It's not fair that those I've loved all along can't truly understand what this is like. It's not their fault. They try, but no matter, they just can't understand. Nor can I explain. It is a tacit understanding that exists between surgeon and patient. Who else but your lover or your husband enters your body so intimately? Who else renews you with his spirit? At first, my cancer seemed to draw my husband and I closer than we had ever been, but eventually, he began to pull away. I felt it, every inch he moved away. He wanted to save me, he wanted to be the hero, and he wanted this because he loved me. When he realized he could not save me, then he turned. He talked to women at his office about his grief, but said little to me. A year later, when my cancer returned, again he pulled away and found a woman at the office. They developed one of those office "things" that for some, seem to defy definition. To me, it's simple: it's an emotional affair or a crush or both if there are sexual feeling involved. There could be a checklist to determine the nature of the relationship.

Question 1 Are you lying or have you lied to your spouse about this person?
Question 2 Do you feel sexual desire for this person - lust.
Question 3 Do you hide this person from your spouse, avoid introductions, get nervous when the two are in the same vicinity...

So you get the idea. If the answer is Yes, they're on you're the slippery slope to wherever you want, but not anywhere that will ultimately be of consequence. It may be fun for a while, and who knows, maybe you'll even fall madly in love and divorce your spouse, in which case, have the courage to just say Enough and then do what you want and move on. But please god, stop dragging us all through the muck and mire. It's deadening and blistering and it sucks.

. I imagine being with her was lighter, such contrast to the darkness that seemed to shroud me, no matter how hard I tried to shrug it off. With her, the contract was simple: make her laugh, make her smile, make her want you. It was easy, far easier than what our life had become. When I found out, as one always does when there is some form of infidelity, I was shattered. I'm still shattered, and although it's illogical, perhaps in some subconscious way I blame my husband for not being able to save me. For not being able to make me laugh in my darkest hour. For defining me, seeing me, as nothing more than a PATIENT, as if the word had been stamped in indelible ink on my forehead. I was and am more than the sum-total of illness; there is so much more to me, both good and bad, but it seems cancer has put up a road-block or a scrim, and it is difficult for anyone to look at me and see anything else other than this. I am a sick girl. A very, very sick girl.