The Emotional Mistress

The reason an Emotional Mistress even exists is because simply there is a fundamental breakdown between two people who are involved and neither will simply say "I am not living this way." Instead of thinking about love and relationships it has turned to things like tug of wars over kids, the annoyances of selling a house or splitting up property. A point has been reached that is past fixing and it just a matter of someone being grown up enough to set aside the practicals and do something healthy.

There is a presumption that women are trying to steal another woman's man, Not true. If you want to understand why there is even a thing as an Emotional Mistress I can easily explain it.

Joint Facebook accounts-If you can't trust your husband to have his own Facebook account that you don't monitor like he is a 12 year old...

Going through his phone- If you get to the point you feel like you have to do that you may as well draft the divorce papers..If he or you can't have phone and have to be concerned about what is in it.

You are monitoring the checking account for him spending $10.00 to buy someone coffee, while the final papers are pending, or don't allow him to even spend $5 at McDonald's without the Spanish Inquisition you have more issues than him having a female friend in the same field he is talking to.

If your favorite past time is coming up with ways to humiliate him like having the 10 year old sleep in the marital bed, while he is in the spare room wondering why, or duct taping receipts to his apartment door because you are separated and think it is his job to pay your rent, take care of everything for two kids, pay your health insurance, pay you 2/3 of your salary while working a full time job as a police officer while you sit at home watching The Real Housewives of Dysfunction and you send the landlord to his police chief because you destroyed something and can't manage to work doing more than pimping out your children on your Facebook.

Or using his credit card because you are is mad at him.

It has nothing to do with sex, it is merely someone being willing to listen when he talks, or not being icy just because she wants new diamond earrings and you only bought the bracelet.

Relationships are not about using sex as a bargaining tool or attention as currency. They are about partnerships and facing a world together. When one of you is weak being there to hold them up until so they get though it.

You can't blame anyone for needing to feel like they matter and aren't merely the bank or a sounding board for every little issue and should simply just take whatever mess you feel like hurling out along with the honey do list as a form of intimacy.

The woman you hate, she isn't what you think. She isn't a novelty, or something new or even a phase. She is simply is the antidote to the emasculation that he lives with on a daily basis. She is the best friend who listens when he needs to talk, who isn't trying to do anything but be a friend.

It is a result of a marriage on the rocks and he doesn't want to leave for the kids. He tolerates his wife because she is the she is the mother of his children and because she is comfortable. It is a routine of abusive normalcy that gets fallen into. He wants to care for her, but she has forgotten what it was to be a couple. The demanding honey do lists, the overbearing tell me where you ares and insecurity at her failing marriage she turns into a stand off while welding sex as a reward and a punishment.

She often is the friend he calls when he needs to talk, and the wife won't listen. The friend who calls her when he doesn't understand why it is all is happening and where to go or what to do. It isn't that she is a sex kitten that is simply after his cash or time. She fills the place that his wife has chosen not to. She is what he is wants in his life and is afraid to find because there is a house a car, bills and kids and the fact that it is a failure.. on top of everything else he has to deal with the worst thing than not being loved..

I know because I have been that woman and not intentionally. I wasn't trying to steal anyone's husband. I was simply there for him and vice versa. I could call them things were falling apart, they may not be able to fix it but they wanted to. These men fell in love with me. I wasn't trying to make them, or even wanting them to. The relationships were always based in trust and respect. I did too, in a few of the cases but I would always put their families first. Not because I felt guilty, but because they were not thinking about often their kids. They knew the lines and I didn't cross them. Most of the time there was nothing sexual between us, a familiarity, an unspoken bond and a safe place where there wasn't any judgement. They watched over me when I was scared or confused or didn't understand why someone or something was happening. They wanted me to be everything I was capable of and in supporting me watched in awe as I did. It was a relationship that was more about a bubble in a world of facades they had to maintain, and I didn't force them to do that.

It had earned me a lot of scorn on a few levels I am sure, even though no one knew who I was except him. It wasn't some one night stand because I wasn't sleeping with them. It was a friendship that was not about what they had to be but who they were. More than I simply wasn't forcing them to be someone they weren't. It wasn't demanding gifts or time, but simply a supportive friendship. I wasn't the the Dirty Little Secret or stolen moments.

I was often not even aware anything was happening until I would mention a guy trying to get my attention and get the cold shoulder. Then I would pick up the phone and call a bestie because I didn't understand. The answer was and is always the same, "Yes he likes you, and he is jealous because it is not him", with my response being merely "huh" I didn't do anything. If it was one of my better besties, the explanation was always the same.."It just is, you didn't do anything." These relationships were more about a safe place for to be who they were, where secrets they kept from the world, they had someone to tell who wouldn't judge them or use them against them. I know secrets about very powerful men that would destroy their lives, despite wondering where they have been when I needed them, I can't break that trust. Each of them were and are still a huge part of my heart. No matter what they haven't done, I can't do more than feel like I could tell them and get some kind of personal revenge- but I never do. Whatever they may not have done when things were a mess beyond my control and they could have stopped any of it from happening, and decided not to, decided to instead let my ex destroy everything about me- and yes it hurts, destroying them does nothing.

They were my cheerleaders, and I miss them dearly. I never used them, and they never used me. They were the ones who encouraged and supported my dreams, they stepped up when I had been hurt to help fix whatever they could. Could I destroy their lives, I could, but I can not ever do it because they were the ones who got me rough days when I needed someone and wouldn't ask. Yet when I have needed them, even just their advice not one of them has stepped up.

I am was better the days they were my friend, and much worse off because not one of them will even acknowledge I was ever a part of their lives in the worst time of mine. Their choice, but it doesn't take away the moments they were there, the care packages from home, the voice on the other end of the line when I needed a advice, a praline cheesecake on Thanksgiving when I couldn't find one myself, a gift card for Starbucks when my coffeepot blew up and they knew I don't function without it, a offer to pay a speeding ticket when I was only calling about if they knew someone at the PD in another town because I need to talk to someone about a case, or phone call while the doing taxes or folding laundry because I had a bad day at work, or a reminder about an ice storm when I could clearly look outside or at my phone and figure out the roads were bad. Those things spoke volumes to me about my importance. This like offering to to talk the Dean of Admissions once I took my LSAT, and me saying "no I don't want to get into law school like that." It reminded me that I mattered, which hasn't been the case since I needed them to make sure I didn't get physically hurt..There is no explaining that. However, the value they added to my life when I needed encouragement, or technical expertise simply can't be changed. The men who told me that I was something and I mattered when everything was not okay.

Nothing they could do is worse than what they have done..put me in a place where I have to remember what was good about them knowing they aren't those people anymore. Yet it doesn't change the friendship and the impact they had on my life.