A Cheater’s Tale.
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| Tue, 09-14-2004 - 12:30am |
* * *
I’ve been married for 14 years. I met my wife when I was in college. We got married after I graduated from business school here in Chicago. We have two children, ages 6 and 9.
But she’s sometimes boring. In bed and out of it. Not that most people would think of her as at all boring. But to a husband? Dead boring. One too many nights I would get home at, say, 9PM and she’d either have just gone to sleep or she was up but met me in a stultifyingly boring outfit, with hair unkempt and not giving a damn about her appearance. I’ve bought her tons of nice heels, clothes, jewelry and so forth but they never seemed to quite “fit” her personality, except perhaps in her office. I mean she did wear beautiful outfits to work but then at home just the most boring of boring. A waste of money to buy all that stuff. She was capable once every other month or so of being extremely hot – indeed, a couple of times she walked in wearing lingerie and heels – Do Me _Now_ – and I was fully in shock!!! – then she would go back to the worried, overstressed mom. Her approach to makeup was, very occasionally she’d apply about one molecule of eye liner. That was it.
We had no social life. This put a lot of pressure on our relationship because we simply weren’t surrounded with other people. Saturday nights consisted of maybe a movie, or really nothing, and then she’d just go to sleep. She was, apparently, just too tired after playing with the kids. Besides, in contrast to me, she had a more European sensibility of just wanting to have a very few close friends, not, like me, a lot of so-so friends. She’s a pretty good cook, with a flair for fairly attractive presentations, so it’s not as though staying at home with her to dine together was intolerable by any means.
I tried not to be awful. Usually I was in fact pretty pleasant. Certainly, an “off” night once in a while is no great hardship and it happens to everyone. But then I noticed: this happened almost every night. Including every Friday and Saturday night. I was dying to go out and whoop it up, or at least go to an elegant soiree and meet some people, but instead here I was flipping through the late-night cable channels. I do have a bad temper once in a great while and I’d just get SOO frustrated with the deadness of it all, and really lose it. Even once in front of the kids. Not good. Sometimes we’d have sex late Sunday night just as kind of a “make-up” for a totally boring weekend.
* * *
Anyhow, I went to party, alone as it turned out because we couldn’t find a babysitter. I liked going solo very much; I just felt invigorated and healthy talking to people. I certainly did not go to pick up girls. However, I met a really interesting woman who was – and I believe still is – the wife of a very well known businessman. He's much older; he’s in his late 50s and she’s in her early 30s. Three children, ranging from 5 to 10 or so. Clearly she was just plain STARVING for affection. Needy is a gross understatement. She’s very attractive and just so, so, -so- well groomed. She just smelled great and was just immaculately clean; even her casual outfits just reeked of expense. She didn’t have a job, but is well known (very) in social circles. I got her phone number. A few days later, we met up for a snack, and she joked with me about “when we sleep together” … I chalked it up to nothing more than good-natured flirting and joking. We super-briefly kissed goodnight. Really modest. A 0.1 second peck on the lips is nothing to get all hot and bothered about.
Next time, I found myself getting out of a dinner meeting a bit early, and just for the heck of it, I gave her a call. “Would you like to have a drink?” “Sure!” And she made a remark about my timing being perfect because she wanted some nice caresses … I again took this to be a perfectly normal, flirty joke. As it turned out she was quite serious. Had a couple of cocktails. Kissed in the dark, elegant bar. Then KISSED. It was just so fantastic … her mouth was extremely pretty and just doing all the right things. Our hands wandered enough that we surely scandalized anyone in the bar who was watching. We then walked over to an empty park and there were crazy great sparks flying, starting out as heavy petting and ending with an incredible makeout session. No one saw and in retrospect the whole thing was just nuts.
Things just went to hell in a handbasket. The chemistry was perfect and we were having sex twice a week, whether in hotel rooms, our respective cars, etc. I was like, note to self: now THIS is a blowjob!!! Not the half-enthusiastic, slow, boring, anything-but-orgasmic bjs I get at home. This is the whole enchilada. Just electric. “We’re both married to other people? … oh, so what?!!...” Wow did I feel like a lucky sex god. And got a bit comfortable in that role …
… then, as so often happens when comfort overtakes wariness, I made a near-fatal misstep. I’d just returned home from a delicious afternoon with my new lover. I was met by a wild-eyed wife who was clearly out of sorts. Ohhhh boy. Apparently I had left the IM logged on one of our computers. There was a very steamy message from Her … essentially thanking me for the wonderful afternoon she had had. Well, my wife’s eyes were simply as big as saucers, and she was shaking like a leaf. After a couple of dry swallows, she stammered, “are you having an affair?”
Well, everything I’ve ever been told about marriage came in handy that second. Admit anything – that you lied or stole, etc. – but DO NOT admit that you have cheated. I had been to a psychiatrist a couple of weeks prior to whom I’d disclosed the affair, and his advice was the same: “DO NOT admit that you have cheated. There’s no benefit, and much potential detriment, to doing so.” So I said, “no, I’m sure that’s a mistake honey, I’m not having an affair. I think someone just sent a message to the wrong IM address, is all.” One of the few times in my life I’ve apparently lied fairly convincingly. My wife's not terribly in-the-know as far as internet stuff. (When you think about it, it would be VERY hard to IM a totally wrong person unless you were already talking to them, etc.)
Still, my wife did not quite believe me. She didn’t say so, but it was easy to tell. She was all over the internet, looking for information on this woman (my lover’s name was somewhat concealed in her IM handle, but not _too_ concealed and it didn’t take any great powers of reasoning to figure it out).
(Meanwhile, I have no idea what was going on with my lover’s husband. She was far more brazen about it in front of him. I imagined him to be the kind of old, loyal, respected, trusting guy that simply would not think such a thing humanly possible. His little trophy wife would flirt but surely it was totally innocent, right? I actually got a kick out of ‘doing’ his wife, as a f____-you gesture to a guy I’d never met. Totally puzzling … I’m not the least bit violent or ill-willed toward others.)
* * *
My wife and I even continued to have sex during this period – but in contrast to the wild, wanton makeout sessions I was having with my lover these were pretty straight ahead and plain vanilla. Oh, there was a lot of affection on her part … tons. But it wasn’t HOT – it wasn’t something I could lose myself in. There were even a couple of days where my wife would sleep with me a few hours after I’d seen my lover. It is fun to, well, get laid a lot. That’s a significant part of the day devoted to having sex. Cool. But it’s no fun to try to keep two parallel lives separate.
Meanwhile, my kids. God I love ‘em. You’d be hard-pressed to find two more cherubic souls. They are wonderful. They are absolutely guileless and innocent. And here was the most trusted person of all, i.e. their daddy, working a complete fib on them. Believe me, they _notice_ when their parents aren’t getting along. If we don’t hold hands in front of them, they wonder why. If we don’t talk on the phone for a long time, they wonder why. And I suppose for good reason: their instinct is to want to be part of a happy, stable family. In other words, if they had known what was really up, they would have gone directly into crisis mode.
I full well knew this. I felt like such a boor. Still, that didn’t stop me.
At this time, I _knew_ my wife was hot on the heels of finding out what was up. But I also knew she hadn’t yet figured it out, and certainly had nothing concrete to pin on me. So I did something very mean, to cover my own butt: I put spy software (e-Blaster) on her computer at home, so I could see what keystrokes she entered, what websites she visited, and what emails she sent. As I suspected, it showed that she was desperately trying to figure this out: every permutation of this woman’s name, thankfully except the correct one(!) was Googled. She'd consulted all kinds of sites about How To Tell If He Is Having An Affair. While she was actually pretty friendly around me in person, I knew she was doing her damnedest to figure out what I was up to.
With the spy software, I also caught her desperately trying to log into my email accounts. She actually succeeded once, but just by chance I had gutted it of everything. Meanwhile, of course, I changed all the passwords. Additionally, because the spying software showed me what _her_ passwords were, I would log onto her emails, both at work and at home, to make sure nothing was turning up that would get me in trouble. Basically, I thought there was a chance she’d put the pieces together and I wanted to know when she had, BEFORE I confronted her.
But, amazingly, she never did. Though she was closer than close to the right answer, she never got it. After a while, she simply seemed to shrug and say to herself, well, maybe there really _is_ nothing going on. Through sheer luck, over the next few weeks, when wife would call, I really _would_ be working late in the office, etc. and pick up right when she called.
The affair went on for another two months or so. It was everything I ever dreamed about: two people with nothing but friendliness and sex on their minds. It was downright pornographic, even more so because I couldn’t have cared less if I said or did something that seemed too dirty. I really didn’t care what my lover thought of me … I knew she was totally, fully committed. The filthiest utterances just turned her on that much more. Mirrors. Crazy sexy outfits, pretty much as suited my merest whim. Fellatio worthy of any porno website.
After a while, pretty much all of my wife’s suspicion had passed. My relationship with her was OK again. We had a pretty good love life, and things seemed pretty normal. Clearly, because she’s a decent person she couldn’t fathom why or how anyone would cheat, and you could see her just kind of trying to convince herself that she’d been wrong about me. And it worked.
* * *
Then one day I just woke up in disgust. This just ain’t right. It’s vile and awful and deceitful and I loathe myself for it. So I screwed up my courage. I called up my lover and broke up with her in an unnecessarily nasty manner: she was needy … she was always late … I didn’t like her South African accent. Etc. etc. Of course it was all BS … she was _perfect_ … but that was the end of that.
Phew.
But eggs are hard to unscramble. The first couple of weeks were fine. I would say to myself, “well, I didn’t get caught, and there’s no sense bringing all this up with my wife. We’re OK, and I’ll really try to be a good husband again. For her sake and that of the kids, I’ll just start being really fantastic to be around, again. Nice to know I’m not unappealing to the other sex. But just knowing it is fine; don’t need to act on it any more. I think it’s OK to ask the gods for a pass on this one, since no one ended up getting hurt.” I even traded in the car that we'd made out in a few times. Just to make as complete a switch as possible.
Then my wife began to really, really bore me again. After a couple of weeks, I started to have weak moments. I emailed my ex-lover a couple times. No response (I’m sure she’d blocked the address).
Sometimes when things get scarcer they become more alluring. When my lover was absolutely at my beck and call as a sex slave, I just totally took her for granted. 100.0%. Not at all in a mean way. But I did. Now that she was unavailable, it seemed to pull much more on my heartstrings. I missed her. Still, she hadn’t responded to two emails and I think one phone call attempt. So every time I would start to miss her, I would just say, “no, no, no, do NOT do it!!!” and _make_ myself not do anything.
Sigh.
* * *
Over the past several weeks, my marriage has finally seemed to drift off into nothingness. It has nothing to do with my affair on the surface of it. But I think it does. My wife went back to the boring outfits at home. The plain-vanilla sex. The 40%-enthusiastic oral sex – you can’t even call them blowjobs, they’re just not worthy. I would get home late, and she wouldn’t have staid up to greet me, or even left out anything to eat. I didn’t have much of anything to say to her. Not even hostility, just boredom. She would occasionally sleep in the guest bed.
This got worse and worse. This time I think we’ve finally stretched it too far. I haven’t kissed her in two months. I totally forgot about our anniversary a few weeks back … in fact I just remembered it today. She doesn’t sleep in the same bed as me. We live in the same house, but aside from interacting with our wonderful children we do absolutely nothing together. I often masturbate rather than have anything to do with her … in fact I sometimes masturbate if I’m at all horny just so that I don’t get sexually attracted to her. I know that sounds bizarre. There’s no hostility … just nothing. When she turns on the classical music station, I just about puke. I find that sometimes I literally bristle when she comes near. I just have no desire for her whatsoever – as though she was fat and ugly. Hardly … she’s very much in shape and extremely attractive for her age.
I don’t think the kids have caught on a bit, but this is really odd. It’s like we’re both waiting for the other to “blink”. I don’t want to move out, and I’m sure she doesn’t want to move out. Life is utterly on hold. Or is it? Is a normal, businesslike relationship that contains no ill will a bad thing?
I don’t know what to do. But I don’t say that out of desperation, only boredom. I don’t know, and I don’t -care-, what to do.
We have agreed to sit down to talk things out one night next week. It’s fine. But I find myself not even caring about that. I don’t have any particular desire to go out on dates. I just am filled with apathy about everything, except my job, where I find myself pouring in effort probably to make up for how screwy the rest of my life is.
* * *
Confusing as hell. Anyhow, I post this only to give anyone who has read this far a perspective into the how/why of affairs from the POV of a participant, and the stealthy but horrendous damage that they can wreak on a relationship even if they aren’t discovered.
Edited 9/14/2004 3:23 pm ET ET by tomjones10

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I think your story is just that -- a story. Somehow it's too well written with just enough hyperbole to be unbelieveable. I'm reminded of that movie with Kevin Spacey "American Beauty", it's like you're some kind of a narrator or something.
Jenn
Leticia
i feel he is ignorant and foolish.
i feel if he says his wife is so boorish, then why not get a divorce?
why hurt his wife by cheating on her? i dont get that.
people who cheat are pathetic spineless pieces of filth in my eyes.
there is NO excuse for cheating. NONE. period.
if you want to sleep around then dont get married or have a significant other.
i know not all guys are like this one, this one disgusts me to no end after i read this sorrid story.
does he even care about what his children will think later on when they find out about his infidelities? kids arent stupid, they figure things out quickly.
if he thinks he will never get caught he needs to have a reality check asap.
cheaters never prosper and once a cheater ALWAYS a cheater!!!
i hope his wife files for divorce and takes their kids with her, obviously she is the better role model for them.
that is just my take on this little story.
i feel no pity whatsoever for this man.
i feel he is ignorant and foolish.
i feel if he says his wife is so boorish, then why not get a divorce?
why hurt his wife by cheating on her? i dont get that.
I agree I feel no pity.
who_reallyknows
First of all, welcome to the Board Tom.
I think you OWE it to your wife and your kids to come clean. I don't care what any shrink says, I'm telling you this from the POV of your wife. I have a friend who recently went through the same exact thing, and they are now separated. Everything pointed to his infidelity, but she never proved it. It didn't matter, because whatever troubles they had before all of that happened, her lack of trust for him just made things worse. You are NOT the man she believes you to be, it's YOUR responsibility to in the least, respect her enough to ALLOW her her rights to decide what she feels IS right for HER. This is NOT just YOUR life here, this is HERS. You are in essence, STEALING and CHEATING from her, her right to decide what course she wants to take, and from knowing exactly what kind of man she is sleeping in bed with.
You took what you wanted, now be a REAL MAN, and try and muster up at least some respect for your wife, and tell all. She deserves that much. What she decides to do from then on is HER choice, it's no longer yours. The selfishness does NOT stop because YOU decided to end the affair, it continues on with the deceit.
Edited 9/14/2004 8:43 am ET ET by sexismyforte
I haven't had a chance to read the other replies. However, your post was enlightening and also sad. Your apathy IMO, is based on your guilt...in other words, you have "numbed out". Read your post as many times as you can...notice how often you have sabotaged your own life. Frankly I believe that the "shrink" is wrong in this case. I believe that you need to fully disclose your previous relationship including all of the deceptions (spyware, etc.) We all are attracted to others...it's human. It's when we indulge those attractions (when in a committed relationship to another) that we create chaos and self-loathing. Self-loathing destroy your relationships (including those with your wife, children and friends) and utterly destroy you. I don't know you, but my gut tells me that you have no idea who you are, what you want or where you want to go. Those are the questions that all of us must face. There is nothing wrong with attraction or touch or sexual excitement by themselves, however, when you step outside your boundries your house collapses around you.
I don't think you're a horrible person. I think you're flawed like all of us. I think you've made decisions that are hurtful (mostly to you yourself) and I think that you need to find a way to be of service to your wife and family if you wish to redeem yourself. In this case, I think the only way to begin to respect yourself is to open up.
Good luck and much love to you and your family.
Scott.
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