September 30, 2024
I was just thinking about how I outed Married Man to his wife.
“That’s the worst fucking thing I ever did,” I said out loud, startling my own self from the intensity of my own voice.
Really?
That’s the worst thing?
Worse than the affair?
Why?
Because I was in no position to resist the temptation of the affair. I was desperately ill with rapid cycling bipolar and out of control bipolar hypersexuality. In a few short months after moving to Louisville, I became too ill to work. My career was in ruins. I had no income. I was in total despair.
I had a lengthy psychiatric hospitalization just a few months after we met — in large part exacerbated by the stress of the affair. But I can’t say that for certain, because maybe the whole breakdown was destined to occur. There was no one single cause. I did myself no favors getting involved with Jeff. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t realize how badly I was harming myself. I didn’t realize how close I was to death. I was on the precipice for many months.
Is that an excuse?
I don’t know.
Is it?
Remembering who I was then, I can forgive myself for the affair. Well, not entirely, but largely. I was not capable of making the better choice.
Maybe that’s me rationalizing.
Maybe not.
But the one thing that absolutely sickens me is that I told his wife. The thing I promised him, over and over, for months and months, that I would never do. Never. Not ever.
I didn’t think I was capable of it.
(And neither did he.)
But I was.
And I did.
That is the worst fucking thing I ever did.
Photo by Aimee Vogelsang on Unsplash