It sounds so exciting and adventurous, doesn't it? Wearing a slinky black dress that shows plenty of leg, dangling a cigarette between scarlet lips, the "other woman" stands in the doorway of a trendy club or cafe, self confident in the fact that she is wreaking havoc on the lives of all who step in her path. We compare her image to that of the girlfriend or wife; one is the femme fatale, but the other is a worn out old shoe, comfortable and safe, yet devoid of all passion.

Lets get back to the real world. Here's a sample scenario: Abner dates Dionne, they dig each other, decide to build a relationship and all is pretty cool between them. But then Abner, while still totally digging Dionne, meets someone else, Irene, and digs her too. So he starts a little sub-relationship with Irene, while still working on building a relationship with Dionne.

What's your immediate reaction to this scenario? Is Abner a jerk? Is he just being human? In some ways it depends on the nature of the relationships that he is creating.

Assuming that Abner has told Irene about his relationship with Dionne, but not vice versa, what can we say about him? In a sense, Abner is letting Irene decide for herself whether she wants to get involved with him. She knows the score and she can make her own decision on the basis of the facts. We have to keep in mind, however, that Abner has not given Dionne the same sort of choice; even though Dionne certainly has a choice about whether to stay involved with Abner or not, she is not being presented with all the facts that she needs to make an educated decision.

One way to look at this is by taking it all apart and looking at it from the perspectives of the three involved:
(A)Dionne - She's starting to get serious abut Abner. Things are going well between them, they're spending a lot of time together. She is starting to trust him with her feelings, and she is hoping that they will have a future together. She's sometimes worried that he's not all there - like he's not sharing himself completely with her, but she doesn't want to push him, or scare him off by asking too much of him. In any case, she's feeling pretty good about the relationship.

(B) Irene - She knew what she was getting into before anything happened. She knew he had a girlfriend but it didn't really seem like a big deal at the time. For her, the idea of being the other woman was sort of enticing, mostly because she didn't care about him as much at first. Now she finds herself holding onto and savoring, the small amount of time that she does spend with him, while at the same time feeling angry with for having a girlfriend and more importantly for not telling his girlfriend that he's been seeing her.

(C) Abner- He knows in the back of his mind that the situation is becoming hard on Irene and is also causing some strain on the development of his relationship with Dionne. At the same time, he can't help how he feels. He thinks that ending either of these two relationships would be lying to himself, denying the strong feelings he has for both of these girls. He tells himself that Irene knew what she was getting into before they got involved and that he could not all of a sudden tell Dionne about Irene because that would surely ruin his relationship with Dionne.

This situation does not seem destined to remain stable. Clearly one of these people is going to have to change, or leave, the situation. Yet I don't think there is any right answer for what should happen next. Irene would be wise to exit the relationship with Abner; it's making her feel like crap to be involved with him, to feel like she'll never be as important to him as Dionne. The fact of the matter is that she has fallen in love with him and even though she hates him a great deal of the time, she has realized that she wouldn't be so bothered by the situation so much if she didn't love him. Another problem for her is that, even though part of her secretly wants to have a normal, out-in-the-open relationship with Abner, another part of her is well aware of the fact that he is capable of being totally dishonest in a relationship; how could she ever trust him?

If Abner told Dionne about Irene, chances are their relationship would either be over, or it would at least be somewhat different. Even if he broke things off with Irene and decided to confess to Dionne about what he had done, Dionne would probably also have a hard time trusting him again. What it comes down to, in my opinion, is the fact that at least one of these people, perhaps all of them, are going to end up getting hurt. It is never as cut and dry as it might seem; Abner may be dishonest in his relationships but it is because he has strong feelings for both Dionne and Irene, he wants to have both of them in his life, not because he wants to hurt either of them. Irene may be foolish for getting involved but she could not have known how she was going to end up feeling and how hard it would be to just get out of the relationship. Dionne clearly is the one rendered helpless in the situation even though she is in more of a girlfriend / boyfriend relationship with Abner than Irene will ever be.

The point is, how Irene might perceive Dionne, how Dionne might see Irene, if she found out about her, and how both of them might feel about Abner, might not take into account the feelings of each person. The "other woman" in this scenario was plagued by feelings of inferiority to Dionne and by increasing jealousy of the seemingly happy relationship of Abner and Dionne.

If I might be so bold as to make a second point here, let me point out that although I can see Abner's struggle to keep both Dionne and Irene in his life and I do not put any blame on him for that, I think that the dishonesty that he brings into the relationship with Dionne is the real problem here. It is first of all a bad foundation for any relationship; it is a degratory gesture toward Irene, making her feel like she is really not that important to Abner in the first place. In short, Abner should have been honest on both fronts, not just with Irene.

© Trincoll Journal, 1995.