A Valuable Lesson

In my last blog I wrote about an affair I have been having with a man who is married. I also wrote about how I have also recently been seeing the ex and that he had told me some things about his relationship with the girl he left me for that were not pleasant to hear, mainly that he was wanting to continue a relationship with her once she returned from Europe because of her loving, functional and wealthy family, and how it was out of the question that anything could be maintained between us because my family situation is so completely opposite to this.
He read that blog and has ceased contact with me because of it.  Not because of what was said about his relationship with the girl he left me for, but because of his anger and complete loss of respect for me that I allowed myself to get involved with a man who is married, and to be fair, he fully admits that this is completely hypocritical on his behalf because he has done this himself - many times.
Its probably worth mentioning that my reasons for becoming involved with this man were completely and utterly selfish and self-indulgent. I have been angry at the "sister-hood" for doing this to me for so many years and on so many occasions, and I wanted revenge of sorts (although this mans wife has certainly never done anything to me, and certainly has not done anything to deserve any upheaval I have caused....although to my knowledge there has been none within their relationship).  But mainly I wanted to feel good about myself.  Its hard to admit that this was the driver for my involvement but its true.  I spent so long feeling so bad about myself after the ex and I ended, and every time he came into my life again even briefly he left and I felt even worse, yet again and I wanted to feel better, even if it was only for a short time.
Every date I have been on, every time I have started seeing someone it has ended and I have again felt the waves of self-loathing wash over me once again, and seeing someone who was married, who I had no exceptions of and I knew from the beginning what the outcome would be was a "safe" and a selfish way to make myself feel good.  And it worked, at least on that level. It didn't make me feel good that I was doing it, on a moral level it completely flies in the face of who I am and what I believe it is and try to maintain a position of conducting myself with dignity, integrity and trying to be a good person.  It was a selfish and shameful act and it will not happen again.
For the last few years I have been seeing a therapist, yeah, call me crazy if you like, but I have been on a genuine mission of self-improvement, and on many levels it has helped tremendously.  I wanted to "clear out the demons" of a range of traumatic incidents in my life and work towards making myself a better person and ensure that when the ex and I started the family we were planning I could be the best partner and the best parent I could possibly be.  As it turned out, he left me and I continued with therapy to help me get through this, yet another very traumatic time in my life, but the goal was always the same - self-improvement.
I believe that no matter how "functional" a persons life may appear from the outside, no matter if the family unit remains intact and even financial circumstances are completely glorious - there is still room for self-improvement and there are always levels of dysfunction that exist within a family and an individual and at times we could all use the exchange of $150 bucks an hour for the time of a professional to point out how we might do better, treat people better or make our interactions with others more meaningful - and ultimately more likely to go the distance, in the case of maintaining a long-term relationship, which, it is no understatement to say, is a difficult thing to do at times -m so call me crazy for seeing a "shrink" if you like, but I think the real "crazies" are the people who don't think they need one!
I have grown and evolved during my period of time with my "shrink".  I certainly do many things better and the improvement I have achieved in the relationships within my family have been quite remarkable.  But at times I still stumble and this time I fell.  Lets be honest, I didn't just fall, I fell from great heights and grazed, cut up and bruised every single part of my body.
Whilst things have been good during this time I have been seeing the ex, we have maintained a position of friends, enjoying each others company, great sex and with a complete understanding that this was in no way "committed", I have been more than happy to see what happens, not get too emotionally involved and really just live in the moment (something that would have been difficult for me to maintain pre-therapy), when he shared the details of his thoughts regarding my family situation and this being his reason for not ever being able to be with me long-term, even though it was not the long-term thing that bothered me, I was saddened and defensive.  I digested the information with a bitter taste in my mouth and the constant occurrence of reflux, which I maintained control over until we had a small and very recoverable disagreement last weekend, at which time I, after not sleeping for many many consecutive nights (due to the bitter taste and reflux), I wrote my previous blog, I wrote it as a complete expression of my feeling that this was so completely and utterly unfair that I was yet again being cast aside despite my good qualities because of my family.
I wrote that blog because I hoped he would read it and I hoped it would hurt him as much if not more than the things he had said about my family had hurt me. I am not sure that I actually achieved my "goal" of hurting him, but I have discovered that I have done worse than that, I have disappointed him and lost his respect.  So I have hurt myself far more than I ever have the capacity to hurt him.
The truth, as I have been able reflect on my actions (with the benefit of what I have learned from all those sessions of $150 an hour therapy) is that I once again undermined a situation that was bringing me pleasure for the purpose of completing a self-fulfilling prophesy.  I was maintaining a position of relative unemotional involvement, yet it was making me happy and I expected it to end.  I expected that when this girl he left me for returned from her European holiday I would once again be cast to the scrap heap in favor a someone who was lucky enough to not be raised in my family.  I did this deliberately to ensure that I could not be hurt, or that if I was to be hurt, it would happen sooner rather than later so I could get it over and done with and return to the "norm" - where life is steady, predictable and without hope happiness everlasting.
Its a defense mechanism I have developed so that I can maintain a position of 'see, I knew this would happen', expecting the worst every single time rather than actually just waiting to see what happens.
When "crunch time" hit and it all came out and was revealed I actually felt a sense of relief.  I had stopped "it" from going any further with the ex than it had so I felt like I had saved myself a huge amount of time, effort and what I ultimately what I expected would be hurt.
On reflection, and in the light of a new day I am disappointed with myself. I am ashamed of my involvement with a married man and I am ashamed of the fact that I used this to end what was a completely contented situation with the ex, that may or may not have gone on to become something more.  I genuinely had no expectations of it going anywhere and I would have been more than happy for it to have continued on for years without the demands of any level of "commitment" or anything else of that nature.  I was just enjoying him and that was enough.
During the time I have been spending with him I have maintained a commitment to online dating, speed dating and the like and have been on many sad and unsatisfying dates and had many boring and uninteresting conversations with many men who whilst they might be nice people, were clearly not for me.  I have maintained my commitment to finding someone new for two main reasons, one, that the ex and I agreed that we were in no way committed to each other and that either of us at any time may find someone else, but secondly because I, in so many ways have considered the last 5 years of my life with (and often without) the ex as a complete waste of time and energy - why would I possibly want to be with someone who is difficult, who doesn't appreciate me, who nags, is annoying, unreliable, who has only ever taken me out for dinner on one single occasion, who has never bought me flowers or a gift "just because", who has never taken me away for a romantic weekend or a holiday (other than when we needed to go away for weekends to get km's up on the car to avoid tax and when he wanted someone to drive over 2 states with to look after some children at the other end) or done anything that to the outside world and on paper makes him seem in any way romantic or decent and I had really hoped during this time that I would find someone who would do all of those things.
At times it has upset me and made me feel so sad and much less than anything that ever meant anything to him that he has been this way with me and yet with others he has dated, including the girl he left me for, he makes so much more effort to impress.  But then there is another part of me that knows that these things don't come naturally to him, and that actually they really mean very little or nothing to me either so I know that these things are not what was important to me (or to him) about whatever it was that we had.....and I am still not completely sure of what that was.  But getting a text from him with nothing more than kisses on it was enough to fill me with all the happiness that flowers, dinners, gifts and weekends away could have. 
What I have enjoyed about being with the ex is the complete lack of effort it requires to be with him and enjoy his company.  I will miss that. I will miss the way that we could spend time together with few words exchanged but yet I felt like the other part of my body was in the room when he was there.  I have loved the fact that neither of us has had to go to any effort to make the other one feel good - its the ease of things with him, and knowing that it wont be like this (so easy and requiring no effort) with others that makes me sad that it has ended.
It has certainly become clear to me over the last few months that my feelings towards him have changed quite considerable. I am not in love with him in a way that I once was - that feeling that you ache when the person is not around, where it is an all consuming love that makes it hard to think about doing anything than just being with that person, and a gripping fear that they will leave.  I love him now with a sense of respect and loyalty, of knowing all his flaws, faults and failings but loving him anyway knowing he is a good, a great human being, where affection can be given and received without the feeling that it needs to be constant for it to have meaning, where making dinner or doing anything for him is not driven by a desire to impress but to show care and the desire to, if possible make life easier or more enjoyable for him.  But I guess its also the type of love where his respect for me was more important than constant attention or adoration - and it is this that I feel most sad about losing, and I guess I will always wonder "what might have been" under different circumstances because I think its the kind of love that is more enduring than the passion fueled and less mature love.  Its the kind of stuff that sees you forgive mistakes, get through life's big challenges - the kind of stuff they talk about in wedding vows - richer or poorer, better or worse.......so I think its a shame I did what I did to ruin that, but I also think its a shame that he didn't recognise that these things are so much more important than the kind of wealthy, seemingly functional family you come from.  I can now only hope that I will find that with someone else, and I will keep looking!
What I heave learned from this experience is completely invaluable.  I deliberately undermined what I was enjoying and what made me happy because I was scared of what might or might not happen,so I need to remember this lesson when I am next involved with someone.  What he has probably learned is that it is best for him not to read my blog and so I am quite sure he will never see this, and I doubt if I will ever see him again other than perhaps to pass him by, at which time I expect he will just walk right past me.
What I do hope is that he finds happiness, somewhere and with someone.  And I hope the same for me, I expect the same for me, because all those sessions at 150 bucks an hour have given me the confidence to expect that it is possible to expect, and GET happiness - even if sometimes you doubt if you deserve it.

A Married Man

Never did I think I would ever have an affair with a man who was married.  Whilst I don't actually have that much respect for the "institution" of marriage per say, as in I don't actually think that it is more important to be married to someone than in a committed relationship with them, and mostly because I actually don't, didn't and never have had much of a desire to be married myself (even though I have been), I have still always considered marriage and I guess any committed relationship to be a sacred union between two people that is not to be violated or interfered with by anyone else.
Having said that, I have also always probably felt that way because I never wanted to be the undoing of a relationship of importance to another woman.  My strong desire to stay faithful to the "sisterhood" has certainly prevented me in the past to become involved in that situation and I have certainly condemned any of my friends and my sister who have been involved in such activity.
Well that was until recently.  My faith in the sisterhood has run dry as it certainly has not been good to me.  My relationship with the ex was undermined and destroyed by a woman who certainly did not have the same respect for the principles I hold true, and previous relationships including my marriage have all gone to shit when "another woman" has come on the scene.
So my affair has history, and here it is - about 10 years ago I was working with a man I found extremely desirable on many levels.  I was also engaged at the time and had not been unfaithful to my partner of several years.  The man I was working with was an ex-AFL footballer, an intelect, a man who cared about all the same things as me and who I worked closely with and found myself attracted to in a way I had not experienced before.
Shortly before I was due to be married I phoned a friend of mine and confided in her about my desires to be involved with this man and to abandon my plans to be married.  She told me that I 'always do this...run for the hills and find any reason to exit stage left when the fear of commitment set in' - I was hoping for something else but I didn't know how to get out of the wedding plans and with nothing to go on other than what I felt was a great connection with this man and a strong desire to be with him, I put it down to the fact that she was right, I was looking for a reason not to go through with a commitment I didn't really believe in or want to be part of.
Well, I got married, I got back to work and was confronted by a rather abrupt and shocked work mate who seemed surprised that I had not told him of my plans to be away from work and certainly had no idea I was getting married.  I knew he was seeing someone, but I had no idea of the status of their relationship at that time, and was shocked by his reaction.
After leaving that work place we remained friends, close friends.  We worked together on various projects over the years and always the feelings seeing him and spending time with him would once again come to the surface.  He ultimately married the woman he was seeing and after the years went by we lost contact for a short period.  But he was never far from my thoughts and earlier on this year I tracked him down, expecting nothing but was surprised to receive contact from him telling me he thinks of me always and was wanting to see me.  An affair began.
I never saw myself as a person who would get involved in this sort of thing as I mentioned earlier and I justify it to myself by telling myself that I am not the one who is married.  I don't ask him for anything, I don't ask him about his wife or his life or talk about the possibility of him leaving her - in fact I don't want him to do that if it is because of me.
Our first time together sexually was an interesting experience.  It was filled with anticipation as he had told me that he has been wanting this with me since the first moment we met - he told me of his strong desire to start something all those years ago but was scared that he would be rejected.  He told me of a particular moment when we were having some after work drinks and he was trying to pluck up the courage to kiss me and tell me of his feelings towards me, I told him that I recall the moment and wish so badly that he had done this as I would have changed my plans for him, I would not have gone through with getting married and he too said he would have broken up with his girlfriend......leaves me wondering what might have been and where my life would have taken me if that moment had have worked out differently.
I love that when I am with him I can be myself completely.  I find myself saying things, sharing thoughts that I don't share with others for fear of judgement, but yet he finds it and me attractive regardless. My only sadness is when he leaves and I know he goes home filled with guilt, but that is his to deal with and I don't think about his relationship with his wife as I am something private, boxed up and just his, not to be shared.
During this time I have also been seeing the ex.  We have been enjoying each others company, the sex and generally having fun.  I have had no expectations about where this will lead - I think for all my interactions of a sexual nature I am now completely without expectations, hopes and dreams, I just live in the moment.
He recently revealed the true nature of the relationship he maintains with the woman he left me for.  Despite telling me on so many occasions that it was over it is still very much alive and well and the only reason I have been allowed into his life is because she is currently overseas on holidays.
Despite his relationship with her being quite a miserable one he intends to maintain it because although he admits that there is no logic to his feelings on the matter, he doesn't love her, they fight every time they see each other, they do not get along, he doesn't think she is a good person or would make a good mother to his children, and yet he says he loves me, believes I would make a wonderful mother to his children etc .....he wants to and will commit himself to a life with her because she has a wealthy and wonderful family that is so completely opposite to what my family is, completely and utterly dysfunctional.
Hearing these things from him has hurt me in the most unspeakable way.  I have no control over these factors in my life and despite not feeling a strong desire to be with him for any length of time other than until I don't enjoy it anymore, it hurts that I am being judged based on this.
But it hurts less that I have someone else in my life who don't judge me for those factors that I can not control and it fills me with confidence that someone, one day will see past my broken and dysfunctional family and see that, whilst I may be a product of those conditions, I am more than that, and I am worth loving anyway.
Do I feel good about myself because I am having an affair with a married man?  Certainly not.  But I will take from it what I need to rebuild the confidence that has been stripped off me by the ex to find the real thing.