The Other Woman

He loved her. I don’t know why but yes he did. And she loved him too.  That I could understand. He was everything a girl dreams of in her fantasy man, everything a woman wants in her husband. Her was perfection personified. How could anyone not love such a man!

But they couldn’t be together.

Why?

Because he was married. He had a wife and he had a kid. He had committed himself to a woman and vowed to take care and be faithful to her till the end of time. His parents, the society, O hell, he expected himself to stand by his commitments. And so they decided to part.

I’m sure he wished he had met her before he got married, before he had the onus and responsibility of his decision affecting an innocent child.

She must have also wished she met him before he was someone elses. Bearing the tag of  ‘another woman’ is an unsurmountable pain.

I also wished they had met before…before he married me.

He was my husband.

I am the woman he stood by all his life and gave up his chance of being with his love. Because I was his responsibility, his commitment, mother of his child.

You would say I was very lucky to be married to a man with such high moral principals. After all, how many men stand by their wedding vows and their commitments? I should have thanked my guardian angel gazillion times.

No. I hated it.  For every day that I had spent married to him, I died a thousand deaths.

I was with the man I loved but he did not love me! For him I was a responsibility and his commitment. He was being true to me coz he wanted to be true to himself. He was nice and kind to me and I couldn’t stand it. I longed to see the love that shone in his eyes for her, for me. There was kindness and even respect for me but I was not his love. I hated him for this and hated myself for being so shallow. So many times I wished to free him of this suffocating relationship but again our child  and his innocence stopped me.

For the world, we were the perfect couple and I was the ideal woman who snatched her husband and her family from the clutches of another woman. I had the perfect life.

But for me, she had the perfect life. She had the love of the man she loved and she did not need anything else. In my eyes, I was the ‘another woman’.

She never married anyone. I used to see her in public functions that we attended together and I could see her drinking the sight of him (of course discreetly). He never looked at her again but I know he was aware of hers. Coz during those times, he did not see me too.

His decision extracted a heavy price from both of us. From him, his love. From me, my integrity and self-respect.

When he died, I looked at his lifeless body, holding his hand, waiting for pain of his loss to hit me but I felt…numb.

There was no sorrow of loosing him because he was never mine to loose.

Instead I felt relieved.

For myself.

For him.

For her.

She died a few months after his death. Our souls were now free of all the chains and shackles.

Husband, Wife and Her???

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