Are Women in “Man-Sharing” Relationships…Being Satisfied or Used?

by Margrett Dawson Wallace
(Pelham, Georgia USA)

Are Women in “Man-Sharing” Relationships…Being Satisfied or Used?

While teaching Life Management Skills classes to college students; the class was assigned by me to find solutions and/or answers to a question posed by a concerned student in class. May I share for information purposes the researched answers and/or solutions for: “Are Women in Man-sharing Relationships…Being Satisfied or Used?”

You have heard the same, as I have, that there are 5 women to/for one man, huh? Today, many women feel freer to make the choice to man-share, and it's much less of a taboo than it was 20 years ago. "These women want to get their needs met, and these needs can be emotional, physical, the need for companionship, or a financial need; some women man-share just for the sex."

On various levels, the man-sharer is getting her needs met, but she's not always the sassy socialite that the media have portrayed her to be. Instead, experts say she's more likely to be the lonely heart depicted in the lyrics of the Nina Simone hit song, "Other Woman": "The other woman will always cry herself to sleep ... the other woman will never have his love to keep ... and as the years go by the other woman will spend her life alone."

There is a spectrum of reasons as to why a woman would knowingly share a man, and many of the reasons aren't good. A woman who would willingly share a man is afraid of commitment herself. "She may have witnessed her father cheat on her mother. She may have been abused, and now she has issues with trusting others. She doesn't do well when she's alone, and she often sits around, crying about where her man is. The man-sharer's intention is not to hurt her lover's main woman, but if she truly empathized with her, she wouldn't do it."

Married women, or other woman who have a full life outside of the man-sharing relationship, are not as likely to suffer emotionally when the relationship ends. It's the lonely woman who isolates herself from her support system of friends and family who hits the hardest time rebuilding her life when the secret relationship is ended.

The man-sharer may wear many faces, and may participate in the relationship for many reasons, but relationship specialists say one thing that is constant in the game of man-sharing is that all good times will come to an end, sooner or later.

Would you believe that one of my students found, there are several understood rules of man-sharing:

First and foremost, many individuals who are involved in man-sharing are very clear in the beginning that this is what they are doing--sharing someone else's man. There is a level of honesty about what they are doing and why. Secondly, man-sharers understand the limitations of their involvement; there are certain social behaviors they can't engage in because others would become aware of their man-sharing. Man-sharing is temporary by nature; if a woman is sharing a married man, she knows that lie's already committed and it's highly unlikely that he would leave his wife and family for her. Those, who are involved don't usually engage in the man-sharing relationship indefinitely."

Man-sharing and affairs may appear to be similar, but they are two totally different animals. "Man-sharing occurs when the secret couple are fully aware of the committed relationship and they agree to an outside relationship. "In an affair, it may not be disclosed that a person is in a committed relationship. And a man-sharer who stays with a man for years is participating in a full-blown affair."

“The man-sharer suffers low self-esteem because she has to settle for being second-best," he says. "The man's primary obligation is to the person lie's committed to, and the man-sharer has to settle for leftovers."

Another student reported in her research that…“Some women who man-share have an agenda to get pregnant, either so they can always have a connection with this man, or to get money from him.” "Once the mistress is pregnant, generally, the man's guilt will not allow him to tell her what he really feels about having a baby out of wedlock. And if the mistress starts nagging him, like a wife, or is exhausted, like a wife, or needs more money, like a wife, be will drift off to a new lover."

"The man-sharer has a problem--if she's in love with him, it blocks her from going out and finding someone who's free. "She's stuck in the cycle of sharing, as opposed to getting involved in a full relationship."

A common misconception about the men involved in man-sharing relationship is that they are, too, having their cake and eating it too. But if the man is in a loveless marriage, and he's only with his wife for the sake of the kids, or to avoid shelling out half of his money in a divorce, his involvement in man-sharing can be equally distressing. It is only when the man is enjoying his marriage and the woman on the side that he is happiest. And in most cases, the happy playboy is a myth...or for the woman...is she saying what Millie Jackson says in her song..."Just because I am alone doesn't mean that I am lonely"...and she woman settles...wrong thing to do my Nubian Sisters.

In ending this class discussion on their research, I concluded that perhaps the most lasting emotional consequence of man-sharing is that some women, so entangled in the web of emotions, with their part-time man, have not made the effort to find a man of their own. If their part-time lover decides on a future without her, she's left free-falling without a safety net…in saying that, I was posed with yet another question…that will be shared in another article…(to be continued).

Please share on “Your Inner-Voice.Com”…I just did…hope you find it informative. “Never to live this life again”.

Don't marry be happy