I Was the Mistress, but I Struggled to Forgive His Wife.

I can imagine that if you’re reading this, you’re here because you’re either extremely curious about what I have to say given the title, or you are ready to rally the troops and come for my head.

I get it. Women who purposely sleep with married men aren't my favorite, either. However, before the torches are lit and pitchforks are raised, let me explain one thing:

I didn’t know I was his mistress.

The Beginning

I met him on September 8, 2017 — ten days after Hurricane Harvey buried Houston under several feet of water. The weekend before had been Labor Day but the city still looked like a soggy bomb had it hit over that long weekend so by the following weekend, many were eager to get out of their heads and what was left of their houses. Including me, the introvert.

A band I followed on Facebook was playing at a bar not far from me. I’m not the bar type — but these were unusual times. I needed to be around people after almost a week of waiting for the water to recede enough that I could get out of my house. I convinced a friend to come with me to go see the band play.

This is where he and I met.

I was not interested in him at first. After being purposely single and not dating for a few years, I still had no interest in changing my relationship status. I had a successful career, a great group of friends and I was happy.

However, after a month of him pursuing me through my friend who’d given him her number that night — I finally gave in to his charm.

Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but everything he told me about himself from the first night we met was a lie - except that "his" house had been destroyed by flooding from Harvey. (I say "his" because I would eventually find out that house was 100% in his wife's name.)

This one piece of half-truth would set the stage for what became the foundation of the two years of lies he told me.

I believed he traveled for work.

I believed he had little to no contact with any of his family.

I believed that since his house was in complete disrepair that when he was in town, he either crashed on his friend's couches or stayed in hotels near whatever job site he was working.

Eventually, he lived with me when he wasn't traveling. Complete with a parking space, half my closet, half my dresser drawers, and a wedding date set.

It’s still unreal to me that he spent so much time with my kids and me and managed to be married at the same time. So many weekends. So many holidays. Even a weeklong trip back to California with my kids the week of Thanksgiving to see where I grew up and meet my family.

He inserted himself into so many key memories for my kids and me that I’ll never be able to remove him from.

The Unraveling

Fast forward almost two years to July of 2019. I received an odd message to my seller account on Etsy along with two phone calls from a woman who called herself his wife.

She'd discovered he had a Tinder account which led her to check his phone records and then eventually brought her to me.

Finding out he had a wife was devastating. Finding out he also had a Tinder account felt like I'd been hit by a tsunami.

The whole house of mirrors he’d built around me shattered in an instant.

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She and I spent three full days unraveling the web. We compared timelines, credit card charges, pictures, and lies. So many lies.

Together, we discovered how many times he brought our worlds dangerously close to colliding while we were both unaware. I watched his dog when they went on vacation together, believing he was out of town for work. He told her our family trip to California was a work trip.

I even helped him pick out both her birthday and Christmas presents, believing they were gifts for his mom.

I discovered he made up a brother who didn’t exist, a job title he didn’t have, his father was not dying from cancer and all the guilt he’d dumped on my head for my not being able to have a child with him was just a way to torture me. She told me they had been trying to have a baby for the three years they’d been married.

They bought a new house together on our one-year anniversary. Even his military career was made up. And the wealthy family he said he was estranged from? Her family was wealthy, and all the stories he told me about his childhood were her memories, not his.

She and I were both shellshocked, however, I was the one who had been fed the bulk of the lies. She, at least, loved a mostly real person.

I was in love with a phantom.

I forwarded her all our pictures together, text messages, voice messages, receipts — everything I could give her to help her build up the case she needed to confront him and leave.

I naively felt as though through the trainwreck of emotions we were both experiencing we could lean on each other. I even thought there was a possibility we’d remain friends on the other side of this.

I grossly underestimated his manipulation skills.

The Confrontation

At this point, I had been no contact with him for a few days (and have remained so since.) She, on the other hand, had a lot more shared knots with him to untangle.

When she finally confronted him, he told her I was a liar and manipulator. He told her I was jealous and trying to destroy his life because I was in love with him but he had no interest in me.

He repeated lines to her that he used to say to me all the time. “It’s you, it’s always been you.” “I want this life with you and no one else.” She sent me screenshots of their conversations and all the awful things he said to her about me. Every word felt like a knife in my back.

He admitted nothing. Then over the next two days, she turned on me, too.

The Struggle to Forgive

Cognitively, I understood that she was also a victim. I knew firsthand how manipulative he could be. I also knew how easy it was to put on blinders and gladly only accept whatever version of truth he presented. However, I’d given her everything. All the truth. All the proof. Everything she needed to escape.

And then she labeled me a liar, too. And stayed.

She stayed with him!

I felt as though I’d been betrayed twice. First by his lies, and then again by her willingness to sweep it all under the rug as if what he did to us both was okay.

It wasn’t okay and for a long time, I was really angry with her.

But….here’s the cold hard truth. I realized that deep down I knew if I had been in her shoes, I probably would have stayed, too.

The person I was truly angry with…. was myself.

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Enough time has passed now that I’ve worked down to the roots of my anger and let it go. My anger towards her was misplaced.

My heart hurts for his wife when I think of her now. I can’t imagine what kind of misery she’s living in or how many lies she has to tell herself every day to keep herself sane. She’s still tied to him by a legally binding marriage.

And I’m free.

It took me a long time to get to this place, but I've forgiven her. And I've forgiven myself for all the things I wished I'd known but didn't.

And now I am so thankful that when everything came crashing down, he didn’t choose me.