My Rant

My Rant

© Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

This is a work of non-fiction. It is a rant about the husband/wife cheating stories that seem to be so typical on Literotica. This article is my own opinion and I hereby state that I am neither a psychiatrist or a psychologist. You may not like what you read here, if so feel free to move on to something else. But if you are an author that writes about marriages gone bad I urge you to read on. Hopefully it will make your stories more believable.

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Men and Women
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Men and women are different no matter what anyone says simply because each one of them is an individual. They can have different needs, different feelings, and different attitudes. One of the things that makes them different is that men reach their sexual peak at around 20 years of age. Women on the other hand reach their peak between 35 and 40 years of age. This usually corresponds to the age when the children have either left the home or are on their way out.

At the age of 40, whether the woman works at a job or stays at home, the empty nest syndrome hits them much harder than the man. This, with their peaking sexuality, can be a recipe for trouble in their marriage if they both are not careful. Statistics say this age is when most women start to have affairs. Open 'communications' in a marriage is most important at this time with 'understanding' being the second.

Men on the other hand are most likely to have affairs between the ages of 20 and 35. This is mostly due to the realization that their sexual peak has passed and they wish to make up for lost opportunities. Without proper 'communications' during this time both husband and wife can become disillusioned with their relationship and marriage.

Of course, affairs can happen at any time during a marriage if the marriage is weak, through lack of communications or just plain weak commitments.

Cheating
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In the context of a marriage the definition of cheating is defined as 'to be dishonest or deceitful'. I hate using this word in the context of a marriage because it leaves too much open to interpretation concerning the affair of the husband or wife. If one partner is being dishonest or deceitful in a story, the author should say that because the word cheating also is defined as 'to defraud or swindle' as its primary meaning. It would be much more clear to say that one partner is having an affair with extra explanation attached in the story.

Also, the word 'affair' can have both positive and negative meanings in a story. For instance, if one partner has prior knowledge of an affair it would not be valid to use the word 'cheat' to the affair. Even if prior knowledge is not known it still may not be valid to use the word 'cheat'. It all depends on the relationship of the partners.

When 'cheating' is used in the context of a marriage, both partners need to remember that an affair is not like a game where there is a winner and a loser. The 'cheater' is making a huge impact on the marriage whether they can come to that realization or not. The non-cheating partner will most likely feel they have lost something, even though they may not be able to name it. The 'cheater' must come to grips that what the other has lost is 'control'. Men are especially vulnerable to this feeling because they believe the marriage vows are literal and thus they have some control over their partner. This is pure rubbish in my opinion.

Marriage Vows
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Here is where I part with most authors and even most people. For instance, the word 'cleave' in the marriage vows means 'to be faithful to' in the dictionary. Being faithful to someone can mean a lot of things in a marriage, but that does not make your partner a slave. Any marriage vow that implies essentially slavery is null and void in my opinion. No woman or man should ever be a slave to their partner. Each is an individual and the future is never clear.

Unfortunately a lot of men think of their wife as a slave, whether they know it or not. Men want control in order to maintain their manliness. The moment you want to control someone, you are attempting to make them a slave.

Of course, the reverse is also true. If the woman tries to make a slave of the man it will also end badly for the marriage.

Whether you are a man or woman, you can never control another person's feelings about anything. The sooner you come to this conclusion the better your marriage will be. If your partner wants to love another then that is going to happen and there is nothing you can do to change that. You have to come to terms with it and threats will not help resolve anything.

This is where open communications between you and your partner is critical. If you shut off that communication it will all probably end badly for one or both of you.

Lying
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This is where affairs can badly impact a marriage. When one partner has an affair and the lies about it, either blatantly or through omission, bad things will happen. This kind of affair means the marriage was weak to begin with, but it can also happen for other reasons. What ever the reason, the partner in the affair is setting themselves up for utter disaster. Of course there are times when it is necessary to lie in a marriage, but this is not one of them.

All of us expect the truth from our partner in marriage. What is strange is that this is NOT one of the marriage vows! I can not think of a more important component to good communication between marriage partners than telling the absolute truth. Even if the truth is hard to hear, putting it out there for both to discuss is the most important thing in a marriage. Most people can forgive many things, but a liar is abhorrent to most.

Unfortunately, most authors of stories use lying as a major component to their story. Lying is a fundamental weakness in any marriage and should be stated as such in the story. It helps the reader understand why two people are at each others throats in a time of crisis in the marriage.

The Story
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Authors should make an attempt to tell both sides of a story. This can prevent the reader from becoming depressed at the end. I do not mean you have to have a happy ending, I mean that the reader has a right to understand both sides of an argument, even if the story comes to a bad end for the marriage partners. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each partner tells a more complete story than a one sided tale.

I am a romantic at heart, but I like good stories. I prefer stories that do not depress me, but I understand we do not live in a fairy tale. But it is always sad when what looks like a good marriage ends, but it is easier to swallow that pill if you understand the weaknesses and strengths of each partner in the story.

My Marriage
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In this section I am not holding up my marriage as the ultimate example. But there are some things we got right from the very beginning.

Communications is the major thing we got right from the very start, even before we were married. It is one of the things I love about my wife is that we can tell each other anything. I told my wife before our marriage that I never expected her to be exclusive to me and she told me the same thing. We married when we both were 21 so we knew not to expect that complete exclusivity. My wife had her first affair before our first anniversary. She had it with a work associate who was going through a rough divorce, but she came to me for permission first. Of course I gave it to her because she promised me it would be short term. For about a month she had him over every Saturday while I worked that day. She always told me what happened that day when I got home.

Some years later she had two affairs which lasted only a few hours. Both of these were while she traveled for work and she told me about them immediately when she returned home.

My wife is not my slave in any form of the word. She loves me very much and always returns to me. We have been married over 50 years so I guess that counts for something.

We never went through the empty nest syndrome because we never had any children. This was our choice as we both wanted careers and we did not feel it was fair to put our kids through that experience. We made that choice together around our fourth year of marriage.

Our sexual relationship has been pretty active but not overly so. But we do like our romps even while we are now in our seventies.

I love my wife as much now as when we began to date seriously so many years ago. She is my life partner and will be until our deaths. She is the best thing to ever happen to me.

Conclusion
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I certainly do not mean to demean any author but instead I hope to improve their stories. If you are not an author I hope you learned something from my life experience. Be good to each other out there.

OlderHormones