The Affair...

The affair started when I was 35 years old. I can tell you all of the reasons why it happened. I was feeling unappreciated at home. I was feeling unattractive in a body that had changed from giving birth multiple times. I was lonely in a house full of people. I met someone who was feeling a lot of the same things. Underappreciated, not as attractive, lonely. And we connected in our patheticness and made each other feel better.

Yes, we were pathetic. We were selfish and needy and narcissistic. Never considering that our spouses were probably feeling the exact same way as we were. That life changes. Seasons change. That the white-hot passion that leads to the multiple pregnancies gives way to responsibility for keeping the little ones alive and thriving. For keeping the lights on and the dishes done. But instead of reaching out to our partners and getting through it, we reached out to each other and pretended that it was okay.

Pretending is a big part of an affair. You pretend that those feelings are going to last. That THIS time that white-hot passion will stay white-hot. You pretend that nobody is going to get hurt. Either that they will never find out or that somehow if they do find out they will be okay with it. Afterall if they love you then they would want you to find someone who makes you this happy, right? You would wish the same for them.

Except you wouldn’t.

Not really. You would be livid if you found out that the reason your partner has been working late for the past month and leaving you to take care of everything around the house wasn’t because there was some big important project they were taking care of but that they were going to dinners and then to hotel rooms with a stranger. Giving them the affection you have been missing.

You would not be understanding and tell everyone “well at least they are happy.”

But you convince yourself that you are special. What you are doing is different. That it’s not tawdry and cheap. That nobody is ever going to know. That you are going to be able to have your marriage and your affair and it’s all going to be great for you.

That’s what I did. I was sure that nobody had felt this way before. Nobody had ever understood that it was easy to love your spouse and also love another. And it was going to be fine.  After all we were both married. We both had children. We both understood that what we had together was just a piece of our lives and that there was no way that it would undermine our other lives. The ones we had with our families. To not keep it a secret was mutually assured destruction. We understood each other and what the agreement was.

Until that day he said those fateful words. “I’m leaving her.”

I was 37 when the affair ended. When my lover decided that what he was feeling was too big to try and contain anymore. That he could no longer play pretend at home. He wanted that white-hot passion every day. He wanted us to run away together. To start a new life. He was sure the kids would understand. That even our spouses would be fine. After all they all loved us and wanted us to be happy.

He was ready to take our relationship public. He was having lunch with his best friend later that week and he was going to be the first one he told. He wanted to share how happy he was with his new life and wasn’t I just as excited to get started as he was? Wasn’t it going to be great?

Nobody was going to get hurt because nobody was going to find out. That was our arrangement. He didn’t want to hear it. Sure, that’s what we had talked about in the beginning, but it had been two years. We had two great years, and it was still great. So, it was time to move forward. We were adults and adults moved forward. Everyone would understand.

Eventually.

Sure, there might be some tears at the start, but eventually everyone would come around and we’d all be okay. Better than okay. We would have this white-hot passion every day. We would have someone to come home to that made coming home feel good.

And he was right. That’s all I had ever wanted. To feel good about coming home. To feel like I had a family that loved me. That appreciated me. A partner who loved my body the way it was, not the way it used to be. I wanted to be loved. Even when what I had been doing was unlovable. Because I was selfish and narcissistic and pathetic.

And nobody was going to get hurt because nobody was ever going to find out.

I was 70 years old when I sold the house I had lived in since I was a young married woman. The house I raised my children in. The house where I cried at the kitchen table and told my husband how pathetic I felt. How much I needed to be loved. The house we rekindled our relationship in, just like so many relationships have before. When you leave the valley of taking care of littles and running schedules and feeling like a robot instead of a person and enter the peaks of making it through all of that together.

The house with the large backyard and the wildest flower garden in the neighborhood. Well nourished and left alone. My secret garden. Planted when I was in my late 30s.

And nobody knew.

Though somebody did get hurt.