I was not particularly interested in ESPN Analyst Steve Phillips’ affair with a 22-year old production assistant named Brooke Hundley. I rarely, if ever, watch ESPN. I feel terrible for what his wife and family must be going through, but I don’t know any of the parties involved. And while another married, middle-aged guy sleeping with a 20-something old is pretty pathetic in my view, it doesn’t exactly make for exciting news.
But then, a friend of mine sent me a link to Brooke Hundley’s letter to Steve Phillips’ wife.
This put me over the edge.
Why?
Because it is jam-packed with all the lies, crap and bullshit that married men in particular tell the women they are attempting to seduce. I know this because a lot of women write to me about their dating and relationships problems and I’ve found that I keep hearing the same things over and over again. Like there’s a Midlife Crisis Affair Handbook or something.
Page 53. What To Tell Your Mistress About Why You Can’t Leave Your Wife
The Kids Are Keeping You In Your Marriage
Gol-durn-it, you’d leave in a second if you’d allow yourself to be happy, but you just couldn’t bear the thought of losing your kids. (The same kids you’re not seeing during all the times you’re shacked up in a hotel room with your mistress, but whatever.)
Your Wife is Making You Go to Therapy Even Though You’ve Told Her It Won’t Work
This is especially effective as painting you as a dedicated husband WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY MAKING IT CLEAR THAT YOU ARE a man who has already moved on emotionally because of the specialness of your relationship with your mistress.
You Have A Loveless Marriage
You haven’t slept together for years. She’s cold, unfeeling, and she just doesn’t understand you. This strategy allows you to remain married while you assure your girlfriend that you’d never cheat on her.
She (Mistress) Makes You Feel Better/Younger/Etc Than You’ve Ever Felt Before
If only you’d met her ten years ago!
After My Wife Recovers From Bulimia/Grad School/Redecorating the Den We’ll Be Together
Brook is clearly suffering from some issues, here. But clearly, she fell face first in the load of crap that Mr. ESPN was dishing up.
And please don’t think that I’m letting Brooke off the hook. She is an adult, albeit a young one, and should know better than to sleep with a married man. (Brooke — if you don’t, please email me and I’ll be happy to set you straight. If anybody could benefit from a little dating coaching, it’s you) It is also not my intention to go easy on women who cheat on their husbands — I’m sure they have their own affair playbook.
If you are married, sleeping with other people is wrong. It’s selfish, unfair, and cruel to your spouse. It’s selfish, cruel, and unfair to the person you’re sleeping with.
I have heard a number of people say that if a woman sleeps with a married man, she deserves what she gets.
Does she?
And what about Mr. Phillips. It would seem that he’s painting himself as a sort of a victim of a fatal attraction, even though he did admit he’d slept with Brooke three times in a statement obtained by the New York Post.
Is poor Steve the victim in all this?
Or maybe that’s just what he’s telling his wife.
Here’s what I’d like to tell Brooke, and any other woman who is considering getting involved with a married man:
If there’s a Mrs., he’s Mr. Wrong.
Don’t date anyone who is married. Even if it’s the first time he’s ever cheated (it’s not) or he leaves his wife (which he won’t), and marries you (which he won’t), it will only be a matter of time before he leaves you for somebody else (which he would.) Married men who cheat are notorious liars. They have to be.
If you date a married man, you’ll never be number one. (His own wife isn’t, why would you be?) You probably won’t even be number two.
You’ll spend holidays and nights alone with a quart of Chunky Monkey, waiting for the telephone to ring. You’ll never have his full attention, because he’ll always be thinking about the lie he’s going to tell his wife when he gets home. Pretty soon, the best years of your life will have slipped by, while you’re waiting for his wife to (insert pathetic excuse here), his kids to (more excuses), or his job to (more excuses.) You’ll have spent every New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and family wedding alone, waiting around for a man who is clearly not waiting around for you.
No matter what he tells you, he doesn’t love you. How do I know that? Because a man in love will do whatever he can to keep from hurting his partner. A married man fails on both counts. He’s hurting his current partner by cheating on her. And he’s hurting you by stealing your life and thinking only of himself. No matter what he tells you, he’s still probably sleeping with his wife. That’s what husbands, even lying, cheating, crappy husbands, do.
And, if all that isn’t enough, consider this: Dating a married man means doing something that hurts another woman, his wife. If she’s married to a sneaky cheater like him, she already has enough trouble to deal with without one of her own kind knifing her in the back. These types of men do enough terrible things all by themselves, we girls should stick together.
Lisa
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Dating Coach and Relationships Expert Lisa Daily is the bestselling author of two dating books, Stop Getting Dumped!, How to Date Like a Grownup and the totally funny novel Fifteen Minutes of Shame. You’ve seen her everywhere from Entertainment Tonight to the HITCH movie DVD.
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