Dating a Married Lesbian: 6 Ways It Could Go

You're seeing a married lesbian? It happens, and far more often than most people realize. Every month, lots of women email me to say they're dating a married woman and their lives have turned into a real mess.

Well, of course they have!

Love sometimes appears out of nowhere and catches us off guard. A married woman may be sad, lonely, and trapped in a marriage that has stopped working, and when another woman comes along and gives her attention, BAM: suddenly you two are in love, and she's realizing she's more lesbian than straight.

As usual, the first weeks or months of the affair are incredible. New love is glowing all around you, anything feels possible, and you're patient with it all: her need for space, the fact that she can't leave just yet, that her kids mustn't know yet, that her husband is going through something and needs her support, and so on. The sex is hot, which keeps you hanging on.

Perhaps her husband discovers what's going on. Perhaps she decides she's able to tell him, and that she needs to. What follows could be wonderful, or not. Or maybe it takes a different turn…

These are some of the ways it can play out:

1. Her husband proves remarkably supportive.

He gives you both room to work out what comes next. Your married lesbian lover might now choose to divorce him and be with you. Congratulations!

Or she might decide, for any number of reasons, that the divorce has to wait, but all three of you are evolved enough to work out an amicable arrangement that lets your relationship happen.

It's a once-in-a-blue-moon outcome. Here's hoping you get it.

2. Her husband has a serious health problem, so she stays.

She tells him, but she doesn't want to leave because she genuinely loves him and cares about him. That leaves you to decide whether you can accept her caring for him while she's also your lover.

If you and her husband get along, this can work out well. It sounds crazy, but two couples I know have lived exactly this.

3. Her husband loses it completely.

He makes threats against you both. He vows to take the house, the kids, the money, and whatever else comes to mind. He threatens you with physical harm, with outing you, with kicking you out of the home, or with anything else that lets him feel in control of the situation. It's a mess.

If your lover gets truly frightened, she'll stay. You'll be reduced to sneaking around, and before long even that will stop working. Her husband will watch her every move like a hawk, and soon enough you'll be the one on the outside. This happens more often than you'd believe.

4. She's afraid to tell him, so she calls you her friend.

She's petrified that someone in her family will discover she's a lesbian. Truthfully, she's homophobic to the extreme and too scared to leave her husband. She's always calling you her best friend while she keeps your relationship hidden.

It's a sad situation, and lesbians tell me about it all the time when they describe their experiences with married women. Every one of them so far has said she had to walk away. You love her, but she'll never truly be yours.

5. She keeps saying she'll tell him, but she never does.

She swears she'll leave, but she never does anything about it. She has no shortage of excuses, and you keep buying them until you can't take it anymore. The two of you have a huge fight, she vows to tell him, she still doesn't, and the cycle repeats again and again.

Here, you're the addict: hooked on her, on the chase, and on the fights. If you actually won her, you'd likely dump her. So leave her now!

6. For whatever reason, she'll never leave.

Last is the scenario in which she's wild about you yet decides she simply won't give up her kids, husband, neighborhood, house, or whatever else it may be for you. She shows you the door.

Affairs of the heart do happen, but loving someone doesn't guarantee a happy ending. I hope this isn't your story.

Date a married woman and you can count on plenty of broken promises and lonely nights, though now and then it does work out in your favor. My advice is to steer clear of married lesbians and find someone who is truly free and available.

And if you can't help yourself and end up falling for a married lesbian, find a good therapist! You'll need one until you've figured things out.