A Letter to Fantasia

Love isn’t blind, but desperation is.

Fantasia,

Sister, I won’t rip you to shreds because that’s not my style. However, I believe that truth is like cough medicine; bitter to taste, but good for the soul, and can heal the body deep down to the bones, if taken in the right doses. I recommend a bitter dose of reality, not bitter because it’s being shoved down your throat from a professional and mean spirited blogger, but because the truth will hurt you deep to the core. But trust me when I say it’s for a greater good and ultimately a greater you.

As women, we see marriage as the last destination before Happily Ever After. We’ve taken many trips to get to our paradise, and we have no plans of abandoning a sinking ship even if our husband is no longer willing to endure dark waters. It’s clear that Mr. Cook might not have been in a happy marriage, since he was so willing to stray; but my dear…he was indeed in a marriage regardless of the condition in which you became a willing participant in an affair.

It may seem as if Mrs. Cook was holding on to a fleeting husband, but how are you any better in this situation? For if you look at the situation with a magnifying glass, you’ll see that you too are guilty of holding on to something that you shouldn’t have: a married man.

What on earth is so appealing about a man who would step out on his wife and kid for some sideline sex? Regardless of the feelings that you may have developed for this two-timing “pretty boy,” while he is married, you are nothing more than some sideline action. And as a woman, why have you settled for the role of an on and off side piece when you’re good enough to be more?

And my dear, what on earth is so lovable about a man who has no problems lying to you about the state of his marriage and treating you like a rich sideline hoe? He sexes you and spends a little time with you, and in exchange you purchase him gifts such as motorcycles and fancy getaways? Why? Is it because deep down inside you feel you must pay for that type of affection?

Fantasia, you do realize that there are real men out here that don’t require your bank account for romance? They are successful, have their own, and have no secret wife that will take your ass to court and sue you for everything you have. But instead, you opted for a lying and two-timing “pretty boy,” who couldn’t make what you make in a year in a decade. And then he has the nerve to make you pay for his foolishness.

Mr. Cook played you royally and made you believe that he would leave his wife for gifts and lavish vacations, but no matter what was spoken on those nights of adulterous love making, he never went to the court to file any divorce papers. You were never meant to be anything more than convenient sex and a one way ticket to riches he never earned.

All the time you accepted this behavior and made the wife your ultimate enemy. In the end, a conversation with his wife would have revealed that this man wasn’t even worth it. You could have walked away once you realized he wasn’t being honest about the true nature of his marriage, but instead you decided to go along and hope his unhappiness would eventually turn into a divorce. Instead of going to the court to end a marriage, his wife is going to the court to save a marriage–and take every dollar you have to your name. By the end of this, all you will have is hope and a butchered reputation.

Hope is the fuel to many disastrous relationships and the root of suffering among women who are greater than the garbage they chose to willingly jump into–for the sake of “love.”

Why settle for hope when you can have some security? A married man can’t give you security, especially when he wasn’t able to give it to his wife. He promised through thick and thin, but instead creeps out occasionally in exchange for your money and sex…and that’s the man you want to be with? A man that can’t even honor his vows?

No matter how you look at it, nothing good can come out of garbage–trash will always be trash and lies can’t possibly evolve into truths.

The media had a field day and the same man who put you through all this hell was willing to leave you just as he found you: desperate and alone.

The pain was so deep that you no longer valued your life…but reaching for pills is the coward’s way to putting an end to a situation that was not worth all you worked for.

Instead, you should walk away and choose your dignity over a cowardly man who clearly has no knowledge of what marriage is and damn sure isn’t capable of loving anyone but himself.

If he loved his family, he would have never stepped out. And if he loved you, he would have filed some divorce papers. He did neither, but he’s living the life and taking lavish vacations with the former American Idol herself. Do you see where I’m going with this?

I ask you woman to woman, was it worth it?

Because I can’t think of a man alive that is worth my life. Or one that is worth my career, my peace of mind, and my overall happiness. And a good man wouldn’t make me sacrifice any of those things–not even for the best sex I’ve ever had.

But maybe you’re the type of woman that has to learn your worth through heartbreaks and cowardly men who truly have nothing to offer you, but a life of misery. And if that’s the case, I hope you’ll wake up before you lose everything you have worked so hard to get.

I have a feeling that you won’t see this for what it really is in enough time to save your legacy, and that’s the biggest shame of them all. Oh how the mighty have fallen, simply because she never knew her true worth, but instead looked for it in a man.

I wish you wisdom, healing, and real love my sister–and that’s love for self.

-Amanda Anderson

Editor-in-Chief
Urban Belle Magazine