“When deciding to ‘fall’ in love with a married man make [sure] that it’s your own husband #howaboutthataliciakeys”

That was my twitter tweet early one morning after see that Alicia Keys and boyfriend/ fiancé (legally married producer Swiss Beats) made their first public appearance on a red carpet, after dating for over a year. I want to make this very clear: I am not attacking her celebrity status but her actions. I don’t have a vendetta against her and I don’t know her personally, but I can’t sit around and act like she’s not participating in a very lowdown situation…

In the news as of late, many women in the black entertainment community find themselves in relationships with men that are legally in relationships with other people. It doesn’t matter who it is or why they do it or even what the intentions of other party is, it’s not okay. That’s it. Today after I sent my best friend a copy of my twitter post which lead him to post a question on his facebook status.

                How many people support people having relationships with another person who is already married? Ok, how about being engaged to them? Hmmm so why do yall still support Alicia Keys??? Think about it…smh

The responses were frightening, people saying that you support them based on their talent not their lifestyle. My retort? You can’t support one without supporting the other. Through the back and forth I advised that it’s not something personal to Alicia Keys or Swiss Beats but the situation they were in, negating that they didn’t feel that her lifestyle warranted my removing my support from her.  My stance is this any consumer has the right, no, the responsibility to uphold their private beliefs. If you believe in something strongly you should stand up for it. They believed otherwise. I also offered that a consumer has the right to decide not to care, yet they offered the consumer should not be concerned.

My issues stretch beyond this instance it’s on the principle that marriage is to be respected and by engaging in extramarital activities it’s not respecting that marriage. I don’t understand it. I read an article on Bossip.com and Swiss Beats wife was saying that she believes that they (Alicia Keys and Swiss  Beats) deserve each other, stating “only a certain type of woman would sleep with a married man…” I was thinking about that. I don’t see it as anything other than a self-esteem issue. For someone to decide that they will knowingly participate in a relationship with a married person, it speaks volumes. By entering that relationship do you dismiss the fact that they left their covenant to entertain a relationship without legally leaving that covenant? Does the fact that they are with you ease the silent fears that say they could leave you in the middle of the night and never return?  Or do you sleep with one eye open and your heart out of harms reach?

Another issue I have is the media’s portrayal of the situation… Because on these gossip sites and in the magazines they will  go hard on Fantasia about being in a relationship with a married man, yet comment on how cute a couple Alicia Keys and Swiss Beats are. Tiger Wood’s name is less than trash after he commits affairs and his jumpoffs1, not his wife, are the victims. The blogs are buzzing with these comments from these idiots saying that the spouses of these people deserve to be cheated on because they knew the industry that their spouses are in. Yet, if many of these commentators were in the position that these people are in it would be a different story. These commentators say that this is the direct result of not knowing their spouse yet in these particular cases they did not wed their spouses on a drunken night in Vegas. These people had relationships that they emerged themselves in and were rewarded for their commitment with infidelity, is this what people deserve? Does a wife deserve to go into a supermarket and see on the racks the cover of a gossip magazine that her A-List athlete husband is cheating on her with numerous women? Does a husband deserve to go into a barbershop to find that his wife is the woman the guy in the chair next to him is having sex with? Why does the fact that these people are celebrities versus ordinary people affect how affairs are viewed?

And I don’t know maybe I live in a fictional reality. One that tells me that when I decide to commit to someone I should not have to share them with anyone else. Believing that our space should not be infiltrated by another or that I don’t have to subject myself to a tainted space. Maybe I’m peculiar or particular and believe I can’t compromise my heart for a half-hearted relationship. I love myself too much to settle for less than all of someone’s heart. I would never cross someone else’s marriage and there would be hell to pay if someone tried to cross mine.

A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt

 

With clarity taking in Lyfe Jennings Let’s Stay Together and Destiny’s Child Soldier in cherry red.

-Imagoodgirl

1Jumpoff-  aka Sidepiece – can refer to a man/woman or mistress you have sex with on the side of your regular.