I don’t remember when my life stopped belonging to me.

Maybe it happened the day I took my first corporate job.
Maybe the day I got my first promotion.
Or maybe the day I convinced myself that running was the only way to survive.

In my adult life , every day morning started the same way—the alarm screaming at 5:00 AM, my hand fumbling for the phone, my mind already halfway into the day before my feet even touch the floor. I don’t wake up; I resume. Resume the race. Resume the routine. Resume the version of myself that the world approves of.

Sometimes I wonder when I last woke up with awareness—actually feeling the morning light, noticing how my breath sounds, hearing the silence before the city starts roaring.

I can’t remember.

My commute is a blur.
They say I drive to work, but in truth, I am driven—by the deadlines waiting for me, by the meetings lined up one after another, and by the invisible pressure to be “more” every single day.

I see traffic lights, but not the sky above them.
I hear horns, but not the birds.
I pass by people, but not their stories. I tell myself I’m doing all this for “success”—a word society shaped long before I had the courage to define it for myself

My friends often tell me I’ve done well.

“Look at you,” they say.
“You’re doing great. Good salary, good life, fitness routine, stable career.”

And on the surface, it’s all true.

I go to the gym six days a week.
I travel for work.
I meet targets.
I get recognition.
I tick boxes like a dutiful adult.

But most days, as I’m lifting weights, my mind is not in my body.
It is thinking about a client call, a loan EMI, a project rollout, a family obligation.
I work out with strength, but live with emptiness.

I realized this one evening when I saw my reflection in the gym mirror.
Sweat on my forehead, muscles tight, posture perfect—
Yet my eyes looked like they belonged to someone else.

Someone tired.
Someone running.
Someone pretending to be okay. Modern life teaches us how to survive exhaustion.
But it never teaches us how to survive ourselves

It was a Friday night, one of those rare evenings when I let myself breathe outside work.
A colleague dragged me to a live concert—independent music, nothing fancy. I agreed only because I wanted a break from screens and spreadsheets.

And there she was.

I didn’t know her. She wasn’t connected to my work, my world, or my routine. She stood among the crowd, eyes closed, hair falling loosely over her shoulders, moving softly with the music, like she wasn’t just listening—she was feeling.

There was something about her presence.
It wasn’t beauty.
It wasn’t attraction.
It was awareness.

She was alive. Fully, vividly, unapologetically alive.

A simple girl in a simple dress, but the energy around her was extraordinary—gentle yet grounded, free yet deeply connected to everything around her.

I found myself watching her—not out of desire, but out of disbelief.

How can someone be so present?

When the music paused, our eyes met. She smiled, a small, genuine, unfiltered smile—the kind people give only when they are not trying to impress the world.

We spoke briefly.
About music.
About life.
About how people forget to feel alive.
Her words were slow, thoughtful, filled with meaning I had forgotten long ago.

In that brief conversation, she said something that stayed with me:

“Most people don’t live, they just perform.” I didn’t know it then, but that moment stirred something dangerous, something awakening

After that night, something in me changed.

I went back home to my wife—my stable, loving, supportive wife. We lived a good life together. A comfortable life. A predictable life.

But I realized I hadn’t been living with awareness even in my own home.

I hugged her a little tighter that night.
I don’t know if it was guilt, longing, or the realization of how numb I had become.

Over the next few days, I found myself replaying that concert moment—not because I wanted the girl, but because she represented a version of myself I had lost.

Her presence had shown me a mirror:
A life lived fully…
vs.
A life lived on autopilot.

I tried ignoring it, but the shift was already happening.
I began noticing little things— the sound of rain, the smell of morning tea, the softness in my wife’s voice, the weight of silence between my breaths.

But along with awareness came another truth…

I had crossed an emotional boundary.

I didn’t intend to cross the line.
Nobody ever does.

It started with conversations—long ones, deep ones, the kind I hadn’t had in a decade. She asked things nobody asked me anymore:

“How do you feel?”
“What hurts you?”
“What excites you?”
“What are you running from?”

No one had cared about my emotional world in years.
Not because my wife didn’t love me,
but because life had swallowed both of us in responsibilities.

This girl, this strange spark in a crowded concert,
became the only place where I felt awake.

Coffee turned into late-night walks.
Walks turned into confessions.
Confessions turned into closeness.
Closeness turned into touch.
Touch turned into a fire I didn’t know still existed in me.

Her hands gave me wings.
My home gave me ground.
Together, I felt whole, and that was the most dangerous illusion.

I convinced myself that I could balance both worlds.
I lied to myself before I lied to anyone else.

One year.
One entire year of stolen mornings, half-written messages, hidden smiles, guilt-soaked passion, and a strange, forbidden tenderness.

She made me feel alive.
My wife made me feel anchored. And I was terrified of losing either feeling

After a year of walking the tightrope, I went on a family vacation.
My wife planned it.
My parents were excited.
Photos were clicked.
Restaurants were chosen.
Smiles were exchanged.

But inside, I was breaking.

Because every evening, when everyone slept, I sat in the balcony wondering what she was doing.
If she ate.
If she missed me.
If she was hurt.
If she had cried that day.

I couldn’t enjoy a single moment.
Not the beaches.
Not the sunsets.
Not the laughter.
Not the silence.

I had one family in front of me
and one woman behind me
and I belonged to neither fully.

Guilt burned my skin.
My mind was split in two.
My heart was a battlefield of contradictions.

My wife held my arm during a boat ride.
But all I could think of was the girl who used to hold my hand in cafés like it was a secret universe.

I hated myself for it.
Yet I missed her every second.

This wasn’t awareness.
This was chaos disguised as passion. The line wasn’t blurred anymore.
It was gone.

Back home, something in me collapsed.

Not because my affair ended,
but because the truth rose inside me like a storm:

Was I genuine to myself?
To my wife?
To the girl who loved me with her whole heart?

Who does a man betray first—
his vows,
his responsibilities,
or his own integrity?

Why do men like me slip?

Is it the pressure of a job?
Is it loneliness in marriage?
Is it emotional starvation?
Is it escapism?
Or is it simply the human longing to feel alive again?

Statistics say almost 30% of extra-marital affairs begin at workplaces or around them.
Not because people are evil.
But because people are exhausted, unseen, unheard.

We mistake emotional oxygen for love.
We mistake comfort for compatibility.
We mistake escape for destiny.

And yet…
in only 1 out of 20 cases does a man actually leave his wife.

Not because he doesn’t feel love.
But because he realizes something raw, painful, and universal:

Extra-marital affairs are built on truth…
but they end because of the truths we cannot live with.

We love the affair for how it makes us feel.
Not for what it truly is.

We go back to our families not always because we are noble…
but because reality demands maturity,
while passion demands surrender. And sometimes,
we are just not brave enough to live the life we slipped into

Now the biggest question is – Whose fault is this?

Maybe no one’s.
Maybe everyone’s.

Maybe it’s the fault of a world that teaches us how to earn,
but not how to feel.
How to succeed,
but not how to breathe.
How to perform,
but not how to live.

How to be married,
but not how to stay emotionally alive.

Maybe affairs aren’t sins.
Maybe they are symptoms.

Symptoms of hunger—
for awareness,
for connection,
for understanding,
for being seen beyond our roles.

Maybe all three of us were victims—
my wife,
my girlfriend,
and me.

Victims of the same truth:

In the rush to live life correctly,
we forget to live it honestly.