Cheater

I’m cheating on my husband. Two nights a week I wait until my husband leaves before I meet my love at the scheduled time. My husband is a professor and often needs to attend evening events at the University. I await those nights with anticipation. As daylight falls, I prepare and serve dinner, clean up the dishes and tell my husband how wonderful he is for working so hard and supporting our family. I breathe a sigh of relief as he finally walks out the door, coming back one more time because he’s forgotten something; his glasses, his wallet, his keys. He always forgets something. And he always comes back.

Once he’s finally gone and I hear the garage door close, I get myself together; brush my teeth, refresh my wine glass, make sure the dog has gone out. I literally change into something more comfortable. I wait for the appointed time and appearance with butterflies in my stomach and a fast-paced heart.

I question the ethics of this. I know it is wrong. My husband and I have spent thirty years together and for me to be gallivanting with a tantalizing, stimulating partner, at this time in my life, seems unreal. It seems unnatural for a woman of my age. It seems bad in a thrilling way. It seems devious. It seems like I have the devil in me.

I feel guilty. I get such satisfaction and pure enjoyment out of watching, imbibing, participating in our tryst. I get to be the person I think I am. I get to experience a life outside of myself that has nothing to do with the husband I married or the children I raised.

I get to be lost, to forget and fantasize about another me that might have been, that could have been, had I had the courage to venture beyond what I knew to be safe and true. Instead I move in someone else’s reality and am willing and anxious to share the experience.

Yet I keep it at arm’s length. I will not venture too deeply. I will get what I need out of this without wondering what it demands back from me. The beauty of it is that it demands nothing back from me. Just the obligation of my constant attention and discretion. I can do that.

I can sneak around and indulge in what I want for me; keep it to myself and enjoy the secret. After all these years, I think I deserve that. I feel entitled to owning something that no one else can have, even my husband, especially my husband.

One might ask, what went wrong? What happened between you and your husband to enable you to throw open the doors to a secretive liaison? Habit, I say. Routine. Disinterest. Lack of connection. Disassociation. Fear. Walls. Time.

It's isolating and lonely, which is why when he leaves, I grab the remote and hit "On Demand" and find my TV show. The one that makes me feel alive and involved in life. The one that keeps me riveted, glued to every word, every character going through a trauma or a series of momentous revelations. The seductive partner that is exciting and keeps me wanting to come back for more, day after day, night after night. I am enthralled. I am taken, I am yours. I binge on you.

It is a clandestine, sneak-watching love affair, this show and me. We will go on until the series ends, always our little secret, always fulfilling me in ways I can not find elsewhere. And when it is over, I will be sad and lonely. I will grieve its loss, until another alluring reality comes my way through a 48-inch screen.