Are Affairs the New Self-Care?

was very happily married too until recently. Like our last guest, Michelle never thought she'd be someone who'd have an affair, but once she tried it, it changed her life for the better in so many ways that she couldn't stop. Not just because of the sex. Don't get me wrong, the sex was good, but because having the affair made

her take better care of herself. Obviously, good sex is great, but also especially when you're new on a relationship and having sex for the first time with people, you make sure that your legs are shaved really well and that your skin is soft and your makeup done. Those little self care things too, also make you feel really good about yourself, and so I just found myself taking better

care of Me. I'm Joe Piazza, and you are listening to She Wants More, the podcast where real women talk openly and honestly about the extra marital affairs that have completely changed their lives. I think people want to oversimplify it. You have the sex addiction, or you're just selfish, But there's so many things like it's self care, things like

that that people don't even think about. Listening to Michelle sing the virtues of her affair in terms of improving her self esteem and helping her take better care of herself, I couldn't help but think of the recent movement to equate sex with wellness and self care for women. How all of a sudden, women exploring their sexuality, their passion, their desires, both with and without a partner, has become a wellness practice. I want to read you some recent

headlines as an example. Let me pull them up. Okay, we've got this one from Refinery twenty nine titled It's time to give your vagina the TLC it deserves. Here's another in Vogue, Dakota Johnson is here to remind you that sexual wellness is self care. And one last one on the well and good site. Picture this one with exclamation points and fireworks around it. The era of sexual

self care is here, fellok. I don't know if affairs and finding pleasure really are a form of wellness or if women just feel the need to say that sex is a form of wellness in order to feel okay with talking about and having sex. But I'm going to tell you, after doing dozens of interviews with women who've had affairs outside of their marriage, I do hear this language over and over again that these affairs have given the women the same kinds of benefits that you often

hear them talking about from doing meditation or yoga. It's something that I needed, something I deserved. It really helped me recharge my batteries. This was just for me. It makes me less resentful, less fitful. I deserve to be happy. I deserved it. Sell good. Are they talking about yoga or orgasms? Could be either one. Cheating can be just another drop in the bucket of self care, self love,

and wellness. The research backs this up. A recent survey by Ashley Madison, the online dating service for people who are married or in relationships, found that female users see their affairs as a form of self care. In fact, sixty four percent of women said they feel more confident during an affair. Fifty four percent of women reported feeling

more desirable when they had another lover. Ashley Madison also reports, and this sat is really fun, that fifteen percent of women sent up for their sight the day after Mother's Day as a kind of treat for themselves on their

special day. If there is anything that I've learned from reporting on these past four episodes, it's that a lot of women are not getting what they need from their primary partner, So why not treat themselves to something better, something that improves their well being in a way that most of us don't feel comfortable talking about. But before we get to that, I want us to dive into Michelle's story. I want to learn more about how her affairs started and then how it made her more attentive

to her own needs. That's after the break, we're back talking to Michelle about both her marriage and her affair. Tell me a little bit about your marriage. What was your marriage like in the early days. So initially we met online, and then as we started talking, we just learned that we actually went to the same college and lived really close to each other in the beginning. We

had a pretty solid relationship, pretty normal. We moved in together pretty quickly, and then got engaged after about three and a half years and married off for four years together and then made the decision a couple of years ago to move from Colorado out to Nebraska, and that was where we started having our daughter and career changes and that kind of stuff. Was that disruptive to your relationship at all? In some ways, the move was, but

it also ended up being really good for us. My husband was very, very close to his family and very reliant on them and didn't have a ton of his own independence, which was definitely something that we fought about. And so when we got here and they weren't like a fifteen minute drive away, he definitely sort of grew up a little bit and it's helped a lot. So talk to me a little bit about when you decided

you needed more from your marriage. My husband, he's a wonderful person, but he was never a very sexual individual, and also he had a lot of traumas that he never never really acknowledged, and so he got to a point where he just was very, very depressed. Her husband wasn't taking care of himself, and he also wasn't taking care of Michelle. So she took matters into her own hands and decided that she was going to take care

of herself. And so there came a day where I was folding this zillionth load of laundry and doing the dishes, all while trying to work, and I just hit a breaking point where I was like, I'm not having sex, I'm getting yelled at all day by customers, i am doing all the housework, all the cooking, all the cleaning,

and I need somebody to pay attention to me. And so that was when I sort of just cracked and I went online, and honestly, I'm pretty sure Shery just did a Google search of like dating sites for married people. That's how Michelle discovered Ashley Madison. And like some of our other guests, she just signed up on a whim, not even really sure what she was gonna do with it or what to expect. Okay, so you go on Ashley Madison. What was the first time on Ashley Madison? Like,

and what did you put in your profile? So the first time, I know, I was definitely a little overwhelmed, Like I started getting messages and acknowledgements and stuff like right away, and so that was little more than I was expecting. For sure. I kept my profile pretty minimal. I think I had like one picture. I think it basically just said married woman tired of not having sex, looking for somebody to just kind of have fun with. And was that catnep for men? I would think probably,

I think that. So how did you decide who to meet up with first? So geography was a big thing because if I was going to get involved as somebody, I wanted somebody that it wasn't going to be like a big to do to see them. Convenience. I just want everything to be really easy in my life right exactly, instant gratification. I want to get laid, and I want to get laid now, not in a week after driving two hours. So what was your first meeting? Like, who

did you choose? So he was a personal trainer. That sounds hot just I don't know, I know nothing else and it sounds like I know there's something about that job title that you're just like, all right, yep. Yeah.

So we talked a lot before we ended up meeting, just about our relationship situations and even just jobs, music, some of that basic getting to know you stuff, but then we also jumped really fast into sexual needs because obviously both of us that was the biggest thing that was missing in our relationships was good sex, and so that was one thing we talked about really quickly, was just to make sure we were even like sexually compatible. So what did you both say about your sexual needs?

How did you express that? So we ended up both being in very similar situations where we loved the people that we were with and the friendship was great, but sex was not what we were looking for. Both of us ended up having really high sex drives on partners with really low sex drives, and then he ended up being the type of person that just is very alpha male in bed, whereas I'm the type that really needs

to be with somebody that's that way. And so that instantly for both of us was just it meshed very very very well. Michelle decided the chemistry was there, and she took the risk and met the personal trainer in person. She was very careful to first choose a public place where she could quickly escape get out of there if necessary, So that first night that we met, we spent a couple hours. We went to a park. We went for a walk and we just talked for a long time.

We people watched, I would say, pretty quickly both of us just were comfortable with each other. I got this gut feeling that like, okay, not a serial killer, this is okay. And kind of the same for him with me, And so he walked me to his bar and we almost did it in the trunk of my car, but there was a car seat in it, so that didn't work out very well. But after the failed first encounter, they decided to meet again, this time at Michelle's house on our lunch break when her husband was at work

and her daughter was at daycare. And what was the next day, like amazing, So you Canda coming over on my lunch break. We just like instantly fell into very very comfortable, crazy sex with each other, like scoop me up on the bed, throw you, clothes flying everywhere, like it was great like movie sex. And after that, did you do it again with this person or did you decide, you know what, I'm going to try it with someone else.

We did have we yeah, a couple of times, and then our schedules just kind of didn't mesh super well. So I did end up with somebody else, but only one other person, and he was very sweet. Was it different in some ways? Yeah? With the second guy, there was a little bit more of a friendship than just like a let's go at it sort of relationship, which was nice. The sex was also really good with him too. How do you keep these kind of secret? How do you keep it so that your husband doesn't find out?

So I work from home while he works in the office, so during those work hours it's really easy for me to kind of do whatever. It was also just pretty careful.

I didn't give out my phone numbers, so we did use a messenging app and the evenings and stuff, I would uninstall it from my phone, and I just was careful, you know, if we were together, I wasn't checking my messages or any of that kind of stuff, and so, you know, I made it very clear that like evenings and weekends, my daughter was always going to be my priority, and so if I wasn't responding, I was likely with my family. But my husband also was just very oblivious

to anything I was doing. Were you ever nervous about him finding out? That's really in the beginning, But once I sort of figured out what worked for me and how I could easily cover it up not really at all. How did have any affair make you feel? And how do you think it improved your life? You know? I think that in some ways it just was I mean, it sounds terrible, but it was like a band aid, Like I didn't have to deal with my marital problems.

It was kind of an escape of somebody paying attention to me and just having fun for a little bit. And so because I kind of had that stress relief, holding this laundry didn't bug me as much. And especially having had an affair, It's complicated, and I think people want to oversimplify it into like you have a sex addiction or you're just selfish, But there's so many things self care eat things like that that people don't even

think about. I had to talk to someone who is an expert in all of this, so we called up Alexandra Fine. She is actually a Goop approved that is a thing, sex educator and the CEO of sexual wellness brand Dame, which makes everything from vibrators to gummies to libricants. She also has a master's in clinical psychology from Columbia. I was very excited for this conversation because I really wanted to dig into this idea of the intersection of pleasure, sex,

and wellness. I think self care is about prioritizing yourself. It's taking care of you. Women have a honestly a sort of beautiful habit of putting other people first and not necessarily putting themselves first. We have this idea of sex as being bad, as being naughty, instead of considering it to be core to our well being and something worth besting our time into. And I think that's really like the core of self care. It's just like taking time for you. I think it's really important that we

fill ourselves up. When we fill ourselves up and we know who we are and we love ourselves, we can so much more easily love others and then show up and be there for other people. But when we are drained, we are not our best selves. Pleasure has a really powerful place in self care because we are entitled to it and need to make sure we're having space for it. You can sleep better is like one. It's like good for your stress level. Oh wait, are you telling me

all of the things that orgasms do for our bodies? Yes, I don't know if I can list them all, but it does impact our court soil level, so it reduces stress. It makes it easier for us to go to sleep, I can boost your immune system. It releases oxytocin in your brain, which is that love bonding chemical. So it has a lot of really positive physical impacts, both in our minds and in our bodies. I think that masturbation, too, has a really meditative quality to it, and that we

can lock into that if we're interested here. It is right here, sex equaling wellness for women, and maybe it's true. It might be true, or maybe just maybe it's the only way that we feel like it's culturally acceptable to talk about women having sex. But regardless, I love love, love love. What Alexandra is talking about, sex is good. Pleasure is good. Women deserve to feel good. We felt bad for a long time in the history of the world.

We deserve this. We're going to take a short break, but when we're back, we'll be hearing more of Michelle's story and how she struggles with how her affairs have made her life so much better with her devout Christian beliefs. We are back. Michelle is a devout Christian. She loves her faith, she loves God, but she also wants to

be happy and fulfilled. It's definitely something that I pretty regularly rustle through and then also just these thoughts of like, God didn't create me to be miserable, So if pursuing something like this makes me happy, then I guess that's okay. But then on the flip side of that, you're also like it says adultery is so bad. It was definitely something that I really really struggle with and still do.

But I just have to believe that if the God I believe in truly did die for the sin of the world, like they teach you in church, then he eyed for that thin too. So that's sort of where I land. And is it ideal? No, like, but you know, it's it's where I'm in this stage of life. I mean, there's no lack of affairs in the higher echelons of Christian culture. If Jerry Falwell Jr. Has taught us anything, yes, yes, I mean morality you can go essentially in circles and

it can get really complicated. But it sounds like you've thought about it a lot. Affairs can be complicated, Morality can go around in circles. And while we're talking to a lot of women who found themselves feeling more fulfilled and happier after having an affair, there are just as many who feel the opposite, who've seen their marriages and families ruined by affairs. It's all a great area and

there are no easy answers. That's one of the reasons that women take so many precautions to keep their affairs a secret. Do you have any rules or boundaries that help keep the affairs from seeping into your life with your partner and your child? So the biggest one is just very much separation. They will never meet my daughter. They know she exists, like obviously you can't come to my house and not see its other explosion everywhere, but they will never meet her. There will never be that

kind of overlap. I don't give out my phone number, I don't give out personal information. Did you give my address? But I don't give out the gate code or anything like that. So I really try to kind of take steps to make sure that I do have some personal security. Do you think that there will be a point where you'll stop cheating on your husband or do you see this as something ongoing to kind of sustain your marriage.

I mean, I think truly it's going to kind of come down to my husband if he starts making positive changes, you know, taking care of himself, creating an environment where we have a better sex life, things like that, than hopefully. But I also I'm at a place where my needs made to be met, and if he's not going to meet them, I'm gonna get them met. Yeah, that's fair. Have you told him what you wanted? Yeah, we have tried talking about it. He gets very awkward about talking

about sex. We watched fifty Shades of Great together, which is a dreadful movie, but it's really bad, so bad. It's so bad. I wanted it to be good, but it was awful. But we watched it together, and you sort of hope that it sparked some interest in like, oh, maybe I should like spack your ass a little bit, But like nothing, He just is very awkward about it. Very vanilla lifestyle, vanilla sex life like that, no real desire to explore. So he would also kind of need

to grow up a little bit in that department. I asked Michelle if she ever thought about her daughter when she was thinking about her affairs and if she'd considered what would happen if her daughter one day found out about those affairs. You know, it's easy, especially in this day age, even more so in Christian culture. Women are very much put in a box. You know, you're supposed to do X, Y and Z and be happy about it at shut up and that's your life. And like

for her, I want more for her. I want her to be happy. I don't want her to settle for anything, and I want her to know that it's okay to do what you need to do for you. And I've that means that you go find someone and have wild and crazy, amazing sex. Didn't do it like be safe, have an exit strategy, but like, if that's what you need in that moment, it's okay. As long as you're not hurting people or doing drugs, it's okay to do

what you need to do for yourself. People really believe that sex is bad and that they're going to go to hell. We went back to sexual wellness expert and Dame CEO Alexandra Fine to get her final take on all of this. I can't tell you how many couples come out to me or how many women feel weird if they want sex more than their partner, like that they feel like that's like not right. A lot of you have a lot of shame too, Like to me, I have found God through my sexuality, and I think

to so many people like that's a crazy idea. But I think sex is sacred. But that's like such a weird concept for people because that seems to trigger people to think that they shouldn't have sex in some way. And that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying it is really beautiful and it's really powerful and we should honor it. Just to be able to connect, to be able to feel seen in that way. I think that we're all entitled to that, and I think it's to me,

it feels very human to seek that. Look, I'm in more of an open marriage. I think that it's really sad and really tough to feel like you have to betray somebody in order to do that. But that's so inaccessible to people, and I totally realize that it's so tough. This interview went in a different direction than I expected. Alexander came on as an expert in sexual wellness, and then we found ourselves talking about how she ended up

in an open marriage herself. The idea of open marriages is very interesting too me and my producers, and we've thought a lot about them while reporting on this podcast. See, an open marriage isn't necessarily an affair, not if all parties know everything that is happening. But we do think it's really interesting to explore more of what an open marriage means in this podcast because in some ways it feels like the evolution of the traditional affair. And so

next week that is what we're talking about. We're talking to Alice, a woman who says that opening up her marriage may have actually saved it. And it all started with an affair. I told him that I had had a sexual experience with someone else, and so he and I then really had our first conversation about what non monogamy is, and he said he just wasn't a non monogamous person. He understands that what I need to feel also filled is to be connecting to other people. That's

next week this is She Wants More. I'm your host, Joe Piazza. She Wants More was inspired by the book A Passion for More by Susan Shapiro Bearish. It was adapted for audio by executive producers Merrill Poster, Kara Pfeiffer, and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants More is hosted and reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer Bassett is our lead producer and story editor. Our sound design is by Jessica Crunchich. Our theme was composed by Anna Stumpf and Hamilton Lighthouser.

Our executive producers for iHeart are Ali Perry and Nikki Eatore. She Wants More as a production of iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.