I dove into a swimming pool of lies, paddled happily, and bumped into the truth of myself. This is the simple truth and it begs the question of the rightness and wrongness of lies.
I'm gonna come clean...I had an affair. This was not a few groping moments in the woods at a company picnic, or a quickie in the coat-room, or an on-the-road dalliance. My affair was a full on, fully-fired, year-long series of engagements. Here is what I learned.
When you do something out of character, it's your true-self busting out.
I'd been happily faithful to my husband for 13 years. We had good sex. He always "rang my bell." But on a rainy July afternoon, listening to my "mister" ('cuz if you're a mistress, the other must be a mister), something inside me spoke up.
And then I spoke up. "If you don't stop talking about peaches," I said, "I'm going to have to kiss you." And like any red-blooded boy, he kissed me. And I kissed him back. Somewhere deep inside, my true-self cheered.
And what did Mister have that Hubby didn't? Respect for every part of me—including respect for my brand of femininity. The hubby was intimidated when I let my wanton sex goddess out to play. He once accused me of being a stripper before meeting him. How else would I know how to move like that? Hey, asshole! When the goddess wants to play, she moves a certain way. Smoke burns in her eyes. Her touch is hot. Her hips swivel of their own accord!
Mister dearly loved that aspect of me. He also laughed at all my teenage/early-twenties adventures instead of condemning them. He listened to my dreams without scoffing. He marveled at the fact that I wore a lot of hats and shined in each arena I chose to dance in. The hubby always told me I was too scattered, if I would just focus...
Sadly, size matters.
Although hubby knew just when and where and how to prompt me to orgasm, he lacked something...size. When I first took my mister in, I was stunned. A pleasure center I'd forgotten about lit up like a pinball machine. When I was with my mister, I didn't always have an orgasm, but I was infinitely more satisfied.
This perplexed us both. You must understand, we gleefully and unabashedly talked of such things...compared/contrasted/explored what we both knew about pleasure and disappointment and/or shame. I realized I'd been living on a diet of dessert.
My marital orgasms were sweet and good and pleasurable, but the sex was not nourishing. Being with my mister was like finally getting a helping of meat and potatoes! My true-self gained strength. I felt whole and grounded and ready to walk boldly into the future.
Because I was a good wife, I tried to replicate my illicit experiences in the marital bedroom. I'm a hopelessly fair person and thought, "Maybe I haven't been bringing enough to the table." There was a specific night when I pulled all the moves that had launched me into new dimensions with my mister. I found it...lacking.
Part of me kept reaching, reaching, reaching for fulfillment. It never came. The pinball machine remained still and dark. His plug simply didn't connect to my socket. To top off the blatant disappointment was the post-coital comment: "What's gotten into you?" Not said with a happy smile, I might add.
Sex is sacred.
Sexual energy is the most powerful available to us mammals. Just ask the cat in heat. Ask the elephant in musth. Ask a teenager. Sex can consume our thoughts, drive our behavior, and (as intended) create the next generation of a species. When our sexual nature is gratified, we feel as if we've left the planet momentarily. All the cares of the world are gone for a moment. Life is goooood! What a gift.
And yet, we profane it. We cheapen it by making it into a commodity. And in marriages, we often distill it down to a mundane thing: meeting needs, letting off steam, doing our duty, or simply rubber stamping the marital duty.
Newsflash! Sex ain't laundry! It isn't a task you have to do. It isn't a bowel movement, a biological urge met. It isn't a hammer, a tool to drive home your message. It isn't duty, part of your job description. It isn't a collar, a way to "keep" your partner. It isn't dessert, the thing you imbibe as a dollop of loveliness after all else is done. It is much, much more.
Sex is the joining of masculine and feminine creative energy. Our evolution is based on sex being the ultimate creative act! What could be more infused with potential power than that? When two people approach sex with enthusiasm, attention, and (most importantly) reverence, the heavens open.
My mister gazed adoringly at my womanly bits; this is something no one has done before. I swooned. He kissed the inside of my wrist with passion, as if being this close to my pulse, my flow of life, gave him deep pleasure. I melted. I adored his cock and approached it with a focused mindfulness that people spend many years on a meditation cushion to achieve. We worshiped each other.
We never discussed the future. We had no house holding to attend to. We gave ourselves over to the creative energy for about the same amount of time that people attend church. That was not lost on me. Our sex became our communion with the Divine. We treated sex with the respect, attention and care it deserves.
You've got to walk your lessons (Regardless of what other people think/do).
These were my lessons. I own the truth of my true-self. And hubby did an unforgivable thing that I'd told him before, "do it again, and we're over." I left.
Mister and I enjoyed a few months of even deeper bliss and connection. But my mister still has his own obligations and he wasn't ready to throw his life on a pyre of truth. He graciously asked that we stop. I graciously said, "of course...be well."
I'm fine with that. You might think I'm boasting or bragging to cover up hurt feelings. But I'm not. I know that our coming together served my higher self and I trust—in whatever way—that it served him too. Perhaps he has had deep discussions with his missus that has strengthened their union. I smile at that idea. If I saved a marriage, then the lies were not told in vain.
I love my mister in a way that is steeped in gratitude. He brought me home to myself. He helped me be honest about what I want. He accepted all of me; I never had to fudge, or shade, or couch the truth with him. It was all good. It proved to me that "I" was good...just the way God made me. I never learned that at church. I didn't learn it in school or in therapy. I learned it under the alchemic touch of my mister. I feel I've passed the test. I swam my laps and arrived at a shore of truth where I can pull out and begin to walk my true path.
I love my mister and want him to be happy in whatever way he chooses. My hubby tried to prescribe the parameters of happiness for us. I bought it for a long time. Didn't work. If you let someone else chart your path to happiness, you'll never get there.
At this moment in time, my mister has returned to his previous life/wife. I bless that journey. I've never felt in competition with her. I've never sought to "take him away." It made me sad that he wasn't satisfied at home; but if he can walk these lessons home, and home can blossom...YEAH!
People look at things like cancer, accidents, and getting laid off as opportunities for lessons that better our souls. My affair was just this. My mister was a mirror that I could finally see my true-self in. I don't have to own the mirror; I just have to look at myself with honest eyes. I can do that now.
Happily, we made a pact early on that neither one of us wanted to have their life blown up, that our existing lives were sacred space. We established a playing field of truth and trust. We held to that. I love him for that...as I'm sure he does me.
Affairs can be destructive things. But in my case, the destruction was to a fiction that no longer fit me. I navigated it because my mister was such a trustworthy chap without unduly hurting anyone. My hubby deserves to be my ex, but not because of the affair; I can honestly say, his actions dictated that decision.
But, if I hadn't had, at that moment in time, such a good handle on who I really was and what I really wanted from life, I never would have had the cajones—or ovaries, in this case—to end the marriage. When I hoisted myself up out of the swimming pool of lies, I was clean, energized, and ready to embark on my new path.