“Sandra Bullock and me”
by Mira and Charles on March 23rd, 2010“If that Jesse James guy would cheat on her, what chance do I have?”
OK, so here’s this beautiful movie star with a reputation for being a sweetheart who’s just won an Academy Award for best actress. And it turns out that her husband has been cheating on her with this totally skanky tattoo model. Now what do you think happens when a story like this comes out?
What happens is Kate times 10 million. Kate is a woman in her late thirties. A perfectly nice, attractive woman. She is now single because she couldn’t trust her ex-husband. He lied to her about money and many other things, and, although she could never prove it, she is sure he cheated on her. Now she is out there meeting guys. She wants to get married and have children.
But when she and millions of other women, married and single, hear about what happened to Sandra Bullock, they all think the same thing: “If a guy like that would cheat on a woman like that, what chance do I have?” Which is exactly what Kate asked me.
This is a terribly sad question. It suggests that women are doing two things which I know in fact they are doing. First, they are getting really insecure. With all the things women have to worry about, now they have to work that much harder to be perfect and beautiful. Second, because they don’t want to get hurt, they are hardening their hearts and deep down making distance from their guys, so that if he does cheat they won’t be hurt.
No wonder women make their girlfriends their priority. You’re much less likely to get hurt that way.
So in a way the damage is done already. All Jesse James has to do is boink a skank and millions of women have a big dent in their peace of mind and their ability to be happy in love.
It’s like we’re all victims of a poison gas attack.
What we need is a kind of therapy, and here it is.
First of all, do NOT think “if it could happen to her…” as if she were all that wonderful. You don’t know that she’s that great at all. Maybe, but maybe not. I’ve come across way more than my share of movie stars in my work (oh, I wish I could name names!) and they all complain to me about how they can never live up to their own hype. The gap between an expensively and arduously created image and the real woman is almost unbearable. No wonder Rita Hayworth said these incredibly sad words: “They go to bed with Rita Hayworth and they wake up with me.” Stripped of makeup and lighting and great lines and swaths of glamour, and you’re often left with a very ordinary woman with extraordinary insecurities. Not such a bargain.
Any random woman may well have far more to offer. You, for example.
So you don’t have to worry about being more like a movie star. Just work on being less crazy, more interesting. Less like a mom, more like a girlfriend. Less critical, more fun. Believe me, you don’t have to be a movie star to do that. In these areas, most movie stars would have trouble keeping up with most regular women.
Now here’s the second part of the therapy. Most guys don’t cheat. And the ones who do, it’s not about how you don’t measure up, it’s about how your relationship has deteriorated. Work on your relationship and you won’t have to worry about holding on to your guy.
If you feel your relationship has gotten to a shaky place, please check out the indispensable Our Love Is Too Good to Feel So Bad. The great thing about this amazing book is that it will enable you to put your finger on the one thing that’s causing trouble, and it will show you just what to do about it.
If you’re not sure whether you and your partner should even try to work things out, please check out Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay. You’ll probably find the answers you’re looking for.
And if you need one-on-one help with this, it’s just the kind of thing we do here at The Chestnut Hill Institute.
