[Two Pronged] ‘Imperfect’ mistress: I want to win him back

Jeremy Baer, Margarita Holmes

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'He told me that he didn't leave me last year because of the great sex, saying that I was the best in bed and he can't resist me. I felt used.'

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives.

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.

Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

Good day! I am writing to ask for help on how to win back my boyfriend. But it is not as simple as it seems.

He is married, with 3 kids. They are a happy family. He is 55, I am 26. Yes that’s an age gap of 29 years.  I’ve grown up without a dad and I had a hard time in understanding my mom. I don’t live with her anymore.

We’ve been together since February 2006. So that’s 10 years and 3 months. Ever since, I’ve said I want a typical BF-GF relationship. He is not obliged to leave his family or give me money. We are very happy together and I have mastered the art of hiding our relationship. We don’t go out together, no pictures or any evidence. I am content with the little time and attention he can offer. 

But I am not the perfect mistress. I cheated on him with a friend, which later on I totally regretted. Worst part is, I got an STD with this single encounter. He was infected. His wife was infected. That time that he learned about this, he was so mad, but forgave me. Well, I thought, wow! He loved me that much. He then became strict. He bought a house near his place for me. And I worked home-based. My Viber has location turned on so he can check on me anytime.

After a year, we argued about him, not giving me attention when I was sick. Then in the middle of our fight, he blurted out that he lost feelings for me. Not completely, but a lot of that was gone. He’s paranoid every time I go home late. When I reply late. And he told me that he didn’t leave me last year because of the great sex, saying that I was the best in bed and he can’t resist me. I felt used. I felt humiliated. I felt bad, as if I am just a sex doll and a slut that he can just use anytime. But honestly there’s this “Well at least he won’t leave me” in my head.

My friends are telling me to just end this simply because it is not right. But I truly love him. I want to win him back. I want him to trust me and love me again. Please help me. 

Best,

Liz

Dear Liz,

Thank you for your email.

There seem to be some fundamental contradictions in your story which you may want to address. 

1. You say you want a typical BF-GF relationship yet what you actually have is the opposite. In an average BF-GF relationship boy meets girl, they go out, get to know each other, gradually introduce each other to work colleagues, friends and family and so on in ever growing numbers.

In your case, everything is being kept secret, you never go anywhere together, there is no trace of your relationship outside the house he bought for you and presumably only your closest friends are aware of the truth.

2. You say you are content with the little time and attention he gives you. Yet you also want to win him back, regain his trust and love. This would seem to indicate very clearly that you are not content with the present situation.

3. Then there is your belief that you are not the perfect mistress, which you seem to think requires you to subjugate yourself to Al’s will. Granted, giving your lover an STD is not on most mistresses’ bucket lists. However, the life of a mistress can be extremely lonely and an attractive woman in her prime should be entitled to live a little, discreetly, while her lover is nestling in the bosom of his family.

The main problem though seems to lie with your insistence that you love him, a statement which apparently allows you to justify in your own mind the pittance of a relationship that is all that Al is offering you, so let’s consider your relationship in a little more detail.

From Al’s perspective, he has a woman 29 years his junior who is prepared to live hidden away in the house he has bought for her, obey each and every restriction he puts on her movements, be at his beck and call 24/7, and provide him with sexual services whenever he requires them, all in the name of love (in her eyes) and of sexual prowess (in his eyes).

From your perspective, you have a boyfriend who goes home to his wife and children every day, sees you occasionally, keeps a rigorous eye on your every movement, tells you you’re great in bed but has few other feelings for you.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out who has the better deal here nor to realize that you must be seriously deluded if you think, or indeed ever thought, that love plays much of a role in Al’s part of this story. He has made it very clear what he thinks of you and your conclusion “I am just a sex doll and a slut that he can just use anytime” shows that you have retained excellent powers of analysis. As for regaining his ‘love,’ surely it is clear that this would be a pipe dream.

Perhaps you should now take proper stock of your situation and listen to your friends when they say it’s time to bring this relationship to an end.

All the best,

JAF Baer

 

Dear Liz:

Thank you very much for your letter. Part of me wishes I could help you with tips on how to win him back, but alas, this is something I am not very good at myself. The other part of me wants to shake you and tell you – “but you already have a traditional BF-GF relationship; the kind many women have been trying to ‘UN-traditionalize’ for ages….you know, the one where the man calls all the shots and the woman agrees?” The kind where being monitored and kept tabs on can be misinterpreted as symbols of love? 

Finally – and this, for me, is the clincher – the one time you mention your need for him when you were sick, he blurts out that he’s lost all feeling for you but stays because of the great sex you provide for him.

This is operant conditioning – one of the classic ways to manipulate people.  It is “ a type of learning in which the strength of a behavior is modified by its consequences, such as reward or punishment, and the behavior is controlled by antecedents called discriminative stimuli which come to signal those consequences” (Read more here.

For example, your sharing that you need more than he’s willing to give (his attention when you’re sick) resulted in his insulting you and making you feel “like a slut.” You can bet your life that you will think twice about sharing any of your real feelings with him again after that. 

Mr Baer has given you some of the cons of your relationship, asking you to take stock and reconsider your options. 

Perhaps the best I can do is help you explore the reason/s you want to win Al back. Hopefully, weighing the possible reason/s, you might reconsider what it is you truly want in a relationship. 

You wrote: “I’ve grown up without a dad… But honestly (despite his insulting me)  there’s this ‘well at least he won’t leave me’ in my head… I truly love him. I want to win him back. I want him to trust me and love me again.” 

Dearest Liz, I realise this sounds like the hokiest of pop psychology—suggesting you chose a much older man because you missed your father—but please examine what you wrote above more closely. 

When a child grows up without a father, no matter what the reason, there will come a time (sometimes later, sometimes earlier) when the child feels abandoned. This feeling can mark the child – and the grown woman she becomes – so deeply that she tries to erase it by recreating the circumstances where the substitute father does NOT leave. And she needs him not to leave because, in her mind, that means her father never left her.

After all, no matter how circumscribed your relationship with Al is, this is the one stable thing in your life.

The person to whom this interpretation (the last two paragraphs above) is offered (the way I am offering it to you) often needs lots of therapy so that they can accept it (if, indeed, “the shoe fits”). However, since this is the only way I can reach out to you, I hope you might just think about it and write to us once more to agree, disagree, or even curse me to the high heavens.

The philosopher David Whyte once said: “One of the difficulties of leaving a relationship is not so much, at the end, leaving the person themselves…what’s difficult is leaving the dreams that you shared together. And you know that somehow — no matter who you meet in your life in the future, and no matter what species of happiness you would share with them — you will never, ever share those particular dreams again, with that particular tonality and coloration.”

BUT Whyte adds… “And so there’s a lovely and powerful form of grief there that is the ultimate of giving away but making space for another form of reimagination.”

May another form of reimagination happen to you soonest (as I hope it happens to all of us). 

All the best,

MG Holmes

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED.Unfortunately the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.

When leaving a message on this page, please be sensitive to the fact that you are responding to a real person in the grip of a real-life dilemma, who wrote to Two Pronged asking for help, and may well view your comments here. Please consider especially how your words or the tone of your message could be perceived by someone in this situation, and be aware that comments which appear to be disruptive or disrespectful to the individual concerned will be removed.

 

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