A Kiss and A Promise: What The Other Woman Should Know About The Married Man

Whether he is currently with his wife, plans to divorce her, separated from her, or says he doesn’t love her, whatever his issue he is married and there is nothing you can do about it. Now you may say that you could tell her about the affair, send some photos, write an email, or arrange to meet her, but why? It’s not like she will leave him alone, for some women they enjoy the challenge, the fight, and the drama. She is his wife, she is conditioned by the vows she took to be with him in sickness and in health and until death do they part, what vows have you taken to be with him? What support do you have while being in this relationship? Who will defend you when he, she or they have wronged you? No one likes the “other woman,” no one. She isn’t invited to the family meeting when there is a crisis, included in the family events that matter, called when her man is in trouble, or updated on the latest family happenings. This is only the short list of what the typical “other woman” experiences.

Most women never intended to be “the other woman,” she came into the relationship with an open heart and mind, willing to embrace her man’s shortcomings, and socialize with his family whether they liked her or not. However, someone tells her about his past or she finds out about his wife in a way that hurts like a bad cramp in the pit of her stomach. Her world comes crashing down, “he’s married!” It doesn’t matter that he is separated, it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t slept with her since 88…he’s married, she thinks. So she wonders when will he get a divorce, or will he ever get one. She nags, pleads, begs, manipulates, cries, loves and anything else to get this unavailable man to reassure her that everything will be okay, but he doesn’t. Rather, he defends his actions, assumes she already knew, or makes it seem as if it isn’t any big deal.

She has arrived at a crossroads in her life, one where she will walk right to dismiss this unavailable man or left hoping for the day he will marry her. If she chooses to turn left, she will cry many tears, deal with emotional and in some cases physical abuse and never come to the place of peace she so desires. It’s time for the other woman to realize her worth to become number one! She will have to begin taking small steps until her sentences are no longer “we” but “I.” She will begin each day not with “he,” or “him,” but “I!” She will declare, “I will love me whether I have a man or not!” She will plan her life according to the new “I” she has met. When she speaks with family and friends gradually she will remove the “ he” or “him” in her conversations and state the “I.” Those around her will be relieved! Finally, a conversation without discussing “him” or “he,” they will think.

As she realizes what she must do to be in love with “I,” she will need to take the time to evaluate whether this man is serious about a divorce, making false promises to keep her, or is strongly considering on getting back with his wife.

I wrote this article because I have been the wife who knew and didn’t know, the potential other woman, the woman who didn’t know I was the other woman, and the other woman. Get ready to agree to disagree, be offended, or set free from your situation as you continue to read – it’s all up to you.

I experienced my first wake-up call in my early twenties when I was approached by a man who didn’t care that he was married. I say didn’t care, because later I learned that the man I exchanged numbers with was married and he put his sister up to calling me. His reason, because he couldn’t call me at the time he had promised, “he was busy doing something for his wife.” Imagine the shock I must have felt, I asked her, “Why would she agree to contact me knowing her brother was married?” She attempted to assure me that their relationship was ending. I had enough sense in my “terrible twenties” to politely tell her to tell him not to call me anymore. I say terrible twenties, because far too many unavailable men in midlife crisis were approaching me attempting to make my twenties terrible and a few actually succeeded. I told her that she shouldn’t be doing any “favors” for her brother. To that she said, she loved him and wasn’t bothered by what she was doing since she didn’t like his wife. I had learned young that sisters will go to great lengths for their cheating brothers if there is something in it for them. I guess later on her brother owed her a favor.

There were other married men who I would later encounter in person, over the phone and via the Internet and all of them would say the same things “my wife and I are separated, I am filing for a divorce, we can’t get along, she is such a b*tch,” etc. However, they could only make false promises to keep me interested. Their actions regarding their involvement with their wife didn’t provide me with the security I needed that said they were over the “wife from hell.” So I managed to stay clear away from these men for years. Each one of them still communicated with their wives, went out on dates every now and then and some still slept with them, invited the wives to family functions, and most of all, there was never any final paperwork of their divorce settlement. So that’s when it hit me, these men aren’t interested in nothing more than a midlife crisis fling since most who approached me were between 40 and 55 years old. A couple of these conniving men who claimed they were divorced, I did date, and unfortunately learned the hard way that they still had very real feelings for their wives that they simply couldn’t get over. I say learned the hard way, because you tend to learn more about a man the more you give of yourself and I gave far too much of myself, mind, body, money, and time to find out about these “feelings” they still had for their wives. I guess they realized the grass isn’t greener over on the other side and maybe they came to the realization that they really were in some sort of crisis.

I have read stories of men leaving their menopausal wives for younger women only to discover later, after the fun died down, that they should have never left in the first place. Unfortunately, there are those men who learned too late, after they created midlife babies with “the other woman.” For many of them, there is no going back to their wives. So they lean on their children, hoping their existence will make up for the mistakes they made when they left their wife and ease the guilt within. Others don’t even bother to analyze their actions they just, ignore the wife, take the bitter with the sweet, and either stick it out with their younger sweethearts or find yet another young woman to have fun. Then there are those who do return home to their wives only to end up cheating on her yet again since her acceptance told him “it’s okay, I still love you.”

When I questioned other married men, those who were too young for a midlife crisis, on why they were no longer with their wives, they usually answered with, “I fell out of love with her” or “I was bored with her. We grew apart. She was insecure.” They always seemed to place blame on the wife and the only time they would mention taking any accountability for their part in the broken relationship was if their wives caught them in a lie. They may have lied about money, another woman, unemployment, children, or some other issue, so when they couldn’t get around the truth they had to fess up.

Married men have a bad habit of stringing the new women in their lives along. They “kiss and make promises” as one married man told me. Although living separated from his wife for over 18 years and living with “the other woman,” he explained to me that he had never got a divorce because he knew that one day his wife would die and everything that he invested in the relationship would ultimately be his one day (he was speaking of material wealth of course.) He reasoned his actions by asking me, “Why would he marry the woman he was with that had already waited for him for 18 years, she could wait 18 more? That’s why I gave her a kiss and a promise. ” She doted a promise ring for about ten years with no promise of a wedding date. I felt obligated to sound the alarm on this issue of a “kiss and a promise” for those women who think that the married man will divorce his wife of over 10 years plus and then marry you. The likely hood of this happening is slim. There are too many men looking at the financial stakes involved when one has been married for over ten years. Why marry you with nothing, when he can stay married and have something? The choice is ultimately up to you, stay and be miserable as the “other woman” or be with someone who will love and respect you as “the one and only woman.”

Although it takes time for any relationship to come to an end, if you are with a man who is married, separated, or waiting on his divorce to be finalized, consider the following: if he hasn’t done it when he said he will do it, he won’t be doing it, if he is 40 plus and you are ten years younger or more then, most likely you are a product of his midlife crisis, if you don’t have as much or more than his wife to offer financially then he isn’t in any rush to divorce, and most of all if he has children with his wife and none with you, then he may fear what would happen if he does divorce his wife and losing the children is not an option for men who sincerely love their children. There are many other things to consider when dealing with these married men who have not resolved their past issues, including dealing with his family who isn’t interested in accepting you because you are “the other woman” and they rather settle with what is familiar “the wife.”

So to the young women in their twenties and the old women who should know better, I say, listen to that voice who says “he is too old, he is married, he still loves his wife, he and his wife are very good friends” that is all you need to know to make a wise decision, “Run, look the other way, he isn’t my type.” And mean what you say. As for those in it, as someone once told me, “You have a choice.” What’s yours?

By Nicholl McGuire