An Affair not to Remember

Last updated on: July 21, 2011 at 7:32 am by Kathy Tuan-MacLean

An Affair not to Remember 2011-07-21T07:32:00-04:00 Kathy Tuan-MacLean

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Last week, I finally used a gift certificate for a massage that expired the next day. Scott had come home from work so I snuck out and refused to tell the kids where I was going—I just didn’t want anything to interfere with my enjoyment, especially their accusations that I was self-indulgent.

When I got back, a daughter immediately began sniffing me all over, my neck, my arms, my back—it was like having a tall thin and beautiful beagle greet me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m checking to see if you were off having an affair.” This same child has noticed at times that I smell like Daddy’s cologne, so I guess she was sniffing for strange male scents. (Sorry if that’s TMI, but I did just give a sex talk yesterday!)

“What makes you think I was having an affair?”

“Daddy wouldn’t tell us where you were, and you wouldn’t tell us where you were going.”

“If I were having an affair, do you think I’d do it when Daddy was home and that he’d cover up for me?”

“Oh, right.”

The next day, the same daughter said, “I think you’re having an affair with your work.”

Here she was on the mark. I was desperately trying to wrap up my work before leaving for Cana and then Hawaii. Everything face-to-face that needed to happen had to happen last week.

I sighed. “You’re right. I AM having an affair with my work this week. And next week I’m going to be having an affair with Cana. But when we go to Hawaii I won’t be having an affair with either of those, and when we go on our special trip just the two of us, I will have an affair with just you.”

In our Sex talk yesterday, we talked about keeping boundaries strong in marriage—including shutting off all the possibilities in the chart to the left. We also have covenanted to confess if we’re feeling attracted to someone else. Nothing like humiliating oneself before one’s spouse to burst the bubble of infatuation.

But frankly, I’m often more drawn to work responsibilities, or personal opportunities, or just time for myself than I am to other men, hence the sense that my affections are engaged elsewhere.

Maybe I just need more tall beautiful beagles sniffing around my life each day.

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