If you ask a married woman if she’d ever had an affair, she will unconditionally tell you no. Yet if one ponders over the statistics one will see that in fact quite a few of them actually do. One in five for women and one in 3 for men. But then again this is not an article on the discrepancies of what women and men actually say and what they do. It’s an article about the perils of what happens when a man gets involved with a married woman…

Recently I came across a woman, who for anonymity’s sake I will call Grace, whom I had an affair with a few years back. Our meeting was quite accidental and pleasant. One of those random meetings one has from time to time while running errands in the city. With her was her husband, a famous rocker who considered me with intrigue as I politely shook his hand. Of course I retained decorum and not once mentioned anything that had gone on between me and his wife. That however didn’t stop the vivid memories that suddenly ran into my mind. As I stood there and bid them goodbye I was pleasantly relieved that they were still together, pleasantly relieved also that he had no idea that I was the one who accidentally broken his guitar after one bout of lascivious love making…

The adventure with Grace started off innocently. I had no idea that she was involved, or to be precise married. It was a secret she kept from me until she one day started to cry hysterically after I bought her bouquet of flowers. To be precise there’s nothing more awkward than a woman crying hysterically on the street, and a gentleman ( I do use that word with some discretion) must if he is to retain a woman’s good graces react with due grace. Never mind the bemused(mortified?) expressions of passerbys…

Upon telling me she was married I was secretly thrilled. Thrilled that I wouldn’t have to commit to ritualized rules of courting, thrilled that I would not be held to a higher standard, thrilled that I could come and go as I pleased, thrilled that if I disappointed her it somehow wouldn’t matter. How wrong was I…

For those of you acute to observation there are a lot of unhappily married women dotting the landscape. The reasons vary, from emotional emptiness, loneliness, buried grievances, sexual deprivation and simply because a woman may suddenly find herself bored and disappointed with her bethroned man. This is where it seems men like me come to fit in. Uncommitted, free, (supposedly) cultured, unbound by most social conventions and smacking of a purported glam that a wavering eye from time to time finds compelling. Of course that’s all just for show, a show we put on for the public. Who we are within ourselves is a smorgasbord of conflicted feelings, reservations, insecurities that we rarely reveal. But if you must feel free to continue perceiving me as a hero of sorts, I wont correct you until I absolutely feel that I must…

As I stood there consoling her I remembered I had a choice. I could turn back and walk away. I was within my bounds. I was not in the business of competing for a married woman’s love interests, not in the business of getting myself entangled in other people’s disarray. But affection as most of you already know can never be reasonably rationed, and one despite their moral codes, better judgment, sense of danger can not be simply overlooked.

Grace was after all a stunning older woman, wildly successful, inspiring, a joy to be with and a confidante of sorts. I was just as intrigued with her as she was with me. Of course only later did I realize that I was a concubine of sorts, a secret getaway figure for the illicit. Eventually I became the kept writer, my rent and groceries paid on cue, my attendance demanded at every social function she attended (never mind the bemused expressions of her friends who also knew her husband and secretly wondered as this bold woman clung on to my hand and watched my eyes should another beautiful woman walk past), my bachelor pad her secret getaway, my manhood her manifested desire for the illicit.

Personally I’ve never understood all the younger woman one often comes across in society at the hands of older successful gentlemen. Part of me has always wondered if it’s an arranged relationship of convenience that on an organic level smells of calculated fabrication. Yet we live in a society where such relationships are common place and tolerated. With respect to men being the beautified object in a relationship there comes an awkward stage. An awkwardness that one is ‘kept,’ an awkwardness that one is now too comfortable with all the financial niceties, an awkwardness that somehow ones masculinity has been tampered with, and that as much you men might appreciate the many advantages a wealthy female companion can offer it becomes increasingly vexing when you realize that it’s not your masculinity that is appreciated but your femininity.

One day, while we were lying in bed, Grace asked me to run to the corner store and pick up some condoms. I responded I was happy just to lie in bed and read her something I was working on. Grace of course was having none of it. Anyway I responded it’s snowing. She then took out a fifty dollar bill and told me to be a good boy and go to the deli and keep the change. Once again I refused. She then started screaming at how her husband was sitting at home probably wondering where she was and that she had spent all this taxi money to come out and see me in the snow. The least I could do was be sensitive to her needs. As you can imagine that put a pall to my spirits. All I could do was light a cigarette as she got dressed and stormed out of the house.





Like anything in life, ones actions and choices come with repercussions. On one hand I was involved with a compelling woman who excited me but on the other hand I was involved with a woman who had with her actions mitigated me to a metaphor for all that she wasn’t getting in her marriage. That’s not to say what she did or wanted was wrong, it was just wrong for me. As much as one appreciates affection and love, one can not bear its burden if it continues to compromise ones sense of self. Becoming an escape destination for the wicked was fine in print, but too unyielding in reality.

Eventually we caught up with each other, continued the abandoned behavior until one morning I realized that I could no longer bear her guilt, my repressed emotions (I had by now been careful not to give too much emotionally) and sense of what it was to be free and my own man. Yes, I could have stopped receiving her financial gifts, but somehow that was the trade off I gave myself for being involved with an older married woman. Even I am complicit in nefarious behavior or motives. Perhaps then this was what revolted me most, my complicit perjured behavior.

One afternoon, while having tea near her place of work, I announced that I could no longer see her. She immediately wanted to know if it was because I was seeing another woman. I replied no. I tried to explain as fond as I was of her I could no longer fathom the dynamics of the relationship. For once I reached into my pocket, paid the bill and proceeded to walk out. Grace then followed me demanding that I speak to her. I told her that there was nothing more to say. She stood there on the street crying, looking at me, while I begged a stranger for a cigarette. Once again she asked if this was it and I replied that indeed it was, before turning and walking the other way. I simply didn’t have the strength to wipe away her tears, as much as I would have liked.

To say that I was secretly thrilled to see her looking reasonably happy (to what extend I will never know) with her husband this recent past would be an understatement, even if it left me with a tinge of sadness. Sometimes life can only be understood by living it.