GOSSIP FROM THE GIRLFRIEND GATHERINGS

Learning from YOU to empower ME !

Is Ignorance Bliss? – The Aftermath of the Ashley Madison Hacking

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HiResThe hacking of the Ashley Madison website and posting of that information on the internet for all to access raised a question for many married persons – “Is my spouse cheating on me?”  When I read about persons searching this information trove I thought about that game we played as adolescents.   The game where we pulled the petals of a flower as we recited “He loves me……He loves me not” hoping that it would end on the right choice.    I know that persons are hoping that they do not find the name and information of their spouse among the Ashley Madison information.   However, if a person does find their spouse’s information, then they will have a hard decision to make about the relational aftermath.   Some will be prepared but I think most will not.   So, here is my advice.

If you don’t plan to GO, then you DON’T want to know.

Otherwise, you are in for an emotional rollercoaster ride where:

  • your trust and belief in your spouse will be destroyed
  • your self-confidence will be destroyed because most victimized spouses feel there is something lacking with them that drives their spouse to cheat
  • it is possible jealousy will drive you to unreasonable behavior

I have a friend who became aware that his wife was cheating on him.   He installed software on her computer that captured all of her chats with her lover.   He told me that he would read the chats every day and spend every night watching her as she slept next to him.   He could not sleep thinking about her daily betrayals.   I was afraid he would snap and hurt her.    Eventually, they divorced.

Also, recently in Houston, we had a woman who tracked her husband traveling in the car with his lover.    She chased him in her car trying to force him to pull over so she could confront them and ended up having a car accident in which she was killed.  Also, the man she hit was seriously injured.

Years ago, an older female co-worker shared her view on cheating to a group of us younger and inexperienced females in the office.   Her view was “you can’t miss what you can’t measure” and this was her way of justifying her behavior.   The statistics indicate that many share her view.   It is estimated that 30 – 60% of married persons in the U.S will cheat at some point in their marriage.

Sometimes we excuse this behavior in men by equating their behavior to a male dog’s instinctive attraction to a female dog in heat.   However, with a woman it is different as she is held totally accountable for her behavior and labeled disreputably for her actions.     Clearly, this is a double standard.

Whether you are a male or female, we all should accept that to cheat is a personal choice.   No one can “take” your spouse from you.

I know it is tempting to peruse through the Ashley Madison’s information but before you do make a plan.    Determine your motivation and how you plan to handle the aftermath.   Also, if you don’t find your spouse’s name, do you consider that the answer to the implied question?

QUESTION(S)

What are your thoughts about the hacking of the Ashley Madison websites and all the latest revelations in the news/social media?

 

Be For Real

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MaskLast week, I received an email with a notification that I had a new follower on Twitter.    The name of the new follower was John Legend.    I blinked when I saw the name.    I checked and it was his face on the profile.   I immediately clicked on the FOLLOW button to follow him, too.  I grabbed my cell phone and texted my fellow blogger/writer/sister-girlfriend to tell her the news.  Then I jumped up from my desk and did the happy dance around my home office.    Soon her reply came back, “You go, girl” and I was so thrilllllllllleeeeeeeeedddddddddd!

Then my rational mind kicked in.   My first thought was “Why is John Legend following me?”    My second thought was “What did I write that would interest him?”     So, I clicked on the link which took me to the twitter page of this John Legend and the first thing I noticed was that he only had about 6,700 followers.  (What the hell?)  Then I looked at his @twitterid which was a series of numbers and alphabets.   Even though he had pictures of John Legend on his profile I realized that my new follower was a fake, a bogus, and a sham.    I immediately clicked on the UNFOLLOW button.

With a bad taste in my mouth, I texted my fellow blogger/writer/sister-girlfriend to update her on the imitation John Legend.    She sympathized with me and told me to try to hold on to my “thrill” as long as I could.    I tried but the whole experience made me think about those people who go through life pretending to be something or someone else which sometimes wreak havoc on the lives of others.

A few days after my personal incident, I read the news about Rachel Dolezal.   The entire news story was really mind-boggling to me.

Why would anyone want to assume an identity that is not their own?    What type of compulsion would motivate one to attempt it?    How long can one wear such a mask?

The one thing we all know is life is short.    The older you get the shorter it seems.   You reach a point where it is time out for “bullshiggity” in your personal realm.   You embrace who you are and what you are about in life.    Hopefully, we all make it to that point and can be an encouraging example to others to do the same.

The best thing you can do for you, your loved ones, and the society you live in is to just be for real and avoid those who are not.

QUESTION(S):

How do you feel about phony people?

The Make-Do Woman – When YOU are “Doing” Everything to “Make” It Work

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Two skills that I learned early in life were listening and observing.    I am naturally inquisitive and intuitive about those closest to me.   As a kid at family gatherings, I would soon become bored with playing with the other kids so I would go and spy on the adults.   Now, when I look at old photographs of those family gatherings I laugh when I see my little head peeking around a door or over some sitting adult’s shoulder – the only child in the picture.

My favorite spot to hangout back then was the kitchen.   I loved it there because the women of the family would be there cooking and talking.   It always smelled fabulous in there and the discussions were lively.   I got to know my mother, grandmothers and aunts very well by listening to those discussions and observing their body language.   As for the men in the family, I compared them all to my Dad and he always was the better man.

As I grew older, I noticed some puzzling behaviors among the women.  I noticed that a few of my aunts were their happiest when their husbands were not around.   I recall visiting my aunts when my uncles would be at work or out.  My aunts would be upbeat and very engaged with us children.   Later, when I visited while my uncles were at home, my aunts were sometimes “taking naps” alone in their darken bedrooms for hours or unusually silent in their engagements with us.   Their demeanors would be so drastically different that it was alarming enough to me to mention to my Mom.    However, the men in the family were always the same.    The “why?” of it remained a mystery for me until I reached adulthood.

As I grew up into womanhood and entered into adult relationships, I often reflected on those memories of my aunts.    Now, some of them had different meanings because I was older and wiser.   I know now that two of my aunts were battling “circumstantial” depression which resulted in one being institutionalized later in life.  Another one was actually being physically and emotionally abused by her husband.  These were hard realizations for me because all of my aunts were very good and loving to me.    I witnessed how they did everything in their power to make their marriages work and to be good wives.   They all remained married until “death” parted them from their husbands.   It was not all happy for them but I guess they remained for reasons I cannot understand.

I know now that watching the lives of my aunts influenced me about marriage and commitment.   It seems to me that women “do” everything to “make” the relationship work and most men are reluctant to do the same.   I termed this type of woman the Make-Do Woman.   The Make-Do woman is willing to concede, to compromise, to justify, to rationalize, and to minimize something within her personhood to continue with a relationship that has gone bad.

I wish I can say it only happened in the generations before mine but there are brilliant, strong, and competent women today that are enduring this situation in their lives.   They probably don’t see themselves as I have described here but only as someone who can’t “throw in the towel” yet.   But, if the women are the only ones trying to save the relationship, I challenged them to re-evaluate their motivations.   I challenged them to embrace self-preservation.  I challenged them to answer truthfully this question – “If you are crying more than you are smiling/laughing, is it worth it to stay?”

QUESTION(S):

Do you personally know any “Make-Do” women?  If so, pass this post on to her.

What do you think about my description of the Make-Do Woman?

Ode to Elena – A Self Portrait

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My thoughts tonight could not stay on the subject I wanted to blog about as I was deep into my past.    Memories flooded my mind so I wrote it out.  I decided to share it here.

Ode to Elena

Elena was born from the passion of a touch, from the depth of a look, from the whisper of a name.

In an instant, Elena lived and embraced all of the emotions that filled her in that moment.

Elena existed in spurts of time filled with love and loving, laughter and smiles, touches and caresses.

Elena was moved by the music that filled her air, the wine that wet her lips, and the dance that swayed her hips.

Elena was the dark-skinned sun worshipper who straddled her lover on crisp white sheets beneath the moonlight that guided them.

Elena was the one whose hand he held to his chest to feel the tempo of his heartbeats.

Elena lived and loved, loved and lived, so much, too much, grabbing, holding, reaching, wondering, yearning, and waiting …for the next time.

Then one time the next time ended.

And Elena died – just as she was born – in an instant.

 

Prejudice – A Learned Behavior

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sketch-of-volunteer-group-raising-hands-vector-illustration_zy3Q8f_OLast week, we all heard about the young Anglo-American girl who wrote her African-American girl friend a letter to explain that her father would not allow her to attend her birthday party/sleepover because she was Black.    This incident was really disheartening to everyone I spoke with about it because it was clearly a destruction of these young girls’ innocence and their friendship.    As an African-American, this subject brought back memories of my own loss of innocence when I experienced prejudice for the first time.

Imagine the plight of minority parents.   They have to find a way to prepare their child for this type of experience because they know one day they WILL encounter it in our society.   In my home, my mother told us that there would be some people who would not like us because of the “color of our skin” but she told us that it was their problem. She assured us there was nothing wrong with the color our skin and we were made as God wanted us to be.    Of course, I was very young and did not fully understand but I was comforted by the way my mother presented it to me and my siblings.   When the experiences started to occur I was equipped to handle it.   It was their problem, not mine.   However, it was still painful.

As I reflect back, I realize that my earliest experience happened when I was about 5 or 6 years old.   It was very subtle but very real.    When I was that age Houston was segregated and I lived in a community of hard-working African-Americans.   My mother was the African-American version of June Cleaver and my father was among the first African-American workers to integrate what is now known as the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority.    Across the street from our home lived a Polish family.   They were one of the few Anglo families in our community and they were very nice to my family.    Every summer, a young relative would come to visit.   She was my age and we loved to play together.    They would invite me over and I would play with her all day.    I wanted her to come to my house to play and she wanted to come, too, but her aunt always said “No.”   I asked my mother about it and all she said was Kitty was welcomed if her aunt allowed her to come.   Kitty asked everyday and the answer was always the same.   It was many years later that I realized the true reason Kitty could not come to my home to play.  I always wondered if she came to realize the true reason, too.  I guess we both were blessed that no one said it aloud.

It is a terrible thing when an adult teaches a child to hate.    For some families, it is like a generational curse that is passed on.   My family did not teach us to hate but they did teach us to be wary and to stand up against prejudice behavior.

I said a prayer for the African-American girl and her Anglo-American girl friend.  I hope they are resilient and will bounce back from this situation.  Children are truly colorblind and that is how friendship should be.   We all should be led by them.  We should look at each other and only see our friend.

QUESTION(S):

Did you know about this incident in the news?

If so, how do you feel about it?

Have you ever experienced prejudice?

If friendship was a color, what color do you think it would be?