Look Out, Everybody!

It occurs to me that just about every “other woman” I’ve ever read on Medium or Substack who had anything substantial to say about affair-related issues, is not here anymore or is soon to be gone.

And all their stories, all their essays, all their voices are gone with them. We had Tullia, who had some of the most interesting, informative, and thought-provoking posting about affairs I have ever read … GONE.

Meaghan Ward … GONE.

Now Veronica Franco … GONE.

I just have to ask one question:

Cheaters who write honestly about their affairs are few and far between, and three of those who wrote honest and thought-provoking pieces about their affairs are also GONE.

Michael McDonagh told a compelling story about realizing his wife had intractable anger issues and was abusive to both him and their children. But he seems to have lost interest in Medium and left some four years ago.

Liam MacAdam, whose posts were so enlightening from the cheater’s perspective, never got the traction he wanted and left Medium five years ago. A real pity, because I learned a lot from his posts about why some men cheat. As far as I know, his Monogamish Marriage Blog is still active.

And I don’t know if anyone’s been around long enough to remember one J. Matthew Peabody, but he’s gone and no trace of his work remains.

Now all the “other women” are leaving, too. As an aside, while both cheaters and cheated-withs have to deal with their share of ugly comments online, and that tends to drive a lot of people out, the current exodus of the “other woman” is happening right now because the married men they cheated with found their work and read it and are upset.

(Say what? If you ask me, the writers in question have been treated abominably by these men. Now they’re quitting writing because the men are upset? Not only are these women repeating — yet again — a disturbing pattern of dancing attendance upon men who are treating them like cow dung, but I’m reminded of the following quote by Anne Lamott:)

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

— Anne Lamott, from her book Bird by Bird.

Moralizers who drone on and on about the betrayed spouse and the kids, demonize cheaters and affairs, and leave it at that.

A smattering of therapists who pretty much do the very same.

The cherry-pickers who fixate on one thing Esther Perel wrote and go, “See? See? Esther Perel says all cheaters are really happily married and still having sex with their wives anyway!” and proceed to position their heads directly in rectal defilade.

And angry and aggrieved betrayeds who also do the same.

Leaving people struggling in affairs who are trying to find information with the same, and only one, perspective. Again.

I am aware that the idea that cheating is bad, always bad, and only bad, and therefore no mitigating or explanatory aspects must ever be presented about this unfortunately common aspect of the human experience, is a very popular way of regarding the issue.

I could even go so far as to use the phrase, “politically correct,” here.

Far too many people espouse the view that any elucidation of the reasons people cheat is the same thing as “making excuses,” and since excuses must never be made, the only correct thing to say about cheating is that it hurts the spouse and children, therefore it’s bad. If one is to write about it at all, it has to be to slap people’s hands and say, “It’s bad. Don’t do it.”

However, I would submit that if you are dealing with an affair from any point on the triangle, it’s going to affect the rest of your life in a major way. Honest information about all aspects of the problem really is the better way to go.

And I think we’re doing humanity a grave disservice when there’s only one script people are allowed to stick to and only one message they’re allowed to send.

Affairs are a LOT more complicated than, “You hurt your wife and children and so you are bad,” and if I’ve learned anything in six years of running a Medium pub and a website about infidelity, that would be it.

And if you’re dealing with an affair, you need honesty and not political correctness, or only the messages you feel good about reading.

As the only repository of all these GONE writers left standing, I personally feel a responsibility to continue.

I’ve been around here six years and I’ve read every story from every voice who is now silenced.

I see you.

I remember you.

You will not be forgotten. And, if I have my way, the wisdom you shared won’t, either.

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