GUEST: Megan van Eyck

Today my guest is author Megan van Eyck, who has written a wonderful book called Memoirs of a Widowed Mistress. The book sounds very interesting, and I'm sure you'll agree. Welcome Megan!

Affairs, at their best, are all about romance, anticipation, and desire. Women wait and men swoon. In the early days when you are little more than strangers there is no talk of children, chores, bills, or responsibility. No one wears comfy pajamas or finds respite in the freedom to unwind and snuggle in front of the television sharing a pint of ice cream. In an affair, both participants want to be sexual superheroes. The relationship is contingent on the orgasm. You are each other’s darkest secret; a covenant is made from the lies that you share.

But then, between the two of you, one of two things can happen: the sex becomes as disinteresting as the stranger you are having it with, or the time you spend together blossoms into something unexpectedly deeper and you fall love.

Carlos and I fell in love.

For five years I was mistress to a married man. To complicate things further, I was unhappily married at the time.

I am not here to justify, or make excuses for, my extramarital affair. I am not going to say what was right or what was wrong—only what was. And while my relationship with Carlos was occasionally turbulent, difficult, heartbreaking, and sometimes lonely, it was always romantic. We went on trips, he bought me presents, our sex life was mind-blowingly pleasurable, and we longed for each other like star-crossed lovers. The tragedy of our love only fueled the sense of romance; it never hindered it.

Then he got sick. Amyloidosis, a rare blood disorder, distorted the thing I loved most about him: his heart. Within months of diagnosis, he was dead.

Now, nine years after the affair began, three years after his death, I still miss him. I will always wish that he had lived. Our love will remain tragic. Romantic.

And I will always remember him…

Carlos mentored my emotional maturation. He was the man who taught me to accept love, to feel worthy of love; he was the man who made me believe that love could be simultaneously romantic and challenging. He taught me love doesn’t have to be perfect.

Now my husband and I are trying to rebuild our marriage (yes, he knows). Because of Carlos’s tender tutelage, I now believe my husband can love me; that romance is a subjective thing. Romance is more about faith than roses and canned lines. It is finding the love in the everyday event. It is a flower in the morning, a brushing back of the hair from across the face, your husband doing dishes even though it isn’t his turn simply because he wants to make you happy. Love is in the details. Romance is trusting that those details mean the same thing to your love interest as they do to you.

Now that the dust has settled, I guess the polite thing to say would be that I regret my affair. But with every adverse circumstance, every meaningful event in my life, I look for the lesson and dismiss remorse. If I could go back and undo my terrible childhood, I wouldn’t. If I could go back and change the worst mistakes that hurt no one but me, I would leave those moments intact. So, if I could go back and undo my love affair, I would not. It was part of my journey as an individual and mine and my husband’s journey as a couple. The ironic twist is that if the affair hadn’t happened, I don’t think my husband and I ever would have had a shot at love. We simply wouldn’t have made it this far.

I have also come to find out that like Carlos, my husband isn’t opposed to being a sexual superhero who wants more from his relationship than downtime in front of the television with a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream.

Megan van Eyck lives near Seattle, Washington with her husband and children.

Memoirs of a Widowed Mistress is her first memoir.

You can visit Megan’s website at http://www.widowedmistress.com/


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