Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater?

What a difference a year makes. I was thinking today how different things were last year at this very time. My family was incredibly fractured from my Dad’s death. Duckie and I were in the first throes of breaking up. I was in the early stages of my affair with Sawyer and shocked at my own behavior while beginning to imagine that there was something lasting between he and I. I pretty much sat around the house freaked out thinking about divorce and alternately crying over the loss of my Dad and the forthcoming loss of my “family.” Basically, I was a whole different person than I am today.

Jules and I were both saying the other day it’s a little discomfiting to read old posts and see how things were. I guess that’s a big benefit of this blog, the ability to re-read our thoughts and feelings and see them from a whole new perspective. I wish we’d started this blog earlier so I could see where my mind was a year ago.

Sawyer has been emailing me again today. Other than the occasionally email and that crazy phone call a couple weeks ago we haven’t had any contact. We haven’t even seen each other (other than g-rated passing in the store or on the road) in months and months. I think it was like August the last time we were together.

True to form he was back up to his old tricks and trying to get me to say I missed him or had feelings for him or whatever. It’s such a game with him. I kind of hate to look back and see how I let feelings develop for him. It goes without saying that I regret ever having an affair. I mean I know it happened for a reason and who knows if I would have left Duckie as soon as I did it if wasn’t for Sawyer but still. I sure never thought I’d be a person who had an affair, much less one with my next door neighbor.

Though I think some part of me always worried that I was capable of having an affair. I can remember my girlfriends going out and inviting me to join them from time to time. I’d always decline because I was afraid I’d get drunk and….well you read this blog, you know what tends to happen when Miranda gets drunk. At the time, I thought of myself as being responsible for protecting my marriage by never putting myself in a potential dangerous situation. And I’m sure there’s some truth to that but I wonder now if it was more about being unconsciously honest about what my marriage was really like. Maybe I’m just a romantic at heart but it seems like if my marriage was what a marriage is supposed to be, I would not even worry about ever crossing that line.

I doubt we have too many happily married readers - hell maybe we do but who knows, you guys have been mighty quiet in the comments lately! But I’m wondering of those who are married (happily or otherwise), do you avoid social situations with single adults like I did? For those of you brandishing the scarlet A like me, do you worry about your ability to ever be faithful again? I do sometimes.

I just wonder if it’s like a Pandora’s Box. Once you’ve lifted that lid does it plague you forever? I mean now that I’ve had an affair and concealed it (I hope) it’s like I have this weird background knowledge of how to get away with one. Does that make me more likely to have an affair in the future?

Miranda