I just had a great conversation with my sister about her recent experience fending off married men who were making moves on her. And as someone who has been married and acted quite out of integrity—flirting with other women and being in denial about it—I gave her some tips for how to work with that dynamic and put up boundaries with married men.

Now, the key piece to notice here is that when people are flirting while being out of integrity, they’re often in a state of self-denial. They’re operating in a zone of plausible deniability. More often than not, they are acting from a compartmentalized form of awareness—where their monogamous commitment has been pushed out of present-moment consciousness in order to make space to flirt with someone else.

So here are a few ways to work with that kind of energy:

One thing you can do is rope in their wife—kind of turn it into a question. For example, if a man says something like, “Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you?”—something that sounds innocuous but carries that flirtatious edge—you can respond with something like, “Oh yeah? What about your wife—does she like it too?” It’s subtle, but it punctures the compartmentalization. Because the whole game of flirtation here lives in the space of plausible deniability. And a lot of women make the mistake of laughing along—“ha ha ha”—in these moments. But men operating in this zone of denial are usually not attuned enough to tell the difference between a nervous laugh and a “fuck yes” laugh.

Now, fawning is understandable. It’s a trauma response. But at the end of the day, fawning is still lying. And women need to take responsibility for that. You should not respond in a way that is misaligned with what’s actually going on inside you. If you do, that’s a lie—and that’s on you.

Of course, if you’re concerned for your safety, it’s perfectly fine to fawn your way out of a situation. But if you’re fawning and continuing the connection, and then you’re surprised that the man makes a move on you later—that’s on you too. So track your fawning. Use it as an exit route, not as a strategy for continued connection.

So again: one of the most powerful things you can do in the face of flirtation from a married man is to bring their partner into the relational awareness. This helps break the compartmentalization. And people who are acting out of integrity almost always have some part of them that’s aware. You, as the person on the receiving end, almost always have a sense too. You can trust your instinct. You can test it. Try naming or referencing the thing that seems to be missing from awareness—his wife, in this case. If the man powerfully pushes it aside, you can do it again. If you try it a few times and the wife keeps getting pushed out of the frame, that gives you ammo. At that point, you can say, “Hey, this feels flirtatious, and I don’t flirt with married men.”

Of course, you don’t have to wait to say something that clear. But these other techniques—playfully referencing his wife or nudging the situation with humor—can be useful if you’re someone who’s susceptible to gaslighting. Because the moment you name the flirtation, the man might say, “What are you talking about? I wasn’t flirting.” And if you’re prone to collapsing under the weight of blame, it helps to have these lighter interventions in your toolkit—until you build the strength to stand your ground and not collapse.

Another thing you can do is tell a story. If you notice a man is flirting with you and he’s married, find a way to segue into a story about a friend whose husband would flirt with other women—maybe even ended up flirting with one of her friends. The story is obvious. It’s a mirror. And yes, you’re kind of describing him, but the absurd explicitness of it won’t trigger the reaction you might expect. Because when someone is operating in a compartmentalized consciousness, they’ve also temporarily disconnected from their own conscience. So this kind of story can gently nudge them awake. It creates a moment of subtle dissonance: “Wait, are you describing me?” You’re also now playing your own game of plausible deniability. “Oh, I just remembered this story—it made me think of it.”

So, why should you bother doing this? Especially if you’re enjoying the flirtation—why disrupt it just to protect a woman you don’t even know?

Here’s what I’ll offer: if you don’t do this, when you are in a committed relationship, you’ll live in fear. Fear that your partner is out there flirting with someone else who is just carrying along with it. And maybe you’d be fine with that. But it’s important to ask yourself—would you be? Would you be fine with that flavor of connection happening in your relationship? If not, then it’s your responsibility to put boundaries around the kinds of conversations you’re willing to have with married or committed men.

This is the essence of the law of karma. The ways in which you act out of integrity will come back around—often when you’re most vulnerable. So it’s not just about being nice. It’s about cleaning up your side of the street, aligning your actions with your own values. It’s the Golden Rule: treat others the way you’d want to be treated.

I’ll name too that most of this applies in the context of monogamous relating. Polyamory has a different set of rules. And honestly, I haven’t yet seen a polyamorous container that doesn’t feel like a big, erotically leaky mess. I’m open to the possibility that clean, erotically contained polyamory exists—but I haven’t personally seen it.

I’ll share a personal example. I once had a dynamic with a married friend. I was also married at the time, and we flirted. Later, I was single and she was still partnered, and we continued to flirt. At some point, it just started to feel unclean in my system. I was enjoying it—but it didn’t feel clean. So I told her, “Hey, this has been fun, but I want to engage with you in ways we’d both feel comfortable with if your boyfriend were right here with us.” That moment did something. It shifted something in me.

Looking back, I think that was the first time I really started plugging my erotic leaks—stopping the flow of my erotic energy into places where there was no creative destination. And I think that’s what an erotic leak is: it’s when your Eros is moving toward something with no real possibility, no true creative or relational destination.

That moment was a turning point. It felt significant. I was still watching porn at the time, still leaking energy in other ways—but that choice began to shift the tide.

And I’ll say this: if you want to live a life of clean, sovereign relating, the way you engage with married men (or married women, or anyone else who’s committed) matters. Not just for them. But for you.