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People often say that “love is not enough,” and the majority of the time, it really isn’t always about love.
Why do we cheat in relationships or marriages?
Why do we find that missing piece in the most unlikely lover(s)?
A lot of times, the affair that ruins a relationship or marriage is the one with an unlikely secret lover.
Sunset
In the early years of our marriage, we were more in love than Romeo and Juliet. Always together and we never went to bed mad at each other. It all started to nose-dive gradually when we both began to entertain lovers. We had a little problem and thought an open marriage would work. It worked until I had an unlikely secret lover.
I was the best partner anyone could ever pray for and even when I had my eyes outside, I made sure home was peaceful, satisfied with my love and attention. I gave my best. Well, I thought I gave my best until I began to face the most difficult challenges anyone could ever survive.
I wondered what changed. How did I become the person I am right now? What went wrong?? I have changed, I have to admit that I have become someone I was scared of admitting and at the same time, I enjoy this new version. I am carefree, happier, and living dangerously while playing safe.
Dimming Light
When I realized that I was getting too deeply involved in the extra affairs, I tried my best to pull out of it. But this was even more difficult to do when I couldn’t watch her hurt so badly after telling her that we had to end it. She was a secret lover; but most especially, she was my friend. I found peace with her even when we laid together silently in bed.
I would close from work and stay back just so we could talk over the phone for long hours till she got home. We would meet up for drinks after work; we spent time together at the park every Friday.
A part of me believed it would fade off, but that never happened. She was like a song that played on repeat but the lyrics sent a stronger message with each replay. I was head-over-heels for her.
It was obvious that as I fell in love with her, I grew apart from my spouse. I was distracted and I could not hide it. It affected our intimacy and communication. I wasn’t participating in the things we did together anymore. I stopped seeing my partner in an affectionate manner. We became strangers faster than we fell in love because the affair I was having with my secret lover grew stronger.
I stopped looking forward to coming back home after work. At the slightest opportunity, I would rush to go spend time with my lover. The affair I was having with my secret lover was gradually evolving into a full-blown official relationship. We grew fonder of each other that we could barely stay apart for more than 24 hours.
Divulgence
As time went by, it became clear that I had to choose between my partner and my secret lover. I was losing myself with my partner and I could tell that we were no longer compatible. The love was long dead and we were more like roommates. We barely held any reasonable conversation, and when we did, it never went beyond 5 minutes. This has to end!
Which one has to end is the million-dollar question. Who was I willing to walk away from? The guilt began to eat me up. I watched my partner put in the best in the few years of our marriage and the sacrifices were unmatched to anything I had ever done for the sake of our marriage.
But each time I tried to reconsider making our marriage work, the images of my secret lover’s smile, beautiful eyes, the sweetest voice I ever heard….all these held me back from loving my partner.
I had to agree that my marriage was over. How do I break the news to my partner? What do I say? How would I start the conversation? These were anxious questions because I had no feeling of remorse. I was happier outside of my marriage and that was a painful truth my partner would have to accept.
A conversation I thought would be heated up turned out to be very peaceful, but the hurt and pain I had inflicted was sad to see. Apparently, my affair was no secret to my partner.
Everything I thought I was doing in hiding had been in the open to my partner. All the details of my movement, my secret lover’s house address, name, and place of work were no secret. There was nothing to lie about.
I was going to lie about everything and twist the story a little, maybe try to hide the details of the reason behind my request for a divorce. I didn’t want to be judged for what people didn’t understand. People don’t trust what they can’t explain and that in itself was going to be trouble.
I was leaving my marriage for an unlikely secret lover. We were friends who became lovers in an unusual turn of events. I fell in love with a woman just like me. Yes! A woman just like me. I don’t know how it happened, but this is where we are. She reintroduced me to the real person that I am, and she loved my flaws more than she tried to correct them.
She is a certain kind of song. Its lyrics have a different meaning every time it plays all over again. This decision wasn’t forced by her, she was reluctant to allow me walk out of my marriage, but I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. To hear her voice every time without feeling guilty, to love her with all that is me, to be more than a friend to her, and do this without any care in the world.
My husband labelled it “forbidden,” but how could it be forbidden if it’s love? I consider myself fortunate to have someone just like me to love me in the manner that Zara does.
Zara, that’s her name. Zara is the woman I have been having an affair with—the woman that I have referred to as my unlikely secret lover; the woman in whom I found true love without a care of what anyone thinks.
Zara is younger than I am, but she’s got the maturity of a wise woman. She’s calm and loving. She’s independent and I love that she knows her way around me….in every sense of it (😉). With everything in me, I love Zara, and it gives me so much happiness and joy to admit this.
As I enjoy my journey into self-discovery and realization of my inner truth, I wish this had happened earlier so that I wouldn’t have hurt my ex-husband. Moving on from there, we all deserve to embrace our suppressed identity and listen to the silent voice that speaks our truth to the mind.
I am Tanni, and I found love with an unlikely secret lover!
