Girlfriend, Sugar Baby and Wife - Can a Married Woman Be a Runs Girl?

By Atala

Picture this scenario. A boy and girl are meet. Sparks fly. Chemistry happens. And before they know it, they're both in love. However, there's a kink. The girl is high maintenance, and lover boy doesn't really have that much going for him at the moment. So she turns to a richer, older man who provides money to keep her in the style she prefers, and she reciprocates with sexual favours. Even as she does this, the girl will state boldly that she really does love (or at least, care very deeply) for her boyfriend.

She says she can laugh with him, cry with him and share everything (well, almost everything) with him in a way that she cannot bring herself to do with her other lover. It's just that she feels that she cannot get everything she wants in her perfect man from a single perfect man, so she has this composite partner made up of 90% boyfriend and 10% sugar daddy (until her boyfriend gets his big break, she says).

Then one day, he surprises his girlfriend with a proposal of marriage. This throws her into confusion, as she had thought they would get married once he was truly comfortable in her eyes. But she does care for him, and despite her misgivings, she decides to accept his proposal. It's an extravagant affair, bankrolled in no small degree by her sugar daddy, who is aware of their relationship, but who feels that the relationship between him and his sugar baby is secure. After all, he surmises, that small boy cannot provide for her in the way I can, so she will always keep on running back to Daddy.

At first, the girl tells herself that this is just for a while; once things improve with her boyfriend, she'll dump her benefactor so that she can properly settle down to marital bliss. But unfortunately for her, things don't improve. Despite his best efforts, her boyfriend remains in a middling job whose salary can simply not afford the extravagant lifestyle that she aspires to. She still has that deep connection, but she is beginning to realize that this might be her new reality.

And here is where I wonder. Can a woman sustain a marriage where she claims to love her husband, yet cheats on him with another man for financial benefits?

For me, it’s believable that a girl might be in love with her boyfriend and still have a wealthy provider on the side, if she can tell herself that this is a temporary situation, and that she'll dump him later on for something more stable with her boyfriend. But such a triangle is inherently unstable, and if it persists into marriage, she will feel the tension of having to keep these two lives separate, and dissatisfaction at having to maintain as permanent a situation she had thought would be temporary, and these will tell on her.

I see the situation resolving itself in one of two ways:

- She becomes resentful that her husband’s inability to provide for her in the way she would like has led to this fractured lifestyle, and eventually she falls out of love with him. That might be the prelude to her departure from the relationship and subsequent divorce.

- She confesses because the strain is too much. However, even as she does so, she says that she still loves him. It’s hard to say what might happen, but it’s hard to see him staying in the relationship if she still wants to continue getting goodies from her sugar daddy.

I also wonder whether the same situation applies with reversed genders. It’s fairly common for men claim they love their wives, yet cheat for sexual benefits. The difference is that the man may see this triangle as a viable long term arrangement, so he will not feel quite the same tension. In fact, in many cases, if the man is powerful enough, the wife might be aware that such relationships exists but might turn a blind eye to them if he is discreet about how he conducts them.

Perhaps our girl would avoid such drama if she accepted that even while her ‘composite man’ strategy might help her get a kind of ‘100%’ man, the problems of dealing with such a composite might outweigh his completeness, and perhaps it would be better to settle for an imperfect man who was good enough. Or she could just keep on searching for that Mr. Right who was both loving and rich.