What Happened When My Therapist Told Me To Have An Affair

None of my relationships had worked out. So she said it was time to be with someone I didn’t even like.

Photo by PHUOC LE on Unsplash

Six years ago, when my life was falling apart, I never would have imagined this is how it would turn out. But my therapist Laura did. “People who have affairs often wind up without their spouse or the person they had the affair with,” she said. Who needs a psychic when you have a therapist who can see your future, however disastrous?

She told me that after people have blown up their lives like I blew up mine — when the affair ends and the marriage falls apart — they look around at what remains of their upended lives and don’t even know why they did what they did. At which point, they find themselves alone, without their spouse who has by then found someone else. It’s as if after all of the drama, they finally wake up as if from a terrible dream, look around at the wreckage, and say, “What happened to my life? What was that all about? What happened to the person I loved with all my heart?”

“I’m all alone,” I said, filled with self-pity, to Laura one day in therapy.

“Yes,” she answered. “You’re so lucky. Now you get the chance to fall in love with yourself.”