I was watching online when a woman phoned a talk-show for advice. She'd been dating a married man for - - six years. Not surprisingly, he hadn't made any progress in divorcing.
So he's getting his cake and eating it too. But why would a woman put up with this? She's not a babe in the woods, she's not 25, she was in her forties or so.
Maybe, just maybe I wondered, she liked some aspects of this relationship. She didn't have to pick up after him. She never saw him in dirty, ragged clothes trying to fix things around the house. She wasn't looking after children, or listening to him fume about his job. They didn't argue about who takes out the garbage or whether the bills got paid. They only saw one another when they wanted to. The time they spend together is kind of vacation from their everyday lives.
And there's this, too: She didn't have to put herself out there and get rejected. In the back of her mind, "Chad" was taken and couldn't commit to her. If she was in the marketplace with real single men who could. If they didn't or wouldn't, she might be afraid of examining herself to see why. That can be painful.
I get it, because after I was widowed, I was seeing someone kind of long distance. He wasn't a great match for me, we were never going to be together long term, but frankly, my lifestyle wasn't affected because we only actually were together maybe one weekend a month or so. The rest of the time was pleasant anticipation. Eventually I wanted more. I was willing to adapt my life to include a real partner, and take the risk of being rejected, but your boyfriend may never evolve to that point.