Being The Other Woman: Who we are, what every woman should know and how to avoid us (31 page)

My life is much more peaceful, now more than six years since the end of my affair. I have only recently come to a place where I no longer feel damned, discomfort, or insecurity when I attend an event. I have made many new and wonderful friends who have helped in bringing me back to life. I have an even deeper appreciation for those who are closest to me, now that I have emotionally endured the abyss of hell. My heart is soft and light again. It’s almost as if a heavy black fog suddenly evaporated from my head and chest. Like the rain stopped, the hurricane settled and suddenly the clouds parted and there above, was the brightest Sun I’ve ever seen. Only now, after so many painful years, can I truly say I LOVE and feel it in the deepest parts of my heart. I love that.

I am far from being the first woman who has experienced the painful side affects of being the other woman. As I did research for material to support or refute my thoughts on the subject, I was overwhelmed to find the same cry in every story. Time and again, women hope to share their wisdom with others who may be beginning an affair with a married man. These women want their pain to be of use in sparing another woman agony. One woman wrote:

He made me feel appreciated and worthwhile, something nobody I dated had ever done but found plenty of reasons to avoid leaving. People found out and we became the laughingstock at work. I left my job because the taunting drove me away. I realized finally that he was never going to leave, because he has everything that he needs right now! The mistress for sex and emotional attachment and his wife for security. I realized that the relationship that I thought was perfect was horribly dysfunctional. Did his wife deserve all of the pain I caused her? I thought she did, but I didn’t put myself in her shoes, or imagine if my husband were having an affair. Leave while you still have some self esteem. Otherwise it’s a long and slippers slope and it only leads down.

Women I’ve talked to are filled with regret over the wasted time and energy they poured into their lover, time and energy that could have been spent on being available to a man who could fully commit to them. It was time and energy they could never get back. The women experienced an overall loss of respect from friends, family, and community. They harbor a deep sense of shame and embarrassment. As much as we believe that our story is different, we still pay the same price in the end.

The other woman’s life is the one most likely to be the biggest tragedy of any love triangle. Ironically, Sasha once said, “Regardless of everything that I went through as a mistress and knowing what I know, I still think that I would judge the other woman no different than before my affair.” I searched my own mind when she said that statement. Sadly, I discovered that initially my conditioning was the same: My first instinct is to judge the other woman as a bitch.

As women, we risk abusing some of our most beautiful qualities; the ability to understand, comfort, nurture and care take. We hate to see those we love suffer consequence for their poor decisions. I’m the first to run down to my daughter’s school when she receives the great injustice of being served an in-school suspension for chewing gum in class. Regardless of her “willful disobedience” and repeated offense that landed her there, I know of her other struggles and her regret for the outcome. I want them to give her
one
more
chance
to do right. We adopt this very same maternal love for the men in our lives and treat them very much like children when they make mistakes.

In cases where a man has committed adultery, the finger is pointed at the other woman for his actions, thus he never fully pays the price for his mistake. Authors Gregory Hartley and Maryann Karinch explain in there book
How
to
Spot
a
Liar
that when a person has suffered a traumatic situation, their thoughts begin to personalize everything that has happened and an internal dialogue centers on who is to blame. The person reduces blame to the person whose welfare is least important to them.

Each time any of us point the finger, we remove responsibility from having to focus and participate in solution. Men want to be in charge, the tough guy, the strong one, the man’s man, the primary decision maker, the king and head of the household. If we’re going to let him be that guy, then we have to hold him accountable to his belief in his divine right. Can society really let him off the hook for being a wimp about his commitment to being faithful, while holding the other woman to blame for his actions? The answer is yes, and they do.

Chapter 19
 

Tragic Personal Aftermath
 

I am now, and have always been, prepared to accept responsibility for the mistakes and poor choices I make. I am a firm believer in accountability. I accept what I have brought onto myself. What I was not and never will be prepared to accept, however, are my children being persecuted for my choices.

Two years after my affair ended, my older daughter was employed by an upscale department store. She had become quite good at spotting individuals affiliated with my industry. One day she began helping a customer, and as they chatted their talk turned to the woman’s son, who attended high school with my daughter. Eventually my daughter complimented the woman on her perfume, stating it reminded her of a friend of her mother’s. “Who is your mom’s friend?” the woman asked, and my daughter gave a name. The woman said the name rang familiar, at which point my daughter asked if she was in the predicted industry. She was. My daughter then asked if she knew me, and gave my full name. “Oh, yes,” the woman replied in outrage, “I know her VERY well!” She proceeded to say ugly things about me, my affair with Blake and the kind of person I am. My daughter responded, “Well, Blake told my Mom lots of lies.” The woman, now slightly embarrassed by the realization that she was speaking to my child, made a weak attempt to recover. “Well,” she said, “I’m Beth’s best friend. If that tells you anything.”

As soon as the woman left, my daughter phoned me upset. She gave me the woman’s name, which she had retrieved from her credit card. I recognized the woman as the one-time traveling companion Beth had gone to Hawaii with. This gossip was from a woman Beth reportedly despised because of an embarrassment the woman had caused her at a society event after their trip. This woman and I would not recognize each other if we passed on the street, yet she stood firm in claiming to be the best friend of a woman who didn’t even like her—all in effort to condemn me. A woman I’ve never met!

If that were all, then I could certainly apologize to my child for having to endure such a thing at my hands. My daughter is one of the most sensitive, loving, and genuine young women one could be blessed to encounter. She should never have endured such gossip or hatred, especially because I had made a mistake. I will accept responsibility for some of the attack that my daughter faced. But what followed was much worse. The woman ran home to her son and identified my child to him as the daughter of “THE Whore,” effectively encouraging him to return to school the next day and taunt her in class. He publicly teased and humiliated her for days until school officials ordered him to cease his harassment. The woman thought it was funny.

While I am still quite baffled that an adult woman would behave this way, what this episode shows is that many lives are affected by affairs beyond what we initially imagine. Things happen that we can never foresee, things that will affect not only the life of the other woman herself, but will also punish those she loves most. Affairs draw forth hatred from more than just the family immediately affected. Those who fear or are already bitter about an affair in their own life or family will attack anything and everything that elicits any reminder of the affairs.

My children were also affected in other ways. Like me, they had grown to love Blake. But he lied to them, too, and promised them many things that never materialized. He promised them vacations and family outings in a future with him. He promised college to my older daughter and extravagant gifts that certainly excited her. My younger daughter, who wanted him to be her father, was always cheered by the “daddy love” Blake bestowed on her. She had private dreams of her own for our little family. The ugly ending of our affair crushed my children, and when their eyes opened to the deception, hurt, and brutality, it made them skeptical of any man who might enter their lives in the future.

My children have always been more of a blessing than I could ever ask for. I suppose most parents feel that way about their children, but despite our one-parent household, I find it amazing they have beaten the odds. My older daughter has always been the teacher’s pet. Her bubbly personality and good-heartedness make everyone around her fall in love with her. As she has become a young adult, she has impressed me with her many accomplishments. She toured Costa Rica with her junior high Spanish class for a humanitarian outreach program, and in high school she landed jobs most high school students would find very difficult to handle. Despite my protest that she enjoy her youth while it lasted, she has juggled work and studies, with no time off. She began attending a prep school to prepare to enter the fashion and marketing industry, and after interviewing with executives, she applied for and received the position of vice president in her marketing class. Her school recently allowed students to compete before a panel of selected VIPs from around our city who were chosen to help judge students to fill eight positions for a trip to New York to explore the fashion and stock exchange. She made it.

Once in a while, of course, she has gotten pretty snooty, and I’ve wanted to lock her out of the house until my real child repossesses the body sitting before me, but for the most part, almost every thing she has done has been sound. She is a bright girl with the world at her fingertips.

This child of mine has seemingly allowed me to almost bypass the horrors of teen years. With one exception. Shortly after my affair with Blake ended, my daughter began her first relationship. She chose a boy who at first seemed very nice. He was highly involved in sports and seemed to be an overall good kid. Then he suddenly began a downward spiral. He dropped out of everything that was important to him and started drinking a lot, eventually using drugs and then getting into every sort of trouble imaginable. He started lying and cheating on her and using manipulative behavior to make her forgive him. This lasted for three years. I agonized over her always surrendering to him and tried in every way I knew to get her to see what she was doing. But time and again, she brought the boy back into our lives, only to endure the same disappointments again. Every time he called her, pleading for sympathy and crying his “I’m sorry,” she felt sad for his pain. Not considering his disregard for her pain, she took him back. I wanted to beat her head against a wall, and then my own.

This is what she learned from her mother as she saw me beaten down, pick myself up, forgive him, and restart the affair. I did the same thing in my next relationship. This is the pattern I taught her. Though her forgiving heart is beautiful, it is unbalanced. She couldn’t see the fine line between forgiveness and self-respect. How could she have learned to see it, when her own mother had set such a bad example?

My younger daughter is equally impressive, though in many ways opposite of her sister. She’s an observer, not as extroverted as my older. She is the one you have to get close to in order to see what is inside, but once you see it, it only takes a quick glance to know where her thoughts are. She has an eye for detail that shocks me sometimes; the child may have a future in forensics. Since kindergarten, she has been bi-lingual and is so brilliant that sometimes she has to dumb herself down in order to fit in and feel normal among her peers. She is still experimenting with who she is and wants to become, which has kept me on my toes, never knowing what will come next. For awhile, she was on a cheerleading squad with whom we traveled throughout the U.S. for competitions. My introverted baby suddenly was center stage without an ounce of stage fright. After she won several competitions, she became bored and moved on to her next personality. It keeps things pretty interesting around here. She is very sensitive, but she has a tough shell, thought-provoking when speaking, her words are always impacting and her meaning is shown more than heard. Before my affair with Blake, she was a happy, secure child. She did not question who she was and she was far less serious.

I am certain that some of her personality changes have more to do with growing up than with Mommy’s break up, but I will say that she outwardly was the worst affected at the time. She experienced what most children do when their parents divorce. Her behavior in school changed, her grades began to slide, she slipped in and out of a depression that lasted two years and caused me great fear and anxiety. Her feelings have been crushed on several occasions when she has run into Blake’s oldest daughter, who now attends her school and glares at her and runs away from her for reasons my daughter cannot understand. Reasons I doubt his daughter understands, either.

At fourteen years of age, my younger daughter often declares that she will not make the same mistakes that her sister and I have made with the men in our lives. It breaks my heart. I worry that she will never open her heart to trust and love. Worse, what if she falls harder? I’m already noticing her gravitation towards those she feels have been dealt an unfair hand in life.

About a year ago, my father and I had dinner together and he said to me, “honey, what is it with you? You have all of these gifts to offer anyone who shares your life. You are beautiful, intelligent, and fun. You have a unique, witty personality. Why don’t you date men who treat you like a lady? It’s almost as if you seem to think that you don’t deserve it, or something. I don’t understand that. Why don’t you know that you deserve so much more than you accept?” I sat there, forcing myself to really
listen
to him. I was conscious about looking him in the eye as he spoke. I could hear my inner voice screaming at me: “Soak that shit in, goddamn it!” But while he was talking to me, all that I could think was, “My God, this is the same conversation that I just had with my daughter. Only I was on his side of the table.” I think if we made choices for ourselves the way that we want our children to make their choices, life would be exactly what we want.

I realize that not every woman who is involved with a married man is involved, as I was, with a loaded one. In the spirit of sarcasm, let me say this: If you’re going to do yourself in like this, there’s no point in wasting time with a poor guy. It all ends up the same, and if you’re still willing to take the risk, then get a trip to Rome out of the deal!

The reality is though; I went broke trying to keep up with Blake. I did not perform well, career-wise, because I was always giving him my free time in order to compete with Beth who refused to travel with him or give up her tasks in order to spend time with him. I thus had hardly any income flowing in. I had racked up so much credit card debt by trying to look nice, contribute my portion to a tab once in a while, and flying him away from the guys and back to me when he was supposed to be on, say, a fishing trip, that I had nothing in the bank to pay my electric bill. When I say that there was no food in the house, I don’t mean that a few of those mystery cans with the label peeled away were lurking in the cabinet. I mean Ol’ Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Being lost in the delusion of love, I had taken so much time away from work and responsibility that when the affair ended, I really had to hit the ground running. And that’s not easy to do when the condition of your soul matches your cabinet space.

I ended up taking a second mortgage out on my house and depleted myself of my home equity. Rich guy, poor guy, it is not uncommon to hear of the financial trouble a woman faces after being “dropped like its hot” and I don’t know of many women who are able to focus on a career when their personal lives are in a shambles.

I found one thing to be very common in both my interviews and research, and that is a great portion of women who are having affairs with married men are having affairs with their married co-worker. In almost every one of these cases, when the affair ended the other woman found it extremely difficult to continue being forced to see him regularly in their work environment. It was too painful for her. This wasn’t the only issue that she was left to deal with. A lot of these dumped mistresses also suffered ridicule and gossip from other co-workers. Her married lover was not about to leave his job. He has a family to support after all. Further, he isn’t emotionally suffering as much as his tossed lover. He hasn’t been left alone. He still has a wife to go home to. The standoff over who is going to leave the company really doesn’t leave the former mistress much of an option. In most every case where an affair existed between co-workers, it was the other woman who was left to give up her job for the sake of her sanity.

In her book
Preventing Affairs,
Peggy Vaughan writes: “Even if she’s able to keep her job, her peers’ assessment of her as a worker will probably be lowered. The double standard for judging sexual behavior that exists in society as a whole exists in the workplace as well. Both men and women are likely to be more harsh in their judgment of the woman than the man when it comes to a workplace affair. Even if co-workers bring no moral judgment to her actions, they’re likely to make a professional judgment that she’s really not serious about her career.”
¹⁰

I interviewed a woman named Shelly, who had an affair with the owner of her company. She was very young and a single mother. The man was suffering from other failed investments and was experiencing financial ruin. She sympathized with his agony and poured a lot of her time into helping him out of a loyalty she felt while their friendship developed into an eventual affair. He promoted her to a sales manager position which really boosted her ego at such a young age. After she took the promotion, he drove her hard to boost sales and she took on the challenge with his needs in mind, desperate to save his failing business for him. He was so broke that he could not pay most of his staff and therefore many quit to find new employment. Shelly took on those vacant positions with no additional pay. She was content with this because it allowed her more time with him, she felt purpose, received a lot of praise from him and thought she was working with him as a team; they were in this together. He would tell her things like “someday, you and I will have a lot of explaining to do.” Meaning an explanation about their love to his wife and employees. These things that he said to her and the praise he gave her for not only her hard work but also how she made him feel led her to believe that they would be together soon, publicly. His remaining employees became suspicious about their deeper involvement. His office manager announced in a company meeting that she was quitting because “that whore has been given a management position for screwing the boss.” Shelly had earned her position and was keeping the company afloat by investing long hours into the company. Her hard work was not being recognized because her affair had not been as secret as she had thought it was. Eventually, he sold his company reaping a small profit based upon the client growth Shelly was able to secure with contracts. Two days later, her boss called her and told her that the affair was over. He and his wife relocated to another state immediately. Shelly had been given little pay for her management position and no pay for the several other positions she had temporarily filled. When the new company took over, they brought with them their own people and she was left with no job at all.