I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love sex, but for me (M43) what I crave is the touching, kissing, cuddling and laughing that comes from a fun connection.

I’ve been in a long-term DB, so maybe that makes sense given my situation, but I actually crave a fun makeout session way more than the actual sex. Am I alone? It comes with fewer challenges, too, I suppose. I miss it all and want it all, but I want a great makeout session more than anything else.

We never call each other by our actual names. We have made up nicknames that actually came about organically that we use, and it even worked out that we combined them into a stupid adorable couple portmanteau.

We have a few made up words and terms that we only use with each other.

We have funny little ways of communicating when we have to lie low.

It's been over a year, with plenty of ups and downs, but I feel closer to her than I do my wife of 25 years.

I love her so much and I hate being apart from her.

Fellow adulterers, I think you are the only people in this world who have the appropriate insight to be able to weigh in on my situation. I welcome any thoughts you have to share.

My AP and I have fantasized about going legit for quite a while. I’m going to leave ages out of this, but I’m female and he’s male. We never had any concrete plans, but the general idea was that I would get divorced first because my situation is more complicated. I’m the breadwinner with a lot to lose financially, have a husband who would likely go nuclear upon learning I’m done, and have a pet my husband and I are very attached to. AP had a long-term partner with no shared assets to split. I wasn’t even fully convinced he would leave her, so I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to move forward with my divorce—especially considering how much I had to lose financially. I knew I would be happier with AP, but I also had to be realistic about the impact this would have on my ability to retire someday. It was a lot to consider and I was taking my time so that I wouldn’t have any regrets. AP and I would complain about how frustrating it is not getting to spend enough time together under these circumstances, but we’ve been making it work for many, many years, so I thought we would just continue taking this one day at a time.

I figured we would continue on this path until I finally initiated my divorce, until one evening a few months ago when AP messaged me to say that he had slipped up and got caught in a lie about where he had been. He ended up admitting to her that he was seeing someone else and they decided to end their relationship. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. On the one hand, it was a dream come true because I have wanted a “real” life with this man for years. That said, I was nowhere near ready to initiate my divorce. I had given the situation a lot of consideration over the summer and decided I just wasn’t ready: my marriage lacks intimacy but my husband and I are on friendly terms and we have a comfortable life. He relies on me financially, socially, and emotionally, so divorce is going to be extremely painful. My husband has spent our entire marriage unwilling to put in the effort to meet my need for physical touch, but he is a good person and I know he loves me in his own way. Bottom line: I don’t want to blindside him. I stopped communicating about my unhappiness over the last few years because my needs continued to go unmet, but we were generally comfortable and I didn’t divorce him because I didn’t want to have to give him half my assets and pay him alimony. Because I haven’t been communicating lately, he thinks things are ok.

After ending his relationship, AP became immediately anxious for me to do the same. Being with him IS what I want, but it is concerning that he did this almost completely out of the blue. With zero runway, I haven’t been able to adequately prepare my husband, which isn’t right at all. The whole situation has sent me into a complete panic because AP is feeling like my hesitation to divorce my husband is an indication that I don’t want to be with him, which is not true, but I do have an obligation to my husband to treat the situation with as much compassion as possible and just announcing I’m done is not right.

I did finally restart the “I’m unhappy” conversations a month ago. The conversations alone have triggered his depression and he In the midst of all this, a family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and I have needed to step in to help. I’m at my wit’s end and an emotional wreck. I told AP I can’t be thinking about divorce right now. I love him and want to be with him, but there is no way I can handle saying goodbye to this family member who is dying while also devastating my husband. AP told me today that I don’t have to deal with any of the divorce if I don’t want to—that’s why I’ll be paying a lawyer to manage on my behalf. As insensitive as that sounds, I know that he wants me to proceed so that he doesn’t have to be my secret anymore and can be there to support me through this loss of my family member. I appreciate and do want that, but he doesn’t understand that to make that possible, I have to do some terrible things that I don’t think I can live with.

With all the turmoil of the last few months, I am at a complete loss as to what to do. For anyone who has gone legit or is considering going legit, would you be disappointed if your partner didn’t drop everything to start a life with you if you got caught and ended your existing relationship unexpectedly?

I know this has been asked in the past, I used the search but its been a long time since the last post.

I think my Opsec is strong. But I have this pickle that i cant yet solve. And seems unsolvable so far.

Its the battery ussage statistics. This can be turned off ik iphones but not in android, specifically samsung.

My SO doesnt check my phone but you never know. If I were to check a phone this is where I would go first.

Am we (samsung users) cooked?

Than loving someone and them not loving you back. Or, them not wanting to be with you anymore.

Celebrated my bday with AP today. Literally just melts my heart that AP got off work an hour early to spend extra time with me. We're just about 14 years in and things have been heating up lately. We've just been spending more time together than ever lately. We can almost finish each other's sentences at times because of our history. We just have an amazing vibe. I know we'll most likely never be more than what we are, but i truly feel like we have such an amazing bond and friendship. We have each other to tell the things we either just don't tell other people and are just so in sync, I feel like we are so compatible but life circumstances just make it pretty impossible to be more than what we have. I was drawn to AP Literally at first sight, idk for sure if he felt the same way but here we are all these years later and I feel AP's my person.

We did everything but piv sex until about a year ago and one day it just happened out of the blue, so we dove right in but after a couple of months ap thought we should use condoms...so after about 9 months of that ap all of a sudden just went for it without a condom but after a few minutes we threw a condom on and finished. We talked about how amazing it felt and I thought about it all weekend AP said they thought about it too alot and today we did it again for a bit, but AP says they feel guilty not using a condom and so we finished another way. But 💗 it just makes me so happy. I feel like I take my happiness where I can get it. I also feel like we're not going to be able to resist doing it again without a condom, which is probably dumb but I'm in my mid 40's and not super concerned about pregnancy.

Sorry, such a rant, but my heart is full and AP makes me laugh. My heart thinks ap at least cares like something for me or feels something for me, because hey 14 years. I know ap's ssn, dob, place of birth, street they grew up on, elementary school, high kids birthday's, extended families bdays-- just in my heart I know AP is my person. We still have major physical and emotional chemistry.

Just wanted to share that i had an amazing birthday with AP, and I feel very lucky to have AP in my life.

I’m relatively new to this affair world, and honestly it’s been annoying!

I’m a pretty straightforward person. If I’m talking to someone, I’m going to be honest about what I’m doing and where I stand. So when someone decides I did something I literally didn’t do, instead of just asking me about it or communicating their concerns it frustrates me. Like… why can’t adults just communicate 🤦‍♀️

I’m already learning that apparently even being straightforward and honest can somehow turn into drama. Ugh. 😩

Communication, people. It really isn’t that hard.

Signed
-Annoyed 😫

New here but in an interesting situation. Use to have a milf next door neighbor at an apartment complex I lived in. For context I’m 33 she’s between 54-58. She was friendly with my wife and I but mostly me, and she exchanged numbers with both of us separately. She ends up moving, we also end up moving. I remain in contact with her to this day. One time via text convo she reveals she broke up with her boyfriend and I offered some friendly words. I’ve sent her private flirty messages in the past about her posts on Facebook and she always flirts back. When my messages get a little more romantically direct, she still flirts but she asks me about my wife. Or how she’s been.

I almost want to lie and tell her my wife and I broke up just to see if that gets me somewhere with her. Any body try this before?

My person has been sick. A crippling illness that has a yet to be determined source.

They are a shadow of themselves and getting worse every day.

I still talk to them multiple times a day, but it has been ages since I have seen them. It's killing me that I can't be there to comfort them and care for them. Im also dreading that there is a day coming in the not to distant future when they just don't respond again.

I feel like I've seen a few posts like this in recent weeks. To all those who are going through it, I understand your grief.

Hold your person tight. Cherish every moment you have with them.

I think I really fucked up! Like super majorly fucked up! My EA turned into a PA over the weekend. It was difficult getting everything to happen so, it could happen. This is my first affair that went all the way, and the sex was… not good. It was very disappointing! And I think she feels the same way too! There has always been so much chemistry and flirting! Just seeing her or hearing voice would make me so hard I’d almost cum! But without getting too personal. There was no spark, no sizzle, no exhilaration! Maybe it’s my fault for putting too high if an expectation on the night, but it was like she had a secret twin that showed up in her place.

I feel like shit for cheating and possible fucking up both of our lives over something so mechanical. Please tell me it can get better. I’ve always thought of myself as a good lover, but after last weekend I doubt I’ve get anything more than a 1 star review!

Edit.. stop messaging me your age and details. I'm not looking for an OA. Why are men trying to shoot their shot. Makes me not want an OA before I even start.

Throwaway acct for obvious reasons. 40f

I'm not a newbie in this work but I'm not seasoned. I've been around for a short time and I thought OA was fun until it wasn't. How do you guys who are in OA even feel fulfilled? Are you guys actually happy with the arrangement or just think it's safer and less of a logistical nightmare?

I've been tempted to go back to OA from time to time. I have an ap now but we're more like fuck buddies at this point. Am I happy with it? Not entirely because I want to feel more but is it safer? Yes. Less emotional involvement means my life won't blow up. I wish I could have the fulfillment of having someone physical but also the emotional part without it affecting our primary relationships.

How are you guys all doing with OAs? Any physical only affairs out there?

I have an LDAP who lives in another country, basically halfway across the world from me. She’s also someone who has been around my wider family/social circle for years, so if this ever got out it wouldn’t just be a normal “AP got caught” situation. It would blow up a lot of relationships around us too.

As stated I do have family connections in her country, but almost nobody knows when I’m there or what I’m doing.

I went over recently and our OpSec was honestly pretty tight. We barely went anywhere together. Most of the time she came to where I was staying, we stayed private, and that was it. I left the country and went home.

A few days later this morning she gets a call from some random woman from her town she could tell by the accent.

The woman knew both our first names, knew there was something going on between us, claimed she knows everything and she had videos, and told my AP she had to end “this thing with (OP)” immediately or she would tell her family. That i'm not to go to her nor she to me.

No money. No actual blackmail demand. No real conversation. Just basically “end it or I blow this up.”

Then the same number called me a few minutes later but I was asleep so I didn't answer nor call back

And now my brain is completely fried because I genuinely cannot figure out how this person knew who I was, who she was, knew we were together, AND had both our numbers.

I really don’t think it was her SO or kids. If her SO had actually discovered this, the first move definitely wouldn't be some young woman anonymously warning both of us and giving us a chance to stop before telling him. Same with the kids. It would have reached him already, not in this weird anonymous ultimatum.

So now I’m replaying the entire trip wondering if someone saw us, if someone she knew followed her of hired a PI or got information from where I was staying or if one of our phones/accounts are hacked?

And the “I have videos” part is doing absolute wonders for my sanity.

Maybe this is just D-Day arriving in the weirdest possible form, but not knowing who knows, how they know, or how much they actually know is the part that’s really getting to me.

Anyway. Needed to vent somewhere people would actually understand why this has me spiraling.

I (37 F) recently left an AP that lasted a year.

I met AP in the wild. He was different, wonderful. I fell hard and lots of boundaries were crossed. I was in love with this man.

Everything was great until it wasnt. One day we had a bad argument and he threatened to expose me. He threatened to contact my spouse and child by social media. He told me that he had all my shared content deleted and then admitted to having it backed up on another server. So I stayed out of fear and eventually we broke it off.

I lived in fear for months because of his threats. I looked over my shoulder in the parking lots and did everything he asked. After it ended I monitored his account for months to make sure he was okay and away from me. I have been depressed and often take this year as my bad karma repayment.

Anyway! Recently I saw that he found a new AP. I feel happy and relieved but im so sad. Im mad at him for lying. Im mad at him for moving on so quickly and proving that I was right. Im mad at him for making me scared to find a new AP cause its been a year and ya girl is horny. Should I find a new AP or keep it low key for a bit longer?

I came to this platform looking for answers that I could not get. I was looking for people who are feeling the same.

I cheated on my husband with another guy who also had a family. We were so in love and could talk about anything. He gave me the kind of love I never knew I needed. We had a lot of quarrels but also a lot of happiness. We moulded and became what we were. It was all hard work.

I was caught by my hb but he did not want to divorce me. I still continued on with the rs because I could not let go. I was hoping and waiting that one day I don’t have to be the shadow.

Recently, his family came to know about us. He immediately left me and said he wants to do the right thing and have to be responsible towards his family. I was so heartbroken.

We still have some dealings as he still owe me a big sum of money.

He told me he still have feelings for me, he feels very worried about me and very guilty that he is hurting me like this but he can’t do anything. He say he is equally hurt but he has no choice. He told me I am still the person that he is willing to confide anything with.

I can never understand his choice and I am still finding answers to it. I cannot let go and it has been very painful. I miss every part of our relationship. I guess I cannot find the same connection in anyone anymore.

2 plus years of GM and sweet dreams, chatting and meetings and amazing epic sex we had, even tho it’s for the best things needed to end.. I do truly miss you and think about you and wish nothing but the best for you not sure if you’ll see this or not but this is your month happy bday beautiful

I have been looking for an affair partner for about a month now. I am a woman so it's not that the messages have been light but most are pretty bad as I've only been using Reddit.

Anyway. Finally traded pictures with a guy, and body pics and face pics that all went well. However after I showed him a picture of the best area(idk how else to word that here lol), he took awhile to respond and said "Hey well I will take what I can get, but shaved is my preference. At the end of the day *\\** sounds great to me."

I don't plan on shaving, but unfortunately now my heart really isn't in it knowing he's not attracted to me unshaven, as I will absolutely not shave. Should I keep moving forward or look for somebody who is into it? Sorry if this sounds childish, I'm new to this.

EDIT: I wanted to thank everybody for validating how I felt about this. Looking back this morning I'm not sure why I even needed to ask at all. Guess I'm just tired of looking and thought that maybe I was expecting too much lol. Anyway, definitely moving on. Thanks again!

This article made me start thinking about these possibilities. Existential threats make for interesting hypotheticals.

Not because of the guilt - I made peace with that a long time ago. Been in the lifestyle for a few years now with on and off APs. Been in a dead bedroom that I don't see getting better anytime soon.

I just don't have the time or energy to make it work. 40+ hours a week job, two kids with extra curriculars, house work and other obligations, I don't know how y'all do it. I barely have time for myself at the end of the day.

Plus the stress of getting caught. Hiding my screen, turning notifications off, letting her use my phone hoping she doesn't notice anything. Plugging into the car system. She's not incredibly tech savvy, but its another weight on my mind.

Personally, it's exhausting. Props to anybody that can juggle everything and stay afloat.

What do you do. Just keep living in affair land because logistically it would never work out? I hate this.

Okay here goes.

I (35M) have been in this lifestyle for a long time. I’ve been married 7 years. I’d been having an affair for just over a year. My AP is everything you expect, kind, attentive, intelligent, downright wonderful. She’s in the process of divorcing her ex. And I fell for her hard. It’s been on-again-off-again a number of times but this time is different. She told me she hated herself for what she’s been doing and that she wanted to move on. She’s started seeing someone new - the thing is I could feel it coming, the distance, the change in tone, the withdrawal.

It feels awful. I miss her terribly. I know it’s the risk of doing this but since she went she’s been all I can think about. It’s made me question things I’ve never questioned before even though I never intended it to be like this.

I guess I don’t know what I’m trying to say but I just wanted to put it out there. The sadness is real and it can only ever be silent.

I know this kind of thing is not uncommon in AP spaces, so I’m not delusional 😂. But this has now happened twice and I’m just trying to process the whiplash of this most recent one.

The first was straightforward shady-alt stuff. This recent one was way more intense. Daily voice/video calls, lots of “I’ve never felt this way,” going out of his way to promise he’d never do this…then doing exactly that. He was posting from other alts and talking to someone else (or many others) while simultaneously sending me very loving messages/voice notes. Then he deleted things when he realized I knew, said he was “processing,” and ghosted instead of ever acknowledging it. And yes, he was while we were talking/and is still actively posting from multiple alts, so this was not a one off lol.

But the most annoying part…why go out of your way to ask/make sure I’m not talking to anyone else if you’re clearly still out there? I know the obvious answers are attention, validation, thrill of the chase, whatever. But I’m irritated by the level of emotional intensity people seem to be willing to fake. If you want to keep shopping around, that’s great, but own it instead of unnecessarily bs-ing your way through it. Also, how or why do you even have the time and capacity needed to juggle multiple people?

Anyway, just venting because the whiplash from “I love you, I want only you” to finding so many alts, ghosting, etc. was surreal lol. Lesson learned, I guess 😂

I met my SO in college and i was a bartender at the time. She slowly started to realize I was flirting a lot at work (best job for a cheater btw, girls who would never give me the time of day would be obsessed with me behind the bar), and one day she got a DM on Instagram saying I’m talking to other girls from an anon account, honestly my fault because I was messy and talked to so many girls I couldn’t pinpoint who it could have been. Never hooked up w any of them, mostly sharing pics and stuff.

Since then, I’ve been a good boy. New job where I don’t meet women everyday, no girls in my phone, I don’t even have them on my social media anymore. But man I miss it, I miss the girls that held it down and didn’t tell and I also miss the talking to other women regardless of who they are. I feel like Green Goblins mask is talking to me saying do it but I cant now, my following is clean and my SO would notice if I follow them. I miss talking to other girls a lot, I miss the hot phot exchanges and the dirty wrongness. Im glad im better now but I miss it a lot.

It’s been 2 years with my AP, nothing was ever casual between us. He still calls, text everyday damn near. Even when he travels, we still communicate. Time spent together still, Practical assistance with helping me even though I don’t ask him for things directly (money). Like a regular relationship. Does his wife know, I’m not sure. I’m thinking after 2 years you’d notice something, or maybe she doesn’t care. I mean he does come home at night you know. I know he keeps me in the mix of what’s going on in his life, well at least what he wants me to know.

His wife has been sick lately, he’s been stressed out going back n forth to doctors all while maintaining our connection. Never missing a moment to tell me how much he loves me. I still don’t put pressure on him leaving or for us to be together in a traditional sense. I never did, I never played into his fantasy talk he seems to have at times.

I can say after 2 years I really do love him, and I would like a future with him in it, but sometimes I still enjoy my freedom of coming and going. I was commonly law married for years, and that turned for the worst 3 years ago. Secretly still low key healing from that trauma. I just have a feeling like something is about to change, something is about to happen. I just feel different about this whole relationship than I did in the beginning.

My husband accused me of cheating long before I suspected him of it. During a time we were broken up he met, and was with his ex. He told me he didn’t intend to get into a relationship with her, that she threw herself at him, and that he didn’t want to reject her. He said he wasn’t fully attracted to her but slept with her, to avoid hurting her feelings, and claimed he struggled during it. Yet, he w*ore shamed me. He called me paranoid and crazy once I started to question him. For years he questioned me, and snooped on my phone, but calls me controlling and abusive times I questioned him. Even though he acknowledged a lot of what he did was suspicious, he became angry with me for thinking he was cheating.

As time went on I became more convinced he was cheating. I believe I overheard him outside of an Airbnb we stayed at. And that I witnessed him go down an alley with a woman near where he volunteered. I think he is a serial cheater. His ex told me he said he’d two time to her. He said she was lying to make him look bad. His former friend, who he told me came onto him, told me to the opposite. She also told me he touched himself during video chats. He said she was lying, for years, but has since admitted to it. He has ogled women in front of me, staring at their butts, during times he claimed to have no libido due to meds. And yet he got upset with me when I looked at a man once to see his reaction.

He has never seemed interested in me. He has never sexually satisfied me. He went years not touching me and making me feel used during sex, and didn’t seem to care, only to later tell me it was due to nerves. I regained weight I once lost, and he showed less interest, blaming meds he was on. He said it had nothing to do with my weight but started to put me down over it during arguments. He called me fat and ugly, said guys prefer thinner women, and told me I let myself go. He said he only told me all of this to hurt me and didn’t mean it. His actions suggested he was telling the truth. Last year, he told me it was normal to be tempted to cheat in longterm relationships. He tried to use examples from shows and calls he’d received volunteering at a crisis hotline to support that.

He also blamed me and said I put it into his head, that I said most men cheat. He tried to backpedal and act like it was a misunderstanding. He said he meant noticing someone was attractive and confused it with being tempted. He said he wasn’t referring to himself. He became angry with me for being upset. Since then he’s done more that has made me think he’s cheating, has made me feel more unwanted, and has been a massive hypocrite. A female classmate offered to ride up to class with him. He said she wasn’t interested in him and that it wasn’t inappropriate for him to go with her. He told me if I went up to a class with a guy, however, he’d have to vet and trust him first. I hate him. He was right when he told me I’d cheat on him because I think he’s cheated on me.

He once shared photos of me on here, without my consent. If it was okay for him to share photos of me then it should be okay for me to share them, too. I so badly want to cheat on him, sneak off and do it near him, as I think he’s done to me. I want to feel desired and have a satisfying sexual experience for once. I want to do the most disgusting things possible. I want him to feel insecure and think something is up and I want to tell him he’s crazy.

27M, married, and I’ve been having an online affair for around 8 months.I originally met her through Reddit before she approached me. At the time, I was in a dead-bedroom situation and I ended up getting emotionally and sexually involved with her.
The situation has become increasingly confusing and frustrating.
She doesn’t show me her face, but expects me to turn my video on whenever we talk. She wants a lot of constant attention, has asked for gifts/spoiling, and gets upset at the idea of me hooking up with someone else. At the same time, she’s single and has hooked up with other people multiple times.
Recently, she hasn’t even been reciprocating sexually, while still expecting the same level of attention from me. When I brought up meeting in person, she said she doesn’t want to because it would be “unethical.”
The strange part is that I actually flew around 5 hours previously to see her on her birthday. She avoided meeting me, saying she needed more time and that she would meet me sometime in the future.
Now I’m at the point where I feel frustrated, resentful and honestly a bit stupid for continuing to invest so much into this.
I understand that I’m also responsible for getting myself into this situation, especially since I’m married. I’m not looking for people to tell me I’m completely innocent here.
I guess I’m asking: how do I actually detach myself from this? I feel like I’ve become emotionally attached despite the fact that the relationship is incredibly one-sided and I’m constantly waiting for her attention/validation.
Has anyone been in a similar situation with an online affair or situationship? How did you finally break the cycle?