He told me his wife is leaving him. What is the saddest for him, is not the fact she is leaving, but the realization that for the past twenty some years they have been married, all that she has been doing is busy being phony. At least that is his perception.He thought she loved him. She helped him raised his children from previous marriage, all three of them, and she gave him two sons and they raised them together. He thought they were a good team.“She never wanted me though,” he said, “our sex life is all about she accomodating me.” He thought they were connected and he felt content when she was home. He concluded that some people are just born not like sex. She told him she was leaving about one year ago. Acting out of deep hurt, he started dating this other woman, whose husband was depressed and she felt lonely and wasting away. They agreed to just keep their relationship sexual, and nothing more. She was somewhat reserved about the idea, “What if we fall in love?” she asked. “That would be a good problem then. If we don’t fall in love, we could just keep our agreement and no one gets hurt. If we do fall in love, then we are together on this.” What he didn’t expect to happen was, he fell in love with her but she didn’t fall in love with him.We talked about this being a violation of one of the rules of the heart.I told him when our bodies unite, our spirits unite too. When a man and a woman make love, they are committing themselves to each other not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually too. Now if we are honest with ourselves, we know we are not free any more. But if we are determined to separate our body from our emotions and from our spirit, with practice and a hard neck, we will become so good at fooling ourselves that we begin to believe we have indeed achieved the impossible. We think we can love someone with our body, but be committed in another relationship.He is the (psychologically) healthier one of the two. He said to her he didn’t want to be the dog, whose place is off the table and can only look for crumbs on the floor, while she and her husband sit at the table and eat. Their meals together at times are enjoyable, but most of the time, she pays more attention to the dog and it’s just formality that sits her across from her husband. Nonetheless, his place is on the floor. He gave her an ultimatum — “You have to make a choice, I want to sit at the table. He has to leave.” She withdrew. He said to her, “When you are ready to belong to me and only me, you call me.” She never did and he knew. She wanted to keep him at his place, and that place is on the floor. As long as he knows his place, she would play with him. Her real life, the one that matters to her, the one that she chooses, is the one with her husband. When that is threatened, she kicks the dog out. He wonders, “I don’t know what this is…to have her, and not have her, you know. This is madness making!” She seems to have no problem with that; when she doesn’t have to choose.He was not only hurt, but mad. “I loved her” he said, “I didn’t think I would really love her but I honestly think our relationship made her feel more solid and she started to feel more like a real person and she became more assertive. She didn’t nag her son as much and he started to get better. Even her husband’s depression started to lift. Now she tells me she feels more alive and wants him to want her more and I feel this intense jealousy that I have never felt in my entire life!! I must really love her!! But she wants to keep me in my ‘place’ as the dog!!”He thought he could violate the rule of the heart and still be in control but things got out of control and now he is in deep grief.As we talked, his phone rang. “It’s her.” he said, “but I am not picking up; I don’t want to be the dog. I want to be the man of her table.”