As These Couples Tie The Knot There is story: The Thrill/The Hurt Of an Affair

The initial thrill of an affair can be exhilarating. But, as Jennifer Tilson* discovered during her liaison with a married man, love doesn’t always conquer all

Clearing out a drawer in my bedroom the other day, I came across a photo that stopped me in my tracks – it shows me and my partner Richard in Italy on a wine-tasting holiday. We’re laughing at the camera; we look happy. 

Today, nearly four years after that picture was taken, I find it painful to glance at it because no matter how happy we looked then, the reality now is that I am 40, single and childless. I wonder whether this is the price I paid for my five-year affair with a married man. 

Like many people who fall in love with someone who’s already attached, I told myself that our love elevated our relationship above the usual married-man-and-mistress clichés. Maybe it did. But it still didn’t work out.

Richard and I met at work. I was 33 and had just emerged from the bitter break-up of a six-year relationship. Ten years older than me, Richard had so much charisma that every girl in the office developed a soft spot for him. But we knew he was off-limits: he was married with a ten-year-old daughter he doted on. 

At first there wasn’t any special spark between us, but as the weeks went by I started to look forward to seeing him. We discovered that we shared the same politics and liked the same books and films. We were never short of anything to talk about. After six months I was totally hung up on him and wished the weekends away so I could see him again at the office. 

Nothing had been said until one evening, when we shared a taxi after dinner with a client of the consultancy business we worked for. We’d both drunk enough to loosen our inhibitions and we kissed. All our emotions came spilling out – how we’d been thinking about each other for weeks, that we’d been hoping for this but had been too scared to say anything. We ended up kissing like teenagers, trying to make the most of our time before we arrived at the station for him to catch the last train home. Afterwards all I could think about was how we could next be alone together. We had to wait for two weeks, when he invented a boys’ night out. The evening was as wonderful as I had imagined – until he had to leave to travel home. 

There were still good times, mostly during weekends away. But the guilt was never far off

We quickly started to snatch time together whenever we could, navigating our way between his family commitments and work, and at the same time dealing with our emotions, which fluctuated wildly from exhilaration and joy to guilt and anxiety. At first we were so overwhelmed with passion that we kept reality at bay, but eventually it started to seep in. After six months we still hadn’t had an entire night together because Richard couldn’t find a way to justify an overnight stay and his wife never went away. I spent my weekends waiting for the few phone calls that he’d be able to make when his wife was out. I was also starting to think about my future. My last relationship had broken down because my boyfriend had been reluctant to have children, and now that I was 34 the issue had shifted to the forefront of my mind. 

Richard was always honest with me. He wanted us to be together, but was full of angst about the impact on his daughter as well as the pain it would cause his wife. He said that although they’d grown apart, she was a good person and if it hadn’t been for meeting me he wouldn’t have contemplated ending his marriage. I desperately wanted his wife to be a villain to help justify our deception. A pattern developed: he would make the decision to leave her, I would be exhilarated, but he would back out at the last minute, unable to face breaking up the family unit, and leave me feeling totally let down. There was never a good time for him to see it through – it was his daughter’s birthday; his wife’s mother was ill; his wife’s job was stressing her out… It reached the point where, two years down the line, we seemed trapped in this cycle where we’d break up and then, weeks later, be back in each other’s arms. 

In the end his hand was forced. His wife confronted him and asked if he was seeing someone else. Richard broke down and confessed, but I don’t think he was prepared for the suddenness of it all. His wife threw him out on the spot and he turned up on my doorstep with
an overnight bag, looking ashen-faced. The last thing he’d seen before he walked out of the door
was his daughter sobbing. 

It wasn’t the most auspicious of starts and it didn’t get much better. From the outset Richard was consumed by guilt, which was compounded by the fact that his wife made it difficult for him to see his daughter. Her sense of betrayal was now the backdrop against which our relationship was being played out, and I quickly realised how naive I’d been. The end of the marriage was utterly traumatic for her. And Richard’s daughter Amelia was so devastated that she refused to speak to him. I had totally underestimated the father-daughter bond and how, no matter how much he loved me, he could not truly be happy without her in his life. He would cry about it, this big, strong man, and I felt helpless. His misery hung over our relationship like an oppressive cloud. I veered between guilt and, I’m ashamed to say, resentment about the hold his family had over him. 

Then there were the practical things. Richard had gone from living in a large house with a garden in the suburbs to my two-bedroom flat on a busy city street. It was clear he hated it, which I in turn felt bitter about. It came as a shock, too, that I missed the freedom of my own space and spontaneous nights with my girlfriends drinking wine around my kitchen table, which had to be abandoned in the face of Richard’s sadness. Far from being the cosy love nest I’d fantasised about, the flat sometimes felt more like a counsellor’s waiting room.

Work became difficult too. I had confided in some colleagues who were supportive, but I was aware that our affair was the subject of gossip. I felt a chilliness in particular from a couple of women who, although they’d never met Richard’s wife, aligned themselves with her. When I was head-hunted by a rival company I jumped at the chance to start somewhere afresh – ironic when I thought about how much I used to look forward to seeing Richard in the office every morning. 

There were still some good times – most of them during weekends away, when we were cocooned in our bubble. But the guilt was never far off. I had three friends who Richard liked enormously and who were accepting of him, but they had children and whenever we got together it reminded him of what he had lost. A year after he’d left his family home, he still hadn’t seen Amelia, and my friends found it hard to believe that he couldn’t find a way to do so. My family, thankfully, stood by me, but I did shelter my father from some of the details – he believed that Richard was separated when we met. One friend, meanwhile, made it clear she didn’t approve. Her father had walked out on her and her mother when she was the same age as Amelia, so our situation was incredibly difficult for her. She said she didn’t want to end our friendship but she refused to meet Richard. Deep down I understood, but at the time it made me feel judged and we stopped speaking. Sadly, the friendship has never recovered.  

I was now 36 and starting to feel increasingly panicky about my biological clock – and, while it seems madness to have expected Richard to commit to being a father again when his own family situation was unresolved, I became slightly obsessed with it. He knew how much I wanted to be a mother but he couldn’t contemplate having another child while he was still married and trying to rebuild his relationship with Amelia. He wouldn’t even file for divorce. It caused angst-ridden discussions that, as time went on, morphed into vicious rows. I would scream at him that it was all very well for him, that he’d had his family, but he was sabotaging my chances to have one. He would say how sorry he was, which made it worse. 

Two years later it felt like all we did was argue. In the middle of one furious exchange, Richard said that if he’d known it was going to be like this he would never have left home. Afterwards he cried and told me he didn’t mean it. But both of us knew there was an element of truth to what he said.
It’s hard to identify the exact moment that we realised it was over. We were both exhausted from the emotional turmoil and couldn’t see a way through. Richard wasn’t capable of moving things on and, although he never said it to me directly, 

I think he believed that he only had a chance of rebuilding his relationship with his daughter if he was on his own. And I wanted to give myself a chance to have a relationship with someone who could be there for me 100 per cent of the time. So after one stressful Easter weekend we agreed that he should move out. I went to stay with my parents and returned to the empty flat a week later feeling desolate. The fact that he wasn’t going back to his wife was no consolation. It just seemed as if everybody had been left unhappy. 

Two years on we’re no longer in touch, although I heard from a former colleague that he is seeing his daughter again, and I’m happy for him. It’s something, at least, that’s come out of the wreckage. I don’t know if he’s met anyone else – I haven’t. I have dated a couple of times but haven’t met anyone who can hold a candle to Richard. 

I do believe we loved each other. But it wasn’t enough to mitigate the heartache that our relationship caused – and if I could have my time again I would never walk down the same path. It’s hard to build your happiness on someone else’s heartache. Some people who’ve had affairs get married and build a happy life, but not us. We have all been left irrevocably damaged. 

as told to Kathryn Knight. *Names have been changed

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