Here’s what happens when you fall in love with someone you aren’t married to:
You read a lot of books and go to a lot of therapy and have endless hours of discussion with your saintly husband about endless topics including, but not limited to:
How does God feel about this?
How do we feel about this?
What exactly is this?
How does the man I love feel about this?
But I have four children…
Is it possible to love two people, and to be loved by two people, in this way?
It takes a couple of years, but once you’ve found language to engage those questions, you tell that man that you love him. And eventually, he loves you back, but not before ghosting you for a couple of months.
Neither of you is sure what kind of love it is, exactly. You just know that you feel whole in each other’s presence. You know your souls share a common space. You know that your bodies feel right when they’re touching. You know that it’s beyond complicated because neither of your lives really supports the kind of care you have for each other.
You love this man because your cells came alive when you heard his voice for the first time years ago. God whispered, “That’s him.” You didn’t have a choice. He loves (or loved) you because your joy illuminated pieces of his soul he believed were going to be gray forever. You talked about God in a way that made him curious again. He loved the way you smelled and that lime green…nevermind.
He healed the leftover bits that decades of talk therapy just couldn’t. And you broke him, your boundless, dazzling love forced him to his knees. Your cycle was completing, his just beginning. Your wounds stopped smelling, his were beginning to attract flies. You were willing and happy to stay and help clean out the necrotic bits, you remind him you have your CNA license.
You feared that losing his gaze, touch, affection, and validation would impact whether or not you mattered in the first place. If he didn’t see your sparkle (or rejected your sparkle) then did you actually ever sparkle at all? A littler version of you believed that if you felt full alone-ness, you would die. You didn’t want to spend Thursday nights with your family because women like you need freedom, dopamine, and identities outside of the wonderful homes we create and sustain.
Finally, you begged him not to leave, even though you knew he had to leave.
You try to forget the magic, like that time that biker stopped and asked to take a picture of the two of you floating on your paddle boards, tethered to a favorite tree (God I loved how you brought ropes everywhere).
“Sure! But I need you to send it to me please!” You yell across the water, followed by your phone number. The strawberry tops fall into the water and drift away.
Just two weeks earlier you had lamented to him, “We don’t have a single photo together!?” And here, out of nowhere, in the middle of a lake, a woman offers to take the only photograph you have proving that it was all real, not just some fantastic dream. She texts you later that evening, explaining that the feeling of peace she witnessed in the aura, under that tree, was so beautiful to her that she wanted to try and paint it.
He will leave anyway.
You don’t cry as hard as that time he ghosted you years ago, but you do die.
You gain fifteen pounds and have to go on Ozempic over the summer. You consider leaving your husband, you’re tired of tip-toeing around the holes in your marriage, holes that this other man filled beautifully. Your skin goes hungry (it’s still starving). Your identity and heart are shattered. Your family feels impossibly burdensome at moments, so instead of running to him, you run to the woods and the waters and Rocky Mountain skies.
You feel an invitation into a life and a nervous system you aren’t sure about, yet. It’s hard work, cultivating an entirely new existence, especially when the one you’re leaving was so close to perfect. You don’t tap out, you stay in the arena, sometimes with tequila in hand, which is okay because you’ve been to rehab.
You keep going. You’ve never had your heart broken like this and each day you feel the collective cheers of every spurned woman before you—you earned a membership to a club you worked tirelessly to avoid. Congrats! You collapse.
You realize that actually, your heart had felt something with this flavor before. Every time your dad left. Every time you sat in your empty, broken home. Every time your mom obliterated your spirit. Except as a child, instead of feeling the heartbreak, the loneliness, the rejection, you ate. And sometimes, after you started shaving and had access to razors, you cut. And you were so angry all the time.
You settled into the hard truths behind your attraction to this man in the first place. Yes, he’s very tall, and very talented, and just the sweetest soul on the planet. Yes, he makes your life feel full, magical, and improved. His presence made you a better wife and a better parent. You are not happier with him gone.
But he became a foot stuck in the door of your story, a foot stuck in between Part 1 and Part 2. As long as you had his love and presence you could keep looking back through the crack, identifying with the pain, insecurity, trauma—the Old Story.
In order to accept the invitations of the clouds and river rocks (to which you finally RSVP “yes”) you must close the door. It’s not a rejection of anything, but a gracious farewell. God needs you clear now.
Whole. A New Story.
You go off Ozempic because you’re back to 215, which is where you feel sexy and strong. You maintain it so don’t believe the bullshit.
You begin creating again, but this time, the fire feels hotter. All the energy you diverted into him gets channeled toward the thing God hopes you’ll give others.
You weep regularly, still—almost a year later— and you’re not sure if it’s because you miss his arms or the life to which you waved good-bye. (Also, fellow members of the Heartbreak Club, is it normal to cry a year later?)
You still consider divorce an option, once the dust settles. But does the dust ever settle? Plus, you remember, your husband is the purest and most perfect person you have the privilege of knowing.
Your kids are fine, like—totally fine. Mostly. So far?
You hunt sunsets instead of validation.
Your skin is luminous and you decide to throw away all your foundation and concealer. You can’t hide anything anymore, not even that late-luteal little fucker right there on your chin. You remember how much he loved your skin and your smile. You hate him for only a moment before you go right back to gratitude.
How did you get so lucky? To exist in a matrix, a life, this stunning? How is it possible that the little lonely girl has found such security in her own stunning, sparkly soul? Gratitude fills the spaces in between.
You’re ready to embark on Part 2 of whatever the hell is going on. You’ve endured, because you allowed every version of yourself to finally feel every feeling. You’ve trusted your cells to follow the whispers of Love instead of “shoulds.” People judge and question—you let them, and arrange flowers instead of spending a second trying to defend or explain.
You feel unstoppable. You feel whole and ready (and a little raw).
This is what happens when you allow yourself to love, fully. This is what happens when you allow yourself to feel, fully. This is what happens when you allow yourself to live, and to die, fully. Onward, you smile.