A Letter From The Other Woman
I didn’t know about you, at first. I want to tell you I’m sorry but that phrased is too simple. How could I’m sorry ever be enough for what I’ve done to you. No, I don’t think I’m sorry will ever be ok but I’m going to try.
You didn’t exist for me for a long time. I heard someone mention you once but I convinced myself it couldn’t be true, he’s not that guy. Then it happened, I saw your face. It was a simple photo I stumbled on during a sleepless night. You’ve done that to me, taken my sleep from me. With every kiss, every touch, every time I open my eyes with my head on his pillow I see you. I feel myself breaking your heart and the worst part is I know that I’m doing it but ending whatever this has become would break mine, as selfish as that is. I don’t want to believe you’re real. I can’t believe it. He’s not that guy. He wouldn’t act like this. You can’t exist. You don’t exist. But the truth is you do and I don’t know how to understand that.
If you never knew about me you would hate me, at least I hope you would. What you don’t understand is how much I envy you. I try to convince myself he doesn’t love you, how could he no one who’s in love could do that, especially not him. The truth is though he can. You, you’re everything I’m not. You’re beautiful – I’m average. You’re happy – I have a long way to go. You love everything he does, or pretend to for his sake- I don’t. You’re kind-I have room for improvement. You love him- I’m not allowed too. You’re everything he wants, you’ve been there for him through years of experience, I’ve only been there for a few months. I want to believe him, believe what he says but if they were true you wouldn’t be around any more, and you are. You have everything I don’t, you have him.
I know what I should say, what people have told me – that I don’t deserve this, that neither of us do, that he’s in the wrong. I should tell you to leave him. I should tell you he doesn’t deserve you, that he doesn’t deserve either of us but I would be lying. I would be lying if I said I believed those things. I would be lying if I said I thought that about him. Most of all, I would be lying if I said you should leave him. If you ever find out about me know one thing – through all of this time I’ve learned one thing. His love for you is real and he proves that every day that he’s yours.
People will judge you for that and tell you that there’s no room for forgiveness here but what I’ve learned through all of this is nothing is as we are told it is supposed to be. It is easy for others to judge when they aren’t or haven’t been in a situation. An air of moral high ground is easy to assume when you’re an outsider looking in, I know I did. But now, now I find myself in a situation I never dreamed of. I’m not this girl I couldn’t do that to someone but I am, I am the other woman. It doesn’t feel real but it is. I am everything that is hated, you are everything that is loved. I receive the looks, the judgments, you the sympathy and the love. I don’t want to be this but I am. It’s not easy to understand from the outside looking in and it’s not easy to accept that this is me now but it is.
Whatever I’m expected to do is advice given from those who haven’t been here. They don’t know what it is to think of yourself as something and simultaneously be part of such an ugly thing. They are on the outside looking in. I am the monster, you are the victim. I am hated and you are praised. I am used and you are loved. You’re everything I want to be. You’re everything I wish I still was. You will never know about me but I will always be aware of you, the girl who has it all, the girl I wish I was, the girl I hope I’ll be someday. You are destroying me while I’m breaking your heart and you’ll never know that. I will always be alone in all of this and that’s ok, it’s the path I ended up with some how and I will accept that for one more minute with him.
I wrote this to you because you’re the only one who could understand. We have one thing in common, him. Only you can understand how he makes me feel because he makes you feel that way too. I feel like the only girl in the world with him, but I’m not, you are. You are his world and I am the dark secret and that is all that truly matters.