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Dear Doctor Love,
When is it okay to have a crush on a married man? He’s not handsome or charming but he is sweet and funny, and he always smiles at me when he sees me. I wouldn’t think like this, but his wife is so mean to him. She talks about him like he’s the worst man in the world and never says anything nice. When he comes around, she snaps at him about things that are just silly. Even when she yells at him, he never says anything mean back. I can only imagine what she is like when they are alone.
If they were in love, I wouldn’t even be thinking these things, but she doesn’t want him, and she says this all the time.
It doesn’t seem fair that she treats him so bad when I would be so good to him. Should I tell him I could offer him a better life?
/s/Forbidden Love
Dear Forbidden,
In a word—NO!
Crushes are a normal part of being human. When we meet someone, we find attractive, developing a crush is an involuntary response. It’s how you handle that involuntary response that is important.
Think about it carefully before you decide to tell him. Should you make a play for his affections don’t expect justification and encouragement from friends, they will take the moral high ground, and you will be painted as “the other woman.” It doesn’t matter how badly she treats her husband, setting out to take a married man is a dangerous path and no matter how it ends, with or without him, you will suffer the damage of public judgment.
It is his decision to remain in what you think is an unhappy marriage, and if he is only willing to leave with you in the wings, he has not yet realized that he deserves a better life. He may not even think he needs a better life. You don’t know anything about how he feels. He may love her despite the way she treats him.
Don’t let your thoughts go any further. Get out of the realm of fantasy. “Imagining” what their life together must be like is fantasy. Thinking you will make a better wife to him is fantasy. Seeing him as part of your life is fantasy, and you have to stop thinking along those lines.
You will find a sweet man, one who is emotionally available. This man is not, and you must leave them to sort out their marriage without interfering. Start imagining your life with your own man and leave hers alone.
