Your feelings, memories and past will find you and it will bite you. But hey, I made those memories, I made those decisions… or did I?
Yes, I did. At least I think I did, albeit in a fog of fantasy and lies… or was it? Occasionally I want it to bite me! Because, bizarrely I want to remember the buzz – to experience that excitement, the passion… the intense foreplay and build up, the first time I entered someone and had amazing sex with that someone I seemed close to. The love that I thought it was. Was it, or wasn’t it? Even at this point I’m unsure.
But that is no excuse, that’s what I tell myself. There was no excuse for having an affair. NONE!
So here we go. This is not easy, as it is all still so fresh and… well, let’s say early days. Here I sit in my office, 11,500 miles from where the affair happened. I carried out the acts, various actions that were not me really, whether lies deceit, sex, etc, which I will discuss later. You can run, but you cannot hide from what you have done.
So hopefully this real story will unfold the depths of what happened. How uncontrollable it was and amazing it was for Rose and me. But also how horrible it was for my wife and friends. I will try to describe the feelings and emotions, the reality versus fantasy.
So, what happened? How did a married guy of twenty-five years who was faithful and had integrity, end up hurting his wife and those around him? Well, there is a story, an interesting one at that.
One thing I have learnt is that we are all human, fact! We all have weakness; we all fail at some point. No matter what that failure is, big or small, we all fail.
I failed. I took my eye off the ball and was sucked in to a void of pleasure and pain. Was it worth it? No!? Yes!? Maybe!? Were there good times? Yes… but these were washed away by hurt and guilt.
So, the pleasure was nothing more than a fix, but a fix is a fix, right? Short-lived, short term. Well, I actually think it was more than that. Why? Because I am not someone who longs for a fix, I yearn for the real thing. That’s what I wanted at the time.
However, a fix feels good and leaves you wanting more. You know it is wrong, but oh so nice, right? But the tears soon follow. When you see the pain you are causing. Not just the cruel pain you are causing to someone you love but also the pain you cause yourself.
To be fair, this is not all about me, but I had never cried so much in nine months (and still do at times) as I did over this situation. I cried for my marriage, I cried for the pain I was causing, I cried because I did not want to lose my wife, I cried because I did not want to lose my lover! I cried because I was scared. One even contemplates ending it all due to utter confusion, because suicide seems a way out. Sounds crazy. It was crazy. Purely and utter out of control. All because of a chemical, which, when released into the body, makes it feel, oh so wonderful.
We are human beings that pay attention to stimuli that are possibly fulfilling, even in the absence of any possibility of reward. The brain thinks that this is good, this is right, this will happen… dopamine dysregulation will kindle episodes of fierce cravings, because in the past such episodes have led to a renewed ingestion of the drug in question. I lay there floating in a world of fantasies and pleasure, just floating and grinning like a schoolboy in love (but hey, this was deeper than a schoolboy in love scenario – I actually think I was in love) but awoke with one hell of a thud as I came crashing down to reality.
Up and down, up and down it went, since that day, the day I asked a simple question en route to a work training day, continuing to now, almost two years down the track.
Comments