Speaker 1: So I met him at his office one evening. The
Speaker 1: sex was great, and then it just was a whirlwind.
Speaker 1: It was a crazy whirlwind, like maybe a few weeks
Speaker 1: into it or a month into it, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got to stop this. You've got a family. I've
Speaker 1: got a family. And so he went home that night
Speaker 1: without telling me and told his wife. It was so
Speaker 1: scary because it blew up all over this small town.
Speaker 1: That's Sarah. She was a young, married mom at her
Speaker 1: twenties when she first met Keith. Keith was her daughter's pediatrician.
Speaker 1: He was also married with a young child. But the
Speaker 1: feeling between the two of them was electric, and Sarah
Speaker 1: couldn't help herself. There was a force, there was an
Speaker 1: energy around our being togethered that was unexpected. Then Keith
Speaker 1: told his wife, and his wife, as you might expect,
Speaker 1: told everyone. Suddenly, Sarah and Keith's affair blew up both
Speaker 1: of their lives, but it didn't matter. Sarah was in
Speaker 1: love and it seemed worth it, and for a while
Speaker 1: it actually ended up working out for her. Sarah and
Speaker 1: Keith got married. I thought our life was the best
Speaker 1: life in the world. We just lived life fully. We
Speaker 1: traveled we took our children places, we were involved in
Speaker 1: the community, we had good careers, We loved each other.
Speaker 1: But then her life blew up again. This is she
Speaker 1: wants more. I'm your host, Joe Piazza. Over the past
Speaker 1: seven episodes, we've heard from numerous women who have cheated
Speaker 1: on we are currently cheating on their partners. Every story
Speaker 1: is different, but we do keep hearing some common themes.
Speaker 1: We hear that these affairs tend to empower women, boost
Speaker 1: their self esteem, enrich their sex lives, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: even find the love that they've been missing in their marriage.
Speaker 1: And I've got to tell you, sometimes these interviews have
Speaker 1: made infidelity seem dreaming, like they're the fountain of youth
Speaker 1: or the secret sauce to a more complete and lovely existence. Today,
Speaker 1: in our final episode, we're hearing a different kind of story.
Speaker 1: This is a story that began as a love affair,
Speaker 1: but then there were consequences. It's also a story about karma,
Speaker 1: and karma, my friends, is a real bitch, and we'll
Speaker 1: hear all about it after the break we are back.
Speaker 1: Sarah felt like a new woman when she started the
Speaker 1: affair with Keith. But let's back up a little bit,
Speaker 1: because I want to hear the whole story. I want
Speaker 1: us to start at the very beginning of Sarah's first marriage.
Speaker 1: Before she met Keith, I was married, and I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that it was an unhappy marriage at all. I
Speaker 1: would say it was a marriage like other marriages. You know,
Speaker 1: the head its great weeks, and it head it's not
Speaker 1: so great weeks. But it was just a nice, steady,
Speaker 1: little marriage. And I was young. I was twenty five,
Speaker 1: I had a child, a baby. My daughter was not
Speaker 1: yet a year old when I met Keith, and he
Speaker 1: was her doctor, and he had some running magazines in
Speaker 1: the lobby and I was reading them, and so we
Speaker 1: started talking about the fact that we both run. They
Speaker 1: were both into running, and Keith was pretty saxy. That
Speaker 1: didn't hurt. The two of them went for a run
Speaker 1: one day and the feeling between them was something Karen
Speaker 1: had never felt before, and afterwards ended up talking for
Speaker 1: probably two hours. I found it so easy to be
Speaker 1: with him, and there was just a sparkle. We didn't
Speaker 1: want to leave after the run, so and that started it.
Speaker 1: So they began an affair a few months ago by
Speaker 1: but then Sarah's guilt took over and she told Keith
Speaker 1: that this just couldn't happen. It had to end. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: we've got to stop this. We've got families. You've got
Speaker 1: a family, I've got a family. We can't do this.
Speaker 1: So he went home and he said, if we go
Speaker 1: back to our families, all I'm going to lose you.
Speaker 1: I have to say that what Keith did next is
Speaker 1: a pretty big, a whole move, And so he went
Speaker 1: home that night without telling me and told his wife.
Speaker 1: It was so scary because it blew up all over
Speaker 1: this small town and became town knowledge. It was on
Speaker 1: the front burner of the town until the next affair
Speaker 1: came along and blew us away, which was a relief
Speaker 1: for me. Become sort of outcast in the town's eyes,
Speaker 1: and then your children's friends parents become very put off
Speaker 1: by you. And that's always hard because when it affects
Speaker 1: your children, you feel it. It's more painful. Everyone was
Speaker 1: gossiping about Sarah and Keith. Everyone had an opinion, and
Speaker 1: in the moment that felt like complete shit. But in hindsight,
Speaker 1: Sarah realized something that I actually found fascinating. You know
Speaker 1: what's interesting is I've discovered this numerous times, not just
Speaker 1: with this affair, but the people who come out the
Speaker 1: loudest and the strongest against an affair. The people who
Speaker 1: are the most indignant are generally the people who are divorced.
Speaker 1: A year later, it resonates, it strikes accord with him somewhere.
Speaker 1: For instance, the woman who played the organ in our
Speaker 1: church in our small town, she hated me, and she
Speaker 1: was vicious in her hatred. You know, some people just
Speaker 1: sort of mildly dislike you or kind of just move
Speaker 1: away from you, but she made sure that I knew
Speaker 1: how much she hated me. Within a year she was divorced.
Speaker 1: The same thing happened with my brother. My brother wouldn't
Speaker 1: speak to me because he loved ex husband. He was
Speaker 1: having an affair at the same time too, but he
Speaker 1: was indignant about mine. That's the kind of the weird
Speaker 1: thing about affairs is like, when you're in one, you
Speaker 1: feel like it's right and that you have the right
Speaker 1: to do it because you are in love and this
Speaker 1: love is bigger than whatever else is out there. But
Speaker 1: then you become indignant about, you know, your best friend's
Speaker 1: husband leaving her so interesting right. Eventually, Keith and Sarah
Speaker 1: ended up leaving their marriages for each other, and they
Speaker 1: were so in love that all of the gossip didn't matter.
Speaker 1: They traveled, they had a great house, they blended their families,
Speaker 1: and they even had kids together. It lasted like this
Speaker 1: for more than a decade. Sarah really thought that what
Speaker 1: she and Keith had was going to last forever, that
Speaker 1: it was a forever love, until one day something changed.
Speaker 1: It really literally never entered my mind that he would
Speaker 1: cheat on me. I just thought our love was so big,
Speaker 1: it was so beautiful. I just didn't think anything would happen.
Speaker 1: Talk me through When that happened, I felt a shift
Speaker 1: between us and I wasn't sure what was going on,
Speaker 1: and I think that at some point I said, are
Speaker 1: you having an affair? And he said no. And then
Speaker 1: one day I went into his office. Our offices were
Speaker 1: right next door to each other. I popped in on
Speaker 1: him and he was on the phone and I could
Speaker 1: hear the voice on the other line was a woman,
Speaker 1: and so when he hung up, I said, so, who
Speaker 1: are you talking to? And then he named his best friend,
Speaker 1: a guy. That's when I knew that he was having
Speaker 1: an affair. And then he said, I need to talk
Speaker 1: to you and then we met at home. He said
Speaker 1: we need to go for a drive. The way he
Speaker 1: told me it was awful because I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: there's not a good way to tell someone, right, but
Speaker 1: you would think there would be some dignity around it
Speaker 1: where you could have some time and space. Basically, I
Speaker 1: found out and had to take my kids to soccer.
Speaker 1: So I drove about a block away from our house
Speaker 1: and kind of went down this lane into a little
Speaker 1: field and said I'm in love with someone else. And
Speaker 1: I was furious and asking who it was, and then
Speaker 1: he wouldn't tell me. And when I got out of
Speaker 1: the car, I kicked the door on the passenger side
Speaker 1: so hard that it was horribly bashed in and beaten up.
Speaker 1: And I just thought, well, every time she gets into
Speaker 1: the car, she's going to have to think about me.
Speaker 1: Sarah was shocked. She was shocked, and she was pissed.
Speaker 1: And now at this point in the story, you might
Speaker 1: be thinking, what I did, Sarah, You and Keith got
Speaker 1: together because of an affair, because you both cheated on
Speaker 1: other people. Why are you so surprised that Keith did
Speaker 1: this to you? Well, she was surprised. We never see
Speaker 1: things coming Sarah was completely blindsided. I never had doubts.
Speaker 1: He traveled, you know, he went on trips sometimes, like
Speaker 1: work trips or trips with the guys, and I never thought.
Speaker 1: I just thought our love was so big, it was
Speaker 1: so beautiful. I just didn't think anything would happen. It
Speaker 1: really literally never entered my mind that he would cheat
Speaker 1: on me. Sarah knew of this woman from around town.
Speaker 1: She had heard that there was this sexy frenchwoman, but
Speaker 1: she'd never met her, and she just had to see
Speaker 1: her in person. So she decided to spy on her,
Speaker 1: and she drove to where this other woman played tennis.
Speaker 1: And I went to the racquet club for lunch with
Speaker 1: my friend because I had never laid eyes on her,
Speaker 1: and so she was on the courts playing and I
Speaker 1: looked out and I was like, I'm so fucked. She
Speaker 1: was so hot, so incredibly hot, a year older than
Speaker 1: I am. I think she had a French accent. She
Speaker 1: was beautiful, she was athletic, she was smart. God that sucks.
Speaker 1: It sucked. I wanted her to be off and I
Speaker 1: wanted to play young and dumb. Yeah, young and dumb anything,
Speaker 1: But you know, she truly was going to be stiff
Speaker 1: competition for me. He proclaimed that he was in love
Speaker 1: with her, he was definitely going to marry her. He
Speaker 1: was going to leave the family. It wasn't about me,
Speaker 1: and it certainly wasn't about the kids. Keith moved in
Speaker 1: with the sexy frenchwoman, but still Sarah was determined to
Speaker 1: get him back. I thought, oh my gosh, we have
Speaker 1: these children from other marriages that we've been raised together.
Speaker 1: We had full custody of them. We have our own children.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, I'm not doing this by myself. Besides,
Speaker 1: we really do love each other. I know we do.
Speaker 1: Sarah was not going to go down quietly. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: She hatched a plan. She found out from some friends
Speaker 1: around town. Small town. Remember, everyone knows everybody else's business.
Speaker 1: She found out that this other woman was about to
Speaker 1: take off to Europe for the whole summer. And so
Speaker 1: I told my friends in my yard one night, drinking
Speaker 1: Gens and Tonics and talking about the situation, I said,
Speaker 1: I am going to seduce him while she's away. I
Speaker 1: will do that. And that is going to cause a
Speaker 1: problem between them, because he said that he's going to
Speaker 1: be honest with her. He hasn't been honest with me,
Speaker 1: but he is going to turn over a leaf and
Speaker 1: be honest with her. So I did. I seduced him.
Speaker 1: It's not hard to seduce him. And you guys got
Speaker 1: back together. Yeah, and so, so basically I had accessed
Speaker 1: the code to his answering machine. We had landlines back then,
Speaker 1: in those clunky answering machines, and so you would call
Speaker 1: the number and put in your code, and you could
Speaker 1: hear the messages. And I could hear her saying, oh
Speaker 1: could you do this to im? And too I love
Speaker 1: and oh you know I'm suffering. I saw. I listened
Speaker 1: to all of the messages, eagerly replayed them, enjoyed them.
Speaker 1: And then I know I sound like an evil person,
Speaker 1: but anyway, and then when she came back, she broke
Speaker 1: it off, and so he moved back in. But could
Speaker 1: it last? Could it? Given Keith's track record, was another
Speaker 1: happy ending possible for Sarah? Passed forward three years. I
Speaker 1: had a big Thanksgiving planned. I've hosted Thanksgiving every year,
Speaker 1: and I had the house. I had done a lot
Speaker 1: of the food already. It was Tuesday. Everyone was arriving
Speaker 1: the next day. On Wednesday. We had everyone from his
Speaker 1: side of the family coming, my side of the family coming,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go for a run. And the
Speaker 1: phone was ringing as I was leaving to go for
Speaker 1: the run, and I almost didn't answer it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, what if it's one of the kids' schools,
Speaker 1: what if someone's sick. I guess I'd better answer, and
Speaker 1: it answered it and it was the fiance of the
Speaker 1: woman that he had had the affair with. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is the new fiance of the sexy frenchwoman that
Speaker 1: Keith had left Sarah for three years earlier. This new fiance, well,
Speaker 1: he had some news. He discovered that the sexy frenchwoman
Speaker 1: was still having an affair with Keith. You know, Keith
Speaker 1: had still been seeing her. So I went to his office.
Speaker 1: I called him in. I said, I've got to talk
Speaker 1: to you, and he goes, I'm busy, I got appointments.
Speaker 1: I go, I don't care. And then I went and
Speaker 1: I just said, you're gonna get on the phone and
Speaker 1: you're gonna call everyone and you're gonna tell him what
Speaker 1: you did and why we're canceling Thanksgiving. But I'm not
Speaker 1: doing Thanksgiving and I'm not having all these people come
Speaker 1: in with this hanging around. There's no way. And at
Speaker 1: that point there was just like it was like a
Speaker 1: garage door that went down. I was done this time.
Speaker 1: Sarah was finally and truly done. But she did tell
Speaker 1: me that she doesn't regret getting him back for those
Speaker 1: three years. She says she's happy that her kids got
Speaker 1: three more years with both parents under the same roof.
Speaker 1: Of course, she says that in hindsight, in the moment
Speaker 1: she was insane with fury. It's sort of ironic how
Speaker 1: we won't accept for ourselves what we're willing to do sometimes.
Speaker 1: But I was furious. Yes, you were furious, and you
Speaker 1: didn't expect it, and you were a little bit vidictive
Speaker 1: about it. Can you talk to me about that? So
Speaker 1: I went to take the children back to their dad's
Speaker 1: house while he was living with her, and he was gone,
Speaker 1: and they needed a book bag or a school bag something,
Speaker 1: and so we went in to get their bag, and
Speaker 1: I decided I was going to use the restroom, and
Speaker 1: I saw her toilet rees sitting on the counter, and
Speaker 1: I saw a jar of oil of La face cream,
Speaker 1: and so I took a piss in the face cream
Speaker 1: and took a toothpick and stirred it up and put
Speaker 1: the lid back on, And then every time I saw
Speaker 1: her after that, I thought, you're wearing my piss on
Speaker 1: your face, and you've got my p your face, So yeah,
Speaker 1: you were pissed. I was literally pissed. Right, Why do
Speaker 1: you think that was even though you had been on
Speaker 1: the other side of this. I was so sure of
Speaker 1: our love. I was so sure of it. I expected
Speaker 1: that we were going to bring our grand babies home
Speaker 1: to that house where we had brought our children home,
Speaker 1: to that big, beautiful house. I thought we were going
Speaker 1: to continue to travel and throw parties and do all
Speaker 1: the fun things. We just had a big life. There
Speaker 1: was just no part of me believe that believed in
Speaker 1: the dissolution of that. Weirdly, I asked Sarah if she
Speaker 1: ever thought that maybe Keith's first wife felt the exact
Speaker 1: same way about her all those years ago. I never
Speaker 1: thought about that. Maybe so maybe. So how do you
Speaker 1: feel about affairs now? I think it's really complicated. I
Speaker 1: don't think there was really black and white in affairs.
Speaker 1: I think that I have a lot of empathy and
Speaker 1: compassion for people who fall in love and are married
Speaker 1: to other people. I have good friends to whom this
Speaker 1: has happened, and so I have compassion for it, and
Speaker 1: I'm also revolted by it. I hate affairs, so I mean,
Speaker 1: unpack that a little bit for me. How can you
Speaker 1: feel that way when it also brought you the person
Speaker 1: who was, for a time the love of your life
Speaker 1: and two more of your kids. I guess I've never
Speaker 1: stopped to think about that. I guess when I'm mad
Speaker 1: about affairs, it's typically happening to someone that I care
Speaker 1: very much about. And I don't care about the affair
Speaker 1: that's going on out there where I'm not connected to
Speaker 1: the person. That's their business. And you know, people have affairs,
Speaker 1: but if it's happening to someone I love, it depends
Speaker 1: on which side they're on. If they're having the affair,
Speaker 1: I have empathy for them. If it's happening to them,
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I had to know if Sarah's experience has
Speaker 1: made her think at all differently about monogamy, if her
Speaker 1: ideas about it have shifted after everything that she's been through.
Speaker 1: So I have friends, and I think maybe younger people
Speaker 1: are figuring this out in our defining relationships in different ways.
Speaker 1: And I think They're basically saying, we're not going to
Speaker 1: do what our parents did, which was lie and cheat
Speaker 1: and revise stories and tell us lies for all of
Speaker 1: our lives. We are going to do it our way.
Speaker 1: We realize that we don't want to be monogamous, so
Speaker 1: we are in an open relationship. And I do appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that polyamorous people and thruffles and open marriages
Speaker 1: might bring some relief to the tension and pressure that
Speaker 1: affairs brought to us. I know affairs are still going
Speaker 1: on to this day, but I think millennials and gen
Speaker 1: zers are figuring out a little bit better. Maybe. And Yet,
Speaker 1: while polyamory and open marriages seem to be an answer
Speaker 1: for some women, at least some women in a certain
Speaker 1: generation with certain privileges, they could also come with the
Speaker 1: same messages, the same drama, the same disappointments. There may
Speaker 1: not be lying, but there are still people who are
Speaker 1: going to get hurt and boundaries that need to be
Speaker 1: constantly renegotiated every time they're crossed. But back to Sarah
Speaker 1: for a second. Sarah did eventually get her happy ending,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't the one that she expected. I was
Speaker 1: never going to get married again, I'm obviously not very
Speaker 1: good at marriage, and I'm okay with accepting that about myself.
Speaker 1: But with my current husband, as I call him, he
Speaker 1: hates to be called out, but I call him that.
Speaker 1: We've been together twenty he's just the opposite of Keith,
Speaker 1: and we have such such a wonderful relationship and such
Speaker 1: a happy life. So it turns out that happy lives
Speaker 1: can happen even if you hold on to that one
Speaker 1: that you think this is it and I can't let
Speaker 1: it go. If you just open up, I'm so much
Speaker 1: better off. I mean, it's been wonderful. Affairs usually don't
Speaker 1: go according to plan, but then neither does life. After
Speaker 1: the break, we'll get back to the questions we sit
Speaker 1: out to answer at the beginning of this podcast, are
Speaker 1: more women having affairs? And if women are cheating more?
Speaker 1: Why we are back? So after all of these conversations
Speaker 1: and everything I've learned about women and affairs, I went
Speaker 1: back to Susan Shapiro Barish, the author of the book
Speaker 1: this podcast is based on. Susan has interviewed hundreds of
Speaker 1: women who've had affairs over the past thirty years, and
Speaker 1: she was able to tell me that through her research.
Speaker 1: She can tell us that women absolutely are having more
Speaker 1: affairs these days, and they're talking about it more so.
Speaker 1: I do think there's an increase, and that includes affairs
Speaker 1: of the mind and workplace affairs and just all sorts
Speaker 1: of affairs. As I write in my book, you can
Speaker 1: find these low vers at every turn. Accessibility to one's
Speaker 1: lover has really evolved since I started this study, and
Speaker 1: the access to a lover is so facil and so easy,
Speaker 1: and women found that really encouraging. I mean, some women
Speaker 1: described it as a really good reason to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so easy to go on Facebook. Women say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm about ready, I'm disappointed enough, I'm disillusioned enough.
Speaker 1: I've been at this a long time and I have
Speaker 1: access and I would like to explore it. So that's
Speaker 1: really something that's evolved. We called this show She Wants More.
Speaker 1: We called it that because it's about women going after
Speaker 1: what they want, breaking barriers, destroying stigmas, finding empowerment in
Speaker 1: places that have been closed off to them by society
Speaker 1: and culture for so long. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: affairs can empower you, and they can also leave a
Speaker 1: mess in their wake. But there's still the fact that
Speaker 1: women tend to be judged much more harshly for their
Speaker 1: affairs than men do. That is why we needed to
Speaker 1: hear these stories. We needed to hear these stories so
Speaker 1: we can talk about it. We need to hear these
Speaker 1: stories so we can figure out what we all want
Speaker 1: and deserve. If we've learned anything making this podcast, there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and fulfilled. There's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with wanting more. Did you take my coffee?
Speaker 1: Didn't touch a coffee? Oh that's my husband Nick. He
Speaker 1: always pops in on my podcasts and we've managed to
Speaker 1: keep him off this one until right now. All right,
Speaker 1: are you going to go have an affair? Now? No,
Speaker 1: I'm tired, I'm stressed, I have a million jobs. I
Speaker 1: mostly don't even want to have sex with you. Oh
Speaker 1: isn't that precious? Oh? No idea. But also, look, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty happy on the happiness and fulfilled human scale, I'm
Speaker 1: like a nine. But there are a lot of women
Speaker 1: out there who are not happy in their marriages, who
Speaker 1: don't feel fulfilled, who don't have husbands, who take both
Speaker 1: kids to school in the morning like you just did,
Speaker 1: and who are not getting what they need. And I
Speaker 1: talk to those women and I get that they deserve
Speaker 1: something else outside of their marriage, and do I think
Speaker 1: it's right? Not always, but it's not my place to judge.
Speaker 1: And frankly, men have been having the affairs forever, and
Speaker 1: I think it's just time that women get the same.
Speaker 1: Goddamn grace. I have a lot of questions about that.
Speaker 1: But so you're going to delete that Ashley Madison account?
Speaker 1: Oh shit, totally forgot that was still out there. Wait
Speaker 1: do you see mine? This has been She Wants More.
Speaker 1: All eight episodes are now available for you to binge
Speaker 1: and share with your friends. I hope it starts some
Speaker 1: fun conversations. 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 Stumpff 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. From
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.