"The Universe Got Me Back For That One": Women Who Knowingly Had Affairs With Married People Are Sharing How It Affected Their Lives, And It's A Side Of The Story You Don't Hear Often

Yahoo

3 days ago

The trope of the 'other woman' has existed for centuries. Often viewed as a lustful seducer who entices married, engaged, or otherwise taken people to stray from their partners, she is not typically asked to share her side of the story...
That's why when Redditor u/easypeasykitty asked, "Women who have KNOWINGLY pursued an engaged/married person, why did you do it?" Dozens of women who chose to engage in an affair took the time to share their side of the story. Without further ado, here are 17 of their most enlightening responses:
1."I did it when I was 25. I felt unfulfilled and bored. I think I was subconsciously looking for someone to sweep me off my feet. I had never had deep feelings for someone, but all of my close friends were settling down, and my realistic prospects felt boring. I thought I was waiting for someone special to come along..."
"So, I tagged along on a friend's business trip to London. Her business partner showed up with his friends, who were all married cheaters. We went out that first night, and by the night's end, I was trying to convince one of them to buy Hamilton tickets for the whole group. Then we started flirting, and within 10 minutes, I was in his room messing around. We messed around for a short while, and then I went back to my room. The next morning, I saw him at breakfast, but he was called back to the US, and I never saw him again.
I knew it was cringeworthy after it happened, but I didn't want to be too hard on myself. I thought, 'It was bad, but it already happened, don't do it again and move on.' A year later, I actually fell in love for the first time with that special someone, but after we were together for 13 months, I discovered he had been cheating on me the entire time. I was shocked. I cried every night for nearly two years. It happened over three years ago, and I still have hard nights. I'm not fully healed, and I don't trust anyone.
I beat myself up for that night in London. It's the biggest regret of my life. I paid for it dearly, and I am still disgusted with myself."
—u/Own-Alternative-1351
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2."I was 22, he was my 44-year-old boss. He was a great boss, and we spent 90% of our day together. I had a huge crush on him, but I never did anything about it until he made the first move after a drunken Christmas Party."
"I fell madly in love with him, but he was just having a mid-life crisis and resented his wife for waiting so long to try IVF. (I am fairly sure he wanted to get me pregnant.)
Our affair lasted about a year. I was heartbroken when it ended, but he was kind about it. He didn't promise me anything, and he'd told me he'd cheated before, so I thought that if it wasn't me, he would cheat with someone else, so what's the difference?
I think his wife knew, but chose to keep her head in the sand."
—u/biancajane94
3."He was a serial cheater. One day, his wife came to our workplace and accused me of being the 'other woman' in front of everyone. He had made an inappropriate comment or two in the past, but I never reciprocated. At that point, nothing had happened between us."
"Eventually, when we no longer worked together, I just said 'f*ck it.' If I was already guilty in everyone's eyes, I might as well do it for real and enjoy it."
—u/HonestMom_89
4."He told me he was separated, but he still lived with her for the kids. I believed him because he would call me while she was next to him, and tell me he loved me. He made me feel amazing, like I was his source of freshness, excitement, and the savior from a life that he signed up for out of social norms."
"He seemed so well trained from his 18-year relationship. I thought I wasn't going to give up on love because of a stereotype about married men, and it took bravery for me to go against my instinct.
That's when I noticed he was staring at women even younger than I was, and starting to ask me questions about online dating. Long story short, he cheated on me, and I found him with his 19-year-old secretary. He had told me that he was faithful during his previous relationship, so I called his ex-wife to confirm, and that's when my guilt started. She told me that when he would call me and tell me he loved me, she was next to him, crying, and begging him to stop. She ended up kicking him out; it was never his intention to leave her.
I broke up with him, he was fired from his job, and lost all his money in alimony."
—u/West-Topic-9587
5."He said he and his partner weren't happy, but he didn't want to break up yet because of their kids. I was young, dumb, and deeply infatuated. I thought I loved him, and I loved how he made me feel. I even helped him pick out the engagement ring he gave her (I didn't realize who it was for)."
"He sent me photos of rings and asked me to pick one. When I asked why, he said, 'Just curious,' so I picked out the one I liked best.
A week later, they posted on Facebook that they were engaged and she was wearing that ring. I was stunned, it was an ugly revelation that I wasn't special to him and he didn't mean a thing he said. Not long after, she dumped him for a woman (good for her), and he tried hitting me up when he came to town for a long time.
This was mortifying to relive. I'm equally ashamed and embarrassed of my former self."
—u/ellevael
6."She pursued me, and I reciprocated. I knew almost from the beginning that she was married, but extremely unfulfilled with her husband. I rationalized that I was horny and liked being pursued, and decided to go along with it. The sex was amazing, but she broke it off after the infatuation period to be faithful to her husband. A few months later, she divorced him and started dating a new guy."
"My feelings on it are complicated. I owed the husband nothing, but I still wronged him, notwithstanding how poorly he was treating his wife. She was a loving, lively, generous person who was wasted on both him and me.
But, I cannot emphasize this enough, the sex was incredible, which colors my perception of this situation."
—u/saro13
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7."I was interviewing for a job when I heard his voice in the background, and it struck something within me. I didn't even know what his face looked like, but I was instantly infatuated. When I started the job, he was flirty, and I'd catch him staring at me. I knew the attraction was mutual."
"When I learned he was engaged, I was devastated, as I was against cheating. So I tried to put him out of my mind, but my obsession reached a point where I decided I didn't care that he was going to be married, I needed him, morals and feminist values be damned.
About six months after he got married, we began an emotional affair. We hung out in secret and 'sexted' for about a year. Our attraction was electric. We never did anything physical, but we both wanted to and talked about it. He told me if I made a move, he wouldn't stop me, but I said I wouldn't make a move unless he was ready to start a physical affair. We were at a stalemate, and nothing more (physically) came of it.
Then COVID happened, and we quit working together. He slowly stopped speaking to me. I knew it was for the best, but I was borderline heartbroken. I have never felt that level of attraction for anyone else.
I look back on it and I don't regret it, because I learned and grew from the experience. But I feel ashamed and disappointed in myself. I wonder how his wife would react if she knew what he was doing when they hadn't even been married for a year. Honestly, I still have a soft spot for him and think of him fondly. If he ever left her, I would text him so fast.
I sincerely hope that I never feel that way again about a man in a relationship and that I never again engage in any type of affair because it goes against my values and beliefs."
—u/glamericanbeauty
8."Around 15 years ago, I reconnected with a childhood friend when he moved to my city. We hung out as friends, and he told me, while drunk, that he had always loved me and only ever been with other women because they reminded him of me. I totally fell for him, and he claimed he was so sad to have committed to his fiancée because he thought he would never see me again."
"He always hinted that I was the only woman for him, and that he never really loved her, but was simply stuck. I hung around for a couple of years before I realized he would never leave her.
Many years later, they are still together with kids, and I am happily married to someone else. We send each other simple 'Happy Birthday' messages each year, but never talk otherwise."
—u/Both_Progress_8410
9."I was 20, and he was older and 'sophisticated.' I was a romantic and thought he loved me — it all seemed terribly exciting and forbidden. When his wife found out, she told me I wasn't the first, and I wouldn't be the last. After she caught us, he ghosted me (as he should)."
"Now that I have been married for a long time with grown children, I realize what I did was so messed up, and I feel so bad for that part of my past. I didn't understand what marriage and family meant then."
—u/Character_Army386
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10."We had history together. I developed feelings for him, but he started seeing someone else. He and I shared moments that someone in a relationship shouldn't be sharing with anyone else, but we were in college, and I had never dated seriously, so I just tried to enjoy what time he gave me. We only dated for a few months before I ended things. I had a hard time with feeling guilty, and while I didn't want to hurt him, I also couldn't face him afterwards. I eventually left college."
"We reconnected later, when my life was spiraling. I wanted to apologize because I knew he had gotten married shortly after I left. I thought I wanted to just connect with someone who understood me because I felt so isolated, but I knew that what I was doing wasn't right. According to him, he and his wife were having problems, and not too long after, she wanted to separate.
He was afraid to leave her entirely, but claimed he wanted to be with me. Eventually, we moved in together, but when we started having problems, he began talking to his ex again. We eventually moved back to where I lived before, but my trust in him was long gone. It was a constant back and forth of me not trusting him and him talking to other women. I felt gross, but I had low self-esteem, and I thought he was the best I could get.
After he got another woman pregnant and they got engaged, we had a final farewell, and I finally met someone else I enjoyed being around. That was all it took to get me away."
—u/Familiar-Still
11."I was 21, he was around 28, and we had sizzling chemistry. I cut his hair at the time. My flirtation crossed the line, and I didn't understand how incredibly screwed up it was. We never did anything physical, but I absolutely would have."
"When I got married years later, I was wracked with guilt because I finally understood how awful it was.
My now-ex eventually cheated on me, so I got what was coming to me."
—u/BoneHugs-n-Pharmacy
12."I thought I was helping him break out of his shell and making him feel like he was worth something. I thought, 'I can fix him.' It didn't help that he showered me with compliments and showed that he wanted me, which was what I had wanted for over a decade. I was lonely, immature, and insecure, and I thought I had finally found a man who wanted me."
"It didn't last long because he started hurting me and then love bombing me the next day. I broke up with him, but he would still visit my workplace/apartment.
I decided to resign from work, leave my apartment, delete my social media accounts that were linked to him, and cut off communications with our mutual friends."
—u/Minimum_Document2022
13."I did this twice, and I feel horrible about it both times: The first time, he was 14 years older than me and cried me a river about how unhappy he was. He seemed so in love with me, and at that time, I thought that I owed no one my loyalty; he broke his vows, and it was his responsibility. We ended up getting married. While we were trying to have a baby, he carried on a year-long affair with someone else. I feel like the universe got me back for that one."
"The second time occurred when I was almost divorced from him, and I met a guy who was also almost divorced, or so I thought. He told me his wife was across the country and had been for months. I later discovered that she was pregnant, had only left a week before we started dating, and they were not almost divorced. The guy was a scumbag and told me he wanted to live a life with no responsibilities. Last I heard, he had three children with two women, one of whom was his wife.
I've since married a good man. I feel like those were very hard lessons that made me earn him."
—u/innessa5
14."We were both in bad marriages. I felt guilty because I liked his wife, but I knew she kept accusing him of cheating, and at that point, he wasn't. (Turns out she was.) My marriage was on the rocks due to my husband withholding affection. I would literally stand naked in front of him and beg for intimacy, only to be turned down."
"My affair partner and I ran into each other at a local bar one night, and that's when things happened. We hid the affair for about two months before ultimately breaking it off with our spouses, and we've been together since. We're in our 50s and have both had previous marriages; I'm his third, he's my fourth..
I still feel guilty about cheating because I do think of myself as a 'woman's woman,' but I can't change the past. I'm happier now than I've ever been, and he says he is too and shows me daily."
—u/DiddlesTheWino
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15."I was in my early 20s, a complete mess with low self-esteem, and freshly out of a long-term relationship with my high school sweetheart. The other party was a coworker in his mid-30s who worked with us for a short while. He was engaged to my boss's boss, but he worked in a different department. I had been told that he was unbelievably attractive, but I didn't understand until I saw him with my own eyes..."
"I engaged in the affair because I couldn't believe that a man that gorgeous would even pay attention to me; I was like putty in his hands. Having sex with the fiancée of my boss's boss made my ego explode, and I loved the idea of having a dirty little secret.
I was truly just a drunken mess at the time, with zero regard for myself or others or the consequences of my actions. I have since gotten things under control."
—u/timefortequila_
16."I was going through a tough time, and he was my escape from reality. I don't think either of us felt an attraction to each other; we were just two people looking for someone to understand them. And for that reason, the affair never became physical; it was all emotional."
"It lasted about two months before the guilt got to me, and I pulled myself out of the dark place. We split ways, and I believe he told his wife later that year, because when I tried to let her know, they had blocked me.
I've come to terms with the difference between who I thought I was and who I actually was during that time."
—u/yungteatre
17.And finally, "When I was 19, I dated a guy who initially told me he was divorced. (I later found out he was only separated.) His wife worked with us, which was weird. He was one of those people who had never been loyal. I wasn't the only one he was seeing, but he was honest about it. Our actual relationship didn't last long, but I continued having sex with him."
"The second time was when I met my now-husband. He had a girlfriend, and I was dating another guy, too. One night, my now-husband and I met and talked for a few hours. I went back to his place where we talked all night.
We decided to go out the following night, dumped our partners, and hooked up. We moved in together three days later. We've been happily together 23 years and have an 18-year-old. We're very happy and loyal to each other. I have no reason not to trust him."
—u/-NeonLux-
Did any of these stories surprise you? Have you ever knowingly engaged in an affair with someone? Tell us about in the comments or answer anonymously using the form below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
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