My Husband And I Left Our Spouses To Be Together. Here’s What I’ve Learned About Love.

Over the course of the next few days, we laid ourselves bare. What we found were two ambitious people on the verge of new beginnings — I was about to publish my first book, and he was starting a new business — who were being held back by unsupportive partners, toxic friends and an overwhelming sense of duty to how life “should” be lived. But we knew that we had to be with one another in a deep-down-feel-it-in-your-bones kind of way that made it painful to be apart. Even though we had spent a considerable amount of time together over the years at the Fair, we still knew so little about each other. It seemed crazy to think that we could be in love in any kind of real or lasting way, but everything about being with him felt right, like he had somehow been there next to me all along.

That same week, the first night we spent together, we fell asleep with our foreheads resting side by side and woke up eight hours later without having moved at all. Hours passed by as we sat in silence, watching a blue moon cross the sky. This was not a thing we could ignore. Knowing that we couldn’t face lives of deception ― that truth is always better than fiction ― and that unhappy parents make for unhappy children, we decided we needed to jump. Fast.  

Over the next four weeks, as we tried to figure how to do what we were going to do, my psyche and conscience screamed at me. Married men never leave their wives, I could just hear my friends ― and most movies of the week – telling me in my head, especially if they’re devoted fathers, which he was. The message from the few friends that I did eventually tell was unified: I could walk out of my relationship if I wanted, but Paul wouldn’t be there. But then, a few days later, walking out was exactly what I did. I packed my stuff with the help of friends while my prone-to-anger partner was out of town with “the bros.” We passed like ships in the night. Thirty minutes after pulling away, I got a predictably emotionless text from my newly minted ex: “I guess that’s it then.” He never spoke to me directly again, and his near-total refusal to engage serving was all the proof I needed to know that leaving was the right thing to do.

My friends’ voices still clamoring in my head, I holed up in a friend’s guest bedroom, waited for Paul and trying to be brave.

A few days later, he was there with me in that tiny room. He had broken the news about us the moment his wife had arrived home from vacation. She forced him to tell their kids after less than a day in hopes that the guilt would be too much for him and he would change his mind. After he talked with them and she still wouldn’t accept that it was over, he took a hard line, telling her directly that this was no affair or fling ― he intended to be with me for the rest of his life. Fifteen hours later, he packed everything from his life into his work truck, kissed his kids and promised to come back for them, and drove away from the life he had known up until that moment.

The short term was brutal. Judgment came in a chorus of righteous voices from people who said that while they understood we may have been unhappy in our old relationships, our new relationship was doomed. They had seen our misery ― our struggle to make it work with our previous partners ― with their own eyes, but we just weren’t allowed to do this. And despite any transgressions in their own lives, they meant it. As if, by that point, going back was even an option.

Judgement, though, was the least of our worries. We were dealing with Paul’s hellish legal battle with his ex, the logistics of starting a new life together, and the total lack of time and focus we desperately wanted to give to his kids.

In spite of all this, we were happy. There were bumps, to be sure. We had lucked out after just a couple of weeks of crashing at our friends’ house, and we were able to move into a house Paul owned after the renter unexpectedly decided to move. But the suddenness of it all and the predictable and ongoing conflict with our exes meant we had to leave many of our possessions (and some of our friendships) behind. We had no pots and pans and no kitchen table, and the tenant had left several gaping holes in the bedroom walls. We had new commutes to work, new neighbors, new banks and grocery stores, and very little money.

Life was so chaotic during the first few weeks we were living together that I got disoriented one day on the way home and had to circle the neighborhood, unsure of which street I now lived on. And we had all the little things to learn about one another: when we ate dinner (early), what kinds of movies we liked to watch together (none, we’re readers), and what we did on a Sunday morning (walk). It took several months of switching places to figure out what side of the bed we really preferred to sleep on. What surprised us the most was of how little consequence such things are when you know you’re with the right person.

We married one year to the day after a long, fiery look at that same booth we had circled around for so long at the Oregon Country Fair. We worked one more year of Fair after that before giving it up for good, content that we had both found what we’d been looking for all those years.

This year, we’re celebrating our fourth anniversary, which seems like both a lifetime ago and no time at all. This is the first year together that we are free from legal battles and back on our feet financially — issues that caused some early tension and arguments between us.

The house is now in good repair, but it needs a coat of paint for when the rain finally passes. We grew enough in our garden last year to make it through the winter with homegrown fruits and veggies. We’re friendly with the neighbors and know the local grocers. I don’t get lost on my way home. Neither of us is very social, but we keep a small group of friends that stuck with us and some that we found along the way. We don’t miss the friends we lost, which weren’t many. My parents and extended family have adopted Paul and the kids with open arms while I remain a bimbo and a harlot to his. We didn’t win all our battles.