There were a lot of interesting comments on this first post so I’m following up…
“So did you confront him?” I asked regarding my friend’s cheating husband.
“No. No I did not. I thought about it but then I thought why should I do that?”
I could think of a lot of reasons but it was obvious she had her own thought process so I just listened.
“I’m not going to do that. I won’t do that for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s their problem not mine. They are the ones doing what they are not supposed to do so let them figure it out. Let them figure out how they’re going to tell me, because everyone else has. Or nearly everyone else. Do you know how many people have told me what they’re up to?”
“How many?”
“Let’s see,” she said as if she were counting in her head. “Elsa, I can’t even tell you. Who hasn’t told me is more like it? Six or eight different people have told me and everyone knows. The rest of them are trying to spare me or get up the nerve to tell me, I don’t know which. But I do know it is not my soul that’s in trouble here. I haven’t done anything to either one of them. They’re the ones who are doing something so they’re the ones who are going to have to search themselves and find a way to tell me… or not. It really doesn’t matter what they do because I already know what’s going on. What do I care what they do or when they do it? I don’t. No, this is up to them and I wouldn’t want to be either one of them because one of them is cheating on his wife, the other is cheating with the husband of one of the women in her circle. I wouldn’t want that on my shoulders, would you?”
“No.”
“Well there you go. So no. I’m not going to say anything. I’m going to worry about my own soul and I haven’t betrayed my sister. I haven’t betrayed my spouse. So as far as I can see, I’m not the one with a problem. But enough about them. How are you doing?”
I couldn’t argue her logic. You?
I still think she’s doing herself a disservice. You don’t marry someone and then ignore it when they cheat on you unless you really do not give a shit. In that case, why the hell get married at all? I would still kick both their asses. And then grieve for a very, very long time. I’m the kind of person that needs answers and needs them now, not tomorrow, not when the other person feels like it. Once someone has done something wrong or a betrayal of someone else, I think they pretty much give up their right to be respected and let live life their way, in the context of me of course. If any of that makes sense.
I need the truth, even when after hearing it I wish I hadn’t because I can’t think of a bigger hurt than being betrayed and lied to on top of it. I just can’t. It’s like a shot in the heart to me.
Regardless of my personal feelings, if it works for her, so be it. But I wonder if she is just in denial, maybe a little bit, and as long as they don’t know she knows, it’s like it isn’t real?
her attitude is so refreshing.
I would agree with her IF she weren’t involved in the situation; like if she were looking at from the outside. But it’s HER husband and HER alleged friend. When people do us wrong, it is up to us to let them know that they’ve overstepped the line. Yes, they have to live with themselves and they’re the ones who are doing wrong but we actually have a responsibility to tell people when they’ve wronged us–even if we aren’t hurt or not deeply affected. Somebody steals $1 from me? I can live without the dollar but that thief still has to know that it is not okay to steal.
When someone commits a wrong and you don’t confront him/her, s/he gets the idea that it’s okay to do this. And guess what? S/he is going to do it again to someone else. We might be okay with being hurt ourselves but do we really want the next person in line to be hurt?
I’m with Saggal once again. I think that your friend is coming up with a convoluted way of being “noble” so that she can perpetuate her state of denial. In this case, the state of denial is not about fidelity but about “sisterhood” and loyalty. She is bound to those ideas very much instead of looking at the reality that “sisterhood” goes both ways; it’s not just that she owes other women her loyalty but that women who are close to her owe her the honor of acting ethically as well. And the same applies to her husband, what the hell.
I can understand where your friend comes from, Elsa. It is extremely painful for me to confront others as well and I’ve used the same logic but I was wrong in the past. It did not serve me, the wrongdoer or the next person in line.
On the one hand, I like her attitude, in a way.
On the other hand, I strongly suspect “she’s just not that into him.”
She’s loving every minute of this game. It is totally serving her. Everybody’s ‘happy’. The three of them, plus that whole circle of ‘sisters’… they’re all loving this, although of course not a one would admit it.
To each their own. Me, I steer clear of such people — the whole lot of them.
But hey, it’s not my life. It’s theirs. Whatever turns their crank.
It’s all so just like grade school (yes: pre-puberty, little girls), you know, “no boys allowed” clubs (boys? ick!) with secret rituals, etc. And all the drama and jealousies.
Rather pathetic in grown-ups.
How do you think it’s serving her, Strawberry? I have my own opinion, as I stated above but I’m curious about yours.
😀 😀 😀 That is a good point! I think the same, that is working for everyone. However I don’t think they’re happy. I think she is betraying herself, betraying her inclinations and more deep wishes. Shes is bringing a poor image of a women, and it is supposed that is about a group to encourage and support women? women rights?
Marly,
1) Just the overall ‘it’s all feeding the little girl game she wants to play’ (as per above).
2) As I explained in my comments at the other related thread, ‘being faithful’ is not simply a matter of genitals. The other two may be being ‘genitally (and emotionally, yes) unfaithful’. But SHE is being equally unfaithful to her husband (see other thread). The pot cannot call the kettle black, and, at some level, **she knows this**.
3) She doesn’t like the guy (or any guy). Who knows why she got together with him in the first place, I don’t know her story and it doesn’t matter anyway. The point is, here she is ~today~, and if this affair destroys her relationship and she ‘loses’ him in the process, and can point the finger at him and the ‘sister’, that a) rids her of him and b) leaves ~her~ looking shiny and guiltless. (But there is no doubt ambivalence here. If she does lose him, the game is over. She’ll need to find another man to replace this one in her men-suck charade.)
4) One reason for not confronting her man in particular is clearly to avoid the ‘you don’t give a damn about sex with me anyway’ (or ‘about me, period’) conversation with him. (That doesn’t make cheating right. That’s not my point here. I’m just saying, again, she’s trying to come across as Ms Innocent here. She’s not.) (Before anybody jumps on me, let me repeat: CHEATING IS NEVER RIGHT. NO MATTER WHO DONE OR NOT DONE WHAT.) But she is avoiding a conversation that clearly needs to be had. About her feelings in general for this man (not just the sex part.)
5) In general, this whole thing ‘proves’ her point. Men are [insert all the bad things she believes men are].
6) About her so-called sister’s part in all this? I’m not sure. Just the drama. Adds to the drama. I think she loves the drama. She comes across like she needs to be the center of attention too. Right now, she is. She’s in the spotlight in that circle. Her ego’s loving it, especially since (she thinks) she’s coming across as the ‘injured party’. Injured party my ass.
Anyway… this just off the top of my head.
And coming from someone (me) who has no room in her life for cheating. But this whole story to me is NOT about the cheating, as reprehensible as cheating is. This story is about something else altogether. It’s not about the two seemingly unfaithful ones, but about ***her own*** unfaithfulness.
This is a classic textbook example of her projecting her shadow onto him (and the ‘sister’). She needs to take a good long deep look at **herself**.
But she is not ready to do that. Hence, this whole thing, at the moment is ‘fun’ for her and keeps her feeling ‘safe’ in her seeming ‘innocence’.
To all those who say you’d kick him out in a heartbeat, I understand.
But see why she’s not doing it? Because she’d just have to go find another man to play in her game.
She needs this man to be in her life. She needs a man to complain about. (See Elsa’s original post. The woman has *admitted* as much.)
I think strawberry fields has it nailed!
I see three people getting a payoff for their actions/inactions. As long as they are getting a payoff they will not change. Why should they?
Off-topic for a minute if I may… I’m getting a kick out of reading those Google ads that now pop up in the top right corner!!! Some of them are a riot (as in, ‘pathetic’).
The new way to deliver spam. I hate it. (Nothing personal to you. I realize everybody’s got these now.) (Had them on my site. Took them down.)
No, I wouldn’t argue her logic at all! It makes sense for someone who:
a) has no use for a husband at all
b) has no use for sex at all
c) thinks: this has nothing to do with me
I wouldn’t argue her logic at all, and frankly, she appears to not give two shits about her husband!
And so, I call coward.
Then again, I am suspicious of her highly Aquarian approach to her relationship (“People do as they do independant of me”).
Not calling down Aquarians, I love them (my Uranus on my MC especially loves them), but generally their approach to relationships are too radical for my Taurus/Capricorn/Sag combo.
Oh, and WHAT google ads? I don’t get them at all
what is this?
a women doesn’t like her husband looking at porn – she gets reemed.
another woman does not react / overreact to her husband’s affair and she gets reemed as well.
wtf?
judge anyone lately?
elsa, i like your friend.
In the top right corner of this site, kash.
They are context-sensitive, so depending on what Elsa is currently blogging about, the type of ad displayed changes.
I don’t believe that anyone is judging anyone, Sara.
In case you missed the question at the end of the post, Elsa asked:
“I couldn’t argue her logic. You?”
All I see are people discussing Elsa’s friend’s logic! Participating in a dialogue, answering the question Elsa asked.
Oh, and I see what you’re talking about now, SF. I see now that I can also cruise for a Russian wife as I mull over these posts.
I appreciate your insight. You write well and are very lucid and I admire that.
I’m with sara. What do we know about how this relationship (with her man)serves her? What do we know about the way they love each other? She sounds like she knows perfectly well what she’s doing. And what do you mean ‘she needs a man to complain about’ or that it’s a man she doesn’t care about? Talking about logic – I don’t see where that comes from.
Amber, I think you missed Elsa’s other post, where this story all began: see here.
Kash, after I get me one of those 10,000 Russian women, I see I can have a low-cost GPS installed in her car to catch her in the act of cheating on me (talk about two wrongs making a right!) 🙂
I think that was beautifully written as well, Strawberry.
And, yes, Sara, she IS getting reamed and I’ll tell you why: Bc her lack of a stance is making it seem okay for her “sister” to treat a woman (her) shabbily. This “sister” is getting the wrong idea about sisterhood, namely: I can betray my good friend and bc of her feelings of loyalty to the sisterhood, she won’t say a thing. That’s a very bad lesson in sisterhood.
Furthermore, she is teaching her spouse that it is okay to abuse her good nature and betray her with not just anybody but with someone she’s close to (bc let’s not overlook that he’s getting away with something as well). Another bad lesson. She’s enabling these two and that ain’t cool.
I’m not arguing with her forbearance or her lack of passion or her detachment. In fact, I think in that regard, I really admire her. I’m arguing against using the dispassion as an excuse to let two people get away with something.
Well, it certainly is possible that I am reading your friend wrong. After all I’m making judgements and assumptions based on a couple of sentences you wrote – interpreting the “her husband is an afterthought” and “she’s not very interested in sex” and “number one passion are female sisters from all over the world” as saying that she views her male partner as inferior and treats him a bit shabbily as it sounded like he takes second place in her affections. If that’s not how it is, then the fault is mine for misinterpreting.
But if that is how it is, then I strongly disagree with this idea that she is blameless. I think if you do treat your partner as being inferior and secondary then that is a betrayal of marriage and of him. Infidelity is not just who you shag. Infidelity is also about who you attach your affections to, who you nurture your intimacy with. And as far as I’m concerned if she’s primarily attached to her sisters then she is not honouring him. And she may not in any way have injured her sister, but I think she has injured and betrayed her husband with her behaviour.
I also think that people can get into trouble living in a non-traditional marriage and then expecting the marriage to follow traditional rules – unless of course those rules have been discussed and agreed to.
I can also see the point in what Strawberry Fields is saying about where her husband’s behaviour may in a perverse way be rewarding by secretly confirming the beliefs she has about men.
I think it’s easy to get sucked into a blame mentality and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I prefer to think in terms of responsibility, and the point I’m making is that I think she herself shares one third of the responsibility for creating the situation, and one half of the responsibility for what’s gone wrong in the marriage – so in that sense I think her logic of ‘I ain’t done nothing wrong’ is fundamentally flawed in this situation.
Thanks everyone. But many of you have presented equally well articulated opinions, so I say let’s have a round of applause for all! 🙂
It’s great to participate in, and ~learn from~, ‘conversations’ such as these. Thank you *Elsa for providing the forum.
I think everybody benefits from being exposed to the various perspectives of all the commenters (on top of Elsa’s own point of view). We are all wired differently and have each had different life experiences.
Myself, I always love to have my horizons expanded (without having to ~live~ all these dramas!! :-P). So thank you to all who take the time to comment here at Elsa’s place with cogent opinions. You add value to my visits here.
The reason that I feel so passionate about this is that it touches on a problem that I have. I have a huge problem with being too compassionate when people misbehave. It has happened to me in the past, that someone has stolen, say, $50 from me and I actually said to myself: Hey, whatever, it’s only $50. I can live without it. If he steals it, he needs it more than I do. It’s on his conscience, etc.
And I’ve done that with much worse behavior as well. In fact, this has been a recurring theme in my life.
The thing is: I think that we as women are under a lot of pressure to “be nice” and to “be good” and a lot of times we’re pressured into letting people off the hook. We want to be “nice” so we don’t want to bring up something that is going to make the other person feel bad–even if the other person SHOULD feel bad bc what they’ve done is plain wrong! Unfortunately, sometimes the only we can learn is through discomfort: if you get too close to the oven and you get burned, man, you ain’t never going near that oven without mitts, are you? YOu’ll never forget.
When we protect someone from the consequences of cheating or boozing or whatever, we’re taking away that person’s Saturn and everyone has Saturn in the chart for a reason. It’s what we need to work hard on so that we can reap the rewards.
And sometimes we convince ourselves that the “noble” thing to do is not to feel bad and to transcend our suffering.
Even though Elsa’s friend is not suffering, she does sound as if she is a little stuck with the need to be the “noble” one. Witness her emphasis on saying that it’s not her soul that is in trouble.
The husband and the “sister” must have an idea that they’re doing something wrong or they wouldn’t be hiding it from the lady.
Anyway, the reason that I feel passionate about this is that I don’t think that women need any more of this propaganda. It turns us into enablers. It makes us repress our anger and sometimes anger is useful bc it discourages someone from crossing our boundaries. When we repress anger, that ain’t disappearing; it’s apt to pop up in all kinds of manipulative, undercover ways. So that’s why I’m reacting so strongly to this, Elsa, even though your friend is not suffering. But the fact that she told you also shows you something, don’t it? What do you think it shows?
I have a huge problem with being too compassionate when people misbehave.
Marly, I hear you and agree with you. I have the same problem. I just wrote about it somewhere else night before last.
I’m a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.
I’m in the middle of yet another ‘episode’ in my life at the moment where someone is ‘doing me wrong’ and I am having to face the fact that I need to *not* handle it ‘the Stockholm way’ this time.
And yes, I do see ~my~ part in this ‘episode’ too, as Nia mentioned earlier.
So. I have to fix ~my~ end of the problem AND I have to address the other person’s wrongdoing too.
I’m having a harder time with the latter. (I tend to just walk away, period. Not good, for the reasons you have rightly pointed out.)
Stockholm Syndrome is a perfect way of describing it. I never thought of it that way before but that’s exactly what it’s like.
“I have to fix ~my~ end of the problem AND I have to address the other person’s wrongdoing too”
This is incredibly hard for me as well. As soon as I see the other person feeling discomfort, I feel like I have to minimize it by apologizing or by saying how something is my fault or whatever. But confronting the other person and withstanding his/her discomfort IS one of the ways of fixing the problem. Often I blame myself for the other person’s wrongdoing. In this way I’m misusing my Saturn: I’m taking responsibility for someone else’s misdemeanors (ie, “if I weren’t so difficult, he wouldn’t have done that”, etc.) And I’m avoiding my real Saturn lesson which is: Taking responsibility for being complicit in my own victimization.
All very interesting comments and valuable…thanks for food for thought.
I have to add, though, if eight or so people have told this woman that her husband and friend are having an affair, that is NOT something being conducted in secret.
i understand what your friend is saying, but it makes me kind of sad. i mean, what’s left now? is she staying married to someone who is sleeping with somebody else? and staying friends with the “sister” who is sleeping with her husband?
while it’s their wrongdoing, it’s her marriage going up in smoke. if it doesn’t bother her, then ok. maybe it wasn’t all that important to her to begin with. sounds like maybe not.
if it were me, i’d be crashing, hard. but i adore my husband and very much love being married to him.
i hope it works out well for her.
I’ve been cheated on and can understand her unwillingness/refusal to be the one to voice the betrayal. Its not her doing, as she said. Although that does not mean she is not apart of it. Perhaps speaking up and confronting the lovers/betrayers will make clear, for her, her own complicity.
Not acting is an action, not speaking can say volumes.
On thing that struck me as funny in this story is the couple thought they were getting away with something illicit when in fact everyone and their brother knew what was going on and was talking a blue streak about it.
i’m re reading what i wrote and think that its bullshit.
I think she could be much better served emotionally if she entered a romantic relationship with another woman…the depth of her feelings is there, not with men.
Honestly, I thought the whole situation was funny. I liked the way she took the steaming pile of crap and moved it back where it belonged. Her thought process will stay with me awhile…many times I think we own things that don’t belong to us because we’re control freaks.
If she cared or was incensed that would be a different story, then it would fall upon her to defend what was hers. But he isn’t really hers in anything but name and on paper and she knows this, I think.
Elsa, I think that’s what makes it a good story – the tension between the supposed secrecy and the reality of everyone knowing, and the passivity of the woman being cheated upon, that results in everyone taking the action of telling her. I think her circle is probably having a hard time dealing with her passivity, never mind her husband and supposed girlfriend!
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Its like saying her husband and her best friend are having an affair (same idea), and she has absolutely no feelings about it. Yeah….right!
I can see why her and her husband have no real relationship. It seems she refuses to feel her feelings, which is necessary for true intimacy.
She’s scared to death of true intimacy apparently.
The first thing that struck me was that perhaps she is actually controlling the situation by saying nothing. Making them squirm. Because if everyone knows, they probably know everyone knows, and are waiting for her to confront them. But by not confronting them, in a strange way she keeps control, do you see? By not playing the game, by continually passing the ball back every time it’s passed to her, she maintains an integrity of sorts. And I don’t even know how conscious it is with her. She certainly seems much more mentally based than emotionally based. Lots of air? The detachment reeks of Aquarius to me. I find it fascinating, personally.
Edit: I didn’t mean that she is controlling the situation – I meant more that she is IN control of the situation.
opal, you are right, she was like that and also Gemini so she was keeping it interesting and gossipy. 🙂
Gem / 12th house Cancer Moon, Cancer rising
Interesting!
That sounds cool, but I wouldn’t want this man back after watching him cheating with my friend (unless the game turns me on), would you?
And I wouldn’t want the “friend” back either, of course…
i like her ability to step back and let them deal with their own mess. though, of course, i do wonder how it turned out.
It is rather fascinating. How much of it is Scorpio/Pluto energy…..the control aspect of things, perhaps plotting and planning something revengeful secretly. And making them squirm. And how much is Aquarian, just a complete detachment. Who knows really.
Well, the thicken the plot, this gal grew up in a commune and I mean an actual commune where she has 3 mothers and 2 fathers and there we 17 kids… 13 sisters. Due this, all kinds of things.
For example, she noticed her sister’s husbands (and her own) always wanted to be alone with their wife but the sisters, by nature, would invite one of their sisters and another sister and another sister…
I was considered a sister as well – we had a similar look and there we so many sisters you must be another one, people figured.
Anyway, they did some swapping around when she was a kid for sure so this is another element. They know who their birth mother(s) are but all the sister definitely consider all three women their mother and they still live together btw.
Yep, her family bought a home that Hugh Hefner used to own – his Rockies Playboy Club and that is where she grew up. They bought it in the 60’s and still own it. I have been there for Christmas – big shindig and my daughter used to spend weekends there all the time… she has Jupiter trine a 9th house Moon so everywhere she went she found mothers (foriegn).
Ah, it all makes more sense now. If she grew up with the experience of non-attachment to a single spouse/parent then she can hardly be expected to dance to that kind of tune.
yes, makes sense. community trumps individual for her