On Dating Married Men

I confess I have dated married men before; three, to be exact. I am not one to generalize, but I have to say that every single fucking dude was exactly the same as the last. The stories might have been different, but they all work the same.

Now I see friends in similar conundrums. Ah-ah! Yeah, the guy might be “separated”, or maybe “not yet married” (living with a partner), but the mechanics work the same. My intention is to expose the inner workings of these men for these friends (and any other interested parties).

How it pans out

1) He might start slow and easy. A bit of flirting here, some friendliness, nothing you’d deem offensive or dangerous. He will mix in a few heart-to-heart talks, in which he will soulfully confess that he and his wife are not getting along anymore. He might even come as far as saying that they don’t sleep in the same bed anymore either. He will make a point of emphasizing how lonely he feels, and in the process he will make his wife look like a devilish bitch of huge proportions (he doesn’t even have to say it, you women will inevitably think it!)

The truth: He’s lying. If his wife were to hear the sludge that’s coming out of her husband’s mouth, she’d have a fit. For her, life at home is going on as normal. They may have noticed a bit of distance, maybe even him falling asleep on the couch while watching TV, or in the computer room (because poor baby has so much work!). They’d never think he’s “at the end of his rope”.

2) We women are fucking nurturers by nature. We see a living creature in agony and our first instinct is to pick it up and nurse it back to health. The married man knows this and he will become the helpless, poor animal just for you. Most will say that even if he’s felt very lonely, he’s never ever thought about cheating on his wife… until he met YOU: now YOU are all he thinks about, YOU are special, YOU are THE ONE making him reconsider. This flatters you to no end, and if you’re feeling lonely / unloved enough, you allow yourself to get involved.

The truth: He’s done this enough times to hone the craft. He sees you as someone vulnerable, someone who listens, someone who will give him the time, someone – in short – desperate enough to go to bed with him. You’re new blood, that’s all he craves: someone new in his bed. Why they crave this: I don’t know. Maybe they need to feel they “still got it”. Maybe it’s a pathological thing. In any case, girl, it’s not YOUR fault that he wants this all the fucking time. But it IS your fault if you fall for the line: “Oh, I’ve never done this before!”.

PS: Some will even be inane enough to add that they were virgins before getting married to their wives. Believe me! I had one like that.

3) So you get involved, and everything is beautiful: you make love until the wee hours of the morning. He tells you how beautiful you are, how much you two connect, how you make him forget about his problems at home. You date surreptitiously, sometimes in great fear that people will find out. This fear will be doubled if he’s a coworker. However, he makes a point of sharing things other than a bed with you: he takes you to hidden places, creates an environment that will be special and memorable for you. He turns into “the guy you’d share your life with”.

The truth: They need you to fall all the way head over heels for them. They need you to be all there for them, and it makes sense: if their plan is to string you along as long as they please, they should have you hooked, line and sinker! So this is it: they’re assuring your unconditional surrender to their being. They’re showing you how “awesome” they can be, securing your selfless adoration for their consumption later on.

4) At this point, two things might happen: he separates from his wife for real (less likely) or your relationship with him turns into an official affair.

If it’s an affair that it turns into: eventually, like all relationships, this one turns into a routine. Gone are the magical days of doing things other than stealthy visits no-longer-than-long-enough-to-fuck. You start getting depressed, and obviously you make demands, because 1 hour a week just to fuck is not enough for you to go on! You need some tender loving care. Thing is, you’re already hooked with this guy, and for every three or four months of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol, he will feed you a night of wondrousness, something to keep your hopes up that “things will someday change”. He also feeds these hopes with snide comments about things his wife says or does. However, he will never take the offensive in leaving her because: she’s too sick / the children / she wouldn’t be able to survive without him.

The truth: You’ve become his masturbator, and he won’t leave his wife because he doesn’t love you enough – and face it, he still loves her. This thing is just a symptom of his sickness. He might love you like a child loves his toy, but believe me: the moment you opened your legs to him, he lost all respect for you (I know this because one of the married men I dated was candid enough to confess this upon our breakup … charming!) To sum it up: he believes you’re not, and will never be, marrying material … because you’re “one of those girls that sleeps with married men”.

If he leaves his wife: you will think you’ve got it made. Believe me, it’s a celebratory feeling! You feel like you’ve actually got a shot to a normal relationship in the open! Love has finally arrived to you! Of course, he says, you can’t simply start dating normally, not yet. Not until the divorce is final. You don’t want him being sued by his wife for adultery, do you?

The truth: He finally found the perfect excuse to move out. These episodes are akin to midlife crises. They feel the need to live the bachelorhood they never had. They may have been virgins when they married (though I doubt it), but I’m sure these guys got married very young and never had a shot at fucking it up. So what they’re doing: finally, they’re able to fuck it up! And they’ll fuck it up with YOU! So, you’ll eventually find out he’s fucking around with other girls, or – like it happened to me – he’ll become chickenshit and confess to you that he still cares for his wife, that he misses her. Some very daring assholes will even go for both!

On the breakup

They won’t like it, invariably, not a single one of them will like it. They will make you feel guilty about dating them, they will play the SORRY card, they will threaten you (“I’ll kill myself” comes to mind). In any case, they will not go silently or peacefully. Some women will stand their ground, but most will have a relapse or two (or ten, in my case). For you: it’s a relationship that’s being broken, you feel that you’re tossing away an opportunity at being loved. For them: their toy is getting feet and walking away from them. Obviously, they will do all in their power for you to stay. Some will be forceful, some will be subtle. None will understand the need for you to keep your fucking dignity, to be loved like a human being, to be respected.

My advice: Don’t even begin an affair with a married man. It’s not because of “the sanctity of marriage” (those that know me well know I don’t believe in that). It’s because you’re getting into a situation with 2 people. Doesn’t make sense? You see: your relationship with this man is pretty much the direct result of his relationship with his wife. All you do or say will be in direct contrast with her (albeit what she does or say stands by itself, that’s the Wife Privilege). The way he reacts at you? Total reflection of how it is with his wife. Not to say he treats you the same, he treats you like he wouldn’t treat her: like a sex object, like a plaything, like a whore. He will say things to you that he would never tell his wife, he will do things to you that he would NEVER do to his wife …

…and you know what? If he “confides” so much in you, but can’t bring himself to confide in the woman he chose to be his life partner… doesn’t that speak volumes of who he is as a man? A man who can’t see his wife as a peer? A man who cannot show her his true colors? This is a man that holds women in such low regard, he can’t even see them as beings worthy of dignity and a voice. Do YOU want a guy like this to be YOUR life partner?

Think about it… you may think you’re not lonely when you’re with a married man, but truth be told, you’ve become the loneliest of them all.

This is your life from a suit

You graduate from college, looking forward to becoming a fully capable and successful professional. You’re hired into Big Corp as an entry-level minion, but your wages are “competitive” – besides, it’s not like you have any debts. All your money goes towards drinking, partying, hanging out with friends. Life is good.

Then, you realize you’ll need an appropriate car. If you had a car in college, it now looks like a banana shoe. It’s a bit too broken down / rusty / old / ugly. In any case, it doesn’t represent you as a young professional. If you didn’t have a car in college, hey! NOW it’s the time to get one! WTF were you waiting for. You buy a car. Economy class, but nice. Life is good.

Now that you’ve learned the ropes at work, you start working hard – and partying harder. You party with the few college friends who stayed in touch with you, you party with your colleagues, you party with friends of friends, hell you party alone! And then you meet someone, start dating. Suddenly, having this salary is great, but you start wishing for more. You wanna take her/him places, go eat at swanky restaurants, live the life! For the moment being, however, you’re thankful you have someone to cuddle with. Life is good.

You’re becoming a go-getter at work. You get a raise, you save some money, and before you know it, you just got married! That nice raise got you a new mortgage and a few more bills to pay. At least you’ve got your own place. You come home a bit too swamped to do anything other than cuddle in front of the TV with your S.O., but that’s okay. You’re an adult now. Parties are a thing of the past. You’ve got decent wine and cases of premium beer in the fridge. You need nothing out of home. Life is good.

Suddenly, you become one of the honchos at work. Not the big ones, but definitely a stable fixture in the office. You now have a nice salary, but the hours are killing ya! You start getting home later and later each night. Seeing your spouse awake is a luxury. Spending time with them is a thing of the weekends (unless you have to go to the office to catch up with “the proposal you have to hand in first hand on Monday”). Maybe by some sort of miracle you become a parent. You have a little mini-me to raise now. You look forward to trips to the park, ice cream cones, laughter, maybe setting up a swing set in the backyard. Life is good.

…and then you realize your spouse is miserably unhappy ‘cuz you’re barely ever there. Your kid grows up into a nasty brat before you even have time to pay attention. Your spouse files for divorce, takes away half of what you earned, and now you have to suffer your nasty kid once every two weeks. You have to rent a dingy little apartment to be able to afford living alone … worst case scenario: you have to move back with mom. You’re back to square one. Fuck your life.

… and then you meet a cute little coworker who shakes her ass just the right way. Skip all the romantic nonsense, go straight to living together, rinse, repeat… or maybe skip all the commitment nonsense, live like a teenager forever. In any case, your life fucking SUCKS.

That’s why I don’t wear a suit to work.

(this was something I thought up yesterday as I talked to a good friend about the correlation of time vs money. We realized that you either have the money to get all the nice things you’ve always wanted, or you have the time to enjoy the things you have. You can’t have both.)

It’s not the end of the decade, but… #10yearsago

I think it was precisely ten years ago that I gave up the tradition of making resolutions for the new year. I think I must’ve figured it was a stupid waste of energy. Habits are diamond-hard to break: an overnight party and champagne binge will not change that, neither will a change in the calendar year.

So, New Year’s Eve turned for me into a contemplation of milestones. Like watching a movie recap, I look back on all things achieved and changed during the course of the past year. Serves no purpose but to think.

Most people are convinced that this year marks the end of the decade (poor misguided souls!): a mistaken perception, since decades change over when year number 1 starts – not year zero. So it comes to pass that people start reminiscing, not only about the past year, but also about the past ten years. Most social networks online get filled with small fragments of memories: travels, piercings, graduations, jobs… and then I thought about it too. What was I doing 10 years ago? And it hit me like a stone.

Ten years ago, May 1999 to be precise, I graduated from college with a BA in commercial administration, ready and committed to work for an IT company. I immediately was sent on my first work trip, and immediately proceeded to “fall in love” with the first Costa Rican boy that batted his pretty lashes at me. Going to bed with him was just a matter of a few nights, some alcohol and a smattering of gallant words.

Ten years ago, September 2009, I aborted his baby. I learned a few things: 1 – this career was not the career I wanted, 2 – I had no intention of being a single mother, 3 – not all men who treat you kindly and say pretty words will actually be good men. I also realized that during my college years, I had become what my career required me to become, not who I actually was. I quit my job the day after my abortion. Business suits and pump shoes were put away.

Ten years ago, October 1999, I got my first retail job. I learned that I loved retail. I learned that retail doesn’t earn enough to keep.

Ten years ago, December 1999, I had my best Christmas ever. In spite of the horrid abortion I had just had (and the immediate sense of regret, the tears always at the ready in my eyes), my family proved to be everything I needed. This was the year I learned that I had a home again, even if my parents were divorced, even if my heart was breaking. Family was my fallback pillow. Family was my womb.

At the present, I am currently following the academic path I would have chosen in 1995 if my father hadn’t offered his advice filled with common sense. In the meanwhile, I’m working in retail again, after almost 10 years working on my BA career. I tried time and again to make it right, but the heart knows best: this was not the career I wanted. I knew by 1999. Ten years did not change that.

I miss my family to the point of tears. My father and his wife, who housed me in infinite warmth in 1999, now live in Orlando, FL. I will be visiting them in 2 weeks. My brother, who in 1999 was my partner in crime and advisor, now lives in Chicago, IL. I don’t know when I’ll see him again. My stepbrother and stepsisters all live in different places, some have their own children now… The family is fragmented. The love is still there.

… and ultimately, I chose not to have children. Had I had my way shortly after the abortion, I would have had a “guilt baby”. Destiny chose otherwise then. I’ve come to keep making that choice lately. I’m not sorry for my decisions.

My life has been product of those decisions.

So, 2010 will not magically bring new clarity or abundance into my life. It’s just a milestone. Here’s to hoping I get many more of those. May I lead an interesting life.

(yes, I just cursed myself)

Missing the womb

There are things that I associated with having a mother that have nothing to do with my own. I’ve been blessed with an extended family. I was skeptical, if not downright adamant, about accepting them. This process is whole chapter of my story, but the happy conclusion of it – the final acceptance, the warm embrace we all linked in – has endured as a truth since then (in one way or another).

… so it is in moments like these – hardships, uncertainties, exhaustion, loneliness – that I miss the little things my stepmother did for me to make me feel at home. The homemade coffe frappées, the apple-cinnamon smell pervading the house, her voice knitting a web of stories around you, creating a universe out of the ordinary things that happened to her during daily life. It isn’t even about the material comforts, it’s more about what feels like HOME. That was the last Home I knew, before launching into yet another chapter of my life (in which I’ve built a home of my very own). It was the last safe space that didn’t depend on me holding my own. It was the last safe space I could come home to and rest my head and my worries without feeling selfish for letting go.

This does not mean I’m not happy in my adult home. But sometimes you need a mother … sometimes you need a stepmother. Sometimes you need a smile, the smell of incense, and the certainty that it would be ok, regardless of what you did. I miss my Dad, and I definitely miss his wife, even if she wouldn’t guess as much.

I miss Home.

While You Were Away

Last post on this blog: May 12th

I think it was about time I put down my virtual red pen, shoved aside the text books for a moment, and sat down to write something of my own.

Summer drained me. A mere few weeks after my last entry, I plunged myself into the world of “being an art teacher”. This world demands your full load of patience, and then some. I think all teacher worlds demand this, mind you, and teachers that love what they do earned my undying admiration.

I was art teacher for a month in a summer camp. The main objective of the camp was for kids to practice their English in a fun way, they said. The art activities didn’t have to be particularly complex or farfetched, they said. What they didn’t say was:

- Kids expect innovation/newness at every single fucking turn. You can’t have them coloring paper with crayons two days in a row, they’ll go crazy!

Watercolors again!?!?!? MAN!!!!

- Art supplies are freakin’ expensive. And this particular school was very skeptical about giving me free rein of their art supplies (which are used specifically for summer camp, since they don’t have art class in the school year curriculum … those paints and glitter and glue bottles have been sitting there for years!)

- Kids can’t really be kids … they can’t run, they can’t jump, they can’t skip. Otherwise, they might fall, and godforbiftheyfallthey’ll SUE US! Jeezus! This was the attitude at te beginning of the day, at the end of it, and oh lordy lord! LUNCH TIME. Lunch.Time.Was.HELL!!!

Can't run, can't walk, can't scream, can't talk...

- I’d be having lunch with the same group assigned to me the hour before lunch. Which meant two full hours with the same group. Which turned out to be the biggest group (20). Of 7 -9 year old BOYS. Who ate in a flash. And couldn’t go anywhere else after they ate their lunch. Guess what they did in those remaining 45 minutes. … I’ll let your imagination do the rest.

Fit this inside a small classroom. Yeah. That.

… so, by the end of June, I was happy to the point of tears that the whole ordeal was over. I remembered summer camp work quite differently. I guess different camps work different ways. Sometimes bigger IS better.

The one thing that kept me going and going and going through all those days of feeling subhuman was the notion that I was flying off to see Dad on that very last day of camp. Ohhhh, it was worth it! Thank you, Eze!

I visited Dad during a Father’s Day weekend: it was a flurry of activity, trying to make all the hours last. I’ll always say I wish I had him nearby, but after seeing him and Martha and Felipe carry on with their lives over there, I realized they’ve pretty much found their groove … even if it’s a poor groove. They’re comfy. And their house smells like wood, and apple-cinnamon, and Christmas, and home I wish it was nearer …

The rest of summer went by way too fast, I think. Most days were spent looking out the window, wondering why my work schedule was so funky that they always put me in during evenings or closing shifts. At least work is still going strong, and I still like it. I think, however, that I could have made better use of my time during summer, I dunno. It was over in a flash.

And now, August-December semester is here (my favorite: it’s plagued with a smattering of holidays, the occasional strike, and unexpected tropical storms and hurricanes). I’m only  taking one class, and thankfully! I thought it would be easier, but gosh, this professor is driving nails down my temper’s blackboard! I have my first test tomorrow, and for the first time in a long while, my nerves are on edge.

During this semester I’ve also gotten timidly involved in the revamping/overhaul/let’s-get-this-shit-running of FrecuenciasAlternas.com … as an editor (hence, the virtual red pen). I’ve kept sewing what I sew, and then some more: I took Grandma’s sewing machine, wiped the dust and cockroach eggs off, and put it to good use. My wardrobe is growing again, thanks to this wonderful machine and the magnanimous generosity of a few friends (Maricarmen, Lynnie, thank you!).

This summer's masterpiece: McCartney & Yellow Submarine

… and now holidays are getting nearer, starting off with my favorite: Halloween … which my colleagues say won’t be my favorite no mo’ because it gets all fucked up in a jiffy at the store. I don’t doubt it: Hot Topic is one of the very few costume outlets in this island. If you can’t find your sexy fireman outfit with us, where can you? No, we don’t have sexy firemen outfits … dude, get a freaking red g-string and a heavy duty hose at Sears, jeezus!

So, catch me ’round the bend. I’m pretty sure I’ll be covered head to toe in repurposings and hemming-ins ^_^