Is the Man She’s Cheating With Lying to Her, Like He Does to His Wife?

This woman wrote to Slate asking for advice about the man she’s cheating with…

At the risk of being judged and vilified, I pose this question to you as opposed to friends and family. I got involved with an older married man a few months ago knowing that he was and had no intention of changing his situation. He told me he was looking for a female friend to fill the void in his sexual life because when his wife went through menopause eight years ago, she lost all interest in sexual activity of any kind. We eventually developed deep feelings for each other. He admitted it in a series of texts and conversations. It is now unspoken but obvious how we feel for each other. I broke off things with him at least three times since, knowing this situation was morally wrong, and that we are opposite in ways I probably would have considered deal-breakers before. Yet we would still talk daily and multiple times at that.

We have since resumed our relationship again. He refers to himself as my boyfriend and me as his girlfriend when introduced to friends and colleagues. We spend at least one day and night a week together and weekends away when he can, which seems to be twice a month now. He is a great friend as well and takes care of me financially as I am between jobs and now have an injury preventing me from working. My question: Aside from him lying to his wife about his whereabouts when we are together, do you think he is lying to me too? He’s super open and transparent to me about matters he should stay mum about but doesn’t. Can he really be that honest with me and not her? Everything he tells me checks out and is easily verifiable. I know because I check.

So, first off, it’s more than a little weird that a married man is introducing his mistress to friends and colleagues as his “girlfriend” when they would presumably know that he has a wife. Combine that with the fact that he’s spending a couple of weekends per month AND a couple of days per week tapping his sugar baby and the chances of his wife already knowing what’s going on or figuring it out soon enough are very high. That should give his mistress something to look forward to in the coming months.

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As to whether he’s lying to her, that depends. Men generally don’t feel compelled to be truthful with women they are paying for their company, just as say a sugar baby isn’t necessarily telling the man she’s with at the moment about the other guys she’s with when he’s not around.

However, let’s assume the best-case scenario for her, which is that he really has genuine feelings for her and is paying her bills because he can and wants to take care of her while she’s injured. If he genuinely has feelings for her, maybe he is being relatively honest. Maybe… FOR NOW.

That being said and setting aside the whole issue of “he’s married,” him admitting that he doesn’t want to get divorced, and considering the unknown “deal-breakers,” she mentioned, people have a strong tendency to revert to type. By that, I mean that if he’s lying to his wife constantly, he will probably end up lying to her constantly if they are somehow together long enough.

In other words, if he’s not lying to her yet, he will be eventually. Why in the world that matters so much to her with all the other red flags that are here is hard to say.