My wife is asleep downstairs on the couch.

This is where my marriage is…a non-affectionate, emotional prison of the mind! My mate, the mother of my children, has told me that while she loves me, she is not in love with me anymore. So many people say I should leave.

Hiding In Plain Sight – Part 1

I am an affectionate, loving man. This sleeping alone shit bothers the fuck out of me and I tell her so but our conversations leave me feeling as if I she doesn’t want to hear what I think or feel about her – and in reality, all I want is to sleep with her, to be held, kissed. The things that one should expect in a marriage, some love and affection. No amount of talking worked so I decided I could get what I needed and wanted outside of my marriage. I was sure there were other people going through the same thing I was….Doing the right thing that felt so wrong! Trying to keep the family unit together to give our children a healthy foundation to succeed from.

After talking to my wife I came to the conclusion that she was not interested in dealing with the reality of not wanting to sleep with her husband anymore. Like her brother’s wife a decade before, she has chosen the couch over her man. Oh, she started off with a multiple reasons why she needed to sleep downstairs on the couch. She wanted to watch the news, she needed to wash her hair and on and on. I just stopped asking, because when I did bring it up I was made to feel I was an annoyance. The second conclusion brought quickly to my attention was she subscribed to the ancient BS practice of ‘I don’t really want to know the truth!’ The vows we took meant till death do us part. If I wanted sex, I wasn’t getting it from her but she didn’t want me to get it from anyone else.

Well, you know what? FUCK THOSE VOWS…FUCK THE RULES…FUCK HER!!!! I was going to go get mine. I am good at pleasing women, I am good at sex. I love women. And in reality, I longed to be wanted again.

Right then I realized  that I would do one thing from now on: I would not lie to any woman who wanted to become intimately involved with me. I would tell her my story, explain my situation at home and let her decide if  I was the right man for her needs.

My mother told me the smartest man gets caught, only a dumb woman gets caught cheating! I wasn’t going to make the same mistake most men make. I was not going to lie to women. (UNCAP THIS SENTENCE).  By choosing to be honest I knew I was eliminating the possibilities of meeting a lot of women but I looked at the adventure I was about to embark on as a game. The game I was about to play I had to win. (this is contradictory)To get the affection and sex I craved, I had to establish the rules of engagement, the rules of the game. I was not going to lie, I was not going to intentionally hurt anyone, I was NOT going to concentrate on deception. My method of getting what I wanted was going to be straightforward, direct, and willing to do anything to please the women I was with.  I decided to pursue sex as an art. I was going to use the rules of ‘Hide in Plain Sight’…knowing my wife would unintentionally do her part to conceal my behavior from herself!

I’d continue to do my household duties…be home for my 10 year old when he came home from school, feed him, help him with his homework, etc. When my wife came home from work I would stay around until our son went to bed, then I would leave the house to do my thing. At first my wife would ask where was I going and I told her what she wanted to hear…and I left…not returning till hours later if not the morning. I didn’t give a fuck if she caught me, as a matter of fact I really didn’t try hard to hide it. I created an online Facebook group of my ex-lovers and girlfriends and connected with similar people who were open about their sexuality as well as having fucked up mates and spouses (this contradicts a tone of love/affection)!

I started offering my sex skill set as a product…a sort of Pussy Whisperer(?!?!)…where women could tell me the truth…tell me the type of sex they really wanted and needed. I would give them what they asked for….as much as they needed…As long as they wanted. My set of rules included complete transparency to my lovers. I let them know I was married and why I do what I do. I gave them the choice to engage in a sex-based adult friendship. I let them know they were not going to be a booty call but I was going to get deeply into them. I wanted to go out with them and really be a friend with great benefits. The best benefit was I could be the man they wanted their lovers to be. Initially I was shocked how easy it was for women to be open to getting with me. What I found out was most people do what I am doing and have been doing it for many years! No one person can be everything to anyone and shouldn’t be! Everybody gets tired of compromising sooner or later. If you divide what you need among those who want to deal with those parts of you…you never have anyone person reacting to you like you are asking for too much. I met a lot of great women who were wives, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends who wanted what I had to offer. I didn’t have to lie.

And now? Now I hide in plain sight and share my story with The Modern Cheater because I know there are a lot of people who don’t realize that stories like this are happing every day.

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Before we were even close to launching The Modern Cheater we did a ton of research? Were there any sites like TMC? Was anyone tacking the issues we planned to dive head first into? The answer was yes and no. We found an article here and there similar to what we planned to do but what we found overwhelmingly was content by those who’d been cheated on. And a lot of it was bitter and angry. We know how that feels. Being cheated on is not fun, but, as the man said there are two sides to every story and Rufus’s story bring that home in a big way.

As ever, if you can’t be faithful, be careful.

TMC.

Hiding In Plain Sight, by Rufus

As I lay in the arms of my lover, resting here upon her beautiful breasts…I think back to almost a year ago – that was the beginning of my journey to seek out a way to  eroticize my need for affection.  A need my wife refused to acknowledge, much less fulfill.

Who am I to tell this story? I’m everyman. Just a regular guy, like you. I’m your brother. I’m your best friend. I’m your next door neighbor. I’m a cheater.

Let me say first, I love my wife. She is a great woman. Very smart, very compassionate. Truly a great human being. You will never hear me say anything really bad about her because there really isn’t anything bad to say. About five years ago I became very sick. My looks and my abilities were forever changed and she took care of me, eventually nursing me back to health. She cleaned and washed my ass when I could not.

There’s no manual on dealing with a spouse’s sickness beyond a cold or flu. We all can recite our vows, through sickness, through health, until death do us part. But, until you and your spouse go through the hell of a chronic sickness you really do not know how you’ll deal with that reality. I know my wife loves me, but my illness took a toll on her as well and emotionally she shut down. The pain of seeing her husband close to death affected her deeply. She was never the most affectionate person on the planet to begin with, but it was never an issue and I never really noticed it because I overcompensated for it when I was healthy.

I grew up in a very affectionate household with two parents who hugged and kissed me all the time. She grew up with her brothers in a single parent household where affection was hard to come by. My wife is a religious person, I’m not. I looked in the mirror and saw the reality of how sickness ravaged my looks, my capabilities, tortured my soul. And while she turned deeper into her religions to help her cope religion did nothing for me, facing my mortality, the realness of the moment, that is what I embraced. I owned the situation, I’d neglected my health in the quest to make money. And since I now reap the consequences of my poor decision making, I am true to myself and the new realities.

For my wife, the guilt of falling out of love with me and not finding me attractive anymore, caused her to treat me badly. Her religion had no conduit to deal with that guilt. She felt the way she did because that is how she really felt! The guilt for feeling that way caused her to be a very bitter, unaffectionate human being. She moved downstairs to the couch and would go weeks without kissing me, hugging me or telling me she loved me. When I would try to tell her how she was making me feel she would lash out and say mean, hurtful things. My wife even went so far as to say I was annoying her. A couple of times I really considered leaving, but I told myself that  I had invested too much in this relationship.  I sold my home when we got married, paid off all of her past bills and then bought her a car.  But that’s not really the extent our my investment – or hers.

Shortly after I got sick, she lost her job and our family’s health coverage. I used all my savings to keep us afloat, take care of our family for the years that went by until my wife went back to work a year ago.

Why should I leave? Besides the lack of sex, we get along great! We never fight over money. We have one son in college, and my 10 year old is a great kid as well. I am not going to leave, I am not going to leave my child because his mother doesn’t find me attractive anymore. Once I got her to admit the facts, got her to deal with the guilt she felt for feeling the way she did….we had the discussion. I offered to pay for counseling, she chose not to engage. Harlem girl doesn’t believe in therapy. I had to have another discussion. I told her the Church is not our marriage. It doesn’t dictate the rules of our marriage. We dictate what rules we follow. We decide the boundaries of what works and what doesn’t. She wasn’t attracted to me anymore.  She loves me, but she’s not in love with me anymore. That’s alright, I’LL GIVE YOU A PASS!!!

I explained to her that she saved my life and how grateful I was for that and that she shouldn’t feel guilty for her feelings.  It’s my need for affection – my issue – not hers. She can’t give it to me and I don’t want her to fake it.  We must do what we must do to get what we need.

“Exactly what are you saying to me?” She asked, crying, when I articulated those thoughts to her.

I looked into her eyes and said quite bluntly…”Oh you know me…I get what I want the way I want it!”

And that’s how I joined the rank of millions of people who have set aside their vows and looked for what they were missing in a relationship.

Am I proud of this life…of this story? No, not necessarily, but it’s something I know so many will understand and it’s partially why I agreed to share the story with TMC.

Rufus…father, husband, son, friend, cheater.

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Before The Modern Cheater launched we debated a lot about the site. Things like graphics and plugins and social media tabs.  What we never debated was content and what we wanted to share with you, the readers.

You see, it’s easy to demonize someone because of their extramarital choices, but like all things in life, we’re all one choice away from villain or demon. And, at the end of the day, aren’t we all just a combination of both in many ways?

We look forward to learning more about Rufus every week. And, if you have a story you want to share, by all means, share it with us at info@themoderncheater.com

It doesn’t matter which side of the affair aisle you’re on, your story matters. And so do you.  And as always, feel free to comment. Let’s start a real dialogue about relationships.

TMC…If you can’t be faithful, be careful.