please, no judgment. in love with married best friend.
forgive the bad writing. i didn't sleep much and i'm just letting it spill out.
she and i started as creative partners and then became best friends, then had crushes on each other, and then fell in love. she's married with two children, but she's never been in love with or really connected with her husband; she married him because she knew he wasn't going anywhere and because he was solid and dependable. and he is those things -- he's a good man -- but her capacity for love is amazing and she deserves so much better. i'm not saying that i'm better than him, just better for her; and she knows this and knows that there are people better for him than her.
they slept together a handful times last year, but her heart's not in it; since we became intimate, they haven't. (it took us four months of knowing we had feelings for each other to say "i love you," and five to kiss, seven to touch each other more than tentatively, and eight to be naked together. we still haven't slept together, but we've come close.)
sometimes when you're in a situation like this, the grass is greener and the love is pure idealization, but because we started out as best friends and because there was a strong attraction -- physical and mental -- and because we've written hundreds of thousands of words to each other via e-mail and probably tens of thousands via text, we know that there's an incredible connection here. i don't like everything about her. she doesn't like everything about me. we don't idealize each other. but we know that -- had we met fifteen years ago -- we'd have spent our lives together and died still in love. it's that powerful. strongest thing i've ever felt, her too.
but she has children and she's worried about them hating her or hating me. and she thinks they would eventually be okay, but she can't imagine telling them that they're about to go through an upheaval in their lives.
in the meantime, there's the stress of this affair. because we're friends and because we work on things together, we get to see each other, and she never has to lie. her phone's tracked anyway, so it's not like we can run off to a hotel (and it's not like we'd feel okay doing that anyway). still, the stress is taking its toll on both of us: the inability to have a normal relationship, the fact that everything we do that feels beautiful and amazing also feels wrong. if we were out of each others' lives, though, it would hurt even more -- maybe especially for her, as this is sort of her last chance to be happy. she's trying to figure out what to do, has been for months. she says that she needs to feel like she can make peace with the decision. her marriage isn't fixable -- it could be pleasant and civil, never good -- but everything with us (even when we were just friends) has been so powerful, neither of us want to lose it.
we're breaking down, though. months ago, it was about saying, "oh, hi, wow, i love you," and about each new discovery. now we know everything, we've felt everything. we know each others' hearts, bodies, minds. she knows i'd do anything to be with her and do anything for her once we were together and try to be the best everything that i could be for everyone. i know that she loves me more than she's ever loved anyone (except for maybe her children) and that she's just painfully stuck. and now we talk about things twice a week and it always comes down to her saying words that make me go wtf how is this not so obvious? and then she says she doesn't know what to do.
what do we do? i really do feel like if this ends unresolved, i'm going to need years of therapy to trust love ever again. i've been in two relationships since i've been in love with her, neither of which i could really be in at all. if she has to let me go, she's going to spiral into a place where she's no good for her husband or her children, and i'm going to feel like i have nothing to live for. the creative work we do will fall apart, i'll lose my best friend, i won't be able to focus on my job. i won't kill myself -- ever -- but i can't imagine not wanting to. and she, she's got this secret that she'll have to keep inside forever. but if i tell her, "come see me when you're separated" and offer an ultimatum, she's the kind of person who will just say, "if that's what you want" and suffer in silence. she's not a fighter, at all. she'll never fight for anything. she abides and suffers. i'm a fighter, and i don't want to be pressuring her as much as i am. really, i'm pressuring her about the future more because i want the present to feel okay. i want to be able to hold her hand when we're around other people, i want things to be free of guilt. but i'm also so ready to take on her life and its complexity.
so, what do we do? inb4 the honorable thing is to stop messing around behind his back. please, please don't say that. i know. maybe it is. and maybe we should. it's just... something this perfect doesn't even come along in everyone's lifetime. i've lived a lot of life and been in love a lot of times. this is special. what do we do? if we do stop the affair, what do we do after that to survive? what does she need to make her up mind? what should i give her? should i be there for her? i don't know the answers to any of these questions, and our hearts are slowly breaking.
i love her so much. i want her to be happy. but if she stays, her kids might, but she won't. i want to do the right thing, but what IS the right thing? maybe the right thing is to treasure and explore this connection without disrupting anyone's life. it's not taking anything away from somewhere where nothing is... but this is killing us and it's all we ever think about anymore.
