Facebook has a couple options for your status as a love interest, and only the bold claim to be in an “open relationship.” Sometimes though, a woman can find herself in a relationship she can’t flaunt online.
Kristen Meinzer of YourTango.com’s Love Buzz column writes that, “Being easy isn’t as easy as you might think.” In her article on side relationships, she seriously criticizes Kate Major’s relatively recent affair with Jon Gosselin, and throws away the notion that the side woman might actually be a victim – that they are purely the problem.
On the other hand, our very own Essence McClanahan, a sophomore journalism and arts management double major, has a very frank position on being “the other woman.” On her blog, CanWeTalkAboutThis.wordpress.com, her final post in January begins, “I’ll be the first to admit it…It’s super easy to be the other woman.”
Essence claims that this was the easier choice for her when she was the other woman, because the man in question wasn’t relationship material. Thinking about the future wasn’t necessary with him.
“I guess that is the freeing aspect of it all, because once the [man] becomes a nuisance or brings on extra stress, you can take solace in the fact that they can be easily replaced.”
An article for Women’s Health magazine titled, “The New Adulteress,” says that the bad rep stereotype of a woman on a mission to wreck a marriage has changed. “A woman may take the plunge into an affair precisely because she knows it will be short-term.”
Plus, Essence says, “It does feel good to know that no matter who he has at home he’d leave there in a second to be with you.”
This new image is not of a girl looking to steal a man away from his happy home, because it’s not about him. It’s about her. She prefers the emotional detachment.
“At the end of the day all you have is an agreement, not a bond. You two agreed not to fall in love or attempt to build anything. All you signed up for was fun, so once things stop being fun the relationship too can dissolve that easily,” says Essence in her blog.
For Essence, this clarity came from an experience most wouldn’t consider to be “freeing,” as she calls it.
“I was cheated on, it sucked big-time, [but] being cheated on was quite liberating,” she said.
After trying to revive her relationship, McClanahan figured out what exactly was so liberating about the experience. She decided that a title like “girlfriend” is just a brand and label that she wants nothing to do with.
“I’m free of worrying about [cheating] occurring again,” she said. “Now I can not only see it coming, but prevent it from happening.”
“Whenever you leave a space open in your relationship, trust me, someone is capable of fitting in,” she warned.
Essence’s advice? “If you’ve cheated, get tested and zip your lips. Take it to the grave. If you’re the other woman, get tested, make him get tested. Safety’s important. My best advice to you: don’t ever text him first, don’t wear perfume, trim your nails and avoid intimacy at all costs. If you fall for him remember he can’t catch you, his hands are already full.”