Someone like a snake perhaps.
By: Nancy-Lay King for DivorcedMoms
My mother was the habitual other woman, cheating with countless married men. She saw herself as part of a highly charged romantic fantasy; it was a thrill, a high she could not resist. Laughingly, she’d describe how she understood those husbands in a unique way, after all, they were choosing to be with her over their wives.
Typically, the cheating men were her bosses. (That daily tingle, making up reasons to meet behind closed doors, barely touching as you pass in the hall, and those business trip rendezvous.) They were men that held some level of power that turned her on. As the years went on, her affairs became increasingly more pathetic, the names and faces changed, but it was the same relationship repetitiously, always with an exciting beginning, an emotionally frustrating middle, and a sad, bitter end.
My mother was never the romantic figure she characterised herself; she was a diagnosed narcissist. Her level of emotional manipulation and sense of entitlement was staggering and her only success in life was finding men who mirrored her in their shallowness, heartlessness, and total selfishness. Like my mother, those men caused tremendous pain in many lives with little regret.
In spite of bearing witness to the constant upheaval my mother's affairs caused, I found myself in a relationship with a married man, once. I was 18 and he was in his forties; my boss, a long time married husband and father. (I know, disgusting.) My only excuses were that I was very young, stupid, and had a poor role model in my mother. When this man began talking about leaving his family to be with me, I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I wish I could say it was some lightening strike of morality, but it was the prospect of spending my days with this old man, with all of his problems, that gave me claustrophobia.