She Despised The Other Woman — Until She Became One

“Oh my god,” my friend said. “I can’t believe she‘s done this. After she used to be so jealous of my female best friend! That’s wild.”

The woman in question is someone who used to date my friend in the past and who has now destroyed somebody else’s long-term relationship by getting involved with a taken man.

She hated the idea of there being the other woman — until she became one.

This phenomenon isn’t new. One of my relatives insulted and despised the other women of her cheating husband for years, only to start sleeping with married men after her divorce.

When I confronted her, she just shrugged her shoulders. “So what. I didn’t know what I was talking about then. Life is much more complicated, so stop judging me. Besides, all the men I’ve slept with have been miserable in their marriages.”

What a pathetic excuse, I thought. Except there’s actually some truth to it.

The other woman, the gorgeous heartless monster

She’s young, mysterious, beautiful and alluring. She enjoys life without considering the consequences of her actions, she takes all the men who want her for granted and she doesn’t care about breaking hearts or destroying relationships as long as she gets what she wants.

She’s a cold heartless monster with a spotless face. A shadow with the figure of a supermodel, leaning forward to show off her boobs, telling your man to come hither with her finger.

She’s there to steal him away from you.

That’s one of the common preconceptions when we think of the mistress of our partners — we automatically paint her all in black, adding little drawings of claws and sharp teeth to make sure we hate her with enough passion to mask our hurt feelings.

“Homewreckers, all of them,” my relative used to say. “I’d never stoop to doing such a thing.” Little did she know.

For most of my life, I’ve had a similar approach, especially because I come from a family with lots of cheating going on. I’ve always had very strong principles about never starting things with a man who’s in a relationship.

I’ve only been tempted once. I was dozing off in an empty room at a friend’s house party when suddenly a boy I fancied came in. I was wasted and feeling slightly sick. He stroked my hair for a bit, which in my drunken state felt kind of nice, and we talked. Then he moved in to kiss me.

It took a lot of strong will to sober up from all the booze and remember what my rules were, but I managed to pull away before his lips touched mine. “I don’t kiss taken men.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s… that’s good of you.” Shortly afterwards, he left.

His girlfriend of three years was sleeping in the next room. She was sick too.

Although I’m glad I didn’t go along and successfully avoided being that woman, in hindsight, it’s made me realise that my relative was right when she said life was more complicated than splitting women into “the wronged ones” and “the monsters”.

If I let him kiss me, would his girlfriend blame me even though I was heavily intoxicated? Would I blame myself less or more than I expected to? Would I be the reason their relationship was ruined or was there a much worse issue at the core of their partnership?

The other woman, the complex human being like any other

Let me clear something up — getting involved with a taken man is not okay in my book. Not only do you insert yourself into a painful unethical situation, but you also risk falling in love with a cheater and having your heart broken alongside breaking somebody else’s. It doesn’t seem worth it.

The other woman isn’t just a heartless monster, though.

As easy as it is to give in to rage and target all your hurt at her, the truth is that you never know the full story. She’s a real woman with worries, joys, insecurities and love inside her, and as vile as some people can be, most of us just try to get by doing the best we can. Even when our best can kind of suck.

What’s more, you don’t know what he told her. All the men my relative has slept with have complained about their wives to the moon and back — she doesn’t love me, she doesn’t sleep with me, she’s a hysterical nutjob, the list goes on.

I’ve recently seen a TV show where after finding out that her deceased husband had cheated on her before he died, the protagonist decided to find that horrible bitch and tell her what a despicable person she was.

And she did find her. During the confrontation, the young woman said, “But that makes no sense. He was my boyfriend of two years. He told me you died. He told me he was a widower.”

Talk about the horrible stuff people come up with just to get laid, eh?

All information the other woman ever gets is from him, the cheater. Maybe he told her his wife was cheating too. Maybe he said he was in an open relationship. Maybe he bet his money on the pity card and complained how badly she treated him.

He’s already cheating, so the chances are he’s probably lying to his mistress about lots of things too. She’s not innocent. But maybe she has a more complex story to tell. A story worth hearing.

The cheating man, the real culprit

Ever since we are born, we are led to compare ourselves to other women. Women are a threat rather than team members — they can come and use their charm to steal our man away.

This focus on female rivalry stirs the conversation on cheating in a completely misleading direction. Your husband’s mistress isn’t a mythical mermaid that sang a song which cast a spell on him, forcing him to come to her.

He chose to get involved with her. He chose to cheat. He is the one in the relationship. As unethical as it undoubtedly is to sleep with someone who’s taken, it’s nowhere near being the actual person playing both sides for a fool.

The man is the real culprit. If he doesn’t want to cheat on you, he won’t. Yes, it can get hard at times (pun intended)– but most valuable things in life bring about a certain degree of difficulty. If he values your relationship, he will try to work it out with you instead of running off to the arms of someone else. If he respects you and wants to have you in his life, he won’t cheat.

Focusing on the other woman means we don’t have to deal with the weight of the betrayal caused by our significant other. Instead of coping with the fact we’re in love with a liar and a cheater, we can get angry at her and compare all our traits with hers in order to feel better or worse about our insecurities. It’s the easier way out.

But the heartache will catch up with you eventually. Because in the end, it’s not her beauty that caused you pain. It’s his betrayal of trust. If he didn’t find her, chances are he’d stumble upon someone else.

He is the one to blame.

The ultimate lesson from the other women

Women like my friend’s ex or my relative have a lesson to teach us — it’s easy to judge when you’re standing on one side of the pool. Once you jump in and swim to the opposite end, things might look completely different from your new perspective.

You never truly know the complex experience of somebody until you find yourself in the same situation. In someone’s mind, you’ve become an evil simplified shadow of who you truly are — while here you stand, the same complicated person like always, with faults, regrets and many moments of kindness.

If I ever found myself in a situation like that — and I hope and trust I will not — I’d make sure to stop for a second and think about the other woman. It might be worth getting in touch and hearing her side of the story before you completely write her off.

It might even help you forgive her to some extent, which will shake the hate and anger off of your shoulders, giving you space to confront the real culprit here — the man you love.

The man who wasn’t stolen away but rather who chose to cheat.