Your Husband is my boyfriend
By: Contessa Marvel
Tags: Cheating Spouse, Black Love, Confess, Self Love, Black Women

Now, I have your attention. I’ve drafted this in my head so many times. Today, this morning, it came so clearly for so many reasons. Short and to the point. Forgive me, I tend to be verbose. For obvious purposes here that may continue.

This is a letter to the young girls; the little girls who are still clueless to the world around them and sit and play and dream about everything and nothing. Your moms, aunties and grandmas will not give you this perspective. I believe it’s my duty to do it. I have no daughters, so I adopt all of you.

Your grandmas, aunties and mommies value themselves very highly. They do know who they are. I’m speaking to you, little Black girl. You are aware that you are a princess; your elders know they are queens. Over time, we have forgotten that fact and fallen short of what was expected of us, again, for many reasons. This is not a letter of blame, but one of admittance. We have fallen short of what was expected of us, as queens and princesses on this Earth. That being said, we have failed to rise to the occasion of being royal in spirit and action. Therefore, one day, not too long from now, you will begin to see the evidence of that in every aspect of your life. You will suddenly get the shock of not being treated the same, but your buoyant and spirited nature will always force you to assume what you experience can’t be real. Once you feel and see that you are treated differently, you will internalize this in many ways. Some of you little girls will get angry, some will cry. Others will go inside and blame themselves, others will lash out and blame others. No matter which path of internalizing you choose, you will end up feeling confused. Why? Because you’re not sure why and how all of this happened. What did you do? Why is this happening? When you speak of the emotional toll it takes on you, aunties like me will tell you to find coping mechanisms, so you do: sex, drugs, toxic friendships and relationships, and anything else that can help you express the confusion around why this is all happening.

There are no refuges, my little one. There’s no where you can go where you are not treated differently. There’s no TV to turn on or social media site to go to that will tell you what happened. You just continually see your aunties acting out in various ways. We overindulge in our chosen coping mechanism in order to survive. You will too.

I’m here to tell you that nothing is wrong with you. Something is wrong with the world that sees you this way. Your job is to hold your head high and to know the truth about who you really are. You are a princess, your auntie? I am a Queen, but I don’t always act like one, hence the title of this article.

Now, I excuse the little girls and am here to talk to my peers- the aunties and some grandmas are my peers. I do not speak to my elders, as I am not in a position to judge or have the perspective on their experience to know anything. But, I do, now know about us, aunties.

I’m finally old enough. I always wanted to be “older”. I dated older men, you know like I’m 16, he’s 19 kinda stuff. I dated guys that weren’t in my same life phase, as I’ve always found men to be immature. OK! I’m talking to the aunties. I in no way am here to cast blame but rather to tell the truth and to come clean, allowing a cleansing and a truthfulness to fill the air. My intention is to open up this truth here to allow it to be carried tomorrow as the Great Conjunction opens us up to spiritual healing and awakening. (stay with me).

No shade. Ladies, we are sharing our men. I heard this in Washington DC in the early 2000s about that particular area and was horrified, perplexed, and from a social science perspective, intrigued. So, what’s the sharing thing about? Remember, no blame, no finger pointing, no fault-finding.

I am a Black woman from a particular background and have had certain unusual experiences; however, I still know that more binds me to you, aunties, than what separates when I say that we are sharing men. I was married once. I had long term relationships prior to that. I’ve been cheated on one time to my knowledge and that was when I was still a virgin and not sleeping with my boyfriend (yep, the 19 yr old above). I say this to help clear the pathway of anyone with a notion that I have an axe to grind. I do not. My sole intent here is to admit for women, black women, that we are sharing our men knowingly in most cases. (no blame). Your husbands chase after us single women daily, minute to minute. We single women choose to be single and others do not. I cannot and will not speak for all women on that. Because so many of us are independent we are not dependent on a man for anything. This changes the game a lot. Our generation has had to adjust to this power offset and has not figured out how to adjust to it but instead we cope.

Single women can afford to have any man around for any length of time on her own terms; this includes your spouses. I am here to say that I have engaged his advances when needed. I am being so honest here. 90% of the time, I do not engage him, but the other 10%, I do. You all who are married or co-habitating with these guys are most often well aware of what he’s doing, although you cannot prove it and you are never sure in your heart, but your head knows the truth. Men are not wise enough to pull the wool over our eyes. So while he still keeps coming home, he still keeps seeing me. You have your six sense that something is amiss, even catching him in small lies. I’m here to admit today that in order for the little girl above to have some semblance of normalcy and protective love, we have to admit this behavior and denial. Men are crafty in how they inch their way into our lives. We women are hard-working; many of us are moms. We can’t afford to waste time on subpar indulgences but every woman needs love. You stay with him for the same reason we answer when he calls. I never reach out to him but he always calls out for me. I don’t need him. I can clearly see what kind of man he is, but that’s your problem. You see how we are our own enemies. If you stay married to him while we stay seeing him on the side, he always win, while we, the little girl above who never did anything to anyone, loses, again. For no reason.

To stop this madness, I admit today that your husband is my boyfriend. I’ve been divorced for 16 years. During the course of this time, many of your beloveds have come to me for emotional support and guidance and sometimes actual sex. This won’t stop because he’s comfortable. As long as his home, kids, etc stay intact, and I’m here conveniently for him when he calls, nothing will continue but our misery. I am not miserable, honestly. I am one of those very happy women who is successful, traveled, single and loving my life. I spend most of my time at home, not out in the streets. I am a balanced, emotionally mature, down to earth, loving woman. My home is a sanctuary; I have no kids. I say all of this to help craft a different picture of what “today’s woman” looks like. I am independent. I have been married. I understand the sanctity and the promise of a wedding day, though I did not have a traditional wedding. I do not have a need to have anyone here with me every day. I feel freer and more alive being the center of my own world. Many other women are genuinely happy being single and living life this way. This is why I write this today. Women like me have a clear view of what’s being offered to us by our men. We take what we need and leave the rest behind. Your husbands are in no position to be taken seriously or desired. Women like me know that. You and I must stop this merry go round and refuse to live in hiding.

What now? Truth is freedom. If women want to share men, let’s do it, openly. Be honest about it. It’s foolish for us to keep doing this. You ladies post all these pics on FB of your family, happy times, traditions held. Single women post all these affirmations and subtle gabs. We are all lying. I’m not writing about the “sidepiece”. That’s a full on solid relationship, two-timing. This sharing is more subtle. He doesn’t call every day, not even every week. But he always calls. The die hards, women who have been around even before you were, will always know more than you do about the nature of this man. He will always fall back on the women in his circle, and we let him, if it’s convenient. This has to stop.

Back to the little girls, who I know kept reading even though you were dismissed, rise to a higher plane than this. You deserve so much more. When you participate in this kind of behavior, you take shorts and have no idea what to do, or what how to digest this. It tells you all the wrong things about who you inherently know you are.

My advice to you, little girls, is that little boys aren’t ready for monogamous relationships. America has a skewed perspective of relationships. Little boys will soon begin to objectify you. They go from pulling your hair to trying to pull down your pants. Once they focus on your pants, they never stop looking there. Take a look at world events. Wars have been fought over men fighting over women. He is not ready for the type of relationship that you want and desire. You know you’ve been reading about falling in love your entire life. It seems that only girls fall in love in that forever kind of way. My advice to you is to see men for who they are. They cannot settle down with one woman, so don’t settle down with one man until you see that men have risen above their flesh. A man tested of his will for a woman will fail 90% of the time.

Little girl, marriage is work. Marriage is a long term lifetime project upon which you must work daily. The success of the marriage falls solely on you. The communication and the tending to the relationship falls solely on you. The wedding is the only day you will feel celebrated. Little girl, before you decide to have a child or get married, tend to yourself. Know who you are and validate yourself. Learn to live alone. Learn to have fun by yourself. Learn to love being with YOU. I am not telling you not to fall in love because men are so beautiful, you will not be able to resist. What I am telling you is to be reasonable about your expectations around your involvement with him. Scour your soul before you reach out for him to explore yours, inside and out. Sex is all changing. He enters the inside of your body; he changes you. Lucky for me, your auntie was given solid willpower and I believe a very close relationship with my dad helped me find value in myself. I am not perfect.

I discovered, 25 years ago, when I was 25 that men are not capable of having monogamous relationships. Many ask me, “well your parents were married 55 years, do you think your dad cheated on your mom?” My answer is always, “I don’t know but that’d be between the two of them, none of my business; she married him, not me”. (Yes, I’d be livid though) Because our men aren’t ready for one on ones, I write today to say, let’s come clean with each other. If we admit he’s not ready, we can move ahead and also admit that we share our men. Many of you will be so angry reading this and will want to call me names, etc. Know that I’m comfortable in how I’ve lived my life. I have always done my best to do the right thing; I lapse sometimes, but I’m human.

What’s it gonna be? Are Black women ready to admit we are sharing our men? Are we ready to cast blame aside and strive for higher? How? We just start with not letting our men hide any more. They should not be permitted to hide in marriages or in convenient hook ups. We need not create a list of men who cheat and out them. That would serve no purpose, as women would fall right back into the pattern we are in now. We need a come to Jesus moment where we admit that this is what happens and agree to a way forward. It won’t happen overnight, but it can happen for the little girls who will aspire as we did for so much more.

With love, no shade, no blame, no hate, just healing.