Life is like a cup of coffee

We should all be feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at TEDx

An Act of Kindness

A man was driving home one evening on a small country road. Work in this small Midwestern community was almost as slow as his beat-up Pontiac, but he never quit looking for a job. Ever since his factory had closed down, he had been unemployed. And with winter coming, he had reached a point of practical desperation.
It was dark, and he almost didn’t see the old lady stranded on the side of the road. But even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac sputtered as he walked up to her, and he noticed that she seemed very worried. No one had stopped to help her for the last hour or so. She was wondering: “is he going to hurt me? He doesn’t look safe; he looks poor and hungry. This does not look good”. He sensed that she was frightened, standing out there alone in the cold, so he offered her some reassurance: “Ma’am, I’m just here to help you. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm, and I’ll see if I can fix your car? By the way, my name is Joe”.
All she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Joe crawled under the car, looking for a place to put the jack. He cut his hands on the hard rocks underneath the axle but was soon able to change the tire. As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down her window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was just passing through. She could not thank him enough for coming to her aid. He just smiled as he closed her trunk and started returning to his car.
“Tell me, how much do I owe you?” she asked. “I’ll be glad to pay anything you ask.”
To her surprise, Joe looked back at her and said, “If you really want to pay me back, the next time you see someone who needs help, you give them the help they need, and then—just think of me”. He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed home in the twilight.
A few miles down the road, this same lady saw a small café. She went in to grab a bite to eat and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home. It was a dingy-looking restaurant. One could tell business was not going well. Nevertheless, the waitress came over and brought a towel for her to wipe her wet hair. She wore a sweet smile, and even though the lady could tell the waitress was extremely tired, she was eager to please. She also noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but neither the strain of the pregnancy nor the labor of the work was struggling just to make ends meet. She wondered how someone with so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she thought of Joe.
After the lady finished her meal, the waitress went to get her change from a $100 bill, but the lady slipped out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. The waitress wondered where the lady had gone. Then she noticed something written on a napkin, in the shape of a poem. It brought tears to her eyes. It said:
You don’t owe me a thing,
I’ve been there too;
Someone once helped me out the way I’m helping you.
If you really want to pay me back,
Here’s what you do;
Don’t let the chain of Kindness
End with you.
The waitress finally made it to the end of the day. Later that night, when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she thought about the money and what the lady had written. How could the woman have known how much she and her husband needed it? With this baby coming next month, it was going to be extremely difficult, especially with her husband out of work. As she lay down in bed, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered, “Everything is going to be all right. I love you, Joe.”
Take every opportunity to be kind. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
PLEASE take note that your act of kindness might not end up like this. As a matter of fact it may even be quite far from this BUT “You’ll reap if you faint not” ~Gal 6:9~

Her past haunts me!

So I recently found out the worst thing ever. My girlfriend (Similolu) of a few months whom I genuinely care for once dated my older brother!

She’s a sweet, decent girl or so I thought till I found out that my bad-boy brother had once been with her in her first year of Uni at Igbinedion University. He was also a student there after having left Unilag due to cultism issues. He had promised to renounce the secret society and in return, my dad sent him to the University in Edo to start afresh. She was a Level 1 student of Medicine when they met. He was already in his 3rd year of Economics by then. The Medicine department of the University had some challenges and therefore, Similolu had to go to a University in Ukraine to start her degree afresh.

I’m hurt because I have always loved God and put him first. I looked forward to a relationship with a like-minded girl and I thought I had found that in Simi. To think she once was was with my philandering, cheating , weed smoking, unserious brother is just a bit too much for me to bear. I love my brother to bits but the way he handles girls like things is absolutely appalling. He is known to treat women with disrespect. He uses and dumps them. He sleeps with them and then discards them right after. Simi once told me she went the farthest with a particular guy when she first got to Uni and to think that that ‘guy’ is Tunbosun, my older brother is really hard a pill for me to swallow.

I found out when she came to visit me at mine. My brother greeted her fondly, giving her a full bodied hug, lustfully admiring her telling her, ‘you’ve changed o’. She was awkward around him making me wonder what exactly ‘farthest I’ve gone’ entailed.

I know I sound judgmental, I also know I might not being doing What Jesus Would Do but I right now, I think I should just free her and let her go her way. I’m not looking for Miss Perfect but I don’t need someone whose sordid past is so close to home. I think I will constantly have the thought of them together in my head and it will lead to distrust of her, disrespect for her and eventually, contempt for her which will lead to me being repulsed by her.

Old things might be passed away but not when it was with my brother. I see the girls my brother has been with and I will not wish what they go through on my worst enemy’s sister. Imagining Similolu in those shoes just makes me mad…not at him but at her for having so low a self esteem to have dated Tunbosun, a self acclaimed and proud bad boy.

How could she?

Segun had been on my case for at least 2 years.

I met him one hot Saturday as I was waiting for a taxi on a Grogner Street in Iwaya, Onike. He pulled over and asked where I was headed. I don’t ever talk to people on the road but this day, the look of the mist on the window of his air conditioned car made it difficult to ignore him given the extreme heat I was exposed to.

I stepped into his car, grateful for the ride, yet determined to let him know I was no cheap girl that jumps into available cars.

“Thank you so much, Sir, for the ride. I normally wouldn’t do this but I have been standing outside in the sun for at least 30 minutes. The cabs come in trickles and are either taken or too expensive. No one is interested in going my way”

“Where might that be?” He asked, totally ignoring every other thing I had said.

“I’m going to Ikota but I’ll drop off once we get to any major road where I can find a cab”.

“You’re in luck. I’m actually going to VGC but I need to get to Surulere first. So I can either drop you off at a taxi park or you accompany me to Surulere and then I drop you off at your doorstep.”

Inasmuch as I was so eager not to overuse help being rendered, I opted for the latter option. I was in no hurry whatsoever to go my empty home. Mom and dad were on their way to Ikene for a week long engagement and my younger siblings were all in school. My best friend, Mololu had kindly volunteered to spend the week with me but she would not be getting to mine until Sunday night so that meant I’d be spending Saturday night by myself with only Larry, the dog and Mustafa, the gate man, for company.

I looked at my wristwatch, with its recently cracked screen and declared,

“Well, it’s just 1.00 and I’m not in a hurry so I’ll go with you”.

I got to meet him properly. His name is Segun, a businessman who was into the oil and gas sector. He had been working for himself in Libya before moving to Nigeria earlier that year. The Nigerian side of his business was only just growing and was already facing major challenges but a meeting he had in Abuja two weeks from our meeting would determine if a major stumbling block would be removed and his license would be granted. He saw an RCCG band on my wrist and asked me to pray along with him. I promised to.

As he dropped me off at about 4pm that Saturday evening, I felt like I knew him already. Segun was very chatty, divulging a lot so quickly. During those hours we spent together, I also found out that he has a 5 year old daughter by a white French girl he dated all through his university years in France. The lady had gone on to marry another Nigerian and they lived in Port Harcourt with his daughter, Amélie. His dad was long gone and his mom had raised he and his siblings by herself. I did what I do not ever do. I gave him my phone numbers and my pin and from there, we became friends.

The problem with Segun was with his way of showing concern and love. My primary love language is Quality Time and I’m not really the type to get all mushy too early. So it came as a bit of a rude shock to me when I received my first “love you baby”, 2 weeks from the day we met. I really didn’t know what to make of the message and it abruptly ended our chat as I did not respond. To be fair to him, I assumed he was simply overjoyed as he was granted all necessary permits we prayed for, that he spoke out of turn.

About four hours after, at 1 am, I got another message from him telling me how much he’s so into me and how he feels like he has finally found what he had been looking for and if I would be okay being a second mom to his daughter and how he wants me to meet his mom. I read it and responded with a “BRB”. Later in the day, we met up for a meal and then I explained how, though I appreciate his feelings, it was all too soon for me and I would appreciate if I am given a bit more time to be on that kind of level with him. In the meanwhile, I suggested that we remain friends. He looked a bit disappointed but accepted and declared that he was in no hurry and would wait for me however long it took me to realise my feelings for him or develop them.

Segun was extremely generous to me, almost worryingly so. Once he travelled and brought me an orange Hermès’ Birkin 40cm bag which retails for about $2000. I was shocked and despite loving nice stuff, I didn’t want to take it from him initially but I eventually did mentioning it to him that he really didn’t need to spend that much on me and he should focus more on growing his business.

Mololu usually saw one Harrods or Neiman Marcus shopping bag or the other and was always encouraging me to “stop fronting and say yes to Segun before a sharp girl does”. I guess because of the manner in which he approached me, it made me a bit overly cautious since this his asking out was more like a proposal and he seemed so sure of his feelings for me. I slowed things down a lot and outrightly refused to meet his mom for the first three months. I didn’t want to get carried away at all and kept praying and taking things slow. Despite our living so close to each other, I hardly went to his and since I come from a relatively strict home, his visits were sparing as well (of my doing).

About six months after we met, work commitments took him away from Nigeria for a long while. During that period, he would come to Nigeria at least once a month, bombarding me with all manners of gifts. Even when he was not around, he’d randomly have flowers delivered to my office.

He would send handwritten letters by DHL and whenever anyone was travelling to Nigeria, he would have them deliver something to me, however small. There was a time he sent me a bottle of Lucozade because I had lamented that the Nigerian one tasted different. When it came to giving, Segun was without fault. But in my opinion, there was more to consider than how generous a man is.

Sometime, five months ago, Mololu was sent to England for a training to last 3 weeks and she used the opportunity to shop and ended up having 2 extra boxes. She complained over the phone to me telling me the airline was overcharging her and then, partly because I felt it right to help and partly because I had ordered somethings which she was bringing for me, I decided to ask Segun if he could help out since I know he always travelled light and never uses the extra allowance granted to him. He accepted to help bring the extra boxes and I gave her his hotel address to drop them off a day before her flight. He was due in Nigeria a week and half after.

My suspicion was first roused when, upon his arrival, he took the bags to Mololu’s in Ogudu, instead of as I expected, bringing it to me and having us sort ourselves out. I asked for the favour. I mentioned to him that my stuff was included in the box so it came as a surprise to me when he drove all the way to hers the next day to drop the boxes off. When I asked him why he did that, he said the boxes were quite heavy and that he was going that way and decided to drop them off. I had more questions but felt since I was not his girlfriend, there is a limit to the questions I can pose without looking funny. My pride got in the way and I decided not to mention it anymore.

The calls reduced. The texts were shorter. The usual “love you” closing went missing. ‘Mololu too reduced her communication with me. Then one day, she drove to mine and after lunch asked the most random question, ‘Are you and Segun in a relationship?”. She looked like she had struggled to ask that question but at the same time, as though that was her aim for coming to mine.

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing at all o. Just wondering ’cause you have known him for a while and you said you were praying a while back for direction and was wondering if maybe God said no since you are not dating him”, she mumbled.

“Omololu, did I say we are not dating?”

“Oh sorry. But I kinda know you are not”

At this stage, I know she and Segun must have spoken about our relationship status and so I decided to cut to the chase.

“Did Segun mention it to you himself?”

She looked down and playing with her perfectly manicured nails, said yes. I had noticed she brought a brand new car to mine with a new plate number. She had the black of my Hermes bag too. Wow! I didn’t want to believe what I know just had to be the truth. It was written all over her face. I don’t know where I got the strength but I said not a word after that. Awkwardly, she picked up her bag and car keys. I noticed then it was a Hyundai. It must be the Sonata she always wanted ever since it was released last year. She would always point at every 2011 Sonata she saw on the road and say she’d one day, get it.

To cut the very long tale short, my best friend Omololu and my 2 year old toaster are now together. Segun drove to mine 2 weeks after Omololu did and said somethings to me. He first of all apologised. He said he was not sorry for moving on but sorry that it had to be someone I knew simply because of the sake of his consideration of my feelings and not because it was wrong. He said, as I never for once, declared any form of feelings for him during our almost 2 year friendship, he does not feel he had wronged me in any way. He said he would always be grateful for meeting me as, through me, a door of everlasting joy had been opened to him and he would like my blessing as he walks into it. I was weak.

To be honest, I’m not hundred percent certain which hurts more, the fact that I’m losing a really nice and eligible suitor, that I lost him to a ‘friend’, the sneaky way it happened or the fact that I almost executed the deed for them by creating an enabling environment.

I really wanted to know how it all happened and so I demanded the tale, not from Mololu, but from Segun himself. He told me that the week before he travelled, when he saw her at mine, they had got talking whilst I was in the bathroom and she had mentioned she would be off on training and that she would be doing crazy shopping for her new apartment. They had a few ‘moments’ that day but they did not exchange numbers. It was the day she brought the bags to his hotel that the sparks went flying. She had gotten to his hotel at about 12 noon and they went to out together and he dropped her off at her hotel at about 9pm. Early the next morning, at about 5 am, he drove down to her hotel to take her to the airport himself and from their journey, they got even closer. According to him, he knew that morning that he was ‘home’. That conversation sounded painfully familiar and I couldn’t help my grimace. At that juncture, I held up my hands and told him I was satisfied with the information he furnished and that they both have my blessing. He hugged me and left.

That evening, Omololu updated her status with these words “Those that wait on the Lord will rejoice. I rejoice. Behold, my Boaz!”. His picture was her DP. I remember that picture. I took it with his iPhone whilst trying out an app. Each day, a new picture of him would be put on display. There was even one of herself, Segun and his daughter. She had firmly ingrained herself in his life.

Due to how serious I know Segun is, it came as no shock to me when she told me they were getting married and she really wanted me to be her chief bridesmaid though if I felt I could not do it, she would understand. According to her, she was doing that for the friendship we once shared which she hoped we could revive. I refused. But not before letting her know that I could be counted on if she needed any assistance.

At about 12 midnight, I got this email from her,

“Sweetheart, I love you. God knows I do. I apologise for how I might have hurt you but despite all, I would be a liar to say I would or could elect to do things differently if given a second chance.

Oluwasegun has brought me the type of joy I thought was only for the fairy tales. But through him, I have my very own fairy tale. I love him with all my being. I know I might come across as insensitive and selfish. I am sorry. But please, try and find a place in your kind heart to let go of any hurt you might be experiencing and enter into a place of happiness for me, Omololu, your sister and best friend since our Corona days. It should not be heard that we are fighting over a man and remember, my darling, you never were in a relationship with Segun.

You never took the plunge, you shielded your heart from hurt and refused to commit to anything. I know you babes. When you truly love a man, you have no time for such long due diligence exercises. If you want to be sincere with yourself, you would admit that Segun never did anything to your heart. Your heart did not skip beats with the sound of his voice. Your body never quivered with the touch of his hands. I understand you two never even kissed. You clearly never felt love for him.

However, I cannot discount the friendship you shared. Till date, he still goes on and on about how you are the only friend whose loss moved him to his core. I can testify too of your level of regard of your friendship and respect for him. But my dear, friendship and respect are not solid foundation enough upon which to construct a marriage. You knew this and this is why you stalled. What did not grow in 2 years would most likely never grow.

I hope you understand that the aim of this email is not to throw in your face the fact that Oluwasegun and yourself never had anything concrete but to let you take a proper, honest and dispassionate look at goings on. If you do, forgiving me would come, naturally.

I can’t stop loving you dear. I am sad that the vow we made to each other 16 years ago to be each others’ maids of honour even if one got married first would not be fulfilled. Please, re-examine your heart and find a place in it to forgive me.

Yours now and always,

‘Mololu.”

The tears came pouring down. I couldn’t say exactly why and they were not asking. I felt sorry for myself. I felt sad because I really wasn’t crazy about Segun but we could have made it work, I guess. Omololu now was benefitting from all the prayers I invested in Segun, all the fasting. That, more than anything hurt me. I would have married Segun. I just needed him to pass one more test and voila, I’d have said yes to him. I never thought he’d stop loving me. I never though I’d lose him and certainly not to my friend, my supposed best friend.

***

I eventually decided to be her Chief Bridesmaid and muster strength to be happy for her. There was no faking the look of intense joy on her face when I told her I changed my mind. She jumped on me in her usual boisterous fashion, laughing and crying at the same time.

God has been helping me. It has been hard. Especially when I see the look on Segun’s face as he looks at her. He never looked at me that way, I must confess.

His business has been doing greatly and he is sparing nothing for his wedding. His daughter, upon Omololu’s request, will be both the little bride and the flower girl. Omololu’s nephew will be the ringbearer. Her Eli Saab dress is absolutely beautiful. Segun flew us both to England to get it. She asked for a size bigger and I suspect she is pregnant.

With each day, the feeling of hurt and betrayal gets slowly taken over by happiness for her and hope for my own future. I still haven’t met anyone worth reporting on and despite this, I have joy. Not happiness, but joy; joy that all will turn out well. But for now, I still can’t help from asking myself each time I look at Omololu, ‘How could she?!‘

Making Love With My Husband Is Now Very Irritating

I used to be a happily married woman. But many things have changed. My husband is no longer the man I got married to with so much joy, laughter and dancing. We have been married for 10yrs now, during which I stopped going out and cut off my friends. All I do is work, clean, children, shop and sleep.

 In this 10yrs, my husband has lived like a bachelor. At first, I fought him for this becos I wanted attention and to be loved but with time I withdrew emotionally and this got to the bedroom. Things got so bad that I feel like crying whenever he wants to have s*x with me because it would be brutal, as if it's a blue film. We dont do it often, but whenever he wants it, the thought of having s*x with him was very irritating. 

 However, irrespective of my feelings, for peace sake, I'd do it sometimes half drunk. Despite my efforts to endure all these, he would insult me, beat me, even in front of my mum on several occasions. But I endured becos as a father to my 3 young children he is father of the century so I kept saying it will be selfish for me to leave the marriage. 

 The kids need their daddy because he is a good father but I don't want him because he is not a good husband, he doesn't satisfy me in anyway... either in the bedroom or other dealings as couple. But I kept putting my kids needs first, to my own detriment. The issue is...... when I celebrated my 40th birthday, my husband did not really care or plan to take me anywhere which did not bother me. 

Over the years, I have learnt to start focusing my joy on other things so I have been really happy. On the weekend of my bday, a male colleague at work invited me to lunch as a birthday treat and also thank me for being there when he was going through his divorce. So I asked my husband if it was okay to go since this was on Saturday. He said its fine becos he knew the man and knows the guy was just a friend, so for the first time of my 10yrs marriage, I went out.

 Surprising, when I came back, he started calling me all kinds of names. I was shocked because  he had never been that jealous - becos he believed no man was going to be interested in me as I have stopped taking care of myself. That nite he beat me up mercilessly and I decided enough was enough! That day I moved out of the house. He never believed I could do that becos he knew how much I loved my kids..... but to his greatest shock I did it. 

It's been 5 months now since I left, and I can say my life has changed. I get help financially from family. But sadly, life for him has been miserable without a partner, a companion, someone to make me feel like a woman in the bedroom. Now he too is crying everyday that he wants me to come back home. The kids want us to come back together. 

Strangely, now that I'm now even living with him, I see him more. He stopped going out and wants to spend all his spare time with me. Am confused becos I kind of love my life right now; other 'good' men are already showing interest in me. I'm missing sex so so much and anything can happen. I am still young and very s*xy. 

I know am not a saint in all these because I am stubborn with a bad mouth sometimes. Please I want peoples views on this. Give me your candid opinion. How can I go back to a man who makes love to me violently (even thou I enjoy it sometimes)? I still feel irritated sometimes whenever I imagine him on me. Why cant I just remain a single mother? What do I have to loose if I remain on my own? Please be sincere with me.

My Rape Experience

I feel dirty. I feel used. I feel like jumping off this building. Every day I wake, it is the same thought that goes through my mind.

My childhood was that of a typical teenager. I played with my friends when the time was available, but I always remembered that homework was important. How else would I show I studied after school?

I had gone on a holiday to stay with my Aunt and it was one of the best holidays ever. She had promised to have a small party for me as I turned 13. I looked forward to the weekend as my birthday fell on a week day.

I had woken up and now that I remember I wish I never did. The day went on as usual and nothing ever pointed to what would happen. My Aunt had asked me to buy biscuits from the stall around the corner from the house. It was getting dark, but not too dark for me. I always ran to the stall and back. I asked Paul my cousin who was younger than me to accompany me. As we chatted, that was when I looked up and saw them; five hefty looking boys. They hit Paul on his head and he passed out. I screamed for help as they grabbed me. I wondered what the matter was. I was only thirteen. Did I take what was not mine? I turned to look at Paul, he looked lifeless. The slap across my face brought me back to reality. I begged for mercy as they tore my clothes, laughing and calling me names. I shut my eyes. My legs hurt as they forced them open and I heard them say ‘Na me go start‘…

That was when I opened my eyes and saw the half naked body over me and he hit me across the face for daring to open my eyes and just then I felt the sharp pain as he rammed into me. My scream stopped half way. I felt him being pushed away and a different one continued. All five of them violated my body. I felt nothing. As they ran away leaving me in my blood, I crawled home to get help for Paul.

I still feel nothing years after. All I see is black. My aunt warned that I tell no one. She secretly took me for all the tests available. Yet she said, tell no one. How can I tell anyone that I had lost my virginity to five boys? They would know how dirty am. I am stained, tainted. I am no good. I have no value. I am ashamed because I know it is my fault.  I want out. I hate boys! I hate the girls who have never felt this pain. I hate the world.

He cheated, she stayed: Part 5

It's too soon for me to say how this will all turn out. There are still times when I am suddenly appalled to realize that I am married to a man who could do to me what Sam did. But here's the thing: Sam is appalled—and ashamed, too—and he was appalled and ashamed even when he was with Daphne. 

Meanwhile, I do know this: Much as I am loath to admit that anything good could come out of his affair, our marriage now is, in important ways, often better than it ever was. Sam doesn't dismiss his anger in hopes that it will go away—and he's getting better at pinpointing some of the vulnerable feelings that the anger, like a guard dog, protects. And I've begun paying attention to the parts of him that I fell in love with 12 years ago, and that I never stopped loving, though I let them get buried beneath piles of laundry and dirty dishes. I even try to gaze at him adoringly, though sometimes it comes off more like a crooked grimace. "I'm trying!" I tell him. 

A few weeks ago, I came across the push-up bra in the back of my closet. It embarrassed me—so emphatic, so blatant, more like a prosthetic device than an article of clothing. Yet I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. 

So I tried it on for Sam. And it turns out it still works, still makes my breasts look amazing. He liked it. 

But then, in the middle of sex, I slipped away, unable to stop myself from wondering: Did he touch her like this? Were her breasts bigger than mine? What did he say when he walked through the door of the hotel room—at any of the 21 different hotels where they had sex? 


Sam held me while I cried. Later he asked how long I thought it would take until I was over it, and I had to admit I had no idea. Forever maybe. Or tomorrow.

Then he did something for me that I wasn't able to do for myself. He pulled me out of that ugly, bleak chapter of the past—our past, now—and back into the just-fine present. He said, "I am with you now. I love you now. I want to make our marriage really good again, starting now." 

I blew my nose, took a deep breath, and found myself in his arms—the arms of someone utterly familiar to me, and also completely new and unknown. Which, it turns out—even after all the shock, the hurt, the betrayal—is still where I most want to be. 

My boyfriend and I met online

My boyfriend and I met online. We didn't meet through a sketchy dating site or an online school or even a forum. We met on Myspace. I had a band - a geek band, no less, and so did he. And all our geeky other online friends. My boyfriend started this big daily group chat in which lovely friendships were formed, including ours. 

After about five months, our friends made this silly group on Facebook which was basically "shipping" me and my then very close friend. We thought it was a great joke, but after thinking about it, I realized I actually loved this person. I had never seen his face, at this point(his avatar was always a drawing he'd made). I told a friend, and they told me to be careful of weirdos. 

But I knew him. 

I started chatting with just him. 

Two months later, we were in a relationship. One day, he just said "I love you" and that was it. 

We've gone through tough times, with both of our families and separate things. He saw me through a very difficult summer. He also boosted my self-confidence. Without him, I don't want to think about how I would have turned out. He helped me stay sane, in a very crazy way. 

During this time, we'd tried to meet several times. Nothing worked out, and I wondered if we were really serious about it. This past summer, I was in England visiting my mum. One day, he shouted out a date and asked me if I was free for a week. He'd bought tickets. As soon as I got home, I started to prepare. He came about two weeks later, and I picked him up and took him back to my hometown. 

Keep in mind, neither of our parents knew. We had to sneak very carefully. My dad would have killed me. His parents wouldn't approve. 

But he took care of me just as much as I took care of him that week. A lot of people say it's awkward when they first meet... but for us, it was like picking up from out last IM but in 3D. I kissed him at the airport; it was one of the best days of my life. 

Being with him took 2 years of waiting, but it was worth every risk and every cent. I'd wait forever for him. 

And he knows it too. <3

Her Online Relationship Story

To be honest, I don’t know why I signed up to a virtual chatting game. Yep, that’s all it was, a game. But the things that happen on this ‘game’ felt real, which sucks. Really sucks. It’s been at least a month since I’ve come on this, and it was fun. To talk to people I had never before and never will see. Now this may seem like one of the cheesiest lines ever in the history cheesy lines, but everything was fine until he came along. After that... everything turned great. Even hearing myself think that makes me cringe. I would definitely slap myself now. Either way, I met him in, believe it or not, a chat room. We talked about pointless things and I thought he was one of those guys who just cyber. Disgusting. Sometimes [very rarely] I still do. But that’s just me being paranoid...
I thought he was stupid. He couldn’t see that I liked him. And that’s what annoys me because all of this isn’t real. Its fake in the world, but feels real in our minds. Kind of like a hallucination.
He kept on asking me to find him a girlfriend on this website, and I did. I searched, for the first few times I really, fully tried. After a while, I could sense my feelings intensifying, and I gave him the first girl I could see. But that didn’t work because he could only see good in any girl. Why couldn’t he see anything in me?
I think it was a few weeks later, when he finally started dropping obvious hints. But, me, being a girl, was completely oblivious to it. He wanted me to suggest myself to him when I was looking for a girlfriend to him. I remember I couldn’t stop smiling. I was such a lovesick girl... and I still am. And we’re together, it took a while. But it made it all the better. We have arguments, sure. But they’re the silly ones. “You’re gorgeous”, “No, I’m not”, “Kiss me” “Nope”. And I love them. I love him.
Yeah, I love a guy that I’ve never me before in real life, I love his personality and ... him. Everything about him. We probably never will meet but now I can say that I have been in love. We’re together now, and he even looks cute... he still makes me blush and giggle - but he'll never know that -.- We’re in love and I love it! This is my online relationship... although it won’t go any further... I’m over the moon with it. Oh and might I just say... he's Irish ;)

He cheated, she stayed : Part 4

Yet interspersed with the dark whirlpools were small, sparkling moments when I would remember why I loved my tall and handsome husband—and why I liked him, too: his intelligence and sincerity, his patience and humor, the pleasure I took in his easy company, day to day. 

And so, after some of my anger had dissipated, I began to take a long, hard look at myself. I had to admit that I was partly to blame, not for Sam's affair—that was his own stupid decision—but for the cloud of disappointment and annoyance that had become a permanent feature of our marriage. I had grown to resent him when our kids were babies—a time when his needs, even his love, felt to me like just one more tiresome burden.

Oh, I'd never stopped being generous and sweet to Sam in small ways, but deep down I had gradually divested myself of our marriage. Many years ago, I read in a magazine (Esquire, I think) that men care less about how their wives look than about how they look at them. In other words, our extra ten pounds matter far less than our critical, disappointed gaze. It had been a long time since I'd bothered to regard Sam adoringly. How could I when he neglected to call and tell me he'd be home late from work again? Or left his underwear in a wad behind the bathroom door again? Or was too busy to help when I prepared a dinner party for our friends...again? We were in a standoff—neither of us getting what we really needed, and neither of us willing to perform the first act of generosity. It felt easier—kinder, even (for the fight it avoided)—to give up, to just not care. 

Of course, not caring is fine as long as you really don't care. But in our case, we actually did. A habitual mild bitterness, a casual scorn, became my default attitude toward Sam. He, meanwhile, was boiling with anger. He just didn't know what to do with it—until Daphne came along and offered him an outlet.
It is very hard to fall back in love with someone you know as well as you know a spouse after 12 years. You have none of the momentum of early love to propel you forward, and all the habits that drive you crazy to drag you down. But we both cared for our marriage enough to want to give it a chance, and to try our best not to damage it further. So we set some ground rules (which, okay, we broke fairly regularly): First, rather than blaming each other for what went wrong, we would each talk only about ourselves and how we felt—hurt, scared, unappreciated, whatever. Second, we would try to put aside our own anger sometimes and really listen to each other. And third, we'd spend as much time as we could not talking about the affair, but just talking—about the news, or our friends, or our crazy siblings. We'd go to concerts, and on hikes and bike rides with the kids. We'd cook together. We'd hold hands.

My in-laws felt that if I pursued the gangrape case, it would bring disgrace to them

We’re in the Atail-Idana village that comes under the Gohana tehsil of Haryana’s Sonipat district. A bunch of children are playing cricket in a field. When we ask them the address of Sunil of the dhanuk community, they exchange suggestive smiles and then point towards a house across the field. One of them, who turns out to be Sunil’s relative, throws his bat on the ground and says, “Sunil and his parents are not home. The door will open only if one of us knocks.” The boy brings us to Sunil’s house. “Get the door opened, a lady is here,” the 12-year-old boy calls, knocking at the door.

Two girls, aged between 10 to 12 years, open the door. In the courtyard, we see a shed for buffaloes behind which a girl veiled in a sari is washing clothes near the handpump. This is Sunil’s wife, Ragini. The girls who opened the door are Ragini’s ‘family sentinels’. Ever since 28 September 2012, Ragini’s in-laws keep a close watch on her. She is not allowed to talk to anyone. She cannot answer the door nor can she receive a call if the phone rings. If it is hot inside, she is not permitted to even sit in the courtyard and every time she has to go to the lavatory, she must take someone along. They do not trust her and hate to even look at her.

Ragini’s life was not always like this. She got married to Sunil last year and like any other young 19-year-old bride, she dreamt of a beautiful life with her husband whom she loved. But a horrific incident turned her life upside down. On 28 September 2012, Ragini was gangraped by four men for five days and four nights. She managed to escape, but the incident left her being called a whore, a thief, and a woman without character. Despite being the victim of such a heinous crime, the girl had to bear the brunt of familial and judicial neglect. Her story paints a distressing picture of the bleak future of rape victims.

Sunil is a hawker who sells utensils and his father is also a vendor. They are not at home today. Allowing me into her single-room house, Ragini tries to send the two ‘guards’ away by engaging them in some work. She whispers, “I must send them away, or they will tell my mother-in-law everything. I’ll be in trouble. They always leave these girls to spy on me.” When I tell her to share anything in her heart with me, she cries and says, “I only wish to die, didi. I would have killed myself long ago. But these people do not leave me even for a moment. I am helpless.”

In September 2012, Ragini had gone to visit her parents for the first time after her wedding. Her parents belong to the dhanuk community and so their home stands at the furthermost end of Banwas village. Coming under the backward class category, this community has traditionally done the work of cleaning the houses of upper-caste people and cutting grass. But Ragini’s parents work as bonded labour and rear buffaloes on lease. Ragini’s mother, Santosh, says, “We had saved money for years to marry our daughter. She had come home for the first time. Then, four boys kidnapped her from the railway-crossing near the village. She returned after five days in a bad condition. We wanted all the culprits to be punished. We even reported it to the police. But then the villagers and our community put pressure on us. We had no option but to withdraw the complaint.”

This incident happened in the same month of September 2012 when 20 such rape incidents in Haryana had grabbed national headlines. Ragini says, “I had a neighbour Maphi, who owns a beauty-parlour and also taught me sewing. On 28 September, she told me that my husband had called several times and wanted to meet me at the crossing. But he was not there.”

Instead, she was kidnapped by two men, Sanjay and Sunil, from Gohana Phatak. In a white car, they took her to an isolated room in the middle of a rice-field on Gohana-Khakrohi Road. Two other men were present there – Anil from Ahmedpur Majra and Shravan from Hitadi. Ragini continues her story, “I was made to sniff something that made me unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I was lying in a room that housed a water pump in the middle of a field. They were upon me, biting and pinching me. They watched dirty videos on their mobiles, laughed and clawed at me. I was without clothes for four days. They took me to Kurukshetra and from there to Panipat. I was wearing some jewellery that I had received on my wedding – ear rings, anklets and a ring. They sold everything and handed me an old, torn salwar kameez. I begged them to leave me, but they only laughed at me. Somehow I got the opportunity and secretly phoned my father. The police came to rescue me. But by then, five days had already passed.”

Ragini and her family claim that Maphi was involved in the crime too, but they had to get her released. Santosh tells us, “After we reported the incident, we came to know that all the four boys were from our community. For the first three months, while supporting us, the villagers insisted that we get Maphi released, while the four boys should stay in jail. It became a matter about the honour of the village. As a result, we had to withdraw our statement against Maphi. Then we started getting pressurized to do the same for the four men as well. For 10 days, people from our community sat outside our door. The elders from the boys’ families also arrived. Then Ragini’s in-laws came too. They said that their son’s life was being threatened. A girl cannot marry again and her in-laws might not have taken her back. So we had to withdraw all the charges.”

Ragini says, “I was helpless. My in-laws felt that if I pursued the case, it would bring disgrace to them. My husband’s life was also in danger. Everyone said that if I wanted my in-laws to accept me again, I should change my statement before the court and say that I was not raped, that during those five days I was at my in-law’s place. I was told to state that the medical reports were such because I had been intimate with my husband. I did what I was told. Everyone was present there. I couldn’t speak the truth.” On 24 April 2013, additional district and sessions judge Manisha Batra sentenced Ragini to 10 days in jail and a fine of Rs 500 for giving a false statement in the court.

Vice-president of the Rashtriya Janvadi Mahila Samiti, Jagmati Sangvan calls Ragini’s story a tragic example of the societal pressure put on rape victims in the absence of rehabilitation policies. She says, “It is one of the most heinous rape incidents. Even the judiciary could not see that the girl was under pressure and passed the verdict against her. Clearly, the ground reality is that even the new laws have failed to give justice to women.”

Meanwhile, Ragini’s nightmare continues. When asked to lodge a complaint with the police, she says, “There is no question of it. Everybody here thinks I am guilty. They say that I knew those men and had run off with them to have fun. Even if I comb my hair or sit in the courtyard, my young sister-in-law and brother-in-law pass comments like ‘Who are you enticing now? Haven’t you been satisfied yet?’ They call me vulgar and cheap. My mother-in-law taunts me for not bearing children. Even my husband doesn’t understand. He also believes that I ran away willingly. I can’t even breathe and you are talking of going to the police! What was my fault? I would want to see those criminals get a heavy punishment. But it’s not in my hands. I am supposed to stay silent. So I stay silent.”

Rape

I went out with my boyfriend Jason and we had a huge fight. He got really pissed off and left. I didn’t want to go with him cos I was really angry at him, so I stayed at the party.

Someone came up to me and asked how I was doing, came across all nice and concerned about me. We talked for an hour or so, and then he offered to give me a lift home. I was still messed up in the head about Jason leaving so I said “sure, thanks”. We started in the right direction, but then he took a wrong turn and parked in a dark street – he raped me in the car, it was disgusting. I kept pushing him and telling him to leave me alone but he wouldn’t.

Then he drove me home. I can’t believe it, as if nothing had happened. I was numb. I got in the flat and just cried. It was really late but I needed to talk to someone so I called my girlfriend Sal.

Sal was great. She said “wait there, I’m coming over”. I don’t know how I would have coped without her. She made a few calls for me and then someone from the rape crisis centre suggested we visit the local sexual assault service. There was one at the hospital close to my place, so we went there to talk to them.

I didn’t know how to tell Jason what happened. I didn’t know how he’d respond so I just wouldn’t talk to him anymore, I couldn’t handle telling him. I still haven’t talked to him about it, and I couldn’t face telling the police, but the social worker was really nice. She put into words what I was feeling. I’ve seen her quite a few times, and it’s good to know there’s someone there who understands and doesn’t blame me for the whole thing.

I kept asking “Was it my fault?” and thinking “I shouldn’t have gone with him” and “I was dressed kind of sexy”. But that was cos I wanted to look good for Jason. They never once blamed me, and said it wasn’t about what I did or wore – that lots of women get sexually assaulted when they’re not wearing sexy clothes too. They said he made a play for me and took advantage of me in the worst way. They were great.

Don't blame me

My situation is a tough one. I met him through one of my colleagues from work. We went out a few times and got on pretty well. We decided we would have sex next time we met – I let him know I only wanted to do it using a condom.

When the time came to put the condom on, though, he said he didn’t want to – I said “well let’s not go there then, we can just keep doing what we were doing”. But he got angry and said that I couldn’t stop him. He forced himself on me anyway. I was so upset, as soon as he was finished I got dressed and went home straight away.

I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to make a formal complaint to the police but wanted to let someone know and see what they could do. I knew it was rape. So I called the police. They came over and talked to me and we had an informal discussion – they said I didn’t have to report it formally and called it ‘blind reporting’.

I decided not to go ahead with a formal complaint – it’s just so hard to prove in a situation like that – but they said they could put the details on a database even though they couldn’t act on it in any way. Even though he wasn’t punished for what he did I’m glad I talk to the police at least, and they were pretty nice to me.

But it’ll take a while to get over it, to trust again …

Her Story

I thought I was losing my mind, going psycho. I never told people what was going on inside of me. I only shared the surface stuff that was evident for all to see. I skipped classes in school because I didn’t see the point in going. I laid in bed and blocked my door so my mother couldn’t come in. She eventually gave up, but I had already given up on myself.

While I was at home, I started cutting myself. It made me feel better in some weird way. I wrote things in my arm with a razor as if my flesh were a billboard for all to see my craziness. My mother freaked out when I came out of my room with my arms covered in bandages, swaddled under my long sleeves. Then I moved to my stomach because there was more room to write.

My mind swerved from thought to thought, plans of hurting myself to pay back those I loved with pain. I hoped they would realize what they lost and that others would look down on them for not being there for me.

My only outlet during this time of my life was art. It was a passion, and I painted and created projects on the potter’s wheel. Ceramics was the only reason I attended school.

Some days I loaded up my easel, paper, paint, and water bottles and drove far away to a wooded area. I walked so deep into the woods that I lost myself in the scenery. Though it was only 40 degrees outside, I sat and painted in the middle of nowhere. I was content to be alone with my art. It was calm and no one knew I was there. I could paint and listen to the stillness that surrounded me.

It was my secret place and there I could be happy. Not full happiness, not like laughing, but peaceful. If I wanted to scream, I could. I could yell and cry as loud as I wanted, and I didn’t have to explain why.

I became a hermit. Though I didn’t talk much before, my silence became ridiculous. The strange thing is that I continued to be involved in school. I was in the marching band. I was in the Guard, and I took it very seriously. I practiced for hours, building up my strength and tolerance.

I had friends, including my best friend, Christina. I shared with her the details of my life and she couldn’t believe it, but I understood. I had trouble accepting it myself.

At the end of my senior year, I enrolled in college to study art. I traveled to St. Louis with big plans, imagining how I would arrive at this new place and how everything would be great. I believed that my life would be different.

It didn’t take long to realize that moving did not solve my problems. I had very few friends. I hated my job and school wasn’t what I expected. I was terribly homesick, not for the "home" part but for the woods, my place of peace. I drove four hours to Bloomington every other weekend and then four hours back to St. Louis just so I could be in my special place for a few hours each week.

I was miserable at school. I quit my job. I started skipping classes and closed myself away from others again.

Same old, same old. Back to my previous life.

One night I was writing a term paper. As I sat in front of the computer, I thought about how lame it was that I was doing nothing. I decided to see a movie, so I drove to "The Loop," which is a downtown area in St. Louis.

I decided to burn time while I waited for the movie to begin. I was walking down the street when I saw two girls in front of me. A man stood on the sidewalk and held out a flyer. They pushed it away. I marched up and took the flyer since those two girls had acted so rudely to the guy. I figured that he was promoting a band or something. I took the flyer from him and started to walk away when he said, "May I ask you a question? What is your relationship with God?"

I stared at him, and then I laughed because his question sounded really funny. I didn’t understand how anyone could have a "relationship" with God! The guy said his name was Jamie, and then he introduced me to another person named Chuck. More of their friends joined us. For the next two hours I stood on the street and we talked about God.

I couldn’t believe it. I was raised as a Christian, but I never felt about it as I did this night. I looked at each one in the group of people and studied them, wondering what it was that intrigued me about them. There were about six or seven people standing in the cold talking about God. They each seemed to have a beautiful attitude, peaceful and caring.

Jamie rubbed his hands together and warmed them. "Brooke, do you want to accept Christ?" he asked.

"Stop talking to those guys!" someone shouted and interrupted our conversation. I stared at a guy that I knew who stood not far away. He had walked by earlier and asked me to come and hang out with his friends. He was not a good person, and I definitely didn’t want to spend time with him and his friends. When I said no, he had waited close by and listened to every word that Jamie spoke.

"Do you want to accept Christ?" Jamie asked again.

Chuck joined him. "It’s up to you, Brooke."

"You don’t have to listen to them," the guy shouted. His friends joined in and started mocking Jamie and Chuck. My natural response was to yell at him to shut up, but I actually felt sorry for him.

I nodded. "Yes, but will you pray with me?" I asked.

The whole time that I prayed, the guy and his friends cursed me out. I clenched my eyes shut and peace flooded me. The words of those who stood in the background and mocked me helped me to understand what I was walking away from. I thought, They are still stuck, but I found my answer.

Soon after I was saved, I found a project I had created titled "Butterfly Man." It was an assignment for my graphic arts class. "Butterfly Man" had the body of a butterfly, but the face was a composite of several different graphic files of men’s features. As I studied it, I almost dropped the piece. The face looked like Jamie—the man who had stopped to share his faith with me on the street. Same goatee. Same face shape and coloring.

Was God reaching out to me even before I met my new friends?

I took the portrait to Jamie and he framed it. "Isn’t it awesome, Brooke?" he said. "Butterflies are a symbol of new beginnings."

There are still reminders of my past. Sometimes if I’m really cold, or if I’ve just come out of the shower, I can see the faint outline of the word "Why?" that I carved on my forearm. That was a question I asked when I had no answers.

Today it is a reminder that my scars are healed—in more ways than one.

He cheated, She stayed : Part 3

I tried to downplay what a chump I'd been for not seeing this coming. When I told one friend about Sam's infidelity, I said, "I know it's not like he's literally the last person on Earth you'd expect to have an affair...." 

"Nope," she cut me off, "he pretty much is."

And honestly? I'd thought so, too. I fell in love with Sam with the kind of total trust and joy a child feels when she jumps off a table into a grown-up's arms. I knew with utter certainty that he would catch me. 

After we got engaged, he asked me to promise that if I were ever tempted to cheat on him, I'd come to him first and tell him, so we could address whatever part of our relationship had gone awry and was making me crave attention elsewhere. I laughed, because it seemed like such a ridiculously hopeful request. And then I gave him my word. Did I ask him to promise me the same thing? Of course not. It never even occurred to me. Sam's cheating on me was inconceivable. 

What is the difference between trusting someone and taking them for granted? I think I fell into that gap. I felt so safe with Sam that it was almost an insult. If you'd stopped me on the street any time during the past five years and asked what was the single thing I loved most about my marriage, I'd have said, "That's easy: trust." 

I had grown less in love with Sam than with the security I felt from him. 

While it was happening, of course, I wasn't aware of any of this. I knew we were a little off, but I told myself it was just a passing phase, a rough patch on the long road of married life. 

Besides, Sam and I went to great lengths to take care of our relationship. Even during the years when he was cheating, we went out on date nights every week (except when he was traveling for work—or for "work"). Every Thursday, as I stood before the mirror putting on eyeliner and brushing my hair, the children would mewl and cling to me like kittens. "Why do you have to go out with Daddy again?"

I would stop what I was doing and gather them around me and explain that our family was a wonderful, precious thing, and that my relationship with their father was at the heart of it. We had to keep our relationship strong for the whole family to be strong. 

And sometimes, a few hours later, when Sam and I finished dinner (we never went to movies or shows; we always preferred to talk) and the bill came and we balked at the cost, one of us would offer up what had become a standing joke between us: "Well, at least it's cheaper than couples therapy." Ha ha. (Ask me, when all this is over, how much we've spent on therapy, individual and group and couples. It will be in the tens of thousands.)

And sometimes we'd have a fight, and after it was over we'd congratulate ourselves on the way we fought things through, really aired them and resolved them, didn't let them fester. We agreed that one of the strengths of our marriage was that we fought so well. 

The idea that Sam had sat there, echoing all these preening verdicts about our marriage while he was screwing Daphne on the side, walloped me one day, many months after his confession. This kind of thing happened a lot: Some out-of-the-blue realization—some piece of the puzzle I'd somehow missed—would, out of nowhere, just stun me. Each time this happened, I went spiraling down into a three- or four-day depression. After a while, it occurred to me that maybe my mind was parceling out the pain, because I never could have handled it all at once.
 

He Cheated, She Stayed : Part 2

I was...oh, Christ, I don't know if there are words enough in the English language to describe what all I felt over the course of the next few weeks and months. I was hurt, shocked, heartbroken, furious, traumatized, upended, terrified. I felt betrayed, violent, suicidal, humiliated, and unutterably sad. I injured myself—by mistake a few times but also on purpose, like a teenager, with a knife, and with coals from the fire. I was half wild with insomnia. For weeks on end, I slept maybe two hours a night, and ate little more than a hard-boiled egg and a chocolate a day. (I had never in my life lost my appetite so completely; this, at least, felt like a gift.) My mouth was dry and I was always freezing cold, shivering. I drank huge amounts of vodka and never felt drunk, as if my fury were burning off the alcohol the moment it entered my bloodstream. During the day, after Sam went to work, I dug through everything of his; it was the only activity I had the will for. At night, while he slept, I searched his laptop, cut his favorite sweaters to pieces, poured nail polish on his shirts, then woke him up, shouting, flailing, sobbing. 

And yet there was one thing I knew right away: I was not ready to get divorced. In part this was simply because I realized I was too distraught to make a sensible decision. If I kicked Sam out in a rage, I might take him back once I cooled off, only to banish him again a few weeks later when more bad feelings hit. I couldn't do that to our kids. 

But I was also reacting to the fact that I did not know who Sam was anymore; the person who had cheated on me was completely foreign to me (and to himself, as it turned out). I needed to find out who I was actually married to now. And whoever that person was, I knew (in my rare lucid moments) that our marriage must have stopped working for him somewhere along the way, and that fixing it was something we could only undertake together. I still felt attached to Sam—married to him, in my most random thoughts and habits, in my very blood and bones—and it seemed better to go through this trial with him than on my own.

The year following Sam's confession was wretched. I felt as if I were living forward and backward at the same time, excavating details about the past—ours and theirs—as I tried to figure out what came next: How could I keep our family on an even keel, and what could I do to fix our marriage, and was it even worth the trouble? 

Sam went into therapy. I went into therapy. Night after night, we talked. I raged and called him names; he let me. I asked him questions and he answered, and although some of his replies will torment me forever (like, yes, they had sex in the bed in which we conceived our children), the mere fact that he was willing to talk made me feel safer and more connected, reassured me that he wasn't placing his memory of Daphne in a little private treasure box and pocketing the key. 

Equally important was his willingness to apologize. "I'm sorry" is a remarkably powerful phrase when it comes from the heart.

"You can just keep on saying that," I told him. "Over and over, whenever you feel it." And he did. 

There were moments when I actually felt a weird tender pity for Sam, who had come to our marriage with less knowledge of himself and less experience of the opposite sex than I had, and who seemed to have gotten in over his head with Daphne. 

Weirder still, I was frequently (freakishly, it felt) turned on—especially in those first couple of months—and though I kept insisting to Sam that it was just break-up sex we were having (in the laundry room, guest room, car), I could not for the life of me understand why I was attracted to the jerk, let alone having the best sex of my married life with him.

I write this because no one told me what it would be like. When I called my closest friends in the city where I'd lived for so long (a place that suddenly felt very far away; I was unbelievably lonely that entire year) and revealed to them what had happened, I always wound up asking them if they knew anyone—anyone—who had been through this and made it out the other side, anyone who'd survived an affair and come out happily married. Because I wanted to believe it was possible, and to know how it could be done. What was normal? Was there a road map? How long would it take? None of my friends seemed to know such a couple. Other marriages might have survived an affair, but no one was talking.

He Cheated, She Stayed : Part 1

I have a black lace push-up bra left over from my days as a mistress. I was in my early 30s then, and fed up with relationships, fed up with falling for men who, the moment they noticed that I was sweet on them, would ask me to please stop liking them so much because it was making them feel claustrophobic. 

Dating a married man who lived 3,000 miles away was different. To him, I represented the opposite of claustrophobia. I was freedom, excitement, possibility. To me, he was a kind of pause button in a dismal romantic life, and if I hadn't been feeling like such a misfit at dating I probably never would have gotten involved. I saw him maybe half a dozen times in five months. It never felt right—I worried more about his wife than he seemed to—and it was a relief to put an end to it when I met Sam (not his real name), the man who became my husband 12 years ago.

Sleeping with a married man taught me that an affair is mostly about carving out a little make-believe space in your life and then filling that space, helium-like, with passion. I also learned that sex occupies most of your hours together, and that preparing your body for sex occupies most of what's left of your free time. (I have never spent so long bathing and waxing, getting pedicures, and shopping for lingerie.) I learned that you regard someone differently when he is not a prospective mate; if he has an annoying habit—or an annoying personality, for that matter—so what? It's another woman's cross to bear. I learned that, in an affair, you are always on your second date, just about to fall in love, always witty and delightful and utterly uncomplicated. 

It is tempting to romanticize that charmed bubble, especially when you compare it to the fatigue and frustration and bill-paying and child-disciplining and flinch-inducing touches and bad breath and underhanded jibes that fill the middle years of marriage. But an affair only briefly obscures the dark grief every spouse surely feels over the dwindling of marital love, while doing nothing to address what went amiss. 

I knew all that, and I also knew (from People magazine if not from experience) that an affair can destroy a marriage. What I didn't know is that some marriages can withstand the damage. And that some might actually benefit from being broken open, because the breaking—however painful—opens the door to rebuilding something better. 

It turns out that my marriage was—is—one of those.

In December 2008, nine days before Christmas, and barely four months after my husband, three small children, and I had moved to a new town where I knew not a single person, Sam came home from work, ate supper, sat me down on the sofa, and confessed that he had been having an affair for the past three years. I can still remember the way his face looked when he spoke those words—crumpled and terrified, it trembled and spasmed like a bird that has been hit by a car but is not yet dead.

Sam said the affair was completely over. He said he was deeply regretful, that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that all he really wanted was us—me, our three amazing kids, our life together. He promised that he would not communicate anymore with Daphne (not her real name, either), and that if she tried to reach him, he would let me know. He called it a big mistake. He called it a bad choice. But he also said that he had truly loved and admired Daphne, whom he met working on a long-term project on the other side of the continent. He said she was funny, smart, and ballsy. That she was married with two small children. (How small? They met when she'd just come back from maternity leave. She had actually introduced Sam to them, and to her husband. And to her parents.) Oh yes, and he also mentioned that they'd neglected to use any birth control whatsoever, either of them. Ever.

I Cheat In Every Single Relationship I Have...

I've been in "serious" relationship 3 times. I cheated being in two of them. Moreover, I don't feel guilty at all about that. I am convinced that it is normal, however, my boyfriends didn't and don't think so...
I've been called a very free-spirited person. I love exploring new places, trying new things to do, I love the saying "new is always better than old"... and I change people like gloves. I'm not only talking about relationships, it's about everything. I simply hate communicating with the same person for a long time constantly. I have no best friends. All of the people I communicate with can only be called acquintances. I often have crushes on people, i mean, like once a week i get a new crush... It can be a person I just met, a person I've known for a while, a celebrity, a fictional character... whoever. The best way for me to get rid of such crush is to "sink" into it completely, allow myself to think about this person all the time... the feeling is gone after two days. I get bored. Or start seeing the bad sides of a person I had a crush on, which gets me extremely irritated.
I tryed to get into a serious commited relationship. I went on a date with a guy who seemed very sensible and independent, and I began to date him. He became a big thing in my life, since I have never met a person who would be more caring and kind. Plus, I became his first love, and he was ready to do practically anything for me. It was (and is) the only person in the world who saw me without make-up (since I was 14). I know what I'm talking about, his feelings were extremely serious.
I tryed to convince myself that this is something that every girl is dreaming about. He was sort of cute (well, eventually i would make him work out, I know my power of convincing), very funny, and the main thing - responsible. He named me the most important thing in his life, and I felt like I was. He took care of me when I was drunk as hell, vomiting and being able to move only by crawling right in front of him, he always took my phone calls, even at 3 in the morning, he came to my place whenever I felt bad, physically or mentally (notice, he lives in another city and he has no car...).
I dumped him after 4 months of dating. I regret it from time to time.
I cheated on that guy. He knew about it, and he forgived me that. I actually cheated 3 or 4 times on him.
Nowadays I'm in a relationship too. I feel like the guy I'm dating now is something that I actually need. The guy I date these days is a lying workaholic bastard who (i'm pretty sure about that, although I don't know exactly) cheats on me. The strange thing is that I love all these things about him. I mean, it's like a challenge. I don't feel like I "have" him, like he is my property. I mean, I didn't feel it...
However, he is against cheating too. And he told me that it's the only thing he would never forgive to me.
I cheated on him. Once. But we've only been dating for a month...
I guess our relationship won't last long, since we both are from that kind of people who get tired of others easily.
You would ask me, why don't I just break up with a person to be with another person?
Because I can't be alone... I, like, physically can't.
I must always feel that someone is there for me, if I need something.
My current boyfriend is beginning to show more interest in me lately... I mean, we started more like friends with benefits. I still take him more like my friend. However, he seems to feel something more special...
God, I hope he doesn't.
Anyway...
Do you think is it normal to feel like that about people?