Warning. Long and intolerably mushy post ahead.
OK, here goes. I have fallen madly in love with a married man who is having a baby in December. That about sums it up, but I have been aching to share this for so long now, so I’m going to do it right.
I was working with him this summer (no, it isn’t the coworker who was flirting with me) and we got along wonderfully. I knew from the start that he was married and all that, and although I really thought he was perfect, I never acted as anything but a friend. My last week at work he suggested that we’d go out for a few beers and celebrate that we’d survived the summer (he’s only a summer temp too, but was going to stay for one more week). We were going to be a whole bunch of people, but in the end it was only me, him and one other guy. The other guy only stayed for two hours or so, but the two of us were in a fine mood and stayed at the bar. The minute we were alone, the atmosphere changed.
We started talking about relationships and what love really was, and believe it or not, I started picking up signs that he was flirting with me. Complimenting me on my hair and looking deeper into my eyes and such. I started feeling a bit strange, not uncomfortable, but I didn’t know what the hell to do. I’d also had four pints on an empty stomach, so I was drunk too.
We decided to get something to eat, but when we did, we just sat there and picked at the food. Then he tells me that he thinks I’m wonderful, attractive and charming. I freak. I tell him I think he’s perfect, there’s only one thing wrong with him. “I’m married” he says. “Yes” I say.
We leave to get some coffee. We sit in the back of the coffee house, there’s no one there but us and he touches my hand and then leans over to kiss me. I start to chain smoke. He tells me he wants to come home with me. I say no. He asks again. I tell him I’m leaving now and he can do whatever he wants. He comes home with me. I’ll spare you the details of the rest of that night, but when I think about it my heart aches.
That will be three weeks ago tomorrow. The day after I left to go sailing and visiting friends, but before I did he called and said he wanted to see me again. Those ten days I was away was the longest and hardest I’ve ever experienced. He kept calling me on my cell phone, sending messages and letting me know he wanted me to come home.
He was at my house an hour after I’d come home. It’s impossible to explain how I felt being with him. It was like coming home. Since then, we’ve been seeing each other almost every day and I feel as if anything I’ve ever felt for a man before has been a waste of emotions. I wish I’d have saved it all for him.
But everything is not wonderful. He’s a married man. He wasn’t unhappy before he met me. He says he loves me passionately, that thinking about being without me is much scarier than thinking about breaking with his wife, despite the fact that she is pregnant and that they have so much history. I know many of you think that I’m a bitch and he’s an asshole, and I sometimes wish it was that simple, because then our roles would be so much more evident.
I have loved before. But I have never been so instantly and perfectly compatible with someone before. I have always been so self-conscious about myself and my body, but with him I finally believe that I’m attractive and beautiful. I love him because he’s helped me love myself. It’s also the little things. We laugh at the same things, love the same books, have the same dreams and expectations, we want to travel to the same places, he sails, he skis, he rides horses just like me. I was stirring my coffee, licked the spoon and put it down on the table, looked up to see the exact same procedure from him. It’s uncanny. Yesterday, we went for a drive and at the exact same moment we looked at each other.
He tells me he wouldn’t have been married today if he’d have known I existed. He says he loves me because he can’t not love me.
That’s my story. I don’t know where this is going to end. All I know is that I don’t want it to.