"Painful" Truth About Black Relationships: One Woman's POV
However painful the truth, black women must tell it
November 19, 2002
BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement
If we are honest about it, most of us would have to admit that at some point we've been somebody's fool. But admitting we were used is so humiliating, we suck up the heartache and move on with our lives. Before opening these wounds between black men and black women, let me first say I've been there . I would have left it therehad I not gotten an e-mail from a woman who apparently has been there, too.
I have felt her anger. Yet, who is gonna feel sorry for us?
But suppose the tables were turned. Suppose the woman who thought they were in a monogamous relationship or marriage got together with the "other woman" to confront her man's or her husband's lies?
Wouldn't that at least spare some of them further emotional, physical, not to mention financial harm? I think so. Vulnerable women should consider this e-mail a citywide alert:
I am an African-American female in my early fifties. I am fairly attractive, and I have lucrative employment. My children are adults living away from home. I returned to the dating scene 10 years ago. My employment is high-intensity and keeps me very busy, therefore, my dating availability is limited. I am selective, cautious and require previous dating history on anyone I spend my time with. I believe this outline is typical of many African-American women in the Chicago dating scene.
The story I would like to share with you is one of amazement, disappointment--and a warning for the many women that have returned to the dating scene:
In mid-April of this year I met a gentleman in one of the upscale African-American lounges. He was charming and unassuming. He maintains a low-key, non-obtrusive manner. After exchanging numbers and weeks of extensive communication concerning morals, values, friends, family, hopes and dreams, we scheduled appointments for our HIV tests. We agreed to wait 30 days to give us time to appreciate each other and determine our compatibility levels. We included friends and family in our whirlwind, and we talked of marriage and major home purchases. We would share activities, chores and purchase each other gifts.
By mid-October, I found that this prince charming had two (and at times three) other women in his life. I began to notice that he would provoke arguments with me at least once a month and during that cooling period he would be spending quality time with the woman on the other side of town (which I found out later). I was amazed and horrified.
Unfortunately, after careful planning, discussion and a desire to approach the dating process according to what I will call the "rules," I have found out there is a new type of man released in our midst. This African-American species ranges in age between the mid-thirties and mid-fifties. They have incomes ranging from the mid-$50,000-$100,000-plus. (Some may be in transition between jobs with great potential.) That word potential gets women in trouble every time. Some have been married more than once and have school-age children. In many cases they move their children in for the new mate to care for while they run the street. They enjoy weekly stops at the neighborhood watering spots.
Many of these men appear to have decided that women are plentiful, and they should not be limited to one. They have learned the language of love, and they have learned how to tell us what we want to hear knowing that many of the African-American women in the upper-income brackets have traded love and submissiveness for education, employment and security in the early stages of life (and/or we had failed marriages) leaving us wanting the opportunity to have a solid meaningful relationship at a later stage in our lives.
This grouping of men have set up a deliberate process of meeting women, obtaining their trust, keys to their homes (in some instances moving in) and interacting with their families under the deception that they want a monogamous committed relationship. In reality they want the women that have status and a lucrative income to complement their lifestyle, bring to their families and show to their friends. However, they have women (in a lower income and educational bracket) on the other side of town that they provide financial assistance to and spend many midnight moments with. They juggle these relationships like a sport, constantly deceiving and manipulating the woman that believes she is in a monogamous relationship.
Men that participate in this activity participate in a vicious and dangerous game. They will marry the woman that they deceive to obtain the lifestyle they desire. Yet they keep the other women to continuously feed their need to control and ensure a safe haven when they are caught with the one-nighters that they meet in their weekly rounds. I have been a victim of this process and after speaking with other women, I have found that many others have been burned by this process and are too embarrassed to discuss it.
That's the problem. Black women are so afraid of being accused of bashing black males, many of them are suffering in silence. If anyone ought to be embarrassed, it should be the low-down, rotten scoundrel.
__________________
I am a woman, I make mistakes. I make them often. God has given me a talent and that's it. ~ Jill Scott
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<--- She was shocked that he had enough money to actually buy her the ring. 
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