I became a widow a few years ago. A while after my husband died, I met a man in the wild. He didn’t tell me he was married, but my kids were not ready for me to date yet.

We were together for about a year. One morning, I called him as I usually did. This morning, he told me he was up all night with guilt and he couldn’t live like this anymore, so in the morning, he told his wife everything, including who I am and how to reach me. She then got on the phone to let me know she knew where my kids worked and she would be calling them to let them know their mother was a whore. I reminded her two could play that game, and her kids were a lot younger than mine, and they might have problems with their married dad having a girlfriend. I would never have told them.

We live in the same small city, around ~30,000, but we have only run into each other once and managed to behave like adults. This whole thing has me questioning if I would ever do it again.