I really don’t know where to start, or how to frame my issue, or what I’m really looking to get out of this. I guess I’ll just start with the present. I’m involved in an intense, full-blown emotional/physical/mental extramarital affair—with my boss. He is divorced. I am married with one small child. And up until last winter, several months before the physical affair began (one could argue the emotional component had been in play for months prior, without me really realizing it) I would have said my marriage was happy.

He wasn’t always my boss. We met three years ago through a professional associate. We hit it off – we could talk forever. I wasn’t attracted to him at first. We didn’t see each other a lot at first. Months would go by, but then would be reunited via some business engagement or another (we were both independent consultants). I loved working with him. He’s truly bright, gifted. I watched him in awe, taking mental notes of now just how much he knows about the product, but how effectively he handles and communicates with clients. We worked amazingly together. To say we were on the same plane is an understatement. We just got each other, knew exactly what each other was thinking. A dream team, we were. After a while we started monthly coffee meetings to stay on each other’s radar and just to talk. We’d schedule an hour, and three hours would go by in a blink of an eye. Our ability to communicate with each other, to find ourselves rapt in the conversation, and make each other laugh, was powerful. Still at this point I was not attracted to him physically.

A year ago he accepted a position at a small consulting company to head up a new division dedicated to the product we work with. He asked me to join him, as his number two. After being on my own, and very lonely professionally, for more than seven years, I jumped at the opportunity, and have never been so fulfilled professionally. We are true business partners.

Going to move away from him for a while now. Beginning in early 2014, a snowballing of personal change began. It started with me realizing I had been wrong. Wrong about GMOs, wrong about toxins. I had been living in fear of “things” for years, becoming quite militant. Then I had one epiphany after another. Everything I had been passionate about for years, I was wrong about. I was mad at myself for letting myself be fooled, be taken, by fear mongers. Then the CRUSHING epiphany came—that I had been an AWFUL mother to my then five-year-old daughter. I had anger management issues, honestly inherited from my father. I was not a good parent. And I vowed to change. And I did. I self-helped my way into coping better with anger. I checked off each day on my calendar that I didn’t lose my cool. I realized, that I had spent so much time and energy trying to protect my daughter from these perceived ills, but what I really needed to protect her from was myself. It was a stunning discovery. Then came the guilt.

What did the guilt serve me? I pushed me into a pregnancy I was so sure I wanted – I wanted to prove I could do it again, and right this time. I wanted to make it up to my daughter, by finally giving her a sibling. After a couple months of trying, I got pregnant. I found out I was pregnant the day after I accepted my new job. And then 6 weeks later, I miscarried. I was relieved. And I felt ashamed.

The following Autumn months were relatively uneventful. I was settling into my new job, LOVING every minute of working with my new boss/friend. My attraction to him was growing. I’ll admit to having fantasies and me leaving my husband for him. A big bonus of this arrangement would be that daughter would finally have siblings – though step siblings. It would be the best I could give her in that regard.

Then came the MASSIVE breakdown. Like a thunderbolt, intense, debilitating guilt and regret over my past parenting had enveloped me. I was a wreck, the worst state of my life. I couldn’t eat, several times my head was in a toilet, dry heaving. My commutes to/from work involved me wishing and hoping another car would crash into me and take me out. I was drinking way more than usual. I could feel anxiety and fear in my cheeks. I couldn’t stop replaying my past parenting in my head. I was convinced I had messed my daughter up for good. I was intensely afraid of her self-injuring. I was vigilant, obsessed, always looking for clues, that she was hurting herself and/or that she was damaged for life, and that it was all my fault. Everything was evidence that convicted me. This lasted for weeks.

Now meet my husband. We had known each other for 10 years at that point, married for 6. Our relationship up to that point was easy. We got along well, both liked doing the same things (drinking, smoking pot, and eating fancy food). We didn’t do a lot of talking, at least any deep talking, and that was always fine with me for several reasons: 1) he’s not the brightest, and sometimes listening to him is embarrassing, and 2) he wasn’t trying to get in my head, he never asked what I was thinking. I never had to share anything with him, and he would never try. Considering the stuff that was going through my head most of the time, and the past emotional and psychological abuse of past relationships, I was so thankful to have a “normal” not psycho that did not pry and intrude, stalk or control. I chose him because he was safe. He was shelter. My secrets were safe in my head. And the sex was great. And we made great partying mates.

This relationship worked great until I fell apart last fall. He couldn’t cope. All he could tell me, during the worst of it, was “this has to stop, you have to stop”. Well, easier said than done. If I could stop myself from feeling like I wanted to die, I would! At that point I knew I had to get into therapy.

I took therapy by the horns. After the first session I started to feel a little better. Part of my treatment was to journal each night about something positive I had done in my parenting that day. So every night, after my daughter went to sleep, I would journal. I didn’t take long before my husband resented this. And I cry as I think about what I’m about to type next. One night when he came home from work, I was on the couch journaling. He was very irritated and told me “I just want my cool wife back!”. I know it was just one statement but it cut me like a knife. His “cool wife” (aka the wife that self-medicated with Adderall and pot for ALL of her adult life) was GONE. She was never coming back. I kind of mentally wrote him off that night. And continued with my therapy.

I also continued with my long talks with my friend. We would go for happy hour every couple of weeks. He listened. I needed someone to listen, to empathize. I needed someone to say “tell me more”, not “stop feeling the way you do”. He was there, he listened, and could make me laugh like no other. I will always thank him for being there. He even bought me this book for Christmas, a humorous book about parenting, about how we all make mistakes etc. It was the most touching gift.

Soon after the new year something momentous happened in therapy. Without intending to reveal this, it just flowed out one session. For ten years of my childhood, from 3 to 13, I was sexually abused by my best friend’s dad, our next door neighbor. I had never revealed this. I also revealed then on/off intrusive thoughts I had about people molesting kids. These horrible thoughts, that I couldn’t get out of my head. I was so ashamed. By having these thoughts, surely I was just as bad as pedophiles. I would sometimes look at myself in the mirror and slap myself across the face for having these thoughts. Slap, slap slap. I also told about how this family had to move out of the blue one day. Another kid had accused the dad of molestation, and the dad turned around and accused that kid of touching his youngest son. I believed the monster. I was so devastated about my friend moving across the country, out of the blue, that I blamed the victim too. This other victim was the cause of my losing my friend. I pushed my own experiences away. I was about 10 or 11 at this time. Two years later, this family moved back to town. And my parent, who also believed the monster, let me spend the night at their new house. I was abused again that night. I will never forget, I remember every detail, and how sick I felt for weeks. I turned. I started acting out. I started smoking. Soon after I was diagnosed with ADHD and put on Adderall, which I remained on until I was 35 years old.

Anyway, after that session where I spilled, I went to my car and hyperventilated. I was short or breath, sobbing. It took me a good 10 minutes before I could start the car and drive away. At that point I could literally feel my anxiety and guilt evaporating away, like a cosmic vacuum was sucking it out of my body. I felt light.

That night I told my husband. I told him about the abuse, the intrusive thoughts, and about how much of my anger, hyper-vigilance, fears, could have a link in PTSD. He said “well that explains a lot”. I felt no relief in disclosing to him.

The next day, I repeated the story to my friend. I felt compelled to. His reaction was much different. He said how awful that must have been for me, how hard this must have been to keep for so long. It felt great to tell him. That night I had the most potent dream. I was with my extended family, all my past friends and co-workers, many of the people of have known throughout my life. We were all about to watch a show. My friend was there too. Everybody was mingling. I sat down, alone, in the front row. My friend made his way through the crowd, sat down next to me, and put his cheek up against mine and held it there. Then I woke up, changed forever, by a dream.

Fast forward a month, of me feeling every day like I wanted to “shed”, physically molt, and the physical affair begins. And it’s still going, nearly six months later. My therapy for the past few months has been navigating this, helping me cut really listen to my intuition (still trying to figure out what that is), and learn about who I am – who I am at my authentic self, what I really want out of life.

I am learning a lot about myself, how I got into the situation I am currently in – what “kind of affair” I am having, what was my motivation etc. I’ve been extra careful to not delude myself, not to make up issues in my current marriage to justify what I’m doing. I understand the risks, the traps, the low success rate of relationships that start as affairs. Truth is, my husband is a good man. He’s a hard worker, very helpful around the house, and is a loving and hands-on dad to our daughter. At worse, he has extremely poor communication skills, low EQ and IQ, has a child’s sense of humor, and is so frustratingly petulant when he’s upset, and carries a grudge like no other.

I know I have a lot to learn about myself still, and my self-discovery is just beginning. But so far I know these to be absolute truths – I am smart, I am funny. I am a philosopher, I relish exploring thoughts, concepts, ideas. I love to laugh, make people laugh. I need laughter at a deeper level than just watching something funny. I need to be part of the laughter making. I need to laughter as rapport.

What I used to think was an asset in my marriage – the comfort we have in NOT talking to each other, I’m coming to see as a deficit. I’ve tried to engage him in more than just shallow conversation. I’m trying to give him a chance, be present with him, see if there’s potential. I’ve consciously removed my friend from my mind during this. I’m not comparing my spouse to him. What I’m doing is seeing if my spouse has potential to provide the things that delight me. I have dread over my future with him. I have panic when I think of us together, 15 years down the road when our daughter is grown, and having nothing to talk about. Right now, our daughter is all we have in common. The divide is increasing. It’s not just that we’re growing apart. It’s that I’m growing up, finally getting clear headed after 25 years of medication and 15 years of chronic pot smoking.

My affair may be just a catalyst. I’m not dreaming about us being together forever. I’m not thinking about that future. I’m thinking about me in the present, me at my core. What about my friend delights me – what is it about ME that is so stimulated by this man. What about this man that seems like such a great fit. If I were to end the affair and commit to my marriage, will I be able to find true happiness (vs. muted contentedness)? What do I need from a partner? Has my spouse been the wrong choice, a bad fit, all along? Did I know enough about myself, was I too damaged, to have possibly chosen the right mate all those years ago? I’ve come to see that we don’t really know each other at all. Can this marriage possibly serve me for the rest of my life? Even if the issues are resolved, is there enough left?

I am struggling with the idea of leaving a good man. Conventional wisdom (or at least the whole of the internet it seems) says divorce should be reserved for the abused – that do to so otherwise, especially when you have children, is selfish. It’s judgement, it’s not wanting to hurt him, that’s what’s keeping me in stasis. If I knew nobody would judge, and he wouldn’t be hurt (a fantasy I know that), then I would leave. It’s other people that’s keeping me put. But I’m also not sure I’m not just in some enormous, whopper of a pre-pre mid life crisis (I’m 38). What if I’m wrong? What if leaving would be a huge mistake? What if staying is even a bigger mistake? What if I’m in too thick of a transformation to wisely make that call right now? What if what if what if?

Does bravery ever catch up to the clarity? I’m I just deluding myself all around?

PS I know what I’m doing is wrong and it would hurt my husband very much if he knew. I’m aware. I am where I am though. I’m trying to get through this weird stage of my life without beating myself up, to love myself still.