How Women Can Avoid The “Mid-Life Crisis” Affair
I tend to write with tongue in cheek – or so I am told -- but this subject, which has crept into my consciousness for over the past two or three years, involves tongues but far deeper issues as well. These would be self-esteem, self-consciousness, self-involvement, and occasionally guilt. The kids serve up the guilt in most of the womens’ minds; without it, most state without regret that “guilt” has nothing to do with it.
I know this is what they call “Mother-In-Law Research” in marketing and advertising but as far as I know (or as you may conclude, I am simply, coyly, “refusing to say” here in print -- on this web page) that I am one, and one alone, out of fourteen married women slightly over forty and some floating towards fifty who is NOT having an extramarital dalliance. Conversations over caramel mocha lattes, “you’re breaking up” cell phones,many, many email confessions (might be a good subject for a longer article)and in between moments at the pharmacy, dinner with our husbands when they duck out to take a phone call (hmmm, who might be calling for a quick exchange of highly charged emotion) or to find a taxi.
For the record, men have confessed many things to me, but only one (and he’s a separate article) has coughed up the truth about his extramarital dalliance. More about him later.
Below, first, some statistics culled from my “over the hedge/Mother-In-Law” research”
- Women closer to fifty (could it be a different kind of biological clock ticking?) seemed to dive in quickly, without great weighing of options and risks, when the opportunity presented itself.
- Women closer to fifty (could it be menopause?) reported (to me) enormous sexual satisfaction from their lovers which had long ago disappeared with their husbands.
- Women closer to fifty were looking to “fall in love” and “change their lives” more than their younger counterparts.
- Women closer to forty wanted to be “desired.” Demands from their jobs and or kids made them isolated and overburdened and “these affairs,” admitted one, “are a great way to forget it all for a while.”
- An erotic, hypnotic distraction…was definitely what almost all of these women sought and received from their relationships that were “secret.”
- Most confided in a good friend or relative to whom they felt close, mostly due to the others’ observation that the woman in question was “looking particularly glowing” or seemed to lose weight. I am grateful that I was the good friend and relative to whom so many women chose to confide.
Now, since four divorces, one separation and a few women found themselves devastated when the “man-on-the-side” disappeared…I offer suggestions from the women themselves(!) on how to avoid “Love with the Proper Stranger.”
- Channel all the “temptations” – especially the “Men in Trees” and “Desperate Housewives” type of yearning – into your primary relationship. “I fell in love with my husband all over again, after sixteen years of marriage,” Solange told me in her broken English. He accused her of having an affair. They are European and living in California; Solange KNOWS Pierre is seeing other women. But she feels good about herself.
- Redirect all the impulses to “stray” through a greater commitment to work, kids and again, husband. Concentrate on what you have and run a mental checklist of what you stand to lose. Somehow, computers are left open “accidentally” and triple x-rated emails are discovered by spouses; a friend called a friend when she expected a man’s wife to exit the ladies’ room where they gathered at a local movie theatre. When a long, tall British version of the husband’s wife emerged, he introduced Kate as a “friend” of Sara and mine. Seconds later, the onlooker whipped out her cell phone and told Sara what she had seen. “I know. He goes to the movies to ‘clear his head’. The same could be exactly true of the opposite (female) sex and in Kate’s case, it was!
- Make a list of all the things you have always wanted to do: learn Italian or Mandarin Chinese, roll sushi, play tennis, start a book or movie club group, begin running, train for a marathon. Learn to masturbate. (Read books, watch videos!) Take up knitting. Tutor kids or prisoners. Get weekly manicures. These may seem poor substitutes for great orgasms, and let’s face it, but most guys who cheat with married women do not care about whether they get great orgasms.
- Do not meet anyone online at sites offering “intimate connections” or some variation on the theme. The men, the women have told me, are serial “men-on-the-side” and often simply change “Screen Profile names” and dump a woman after three weeks or three years and move onto a new “pool” of waiting, hungry-for-attention” women.
- Without admitting the impulse that has your mind wandering to look for extramarital love “in all the wrong places”, could you talk openly about wanting to spice up your love life, now that the kids are a little older, and so are you?
- Even better, for your birthday (his may be a tad obvious to the skeptical and sophisticated guy) tell your husband you want “a month of sex” or an “exotic weekend away.”
- If he doesn’t seem overwhelmed or motivated, rent some x-rated movies from Netflix.
- Buy lingerie and model it for him.
- If you’re overweight or out of shape, begin a big deal diet and exercise regime and announce that you want to improve your health and whisper “you want him to be turned on by you.”
- Ask him questions about work; watch football with him; be his friend.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll fall in love all over again. And he will too. If your results aren’t great, it’s time to reevaluate. But at least you’ll be doing it from a position of strength and insight and an itch that needs to be scratched. The sooner you figure out where you are in your marriage, the sooner you’ll be more “satisfied.”
And in the words of Mick Jagger, “you can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.”
Go get it, baby!
