Should I Meet the Other Woman/Man?
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Can you say that if you’ve had a very satisfying and fulfilling meal, that you are immune to the temptation of a desert or 2nd helping? This is ridiculous logic. Every married person needs to protect themselves from the temptation of affairs, first of all by being aware that that they are not immune, and then by learning the truth about affairs, and the subtle ‘letting down of walls’ that can lead you down their deadly path. When it comes to affairs, what you don’t know DOES hurt you.
Should I meet the other woman?
Most experts agree that it is not a wise idea to meet the other woman, yet in my case I had quite the opposite experience. I did meet the other woman and it was a very healing experience. I’m not sure if I would be healed today if I had not. “Meeting the Other Woman” is one of the chapters I receive most comments on from readers of my book, My Husband’s Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.
But what is different is my motive. My motive was not to tell the other woman off or to be mean to her in any way. Quite frankly the only reason I went to meet her is because she was a stranger to me, and I wanted to see what she looked like. It could not remain a mystery to me for the rest of my life: What was this woman like who could steal the affections of my husband after 18 years of marriage? What did she look like?
There is something to be lost from meeting the other woman if it’s not done right, and that is your own self-respect. If you go with a motive that is anything less than positive and productive, you’re putting yourself at risk. And this is where most people go wrong when they meet with the 3rd party. If you’re going because you think that the other woman/man is going to hear your side of the story, change their minds, leave your spouse alone, or say they’re sorry, you will most likely be disappointed.
The danger of telling the other woman/man bad things about your spouse in an effort to get them to not want to be with them anymore, is that they likely will be defensive and only see you as a weak person who is trying to manipulate the situation. After all, they’ll think if he/she is so bad, why do you still want to be with them?
Before I went to meet my other woman, I had already dealt with my own negative emotions towards her, and my sincere motive was to satisfy my own curiosity, to be kind, and to bring the best outcome about for my husband and myself as well as for her future. (Well, I wasn’t totally innocent. I did want to intimidate her a bit… but subtly.)
Today I look back on that meeting with a sense of humor and I do feel proud of myself. I’ve got to be the only person who would show up at the home of the woman who was planning to marry my husband with construction paper and glue for my visual aids so I could teach her a little lesson on relationships!
For me one of the greatest healing moments came in just seeing her physical appearance. I was expecting a big busted sex goddess with long flowing dark hair (like in a shampoo commercial). To my amazement and shock I was met at the door by an average looking, flat-chested brunette who looked as if she were suffering with a serious eating disorder. The betrayed spouse always thinks the 3rd party is going to be this amazingly sexy and beautiful individual, yet this is rarely case. My first thought when I met the other woman was an astonished and bewildered, “her?”
Affairs are simply not about the 3rd party being better than the spouse. They are about the 3rd party being a 3rd party. Affairs are a fantasy world. That’s why they usually fall apart when the affair begins to replace the marriage. In fact some people who leave their marriages go back and have affairs with their spouse!
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