In an Affair, Anything Less than One Hundred Percent is Zero.
Don't be fooled.
Quick recap for those new to the story:
Nine years ago I got dumped. The culprit was a married guy I had always admired, and knew for seventeen years prior to that … long enough to hear him complain about his marriage many times. After many personal crises, we had a four-month emotional affair, during which he moved out and attempted divorce.
His entire family threatened never to speak to him again if he left his wife, hence the dumpage.
Pretty typical scenario, I’m given to understand.
I just heard from the guy again.
When the infidelity community on Medium hears news like that, there’s always a flutter. Will someone finally get a Happily Ever After this time??
I’m a student astrologer, so I know: It’s now or never. We had three windows of opportunity; this is the last one for this lifetime.
I already know what this is: It’s the final breakup-and-closure conversation.
How do I know? This line, written when I asked how his marriage is, speaks pretty loudly to me:
Things are pretty much the same, but I’m somewhat sanguine about it. It’s what it is.
Some have said: He’s hanging around because he really misses you.
It’s a reasonable suspicion. However, even if true, it means nothing. This person has elected to present himself as someone who’s accepted the status quo in his marriage.
If that’s what he’s going to present to me, that is what I will buy and respond to. Who cares about subtext?
Subtext does not run the show. If a person states they will continue to stay married, best believe they will continue to stay married. Worse, the more you try to argue with them, the more they will plant their two front feet like a mule and become even more determined to stay married.
The internet is rife with stories about married men who said they would leave and never did. So, when confronted with one who is telling you he’s staying, believe it. He’s staying.
The sad news about the third-party relationship is there’s so much family, social, and financial pressure to stay married, there’s simply no way to place any credence in any behavior other than a consistent, strong position and direction that says, “I am leaving my marriage.”
Anyone without the balls to behave consistently in this manner is going to ply you with lies and palaver, promises and promises … and fall victim to the family, social, and financial pressure. (Again.)
The Pressure To Stay Married is such that anything but the most robust determination to stand up to it WILL FAIL.
Even people who sound pretty consistent can and do up and rush back to the marriage — even when they divorced their spouse years ago! (Case in point: Martha Manning, Ph.D., who writes on Medium.) I also had a cousin this happened to.
In any case, this guy is and always has been, really married to his daughter. I don’t mean that in any squeamish way; it’s just that his grown daughter is the one who really calls the shots in his life. His daughter picked out his glasses; his daughter’s threat never to speak to him again really swung the vote nine years ago; his daughter wants the entire extended family to leave the country if Dump wins the election — and he’s seriously considering it.
I wouldn’t stand a chance next to her even if he did actually pine away for me all these nine years. I knew this years ago when he told us his daughter, not his wife, was the one getting up at 5:30am and accompanying him to the gym. She’s the real woman in his life.
All this is yet another big strike against what every mistress soon comes to suspect: If the guy isn’t consistently following through — not only saying he’s going to tell her but actually telling his wife he wants out … not only moving out but actually moving out … not only going to the divorce attorney but actually filing … it’s all an ephemeral smoke screen, gone in a puff of reality.
And a guy who will write something like: Things are pretty much the same, but I’m somewhat sanguine about it. It’s what it is will never do any of those things.
I’m making this the final goodbye. If I’m reading Things are pretty much the same, but I’m somewhat sanguine about it. It’s what it is, then that is what I will respond to.
I’m not going to be that idiot who baits and argues. When I see a line like that, I respond with a line like this: I’m glad to hear that you are happy now and that you have peace in your life. I am happy now and I have peace in my life, too. (Whether I believe that’s really the case or not.)
And I prepare not to have too many more conversations with this person. If I do, I’m taking the place of the emotional confidante the wife is supposed to be.
If you’re not going to leave your wife, you don’t get to recruit someone else. That person only gets used and dumped, and that’s not going to be me.
It’s nice to know what happened in his life the past seven years. Most people who get abruptly broken up with never hear from the person again, never find out what happened, never know why. I’ve been blessed not to be in that situation, at least.
But I know better than to think I can win over this person, or even that I should want to. The past nine years have taught me how to be completely self-sufficient, needing very little of anything and certainly nothing from other people.
Once you’ve achieved that hard-won self-reliance, why would you give it up? Especially at almost sixty, with a hardscrabble old age and a lonely nursing home life up ahead? Anything you accept into your life, you will one day lose, and even if this tenuous thread wasn’t so tenuous … when you’re going on sixty, everything is tenuous, anyway.
So, I’m treating this as the final farewell. I am alone, and I am moving on without him. Or rather, I’m staying put, and he’s moving on without me.
I don’t care. Old age and death are about severing all attachments anyway, and I had precious few to begin with.
Once you’re comfortable with that, breaking your own stability and self-reliance for a line as weak as Things are pretty much the same, but I’m somewhat sanguine about it. It’s what it is, is unutterably stupid.
So many ex-mistresses hear from the guy again and their mind starts playing this song, when what we should be hearing is this one.
Because a guy who still won’t leave his wife, is a guy who still won’t leave his wife.
Which I would do well to remember, because, if these conversations go on … how long before he asks if I want to meet for lunch? Which is how this all started almost ten years ago!