I wore my wedding ring like a trophy. It wasn’t just a piece of jewelry; it was proof that I had won.
Ten years ago, I was the other woman. I was the excitement, the escape, the fresh air. When Mark left his wife, Linda, he told me it was because she had “let herself go,” that she was “boring,” that she didn’t understand his soul the way I did. I believed him. I thought I was special because he left his first wife for me.
I looked down on Linda. I thought she had failed to keep him, and I had succeeded in stealing him. I felt invincible. I told myself that our love was different—that we were soulmates, and she was just a practice run.
For a decade, I lived inside that arrogance. Ten years and three kids later, I was no longer the exciting mistress. I was the mother packing lunches at 6 AM. I was the wife managing the mortgage and the soccer schedules. I was the one with stretch marks and tired eyes.
I became Linda. I just didn’t realize it yet.
The change was subtle. Mark started buying new shirts. He started staying late at the office again—the same excuse he used when he was sneaking out to see me ten years ago. I ignored the red flags because I thought I was immune. I was the “Second Wife.” I was the upgrade.
Then came Tuesday.
Mark walked into the kitchen while I was folding laundry. He didn’t look guilty. He looked energized. He looked like a man who had just discovered a new hobby.
“We need to talk,” he said.
He sat me down and delivered the speech. It was a remix of the one he had given Linda, but with new lyrics. He didn’t say I was boring.
He said he met someone “younger and more vibrant.”.
“She makes me feel alive, Jenna,” he said, his eyes shining with the infatuation I used to inspire. “I deserve to be happy.”
I sat there, the pile of his clean laundry on the table between us, and felt the crushing weight of karma. I saw the new girl in my mind—24, glowing, convinced she is special, convinced she is the exception. She probably thinks I’m old and tired. She probably thinks she’s winning.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight for him. But then I looked at him—really looked at him—and saw him for what he was. He wasn’t a man searching for a soulmate. He was a man addicted to the beginning of things.
I realized too late that a vacancy created by a cheater will always be filled by another cheater.
He didn’t leave Linda because she was flawed; he left her because he is broken. And now, he wasn’t leaving me because I wasn’t enough; he was leaving because he needed a new audience.
I stood up. I didn’t cry. I felt a strange sense of solidarity with the woman I had spent ten years despising.
“Go,” I said. “Go be vibrant.”
As he walked out the door to start his new life, I didn’t feel like a victim. I felt like a placeholder who had finally served her term. I was the second wife. And somewhere out there, the third wife was already celebrating her victory, completely unaware that she was just the next stop on a schedule I had foolishly helped create.
