I Miss The Other Woman…And More Unusual Truths From My Divorce
My phone was ringing. I knew who it was. A few days prior, my ex-husband shared with me that he was ending it with his girlfriend of 2.5 years. He was “done.” I had cringed a little. “Done” was how he had described himself when he told me he wanted a divorce.
His girlfriend — who I suspected was once “the other woman” in our marriage — was calling me now. Her name was in my contacts and it glared on my screen.
For the sake of the kids and the high road, I had exchanged numbers with her a couple years ago in case of an emergency. She had used it a few times to text socially and about the kids. But a phone call was unusual. For a moment I considered staying out of it and not answering but a mix of curiosity and integrity took over and I answered the phone.
“I don’t understand,” she said, crying. “He says it’s over and he’s done and he won’t even really talk to me to tell me what’s going on.” She was a cross between dumbfounded and grief-stricken. It was like listening to a ghost of myself.
She wanted advice and a shoulder to cry on. I had come a long way in my personal growth but I hadn’t come far enough to be that person for her.
“I recommend you cut your losses and move on,” I said. “And be glad you don’t have kids, you aren’t married and you don’t own property together.”
Was it cold? I don’t know. I didn’t mean for it to be. Practical advice was all I could muster between the dull trigger her words tripped and my complete and utter bewilderment that the woman who was probably once his mistress would dare to seek my support.
That state of bewilderment was familiar to me. Over the last couple of years there had been several such instances where I’d wondered when I’d crossed the county line to Crazytown.
There was her seemingly calm friendliness the first time we met…and every time after that. There was the time she invited me to dinner so she and I could “get to know each other better.” There were the photos she texted me of the bedroom she’d decorated for my daughters — photos that turned my stomach at the thought of my 1 and 4-year old sleeping away from me.
The gestures felt genuine and I recognized that was the best case scenario. But I was perplexed that she exhibited no sense of remorse or shame for what I had suspected was an overlap in relationships. I had been wounded. I was still healing. She seemed oblivious to my experience of the situation.
Though I had ample opportunities to challenge her on this, I chose not to. I could bear my perplexity and the resulting peace between their father and I was a gift to my children.
Meeting The Other Woman
The first time I met her was a meeting of my own design. It was important to me that the children never feel their grownups were at odds with each other. With both my ex and I being in new relationships, there were new grownups in the picture.
I wanted to set the groundwork for positive and productive co-parenting and I didn’t want the first time that we all met to play out in front of the kids. So, I scheduled one of the world’s most bizarre lunch dates between myself, my boyfriend, my ex-husband and the woman who was supposedly better than being married to me.
When my boyfriend and I arrived, I was so nervous that I could barely walk and certainly couldn’t imagine eating. In about a nanosecond I decided that she was prettier than me. She clearly knew the womanly ways of fashion, hair and makeup that had never been of great personal interest to me.
Even though I was firmly past the point of caring what my ex thought of me, I had not yet awakened to the truth of my worth and so the unnecessary comparison caused my ego to slump in the chair. The waitress came. I ordered wine.
Despite my feelings swirling around at tornado speed, I pushed on and the lunch achieved exactly what I’d wanted for the sake of the children. We broke the awkward ice. We chatted pleasantly. I shared my vision for the children to feel they could smoothly move between households and enjoy special occasions with everyone they love in the same place, sharing space without friction. We were all committed to providing that for them. And for two years, we did just that.
My ex and his girlfriend moved to a house five minutes away so the kids were easily able to visit and return home. The children liked his girlfriend. She was pleasant and kind and respectful of my position as Mom.
We celebrated the kids’ birthdays and Christmas together. At one point, we even discussed going to Disney World and alternating time with the kids and time for the couples to be alone together.
It wasn’t without a ton of work. My ex and I went to co-parenting counseling together. I was in weekly counseling of my own. My boyfriend was exceptionally flexible and understanding of several unusual facts including that my ex had a key to my home and came over three nights a week to care for the children, that my ex in-laws occasionally came over to visit the kids and that sometimes I had to wake my ex from the bed I shared with my children when I got home from a late work meeting. Exceptionally flexible and understanding indeed.
Moving On
Perhaps the advice I gave to “cut your losses and move on” was for both his grieving girlfriend and myself. Afterall, I was experiencing a loss too. We had all put in over two years of work to create a stable and emotionally safe environment for the children. While we all benefited from the exercise, our work product was destroyed.
The truth was that not all the pillars of the structure I’d designed for the children were of equal strength. Once it collapsed, I quickly learned that I didn’t need all the pillars to create a stable, loving home to grow my children in. I was a pillar of exceptional strength and I had the power to choose and create independent of whatever my ex did or did not bring to the table. That realization kicked me into a new era of personal growth.
Suddenly Sisters
With the high stakes game of keeping harmony removed, “the other woman” and I were free to discuss things we had carefully avoided. We stayed in touch after their breakup. In time, I was able to offer better advice and support and I gained healing clarity about the particulars around the end of my marriage.
My intuition received a shot of confidence with confirmation from her that the relationships had indeed overlapped. The reasons my ex had given me for the divorce never included feelings for another woman even when I had suspected such and asked him directly. I resolved to keep the flames of gaslighting away from my intuition.
She had also been lied to. The first lie was largely by omission and caused her to believe that my divorce was a mutual decision — making her friendliness and obliviousness to my pain sensical. The second lie was that of the other women in her life. Unlike me, she followed her intuition and dug until she found the evidence.
We’d both been lied to and left and the experience bonded us in a strange way. It was easy to see how we could be friends — bonded into sisterhood by similar trauma.
We couldn’t have handled our common trauma any differently, though. She went the route of my indulgently angry fantasies — performing multiple (some epic) acts of revenge and taking him to court for shared assets.
He may have had it coming to him but I watched as the distraction and stress my ex experienced at the hands of a hurt and angry ex-girlfriend eroded the quality of time my children had with their father and it reinforced my resolve to avoid unnecessary drama.
Through The Lies of a Child
So how can a person be lied to in the ways my ex lied and not be incensed? I found it helpful to consider that lies are often born of fear. A child who has done something wrong and is scared of the consequences will lie or hide the evidence. The lie feels safer than the pain of punishment and of facing the truth.
Applying the frame of a scared child to the liars in your story can have a disarming effect that’s also healthier for you — less anger, less stress. So while you certainly do not condone the lying, you CAN reduce the negative effect it has on you.
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