About the Time I Dated a Married Man

Let me just start by saying: I didn’t know he was married.
Because if I had, I would’ve dramatically backed away like I saw a red flag on fire.
(Okay… I probably would’ve walked away. Dramatically. Eventually. After crying. Twice.)

Anyway.

We met. He was charming in that “has secrets but makes good eye contact” kind of way. He didn’t wear a ring. He didn’t mention a wife - of course. He did, however, mention music I love, films I breathe for and “not believing in labels,” which in hindsight should’ve sent me running straight into traffic.

I was 28 or 29. Emotionally soft. Delusional. The kind of woman who would see a walking red flag and think, “I can fix him with enough love and snacks.” (hey, I said delusional!).

Two months in, I found out.
He. Was. Married.

And what did I do?
Did I end it with dignity and self-respect?
No.
I stayed.
Because somewhere in my tragically underdeveloped frontal lobe, I thought, He’s going to leave her. We have something real. This is fate. (LOL).

What I actually had was a deeply mediocre man with a lying problem and a baby on the way.

Yes. A baby. With his wife. Who called me, calmly and pregnant, and let me know that while I was out here living my telenovela dreams, she was over there living an actual pregnancy.

I was mortified.
For me, for her, for womankind.
I ended it. He didn’t fight for me (shocking). I spiraled, obviously. Deleted his number. Re-added it. Unfollowed. Re-followed. Considered witchcraft. Googled “can karma be expedited?” (it can’t).

But I moved on.

I eventually got a new boyfriend.
And let me just say: he sucked too.
Different kind of awful. Emotionally manipulative with the emotional range of a soggy cornflake.
He also thought he was funny, which is worse than not being funny at all.

So there I was, post-married-man-trauma, dating a discount narcissist with a bad sense of humor, pretending I was okay.
I was not okay. But I had good hair, and sometimes that’s enough to keep going.

Fast forward a few years. I’m out, thriving, minding my own business, glowing with the peace of a woman who no longer answers texts from men - period.
And I run into him — the married one.

Oh my dear reader, he looked like shit.
Truly. A sad, wilted lettuce of a man.
Thin, pale, disheveled, hollow-eyed. Like karma had personally dragged him through the mud, then rolled him back in for seasoning.
He looked like his own ghost. And you know what he said to me? Oh boy. He asked me if I wanted to buy some c-ke. Like, c-caine. He. Was. Selling. Drugs. YIKES.

And I? I looked amazing.
Flawless. Radiant. Unbothered.
Because guess what?

I’ve been happily single. Or in a slightly co-dependant relationship with my therapist who has to remind me she’s not ChatGPT and I can’t text her every day with random ideas and thoughts and expect her to be available 24/7. But that’s a story for another day.

No married men. No liars. No “it's complicated” cowards.
Just me, my cats, my dog, my savings account, my peaceful nervous system, and my ability to recognize a walking red flag in under 30 seconds.

And now, a moment of reflection before I go back to being my unhinged self.

The real tragedy wasn’t that he was married.
It’s that I kept choosing him after I found out — because I didn’t think I deserved better.

I thought love was about sacrifice. About waiting. About “believing in someone” even when they’re objectively garbage.
But it’s not.

Real love doesn’t ask you to shrink yourself or share someone who can’t even share a calendar invite.
Real love isn’t confusing.
And the moment I started loving me more than I loved the idea of “us,” everything changed.

So no, I didn’t end up with the married man. Or the other trash fire after him.
But I ended up with myself.
And honestly? I’m the best relationship I’ve ever had.