My Secret Affair and Its End

I met him at a conference last year, he was so different from my usual crowd. We talked long into the night over drinks, and I felt this pull towards him that I couldn't ignore. It started off slow, just late-night phone calls and texts. But then we began sneaking around to meet each other in hotel rooms when my husband went out of town for work. It was exhilarating, but it took its toll. My marriage felt like a facade now, with lies piling up every day. We thought we were being careful, that no one would know, but my husband caught us once during a meeting at his office, he saw him exiting the building just as I arrived. The guilt and fear overwhelmed me after that. He wanted it to stop, said he couldn't risk our lives falling apart over this anymore. We tried therapy for a while, but we both knew deep down nothing could fix what happened between us. So now, we're officially done, all the passion of those secret trysts turning into just another part of my life I regret.