A little bit of background: I’m 46, married to my wife for 13 years, have two boys, and live in the suburbs of New York. We would be described as the all-American, white family.

I never thought I would be the type to cheat, let alone stupid enough to do it in my own home, but here I am. I feel incredibly guilty and horrible for doing this to my wife, but I don’t know how to stop. This started a few months ago; she had a big, time consuming project come up at work. She’s been putting in long days, working at home on the weekends, and spending relatively no time with the boys and myself. I was fine with her crazy hours for the first two weeks, but then it started to tell on her/us. She’s easily frustrated, always exhausted (which I understand) and the s** has stopped. I told myself it would just be for a short while, that eventually things would go back to normal…

This is the time when my neighbor started bringing her kids over in the evenings (when she found out my wife was working late everyday, she started bringing her kids for play dates every evening) before my wife or her husband came home from work. It’s not an excuse or even a reason for what I’m doing, but she’s an incredibly attractive, petite Colombian woman. I really didn’t think she had any interest in me, I’m a typical looking, middle aged white guy…in good shape, slightly soft around the middle and starting to bald but take good care of my appearance.

After a few weeks of her coming around everyday and us getting to know each other better, she made her move. We were standing around in my kitchen, just having coffee. For whatever stupid reason, I said I had needs as a man and they weren’t being met with my wife’s schedule. My neighbor put her cup down, came up to me, and kissed me. I completely stopped thinking with my brain. I took her hand and we practically ran upstairs (I wasn’t even thinking about all our kids playing in my den). Given my excitement, it didn’t last very long. After we finished, reality started to set in and I felt the guilt start to creep in. Awkwardly, we both dressed and went back downstairs. The kids were so into their games, they hadn’t even noticed we weren’t around. She went home and I took a shower and tried to compose myself before my wife came home.

In bed that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about what we did. I kept telling myself it couldn’t happen again, wasn’t fair to my wife and that’s not the guy I want to be. I chalked it up to letting myself get caught up in a moment of weakness.

I’ll admit it; I’m weaker than I thought. The neighbor came over the next day and we spent an even longer time in bed and now it’s been going on for over a month. I don’t know how to explain it other than we have a very intense, s***** connection. As horrible as it sounds, the deadlines for my wife’s projects keep getting pushed back and I hope they get pushed back some more. My wife isn’t working as late as she used to and she’s free on the weekends now, but it stills leaves plenty of time for the neighbor and me to have fun several times a week. My kids and her kids are happy that they get to play almost every afternoon and we’re happy for the playtime we have together. It’s risky doing it in my house, but that’s half the excitement. I keep thinking the s** will fizzle out, but it’s just as intense as the first time. Neither one of us has intentions of leaving our spouses; we just want to keep having fun on the side.

I know it’s wrong and could potentially blow up in my face; I’ve tried to end it before but she has a way of pulling me back in.