Speaker 1: We just instantly fell into very very comfortable, crazy sex
Speaker 1: with each other. Let we'd scoop you up on the bed,
Speaker 1: throw you clothes flying everywhere, like it was great. That's Michelle.
Speaker 1: Like most of the women you've heard on this show,
Speaker 1: Michelle isn't her real name, but everything else about her
Speaker 1: story is completely true. Michelle is in her late twenties,
Speaker 1: she's married, She lives in the Midwest, and she has
Speaker 1: a two year old daughter with her husband, who she
Speaker 1: was very happily married too until recently. Like our last guest,
Speaker 1: Michelle never thought she'd be someone who'd have an affair,
Speaker 1: but once she tried it, it changed her life for
Speaker 1: the better in so many ways that she couldn't stop.
Speaker 1: Not just because of the sex. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: the sex was good, but because having the affair made
Speaker 1: her take better care of herself. Obviously, good sex is great,
Speaker 1: but also especially when you're new on a relationship and
Speaker 1: having sex for the first time with people, you make
Speaker 1: sure that your legs are shaved really well and that
Speaker 1: your skin is soft and your makeup done. Those little
Speaker 1: self care things too, also make you feel really good
Speaker 1: about yourself, and so I just found myself taking better
Speaker 1: care of Me. I'm Joe Piazza, and you are listening
Speaker 1: to She Wants More, the podcast where real women talk
Speaker 1: openly and honestly about the extra marital affairs that have
Speaker 1: completely changed their lives. I think people want to oversimplify it.
Speaker 1: You have the sex addiction, or you're just selfish, But
Speaker 1: there's so many things like it's self care, things like
Speaker 1: that that people don't even think about. Listening to Michelle
Speaker 1: sing the virtues of her affair in terms of improving
Speaker 1: her self esteem and helping her take better care of herself,
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but think of the recent movement to
Speaker 1: equate sex with wellness and self care for women. How
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, women exploring their sexuality, their passion,
Speaker 1: their desires, both with and without a partner, has become
Speaker 1: a wellness practice. I want to read you some recent
Speaker 1: headlines as an example. Let me pull them up. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've got this one from Refinery twenty nine titled It's
Speaker 1: time to give your vagina the TLC it deserves. Here's
Speaker 1: another in Vogue, Dakota Johnson is here to remind you
Speaker 1: that sexual wellness is self care. And one last one
Speaker 1: on the well and good site. Picture this one with
Speaker 1: exclamation points and fireworks around it. The era of sexual
Speaker 1: self care is here, fellok. I don't know if affairs
Speaker 1: and finding pleasure really are a form of wellness or
Speaker 1: if women just feel the need to say that sex
Speaker 1: is a form of wellness in order to feel okay
Speaker 1: with talking about and having sex. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you, after doing dozens of interviews with women who've
Speaker 1: had affairs outside of their marriage, I do hear this
Speaker 1: language over and over again that these affairs have given
Speaker 1: the women the same kinds of benefits that you often
Speaker 1: hear them talking about from doing meditation or yoga. It's
Speaker 1: something that I needed, something I deserved. It really helped
Speaker 1: me recharge my batteries. This was just for me. It
Speaker 1: makes me less resentful, less fitful. I deserve to be happy.
Speaker 1: I deserved it. Sell good. Are they talking about yoga
Speaker 1: or orgasms? Could be either one. Cheating can be just
Speaker 1: another drop in the bucket of self care, self love,
Speaker 1: and wellness. The research backs this up. A recent survey
Speaker 1: by Ashley Madison, the online dating service for people who
Speaker 1: are married or in relationships, found that female users see
Speaker 1: their affairs as a form of self care. In fact,
Speaker 1: sixty four percent of women said they feel more confident
Speaker 1: during an affair. Fifty four percent of women reported feeling
Speaker 1: more desirable when they had another lover. Ashley Madison also reports,
Speaker 1: and this sat is really fun, that fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: women sent up for their sight the day after Mother's
Speaker 1: Day as a kind of treat for themselves on their
Speaker 1: special day. If there is anything that I've learned from
Speaker 1: reporting on these past four episodes, it's that a lot
Speaker 1: of women are not getting what they need from their
Speaker 1: primary partner, So why not treat themselves to something better,
Speaker 1: something that improves their well being in a way that
Speaker 1: most of us don't feel comfortable talking about. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, I want us to dive into
Speaker 1: Michelle's story. I want to learn more about how her
Speaker 1: affairs started and then how it made her more attentive
Speaker 1: to her own needs. That's after the break, we're back
Speaker 1: talking to Michelle about both her marriage and her affair.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about your marriage. What was
Speaker 1: your marriage like in the early days. So initially we
Speaker 1: met online, and then as we started talking, we just
Speaker 1: learned that we actually went to the same college and
Speaker 1: lived really close to each other in the beginning. We
Speaker 1: had a pretty solid relationship, pretty normal. We moved in
Speaker 1: together pretty quickly, and then got engaged after about three
Speaker 1: and a half years and married off for four years
Speaker 1: together and then made the decision a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago to move from Colorado out to Nebraska, and that
Speaker 1: was where we started having our daughter and career changes
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. Was that disruptive to your
Speaker 1: relationship at all? In some ways, the move was, but
Speaker 1: it also ended up being really good for us. My
Speaker 1: husband was very, very close to his family and very
Speaker 1: reliant on them and didn't have a ton of his
Speaker 1: own independence, which was definitely something that we fought about.
Speaker 1: And so when we got here and they weren't like
Speaker 1: a fifteen minute drive away, he definitely sort of grew
Speaker 1: up a little bit and it's helped a lot. So
Speaker 1: talk to me a little bit about when you decided
Speaker 1: you needed more from your marriage. My husband, he's a
Speaker 1: wonderful person, but he was never a very sexual individual,
Speaker 1: and also he had a lot of traumas that he
Speaker 1: never never really acknowledged, and so he got to a
Speaker 1: point where he just was very, very depressed. Her husband
Speaker 1: wasn't taking care of himself, and he also wasn't taking
Speaker 1: care of Michelle. So she took matters into her own
Speaker 1: hands and decided that she was going to take care
Speaker 1: of herself. And so there came a day where I
Speaker 1: was folding this zillionth load of laundry and doing the dishes,
Speaker 1: all while trying to work, and I just hit a
Speaker 1: breaking point where I was like, I'm not having sex,
Speaker 1: I'm getting yelled at all day by customers, i am
Speaker 1: doing all the housework, all the cooking, all the cleaning,
Speaker 1: and I need somebody to pay attention to me. And
Speaker 1: so that was when I sort of just cracked and
Speaker 1: I went online, and honestly, I'm pretty sure Shery just
Speaker 1: did a Google search of like dating sites for married people.
Speaker 1: That's how Michelle discovered Ashley Madison. And like some of
Speaker 1: our other guests, she just signed up on a whim,
Speaker 1: not even really sure what she was gonna do with
Speaker 1: it or what to expect. Okay, so you go on
Speaker 1: Ashley Madison. What was the first time on Ashley Madison? Like,
Speaker 1: and what did you put in your profile? So the
Speaker 1: first time, I know, I was definitely a little overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: Like I started getting messages and acknowledgements and stuff like
Speaker 1: right away, and so that was little more than I
Speaker 1: was expecting. For sure. I kept my profile pretty minimal.
Speaker 1: I think I had like one picture. I think it
Speaker 1: basically just said married woman tired of not having sex,
Speaker 1: looking for somebody to just kind of have fun with.
Speaker 1: And was that catnep for men? I would think probably,
Speaker 1: I think that. So how did you decide who to
Speaker 1: meet up with first? So geography was a big thing
Speaker 1: because if I was going to get involved as somebody,
Speaker 1: I wanted somebody that it wasn't going to be like
Speaker 1: a big to do to see them. Convenience. I just
Speaker 1: want everything to be really easy in my life right exactly,
Speaker 1: instant gratification. I want to get laid, and I want
Speaker 1: to get laid now, not in a week after driving
Speaker 1: two hours. So what was your first meeting? Like, who
Speaker 1: did you choose? So he was a personal trainer. That
Speaker 1: sounds hot just I don't know, I know nothing else
Speaker 1: and it sounds like I know there's something about that
Speaker 1: job title that you're just like, all right, yep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we talked a lot before we ended up meeting,
Speaker 1: just about our relationship situations and even just jobs, music,
Speaker 1: some of that basic getting to know you stuff, but
Speaker 1: then we also jumped really fast into sexual needs because
Speaker 1: obviously both of us that was the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: was missing in our relationships was good sex, and so
Speaker 1: that was one thing we talked about really quickly, was
Speaker 1: just to make sure we were even like sexually compatible.
Speaker 1: So what did you both say about your sexual needs?
Speaker 1: How did you express that? So we ended up both
Speaker 1: being in very similar situations where we loved the people
Speaker 1: that we were with and the friendship was great, but
Speaker 1: sex was not what we were looking for. Both of
Speaker 1: us ended up having really high sex drives on partners
Speaker 1: with really low sex drives, and then he ended up
Speaker 1: being the type of person that just is very alpha
Speaker 1: male in bed, whereas I'm the type that really needs
Speaker 1: to be with somebody that's that way. And so that
Speaker 1: instantly for both of us was just it meshed very
Speaker 1: very very well. Michelle decided the chemistry was there, and
Speaker 1: she took the risk and met the personal trainer in person.
Speaker 1: She was very careful to first choose a public place
Speaker 1: where she could quickly escape get out of there if necessary,
Speaker 1: So that first night that we met, we spent a
Speaker 1: couple hours. We went to a park. We went for
Speaker 1: a walk and we just talked for a long time.
Speaker 1: We people watched, I would say, pretty quickly both of
Speaker 1: us just were comfortable with each other. I got this
Speaker 1: gut feeling that like, okay, not a serial killer, this
Speaker 1: is okay. And kind of the same for him with me,
Speaker 1: And so he walked me to his bar and we
Speaker 1: almost did it in the trunk of my car, but
Speaker 1: there was a car seat in it, so that didn't
Speaker 1: work out very well. But after the failed first encounter,
Speaker 1: they decided to meet again, this time at Michelle's house
Speaker 1: on our lunch break when her husband was at work
Speaker 1: and her daughter was at daycare. And what was the
Speaker 1: next day, like amazing, So you Canda coming over on
Speaker 1: my lunch break. We just like instantly fell into very
Speaker 1: very comfortable, crazy sex with each other, like scoop me
Speaker 1: up on the bed, throw you, clothes flying everywhere, like
Speaker 1: it was great like movie sex. And after that, did
Speaker 1: you do it again with this person or did you decide,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to try it with someone else.
Speaker 1: We did have we yeah, a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: then our schedules just kind of didn't mesh super well.
Speaker 1: So I did end up with somebody else, but only
Speaker 1: one other person, and he was very sweet. Was it
Speaker 1: different in some ways? Yeah? With the second guy, there
Speaker 1: was a little bit more of a friendship than just
Speaker 1: like a let's go at it sort of relationship, which
Speaker 1: was nice. The sex was also really good with him too.
Speaker 1: How do you keep these kind of secret? How do
Speaker 1: you keep it so that your husband doesn't find out?
Speaker 1: So I work from home while he works in the office,
Speaker 1: so during those work hours it's really easy for me
Speaker 1: to kind of do whatever. It was also just pretty careful.
Speaker 1: I didn't give out my phone numbers, so we did
Speaker 1: use a messenging app and the evenings and stuff, I
Speaker 1: would uninstall it from my phone, and I just was careful,
Speaker 1: you know, if we were together, I wasn't checking my
Speaker 1: messages or any of that kind of stuff, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, I made it very clear that like evenings
Speaker 1: and weekends, my daughter was always going to be my priority,
Speaker 1: and so if I wasn't responding, I was likely with
Speaker 1: my family. But my husband also was just very oblivious
Speaker 1: to anything I was doing. Were you ever nervous about
Speaker 1: him finding out? That's really in the beginning, But once
Speaker 1: I sort of figured out what worked for me and
Speaker 1: how I could easily cover it up not really at all.
Speaker 1: How did have any affair make you feel? And how
Speaker 1: do you think it improved your life? You know? I
Speaker 1: think that in some ways it just was I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds terrible, but it was like a band aid,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't have to deal with my marital problems.
Speaker 1: It was kind of an escape of somebody paying attention
Speaker 1: to me and just having fun for a little bit.
Speaker 1: And so because I kind of had that stress relief,
Speaker 1: holding this laundry didn't bug me as much. And especially
Speaker 1: having had an affair, It's complicated, and I think people
Speaker 1: want to oversimplify it into like you have a sex
Speaker 1: addiction or you're just selfish, But there's so many things
Speaker 1: self care eat things like that that people don't even
Speaker 1: think about. I had to talk to someone who is
Speaker 1: an expert in all of this, so we called up
Speaker 1: Alexandra Fine. She is actually a Goop approved that is
Speaker 1: a thing, sex educator and the CEO of sexual wellness
Speaker 1: brand Dame, which makes everything from vibrators to gummies to libricants.
Speaker 1: She also has a master's in clinical psychology from Columbia.
Speaker 1: I was very excited for this conversation because I really
Speaker 1: wanted to dig into this idea of the intersection of pleasure, sex,
Speaker 1: and wellness. I think self care is about prioritizing yourself.
Speaker 1: It's taking care of you. Women have a honestly a
Speaker 1: sort of beautiful habit of putting other people first and
Speaker 1: not necessarily putting themselves first. We have this idea of
Speaker 1: sex as being bad, as being naughty, instead of considering
Speaker 1: it to be core to our well being and something
Speaker 1: worth besting our time into. And I think that's really
Speaker 1: like the core of self care. It's just like taking
Speaker 1: time for you. I think it's really important that we
Speaker 1: fill ourselves up. When we fill ourselves up and we
Speaker 1: know who we are and we love ourselves, we can
Speaker 1: so much more easily love others and then show up
Speaker 1: and be there for other people. But when we are drained,
Speaker 1: we are not our best selves. Pleasure has a really
Speaker 1: powerful place in self care because we are entitled to
Speaker 1: it and need to make sure we're having space for it.
Speaker 1: You can sleep better is like one. It's like good
Speaker 1: for your stress level. Oh wait, are you telling me
Speaker 1: all of the things that orgasms do for our bodies? Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can list them all, but
Speaker 1: it does impact our court soil level, so it reduces stress.
Speaker 1: It makes it easier for us to go to sleep,
Speaker 1: I can boost your immune system. It releases oxytocin in
Speaker 1: your brain, which is that love bonding chemical. So it
Speaker 1: has a lot of really positive physical impacts, both in
Speaker 1: our minds and in our bodies. I think that masturbation, too,
Speaker 1: has a really meditative quality to it, and that we
Speaker 1: can lock into that if we're interested here. It is
Speaker 1: right here, sex equaling wellness for women, and maybe it's true.
Speaker 1: It might be true, or maybe just maybe it's the
Speaker 1: only way that we feel like it's culturally acceptable to
Speaker 1: talk about women having sex. But regardless, I love love,
Speaker 1: love love. What Alexandra is talking about, sex is good.
Speaker 1: Pleasure is good. Women deserve to feel good. We felt
Speaker 1: bad for a long time in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: We deserve this. We're going to take a short break,
Speaker 1: but when we're back, we'll be hearing more of Michelle's
Speaker 1: story and how she struggles with how her affairs have
Speaker 1: made her life so much better with her devout Christian beliefs.
Speaker 1: We are back. Michelle is a devout Christian. She loves
Speaker 1: her faith, she loves God, but she also wants to
Speaker 1: be happy and fulfilled. It's definitely something that I pretty
Speaker 1: regularly rustle through and then also just these thoughts of like,
Speaker 1: God didn't create me to be miserable, So if pursuing
Speaker 1: something like this makes me happy, then I guess that's okay.
Speaker 1: But then on the flip side of that, you're also
Speaker 1: like it says adultery is so bad. It was definitely
Speaker 1: something that I really really struggle with and still do.
Speaker 1: But I just have to believe that if the God
Speaker 1: I believe in truly did die for the sin of
Speaker 1: the world, like they teach you in church, then he
Speaker 1: eyed for that thin too. So that's sort of where
Speaker 1: I land. And is it ideal? No, like, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's where I'm in this stage of life. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no lack of affairs in the higher echelons of
Speaker 1: Christian culture. If Jerry Falwell Jr. Has taught us anything, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean morality you can go essentially in circles and
Speaker 1: it can get really complicated. But it sounds like you've
Speaker 1: thought about it a lot. Affairs can be complicated, Morality
Speaker 1: can go around in circles. And while we're talking to
Speaker 1: a lot of women who found themselves feeling more fulfilled
Speaker 1: and happier after having an affair, there are just as
Speaker 1: many who feel the opposite, who've seen their marriages and
Speaker 1: families ruined by affairs. It's all a great area and
Speaker 1: there are no easy answers. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that women take so many precautions to keep their affairs
Speaker 1: a secret. Do you have any rules or boundaries that
Speaker 1: help keep the affairs from seeping into your life with
Speaker 1: your partner and your child? So the biggest one is
Speaker 1: just very much separation. They will never meet my daughter.
Speaker 1: They know she exists, like obviously you can't come to
Speaker 1: my house and not see its other explosion everywhere, but
Speaker 1: they will never meet her. There will never be that
Speaker 1: kind of overlap. I don't give out my phone number,
Speaker 1: I don't give out personal information. Did you give my address?
Speaker 1: But I don't give out the gate code or anything
Speaker 1: like that. So I really try to kind of take
Speaker 1: steps to make sure that I do have some personal security.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there will be a point where
Speaker 1: you'll stop cheating on your husband or do you see
Speaker 1: this as something ongoing to kind of sustain your marriage.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think truly it's going to kind of
Speaker 1: come down to my husband if he starts making positive changes,
Speaker 1: you know, taking care of himself, creating an environment where
Speaker 1: we have a better sex life, things like that, than hopefully.
Speaker 1: But I also I'm at a place where my needs
Speaker 1: made to be met, and if he's not going to
Speaker 1: meet them, I'm gonna get them met. Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Have you told him what you wanted? Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: tried talking about it. He gets very awkward about talking
Speaker 1: about sex. We watched fifty Shades of Great together, which
Speaker 1: is a dreadful movie, but it's really bad, so bad.
Speaker 1: It's so bad. I wanted it to be good, but
Speaker 1: it was awful. But we watched it together, and you
Speaker 1: sort of hope that it sparked some interest in like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I should like spack your ass a little bit,
Speaker 1: But like nothing, He just is very awkward about it.
Speaker 1: Very vanilla lifestyle, vanilla sex life like that, no real
Speaker 1: desire to explore. So he would also kind of need
Speaker 1: to grow up a little bit in that department. I
Speaker 1: asked Michelle if she ever thought about her daughter when
Speaker 1: she was thinking about her affairs and if she'd considered
Speaker 1: what would happen if her daughter one day found out
Speaker 1: about those affairs. You know, it's easy, especially in this
Speaker 1: day age, even more so in Christian culture. Women are
Speaker 1: very much put in a box. You know, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do X, Y and Z and be happy about
Speaker 1: it at shut up and that's your life. And like
Speaker 1: for her, I want more for her. I want her
Speaker 1: to be happy. I don't want her to settle for anything,
Speaker 1: and I want her to know that it's okay to
Speaker 1: do what you need to do for you. And I've
Speaker 1: that means that you go find someone and have wild
Speaker 1: and crazy, amazing sex. Didn't do it like be safe,
Speaker 1: have an exit strategy, but like, if that's what you
Speaker 1: need in that moment, it's okay. As long as you're
Speaker 1: not hurting people or doing drugs, it's okay to do
Speaker 1: what you need to do for yourself. People really believe
Speaker 1: that sex is bad and that they're going to go
Speaker 1: to hell. We went back to sexual wellness expert and
Speaker 1: Dame CEO Alexandra Fine to get her final take on
Speaker 1: all of this. I can't tell you how many couples
Speaker 1: come out to me or how many women feel weird
Speaker 1: if they want sex more than their partner, like that
Speaker 1: they feel like that's like not right. A lot of
Speaker 1: you have a lot of shame too, Like to me,
Speaker 1: I have found God through my sexuality, and I think
Speaker 1: to so many people like that's a crazy idea. But
Speaker 1: I think sex is sacred. But that's like such a
Speaker 1: weird concept for people because that seems to trigger people
Speaker 1: to think that they shouldn't have sex in some way.
Speaker 1: And that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying it
Speaker 1: is really beautiful and it's really powerful and we should
Speaker 1: honor it. Just to be able to connect, to be
Speaker 1: able to feel seen in that way. I think that
Speaker 1: we're all entitled to that, and I think it's to me,
Speaker 1: it feels very human to seek that. Look, I'm in
Speaker 1: more of an open marriage. I think that it's really
Speaker 1: sad and really tough to feel like you have to
Speaker 1: betray somebody in order to do that. But that's so
Speaker 1: inaccessible to people, and I totally realize that it's so tough.
Speaker 1: This interview went in a different direction than I expected.
Speaker 1: Alexander came on as an expert in sexual wellness, and
Speaker 1: then we found ourselves talking about how she ended up
Speaker 1: in an open marriage herself. The idea of open marriages
Speaker 1: is very interesting too me and my producers, and we've
Speaker 1: thought a lot about them while reporting on this podcast. See,
Speaker 1: an open marriage isn't necessarily an affair, not if all
Speaker 1: parties know everything that is happening. But we do think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to explore more of what an open
Speaker 1: marriage means in this podcast because in some ways it
Speaker 1: feels like the evolution of the traditional affair. And so
Speaker 1: next week that is what we're talking about. We're talking
Speaker 1: to Alice, a woman who says that opening up her
Speaker 1: marriage may have actually saved it. And it all started
Speaker 1: with an affair. I told him that I had had
Speaker 1: a sexual experience with someone else, and so he and
Speaker 1: I then really had our first conversation about what non
Speaker 1: monogamy is, and he said he just wasn't a non
Speaker 1: monogamous person. He understands that what I need to feel
Speaker 1: also filled is to be connecting to other people. That's
Speaker 1: next week this is She Wants More. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Piazza. She Wants More was inspired by the book
Speaker 1: A Passion for More by Susan Shapiro Bearish. It was
Speaker 1: adapted for audio by executive producers Merrill Poster, Kara Pfeiffer,
Speaker 1: and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants More is hosted and
Speaker 1: reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer Bassett is our lead
Speaker 1: producer and story editor. Our sound design is by Jessica Crunchich.
Speaker 1: Our theme was composed by Anna Stumpf and Hamilton Lighthouser.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers for iHeart are Ali Perry and Nikki Eatore.
Speaker 1: She Wants More as a production of iHeart Podcasts. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.