The moment that we engage with others, we become characters in their story, says writer Alyssa Royse.
The idea that anything in our lives is inherently private is something that makes no sense to me, in a life that is lived with others. As deeply intimate as the stories of our lives are to us, and as much as we see ourselves as their lone star, we are never the only characters in them. We are each the stars of our own versions of the stories we live with others. Two—or more—characters living the same events, each their own wildly different versions, with different morals, different motives, different lessons, different endings. In my version I may be a romantic savior. In someone else’s a treacherous shrew. Though the events are the same, the casting and directing is inherently different.
The moment that we engage with others, we become characters in their story. Our story becomes theirs. Forever. There is no delete button for impressions left on the lives of others. You can’t take them back, or even stake a claim.
This, of course, is the hazard of loving—or even knowing—writers.
For two years, I dated a married man. When it began, I was trying to save my own marriage by exploring an open relationship. My husband and I agreed on this, I was honest about everything. Perhaps intrigued by this, the married man told me that he and his wife were separated and that they also had “an agreement.” I didn’t ask for more details, instead, I interpreted his words as they fit in my story. Not fully taking into account his story or his motives. Or those of his wife.
He was extraordinarily wealthy; I didn’t bat an eye at the fact that his wife was in India or California, for months at a time. I took it as proof that they were, indeed, living separate lives, trying to sort things out.
It never occurred to me that he was lying to me. That he was simply having an affair with me. As such, I respected their space when she was in town. Even as my husband and I officially declared and end to our marriage, we were still close, sharing friends and family alike. So I never batted an eye when my married man and his wife did the same. Or when they invited me to small social gatherings. I thought we were sharing a civilized open relationship.
Almost a year into it, I found out that his wife believed they were working on their marriage, trying to save it. That the times he had introduced us were not honesty, but “hiding in plain sight.” The absence of specificity from him allowed him to not directly lie. A fact I was reminded of on many occasions.
I was in love by the time I found out that his wife knew nothing of me, and had not sanctioned other relationships. I spent another year with him. It was an emotionally brutal and grueling year. In which everything I believed about myself, what I would do, what I believed, what I valued was challenged. I saw sides of myself I never would have guessed existed. Anger like a natural disaster. Patience like a February blossom. Blind determination to not have been wrong about him, or us, like a religious zealot. I believed that my pain made me a martyr for something I believed in, a love against all odds. I told myself that he was harmed and in pain and that my love could heal him and soothe him. I let myself believe I had that kind of power. It’s the magical thinking of every mistress, ever. I am different. I wasted a second year in order to prove that I had not wasted the first.
When we finally broke up, in a protracted rage that I am surprised landed no one in jail or the hospital, I commented that I had learned so much, and that ultimately it would benefit many. The many realities of magical thinking and delusional decisions became fascinating to me, and rich with wisdom and lessons that I couldn’t wait to share.
I am a writer after all. A screenwriter specifically. I had begun writing a TV show about people in their forties going through changes like this. It is hysterical, and painful, and injected with the kind of wisdom that hardship brings.
He told me that I couldn’t write anything that could in any way look anything like our story. That it wasn’t my story to tell, it was his. His. Not mine.
No, I assured him. It’s my story to tell. To do anything I want with. He was horrified. People would know that he had an affair. (Mind you, everyone who knew us had already figured it out, even if it was never discussed.) I assured him that it was not my job to protect him from the repercussions of his actions. If he didn’t want people to find out that he did things, the best strategy is not to do those things. Hoping no one will tell is a fool’s strategy.
It’s is my story too, I told him, you don’t have exclusive rights to my story. I laughed when I said that, as we both come from film and theater, a world in which rights to stories are indeed bought and sold. I told him that he was welcome to make me an offer on the exclusive rights to my story.
He did not meet that with a sense of humor. Or an offer. (Not that I would have accepted one. My story is not for sale to anyone.)
But it did make things clear to me. Your story is yours. Common courtesy dictates that we protect the innocent. But that we are not responsible for protecting people from the consequences of their own actions. My story is mine, to do with as I please. And for the most part, telling it is what pleases me. Because what’s the point of it all if we don’t learn and grow? And isn’t it all the better if we can help others learn and grow as well?
I am often asked where the lines are. What parts of our story do we have the right to tell, and when do we know. People assume that I tell all. While that may be the safest way to live your life in general—assuming that everyone will find out and acting accordingly—that couldn’t be farther from the truth, really.
Of course there are rules. My rules are fairly simple:
1. Did it happen to me, with me or because of me? If no, then I have no right to tell it. Stories that other people tell me about their lives are not mine to tell. If something about them speaks to a larger truth and I think it can illustrate that truth, then I either ask them for permission, or rearrange the facts into an anonymous oblivion, rendering it a parable.
2. Did it happen to me, but have no bearing on the world around me or humanity in general? Probably not going to discuss it in anything other than the broadest strokes. As a sex and relationship writer, this is actually a very clear line for me. Though my writing will expose a general lust for sex, and exuberant contentment with my sex life, I will not discuss the details. Because they don’t matter, and because my husband does not want his sex life discussed. I am open and candid about loving sex, because that is something that I think the world needs more of in order to heal generalized sexual shame. But no one needs to know the details of my—or anyone’s—sex lives.
3. Did it happen to me and have larger meaning that others can learn from, but involve other people who have done no wrong and harm, and need not be examined by others? I will go to great pains, for the most part, to protect those who I see as “innocent” actors in their own lives. I might share it, but with an open hand rather than a pointed finger.
4. Then there are the stories, like the one of the affair that I truly didn’t know I was having. A story so rich with questions that I can’t help but explore it. I still ponder how I, someone who values truth above all else, could play that part in a story. I had to ask. I still do. I want to ask others. I want to create a space in which husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends can all ask why. Why do we do this to each other? Why do we justify to the point of delusion? Why do we compromise what we believe about ourselves? Why do we lie, cheat, deceive ourselves and others? It’s a story as old as humanity, one that never causes anything but pain, yet we still do it.
I’ll not use his name, ever, it serves no purpose. But those who knew us both will know who it is, and that’s okay with me. For all I know it will cause healing to both him and his wife—trauma often does that. Maybe it will stop others from making the same mistake—with him or with others. I will feel better knowing that I issued a warning—about infidelity in general.
He didn’t want me to tell it because he didn’t like the way it made his character look. He didn’t want to be seen as that cliché of a guy—middle aged, cheating on his wife. I didn’t want to be that woman sleeping with someone else’s husband. But I was. I think he hated himself for what he did. It’s a guess. It’s just a guess, based on my believing that under it all, he was a decent guy, who got lost and confused and did the wrong thing.
I might think that, however, because that’s what I was. And because believing he was truly bad would make it even worse for me. I might have to believe there was something good in there in order to believe there was some magical and vague justification for the fact that I stayed even after I knew.
It doesn’t make me look good either. But beyond good and bad, there is simple humanity. I don’t fear this truth, because I have never presented myself as anything other than human. As flawed, prone to make mistakes. To be scared and imperfect as a character is part of the story I have always told myself. And, just as importantly, others.
I also know that I don’t really know what his motives were. I don’t know what his story is. I don’t know what part I play in his version. I owe you, the readers, that truth. That the only person I can speak for is me.
Beyond this little piece here, I still have not told the story. I am still working on the TV show, and I am proud of it. It is excellent. It doesn’t point to him specifically, just men like him, and there are many. And women like me, and there are many. And we often switch roles—infidelity knows no gender. I will explore the story because the story of what we do to find joy and peace, to cause harm and rebuild, is the only story that interests me. In all its forms.
To not tell it was hurting me. To deny myself my story in order to protect him makes no sense.
After all, the minute he wrote me into his story, he became a character in mine.
Our lives are not monologues or soliloquies. Our characters are interpreted by others. It is best to live accordingly. The consequences of your actions are your own.
Read more on the Ethics of Writing about Living People: The Psychic and the Drunk
Image credit: Katherine Sandoz
