The other woman is not to blame

“Whatever you’re trying to do...Don’t forget that God sees,” the message began. I didn’t read the rest for several days but I knew instinctively what this was about. It was a message from a lady who was uncomfortable with me, a single woman, being friends with her husband. I had previously sensed that she disliked me and she had struck me as the jealous type but I decided to let it go and give her the benefit of the doubt.

The message upset me more than it shocked me. For a start, despite what she may have thought, I wasn’t trying to steal away her man or anything of the sort. I thought she had a lot of nerve looking me up on Facebook and sending a message to falsely accuse me of something she had no evidence for.

However what was more upsetting than the false accusation was that she chose to attack “the other woman” rather than talk to her husband. I was an easy target. Rather than work up the courage to have a difficult talk with her husband about their relationship she confronted me from behind a computer screen.

But let’s imagine I was planning something sinister or that I had actually had an affair with this man. I still think it’s better for the scorned woman to take the high road. It does one no good to confront the other woman. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wrong to have an affair with a married man but I also think the man has a greater obligation to his wife than his mistress does. The husband after all took vows and made a promise to be faithful. And no woman really steals a man from his wife or girlfriend. The man makes a conscious decision to have an affair and he should be held accountable for his actions. It is unfair to put all or most of the blame on the other woman.

Unfortunately though, rationality often goes out the window when a woman thinks someone is going after her man. In my case, I believe it would not only have been wrong for me to pursue the man in question but quite frankly, impractical. The man I was supposedly trying to get my claws into is a foreign national who lives on another continent. When we met he was in Lusaka only because of a short-term work engagement. His wife, who was born and raised in Zambia, was in the country on holiday. Maybe she thought I would try have an intercontinental affair and either eventually lure him back to Lusaka for good or something else equally as dumb and complicated. Had my accuser been secure in her relationship she probably wouldn’t have messaged me. But she chose to burden me with her insecurities and bring me into a situation that ultimately had nothing to do with me.

Once my anger began to subside it began to make way for amusement. And as I laughed it off I remembered the one other time I was accused of trying to steal someone else’s husband. This man was relentlessly pursuing me but I had absolutely no interest in him. Late one night as I was about to go to bed I got a message from his “wife” telling me to stay away from her man. She asked how I could dare go after a married man who also had a child. I knew nothing of this woman, nor the child and I tried to explain that I wasn’t interested in her husband but she would not listen to reason. It turned out however that this woman had a child with the man but was not and had never been married to him. It was unclear whether they had ever dated. What was clear is she worried that I was a gold digger and that me being involved with her “baby daddy” would mean she’d receive less financial support than usual. But unfortunately she chose harassing me over talking to the father of her child.

I should add that I have actually been in a relationship that ended because the guy left me for someone else. I knew exactly who she was, we had mutual friends and I saw her on a regular basis. However, I said nothing to her even though I could have confronted her. She does bear some responsibility for the end of the relationship but ultimately it’s the guy that chose to leave me and I’d have gained nothing from attacking her. I just wish more women would see it this way. Talk to your significant other or leave him, it’s your choice. But ladies, let’s not attack each other over decisions our partners make.