significance of "the other"

carl jung and his long-term mistress toni wolfe spent sunday dinners for many years with his "regular family".

when francois mitterand was buried, his mistress anne and their daughter danielle stood beside the casket, with madame mitterand and their two sons. the photos made cnn and front pages worldwide. outrage bloomed in france not from the mistress sharing the stage with the wife, but because the press intruded upon their shared grief.

spencer tracy died in katherine hepburn's arms. they were a legendary hollywood love story, and had been together 26 years. (they began their affair while she was on the rebound from john ford. he was a devout catholic and married father of two, whose wife hunkered down and girded for a fight, using the children as weapons. he enlisted and went to war to escape the mess.) when hepburn called tracy's wife louise to offer condolences, the latter replied, "i thought you were just a rumor."

somewhere between full disclosure and utter denial lies the more usual foggy minefield of extra-marital affairs, methinks.

certainly, friends and relatives have been on the receiving end of infidelity. some have been the agent too. thankfully, i don't know anybody who has suffered the humiliation of being found, or finding their s/o, in flagrante delicto. but the one who wakes up *betrayed* seems instantly to become consumed with what the other woman is like. she becomes this compulsive measuring stick and every fleeting thought and every passing word is now relevant to her.

have i had straying mates? of course. but my instinctive response has always been vastly different from anybody else i know. i never cared about *her*...

from my first b/f with a wandering eye, the script seemed always the same. he wanted to confess everything and beg forgiveness. on my end, it wasn't the infidelity that i saw as wrong, but the lying. this was incomprehensible to all of them. because i didn't see his sexual escapades as the issue, it meant i didn't want or need to know about her or about anything they did. all of that was between them. our relationship was not a threesome. typically this drove the man to fits. it didn't allow him the psychological unburdening he sorely needed to assuage his guilt. another paradox: he assumed monogamy to be a tenet of the relationship, while i never did. by enjoying the illicit company of another, he saw himself as having failed. so he felt guilt. that was all him, and i refused to be held responsible for any of it. for me, it was his choice to lie that provided an opportunity for emotional exploration, and honestly? few of them were up for it. rather than seeing it as a contest--her vs. me-- i saw the experience as an opportunity to look inward, and to move forward. if he felt like he *should* stay, but strayed, well, why? stood alone, the "other woman" had nothing to do with me or *us*. instead, i faced the question of what was lacking between us that he needed? was i deficient somewhere? inattentive? uncaring? selfish? overly occupied elsewhere? were we just not a good fit? was he a serial philanderer?

she was a symptom, not the disease. tingling fingers usually just mean you're cold. then again, you might indeed be having a heart attack.

i've never thought monogamy a true measure of love. i've never needed love as a prerequisite for sex. but then, i've never been able to fuck someone i've stopped loving.