Dear Survivors,
Two days ago, I received an email from James Vaughan, husband of Peggy Vaughan, via Dear Peggy’s mailing list. Author and extramarital affairs expert linked to from this blog, Peggy passed from this life into the next on Thursday, November 8, surrounded by her loved ones after battling cancer for three years. James wrote that her spirit never was dampened and she continued to maintain her website and read a book a week. “Peggy loved life to the end and faced death without any anger or bitterness. She donated her body to medical research.
“Peggy wanted you to know about the changes she made in her website before her death. Everything on her site will be free in perpetuity, the exceptions being a couple of books still in print that [they didn’t] hold the rights to.”
Peggy Vaughan played a major role in the saving of our marriage. I found her site and dug in. I ordered her book, “Beyond Affairs,” written with her husband, James. As I read the book and reported to my husband what I was learning, his curiosity and desire to heal our marriage found him swiping the book. Soon, we were reading aloud to one another. The Vaughans’ dramatic story of James’ involvement in 17 affairs before confessing all to Peggy, distracted us and educated us about how any why affairs occur as well as the ways in which our society supports affairs.
I downloaded the other of Peggy’s books from her site. When I paid for a download twice, she wrote me to say that she was giving me a refund. She was home, convalescing with a rare neuroendocrine cancer with no known cure, which afforded her the time to visit my blog and we struck up a correspondence. Peggy’s insights and encouragements were an additional help in our recovery. I told her how, when we felt stuck in the process, we would ask one anther, “What would Peggy say?” and dig up the answer.
Peggy loved that she had become a presence in our marriage and eventually, became a mentor to me via the materials and downloads she sent me. She felt it was very important to get the word out, that battling affairs was a deep and true cause.
Many thanks to you, Peggy, for your work and for launching the Beyond Affairs Network. Peggy lived what we live, survived it, rose above it and made helping others suffering from the effects of affairs her life’s work. Her heavenly crown of stars must be magnificent.
To Peggy, her life’s work and her new life.
After His Affair 
I read thirty books before I came to Peggy’s. There I stopped. It was all there, no need to go further. As a matter of fact, her rational straightforward and honest approach pointed up how shamefully the previous thirty fell short. Peggy and her good and wise friend Shirley Glass are both gone now, but their work is undiminished. Read it all. It’s all you need.
I read the book, it left me extremely frustrated and confused. Mr. James Vaughn was never first nor last sorry, remorseful or regretful for his affairs and to me it seems like one more betrayal.
How do you forgive someone who confesses he enjoyed having the affairs and does not regret them and would have liked to continue. HOW?.. I’m going through this now and my husband’s attitude is that it’s a person’s ‘right’ to pursue his pleasures. Hello, they can if another person mainly the partner they vowed to be faithful to is not in the picture😡😡
Gerarda,
Sorry not to have responded, I’ve been on vacation.
I find it troublesome when people keep these kinds of philosophies about their right to freedoms to themselves, not letting their intended partner know, beforehand, that they will pursue whatever gratifies them. It was the lifestyle of my mother’s second husband, and she lived a very lonely life, I see, now, probably dominated by depression. She kept her troubles to herself and died very young. Later on, her best friend filled in the blanks for me.
I don’t believe I am cut out to live that way, and, although I’ve been judgmental of people who have lived with a chronic cheater, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I probably don’t know the real reasons people stay in these marriages.
It’s your husband’s right to pursue his pleasures only if you agree on this point. If this declaration of his is going to end in your misery, I say it’s best to get a plan to get out of the marriage.
Best to you,
Lyn