Why am I doing this, the devil makes work for idyll hands? Must make me feel good to vent like this, anyway some of my "buddies" talked me into another mnemonic, so here goes, thanks for listening and commenting:
What Affairs Stand For
A- A is for artificial, as in artificial love, artificial life, and artificial sex. Affairs are an imitation of the real thing. In most cases they are modeled after and copy a real love that you already have or once had. You walk, talk, laugh, and make love like you are in real love, but it is not real, it is faked. You pattern your behavior after what you have done with your spouse and treat your affair partner like he or she is your spouse. Like many imitations, artificial wood, artificial leather, artificial crabmeat, etc., they look and feel like the real thing and can be very enjoyable but never last and are no substitute for the genuine article. They represent a fake life like two kids playing house, and just like play they are fun. Even the sex is fake because it is not based on real love and can never feel like it is. It is more like sex with a prostitute, it works, it is pleasing, it is exciting, forbidden, new, and dangerous, but because it lacks the honesty of real love sex it falls short. And of course you pay for it. How do you feel when you pay for something that was sold to you as the real thing and you find out it was fake? Ask someone who has had an affair.
F- F is for friendship, friendships gained and friendships lost. In essence, all affairs are friendships gone bad. Good and healthy things like the support, understanding, and sympathy that friends provide are corrupted by lust and lies. The honest unbiased friend becomes the selfish needy friend until sooner or later that person is not really a friend at all but someone who is using you. Other friendships are destroyed too, sometimes you lose your own friends over an affair, or your spouse loses friends, or you lose the best real friend you ever had, your spouse.
F – F is for faith, the faith you abandon when you have an affair. Not just faith in God, but faith in the good part of human life, the right stuff, the values you have held dear for so long, your own marriage, faith in the idea of marriage itself, faith in your spouse, and in yourself. When you have an affair you write all that off. It is like saying forget all that stuff, it doesn’t matter, its no good any more, who cares, I have no more faith in it. You tell yourself there is nothing you can do about it anyway so why bother, it is just the way it is. In a sense you give up. Working for your marriage or your family is just too much effort, because you don’t believe it can be better. When you feel like that you have lost your faith and you are ready for an affair because you no longer care. It is the ultimate form of pessimism, a loss of faith.
A-A is for *******s. People having affairs are being *******s. It is doesn’t mean they were always an ******* or will always be an *******, but when you are having an affair you are an ******* for certain. We are all *******s at some point in our lives so it is best to be honest about it. *******s break their promises, *******s betray those loyal to them, *******s ditch their family, *******s screw their friends, *******s lie constantly, *******s think they deserve everything they want, and so forth. People having affairs aren’t soul mates they are *******mates.
I-I is for idiotic. It is idiotic for anyone having an affair to think that anything good will ever come of it. There is not a single example of that happening anywhere. On the contrary everyone is constantly exposed to all the harm they cause. Yet people go forward thinking it must be right, that something will gained as opposed to so much being lost. When anyone recovering from an affair is asked about it they almost always say, I wasn’t myself; I was an idiot to have done that.
A- A is for attention. When you add it all up the need for attention is where most affairs are born. People who have affairs are seldom sex maniacs, the sex is usually better at home, they don’t set out to hurt people, they are usually kind, and they don’t think it is proper for married people to screw around, they wouldn’t want their spouses doing it, and they know it is wrong. But the attention they get is so compelling it outweighs all that. No spouse can ever match the attention your affair partner pays to you. Maybe once upon a time in the beginning your spouse did, but in an affair it is like the beginning never ends. The attention makes you feel so great that you can cancel out all the bad feelings your conscience supplies and still have some good ones left over. Ever notice how many affairs and broken marriages there are in show business? These are folks who need a lot of attention. Listen to me, notice me, flatter me, don’t take your eyes off me, etc. Well, we all like that but when you are willing to betray someone who loves you for that then you like it too much.
R- R is for regret. Everyone regrets an affair. Bill regrets it, Monica regrets it, Hillary regrets it, and the whole country regrets it. Oh no, too bad, what a shame, wish I hadn’t, damn it all, how could you, why did you, you rat, that rat, those rats, how stupid, what was I thinking, and on and on. Unfortunately the regrets last and last and are so hard to get over they destroy people. It is amazing isn’t it? People look back on their lives and say it was the worst thing they ever did, or the worst thing that ever happened to them. But it is not enough to stop affairs; there is one starting somewhere right now. When it is over everyone will regret it.
S – S is for sadness, the special kind of sadness affairs cause. We all have disappointments, deaths, bad breaks, and misfortune, but affairs are the killer. No one who has survived one will ever be the same. The amount of crying alone is enough to make you want to die. You feel like you have lost your heart and your soul and you walk around in a stupor of sorrow. It will lessen eventually but in some form it will be with you forever.
