Being The Other Woman: Who we are, what every woman should know and how to avoid us (25 page)

I kept trying to tell Blake about my suffering. I tried to explain how much it hurt me to be hidden away, to live behind the scene. I told him how my finances were being affected, how not taking clients to give him all of my time and be able to travel at the drop of a hat was costing me a great deal.

“
It’s not that I am keeping you top secret,” he said. “The whole program knows what is going on, it’s just not rubbed into everyone’s face. It’s more suave for both of us right now
”.

How foolish I felt when he would be seen with Beth out on the town and how ridiculous it made me look for believing that he was in love with me and planning on divorcing her. What a laughing stock he was making of me in the community. He was making us both laughing stocks. I tried to explain how my children’s lives were at risk, how their hearts were in jeopardy when I brought him around them and they bonded with him, believing he was to be a great part of our future. I was beginning to believe he would not keep the promises he made to them, that he would not follow through.

“Why does everything have to be a friggin’ issue?” He said “Can’t we just relax and be? Just for a little while? What the hell is wrong with that plan? My God, I am exhausted. You just gave me a vote of no confidence. How the hell am I supposed to feel?”

He would not hear of my hurt at not being able to interact with his children, my need to just live a normal life. I wasn’t asking him to divorce Beth. I was asking him to be honest with me. If he had no intention of doing so, then I could stop wrecking my own life. He replied,

I
have
no
problem
with
my
place
or
status
with
you.
I
am
proud
of
it
and
love
you
and
love
being
with
you.
There
are
just
a
lot
of
hits,
that’s
all.
I
guess
I
am
saddened
that
I
make
you
feel
so
bad.
It
is
obvious
to
me
that
you
have
not
been
yourself
these
last
couple
of
days
and
I
am
devastated
that
I
seem
to
be
the
cause
of
it.
You
have
tried
to
explain
yourself
to
me
and
I
apologize
that
I
don’t
seem
to
understand.
It
pains
me
to
bring
such
sadness
to
someone
that
I
love,
for
that
I
am
sorry.
It
is
not
intentional.

We women allow our egos to control us, too. Set the heartbreak aside. We do not want to be humiliated. The wife believes she will appear to be unwanted, that others will see her as having something wrong with her. She is afraid that “they” will look at her knowing all that she didn’t; a fool for all that has been going on under her nose. She thinks that the other woman will feel as if she’s the proud victor at her (the wife’s) expense, that she will be laughed at with a mean winner’s sneer.

Peggy Vaughan, author of the book
The
Monogamy
Myth
, writes:

When
people
look
for
reasons
to
explain
why
their
partner
has
an
affair,
they
invariably
start
with
themselves.
Every
weakness
they
ever
worried
about
becomes
a
source
of
concern.
They
look
for
some
personal
inadequacy
(either
real
or
imagined)
that
might
have
caused
the
affair.

The
personal
blaming
often
expands
to
include
any
area
in
which
a
person
thinks
they
failed
to
be
“the
best.”
They
see
their
partner’s
affair
as
a
sign
that
they
weren’t
smart
enough,
or
successful
enough,
or
attractive
enough,
or
interesting
enough.
Since
nobody’s
perfect,
it’s
easy
to
find
some
personal
shortcoming
to
blame
as
the
cause
of
a
partner’s
affair.

For
instance,
a
woman
who
was
a
full-time
homemaker
and
mother
was
convinced
that
if
only
she’d
been
out
in
the
world,
she
would
have
been
a
more
interesting
partner
and
her
husband
wouldn’t
have
had
an
affair.
At
the
same
time,
another
woman
who
was
career-oriented
was
convinced
that
her
involvement
with
her
career
limited
her
time
and
attention
to
her
husband
and
was
the
reason
he
had
an
affair.

Accepting
personal
responsibility
for
determining
the
behavior
of
another
person
inevitably
leads
to
failure.
⁸

The other woman rightly believes that she will be laughed at, too. “You stupid idiot,” people will say to her. “You should have known that the relationship you swore was different will prove to be like every other extra-marital affair.” In our fight for what we believe, we lose ourselves. Overall, I only see one winner here (if there can truly be one), and he doesn’t have balls, either.

The wife and the other woman come to despise each other because of what they see the other taking from them. Both see the other as the obstacle to their happiness. “If she were gone,” they both say, “everything would be fine.” In reality, their hatred of each other is only the excuse they give themselves so they won’t see the responsibility of the man in the middle. But the other woman doesn’t owe the wife anything. It is not the other woman who made the promise to her. “Was I,” the other woman asks, “The one who agreed to love, honor, and obey her until death?” That promise was made by that guy—finger pointed back. “What is my fault,” the other woman continues, “is that I reinforced his hurtful method because I was stupidly thinking that I had anything to be taken from me to begin with.” Neither woman realizes that the first step to making healthy decisions for themselves begins by declining to think about things as competition.

I learned that Ian once told his mistress Kelly that he was in love with her and Janet at the same time. Blake used to mime flipping a coin when his friends asked him what he was going to do about me and Beth. Maybe my preacher was right when he said, “He doesn’t love you or her. Just himself. He only loves to have you both the way he wants you to fit to make himself happy.”