Me?  I’m at 3 years now.  Three years since D-Day when the shit-storm blew over my house.  I’m happy to report that the storm has passed.  My family is in tact.  My wife and kids still love me.   Most remarkable is the fact that I now go for days at a time without thinking about “it.”   Sure, I still field a few comments on this blog, and communicate via e-mail with a couple of subscribers.  But it’s only to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.   The truth is, my desire to be part of this post-affair world has waned, as it will with you in the future.   The only thing I haven’t been able to do is decide which person I will become…for the rest of my life.

Will I take up golf?   Stamp collecting?  How ’bout volunteer work at the local boys shelter?  God knows, there are plenty of folks in need, and I’ve done little in my lifetime to “give back.”

Who can  I be that will make me happy, that will give my life purpose after everything that’s happened?   Who do I know that’s survived an affair and can point me in the right direction?   My wife seems to think the answer is Jesus.   (Of course, she has thought that for the past twenty years.)   I recently learned that my ex-lover is now a cross-bearing warrior for God.   No shit!   She posts bible verses on her Facebook page, and writes profound things like, “My husband is awesome!”   Really, sister?   Really, really, really?   Well, praaaaaiiiiise Jesus!!!   Halle-fucking-lujah!!!   Is this the sum of your life experience?   Is religion the logical next step, seeing as how you’re surrounded by religious fruitcakes?   Will your husband love you more?  Will his family now accept you?   Goddamn, girl!   What a brilliant idea!

But then, we must all become something after an affair.    May as well be a persona that wipes away sin.

As for me, I’m thinking about doing something radical, like people my age (upper 40s) tend to do.  No, it won’t be skydiving.  I’m too chickenshit for that.   But I would be willing to try mountain-climbing or scuba-diving.   Yeah!   Something outdoorsy.  Something that takes me far from the dimly-lit mind of my former self.

Three years ago this weekend.

Memorial Day Weekend 2007.  Sunday.  Approximately 10 a.m. That’s when I did it.   When I “sealed the deal.”  It’s when I slept with a woman other than my wife, a day that would change my life forever.

I promise to spare you the details of that morning.  They would not serve any meaningful purpose.  What I will say is this:  It felt “right.”  Wrong, but right for a variety of reasons.  Sure, I was breaking my marriage vows, but I did so with my eyes wide open.  Adulterers often say they acted without thinking, that one thing led to another.  But not me.  I knew what I was doing.  I had no illusions about what would happen when I drove to her apartment that morning.   I had contained my desire for several months, but now it was “go time.”  Cross the line-time.

I felt safe.  I had known her for years, and our conversations leading up to this moment reinforced that trust.  Both of us were married, meaning she had as much to lose from a botched-affair as I did.  Logically, there would be no reason for this long-time friend, coworker and soon-to-be lover to squeal.  Why would anyone do that?  It didn’t make sense.  You don’t fuck someone, then tell your spouse.  So I dismissed the idea.  Purged it from my mind.   I’m a common sense man, and based on my logic, the secret we were about to create was a sure thing. Las Vegas, here I come!

It was wonderful.  Better than I thought it would be.  Sweeter than I ever dreamed it could be.  She was beautiful.  Electric-blue eyes.  A perfect biochemical match.  It was then I knew I was going to hell.   No one –I repeat—NO ONE can experience this without losing his soul.

Damn, I’m a smart guy.

It didn’t happen on that weekend or the next.  The cat stayed in the bag long through Labor Day.  But by early October, Halloween month, the devil came to collect his due.

I don’t remember much after that.  Life after D-Day was mostly a blur.  Screaming, shouting, threats of divorce.  Ya know, all that nasty post-affair stuff.   I’m still married, thank you.  Hanging in there.  A little worse for the wear, but I still have my shirt.  And suddenly I forget where I was going with this blog-post.  I’m not sure I knew when I started writing it.

Oh yeah, I remember.  Memorial Day Weekend.  Be safe out there.  Don’t drink and drive.

First, the article –as you will read– starts off with slight apology from the author.  It’s clear he has written plenty on the subject of affairs before, and doesn’t want people to think he “can’t let it go.”  I know how he feels.  It’s the main reason I’ve stopped writing on my blog.   Affair blogs have a time-limit, and I’m waaaaay past mine.  Plus, writing about it no longer helps me.  It takes me back to the place I’m trying to forget.

Next, I believe that the writer succeeds in capturing how we broken-hearts feel in the aftermath of an affair.  My old blog-friend Nituru, who doesn’t blog (at least publicly) about his ex-lover’s affair anymore, once wrote a post about the difficulty of conveying the “sheer complexities” of this subject in words.   I soon learned that Nituru was right.  No matter how prolific a writer one may be, words just don’t do it justice.   However, this guy,  the blogger whose link I’ll provide, has succeeded where everyone else –including me– has failed.

Finally, I hope he’s wrong.   God, I hope he’s wrong about how long these feelings continue.  While I’m doing much better these days (it’ll be three years in October),  I’m also aware that my life has been permanently impacted by my affair.  My pain has subsided, but that  “nagging” feeling is still there.   Short of having a lobotomy, I don’t see myself ever forgetting this.

So I ask myself, how long does it take to get over an affair?

You tell me.

But I feel good.  Two-and-a-half years later, I feel almost…normal.

Yes, my marriage is still a little bumpy.  My “misdeeds” are still etched in my wife’s mind.  (And mine.)  It will always be there.  Of this, I’m convinced.  I’m a man with a “history,” and history doesn’t change.

But I have to say, as a person who thought his life was doomed just a short time ago,  I feel good.  I look forward to each new day.  I like who I am, and what I’ve become.  And what is that?   A married man (or as some would say, an “MM”) who has learned his lesson about affairs.

Sure, they’re sweet, at least when they’re taking place, and you’re dick-deep in another man’s poontang.  But what cheaters don’t can’t realize at the time of their affair is that it will end, and it will end badly.  All affairs do.  That’s just how it is.  I’ve read too many comments on this blog to think differently.   Why do they end badly?  I wish I knew.  The fact is, lovers become haters, and something that once felt so right becomes the worst goddamned mistake of your life.

Show me an affair that ends well, and I’ll show you my eighteen-inch cock.   (Can’t do it.)

But here’s what I know as a man who’s been to hell and back in the last two-and-a-half years:  No matter how bad you feel, no matter how heartbroken you think you are, the feeling won’t last.  You will move on.  The memory of what happened will begin to fade, and you’ll start to look at your ex-lover differently.  You will even ask yourself, “What was I thinking?”   You’ll believe what others say, that affairs are wrong.

And to think, just two-and-half years ago, I thought my ex-lover belonged to me.  Crazy, huh?

This may be you.  You may be hurting.  You may be falling apart right now.  How the FUCK will you live without you-know-who?   Trust me, you will.  I’m proof of that.  Soon, you’ll return to your old life.  Remember that?  For better or for worse.  Sex when you can get it.  Lots of TV and fattening food.  Trim your pubic hairs?  Screw that shit!  Your pubes will be down to your knees in a few months. 

But it’s all good.  Trust me, you’ll like it.  Smoke lots of pot.   It’ll be okay.

And to think, you thought your life was over.

Happy New Year!



Most days, I am only partially successful.

Has it really been three years?

That’s the thought that has dogged me most this holiday season.   I wasn’t sleeping with her three years ago, but I was well on my way.  A line had been crossed.  It was around this time in December of ’06 we were emailing, texting and…ahem…kissing.  The thing I most remember was the feeling of being alive, as though someone had injected me with rocket fuel.   I can only chuckle when I think about it now.  I went from dead to alive.  Now I’m dead again.  The devil is laughing at me from his throne in hell.

The stretch.

Another absolutely forbidden thought.  I’m not even sure how to describe this one.  One night, while hanging out at OW’s apartment, she began to demonstrate her stretching abilities.  It was a cross between yoga and ballet…or something.  The girl could stretch, and damn she looked good!  I also remember what I was thinking that night.  That I was in serious motherfucking trouble.  I was mesmerized by the awesomeness of her beauty.  She was an angel, and the devil had my balls in his grip. Yes, I try not to think about “the stretch.”

Parks and Rec.

As cheesy as it sounds, OW and I were regular kamikazes when it came to hanging out in parks.  Before she got an apartment, and even after she gave it up, there were one or two parks in the city where we would meet.   It’s funny, just three weeks ago, I interviewed a man in the parking lot of one of those same parks.  Talk about a bizarre feeling.  There I was, pretending to be interested in what the guy had to say, when I was really focused on the bench over his right shoulder.  “Yes, I’ve sat in that bench,” my mind said.  “Now, purge the memory from your head,” it continued.   I did, until the moment of writing this.

Grape Nuts and yogurt.

This may be the dumbest of all my past thoughts, but for some reason, the memory sticks in my head.   It’s simple:  I was seated at her kitchen table, and she spoon-fed me yogurt sprinkled with Grape Nuts.  That’s it.  Nothing more to tell.  But it was sweet.  She was sweet then.  (Told you this whole thing was dumb.)

Peggy Lee.

Here’s another crazy thought that occasionally emerges. OW was an avid Peggy Lee fan.  She even had a vinyl record of Lee in her apartment.  She could lip-sync every single tune!   I believed the song “Is That All There Is?” embodied OW’s view on life.  In fact, it fit perfectly with what we were doing.   At times, I wish I had never heard it.

~~~

But that’s enough.  You get the point.  We all have our forbidden thoughts.  Again, the key is to never think those thoughts.  Such thoughts do nothing but hold us back.

For the record, it wasn’t sex I wanted.  I’ve now come to realize this.  What I enjoyed the most –what OW gave me– was the feeling of being utterly alive.  That simple, daily  acknowledgment from someone you care about.  That’s what I miss.  And that’s what stops in so many marriages, including mine.

But society has corrected me.  It corrects all of us sooner or later.  We no longer dare to think certain thoughts, because we have so much to look forward to.

Right?

Don’t think.  Just do as your told.

She was right.  Reaching my hand into a sink full of women’s undergarments that had been left to soak did not seem sanitary.   However, if my daughter’s teeth were to going to get brushed, the sink would have to be drained and the soaking panties wrung out.

“It’s okay, dear,” I said to my daughter.  “I’ve had my hands in a lot worse.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes-really,” I said.  “You’d be surprised where my hands have been,” referring to the multitude of smelly projects I’ve undertaken as a homeowner.

“No, dad,” she said with a childish snicker.  “We all know where your hands have been.”

True story.

Oh, what an effing train-wreck that would be!

It’s not that my bosses would be overly-surprised that one of their employees “did the nasty” with a co-worker.  TV people are an incorrigible bunch.   The industry is rife with stories of reporters who got caught banging each other’s brains out.   You just don’t want to be one of those stories.  Not if you’re me, anyway.

Who am I?   I’m the guy who, just two days ago, served up another ratings-victory on a silver platter.  And I’m the guy who’ll do it again next week, and the week after that, and the following week.  I’m what our morning anchorman jokingly refers to as “ratings gold.”  I do television stories that hit nerves.  My viewership knows it, and my bosses love it.

I’d hate to shatter their illusion of me.

You see, here’s the difference between you and I.  (Not that we’re really any different.)  If you get pulled over for drinking and driving, your name will appear in the police blotter section of your local newspaper…in the tiniest of print.  But if I get popped for DUI, that, my friends, is front-page material.  For added measure, I’m sure the bastard print reporters would include a Nick Nolte-style booking photo of me.

I’m not saying a workplace affair is “reportable” information, not unless a person is charged.  But in my business, public image is everything.  One stupid PR move and you’re screwed.

It’s possible even a guy like me could have survived a workplace affair if it had happened under normal circumstances.  But mine wasn’t normal.  She wasn’t normal.  Not to them.  Not to the bosses who sign our paychecks.   They fired her, but instead of leaving quietly, she went out kicking and screaming.  She hired a lawyer.  Threw scare-tactics their way.  I would have been guilty by mere association.   It’s why I laid low.  Didn’t stand up for her.  Didn’t explain to them that she had a medical problem, and deserved another chance.  As angry as I’ve been with her these last two years (and for good reason), it’s the one thing I regret not doing.

She was excellent on the air.  A natural talent.   But a sheep among hungry wolves.  She couldn’t keep up the front of competence.  The bullshit act that reporters put on.  She was too honest.  Too sincere for all that.  And it’s why I fell so hard for her.   But toward the end, when she needed my “vote,” I stayed the hell away.  Far away.  For that, I will always be sorry.

But enough about that.  What’s done is done.  I’m still here, and I’m still having to act.  Keep a straight face.  Look important.  And keep my eyes the hell off our morning anchorwoman’s perfect ass.   I fooled them the first time.   Only a fool tries for seconds.

(Oh please oh please oh God no!)

I kept my cool.  Kept washing dishes.  Stared straight ahead.  Pretended not to notice.  But my breath was heavy.  My wife heard me gasping.  She looked at me with her patented evil grimace and said, “Everything okay?   Dear?”

I pretended that I didn’t hear her.  That I was deep inside a dishwashing daydream.  You know what I mean.  The mundane shit you think about when slaving over the kitchen sink.

“I asked you if everything’s okay.”

This time, I answered her.

“Oh.  Sorry.  I was just thinking about all the things I have to do at work tomorrow.”

“I see,” she said.  “I thought heard you sigh when I picked up my phone.  That’s all.”

(Why the fuck would I do that, my beautiful bride?)

It turns out, the text message on my wife’s phone was from our daughter.  Our driving-age teenage daughter.  Seems an unauthorized trip to Wal-Mart was in the works.  Hence, the reason for that ghastly look on my wife’s face.

Here’s where you ask what’s so frightening about that.   A text message…oooooh!   That’s scary shit!   My answer to you is, PTSD.   Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from a man who cheated on his wife.

Two whole goddamned years ago!

Yes, dear readers, this is my life.  My new life of fear and paranoia.   Little things, innocent things, innocuous things freak me the fuck out because I’ve been beaten down.

The phone rings.  WHO IS IT?   A new email.  FROM WHO?   My wife leaves the house.  WHERE IS SHE?  AM I IN TROUBLE?

Go ahead.  Laugh.  Or recommend therapy.  Oh wait, I’ve been there.  Done that shit.  The problem is, no matter what I do, or which self-help books I read, I can’t the feeling that “she” is going to call my wife.   Or that my wife will call “her” and my nightmare will start all over again.

“She,” of course, is my ex-lover, who I haven’t heard from in more than a year.  (Next year, it will be two years, and the year after that, three.)   You ask, why would she call?  Why would she do that?   What on earth would that accomplish?   Surely you don’t believe that would ever happen.

No, I don’t.   It’s crazy to even think it.  And it’s embarrassing to even bring this up.  But such is the life of a formerly cheating man.   A man who was caught and is still being punished.

Gotta go.   My wife’s phone is ringing.   And the ghost of my ex-lover is laughing at me.

Happy Halloween, y’all.

A moment of silence, please.

Beautiful woman,
come out and play,
reveal your inner treasures.

The sparkle in your eyes,
the natural swing in your walk,
you radiate excitement and enthusiasm.

You need no latest fashion,
No expensive hair cuts,
No blinding big accessories.

You glow in your passions,
passionate in your pursuits,
you know what you are made of.

You are not easily bothered,
by the mindless opinions of others,
you know very well where you want to go.

you are a joy to watch,
an inspiration to others,
your pure soul an endless marvel.

Beautiful woman,
let your brilliance shine through,
your eyes speak of true inner beauty.

(Poem not written by me.)

Keep focused.   Look forward.

I’ll tell you what else I did.   Earlier in the day, I surprised my wife at her workplace with a hummus plate from the local middle eastern restaurant.     I scored about a thousand points for that one!

Make deposits.  Rectify wrongs.

Tonight, I’m taking my wife downtown for dinner, and coffee afterwards.   Tomorrow night, we have tickets to a show at our local performing arts venue.   Both nights, I plan to end the evening’s festivities with some “performing arts” of my own.  On my wife.  There are only two tickets to this show, and they’re both taken.

Have sex with your spouse as often as you can.

In my free time, I’ve been thinking more and more about my next career, which may come sooner than later.  It’s not that I’m worried about losing my job.   (My bosses worship me.)   It’s that I don’t think I can keep doing what I do for much longer.   TV news eats away at you, piece by piece, year after year.   It desensitizes you.  Makes you cold.  Makes you a pit bull before you know it.   Reporters must be tough, or they won’t last.   Only the strong survive in my business.   And I’m running out of strength.

Plan your future.  Don’t live in an affair-vacuum.

Do something big.  Do something grand.  Make every minute of your life count.   Take your life back.   Stop being a prisoner.  Advance yourself.   Do it now!   Otherwise, you may as well kill yourself.   Spare yourself from any further suffering.   What’s the point of living if you’re not really living?   Snap out of this funk at get moving!

Control your thoughts.   I said, control your thoughts.

Take up a new hobby.  Something.  Anything.  Go buy a book.  Have you read a book lately?   Go for a walk.  If it’s raining, take your umbrella.  Work the fat off your ass.  And hips.  And stomach.   And stop eating so much junk!   Start keeping a list of things you need to do.   Stop trying to commit those things to memory, because it never works out.   Develop an agenda.  Stick to your goals.  Exceed your goals.   Impress those around you.   Become the spouse you should have been a long time ago.   Productive, fun and sexy.  So sexy!    Remember, if you lose your sex, you’ve lost your youth.   This battle must be fought to the bitter end.   Don’t look old.  Don’t become old.

Reinvent yourself.   You’re not dead yet.

Let’s get started.