Can we talk about the movie Babygirl?
Caution lots of spoilers ahead. The movie is a dream for the Ester Perel crowd who thinks that affairs, especially for women, can be a growth experience. Anyway..
My girlfriend was supposed to go see the movie with a friend. Turns out the friend got Covid and couldn’t go. The tickets were already purchased and when I asked what time the movie was she told me she wasn’t going and the reason and she would just eat the tickets. I offered to go with her. She knows everything about my history and was adamant I not go, but after a while I convinced her I would be ok. She was apprehensive, but we went. I am so far out of this that the subject matter was not triggering, but while not triggering, how everything was portrayed made my blood boil.
Thumbnail is The high powered wife who is married to Antonio Friggin Bandares is not getting the sexual satisfaction she wants after 20 years of marriage. In every other way he is the perfect spouse. Attentive, great job, great with the kids and household. And it’s Antonio Bandares so not bad on the eyes.
She meets this guy who is 25 years old who she develops a highly sexual relationship with. She is used to dominating everyone around her, but he becomes her DOM and soon enough aside from doing it every day and everywhere, she is drinking milk out of a bowl on her knees in front of him. He is also hanging around her house and interacting with poor Antonio who has no clue.
Ok pretty much standard cheating story and nothing with getting pissed about. She starts getting nasty with Antonio telling him that in 19 years she has never had an orgasm with him. This gets him thinking and pretty much things unravel from there. This is where my blood started boiling. Antonio finds out and then finds her with him in their house and he fights the 25 year old but has a panic attack. Then the two start to take care of him and the looks of pity is disgusting. But hey, even if you were banging my wife in my house doesn’t mean we cant all be friends? He is portrayed as the weakest guy ever.
Flash to the future. Romy, the wife, gets her lover a great job in Japan, and the movie ends with Antonio having been taught by Romy all the tricks that her lover used on her and we see her orgasming with him, while Antonio has the biggest smile on his face that now things are great and he can use these tricks to make her so happy. The movie ends with her visualizing her lover while Antonio is pleasuring him with the meaning being she still thinking about him and how he helped transform her life into something great. WTF?
Now we don’t know if they did therapy, but the timeline did let on that it couldn’t have been long.
The movie is perfect for those WS who thinks that the affair is justified if it brings a better marriage. To me, it glorifies affairs and glosses over the tremendous damage they cause. This movie celebrates it. My guess if someone who is on the brink of and affair sees it, it might push them over to actually have one. Why not? Things will end up even better. It also carries on the tradition of most films where the wife cheaters that the husband is abusive ( obviously not this case) or where the husband is a weakling and clueless which is the basis of most of the Lifetime stuff where the wife has to save the husband from her deranged AP but things are always better in the end because is make him more attentive. Definitely the case here.
While i didn't trigger with the subject, the last scene where she is having sex with her husband, yet picturing her lover, did bring up the thoughts of what my EX really thought about the sex they had which while not exactly the same, was way out of what we did. How much of that did she remember with fondness and excitement? She swore she didn't, but my bet if Romy was confronted whe would say the same.
Not sure about who on the site ventured to see it, but proceed with caution.
76 comments posted: Wednesday, February 5th, 2025
Mental health issues
I’m going to throw this out as it seems to be a common occurrence on this board where the cheating partner has some sort of mental issues going on. Be it sexual trauma at some point in their lives, bipolar issues, manic breaks etc. I’m sure that in a tie breaking situation that this would break the tie in favor of reconciliation. But is it a get out of jail pass? I have my thoughts on this, but since I’m not close to this, my thoughts are very flexible. I can probably be swayed to either side as like I said I haven’t lived this.
I do also recognize how difficult this can be and I understand that be it reconciling or divorce an over riding factor has to be the safety of the partner who cheated with issues in keeping them from any self destruction. But does this mean the BS has to stay no matter what the WS has done do to mental issues?
Again, this might be sensitive, but it comes up so often. Not judging, but trying to learn.
21 comments posted: Thursday, May 16th, 2024
What’s fair
My daughter is getting married and surprise, surprise, the costs of the wedding continues to escalate. This has been a giant negotiation from the start. Initially my EX and she convinced my daughter that the woman I have been with for a few years should not attend. Hard no from me. Then it was where she sat. They wanted her at a peripheral table with non family. Again hard no. She sits with me. I did agree that she wouldn’t be in any of the formal family pictures, but that was it. So bottom line I have been on the defensive from the start.
Now the issue as I stated is costs. The original band broke up, so we found a new, and I agree a better one, but at almost double the cost. The room expanded so we have that cost, as well as a bigger flower bill. And the after party has also been changed and enhanced. Nothing frankly I didn’t expect.
What I didn’t expect is that when my EX and I agreed to split the costs, she now doesn’t want to pay up on the over runs. When we divorced we split things 50/50. She had not worked for 20 years, but I knew my success was only made possible by her hard work at home, so I didn’t fight anything. However our finances were quite complicated. Some of our portfolio was easily evaluated like stocks and bonds. Others were harder such as limited partnerships and other more complicated financial instruments. She insisted on getting the stocks and such that were easier to sell, while I opted for the others. Turned out mine have grown more than hers, and she did some stupid things like selling during the Covid downturn. I listened to our financial advisor and she didn’t. Her portfolio is still robust, just not nearly what mine is. The thing is she created that.
Now with these overruns, she feels I should pay the bulk of it "because I have more". I do, but she still has the means to pay theses overruns and it will not crimp her in anyway. It’s not much in the long run for either of us, but we both have dug in on principle.
Am I wrong here? When you agree to pay 50/50 that should be it. I’m disgusted by the whole thing
38 comments posted: Tuesday, March 26th, 2024
Just an observation
After my EXWW affair I was 100% convinced that she would never cheat again. It was so out of character, and she saw what it did to me and us, but after reading so many "I’m back again" stories recently makes me question that. I hate to say it, but it reinforces my decision to divorce that it was the right one. I still think it was unlikely, but not having to suffer the pain I am reading here from so many, I’m glad even the slightest possibility was taken off the table.
I really feel for those here "back again" after thinking they thought things were good again
23 comments posted: Saturday, December 2nd, 2023
Boundaries
The reason I am bringing this topic up is on one of the threads I commented that I could have probably through lots of work, forgiven a one time sexual act.
The reason is that I confess I came close a few times after I found out about what she did.
I had a very high profile job in a very social field. Lots of parties, conventions, dinners etc. On a few occasions I was heavily flirted to by much younger women. I know it’s commonly thought of that older guys in positions of power prey on younger women, and have no doubt that is the case. But on the flip side, it’s almost as common for younger women to be attracted to the power of an older successful guy and they are the aggressors.
Prior to the affair I had really good boundaries and when getting the signals, although flattered, I always deflected leaving no room for anything to happen. On a danger scale, probably a 1 out of 5
After her affair things changed. I actually was doing even better work wise, and lost a lot of weight and got into really good shape. I don’t think I was conscious of it, but the number of women who now were sending out signals increased exponentially. Part of it was the job, and being in better shape, but if I take an honest look at it, I’m sure I was sending out a different signal after her affair and my self worth was in the toilet.
Instead of shutting things down when women were flirting, I began to enjoy the game and the feelings that it gave me. The feeling of being special and wanted by a younger attractive women was intoxicating. I came very close on more than one occasion to giving in. On the danger scale I was a 4.9 out of five. On a few occasions the women asked me to go back to their hotel rooms and made it clear that they wanted to have sex with me. I never did it, but had to self reflect that for it to get to that point I had to have lowered my boundaries to let it get to that point.
It also became clear to me I enjoyed it and wanted to have sex with these women which among other things factored into my reasoning to get divorced. My ex actually offered to open up the marriage on my end, but it wasn’t something I wanted. But I can see how easily a one time thing could happen
Clearly my boundaries went to shit after her affair. Just curious if this is something that other BS have experienced after their partner cheated?
36 comments posted: Wednesday, October 18th, 2023
