White middle class woman, seemingly happy in my marriage of almost 20 years. No children, successful business, two cats. Husband older, healthy and fit.
How did it, why did it happen? It just did.
We went on holiday to the Drakensberg and I booked in for a massage. The guy was friendly, warm, funny. He certainly wasn’t an oil painting.
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During the massage, he touched me inappropriately. I told him so, and he apologized, saying there were some woman who enjoyed that. I went back for a second massage two days later – curiosity and …..I enjoyed his massage. He was a perfect massage therapist this time. I left and that was it.
He smsed me the following day and we entered into text banter that was to have my account soaring from R200 to over nine hundred rand in a month. Within a few days the banter had become of a sexual nature and fantasies abounded.
Within a couple of weeks we were intimate lovers and I couldn’t wait to get to my phone. 
The intensity of this lasted a couple of months and we decided to take it to the next step and have him visit me in the city. The openness of the text messages had help to iron out all the discomfort and when we met the passion for one another was raw. Regrettably he had fallen in love with me, but I only felt tenderness and caring.
In the three years that this affair continued, we managed to visit each others homes half a dozen times whilst my husband was blissfully unaware. There were several times I tried to extricate myself from the relationship but he kept hooking me in. Eventually guilt overrode the passion and I removed myself from all communications.
For several months he stalked me with phone calls and text messages and it took immense will power to ignore him. Several times I thought he would call my husband and tell him. I went through a patch of losing weight dramatically and feeling ill and even had an AIDS test – fortunately all clear.
There are so many feelings that come up, emotions sway like the pendulum. I am grateful for the experience and also not to have been found out. I am sorry to have hurt my man in the Drakensberg who brought passion, laughter and spontaneity into my life. I am deeply saddened to have betrayed my husband and our marriage contract.
Two years since I called it a day, and I think of this episode that had potential to destroy everything in my life daily.
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I think it must have been really hard for you to write this. I hope that it was cathartic in at least some respects. Good luck with your own healing.
I have a friend who is ‘the other woman’ and she has a similar story, from the other perspective as it were. She is in the middle and has fallen horribly in love with him. It makes me so sad to see this happening as I can only foresee pain in the future.
You made the right decision breaking it off and saving your marriage. We all make mistakes and just have to move forward and deal with the aftermath in whatever way we can.
I have been faithful for years and now at 38 I want an affair with someone lovely. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Dear writer,
I have been trying to contact you for permission to publish this story in the printed version of the book, however have not received a response. Please do email if we are able to publish.
Jen