He’s married.
That’s the secret.
The big, finally done holding it secret.
I was involved with a married man.
Thus, why so little of my relationship was on my blog for the last two years.
Oh, if you were clever you might have figured out I was seeing someone but I was pretty discrete.
I am discrete.
I didn’t go burn down his house when we broke up.
I didn’t out him to the world or my community.
Oh.
I told a few friends that I needed to tell and I got super honest in a general way in other places that I had been having an affair.
“I had an affair with a married man and he wouldn’t leave his wife, so I broke up with him.”
It’s rather glib and it really is so little of what actually happened.
Love is what actually happened.
We fell in love.
I’m in it right now.
He’s really been on my mind.
Tomorrow would be the two year anniversary of us getting together.
The night he told me about his “modern marriage” and I thought, my God, you’re gorgeous and I’m open and not seeing anyone.
That kiss though.
Our first kiss, May 3rd, 2017, two years ago tomorrow.
Blew me apart.
I should have probably known right then and there it was going to be something.
Something for the books.
Magic.
Romance.
Everything.
He was everything.
Poetry.
So much poetry.
And we fell in love.
It wasn’t just the sexy.
In fact, both of us bemoaned it not being just sex on more than one occasion as it would have been easier to get out of it, easier to walk away.
But we fell in love.
Naively I thought that would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Extenuating circumstances that I will not divulge as they are not mine to share kept us from ever really being together.
But god damn.
We tried.
We tried so fucking hard.
We did everything we could to make it work.
In the end, though, I left him.
It wasn’t working.
I realize that in previous blogs I made it out to seem that he left me.
And that’s not true.
I left.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was miserable.
I had left once before and couldn’t live without him and so we spent a year trying to figure it out and make it work.
I really did think he was going to leave his wife.
I really held onto it for so long.
How could someone love me the way he said he loved me and not leave?
This still hurts.
Cue the tears streaming down my face.
I know why he didn’t and I still really thought he would.
Which is why I say he betrayed me, which is why I say he left.
He didn’t choose me.
And that’s his right to not do that.
But it felt like a betrayal.
It felt like he betrayed the love we had for each other.
Love that neither one of us had thought was possible or real or could exist.
The stuff of teenage lust and fairytales and gothic poetry and love songs.
That’s what got me today at work.
Sitting down to keep my charges company at dinner and the dad of the family played some music and a song came up.
A song I have never heard outside of the playlist I had made my ex many months ago.
A Peggy Lee song called “Sweet Happy Life.”
I thought I was going to lose it.
It wasn’t the Peggy Lee version, but it was the same song.
My wish for you, sweet happy life
May all the days of the year that you live be laughing days
With all my heart, sweet happy life
And may the night times that follow the day be dancing nights
Stars for your smile, moons for your hair
And someones wonderful love for your loving heart to share
My wish for you, sweet happy life
May all your sorrows be gone and your heart begin to sing
And if a wish can make it be
I wish you spend everyday of your happy life with me
Stars for your smile, moons for you hair
And someones wonderful love for your loving heart to share
My wish for you, sweet happy life
May all your sorrows be gone and your heart begin to sing
And if a wish can make it be
I wish you spend everyday of your happy life with me.
I got myself together and I did not lose it, I did not cry.
But tonight, driving home.
I did.
I did cry.
I’m crying now.
It still hurts.
And it was amazing.
Real, true, fucking head over heels love.
We had it.
I had never had it before.
I just get to have these feelings and let them go and be grateful that I have gotten to have an incredible experience without judgment or self-hatred.
It was what it was and it was love.
It still is love.
I still love him.
I will always love him.
I just won’t be with him.
Not while he’s married.
I can’t ever do that to myself again, no married men, no one still getting over an ex-wife, girlfriend, partner, no one who is not 100% free and clear to be with me in the light of day.
Tomorrow night will be the two years since that first kiss and I don’t regret any of it and I’m not mad at myself.
I love myself if anything a little bit harder and a little bit more.
I followed my heart and listened when it said it couldn’t do it anymore.
I left him.
So if I left you with the idea that it was anything other than my choice, that was not right.
It was my way of still avoiding the gigantic pink elephant in the room.
I had an affair with a married man and fell in love.
He wouldn’t leave his wife.
So I broke up with him.
The end.
Auntiebubba 