Anatomy of an Affair

Great Thanks to the always awesome mikothebaby for her editing magic, and patience with grammar, spelling and punctuation. Her valiant attempts to make my stories readable are much appreciated. As Always, any and all errors are mine, and mine alone.

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Anatomy of an Affair

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Week 1

I never set out to have an affair. Maybe if I write it all down, it will help me figure out what is going on. I am not one of those housewives who volunteered because they were bored and lonely, or just vaguely unsatisfied.

He was just someone I had forged a friendship with at work and started flirting with. Yes, I enjoyed his attentions. It felt good and right, just different enough, and I felt powerless to resist.

Oh, who am I kidding? When your hormones are raging and someone is there telling you that you are beautiful and special and fabulous and really listening to you, thoughts of broken families and hearts are a million miles away.

It was not until I physically crossed the line, that I started to realize everything I stood to lose.

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Week 2

Wow, this new excitement is like rocket fuel!

I forgot what powerful stuff new lust is, and hiding my affair seems to be as exciting as the affair itself. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I have something that's all mine, and my little secret is more energizing than a case of Jolt!

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Week 3

I do not know why I should feel so guilty. When was the last time my husband paid attention to me like he should!

There was no passion in my marriage anymore. We were both way too young to have been married. It seems we are almost roommates now, not lovers. Sometimes he is just so controlling, emotionally unavailable, a slob.

That bastard is cheating, too -- well I do not have any proof, but I damn well suspect that he is. I have seen how that little slutty receptionist looks at him. How he is always "bumping" into the divorcee across the street.

I can come up with ten thousand different ways that what I am doing is a lot less worse than what he is doing.

But why do I feel this is just a rationalization to excuse my actions? Am I just trying to convince myself?

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Week 8

I really miss my friends. In the beginning, the totally exclusive, utterly secretive nature of my affair was one of its biggest appeals. It's was the two of us against the world and I did relish that bond. But I want to talk to someone, and now I have nowhere to turn. I know that even telling my best friend will put her in a bad position, and could possibly put the affair at risk. So I stew quietly and feel so very, very much alone.

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Week 12

Damn this affair is Expensive!

Fancy dinners, faraway hotel rooms, sexy lingerie, trusty babysitters, personal training sessions... my cheater's tab is getting out of control. The 4 star hotels have been replaced by Motel 6's and backseat trysts in parks. The fancy dinners where we might be spotted are now a thing of the past.

And because of that pesky paper trail business, most of it has to be taken care of in cash. I never thought I would need to get intimately familiar with the term "creative financing."

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Week 14

How come I seem to be in a state of constant fear?

What if my lover calls? What if he doesn't? What if someone sees us together? Can I call him? Should I call him? When should I call him? Am I acting differently? Dressing differently? Do I smell differently? When I'm not busy obsessing about these questions, I play over all of the possible outcomes in my head until it spins.

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Week 15

Guarding my damn computer and cell phone is now my full-time job. I try to keep our communication to the bare minimum, still I have to arrange those risqué rendezvous. Which means my computer and cell phone likely harbor all sorts of damning evidence.

I suffer regular panic attacks wondering if I actually left my laptop open. Yesterday, when I forgot my mobile, I had to run home to retrieve it immediately.

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Week 16

I called my lover by my husband's name today and we had a good laugh, but now I worry I'll say the wrong name at the wrong time. It is a constant fear. Over coffee it is a concern; in bed it will border on crippling. I am still getting intimate with my husband. But when I am, I am thinking about my lover, comparing the two, no matter how much I try not to.

God I hate my new world.

I have had to stop addressing both men by their actual names and now stick to something generic like "honey."

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Week 17

I am someone's wife, someone's mother. I took vows and was building a life and a family. I am living a lie, day in and day out.

I cry in the shower, in the car, in the bathroom at work. I didn't want it to be like this and sometimes I'm not even sure how it happened.

I used to talk with my friends about the skanky cheaters we knew, and I were so sure they'd get what was coming to them. Now the cheater is me, and I know I am not meant to be with this new person, so why am I doing this? The guilt seems be all-consuming, the shame never, ever feels like it is going away.

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Week 19

Why can't I sleep at night anymore? My days are a busy blur of juggling and secrecy, so you'd think that once everyone else is tucked neatly into bed, I'd pass right out.

Except I can't.

My mind keeps racing through the day, retracing my steps and trying to be sure I haven't left any clues. And even when I am confident that I haven't, these evening hours are filled with a tormenting torrent of whys and what-ifs.

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Week 21

How could I have fallen for a cheater. (Irony!) The very (illicit) nature of my relationship means that I can't reach out to my lover whenever the urge strikes. When that window finally presents itself and I can't reach him, my first thought invariably is: He's with someone else. (I try to shove this thought far from my conscience, but it is still there.)

Every time he's distant, unavailable, moody or not in the mood, that terrifying thought will again rear its ugly. If he cheats on his wife, why would I think he will be faithful to me?

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Week 22

Just when I least expected it, my perfect lover -- the one I risked life and limb to be with at every secretive turn -- is always doing something to irritate, disillusion or disappoint me.

The arms I sought solace in to escape my spouse's apathy turn indifferent; the one who drew me in with quiet confidence is in reality, a needy mommy's boy.

Too late I find out that all relationships take sacrifice, work and compromise. This ah-ha moment is as profound as it is painful. Why now do I discover that no relationship is perfect!

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Week 23

As skilled as my new bed mate may be, I have to face the fact that the sheer novelty of sleeping with someone new has worn off.

Our once hot sex has had the temperature dialed down quite a bit. Maybe not all the way down, and I am not saying it is anything close to boring -- but what used to feel like an electrical jolt now seem more like a tingle.

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Week 24

My kids are making this eighty-jillion times more complicated. Every minute I spend with my lover; even if the kids are in school or otherwise happily occupied, feels like moments I am stealing from them.

I worry about what they'd think if they found out, and how I'd feel if their future partners did the same thing to them. I sometimes cry myself to sleep thinking about what it would do to them to rip apart the only family they've ever known.

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Week 25

It seems so strange, but I have begun to appreciate things about my spouse that I never even noticed.

Should I blame it on intense guilt (or maybe I am suffering a bit of buyer's remorse), but when my husband brings my coffee just the way I like it every morning, or this weekend when he remembered to send my stepmother a birthday card, my heart just breaks a tiny bit.

The luster is really starting to dull on my other, newer relationship, so the ache just keeps intensifying.

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Week 26

A part of me -- maybe a huge chunk from armpits to ankles -- is tired of the lies and desperately want to come clean. And then I remember what's at stake and shudder deeply. Fessing up might mean the end of my marriage . It would hurt and anger my partner and the kids, it will upend their world if the marriage dissolves. I'll be branded with the scarlet A. My life will never be the same again.

So I am back to the exhausting game of hide-and-lie. To conceal or confess? Both options suck.

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Week 27

The whole thing was a mistake. It's just too complicated. I am exhausted. Unfortunately, just because I want out of this affair, doesn't mean my lover agrees.

I tried to end it, he threaten to spill the beans to my husband. I think it is a bluff as he has a wife and kids to lose also. Whatever the circumstances, we are not on the same page, this is going to be a really turbulent ride. I pray ending the affair is not as disastrous as starting the affair.

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Week 28

I feel free now, but have terrible regrets, there will be things I wish I did differently. Hearts, promises and trusts that I broke, and if I knew then what I know now, I wish I could go back and rewrite at least a few pages of my history.

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Week 32

It has been a month since I ended the affair. I am beginning to think just maybe the affair can actually strengthen my marriage.

I know now that the affair was a colossal mistake. I realize how much I lost in the process. This epiphany has turned me into the most attentive and appreciative partner on the planet. At this point, I have two choices: I can confess everything so we can try to move forward in honesty and hope that my husband wants to salvage our relationship.

But I feel that sharing all of the dirty details will only hurt my partner and have decided to suffer silently. I accept I will have to live with my guilt, as well as a healthy degree of paranoia that somehow he'll find out.

On the bright side, my affair is the start of the relationship I have always wanted and will do whatever it takes to reach and keep that goal. It is the start of a new chapter in my life. Either way, the affair changed me and my relationship and hopefully, I'll be able to accept the outcome.

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Week 36

My world just ended.

I came home today to an empty house and found divorce papers from my husband on the kitchen table.

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