All Comments on 'Scenes from a Marriage'

Still great my second time around.

Bill S.

Subtle, yet devestating.

Not One Single LW Cliché. (OP just won the Internet!)

To: Intentionally anonymous. You want to shit talk? Step up and show us how it’s properly done. As to the tale. Well written and paced. Thank you for your time and talent. DMW

Very realistic tale. 5 stars for a very good effort. I look forward to more from you.

Fine writing. Sadly realistic. 5, again.

First time reading this story. Well thought out story deserving five stars. Of course the story would have been napalmed if it was a reconciliation.

There's no coming back to a narcisistic woman who believes she can have extramarital sexual relationship, but would not be able to handle her husband having one. Umm, news flash. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want your spouse to do. She played, and now she's riding the karma train as she learns that she gave up her husband to another woman. For what? Just for some cheap sex, only the price was much higher than she ever considered. Poor baby.

Wow!! Loved it!!

I don't know how many times I've read this story, but every time it reads true and powerful. More often than not, this is how it ends - quietly and with sadness. No explosion. No battered boyfriend. Just the end.

Realista, sin clichés, escritura acertiva

Te felicito autor! Gracias por la obra

Sad story, You almost feel sorry for the cheater at the end. 5 stars.

Every time I come to this story, I think about the scene where she hears him crying, and walks away. MAYBE, if she had gone to him, comforted him, there MIGHT have been a way back,

Superb in the telling.

I read another story that used a similar title. One of the commenters mentioned this one, and how realistic it seemed. I agree. I guess that getting divorced, is like going to a funeral. In a lot of cases, nobody wants it, but you still have to do it. The one thing that stood out in this story, is how both of them felt sincere sadness on what they lost, but were powerless to stop it. Just like, death.....5 stars.

A real tough situation. With infidelity, there are never any winners. Everybody loses.

Perfect story. Very poignant.

5 Stars as what did she expect him to do . I caught My ex cheating and I sent the guy a Thank You card for letting Me find a real women that loved Me for who I am . She never got her soulmate to marry her but he gave her 2 kids to raise . He never wanted kids and He was cheating on her all the time . She had the balls to ask Me to raise his kids . I said Hell No

Femdom agitprop’s handiwork.

Powerful

Loved it, the slow implosion of the marriage after infidelity so common. Getting over that level of disrespect and contempt is almost immpossible for a man. Having been cheated on, the mental pictures of her with her AP is a feeling i understand well. Glad the husband moved on and the wife suffered tge consequences of her infidelity

Read it yet again. One of Ohio’s best, and therefore one of LW’s best ever.

Hmm, peeing on the dining room table? Really? What a load of nonsense! Matt is an asshole who just wants to be angry and feel sorry for himself. He was uncooperative in counseling and ruined the romantic getaway to the Caribbean which was intended for them to reconnect as a couple. Why did he bother to have sex with her at all? He decided he hated his wife and honestly she is better off not suffering his presence any longer. There was absolutely nothing she could do to get him to accept her apology, achieve a reconciliation, and heaven forbid get his forgiveness. In the end it appears that the brief affair was an excuse for Matt to leave his wife and find a younger woman without children as his lover and leave all the adult responsibilities of raising children and maintaining a household to Lynn. He bailed because he wanted to from the start. What an asshole! This author will blind you with this kind of bullshit every time.

I always question why is the cheater crying? She's the one who trashed the marriage because she obviously wasn't happy so why did she cheat and then feel bad because of the cost? The cheater causes so much pain. I know cause I was the victim of a wife who cheated. Good story full of feeling and the consequence of cheating on a marriage.

@dgfergie, I don't pretend to know the author's motives during the writing process, but to answer your question about why the cheater cries - no one is perfect! Everyone makes mistakes and later pays a price. Sometimes it's not very high, but other times the cost is prohibitive. Perhaps in retrospect, the wife realizes her error and is hurt by the devastating consequences her actions wrought. She still has the 'right' to be hurt by what happens, regardless of whether she's at fault or not. She's still now a single mom and recognizes what she lost. Just my 2 cents worth...

BTW - not sure if these are the right words or not, but I'm sorry you were cheated on. I'm sure it was horrible.

This story is so loaded. Neither party ever uses the word “love” to describe their feelings toward the other or to describe their relationship and marriage. If they don’t love each other than there is no point staying married and divorce is a natural consequence. Lynn was slowly taking steps to exit the marriage by flirting and then sleeping with her coworker. She would have eventually moved into an emotional affair and they would have split anyway. She really liked having sex with another man and never apologized to Matt for doing it. She is upset that the breakup went down like this but this marriage was dying and Matt didn’t know it until it was too late. It really is no big deal since half of all marriages end in divorce. They split, they move on, time passes and their marriage becomes a regretful memory. But that’s the beauty of life, you learn from your mistakes, keep going and find fulfillment again with someone new. You have to turn the page. This really isn’t a remarkable tale.

An excellent story relating the story of two hurt peoples descent into more hurt and pain and the disintegration of their marriage.

His refusal to allow himself to be coerced or hoodwinked by a counselor is probably a truer reflection of real life than these pathetic stories where the man is coerced into counseling. Then suddenly and against all odds, when he finds out what SHE wants and what is wrong with HER, he just becomes instantly miraculously healed and their marriage returns to the loving state that it was prior to her doing what she wanted.

His peeing over the carefully prepared meal reminds me of a true story.

This husband was a well liked and respected man. He was a truck driver., having repeatedly turned down promotions. He didn't belong to any clubs or organizations, and yet as measure of how well liked he was there were over 600 people at his funeral.

One evening his wife and he were arguing at the table. He was so frustrated by her attitudes that he just stood up, lifted his plate about 2 or 3 feet above the table and let it drop. His plate shattered into 100 pieces and covered his wife's and 6 kids meal with broken china. No food that night for anyone.

Good sane rational kind nice people will still do bad things given the wrong provocation.

Hurt people will hurt other people.

Ignoring the urination stunt, this came off as pretty realistic. Lot of guys in a similar situation do not want to know why, will not confront, and have no basis for wanting not to try again. That is a perfectly valid choice. No BTB. No reconciliation. Just divorce. Besides the wife here didn't come off as someone particularly apologetic. She did not evade him when he asked and she is confused what to do, and while she didn't play from the cheaters handbook like most stories on this site, she didn't communicate anything, and wad more surprised than anything about what to do. Indecision and lack of apology and atonement means zero chance. And even with all that chances are low. 60% of husbands who are victims of adultery divorce after discovery within a couple years. Compared yo 40% of wives who are cheated on. Even more telling is confession vs discovery. If an affair is discovered without (prior) confession (across both genders) then a divorce within five years is high (> 60%). If the affair is confessed before revelation then the odds of divorce in five years is 20%. Nit saying doesn't maul or wound the marriage regardless, but confession is a big difference. And not after the fact claptrap. So a woman who doesn't confess and cheats on her husband for sex (as with Lynn in this story), has very low odds when convolving multiple factors. And yet the whole LW story section is replete with such scenarios. Best case for reconciliation is cheating husband who confesses. Worst is cheating wife with no confession. Then of course other factors, like kids or length of affair or why. In this case her husband decided he didn't even need to get to the why to end the marriage. He stuck it out for several months (probably for thr kids) but in the end knew it would forever be shattered. Lynn doesn't come off as a bad person per se or even a slut. She made terrible decisions a few times. Contrary to some other commenters below, it wasn't an emotional affair, but it was a major betrayal nonetheless. And this is what she reaped: an impending divorce, a split family with two young kids, her husband getting serious with another woman, and potential loneliness. She is about to realize how competitive the dating scene is in her mid 30s with two young kids. Sure she fan get sex and maybe scratch her itch but the odds of finding a great husband a second time sound are slim to none. Especially with her baggage.

Something was missing? What?

4 stars. On one hand, he ended up with a "prety" gf, and didn't fully lose access to the kids, and the cunt seems to regret it, or at least regret that he has someone better. On the other hand, he lost the family he wasted his life on, ended up with having kids once every 2 weeks thanks to in-justice "family" man hating court, and - while not outright stated in the story, obviously got fucked over in the divorce in favor of the cheating piece of shit. Actually, I changed my mind and now it's also 3 stars because the fucking asswipe therapist was clearly on her side too.

Great story

Covered the pain of infidelity and that trust is gone. And the forgetting is almost impossible

reality

Were I the MC, I would not have gone to therapy and sure as shit would not have had sex with her again.

Very realistic. Hits close. 5*

Standing on his chair to piss on the nice meal she prepared was unexpected and original. 👍

This was an outstanding, realistic story. It's currently rated at 4.56. I think it should be higher, if you consider the scoring system to be pertinent.

The scene where he pisses all over the meal is about the most original and most effective demonstration I have ever read on here of a husband showing a wife exactly what her actions have caused. It would have shot straight to her psyche, unfiltered and unvarnished.

The meal created out of love and hope, created to demonstrate to her husband her intentions, he could not have done anything more deliberate to decimate it and send the message that what she had thought to do was irrelevant and wasted. Brought to nothing by a putrid, despicable act. Just like the marriage.

No violence necessary. No physical harm caused. No scorched earth revenge.

I am sorry, but I am signalling my intent to plagiarize your idea... but not in words. If I am ever faced with similar circumstances, I will remember this and do the same.

The rest of the story cuts right to the core in every scene, and still, there is not one PI, not one offshore account, not one special government clearance, not one ninja skill. No-one gets tied to a chair and beaten. There is no Martian slut ray.

Everything is as you could expect to find in any one of a billion failed homes, and the story is all the more powerful for it.

Just a cutting-edge insight into the feelings and consequences of such a failure.

Kudos to you.

Some anony 6 months back:

"A scenestory is an obvious attempt by a writer to conceive a story around a particular image the author has imagined."

What a maroon. Every... single... literary... work is trying to do the same thing. Every written page in history finds it genesis in a single thought: even philosophy or the solving of a mathematical puzzle. Whoever you are, anony, at your core you are a pseudo intellectual apologist, without making your motivations obvious. What was the point of your comment at all?

Amateur authors have a creative idea, realise their idea on paper, and offer it here, free to be read. You make it sound like they are in a competition, or that they are vying for a doctorate, or that they are holding themselves up to be some kind of authority. You make it sound like you are some kind of authority.

Wake up. Even the fringe extreme BTB and cuck commentors make more sense than you. At least they are telegraphing their own sympathies.

On another note, another anony commentor posted the best one here: "OP just one the internet".

I loved it, and it hit all of the marks. The big thing I noticed is the lack of the usual excuses, and for that I thank you. Also Thank You for sharing it with us.

Practically perfect. Brief and to the point. She ripped out his heart and he could never trust her again. She had her affair despite having two young kids. They tried to get past it, probably fir the kids. Didn't work. He moved and found someone else. All they are to each other now is co-parents. Not sure I would be so non-confrontational, but to each their own.

Ohio is one of the best.

very well written. Paced perfectly. A realistic knife in the heart...and I write this as a man intensely aroused by the thought of my wife being unfaithful. For me, pain, that visceral blinding kick in the gut, of knowing...or better yet, seeing, your wife, the woman you love, wracked by orgasms as a guy, who probably cares for not at all, uses her body and most likely enjoys the thought of sending her well inseminated body back to me.

It is a twisted fantasy, one that made me ashamed when I first had them about my wife...not whilst having sex with her, or idly fantasizing about it, but in those awful lonely instants after you cum in her.

You do have some skill...not my usual thing at all...but did I put myself in Matt's place.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very sad reality check about consequences.

@CindysBob,

While I can't for the life of me understand such a fantasy, do yourself a favour.

KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

Never let your wife suspect. She will lose respect for you. Even if only a little... that change could devastate your relationship.

NEVER act on this fantasy.

It's one thing to have a fantasy... no-one gets hurt in a fantasy.

But in the face of reality, when the fire of lust has been doused... circumstances have been changed and can never be taken back.

A third party is now part of your most intimate, your most open, shared bond.

Many people indulge in fantasies, but then find the reality to be quite different. You may think you want this, to discover that it destroys your heart, but once you have opened the door it may be too late. It may take time to sneak up on you and change your marriage, but by definition, you have already, irrevocably, changed your marriage.

Do yourself a favour.

Change your fantasy: to one of growing old with your partner, to being able to look back and know you both lived to honour the other, without the added poison that your wife knows you were willing to give her away to another. To let an outsider into her most private thoughts, spaces and feelings even temporarily; where she now has a memory of sex that you can never live up to. Because you never will be able to. Even if it's bad sex, there will always be the element of doing something that she shouldn't have done, with someone new and unfamiliar, not the everyday man who is no longer a question to be answered. She would forever have something that you didn't give her.

... that is, if your marriage even survives. The overwhelming odds are that it wouldn't.

This was so realistic and visceral that it was uncomfortable to read. Wow.

Chicken and rice in piss.

Worth a Michelin star!

Just one of the best stories ever posted on Lit that successfully transmitted the utter destruction of a marriage that infidelity will cause. Lynn committed marital suicide when she cheated. Matt did exactly what he had to do once he became aware that he couldn’t get over it.

.

5 *****

...it's really cool; the "anonys" taking each other to task in the comments! 😀

Me thinks "Comments" is probably the best part of Lit!

Excellent. Good pacing. No plot holes. I really appreciated the lack of excuses on the wife's part. Thanks!

Hi Ohio. I found you through a reference by NTH. I’m glad I did. Excellent story. I wish you had let Lynn give her reasons for the affair. It would have been an interesting insight into her state of mind.

Outstandingly realistic !

O know this is a short sharp story and some of his actions are brilliant. Urinating all of the full dining table is a classic. I would love to see this story expanded to see how and wife stated the affair, how he found out and a bit more after they divorced. Did her company fins out she hand an affair with another employee?

Standing on the table and pissing on everything, really. If that's the kind of person Matt was it's no wonder the wife was unhappy in her marriage. Another or perhaps a different opinion then most me thinks.

A classic short story!

Pretty damn good. Four solid stars.

JPB

5* This is the best-written story on Literotica. There isn't a wasted word and it tells me everything I need to know. Beautifully observed.

I wonder - if she had gone into their room when she heard him crying, might it have made a difference ?

(I come back to this every now and again just to see how this sort of story can be done.)

Gorgeous story -- taut, incredible insight, and feels so very real.

The pissing on the dinner scene was -- disturbing. The equivalent of breaking dishes to express feelings. May have been necessary to give the story more impact, but -- seems like as talented writer as this could have had the husband just quietly ask her, "Would you like me to piss on this dinner now?"

How did I miss this?? 2009?? This is great. I had no problem with his reaction. She got what she desired. And what she deserved. & stars, it was too short. The Bear loved it. Finish it, please.

The BEAR

Why the hell does he even give her a chance?

If she loved him and wanted to stay married should have kept her legs closed any married person has to know that some lines should never be crossed

Brutal, tight, and REAL..

5 stars

excellent. A rightious MC gave the cheating slut what she wanted(actually he didnt) she wanted a dependable husband , father and she wanted a separate lover for romance? secret trysts? something to prove she was better than hubby? who knows? she ended up w/ nuffin but maybe some alimony, some child support and a lot of loneliness(which she richly deserved) 1 caviat, her lover shld suffer some consequences, a beatdown fo sho, if married, ruin his fambly too.. rk

Well at least he gave her a chance but in the end he just couldn't stomach it, not that I can fault him for that.

You know how in a lot of these stories when they're narrating the seduction and there's usually a part where it says something like, "she knew it was wrong but she couldn't think about that right now." Well the ending right here, all the consequences, losing that love of your life and living alone thinking about everything you've lost and how it will never be the same, THAT is what they should think about. Perhaps then it wouldn't be so easy to spread their legs for another pussyhound. Of course it only applies to the women that aren't looking to fuck around initially; the rest are fucked either way.

Nicely done Ohio. Original; Tight vignettes. I liked the timeline snapshots idea, passage of days extending to months as the real denouement came to be. Well written as always. 5*

Jim

Heavy.

Brilliantly written. Raw and very sad. Did I enjoy it no, how can anybody enjoy such a sad story 5*

Very very well constructed. Powerful. But I do hate any charcater who behave like mature adults. It is not natural!

Brutal, but she cheated and paid a heavy price. I don’t blame him for not wanting to hear her why. There is no excuse for cheating.

I personally don't believe in marital counseling except to address issues a couple cannot agree on after much discussion first. But marital infidelity isn't one of them. You can't discuss it except with some time passage and distance. The husband here was right not to want to hear excuses. You marry for someone to 'have your back' (aka 'trust'), to witness you had meaning to someone in a largely impersonal world (aka 'love'), and help carry the burdens of family life. When these are severely violated, as in infidelity, it SHOULD be a one-and-done. Couples seldom ever get back their couple intimacy once that happens. I saw this personally with a good friend and his inconstant wife after they tried to reconcile and he couldn't get past her blatant cheating which their friends saw. I also walked on my first wife despite her remorse and heartfelt protestations after her 4 month affair with a co-worker after some months of distant reflection. Forgiveness only comes with time and distance, and by that time your spouse is a stranger who you share some baggage with: children, poisoned memories, perhaps financial assets. So why try to reconcile unless there is an overwhelming reason? Ohio captures this dynamic soo well. This sad woman had it coming. He was responsible to his children, but also for his own happiness.

'In a low voice she said, "you know this is not what I want. I never wanted this."

Matt stopped moving for a moment; but he didn't turn around. He bit back a reply, and returned to the books. He didn't have to say it--they both knew what he would have said.'

- The loss of their intimacy and trust in a nutshell. He left it unexpressed because it was so obvious.

After I finished reading this story I felt so incomplete. So much was left out. It was like looking at

TV show where the ajudio kept kicking in and out so you miss some of the dialouge.

"This looks very nice," Matt said. Then, unhurriedly, he stood up and climbed up onto his chair, so that he towered over the table. As Lynn looked on in confusion, then in horror, he unzipped his pants, pulled out his cock, and slowly, carefully, pissed all over the table. He doused the chicken, the side dishes, the salad bowl, and the freshly-filled glasses of wine. His urine soaked their plates and drenched the tablecloth.

"Matt, what—!" Lynn cried out, almost involuntarily. Her eyes were wide with shock and dismay.

Matt zipped back up and climbed down off the chair. He looked intently at Lynn.

"I thought you might like to see what it feels like when someone pisses all over something you care about, something you've put a lot of time and love and effort into. I thought it might be a learning experience."

---------------

This expresses things far more than words can. Visual effects are always the best. This is witty but says so much more. Why do people say they are 'sorry I hurt you'????? Hurt me, really? No you destroyed me. Mentally you destroyed me. Get it into your hear head. Hurt is such an under statement, its pitiful.

The only thing I would have thought is that it would have taken him longer to find another lady, say two years.

Her? She is/was totally delusional.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Nicely done. Understated in the way it was told, but you feel the emotions of the MCs. Satisfying ending.

Great read.

One of the best, realistic short stories on here.

The scene that always strikes me is when she passes his room, hears him crying, and doesn't go in. There was probably no chance for the marriage, but whatever SMALL chance there was to save the marriage went up in a puff of smoke when she walked past.

A very good story. One thing that got me was he said he could never trust her again. My wife screwed some guy 40 years ago. We were able to patch things up and raised 02 kids. I have never trusted her since. At the time I also felt like by her actions she implicitly gave me permission to screw any woman I wished. Sadly, I quickly realized that was not for me. I don't enjoy that behavior. Some guys do but I do not.

Never understood wifes behaviour. Lots of opportunity to explain was avoided and the bad guy got off free.

GREAT story!!!

It really is that simple: Think with your cunt (or dick) and you've become one.

Cheaters have zero value as human beings.

sooo SAD soooo realistic sooo SAD

This story is perhaps Ohio's best work. So full of pathos. It's entirely plausible too, especially for a young family trying to establish it's own roots. So basically the assumed emotional 'package deal' of loving wife and children was severed by her serious dalliance. She blew it up and they didn't know how to put it back together, so he found someone else without the emotional baggage and basically created a new family unit. Hopefully, she would learn the appropriate lesson from her loss for her next relationship. How does that old adage go? "Don't sh*t where you eat."

Not enough stars for this story.

Fr

sbrooks is so right inher comment. That was the only time she could have saved her marriage. should havebrought the child in and held her husband

This short story so aptly described the feeling of a goal just out of reach and slowly drifting away.

The hosing of the dinner table could be taken as being hilarious or deeply disturbing. It drilled to the core of Matt’s devastation either way. He might have forgiven her. She seemed truly remorseful and there was much of value left in the relationship. Instead he chose to re-spin the wheel of (mis)fortune. In the end, the wounding of this marriage proved fatal; it just took a while to bleed out.

This was a top-shelf cautionary tale.

Moving story!