I know I'm in for a drubbing, but I want to hear from you and your readers.
I'm a single mom of one, having a long-distance affair with a married man, G.
G has two kids at home — one in middle school, the other a sophomore in high school. I know. I know.
Backstory: we met over 20 years ago, back in university. We lived four hours apart by bus or train. We had a brief, intense, long-distance relationship, in the days of paper letters with stamps in the mail and $200 long-distance landline bills on student incomes. We had mind-blowingly good sex and called each other soulmates. (In my defense, I was 23, and I'd never loved anyone so much and had it returned before.) Still, three or four months in, he ended our LDR to go back to the tumultuous relationship with his volatile, on-again, off-again girlfriend who lived in the same city; let's call her B. She needed him, he said, and he couldn't take the long distance between us any longer. I was heartbroken. In time, he married B.
About five years later, toward the end of my first common-law marriage, G and I started chatting online, which turned to flirting and "cybersex" (it was the '90s, sorry) and phone sex. Once I was single again (and let's face it, although I managed to keep it a secret, the emotional affair contributed to that breakup), it wasn't long before G and I were having a full-blown affair. Again intense, again long-distance, again just for a few months. I ended the affair when I moved back in with my parents. I then stopped all communication with G after I moved in with my second common-law husband. A couple years into that relationship, I Googled G and learned he'd conceived a son with his wife during the affair. I was horrified at myself, and livid at G for not telling me. I recommitted myself to my marriage, but still I carried a tiny completely irrational torch for G.
Then maybe eight years after we'd last talked, I got a Facebook message from G, out of the blue, wishing me happy new year. He was posted to a war zone. I was pregnant. I responded tersely, cordially, inviting no further contact, and got none besides a note of congratulations. Inside, though, I was a swirl of emotion and curiosity. Some months later, trying to eradicate G from my brain so I could get on with my marriage and impending motherhood, I dumped my entire folder of our paper correspondence, all those old love letters in the recycling bin. (A word of advice to the readers: Don't do this. I regret it so much. I'll never get those handwritten letters back. And it didn't even work.)
I had my kid. Within months, my second common-law marriage, which had been challenging at the best of times, ended. The split was amicable, but I was a mess. After a while, I wrote back to G on Facebook, two years after his original message. He was still married, of course, by his account unhappily, staying for his two beloved children. Friendly banter turned to flirting turned to sexting turned to me on a train visiting him in his city. The sex was as amazing as ever.
That was four years ago. G travels (legit) a lot for work, which has allowed me to see him a few times a year since then for stolen weekends. We text daily. I changed jobs. My work is stressful. Single motherhood is hard. Financially I'm a disaster. I'm overweight. I moved to the same suburb as my ex to facilitate joint custody of our son. I miss my friends and my old neighbourhood. This affair is both one of the worst and one of the best things in my life.
G sleeps alone in a separate room from his wife; he and B tell the kids it's because he snores. He tells me B insists they keep the household together until the kids are launched because her own parents divorced when she was a teen and it was horrible. Even though she won't have sex with him (he says — I can't prove this, of course), she (apparently) refuses to consider an open marriage. (I'd be satisfied with that option for now if it were on offer right now, I really would.)
It's my belief that living honestly would be better for the kids than this charade. Kids aren't stupid. They know when things aren't right between their parents. But I also believe the charade is better for the kids than a nasty, brutish, and drawn-out divorce would be, as his wife would reportedly sue for sole custody if the affair came to light. (She is allegedly jealous, and vindictive.) As a mom myself, I really, truly understand, and share, G's instinct to protect the children. There are even days, when the financial pressure, lack of backup, and occasional sheer drudgery of single parenting are getting me down, or conversely, when I miss my little dude so fiercely because he's with his dad and I'm alone, that I wonder whether divorce was really the right choice for my ex and me (it was).
Still, I tell G to stay under the same roof as his kids for as long as he can, so that he doesn't have to miss them like I do mine. One of my good friends, who divorced a few years ago and whose kids are now the same age as G's, tells me that if he were still married now, he doesn't think he could put his kids through a divorce in their tweens/teens either. All this to say that there are good reasons for G to remain married for now. (And that I'm really good at rationalization.) In any case, the decision is G's to make. I'd never push him to leave before the kids are out of the house, I'd never contact his wife or kids, nothing like that. I make sure I never intrude on his time with his children, nor do we chat while I am engaged with my own kid. And he's careful, so very, very careful.
But one slip-up…one unlocked phone, one email or chat window inadvertently left open, one friend of his wife's seeing us together somewhere…and poof, we're toast.
I've tried breaking it off with G a few times over these four years, Sars, I've really tried — out of guilt, out of terror over this potentially explosive situation, out of exhaustion. Of course being a secret and being "on the side" sucks. I tell myself I deserve better. I date others, with G's blessing — I don't sit around on my free nights just waiting for his texts. But it's not the same. I love him. I believe it's true love, and that's so fucking rare. I loved him 20+ years ago and as hard as I tried to move on — TWO common-law marriages! A kid! — I never got over him. The sex was, and remains, the best I've ever had. He was, and still is, a brilliant writer; words have fueled our passion since we first met, and continue to do so today, which has sustained us through all these long-distance situations. The times when we are together…I'm happy. He's my best friend. I can breathe. I am fully myself with him. He knows and "gets" and accepts me, all of me, as I am. He's good to me, kind, compassionate. I wish I knew how to quit him. (I know, barf.)
We're just two ordinary people, trying our best to snatch a few moments of joy in this vale of tears, you know? He's a lonely, introverted man without a lot of friends he can talk to. I want to believe that I actually am doing him some good by being a friend he can confide in. He says having me in his life is what makes the sexlessness of his marriage tolerable. He's told me that he's a better dad and a more patient partner to his wife because I give him an outlet for his sexual frustration. He claims I'm worth the risk and that I'm the only one he would do this for, that he has never carried on like this with anyone else and never would.
Life is short. I watched my father die of cancer when he was just 62. I had a miscarriage. G went to war and some of his colleagues didn't come back. We're middle-aged and either one of us could get hit by a bus or drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow. We tell ourselves we're seizing the day. Just a few more years, we tell ourselves, and then we can be together. But I've been reading advice columns for over 30 years, and I know the odds of us ending up together, and happy, are slim at best, and that as much as I do believe what he tells me, he could very well be lying about any number of things and I'd never know. (My gut tells me he isn't lying to me but I'm sure that's what every other woman in my situation says too. He lies to his wife and kids. And he lied by omission to me all those years ago, not telling me about his son.)
So…I'm looking for your take on my situation, Sars, and that of your readers, beyond the facile "If he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you." Assuming G is being truthful with me (big assumption, I know), is he a horrible human being? Am I? Has anyone been in my shoes? Or his? Or his kids'? (As a kid, would you have preferred your parents end their sham marriage earlier? Or were stability and an intact childhood home better, regardless of their unhappiness? Did their waiting to break up until you'd left home actually hurt you more, somehow?) Have you been in his wife's shoes? (If you are, where you're completely uninterested in sex but also insistent on fidelity and on staying "married" until the kids leave the nest, please explain to me why discovering his infidelity would automatically mean a messy divorce? What's wrong with a civil, totally discreet open marriage if you have no interest in meeting his needs yourself?) What would you do if you were me? Is there any hope at all that this can end well, one day, or am I just fooling myself? Am I doomed to be Ellen Olenska, or Anna Karenina, or [insert literary mistress-turned-second-wife who is reviled by his children]?
Lay it on me, Tomato Nation. I need your brutal honesty and I need your insights.
Ruby Tuesday
Dear Ruby,
There's a lot of rationalizing and self-justifying here that I won't bother hammering on you for; the sheer volume makes the point for me, I'd say, and I think you know that it's mostly horseshit, on his side and yours. And that point isn't even the point, which is: he's never chosen you. Not one time. Not. One. Time. He's let you choose him; he's split the difference on his marriage vows for you, which he's happy to cast as a sacrifice and which you're happy to see as one but which is really the opposite of that, since he doesn't have to give anything up or make a hard choice; he hasn't chosen you. And he won't. Yeah yeah, "once his kids" etc. etc. it's not happening.
And part of you, maybe most of you, likes it that way. Part of you doesn't want him around full-time, all yours, 24/7, or enjoys the overheated drama of sneaking around and us against the world blah blah, or likes the power, or wants for whatever cobwebby-corner-of-the-subconscious reason to come in second and feel rejected and alone. Maybe it's a combination. It doesn't really matter.
I won't jump up your ass for contributing to the breakup of his marriage, because I don't believe in blaming the third party for a married person's failure to hold up his or her end. (With the understanding that the readers tend to disagree rather strenuously with me on that point.) I won't tell you it's baaaaad and you have to staaahhhhhp, either; I guess it is, you probably should, you know that, you haven't, what else can I really say there. I can't speak to the teens-with-divorcing-parents question, but while I have literally never heard a friend with divorced parents say they wished their parents had stayed together longer, it's not your place to advocate anything to do with his kids whether or not it aligns with your self-interest.
But I will say this: maybe he would do it to you if he did it for you — but 1) he's doing "it" for himself, first and foremost, always; and 2) you'll never find out in the second place. He's not going to leave B, not if it presents even a hint of difficulty or privation for him personally, which it always will. He's not going to pick you, and here's how you can tell: he hasn't.
The Age Of Innocence is very tempting to turn to for wisdom and comfort in times of love thwarted, but the message isn't just how sad it is that Archer and Ellen loved each other, truly, purely, but society crushed their joined heart beneath its form-obsessed kid heel. It's that love simply isn't enough sometimes. It can't conquer all. It hasn't conquered this mess, and it's had two decades to try.
You have the answers to all your questions. You don't like most of them, but that doesn't change them, or the situation.