Side Dishes
"Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option," is widely attributed to Maya Angelou.
We live in a heteronormative world where men ask, women say yes or no and people tend to not really care about male infidelity but care deeply about female infidelity.
When I was young, I was a real stickler for assuming someone was strictly off limits if they were involved with someone. Then I found myself facing a divorce where I had a verbal agreement to divorce that I was certain was as good as a written contract signed in blood and I was sick and things didn't unfold rapidly.
Prior to actual paperwork being filed for my divorce, I had two very long-distance relationships via Internet and phone. One was to a man who was legally separated and had been for years. The other was to a man sleeping at his office more than at home and contemplating divorce in spite of being part of an extremely conservative culture where divorce is still a really big deal.
I also had two distinctly different experiences with "announcing" my future divorce in online forums, one where many people were told in private discussions before it came up publicly and one where almost no one knew before it came up publicly.
The reality is that when love dies, it's typically a long, slow process that may play out over several years and just because someone is on public record as "faithfully married" or similar doesn't mean that is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Additionally, I have long struggled with certain concepts where other people speak of "a relationship" as if that clearly describes a significant connection when it's clear to me your relationship to someone starts at first contact and develops with every interaction.
Men seem to frequently try to decide at first contact whether this will be a romantic or a platonic relationship and that boggles my mind. You don't even know me yet but you're making important decisions about "us"?
Once they have decided "It's platonic," they frequently proceed to behave in a fashion that guarantees she would throw her drink in your face if you ever did ask.
Plus these days the Internet makes it possible to have an emotionally intimate relationship with someone you've never actually met in the flesh such where there's no risk of an STD nor pregnancy and unlike traditional dating, he isn't necessarily spending money on you for things like dinner and a movie.
We don't actually have adequate language for this new reality and the new class of virtual relationships it has made possible and we aren't really trying to hash that out while everyone has a hissy about AI girlfriends instead.
I've been chatted up long distance enough to have become aware that:
1. Typically, men have more money than women.
2. Men typically default to assuming "He who has the gold makes the rules" even if he's not actually spending anything on YOU.
There is a huge set of assumptions that get made rooted in all of that heteronormative stuff. And I had an on again, off again actual affair involving actually getting jiggy four whole times in the years we knew each other while I researched my options and tried to figure out a path forward on getting with him which never materialized.
If you are a woman, let me suggest you very QUIETLY adopt a few rules for yourself:
1. If you're not married, you're not moving to where his career takes him.
2. If he's not exclusively yours, you're not exclusively his either. If he wants a commitment from you, he needs to actually leave his current lady and see only you.
3. This doesn't mean you necessarily need to sleep around. It does mean you should pull your head out your butt and not behave like the property of a man who isn't actually paying your bills and may never pay your bills.
If you two aren't married, your first loyalty should be to your career.
Putting "love" first when he's still with someone else he may never leave is called being a chump.
Get "cash upfront" so to speak. Don't take empty promises of an imagined beautiful future together in exchange for taking care of his needs. Take care of some of his needs if and only if he takes care of some of yours.
Men who trade empty promises for immediate material gain will continue doing exactly that even if they marry you.
But above all: Put your career goals first. Think about how this relationship is or his expectations are impacting or will likely impact your career.
Because he's not currently paying your bills and may never pay your bills. And this Cinderella BS boils down to "If a man loves you, he will pay your bills and you will be set for life."
It's a stupid idea to begin with. And it's downright deranged to believe in that fairytale nonsense if he's currently paying some other chick's bills, not yours, while expecting you to be loyal to him as if he were paying your bills.
Women routinely treat their relationship as their bread and butter. It's problematic even when you are married. It's financial suicide if you're his side dish.