My Affair Turned Marriage
Fifteen years ago, I had an affair.
I was married to my ex-partner (and ex-wife) of six years. It hadn’t been a perfect marriage by any means. But it hadn’t been all bad, either. It was actually pretty good at the start. But over time, it went from pretty good to pretty bad. Increasingly, there were more and more emotional ups and downs. We started to fight a lot and the fun that we did have always seemed fleeting. It wasn’t all her fault and it wasn’t all mine.
But making the choice to have an affair … that was mine.
As the child of divorce, and the son of a philandering dad, you might say that infidelity was perhaps baked into my identity. I would never have thought so. I always considered myself the kind of person who would never have an affair.
It began as a lengthy emotional friendship that I wasn’t even aware of being an affair. Until one pivotal weekend when I learned that my secret attraction towards my friend was not one-sided. She felt the same way but had never wanted to voice it. That weekend, the emotional became physical for the both of us. A week later, I left my wife to be with my affair partner.
Technically, I cheated. I will admit that. I turned away from my wife of six years, and I hurt her because of that choice.
But that doesn’t mean I define myself as a cheater. To this day, I reject the motto of “once a cheater, always a cheater”. It’s reductionist and judgemental. And it conveniently ignores the idea that a person can do a harmful thing while also learning from their mistake so as to grow and become a better person for it.
You see, I had an affair, it’s true. But I married my affair partner.
Fifteen years later, we are still a couple. We have two kids who are the real deal. We love and respect one another. We both have active careers that keep us involved in our lives and in our communities. I don’t mean to say we’re rockstars. For all intents and purposes, we’re an ordinary couple. The addictive power of limerence and the sheen of the honeymoon phase have long ago worn off.
But we are still together.
So, I know… from almost every article and book on infidelity and affairs (including numerous articles on this site), this should not be. Certainly, it runs counter to much of what I’ve ever read. If the conventional wisdom is gospel, then my partner and I should have broken up long ago. One or both of us should have found the allure of another affair partner and blown things up. Our kids should have been caught in a messy divorce. And our affair, and the feelings that brought us together to begin with, should just be a fling in the past, right?
Wrong.
My partner really is my best friend. I deeply respect her and can still recall with crystal clarity how I felt when I told her that I loved her… and she said the same thing to me. To borrow a line from a favourite movie, she “is the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.”
Mind you, it’s not been all sunshine and roses. We’ve had some doozy fights over the years. And we both have our own mental and emotional struggles that have created challenges in our marriage. Whoever said that relationships get better after the honeymoon phase ends wasn’t lying… but they weren’t telling the whole truth, either.
The post-honeymoon phase of our marriage, one that came from an affair, has been a unique and challenging journey. But, since my first marriage ended, I’ve never cheated on my partner. And I’ve never had the inclination to. My partner and wife – who at one time was the so-called “other woman” – is my “one”.
How is this possible? I’m still figuring that out. I mean, I still wrestle with issues around myself and relationships. But they have less to do with the affair and more to do with the fact that I’m a fucked up person, sometimes. I’ve done a lot of work on Attachment Styles and my understanding that many of my relationship issues are rooted from a place of Anxious-Preoccupation. I’ve also read (and reread) a lot of relationship books and taken to heart the steps involved in making one work.
But, perhaps, the biggest factor has to do with a choice I made after splitting from my ex-wife. I made a conscious effort to learn from the betrayal that I caused her. My understanding that, although I am a happier and more secure partner now, I was not always this way. And when I wasn’t, I hurt someone with whom I made a vow.
Afterwards, I made another vow. To my current partner and, more importantly, to myself. I would work harder on my shit. I would dig deep inside to actually confront the underlying reasons that I strayed from my first marriage so that I wouldn’t do the same in my second. It’s been a painful and provocative journey but also a self-empowering one.
So, before you go believing “once a cheater always a cheater” or that infidelity means you can’t find lasting love with your affair partner, understand that it IS possible. You have to put some real work into it, and there are no shortcuts.
But if you do, you and your partner can grow and be the stronger for it.
