When a Boyfriend Joins the Marriage

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Two guys are out in the backyard banging around, building a work space, a studio. One is lean with dark hair; the other stockier, his gray hair clipped close to his skull. I hear their laughter over the sound of the air compressor for the nail gun. The siding is going up.

They started this job more than a year ago. Most homeowners would be annoyed at how long it’s taking. I’m not. They’re building it for free. They’re building it for me.

I bring them water. I kiss one good night but not the other. One is my boyfriend of 10 years. The other is my husband. My husband and I actually consider ourselves exes, but we never divorced. We still love each other, just not romantically. We have lived together all these years under the same roof, although not the same bedroom.

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What happened was this: 15 years ago, I woke up in the night, nudged him awake and said, “I need your permission to have an affair.”

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I couldn’t imagine not waking up in the house with my child, having to drop him off at his father’s house, not kissing his sleepy cheeks every night. I wanted my family. And I wanted my boyfriend. When I suggested we could be roommates, my husband agreed. I clung to the idea like a life raft. We ordered another bed and turned my husband’s office into a second bedroom. I didn’t know if it was possible to create a new kind of family, but like a child who pushes against the boundaries of her parents’ rigid rules, I wanted to find out.

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This is the most selfish things I’ve ever read. The real truth of it comes out later. She can’t afford to live in Bay Area so she uses their kids to keep the husband at home because he almost certainly wouldn’t see his kids if they had a proper divorce


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