by Bailey Thomas, Cynthia,Thomas, Peter,Short, Rochelle,Saunders, Keith
In my mind, infidelity is usually a sign of some type of emotional or spiritual tear in a relationship. I can’t unequivocally say that I would leave him if he cheated. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, but made it through. Depending on the details, length of the encounter and whom it was with, I might deem it a forgivable act. I would even be a big enough woman to agree to a temporary separation if I felt it would help repair our marriage.
It is very apparent to me when Peter is unhappy in our relationship. When he enters a dark place, there are a lot of indicators that scream out to me. In those moments, I can honestly say it would not surprise me if he strayed. Now if things between us were in a sweet spot and he cheated, I would be completely thrown off. That would seem reckless and most definitely be grounds for the locks to be changed.
I don’t think that fulfilled partners in healthy relationships cheat. The reason an outsider is able to connect with a married man is because he, or his marriage, is fragmented in some way. I’m not talking about a man who is a straight-up ho or has a sexual addiction. I’m speaking of a normal, decent, everyday Joe Schmo who loves his wife and family. In a light, beautiful place, that man would probably never cheat for the sake of extracurricular sex. Cheating isn’t just about sex. I think it has more to do with seeking out some type of companionship. A lot of men won’t cop to that being the case, because they probably think that telling the truth will only hurt their spouse further.
It’s fair to say that the weight of infidelity in a marriage is often shared by both spouses. Obviously, the faithful spouse doesn’t hold the same level of blame as the one who actually committed adultery. But there is usually some emotional breech both partners are equally accountable for. Not stopping the bleeding can be just as bad as inflicting the wound.
Checking in with your partner and staying emotionally attached is a never-ending job. Sometimes when Peter travels, I’ll put a card or sweet note in his suitcase to let him know how much I love him. When he’s away for long spells, we’ll keep it hot with some spicy phone sex. I like being creative and coming up with romantic ideas to keep our fire lit. Peter knows my schedule is just as hectic as his, so he gives me credit for the time I work outside of our home. He acknowledges any attempt I make at being one with him. I’m glad to know I can satisfy my man with a tin can of Mrs. Fields cookies instead of having to bake Grandma’s homemade recipe.
We love giving gifts that the other truly wants and desires, rather than trying to force our personal likes on each another. I’m very practical and would prefer a spa gift certificate over candy, flowers and a teddy bear. We like picking things out for ourselves or receiving an envelope of money to spend however we choose. It was a bit of a process to get Peter to understand, but he now respects that I am vocal and specific about what I like. As a husband, it makes his job much easier. Real love gives a woman the confidence to be honest with her man about what she wants. At our age, we know honesty is a gift to a marriage.
We are only as great as the best relationships we’ve had. A man’s creativity is often limited by his previous mate’s likes and dislikes. Men are prone to carrying over behaviors and habits that satisfied their last lover. Their brain automatically thinks that what worked for one should work for another, not realizing how incredibly different two women can be. If a man is convinced that flowers and chocolate are a romantic gift, but his woman is allergic to flowers and hates chocolate, his strategy is flawed.
I love being able to own who I really am and only give what I’m capable of extending in a relationship. I’m easily turned off by a man who doesn’t get me or has it in his head that he can lure me into doing one of his hobbies that I dislike, like fly fishing and shit. My maternal grandmother died at ninety-eight. She earned the right to say and do whatever she wanted. It was liberating to watch her not apologize for her positions on things. The golden years are when you know yourself and stop caring about what people think of you. It feels wonderful to say, “I don’t want to kiss you right now because your breath stinks,” and not have to defend it.
Sexual communication is important. It’s all about energy and Peter and I have great chemistry together. We have a mature intimacy, and our lovemaking is a special bond that helps us to continually appreciate one another. Peter knows if he comes home and a candle is burning, he’s about to strike gold. But if the long johns are on and my weave is already wrapped, he knows it’s just that…a wrap! And he better not wake me for nothing!
CHAPTER X
Prepare for Landing
Our Next Chapter
Cynthia’s Direct Flight
I saw my transition to Atlanta as an opportunity to remove myself from the public eye, but the complete opposite happened. I stepped out of the limelight, right smack into a bright spotlight. What awaited me in Georgia was bigger than anything I had ever experienced in New York. People in the fashion and beauty business knew of me, but at best, I was only recognizable. Outside of the industry, people didn’t know me well enough to put my name with my face. Starring in one of the highest-rated reality shows, millions of people became acquainted with both.
One of the quotes I live by is, “We have our plan, and God has His.” Looking back on all the rapid change that ripped through my life in a span of three years, I learned God also has a wonderful sense of humor. I was looking forward to slowing down and gaining more balance, especially in the romance department. I’d obviously had my share of failed relationships – from the wrong man at the right time – to right man at the wrong time. With Peter, knowing all the planets aligned gave me such a sense of anticipation. Little did I know, the universe had an entirely different strategy in motion for me.
RHOA created a kind of instant stardom that I didn’t know existed outside of Hollywood. As a model, my fame matched my work and exposure, but as a reality star I was more famous than my two Essence magazine covers. Nothing I had ever done could have prepared me for it. I literally walked into Kroger one day and the whole checkout lane was like, “There’s Cynthia Bailey!” It was astonishing to realize I could achieve that level of recognition just from sharing the inner workings of my life on television.
The Housewives machine gave me a voice to speak, promote and inspire people in any manner I chose. It was an overwhelmingly powerful privilege that I never had in my previous line of work. Still, I struggled with putting my whole life on display and having so much of my independence revoked. All the attention brought on by the show required me to alter my independence.
I miss the days of doing the majority of my own shopping and buying Noelle’s school supplies. For the most part, I now mostly have to send assistants to do simple errands that I’d prefer doing myself. Some days I just want to turn it all off for a few hours to go to the grocery store or pick up the dry cleaning without taking pictures with someone. There is no off switch! I always have to be on and in a full-beat face of makeup, rather than just kicking it in a pair of sweats.
For whatever reason, Walmart shoppers are huge Real Housewives fans. During a quick toiletry run, the chance of a person approaching me is more than probable. It only takes one before everybody in the damn feminine care aisle has clocked me. I’m the master of disguises, but my voice is always a dead giveaway. I’ll be on the phone and someone will walk up to me like a long-lost cousin and ask, “Cynthia? Girl, is that you?” And they don’t just want to take a picture and leave, they want to engage! It’s not uncommon to hear, “Wait a minute. Hold up and let me call ma dear so you can say hey.” Then mama gets on the phone and starts instructing me to tell Kandi to stop selling sex toys. All I can say is, “Okay, alright. Yes, ma’am. You take care now!”
On the show, Peter and I are not portraying fictionalized characters. People see our real lives, and those who have watched from the beginning feel they are a part of our family. They have sat down at our kitchen table for dinner, attended our wedding at the Fernbank and our vow renewal in Anguilla. They h
ave access to us that they would never have to A-list celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
It’s such a sudden shift in my life that even today I often forget I’m on television every week. Seeing people whispering and pointing is always my wake-up call. Once, on a trip to New York, I couldn’t get a cab and jumped on a train to Eighty-Third Street. It was not until people began staring and hissing that I asked myself, “Why the hell did Cynthia of The Real Housewives hop her ass on this train?” It’s quite an interesting juggling act between the real world and my television world. The true reality check was a night I was out alone, pumping gas, when two men approached me. It scared the living shit out of me.
Peter now fills up my car and insists that I have someone with me at all times, especially when I travel. His solution is not a realistic fix, because I enjoy and desperately need solitude. Occasionally, I’ll just want to sit by myself and have a quick burrito in a corner booth of a restaurant. I refuse to have handlers or “security” as Kenya would call them. Traveling with an entourage has never been my thang, but I’m still working on protecting my private space as effortlessly as some of my cast mates.
My fellow housewives have mastered strategies for getting through everyday, public situations. When flying commercial, some will pay a vehicle to take them straight to the tarmac, where they can walk right onto the plane. NeNe and I still prefer the old-fashioned way. When NeNe is in travel mode, she doesn’t play. She’s amazing at saying no to people when it infringes on her space or time. She won’t hesitate to say, “Thank you for watching the show, but I cannot take a picture with you right now. I’m trying to catch the same plane you’re boarding.” Meanwhile, my ass is still stuck down at security – signing autographs and taking pictures.
It’s weird having so much attention for just being me. I’m still learning how to be famous. After the last reunion show, I was looking forward to The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills coming up in rotation. It was really naïve to think it would allow me a few months of peace and anonymity. Every day is a reminder that the influence of the beast never ceases. All of it has made me more compassionate, and I certainly identify with celebrities who go into hiding and shut themselves away.
Years ago, I remember hearing that Mariah Carey had checked herself into a facility to recuperate from exhaustion. When I heard the report I thought, “Why the hell can’t she just take some time off and go her ass to sleep?” Now I understand! Public people have to find a way to maintain their sanity and keep a part of their lives sacred. It’s also the explanation for why I live in the heart of Atlanta, but never see hometown celebs like Tyler Perry or Usher in public. They would probably get mobbed if they stepped foot into a grocery store or an airport security checkpoint.
I just have too much respect for people’s privacy to interrupt. God forbid my biggest photo-op fantasy, Oprah Winfrey, would ever walk into the same room with me. It probably would be a missed opportunity of a lifetime. Though I have never been the kind to approach a celebrity, I have always been very judgmental toward those who turn their fans away. I could never understand why the hell stars wouldn’t just take a quick picture or scribble their name on a damn napkin. I thought the whole notion of one person asking another for an autograph was cool. These days, I think it’s cool to sit down, have dinner and actually eat my food while it’s hot.
The one place where I have indisputably always stood my ground is when I’m out with Noelle. I have a zero-tolerance policy when she is with me. She has told me on several occasions that she would rather stay home than have me be in “Housewives mode” during our outings. She doesn’t like being approached and sees it as an invasion of her privacy. I still take the time to thank fans for their support, but explain that I’m spending time with my daughter and cannot interact. If we are somewhere having dinner, I’ll offer to chat or take a picture before we leave.
My time with Noelle has become more about quality than quantity, and she takes every moment with me very seriously. Prior to being on the show, I always had availability to focus on her and everything she took an interest in. Now, I miss a lot because I’m always working and traveling. I can’t recall the last time I sat down and checked her homework. The demands of my career require me to do more parenting from afar and be less hands-on.
I try to explain to Noelle that the window to maximize my exposure is very limited. Everything that I do is ultimately for the betterment of her future. I used to feel terrible about it until I realized I have no greater priority than taking care of myself and my family. My work allows me to pay for Noelle’s pricey private schooling and creates more options for her choice of colleges. The downside is that she has to be more independent to give me the space to work.
Going out in public with Peter has taken on a whole new look as well. In a sense, we have replaced our real selves with the RHOA images that the public expects to see. Unlike me, Peter is out there in the thick of it every day. He doesn’t have a choice, because he has a small staff and tons of obligations. He enjoys doing his own runs to the bank and farmers’ market, but Peter is not the kind of guy you wanna just roll up on. His body language and energy shout, “Proceed with caution!” It takes a special kind of fan to approach him.
Our first two years together were fairly normal. We would sit in a reasonably-priced restaurant, clean our plates and lick our fingers at the end of our meal. After four years as a visible reality couple, our date nights are mostly confined to some overpriced, mediocre place that’s up in the cut. The clientele in higher-end restaurants recognize us, but usually allow us to enjoy dinner and be left alone. Given the choice, our preference for a meal would be somewhere like The Cheesecake Factory or Sunday brunch at Copeland’s, but the meal would quickly turn into an Instagram shoot or a three-hour meet and greet.
In the end, we are nothing without our fans and those who have followed us season after season. We feel blessed beyond expression that people even give a damn whether bar ONE is successful, The Bailey Agency flourishes or we continue on the show. Losing a share of our privacy pales in comparison to all the love and support we get back. We take people’s curiosity with a grain of salt, knowing that their interest is what truly makes us relevant. At the end of the day, our fans have become extended family members and we wouldn’t have it any other way!
Peter’s Direct Flight
Growing up, my parents hid a lot of issues that existed in their marriage. As a kid you don’t understand it, but with age your gut becomes stronger and you start to question stuff. In my youth, people always went out of their way to tell me I would grow up to be just like my father. I never took it as a compliment because I didn’t want to be what I saw in him. I never wanted to have dreams and not see them fulfilled.
I didn’t want to follow in my mother’s footsteps either. I could not stomach the thought of settling or missing out on all the possibilities life had in store for me. That’s not a hit against my parents; witnessing their struggles firsthand just taught me to aim bigger. The resources they had in their time were far less than what I was blessed to work with in mine. I can only love and honor them for all the sacrifices they made.
When I met Cynthia, I was determined to establish something with her that I’d never had or seen. I knew I couldn’t hold the number-one slot, because it was already taken by her child. Being a man who can deal with honesty, I chose to roll with it. I loved Cynthia enough to be number two, not for another man, but for her daughter. Second base was never a good look for me until the day Noelle’s dad showed me it could be a position of strength, depending on how it was played.
Before we tied the knot, Cynthia decided to have a breast job. Leon came to the hospital the day of her surgery. I was shocked to see him. It messed me up when he told me he was just there to have my back and make sure Cynthia came through safely. This was a man standing in the gap for my woman, even though he had been out of the picture for years.
I
t wasn’t like he would get a chance to see or even test drive the new product. He was just there for support, no strings attached. From that day, I knew Leon loved and cared about Cynthia in a way that was unshakeable. It didn’t have shit to do with whether they were together or not. It was more about him being a man of rock-solid values. I will always have the utmost respect and admiration for that brutha.
That involvement with Leon schooled me, and helped me see that there’s a teachable moment in every relationship, if you’re open to learn. It’s delusional to go into a marriage thinking it’s going to be all strawberries and cheesecake. In order for a marriage to have a fair shot, it has to start off with both people being hopelessly in love with each another.
Both partners have to be open to working around the other’s weaknesses, and both should know each other well enough to predict the other’s response in the most heated battle. Cynthia and I were together a couple of years before getting hitched. It gave me the chance to see her at her best and her worst. I had an idea of what would put her over the edge and what would send her packing. She wasn’t able to bounce back as quickly as I could, which meant I would usually be the sponge to absorb all the hardship.
That’s why spirituality is a huge element in a marriage. It gives any couple greater odds of making it. If God isn’t first, even the simplest things are hard to jump off. Cynthia and I were not as focused on our spiritual growth before becoming a couple. We had accumulated a lifetime of experiences between the two of us, but instead of making us bigger, it made us smaller. We were combative and struggled to merge our outlooks on how a couple should come together. I think premarital counseling would have forced us to confront the root of our issues.
We were both rigid and convinced we already knew every damn thing there was to know. When in truth, any bum on the street could have showed us shit we couldn’t see standing right in each other’s faces. We did a lot of talking, but very little listening. We were too busy trying to prove our own point to realize the other could have been making a relevant one. The problem wasn’t that we didn’t love one another; we were just too set in our ways. Stubbornness is a sucker punch that can knock out any couple in the first round.
