Upon reading “The Secret Woman,” the main question that came to mind for me is was it better or worse that she was not at the party for someone specific. In class, a majority of people were saying that it would have been worse if she was meeting a certain person due to the emotional connection she clearly finds more desirable compared to her husband.

While I do understand this rationale, I couldn’t help but to think that at least in a scenario where the woman is there for someone in particular, the husband knows that her feelings for him were triumphed by feelings for another. I would argue that the scenario portrayed where the woman is simply there for the pleasure of being there, is much worse than an affair. This is, in my mind, due to the fact that clearly her husband is not satisfying her enough anymore, and she is bored. At least in an affair, the woman may still have feelings present. What is happening in the story in my mind with her attendance to the “party” is that she is in need of a pleasure no longer provided by her husband.