I never meant to have a relationship with her he said to me. I breathed in because I never intended to have this conversation with him. I had heard about his indiscretion but wasn’t sure. The conversation started because we were talking about the break-up of some mutual friends. I had made a judgemental comment as you do, like a know it all 25-year-old, and so I looked at my feet with uneasiness as he continued.
We weren’t unhappy Melissa and I but, she stopped talking to me about everything. I would try and talk to her, and she would brush me off or tell me I imagined things. She was working hard. I was working hard, and our marriage was okay, but I felt mutual towards her. We had got to that point I suppose where it was just a given. She never said anything to say hey thanks or I appreciate that I was just there you know. He looked at me to see if I understood. I smiled in return as a yes, and he continued. Having said that I knew she loved me and in honesty, I can be needy. I like loving if you understand me, it was my way of reassurance really.
I smiled again while he leaned back in his chair and began.
We met at work this girl and me, and we just got along. We played around with each other pranks, teasing it was fun and before I knew it, I was more excited about going to work than going home. Pretty soon I was making excuses to stay late just to be with her that few minutes longer. I would text her all the time, and I would get excited to hear from her when I wasn’t at work. I would wear things she liked. She made me feel like I had personality. Like I was worth listening to and being around.
I smiled again not knowing what else to do.
It was never physical he said although I would think about how she felt to touch all the time. I would think about how badly I wanted to kiss her, but 25 years married, and four kids will keep you in a reality check of what you will lose. The intimacy in our marriage was good, but it was routine. We met young and married four years later; routine is bound to happen if you let it, and the same goes for being invested in each other he said knowingly.
He looked at me as he swung in his chair. I looked at him again wondering why he was telling me really. Why share this with me? because I didn’t know what to do with this information apart from changing the judgemental comment I had made.
I never did have sex with her, he said with such seriousness. Thought about it and wanted to. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t want to sleep with anything that move he clarified. Just her, only, because she ‘got me’. I wanted to know what she looked like when she slept and when she woke up. What she felt like to touch. I tried to work out if I loved her or was infatuated with her because she made me feel like myself. She made me feel alive. Something I had lost in my marriage.
I pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat because the conversation wasn’t ending anytime soon, and I might as well get in for the long haul.
What he was talking about was an emotional affair it’s how 44% of most physical affairs start and what he was describing is exactly what an emotional affair was or is. All the signs were there. He felt more ‘alive’ than he had been in ages, that is the most frequent remark made by those involved in an ’emotional affair’. Emotional affairs start out as friendships exactly what he had with her.
But you are still with Melissa? I said to him Both making a statement and asking, despite knowing the answer. I knew he was still with her because I had seen them together in the hotel foyer where I worked front office. They kissed with a degree of passion that my own PDA didn’t feel comfortable with.
Yes, he said, and I told her what was going on because I owed her that.
I told her because I wanted to sleep with this girl so badly. Yet never intended on leaving Melissa for her. I couldn’t imagine my life without Melissa, I love her. Yet, I wanted what I felt for this girl for my wife.
I suddenly felt annoyed with him, wanting to have both, so I followed up with a blunt what happened?
The world blew up, disintegrated before my eyes, and I know I deserved every ounce of it, but something happened that I never expected. I thought I had blown it. Lost everything.
My marriage got better. Not straight away obviously. There was hurt, and we kept hurting each other but as weird as it sounds, it felt good that our marriage hurt. Our marriage felt alive when we were desperately trying to hold on. It felt right to want to hold on that bad. It still feels good, and Melissa talks to me now. I matter to her, what I do matters. My marriage is better than ever now and I can honestly say I am in love with my wife and she, me. He said all of this with such sincere conviction I smiled.
I cocked my head to the side processing what he had said whilst I pondered to myself, inappropriately, that they liked S&M if they enjoyed that much hurt. He kept on talking but I had turned off but came back to hear him say we understood we had taken each other emotionally for granted.
The conversation came to a halt uncomfortably when he told me who she was and where she worked. Yet here is the funny thing. He says the girl he wanted so terribly, never knew and as far as she knew they were just friends. He had waited for her to make a move and give him a sign. I pondered that. It was possible and most likely that being so unhappy he completely missed interpreted things, and as far as she knew they had an entirely platonic relationship. He wasn’t a flippant or stupid man generally if that was anything to go by? Perhaps just lonely in his marriage.
But if you never had sex, was it an affair? I asked him.
Yes, it was he said correcting me. I was emotionally invested in someone other than my wife, and I gave my time to someone else instead of her and our marriage. Now that is an affair he finished with.
I didn’t really know what to say but blurted out “Wow, I think your wife is a better woman than me. An emotional affair is a deal-breaker for me possibly more so than the other”.
Perhaps he said, but I doubt it. You never actually know until you are there because I never thought I would have had an affair either.
The conversation ended soon after that because I had guests to check in and he had a wife to collect from work.
The lesson is: never stop investing, talking and dating in your relationship.
xxDeb
