Be "The Other Woman" in Your Man's Life

Be

The Other Woman in Your Man’s Life

KAREN HOLDER

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Be The Other Woman in Your Man’s Life

Copyright © 2012 by Karen Holder.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-4507-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4508-9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916126

iUniverse rev. date: 10/25/2012

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Once Upon a Time… in the Beginning

2 Thou Shall Flirt

Laughter Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

So Much for Psychology, Now for Some Field Work

3 You’re His Other, Not His Mother

4 Remember the Cleavers

Appreciating Home

5 Is Your Relationship Out of Sync?

Things They All Do (Men)

How to Weather the Storm

6 Lovemaking or Sex?

Turn Up the Heat

Romance: The Ultimate Aphrodisiac

Real-Life Story

7 Hey, Cinderella! Sex Is Not a Chore (If It Is, You’re Doing Something Wrong)

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

8 Pretty Woman

Let the Sex Games Begin

Lingerie Tip Reminder

Real-Life Story

9 Ladies, Start His Engine

Real-Life Story

A Little Lingerie Goes a Long Way

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

10 The Erotic Realm of the Senses

The Honeymoon Picker-Upper

Recipe for Edible Fun with Whipped Cream

11 Be a Prick Tease or the Appetizer

Call Me! Phone Sex

12 Get out of Your Box

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

Afraid to Try New Things?

Real-Life Story

13 Pole Dancing (Yes, I’m Talking to You)

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

14 Role-Playing and Fantasies

Help! There’s a Strange Man in My Fantasies!

Real-Life Story

Oh Santa Baby! (Your Sex Wish List)

15 Reach for the Razor

16 On Bended Knee

17 Yes, I Said Masturbation

Every Girl Needs a Vibe

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

18 Sex Over Sixty or Seventy or Eighty (and Beyond)

Tips for Enjoying Sex after Sixty

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

Real-Life Story

19 Final Thoughts: What Not to Share with Your Man and What to Remember to Avoid

Things Every Woman Should Know

Foreplay and Afterglow

If You Think Your Man Is Cheating

Epilogue Last But Not Least

Quotes and Quips

About the Author

To my husband Bobby,

My Prince Charming

You make all my little girl dreams come true.

Thank you for your love and support during my journey.

I know at times it was not easy!

To my Beautiful daughter Kimberly,

You are one of the most precious gifts

Ever given to me. I love you so much.

To my son Brian,

I see the sun rising and

The moon shining every time I see you smile.

I Hope You Dance

Acknowledgements

To my sweet friend Rebecca,

I will always be grateful for your friendship and

the help you gave me getting my manuscript started.

To my final editor and wonderful crazy friend Brenda Blackwelder,

Thank you for your guidance, the extra typing and encouraging me

all the times I just wanted to throw my computer out the window!

To the editorial team at IUniverse,

Krista and Mars, thank you for your support

In turning my dream into reality.

Last but certainly not least,

I want to give a special thank you for those customers who

gave me the inspiration to write this book.

If I have helped just one woman,

then all my efforts and sleepless nights have been worthwhile.

Introduction

I decided to write this book in honor of my customers and all the stories they have shared with me, both good and bad. Some of the stories were painful, from women who were cheated on or taken advantage of in other ways. Some stories came from women who were so uninhibited that they gave me too much information, which I found a little scary at times.

But some of the hardest information I obtained for this book came from men, the ones who hit on me. Some were married; some were not. But even though all of them knew I was happily married, they still tried to woo me. Some, sadly enough, were just looking for a little attention, while some longtime customers, where I knew both wife and husband, wanted me to talk their wives into wearing more sexy clothing, both in and out of the bedroom.

When I opened my lingerie boutique in 1986 on the grounds of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, I thought my small, picturesque boutique would fulfill all my dreams. I had recently married my handsome and charming second husband, who taught me how to snow ski as well as climb mountains. We even bathed naked in a cool mountain stream on a glorious day, something I had never ever considered. Even though these adventures brought excitement to a sometimes boring week of work and life’s problems, I thought I had married the man with whom I would live happily ever after. However, life had its way with me.

I became a flight attendant, and to make a long story short, I found myself realizing that I just was not fulfilled. (I also observed a lot while I was a flight attendant. Believe me, I could write another book on what I learned and saw on my overnight trips.)

The second husband and I were at a crossroads in our marriage, and I felt I needed something more. I knew I loved him, but we just seemed to want different things in life. One day while working a flight, I accidentally ran into the man I had dated ten years before marrying the second husband and realized that the love I had felt for him had not died. He was still single. Did fate have him waiting for me? We married in 1991, and that is another story.

I believe everyone truly does have a soul mate, and when you finally find yours, you should do everything in your power to keep that special thing that brought you together alive and new forever. I believe that no one enters marriage with the intention of getting divorced. We all think we will be the perfect couple, the one to beat the odds. Ours, we think, will be the fairy tale wedding with a happily ever after ending, like Cinderella and Prince Charming. Then one day, we wake up and wonder, What the hell happened? It is called life with all its ups and downs.

I personally feel that marriage is always a challenge. It’s like the fragile orchid, needing constant care and attention to live. You have to really love the orchid for it to survive, and now I know that we need to forever treat our partner as if we are still dating, with the same attentiveness we give to our beloved orchid.

That is what Be the Other Woman in Your Man’s Life is all about. It is about tending to the commitment, communication, compassion, and, most importantly, passion in your relationship to keep it alive and thriving. It is about taking our vows seriously, like our grandparents and our great-grandparents did. Sometimes we don’t accept our own frailties; we forget our commitment to stay together forever through thick and thin. In today’s world, it seems that, with the divorce rate so high, we dispose of our marriages as easily as we do dirty diapers.

Also included are some of my personal experiences and the things I have learned in my past two failed marriages, the mistakes I made as well as learning what I need and want from my current marriage. My third (and final) marriage has had its ups and downs, but I believe we have created a duet, and we both love the music we now share. We will soon celebrate twenty years together.

But don’t get me wrong. Life and the economy have put us down some rough and bumpy roads, but we just keep holding on to the steering wheel, even when we hit a dead-end road or suffer from the proverbial flat tire. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I am very sorry for some, some I am not very proud of, but I have owned up to them and the demons that were in me. I used the knowledge to help me write this book in hopes it will help every woman who reads it.

Just remember, there really is such a thing as the other woman. I did not make up that term. You can keep her at bay or let her into your life. It certainly is your choice. I hope you will decide to be the other woman in your man’s life.

I also would like to say I turned sixty this year, so:

I really feel

I have been there

did it

and have done it!

I totally understand

and I get it!

I know what it is like to speak to your husband and not be heard. My first husband of thirteen years, the father of my two beautiful children, never heard me. I used to say he would rather lie under the ’55 Chevy he was rebuilding than lie under me!

I also know what it is like to give all you have to give to your children and feel you still have not done enough. Maybe I will forever feel that I will never do enough to make up for putting my children through a divorced home. I constantly wish I could have been strong enough to wait until they were of age.

There is always the feeling that you should have or could have done more. That compels you to go out and find just one more perfect gift for them on special days, hoping it will be enough to make up for putting them in a divorced family. It is the martyr in us.

I know what it is like to work two jobs and still not have enough money for just you. All I am trying to say is that, if you want to live happily ever after with your Prince Charming, then you constantly have to work at it. You have to be a duet and love the same music forever.

While reading this book, I want you never to feel like I am putting women down. It is not my intention. I just want for us women to take charge. My father-in-law used to say, Only one can be in charge at a time. So, with that excellent advice, be in charge! Take charge of your own destiny, and then teach it forward. You can have that fairy tale marriage ever after… or not.

What do you have to lose by trying my tried-and-true methods at least once a month… if not once a week? It can’t hurt, and it could be a lot of fun!

If your marriage or relationship is showing signs of flickering out, you can do things to ignite the intimacy and put the romance back into your relationship. This book will show you how other women have used the techniques and tips to reestablish the love connection they shared with their partner when they first started dating. I hope this book will be able to improve your relationship without the expense of counselors.

Statistics show that happily married couples live longer, healthier lives than single people do. I believe that, if you nurture your relationship, love grows deeper with each year you are together. I believe in the institution of marriage, and I believe I finally married my Prince Charming! This book may offend some, but my great-grandmother used to say, You can’t please everyone. I only hope that I do please the majority of women. The women I write about are different from one another in many ways. Some are African American; others are Asian. Some are homosexual; others are heterosexual. Some are married; some are divorced. Some are single; some are separated. Some are older; others are younger. No matter what our differences, we have much in common. I personally pride myself in being open-minded and believe it has helped me learn a lot by not discriminating, thus enabling me to include much more information in this book.

Think about this. Why is the Statue of Liberty portrayed as a woman and not a man? Liberty is the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one’s own choosing, so with that said, Women must take charge!

1

Once Upon a Time… in the Beginning

I know you remember the day you met your man. You told all your friends, He’s the one! He gave you goose bumps and butterflies in your belly. There was a bliss of romance, and you looked forward to every date. You probably spent the entire week trying on clothes or shopping for new ones just to impress him. You smiled at everything he said. You put on a show for him at all times. Even if you had worked all day and just wanted to go home, take off your shoes, and plop down, if your man called to take you out, you put on those dancing shoes and twirled ’til the wee early hours of the morning. You always found time to take long weekends together somewhere romantic. You made sure you surprised him with some sexy lingerie. You probably stayed up late talking and laughing about everything and anything.

Now you have been married for quite a few years, you probably have children, and some of the romance has fizzled. You have ridden the elevator of life’s ups and downs, which has steered you and your relationship