I often get questions and comments from readers, but this one was interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you. As I read it I thought many of may have had the same thought.
It relates to how my hub, how I feel about him and our relationship. It also asks how he’d feel if he found out about not only my affair, but that I’d written about it so extensively. I’ll let you read the email for yourself, and then let you read my answer.
What follows is the very lightly edited question “M” asked yesterday.
Please let me start by stating I love your writing style; I enjoy reading your erotic stories but not why I’m emailing you now.
Every time I read your work, this question comes up for me. I read your descriptions of encounters with your boyfriend, how it’s been such a wonderful experience, and how it’s something you had to do for you. Don’t get me wrong, I get all of that, and to me, if that makes your life right, great.
I ask myself exactly how much do you detest your husband, how cruel has he made your life that you could go after him at this level?
When I’m reading your writing, I can’t help but wonder how anyone would feel that’s been placed in your husband’s shoes, not to mention your family and friends. At some point, everything will come out, and he will find he’s the subject of this huge extramarital affair. But this isn’t like the normally discovered affair, is it? This affair has been so documented he’s out there for everyone to the extent he’s partly responsible for teaching others how to cheat on a grand scale.
I only know of you and your husband from your writing, but for me, I wonder how one in his shoes survives and is able to move on after. This would be if that is your intent, a new high bar for scorching the earth.
So I’m asking, is your marriage that bad, is he that much of a cancer for you, and the potential for the likely nuclear event not just with him but family and friends?
I’m sorry, but I’m a guy, and I don’t think most guys would be happy.
(LOL It so occurred to me that this could be a huge fictional play orchestrated to support your writing. If so, 👏 👏 👏 👏 and keep up the good work!)
Just another curious follower with a question,
Take care, M
And here was my response, also lightly edited for clarity, because my fingers often get ahead of me.
It seems you’ve caught me at my computer M!
First off, thank you for your kind words about my style and my stories. It’s nice to hear because while I know they’re ok, it’s hard to be objective, and I’m often quite hard on myself.
So, how’s my marriage? Do you have a sister, and could you imagine living with her? Going about your day, caring for each other as family would, loving each other, and being kind, but more a friendship than love? Imagine the disagreements as bickering without much heat or long-lasting anger.
That’s what my marriage is like. On top of that, there’s sexual dysfunction related to a medical issue that also causes memory lapses. We haven’t had sex in any regular way [what I meant here is about half a dozen times] since 2009, and I didn’t cheat until 2018. Those years were mostly ok until the morning I woke up and realized the next time I’d have sex would be as a widow in my seventies [I was 47 at the time].
As for writing, I’m a writer who cheats and not a cheater who writes. So yes, your observation about all of this being an elaborate story is a plausible one. In fact, it could be the story I tell. Some parts of what I have written aren’t true, while others are painfully so. Because I’m a storyteller, I can hide my stories inside my stories and weave a web that only I control. That really is the magic of storytelling.
So, yes, it’s out there, and yes, it’s documented, but let’s say you knew it was. Would you want the world to read about you? Would you tell the world that those stories were about you? I don’t think you would, because it would be humiliating.
Also, know that I can pull the plug on my entire writing business in about 24 hrs and be completely gone from the web. Meaning he’d have to know who I was as a writer in order to find my stories. So my security has layers upon layers of security, woven together with fact and fiction, and cover stories for cover stories, to the point where only I know the truth. Honestly, there are only three other people who know who I am, both as a writer and as a person. One is my banker who cannot talk for professional reasons, my oldest friend who has never liked hub, and my lover. Even Mona doesn’t know who I am.
And so would my life blow up? Maybe, but I was just speaking to my lover about building a cover story for my affair. So that I can say how long it was, how we met, and thereby limit the true nature of it. That would be more to protect my hub’s feelings than my own, though.
Anyway, I hope this helps answer your question. Thank you for asking!
Teresa
And there you have it! I’m always open to a respectful question, no matter how difficult the subject might be. I don’t expect everyone to approve of or like what I do, but that doesn’t mean we need to disrespect each other for it. When we question people and look at their answers, we gain understanding. I’ll never try to convince anyone having an affair is for them, but if they decide it is, I can give them some of the tools they’ll need to navigate the murky waters.
Is that contributing to their sin? No, because nothing I’ve written makes the decision to cheat easier, nor does it make cheating risk free. Consider this —
Does giving someone a saw make them a carpenter?
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© Teresa J. Conway, 2021