The Wife's Boyfriend: Is He the Better Deal?

How does this sound?.. Awkward? Bizaar? Meaningless? Well, not to me. I'm pretty familiar with the concept. Heard it being justified over and over. Yes, there are wives who do have secret boyfriends. But they didn't mean to cheat. In fact, they think that those boyfriends help them go on with their marriages. They would never think of cheating. It's completely out of the question.

To start off, I want to make it clear that I am not making any moral judgements. Those women are all devoted wives who took the decision to stay on board of a sinking ship in the hope of saving whatever can saved. I won't betray the trust of those who confided in me and shared their stories. Yet, I feel obliged to talk about this subject for a number of reasons:

1. The several cases I knew of suggest that there are quite a number of wives who share the same secret.

2. All those wives are suffering an ethical dilemma that is threatening their lives, and which could have been easily avoided if they had read a post like that before slipping into the area where they are trapped now.

3. Women usually open up and talk about their problems after they grow beyond repair. They are being intimidated to express their pain by everybody around them. Families are so relieved once a girl is married off, they focus all their efforts on keeping their daughters inside the marriage. This causes them to refuse acknowledging that their daughters are having problems. They won't listen. They may tell them that all those feelings of frustration are imaginary, or caused by the evil eye. It is the devil that makes her imagine things. Similarly, friends would refrain from providing real support, thanks to the common female wisdom which says that complaining wives will always reconcile with their husbands making the friend who interfered in their problem be classified as jealous and wicked. Who can give sincere advice when their reputation is at risk?

4. Each of those wives thought that she was a unique case, unknowing that her frustration is actually shared by many others. If they had known that, they would have learned of better ways of coping with their frustration before it devours their hope.

5. Wives who ended up having double lives didn't ever plan for anything of that sort. What started as an innocent attempt to break away from depression, gradually turned into a serious situation. They are victims of inexperience and unrealistic assumptions.

6. None of those women can bring herself to see that what she is doing is cheating. Cheating seems to have a very narrow meaning in our culture. Some forms of cheating are even idealized by those who commit them. Like students who cheat in exams and think it is a good sign of cooperation. Those wives, as I said earlier, are under the illusion that what they are doing is helping them continue with their married lives. As long as the relationship doesn't involve anything sexual or indecent, then it can not be considered cheating. Those of them who didn't actually meet their boyfriends in person, don't consider this a relationship at all.

7. In many cases, the wife suspects that her husband is having an affair (or multiple affairs). This puts her conscience at ease somehow, as she believes that her innocent relationships can in no way be compared to his sins.

8. Those of them who are mothers claim that they are putting the kids' best interest before their own. If they were selfish enough, they would have asked for divorce, in which case the children will be the victims, they argue. So mainly, they prefer to have secret affairs instead of divorce!

Allow me to repeat that I am not passing any moral judegements. I place my honest opinion in the care of those who wish to face the reality of the situation, and for anyone who is actually involved in this kind of relationship or is about to get involved.

First of all, it is in my humble opinion that the extremely high social cost of divorce (which I discussed in my previous post) should be the first to blame if anyone wishes to place criminal charges. Society has made divorce (which is allowed by God in mercy of his mortal creations) become such a shameful stigma, that would stain any woman who happens to be unfortunate enough to actually hold the title of divorcee. As I explained earlier in my posts, our culture values appearances much more than it values the real ethics of people. If you appear good according to social measures, then you are good, no matter what you do in secret. As long as a person is clever enough to keep secrets hidden from everybody, then he/she has nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if you are the best person that could ever be, yet you fail to maintain the accepted appearance, then you are in a position to be questioned by others, who tend to attach the worst explanation to anything that won't appeal to them. What if you carry a label that generates all kinds of negative responses from society? Imagine if you move around with a sign sticking to your chest saying "DIVORCED WOMAN"! This does not need any kind of effort from others to put you in the black list. You skip the questioning phase to be automatically delivered into the social waste basket. Nobody cares to know any background details. It doesn't mean anything if you were a victim in a miserable marriage. It doesn't make a difference if you are a surviver of the marital hallocauste. You carry the label. You have a criminal record. You are evil by default. You are guilty by nature.

Who wants to step into this fire? Hey, welcome tough woman! Show us your guts! You're nobody's friend. You're everybody's ex-friend. You scare the women away. You invite male scum who invite themselves to take their chances. You are avoided by married couples. You can't be seen anywhere in public. You are suspicious. You never get invited over. You can't expect good wills from anyone who comes near you. You're harmful bacteria.. and everybody fears infection.

If this is not intimidating, please tell me. We crucify our divorced women in public. Human cannibals eat their flesh alive. What do you expect? Honesty? Moral values? Courage? Truth?.. What? This society deserves nothing else than its own nature. Double faces, double values, double standards, double lives, and LIES, LIES, LIES. A society that lies to itself can expect no more or wish for no more. Exceptions will exist at their own risk. But if you are a true daughter of this society, you have well absorbed its teachings. You are like the fish in water. And you will be safe inside the water as long as you are in harmony with your surroundings. Only fools are ready to lose everything in return for nothing.

Yet, I ask, what about you? What about the person inside you? How can you calm her down? How can you shut her up? I know your husband is an insensitive pig. He doesn't have this good person inside talking to him. He does not suffer when he is mean to you. He is a natural bastard. But what about you? You do deserve a better life. You have many admirable qualities that he can not appreciate. You have a huge emotional energy, a volcano of feelings, a longing for romance, a thirst for understanding.. Yes, you have the right to satisfy your heart. You have the right to feel wanted and desired. You have all the right to find someone who listens to you. You only want a receptive heart to absorb your pain and sadness. You need a soft pillow to be able to take a nice nap that will aid you to go on with your tiresome life. You are human, and all humans are weak.

A nice chat with someone with whom you feel comfortable can lift up your mood for the whole day. I understand how good it feels when for the first time you reach out your hand in distress to find another hand willing to catch yours. There is someone who is not trying to make use of you. Someone who finds you funny, intelligent, interesting, and romantic. Someone who sees the real you. Someone who is always there to hear you and comfort you. Someone who cares for your feelings and tries to lift up your spirits. Someone who doesn't criticize you or patronize you. He makes you laugh. He says nice words. He is interested in what you think. He likes your sense of humor. He asks about your day. He pays attention to all the details. He gives you his opinion when you ask for it. He cares and shares your troubles. He finds your voice musical. He knows how to bring out the best in you.

And you got used to this man in your life. His presence, even through emails, online chat, phone calls, or sms, has become so essential. You can't go back to your life before him. You can't stop needing him. You feel you are addicted. It is all innocent talk. It is just communicating with someone you feel comfortable with. You exchange views and a couple of jokes. It's not a big deal. It's not your fault that society doesn't allow a married woman to have a male friend. You have to keep knowing him a secret, although there is nothing secretive about your relationship. I understand it all, believe me. And I don't blame you. And I don't have any bad thoughts about you. I know you are a good woman. I know that you are a respectable person who wouldn't do anything shameful or immoral. I won't care for you if I didn't believe all that.

My dear, I want you to think more about yourself. You might think that you are in total control of how this hidden communication is going and where it is heading. But others who did that all thought the same. However, they reached a point when they became more flexible with the strict rules they put from the start. For some, curiosity was beyond control. "I have to see this person. His face will say more about him. It would tell if I can really trust him or not. What if he is a young boy or an old man who has been deceiving me? I must find out for myself." For others, it was the unexpected development of feelings towards this person. They found themselves getting closer and closer, and the closer they become the more they get attached. Then you can never know. Your mind will start deceiving you in such a cunning way, making you able to find a justification for anything you want to do. Your mind can use your negative feelings towards your husband to push into directions you didn't really want. It can make the idea of revenge sound so tempting that it becomes irresistable. I've seen women going for things they didn't truly want just because they felt like a chance for revenge. The more they get attached to other people, the more guilty they feel, and the more they hate their husbands for being the cause for all this mess. This area is so slippery. No matter how much you think you are in control, there is always a chance of falling. The secretive nature of the relation gives it unlimited possibility for expanding. Walking two steps sounds as risky as walking the whole mile. It is a dark side of your life after all, and once you have this side it tends to fill itself gradually, adding more and more secrets. Then you will find that the innocent secret has turned into a whole other life, where there is a whole other you playing the leading role. The amount of secrets piling up will turn into a mountain dividing your life into two. Once this happens, a secret whether innocent or not, becomes a load of guilt placed over your shoulders. You only shake it off when the other person takes over, but it will quickly return again once you are back to your first self. And that's what you are stuck with most of the time.

You don't deserve that. Why torture yourself in such a way? Why do you willingly switch from being a victim to being guilty? What if your most carefully hidden secret was found out? How will you be able to prove that it is innocent? How will you appear in the eyes of everyone? Who will believe your defences or understand your motives? If you have kids, what will happen to them? What if they heard any of the things being said about you? How can you face them? How will you be able to continue being a mother in their eyes? And what could possibly be worth all this disaster? Fear of society? Fear of divorce?.. Do you think these are enough reasons to ruin yourself?

If you are having a bad marriage, invest the time and feelings you are ready to place into another relationship inside your marriage. Try to work things out using all possible methods. Express yourself honestly. Don't seek quick fixes that depend on your endurance and sacrificing your wishes. If that doesn't work. Face it! Be brave to admit to yourself that now is the time to jump off this sinking ship. Marriages fail for many reasons, but they only destroy people who are not wise enough to know when to end them. If you are newly married, give yourself at least 2 years before having children. You can never test the stability of your marriage before that. If things are not going well, don't ever listen to those who say that kids change husbands. They change them to the worse, that's all. Get out. Now is the right time. You don't need to increase the number of victims in this sinking ship. It is never too late to have the life you want. Don't live in denial. Denial only complicates matters and makes them grow beyond repair. Each year you spend in a failed marriage, is not only wasted from your life forever, but adds up to the losses and makes it more difficult for you to leave.

My final advice to you is to weigh things before taking any decisions. If you lose yourself, there is absolutely nothing to win.