Speaker 1: I thought everything I wanted and needed the hottest sect
Speaker 1: that I had ever had in my life, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting to recognize that, uh so, this
Speaker 1: is how men do it. And then when I thought
Speaker 1: about it, like why are men the only ones to
Speaker 1: get to call the shops? That's Nikki. She's in her thirties,
Speaker 1: she's a mom of two, and she's been married for
Speaker 1: more than fifteen years. Nikki isn't her real name, and
Speaker 1: you'll see why she wants to use a pseudonym. What
Speaker 1: you're about to hear is Nikki telling the story about
Speaker 1: cheating on her husband for the past twelve years. So
Speaker 1: we agreed to meet up at a hotel I know
Speaker 1: the hotel, and it was like instant Bark, instant Blaine,
Speaker 1: the hottest sect that had ever had in my life,
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours of set. I'm Joe Piazza
Speaker 1: when you're listening to she Wants More. I've spent the
Speaker 1: past five years making a podcast about marriage called Committed,
Speaker 1: and I loved talking to couples from all over the
Speaker 1: world about their relationships. These couples told me everything about
Speaker 1: their marriages, the good, the bad, the better and the worse.
Speaker 1: But lately, I've been hearing another kind of story. More
Speaker 1: and more of the women that I know have apparently
Speaker 1: been having affairs, And at first I thought it was
Speaker 1: maybe just my extended social circle, but I dug in
Speaker 1: a little bit more and discovered that the rate of
Speaker 1: infidelity among women has actually risen by about forty percent
Speaker 1: since the early and the rate of male infidelity shockingly
Speaker 1: has remained pretty much the same. So what is going on?
Speaker 1: Are women really cheating more than they used to or
Speaker 1: are they finally just talking about it more? And who
Speaker 1: are these women and why are they doing it? That
Speaker 1: is what I'm here to find out. I'm just worried
Speaker 1: a little bit about quality. It sounds because I have
Speaker 1: like the watchers going, I'm multi capting Magnelivania and like,
Speaker 1: so I want to make sure the audio wasn't sad.
Speaker 1: This is the beginning of my conversation with Nikki. I
Speaker 1: told her that her audio was fine. We can hear
Speaker 1: her perfectly well, and every woman listening to this we'll
Speaker 1: understand that she's multitasking right now. Before we get back
Speaker 1: to Nicki's affair, I wanted to go back to the beginning,
Speaker 1: back to her marriage, back to the man that she's
Speaker 1: been cheating on. So I met my husband when I
Speaker 1: was funny. I was raised to marry a certain kind
Speaker 1: of man and lives a certain kind of life. And
Speaker 1: so we have been on paper and outside looking in
Speaker 1: very happily married for fifteen years. But inside of our marriage,
Speaker 1: although we do love each other, he is just kind
Speaker 1: of a loop, not super dialed in, kind of would
Speaker 1: rather just not bring things up than mouris rocking the
Speaker 1: boat by talking about them out loud. I was really
Speaker 1: struck by how similar Nikki sounds to a lot of
Speaker 1: my friends. She's a mom like me. She has a
Speaker 1: successful job, and she has this nice life that, like
Speaker 1: she says, looks really great on paper, but underneath the surface,
Speaker 1: something wasn't right, And I had to ask her what
Speaker 1: changed in her marriage that made her choose to have
Speaker 1: an affair in the first place. You know, when communication
Speaker 1: starts to fail, sex isn't happening anymore. As you grow
Speaker 1: from early twenties and well into your thirties and late
Speaker 1: thirties and beyond, start to realize, well, this is actually
Speaker 1: what I want, or I would have thought about that.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that this is what I needed in
Speaker 1: a way, you recognize that you're different than you thought
Speaker 1: you were, or maybe you've just grown and maybe your
Speaker 1: partner or your spouse hasn't. And it's not really their
Speaker 1: faults because you can't change who anyone is, and you
Speaker 1: can't force someone to change. At the same time, you're
Speaker 1: stuck with one of the biggest problems I think we
Speaker 1: face as adults, and that's do I live a life
Speaker 1: a stability, keeping family together, keeping routine the same, or
Speaker 1: do I find a way to feel fulfilled, happy, sexually happy,
Speaker 1: romantically happy, and all those things that we all know
Speaker 1: life is too short to go without. Then Nicki finally
Speaker 1: hit a breaking point when sex with her husband just
Speaker 1: wasn't doing it for her anymore. So I began with
Speaker 1: asking my husband for different things in bed. I wanted
Speaker 1: him to thank me, pull my hair, do different things
Speaker 1: like that, and he was, you know, agreeable, receptive. So
Speaker 1: when it came down to the sheet, I'm not even joking,
Speaker 1: he would just like give my butt like attack, and
Speaker 1: so it makes you so embarrassed because you feel like
Speaker 1: a well, I just made him feel uncomfortable or he's
Speaker 1: not comfortable doing this, or maybe he thinks something's wrong
Speaker 1: with me for wanting this. I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: hair pulling and but banking or fairly, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it twisted vanilla, but they're not that wild. So
Speaker 1: there was no way I was going to go deep
Speaker 1: for you know than that once that failed attempt, but
Speaker 1: I still talked about it. We have date nights over dinner,
Speaker 1: and I talked about the things that I wanted, and
Speaker 1: I think through all of our relationship together, you know,
Speaker 1: I would always the initiator, always more sexually driven than him,
Speaker 1: which I think is a different role to consider it
Speaker 1: in a man anyway, However, that's a true story, you know.
Speaker 1: And so once I became frustrated enough, I stopped initiating,
Speaker 1: I stopped having the conversation. I was tired of hearing
Speaker 1: myself talk and tired of getting nowhere and just going
Speaker 1: through the same missionary motions. So Nicky did what anyone
Speaker 1: thinking about having an affair would do in the digital age.
Speaker 1: She googled it, and I popped a website called Ashley Madison.
Speaker 1: It's a well known online dating and sex site for
Speaker 1: married people who are looking to have affairs. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just gonna get my talent and
Speaker 1: create a profile. Who cares, No is gonna know it's me,
Speaker 1: and let me just see what's out there. And so
Speaker 1: I put a sexy photo of my mouth down to
Speaker 1: my cleavage but not my face, and I filled out
Speaker 1: as many things about myself that I was willing to
Speaker 1: share that were true, and I just wrote an open
Speaker 1: paragraph or two about what exactly I wanted. And it
Speaker 1: was like a torrential downpour of potential men begging to
Speaker 1: talk to me. Oh wait, I've got and I've got
Speaker 1: to say, what did that feel like? Crazy? Because when
Speaker 1: you're with the same person for fifteen plus years, first
Speaker 1: of all, no one else has seen you naked, You've
Speaker 1: never thought about being with someone else. You don't have
Speaker 1: any self esteem of confidence when you start thinking, but
Speaker 1: maybe not any, but very little, because it's like starting
Speaker 1: from scratch again. Even though the steaks aren't super high
Speaker 1: or not shopping for a boyfriend or a husband or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but the idea of getting naked with
Speaker 1: someone new was reasonally terrifying. So created this profile. I
Speaker 1: watched hundreds of messages come in, and no one has
Speaker 1: the time to read that many messages. So I would
Speaker 1: quickly screen them either based on their photo or what
Speaker 1: their profile had said, and the ones that I did
Speaker 1: want to respond to. This is gonna sound so nerdy,
Speaker 1: hopefully in a very hot way. I kept the spreadsheets
Speaker 1: and all my spreadsheets or identifiers by their screaming and
Speaker 1: things like consistency. If they said they were going to
Speaker 1: talk about something, did they or did they message me
Speaker 1: once and then fall off the face of the earth
Speaker 1: to communication that they actually know how to talk to
Speaker 1: a woman, because it's not enough to be hot or
Speaker 1: look good naked, or even to have some kind of
Speaker 1: amazing sexual skills. And so I screamed more than a
Speaker 1: hundred men that made it to that point on the spreadsheets.
Speaker 1: The spreadsheet was like the nerdy version of a Little
Speaker 1: Black Book. I would say, this is definitely nerdy in
Speaker 1: a hot way, by the way, total nerdy in a
Speaker 1: hot way. Totally. Also, I imagine that a woman's spreadsheet
Speaker 1: is much more rational and organized than a man's spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: No offense, but I think most men at most would
Speaker 1: have had a post it note or a scrap becauld
Speaker 1: favor from a wallet. We'll be back after a short
Speaker 1: break and we'll find out what happens when Nikki finally
Speaker 1: starts meeting some of those guys on her spreadsheet, we're
Speaker 1: back with she once more. At first, Niggi got a
Speaker 1: lot of really porny messages, and she was shocked by these,
Speaker 1: as she should have been. She'd been with the same
Speaker 1: man for fifteen years. But anyone that's ever been on
Speaker 1: any of these dating websites knows that if you put
Speaker 1: yourself out there, you're going to get some pretty dirty messages.
Speaker 1: And at first she wrote those things off. But then
Speaker 1: Nicki got curious and she started exploring things on her own,
Speaker 1: and that opened her up to a whole new world
Speaker 1: of possible pleasure. Mm hmm. You would be surprised at
Speaker 1: how early in the conversation some men will introduce these questions,
Speaker 1: and so that puts you on this path of exploring
Speaker 1: how do I make this happen to myself. You started
Speaker 1: exploring different toys, like, for example, I was really afraid
Speaker 1: of like platoral suction toys because I thought it would
Speaker 1: hurt me. Now I barely go without it. So it
Speaker 1: really did open up so much that you didn't even
Speaker 1: know was out there exactly because I was so young
Speaker 1: when I met my husband. And I was raised very traditionally,
Speaker 1: very strict as the only child of my parents that
Speaker 1: just do not want anything sexual or otherwise to come
Speaker 1: into my brain. And so I lived a repressed life
Speaker 1: until you know, late thirties, and so I had this
Speaker 1: whole world out there I had no experience or knowledge of,
Speaker 1: and I was just sick of it. And once Nikki
Speaker 1: did finally feel sexually savvy and confident enough to meet
Speaker 1: some of the more appealing men on her list, she
Speaker 1: set it up so that no one would ever find
Speaker 1: out what she was doing. She created a Google voice
Speaker 1: number and a WhatsApp to make sure that none of
Speaker 1: these conversations would ever be saved on her phone. And
Speaker 1: then she just started talking to some of the men
Speaker 1: that she was tracking on her spreadsheet. After that came
Speaker 1: the next step, meeting them in real life. I down
Speaker 1: colected to the top ten, and after video chatting to
Speaker 1: verify identity, I met each of these ten men in person.
Speaker 1: For some we went and had a cocktail, someone took
Speaker 1: a walk in a park a couple of weeks for breakfast,
Speaker 1: and I picked the best of her all based on
Speaker 1: our chemistry, the quality of person I believed him to
Speaker 1: be what he had to offer the affair, and he
Speaker 1: was really respectful not only of me, but of my process.
Speaker 1: And so we agreed to meet up at a hotel
Speaker 1: and it was like instant spark, instant flame, the hottest
Speaker 1: sect I had ever had in my life, hours and
Speaker 1: hours and hours of sects, and such a masculine kind
Speaker 1: is a progressive way that I had. My whole body
Speaker 1: was craving for so long that I had nearly begged
Speaker 1: my husband. My oblivious, barely paying attention, doesn't want to
Speaker 1: talk about his husband. I begged him, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden it was writing from me. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: And I was so proud of myself in a way
Speaker 1: that I did just follow all over this man and
Speaker 1: just fall in love and have all the hard eyes
Speaker 1: and I it's very mature about it, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was interesting to recognize that, uh so, this is
Speaker 1: how men do it. I didn't feel attached to him
Speaker 1: at all. I got everything I wanted and needed, and
Speaker 1: I gave him everything I wanted to as well, and
Speaker 1: then that was it. And then when I thought about it,
Speaker 1: like why are men the only ones that get to
Speaker 1: call the shops. Why are they the ones who get
Speaker 1: to have all their sexual pleasures to build? Even if
Speaker 1: you watch porn, how many porn videos have you seen
Speaker 1: that are all about the woman climax thing? Just like
Speaker 1: the word a fair is typically associated with a man
Speaker 1: having an affair and behind closed doors, it just makes
Speaker 1: you want to laugh like it. Don't underestimate women because
Speaker 1: we are capable of getting everything we want and doing
Speaker 1: anything we can think of. NICKI knew that this was it,
Speaker 1: this was what she'd been missing, and she ended up
Speaker 1: meeting with the same man again and again. The first
Speaker 1: time I met him was September twenty nineteen. I have
Speaker 1: seen him so many times. We consider each other friends.
Speaker 1: We talk openly with each other. He's been very supportive
Speaker 1: and encouraging of me exploring and going on other dates,
Speaker 1: and so I did. I've got a lot of dates,
Speaker 1: and I've seen him specifically a lot of times, and really,
Speaker 1: after a couple of years in this experience, I'm so
Speaker 1: lucky that it was him the first time, because he
Speaker 1: was so respectful of me, so kind, but also scorching
Speaker 1: hot and my best xt ever. And is he married too?
Speaker 1: He is? And how much do you talk about your spouses,
Speaker 1: not a lot. We feel like we know. It's pretty
Speaker 1: much everything that we needed to know. And unless one
Speaker 1: of us is having an issue. I know his wife
Speaker 1: has threatened to leave him few times, and so we
Speaker 1: talked about that on his end, just as far as
Speaker 1: giving support and talking things through. And funny enough, in
Speaker 1: the beginning of this conversation we were talking about everyone
Speaker 1: comes down to the line, what are you gonna do.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna leave your kids so you can go
Speaker 1: and get whoever and be free and clear about it,
Speaker 1: or are you gonna keep your family together and find
Speaker 1: a way to be happy? And this, for you is
Speaker 1: the answer to keeping your family together, also being happy,
Speaker 1: and also feeling fulfilled. Absolutely, And for Niki that means
Speaker 1: keeping completely separate lives. She's essentially the home edit of
Speaker 1: having an affair. She can put her family in one
Speaker 1: bucket and her affair and another, and she organizes her
Speaker 1: entire lifestyle so that the two things never cross streams.
Speaker 1: We don't involve anything from our personal life with our
Speaker 1: affair lives. We are not in position to run into
Speaker 1: each other. We don't have mutual friends, we don't work
Speaker 1: in the same industry, we're not going to casually see
Speaker 1: each other on the sidewalk in an awkward way. We
Speaker 1: quite literally have a completely separate life that no one
Speaker 1: knows about. I don't know if you're a fan of
Speaker 1: Nagan the Stallion, but in one of her songs, who says,
Speaker 1: it's okay because I have another that'll do it if
Speaker 1: you won't, And it brings me back to the conversation
Speaker 1: with my husband of asking him to thank me and
Speaker 1: pull my hair and talk to alreat eating me, and
Speaker 1: all of these things. And this wasn't onto the next
Speaker 1: because once you start growing your sexual exploration and adventuring
Speaker 1: and experiencing getting what you want, it's uncharted territory. But
Speaker 1: there's also really endless possibility. So until you've come to
Speaker 1: a point of wanting to slow down or settle down
Speaker 1: or so a different way, it's just like a tank
Speaker 1: of gas that's fool and getting the keys to the
Speaker 1: car handed to you every time you want to take
Speaker 1: a ride. Do you think having the affairs makes you
Speaker 1: a better wife and partner. I don't know about that,
Speaker 1: but I will say that it makes me less resentful,
Speaker 1: less spiteful. I don't have a lot of contention built
Speaker 1: up in my chest, or stress or anxiety or any
Speaker 1: kind of that negative cloud that kind of grows within
Speaker 1: you when you go without for so long and you
Speaker 1: start looking at this person like, why can't you understand?
Speaker 1: Why can't you give me these things? And why are
Speaker 1: we stuck in this marriage? When I deserve to be happy.
Speaker 1: I deserved it, feel good and all of these things.
Speaker 1: So having that room to breathe, it just makes you
Speaker 1: less bitchy, for lack of a better words, There's less
Speaker 1: resentment because I know that if I want to do
Speaker 1: anything else, I'm going to do it. I'm more confident,
Speaker 1: I am more self aware, I have better self esteem.
Speaker 1: And it also bleeds over into a lot of other
Speaker 1: areas such as a friendship, professionalism, my role at work.
Speaker 1: Everything I do is different now because I'm different now.
Speaker 1: How so how does it How does it plead over
Speaker 1: into your professionalism and work? And how do you feel different?
Speaker 1: When I walk into a room and I'm going to
Speaker 1: give a meeting or maybe I'm speaking in public, I'm
Speaker 1: not worried about what somebody thinks about what I'm wearing
Speaker 1: or how I look, or if I am so stressed
Speaker 1: out from being so sexually unfulfilled. That is showing on
Speaker 1: my face, and I'm wondering if people are looking at
Speaker 1: me asking themselves. I wonder how often she gets it.
Speaker 1: You know, all the things that go through people's minds
Speaker 1: that you really shouldn't concern yourself with, But when you're
Speaker 1: so unhappy and so stressed over it, all of these
Speaker 1: things just start to bring it down. But when you
Speaker 1: become sexually fulfilled, you become more confident in your body
Speaker 1: and how you feel naked, and how you make other
Speaker 1: people feel and how they feel about you. Knowing that
Speaker 1: you have the keys to the kingdom and you can
Speaker 1: control it however you want. That's a big sense of power.
Speaker 1: It could be a total ego trip if you let it.
Speaker 1: So when I walk into a room, I'm not nervous anymore.
Speaker 1: I know so much more about how men and women
Speaker 1: think sexually than I ever could have imagined without this experience.
Speaker 1: So I feel less stressed, less worried, I feel more powerful,
Speaker 1: I feel more confident, I feel more in my real self,
Speaker 1: and I'm just not afraid anymore. What do you feel
Speaker 1: comfortable telling me about one of your wildest, greatest, most
Speaker 1: fulfilling experiences. I think the wildest I was getting overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with so many messages from so many men, and because
Speaker 1: I always practice say sex and wasn't really in a
Speaker 1: position to drive a group sex or gang bang scenario,
Speaker 1: if you will. There was a day where I saw
Speaker 1: four different men in the same day and I expect them,
Speaker 1: all four of them, and it was amazing. Wow, I
Speaker 1: was not expecting that answer. So four different men were
Speaker 1: they were all of the experiences different totally in moment
Speaker 1: one of them, I where it was like maybe twenty
Speaker 1: minutes in and out and I was like, I see
Speaker 1: you later, have great rest of your weeks. Like I
Speaker 1: did not care. I didn't need to be held or
Speaker 1: cuddled or kissed. I didn't need any of it. I
Speaker 1: was able to then to shower, to take a meeting,
Speaker 1: come back, have a dinner date, asked on again. It
Speaker 1: was amazing. It was so cool because I got to
Speaker 1: really be in the driver's seat, get exactly what I wanted,
Speaker 1: and I just happened to feel sectually greedy that day.
Speaker 1: And it's like, then such a power trip to be
Speaker 1: able to command the sexual presence of people you desire
Speaker 1: and have them to fill whatever it is you need crazy.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Nikki. After a short break,
Speaker 1: we're back what she wants more. The trajectory for women
Speaker 1: has been until the late twentieth century that we would
Speaker 1: be good daughters, good wives, good mothers, good grandmothers if
Speaker 1: we were lucky, and that was the arc. And what
Speaker 1: contemporary women are saying is that with more choices, they
Speaker 1: end up having the ability to finesse an affair and
Speaker 1: the drive to finesse an affair if they so choose.
Speaker 1: That's Susan Shapiro Bearish, her book, A Passion for More,
Speaker 1: inspired this podcast, and she's been researching women and affairs
Speaker 1: for more than thirty years. How do you think affairs
Speaker 1: have changed since she started doing this in ninety years ago.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing more affairs, less affairs, women being more
Speaker 1: comfortable talking about them. What are the big changes that
Speaker 1: you've seen. First of all, I do think there are
Speaker 1: more and more affairs. I think that women have more agency.
Speaker 1: I think that women are more self aware with every decade,
Speaker 1: so they're really saying, well, what am I not getting
Speaker 1: in this relationship? And how lucky I am to have
Speaker 1: found this lover who can provide when I'm missing so
Speaker 1: women are feeling more like they deserve to have an affair,
Speaker 1: And of course I don't want anyone judged. You know,
Speaker 1: this is just in the pie of life, and women
Speaker 1: who have affairs, they're saying I want more. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have a passion for more. Before talking to Susan
Speaker 1: and Nikki, I'm not sure if I thought of an
Speaker 1: affair as just another choice, But the more I think
Speaker 1: about it, it just makes sense. As women throughout the
Speaker 1: course of history, haven't we always gotten the short end
Speaker 1: of the stick? Haven't we historically, and frankly even right now,
Speaker 1: lacked the autonomy to make decisions about our own lives
Speaker 1: and our own bodies. So is an affair just a choice?
Speaker 1: A choice to feel happier, a choice to feel good,
Speaker 1: the choice for more. But an affair doesn't happen in
Speaker 1: a vacuum. It can always go further. And what happens
Speaker 1: when that affair isn't just sex. It's a relationship that's complicated.
Speaker 1: I decided to ask Nikki, you seem really good at
Speaker 1: not getting emotionally attached, But has there been a time
Speaker 1: when one of these relationships started to cross a line?
Speaker 1: I think the way you know you cross the line.
Speaker 1: It's like any other relationship. If you just start thinking
Speaker 1: about that person constantly, you can't stand it. When you're
Speaker 1: not talking or texting all you wanted to be with
Speaker 1: that person, you've gone too far. And it definitely organically
Speaker 1: happened with a man in New York, and honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it would have stopped or how it
Speaker 1: would have stopped, but he got caught and it stopped abruptly,
Speaker 1: and because I had feelings for him, it just was
Speaker 1: so painful. And being in the long term relationship in
Speaker 1: a marriage so young, that's something I hadn't really experienced before,
Speaker 1: like grown up version of heartbreak. And it stopped, and
Speaker 1: I so so shitty. And you know what else, It's
Speaker 1: like the old saying, if you want to get over
Speaker 1: one man, you have to get under another. And it
Speaker 1: was so true. And I went right back to Ashley
Speaker 1: Madison and got back on the horse. Nikki got right
Speaker 1: back on the horse. She just wanted to have X,
Speaker 1: but with the next guy she ended up getting way
Speaker 1: more than she bargained for. And then last year, literally
Speaker 1: was planning an appointment for a Wednesday afternoon, and this
Speaker 1: was a Friday, and I said, I can't talk on
Speaker 1: the weekend, but if you can video tell with me
Speaker 1: on Monday, I can confirm my availability for Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 1: Quite business like, I got on what's up? I got
Speaker 1: in this video call and the man staring back at me,
Speaker 1: the connection of his eyes, the way he looked at me,
Speaker 1: I was like, funk, I should have breast my hair.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, guy. I don't know what it was
Speaker 1: about him, because I wanted to be like such a
Speaker 1: hard ass and I we're like, I haven't even breshed
Speaker 1: my hair yet today. And I don't only care about
Speaker 1: this video meeting because I'm just going through emotions with
Speaker 1: you to see if I want to have sex. I
Speaker 1: just stopped something different, and so we started talking NonStop
Speaker 1: through that through video on the phone, which not stop talking.
Speaker 1: And so we met that week. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I have butterflies all over my body right now just
Speaker 1: telling you this, because we've been involved since last August
Speaker 1: September and we have had the most intense, dramatic romantic
Speaker 1: relationship of my adult life, and I have no idea
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. I feel like because I know
Speaker 1: so much about so much of this whole world as
Speaker 1: far as affairs and things, I have no idea where
Speaker 1: it will go. I have let go of the expectation
Speaker 1: of not being close to someone and not crossing lines
Speaker 1: because rigid boundaries like that are really hard to follow.
Speaker 1: And it sounds really good on paper, but being good
Speaker 1: on paper isn't enough. That we know, and that's what
Speaker 1: brought us here to this entire conversation. So now I
Speaker 1: see him exclusively and we'll see what happened. Wow, And
Speaker 1: so you're open to that if it came to you
Speaker 1: were both in a place where you could leave your spouses,
Speaker 1: you would with this person. Finally, be open to that,
Speaker 1: I think so. And he's gonna he's already he's not
Speaker 1: married anymore, and so it's I'm the one who is married.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm spending a lot of time with
Speaker 1: him and his because and we definitely talk about the future.
Speaker 1: Not there yet, not been the easiest road for this relationship.
Speaker 1: I just don't know where it will go. But I
Speaker 1: feel like I have a lot of control and experience
Speaker 1: under my belt to be in a good position to
Speaker 1: make the right call when it comes time to it.
Speaker 1: But you've met his kids, that's a big deal. I know,
Speaker 1: of course, but he can't meet and he can't that
Speaker 1: is that is a lot to be feeling right now.
Speaker 1: You're going through a lot. It is a lot, and
Speaker 1: it's I think one of the hardest things about it
Speaker 1: is when it's really heavy and you know, I've got
Speaker 1: that ball of anxiety and your stomach and that lump
Speaker 1: in your throat and someone who everybody else in your
Speaker 1: life doesn't know about it, so there's no one really
Speaker 1: to talk to, and then people don't understand why you're
Speaker 1: reacting a certain way because you don't really know what's
Speaker 1: on your plates. And then before you know what your
Speaker 1: plates become a plotter, and effectively, I feel like I
Speaker 1: am now living two totally separate lives, which is interesting,
Speaker 1: and not crossing those two has been very hard. But again,
Speaker 1: my ultimate goal is to be as happy as I
Speaker 1: can be and to be the best version of myself
Speaker 1: for myself and for everyone that I love, and this
Speaker 1: is an important part of that. And so to be continued.
Speaker 1: I asked Nikki if she's ever imagined telling her husband
Speaker 1: about the affair and what that might look like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do, actually, and now I'm starting to get emotional,
Speaker 1: so I apologize it. Last year, when I first met
Speaker 1: the man that i'm with, nell I said to my husband,
Speaker 1: are you open to having a conversation about divorce? And
Speaker 1: he acted so surprised, and I said, I'm not happy,
Speaker 1: and I don't think you're happy either. You want someone
Speaker 1: to be domestic and clean house all day and make
Speaker 1: dinner for you, and you resent me because I worked
Speaker 1: so much, and I resent you because you don't care
Speaker 1: about sex. And I just think we deserve to be happy.
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, I guess i'd be open to it.
Speaker 1: He's like, but not now if you have some kind
Speaker 1: of boyfriend on the side, And of course I lied
Speaker 1: into no, I don't. That's how much this is about.
Speaker 1: And he was kind of pissed her a couple of
Speaker 1: days and he was just saying things like, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be really sad if we split up. We've
Speaker 1: we have a family, we've been together forever, and I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine not being married. And this is why
Speaker 1: I say he's oblivious, because this was October and he
Speaker 1: has never brought it up again. He has never done
Speaker 1: anything different, anything to keep me, anything to do anything
Speaker 1: but just let time go by, and that's not willing
Speaker 1: to keep doing that. And I think about so many
Speaker 1: women I know that are are likely to be unhappy,
Speaker 1: or maybe they've gain weight, or they don't feel great
Speaker 1: about themselves, or their husbands aren't having sex the way
Speaker 1: they want them to. And I think about how many
Speaker 1: women are probably just silently suffering through monalogamous relationships or
Speaker 1: marriages because they feel like they have to and they
Speaker 1: don't know where to start, or they don't know how
Speaker 1: they'll ever get out of it or have anything else.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's such a problem of privilege. I
Speaker 1: understand that there are what way worse things in the world,
Speaker 1: but when it comes something that's terrible on any scale,
Speaker 1: for any person who, no matter who they are, it's
Speaker 1: a wasted life of not being happy. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the worst thing that could happen to anybody. She's right,
Speaker 1: don't We all just deserve to be happy. But happiness
Speaker 1: is just one need that an affair can fulfill. Susan
Speaker 1: Shapiro Barrish, who we spoke to earlier in this episode,
Speaker 1: has interviewed hundreds of women about their affairs over the
Speaker 1: past thirty years, and in her research, she's actually categorized
Speaker 1: four different types of affairs based off the reasons that
Speaker 1: women pursue them. Women have empowering affairs, sex German affairs,
Speaker 1: self esteem affairs, and love affairs. When I talked to
Speaker 1: women about empowering affairs, it was very new because suddenly
Speaker 1: women felt that they were on a par with what
Speaker 1: men had been able to do, you know, like a
Speaker 1: husband who would go on a business trip and sort
Speaker 1: of have fun on the side, and women were expected
Speaker 1: to look the other way. And so these women are saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I trade in the same currency as men. I earn
Speaker 1: a lot of money, I travel when I need to,
Speaker 1: I'm independent, and this is the type of are that
Speaker 1: I choose to have. In terms of the sex driven affairs,
Speaker 1: and those are I think, pretty self explanatory. The women
Speaker 1: are really specifically saying, look, not enough sex, not exciting enough,
Speaker 1: not intriguing enough. I want something very different than my
Speaker 1: partner does, than my husband wants. The self esteem affair
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with longevity. You've been married
Speaker 1: five years, you have two children, You look in the mirror,
Speaker 1: you're maybe close to forty, and you say, is that
Speaker 1: all there is? Is this? It I don't feel really understood,
Speaker 1: I don't feel very visible, and the lover makes these
Speaker 1: women feel really alive, they feel really appreciated. In terms
Speaker 1: of the love affairs, I've found those throughout my study
Speaker 1: to be the most poignant because I'll interview women and
Speaker 1: they'll say, my life was really fine. I loved my
Speaker 1: husband and I, you know, loved our family. I met
Speaker 1: someone online, I walked across the room at a party
Speaker 1: and something changed me and changed the way that I
Speaker 1: want to go forward. And then you know, women will say,
Speaker 1: I'm in love with my lover, I love my husband still,
Speaker 1: and then they're really caught. Susan's research made me think
Speaker 1: more about Nikki's story. Her affairs started because she wanted
Speaker 1: something different sexually, but they also changed along the way.
Speaker 1: They made her feel empowered, improved her self esteem, and
Speaker 1: her most current affair is for love. An affair might
Speaker 1: seem to start for one reason, but people are complicated.
Speaker 1: Life is complicated, and the motivations behind these affairs and
Speaker 1: what they do for the people who have them are
Speaker 1: very nuanced. Nikki is a perfect example of that. In
Speaker 1: future episodes, we are going to hear from a lot
Speaker 1: more women, many of whom are telling the story of
Speaker 1: their affair for the very first time. We won't just
Speaker 1: be learning about the details. We're also going to hear
Speaker 1: how it changed them and why they took such huge
Speaker 1: risks to feel more confident, sexy, fulfilled, and loved. We're
Speaker 1: also going to be bringing in plenty of experts to
Speaker 1: help us figure out what does all of this mean
Speaker 1: and to answer a lot of questions. Are more women
Speaker 1: cheating now or are more women talking about it right?
Speaker 1: Because historically they have just face so many more consequences
Speaker 1: compared to men. I think we need to take the
Speaker 1: stigma out of all of this because infidelity is a
Speaker 1: normal part of the sexual repertoire of the human female.
Speaker 1: That's all coming soon. This is She Wants More. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. 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 Merril 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: Research was done by Erica Berlin. Our executive producers for
Speaker 1: I Heart are Ali Perry and Nikki Eator. She wants
Speaker 1: More as a production of I Heeart Podcasts. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.