All Comments on 'Infidelity Anonymous 01: To Begin'

I like it! As usual, your stories are well written, and to the point. The part about Jake just blended in perfectly. Keep up the good work and more please.

You might want to place this story in LW.

The reason I have not sent these to Loving Wives is because there is a strong desire for revenge in that category. These stories are about putting it behind and moving on. I get a lot of complaints there if the revenge isn't strong enough.

Thanks for sharing.

RE ANON of 3 months earlier

Gaining approval for a story in this LW category is a lottery as you have two opposite sub categories lumped together under one heading. RAAC, and BTB.

It seems to be human nature that we all want the good guy to win, and the bad guy to lose.

Nobody would have watched NCIS if week after week Gibbs and his team failed to solve the crime. The good guy wins.

The two themes, BTB and RAAC are diametrically opposed. They are not even two sides of the coin. They are opposites of each other. I do not think that they can be viewed as being the other end of the spectrum to each other. They are independent stand alone opposite to each other.

A bit like Exhibition/ Voyeur always being lumped together when they too are diametrically opposed, with no common ground. For a voyeur the true thrill is the unawareness of the victim. He doesn't want an overt public display of lewdness. He craves a private forbidden peek.

The characters for BTB or RAAC have to be of a different type.

In a BTB story the reader expects that the cheater, usually the wife to be bad. She, is portrayed as the bad guy. She is immoral, selfish, scheming, manipulating etc. A totally unlikeable character.

The victim is portrayed as the hero. He is honest, hardworking, upright and moral. A person we all aspire to be. And that all works fine in a BTB story.

But when its time in the story to move towards RAAC, the readers are expected to accept that this nasty unlikeable bitch is suddenly worthy of our pity. Why? What has changed? Is it buyers remorse? Cheaters remorse at having got caught and now everyone knows what a bitch the wife is? To the reader she is still the original unlikeable bitch she was created as.

Meanwhile the hero of the story has now become tarnished and suddenly isn't the good guy trying to put the bad guy in prison. No. Now he is trying to take the bad guy home as a family member. Totally contrary to human nature. You may take a cuddly little lion cub home, and try and make a pet out of it. But who would try and take the lion, that just eat your family, home with you

If the cheater is portrayed as a nice type of a bad guy from the start, then most readers can easily accept the need for RAAC.

Having said all of that, this does not excuse the ignorant personal vitriol hurled at the authors. If the story is tagged as RAAC, what the hell else do you expect the story to be about?

A R W

No one ever wins when a spouse cheats.

As has been said many times, many ways…there’s no such thing as innocent flirting. Flirting is, by definition, intended to signal romantic/sexual interest. If you are in a committed relationship (even prior to marriage), then there’s only one person that it’s appropriate to flirt with!

ZK

@Anonymous - I could not agree more!

Just saw this pop in the random reads and read it for the 2nd time.

I really really enjoyed this series and intend to read the rest of them again.

Thanks for sharing.

Recent study showed prolonged flirting behavior is associated with a 480% increase in marital deception, whether legal, fianncial, or adultery.

Interesting idea.

It wouldn't be the worst idea if there actually was a support organisation like this. Interesting concept and am looking forward to reading the other parts to this. BardnotBard