Infidelity Tales Range From Pain, Remorse to Self-Satisfaction

“Have you ever been unfaithful?” we asked. “Were you betrayed?”

Family Life readers took it from there. A quick sampling of the flood of responses:

“Sure, I’ve cheated on my wife. Every chance I get. . . . “

--Cyrus, Newport Beach

“After our first motel room stop--even hiring the room was a scene right out of “The Graduate”--I felt so guilty that I had a nightmare that I had killed someone and hidden the body. . . . “

--Jerry, Irvine

“She was a divorcee, nine years older than him. I suspected and confronted him but he denied and said, ‘Why would I want to have an affair with her? Besides, when would I have time?’ They were very, very clever!”

--Pauline, Santa Ana

“When I found out, I felt angry, betrayed, dead, a failure. . . . “

--Rosemarie, Orange

“Rebelliously, I had a one-night fling with a co-worker. I felt guilty, and decided my sex life with my husband could be salvaged. Little did I know, it couldn’t. . . . “

--”Judy,” Santa Ana

“When my husband came home . . . and informed me, minus his wedding ring, that he wasn’t sure about ‘us’ anymore, I told him he was free to go and ‘explore’ but in so doing, he would probably burn the bridge back to me. . . . “

--”Mollie,” El Toro

“I have forgiven my husband, because I can put myself in his shoes and realize that his needs weren’t met. . . . But I will never condone his solution to our problem. . . . “

--Kay, Santa Ana

“My advice to others? Think twice about it, or better, don’t let such ideas enter your mind! If you entertain such thoughts, look to find the reasons and correct them if you can. . . . “

--”Ann,” Santa Ana

“He lost. I’m not sure yet what my winnings are, but somehow feel God has something somewhere waiting for me in the future that will make up for all these miserable years. . . . “

--”Laura,” Orange

One reader began her letter with an observation that may help to explain why so many people wanted to share their stories. “There are many subjects too painful to discuss, and others so painful they must be discussed,” wrote Lynda, who lives in Orange. “Infidelity is the latter. Try as one might to keep it as a deep, dark, shameful secret, it has such impact on the lives it touches that it demands its hearing.”

For the next couple of weeks, we will be sorting through the letters and touching on various aspects of infidelity. But let’s begin the discussion with the stories of three people who chose to be unfaithful--all for very different reasons.

Nearly all our correspondents said infidelity, their own or their spouse’s, made a profound change in their lives--sometimes for the better, more often not. But for one man, that wasn’t the case at all. For Cyrus, infidelity wasn’t a turning point. It’s a way of life.

“I’ve been married 47 years, am 66 years old, in the peak of health and still very virile. Women of all ages are attracted to me, and why shouldn’t I partake of as many of their charms as I can? I make love to my wife four or five times a week and I have plenty left for a full-time mistress and various other encounters from time to time, usually on my many out-of-town trips which I still take as the main salesman for the company I own.

” . . . I know what women like--not always the same thing by all women--and I supply them with as much of what they like as they want. The only consistent thing women want--all women, from 19 to 65 years old--is constant praise and attention. They’re all on ego trips and by satisfying that one item, I’ve laid over 1,500 women over the years.”

Cyrus says his successful business has made his chosen life style possible. “Since I’m the boss, I can take off whenever I want, both during the day or up to a week or so at a time on a ‘business trip’ for trysts with my mistress or woman of the moment. My wife has never found out about those other women. She thinks I’ve been faithful all these years. (She) is of the old school: She doesn’t pry into my business life. . . . We’ve always gotten along well together and I’ve never given her cause to doubt me.”

Cyrus insists he’s been “careful--so careful I’m not about to include my phone number in this letter to you.” (Too bad. We wanted to call and ask how often he goes in for an AIDS test.)

No regrets for Cyrus, perhaps, but not so for “Ann,” whose letter begins with a familiar theme:

“The why in my case was rather complicated. The how it happened was so easy. Essentially, I was bored and looking for something else, maybe just a little new excitement and maybe to fill a lacking that I had inside. I didn’t think it would hurt anyone or change things. It ended up ruining me, my husband and my family, and his, too.

“Our marriage had been great; our family life was great; our sex life was great. Everything was great--except in myself. I was suddenly bored and wanted to prove myself in a career. . . . These emotions started to set in at about the 20-year point in my marriage.

“The ‘affair’ occurred with a guy at my office. The job setting just put us together. . . . I secretly fantasized about having an affair with him but didn’t believe it would happen. Fidelity between me and my husband was a basic, unquestioned thing.

“Then it happened. We were on an out-of-town business trip together for a few days. We had a three-day orgy that was fantastic. Nothing else seemed to matter at that point. I felt wonderfully alive. Then the guilt set in. . . . “

For nearly three years after that, “Ann” wavered between her husband and her lover. One afternoon, her grown daughter “caught me in the act at home while my husband was away on a business trip. She confronted me on it. Several months later, she caught us again. I was devastated and ended the relationship for a time.”

But by then, the marriage was over. Only during the property settlement discussions, when “Ann’s” husband insisted on giving her nearly everything, did the daughter “spill the beans. I was shocked to learn that my husband didn’t know. . . .

“We ended up splitting things down the middle. I lost my home; my children won’t talk to me, and I lost a loving, devoted husband. My lover’s wife soon divorced him, too, and took him to the cleaners in their settlement.”

“Ann” and her lover set up housekeeping together, got married and then split six months later. She is alone now, trying to put her life back together.

“I still find it hard to believe I did what I did. I did have it all, and I knew that I did. Yet, I blew it. The remorse is horrible.”

Jerry is alone now, too, after two “heavy-duty” affairs with the same woman and a divorce. “I get lonely, but I never regret the marriage, the first affair, the second affair, the divorce. I would do it all over again. Maybe a little different, but I’d do it. . . . “

That said, Jerry also wants something different in his next relationship. “There is nothing I want more than a marital commitment, a woman to whom I feel so committed that extramarital affairs on my part are relegated to memory. And, of course, I would anticipate that same feeling from my new mate.”

Jerry was already planning an affair in 1975 when he hired 21-year-old Peggy as his secretary. “I was very up front about it. Before our first encounter, I told her that I did not expect to leave my wife and if she had concerns or expectations, this was the ‘Y’ in the road for her to either go or no go.”

He was “crazy in love” with his wife then, after 12 years of marriage. But Jerry says he decided to find someone else because “she repeated that as soon as our son was 21, she was gone. I knew that my wonderful and attractive wife could find someone immediately--but what would happen to me?”

Six months after the affair began, Peggy broke it off and got married. Jerry didn’t see her for 10 years after that.

“But wait--it’s not over. My wife found out. A number of months after (Peggy’s) wedding, she shook me out of a sound sleep and asked me if I had ever slept with anyone else. There should be something in the Geneva Convention rules about this. . . . She took my long delay in answering as an affirmation that I had.”

Jerry’s wife reciprocated after that with an affair of her own. They separated for four years, then got back together in 1984. But a year later, Jerry went back East to look up Peggy, beginning a long-distance affair that lasted until last June. Soon after that, his marriage was over as well.

“I’ve traded being ‘not lonely’ but unhappy (with my wife) for being lonely but not unhappy,” Jerry says. “One of the reasons I’m not unhappy is because I found that to be a good trade.”

Readers:

Have you been unfaithful (or betrayed)?

The file is still open on the subject of infidelity--join the discussion and tell us your story.

A Step Removed

In fairy tales, stepmothers are wicked and ugly. In real life, stepparents don’t always get the intimacy and respect their “real” counterparts do. If you’re a stepparent or a stepchild, tell us how you feel about the barriers that keep you--or them--from blending into the family.

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