A VERY CLOSE SHAVE....

He has stopped calling and chatting me up, I should be happy after all this is what we both wanted, though we have tried this cutting of communication once and it didn’t work, I can’t help feeling this time it will work. Okay, I guess a part of me didn’t really want US to end but hey this is back to reality, I’ve got kids and a husband to look after.
 
I never ever thought my relationship with Thomas will go this far, in fact with my strict upbringing, I never imagined I wou

ld indulge in any extramarital affair no matter how drop dead handsome the guy is, but I have come to realize that the reasons a lot of married people engage in extramarital affairs has more to do with the ‘space’ the other person fills in their lives than their looks. We get so carried away by what our spouse does not do for us and warm up to the other person giving us attention in that area of need and that was how my relationship with Thomas started.

I wish all the marriage seminars and classes I attended prepared me for this new phase of my life and how to handle it, but I had to take each day as it comes, fighting a lot of emotional battles between what should be and what not and so much. I met Thomas at a friend’s birthday party I attended with my husband, I just noticed something special about him and somehow fate brought us together and we started talking, he met my husband and we kept in touch after that and became good friends. At that time he wasn’t married, so we were not so close. As a Christian, I was careful to keep him at arm’s length as I didn’t want any male attraction that would deviate me from my well brought up knowledge of how my marriage should run. He got married along the line and I relaxed my defenses a bit thinking since he is married, we could have an easy, free flowing friendship without any intentions coming in.
 
However, our closeness started after a chat one day when I asked him to ask me any question. He asked what I thought about him and I, not being one to spoil a good mood, went on telling him how nicely mannered and cautious I thought he was. He is not a bad looking guy and I told him that too. He then asked if I have ever done anything naughty before and I was quick to warn him not to be deceived with my demure look, we got talking about all sort of married stuffs and we got carried away. One thing I learnt in this is that being married does not mean I am immune to the opposite sex’s charms especially when there is an area of common interest. Where was my husband in all of this? Well, he was having his fair share of female attention too and he was getting closer to my kids than to me.

Each timeout I had with Thomas, reminded me of my single and courting days, he was such a sweet spirit, sometimes I wonder if his wife knew the aspect of him I knew because he was so free with me and vice versa. Another mistake we made was talking about our spouses, not in the negative light but we weighed what we were getting from them compared to what we were getting in our new found friendship, what we didn’t know was that we could replicate what we did with our spouses but we either felt our partners weren’t willing to discover like we did or we were just too lazy trying it out with them and just wanted things to be the way they were.

Subsequently, we started hanging out. It wasn’t so much of an issue at first since my husband knew and liked him but his wife started feeling uncomfortable with our closeness. I couldn’t blame her though, I figured if it was me I would feel the same way, so we hung out in secret and kept the chatting to the minimum but you know what they say about how sweet stolen waters are. Funny though, we kept telling ourselves what we were doing wasn’t right but we just indulged more in it.

We had some issues along the line with our beliefs, I was a Catholic, and he was a Pentecostal. So we didn’t agree on a whole lot of things bordering spirituality but that we just discarded it along the line as we grew fond of each other as the day passed by. The main issue started when one day during our hangout, we kissed. My heart skipped several beats that day as I couldn’t look my husband in the face when I got home, it was easy though using the kids as cover up but my husband noticed I was edgy and probably just thought it was work but here I was struggling with my conscience.
 
One part of my mind told me it was not a big deal, after all I’d caught seen several suggestive text messages on my husband’s phone and had even confronted him on some, so this could be my payback time. Yet another voice saying, if I go ahead to make this a full blown affair, not only will it be adultery to my body but also to my spirit. Promptly, I recalled back at University days, I had gone for this crusade organized by the joint campus and I remember the lady preacher spoke passionately on adultery, fornication and how that when you have sex with someone, you retain a bit of that person in your life, physically and spiritually. She spoke a lot about the risks of having multiple sex partners, so much that I can’t put in words now. With all this in mind, I decided I would remain friends with Thomas because truly I enjoyed his company but we would put a limit to our friendship, not just because I didn’t want to pay my husband back in his coin but I just felt getting back to him this way didn’t make sense.