Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

By: AG Staff (August 1, 2009)

Unless you’re emotionally senseless and just outright immoral, any woman who has ever found herself being the other woman in a relationship will be quick to admit that it is/was the lowest point in her life. She would tell you if she had to do it all over again, she would think twice, then three times as hard, before even considering being with a man who has made it clear that you come second to another. Several judgments and conclusions have been reached with regards to women “content” with being the other woman, but one thing is clear: You need to be in a really dark and undecided place to be with someone else’s man. You may have just discovered your husband cheated on you, and now everything you thought was real is just an illusion. You may have just gotten out of a relationship and are seeking validation in another man – to feel worthy. You may have believed a man when he told you there will never be another like you. You may have trusted a man to a point that you never even thought he was capable of cheating on his wife/girlfriend, so if he was doing so, then it must mean that he really was working on getting out of that relationship.

Do any of these reasons sound like you or someone you know? Then read on. The stories below are of women who were brave enough to share their stories with Afrikan Goddess. Here are the questions we asked to guide you:

Why did you stay in the relationship?
What are some of the things he kept telling you?
Did you really believe he was going to leave his wife/fiancé/girlfriend for you?
What made you leave the relationship (if you have)?
Would you do it again knowing what you know now (if you have left the relationship)?

Amma (Ghana): I always prided myself in being a morally upright person. I detest women who go after other women’s husbands – no matter what the situation may be. Yet, somehow, I found myself being the other woman in a brief reunion with my ex. I justified it because he was not married to his girlfriend and the two had only been dating about a month. I know. I fell on the sword of my own self-righteousness. To make matters worse, I was married at the time though briefly separated from my husband! Its okay, you can go ahead and judge me, but know that I have already made peace with myself and with my God.

My ex and I had remained friends after our breakup, and I foolishly told him things I should have kept in my marriage, partly because I sincerely believed he was being there as a friend who had my best interest at heart. It turns out he had a very different agenda. He used the discourse in my marriage to manipulate my emotions. Occasionally, he would take me on a trip down memory lane of the good times we had once shared. I trusted him so much. I believed he could never tell a lie!

Then it happened! I found out about my husband’s affair, and going back to my ex seemed justified, and a safe place to belong. At the time we started seeing each other again, my ex had just met his girlfriend. He convinced me that but for the fact that he was the one who had approached her, he would leave, and that he couldn’t just break up with her because “she had not wronged him in anyway.” This left me with the impression that the first mistake on her part would be his ticket to freedom.

I began banking my hopes on the fact that she would screw up so he could leave. I even admired him for being so “principled” when in actual fact I was being strung along like a common whore!

I really believed that he would eventually leave her because he never ceased to let me know how much I meant to him and what he wouldn’t do to make me happy... We spent a lot of time together.

It was double agony because I had just been cheated on (I was already feeling worthless), and now I found myself playing a backstage role to the man who had sold me in on a better, safer place in his arms.

I have made many mistakes in my life, but this experience tops all regret of regrets. It is the point at which I knew I was being fed leftovers; and yet I felt helpless and unable to get out. I wanted to leave so bad because I knew I deserved better. But, there was this strong and false hope that had taken a strong hold of my senses. It kept me holding on to the false belief that he was only temporarily divided and if I was patient, things would work themselves out. It got to a point where my focus was on getting him to leave her.

I eventually summoned the courage to break loose, but at that point my self-esteem had suffered a severe blow. I had such an unfaltering faith in him to the point that I was blinded to the fact that behind the masquerade of his professed friendship and undying love for me, he was slowly, and knowingly, killing my spirit by playing two sides of the fence. That was not love, and it definitely was not friendship! Only a man trying to destroy a woman’s spirit would put her through such agony.

The affair lasted all but three months, and yet it was enough to be labeled the worst three months of my adult life. My sense of self-worth was shot; I was hesitant to show my face in places where I was sure to bump into people we both knew. I felt like people had heard what a low-life “begging for scraps” scumbag I was. I shut myself out for a very long time. I eventually cut him out of my life completely and I have been recovering since. Today I am completely at peace with myself. I’m in a much better place. I have a new understanding of the hurt women go through. I understand how easy it is for an intelligent, self-sufficient woman to end up delegating herself to playing the role of the woman in hiding while there is one who gets to be shown in public.

Akinyi (Kenya): I had just broken an engagement with my fiancé of six years, so a sister was feeling pretty battered and shaken up when I started seeing Anthony. I guess you can say Anthony was the rebound guy who wound up playing me. Anthony had been a friend of mine for about ten years. We knew each other from back home in Kenya before we moved to the UK. I knew about the girls he was dating, but I also knew he liked me a lot. What started out as a friend lending a shoulder to cry on turned into a sexual relationship that provided some comfort from the loss I had just experienced. Anthony, at the time told me he was casually seeing another woman who lived about an hours drive away from him. He swore he felt nothing for her and was going to break it off because I was what he needed and wanted. The sex was good, and so were the sporadic times we spent together.  I later came to find out that that’s exactly all it was – I was just a booty call for when his girlfriend was not in town. He swore the two of them were not even sleeping together and I believed him. He told me the girl was forcing herself on him and that he did not like her enough to want to pursue a serious relationship with her, and I believed him.

It took a lot for me to finally leave the relationship, but I eventually did and I have never looked back. I admit that I failed to deal with the broken engagement to my fiancé, and that I was trying to avoid facing the real issues by seeking comfort in another man’s arms. I have since found a home church and have started attending church service regularly. It has been a tremendous help in the healing process. Of course, Anthony continues to confess his undying love for me but I have heard it all before, and can now ignore his phone calls and voicemails.

Renee (Liberia): When I met Ben, I was convinced we were meant to be together that it didn’t bother me that he was engaged to be married. He convinced me, and I strongly believed that she was not right for him. After all, his wife-to-be was back home in Liberia and I was living about 10 minutes away from him. I had the upper hand, as far as I was concerned. There was no way we could not make it work. Let me tell you how convinced I was that we were meant to be, I would go to church and pray that God get rid of this other woman. I hated her and was mad at her all the time for having met Ben before I did. He told me he did not love her and that he loved me and wanted to be with me. He told me that he had regretted his choice to be married to her the moment he met me. I had fallen head over heels in love, and I would have believed to this day that he was mine had I not come across an open email between the two of them that fateful rainy night when he forgot to log off his computer! It hit me like a heavy blow to the chest. For a brief moment I could not breathe and I thought I was headed for my grave. Even after I found the email, he tried to explain it as nothing. He said he had to tell her the things in the email because the girl was suicidal and he didn’t want to be responsible for her death. Plus his family was pressuring him to marry the girl and he needed time to sort things out.

Two months after I found the strength to walk away (it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life because I was so in love with him. I felt like I would never be the same again) I saw pictures of their wedding. He went back to Liberia to marry this girl and I saw pictures from a mutual friend. My heart broke and it was like a knife had been put in my chest and twisted to cause my slow and painful death. They looked so happy. He was grinning and laughing non-stop, picture after picture. And he told me he was being forced to marry her. It looked to me like he went very willingly. I have hated him for a very long time! How could he? I would say to any woman is you meet a man and he even gives you the slightest hint that he is involved with another woman, run for your life! It never ends well. He will keep tagging you along while he goes back and forth between the two of you. You will have your heart broken time and time again. I would never do it again knowing what I know now.

Arewa (Nigeria):  Stephen and I were friends first and then our friendship got to a point where we both became so close that it was easy to cross the line. I tried to stop it, but I guess not hard enough. I never even bothered to find out much about his marriage, and he never talked about leaving her (I never asked him to either) and I really never expected it. In fact, I pushed it out of my head that he was really even married, we worked together so we saw each other every day both at work and outside of work.

His wife later began to suspect that he was cheating on her and this is when he started to withdraw slowly. I have known the heartache that goes along with dating someone you work with, and someone who’s married. The distance that was developing between us was becoming harder and harder to deal with, I eventually looked for and got a new job elsewhere. This led to us seeing even lesser of each other. I was devastated and didn’t know what to do. It’s been a year since we last saw or spoke to each other and I feel so empty inside. I am a Christian, and I am so wracked with guilt. I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t seem to forgive myself. I don’t know if his wife ever found out, but I feel bad in case she did. I never intended to date a married man. I just developed a likeness for him so fast, and to a point where it was difficult to think straight and to care that he was even married. It took me a while to admit to myself that I actually fell in love with Stephen. The hardest part has been to put this incident and him behind me, but I can’t. He never promised me anything.  He never mentioned his wife when we were together and his actions told me that he loved me. I hope to slowly recover, but I can’t help hating myself for what I did, what I put myself through, and what I may have done to his wife. I miss him, but I have tried very hard to stay away from him, and he has not once reached out to me after I left the company. He begged me not to go when I told him I was leaving, but he gave me nothing to hold on to. He reached out to me the night of my last day at work and said he wished things were different. That was the last time I heard anything from him. I will tell my fellow women, please, please, please, when a man tells you he is (or you know or find out a man) married, please stay as far away as possible from him. It never resorts to anything good. Stop it before you end up a wretch like me!

Anima (Ghana): I met him at a friend’s party and he told me right from the beginning that he was married and they were having problems and his wife had left the house. We started a friendship and later started to date even though we lived states apart (he lived in California and I live in Texas). Later, I found out that he and his wife were trying to reconcile and that’s when I snapped. I found out that his wife did not know about me so I wanted to make myself known. So, I found her number and called her to introduce myself. It didn’t end very well.

I had already developed a likeness for him and it was hard to let him go but he kept telling me that he did not love her and that he wanted to be with me and I believed him. To cut a long story short, I asked him to move to Texas to be close to me and he refused. He kept telling me stories. Meanwhile he and his wife were trying to work things out. I was hurt, but I knew I had to let go even though he would call me and tell me that he did not love his wife but was just with her because of his “situation.” At first I believed him but it finally became clear that I could wait for as long as I wanted to; he was not going to leave her. It has not been easy because the last time I spoke to him was only about two weeks ago. My heart hurts all the time and I wish I had never gotten myself into this situation. He keeps talking about how his wife is a good person and he doesn’t want to hurt her but he can afford to hurt me. He does not love me, he only loves himself and that’s for sure.

Marian (Sierra Leone): I dated a man for a year and later found out that he was married the whole time he was dating me. When I found out, I had already fallen head over heels in love with this man so that even though I felt badly betrayed, I did not leave. Thus began another two years of a relationship that was full of lies, betrayal and deceit. I felt bad for his wife when in actual fact I should have been feeling bad for myself. He kept telling me he was going to leave his wife but the day never seemed to be right. Eventually, I did some digging of my own and found out that the whole time he was telling me they were in divorce proceedings, he was lying to me and had never filed for divorce and neither had she. It took a lot of soul searching for me to accept that this man was nothing but full of it. I was eventually able to leave and move on but my dignity and pride were hurt and I still hurt over it sometimes. He is now separated from his wife (from what I hear) and I silently rejoice over that sometimes. No woman should ever have to settle for such degradation! I have since not been able to trust another man!

Dalaja (Mauritius): I was the other woman in my husband’s relationship with his ex-wife for a long long time. Just as I was getting ready to give up waiting for things to go my way, they separated. The separation gave us a chance to move in together and bond. He eventually divorced his wife and we got married. His ex-wife is still a part of his life because they have two children together and he says he wants her to remain a part of his children’s lives. I am not too happy with this arrangement, but I have come to accept that and she is not a threat to me in any way because he really cannot even stand her.

The children have lived with us since he got divorced and we have since had two children of our own. I will admit that it was not a good situation because like I said before, there were times when I was getting ready to walk away. Things just worked out for us and we are a very happy family. I guess he and his wife were really not meant to be. He reminds me every day of how grateful he is that I came into his life and made him see that he was in a bad marriage. He praises me for my patience all the time. I’m glad I got my husband at the end of the day. People of course were not happy with the situation at first, especially my family who are devote Christians. But, even they have come to accept that we are good for each other and very happy together. I would definitely do it again if I had a chance to because my husband was definitely not happy in his marriage to his ex-wife and I was what he needed and it worked out for both of us.

I make sure he is happy and that he has what he needs every day. That way he has no reason to look somewhere else. Women today don’t know how to treat their men with respect and that is why many are finding out that their husbands have women on the side. People ask me all the time if I’m not afraid that he will do the same thing to me, and I answer NO. As long as he has what he needs at home, why go looking for something less?

To protect the privacy of the contributors above, we only used first names or fictitious names where they indicated that we do so. Thank you, ladies, for sharing your stories. You are very brave because lots of women will not even dare to admit that they are the other woman in a relationship.

Please feel free to comment/add your thoughts to the stories above. Note this is meant to be a learning discussion. As such, comments must be constructive, educational, informative, not confrontational and destructing. Criticism is welcome; but please do so in a respectful manner. Any overly insulting comments will be removed.

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