Being the victim is easy. How you deal with your victimness isn’t. I have been watching American Horror Story (on Fox Wednesday nights) and it is freakin awesome and freaky. In this show, there are all sort of victims. But the victim line that has struck a chord most with me of late is that of Ben (played by the increasingly handsome Dylan McDermott). His wife had a miscarriage prior to the start of the show. And to deal with it, he has an affair with one of his students. His wife, Vivian, catches them in flagrante delicto. In order to get a new start on life they move from Boston to LA to a stunning house that has a past peppered with crazies and murders. Ben claims that, after the miscarriage, Vivian turned to her annoying little “I need to be kicked” dog for comfort. As Ben had no pets, he was forced to turned to his mistress. In effect it was Vivian’s fault that Ben cheated on her. Recent events compel me to say one word “BULLSHIT”
I recently met a man who is in a 20 +/- relationship with his “partner”. He is not faithful. (I didn’t realize this until about 18 Justin Beibers of time later. The partner part, not the faithful part.) Apparently the magic had gone out of their relationship… They love each other very much, but just no longer have sex, but they are intimate. Now, I know all about sex without intimacy and intimacy without sex, but love throws the entire equation off. If you have a 20 year “relationship” with someone, and you are not having sex with them, you are either family members, roommates, or in a pod. But the thing that got me was that my new friend was the victim. Here he was cheating on his “partner” with me, but he was the victim. Really ? His partner was at work, or cooking dinner or cleaning the toilet, or any number of things that wasn’t victimizing to anyone other than maybe a butterflied chicken breast. The sad thing is that I know others who have claimed the same thing. BELIEVE ME I GET THE TEMPTATION TO HAVE SEX. And fine! Go out and have all the sex that you want as long as you are not hurting yourself or anyone else IF you and your knudleing friend are single.. I know couples who have open relationships with all sorts of mutually agreed upon rules. Generally, I find that one of the partners in this relationship is less happy about the rules than the other, but that’s not the point. The point is, why have wife, partner, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend or any kind of relationship if you are going to cheat on them and then blame them for your behaviour ? Its called wanting your cake and eating it too.
I understand rationalization as well if not better than most. Its easier to accept unacceptable behaviour if you are forced into it by someone else’s actions or lack thereof. I have been “the other woman” in more than one situation. And I continued my clandestine arrangement, but pardon the expression, in the end, I wanted more. The other men in these relationships had convinced themselves they were the victim, and believed in so vehemently that they convinced me of it too. I ended the relationship because I woke I realized that it wasn’t going to work
But instead of whoring around town and the internet, why not put your energies towards either fixing the issues with your relationship, fixing yourself or ending it and find someone knew who wants to stoke your fires every night ?
Things that Rock:
American Horror Story
My Halloween Costume
Audra McDonald
No comments:
Post a Comment