I channeled all that tension, and wondering, and confusion as creatively as I could — through poetry at that time in my

No, he didn’t say that. That’s what he said in my imagination. But, he did make eye contact and smile hello. And if a gut feeling could speak a sentence, the sentence in me in that moment would have been, “Katy, it looks like you might be in trouble.”,It took me some time to work through those feelings. The pain of longing is real; understanding where I was vulnerable and tender and why… that took time. What would draw me to a sense of rage? Why would I crave boldness and honesty?,That was pretty eye-opening. Maybe the current of electricity running through me was partly my own desire to embody some of those characteristics. Maybe it wasn’t inevitable or destiny or even necessary that I make that desire concrete by cheating on my husband. Instead, I could make it concrete by seeing it in myself or developing myself to be more like what I desired.,I told her about Brian, and she listened without judging. She was curious about the aspects of him that I admired. I admired what I saw as his boldness, his lack of caring if he pissed people off, his ruthless honesty, and even something in him that felt like rage. She asked me to consider if these weren’t aspects of myself that I either wanted to develop or to stop hiding or know more about. She said, “When you know more about these parts in yourself, the energy of the attraction will dissipate.”,“Planning the evening before is effective because we have a limited amount of willpower and decision-making ability every day. The thought of making too many decisions in the morning will slow you down and drain your brain for the rest of the day,” writes Britt Joiner of Trello.,I’d been married eight years when Brian sat next to me at a writers’ workshop. I didn’t know his name was Brian then… I didn’t know him at all. Being new to the workshop, I’d taken my own seat in the circle of writers, and busied myself by reading through the stack of writing samples I’d been given when I walked in. With my eyes down, I saw his cowboy boots first. That caused me to look up slightly at this man who, staying true to form, also wore some kind of jacket that I guessed was called a duster. His face, again in character — handsome and weathered. Improbably, no cowboy hat, but a full head of good hair. I felt heat coming off him.,What I did instead was talk to a trusted friend and mentor, Laurie. A dear woman who is like an older sister to me — who’d been twice married — once divorced, once widowed. She knew (and knows) more than anyone else in my life about love and desire and the parts of ourselves that we cannot see but that have a lot of energy and exert great influence on us.,“It’s just a dance,” he replied, and he took me by the hand to the dance floor. I didn’t feel attracted to that man, but I thought later about how he was older and he probably knew better than I did about how to put certain interactions in their proper perspective. We danced one dance. He was respectful and just having a nice time.,In the middle of the workshop, Brian wrote a note on his packet of papers, tore it off, and handed it to me. His note said, “If Nancy corrects one more comma, it’s going to get ugly.” Nancy’s pious, bordering-on-sadistic devotion to grammar wore thin. I wrote back, “Who’s throwing the first punch?” Nancy was pretty elderly, but it still might take two of us to take her down because you could see she was tough.,So here is my word of caution to all of you, couples, contemplating whether or not to open up. If you decide to do it, chances are you will have a lot more joy in your life. You might gain a new perspective in your relationship with your partner. By connecting with multiple people you might discover needs and boundaries you didn’t know you had. You might discover that your “primary” relationship is no longer what you truly need. And you might discover a deep sense of self-love, self-respect, and acceptance that will force you to prioritize yourself and your own happiness.,Spoiler alert: I never had an affair. I never cheated on my husband in our 16 years of marriage. Not with Brian, not with anyone else. I saw Brian quite a bit in the writing community, and we even developed a friendship that started out for me as a little breathless and dangerous. I don’t know how he felt because I never asked. There were certain doors I did not want to knock on.,I’d only experienced instant attraction like that once before. I’d gotten into an elevator with a man who lived in my building. We were young enough that I still have the urge to call him a boy. I looked at him and thought things like “fate” and “lips.” It turned out to be just as big a mess as you’d think it would be because I had a boyfriend at the time. Whatever this thing is called — lust or attraction — it was too alluring for me to skip out on in my twenties.,But then again, I really wanted to see him at the next workshop. I spent the next several weeks thinking a surprising amount about that. Would I see him again? Maybe I would see him again.,When I was a newlywed, I had to go to a work conference in Kansas City with a single colleague. At night after the conference, we got a beer at a honky-tonk and a man there asked me to dance.,That’s part of the reason why I’d never fool myself into believing I could never have an affair. I didn’t want to have an affair. I had a lot of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and even judgments around extramarital affairs, but I never thought I was too good for one. Given the right circumstances, most people are capable of betrayal. I figured I should be honest with myself always and try to avoid “the right circumstances.”