Waiting to Be Chosen: What I Learned From Five Years as the Other Woman

Being chosen is something we all want. Not just in relationships. We want to be chosen by friends, by family, in our careers, in every room we walk into. And when we're not, we sit there and pick ourselves apart. What could I have done differently? What was it about me that wasn't good enough? It's a brutal little loop, and almost everyone runs it at some point.

But there's a version of wanting to be chosen that's sharper than the rest, and that's the one that lives inside an affair.

Why we all want to be chosen

Some of the time, not getting chosen isn't personal. You don't get the job because someone else had a piece of experience you didn't. You can't go back in time and hand yourself that experience, so you let it go. Fine.

Relationships don't work like that. When someone shares the most intimate parts of their life with you and then decides not to choose you, your brain doesn't reach for a clean explanation. It reaches for the ugliest one it can find: what's wrong with me? I've felt that. Most women I talk to have felt that. And it comes back up in the strangest moments, including now, as I've been getting to know people in a dating environment. Old reminders jump up out of nowhere.

The fantasy of waiting for a married man to choose you

Here's what nobody tells you about affairs. Most of us don't walk in thinking this is the love of my life. We walk in knowing exactly what it is. Temporary. It'll serve its purpose, run its course, and then we'll be on to the next chapter.

And then a lot of us fall in love anyway. Once that happens, you're living in a fantasy where of course it works out, because why wouldn't it? Of course he's going to choose you. You love him, you're giving him everything he isn't getting anywhere else, so why on earth would he not?

I once knew of a couple, both married, both with young kids, who got into an affair and within months were talking about how once all the children graduated high school, they'd end their marriages and finally be together. That was a twelve-year plan built on a few months of limerence. In the moment it felt completely reasonable. From the outside it was obviously not.

The data doesn't support the fantasy. Affairs have a very low success rate. Most of the time, the person doesn't leave, doesn't choose, doesn't ride off into the sunset. And the wildest part is that while you're in it, you genuinely believe you'll be the exception.

When being chosen starts to feel like self-worth

Here's the knot I couldn't untie in this episode. Being chosen makes me feel valued. Seen. Worthy. And I preach on this show constantly that your self-worth is yours to claim, that no one else is responsible for handing it to you. So if being chosen makes me feel worthy, is that even the right feeling to be chasing?

It comes down to self-trust. When you're in an affair, you desperately want to trust what you're feeling, to believe the person in front of you is who they say they are. Because if you can't trust your own read on your own life, what can you trust? That's a genuinely disorienting place to live, and it's where a lot of the waiting happens.

The question I ask before you wait one more day

So I put a question to my coaching clients, and I'll put it to you. If this exact version of you, who has lived everything you've lived, walked into a bar alone tonight and the man you're having an affair with came up to you, knowing everything you know now, would you be excited? Would he be the right guy for you?

Some clients say yes, absolutely. Plenty say no. And the no is where it gets interesting, because now it's not about him anymore. Now it's about how you let him go and choose yourself instead.

Choosing yourself after an affair

I think we're taught young that choosing yourself is selfish, like selfish is a dirty word. I don't buy it. If you don't take care of you, who's going to? If you're not prioritizing yourself, who is?

The first time I really chose myself was when I admitted my marriage wasn't serving me or my ex-husband anymore. I can still see the exact moment. I stepped off a sidewalk, and right before I did, my thought was, well, this is the hand you've been dealt, maybe next time it'll be different. And then something in me snapped and said, maybe next time, what is wrong with you? You're 38. There is no next time. There's only this time.

That was it. And I've had to keep choosing myself over and over since then. When it got hard. When I met someone I thought was great. When friendships dissolved. When I ended a career. Every one of those was me choosing myself again.

That's the part that actually matters. Not being chosen by some man who can't fully choose you from day one. Choosing yourself, claiming your own self-worth, and then deciding who gets to walk in and choose you back. It's a two-way street. I'm choosing you. Are you choosing me? Great. Let's do this together. Anything less than that, and you're just handing your whole life to someone who was never going to pick it up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will he leave his wife for me?

Statistically, most affairs don't end with the married person leaving their spouse. While you're in it, you'll believe you're the exception, and that belief is part of what keeps you waiting. The more honest question isn't whether he'll leave. It's whether you'd actually choose him if you met him clean today, knowing everything you know now.

Do affairs ever work out?

Sometimes, but the success rate is low, and the odds get worse the longer both people get to keep the best of both worlds with no consequences. Waiting for it to work out usually means putting the entire outcome of your life in someone else's hands. That's the real cost, separate from whether it ever happens.

How do I stop waiting for someone to choose me?

You stop by moving the power back inside yourself instead of handing it to the person you're waiting on. Ask whether you'd genuinely choose this person if you had a clean slate today. If the answer is no, then the waiting was never really about him being the right one. It was about wanting to be chosen at all.

What does it mean to choose yourself after an affair?

Choosing yourself means deciding your worth isn't up for someone else to confirm, and then living like you believe it. For me it started with one decision to stop resigning myself to "maybe next time." It's not a one-time event, it's something you keep doing through every version of yourself, and it's what finally lets the right people in.

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