The Love Files No.23 // The Other Woman

I guess being ‘the other woman / man’ goes for two directions. One is that you are the one someone is cheating with on his or her significant other (been there, not a nice feeling at all…especially since I did not even know about his relationship), another option is you are with a narcissist / douche bag who already lined up his new narcissistic supply (the other woman / man). But anyways, the problem with this constellation always is that there is one person too much that should not be involved at the first place.

I am a bit licking my wounds here these days because I have realised that ‘the other woman’ is very much my own personal trauma and issue. If you follow along for a while and have read some of my ‘The Love Files’ posts, you might remember that the man I was with for 4 years left me twice for ‘the other woman’ - ok I admit, stupid me for having given him a second chance.

Then the let’s call him the fundamental guy (his take is that we should live in a world dominated by islam and sharia instead of a constitution and democracy, I suppose you get a feeling what I mean by calling him a fundamentalist - not to forget that he threatened me to cut off my throat if I dare to say anything critical about his ideology). Again stupid me for having given him more than just a second chance (in many aspects) but regarding the one with ‘the other woman’ being involved, well here it was at least ‘only’ a second chance. In December he lined up his new narcissistic supply and then pressured me to marry him right away and then he would tell her not to come. I said no and he spent 2 weeks with that lady in his bed. What should I say. I was not amused. That was last Christmas, I am just adding this here since I read somewhere else that this is another speciality of narcissists, ruining all kind of holidays, birthdays and anything else worth of celebrating and having a good time.

Unfortunately this is not the end of the story. What should I say. I was very inconsequent. Of course I said ‘that’s it if your new supply is coming to your place’ but well what should I say, once he came crawling back begging for forgiveness and all that jazz, I was not at my strongest and instead of sending him to hell I went back to seeing him again - not very often but from time to time. Needless to say that this 'relationship / relationShit`never really was harmonic or anything else any normal human being would want in a relationship, so of course the same problems kept coming up again and again. Another breakup followed in the beginning of March, then oh surprise, he came back again. It had been going on for another month until, hold your breath, Easter! Of course another awesome occasion to ruin the holidays again (yes, Christmas was not enough).

So, first of all he asked me about ‘partner swapping’ and my only reaction was 'WTF, you can’t be serious’ but apparently he was serious since the next day he kept on asking me about it again. Don’t get me wrong, whoever wants to go for partner swapping, threesomes or whatever can go for it, it is just something that is totally against all my morals and values and therefore something I don’t want to participate in. Truth is I find it disgusting! I was even more shocked that someone who calls himself a practising, religious muslim is suggesting it. I mean seriously. So, both times he asked me about it my reaction was ‘fucking hell no’ and then I got blocked everywhere with his excuse that Ramadan is coming up and it is not ‘halal’ to be in touch with me.

Also what helped to get blocked everywhere probably was that I made my stance very clear of not wanting to participate in anything like that (you wanna laugh, later on he said ‘I just wanted to test your reaction to it since you don’t do religion’ - but hey, how bizarre to insist on asking me about it again and again and then trying to get out of this by saying ‘testing your reaction). So, I was very clear about not wanting something like that and I was also very clear about being perfectly fine with another break-up.

And then I could literally follow his lining up of new supply on social media. Wow, that guy did not wait long. So here we are back again to ‘the other woman’ which is my trigger point because that is what I experienced with my ex-boyfriend and also that my father left my mom for another woman right after I was born. Eeek, you can see this is a bit of a pain point here. I have no clue if he lined her up already before we ‘broke up’ once again or if she is pretty much his rebound after we broke up. Well, what can I say. In the end it does not matter but once when you are in a situation like this, you start to think about and question everything because it hurts. Because it brings up old feelings of abandonment, rejection, the feeling of unworthiness, looking for confirmation at the wrong places (the confirmation that should have given to me by my father when I was little). All of that is the real trigger here.

So in the end it does not matter if they are a couple now, if they get married this year (yea, she is an attention whore it seems, everything between them gets documented on social media in a way and after only one week on social media we know already that this must be the thing for a future together and to tie the knot in 2021.)

I am just sharing my thoughts. I guess this is just another person being used for his advantages, whatever that might be. To me it seems like she ain’t the sharpest pencil in the box but no surprise, neither was his Christmas supply. And her wearing a niqab makes me come up with the theory that she is just another extremist and fundamentalist (just like he is), an insecure person (as he is), probalby another loser in society trying to find hold in a radical ideology (again, just as he is), one more lost soul trying to find hold in a radical ideology terribly gone wrong - and her updating all of their ‘relationship progress’ on social media is just another sign that all of this must be more fake than real, because let’s be honest here, being in a relationship based on love, trust, care and respect does not need this kind of ‘being an attention whore on social media stage’.

Who knows into which stage of fast forwarding, future faking, love bombing and so on they dived into. I know he is prone to future faking because yea, that is something I experienced with him as well. I don’t know her but maybe she is also deeply into future faking and love bombing. So then perfect, two narcissistic inclined islamic fundamentalists found their perfect match. Awesome (irony here).

Funnily he was still insisting on moving together, getting married and starting a family before the latest ‘break-up’. So I am sure marrying the rebound / perfect islamist wife, I can interpret that as very serious I suppose. But in the end all of it does not matter at all. This relationship showed me how I let it happen again to be disrespected, lied to, betrayed and giving way too many chances than I should ever have. It is my lesson of not letting a man ever cross my boundaries like that again, him to treat me like his possession or a sex object, threatening me and so on. It is a real no-brainer. And bringing up the trigger with ‘the other woman’ makes it even a whole lot worse since he exactly knows that this is my pain point.

So it is my task now to work on not being the other woman anymore (at least this worked out very well, the guy I was the other woman for, has left my life about 5 or 6 years ago and I can’t say I’d miss anything about being the other woman), so now I have to work on basically feeling that I was abandoned for ‘the other woman’, even if she is just a rebound. It does not matter, the feelings that come up are the ones I have to deal with and love leave behind so I wont’t experience more ‘the other woman’ situations anymore.

Love,

Phyllis