Chronicles of a Cheat

I'm going to post something extremely personal today.  I was reading over this blog I posted on another site, one I began writing ten years ago in 2003 and was surprised to walk myself emotionally through the situation once again.  The Epilogue was written in 2010 when she resurfaced in a very real way in my life.

Don't judge me, I'm human.  I can't say that today I even agree with everything in these posts, but I can see an emotional journey that's rarely examined in depth.  So if I can help someone, or just entertain - then I'm good.

Chronicles of a Cheat - A Unique Perspective; and
Chronicles of a Cheat - The Epilogue

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Chronicles of a Cheat - a Unique Perspective

Posted 10/17/08

I had seen her before. I would pass by her office, and see her bent over her desk intently doing the job our mutual employer required of her. The first thing I noticed was her wedding ring, which limited our interaction in my mind to blithe greetings-in-passing. I didn't allow myself to notice how beautiful she was. How her large forehead and high cheekbones made her look distinctly Ethiopian. How her almond eyes were accentuated by the long twists she wore in a ponytail. I especially didn't notice her interest in me, the new guy.

A few weeks into the job I was invited to have drinks with some co-workers. Although my first inclination was to refuse, I recognized this as an attempt by my colleagues to reach across the professional divide and get to know me. Ever mindful of office political etiquette, I accepted.

And she was there. We ended up next to each other in a booth with our work-friends, and after a few drinks I was feeding her nachos and sensing the beginning of a serious connection forming. She was the life of the party, the person who made everyone laugh. She told the jokes, the stories, she ordered up the rounds. I watched in awe as the single women yearned to be her: married, happy, successful, AND the focus of all the male attention.

I invited her to lunch a week later, which began a regimen of outings that soon reached far beyond work hours, and well into the night. Before it was over we would have gotten together weekends and even in her home. We talked about everything imaginable, but mostly her husband. He traveled a lot, was gone for maybe a week at a time. He was in the Information Technology business, and his employer had national clients to whom he was frequently called to service. The emotional distance she felt and his lack of passion and understanding were fuel for the desire that was welling up in her. Actually I don't think it WAS desire at first. I was simply a willing sounding board for her to talk through her problems at home, and sort out her mental health. It was never her intention to wander from the sanctity of her marriage. But emotional affairs are often the beginnings of infidelity.

We sat in my truck one evening as I dropped her back off to her vehicle and that's when it happened. The kiss. You know how in a kiss if a connection exists, the evidence thereof is palatable? Conversely, if platonic friendship is all that is in the cards, no sparks whatsoever. Its when that thing in your stomach starts happening and you get lightheaded [and I don't mean from being horny] and you have clarity of thought, and your life somehow seems complete THAT'S when you know there's something more beneath the surface of the relationship. That night I felt the latter. That's the night I fell in love with a married woman.

She was my girl. She told me so. She told me she loved me. I believed her. I did the things that boyfriends do: I bought her stuff, I took her places, I listened to her. I ate with her, slept with her, I gave her unconditional love and support. Somewhere, though, deep inside I knew she'd never leave him. I knew I could never have her as my very own.

The messages were conflicting, and if I were on the outside looking in I'd advise myself to stop investing emotionally into a relationship that will never be what you need it to be. But I wasn't on the outside looking in. I was hopelessly, inexorably on the inside.

When we made love it was like none I had ever experienced before. She could speak my name, say she loved me and I was like butter. I was totally and completely wrapped around her finger. I rationalized that having this partial relationship was better to me than all of the emotionally unfulfilling pseudo-relationships that I called myself having in the past. And so I let it go on, and on, and on.

But I couldn't tell anyone. My best friend didn't know. My colleagues at work may have suspected something was going on because the two of us were so close, but they didn't know. Her husband didn't know. Nobody knew. It was our secret. Actually, there was one person who kind of knew. Our favorite bartender, Connie, saw us on the regular. She knew us by name [or pseudonym]. But she wasn't telling. And that was cool.

The more time I spent with "my girl" the more deeply my emotional attachment to her grew. Its sad to say, but I was faithful to her even as she continued to sleep with her husband on occasion. I wasn't the Maintenance Man, as Michael Baisden so eloquently described in his book of the same title. I was in love. And no experience prior or present could prepare me for the situation I found myself in. I have new found understanding of women who make excuses for men who are married. The human mind has the extraordinary capacity to hold onto that which it loves. Biblically, Scripture teaches that Love covers a multitude of sins. Unconditional love. It's the most powerful of human emotions.

She brought me lunch to work, she sexed me down, she loved me the way I have yearned to be loved my entire life, she was the whole package. I especially liked the way she looked at me, the way she shook her a$$ when she knew I was looking. The way her mouth parted and her breath caught when I went down on her. I loved the way she smelled; like the kemi oil she put in her hair that left an earthy, natural scent in my sofa, my bed, my mind. I ask God sometimes why he put such a perfect woman in my life if I couldn't have her. Or was it that I only let my emotions flow with women I can't have? Either way is messed up.

I was invited to her house for a party, and I brought a date. It was Christmastime and it was a family gathering. I met her husband then. He cooed over his daughter who was under 2 years old, and assured me he was working on another. I remarked what a wonderful family he had and that he was so blessed and fortunate. He agreed.

I'm not an evil person. I honestly liked the guy. I felt guilty a little about my relationship with his wife, but a bond of sorts in that we both loved the same woman. She was her usual life-of-the-party self that night as she played hostess to the thirty or so guests at this party. Even my date remarked how nice of a person "my girl" was. Isn't that irony of the greatest sort?

A little while after the Holidays, we decided to end it. Conflicting emotional consciousness was diluting the Truth, it appeared, making it increasingly more difficult to discern what was right and what was wrong. The line, you see, disappears with repetitive crossing. She loved him, yet her feelings for me were getting stronger. A dilemma arises that would humble the most astute students of integrity. Faced with a decision, my lover, ever the dilettante in righteousness, chose to do the proper thing and the dichotomy of lovers was over.

I mourned. I hurt. I ached for her. But I knew what must be done. For awhile it was awkward between us, like we didn't know how to react to one another. I mean, no traumatic event transpired to facilitate the breakup. Its so much easier to be angry at someone, or to know someone's angry with you. So that's what she did. She got mad at me over dumb things after that. She would fuss at me over simple, inconsequential $hit. I knew she was just compensating for the loss, trying to make some sense of our split. She was attempting to reconcile our demise by making me the villain. It worked.

I began to resent her. We stopped being close, stopped talking every day, stopped hanging out. Soon, we were back to being colleagues; nothing more between us than the occasional hi and byes in passing. And that was cool.

I hadn't seen my ex around the office lately and inquired of a mutual friend how she was doing. Turns out she's taken some time off work because she's pregnant. I'm happy for her, for her family and its latest addition. I couldn't help but feel a strong sense of entitlement, like that should be MY baby or something. Its been almost a year since we've stopped fooling around. So plenty of time has passed for me to heal, and move on. But since I found out I've been revisiting my feelings for her and the truth is, they're still there. Maybe they always will be.

I'll never in a million years do anything dramatic to disrupt her life, so don't think there's a murder plot in this story someplace. I've learned a valuable lesson in all this: primarily how I want to be loved by a woman. And as much as I hate saying this, every time her husband looks at her, I hope he sees what I see and appreciates what he's got at home. Because if he slips up for even a moment, I'm taking my girl back. I had seen her before. And I liked what I saw.

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Chronicles of a Cheat - The Epilogue

Posted 12/19/10

When I saw her again after six years, my heart skipped a beat. I was working a networking event on behalf of my job, and she was there, looking every bit as lithe and beautiful as the day I met her. I continued to engage my potential clients, but my mind was half a room away, with Bernadette.

I got a text afterward from her; just a little flirtatious regard about how well I could hang a suit. It brought a smile to my face like I remember she could do so well. To be honest for awhile I had actually put Bern out of my mind. We had a brief affair years ago but it ended - not tragically, thank goodness. But it still took some emotional adjustment on the both of our parts. I didn't want to get emotionally strung out again if we resumed a close interaction - at least not to come to the same bitter conclusion.

Having said that, a couple months after that initial meeting, me and Bern's relationship had advanced to frequent texts and some phone conversations. The dynamic between us was just as fresh and ripe and energizing as it was back then - maybe even more so with the onset of the kind of maturity only age can bring. It was like an ethereal connection - one that comes along only a few times (if any) in a lifetime. If you had asked me last year if I believed in serendipity, I would have laughed in your face. Now, however, I'm not so sure if the Universe does not orchestrate series of circumstances to connect and reconnect that which it deems like-energy. Bern's my complimentary energy. With all this stimulating transference of positivity going on a regular basis, inevitably we were due to reconnect in person.

She came over to my place for a visit not too long ago and we ate Thai food and explored the dynamic of our reconnection in so many ways. We talked about everything imaginable, we laughed, joked, reminisced. It's definitely good to see Bern again, and to have the kind of woman in my life that I can share with on so many levels. An idyllic friendship was in the cards, and I could definitely see it blossoming into something wonderful. Again.

But there was a problem: a glitch in the matrix, if you will. In addition to this cosmic connection that we shared - there was also an intense sexual energy that seemed to surge between our bodies like so much electricity on a third rail! As passive and demure as the situation may have been observed at any given moment, just beneath the surface lied a Beast who would not be sated until it had ravished in sexual extroversion. The inimitable pulse of desire in and of itself was nothing we couldn't handle, except there is a glitch: Bern was married. I was experiencing a severe dichotomy of ethics. Sex was out of the question. Positivity and good vibes were all that could transpire between persons of mixed relationship statuses. But how could I possibly resist this gorgeous, perfect, sexy, amazing woman with whom I shared such profound connectivity? Did I really want to?

She got ready to leave and I hugged her. The hug was electric and the both of us had a tough time letting go. When we did disengage, we were left breathless and dazed in wonderment. After maybe a half second of deep contemplation, we fell back into each others arms. She looked up at me, and tightly pulled her arms around my neck until we were less than a breadth apart. And time stood still as we kissed. Energy ebbed and flowed between us, varying in intensity between red hot passion and sultry appreciation - my caresses were in a moment gentle then forceful as I kissed, smacked, bit, squeezed, caressed, licked, spanked every inch of her body. I couldn't tell you which event occurred first, whether her jeans hit the floor or whether she was in the air, bed-bound. Either way, by the time she leaned back on my bed, clothes had become a long distant memory.

And the love we made was so sweet. So good. Better even than I remembered. My mouth is agile and my member's ample - so satisfaction kept coming, and coming, and coming. Until the light faded from view and the twinkle of the night sky reminded us that there were other obligations to consider. She re-dressed and headed home to change for work. I couldn't help but feel a little selfish for wanting her to stay, but in relationships of this sort you'd better get used to some premature goodbyes.

I changed my Facebook status to "Its Complicated" because it is. Bern and I are traipsing around town like she's my wife. But that ring belongs to someone else. What can I do? I'm not a cold hearted person, not even evil at heart. It's just that she fits what I want and need so precisely that I find it a miscarriage of life's course not to reward myself with feeling good for a change with the one person I know who can do that for me. She's my girl again. She's also a great mom, and a good person. Don't say it: I know what you're thinking: How good can she be if she's a cheater? Listen, everything in life is not black and white. There are shades of rationality in everything. I know for a fact what it feels like to long for something so deeply and knowing that the individual you're committed to is completely incapable of providing relief from that longing. I, as a single man, have the luxury of telling would be suitors who fall short that it would be mutually beneficial to break up. But what if I were in a marriage where my wife was basically a good wife, I had kids to consider, and it was not in the best interests of family, children, or economics to simply part ways - especially if there's nothing substantively wrong with the relationship? If that were the case, telling someone with whom I'm so intricately entangled to kick rocks would be like using a hatchet to perform heart surgery.

It would be different if I longed for something imaginary. Like a date with a movie star, or a trip to Mars. Or even if I desired human trait combinations so rare that no one ever measures up completely in that regard - I could at least sleep easier knowing that my expectations are unrealistic and that no one exists that can satisfy my needs.

But what if I knew exactly where to get my longing satisfied? Bern was four years into her marriage when I met her. She's 10 years in now. Maybe there came a time when she could no longer exist without fulfilling her need to be loved, understood, held, and uplifted in a certain way. Maybe just a taste is all she needs, and then she can matriculate back to the sanctity of her marriage with renewed vigor and resolve. Either way, I'm a very willing participant in all this: I've been divorced for going on 13 years and in all that time, I never once met anyone who came close to being as universally complimentary to me in thought, character, sex appeal, mental and physical acuity, looks, ideals, goals, and spirituality as Bern.

Am I delusional? Am I heaping karmic chaos upon my head? Maybe. I'm not looking to convince anyone that I'm doing the right thing, or expecting people to understand the dynamic that is Me & Bern. Maybe this is just much more than the typical person can fathom and the temptation to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) my a$$ is overwhelming and I wouldn't blame you for reading me the riot act. But remember this:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference

-- Robert Frost

If the ends do truly justify the means in any case at all, I thank God for bringing me such a lovely and beautiful woman who makes me a better man just by orbiting in my sphere of influence. At the end of the day I'm a happier person with her than I am without her and I can absolutely say for certain that it's reciprocal. Some folks meet the public's definition of how it's supposed to be and can't say that about THEIR relationship. So don't be so quick to judge me & Bern. The sex is great, the vibe is awesome, I totally respect and support her, and she does me. Our conversation edifies us both and even though I know sometimes our consideration of others has taken a backseat to our consideration of each other, it is SO, so good.

I started this off by saying when I saw her again after six years, my heart skipped a beat. I think I'll revise that by saying when I saw her again after six years, my heart started back beating again