The last three days have been horrible. I told Tom about Phil; he had to know sooner or later. I decided that I needed to make much more of an effort with Phil, stop focusing on what I don’t find easy to love, and focus fully on what I do, and so part of putting in more effort includes letting Phil visit when the children are home.

What’s followed is a series of emails between Tom and I that have been hard to read and even harder to respond to. I’ve had a stress headache for three days solid, have cried buckets, needed to sleep a lot more, yet have been tired constantly, because it’s never easy or nice to hurt someone by telling them you’ve moved on. But my choice was to tell him and hurt him, or not tell and hurt Phil. Neither option gave me pleasure, but if I was going to one day allow myself to live a true and honest life, then I had to choose my happiness. But I hate what I’m doing to Tom.

I hate the thoughts and fears that have been running through my mind constantly over the past seventy-two hours. I hate feeling sick to the pit of my stomach, thinking about the implications of my life choices, how every single thing I do impacts so many lives.

I hate feeling like one wrong move from me could change the course of so many lives, BUT I have to face that fear and do it anyway because otherwise my life, and those around me, become stagnant. It stops moving and evolving, and what’s the point of that?

What will we ever learn if we always stay the same?