“Having been categorized as having a very high-risk pregnancy, I had to visit my Doctor very often.  In my previous pregnancies, I had never carried any of the babies long enough to even see their heartbeat.  This pregnancy though seemed to be the one.  I felt healthy physically, but I was cognizant of the fact that I had to stop crying, and being so upset over the way my husband was treating me.  Despite his many promises to do so, he had still not returned home.  I did not want to do anything that might trigger another miscarriage.  I would let my husband know when I had an appointment with the hope that he would accompany me.  He never made it to one appointment.  I was crushed all over again knowing that not even carrying his baby was enough to get him to do the right thing.  I was still crying myself to sleep every night that he was not next to me…next to us.  I wanted him to put his hand on my little belly, and tell us he loved us, and would never leave us again.  I needed him to tell me that he was sorry for all he had put me through.  I needed him to tell me he was overjoyed that we were finally going to have our baby, but unfortunately none of that happened.  All he would tell me was that he was coming back, he just needed to figure out how, and when to do it.  I told him to do to her what he did to me, just pack your stuff and leave.  His feelings for his mistress were clear to me finally, and with a heavy heart I realized I was going to be a single mother.  I never, ever wanted that for myself.

The only moments of joy I felt over the weeks were when I would go to my Doctor, and he would tell me that everything in my pregnancy was going as it should.  I will never forget the ultrasound where, for the very first time, I saw my baby’s heartbeat flickering on the screen like a little twinkling star.  I left that appointment with a renewed inner strength.  I knew my baby needed me to be positive so that he or she could thrive inside of me.  Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.

That night I would feel the familiar sensation of a pop, and then the expulsion of blood down my thighs.  I remember immediately breaking out in hysterical tears begging God to not let this be happening again.  As I sat up, I remember telling Him that my baby was all I had, and to please not allow it to be taken away from me.  Upon reaching the bathroom, seeing the blood pouring out of me, I sat down on the toilet, and as I cleaned myself, I saw what appeared to be a tiny placenta and what appeared to be the shape of a tiny fetus on the tissue.  I touched it, and just stared at it through blurry teary filled eyes, and just kept saying “no, no, no, no, no, please God, no.”  I rushed myself to the ER where I would hear the word’s I had heard far too many times before, “I am sorry, but your pregnancy…” and I just lost it.”

This is only a part of the personal hell I was enduring…alone.  While my husband and his mistress were in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, neither of them took stock of the reality that my life was falling apart more each day.  It would only be a few months after this devastating loss that I would come to find out that his mistress had allowed herself to get pregnant by my husband.  Even today there are no words to describe how I felt finding out that the one thing I had fought so hard for, for so many years, was being given to her, and out of the midst of a sinful affair no less.  That is one of the gravest injustices I had, and still contend with to this very day.  My husband broke our vows.  My husband broke my trust.  My husband broke our marriage.  However, his mistress is the one who broke my heart.

The way that women treat one another after how far we’ve come as a gender is just mind-boggling to me.  “Woman to Woman” addresses the breakdown of our sisterhood.  It gets deeper into how at a time when we could literally be running the world, there seems to always be present an underlying hatred for one another that stems from competition, and more to the point of the book…competition for men.  We will stand together for almost anything to do with the uplifting of our gender, but when it comes to a man we want, even a married man, we lose all perspective, rationale, and compassion.  So, sharing my story in the book was important because the women who justify getting involved with another woman’s husband, need to know what the truth is behind their lies.  My book gives them a harrowing look at what a husband is doing to his wife, while hoping she sees that she is complicit in helping him do it.  In my case, the “other woman” actually encouraged some of my ex’s disrespectful actions.  Women helping to destroy women is not the boss move.  I choose to believe that we are better than that; and if sharing my story opens the eyes of women everywhere to the reality of how badly women treat each other, then at least all of my pain will not have been for naught.

A few of you have asked why I am hyper-focused on women, and don’t seem to be addressing and pointing out the husband’s culpability in adulterous affairs.  The answer is not complicated.  My book is called “Woman to Woman” for a reason.  Like I told a friend not too long ago, we have talked to the men about what their infidelity does to us; we have talked to them ad nauseum, but the problem is getting worse in today’s culture of “do what makes you happy,” and the false notion that the more women you have, the more of a man you appear to be.  So, there is nothing else to say to them, at least nothing more I can add to that particular conversation.  However, I have not lost hope in my girls. Yes, you ladies.  I still believe women have the wherewithal to shore up compassion for one another, and that’s where loyalty is key.  As women read the chapters in my upcoming book that detail what a real-life wife was dealing with at home in the midst of her husband’s illicit affair, it will shed some much needed light for those “other women” who are CHOOSING to listen to the husband’s lie to them with sorry attempts to gain sympathy with justifications for stepping out like: “my wife isn’t doing what she’s supposed to be doing,” or “she doesn’t understand me,” or “we no longer have sex.”

“Sisters, I’m just a girl, standing in front of another girl, asking her to protect me.  The question should no longer be, why are men cheating.  The better question is, why are we allowing them to use us in their destructive behavior of cheating? Moreover, the women who do get involved with married men only make it easier for them to do what they do.  We have to look out for one another.  We have made adultery into a complicated, and convoluted thing when in fact it is really rather simple.  Avoiding adulterous relationships boils down to two simple letters in the English alphabet…N-O!” 

As always, I welcome any respectful feedback, and comments.  Tell me, do you think loyalty between women is an important factor in repairing the woman to woman dynamic? 

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