Often maligned, seldom understood, the “Other Woman” has historically received scant support for her precarious position within an extramarital relationship. She is the home-wrecker, the slut, and a whole host of other derogatory terms. Rarely is the married male lover excoriated as harshly, which says a lot about the stinky double standards applied to women to this day. Whilst the shelves in bookstores are overburdened with self-help books, often brimming with sanctimonious nonsense, for repairing marriages marred by infidelity, the “Other Woman,” who is often left to pick up the pieces after her lover decides to return to his wife, has no such resource—until now.
The Other Woman’s Affair—Gambling Your Heart And Reclaiming Your Life When Your Partner Is Married, by Paul DePompo, Psy.D., ABPP & Misa Butsuhara, LMFT, fills this void nicely. It is explicitly designed to help women navigate the rocky shoals of a relationship with a married man. Right off the bat, I was impressed with the compassionate approach the authors’ took to this difficult subject. No preaching or finger wagging here. Instead the pages are filled with useful coping strategies for la maîtresse. The authors interviewed dozens of women in relationships with married men in order to understand their experience, and it really shows. I hesitate to call this a self-help book. Rather, it is a well thought out sophisticated program designed to help women to either increase the likelihood of the relationship working or to recognize that it’s high time to cut bait and move on to friendlier waters. If you’re a woman dating a married Mr. Right, this is the book for you. At the risk of being fatuous, I would also add that the man in an extramarital relationship would also benefit from a close reading of this book. At the very least, he’d gain some valuable insights into the emotional challenges and turmoil faced by his lover. And what would be the harm in that?
Dharma Windham
On Board the Nautilus
06-02-2016