Five days into reconciliation, the battle-weary couple soldiers on, making huge strides.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in the guest room. We have a lot more talking and praying to do. We need more time to heal.

We’ve talked and talked and talked and talked about everything that happened, how much it hurt and how we feel. Now, we’re establishing a new line of communication and becoming a couple again. It’s been a few years since we’ve done that and about a decade since we’ve done it well.

My husband has been sending me texts during the day–actually initiating contact, which he didn’t used to do. And we’re not just talking about picking up the kids and what’s for dinner. He’s asking, ‘What are you doing?’…And even saying, ‘I can’t wait to see you.’

That’s really where this all began.

Now that the fog has lifted, we’re both seeing why I developed such a strong emotional connection outside of marriage. For several months this man had a ‘thing’ for me and honestly, I was oblivious. It started as strictly professional. I’m not sure when, but at some point he wasn’t just complimenting my writing ability but telling me I was “amazingly beautiful.” I had always given myself a ‘kind of cute’ rating–at best–so it was nice to hear.

We crossed into dangerous territory when his ‘Let’s go to lunch’ became a mutual ‘I must see you.’ The strongest pull for me was that I believed him when he said he “needed” me. I’m starting to understand how deeply I need to be needed. And not just needed to be the mom…make dinner…do the laundry, but ‘I need to see you.’

Looking back, I didn’t really want to see him, I just wanted to be seen.

I’ve started to realize that this relationship had elements of codependency. I made irrational decisions without asking myself two important questions–Do I really want to? And should I? The answers were ‘No’ and ‘No,’ but I ignored reason. I created these two worlds that I thought would never collide. I was wrong.

The attention from another man was intoxicating and addictive. When contact ended, my grief was impossible to hide. To go from compulsively communicating everyday to nothing, felt like a death. I tried–and failed horribly–to medicate the pain. I learned the hard way that there’s no pill that will ease guilt and heartache.

And for those of you who haven’t heard, texts are never really deleted.

When my husband read our messages, he was hurt and angry–the borderline homicidal kind. He discovered how strong my feelings were for someone else but even worse, how deeply someone else adored me. After the anger cooled–from murder to just want to hurt him–he had a painful, but breakthrough revelation.

“I haven’t appreciated you. I stopped noticing you, but he saw it.”

In my husband’s defense, I was a real pain in the ass. I had domestic burn out but mostly, we stopped having fun. I was always looking for it elsewhere–friends, hobbies, social media. I always felt fortunate, and quite frankly guilty, that he was such a giving person–from housework to taking care of the boys. But it came at a price–deep resentment.

So I checked out of our marriage. Emotionally, I was long gone.

I used to joke (in that not-funny-kind-of-way), “This marriage is brought to you by the makers of Xanax.” When I added a glass or two of wine, there are entire evenings I can’t recall…only text messages I had to delete. That’s in no way an excuse for my behavior, but it sure as hell didn’t help matters.

To be fair, I made my husband equally as lonely. He just has more damn sense than me.

There’s something to be learned in all of this–If you don’t tell your spouse how great they are, somebody else just might.

The other lesson is this: Becoming close, personal friends with someone of the opposite sex, no matter how harmless it may seem, is a horrible idea–dangerous–RUN. It may seem like a vacation from the real world but you’re not standing on the sand of a seashore, but rather the desert of a war zone–you’re gonna get caught in the fire.

The only way to survive is to retreat back to the unit where you belong. Then, get in the trenches of marital reconciliation, fight and wait it out. If you’re lucky, you get a homecoming–where you reunite with the one you love and didn’t know you’d miss until you almost lost them forever.