I’ve Been Living a Double Life for Five Years

Welcome to Ethels Tell All, where the writers behind The Ethel newsletter share their personal stories related to the joys and challenges of aging. Come back Wednesday each week for the latest piece, exclusively on AARP Members Edition. 

“You ready to go?” my boyfriend asks. We are headed out for a run before dinner.

“Yup, I am ready,” I say, and we head out the door.

We start to run. He talks enthusiastically about his day, his daughter and our upcoming vacation. I am half-listening. My mind is partly with him and partly with my kids. I beat myself up while he talks. How could you keep this part of your life a secret? When will you tell the kids that you have a boyfriend? Maybe you should just break up with him.

My kids — ages 20, 17 and 14 — have no idea that I have a boyfriend and that I have had one, the same one, for almost five years. They don’t know that I have been on vacations with him or that I sleep at his place when they are at their dad’s. They don’t know that most days I believe telling them is the right thing to do and I try to convince myself that I am brave enough to do it; and that on those same days, fear takes over and I try to convince myself that not telling them is indeed the right thing to do. They don’t know that the resentment is building up — that I wonder why they can’t be the kind of kids who say, “You should start dating, Mom, let’s set up a profile on a dating app,” and that I get mad at them because they are not. They don’t know that I am never really present in anything I do — that when I’m with them I’m preoccupied with how and when I will come clean, and that when I’m with him I’m hoping they don’t FaceTime me or ask me what I am doing, and with whom. 

There isn’t an hour that goes by that guilt does not overwhelm me. I am telling lies more often than I am telling the truth these days. “Going to Grandma’s,” I tell my kids while I’m on my way to my boyfriend’s house. “Yup, I am headed to Florida all by myself,” I lie as I hop on a plane with my boyfriend. I am constantly in two places at once, and no matter where I am or who I am with, I am living and protecting my secret. This is my life these days, and it is eating me alive, stealing my sanity and making my life incredibly painful.

I have talked to friends and family and, yes, my boyfriend about this dilemma. Everyone has been patient and offers well-intentioned advice — “What’s the big deal?” they say. “Just tell them.” And my brain kind of agrees. I am an adult, I deserve to be happy, and I get to choose who I spend time with. But then there’s my heart. My terrified heart. And not the heart I love my boyfriend with, the heart I love my kids with.