All Comments on 'February Sucks'

Anyone who really and truly loved their spouse & expected a future with that person as Linda supposedly did would not do what Linda did. Seeing the spouse's pain that you caused would be unbearable.

So, not plausible, sorry.

Начало и середина отличные! Честно. А вот конец... С чего он начал ее жалеть? Откуда это примирение? Особенно если она САМА сказала Марку что он лучше мужа в постели!! После такого вообще не может быть речи про примирение. Это значит что она ВСЕГДА будет сравнивать!

As with many stories here, the author takes it too

far. Much better to just drop the weird unrealistic

ending and leave the question of what happens to

the couple for the reader to ponder. Many folks here

get all bent out of shape if there is no firm conclusion,

even if that ending ruins a good first half of the story.

I’ve seen it too many times and unfortunately GA didn’t

know when to stop.

Perhaps he was attempting to calm his own discomfort

about the women’s unsettling conversation which he

overheard. He did say that he was troubled by them.

shr

A classic, but a classic I can't like because I detest stories about cheating in which the cuckold takes the cheater back. How can Jim take her back after such disrespect, betrayal, humiliation... I reallly can't understand it.

BYW, just for giggles....

In recent history, the ONLY times Feb. 29 was on a Friday was in 1980 and 2008.

Sorry, couldn't help myself. ))

The comment by JIm "That night showed me I wasn't the husband I want to be. The husband I need to be if we're going to make this work" caused me to mentally retch,

She pulls this monumental shit storm and HE wasn't the husband he wanted to be??

Are you Effing kidding me???

Obviously a well written story although I feel the bit with the hooker at the end was contrived and not realistic. It feels like the author wasn't fully believing the reconciliation himself and invented one more plot twist to seal the deal. I don't buy that the husband goes off with the hooker and blows off his wife in that situation. It doesn't fit his character in the story, especially not at this point. He may have done it earlier out of anger to give her a taste, but not when they are both reconnecting with each other. As far as the main plot point the wife was astonishingly cruel and her actions are so incongruent with her protestations of love and devotion through the rest of the story. I guess we're to accept that sexual desire can cause temporary madness in all of us, but this was an extreme. It was not giving into temptation with a colleague on a work trip, this was coldly walking off with another man without so much as a word or glance, in front of all their friends who are watching in real time. And then gas lighting the husband into thinking it is his problem to get over it, and using their kids to guilt him. And then having the gall to tell him that she won't approve him taking a lover because she couldn't handle that. I mean WOW! Somehow this delusional woman then takes forever to begin to understand how and why this has hurt her husband so deeply. A simple thought experiment should have done the trick - imagining if he had done this to her. It shouldn't have taken the hooker stunt at the end to make this clear if she had any empathy at all.

While I detest stories like this one, I love reading the comments because I can see that there are lots of readers who find this reconciliation unacceptable, and I find that highly satisfying.

This is a stupid story, just completely unbelievable characters. 2 stars. And a pox on the woman who wrote it. Don't believe for minute this was written by a man.

When I try to rate the story I don't rate it based on the ending, whether I liked the ending or not. 5 Stars for a well written story.

Lovely story, hope you do well in the competition.

TGH.

Some commenter wonders why this story hasn't a higher rating and I wonder why it has such a high rating (3.94* the moment I'm writing this). If it depended on me 1* would be a too high rating. I think that a story that pisses off, annoys, bothers, irritates, offends so much doesn't deserve the rating it has.

The story is utterly mediocre. Way overscored. Fluent prose doesn't compensate for absurd character development, ridiculous plot devices, and an appallingly unbelievable ending.

this auther i guess belives in swapping or anything alse a women want they get and to hell with the huband i dont get it linda should have been ddivorced fast ever story on here is the same

Ever since reading this story I’ve been trying to figure out why it disturbs me so much. I’ve spent the past couple of months mulling it over in my mind. It’s well written. George does a great job of making his readers identify with the characters. So it isn’t poor grammar or a stupid story. Today, while returning from the pool and settling my dog down, something she did while entering the house caused me to remember the traumas this story had triggered, It had hit much too close to home.

As a child in the sixth grade, Billy, my best friend at the time, lost his father to suicide. Why? Because his wife did almost exactly what Linda did - humiliated her husband of almost 20 years by leaving him during his birthday celebration. While she didn’t leave with a celebrity, she WAS a local tv celebrity, she sneaked out of the party with his best friend for an all night fuck. Women’s Lib was in full swing and she felt entitled to his best friend’s dick. All of their friends knew she was going to do it yet not one of them stepped up and alerted him. She destroyed him. The next day, when Billy and I went to Billy’s house to play, Billy went into his garage to get his bike and found his father hanging from the ceiling. Billy came outside and said, “I can’t play today. My father’s dead.” Then he broke down and cried. I never saw him or his sister after that day.

Then, a couple of years later, one of my girlfriends’ mothers deliberately drove into a canal and drowned. Francine, my friend, stood on the bank of the canal and begged her mother to get out of the car. By the time the police put their donuts and coffee down and arrived at the scene, it was too late. Francine’s mom forgot it was a half-day school day and thought she was sparing her daughter the anguish. Why did she do it? Because Francine’s dad humiliated her in front of friends and family and left her for another woman during a New Year’s Eve party. Francine’s mom fell into a deep depression and took her own life.

I had suppressed two childhood events with circumstances similar to George’s story. I read that story before Christmas and was immediately triggered. Ironically, the memories resurfaced today, February 18th. I feel like a weight has been lifted now I know why I was triggered. Well done, George. I still hate the story but now I know why.

So many things wrong with the premise behind this story and the story itself, it is hard to take it seriously. Women measure everything by emotion and belonging. The Linda character you created at the beginning of the story would no more sleep with ML than she would try to spout wings and fly to the moon. She would add up what she had, great husband, kids, steady life, warm home, etc... against a one night stand and there would never be even the slightest inclination toward a quick fuck. Secondly, she would not be friends with women like Dee. She would intuitively know that she would be a bad influence and she'd look for friends elsewhere. Linda would guard her relationship with her husband and kids like a hawk. So, in this story you create two completely different people in one character, which is why it just doesn't work. Sorry, but there is no such thing as a martian slut ray. You have decent writing skills but your story is simply untenable.

Well written and such a huge trigger event for so many people. After every reading more layers are revealed. The more I’ve read it, the more I can’t see a reconciliation with Linda. She gutted Jim and no amount of spin will change that. She’s proven she’s not got his back and when the chips are down you want to be able to rely on your life partner having your six. Remorse and regret for hurting Jim, but not for the actual act. She’s stated it was a cosmic fuck for her and that Jim can’t please her as Marc can. Linda will eventually resent Jim as she starts to feel she’s the one that’s made the sacrifice by staying with a sub standard sexual partner. In the long run Jim will lose again, better to cut your loses and leave now.

The thing about this story is that Linda is so incredibly fucking frustrating right up until the end when LW basically puts her in her place. It was also a huge gamble on his part, because what if Jim hadn't taken the bait, or what if Ellen hadn't kept her word and decided to play a bit more for some reason? Anyway, the entire reconciliation basically hinges on that moment and it's a pretty powerful one. I like this story, but I think also that it'd be a mistake to think that the actions, motivations, behaviors, etc of Linda and Jim are anywhere near normal. To be blunt - a normal woman wouldn't have the balls to do what Linda did, even with her friends backing her up. Jim's muted anger is also abnormal. Sure, he might not want to get divorced and take the financial penalty, but it doesn't mean that he wouldn't take it out on Linda. The thing that I think most readers don't get is exactly that - Linda and Jim are NOT NORMAL. Their story can't be applied to everyone's lives, just theirs within the context of what the author wrote. However, what's good about this story is that George takes the premise and the characters and THEN gives them utterly believable actions and reactions. For instance, I felt that Linda's slow and dawning realization of what she did and it's true effects on everyone, including herself, was extremely well done.

I can't imagine Linda would be able to NOT think about Marc every time she had sex with her husband. Even if she didn't, I would wager the husband would assume she would be thinking of Marc. It would turn into a cancer, growing over time. She not being able to find satisfaction and he never being able to feel adequate. My heart hurts reading or thinking about this tale.

Marc deserves to fuck women like Linda otherwise what's the point of the hardships and pain and everything else that it takes to rise to the top in sport. Jim is just a sad and jealous little man who takes far too long to accept his secondary status in life and makes Linda miserable for no good reason.

One of the best variants of this classic. Still, I don't buy this reconciliation. I don't think a woman this delusional would have suddently 'got it' just because he danced with another woman. Too much of a narcissist. LW got it wrong, in that divorcing her was the best option for him. It's been shown in many studies that children of bitter marriages don't do better just because their parents stay together. She was still throwing it up in his face even in one of their last story conversations, even if unintentional. And his alleged 'lesson' from LW via Ellen? He didn't conspire to slip away with her like the wife did with the sports celebrity. A weak analog at best. This woman was still a narcissist, as he would find out as the years wore on because such a personality defect never goes away. Just sleeps for a while. It's a defect that would manifest again given time and circumstances. I divorced a vain wife of 8 years with a three year-old for carrying on with her boss. And guess what, I found another loyal, loving woman who accepted my first munchkin via joint custody. `The bitch, on the other hand, had to navigate a dating environment with a minor child, and ended up often asking us to take her while pursuing her trysts. The old dictum that the 'best revenge is living well' is true.

But how did LW know where they would that night to contract with Ellen?

GA is an excellent author and puts perhaps the best face on this story. BUT, and it's a big BUT, no wife would do this thing and make that post-event declaration unless she was a mental case. This one was, and that character is inherently not sane in my mind. The contradictions are just too fundamental for any reasoning human: for her to justify, and for him to accept. So, this is a valiant attempt to patch together a reconciliation for the impossible. In reality, couples stay together much of the time despite even flagrant cheating where children are involved, but it's a virtual certainty the resulting marriage never regains it's previous intimacy. SImply not worth it. Better to divorce, rebuild one's life, and integrate one's prior children into a new family if custody permits. I did.

So I decided to come find out what all the fuss is about this story and I must say that even from a woman's point-of-view and even though I do like a good reconciliation, this story can only be described disgusting. And not even particularly well written. To those who scored it high ( male or female) what criteria did you use. It screwed over a loving man. It showed women as sluts. It propagated the disproven ideal of staying at home with a cheater or an abusive partner as good for the children which it's not and extolled the idea that women are both stupid and only one drink or one hard cock away from cheating on our men. It may be that Anderson is unfortunately married to such an aberration and those that scored this high have a proclivity towards letting their wives fuck other men but gor anybody with even a modicum of self respect this story should be relegated to the toilet. And now I need to go shower to wash off the grime. Yuck

So you make Jim a liar and a cheat. At the begining of this sad tale, yes sad because no one comes out of it with any dignity, Jim states he would refuse to go with a beautiful woman because he is married. You made him do this so he is just as bad as Linda, the only difference is he didn't follow through, not because he stopped but because it was a set up and Ellen stopped. So Linda has her fun Jim doesn't. As an author you seem to like to emasculate the man. I wonder why that is.

Great story. Even better that it upsets people so much.

- I love the hypocrisy of the strong moral judgements that come through in the comments - dudes, you're on a porn site where the most popular stories are about incest!

- People clearly read LW stories to validate their own narratives - no wonder this challenges them.

-50% of us are below average lovers. Our wives have mostly fucked guys more skilled than us. So? Deal with it!

- Maybe sex isn't everything?

February Sucks is far and away the best story I have ever read on Literotica. The characters and dialog are believable and the story line is compelling. Very well done.

Epic story, by far one of the best stories i have read

Excellent

Someone from the audience yells "What the actual fuck"? Wait, wait, that was Marc!

Way too much hype for a story. It's very well written

🙊🙉🙈💨🤢🤮

Boo!!! He should have dumped the cheating Bitch!!

Thank you for the story. I like reconciliation stories, but this one left me pretty ambivalent. It is decently written, and I get the moral of the story, but the way you told it was not good enough to drive the point through, unfortunately.

Most glaring points:

- The only thing holding them together are their children, yet Jim spends so little time with them. The children did not create any emotional impact on me, and by the time I'm writing this I forgot their names, which likely indicates low characterization too. That affected how believable was Jim deciding not to leave staying negatively.

- You had Linda not just doing the deed, but also display an almost shocking amount of taking Jim and his "getting over it" for granted, lacking respect of him as a person and his feelings, lacking basic empathy, not just unrepentant but actually jubilant appreciation of her infidelity. She only felt bad it created a bump on the road of her marriage. While the deed was bad the way she acted after it was much, much worse. Because you can reasonably excuse the first as a momentary weakness, but the second defines a character trait. It does not match a caring, loving wife. It's cold, callous and selfish. The problem is, you use it as a plot point but, for the most part, gloss over the actual impact it should have. Like, that attitude would have been just right for a rabid BTB story but not a reconciliation one.

- After all that attitude, Linda asks Jim in her first letter to not take a lover because that would destroy her, but can't connect the dots until you serve us with Ellen Divine Intervention of how much the whole thing hurt Jim. How is she loving him if she can't manage some basic understanding and empathy of her husband?

- Continuing with the above problem, Jim's reaction to her attitude is too mild and subdued. She not only ripped his heart out, she acts as if it's irrelevant and he makes it all about the children, whom have super weak presence in the story. This makes Jim's actions and Jim's and Linda's interactions throughout the story unconvincing. I had the feeling of something being wrong the whole time I read the story.

Overall good idea, but inadequate execution.

Who the fuck scored this story higher than a 1?

What the hell? She cheated in the worst possible way, wasn’t even sorry and still kept her marriage? Keep dreaming.

The underlying premise of the story is that most women would jump at the chance to Linda intentionally cheat on her husband and enjoy the betrayal. She wrote provoking statements in her letter, describing how she enjoyed Mark that he was better than her husband by all standards, and that the memory of this night will remain a beautiful memory for her.

However, we find her saying that she knows that her husband loves her and that he will forgive her

The strange thing is that the husband took her back despite her betrayal and humiliation of him, and his knowledge that he could never pleasure her the way Mark did, and that she would always think about Mark while he had sex with her.

She always tries to insult her husband. She says she loves him but will never forget her fun with Mark

She says she enjoys sex with her husband, but sex with Mark is much better

She plays with her husband's feelings and insults him with severe practical and psychological insults, and yet we find the writer trying to convince us that her husband took her back for the sake of the children.

She will betray him many times in the future, and she will always see him as the weak person who will forgive her for any betrayal, and therefore the children will grow up in a broken home in which betrayal is legal.

I do not know why cheating on this site is justified as if it is normal for a woman to cheat on her husband

The story was good until the writer began to justify the husband's forgiveness of his wife despite everything, she had done cheating on their husband with a celebrity

I am also shocked by the writers of the story and subsequent stories. They focus on Linda's greatest sin as if betrayal alone was not enough to end the relationship. Would her behavior have been acceptable if she had cheated on him on a normal day, without embarrassing him in front of their friends? Infidelity is a sufficient reason for divorce, as a cheating spouse is likely to cheat again, especially if they enjoy sex with their lover. A betrayal is a heinous act that cannot be tolerated in any country. However, some stories suggest that the husband should accept betrayal due to his fragile ego. This is nonsense.

A moronic tale of a man who has been left with zero self-respect but believes that staying with a whore wife is good for his children... In what deluded world do people live that believe this. All he'll do is wreck whatever relationship he has with them and help raise another generation of assholes both son and daughter who believe that actions have zero consequences...

I thought it was a brilliant story, filled with very realistic thoughts and feelings of Jim and Linda throughout. The author recognizes that few things in life are black and white, and that taking a no-compromise position usually is a no-win, if not a sure-loss position. The dialogue between the two was realistic and flowed as a real conversation would, in my opinion. I like how the letters and telephone voicemail substituted for dialogue and in some way made the subsequent dialogue possible and very believable. I know that some people will end a marriage without question in such a situation, but rarely is al marriage dissolved from just one thing, even something like this, which was a total public humiliation, Usually this sort of event is the culmination of lesser events the indicate that one of the parties is unhappy and ready to throw in the towel, even if they are not consciously aware of that. This case is interesting because the night Linda spent in Marc’s arms was not a culmination or a buildup of but like a bolt out of the blue. So what to do then? I do like that the children proved a catalyst for making a new relationship. The trickery of L.W. was a gimmick by the author, but it merely highlighted what the author showed as the very slow healing process. It also showed clearly that people not perfect, in this case Jim, who heretofore thought he was unassailable. That is an important point, and would difficult to make in any event in any story short of a novel. In real life and in real marriages spouses very often, if not almost always, make serious mistakes that severely hurts the other spouse and damages the basic foundations of the relationship. And neither side is perfectly innocent. Trust me, I know from long experience how hard it can be. But in the end it usually is worth the effort. So. I am completely satisfied and happy with the outcome in this story. Again, this story is not a wish-fantasy where complex relationships can be reduced to instantly gratifying action or simple answers. It is no wonder that many readers are unhappy; they did not find the fantasy answer to a messy and very realistic situation. I really like that the author plowed ahead, and his characters had to do so as well. All in all, I thought this was an incredible story.

Don’t waste your time with any writer who could put something like this together! LM

Even after she cheated she is constantly rubbing his nose in it and the husband does nothing. I wonder if the author is married. If he is I bet I can guess who wears the pants.

It's like these readers have never been married and had to deal with pain and suffering. Its so weird, I read comments that praise horrible non-consent stories, the total humiliation and breaking of the soul of some poor cuck, but you through a little realism, some real pain followed by growth, and you get hate mail. I love love. I was going to read a bunch of the follow up stories, but now that I have re-read the OG, I don't want to spoil the happy ending. I did read saddeltramp1956's "It sucks to be me: Marcs story". Another life's retribution story. It was a good concept though not their best work. Maybe Jim should have burned down the house and ran away to Costa Rica to never see his children again. I know some screwed up people because their parents were horrible selfish people. I guess that would get 5 stars...

Yeesh talk about a doormat. This guy is weak and his excuse is that it's for the kids, yea so you'd rather have them in a home where you'll never trust your wife (at the end he doesn't, most likely never will). It only makes you look weak to them and puts the teaching into their heads that cheating isn't as terrible as Jim thought it was at the start. But again I say, doormat.

What’s the deal with that Ellen part? It’s extremely condescending to the husband to do that to him. Just confirms that literally everyone in his life takes pleasure from knifing him in the back.

An interesting set up but overall a very bad story line with no grip on reality.

Considering the number of spin-offs from this great story, I cannot understand the low score it has received.

no wonder there has been so many re writes of this story, it has such a wet soggy bread in the mouth ending.. I actually think its unfair what happened to Jim, but his response was so limp in the dick, I actually wanted him to hurt more and wake up.. but no, he simped at nearly every step of the story.. with nothing definitive happening. im actually nauseated to have read the original. jim ended up a bitch not in heat, but in his emotions, reactive rather than proactive. no wonder another man could lead his wife away from him. jim is a follower not a leader in this story. a pathetic man.

so the og is this bad no wonder there's so many rewrites and easily better stories than the original itself

Well LW is a interfearing cocksucker that deserves to be kicked in the head till the bones crunch. The only more opinionated fool in Literotica is Hardaysknight.

Linda needs to be dumped straight after Jim has a 6 month affair in their home, on their bed.

The author's quip about the kids at school making fun of a child from a divorced home makes it sound like this was written in the sixties or seventies. Over the last 20 years half the children are divorced.

Lastly every morom who thinks they can write a 'better' version of this crap should automatically be barred from Literotica the moment they try to submit..... nuff said

Well done Jim. Stay for the kids. You'll really help them by showing your son how to be a doormat and your daughter how to be a cheating slut. And don t forget to fluff Linda for her future trysts and get ready to suck better men s cum from ger oozing cunt

To the asshole who thinks 'WE' should get over 'our' wives cheating because 'he's' a below avarage lover, I'm sure he's sucked her creampie dry after the superior lovers have fucked her.

To the other simps, wimps and cuckolds (you know who you are) who think this is a good story - ofcourse you do! That's because you have remained children never having graduated into adulthood thus making you perpetual, passive and reactive weaklings, so it's right up your tiny dicked street. So, keep sucking on the cock of least resistance, and work hard to keep your bitches content while better men fuck them, either behind your back or in front of you.

The rest of us ADULT males, for whom our self respect, morals and ethics are properly developed, driving our rational and proactive behaviour we will do what has to be done which will always be divorce and retribution. Not because it's easy but because that's what it takes to be a man.

I haven't forgoten the stretched asshole from getting over-pegged crowd: Who say shit like: 'Real' men stay and thrash things out and don't walk away'. Allow me to elucidate your bullshit thinking the way your fathers should have: Real men walk away so that they don't do what their God given instincts will them to do, which is to kill the bitch...

Oh, and the absolute bullshit about staying for the children. Once their mother is a cheat she has fucked up their lives already and there's nothing anyone can do to mitigate that short of seperating them from her toxicity (if possible).

...And that my friends is the end of the sermon taken from the latest gospel called: The World Needs Men - Go spread the word.

This is the most ridiculous and unreal story. What a cuck, sorry what guy would put up with this!

This story must have been right up the alley for Hardaysknight, Blackrandi, and the rest of the crossdressing haters of real men.

GA wrote it so one must extrapolate his position on the subject as condoning to at least some degree the emasculation of men.

And then to all the rewriters of this obvious troll story. The sooner you let it sink into.the obscurity it deserves the better

You gotta love Riverstone for having the balls to stand up and tell us all what a crap lover he is.

Read more literotica or watch some porn and spend some time on that pussy Riverstone. Eventually even you will be rewarded with the satisfaction of bringing a woman to orgasm.

The issue with this story is basically that Linda's delusion goes on for far too long at the beginning and that at the end when it's "resolved", like a shitty magician, LW reveals the trick - which further just emasculates Jim. It's no wonder that the readers really hate Linda and often dislike Jim as well, nor is it a wonder that despite being such a well read story, it has a rather unremarkable rating.

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I'm going to state for the record that I don't have any problem with a reconciliation ending. Rather I look at the story and determine if the ending is justified by what I just read. For instance, I don't like BTB stories either when the revenge on the cheating spouse is gross or unjust or out of proportion to what they did. Likewise, I don't like this story very much because it doesn't feel like the reconciliation is earned and it doesn't feel like Linda has redeemed herself at all from the first pages of the story, rather that, it's more like the only hurdle she had to overcome was just admitting that what she did was wrong. That's kind of bollocks.

<>

If you're going to reconcile a cheater, then I feel like there needs to be some serious character growth involved. I didn't even see that an attempt was made in this story. For all we know, Linda is just exactly the same person she was that did such an outrageously hurtful thing to her spouse "in the moment" and while she may recognize that now, it still doesn't make us feel comfortable that she's still not capable of such public cruelty. In fact, rather, we suspect that she still is and because of this, we don't want her back with Jim because earnestly we are afraid for him. Linda isn't a safe partner - she's regretful, remorseful, but still not safe and she has done little to demonstrate to us the reader that she could ever be one.

I don't believe I've ever read any of your stories up until now, but I'll say this. This story DOES have good bones. I can genuinely see why I've seen so many spin offs and alternate endings to it. You really did write something special in a way, but just tripped and got road rash on your face at the finish line. with that being said I want to state I'm not set on either side of Reconciliation or BTB, I usually form an opinion per story based on how badly the characters mess up, how much their characters progress, etc. I hate over the top BTB garbage where the husband is secretly a former navy seal delta force CIA Marine with mafia connections who destroys the wife and everyone and everything she has ever known and loved. Its so unrealistic and cringe. all the same I hate wimpy cuck Reconciliation stories where the Husband gets gaslit by his entire friend group and both sides of the family to just "get over it". All that to say I enjoy both if they're earned and done right. This is not one of those cases. As I said, the story is good at its core, However there are just too many glaring issues to ignore. First off I think it went a couple pages too long(or more likely the length was fine, but it was too repetitive) with everyone just repeating the same actions and lines of Dialogue over and over again. Also neither character really had any character growth. In fact Jim had major character regression at the end, Linda and the ENTIRE cast of characters(besides Jim and the children) are completely and utterly delusional. I genuinely don't understand how I'm supposed to be expected to believe that every single character in Jim's life is supportive of cheating. I also don't understand how at no point did Jim ever mention to Dave or whatever his name is that Dee admitted she'd do the same thing Linda did, especially once Dave started running his mouth and joining in on the Gaslighting. I'd definitely be telling him. Also The ending. Good lord the ending was horrible. I genuinely have never seen such a desperate hail mary attempt at Reconciliation. I saw another comment that said the Ellen part could've been done like her not being a Rat, and her story being genuine and Jim just walking her out to her car for safety or something. Then IMO coming back in and his wife crying not only feeling what he felt when she left with Marc, but knowing that he loved her enough that he would never cheat on her and came back for her, and THAT should've been her big realization. Also That old fuck LW needs a swift kick to his head for that underhanded manipulative bullshit. Literally every character in Jims life is a backstabbing manipulative insect. And he just goes along with it like a good little boy. Now, I've seen some bad writing in order to move a story a certain direction....But pulling out a literal(not really but might as well be) mythological creature that magically hypnotizes men to fall in love with them to seduce Jim is probably the most far fetched reach in order to justify a reconciliation I have ever seen lol. Cheating isn't in Jim's character as it is, let alone after he went through and all the pain he felt. That ending was actually such a lame cop out. It ruins Jim's entire character. Every single thing that Jim did, felt and said during the entire story is gone now. Every hurtful and condescending word and act of betrayal by the friends and the wife are entirely justified now and he's no better than her. In fact, Marc is a mythological creature too. He hypnotizes women and makes them magically fall in love with him. So now no one is at fault and you should move this story over to the fantasy section.

No. Just no. BTB... and I would've started with that blue dress!

The scenario were Linda's infidelity occurred here was absolutely unforgivable, kids or no kids. That situation? Special Night out with friends and she leaves with another man and everyone there knew. Husband was humiliated and feels the heaviest of pain. Sorry, she doesn't love him. Any infidelity from a spouse and many partners can't forgive. The trust is gone forever and the marriage is over. I understand those that can manage to forgive and stay... esp w/ kids involved. But not a brutal situation like that. Bye Bitch!

I liked reading parts of this story but it mostly made me angry. I hate the wife and ended up strongly disliking evety character (except the 2 kids), So that's not a good story for me.

I really like the comments made by TrainerOfBimbos. I especially liked the comment about “serious character growth” as being critical to any sort of “reconciliation.”

Characters are poorly developed, and the plot is disjointed and larded with tired or ridiculous plot devices. It has only spawned spinoffs because the central event in the story is a marital atrocity and the husband turns out to be an irresolute, weak , cunt of a man. 1

Read a ton of alternative endings and this is still the best

Even the terrible sequels are better than the original. Linda is a whore and everyone in his life sucks.

"She hadn't done it to be cruel, but it was. I'd never felt so alone. Then there was the promise. She promised me a special night, then she took it from me and gave it to Asshole. She promised she wouldn't ever cheat, and then she did. Maybe Lynn was right and everyone can cheat, but not everyone does."

To me, that was the deal-breaker. As Jim found out with the beautiful escort, anyone can be seduced IF they don't have their boundries. Linda chose to yield to her baser nature. This was compounded by dishonoring her spouse, disrespecting him, disregarding his pain, and offering herself to a whore of a man.

The husband caved and took this woman of weak character back, with a good chance it could happen again, as she herself admitted.

In spite of this, the author's story is the most moving and emotion-stirring one I've read over the past several months.

( Perhaps because I've experienced a similar tragedy, the pain of which I still deal with decades later.)

Keep up the good work, sir.

Honestly, the fact that Jim was ready to go with the escort tells me that both him and Linda are meant for each other. But the underlying premise behind it is wrong. The underlying premise is that, under the right circumstances everyone could be induced to cheat, by the right person. And that premise is, quite simply, false. It can only come from a person who doesn’t understand the true nature of willpower, who doesn’t understand what it is to always place principle before self-interest. There are people out there who, after one date, would not cheat on that person for the most desirable person in the world, because no matter how strong their desire or impulse their conviction will override it, they will dwell in a headspace that emotion cannot overcome. And they would do that for a person who, after that single date, they didn’t even care about yet, much less for someone they actually loved. Because, no matter how much they might want/desire or be attracted to someone in the moment, they know that a cheater is not who they want to be. To become a cheater would destroy their perception of themselves in a way they cannot stomach, and so in a way, refusing to succumb is the only option they can live with. That kind of rigidity is rare, and certainly not everyone possesses it, but it does exist. Thus it’s perfectly fine to say both Jim and Linda wish they could be that, but cannot live up to that lofty goal. To say “Both these characters are flawed, and must be willing to acknowledge that”, is not an issue. But to instead imply that *everyone* could be convinced to cheat under the right circumstances is, quite simply, wrong. It only demonstrates that anyone who believes that doesn’t know what it would be like to be someone who could never cheat, and that in order to feel less guilty about that fact they’d sooner just pretend that everyone else shares their flaw, so that they don’t have to acknowledge their own weakness as a weakness.

According to Linda... "even the worst hurts heal with time." NO. THEY. DONT. 29 years on And 63 years old... The betrayals are as fresh in my mind today as they were then. Should have offed myself and ended the torment.

Very good writing, much better than the angry attempts at mimicry.

Sorry, but no. Kids or no kids, what she did showed her to be a narcissistic bitch who did not have any respect for her husband. No way should he have taken her back.