“My husband was abusive.”
“From the day I married my husband, I knew it was a mistake,” says 50-year-old Elizabeth Smith.* “He was abusive, controlling and expected me to quit my job to make a home for him.” A little over a year into the marriage, she began having an affair with a man that she worked with. “I had no illusions that I was in love, but it was eye-opening to be with someone that made me feel good about myself, made me laugh and respected me for who I was—not who he wanted me to be,” she says. “The affair helped me find myself and proved to me that I could live a life independent of my husband. It also gave me the courage to ask for a divorce.
“We began to resent each other.”
When Vanessa Myers*, 28, married her husband six years ago, they both couldn’t wait to have children, but after their wedding day something changed for her. “I started to really love my job, and kids didn’t seem to fit into the picture,” she says. Her husband was hurt by her change of heart, and began to resent her. “We started fighting a lot, and I resented him for resenting me and we were just constantly hurting each other,” she says. “One night I caught him trying to slip off the condom and that was pretty much the end of our sex life.” Ultimately, the lack of intimacy caused Vanessa to cheat. “I met a guy online and we dated for about a year,” she says. “It ended when my husband caught me.” Vanessa and her husband agreed to seek therapy separately and together, and were able to save their marriage.
“I was bored and unhappy.”
At 35-years-old, Barbara Gisborne was living the American dream. She lived in Madison, Wisconsin, with her loving husband and two children—but she was miserable. “My husband was a good man, but I was bored inside and out,” she says. “In our community, I always felt like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.” That year, she was in Chicago on business and met Bob, an Australian man, on an elevator. “We had an instant connection. We exchanged numbers, kept in touch, and I decided to fly out to Australia to see him and get him out of my system,” she says. “Instead, I fell in love.” She left everything she knew—her hometown, her husband, her job and her country—to start her life over with Bob in Australia. “I became strong, independent, confident and much worldlier,” she says. “That was 25 years ago and now I can say that my affair was the turning point in my life’s journey. Today, Bob and I are married, own a winery in Australia, and have five children and 10 grandchildren between us.”
“My husband was a workaholic.”
For 10 years, 49-year-old Barbara Singer created a life independent of her husband because he was never around. “Gary was totally consumed and exhausted by his work—there was nothing left for me,” she says. “I was totally committed to my family and gave it my all, but knew in my heart that I certainly did not want this for rest of my life.” One night, she met up with Tom, an acquaintance, and ended up staying out all night with him. Within a few weeks of meeting him, she ended her marriage, and two years later, she and Tom were married. But within a month, he died of a heart attack. “Meeting Tom was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. He came into my life and woke me up, showing me…that life is precious and that at any given moment, it can all be taken away, so if I have a dream or a goal, I better get moving on it,” she says.
“He was unfaithful first.”
Larie Norvell had only been married about a year when she found out that her husband had cheated on her. “I was very angry, but I was also very hurt, because I felt like I wasn’t enough for him—like there was something I wasn’t doing for him as his wife, which is why he felt the need to go outside of our marriage,” says the 33-year-old. That jumble of mixed emotions was the impetus for her affair. “I cheated on him—mostly for revenge, but in retrospect it was also because I wanted validation. I wanted to know that I was still desirable to other men,” she says
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