WE’RE BOTH HAVING AFFAIRS

I love my husband and we have a good marriage, but two years ago I began an affair with an attractive mutual friend of ours who is married. We all meet socially quite often and my husband eventually became suspicious. When he challenged me, I admitted that I was cheating on him. A few weeks later, he began an affair with my lover’s wife. I found this painful at first, but we are now all open with each other and have sex with our spouses as well as our lovers. We both have teenage children and they seem happy about it. Do you think there is anything wrong in what we are doing? You are on dangerous ground. It sounds as though when your husband discovered your affair, he either thought he would get his own back by having a revenge fling, or has always found this other woman attractive and finally had an excuse to act on it. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Either way, they were driven into each other’s arms by your joint betrayal and it could backfire. Your husband might decide he wants a divorce, leaving you free to be with your lover. But so often in a situation such as this, the man leaves his mistress and begs his wife to continue with their marriage. I am concerned about the children. They might appear to be OK, but they could be hiding their real feelings and have fears about their parents breaking up. Also, you are teaching them that in a marriage or serious relationship, faithfulness is not important. This could lead to big problems in their future relationships. I suspect it will all end in tears, unless you and your husband both leave your lovers and try to rebuild the marriage.