When Love Isn't Enough
Two married women claim they've found happiness with extramarital affairs.
March 19, 2009 — -- For Karen, it started out easily enough. Though she said she loves her husband, she was frustrated about his lack of interest in their sex life, which caused them to argue constantly. A weekend away without the kids left her disappointed.
"The first night he was tired. Second night he was tired. Third night he was tired," she said.
It was then that Karen made up her mind and hit an online search engine to fulfill her desires.
"I said, 'OK, I'm gonna get a lover because it truly hurt my feelings to know that we were away for three nights and he wasn't interested in sex.' It really hurt my feelings," Karen said. "[I] went on the Internet — married women looking for affair — and Googled it."
The names of the women profiled in this story have been changed at their requests.
For Deeana, the affair began when her husband seemed to lose interest after about a dozen years of marriage.
"He's a wonderful guy. And, I love him. He's just boring," she said. "He gives more of the attention to my son rather than to me."
Deeana and Karen both found themselves in marriages that left them feeling undesired, unloved and unattractive. And both women secretly began cheating on their spouses.
Deeana and Karen have another thing in common: they both used the Internet to start their extramarital affairs.
"I was shocked to see how many unhappy marriages are out there. And it's sad, in a way," Deeana said. "But it is what it is. And before the Internet, people just struggled through their marriages."
Web sites, like the wildly successful Ashley Madison, cater specifically to married people. And while it's impossible to know exactly how many cheating spouses exist online, Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman said his site has 3.5 million members, 70 percent of whom are male.
Biderman said he expects the number to increase dramatically, saying it "is just the beginning."
"We believe that what we're really doing is cannibalizing an existing human behavior and condition," he said. "We could end up having 20 or 30 million members."
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