Dating a married man aka being the other woman is one of the hardest thing in the world. I remember couple years ago I let myself blindly get involved in a relationship with a cheating husband.

I didn't like him at first and no matter what excuse I threw to myself, it's nothing to do

with how or why it started. It was more like..."hey I'm stuck NOW".

What's worse is that he looked better in my eyes as days go by, and I was starting to tolerate a lot more things (no gifts for my birthday, lonely Christmas and holiday times, splitting the bill or picking up his bills, lonely weekends etc). I didn't see him for who he was: a cheating husband.

I put up with every single one of the traditional married man excuse such as 'It's hard to just leave my marriage', 'if I easily leave my current marriage you will think bad of me - but I'll do it sometime since you're so special'...'I'm not in love with my wife..we're

heading for separation SOON'...etc.

After 2 more years I started to regain a little of my brain consciousness. I started to realise that he was a married man, a cheating husband! (DUH). Even so, I couldn't let go of him because I thought I loved him to the max. He even let me believe that he was my soulmate and more sweet words started to come out of his mouth.

So I decided to be his 'friend' and didn't want to take things further than that. Oh come on, I don't think I could even think straight in the first place...

Finally, I took all my courage together, bought a few of the break up books available on the market (My favourite until this day: "It's called a break up because it's broken by Greg and Amiira Behrendt"), silently making a plan in my head to stop having a relationship with a

married man.

I knew that even if losing him would cause a pain so great, staying with him was wasting my

heart, emotion, and time. So I had to do what's good and I had to get out of it altogether.

Okay, let me share what I did and what steps you can take to stop dealing with a cheating husband and stop dating a married man:

1. Tell him "Action speaks louder than words" and if he loves you he should want to make you happy. You are clearly not happy being stuck in a limbo state and he really should be willing to meet your needs. (If he cannot adhere to that, you know his words are just mere excuses)

2. Tell yourself again and again: "If this man loves you, he should respect you instead of knowingly two timing you".

3. His words will not change your situation. You are not even 'waiting' for anything. Refer to rule number 1.

4. The best and fastest way to forget him is to cut contacts (Physically first, emotionally comes later). I'm going to expand on this because I know it's easier said than done. But trust me, if you do it now it is the FASTEST way to forget him. Timeline is: 2 - 3 weeks and

you will be on the borderline of being normal, slowly picking up. 2 months later you will be glad you did this.

5. Know that if he really loves you, he will look for you - without the baggage and the wedding ring this time. Otherwise, you would've saved so much time, some pride and some heartbreak.

6. Start being active in your life - take dance lessons/classes or something. Meet up with your friends and use those friends as your 'support group'.

7. Start dating again. You and I both know you'd rather sleep on the couch than merely having the thoughts of dating someone you don't love. You are still attached to that married man of course. BUT! At the very least this should distract you from being so attached to this married man.

One word of caution though: Do not fall into a rebound relationship - dating is good, but don't lead them on too much if you don't intend to love them...if you know what I mean.

In time, you will seriously find a better love, someone who you can tell the whole world: he is yours. And most importantly, someone who wants to be with you FULL TIME.