Toni’s Blog

David had been fidgety since he came home from work.  Over supper we normally chatted about the things we'd done during the day, but tonight the conversation had been sparse to say the least.

"Is anything wrong, darling?" I'd asked him.

He'd been staring at the table, a small frown making the laughter lines around his eyes look more pronounced.  At the sound of my voice he'd looked startled, as though I'd woken him up suddenly from a deep, intense dream.

"What...oh, no...nothing."  He'd shaken his head and smiled at me.  "It's been a heavy day, that's all."

As I'd cleared up the dishes, David went into the lounge saying he wanted to see something in the evening paper.  I didn't say anything, but his remoteness bothered me, and for the first time since we'd met I didn't know how to reach him...

When I couldn't do any more in the kitchen I went to ask David if he wanted another cup of coffee.  He was sitting in an armchair with the paper open on his lap, but he wasn't looking at it.  He was staring, unseeing, at the fireplace.

Softly I closed the door and went back into the kitchen.  My hands were shaking and I was cold with fear.  I'd had my suspicions for a while, but I'd never had the courage to actually do anything about them.

Now, seeing David so preoccupied, I couldn't put it off any longer.  He had the look of a man slowly tearing himself apart...a man who had a decision to make, and couldn't face having to make a choice...

"Samantha, I'm just going out for a while."  David's voice made me jump and I turned, looking at him guiltily.  "Graham and Sally are coming round tomorrow night," he went on.  "So I thought I'd get a couple of bottles of wine."

I stared at him, about to speak, then I changed my mind and smiled instead.

"Yes, all right,"  I agreed.  "Good idea."

"Won't be long," David said, kissing me absently.

Tears rushed to my eyes as the door closed behind him.  David's reason for going out was an excuse.  We'd bought three bottles of wine at the weekend and they were still in the cupboard where he himself had put them.  A sob shuddered through my body.  No, there was another reason why David wanted to go out alone...he was going to phone Rita...

I sat down at the table and clasped my hands together tightly to stop them shaking.  In my heart I'd known for a long time, but hadn't wanted to accept it.  I suppose I thought if I ignored it maybe it would fizzle out, then it wouldn't hurt and I wouldn't have to cope with the pain of the heartbreak I knew would follow.

The trouble was I couldn't ignore it any longer.  What was happening to us was for real - so real that at that very moment David was standing in the phone box at the end of the street speaking to Rita.

What was he saying?  That he loved her...wanted her badly...and didn't know what to do.  And what were her replies?  That she loved him, too...and wanted him just as badly...that they'd work something out.

"Oh, David..." I whispered brokenly to the empty room.  "I love you so much..."

What do you do when the man you love falls in love with someone else?  Do you fight to keep him?  Or sit tight and hope the affair will burn itself out and he'll come back willingly?

The 'other woman'...

It's such an ugly phrase, conjuring up images of a selfish, hard person who didn't care who was hurt providing she got the man she wanted.

Yet they couldn't all be like that.  Most of them were probably just the victims of their own emotions.  Women who'd known the risks but had still allowed themselves to fall in love with someone else's husband.  So why did they do it?  Why are they prepared to suffer the long hours of loneliness when they're forced to be apart from their lover?

And what about the man...  What makes him turn away from a warm, loving home to the arms of another woman?

There are so many forms of attraction, and when two people meet it's hard to say what ignites the spark between them.  Yet when the man's married it's a very dangerous moment.  Whether she realises it or not, the first time she takes her lover in her arms she's enticing him away from his wife.  From then on an ordinary girl becomes the 'other woman'.

In the days that follow the lies and deceit begin.  The secret meetings become snatched hours together, when they search for somewhere to go where they can hold hands and not be recognised.  Where they can close a door behind them and make love without the fear of being found out.

Oh, God, it was all so sordid, and so desperately hopeless.  Yet neither of them can forget the other person in the triangle.  The man's wife.  She's there permanently like a thorn, constantly intruding on their stolen moments.

When the time comes for him to go home, the parting is bitter sweet, words of love are whispered and then the loneliness begins.

Only that loneliness is no more than the other woman deserves.  She has no right to love someone else's husband, or to take him into her bed and keep him from his family.  It's as simple as that.

Continue

...but who would it be this time?