Photo: Valeria Ushakova | Canva
A wildly sensual affair could save your marriage.
By Ani Anderson
Last updated on Feb 24, 2024
"Ani, can I talk to you?"
"Yeah, sure. What’s up?"
"I knew I could call you. I knew I could tell you anything. This is so embarrassing."
"Of course…what’s going on?"
I already know what’s going on. I don’t need to ask. This woman is interested in a man who’s not her husband…and she’s married with kids. This happens frequently: a married woman flirting with the dangers of another man. But people don’t talk about it, so we feel alone and ashamed when it happens to us.
Here are 9 little ways to have an affair (without cheating on your husband):
1. Date yourself.
What would you do if you took yourself on a date for the pure fun of it? Would you go out to dinner or a movie? Whatever you plan, put a date on the calendar and make it happen.
2. Dress up for yourself.
Pick an outfit at least five days a week to make you feel sexy and wear them. Let yourself feel amazing. And look in the mirror and tell yourself, "Damn girl!" Dress for you because you love yourself.
3. Let yourself flirt.
Men will take notice, probably even your husband, when you start to dress up. Let those feelings of being seen and admired soak in. If you’re approached, you can assure the men that you’re taken, because you are dating yourself.
4. Move your body.
Find a time when no one’s home, or if the situation is desperate, lock yourself in the largest bathroom in your house, put on some headphones, and dance. Now I’m not talking about some choreographed thing. Just move your body to the rhythm and feel it moving through you. Shake it, roll it, work it, and tell yourself how sexy you are when you move.
Photo: UnderTree via Shutterstock
5. Touch your body.
Massage yourself, use lotion or coconut oil, and rub your skin. Feel how good that touch feels and how amazing your skin feels afterward.
6. Buy yourself flowers.
Go to the florist and get whatever you like. Put your flowers where you can be with them. Sometimes, when I buy myself flowers, I get a tiny bouquet I can keep in my car since I drive so much. Then, I take them from my office and bring them back home.
7. Get a massage.
Get yourself touched and loved up with a yummy massage. For an added benefit, take a mineral bath or a steam. Your body will love the sensory sensuality!
8. Write love letters.
Get some beautiful notecards and write love letters to yourself, your friends, or your family. Expressing your love and gratitude will increase your feelings of joy and satisfaction.
9. Do something unexpected.
I had a client one time who was afraid her marriage might break up. She was so afraid of being out of control we decided she needed to kick the pattern. I asked her to run around the outside of her house naked (don’t worry, she lives in the country). And she did it!
And it broke a magic spell of "stuffy mom" syndrome. You don't have to get naked, but pick something that's on the wild side when we spend all of our time taking care of whining, crying, laughing, and screaming little people who can’t have a decent human conversation. It makes us feel a little imbalanced in the "bad way".
Do something unexpected in a good way and break out of the pattern of each day bleeding into the next. Go howl at the moon, dance in the dark, skinny dip, jump out of a plane, drive a racecar, learn to play the drums. Do something unexpected! Your life — and marriage — depends on it.
As mothers, we are very protective of our families.
Being interested in another man, no matter how tantalizing, is extremely dangerous, which is part of the lure. Through the danger, loneliness, shame, guilt, self-judgment, curiosity, thrill, and sensuality, we wade through a sea of emotions. So welcome and yet so very unwanted. At least, we think it’s not truly wanted.
In the perception of "how life is supposed to be," these flirty episodes can feel very threatening. And worse, they could lead to the breakup of your marriage. But what if life is different than you think it is? What if none of this is about "that guy" at all?
Imagine for a second you are the only person who exists, just you. Imagine every person you see is a mirror, reflecting parts of your personality. There are parts you love and parts you hate. Some parts are weird, and some parts are "normal". Every person is a piece of you and a grand opportunity to learn about and explore the landscape of "who you are". Imagine for a moment you are the only person who exists, and this is how reality works.
You have a husband and kids who, in this story, reflect parts of you. Many of these reflections are parts you can’t understand and can’t conceive they have anything to do with you. The kids are unmanageable, the husband is isolating, and that’s not you, not at all.
You go to the gym, take care of everything, manage the house, and keep everyone fed and balanced. Without you, everything would all fall apart. And because these parts of you that they reflect are so different from the "costume" you wear on the outside (the wife-who-has-it-all-together outfit), you've forgotten the rules of the game, that you are the only one that exists until he came along.
Now, for the first time in a long time, you feel sexy. For the first time in a long time, your crotch tingles. You’re turned on, excited, engaged, giddy, and happy, and because you forgot that you are the only person that exists and everyone else is just a mirror for yourself, you think these new sensations are him. He turns you on. He makes you feel special. HE makes you feel attractive. He is the person you want to be around. He makes you feel like a woman again, a girl, a sexy female. He makes you feel like a human animal.
But you’ve forgotten: he doesn’t exist, this man who you see. He is just a part of you that has gotten pushed so far down inside and has been so long forgotten that it’s coming up for air! She’s suffocating down there, so she needed a life preserver. And she got one. Him.
Now, forget that little game for a second because it’s reality. The mirror thing? That’s how it works. You may think that it’s this man you are in love with, but it’s you. It’s the feelings you get when you’re around him, the attraction you feel. You feel attractive, a perception in your head. It is engaged and alive (because it’s new, exciting, and risky. The sensations and emotions are yours.)
We own these feelings and sensations, and yet we give them away to some guy, thinking he is the cause because he looks delicious in a T-shirt at the gym, and we’re tired of our husbands farting (literally) around the house in their sagging underwear. If you want to throw it all away and go off with this guy you think is the answer, go for it. But I guarantee you, in a short time, you will meet yourself in a new relationship, washing some new guy’s sagging underwear because this whole thing has nothing to do with him and everything to do with you.
If you want to have an affair without cheating on your husband, you need to ditch the guy at the gym, or better yet, be proactive and have your affair before you get so bored with life that you need the life preserver. It will take a lot of courage, but I assure you if you have a wildly sensual affair, you will avoid cheating, and it could save your marriage. Who is the affair with? The only person that exists is you.
These men — the ones that make us want to stray — show up at the right time to remind us of who we are. We are beautiful, sexy, sensual, attractive, lovely, smart, and wonderful women. Have an affair with yourself to remind yourself how amazing you are. Likely, your husband will perk up, too. And if he’s lucky, you’ll have an affair with him next.
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Ani Anderson is a master coach, speaker, business mentor, and author of Find Your Soul's Agent.