I’m 38M, married for 14 years, and I started an affair for excitement. I ended up falling in love with her.

Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

AI enhanced as English isn't my first language.

I don't really know why I'm writing this. I think I just need to get it out somewhere because there are things about this situation that I can't say to anyone in my real life. I'm 38M and I've been married to my wife for 14 years. We had a love marriage, which is actually a pretty big deal in the culture I come from because arranged marriages are still the norm. I had to fight with my parents and eventually leave them to marry my wife. It wasn't an easy decision at the time, but I never regretted it. She is the love of my life and marrying her despite everything that happened with my family is probably the biggest thing I've ever done for myself. Even after 14 years, I still love her. I don't want to leave her and I don't resent her.

And then I cheated on her.

Last year, I joined a matrimonial app and met a woman I'm going to call Sarah. The truth is, I wasn't looking for another relationship. I think I was looking for excitement. Something new. Something that made me feel wanted. I told Sarah I was single. That was the first lie, and obviously it wasn't the last. We started talking, then dating, and pretty soon we were texting every day. We also started sexting. In our culture, dating isn't unusual, but physical intimacy before marriage is still something people generally avoid, especially when the relationship is supposed to lead to marriage. So even though things became very emotional between us, we never had sex. We kissed whenever we met and that was basically it.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, this stopped being just an exciting secret for me. I actually fell in love with her. Sarah fell in love with me too and eventually told me she loved me. She started talking about marriage and our future. I knew what was happening, but I kept going anyway. I don't have a good excuse for that. I was selfish and I was lying to both women in different ways.

A few months later, Sarah found out I was married. I won't go into exactly how she found out, but she confronted me over text. At that point I knew there was no point lying anymore, so I admitted everything. Every lie she asked about, I told her the truth. I answered all her questions about my marriage, my wife, my family, why I did it, what I was thinking and what I actually wanted from her. I expected her to block me and disappear from my life. Honestly, I thought that would have been the normal reaction.

She didn't.

For about two months we barely spoke and didn't see each other. She would message me sometimes with questions. It wasn't romantic at first. She wanted to understand why I had done this to her. She asked about my wife, my marriage, my family, and whether I had ever actually planned to marry her. I answered everything because I felt like the least I could do was stop lying. She was completely shaken by everything. She started therapy and eventually left her job. Knowing that my actions had affected her that badly made me feel even worse. I genuinely felt guilty for what I had done to her. I told her that if she needed answers to get some kind of closure, I would answer whatever she wanted.

But somehow, after those two months of occasional messages, we started talking regularly again.

Then one night, while she was traveling in another country, we started sexting again. It happened for a few days, then became a regular thing again. Eventually we decided to meet. That was more than a month ago, and we're basically dating again.

We talk every day. We tell each other we love each other every day. When we meet, we kiss and touch each other. The strange thing is that Sarah has never asked me to leave my wife. She knows I have a family. She knows that my wife is still my wife and she doesn't act jealous of her. She doesn't demand that I choose her or give her priority over my wife. I'm not saying that makes what I'm doing okay. It doesn't. But somehow that makes the situation even more complicated because there isn't this constant fight between the two relationships.

And here's the part that I can't understand about myself.

I still love my wife exactly the same way I did before all of this started.

I don't love her less. I don't resent her. I don't look at her and wish I was with someone else. I don't pick fights with her or treat her badly. If anything, I've become more affectionate toward her and I appreciate her more than I did before. I still look at the woman I fought my own family for and feel like she is the person I chose for my life. I still don't want to leave her.

But I also genuinely love Sarah.

I feel horrible about cheating on my wife. I feel horrible about lying to her. I feel horrible about the pain I caused Sarah when she found out. But if I'm being completely honest, I don't feel bad about loving Sarah anymore. I don't feel bad when I'm with her. I don't regret meeting her. I don't regret the feelings I developed for her.

And that's the thing that makes me question myself the most.

Maybe I'm just selfish. Maybe I'm trying to separate the two relationships in my head because admitting that I've completely betrayed my wife is too painful. Maybe loving two people doesn't make what I'm doing any less wrong. I don't know.

All I know is that when I'm with my wife, I love my wife. When I'm with Sarah, I love Sarah. Those feelings are both real, and I don't know what that says about me.

I know people are probably going to tell me I'm a terrible person, and maybe they're right. I'm not posting this because I think I've discovered some beautiful way to love two people. I know I've hurt people and I'm continuing to make choices that could hurt them even more.

I just can't understand how I can love the woman I've been married to for 14 years and still genuinely love the woman I started an affair with.

I thought an affair was supposed to make you realize something was missing in your marriage.

The worst part is, I don't think anything was missing.