The Other Women........

"A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends"

- Lord Byron

Last night on TV, I came across this news snippet that Tiger Woods will be having a press conference today and realised that we are due for another wave of Tiger Woods stories hitting the spotlight. When his news first broke out, I was still in Umea, Sweden and due to the fact that Elin Nordegren is Swedish, there was plenty of coverage on the media out there. While everyone was sympathetic to the betrayed wife, some of us had our curiosity piqued by the "Other Women" in the stories ( a considerably long list in this case) and what made them hang their tawdry laundry in public?

What pushes these women over the edge to make their affairs public? Are they just scheming gold diggers grasping at their 5 minutes of fame and aiming to boost their bank balances? Seeing that there are more and more women joining the "kiss-and-tell" bandwagon, it sure makes you wonder if these women have any sense of self preservation at all? Why would anyone in the right mind come out to be slaughtered by the public as a home wrecker and be called by other derogatory names? Well, these were some of the questions we were arguing about and some of us were saying maybe there are some genuine cases out there. The recent story of the infamous "billboard lover" YaVaughnie Wilkins, trumpeting her affair with Obama advisor Charles Phillips seems to fit more in this category.

Perhaps the woman is betrayed to find there was nothing real behind the relationship, maybe one discovers painfully that she was merely a statistic in the long list of affairs and that the months and years of emotional investment meant nothing. Perhaps the affair is brutally ended and she finds out she has lost everything including her self-esteem and she wants to get back at the man who would quietly go back to his wife or fiancee, perhaps if caught cheated, make a few apologies, renew the marital vows and resume his life with more affairs while the other woman is left with nothing except disgust and self-pity. Maybe she sees herself as avenging all wronged women or perhaps there is nothing heroic about her action and she is nothing but an embittered and unstable woman. No one can definitively say what pushes some of these women to go maliciously after their men, as seen in various headline stories where these women have taken out their wrath on their ex-lovers or their families. But then, haven't we all heard of the famous adage "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".

In tragic cases, some women end up taking their own lives to get back at the men they loved. After all we have one of the conspiracies linked to one of the famous "Other Woman" Marilyn Monroe's premature demise as her affair with JFK coming to an end. This only precipates our theory that some of these women, who had genuinely cared for their men might lose control over their feelings and emotions when the affair runs out. Not all of them are lucky to end up with Brad Pitt or Prince Charles as some of the most famous other women of this era have managed to :)

However it is sad to see such vitriol and bitterness spewed all around us in the name of love. My question is what happens to these women, especially the ones in the harsh glare of the limelight once their five minutes is up? Do they get used to a life of name calling, was the money ever worth the notoriety they achieve.....maybe Rachel Uchitel might be able to shed some light on this over the alleged settlement she obtained from Tiger to keep mum.....yeah all I have to do is get her to read my blog :)

Do these women ever regret taking their fury out on their men? Do they not end up losing the man but also the memories associated with him? Do they not by their very own actions of disclosure reduce whatever they had to mere sordid and depraved affairs? Or perhaps we don't really care and we move on to the next story that keeps us entertained......sad but true.

Other women are mysteries to women themselves......in this case literally the "Other Women".