(If anything I write below is horrible offensive to anyone, please do me a favor and just ignore this post and don’t tell me what rotten person I am and I’m going to hell or some such thing)
Over the last few years I’ve had to change a great many views that I’ve previously been very emphatic about. I’ve changed my view on my prior religion, my view on God in general, my view on many things I don’t really need to itemize here, but it should go without saying that my view on right and wrong has made a huge shift.
There are a great many things that my strict Christian upbringing defined as wrong that I have since defined totally reversed myself on, or relegated to a grey area. Some of these things I did while I was still an active JW (as everyone does), but the most radical changes of course came after I decided to move on.
In a hopefully successful attempt at keeping this short enough to read without getting too bored,
With that being said, let me get to my dilemma...
I’ve been working with a woman for about the last 6-7 years that is absolutely fantastic. When we first started working together, we only talked on the phone for the first few months, but we got along very well because she is without a doubt one of the coolest people I have ever encountered. Well spoken, well read, good sense of humor, great attitude...
Then I met her in person and found out that she was absolutely gorgeous too....
This isn’t a bad start to a story, except for one hitch. Sometime later she invited me to a party over at her house, which I immediately took as a very good sign, until she mentioned that it was a birthday party for her husband, who she had previously failed to mention.
Oh well, not that big a deal.. A beautiful and intelligent woman who is already married, not that big a shock and not the end of the world. I had never actually asked her out or done anything else to make a fool out of myself, so no harm no foul.
We have ended up being very good friends however over the last few years. At least once a month we usually go hit a happy hour or something like that. I know that’s a little odd for a single guy to be running around with a married woman, but it never really seemed to be a problem, I just figured that was her personality. A lot of times her husband would be there even, so I’ve never really viewed it in any other light than just friends going out for drinks.
The last Thursday night I was talking with her and she wanted to go have some drinks after work. Her husband was out of town as he often is (on business) and she was looking for something to do. This isn’t the first time we've gone out like that, so I thought nothing of it. I basically had planned to go for about 2 hours and then head home because I had a ton to do yet. Unfortunately as is the case with most of our happy hours, we ended up staying at the bar until around 10 or so. She then asked me to come back to her place and have a few more drink and we'd order a bite to eat. Once again not out of the ordinary, except her husband wasn’t there this time.
The first hour or two that I was there was basically our usual chit-chat. Although she wasn’t a JW, she was raised in another cult religion and so our life experience has a lot of similarities. Because of this, I find that I can just talk to her for hours and never get bored.
At some point though, things took a turn... I found myself sitting with her on the couch, with her basically leaning on my shoulder and giving me the most vulnerable look I think I have ever seen on her face and I knew I was in trouble.
I guess I’m really quite a fool for not seeing this coming, but believe me when I say that while I was attracted to this girl, I wasn’t biding my time and waiting for an opportunity like this. I've never been as honest as I am in saying that we were just friends and if she hadn’t been married, I would have looked at things differently, but she was.
I wasn’t quite sure how far she wanted to let things go and I don’t think she really was sure herself.
Omitting the naughty details, I did end up staying the night. We didn’t end up having intercourse, but far more went on than should have. While we both agreed that night that we would still be friends and not let things get weird, I need to get my head on straight damn quick to be able to keep that promise.
My mood has been a real roller coaster of the last few days, but since I’ve been incredibly busy since that night, I haven’t really had time to sit and just let it eat at me. Sitting quietly in my empty house on a Sunday afternoon though, things have changed and I’m starting to get very down. I can’t possibly see a way for this to go well.
Something happened last week that can’t be undone. She told me that she had been harboring feelings for me for a long time and then we acted on that. Although I haven’t been acting on it, I am finally starting to admit to myself how much I really do have feeling for her too. The fact that things didn’t go farther than they did the other night, was partly due to the fact that I kept being a buzz kill and bringing up the fact that she is married. I don’t know that I will have the same restraint in the future....
- There are a number of things that are currently running through my head, the short list looks like this.
- I’ve crossed a line that I thought was pretty cut and dried for me, I messed around with a married woman.
- If I acknowledge what I might feel for her, there is no good way for it to go for me.
- I may have ruined what was a really good friendship. I know lots of people, but the list of people that I really call friends is pretty damn short. Of that very short list, only two people really know whets going on with me right now.
- I may have created a number of huge headaches at work.
If anyone has anything to say that will help me escape the current circle of hell that I seem to be orbiting, I’d appreciate the insight.