Have you ever thought of fooling around on your husband? Have you secretly snuck out and been with someone else? Some of us think about it. Some of us don't. Some of us act on it and have fantasies about our attractive next door neighbor and then quickly put a stop to it. But there are some of us that eventually put these thoughts and fantasies to action and have an affair.

I asked myself so many times, how could I have done that? How could I have fooled around on him so many times without feeling guilt, remorse or anything? How could I have pretended that nothing had happened? How could I have lied without feeling guilty? How could he not know different? The answers didn't come.

When I first met him, I thought for sure that we were meant to meet. It was destiny. I suppose at that time, it was important for me to meet someone who was in college, and he was and he had a great family, which I didn't. We also had fun, but I wasn't attracted to him physically, that I knew but I didn't think about it more than that. When I found out I was pregnant, I was 22, and he had just moved to Edmonton to take on his first job. I was still in college and didn't want to finish the semester being pregnant. Ashamed, I guess, I moved to Edmonton and eventually found work and settled there with him. I was so unhappy, and didn't want to have sex with him, let alone after our son was born.

According to my doctor, I was having difficulties adjusting to my new life, the distance, the baby etc explained why I was not interested in him. Yet I was with others. We married when our son was 8 months old. We didn't have to worry about much, cause our families were taken care of everything at a distance. It was expected that we would marry and we did. One of the first times, it occurred was when I was 24 and our oldest son was 10 months. I was visiting with my brother who was getting married that weekend. It was with his much younger, usher. Although we didn't have sexual relations, we spent a lot of time together and were intimate. I missed the intimacy when I returned to Edmonton.

I had more than one or two one night stands For a while they seem to occur every four to five months. And I was in complete denial. They continued after we moved back to Northern Ontario and didn't stop until, he had had enough of my coming in late or the next day and probably tired of hearing yet another excuse of why I slept out that night, another lie. We separated after being married for close to 3 years.

After we split up, I was out of control. My life during the week was very professional, working as a safety officer for a local police force, and on weekends, partying and bringing home another man. My young children did start calling some of these men, daddy. They must have found it quite confusing.

About ten years later, I got remarried. Another relationship and another breakup. I had married, again, because it was the right thing to do, yet I knew that my emotions weren't involved with him. I still married and 1 ½ year later we split up because I had been unfaithful to him, twice and with the same man.

The answers didn't come to me all at once. They gradually started when I was tired of starting over. At first I thought I had problems committing to someone, so I would go out with someone that I thought met certain criteria. I would go out with them and only them until I couldn't anymore. I did that a few times, went out with men for 4 months at a time without fooling around behind their back. I thought I was doing well. I thought I was learning to commit.

I didn't know what commit meant. A few years later, I met an older man who had it together. He was rich, very attractive and sexy, like hell. I wasn't able to be me with him, all the time; I would drink and smoke to be me. I learned with him what it may feel like to be loved and to love. My feelings started to wake up, and I didn't know what to do with them. I wanted more and I wanted it fast. I wanted immediate gratification. Always did. Months later, he decided to 'take a leave of absence' and called the relationship off. He had his reasons and I was devastated. I felt pain like I never felt before and I drank and smoked the pain away only for it to resurface the next day. I hadn't fooled around on
him, and to forget about it quickly I substituted his presence with alcohol, drugs and other men. A pattern was surfacing but I didn't know it yet.

A few months later, another experience came my way. He was everything that I thought I wanted; liked to party, laugh, great with his kids, worked, great handyman. I know I was with him at the beginning to help me forget the older man. I knew that if I didn't spend time with him, I'd be lonely, alone and empty. Don't get me wrong. I had fun with him, and we got along great, but I knew that something was missing, yet I agreed to have him move in with me. My behaviors were telling me something and so was my heart, but they were ignored because, for some strange reason I needed to prove something, that I could commit and so I did. I did the mommy thing to his two girls, while I struggled to pay attention to my boys, by this time in their teens. We tried living together a few times and both times were unsuccessful, yet I had been faithful to him and I was attracted to him. So being faithful was no longer the issue, as far as I was concerned.

A little while after our first breakup I went away to a family program for two weeks to help me look at my intimacy issues. It was the second time, I had taking time away from my chaotic life to put a stop to this craziness. I wanted to look at inner myself, with other people. Sure, my issues weren't the same as theirs and I had come along way already, but it did help me to identify that one of the reasons I had unsuccessful relationships was because I was afraid to emotionally connect with someone. I was afraid to connect with someone because I was afraid to be rejected. It's easy to be rejected from someone you don't care about and it's easy to reject someone you don't care about. All you have to do is pretend it doesn't bother you, block all feelings and you can do this by quickly starting another relationship or by drinking or by using drugs or by using any other substance or thing that replaces the truth of things.

I didn't really get it much then. Didn't really understand why I would have fears of intimacy. I thought it may have been due to my first husband's death. Although he was physically and verbally abusive he had a kind heart and two months after our wedding, he died of natural causes. I had quickly masked that shock with sex. Didn't drink much when I was 21 and although I had smoked pot before, I certainly wasn't using it a lot. I was using sex. I had to think back further to figure out why I had had so many relationships, why was I was unable to stay with one person. I couldn't remember certain things from my past. I didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle, this one being over 1000 small pieces.

I eventually found more pieces of the puzzle of my life. At one point, I thought that being unattracted to my second husband would have explained the reason I fooled around. So I found more attractive partners. I thought it would increase my chances of success. That wasn't it either. I learned that when I experience pain that I needed to go through the pain, the hurt. I needed to cry like hell and not drink it, smoke it or sex it away. I needed to grieve the loss relationship. Once I started doing that I had found another piece to the puzzle of my life. I needed to grieve before getting involved again.

The next few men I met provided me with even more pieces to my puzzle. I didn't rush into any relationship. They were handsome, highly educated, and fun to be with and I was prepared to take my time. One thing, though, was resurfacing. My needs weren't being met. Not only were they not met; I didn't know how to ask to get my needs me. I didn't know how to recognize a healthy relationship for me. That didn't come until later when I remembered about being taken advantage of when I was a kid. I had known and remembered this a few years ago, but I didn't realize the impact of that in my life until recently. I went back in time, and gathered more pieces of the puzzle. I started to remember that when I was young, older boys (I thought they were older men) would show affection towards me, ask for a kiss, and ask me to touch their groin areas. I would never question it nor say anything about it. I think it felt good knowing that someone liked me or showed attention to me. My mother would take me out a few times and once I bought a man home. She had encouraged me to do so and I didn't know different. She would try her best to make sure I had a boyfriend, and would introduce me to young men when I was 12 or 13 years young. She didn't want me to become a lesbian and would suggest it sometimes when I was out with my girlfriends. I was always tall, cute (but homely-as one man said to me), and so I soon realized to get attention, all I needed to do was be nice, polite, and willing to do whatever was required. Despite all this prior training, I managed to keep my virginity until 20, because something inside me had told me that it was wrong to do this. I had never been taught the differences between appropriate friendly gestures and inappropriate sexual contact. I had never learned what it
was like to be in a healthy relationship with a female, let alone a man. I'm just learning this now and it's still confusing to me.

My puzzle is nearly complete. My most recent piece came with a man who was highly intelligent, passionate, bold and in my face. I didn't find him attractive yet, I was drawn to him. And I started to understand why. He believed in me, my abilities, my gifts. He saw them right away and what a pleasure to me to know that I was recognized for all of who I was, not the sexual person, nor simply the educated person. Something that only a man, who took time to know me would know. It seemed to fulfil an emotional need I had, yet never filled. He helped to boost my confidence and to reach for my dreams and goals. With him, nothing seemed impossible. Man, I wish my dad had been like that. I had disappointed my father. Although I had gone on to university and graduated from two masters degree, I wasn't in a high profile position much like what you'd expect with such education. My dad was disappointed. And with this man, he questioned why I hadn't been as successful as I could have. And I continued to doubt myself, and thought I'll never measure up to his expectations. I can't do this. Yet I want to be successful.

In the last little while, I have learned that I have many gifts, and that some people truly enjoy being with me because I bring joy and laughter to them. I didn't know that and I needed to hear it. I am happy to be who I am. I don't need to try to be someone else either by drinking, using drugs excessively or not doing what I truly want to do or as I call it do what my spirit wants to do or be. While my spirit can be very happy, because she follows her heart and her head. She also experiences bouts of blues, where she doubts, her abilities. There is no voice, except my own, that says, you can do this, You're great. And it was awesome to hear this new man say that to me. I needed to have heard it when I was a kid, and from a significant man in my life; my dad. My dad wasn't there when I grew up, neither was my mom. They had split up when I was 10 and I moved in with my grandparents. I didn't want to see my mother and believed for years that she was the reason I had become whom I did. But my father, or his absence, also affected me. It's no wonder, to me today, why I've had so many different relationships with men, trying to find the feeling that I so longed for when I was a kid. To be loved, unconditionally by a man and by a women; my parents. I've been allowing my self to be me, all of me. I'm not afraid to be me, anymore. I don't hold myself back. I've accepted me, all of me, the good and the bad. I share who I am and what I hope for with people that are close to me. I am becoming all that I can be. I now fully understand why I committed adultery all those times. I also understand why I gravitate towards certain men. It's because I have a need that's never been met and I never learned to love me and accept me. I didn't trust that I was good enough. I didn't think I was worthy of being loved by another human being, male nor female. I didn't know what a healthy relationship between a man and a women was like.

Man, I've come a long way! I am so happy that I finally figured it out. I have the rest of my life to continue to apply all that I have needed to learn. And I'm absolutely certain that there's a lot more awareness coming my way. I now know why someone called me Free Spirit many years ago.