Waking Up

I had an affair with a man who was, at the time, a coworker from another state. We fell in love hard and quickly, and to this day he is the man that truly has my heart. I had issues in my marriage like everyone does, but the problem (for lack of a better word) was that love was not one of them. My husband is a great man, and I can't imagine loving someone more than I love him, or than he loves me. Not to get into it all here, but our love is not an intimate one, and our relationship is devoid of any kind of sexuality. My marriage is not healthy, but that doesn't make it any less loving and the idea of ending it tore me apart and I knew I could never do it.

The problem always was, I was -and still am- completely in love with this other man. No one I've ever met and nothing in this world could make me feel as happy and as healthy as just talking to him could.

I tried to end it a million times but I was never as strong in my conviction as I'd like to have been. In my heart, it was as if I felt the memory of past lives with him and every wish I ever had throughout a lonely and somewhat difficult life seemed to be answered by him. He was my best friend, a relationship I'd always yearned for and never quite found in anyone. But I still couldn't leave my husband, who is the most special person I've ever known. It wasn't his fault I found my soulmate now, and my husband too loves me in a way I've never been loved before and have always wanted. Perhaps not the way a man should love his wife but that doesn't negate the beauty of that love.

Over the last two years, (three years since our affair began), my friend and I have gone from having a pseudo relationship (our frequent work travels allowed us to, at one point, spend more time together than with our spouses) to, at the last time we were together, having what can't be described any differently than 'an affair'. It is not our feelings that changed, but rather the circumstances. We don't work together anymore and so the only chance to see each other is when I travel to his city, and there we can share a few stolen moments in my hotel room. It is nothing like what we used to be and really brought home to me the need to do do what I believed was right - to end it with him. He wanted us to be together, to start anew, and I dragged our beautiful love into the deep mud of an affair instead. It wasn't meant to be that way.

Its been about 4-5 months now since we've 'been together' or had any significant communication. I recently traveled to his city and for the first time, didn't contact him at all. I got through my business trip and went home without him knowing I was there.

Our relationship feels like a dream to me - like a beautiful dream that was far better than my reality. And the last three years, I've been sleeping way too much trying to chase that dream, to wrap myself inside of a world where everything is how it should have been. But unfortunately, you can't always pull your dreams into reality, they often get lost in translation, which is what my heart always told me would be the case here. So for the first time in three years, I chose to stay awake.

The problem is, staying awake hasn't resulted in the strength of the dream diminishing. I am haunted by a true love that will never be and the pain of wanting something that I can't hold, the pain of chasing a dream that will never materialize. I am so afraid that I will always feel this way.