Dear Brother Gbenga,

There was a feeling I used to have when my husband was courting me. Anytime I knew I was going to meet him or that he would be coming over to see me, I would get excited and nervous at the same time. I would dress up for hours, changing attire over and over, doing my makeup, and doing everything to look my best.

After I got married, this feeling slowly petered out, and I didn’t know I missed it until the company I worked for employed a new Personnel manager who took an interest in me from the moment he set his eyes on me.

Suddenly, that feeling returned. I would spend hours in front of the mirror, changing clothes over and over, adjusting my makeup, changing my hairstyle constantly in a bid to look good for him.

I didn’t know I was already cheating on my husband in my heart and was only waiting for the moment this man would ask me to open my legs.

That was exactly what happened, sir.

I don’t know how to put this, but I know that many women carry the seed of infidelity in their hearts. Given the right conditions, it will take root and sprout — no one is exempt. I lost my marriage because of this very seed! It’s like how cats love fish — if there’s fish around, they will definitely eat it!

There are many women who cheat. I understand what they need most deep down because we’re all women. Many women are probably like me — always unable to suppress those impulses, always having these different fantasies about other men. That feeling might have nothing to do with marriage or love. I think it’s instinct. Under the influence of this instinct, most women will cheat when they find themselves in that situation!

But based on my experience and lessons learned, I want to tell all women: you should be loyal to your marriage and to your man. Don’t act on feelings, don’t be so naive, and definitely don’t believe someone else’s promises. Otherwise, that “seed” in your heart will definitely sprout.

Maybe cheating itself isn’t scary — what’s scary is how you gradually lose control of yourself after you’ve crossed that line.

How should I describe this thing called an affair? At first, I thought a lover should be someone you love outside your marriage. I used to be so innocent. I truly believed I only loved my husband, that I could stay with him until we were old and gray. I never could have imagined that later I would end up in an affair with someone!

This personnel manager liked me. I knew it from the moment I met him, but he was married too, and he kept his likeness for me to himself for a long time.

The longer he waited, the more nervous I got and the more daring I became in my dressing, verbal exchanges with him, and intentionally trying to impress him and become more than a colleague in his heart.

I know it would sound slutty now, but I would rather just tell things the way they are and leave the judgement to you.

Eventually, this colleague got the message and started pursuing me, drinking with me, and talking with me. I played a bit of a hard-to-get because he kept me waiting too, and eventually I let my guard down and gradually developed feelings for him. I stopped pushing him away. One night, after we both worked late, he was driving me home, and on that road, I became half of his woman. During work hours, we were colleagues; in secret, we were lovers. Besides his wife, I was probably the closest person to him.

He always made beautiful promises, saying we could continue like this forever, never interfering with each other’s marriages. Later, he said he would marry me, that he would make me a real woman — and I believed him.

My husband was a pastor, a very self-confident and trusting man whose love I knew I could take for granted and get away with it. He truly loved me. I don’t know if that sounded good or if it made me sound like an evil person, but he did, and he trusted me, too.

After a year and a half, I had fallen in love with this lover and colleague of mine deeply, but something happened, and he showed me his true colours.

He actually cut off all contact with me because of his wife. He even told me to stop bothering him and said I was disgusting! I was heartbroken. I couldn’t believe he had played with my feelings, that he could be so cruel. From that moment on, I understood one truth: lovers always deceive you. Until the very end, you can never see what’s really in their hearts!

He and other men like him have families, homes and perfect marriages — why would they scatter that stable life for you? In their minds, you’re just a woman who betrayed her marriage. They won’t trust you! Deep down, they must hold contempt and disgust toward you, and one day, it will show.

After that man broke my heart, I could no longer stand being in the same office with him, and I resigned from my job. It was either that or I cause a scene and expose our secret to the whole world. That would only bring me shame and more pain in the long run, so I resigned.

You would think I would have learnt my lesson, especially as my husband nursed me through my heartbreak and the loss of my job. I didn’t.

I don’t want to offer an excuse here or psychoanalyse myself or my motives.

Maybe I was just on a destructive streak, or perhaps I hated myself. I cannot explain why, but I jumped right into another man’s bed a few weeks later.

Was that what they call a rebound affair? I met this man at a bar and stared at him until he sauntered over and asked to buy me a drink. I slept with him, and then I did the same with other men whose faces and names I can barely remember now.

I used to think that when men had extramarital affairs, it was unforgivable. Now I finally understand — when we women have extramarital affairs, that’s what’s truly unforgivable. I hate myself. I hate how I fell for it, how I so naively gave myself to one man after another outside my marriage!

Eventually, I got another job, and I started sleeping with another colleague. The hopping from bed to bed stopped as I settled on this one man and my husband as the only two people I was having sex with. I felt that was better than the previous after a heartbreak streak I found myself in for about a year.

I didn’t see it. I had assumed all married people were in a marriage like mine, in which they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it. My lover’s wife found out he was cheating and left him. Instead of his coming to me and asking me to leave my marriage for him, he broke up with me.

He went back to the wife who left him to beg for forgiveness, and I was branded as the evil woman.

It made no sense at all.

After we broke up, to make him regret it, to make him jealous, I deliberately found another lover — my new affair was also with a colleague. This time, I was the one who initiated things, giving myself to him. We were together for six months. I gradually forgot about my previous lover and developed a profound love for the new one. That’s when I knew I was trapped in an extramarital affair.

I told him to divorce his wife and marry me. He agreed, even swore he would definitely marry me. Then I confronted my husband. I told him I had been cheating for four years and wanted a divorce. My husband wouldn’t agree, so I started pressuring him, calling him useless. Finally, my husband divorced me. To be honest, on the day of our divorce, I smiled. I thought my true spring was finally coming.

But only after the divorce did I discover with heartbreak that my lover didn’t want to divorce his wife, nor did he want to marry me. He said he couldn’t betray his wife and children. As for his promise to marry me? He said that was just to make me happy! I foolishly realized that because of this affair, I had lost my marriage and ended up with nothing.

A Confession About My Infidelity

What I described above might sound simple, but in reality, it was much more complicated. Let’s continue. After my divorce and after my lover abandoned me, I didn’t regret it — I couldn’t regret it. I couldn’t go back and ask my ex-husband for forgiveness, and I definitely couldn’t let him laugh at me. I felt I would still meet a good man.

Later, I met another man. He was divorced, too, and we met online. I felt like I had found spring again. We met often, but I always knew too little about him, only that he had been abandoned by his wife. I wanted to meet his parents, but he wouldn’t agree. I wanted to see his home, but he refused too. I thought maybe divorced men were all guarded, that he might be testing me.

However, when I started discussing marriage with him, his wife showed up! That’s right — his wife! In that moment, I was stunned. For over a year, he had been deceiving me! He wasn’t divorced at all — he was just playing with my feelings.

When his wife pointed her finger in my face, cursing at me, while he stood there too scared to say a single word, only then did I realize how pathetic I was. Later, his wife came to my workplace and, in front of all my colleagues, called me a homewrecker! I was too ashamed to stay at the company and quickly resigned. That day, my heart completely went cold. For three years, I thought I had found love, but it turned out I was just someone else’s tool.

And then, my ex-husband came back and asked me to return. I cried and went back to him.

I realised that my restlessness and thirst for adventure were actually self-sabotage. I had everything and peace, and I traded everything for chaos and severe emotional, psychological, and mental abuse. I lost everything, even my dignity and self-respect as a woman.

My ex-husband had to rescue me out of the goodness of his heart and in spite of how horribly I had betrayed him and my vows to him and God.

For our child’s sake, we remarried.

Women should recognize reality: any man willing to be your lover while you are married is definitely not a good man. I’m sharing this lesson with you all — please, women, protect your marriages. After all, not every woman is as lucky as I was to get a second chance. So please, women, cherish your marriages.

Mrs. E