**Disclaimer**

Two of my respected friends have told me that this story lacks “me”. So please consider this a work-in-progress. It is not the heartfelt emotional drama of a two time OW (yet), but a reportage of my two relationships with MMs to give you an idea of who is writing this book.

So here goes.

A married man I knew came after me at one thousand miles per hour. He was a reformed bad boy, my favorite kind of man. I had a strange attraction to him, a kind of dark fascination. But. He was married. And he was not at all my physical type. He was too big, too loud, too old, too fat, too overwhelming. I sat him down and told him we would not become physically involved. As I turned to leave, he pulled me to his chest and kissed me. It felt like 500 pounds of heroin coursed through my blood, and like I was a character in one of those tacky 70s movies where fireworks and kaleidoscopes explode after a kiss. My palms started sweating and my knees shook.

That kiss changed my life.

One week later he invited me to spend the night. I had rehearsed this. I told him that a relationship with him meant professional suicide for me. Is that what he wanted? I was trying to convince myself and implore him to be a faithful married man, for my sake. He told me he had not cheated in over ten years, that this was something special. I wondered if that was supposed to impress me. I did not know what I thought about marriage, fidelity or the consequences to his marriage. I had never been chased by a married man before and had never contemplated an affair. I only knew that an obsession had begun and I could not stop thinking of him. No matter what.

The best way to describe what happened is that he went in for the kill. He called me every day. I did not call back but I looked forward to those calls. It was like his voice lit me up and made me high. Soon he left for a vacation with his family. I believed that our time apart would kill the attraction. I did not stop thinking about him for more than five seconds on any given day. He called me from Florida. He was coming home a few days early. Could we meet? Yes. We could. As a matter of fact, I thought, we must.

He and I became obsessed with each other. We had a very sexual and addictive love affair for one and one half years. We spent more time together than most married couples. Because of the nature of our business, there were times when we worked together and lived in my apartment during the week, he went back to his family on Friday night, and we found a way to see each other or at least talk to each other on Sunday. We could not stay apart.

He made it clear he would never divorce his wife.

I was not happy being “a mistress”. We were each other’s emotional and sexual lifelines, yet in public I was invisible. It wasn’t that he pretended to be happily married. He was loud by nature and his rocky marriage was legendary in our industry. Still, I hid behind his façade of family man and husband to protect him, not me. When we worked together that hurt. His employees noticed him mellow and soften after we began our relationship and constantly chided that he must be getting laid again by his wife. Ouch. When we were not working together, he lived with his wife and family. I wasn’t built for this. Slowly the lows of these separations and secrets intensified and began to replace the highs. I wanted to find a way to leave this man but the mention of breaking up filled me with indescribable terror. The thought of walking away felt like death.

Within the first year of our relationship I got sober in AA and went back to therapy. As I was beginning to garner the strength to leave him (at the one and one half year mark), his wife filed for divorce. Their marriage had been dead for years, she had a new boyfriend, and she was not at all sorry to see him go.

I barely survived the six months between the time he heard of the divorce and the final, legal date. He was Divorce Monster extraordinaire. Before becoming Divorce Monster he was obsessed with me. Totally. Now, he was obsessed with his wife, his marriage, which man would park in his driveway and raise his kids, and how much money he would lose in the settlement. He ranted and raged. It was all about him all the time. He had nothing to give, yet he needed my presence and support more than ever. I was irreplaceable, on constant call yet invisible. It was misery but still I could not say goodbye.

After the divorce was final he calmed down. He bought a new house and decided to become a father. He asked for custody of his three children every weekend. I was nervous about meeting his children after hearing so many awful warnings about childrens’ reactions to daddy’s new girlfriend. Au contraire. We all adored one another immediately. They were happy that dad’s girlfriend was cool and that dad was calm around her. The first night we all slept under the same roof, his middle daughter climbed into our bed and fell asleep nestled in my arms. I lay awake for hours almost unable to believe how happy I felt.

Shortly after the divorce I met his ex-wife’s mother. Within hours she sat me down, looked me in the eyes and told me that I knew this man better than her daughter ever had. I was shocked. They had been married 20 years. She hoped we could be happy. His ex wife was either a brilliant actress or was nonplussed by my presence in his life. That almost infuriated me. I had a niggling fear. Was he the booby prize?

We set up his new house together. He had just lost his home of 20 years and vowed never to lose anything to a woman again. I was careful to let him make the house his rather than ours. Still, we picked out furniture together and I supported him on his new journey into independence.

For the next six months I was a nuclear glowbomb, glowing with the love I felt for him and his children. They all became my whole life. I wanted to be everything he needed and more than he dreamed. And I wanted to be everything his wife never was – supportive of him, a total sex goddess, successful in my career, financially independent, and just plain perfect.

We practically lived together. He did not like to fall asleep without me. If I told him I was going to sleep in my apartment he moped. He still called me three times a day. We spent every weekend with his three kids and had great fun. Our sex life was hot and intense as ever and now reached a new kind of intimacy. He and I went on a two week motorcycle vacation we had dreamt about while he was still married and I was simply happy to be with the man I loved.

It wasn’t all roses of course. He and his x-wife fought constantly. Their negative emotional bond had not lessened with the divorce, it was simply lived out within the bounds of their legal agreements. I felt like he was still married to her and that he carried her with him. I obsessed heavily about his wife. I could not stop myself and felt like I was going insane.

I know now that I was extremely unhealthy. He was my EVERYTHING and I defined myself solely through his needs. His needs. I was his healer, his angel, his mediator and his sex kitten, yet inside I had become so small. I had totally lost myself. I had been hooked for a long time on his enormous need for me, getting off on being the giver from whom he gladly took. I started to recognize that I was seriously out of balance but did not know how to change this.

As he settled into his new life I began to demand that we balance out those roles. I began to demand change.

Something wasn’t right. I became uneasy. Driving home one day a thought crossed my mind. It was very matter of fact: the only thing he could do to drive me away was cheat. Days later we were watching a movie. I was wearing sexy lingerie and his head was cradled in my lap. The phone rang. I heard the tone of his voice during that short phone call and felt a shriek well up from my belly that threatened to tear out my heart. I knew instantly. I confronted him and he lied. I *69ed the call and busted him. He denied, denied, denied. I packed my bags and left for a hotel that night.

He had been sleeping with the 24 year old furniture salesgirl we both met while picking out furniture for his children.

I know the pain of betrayal. Wives tell me that my betrayal cannot compare to the betrayal of a spouse who has fathered the children you nurtured in and outside of your body and who vowed fidelity for eternity. I can’t make comparisons, but I can say that the pain of that discovery sent me to the ground writhing. The man I loved more than life itself replaced me and never looked back. She practically moved in while my clothes were still in his bedroom drawers. I was in agony. The thought of those two together broke me in half and I could not excorsise that thought. I crawled for a long, long time.

They stayed together for the next three years. He cheated on her multiple times. Twice, after I moved out, with me.

MM #2

I was broken. I practically medivac’d myself to my childhood shrink who put me on antidepressants for the first time in our 20+ year relationship. I rented a little house in the mountains for the weekends, attacked my 12 step work with newfound dedication, and started, slowly, on the path to healing. I cried – something I had not been able to do for years. I felt a part of me die and in the horrific pain of that death felt relieved to see her go. She was Xena, the superheroine who had taken on this bad boy and thought she could change him. All along I had seen who he was. His dark side was never hidden or mysterious. I loved him anyway. Why was it a surprise that we ended this way? Harsh.

I became interested in spirituality and spent time reading, going to AA meetings, exploring nature, and learning how to be alone. I did not know how to be alone. Without him, I simply did not know who I was. I set out on a journey to find out. The pain and fear were almost debilitating, especially in my new state of sobriety. No anesthesia.

I started to hang out in a local business that was very interesting to me. I had met the owner months before and watched him “fall for me” in one of those moments that took us both by surprise. I wasn’t attracted to him, but I liked his humor and the strange characters who landed in his shop. Of course I enjoyed his attention. And of course I flirted in a sort of general way. He was a welcome and safe space in a raw and tentative time.

When the mood struck I hung out and let him entertain me. We both loved it so I became a kind of irregular regular in his shop. When too much time passed between visits he called to make sure I was OK. Within nine months he called numerous times, arrived unexpectedly at a premiere of one of my works, bought me a surprise birthday present, invited me to dinner (I declined), and treated me as if he cared.

At the nine month mark the pain of xMM was in my past, and I started to have stronger feelings for this funny, caring guy. I had never been so unsure of myself. The old me would have jumped him by now. I talked it over with my shrink and AA sponsor. I wanted to be careful but I liked him. A lot. I hung out more. We started talking on the phone regularly and he was brilliantly funny. We laughed!! Now he was very sexy. I wanted him. Early one Sunday morning, his only day off, he drove two hours to my house in the mountains to spend the day together. Just talking. I started falling hard. We had a couple of “dates” after that and felt our mutual attraction smolder.

The night I invited him in to my apartment we ended up on my floor. The man held me like no man had held me before. He did not kiss me or fondle me or try to get into my pants. He held me. He drew my head into his chest, wrapped his strong arms around me and molded his body to mine. We lay like that for hours and let ourselves feel. At one point he looked me in the eyes and said, “I want to make sure my motives are not selfish with you.” I had never heard a man check his motives when he had me on the floor like that at 2AM. I was blown away. We merged in some way that night and neither of us wanted to let go. It was incredible. At 4AM he finally left. We were in love.

When I fall in love it is total. I was giddy with glee that this amazing man had been right in front of me, simply waiting for me to open my eyes. For the first time I found words like “life’s partner” floating in my imagination. Something about him felt so right. To my utter shock I wondered, hypothetically of course, if we would have beautiful babies. From a primal place I voiced the words “The One”.

Soon after, it hit me. Oh. My. God. He’s Married. There were pieces that hadn’t fit but never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that the puzzle was a marriage. Now, as if out of nowhere, I knew. I called him and asked. He told me he would come over that night and answer my questions.

It was very late at night. We were lying in my bed, his strong arms held me tight. I inhaled him. I loved his smell. Whatever he had to tell me could not be a marriage. A live-in girlfriend? A separation? Not a marriage.

My worst fears came true. He was married and had a beautiful little baby daughter at home. My world fell apart. WHAT? I was enraged and heartbroken. I wanted to scream at the Universe for making my life such a cruel joke. His arms were the safest most loving place in my world. He had already become home. How could this be? Am I supposed to just turn away? How could I do to another woman, again, what had just been done to me? I wanted to kick him out. I wanted him to hold me and tell me it wasn’t true. I was in shock. We could not let each other go. OK. I would feel him one more night and say goodbye to being OW forever the next morning.

Well, it didn’t work out that way. He made an incredible stand for me. He begged and pleaded with me to give him some time, this was so new to him, he didn’t know which way was up or down, please don’t just go and never look back. According to him what we already shared happens only once in a lifetime. Please, he begged, don’t compare this to your last relationship. Doesn’t this deserve a chance?

NO. I left him. After four long, gutwrenching, lonely days he called me late at night. He was alone and in pain. He couldn’t eat or sleep. He did not understand why I was so quick to leave. Was there any way I could change my mind?

I was not used to disappointing a man. Any man. When I heard his pain I lost myself again. I wanted to run to him and hug him and make it alright. I wanted to hold him and be in his arms. So I did. I went to his shop and held him. Again, it felt too right. I told him we must go back to our friendship. I couldn’t do this again, no way.

That didn’t work. I wanted him. All of him. It was plain and simple. I wanted to feel him, touch him, inhale him, listen to him talk to me for hours, argue, debate, joke, laugh, climb on the back of his bike and feel his hard stomach under my tight grip with the wind in my face. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to have sex, make love, explore every inch of him with my fingers and mouth, feel his lips on mine feel his naked body wrapped around me. I wanted it all.

So I left him again.

Again he begged me. Not yet. He told his best friends he loved me. He asked me to meet them. I did not expect him to leave his wife, I simply could not endure the thought of staying. Again he implored me, don’t go. Not yet.

It was July. The seed of hope was planted. Maybe he and I were truly meant to be? Maybe this is the man who was meant to love me the way I dreamed of? I told him he had until the end of August to decide what he wanted. We did not go no contact.

Driving home from work impossibly late one night I saw his car parked in front of his business and a light burning inside. He had moved out of his house. We did not discuss it. Later, he told me he had lived there for one month.

I sat on the steps of the New York Library on a hot and humid August night clutching my cell phone like a lifeline. I already knew. He whispered that his 2 year old daughter cried every night for him to come home. He could never leave her. It was something he could not bring himself to do. He was making the right decision, even then I felt how true that was, it was just something I could not bear. He said, “I love you”. I said goodbye.

I lasted four days of no contact before I called him.

I felt differently with MM#2 than MM#1. We shared a deeper and more grounded connection. We could talk forever. He was incredibly good to me and tried as best he could to meet my needs. We had “that thang.” When we made love we made love. It was quite different from the high powered sex all the time relationship I had with #1. It wasn’t as high. It was deep. We laughed like no two other people on the planet. We shared that something extraordinary that is shared by all people who fall in love in that way.

He and I loved to talk. He called me the minute he got to work and several times throughout the day. Sometimes it was to report something funny that just happened. Sometimes it was to hear my voice. Sometimes it was about the news. And I called him for the same reasons. When he wasn’t busy, we would talk for hours each day, about everything. At night, I would jump on the back of his bike and he’d take me to our favorite spot. It was a park bordering the river where they had built wooden lounge chairs for couples just like us. There I would curl up next to him, my head on his chest, and we’d keep talking. Sometimes we would stop talking and it was all I could do not to jump him right there. He told me it was important to him that we didn’t “just have sex” when we saw each other. He didn't want me to feel that's why he was there.

It was because of the beauty of what we shared that I plummeted fast and furiously into that indescribable pain of living as the Other Woman. I did not want the man I loved to have a wife. It was that simple. I had been through it before, so recently, and could not endure it.

Finding the Board

You all know me as emerald. I arrived on TOW as eileen, my real name. I was desperate. It was 8 months since he and I had fallen in love. Although I was not nearly as obsessed and addicted to him as I was to MM#1, I still could not leave him. He was a piece of me that was too painful to leave behind.

I had started to hate myself for all of it. I hated myself for revisiting that pain, for not being able to leave, for not kicking him out the minute I found out he was married, and I was terrified that this kind of pain was my destiny. Would I be an OW for life? If so, I had to make peace with it.

When I found TOW I had one goal and one goal only: learn to love myself more than I loved him. I was driven to learn this from a place I did not know existed within me.

I walked the journey from being “His OW” to becoming My Own Woman publicly and openly. That journey consisted of focusing every last bit of my energy on me. It was a long-term exercise in total self-absorption.

Self-absorption meant many things. First, it meant learning how to validate and celebrate the love we shared. That was hugely, hugely important, and difficult faced with the ignorant, negative stereotypes of EMRs that knocked me flat every time I turned to a book or a website for help.

Self-absorption also meant revisiting a crazy, abusive childhood I thought I had left behind. I dove into therapy again and confronted the simple truth that I had learned to be my father’s emotional mistress at the age of five and had been doing a damned good job of staying a mistress up to the age of 36. This is how I learned to love men. It was my hardwiring.

So, self-absorption meant rewiring. It meant unearthing all of the negative beliefs I had learned about myself, about feeling unloveable, competing for love, not trusting love, not feeling deserving, etc., and slowly replacing them with new beliefs I had yet to discover. It meant learning how to replace the love of this man with self love built from other sources. The spiritual trip I started proved to offer the most. It meant learning how to face pain and walk through fears I did not think I had the courage to navigate. But most important, it meant learning how to forgive and love, truly forgive and love, everyone and most of all, me.

None of it was fun. As a matter of fact, it sucked.

Starting Over

I have separated from xMM#2 and have not been in love with him for quite awhile. What we share has been strong enough to endure some extremely difficult transitions and we will probably be in some kind of contact forever. Yes, I love him, but he is not my desired mate.

Since arriving at TOW I have been involved with two other men. I tried a relationship with a Single Guy for one year. I did not fall in love with him but he taught me untold lessons in loving myself.

This past January I met a man in another country. He was a friend of one of my favorite women on this board. He and I connected in a way I had never before experienced – not with either MM. That thrilled me. Yes, I can connect with a man again in the way I had with #2. Yes! And even better.

Given my recent past, I was protected with this man. I was ecstatic to have these feelings, but certainly not thinking of a future or a relationship. To me he was a summer fling in the middle of winter. He spoke of love. I rolled my eyes inside. What a newbie!

He would not let go. After I returned home, he hunted my heart with fervor and fury. He called two or three times a day, building a picture of a life he wanted to share with me that was beyond my wildest dreams. He spoke words I never knew I yearned to hear. I was THE ONE, he said. We were meant to be together – we had met our match – this was everything he had always desired. Would I come back to his country to give us a chance? He happened to be very wealthy man. As the calls intensified my walls crumbled. My heart opened wide and he was there. I had never felt this before. No, I didn’t know him. But yes, his dreams were my dreams, too. He had the means to make them come true. All I had to do was say yes and dare to give us a chance. It felt incredible!

Well. I told him to show me his sincerity with specific actions rather than words. I needed him to put meet me at the top, for real - now,- or not at all. There would be no more waiting for any man. I thought he would. It had been his idea in the first place! He was taken aback by my intensity. He was shaken by the power behind my words. He retreated. He called a few times and disappeared without a word. Gone.

Oh, the heartbreak. Oh, Oh, Oh. I hit the rocks hard. His disappearance was entirely unexpected. I felt like I was standing in an empty room after open heart surgery and again, no anesthesia. How did I get here? What was the point? How could I find the will and the strength to make it through this and still be open to love again?

Again I healed. It was the hardest and deepest healing of all. I did not call him to ask for answers. By walking alone – with my friends and spiritual teachers - I finally learned who I am and that I will never again settle for less than what I want. I know that I love myself today and that I want it all. I want my match, at the top. He’ll arrive when it’s time or he won’t. Either way life is phenomenal.

As of this writing, I am single and really, really happy.

Thank you for being here and sharing this with us. I didn't know.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Dreadfully painful but hopefully filled with new knowledge in order to help you move beyond having to experience such traumatic relationships.

Hi Emerald,
I'm a writer who's working on a piece for a major women's magazine about "the other woman." Your story is so beautifully told, and I see you're working on a book, so was wondering if you'd like to put something out there on a smaller scale to test the waters?
Please email me and I'll tell you more.
Thanks!
Gen
gen@genevievefield.net