Jackson and I meet every Thursday at 2pm at his apartment. This is a day and time when I am meant to be “running errands” so I know no one will miss me. It has become my beacon. It is what keeps me feeling real and gets me out of bed every day. It is what inspires me to hope and to move forward and to figure this out. I spend the rest of my week waiting for Thursdays and dreaming of Jackson.
Today I arrive a bit early, before Jackson is home. I quietly let myself into his space and allow his energy and scent to surround me. He is like my drug and I can’t get enough. I roam around his tiny apartment and help myself to a drink. I flip open the book on his bedside table. I smell his pillow. Being here calms me and clears my mind. I am myself again if only for a few hours.
Today I take off my clothes and lie naked under the covers of his bed waiting. The relief of being here, safe, overwhelms me and I fall into a deep sleep only to be awakened soon after by Jackson’s soft, sweet kisses on my lips. I respond with a passion that still surprises me. I do things, eagerly, I never even thought of before. My body hungers for more. I lose myself in every part of him but it is never enough. I find myself touching him and kissing him freely without fear of judgement. I am my whole self, naked and exposed in every way and I see nothing but love in his eyes while I feel his body respond.
This is not love-making under the thinly veiled pressure of marital duty or responsibility. This is not riddled with self-doubt and disappointment. Here, with Jackson, I am a sexual being in all of my glory. I am a strong and self-confident woman and lover. I deserve to feel pleasure and to receive as much as I give to him. I feel no shame.
On Thursdays I see myself and my worth. I see love and passion. I see strength and joy and pleasure. On Thursdays I see my future.
All these statements of “yay”or “nay” for LylaD overall focuses on her and her self-interested rationalizations for doing and blogging her affair like a reality series. Joel (the cheated on husband) and the very young kids are only being looked at by us & mentioned as characters in “her story”, but not mentioned in a story that’s theirs and not hers.
She narrates her story. Lets give this guy and kids more perspective and empathy please. Joel has the choice available to deal with LylaD as adult/adult after he catches her on her deceit. But the kids are cheated on more because as kids they can’t do as much and know as much to stick up and speak out on what is fair to them and on what they don’t deserve.
Lyla is dumping circumstances and end conclusions on the kids by the engineering of her bad decision to cheat on the kids’ dad. Lyla dumps her choices or end results for a restructured family on the kids by her push for her personal happiness. And blah blah, etc. Etc., the kids have no power, no adult position to say no and reject Lyla’s choices and end results to restructure the kids’ family and the kids’ relationship with their dad.
The kids get dumped on and shortchanged because that’s how affairs between adults and problems done by adults cause. And really kids do go to therapy over the changes forced by affairs. Adults being confused and selfish means that their kids get cheated and then offered therapy.
Judgement isn’t a bad word nor a taboo that we as adults have to avoid. We still have to judge, assess and have boundaries, rules on how to treat fellow adults and children.
In this case of Lyla’s blogged affair, as it happens like a TV series, is wrong and it is a cop out on us as women and as adults to believe that we should never vocalize judgement. Lyla is having an affair with a kid who’s somewhere in his 20s and she is being really unfair, short in empathy, and wrong to her husband and young kids with her breaking of trust and home-wrecking of her own family.
Even if you had cheated, you still have to be accountable and own the reality that you were wrong. Lyla has to hear judgment too because she is doing a wrong to her husband and young kids. Even if the man was cheating on her too, she has to (as Julie put it) “woman up” and be better than that and not cheat.
I have the feeling that those of you who congratulate LylaD, call her an excellent writer and brave, are really being enablers and not doing the harder yet right thing by calling out her behaviour as wrong and something she must start owning, being accountable and take responsibility for.
The first step in owning your wrong action is to cease denial and admit that you’re doing a wrong and terribly hurtful thing to undeserving people, which in this case is a decent husband and very young children. I also feel very sorry for the kids because they’re not adults who can speak up and stand up for what’s right and fair for themselves. As kids they only seem to get mentioned by LylaD on how she feels and worries regarding them. She just voices her self-interest on losing her kids or the relationship as it is. The kids aren’t adults and don’t have the choice available to them to blog here about their story and what they believe is right for them.
Affairs certainly hurt the cheated on, both the spouse and the kids.
Wow, so much judgment from so many people. You do not know what it’s like until you are in this situation and even if you are, there are so many inconceivable factors that differ from one situation to the next. This will hurt some people because of their experiences and it will comfort others who are withering with guilt because they can’t believe they’re doing something they never thought they would but circumstances have led to. We all have different life paths and lessons to learn. None of us are perfect and none of us know what is best for anyone in that situation. All we can speak for is ourselves.
MG it’s a cop out to say “unless you’ve been in our shoes…”
You want a little something that’s just YOURS? You have one, it’s called your HUSBAND! And saying that having your affair partner makes you a “better person”, well that’s just twisted. The very nature of seeking out and justifying infidelity in both of your lives speaks to an inherent morality flaw, so how does that make you “better”? It makes you selfish.
Marriages sometimes aren’t meant to be, and partners stifle the other person, choke the happiness out of them, make them feel like they are trapped. If you felt you needed to “escape” in order to feel like you have something that’s “yours” because something in your marriage was depriving you, then GET OUT OF YOUR MARRIAGE. There is never a reason to stay in an unhappy marriage and humiliate the other with lies and deceit. I’m glad to know that you gleaned happiness, satisfaction, and a sense of peace with deceiving someone. I’m sorry, but that’s messed up.
I’ve been there done that. It eventually blew up in my face so to speak as he was a married man as well but do I regret it? NO not one second of it. In fact I miss him and what we had.
Is it wrong? YES but unless you’ve been in our shoes you don’t understand it. Sometimes having that extra something that is just ours and allows us to be us makes us a better person as we can better tolerate the little things that make us go batty in our everyday lives.
I just also wanted to add that affair partners are often seen as an “escape” from the marriage because the affair is by it’s very nature, a fantasy. You can’t compare your lover to your spouse because the comparison is unfair. The affair partner has the benefit of no kids, no financial strain, none of the humdrum stuff that clogs up a marriage. You simply get to have fun. The affair happens inside a bubble where reality is suspended and the sex is a drug that makes you crave it.
Ask yourself if Jackson would be as compelling, as powerful for you, as fun if he was asking you to cook and clean for him, making demands of your time, balancing you and the kids against his career. How much fun would he be if he had all of the baggage that comes from an enduring marriage?
Although I’m not sure it’s a useful thing to ask, since your own morals are compromised, I will ask it anyway. What does jackson’s willingness to involve himself with a married woman, disturb a family’s happiness and completely destroy a couple’s intimacy and fidelity say about his morals and values. At the end of the day, would you be alright if your husband did this to you?
LylaD (Is this pseudonym a play on Tom Jones’ Delilah?),
You write about Jackson being your future, and that you are becoming the real you…the person you are MEANT to be. You make yourself sound like you are in a chrysalis and about to escape as the butterfly you were meant to be when you describe the gilded and privileged life you now seem to feel trapped by.
I highly doubt, however, that the person you are meant to become can be reached from a place of deceit. Nor do I think the seeds of a truly positive and trusting relationship with Jackson can be sown from a foundation of deceit and sneaking around (though I’m sure it makes for hot sex…and that is certainly a powerful drug).
If you no longer love your husband or enjoy your marriage, then stop making his life a lie. He’s done nothing to deserve this and wants you to be happy. Don’t keep him like a back-up plan, until you figure out if it’s going to work out with Jackson. Let him go so he can find someone who will love him as he deserves to be loved.
He sounds like he is devoted to you, if clueless about your emotional state. That is your fault, however, not his. You sound like you have been brought up on romance novels and expect your husband to be a soul mate who understands everything about you all the time. No one can do this. His way of showing love is encouraging you to take time for yourself to be happy, and lovingly greeting you with the kids and a kiss and no guilt, but the simple hope that you enjoyed yourself. If you need him to express love in other ways, you need to tell him and guide him.
You have described that your husband never allows you to be the mother you would like to be, and that you are too week to stand up for yourself to be that mother. Now you say you become the “phony” you when you go home to them. How sad for them. I hope as you grow into the person you are supposed to be, it involves finding a spine to be the mother you need to be. Sounds like they are too young to notice yet, but you are destroying your children’s family…they are going to need a strong and loving mom who will do anything for them to guide them through this and make sense of it.
If Jackson is the person you think you should be with, then try to be with him. Or risk being left alone, which I’m sorry to say may be what you truly need to grow into the stronger person you were meant to be. Being alone would probably be perfect..giving you some time alone to find interests beyond men and learn to love and respect yourself, which is key before you can truly love others. You sound like a completely bored and pampered housewife with no interests and no real sense of self. Loving Jackson won’t be a long-term fix-all for this (especially when you loathe yourself for doing this), as it is really more about you than your husband.
I do have to ask, though…Does the beautiful young man who is having (and probably bragging about) great sex with the older woman once a week truly want to be with her in a committed relationship that is anything like a marriage? Is he pining for you the rest of the time, or is there any other great sex he is enjoying for the 6 afternoons and 7 nights a week you are not around? Getting laid once a week strains credibility a bit for a beautiful college age boy.
I may sound scornful, but I’m not. I truly am so worried that you were married young, and that you are sacrificing a lot right now because you are experiencing the powers of lust and infatuation for the first time.
I know that you can’t know for sure that I’m not the crazy bimbo who’s currently stalking you and your family by any means of media and social media, but I hope you will take a chance on me. Please consider contacting me. There’s my blog to reach me at: http://dotcablogger.wordpress.com .
I would give my name to you here …but, erm, this forum is probably not the place. I want you to know my name and not it published here, Lol.
WOW, I am impressed by your insights. I checked out your wordpress blog, and what you wrote is so much more deeper and aware of the few facts on the destruction an affair committed by a man can weather, BUT can be recovered from. And not just your mental health and self-esteem, but you and him as an US.
This healing of your relationship is only done by the your man being fully willing, responsible, in belief, committed, in full knowledge of what your marriage and you as a family means to him, and in all won’t despair in doing the effort in working with you to heal your trust of him.
Wow, just wow lady. Although your husband cheated on you, he does fully deserve you because he never was a bad man but had only lost perspective until AFTER he had done and admitted his affair to you.
I know you’re being private and won’t give out your email address because, well, the jilted & crazy other woman is stalking you. And yeah: she’s “nucking futs”. But maybe you can go to my wordpress blog and contact me there if you so choose : http://dotcablogger.wordpress.com . I just think I should get in contact with you because this writing of yours here is the real stuff (that is being yourself and able to share) rather than LylaD’s paperback romance erotica that she’s blogging here.
Despite the trust issues she has, or may have had…I tend to agree this could be about her, someone else or a past issue…
I find this reminding me of something my mom once told me…
“How you get them is how you lose them!”
I luv this blog! maybe all this happened in Lyla’s life years ago & she is re-telling the story, maybe her family does know & she has paid the consequence…maybe she’s telling this story to stop others from this road, or to engage our thoughts, or maybe it’s for those who would ever do it but love to read it, like a good romance novel
As a woman, I understand your feelings, your longing for the freedom it feels to be open and vulnerable to your lover. I understand the satiety in finding that person who you crave, who you need. As a woman who has been cheated on, I find your actions deplorable. My husband confessed an affair to me a little more than a year ago. This last year has been the worst and the hardest of my life. Before it happened to me, I looked upon affairs without much thought or concern. It was never going to happen to me. It did, and my entire view shifted.
Sure, there is a moral stance of “how can you cheat when you are married?”, but it runs much deeper than that. The man you married was once the man who was everything to you. He loves you, you trust him and he trusts you. You chose to have children with him, which speaks to your security in him as a father and a partner. What happened? Did you ever examine why your feelings were shifting, either during the shift, or now in retrospect? Did you take any steps to rectify what was going wrong, to seek counselling, to talk openly and vulnerably with your spouse? If you’ve done all that you can, and can say that you made every effort, then please – get out of your marriage. File for divorce, separate, and part ways. Don’t keep your husband in the dark while you defile his integrity and humiliate him with another man. Affairs are selfish acts. It is all about how it makes YOU feel, and what YOU need at the expense of the other. Take some time and ask yourself how GOOD this can all feel when your gain is coming at the expense of another person who has feelings, and likely would not approve.
There is nothing more painful than the trauma of having one’s trust shattered by the person they feel most protected by. To know that someone else was chosen in your place is heartbreaking and drags one’s self esteem to all new lows. To know that you were lied to, deceived…that is the worst part.
Men can cheat and still be in love. Most of the time that is not the case for women. Women cheat when they feel the love is gone, and they are no longer emotionally connected to their partner. If that is the case, you ought to have sought help a long time ago, and perhaps it wouldn’t have gotten to this point – even if the counselling was just for you (if he refused to attend with you).
Marriage is hard, there is no doubt. I now understand more than ever what it means when people say “relationships take work”. It means learning about YOURSELF and your vulnerabilities, your inner child, your self, and seeing how that person interacts with others who have their own unique issues and coping skills. Coming together to learn to coexist with another when times are hard, to communicate with honesty and soul-bearing truthfulness – that is the hard part. Allowing yourself to feel open and exposed at the risk of being hurt – that is the WORK in a marriage, and sadly most people don’t put in the work, and others, like me, find out after traumatic circumstances.
I’m very sorry that your marriage isn’t what you’d hoped, and is no longer what you are looking for. If Jackson is who you are meant to be with, and you honestly feel you’ve done all you can, please step out of your marriage before continuing on with Jackson. What is the point of staying married to someone you can’t be honest with, and hurting them irreparably. You are destroying the family you dreamed of as a child, the family you HAVE, the family you’ve BUILT. If you want to tear it down, tell him you want out, and do the respectable thing.
If you are interested in reading about how affairs feel to those who have been deceived, you can read my blog at http://www.rescuingmymarriage.wordpress.com I’ve written it as a way to ease my pain through writing, and also to help others who may be going through the same hell.
I hope you can find it in yourself to make the right choice. I can emotionally understand your needs, but I will never condone or accept your choices and actions.
I fully support Lyla….I know exactly why she is doing this. I feel the same as she in my marriage.
typo — “Kids don’t like it when their decent dad is hurt.”
Whatever though. I’m obviously going to be singled out by those here who gobble up this paperback romance. Yeah yeah, tell me not to judge, and other words. Blah blah. I don’t care. But I’ll keep my mouth shut from this point on because I don’t deserve to have my time wasted with Internet arguments here.
LylaD you have to woman up (you know, man up) and stop hurting your kids’ dad. He doesn’t know now, but he’s going to smart when he does. And whatever about this story possibly being 5 years in the past. Lyla writes in the present voice, and in a style that shows us that she’s currently having this affair. But I’m done with this.
Are some of you taking crazy pills???! The woman is cheating. Whether or not she’s an Elizabeth Gilbert-like writer shouldn’t blind us to the fact that she’s cheating, and cheating while having her young kids involved.
She’s a cock-up. Shit, my own mom had cheated on our dad when I was a girl. So she is just like LylaD here, and I was just like her mentioned kids here. But when I became an adult, I never accepted my mom’s decision to cheat on my pretty decent dad. They’re both our parents, but she proved to be such an ass because of acting out like LylaD here. He was soooo fucking hurt by her cheating. He did nothing but decent things as a man, husband and as my dad. And even if he were cheating like she was, that’s still not a reason to go and cheat.
I currently still have nothing to do with my mom because dad is a better person than she was and at present is.
LylaD, your kids may be kids right now. Yet when they’re adults, they’ll think for themselves about you and your past (this insensitive blog here). You won’t be able to make your erotica here about your affair acceptable to them and other crap about your “personal happiness” as why you had cheated on their dad and had hurt his feelings. Kids don’t like it when they’re decent dad is hurt.
Go for it – hot stuff. Remind us how it feels. I often imagine myself in an “other” place, some fantastically beautiful room with fabulous linens and wearing something beyond gossamer. We are here to learn about love and who better to teach than your very own Jackson.
I make no judgement regarding your actions Lyla, as no one know can make any decision for anyone else. However, I comment to tell you what a phenomenal writer you are. I have read through your posts from the beginning, and it is like reading a well written novel. When I read I feel as though I am in the room watching everything in your life as a bystander and there are very few professional writers who have this talent. Congrats on your bravery in revealing your own story, whether it is happening today, or occured five years ago, someone will gain perspective from your story. And maybe you should consider creating some other stories, that are not so close to home. I would read them !!!!
– please no flame wars from any avid reader here.
I know LylaD isn’t making herself concerned with my comments. I only put them here since being in denial doesn’t make them less true.
So I’m bowing out 🙂
– please no flame wars from any avid reader here.
I know LylaD isn’t making herself concerned with my comments.
But being in denial on your bad decisions doesn’t stop or lessen the consequences. Consequences will happen anyway. And many times, kids as adults think for themselves and not favourably with the mom or dad who had cheated.
Adult kids can think and feel whatever hurt they want to, and choose to reason along with your stories on why you did that or just move on but still not accept what you did.
One of my parents had an affair. They’re still together though and I completely support them and their marriage. But at the time that I knew, I stepped up as a teen and told tough love on the cheater.
Also even when you do the affair when your kids are preschoolers, they’re still going to be adults eventually and feel about you whatever they want to.
Meh I’m done trying to show you empathy. You disregard politeness, soft approaches and gentle concern for your feelings. But it’s not me that can give you any perspective. I personally am not your friend or family, but you need those people to step up and tell you tough love on the bad decisions you’re currently making.
Misguided and misplaced feelings.
Anyway, the consequences of your husband eventually knowing and then proceeding with his hurt because of your break of his trust will start to make reality relevant to you.
Whatever you’re feeling, you’re out of touch with reality and facts. Your husband is a fact. And the guy is a person who’s made a partnership and family with you. You cheating on his trust will eventually mean more to you since reality always check in.
Steamy!
With Jackson??????@#$#%##@$$#%%