Chronically exhausted, he would spend our occasional vacations face-planted on the beach while I restlessly paced the low tide line. Being with James was no longer a solution to feeling lost and anxious, and I lacked the skill set to comfort myself. I was so immature I didn’t know it was a skill set.

I tried reminding myself that here was a man willing to sacrifice everything for his deep belief that he could help others. Sure, I was among the sacrificed, but at least I got to stand next to a person who was making a difference. But the more people commented on how “perfect” he was, the more trapped and angry I felt. What about me? Had I been a child of eight rather than a woman of 28, I might have had a temper tantrum. Instead, seven years into our marriage, I had an affair.

Several days after meeting Alex, I attended a party I knew he would be at. As I had hoped, he asked me to have dinner with him afterwards. We talked for hours. He was vivacious. He was interesting and interested in me. He was awake! And he was nothing like James. When he kissed me goodbye, I felt high. Then I ran for the bathroom and vomited until there was nothing left.

Still, I was convinced that Alex was my path to happiness. We had lunch, we had dinner, we finally made love. And a month after that, as we lay in his bed watching the first snowfall, we threw on our clothes and ran for the park to make snow angels. There, lying on the cold ground and looking up at the stars, we whispered that we loved each other.

We weren’t an obvious match, and not only because I was married. Alex was from a boisterous, family-focused clan who believed no time apart could be of any quality. I was an only child, accustomed to empty spaces filled comfortably with my own silence. Professionally, I was ambitious and filled with energy, tearing into each day like a dervish; Alex, on the other hand, was mellow and observant. He was nothing like James and the men I had been drawn to in the past: passive instead of ferocious, content instead of constantly conquering.

But he was a respite from James’s force field, as well as a center of calm for me. After feeling so deserted by my husband, I suddenly found myself nurtured. Not infrequently, during a demanding day at work, I would find a deliveryman standing in my office with a boxed lunch Alex had ordered for me, to make sure I remembered to eat. Flowers arrived frequently, for good reasons and for no reason. And he was a wonderful playmate, up for any adventure.From making reservations at a new restaurant we were both interested in, to hopping a plane at the last minute to meet me wherever my job had sent me, Alex was 100 percent available: an unflinching, loving companion.

All the same, there may be no lonelier social landscape than the one inhabited by two people having an affair. While the illicitness might initially be exciting, it doesn’t take long to crash into the inevitable recognition that what you’re doing is bad. Sharing details with close friends is asking them to bear the burden of a guilt that isn’t theirs. And how could I explain to them—let alone myself—that, even as I was pursuing this affair, I was still in love with my husband?