Should I Stay or Should I Leave? The Question Every Other Woman Asks

If you're the other woman, there's a question that runs on a loop in your head from the moment you wake up: do I stay, or do I go? I know it because I lived it. And this week I sat down with Francesca Zoia, a relationship coach in Toronto who spends her days with women stuck in that exact loop. The conversation landed right on the heels of what I've been talking about lately, the version of a relationship that only ever existed in your head.

Here's what I want you to know before we go any further. Nobody gets to hand you the answer. Not me, not Francesca, not the friend who keeps telling you to walk away. But there are better questions than the one you're asking.

Will he leave his wife for me is the wrong question to start with

Everyone in an affair wants to know the same thing: is he actually going to leave her? Is this the fairy tale where he finally picks me, or the version where I look up and realize I've poured years into something that was never going to grow past what it already is?

I get it. I asked it too. Most of the time, the question isn't really about him at all. It's about what you're willing to keep accepting. A man who's getting his needs met on both sides has no reason to move in either direction. So instead of asking whether he'll leave, ask this: if nothing about this ever changed, if it stayed exactly like it is right now, would that be enough for you?

For some women, the honest answer is yes. For others, it's the first crack of clarity they've had in months.

Look at the relationship you actually have, not the one in your head

Love can seduce you. It can convince you that you're seeing everything clearly right up until the moment you look back and realize you were completely blinded. Your heart overrides your mind, overrides every piece of logic you'd hand a friend in the same situation.

We do this because we're hopeful romantics, and because we've been fed the "you complete me" fantasy since we were kids watching nineties rom-coms. But you can't make a decision from inside a daydream. You make it from reality. That means paying attention to his actions instead of his words, because words get thrown around cheap. If he says you'll do something Sunday and Sunday keeps not coming, that's the information. Not the promise. The pattern.

The bar question I ask when a woman can't decide whether to stay or leave

Here's the one I come back to with clients. I ask them to picture it: you're single, you're the version of yourself you are right now, with everything you've built and become. You're out, and this man walks into the bar and approaches you tonight. Would you even give him the time of day?

I asked one client that and she said no, flat out. I asked another the same thing and she said absolutely. Two completely different answers, and both of them finally honest. That's the whole point of the question. Not to trick you into leaving, but to find out whether you're still choosing this person, or just in the habit of them.

Why just leave him is the least helpful advice for the other woman

If you've ever confided in a friend about an affair, you already know the response. Just leave. And it lands like nothing, because it misses the entire point.

You don't want to leave. You want him to call more often. You want people to know you exist in his life. Francesca named it perfectly, and it's why so many women in affairs feel like they have nowhere to turn. The most common reaction is also the most useless one, and the shame stacked on top of affairs keeps thousands of women silent when what they actually need is to talk it through with someone who won't flinch.

Choosing yourself while you're still in it

You don't have to have it all figured out to start choosing yourself. Francesca calls them micro boundaries. The big boundary is leaving. The micro boundaries are everything smaller: making your own weekend plans instead of waiting to see if he's free, booking the trip, keeping the dinner reservation even when he calls right as you're walking in.

I learned this on a solo month of travel I'd mapped out entirely around where I wanted to eat. He called as I was walking to a restaurant I'd been dying to try, and he kept talking, didn't want me to hang up. And I realized I wasn't going to stand outside for twenty minutes because he'd suddenly decided he was available. That was mine. My time, my trip, my table. Being available to yourself is how you stop feeling desperate for him to be available to you.

None of this tells you whether to stay or go. What I know for certain is that staying in the loop, turning it over and over and over, isn't moving you anywhere. Put the question down for a second and ask the one underneath it. What do you actually want? Get clear on that, and the rest gets a lot louder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will he leave his wife for me?

There's no guarantee either way, but the longer an affair goes on without any change, the less likely a man is to leave, because he has no reason to move when his needs are being met on both sides. Instead of waiting on his decision, focus on what you can control: getting honest about whether the relationship as it exists right now is actually enough for you.

How do I decide whether to stay or leave as the other woman?

Nobody can make the call for you, and "just leave" rarely helps. A more useful question is whether you'd choose this person if nothing about the situation ever changed. Getting clear on what you genuinely want, separate from the fantasy of what it could become, is where real clarity starts.

How do I stop waiting for him to choose me?

Start small. Make your own plans instead of holding your calendar open in case he's free. Keep the dinner, take the trip, fill your time with things that are yours. Learning to be available to yourself first is what loosens the grip of waiting to be chosen.

Is it normal to grieve a relationship that never really happened?

Yes. You can grieve a life that only existed in your head, the trips you talked about, the future you dreamed up together, even if none of it came true. The brain doesn't fully separate the imagined from the real, so the loss is genuine and worth letting yourself feel.

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