An Open Letter to The Other Woman

To You--

I know you.  You are that person who dates other women's husbands.  You are a mom at my kids' school.  You are a co-worker.  You are the barista who takes his order every day.  On the outside, you are a normal, average person.  You even have a great personality and lots of friends.  You volunteer; you're active in the community.  You put on a convincing charade.  But I know who you really are.

You are incredibly self-centered.  You are vicious; you are evil.  You have no morals, no scruples, and you care only about yourself.

You sat down and weighed the pros and cons.  At the end of it, you decided that you are totally fine with destroying a family.  You're willing to do it because it makes you happy.  You don't care about the people you hurt.  It's only about you.

You don't care about that woman, the one who gave her blood, sweat, and tears to building a home and a family with this man.  She bore his children.  She took care of him when he was sick.  She shared her deepest, most personal experiences with him.  She helped him become what he is, the man you're attracted to.  You are perfectly fine to be the reason for her excruciating pain.

You aren't bothered by the fact that his children are tucked into bed at night by a weeping mother.  They cry into their pillows, trying to make sense of why their dad, their hero, chose you over them.  Their young minds don't understand lust or its power.  All they know is that Daddy cares more about some other lady and her kids than he does about his own.  You don't care that this experience will haunt them for decades.  It will affect their future relationships.  These children will have trust issues, nightmares, and feelings that they're unloved.  They will struggle in school.  They will lose their appetites; their health will decline.  You don't mind though.  As long as you're happy.

How any person could knowingly and consciously make these decisions proves that they are a monster.  Oh, I know- he was unhappy in his life.  He hasn't loved her for years.  She's not the same person he married.  He was going to leave anyhow.  He assured you that you didn't do anything wrong.  It was his decision.  Sorry, honey, that's not true.  He was unhappy in his marriage because you came on to him, giving him thoughts and feelings he forgot he could have.  You stirred it up.  You flirted with him.  You touched him, you smiled, you did something sweet and thoughtful to grab his attention.  You wanted to see if you could attract him.  You wanted to get his heart racing.  It was a game.  You wanted to feel good about yourself.

You won.  You got what you wanted.  Your prize is a middle-aged man who is overworked and stressed, whose best days are behind him.  Feeling proud yet?  Well, my purpose for writing this letter today is to give you a little dose of reality.

The first and most obvious thing is that he's a cheater.  He cheated with you.  Guess what?  He's going to cheat on you too.  If you honestly believe that he loves you more than he ever loved her, you're delusional.  Your day will come...just wait.

You love this secret romance.  You get a high from sneaking around, the late night texts, the planned meetings.  The excitement that comes from exchanging a smile that no one else notices lights a fire inside you.  You do realize that fire is going to burn out, don't you?  Pretty soon, you're no longer forbidden fruit.  You're not tempting.  You're simply the new ball and chain.  You'll be old hat soon enough.

To go along with that, your little love god is going to lose his luster too.  He's going to start taking his bad work days out on you, now that he no longer has his wife to vent to.  He's going to get sick, gain weight, and pass gas.  He's going to develop little quirks that will quickly get on your nerves.  His flaws and irritations are going to start coming out of the woodwork.  The annoyances he used to hide are going to start surfacing, now that he's so comfortable with you.  Wait and see just how human he actually is.

You know your reputation will follow you for life.  People know about you.  They talk.  That old, scorned wife has told stories about you.  Her friends know; their friends know.  People who have never met you know all about what you did.  When you meet someone in the future and they get a sudden, odd look on their face, it's because they just realized who you are.  You're labeled.  You might as well start wearing that scarlet A on your chest.

Maybe he's a great dad.  Maybe he's been there for you and your kids.  I'm sure you love seeing his relationship with them, how they tease one another and play together.  They're going to get attached.  After all, isn't that what you were trying to do anyway?  Find them a baby daddy?  The first time he says to you that these aren't his kids, and you realize he doesn't love them, it's going to crush you.  When he does finally move on, you're going to be alone again, trying to console these children who have lost another man in their lives.

Eventually, things are going to come full circle for you.  You're going to be the victim, the one hurt.  You're going to be left alone, crying into your pillow at night.  I'm sure it won't last long though.  You'll go find another woman's husband and start all over again.  Have fun with that.  Enjoy the rest of your life as The Other Woman.  Because you'll never, ever be a real woman.

Signed,
Someone who is sick and tired of seeing people like you destroying so many lives

P.S.  Stay away from my husband.  I'm not as kind as the last woman you ravaged.  I will take you down.

Confessions of an OCD Mom

The older I get, the more persnickety I become.  (Do people still use that word?)  While I don't consider myself as having a full fledged case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, I am getting much closer.  I remember back to my early days of motherhood when the sink was full of dishes, toys were strewn all over the floor (making each room of the house its own obstacle course), dirty laundry piled up, clean laundry piled up, and at some point of each day, I stared into both the refrigerator and freezer at the same time, trying to find something edible to cook for supper.  (I would often end up ordering out.)  That person has died.

Now I have become a scheduled, organized, routine person who is bothered immensely by something as small as the forks in the silverware drawer being askew.  Seriously, it gets under my skin.  A typical day for me involves:

• Picking up the throw pillows 72 times.  Seriously, I will straighten them, walk out of the room, come right back in, and they're on the floor again.  It's like my kids aren't happy if the throw pillows are in place.  They are far more comfortable for all of them to be on the floor at all times.
• Hanging up the hand towel in the kitchen 48 times.  I like to keep a hand towel draped over the oven door, like most people.  Fortunately, I have instilled the importance of frequent handwashing to my kids.  Because of that, they pull the towel off the oven door handle, dry their hands, and toss it on top of the stove burners.  EVERY TIME.  Why?  I don't have to pull it off the handle to use it. I dry my hands while allowing the towel to continue to hang.  Why can't other people get that?
• Reorganizing the shoes 103 times.  The people who live in my house think that every pair of shoes they own needs to be beside the front door at all times.  I don't know...I guess they might be planning to make a quick escape.  Multiply that times six people and we have a huge (stinky) pile of shoes that causes mass chaos for people trying to come down the stairs.  So, I straighten the shoes over and over.  No matter how many times I fix the pile, it's destroyed and multiplied within minutes.  
• Changing the toilet paper roll 3 times.  Seriously, we go through A LOT of toilet paper here!  I am no longer comfortable allowing a roll to sit on the sink countertop or on the back of the toilet.  We've lost too many rolls that way.  Scooping out a dripping wet, nearly full roll of Charmin from the toilet bowl forces you to learn to always keep the paper on the holder.  And of course, no one here knows how to do that.  It's a very complicated device to use, I suppose.  (On a side note, I now have a supply of 3-12 extra rolls of toilet paper in each bathroom at all times.  I got way too tired of getting caught with no supplies in awkward situations.)
• Pushing in the dining room chairs 83 times.  I seriously cannot take it when the chairs aren't pushed in.  They're big, heavy chairs and, unfortunately, they fit under the table like a puzzle.  So, pushing one in often requires another chair to be pulled out before the first chair can be put in place.  Since the other occupants here can't seem to figure out the puzzle, another task is left up to me.  We use our table a lot...for meals, snacks, homework, coloring, playing, and watching Netflix on the iPad, which explains why I have to push in the chairs so often.  

I love this guy and I want to meet him!

These are just a few of the things that drive me crazy, and that's just when the house is in its normal form.  If the house is like really clean, I'm much worse.  If I've just swept the floor and someone drops a crumb, you know I'm going to swoop down like a seagull nabbing a fish to pick up that crumb.  (If the floor is already dirty, I don't care as much.)  If I've just Windexed the windows and one of those sweet, sticky-fingered children touches the glass, I get slightly crazy like an erratic mental patient.  When the bed is made and Hubby sits down on it for a moment, I must straighten the covers and pillows immediately before my head explodes.  (My bed is made every day, by the way.)  And don't even think of putting a dirty dish in a clean sink when the dishwasher is empty.  That is grounds for flogging.  

So what's your verdict?  Am I too obsessive or am I just a typical, red-blooded American mom?  Do most wives straighten their husbands desks and dressers multiple times a day because they can't take papers, bills, and dollar bills strewn all over?  Do most moms rush to push the toaster and butter dish back into place because someone left it all pulled out after making a piece of toast?  How normal is it to remove the coats hung on the coat tree and reorganize them to specific hooks?  OK, that one might be a slightly over the top, but the short hooks must be reserved for the girls.  They can't reach the tall hooks.  Hubby is 6'2"....he has no need to take all the short hooks with his multitude of coats for every type of weather. Plus, I like everyone to keep all their coats together on the same hook.  They can't use more than one.  

If you think that's weird, you should see how I organize the dishwasher.