The Other Woman
While packing up the house over the weekend for my big move, I had the I.D. Channel on in the background for two days straight. This had less to do with an intrigue for crime drama and more so with the fact that I seemed to have packed the remote early on in the moving process. So, my weekend was filled with cardboard boxes, packing tape and, apparently, lots of crime-tape, too. All of those fatal attractions, scorned lovers and hacked corpses brought me to this conclusion: there seems to be a strong correlation between cheating and murder. Shocking, no? So I took it upon myself to do my own “private eye” work on the anatomy of cheating.
The tamest of the Scorned Lovers appears to be the guys. From what I’ve witnessed, it seems a cheating woman gets off essentially scot-free. My friend M. explained it’s for the same reason that men don’t read InTouch magazine: they simply have better things to do with their time than to dwell on a cheating ex-girlfriend. Another friend, B., noted that, while they may be privately grieving, guys tend to publicly brush it off with a simple “eh, she was a slut anyway,” and move on as quickly as possible.
It’s a widely known fact, however, that cheating men are dogs. They’re sleazy, no-good, lying dogs (hello, country music lyrics!) Now, before any of my male readers get all up in arms, let me explain. We all know the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and a woman who has been cheated on is no exception to this rule. Scorned women make it their civic duty to launch an impressive, large-scale smear campaign against the men who break their hearts, so much so that some men don’t stand a chance of ever dating any woman who lives within a 50-mile radius of their betrayed ex-girlfriend. An angry mob of her torch-wielding friends will probably join in the crusade. You didn’t just cheat on your girlfriend. You cheated on every girl she comes in contact with for the next six months. At least you didn’t end up being one of those unfortunate victims of the murderous women on Snapped.
Nevertheless, the most outrageous and inexplicable behavior I’ve witnessed from women who have been cheated on is the blinding rage towards the Other Woman. Last year, I was a reluctant witness to this Jennifer vs. Brangelina, Richmond-style, duel and it was a frightening spectacle. (Thankfully, no comparable “Team Aniston” or “Team Angelina” t-shirts were issued after the initial dust settled.)
Just a few weeks ago, a 2,100-plus word email made it all the way down from Boston to my inbox. The premise? A suspicious girlfriend scoured her boyfriend’s Gmail account for incriminating emails, found them, and proceeded to pour her (broken) heart out in an email to the Other Woman. She also forwarded this on to all of her friends, for the world to see. It even made its way on a popular New England blog. Heartbreaking at some points, pathetic at others, the email read like an electronic equivalent to an episode of Cheaters.
This pathological and often predictable behavior in women begs the question: why do we blame the Other Woman so harshly? After all, the one that cheated on you actually committed the relationship felony. Is it the treacherous behavior against your fellow member of the sisterhood? Is it that all Other Women are man-eating, succubus-like demons that must have momentarily cast a spell over your sweet, loyal and non-philandering sweetie? Or is it simply jealousy?
As easy as it is to point all the blame on the Other Woman, the fact of the matter is, it takes two to do the proverbial tango. The harsh reality is this: People tend to stray when there are problems in the relationship, so unless you’re willing to take a good hard look at what’s going wrong, the best bet might be to head for the hills before you relive your own Jennifer Aniston nightmare all over again.
Caroline is a 25-year-old single gal living in the Fan. She works in PR for a non-profit by day and moonlights as Richmond.com's female dating columnist by night. To learn more about Caroline visit http://www.carolinesplate.com, on Twitter @carolinesplate, or you can most likely find her out in the Fan on a Friday night.
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