Last weeks “Interview with ‘The Other Woman‘,” started off rather tension filled. Well let me tell you, it didn’t get much better. We left off where I asked Rena how their workplace flirtation turned into a full-blown affair, so lets pick up there. Here is the conclusion of “Interview with ‘The Other Woman’.”

LeTisha: So, how did it go from workplace flirtation to becoming physical?

Rena: It actually wasn’t planned, one night… I was out with a group of friends as a TGI Friday’s and he was coming in as we were leaving.  We just said hello and as I was turning to leave he kind of bent towards my ear and asked if I could stay a little while longer, so I told my friends I would catch up with them later and I stayed.  I just thought we were going to maybe have a drink and talk.

LeTisha:  Is that how it started, just drinks and talking?

Rena: Yea, but a little too much drinking because the next think I knew we were getting in his car and headed to the hotel across the street.  One thing led to another and we ended up sleeping together.

LeTisha: Do you remember how you felt about it after it was over?

Rena: Super hung over

(she laughs)

LeTisha: Do you mind if I ask your age?

Rena: Why?  Oh wait, let me guess.  You think that only young, dumb girls let themselves get in situations like that.  Or, you think that if I’m younger than him, that maybe he took advantage or was able to talk me into doing something I didn’t want to do right?

LeTisha: Actually, difference in age can be one of many factors in an affair.  I think a certain amount of immaturity can also play into these wayward relationships, but a person can be immature at 70, that’s not a flaw attributed only to the young in age.

Rena: I’m 25, well about to turn 25, and he’s in his 40s.

LeTisha: Ok, thank you. 

Rena: No opinion on our age difference?

LeTisha: Well, I think that’s a large gap, and I do think whether it be an older man or woman who is married, in my opinion, the older one can have the ability to know just what to say, or how to manipulate certain situations to their advantage.  You said he flirted with you at work.  You don’t think he could have targeted you because you’re so young?

Rena: I mean, anything’s possible.

LeTIsha: Ok, do you think its probable he came after you because you’re so much younger than he is?

Rena:  What’s the difference between it being possible or probable?

LeTisha: It’s statistical, probabilities are more likely to occur than a possibility.  It’s possible an airplane could come crashing down into my living room today, however, it’s highly improbable due to the statistics on how many times that has actually happened.

Rena: Ahhhhh, ok.  So, yeah, I guess it’s probable that he chose me because of my age.

LeTisha: Does that make you look at the situation any differently?

Rena: Like how?

LeTisha: Does it make you see him as being more predatory, than charming?

Rena: Predatory, you mean like a pedophile?

LeTisha: I am not calling him a pedophile.  Predatory in that he may have looked for specific opportunities to manipulate you with words, or manipulate circumstances where he was always in your presence with a specific mindset of having an affair specifically with you because of your age.

Rena: I still don’t like that word.  He’s nothing like a predator.

LeTisha: Ok, lets just move pass that.  So, after the drunken night together, did you think it was a one-night stand?

Rena: I did.  Especially because he apologized so much right after it happened.  He kept saying he didn’t mean for this to happen, and he was sorry for taking…

(she stops before finishing that sentence)

LeTisha:  Why’d you stop?

Rena: Because I know where it’s gonna go if I say it.

LeTisha: Say what…that he was sorry for taking advantage of you while you were drunk?

Rena: Yeah.

LeTisha: Well, when he said that to you, did it not make you think?

Rena: No, because he didn’t take advantage of me.  We were both drunk and we’re both adults.

LeTisha: Fair enough.  So, how did that one drunken night turn into a 2-year affair?

Rena: We kept flirting with each other at work, and we started talking on the phone and we just ended up really liking each other.

LeTisha: Were a lot of your conversations about how unhappy he was in his marriage?

Rena: At first, yeah, but then I told him he didn’t have to convince me he was unhappy.  I told him I liked him, he said he liked me, and we decided to keep seeing each other.

LeTisha: So his wife was no longer a factor for you?

Rena: Not really.  If he was unhappy and was planning to leave her, and we made each other happy, I didn’t think about her.

LeTisha: Did you fall in love with him?

Rena: We fell in love with each other.

LeTisha: If he was in love with you, why didn’t he ever leave his wife to be with you?

Rena: He was going to.

LeTisha: But he didn’t.  You said he just broke it off with you recently because he couldn’t live 2 lives.  Doesn’t that let you know he was still living a life with his wife?  Those were HIS words.  If he was so unhappy with her, and in love with you, why isn’t he at least divorced by now?

Rena: I don’t know.  He said it was complicated.

LeTisha: Ahhh, the old “it’s complicated” excuse.  There is nothing complicated about having an affair.  There’s the married person who makes the choice, and there is the person they’ve chosen to have an affair with, who also makes a choice.  It’s not complicated at all.  He could have said no because he’s married, or you could have said no because he’s married.  There is nothing hard about that.

Rena: I think he meant his reason for not leaving her yet was complicated.

LeTisha: Again you say “yet,” but he’s not leaving her at all, at least not right now.  He broke it off with you, not her.

Rena: I know that.

LeTisha: Did you believe at some point that he was really going to leave his wife to be with you?

Rena: Maybe, I mean, he never said exactly that he was going to leave her specifically for me.  He just said he was going to leave her because they weren’t happy anymore.

LeTisha: Did you ever talk about marriage?

Rena: Not really. 

LeTisha: What does “not really” mean exactly?

Rena: It came up a time or two.  Like, he would say he could see himself married again.

LeTisha: Just married again, not specifically married to you?

Rena: No, he said he could see himself married to me, like once or twice.

LeTisha: Is that something you wanted?

Rena: Yes, but not like right away.

LeTisha:  If you two had gotten married, how do you think your relationship would have faired?

Rena: I think we would have made each other really happy.

LeTisha: Do you think you would have trusted him completely?

Rena: Why wouldn’t I?

LeTisha: Seriously? 

Rena: Seriously what?

LeTisha: How would you be able to trust that he wouldn’t ever cheat on you, when he’s proven to you he has the propensity to be unfaithful?

Rena: I think people cheat when they aren’t happy.

LeTisha: You don’t think people cheat because they’re selfish, and always think the grass is greener on the other side?

Rena: That would mean once a cheater, always a cheater, and I don’t believe that.  Some people do change.

LeTisha:  Some people can, and do mature out of that type of that selfish behavior, but not many, and certainly not most.

Rena: That’s your opinion.

LeTisha: You’re right, it is.  You know what’s not my opinion?  The statistics that show a married man rarely ever leaves his wife for his mistress.

Rena: Ok, I’m done.  I’m don’t have to be insulted by you, judged by you.  You’re biased just like I said, so you look down on me just because your husband cheated on you with some other b****!

LeTisha: What my husband did has nothing to do with you.  What my husband did, he also did because he was selfish.  And you’re wrong, I don’t look down on you as a person, I look down on the choice you, and yes, my ex-husband’s mistress made to get involved with a man you both knew was married.  I also find it somewhat humorous that you would refer to my ex’s mistress with that degrading insult, but you did the exact same thing she did.

(she is silent)

LeTisha: How do you think you would have felt if you had married that man, and then he did the exact same thing to you

Rena: I don’t know how I would have felt.

LeTisha: Have you never been cheated on before?

Rena: Of course I have.

LeTisha: And how did it make you feel?

Rena: Of course it was hard.

LeTisha: Imagine if that had been your husband.  The man who vowed to be faithful and cherish you.

Rena: Well I can’t imagine it because it hasn’t happened.

LeTisha: That’s why I said imagine it.  If your heart was broken by a boyfriend, it’s not hard to imagine the depth of hurt you might feel if it’s a man who vowed his life to you.

Rena: Ok, well I’m still done with this. 

LeTisha: Ok, well thank you for doing this interview for me.

Rena: Yeap, bye

(she hangs up)

I could never be a professional Journalist.  I don’t think I have the ability to remain completely impartial on a subject on which I have deeply held beliefs, and feelings.  This interview almost brought out that long left-behind person who would use profanity-laced insults against a person I saw as, well let’s just say, a person I saw as not so bright.

Rena, like all of us, is entitled to her opinions, and I don’t have the right to tell her, or anyone else, how they should feel.  What I would say is that women have to know they deserve so much more than being “the other woman.”  If he can’t make you the only woman, that doesn’t mean become a settled woman.  A woman who has settled for being one of many.  All of us, even Rena, deserves better.  However, you have to be willing to give your best, in order to get the best; and when you take short cuts to getting what you want, at the expense of others, then it is this woman’s opinion that you don’t deserve the best.

Ladies, “loyalty is key” between us.  We have a long-standing history of betraying one another, and with that, we are the only ones that can turn that around.  I hope all of you will read “Woman to Woman” when it comes out.  I truly believe it will set us on a course of relating to one another with respect, consideration, and most importantly, loyalty.

I welcome your feedback and comments on this, or any of my other posts.  Please be sure and read some of the real-life letters from wives to mistresses in my previous blogs.  They are excerpts from my upcoming book, “Woman to Woman: Letters from Wives to Mistresses.”

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