Why I have no feelings of guilt about my affairs

I’ve had several emails in the past week asking how I can possibly not feel guilty about my situation, and how I must be just using my husband, and if I can only make-love with him after I’ve been with one of my lovers.

Well, I’d just like to make it perfectly clear that I am deeply in love with J. I have always loved him since we met over 20 years ago, and I know I always will love him. Along with my two children he is the most important thing in my life. My experiences over the last four and a half years since I had that “first” extra-marital evening with S, would never have happened without J knowing about it. I feel really, really PROUD that we had such a strong and open and honest relationship that we were able to talk about things that were happening, and our true feelings about them, BEFORE anything actually happened.

If you’d asked me six or seven years ago if I could ever have sex with anyone else I would have said “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s disgusting. I would never go with anyone else”. And, you know what, when J first started mentioning that it was obvious that our friend S was attracted to me, I just giggled and joked about it. We’d been married for over eight years before we had children. We’d travelled together, had a good social life and shared lots of great times, including having a wonderful sex life. But having children changes both your lifestyle and your ability to devote as much time to each other as we’d had before. I’m not saying we immediately had less sex, but just that you slowly find yourselves having less time, and less privacy, together than we’d had before. It doesn’t mean you lose your love, or affection, or desire . . . it just means the quality of the time you share together becomes less.

We were still lucky enough to be able to occasionally arrange for either my parents, or J’s parents, to have the kids for a weekend, or a day or two at school-holiday times etc. We would have a weekend break away, or even just an evening meal out and then return home for an early, uninterrupted night in. It was during one of these weekends away when cuddling together in our hotel bed that J said “imagine these hands belonged to S” and I just exploded with passion. The way it turned me on during our love-making was completely obvious and afterwards we joked and then talked about it more. I told J I couldn’t understand how he could not be jealous about me having sex with another man and he would just say “What’s to be jealous about? It’s just sex, why shouldn’t you be able to enjoy sex with someone else? It’s not about falling in love with someone else!”

BUT . . . it still took OVER A YEAR of meeting for coffee, walks in the park, meals in downtown restaurants, BEFORE that first kiss, first caress and first consumation with S. I returned home very late that evening feeling horribly guilty and not sure of what I had just done, but J was just wonderful. We talked and talked and then made the most passionate love we’d made for ages . . . his excitement and enjoyment of what I’d just done was obvious and we both just got swept away with the thrill of it all. I remember waking in the morning feeling turned-on all over again, thinking of having made love to two different men in the same evening.

Later on of course I started feeling terribly guilty again. How could I even look at S’s wife, let alone engage in conversation with her in the school playground, or at the local shops? (Although we were not exactly close friends we would bump into each other quite often). But, over the course of the next few weeks, talking more and more with J I just realised he was right. It wasn’t as if I had any intentions of trying to change S’s life, or situation, I wasn’t threatening his marriage in any way at all. I was just sharing a physical emotion with him, not trying to take him away from his wife or family. He had told me often enough that they were just going through the motions, never had sex together, never even kissed anymore. Of course I know there are two sides to every story, but I had noticed on several occasions when we’d been at school meetings together etc. or things would come-up in conversation, that she was dismissive of him and didn’t seem to show any emotion or affection towards him. And he was, and still is, such a genuinely nice man. Both J and myself, had always got along with him really well for years before our affair started.

So our affair blossomed. I would still feel awkward and a little “guilty” at times, and it took me a long time before I would go into “their” bedroom, but as the months went by it became easier and more fulfilling. It seemed to make J and I even closer and we realised even more just how important and satisfying it was to make time for each other. For my part I feel it made me feel more confident about my personality and sexuality. I felt better about myself and even better about my husband and family. I suddenly found myself just loving them, and kissing them, and enjoying being around them even more than I had before. In the four and a half years since we first started “seeing” each other, S and I have met quite regularly . . . sometimes twice a month, sometimes once a month, sometimes a little less frequently. As both our children have gotten older it has become a little more difficult to always arrange mutually convenient times, but when we do meet it is almost always enjoyable and satisfying. We have made love in his home, in my home, occasionally we’ve booked a hotel, once two summers ago, we made love in the local park. J will always wait up for me if I’ve been out with S, and we always have a wonderfully loving session when I arrive home.

But as I said, it’s not just the sexual side of our relationship that has seemed to get better, it’s almost everything about our marriage. We both realise how lucky we are and how much still in love with each we are, and when I hear lots of my work colleagues, or friends, complaining about their husbands or partners , I feel even better.

Meeting M again (I used to work with him years ago) was just one of those spontaneous things and I would never have even agreed to go out with him for drinks if I’d thought for a moment that J would be upset. I went home and told J about meeting up with M at a work colleagues leaving party and that he’d been flirting and had asked me out for drinks. J just said “if you feel safe with him, just go for it, enjoy yourself”. And so I did. M is five years younger than us, and has a completely different personality and lifestyle. I found it flattering and exciting that he should be interested in me. And it just went from there . . . and again J has just been wonderful about it. He enjoys the fact that a younger man wants me and in fact helps me choose what outfit I should wear when I am meeting him, and suggests little things I should do and say. It has been every bit as thrilling as my meetings with S, completely different, but sensual and exciting and wonderfully fulfilling with J afterwards (though unlike my meetings with S, I don’t usually come home the same evening when I’ve been out with M). I find myself enjoying the little admiring glances I get from men as I travel on the tube and train and walk along the street. I enjoy feeling good in myself, and I feel good about the turn-on effect it has on J.

So more and more, I feel that I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about our situation. My love for my husband and family is stronger than it has ever been. I feel so happy and lucky to be in the situation I am . . . and I feel that I am also having a positive affect on two other peoples lives as well. And no, of course, I don’t only make love to my husband after I’ve been with one of my lovers. We make love more frequently now than we were five or six years ago . . . but it is more to do with just feeling so much closer to each other again, enjoying each others company and being open and honest with each other. Being able to say and do exactly as we feel.

Surely . . . isn’t that just such a wonderful thing?