First time cheater, why did it happen after I'd finally got married???!!

Bill, people go through their lives deceiving their loved ones right up to the grave.
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Of course it could happen that she can get away with having a life time affair without her partner finding out, however I still think this is very unlikely in this case as too many people are already in the know just to start with.

Second there are two partners that need to be kept in the dark not just one.

Third the relationship is base on being c0-workers and the odds of keeping that kind of relationship from the large pool of your fellow co-workers is near zero over time from my own knowledge of work places affairs.

Once it is known at her work place anyone that does not care for him or her can sink both of them.

For all the above reasons I still think her days of it being her choice alone to remain in the marriage is greatly number.

If you want unconditional love, get a dog. Human love means that those in love should have an expectation that their partner will take into account what is best for the partnership as well as what is best for the individual. It does not require that the partner (male or female) overlook behavior that damages the relationship. If Conflicted is engaged in behavior that damages her marriage and harms her children's well being, then to me the feminist position would be that she be held to the same standard that a man would be held to in the same situation. To say that feminism allows Conflicted unlimited personal freedom without personal responsibility seems like a significant distortion to me. In you above example, Conflicted is not Shakespeare's wife, she is Shakespeare, loving her husband while he sits at home while she parties, in effect, only loving herself.

Actually Mame, I just don't see the point of MY continuing to harp on the subject. I posted for insight when I was feeling very vulnerable & confused. I've read the good, the bad, the indifferent & I've taken what I needed to push on. Far be it for me, to tell any of you the debate is finished, as this is a universal issue & someone else in a similiar situation may stumble upon this post & gain some eye-opening truths as I have.
Update:
I have only briefly communicated with my friend, since our last rendevous 12 days ago. We've exchanged plesantries in passing the few times we've run into each other at work. One of us is always coming, the other going. We've texted briefly to say hi, how's your day going, what up with you today & leave it at that. We have not yet discussed when, or if we'll get together for the sixth time (in 3mons) to be initimate again. Neither of us presses that issue, because if it comes up, we'll make it happen. Meantime, his daily homelife with his wife & kids go on, & mine have also... Just as they did before we set sights on one another. And if our encounter 12 days ago is our last; So be it. We'll still be pleasant in passing & life will go on.
I'm not worried... Simply not worried about all the issues that were being discussed by this panel.
No one at work will EVER know. Just impossible. End of story. & if by some miracle co-workers did become aware. They have no inside knowledge of my husband or his wife, so who can tell?
Our relationship is discreet enough, limited to text, & sex. Few & far between. It's not happening everyday, or even every week. Maybe twice a month... If that.
Not the least bit worried that it will be outed by the 3 friends I confided in... Again. I would bet my life on them keeping it secret & I know I would live a long life behind it. Not even a chance. None. Nada. Zip.
Our kids are so far separated from this situation. That they should not even be mentioned in the text that panalist have discussed.
We take precautions in our dealings... So I'm not worried about any STD's, pregnancy, DNA test or any of the other drastic scenerios that some posters have went far left with.
We are two married people, that entered into this arrangement -- full well knowing what each of us expect. He has a handle on preventing his wife from discovering it & I have a handle on making sure my husband doesn't.
Sooooooo... All I can say is I'm human, I'm fully aware of all of the consequences & I chose to continue as long as it continues. When it's over it just is. I'm sure some of you will burn your keyboards up responding , because of my cavalier attitude, but ultimately as it was said: it's my life, my doing & I am the one that has to deal with it.
And this will be my last post on the situation.

Your post is conditioned upon your definition of love.

"Love is merely a madness. And I tell you deserves as well a whip and a dark cell as madmen do." (As You Like It.)

Joyce is supposed to have worked it all out when he thought his Nora had had a fling. He then gave it to Leopold who didn't like it but accepted it as a woman's right.

That it is not thought a woman's right is due to Christian conditioning. Hence the feminist view of Darwin as the Hammer of the Christians.

I'm not sure where you read Christian or Darwin into my response. I see marriage as a mutual committment and I see both players as having an equal stake in its success and equal responsibilities towards the other person. Maybe that is a Christian theme, but it's certainly not solely Christian. (Proscription against murder is also a Christian theme, but somehow every society seems to come up with it independently.) If there is an agreed open marriage, then great. That doesn't seem to be the case here. That doesn't mean I think she should be stoned. She asked for thoughts and mine are that the risk is substantial, she is fundamentally betraying her husband on a very basic, emotional level and it is not worth the benefit.

Best of luck to you. I hope you will continue to check in periodically and join in other discussions. We're always looking for new and interesting points of view.

No one at work will EVER know. Just impossible. End of story. & if by some miracle co-workers did become aware. They have no inside knowledge of my husband or his wife, so who can tell?
Our relationship is discreet enough, limited to text, & sex. Few & far between. It's not happening everyday, or even every week. Maybe twice a month... If that.
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LOL she seem to think that all others are emotionally blind or that she and he are not giving off all manners of indications to those that are not blind around her work place.

As far as only her girlfriends knowing now that assume a numbers of things that are unlikely let start with her partner in cheating did not also share with others as she had done, that her girlfriends are not for example in close relationships with their husbands and share almost everything with them including her cheating. My wife had told her daughters upfront that she does indeed do such sharing with me and I think that such sharing is more common then not between husbands and wives in good marriages.

Yes, my cheater friend you two are so bright that no one will ever know and yet you broken already the first rule of keeping a secret IE do not expose that secret to anyone that does not have a need to know.

Your text messagings and your postings here for that matter are leaving a trail on your phones and computers and if either of your partners does get suspected and know about electronic devices or have friends that know about such for the sum of 50 dollars or less they could even download a key logger and install same on your electronic devices in a minute or so.

And on and on it go.

You are clearly not as bright or as safe as you seem to feel you are.

ditto

I am going to be waiting for her to post here how it all fell apart and who could had guess that my husband found out by........................

Yes sir no one will ever know............

It turned out to be a very interesting discussion.
Thanks for starting it.

One interesting question I had been asking myself is if morally right to wish that, she is wrong and her poor betray husband will indeed find out about her cheating in the end.

Once more, I hate the idea that she might get away with this betray and on the other hand, there are children in harm way that would be harm if it did come out.

Oh well my wishes are not going to effect the odds one way or another and as I already posted the odds in my opinion is not with her long term and I am not going to feel guilty that I am happy over the great likelihood that this is going to end very badly for her.

But the kids are in harm's way only under the Christian mores operating. There may be other types of mores where they would also be in harm's way but there are others where they wouldn't be.

The lady's urges are up against a settled system of morality which has no scientific basis.

Hence any harm the kids are subject to is a result of the mores. The urges are a biological given.

But the kids are in harm's way only under the Christian mores operating. There may be other types of mores where they would also be in harm's way but there are others where they wouldn't be.
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Why did you bring up Christian mores name one major religion or mores system in this world that would support her cheating

Sorry other then maybe a few south sea islands where life is easy most men do not wish to end up using resources to take care of children that they did not father and that mean that cheating women are not a class you would wish to be a partner with.

Religion mores or any other system of mores are just backing up biology needs that are build into us by evolution for good reasons.

maybe her kids will get killed by a texting bus driver bill, that would save them from the shame

maybe her kids will get killed by a texting bus driver bill, that would save them from the shame
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LOL not in Miami-Dade thank to our strong leaders. Maybe they will even allow the one board member to vote from her jail cell.

Assuming her husband feels that her cheating is indicative of a failure of their marriage and leaves (a reasonable possibility world wide), under what mores would this benefit the children?

Her particular system of morality has a scientific basis though - lying and deception - alternatively labeled 'camouflage' and 'mimcry' in evolutionary biology. These are inbred and instinctive behaviors that allow an entity to survive- you know appearing to be one thing when you need to be and another thing when you want to get what you want.

I was also reading a really interesting article about prairie voles and how evolutionary biologists have discovered through studying these particular mammals that some males have a double copy of a specific allele that renders them monogamous! And they're expanding their theory to humans and anticipate being able to do genetic testing sometime in the future which will enable women to ascertain whether their chosen partner has this 'faithfulness' or 'monogamous' gene. They didn't talk about the female version of this though.


They don't seem to be very strong though in this case - I mean in the first post she says it's crazy good sex and then in her last post she says they just walk by each other on the way in or out and only indulge every two weeks or so....hmmm...
And the texting thing is bound to be their downfall.
Did you read about the case over here of the really handsome doctor who was married to another doctor with two kids, but had serial affairs (of which his wife was aware, by the way). Anyway - he finally emotionally fell for one of his affairs - another doctor - female - but she cut him off because she couldn't deal with the deception. So he turns to this secretary at the hospital - gets her pregnant - asks her to have an abortion - she says no. So he gives her this drug in her drink to induce an abortion - but she's onto him because he mistakenly sent a text to her that was meant for his former mistress - the doctor he still secretly loves - more than his wife and more than her....so she takes her drink to the police, turns him in, and they arrest him. He says she's just a woman scorned (because she's pissed off that he's still in love with his former mistress instead of her which she discovered through the missent text ) and believe it or not - his WIFE is his staunchest defense witness.

Anyway - long story short - the deceived and in the way mistress has the baby - a healthy son. The doctor loses his license to practice (EVER AGAIN!) and gets a SIX year prison sentence - and the wife and two kids are left waiting for this guy to get out of prison- while the woman the doctor REALLY loves retains her job and integrity- is still practising medicine and living her life somewhere away from all the intrigue and drama.

And it all came crashing down because of a little fling (at the hospital Christmas party no less) and a missent (I made that word up) text.

Hope it's okay to talk about this other case now - I figured since Conflicted has signed off, it would be alright to deal with other similar issues maybe.

If not - I apologize.

No problem in adding others cheating stories to the mixed that I can see.

Petty, dude.

The consequences won't just be on her, and that's the thing. I think the better point to make here is that getting away with something doesn't make it right, and that if she is fortunate enough to slide by in this case, good for her. If Conflicted meant what she said about loving her husband and wanting it to work out, then just getting away with this in my opinion would be a wasted opportunity for self reflection and reinvestment. Even if her husband and children never know what happened, I think she owes them something, but that's just my opinion. It's ultimately her conscious, and her decisions to live with.

Ideally in my mind, she would get away with this transgression, and come back into her marriage with a better understanding of what she gambles with when she chooses to put other things in front of her commitments.

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