Being the lover: "I was very clear that I would not leave my wife"

Barcelona"From the beginning I was very clear that he was married, that we loved each other, but that he would not leave his wife," says Alba, who was her boss's lover for two years. "There was an expiration date. At that time I was twenty-five years old and had a job that took us around the world, very exciting, and our relationship was in a magical and unrealistic environment. If we had been together we would have found ourselves with a divorce, children involved, routine would have had to be free."

Anthropologist Bruna Álvarez explains that in our structure, the lover is the figure that is outside this socially accepted relational system. It refers to a person, normally a woman, who has relations with the paterfamilias outside of marriage. When we talk about lovers, we validate a system of heterosexual, monogamous and stable family and couple relationships. "Human beings are not monogamous by nature," says Álvarez. "They are not anything by nature, but rather they are built in society and depend on how each culture organizes that system." There are cultures such as that of the Moso community, in southwest China, where they separate sexuality from reproduction. "In our culture, however, the female figure has been constructed from reproduction and motherhood, in complete opposition to sexual desire. The bourgeoisie of the 19th century with Victorian morality limited women's sexuality to a single man to guarantee the legitimacy of their children and the transmission of patrimony."

The belief system surrounding the lover places him as a figure of conflict and betrayal that threatens the family unit, that breaks the established order, that lives a passionate love outside the norm and embodies desire. According to psychologist Dolors Liria, "usually any relationship in which a woman gives and receives in an unbalanced way can create discomfort." "It is not that lovers share a series of characteristics, but that they share them with all those people who want something and are not reciprocated or treated equally. This can also occur with the same partner."

This is the case of Ariadna, twenty years old, who was the lover of an older woman who, despite loving her, was not willing to risk everything. "I knew what I was getting into, but once inside I felt trapped and I didn't know how to get out. Despite knowing what things are like, the position of being the other "It leaves a little glimmer of hope that one day things will change. It's hard to close the story because there's never really been a story. It's an open ending," he recalls.

Don't write to me after eight o'clock

Just as with a partner you create your own language, with a lover you establish a series of codes. "In WhatsApp messages he would suggest going for a coffee or a beer, he never said 'stay the night'," explains Pau, who for half a year was the lover of a Cuban boy who was engaged in his country. "It was never written down." Months later he went to Cuba to marry the girl who was waiting for him. "He told me that in Barcelona, ​​with me, he would say goodbye to his freedom." Despite knowing that this boy would never choose him, he agreed to maintain a secret relationship. "Being the lover is being the favorite dish: you don't eat it every day, only on special occasions. You can eat a plate of vegetables every day, but the hamburger with potatoes would end up boring you. I knew that as a lover it was his favorite dish and, therefore, I could never be part of his daily life," he says. Currently he knows nothing about him.

The codes between Alba and her boss were less restricted. "He was very reckless," she explains. "We spent all day together in the office, we called each other, we sent text messages and emails. He also had a ghost email and we wrote to each other through that." Ariadna explains that going to restaurants far from their neighborhoods or changing the name of the contact were other ways they had to hide the relationship. "She sent me messages when she came home or was with her wife and I already understood that implicitly what she was telling me was that the conversation ended there and that, if anything, she would contact me again," she says while emphasizing the importance of the mobile phone in the relationship.

Often when the situation drags on for a long time, the lover is left in a waiting position, in the shadows, where he must make do with the stolen moments. "I knew what the hierarchy was. There was an ambivalence: I didn't want him to leave his wife and at the same time it made me uncomfortable to hide," says Alba. The lover is the tip of a love triangle that can have the function of uniting or dividing the official couple. "I had my time and I had to make the most of it because she was living her life and I wasn't part of it," says Ariadna. "But I had to put up with it alone because I wasn't anyone to make a scandal or claim anything," she concludes. After sex, confessions and passion in the early hours of the morning, what happens next?

Broken secret

There are several possible outcomes: the married person chooses the lover or, on the contrary, chooses the partner. Does the lover leave the couple? Or does the lover leave on his or her own? "An infidelity is the precursor to a possible decision to separate, but also a catalyst to find balance in the relationship," says psychologist Dolors Liria.

Alba was unable to break off the relationship with her head until she met another man, who months later would become her husband. "That allowed me to change my focus and we moved to the United States." In that clandestine relationship, not only a woman, a house and children separated them, but also the Atlantic Ocean. The physical distance was accompanied by an emotional distance from the person who had been her lover for two years and that allowed Alba to start over. The ghost emails, the hotel rooms and the knowing glances were over, but above all, and this is what made her feel the most relieved, the wait was over. "When I went, he got jealous because he felt that I was late. I remember that one Saturday afternoon he called me to tell me. I was walking and I started screaming like crazy through the streets of New York: "What did you want? For me to wait for you all my life?" In that conversation we were both devastated, but we understood each other." Looking back, she says she is happy she made the decision to leave. "We prevented a disaster and a failure."

Anthropologist Bruna Álvarez explains that, although we are supposed to be in a monogamous society, the number of single people is increasing and, therefore, single people with different sexual partners who are not formalized. Romantic and sexual-affective relationships have been questioned throughout history, since the anarchist movement of the 1930s defended the idea of free love and went against considering the partner as property, but as a lover who is constantly chosen to share moments without the need for an institutionalized contract. Currently, new forms are emerging that question the prevailing relational perspective and the case of triellas, couples of three people, is an example.

Alba says that over the years her perspective has changed. "Now I prefer to practice non-monogamy. Until then I had always seen it as a lack of commitment on my part, a lack of respect for others. Practicing this relational model has been a great revelation because with transparency and sincerity, agreements and respect, infidelity is not necessary."