A Cheater’s Tale.
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| Tue, 09-14-2004 - 12:30am |
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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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On some level your wife already knows about this. Words are a miniscule part of communication and your body language told her long ago what was going on; she wasn't searching your computer for proof that you had done something, she was searching it for justification to lie to herself because she already knew. As much as you tried to cover up what was going on, some part of you wanted to be discovered. You want redemption...you want to be the man that you thought that you were. Guess what? You are that man. Just need to allow him to step forward and the selfish you (yep we all have one of those) to step back. Your mouth can lie...in fact you can even lie about something so often that you will start to believe it, but the body knows better. What often happens is we develop chronic pain...roaming injuries that seem to move from one muscle, bone or joint to the next. If left untended, you can become sick and even die. It's what happens when we are not true to ourselves. I know this sounds melodramatic, but it also happens to be true. The lie has effected your wife too...she knows what has happened and has supressed it because it's too painful to face. She buried it and that is just another form of lying. Now your lie has become hers and the two of you will be locked into it. Your untruth has become hers and it can make her sick too.
I have posted in similar situations and told individuals to withhold the affair (usually one-nighters) from their partners, but something inside me tells me that you need to come clean on this.
WHen I mentioned that you didn't know who you were, I wasn't talking about success in your career or houses or cars...what I was talking about is that sometimes when we are successful in our careers (financially etc.) or we are famous etc. it's easy to be disctracted from what is important. I have spent time with plenty of dying people and none of them every wished for more cars, or money or a bigger house or even a few more BJ's. They always regretted not being there more for their families, or taking a moment to look at the sunset, or just play for five extra minute with their children or grandchildren. They regretted not telling their partners how much they loved them, or how much the smell of their skin reminded them of home. They wished that they'd forgiven more and loved a little more. Life is so short. In a blink small children are off to college and then on to the rest of their lives and you've missed it. Life is fragile...people can be gone in a heartbeat and if you've taken them for granted, forgotten to love them the way they deserved, you don't get a second chance.
I think it's time to remember what's important. You're bored becaused you've forgotten the miracle and magic of life. There is no amount of sex, or money or fame that can take the place of real love. Real love is about wanting the best for those you love. Real love asks for nothing in return. Giving real love has the power to change the receiver, but it equally changes the giver. Real love when given allows for your own needs to met without trying...you just have to place your partners needs above your own. Real love starts with you and it is based in truth and vulnerability.
Peace.
Scott.
Tom, I'm sorry about the reception that you received here.
I was also going to answer Para's question on "why people cheat" but got a bit scared of the potential firing line.
He knows what he did was wrong. He is actually giving married women everywhere a look into a cheater's mind. This is an opportunity to talk to a man about why, when and how he cheated. Even though no one wants to imagine it, men do cheat on their wives all the time - look at the percentages, it's like 60% of married men who cheat - and those are the ones who have admited it and done it - there are probably 10-15% more who have at least thought of it.
Instead of lashing out at him, I want to discuss it with him. Since he already knows it was a bad move, and stopped the affair, it seems like the people who are being judgemental are beating a dead horse.
Even though many people can say they wouldn't cheat or they wouldn't do this or that, until you are handed that situation, you never know how you would react. Even though I am only 23 I am openminded and realize I can't judge others on things that I have not experienced.
Really? Let's look at your first post:
>>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?”<<
>>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<<
She already HAS asked you point blank.
Leticia
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Just b/c Tom says that his affair was perfect doesn't mean your husband's affair or his mistress was perfect.
In the beginning of the affair of course the cheater thinks his mistress is perfect b/c almost everyone goes into a relationship with great feelings but as time goes by, the mistress shows faults just like everyone else. So, don't beat yourself up!
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