I had a wonderful potluck Sunday dinner with friends this afternoon. Great food , great company. I was the only single there excluding kids of course. There was the common old garden variety of married couple banter, the stock stories usually swapped at these sorts of do's. Each couple has their repertoire and with practice it becomes a slick routine. This is usually interspersed with the wife jokes and gentle gender bashing that seems to flavour these gatherings.Without a partner I couldn't exactly take part in the well oiled sport, and man were we good at it. We sounded like such a happy couple when we were in full swing. It was strange to be navigating this sort of social gathering with a mute and invisible partner, but mercifully I wasn't heartbroken or tearing up. I was in a good place.
One of the couples were two years into their second marriage. The topic of the other woman came up. While I remained resolutely quiet on the topic, which of the many do I talk about? The range of their emotions varied from murderous to pity. Since my ex, was a serial adulterer, my own feelings have been all over the board. You could say I had the good fortune to try out a whole range of different responses and see which of them suited me best.
Initially I was compelled to confront the other woman. In some huge dance of self denial, she was the vixen who calculatingly spun a web around my poor defenseless little fly and carefully reeled him in slowly and against his wishes, till he finally succumbed to her poison ,slowly working it's way into his reason. She came to my house at my bidding, I was going to teach this little spider a lesson, I was going to remind her that she was singlehandedly destroying a perfectly sound marriage and worst of all hurting several innocent children. I'd show her photo's of the children, she would feel so remorseful and terrible.
Into my door, walked a little mouse, I noted to my chagrin, that she was slightly more slender than me. She wore her nurses uniform and she was indeed fully repentant. She had dented her own fragile marriage and whilst her motives were to make herself feel better about the whole incident, she cried big tears on my leather couch and apologized for hurting me. I was clearly disappointed, how can you do battle with a slightly damp rather sweet if not entirely selfish mouse, sniveling and apologizing on my couch? Impossible! After a bit, she was politely shown the door. Entirely unsatisfactory. Of course she would be sweet, he chose me too. Still not really ready to admit the truth of it all, that it was never about her, mostly about him, I shoved most of the unfinished buisiness under the carpet and began my career as a detective, scanning the look on his face when he came in the door, popping by at work at odd hours and scanning cell phone records etc. I'd catch him at it next time.
The next few, got phone calls from me. I know what you have been doing with my husband, do you realize there are children involved? Some apologies, one said if she had met me first, she would rather have been my friend, since I was so nice, instead of carrying on with my husband. What do you make of that? Is that self preservation talking swiftly or what.? Some were rude, one hung up. One said she was merely playing head games with him, when he took her literally, she didn't know what to do and just went along. One classic story was given by the secretary. She maintained that she was just his friend, and as a friend she was just helping him deal with his pent up frustrations. What was I looking for? Let's face it to have an affair with a married man, you have to be entirely selfish. In truth, I would learn that confronting the other woman is never really satisfying. Calling her names and Jerry Springering it, only serves to make us feel bad, and confirms to her she was justified in her behaviour, he doesn't deserve to be married to such a cow.
What has worked for me is to act graciously. He has made his decision. Nothing you have or haven't done justifies this kind of behaviour. Vixen, spider or mouse, I say leave her to her just reward, him! She now is with a man who cheats on his wife and walks out on his family. Justice happens, only the wheel turns ever so slowly for our impatient human hearts.
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