A Question
Why do many middle-aged men leave their wives for their wives’ best friend? Because it’s familiar but fresh? New but not? Because it rocks the boat without getting them too wet? I’ve been thinking about this, lately. Not because it’s happened to me. But because I’m curious. I have this crazy theory that a ‘good wife’ is responsible for planting a seed of doubt in the heart and head of her husband; for keeping him just the tiniest bit uncertain. This is because too much certainty hardens the heart and closes the mind and makes men hard to reach and rigid. Stalin, for instance. Or the Taliban. Now, there’s a bunch of guys whose wives could certainly do with planting a seed or two of doubt in the hearts of their men. Seriously, though…I worked with a very powerful women at the beginning of my career. She would give me tips before pitching the powers-that-be (mostly men, of course.) “Never preface a sentence with the words, I think or I believe,” she would say. “It will only weaken your argument. And men won’t listen.” She was right. Which brings me back to where I started. Sort of. I think (oh dear, there I go) middle-aged men leave their wives for their wives’ best friends not because change is good. But because just a little bit of change is good. Just enough change to free them from the uncertainty that comes, so inevitably, with middle age. The uncertainty that leads them to believe that their wives don’t understand them. Lord! How I love that phrase. “My wife doesn’t understand me.” How many women fall for that one, I wonder? Anyway, feel free to fill in some my blanks. (including the proper grammatical use of wive’s versus wife’s best friend. Is there a possessive plural or not?)
maybe he married the wrong girl, and was just barely off course…if he aimed his courtship a few degrees to the right maybe he would have married the friend in the first place? i think people marry a “safe” person, and can regret this. it’s not that the “old” wife is bad or wrong, it’s just that the best friend might be a slightly better fit. then again, it sounds like i;m talking about shoes. better shut the fuck up.
Could it be that over the years when double dating (corny choice of words, I know), or just socializing in general with another couple, some innocent flirting has been taking place out of sheer boredom or just harmless game playing to keep their spouses in that state of not taking them for granted? A subliminal… “See? So-and-so thinks I’m still sexy and cute! (or handsome!)” And then, not having the courage (or possessing that uncertainty) to throw themselves out there into the full-blown mysterious affair world, they stray just across the lawn so to speak and take that innocent flirting to the next obvious level. It’s right there. All the awkward pre-lims are out of the way… no dinner-and-a-movie to wade through… just “Let’s jump in the hay and see what happens, Kid.” And they become sexually invigorated… appreciated again in a whole new way and by someone they already respect, and off they go with their brand new (re-polished) toys. Did you catch that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm when Larry’s wife got all palsy walsy with Ted Dansen, coquettishly poking each other when they talked and gossiping on the phone like a couple of sorority sisters? Well that’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about, that kind of shit could innocently tip toe in the danger area. But then, hey, what do I know… I’m just a bastardly, bumbling, bachelor bartender!
And as to the question of what to do with the word “wife” in your opening sentence… I would go “wives’ best friends”. Pluralize both, no?
who better to answer than a guy who thinks and writes like a poet. LOVE the ‘across the lawn’ metaphor. reminds me of JG Ballard and his definition of the suburbs as petting zoos. Also love the subliminal See?…It all ties into the ’safe’ element M mentions above. One step beyond the tried and the true or something…Of course, I believe (smiley face) that there is no love or life without recklessness. Thanks as usual for filling in my blanks.
Men dumping their wives and taking up with the best friends? Is this some new trend?
I don’t find my wife’s two best friends all that appealing. I couldn’t ever imagine myself happy with either of them. And one is fabulously wealthy. The thought of being in bed with either one of them makes me shudder. My girl outshines them both. Not even close.
“My wife doesn’t understand me.” Hasn’t that line been retired? I couldn’t say it with a straight face. In our 20 years together my wife and I have understood each other well enough. The issue is always what we make of that understanding. You do need uncertainty, or an openness or whatever you want to call the ability to listen and absorb facts. I never saw it put that way before, but the point cannot be rebutted. It hardens the hearts and closes the minds of men and women alike.
Brenda, you are right, though. There is no life or love without daring or the willingness to fail. (I can’t quite endorse recklessness–I’ve seen too much of it end badly in my life.) I’ve been successful when I made big moves and have stumbled when I played it boring and safe. That was the way at work and with love and those forms of love we call friendship.
I’m with Scribbler on the grammar.
I’m with Ken. I haven’t heard of this “trend” before and immediately think of my own relationships. I can’t imagine my husband with my best friend. He might have imagined it a few times though, if you know what I mean. lol I mean, who wouldn’t want to think a little about tall, blonde, funny, sexy and smart? I’d even tease him to go for it. That girl would eat him alive. He wouldn’t know what hit him.
“Of course, I believe that there is no love or life without recklessness.”
I love that thought, Brenda. Wild abandon.
Well, you’ve certainly nailed it on the failure issue, Ken. Such a pity that it remains such a good teacher. I mean, if you’re lucky. Hah! Re the guys and wives’ best friends…It’s been going on since forever.
no comment.
of course. i guess i should have read eat, pray, green shoots, and grasshoppers or whatever the hell that best selling book was called…Thanks.
Dear Rhl: you are so right. and it won’t be just the next woman. It’ll be the one after that and the after that and so on. and thanks for the title. Knew it had something to do with shoots…
“Why do many middle-aged men leave their wives for their wives’ best friend?” I’m not quite sure I understand why you set up the question this way. The question could just as well have been “why do so many women shack up with their best friend’s husband?”. Or maybe “supposed best friend”?
Your phrasing begs the question of “why are women the docile actor in the break up of a marriage?” As though “the other woman”, who just happens to be the “best friend”, is a pawn to be played by the philandering husband?
Frankly, I don’t buy the set-up. It’s just a little too simple, and simplistic, to concentrate on only one of the *three* (or more?) actors involved.
I’m going to go out on a psychoanalytic limb here: maybe, in number of situations, the attraction of the women for the friend’s husband has something to do with the attraction that the woman feels for her best friend, but acting (out?) on those feelings is not permissible. The next best option is the best friend’s man, which has the double advantage of confirming the heterosexuality of her feelings.
I said “out on a limb”…
In any case, I found it interesting that you phrased your question in such a way as to make the woman’s role almost invisible, or at least very secondary.
You’re absolutely, right, Bruce. The assumption/set-up was way too narrow; confining. Complicity is part of what marriage is about. So the question could just as easily been reversed. It’s just that i know women who’ve been through it. but i will now venture out onto your psychoanalytic limb… thanks for asking.