Dear Emily,
I lived the life of a mistress for over 15 years until my lover married me after his wife died two years ago. I was his secretary then, and continued to work for him for another two years until I got pregnant.
I retired, and he gave me a house of my own. He gave me everything I wanted—travel, jewelry, credit cards—because he was crazy about me. He is 20 years my senior, but he looks very virile and young. I thought I had won the lottery when I finally affixed his name to mine.
Now that we are entering our third year of marriage, I find out he is again having an affair and behaving like a teenager in heat! I am so depressed and I don’t know what to do.
Former Mistress
Not to rub salt on your wound, but this turn of events only shows that what goes round, comes round. What’s more, you unwittingly created a vacancy for his next mistress when you married him!
He clearly is a serial lover, and can’t bear not to have anyone on the side. What made you think he wouldn’t do it to you, when he obviously was unfaithful to his wife for 15 years?
You know why he was crazy about you then? Because he knew that at the end of the day, he could go back to wifey at home. He saw you only under the best and most relaxed circumstances—the exciting momentariness of it was so seductively appealing to him! A wife meant drudgery and everything unexciting connected with marriage. You were a forbidden fruit, and the hide-and-seek scenario pumped up his adrenaline.
What’s more, he probably saw his old self in the image of his wife, and couldn’t accept aging and what went with it. Some men really shouldn’t be married at all!
And guess where you are now? On the other side of the fence, and miserable! It probably wasn’t such a big deal winning your “lotto” after all. Money and prestige don’t mean a thing now, considering the pain you’re feeling.
Since it’s too late to change the present set-up, what do you plan to do?
Get out of this rut because you’re digging a hole to nowhere. If your lothario of a husband keeps on with his abhorrent ways and keeps whoever becomes his wife unhappy, that’s his problem. Instead, have a parallel life and do yourself a favor.
Do something fulfilling to veer your attention away from him and his dirty tricks. Go back to school, study a craft. Become that productive person you can be proud of. You might even attract him again by improving yourself without his knowledge.
Like it or not, fate truly lashes out valuable lessons in life in exactly the same proportion—nothing less, nothing more. Amen.
E-mail emarcelo@inquirer. com.ph or emarcelo629 @gmail.com, subject: Lifestyle.