I'm 32, and I've been with my live-in boyfriend for eight years now. He's bipolar, on SSI, and undergoing treatment—and he's doing much better in the last year than he ever has before. However, he still depends on me for a great many things, such as paying bills, taking care of the house, and making and remembering doctor appointments, stuff like that. We've had more than our fair share of problems, many of them due to his bipolar issues, but I care deeply about him, and I want him to be happy. However, even though he is now doing better, I'm not really attracted to him anymore after all the shit that's happened. I still put out, but it feels like an act. It's been that way for maybe three years now. He's totally oblivious.

To complicate things further, I recently started sleeping with an ex of mine. I trust him and the sex is incredible. I kind of forgot what it was like to have that, and I don't want to give it up—but I feel like a total asshole because I don't know how to leave my boyfriend without destroying his life. (My boyfriend has made it clear that he doesn't want an open relationship, by the way.) So can I have a pass? Can I keep seeing my ex on the side while I continue to provide my live-in boyfriend with the support he needs? I know it can be arrogant and presumptuous to assume that someone "can't live without you," but trust me, this would completely crush him.

What Do You Think?

My response after the jump...

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The advice I gave to Lonely At Home in August of 2011...

Cheating is permissible when it amounts to the least worst option, i.e., it is allowed for someone who has made a monogamous commitment and isn't getting any at home (sick or disabled spouse, or withholding-without-cause spouse) and divorce isn't an option (sick or disabled spouse, or withholding-without-cause-spouse-who-can't-be-divorced-for-some-karma-imperiling-reason-or-other) and the sex on the side makes it possible for the cheater to stay married and stay sane. (An exception can be made for a married person with a kink that his or her spouse can't/won't accommodate, so long as the kink can be taken care of safely and discreetly.)"

...comes close enough to covering you. So if a pass is what you want, WDYT, a pass is what you've got.

Heck, I'll amend my advice to LAH to include language that specifically covers you, WDYT: "Cheating is permissible when the cheater's sex-on-the-side makes it possible for the cheatee to stay sane, i.e. the cheating make it possible someone to stay with a partner who is too mentally fragile to handle being dumped." (Caveats: It almost always is arrogant and presumptuous to assume that someone "can't live without you." Please don't confuse "will be upset about being dumped" with "can't live without me." Also, too: don't be a fucking coward and hide behind "can't live without me" when it's just a case of "will be upset about being dumped.")

But even with a cheating pass in hand, WDYT, it doesn't sound like your current relationship is really sustainable over the long haul. You sank most of your twenties into this relationship and good chunk of yout thirties. How much longer can you go on being your boyfriend's nurse, housekeeper, and Fleshlight? Are you prepared to keep this up for the rest of your life? Four or five decades? And what would happen to your boyfriend's mental health if he found out that you were cheating on him? A conscious uncoupling (hat tip: Gwyneth) that temporarily rocks his world might be easier on him—and easier on you—than staying with him forever and/or the kind of shit storm that typically ensues when someone discovers that they've been cheated on repeatedly. And for the life of me I don't see how you upgrade this from a highly stressful lying-and-cheating arrangement to an honest-and-open one. He's likely perceive any request for an open relationship a manipulative ultimatum, i.e. he would accuse you of leveraging his dependance to extract permission to do what you want to do.

If you can line up the kind of support he'll need to get through it—and some support for yourself too—an honest breakup, however painful, has to be the better choice.