Good blogger pal Jazz found this on the Internet. It was originally posted on my old-old blog (as opposed to just my old blog) and I don’t think it has been repeated. It was a chapter (truncated for this space) to a book I once penned, though never published, on a guide to life for middle aged men. Enjoy — or not, as the case may be.
For Protestants and Jews it comes in at Number Seven on the Biblical list, but for Catholics adultery is Number Six, so it seems Catholics are being asked to think a little more seriously about extracurricularity than members of the other two groups, since God appears to frown upon unsanctified dalliances a point higher up the sin-scale for those who lean in the direction of Rome.
Maybe it’s something to do with Mary. After all, despite the virgin birth and all the foofrah around that, she was still a wife, and was bound to have a wifely attitude about extra-curricular messing around.
Whatever faith you subscribe to, or if you subscribe to none at all, I think one would do well to take the Sixth or Seventh Commandment under extreme advisement. It is not one to be trifled with. Sins like murder or bearing false witness are straightforward, but adultery has complications galore.
The question is — and it comes to all married or cohabiting men at some point after the wedding (the really adventurous have been known to try for a last fling with a comely bridesmaid in the bathroom before the wedding ceremony, but this is deemed bad taste in even the most sophisticated circles) — should I have an affair?
It’s an important question. More important than opting for digital cable, or trading in the sedan for an SUV. That’s because the consequences of a discovered illicit liaison are to be noted for their drastic nature, sometimes involving gunplay, or for keeping divorce lawyers in the style to which they have become accustomed. Therefore, if you have decided that the blonde down the street, the checkout clerk at the supermarket, or Natasha at the office would be worth the price of chucking everything you’ve worked 20 or 30 years to acquire, then the answer to the question “Should I screw around?” must be yes.
But, be forewarned that, despite all the heart-stopping lingerie, heaving breasts, liquid travels down the forbidden path, and the other painfully exquisite elements of naughty sex, it’s all going to get ugly at some point. It has to. That’s why it’s a sin. All sins have the potential for nasty outcomes, or they wouldn’t be alluring, and wouldn’t, therefore, be frowned upon
Something else to be considered. In order to carry out an illicit affair, you must accept that you’ll soon be seen as a sonofabitch. If you don’t see yourself or your behavior as being that of an SOB, then too bad, because you are going to be called a sonofabitch by somebody before this is over. You have the potential be called that by any one of a number of people — like your wife, your mother-in-law, her entire family and maybe members of yours, too, her friends, your kids if they’re old enough to figure it out, your decent and upstanding neighbors, and possibly even your inamorata, especially if you decide to end the fling and go back to domesticity.
Why will you be a sonofabitch? You will be one because somebody is going to get hurt — really, really hurt. This isn’t a maybe. Somebody ‘is’ going to get hurt by your affair, and it may even be you. That’s a just scenario, since you initiated the thing, or made yourself available in the first place. But, it may be your wife, who likely doesn’t deserve it, though you may have convinced yourself that she does, because she’s such a nag, and has really let herself go to seed, y’know. Regardless of how you might want to justify the liaison, if your wife gets hurt, this is a very bad thing, because she will either leave you, stay with you in a glacial Mexican stand-off (which might be worse than her leaving), or maybe have a retaliatory affair of her own (try that one on, and see how it feels) — or she will kill you.
In all likelihood, it will be the ‘other woman’ who will suffer in the end. She is the most often the recipient of the metaphorical smack-in-the-solar-plexus, since you have so much to lose that finally you will decide you’re not going to break up with your spouse. Your poor ‘bit of stuff on the side’ will be forced to slink away after it’s all over; a sadder, and hopefully wiser woman.
Or, she may get her revenge. An angry spurned girlfriend can be even more dangerous to your well-being than a wife scorned. You know that. You saw ‘Fatal Attraction.’ If you didn’t, get your butt down to the video store before you even think about stepping out of an evening.
You’ve been forewarned, but you might still decide to chance it. There’s no logic that rules the heart or the loins. You are going to do it because you, at the age of 35, 45, or 55 need to take that last trek into life’s wilderness. Adventure comes in various forms, but for many men, adventure seems to include big dollops of sex. Sex with somebody other than the person who has been lying beside you, and sticking her cold feet on your nice warm legs for the past 20 or more years.
In our society we usually marry for love. We wed the person we’ve fallen for, and we take no other matters into consideration when we sign that nuptial contract.
And for the first six months after the honeymoon, you couldn’t keep your hands and genitals off each other. You hugged, kissed, baby-talked, dirty-talked, and went at it like there was no tomorrow.
But, there was a tomorrow. Work left you and her tired, so once a day eventually became once a week, and maybe ultimately a couple of times a month. Babies came along, and occupied her and your time to their fullest anti-aphrodisiac potential. The aroma of puke and poop tends to squelch the most avid passion.
You started to notice little things about your bride. Her breath wasn’t always sweet. She didn’t always shave her legs the second stubble presented itself. Your pristine and flawless little snuggle-bunny could, just like regular people, fall victim to an attack of diarrhea. She could snore. She could even fart. How had your formerly cute and refined sweetie-pie turned into trailer trash?
And so it went, year-after-year. As time went by you began to notice other women in a more speculative way. You wondered if you’d made a mistake marrying the person you did. You were young, after all. Perhaps you should have played the field a bit more until you were really, really sure she was the one. You wondered what it would be like to consort under the covers with an unfamiliar body. You were still relatively attractive, had most of your own hair, even though the waistline had expanded a bit. While you had probably never turned too many heads, with advancing maturity you had developed a bit of wit and charm. Women seemed to like that.
Then one day, for no particular reason, your disenchantment with the state of your home life turned to resentment. You deserved better than this, you thought. You deserved more than headaches as an excuse and a spouse who seemed to refuse to keep up in the chic-ness department. Maybe — just maybe you would do something about it. You just might consider having an affair.
This is a monumental decision, and no amount of rationalization — like, it will put the spark back in our marriage, or she’s as much to blame as I am — will make it less pivotal, or potentially catastrophic. But, you consoled yourself that doing it with another wouldn’t necessarily make you a weasel. After all, many great men had mistresses. It seems to be something that goes with maleness, right, not to mention greatness
You set the wheels in motion. It’s not difficult to do. Despite the disbelief that would cross the faces of adolescent boys of your acquaintance, getting laid is the easiest thing in the world. In fact, if you’re already taken, it’s even easier. ‘The other woman’ can go into the liaison knowing there will be no uncomfortable complications — she hopes.
You’ve already considered the possible candidates for that boinking session and you’ve picked out somebody you’ve been flirting with for a while, so let’s say it’s now in motion. You spend a few afternoons at a motel, or your swinging single buddy’s apartment (he understands), or wherever. It’s like magic. The first time she disrobed you saw her flimsy little undies, of the kind that your wife never wears, despite all your pleas and your largely ignored Christmas and birthday gifts of frou-froux of the revealing sort. Actually, your chosen concubine usually wears white cotton panties.
Anyway, it’s all fabulous. You feel like you’re 18 again — virile, amazingly randy, and able to go at it two or even three times in a four hour period. This was what you had been missing! There is fire in the loins and passion in the belly, by God!
And then you have to go home. But, before you go home, you make sure you have showered. Sex has a fragrance. If bodily fluids have been exchanged it will smell like — well — that bodily fluids have been exchanged. There’s no mistaking the source of the aroma, and your seemingly naive spouse will know exactly what ‘that’ smell is.
Home — where the heart is supposed to be. You park the car and your dog comes out to greet you, delighted that Daddy’s back from work. Funny despite the fact they never pass judgment, you hope the dog doesn’t find out what a rat Daddy’s been.
And then your sweet cohabitant comes out and gives you the warmest kiss she has in a long time, suggests she has been a little too involved in other issues in her life, and that maybe you and she should make an early night of it this evening. She adds a wink when she makes the suggestion.
You die a little at that point. Welcome to the wonderful world of guilt.
Some ‘rotten bastards’ like you get away with an affair for a while. Some even involve themselves in multiple liaisons at the same time. That’s just asking for it because not only do you have to adroitly handle a suspicious wife, you also have to choreograph suspicious girlfriends. Ha — you thought being faithfully married was tough.
If the affair carries on for any time it gets increasingly complicated. Your wife, unless she’s complete naïf you liked to think she was, is bound to get wind of something being wrong. You’ve been shifty eyed; the phone has rung, and when she answers, whoever is on the other end hangs up; you’re wearing a lot of cologne; you’ve bought more stylish clothes; you seem perfectly satisfied with having a moribund sex life. Or, you’re more avid. This is either to assuage guilt or throw off suspicion, or because ‘ a bit of the other’ increases hormonal urges.
And then, there’s your lover. She eventually weary of being an also-ran. She never has your company when celebratory events like Christmas roll around. She buys you lovely gifts, but you leave them at her place. You abandon her if a family event comes up. She still takes her vacations with a girlfriend or her parents. She loves going to dinner with you, but is tired of having to drive 25 miles out of town to do so. She becomes exasperated when you look like you’re going to soil yourself every time you see somebody who possibly knows you and your wife as a couple, even if that person is a guy who once sold the two of you a family car seven years earlier.
So, maybe it’s time to end it. The allure of illicit sex wears off a bit when the ritual becomes routine and difficulties compound. The allure of illicit sex becomes even less enticing when she starts nagging you to make some serious decisions about where the two of you are going. In your mind, you never were going anywhere. It was a dalliance. A bit of fun.
You sonofabitch.
When it finally comes down to it, and since your wife or live-in partner hasn’t found out (as far as you can deduce), the girlfriend is going to be the one who gets hurt. She might not handle it well. She might even threaten blackmail. She probably won’t follow through because it will make her look like a tramp, and your wife might even buy your lame excuse that you were seduced by this ‘awful woman’, and carried through with what proved to be the ‘biggest mistake of my life.’
That’s the way you hope it will turn out. Sometimes it doesn’t.
And I still think so 