THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MISTRESSES MAY BE THE ONES YOU'LL NEVER KNOW ABOUT : BETTER TO BE NEVER MARRIED THAN DIVORCED?

In search for Mistresses of the Month (and other Kept individuals) to feature here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, I've come to the notion that the most successful mistresses may be the one's you never know about.  

Why?

To start, many relationships that are Alternative are kept secret through discretion simply because those involved know that they don't want or need condemnation as they are outside the "normal." Pressure is (still) strong not only to be married but stay married (more so in certain cultures.) People feel this not only because of family values but because of their careers. For some not being heterosexually married is (still) a career issue.

I recall sitting with some women friends at a café one Saturday morning years ago and the discussion was "Is it better to be never married or divorced?" I thought it was better to be never married. My friends felt that it was better to be divorced. Divorced meant to them that you were looked upon as a normal person who wanted marriage and so, you failed. Better to have tried this traditional coupling and be known for it.  Better to have lost at love than be perceived as having never loved.

Since then I've met people who have been married many times. Someone I worked with married five times and had children with each partner. (He tended to be the type who let women choose him and be the ones who pursued him as well. He was OK with step fathers taking over the fathering. Maybe he saw himself as a sperm donor for career women?)

The other day a man was telling me that he had "lived with" several women. In five minutes he explained a love life that went on for many years, seven live-in partners, no children.  When I said "Wow you're a cat with 12 lives!  Married seven times!"  he made a point of correcting me. Those live in situations were not marriages. It was as if he was saving himself for marriage.  I did think there must be something wrong there.

Here's what I was thinking. How seven women may have thought that if they lived with him they would become married to him. How, if that was what they wanted in life - marriage - they wasted their time on him. How many mistresses who have been with one man outside of marriage for years have more stability, more love, a better life than their peers who are living with men who will not marry.

I think mistresses should live apart from their men, have a life outside their extramarital relationship. Any man who keeps a woman aside of his marriage should understand that and help her make that happen.  (If you're a mistress reading this, please do not live in isolation and waiting.)

This month I was thinking about Lady Walker (Jewell DiAnne/Dianne Walker) and how little I was able to find out about her. 

Obviously there were many people in Houston society (high society) who knew about her and J. Howard Marshall II, and that was probably true of his family, possibly his wife, his friends. But to this moment, it is not too easy to learn more about her. If her daughter had not written a book, all we might find out is the public information about a lawsuit. Though this relationship was happening for the most part before the Internet, if she, he, and that society were not more discreet, she probably would have "made the papers" in those years.

Consider that some of the other women profiled here who lived years earlier than Lady did "make the papers" accused of immorality, gold-digging, or held at arm's length by society.  Newspapers intended to shame them or make them infamous.  Some of these women wanted to be famous because they were self supporting in careers in entertainment. 

How many Mistresses have continued their relationships without becoming known or do now?

I don't think we'll ever have reliable statistics about that.

Missy

C Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot 2022

PATRICIA KENNEALY MORRISON HAS MOVED ON INTO THE NEXT WORLD

NY TIMES : OBIT PATRICIA KENNEALY-MORRISON 

Excerpt: In the late 1960's, originally as Patricia Kenely (she later changed the spelling of her last name and, in 1979 added Morrison), she was a writer for and then editor of Jazz & Pop, a small but well-regarded magazine. She interviewed Morrison in 1969, and when they shook hands there was "a visible shower of bright blue sparks flying in all directions," she wrote in a 1992 memoir, "Strange Days" My Life With and Without Jim Morrison."  They soon became romantically involved.

Ms. Kennealy-Morrison practiced Celtic paganism; on her Facebook page she described herself as "Author, ex-rock critic, Dame Templar, Celtic witch, ex-go-go dancer, Lizard Queen, Not in that order." ("Lizard Queen" was a reference to a line from a Jim Morrison poem, in which he wrote, "I am the Lizard King.") In 1970 she and Morrison exchanged vows in a "handfasting ceremony" that involved drops of their own blood.

 

ROLLING STONE OBIT FOR PATRICIA KENNEALY MORRISON

Excerpt:  Patricia Kennealy-Morrison - the one-time rock journalist and partner of Doors singer Jim Morrison - died July 23rd at the age of 75.

"To all of you who have supported our beloved Lizard Queen, I wanted to let you know that she passed this morning," Kennealy-Morrison's Lizard Queen Press - the company she founded to release her fiction work - wrote on Facebook at the time. "To say we are all reeling from the news is an understatement. We will miss our friend very, very much. She was a beautiful soul, a talented writer, and a loving and wonderful friend."

Missy here:  The love triangle of Doors singer and poet Jim Morrison with Patricia Kennealy and Pamela Courson was featured here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot and remains one of the most popular posts for the month March 2014.

Although there is reason to believe Morrison had other women in his life through these relationships, the situation was and is confused because while PAMELA called herself his wife, he didn't always live with her, preferring a motel room at times even when in Los Angeles - the same city, though he financially supported her. But there was no legal marriage. And with PATRICIA, Morrison participated in a Pagan Hand Fasting ceremony, which is also not a legal marriage - or was not at that time and place. (Today in California such ceremonies followed by a civil marriage or registration are.) This ceremony which is the tradition in her religion was very important to Patricia. She was financially independent of Morrison.  

When he died in Paris, Pamela was there. Her family declared her his wife and went after his estate which is something else which I think might be questionable today with so many people experimenting with living together without legal marriage. At the time far fewer people did so and Pamela's family were almost, in my opinion, redeeming her reputation by declaring her Jim's common law wife. Today living together for seven straight years is usually considered a common law marriage, with faithfulness and loyalty known in the community. 

The controversy is still in play, which is one of the reasons my posts about Patricia and Pamela are so popular.  So much so that at one point I actually took the whole month done, hoping other deserving Mistresses would get hits instead.

LONG TIME LIVING TOGETHER and LEGAL MARRIAGE : OPINION BY MISSY

Common law marriage goes like this : depending on the place (county/state/county) where you have lived in the same house with someone you never legally married, after some time, where you are recognized as a couple by the community, and may have spawned, you're considered married anyway.  I believe seven years is the average.

It can still go against you to "just live" with another person.

Spousal Social Security benefits as well as Spousal Military Benefits are a question. Inheritance is a question.

Consider a friend of mine, I'll call Connie, who lived for years with a man, I'll call Herb, who became rich creating music for a well known cartoon series. She still says he was the love of her life though he died without protecting her by buying her property or putting her in his will. His children came and kicked her out of the house they shared within a week of the funeral and took the car she had driven. She ended up near homeless until one of her siblings provided the money for her to get into a cheap rental.  

This man, knowing she loved him, had retired and lived on immense residuals. He wanted a playmate. He encouraged her to quit her job so they could "just hang out and be together."  

I saw her the other day. I knew the shock and depression she had suffered had resulted in a forty pound weight loss and Connie is a small person so she was skeletal. Close to 70 years old she's going to a tech school to retrain and re-enter the working world. Bless her. School has helped her snap out of the deep depression and grief she was in for a couple years. During that time she'd been unable to eat and now she was learning to create gourmet feasts.

The strength of protection due to marriage is such that gay people have campaigned to be granted the right to marry.  I'm all for the right for gay people to marry.  I wonder if marrying more than one person will someday be legal.

Of course, for our purposes here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT, considering that a person can only legally be married to one person at a time or be a bigamist and so a criminal, we wonder about loving more than one person at a time, as well as being "married" to more than one person at a time, stereotypically a Wife and Mistress at one time.  I do believe that a person can love more than one person at the same time, though it can be confusing because there is so much pressure to pick one.

Another of my friends revealed to me that when her uncle died, her dad's partner in a construction business, there was a reading of the will like you see on a soap opera.  A small crowd assembled, each person "named" in the will. In the back, sitting wearing all black and a big hat, was a woman with two small children. The relatives stretched their necks to take a look. Who was that woman?  They soon learned.  Her uncle used his will to explain to his family that he had this long time mistress and that the children were his.  He wanted his money to be split between his wife and this woman, his children with his wife and his children with the mistress.  It was a shock to them all.  I have no idea how it went.

So I feel that if you are living with a person who WILL NOT COMMIT to MARRIAGE, you should ask yourself where this might end you financially. Mistresses have long sought their financial security in jewelry and collectibles, antiques and paintings, but most of all - and perhaps most intelligently - real estate in their own names.

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