In Love With A Married Man
You think about me every day. You wait for those teasing and tempting text messages which come through repeatedly during the day and then dry up around 6pm when you know that I am home with her. Once in a while there might be a sudden text at 9pm telling you that she has popped in the bath and that I love you, I miss you and I hate being apart from you. The text also warns you against replying and therefore all you are able to do is touch the glowing screen and try to feel the sentiment behind these electronic messages of desire.
How you cherish that period around 5-30 pm when every day we speak on the ‘phone, just you and I. I am driving home from the office and I use the half an hour or so to regale you with my compliments and to issue those promises that perhaps one day I will be driving home to you. Whatever you are doing you always ensure that you are available and your ‘phone line is free in order to engage in this call. You now arrange social engagements to take place later or you remain at your workplace, ensconced in the office, appearing to be engaged in a business call, save that you smile far too much for something that is work-related. That half an hour of heaven when we talk as if we were properly together, making plans, discussing the things we like and dislike, planning the next time we can snatch some time to make love without being detected or laughing about what was discussed when we met for lunch.
You manage to arrange to have lunch with me at least once a week. We deliberately choose a place that neither is likely to be recognised in and we place ourselves around the corner and out of sight. Hands held beneath the table and then removed when the waiter nears us, just in case. Stolen kisses, lingering looks and promises, oh so many promises of the wonderful world that awaits us once I manage to free myself of the chains of my marriage.
You listen carefully and attentively, showing the empathy for which you were chosen as I make oblique references to my miserable home life. Each time you gently press for more information to enable you to understand what it is that I have to endure. What it is that I have to put up with and what it is that has driven me into your arms? I try not to say too much at first. I do not want our oh too brief times together to be spoiled by my tale of woe, but your sympathetic ear proves irresistible and I allow you to learn of the injustices that I suffer on a daily basis.
“We just do not get on any longer.”
“She lost interest in me sexually three years ago. I am amazed I have lasted this long.”
“Nothing I seem to do is good enough. No matter how hard I try, she always finds something to criticise.”
You listen and nod. I know you are desperate to weigh in and slide a knife between me and her and cut our bonds, but the decency that you are imbued with prevents you from doing so. You even suggest reasons why this state of affairs is as it is. You are kind, generous and understanding.
You thrill to my sudden calls out of the blue. You always answer after one ring, sometimes even less, thus denoting that your ‘phone is kept next to you at all times. Your voice always tells me how delighted you are to hear from me. When we meet your eyes, your kiss, your hugs and your spoken enthusiasm cause me to soar as I witness your devotion and desire.
You experience a surge of excitement when you are disturbed by a chime in the middle of the night and see that I have managed to issue another text to you.
I cannot get you out of my head and had to let you know. Don’t reply, I am in bed with her.
The delight that you experience at hearing from me when you expected not to is tempered by the knowledge that I am with her and not you.
The weekends are hardest as you often tell me. I can tell you want to say more but I know you are fearful of pushing me away by being too demanding. I text you when I can and even managed to call you, speaking in hushed tones from a toilet cubicle or a changing room in a department store, stifling my laugh that I have pretended to try on some clothes just so I can call you.
I keep you hooked though. I know how much you want me. I know you love me and I know you want me to be loved, to take me away from the misery of my marriage. I promise you that one day we will be together. Now is not the time, it isn’t quite right at the moment, there’s a family event coming up and it wouldn’t be sensible to drop such a bombshell with that on the horizon, there is a family holiday she booked it and I didn’t know until now but what can I do? I will have to go. I keep the promises coming and the excuses flowing and still you hang on.
I know you wonder why I keep my ‘phone close to me. You haven’t said anything yet but I am not stupid. I can see the suspicion in your eyes when I wake and immediately check my mobile.
“I am waiting for an important e-mail that may have come in from the States overnight,” I explain and issue a disarming smile. You nod. You seem to accept the explanation.
You have complained how you are unable to ever get me on my ‘phone when you ring when I am on my way home. How many times have you left messages asking me to pick up some milk or to collect one of our children from swimming or football only for me to pick the message up too late?
“I need to be available for my clients. They don’t know I am driving home nor do they care; they need to speak to me. After all, if it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have this would we?” I explain pleasantly sweeping an expansive arm at the large house and expensive furnishings all around us. You nod in acceptance. You understand my work is important. I tell you often enough that it is.
“I wish you would meet me for lunch when I come into town,” you say every week or so. I kiss your forehead and tell you that I wish that I had the time to enjoy lunch with the woman I love but it is a sandwich and a bottle of fizzy water at my desk for me. There are targets to hit. You nod in understanding and tell me that I work too hard. I thank you and my mind drifts to what I will eat in that Thai restaurant I will be having lunch in tomorrow.
“I wish they would leave you alone,” you sigh when I turn away from you in bed after having made love to you. Your hand lingers on my back, wanting to maintain the closeness and the connection as I attend to my ‘phone on the night stand and issue a late night text before placing it face down.
“I know but it saves waking up to a problem,” I say before turning back to you and kissing you as we nestle in our marital bed.
I know you cherish our weekends together when the demands of the working week intrude less on our domestic life. I can sense you looking at me as I sit, phone in hand, a smile of contentment playing across those lips but nowhere near as wide as the smile inside of me as I fire off a tempting and teasing message.
“Just seeing if Dan is available for squash next week. Tuesday night, so I will be back late,” I say across the room by way of explanation, opening up a gap in the week for someone other than you. You smile and nod and return to your book.
“I love you,” I say suddenly and you look up, the devotion and desire burning in your eyes and it seems so familiar almost making me say something, but the thought passes and I wallow in the admiration and love that you send towards me. You have never ceased to do that.
You do not know about her.
She thinks she knows all about you.
Neither of you really know what I am.
24 thoughts on “In Love With A Married Man”
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Dear Mr Tudor,
Out of all your writing that I have devoured and learned so much from, this piece in particular has had the most profound effect of all. It chilled me to my core as it was so hauntingly accurate to me in my position as the duped mistress. In reading it, I almost felt your presence in the room with me, and certainly in my heart and mind. My question for you, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating, is how do you possess such a profoundly intimate understanding of the motivations and internal dialogue of us empaths? Is it learned? Is it instinctive?
I am newly escaped, and newly ‘weaponized’ in thanks to your work, but I also recognise my continuing vulnerability as a Super/Magnet Empath, so I am hoping your answer may help further strength my armour for the future.
My sincere thanks and appreciation for your insight.
Super/Magnet 🙂
You are welcome.
If not for the shackles of other peoples religious beliefs and its ridiculous resulting covenant of marriage as a way of punishing, we would be free to love whomever we liked. You cannot own another person, their heart, or their genitals. Believing that you can and judging others on it is what makes one an asshole.
I agree with you Narc Angel. That is how I feel about love too. Having kids though, this idea is more tricky. You don’t want them to have all kinds of “dads”. Society often reacts very narrow minded.
Also, I remember saying to my narc that we could love more people in life (romantically) at once, like he his girlfriend and I my husband and us (narc and I) still loving each other too. Almost right away he discarded me and told me he had cheated on me. This could be true, but it could also be that he just wanted to prove me wrong. And he did. I was jealous as hell, for the first time in my life. Even more than when my husband cheated on me, because that was in a later stage of our relationship.
Narcs always want to prove you wrong and sometimes they are right.
PS there is a white night dirty empath HG writes about that hits home. Someone can find the link. It is near our asshole photos:)
Seriously though, read it. Check.
First of all, I did not seek out a married man. I too live in an ivory tower and glare at whores in church. HOWEVER. I knew him in college, we dated then. He came to me, from another state and said divorce was imminent. It is actually one word that he kept. He got divorced. We had bliss. Not. I became her. And then realized. He was the problem. Not her. I get the scorn, I really do. I also get how I carve out reasons that I am different, it was ok, or whatever. I am not a home wrecker. And I left him. He was single, divorced, whatever. The abuse was phenomenal. NO, it is not ok. I broke a commandment. But does that mean I deserved to be targeted, manipulated and abused? I think not. I truuuuly thought it was love and meant to be. I thought he made a grave mistake and that marrying was simply that. I did not cause his divorce or adultery. He did not cause mine. I am not without sin. We are all assholes:)
HG: I have been both the married and the cheater. My husband cheated on me with some chick – I found the texts and sexts – we are still married divorce has not even Happened yet.
We have been together for 14 years married for 10. He cheated on me in our 20’s with a girl from my hometown. SHe got pregnant. I still agreed to marry my husband bc it “was a one night stand”.
I raised the baby that came from my husbands one night stand before we married. She is my step daugher that I love and shared custody with.
My husband discarded me on 4/24/17 me and our 9 year old son. Completely abandoned his life of 10 years. Once I filed divorce my husband left the girl he cheated on me with and immediately moved in with my stepdaughters mother.
So I’m the wife raising the baby mamas daughter with my son, my husband left me and moved into her house. Now my son and I have basically switched positions.
I still have sex with my husband. Every week. I just need sex and refuse to sleep with a random guy.
I am the wife who was cheated on
I am now also the mistress of my husbands girlfriend.
I am the mother of all kids shared between my husband and girlfriend.
Why am I putting myself through this. My HUSBAND Now cheats on his girlfriend with me his wife!!
At the core of this is your emotional thinking driving you to continue to engage with the narcissist in this fashion. Your emotional thinking will ‘dress it up’ as you
1. Gaining some kind of revenge;
2. Maintaining some kind of hold;
3. Avoiding having to find a random person to have sex with;
and many other different reasons which seem plausible but are all part of its conning nature to make you engage with the narcissist and feed the emotional infection which causes your addiction to the narcissist. There are many things you can do to address this which I can explain to you through consultation.
Wow. Thank you for this. I always wondered what my husband was thinking while having an affair for 6 weeks before I found out.
6 weeks? You found out fast. Good for you. I am not the wife. I am the other woman. Or I was. He left her. Sold the house. I thought he was mine. I loved him. So much. Little did I know he was still entertaining her. And then again I knew all along that someting was not right. From the start. All the red flags. After 2 years I told her he was with me. I thought she knew. He told me that he told her. He did not. So it took almost 2 years for her to find out.
And the other Way around.
Double life. One can wonder how they can look in the mirror and think they are good people. He was always the victim. I felt sorry for him. My god. So stupid.
14 months has gone. Today I would not pee on him if he was on fire.
12345 — 💯agree!
Anyone who would knowingly enter into a relationship with an otherwise attached person is an asshole themselves and deserves all that befalls them. I have no sympathy for those selfish people. They are toxic in themselves with no respect for others.
Lots of people are assholes without having entered into a relationship with an otherwise attached person. Some assholes are even posting on this blog.
No one deserves all that befalls them. It helps to know their story before judging them. I believe everyone at some point in their life has received the gift of undeserved mercy and can later use their mistakes for good.
Yes, we all make mistakes and thank God for grace and mercy. I thinks what’s more important is to be accountable and accept responsibility for our part and not make excuses.
Own our mess and grow from it. Use it as a catalyst for change.
We do better…when we know better.
Some do..some dont…for some it takes time.
Prayers for better choices, and that we strive to be better today, tomorrow, and our remaining years left on this earth.
Happy New Life Everyone
My nex-husband (divorced him last month) only told me 4 months ago that he was in a relationship with a woman when I met him. I have never known. I only once heard him fighting with a woman at the door and I think now it must have been her.
When I got to know the next (my last) narc, I asked my husband permission to cheat on him or if he’s prefer to get divorced. He said he didn’t want to divorce and he didn’t care if I cheated. We split up, lived seperately, but 3 years later we are divorced anyway (I wanted it). Although I had permission to cheat I never did physically, I only had a 3 year on-line “relationship” and we saw each other a few times in a bar, after concerts, but never spoke with each other then. I was madly in love with the guy, but after 5 months II found out he had a girlfriend. I was so head-over-heels in love that I could not stop writing him. By then he had sucked me into his Narcissistic game to far and I was too lonely. The things he did were very, very exciting (and I’m not talking about sex now), very, very manupulative also. I just could not let go. I tried at least 10 times. It was only when I knew everything about NPD, that I let go. But I still fight my emotional feelings every day.
It’s not always black & white demoneater..
I want to add to this that the last narc did want to get physical, but I could not go so far since I knew he had a girlfriend. Did I not want to have sex with him? My god, there was nothing I wanted more than that.
I know there are lots of people in these kind of situations. So it always makes me angry when people judge others. No all people are made of stone.You’ve probably never been in a situation that you were so deeply in love that you had no control over your feelings.
Agree…selfish or suffer from some form of disorder and doesn’t realize it.
The narc in me as sniglets said” 100% concentrating on me”. They do that well in the beginning. Of course thanks to H.G we now we know why. As I always say narcs are public property.
12345 exactly they will always cheat married or not
I’m lucky that naturally I am not inclined to want to start an intimate relationship with unavailable men no matter how good looking, intelligent or rich they may be. Lord knows he has put them in my path many times and I stay absolutely feelings neutral towards them. I keep them at a distance. The man must be 💯% concentrating on me and be mine because I will never share him if I love him. Sounds a little narcissistic but I’m not budging.
But all narcissists are completely unavailable and are never 100% concentrating on their flavor of the moment. They are 100% concentrating on themselves. That’s what narcissism is. My understanding is that we share them with many others whether we know them or not. Isn’t that the essence of being emotionally involved with a narcissist? They certainly don’t love you back. Married or not they are completely unavailable.
12345, I certainly understand your point and I think I will be giving my attention more to empathic men from now on to avoid the trappings of a narcissistic relationship. Some narcissistic traits are unavoidable and acceptabile as long as they are mine only. (Just kidding!! ☺️😉😎)
True to a certain extent. You compromise yourself when you know they are married or in a relationship.
If we enter into a relationship with a narc without knowledge they are disordered. We don’t see it as compromising our moral standards.( albeit a lie) When you enter a relationship with a married narc, secrecy, lies, and manipulation is par for the course. I think it’s totally different when you have an option to flee vs agreeing to participate in the triangle.
Exactly. There’s always someone else and they’re never truly available.
Trouble is they present as 💯 all in. And almost divorced. My nex left his wife for me. Yes, I know. He left her for himself. They do what they will. Anyhow I am not a gold digger or heart breaker. He came hither and said, we are essentially done. Sleep in separate rooms. Cue the HG story with all the lines they trot out in seduction. Gah. I agree though. No narc is available to us. Not exclusively. Never. We share. Ugg.