Of Popes and Presidents

You are in love. You have found your soul mate. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, couldn’t formulate the words to describe it, but you always knew that something inside you was missing, until now. Now that missing part of your inner being has been found and slotted securely into place and you are finally whole. Deeply, madly, passionately and forever. Cue the drum-roll, strike up the violins and then punch out the fireworks. Love is here!

There’s only one little problem. Well not so much of a problem, just a minor inconvenience really. Nothing that can’t be overlooked. Your soul mate, your inner being, the shoelace to your sneaker and the fries to your Whopper combo, your love, just so happens to be taken, in a relationship, engaged or even married, to someone else.

But this is ok. Nothing to worry about. Because as long as it’s love, true love, which clearly this is, then there’s nothing wrong about it. Right? Well I hate to break it to you but if that is your final answer, you are incorrect. Fail. Catastrophically.

You can spin it any way you like, call it love, souls connecting, the answer to your prayers even, but as long as when you found that person they were involved with someone else, then someone or someones (yes plural) are going to get hurt. And depending on the role you play in this unsanctioned trinity, the one you risk hurting the most, damaging beyond all repair, is you.

The whole glorification of the modern liaison is scandalous indeed. The highly acclaimed-should-be-multi-award-winning dramatic series Scandal, boasts the grandest illegitimate love affair of our time since Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind. Set against a political background, the not-to-be-missed weekly installation in our lives raises the still sensitive subject of inter-racial relationships (I’ll cover that juicy topic later) and has seemingly provided justification for the philanderers of the world to unite in solidarity and claim love sometimes makes good people do bad things, like cheat. 

The affair has become disconcertingly commonplace in our society. The mention of an ‘outside’ relationship will hardly cause any one to bat a well mascaraed eyelash these days and to make headlines one needs to do more than merely take a romp or 12 around the town. (Although 13 and over for an American politician is professional suicide. Ask Anthony Weiner.) Yet while the practice is somewhat run of the mill, it remains heavily frowned upon and is by no means considered acceptable. 

This topic has many far-reaching implications and I know many of you hold a baited breath to see whose side I’m going to take in the matter. Allow me to burst your bubble and issue the spoiler way too early, I’m not taking any side. Well, maybe I am… but your point of view on an affair will hinge on which end of this gone-wrong deal you stand on. (Or whose well-made bed you lay in.) So we’re going to break it down in stages and take it a bit at a time and you will form your own judgment and decide how the silk sheets will fall.

Let me warn you that I’ve used our beloved Scandal characters for this illustration which may be sensitive for some of you. Well Mellie is perhaps not best described as beloved, but I digress.  Therefore before your pick up your pitchforks and head over to my neighborhood allow me to profess my undying love for the show and also for Olivia. And her wardrobe. (But of course).

The Internal Offender – The Fitzgerald Grant

There you were, minding your own business and seemingly content if not happy in your existing relationship when wax, palax, bruggadung brax, you looked around twice and somehow landed yourself in a hot freaking mess of an affair. (Stop grinning. I am not praising you for this accomplishment.)

Whether it was intentional or not, which most times it isn’t, you’ve got some decisions to make. Stay with the original party or cross the floor and join the party of the seconder. But pick a side. Or start an independent party. Remember that famous line about not being able to have your cake and eat it too? That applies here.

The External Offender – The Olivia Pope

I know no-one ever says ‘Oh poor Mellie’ (well it is Mellie after all and she’s a real expletive character), still no one is signing up to take a long walk in the designer heels of the first lady. Why? (And no it’s not because we don’t like her style of shoes.) It is because no one wants to be on the receiving end of that heartache. Forget diet pills, working out and Weight Watchers, if you want to drop 10 pounds in 3 days all one needs is to find out that you are ‘tekking a horn’*. (Translation for non-Barbadian community – discover your partner is *having an affair).

If you’re not willing to eat the meal then you shouldn’t be willing to dish it up. Because karma is real and karma knows where you live. But I’m not playing fair am I? Because Olivia is in love, we know this without a doubt, so therefore her situation is different. Right? I can feel your stunned horror and hear your aghast thoughts - ‘but this is Olivia, we love Olivia!, Olivia can do no wrong.’ But yeah, turns out she can.

Even if you are the great Olivia Pope, (whose services Weiner should probably retain) the affair is wrong however you spin it and if I may be so bold to point out, you are not Olivia Pope. 

What’s more, that pre-used-washed-up-not-yours-boyfriend/fiancé/husband/partner you’ve been dragging around (behind the scenes) is not President Fitzgerald Grant. (Don’t you wish.)  So when examining the scenario as it applies to your specific situation be sure to compare apples with apples. Dating a president? No? Then get over it. 

Again, you will need to decide how you’d like to script your ending. I am sure you recall the episodes where Olivia was lonely, sipping red wine alone while elegantly clad in her signature white. And the episodes where she was frustrated with this isolation. Or the ones where she was hurt by having to watch the man she loves in his proudest moments with his wife by his side while looking on from a distance…and so on and so forth. Should you choose to stick it out, it is not a permanently happy path you trod. Well a relationship never is a permanently happy path so it is best not to add any further complications from inception. Also keep in mind that sometimes the offended have a craving for the demise of the offending party and said offended may be able to afford a friend like Huck to converse with you. (As if Huck converses.) Should you decide to call it quits, keep it classy and quiet. Make your exit as gracious and memorable as your entrance was.

The Offended – The Mellie Grant or The Mrs. Fitzgerald Grant

You hold all the cards. It may not seem like it at the time but how this all pans out hinges on how you choose to deal with it. Or not deal with it. (This is assuming you find out while the game is still in play.)

You can: endure in silence (but why?), confront (peacefully!) and attempt resolution, or tell the whole sorry lot where to get off and move on with your life. Bearing in mind always that if you took option two, the attempt to seek a resolution needs to embraced by Fitz too, because if he wants his Olivia, he will have his Olivia and all the Mellies of the world will have to, as we say, suck salt. Also note that the confrontation is linked to a the attempt at resolving the relationship, if you know that is not your intention then a confrontation is perhaps an unnecessary aggravation and little else. Go you way.

The Outcome

Many that are in this position really had no intention of being there, irregardless of the role you play. Usually no one sets out to identify a subject, plan a comprehensive strategy and implement an aggressive assault to start an affair. (Unless you are on Days of Our Lives.)

That said, you don’t have to encourage it from the outset, or once that ship has sailed you don’t have to prolong it at the end. While the affair may serve to fulfill something in your life that your other relationship does not, (well that’s the whole point isn’t it) the affair itself will create issues that have far-reaching implications regardless of outcome. If you can, I recommend avoiding the affair from the beginning, it is always best to continue Keeping Affairs to Yourself. If the relationship ends, there will be heartache, if it continues there will be trust issues and I’m barely skimming the surface. However you look at it, no one really wins. Not even if you are the President.

Good luck!  

(And I wish you a happy Scandal.)