She developed a teenage crush on him, and confided her feelings to her mum, who one day casually mentioned the crush to Terri, who must have told Kevin.

And that’s when everything changed.

“A few days later as he dropped me off, Kevin leaned towards me and said: ‘A little birdie tells me you have a crush on me?’ Then he kissed me,” says Emma.

It was all her impressionable schoolgirl fantasies come true.

“I was thrilled,” she admits.

“I’d never felt pretty, yet here was this older man giving me attention. I was so naïve. Now I cringe at my stupidity.”

But back then, an intoxicating romance with the man of her dreams was simply irresistible and Emma barely gave his wife a second thought.

Inevitably, the affair was discovered.

“In May 1999, a year after it all started, I came home to find Terri sitting on the sofa with my mum.

"Both of them looked distraught,” says Emma.

“Terri said: ‘Tell me everything.’ It turned out her brother-in-law had seen Kevin and me in town.

"She was sobbing and for the first time, I really understood how our affair affected her too.

"I felt ashamed as I told her the scantest detail.”

“I felt terrible, and had to struggle not to cry myself.

"But I also felt relieved she’d found out.

"Now I hoped Kevin and I could be together,” Emma says.

Three months later, the divorce was underway and Kevin and Emma had moved in together.

For a while, the couple were happy, even though they argued over Kevin’s jealousy.

He liked to keep tabs on Emma, and would check her phone calls and emails.

Then a friend told Emma, who lives in Chatham in Kent, that she’d seen Kevin with another girl, and suspected he was cheating.

“I didn’t want to believe it, it was too much to bear – so I didn’t,” says Emma.

She put her doubts aside, and they married in October that year.

At first, the extra commitment reassured Emma and seemed to calm Kevin’s jealousy, and they had a year of happiness.

Or so Emma thought.

Like Terri before her, she was totally unprepared when her sister told her one day that she’d seen Kevin with another girl.

In February 2007, Emma logged on to Kevin’s email account – and her worst fears were realised.

“There were more than 30 messages to a girl called Julia, some of a sexual nature and one that read: ‘Love you so much.’

"It was obvious from their emails that they’d been sleeping together in our bed while I was at work.

"I was devastated, yet the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me.

"I kept thinking I had no right to be so furious when he and I had done the same thing to Terri.

"Now I knew the hurt she must have felt.”

Kevin denied the affair, but Emma felt sure he was lying and moved in with her sister.

That summer, Emma filed for divorce.

Gradually she has got over Kevin and is now seeing someone new.

Terri has remarried too, and Kevin, now 35, is still with Julia.

“I wish I hadn’t been so naive, but I have learnt from my mistakes,” says Emma.

“I know I’ll never get involved with a married man again. There’s no doubt that I learnt the hard way.”

Kevin declined to comment.

Have you had an affair? Has a partner cheated on you? Can your relationship continue after discovering one of you has been unfaithful? Does anybody end up being happy? Did Emma get her just desserts? Is someone once a cheat, always a cheat or can people change?

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Photography: Dean Belcher; Hair and make up: Sara Bowden