Infidelity has a huge impact upon a person. Of course, for some of you that seems to be a tame statement.

I asked my readers how infidelity impacted and changed their lives.

Here’s the question and two responses:

1. List 3 or 4 meanings that your partner’s affair has for you. That is to say, what impact is the infidelity having upon YOU? For example, how has is changed what you think about? how you spend your time? how you think of yourself? etc? Tell a story or give examples of how your life is now different.

It has totally changed the way I look at sex. I see his interest in sex with her and then his interest in sex with me, and think that it has nothing to do with us, but IT. The affair has ruined my belief in sex as an experience between two people who love each other and want to know each other intimately and experience this great joy together. The affair has made me think about myself and only myself. What I am suffering and have suffered because of the affair. I am constantly wanting to prove myself. That I am a desireable person to the opposite sex. I have thought about casual sex with another person–someone I haven’t met yet, but I imagine it. Before the affair I could never imagine sex with anyone other than my husband. I am spending my time looking for ways to have fun myself and be wild and get out there and see what the other life has to offer. My conservative thoughts of married life as a wife and mother are gone.

My former husband left me 9 yrs ago for the Other Woman, who he lives with, but has not married. The biggest blow has been to my self esteem and I find I compare myself to her frequently. Although she is a yr older and average looking, I am constantly bombarded by the thoughts of what my ex husband sees in her–what she has that I don’t. I still have not totally moved on from the divorce, and there remains a hole in my heart that has not healed. I still love my former husband, and we are on good terms. We email on a regular basis–he thinks we have remained good friends, but it hurts me so much to talk or see him, and I don’t think he even realizes it. Our 4 grown children still have trouble concerning the divorce and the other woman. They are on good terms with their father, and accept the other woman in his life,, but as a casual friend. My daughter still hopes we will some day reconcile. I have gone from being totally devastated when I found out about the OW, to now trying to move on and feel happy again. It is so very hard, even after this amt of time. I don’t think divorce has solved anything in either of our lives-I think it has just brought on different problems. My ex once said that the grass isn’t any greener–just different.