My Wife Ashley Couldn’t Resist My Bully

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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. Listen to Mamamia Out Loud, Mamamia’s podcast with what women are talking about this week. Post continues below. 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." 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.

We first met at a party when I was at business school. She came as someone’s guest. It wasn’t love at first sight, but I was interested right away. My wife was a cold fish in bed … so it was devastating to see her explicit fantasies laid out there. -Matthew on his wife’s online profile 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 affair It seemed many of the women using it were sophisticated and intelligent. Like me, they were looking for something that wasmissing from their marriage.

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She refused to tell me the names of the other men, but agreed to delete her account. I assumed that meant we were on the path to repairing our 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.

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. AL: I came out later in life. I didn't really realize until I was 21, which I'll chalk up to societal influences, but I was never in a relationship with a man. The things that I love about being in a relationship with a woman are that it's the kind of relationship I always want to be in. 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. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.My 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. AL: And the meaning of those words continue to evolve. It's good that we keep progressing and learning more and being more inclusive to all people. Progress is progress.

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. 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. I've spent the last five years on Ashley Madison chasing the rush of those first two 'real life' affairs, looking for that deep connection and all-encompassing intensity.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."