The Borrowed Husband ? Women in Contemporary Relationships

Husbands are chiefly good lovers when they are betraying their wives.
?Marilyn Monroe

Given the response to my previous posts about women having affairs with married men, I believe a word on the ethics of such involvements with married men is needed. In the first place, you should assume that a man old enough to be married is old enough to be responsible for his own actions. You don?t, indeed couldn?t, induce, seduce, entice, or otherwise abduct him away from home and hearth if he didn?t wish to be waylaid.

Well, to be strictly accurate, maybe you could hornswoggle a husband into a compromising position if you were outrageous enough and if he were drunk enough, tired enough, or provoked enough. The man may be strong, but his flesh is weak. Even if such a seduction could be successfully staged, it is hardly the kind of relationship I?ve been focused on in my posts.

First, if a husband enters into an affair, he must want to enter into an affair. The moral implication of what that does to his promises to his wife and to the nature of his understanding with her are his problems, not yours. Second, having an affair doesn?t necessarily compromise his marriage, especially when having him for a husband isn?t among your aspirations. It is a fact, although not a widely acknowledged one, that in a number of cases, a mistress is a stabilizing influence rather than a disruptive one. An extramarital connection may make bearable a situation that would otherwise be unbearable without the emotional underpinnings of the affair.

The most obvious examples of such situations are those where the wife is, in some way, sick or disabled; but these are, by no means, the only instances. Marriage involves many obligations or, to use an old-fashioned word, ?duties.? A husband may be able to carry out his duties to his wife and his responsibilities to his children better with the help of a mistress than without her. Having a mistress may very well lessen a man?s feelings of marital discontent and his overall desire to end his marriage. It is not an argument that many wives are likely to buy, but it may well be true all the same.

It may also be true, of course, that the presence of a mistress raises discontent that did not previously exist in the marriage. I doubt that the impulse for extramarital connections comes willy-nilly from a scene of domestic bliss. The seeds of the liaison are there long before the first introduction is made. You can?t ?steal? a husband unless he wants to be stolen. Or since wives don?t own husbands, and husbands don?t own wives, it would be more precise to say, ?You can?t entice a man into an extramarital connection unless something about his marital connection makes him want to be enticed.?

As one unrepentant mistress explained to me, ?I?ve never stolen a husband. When one was just sitting around and no one was using him anyway, I may have borrowed one once in a while, but I always sent him home when I was done.?

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Source: http://pickingalover.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-borrowed-husband/

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