I cheated on my husband tonight.
I didn’t plan it. I didn’t expect it. I don’t think I invited it. I didn’t go to this conference thinking I would cheat. I’ve never even thought about cheating on my marriage before. But it happened.
I cheated on my husband and I’m afraid what will happen now.
My name is Margaret Prescott; most people call me Marge. My husband, my siblings and a few childhood friends call me Meg. I’m 39 years old and I’ve been married to Donald for 16 wonderful years.
I guess you could say that Don and I have a typical modern marriage. We have a modest home in the suburbs and have two kids, two incomes, two cars and sometimes, two lives. Don works as an office manager for a manufacturing plant in the city. With his 45-minute commute each way and the long hours that his boss expects him to put in, Don is out of the house early and home late on far too many days. But, we all know that he puts in the hours for all of us. Don tries hard to make it up to us on weekends and on the occasional day when he can leave early. The kids love him dearly and he has been the love of my life since I first met him in college.
Me, I’m your average suburban mom. I work full time as a physical education teacher at a large high school and coach the girl’s soccer and field hockey teams. I drive a minivan and focus my life around my family.
Don and I have two children, 14-year-old Brad and Sarah who is twelve. My children are your typical active sports crazy kids. They have grown up in our local youth sports program shifting from soccer to basketball to baseball depending on the season. Brad goes to karate lessons twice a week while Sarah goes to a gymnastic school. Summers are filled with camp or swimming lessons at the pool. Running them around keeps me on my toes, but I don’t mind because it keeps them from getting bored and into trouble.
Brad is about to start his freshman year at the high school. He has developed a passion for soccer and is currently at soccer camp. He is working hard on his game and is planning on trying out for the high school team next year.
Last year, Sarah decided to really concentrate on gymnastics. She is getting pretty good and was accepted into an exclusive training camp this summer. I don’t know if she has the talent to compete nationally, but if she keeps it up, her coach thinks she has enough talent to compete at a collegiate level.
During the school year, my typical day is pretty hectic. For most of the year, after classes end, I have a team practice to run or a game to coach. In the off-season between soccer and field hockey, I’m expected to put in office hours and supervise the students using the school’s exercise equipment. After that, I’m off to take Brad and Sarah to their activities. Luckily, there haven’t been too many conflicts so far.
I know that Don regrets the events that he misses. He rarely gets the opportunity to see the kid’s play or compete during the week. He sees some of the games on tape and always wants a minute-by-minute replay when he gets home. Whenever there is an event on the weekend, he makes it a top priority to see it. I appreciate the effort Don is making to stay as active as possible in the kid’s lives. Unfortunately, this does cut down on the “us” time that Don and I would like to have. It’s almost getting to the point where we need to schedule time for the two of us to be together.
In short, my life is the typical harried life of the suburban soccer mom. My life is centered on my kids and my family. I get too little time to spend with my husband and no time at all for myself. It would drive me crazy if I wasn’t so happy.
If I had to describe myself, the word that would come to mind is average. I’ve never really thought of myself as having an exceptional body or as being pretty. I’m the one that has always been jealous of the other girls. Don thinks I’m pretty and I do have a nice set of legs and a firm ass and stomach. All the time I spend in the gym has kept me is shape. My breasts are not large, but they are firm with sensitive nipples.
In high school, I was a tomboy. My life was sports; I was a starter on the soccer and field hockey teams and rode the bench on the basketball team. I wasn’t a star, just a solid player that the coach could rely on. That got me an assistant captain’s job as a senior on the field hockey team. I think the coach wanted to thank me for the time I put in. It certainly wasn’t for my leadership skills.
Physically, I was a late bloomer. Until the end of my junior year I was skinny and shapeless. I didn’t start to develop any type of breasts or curves until well after most of my friends. Needless to say, the boys didn’t pay me much attention. They went directly for the girls with the biggest set of boobs. I wasn’t one of the popular girls, didn’t go on many dates and never had a steady boyfriend.
My behavior probably contributed to my lack of a social life. I’m quiet and a bit shy. I never really got the hang of flirting or the art of social conversation. All through high school, when I went to a dance or to a party, I tended to hang around the outskirts listening and contributing very little.
I’m sure you know the type. I was one of the wallflowers. I’m the girl you see at your high school reunion ten years later and don’t remember. I was one of the nameless majorities that populate most high school classes.
I had my circle of close friends that I hung out with and I was a nodding acquaintance with most of the school jocks. Because of my sports connections, I was rarely the butt of mean spirited practical jokes. I went to my share of dances and parties; I just never got close to many people.
By my senior year, my body had developed to the point that I started to get asked out. However, I rarely went out with the same boy more than once or twice. I refused to put out on a first or second date and I wasn’t interesting enough to the boys I dated for them to put the effort into getting to know me better.
Although I was not a virgin when I left high school, it was pretty close. I gave my virginity to Tom Stanley after the senior prom. Tom was the closest thing that I had to a boyfriend in high school. He was on the wrestling team and was probably as shy as I was. We got to know each other in class and found ourselves hanging out with the same people. We could go out together and just enjoy our time without a lot of talking. Neither of us saw the need to fill every moment with meaningless words.
Tom and I were good for each other. Towards the end of our senior year, we both started to come out of our shells and got to know each other fairly well. We learned to feel comfortable with each other and gave each other some very needed self-confidence. Tom and I never loved each other and never dated each other exclusively. Rather, we would hang out as part of a larger group, and get together occasionally for some laughs.
Today, I think Tom would be described as a friend with benefits. We did continue to have sex occasionally the summer after high school, but it was casual. When we said goodbye before leaving for college neither of us shed a tear as we were both looking forward to new experiences.
As a freshman in college, I got more involved in the dating scene, but didn’t hook up with anyone seriously. I did have sex with a few guys and did experiment with one of the girls on the field hockey team, but sexually, I remained a novice. I did not attract the attention of the campus wolves so the men that I slept with were as inexperienced as I was. I did learn to give an adequate blowjob and enjoyed getting oral as well, but my sexual experiences could best be described as two inexperienced people fumbling in the dark. Even my night with Tricia was a one-time experiment by two nervous girls for whom it was their first same sex experience.
These early experiences came to typify my views towards sex. While I enjoy sex, it has never been an obsession with me. I could never see what the fuss and bother were about. I did enjoy orgasms some of the times that I had sex, but never more than one. I never saw the fireworks or had the intense experience that some of my girlfriends described. Truth is, I didn’t miss it. All sex was to me was a pleasant form of exercise. I never understood the difference between sex and making love.
I met Don the summer after my freshman year. I had gotten a job as a counselor at a summer sports camp and had a two-week vacation before I had to report for the summer. I didn’t want to go home and hang around my parents’ house but I didn’t have much money. My roommate suggested that I take a trip with the college outing club.
I checked into the trips offered and found an intermediate canoe trip to Canada that I was able to afford. I didn’t have much experience canoeing or camping, but I knew I was in good shape so I thought I could bluff my way through it. I signed up and set out to spend ten days canoeing through the Canadian wilderness. Luckily for me, Don was assigned to be my canoe mate for the week as I was wrong about my ability to bluff my way through.
At first glance, Don is not that impressive. He is a little shorter than average and rather thin. He doesn’t look like he is athletic at all. But, as I soon found out, looks can be deceiving.
All of my life I have been active in sports. I started to play competitive sports at an early age and was still competing in soccer and field hockey at college. I thought I was in pretty damn good shape. That first day in the canoe, Don wore me out and he didn’t even break a sweat. What was more humiliating was that he did most of the work. I discovered that I had whole sets of muscles that I had not developed and those muscles were screaming at me that first night.
That night, as I blundered about trying to set up camp, I confessed to Don about my lack of experience. I apologized to him for having to put up with me. Luckily, Don took pity on me and agreed to help me out.
I later learned that I was very fortunate that I had been assigned to Don that trip. Don was one of the more experienced paddlers and was able to compensate for my inexperience as I learned on the water. He was patient with me and never got angry at my ignorance or mistakes. He just quietly corrected me and we went on. He was even able to shield most of my stupidity from the other people on the trip.
Don was also experienced in the fine art of massage. That very first night as we sat around the campfire Don sat behind me and started to work the kinks out of my upper arms and back. As an athlete, I have received numerous massages in the past, however that massage felt better than anything I have ever experienced. Not only did he sooth my aching muscles, he did it with a care that made me wish he would touch me in other ways.
Over the first few days of the trip, I became more and more intrigued with Don. In many ways, he reminded me of my friend Tom from high school. He was quiet and unassuming. We would often go an hour or more in the canoe with nothing being said except for necessary commands. We just sat there and took in the wilderness. We found ourselves pulling ahead of the other canoes or lagging slightly behind to enjoy the wilderness without the chatter coming from the other boats.
Don introduced me to his love of the wilderness by showing it to me. We couldn’t wait to round each bend in the river to see if a moose or bear would be uncovered. At night, we would sit near each other by the fire and just stare into the flames in silence.
By the third day of the trip, I was feeling very attracted to Don. That night, I returned the favor and gave him a massage trying my hardest to convey how much I wanted him. Later, I whispered in his ear that I had a beginner question for him. What was the proper etiquette for letting my canoe mate know that I wanted to share his sleeping bag? We slept together that night and for the rest of the trip.
To me, this was a new experience. I had never spent the full night with any of my prior partners. After the sex ended, one of us would get up, shower and leave. I never felt close enough to any of those partners to fall asleep in their arms.
With Don, however, falling asleep in his arms felt natural. To be truthful, the sex was nothing spectacular. Don was less experienced than I was and as the trip went on, we were exhausted at the end of each day. Many nights, all we did was cuddle, kiss and go to sleep.
It was the intimacy that I grew to love. Lying in the sleeping bag cuddled into Don felt so wonderful that I began to get a vague inkling of what my friends were talking about when they talked about the difference between making love and sex. Sex is merely the physical act, but making love encompasses a whole lot more. It’s all about the intimacy and feelings that surround the act.
With Don, for the first time in my life, I made love to my partner. I still didn’t see the fireworks, but the emotional connection was there. His happiness became my happiness and I treasured every moment we spent in each other’s arms.
By the end of the trip, I had fallen in love with Don.
That summer seemed to last forever. I could not wait to get back to school to see Don again. We wrote to each other and talked on the phone, but he had an internship in an office three hundred miles from the camp where I was working. Our schedules did not allow us to see each other. I was dying to see him, but was afraid that things would be different. I had never felt like this about anyone else before and I was afraid that my heart would be broken.
To my relief, Don confessed to me the first night we got together that he felt the same way. Don and I became a couple and spent as much time together as possible. By the beginning of our junior year, we were living together. We got married a year after we graduated.
Don is shorter than average, thin and has an unremarkable face. Don is usually serious, but his face lights up when he smiles. He is quiet and thoughtful and very protective of those he loves.
He is also a klutz when it comes to organized sports. When I first got to know him, he could barely throw a ball or kick a soccer ball. Don told me early on that he had never played organized sports as a boy. When I introduced Don to my friends from the sports department, they wanted to know why I was dating a geek.
What they discovered over time was his skill in other areas. Instead of baseball, Don and his father had explored the wilderness. Don had hiked the Appalachian Trail with his father before he turned fifteen and through-hiked the trail a second time by himself the year before he started college. Don was an expert white water canoeist and kayaker and an accomplished rock climber. He looks thin, but when he undresses you notice the strength in his arms and legs. Don is built like a greyhound, lean and strong.
Don still gets picked near the end for the company softball game, but he is at home in the outdoors. I trust Don with my life when it comes to planning or running an outdoor adventure.
Don has taught me his love of the wilderness. We have always treasured the opportunity to get away whenever we can. We fit day trips into our schedule as often as possible and try to get away for longer trips at least once a year. Brad and Sarah have had the best of both worlds, the love of competitive sports from me and the love of outdoor adventure from Don.
Lately, however, Don and I have not had many opportunities to get off by ourselves for a trip. The demands of his job and the time pressures of raising two active children just don’t leave a lot of time for the two of us to get away. Why does it seem that the first sacrifice in a busy life is the time you spend with your spouse?
Another sacrifice that Don and I have made is in the bedroom. Most married couples know the drill; children affect your sex life. When they are infants, you are too tired to give much thought to making love; you just want to get some sleep before the next feeding. Then as they get to the toddler stage, you have more time for sex, but you always have to keep an ear out for the pitter and patter of little feet. After Brad was born, Don and I fell into the pattern of “married sex”. We made love once or twice a week, but we rarely experimented or made efforts to spice up our sex. We knew that we had to grab our chances so often we minimized foreplay and went right to the main event. We fell into this habit and never fell out of it.
When we first started to go out, Don was inexperienced. He told me that he had only had sex with two women other than me. He and his girlfriend in high school had taken each other’s virginity as seniors and he had gone out with one other girl at college. Don was a willing and eager partner, but not very inventive. He would go down on me if asked and loved to get blowjobs, but neither of us put the same time and effort into our sex lives that we put into our jobs or our family. Sex was not the basis for our marriage and relationship.
One thing remained constant in our marriage: the intimacy and connection I felt with Don. No he has never given me fireworks, but he has remained a compassionate and considerate lover. The frequency of our sex may have diminished, but virtually every night, we took the time to cuddle and talk together before we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Whenever we spend time away from each other, it’s not the sex I miss; it’s the little daily gestures of love and compassion that Don gives to me without thought. It’s the feeling of comfort and joy that I feel being with the man I love.
My marriage to Don has not been perfect. We have had our share of fights and quarrels throughout the years and Don has hurt me pretty badly on two occasions. This happened the two times where I’m sure that he cheated on me in some fashion.
The first time was when I was seven months pregnant with Sarah. Don got invited to go to a bachelor’s party with some guys from his office. What I did not know was that the dancers that had been hired were willing to do more than dance if the price was right and the best man had paid for the full package. Don came back from the party with a very guilty look on his face and avoided answering my questions on what had happened.
I finally found out what happened through a chance conversation few weeks later with the girlfriend of one of the other guys to attend the party. She told me that her boyfriend had sex one of the dancers and that every guy at the party was offered his choice of sex or a blowjob. I never discovered what Don did at the party, but his behavior when he came home made me sure that something had happened.
I almost divorced Don over that incident. By the time I learned about the party, I was almost eight months gone and feeling like a beached whale. I was already highly emotional because of the pregnancy and his cheating on me while I was pregnant felt like the ultimate betrayal.
The only reason I did not kick him out on the spot was because I was afraid. I was frightened by the thought of going through the emotional trauma of a divorce while in the last month of my pregnancy. Terrified by the realities of trying to raise two children by myself and afraid of the emotional trauma that my toddler Brad would face if his Mommy divorced his Daddy. My desire to keep our family together kept me from kicking him out.
For the next month, I barely spoke to Don around the house and would not respond to any of his efforts to find out what was the matter. That was the one of the few times I rebuffed Don when he tried to cuddle with me. I couldn’t stand for him to touch me and would pull away from him and give him the silent treatment while crying silently. Don knew that I was angry with him, but to this day, I don’t know if he connected my anger to his behavior at the bachelor’s party. It’s a period in our lives that we try hard to forget. I don’t think he ever realized how close our marriage came to ending.