Read:Are You Dating A Cheater? Take The Quiz
Mistresses have always held a certain fascination in American life, especially when it comes to famous and powerful men. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt (Lucy Mercer), Dwight Eisenhower (Kay Summersby) and John F. Kennedy (Judith Exner, Marilyn Monroe) were alleged to have strayed outside the boundaries of their marital vows. Many other men who lead public lives have been outed as cheaters, including Michael Jordan, Ethan Hawke, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Clinton, John Ensign and David Vitter.
What about the women? Are the mistresses truly in love? Are they looking for their 15 minutes of fame and whatever income they could generate as the result of their involvement? Did they give any thought to the possible fallout, or did they give a lot of thought to it? And do their actions create the possibility that other women may emulate their behavior and look upon being a mistress as a career path?
If you look at them in a broad context and examine their personality traits and their psychological baggage for lack of a better term, what’s common with these women is that they’re typically not happy women. They have an ax to grind for something that their father did to their mother, or they were abandoned, or they hold no regard for the value of a family. Selfishness and narcissism are common qualities.
There are also issues of entitlement and narcissism when a famous woman feels that it is appropriate to pursue a relationship with a married man or attached man. They go about justifying it by telling themselves that, “She is not on the same level that we are. You can do better.” When it comes to these high-profile mistresses, the spotlight cast on them rarely results in apologies or regret. She negates the sisterhood of women that once honored the belief that “if he had a band he was someone else’s man”.
Like most human behavior, people don’t always realize or understand why they do the things they do. But one common belief about mistresses is that they gravitate toward men who have power because they’re held back by society from getting any of their own. That belief has been tempered somewhat in modern times by the shattering of glass ceilings in many segments of society. And while Woods clearly is in more of a position of power than the women he cheated with, Sandra Bullock is an A-list star while her husband is at least a few letters below her.
Fame and influence are the end result of what is driving our society. It doesn’t matter what they look like. If they have achieved something, they’ll find groupies to follow them around. A lot of women still feel their only chance to get close to power is for power to put his arm around them. And that’s what we need to change. The mentality that improper actions do not equal an instant payday. Those things are against common decency.
Check out our gallery of accused Cheaters!
Joseline Hernandez & Rielle Hunter Make Cheating The New Career Opportunity was originally published on elev8.com
