My affair started as what I believed was a friendship. My husband and I had some good friends, and some members of their family that we had met a few times had moved back to our state. The husband was out of work, and he had some skills that I thought would be helpful in my business. So, I thought I was helping some family friends. He was creative and challenged me professionally, so I enjoyed working with him, but I didn't see it as anything more than a professional relationship. This continued for about two months, and then he called me at work one day, but this call wasn't work-related. He sounded very upset and said he needed someone to talk to. I thought it was strange, and I do remember being nervous about it. My husband was out of town, so I called and talked about it with him, and I told my mother. They both told me to be careful but caring. So, he came to our home that night, and we talked for a few hours and he left. Then, he started showing up randomly at our house, and it conveniently happened to be when my husband happened to be out of town. At the same time, he was worming his way further into my work life. He convinced my boss to give him some additional contracts so he could spend more time at the office, and this also meant he was spending more time at our house. Originally it was under the guise that he was friends with my husband, but in hindsight, I don't believe that was ever true. At some point, I found out that he had a severe mental illness, and then my codependency kicked into overdrive. I had this “need” to help him and protect him from the world. It made me feel needed and wanted. This pattern of him spending increasing amounts of time at my work and at my home continued for about three months. During this time, we started texting and communicating on Facebook. At first, the conversations were work-related or about very benign things, but at some point they became more and more flirtatious on his part, and I started reciprocating. It made me feel needed. Then, he confronted me and asked me why I never touched him. Well, why would I need to touch him? But instead of telling him that it was inappropriate and that I would not touch him, I allowed him to hug me and justified it to myself that it was just part of being a friend. Looking back, it was yet another warning sign that I ignored. I was emotionally attached at that point even if it wasn't romantic, I was like an addict, and I would have done anything to keep feeling needed. He made all of this seem normal, like I was the one living in a crazy world. Things went downhill from the flirtatious conversations. In December, after much convincing, I agreed to let him kiss me. I convinced myself that things would stop there. I knew it was wrong, but I was convinced that I could somehow get myself out of this mess and that we could go back to just being “friends” so I could just get my emotional needs met. I didn't realize that this alone was an emotional affair and was as dangerous for me as a physical affair. I still loved my husband, but I was in denial and convinced myself that I could be a good wife and still have this jacked-up “friendship” on the side. After all, my husband was friends with him too, right? Shortly after the first of the year, my husband left for an extended time away from home. He told me he did not want this person in our home while he was gone. I agreed, but I knew I wasn't strong enough to say no when my affair partner showed up on the doorstep hours after my husband left. So, I lied more. He conveniently got snowed in while at the office and told me he needed a place to stay, so I let him. While he was there, he confronted me and said “You know we're already having an affair, right?” He wanted to make things official at that point and have sex. I said no. So, he continued to pressure me for the next several days. I realized that I was in a mess way over my head and had no idea how to even start getting out. I didn't feel like I could tell my husband that I was lying and had been lying to him for months about the extra time I was spending at work. I felt trapped. So, I had sex with him. I thought it was the price I had to pay. Because of a variety of things that are now related to childhood wounds, these experiences were somewhere between terror and excitement. It was like a roller coaster. The sexual relationship continued for about two weeks. Then, his wife called him at work and told him she knew about the affair and had moved all his things out of their home and into a storage unit. Things turned from excitement and terror to just terror. My heart still beats fast thinking about that day. I called my husband, who was still out of state, and told him that we had just kissed and asked for his forgiveness. I was trying to cover my tracks, fast. In that moment, I saw my entire life flash before my eyes. I always assumed he would forgive me, I thought our marriage was strong enough to handle my infidelity. Well, it wasn't. I maintained the lie that we had only kissed for nearly three months, but my husband was suspicious. He asked me about it numerous times, and I denied that anything more happened. I also continued to maintain online contact with my affair partner under the guise that it was for work. As I learned in Affair Recovery, we merely agreed to continue the affair by doing that, nothing had changed except the physical contact. While this was going on, my husband was doing his own investigation. He checked my phone, he checked receipts, he checked with my affair partner's wife. He confronted me one last time when he could show with receipts that my affair partner and I had been out of town together and asked if we had sex. I knew I was caught in my lie, so I told him. He was devastated. I was like a piece of stone. I knew I should cry, I was terribly ashamed, but I couldn't feel anything. I remember trying to cry, I was frantic, but nothing would come. I think it was at that moment that I realized something was terribly wrong with me. I wasn't ready to fix it yet, but I knew something was wrong.