Life After Betrayal

Anne says that she was surprised by her reaction upon finding out about Brian's affair. Before it happened, she said she thought she would never stay with a cheater. "But when it happened to me, I found myself reacting differently than I thought that I would because my love for him didn't end," she says. "I loved and adored Brian before it happened. He tells me this. I don't suddenly stop loving him in that second. So now what do I do? It's happened but I still love him."

One thing Anne did do was become angry at "the other woman." Why didn't she direct that anger at Brian? "I thought about that a lot and … the reason why is because I loved my husband. He was my lover, my best friend, someone I trusted and I knew. She was a stranger, so it was easy to direct all my anger and all my pain towards a stranger and an enemy that I didn't know. I couldn't make the mental transition of seeing the man that I loved and adored as my enemy in a second just like that."

After entertaining fantasies of doing harm to "the other woman," Anne finally cooled off and realized she wanted to meet her. "I was really quite amazed in that meeting," Anne says. "I mean, among other things, I was kind of like, 'Her? I was expecting a sex goddess.' She wasn't what I had envisioned. It was good for me to see that."

Brian says that his marriage has been better after he had an affair than it was before. "We've kind of grown up in our marriage as opposed to where we were," he says. "Even though we had a pretty strong relationship, we learned so much about ourselves. I learned a lot about myself and I can then apply myself as a real man to meet my wife's needs."

Anne has turned her experience as a cheated-on spouse into a public speaking career and book, My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.