Women who have affairs intentionally by targeting a married man, hurt ‘the sisterhood.’
By Sarah P.
While at first glance, this may appear to be an article that is interesting to women, the points addressed in this article also affect men. This is a complex topic and this topic affects marriages and social structures.
With 50% of married women having admitted to an extramarital affair, the gender gap in terms of WHO has affairs is closing. In feminist company, women often like to talk about the concept of the sisterhood among women.
Because of the work I do, inevitably I will come across a woman who feels my views about spouse poachers hurt women. Some women have told me that I am required to have an alliance to the sisterhood regardless of how women behave. Whether women are being toxic in an office setting, or seducing the husband of a friend, are we truly united just because we share a XX chromosome?
For anyone who has been reading regularly, I loathe spouse poachers. Several women in my life off-line have told me that if I assign the smallest portion of the blame for an affair on the other woman, I was not helping the sisterhood.
I am someone who has always tried and continues to try to put The Sisterhood first.
However, I have met some women who believe putting The Sisterhood first means lifting women up even when their actions harm others.
But, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe in anyone harming anyone else, whether or not they are male or female.
I believe that women who have affairs intentionally by targeting a married man – the bunny boilers of the world – hurt the sisterhood. In my mind, women cannot possibly trust each other if women intentionally target married men and do so with the singular goal of having an inappropriate relationship with that married man.
I believe that as long as we have women who have the goal to do things that destroy the lives of others, we cannot have a sisterhood.
Why?
Having a sisterhood implies that all women put each other first and put women as a collective first. Having a sisterhood implies we “have the backs” of women in general.
So, it is an impossibility to have a sisterhood when some women have set their sights on having inappropriate relationships with married men. There is no sisterhood when some women are intentionally doing things that hurt wives, hurt children, and hurt families.
You see, the sisterhood is NOT about women competing with one another or going after a man who is married to someone.
In my eyes, the sisterhood is about the following:
- Women lifting each other up, not tearing down the marriage of a married woman.
- Women being friends of the marriages of others.
- Women keeping to a code of conduct: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
- Women refraining from flirting with married or taken men.
- Women having the backs of each other and confronting a spouse poacher.
- Women forging deep and genuine friendships where they care for each other in times of need.
- Women realizing that men can come and go, but a good, female friend lasts forever.
- Women refusing to enable systems that keep women down.
- Women sharing information that benefits all, women giving credit to other women where credit is due, women collaborating together on projects that benefit society.
- You keep important secrets when you promise to keep them. Don’t use an innocent woman’s deepest secret as gossip.
- Creating circles of wise women who are elders in the community and valuing the knowledge of grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
Featured Download: “The Top 10 Reasons to Leave Your Affair Partner Now”
If you’re the unfaithful, get it, read it and carefully consider the advice. If you’re the betrayed, give it to your unfaithful spouse.
Many do NOT agree with me…
I read an article in Salon magazine recently. The author was a teen in the late 1960’s and she bragged extensively about her ability to have sex with other women’s husbands.
Here is an addended version of her article, titled Screw the Sisterhood! I Would Rather Screw Your Boyfriend:
“In high school, my boyfriend Paul and I had co-published an underground newspaper…One day a new, local paper appeared on Lower East Side newsstands. RAT: Subterranean News had cartoons by R. Crumb and articles by Jerry Rubin. Its office, I saw, was mere blocks from where Paul and I lived. I put on the paisley Nehru shirt that I wore as a very mini-dress and my thigh-high Capezio boots and made my way to 201 East Fourth Street, humming Dylan’s “Positively Fourth Street,” mapping out my strategy. Standing in the doorway of the crumbling building, watching as a couple of actual rats disemboweled a moldy pizza crust, I unbuttoned a few buttons, stepped down into the fittingly subterranean office, and asked the girl at the front desk to point me to the Editor-in-Chief. Within minutes I’d flirted my way into a staff job. To secure my position (and because guys with power turned me on), I asked the editor if he’d like to take me home that night. “I sure would,” he answered. “But I live with my old lady. How ‘bout we go to your place instead?”
Conveniently, Paul was out of town. “Groovy,” I said.
This wasn’t the first time I’d balled some chick’s old man. Nor would it be the last….There were no limits on what you could do with your body, or with mine.
Once we’d sealed our sexual deal, I asked my new boss how he wanted me to earn my $25/week. He shrugged. “Ask one of the guys,” he said.
There were two other chicks in the office. One was brewing coffee in the makeshift kitchen. The other was working the front desk. I wasn’t about to ask either of them what to do. I had zero interest in learning to operate a percolator.
What did I want? What the guys had. When did I want it? Now.
How could I get it? Simple. Avoid the loser chicks, so the guys wouldn’t mistake me for one of them. Get close to the men, so they’d see me as one of them—only f**kable, because a girl with ambition needed an insurance policy.
It worked.
RAT was a voice of the counterculture. Just as we lived to counter our straight parents’ boring, traditional marriages and politics and beliefs, RAT lived to counter the “straight press” in every possible way. We didn’t just report the news; we made it. We aspired to revolution, not objectivity. We refused the glory of individualistic, ego-boosting bylines; we reported and wrote and bylined our stories collectively.
By “we,” of course, I mean “the guys and me.”
Did I wish I was collaborating with female guerrillas? Hell, no.
Did I like being the guerrilla in the minidress? Hell, yes.
Did I mind having no one to talk to, no one to hang out with or go to Planned Parenthood with, not one single female friend? In the moments when the yearning arose, I swallowed it whole. I was on a mission. And my mission wouldn’t be served by wasting time with chicks.
One night the rumblings penetrated the bubble. The RAT women asked me to meet at one of their apartments “to talk about our unfair treatment by the men.”
“I like the way the men treat me,” I said, not in the friendliest possible voice.
I wasn’t waiting for anyone to liberate me. By rubbing up against the men who held all the power, I was liberating myself. I couldn’t understand why any woman who wanted something wouldn’t do what I was doing to get it.
Being the only female soldier in a battalion of men made me feel special. And smart. And hot. My lifelong role model, Lois Lane, never hung out with women. She hung out with Superman, and look what it got her: she became Superwoman. That looked pretty damn liberated to me.
After two of our friends OD’ed, Paul and I escaped to a small village near the small town of Taos, New Mexico, where we formed a small commune with another couple, Sunshine and Steve. The four of us raised goats and vegetables, joined the village water association, traded farming tips and gossip with members of the many other local communes at the general store in town.
One thing didn’t change. I was free to f**k whoever I wanted. Most of the guys I wanted to f**k had girlfriends. I didn’t let that get in my way. After a while, the other commune chicks stopped inviting me to their Little House-on-the-Prairie gatherings.
But I had something better than women’s work and women. I had men’s work, and men. Where would spinning wool and canning jam get me? Barefoot, pregnant, and powerless. Not where I wanted to be.
“I need to talk to you,” Sunshine said the next morning. The two of us were weeding the asparagus bed. Paul and Steve were up the mountain, cleaning aspen leaves out of the irrigation ditch.
“So talk,” I said.
“Not here.” Sunshine rose to her bare feet, spanked the dirt off her knees. I followed her to her kitchen table, watching nervously as she poured steaming water over homegrown chamomile flowers. I had no idea what she was about to say, but I knew I didn’t want to hear it.
“The women asked me to talk to you,” she began. “They’re tired of you f**king their old men.”
My heart lurched. Since when did we call chicks women?
“You don’t care about us,” Sun went on. “You don’t care about me.”
“You’re my best friend!” I sputtered. “We’re sisters. We love each other!”
Sunshine twisted a hank of long blonde hair around her hand. “You only put up with me to get to Steve. I know you want to f**k him. Just like you f**k every other woman’s man.”
I wanted to argue with Sun, accuse her of betraying me by taking the other chicks’ side, say whatever would keep her from uttering another word. But my rumbling stomach, my jagged breath told me that what she was saying was true. It’s even worse than she knows, I realized. I do want to f**k Steve.
Had I always known that the power I’d appropriated from the men I f**ked was someone else’s, not mine?
Had I always known that by working so hard at pursuing men’s power, I’d given up on growing my own?
I knew it now.
“How can you hate women so much when you are a woman?” Sunshine didn’t wait for my answer. “You’re going to have a sad, lonely life, Meredith, if you don’t change your ways.”
“I know I’ve hurt people.” I took a breath. “I’ve hurt…women. I’ve hurt you.”
Tears welled in Sunshine’s eyes.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I said.
“It’s easy,” Sun said, regarding me calmly. “Stop f**king other women’s boyfriends. Start loving women. Including yourself.” (1)
It’s hard to read the words of a woman so proud of having sex with any man who had a girlfriend or wife. Now to be fair, this author eventually evolved and came to understand why the sisterhood is important. But, during the years that she took pride in harming women, she did a lot of damage to women and the concept of the sisterhood.
1973
My parents lived in a town in Montana. My dad had finished USC Film School and got a job as an on-air anchor, TV producer, editor, sound guy, and anything else they needed at the station.
My mom was staying home and she noticed this town in Montana did not have a NOW Chapter. So, she started one and became the President of the NOW chapter in that town. My mom started a quiet revolution among the other housewives. She told them it was unreasonable to stay home cooking and cleaning while their husbands went to the bar after work.
She organized a NOW march and she caused quite a scandal that eventually made its way through all the newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. My mom felt that a 1-year-old me should march with the women. Only, I did not quite march yet, let alone walk. I kind of wobbled everywhere. So, my mom put me in a stroller and gave me an enormous NOW sign to hold. I knew it was my job to hold onto that enormous NOW sign and I held it through the entire NOW parade.
The men in town were horrified. They wanted to know who this evil mother was who was indoctrinating her daughter into a terrorist group. Yes, the men in this town viewed feminists as terrorists because these feminists were disrupting the power balance that was comfortable for men, but very uncomfortable for women.
One news organization asked my mom why she would take her daughter hostage and have her own daughter hold a sign for the local, female terrorist organization. My mom told the men that she wanted her daughter to grow up in a world where she did not get her butt pinched at work, where she was not relegated to fetching coffee for a bunch of lazy men, and where she was valued for her mind and her positive contributions to the world. My mom explained that women wanted to be seen as capable human beings, not just sexual objects who were to look pretty, keep their mouth shut, and lay on their back and “take it for the sake of the country.”
What my mom said was scandalous at the time. It sent shockwaves through Montana and other states. She got many television interviews at the time. My dad was very amused by this since he was also into counter-culture.
My mom said one time after she was on the news talking about feminist ideals; an old boyfriend of hers tracked her down, stalked her, and then told her off in public. He approached her at a public event, screamed obscenities, and said all kinds of ugly things to her just because my mom was asking for equal rights. Luckily, my dad was around.
2019
My mom had always understood what the sisterhood was about. She and her sisters, who were born right after WWII, hated the way their father treated their mother. They made a pact to have each other’s backs and the backs of other women. They still have each other’s backs and they still hate the way their father treats my 94-year-old grandmother.
In February, my 94-year-old grandmother was dying of stage three cancer. There was so much unfinished business between her and my grandfather. She had not gotten to know God and she had not learned to forgive. She was terrified to die.
She was NOT given chemotherapy because it would have killed her. She was given a small dose of radiation and still the tumors grew.
I have not been close to my mom’s parents because of how they viciously fought. They were unpleasant to be around and they were never very nice to me. We had a relationship of mutual disrespect.
But, when my mom told me how her mother cried and shook because she was afraid of going to hell, I thought of the sisterhood that binds all of us together.
I figured if my grandma only had several months to live, I would spend the month sending her cards about how much God loves her. I prayed each night for my mom’s mom. I sent my grandma a necklace with two butterflies and wrote a card about how butterflies transform, but never die. I assured my grandma that she would not go to hell because God was so much greater and loving than any can imagine.
One night, God gave me a glimpse of how He saw my grandmother and I wrote my grandmother a card reassuring her how God saw her. My mom said that my grandma carried my cards with her everywhere and always had her hands on them, as if clinging to a life-line.
My grandmother was finally at peace with dying.
Still, the doctors wanted to do one more exploratory surgery to check on the tumors and let everyone know how much time my grandmother had and to talk about hospice care. My mom flew to visit her parents because she knew it would be a very difficult time.
Seven weeks of my nightly prayers had occurred and I hoped for the best. I hoped to instill peace in my grandmother and let her know that God loved and knew her, even if she had never loved or known Him.
One night I got a phone call from my mom. They had just finished surgically opening my grandma’s abdomen to check on the tumors that had grown through her organs and the tumors that were the size of lemons.
The surgeons were bewildered; when they opened my grandmother’s abdomen, they found no sign of cancer, only healthy organs. These were the very same surgeons who had attempted to cut pieces of the tumors away, only weeks prior.
They could not believe it, so they asked to take biopsies of her internal organs. The biopsies came back and completely normal. The doctors noted it as a spontaneous remission (of unknown origin) of stage three metastatic cancer. After all, she had no chemotherapy. They did not understand how, but they were grateful.
My mom called me after all of the biopsies came back. In the past, if things of this nature happened, she would ask, “What did you do? How did that happen?”
But, this time, my mom said, “Thank you. I know this is the result of your prayers.”
This is what the sisterhood is about for me; putting aside differences and rallying around a woman who needs care. I did not have the best relationship with my mom’s parents, but I had a fantastic relationship with my father’s parents. Sadly, both of my father’s parents passed on. However, I am learning to have a relationship with my mom’s parents.
My mom’s parents always favored two of my cousins. Surprisingly, these two cousins dropped my grandma like a hot potato when she was not useful to them. Most surprisingly, I was the family member that was the most help during this crisis. Everyone except for me, my mom, and my mom’s youngest sister, scattered.
I was raised by a mom who taught me that my mind and my compassion were my most important assets. My mom’s sisters also instilled these beliefs in me. They modeled throughout their lives what it looked like to be there for each other.
My mom and her sisters have all had their struggles, especially my mom’s two younger sisters. Each had their own heartbreak and they all have rallied around each other unceasingly. They don’t talk about doing the right thing; they spring into action and do the right thing without being asked. It is who they are. I am relieved my grandma has gotten through this trying time.
To me, sisterhood is about lifting a woman up during her toughest times and also about having her back.
Women Who Have Affairs Intentionally
This is an addended segment from a Modern Love column in the New York Times:
At 49, I was just about there myself, and terrified of losing my desire for sex. Men don’t have this drastic change. So we have an imbalance, an elephant-size problem, so burdensome and shameful we can scarcely muster the strength to talk about it.
Maybe the reason some wives aren’t having sex with their husbands is because, as women age, we long for a different kind of sex. I know I did, which is what led me down this path of illicit encounters. After all, nearly as many women are initiating affairs as men.
If you read the work of Esther Perel, the author of the recently published book “State of Affairs,” you’ll learn that, for many wives, sex outside of marriage is their way of breaking free from being the responsible spouses and mothers they have to be at home. Married sex, for them, often feels obligatory. An affair is adventure.
Meanwhile, the husbands I spent time with would have been fine with obligatory sex. For them, adventure wasn’t the main reason for their adultery.
The first time I saw my favorite married man pick up his pint of beer, the sleeve of his well-tailored suit pulled back from his wrist to reveal a geometric kaleidoscope of tattoos. He was cleanshaven and well mannered with a little rebel yell underneath. The night I saw the full canvas of his tattoo masterpiece, we drank prosecco, listened to ’80s music and, yes, had sex. We also talked.
I asked him: “What if you said to your wife, ‘Look, I love you and the kids but I need sex in my life. Can I just have the occasional fling or a casual affair?’”
He sighed. “I don’t want to hurt her,” he said. “She’s been out of the work force for 10 years, raising our kids and trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. If I asked her that kind of question, it would kill her.”
“So you don’t want to hurt her, but you lie to her instead. Personally, I’d rather know.”
Well, maybe I would rather know. My own marriage had not broken up over an affair so I couldn’t easily put myself in her position.
“It’s not necessarily a lie if you don’t confess the truth,” he said. “It’s kinder to stay silent.”
“I’m just saying I couldn’t do that. I don’t want to be afraid of talking honestly about my sex life with the man I’m married to, and that includes being able to at least raise the subject of sex outside of marriage.”
“Good luck with that!” he said.
“We go into marriage assuming we’ll be monogamous,” I said, “but then we get restless. We don’t want to split up, but we need to feel more sexually alive. Why break up the family if we could just accept the occasional affair?”
He laughed. “How about we stop talking about it before this affair stops being fun?”
I didn’t have a full-on affair with the tattooed husband. We slept together maybe four times over a few years. More often we talked on the phone. I never felt possessive, just curious and happy to be in his company.
After our second night together, though, I could tell this was about more than sex for him; he was desperate for affection. He said he wanted to be close to his wife but couldn’t because they were unable to get past their fundamental disconnect: lack of sex, which led to a lack of closeness, which made sex even less likely and then turned into resentment and blame.
What these husbands couldn’t do was have the difficult discussion with their wives that would force them to tackle the issues at the root of their cheating. They tried to convince me they were being kind by keeping their affairs secret. They seemed to have convinced themselves. But deception and lying are ultimately corrosive, not kind. (2)
I have been studying infidelity for years now and I can tell you that this article is no more than a myth. These men that the woman cheated with were no more than cowards. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too.
These men wanted to convince themselves that they were the hurt party and that they were being kind by having a secret affair. I don’t know of ANY person – man or woman – who says he/she feels their spouse was being kind by having a secret affair. Do you?
What Does M. Gary Neuman say? Here is an addended version of his article on Oprah’s site:
“In a new study conducted by marriage counselor M. Gary Neuman, it’s estimated that one in 2.7 men will cheat—and most of their wives will never know about it.
Gary documented these findings—and many others—in a groundbreaking new book. To write The Truth About Cheating, Gary surveyed hundreds of faithful and cheating husbands to uncover the real reason some men stray.
What’s the number one reason men cheat? Ninety-two percent of men said it wasn’t primarily about the sex. “The majority said it was an emotional disconnection, specifically a sense of feeling underappreciated. A lack of thoughtful gestures,” Gary says. “Men are very emotional beings. They just don’t look like that. Or they don’t seem like that. Or they don’t tell you that.”
How often does a man cheat on his wife with a woman who’s more attractive? Not as often as you may think. Gary found that 88 percent of the men surveyed said the other women were no better looking or in no better shape than their own wives.
How often do men confess to cheating on before being caught? Only 7 percent of men who strayed told their wives without being asked. Fifty-five percent of men in Gary’s study have either not told their wives or lied after being confronted with hard evidence. “I kind of tell people, ‘If you’re going to wait for him to come tell you, go buy a lottery ticket, because you like playing against the odds,'” Gary says.
In 2004, Colleen discovered that her husband, Scott, was having an affair and says she caught him several times. The first time she says she caught Scott was on Father’s Day when the other woman called the house. “I was standing there right with him in the kitchen so I heard her, and she said, ‘Are you okay? Are you okay? Hang in there,'” Colleen says. “He tried to tell me it was a dispatcher from work and that was very suspicious.”
Colleen says Scott’s affair was painful, but the lying was worse. “When you’ve been married for so long and you trust someone so much and they look you right in the eye and they’re telling you a lie, it takes a lot to move past that,” she says.
Gary says Colleen’s desire to believe her husband is common. “The problem is that that’s the moment where every woman has to look at her husband and say, simply, ‘Look. The fact [is] that I think you may be cheating. I’ll trust you at your word. I’ve got no choice. But there’s something wrong with us.'” Gary says.
Although he felt connected to his wife, Scott says he started to feel insecure when Colleen’s mother passed away. “I felt powerless; I didn’t feel able to talk with my wife,” he says. “Looking back on it, I felt that it transferred onto our relationship when it really didn’t. She was really looking for me to be that strong point and I kind of walked away from it because of the insecurities I was feeling and the challenges we were facing in our marriage at the time and my abilities to be able to love her as a husband.”
Brian and Anne say they never thought they would have to deal with an affair in their marriage. Anne says Brian was never gone in the evenings, they were emotionally connected, and they had sex every night. Yet Brian was secretly having an affair on his lunch hour at work.
“I was always under the belief that affairs happened to people in either bad marriages or where there’s no sex going on. And because we had both of those things, I was really unaware of how easily I could slip into an affair,” Brian says.
In his research as a marriage counselor and for The Truth About Cheating, Gary says he found several signs that a husband is cheating.
- He spends more time away from the house.
- You have less sex.
- He avoids contact.
- He does not answer his cell phone.
- He criticizes you more.
“Not only are these the signs that he’s cheating,” Gary says, “but they’re the same signs for when he is about to cheat—because I’m very interested in prevention. So if he’s starting to do that, either he’s cheating or you should bring it up because he might be about to cheat. It’s a precursor.”
Gary says another precursor to a man’s cheating is when he suddenly cannot stop talking about another woman. “So many women, when they find out their husbands cheat, they know right away who he’s been cheating with because he’s been talking about her,” Gary says. “He’s been talking about lunch and the project and they’re building things together, whatever. They’re doing all kinds of stuff together.” (3)
Do I believe what M. Gary Neumann says? Absolutely.
Do I believe that the men M. Gary Neumann interviewed were telling the truth?
Yes and no.
I have found in my own research that the “other woman” is in no way better than the wife. Quite often, the other woman is far below the wife in all areas. The other woman is generally NOT more attractive, not more educated, not more interesting, not more kind, and not “better” in any way.
The other woman is no more than a person who is willing to knowingly offer herself to a married man and she feels perfectly all right in doing so. That automatically disqualifies the other woman as being “better” than the wife.
A good person does not have an affair with a married person and feel good about the decision. Such people lack empathy; such people are egotistical; such people think they are above the rules; such people think they are special in some way; and some other women get tremendous pleasure in destroying the wife.
What About you?
- Can we still have a sisterhood if women choose to target married men?
- Are we automatically bound to “the sisterhood” just because we women were born with the XX chromosome?
- Can a woman be a feminist and at the same time, seek out married men for sex?
- Wayward men…. If you are cheating with a married woman, that is someone’s wife, how does that make you feel?
- Betrayed men, if women obeyed the ideals of “the sisterhood” then they would not have affairs with married men. Do you see that?
- What was the most painful thing about the other woman?
- Betrayed women, do you prefer the company of men or the company of women?
- Women: what would a “healthy” version of the sisterhood look like to you?
- If ALL women chose NOT to have affairs with married men or even on their husbands, the incidence of infidelity would probably drop. What do you think of that opinion?
- Has your view of women changed after being betrayed?
- What was the most surprising part of this article?
- How have you been this week?
Be well,
Sarah
Featured Download: “The Top 10 Reasons to Leave Your Affair Partner Now”
If you’re the unfaithful, get it, read it and carefully consider the advice. If you’re the betrayed, give it to your unfaithful spouse.
Sources:
https://www.salon.com/2019/03/02/screw-the-sisterhood-id-rather-screw-your-boyfriend/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/style/modern-love-sleeping-with-married-men-infidelity.html
21 replies to "Do Women Who Have Affairs with Married Men Destroy the Sisterhood?"
Very informative and true. I truly resent the fact that society now days will give any type legitimacy to the deviant behavior of sexual promiscuity. I hate the fact that the #metoo movement did this with Monica Lewinsky. And I truly hate the new word for workplace skanks. There is no such thing a work spouse.!
Period! Spouses have legitimate binding contracts with each other, thus the title spouse! People need to stop trying to mask walking disease carrying slugs with titles they absolutely are not entitled too. It legitimizes deviant behavior and further victimizes and alienates the betrayed with the most egregious disrespect. I am my husband’s spouse. I carry that title with pride and the utmost respect. The skank my husband was messing with can keep her title “SKANK”. If the shoe fits, wear it Sister!
Hi SoulMate,
That phrase “work spouse” is a DANGEROUS ONE. Because… well…. spouses have sexual relationships. I have heard some stay-at-home moms talk about their husband’s work spouse who is a friend to the marriage.
Maybe I live under a rock, but it seems to me that “work spouse” and “friend to a marriage” are completely incongruent ideas. They fit together the same way fire and water fit together. They cannot exist in the same space., which means they do NOT in any way fit together.
I agree that the woman your husband was messing with certainly earned the title of “Skank.” Now that is congruent!
How long has it been since your last D-Day? (That is if you are of the mind-set that there is only one D-Day OR of the mind set that anytime you find out there is still contact, it’s a separate and new D-Day). I tend to notice that couples experience many D-Days from the perspective of the betrayed.
Hugs,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
There has been only one. My husband had an EA with some physical (kissing and petting). It was a single coworker not much younger then either of us. She was his Case Manager and trainer.
He took the initiative the day I found out. He, on his own, picked up the phone, put her on speaker, told her I was there and told her to never contact him again.
That night he burned sage throughout the house to rid it of her bad spirit. She never came to our house but because he did all of the sexting while at home he felt it needed cleansing. He told me he wanted to end for a long time but just didn’t know how to end it. He also told me he wanted me to know but was afraid I would leave him.
He has apologized profusely. Called himself a loser and a Douchebag for a long time. Begged my forgiveness on his knees and came to me in the middle of the night hysterically crying because I left him sleeping on the couch and he woke up dazed and thought I left him.
He no longer works with the skank and is working at a better place.
He told me he has always loved me, and that she meant nothing. That she was hovering and clingy at work and he only felt comfortable at work when she wasn’t there.
He tried to get her to stop but she back off for a couple of days then use work as an excuse to get it going again.
We are 18 months out now. She’s gone I’m sure.
I hear you.
Cheating is the most disrespectful thing you can do in any relationship. Cheating is a choice, not a mistake. It takes time and effort to cheat. Those were all choices that were made by them both when they had so many more respectable choices they could have made. Disrespecting another person, their marriage, and their family. Elementary kids know when they are being disrespected by someone when they take something from them. It’s common knowledge and learned at a very young age. Treat others how you want to be treated. If you’re ever unsure if what you’re doing with another person is disrespectful to your spouse, the best person to ask is, your spouse.
Characterize people by their actions, and you’ll never be fooled by their words. Let people do what they want to do, so you can see what they would rather do. That will answer all the questions you have. When you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening. That’s where your power is.
“We create our own destiny, and we all have a lot of choices about our behavior,”
You are not a product of your circumstances, you’re a product of your decisions.
Nobody is impressed with how good your excuses are. Accountability requires honesty, integrity, maturity, and courage.
Excuses are what you tell yourself… So when you fail it isn’t your fault.
An excuse is a way of promising ourselves that we will have that same issue again. ~Henry Cloud
You are not a product of your circumstances, you’re a product of your decisions.
I want to add Wife and Husband to that as well. We spouses have legitimacy in those titles. It’s called a marriage certificate!
Yeah!! I am thinking about putting the Jewish marriage contract in one of my next posts. It is very long and spells out the obligations that spouses have. I find the contract freeing and beautiful (from the standpoint of a betrayed). There is no gray area in it and I like that. I am also thinking about writing a post about WHAT the wife has over the other woman and what the wife will always have over the other woman WHEN the husband leaves. The 50’s was often so “nice” and “clean,” but this song is the way that a lady (in the 50’s) would have said, “Big off; you might think you are taking something from me, but it’s an illusion.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUCV9oUnvY
Ella Fitzgerald is the best jazz singer ever, IMHO. Her voice possesses many paradoxes. Do we have any singers out there? Ella able is be smoky alto; sometimes her voice is clear as a bell, sometimes sweet as honey. Her range is unbelievable and there are no “vocal breaks” when she is changing from soprano to alto. Sometimes she can mix the smokey alto, the clear as a bell, and the honey. I took professional lessons from a retired opera singer for several years. I have most recently been studying Jazz and sacred music sung in Hebrew. It’s very hard for the human vocal chords to clear as a bell, honey sweet, and smokey alto all at the same time. It’s actually supposed to be impossible, without modern recording studious, but Ella pulled it off when all she had was a microphone and her voice. Go, Ella! ♥️
I’ve met many females that will say they’d rather be friends with men than women. I knew from a very young age that these were women/girls i did not need to be friends with. I still believe that.
I like women. Good women. I like men. Good men. As for close friends i would always choose a woman.
I used to believe in The Sisterhood but as I’ve aged I’ve learned there is no such thing. Many women talk a big talk about lifting women up. But that’s it. All talk.
At university i took many feminism classes. Two more classes and i could have had a third major in Women Studies. I had great profs. Some studied under Simone DeBeauvoire. Some were what water called at the time radical feminists. ???????????? As if a feminist movement could be a movement without being radical ????. Anyway i became very disillusioned with the whole movement back in the day as so many groups had their own agenda. The whole movement never seemed coalesced for me. All i wanted was the ERA to pass. I wanted a mandate saying people could not be discriminated because of their sex. But as i said i learned of many factions in the movement that wanted to attach their own agenda. So i left it. I still consider myself a feminist.
But being a feminist, for me, does not mean supporting the likes of women like Monica Lewinsky. If these women are spouse poachers or cheaters they don’t deserve my allegiance. I do not conflate the fact that they are women and deserve my sisterhood allegiance with feminism. I know others do. That’s their choice. Doesn’t make me any less feminist. I believed this even before DDay.
If you are a female sleeping your way to the top you are the antithesis of a feminist. In fact you are obliging the ancient patriarchal rule. You are not liberated. You are not edgy or cool. You are a cliche. And a cliche of the oldest kind. You are not evolved. If you get a kick out of sleeping with another woman’s man you are not only not free or liberated, you are enslaved.
Soulmate— Monica is a desperate little person. She’s attaching her wagon by the thinnest thread to the #metoo movement. I am part of that #metoo movement. I was sexually abused as a child and i told no one because i believed i did something to deserve it!! There is NO compare idiot between what Monica choose to do and my silence over sexual abuse as a child. And I’m certainly NOT exonerating Bill Clinton for his role. He’s a womanizer, a user and a cheater. So was MLK.
Cheaters aren’t all bad. Just like BS are not all perfect. Many cheaters have done great things. I hate that Monica has tied her cause to #metoo and some have embraced her. I’m not one.
Hello TryingHard,
TryingHard, you are one of the “wise women” here and I am so grateful that you have taken the time to comment. ????
Huge, enormous, earth-shaking hugs to you, TryingHard, for what happened as a child. I am so sorry, but also so grateful that you are sharing your experience here about being sexually abused and so happy to see you back.
Pedophiles are Monsters. It doesn’t matter if they are SO-CALLED Christian pedophiles, or Catholic pedophiles, or Jewish pedophiles, or Muslim pedophiles, or atheist pedophiles. They will answer to God and they will also answer to the KARMA BUS.
By the way, I too prefer female friends. This is something that has evolved. When I was a kid, we always moved. I was “tom boy” and all kids were welcome at my house and welcome doing whatever it was I wanted to do that day like ride bikes or explore the woods. Sometimes I liked playing with Barbies and the local girls and I would design clothing for them. If someone’s mom could sew, we would design dresses. In college, I always had female friends; lots of them, and a few male friends. When I was in college and in my 20’s, I was friends with whomever had the same hobbies and interests. It didn’t matter if they were black or white, straight or gay, in a wheelchair or walking, foreign-born or American-born. I hung out with whoever had common interests. Friends were sought based solely on their hobbies and not on outward factors.
But, when I was nearing 30 and after I was nearly destroyed by the other woman, I went into a period where I did not trust some women.
These days, I can say I prefer female friends and deep, female friendships. I desire relationships with women where we lift each other up, where there is NO jealousy, and where we work together for a common good. I don’t do jealousy and I don’t do frenemies. I too am a feminist, but I am not a member of any group. All I desire is equal rights for all and protection for those who cannot protect themselves. And I DO want to lift good women UP. But, malevolent women? Nope. I will NOT lift up malevolent women….the sociopaths of the world. I give them a wide berth. So, I am not perfect, but I will lift good women up. Someone has to do it because the way our country is right now, it seems more blatant sexism has returned. (It never went away…. just underground).
You had some teachers who worked under Simone DeBeauvoire?
AMAZING.
Regarding Monica Lewinsky.
Monica’s experience precludes her from the #metoo movement. She willingly consented to trading her body for power. Or she thought she would be getting power and prestige by trading her body. This is NOT sexual harassment. This is a woman who is a consenting adult using her sexuality in the hopes of acquiring power quickly so that she can climb that “power ladder” at light speed. She was a consenting adult with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is a womanizer. But, Monica was a consenting adult having an affair with a married man. She was reinforcing the patriarchy.
You said: “If you are a female sleeping your way to the top you are the antithesis of a feminist. In fact, you are obliging the ancient patriarchal rule. You are not liberated. You are not edgy or cool. You are a cliche. And a cliche of the oldest kind. You are not evolved. If you get a kick out of sleeping with another woman’s man you are not only not free or liberated, you are enslaved.” (Standing Ovation) That’s a quote that needs to go down in history.
I have several #metoo stories and one day I might actually write about them. What I have found is that sexual harassment still happens, but it mostly happens in a “he said, she said” setting where it’s one person’s word against another. Harassment also happens where a very aggressive woman targets a man at work. It may not be as common, but I believe sexual harassment is partially about power structures. That does not undermine the sexual component. Sexual harassment weaponizes sex and sex is used to have power over another, to demean another, to intimidate another, and to coerce another. There are also other reasons, so feel free to add to the list.
There is an article I am thinking about writing one day. When I was 23-years-old and my student loans for my British graduate education had come due, I was searching for a job that paid the bills. I was hired as an adjunct faculty at an elite prep school to teach French as well as some literature courses. I was also hired as a contractor at a university. The pay at these contract jobs was abysmal. (As in, the pay out me BELOW the poverty level). I was offered a permanent position as the French teacher around Christmas at the prep school. The benefits were ones that I sorely needed and the income was more than livable and would have provided a life that was not extravagant, but that would have brought me above the poverty level. The job was offered verbally by the panel of people and in-person. The papers were supposed to be signed in the New Year. During the Christmas break, I went to a New Year’s Eve party held by another full-time faculty member who was a single man. The chair of the hiring committee was there. He told me that I had earned my position because I was an excellent teacher, but he said he also held the keys to the castle (employment contract). He had a glass of wine on his hand and I was NOT drinking alcohol. Now, I am NOT stating the conversation as direct quotes. I am only stating ideas conveyed. He told me that we would have a sexual relationship and that it was not optional. I got benefits.. well he did too- in the form of my body. He told me to “drop the coy act.” (What coy act?) There was no COY act, there were BOUNDARIES that were the same for all the male faculty members. I stuck close to the female teachers and ignored the men, except for when it involved professional matters. I have this chairman several ways to save face. He chose none of them. He got aggressive. I said NO. There were witnesses to the chair’s behavior. When January came around, there was no contract. The chairman had vetoed the job offer and he withdrew it. I went to a friend on the hiring panel. She said the chair had threatened her and told her she was not allowed to talk about it. She was a newly divorced, single mom who needed the money. I could not fault her and we remained friends. I went to the male director of the school. He threw his hands up in the air, shook his head “no,” and told me he was NOT going to touch it with a 10-foot pole because this chairman had more power than anyone knew and he (the director) was afraid for his own job. I was bewildered. I finished off the year as an adjunct professor because that was in my regular (part-time) contract. The other day, I was looking online and saw that this despot of a chairman still teaches calculus and trigonometry there. The worst part? When school was about to end, a few of my students approached me. These were very sincere girls who were NOT prone to lying. My students – who knew EVERYTHING because all the students gossiped – had overhead that chairman placing a “bet” with the male, history teacher to see who could date me. The male, history teacher had thrown the New Year’s Eve party and apparently that was the night they were both supposed to try to seduce me to see who won. I left that party as soon as the chairman made his move. These two men were betting money to see who could win and hook up with me. Neither won because I did not date people at work. I was there to WORK. (Also, I have never hooked up in my life; it never resonated with me). I have thought of writing this story and submitting it. But, I wonder if I am being petty by doing so. This would NOT be a revenge story and all details would be changed. It would be a way to alert others how these things still happen, but they generally happen behind closed doors. In other words, they did not go away; they merely went underground. This was one of the most disheartening work situations.
So what did I do? I got the heck out of there, moved to the West Coast and pursued a job in the software industry. I worked there until my second child was born. So, this is not a “poor me” story. I took action, grabbed ahold of my destiny, and moved to a city where it would be easy to find a job in high tech. I sprung into action and never looked back.
But, I still wonder why this man at the prep school is able to terrorize others. The guy was my height and probably weighed less than me. He did not have an intimidating physical presence. But, he was a scary human being. He frightened men and women alike.
Does anyone see hope for “the sisterhood” or does it just come down to each woman deciding on a daily basis to NOT harm others by sleeping with another woman’s husband?
Trying hard, I too admired # me too, before they became a podeum for females like Monica to justify her behavior by demonizing Hillary. I too was an abused and raped woman, so my interest in thier cause was great. But when they embrace women like Monica, they come off as pure man hating. Yes Clinton is a pig. But allowing a woman like Monica to call herself a victim on the level of another who was truly raped and abused is egregious and to me invalidates those who are truly victims. It’s inexcusable. Peace
Soulmate,
Monica is no more than a prostitute; trading her body for jobs and entry into elite circles.
Monica is PART of the problem and does NOT belong in #metoo.
Sarah,
Lewinsky now does speaking engagements Google it. It’s sickening.
IMHO most men who cheat affair down. Why? Because if a woman knows he’s married, she’s no better. If she’ll do it with him, she’d do it to him.
WeddingBelle,
You got that right!! The type of woman who pursues a married man automatically disqualifies her as being a good person and she has put herself on a low level.
Sarah,
I also feel this way about OW and especially when they know the man is married. Working on forgiveness in therapy I am trying to view the OW as a human and has feelings and unfortunately I view her as a perpetrator and a monster, I think it would be easier to forgive another person if they didn’t know because that means they are also a victim of the chaos and lies. The OW knew he was married, lied with him and lied to him and lied to everyone. I think she is a bad person, I hate her more than anything else. If someone is a co-conspirator it really makes the issue hard to see them as a nice person. Plus my therapist told me that I have worked on forgiveness with my spouse only because I see him daily and have to interact with him and so working through things has made it easier to forgive him. Believe me I did not hold him different than her based on the whole story and I still sometimes lash out at him and he still gets the full force of the mood swings, tears and anger.
With the OW, because of no contact I can’t just say what is on my mind and punch her in the face. Nor can I explain to her that the actions she did with my husband destroyed a family and almost caused a teenager to kill himself and spend almost a year inside a mental hospital.. So yeah I totally think The OW is a monster.
E
At one time I may have believed in “The Sisterhood”, but I think that may have been in high school or college – and even then that came with a whole host of caveats. You can’t trust someone to “have your back” just because she is the same gender as you. I can say that the many paths of life over the years have taught me that what people throw around as “sisterhood” really doesn’t exist.
My closest friends through the years have been a mix of men and women. This may come from a couple of things. As an only child growing up in a household where I could talk to my father but could not have a decent conversation at all with my mother taught me to guard myself and my emotions around other women. I had a handful of close girl friends, but also a handful of guy friends who mostly used me to confide in when they were having issues with their relationships. My initial career and my college education was in a VERY male dominated field where there were very, very few women. Most women in high school – and many in college – were “boy crazy”. I just didn’t get it. I preferred men that I could talk to over any sort of romantic involvement. And I preferred to be with other women who respected each other. (I could not stomach reading that entire Salon Magazine article excerpt because it made me ill. – I had to just skip to the end)
Has my view of women changed from being betrayed? Well, I think I had figured out before the affair that the sisterhood was just a myth. What I did learn from the affair is that when you go through this type of trauma that it is impossible to understand what you are going through unless you’ve been there. And when you confide to a “friend”, you learn who your real friends are. You also learn that some women really don’t care about you unless you agree with their views and agree with how you react to the affair situation. Case in point was 2 women I thought were my friends when I confided about the affair. One told me I was stupid for trying to save my marriage – mostly because she was cheated on by her husband so if I didn’t choose the same recovery path (she threw him out immediately and filed for divorce), I wasn’t going to be validating her. 2nd was someone that I had NO CLUE had been sleeping around on her husband for years. She laughed in my face that I was upset about my husband’s affair. She had 2 abortions during her marriage because she wasn’t certain who the father was. Needless to say, I am not in any way “friends” with these women any more. Unfortunately they were mothers of my daughter’s friends, so it made many years even more difficult.
The last paragraph is the one that resonated the most with me. I truly believe that the OW has gotten tremendous pleasure out of destroying me and our marriage. How can you even think about a sisterhood when there are women like that out there?
NoReunions,
Wow, you had a tough experience with how your (formerly) trust-worthy friends reacted to you telling them about your husband’s affair. It must have been tough to grow up in a house where you could have no reasonable conversation with your mother. That is tragic.
The last paragraph I wrote in this blog is my experience. The other woman would stop at NOTHING to destroy me since she had no legal means to take my home. She wanted mu home, my life, my EVERYTHING. She bragged to many people about how she systematically took me down. This gave her a THRILL. She had never even met me. But, she truly felt thrilled and empowered by taking my place and she bragged about it constantly. My ex was an absolute idiot. But, when people I knew had spoken to her and heard her brag about the systematic plan she developed to take me down, they were chilled to the bone. She said she would do whatever it took and would be relentless.
She got him. She can keep him. But, I did resent that she moved into my home. They didn’t want to buy me out. They just hoped I would fall off a cliff and that the house would default to him. I have encountered a lot of spouse poachers. I only know of two others who fall into the category of THIS level of viciousness. These spouse poachers exist.
PS – sorry for all the typos. I have kids and a dog sitting next to me right now.
I have very close female friends who are my confidantes, and whom I trust implicitly; they are not cheaters, but some of them have been cheated on in the past so they get where I’m coming from…..a couple of them know where I stand with my marriage right now, and some of them assume that my marriage is really healing and I haven’t set them straight on that….not every woman is automatically going to have your back just because you are a female; the harlot my h cheated with apologized profusely to me and swore up and down that it was over between them and for me to not worry about them anymore, they were through and bless me for understanding and forgiving them both for the trespass; I BELIEVED THE WHORE and it took 4 more months and me involving her husband to destroy the affair between her and my husband, but destroy it I did……of course, I am aware of the fact that if my h had REALLY wanted to be with the skank, no power on earth would have stopped him, but the fact that her h and I interfered and were able to make it harder for these two to be able to keep it going and ultimately, she gave up altogether and even told her h (according to him) that it was a mistake to have gotten involved with my h and that she regretted ever doing so…..THOSE are the words my h still has to utter for me to completely believe him and for the trust to be rebuilt…..I now have a radar when it comes to meeting new women around my h and I’m able to tell right away if she could potentially become “affair material” just by her demeanor……all this to say, I’m not entirely in the “Sisterhood” bandwagon and I don’t know that I ever will be…..my mistrust of unknown “sisters” prevent me from considering ALL women as MY sisters
Hi Kittypone,
I’m with you on the feelings about the sisterhood. I don’t trust another woman and my views on how we women interact with each other even in good friendships is sad because instead of the compassion and love, sometimes it’s pity and gossip. I don’t expect my feelings and views to ever change about the sisterhood nor do I ever want to. It’s hard to even consider trusting another female especially around my H.
I personally fee that the words “I regret” are the first ones that have a person seeing full remorse because if they can’t see the mistake they made for their own actions and how it impacts themselves it makes it harder to see how it impacts others. When my H said “I regret that I had the relationship with her”. That made a huge difference in how I was able to start to rebuild a relationship with him.
E
After going through being a betrayed spouse and knowing how it happened I do not believe in any form of sisterhood. In general I was not naive enough to think it existed and was cautious who I spent time with for pretty much my entire life. I always felt like karma was a factor but I do not believe in that either. In the end the responsibility falls on my husband. However as we have talked about before I have a major issue with the two ow since they both targeted him and he never hid that he was married or had kids. The one woman tracked him for years. I will never understand these women and I am so different than them. At times I question why can I stay in a marriage and trust my husband who did what he did but think so little of the ow. These thoughts run through my mind often. In the end I know what is right and wrong and I choose to surround myself with those people who are like minded. One thing is I have been very outspoken about this with my husband. It is not enough for him not to cheat, talk to women etc. I expect more from the person I am sharing my life with otherwise I would rather be on my own.
Recently I watched On the Basis of Sex. I enjoyed the movie diving into a very specific part of Justice Ginsberg’s life. I learned a lot from the movie.
Hi Everyone,
Wow… what questions. I would have never thought in a million years when I first married my H that I would have been dealing with the recovery of an affair. The initial lies and all the poor life choices to cover it up are the hardest parts of working through it. The pain of the OW being a friend and someone integrated into my family and my children being emotionally bonded to her are excruciating to work through. Many of my views about the sisterhood are skewed. I actually feel that a woman who knows that her AP is married is worse than a woman who doesn’t. I have so many issues with AP’s that think that they can steal a spouse or that it’s okay to interact with children of the marriage, I hate those that have a child to trap a man to the affair and anything that another woman can do because she thinks it’s okay to justify the relationship. The anger is still there. It’s hard to move past this because I was friends with her, she was under another identity that had her as a family member, so now I don’t want to be friends with women and have deep issues with wanting to be close to another female and I am now protective on any relationship or people that my H knows because I am looking for threats. The trust isn’t there and it changed how I view marriage, how I view friendship, how I view lies, views on the media and how they portray affairs in movies and TV. Views on religion, and many other things that I may not discuss here on the blog.
There is a lot in my story that I haven’t shared and some other points were brought to my attention with the after math that my H tried to sleep with my friends and even my own sister so this has caused me to push many people out of my life due to my own trust with them along with my H. The affair recovery has been hard on me and I personally just want to be my own best friend and not have others because the trauma was so severe. It’s hard to find out that a person you felt was more of a sister than your own was not that person and that the person you thought was your best friend lied to you with this person and that he was also trying to sleep with everyone else that you had contact with. It makes trusting the world very difficult. My H has worked out many of his issues with the reasons for the affair and lies and betrayal and we are working on things in couples counseling so he’s made great progress and has accepted full accountability and is remorseful. Trust is a very hard thing to give back once it’s gone….
I do have a couple close female friends whom I will never introduce to my H because of the trust issues that I have with him and one has dealt with working through an affair recovery and has been there for me along the way being a mother type figure without judgement along with my therapist.
With the affair recovery and my H not in the affair fog it’s been easier to work though the issues that have been in our marriage. It’s far from perfect and I am happier and feel more free in expressing myself with him and our needs. He’s become a better father, a better husband and more open to me about how he feels and frustrations. There is still a long road for us and I can’t predict the future, I can only hope that it gets better.
E