If She Had Just Been a Better Wife

Posted by Sarahbear on January 11, 2010

Britni wrote an interesting post today about how sexist the idea of a mistress or woman who cheats on her spouse being called a “homewrecker” is. I’d like to look at another side of this issue that is just as sexist and repulsive.

Have you ever heard people callously suggest that a woman hadn’t been meeting the needs of her husband and that was why he had found a mistress?

Right. You have.

Women are held to an impossible standard in our society. We can’t be too sexually active or knowledgeable unless we want to be called whores and develop reputations for being easy. Yet if we don’t cave in to the desires of men we’re prudes. We’re expected to marry young, have children and cater to our husbands and if we do a good job with all of that we might not be judged for wanting a career of our own.

When it comes to infidelity, you will occasionally hear of men being called cheating dogs. But, typically the blame for affairs is placed squarely on the shoulders of the women involved. Either the mistress is a “homewrecker” or a whore, the cheating wife is a cheating whore or the woman being cheated on isn’t doing enough to please her man. The opinion depends on if you are friends with the wife or mistress. I could go on forever about the things women are expected to do, but I want to really focus on how wrong and sexist it is to blame the victim in these situations.

I’ve heard many people, including the woman my husband had an affair with, suggest that I was doing something wrong. I didn’t appreciate him, any woman would give their life to have five minutes of what I had, I was lazy, I wasn’t paying him enough attention emotionally or sexually. I ‘let myself go’, gaining weight after four pregnancies and didn’t try hard enough to get back into shape.

While some of those statements may be true, it is not my fault that my husband went outside of our marriage. There are appropriate responses and reactions to those things, breaking our vows was not the way to go about it. I shoulder no blame or responsibility for his choice to have an affair, just as he has none for the decision I made to have an affair. We were not getting what we wanted from our marriage, but the correct way to handle that would have been to come to each other and discuss what we needed.

When people suggest that I wasn’t doing what I should have as a wife they never question whether or not he was doing what he needed to be doing as a husband. They never ask if I was happy. They never wonder if he was pleasing me sexually or fulfilling my emotional needs. No one talked about the weight he gained or the times he neglected me to play video games.

Of course not! I’m a woman and my needs are of little importance to anyone. Men are so simple to please that I should have no trouble being a good wife. Men aren’t expected to put forth the effort it takes to help their female partners figure out what feels good sexually. People joke about women being too needy emotionally, always wanting to talk about their feelings. If we ask for what we need we’re accused of nagging, but we should be able to drop what we’re doing the second our husband gets an erection and turn into the sexual freak he wants in the bedroom. We’re expected to find the time to exercise and diet, in between raising the kids and cleaning the house, so that we can be physically attractive enough for our spouse. If he has an affair it’s obviously because I’m not trying hard enough to be a good wife.

Here’s the deal…

Relationships? They’re hard. They take a lot of fucking work. It’s not always going to be 50/50 with the effort each person is putting into the relationship. At times it may feel like you’re pulling more than your share, but there will be times your partner is pulling more than theirs. When this happens open your god damn mouth and talk to your spouse/partner. Tell them your needs, wants and desires.

If you’ve got a hole in your roof you’re not going to try to fix it by plunging the toilet, right? So don’t go involving people who have no idea what’s going on in your marriage. Your friends, a mistress, your parents…no one is going to be able to fix your marriage but you and your spouse. Go buy some damn new shingles and start repairing the hole in the roof!

If you’ve cheated take responsibility for your choices. Stop making excuses and blaming everyone else. Your marriage might suck right now, but don’t point fingers at what your spouse could be doing to fix it. Take some fucking initiative and ask yourself what you could be doing to be a better partner to them. Odds are if you start doing more for them, they’ll start noticing and doing more for you. We have got to stop feeling like we’re entitled to everything just for existing.

*Disclaimer: I did not mean that my husband expects these things of me, but that society expects these things from women. My husband and I have worked through our issues and now have a happy, healthy relationship.*