by Maggie Downs posted in Life

A couple weeks ago I was driving home through the desert, listening to one of my favorite podcasts, ?The Longest Shortest Time.?
The episode was called ?The Parents? Guide to Affairs,? and the guest was Esther Perel, a couples therapist.
About 10 minutes into the podcast, Perel said that most women who seek affection elsewhere are motivated by a search for the women they used to be.
?I can tell you that one of the main motives in female infidelity in families is the lost self. Now that doesn?t just occur around infidelity," Perel says. "Often this person does not want to leave her partner. What she wants to leave is the person she has herself become. And what she wants to connect with is not just another person, but she wants to reconnect with another version of herself.? Instantly I felt as though I had been socked in the gut. I pulled the car to the side of the road. My eyes filled with tears.
I am not unfaithful, so what Perel said wasn't relevant to my marriage. Rather those words resonated because it was the first time I?ve heard someone articulate how I feel as a mother.

Since having a child, I inhabit a different body. My days look dramatically different. My brain is consumed by an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I am stronger in some ways, but also more vulnerable in many others. Sometimes -- okay, often -- I forget the woman I used to be.
I assumed that after the baby, I?d revert back to the person I was before, th...