Since Oprah had had a show with cheating husbands (I missed the show if SABC showed it) she has been intrigued to know the version of events and emotions the “other woman” goes through. Finally she had four women who were willing to reveal all about the relationships they had with married men (04/03/2008).
The Other Women: Melissa, Sarah, Crystal and Michelle Sarah, Crystal, Michelle and Melissa have been the “other woman” for years and were willing to shed some light on their situations.
Melissa, is married, had an extra-marital affair that lasted two years. Her husband thought the marriage was fine but she wanted an upgrade. She met the man she had an affair with in a coffee shop and he asked her to come take a drive with him in his truck. She agreed and she knew what would happen. They would meet two to four times every week. Her children had soccer practice so she would drop them off and meet the man in a secluded area surrounded by trees that gave them some secrecy.
Melissa
Melissa confessed her affair to her husband and he broke down. She thinks she had the affair to get attention as she had constantly complained to her husband over the years that she was unhappy with their marriage. Now her marriage is much better than it was before the affair.
Melissa thought of the man’s wife as an extension of him, like his children and his relatives. He accepted that part of his life but later in the affair. It started to bother her when the wife started getting suspicious and Melissa had to acknowledge that she was causing somebody else pain. When the affair was happening the children were also involved in the deceit as she would meet the man with their children and spend time together.
Michelle, who is still seeing the married man, has been in the relationship for seven years and she sees no reason to ever end it. They met in Las Vegas, while the man had a long-time girlfriend whom he eventually married. The relationship was strictly physical at first when they met once a month. She moved to the area he lives in and this deepened the emotions.
Michelle (being advised by Dr Callahan)
She doesn’t want to know about his life with his wife and doesn’t know what kind of life he has with his wife. She doesn’t think about the wife and refuses to acknowledge that she exists so doesn’t want to give her “an identity”. She considers him a great friend and they have great chemistry. She is sometimes happy and wishes that he was married to her but they see each other every day at a hotel or at her place. The wife doesn’t know that he is with her – as he works a very demanding job and works odd hours, it is very easy to see him. BUT she doesn’t want to know what he says to “her” when he is with her. He knows that he loves “her” and it made more sense to marry “her” because it made financial sense to commit to “her”.
She knows that what she is doing is “wrong” and people around her think she is selling herself short. She knows that there is a possibility that he could do to her what he is doing to his wife but she is willing to take the chance “in a heartbeat” as she hopes he will one day marry her.
Crystal, now married, had two affairs with married men and one relationship lasted seven years. He pursued her very hard, took her on business trips, sent her gifts and took her out a lot. She only found out that he was happily married when she was already too emotionally involved.
Crystal She had the freedom to date other men and had no obligations that come with wifely duties like cooking and cleaning. It was like “rent-a-husband” because he met all her needs; financially, physically, sexually and emotionally. He gave her the companionship that she needed. He would give her money and buy her lingerie. They would meet in her apartment and he always wanted her to be sexy for him. She believed that she gave him better sex than his wife; so she could give him great sex and his wife couldn’t offer him such.
He gave her so much attention and was always with her that she convinced herself that the wife did not care. She imagined him leaving the wife for her and giving her the big house, the huge diamond ring and fancy homes and cars but she knew that it would never happen.
He always mentioned his home life as horrendous and seemed to give the idea that he was one foot out the door. She imagined the wife as an ugly woman who just couldn’t make him happy. He said he was heavily in love with Crystal and was staying with the wife for the children, as soon as they are in college he would leave the wife. It would be too expensive to pay for the divorce, alimony and maintenance. Crystal finally met the wife and she was beautiful, nothing compared to what he had said. This was the Aha moment for Crystal. She regrets the affair as she sees it as a waste of her time. As a married woman, she now wonders knows and worries about infidelity and her choices to stay that long in the relationship. She finally left the relationship because she found out that there was another woman that he was cheating with as well, so there was another other woman.
At this point, Oprah revealed her extra-marital affair and experience as the other woman and this is her greatest regret in life. In her 20s she had found herself in a relationship with a married man. Crystal’ experience was very similar to hers as she also discovered at the end that the man had another other woman. She regrets the experience as it is the most powerless position for any woman and it made her pathetic. The whole experience made her pathetic as a woman because of what she did to the wife, she never thought of the wife, she believed all the lies he told her about his home life and his wife and she had a choice to leave but stayed.
Sarah, who kept a diary of her experiences, had a lot of extra-marital affairs. She found herself only being approached by married men. They actively pursued her with words she wanted to hear and gifts. One of the men, she was with for two years, used to take her with on business trips and would introduce her as a business associate. He never said he was unavailable. The man promised her a future and she wanted to be number one. She was actively competing to be the wife.
Sarah and CrystalHe bought her a house and rehearsed with her what he would say to the wife. He said he was only staying because of the children. When she eventually confronted him he left her with nothing, threw her out the house and she had nowhere to go and nothing. She had believed everything he had promised and she emotionally, mentally and emotionally suffered after the reality of what she had been conned into believing became clear. She called the wife, she is still unsure why she did it but she did it to let her know what her husband was capable of.
The diary she kept ended up being a book she wrote about her experience to advice wives and other women who might find themselves in similar situations. Her book is titled “Having an Affair?: A Handbook for the Other Woman.”
Having an Affair?: A Handbook for the Other Woman by Sarah Oprah’s next guests were wives whose marriages went through an infidelity. I felt that Oprah could have had a separate show to cover the trauma these women went through. Noone in these kind of relationships really leaves or stays without being scarred. The men are never ever blamed for any of the deceit! The other woman is always vindicated whether she was conned or not. I am not saying they are not entirely blameless but the men should carry the burden of the entire fiasco.
Who hasn’t gone through the trauma of dating a man that had another girlfriend or wife? The lies! The lies! Damn those people lie… and the lies are all the same, aren’t they?
Teryl, Catherine and CandiCatherine, who was married to a man in the entertainment industry, discovered his infidelity when she woke up next to him and he had lipstick on his face. He explained it away by saying some other celeb had kissed him as he left the club he was at the night before. She says there were other signs that he was cheating because he would not pick up his phone when she was around and would later be in a secluded spot talking on the phone. She finally had it when he got served with child support papers to a child she had not known existed. He locked himself in the bathroom and when he came out she knocked his front teeth out. Now she is happily divorced. As she explained the events, she was very poetic about it.
Teryl, discovered her hubby was having an affair when she eavesdropped on a phone conversation he was having and he said “wish you were not working today and I could come by to see you”. She was heavily preggies with their fourth children. She burst the door open and demanded to know what was happening – he confessed and apologized, maintatining it was just an emotional relationship, not physical. A couple of months later, she had to grab his ankles and begged him to stay. He left her before she gave birth to their child and they now have joint custody of their children aged 10, 7, 3 and 7 months old. He still maintains that this was his first affair and as a worship pastor of their church he didn’t want to do such.
She wrote a letter to the mistress which goes “
What can I possibly say to the woman who has aided in the demise of my life? I wish I could stand in front of you to voice these thoughts so you could see the real person in me, the real tears that fall, and the real pain I have endured. … As a woman, I can't possibly understand how you are comfortable with completely tearing apart our family. If your relationship with a married man is all you've ever dreamt for yourself, then you haven't set your aspirations high enough. You are worth more than a man who would leave his entire family and his entire life.”
Candi, found letters and evidence that her husband’s mistress had heavily pursued him so she sued her and won $500 000. She couldn’t sue the husband so she sued the mistress for alienation of affection. She settled for $50 000 at appeal. I wondered how this relationship had fared during this court battle.
The husband had kept all the evidence in his office at work.
Dr Michelle Callahan, a psychologist, was our Oprah expert. She advised Michelle to look within herself to see what is missing in her life. She needs to reevaluate her past and figure out why she is settling for less. She advised all women to know that as other women they offer the men escapism from reality; they can relive their sexual fantasies with these women that are willing to stroke their egos. She calls these kinds of relationships "toxic relationships" that can damage a woman's self-worth. It makes the woman less powerful because they have the power to change it. They make the choice to get into it, and they can make the choice to get out. Since they are fed lies, lies, lies they believe the stories they are told and the men know what women want and will do and say it to get what they want. They have figured women out and prey on women’s vulnerabilities. They will over-promise and under-deliver and they know that the other woman see this relationship as a “competition” for being the wife; so the women end up with a grand prize of lying cheating deceitful lies. The other woman feels they can nurture the man and can fix whatever is broken in his marriage.
Dr Michelle Callahan
The wives can also try to avoid finding their men straying by taking care of yourself, being sexually open and synching communication styles with your partner. Keep dating, even after they're married.
"Don't get so comfortable and so settled that you forget to go out and forget to go to the movies, go to dinner and get dressed up," Dr. Callahan says. "Don't just go in your baggy pants and the flip-flops. Dress up like you would on any other date. Remember, it's the other woman who is out on a date giggling and saying, 'Oh, you're so funny. You're so cute.'"
If nothing seems to make your man faithful, don't blame yourself. "If you're already doing that and you end up with a man who is a serial cheater, then maybe it's time to think about moving on," Oprah says. "It's really all on him."