I’ve decided I’m seeing Jeff this weekend

Dear Candace,

The heart wants what the heart wants; but you will destroy your family and break the vows you made to your wife if you proceed. Are you going to transition? Please slow down, and think before you leap.

Hugs,
Bettlyou

Candace,

We don’t know each other very well, and I don’t know that it’s my place to say anything, but you posted, which I think invites comments. I want to give you a few thoughts and hope you’ll reconsider, because once you take this off ramp from your marriage, I don’t think you’ll be able to get back on. I think that if anyone cares about you and also views marriage even close to the way I do, they would want to speak some truth into this situation.

To me, marriage is a sacred institution. It isn’t a contract between two people that says, “we’ll stay together as long as we’re both happy.” It doesn’t say, “I’m yours until I get a better offer because well, the heart wants what the heart wants.” Rather, it is a VOW in which we pledge to stay through good and bad, better and worse, happy and sad, sickness and health. My personal view is that the marriage vow is an institution divinely ordained and includes a vertical vow to God in addition to the horizontal vow to your spouse. Perhaps you don’t have the same vertical view of it that I do, but if you do, that’s even one more reason to put this plan on 🛑, not pause, but stop.

I think people forget that the idea of love — that intangible, unmeasurable, and unseeable but very real entity that drives so much of our lives — is NOT that it is a noun (a feeling) but rather a verb (a series of volitional actions). Loving someone — especially once that vow is made — means continuing to take actions that benefit them even when we ain’t “feeling it.”

And if I may be so bold to appeal to the masculine side of you — husbands are to love and live with our wives in an understanding way and sacrifice for them — putting their needs first before our own. It is one of the burdens but also joys of manhood. We are the initiators; they are the responders. It’s how it is designed to be. And in that role of initiation, it involves service. Unselfish service to them. When you show that unselfish service, most of the time they will respond back by wanting to serve you. It may not always be in the way you hope or prefer, but you will feel the love in how they try to act and serve you.

I’ve read some of your posts and the best I can remember is that you haven’t even given your wife a chance to deal with this part of you yet (not that it would matter for the rightness or wrongness of your plan). But gosh, give her a chance.

All of this is taking place behind her back. And it’s substantive. Many of us have hobbies or things we do that make us happy that we don’t necessarily discuss with our wives all the time (cross dressing anyone?), but this is an essential existential marital issue. You intend to be unfaithful. Doesn’t matter who it’s with; it’s unfaithful and dishonest in a core way and candidly, a nuclear missile for your wife and your marriage that she is currently blissfully unaware of.

I think most of us here “get it.” The allure of giving in so much to your feminine side that you’re dying to have it validated by positive masculine attention. I’ve said it elsewhere and am convinced it’s true. We see the opposite sexes and our differences most clearly when placed in juxtaposition to one another. The feminine shines brightest when it is standing next to the masculine and vice versa. All of us understand that in our cores. If there were no differences between men and women, masculine and feminine, we wouldn’t be here on this site because it wouldn’t exist. All of us feel this sometimes very urgent need to express the feminine part of ourselves, and I think anyone here who says they aren’t thrilled a little more my masculine affirmation of their femininity (it’s the ultimate test of our femininity) is probably not being honest.

So I think we all understand why you want to meet Jeff and try to look pretty for him and get the kind of attention from a masculine source that most women crave and most men crave to give a woman. But that is not a reason to do it. We live in a society where we say, “you do you” and “just follow your heart” WAY too much. But the world does not exist to revolve around any one of us. We all have duties, responsibilities and obligations — most of which we have taken on voluntarily in terms of employment, relationships, organizations, etc. That’s life. That’s what life is supposed to be where we serve and help each other and hope some of our needs and desires also get fulfilled along the way. What we can’t do is have a free for all where everyone just pursues whatever selfish angle exists out there to make themselves happy in every moment of their lives.

So Candace, please don’t do this. I know in my heart that you will mightily regret it later, even if it brings you some immediate gratification. And know this — I care about you enough to write all of this (which I pray you will take as intended — a loving admonishment), and quite candidly, I’m going to pray for you and pray for the opposite of what you want to happen.

Your sister,
Steph

I agree with Stephanie Scott - this can only go one way.  The end of your marriage.  If that's what you desire, continue on this path.  Is a thrill now worth consequences down the road?

Cheating on a spouse can never be hidden for long. And once found out it causes pain that effects not just your spouse and you but everyone around you. If you are not happy in your marriage then divorce before starting an affair. Make your own decisions but stop and understand all the consequences.

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You could not have said this better. My two cents, fantasy is fantasy and needs to stay there.

Candice,

PLEASE don’t do this.  Just a few weeks ago you mentioned how much you love your wife and don’t want to hurt her.  What you are doing now with Jeff and what you’re planning on doing, is the single most hurtful thing you could do to your wife.

I’m not going to tell you all the reasons you shouldn’t cheat, others have already done that far more elegantly than I could.  What I am going to tell you is that I’ve been on the other end of this equation and I’ve felt first-hand the pain of being cheated on.  I wouldn’t wish what I felt and what I went through on my worst enemy.  I know exactly how your wife is going to feel when (and yes it is when, not if) she finds out.  To inflict that kind of pain on someone you say you love is one of the most barbaric acts of selfishness.  I’d very much like to somehow be more gentle with you on this, but I just can’t - because I know how this is going to end for your wife, and even though I don’t know anything about her, I know she doesn’t deserve to be cheated on - not ever!  Take the higher road, PLEASE!

Marcellette

Words fail me!

I have a boyfriend and he spent last weekend with me. I am not cheating on my wife as she knows and I have her full support. Besides we still live in the same house it would be very difficult to hide it from her when she is there.

But there is no way I could ever do something as that without her knowledge and consent. That would be cheating and it's something I would never do to her.

Marcellette’s insight is typically brilliant and also born of personal experience. Please heed her advice.

I think some CDers try to justify this — especially liaisons with men - as “not really cheating because it’s not my ‘married guy self’ but rather my ‘unmarried girl self’ who is doing it. Wrong. Men who would never dream of cheating on their wives with another woman sometimes put on a dress, some panties and makeup and have no problem being with a man. They don’t think it’s cheating. It is!

Stephanie, I just couldn’t just leave a “thanks”
without telling you for taking the time to write a very thought provoking message not only for Candace but wakeup call for all of us Thank you Stephanie

I can't for the life of me  comprehend what your poor wife could have done , to warrant being treated like this .

Candace, yes, the heart may want what it wants.... but I am sorry to hear you are leaving your wife.  No, I'm not judging - I dont have that right - but I am sad.

Stevie