How I Completely Fucked Up My Marriage

This is Real Life. Not a smutty story

Most of you know me for my fiction writing. But today is a vulnerable real-life story.

In March 2020, the world went into a lockdown.

Our worlds got smaller. Except mine. I met a charismatic man. We didn’t meet in a bar or on a dating app. We met while playing a video game.

It was exciting.

It was fun. It was dangerous. And it was wrong.

Very wrong.

I’m married.

I knew it was wrong. I tried to ignore the growing attraction. Not hard enough that I stopped playing with him, chatting with him, messaging him.

The Conditions That Lead to an Affair

There were several things that led to the storm of my affair.

First was the pandemic and the uncertainty of schools closing and money insecurity. Second was my husband had a job where he worked long days, and since the recession he worked out of town often. Third, I wasn’t happy in my marriage, twenty years and a lot of communication issues, which are at the heart of my hurts. And last, childhood trauma and untreated mental illnesses affected my perception of every part of my life.

But I didn’t learn about the latter issues until after the affair was exposed.

April was the getting-to-know-each-other phase.

My dad passed away after a brief battle with cancer. The pandemic and my estranged relationship with him meant I couldn’t and didn’t see him in hospital the week he passed. That is another complicated story, but it influenced me. I hadn’t yet realized as I hadn’t grieved.

I was too busy falling in love.

And in May, my husband left town.

He was supposed to be gone for five days. Not so bad, I could have a little fun with my new friend in a new game and my husband would come back and my friend would disappear. I’d played with others online and they always disappeared quickly. To real life.

But in a pandemic, there is no real life to disappear to.

So, I thought five days was an okay time for my little crush to run through.

But five days turned into five more and five more and five more. By the end of the thirty days my husband was gone, I was fully obsessed with Mike, my gaming friend and soon-to-be-affair partner.

Let’s Call the Relationship Love

I don’t recall when, but I know it was in the basement when Mike and I had the following conversation.

“Does he know?” Mike asked.

“Know what?”

“That you’re in love with me.”

I sat quietly for a bit. I felt something for him as I wanted to spend all my time with him. Love? Maybe. Why not? Did my husband know?

“I don’t even know.”

And at the end of the night, I tried it out. “Love you,” instead of the usual, “Have a good night.”

“Love you too,” his deep voice whispered in my ear. I could almost feel his breath on my skin. My heart skipped several beats, did a flip. The butterflies in my stomach? They were in full flight as my body flushed with warmth.

It would have been amazing.

You know, except I was married. Unhappily, I thought. More so now that this excitement was happening. But my husband didn’t have to know. “Don’t let anyone tell you what we are doing is wrong,” Mike told me.

That gave me permission to let go of the guilt.

We gamed together every day from about 3 PM until 9 PM.

Over the summer, while my husband worked away, I learned about Mike and the infatuation grew into a deeper feeling. There were red flags in the relationship. He wasn’t all good, but in my obsession, I made him perfect in my mind.

In my fantasies.

Adult victims of childhood trauma will often experience limerence. Limerence is an obsession with someone unavailable. Often, it’s someone who barely or doesn’t know the limerent person — celebrities, friends of friends. Or the object of infatuation may live far away or be emotionally unavailable, such as an alcoholic. In my life I have experienced limerence many times.

Fantasy is an addiction for me, a way I escaped a very painful childhood.

I Would Do Anything for Love. Literally.

I would do anything to make him happy.

So, when he asked for pictures, it was easy to send them. When he asked for more revealing photos, I hesitated. We were talking via text message late at night, when I played coy with my refusal, not wanting to say no and upset him.

“Why don’t you trust me?” he asked.

I didn’t know him well enough. Alarms sounded, but I ignored them. “That’s how you end up on revenge porn sites. Your photos shared without your permission.” Caution was good.

“You know me. I don’t have social media, I don’t have any friends. Who am I going to share them with? You need to show me you trust me.”

He implied he would stop talking to me if I didn’t send him nude photos including my face.

So I went to the bedroom, took off my clothes and stretched my arm up smiling at the camera. Pictures sent, he responded positively. He might have even phoned me and praised me, calling me sexy and sweet.

Praise kink activated.

Call me a good girl and I’ll follow you into the fire.

He also started talking about me leaving my husband and him moving.

At first, I was taken aback. Shocked. Love, maybe, definitely infatuation; but leaving was a big step. Something I’d never thought of. Sure, I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t want to divorce my husband.

But Mike was charming, convincing.

And I’m a people pleaser.

It made sense. If I fell in love with someone else, maybe it meant my marriage was worse than I thought. I turned the idea over and over in my mind for days.

I concluded I could not end my marriage for someone on the internet.

If I left, it would be because I was ready, I finished the relationship.

I Fucked Up

I spent most of the next three years growing more obsessed with Mike. Falling deeper in love. Sending him thousands of text messages, spending thousands of hours gaming with him, and later on the phone in secret.

I read all affairs eventually come out as the spouse catches the unfaithful. I convinced myself otherwise. My husband trusted me, and I was very good at making it seem like I was innocently playing video games with a wide group of friends.

You are never as smart as you think.

Never.

My husband knew something was up but never suspected the depths of my betrayal.

And my lies didn’t end when he learned of the affair.

They continued for two full months after. With me continuing to talk to my affair partner through sending texts and videos. My affair partner also ended things saying, “Let me know if you are ever single.” I continued to hold on. And he did as well, eventually calling me a few times.

But in the end, I stopped.

Finally. Spent from the shame and guilt. From needing to fix myself and heal our marriage.

I committed to healing. My mental illnesses and the multiple, complex betrayals I thrust upon my husband, leaving him hurt. Broken. Traumatized.

I.

Fucked.

Up.

On many levels.

As I write this, the ending of this first confession, it has been five months of sobriety, of healing. And things are far from good. Every day feels like a struggle still.

But there are wonderful moments. Happy. Love. Excitement even.

Healing.