Tiffany, you really should reconsider your life choices if you are attracted to a married man." "That woman is not my mother," I insisted, wishing she'd get to the point. "I think we should take some time off from discussing this," she continued as she lifted my sweater off of my shoulders. "Let's put some music on." She moved around the room until she found some soft rock music, then she seated herself in my living room's love seat. "Cuddle up with me." "This is making me uncomfortable," I snapped. "Why are you doing this?" "To help you understand, that's why," she answered. "The truth is that you and I have a lot in common, and I want you to help me make an important decision about something. I can't decide whether to take my husband back." "Why not?" I asked. "You haven't done anything wrong, have you?" "There are things about him that I can't stand. But then there are things about him that I've come to love. To decide is hard." "Well if you need my help, then I'll help you decide," I said with a little smile on my face to disarm her. "I thought you'd see it from my perspective," she answered. "You know what? I think I like you." "You're married and he's not," I answered. "I know," she answered. "But you're not, and he is." "That's irrelevant." "Are you certain?" "Yeah," I said. "I'm just confused because I was under the impression that I was the one you didn't want anymore." "Well, now that he's back, I'm trying to decide if I can live with him." "I really don't care about your marriage or his affairs," she added. "Okay, I know that you need to decide if you're going to take him back." "And I need to decide if I should." "Can I ask you another question?" "Sure," she answered. "You once told me that the thing that made you fall in love with him was that he made you feel so loved, as if he saw in you some quality that you didn't realize you had. When I saw him at the restaurant, I noticed that he was speaking to you in a very loving manner, and you were responding to him in kind. I wonder if you could tell me what the quality is that you felt that you didn't know you had?" "That's an interesting question," she said as she thought for a moment. "I think the only thing I can say is that you're different from him in that you look to me for validation, and he is happy when you agree with him. You see, the thing about him is that he always wants my approval, while I wouldn't care if he asked for it or not. It's not my place to approve or disapprove of him. He's a grown man, and I don't like the idea of policing him. Sometimes he needs my approval, and sometimes I want to give it to him. And I know that is the way that you feel about me, and he sometimes needs your approval and sometimes you want to give it to him. But there's a difference in the way we look for the approval. You know, it's not what you like or dislike about me that I can't stand. It's the fact that he will always look to me to tell him if he is okay or not. I think it's bad for a relationship, that type of dependence. I like to tell him when he is right and wrong, and sometimes I'm too hard on him, but that's the way I'm made. As a woman, I like to be needed, but I'm not a needy person. I want my partner to be needed sometimes, but I don't want to need him all the time." "Okay, that makes sense," I replied. "So in the future, if he needs your approval, he needs to come directly to you." "No, you're right," she replied. "I don't want him to need me. I can't stand the need. I would rather that he not need me and stand on his own." "So you're not going to take him back?" I asked. "I don't know," she answered. "Then what about your husband?" I asked. "What's going to happen to him?" "I don't know that either." "So you're in a catch-22," I replied. "Yeah," she answered. "We both want a divorce, but there is no way out of it." "Maybe you should reconsider that," I said. "And maybe you should reconsider how you choose to live your life," she answered, "because the person you're with is making you unhappy." I looked down at the ground and watched the tears falling from my eyes. This was just what I needed to pull me out of the funk I was in. Sometimes things come to us in an order that we have no choice about and we can't seem to stop them from occurring. It was now obvious to me that I had to do something about the situation with Jeff. I had been caught up in a love affair that was so deep and powerful that I couldn't let it go. But I wasn't sure how to make it go away. He was in the process of divorcing his wife, and I wasn't sure if I wanted a divorce from my husband. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be with Jeff. And I certainly wasn't sure if I could leave my husband for him. All I knew was that I wanted to see him again, but I didn't know if I could do anything about it. I woke the next morning to the sound of the phone ringing. Jeff had been wanting to talk to me ever since he got off the phone with me the night before. I didn't know how I was going to tell him that I was still considered the other woman, because I didn't want to be perceived as a home-wrecker, or any of the other women's wives had been a home-wrecker in their relationships. I didn't know if he was capable of being faithful to me if I were to allow him to be with me in my situation. I was going to have to explain all of that to him, and I just wasn't sure I was up to it. I walked over to the window to answer the phone, knowing that if Jeff was calling to apologize, I had some serious apologizing of my own to do. But when I picked up the phone, I didn't hear anything from him. I started to wonder if he really would call, and then I heard a sound coming through the walls that I knew all too well. His ring. "Hello," I answered. "Hello," he answered back. "What do you want?" I asked. "You didn't call me back last night," he answered. "No," I answered, "I wanted to talk to you, but I fell asleep." "You didn't come to bed?" he asked. "Well, not exactly." "What do you mean, 'not exactly'?" he asked. "Well, Jeff," I started, "I want to tell you what happened, but I'm not sure I want to go through that story again, so I'm going to tell you this." "Just come on over to my house," he said. "I have something I want to show you." "No," I replied. "I'm not going to do that. That would be an incredibly bad idea, and I won't allow you to take advantage of me by asking me to do something like that." "What?" he asked. "Well," I said, "I have never in my life wanted to do anything as much as I want to be with you right now, but it is hard for me to come to your house and not be intimate with you." "Can't you just get over the jealousy?" he asked. "Jeff," I said, "You're the one who has to be jealous." "I don't," he answered, "I love you." "Okay," I said, "I won't come over." "Well then how about if you come to the shop," he said. "I have some things that I want to show you." "What?" I asked. "Just come to the shop," he repeated. "All right," I answered. "But I want to know how you