Is Cheating Becoming Acceptable Because We’re Afraid to be Alone?

Is Cheating Becoming Acceptable Because We’re Afraid to be Alone?

 

I was watching last night’s episode of the new hit show on BET – Being Mary Jane and it’s left me so conflicted I don’t know who to feel the most empathy for in this show.  The worst part is that I truly believe that women are living this situation in real life.  Just in case you aren’t familiar with the show I’ll fill you in fill you in a little.  Mary Jane played by Gabrielle Union is dating Andre, she’s happy, hoping and praying that he’s all hers, asks God for a sign that she can love this man and she surely gets a clear sign.  His wedding band drops from his suit jacket she’s picking up from her floor.  She’s upset, kicks him out and vows to never speak to him again.  She then sees him with his wife and decided she’s going to tell his wife about them sleeping together.  He’s obsessed and following her around.  He doesn’t want to be without Mary Jane.  They end up at the gym at the same time, he starts begging her and she tells him about telling his wife.  They argue back and forth and she breaks down and have sex with him in the gym.  That’s the short version to get you a little caught up to last night’s episode.

The episode starts out with Andre inviting Mary Jane to a hotel room, he starts talking to her and telling her he loves her and then he pulls out a ring.  He says he was going to propose but he wanted to be sure she would wait and be fine with his kids.  She’s tuning him out as tears rolls down her eyes when she finally speaks all she says is ‘All you do is make me cry’ and walks out the room.  I cheer for her, I mean some women would have broken down as soon as they saw that ring but she takes a stand – at least for the moment.  Andre being persistent mails her the ring to her job and that’s when my heart starts to ache for Mary Jane but not just the character on this show but because I know that there’s a woman some where going through the same thing she is in the show.  That’s when it hits me that art really does imitate life and selfishly I am glad that I’ve never been there before.  She ponders that ring for what seems like hours and is back and forth between anger, joy, sadness and desperation.  Yes I said desperation because the sad truth is Ms. Mary Jane – a super successful TV anchor, with her own house & car, is considering wearing a ring from a man who has a wife and children.  A man who can’t possibly give her all she needs but she’s considering giving him all of her while she waits for him to leave his wife.  I know someone who’s done this and you probably do too.  Finally it seems she’s decided to forget the idea of marriage all together.  Then after a night with her girls she decides she wants to talk to Andre about his proposal.  She texts him numerous times but wake up the next morning with not a single response to any of her texts.  What do you expect when your boyfriend is married with children?  She’s number two and not as important as he tried to make it seem.

Now lets talk about the wife.  In this episode I felt really bad for her because you see a woman who at first refuses to see the truth, she dismisses the white elephant in the room and when she does approach it she does it in an odd matter of fact kind of way.  Her solution offer her husband a postnup stating if he cheats again she gets both their houses, her alimony, seventy-five percent of his company and sole custody of the kids.  I get it she’s hurt and doesn’t know what to do so she use the document to make some major threats but without his signature it’s worthless and really what man would willing sign something like that?  She was hoping he wouldn’t want to lose his family, that she would be his ultimate choice and I can only assume that she presented him with these terms as a test.  Of course he refuses and it’s in that moment I feel for the wife.  Her world is shattered another time.  She realizes that this woman is a bigger problem than she thinks.  Over the next few scenes she deals with her husband’s betrayal in stages.  It’s stages I’ve seen friends in before.  She’s hurt, surprised, angry, and in that anger stage she finally addresses it with her husband.  She tries to use their kids as a pawn in the arguments (she brings up looking for a new daddy for them), she blames him for not loving her like she is and tells him she made him, he’d be nothing without her and that’s when you find out about the cracks that was behind their mirror.  After going back and forth about who’s to blame and the constant signals of text messages coming to Andre’s phone (which she knows is Mary Jane) they both give in and then they have sex.  Typical right?  I bet she was rejoicing in that small victory, she probably thinks she’s won and since he ignored Mary Jane’s messages and choose to stay with her that her marriage will be on the mend.  I’m sure lots of women made that mistake lots of times before only to be hit with the hard truth shortly after.  As a wife I hear the question all the time what would I do if my husband cheated on me?  I don’t know honestly but I do know that threats and sex is not going to bring him back home.  Obviously something broke and we need to work hard to fix that and it would require us taking some time apart to work on issues as individuals and then together as a couple.

The middle person in this story is Andre.  The one man that has two women hurt, broken, confused, desperate, angry, and so much more all under the disguise of love.  I don’t know what’s going to happen as the show progress but it made me wonder is cheating becoming acceptable because we’re afraid to be alone?  Though it’s a show it truly does tell the story of countless women and it does make me feel bad that sometimes people end up having to make these choices for whatever reason.