Dating : The other woman

But today I want to write about the other side. I want to write about me and my friends, about those women who seemingly have no scrutiny, boundaries or respect taking another woman’s man. Who are these crazy people who send you anonymous messages, drunk call your husband, or suddenly appear in pictures where your face should be? How did they become your husband’s lover and why? What do these women have, that turns these seemingly good, loving, caring fathers, husbands, or boyfriends into cheats? And why would someone who has everything they can ever wish for, risk losing it all for 10 minutes of fun in the disabled loo?

For a long time, I couldn’t imagine why people in long term relationships or marriages would cheat. It just seemed ridiculous. Why would someone you deeply love and share 1000s of happy memories with, someone who’s life is so tightly entangled with yours, your soulmate, your best friend, your family, someone you trust like no one else, why would they ever be foolish enough to risk losing everything! And yet we all do and the evidence is there, the numbers, the statistics. Amongst my friends, I don’t know a single person who hasn’t cheated or been cheated on and it’s happening right now, everywhere, amongst your friends, family and at your work. In order to understand why affairs are so much more common than we want believe, I want to look at the motives, the drivers, the headspace the partakers are in, to indulge in “a little bit of fun on the side” that could ruin their entire lives.

A few points that I have found to be key triggers, not all points will apply to everyone and every affair, but there might be a good combination that are playing a big factor.

Boredom — The kids are growing up, the career goals are nailed, the wedding/honeymoon phase is over and you have settled into a nice routine, you have a happy life but deep down something is missing…

Insecurity — When was the last time you said to your husband, “You are so incredibly hot” or “I think you are really great at x,y,z”. A lot of men have similar insecurities to women but will find it harder to admit them. Having someone in their life who adores, admires them for who they are and what they do, can be a massive confidence boost.

Sexual incompatibility — Relationship counsellors might challenge me on this, but I have found it to be one of the main factors in every affair I know of. And I am not purely talking sex-drive, I am talking sub-dom relationships, fetishes, how we react, behave and initiate sex. In the way that many relationships form, sexual compatibility is probably something we get to assess at a later stage where we in love with the other person for all their other qualities and compatibilities. And at the start, it might not seem to matter too much, both sides will make an effort and generally speaking sex always feels good when you are madly in love. But over time, and especially when the love turns more into a companionship than passion, sexual incompatibility can become more apparent. One of the first things the men I have been involved with have told me was, that they have never felt they were sexually compatible with their other halves. These were people 10 or 12 years into a relationship and they have always known that it wasn’t right for them on that level.

Fear of change — I have been talking about the full-filled and rich lives those men live, they often have everything they have always wished for and yet here they are risking it all. Because deep down, they are unhappy. Deep down they know, that all the riches, career and home life they have and worked so hard for isn’t full-filling them. Maybe they even know that their relationship isn’t working out. But binning it all and starting with nothing, and figuring out what they truly want, what truly makes them happy is such a scary prospect that very few people ever do it, unless they are forced. And what better way to force change than finding all your belongings on the front porch along with a note from your wife…

Dependent Partners— It saddens me that in 2020 we are still living and breathing gender inequality everywhere. In jobs, in childcare, in household tasks and in relationships and unfortunately most men that are with someone who is depending on them, in whatever way this might be; financially, managing the home, driving. It can give them a lot of power to do whatever they feel “they deserve”, knowing the risk of “really” losing it all is lower.

The ease of managing an affair — I believe todays technology has been a big enabler. Secret chats, private browsing, the instant availability and effortless processes for things like booking day-use hotel rooms. Being able to flirt over chat, connect and share wild fantasies that you would never say out loud, can lead to so much passion and spark so many feelings so easily.

Quite often, men that have affairs do not just stumble upon them, they seek them, knowingly or unknowingly. They will try and assess people they meet early on, they might try to “groom” someone they really like until they are ready to engage with them. They have patience, because they are in a relationship already that will at least fulfil some of their needs from a partner. In my very first experience of being “the other woman”, ‘Rob’ and I had spent a year being best friends, colleagues, even going on family outings.
During this year, I had spent more time with him than with my kids and it never crossed my mind once, that in all this time, like he later admitted, he knew he wanted to have sex with me from the moment I walked into the office.

And really, that’s the key to who those women are. They probably meet a lot of the criteria listed above and seldomly get lured by a little bit of sex.
They form a deep emotional connection long before anything happens and crave to be loved in the way love affairs evolve. There might well be different types of affairs and every one will be unique, but in the ones that I have experienced and know of the incredibly intense and unique love has been driver for everything.
The passion evolving from secret messages under the table while having dinner with the wife “I wish I was with you right now”, signs and looks in the office, phantasies forming during meetings where you get to stare at your “lover” and no one around you has a clue. The suspense, not being able to talk and see each other whenever you want, the art of building up sexual tension over messages until you literally “need” to find a room to rip each others clothes off.

Before we know it we are addicted to all these emotions so much that we are desperate to believe in all the promises made:
“I have never done this before, you are the love of my life”, “I wish I had met you x years ago, I would have been the happiest person alive”, “If I could marry you today I would, if I could put a baby in you today I would”, “One day, we will be happy forever”, “No one has ever made me feel this way before” , “I will leave her, I only want to be with you”, “I have never been happy in my marriage, it will all be so different once we are married”.

It rarely lasts. It rarely ends well for any party involved. And in my experience, “the other woman” will pay. The “love” will be taken away before they even realise what is happening. The affair will end, not like any traditional relationship where love fades over months, or people realise they are not compatible, it will swoosh away at the height of all feelings. And what follows is a pain like no other that can last for months and scar for years. On top of the pain of loss, it’s the uncovering of manipulation, the instant change from being the “perfect woman” to being a burden, mistake and source of unhappiness in the eyes of someone who you love intensely. And then there is the torture of carrying the secret when you are hurting and have no one to turn to, abandoned in silence.

That is the real cost, of being “the other woman”.