Category: The Grateful Mistress series

*mistress means a woman who falls in love with married men*

I’ve once heard Yoko One screwed it up for mistresses. That it was either her snatching John away from his wife or – more likely – her snatching him away from the Beatles, that marked the end of an era where having a mistress, and I assume also being one, was probably one of the more uncommon relationships, but it wasn’t unheard of.
And it certainly wasn’t demonized, the way it is now.

I have one friend, only one, who knows a former and lifelong mistress. This now elderly woman had a relationship that stretched decades. With the same man. Until he died. And just like my lover he was married with children.
Like so many married men with children before him.

I’m not going to pretend being a mistress is the only unknown sexual preference: you can easily argue that being a man who needs a mistress is equally uncommon.
Uncommon meaning that he can be easily mistaken, first of all by himself, for a man who doesn’t have a good marriage.
Or a man who has commitment issues.
He can be mistaken for a man who likes to cheat and fool around.
All things which do not have to be the case.

He can simply be a man, hard wired to love two women at the same time. And who has a choice to abstain. Or to not. But who can’t change himself anymore than anyone who is gay can make himself be straight.

And if we switch the genders around, with a man in the role of the mistress, and the woman in the role of a wife with a secret lover, two new sexual or psychological profiles pop-up.
So no.
I m not going to make a whole song and dance about “The Mistress” being the most misunderstood, sexual lifeform. But it is the only one that I am.
And the only one that I can talk about from experience.

Both the experience of joy when embracing, and understanding, your sexual preference. As well as the sadness and the loneliness of knowing that no matter how open-minded  people say they are when it comes to sex, their minds will barely ever stretch far enough to include you.

And it will probably never include you, unless you start dating a married man who is open and honest about dating you;
Because then you can belong to the poly-amorous people.

It won’t include you, unless you choose a man who lives alone, and what you have qualifies as a LAT relationship.

It won’t include you, unless you keep it at seeing someone just a few times, and what you had can count as a mistake.

And even if you are having sex with a married man?
As long as you’re not in love, you can still get away with it. You simply have a friend with benefits. A married friend, but still.
Pretty harmless.

To understand why the mistress, as well as the other sexual orientations I briefly mentioned, are not some flawed-something-else, but genuine sexual orientations that can never be fully fulfilled in any other type of relationship form,  there are two aspects to sex and relationships that need to be understood.
Liking it secret and liking competition.

First, secrecy.
Both of the relationship itself, as well as within any love relationship. I’m sure this whole idea of transparency and honestly, and two partners communicating all the time, must have been a good idea at some point in time.
But as a mistress I almost feel like it is my personal mission to convince people to start having MORE secrets from each other.
And here it comes:
ESPECIALLY if you are in a monogamous relationship.

Look.
Let’s look at this with a fresh pair of eyes.
If you think your relationship will benefit from you being honest about that you want to date multiple people or whatever, because you think that it prevents getting into trouble over it in the future (it won’t, but okay) Go right ahead.

But if you both know that most likely, both of you will not be very adventurous and outgoing with other people, then PLEASE!
Keep secrets.
Don’t tell the other person where you’re going.
Be mysterious.

I once talked to a Catholic Priest and he was really modern because he said that it wasn’t his job to convince people God existed. It was his job to preserve the mystery.
Well, whatever is good enough for Jesus is good enough for you.

I honestly think, at least in the Netherlands, the moral righteousness of looking for “the truth” can be directly linked to the Netherlands’ official religion being protestant.
And therefor “truth” biased.

It is my personal opinion that we need to start taking a very hard look at ourselves why we ever thought “honesty” was a virtue.
Isn’t this what we crave for:
To be seen.
To be looked after.
To be cared for.
But also, the other way around:
To see.
To admire.
To gush over.
To love.
To support.
Where now, is honesty?
Nowhere.

Honesty, is completely irrelevant in the list of all the things we truly desire. But because we are afraid to ask for what we truly desire, we come up with some kind of monstrous binary measurement system, in which all the people who are honest are on the good side.
And all the people who aren’t are the bad guys.

For me personally, if me telling my story as a mistress, would only lead to normal monogamous relationships bringing back the mystery into their relationships, and start appreciating each other based on the things that make all human beings happy as fuck?
My mission is accomplished.
Keeping secrets from each other, about actual events and also about your emotional life, is a way to keep the mystery in, the garbage out, and to honor the sacredness of your relationship.

The second aspect of secrecy is of course the secrecy of the relationship itself. Which is not something that can be duplicated in a normal relationship.
Many relationships go through that phase of:
“Are we something? Should we tell the others? Or are we just having three day sex sessions like any normal adult would do when giving the chance?”

And I don’t think it’s just the not knowing, that makes us cautious to tell the good news to the world. I think it’s also because we know that we will lose something with it.

Sure, initially, there is that thrill of excitement, of sharing the news. And showing up in public together.
It’s absolutely intoxicating.
Even now, as a mistress, I know fully well that if it had not been for the fact that he’s married and we can never make such public displays of affection, I would have gone that route.
It is practically impossible to “make yourself” have a secret relationship, and keep yourself from going public with it at some point, unless there is a massively important reason why you can’t.

Being a mistress is the only relationship form with built-in secrecy.
Secrecy that evaporates in normal relationships, the moment you come out and present yourself to the world as a couple.
And the thrill of being a couple turns out to be short lived.
I remember so vividly the feeling of loss, when after keeping the relationship with my college sweetheart a secret for over half a year (we had our reasons, it wasn’t because we were involved) we came out as a couple.

But then again: I “am” a mistress, meaning I have a certain set of preferences surrounding sexuality and relationships.
So this loss of secrecy will probably not be experienced so strongly, by those who thrive in normal relationships.

The second aspect that makes a mistress a mistress, and not a chance victim of a married man, is that it arouses her to know that she’s not the only one. Now, I ll be honest: For a while I thought “we” were beyond the “ego” thing of needing a man for ourselves.
I honestly believed that monogamous women were deeply insecure and basically needed to have their wounded ego mended by a man choosing for them. And that “we” mistresses, were in a way elevated beings, because we went without that childish game of:
“If you love me, you choose for me.”
Not pretty. I know.
I’m sorry, and I don’t think that anymore.

– By the way I do believe that many looking for a faithful partner are basically saying: “I want to feel loved, and special, and as if I am the only one.”
But that’s not for me to find out –

Okay, but, initially I thought; monogamy is an ego thing. And us, mistresses are more detached on these matters.
Until I looked a little deeper, and realized we were far, far worse. Or that maybe not “worse” but that we took that whole game up a notch… I ll explain in a moment, maybe I shouldn’t have brought the ego up.
Because there is a fairly neutral explanation too, for liking “competition”.
It’s called “compersion”.
And means getting aroused from knowing your partner has other partners, or seeing him or her do it with someone else.

“Compersion” is what I experienced when I saw my lover charm a gorgeous woman practically out of her skirt. So maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, or on other women, by making this about how often we need to boost our egos. So no judgement.
But I want to illustrate this dynamic of competition.

The difference between having a partner who is sexually active, or ambiguous, or secretive, with other women, and having a partner who isn’t, is that you have competition. My lover can end things with me at any time. In favor of his wife, or a new lover, or in favor of having mental rest and calm.
So every time I see him?
I win.

He chooses to see me, there is no entitlement. This motivates me to always be at my best! And you get three guesses who benefits most from that? Well?
Me of course!

It’s a bit related to the secrecy thing, but feeling my best, and sharing only the things which connect us, or how we can learn more about each other?
That is amazing…
And not only does it give me a feeling of accomplishment because I’m giving it my all. He may only see the best part of me when we’re together, but so do I!

Having competition is an extremely good motivator to be my best self. I may not get him to choose me once, like a normal relationship.
But I get to be chosen time after time.
That’s what I meant when I said we mistresses were even more ego driven, and/or we are more compersionists. We like to have a partner whose attention we have to win, every time.
But we also get the reward of being chosen, every time.

I m not going to pretend I don’t understand why the world would be a better place, if mistresses didn’t exist. I do.
And I also understand how tempting it must be to blame us, for everything that has gone wrong in any marriage where a man cheated on his wife.
If I could choose, please believe me, I would choose to have a different type of sexual preference. One that rewarded loyalty, and frailty, and where I made one man really happy, and he would devote his life to me alone, and no one would get hurt.
If I had a choice, I would.

Now a second choice is that I would abstain from having sex and not date a married man, until he was divorced, and so on. If you want to blame me for not choosing that, I understand that. You hold the popular opinion for sure.
But I don’t think that mistresses, unlike child molesters, should be trained or treated to learn how to control their needs. A mistress and her lover are consenting adults. And a real mistress, someone who has the preferences I talked about, is not out to destroy any marriage.
She is simply a woman in love.
And a woman who can peacefully coexist next to a marriage, and even turn out to be quite effective, and discrete, relationship glue.

But as long as we keep seeing mistresses as villians, “she” cannot find or refind her place in society. She is stuck in being judged for her preferences, because everybody assumes they’re a sign of ill will or poor character.
They’re not.
She’s a mistress because that’s how she was born.

It took me until I was well over forty to figure all this out. And yet in retrospect it is all so clear: I was always so interested in sex. I liked my partners adventurous, but I myself liked to have only one partner.
I found no joy whatsoever in being promiscuous.
I kept my relationships secret, for as long as I could. I had a feeling of loss when we came out. I fell for unavailable, taken men, time and time again, and I just knew it had nothing to do with lack of self-esteem no matter what anybody said.
All the pieces of the puzzle fit, once I had made my peace with being a mistress, and started “counting back”. It’s so easy once you know what you’re looking for! But as long as you don’t, or as long as you’re biased because you Can Not Be That Because That Is Evil?
Then it will take you over forty years.

A gay friend once tried to explain to a friend who I was, and what my mission in life was. He said:
“Lauren is going to emancipate the mistress.”
Which is not a very sexy way of saying it, but I do think that is what it comes down to. Educate on this.
And not just educate potential mistresses, but everyone.
In a society where half of all marriages fail, the come-back of the mistress could actually save a couple of them. And if not by direct participation, then still what better person to ask how to spice up your relationship, then someone who truly masters the matter?
A woman who knows what the Catholic Church has known for two-thousand years:
How to preserve the mystery.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

The first two years with my lover were published in my book
“Big” diaries and erotica

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
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Button on this page, probably on the top right.

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*disclaimer: sexually explicit, contains references to porn*

On the fourth day of my project of living planning-free, and basically doing whatever the fuck I want to, I accidentally discovered the upside of NOT being able to do what you want to do: Abstinence, not doing your soul’s work, does heighten the sensations of pleasure after.

Because before I had this day going, before I had dived into all the stuff I felt like doing, the ball got rolling on something that I had been wanting to do for a long time. But this morning I got a cue that I had to do it immediately.
No time to lose.

The cue was that a writer about whom I had written a book four years ago, was publishing his second novel today. And this meant that today was the ideal day to reblog the diary he had inspired; to publish it online.
I ve published ten books and my ultimate goal is to have them all online, for free. So then either you could read them for free on my website, or buy a paper copy. No pdf’s or ereader stuff.
I m sure that’s not the choice most authors would make, but that’s my choice. It’s the way I have envisioned it, and that’s what’s going to happen.

Except that nothing was happening because reblogging stuff is pain in the ass work I don’t want to do. Not unless of course there is this HUGE incentive of a book suddenly becoming current again. Like today.
So I knew I wanted to reblog my Dutch book De Candystop, and I did.
Which cost me four hours, instead of the ninety minutes I had estimated.

By the time I finished it I was terribly hungry because I had skipped my lunch and was way past my feeding time. But on a soul level, I also felt unfulfilled. Thirsty. Desperate for anything that could take away feeling this unaccomplished.

So maybe it was because of my deprived state, that I shamelessly clicked on two tweets in my Twitter timeline that were both blatantly my kind of kink.

First I clicked [ #nsfw ]  Steve Holmes’ retweet of a movie called Darker Side of Desire
Steve Holmes is a porn actor who I know from a video of him and Stoya in Paris. It was a series that Stoya shot herself, taking the camera with her all over the world. I was a paying member of TrenchcoatX, and watched all of them. Until I realized that the only one I really liked was the one in Paris.
Where beautiful young Stoya (my favorite porn actress) hit it off with this middle aged man I didn’t know… yet. I couldn’t quite figure out why I liked that video so much..
Until I looked him up.
It turned out the Actor Steve Holmes was also the Director and Producer Steve Holmes. And now I saw it… yes.

Steve Holmes had more or less directed this video, by operating the camera, and had filmed the close-up shots that I had liked so much. Stoya’s other videos were more filmed from afar. With the camera on the night stand, or sometimes held by Stoya.
But Steve had a better view while filming, plus decades of experience.
No wonder that video of him and Stoya totally rocked.
Anyway, that’s how I know Steve and I started following him on Twitter, and he posts or retweets trailers of movies he has worked on. They’re always really kinky and I totally love them.

This one, Darker Side of Desire, was more high budget and with a real story line. It was about a young woman whose relationship with her dominant had ended, and she missed having a dominant so much. Suddenly I realized that if my lover Mr.Big and me would end, I would feel the same way.
That the breakup would mean so much more than “just” losing the man I love.

It would also mean losing the only man who knows exactly what makes me tick. I don’t see myself succeeding at dating “vanilla” style, any more than the girl in the movie did.
And with Mr.Big and me, it’s not even that we would count as being into BDSM. But our preferred roles, of him being dominant and me submissive, are fixed. And I know that’s hard to come by.

The second tweet I clicked was a piece of Girl on the Net about Being Lazy in Bed, in which I immediately recognized my preference for being submissive and still.
Girl on the Net is the only woman when it comes to sharing kinks, who I can relate to. All women who write about their sexual journey, make me realize that my sexual preference is surprisingly narrow. With no need for leather, whips, or sex dungeons. Nor for tantra, massage or valley orgasms.

I want it exactly the way I want it, and nothing else.

I remember a conversation with a friend a little while back, where I confessed that I had never been very interested in the physical part of sex.
“I like the mental part, you know?” I explained. “Where you dive into the depths of your mind, and tell each other stuff you don’t dare tell a soul.”
She immediately replied: “Yes, you mean perverted.”
Exactly.

Whenever I hear good sex in relationships is about intimacy and connecting, I always think: “Yes. And No.”
Because intimacy is only arousing, after you first had a fight of some sorts.
Honesty is refreshing, when it comes from someone who usually lies.
And trust is only an aphrodisiac if there is also something you’re scared of.
You can’t have the yin without the yang.

But to have your sex life rooted in shared sexual fantasies?
That’s amazing.
It’s a win-win, never a dull moment kind of relationship. And it’s also very rare, unfortunately. It’s that aspect, of two perfectly matching sexual preferences, that I would miss the most.

We’ve been together for way over three years, yet I feel there’s still so much to discover. We barely got a taste of everything we’re capable of. Maybe because we’re apart 99% of the time, with him not necessary lying to me but definitely unavailable 99% of the time.

It makes the 1% we’re together intoxicating and delicious.

Reading the article from Girl on the Net on being lazy or submissive, and watching the trailer of the movie about the young female submissive, made me realize that my relationship with Big has amplified my sexual preference.
That the submissive part, the fixed role playing part, the carte blanche I’m getting to share whatever deviant desire I have, and to then have someone who is eager to play it out, and to fully dominate me.
It has become who I am.

This, being submissive in bed, has become non-negotiable.

And if I ever, God forbid, become single again – technically I m still single of course, since I m a secret mistress I don’t have a status –  that I will start dating new men not only based on who I like.
But also on who wants to play.

The trailer of the porn movie ends with the young woman interviewing a dominant (Steve Holmes) for her thesis. He answers the questions but then interrupts her: “You’re not here to ask me questions.”
She replies that she’s no longer into that sort of thing.

He offers her a gift, a little box with a small insertable toy, with which he can control her.
“Give me twenty-four hours to change your mind.”

I would say Yes.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

 

*disclaimer: sexually explicit, and potentially triggering for anyone who believes monogamy is a virtue*

It was painfully obvious the Universe was against it:
Mr.Big asked me to join him on a business trip in the one week I didn’t have a passport. I had turned in the old one the week before. They stamped holes in it so it wasn’t valid anymore. And in exchange they took my application for a new one.
Along with the new passport photo.

I had thought of Mr.Big when I had that photo taken. Because I thought it would give me a happy, content look. And that it would somehow miraculously cure my asymmetrical eyes, a feature that had gotten stronger since the last passport photo five years prior.

I was aware that getting an acceptable portrait would get more difficult with age. And I also realized, when the photographer handed me the horrific passport photo where everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong, that I had chosen the wrong photographer.
This was the same shop that had fucked it up ten years ago.
And not the one that had given me the blushing portrait five years ago.
The blushing one that now had holes in it…
“You can pick up the passport next week,” the employee told me. “It will be valid for ten years.”
Great.
By the time I need the next one the good photographer will have retired. And who knows in what kind of detrimental state my own life will be.
Or my relationship with Mr.Big.

On the moment I had to put my autograph on the papers, I fantasized I was signing our wedding papers. Even though I don’t believe in marriage. Nor do I wish for Mr.Big’s current marriage to end.
And apparently, neither did the Universe.
Because Mr.Big asked me to join him for a secret getaway, for the first time in years, exactly in the week I had no other choice but to refuse.

When he took his return flight he started messaging me if I would be interested in sharing breakfast.
He had used that trick once before.
The first hours after landing, and before his first business appointments, were probably a grey area. A time window for which he would not be held accountable, and it wouldn’t make sense to go home. He would take a shower and change suits at his condo.

When he opened the door he was freshly shaven and wearing jeans.
When we lay in bed later – and I’ll tell you in a minute in which advanced state of being horny he had brought me before I was even invited into the bedroom – I recalled that moment, when he had opened the door.

I said that I never went to his house with the idea of having sex, but that he was always so courteous and easy going. He really made an effort to play his cards right.
There are many men with whom you can have great sex if you’re in love. You’re more forgiving in the beginning.
But after a while, it starts to count.
“You score ten out of ten. I’m so spoiled. You really know how to get me to want it.”
Mr.Big laughed. “And then every time you think: What the hell just happened?”

In all those years I was single, I had to put up with so much.
And now I had Big scoring ten out of ten!

We have had dates when we didn’t have sex, but that was usually because I was in my period, or because I had not seen him in a long time and I wasn’t settling for a quickie.
But even on those dates, Mr.Big knew how to connect with me in a way that we both felt happy and appreciated. It was never a tug of war kind of standoff, with me “refusing” to have sex.

Big was a master at working whatever boundaries there were, with regard to time, lack of privacy, or my physical needs. He didn’t hold any preconceived ideas about what a good date was supposed to look like, except that he seemed determined to always make sure I had a good time.
So my ten out of ten was more figuratively speaking:
He always honored what we had, and if I was in the mood for sex he picked up on that and did something to arouse me.

After breakfast we were on the couch, snogging a bit, and although we were still fully dressed things were heating up quickly. There is something about him returning from a business trip, that makes him extra attractive.
Maybe it’s just the thought that he’s had sex, or kissed other women.
He knows that thought arouses me and he’s always happy to play along. I confessed that I masturbated to him. To us. Playing that he had paid me to do anything he wanted with me.
And that he took advantage of that.
“It makes me come so hard,” I shivered, thinking back to my masturbation sessions, in which an imaginary Big, and only Big, ever accompanied me.

I was not just faithful to him in real life. Even in my imagination, there was no one I was more fond of.

“Want to play that now?” he asked, and showered my cheek with kisses so that my mouth could answer him.
“Yes…. can we go to the bedroom? I always imagine this takes place in your bedroom.”
“You know the rules for the bedroom,” he said, as he looked at me with a sparkle in his eyes that was out of character for someone who was about to play-abuse me.
“I do,” I said.
I had to be fully naked.

He slowly untangled our bodies and headed towards the bedroom.
“Just knock when you’re ready.”
I undressed myself, and stacked my clothes next to the bedroom door. My shoes, my socks, my jeans, my string. My sweater, my top, my bra.
I knocked the door. He opened. I gasped.
“I had no idea you’d be naked!” I said. And I loved the shock of surprise. And that it made clear I didn’t have a say. He made the rules.
He had paid for it.

I whispered a lot during sex. Whenever I wanted to tell him how in awe I was over how horny I was. In less than an hour together, I was role playing and loving every minute and every inappropriate intrusion and abuse of my body.
We spent even more time cuddling and talking after.
When I told him how special he was, and how gifted when it came to sex. And warming me up to it.
He brushed it off: “Well I wouldn’t know. I only know myself.”
“Well take it from me,” I said. “You’re something special. Do you have something like that with me too? That I always do? When other women not so much?”
He seemed to immediately know the answer:
“You’re so grateful.”

Yes. I am.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

I know what Mr.Big hates most about being my secret lover;
That I deserve more and that he cannot give it to me.
From his point of view that makes him an accomplice.

I never saw it like that, aside from the first weeks or months at most. I was still convinced what we had was
A. him initially shutting himself off from my post-sex neediness but also
B. him seeing that his marriage didn’t work, and choosing a new life.

What I didn’t understand back then, and I doubt if Mr.Big would ever confirm it (I know he would plead innocent to it being deliberate) was that;
Yes. It was him shutting himself off for my post-sex neediness.
Yes, it was seeing his marriage didn’t work, and also choosing a new life.

But it was the life of someone who could make his marriage work, if only he allowed himself to have a that little something extra….
And that little something extra?
Was me.

Just like so many mistresses before me (I mean in history, I don’t think Mr.Big had a regular mistress before me) our affair was a key ingredient to let his marriage survive.
It wasn’t a reason to divorce.

And here we are, over three years into our affair, and I could not be happier with what we have. I m not going to lie, there are a million downsides to being a mistress. On my most gloomiest I will think things like;
Will I be there at his funeral?
But on a “day-to-day basis” (the irony is of course that we do not see each other every day) I happily choose this.

A relationship in which you have been in love for way over three years?
And you don’t see any decline or rough edges?
Your feelings for him are as strong as ever?
As is your longing for him?
Your willingness to try anything, be anything, as limited or as profound he wants it to be?
That’s worth something.

And it’s worth A LOT to a woman who left her long-term relationship age 34 to start dating again, because she missed that feeling of butterflies and first times. She missed it so much she was willing to sacrifice the relationship with the love of her life.
To meet new men.
Fall in love.
Have first time sex.

A woman who over the course of eight years tried and tested every flavor in the book, including men half her age, and those much older than her.
I can’t say I was promiscuous.
My top year was 2009 and I had three partners then.
But there were also years when I didn’t have sex at all.

Because it was so straining for me.
It took so much effort to smooth out communication fails, ignore character traits I didn’t like, and let him get away with things that showed so little respect for what we had.
And so much shame to be seen with me.
All those things to have sex?

I didn’t understand how people could stay horny given the countless flaws of imperfect sex. Where imperfect basically stands for any sex where two people are not mutually in love or infatuated.
By the time I took my pants off, I had invested an amount of tolerance and negotiation skills that could have brought peace to the entire Middle-East.
All that to get laid.

So no, I wasn’t promiscuous, but I did have enough partners to immediately recognize that sex with Mr.Big was something else.
That I wasn’t the one doing all the work;
He was. 

He was the one who initiated our first kiss; perfect timing, no waiting until our goodbyes. But not too soon either, and he had announced it. In a way.
He had done the risk taking way before the first kiss. He had given me the opportunity to reject him, over Whatsapp. Which may sound unromantic, but I can’t tell you how wonderful that was, to have a man saying:
“I wanted to kiss you tonight.”
When you’re already back home alone, safe.

That is a guy giving a lady an opportunity to think about things. He’s giving her time (in our case, it would turn out to be a whole week) to figure out if she wants this. Him. A married man.
Or if she doesn’t.

This is not a man pressing her, or groping her on a time when she could feel awkward rejecting him. It’s a courteous gesture… one I had not seen in all those eight years before. He was a man who didn’t press for a “Yes”. He was someone who would only accept me as a lover, if I had thought it through.
If it was a “Hell yes!”

So the first kiss which he initiated, was unexpected. And then again it wasn’t. Because I had agreed to see him again, and I had confessed that I had been taken aback as well.
By my desire to kiss him.
That night when nothing happened.

Me feeling nostalgic is not because we’re having an anniversary. We’re in over three years, but no milestone. And either way; neither one of us are really into that sort of thing.
Maybe because the strong point of what we have is that it always feels new.
And never a given.

I still feel those butterflies in my belly, the uncertainty about what to text back. I still feel new and unsure every time we have sex.

In the end, I really got all those exciting first times I looked forward to, when I ended my long-term relationship. I just never expected, that those perfect first times, where you don’t have to first allow the annoying and the draining (on both sides, no doubt); that all those super arousing first time sex encounters would be with the same man.
I never thought that.
But I do now.

On a quiet Friday night in April 2018, writing my post, no one kissed me, it’s all memories and looking back but I can see;
Damn this is all worth it.

I remember what Mr.Big said, after that first kiss;
“You’re a great kisser.”
Immediately labeling our experience as something positive and memorable. He was doing the work. And ever since then, he has made sure we only had good times.

I know Mr.Big feels guilty for not being the single man “I deserve”.
But all the men I dated before him?
Those men were single!

It’s so much better to have the right man, for whatever fraction of his time is available, then having the wrong one completely to yourself.

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

**  I think I should put a trigger warning on this post….
Let’s put it this way; This blogpost is for those of you who accept nothing but the highest standard of personal freedom,
for themselves and others.**

This post was originally supposed to have a different title. Be about a different thing. A thing that made me angry, and on which I held a ton of opinions.
Cheating.

How someone “testing” their partner by bringing up the hypothetical scenario of cheating, is such a great way to see where their loyalty lies and how quickly they are willing to make your whole relationship about being right (they).
And being wrong (you).
How all feelings, your whole history, your entire future together, how the depth of your relationship could all be distilled into:
“You are a bad person because you’re having sex with someone else.”
In a blink of an eye.

How easily you could be at:
I am going to speak badly of you
Divorce you.
Or even hit the lows of:
“I am going to take revenge on you.”

If you would ask the hypothetical question on your partner’s well thought through balanced view on the subject.

And in reply I’d say: “Wow.”

And we all know that a woman saying “Wow” is the worst thing anyone can bring onto himself.

And I would say “Wow” even if their “if you love me you don’t do that” message was delivered in the most thoughtful, non-aggressive way imaginable.
I would flip that thing right back at them saying in the most thoughtful, non-aggressive way imaginable:
“I’m glad I know this. Before I waste the rest of my life with you.”

Yes, I am afraid that my answer would have been somewhere along those lines.

Until, when looking for a Carrie Bradshaw picture to go with this blog post, I stumbled on this quote about wild women.
And wild men.

Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed.
Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them.
-Carrie Bradshaw

And I thought: “That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”
Wild women and wild men should pair up.
As well as the domestic ones.
Problems only rise when we start cross breeding.

Personally, no, I am not a cheater. Yet if I do want to;
Kiss that man.
Fall in love.
Have that encounter.
Cross that line.
I want a partner who can say:
“I love everything about you. Including the parts that hurt me. “
And I would answer:
“That’s how much I love you too.”

<3LSH
An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Books 

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld