Affairs of the Heart

Well, everyone I know with young kids is in the same boat. We have all at some point wondered if we are married to the right man, if the tedium is really worth it, or whether we should just go out and have an affair. Or leave. Haven’t we?

Like my friend Tamara, who has a three year old and a one year old. She used to be a sex crazed woman who went down on her husband all the time, even while he was, I don’t know, doing the washing up. And then she had the kids and now she has zero interest in sex. And naturally, her husband is getting crankier and crankier, because she has no interest in putting out. And she is just about holding it together, because the little one gets up at 5.30 every day of the week. So in the evening, all she wants to do is sleep. But because he was getting really pissed off, she realized something had to give. She had to put out to save her marriage, so she bought this bra from Victoria’s Secrets with all these gel pads and a very complicated system of rubber straps, which were guaranteed to make even the smallest breasts look like cantaloupes, apparently. She’d gone down to an A since she stopped breast feeding, so she felt in dire need of an uplift.

A few nights ago, she gets home and starts dancing around provocatively in front of her husband and swings this bra in front of his face (she doesn’t have it on yet). And he says,

“Wow, that’s a lot of padding!”

Which, as you can imagine, didn’t exactly make her feel like a femme fatale.

Still she’s determined to have sex, and giving him a saucy wink says, “Do you fancy putting it on me?”

And he gets all defensive and says, “What? You’re going to make me do DIY at nine at night?” He felt under attack. He felt like it was going to take half an hour to get the damn thing on, and for what? To see some artificially inflated version of his wife’s breasts, when all he really wanted was sex. And when he’d got the damn bra on, he’d probably have to spend another half hour getting the damn thing off. It all seemed like a lot of work when all he wanted was to caress his wife’s saggy naked breasts.

In any case, the erotic charge left the room like air going out of a balloon. So, she still hasn’t had sex with her husband, and they still bite each other’s heads off about the slightest thing. Still, maybe things will look up for them eventually.

Then there’s the people I know who have had affairs. The affairs haven’t really helped very much. The only positive impact they've had is in alerting the spouse that they've been neglecting their wife. But it might be easier just to talk to your husband, I reckon, instead of getting yourself embroiled.

Sure, I’ve thought about it. I’ve more than thought about it. Sometimes when I’m low they seem like the most wonderful quick fix solution to everything. But at the end of the day, affairs are narcissistic. One wants to be desired. One wants the attention from an attractive man. The sexual gratification. And suppose one gets it? Suppose by some miracle, the reality of the crazy sex and the passionate snatched moments, suppose it ends up being worth it? There’s still the question of fallout when your spouse finds out. And somehow or other it will impact the marriage, and you'll never be able to turn the clock back.

Affairs are selfish, simple as that. Even those affairs that occur in an open marriage. You are saying, “He gives me something you can’t. And I want it. And I’m going to take it.” It’s kind of immature at the end of the day.

I almost had an affair a few times. But I could never follow through, which means, I suppose, that I’m basically monogamous. Or maybe all those almost affairs finally made me realize that I loved my husband more than I thought I did. But maybe most of all it made me realize that marriage is hard work. And you have to work at it, especially in bleak times when you are no longer communicating.

And so I say to you my friends, by all means have an affair…as long as it is in your head and not in your bed.



And on a lighter note, here’s a cheery Christmas picture of me to perk you up. Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you for visiting my blog this past year. I love getting all your comments and look forward to many mutually satisfying blogging moments in 2007.