DEAR JANE: I pretended I was GAY to get a job... but then something awful happened with my new boss

Dear Jane,

Last month, I finally got a new job after being unemployed for a really long time. I had gotten pretty desperate and was beginning to think I'd never find another paying role.

By the time I went to interview for this new job, I basically had nothing left in my bank account, I was late on rent, and I had bills flying at me from every angle.

I'm not saying this to try and elicit sympathy, more just because I want to explain why I took a bit of an insane step to make sure I'd land the job.

The role I was going for, and now have, was in marketing, which isn't a field I have much experience in, but I was willing to take anything.

During the interview, it quickly became clear that – because of my limited experience – I wasn't the ideal candidate. But the recruiter and I seemed to get on, so I thought my best shot would be to win him over with my personality rather than my skill set.

We got talking and he told me he had a son who was around my age (25). He said his son worked in banking, was doing pretty well for himself, but that their father-son relationship was going through a bit of a tough patch because his son had recently come out as gay and he didn't think he'd handled the news in the best way.

I don't know what made me do it, but I decided to lie and tell him I was gay, too.

Then, before I knew it, I was making up this whole fake sob story about what it was like coming out to my own parents, how hard it had been on them, and how we were working really hard to get our relationship back on track.

The whole time, I could see he was engrossed, and his interest fueled my lies even more.

At the end of the interview, he gave me a hug (!) and said he was grateful to me for sharing my story, that he could tell I was a good kid who needed a break, and he offered me the job on the spot.

Relief hit me like a truck – but then came the immediate guilt.

I've been working for the company, and with this guy, for two weeks now, and I'm constantly paranoid that someone is going to find out my secret. 

I feel really sh***y about what I've done – but surely I can't come clean without being fired? And I can't afford for that to happen. So do I have to keep lying forever?

From,

Lies and Shame

Dear Lies and Shame,

The problem with lying to help ourselves out of sticky situations, even when we have nothing but good intentions, is precisely this: we end up digging ourselves into an even deeper hole.

I feel for you. I really do. You've worked your way into a real pickle, and one that's hard to get out of; admitting that you lied so boldly would no doubt lead your recruiter/boss to question your honesty and integrity in everything.

I know someone who decided she was gay after coming out of an unhappy marriage, where resentment and anger had made her sex life miserable. 

Rather than look at the reasons behind her revulsion towards her husband, she thought – particularly given her very close connections with other women – that she was gay. She started dating women and came out to everyone she knew: her family, her kids, her friends.

But the months ticked by and it turned out, she couldn't find a single woman she really fancied. She then had a wild fling with a sexy younger man who reawakened a long-dormant sexuality, and she realized that she really like sex afterall, and that included with men. This didn't preclude women, but she then had to go around telling eveyrone she knew that in fact she was probably bisexual, or fluid, or somewhere on the spectrum that wasn't quite at the end of straight.

I'm wondering if this might be an elegant solution for you, given that sexuality is indeed a spectrum, and nothing is fixed. 

Perhaps during a breaktime chat with colleagues you could divulge that you're also finding yourself attracted to a woman. It's not quite a lie, not quite the truth, but it solves the problem of you dating women.

Remember this as a lesson for your future. Lying is never worth it.

Dear Jane,

I am going to sound like such a cliché here but I'm in a total mess and really need some help.

Six months ago, I fell in love with a married guy. We met during a work conference over a year ago, got on really well, always kept in touch, then when we reunited at another conference, things happened and we started a relationship that has been one of the best and worst things to ever happen to me.

When we met that very first time, he was in the process of going through couples' therapy with his wife. He told me they'd been having problems for a while, but that he really was working to try and fix the relationship because they'd been together since high school and he couldn't imagine life without her.

Six months later, it seemed like he'd reached the conclusion that their relationship was over and told me that he was consulting divorce lawyers, which is when our relationship began.

So many people have told me that he was probably lying, but I just don't think he was. I could see the defeat in his eyes, that realization that their marriage had failed.

We never set out to have an affair – it was a drunken one-night thing that then spiraled and, before we knew it, we were head-over-heels in love.

When he told his wife he wanted to get a divorce a few weeks after we hooked up, she flipped out, threatened to kill herself, threatened to take all of his money, their home… thank god they don't have kids, but she found every other way possible to try and keep him.

So, things stalled. He says he's still working with divorce lawyers to figure out what his options are, but I'm kind of losing hope that it's ever going to happen. I don't want to push him into making a decision he's not ready for, but I can't keep putting my own life on hold waiting for him. I also can't imagine throwing away the great relationship that we have.

Have I launched myself into an impossible situation here?

From,

Three's Company

Dear Three's Company,

How my heart is breaking for you, and for all the women who not only believe that taken lovers are as miserable in their marriages as they claim, but also have such little self-worth that they are happy with breadcrumbs.

Listen when I say: women involved with married men only ever get breadcrumbs. 

You will never enjoy a fulfilling, properly intimate relationship, where you see the best and the worst, where you both grow together in a healthy way. 

What makes the affair so alluring, so addictive, is the fact that you get so little, that you only see the good bits, that you can stay in the fantasy of the romantic dream you've told yourself is going to happen.

But you must remember that you're only seeing your married lover when he escapes from his wife and/or family. And that leaves you living half a life: Christmas and Thanksgiving spent without your partner, your phone glued to your side just in case he should text and suddenly become available.

What I want you to think about, Three's Company, is your own self-worth. This feels like a big romance, but – and this may be hard for you to admit – something in you is okay with coming second-best, with being the afterthought.

Because a man who is cheating on his wife, no matter what he tells you – that they no longer sleep together, that he loves her but he's not in love with her, and every other cliché in the book – is not the sort of man a psychologically-healthy woman who knows her worth would ever pick.

Remember that you are allowed to choose a whole relationship with someone who is free. This all may feel like the greatest love of your life, but I promise you that being a 'side chick' is always ultimately destructive.

Indeed, even though it is true that, at some point, he may well leave his wife, what's to say he wouldn't then repeat his practised, adulterous behavior with you?

I don't want to see you wait around for that. I would love to see you get into therapy, work on your self-esteem, and let him go. It is hard, but you are worthy of more. We are all worthy of more.