I wish you all a most happy New Year with lots of love. Ideally this love would encompass lust, love, intimacy, sexual and emotional attunement, empathy, reciprocity, trust, attraction, and joy with one person. Now if love is splendid with one person, can it be splendid with two people at the same time? Many a man might think so, but what about women?
Can a woman love two men simultaneously? That is the question begged in the recent movie The Other Man. Happily married to Liam Nissan─ in a seemingly satisfying union of lust and love ─ Laura Linney is also in love with Antonio Banderas. Can this be? It seems it can.
That Linney ─a self sufficient independent woman ─falls madly in love with Banderas is not hard to imagine! If a woman were so inclined as to find a lover, Banderas would surely fit the bill. Aside from his stunning good looks and sexy accent, he exudes romance, lust, and passion. Not only that but he dresses in Armani, lives like Trump, and is totally in love with Linney. Working as a lowly janitor, how does he manage his lofty life style? Here’s where Linny comes in. She pays all of his bills. Now if that’s not love, what is?
It’s not as though Nissan is a throw-away. A successful, steady, loyal, and loving husband, Linney seems to love him as well. On the surface, sexual and emotional attunement seems to be rich and fulfilling. So why the other man?
The research for my book Daring Wives: Insight into Women’s Desires for Extramarital Affairs indicates that women have affairs when their marriage is unsatisfactory. Without the tools to resolve the issues, the affair is often a catalyst for change. It spells out in bright red letters: EITHER YOU CHANGE OR THE MARRIAGE CHANGES. In my private practice that also seems to be the case.
But of course, there are outliers to all sorts of behaviors, intentions, needs, desires, life circumstances. It seems Tiger Woods was in a happy marriage as was Elliot Spitzer, yet they had a string of lovers outside of the marriage. In their cases, it was their own demons that had to be tamed, not the marriage. What is baffling about the movie The Other Man is that Linney seemed to be well adjusted and not plagued by power, fame, or restricted childhoods like Woods or Spitzer.
Let’s dig a little deeper into some possible unconscious motivations. That Linney takes care of a man and pays his bills is a powerful position indeed. The feeling of superiority with a man and in her career may stem from some unresolved feelings of inferiority from early childhood.
Another unconscious motivation is to live vicariously through someone else. Perhaps Linney has split off a side of herself that she does not like and finds it in Banderas. With him, this trustworthy woman finds her dishonorable side. With her red shoes firmly planted on the ground, at midlife, she tosses them off and looses herself in reckless abandon.
Then there is the existential issue of one’s finality. Whether Linney knew she had cancer when she met Banderas or not, is not clear in the movie. If she did not know about her diagnosis, perhaps she sensed it. What is clear is that she desperately desired this fling. If you were to discover that you were dying of cancer, would you have this last fling? Or would you do something more meaningful and fulfilling? Every one of us is unique and so there is no single cut and dry answer to this thorny, complex issue.
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