[kaylar]

When there's emotion....


Lil married Cal. He was much older than she was,
but being twenty and he being thirty five was not
that glaring.

He was a very dull guy, but a very good provider,
and her status was raised, and she worked to work,
for her money was not needed.

When she was thirty five, the was fifty, an old staid
man, and she felt her life slipping away.

There had never been much passion in her marriage.
And she wanted passion.

She met Tim, he was twenty nine.
He had nothing.

He realised that she was primed and waiting, and
began an affair with her.

She loved him. The passion, the feeling of being
young, everything was perfect.

Except, she didn't know Tim was using her.

One day she found out about Tim's girlfriend.
This was a hot twenty four year old, who was
pregnant with his child.

She suffered the betrayal with a bone shaking
pain, because she was married, she couldn't
react to what had happened to her.

She felt every atom of betrayal, but could not
reveal it, save to her closest friend.

The affair died horribly, and Tim and his girlfriend
got married, and Lil was left with Cal.

Cal who had no idea what had been going on
for years.

[kaylar]

Know What You Are Doing


Lil never realised that Tim was using her. She loved
her life, Cal who provided the money and status, Tim
who provided the fun and frolic.

She never considered that her passion for Tim
would turn what should have been a casual
affair into a broken heart.

Nor the problem of not being able to 'mourn'.

When one is the victim of adultery, the feeling
that something 'died' is very real. Just as if
a husband died, taking away the comfort, the
partnership, leaving you with memories, so to
when he is unfaithful, for he turns those memories
into fraud.

One can 'mourn' when it is a husband who has
been unfaithful to you, but when your lover is
unfaithful to you...it puts you into an almost
schzophrenic flurry.

You can't let your husband know, must play
the pleasant wife so that he doesn't start
to pry, but feel so hurt inside.

Being unfaithful is always problematic.

In cases as Lil's the idea of divorce to marry
the lover is not in play.

Hence falling in love with the lover is as much
a mistake as being unfaithful.

[kaylar]

Flying In The Face


Usually, the woman is the victim of adultery.
The word 'victim' is not a misnomer.

Often she has done nothing to provoke his
unfaithfulness.

Often, it takes her by shock. For she never
suspected.

Many women will describe finding out as
a tsunami washing away their lives.

Many women will suffer absolute chaos,
completely devastated by this tidal wave
that came with no warning.

[kaylar]

Dealing with it


The way to survive adultery flies in the face
of 'standard' logic.

But adultery is the absence of logic, hence
needs to be confronted in a different arena.

The first thing is the 'finding out'.

Now there are many signs and symbols of
adultery.

And many ways to deal with each of them.

The second thing is to make your reaction
an action

And there are a number of actions one can
take.

It is never cut and dried.
It is not 'one size fits all'.

[kaylar]

B was a promiscuious guy. It got worse as he
got more successful. In fact, he was so wild
that people didn't believe he was really married
to R.

R had enough. She couldn't take it anymore
and consulted a divorce lawyer.

The lawyer said...
'This year he made 1M, next year, he'll make 5M,
and the next year 10M.
50% of 10M is a lot more than 50% of 1M."

Having been through the hard times with B,
R listened to her lawyer and rode it out.

She forced herself to act sweet and calm and
happy when she was anything but. She looked
about her children, herself, her friends, and gave
herself interests.

She never fought with B, in fact, she never said
a word about his affairs any more. She pretended
she didn't know, and wisely, made sure she was
never sexually intimate with him.

This was not a problem as he rarely came to where
she was, and when he did, she could always be out.

Eventually, he died and she was the widow.
Not only did she get the money, she got the
dignity of being the widow.

All the females who B had screwed, they were nothing.
They got nothing. Those with children got a piece of
the estate, but R got the most. And her children got
the most because while B was alive, she was busy
moving money out of the account into her children's
accounts, buying houses for them, putting money
in trust for them, so that when the estate was divided
it was only the what's left that could be divided, for
after all, if Daddy bought Big Son a house while he
was alive, no one could touch that house.

Yes, it was very hard for R to put up with B, and if
he hadn't been so rich she'd of run a long time ago.

Not everyone is married to a millionaire, it is true,
but those who are married to men who have something
might wish to consider getting something before the
divorce.

[kaylar]

The Danger of Denial


Denial is the thin layer of insulation
between the event and emotion.

It delays acceptance, recognition and helps
you feel even stupider at the end of the day.

A friend of mine once said;

"Always expect the worst. If it happens, you
won't be disappointed. If it doesn't, what
ever happens is okay."

No matter where you are in a relationship,
always hold that percentage of doubt, of
danger, of the worst thing happening.

Before you go into denial, you embrace
probability. In this way it won't take you
completely by surprise.

Everything is possible. Adultery, desertion,
death, insanity. Not that you 'summon' the
deamon by calling it's name, you permit the
possibility that it exists.

A true story that I can repeat a dozen times
concerns the woman whose husband always
left the same time in the morning, always returned
home the same time in the evening and never
went out without her or the kids.

When he died, a woman with three kids showed up
at the funeral.

the wife was dead sure that the woman was a liar.
After all she knew where he was...
except...
lunch.

During his lunch break this Husband would slam
this woman. Five days a week, from 12 to 1
they were having it on.

How did she feel, standing there, her husband
in his coffin, seeing this female with her brood,
realising that for all these years he was cheating
and she never even guessed.

[kaylar]

Dealing With It



There are many ways to deal with Adultery.
Some women 'ignore' it.

This is easier the second time around than the first,
but it is not impossible to let him continue to 'fool' you.

Also, what is becoming more prevalent is the taking
of his adultery as carte blanche to commit your own
adultery.

Many women today are tempted, but remain chaste
in the belief that their husbands are faithful. Learning
that he is not is taken as an opportunity.

Too many men today operate on the belief it is 1950.
They see themselves as going into the world and the
wife staying home or having a little jobette to fill the time.

They do not appreciate that many women are just as
exposed to the allure of the 'Other' as they are. They
do not seem to grasp the fact that if they don't resist,
their wives won't either.

Women find out that men are unfaithful long before the
thought might cross a male mind that his wife is cheating.

In cases where the wife is one 'yes' away from adultery,
the husband has virtually given her the green light.

Often wives have far more serious affairs than men, for
it is common for men to just play around where women
become emotionally involved.

[sourpuss]

And to think that was only 50 years ago.
Funny thing is that like you indicated. I don't think that men have changed their attitudes about it all that much.

[kaylar]

The sentiments expressed in the article ARE NOT FAKE.

This is where we came from...this level of
appendage, where our duty was to make his
life easier.

One can find this information in any old marriage
handbook; in the old Family Physician books published
in the fifties, in any old advice column.

Whether this specific article with cartoon was published
as is specified, or if this is a compilation, the facts
remain.

But let us turn this Goodhousekeeping Article
on it's head.

The Good Husband.....

In the 50s men got up and went to work, women
stayed home.

Men were to provide for the home. They were to
hand their paycheques over to their wives who
bought the food and prepared it.

Everything was his problem. He had the chequing
account, he paid the bills. Everything was him.

She was supposed to be 'helpless'.

She had to take whatever he dished out as
divorce was rare. In every group of one hundred
there might be one divorce.

People got married forever, and no matter what,
stayed married.

He might have affairs, they may hate each other,
but they stayed married.

Being a divorcee in those days was considered
being of low morality.

By the mid sixties things began to change and
divorces increased remarkably.

Today half of all marriages end in divorce.

The situation portrayed in the article posted suggests
that women had I.Q.s around Forest Gump level, hence
could easily adjust to such a life.

[Fallen1]

...... She had to take whatever he dished out as
divorce was rare ....... He might have affairs, they may hate each other, but they stayed married.

I remember my grandmother specifically saying that the women that knew their husbands were having affairs just kept their mouths shut and just lived with it, it wasn't talked about and they didn't question it.