FreeLove

Wow, I didn't think I had alot in common with the "usual" other woman, but maybe I do in some ways. I met my MM.......ut, did I just hear you thinking to yourself "she must have met him at work"? Yep, you are right! It took me a few weeks to notice my MM. I had been a supervisor in a blue-collar plant, and after I'd had enough of being under-appreciated, I left the job, and started temping in a corporate environment, in a fairly affluent area of my state, mostly because it was the area my H worked in, and we only had one car. Suddenly I felt at home!

I'd been----sometimes happily, many times unhappily----Married for 6 years. He didn't want to go out, he just wanted to come home and suck down beers........yada-yada-yada.......many of you know both the story and the feeling. So here I was, a growing, expanding individual, deeply spiritual, into eastern philosophy and shamanism and such things, feeling soooooooo stuck. And then suddenly there was "Jeff"!

I had recently started on a new assignment, long-term, due to a maternity leave. I was so busy learning the faces and names of people on the new job ( 300 people, receptionist!) that I hadn't even noticed my MM looking at me. He started coming to the front desk to book appointments, instead of just calling like most of the people there do, touching my shoulder, invading my personal space in ways I was surprised to notice I didn't mind. I thought "what a freindly, boisterous man! God, I love seeing that in a person!". Then one day he said something flirty to me, and I looked up and BAMMO! Once our eyes locked it was amazing! He actually groaned a little when he looked away, and I suddenly felt weak and giddy. We both glanced at each other as he walked away, and we both had "ut-oh!" looks on our faces. Since then Iv'e found we had both been around the block enough times to not only recognize the thing that had happened, but also know, all too well, the kind of hurt it can lead to.

Much flirting ensued, and it became all too clear that there was no denying that feeling! We e-mailed until it became a problem at work, so we switched to IM's. It became inevitable that we would consumate this wild heat. We flirted, we stole away for breif kisses in the elevator, since security is so high that all hallways and rooms are monitored by vid-cam. We sent the most unbeleivable IM's to one another, not just sexual remarks, but passionate writing that Shakespeare would have envied!

Then, my H asked to separate! Suddenly what was safe emotionally, because we were both obligated, became a truly dangerous thing. We have more freedom with each other now, but it is harder. We meet after work sometimes, and as the freindship ( which we try to keep separate from the sex) deepens, the whole kit-and-kaboodle grows more intense. He is JUST like me! We are both deviant, free-thinkers trapped in a game of "play normal for the public", I hate to use the term soul mate so soon, but I really think he may be just that. I have loved many people, but I never felt anything so compelling that my oh-so-rational mind couldn't handle it.

This amazing man has worked so hard to get his life the way it is now...........his W was a good social and economic pick, for someone who came from so little. He has a baby with her. He hasn't said so, but I'm sure he loves her. Otherwise he would tell me why we are in this affair. He does not talk about her or his homelife at all, and I do mean NEVER. I don't want to push, so I am left wondering what goes on at home, never knowing. He's told me things that I KNOW he would NEVER trust this elegant, classy lady he's married to with. I also know he will not leave her. But, I am his safe haven in many ways.

I love him, and I have mustered the courage to tell him so, as long as he understands that I want nothing but his free time.......

I want to love this man and then let him go with a free soul to do what he must. I had spent the last2 years of my life revolving my existence around a man, and I made sure he knew that I refuse to ever do that again. I think I enjoy being the masked woman who slips in, in the unexpected moment, and leaves him dazed and amazed. I love him unconditionally, I THINK. Yet I find myself asking "What will I do if his conscience kicks in, and he calls the whole thing off!". I am trying to live up to the free-love ideal of the late 60's (that my Dad told me so much about), and I tell him that that's all it is, whatever he wants our relationship to be, is cool with me. I don't know if I will ever have the courage to tell him I'd give my soul to be with him. I'm starting to understand why so many "other women" feel sad.............

Every day is a question, every night is an attempt to focus on something other than him. I love my new independence, and in that way, he still suits me just fine, but I find myself becoming jealous. Not of his wife at all, but of the other women at work that he flirts with. Isn't that nuts? I really hope this is always going to be a free, playfull thing, but I am afraid of my own passion now.

I am afraid of wanting him for my own, and he told me from the get-go that if either of us feels that way, then the whole thing is off, so I keep my silence and murmer affirmations to myself, and hope this won't bring us to a bad place.

Being the other woman is a 50/50 split between good and bad, and I just pray the scales won't tip.