I’m not sure it’s possible to justify my liaisons with two women (one married, one divorced), but what I learned from having them warrants discussion—not between their husband and ex and me. However, it might be interesting to hear that side. No, I submit that it would be healthy if this discussion happened between partners annually, like the way we inspect the tire tread on the family car to avoid accidents.
While living in Franklin, Tennessee, almost two decades ago, while I was married, I saw two women for sex and companionship. The affairs lasted about three months each and were five years apart while I processed the grief of being a newly retired empty nester and in the process of renouncing religion. I didn’t purposely seek out affairs. They just happened. After being married for 27 years, I wanted reciprocal sex and a listening and empathic ear. My childhood wife was not a fan of sex or my hard questions and skepticism about religion.
Affairs are dicey because you can’t always control emotional attachments when body chemicals mix. Still, as two experienced women with long marriages, I guessed that the fact that they had husbands, children, and responsibilities would keep them from going overboard with their affections. But I was wrong. They did get overly attached, and so did I. We were dangerous (and very good) for each other.
Before we had sex, I asked: “Why are you doing this?” I wanted assurance that it wasn’t just me wanting it. What surprised me was that these wives weren’t looking to have more sex. They were looking to have any sex. One spouse was married to his job, and the other was a sex addict with a Madonna complex. Both were not prone to sex with their wives.
I know what it feels like not to have sex, and I know what it’s like to want more than my partner. It’s also a tall order to have sex with the same person for more years than our ancestors ever hoped to live. Then, to exacerbate this problem, at menopause, some women’s hormones suddenly drop, and their desire can wane.
At 48, I was terrified of getting older and losing my desire for sex. So my wife and I had an imbalance, an elephant-size problem, so burdensome and shameful we could not muster the strength to talk about it. And because of our religious community, divorce did not seem an option.
Maybe the reason some men aren’t having sex with their wives is because, as men age, they long for a different kind of challenge. I know I wanted sex—lots of it, and someone to listen to me, which is what led me down this path of illicit encounters.
If you read the work of Esther Perel, the author of the book State of Affairs, you’ll learn that, for many people, sex outside of marriage is their way of breaking free from being the responsible spouse they have to be at home. Married sex, for them, often feels obligatory, boring, and, for some, almost non-existent. An affair is an adventure.
Meanwhile, the two women I spent time with loved sex and loved listening. For them, adventure wasn’t the main reason for their adultery. When I fell for my first married woman, she sat down on a log in the woods and listened to me intently for several hours. It took months (because of religious guilt), but finally, yes, we had incredible sex. We also had terrific conversations—a lot of them in between torrid copulation. The kind you read about but think you will never have.
I asked her: “What if you said to your husband, ‘Look, I love you and the kids, but I need fun sex in my life. Can I have the occasional fling or a casual affair?’”
She sighed. “He would never consent to that,” she said. “He’s very religious, and he’s been busy building his career. If I asked him that kind of question, it would kill him.”
We didn’t want to hurt our spouses, so we lied to them instead. However, deep down, I wished they knew and consented to our relationship. But ultimately, we said, “It’s not necessarily a lie if we don’t confess the truth; it’s kinder to stay silent.”
Why are we so afraid of talking honestly about our sex life with the ones we’re married to? And that includes being able at least to raise the subject of sex with someone else. “Good luck with that!” we said. “We go into marriage assuming we’ll be monogamous,” I said, “but then we get restless. We don’t want to split up, but we need to feel more sexually alive. Why break up the family if we all could accept the occasional affair? Be more like the French.” We knew we were talking in circles and finally said, “How about we stop discussing it before this relationship stops being fun?”
I may be too pragmatic about emotional issues loaded with guilt, resentment, and fear. After all, it’s far easier to talk theoretically about marriage than to navigate it. But my attitude now is that if my spouse were to need something I couldn’t give them, I wouldn’t keep them from getting it elsewhere, as long as they did so in a way that wouldn’t endanger our health.
Sex is a basic need. Physical intimacy with other human beings is essential to our health and well-being. Especially for some of us. So why deny such a need to the one we care about most? If our primary relationship nourishes and stabilizes us but lacks sexual fulfillment, we shouldn’t have to destroy our marriage to get that intimacy somewhere else. Should we?
In late Autumn 2006, I had a full-on affair with the first woman for all of three months. We met and had great sex. More often, we talked on the phone. I never felt possessive, just curious and happy to be in her company. After our second time together, though, I could tell this was about more than sex for her; she was desperate for affection and approval. She said she wanted to be close to her husband but couldn’t because they were unable to get past their fundamental disconnect: lack of time and lack of sex, which led to a lack of closeness, which made sex even less likely and then turned into resentment and blame.
She was the first person I’d ever met who liked sex almost as much as I did. Most of us go through phases of wanting it and not wanting it. I doubt most men avoid having sex with their wives because they lack physical desire in general; they are simply more in love with something else, their job or pornography, the usual things.
What if the answer is polyamory, which can be rife with uncharted territory and challenges? What if the answer is honesty and dialogue, no matter how frightening? Lack of sex in marriage is common, and it shouldn’t lead to shame and silence. An affair doesn’t have to lead to the end of a marriage. What if an affair—or simply the urge to have one—can be the beginning of a necessary conversation about sex and intimacy? What if it could make the marriage better?
What I couldn’t do was have a difficult discussion with my wife that would force her to tackle the issues at the root of my affairs. I never felt like a cheater; I felt as if religious beliefs had taken away the ability to be honest.
My lovers and I tried to convince each other that we were being kind by keeping the affair secret. But ultimately, I was uncomfortable living a lie. And I was taught by religion that deception and lying are ultimately corrosive and not kind to either party.
But when I finally “confessed” my affairs, it turned out to be the wrong decision. Several years later, the first qualified psychotherapist I’d ever had (all the others were fucked up Christians with little or no training trying to compensate for the failures in their lives) told me that the moment I confessed to my childhood wife about my affair (Spring 2007), our marriage was over. Even though we slogged through five more years of shame, judgment, and guilt. The most horrific years of my life.
Growing up in an abusive home, my therapist gently told me, caused my wife to put me in the same compartmentalized box as her father. “All men are the same; you can’t trust them.” Despite my three decades of faithfulness, monogamy, providing for the family, and loving my children with integrity—and zero abuse, thanks to the functional home that I grew up in—thanks to my Mom and Dad.
No one ever asked what was going on with Randy after a lifetime of authenticity and a “normal” life. Two strikes and you’re out, buddy—no more do-overs. Six months of a husband’s philandering equals the same as a lifetime of abuse from a father. My children, most of my family, and virtually all my former friends have shamed and ostracized me to this day.
But I had discovered things I had never experienced: sensuality, curiosity, communion, and freedom. And once I’d tasted those essentials of my being, there was no going back. After five decades, I was on the road to wholeness, to being who I truly am.
People have asked if you had it to do all over again, would you have the affairs regardless of the consequences? Yes, I would. I cherish every moment of those affairs. They were the most extraordinary adventures of my life. Does that make me a selfish bastard? Perhaps.
And now, for the rest of the story. That second woman (who was divorced when we had our affair in 2011) became my wife. We’ve been together for thirteen years, and we’ve been married for twelve of them. She loves sex as much as I do—and that’s saying something. We champion each other’s desires and longings and give each other the freedom to experience life’s essentials fully. We talk for hours on end. Together, we’ve carved a farm out of the Appalachian wilderness, made great financial investments and decisions, explored the world together, and found a new home in Spain that suits us to a tee. She is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
So, my affairs turned out to be a road to freedom I probably would never have taken.
And for that, I am grateful. Two decades of pleasure and freedom, free from the religious chains of shame, guilt, and judgment. If the only choices were infidelity or being yet another member of the living dead—yes, I would take the same road every time.
*My thanks to Karin Jones and her thought-provoking NY Times article “What Sleeping With Married Men Taught Me About Infidelity” for the foundational thoughts of this post.
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Below is a gallery of art I created during (or as a result of) those five years of shame, guilt, and judgment. Click the photo to enlarge. Note: I have come to realize that with the rare exception, I am the female in my art.
(Self-Portrait)
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