For some reason, I've been experiencing uncomfortably increased levels of clarity lately around the affair. It's often an occasion for wincing or feeling fairly angry and/or amazed by my own behavior. Quite apart from the moral and ethical aspects of the whole experience, I have been feeling my own decision to rip myself off as a special kind of knife edge. As I posted on Facebook earlier, "Sure, codependency is great, but have you tried not letting the shitty, soul-killing decisions of others become your responsibility?" I was thinking in particular about the fundamental reality of becoming emotionally involved with someone who already has a very full life, and who has already made a series of decisions that have created that life that they are already living. And how stupid of me to keep hoping that the person would suddenly make a whole other set of decisions. I bought the idea hook, line, and sinker for a time. And then, after I knew it was definitely never going to happen, I hung in there. Of course, it's not fair for me to characterize the decisions of other people as shitty and soul killing, but, in my anger, you're goddamned right I have a ton of judgment about all of it. I'm sure it will wear off. I have long, also, simultaneously, completely understood and supported those same decisions. So it's a paradox. I could just as easily simply chalk it up to me being a fucking idiot and leave the judging of others behind. But lately I have just been indulging my outrage, and it feels salutary for now. The person's recent move to entrench even more deeply into the situation seems especially outrageous. Ultimately, however, the real lesson is: just do not fuck around with people who are in a relationship or who are married. It's a simple lesson. Just do not. No matter how available they project themselves to be, no matter how they "want to get out of their relationship," no matter how many concessions they have made for stability, no matter how in love with them you are, no matter how amazing the time spent with them is. Just do not.