My Kid’s Best Friend’s Mom Is Having An Affair

Welcome to Ask A MWLTF (Yes, that’s Mother Who Likes to F*ck.), a monthly anonymous advice column from Scary Mommy. Here we’ll dissect all your burning questions about motherhood, sex, romance, intimacy, and friendship with the help of our columnist, Penelope, a writer and mental health practitioner in training. She’ll dish out her most sound advice for parents on the delicate dance of raising kids without sacrificing other important relationships. Email her at askpenelope@scarymommy.com.

Dear MWLTF,

I recently found out that my child’s best friend’s mom is having an affair. I can’t stop thinking about it. Part of me feels judgmental, part of me feels weirdly fascinated, and part of me is suddenly anxious about my own marriage. Instead of being horrified, I feel unsettled in a different way. It’s stirred up envy, curiosity, and questions about my own sex life. What am I supposed to do with that? Do I need to say something, or is this none of my business?

— Nosy Friend

Dear Nosy Friend,

First, let’s say the quiet part out loud: affairs are erotic. Or at least they can be. There’s a reason why they’re at the center of half the novels, films, and television series one encounters. And even when they’re not erotic in a glossy, aspirational way — they’re destabilizing. Things that destabilize our lives or the lives of those around us are titillating. So of course when you discover that a woman in your school-pickup orbit is sneaking texts, it doesn’t just trigger judgment. It triggers something far more uncomfortable: an awareness of the power of desire.

That doesn’t mean you want to cheat. It means something in you recognizes the electricity of being wanted, especially for moms who often long to feel like more than logistical center of gravity for the households they run. In other words, you’re not just reacting to her infidelity. You’re reacting to the idea that erotic life doesn’t disappear just because you became a mother.

There’s also a double-standard we should acknowledge. We live in a culture that treats male infidelity like a cliché and female infidelity like a moral catastrophe — especially when children are involved. A cheating father is “flawed.” A cheating mother is “selfish,” “dangerous,” “destroying her family.” Not because the betrayal is different, but because women are still expected to be the emotional infrastructure of everyone else’s lives. When a mother wants something for herself — especially sexually — it feels like she’s removing a load-bearing beam.

That’s why her affair hits so hard. It violates not just marital rules, but cultural ones: mothers are supposed to be containers, not wanters.

And yes — there’s another uncomfortable truth here. Women’s affairs are often more destabilizing because women are taught to love through attachment. When women cross sexual lines, it often comes with fantasy, emotional intimacy, and the possibility of a different self. That makes it feel existential. Not just someone cheated, but someone might leave. It makes sense then that seeing a woman who didn’t let motherhood fully domesticate her erotic, transgressive self, might feel like it’s pressing on the parts of you that may feel dulled, lonely, or quietly starved.

As for whether you should say something: no. You are not the marital police. Exposing her will not protect your marriage — it will only outsource your discomfort onto her life. This is her story, not yours. Instead of asking, Should I judge her? ask, What did this wake up in me? Is it grief about a sex life that’s gone quiet? Curiosity about parts of yourself you tucked away? If so, the good news is that you don’t need to have an affair to honor that longing. But you do need to stop pretending it isn’t there. Talk to your partner. Fantasize. Get honest about what you miss. Let yourself want without immediately turning it into a crisis.

Affairs are complicated and destructive, but they’re far too common to be the makings of a scandal. It seems to me the real disruption is that this woman accidentally reminded you that mother or not, there’s a part of you that’s still a sexual being. Maybe that part simply needs to be noticed.