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The Other Woman: What A Mistress Knows
A former mistress offers hard-learned advice to new wives.
by Michael Drury
It is time to say aloud that marriage is not so much the outcome of love, sex, or maturity as one road to them, even now the most available road for many people.
Marriage is the next logical stage in human development, after childhood and youth,and the paradox is that developed powers clamor to be used. To marry is to invite growth,which induces more growth and demands a wider field. Love begets love, as the psychologists recognize, and they advocate ideally a loving home for all children as a means of nurturing and continuing the pattern. But they fail to follow their own insight through to the end: Marriage and the family are a natural extension of the initial human condition; in this context,whether marriage is happy or unhappy is not very important. The point is, it teaches; it completes one’s growth, positively or negatively. And then what? Does one jump off a cliff, or else mark time for the rest of one’s years?
Perhaps the deepest obligation of life is to put off what is outgrown, even when it was true in its day and has served us well, and to achieve as much reality as we are individually capable of. St. Paul said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The trouble is that we refuse the adult assignment of becoming selves.When we say, “I was wrong,” “I make my own joy,” “I find the world good,” and not, “He mistreated me,” “No one understands my needs,” “They let me down,” then we shall be adults, professionals with the capacity to love and be loved.
When marriage has fulfilled its promise of rounding out personality, people frequently decide they have fallen out of love, or were never in it in the first place; or that marriage has proved a cheat; or that one partner has betrayed the other.
These charges may be valid or not. What really needs to be considered is that here one is, stuck with a self, and what shall be done with it from this point on, not how one arrived at it.
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1 cris // Mar 21, 2008 at 6:26 pm
No disagreement, read more slowly, although it would be nice to think people could grow together and continue to love each other… even be sexually faithful. If this was written 50 years ago, marriage was much more “secure” then when people didn’t divorce at the proverbial drop of a hat. Also, back then, it was an economic arrangement for most women. Several factors to consider. Personally, I had a bad role model for marriage. My parents are still together, though they’ve been unhappy for decades. (the catholic thing, I suppose). Because I never knew of a loving marriage growing up, I didn’t marry. Never even considered it in spite of several offers. Well, I did think about it once. Never wanted children either. I’ve been happily independent all my life, but might consider marriage in my old age IF the right person comes along.
2 read more slowly // Mar 20, 2008 at 10:55 pm
It was indeed a difficult piece to comprehend but one that was, nonetheless, comprehendible. I try not to fault a writer for being too wordy, especially when the writer is attempting to communicate something more profound than simple phrases and sentences can communicate. I got the sense that this is what Drury was doing. I don’t think she’s exactly saying that marriage kills love (cris), and just because it was written “50 years ago” (lannie and charlotte) doesn’t make it less relevant today. What she is saying is that marriage doesn’t necessarily have to do with love. Love is about being with someone who allows us or assists us to follow our (other) desires and to more fully develop into whole, independent beings. And love does not require promises of tomorrow; love is not about the future or security but about the present. Marriage, on the other hand, creates a false sense of security that the love one feels today is the same feeling one will feel tomorrow. Again, marriage doesn’t necessarily kill love. It can serve its purpose at particular times in our lives - it helps us grow in the same way our childhood experiences helped us grow. But, we have to recognize that things (feelings, people and thus marriages) change over time, and it is illusory and counter-productive to think otherwise. Some of us may realize that “our” marriage (those who decide to marry) no longer serves us. But when we realize our marriage is “over”, we must be able to recognize ourselves as whole, independent beings - ie, people who take responsibility for our own circumstances, our own choices and our own outcomes. But alas, she laments, people seem to choose marriage (security) over love (less secure but more fulfilling). I think it’s a beautiful piece, and very wise. Thank you.
3 robert // Mar 20, 2008 at 8:28 pm
That was profoundly eloquent but ultimately without any real substance. I was almost convinced that it had been written by a word generator by the time I reached the end. It just seemed to ramble about nothing… like a sentence with no subject.
4 cris // Mar 19, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I agree with several other posts; that writer must have been paid by the word. Rambling, practically incoherent. There was no real point except, apparently, its better to be a mistress than to be married because marriage kills love. That’s certainly true in some cases, but cannot be said for all marriages. This piece could have been reduced to one paragraph. What a waste of space. I forced myself to finish it, but it was a chore. Good Grief!! As for “love guvs”, a love affair with a mistress is not the same as hiring a hooker.
5 Nina // Mar 19, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I don’t care who wrote that, the gender of the author or when it was written- That was ridiculous. My god, who could read the whole book?
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