I was relatively inexperienced sexually, so I wanted to kind of take things slowly. I had slept with two guys before him, and I really didn’t want to “catch feelings” even though we were moving quickly. So I remember the first time we slept together, I was thinking—We’re just fucking. This isn’t serious. You can walk away. We were in bed afterward, talking and hanging out, and he turned to me and told me he loved me. I just laughed out loud. I thought it was so ridiculous that this man—this older man—was telling me he was in love with me after we’d just had sex for the first time. But he seemed upset by the fact that I was laughing, and I thought to myself, Oh, maybe he’s serious. Maybe he really does love me.
Which is fucking ridiculous. Because we’d just met.
But things got progressively more intense. At first, I liked that he was older. He just seemed more real. I was still worrying about college and credits, and he had a job and was going to school for a career. He smoked. He drank things like Scotch. He’d had jobs before. He’d had serious girlfriends. He was a real person, and that he was interested in me made me feel like I was also more interesting, more of an adult.
I met his parents, who absolutely hated me because I was “too young” and we didn’t have anything in common. He met my parents, who absolutely hated him because he was “too old” and we didn’t have anything in common. And although we fought about our parents not accepting us as a couple, things were fine, for the most part.
But slowly, over maybe the span of a year, I started noticing that his life was taking over my life. I wasn’t paying attention to school. I wasn’t hanging out with my friends. I wasn’t doing any of the things that used to make me happy, like working out or going out to party. I was basically not in college anymore. We hung out with his friends, and whenever I’d want him to hang out with mine, he’d very nicely and diplomatically decline, or tell me he had work, or tell me school was really busy. I liked his friends fine, but I always felt like an idiot around them. They were all older and super dismissive of me. I was basically seen as the hot chick their friend was fucking around with for a little while.
So I became increasingly isolated. We started fighting a lot, and I was drinking more, too. I’d never been a drinker—it was actually still illegal for me to drink when we met—so he really initiated me into the world of having a drink at the end of the day. And over time it became a habit. I’d drink to celebrate a good day. Drink to self-medicate after a bad day. Drink to end a day.
I remember we’d had a bad fight and I was drunk on red wine. I went into the shower to sober myself up and this song came on, on Spotify, about missing an old love. And I started thinking about Matt, my first boyfriend in college. He’d graduated a year before me and moved back home. Even though we loved each other and things were good, being long-distance was difficult. We had decided to very amicably break up, trusting that life would bring us together again if it was meant to be.
The more I thought about Matt, the more it kind of tempered the sadness that I felt over my boyfriend. It was almost like my brain was looking at Matt as someone who would always be there, maybe as the guy I was meant to be with all along. So I texted him. Things were kind of awkward in our first few messages because he knew from my social media that I was with someone else and I’d seen that he was dating someone, too. But we hit our stride again and made plans for me to visit him the next day.
My boyfriend and I weren’t talking, and I just told him I was going to go visit a friend. I packed some clothes and took the train to Matt. He picked me up from the station, and seeing him was really good; it felt right. I gave him a hug, but we didn’t kiss. We went back to his place, and it was a little awkward because we didn’t really want to acknowledge that we both had significant others, but it was obvious that we were both pushing the line of what was appropriate.
We slept in the same bed and cuddled, but there was a distance between us. On my end, I guess it was because I was still hoping to work things out with my boyfriend. We talked about Matt’s current girlfriend, too. Things didn’t seem super serious, but I felt guilty about what we were doing. I remember I was in Matt’s bathroom while he was at work and I was looking through his medicine cabinet for his cologne. He used to wear Aventus by Creed, and I would always steal some from him when we were together. I sprayed some on, and it just brought all our memories back to me. I decided I’d try to get back together with him. I was pretty sure of where he stood, too. I knew we still had strong feelings for each other.
While I waited for Matt to get home from work, my boyfriend called. I hadn’t heard from him during the time I’d been away, so I answered. And he said something like, “Okay, this is enough now. You’ve made your point. Please come back home.” So I took the first train back. I didn’t even tell Matt I was leaving.
My boyfriend never asked where I’d been. I think he just didn’t want to know, but he had a sense. Things between us were fine for a while, but then we’d fight again. Every time we fought, I’d try to give myself an out—I’d go out on a date with some guy from school, or distract myself with old flames. I always flirted, but I never crossed the line. And I noticed that he was keeping his distance, too. He seemed cagey and distracted. He never left his phone unattended. He password-protected his computer. He’d come home late from work and make up all these excuses. I never suspected that he was cheating because I’d never dealt with infidelity before. I just didn’t think someone would cheat on me, although I’d obviously emotionally cheated on him.
We went back and forth in this awful pattern of fighting, breaking up, making up, having sex, fighting again, and repeat. But eventually we stopped having sex, and although I wanted to and kept asking him what was wrong, he just claimed he was tired. I was so stupid and naive that I totally bought it and was trying to be an understanding girlfriend.
* * *
We’d been together for about three years when this girl he worked with called me and told me that they’d been sleeping together for two years. I actually knew her really well, and she had become a friend of mine. We routinely invited her over to dinner parties and hung out with her probably every week. I actually liked her, which made it worse. Apparently she had gotten fed up with him lying to both of us and decided to come clean. She also told me a lot of other things that I didn’t know about him—mainly, that he’d been married before. The divorce went through right before he and I met. So I had a friend help me hack into his computer, and I basically saw all the photos he’d saved of the wedding with this other girl, along with some pretty graphic photos of them together. It made me feel really sick to my stomach.
The breakup had been coming for a while, but I never thought that’s what would do it. Now, looking back on it, I feel really manipulated. He was older, and he knew what he was doing. He took advantage of my innocence and basically wasted my time. I spent three years being this idiot’s arm candy. I wish I’d slept with Matt when I had the chance.
The breakup was clean, though. I found my own apartment and moved out, in a week’s time. I got myself on a few dating apps and got back into the swing of things. I texted this guy I’d flirted with in college, visited him in New York, and we had sex on his rooftop, overlooking downtown Manhattan. I always loved that saying: The best way to get over someone is to get under someone.
Sam, thirty-seven
I’ve been divorced and single for a few years now. I’ve been dating people on and off, but you could say I’m stuck in the daily routine of life—I go to work, I hang out with friends, or I work out. For the most part, I’m happy. Every once in a while, though, when I’m driving home from work and I go over the bridge that used to take me to the home my ex-wife and I made together, or when a certain song comes on, I’m reminded of her. I get overcome by this awful feeling of missing her. It’s not sexual—definitely not—it’s more similar to how I miss my kids, except not quite as bad. You know that feeling, after you’ve spent all day at work and you come home to a houseful of kids? My k
ids used to jump on me, literally climb me, and whatever had been weighing on my heart would just melt off, gone. I used to look forward to that moment all day. And that’s kind of how I feel about my ex. I miss that feeling of happiness I’d get when she hugged me at the end of a long day. My ex-wife feels a lot of anger toward me and the choices I made, though. So I very much doubt she ever misses me.
I was twenty-three when I met my now ex. It was on Yahoo! Personals. I came across her profile, and it was really nicely written. She’d said that she was new in town and wanted to meet people. Back in the day, to message someone you liked you had to pay something like $30. So I bit the bullet and messaged her. But I never heard back. I wrote her again—something cheesy about myself and what I liked in her profile—and in the course of the message, I told her that I’d been an extra in a movie. And it happened to be one of her favorite movies. We went to Starbucks on our first date, and we bought candy afterward and ate it out of the bag. Our second date was at an Italian restaurant. And we were kind of inseparable after that. I spent all my free time with her.
I was twenty-five when I married her, and twenty-seven when we had our first kid. Looking back, I realize that I hardly had the mental capacity to make big life decisions then—and yet we did. At first, I would say things were going well. We did a lot of silly but important things together, like we’d watch movies or TV shows that we both loved, we’d bond over music, or we’d cook together. These little things that we spent time on were what made our marriage really special. We had sex probably twice a week at that point. But then twice a week turned into twice a month, and even less. And then, at one point, after we had our first kid, it completely stopped. We went without sex for two years.
Eventually, she decided to get pregnant again and the sex started again. Once we conceived, it stopped for another two years, and it went on like this—sex only to conceive and nothing beyond that—for the rest of our marriage. For me, the loneliness and depression got so bad that I would silently cry myself to sleep every night. The feeling was like a sheet of ice-cold air under the uppermost layer of my skin—like someone had taken one of those fireplace bellows and driven the cold through my toes, all the way up to my head. And in my misery, I’d imagine her reaching over and touching my shoulder to comfort me, and I often think, now, how different things might have been had she ever done that. But she never did.
So, my options at that point were to either cheat or get a divorce, and I didn’t want to leave my family, so I decided to cheat. It was with someone who was in town on business; I found her online. She was also in a sexless relationship. We spoke for a few hours in person, and the next day I drove to her hotel to have sex with her. That drive was terrifying. My father was a cheater, and I never wanted to be like him. But when it was done, I didn’t feel bad. It was more The Bridges of Madison County than a cheap tabloid. It felt like the people who were vowed to us wouldn’t help us with our pain, so we had to rely on strangers. Since that drive to the hotel, nothing scares me. I’m not afraid like I used to be.
Over the course of the next two years, I cheated on my ex-wife with nineteen people. She found out because I broke my “rules” for someone. The rules were just general guidelines I followed so that I wouldn’t allow myself to get too close. The most important was not to sleep with the same person more than a couple of times. The idea was that I didn’t want to develop feelings for someone else. But I made an exception, and I let things get too far. When I tried to call things off with her, she went all Fatal Attraction on me. After she threatened to tell my boss about the affair and have me killed, she emailed my wife and told her everything.
We tried therapy. She went to one therapy session with me, and I continued going alone for quite a while; I guess she thought this was my problem to deal with and she was blameless. She moved back to her home state temporarily—she needed some distance and to be close to her family, which is a huge source of support and stability for her. She and the kids were a plane ride away, and I visited them whenever work allowed. I decided to stop cheating and to focus on fixing our marriage. Things went back to somewhat normal for a few months, and she moved back. She got pregnant a third time, and after we had the baby, the sex stopped again. Now, three kids and a mortgage, I get it—sex is not a priority. We were tired, we were stressed out, and most nights at least one kid was sleeping in bed with us. But it wasn’t just the sex that I missed, it was the intimacy. I’d come home from work and go to give her a hug, and she’d put her hands on my chest and push me off. I’d try to snuggle her at night, and she’d kick me off and complain she was hot. If you’ve never had someone you love so much you’d die for her do that to you, well, let me tell you, it’s the worst fucking feeling in the world.
Eight months into that, I met a woman who was a swinger. We knew each other from work, and we trusted each other because we both had something to lose. And more importantly, there was mutual attraction. It seemed like a safe way to meet my needs without getting emotionally involved. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of leaving my iPad at home for my son to play with one day, while I was at work. During the course of the day, I was texting with this woman about where to meet, and all the texts were also going to the iPad. So I got a call at work from my wife. She was screaming. She said, “If you’re not home in the next twenty minutes, I’m leaving, and I’m taking the kids.” And that was it—the end.
She had told me the first time around that if she ever caught me cheating again, it would be over. I went home that day, and she said she wanted a divorce. I’m not one to play games with people, so I agreed to it immediately. Later on, she asked to move back to her home state with our kids, and I let her do that, too, although it’s far enough that I have to take several days off work to visit them—no quick weekend trips. Sometimes, I regret it. My kids are so far away now. I see them as often as I can, but my ex is engaged to this guy who is so racist and just—has totally different values—and I’m so afraid that my kids will pick that up. Although, they’re sharp as hell, so something tells me they’ll know better than to listen to him.
To be honest, more often than not during our relationship, I felt like she was trying to sabotage our marriage by completely icing me out. I did something bad, yes—I self-medicated; I found other people who were hurting, and we provided each other adult company. I didn’t cheat because I had some inherent drive to cheat; I did it because I was in pain and I desperately needed affection and human contact. I realize how pathetic that sounds, and I really don’t miss how miserable I was back then. We had an unhappy marriage, although I’m sure that outwardly we seemed picture-perfect.
Thinking back on it now, I very clearly remember her telling me at some point during the course of our relationship, “If you ever cheat on me—that’s it, it’s over.” And even so, she gave me a second chance. So maybe I was doing a bit of sabotaging myself. And when I really allow myself a moment of honesty, I know that we didn’t have very much in common intellectually. She was religious; I’m not. She was conservative—at least, her family was. My family and I are not. So there wasn’t much keeping us together besides weather talk and the customs that we’d created in our family. The kids were our only strong common bond.
Equally as hard as the divorce was telling my mom and family about what had happened. As I mentioned, my dad was a cheater. My mom’s face, my siblings’ faces, when I told them what I’d done—it was like the ultimate betrayal. They couldn’t believe I was telling them the truth. And I get it. Honestly? Nineteen times? Even I think it’s hard to justify that with “I was really sad” and “I missed intimacy.” I’m shocked at myself, too. Something was broken, and I’m not sure it was ever fixable. Maybe her inability to be intimate with me and my cheating were a side effect of that brokenness.
But every once in a while, I miss her as a person. I miss eating ice cream with her and watching some nerdy show. I miss hiking with her or singing along to songs with her in the car. I really miss the home we built
together. Every once in a while, when the weather is idyllic, I’ll think, God, it would be so nice to be at home, grilling in the backyard with my family. I miss being parents to our kids with her—we were different, yeah, but we really clicked where it mattered: on values, morals, and how we treated people. And during these moments, I regret that I said yes to the divorce so quickly. Maybe if I’d waited for the cool-down period, things would be different. I don’t know. I go back and forth.
I’ve never told her how I feel. Divorce is hard, and there are times when I feel like I got a really raw deal. I get the kids for eight weeks during the summer, and then I see them every other month for a few days. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to not seeing their faces every single day, like before. The pain of losing my family is like a phantom limb—my mind is trapped in the past, in what was. But I just have to believe that we made the right choice, and I have to move on.
Kurt, fifties
When I was a young kid, I imagined that God had an assembly line up in heaven where he and the angels put together new people. There would be arms and legs and toes and ears, and everything would go off without a hitch… for the most part. But every once in a while, there’d be an earthquake, and all the parts on the assembly line would be tossed around and jumbled, and someone would end up with an extra part or the wrong parts altogether. That’s how my young mind used to reconcile it—that feeling that I couldn’t quite understand, that something about my body was wrong—long before I learned to accept and love myself, long before I learned there is nothing wrong with me.
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