IN CONVERSATION WITH…

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STORIES FROM REAL-LIFE

In Conversation with…a Woman after her Affair

As you get older, you realize life isn’t as wonderful as you thought it was going to be. Recently a 29 year old started at my old precinct, and my 70 year-old colleague told me all the men are drooling over her. He chuckled and told me “I’m glad I’m not that old again.” But I felt envious of her—not of the attention, but of being 29 again.

The police service is a male-dominated industry, there’s lots of testosterone going around, and most of them are on their 2nd or 3rd marriages. In that kind of environment, you’re either the uptight bitch who frowns at everybody’s dirty jokes, or you’re the slut who laughs along with the blokes. There was nothing in between for a woman to be. My colleagues felt no qualms about flirting with me, even though I was married. One of them told me my husband was punching above his weight, and that I could do a lot better. It was the kind of place where people really said things like that. It goes to your head. Maybe it’s not surprising that while I was working in that culture, I had an affair.

I’d been married for 10 years before I started working in the force. When my two girls were babies, they were my world. I was a mum, and my days of being a sex symbol were over. I was tired, but I thought I was happy with the kids and with my partner H. But after 9 mostly happy years, we had an awful 12 months. We were struggling with a big move to a new place, our oldest daughter had been diagnosed with special needs, and things came to a head.

H and I never got counseling when our daughter was diagnosed with autism. I cried every day for months. H didn’t cry once. He seemed so positive and it annoyed me that he was always upbeat. I didn’t find out until after the affair that he would cry in private. He thought he had to be strong for me, but I thought he was less affected than I was. After the diagnosis, my whole world revolved around my daughter. I felt like she needed me more than anyone else in the family, like I had to love her more, even more than our youngest child, to make up for everything she wasn’t going to have in life. At 8 years old, I still let her come into our bed halfway through the night, because I thought that at least if she had no friends at school, she still had cuddles with me at night. I thought my love could make up for the social skills she didn’t have. The pressure of that was enormous. I was giving so much of myself to my child, and it took over my life. Her therapy, extra-curricular activities, extra attention. I forgot to keep any space for myself.

At the same time, I was working nights, H was working days, and we were living parallel lives. We stopped having sex completely, but we didn’t address it. We were sliding into a sexless marriage, and I knew that I couldn’t live like that. I had desire, but I wasn’t sure I desired my husband. I can definitely remember thinking “Is this it? Is this life now?”

H hated our new town and he was resentful and depressed. We were both down at the same time, and neither of us had the strength or energy to support the other, help to build them back up. I channeled my unhappiness into resentment about how our lives were turning out. The anger just built up. After a year of that, we really didn’t like each other all that much.

I always knew I had a flirtatious personality, but it happened very quickly. I went to a party organized by my colleague on the force. J was attractive, with all the ego and alpha-male appeal of a man in the uniform of authority. I’d always been the pretty, flirty one in my friendship group, but as a mum, in a sexless relationship, I felt like my youth was dying. J made me feel young and desirable again. But it was more than that too—I wanted to know if I could actually enjoy sex again, or if that part of my life was over. I convinced myself that I deserved the chance to find out.

That night at J’s party, we secretly kissed. The very next day, I told H that our marriage was over and started sleeping in the spare bedroom. It seemed to me like it had really been over for a while, and I needed to say it if I was going to see someone else. It was devastating to him. He really hadn’t expected it. He knew we weren’t happy, but he was desperately hurt that I wanted to walk away. But I’d decided I had a chance at a better life with someone, and I left H a couple of weeks later. Those last weeks before I left the family home were awkward and resentful. We fought a lot, and I know he must have suspected I’d met someone else. By the time I left, I hated him and he hated me.

I told myself that I couldn’t shut the door on passion and desire. My oldest daughter was starting school and doing well with her therapy, and I finally wasn’t breastfeeding or changing nappies for our youngest. I had a chance to feel like “me” again, to feel my sexuality coming back after having kids, and to turn back the clock to the person I used to be.

That was the moment I let myself fall into the affair. And it was amazing, electrifying. I found a rental place nearby, and H and I took it in turns to have the kids. For the first time since I’d had children, I had whole days to myself, when I could sleep late, shop, do what I wanted. And in the evenings I had an exciting new lover, and I could be the passionate, impulsive woman I had not been for so long. J wasn’t particularly skilled or adventurous—he was just new, and that newness was electrifying. I found passion that was completely different to anything I’d had in my marriage. I felt free, like I was me again. This was something I was doing just for myself.

I really believed I was leaving an impossible relationship for a better one, and that I’d found love. If I was leaving H—the father of my children—then it had to be because I’d fallen in love. And J really did make me feel like I would have a better life with him. He was financially set up, just about to pay off his mortgage. It was an appealing fantasy for a woman who was used to struggling financially—going back to those adolescent daydreams of finding a man who would take care of you. It seemed like I had a chance to start again, but this time, I would have the whole package—love, passion, and security. But it was all just a fantasy.
Six months in, the hormones and endorphins started to settle down, just like all the literature and advice columns tell you. And as that faded, the rest of our relationship came into focus. I can remember the exact moment that I realized I wasn’t really in love. As usual, I’d gone to J’s house and we’d had sex. Later, we got take-out—our relationship was secret, so he never took me out to dinner, but I realize now that dinners, travel and adventure were what I wanted, not what he wanted. That evening, he wanted to watch Star Wars on TV, and he didn’t ask me if I wanted to watch it. He was a man who was used to living alone, not used to having to negotiate and compromise about his desires. I was talking about my past, trying to show him photos of where I used to live. He complained that I’d made him miss the start of the movie. The truth was that he didn’t want a woman with a past he had to learn about.

J settled in to watch the movie, his take-out balanced on his knee, and he said, “This is the life.” That one phrase was the turning point of the affair. His idea of the perfect life was exactly the routine boredom I had been trying to escape. It hit me—I’m no better off. I’m worse off, because here we are just watching TV, and I don’t have my kids asleep in the next room. I just wanted to go home. I suddenly realized that J and I were strangers, and the bond that I wanted, the intimacy, would only come once we’d also been together for 10 years. And by then, all the passion would have faded into evenings of Star Wars and hot chocolate by the TV. I’d be in the same place I was before, just not with the father of my children.

I realized J had no idea about dealing with my daughter’s disability. He wasn’t there for the heartbreak and fear of her diagnosis, or the challenge and triumphs of learning about her. He wasn’t there for the kids’ births, or their toddler years. If I stayed with this man, I wouldn’t just be losing my relationship, I’d be losing ten years of memories that had shaped who I was, for better or worse. That was when the fantasy come to an end.

I couldn’t stop comparing J with H and getting pissed off, because H would have done this or that. With H, I knew what all our arguments were, I didn’t feel shy about screaming and shouting, or just being in a bad mood. In a new relationship you have to be on your best behavior. I missed jumping into bed with H and just talking. I missed being able to count on him. He had always supported me in ways that were so natural I hadn’t noticed. Now that we were separated, he no longer had to compromise with me. Even in the darkest part of our marriage, we had always been there for each other. On my own, I understood what that really meant.

I also discovered that I’m not so easy to be with. I’m a needy person, I’m actually hard work. I expect a lot from people. After spending a long time blaming someone else for the failure of my marriage, I finally had to own up to my own role in it, and my selfishness in going after what I wanted, at the cost of everyone else in my family. I had been trying to escape from being a mother, from my duties, from a role I was boxed in to. I had done it without thinking much about the consequences, but now reality hit me. It was a wake-up call.

I knew that if I went back to H (if he took me back) that we wouldn’t have that electricity I’d experienced with J. I won’t ever have that brand new passionate shock to the system again, and it’s horrible to think I’m never going to get that again. But that’s part of growing up. We had so much else that was worth saving. Yes, H and I had 12 months of bad times, but we’d also had 9 good years. In the end, the fact of our past together meant that H and I could plan a future together.

And so I went back. And he took me back. The time away from each other had helped to heal a lot of the hurt and resentfulness that had driven us apart. On his own, he’d made new friends, joined the gym, was more satisfied with work. He thought I wasn’t coming back, and he was doing his best to move on with his life. When I called him, and told him I wanted him back, he came to my house and seemed like a different person – he was happier and healthier. It made me realize how miserable I’d made him in our last year together.

I confessed everything to him, and of course he already knew. This is a man who knows me well. But he still has the capacity to surprise me—and his forgiveness has been a blessed surprise. He has felt a lot of hurt and betrayal, but he took me back because he still loves me and thinks it’s worth trying to save what we have. He has told me he doesn’t see what I did as an affair. I didn’t sneak around—I left him, dated someone else and now we’re back together. I’m so grateful he can see it like this. I still use the word affair, when I talk about it. For H, the greater betrayal was that I walked out on him when he was depressed, and ran after my own happiness. He says he felt disappointed in me. But he says, that’s life, and life happens. I think back to how angry I felt about the hand life was dealing me, and I see how immature I was. I didn’t understand life doesn’t owe us anything.

I’m ashamed to admit that I had an affair, because I didn’t think I was “that kind” of person. But it’s helped me to understand exactly what my marriage was missing, as well as exactly what was good about it. I didn’t realize marriage was going to be like this. I thought you just found someone nice and spent the rest of your life with them. Of course I’d been told marriage was hard work. But I hadn’t understood that it meant in moments like this, when life happens, when temptation beckons, that’s when you have to work hard. Because it’s either that or give up on each other and deal with the consequences. So I have learnt from it. I’ve learnt how to be better at my marriage. How to be a better person to be married to.

We put too much pressure on ourselves to make life perfect. A friend said to me recently, you don’t have to be happy with H 100% of the time. No one who’s married over ten years is ever 100% certain all the time that this is the right person. I thought before that if we didn’t have perfection — happiness and joy all the time —then we could never have it, so I didn’t give H a chance. Now I have the courage to realize that I can’t expect perfection, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work for it.

I saw J yesterday. I quit the force (for a lot of reasons, not just to avoid him) but he still lives just ten minutes away. J didn’t see me. He was going into a shop, and I hid in the cafe next door until he’d gone. It was the first time I’d seen him since I went back to H and the idea of talking to him made me feel sick. I guess it will get easier over time, but I don’t want to bump into him. I thought I was in love with him.

I longed to go back to H, but a few months in, we’re back in our old routines, arguing about whose turn it is to get up with the kids. We still have our patterns. But we’re working at making the important changes. We’re learning to laugh with each other again after such a long time with no laughter. We’re even making love again. I’ve done a lot of growing up. And I’ve identified what I want —I want to have an affair with my husband. With J, I would make an effort—shave my legs, wear make up and sexy underwear—things I didn’t do for H. No wonder it wasn’t fireworks. I’m having fun in the bedroom now. Before, I felt like I couldn’t have fun with H because we had to take care of the kids. One day recently, with both the girls in school and kindergarten, we had the house to ourselves. And we forgot about the kids for a few hours. We found that spark we had before “life happened”.

Someone reminded me recently that lots of people get married twice in their lifetime. The way I see it, I’ve chosen to marry the same person twice.

All personal details from this true, real-life story have been changed.