one sharp broad sex, boys & snark

Day 2: My Apology

Being recently inspired by the spare no bones style of the incomparable Tracie Egan/Slut Machine (Not safe for work, by the way in case you can’t tell) I feel that this is a story that I kind of have to tell, especially since I feel that my life as of late can be looked at as in what my head was like before this happened and what life was like after.

Two months ago, I went to Las Vegas for the first time. And like so many people, I had an affair with someone while I was there. A married someone. Like so many other questionable things I have done, I never thought I would be THAT KIND of girl, but there I was, being THAT KIND of girl. It’s not like I worship monogamy or marriage but there’s something about conveniently shoving that wedding ring into the back of your mind that I never thought I would be capable of.

But, a year’s worth of loneliness and frustration and a whole buttload of gin, plus that air of possibility and hedonism that is all over Las Vegas can make all of your boundaries go right out the window. And then there are the rationalizations: if not me, then someone else, he was the one was married, not me, he could’ve stopped at any time and kicked me out, other stuff must have been happening to have led to this, etc, etc.

If I felt wrecked afterwards (which I did), it mostly feeling bad for me, for yet again getting involved with someone who was utterly unavailable (Note: That is not to say that I make it a habit of sleeping with guys who are married/attached. I don’t & this has never happened before. I mean unavailable in the emotional sense).

While intellectually, I knew about the wife — there was never any lying on his part about that — I didn’t think about her. And why would I? She was nameless, faceless, a third Other floating somewhere out there, who I wouldn’t have to see or deal with. In other words, his problem, not mine. I would be a blip on the radar, a hazy pleasant memory completely removed from his reality. Compounding this lack of responsibility was that we had agreed that we weren’t going to be in touch ever again (I believe the words “I’m just going to block this out” were used). So, one more rationale: it wasn’t even a real affair, just a one night stand. It was just one lie, not many! And who hasn’t had a one night stand and just walked away like it never happened (answer: only the person with nothing to lose)?

I wasn’t thinking about consequences. I was thinking about me, I was thinking about how fun it was, how I’d had such a terrible year with dudes and hadn’t been this attracted to someone in years (since I met the ex), how quintensentially Vegas the whole thing was, how symbolic it was that it happened on the former anniversary of my relationship with the Ex and also, on the same day of our breakup, how cool it was to have those hours that didn’t belong to anyone else but the two of us, how no one would ever know.

And then, because there is no such thing as the perfect crime, somebody else knew. That person of course, the invisible third, the white elephant in that expensive hotel room, the Wife. Via the magic of the Internet, I realized that she had found out. And even worse: she knew it was me. From that moment, this whole thing took a different course, no longer a memory of a fling, but rather: I started to feel sick to my stomach with guilt and filled with a kind of empathy.

The minute she became a person to me, haunting my blog stats, my focus shifted from thinking about him to thinking about her. I think about her and what she must think about me, I think about how I would feel if she were my friend and her husband pulled this kind of shit. I think about my female friends, who I love dearly, and how I would feel if any of their boyfriends or husbands were to do something like this. And I think about me, and how I felt when someone cheated on me or how I would react if some guy I was married to did this to me.

And I feel fucking awful. A lot of the comments on this entry are people who know me in person and naturally, are supportive friends because I am very lucky, but the truth is: turn it around. If the situation were different, if I were the different person, if I were the cheated ON, no one would be cutting the third party any slack whatsoever.

I am not trying to absolve myself. Or even provide excuses for what I did or for what he did. It wasn’t like he forced me to be there or lied to me about being married or at any point misrepresented anything; I was there because I wanted to be. But that being said, It was a shitty thing to do. It’d be nice to pretend that our actions have no consequences or that I don’t feel even a tad responsible for whatever came of those hours I spent with him, but I do. And I can’t take it back.

So, with that, I end it like this: to you: I’m sorry. I really, truly am.

Yes, but…
Tom Cruise está muerto!

On the serious tip, this seems like entirely his problem. Mr. and Mrs. live way outside your life, and it’s not as if you somehow deprived the man of his free will. All of the guilt here belongs to him.

I kind of want to punch the main guy that my ex cheated on me with, but mostly because I knew him and had thought of us as friends and there was implicit trust. His affront to me was minuscule relative to hers. For your situation, none of those factors are even there.

Frankly I suspect you’re too sharp a broad to really believe that you’re somehow culpable–shared or otherwise–for this guy’s actions and their ramifications in his personal life.

I’m not saying that I am to blame for what happened and what has transpired because of it; I know there is a long road that leads people to cheat and there are certainly other factors at play here that existed long before I was a glimmer in his drunken eye.

But just like he shouldn’t have been messing around with me knowing he had a wife at home, I could’ve walked away. When I say she was the white elephant in the room, it’s because she WAS - we both tiptoed around that subject.

I know that I am the one with nothing to lose and nothing at stake. And really, the post is more about how I sympathize with her now that she is not an abstract, but an actual person, not someone I have to see or deal with on a daily basis, but someone who’s presence I am reminded of, since I know she reads this.

Someone said once that a society will never rise above the morals of its women. I truly believe that. While your above commenter seems to think you were blameless in this, I disagree. In a situation where both parties know something bad is happening and either one can stop it, they are equally at fault, regardless of who started it.

Still, I think it’s brave for you to write this, and interesting, too - not many have a chance to attempt an apology for this, or would if the situation presented itself. Hopefully, everyone has learned something from this.

things are always more complicated than we want them to be. for me, it’s often so easy to empathize with the other side that i find myself wracked with guilt or second-guessing my choices b/c of that.

you know that what you did wasn’t nice. you know that you didn’t hold a gun to his head & he made his own decision & that you’re not responsible for him, but you ARE responsible for you & for leading the best life that YOU can lead. if he didn’t cheat on her with you, sure, it could’ve been someone else — but YOU wouldn’t have had any part in it.

& basically that’s what you get to do now — you get to use this to shape yourself. it’s not just how we acted in the past that defines who we are, but how we learn from those actions & their repercussions.

xxoo

Maybe I’m too much of a relativist, but I maintain that you’ve been too hard on yourself.

Mostly because I’m of the opinion that it’s fruitless to police anyone’s actions but our own, and you weren’t the one in a committed relationship. But you know this and I also totally acknowledge the validity of your remorse.

I mostly just maintain it because it breaks my heart to think of you agonizing over what would have otherwise been a cardinal life experience. Or agonizing over anything, really.

i love you, md! this is a really lovely post and anyway, i am thinking of you. also, i have your shit and need to get it back to you…perhaps i swing by after writing salon tonight?! holla at your girl! okay i’ll shut up now!

im with steph on this one. i think she sums it up quite well. blame is a funny thing - where we place it and in what context/ from whose perspective we view a situation. in the end, what this really is about is not “blame” at all but rather you defining the anchor points of your personal moral compass. and that’s often a hard thing. but stuff like this really help define– or, rather develop our character. good for you.

who is this “thau” person and what is with the misogyny? “the morals of its women” indeed. as though you haven’t judged yourself enough already.

whatever boundaries you transgressed, his were much clearer. honestly I don’t have anything wise to say on this topic; reading that comment just made me really angry and defensive of you.

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