Current mood: contemplative

Good morning everyone,

This is a question I asked myself as I sat down to write Shipwreck Bay - my new book coming to eXtasy Books on April 1. It’s a fun, light tale set in the Ioanian Sea, but it’s also a story with a dark heart: what happens when the person you love and trust most in this world deceives you?
Although my bad boy Marek goes to extraordinary lengths to prove his love to Dragan on whom he cheated and, in reality, my friends and even I, have found that most cheaters, yes even those who do confess, expect things to be the same when in fact nothing can ever be the same. Ever.
There’s a great line from the Cole Porter song: "I’m true to you darling...in my fashion."
I would expect there’s a lot of blokes out there who feel that way. I wrote Shipwreck Bay almost two years after devastating heart break.
I was bewildered at first since the man in question could not understand why I wanted to break up with him. For me, that proverbial thin line between love and hate just snapped.
Recently, one of my best friends received a visit at her home from a girl, yes a girl, who looked like a 20 year younger version of her saying, "I’m sleeping with your husband. He says you haven’t had sex in years."
My friend has four kids, the youngest three months old. so, sex had to happen somewhere along the line. He wants both women, my friend wants a father for her kids. He’s getting the better end of the bargain I think, but until I’ve walked a mile or more in her moccasins, I can’t make judgement calls.
Though Shipwreck Bay is a short book full of hot sex and my typical happy ending, Dragan’s pain was the hard part for me because I based his fears, his anxieties, doubts and bubbling insecurities on my own.
It seems to be a timely tale since not one, but two New York governors confessed to ultimately tawdry affairs, but I wonder what lengths THEY have gone to in order to win back love and trust.
One look at the misery on Silda Spitzer’s face as her husband Eliott Spitzer, the once lethal "I’m gonna git you sucka" governor resigned in the wake of his call girl scandal and you know this poor woman hadn’t slept for days. My heart bled for her.
Two days after Spitzer’s outing, Dr. Laura went on the Today Show and blamed Silda for her husband’s restless, partying pants. That’s lovely, isn’t it? Blaming the victim for the crime?
In truth, when my man cheated on me, I was a healthy, active, loving partner who probably gave too much and was foolish to believe he was working all those nights. He traveled a lot and I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t have a reason to question him, until he sat me down and confessed his affair.
You sure as heck feel stupid. As the wonderful Emma Thompson said in the mnovie, Love, Actually, "You made the life I’ve been living feel foolish."
Well said.
There are women and men who might become distracted with career, power, children...but there are those of us who do not. Whatever the reason for straying, but it’s painful enough to have to deal with betrayal, let alone having some self-appointed guardian of public morals blaming YOU for your husband’s poor character and crappy choices.
Ultimately, I do believe love can survive deception with genuine remore, some creative making up...at least, in my romantic heart it can. In truth, many women and men make the decision to stay every day. These ordinary heroes stay for reasons good and bad.
How we choose to deal with it, recover trust and love and not blame ourselves when a cheating heart strays is up to each and every one of us. But for anyone who ever got cheated on, being blamed is not an option we deserve.
Recently, I ran into my cheating ex, who I have to be honest, tried for months to win me back, even tackling me me in the hallway of Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas Grand Ballroom...and he said, "I did love you, you know." To which I repsonded, "As much as you could love anyone, right?"
He nodded...so you see, Cole Porter got it right...we just have different tastes in fashion.
Aloha oe,

A.J.

Currently listening : The Wild Hawaiian By Henry Kapono Release date: 20 June, 2006