All Comments on 'Making an Honest Woman Ch. 04: Epilogue'

If you're tired of your characters you should just kill them. Car accidents, school shootings, preemptive nuclear strikes, waffle house grease fires, rabid barn swallow attacks... anything will do in a pinch.

Nice job. You kept my interest and pulled off a slick writing job. This is not an easy category in which to write, and you did it with aplomb and poise. I really suggest that you will find a far more appreciative audience, elsewhere. This is 4.7plus writing, in any other category.

That was the biggest thing missing from the other three chapters. This gave a bit of closure to that. Thanks for doing it.

Nice ending. Thanks.

Cog

Well done. Thanks for providing an ending to your story.

HDK says the beginning of a story is easy but the ending is difficult. This ending of Dan's story is perfect. 5 stars. Now if we can get an honest story about what Ellen was up to and is she faithful to her new husband?

Thanks again for your work,

reasonable man

Thank you.

It wasn't as strong as the other chapters. It's obvious you seemed a little tired of it. But it did need the final tying up of lose ends, since you took it as far as you did in chapter 3.

Honestly, this chapter was a strong 3-star, weak 4-star. But the overall story is a very strong 4-stars (maybe a weak-ish 4.5). Awesome for a first timer in the LW genre.

I saw Diane as a possible romantic interest right away. Glad you worked that in. Wonder if you saw that during the writing, or just saw it in the end?

Liked the bit about American girl's language. My wife teaches high school (some sex ed) and tries to get the girls to stop. Points out when "No means 'No'" you can't sound like,"No....???" Or "Please? Stop...???". For a testosterone fueled boy, a questioning "no" might as well be a yes.

Now, can't wait for the next one. (There will be more, no?)

Sorry, maybe I lost something, but why the first wife decided to cheat? I'm afraid that there isn't a valid explanation to the behavure of the cheater.

Anyway thanks for this story.

Probably the weakest chapter, the pacing was a bit rushed, but a good and overall satisfying ending. Thank you for going back and finishing it.

Enjoyed this. Good story nice ending. Thanks.

Nothing about Ellen🔍🔎. I realized that Dan is the protagonist but damn was he completely clueless throughout the marriage. Or did she tell the truth about only cheating with two 😖 men??

Gave you 4*s, thank you for a very excellent story.

AMerryman

"We stopped having dinner together." - That's good! I know a lot of people complained about that arrangement, better that they're cutting the cord.

I know it's "just" an epilog, but felt rushed. I also miss not knowing why. (Don't faint, lue!) You should probably rewrite the chapter with the note and have him read it.

I think I'm going to have to reread the whole story to get a better feel, it's been too long since I started.

Thanks for this epilogue, it was nice to see a number of issues wrapped up and to have a satisfying conclusion for the protagonist.

If you ever go back to this one, I'd take another look at chapter 3. When Ellen finally lets slip that she's been cheating multiple times, it would have been good to have the husband pounce on that and get her to actually be honest. She could break down and confess to having been frustrated/bored/trapped for years and had a series of affairs.

At that point, she actually becomes an honest woman, which fits the title of the story. As it is, she's never honest with him about her cheating, leaving the husband (and the reader) with lots of questions. It would still be too late for their marriage after her confession, but I think it would make a more satisfying path to their cordial relationship post-divorce (because the husband values honesty). As it is, there's a huge question mark over the extent of her infidelity or her motives, which was the real nuts-and-bolts of the story.

Alternatively a quiet chat with the new husband to warn him that she was a serial cheater could have been a satisfying bit of revenge (again, making an honest woman of her). I didn't get the impression you wanted to go that route though.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable story and really great for your first one on literotica! Well done!

Boring and predictable, but that’s what the masses enjoy. You gave the people what they demanded. Now start working on that second story that flips the script and pisses off the masses! Breathe some life into this category with something fresh and original and unpredictable. I have great confidence that you can do it.

Enter stage right, Ellen Tucker.

Daniel and the author having failed to make an honest woman of her, her soliloquy finally fulfills the promise of this story's title. Ellen speaking to her therapist - off stage - details her numerous affairs and explains her self-justification for her behavior. Indeed, the author absolved her of any guilt. Diane pointed out, and Daniel accepted the blame was all his. Daniel was bored with Ellen, she understood that fact, andjustification his dis-interest in her as justification. Good to find out Daniel realizes he was responsible for her serial cheating the commenter sarcastically noted.

Wendylicker is an excellent ''joiner of words''. The author engendered great interest with this series, an excellent start to Literotica ''career''.

The author created a debate about the author's gender. Would be interesting if author set up contest, brief submission asking for readers' thoughts on that topic.

Epilogue just confirmed my assumptions at end of Chapter 3. Ellen marries some man. Daniel marries some woman. Daughters have wonderful lives.

Confused though as to Ellen's intelligence. While Daniel's papers were surely witten in ''academic speak'' the subject of his research and conclusions would not be that intellectually challenging. Much as with his student's Daniel could have explained the basics to her.

Anthropology is not Theoretical Physics.

At first I thought this ending was a bit rushed. After thinking it through, I believe it is exactly what this story needed. The tone, dialogue and pace matched the previous chapters and provided a good ending.

Thanks for an enjoyable read in a difficult category.

You show me a woman who enjoys eating, and I'll show you a woman who enjoys fucking, and most things sensuous and fun.

The only real mystery, and the weakest aspect of the entire story, is why Dan ever married Ellen. A weak, shallow, unintelligent, selfish, whore. It begs the question, what did Dan ever see in her, and how could she possibly be a decent wife and mother? If her next husband bores her too, she's going to continue to be a whore. She can teach her children nothing about being an ethical moral woman. While she is supposedly waiting and scheming to win her marriage back, she's already meeting and getting to know other men with romantic and emotional feelings. Hell, by the time she tells Dan she's already met and probably fucked his replacement. How could Dan have possibly found anything of substance in this blowup doll?

So it was a useful and welcomed epilogue. Good luck with future work. And thanks for allowing anonymous comments. We all know and understand why some author's can't handle being in the open forum. I salute your courage, and intelligence.

As an author who DOESN'T allow anonymous comments, I have no problem with an "open forum."

If I didn't want an open forum, I wouldn't allow comments at all!

My question is, why are you so reluctant to identify yourself? As has been mentioned many times, even IDs are anonymous, but they allow for an easier dialog in the open forum!

It feels like there was an interesting story trapped inside here, that the MC just never cared about enough to follow. We made it to the end of the story while still having almost no explanation for the wife's bizarre behavior, no actual baring of the soul about how or why this all started, no honesty about her past or her affairs.

There were quite a few tantalizing hints that she was actually a prostitute, but again, the husband just didn't care enough to actually press her on anything, so we never got that story.

That the situation went from the wife declaring that she was going to give her all to win him back... and then ended with "We were cordial and then a few months later, she declared that she had met someone she wanted to get serious with" (which almost certainly means she had been non-seriously involved with him on some level for some time), with the passive MC not even caring, seems fitting, as does the fact that his final conclusion about the marriage was yet another way to make her cheating all his fault.

One thing I've never understood about husbands like this: Why do they care so much, and make such a point of pride, that the ex-wife is still heavily involved in their daughters' lives? I mean, the essential problem here is that he honestly never knew the true 'her', that she's been lying and deceiving him their entire marriage, and that her basic values and views on how a woman should behave in a relationship are fundamentally at odds with his. Why is this the person you want to be teaching your daughters how to be women and what kind of wives they should be?

You put a finish on your story and that is good, but you still left a few questions I would like to have seen answered.

Realizing this is written from Dan's POV it still would have been nice to have seen what were the repercussions from his sending Rob's wife the pictures and report from her affair. Did they get a divorce? Was Ellen cited as the cause? Did she get sued by Ann?

As mentioned in an earlier comment it would have been nice to know why she did it other than just boredom.

Did Ellen remain celibate until after the divorce was final and she moved into her own condo?

All lame questions but as a reader we are all really just voyeur's we want to know these things. Like the other three I gave it another five.

Sort of fell off the path with his one. I really led the previous ones but this was like staggering over the finish line. I didnt care which way they turned out but something was lacking in this part of the story... it was like you were tired, not them.

@sbrooks103x:

I don't know about the others, but I am anonymous because I lost my password, and the link that the site sens me when I request a new password never works. And since I can't register again with the same email...

As an anonymous commenter I am using my one comment on this story to say Bravo to your open forum comment. Perhaps you and the other writers could go back and check the anonymous comments that led you to the decision to block our comments. Let me clue you in the worst anonymous comments are usually several from the same commenter, or in simple words your IDed commenter decides to trash a story and writer. Perhaps a good solution would be to limit all commenters to a single comment on a story. Writer I apologize but your story had no appeal to me so I have not read any of it.

You really needed to write a ending,well done,thank you. One of those rare divorces that worked out for every one.

My question to you is why you are concerned about why anons don't bother to register.

When I respond to your post I also have to include title of your post as you are known to make numerous comments on some stories

If you use @anon plus title the dialogue is easily maintained. Not sure what the difference is as far as ease of dialog when only distinction is a profile name instead of anon is used in title of comment.

Luedon and you are seriously mistaken if you believe namers exceed anons in number.

I had the same issue, that's why my ID changed from sbrooks103 to sbrooks103x.

I simply got a gmail id and set up the new account using that.

His wife was shown to be very shallow cheater who could not even merit the love of her children never mind her husband.

His new girlfriend / wife was too good to be true. An ideal fit from nowhere just appeared on the scene.

So in the end all's well that ends well but it just lacked any bite. The reader could not care less about the wife or the lost marriage, so what was the point of it all. She promised to fight for him but didn't, he lost the love and respect he once had for her, so she was no loss. The whole story just died slowly but surely with no real angst or passion leaving the reader cold.

I don't know which "IDed commenter" you are referring to, but in my experience the worst trolls are anonymous. You may disagree, some of my good friends do!

It does tie up the loose ends. Based on the talk between the protagonist and Diane, we get a clearer picture of the divide created by their differences. You can easily have a loving, and long lasting, relationship with a partner who is fundamentally different. The caveat being that one or both partners have to be accepting enough of the differences, or at least be willing to work around them.

In this case, one partner was willing to cope with his wife being unable to truly understand his career. The breaking point was that the wife was unable to deal with someone she saw as boring. Thankfully, this lead to a non acrimonious split, for the most part, and eventually to a better future for all.

The difference is you MAY add description IF you feel that it is necessary, while if I want to respond to you as Anonymous I have no choice!

Just look at the title here! We're up to three "@"s! If you reply it will be FOUR!

Comment by Valint:

"We made it to the end of the story while still having almost no explanation for the wife's bizarre behavior, no actual baring of the soul about how or why this all started, no honesty about her past or her affairs."

"Bizarre behaviour" - I can't express it better than Valint. In Ch. 1 Ellen changes from a woman who does not give a damn shit for her husband & family to a loving wife who is desperate to win them back.

We still do not have a hint of an explanation for that and no questions from the husband who surely wants to get closure on that. And my former questions - what triggered her serial cheating and how long it has been going on - are still not adressed.

Wendylicker - please write a part from Ellen's POV - I know you can!That would really mean closure for your protagonist and many of your readers!

Despite these shortcomings still a 5*.

Pray tell, what you comments about anons have to do with story.

Numerous people have made a PERSONAL decision to not register a profile. I believe their reasons are varied but it is their decision to make.

Most anons post respectful comments, most likely with no thought or desire to engage in dialogue with anyone.

Not certain why you and luedon cannot accept anons right to not have profile and the fact they owe neither of you an explanation.

The two of you will continue to harumph, and they will choose to remain anonymous.

Hope wendylicker will ignore the dialogue between sbrooks and a number of anons on this matter.

Look forward to further submissions from this author.

5* for completing the story with a brief but entertaining conclusion.

And you wrote it very well, it's obvious a great deal of thought went in to this.

I'll keep an eye out for more of your writing in the future.

This is now the second anonymous comment where the title line is exactly the same!

Yes, you anons may exercise your right to not have a profile, as I will exercise my right not to accept your comments, and my right to express my dissatisfaction with the situation.

Jesus, Man! Let it go. You are commenting on other readers' right to comment, which is determined by the writer of the story. She allows anonymous comments. What has ever happened on this entire planet that makes you think anyone gives a shit about what you want, or think, especially regarding other readers following the rules and expressing opinions? Get over yourself. People do not want to engage you in a dialogue of any sort. Accept it.

The story itself gets 6*s and two of these little fuckers. 🔍🔎. I call them as I see them and a I see this chapter as an epic unlike anything previously written in the world. It makes me smile! Is this a smile? 😖 It's how the Buxom Maid Marian looks after I have tickled her fancy. Thanks for posting!

AMerryman

PS: That fag cuck that claimed to be me and only gave 4 *s is an imposter that hacked my anonymous account. 🔍🔎

Who knows exactly what any of our personal truths may or may not be?

I KNOW a real anon VALUES their one comment per story (or chapter), and wouldn't waste it on a three word "rant"

"People do not want to engage you in a dialogue of any sort. Accept it" - LOL, except that they do engage, just as you're doing here!

I made a choice to get a moniker not because I wanted to submit a story but so I could correspond with other writers. If you made a brilliant in a comment to a story and I wanted to tell you I can't do that via e-mail. You on the other hand can send me the most veil e-mail and I can't respond, my choice and chance. I have talked to many writers and some just readers by having my comments tagged. at the end of the day it is still your choice, but you might understand a writers view point through e-mail better than hundreds of back and forth comments that have nothing to do with the story we just read.

Thank you for allowing me your time, and wendylicker it still was a good series.

If a reader likes this "ending", there's little I can say. Some readers want to be told the wife suffered, the kids went to college and are successful, the guy remarried and his new wife has bigger tits and a tighter pussy and gave him many sons, while the lover had his balls crushed by a steamroller and the husband had an alibi offered by his poker buddies. That seems to be the ending people want. This was not really an ending. It's just fluff to please the fluff lovers. This chapter offered nothing of any kind, except appeasement to readers that cannot imagine anything and want someone to spoon feed them bullshit. The story was already over. Stick a fork in it. It was done!

I never understood the need to tie things into a little bow and hand it to the reader. Some readers wanted the wife to screw every college kid she could find so the husband could somehow feel bad, or maybe feel good about it. Endings are difficult, but leave them wanting more, rather than wishing you hadn't offered so much.

Your writing is very good and you really should pursue it. If you write in first person as a male again, I suggest you leave out the embroidery and knitting and maybe scratch your imaginary balls now and then. Thanks for the hard work this entire story required.

Ellen's epilogue. That journey could be the basis for quite a yarn. This stuff happens all of the time. Sometimes, people grow and change. Sometimes they live their lives as selfish jerks leaving a trail of hurt. Either could be interesting.

good ending i guess a bit boring for a fictional story but at least u put an ending in the story

Really a good story overall. I personally like the ending. Four stars!

Is likely to be bland. 'And they all lived happily ever after'.

It's nice that much of the commentariat felt happy about it. I thought it was unnecessary and not matching the quality of the earlier chapters.

Lue

Ps: Re the Anonymous discussion.

For those who don't wish to register a name, and who enjoy entering conversations as a known commenter, do as the Man From Sherwood Forest does. AMerryman puts his moniker at the end of each comment.

It's not about that. You can imagine all the endings you want. A different ending each day. In the end the ending is what the author writes. That's the real ending. Reader's want that. This chapter offered a lot. Told us about the kids after the divorce. How he met a new girl. How his wife moved on.

I respectfully disagree with HDK - I like an epilogue and I like this epilogue (and I usually like the endings of his stories). This is a good series. In terms of plot, am glad that the kids were well taken care of and the parents didn't enrich all the lawyers trying to hurt each other.

I find myself in the strange position of agreeing with lue!

Actually, I'm a little mad at myself, I've also made that suggestion, forgot to repeat it!

Quickly write a story about two couples. Each succesful marriages just one continuing disagreement.

Couple A husband is anon while wife is namer

Couple B husband is namer while wife is anon.

Does not have to be much of a story regarding plot or length.

You might set first week ''comment'' record.

From his comments, Amerryman is swingerjoe who somehow had profile hijacked

Not all commenters seek the attention that namers hold dear. Someone remind me of the definition of insanity that states doing the same thing over and over with same result.

Admittedly, I am frequent commenter, had profile, tired of my email clogged by Literotica readers and dumped profile. I could set up proxy email, and indeed tried. Ahh, but these days you must provide cell phone number. Hmm...no thanks...even if I had a cell phone, which I do not.

I KNOW, I KNOW who doesn't have a cell phone these days. The looks I have received at doctors offices when I inform them I don't have one. Reminds me of the chastising anons receive from some namers.

Dragonman, if I wanted to engage in email discussion with author, I would sen him note with my address. Never have, never will. I make comments to show my support to authors whose works I enjoy reading. I try to write honest and objective critques. If author chooses to respond, better the whole world can read the author's words or thoughts instead of just anonymous ol me.

I have read sb's stories - that is sbrooks103x to those who do not share the same close relationship I have with him - I had no idea he didn't allow anon comments until I read his posting. Confirmed by bringing up one of his stories. Read that one and a few more. Realized why I didn't know his prejudicial stance. I did not read anything worth commenting on. Some other authors ideas with his twist.

Oops, I better withdraw those words or he will exclude me from reading his stories

I believe HDK mentioned something about allowing anons

to post thoughts. Recall he favored that allowance.

Well its been fun, but I just saw neighbor drive by heading to work, time for my afternoon cup of coffee with his wife. Delightful lass, always has sugar bowl ready, but seems to run out of creamer by this time every afternoon. Might even change the baby's nappy while I am there, just to help her out.

Least I could do. She does have my eyes after all.

This was a reasonable and happy ending to Dan's story everyone is happy without a BTB. My only problem is that Dan was blamed for Ellen's cheating because she got bored with him. I don't care what the writer's gender is. How do we know that HDK isn't a 300 pound trans living in someone's basement. Dan handled his divorce in an honorable way without damaging his kids. It would be pretty sad if it has to be a female writer to portray a reasonable man.

You earned the high scores. Don't listen to the jealous naysayers. I'm still waiting for Ellen's story. That will be a tough one but people would welcome a repented sinner.

I didn't really care for the story after chapter 1, but I did like that you dedicated a whole chapter to an epilogue, especially after you said it was over with on chapter 3. Not many authors do that so I really liked that you wrote this epilogue.

I was fine with the ending on ch 3, but I didn't think it was very good. This epilogue made the story much better in my opinion.

I enjoyed the series, and the last chapter was appreciated for a solid wrap up. Please keep writing!

I see many Anons claiming that they had id's but gave them up because their email got clogged up by Lit readers.

I'm a prolific commenter, and occasional writer, and I rarely get Lit emails. That may be due to the fact that blocking anonymous comments also blocks anonymous email!

Everyone found a good life.

No gods falling from the heavens to set things aright, no convenient car wrecks or sudden fatal diseases, and still you brought the plane in for a landing.

Give us more! More stories!

R.

Did the web people miss this trolling?

Not cool in the comments of these stories to be trolling.

As for me, the end of chapter 2 would have been a brilliant, "Huh? What? No eF'n way!!!" It left me hanging, but in a good way. A lot of suspense. The problem became chapter 3. A lot of people bitched and complained about the hanging end. So chapter 3 STARTED tying up the ends. Problem was a "proper" end was now left with a lot of holes. If you are going to "finish" it, then it needed to be properly finished.

Right now, the analogy that comes to mind is a roller coaster. Chapter one was getting on the roller coaster, having the safety bar lowered, and starting down the dark tunnel. Chapter 2 was going up the steep clattering incline, with the end of it being just at the top of the precipitous plunge. You see the the tracks disappear in front of you. You look down the huge plunge. Your heart stops in your mouth. You are anticipating the rush and negative Gs. Then the chapter ends. If the story stopped there it would have been quite the exiting cliff hanger. Would it have been better to have the full ride? Probably yes. But then chapter 3 comes, and it's MOST of the rest of the ride. That's my problem with chapter. 3, it doesn't quite finish. You're near the end of the ride, you can see the platform ahead, and the ride stops. The final resolution isn't there.

Could chapter 3 have been a finishing part with just a little more work? Absolutely. But it wasn't. There were just too many holes. If you're going to finish then finish. It seemed obvious the writer was getting tired of the story, but I think was a bit of disservice to the readers (not discounting this is all free). So, irregardless to how awesome/unawesome chapter 4 is, it does fill in the holes left by chapter 3. You do finally get to the platform at the end of the ride. Again, obviously the writer was now tired of the story, so didn't seem to get as much into the final part as they had in chapters 1 & 2. Even less so than chapter 3. But there is a finalie. Certainly it's not with a bang, maybe even a wimper, but does, properly, end.

Just MHO.

. . . was with chapter three. The initial writing was about whether Dan would stay with Ellen after she had one affair. The second affair was used to slam the coffin lid down, to give Dan no real option as to whether to keep her. Instead of Dan having to make a real decision, one which could have gone either way, the decision is made for him by circumstances. That’s the easy way out for the author. There might have been more meat for the plot if Dan had reconciled, and then found out about the second affair later.

. . . seemed like it was all about providing the ‘required’ better wife for Dan, so that he ‘wins’ in the end. Chapter 3 had Dan dumping his wife, which most readers wanted, but he hadn’t really ‘won’ yet — other than the one daughter favoring him over her mother — and it seemed as though you were trying to rectify that.

Nothing was mentioned about anon emails. The emails were from namers wanting to ''dialog''

I wasn't talking about anon emails. I was talking about anons who said that they gave up their id's because their inboxes were clogged with Lit emails.

Read last sentence of your ''Emails'' comment. You did indeed ''talk'' about those.

Enough already. You and luedon are obviously irked because anons do not facilitate luedon's and your shared desire to ''dialogue'' with them.

I, for one am amused by your obvious frustration

You are conflating several different comment streams.

The first, had to do with the difficulty of having a dialog with anonymous comments, and the idea of using a "signature" as AMerryman does to make an anonymous comment more unique.

The other had to do with the anons who said that they HAD an ID, but gave it up because their EMail got clogged up with Lit EMails. I mentioned that despite all my comments and some stories that I didn't have that problem. I then theorized that maybe I didn't have that problem because I block anonymous comments, and that also blocks anonymous emails.

As you say, enough already. Either you are unable to get my point, or you do get it, and are deliberately poking me. Either way further dialogue is fruitless.

Personally I appreciate you adding this chapter / epilogue! I know the BTB crowd will hate it but from the characters you created it makes sense. Ok maybe I am sucker for happy endings but really NO way back for the marriage. So I really appreciated where the characters and children ended.

Please keep writing and I will keep reading!

KenfromIndy

Not sure why can’t login into account from phone anymore? I will have to research what changed because I used to be able too!? So since I wanted to comment I have to resort the the dreaded Anonymous 😠

You seem to have paid too much attention to the commentators. You previous "last" chapter was okay, but the story was just okay. Adding this pollyanna ending did nothing for the story. The commentators arguing with one another was more interesting.

Good story; good writing.

I wouldn't have ended it that way, but good STORY anyway.

It's hard for me to understand how a spouse can profess all that love and beg for forgiveness only to get married to someone else at the end. I guess I'm a hopeless romantic. This wife was mentally ill and was not cured. She will cheat on her next husband and she knows it.

I also don't understand how a man can marry a woman whom he knows cheated on her first husband. My radar would be on constant high alert. Eventually it will wear me out.

But as I said, it's your STORY.

Bravo!

A pretty realistic story on a marriage breaking down. The two did not hate each other and possibly still loved each other, something was just missing to keep it alive. Real life, not every divorce situation has the ex's hating each other.

I'm a little sad because I was rooting for Dan and Ellen to reconcile, despite Ellen's compulsive lying and cheating. While wendylicker saw fit to make things work out for both of them in the end, I suppose the author was out to make a point here: that no amount of mutual attraction and affection can help a marriage go the distance if the couple are as fundamentally mismatched as Dan and Ellen were. Was it a mistake for them to marry? Possibly. But then again, their union produced two daughters they were proud of.

A pleasure to read, overall.

@Harddaysknight We are on erotic fantasy site and I think a GOOD EROTIC DREAM after divorce from a cheating wife to find a younger, healthier, better women than the cheater wife. It may be this erotic dream valid for more than 30 million husbands, exhusbands!

Given the insight into these characters shown in the first three chapters, I thought you would have shown greater understanding of Ellen’s destructive behaviour, especially since he is a respected anthropologist. This landed flat; they were going to divorce, each of them would meet and marry new mates and all is good. Quite a pedestrian ending.

The more I read of this story, the more it became obvious that these two should never have been married in the first place. He claimed that she cheated because she didn't respect him, but he never really respected her because she wasn't his intellectual equal and couldn't articulate the reasons for her behaviour. She was motivated by her feelings, he was motivated by intellectual analysis. Not a good combination.

LA

I felt the characters were real. I know life never wraps up with a pretty bow, but if most stories were untidy, I’d be out living my untidy life instead of reading! I can see the challenge of deciding how much to explain. I’d have liked an explanation of the wife’s behavior, but how often do we actually understand a wife’s thinking in real life?

I give it a 5/5/5/3.5, which rounds up to a 4, and it beats the snot out of anything I can write.

Thanks

Hmm, it seems that Ellen just liked strange cock, and the excitement that went with cheating. Yes it was very sad when she finally got caught, and the whole family suffered. Thank goodness she wasn't a total vindictive bitch because she could have made her cockold hubby suffer a hell of allot more. Good story overall. Thanks for it.

......and so well written. You started by asking for an editor but I saw only one tiny word out of place (cant remember where). If you can write this well without an editor it would be a shame to add one- he/she might make your writing less effective. Your characters are real and the situation they find themselves in and their actions and emotions are all believable and thus intense. It brought tears to my eyes several times-unusual for stories on this site. I will look for more from you in the future. Thank you for this 5 star experience.

Well-written, lucid, never plays the reader for a fool. Bravo! And thanks for the enjoyable free read.

I can not remember any other story capturing so well the dilemma of two married people who are not soul mates but care for each other. The character depth and the description of the concern for the children was brilliant. It shared with me the reality of being in a relationship where one partner spends more time than the other thinking about things and wanting to talk about them. The flaw in the marriage led to Ellen being tempted and straying, but the outcome where both Dan and Ellen found better futures with genuine soul mates was a very satisfying ending.

Disappointed story didn't have anything to do with the title very decieving

The story sets up a possible "mental illness" path with hints of "multiple personality" and "compulson," then just never goes there and ultimately her only "issue" is getting bored with her supportive family.

And we never really find out if she became an "honest woman." Were there only two affairs? Did she become an honest, faithful wife to her second husband? Or did she just become a better liar?

I was very impressed! Good to great dialogue, excellent storyline.

Gave you an extra star 3 to 4 due to hair on pussy awfully tired of bald shaven pubes

Finished up nicely

Saw it coming but I liked it

Keep writing

She certainly went form I will get you back to I found someone awfully fast.

And what about the mental health problems, that just got dropped.

In real life her obviously dating and finding someone else that quickly while professing love for her exhusband, would mean her made the right call.

But the poor new guy just married a serial adultress.

If this isn’t five stars, what is? Thanks for this.

Great story.

Somehow I missed chapter four first time through. Good finish to a good story, although I didn't like Ellen ending up happy. Hope this author writes again.

Ending for Ellen was very rushed no confirmation of how much cheating nor why. So only 4 stars. All in all a pretty realistic story and a good read.

Always a shame the wife doesn't get a little btb. Divorce is not enough.

But really glad he grew some and kept away from her, although here again she got what she wanted. She never actually thought of him once divorced. She did, after all, date before the ink was dry.

Writing and storytelling was great, making the story believable.

If a longer story is well written, the reader is drawn into the tale and empathises with the protagonist. After going through all the trials and tribulations of a "loving wives" story, most readers want the husband to have some kind of happy ending as a reward for all the shit he just endured. Finishing with an ambiguous or bleak ending feels anticlimactic... and certainly makes me feel like I just wasted my time reading the story.

There's no real hard and fast rules, but generally, if the story is 5+ pages it absolutely deserves some kind of epilogue, even if it's only a couple of paragraphs. The longer the story, the longer the denouement should be. Ending a lengthy story abruptly without wrapping things up isn't clever... it's lazy... and a disservice to readers who have become invested in the characters.

I had to share this one with my wife, who is a marriage counselor. It, of all the stories on this site, best fits the actual mold of how discovered affairs play out. The trickle truth, the discoverable history bubbling up and over, the way the betrayed husband uses personal responsibility and problem solving as coping mechanisms to make himself feel a bit more in control of a spiraling emotional nightmare. It’s a stunning portrayal of how men actually respond to this pain, which is a nice contrast to all the toxic stories about needing to “win” the divorce so badly that your hero abandons his kids and flees the country or whatever.

Great story, enjoyed it a lot

Seemed real, the characters weren't superman/woman. Discovery of a second affair was indeed decisive in ending the marriage. I thought the councilng scenes were especially well done, and the realization that they were fundamentally incompatible. Intellectually was insightful, and probably more common in real life than we than we imagine. Writing such a long story is quite a feat, the last chapter was an afterthought, and not quite up to snuff

Chilley

I enjoyed it in that I feel as though it was an honest set of reactions on everyone's part. Dan showed incredible patience in dealing with the increasingly difficult situation and metered his actions through the children.

I don't know about Ellen. She was remorseful and truly didn't want to hurt Dan, but her rationalization of what she'd been doing over the years is both maddening and mind boggling. Dan was correct when he said that she should have approached him with her issues before ever taking it outside the relationship. The ending left me wanting a a few more pounds of flesh removed from Ellen for everything she'd caused.

I did enjoy the series and would really like to see other stories from the author. Is it me though, Dan seemed more calm that one would think and I don’t think Ellen was really upset that she hurt her husband - just happy it’s over and that she could move on without the pains of being a full parent.

To echo a previous comment, I am very impressed this was a first effort. It was riveting as an examination of the mental processes people go through, and the counseling scenes were extremely well written in terms of developing comprehension of the cheating/ reactions.

I loved how this story came together...and it was great to see that this man had balls... He finally got all the facts and stuck to his principles....and a good ending made this story worth reading........

Top ending. The cheating lying bitch got hers in spades and deserved it too.

Guess what?

Ellie will cheat again, one could bet on it.

Either you are a therapist, you have amazing insight or you have gone through it yourself.

A very clever, well thought out story. The writer's style was easy flowing and a pleasure to read. This is not for the BTB crowd at all! This is more of one man's intellectual struggle to understand and reach a proper decision with what life has unexpectedly thrown in his face.

I enjoy a good BTB or reconciliation tale myself, but this is neither.

What this writer presented was:

(1) a husband who made sure all the information he had in hand was true.

(2) made every effort to give his cheating wife a chance to redeem herself.

(3) ensure his children physical and pychologically well beings were taken care of.

(4) had all his ducks were in a row before dropping the hammer on his marriage.

Unfortunately, this writer has only posted this one story. But, it's high quality story at that. For that alone I added this story to my favorites. 5 stars!

That was a great series. Ellen's turn in Ch3 from remorseful wife to serial cheater was a bit sudden, but it smoothed out over the course of the story. I do definitely see more drama in her second marriage.

Damn! That was so disappointing. I read all the way through, waiting for him to finally wake up and be someone, but no, he just went and followed the predictable path. In fact, I think that is what I missed the most in this story. The lead character was so one-dimensional, so together, so perfect. Absolutely no blame was placed on him, presumably because the expectations are that if he cooks and cleans and works hard that he should, by right, get a fairy tale life. And because there was no background story about the husband other than he was an intellectual, and an allusion to him being a bit "boring" there was no way of understanding why this guy thought that infidelity was enough to destroy his perfect life.

The idea that lying is a simple choice, or rather confessing the truth is something only good people can do and everyone else is bad and untrustworthy is quite a childish view. But then the story was deliberately written to set up the wife with the second reveal to show that the husband was able to forgive (supposedly) and therefore the undeniable hero whilst the wife was just a series of unjustifiable betrayals.

The husband played his whole life as the passive victim without making any effort to either wonder why it happened (but readily accepted suggestions). Nor was he willing to use both his intellectual prowess and his perfect love to find a solution to stay together. The only real moment within the whole story was when he needed to show hit disgust at the thought that his wife could have an orgasm with another man by being sick. It is only then that you see the true arrogance of the man and the delusion that he lives in: he couldn't accept that he was not better than everyone else and that was more than he could live with.

To live such a privileged life free of worries and paranoia and struggles and to throw it all away because that is a better option than to actually live some life seems, to me, boring and deeply disappointing. I guess that is how the story left me feeling.

Awful.

And you know why? Because you neglected to ever let the readers to have even a clue about why Ellen cheated.

And the happy ever after BS…..so trite. So bad.

1*