We never had sex. Does it matter? Would it matter to me, if I was his wife?
A year and a half ago, we were on the phone, talking about what we liked to do in bed. I can’t remember how we got on that subject. I never remembered how our conversations ended up where they did. He was so easy to talk to. We had so much in common. There was something so simple about it, because he was married, and thus out of reach.
So simple. Right?
The second to last time we met in person, we were supposed to meet so he could teach me how to shoot a gun. He decided to bring his wife along. He did not tell me he made that decision. I found out when I got there. It felt weird, honestly — learning to shoot is already an intimate thing. Suddenly we went from being two survivors of childhood trauma, shooting guns, to me and a guy and his wife…no longer survivors reclaiming our strength.
Suddenly I was not sure what we were. I just knew I no longer felt empowered. I no longer felt confident about what we were doing. That day, I refused to load the guns by myself. I acted like a stereotypical girl, who needed him, the guy in the room, to do it for me. I felt triggered and ironically more traumatized than I usually did. I had been looking to him to be a source of safety. Now I felt unmoored and unrescued and unsafe.
We went out for dinner afterwards, the three of us. I liked his wife. I just did not really know anything about her. He and I were members of a club that had enough room for only two people. I knew, and I think she did too, that he would probably sleep with me if I ever asked him. I knew, and I don’t think she did, that I was not emotionally ready to ask him or anyone.
So we sat there. We ate dinner. We chatted about…whatever. I don’t remember. Then we left. I don’t think I hugged him goodbye. Then I moved halfway across the country, and that sure made things easier for everyone.
I remember waking up one morning after dreaming about him in my parents’ house the summer after I graduated from our MFA program. There was that moment when you think maybe everything could be different. You sort of don’t want things to be different. I sort of didn’t want things to be different. I love him, truly, but I don’t want my life to change in the ways I know it would have to and neither does he.
These are the things that happen under the surface. I guess maybe it’s a good thing he brought his wife that day. Except that it was a cowardly thing to do, because it protected everyone involved from really facing the truth.
I don’t think that he and I are anything close to meant to be, or ever could be anything like that to each other. However, I also think that he is someone who both used me to fantasize “what if” and then subtly convinced me to lean into the exaggerated performance of my trauma so that he did not have to think too hard about that “what if” for real.
In turn, I think that I am someone who used him to explore my sexuality from a safe distance, as someone who would never make a physical move on me for real. Even though I probably would not have pushed him away. Even though he probably knew that. Even though I would not have regretted it and maybe that’s the point, is all that empty space of regret.
I don’t regret the empty space of the lost chance for love and happiness. It’s the not knowing what might have happened next. The possibility of change. The idea that being a survivor also can mean clinging to the security of consistency even when it is bad for you. Even when you sacrifice some needs that maybe you never meant to lose along the way. For me, that means giving up romance and sexuality and barely noticing. For him, probably the same.
If we had an emotional affair, it was only half of one. I want the rest, please. I want to do the courageous thing. Because I think what has happened is already close enough to cheating that it is not good enough to say that nobody had sex so I’m sure it’s just fine and their relationship is just fine and aren’t we moral for walking away. In truth, we are just traumatized and terrified, just revictimizing ourselves, saving no one.
We have both done enough of that in our lives already.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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