The Mrs Club

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 To colored girls who considered suicide (or murder) when marriage was not enough

My people...Happy new year. Forgive me for being absent. Have a few new projects that are demanding my time. Have a new book coming out. Well two...First and please don't be too disappointed is a non fiction book of inspiration. What?!! I have received all of your emails about when is the next Mrs club coming out? I love you guys btw thanks for all the emails! It is coming O..."Watch this space for a preview..." in the meantime my new inspiration book is coming soon...so eat your vegetables while you wait for dessert!!!

I wrote this a while ago in response to the last post that was an email from a woman that her husband left for his mistress. Chai. I read that email and I was saddened. Not because he left her, because well, bad things happen but a man that leaves you...well let me keep my mouth shut, but it might be a blessing in disguise.

Anyway here is my response to her...

Maybe he hurt you
Maybe he left you
Maybe he disappointed you
Maybe he betrayed your trust
Maybe he broke your heart
Maybe he broke your spirit

May be you left him
May be you are still together
May be you are confused about what path to take
May be you are pressured into staying on one
One thing is for sure, no matter how you find yourself, in or out you can still be happy.

I got the saddest response to my note the other woman. From a woman who felt she lost her husband to one. It was filled with pain and bitterness. She felt victimized. She painted herself as less than and I know how that can feel when your self esteem is damaged.

I want to give her a hug and say this...

Perhaps you keep replaying the horrible things he said to you in your mind. Perhaps you look in the mirror and you no longer like what you see. Drown the noise out. Get a new soundtrack.

Just forgive and let go. Move on. You are not a victim.

Yes, he may have hurt your pride and shattered your heart, but you can still be happy. He was not courageous in leaving and your marriage was never a trap...He chose to walk out, ok, fine.

Truth be told, the demise of your relationship was not caused by him or you alone. Maybe there were things you both could have done better, maybe you could have both become better, because no woman can take a man permanently who wasn't already looking for a way out. So yes, this realization probably hurts and things may suck right now, but this is not the defining moment of your life.

This pain will pass, if you let it. What looks like an abandonment is actually a release. So you have downturned lips, get together with some girlfriends, have a glass of wine or two, put on some great music, allow yourself to cry it all out, then dance it all back, reclaim your sexy, reclaim your soul and open your eyes and live.

I know the other women may seem a person to envy right now, but I assure you the picture is not as rosy as you think it is. And anyway who cares. You have a brand new life ahead of you. A chance to do it all over. How many people get that?

You have your children, who no doubt are the most precious things in your life. Give them a kiss and hug and laugh with them. Shoot, if you can't call anyone, call me. Together we can cry and then dry our tears, we can pray and hear from God, then we can laugh and make merry, we can look at the life that is ahead of us, because I don't have any plans of dying and I will share with you the chapters that I have closed that were filled with pain and I will show you those that are not yet written that will be filled with joy. When something like this happens it is tempting to stay there but my darling turn the page. This is one chapter, it is not your whole story. Rewrite your poem.

I was the wife, in a past life
Now I look forward, now I look up
I have dried my tears, I have quelled my fears
I now know my worth, I know how to push forth.
I gave birth to children, I will birth myself.
Into a new place of healing and forgiveness, into a new place of possibilities and blessings.
Today I am rocking joy and I refuse to wear shame.
Today I will laugh
Today I will live
Today I will love
Watch this space...
because the best is yet to come.

Posted by Naija Babe :: 10:14 AM :: 0 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- Tuesday, December 29, 2009 A note from a wife ( A response to the other woman)

I have received many responses to the other woman post...This was an interesting response. I resisted adding my own two cents to this rejoinder...I think it makes many assumptions but as the author says there are many sides...Please read and weigh in, especially men, what makes y'all tick, other that testosterone, :)...it is an interesting take.

FROM THE WIFE

I read a piece by Ekene Onu titled 'Are You the Other Woman. As the title suggests, it was talking about mistresses - the disadvantages of being one, the pitfalls etc...I agreed with a lot of the things she wrote about but I couldn't help feeling there was another side to it all; a side that most of us, especially women, tend to close our eyes to.

What sort of vacuum would a man experience that he would feel the need to fill it with another woman; not just for a short period but for a long time- almost like a parallel marriage? Yes, the argument against that would be but why would the other woman agree to remain 'outside'?

On the other hand, why would the woman 'inside', remain in a loveless marriage and waste 10, 20 years of her life in bitterness and unhappiness, waiting for the man to 'come back to her? When he eventually does, he's old, tired and decrepit and the marriage is just waiting for death to come and take it!

Anyway, I decided to write a rejoinder based on my own experience...there are so many sides to this thing, so many...this is not definitive...it's just another side to the whole story....

MY REJOINDER-

I am the wife...

I am the wife; the one who has his 'committment'.

She is the 'other woman'; the one who has his heart.

I am the wife; the one who has his children.

She is the other woman; the one who has his love.

I am the wife; the one he comes home to.

She is the other woman; the one he loves being with.

I am the wife; the one who fasts and prays for my 'marriage'.

She is the other woman; the one who pulls him to her without prayers.

I am the wife; the one that has pursed lips and a down-turned mouth.

She is the other woman; the one with a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye.

I am the wife; the one who is fighting to 'keep her man'.

She is the other woman; the one who doesn't need to fight.

I am the wife; the one who knows we are just staying together for the children.

She is the other woman; the one that has the love child/children.

I am the wife; the one that doesn't want to face the reality of the situation.

He is the husband; the one that took courage and left because he wanted to live happily ever after.

I am the wife; the one who after months of tears and bitterness, is thankful that he was brave enough to walk away from the trap we found ourselves in.

I am the wife; the one who has learnt that marriage is hard enough without you entering into it with low expectations.

I was the wife and now I am not.

She was the other woman and now she is the wife

Posted by Naija Babe :: 8:13 PM :: 6 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- Saturday, December 12, 2009 Are you the other woman?

In light of the recent scandals…I wanted to repost this with a few extras. Please, I beg you if you know someone caught up in this, please forward. The saddest thing about all these women coming forward to kiss(lie) and tell, is their complete lack of understanding of what they are doing to themselves and how they are trying to glamorize their poor choices…So I dey ask?

Are you the other woman?

Before you all jump to shout loudly no, let’s be real, many of us are choosing this path, or at least find ourselves on it and at that moment are faced with whether to jump right off or continue along. Quite recently some notable women have admitted to being the other woman. Barbara Walters did, Oprah did and I know some of you did and are.

A while ago, a young woman sat in my living room and proceeded to tell me why she thought wives were the stupidest women. She said and I quote “Majority of the men I know don’t love their wives, they love their girlfriends. The wives are the fools because they clean up after them, take care of them and at the end of the day, he goes to have fun with his girlfriend”

I resisted the urge to slap the stupidity out of her brain. She was sitting in my house telling me, how she thought me and my kind were stupid. Ah…but I have come to learn that in order to gain wisdom, you have to listen to even to the most inane of conversations.

So I poured my drink as I listened to this otherwise educated and smart young woman, justify her choice in a roundabout fashion. The mind is amazing, you can justify anything if you really want to…I mean, Bush justified Iraq and I have just rationalized this chocolate chip cookie, well I am trying to justify it, but the truth us I really can’t justify it without lying to myself.

But I digress.

I think the key thing in her statement was that she was lying to herself. Affairs, adultery exist in a realm of lies. He lies to her, he lies to you, he lies to himself, you lie to the world, you lie to yourself and then you cry to yourself because there will be nobody left to lie to.

There was once a girl who once chased a married man. The wife found out and confronted her. The girl feeling like a hard babe pushed back. She basically told her that if she was handling hers, then he wouldn’t be with her. I expect she felt like she was too much, I expect he told her as much. But here’s the thing all he offered her was a few verbal sweet nothings, maybe a few dollars on top of that…what else…no commitment, no pride, no dignity? And I hate to break it to you, most of the time, cheating has nothing to do with the wife. With chronic cheats or sex addicts, you are nothing more than a fix. Would you reduce yourself to a baggie of cocaine?

I don’t know when we as women started to believe the lie that we have to settle for less!

Now here is my two kobo as far as being with a married man is concerned. Please know that this comes from a place of love and also I have a deep understanding of what I am saying, trust me.

1. If a man is married and has you on the side, then you are only a side piece. You are simply there because you agree to be there. Occasionally he may become so besotted that he will contemplate or maybe even leave his wife, but even in that circumstance, most of the time, it’s more about his needing to leave anyway and you providing a convenient safety net.
2. Men lie. Well, we all lie. We lie to get what we want. We lie to ourselves, so what makes you think that Mr. Man is not lying to you? He told you he doesn’t love her? What line do you think he used on his wife, when she found out about your last tryst? The same one. Verbatim.
3. The wives of men who cheat, have agendas. They stay for a myriad of reasons. Don’t assume stupidity is one of them.
4. Don’t believe the “it’s not where he is, it’s where he wants to be” myth. Where he is, is where he wants to be period. Trust me, don’t fall into that trap.

I know a woman, who was a man’s mistress for at least twenty years. She was and is a beautiful, elegant, educated woman. I don’t know what he told her to keep her hanging on in there for all those years, it must have been good. Long and short, this man had a heart attack and left everything to his wife and kids. His mistress and her child were left nothing. Their names weren’t even penciled into the will. She couldn’t see the body. She couldn’t mourn him publicly. She was a shadow widow, just like she was a shadow wife. She went to the memorial alone, her friends refused to go, and she sat at the back like a nobody. As she sat their crying about his death, she began to realize that in his real life, she was nobody to him. His friends that knew her, pretended otherwise. She was a strictly after midnight, no status. I think about her a lot. I wonder how a woman like that could have fallen prey.

I wrote the book, the Mrs club, because I wanted to talk about how people feel when pressured to marry, but there is a secondary pressure. The desire to find love. When time starts racing by, you start to become afraid. The question of whether you’ll ever find love begins to ring in your head, like and unwanted bell. You start to panic. You think deep inside even though you might proclaim otherwise that maybe you won’t find that perfect love. So sometimes when a counterfeit comes around, showing you all the romance you felt would come with that perfect love but none of the commitment, you think that you have to settle for less. Don’t feel bad, so many of us have fallen for their verse. It is practiced so it’s convincing, but it’s no more real than the world they are promising you. Any man that is serious will close one door before opening another. This is fact, simple and true.

Tell yourself what you like…but find a little time to tell yourself the truth. These so called hard babes and senior chicks that self medicate with gucci and prada are sometimes dying inside. They don’t tell you that sometimes, he doesn’t take their calls for days or weeks. They don’t tell you that they have to beg sometimes for the money that they flash around like lottery winners. They don’t tell you that sometimes, they get lonely. They don’t tell you that sometimes they hate who they have become.

I guess that is what gets to me the most. I told that girl in my living room and I am telling you. If you are on the verge of making this choice. Don’t choose him. Choose you. Don’t give up everything you believe for a person that has made no commitment to you. Don’t give up the right to dignity for a little bit of intimacy, don’t give up being alone and end up lonely. You are worth more. You deserve to live and walk in the light. You deserve to subsist on more than crumbs, you deserve the cake.
I understand that fear, believe me I do. I think that sometimes that books and movies set us up. They are about romance, not love. When the screen gets blurry and the music starts, what is happening is not love, its romance. Love is commitment, pure and simple. It is not necessarily sexy. It doesn’t necessarily come with perfect words. It simply is.

And if you stop looking for the lies, you will see the truth and say it.

Yes O! Anyone reading this, I am begging you…it is as the Bible says, God is not mocked. It is the principle of the world even, what you sow, you will reap. I tell you, any tears you cause any woman to shed over your affairs with her husband, you will weep double in your life.

I posted this here because so many “good” girls are falling for the lie and before you know it, they leave their morals and their faith behind because of shame.

My darlings, I don’t speak because I am perfect, I speak because I know all too well. No matter how lonely you are, no matter how fine he is, or how lonely he claims to be, you deserve more. You are worth more.

And if you have fallen, if you are there, maybe he is sleeping right beside you right now…it is not too late to get up and say no more. Never mind the lies that float around in your head saying you are ruined. Hmm, who is ruined, what was Mary Magdalene, what about Rahab, no one is ruined before God. He is watching you and wanting you to come back to Him. He will receive you with open arms.

You are loved. By the most High. Now tell me what man made from dust can compete with that?

Posted by Naija Babe :: 8:09 PM :: 5 comments

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---------------oOo--------------- Thursday, November 12, 2009 Hawaii vs Alaska

The other day I was speaking to a dear friend who is waiting for her life partner. She is of age and has everything going for her and she is currently single. I understand her angst, I know people may think yeah, yeah, you are already married how can you relate? Well while I may not fully grasp the depth of her concern, rest assured I myself felt it at times.

We had an interesting conversation the other day. She was telling me about a man who had come on the scene but he had a few hiccups or commas or red flags. She had asked me for advice about whether or not she should proceed with this man. He had many of the qualities that she wanted but he also had many of the flaws she desperately wanted to avoid. I listened to her, this brilliant, compassionate, solid woman, someone who I often turned to for counsel; tell me her reasons for considering this man. She kept talking and I kept asking questions and then she said something that I love her for. She broke it down honestly. “I am not getting any younger and it’s not like I have a lot of prospects, so maybe I should just take what is in front of me”. I was so glad when she put it plainly because here was something we could deal with.

I couldn’t tell her whether or not he would be a good man because only God knows a man’s heart…and even the bible tells us it can be desperately wicked.
I couldn’t tell her if she would be happy with him, even couples who profess undying love at the wedding day sometimes hate each other later.

I could tell her though that the smoke one sees when dating, typically becomes a well stoked fire in marriage.
I could tell her that those red flags usually become sirens later on.
I could tell her that I loved her enough not to want her to suffer unnecessarily.

I asked her to picture herself in an airport and her marriage a destination. Where would she like to go? Perhaps she thought of a picturesque place like Hawaii; a destination known for its beaches and tropical flavor. Perhaps she had packed a bikini and sunglasses for her trip.
Now I wanted her to picture the departure board. All the flights to Hawaii were delayed until further notice. None of the airline staff had any information, except that they knew that corporate planned to send the planes. People seemed to be boarding planes all around her, but when she looked the only available flight she could get on was headed directly to Alaska and it was leaving soon.

What to do? She is not packed for Alaska. She doesn’t even like snow. But it’s the only available flight. Maybe she could learn to like snow, maybe she could buy a parka over there. Don’t they have like a month of summer?
All these thoughts rush through her head.

I asked her, its there some apocalyptic event happening at the airport. If you don’t board the plane, is your life in danger?
Because there was one other thing I knew for sure. The plane to Alaska will never go to Hawaii.
As for her questions, well she could maybe buy a parka. I know many women (and men for that matter) who are in marriages that are difficult because the parties involved were prepared for different experiences and somehow found themselves on the wrong plane. She could learn to like snow, certainly probably after many cold nights, after all I also know marriages that seemed doomed from the start eventually after much heartache and God’s intervention become sweet and loving.

The point of all this is simply this. I love my friend and so I shared with her what I want to share with you. Marriage is not a simple, uncomplicated affair. Even when you are perfectly matched you may find challenges and when you are not if can be a Herculean task to make it work and it will not come without a great deal of heartache and pain. So I know the wait may seem endless and it seems like your partner isn’t out there. I want to encourage you to wait for what you know in your heart that you want and need, as long as those wants are not based on superficial nonsense but rooted in reality and come from true introspection, then wait.

I know the screen says delayed. I know you don’t have any information as to when it is coming. I know you have a wave of panic welling up inside of you.
But please know this, if you get on the plane bound for the wrong destination, that’s it. You are on the plane. The pilot will not stop and let you get off. And you may be thinking well I’ll just get divorced. Not as easy as folks make it look, like two pieces of paper that are stuck together can rarely be separated without one or both of them ripping, most people do not get out of divorces completely intact and without some serious and possibly life changing pain and consequences.

Please wait for what you want. Yes, I’m on the other side. So I should have credibility, I know exactly what shade of green the grass is here and I know just how many weeds there are too.
Wait, and while you are waiting, look around you…it’s a nice airport, state of the art, they have a lounge where you can get facials and massages, the best restaurants and the shopping is freaking awesome!

Love you. Be well.

Posted by Naija Babe :: 9:09 PM :: 6 comments

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