Tell me about your affair.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am working on a screenplay where the protagonist has an affair and is somehow found out. (That’s all I can reveal right now. :wink: ) I need to flesh this character out but since I’ve never had an affair I’m not sure about some of the emotions involved. I’m looking for several personal stories so I can see where some of the similarities are as well as the differences amongst people.

The things I’m specifically looking for are

  1. Your gender, the gender of your lover. (if you don’t feel comfortable answering this one, that’s fine)

  2. How it started. How did you keep it from your partner/spouse? Did your partner/spouse suspect? Describe that.

  3. Describe the positive and negative feelings.

  4. If you were found out. How?

  5. What happened after you were found out?

  6. Was it with Opal? :wink:

One thing I’d like to tell you about my character is that she’s likeable, not the type that you’d expect to step out, isn’t stepping out because of an abusive or miserable relationship. It more due to boredom, curiosity, and just the general rush of the whole thing.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

2

Wow, I realize it’s a sensitive subject but I thought I’d at least have one response by now.

Chao-Thread Killer.

3

Well, I can’t imagine there are a huge number of people who have had affairs who would want to give the details on a public message board where their spouses/friends/co-workers might recognize their user names.

I could pretend to have had an affair, if you’d like, but that wouldn’t be very helpful!

4

True. I figured someone, one or two maybe wouldn’t mind sharing. I guess I could change it to asking about those of you who’ve been cheated on.

Any takers?

5

This won’t help you much, but it’s kind of amusing.

Around 15 years ago, I found myself with a bumber crop of women, and took full advantage of that. I was dating/sleeping with two different women (not at the same time). I would see one on Saturdays and Tuesdays, the other on Sundays and Wednesdays. I would use two other nights of the week for dating yet other women.

And on the seventh day, He rested. He needed it!

Anyway, one Sunday night I was waiting for Girl B to show up at any minute. In fact, she was a little late, so I was expecting her to ring my doorbell at any time. That’s when my phone rang. Damn! It was Girl A! I certainly didn’t want to be on the phone with her when Girl B showed up, but I couldn’t tell her the truth about why I couldn’t chat. I came up with some lame excuse about how my biscuits were burning, or I had to let my imaginary cat out, or something. I made it clear that I couldn’t talk and it wasn’t because I was seeing someone else on the sly.

“OK”, she said. “I’ll let you go, then. I was just calling because I think I left one of my earrings in your bed.”

For the moment it was panic, not penis, that ensued. I searched that bed like no one’s business.

6

Everyone is eventually found out. Cell phone records on the bill.

7

Dude, are you going to leave us hanging? :slight_smile:

8

I dunno. Someone I know had the uncomfortable experience of being at a family member’s funeral when the deceased’s long-time mistress showed up. She explained to the family that she had been the man’s lover for nearly forty years and they had a grown child. If she hadn’t come to the funeral, no one would have ever known about it.

9

It was there.

10

I tend to hold the belief that the person being cheated on, particularly if it’s a woman, usually finds out or figures it out. I think sometimes they choose to ignore it.

11

I personally have never had an affair, but I know someone who has. I can answer as much as I know about their situation.

  1. The one having the affair was female. Her lover was male.

  2. She had what seemed to be a happy marriage, but felt neglected by her husband. She worked with the public, and one customer (male) who happened to come by every day would flirt with her and was very nice to her. He kept bugging her to have coffee with him on her lunch break, and that’s how it began. It started as innocent conversations over lunch, then got more serious.

Since they would meet at her work, her spouse never knew or suspected anything. There were some clues in her marriage that she wasn’t happy, but he ignored those.

  1. I don’t know enough details here. I know that for the first time in a long time she felt good about herself because someone showed interest in her and her feelings. She also felt guilty for cheating on her husband.

  2. She was never “found out” but she did tell a few people about the affair (including Mrs Geek, which is how I know about it). There were a lot of talks in which Mrs Geek and I advised her to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She couldn’t keep going the way she was going forever. She needed to figure out if she wanted to stay with her husband or not. If yes, then she had to end the affair and go to couseling or whatever to fix things up. If no, then she had to leave her husband and go with the new guy. With urging from us, she eventually did make a decision, and ended up leaving her husband.

  3. She told her husband one sunday morning right as they were getting ready for church. Not exactly the best timing, but at least it came out. Her husband was upset, but not angry. She moved out. Her husband kept trying to patch things up but was never able to. Eventually they both moved on with their lives.

Mrs Geek and I both have a good relationship with both the woman who had the affair and her former husband (and her new husband). It is difficult at times because family and friends had a tendency to take one side or the other. If you aren’t on the same side (or don’t take sides) then you are one of “them” in their eyes and therefore are wrong also. There are still some people who don’t speak to other people.

The woman’s mother treated the woman like she was the victim in this case, even though she was the one who cheated and she was the one who left.

The woman in question is a lot like the OP. She’s very likable, not the type of person you’d expect to do this sort of thing. To most people, she would have seemed to have had a happy marriage even though she felt neglected in it.

12

Well, I’ve never had an affair personally, but I can tell you what I know about an affair situation I am close to.

My best friend Grace was with a woman, Kim, for three years–the four of us (me, my husband, my best friend and her girlfriend) were very close and things were very comfortable and sweet. Into the third year of their commitment, they each popped the question to one another and became engaged.

The following year was all about wedding planning.

About six months into the engagement, Grace went away to Chicago for the weekend to visit some friends. While she was there, she had sex with another woman. She described it thusly: “I was sitting there, and this girl made me feel so amazing, and it was such a wonderful, beautiful experience that I wanted to share it with Kim. Then I realized, it would make Kim upset. Then I realized, I don’t really want to be with Kim any more.”

So she came home, sat down with Kim, and said, essentially, “I cheated on you.” Then she added, “I don’t want to be with you any more.” It was a quiet, peaceful break-up. Kim took it in stride. She was incredibly hurt, but she didn’t argue, fight, or complain.

I want to emphasize this all came completely out of the blue. Their relationship seemed normal–occasional fights, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to suggest the relationship was headed for trouble. In fact it appeared to be constantly strengthening. I truly believed my ever-wandering best friend was at last going to actually commit.

They were both wonderful to my husband and I about it-- Grace has been my best friend since high school and I’ve known her since fourth grade. On the other hand, I had really grown to love Kim. They could have easily forced us to choose sides, but they didn’t. To this day I am happy to say I maintain incredibly close friendships with the both of them–and they both were in my wedding and behaved themselves wonderfully (though we were about busting a gut when my best friend read a wedding poem entitled, "Fidelity.’’)

Grace talked to me about relationships during this break-up period. She was confused. Kim had a lot of health and psychological problems and in many ways Grace felt like she was obligated to take care of her. She vehemently insisted that she didn’t want to take care of her any more, she just didn’t want to feel responsible for another person, period. She said to me, “I thought relationships were supposed to be easy. We’re supposed to be in love forever and once it becomes work it’s not a real relationship.” The only response I could give was that real relationships are indeed a lot of work, and sometimes not fun work–but the crux is that you don’t give a shit about the work because the payoff of the relationship by far dwarfs the work. She seemed genuinely stunned by this revelation. She said, "I don’t want to do this work with Kim. The payoff is not great enough.’’

And she walked away, without a shred of guilt. She moved to Chicago and got a job and graduated college and is living with the woman she cheated with well over a year later. She’s very much in love with this other woman. Recently she did drive over and visit Kim for the first time in a while. Grace harbors no hard feelings but Kim, understandably, is a little bewildered by Grace’s lack of guilt and complete lack of tact about it (describing sex toys she uses with her new girlfriend, for instance)–though Kim doesn’t really hate her for it, because Grace has forever lacked tact regarding anything. She’s just oblivious. That’s just who she is.

So there’s one story of infidelity for you. I don’t agree with what my best friend did to someone I care very deeply about, and she knows that. But at the same time, I’m not going to ask her to make a commitment she’s not comfortable with, or live a life that’s not for her.

13

Well, here’s one. This was not me, it was a friend–and not even all that close a friend.

Her first marriage was disintegrating. She had a coworker (male) whose marriage was similarly disintegrating, and after some heavy-duty flirting over a period of months they ended up one afternoon in a hot-sheet motel. They were both cheating, and they were both AWOL from work, just to set things up.

She described this as all very, very exciting. She knew that she wasn’t in love with the guy but she said it felt just like being in love and she hadn’t been in love in a long time so it was great.

He felt the same. After the first round of orgasms they were snuggling and he said something to the effect that he never wanted to leave that room, and she agreed.

During the course of round two, he had a heart attack. For a few minutes there apparently it looked like he wasn’t going to leave that room, and in fact he was hospitalized.

My friend was very upset. Of course she called the paramedics and stayed on the scene until he was revived (or entubated, or whatever) and hauled away in the ambulance. Due to the nature of this his wife found out–and apparently their failing marriage was news to her. And my friend lost her job, which delayed getting out of her own situation by another few months (although eventually she did get out).

She said that all told it was not worth it.

14

Thanks for sharing. This definitely is helping me shape the personality of the character I’m working on.

15

Reminds me of a story I heard from my dad (of all people!).

My dad belongs to a stereotypical “old boys club” - quite literally, as it was a club based on their mutual attendance back in the '50s at an all-boys high school. Every year they would get together for a dinner, and during the year they would help each other out in various ways.

One day, a member of the ‘club’ (not my dad) got a phone call from the wife of another member. She was in tears. Would this guy call some discreet friends from the club and do her a little, but possibly illegal, service?

Turns out that her husband, a very wealthy, prominent and respected-in-the-community fellow, was having an affair with a much younger woman. The wife did not know - then. Apparently, during a particularly heated bout, the old fellow’s heart gave out - and he died in the act.

The woman, not knowing what to do, called the wife. I can’t imagine what that call was like. Apparently, the two of them decided that the best thing to do would be to avoid a scandal - the newpapers would have had a field day for sure. So the wife called up the ‘club’ members.

What they did was this: they went that very night to the hotel room, dressed the corpse of their buddy, carried him out to their car without anyone noticing, and hauled him home; then undressed him and put him in his own bed. Then left, and the wife called 911.

The obits next day were “pillar of community passes peacefully in his sleep”.

My dad heard of this the next year.

16

Though I would never want to test them in that way, that’s the kind of wife and friends every man needs.

17

This one isn’t so much an affair as The Wedding That Shouldn’t Have Happened.

Karen is American. One of those white americans who have no idea where their ancestors came from. Her idea of “long term” is two weeks; she goes pale at the thought of being paid monthly. She changed majors in college pretty much every term; she also changed jobs, always in McD type joints, but in time she made it to store manager.

Dave is nth-generation Chinese-American. While many of his ancestors have been in the US a lot longer than the ancestors of some of the racists he encounters, he’ll never be able to forget where they came from. His idea of long term starts at three generations. His parents and a fellowship paid for his college. He held tutoring jobs, always with the understanding that if his grades fell he’d drop the job. His intended major was CS, and CS it was: no major changes for this one.

After they’d been living together for two years, he popped the question.

What he meant was “will you be my lawfully wedded wife, have my children, clean the dust now and then and have an adult relationship with me? I’m kind of tired of not knowing whether I’m your lover, your roomie, your boyfriend or your what, and of the pinched look my mother gets, which I can see through the phone.”

What she heard was “do you want to have a wedding party?”

She said yes, she was always one for a party.

They got married in Vegas. They mentioned the date to their friends, including internet ones; the only person who made it was Lou, an internet friend that neither had met in person.

The blushing bride spent the whole afternoon (except for the few minutes it took to say the vows) flirting with Lou. Color me narrow-minded, but I can see why Dave was upset. Like I said, I also think the wedding shouldn’t have even taken place: they just weren’t in the same wavelength.

Three months later, Karen was living with Lou. One year after the wedding, she’d left Lou when she got tired of him being too flirty and irresponsible. It was kind of an interesting trainwreck to watch so long as you weren’t among the bloodied ones.

18

Another 3rd or 4th hand type story. Some details may be vague because I don’t know the answer, others may be vague because I’d rather the principals not be too easy to identify.

The Characters:

Pastor–hired to be associate pastor and work a lot with the youth of the congregation, forced by events irrelevant to this tale to be interim senior pastor while the congregation dealt with the departure of the senior pastor and the task of finding a new senior pastor.

Pastor’s wife–wife of the above pastor.

Martha–apparently good Christian woman, stepped up to help out with assorted tasks after Pastor became iterim senior pastor.

Fred–Martha’s husband, works weird hours. (fairly high amount of evening or weekend, and holiday hours)

Note: all characters were between 25 and 30 or so at the time of events, and had been married for several years, no one had any children at the time of the story.

The timeline (as I understand it).

Octoberish–Former Senior Pastor and congregation finally resign themselves to the reality that health issues make a change in their situation neccessary. (it had been inevitable for 6 months or more at that point. So Pastor had been taking on more responsibility from time to time as needed for a while.)

Martha offers to help Pastor out.

It is my impression that what happened next is that Martha and Pastor worked together on a lot of events, probably Martha got used as a friendly sounding board, etc. for a while. At some point, emotional intimacy became sexual intimacy.

Februrary–Former Senior Pastor has big going away party.

Two weeks later–Pastor calls an emergency meeting of the board, admits to the affair with Martha. Loses job more or less simultaneously. Strong implications of he quit before they could fire him.

The Fallout.

Pastor loses job. Pastor and wife remain together (to this day), but they’d been thinking of “starting a family”, and they put that off. Pastor and wife move a fair distance away. Issues with finding new job, rebuilding trust, etc.

Fred and Martha also move. Martha withdraws and refuses all support from any of her former friends, and the gets pouty because no one supported her. Martha has a baby–timing is such that the gossips wonder whether baby is Fred’s or Pastor’s. (If anyone knows, the information has not trickled down to me. ) Martha has had another baby since then.

My source for all this information was hurt badly. She was good friends, she thought, with all the characters. She now maintains a long distance friendship with Pastor’s wife, and somewhat Pastor (whom she was least close with to begin with) but is no longer friends with Fred or Martha. In addition, my source and her husband switched churches soon after a new pastor was found for the church–not wanting to appear like rats deserting a sinking ship. Many other members of the congregation departed at various points in this timeline. Source has found new church, likes a lot, but still misses the bonds she used to have with these couples, as people who had joined the church at about the same time, with similar educactions, and without children. (Source has children–now-- including one who was born before Octoberish on the timeline. Still, one makes friends differently when one has small children to consider).

This all happened about 3 years ago

19

Ok. This is a situation I can speak of with first-hand experience.

Back when in college I met a woman, older than me, with whom I shared a lot of shared interests and hobbies. We became good friends. I would have liked to have become more, but when I learned she was married I placed her mentally off limits as far as having a relationship with.

We were friends for some years. During that time I learned that she and her husband had never got along well. He was abusive and petty, they fought frequently, and she had cheated on him several times. This didn’t stop me from being friends with her; it was more of a background thing that I picked up during conversations. Still just remained friends; our shared interests and hanging out had no particular sexual or dating tone to them.

Five years later. Something changed in our relationship. Started spending more time together. Her husband had gotten into the habit of spending weekends away and taking long business trips, and I was spending more time hanging out at her place while he was gone. We had a weekly arrangement for her to tape Babylon 5 and us to watch it together. Then one night we had sex. It wasn’t entierly unexpected; something in the tone of our relationship had changed in the weeks beforehand, and she’s confessed that she’d started having erotic dreams about me.

I was of really mixed feelings about this. One one hand I liked her a lot, enjoyed the sex and wanted to have more with her. On the other hand I didn’t feel at all right about sleeping around with someone’s wife behind their back. Sleeping with another man’s wife didn’t bother me so much as the deception did. Soon after I asked her to tell him what had happened. He was predictably upset and angry. I wasn’t afraid of personal retribution; I knew the guy was a coward and would never actually initiate a confrontation. I was somewhat suprised to learn that he felt personally betrayed as he considered me a friend. I’d never considered him anything more than my good friend’s creepy asshole abusive husband.

We continued having an on-and-off affair for a year or so. Her husband was fully aware of it and reacted mostly by staying out of my way and taking lots of business trips and vacations alone. This continued until the realization dawned that our relationship was becoming less fuckbuddies and more lovers. She called it off at this point, not wanting to get into something more serious while still married. She decided to try one last time to put her marriage back together and patch things up with her husband.

It didn’t last. Within half a year it became obvious that the same basic problems that made them incompatable were still there, and she ended up back in my arms. At this point, though she was still married legally, everyone knew the marriage was over. Her family even started inviting me to family gatherings instead of her husband. Not long after that the divorce proceedings began.

I was quite aware at this point that, though it had probably been inevitable, my prescence was actively helping to break up their marriage. It didn’t bother me. In fact, I figured that I was doing both of them a favor. I think it’s telling that when the divorce was announced, not a single one of their friends exclaimed, “Not those two! They seemed so happy together.”

I helped her look for a condo, helped paint and fix up the one she found, and helped her move in. The original plan was for her to live there on her own, with us maybe continuing as lovers but no further commitment planned. But when the first night came, she was scared to sleep somewhere alone, and asked me to stay over. I told her that I’d stay for as long as she needed me.

I never left.

We’ve been happily married five years now.

Her ex-husband also remarried. From what I hear it’s abusive and unpleasant, with many of the same problems as the previous marriage.

That’s the story of my adulterous affair. I regret none of it and would do it all over again.

20

I couldn’t think of any but a comment above finally triggered a couple because they involve the same guy.

Before I knew him, he’d been married and came home unexpectedly one day. Caught his first wife in the sack with someone and the only details I know are that he promptly stumbled outside puking his guts up.

He, his next wife and I were all friends at school, all in the same department. He’s incredibly intelligent but his wife was, well, less intellectually curious. She was though very sweet and somewhat homely. I’ve no doubt that their union was in part driven by his sense of security with her. She came across as a real nice, loyal, little homekeeper. Don’t get offended, it’s just the way it was. She probably wasn’t likely to be chased and possibly betray him the way his first wife had. Unfortunately though, I don’t think he had any say in the house, I mean you walk in and it’s all “young bride, cutsey country knicknack crap”, nothing that even suggested anything about him, accomplished in many regards, and his preferences, likes, etc.

They were having a party once and I, single, was set up by him to attend with one of his coworkers, maybe one of the smartest women I’ve ever met. Come to find out later when the wife called to grill me about whether I knew beforehand that the two of them were having a torrid affair.

That’s the comment that triggered my memory, because it’s what the wife demanded afterwards. She was wronged but became so demanding that I absolve myself of anything to do with him afterwards, of my loyalty to her, that I finally just couldn’t continue our friendship either.
The only other one I know about, a stewardess friend told me an amazing story and I later met the husband, a pilot. He was flying a route and his co-pilot was telling him about how whenever he was in this town that there was a married gal that he was having a passionate affair with. Kept going into details and… yep… they come to figure out that it was the pilot’s wife. How’d you like to have been in that cockpit? A passenger on that plane? You all of a sudden discover the man next to you has been scr&*ing your wife and you’re at 30,000 feet with the fate of 200 people riding on your mental composure. This was Continental, about a dozen years ago.