As Harriet lay in the arms of her lover after a romantic rendezvous in a hotel, her husband James was thousands of miles away in the Middle East on a business trip.
A well-respected teacher and governor at a school in Hampshire, Harriet, then 39, felt little guilt about the affair she was having with the brother of a friend.
If anything, she believed that her infidelity was perfectly justified.
That’s because her afternoon tryst was part of what she considered a ‘revenge affair’ — the emotional payback for her husband’s betrayal six months before.
A recent study from California State University found that people whose partners had an affair were then nine times more likely to have one themselves
‘That’s the only reason I did it,’ she insists. ‘It’s really not something I’d ever have contemplated but for the fact James had been unfaithful to me.’ Remarkably, a decade on, the couple are still together. In fact, Harriet suggests her adultery, which still remains a secret from James, may even have saved the marriage.
‘I’d never have felt like an equal in our relationship had I not done it,’ she says. ‘I needed the emotional strength I drew from my lover, and I needed to feel like a man wanted me again.’
It is, of course, a highly risky response to the discovery of an affair.
Yet the phenomenon of ‘getting one’s own back’, or re-setting the balance of power in a relationship after infidelity, is a well-established one. A recent study from California State University found that people whose partners had an affair were then nine times more likely to have one too.
Calling it ‘revenge intimacy’, researchers said the motive is often anger and a desire to inflict similar heartache on the straying partner.
Most of us would agree that a tit-for-tat affair does not sound like the best way to mend a broken heart, but Harriet is adamant it worked for her.
She discovered James’s extramarital relationship after seeing an exchange of messages with a female colleague on a phone he’d left at home while running an errand.
‘I’d only glanced at the phone out of curiosity, but the very first message I read shocked me to the core,’ says Harriet. ‘There he was, telling her that he couldn’t live without her.
‘I was devastated. I thought our marriage was solid at the time, but the messages had been sent just days earlier, so clearly it wasn’t. I was so upset, I ran in tears to my neighbour, who was also a friend.’
Within the hour, James was back — and when she confronted him, he didn’t attempt to deny it.
‘He said he was sorry, that it didn’t mean anything, no matter what the texts said, and that he needed me.
‘The truth was, I needed him too. I didn’t want our marriage to end, and we had two children aged six and four.
‘But the next few weeks in the house together were excruciating as we tried to navigate the aftermath of it all.’
What her own affair did was ‘clear her head’, says Harriet — before adding, with honesty: ‘I needed to get even with him, too.’
Jay Rai is a psychologist specialising in the psychology and neuroscience of mental health. She says there are several basic reasons why a wronged spouse may end up having a revenge affair.
‘Retaliation is a common motivation,’ she explains. ‘It provides a way to even the score and make the cheater feel the same pain that they are feeling.
‘Even if the original adulterer doesn’t find out about the “revenge affair”, it confers a sense of power over their feelings.
‘Restoring self-esteem is another factor. Being desired by someone else can rebuild shattered confidence, even temporarily.
‘Regaining control over one’s life and emotions also plays a role, as does the need for an emotional release from the anger and hurt.’
Harriet goes further, saying the very act of adultery was ‘like therapy’.
‘A few days after I discovered James’s affair, I heard him crying on the phone to his sister, saying how foolish he’d been, which felt more meaningful than when he’d said the same things directly to me.
‘Where he leant on his family, my neighbour was my solace. And when her brother William, whom I’d known for years, came to visit her about six weeks later, I found myself telling him about it too.
One wife whose husband had conducted an affair, called Harriet, said she felt she needed to get even with him
‘My marriage was hanging by a thread and it was William who comforted me with his kindness and eagerness to listen.
‘He was a couple of years younger than me, sexy and a bit of a wild, rocker type. We started meeting for coffee and, within a few weeks, we ended up having sex at his house, where he lived alone.
‘There were times when I’d panic in case James found out, but William’s sister was the only one who knew and she turned a blind eye.
‘It went on for a few months, whenever James was away with work, but after he was offered a job opportunity 150 miles away, we saw it as an opportunity for a fresh start and my affair fizzled out.
‘James’s infidelity had made me feel like no man would ever want to touch me again. In my head, having an affair was my way of getting that out of my system.’
It also calmed some of the anger she felt towards James, allowing them, paradoxically, to rebuild trust and resume their own sex life.
‘It didn’t make me feel bad at all. In fact, I honestly believe it’s what enabled me to stay with him and sort our marriage out.’
Of course, the revenge affair is a strategy that occupies, at best, a grey moral area. And it can easily backfire, says Jay Rai.
‘Instead of resolving the pain, it often worsens feelings of betrayal and resentment. You may find yourself feeling more distraught than when you learned of your partner’s infidelity, as the momentary satisfaction of getting back at them gives way to deeper emotional turmoil.
‘This could result in guilt and self-loathing, leading to an inner struggle that chips away at your self-esteem.’
Revenge affairs, she says, can ‘diminish your confidence and faith in relationships’ altogether, ‘making it challenging to heal and move forward positively’.
Pippa, now 43, from Rutland, is another who practised ‘revenge intimacy’ after discovering her husband’s affair. It was in 2015, after six years of marriage, that she began to realise something wasn’t right in the relationship.
‘For a few months I’d noticed that Chris was increasingly snappy and irritable with me. He was taking his phone with him everywhere, even in the house,’ she recalls.
‘But then, one Sunday, he slipped up and left it on the kitchen island when he took our six year old son to football. When it beeped with a message, I decided to have a look.
‘Despite my suspicions, I wasn’t prepared for what I read: a text from one of my own oldest friends, essentially saying, “I really enjoyed last night — can’t wait to do it again.”
‘We’d been friends for 20 years, so it was a colossal double betrayal.’
There was no password on the phone and Pippa decided to reply to the text pretending to be him. ‘I asked my friend what she’d enjoyed most about the night before and she replied with explicit details,’ says Pippa. ‘Then, when Chris came home, I showed him.
‘We had a huge row. He shouted at me for looking at his phone and I told him to get out. Then I messaged his lover from my own phone to tell her I knew what they’d done.
‘I felt so stupid. She said she was sorry and felt terrible.
‘Chris begged me to take him back. Initially I refused but, after a couple of months apart, during which time he stayed with a family member nearby, I gave him a second chance — mostly because I felt that our son needed us to be together.’
Her feelings of resentment and anger simmered, however, and when Chris, an IT manager, moved back home and began to act as though nothing had happened, she grew more and more inwardly furious.
Then, on a night out with friends, she met a man called Matthew. ‘He came over to me in the wine bar and asked if he could buy me a drink. He was polite and charming and I willingly accepted his offer. After chatting for the next hour or so, we swapped numbers.
‘Although I felt a thrill, I had no intention of making contact as that would have felt disloyal to Chris, despite what he’d done.
‘But a few days later, Matthew sent a text asking how I was and how my day at work had been, and something inside me changed. He was actually interested in me, whereas Chris would come home and go straight on his PlayStation while I cooked dinner.
‘Eventually, Matthew asked if I’d like to meet up. With my son at school and Chris at work, I thought sod it. I kidded myself that he was just a friend and I didn’t feel too guilty, but I was still careful and saved him in my phone contacts as “Sarah”.’
Several lunches and a movie date followed and Pippa admits sexual tension was building. ‘The next time we met, Matthew said he’d booked a hotel room and asked if I’d like to watch a film with him there.
‘I didn’t see any reason to resist. I’d not had sex with Chris since he’d cheated five months earlier. And, in fact, far from feeling bad, I had a lovely time with Matthew, who was single with no children.
Another woman, Pippa, said her affair gave her the strength to end her marriage a few months after she stopped seeing the man she was sleeping with
‘I’d always frowned on cheating before, and imagined that if my partner committed adultery, then I’d simply end the relationship. The reality was very different because we had a child. I wanted us to work at our marriage.’
Though Matthew knew Pippa was married, their affair, she says, was on a ‘no questions asked basis from both sides’.
‘The affair went on for about six months before we drifted apart. But it had a lasting effect on me.
‘Matthew made me realise there were kind men out there who would make me feel special and interesting, and it gave me the strength to end my marriage a few months later, in early 2017.
‘I didn’t tell Chris what I’d done, as I didn’t see the point in inflaming the situation.’
Pippa did, though, confess her revenge affair to her second husband, Nick, when they started dating six years ago. ‘It was important to me to be honest with him about what had happened, and for him to understand why, because it was so out of character.’
Like Pippa, healthcare manager Deborah used her revenge affair to reassess her marriage and gain the strength to end it.
Once again, it was technology which led to her discovery of husband Simon’s affair in 2018.
‘He’d fallen asleep on the sofa leaving his Facebook page open on his laptop and I couldn’t resist having a nosy,’ says Deborah, 44, who lives near Bristol.
‘That’s how I found some messages between him and a woman he’d been at school with.
‘In some, he was having a go at me, saying I’d trapped him by getting pregnant with our toddler, which absolutely wasn’t true.
‘In others, they were arranging to meet up and talking about the sexual things they were going to do together. I was devastated.’
After waking Simon up to confront him, he confessed to the affair but said he would end it immediately.
‘Stupidly, I went along with it — but my whole life as I knew it had been turned upside down.’
It was in this vulnerable frame of mind that an ex-boyfriend came back into her life.
‘I’d never have thought I had it in me to have an affair myself until Joe came to work at my office as a temporary consultant.
Joe and I had dated before I met Simon and we’d parted on good terms. There was still a spark between us and one thing led to another.
Joe was single, and three months after Simon’s adultery we had sex at his house one lunchtime.
‘I wouldn’t have done it if he’d got a partner, as I wouldn’t have wanted another woman to be hurt as much as I had been.’
More than Harriet or Pippa, for Deborah the affair was very much about revenge itself.
‘Being with Joe gave me a sense that, in my own mind at least, I’d restored the power balance. Simon deserved it, as far as I was concerned.
‘And, in a way, I couldn’t have cared less if he’d found out — it was his fault I cheated.
‘The affair lasted for 11 months, ending when Joe moved overseas.
‘Then, five months later, I was loading the dishwasher one night when Simon confessed that he’d cheated on me again.
‘This time I ended our marriage, drawing strength from the confidence I’d gained from my time with Joe.’
Now happily with a new partner, Deborah admits it feels surreal to think that she ever had an affair, revenge or otherwise.
‘If Simon had been loyal to me, I’d never have done it. But his affair caused me to lose my confidence — and the only way to get it back was to get even.’
- All names have been changed