“You ruined everything! We had it all and you destroyed it!”

“Sure, says the man with a wife and mistress. You certainly had it all.”

“You and your fucked up morality. I told you why I moved back home. There’s nothing between her and me.”

Michael argued his position and opinions between middle of the night and crack of dawn. Plagued with insomnia, he did his best agonizing in the wee hours. Alcohol, once a sedative, stimulated overwrought concerns into sleepless obsessions. The medication to ward off nightmares, to dull terrors, was now a sabotage. He was forced to stand naked before his sorrow. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to stand alone.

“You women are all the same,” he continued to bluster.

“Don’t you dare lump me in with your past. Put on your Superman underpants and take a look at the source of your issues with women. Who…what, drives you to dried up wells? Who disappointed you so severely?”

Rankled and infuriated, he hung up on me.

A cell phone doesn’t have the same satisfaction as slamming a receiver into its cradle, followed by a droning dial tone. I still got an earful. At this point in the repartee, silence was hardly a punishment. Michael probably didn’t give my gratuitous insights a second thought. No matter — his circus, his monkeys. All the same, I mulled over my “fucked up morality.” Worked it over like an all-day sucker.

Monogamy is a status quo conformity in Western culture. Over the rest of the globe, other normalities reign. Social and legal pressures in our corner of the world place a huge incentive to stonewall straying. Sexual infidelity, as of 2019, was a criminal offense in eighteen US states. If legislation against adultery is actually prosecuted, cheaters can be incarcerated and denied rights for being a felon. And in those states declaring steppin’ out on your spouse as grounds for divorce, alimony and custody deliberations are significantly impacted.

On top of statutory complications, there is an evolutionary advantage for reproductive couples to create a stable family bond for their dependents. Children benefit from being raised by two parents. Amending Peter De Vries’ value of marriage¹, parents benefit from being raised by children. Unfortunately, not all progenitors become adults.

As a dynamic duo, my parents counterbalanced their inconsistencies and shortcomings. Combined strengths outweighed individual weaknesses, added up to a hale and hearty whole. They laid groundwork, built foundations, walled in a shelter. Passed on their tools, some good, some not so good. While they jumped down each other’s throats, I weighed the odds on who would’ve been cushier to chill with if they got divorced. Either one as a single parent would have been troubling. As for my contribution to evolution, the collective matrimonial instability tied my Fallopian tubing.

Reproduction action plans are definitely indefinite. Having babies to save a faltering connection, to solidify a flabby marriage, is a half-baked way to work things out. Screwing up often starts before vows are exchanged, well before compensatory, procreant screwing. Trying to transform an unreliable prospect to settle into reliability is a fantasy sadly undertaken by many men and women.

A gorgeous, suave, hot-to-trot, socially dominant prospect with strong genetic qualities who provides a stable environment is an elusive Ms. or Mr. Right. Leading them to the altar and putting a ring on the scoundrels’ finger is a fairy tale guarantee, an objectively anemic delusion. Furthermore, distrust and jealousy are significant in maintaining coupledom.

So is lying.

Judith Stacey, a sociology professor at New York University, has studied relationship systems around the world. She claims, “We should redefine fidelity to mean integrity, not sexual exclusivity.”

Then when is an affair an affair? Extrapolating from the prof’s definition, it’s when you can’t tell your spouse you’re lunching on a regular basis with your cherry- popping college sweetheart. Won’t tell your wife the late night at the office was at a local strip club. It’s when you keep your husband in the dark about the bracelet stashed in the bottom of your jewelry box, engraved with another’s love for you. It’s whenever you deem keeping your mouth shut is easier, and best for the marriage.

Forasmuch as my parents said it was, supported by commandments carved in stone, I was programmed to believed adultery was a sin. What other precepts, definitions, assumptions — and whose — was I using to separate right from wrong, principled and corrupt, what did or didn’t fill the bill for me? Who was the ringmaster of my circus?

Playing by the rules I banked on as sound as the ones carved in stone hadn’t turned out particularly hunky-dory. I was an amiable, well-mannered tenant and got kicked out. I was a reliable employee, clocked in early, punched out late, contributed over and above what I was hired to do and was fired. Or the first to be laid off.

There were missing, hidden rules.

I fulfilled the contract requirements for a tourist development grant each year it was awarded. The risk annually inched higher with new stipulations until the demands were improbable, approaching impossible to pull off.

Rules shifted.

The man who had professed his love was now slinging hate. I changed the rules.

I adhered to what I thought was an unshakable formula for satisfaction and success: tell the truth and keep your word. Don’t lie; follow through on promises. Then why was I generally morose? I purposely followed my rule.

“’Til death, do you part,” was an artificial covenant. My one and only marriage disintegrated when my betrothed admitted he “loved” me but wasn’t “in love” with me. He conveniently omitted he was “in love” with someone else. I insisted on counseling, a lame attempt to reassemble the disordered pieces. Unsuccessful because it wasn’t his rule for fixing what cracked.

I ducked out on telling my ex-husband, when we were fiancés, that I didn’t want to go through with the wedding. I was afraid of being the bad guy. Apprehensive to cast aside the sole marriage proposal. Aghast at what people might think. I insisted on pre-marital counseling and hoped the minister would observe our incompatibility and advise against tying the knot. I wished my parents, the bridal party, the almost in-laws would say, “Don’t do it,” and I’d be excused. In the end, I got explicitly what I shied from. I would have been freed from rejection, had I been honest. The truth shall set you free. It was a relief when my marriage ended. I loved him. I wasn’t in love with him.

My parents’ parched union persisted over five decades. A partnership I interpreted as pitiful. Staying together for the sake of what? Kids; convenience; appearances? Being able to blame someone else for the pain in your neck? A vow? At what cost? Better to abort the mission. Go on, break the promise. Give up on your word.

Telling the truth was complex. One of those looks-good-on-paper admonitions. Being trustworthy, not lying, was oversimplified. I glossed over the tortuous task of not lying to myself. My “fucked up morality” had nothing to do with high-minded ethics. I didn’t want to be second best. I was tired of not being good enough. My vice wasn’t adultery; it was the belief that I didn’t deserve first place. Why should Michael respect me? I didn’t. Thou shalt give up the vice when it no longer serves you.

Could I break loose if I broke the rules? What if I made up my own code of honor? I typed “how to be a mistress” in the Google search window. A list of guidelines came into view. The long-standing practicalities had, by this time, put me to the test.

Expect to spend holidays alone. Check.

Be what his wife isn’t, his fantasy girl, an escape. I was the fairy godmother to his wife’s evil stepmother. Hiding out with me was like a never-ending gobstopper Magic Kingdom vacation.

Provide mind blowing intimacy. That’s what started the affair. Shared honesty, vulnerability, and empathy between the wounded.

Be discreet. Secrecy was easy for me, a pathologically private Scorpio. Michael was the sloppy one at keeping our matters under wraps.

There was advice to avoid manipulation, threats, and childish shenanigans. Insecurity is not attractive. Whether I crossed the line was debatable. I had vehemently drawn a boundary in the sand, clenched my fists, and stomped a conniption fit demand that I should be getting what I was entitled to. He should provide what I wasn’t tending to for myself. Emotional retardation cramped mature liberation. Michael, attracted to my independence, confidence, and self-sufficiency, qualities I inflated to hide the ain’t purdy, was swindled. I nimbly disguised gutter-level esteem, needy, and servile from both of us until the ugly truth surfaced.

I read through the hints, recommendations, and warnings. Questions lifted. Answers looped and swirled and entwined. I was a heroic Dorothy determining her own way to happy home, thrown by a speculative tornado into an exotic land of brilliant, multihued interpretations.

Was lying the actual immorality of adultery? Michael’s wife had her boyfriend.
   Michael had his girlfriend. Unfaithfulness wasn’t a secret between them.
What if I accepted Michael for who he is? Admitted that he doesn’t think like me,
      and I wasn’t thinking for myself? What if I accepted the way it is,
        a romance without strings. What would happen if I welcomed
                                   being loved imperfectly?
                              Loving, transformational, and
                                 fearful, destructive forces
                                      coexist in a person.
                                         Could I redefine
                                       what is important?
                                       What if I let Spirit
                                              love him
                                           through me?
                                      What if the queen
                                          grew a pair?
                                                She
                                              would
                                                 be
                                               King.

Thomas Jefferson said something like, “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” I stood on propriety’s quaking ground and flouted Love’s steadfast principles. Kindness. Hang tough with patience and hope. Trust.

Protocol, control, indignation, insecurity, frustration, guilt, denial, suspicion, vulnerability — Fear — rushed around the solid rock of unconditional Love. I fought the flow, resisted style didn’t matter and crashed into the boulders again and again. There had to be a less black and blue way to learn.

Fear didn’t have to get in the way of the breathtaking benefits from braving a leap, my take-away lesson from parachuting out of a perfectly good airplane. You can have it all. Just make sure you’re braced for the landing.

Standing with authority, with dignity, and personal power to act — with exousia, a feminine noun from olden day Greece — I regenerated my virginity in the manner defined by the ancient Greeks. I belonged to myself.

I chose to be a mistress.

¹ The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

– Karen Bowers

Author’s Note: “How to Be a Mistress” is an excerpt from Karen’s manuscript, Pushed off the High Dive.