I didn’t know how to react to this story at first.
I mean it starts off like a pretty typical cheater tale:
A woman opens her hubby’s suitcase to see a Viccy’s Secret bag in there with a nightie in red – a color she deliberately avoided wearing well into adulthood because she was “always told” it looked terrible against her fair skin and strawberry blonde hair. Hubby knew this too… so she knew it wasn’t for her. Naturally, in an act of wrathful passion (woman after my own heart), she fed the satin ensemble to the garden shears. Then she told her spouse – to which he replied (without even bothering to even defend himself by lying, so I guess he retains half a dignity point for that):
“I’m just gonna buy her another one”
(Oh…Yeeesh… Demerits on that half dignity point.)
Next is the not-so-typical part of this tale:
Wife says she’ll replace said teddy… And does. And leaves him.
No vengeful twist. Nothing. It’s almost more caustic in its coldness than getting angry.
Generally, before judging, I try to put myself in the situation of the other. This can be extremely challenging – and (since I’ve never been hitched), trying to put myself into the bedroom slippers of a married chick just learning hubby’s been creepin’ on her is never so simple. Even if I’ve seen it before – a lot – which is maybe why I avoid legally shackling myself to another sentient being. But I’m making an effort here.
Let’s spitball with what I think I’d maybe do…
Um… maybe… kept the shredded nightie in the bag and dreamt about the damper it’d have put on whatever evening she received it? Hid it in the walk in closet, lit it on fire when he went to look for it, and locked him inside – Jim Morrison style? Bought a new one – just like she did – right before working a nice lather of itching powder and hot sauce into the crotch of the thong that always comes with it? Or, work a little deeper, buy a burner, delete her number (not hard to find if it’s furtively labeled – just look at whoever’s most contacted on the phone bill) and switch the names and numbers in his phone? That way any texts he sends to her name will come to my burner until he realizes he’s been duped when he sees the area codes are diff (assuming they are, if she’s a girl at another port). Either way, it’s plenty of time to wage psychological war as I play the role of mistress how-to-lose-a-guy-in-ten-days-ing him via text message. How’s that go? Oh, it’s real simple. There’s a whole arsenal of how-to out there: “I feel like you don’t love me”, “What are we?”, “When are you going to leave your wife for me?”, *sends picture of baby* “I want one…awwww!”, “Hold on hunny, trying to get this zit”, “Am I fat?”, “I feel ugly…” (Trust me, I’ve done subconscious sabotage of this sort on my own normal, monogamous-so-far-as-I-knew relaches I knew deep down couldn’t work out. It’s kinda sick, really, ‘cause I don’t think I’m alone. I feel like it’s like chick-kind’s cowardly way of making men hate us so that we can Oppenheimer the whole shiz and have people throw a pity party for us later for the damn bomb we built in the basement of our brain to begin with). Moving on.
So, as a sick person, it’s tough to say which route I’d take.
(Ah, look! I missed one!)
I mean, when you have to pull ideas out of your ass for a living, and you tend to be an ass, it’s hard not to use your powers for a bit of evil. It takes real visceral fortitude not to eviscerate others when it’s comes so naturally. Still, as I’m trying to take the hard, gravely, narrow, winding, edge-of-a-cliff high road, I suppose I can try to play angel’s advocate. I mean, my perspective’s coming from the comfort of unattachment.
And I know what I’d do if I were me in that sitch.
But what would I do if I were her in it?
What motivated her to purchase silky human gift wrap to put on a woman… for the man she made vows to… to undo like a child on Christmas who just knows the remote control hot wheels car he asked for is sitting inside? I’m trying to understand and have found myself having an aneurysm map-questing myself back to the high road when that litany of inimical thoughts just listed above keeps redirecting me to the Hateful Highway. And by the looks of the responses to this article, it seems I’m not alone in my odium distraction. However, as I really attempt to play the V.S. angel’s advocate in this case, I think I get it.
It’s kind of like that “don’t go to bed angry thing.”
Granted, they usually tell you to do this with the people that you love, but I’ve found over time that even with the people you loathe, this kinda “bad blood” feeling does very little for the person feeling it too. In fact, it’s worse for them. I mean, when I really truly put myself in her place, it goes like this: I’ve just (angrily) ripped apart this nightie ensemble destined to be worn by the woman sleeping with the man I love. I admit my act of anger to him. And what does he say? “I’m just going to buy her another one anyway.” That – I think – is what would have maybe been my epiphany moment too… if I were her and had gone through the surge of emotions she just had. ‘cause I imagine the moment you find out you’ve been rejected and replaced, you feel like you have no control. That slap in the face to the promise made between two people must feel awful. Total powerlessness. I know that when I feel powerless, I grasp for any sorta control I do have over the situation at hand (see my last installment of the “Wrath Collection” here for how that looks to an unmarried rage addict).
So, in a way, by saying “I’ll do it” and replacing the lingerie herself – it was like the only control she did have over a shitty scenario. Also, it served as something kind of symbolic. A ritual. Like a funeral for severing the metaphorical thread to him by buying the literal threads for his side chick. When I think of it that way, I get it. Because I’ve tried passively sitting back and trying to intrinsically come to terms with stuff before and it’s hard as shit. The end of a job, relationship, Breaking Bad (I’ll always love you, Walter), whatever it is – it can be pretty effing tough. That’s why some spiritual speakers out there will go on about actively creating some kind of a ritual to signify you cleaving the cord between you and it – whatever it is fettering your feels. Because even if the object on the other side of your rage-tie deserves to be skinned alive and tenderized with Tabasco sauce and salt, who’s really the one suffering here?
Him – who’s off gleefully porking some barely legal bright eyed ingenue?
Or you – who knows deep down that no matter how hard you wish him to wake up limbless hanging from a hook in the Texas Chainsaw house tomorrow morning while the birds cheerfully chirp, that your dreams are probably never going to come true? Ever? Or at least less likely than the probability he’s just off spreading his seed on a congregation of cooters like a priest with an aspergillum? A thought which inevitably will punctuate your sociopathic fantasies? And make you angrier and sadder? So again – who’s really benefiting there?
Could there be a better way?
The fact that she could recognize that and follow through so quickly is pretty amazing. And what’s even better? That she gained something personal from this shitshow when she threw two fingers up in one act: one for the mistress receiving the scarlet colored bedroom duds (“that’s right, bish; my fingerprints have been on this. I’ll be with you both when he effs it off you.”) and one for whoever raised her to think she “looked bad in red”… by inviting that formerly shunned shade of the rainbow back into her own wardrobe. Nice.
I kinda wish she’d start her own line at Viccy’s Secret after this publicity she’s gotten.
I mean if a stupid movie can sell adult toys and cosmetics, then certainly she can. And call it…
“Hell hath no fury”?
“Woman Scorned”?
“The Scarlet Letter”?
Or play off the dumb commercial success of Hollywood:
“50 Shades of Rouge ‘n Rage”…?