The Affair Paradox

I existed in two worlds, each different from the other, yet in each, I was still "someone's wife".  I carried on a long term affair with a man I fell in love with while I was in a marriage with a man that loved me.  The whole experience was double sided, every positive element was paradoxically linked to something negative, something that always loomed and was determined to show me that the excitement and bliss was forever fleeting and would be met by something much darker, a pain more permanant.  My affair was both exciting and terrifying. There was a lot of laughter often overrun by tears, a false sense of confidence overruled by uncertainty, acceptance waxed over with shame and guilt.  Loving someone else outside of my marriage became the double edged sword that I thought I could conquer the world with, and also the one I would be driving through my own heart.   Everything that I thought I wanted, everything I thought was missing from my life turned out to be my undoing.  Affairs are like fires; luring us in to sit beside them, the warmth feels good, the flames enchanting, the heat intense...but eventually they have to be put out or they can engulf everything and nothing is left but the ashes of everything that used to be. 

The man that I fell in love with was much different from my husband, everything about the relationships was juxtaposed, the contrasts so stark.  And I became two different people.  Real life and reality versus fantasy and make believe.  I became an actress in my own life.  I scared myself with how good I had become at lying; to everyone including myself.  I developed the ability to comparmentalize, to turn on and turn off parts of myself depending on who I was in the company of, my husband or my lover.  It was the only element of control I felt I had through it all.  There was never a balance, there was always a struggle between what WAS right and what felt "right".  I was truly conflicted for two years, existing in two worlds, with two men.  And here I am today, the light in my life is gone, I exist in the shadows of what used to be.  The grass was not greener, the other side of the fence was not nicer, the alternate ending was not happy.