Help! I don't want to be a second wife

He often mixes my name up with hers and it hurts like hell, but I can't let go.

Dear Miss Informed,

As most university girls do, I too fell in love with my professor. However, I later got to know that he had already had an affair with one of my classmates.

So extremely furious was I that I actually mailed this information anonymously to my university friends just to give him a bad name. Moreover, I even started calling him from another number just like in the movie Body Guard (freaky, I know).

In the later months, however, he fell in love with me, and I too, again began to like him. He was totally different than what I made him out to be. He was so loving and caring that I couldn't believe my good fortune.

My bubble was short-lived, and it burst just as suddenly as it started. My professor came to know that it was me who ruined his reputation and black-mailed him. He was hurt and stung, and let me go; I didn't contact him either as I realised my mistake.

Later on, I got married, but I guess what goes around comes around, and I got divorced because my ex-husband suffered from OCD. After this disastrous marriage breakup, my professor, one fine day messaged me and said that he still loved me. I was, obviously, on cloud nine. However, he said that he wanted to make me his second wife because he had already committed to his girlfriend of four years, and promised her that he would marry her. He went on to say that he has mixed my name with hers quite a number of times.

It hurts like hell. I can't let him go. But I know I can't be his second wife.

Please help.

Completely devastated

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Dear Completely devastated,

Grow up.

This is real life and real feelings you are messing with. The things that you do will have consequences. It isn't some make belief Bollywood drama.

You need to step outside your bubble and try and look at things objectively. Do you think that your professor has spoken to his girlfriend about you? Technically with-holding information is just as bad as lying. If he deceiving and lying to someone he has been with for four years, what makes you think that he won't do it to you? The fact that your professor had affairs with other students throws light on his character, and how shallow his feelings are.

Perhaps you write to me because you are still bent on his integrity; you think that his feelings are true and believe that he has changed. I am not to be the judge of this - you are. You must, however, realise that you are stepping in to the relationship of another woman, with a man she is in love with. You could be ruining her life. The logical and honourable thing to do is to ask your professor to set up a meeting with just you and her. Talk things over and get a feel for each others' character. If you feel like this woman is someone you can get along and live with, perhaps it is worth a try.

Please consider though, the pros and cons of being a second wife. You will have to deal with sharing a man you are in love with-sharing him in the most intimate of ways. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult this would be, and given that you have proved yourself to be the jealous kind, I am not sure that you can handle it. The question that you need to ask yourself is; is this man worth suffering the sort of misery that comes along with the understanding that you are sharing his heart?

Completely devastated, I think you need to take a deep look in the mirror and understand your worth. Make a list of all the positives about yourself and then gauge to see if you would actually be happy settling for this situation. Think of long term happiness, not short term pleasure. Can your professor even afford two wives? Do you think that you can't do any better than this? Do you think that you would be destined to a life of unhappiness without him?

From what you have told me about this man, I do not hold him in high esteem. It is now up to you to figure out if you can live a happy life alongside him and another woman. If not, darling, there are many other fish in the sea.

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