An orchestrated seduction

There’s that saying: “In the right place at the right time”.  Apparently that’s possible.

At the time that the affair with his mistress started, my husband had been going through some personal turmoil that had left him feeling very alone and traumatized.  Our lives were so busy, each of us wrapped up in our careers, and simultaneously trying to provide so much to our children.  We rarely had any opportunity to focus on “US”.   At a time when he was scared and sad, she was fun and bubbly.  When I was wrapped up in the kids’ schedules, carpooling and busy dealing with the mundane side of raising a family, she was childless, carefree, and a bundle of enthusiasm.

In Shirley Glass’ book “Not Just Friends”, she mentions that forbidden relationships carry with them a magnetism and excitement that gives the affair partner (the other woman) a distinct advantage when comparing the two relationships.   She is careful to point out that it isn’t that the wives are dull and boring and that the affair partner is exciting and illuminating.  She goes on to mention that when comparing the two women, the betraying partner isn’t so much comparing the women as he is comparing how it feels to be idealized by her in a fantasy world they have created versus being in a reality-based long term committed relationship.   Marriage takes work, and involves many factors (mortgage payments, kids schooling, job woes, responsibilities and commitments…), while the affair is pure fun.  If the betraying spouse suddenly had his affair partner asking about money issues, issues with kids, questions about bills and home repairs, the relationship would suddenly seem less exhilerating.

She was in the right place at the right time, and knew all the things to say.  Carefully placed criticisms of me, playfully contrasted against opposing positive comments about her to force a comparison.  Suggestions that his life is stressful and difficult because of me contrasted against her easy-going, fun-loving, bubbly nature.  Knowledge of our planned evening of tax planning contrasted against her plans to frequent a martini bar with friends, carefully juxtaposed for effect.  It worked, and before he knew it, they were secretly sneaking kisses at work.  He should have told me then.  He didn’t.

Not too long afterwards, the sexual tension increased.  The mutual attraction was confessed, and texting turned into sexting.  Titillating messages back and forth at night before bed, or throughout the day aimed at increasing desire and maintaining interest.  Casual kisses soon turned to hotel room escapades after work disguised as meetings.  It was all very believable to me; he worked late hours, had multiple roles in his job which required late meetings or long days.  It certainly raised no red flags.  She made it all very accessible and easy when she said “If at anytime one of us wants out, just say so, and this is over…no questions asked”.

Before long, they both found themselves at an impasse where work was concerned.  She was let go due to friction with other co-workers, and he was itching to launch a new enterprise.  Having just been fired, she accused him of using her for sex.  When he explained that he hadn’t, she reached into the ‘girl-bag’ and pulled out the ‘manipulation’ card.  Knowing that he is an honourable man who would never want to cheapen someone’s sense of self worth, she played on that, and asked for proof that he cared about her and that she wasn’t being used.  He hired her, and offered her a job.  Her plan was falling together nicely, as they were now going to be working together one-on-one in a private office, on a project that they both felt mutually excited about.  His project was the construction of a dream, her project: the destruction of a marriage.

In the fall of 2009, my girlfriend confessed to an extramarital affair.  I was disgusted.  I was angry.  I felt intense pity and sadness for her husband who was clueless to the affair, but had just been informed that she no longer wanted to be in the marriage.  I came home to my husband and told him what I’d learned.  For effect I chose to add the comment “If someone ever did that to me [have an affair], you could be sure I’d be out the door before you finished your sentence”.  Knowing he was already embroiled in an affair, he was convinced I could never find out.  He had to find a way out of it without any collateral damage.

A few weeks into the new work arrangement, he said he wanted out.  It wasn’t right.  He felt guilty, and couldn’t continue.  He had, as he described it, satisfied his curiosity for what it would be like to be with another woman, and hadn’t really been interested in pursuing further hookups after the second or third time.  The sex wasn’t great, the guilt was too much to bear, and it wasn’t who he is.  He asked her to help him stop the affair.  After all, it had been her who’s said “If at anytime one of us wants out…”  He now sees that was just a way for him to feel comfortable.  ‘Make him feel safe, make him feel comfortable, and he will be more apt to jump in the car with me’ was probably her thinking.

When he continued to tell her he was done, and wanted out, she threatened to tell me all of the details, expose the lies, and ruin him professionally.  She claimed that she would charge him with sexual harassment in the workplace, and call his professional associations.  Fearing the loss of his family and his career, he carried on.  This pattern continued for seven months, with her advances leading to sex after work.  On the days when he would refuse to engage in sex with her, his evenings would be replete with angry text messages, expressions of hurt that he didn’t care about her, and threats to expose the relationship.  On a few occasions, I actually received text messages or emails designed to make me question their relationship.  They were obscure enough that he could probably explain them away, but all she wanted to do was plant a seed of suspicion in my mind….it would then grow and do all the work for her to implode our marriage.  It didn’t work.

Within a few weeks, the unborn child became yet another weapon in her master plan to control him.  As disgusting as it sounds, and as hard to believe as it is, she started using the child’s life against him.  “If you leave your wife to be with me, I will terminate this pregnancy”.  Now those of us with rational minds find this completely ridiculous, and barbaric.  He would tell her time and time again he didn’t want another baby, and would NOT  be involved in the life of this child if she chose to have it.  Since he was being given no choice in whether this pregnancy would continue, he made it very clear that if she is making this choice alone, she will also be raising this child alone.  Never having had any children, she had an unrealistic fantasy of what parenting would look like.  To her it was probably someone to love her.  I don’t think she feels much love.  Her behaviour and the way in which she feels she needs to manipulate in order to get attention and love tells me that she has never come by it easily.   I feel sorry for her.  That will be another post.

It was starting to become clear that he needed to tell me.  She was exerting pressure on him to do so.  The ultimatum was that if he didn’t tell me, she would.  All mistresses want the married man to tell the wife.  They think it will implode the marriage from the inside, the wife will kick him out, thereby opening the door for her to walk in and take her prize.  It is the moment they have been working towards and waiting for.  He had told her several times that he didn’t want to leave me, and that if I did leave him as a result, he was NOT going to be with her, and would likely never marry again.  He no longer trusted women, and if he couldn’t have me, he wanted nothing.  She didn’t buy it.

She walked him through, step by step, what he would say to me, how he would tell me.  She even rehearsed it with him.  He had no intention of saying anything that she was planting, but felt he had to play along with her to keep her calm.   As long as she believed he was on board, she wouldn’t snap, go off the handle and embark on a tirade of crazy.  According to him, the hardest part of all of that was to pretend to be on board, and to say the prepared words “I don’t love you.  I’ve never loved you.  I don’t want to be with you anymore”.  The words tasted sour in his mouth and made him sick to his stomach, but it was, in the end, all pretend.  He wasn’t going to tell me that way.  He didn’t feel that way.  She just hoped he did, and she wanted me to hurt.

Affairs are unfair on so many levels.  Not only do you lose the closed intimacy that you share with your husband, and not only do you now share his body with another.  You also have a person hell bent on hurting you, damaging you, desperately wanting you to feel intense pain, willing to do or say anything to make you go away. The hatred from the affair partner to me was intense.  The question I asked, and still do is: What did I do to deserve it?   Nothing.  That is the part I don’t think I will ever understand.

In recent discussions with my husband, now one year after the affair, he is realizing that he was targeted, and that this was all a plan from the beginning for her.  Here is this nice family man.  He’s sensitive and kind, and he loves his kids.  He’s a good looking, intelligent, physically fit man who, in my humble opinion, is a great catch.  He earns a great income, and supports his family with care and love.  Knowing that she was single, 34, with no man on the horizon, she decided that she wanted in on prize, and set her sights on easing him out of his current arrangement into one that included her.  Knowing he was going through a rough patch personally, all it took was her showing him some kindness, compassion, and pretending to be interested in his feelings.

He feels used, and taken.  I think it probably feels humiliating if I have to try and place myself in his shoes.  He was lied to for a year too…the difference was that he didn’t love her, while I did and DO love him.  It hurts to be lied to strategically by someone who purports to care.  It hurts a lot.