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How an Affair Saved My Marriage
In an unexpected twist, an affair brings a marriage back to life.
by Anonymous
We weren’t an obvious match, and not only because I was married. Alex was from a boisterous, family-focused clan who believed no time apart could be of any quality. I was an only child, accustomed to empty spaces filled comfortably with my own silence. Professionally, I was ambitious and filled with energy, tearing into each day like a dervish; Alex, on the other hand, was mellow and observant.
He was nothing like James and the men I had been drawn to in the past: passive instead of ferocious, content instead of constantly conquering.
But he was a respite from James’s force field, as well as a center of calm for me. After feeling so deserted by my husband, I suddenly found myself nurtured. Not infrequently, during a demanding day at work, I would find a deliveryman standing in my office with a boxed lunch Alex had ordered for me, to make sure I remembered to eat. Flowers arrived frequently, for good reasons and for no reason.
And he was a wonderful playmate, up for any adventure.From making reservations at a new restaurant we were both interested in, to hopping a plane at the last minute to meet me wherever my job had sent me, Alex was 100 percent available: an unflinching, loving companion.
All the same, there may be no lonelier social landscape than the one inhabited by two people having an affair. While the illicitness might initially be exciting, it doesn’t take long to crash into the inevitable recognition that what you’re doing is bad.
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1 Should You Tell Him You Cheated? // Aug 28, 2008 at 10:59 am
[…] if you’ve decided your affair is wrong, you may want to tell your partner. Below are three tips for coming clean after stepping […]
2 Some Guy // Aug 14, 2008 at 11:37 am
It’s not enough that your violated your wedding vows, you also had to toss off this long-winded rationalization to try to convince a bunch of people you don’t even know that it’s not your fault.
Your husband deserves far better than you, you whiny, self-absorbed, neurotic slut.
3 Ginger // Aug 2, 2008 at 10:50 am
I fear that we have unrealistic expectations of love. Should love worth having be “work”? What exactly constitutes “work” in a relationship? Putting up with loneliness, unhappiness, apathy for five years? For ten, twenty? Maybe we should accept that we are enculturated to have short attention spans and fickle love commitments. I hear a lot of people tout working at their long-term relationships, but all I see are miserable, unsatisfied people. The most difficult and noble thing I imagine is loving another, selflessly, as much as you can yet with the knowledge that it could dissolve at any moment. This might lead to true appreciation of what one has while one has it. Still, I think the last line of the song Wicked Game might sum it up accurately, “nobody loves noone.”
4 Love // Jul 30, 2008 at 1:47 am
your a whore
5 James // Jul 29, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Someone wrote that James’ love really saved the marriage, and this is 1000% true. This author fools herself into thinking that she can remain close with Alex in a way that doesn’t violate her commitment to James, but that is just incorrect. Maybe I’m too immature myself, but it seems like James has given himself completely to the marriage while the author still has not. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t copulate with Alex, but she is still giving a piece of herself to him, as evidenced by the fact that she hides their friendship from James. People of the opposite sex who have reached that level of feeling never go completely back, and to hang onto Alex as a balancing act against the things she wishes were improved in james is dishonest.
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