Dear Khala Amma, I have been involved with a man in my office. He is married to somebody else and our affair has been going on for three years. In the beginning we were each other’s support in the office. We helped each other and watched out for one another. All this time this man has been telling me he wants to leave his wife and marry me. He says the only thing that stops him is the thought of his child, who he thinks will be badly affected by a divorce. Since this has been going on for three years, I am now beginning to lose hope that he will ever marry me. I know his wife and know that she is a very simple woman who is not interested in anything. As I am losing my patience with the situation now, I have to make a big effort to stop myself from creating a big drama in his life. Almost every day I feel like calling the woman and telling her everything because I feel bad for her. She is so naïve and has no idea what her husband is up to with me. The other woman

Dear Bhanjijee Please stop lying to yourself that you feel sorry for his wife. You didn’t feel sorry for her when you had a rollicking time with her husband these past three years. You don’t feel bad for this man’s wife, you are just angry that you wasted your time, believing and waiting for a liar. He had lied to his wife for the past three years about where he was every time he was with you. Why on earth did you think he wouldn’t lie to you about leaving his wife and marrying you? He’s a liar and you also had no moral issues about being the other woman. Why the sudden need to be virtuous or talk about what’s right? This is not about doing the right thing — the situation was so wrong from day one — but about grudging behaviour. Get that straight in your head before you decide to tell (or not to tell) the wife.

Dear Auntiejee, I have been reading your column for quite some time now and am a big fan of yours. Now, today I myself need some help from you. I am a university student studying in Islamabad and I live in a hostel as my home is far away. My problem is that my dear girlfriend who is my future fiancée introduced me to one of her closest and oldest friends. The meeting was nice and normal. But after that the girl has been stalking me and tracing me and keeping a watchful eye on me. She says that she loves me more than anything and that she will die without me. She wants me to leave my girlfriend who happens to be her best friend and wants me to come to her. She has tried almost everything to get me and also tried to get physically close to me. I just went aggressive on her and strongly stopped her from doing this. She also attempted suicide. I have discussed this with my girlfriend and it’s causing difficulties in our relationship. This girl is just crazy and she is trying to make a scandal. What should we do? Should we try and visit her family? Contact her parents? What if they turn on us? What if they completely disagree? Need your suggestion Auntie, please help. Stuck

Dear Stalked From this moment onwards stop reacting to this girl. Whatever she does, just give no reaction. She is disturbed and that has nothing to do with you. Also don’t discuss the problem with everyone. Make sure you trust whoever you are telling about the situation. Block her from any social networking site you may have added her to and if it is not too inconvenient, change your phone number. Also never answer your phone when you know she is calling. You are eventually looking to tire her out from banging her head against a brick wall. Remember that brick wall is you.

However, if she continues to harass you, tell her that you will inform her parents and if that doesn’t stop it, by all means inform them. Informing the parents will serve as a wakeup call and really drive home the message that you really don’t want anything to do with her. Don’t be wishy-washy about blocking her from your life.

It may also be a good idea to write down exactly what she did and when. Yes, do that complete with times and dates if possible. This will help you cover your back in case she decides to get vindictive and make false accusations against you. And save any messages that she may send you.

Auntie will not reply privately to any query. Please send concise queries to auntieagni@gmail.com