That Time I Slept With A Married Man
And Was Saved By My Boyfriend
Most of my mid 20s were spent doing stupid, self-destructive, selfish crap, but one particular incident stands out as a particularly low point: that would be the time I knowingly had sex with a married man.
At the time, I was in a long distance relationship with my now ex-husband, X. We had gotten married in Mexico three years prior, and things weren’t going well. The plan had been to sponsor him on a marriage visa as when I returned to Canada, but as soon as I returned, alone, to Canada, I deeply regretted my decision.
As a result of my indecision, I delayed starting the marital visa process for more than two years. I loved him enough that I couldn’t bring myself to break up with him, but I was too scared to break up with him, for various reasons.
To further complicate matters, I had started casually seeing my ex boyfriend J not long after returning to Canada. Looking back on it, it seems like a huge, horrible mess. It hurts to write about it, but I’m putting this story out there so that other people can learn from my ridiculous mistakes.
If you are only here to judge me for cheating, you can see yourself out. This story is only going to get more ridiculous. I know I messed up and I punished myself for ages. My ex husband got his happy ending: he has since remarried and has a beautiful little daughter.
At the time of this crown jewel of idiocy, I was trying to mend my ways and recommit to X. I had swallowed my trepidation and finally started the visa process. I had stopped casually seeing J and decided I would be the wife that X deserved. I knew in my heart that the damage done by two years of cheating could never be mended, even if X never found out about the cheating, but I decided to push forward anyways.
Despite my resolve, it was very difficult. X had grown more and more distant. We used to message each other all day long, but recently he was barely answering my texts. We could go days without speaking together, and it hurt my heart. I missed his sweet, “Good morning beautiful,” texts in the morning. It was killing me.
It had been more than a year since I had seen him in person, and even longer since I had stopped seeing J in my attempt to be faithful to X. To make matters worse, the visa process wasn’t going well. When X went in for his visa interview at the embassy, he was told that the government wanted to punish him for overstaying his visitor’s visa, so he would have to wait an additional 18 months before they would start processing his permanent residence application. On top of that, he would need to pay an additional $500 to the embassy as a fine.
All this seemed rather shady, in retrospect. I had never heard of such a thing but I ignored the red flags. I felt so guilty about cheating on him with J that I sucked it up sent him the money without question. It made me briefly feel better about all my dishonesty. I really did love him and he had seemed like an honest person during the year we had dated here in Canada. It didn’t really seem possible that he could be lying.
But even as I faithfully sent him money, and awaited the visa process, the anxiety mounted up and it became harder and harder to move forward with the relationship.
One fateful night in April, we were having a party at the rooming house where I lived. There were eight other people that all lived with me in the three storey townhouse. Most of my housemates were men, and they were immigrants or students. Like me, they didn’t want to pay for their own apartment, and during this period of time we started partying together almost every weekend.
It was, in fact, a good time, and even though everyone else was a man, they were always very respectful and fun. They also made me feel special for being the only girl at the party.
The night of this particular party, we were joined by our new roommate, K. He would only end up living in the house for a couple of months. He was fairly attractive, around my age, and recently immigrated from central Asia within the past couple years. He was studying for his second Bachelor’s degree at the nearby University.
We hadn’t talked much before that night. During the party, I had a lot more to drink than I planned and he started hitting on me.
I had planned to escape to my room, but the attention felt so good after my year of anxiety and loneliness, so I lingered to talk.
He started getting close to me, and leaned in for a kiss.
“I can’t! I’m married!” I exclaimed.
His answer surprised me: “So am I!”
Somehow that broke down a wall inside me. He was just like me, a cheater. The fact that he was also married made it somehow okay that I was, yet again, being unfaithful.
K seemed to understand the impossible position I felt myself in. He was trapped, just like I was.
He told me about his marriage. His wife was his cousin, and it was an arranged marriage that he had agreed to purely to make his family happy. Like him, she didn’t want kids. He didn’t want to get married, but felt he had no choice. He hadn’t had sex in a year, as he was waiting for her to arrive in Canada from their home country. (I now realize that this was probably all lies.)
We went up to his room to talk more. I was very intoxicated, and I started to openly weep as I opened up about my pain and self-loathing. I had never told anyone the whole story before, because I feared that my friends would judge me. Even though I felt worried about being so vulnerable with a stranger, once I started talking it was like I couldn’t stop.
As I wept, he leaned in and embraced me and we started to kiss. In retrospect, it makes me angry that he pursued sex when I was obviously intoxicated and in such an emotionally vulnerable position.
I could sort of sense that the other guys, whom I considered my friends, were uncomfortable with what was happening. One of them expressed concern about my intoxicated state and K’s sordid intentions, but I brushed them off.
K and I went down to my room and we had really terrible sex. Afterwards, he insisted on staying and talking to me until almost morning, even though I just wanted to go to sleep and forget about the incident. He told me about his beliefs. He was a muslim, culturally, but in his heart he was an atheist. At one point, he said, “I wish I had known about you sooner, we could have been doing this for months!” These words would later resonate disturbingly with me.
He then told me that this wife would be arriving from their home country in two days. TWO DAYS. As I sobered up, this information was suddenly very disturbing to me. After his one year “dry spell,” he wasn’t able to wait it out for two more days?
After he left my room, I thought more about the implications of the encounter. In spite of myself, I started developing feelings for him. I missed his company. I hated it. I didn’t like him, but I was desperate to see him again and get more of that attention I craved.
I was nervous and my heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him again. I walked around the neighbourhood all day, trying to rationalize away the strange infatuation I was feeling. Everything about the encounter had been pretty awful, but I found myself weirdly attached.
Things only got worse when his wife arrived two days later. I met them on the corner as I came home for work. She was tiny, and drop dead gorgeous. They seemed affectionate and his insistence that his marriage was “loveless” was clearly false. I felt sick to my stomach. He doted on her and made a big deal about preparing her a special dinner. K seemed rather smug. It was clear he was proud to see his two “sister wives” together. I felt sick, looking at the innocent face of the woman who didn’t deserve that kind of betrayal.
I fell into a deep depression. I felt disgusted with myself and vastly inferior to this beautiful woman. *She* was worth committing to, and sponsoring to bring to Canada. On top of all that, I had cheated yet again on my spouse. I had broken my renewed commitment to be faithful.
I sat alone in my room, trying not to have a panic attack over how far my life had gone off course.
This story has an unexpected epilogue. An epilogue that is just as morally unfortunate as the rest of the story.
That night, I cracked and texted J. I told him I was depressed and anxious and spiraling badly.
He told me he happened to be in town and asked if I wanted to go out for a friendly dinner.
Now, in spite of all the dumb stuff I did, in spite of the fact that we would still have our ups and downs, and in spite of the fact that I would hold him at arm’s distance until the very end, that night J was my knight in shining armour.
I wish I could tell him how much he saved me. I felt like a worthless sack of shit all day, then he arrived looking so handsome in his leather jacket to take me out. He was like a breath of fresh air after being suffocated all day. K and his wife L came down and sat in the living room with us for a couple minutes. K looked shabby and plain compared to J.
J’s intelligence and kindness seemed to radiate from him in that moment. J told them how proud he was of me and how many difficulties I had overcome. I didn’t understand the meaning of knight in shining armour until that moment.
I was so proud to have J there, just for me. J with his Masters degree and just the way he talked about me seemed so proud in that moment. J who could afford to take me to an actual restaurant. I don’t like to hate on K for being broke but it sure made me feel good in the moment. K had made me feel like disposable trash and J had somehow reminded me that I was worth something.
J and I ended up getting back together after that. Which was unfortunate, in light of the fact that X was still in the picture, however faintly. J still didn’t quite want to commit, and he would only ever tell me he loved me the same day we broke up for good. If he had committed, maybe I would have found the strength to leave X once and for all. I will never really know what might have happened.
All I can say for sure is that, infidelity or not, I will forever be grateful to J for the stabilizing, good influence he had on my life and that even just for one night, he saved me from myself.
