Oil and water.
I’ve said it before – married and single prowlers shouldn’t mix. Well, not in the bedroom, anyway. Why? Because there’s not an equal distribution of risk. The married person has a lot more to lose than the single one. If the single one gets angry or feels slighted, he (or she) has some powerful leverage.
You think that would never be a problem, but you’re wrong. Sometimes it’s not the person having the affair who causes the problem. Fairly recently, one of T’s ex-girlfriends found out about us and was jealous and threatened to out us to Hubby. My first thought was, “Holy shit!” There was nothing I could do about it, and there was really nothing T could do about it, either, without making it worse, so I had to let it go and accept that it would work out however it was going to work out. It was very uncomfortable. It still is.
Drunken jealous bitches are like foul balls hitting you when you’re not looking. You think, “Really? Where did you come from? Don’t you have anything better to do?” No, they don’t. Jealousy is an irrational emotion. Jealous people don’t think things through. I have a friend who has his own horror story about the ex-husband of a single/divorced gal. Compromising documents were sent to his wife. It was awful.
Believe it or not, the uneven level of risk issue or the crazy ex-girlfriend or ex-husband issue isn’t the biggest pitfall of this kind of mixed relationship. The biggest problem is a long term one.
I’ll assume that the married partner wants to stay married. That’s usually the way it is when married people prowl. If we wanted to leave the marriage, we would, but we don’t…for whatever reason. Sometimes it’s because of the kids. Sometimes it’s because our spouse is ill or old. Sometimes it’s because we’ve been married forever and we really love our spouse but we’re dying on the vine because of a lack of sex.
The single partner in the prowling relationship thinks s/he doesn’t want a committed relationship so hooking up with a married person is a perfect option. The problem is that people change over time. This is the main thing that happened between T and me. After being divorced for over four years, he was ready to find a real life partner, not just a sex buddy who visited once a week. There was more to the relationship than just sex, but you know what I mean.
So, over time, he starts to want more than I can give. Now what? Hearts are broken.
And it all could have been avoided if I’d held to my own rule, “No single guys.” Though if I had, I would have missed out on T and I don’t regret being with him. He has been a bright spot in my life for four years. He was, that is. (I gotta get used to using the past tense. That’s going to take some work because part of me still doesn’t want to believe it’s over.)
I have told people for the last decade, “The prowling rules are there for a reason. Respect them. Follow them. Make them your own.” And then I broke a big one.
Not again.
No single guys.
Probably no single guys.
I guess it depends on the guy…..
Uh oh.
The post Why Married and Single Shouldn’t Mix (in Affairs) appeared first on Prowling with Kat.
