True Confessions

From Jenny Sanford to Elizabeth Edwards to Jennifer Aniston, women scorned are in the headlines regularly. It's for them that we ache and empathize; we become outraged on their behalf and at the men they once considered their "better" halves.

But behind every one of these marital meanderings that happen every day in every city is a mistress, and it's about them we wonder - how could they?

So we asked them, and they very candidly told us.

Managing Life as a Mistress

Trisha*, 35, is having an affair with a married man with whom she works. It's been going on for a little more than a year now. She no longer wears her favorite perfume, and she dyes her hair in a shade similar to that of her lover's wife so that telltale hairs won't be so telling.

"There will be no trace of me on his person," she says.

They go to great and creative lengths to make sure their communications aren't discovered - no text messages, no IM conversations, no credit cards. They use a blogging platform to transmit messages to one another - the same platform both for their personal blogs, so as not to arise suspicion, should his wife see him on the site. They never publish the posts, just save them as drafts for the other one to delete as soon as he or she reads.

What makes her want a "taken" man so badly to perform such an orchestrated affair?

"I love being the mistress," says Trisha. "It grants me all the benefits of a relationship, a confidant and sexual partner, without bogging my own growth with the more mundane aspects of a relationship or taking up an excessive amount of time."

As for the man's wife, Trisha feels she's actually helping her.

"I respect his wife and what they have together," Trisha explains. "I see my affair with her husband as a sort of service. She is no longer responsible for his sexual pleasure. As a result of having found a suitable outlet, he is better able to focus on his duties and responsibilities as her mate."

But will he leave his wife her? Isn't that what all mistresses really want?

"I hope he doesn't leave her for me," she says. "That would be absurd. Affairs should never become monogamous relationships. How can you ever trust someone who has so clearly demonstrated such a lack of conscience, such a talent with lying and stealing? It's not a trick question: you can't. A foundation of lies - even if they belong to both of you - is no foundation at all."

Touche.