All Comments on 'Honesty Above All'

All's well that ends well!

5

A new twist to the do I stay for the kids. This stiry was so well thought out and had some great dialogue for the husband to show how much her betrayal really hurt him. I thought you really has a good story from start to finish.

Great story I did actually think they were going to get back together near the end but as her emails came to light I could see that wasn't going to happen.The only thing that I'm not keen on in these sort of tales and it always seems to happen ,is that the wronged husband who's near fifty years old seems to end up with a young stunner near half his age.Why can't it be a women around the same age? Women are still attractive as they get older just like the blokes if they look after themselves.I know it's probably because it gives the husbands ego a massive boost etc after being cheated on but It's just so predictable I skimmed the sex with his new partner ,but hey that's just my view and I couldn't write anything if my life depended on it.Another quality piece from one of my favourite authors 4⭐️

I wonder how often secrets like that fester for years and years and years and lives are ruined because, out of pride, one or both parties are unable to face the music. It's toxic....well written!!

I'm missing why Jeanie is not befriended anymore. What happened to her?

A standard plot, extremely well done. D

Great tale, well told.

Well written sad tale. I can never remember if it is, "Speak my piece" = my turn to talk, or, "Speak my peace, = I need to have my opinion heard.

Sam was dishonest, but so was our MC because of his failure to address Sam's cheating. At least Sam terminated her affair and attempted to make amends. One attribute I truly dislike is hypocrisy, which author does not really address..

Congratulations. 5⭐

I really liked the plot because it was original for me.

Usually in this kind of situation, we either have the more Saint than Saint husband who almost stops being sexual, or the husband who prepares himself and hides all the assets he can.

Here, for once, we have a guy who's neither all good nor all bad, just a guy who survives.

@someoneother The wife emphatically did NOT try to make amends. She continued to lie, to exude hypocrisy in her life and choices. The point that she didn't cheat again is not "making amends".... every opportunities unity he gave her to confess was another betrayal of the woman he'd married, or at least what she had made herself out to be and which he has accepted. Her doing that meant she had betrayed him with lies from even before they married.... Truth and Honesty, the foundations of the relationship they had agreed to before wedding each other. It was the point of the story itself... and the reason he finally divorced her. The manilla envelopes were the final act of her betrayal, not his, and represented her last chance to confess. Thinking the way you do is the same thought process that caused.her betrayal time and again. The only " making it up to him" that was possible, in the end, was ONE envelope, and her confession. And she failed that last, final, test and chance.

Excellent story, with at least one of the characters not feeling like a cardboard cutout, the MC. I may/may not have liked him in real life, but I can certainly respect him and how he handled it. 5* for making a cliched stereotype a real human being.

That was painfully good - 5*****! I don't agree with many of his choices, but he was the wounded party and pain drives you to make bad decisions. In real life, he should have confronted her and decided what to do. Then again, I understand why divorce was an unacceptable option. But in fiction, this made for a better story.

Like others I liked the plot. I think a BTB was not warranted in this case. Hope Ronnie got burned since he was the seducer. Anyway thanks fora good read. lck742

NTH has come through again with an original and finely woven plot, strong and clear characters, and nearly perfect writing skills.

Thank you, NTH, for sharing your stories with your humble readers.

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One minor pet peeve of mine is the almost universal incorrect usage of the two verbs "to lie" and "to lay" among Lit authors. Since this is one of the rare hiccups I find in your writing, I assume (yes, yes, I know) you would like to inch just a wee bit further up the scale toward perfection. Please do an internet search of "lie versus lay." You can get into the details of transitive versus intransitive verbs, or just learn that one form is for an action a subject takes upon oneself and the other is the action one takes upon an object. For example, "Last night I laid (past tense of "lay") the book on the table and lay (past tense of "lie") down to sleep." Sorry for my nitpicking, but you can only imagine the pain I went through learning this crap at a Liberal Arts college - still grates on my nerves...

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Keep 'em comin'!

Love the way this story deconstructs and refutes so many of the commonly used excuses for why an affair happens.

"We both made mistakes, Sam. I could have handled things better, too. I was so stuck on you confessing on your own. Maybe if... " I shook my head. "I don't know. It doesn't matter now.”

How thoughtful of him. How generous to acknowledge the possibility of the sliver of a chance that he was somewhat responsible for this train wreck. Samantha was not the only one lying to themselves here. And she isn’t the only one rationalizing bad choices and continuing to make bad choices….

Once again, an excellent story that trades in truth instead of cheap, shallow bromides.

Lovely story... No real btb only the best revenge there is, which is moving on and living well

Wow!

What can I say, but "Another 5 star offering from the very talented, NTH!"

Wonderful story. Thank you.

NTH never fails to impress. One of the best writers here

If I had been the husband, I would have handled it differently, but then it would have been a different story. Well done, as always

You write about real people dealing with real crises. Neither is perfect, but one is responsible for the lion's share of wrongdoing. Hope the May-December marriage works out. You pegged the meter again, NTH.

Wonderful job of capturing the complexity of human emotions. Too many writers offer "she cheated and must die" or the opposite "I love her so much I don't care what she does to me", like no middle ground exists, and the reality is that the human condition is almost all middle ground. I love that your characters have real emotional depth.

Enjoyed the story. Thanks for your writing.

Wonderful story with interesting topics. You sir are not a hack, but after looking at my stories, I am. Thanks for posting.

Good one.

Nothing like a crap story about 2 cheaters who don't deserve to have relationships but will probably find slime that will hook up with then

Very nicely done…

5 stars

5* and standing ovation

A very good story.

Agree with Cringo31 that the dialog in this story was excellent. I want to also point out that this story is an excellent example of a Loving Wives tale. No bondage, over gifted guys named Tyrone, no base humiliation for the mere purpose of destroying another human beings self-worth and dignity, and nobody had sex with an immediate family member who wasn't their spouse. Infidelity? Yes. Drama? Yes. Conflict? Again, yes. Great plot and fantastic characters gave a realistic depth to this family's heartbreak.

One of your better stories

Thanks for sharing...

Good dialogue in the confrontation. It’s not every day we get to read something that’s this well thought through. The sex scene is pointless to the storyline.

Excellent!

What a week!! LW has been pretty dry as of late, and then BAM... NTH, Javmor, and ttt59 all drop new lit! None of which are the respective author's best, but still 5s. I'm not convinced that these aren't all the same person.

As always , NTH writes fantastic dialog. Even though the characters don't behave as I would, still compelling. As for having more kids at 50something?... you're outta your mind lol.

And this is a question for all LW authors.... WTF is the fetish with TWINS?????

Definitely your best story so far, and I really like almost everything you've written.

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Why did I like this so much? Because this is how I'd handle it if I was forced to stay married to a cheating wife "for the sake of the kids". As soon as a wife cheats, the marriage vows are irrecoverably broken, and the husband is a free agent. Only a fool stays faithful to a deceitful slut.

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The only thing he didn't do, that I certainly would have, is squirrel away a big chunk of the marital assets. With years to plan for it, he could have hidden money in a wide variety of ways, so the ex-wife couldn't sink her claws into it when the inevitable divorce finally happened.

You fully earned the 5* for fleshing out the replacement younger woman as a character, and not just adding her in as an afterthought. Well done.

Thank you for a great story, well written. However, Kyle really was a coward in not confronting his cheating wife. Or... if he had a stronger backbone and "forced" her to work, once he found out, while the kids were at school, instead of sitting around and doing nothing productive during her day. At least it would have almost removed the opportunity for future, new affairs. But he did nothing to change his cheating wife's lifestyle.

What we have here is serious lack of communication.. she was lonely and bored. She wanted him home more.. he was exhausted, lonely and missed his wife and kids.. neither of them sat each other down and had a come to Jesus moment.. maybe this could've been avoided.. you need honesty in a relationship but communication is just as important.. you can't keep resentment a secret.. it will fester and rot the relationship.. had they sat each other down and talk, he could've told her to get a job.. I'm not understanding why she didn't just go get a damn job on her own accord if she was bored and lonely?..I don't understand why it was easier for her to talk with a strange man about her marital troubles but not her husband... she can claim she just needed someone to talk too...but I call bullshit.. she had her slut friend,

she had family.. she didnt need his ears.. she's inserting a stranger into their marriage.. that never goes well.. had she got a job she could've made some work friends.. maybe she enjoyed him working himself to death.. who knows.. but as a wife, I would've told my husband I'm lonely, I miss you and I'm bored as hell. If he choose to ignore what I was telling him, whatever happems after that would be on him.. but the fact that her husband didn't know how she was feeling, he's not a mind reader. Makes me more sympathetic to him.. I understood why he cheated.. he's absolutely right. Is it cheating when one spouse has already opened the marriage up?.. I don't believe it is. He didn't want to lose his kids.. I get it.. but I feel like he went down to the gutter with her by sleeping around.. both were wrong.. but I'm more focused on the severe lack of communication. It's always a destruction to any relationship.. you can't keep secrets in a marriage ..... in ANY relationship really..I don't feel Sam did anything to fix her marriage as she was still lying and trying to play the victim.. had he not know what she did she would've gladly taken her 70% and more than half his shit and played the martyr without an ounce of guilt.. what did she do exactly to make it up to her husband?.. I'll wait... did she confess? Nope!. Did she become more appreciative of what she got?.. fuck no.. did she get off her lazy ass and get a damn job to help the man with some bills? Of course not, she didn't want to work..her husband continued to work and she continued to be bored..I didn't read anywhere where she did her best to to make it up to him.. not that there's anyway to make it up to someone you cheated on.. sex is not making it up to them.. what did she do to atone? She did nothing!... she kept her secrets, her husband continued to work himself to death and she went about her day... she did NOTHING...I don't blame him for not feeling like it's not cheating, even though it technically was.. I really wished Sam spoke more.. like why didn't she get a job?.. why did her and her slut friend end their friendship?. I mean yeah she didn't cheat again, let her tell it.. but, the marriage was far too gone to fix it.. I did have a little sympathy for sam. She slept with one guy for 6 months, he banged a dozen according to him.....one relationship lasted 2 yrs!.. I think that was overkill.. but again, this marriage was pretty much over.. they weren't communicating, both were keeping their feelings and secrets to themselves.. I don't dislike anyone from this story. It showed what secrets, cheating and a lack of communication will do to a marriage.. my husband used to work out of state.. be gone for months.. missed a shit load of anniversaries, birthdays, holidays.. I sat him down and told him straight up. I need him home more.. I can't do this anymore.. that was 12 yrs ago.. he now works for another company where no traveling is necessary.. I did warn my husband I feared if he wasn't home more, our marriage would be over.. I was close to asking for a divorce.. I was so lonely, even with family, friends and work.. going to bed by myself every night was starting to wear on me.. I began to resent him. I felt like he wanted to be gone for months on end. Until I talked to him.. he told me he was feeling the same way.. he hated his job, hated being gone, missed me. He told me his plan. Which was to work at that company for a few more months and then he'll find something that didn't require traveling and he'd be home every night.. I was so happy.. I spent years telling him how unhappy I was.. even though I knew why he was working so hard, we were saving up for our first home I still resented being alone.. no amount of friends, work and family made me miss him any less.. it actually made me miss him even more. I would be in a room filled with people for the Thanksgiving and just felt so completely alone.. it was depressing.. so I understand Sam more than you know. I know how it feels when your husband is constantly gone.. the difference between her and I is I talked with my husband on how I was feeling, I bought a vibrator and spent most of my time with friends and family.. I didn't get a boyfriend on the side..

I wouldn't say she terminated her affair because he mentions another envelope, so she likely had another affair and she never attempted to make amends. He literally stated that she never treated with him respect. He also said he gave her chances, so yes, he did address it, she just continued to be dishonest about it.

Not bad but it's all been done before.

Thanks for sharing

Standard confrontation turned into a really engrossing read by your little twist.

Well done, as always, I love your work.

The whole plot pivots on the idea that hubby needed wifey to confess her adultery. I suppose that such an act could be seen as true e evidence of remorse, without which any reconciliation would be doomed. A secondary plot premise was the old saw about divorce hurting the kids. Sometimes yes…sometimes no. Depends on how toxic the household is if divorce doesn’t happen.

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I thought Kyle spent way too much time waiting for that confession. And it was not really believable that Jenna was “helping” him for so long. But it was entertaining.

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4 ****

MC not a Mary Sue. Well done.

Tale well told. Thank you NTH; 5*. (still hate your name).

Good story l enjoyed it. Our hero should’ve been up front a lot earlier, instead of mucking uselessly around and in the end being as bad as his wife. Yeah, he was just another asshole with excuses.

Scores 4/5

Damn, I was holding out hope right up till the end that it wasn't going where I feared it was. That you would maintain your standard of nuance and originality. Well-written as always, but you basically rewrote a story I've read here at least fifty times, right down to the utterly cliched "dancing with the ex at my daughter's wedding and finally hearing her lament her choices". I have to say, this is disappointing and depressing.

"You cheated so I fucked a bunch of women in retaliation?" "You weren't honest so I decided to be dishonest as well?" This MC is infantile in his justifications. He complains about how she was less responsible than their 16 year old but doesn't even stop to address that _SO WAS HE_. No matter how painful it would have been he should have stepped up and confronted her about the emails he found. Such a disappointment of a story.

You sure do know how to weave an engaging and emotionally exhausting tale, don't you?

he can make all the rationalizations he wants, he’s more of a cheater than her!

Very entertaining. Well played.

Well, the general plot was a common one, but the writing and the character development were top notch. Although the story was not as creative or unique as some of NTH’s work, it was a very engaging read.

Best new author in this site.

I don’t see the attraction of this kind of story. Too much ranting and drama to be enjoyable or erotic.

No talent hack is anything but. He is one of the best writers on this site. This story is complex and the motives and moral compass of both characters are less than clear. I think we have two troubled souls trying to make sense of their lives and not doing a good job of it. The beauty of NTH’s stories is their complexity. This is not one of my favorites from NTH, but still an excellent read. Just keep writing. This site needs more writers like him.

Very well written....smooth, no reconciliation or major btb...realistic

The contrast between THIS story and Cagivagurl latest turd of a story is well striking

Another good story

Wow.

Both of them are a bit screwed up (mostly her) but then most people are

Meh. Kinda shitty. You can do better3 stars

Not one of your best. Three stars, edging toward four but no reaching four.

JPB

That conversation just went on and on, each of them basically saying the same thing. Yeah, it's only 3 Literotica pages, but that's about 25-30 in Word, about twice as long as needed.

A good well balanced and realistic tale, pointing to the weak and selfish human nature and the so often inevitable bad consequences. 5*

This may be dumped. Said many timer two flawed human beings.

LOVE slap-hapy-papy #9

A happy ending, but a non-Hallmark way of getting there. NTH is a serious talent.

It’s funny how some people complain that authors make the husband in these types of stories a flawless saint but when they give the husband faults they still complain and would say he deserves to get cheated on in some cases. Anyway this is a pretty good story I say about a husband doing the best he can do in a shitty situation, so it gets 5 stars from me.

Not really sure what I think about this one. It’s of course very well written but the resolution was so ordinary, so very predictable, that I was left disappointed. At first I felt compassion for the MC’s plight, but as his actions unfolded I found myself convinced he was as evil as his wife.

I really enjoy NTH’s writing, but found this one cliche filled and pretty standard formula. It was obviously written far better than most offerings on this site so it held my interest

5 stars and it was worth it.

In my opinion, this has to be your best effort so far.

I am so glad you toned down the repetitive verbal onslaught of your previous efforts.

Please keep writing.

"You knew?" - Even if she doesn't know that he knows, how can a cheater be so self-righteous about their partner cheating?

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I have mixed emotions regarding confessing an affair, at least if the spouse doesn't already know. I generally think that if it's OVER, NEVER to be repeated, the cheater should just live with the guilt, rather than dump the load of shit on the innocent spouse.

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@Infosauger, wasn't Jeanie to blame for Samantha's cheating? That would cause her to by unfriended quickly.

Best i have read in some time. He gave her an out....TC Ireland

5 stars for a beautifully complex telling!

Well spun tale.

Constructive criticism: oftentimes your stories end in a happy ever after epilogue that feels tacked on and kinda trivializes the story up to that point.

Sometimes it works, especially if the story is already covering large swaths of time, but for this one, where it was essentially one conversation/night, it felt like it cheapened the impact overall.

You are a very talented hack. I'm glad you found this site to post on. Great work!

A classic tale retold. A treat to read. Thank you very much.

This tale felt like it has played out hundreds, if not thousands, of times across the globe. I loved the plot lines, but it still intrigues me what would have happened one of those times he "tested" her honesty if she would have confessed. In similar circumstances, I could see my self falling down the same path he did - 5*

Rings many bells from my own relationship.

One thought. I have no idea how many times I have seen an LW story where the cheated-on spouse tells the cheater. Or says about them, "He/she is a great father/mother." My take on that: No, a great parent does not give the children the heritage of divorce. Statistically the children of divorced parents are much likelier to go down that path. Just sayin'.

A very nice story, with a happy ending...

Well written with a good flow..

5🌟s

Fred

One of your best, and that's quite a list. Maybe my favorite part was that Kyle himself wasn't sure of what he would do until he saw the envelope with the divorce petition in it. That sweet hope, even to the end, that he would see his wife across the table as the woman that he married, not the woman she became. Even that alternate ending would have been enjoyable

***

Dialogue breathed and flowed, realistic with a bit of venom. There was a clunker or two, but that's art.

***

And then there's the comments. Low-information readers are always gonna be high comedy. A story well-plotted like this covers almost all of the woulda-shoulda-couldas, but the reader has to read and understand them So when the "Well, if *I* was the MC..." crowd chimes in, I gotta chuckle. That's kinda the point. "You're" not the MC, son. That's the art; making the reader see from the perspective of someone else. And frankly, I know what "you'd" have done, and that's a boring story published here 100x a year. "You" don't like that kind of story either, which is why "you're" reading this one in the first place. But that's just too obvious.

Pouring too much milk on your cereal is a mistake. Adultery is the culmination of several active choices!

Also, once she made her decision, the marriage was nullified, whether the state was notified or not. The contract was broken, and he was free from its provisions.

ZK

You're good. Another gem, and I do look forward to your new stories. Thanks very much.

Is it fair to the children of the second marriage that their father will be retirement age before they graduate from high school? Will the fact that he is a healthy senior citizen make it OK that he is essentially two generations older than they are? Oh well, that probably will not be their biggest problem. It more likely will be the fact their father is a vindictive, self centered prick for whom a dozen affairs were necessary to repay his wife for one.

I do like the story but the guy getting a beautiful woman almost half his age and remarried so soon feels too unreal. And cheating wife has a boyfriend and takes him to the wedding?

I feel you a very good writer but this one I'm not sure about, I don't get him wanting her to confess when he did her far worse. 3 stars.

It's good when you first read it, but it becomes more meaningful and legitimate the longer you think about it. Well done.

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The asshole lover did something to screw up the fuck fest. So the husband had to wonder how long it would have last otherwise. The husband won the Cost/Benefit analysis, but lost the love and respect and thrill contest. The wife came back to preserve the financial and material benefits of the marriage; I guess the consolation fucking with her husband was at least adequate. And the husband knew All of this.

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While the whole bit about his waiting for her to confess was speculative, the fact that she was filing for divorce As Soon As She Had Proof demonstrated what you had him so eloquently point out: For him the marriage was more important than his pride or self respect. For her the insult and punishment was more important than the marriage. And she lacked the integrity and, most importantly the LOVE, to seize her husband's cheating as the means, the gift, to finally bare her soul and try to recover what they both had thrown away. Of course he was happier with his second wife. He finally had a woman for whom HE was more important than herself. And therefor worth making HER more important than himself. Almost makes you wonder how he ever found Samantha worthy of marrying in the first place, she had such an empty self-serving character? She set herself up to be bored and lonely, then started fucking and romancing some other man because she was bored and lonely. That's the behavior of a worthless human being.

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So congratulations. Thank you for your time, talent, and deep thoughtfulness. And thank you for allowing anonymous comments. Maybe you could lend some of that testosterone to the Clique.

4 **** for being well written and engaging and fairly original. That said they both sucked. I understand the husband staying for the kids and even getting some on the side for revenge. But the his whole mentality was a bit psychotic, I mean, why would anyone confess to an affair? The only one you hurt is your partner. So even if her motivations for keeping her mouth shut where partially fiancial, it would still seem the wife kept the secret in order to avoid the pain it would inflict on the husband. So, his years long need for her to confess is not rational and rather obsessive. Finally the trope of the younger hot woman, so over done.

Thanks for writing

You must have a reason for your snarky handle that I think might be an interesting story in itself because it certainly doesn't describe you from your stories I've read here !

This was - no surprise to me, anyway - another 5-star tale that explores relationships, one of which went bad, and another which grew while first was in destruction mode.

As I've noted before on other of your stories, nicely done !

A little departure from the usual LW stories by having the husband cheating as sort of a retaliation effort.

Obviously the woman had constructed her own reasons a rationalizations to make her cheating ok and salve he feelings of guilt. In my own case the wife just started fishing for new interest outside our marriage before informing me she was 'out of love' with me. A cheater does not just cheat on the husband, she is cheating on the family and that usually results in the destruction of the family. Anyone who can destroy a family by cheating is a very selfish person. Good story and well written, 5 stars

GREAT story!!! Congratulations! 5 stars from here!

Another great story. I find it amazing how you can make your male characters just as flawed as their cheating spouses, and yet we still have some sympathy for them.

I often find myself sympathetic to the wife as well. Especially in these type scenarios. Relationships drift apart for all kinds of reasons and usually the blame is never entirely on just the one spouse.

Well done, as always.

NTH delivers the goods yet again. I can't remember ever awarding less than five stars to any of his stories and this one is no exception.

Over all a good story, the ending was a bit of a downer. But damn, what got little Devlin all smug with himself? Did he find a pair of kitten heels that matched the color of his extra small cock cage?

I love a happy ending, especially when he gets his own revenge affair in.

One of the best stories I’ve ever read on here. And I’m usually really hard to please. Thank you, and well done, extremely well done.

Well its good, really good. However I am torn in the actions of Kyle, low act tit for tat, no winners as he said. But we all pick up the pieces in our own way and try move forward as best we can. Kind of agree with the comment about the age difference only because of the issues that will happen in the future most unrealistic to say happy ever after, still it is fiction! and when he is 70 she is 50 and the kids 20 and her lover is 40, oh boy find out the hard way !,

Thirty-plus years into my 3rd marriage I'd have to say my perspective has changed from that when I split from my first wife due to her infidelity, taking my two young daughters with me with her blessing. The choices we make are as different as the stages of our lives prioritize for us, so I can understand and even empathize with both the MC and his cheating wife--without condoning either her early adultery or his, later.

Your writing continues to show the depth of your understanding of human psychology--and the quality of your skill at portraying nuance through your characters' behavior.

Well done, and thank you. Please keep writing.

MLJ

Great story; flawed but credible characters; a sad situation; and lots of emotion. You handle it all very sensitively without going OTT. We feel for all the characters, which is a very good trick for any author.

Very well done. Thank you