I turned around to my desk and stared at the computer screen. Then I turned back to John and said: "You know how you still like me and respect me? Well, get ready to stop. Because here's the reason I'm so guilty and keeping secrets: I'm married and I have three kids."

"You are?" He asked.

"Yeah, I got married fifteen years ago." I said.

"Then what's all the stuff with the six other women?" John asked, scratching his head and sounding confused.

I sighed. "It's all true."

John blinked. "So you love your wife like one of the other women?"

I shook my head and stared a my feet. "No. My love for her is different. She's the one who cut my heart out. I stay with her and I make nice, but in my mind and my heart I'm all alone. The other women are ways I create some peace and space in my head."

He said, "You don't feel like you're living a double life?"

"I'm the child of divorced parents. I know how shitty it is growing up with parents who don't get along and don't talk to each other." I looked up at John.

You always think you'll reach a point where you've done enough, it's enough, you'll be respected and appreciated. But it never happened. A lot of the time I just can't stand her. There's nothing I can do about it. She has this way of completely ignoring me and making me feel like it's all my fault. I feel like I'm dead inside when I'm with her. But without her I can't do anything for myself. I'm like a puppet with the strings cut."

John shut his eyes tightly. "Didn't you say that you had no one to sit with you at the hospital, or unburden your soul in the middle of the night? What about ... what's your wife's name? You never mentioned it."

"Kaia. I used to try and tell her stuff like this, deep stuff, but either she's become completely shallow and unable to understand since having kids, or she was always like that and I just heard what I wanted to hear. Explaining myself to her is like talking to AI - it doesn't really get what you're saying and makes you feel more alone. I don't take her to the hospital because it's worse than being alone; I'd have to act the part of the husband, worried but caring, instead of being myself and just reacting." I sighed.

Continuing, I said, "I feel like a sleaze for wanting other women but not bad enough about the situation to want to leavez But time keeps moving faster and it'll all be over soon anyway, like you said. So what's the point? Life with another woman would be no bed of roses."

I looked at John, who seemed like he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. I said, "So I've explained all this now - you feel how exasperated and disgusted you are with me, how you want to tell me just to move on with my life and stop griping about normal people strains? Imagine how much I feel like that just saying it. It's boring, excruciating to listen to. I don't know what to do and I don't have a way out."

John smiled. "I'm not disgusted or exasperated with you, Deacon. I'm interested and curious. What would happen if all the women you're not married to stopped responding to you? If no one answered your texts or calls? If they all ignored you?"

This abandonment was one of my core fears. I said, "I would be very sad. I would think about everything I said to them and all we shared and wonder what I had done wrong. I would spend time alone, in contemplation."

"You don't think you'd get more interested in Kaia, start talking to her more and sharing with her?" John asked.

I rubbed my eyes, and explained, "I tried this, or a version of it. I cut it off with Marianna after Kaia found the conversations and we almost split up; Kaia had lunch with Marianna without me being there, a 'stay away from my man' talk. I was so mortally embarrassed, I thought the right thing to do was to end it, so I could move on and stop obsessing."

Continuing, I explained: "Then ten years passed. I still thought about Marianna every single day, and it hadn't gotten any better with Kaia. I was like, OK, let's try leaving Hollywood, having kids and a suburban life, moving close to my parents so they can help take care of the kids. I'll get a normal 9-5 job in television so I'm not gone all hours like I was when I was younger and trying to be an artist."

I said: "The kids are beautiful and incredible and I love them. But it hasn't solved anything. Kaia is busy and preoccupied with them all the time, and I have to work and take care of my parents."