The Other Other Woman by Mallory Lockhart Read Free Book Online Page A

older than me, his three kids were grown, ranging in age from 18-22. His older son had just graduated from Clemson and came back to live at home while completing a teaching internship. The middle child, his daughter Anna, was away completing her sophomore year at Florida State. The youngest was Ivan, the boy he adopted from Ukraine. He remained at home, trying to avoid both school and work and making a general nuisance of himself.
    I personally had a husband with a sketchy employment history at best and two little kids. I was already doing everything myself, so that was no issue. If I had to make every decision, pay every bill, decide every move that anyone in the house could make right down to the cats and the dust mites, then why not do it on my own terms and not have the added hassle of stroking a depressed male ego? But I wasn’t sure I could take their dad away from them; he wasn’t a bad guy. I really missed out on having a dad. But I also missed out on having any positive male influence altogether.
    I decided I just couldn’t stay with a man I didn’t love anymore. I’m not sure I ever did, at least not the way people deserve to be loved. I loved him as a friend but not a husband. I convinced myself that I was doing him a favor somehow–setting him free so he could find someone who truly loved and respected him. I never treated him like I had very much respect for him because I didn’t. He was a third child to me, just another responsibility. Despite years of pleading with him to find a better job or at least take some of the mental burden off of me, we were in the same place, if not worse, year after year.
    I knew in my heart that I was going to sleep with Matt, eventually. I probably knew the moment he asked me for my number. My attraction to him was like a freight train barreling out of control, unstoppable. So one night, after picking a particularly bad fight, I decided to end my marriage. Not for Matt, exactly, because it would have happened sooner or later, but he was the catalyst. He had given me the one major thing I was lacking before, confidence that everything would be okay. I’ve always been a very honest person, and the sneaking around for phone calls and hiding such intense feelings for someone else (even though we hadn’t even kissed at that point) just didn’t work for me.
    Looking back now, I imagine it probably freaked Matt out when I ended my marriage. I texted him the next morning asking him to call me ASAP. He immediately offered his help. Did I need him to come and get me? Could he call his lawyer for me? He was every bit as caring and supportive as I would have expected him to be. He was my rock. He seemed really worried about me and my safety. He kept asking me if I was okay, telling me that if there was any trouble at all to call him, day or night, and he would jump in the car. In reality, he was probably about to shit his pants from the sudden pressure. Maybe he thought I was going to need him to help me financially or take care of me somehow, but I had no expectations of him and at the time, I really didn’t know what I wanted him to do.
    It wasn’t fair to expect him to leave his wife for me at that point. We weren’t even technically “dating” yet. We were just friends with an instant affinity. Not to mention, I had two little girls, just three and six years old. I knew for a fact that he would never want to start over like that. I got that message loud and clear from conversations we previously had about our children. It was all I could do to concentrate on the day to day. I kept telling Matt that he needed to do what worked for him but that I just couldn’t keep up the charade on my end.
    There was a lot of drama surrounding my separation from my husband. He went off the deep end, actually, understandably so. He was losing his wife, his best friend, and his entire support system in one fell swoop. He was having crying fits in front of our kids and screaming obscenities at