Can a marriage survive an affair?
I feel bad for poor Sandra Bullock.
It’s bad enough that hubby Jesse James was busy engaging in extracurricular activities with Michelle “Bombshell” McGee while she was off filming her Oscar-winning performance in “The Blind Side” — and isn’t that a rather prescient title, given what’s happened? — but now everyone’s weighing in on whether Bullock should dump
him or try and patch up the marriage. 
Sound familiar? Just ask Elin, Elizabeth, Nilda, Hilary, Uma, Halle, Robin … (and, yeah, probably a lot of men, too — like, Guy).
Every woman in an adulterous high-profile marriage or relationship has been held up as a model of what to do or not for the rest of us. But, since we don’t live celebrity lifestyles, it’s silly to pay attention to what they do or not when their man is busted.
It comes down to what each of us would do.
Is infidelity reason enough to break up
a marriage? Can a marriage survive an affair — or affairs, like in the case of Tiger Woods?
That’s a question I had to ask myself.
Honestly, in the beginning, right after I absorbed the devastation, the anger, humiliation and fear, I said — yes. I decided I was going to do everything I could to save my marriage and my family. The Kid was young, and I was still convinced I was in love with Rob. I read Peggy Vaughan, I read “Divorce Busting,” I went to couples’ therapy, and I followed a workbook of exercises that were supposed to lead me toward forgiveness.
But as we got deeper into therapy and I listened to what he was saying and how I was really feeling, I realized that no matter what I thought and wanted and no matter how hard I was willing to work, Rob was who he was, and on a fundamental level, there was something in him that was always going to have a hard time with honesty.
Did I want to live with that?
Would I be able to trust that?
And then I had to admit to myself, no, I didn’t and I couldn’t.
A lot of marriages break up after an affair, but not all of them. Some couples are able, like a phoenix, to rise up out of the flames and transform into something stronger and better.
It’s easy to make a blanket statement — “If he ever cheated on me, I’d kick his sorry ass out” — but we never really know what we’re going to do until we’re in the moment. Sometimes, what we thought would destroy us makes us a better person and a better partner. Sometimes, we find a compassion and forgiveness we didn’t know we had. And other times, our liberal, loving and accepting ways are put to the test (and we have to accept, yeah, I’m not quite as liberal, loving and accepting as I thought I was!)
Could I stay with someone who abused me? Absolutely not! Could I stay with an alcoholic? If he got sober and stayed sober. Could I stay with someone who cheated on me? Maybe, depending …
I couldn’t with Rob, but maybe I could with someone else. But, crap — I sure hope I never have to decide.
- Where do you draw the line in a relationship?
- Have you ever drawn a line and crossed it anyway?
- And, have you ever regretted dumping someone who messed up but was fundamentally a “good” guy or gal?
Photo by Warner Bros.
Your cheating heart
We were long overdue for a gals’ night, so we gathered last week and found ourselves lined up at the bar at the Buckeye.
“Don’t look now, but isn’t that Scott?” Mia asked, jerking her head rhythmically to the right.
“It sure is,” Sara said, her head whipping around to see the action in the booth behind us. “But that sure isn’t Liz.”
Liz being Scott’s wife.
“And, so?” I asked. “For all you girls know, it could be a business meeting, or his niece or a
friend who needs advice. Stop being so
suspicious!” 
They looked at me like I was one of those psycho women all exes seem to become to guys when they’re describing us to their
new love.
I know what it might look like, but looks can be deceiving. There were more than a few times when I was having dinner or cocktails with a male friend and some busybody walked by and assumed we were dating just because I’m a single woman with a guy.
But maybe Scott was cheating. Or maybe he was having dinner with a female co-worker and didn’t tell his wife about it; would that be cheating, too?
Cheating isn’t so black and white anymore.
It used to be if that you weren’t actually cheating unless there were body fluids and cigarettes in a cheap motel.
Now? Well, if you don’t have a dozen
mistresses coming out of the woodwork talking to the media, like Tiger, it’s a little fuzzier.
- Some women think a guy’s intense interest in porn is cheating.
- Some women think if their squeeze
is always checking out other women, he’s cheating. - Some women think if he’s sharing TMI (mostly about them) to another woman, he’s cheating.
- Some women think if he’s a flirt he’s cheating.
- Some women think sending dirty text messages is cheating.
- Some women think it’s cheating if their guy friends an ex on Facebook.
So, what is cheating?
I used to think it was fairly simple — a guy’s cheating if he’s shagging someone (and in all fairness, it could as just as easily be if she’s shagging someone; don’t mean to lay all the guilt on you guys. I know women are just as guilty as men). But the Internet, IM, texting and Facebook have changed everything.
And, I’ve changed, too. My thoughts, that is.
I think someone’s cheating if whatever he’s doing is compromising the relationship because he’s not being honest about it. If a guy can’t tell his partner about something he’s doing and who he’s doing it with (an maybe in the case of watching porn, how often he’s doing it), then something’s wrong.
That doesn’t mean that we have to tell our partners everything; Lord knows her daily minutiae is boring enough without having to take on his, too. And it doesn’t mean he’s afraid to tell her because she’s going to get all bitchy about him having female friends or looking at an attractive woman walking by (or acknowledging that). That’s an insecure woman, which is a much bigger problem (and, ironically, one that may lead to a man cheating).
But if she starts asking you about your day or someone (nicely, of course), and you feel like you can’t quite tell her the truth or start getting defensive, I’d say there might be a wee bit of a problem.
When I discovered Rob’s affair, it wasn’t so much that he was screwing someone as the lies — whenever he looked me in the face, he wasn’t telling me the truth (although, I didn’t know that at that particular moment). That’s just not how people who say they love you treat you. That was hard to grasp.
So, what’s cheating to you?
Photo © Inger Anne Hulbækdal – Fotolia.com
The Madonna/whore, Marilyn/Jackie O dilemma
“Are you a Marilyn or a Jackie O?” Sara asked me, dipping her pinkie into the guac and licking it off. We were snuggled on my couch for a gal’s night in.
“Is this like asking me if I’m a good witch or a bad witch? Last time I looked, I was still plain ol’ Kat.”
“Well, I was reading a blog about how you’re either a woman who exudes sex and drama, like Marilyn Monroe, or you’re the one guys want to mother their kids, the ones who have dinner ready, weekly missionary sex and manage everything so that he can succeed.
Like Jackie O. Those are your choices, Marilyn or Jackie. So,
who are you?” 
I hate those questions. They’re like the ones you get at a job interview — are you a better this or a better that? You just know there’s a catch. I want to be good at both — hell, I actually believe I am good at both! — so I fudge my answer and often end up messing up. There’s a trick to this game, and I still haven’t figured it out.
Still, I thought I pretty much had the sexpot-mother thing down. I never viewed it as a Marilyn-Jackie O. thing, though; it was always the Madonna-whore thing for me. You know — you’re a wild,
sexy party girl until you become a mom and then suddenly your hubby can only see you as a mom (and for a lot of women that’s all they identify with, too) and then he wants the whore back. Cue the affair.
Fine, but just look at all the Louboutin-strutting “whores” who are also “Madonnas” nowadays — starting with Madonna herself, then Angelina, Kate, Gwen, Gwyneth. Need I go on? These are women who are hot, hot, hot — and also happen to be moms. If Megan
Fox gets knocked up and becomes a mama, is any man in his right mind going to put her in the unfuckable category?
But, here’s the big but — that’s how we see them, given the whole celeb mommy porn thing. Their hubbies may feel differently because who’s to say what it’s like when you have a hottie at home — in her sweats, without her makeup, PMSing, breastfeeding the baby and thinking that adopting another tot might be a good career move?
Forget about Madonna/whore, Marilyn/Jackie O. — I think it comes down to women who like sex and women who don’t. That’s it. If a woman views herself as a sexual being, no matter if she’s single, married, a mother or whatever, she’s going to reek of sex.
Maybe it has less to do with how men view women, but more how women view themselves and their sexuality. Or maybe it has everything to do with our genes.
The Marilyn is all about, well, Marilyn. She fucks, and she knows she’s good at it so don’t try to make her do anything else but fuck. Marry that and, well, good luck.
Jackie O. is willing to give away so much of herself that she doesn’t even feel; she’s just bound by duty. Marry that and, well, good luck.
And any woman who becomes a mom and becomes so wrapped up in mommyhood that she forgets her sexual side and her role in keeping a marriage sexually alive (and packs on the pounds, and thinks granny panties and stretch waistband polyester pants are the next best thing to Oprah) is doomed to be a Madonna — and, most likely, a divorcee.
We don’t have to box ourselves in to being one of the above. We can be sexual Marilyns, Madonnas, whores and Jackie Os as long as we truly feel and act sexual because we like it and want it.
Or … am I just fudging and messing up again?
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