She was much prettier than her pictures. Hannah’s* eyes were a brighter blue – cornflower blue almost – and her skin was lit up with a soft pink flush (though this was possibly a byproduct of the G&Ts we were drinking). We were making awkward eye contact over the highball glasses sweating onto the narrow table which lay between us. ‘So far, so typical first date,’ I thought. However, this couldn’t be further from a normal date – Hannah wasn’t just some girl I’d matched with on Hinge. She was the girl that my ex had been seeing behind my back.
Two and half years into our relationship, my ex and I moved to a house in the suburbs. In our mid twenties, sick of rented rooms in multi-person flatshares, this seemed like a good idea – and a chance to cosplay as a proper, grown-up couple. When the inevitable claustrophobia and constant bickering over chores set in, we somehow decided that an open relationship would be the salvation for our faltering connection. And, at first, it went okay: dating apps were redownloaded, small talk was had with strangers, and we had the strange sensation of knowing that my lips weren’t the last to have touched my partner’s.
One isn’t the loneliest number, actually.
As things progressed, however, the secrecy began and so did the lies – boundary breaks and times where my ex spent nights away without any explanation. It became clear that this wasn’t just an open relationship with fluid boundaries around sex. Instead, a third partner had been introduced into the fold, someone who my ex was at pains to hide. It all came out after an evening where my ex had introduced said partner – Hannah – to their boss and best friend: seemingly things had got too serious for the lies to keep going.
For a long time I struggled with owning this situation as an infidelity. After all, I reasoned, I’d agreed to an open relationship – it’s only natural my ex found someone else. However, the basis of any non-monogamous arrangement is honesty – and not only did my ex lie about Hannah, but they continued to advance their relationship without offering me any transparency about where their relationship was headed. I had offered my trust so generously but this had been abused – now I feel like the situation is tantamount to infidelity in a monogamous relationship.
Ultimately, these lies spelled the end for my relationship with my ex. While, now, I am grateful we broke up, at the time I was distraught. I couldn’t sleep, I broke down in tears at work, I stopped eating and I would routinely drink a bottle of wine, by myself, multiple times a week. When in the midst of another self-pity spiral on a Friday night, I checked my ex’s Instagram followers – I knew which account was Hannah’s based on her name, but it was normally listed as private. This time, however, it was public. Hungrily clicking on the profile, feverishly scrolling through her pictures, I made a realisation: we’d previously matched on Hinge.
It's a guaranteed way to escalate any existing problems.
Quickly, I turned to the app on my phone and scrolled through my matches until I found her – there were the same selfies, the same eyes, the same true aughts vintage clothes as on her IG profile. A couple of swigs of wine later and I built up the courage to message her. “Hey, I think you had the misfortune of dating my ex, Alex*.” Fifteen minutes later, came her response: “Ooohhh my God! Want to meet up???”. The rest of the story moves pretty quickly: I get in a taxi to meet her in South London, and on the way there we’re sending anecdotes and stories back and forth, realising that what we’ve each been told by my ex doesn’t quite align.
When I get to the Elephant and Castle bar where she’s drinking with her mates, she breaks off and we sequester in a sticky booth. At first, there’s a nervous tension in the air as we size each other up but, soon enough, we get to talking and all our feelings pour out. She rolls a cigarette and we stand outside shivering, swapping tales of my ex. As it turns out, the person who had told us both that they weren’t willing to commit because of the connection they had with the other, really just couldn’t commit – or communicate – at all.
Hannah and I don’t continue to talk, but she did text me for a couple of days afterwards, wanting to check in and make sure I was okay. After meeting her, I was able to see what a kind person she was and to realise that, regardless of how things panned out, she was never out to get me or to ruin my relationship. It was a huge difference from the obsessive thoughts that had me searching out her IG page to begin with.
They're your mind's way of trying to tell you something.
However, as psychosexual and relationship therapist Helen Mayor explains, this kind of fascination with ‘the other woman’ isn’t uncommon. “Rejection of any kind is extraordinarily complex, but sex is the most vulnerable and intimate part of us – the lack of clarity, the unknown element of ‘why them, why not me?’ and all the other unanswered questions. The brain tries to find a story that makes sense, and so often it's an old and damaging ‘I am not enough’ narrative,” she explains.
In these instances, comparison really is the thief of joy – after all, cheating isn’t about the other person, it’s about your partner. “I have worked with lots of partners who have cheated. They rarely talk about the sex – often it's an escape from responsibility, from being the person they don't like, the person their partner knows, the least best version of themselves, or sometimes it is an escape from a relationship, but not necessarily because there is no longer deep love or connection,” she adds.
Ultimately, while it was unorthodox, I’m so grateful to Hannah that she wanted to meet up – and I credit her generosity with helping me to gain closure and to eventually move on. As Gigi Engle, a certified sex and relationship psychotherapist and resident intimacy expert at dating app 3Fun explains, I’m not alone – there are certainly benefits to meeting up with ‘the other woman’.
Is there something sinister about our fascination?
“If you're both no longer with the person who did the cheating and want to debrief, it can be a good opportunity to get questions answered – for both of you – that might have gone unanswered,” Engle explains. “It's important that both of you feel comfortable and secure in meeting – and one person isn't feeling pressured to do so.”
With that in mind, you should only broach the subject of meeting if you know you can do so in a respectful way – not to treat the other person like a punching bag. “You should not go into it wanting to have a negative interaction with this person – wherein you're saying unkind things, comparing yourself to her or something along those lines,” she adds. “This should be a meeting of respect between two wronged individuals. Get clear about your intentions before setting up or agreeing to a meeting like this.”
*Names have been changed.
