Chapter 2: An Emotional Affair

People have affairs, people cheat. It's a nasty part of life, but it happens. I certainly wasn't exempt from it in my college years. I did my fair share of kissing others and not being a great girlfriend to Jonathan. But as I look back I wonder if he did his share too! Jonathan and I weren't getting to spend much time together. We worked entirely different schedules. When he got home it was 1am and I would be sleeping so I could go to work at 7am. And he didn't want to just come home and go to bed...everyone needs to unwind a little after work no matter what time you get off. So he would go to one of our friends house and drink some beers and play playstation. I can't say that I blamed him...what did I expect him to do come home and just sit there? I was sleeping. Looking back it was unrealistic to have him just sit on the couch and watch TV for a few hours...he should get to hang out with his friends too.

But him having his night time friends meant I needed someone to hang out with while he was at work. I needed to be able to do something too because he couldn't expect me to sit on the couch and wait for him either. So I hung out with my new friends. Steve was my new friend and if you thought we spent a lot of time together for school...we became inseperable when we weren't in school. We would do our school routine during the week and then we would all go out on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I wasn't 21 yet so a lot of the time we would go to some of Steve's friends house and party there. Monica was also in education and she and I became good friends during this time. So it was always me and Steve, Monica and our other friend Steve Gillespi (I will now refer to him by his last name so you are not confused!). When Jonathan was off he would hang out with us too and I still went and did some stuff with his friends, but I was putting all my time into Steve.

Many of you are going to assume what every other person that knew us at the time did. We were hooking up and having some super secret affair thing and really we were in love with each other. My mom thought that. Our friends wondered that. Even Chrissy (she liked Steve way back when and met her through him and then she ended up at my school and we became friends) said that she was cautious of me because she assumed we were together. Yes we were together...almost 24/7, but we were never "together". Because you see there was no physical attraction between us. I will admit that when I met Steve the first time in my class at TMCC, I thought he was cute. When he walked into UNR I still thought he was cute. The more I got to know him, and watched him with kids and saw him coach youth football, I thought he was down right adorable! But I was never physically attracted to him like oh my gosh I want to jump his bones. And I know that he never thought that about me either. We never hooked up not even so much as a kiss. And I had never wanted it to go that way. But my god what an emotional affair we had!

Some of you may ask what that is. I just found out like last year there was even a term. I was reading this article that a friend sent me about work relationships and people that cross the line. She was telling me about how it's one thing to be attracted and lots of people have affairs with coworkers, but the article talks about emotional affairs. Where people don't do anything physical but become emotionally attached to each other and that in the end it ends up hurting more feelings than an actual affair. For some people, yes you cheated on me but it's just sex and you still love me so it's ok. For others there is nothing ok about it at all. But for some, if there is no sex at all involved, it seems worse because you genuinely care about that person in the way you should be caring about your spouse. Now that you understand what it is...let me continue.

We had quite the emotional affair. He might not think that, but I do and that's what I refer to it as now. I put ALL my time and emotions into Steve. I would skip spending time with Jonathan if Steve said hey let's hang out. I would put things off because I wanted to do stuff with Steve or I was trying to be helpful and help him get something done. I typed all his papers (mainly because I get annoyed watching people type that only peck on the keys) and helped him through school. I listened to all his girl problems (and god did he have some) and provided the support he needed when his heart was broken into a 1,000 pieces. He went to the hospital to see my mom with me (you will see this turn later) and he even went to Winnemucca with me to go hunting once (that was much later). We literally did everything together. And if for some reason we weren't in the presense of each other, we were on the phone with each other. He would go home and every night, like clockwork, he would call me at 10pm. We could be on the phone for as little as 5 minutes up to 2-3 hours...and we had just spent all day together.

The more time I spent with Steve, the less time I wanted to spend with Jonathan. The more we grew apart and the more I knew that we shouldn't stay together. But I couldn't let go of that stability and neither could he. But I also didn't need to let him go just yet. I had all the stuff a boyfriend gives you from Jonathan, and what I wasn't getting emotionally from him, I was getting from Steve. Steve gave me all the "love" I thought I was missing from Jonathan. He gave me the time and emotions I thought Jonathan should be giving me. He gave me a picture of what a future with someone that loved kids was going to be like. He showed me what it would be like to spend time with someone you enjoyed being around and you felt secure and loved around. But at the same time, I knew Steve wasn't the guy for me...he just had all the qualities I was looking for. That's one reason we never became involved...I knew it would go no where. Trust me I considered it like a true young person would...what would it be like if I married Steve? While the concept of him was a wonderful future, he himself was not. I was not the eye candy trophy wife he was looking for and he wasn't as down to earth and fun as I had always thought he was. He was a disaster when it came to girls and frankly I didn't have the time for that.

Either way, he was giving me everything I needed at that time and I was falling more and more in love with the idea of him and what else there could be out there.