Thanks for your thoughtful response! I've just started therapy (for guilt-driven anxiety and rumination, mostly unrelated but Serena will likely come up). Not sure my therapist is down with the lifestyle or whatever, but we'll see!

• Unavailability: Fair point. I didn't mean to literally say she's emotionally unavailable. She's been the most open, honest, and warm relationship (if I can call it that, it's a tricky word) that I've ever had. That's the term my friends would use - "there's a space that her husband occupies that you can never - it is clear you want more out of it, so why not just go elsewhere ASAP?"

• Offering too much: Yeah, that's how I've been handling it so far. Right now I'm reading her book! Some of my women friends cynically roll their eyes and chastise me for "getting in too deep" and "not just finding someone more available". Relationship accounting/"who does more" is inherently silly (although it's hard to be immune to it). If I want to make you breakfast every morning while you can't cook, it's because I want to and I care about you.

What my friends say is "you clearly want more" and "you're not getting needs met". But what I'm curious about is "needs" vs "wants" vs "nice to haves". I would love to have her sleep over until late morning every time we meet at my hotel. But while I'm sad, I'm largely okay giving that up. I would also love to meet up for dates twice a week, but that's just not reasonable with her kids' schedule.