Read Part 1 Here. Trigger warning: sexual assault.
When I dropped off the letter that unknowingly started my affair, I genuinely believed this was a one and done action that would help me get over this stupid crush I had had on this man for years. I thought it would help me acknowledge how stupid my feelings were and shame me into not feeling them anymore. Now I look back at that moment and laugh at myself. Idiot.
After actually dropping it off, it was pretty anticlimactic for a while. Since it was anonymous, I knew he wouldn’t be reaching out to say anything. We are both Jewish and Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, was a few days later. I used this as an excuse to reach out and say Happy New Year like usual.
I was so afraid to ruin our friendship and professional relationship, I had to do something to test the waters and make sure if he DID think it was me, that he would still acknowledge me. Which he did, the same way he always did. Just as polite and friendly as ever. I thought “Ok, good. If he does know it’s me, he doesn’t hate me. If he doesn’t, even better.” But my mind was racing. Does he suspect me? How did reading it make him feel? I knew he had gone out of town that previous weekend because he had told me — did he think about the letter while he was gone? What did he do with it? Another indication I didn’t realize at the time meant I was already way too invested for my own good. This was in September of 2022.
Two weeks later, he followed me on Instagram. I knew immediately that meant he had figured it out somehow, and my heart pounded seeing the notification that Saturday morning while I sipped my coffee. At the time, I was pretty heavily using Instagram, but had started to trail off as my marriage struggled. I didn’t like giving the outside world any insight into my failing relationship. I did, however, post stories regularly, and seeing that he had watched them was a rush.
One day, I posted a mirror pic on my story before I went to the gym in a cute matching set. My abs were on display, and I did it because I knew he would see it and I wanted the little rush of pleasure that gave me. That was the day it switched from him watching my stories to him interacting instead. And the conversation began.
I’m not sure why, but I was very up front with him after that. After being shy about sexuality my whole life, I was suddenly emboldened in this situation. I was so unbelievably attracted to this man, infinitely more than I ever had been to anyone in my life previously. I told him that in the letter, “I’ve never been more physically attracted to another person.” Him following me and now interacting with my content a few weeks later felt like “game on”. The checkered flag was down, and I was ready for the race.
He worked out, too; we talked about it occasionally. So I knew what had to lay beneath those nice button up shirts he wore every day. Now that he had initiated the non-anonymous contact, I was mentally all in. I had to know what it would be like to be near him in a new way. The desire I felt even then was unlike anything I had felt before.
That day before I dropped the letter off when I went to his office, we hugged goodbye and that was the first time we ever touched other than shaking hands. I already felt the pull even in that brief moment (and later found out he did, too). I needed more, and I was up front with telling him I wanted to experience the physical side of him.
Sex has never been something that was that great for me. I had an incredibly toxic first relationship at 15 and my boyfriend at the time physically forced me to do all of my first experiences except sex. This completely ruined all types of oral sex for me. I never let anyone do it to me, and I hardly ever did it for others because I just did not enjoy it. That boyfriend did end up trying to rape me eventually, but I kneed him in the balls and ran away. I think I got lucky that day.
Before our fucked up relationship ended, he managed to completely ruin my thought process about sex. He would always tell me “if you love me, you’ll do it. If you love me, this is how you show me.” Over and over he said those words and engrained them in my head while I would cry. They stuck in my head for many years. Sex became about trying to earn love from the men in my life. It wasn’t something for pleasure, it wasn’t something I did for fun. I could enjoy it sometimes, but I did not ever crave it for pleasure. Only as a way to feel loved or closer to someone. It was a chore to feel worthy of love. And looking back now, I realize it made me feel more insecure.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see this pattern in myself until I was married and realized I didn’t have to have sex to be loved. And by the end of my marriage, it was something I absolutely loathed. I hated when my husband touched me in any way because I worried it would lead to that and I couldn’t stand it anymore. He had emotionally neglected me for so many years, I couldn’t hardly handle him touching me at all.
I had never felt desire before my affair partner. I read about it because I love spicy books, but every time I’d read it I would think how completely unrealistic it was. I had had what I considered “great sex”, but still was not that enthused about it. No one has sex like the books in real life, I thought, it’s just something people wish was that way.
BOY oh boy I am so glad I was wrong about that.
I had also never had an orgasm with a partner. Ever. Not once in my thirty-some years. Looking back now I believe it was because I was never properly turned on or relaxed. That all changed when my affair relationship became physical, which took a few months.
Initially, we talked a lot about our marriages. Mostly mine, because I was about to leave and was really struggling with that. It’s hard to walk away from a marriage even when you know it isn’t serving you anymore. His marriage was extremely similar to mine, but from the opposite end. His wife neglected him in similar ways. He didn’t ever feel desired or important. We bonded over that, both validating each other’s needs weren’t unrealistic. We listened to each other and just talked for hours. It was so easy to talk to him. What I initially intended to just be physical, hopefully just a one time thing to get it out of my system, became a very deep emotional connection.
We started talking pretty much whenever we could. All through Instagram messages at first, but eventually, when it got more serious, through an app called Telegram. It was password protected, so we didn’t have to delete our messages every day.
Sometimes we’d talk on the phone. I remember the first time he asked if he could call me, he was so shy and hesitant when I answered. We used to talk daily for work, but now this was a different side of both of us, and I found his shyness even more endearing.
He said he was afraid this was all a joke and that I was going to ruin his life for the few things he had said so far about his attraction to me. I assured him no, I am genuinely into you and have been for years. I won’t ruin your life. Though looking back, sometimes I feel like maybe I did, just not the way he expected me to then.
Three months in, the sexual chemistry was off the charts. He didn’t want to have sex because the place we had been meeting up was an old empty office in his building and he wanted it to be more special than that. I think it was also because he was afraid to cross that line since it felt more “official” of having an affair.
We started slowly. Just sitting and holding hands while we talked. Eventually we kissed, which turned into some serious dry humping where I actually almost had my first partnered orgasm. But we were in my car in a Lowe’s parking lot, so I couldn’t exactly relax. It was very spicy, though.
As things progressed, the build up got way more intense. Everything felt like foreplay. He also knew I did not enjoy oral sex, but asked if I would let him try because he wanted so badly to please me. He assured me if I didn’t like it or felt the least bit uncomfortable, he would stop immediately. He also checked in regularly as he began to make sure. It was very sweet and I was so appreciative. Everyone else I had ever explained I didn’t like that before just kind of said “ok” and wrote it off. No one had really tried to ask if they could help me experience it in a better way if and when I was ready.
Something that I spent my entire adult life hating and never being able to enjoy became the absolute best feeling I had ever felt. It was like the sun finally came out after years of hiding behind the clouds and it was suddenly blindingly bright and warm, embracing me like a long lost friend. My first orgasm with a partner came from something I never even let my own husband do because I had hated it so much. And then my second came from returning the favor to him and enjoying doing it so much it happened again. From then on, obviously, I was hooked.
I felt so safe and comfortable with this man and I could never quite put my finger on why. Maybe it was his demeanor, his voice, the way I had seen him work for years and just knew him. It was all of it, I’m sure. But after it started, it was so hard to stop. For both of us.
We started seeing each other more, but feeling worse about it. He began having issues getting and staying hard with his wife, which was cause for crisis in his mind. I was still occasionally sleeping with my husband when I had to. He was still regularly sleeping with his wife because their marriage was “fine” at the time.
The issues in his marriage had started to come to light, but it was nothing too bad at that point. He thought that hooking up with me, the guilt, was causing his ‘issue’. He just could not stay hard when they had sex. Obviously she took it to mean either he was not attracted to her anymore, or that there was something physically wrong with him. We knew it wasn’t a physical issue because he couldn’t NOT be hard around me. Just standing near me was enough. Which, admittedly, became one of my favorite things because it was so flattering. But I could tell it was stressing him out, so we agreed to try to stop.
We set up one last rendezvous in February and the anticipation leading up to it kind of killed it for both of us. It felt so sad. I had realized by this point that I was in love with him. I had already found an apartment and was scheduled to move out of my house to start my separation with my husband. He was still very much acting like normal in his everyday life. He had no intention of leaving his wife. And he told me that all along.
Our no contact after that “last time” lasted 3 weeks. 21 whole days of no talking, after talking every day for many hours. It felt impossible. We never mastered staying away from each other very well. As of today, that’s the longest we’ve ever gone without speaking. But I think we’ll surpass it soon.
We would talk a little, then agree to not talk. One of us would break the silence, we’d hook up (without having sex), then talk a little and realize we needed to stop again. On and off like that, talking sometimes, eventually hooking up, trying not to talk again. For another year. During that year, we did have sex on 3 more occasions. I found out later that he had never been able to or really want to go multiple rounds in his life, which made it feel even more flattering.
The beginning of the end deserves its own story as I want to do it justice, but the current situation is we’re back in no contact, supposedly for good this time. Or, at least unless he leaves his wife. He almost did recently, but backed out, which is why we’re not speaking. The pain it caused me was unbearable, and I’m still currently trying to work through it.
As of today, it’s been 17 days since we last spoke, 23 days since we saw each other. Both of those lasts were shit, but I guess they have to be when you’re trying to end an affair, right?
