The Affair That Launched My Self-Discovery
How blowing-up my life put me on the path towards my true self.
Back in 2014, I made a series of very unpopular decisions. (An understatement.) I cheated on my husband. It’s not something I had planned to do. It was the swirling, perfect storm of troubles in my marriage, stresses in my job, and the wrong man in the right place at the right time. I was vulnerable and in need of support.
James (fake name) and I were coworkers. Well, technically, I was his boss, but over time, he had become my best friend. He understood my job, my struggles, and my marriage. Over a year, as I dealt with my marriage troubles and the increased responsibilities of a new job role, he became the person I relied on most. I had tried to keep it from “crossing any boundaries,” becoming too dependent on him for emotional support about my marriage, but the line blurred.
One day on a jog, his wife confronted me about our closeness. I was just so overly comfortable with James that it didn’t even register for me that it might make her or others uncomfortable. I was humiliated and could see how she would feel the way she did.
The tension between us thickened over the course of the work trip. What had once been a simple friendship now felt heavier, layered with something I couldn’t quite identify. I felt him pulling me in, emotionally—like a toxic boyfriend, getting me to check on him, offer tenderness, care for him as if I were his only source of support. Yet, he kept me at arm’s length physically, a distance that only deepened the complexity of our connection. His sullen, withdrawn behavior was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, and I found myself craving the closeness we had once shared, the easy comfort we used to have. But the nagging shame of his wife’s confrontation kept circling in my mind, mixing with a strange, uncomfortable longing that I couldn’t shake.
By the end of the trip, everything had escalated. He continued to draw me in with cryptic texts and half-formed conversations, keeping me guessing at his feelings. His silence spoke louder than words, a constant pull on my attention. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. Then, just before we boarded the flight home, he said it. “I desire you.”
I was stunned. The words, and the weight behind them, caught me off guard. What had been a complicated friendship suddenly shifted into something else entirely. I had spent the week wondering what was happening, why he was both emotionally close and physically distant. But when the truth finally spilled out, it wasn’t what I expected at all. I hadn’t pursue him out of desire—I pursued him out of a need for connection, for something real, something that blurred the lines between emotional intimacy and more.
Looking back on my time with James, knowing what I know now and how the next year of my life would unravel, it’s striking to realize how the affair turned my world upside down in ways I never saw coming. I’d been living in my own personal version of the “Stranger Things” set. On the surface, everything looked fine: friends, church, game nights. But, beneath the surface, I was hiding my true self, my insecurities, and desires. These parts of me were buried so deep that I didn’t know how to access them, let alone confront them.
After the affair ended, I began seeing a therapist who often spoke to me about living an integrated life—a life where both the light and dark parts of myself could coexist. It meant accepting all aspects of me, not just the “perfect” ones. It meant asking for the help I needed in healthier ways, releasing the perfectionism and fear of failure that had held me back. And what better way to confront that fear than to fail in the most public, spectacular way possible? It was a failure that uprooted everything, costing me my job, forcing me to examine my broken marriage, and demanding that I face myself in ways I never had before. But in the end, I wouldn’t change a thing. I truly believe that to shake me from the path I’d been on, I needed something this big, this ego-shattering, to help me find a new way.
I share this deeply personal story because it’s foundational to the transformation I’ve experienced in my life. As I write and talk about catalysts for change and navigating the change process, know that I’ve been there and have done hard work. And I’d be honored to walk alongside anyone else who’s ready to do just the same.
Interested in exploring how coaching can help you navigate change, let’s talk. To learn more about 1:1 coaching, visit blackwellcoaching.com.