The Affair: "You make your bed, you lay in it."

It's an expression my Chinese mother would always use as I was growing up: "You make your bed, you lay in it." Translation: your choices determine your consequences. It's also what my Chinese grandmother said to my mom in anger when she decided to marry a Caucasion man. One that turned out to be a womanizer and an alcoholic. So it has been no surprise that my mother has used this phrase often during my lifetime when she knew I was about to make what she felt was a poor decision.

How ironic that this has became the metaphor for the affair I had last year. I'm certainly laying in the bed I've made.

It amazes me how we are so quick to pass judgment on someone who has cheated. My ex informed me that it is the "worst of betrayals" and "you should have left first if you were so unhappy." I have been cheated on too during my adulthood - the pain is horrible. So you might naturally assume, once someone has cheated on you, that it is definitely something you could never put another person through. But people, we are human, and whether it is anger or loneliness, sadness or fear, addiction or boredom, or even falling in love with another person, can we all agree that IT HAPPENS often? I'm not saying it makes cheating right, but it certainly, from my perspective, doesn't make it wrong. Instead, it is a choice, and it comes with consequences. When my ex found out, he threatened to walk up and down our neighborhood block and inform our neighbors, as well as family and friends, that I was a homewrecker and a liar. When I told my best friend of his intentions, she chuckled and said "Your neighbors are going to hear the news, shrug their shoulders, and say to someone else at the dinner table 'Can you please pass the potaotes?'"


Trust me, things were pretty awful in my relationship with my ex for two years before the affair happened. I didn't just wake up one morning, look at my life, and think "Hmmm....I want to go screw somebody else." Somewhere between trying to create a home for two children and the responsibilities of both parents working full time, we lost track of each other. I watched other people become my ex's first emotional and financial priority - his business partner, his friends, and even his parents. And I was still in denial, waiting for the recognition that I was yearning for as the mother of his children, as a significant income producer, as a home-maker, care-taker, laundry washing, dinner cooking, social coordinating water-buffalo attached to a thankless yoke.

Desperate to make this relationship a success, we found ourselves in and out of couples counseling for several years. I remember being pregnant and/or nursing our second child and sitting in the therapist's office in tears. Things would get a bit better for a week after the session, and then he would gravitate towards the same behavior. And after a productive hour with our therapist, he would be armed with new information to attack me with during our next argument. "You're the one with the issues" he would say, "you're the one who needs help."

Our home was full of the latest and greatest in technological advancements - a showcase to my ex's other interests. I stare at an obnoxiously huge flat screen television hanging from gravity-defying mechanics on the center of the living room wall with such resentment. We've got all the gadgets - overpriced and just released to market. I happen to love books and the theater. A hike in the mountains with a picnic basket. A walk on the beach. After almost six years together, he still doesn't know who my favorite author or muscial artist is.

For his 35th birthday, I threw a huge dinner party on my dime for almost twenty of his closest buddies and our mutual friends. My ex was just launching a business and flat broke at the time, and I remember how his friends would talk about weekend dirt bike excursions, and how he couldn't justify spending the money on one for himself so that he could join them. The look on his face when the brand new dirt bike was wheeled into the restaurant was priceless. It brought me so much joy to arrange that day and that gift for him.

That was five years ago. Last year, for my 35th birthday, I got a digital picture frame and a pat on the back.


In an effort to insure that my 35th received a bit of the fanfare it deserved, my east coast girlfriends encouraged me to book a ticket and fly to New York for a fun weekend. They treated me to a wonderful night on the town in NYC, and that was when I met P. on a rooftop bar. We talked about our respective families, our children, our work. And he told me that my ex was a lucky guy, that I was very special. He told me that I was beautiful. And when we said goodnight, we shared one kiss. There was no exchange of numbers, no running to hotel rooms for one-night stands. The honest truth is that we said good-bye. And there was no communication until I received that phone call almost a month later when he managed to find a way to track me down.

It took a few months (actually five) when the affair finally happened. But the wheels were already set in motion when we met and when we reconnected.

When my ex learned about the affair, it was the catalyst to hasten a process that was already well underway. But that's when things got ugly. Because in the course of our relationship, I had also learned that he would never take responsibility for his actions. He could never say, "That was my fault. I was wrong." He couldn't even say "I take my share of blame." And because, from his perspective, he needed to place the blame on me, how better to justify his position than to make sure I was punished in some way? So he left, with no desire for reconciliation. And hence, the legal battle over money.

It worried me more when my mother learned about the affair. I waited for her to say in disappointment "You make your bed, you lay in it." And you know what happened? Instead, with tears in her eyes, she held both of my hands in hers. She said, "I never want to see you suffer the way I did with your father. I was not happy with him and I stayed in that marriage for too long. You deserve your happiness in this life. You deserve to be loved. You did a good thing. You did a good thing."

So yes, I am dealing with the consequences of my actions. But they are not all bad. I have a chance at happiness again, and I do deserve it.