The two of you are in love with the same man but there’s just one problem, he’s married to you and cheating with her. What keeps a woman involved with a man who is married?
I’ve known a few “other women” over the years. One thing almost all had in common was they genuinely believed their lovers were trapped in unhappy marriages. They also almost all considered their lover’s wife their opponent.
Cassie was young and naive. She worked in the same office I did. She met Ted at the coffee counter of a fast food restaurant and was immediately attracted by his charm, love notes and flowers. Ted’s long hours on the job kept them from going on regular dates but they found time to meet for a few hours of heavy petting every few days. Curiously, they never met on weekends.
Then Cassie found out Ted was married and confronted him. He cried and confessed that he’d wanted to tell her from the beginning but he was afraid she wouldn’t have understood about his “situation.” According to Ted, his wife was dying of a terminal illness. While they had never had a good marriage, and he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t leave her in her last weeks of life.
As Ted went on about his wife’s illness and his dedication to her comfort to the end, Cassie fell even more in love with him. She vowed she would be his strength during this difficult time. That night they had sex for the first time.
Every morning Cassie would come to work with new stories of how wonderful Ted was, how devoted he was to his children, how incredibly lucky she was to have met him. She ignored my words of caution. She didn’t consider he was committing adultery. Their circumstance was unique. They were “true soul mates.” She was so happily in love that she was willing to settle for stolen moments instead of coming between Ted and his dying wife.
One evening, Cassie and her roommate were having dinner at a restaurant in town when Ted and his family came in and sat down a few tables away. One thing was very obvious to Cassie: Ted’s wife wasn’t bedridden and “just days away from dying” as Ted had described her. As a matter of fact, she was fit, trim, tan, and extremely attractive. Cassie left the restaurant in tears.
I hoped this would bring their relationship to an end but it only escalated to a more intense level when they met again after he begged her for a chance to explain. She didn’t tell me what he said but it hooked Cassie and their sexual relationship continued.
When Cassie gave Ted an ultimatum, he came up with a plan for them to be together that was so full of intrigue it appealed to Cassie’s sense of adventure. Cassie told me they would both disappear to start new lives with new identities. So that they wouldn’t spend the rest of their lives in hiding, Ted proposed they fake their own deaths. Since he worked in a funeral parlor Ted would work out the details.
Weeks passed but Ted’s plan was no nearer to being carried out and Cassie began to suspect that he was just stringing her along. The more pressure she put on him, the more he hedged. The more he hedged, the more she pressured him. Then Ted stopped calling.
When Cassie was unable to get in contact with Ted, she went to his house. Ted wasn’t home but his wife was. Cassie gave her full details of the affair in hopes his wife would get angry enough to end the marriage. What happened stunned her. Ted’s wife told her she wasn’t “the first little fool” to believe her husband’s lies and slammed the door in her face.
There isn’t much more to tell about Cassie and Ted. A few weeks later she quit her job and moved back to her parents’ home in a different state. No doubt Ted found more naive girls to add to his list of “little fools.” I don’t know if Cassie got any wiser but I hope so.