Dear Emma,

I wouldn’t exactly say persuade per se, I would usually ask him if going separate ways is what he wants. And he will reply back with something like “I know it’s the right thing to do, but I don’t want to let you go”

He would initiate the breakup, and then you would question his decision – you asked him if that’s what he really wanted. A part of him didn’t want it, since there were issues in his relationship, and you provided an escape/relief for him. That’s why he didn’t want to let you go, although he knew he’s hurting his girlfriend. The desire to feel good was stronger, so he chose to stay with you. But it was you who persuaded him, i.e. encouraged him to stay: had you accepted his wish (to do what’s right, as he put it), he would have left, or at least, he wouldn’t have changed his mind so easily.

I do feel anger towards the girlfriend as I feel that she shifted the entire blame onto me. It’s as though she was saying that if I hadn’t listened to him, he would have never cheated on her. But if a man has the intention to cheat, if it wasn’t with me then it would have been with some other victim.

You’re not the only one to blame. It’s easier for them to find a scapegoat in you – like, he is so innocent and you seduced him. That’s obviously not what happened. He is very much responsible too. But it’s true that you wanted the relationship to go on, even when he tried to break up. And I think that’s because you believed he truly loved you, not her.

But on my part, I’ve always told him that if I am not the one he wants to be with or if he is happy in his relationship or he truly does love her… then go and be with her/we should not continue.

I’ve never begged/pleaded him to stay with me or to come back to me either. All I wanted was just the truth.

You didn’t beg him, you wanted him to choose her “if he really loves her”. But since he “didn’t really love her”, in fact he told you he loved you, you believed this was the truth. This “truth” – that he loves you and not her – had a greater importance for you than another truth, which is that he was in a relationship with another woman during the entire time he was with you.

You felt bad being the third party:

I never felt good about being a third party and I would always question if he was truly unhappy with his girlfriend. I did not enjoy being the other woman and did not want to come in between two people who were looking to build a future together.

You felt bad but you didn’t want to let him go, because you believed he loves you and doesn’t love her. And that that’s the only thing that matters – the only relevant “truth”. It blinded you to a bigger picture. Which is that 1) he had a girlfriend, 2) he wanted to break up with you multiple times, and 3) after almost 1,5 years, he was still with his girlfriend, showing no signs of leaving her.

That’s why I said it was infatuation. Definition of infatuation is: “a feeling of foolish or obsessively strong love for, admiration for, or interest in someone or something: strong and unreasoning attachment”. It seems to me that your love for him was foolish and obsessively strong, considering that it wasn’t reciprocated properly. But you didn’t want to see that he wasn’t reciprocating and was stringing you along – you only focused on his words: “I love you”.

Our emotions have the power to blind us to a higher truth, or the reality of the situation. You say you genuinely loved him, and I believe you. You developed a strong attachment to him. You might want to consider what was so attractive about him, and what he was giving you, that you were willing to be the second violin for such a long time?