Being The Other Woman: Who we are, what every woman should know and how to avoid us
Read Being The Other Woman: Who we are, what every woman should know and how to avoid us Online
Authors: Micalle A. Culver
Being The Other
Woman
Who we are, what every woman
should know and how to AVOID us
MICALLE A. CULVER
AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
Phone: 1-800-839-8640
© 2012 by Micalle A. Culver. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
First published by AuthorHouse 01/27/2012
ISBN: 978-1-4520-0798-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4520-0799-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4520-0800-4 (ebk)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011908741
Printed in the United States of America
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
The Adventures of
Falling in Love
Reality and Fantasy
Struggle to Connect
The Sun Sets,
Even on New Horizons
Are You in a Toxic Relationship?
For My Daughters
You are the spirit in me behind all that is good.
May you always do as I say and not as I do, because;
I often give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it ~ Alice in Wonderland
My Mother and Father; Who shall now be convinced that I did in fact “hear” your wisdom from time to time.
My Sisters; You are more than sisters, you are my best friends and a large sum of my purpose, the totality of joy. Particularly the one who spent all of her free time between projects editing for me.
My Brother and Son; Because you remain in my heart unconditionally, the few of the great men who inspire truth and authentic love.
My nieces and nephews; Because Towey would rather play in your sunshine than do anything else. Therefore, you are my inspiration.
And last but far from least; To “Sasha” and “Janet”—My father once told me that if I died with the ability to count true friends on each finger of one hand, I would be truly blessed. Because of you, I could survive without the other three.
I should not go without mentioning thanks of sorts to the man who inspired this book. Because so many other words in these pages will speak to you, I leave you with this;
“
For
every
moment
of
triumph,
for
every
instance
of
beauty,
many
souls
must
be
trampled
” ~ Hunter S. Thompson.
My God, sometimes “we” still cracks me up!
All names have been changed to protect the not so innocent and,
my ass from a law suit.
PART 1
The Story of My Affair
We are inclined to judge ourselves by our ideas,
others by their acts
—Harold Nicolson
Perhaps it was my father who first said to me, “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” Whoever it was, I doubt that his meaning was that I should walk a mile in every shoe I’ve judged.
Most of us have been privy to office or neighborhood chatter about who is committing some sleazy act of adultery. We have all been exposed to soap operas or movies that create the image of those involved in sinful circumstances. When a married man is creeping off to hotel rooms, back alleys, or broom closets, we immediately visualize the one accompanying him as the Great Babylonian Whore. Whereas the man is viewed simply the shameless, arrogant dog, or worse—the innocent victim of the devilish siren who possessed his mind and drew him away from wife and children. Were he to hold title of Supreme Ass, then the other woman is in fact Queen of the Kingdom of Ill Repute. Ironically, if it is a married woman who gives in to the temptation of an affair, she still is Queen of the Kingdom, while the trespassing man is either the sorry victim of her scheming lies or the son of a bitch the woman’s husband has labeled him.
It seems apparent that the DNA of Eve still runs strong in all who contain a double X chromosome. But what has perplexed me, even as far back as my first experience of Sunday school, is why it was Eve who suffered the greatest of consequences when listening to the lying snake. Was Adam not responsible for his own broken pact with God? Eve may have offered a bit of the forbidden fruit, but Adam had a choice as to whether he would bite and swallow. As God walked up and down in the Garden of Eden in search of his hiding subjects, Adam was called to the carpet with regard to his sudden interest in hide and seek. “The woman gave it to me,” he explained with pointed finger.
So it has been since the beginning of time.
One night several years ago, I sat at the dining room table of Sasha, a woman who would later become one of my dearest friends. She had just finished unpacking her belongings after moving into her new condo following a devastating breakup. Sasha had spent more than eight years of her life with a man who could never seem to bring himself to marry her. In many ways, she had created her now former partner’s career. She had inspired him with idea and moved cinder blocks for him to step upon as he climbed his way to success. They had built a home together in which she had poured herself into creating atmosphere and comfort. She had hopes and dreams of little blond daughters in pink dresses and patent leather shoes, piano lessons and dance recitals. But he wouldn’t commit, and she was still feeling “not good enough.” The inability of her former love to make Sasha his wife had cost her years of longing for more than just a shiny rock on her finger, years of wasted effort in continuing to try harder to accomplish perfection. She was like any other woman. She had an overwhelming desire to feel loved, to have an impact in the life of a man who would find her to be the center of his universe and adore her. Sasha simply wanted to be special and unique to that one person she could share her life with.
This extended beyond her romantic desires, for should you be blessed to be called her friend or lucky enough to be family, she will do almost anything to bring you joy. She is one of the most giving and thoughtful women I have ever known, the kind of woman who sets herself aside and consoles your heart until 4 a.m. if necessary, regardless of her 7 a.m. meeting. She is the middle child of a rather large family that has suffered circumstances and dramas unavoidable to any family so large. More often than not, Sasha is their rock or savior in time of need. She takes charge in any crisis when the rest fall apart. She is well known throughout the community. Never did she and I go anywhere without someone stopping her to say hello. She takes careful steps to always search for ways to improve herself and to understand and extend herself to people.
But that night as we sat together at her table, as she sat with slumped shoulders, mascara running down her face and swollen nose, she told me something that shocked me beyond comprehension. “I have been having an affair for two years,” she said. I looked at this stunningly beautiful friend of mine who had the world to offer any man. She had a distinct sex appeal, her attire was always perfect, her sense of décor was elegant. She had the silliest of personalities that kept you in constant stitches and a distinct ability to communicate in profound ways. She was fun to be around—the life of the party. When the party ended, Sasha could reach inside the spirit of anyone before her and extract from them the deepest parts of their heart. Why on God’s green earth would she settle for so little for so long?
As I listened to her speak of the two years she shared with a married man whom she had met through her business, I could not find an ounce of understanding as to the allure of lunches in hotel rooms and the sacrifice of valuable time and responsibility in order to jaunt off at the ring of a phone for an hour’s worth of sex. I imagined a relationship where, as quickly as he’d drop his seed, the man would pull his pants back up and leave. It cheapened her in my eyes and I wondered how she herself did not feel cheapened. She referred to his wife as “that bitch” so often during the course of our conversation that I could no longer contain myself and had to point out the very obvious fact that “that bitch” was suffering an invasion of the deepest kind and the fact that she was bedding “that bitch’s” husband removed her of all dignity. I was quite appalled that the wife would be spoken ill of at all. She was in fact the victim of these two shameless, inhuman asses. I wondered if I had missed the signs of serious defect in Sasha’s character.
This was my first close look into the heart and soul of the “other woman.”
Until I became one myself.