When You’re Unknowingly The Other Woman

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When you’re unknowingly the other woman, and you find out, how are you supposed to feel?

How are you supposed to get over it and move on? You thought you had found your Prince Charming, even if he was a work in progress, and then you find out one day he was anything but. That he knowingly led you on when he was already in a semi-established relationship with someone else. And up until now, unknown to you, they’ve been together for over a year, while you’ve been mindlessly floating through your days on your own.

How are you supposed to feel when you were patiently waiting, wishing for the day when you could truly call him yours, and you find out he decided to give that honor to someone else? When he decided that you were not worth his time, but someone else was?

How are you supposed to feel when, apparently, you were not good enough to be his “final pick,” as if you were a contestant on The Bachelor? No rose for you. You go through past events and conversations in your mind, and you wonder if I had said this or done this instead of that, going through a whole sequence of what ifs, would that have changed the outcome? Would he have chosen you?

You feel simultaneously worth it and worthless.

You feel like garbage. He tossed you aside without the courtesy of the truth. He tossed you aside and let you drown even as you kept trying to make it work, fighting a battle you had no idea was hopeless. He made excuses about his job and the distance, his workaholic tendencies and not having enough time to devote to someone else, to be in a relationship.

You know now it was all a lie.

But you also know you’re worth it. That he would have been lucky to call you his. You would have given him everything–in some ways you already have–because you believed in the power, in the potential of love, distance or time or any other obstacle the universe decided to throw at you be damned.

There are periods of strong self belief, the current pulsating with waves of assurance, the warmth of the sun as powerful as the love you know you’re capable of giving away. Then helpless periods where you wonder why you weren’t sturdy enough to keep your boat afloat, the vessel capsizing on a stormy sea, the potential you were so optimistic about sinking down, down, down…

But you have to redefine your perspective. He is a dishonorable man. He does not deserve you and you are better off without him. Let yourself float away, leave the wreckage of you and him behind, and let the storm carry you to another ocean.

You are strong. You’ll survive this hurricane.