Bob Marley, Guiltiness
Bob had it right.
Guiltiness will rest on your conscience. But while Bob in his genius railed about the guilt of colonialists at their oppressive ways, what we’re talking about is plain old garden variety guilt at cheating on your spouse.
Truthfully, this post should have come first, because even more than getting the tools of the affair trade (the websites, your phone, computer) right, you had better get your mind right.
Sanitize Series # 2 – The Cell Phone
Sanitize Series # 3 – The Computer
If you’re planning on having an affair, do NOT discount the part that guilt will play in your life. Even if your spouse is completely abusive/neglectful with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and (you feel) totally deserves being cheated on there is still a measure of guilt that must be acknowledged. The successful cheater knows this and prepares for it as best he/she can.
The movies and television make it looks so easy, don’t they? Unhappy at home? Not getting the attention you want and deserve? Is your husband refusing to touch you because you just can’t lose that last ten pounds of baby weight? Does your wife get more excited at a Kardashians marathon than she ever does at seeing you? Then meet someone, have an affair. Like Ashley Madison says, “Life is Short. Have an Affair.” Easy peasy.
Right.
It’s not often they show the effects having an affair can have on your mind. Often, in the movies or on TV, the person having the affair meets the boyfriend/girlfriend in a classy bar or restaurant. They enjoy snappy banter over drinks or an expensive meal then smoothly transition to a nice hotel room where they passionately fall into one another’s arms, closing the door as the scene fades, leaving us to envision the hot clandestine sex.
No one shows the cheater headed toward the rendezvous heart nervous and scared, trying to forget their vows and wondering how it all came to this. You almost never see a cheater psyching himself up so the equipment will work before he meets up with his new girlfriend. When did they ever show a cheating wife kissing her kids as they leave for school that morning knowing in only a few hours she will be doing things to a stranger with that same mouth? No one explains to you that you have to almost become another person in order to go through with it.
Life is short. Have an affair. If only it were that easy.
You think you want to have an affair, but are you REALLY sure? Did you think this through? The lure of hot on-the-side sex is powerful and the thought of someone touching you and paying you some attention even more so, but there are a few things to be considered before you take that step.
The Affair
You’ve decided to have an affair, you’ve logged on to a hook-up site and spent some time assessing your options and lo and behold you hit pay dirt and found someone. They seem cool and sane; you’ve spent some time instant messaging which progressed to email which progressed to some hot phone conversations.
AFF, Plenty of Fish, Ashley Madison, Oh My!
Nice.
So you’ve made a date to hook up and you think it’s going to be easy. Just like the movies. A nice meal, a drink or two then you’ll retire to a room and have the kind of hot monkey sex that you used to have with your spouse but has long gone the way of the Dodo.
Maybe.
But probably not.
Oh, no doubt you’re excited. Your heart beats a mile a minute as the day drags on filled with meetings and TPS reports. Even your boss’s psychotic ranting and mood changes don’t bother you today, you’re going to get some later, yes you are! Then your glance at the picture of your family on your desk and you remember that you told them that you have to work late, clients in from Japan, you know how they like to party. Don’t wait up. And Johnny tell Coach Kleats I won’t make it today but I’ll be there next week for sure and remember what I told you, keep your eye on that ball. You think about the bullshit excuse you gave your husband about hanging out with the girls from work, you’ll be home late but dinner is in the fridge and make sure the kids get their homework done early and little Johnny doesn’t stay up all evening playing Call of Duty. Then you leave the house trying hard not to think about the fact that you lied so smoothly and so. Damn. Easily.
You go through stages. You’re happy you’re going to hook up later. He/she is awesome. Beautiful, hot, sexy, and they have the added quality of knowing and understanding just what you’re going through. Why the hell shouldn’t you go out and have some fun? If your spouse was doing the right thing, why, you wouldn’t even be considering doing this. Yeah. To hell with that selfish asshole! I deserve this, you tell yourself. I deserve some happiness. Maybe you do. But soon five o’clock rolls around and you head to the bathroom and touch up your hair and/or makeup. You splash on just a touch of perfume or cologne. You make sure your breath is icy fresh and you take a deep breath and look in the mirror and wonder what the hell you’re doing, and you consider, just for a moment, saying to hell with this and walking out the door to catch the 5:20 bus like you usually do.
But you don’t.
You give your hair one last look, you pop another breath mint and you grab your stuff and the directions to the restaurant and you walk out the door.
An hour or so later you’re at a Friday’s or Chili’s out on Route Zero, far from anywhere where anyone would recognize either of you. You sit in the car, trying to see if your date (damn, when’s the last time you used that word) got there before you and as you’re leaving the car you see him/her. His hair might be a little thinner than you imaged or she might have a couple of more pounds on her then you thought but essentially they are the same. Your pulse begins to race again and you think, it’s not too late. You could pull out of the parking lot now and go home. You can delete your Adult Friend Finder profile, lose their email address and go on with your life.
You almost do, but again, you don’t. You take a deep breath, get out of the car and walk, smiling, into the chain restaurant and toward your affair.
It’s not easy, the affair, and if you think it is then you’re fooling yourself. Next time we’ll talk about affair sex and how it might not be all it’s cracked up to be.
Until then, if you can’t be faithful, be careful.
TMC
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