DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I don’t even know where to begin properly really. I haven’t summed it all up before into a text. But to start it all I’ve been married for roughly 5 years and things have been going good enough. The occasional annoyances with one another but that’s mostly about it.
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The last year however has been a completely different story. I met this girl who is a model by profession, who I ended up becoming friends with. She was the lone supporter of her family from a monetary standpoint, and she had been doing some extremely shady s--t which I don’t even wanna mention on here for money. I ended up feeling sorry for her because she was just a kid (20) and it felt as if everyone was just toying with her and she was a plaything for most folks, so on that note I started funding her, so she doesn’t have to resort to that stuff anymore and as far as I know she hasn’t. My wife doesn’t know about said sponsoring that I’ve been doing, I’m pretty well off so it’s not much of an issue overall.
Fast forward: I’ve honestly initially been doing it just as a friend and nothing happened, until she ended up following me on a trip which resulted in us having sex. Since then we’ve been sort of in a relationship-esque situation without it being explicit, that considering I’m married. Now I love my wife, but the thing is ever since this scenario started my sex life at home has suffered, like I have to go to extreme lengths to orgasm with her; there are times when I don’t. My wife does feel I don’t find her attractive anymore (which to an extent is true) and she feels she can’t satisfy me but I just come up with excuses that work and all has been stressing me out. I still love her though, I can’t really imagine my life without her because there’s so much we have together minus the sex element that I don’t want to give up.
Now over time I had (shall explain “had” later on) started developing feelings for my “friend” as well. Which was an ordeal by itself, with its ups and downs but I feel I mostly got over it. However, she still does try to emotionally blackmail me, I’ve told her multiple times that if it’s just about the money I’m not cutting her off (in fact I’ve secured her even further with stocks in her name from one of my ventures) but she’s still adamant on how much she loves me and continues to shoehorn herself into my life to the point that she has befriended my wife just so I can’t get rid of her easily.
Fast forwarding even further, traveled to Kyiv for a friend’s trip, pre-COVID. Basically, my friend has acquaintances all over, so he invited a whole lot of people to get together in Kyiv; as a result, I ended up meeting a mutual friend and we hit it off. I should mention my wife is a medical professional and can’t travel much, on account of her work because her workplace is toxic AF. She doesn’t get any days off (not even national holidays most of the time) and she needs the experience, so I usually end up doing most stuff by myself. So basically the whole thing with my other friend ended up repeating allll over again. Basically the sponsoring (she’s into amateur porn because she needed the money and does like it really), the sex, basically all of it. The only difference being that I find her to be a breathe of fresh air, who I can be honest with. I ended up following her back to her country so I could spend more time with her and yet again I’ve gotten attached to this one now. It has been like almost a year. COVID did shut me off a bit from her because flights were banned, but I traveled as soon as they were open and isolated with her.
In essence I don’t understand what the f--k am I doing. Am I just a cheating asshole trying to validate my shenanigans? A simp? I don’t know what to do about these two women in my life and how to tackle which because sadly I care about all 3. I don’t know how to fix or come out of this situation and what my next steps should be. I can’t really even talk about it with any of my friends because some don’t understand the emotions in play and some I just don’t trust to keep this information to themselves. Like I have a few I confide in and who has witnessed it but they judge the f--k outta me about it which just makes me want to close up overall. Please, any advice to cope or handle this would be appreciated.
Trouble In Paradise
DEAR TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Hoo boy.
You know the first thing I noticed here, TiP? You use a lot of passive language to describe your affairs. She “ended up” following you, which “resulted” in your having sex. You’ve been in “sort of” a relationship. You “ended up” repeating everything with this new woman, “ended up” following her back to her country and “got attached” to her.
That right there is a pretty goddamn big indicator of one of your problems: you’re treating all of this as though you had no agency in this. You’re telling me a story about how you didn’t make these series of choices that lead to your lying to your wife and cheating on her repeatedly; you just tripped and OOPS you f--k ed this model you’d been having a sugar-baby relationship with. OOPS you bumped your head and somehow ended up in this other woman’s vagina. Not your fault, these things just keep happening to you.
Dude. Come on. You know damn good and well how shady all of this s--t is and has been from the beginning. If everything with this 20 year old model had been on the up and up and your motivations had been as pure as the driven snow, then why were you hiding it from your wife? Why were you having to be sneaky about supporting her if it was just about being a generous guy who has a soft spot for a hard-luck story? While I don’t believe relationships are depositions and folks are certainly allowed to have privacy and secrets, even from their partners, the fact that you were making a point about the fact that your wife didn’t know is a giant goddamn sign that you knew that this was going to blow up your marriage. And while I’m skeptical as all f--k that your intentions were pure and that you never intended to bang her, let’s be real: you were her sugar daddy.
(And for the record: if that’s a relationship people want, more power to ’em. I’m all in favor. But dude, own your goddamn choices.)
Again: notice the passive voice. She “ended up following you” on a trip which “resulted in” your having sex. Bulls--t my dude. These were decisions you made. Even if she just up and decided to show up while you were on this trip without your foreknowledge, the fact is that you could have refused to see her. You could have chosen to not f--k her. You decided these things. Own them.
The same goes with the other woman. Once again, these were choices you made. This wasn’t because your wife couldn’t come with you on this journey, this was you making the conscious decision to enter a sugar-daddy relationship with them, f--k them and follow them back to their home country and evidently shack up with her once travel restrictions had been relaxed.
So yes. Yes, you are a cheating asshole. Yes, you are trying to validate your decisions, by pretending you somehow didn’t have a hand in all of them. Not only are you hurting your wife, but you’re stuck in a situation where at least one of them is ready to absolutely blow your life to s--t . Oh, look: it’s the consequences of your actions!
And here’s the thing: all of this could’ve been avoided if you’d been honest. You could have started with being honest with your wife and doing the right thing by her. Maybe this would have meant going to couples’ counseling to see if you two could reconnect and rediscover the spark in your relationship. You could have discussed a companionate marriage or an ethically non-monogamous one. You could have gotten a divorce, and while that might have hurt her, it would spare her the greater pain she’s going to feel as soon as all this comes to light. And make no mistake: she will find out.
If you had been honest, then you wouldn’t be in this position. You could’ve been sugar daddy to all the sugar babies you could support; you wouldn’t be stuck lying to at least one person, if not three. Four, if you count yourself. But instead, you f--k ed around and now you’re gonna find out.
What do you do now? Well, I hate to tell you this chief, you’re out of moves. There is no way you’re getting out of this cleanly. Because let’s be real: you need to cut things with your first side-piece. She’s made it clear that she’s a snake, and she’s going to do whatever she can to keep her fangs in you. The fact that she’s threatened you with blackmail and entangled herself in your life should scare the ever-loving piss out of you. Your only play now is to come clean to your wife, wipe out the first woman’s leverage and pray that the divorce laws in your country won’t completely wipe you out.
(And that’s assuming that your wife doesn’t pull your scrotum entirely over your head.)
And while you’re at it, you should end things with your other partner. Not because she’s done anything wrong but because frankly, it sounds like she deserves better and you aren’t in a position to have any sort of healthy relationship right now.
You’re going to need to do a lot of thinking about your life, a lot of reflection on the choices you’ve made and what you’ve done to someone who you say you love and care for. Maybe in the future, you’ll be able to have an honest relationship — whether it’s transactional or not — but right now, you can’t and you’re hurting people. She may not know how much you’re hurting her but she’s gonna find out sooner or later.
The kindest thing is to keep this other woman from making things worse, even when it means blowing up your relationship yourself.
You can certainly try to keep juggling things, but you’re already deep in the danger zone. The truth will come out, no matter what you do. That’s already been set in motion; the only question is when.
You can try to bluff it out and hope you get lucky. You won’t, but you can certainly try. You have a choice to make.
And the longer you take to do this, the worse it your wife, and the worse it will be for you.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com