Being The Other Woman

Being The Other Woman

Being the other woman – you know it’s wrong, you know your world will be shattered, but you do it anyway. You convince yourself that since you are not the one cheating, it’s okay. You convince yourself that all the “I love you’s” and all the open-ended promises actually mean something. It’s a fairytale; a world that you’ve created and are so wrapped up in that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.

Even though I knew everything was wrong and that one day I would lose everything, I went ahead and decided to be the other woman. I wasn’t blind but I was naïve. We had dated for a year already and after he two-timed me and the other girl, I should have given up. But I was weak; and he had my emotions and my heart wrapped around his finger. He begged me to hold on, to stay put for months on end. I did because nothing else felt right. He was my home. Everything about my world mingled with his and I was never strong enough to walk away. Instead, I let myself be treated as if I was worthless.

I so desperately wanted to tell the truth. I begged and I pleaded and no matter what, leaving the girlfriend was out of the picture. First, it was medical reasons, then it was he’d lose his friends, and then it was her parents’ divorce. I let myself be disrespected and at the same time, I was completely disrespecting someone else.

For those people who think it’s easy being the other woman, I am here to tell you it’s not. For those who think I’m a bad person, trust me I know what I did was wrong. Being the other woman hurts you as much as it does anyone else. I was the other woman for eight months – eight months of my life that I actively let someone else dictate; that I let someone else take away from me.

You feel worthless. You question why you were never enough, you beg for answers and you try to clear your conscience. You try to understand how something could feel so real and so amazing. How you could let someone trick you into feeling loved. Your mind races because you will always be the other girl and never worth the real deal.

What I am here to tell you is that picking yourself back up is nearly impossible. Your conscience will never be cleared and the questions you ask will never be answered. You’ll never get the time of day you deserve and you’ll continue to feel like you’re not worth it. Everyone tells you time heals everything. Time makes it worse – time makes you think and makes your mind race. Acceptance is the healing power. You accept that you knew what you were getting into when you started this, you accept that you will never get answers and you accept that you were not worth it to him. Then—then after all of that—you accept that you have to tell the next man you are with that you were the other woman—that you lied, cheated and covered up the truth. Tears will stream down your face but after you accept the truths, you pick yourself up and realize that for someone out there, you will be worth three things: love, truth and a committed relationship.