HELP! I Want To Marry My Wife’s Stepmother.

My wife’s parents divorced long ago, when she was probably around 11 years old. Her dad married a woman, “Trish,” 20 years younger than he, a woman he had an affair with while married, and had a child with her, in addition to the three kids he had with his first wife. My wife has resented her stepmother, and never really got over the whole thing very well.

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Fast forward to today … and I think I’m in love with “Trish” now. For years we’ve crossed paths at family gatherings, and I always found her very attractive (we’re about the same age, 56, while my wife is several years younger than I), and we even flirted a bit over the years, but nothing significant. Her husband is now in very ill health, while at the same time my marriage is in awful shape, and I am no longer in love with my wife.

 

A few months ago, “Trish” chatted me up on Facebook — I don’t spend much time there and never had chatted there online, but we started chatting, and we became very close online, and confided in each other a great deal. Soon we started talking on the phone from time to time as well, and would kid around, or maybe it wasn’t kidding, about running off together, meeting for a romantic getaway, etc. Physically, there is no relationship here — just some hugs at family events, and some secret flirting there as well, but we never get together, just the two of us.

I have suggested going to a movie matinee with her, and she’s always real interested, but backs off eventually. She’s afraid of hurting people — she was the evil stepmother who broke up a marriage and stole my wife’s father from her … if we were to get together, she feels she would again be perceived as the bad person once again, this time taking a husband from my wife!

I told her we could get together so that it wouldn’t look so bad for her — I could move out on my own in a couple of years, after our own kids are away to college. Her husband, by then, will probably be deceased. At that point, “Trish” and I could date, and no one would know of our prior relationship. The other complications, I feel, would be minor — my own kids have “Trish” as their step-grandmother, and she would then become their stepmother. My wife is not close to her half-sister, so I don’t see a problem there, as she wouldn’t be involved with her in any event. I would go from being an in-law to my wife’s half-sister, to being her stepdad. Confused? I am!

should I just forget this whole thing, quit the chatting, and pretend the feelings don’t exist? Or can love conquer all? Or just keep it at a platonic simmer, and not get ahead of ourselves? I’m crazy about “Trish.” I know she has feelings for me as well. We both get anxious if we haven’t talked or chatted for a day or two, and it just feels so right. Or, perhaps “Trish” just needs me to help her through the tough times she has, being alone, taking care of a sick husband … and I need her to make up for the things that are lacking in my marriage. Maybe that in itself is enough, and leave it at that. I don’t know sometimes, and maybe we’re just two lost souls looking for answers. What do you think? What can I do?

Lost in Love, or Just Nuts …

Salon