Beyond Blue reader Deborah recently submitted her story to me, and considering the popularity of the Emotional Affairs Support Group, I thought it might help a few readers, so here it is …

Let me introduce myself by saying that I am a devout Christian. I accepted Jesus into my heart at age 18 and I have tried ever since to live up to the values and beliefs presented in Scripture. Every morning I read passages from the New Testament, followed by time on my knees when I ask the Lord to guide me through my day.

I am a loyal friend, a devoted mother, and a wife truly in love with her husband. I thank God for Shawn (my husband) everyday.

But depression almost put me in the wrong bed.

It is a disease of low self-esteem. And when someone comes along your path and gives you attention, it is so very hard not to accept it, to not let it build you up, or fill that empty and painful hole in your soul that depression has dug. And when you sense a rare connection, a true intimacy with another person, it is so very difficult to not to want to complete that union in the fullest way. Moreover, it feels nearly impossible to not give that person some of God’s power to restore you.

Looking back, I know which e-mail I should have ignored from a male colleague whom I like and respect. He suggested in jest that we run away together. I should have done nothing, and let that electronic note lie with all the spam I don’t respond to. Instead, I flirted back. Because I was flattered, intrigued, and disheartened with my life. My illness was screaming so many insults into my ears 24/7 that his compliments and admiration were like a healing potion that made me whole again.

We are both therapists, my colleague and I. We met at a work conference almost 20 year ago, and had kept in touch over the years. Seven year ago, a few months after he had sent the first suggestive e-mail, he came to a conference in Dallas, where I live, and asked if we could have lunch. I met him there, wanting to believe a platonic friendship was possible, but knowing damn well I couldn’t look into his face without wanting to kiss him. At one point the conversation stopped, and he reached for my hand.

“I have been dying to touch you,” he said. I pulled his hand to my lips and kissed it. Then he leaned into me and we starting kissing… a kiss that I haven’t been able to forget since that day.

It’s always there … as soon as I wake up in the morning; throughout the day as I see clients and perform administrative tasks; when I drive my two younger kids to all their activities; and of course it’s there at night, when I collapse into bed and in my dreams.

I cannot, for the life of me, dispel the memory of that kiss, nor the curiosity of wanting to know what it would have been like had I accepted his invitation moments after.

“Should I ask?” he inquired. “Do you want to come with me?”

He had a room there at the hotel booked until the next morning. It would have been so easy. To take the elevator with him upstairs to his room. To collapse into his arms. To undress him. To make love where no one would see.

I wanted to in the worst way.

I still do.

I’m constantly recreating that moment in my mind, fulfilling it in the way my body wants to.

Therein lies my hell: trying to ignore the constant obsessions, the fantasies, the imaginary world with my colleague, to tell Satan and his team of demons to leave me. Because I have every intention to keep the vows I recited on my wedding day: to love the husband whom I’m crazy about, to contribute everything I have to our life together, and to raise our four kids as a team, like we envisioned before they were born.

I want my family whole more than I want my sexual fantasy realized with my colleague.

A friend of mine told me that once I stopped all communication with him that my heart would begin to forget, and I would be able to move forward with nothing but love and commitment towards my family. But seven years later, I’m still not there. I fight this spiritual war within my soul several times a day. I seriously doubt if I’ll ever be freed from the intense desire to kiss my colleague one more time.

I suspect that I will always love him.

Not to say there hasn’t been positive progress and surprising fruits of my act of betrayal. I do experience productive weeks when the interruptions in my head seem minimal. And Shawn and I are closer now than ever. Having nearly lost him to this affair, I appreciate him and all of his wonderful qualities more and more each day. We have discussed with a rare openness between spouses why the kiss happened and what we can do to prevent anything like that from happening again. I am amazed at his ability to forgive me and to understand the relationship between my craving for affirmation or attention and my depression.

After some shaky years between us, I know now that he truly does trust me.

But the harder question is whether or not I trust myself.

I analyze and examine every email I send to male colleagues before I press send. I now make sure there is nothing that might be misunderstood as flirting, even remotely, in any message I send to a heterosexual male under the age of 75. And when I receive an email from a male friend that could be interpreted as suggestive, I send it directly to my spam file. I know better now than to respond. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, as I’m still paying the price for my carelessness. I also know that this illness of mine makes me vulnerable to having affairs. And that I need to exercise extra precaution to protect my values. Or else depression might put me in the wrong bed.

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