Last Night

Last night I slept with Christian, my ex-husband, for the first time since he became my ex-husband. In so doing, I knowingly exacerbated his feelings for me, opened my own heart back up to him…and betrayed both of our significant others.

I am torn.

Part of me feels wonderful. I love him. I’ve loved him for so long. He’s been the central figure in my life for many years, and he gave me our beautiful son. To have him back inside of me, to curl up in my spot in the crook of his elbow, to hear him tell me that I have no idea how much he loves me, to feel his kisses on the tip of my nose as my face hovered above his… all of that was amazing. It was perfect. I will always wish that we were capable of being happy together, as a “normal” couple—but I know that it’s impossible.

Part of me feels manipulative. I don’t want his girlfriend, whom I’ll call “Lady D” to replace me in his heart, and while I’m confident that she never really can, I feel that making love to him is the best way to make sure that he doesn’t forget just how important I am—just put it down to the mix of fear of abandonment and the amount of narcissism I possess. I believe that sleeping with him will either—because I know that for him, the act is as much emotional as it is physical—keep him from fully committing his heart to someone else (no matter what he might say or do to the contrary), or it will force him to break up with her in an effort to keep his conscience clear.

I do not want to be with him again. I’m enjoying my life without the cloud of our tumultuous marriage hanging over my head, but still, I smirk to myself, and feel superior knowing that while his girlfriend is completely confident in their relationship, he and I are undermining every little part of it. I have the ability to destroy them completely if wish. He has placed me in a position of power; he has given me control of their future, and I must admit that I love it…although I have no intention to use this power negatively because underneath it all, I am truly glad that he’s found someone else who makes him happy.

Part of me feels treacherous. I’ve met Lady D, and she’s a kind person—very pretty, very soft spoken and friendly. She doesn’t deserve what we are doing to her, and it would probably crush her to find out that she is being betrayed. I am not jealous of her or her position in Christian’s life, but I do revel in the knowledge he loves me more than he could ever love her. I am also secretly thrilled that I have such a hold on him; that he would risk ruining the great potential they have together in order to maintain even some little piece of “us.”

And I have Dominic, someone I believe is one of the last few remaining “great men” in the world. He’s beautiful inside and out, respectful, smart, funny and all-around amazing. His generous nature has caused him to be hurt in the past, and what I did last night—and what I am hoping to do in the future—he is completely undeserving of. These two innocents, Dominic and Lady D, they believe that Christian and I are amazing people; that they are lucky to have found us. But how lucky are they, I wonder? As Christian put it so succinctly in our post-fuck conversation last night: “They are good people, and we are assholes.”

Part of me feels liberated. The “wrongness” of all of this is a definite turn on for us both—me especially. Being the “other woman,” getting to have the unadulterated, slutty sex, and knowing that someone else is fulfilling all his other needs—as well as mine, is appealing to me. The sex last night was the best he and I have had in years. Our desire and vigor were renewed, a combination of love and lust that hadn’t been present in our marriage for longer than I can remember. I love the naughtiness of this, and I know it turns him on as well.

Part of me feels fearful. There are so many bad things that can come from this. My main concern is how our trysts may affect the co-parenting relationship that Christian and I share. Our son, “Babe,” has witnessed more altercations and even physical fights than any child should have to endure. Now that he is old enough to understand what’s going on, we no longer have the safety of thinking he won’t remember, or that he would be too young to care about what he might accidentally walk in on or overhear. Christian and I have to be so much more careful now. We both want to do what is best for Babe. Christian and I have been doing amazingly well lately, not being just civil with each other, but actually friendly. We both have hopes that no matter what happens with our little predicament, we can maintain the bond. Babe deserves that. He cannot know that Mama and Daddy are back at it again, even more so than Lady D and Dominic must not find out.

I also fear that I’ll fall back in love with Christian, or that I’ll let our affair color the relationship I have with Dominic. Christian has already told me that he still loves me and wants to be with me—but he knows that it’s not the right thing for either of us. He misses me, and it hurts him that I’ve moved on to someone new—even though he’s done the same. It hurts him that I am not upset that he has Lady D, but in so many ways, I am grateful that he has her.

Although Christian has made it clear that he doesn’t want to interfere in my current relationship, he said that can still see himself saying something like: “I don’t want you to be with Dominic anymore,” at some point down the road and asked me not to allow him to say such things. I don’t know how I will react if he ever does, but Christian is torn between wanting me to move on and find the happiness I deserve, and his love for me and his own selfish desire to keep me for himself—which I completely understand.

Part of me feels hopeful. The perfect scenario that Christian and I have discussed is that we can keep our “new” relationship completely separate from the rest of our lives. On the surface, we appear merely to be divorced co-parents, attempting to be friendly for the sake of our child. We seem to be the dedicated lovers of our significant others, moving on with our lives with them in whatever way we choose, progressing as traditional relationships usually do, whether that be eventually cohabitation, marriage, etc.

The reality would be that sometimes, he and I would be lovers. We’d be together, reenacting the most wonderful parts of our relationship for as long as we’re able. It could go on forever, or until our desire to be together faded away, or until the affair became too complicated and one of us ended it, or until we decided to try “us” as the whole again.

All of me is confused. Before Christian and I had sex, I had no intentions of re-exploring any of my old feelings. Of course I knew I still loved him, but I was over him. Then, we made love. It was supposed to be just fucking—just slutty ex, cheating, wrong and obscene sex, but it wasn’t. There were declarations of love. There was reminiscing. There was eye contact and there were passionate kisses. After we made love, there was a long conversation…in which we made no progress toward understanding our feelings or intentions.

Tonight, Lady D will be in Christian’s bed. He will wash his sheets and make sure my hair isn’t in his shower anywhere. He will try to forget the way it feels to have the head of his cock pushing past my tonsils the way he loves, and enjoy the way she sucks his dick. He’ll feel her skin against his, and it will be her in the crook of his elbow. He will be looking into her eyes when he speaks, and it will be her that he sees smiling back at him. All that is not me. If he can handle perpetrating this deception, engaging in this level of wrong that Lady D does not deserve, we will continue with our escapades. If he cannot, we will not.

But me. What will I do? I already know that I do not love Dominic as much as he loves me. I do not see a future with him, yet I see such an aptitude for forever in him that I’m extremely hesitant to let him go. If I was satisfied with him, I don’t believe that when Christian started to take our innocent text message exchanges and turn them into what it should not have been, I would have encouraged it. I would have turned him down, and that would have been that.

Regardless, Dominic is a wonderful man, but what happens between Christian and me has no bearing on whether I will stay with him or not. No, that will be a separate decision. Funny, I feel no guilt about what I’m doing to Dominic. Although I realize it would break his heart, I am more concerned with my own heart right now—and the fact that I don’t know if I can handle letting Christian hold my body without my heart leaping back into his grasp as well.

I am torn.