Acts of Infidelity - Mel and Chris

This was, he assured me, the only possible source of infection. When I suggested that he had probably passed it on to his wife too he laughed hollowly, saying it had been over two months since he and Alison had made love. If his wife had an STD, she had acquired it herself.

Neil's visit to the Doctor confirmed his condition the next day, a day in which I neither heard nor saw anything of my husband though I called both his mobile and his sister's phone several times without reply.

It was late the following day when I learned that Chris intended to stay with his sister until it was time to go back to the Middle East again. What I told the kids if they asked was up to me but at the moment he could not contemplate living under the same roof.

His voice was cold and hard. I cried myself to sleep every night until five days later he flew back out for his next three-week posting.

While he was away, we communicated only by email and there weren't many of those. Chris was badly hurt, feeling betrayed in many ways, all of which I could understand. I felt completely alone; I couldn't talk about this to the kids, my parents or my friends and was now barely on speaking terms with Neil, whose marriage was falling apart too.

Why was that if my affair was still secret?

Neil must have exaggerated the paucity of his sex life at home because his wife had also become infected. In her case however, her first action after hearing the news from her Doctor was not to confront her husband as Chris had confronted me, but to go through his bank accounts and other financials in great detail.

She discovered the existence of his Sheffield love nest and its youthful occupant who it appears was not the first such girl to have benefitted from his generosity. She then took the details to a particularly vicious local divorce lawyer. The first Neil knew about this was when a letter arrived from the solicitors suing for divorce and insisting that he left the marital home immediately.

A year on, they have both moved away from our city to distant and separate parts of the country. He and I have not spoken since then

Many times during Chris' three week absence I pleaded with him to forgive me and for us to try and put our relationship back together. My repentance is genuine though I understand this might be hard for you and him to believe.

You really do only appreciate what you have when you lose it.

As this realisation came to dominate my life I had to turn to the same young female Doctor again for medication to help me cope. This entailed receiving another lecture on middle-aged drug dependency which I sat through with my eyes lowered in shame and my teeth gritted.

As the time approached for Chris to return to the UK, I began to detect a softening in his hitherto complete rejection of my pleas for forgiveness. Though he insisted he would not return home, he said he would go with me to see a Marriage Counsellor as long as I promised not to put him under pressure and to be completely honest about what had happened.

Grasping this straw with both hands, I made an appointment that afternoon and to cut a long story short, we had our first counselling session the day after he returned to the UK and his sister's house. I knew she had never liked me which made the situation even more difficult.

I could imagine what she was saying to Chris over dinner every night.

Seeing the man I loved with such a look of disgust on his face when he met me at the Counsellor's studio reduced me to tears immediately. I could see a flash of emotion and hoped he would hold and comfort me but he didn't.

Despite this, the session was good, held partly separate, partly together. I was extremely honest about what had happened and my sincere wish to mend the damage I had caused whatever it took. I cried throughout the entire ninety minutes. We went back to our separate houses.

Two sessions later we agreed to have lunch together somewhere private but on neutral territory to talk things through on our own. It was an awful experience; Chris was cold and formal throughout but at least had not yet talked to a divorce lawyer. We agreed not to tell the girls while we were trying to sort things out between us.

We agreed to have lunch a second time. It was less glacial than the first, so we arranged to have dinner the following week. It was better still though progress was slow.

It took five more counselling sessions and seven more meetings on neutral territory before Chris agreed to move back into our home, but not back into our bed. I was very nervous and excited when his car pulled into the driveway for the first time since he had found us out, but also very apprehensive.

He slept in the spare bedroom but at least we were under one roof again.

To outward appearances we seem to be the same couple we used to be but below the surface it's not true. I know we can never recover the trust we had before, but I hope and pray we can recover enough of it to bring back some of the love and life we had.

There is reason to hope; after a particularly horrible row, our sex life unexpectedly resumed, albeit in a violent, tear-and hate-filled way. I cannot bring myself to write the names Chris called me as he fucked me brutally on my knees, penetrating me crudely and angrily from behind, pulling my hair and slapping me hard on the buttocks until he came noisily.

Frightening though it was at the time, the incident seems to have been cathartic for both of us. Given what I have done, I consider the treatment to be entirely deserved and made no attempt to resist.

Afterwards he seemed to regret his loss of control and for the first time, we shared a bed all night. We have done so ever since then and, though we have now fucked many times since then, Chris has never been that sexually violent with me again.

I hope we are reaching the point where we might actually be able to put this behind us and move on with our lives.

The Counsellor -- to whom I will be forever grateful -- quickly identified that Chris' repeated absence as having been a major 'stress point' in our relationship long before I cheated. She took care not to blame the affair on this or reduce my own responsibility for my actions, but said that we did need to try and keep the sexual side of our relationship alive while we were apart.

Among other things, she suggested we tried Skype or phone sex, and also the use of toys (which I confessed I already had). She also suggested erotic stories, taking turns to choose one that turned us on then sending a link to the other. Each of could then read it in advance of our phone or Skype session and use it as a basis for intimate talk or telephone sex.

This proved to be a very powerful took both for immediate arousal and, through careful choice of story, for admitting or confessing desires or fantasies that we had but did not feel able to reveal.

The publishing of this, my own story is intended to be the ultimate example of this.

Although it is being written at my husband's insistence as a penance, it is also as a vehicle by which I can confess the last few secrets about my affair that Chris doesn't yet know and which I would find very hard to tell him face-to-face.

They might be a shock to my husband when he reads them. There is one confession in particular that I hope and pray he does not find revolting. I'm sure you can guess which.

***

Chris, I've done what you asked now. I hope it shows you just how far I am prepared to humiliate myself to win back your respect. I know I never lost your love; that's what makes me feel so ashamed.

There are no more secrets to come out. Perhaps the vivid and detailed description of my seduction and the enormous excitement and pleasure the affair brought at the time will help you understand how it happened even if they do not excuse it.

The affair was one of the most exciting periods of my life but it wasn't real. There was nothing behind it but my own inadequacies and a selfish desire for physical satisfaction.

Now it's over, I'm ashamed of the whole thing.

I have taken a risk in agreeing to have my real name and the real places used, but I trust you.

If telling the truth in this way can close off that part my life forever and allow us to start afresh, then however people think of me, it will have been a price worth paying.

Thank you to Jenny's readers for your patience. I hope this piece of self-indulgence has brought you some pleasure too.