The fight
After that our emails take on a frighten-
ing intensity. I want to see him all the
time. He is the sensible one, only seeing
me on the weekends and the rare week-
night his ex has the children. I become
resentful. I am the one who is married,
and yet he is the one who is unavailable.
We have our first email argument. He
tells me that it’s far more difficult for him
as a single father, when I can just slip out
of the house knowing that my children
are being cared for by my husband.
I don’t hear from him for days. He
and his kids are not at the sports club.
When the emails do come they are cooler
and I panic. I invite him to a party.
He calls me after the school drop-off.
“I think you should spend the night with
me after the party. Can you tell your hus-
band you’re staying with
a girlfriend in the city?”
I call my friend Jo for an
emergency conference.
She will cover for me and
say we are spending the
night in the country for
her friend’s 40th.
Then I become
frantic. For the first time
in 12 years I am going to
sleep with a man who is not my
husband. My body is untoned, dappled
with stretchmarks and cellulite. I write
to him from my secret email account,
telling him I am fooling myself. I wait
an agonising two days for his response.
Then he texts, “I don’t care how old you
are. It’s you I want.”That’s it. I’m out of excuses. I step
up my fitness regimen. I’m becoming
one of those women I detest who spend
their lives at the gym and eating salad.
Worse, I’ve let the house go. There are
piles of laundry in every room and the
dishwasher is never loaded.
D-day finally arrives, and as I come
downstairs in my black strappy dress
and heels, I feel a stab of disappoint-
ment that my children don’t try to stop
me going out. Suddenly I realise I can’t
do this. I go into the back garden,
clinging to my overnight bag of shame,
wanting to discard its dirty contents.
I text Charles, telling him I can’t come.
“Jo’s cancelled our plans,” I say
breezily, hoping my husband doesn’t see
through the lie. He hands me a glass of
wine. Cheers go up from my children as
I snuggle on the couch with them. But
I can barely focus. Why hasn’t he at least
texted, if only to say how
disappointed he is?
By midnight I am
beside myself that I have
thrown away the one bit
of happiness that might
have been mine. I ring
him in floods of tears. I
leave a broken message,
saying how sorry I am.
I get an email the
next morning. “You don’t realise this is
difficult for me, too, that I don’t agree
with being with a married woman. You
think you have more to lose than me, but
I also stand to lose a lot.” I feel ashamed.
I take a gamble and go over to his house
in the afternoon to apologise. With that
he leads me towards the bedroom.The affair
This is not anything like polite, dutiful
marital sex. All my inhibitions are gone.
On the drive home, my mind is racing
ahead. I am so convinced that I will end
up divorced and in a second marriage
within the year that already I’m thinking
about how that will work out in practical
and financial terms.
A few days later I text him, asking if
I can come over, and get a text back
saying, “Let’s not hurry this,” then noth-
ing for two days. I call, email and text
but he doesn’t respond. My God, I was
terrible in bed, I think. He’s gone off me.
The longer the silence, the more my
emails and calls go unanswered, the
more convinced I am this is over. I was
just a challenge, and now I am that no
more, he is seeking out his next conquest.The future
After six days of silence, I turn up at
Charles’s house. “You owe me an expla-
nation,” I say. He says he doesn’t want to
be the man who breaks up my family. My
eyes well up, he takes my hand and
kisses me. And that’s it, we’re off, back in
that frenzy of wild sex. It is clear that
neither one of us can stop ourselves.
A few days later, my husband con-
fronts me. He has heard rumours about
an affair. “I didn’t sleep with him,” I lie.
“I promise I didn’t. We became friends
at the club. But that’s it, honestly.”
He is stunned into speechlessness
and leaves the room. The next day I get
an email from him. “Yes, our marriage is
in a bad place. Yes, I don’t really notice
you anymore, at least not until recently
when you’ve been different. Yes, it’s all
about the kids now, but I don’t want a
divorce. I love you and I want us to be
together for the rest of our lives.”
The thing is, I don’t. What options
do I have? My least favourite option is to
carry on with the affair. I can’t stand the
guilt much more. I know I will have to
make a choice between my husband and
my lover. But one option is out of the
question – to end my relationship with
Charles. That I know I can never do.
Due to separate family commit-
ments, the affair has been put on hold.
The writer plans to decide what the
future holds before the end of the year.“I cling to my
overnight
bag of shame,
wanting to
discard its
dirty contents”98 marieclaire.com.au
PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRUNO DAYAN/TRUNKARCHIVE.COM/SNAPPER MEDIA. ANONYMOUS/NEWS SYNDICATION. THIS STORY ORIGINALLY APPEARED INTHE TIMES MAGAZINE