If people didn't cheat on their partners, there'd be far fewer TV shows and movies. It would all be dinosaurs and "Star Wars." There's even a series called "The Affair" devoted to cheating and its aftermath. Here are two women who know infidelity up close and personal.

DESIREE: I'm in my teens, and I'm part of a family that was damaged by my mom's infidelity when I was just 2 years old. My dad was entirely faithful, and moreover, he did nothing to cause the affair. He wasn't a workaholic, and he didn't abuse my mom physically or emotionally, not even when he followed her to a motel and walked in on her with her partner in bed.

(My dad can't drive by a Super 8 without remembering that day, and you can imagine the indelible images in his brain.)

Soon after that heart-wrenching excursion, he came home to an empty house, free of furniture, silverware and me. The scars I suffered are indescribable. I cried myself to sleep and wished other women were my mother. I felt orphaned. I remember one day I was watching a nature show with my dad and I said I hoped the mother zebra didn't get attacked by the lion because then the baby zebra wouldn't have a mom, just like me.

The other family, the second one my mom helped tear to shreds, suffered, too. The parents got divorced, too, and the wife of the man my mom had the affair with had no education and found herself with a son to support. The boy was adopted, and now the family that took him in is ending, too.

These are the realities of affairs.

My dad remarried after years and years of being nothing but a wonderful and devoted father. He held out for someone as deserving and moral as him. I finally — after all of my mom's lousy tries at a relationship — have a mother I can emulate.

I know — I have proof — that true love exists, and that there are still people of strong moral fiber out there, sorting through the floozies to find someone like me who won't marry them and then turn around and cheat with someone else.

DANIELLE: I worked with a woman many years ago who had given up her life in New York to move to the South to be with her married lover. She had sons and grandchildren in New York that she never saw, but she was content to wait for this guy.

For years, he juggled her and his wife, and he finally left his wife after their six kids were grown. She told me they'd gotten married, but she didn't use his last name, and there were other things that made me wonder if the wedding had actually taken place.

I lost touch with her, but a few years ago I read his obituary. He was "preceded in death by his first wife" and survived by "the love of his life." Not the woman I knew. After all she gave up for him, she didn't even get a mention in his obituary.

Did love come along when you least expected it? Send your tale, along with your questions, problems and rants to [email protected]. And check out my e-books, "Dear Cheryl: Advice from Tales from the Front" and "I'll Call You. Not."

Photo credit: at Pixabay