What Nobody Tells You About Waiting as the Other Woman

A couple of months ago I said something on the podcast that I keep coming back to, so I'm going to say it here too.

You are worthy of someone who can be with you 100%, 100% of the time.

When you're in an affair, that's not what you're getting. You're getting whatever he's able to give you. Some days that's a lot. Most days it isn't. It is never 100%.

Waiting for a married man is bigger than waiting for him to leave

Everyone talks about the waiting like it's one thing: you're waiting for him to leave his wife. That's the version that makes it into the advice columns and the forum threads.

That's not the waiting that ran my life.

I was waiting for him to call at all. Waiting for my phone to light up with a text. Waiting to find out when I'd see him again. Waiting to be chosen, over and over, in a hundred small ways that never added up to actually being chosen.

And the waiting reorganized everything around it. I said no to plans. I didn't get on the phone with friends because he might call while I was on the other line, and then what. Every yes I gave to my own life came with a calculation about whether it would cost me a window with him.

That's the part I look back on now and can barely recognize. I put my entire life on hold to stay available to someone who was never fully available to me.

The phone on the pillow

I'd get in bed at night like everyone does, put on Netflix or Hulu, and I would set my phone right next to my face on the pillow. Not on the nightstand. On the pillow. Because I wanted to be sure I'd see the screen light up if he texted me that night.

I don't do that anymore. I put my phone on the charger and I get in bed. Do I still watch TV? Sure. Do I check my phone one last time before I turn everything off to see if I've heard from someone, anyone? No. And it feels so good.

A couple of years ago I started talking to someone new, and I caught myself doing it again. Got in bed, put the phone by my pillow, and thought, I don't want to do this. I don't care that this man is single. I don't care that he's actually available. I'm not prioritizing a text message over my own sleep.

Sleep is one of the most valuable things I have. I'm not giving it up for a man, no matter who he is or what he can offer me. If someone I'm seeing texts at night and I don't answer, it's fine. I'll answer in the morning. We're both available to each other. Neither of us is doing anything in secret.

What out loud actually means

I use the phrase out loud a lot, so let me say what I mean by it.

Out loud means he's claiming you. People in his life know you exist. He holds your hand in public. He calls you his girlfriend, his plus one. There's nothing to hide. He isn't looking over his shoulder wondering who might see you in a city where he knows people.

Some of you are reading this thinking, but he does hold my hand. He does call me his girlfriend. We do go out.

I had all of that too.

And to this day, nobody in his life knows I existed. Nobody thinks about me. If something tragic happened to him, nobody would pick up the phone and call me. If someone did, it would genuinely shock me, which tells you everything.

Think about how many people are in your life. How many people you love, how many love you back. If something happened to any of them, someone would call you. That's what it means to be a real person in someone's world.

I want to be with someone who's proud to be with me. Who's glad he gets to hold my hand. Who's sitting at a bar with me and gets to lean over and kiss me. That's a privilege. I'm giving you my time and my energy and I don't hand that to just anyone.

When you get fed up with yourself

The reason I wanted to talk about this is all of you. The messages, the DMs, the conversations.

The pattern is always the same, and I was in it too. You're still living in the beginning of the relationship. That's where your head and your heart are stuck: when it was new and exciting, when you felt seen and heard and loved, maybe for the first time in years. Maybe ever.

But the relationship kept going. You got comfortable. You got to know him. And now you're somewhere very different, wondering what is going on.

I've said to clients that it doesn't sound like they actually like him. That it doesn't sound like he's ever going to be the man they want him to be. And they agree with me. But when you're that deep in it, stepping outside your own life to look at it clearly is almost impossible.

What kills me is watching strong, confident women with full lives end up here. Those are the exact qualities he was drawn to. You do your own thing, you're independent, you've got things going on. Then somewhere in it you turn anxious and nervous, into a version of yourself you never thought you'd be, because you're holding your life still while you wait for someone to choose you.

So the question changes. It stops being when is he going to choose me. It becomes how long is it going to take for me to get fed up with my own behavior.

The bathtub

I remember the day I hit rock bottom.

I was sitting in the bathtub in the middle of a work day and I saw something about him on social media and it crushed me. I sobbed from the depths of my soul. And when I finally stopped, I knew that was the worst of it. That was the worst I would ever feel about this.

The next morning I got up and got ready for work on Zoom, and I knew I was just barely better than the day before. Barely. But better. Because I was finally choosing myself.

I deserve someone who can love me 100% of the time. 100% out loud. 100% for me, no matter where we are or what we're doing.

You deserve that too. You're a whole person. You deserve the big, loud life you've always wanted. Playing small for someone else has a shelf life, and one day you wake up and ask what you're doing with the one life you get.

FAQ

What does it actually feel like to wait for a married man?

It's much broader than waiting for him to leave his wife. It's waiting for him to call at all, waiting for a text, waiting to find out when you'll see him next. Most women in this position start declining plans and skipping time with friends in case they miss him, which means the waiting slowly takes over the rest of their life.

Why does being someone's secret hurt so much even when the relationship feels good?

Because being hidden means you don't exist to anyone else in his world. Nobody in his life knows your name. If something happened to him, nobody would call you. That absence is separate from how much you love each other, and it doesn't go away just because he holds your hand in public sometimes.

What does out loud mean in a relationship?

It means the person is claiming you publicly. The people in his life know you exist, he introduces you as his girlfriend or plus one, and there's nothing to hide or explain. He isn't scanning the room for people he knows.

How do you know when it's time to end an affair?

There's no clean signal from the outside. For most women it comes down to the moment they get fed up with their own behavior rather than his, when they finally see what they've been accepting and what version of themselves they've become inside it.

Can you rebuild your self worth after being the other woman?

Yes. It usually starts with one honest look at what you've been tolerating and why. From there it's about choosing yourself in small, repeatable ways, and refusing to go back to a life organized around waiting for someone to pick you.

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