How To Stop Your Wife From Having An Affair This Mother’s Day

Do you know who Ashley Madison is? 

If you do, you’re probably either: a) a follower of news related to Rush Limbaugh and/or Tim Tebow, b) a friend of James Woods or his ex-girlfriend or c) an adulterer. 

The Ashley Madison I’m referring to is not an actual person. It’s an online business whose motto is “Life is short. Have an affair.” More specifically, “the most recognized name in infidelity” connects married people interested in getting to know each other in, well, carnal ways.

On an average Monday, between 2,500 and 3,000 women sign up to offer their, uh, services, says AshleyMadison.com co-founder Noel Biderman. On one Monday in May last year, however, 31,427 women joined the site. What was special about that particular Monday?

It was the day after Mother’s Day.

The year before that, nearly 24,000 women signed up on the same day. The only day with a higher number of registrations, in both years, was the day after Valentine’s Day.

So were these married women just feeling a bit depressed as they came down from the high of being spoiled rotten the previous day? Perhaps they were merely looking for a little pick-me-up to keep the good times rolling?

Not likely.

As Biderman told momlogic, women consider cheating after such holidays “because they have expectations—expectations that their partnership will be celebrated and even romanticized—but that is often not what transpires.”

Well, yeah. Who among us can say that reality always matches our expectations for Mother’s Day—or our birthday, anniversary or Valentine’s Day, for that matter? Most of us, however, don’t rush out and pick up a sexy sidepiece the next day.

(Or maybe we do. The more than 14 million AshleyMadison.com members lead me to believe there’s an alternate universe out there to which I haven’t been invited, which, unless Johnny Depp lives there, is just fine with me.)

I think it’s safe to say that in most of those 31,000 cases, a sub-par Mother’s Day must have been the straw that broke the camel’s fidelity—the last in a series of disappointing, neglectful or even cruel behavior on the part of those women’s partners. 

Since I felt itchy after spending five minutes on AshleyMadison.com, I didn’t get deep enough to discover what portion of Acton is hiking the Appalachian Trail, so to speak.

But if an informal SurveyMonkey poll of a few dozen moms in the Acton area is any indication, we’re a fairly satisfied bunch. About 86 percent say that, most of the time, their husbands appreciate all that they do as mothers. On the other hand, about 64 percent don’t think their husbands have any clue exactly what “all that they do” includes.

“I don't think anyone but a mother can truly understand what goes into doing it,” says one local mom. “The head full of facts—teacher’s names, check-up dates, food likes and dislikes, self-esteem issues, dating, sex, the rest of it. And barring constant martyrish whining, I've just decided to appreciate myself, and let my kids’ successes bear out my contribution.”

But (beyond flowers, cards and breakfasts in bed) there are some ways husbands can express appreciation for their wives this Sunday (and psst: a third of those who took my poll said they don’t feel like their spouses adequately celebrated them last Mother’s Day). Here are some that came up in my survey:

Give her the day off. Although a majority of the local moms I polled say they feel like they “should” spend the day with their kids, 60 percent say their ideal mother’s day would not involve lots of mothering. We love our kids, but we’d like some time off. You know: an opportunity to grow even fonder of them.

“Sadly enough, my ideal mother's day would include time ‘away’ from my family,” says one mom, “to not have to cook for them and clean up after them, but also, come home to a clean house and bathed children, without toys all over the place and dishes in the sink and crumbs on the floor.”

Don’t make your wife get your mother a card or a gift.  “I don't think it would even dawn on my husband to get me a present for Mother’s Day—maybe because I am not his mother—but he doesn't even get her one,” says an Acton mother. “That is my job also!”

Don’t expect your wife to host a gathering on Mother’s Day. “I am not up for hosting anyone and putting on a big spread or cookout, as it is my day, too, and I don’t want to do all the work that day to host our mothers,” explains one mom.

Ask her what she wants to do. As one area mom says, “I don't expect my husband to come up with a brilliant plan for the day, but I would love it if he asked me what my ideal day would be and then delivered on it. I think he'd be surprised with my answer—it's probably not what he thinks it would be.”

But, hey moms: If your husband doesn’t ask you how you’d like to spend the day, then tell him. We sure hope this local mother speaks up about her preferences:

“Our tradition is a Mother's Day breakfast with the kiddies and some outing—but in fact, I'd like to get on a private jet to some Caribbean island for the day, pretend I wasn't a mother, hook up with some strapping island guy, suck back a few mojitos (this would probably be before the hook-up), take a big fat nap on the beach, read a book, get a mani/pedi on the jet back home and arrive just after the kids were put to bed so that I could hunker down for a few cocktails and some Words with Friends time. Maybe gloss over The New York Times Sunday paper and catch the latest episode of my favorite show.”

Save me a seat on that jet, sister.