My Wife Ashley Couldn’t Resist My Bully

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I recently formally separated from my husband of about seven years. I have never been with anyone else. After a medium level of sexual activity for the first few years of our relationship—once a week to twice a week—he put a halt to all sex. His excuses ranged from depression to my weight gain. Eventually, I discovered a lot of gay and trans porn on his computer, along with some ads for casual meet-ups with men. I’m currently looking for a new job in the tech world, and you can bet that I’m going to look up any potential new boss to see if they were on Ashley Madison — anyone who would lie to his or her spouse would lie to me. AL: I think there was a point when we both knew that we were going to be very important in each other's lives, and we just didn't know what that was going to look like.

The second year he was promoted at work and became far less available and engaged with me. We stumbled through with few highs and many lows. They'll take that week-long trip to Italy, though. They'll accept the new car and the jewellery, no problem. See their kids put through private school at their husband's expense? You bet. Then I met "Melbourne" — that was what I called him because that was where he'd relocated from, due to his wife's job. He was now working in the city I lived in and the attraction when we met up was instant.

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I started to realise just how ruthless it is online. The organic affairs I'd had, had been far more fulfilling. CW: I think I’m wearing your shirt right now. Being emotionally intimate can be very intense and exhausting, but ultimately it means that we feel totally alive and in sync, and that feels really f**king good.

I started to get quitebullish about what I wanted. I startedtogo for coffees with the men I thought might actuallygive me what I wanted. CW: To be clear—you're going to laugh—I did musical theater my whole life, so I definitely had exposure to gay culture, but specifically male gay culture. I did not know any out lesbians at all. And if you don't have exposure to something, then it really limits your world, and what you think is possible for you and what you think you're deserving of. Meeting you and getting to know other lesbians and people who identify as queer showed me that there are other ways to be in this world. I knew I was attracted to you, for sure. But I wouldn’t have labeled it that way at the time. I just had butterflies in my stomach. While she's away, Nikki will go to sex clubs with her lover, or they'll play with sex toys. She said the best part of their arrangement is that she doesn't fear sexual judgment or rejection, or worry her requests will make her husband feel hurt or unloved. For Nikki, a divorce would be more selfish than continuing the affairMy ex-husband is this 6’4'' white man, and you’re 5’0'' and I’m only 5’3'', and that doesn't make me feel as safe as we're walking down the street. Even in thinking about where to go on vacation, I remember you telling me horror stories about a place you went that was super homophobic. Also the thought of having kids—we can't just snap our fingers and get pregnant. That’s actually been what I’ve found most difficult to grapple with since the end of my hetero relationship. We were a vanilla family, which was fine with me. We had two beautiful boys, now 11 and 16, and had typical dinners out and vacations up and down the coast of California and to visit S’ family. AL: I was absolutely not down to be in an open relationship with you and your husband. It was tough for me. The number one rule of being a lesbian is to never fall in love with a straight girl. I was terrified to fall in love with you or be in relationship with you because I was like, Man, this girl could mess me up—professionally and personally.

This simple verse in Genesis reveals the power of a “Naked Marriage.” It’s a bond of complete transparency and trust with nakedness (physically, emotionally and spiritually) with nothing to hide from each other. It’s the kind of intimacy we all long for but it takes courage and vulnerability to achieve it. Secrecy is the enemy of intimacy. Every healthy relationship is built on a foundation of honesty and trust. AL: Yeah, we were doing some kind of courtship dance of not knowing exactly what the endpoint was, but we were, I think, both aware that we were building a very important relationship between the two of us. These men were missing cuddles, affection, compliments and... sex. They were so bereft of it thatthey wereenchanted by the merest hint of a willing woman and a warm bed. At this point, no change in her marriage or sex life would prompt Nikki to delete her Ashley Madison account, she said. To her, continuing to see her secret lover is less selfish than breaking up her family.

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It seemed many of the women using it were sophisticated and intelligent. Like me, they were looking for something that wasmissing from their marriage. I’m most worried for my two children. Kids can be cruel, and I don’t want anyone going up to them and saying, “Did you see what your mother did?” My older son found out about the affairs when he chanced upon an anonymous blog I kept on survivinginfidelity.com. He still speaks to his mother, but has a hard time dealing with what happened. Our younger son, thankfully, doesn’t know. It's just hard to say, 'Why don't you just be happy all of the time and get divorced?' Because you have family, and it's not that I don't love my husband," Nikki said. "I'm not in love with him, but I do love our family, and I love our kids and don't want to be selfish and disrupt that stability for them when what I'm doing right now is working for right now. And that's really all I know for sure." Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.

People are surprised to hear about men whose wives are on Ashley Madison. Typically, guys are considered the philanderers — actively going out pursuing affairs — while women get hit on and reactively decide whether to cheat. But that’s not always the case. But maybe there’s an upside to the breach. Ashley Madison deserves everything that’s coming its way. The CEO is such a sociopath. Just think about all the misery he helps inflict. The fact that there are already two suicides linked to the breach is just so regrettable.

For Nikki, a divorce would be more selfish than continuing the affair

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud, Mamamia’s podcast with what women are talking about this week. Post continues below. I tried to stay with her and work it out for three more months, but she ultimately revealed herself to be someone I didn’t want to be with. We separated in the summer of 2014. We are still going through our divorce. CW: I’d take it one step further and say that progress is process—just trying to figure this stuff out while being as gracious as possible to yourself. I had a lot of feelings of guilt, like, how could I have not known sooner? How could I not have been more vocally supportive of the gay community? I also grappled with, what you called, the loss of “straight privilege." She tried arguing that it would help our marriage, bring some spice into the relationship, and that being on Ashley Madison was a plus: Since everyone’s married, there’s no incentive to expose the other person. It was as though I was talking to a complete stranger, some bohemian. No one I knew would say something like that.