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Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Case Against the Successful Man


Business Success has its Price

I feel certain that there must be a great number of happy and successful businessmen in the world who probably have no real problems to complain about. For this I am happy and I wish them all well. However, we are hearing more stories about when things go wrong, and when they do go wrong, because of who the principals are, the results tend to be spectacular.

Joe, The Plumber, and all of his tradesmen colleagues are engaged in honourable work, and if they do their work well and earn good reputations, I’m sure that they are able to generate good incomes that they can use to put their children through higher education, and that they can also use for a comfortable way of life. In many ways they have the perfect situation.

When we move up the ladder to the corporate executive level we begin to enter dangerous waters and our focus can start to waver. For so many years the storyline has involved the executive, his wife and his secretary. Could that be because he is a man who wears the hallmark of success of money and power that either he deliberately uses to impress young women, or that his image is naturally very impressive to females who are attracted as if they are moths to the light?

First I have to admit that we men have met the enemy, and it is us! It seems that once we have power, and money to finance our dreams, women automatically enter into the picture. Beautiful cars and wonderful yachts always have beautiful single babes attached to them. Where are the wives in all of this?

It does amaze me how men (always) get caught out in the silly little games they play, and are astonished to have been found out. If you are a young woman and are proposed to by a successful man, you really do need to ask yourself how will you handle things when the other women come chasing your husband. The one thing that you can be sure of is that they will come a-chasing.

To be a man and to stand strong against your own basic nature must surely be the test of all time. The more rich and famous you are, the more gorgeous the girls will be. It will be they who approach you, and they will be at their very best. We have discovered, perhaps, much to our surprise, that women have agendas and criteria too regarding their sex lives. We have always known that women like to enjoy sex. We have worked hard to ensure that it was good for them too. But women can play “notches on the bedpost” as well as men.

What is really so wrong with a woman being able to reflect over her life and recite a number of rich and famous names who she entertained in her bed? Men don’t do that. For us she only has to move and we’re up for it. But for many women it is important to be discerning. The mere fact that the men are married need not factor in at all.

As a married man, unless your wife has agreed that you can have love relationships with other women, then it is simply wrong and you are not allowed to touch. The minute you do so you are on that slippery slope, and your wife will find out because the girl will tell her. The solution could be the Swinging Scene, but use caution as this is not for the faint of heart.

As a married man, if you insist on having it all, you will come to discover (as so many others before you have done) that you will have to pay out substantial portions of your hard earned wealth to your ex-wife(s). Naturally you won’t mind at all spending this money on your wife and family as an intact unit, but it starts to become burdensome when you are apart.

What you really need to be is a single rock star, playing gigs all round the world. If your music is good your groupies will be waiting for you to keep you warm in the night. Then you have fame, power, money, women, and adulation from both men and women. What more could you ask for? The incredible answer from many of these guys is “someone to love me and to make a home for me.” Why have so many of the top names married when their lives are a buffet of women? Why has Hugh Hefner, the original Playboy married several times? Life really is funny and confusing.

Getting back to Joe, the Plumber, the chances are that the babes will leave him alone to stay focused on the things in life that are important. However, given the kind of money these guys can generate you never can tell.

It’s just a suggestion, but pre-nuptial agreements should perhaps be broadened to include language that says that this agreement allows for me to have other lovers in my life while maintaining a marriage with you. But remember, that can work both ways.


Copyright © 2010 Eugene Carmichael