Being the other woman

He promised he would see you.

A precious couple of hours that you were going to make the most of before he returns to his family.

You did not care to turn down other Christmas invitations because all you needed was to be with him.

The time has come. Ten minutes, twenty minutes go by. Tick tock, tick tock…

Your mobile phone has not left your sight.

You don’t dare to call and put him in a “difficult” spot.

Ping!

The text reads: “I’ll explain later. Sorry”.

You spend the rest of the day looking on Facebook at posts of him playing husband and daddy. (Amazing how there is always someone who is friends with someone that is connected to him)

“That's it, this is over!”, you say to yourself.

After a long day you curl up in bed, holding the pillow tight and tissues in both hands.

Somewhere in the early morning hours, sleep finally arrived.

“Ding dong”, the doorbell jolts you awake. 7am.

What the heck?!

It’s him, flowers and yesterday's gift in hand.

He nearly looks as sad as what you felt.

“I only have ten minutes, she thinks I’m getting gas and fresh bread. I want to explain about yesterday…”

You have heard so many, many valid reasons over the years.

They are all true and he really has remorse. But nothing changes.

You build your dreams on his promises. Promises that are sealed with the passionate precious stolen time keep you addicted.

How much longer will you allow this cycle to go on?

How many times over will you sell yourself out?

And do you truly believe that you will have a “normal” life together when he finally leaves his wife for you?

The emotional web you are caught in is real and sticky.

I have not met anyone that set out to have an affair. They all seem to say “I wasn‘t looking for anything and I wasn't particularly unhappy either” or “it just happened…” or “we couldn't help ourselves”.

But we know that is not true. There was that split instant, a moment of decision-making where you had to choose to cross the monogamy line. That kiss you leaned into a little longer than required for just friends, or allowing his fingers lingering on the small of your back as he allows you to enter the office before him or when you decided to respond to a naughty text flirtily.

Most often affairs happen between people's minds before they crystalize between the sheets. The common “offenders” are work colleagues, partners of close friends and old flames that resurfaced on social media. That means a LOT of communication took place before the first kiss. I hear so often in defense of the affair “we had so much in common, our partners did not understand us as my new lover does, he/she just GETS what I am about and so forth”. The bottom line, you become each other's object of attention and affection.

Where focus goes, energy flows, and oh boy does it flow?!!

The mere secrecy, planning, anticipation and then being completely PRESENT during every little encounter flood the body with an overwhelming amount of feel-good hormones. This is extremely addictive and leaves a person literally living on a high. Being fully present in the moment will have that effect. Being “in the zone” with another person is the ultimate.

This alone is good enough motivation to keep the affair going and never want it to end.

During this time common sense is not so common!

Those that have never been in this situation cannot understand how the culprits could “do this to their families!” But there was of course no clear thinking or reasoning going on whilst the brain was having its own ecstasy pharma production ensuring you stay addicted.

Just like all junkies, you´ll need more. Either the thrill gets ramped up by increasing the possibility to be caught, or you move onto the second phase described below. And if that does not happen and the affair continues on the same trajectory, the body and mind will adapt and the bliss will plato, fizzle and discontentment start to creep in.

As creatures of habit and comfort, we want to prolong or have more of a good thing.

Not knowing or remembering that the whole reason for the intoxication of the relationship is in fact that it is an AFFAIR (secret, hidden, adrenalin-filled stolen time), it is natural that one comes to the conclusion that this must be the “right” one or indeed “real” love. How could it not be? You have NEVER felt so amazing! So self-confident, sexy, desired, and free. (On rare occasions, commitment and a new relationship can develop out of an affair, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the bliss of the affair continues. Relationships like these bring their own challenges that are complicated enough for another article.)

As the other woman, you most likely come to the conclusion that you need to leave your husband/partner, regardless of your new lover's commitment to you, because this new feeling state has become your goal post. How could you ever stay in a relationship that does not make you feel like you do now?

So either you decide to continue the affair indefinitely or make yourself available by leaving your husband/partner and hope for your new lover to catch up and do the same so you could ride off into the sunset, or you decide to “find this kinda love” the moment this affair does not work out - you deserve it after all, right?

You decided you accept being the other woman because you cannot bear being without him. He has your full commitment. With this you signed a contract with the time-keeping-devil. Your life has become a game of schedule and wait, reschedule and wait, cancel and wait and wait and wait some more. From now on you will subconsciously spend every secret moment with him looking for subtle clues proving his maybe-commitment to you, and you do this despite knowing he goes home to her, every night. The energetic scales of trade have been tipped. You invest most of your mental and emotional energy in yearning and anticipation, putting everything aside to accommodate him, whilst he “fits” you into his full life that needs to remain the same in order for him not to be found out. Your energy and joy diminishes day by day, minute by minute, and before long bitterness takes over. Too often women stay in this space because they feel they made this choice and therefore do not deserve more. On the other side of this, they could live in denial and tell themselves that this situation is exactly what they want, but deep down, none of us are supposed to live off the crumbs that fall from the table of love.

The most common outcome is for the other woman to disappear. This is the result of pressure and pride. When men having affairs are put under serious pressure to choose, this hardly favors the affair. And when he has chosen his life of security thanks to a long list of reasons, the mistress´s pride gets the better of her. Refusing to turn into a bunny-boiler she respects his choice albeit at the expense of her heart and dreams and she disappears from his life. Traceless. I often hear from women who never admit having had an affair in the first place because of this shame. When people try to understand her sudden divorce or long partner break-up, she merely says “we outgrew each other” or “I needed more”. So many women take this secret and part of an unhealed heart to her grave. Society still frowns upon women being unfaithful and often these women will never share this profound experience with their new partner. It is a shame because it carries the potential (when shared at the right time, authentically with growth in mind) to build an even deeper and mature relationship. My current husband understands better why I am so ruthlessly honest and why trust is a non-negotiable value of mine. He has adopted this too and I can truly say it pays off!

Should you fall for the illusion thinking the affair was a real relationship, then the hunt will begin with comparing and expectations. Every next suiter gets measured up to your old lover. But you will always find faults, shortcomings and it won't FEEL the same. That is because you are experiencing physical withdrawal. That chemical cocktail that tainted the world and your lover so rosy, is gone. It totally changes how you experience your world. Thus you continue looking for “Mr. Right/Lover” being completely delusional on what is real and what is not AND what was. Here is the kicker: During the time of the affair, you had zero expectations from your lover. You spent intensely focussed bubbles of time together and did not waste it with frivolous bickering. And the sex, oh man the sex! He was perfect. His fart couldn't stink. You did not expect him to read your mind (you showed him exactly what you liked) or take out the trash as you did from your husband of 5/10 or how many years.

No matter how much you deny, hide or bury this experience, you will never be the woman you were before the affair. There is innocence lost once you were unfaithful that could never be regained. Many women who had an affair stood to judge others harshly for the very same thing and have been knocked off their moral pedestal. Lying, withholding, and sneaking around change the way you see yourself in what you think you are still capable of doing, for good and for bad. Having most likely scrambled and pushed your integrity boundaries will definitely have changed you.

But it is not a bad thing at all.

This is what transformation looks like. It is wild, tough, and messy! Ask the caterpillar to change into the butterfly. Qualities like honesty, integrity, sincerity, compassion, shaking sexual constrictions off, and most importantly a deeper peek into the unbounded, ever-expanding soul that YOU are is at the cusp of this experience!

Should this have spoken to you and you would like to heal and transform from being the other woman to BEING the woman you were meant to be, reach out to me and let us see if we are a match to walk that path together?

P.S.This article is written from my personal experience having had an affair and personal insights. Polygamy and open relationships are NOT the same as affairs. In France it is common for men to have mistresses, this too has different dynamics than what I speak about in my articles.