Please remember, this column is designed to help the consumer seeking behavioral-health information, and not intended to be any form of psychotherapy or a replacement for professional, individualized services. Opinions expressed in the column are those of the columnist and do not represent the position of other SelfhelpMagazine.com staff.

Question

I am currently involved with a 26-year-old woman. We are both married and have young children. We love each other, but it is very difficult. She has a problem with trusting people. We both can talk very well with each other and share almost all of our feelings. She is thinking about a divorce, because she finds in me the things she misses at home. But she only wants to leave her husband when she feels that she has done everything to make the relationship work at home with her husband. It is getting harder each day for both of us. If we will be together, do we have a chance of making things work?

Answer

By virtue of having an affair you both have violated the trust of your current mates. You say that you are both in love and that you derive things from one another that your current spouses do not offer and now you are thinking of breaking up two families and are concerned with dealing with the consequences. Have you both expressed to your respective spouses that you are unhappy and, for the sake of the children if nothing else, want to try to make things better? Or have you, like so many others, simply looked elsewhere without giving your spouses a chance to make things better?

Having an affair is at best risky business, especially when there are children involved. You will have to deal with hurt children, angry spouses, as well as your own guilt. Is your love for one another strong enough to overcome all of this? Will you still love each other when you have to deal with the realities of your new life together? I suggest that before you decide to break up your respective marriages that you take a moratorium on your affair with one another and seek professional help with your spouses. After a few months of marital counseling you will be in a better position to make a decision on how to proceed.

05/19/98

Dr. Edward A. Dreyfus is a Clinical Psychologist, Marriage, Family, Child Therapist, and Sex Therapist. Dr. Dreyfus has been providing psychological services in the Los Angeles-Santa Monica area for over 30 years. He offers individual psychotherapy to adolescents and adults, divorce mediation, couples counseling, group therapy, and career and vocational counseling and assessment.His book, Someone Right For You, is available in the Amazing Bookstore Catalog.

Dr. Dreyfus can be reached at: (310) 208-5700.