I’m in Love with a Married Man — What Should I Do?

You never thought you’d be in this position. Falling for a married man seems like something you’ve seen on TV, not your actual life.

And yet... here you are.

Being in love with a married man is so confusing. You wonder if it’s okay. You worry that you’re a bad person. You ruminate on whether it makes sense to try and make this work. And you just don’t know.

Let’s tackle some big questions about this issue and try to provide some clarity and considerations for a path forward when it comes to loving a married man.

1. Is it wrong to love a married man?

Here’s the funny thing about love. Love is a feeling, and feelings aren’t really good or bad. They just are.

You can choose to nurture a feeling (make it bigger), or to manage a feeling (not make it bigger), but feelings come and go, and they don’t make you a bad person. It’s what you do with them that counts.

So, for example, you might want to work on nurturing a feeling of empathy for a friend or partner when they are going through a difficult time but you’re annoyed at them, maybe because in your eyes they sort of got themselves into this mess. That’s a good thing to do.

But you could also nurture a feeling of resentment against someone who wronged you. The feeling is natural; but dwelling on it and escalating it is a choice you make, and that is where the question of right and wrong can come into play. Choosing to hold on to resentment doesn’t really serve you well, and may not fit into your moral worldview either.

What this means is, you are not wrong for having loving feelings towards a man who is married. It is what you choose to do with those feelings that counts.

Now, if this guy is in the process of divorce and he despises his soon-to-be ex-wife but he is technically still married, that may not be such a big issue. That will depend on your personal beliefs and values. (For some people, the mere technical fact of someone being married means that it is a violation to engage in a relationship with them; for others, perhaps not.)

But for most people, a man who is still involved in an ongoing marriage and who is deceiving his wife by entering into a relationship with you (we are not talking about an open marriage here) is off-limits.

If you are engaging in deception, if you are doing something that you know would cause pain to someone else (the wife) were she to find out, that for most people is a violation of their own moral values.

So, is it ok to love a married man?

Bottom line: it’s not wrong to love a married man. But it may be wrong to act on that feeling and to pursue a relationship with him.

2. Why do people fall in love with unavailable men?

Some women fall for married men precisely because they are unavailable. Some reasons for that might be:

• They are actually afraid to be in a committed relationship, so they seek out someone who they subconsciously know can’t engage in one with them.

• They don’t believe they are worthy of being loved so they put themselves in situations that reinforce that belief.

• They are so afraid of failure and rejection that they set up a scenario where they know it’s not really viable, so they don’t feel as bad if/when things fall apart.

• They are craving a father figure in their lives, and a man who is the head of the household is part of that image.

• They have a need to bolster their self-esteem by “beating” other women and “winning the prize.”

• They are enticed into it precisely because it’s “forbidden fruit.”

And there are plenty of other possibilities. People are complex, you know?

But almost always these dynamics are happening outside of the awareness of the woman who’s pursuing the unavailable man. There’s typically a lot of complicated psychological stuff going on there, and it usually stems from pretty deep-seated beliefs and expectations she picked up in childhood.

If this is a pattern you find yourself repeating, therapy is really something you should consider so that you can figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing and make a positive change in your life.

When It’s Not a Pattern

All this applies to women who repeatedly find themselves falling for a married man.

However, if you are in this situation for the first time, it really isn’t necessary to come up with deep psychological explanations for it. You may not have even known he was married when you first felt attracted to him.

And even if you did, it’s not like the knowledge that he is married suddenly turns off millennia of evolutionary wiring that cause females to be attracted to men who are powerful/handsome/charismatic/etc.!

(I often tell clients who are muddled in an infidelity situation that being married doesn’t mean you don’t find other people attractive, it just means you choose not to pursue them. The same thing applies in this direction too – just because someone is married doesn’t mean you won’t feel attracted to them.)

So if you find yourself attracted to a married man, there probably isn’t anything wrong with you, and there may not be anything that needs explaining here. Heterosexual women are naturally attracted to men, married or no. Again, it’s not how you feel about it but what you choose to do about it.

3. Can a relationship with a married man work?

There are different situations we need to consider regarding whether a relationship with a married man is viable. Let’s tackle them one at a time.

When he’s on his way out of the marriage

When the guy is technically married but the marriage is effectively over, that is a very viable situation.

Here we’re talking about when things are very clearly over: divorce proceedings are underway, they are not living together, they are not keeping up any kind of ongoing relationship (beyond what is necessary to co-parent any shared children) – things like that.

In such a situation, the guy is basically single again and is married on paper only (which is also going to cease to be the case sooner or later). This situation is not without its hazards, but generally speaking it’s safe to go ahead with a relationship with this man.

That said, be sure to discuss how his ex-wife and/or children may impact your relationship with him. If there are children, they certainly will, but even if there aren’t, there are issues to consider (house, assets, mutual friends, etc.)

What we are not talking about when we say “on his way out of the marriage” is a fellow who says he plans to end his marriage, but there are no external indicators of this happening.

When he says he will leave his wife

There are all too many stories of women who got involved with married men, were given promises that he would leave his wife for her, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Sure, there have also been plenty of cases where the man did in fact leave his wife for an affair partner. Be careful what you rely on to determine whether that’s a realistic possibility.

An unhappy marriage isn’t a guarantee he’s going to leave. Neither is the removal of a wedding ring, a confession of love to you, or a detailed five-year plan.

In fact, his guarantee that he’s going to leave isn’t a guarantee that he’s going to leave!

This is not only true of men who are deliberately deceiving an affair partner, but also of men who really mean it when they say it, only to find that it’s not so easy to pick up and leave a family (it really isn’t).

My advice is: if you’re waiting on a man to leave his wife and start a relationship with you, wait solo.

Meaning, if you think this could be a viable long-term relationship between you and him, then put the relationship on hold and let him know you’re there when he has formally filed for divorce. Do not have sex with him in the meantime!

If he really wants to pursue a life with you, he will make it happen. If he doesn’t take concrete steps to end his marriage, take it as a sign that he’s not really serious about leaving her.

Having sex with him while waiting for him to leave gives him the best of both worlds, and makes it really easy for him not to think about what he actually wants to do (again, even if he really is being authentic with you and not just using you).

(Note: I am not recommending or condoning women doing the homewrecker thing where they tempt a man away from an otherwise decent marriage. When I normalize pursuing a relationship with a married man I am mostly talking about the first scenario, where he is married on paper but in real life it’s over.)

When he does not plan to leave his wife

If he has given you no indication that he plans to leave his wife, or has explicitly said that he will not, please believe him. Don’t expect him to change his mind because of how good you are in the bedroom or the boardroom or the kitchen or whatever you think he’s attracted to.

You can spend a long time hanging onto a man who considers you his side deal but wants to keep his family together for whatever reason.

Yes, you might really have loving feelings for him. Yes, you might see a bright future together.

The reality is that there are many men out there with whom you can have a bright future and loving feelings. Do yourself a favor and keep looking for a man who wants that with you.

How to Stop Loving a Married Man

Ah yes. Easier said than done, right?

The truth is that this is more or less the same as any situation where you have to move on from someone you wanted to be in a relationship with, whether it’s getting over a breakup, one of you moving away, or just the realization, as in this case, that the person you are in love with simply isn’t available.

In brief, here are some ways to get through this:

1. End contact with him. Don’t drag it out – it only makes it harder. (Obviously this is difficult if he’s your officemate or something like that – although even then if you really needed to get away from this, changing jobs or locations might be a reasonable step to take.)

2. Do not Facebook-stalk him. Or any other social media! Unfriend and unfollow him, and keep him out of your face. Out of sight, out of mind.

3. Don’t let yourself dwell on thoughts of him. Put together a list of things that grab your attention (movies, music, politics, AI) that you can shift your thoughts to when he pops into your head.

4. Surround yourself with people who like you. It’s easier to believe that things are going to be okay when you’re around people who care about and believe in you.

5. Talk to a coach or therapist. A professional can help you get unstuck if you feel trapped by this. Additionally, making sure your self-esteem is in good shape will help you remember that there’s every reason to believe you’ll find the right guy for you – one who isn’t already taken.

I Fell in Love with a Married Man – Now What?

I hope this post has given you some sense of where to go in this situation. Rarely is there an easy answer. The confusion you feel can be overwhelming. And who can you talk to about it anyway?

You may be worried about being judged – but a good therapist won’t judge or condemn you.

We take your struggles seriously, and we never shame anyone for the choices they’ve made or the situations they find themselves in. So if you’re overwhelmed and need some support figuring out how to deal with your love for a married man, consider reaching out so we can help you through with compassion and care.