If you are looking for the signs a married man is using you, then there’s a good chance that he is in fact using you.
But there’s a reason why you keep seeing him, right? Is it because it benefits you in some way to stick around?
And if it does benefit you to be seeing a married man, then where is the real value for you in the situation and will it benefit you in the long term?
Because as much as it’s an exciting situation for you in the short term, and as much as you may love him, there’s every chance that this relationship will cause irreparable damage to your self esteem and your life in the future.
I know that he may treat you well in general, but being treated well is not the same as being given real value from a man.
Table of Contents
Is Dating A Married Man Truly Offering You Value?
Here’s something I want you to understand:
A guy who is generally “nice enough” to you doesn’t necessarily care about you, and nor is he necessarily invested in you.
At the end of the day, you want a man who is invested in you, right?
Recommended articles:
Here’s what we see a lot in our line of work…
My husband and I have received countless emails over the last 12 years from women dating married men, asking something to this effect:
“I’m seeing a man, and everything is going really well! How do I get him to leave his wife?”
You may already know that most of the time, married men don’t leave their wives for their mistress.
That fact alone is a pretty good sign that he is using you (even if he offers you money, sex and attention). Because if a married man were truly in love with you, you’d feel it unequivocally.
How would you feel it from him?
Well, he would pull away his emotional resources from his wife and give them to you.
He may still be financially invested in his wife and kids, but a huge portion of his attention and time will come to you.
Do the quiz: how commitment friendly is my man?
So let’s get into the signs a married man is using you.
Sign #1: He Doesn’t Share Much Details About His Real Life
If you try to get him to open up and share information about his life, he always tries to avoid the question or change the subject.
He may feel like you don’t deserve such information because he doesn’t owe you anything, since you’re not married and he is not emotionally committed to you.
This sign can be a good indicator that he will only keep you as a side piece for the foreseeable future.
You should also be aware that if he doesn’t mention anything about his sex life with his wife – not even in passing and not even insignificant details, then he may be trying to protect her.
Just know that him not sharing details means he doesn’t want to be too close to you.
Or he may just be hiding important details from you so that you don’t weave your way into his personal life and reveal your affair with him to his family.
Finally, if he doesn’t reveal much details about his life, it’s a good indication that he wants to protect himself, his family and his wife – but he doesn’t harbour the same desire to protect you.
Here are 6 Burning Signs He Doesn’t Want A Relationship With You.
Sign #2: He Doesn’t Tell His Wife About You
This is one of the more obvious signs a married man is using you – especially if he’s separated but still married. If he refuses to tell his wife about you, he is showing you where his true loyalty lies.
(If he’s separated but still married, he may also be using you as a rebound).
You can ask all you want and demand that he tell his wife about you (and finally leave her), but at the end of the day, he’s still a married man.
He made promises to another woman before you came along. Not only that, but he may be emotionally committed to his wife and only using you for the sex.
In order for a man to be emotionally committed to you – he has to feel emotionally attracted to you, and he has to have a deep emotional connection with you.
Here’s an article on how to build emotional connection with a man.
If you feel in your gut that he’s emotionally committed to his wife but using you for the sex, then you may have to ask yourself why you’re happy with being a side dish.
For example, perhaps ask yourself these important questions:
Because I can tell you that no matter how exciting this situation is, it is only when a man feels deep emotional attraction and deep emotional connection for you, that he will ever have a chance of thinking about leaving his wife for you.
He has to see you as his ‘one and only’ woman.
In my experience, in the majority of cases where a woman is seeing a married man, the mistress is his ‘one of many’ woman.
This means that he sees you as no different to any other woman who is attractive and willing to offer him sex, company and affection.
Remember this (it’s important):
It is only when a man feels deep emotional attraction and deep emotional connection that he will have a chance at falling in love with you.
If you’re interested in how to show up as the one and only, and what traits she has, I have an entire course on becoming the one and only woman.
(The promise of this course is for you to have your chosen man fall in love with you & beg you to be his one & only by embodying these 5 feminine secrets, even if he’s been distant, avoidant, or losing interest…)
Sign: #3: He Pays For Your Silence
Perhaps the case is that every time you get too upset and mention revealing the affair to other people, he showers you with gifts.
Perhaps it’s him directly giving or offering you money.
If you’re so attached to him that you’re willing to threaten to reveal the affair to his wife, then perhaps he’ll give you money to keep you quiet.
The fact that money has changed hands in this secretive manner also says a lot about what you’re willing to tolerate in a relationship.
If you’re willing to take money in exchange for silence, then there’s a good chance that you’re using him too.
And if you’re using him, then are you truly deserving of any more of him?
Because when a man pays for your silence in any way, this is a transaction. This is not love.
Transactions indicate that he doesn’t see, hear or feel you as a soul – rather, he sees you as an option.
He sees you as an opportunity to escape the responsibilities of his life and experience some novelty.
Sign #4: He Lies About His Life
Specifically, he lies about things like:
- His job
- Where he lives
- How much time he’s spending on his wife; or
- How attached he feels to his wife
He needs to lie in order to get away with the things he’s doing.
If he doesn’t lie, then that would make it much harder to him to accomplish what he wants to accomplish – which is keeping you around for sex (without anyone finding out).
Also, you may suspect that he lies about his own sex life (outside of the sex life you two have together.)
Maybe you suspect that he and his wife are having more sex than he leads you to believe.
Or perhaps it’s worse than that…you might suspect he’s having sex with more women than just you.
If your gut is telling you that’s the case but he denies it, you really have to listen to the alarm bells that are going off.
Because if a married man is willing to risk his marriage by sleeping with you, then there’s a good chance you’re not the only one he’s doing this with.
(Unless he’s actually in love with you of course).
Regardless, his character shows us the truth about his patterns of behavior.
Sign #5: You Always Come Second To The Wife
Most would say a mistress should come second to the wife – or that a mistress shouldn’t be in the picture at all.
Nonetheless, mistresses usually don’t think so.
See, even if he never mentions his wife, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing special between them or that the marriage is over.
You have to look at his actions. So, if fulfilling your needs and desires is an option to him rather than a necessity – there’s a good chance that he is just using you.
As I’ve said before, men are happy to keep women around, especially if the ‘cost’ of keeping her around isn’t too great.
Recommended: Why Does He Keep Me Around If He Doesn’t Want A Relationship?
If a married man is offering you the absolute bare minimum to keep you on the side, whilst he’s giving his wife the bulk of his money, attention and commitment – then of course he is using you.
Here’s an example of a lady who was in this situation from our facebook group:
Sign #6: He Tries To Force You To Get An Abortion
It is common for a married man who gets another woman pregnant to try to force her to get an abortion.
This is because he doesn’t want to take any future responsibility for the child, and nor does he want to take responsibility for his own actions.
If a man tries to force you to get an abortion, there’s no better indicator that he does not love you, does not care about you and that he has placed you in the ‘one of many’ basket – right from the start.
If he is actually trying to force you to get an abortion, then it’s a good time to ask yourself whether it’s still even necessary to look for signs that he is using you.
Sign #7: He Drops You When You Don’t Offer Sex
This is one of the glaring signs a married man is using you – if you don’t offer him sex, then he shuts off, threatens to leave, criticises you, or leaves for good.
This lady in our facebook group experienced exactly this:
Here’s an inconvenient truth: if a man loves a woman, he will stick around even when sex is off the table.
Related: How To Tell If A Guy Likes You: 6 Signs & 1 Test.
Yes, that’s right ladies – if a man is in love with a woman, he will stick around even when sex is off the table. Usually it takes some time and a man falling in love with you in order to get to this point.
Still, if this seems unbelievable to you, then it’s a good sign that you see relationships as a transaction.
Related: Women Who Date For Resources VS Women Who Date For True Love.
It could also be a sign that you’ve never experienced this type of love from a man, therefore you don’t believe it even exists.
If that is indeed true, then let me assure you that there are hundreds of thousands of women around the world, experiencing this kind of love, right now.
It’s called romantic love. When you experience romantic love – when you’re in love with someone, then you crave to be with that person emotionally above everything else.
MORE: When to Say I Love You? 6 Signs It’s the Wrong Time + Signs It Is.
Sign #8: You Suspect That He Has Other Women Too
If a married man has one mistress, the chances are good that he also has others (or is on the lookout for others).
Men have plenty of sperm to spread around, and if he’s the type to be unfaithful to his wife (whilst not actually being in love with you), then you can guess that there’s a chance he’s going to be unfaithful to you too.
Unless he truly has fallen in love with you. If a married man falls in love with his mistress, then that’s a different situation altogether.
In this situation, he’s much less likely to be seeing other mistresses too, because all his time and energy will be preferentially going to the woman he is falling in love with.
Can A Man Be Monogamous? 2 Things That Make It Possible.
Do the quiz: Which of these 8 feminine archetypes am i?
Sign #9: He Is Always Looking At Or Checking Out Other Women
This sign ties in to the previous sign a little bit…
There’s nothing that screams that a married man is using you more than him having a continuously wandering eye.
It shows that he’s digging for a bit of gold in a sea of women, really. It doesn’t matter to him what woman he sleeps with on the side, as long as she’s willing.
(Which means you’re not the one and only woman to him and he’d take the affection of any other reasonably attractive woman).
When I was about 20 years old, I remember there was a married man with two kids at my gym who kept trying to talk to me. He showered me with compliments and offered to take me out on dates all the time.
He had plenty of money to spend, but he fell miserably short on every other valuable measure – like not acting desperate and just being a decent human being!
Whilst his attention was largely directed towards me (probably because I was the most friendly of all the young women there), I knew he would have taken any woman he could have an opportunity to take.
I had zero interest in him, but he was relentless. He offered me free entry to a top end bar he apparently co-owned where he could get me free drinks – what a red flag!
(And if you know me, you know that this kind of thing is just not up my alley…)
But he would come up to me every single time he went to the gym without fail. He would spend considerable time trying to chit-chat.
And he used all the compliments under the sun that women love to hear…like “you’re so special”, “you’re so smart”, “you’re so pretty”, “you have good genetics”, and he even complimented me on my fashion sense – he had a keen interest in fashion himself.
How cheap are those compliments, by the way?
Anyway, I sensed he was full of it, and I knew that he didn’t see me any differently than he saw any other attractive girl at that gym.
So one day when he came over to ask me out again, I tested him.
I said:
“I know you have a thing for me. You must have good taste in women, cause you’re only interested in taking me out and no one else.”
His body language instantly changed. He stepped back a little and the decisiveness in his actions faltered a bit.
He quickly tried to recover from the awkwardness, and tried to justify his actions. He said:
“Of course I have only the best taste in women. I only take perfect 10s out. I’m only interested in you.”
That’s the point in which I revealed his real intent – it was his body language that revealed it, and revealed it openly to both of us!
I knew he saw me as no different to any other young female, but he tried to say things to make it sound like he only had eyes for me.
This is one reason you should never trust a man’s words.
His body language betrayed his intent. And though he tried to hide it with his words, more than once I caught his desperately wandering eye as he walked through the gym “doing his workout”.
Thankfully, he began backing off after that moment.
Recommended: 7 Burning Signs A Man Is Being Low Value.
I can’t neglect to mention that if a married man flirts a lot with other women, that’s also a red flag.
It’s just as bad as a wandering eye.
Of course, a lot of married men flirt (usually the unfaithful ones) so it’s nothing too outlandish.
But if you’re constantly witness your married man of interest flirting, it’s time to take a pause and see things for what they are.
Sign #10: He Has Rules Around When You Can Contact Him & Where You Can Meet Him
If he won’t let you contact him at certain times and you can only see him at certain places (like a hotel room, at your house, etc) then there’s a good chance that he doesn’t want anything more with you (other than the surface fun you guys currently have).
More than that – is does he have rules regarding when you are allowed to contact him?
If he tells you that you can only contact him between 3pm and 5 pm or that you can only message him on a specific app, that means he’s using you.
It may seem like understandable behavior from him. After all, he has a wife and maybe some kids.
And you guys are trying not to reveal your affair.
But the fact is, he probably doesn’t have these rules for his wife. His wife can likely contact him at anytime.
So why would he restrict your ability to contact him?
Because he only wants you for specific purposes. Such as:
- As an escape from his life and responsibilites
- someone to vent to
- Someone to make him feel young again
- A bit of fun; and
- To let off steam
Sign #11: He Doesn’t Ask About Your Life.
A married man who has no intention of solidifying his relationship with you (or being in a relationship with you long term), will likely ask minimal questions about your life – and if he does ask questions, it won’t be because he cares.
It’ll be because he wants more control over you and what you do – or it’ll be because he just wants the information for himself.
Related: 5 Revealing Questions to Ask to Know His Intentions.
Men who care will generally ask about your life, your interests, and the people you care about because they want to know you deeply.
You matter to them, and they’re always looking for ways to help or solve your problems.
And you’ll notice that they remember the information you share about yourself and your own life in the sweetest ways.
For example, they will offer to take you out somewhere that relates to your hobbies and interests, or they may purchase something for you that helps you in your personal life and in your hobbies or interests.
Sign #12: He Doesn’t Offer Empathy & Understanding
If you try to communicate your feelings to him, but he seems disinterested or incapable of feeling what you feel, then he’s not in this for you.
He doesn’t care about you – rather, he cares about what he can get from you.
A man not being capable or willing to offer you his empathy and understanding is one of the clear signs a married man is using you.
This doesn’t mean that he’s a user to everyone, though!
It could just mean that you don’t inspire him to feel for you. If you’re not exhibiting any high value vulnerability, then it’s going to be hard for you to:
- Test to see if he actually cares; and
- Inspire any man to feel for you and commit to you emotionally – period.
If you’re interested in this topic of high value vulnerability, have a read of this article on how to be vulnerable with a man, and this article on ways to access your high value vulnerability.
Bonus Sign #13: He Always Pays For Dates With Cash
…One possible sign that he’s not comfortable integrating you fully into his life (and is instead reserving that spot for his wife.)
If a man never pays for anything with card, it might be because he’s avoiding a paper trail.
Obviously, wives often discover their husband’s affairs when they’re inspecting bills, so cash is the only way out of this.
Of course there are also lots of good reasons to use cash when paying for something, so try not to accuse a man of being married and using you based on just this one sign! Instead, consider this sign in context with the other signs.
If he shows a lot of the other above signs he’s using you and he always pays in cash, then it might be the dead giveaway.
Should You Feel Entitled To His resources?…
Now that we’ve established all the signs a married man is using you, there’s something important I must say to you, woman to woman.
Over the last 12 years, I’ve seen enough mistresses wait in agony for a married man to leave his wife for her.
Sometimes, men do leave their wives for the mistress. But most of the time, they don’t.
There are two ways to look at this situation, or as I like to say it, there are two lenses through which to assess this predicament:
- Through the “moral compass” lens, and it goes like this:
“How DARE you sleep with or date a married man. He doesn’t belong to you, and he owes you absolutely nothing!”
No one would blame someone for thinking this way. But…there’s a second lens through which to see this.
- The second lens is the “real world” lens or the “value” lens…
And it goes like this:
We all gravitate towards those who offer us the most value.
As such, if someone is currently in a relationship or marriage with someone who (for a long time) isn’t adding value to them, doesn’t care to add value to them, or simply got lazy and complacent, then there’s always going to be poachers waiting to steal your lover away.
And I say this as a super happily married woman myself.
In fact, if you have a high value man or a high value woman, you should expect poachers to want a piece of your lover at some point.
(Just quickly – as a woman, it wouldn’t be any fun having a man other women don’t want, would it?)
So here’s how I like to think about this…
As a married woman, my job is to ‘check in’ often to see if I’m fulfilling my husband’s needs. It’s my job to not take him for granted and to not get complacent.
Because…
- There are plenty of other women who’d jump at the chance to take him off me; and
- He deserves nothing less than my absolute commitment to bringing him what he perceives value in.
This is not a fair world. Just because we attracted a mate, doesn’t mean that we are entitled to slack off and start becoming a “taker” in the relationship.
Related: Women Who Date Married Men: 12 Hush-Hush Reasons They Do It.
But Are You, The Mistress, The “Taker”?
Interestingly, it’s not just wives who slack off and become takers in the relationship.
It’s mistresses too.
If truth be told, in many cases, the mistress goes into the “affair” with the married man, just to take for herself.
Some mistresses never stop once to consider the consequences of her actions or to consider how much value she gave this married man in the first place.
As such, my question to you is – is this really still about a married man using you?
Do you offer him more value than his wife does?
And if he is using you, isn’t it true that you’re also using him?
You’re using him (at great risk to him, his wife and his children and to yourself) in order to feel a certain way or to gain a certain thing.
Moving forward in your love life, I’d urge you to – for your own sense of fulfilment – to attract real love and real emotional commitment from a man.
Specifically, I encourage you to consider these things:
- You are not a victim. Strictly speaking, you get what you tolerate in relationships.
- If you lead with value – and add value to the men you date first, you will be less likely to get stuck in these sticky situations in the future.
- Never expect him to leave his wife – you are not entitled to it.
- Never get stuck in the ‘one of many’ basket to men ever again. It’s just as easy to show up as the ‘one and only’ woman. When you show up as the one and only – you never have to take crumbs, compete with a man’s wife (or even with other women in the future who want to steal your future husband).
MORE: Breadcrumbing: Meaning, 8 Sad Signs And How To Deal With It.
You deserve nothing less than full love, full devotion and full commitment. When you show up as the type of woman who inspires that in men.
So your job from now on is to inspire emotional commitment in men, and to do that, you must inspire men to feel.
If you don’t inspire men to feel emotions then you will always be seen as the one of many woman.
I know that was a bit of tough love, but we all need it at least a handful of times in our lives.
By the way…
There are 7 Common Signs That A Woman is Perceived as Low Value to All Men. Do You Know What They Are & How to Avoid Them Like the Plague?
(Why is this important? Because men and women perceive value very differently and you don’t want to be making mistakes that would cause quality men to dismiss, abandon or alienate you.)
Finally, let’s address some commonly asked questions on this topic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to get over being used by a married man?
It depends whether you knew he was married or not before you decided to see him.
If you knew he was married but still went ahead with the relationship anyway, then the important thing to ask yourself is what were you looking for?
Manage your anger over being used by him through working out what you also got out of the situation.
If you knew he was married and you continued with the relationship, then not only is this not a healthy relationship to start with, you were likely using him too.
Which means you also got something out of it.
So what did you get out of it and how much did it really serve you and your feminine soul?
Probably not a lot right?
So, perhaps this is your signal to look deeper next time and not settle for minimum attention, time and investment from a man in the future.
It’s ok to ask for more from a man (and have one man all to yourself), as long as you have what it takes to inspire that deep level of emotional commitment from him, which usually requires you to open up and and let him own your soul.
What if you did NOT know he was married before getting involved with him?
In that case, in terms of how to get over being used by a married man, you will need to feel the emotions you feel.
Grieve, get angry and work through them.
You can do this by writing down everything you feel, because every feeling has a place.
Don’t let the resentment eat you alive, as it will affect your ability to attract a man who falls in love with you.
Also, consider that even if you didn’t know he was married, he probably held back something.
In other words, he probably didn’t reveal his relationships status or his dissatisfaction with married life, but he likely gave off some signs he couldn’t offer a serious relationship.
He would have given these signs through:
- Not fully empathising with your emotions
- Not being fully available to you emotionally and physically
- Holding back information about his life
- Cutting short interactions
- Trying to get out of coming to events with you and other things you ask him to commit to
How do you test a married man if he loves you?
It’s easy, see if he will be available for you when it is inconvenient for him.
- Ask him over when you know he’s meant to be with his wife
- Ask him to do something boring with you (that he has no interest in); and
- Tell him how vulnerable you feel and see if he genuinely cares enough to empathise with you and do something about it
How to tell if A Married Man is Emotionally Attached to you?
A married guy is attached to you if:
- He cares about your welfare when he’s not around (and tried to make sure you’re ok when he leaves)
- He wants to solve your problems
- He genuinely doesn’t like leaving you and tries to drag out the time he spends with you
- He takes steps to move the relationship forward (doesn’t just talk about it)
It might be worth knowing that a married guy being attached to you isn’t necessarily going to be enough for him to leave his wife and expose his dirty little secret to everyone.
Attachment is one thing, but him being in love with you and wanting to make you his one and only is another.
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Renee is the founder of The Feminine Woman & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. She graduated with a bachelor of Law and bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and psychology. She has been a dating and relationship coach for women in the past 15 years and together with her husband D. Shen at Commitment Triggers blog, they have positively influenced the lives of over 20 million women through their articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
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