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Our Obligation to Women as Women

30 November 2008 421 views No Comment

Women's obligation There are two schools of thought on the burden of guilt with regard to the other woman. There are those who think that the only person who owes you faith and loyalty is your partner. And then there are those, like me, who feel that as women, we should have a faith and loyalty to each other. I’m not saying the man shouldn’t shoulder the blame. He should. But, it is my belief, that when the other woman knows of your existence, that she should bare some of the responsibility for your broken heart.

We all complain about men and their cheating. It is my firm belief that we, women, could almost eliminate the issue, if we would stop being willing participants. In fact, I feel that we have an obligation to women as women, not to knowingly participate in betrayal in another woman’s relationship.

Go ahead, call me a dreamer. But I don’t think I’m so unrealistic. I refuse to believe that this is something that we women will do to each other forever. To quote Barack Obama, my current favorite person in the world, “Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.” Through the centuries, people have been telling women about all of the things they can’t do. Well, I resent being told that this is something we can’t do. It’s so easy. If you know that somebody is in a relationship, don’t start a relationship with that person. If you start a relationship with a new guy, and find out later that he already has a mate, end the relationship. I feel like we need the Staples “Easy” button for this. It’s that simple.

I know we’d never get rid of cheating 100%… There will always be those guys who lie. Wedding rings come off, we all know that. But consider this dismaying observation: Most people who are cheating with somebody who is having an affair, already know that person is in a relationship.

Many, many women don’t see this the way I do. In their opinion, the only person who has made a commitment to the relationship is the man, and she, the other woman, owes his partner nothing. I find this phenomenon fascinating, in fact, a long time ago, I explored the idea of writing a book on the subject. Dean McDermott’s ex-wife beat me to it, but still, my research was intriguing. What I found, from random surveys, is that most women who are sleeping with another woman’s partner have justified it in their heads.

The justifications are always the same. The man is the one doing the cheating. She has made no commitment to his partner, so why should she worry about her feelings? The guys’s wife/girlfriend deserves it. She never pays attention to him, she’s controlling, she’s let herself go, she never gives him any sex. He’s one of her ex-boyfriends, and she had him first. She didn’t know about the girlfriend or wife when she started the relationship, and once she found out, she just couldn’t give him up… I could go on and on and on. But I think these excuses are just that. Excuses, and bad ones at that. Excuses that we make up to justify our own unsavory behavior.

What ever happened to love thy neighbor? What ever happened to treat others the way you want to be treated? Karma? Or how about respect and dignity for other people as people? I’m no hypocrite. As I write this, I can honestly say that I have never coveted another woman’s man. I realize I might sound very pious and holier-than-thou to many of you. But I’m not. I’m not a perfect person by any means. But this has always been something I just won’t do. I think it’s an incredibly selfish act, and personally, I don’t want to be responsible for making another woman feel the actual physical pain and heartbreak that comes with discovering that your partner is having an affair.

When I was 25 years old, I married Dan, a boyfriend I had been living with for over two years. We had, I thought, a very good relationship. We trusted each other implicitly and we seldom fought. I was in no hurry to get married, but he proposed to me on his own, and I accepted. We had a large wedding in front of virtually every person I knew. All of my friends, family, and co-workers were in attendance. We took a honeymoon to Hawaii.

When we returned from Hawaii, Dan went off on a 3 day dirt bike trip with his friends. When he came back, he told me that we needed to talk. He told me that he felt like he had made a mistake in getting married and that he hadn’t been ready. I felt dizzy and nauseous. Then he dropped the bombshell. He told me he was in love with somebody else. That he wanted to get divorced. He didn’t want to go to counseling, or even talk about it. He had been thinking about it all weekend and he had made up his mind. I went into the bathroom and threw up.

Naturally, I wanted to know why. No answer. Crickets, actually. He just kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but that he couldn’t help who he fell in love with. I wanted to know who she was, he wouldn’t tell me. I wanted to know why he didn’t tell me this before, oh, say, we got married in front of 200 of our closest friends and family members. He didn’t know until this weekend, he said. I packed a bag full of my stuff, took my cat Mr. Toad, and went to stay at my best friend’s house.

As you would expect, everyone was shocked. It was the single most humiliating and degrading experience of my life. Worse than the shock and outrage was the sympathy. “Poor Shannon…. She never saw it coming.” “Poor Shannon…. We knew that guy was bad news from the beginning…”

His mother called me to tell me she was disowning him. That she couldn’t believe a son she had raised would do such a thing. That she would always love me as a daughter. I sobbed into the phone. I took 3 weeks off of work, which I spent lying in bed crying. I couldn’t face anybody. When I did go back to work, I had to leave my desk about a hundred times a day to lock myself in a bathroom stall and sob. I decided I was going to be an old maid, and I bought a brother for Mr. Toad. The new kitten, Mr. Piggy completed my transition into complete and total cat-lady.

About a week after Dan’s stunning revelation, I went to our house with my mom while I knew he was at work to get my mail. In the mailbox, amongst the stacks of utility bills and junk mail, was a post card. On the post card, in a pink pen, was written “Dear Dan, Here’s the post card you told me to send. Thank you for an amasing (sic) week. You are such an amasing (sic) person and I love you. XOXO Wendy.”

I stared at the post card for a couple of minutes. It was one of those free ones that hotels give out. It had some hotel on the front, I can’t remember which one anymore. My blood started to boil. I didn’t know if I wanted to scream or sob or laugh hysterically. Amazing? I could think of other words for him. Why had my husband left me for somebody who couldn’t even spell the word “amazing” correctly? Twice? Wendy… where did I know that name? I knew somebody with that name. Who was it? But worst of all…. Why was this woman sending love note post cards to MY house? Where I would get them and be able to read them?

I called Dan in a fury. Turns out, his girlfriend, Wendy, didn’t believe him that he had left me. To prove it, he had allowed her to send a post card to our house, telling her that if I hadn’t moved out, I’d get it, and if he hadn’t really left his wife he wouldn’t risk such a thing. I couldn’t believe that either one of them was so un-concerned with my feelings. Dan knew I came there to get the mail. Wendy sent the thing knowing that if I didn’t already know about her, I’d know now.

Two weeks after that, I went to our house to get some more of my things. I went into our bedroom to get some things from my closet, and found naked pictures of Wendy all over the place. Ones she had given him. “Professional Modeling Portraits” taken at some place called, get this, the Rusty Cock Ranch. Wendy looked like the wrestler, China. She had at least 75lbs on me. She had jet black hair with two thick white stripes bleached through it, countless tattoos and body piercings… And she was posing naked for a photographer. It was like he had gone out and found the exact opposite of me and fallen in love with her. It was awful. And not only had they done this to me, they were now rubbing their relationship in my face. Leaving those pictures out when he knew I was coming to collect me things. The post card, all of it. It was almost too much for me to handle.

Later, I realized that I knew Wendy. Dan was a personal trainer, and Wendy worked the front desk at his gym. I had even met her once. Everyone at that gym knew that Dan and I were engaged, many of them attended our wedding. I found out eventually that Dan and Wendy had been carrying on before we were married. Either one of them could have said something to me, could have stopped the wedding, could have spared me the humiliation and pain of it all, of being divorced two weeks after I got married. But they didn’t. Why? I can think of only one reason: Pure and unadulterated egotism and cowardice.

So, I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for the other woman, if she knows what is going on. I have nothing but sympathy for women who are duped into dating married men unknowingly—if they end the relationship when they find out. But for those who do it with their eyes wide open, I feel like it is an unbelievably selfish act. I think it is done to boost up low self-confidence, for the thrill of the chase, to make her feel good about herself. All the while tearing apart another woman’s heart and self esteem. And I don’t think anybody deserves that kind of pain.

Ladies, wake up! You should not be consistently calling, emailing, hanging out alone with, flirting with, or spending time alone with some other girl’s boyfriend, husband, or fiancé. Nor should you be exchanging flirty emails at work, going on lunch dates, or going out after work for a drink alone with them.

In my opinion, Dan, and all people who cheat on their partners, are really just a sufferers of “the grass is always greener” complex. Did Wendy really think she kept up her lawn that much better than I kept mine? I watered that thing daily. So, to Wendy, I say “Somebody else’s grass will always be greener than yours. You were just being used. And in the process, you treated another innocent women (me) like crap. I hope moles dig up your yard, and your grass turns brown and dies.”

And in the end, Wendy’s grass did turn brown and die. She and Dan broke up shortly after our divorce was finalized. And I got my happily ever after. I have an absolutely dashing fiancé who respects what I have been through and loves me unconditionally, despite my two cats. Wendy and Dan? Currently both single.

And as for the baggage this whole experience left me with, well, I boxed up most of it, including that appalling postcard, and I flung it into the sea. The rest, I keep with me, as a lesson learned in human kindness and karma. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Don’t tear others down to build yourself up. What goes around comes around.

So ladies, stop the insanity. Stop participating in this madness. And don’t forget—inner ugliness is the worst possible trait a person can have. Don’t be inner ugly. Help find a cure. Don’t be an eager participant in the game of disloyalty. If we all band together, if we all remain true to our obligation to each other, as women, and as human beings, we can, at the very least, put a dent in the tragedy that is infidelity.