What About the Other Woman?

You know who you are. You are the needy (wanty), greedy ones who look for emotional connection with those you know are unavailable because you feel this provides some "protection." (Only you know what really goes in that brain of yours as rationalization and denial set in and you begin to deal with your conflicted emotions.) But in a zen way, the unattainable are the very ones you desire most, and you do not accept this until you are in too deeply. (This opinion does not apply to those who are deceived from the beginning into thinking that the object of their desire is available. No, this post pertains to those who begin, continue and persist with those they know are married, and are not separated or actively in the process of divorce.)

In my situation, I have had opportunities to communicate with the other woman. I think I have come to know her pretty well from these interactions, her freely dribbling blogs, and what others and my husband have said about her. All these things together have been consistent, if nothing else. Who she is as a person translates into a predictable woman of low integrity and high self-denial. She has low self-esteem, is very immature, and manipulates those around her for sympathy by being ill or tired or distraught all the time. She feigned pregnancy and publicly threatened to commit suicide when my husband ignored her. She appeals more to strangers because they simply do not know the real her. She claims to "be real," but seems to find more comfort in fabricating a "reality" that is appealing to others, while neglecting her own internal reality--unhealthy, emotionally dysfunctional, manipulative, and all the while saying she is such a good person, and bemoaning all the terrible things that happen to her.

This same self-professed "honest" person insists she is the victim. She acknowledges that she knew that my husband was married. She refuses to accept the reality that she is a person that my husband could not be with, because she is the sum total of so many things he intensely dislikes in other women. I guess in the manner of committing emotional suicide, it was predictable that he would be with such a person. Of course, he is not blameless in this affair, but at any point, she could have said no.

Even now, many months after it is over, she is still talking to other people about him as if they will be together some day. She is supposedly in a committed relationship now, but never seems to speak publicly of the other.

For people like this, they want sympathy, yet get angry, feel hurt and victimized when another does the exact same thing to them. They feel that what another does is justification for deceit and betrayal and the violation of sacred bonds. She is not alone. How many people feel that if someone does X to them, that means they can do Y back. (I don't give me that crap about "An eye for an eye.") Of course, being hurt and in pain because of deception and betrayal cause feelings of anger and revenge to enter into your Mind. But following through on these malicious thoughts is doubly wrong as what that person did to you.

For those of you who have been though what I have been through and do not retaliate, how do you reconcile the feelings of betrayal and other woman? It is tempting to do the same thing. You learn the bitter lessons that this experience brings and get on with your Life. But that is easier said than done...