[chuckfinly]

Originally Posted by Duran Duran

I remember you writing about how you met your wife. You rescued her from what I can recall. It was a pretty impressive story.

There are always ups and downs in a relationship. I don't know the reason for you wanting to do this, but I think there are always options to try and fix or change things. Obviously you haven't given the specifics of your situation, so I'm just assuming your relationship has hit a rough patch. But it's really something you don't want to screw up because it could have far reaching consequences.

Rescue is a bit of a stretch. She was in a wreck that my fire department responded to and her car was totaled but she was not seriously hurt. We brought her back to the station (grey area of allowability) to wait for someone to pick her up but no one could pick her up until the next day. I was getting off shift that afternoon and at the time was living alone in a 4,500ish square foot farm house so I offered her a room for the night (beyond grey in professionalism). There was nothing sexual about the situation. We ate some home raised steaks and went to bed (her in a spare room). I left before she got up that morning leaving her a note to help herself to whatever she needed. I expected her to be gone when I got home. When I got home that night the kitchen had been cleaned, laundry done, and dinner was ready. She had been in town for a job interview which she ended up getting so I told her she could stick around for a few days while she found a place to stay. Still nothing sexual at this point. Long story short, she never left. It did not take that long before we considered ourselves to be in a relationship. Eventually she moved from the guest room to my room and we got married.
I will respond to the rest below combined with SyFoster's post.

Originally Posted by SyFoster

Could you give some more details specific to your situation? That would help with specific advice.
Such as -
What’s going on with your current relationship to make you consider cheating?
Is there already a specific person you know or have in mind to cheat with?

Although I’ve never cheated, I have been cheated on, and have been the ‘other guy’ that the married woman was cheating with. So I’d be happy to help if you could give us a few more details.

Thank you both for your concern. I probably should not have put the "forge ahead" comment since I really have no intention of doing so. To be completely truthful I had no intention of starting down this road and was not even aware of it until all of the sudden I thought wait a minute, this maybe is not heading in a good direction. I thought I would ask for stories on here wondering how things got started and if I was just being paranoid. I have since done some reading and think what I had going on would be considered by some as an "emotional affair" which based on my reading is often what leads to a physical affair.


I am not sure how to explain everything as my life is kind of complicated right now and issues are intertwined but I will try to simplify it. It is also worth mentioning that I went to see a department shrink through county EMS this week and am thinking about getting into a private one probably with my wife which I probably should have done months ago. I come from a long line of ranchers; old school cowboys who are tough as nails on the outside and do not show weakness. Admitting that you need help emotionally is just something that is not done among the men in my family traditionally.


First of all, to answer what is going on with my current relationship/life. The last 12 months or so have been unbelievably difficult both personally and professionally. The first difficult thing we dealt with was one of our sons being stabbed by a methed out tweaker. It was totally random. We were leaving a business in a relatively upscale part of town and this guy just randomly runs up and stabs my 12 year old son. We later found out that he was previously arrested for raping a woman but released because the city he was in is a sanctuary city and they have a policy basically where they let anyone in the country illegally go so they do not get deported. Then he killed someone in a robbery and did some time before he was deported. He came back and paralyzed someone in a DUI crash and was again deported. He came back, got hooked on meth and stabbed my son. I hesitated because I was worried about hitting my son or a bystander as I did not have a clear shot and kick myself because I could have possibly prevented the second stab and for sure the third stab. I then came to my senses, took care of business and he will never hurt anyone again. My son was stabbed through the left lung, the left arm and in the gut from behind. Rational or not, the fact that I did not respond quicker haunts me. It is lucky I am a paramedic and keep a response bag in my truck. I started working on my son right away. I first stopped the bleeding on his arm with a tourniquet. He could have bled out from that one in a couple of minutes. I then dealt with the sucking chest wound which was causing his lungs to collapse. Finally I packed the abdominal wound with a hemostatic agent. About this time the first unit arrived on scene and my son ended up being flown to a regional trauma center. We have been dealing with his recovery for almost a year now. He has had multiple surgeries, ongoing complications from the abdominal wound, and may never recover full use of his arm. I held it together with no emotion and took care of what needed to be done until I handed him off to the responders. I fell apart watching the chopper lift off. It was the first time I had experienced the other side of what I do every day. To top this off, about six months later my mom was killed by a driver that was doing something on his phone as was shown by the dash cam on my mom's truck. Not only did I lose her but inherited my parents' ranch. Which is about 5,000 acres along with another 5,000 acre government lease which I am in litigation over to keep. Trying to take care of the family, manage my existing ranch which is 3,500ish acres of my own ground and about 6,000 acres of leased ground, now managing the new ranch, and maintaining my job has been unbelievably stressful.


Now on the professional side as a firefighter. I have been at the rank of engineer for years and been happy with that but now I am being pressured to promote to captain because of recent vacancies from other promotions and retirements. I really do not want the added responsibility and stress but I am getting serious pressure from above. I do not need the money. I keep the job for the benefits largely. Otherwise the ranches are now enough to live off of.


The most stressful side of the job however is the call load we have had which seemed to start last October. I usually run on around 15 calls per week. Outside of training, I have fired up the pump on a fire engine more times to hose blood, guts, and brains off of the road than I have to fight fires during this time period. 80% of those have been caused by drunk drivers. It has been one after another. The most traumatic call was in April. We got toned out for a vehicle vs a side by side UTV. My engine beat the rescue and was first on scene. I got out and found the driver of the UTV was one of my best friends. We went through the fire academy together and he was a captain at a neighboring fire district. I have run hundreds of mutual aid calls with him and drank countless beers on his porch or mine. I found my friend and brother in the service with his brains spread over about 150' of road and his left arm ripped off. I was not even sure at first that it was him. I recognized his vehicle at first. The drunk blew a stop sign going an estimated 110mph and took him out. I ended up hosing my buddy's brains and blood off the road. In my 19+ years of fire service this was the hardest call for me personally. When I started to realize I was kind of fucked up was in December. We had a drunk driver (noticing a fucking trend?) cross over the line on a two lane country highway and take out three motorcycles head on. Of course he was not injured but the three bikers were spread over a 450' stretch of road. I mean all three of them were in many pieces. I was on scene for over 4 hours with two of those hours walking back and forth with a flashlight helping the highway patrol find all the pieces of bikers and bikes on the road and into an orchard. I even found part of an arm in a tree. I remember it was 01:42 (I had just looked at my watch) and I stopped in the middle of the messiest part of the road, looked around at the carnage around me and realized I was numb to it. It was like just another day in the office to me. I had no feeling about it. That realization scared me. What bothered me the most about that call was the fact that it did not bother me. If you do what I do long enough and you either crack or you lose a piece of your soul. We used 4,500 gallons of water that night hosing off the road.


Now to bring this back home and to the original topic. We have not talked nearly enough or dealt with the home issues as much as we should have. My wife and I have seen less of each other than usual between one or the other of us taking care of our son and taking him to appointments, the other taking our other kids to their things, running our ranches, and my work (she now works the ranches full time and takes care of kids). Add to that my background of not talking about feelings. Also I cannot talk to her about the shit I see on the job. It bothers her and we have a deal that I don't talk about the bad stuff, my near misses (it is dangerous at times), and in general blood and guts. She does not get my dark fucked up sense of humor which is a coping mechanism that has grown over the years. She finds it disturbing so I hold it in. I basically have had to compartmentalize my life for years. I am one person at the firehouse and another on the ranch/at home.


Enter who we will call "T". T lateraled to my station about two years ago and holds her own against almost any male firefighter I can think of. She was assigned to my shift and truck shortly after hiring on. She has a great sense of humor... basically the same fucked up sense of humor I have. She constantly is making innuendo jokes as well. There are so many things in the fire service you can make sound dirty and she is a pro at it (not that I am a saint by any measure either). The two of us gradually started spending more and more down time on shift together. Working out, playing cards, and talking. She was going through a divorce from an abusive husband when she came on and confided in me some of the stuff she was going through. I really did not think anything of it or realize that we were starting to exclude others (lack of invitation rather than telling them they were not welcome) from our conversations, workouts, card and board games... The four of us on my truck started a snap chat group where we shared memes and NSFW jokes and politically incorrect stuff. One guy transferred stations and dropped off the group and then the other one started snapping less and less. At some point we started a private chat and the other group kind of fell silent. The night before I made the original post in this thread my wife had gone to bed early because she was tired and I was in my ranch office in one of my barns. I spent about 2.5 hours snapping back and forth with "T". I finally said I needed to call it a night and I was skimming over what we had chatted back and forth. I looked at it and realized my wife would be upset if she read the contents of that chat. Looking at it from the outside it was full of flirty stuff especially from her. She even complimented me on my physical appearance and called me "hot". We were both talking about our personal problems, joking, and such. One comment that was blaring in my face was her saying, "If I run into you in town with your family I don't know you or am just another firefighter." I started doing some reflecting and realized that our chats and in person conversations have been flirty and deeply personal and have probably crossed the line for a while. It was a frog in boiling water situation where I did not see it until now though I may have subconsciously known because I realized that I never shared any of it with my wife. I asked one of our other truck mates if our interactions came across as flirty? His reply was, "Flirty? We figured you had been banging her for months now." My wife says I am oblivious to people trying to flirt with me. It happens all the time in town with clerks at registers, waitresses, and such. Not to brag but I am in top physical shape, clean cut with a military style high and tight haircut, a mustache that would make Tom Sellick jealous, and either in fire department related clothes or clearly a cowboy.


As I said, T is easy to talk to, fun, has many of the same interests, has the same sense of humor, and she can relate to the professional side of me... the part I have needed to compartmentalize. That said, I am not leaving my wife for her. I have stopped all the texting and am kind of being distant at the station. She has asked me several times if I am ok and said I do not seem to be myself. I told her I needed a little space. She asked, "Don't you trust me?" I said yes but I need her to respect that I need some space. Things have been a little weird and to be truthful I feel a little empty like I just went through a breakup. Maybe I should have been more direct and told her why I needed the space. I will be honest, when I first had this realization there was a part of me that wanted to see where things went.


So yeah, I am kind of shocked that I am sharing all of this but I am going to go ahead. It feels good to just vent. I have typed this in several sittings so I am sorry if it is disjointed and for any typos as I am not going to proofread it. In general I guess I was looking to see if anyone else had an affair that started like what I have been experiencing or if I was being paranoid. Some of the hot stories people have shared are just an added bonus. Hopefully this does not violate the rules here of being discussion rather than stories... I know the story I told is not exactly sexy.