How to Survive an Affair

How to Survive an Affair

 Have you ever been so in love that you knew that no matter what life threw at you, the romance would endure to the end?  Yet somewhere along the way other things and persons became more important than you and the romance between you and your wife. Well if that didn’t happen in your life, I congratulate you, because it happened to me.

Everything about our life together started like a fairy tale.  I wasn’t looking to be romantically involved, and yet when I met her I knew that I wanted to be married to her for the rest of my life.  A few weeks previous to meeting my wife to be, I had told my mother that another fifteen years would go by before I would even consider marriage again.  That was a response to my mother telling me that I needed a partner in life to share and raise a family with.

I don’t know how I pulled it off but within three weeks of meeting my wife we drove to my mother’s house for the formal introduction to the family.  I know that my mother was praying every day that I would meet someone special and settle down.  I am just glad that I had a hand in the selection process.  I can honestly say that a new family member has never been more welcomed than my wife was by my mother.

We immediately started working as a team making decisions that benefited our family unit.  I switched to higher paying job, we moved across the state, which made it difficult but we only had each other to lean on.  I had always been boring as friends go, I am not one to go and hang out for Happy Hour (still not).  My wife’s school and college friends also became distant letter writing type friends before cell phones and social media. All my time away from work was spent paying attention to the home and going shopping together.  I use to mow my own lawn, wash my own car (the kind of things young people with limited resources do).  On weekends we traveled and explored the great city of Seattle.

Then approximately eighteen months later the first stranger entered our life, he was right around 7 pounds and about 21 inches long (our first born).  My wife was so into being a mommy that you could see it in her face whenever she contemplated her baby sleeping.  I actually felt a touch of jealousy, because I was no longer the focus of her life.  Don’t get me wrong I loved my son and was very proud of the little guy, still am, but he moved right in and took over the house.  Two more boys and a girl later, the family was completed, and we dedicated ourselves to making sure that they strengthened their wings, and were able to fly from the nest when they were ready.  We never had a timeline for them to graduate out of our home, and they are always welcomed if any one of them needs to come back.  They are all reasonably happy and doing well in all aspects of life, we visit regularly with all of them and even vacation together periodically.

But there is a big change; we survived the family affair that has gone full circle.  My wife and I are finally alone and still together, we go out whenever we want to wherever we want to (did I mention the grandchildren).  The beauty about the grandchildren is that we can spoil them and send them home to their parents.  I guess you could say that our romance was disrupted but not interrupted. Raising a family is always part of a plan; we just get caught off guard sometimes.  When done right, you do need to dedicate your life to the children.  The best is yet to come…