The Other Woman Dear Betrayed Wife, I am the other woman. By admitting that, I know I am the one person that truly and most easily deserves your hatred and your spite. I know I am a source of your anger and contempt. I am a huge source of your pain. Essentially, I am the person that is largely responsible for the ache in your heart that seems like it will never go away. I am quite certain you must periodically wish that I had never existed. Of course, I am making a huge presumption; I can hardly even begin to understand what things must look like on your side of the equation. However, when I start to put myself in your shoes, I can begin to imagine. When I put myself in your shoes, I have a tenderness that starts to enfold around my heart and chest. Often, I have thought that your life would be so much better if I were dead. If that were the case, you wouldn't have had to endure the nightmare of knowing what I stole from you. I have taken so much from you. By having an affair with your husband, a knife was stuck in your back. And I have to confess – I was the one holding the knife. All the while, I never thought of you. I only thought of myself. While you were making meals, taking your kids to school, ironing your husband's clothes, and running yourself ragged like any good wife and mother does to keep your family and household running, it was me who was stealing from you – behind your back and right under your nose. I flat-out lied to your face. I pretended I was your friend. I pretended I cared. I did this for months. I was the one enticing your husband away. Only a hypocrite would do something so callous, and that hypocrite was me. I wore the mask of "just friends" with your husband for many months. I'm certain I was so good at this charade that even you believed it. Surely, no one could betray you in the ways that I have. While you were at work, I was flirting with your husband. Many afternoons in his office, his phone calls were to me; they should have been to you. I soaked up the attention like a sponge. But the attention wasn't mine for the taking. You were the one that deserved it – that needed it. Add that to the long list of things I have taken from you. When you were spending weekends visiting your dying dad, I was doing the unthinkable. I was seducing your husband. I am that woman. And thinking of that brings such shame. As women, there is a code of honor and integrity that says that we are comrades, sisters, and friends. We are both wives and mothers, doing the very best we can to keep marriage, jobs, and families running. Even if I didn't know you very well, in theory, I was supposed to be your friend. I was supposed to be the one looking out for you. I was supposed to have your back. I did none of those things. Instead of supporting you, I betrayed you. If the tables were turned, I'm sure you would have never done to me what I have done to you. I had no right to cross those lines and take what wasn't mine. In doing what I did for the months leading up to discovery, I not only abandoned my own marriage, but I walked straight into the sacredness of your marriage and shattered it. In one fell swoop, I jumped off the cliff of abandoned emotions and took so many people down with me – including you. It has taken me a long time to want to confess any of this to you, or to even face my feelings about you. To be honest, it is taking me a long time to become healthy enough to put into words what I know I need to say to you. It would be far easier in my mind if I could just pretend you didn't exist. However, I did what I did, and now I must own up to my transgressions. You do exist. You are a human being that deserves far more than my betrayal. You are now a part of my healing journey, and I have to face you and confess. Every night in my mind and in my heart, there you are. I will never deserve your forgiveness for what I took from you. I won't even ask for that. Having an affair with your husband was so very wrong. As much as it hurts to speak of it, I at least owe you this because no one deserves what I did to you. I have given you shame and disgrace in exchange for a few months of fantasy with someone that was yours. Not mine. He was your husband. I even wounded your kids. Kids who only wanted a dad who could be devoted to their mom. I stole that from them with my incessant need for attention. I know my words, my name, and any image of me, likely stirs up a lot of emotion and pain for you. I know I can never take back what I did to you, nor can I undo the damage. As I work to rebuild and restore my own marriage, I do want you to know how much I think of you. You merit so much more than a meek apology from me. I deserve everything you bestow upon me, but the remarkable thing is that you probably won't hold onto that anger or hurt. You will heal. You will go on to live a remarkable life because that's who you are. All I can offer you is evidence of my sadness, my regret, and my commitment to my own healing. In my own brokenness, I broke you. Like chards of glass all over the floor, my own brokenness cut you and injured you. You suffer because of me. As I offer you my confession and repentance, I no longer will wallow in shame, as that would mean I stay selfish and stuck – susceptible to hurting others. Instead, I offer a release from what happened. I hope you can be free of me, and all my sins against you. I hate what I did, and I hate what it did to you. In time, please take what you can from me, and I hope and trust God is big enough to set us both free. In kindness, Elizabeth
