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Tag: affair

  • Affair survival: Tips for dating a married man by Kristen Houghton

    Affair survival: Tips for dating a married man by Kristen Houghton

    Perhaps the best advice you can give someone about having a relationship with a married man is telling her not to even start. However, that may not be practical for all women. As my friend Jenna* told me, “You can’t help who you fall in love with. The love of your life just might be a married man.”

    Being part of any couple can be challenging and unpredictable, as we all know. But when the man with whom you’re involved is part of another couple, someone else’s husband, then the challenge and unpredictability can make your life a messy, unhappy waiting game that you will rarely win.

    The woman who is in love with a married man lives a life that, for the most part, is shrouded in secrecy. Her close circle of friends might know about her affair, but she really cannot let anyone else, such as colleagues or her family, know. She is alone most of the time and spends it waiting: waiting for her married lover to call, to come meet her, to share some precious time together. She is not his wife, she is not mother to his children, she is not his parents’ daughter-in-law. Her chance for happiness hinges on a future that is highly uncertain, to say the least.

    Your own survival is crucial, and if you do happen to fall in love with a married man, there are several hard truths you need to know.

    1. The needs of the many (namely, his family) will always outweigh your needs.

    His family will always come first, and that includes his wife. Simply because he talks in a negative way about his marriage doesn’t mean that his obligations to his wife are any less important to him. Whether or not they have children is a moot point; he will always feel as if he has to be a husband to her and take care of the marriage, whether he truly loves her or not. Their life together includes friendships and a social network that is shared and comfortable for him. He won’t risk losing that.

    2. His life with you is secret and always will be.

    No matter how much you may want to walk in the sunshine with him and have him openly acknowledge his love for you, it won’t happen. While he is more than willing to be your lover and to bring you gifts, he is not about to have you meet his friends and risk having his family find out about you.

    3. No matter how nice a guy he is, you are a temporary diversion for him.

    This is not an easy statement to comprehend. It’s emotionally painful. Unfortunately it is true. The beginning of an affair is romantic and naughty at the same time. Planning to be together becomes a fascinating game and is thrilling to say the least. Stealing hours from work or home to have sex is exciting, and you may mistake his libido-driven passion for undying love. Don’t. The game soon becomes a chore for him, and romantic interludes are just one more thing he “has to do.”

    4. He will not leave his wife.

    Less than 5 percent of men leave their wives for the woman with whom they are having an affair. Whether it is because of all the legal and financial problems attached to divorce, religious beliefs or the fact that they have become comfortable with their marriage the way it is — or even because they still have a certain affection for their wives, men rarely end up with the other woman. Even Katharine Hepburn knew, and accepted, this fact during her long affair with Spencer Tracy. And don’t ever kid yourself on this important point: He is still having sex with his wife, no matter what you may want to believe.

    5. Legally, financially and emotionally, you have no claim.

    You may realize that you have no claim legally or financially, but you would think there’d be an emotional attachment or bond between you and your lover. In fact there usually isn’t after the affair is over. Here’s why. Even though he has a deep feeling of love for you, he is able to process it in an unemotional way. He’s not a bad guy, he may be a wonderfully kind person, but he is also a practical one. He knows that holding on to emotions that can only cause problems for his family is something he cannot and will not do. When it’s over, he will move on.

    To safeguard yourself from too much emotional pain, you need to understand that he can only be a small part of your life and will never be more than that no matter how many promises are made. You need to have a life that works and that is full enough to withstand the pain of the eventual breakup. He has one and you need one, too.

    A solid circle of friends and a social life separate from your hidden life with him is a necessity. Let your friends know that you still want to go out with them regularly. Don’t always be so ready to cancel plans you have made with others to accommodate him. Casual dating with male friends helps, too. It allows you to see yourself through the eyes of another man who finds you interesting and attractive. It is up to you where it might lead. It helps to remember that the man with whom you are intimately involved in “your other life” is not living as a monk with his wife.

    Being involved in an affair with someone else’s husband is an almost surefire trip from ecstatic highs at the beginning to a depressing abyss at the end. Understand the basics of exactly what you are getting into, and what your status is.

    You need to step back and identify the priorities — your priorities — in a relationship with a married man. Think with your head and not with your heart. Ensuring you have a life distinct from his that is your safe haven can make being the other woman, if not a secure, permanent position, at least one that is a bit more tolerable.

    Kristen Houghton is the author of the hilarious new book, No Woman Diets Alone – There’s Always a Man Behind Her Eating a Doughnut

     

  • Love affair between books and controversies

    Love affair between books and controversies

    There is perhaps no fate worse for a book than when it is ignored. If it is savaged by critics, some may even argue it is precisely the adrenaline it needs to thrive in the market. But when it is truly and sensationally controversial, well, the author’s dream will appear fulfilled. Ultimately, however, whether controversial or at first ignored, it is always difficult to tell how a book would fare in the market in the long run. For there is usually no proof the long run would not come well after the demise of the author. It may be too early to tell what will become of the new Chinua Achebe book, There Was A Country, but at least for now, no matter how bilious some literary critics think its content is, the controversial book will not be ignored. In Nigeria itself, it has raised a storm, with real and imitation critics polarised essentially along ethnic lines. But polarisation notwithstanding, both classes of critics will certainly not ignore the book, and to that extent, it is likely to receive some moderate to good amount of commercial attention.

    Except where an author sets out deliberately to be a woeful failure, the first principle to publishing success is for the author to shock the public with either too much logic and fair amount of truth or too little logic and outright fatuousness. The jury is still out on the Achebe book. But connoisseurs of great literature will recall instances of controversial books that became popular, thereby establishing the link between controversy and popularity. Take John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, a social commentary on the economic plight of poor farmers in the United States in the 1930s, for instance. The Times of London had this to say of the book published in 1939: “It is one of the most arresting [novels] of its time.” Newsweek magazine described it as a “mess of silly propaganda, superficial observation, careless infidelity to the proper use of idiom, tasteless pornographic and scatological talk.” On the other hand, a New York Times reviewer suggested that “Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths of his heart with a sincerity seldom equalled. It may be an exaggeration, but it is the exaggeration of an honest and splendid writer.” But the Associated Farmers of California, displeased with the book’s depiction of California farmers, denounced it mercilessly as a “pack of lies…and communist propaganda.”

    The result was that in some places the book was burnt, and it even led to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) putting surveillance on Steinbeck who was considered a communist agent on account of the book. The Grapes of Wrath later won the Pulitzer Prize, sold 4.5 million in the US alone, and about 14 million worldwide. Consider also D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Sons and Lovers, two novels either censored or banned because of their explicit sexual content. And who could ignore James Joyce’s Ulysses that drove many into fury because of its egregious reference to masturbation? It suffered an obscenity prosecution, was banned in some places, and was for a long time not even available in Ireland, where Joyce hailed from.

    Achebe’s latest work is unlikely to witness more than the controversy that has greeted it so far. There will be no burning, banning or censoring. But for him, it will be a controversy that warms the cockles of the heart. There are millions of books either ignored or completely forgotten today. Whether There Was A Country will be forgotten on a distant tomorrow cannot now be determined, especially considering its contribution to Nigeria’s civil war literature. In view of the fame of the author, even if the book’s accuracy is repeatedly and brutally called to question, as it is now, it is certain there will always be references made to it now and in the distant future. Achebe’s name guarantees that; as he becomes the latest quintessential example of the troubling love affair between books and controversies.