Dr Victoria Lukats is a psychiatrist and an expert on relationships and dating. Today, she advises a woman who has ended a long-term relationship with a married man. I met my boyfriend last October. Just six months prior to this, he had separated from his wife.

We never intended to start dating at all because I looked at him in the beginning as being a sugar daddy - he was always taking me out to expensive restaurants and casinos and giving me money every week to help out with bills. Our intentions were to go out a few times and enjoy life and have fun.

It's been over a year now and I feel that we are very serious about one another. I've never pressured him about getting a divorce since we've been seeing each other. Now, I am very uncomfortable because he has met all of my friends and most of my family members and I have only met one of his friends. He has a 23 year old daughter and 3 yr old granddaughter who live with him at his home and of course I have tried to respect that. I have never been invited to his house and from the look of things, I will never be invited.

I feel that his wife comes and goes as she pleases throughout the home and he definitely does not want her to know about me. He keeps assuring me that they have grown apart after 27 years and they are never getting back together. Every time we want to see each other he comes to my place. I am becoming really tired of getting the short end of the stick in this relationship.

My girlfriends are all wondering why am I settling for less because they feel that he is too old for me (he is 55 and I am 42) and he is just stringing me along because he is not going to get a divorce. It's been a week since I have spoken to him because I am tired of sneaking around.

I told him to call me when his divorce is final! Did I do the right thing by ending the relationship?

Victoria replies:

You say that you thought of him as a sugar daddy and for a while you were happy to accept his hospitality and generosity but as things have progressed, you're no longer satisfied with the arrangement.

Are you right to be fed up, irritated or angry by his actions? It depends how you look at it. He hasn't deceived you into believing he was looking for a serious relationship. And while he has tried to reassure you that he isn't going back to his wife, it seems that, in his actions at least, he has completely failed to reassure you that you will ever be more than a bit on the side.

It's really difficult to say if he has done anything wrong here. If he genuinely has split up with his wife and just wanted a casual bit of fun to take his mind off things where's the harm in that, so long as he was clear that was all it was. Of course, we're assuming he hasn't deceived anyone. Has he has really made a clean break of things with his wife? He says they've separated, but how can you be so sure? If they're still sleeping under the same roof, who's to say they're not actually still sleeping together? These are the uncertainties you have to deal with when you get involved with a man who is still living with his wife – separated or not.

Let's put aside this issue of whether or not he's genuinely separated from his wife or whether he happens to still occasionally sleep with her. In a way, it doesn't really change the situation for you or what you do now. Ultimately it comes down to the almost universal difficulty with such casual “relationships”. It can all be fine to start off with - when you both want just casual fun, but what happens when one of you wants more?

Yes, you have changed the goal posts. You wanted a casual relationship but now you want more. You shouldn't feel bad about wanting more. But you need to be realistic. It seems extremely unlikely you're going to get it from this man. If you do want more – a stable relationship, someone who will be your partner and a man who will want to share his life with you, surely you know deep down that you're going to have to look elsewhere.

Hopefully you told him what you were looking for. At least then you would have given him a chance. But you certainly shouldn't be wasting time or energy trying to manipulate him, change him or trick him into getting what you want. You've done the right thing. You didn't pressurise him or give him an ultimatum. You sensibly ended the relationship, told him why and told him to get in contact if things change in the future.

Don't believe that this has anything to do with his age. The age gap isn't the problem. The problem is the way he was treating you and the lack of commitment to you after a year of dating. He may well have his own good reasons for not being able to give you a firm commitment right now, but if you're certain the relationship as stood wasn't for you, his reasons are no longer any concern of yours.

Don't make excuses for his behaviour. Yes, he has a family, a wife and possibly a looming expensive divorce to deal with. But if he really wanted a serious relationship with you, he would find a way to make it work. This bottom line is this: if he isn't able to give you what you need from a relationship, then absolutely you've made the right decision. Life's too short to waste chasing married men who just aren't that into you.