A Response To “I’m The Girl Your Husband Is Sleeping With, And I Kind Of Think You Deserve It”

Earlier today I came across this anonymous Thought Catalog post from a few weeks back, brazenly entitled “I’m The Girl Your Husband Is Sleeping With, And I Kind Of Think You Deserve It.”

If you haven’t yet, and you think you can stomach it, go ahead and give it a quick read. It tells the tale of our anonymous author, who doesn’t have “this princess complex” — which apparently so many of us girls have — and that allows her to coast confidently thought her “all fun, no drama” “relationship” with a married man, wherein they meet once a week during lunch to hook up. This infidelity, according to our author, is no fault of her “boyfriend’s” or her own, but the fault of his wife — who has, apparently, become “stale and monotonous” and is no longer “fun and zesty.”

Whew, where do I even begin? First of all, as a born-and-bred “girlfriends girl,” I have a really hard time with any woman who chooses not to stick up for other women. It’s hard for me to understand why someone, despite claims of being different than the rest of us due to her lack of “princess complex” (ugh), who surely knows what it’s like to be a woman, would hear one man’s side of the story and automatically bash her own sister. I understand that every circumstance is different, and you can’t just blindly defend someone because they have breasts — but in this authors case, she has based her opinion of his wife solely on his description of her and their marriage, and has even gone so far to say that she hates her — not cool, Anonymous. Didn’t anyone teach you about girl power?

Second, this post is rife with extremely damaging and wildly untrue stereotypes. Consider the following excerpt:

“Women want the title and the image: a fancy wedding, a big house. Men want the physical stuff, however shallow it seems: sex and someone who makes them feel desired.”

Are you kidding me with this? I’d sincerely like to know where our author is getting her information. I am not married, nor have I ever been close to marriage, but I do have several married friends, still-married parents, and oh, I don’t know, a clue when it comes to the complexities of human beings? I have more than a few male friends who want a “big house” and “title” out of a relationship, and more than a few female friends who want to be sexually desired, among other things. A simple answer does not exist to the question of what people want out of relationships, and anyone who says that a woman “kind of” deserves to be cheated on because she’s already been allotted a “fancy wedding” and a “title” should be ashamed of themselves.

The saddest part about this article is that I know this woman is not the only one who feels the way that she does. She’s not even one of a few. There are a lot of men, and sadly, women who think that someone who has allowed themselves to grow “stale and monotonous” deserves to be cheated on. Here’s my question for these people: should a person continue to be “fun and zesty” when their partner stops showing them love, attention, respect? Should a person consistently lay aside their personal needs to maintain a “FUN AND ZESTY” front so that their partner isn’t driven to cheating out of boredom? It takes two people to allow a relationship to grow “stale and monotonous,” and rather than running out for a replacement piece, why not focus your efforts on rebuilding the half that you let disintegrate?

As someone who hopes to eventually get married, it’s disheartening to read this type of material. Will I one day be tossed out because I’m not fun, exciting, or interesting enough? Are these the personality traits that make you a spouse worthy of remaining faithful to? I sure hope not. Because unlike our anonymous author, I’m not fun and zesty all time. I’m not, and will never be, satisfied with a man who meets me during my lunch break once a week. I’m a real woman, who feels real things, and who deserves real respect. And, unlike our anonymous author, I’m looking for a real man — one who doesn’t see escapism as a favorable alternative to our boring, real-life, stunningly ordinary relationship.