things that you could ever do.
Why? Because your entire relationship will be based on lies, some of them lies he doesn’t even know that he is telling.
There will be many lies that your married man will tell you – here are 5 of them.
#1 – That you are his top priority.
Does your married man always tell you that you are his top priority. That every choice he makes and everything that he does is with you at the top of his mind?
Even as he says these things, do his actions speak louder than his words? I am guessing yes – that you never, ever feel like a priority.
How can a man make you a priority when you are a secret? Your married man essentially has two lives – the real one in which he has a wife, a family, a social life, a career, perhaps even a pet, and then the one he has with you, inside your little bubble.
And societal exceptions are such that your married man must step up and take care of his family and his work and therefore, he must choose them every time. If he doesn’t, and he can’t give reason to why he is slacking, your man will lose face. He won’t feel like the man who he should be, living up to his responsibilities, and he won’t feel good about that.
So know that, every time, he will make his real life the priority, even if he doesn’t believe that he will. He will choose his real life over your birthday and when you are sick or when you are lonely.
I do believe that your married man might believe that he makes you a priority but the reality is that, even if he wanted to, he just can’t.
#2 – That he will leave his wife.
I know – this is one you lie you will hear over and over and over – that he will leave his wife and you will be together.
And, as much as your guy might want to believe that he will, he won’t.
Why? Because it’s not just about leaving his wife. It’s about leaving his kids and his social group and damaging his finances and disappointing people he cares about.
I have a client whose affair partner told her that he was ready to leave his wife. His wife had learned about the affair and was making his life miserable and he wanted out.
His wife gave him thirty days to make a choice – his wife or his affair partner. And, even though for 2 years he had told his affair partner that he wanted out of the marriage, and swearing that this time he was going to do it, he didn’t leave his wife. He stayed with the wife he didn’t want to be married to but also with the kids and the grandkids who he loved very much.
I know that you are thinking that your married man cares about you – very much – and that things will be different with you. And I am sure that he wants to be with you as well but, I am afraid, only in a parallel world – one where he can be with you and not hurt those he loves and destroy his finances.
#3 – That you are his soul mate.
Every single client I have ever had who had an affair told me that their affair partner was their soul mate. That they had a connection like none other and that they were cosmically meant to be together. I felt that way too, when I was having an affair with a married man, so I get it.
But, it’s bullshit, I am afraid.
The two of you have come together in a bubble. Everything that you share is magical because the time you have together is brief and intense. You don’t have to fight about money and kids. You have amazing sex. You can tell each other anything. You even say you trust each other.
The reality is is that, on the most basic level, this guy is not your soul mate. How could your soul mate be someone who treats you this way. Someone who breaks promises and doesn’t do what he says he is going to do.
And, be honest with yourself. If you were with this guy in the real world, not the guy you believe that he could be but the guy he is right now, would you really live happily ever after? Or do you see some serious red flags that might have caused you to walk away from someone who wasn’t married and with whom you were just dating?
If you insist on thinking that your affair partner is your soul mate, consider this: Elizabeth Gilbert, in “Eat Pray Love,†avers that soul mates are people who come into your life, shake things up and then walk away. And isn’t this what this guy has done? Hasn’t he woken you up to what you want in a relationship? Hasn’t he made you question how you make choices? Hasn’t it made you remember how good sex can be? Maybe you should walk away from your married man and find out who exactly YOU can be!
Again, while your married man might say that you are his soul mate, when you are lying in your bed at 2am, lonely again, ask yourself whether what he says is true.
#4 – That he doesn’t want to hurt you.
I am guessing that your affair partner tells you every day that he doesn’t want to hurt you. That he loves you and that you are his priority and that any pain that he causes you causes him pain as well.
And I’m guessing that he means it, to an extent. But if he really didn’t want to hurt you, he would give you what you needed instead of telling you one thing and doing something differently, instead of stringing you along, making you miserable.
Nobody wants to hurt someone who they care about. Your affair partner doesn’t want to hurt you, but he also don’t want to hurt his wife or his children so, in order to not hurt you, they must hurt them. And vice versa. And he knows this.
Again, this one is most likely not an intentional lie, and it is something that he says that he doesn’t want to do but it is something that he will do over and over.
So every time your partner says that he doesn’t want to hurt you, just know that he’s lying. That he will continue to hurt you over and over because he will never make you a priority and will choose to hurt you over hurting his wife and family.
#5 – That his unhappiness is all his wife’s fault.
I also have to say, quite bluntly, that it’s just bullshit if your married man is telling you that him being unhappy is all his wife’s fault.
I can’t tell you how many times my clients tell me that their affair partner’s wife refuses to have sex with them, or treats them horribly or never listens to them or has lost all respect for them or any other horrible thing that he believes to be true in his marriage.
But think about it. I’m sure you have friends who are in unhappy relationships, and they don’t always treat their partners as well as they might because of their unhappiness. I am sure you have even been there. None of them are bad people – they are just unhappy.
And bad behavior doesn’t happen in a void. One person doesn’t just become evil while the other one stands innocently by, unbelieving.
Remember, there are two people in every relationship and two different perspectives about that relationship. If you believe that your affair partners wife is everything that he says she is, you’ll just be believing a lie.
Furthermore, know that, if you do end up with him, you might someday be the person he will blame if your relationship has trouble. You want to be with someone who recognizes his role around difficulties in a relationship and not blame them all on someone else.
So there you go, five lies your married men will tell you, over and over and over.
Nobody wants to lie and, more likely not, your married man doesn’t believe that he is lying. He believes that he is the man he is presenting to you. He believes that you are his top priority and that he will leave his wife and that you are his soulmate and that his unhappiness is his wife’s fault. But the reality is, he is a product of wishful thinking. He is somebody who wants to have his cake and eat it too. He is someone who hasn’t taken any responsibility for issues in his relationship.
As a result, to protect himself, he lies, over and over.
Do you want to be in a relationship with somebody who lies to you again and again? If your married man wasn’t married and you were just in a regular relationship, would you put up with these kind of lies?
I’m guessing not.
Don’t put up with them in this situation. Walk away…you deserve more.
![Mitzi Bockmann](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/d9515105d453a83cb97bf5014656a7d2?s=100&r=g&default=https%3A%2F%2Fletyourdreamsbegin.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fwp-first-letter-avatar%2Fimages%2Fdefault%2F128%2Flatin_m.png)
I am a NYC based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate. My writing has been published on The Huffington Post, Prevention, Psych Central, Pop Sugar, MSN and The Good Man Project, among others. I work with all kinds of people to help them go from depressed and overwhelmed to confident and happy in their relationships and in their world.