What motivates the Other Woman?
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Cheating is a painful business. Everyone knows couples and families which have been broken apart by infidelity. There is always huge emotional pain, often divorce, serious financial repercussions and longterm effects on betrayed partners. Children have no choice but to watch as dad leaves for another woman while mum's left reeling and abandoned.
Although wives do cheat on husbands, it's more common for the man to be discovered in an affair. Often a wife notices little changes that signal the influence of another woman. A new habit, a new preoccupation with the gym, more care taken of his appearance, different taste in music or clothes all of a sudden... And then wham - the discovery of someone who is "just-a-friend" but turns out quite quickly to be rather more than that.
But what motivates the Other Woman?
Why does an OW set her sights on a man who already has a wife - and possibly several children?
I'd argue there are several types and maybe some of them overlap.
Just Wants Her Own Way. This OW sees something she likes - your husband - and decides she's got to have him. She couldn't care less if you get hurt, your children get hurt or he gets hurt, The point is she wants to get her own way. Once she's decided to have him she'll pull out all the stops to seduce him. And - silly guy that he is - he's so flattered he can't say no. Carla Bruni, wife of the French president, is the ultimate JWHOW. She had an affair with Mick Jagger when he was with Jerry Hall, by whom he had 3 children. Just after the 4th was born, Carla went off on holiday with Mick. Can you imagine wanting to go on holiday with a guy who'd cheat on his wife a few days after his son was born? Yeuccch - but it's exactly what Carla wanted. She's also famous for having a child by the son of one of her lovers. Nice.
Innocent Little Me. Little Miss Innocent isn't up to anything. Really. She's just very gently flirting and is quite surprised when your husband thinks it's a come-on. She allows herself to be seduced and then she listens sympathetically as he explains he never, ever sleeps with you and the marriage is pretty much over anyway. Those children he had with you - well, he didn't really want children anyway. She tells her friends that normally she'd never sleep with a married man but this - well, this feels so right. She tells your husband that if he's not happy being married and having a family he really ought to leave - otherwise he's just not being true to himself. Monica Lewinsky was an ILM. She didn't wash the dress all those months because she just didn't have time, right? Cori Rist, one of the women on Cheetah Woods' long list, is another ILM. Heavens, she even went on TV and apologised to Elin and the kids. What a nice person!
Natural-Born-Troublemaker. This OW is a drama queen. Hooked on adrenaline she knows there'll be trouble if she starts this affair. But she goes right ahead and does it anyway. Thereafter, she indulges in much hand-wringing, fascinating secret trysts and late-night phone calls with your husband and endless all-about-me discussions with her girl friends. "Honestly" she tells them "my stress levels are through the roof. I don't even know if it's worth it. But I can't help myself and nor can he. The chemistry is amazing. You wouldn't believe the intensity of our love. I'm just totally freaking out that his wife will find out - I'm really scared she'll kill herself!"
Frankly Psychotic. FP is deranged. A bit of a hybrid, she's a cross between an OW and a stalker. This is one of the OW your husband will certainly try to get rid of after a few dates. She'll phone him at work, cry on his shoulder, leave notes on his windscreen, threaten to kill herself and - naturally - threaten to tell you what's been going on. Even if you don't notice her lipstick on his collar you'll notice his hair standing on end. It'll be the end of the second evening when you've picked up the phone seven times and no-one answers that you'll say "Roger - is there something you want to tell me?" Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction was, clearly, this OW.
I Normally Never Do This. This one tells everyone - your husband, her sister, her best friend, her mother, and you and your kids eventually - that this is totally out of character. "I never, never sleep with married men." Except on this occasion. Normally Never has great integrity and likes to make it clear that she's a high-minded person. This is no casual fling for her - she disapproves of that kind of behaviour. No - she's adamant that your husband has to leave the family. Once he does, she'll demand he marries her as soon as the divorce is through.
Hooked on secrets. HOS loves the lies and deceit. She contrives ways to see your husband while you're there. Often she poses as your 'friend'. She'll happily come to dinner at your place and chat away as if nothing's going on. Meanwhile she's placing her foot in your husband's crotch under the table. She thinks it's really funny that you trust him - and trust her. The more she can engage with you as well as him, the happier she is. HOS will always find a way to meet your kids and pretend she's 'just a friend' of daddy's.
Have I got the Power? Asks herself if she can do it? Can she get him to cheat? Her target seems quite happy to be married, seems to love his wife and kids...What a challenge. Here's where she can test her powers and see if she still has what it takes. Of course, it's relatively easy to seduce a man and not have him call you back. So once she's seduced him she decides to see whether she can get him away from his family and score a victory over the wife. Now that's a good result. The little Polish waitress who recently split up with Ron Wood (played with the Rolling Stones) is a HIGTP. She wasn't done till she got him to leave his wife of several decades and then divorce her. After which, the relationship ended and she promptly sold her "story" ('20 year old sleeps with 62 year old') to try and cash in.
Which brings us to:
Gold-digger. GD wants your husband's house, car, savings, salary and pension. Once she gets him away from you and the kids, she'll marry him to get them. Alternatively, if he's wealthy and/or famous she'll try to get paid to go away or she'll sell some kiss-and-tell tales. They'll always be catty - the sexual performance she praised at the time will now be dismissed as totally substandard. The gold digger is the purest form of OW - she's into nothing but blackmail for money. Looks like all of Tiger's OW are GDs.
And talking of Tiger - let's not let those tomcats off the hook. Behind, or beside, underneath or on top of every Other Woman tigress there's always a willing little tiger.
The safest Other Women are the ones who don't marry the men they have affairs with. Why? Because Other Women all have one thing in common and that's a total inability to put themselves in the position of the wife being betrayed. So imagine the shock for those who do marry their divorced lovers if and when, some years down the line, they find HE puts them in that very same position... Ouch!
When the Other Woman marries your husband...
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Thanks HM. By the way, I'm interested to know what your name stands for? Is it a US acronym that I don't get because I'm European?...
Cath - it is the military abbreviation for Hammer Jammer 1, a call sign I earned in Iraq stationed at Forward operating Base (FOB) Hammer as the Morale Welfare and Recreation Supervisor, I had to give a weekly briefing to the command and at the end of all of my briefings I said "We be jammin all day Long!" So I was tagged with Hammer Jammer 1 on the radio.
You do not seem to have considered the situation of two people who made the wrong choices: a man who was wanted only for his status and money and was frozen out of real relationship with his daughters by his poisonous wife; a woman who was wanted only because she provided a rent-free house and financial security to a lazy wastrel. I was the "other woman" in such a situation for 12 years because of my lover feeling obliged to put his daughters through university even though they despised him due to their mother's poison. His ex screwed him for his pension and most of the house. My ex tried to screw me for everything but was awarded only a quarter of what he was trying to steal. We are now poor, but happy together in the house I managed to save. His ex has his house and his money, but is faced with a bitter and lonely old age in which she will be eaten by her own venom.
So your lover used his wife, the mother of his children, because he was 'a lazy wastrel' looking for financial security? And you seriously believe that his wife, the mother of his children, "poisoned" them against you, a woman who insinuated herself into the mariage and family and broke it up, causing fracture for wife and kids? His ex screwed him for his pension and the house? Really? You don't think that having a commitment from him and several children she had a right to trust him and trust that he would provide for the family he created with her? He promised that, no? How will YOU feel if he cheats on you and betrays you? Believe me it can happen. Will you feel, when he does that to you, that you will face "a bitter and lonely old age"? Or will you pick yourself up and build a new life? Seems to me you are too fixated on a man to 'save' you and make you 'valid'. Spread your wings a bit and drop your rigid thinking.
No, you have it wrong.
My partner's ex-wife had already set his daughters against him years before we met. We became friends through shared interests and professional background. He spoke of his despair and feeling used long before there was any deeper relationship between us. He stayed to provide for his daughters until they became independent. Then, faced with a life of emptiness, he left, preferring to be on his own than remain in a cold, loveless house.
My wastrel ex moved into a house I had bought years before I met him. He then proceeded to do nothing apart from his standard working-hour week. I was in full-time employment and also moonlighted through the evening and night to meet my share of expenses and to put my daughters through university (with not a penny in assistance from him). I always paid half of everything, despite the fact he earned twice as much. When I said I'd had enough, he left. He then tried to grab half the house and half my life savings, but only suceeded in getting about a quarter of what he demanded.
My partner left his wife at a time when there was no obvious prospect for us to be together. We set up home five years after he had left his ex, and two years after my ex walked out.
Some marriages are made in hell, and in such a situation there is little point in setting the concept of marriage on a pedestal and worshipping it.
I have lived happily on my own for years at various points in my life and it would not worry me in the slightest to live alone again. I therefore do not feel "fixated" on, "saved" by or "validated" by my current situation.
Your situation sounds like it was complex and painful all round. I agree some marriages are destined to fail, even if no other party gets involved. A married man can though make a clean break and divorce his wife, but still support his children while they're in education. And both ex-husband and Other Woman could try to understand that if an ex-wife seems 'poisonous' to them it's because she's been badly hurt and betrayed by the father of her children - a man who gave her a lifelong commitment. To her, of course, you and he seem poisonous. It's horrible all round, with clashes of diametrically opposed interests. Sorry for the fixated-and-validated comments, by the way - they don't really reflect what I was trying to say at the time so please consider them withdrawn!
Thank you :)
You could put all of these types into a novel.
Hmm, there's an idea Sheila - will you write it or shall I?!
There is also the Other Woman who meets the love of her life a few years too late... And never once asks him to leave his wife... or for anything else. Not all "other women" are devious and selfish... not all wives are saints either. Some men stay in a marriage that's not working and cheat because a divorce, in some countries, means never seeing your children again. It's not as black and white as you make it out to be.
cathinfrance - Thank you for your articles.
Puppy :-)
Puppy - I got your message asking to emai me but just go ahead and PM me. Has the same effect. :) Sorry to hear your story. :(
I think that whoever wrote this article is a very talented writer, but very biased. Life is not black and white but a lot of shades of grey.
ME - thankyou for the compliment. I'm guessing that you have had or are having an affair with a married man? Life is certainly messy, but we all make choices. Every Other Woman could choose to refuse to sleep with another woman's husband, just as every married man could choose not to cheat on his wife and family. Every Other Woman could refuse to get involved in breaking up a family and hurting children.
"Because Other Women all have one thing in common and that's a total inability to put themselves in the position of the wife being betrayed. "
This really says it all and shows that underneath all the excuses they have some serious deficit in their character at a minimum and are to be pitied.
"Because Other Women all have one thing in common and that's a total inability to put themselves in the position of the wife being betrayed."
What about betrayed spouses that become the other woman later on in life?
Trust me, it happens more than you'd think.
@Karen
Betrayed spouses who choose to become the Other Woman later on are known as Spider Women.
RT and Karen - it's astonishing that a woman who's *gone through this* could then have an affair with a married man, knowing the pain that's inflicted on wives and often children.
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Hmrjmr1 Level 3 Commenter 2 years ago
An interesting view on what can be a ruthlessly competitive nature in women, coupled with the idiocy that follows when a guy thinks with his wee little head that has no brain. Good read and so true.