Why blame ‘the other woman’?

When a married man cheats, chances that the blame is going to fall on the other woman are very high despite that, ‘the acts’ were done by two people. In most cases, society puts the woman as the victim but when she is caught in an adulterous relationship, the tables quickly turn and she becomes the culprit. Paida Mpaso explores whether the other woman is guilty as society puts it.

 

*Mary Sichone* (not her real name) was once pushed and insulted after the wife of the man she was having an affair with traced her.  She says the wife heard that they were out shopping together.

“This incident happened over four years ago, I don’t know how the wife got hold of the information that we were together. She quickly approached me and said some nasty things. I felt like crying. I exited the shop and called my boyfriend, her husband, who was still inside. He walked out and we drove off.

“The whole incident took less than 10 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime to me. Apparently, he was not even aware of what had happened and expressed surprise that his wife had done such a thing,” she says.

She defends her dignity by saying though she knew the man was married, he always told her that he was leaving his wife. He lied that after the two went their separate ways, he would move in with Sichone. Being young and naive, she believed every word.

“Eventually, he did leave his wife. It’s just that he did not come to me,” she narrates.

An article on who is to blame when a husband is unfaithful written by Sheri & Bob Stritof and available on marriage.about.com reads; “When the wife does not focus on her husband’s sexual and personal needs, when she does not make him feel like a success or like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm that some other woman will have.”

Relationship expert, Janie Lacy, in one of her articles, Who is to blame when a man cheats, writes that couples bond faster when someone else takes the blame even when they are fully aware that, the ‘other woman’ had nothing to do with it.

“When a woman is in shock after finding out about her husband’s affair, often times it is easier to hate ‘the woman’ especially if the ‘other woman’ knew the man was married to someone else,” she says.

She, however, writes that the blame primarily lies in the betrayer. The key to healing the marriage is getting help to walk the couple on their journey to restoring and rebuilding the trust that was broken in the relationship.

Who, then, should you blame? Lacy writes that, “The answer is staring you at the face. Blame the one who made this all possible. Your husband is a grown man that makes his own decisions. He knew what he was doing whether or not the other woman did know about your existence.”