Drawing upon her rich experience of life, Prudence (Prudie to her friends) responds to questions about manners, personal relations, politics, and other subjects. Please send your questions for publication to Prudence@slate.com. Queries should not exceed 200 words in length. Please indicate how you wish your letter to be signed, preferably including your location.

Dear Prudie,

Please hold the morality lecture and give me an unbiased opinion and your best advice. For the past three years I have been the girlfriend of a married man. We work together. His wife really does not understand him, and he swears that if it weren't for his young children he would bail out in a heartbeat. Without actually promising, he's made me feel that, in time, we will formally and legally be together.

Strangely enough, his marital status is not my problem. What is disturbing is that I'm quite certain he is seeing someone in addition to me. (Office computer systems have infinite possibilities if you know what you're doing.) Sooner or later I have to deal with this new wrinkle.

Thanking you in advance, I am--Confused in Virginia

Dear Con,

The wrinkle you refer to is not so new. There is, in fact, a wonderful country and western song about this: "Lady, Your Husband Is Cheating on Us."

Your specific instructions to skip the morality lecture inclines Prudie to cut right to the chase. A man for whom a wife and a girlfriend are insufficient is a louse and a tomcat. This romance will ultimately bring grief, because you will come to feel jealous and betrayed. So why don't you pole vault out of the relationship sooner rather than later, and save yourself some time?

--Prudie, assuredly

Dear Prudence,