by a Latino Gentleman

I have to tell you that English is not my language, since I'm a Latin-American man, this will also explain some of the things that you'll read, all macho Latino men being mean spirited with women (that last was for the benefit of any women, including your wife, reading this note). I want also to tell you that I am happily married and if sometimes I write like I've felt the same, it's because before I married I had relationships, some good, some bad, like any other man or woman my age (44 years old). That being said, I'd like to praise you for the story and I'm giving you the highest vote, in a scale from 1 to 10, you got an eleven.

The only thing you didn't capture very well; was, perhaps the feelings of the husband in your story, the guy was sometimes too serene. He didn't show the full measure of despair that accompanies the situation, specially the 2 days alone in his house, when you feel that your heart and your guts wants to explode and you ask yourself what did you do to deserve what is happening. As for hitting the women, I agree with you; I was taught, like my grandfather use to say, not to hit a woman even with the petals of a rose. Although some of my sisters and/or female cousins have told me that sometimes women do things just to strike at you and you should respond; this, I believe, was said just because they love me and being of the same sex they just wanted to kick her ass.

What the woman feels in the situation, I don't know. Who really knows what goes inside the head of other people? I would like to suggest that you ask a girlfriend to write about it, not your wife though... Those doubts, damned doubts...

About the ending, I'm not a writer, so I can't give you one, only some ideas.

She stayed with the guy from Thursday to Sunday; like the husband asked, was it the first time? I don't believe so. Now I have to confess that I'm not a saint and when I had girlfriends if I did something like that, I would be running to my house on the first night, before the morning came (perhaps it's my catholic upbringing, I don't know) or my feelings of guilt would destroy me. If I stayed it meant that I didn't love my girlfriend enough as I found out many times on college; but a full weekend?, that is enough time to try to know each other and even fall in love, you don't take it unless you are already comfortable with your couple. Remember that you don't have sex the full time; the couple have moments of intimacy, telling each other things about them or laugh together at something. These are the moments that make you fall in love or hate each other. If you only want sex, you have two or three couplings and you go home, that's it, you had an itch and scratched it.

If I were the husband I would prefer to believe that it was not the first time; because if it was the first time, how shallow was the love she gave me that the first time she didn't even feel guilty and stayed with him the whole weekend!.

Another thing you captured perfectly was the question of her job; being raised by a woman who fought for the right to vote in my country, makes me feel that the woman has the right to keep working in the same office. I couldn't demand that she quit her job; she's doing a good job even if she demeans herself by giving the lame excuse that she had to thank the guy for helping her. If everybody thought that way; there wouldn't be heterosexuals or homosexuals only bisexuals, since sometimes you would have to "thank" people of the same sex. In the office, you thank your fellow workers by helping them when they need it, you don't have sex as a way to thank them!. The real problems, as you already point it, are the "rights" that the lover will think he has and the times that he will try to enforce them. Also, what will the husband think when she tells him that she has to stay at the office working... Will she be working?, continuing the affair? Or even "thanking" another guy?, this doubts can kill love and since she destroyed the trust between them!!!... As for the woman, will she think that he's having an affair in his trips?, in his office? She will also start to doubt...