8 Former ‘Other Women’ Reveal What It’s Like To Be A Mistress

1. “The truly upsetting thing about being the other woman is finding out that’s what you are when you thought the man you loved was single and you had a future together. For a year I was in a long-term relationship with a man who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I only found out because his wife snuck his phone and saw our text messages and called me. I’d never felt so betrayed and used and I’ve had trouble trusting another man ever since.”

—Anabelle, 25

2. “It can be wonderful, really it can. The best sex I’ve ever had was with a man fifteen years older than me with two kids and a wife of ten years. For me it was more of a FWB arrangement. For him I think it was just a way to escape from the drudgery of his life without completely destroying it. A warning though, this can only last so long. I saw him for two years and as time went on more and more of his home life crept into our relationship. After a while it became very much the drudgery for me that his home life was for him and I broke it off. It had become toxic because he was just bringing his family’s problems into my life instead of keeping them separate. I don’t know if his wife ever found out because I quit speaking to him when we split. I do still care about him though and I hope they’re happier together than they were.”

—Kristine, 31

3. “I had an affair with a professor of mine when I was in grad school and I really don’t regret it. He was one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met and definitely the smartest. His wife was also a professor and at first I expected to somehow get in trouble but as time went on it became clear that she either didn’t care or was clueless. I hadn’t dated much in college and all the men I was in school with at the time just seemed very immature in comparison and the whole thing seemed sort of forbidden as well which was sort of sexy. I learned a lot about men and myself in that relationship and I think it made me a better person over all.”

—Michelle, 25

4. “When I was seventeen I met a man in his 30s at a concert and we hit it off incredibly. He was hilarious and incredibly sexy. When the concert was ending he asked for my number and I figured why not. About a week later he gave me a call and we got together. I was still living at home at the time and told my parents I was going to meet friends. We went on dates and he never pushed me for sex. It was wonderful and he waited a month before he even tried to kiss me. At the time I felt like the whole thing was storybook romantic but one evening we were leaving a movie and we ran into a friend of his wife leaving the same movie with her husband. I remember he told them I was a just someone he’d sat next to in the movie and started chatting with and I thought ‘wait, what?’

After that I dragged it out of him that he was actually married and had a toddler at home. I stopped it right there and went back home crying. My mother asked me what was wrong and I told her that a boy I’d liked had been cruel to me which was mostly true. Thankfully I went off to college not long afterward but that was and still is the most heartbreaking thing that’s ever happened to me with a man. Guys, if you get married then don’t cheat, not just for your wife but for the other woman whose heart you might also break.”

—Danielle, 29

5. “Most stories like this that I’ve heard are bad but my experience was universally positive. He was a man I worked with and we were very, very close friends. Our co-workers used to joke that I was his work wife and stuff like that. He was going through a very rough spot with his wife that had lasted well over a year and one weekend we were at a conference and ended up hooking up. There was never any illusion in my mind that he wanted to leave his wife because we talked all the time and I knew he loved her. I knew that he just needed affection that he hadn’t been getting for a long time.

We hooked up probably once a week for the next six months after that. Eventually his wife agreed to couple’s counseling and he told me that he felt this was his last chance to save the marriage so we stopped seeing each other in a sexual way and remained friends. He and his wife’s relationship got better and they’re now very happy. Most importantly to me, he is very happy. I don’t feel bad about it all. I actually think that I helped save their marriage.”

—Natalie, 30

6. “When I was twenty I ended up sleeping with my boss for about six months who I knew was married. He’s still an executive at a very well known company. I wouldn’t say I did it just to get ahead at work although that was definitely part of it. I really liked the guy and he was completely unhappy with his marriage. His wife was materialistic and always wanting more money from him while, at the same time, complaining about how he was never home. Possibly the most clueless person I’d ever met. When she’d come in the office everyone would avoid her because of her entitled attitude. The only reason he didn’t divorce her is because he didn’t want to lose half of everything he’d worked for.

We had a casual, mostly sexual relationship and eventually he promoted me, outside his department of course, and things waned after that. It wasn’t a big deal to me then and I don’t regret it. His wife certainly didn’t get hurt and he and I had a good time.”

—Karen, 25

7. “In my mid-20s I found myself in a relationship with a man I knew was married but who predicated our entire relationship on the notion that he was going to leave her. TWO YEARS later he still found reason after reason to not even begin moving towards leaving his wife and I couldn’t take it anymore and put an end to it. I still get so mad about this because that was two years I could have been doing anything else with my personal life and I spent it on a man who was dishonest with me. On top of that I felt incredibly guilty for being with him and always had to tell myself that they were only legally married and that it was going to end soon. All of it was complete bullshit and I compromised myself over and over.

Ladies, if he’s married and promises you he’s leaving her then know that he probably won’t and you’re most likely just a distraction for him.”

—Pamela, 29

8. “I’m still not sure if I was the ‘other woman’ or the girlfriend. I dated someone my freshman year of college who used to go home almost every weekend because he said his mother had some health issues and needed help around the house. That was fine and I definitely understood. The thing that started to get me wondering was that he never picked up the phone when I called when he was home. He would call me but he’d never pick up the phone. Early in Spring semester I called and a girl answered with a ‘who is this’ and I told her. Then he apparently came in the room and she handed him the phone and I told him to go fuck himself and hung up. I’m pretty sure she broke up with him seconds later.”

—Cynthia, 22