I fell in love with a married man with no kids. He was married for 3 years when we got together officially. When he brought up divorce to his wife, he said the wife was sad but agreed to the divorce. At the same time, the wife requested for some time to pass before commencement of the divorce proceedings which will take another 4 months to finalized. He agreed. When I asked why, he also lied to me that because they were not married for 3 years, they cannot commence divorce proceedings. (This was discovered later when my family members asked me to do an independent check.) The wife also requested that we no contact until divorce is finalized, requested that they go for occasional “outings” (e.g. movies, park, cycling, shopping, daily night time chatting sessions etc). He disagreed on the no contact request but accede to the requests to go on occasional “outings” (although he said no holding of hands). During the dates, he may text me occasionally to update. But the dates can last from 3hrs to 15hrs. He always reassure me that they are just like friends on outings, no intimacy.
This situation dragged on for 3 months since the wife’s discovery of the affair. I feel uneased sometimes when they go on dates. We often quarreled after his dates and he will say that I do not trust him, not seeing the bigger picture and that I should not allow jealousy to get the better of me. He said since we are in the wrong for committing extra-marital affair, we should try to lessen our guilt in the name of Buddhism, by being nice to the wife, so that she will bear less grudges against us and we are less sinful. Acceding to her requests was a way of being nice to the wife. Gradually, I stopped being jealous and in fact, when he took 8 days of leave during the festive period, they went buffet, fort canning, gardens by the bay etc and I wasn’t bothered. I thought as he mentioned, the 8 days were the final outings with the wife and there wouldn’t be any more.
3 months passed and they were supposed to sign the divorce papers as agreed between themselves. However, that did not happened and it dragged on another month with no updates from him, although he stopped going on dates. When he finally signed on the papers (although he didn’t show me evidence), he became very down and low-spirit. He said he wanted to do more for the wife seeing how sad she cried at the lawyer’s office and thereafter upon reaching home. He said the wife was sad as a lot of her requests were not met. Example: Texting me while on his dates made the wife unhappy. He raised his voice at the wife when he found out she called and scolded me and even barged to my office to create a scene, so he regretted not treating the wife better and asked for more time to appease the wife and helped the wife get out of misery. Previously, he also said he will move out of the matrimonial house after signing the papers, but he changed his mind and said he will do so just before the divorce is official in 4 months’ time. We quarreled and he suggested cooling down/breaking up momentarily so he can go ahead to fulfil his wife’s last wishes. He said he will not halt the divorce proceedings. But he also said previously the wife suggested to go on a last holiday and he would like to accede to her request now. This was the last straw for me and I told him he can go ahead and do what he wants. We shall break up. I have awakened.