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*lueays
writes:For seven years, Jane and I were participants in a forum about current affairs. We admired each other's writing, and exchanged occasional innocuous private messages.This spring, Jane sent me a PM proposing to tell me some stories about her life. I agreed to do the same for her. So we started exchanging stories -- about hopes, fears, childhood memories, loves, disappointments. We learned more about each others' lives than our spouses know.It didn't start out as a flirtation. In fact, it was only after four months that I even asked Jane what she looked like. She had seen a photo of me posted on the forum, and admitted that she felt attraction at the first glance.I wrote a fantasy story about meeting her for the first time, in a romantic B and B. Jane boiled over -- 'I want you, but I can't have you [she lives 3,000 miles away] -- why are you torturing me this way?'Well, gentle reader, after some sleepless nights and a series of intense phone calls, I flew out to see Jane. We spent three days cocooned together, doing nothing but cuddling, kissing, bathing each other, exchanging endearments, promising our eternal love. That was last week.This week, Jane casually mentioned in an email that she's spending the night with a friend named Don, and may be unavailable all weekend.* sigh *I didn't expect Jane to be celibate when we're so far apart. But I'd imagined she would be with her husband, not starting another extramarital relationship. Coming just a week after our first, memorable encounter, her action seems rather cold-blooded to me. I feel put down; ridiculous. And I wish she had told me in a phone call, where I could have sought an explanation, rather than in a casual email.My question -- especially to the ladies: what message is Jane trying to send me? At the most innocuous, maybe she's just keeping me informed, in what she regards as an open relationship. On the darker side, maybe she's toying with me, or paying me back for something I may have said that hurt her.Am I right to feel hurt? What should I say, when we finally get a chance to talk again? Did our expressions of undying love mean anything, or was it all just an overwrought fantasy? Help me, I'm confused. This is my first affair after 18 years of serial monogamy. Is my pain a karmic payback -- that is, I'm feeling the same hurt my wife would feel if she knew about this? Thanks.
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reader, blueays +, writes (22 November 2009):
blueays is verified as being by the original poster of the questionIt turns out I was way off base ... and this chapter of the story has a happy ending. Jane explained that she was staying overnight with Don AND his girlfriend Paula. This put a completely different spin on her earlier message that 'I'm staying overnight with Don.'Why she didn't realize that such a message would be provocative, I'm not sure. I'm glad that I didn't respond based on my fears and misapprehensions ... and instead waited for the chance to talk to Jane and get an explanation. Jane reassured me that she wants for us to be close.As for my wife Michelle -- in the earlier, more innocuous phase of my correspondence with Jane, I told Michelle about it and offered to let her read some of the stories that Jane and I were writing to each other. At first, she liked the stories. Then she re-read them, found hints of flirting and romance, and became disturbed by them.Although I would extend the same privileges to Michelle that I've unilaterally arrogated to myself, her position is that she is strictly monogamous with me, and doesn't even want a penpal relationship with another man. So ... our interests diverge.I wish I could just tell Michelle everything. Jane told her husband that she was going to see me. I can't possibly tell Michelle that I'm seeing Jane -- she would melt down. I wish there were a way to finesse this to everyone's satisfaction. But I can't yet see what it is.
A
male
reader, blueays +, writes (22 November 2009):
blueays is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for your insights, quiet-echo. I'm going to talk to Jane in ten minutes. We'll see how it goes. I think she's from the same country as you. Oh jeez, I hope you aren't her!
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