... To see where they're at? Whether life's been kind to them, or if they've suffered from their choices? If they've made any moral movement, or have any regrets about how things went down, and what they would do differently, if anything? If they've changed?
I was an AP for many married men when I was 17-19. Sometimes I think about them and wonder if they're at least as sorry about their infidelity as I am for participating in it. I wonder whether they reconciled, got divorced, or if they were ever even found out. If they had more affairs after me, or if they stopped cheating. I wonder how their kids are. (Well, probably most other people's histories aren't quite as full of infidelity in its various forms...)
Several months ago I'd gotten an email from a (previously?) married man I had started dating while I was still in high school, just a reach-out-and-see type of email. My only response was "It's been 9 years," trying to say like, "dude. it's over. move tf on already." But he was like "It has! How time flies... How are you?" and I face-palmed and blocked him. Obviously that one has no ragrets.
Sometimes I think about my AP, and wonder about him. During the A, he admitted he got off on "stealing" me from my H, which was sickening. He didn't own up to anything I suspected he'd lied about, or any details I questioned because they didn't make sense. A few days after DDay, with H's permission, I gave him an earful over text about how wrong what we did was and how much it had hurt my husband, and hurt me to see him like that. The AP apologized for hurting me. That was the last time we spoke. Periodically over the next several months, he would just send a "hey" text, until I finally felt certain enough that he wouldn't blackmail me at work (and disrespected enough!) to block him... It feels weird to think about how much regret I feel for what I did, and how much work I've put in to try and change, and to think that he very well could be out in the world conducting himself in the exact same way he had been a bit over a year ago, soliciting married women.
Anyone else?
Far too often in our hasty, mad quest to *Be Loved,* we lose sight of the fact that we are inherently, uniquely, and divinely *Loveable.*
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I'm not arguing... I'm calibrating