As we get older and our lives roll forward, and we have marriages and kids, we witness the evolution of so many other marriages and relationships. Through friends and associates we get a first hand perspective into their challenges, and sometimes downfalls. I have seen many cases of cheating and divorce at this point in my life. I have seen friends go through an amicable divorce (even though the husband cheated), I have witnessed variations of open marriages, and even a marriage where the wife left the husband and abandoned her son. However, the much wider norm that I’ve seen is the husband cheating.
I have witnessed firsthand the following dynamic play out multiple times involving friends and associates: the husband cheats and gets put in the doghouse for a bit, but mostly escapes any real accountability. Society shakes their head at him, but moves on quickly, there is no permanent stigma attached to his reputation. Meanwhile, the wife and society direct their judgement and hatred at the ‘other woman.’ I’ve heard one friend reference the other woman’s lack of “girl code” and another call the husband’s mistress a slut’or‘whore.’ I have seen this social censure follow the other woman around through school groups, community events, and so on, while there is no further social consequence for the cheating man. In today’s society, why are we still bullying and blaming women and not holding men equally accountable?
We continuously excuse men’s cheating as a “midlife crisis” or “biological urges” or allow the “unhappy marriage/ nagging wife” excuse to hold weight in these situations. Meanwhile women, especially the woman outside of the marriage, is harshly stigmatized for being a ‘homewrecker’ or ‘immoral.’ It is her fault, the evil woman. The poor victim man was just suckered in, or had no control over himself. It’s an archaic way of thinking, and with all the so-called advances in women’s rights I’m constantly surprised how there are not more conversations about this, or how more people don’t even seem to acknowledge the double standard exists.
These stigmas seem to be rooted in ancient patriarchal ideas about women being responsible for sexual morality, while men are not held to any sexual moral standard. There is also the expectation that it is the woman’s role in the marriage to preserve the family at all costs. I’ve seen this play out again and again, even having fallen victim to it myself. I hid my ex-husbands multiple affairs to maintain the appearance of a happy family and keep our family together when our children were young. And please don’t get me wrong, I am NOT advocating for divorce, or breaking families apart. I’m also not saying the other woman holds no responsibility when she knowingly entered a relationship with a married man. I’m only musing that we as a society need to think more critically about who to hold accountable in affairs or cheating, and appropriate the blame and judgement more justly.
Admittedly, I had my own mother excuse my ex-husbands behavior and justify it by stating “well at least he’s not a drug addict” and “he does go to work and bring home a paycheck to support you.” Ah yes, so apparently that is the bar that still remains the standard for us women. As long as the husband serves his role to provide for the family, they can do what they want sexually and it is the woman’s job (or failure) to hold the family together no matter what his behavior. My mother grew up in the 60’s, so I do acknowledge there were different societal norms that can account for her perspective, but I think in the mid 2020’s we should be beyond this outdated way of looking at roles in a relationship.
This obsolete moral lens also allows the projection of anger away from the person that actually made the vow, the husband, and toward the ‘other woman’’ who made no vow. Why should the other woman take more of the responsibility in this circumstance, it was him that made the vow and after-all, it takes two to cheat. In fact, often it’s the married man initiating it, though it always seems to result in the other woman inheriting the bulk of the judgement, consequences and taking the role of scapegoat.
The ‘other woman’ is judged more harshly because she represents a threat to the family structure, though we don’t look at the cheating spouse as the actual threat. The other woman becomes a symbol of this disruption, while the man is simply conflicted. The other woman becomes the target for displaced anger. She represents a mirror for unmet desires in a backward way. Since in this antiquated mindset it is the ‘woman’s job’ to hold the family together, it is also her job to keep her husband satisfied. The other woman subsequently represents evidence that the wife has “failed” in her role to satisfy her husband. This is possibly the bigger ego bruise for the wife and why so much anger gets directed at the other woman, she represents a failure of the wife, and the husband becomes the victim, just looking to be fulfilled after his wife failed in her role to meet his needs.
The other layer to all of this is that women still look to men for financial support. At least three of these friends had husbands that were prominent business owners, so the community was less inclined to judge him harshly, even though they cheated and ended the marriage for the other woman. The community placed more social value in him due to his financial status, and so will more easily excuse his behavior to keep him in their good graces. In these cases, women would not judge the man harshly because they were happy he was now an available resource. So again, we see the man not being held accountable, while the woman involved is shamed or ostracized.
It is an imbalance that is not only unfair, but so deeply ingrained in our society we hardly see that it exists, and we surely do not attempt to encourage fair judgement of both people involved. We not only accept it, but our acceptance becomes our participation in this patriarchal mindset. What we permit, we help preserve, and we are allowing this weight and responsibility to be carried by women, while not holding men accountable at all. Women cover it up for our husbands to protect our families and our social optics, and when we look the other way we turn the inequity into a self-perpetuating cycle.
Someone I Used to Know 
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