The affair...

Having an affair is somewhat similar to a raccoon trap. You see the bait, it looks delicious and you can't believe your luck. You step closer and closer to the bait, you analyze your options and you think, why not? Here's some food, I need to be fed, I'm going to take a bite. What you don't see is the trap. You don't see that once you go past the point of no return you're not getting out easily.

Well I hope that the meal was worth it.

When I first met the woman that I had the affair with I was very attracted. Not to the point where I thought I had to have an affair with her - or in fact any kind of personal relationship outside of work. But I was attracted to her, and she to me. We started having lunch together, then dinner, then lunch and dinner. We often had to travel on business together which meant separate rooms at first but eventually we did the decent thing and began to save the company money by sharing. We talked every day. We sent thousands of text messages over the next couple of years and we were in love.

For the first time in years I felt loved and I was feeling in love. It was refreshing, wonderful, and it was so exciting. I was drunk on the feeling and I wanted more. So did she. Eventually we started to talk about me leaving my wife and building a life together. There were times when I would sit at home, look at my wife, and mouth the words 'I'm leaving you' silently. I just wanted the words to come out but they wouldn't. Each time, everytime, I tried the images of my girls raced into my mind. How could I leave them? How could I break up our family? How important is my happiness compared to theirs?

Back to the raccoon trap: The other woman was becoming impatient. She was putting her life on hold waiting for me to leave my wife. Promises came and went but no action was ever taken. And then the 'Fatal Attraction' shit starts. I'm exaggerating but be under no illusion: a woman that you have an affair with will eventually want you to make a commitment that you better understand before you start the affair. Of course, there are 'no strings attached' affairs that are just about sex, I guess, but when you tell the other woman that you love her and you start talking about a future you will hear that raccoon trap slam shut. You're in brother and you better make sure you enjoy the food and want to be in there because there's no way out that isn't going to hurt.

The pressure of balancing the two lives I was leading became unbearable. I was a stressed-out mess. There wasn't a single thing that was easy. My life at home was a disaster because I was hardly every there. I was either working, traveling away for work, or away seeing the other woman. The nights I was at home I had to make sure my phone was always in my pocket just in case a text message came through and I'd always have to deal with the other woman's feelings being hurt because I was at home with my wife playing the dutiful husband and father. The life with the other woman meant lying to my wife about where I was and making up elaborate stories about why I needed to be away again. Fortunately I had a job that for years had involved travel so it was not unusual for me to be away but, even so, it was hard to find ways of not giving out a hotel number because there's 2, not 1, in the room.

Having an affair is a totally stupid thing to do. If you get to the point where you want to have an affair, leave your wife right there and then. The stress, the guilt, the lies, the energy it takes is just not worth it. And not just that, you owe it to her as human being to not take her with you on your journey through hell. Every day you wake up feeling ashamed and know that today is another day that will be spent illicitly treading lightly through a minefield of deception.

You will want this feeling to end and one day it will. You just have to decide for yourself how - the painful way, or the really painful way.