Defending The Other Woman
Dorothy Black is taken aback by wives and girlfriends who point a guilty finger at the mistress. And the mistress only.
The other night, over sushi, Lady Lou dropped a little bombshell between the ginger and the nigiri...
'I saw him again.'
I almost choked on my saki.
You see, 'him' is Frankenfuck, my pet name for the married man she had eventually decided to stop seeing after two years of a discreet affair. But he was back. Manstrosities never know when to quit while they're ahead.
Their relationship started innocently enough – she met him at work and they had a great connection. He was 'kind of' married but he and his wife were having problems – she didn't understand him, they didn't sleep together anymore, they were separated and were about to start the divorce proceedings, sure he was still living at home but that was purely for financial reasons and of course he had to look out for the kids...
The story was so uninspired you'd think she would've fallen asleep instead of falling in love.
Lou rolled her eyes at me as I tried to expel the saki from my nasal passages. My friends often regard me as overly picky when it comes to how I choose my partners, but to me it's pretty simple – I have only three rules: No addicts, no broken hearts and no partners. Any play time with any of the three always ends in tears. Right?
Apparently not always. Of all the women I'm friends with that are knowingly involved in an affair, not one of them is crying into their pillows about the men that won't leave their wives. The reason?
'Power and security,' said Lou poking the air with her chopsticks on each syllable in a bid to remind me why this was a good idea. 'And the sex is amazing.'
You see, there are two types of The Other Woman. Those that know they're The Other Woman and those that don't. Lou's the former. And she's not in the minority. You can bet your bottom dollar there are far more people having affairs than is comfortable to discuss in polite company.
Trawl the dating sites and it will send a chill up your spine how many people (men in particular) are openly looking for one thing and one thing only – an affair to remember.
Lou and I had moved on to our third flask of saki before the subject of accountability came up, which reminded me of an Oprah show I saw last week.
Our favourite issues aunty interviewed a man who's written a book for wives on every aspect of their partner's extramarital affairs. It's a 'how to spot it (lie detectors, GPS tracking, rifling through his computer files), how to stop it (understand him, talk to him, make him feel like a winner)' guide for women whose men have been led astray by some cold-hearted, sex-crazed hussy.
In other words, a load of stereotypical, childish drivel that induced a gag reflex.
While I might not much like the idea of my partner cheating on me, the fact that he might means that either a) he's an arsehole, b) I'm an idiot or, c) our relationship is a sham or in crisis.
The Other Woman is merely the spotlight on an already bad situation.
So I'm always a little taken aback when wives or girlfriends who have been cheated on spit and hiss about the 'cow that has taken it all away from them'.
What about the perfectly grown-up man that gave it all away?
A few years back my partner at the time neglected to tell me about a number of minor infidelities he'd had when we first started dating. He told me about each one eventually, but not before lying to me and them and brushing them off as if they were nameless nobodies.
It was insulting and, of course, his stories to me and them were about as unimaginative as those of Frankenfuck himself. It hurt for sure, but there was no point in lashing out at The Other Woman. Ultimately, no one else is responsible for the lies we tell ourselves or the people we claim to love.
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- Women24