A letter to the other woman

Dear woman who made yourself available to my husband,

I am more disappointed in you that I am in him. I somehow expected the pattern of being cheated on lived by my mother and my grandmothers would repeat itself.

What I never expected was that you, a married woman, twelve years my junior, with a thriving career and a very likeable personality, would be the one who had been distracting my husband from being present in our home. It was you who sent him flower emojis he smiled at during our Sunday breakfast.

To me, you betrayed the female gender. You are a mother. Us mothers have to be better than that. You say your families were first but that was only in theory. All the energy you and my husband used while you connected intimately on the sexual, intellectual, personal, professional or social levels, was taken away from what was left for your spouses at the end of each day. You both betrayed the spouse who supported you to spend time at work building up your careers.

The fact that you want to believe it wasn't an affair because you did much of the connection over the phone or that what you had was not sex because you were never physically in bed together, does not change how serious what you two had was. It was a big deal since my husband was looking forward to taking a selfie with you while not having taken a selfie with me in the past two years. There cannot be two people in the same place of one person's heart at a time. What you call foolish things drained my husband from his desire for me.

There was absolutely no need to keep risking your families for such a long time especially after you met me and we met your husband. How did you feel having us over at your party with your husband and myself there? When were you going to end this connection you two had? If I wouldn't have recorded your orgasm over the phone while talking to him, you would probably still be doing the foolish things you used to do day in, day out for years. How many? Four?

I know you want to forget and you both want to pretend it was less time and less intense. The fact that a married executive dared cross the line and pursue a married colleague shows that there were signs. I call it flirting.

I wish you well but I wish you would have never made yourself available to my husband. Now you both face awkward encounters at work, you have to make up excuses to avoid socialising with him during corporate events and you have to live with the knowledge that my children and I know about your affair and that your husband might be informed any day.