I started chatting to Joe online because
he was part of an Internet web chat site in another country. He
seemed very interesting and as soon as we moved over into private
conversations, we discovered great things about each other. He was
a professional working for a school system, and I was just a secretary
in a crumbling marriage. My husband at the time had gone through
a sting of affairs and this was his last one. As soon as I found
out I had feelings for Joe, I told my husband it was over, packed
my bags and moved out of our apartment.
I moved in with a friend of mine, who was more than happy to share
the expenses on her apartment. Meanwhile, the relationship between
Joe and I intensified. We talked every night, and decided that we
would have a romantic first meeting in Niagara Falls, which lay
on the border of our two countries.
I remember the feeling as I boarded the bus to go to Niagara, wondering
if I wasn’t crazy, thinking that this guy could be a serial
killer or some weirdo, and that I was taking a risk here. I planned
an escape route if things didn’t work out, where I would immediately
have enough money to grab a cab if I needed to get back to the bus
station.
Meanwhile Joe had bought tickets to take me to his home in the
South, which surprised me too. I didn’t expect to be treated
so generously. We both decided to meet in the hotel lobby, so if
it didn’t work, we could turn around and go home. I have a
feeling that Joe had more faith in our plans than I did. I did check
to see if he worked were he said he did, etc. and all that he had
told me up till then seemed to be the truth.
When we met it was kind of scary and magical too. We really seemed
to hit it off. We went up to the hotel room and talked, but we didn’t
have sex, we fell asleep with our clothes on, and later when we
woke up in the morning we made love. That day we rented a car, drove
around and talked and talked. His deep southern accent and his charm
mesmerized me. He was a very funny and intellectual man, and that
really made me feel comfortable being with him. I remember him looking
at me and saying, “you’re falling more and more in love
with me, aren’t you?”
Ironically it felt like that, like he put me under some kind of
spell, and I couldn’t leave till it was all over. He took
me out to a very fancy dinner, and told me the story of his life,
and I told him mine, and since then we really hit it off. There
was only one glitch to this whole romance. He couldn’t leave
his home, nor could I leave mine. We both had children, so we were
stuck.
Needless to say, that week I did board the plan with him to go to
his home in the South, and I had the time of my life in his home.
We were not sure if I could come back and maybe that fact made the
whole affair even more intense. After that, we parted ways, and
found out that we had a hard time being apart.
We decided to make plans where I traveled to see him every time
my ex husband took my two kids, and when they were with me, I stayed
in Canada with them. This worked out well, except it wasn’t
easy to explain this to the boarder guards, they were very leery
of anyone traveling back and forth on a regular basis, especially
after the 9/11 disaster. However I had all my paper work in place,
and lucky for me I had the ability to take my work wherever I went.
This continued on for several years, and eventually when our kids
were old enough we got married, and he ended up moving over to my
country, where we continue on happily to this day. |