Me, my husband and his mistress: the story of our quarantine

Anna

Did I guess about his betrayal before it was revealed? To be honest with myself, I must answer in the affirmative. But some power helped to turn a blind eye. I thought, since he doesn’t say anything, it means that our family is the place where he wants to be.

Yes, he often came back late, but he always worked hard. This is also how I explained the fact that we had not had sex for a long time.

Everything was cut short when, due to quarantine, we were locked at home. From time to time, he allegedly left for work, although, as I learned through a mutual friend, their office was completely closed. It’s obvious now that he dated her. I became nervous, self-absorbed, but I attributed it to worries about the instability of the future. And our stability really shook, and this was due not only to the virus.

I heard him turning on the water in the bathroom and talking on the phone for a long time, trying to hide it. But even here she convinced herself that he needed his own space.

One day he left his phone in the kitchen, and I saw an unambiguous message: “Miss you.” Silently showed him this and asked him to tell the truth. I still have mixed feelings. Maybe it would be easier for me if he lied, convinced me that this was all a misunderstanding, and the bad dream would end. But no, he did what I asked – he was extremely honest.

At that moment, it seemed that our entire previous life was some kind of mockery, and only now I am facing reality. I went down to the entrance to smoke a cigarette. She wanted him to immediately disappear from the apartment, and at the same time she was afraid of it. When I returned, I tried to control myself, but burst into tears.

The frightened daughter came running. And then I asked him to leave and not torturing me and the child. A few days later I received the first message from him with the question – how are my daughter and I? I did not answer, but I was delighted with this emerging thread. I waited for his messages, but he disappeared.

And then he called, said that he misses the child and we need to decide how they will meet. I replied that he would not see his daughter, writing off everything for quarantine. Although, I will not hide, there was an element of revenge in this.

For the next month, he wrote short messages a couple of times a week. Mostly asked about the daughter. He was interested in how the dishwasher works, which he himself repaired on the eve of leaving. It seemed to me that this question was an excuse to find out how my life was going.

When the quarantine ended, we met. He said that he had lived with her all this time, but it was hard for him. He moved out and now lives in a friend’s empty apartment. He does not want to return home. He needs to be alone.

The situation is unbearable for me because of its incompleteness. I tell myself that everything is over between us, but deep down I continue to wait for him.

Alina

We met at work three months before the wave of the epidemic hit everyone. I was single, he is married. I knew about it. We led the project together, talked a lot, but it immediately became clear that something special was emerging between us. When he invited me to a glass of wine in the evening, I understood that we would not be discussing work problems at all.

Thus began our relationship, which was like a car that lost control. We just couldn’t resist what happened to us. Quarantine was a disaster – it deprived us of the possibility of meetings. He had to deceive her, tell her that he was going to the office.

At the same time, it became obvious to me that in fact we were not together. He comes to me to leave me again. It was unbearable, I cried endlessly, I almost stopped eating. I suddenly felt that we had no right to anything.

When she found out about everything, he came to me, and those were the happiest weeks of my life. Yes, he missed his daughter. I tried to convince him that everything will work out, the girl will understand us. But gradually the situation became more difficult for him.

In the end, he confessed to me that he felt like a bastard who ruined his wife’s life, and could not give me anything. Said he needed to live alone.

I’m sure he no longer has feelings for his wife. It is held by a child, and the wife manipulates it. But how can you stay there just for the sake of the child? After all, this sacrifice will not make anyone happy.

Nikita

I always thought that I was happy in the family. And although the passion from the relationship has gone for fifteen years, we are well together. I always appreciated what we were able to build, and I thought I would not exchange it for anything. In addition, we have a six-year-old daughter, whom we have been waiting for a long time.

The appearance of Alina became some kind of comet that flew by and swept away my entire orderly, beautiful life from the horizon. At first I thought that this obsession would pass and I was simply drawn to diversity in sex. It soon became clear that this was something more crushing.

Why Men Cheat: Anonymous Confession

In quarantine with my family, I couldn’t find a place for myself and almost didn’t hide the phone. Probably, in the depths of his soul, he himself wanted everything to be revealed. I told the truth and at that moment I felt that the best thing I could do was to leave immediately. So I went to Alina.

For the first two weeks, it seemed that the entire quarantined world had died out. And we remained alive, escaped on our island. And they didn’t think about the future. However, people remained in the world. And I started to miss my daughter.

And according to Anya, too, although he did not admit it to himself. I wrote and called her. I told Alina about this, explaining that my wife and I needed to resolve the issue of meeting with the child. A month later, I realized that I could no longer live like this.

He honestly admitted to Alina that he was confused. Since I went to her, an unbearable heaviness began to develop in me, which does not allow me to forget about everything and just be happy.

“There are no winners here: everyone feels disappointed and unloved”

Tatyana Mizinova, psychoanalyst

The words of all the heroes of the story sound absolutely sincere and reflect the point of view in which they really believe.

Anna and Nikita have been living together for fifteen years, which means they have been through a lot together. Surely they have a lot of joint trials and achievements behind them. The six-year-old daughter, whom her father speaks of with such love, is without a doubt a long-awaited child. So what was missing in this outwardly prosperous family? I think emotions and open expression of feelings.

You can live next to each other, or you can live together, and this is a big difference. Most women notice changes in their husbands’ behavior, but, like Anna, very often they prefer to pretend that nothing is happening, or unconsciously deny what is happening.

What for? Because it’s safer this way, “wise women” supposedly act like this, because you need to show yourself strong and worthy, and not a “hysterical woman”, like others. Because it is very difficult to admit that you are emotionally dependent and in need of another person.

Maybe from this correct, but closed life, Nikita began to look for a surge of emotions on the side. By the way this situation is described, he behaved very provocatively.

Sometimes children who do not receive enough attention from their mother break something to evoke her emotions, albeit aggressive, but nonetheless reinforcing the fact that the child is important to her.

In the same way, men often commit “erroneous actions” – they forget phones in a conspicuous place, leave correspondence on the computer, do not notice objects left by their mistress in the car, unconsciously giving their wife the opportunity to catch them. They seem to broadcast the idea: “Stop me, show me that you need me.”

Like the annual long holidays, the unexpected quarantine naturally led to the aggravation of all the internal contradictions in the life of the couple. And Nikita escapes to a completely different world – the world of an emotional holiday. He spends two weeks on the “saving island”, not thinking about the future, getting admiration from his partner and enjoying the escape from reality.

But the holidays are never long, and besides, they are very tiring. Soon, he begins to miss the familiar, beloved and reliable world that they created with his wife.

But even here the couple does not have a sincere conversation, although both admit that they missed each other. It is very scary to admit your mistakes, it is very painful to take the first step and be rejected.

The third member of this triangle, Alina, turned out to be an unwitting hostage of someone else’s family history. Was Nikita’s attitude towards her sincere? Probably yes. He was really carried away by the emotions that excited these meetings in him. But was the relationship serious on his part? More likely no than yes.

These weeks with Alina showed that for him she is not the person with whom he would like to share everyday life after the end of a romantic holiday. Nikita explains her unwillingness to live with Alina by the fact that she is worried about her daughter. And this is a common, albeit false, explanation. It’s easier, hiding behind your feelings for the child, to hide the absence of those for your partner.

Unfortunately, there are no winners in this story, everyone feels disappointed and unloved. But I would like to hope that the fifteen years that Anna and Nikita lived together will become the foundation of their relationship.

The situation, if both sides wish, can be improved if you trust each other more, stop looking for the guilty. A family is always two adults with an equal contribution to the relationship.

And if past grievances greatly distort the picture of reality, then it will be useful to contact a family psychotherapist who will help untie complex knots and show blind zones of conflicts that spouses do not see.