Okay, how many recognize the moral bankruptcy of an infidelity site? What have we come to? Who thinks this is okay? The last I heard, according to a huge study, more than 90% of respondents from all over the world, across all cultures think that adultery/infidelity is “always wrong.”
And yet a website with the innocuous sounding name Ashley Madison (Married Dating and Discreet encounters – Have an affair) claims it has more than 37 million anonymous members. The tag line to the site is “Life is short. Have an affair.” Among most my women clients, life might become a lot shorter for someone when they find out their spouse is having an affair!
Almost every week, there is something in the media about a killing that was the direct result of the discovery of an affair. In our Kansas City Star not long ago a woman (and her daughter) allegedly arranged to have someone kill the woman’s ex-husband because of an affair. Affairs have consequences.
So, if you’re not happy in your marriage, have the guts to say that to your spouse and either work it out or get a divorce. But this whole idea of an affair on the side so you can have your cake and eat it too makes for people with no moral strength and in the end a culture with no integrity or character. It’s the “If it feels good, do it,” mentality run amuk.
Okay, here’s one of my problems …. we, as RADiCAL women (women who are Rising Above Divorce in Confidence And Love) are always asking ourselves and each other, “What kind of woman does this to another woman?” What happened to the “sisterhood of women” — standing up for each other, watching out for each other, encouraging and supporting each other? That’s the biggest War on Women I know.
Obviously there are women out there (for whatever personal reasons or rationalizations) are willing to bring heartbreak and pain into another woman’s life and often into the lives of innocent children who are the “collateral damage” of these illicit relationships. Are we as a society supposed to think this is okay? Hollywood makes us think so. Men in power (and the women who run after them) seem to think so.
While I was writing my book Radical Recovery: Transforming the Despair of your Divorce into an Unexpected Good, I inadvertently misspelled “girlfriend” and it showed up momentarily on my computer as “Girlfiend.” When I saw it, I thought to myself, “I love that. That’s a perfect description of a woman who knowingly has an affair with a married man and contributes to the destruction of a family.” She’s a girlfiend. I wanted to leave the word in the manuscript, but my editor wouldn’t let me. I still think it’s a good description.
I know men have an equal part to play in affairs. They want their egos stroked. They worry about getting older. They give silent messages (or maybe they are the instigator) that signals, “I’m willing to break my wedding vows … no one has to know.” But they have to have a willing partner. And what if every woman simply said “No” to any man who was married and wanted to have an affair. She could easily say, “If you’re not happy at home, go get a divorce and then come back and see me.”
Tomorrow, I’ll continue with “Girlfiends: Who they are and what they need to know.” Send me your comments on Facebook www.facebook.com/midlifedivorcerecovery or twitter at twitter.com/radicalsuzy or contact me at suzy@midlifedivorcerecovery.com.
In the meantime, if you are a woman who has gone through a divorce because of an affair, let me hear from you and give me your feedback about these other women …. the girlfiends that have affairs with married men.
For hope, help and transformation after divorce, go to www.midlifedivorcerecovery.com. Or call me (Suzy Brown) at 816-941-4911. If you want me to do a media interview, I’m experienced and available.
My husband’s affair partner was also married with 3 children of her own. After almost 2 years (our divorce is still not final) he has decided to come out of hiding and admit that he is living with her and they have my kids over at least once a week for dinner. I am so heartbroken. I really am over him, in truth he is a terribly selfish person who never treated me well, but I didn’t ever admit that to myself because I wanted to keep the family in tact. Now without having any say in the situation I am forced to watch him try to build a new happy second family with my kids, the woman he cheated with, and her kids. I feel so terrible, but I don’t say anything to the kids because I don’t want them to carry the shame and guilt that their dad should feel but he has no morale conscious so he never will. I just can’t seem to move past the bitterness. Am I choosing this anger and poison? I don’t want to, yet I am having a very difficult time doing anything else.