My lovers usually have partners, but still, you’d be amazed at how much the pang of jealousy, and the hope for a future with me, plagues them. One of my current lovers, Xavier, has been partnered for 12 years, and feels very stable with his relationship. However, it is so cute when he expresses his fear about losing me too soon: “I’m not letting you go.” “We aren’t done yet.” “I haven’t done everything I’ve wanted to do with you.” “You’re special to me and I want you for as long as possible.”
It’s fascinating that lover’s who already have partners can feel scared of losing their Mistress, even jealous that she may have other lovers. Why does it bother them so much if they already have a stable relationship to fall back on? My guess: When you are in a new relationship, or a passion relationship, you feel appreciated, wanted and desired, and the fear of losing that makes a lover who is already partnered (usually in a passionless marriage) compelled to hold on to their Mistress and love affair.
Unlike most Mistresses, I have a lot of other people I connect with. My lovers know this; I don’t keep this a secret from them. It does play on my lovers’ minds that they are not my only ones. Lovers want to feel special, they want to feel needed, and so when I don’t need them, they can feel insecure. I suppose men like the power of being in control of their affair, but with me, if they want to be with me, they don’t have that luxury. I have passed on many men who I have felt needed to control our affair to feel safe and protected, yes, but more-so that they needed to feel dominant. (It is amazing how many men I have met who feel emasculated by their marriage, but more precisely, how their wife controls him, and so they overcompensate in an affair, but this is a topic for another time.)
I have had some lovers who agonise over the fact that they can’t be out in public with me, travel with me or do normal things such as go to restaurants or the movies. They see me do this with my other lovers who have more freedom. Jealousy ensues and my secret lovers start to realise the sacrifices they are making in having an affair. The allure of having secret encounters is thrilling at first – men certainly love to dwell in their secret worlds – but after a while, the weight of not being free becomes too much for them. (The irony: an affair often makes a man feel in control of his life – “free” – but the very affair also traps him into a pandora’s box.)
I have learnt over the years to stretch out and balance liaisons to extend an affair, delaying the inevitable and natural ending to make the most out of my time together with a lover. I want to have the best experience of a person. I understand that our experience is limited – I don’t get to enjoy everything about my lover; his social self, for example – but the thing is, nor do I want to. Realistically, we only ever know parts of a person, even with the people closest to us. Unfortunately, we tend to think that to love someone is to know them completely – the lies we tell ourselves. However, as Esther Perel says, it is mystery that keeps passion alive. So, you can never know a person completely… and it is never good to try. I choose to experience the parts of a lover that make us feel connected and alive. I enjoy knowing people, experiencing them, in their ‘love and passion state’. And even though I may have a desire to experience a lover’s social self, I am well aware that it would impact on our passion, and that is something I don’t want to risk. What’s more, the great thing about men is their ability to compartmentalise. It means that they can put in total effort into an affair without it affecting other parts of their life. I admire how men can put all of themselves into a passionate moment to make the most of it. However…
Still, as a Dominant Woman, I am the one in control of the progression and health of an affair, and thus, I am in control of how it ends. Just how I like my movies, I like clean and bittersweet endings with all loose ends tied up in a neat little bow. Bitter, because I enjoy knowing that what I had with my lover was something good enough that I would have wanted to last. And sweet, because of the gratitude I feel for being able to get to know my lover on a deep, passionate level – the universe gave us a slice of time. (Amateur Mistresses, especially, get caught up in the “affair escalator” that leads to a quick and traumatic demise. If the lover is smart, he will take control to end the affair early before they get to a dramatic and messy spiral.)
However, as a true Mistress, I never allow myself to be at the mercy of a lover, which means I enjoy being empowered in our relationship by having the power. As such, I lay down the rules of our ending from the start, telling my lovers, come what may, that I want us to end in the best way possible. It is a commitment that we enter into, a promise to each other, which sets the tone of our affair.
For my lover, Xavier, even though our affair fulfils his need for a secret life of passion and desire, it pains him that he can’t give all of himself to me, particularly his social self (as that is kept for his life partner). He wants the best for me – he wants me to have the connections and passion that fulfils me – so he is happy and supportive that I have many others. (If he wasn’t, I would walk away, and he knows that. Believe me, many men having affairs want to be the only one for their Mistress – they demand affair monogamy – oh the irony!!) However, Xavier is still sad that he cannot give everything to me, and in a lot of regard, it makes him value us that much more. His fear of losing me (too soon) is because he enjoys discovering me, who I am. I am quiet a unique person with quite a unique lifestyle, and I am often someone that others are fascinated about, and want keep, because they admire the life I have made for myself. Yes, my lovers like to live vicariously through me. I give them access to a world that most can only dream of. And for Xavier, he feels lucky to have met me, and grateful that he gets to know a life and a person that is everything he wishes he could have.
Many seem to think that people having affairs do not value their lover or Mistress (especially as much as their life partner), that if an affair ends it’s not a loss. This is simply not true. Of course, there are affairs where lovers don’t care if they lose their Mistress, having the attitude that there is plenty of fish in the sea. However, most affairs I know about exist because the lover and the Mistress truly want and care for each other, they enrich each other’s lives and they experience a passion that creates not only a strong bond, but also a special type of loyalty and openness because of their intense situation. It means that partnered lovers can certainly feel jealous, and fear losing their Mistress to another, just like being in a standard romantic relationship. But as we know, a little bit of healthy jealousy and fear is also what can heighten a passionate affair. It’s a win-win if you play it right.
