SPECIAL NEWS REPORT
A recent poll has revealed that a fifth of people have affairs and 90 per cent of relationships survive the infidelity. As Hollywood blockbuster Fatal Attraction is remade into a TV series, Closer investigates how women cope with a cheating partner…
Lying on a sun loungerin Tenerife, Emma Jones* looks over at her two daughters and husband walking along the beach and smiles.
Five years ago, she wasn’t sure there’d be any more family holidays after she opened a WhatsApp message from an unknown number. It was from a woman claiming to be having an affair with her husband, Ben* – and she’d sent photographs of them together. Emma, 51, a teacher who lives in London with Ben and their daughters aged 17 and 15, says, “I took one look and had to rush to the bathroom to vomit. They were at hotels where I’d previously stayed with Ben and she was even wearing the same jewellery that Ben had given to me – he’d obviously just bought two of everything. I was absolutely devastated. I’d had no idea, but he worked away a lot so it was easy for him.”
REVENGE
Emma’s initial reaction was to end her marriage – she confronted Ben when he got home from work and he admitted it had been going on for 17 months. She says, “I didn’t see how we could get past it. But Ben was adamant that he wanted to stay together and that the affair was over and that’s why she’d contacted me – for revenge. I never replied to her message, I didn’t see what it would achieve.
“We had counselling and I thought endlessly about what I wanted to do. Overwhelmingly I wanted my family to stay together, I didn’t want the girls to go through the heartbreak of a divorce. I didn’t want to lose my home or our lifestyle either. And I didn’t like the thought of her ‘winning’ by giving her the result she wanted – the end of our marriage.
“I can’t pretend it’s the same – that utter belief that Ben loved me and only me has gone. But he’s now stopped working away and he’s done everything to make me believe that he’d never cheat again. It has taken a lot of talking and we’ve both been very honest. I know I neglected our relationship through concentrating on the girls. It’s not an excuse and Ben hasn’t tried to use it as one, he’s admitted that what he did was very wrong. He got swept up in the escapism. I think it helps that he ended it – he realised what he wanted and valued and that was his family.”
ESCAPISM
Affairs are once more under the spotlight with the release of the Fatal Attraction TV series. And extra-marital affairs website Illicit Encounters says that sign-ups to its site have gone up 169 per cent since t
