no doubt the main issue with having an affair is the guilt. in the beginning, i was wracked with guilt. my husband was my best friend. who was i to go around sleeping with this guy i just met? it's the worst thing you can do to a marriage. and i claimed that i wasn't unhappy. yes, my husband played video games more than he hung out with me. he smoked a lot of reefer. he didn't like to leave the house on weekends or after he got home from work. that left me with a lot of bitter time on my hands. seriously, it was a recipe for an affair.
the thing about an affair is that, unless you choose someone from your past that you know pretty well, you really don't know what this lover is like. you've met them under very restrictive circumstances. you probably won't wake up with them, have them meet your friends, go on trips with them, interact on a daily basis, go through crises with them. it's a very limited relationship. you see each other when you want to, and usually not every day. so how do you know what you're really getting yourself into? you don't.
from the beginning, i tried to keep him at arm's length. D is a very affectionate person. he loves kisses, hugs, touching. i tried to limit all of this. after we first had sex, i told him i couldn't do it. but it never worked. but his hugs. mmmmmmm. so warm and inviting. i love pressing my cheek against his when we hug. it was hard to go back to the ignoring husband when you had someone who wanted to pay attention to you. so it would last about a week, then i would cave. then i would tell him we just couldn't have sex. i didn't feel as guilty about the hugs and the kisses and the other fooling around. but no sex. that never lasted too long either. i kept referring to our relationship as Pandora's Box. there's a little icon on the iPhone that looks like a present. that's The Box. he grew to hate that box. he hated anything that limited our relationship beyond the usual constraints. of course, he didn't have a second person pulling him in another direction. i'm not saying it was easier for him. he had a whole other set of issues that he had to deal with. but he found it just as hard to stay away as i did.
we took a break while i went on vacation right after the abortion. we spoke very briefly. it's hard to get away to text when you're in the same room with the person you're trying to hide things from. i did ok for the first few days. at this point in our relationship, i was still in "he's just a fling" mode and thought that he was just a friend with benefits... i was in this for the physical, not the emotional, so it shouldn't matter if i talk to him every day. but towards the end of the vacation, i ached for him. seriously. i couldn't wait to get back to our regular texting and our strange relationship status. little did i know is that he put me on the back burner while i was away. i think he was still dealing with the loss of the pregnancy and the full spectrum of his feelings for me. yes, we had been having fun. but that baby changed things.
when i got back, i could barely get him to talk to me. it was heartbreaking. i cried. seriously. i didn't have a job, so i stayed up, silently sobbing next to my sleeping spouse, hoping he didn't hear me. one night, i was crying so hard, i got up and laid on the couch so my snot-filled shaking didn't wake him. that would have been a hard one to explain, huh? and D denied everything. he wasn't ignoring me, he said. he was busy. with friends, with work, with other things. there was another girl that he was fooling around with. i burned with jealousy, but what could i do? i couldn't compete. but still, i would wait for a text and.... nothing. i had been abandoned, twice. once by my husband and once by my lover.
during this time, we were still working together. i had been let go at my awful, full-time job and i was back working retail with him again. we closed one night. i rode my bike that day and we walked together as far as his corner. i remember standing there, telling him that i'm being ignored by two people. i guess it's at this time i realized that i couldn't deny my feelings for him any longer. he was really the only person who knew the truth about the pregnancy. none of my friends knew about him. only 2 of my friends, including my sister, knew about the pregnancy at all. i know my husband didn't tell anyone.
i wrote in my journal on April 8: "I am in love with him. I haven't said it or written it or signed it or hula'ed it. But I cannot stop thinking about him. He breaks my heart but he can't help it because he doesn't know. Oh, well. I don't want my life to change so this will all stay on paper. But part of me wishes I would have kept it."
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