1. IT’S THE BEST SEX I’VE EVER HAD

“I’m a 30-year-old single male and I have been having an affair with a married woman, aged 32. She said the life went out of her marriage a long time ago but she hasn’t left her husband. I don’t love her but it’s the best sex I’ve ever had. Is it her, or the illicitness of the situation? I think I’m addicted to it. My friends are settling down but I’m happy with this—is there something wrong with my attitude to love and sex?”

2. I FEEL SO ALONE

“I’m the other man. The worst part about it is that I can’t tell anyone. No one knows what’s going on inside. I put on a strong act, though no one can tell the hell I’m going through….I feel so alone…alone as a single solitary star in an otherwise cloudless night, alone yet surrounded by so many people who might as well not be there. The only things that keep me warm are my memories of her and I acting as if we’re together, all the while knowing it wasn’t true.”

3. I KNOW SHE WILL NEVER BE MINE

“I love this woman and she says she loves me deeply, she tells me we are in love. I walk on clouds, she makes me feel great and I her—we speak all day every day via text—at night she calls me from her bedroom with hubby downstairs, we speak for hours—he doesn’t seem to give one fuck about her!!!…I LOVE this woman, she LOVES me (I don’t doubt that she does), but I know that I can NEVER have that happiness we have when we are together full time—I know that she goes to sleep every night next to him and not me. I know she will NEVER be mine—and it fucking kills me. It hurts me so bad.”

4. I WROTE A LETTER TO THE HUSBAND

“I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I wrote a letter to the husband. I felt betrayed and lied to. I still believed in her “love” and that she was stuck. I wanted it all out on the table. She had told me that he knew everything about our relationship after he found the letter. Well, what I received was the most painful, hateful letter from her that she does not love me, will never love me, can’t believe that she thought she did, does not have one ounce of respect or love for me, will never forgive me, don’t ever contact her again, I destroyed her family because she “fell into” a life of self-destruction and evil….Oh, and when I sent the letter — the husband called the police on me for stalking….Our relationship went from 100,000 I love you’s, wedding and family planning, to nothing. It’s been no contact for 19 days. I go from missing her to feeling deceived and wanting revenge.”

5. JEALOUSY IS A HORRIBLE CONDITION WHICH EATS AWAY AT MY HEART

“I’m 60 and as the ‘other man’ I have no right whatsoever to expect the woman I’ve loved since 2012 to break the powerful ties that bind her to family. She lives in a lovely home with her husband and believes he would not cope with a break-up, as they have been married for over 30 years. They have two grown-up children and she is racked with guilt….Jealousy is a horrible condition which eats away at my heart. From time to time the most elaborate plans can come unstuck at the last minute. Imagine my sadness after booking a hotel for a weekend break which didn’t materialize….There are no easy answers to surviving a relationship as the ‘other man’ but I believe it is better to have the friendship and companionship of the woman I love rather than not having her in my life at all.”

6. THIS IS KILLING ME

“I’m in love with her but she won’t leave her husband who she says she doesn’t love anymore. I am ready to leave my gf to be with her. I feel like she wants me and her husband; this is killing me; I just want to be with her more than anything. Why can’t she leave him when she says she is not happy with him and wants to be with me?…I find it hard to stay away from her but I think I need to remove her from my life.”

7. I’VE NEVER FELT THIS MUCH LOVE FOR ANYTHING BEFORE

“I met her at university, and was instantly attracted to her. We exchanged numbers and subsequently I found out she was married (from her). We’ve still been talking on and off ever since and we’ve connected on such a deep level, emotionally and spiritually. We’ve both fallen in love. However much I’d like to dismiss these feelings for her, I can’t. She’s smart, funny, loving, kind, friendly, generous, artistic and beautiful. I’ve never felt this much love for anything before and I am highly doubtful that I’ve deluded myself….We’ve both confessed our love for one another and I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, dreaming, as well as thinking of her. This isn’t some tryst involving two idiots that haven’t any regard for other people. This is really about two people accidentally falling in love after one has been married.”

8. THE PROBLEM IS THAT I AM NOW TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH HER

“I’ve been having an affair with a married woman for about 2 months, although I’ve known her for nearly 2 years. The problem is that I am now totally in love with her. I am sure that she feels the same way about me. She is my soul mate, and she says the same about me. We are so special together and I know in my heart that we are supposed to be with each other. She says she loves her husband but that she knew before she married him that he was not the one, she though marriage would fix this, but it didn’t….The problem is that she says she is in so much pain over the whole affair. She says she does not have enough strength to end our affair and keeps begging me to end it. I have told her that I love her too much and that I could never end it….My life is being blown apart. I love this woman more than I ever though possible to love someone and just do not know what to do.”

9. HER HUSBAND FOUND OUT ABOUT OUR AFFAIR

“I’m 28 years old and I work for a big construction company, within the company we have different jobs like I’m a carpenter, there is another guy who works for the company too but he’s a plumber. I happened to meet his wife at a friend’s party, she was there with a friend and I approached her and we talked for a while, then I looked her up on FB and added her and this is how we started communicating basically, eventually we went out a couple of times and we’ve been having sex for the last 8 months or so….Yesterday she called me to tell me that her husband found out about our affair and he knows who I am and said that I will pay for it. Now I’m 3 hours away visiting my sister but on Monday I’m going back to work and I really don’t want any problem nor drama.”

10. IT’S TURNED INTO AN EMOTIONAL AFFAIR

“It’s turned in to an emotional affair and even though I love her and her kids and would want to be there, I feel like her attachment to me is going to cause severe problems for the family. When I try to talk to her about it, she takes it like a girl in love would take a breakup, horribly, and its so hard to get a chance to talk to her in private when we can actually resolve issues. She’s not thinking clearly though usually when I’m around her she seems fine emotionally. I’m glad that we stopped the physical part because it was wrong, but now that we bonded, its still emotional and when I try to stop that, she’s so confused and can’t take going back and forth and I just am lost. I want to stay friends with her and her family to be happy, (I’m willing to hide my feelings for her) but am I destroying them more if I stay around?”

11. SHE HAS CHILDREN AND SHE CAN’T DESTROY HER FAMILY

“Her marriage is not working right he is barely there very absent so we met and we fell in love now we love each other more than ever but I love her so much that I need to be with her 100% but that can’t be because she has children and she can’t destroy her family. I love her kids and they love me but they see me as her friend nothing else they would feel betrayed. She cannot end that marriage at least she says not yet, I don’t know what to do cause I am younger and time is going by we have had this now for 2 years and I don’t know what to do because I need to move on in some away and I really love her with all my heart.”

12. NOW HER HUSBAND KNOWS AND THREATENS TO HURT ME

“I’ve been having an affair with a married women, and now her husband knows and threatens to hurt me….So the husband is “looking” for me, and calling, threatening to hurt me, now I would go out and confront him face to face, but the guy is way too pissed off, I don’t want to get myself arrested or lose my current great employment over this stupid act.”

13. WE’RE DOING EVERYTHING TO KEEP OUR STUFF HIDDEN

“I’ve been having an affair with a woman whom I like very much. I’m trying to keep our affair a secret, but we’re having a hard time….For the sake of our children we need to remain married for now. We’re doing everything to keep our stuff hidden.”

14. SHE SAID SHE DOESN’T REALLY CARE IF SHE GETS CAUGHT

“I’m a single guy, just started an affair with a married woman, a bit older than me, I’m 31, she’s 34, she been married 7 yrs, and is financially secure but unhappy it seems… I’ve never done anything like this before, but I have to say it is incredibly exciting, we haven’t had sex yet, but it’s going to happen pretty soon I think, I’m a little worried, I said to her, OK, I’m happy to go along with it, and have a bit of fun as long as no one gets hurt, so I said to her make sure u delete text mssg’s and stuff, and I said don’t get caught!!! She said she doesn’t really care if she gets caught—Hmmmm…. I really like her and stuff, but I’m not financially secure at the moment, and not really up for a full on relationship with a divorcee.”

15. I GOT IN WAY OVER MY HEAD

“I’ve been involved in a relationship with a married woman for a year and I’m started to think that I got in way over my head. At first it was exciting sneaking around behind her husband’s back. I have always viewed our relationship as just one long booty call. However she has told me she is in love with me and she is going to file for divorce from her husband. She told me she wants to be together forever and she intends on telling her husband everything. I realize I have done wrong and want to end the relationship.”

16. I’M REALLY STARTING TO WORRY

“Okay, so I’m a 23-year-old college student. I am a personal trainer at this gym. Anyway, I am personal training a 31-year-old woman. She is married to this doctor and has one kid. He husband is basically paying me to personal train his wife. Anyway, we have been having an affair for six months. We are careful and she only comes to my apartment when her husband is out of town. Lately I’ve been worrying. I saw her husband drive by my apartment three times on the same day. And whenever I see him at the gym, he stares at me a lot. I play it off like I don’t notice but I’m really starting to worry.”

17. WE GOT MARRIED AND STAYED TOGETHER FOR TEN YEARS

“I was an extra on a movie, and there was a bar scene and they sat me with this beautiful woman. We had to sit together for ten hours while they were shooting, talking the whole time. It sounds crazy but we fell in love. Eventually, we stopped paying attention to the fact that they were filming and started making out. Right at the end, when we were ensconced in this dark corner of this fake nightclub, her husband showed up. We were so involved that we didn’t see him. The movie was being shot in Hong Kong. We were both staying in the same hotel. After seeing us kissing, her husband went back to their room, took all their traveler’s checks, all their money, cleared out their bank account, got on a plane, and went home. And so I went from basically having a one-night stand to having a dependent in a ten-hour period. We got married and stayed together for ten years.”