SAM: As soon as someone looks at me with compassion
and understanding because they know how it hurts,
they know how much it sucks.
And I love Jamie so much, and that's why it's
hard because it s--it still hurts.
WINFREY: Now that was Sam.
Sam's a woman who's still trying
to recover from an affair her husband,
Jamie, had last summer.
Here is their story.
SAM: Jamie and I met in high school.
I fell in love with his honesty.
He's very loving and affectionate.
WINFREY: Three years ago, Sam
and Jamie married and bought a home.
Everything seemed perfect until they met
the neighbor who lived behind them.
JAMIE: She was tall, a nice body.
Her--you know, her--her clothes showed off her body.
SAM: His thoughts always seemed to be with the neighbor.
He would park behind the house all the
time when he never parked behind there before.
One day I finally talked to him and said,
`I know that you might think this is innocent,
but these are all the warning signs
and you need to be careful.'
WINFREY: But Jamie wasn't careful.
He continued to visit the neighbor who
was also married.
JAMIE: She was very flirty,
and I g--I guess I liked the attention.
WINFREY: Eventually, the flirtation turned to seduction.
JAMIE: One day I was working in the back yard,
and she just--just--she was wearing a little skirt,
like a little bathing suit skirt,
and just kind of flashed me,
opened her legs and just--
just flashed me.
WINFREY: Jamie could not resist the temptation.
JAMIE: The sex, once it started, it was very, very addicting.
WINFREY: Sam knew something was wrong,
but Jamie denied her suspicions.
SAM: I felt like I was going crazy
'cause I knew something was going on.
I could feel it in the pit of my stomach.
My husband, though, who I trusted
with my--my whole world, would look
me square in the eyes and say,
`No, nothing's happening.'
WINFREY: Well, every woman knows this.
Your gut's right,
and Sam's gut was right.
Nothing prepared her, though,
for what happened next.
WINFREY: Things were worse than Sam had imagined,
and her world came crashing down
when the other woman's husband found
the diary filled with the sordid secrets
of Jamie's affair.
He gave it to Sam's best friend, who called
Sam immediately.
As Sam sat and read the steamy diary,
every explicit detail of the affair became a reality.
SAM: It read like a Harlequin novel.
It was devastating to read that
and just to think about where was I at the
time, what was I doing.
One of the times I was lying
in bed just 500 yards away
and they were being intimate.
WINFREY: Armed with proof of the affair,
she called Jamie.
SAM: And I said, `You cheated on me,'
and he said, `No, I didn't. I love you.'
And I said, `I've got the journal here.
You cheated on me.' And he said,
`Yeah, I did.' I just--I lost it.
I--I wanted to throw up.
I--I just--I couldn't believe it.
WINFREY: So what was your first--
you--you saw the audience when I said
what would you do if you had the diary,
'cause once you have the diary with the details,
you no longer have to ask how
it happened or what happened or is it true,
is it real, 'cause you've got it there in print.
SAM: Well, you're not--yeah. Yeah.
WINFREY: So what was your first reaction?
SAM: Well, it was shock and I was furious
and that was it.
It's over, you know? I was--it was just rage.
WINFREY: Rage.
SAM: Yeah.
WINFREY: But you're sitting here
holding hands today, so something's happened.
SAM: Well, I took a moment like
a week later and just said to myself,
`Why am I leaving him?' you know,
and the answer was because I said
I would if he ever did it, because...
WINFREY: Like the back row up there.
JAMIE: Yeah.
WINFREY: Gone! Yeah.
SAM: Because I was humiliated.
WINFREY: Humiliated.
SAM: Because that's what everyone
was saying for me to do.
You know, you're young. Leave him. Move on with your life.
But I couldn't leave him for those reasons.
And in my heart, I knew that I loved him for so
many other reasons.
And I had that hope and that faith
that we could work through it, so...
WINFREY: And so you'd been caught.
JAMIE: Yeah.
WINFREY: Yeah. And that felt like what?
JAMIE: Oh, it felt terrible.
It hurt.
I just felt disgusted with myself.
WINFREY: Disgusted with yourself before then?
JAMIE: Oh, I was very disgusted.
WINFREY: You were disgusted with yourself.
JAMIE: Very, very disgusted. Yeah.
WINFREY: Yeah. Everybody--everybody kind
of finds that hard to believe.
You were disgusted,
but you kept going to see her?
JAMIE: Yeah, well, you...
WINFREY: You're so disgusted.
JAMIE: No, you...
WINFREY: No, really, seriously, explain that to me.
JAMIE: You get--you're disgusted,
and then, you know, you're, like,
`I just want to go home.
I don't want to be doing this,'
you know? And then--and then
you feel like really bad,
and then you see her again.
WINFREY: Now let me just ask you
this and this is for every person that
it's happened to you, and obviously,
you're here 'cause you're w--will--
willing to talk about it.
That moment when, OK, you--
you're mowing the lawn, she flashes you,
you know now that it's no longer
sort of innocent flirtation 'cause she's
flashed you and then you go over
to her house.
I often just wonder, and we have
several men here today who will
have an opportunity to talk about it,
in that moment, do you think about anything
other than what is to come for you?
Are you thinking about the vows you said?
Are you thinking about what this would do to Sam?
Are you thinking about anything other than I'm gonna get some?
JAMIE: Yeah, but it's not to the--that extent.
It's not, like--you know,
it--you don't go over your vows,
or you don't--you just...
WINFREY: Well, I don't even mean vows.
JAMIE: Yeah, but...
WINFREY: Are you thinking about...
JAMIE: Yeah, you think it might hurt her.
WINFREY: ...the commitment that you made?
Are you thinking about what this meant or means or...
JAMIE: Yeah, you--you know, there's--you know,
there was a part that, you know--you know,
maybe she'll get hurt, it might hurt her a bit,
but you most...
WINFREY: Hurt her a bit.
JAMIE: ...most of your mind is just going
on to like it--you're caught up in something.
You're not thinking right.
WINFREY: I'm gonna get some.
JAMIE: No--yeah, I guess so, but you're not--
you're not thinking right.
You're not really...
WINFREY: Yeah, because why are you going
to that other person's house?
JAMIE: Just--it's--it's like an addiction.
When--just--it was, like, a--it was a--I
don't know, it's just a forced-type deal.
It was hard--it's hard to explain.
WINFREY: Well, I'm sitting here willing.
JAMIE: OK.
WINFREY: No, really, you--that's an interesting
point you made, that it's an addiction.
So has--has this happened before?
JAMIE: No.
WINFREY: OK. Have you been compelled or thought
about doing it before?
JAMIE: You--you know, you get little thoughts,
but you don't think it's going to happen,
like it's going to happen to me.
WINFREY: So you were just sort of--jeez,
this is--OK. So as you're describing the woman
who lives behind your house,
I'm thinking you're talking about your wife.
You said she's tall.
She's tall.
JAMIE: Yeah. And gorgeous.
WINFREY: And she's gorgeous. She's gorgeous.
So what was it?
Were you not being fulfilled in your marriage?
Were you...
JAMIE: No, it was just the attention.
WINFREY: The attention.
JAMIE: But just--you know, it's
like when you first start dating, you get that little--
that rush, that--that feeling, you know...
WINFREY: Yeah, yeah.
JAMIE: ...and, you know, when--
when you're married and that,
it kind of goes away, but then it happens again
and it just--you get caught
up in the rush. It's...
WINFREY: 'Cause it's a rush.
You were looking for the rush.
JAMIE: It's like a--it's like a--yeah.
WINFREY: And so that's what's addicting, that feeling.
JAMIE: Oh, yeah.
WINFREY: Yeah. And how long had
you-all been married when this happened?
SAM: Two years.
WINFREY: Two years.
Did you ever speak to the neighbor?
SAM: I--I never talked to her before this happened,
but then in the midst of it, she would all
of a sudden, like, come up for coffee and--
and then sort of...
WINFREY: You mean, in the midst of the affair?
SAM: In the midst of the affair
and she'd grill me about my marriage,
you know, and--you know, how do you--do you...
WINFREY: That's a sign.
To everybody listening today, that's a sign.
SAM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
WINFREY: Yeah.
SAM: And I took it as a sign.
I went back and I said,
`This is really weird. You know,
she's asking all these personal
questions and telling me how much
she loves her husband and...'
WINFREY: Didn't you just see her a couple days ago?
SAM: On the way here.
WINFREY: On the way here.
You did confront her at one point.
SAM: Oh, yeah.
WINFREY: Yeah. Yeah.
SAM: Yeah.
WINFREY: And you felt good confronting her?
SAM: I didn't feel good about it because
it was just out of emotion.
I just let it fly.
WINFREY: What?
You called her a bunch of names and all that.
SAM: Really bad names. Yeah.
WINFREY: You felt good--but really--everybody's cheering.
That's only momentary satisfaction, isn't it...
SAM: Yeah, it is, and I had to let that go.
WINFREY: ...because that's the one you want to get right there?
Yeah, yeah. OK. And so where are you now?
What--how did you-all get to this place
that you can now be sitting here holding hands?
SAM: It's a long process.
He has done everything he can do
to help me through it.
He answers questions when I ask him questions.
He lets me go through my ups and downs,
but I had to forgive every detail in
that journal
and not just Jamie and the other woman...
WINFREY: Do you think it's better knowing
the details or not?
Like, a lot of women think they want
to know the details.
Do you think it's better to know or not to know?
SAM: You have to--see, there's
nothing holding me back from knowing
details at the time.
But now in retrospect,
you have to forgive all those details,
not just--not just the affair but every
little detail and every little hurt
that came from it.
WINFREY: What happened to the diary?
SAM: I went over it with Jamie,
and he burned it, so I was done with it.
I didn't want to look at it again.
WINFREY: Well, thank you for being here.