Naughty Bombshell

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I needed to forgive my hubby for getting us into a bad place financially, then cheating on me. In the course of trying to work things out with him...I..umm..well lets just say I haven't been perfect.

I started out by escaping my everyday stresses playing online poker, which surprisingly is a place where guys flirt with you like crazy if you have a cute picture and spunky personality. It was not my intention to pick up a guy but I was in an angry phase in dealing with my husbands infidelity. The attention of other guys can be intoxicating, even more than normal when you feel your husband no longer cares. I clicked with a few friends and added them to my msn messenger. Over the course of a few months I skirted on inappropriate conversations with a few that escalated to having phone sex and cyber sex with one and exchanging naughty pics. I rationalized my behavior because I was trying to work on things with hubby and found sex with him to be tedious. The picture of him with another woman would always pop into my head and ruin the mood for me and hubby commented more than once that sex was less than spectacular. The flirting and attention from a few of these guys in a way revved me for hubby and made sex better. If a picture of him with another woman popped into my head, I would think about being with another guy and that kept me turned on.

Then at some point for some reason, probably because I was having fun, was doing a good job at rationalizing and I always seem to push the envelope, I decided to have a physical affair. I in no way wanted to leave my husband but I also thought to myself at several points that maybe having a no strings attached short term affair would help me get over my anger because we would be even. I found a website that is made for discrete dating for married people and signed up under a fake name and fake e-mail address. Through the site over a 3 month period I met several guys online and ended up meeting 4 of them in person and had sexual relations with them. Three of them were one time deals and one guy I met with on three separate occasions. I don't worry that they will ever find me and tell my husband, these men were married and they have something to loose. I also do not worry about their wives finding anything they may have saved, pictures I sent cannot identify me and like I said I did not use my real name or location, I also met them when I was out of town on business, so even the men do not know any real personal information about me.

Was it exciting sneaking around and having another man want me, touch me and pay attention to me? YES. It also made me realize how lonely it would be if I were single trying to date again, the emotional roller coaster you go through meeting someone new can be exciting, but it is also stressful at times. I know my husband and I can still say, he is the greatest lover I have ever known...still to this day. Emotionally we may be working through some things but I know where he stands so marriage in my opinion is not as emotionally taxing as dating.

I stopped messing around with other men when I confided in my best friend K. He was very disappointed with me and told me my rationalizations were stupid and selfish. He was right.

Cheating is just like shoplifting, you start out small, or there may in the beginning be an understandable reason for doing it. In time, you become addicted to the rush, you want more and more and you get sloppy and eventually get caught. I feel like I have been able to move on a little more with my husband since giving up that world, I do feel even with him, not because I was seeking revenge. I know it happened in a similar way for him, he was talking to an old friend who happened to be a girl and it got out of control, then later got bold and started a physical relationship with someone else. I now understand how enticing it was and how hard it is to stop lying and sneaking around, because I have experienced those feelings myself.

I deleted my fake account on the cheating website, but have not brought myself to delete the yahoo account and find myself loging in as invisible to see who is online. In fact I do it about once a week since I decided to quit fooling around two months ago. Like I said, its a hard habit to break, but I quit smoking cigarettes for my husband (11 years ago), and I quit smoking weed for my kids (9 years ago) so I'm sure I can kick this habit as well.

The worst part of all of this is at this point I do not think I would take back what I did. Yes it was important for me to stop, so I could move on in my relationship. I don't suggest wives who had husbands who cheat should go out and get even. I'm just saying, that for me, in some crazy way, the experience has helped me realize what I really want, and now I can start fighting to get it back.