Why I Won’t Regret My Affair

By

Our relationship is two years in,  and we could get married and be fine.  Totally fine.  I come home from work to you cooking dinner, you cleaning the house up after my mess, and you mowing the lawn.  I try to help around the house, but I shrink your shirts or accidentally bleach them. I don’t fold them the right way. I crossed the line. Accidents happen. I apologize, but you always get mad.  I leave the house looking like a dorm room, you say.  I should get the right things at the grocery store because you told me to.  I should always follow the recipe precisely and not wing it. You hate when I do that even if I’m trying to make dinner for you for once. Never mind, I’ll just get out of your way and let you do it since you’ll do it right. You always do everything right. 

I meet him months before the affair begins. I see him almost every day for over a year in the parking lot and think nothing of him.  Then I start getting stronger physically and with that comes mental strength.  I find confidence I didn’t know I lost. You wear me down. I catch myself driving home slowly and lingering in the car before going in the house. I’m not excited by your phone calls. He makes me smile and he laughs at my jokes. More importantly, the jokes aren’t at my expense. He lights me up. 

It starts with just a few texts. We’re joking around. I compliment his smile; he compliments the boots I’m wearing. He says I make his days better. The conversations grow longer, they last later in the night and start earlier in the day. You and I talk less and less. We’re always on our phones. He and I tell stories and talk about TV shows. You go away on business, and I barely hear from you in three days. He remembers the small details. He asks questions and listens to my response. He and I start flirting regularly. We’re dancing a fine line when one night we start sexting. We crossed the line. Accidents happen. You come home from your trip, show no interest in me or sex, and go to bed early.

He is offering me a buffet when you’re comfortable letting me survive on breadcrumbs.

There are no other cars in the parking lot that day. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and I know he’s alone so I go see him. His voice is incredibly low and quiet when he talks to me compared to when a crowd is around. I’m fascinated, but I lean away from him back against the wall. He asks why I’m here even though he knows.  He suddenly grabs me and kisses me up against it the wall. His hands are in my hair, on my face, on my ass. We cross the line again. Accidents happen. He is a wall of muscle, of desire, of heat, but his kiss is so incredibly soft. I can feel how badly he wants me, but he’s still so gentle.  How is a flame so easy to touch? If I feel the burn, I can’t tell. I’m alive for the first time in two years.

Days, weeks, months later. We find ourselves in each other’s arms seven more times in snow storms, in rain, in darkness. No one knows but us. We talk about ending it, but the sex is too hot, too easy, and too good to pass up. For as much as everyone around us thinks we are strangers, we are incredibly compatible in bed. It’s dirty, it’s intensely intimate, and it’s so fucking fun.

You are clueless when I break up with you. You can’t imagine where we went wrong.  You say we could have gotten married and been fine.  The point is he showed me how to be more than fine. I finally had the courage to realize I deserve more. I finally realized you weren’t meeting my needs, and you were never going to change. 

He and I won’t last, I know that. All flames die eventually, and this one has lasted too long already. We tried extinguishing it, but it still flickers every now and then. 

But without you, I am more than fine. I wake up every morning excited to start the day. I fuel my own fire now. And I’m grateful he showed me how.