Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

moved in with him; shared the bills with him; done his laundry;
cooked his food; borne his children; and said an enthusiastic, “I
do,” in front of the Lord, the pastor, your mother, and all her best
friends and yours, too, the least your man can do is honor what is
most sacred to you: the promise of fidelity. He can lie (every once
in a while), fall down on the housework and the child rearing,
get a little lax in the income department, pay more attention to
his boys and his mother than he does to you, and slip into the
mediocre category when it comes to the boudoir—even say the
Lord’s name in vain while you’re walking out the door to go to
yet another church ser vice alone.
But let a man step out on his woman, and watch the earth
move.
That’s my way of saying that women will put up with a lot
of things.
Cheating is not one of them.
Now, we men? We understand this. We know what it takes
to tip, we’re capable of calculating the collateral damage that
comes with getting caught, and we know that getting back into
the graces of the woman we cheated on—and her mother, and
her friends, and anyone else who’s sympathized with her having
to resurrect herself from such a devastating life event—will re-
quire a Herculean effort.
Still, we do it.
Why?
I am not here to justify a cheating man’s actions. Rather, this