View author archive email the author Get author RSS feed. Ashley Madison is back — and claims surprising user numbers. Trending Now in Business. Steve-O once snorted cocaine mixed with HIV-positive blood. News Corp HarperCollins Marketwatch realtor. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. It all began in the spring of , after several bellinis at a Milestones with my best friend. She giddily whispered in my ear that she was having an affair with someone she had met on AshleyMadison. She pulled out her iPhone and surreptitiously showed me a picture of her paramour.
He was attractive, with a chiseled face and a broad smile. I felt a pang of envy. She and I had met years earlier while working for the same PR firm and had bonded over a shared crush on an extremely handsome younger colleague. Sometime after that, we started to share pulpy erotic novels with titles like Wicked Ties, Fantasy Lover and Strange Attractions. I had recently turned 46 and dreaded hitting the half-century mark.
I visited the gym more often, lost some weight and even underwent some laser cosmetic procedures, all in attempts to delay the inevitable. My husband and I had married in our early 20s, fresh out of university. We live in the suburbs and have two children, ages 10 and Our marriage is relatively healthy—we love each other and we still have sex. But over the years, the frequency had decreased from three times a week to once a week, and it was routine and predictable.
My husband has Alzheimer's and I cheated on him ID
The site listed dozens of available married men in my general vicinity: But before I could view their profiles, I had to create one of my own. One of the pictures captured my blond, shoulder-length hair falling over one eye, my lips full and glossy, a tight, low-cut shirt emphasizing my cleavage. I was careful to crop out name tags and anything that could reveal the location in each photo—anything that could identify me. My husband had been nothing but supportive of my new job. He never complained when I got home late, which happened often.
I'm the woman you met on Ashley Madison: How the rush of infidelity led to affairs online
I should have felt guilty embarking on this betrayal. Instead, I felt turned on. Over the next week, messages flooded my AM inbox. The ages of the men contacting me ranged from 27 up to the mids. But quite a few of them were intriguing: I was approached by a surgeon at the Toronto General Hospital, a finance director with a branch of the Ontario government and a detective with the Toronto Police Service.
My Cheating Heart: lessons from my year on Ashley Madison
I was startled when I opened one AM email and discovered it was from someone I knew. I will pay for everything.
I hope to hear from you. But the fact that we knew each other ultimately stopped me. I would stay up with my iPad after my husband and kids went to bed, reading and replying to messages late into the night, careful to clear my browsing history after every session.
The man who arrived was at least a decade older than his profile photo. His intensity frightened me—he seemed desperate and a little unhinged. Another day I met an online journalist at a downtown Starbucks. He was seven years younger than I, handsome and sweet, and he drove a motorcycle. We kissed at the end of the date and agreed to meet again, but never did—he claimed his wife was ill and he had no free evenings.
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Half a dozen disheartening first dates later, I heard from a doctor with a practice in East York. The photos attached to his message showed a man who looked much younger than his stated age of He was tall, with dark hair, a square jaw and broad shoulders. He smiled easily in the pictures, some of which had been taken on a boat, others in various parts of Europe.
We agreed to meet for dinner at Sassafraz in Yorkville.
Ashley Madison as popular as ever — and women are on top
It was mid-summer and hot, and I agonized over what to wear, settling on a fitted skirt and jacket, with the top buttons of my blouse undone. I made an extra effort to primp, refreshing my hair colour, polishing my nails and fake-tanning my legs. As I made my way down Cumberland Street, I felt giddy but apprehensive. I spotted him right away, sitting at the back of the restaurant on one of its white banquettes.
He stood to kiss me on the cheek. For the next three hours we talked nonstop over glasses of white wine and plates of oysters, then walked around Yorkville, en route to the University of Toronto campus in search of a more private place to end the evening. Near the law faculty, we found a deserted walkway, and he backed me against a brick wall. He leaned into me with an arm on each side of my head and pounced on my lips.
I responded with equal enthusiasm, and unbuttoned his dress shirt while his hands lifted my skirt and tugged on my panties.