The Philippine Online Chronicles

When Nena learned her husband was keeping a mistress, her gut reaction was "to search and destroy."   She wanted to kill or at least to maim (her husband and the other woman), but in time was able to keep hold on herself.  She thought, wistfully, desperately, she could talk sense into the errant pair.  At 35, she believed human kindness and reason could work wonders.

Here is an account of their first meeting – Nena and Leny, wife and mistress.

I dropped by Leny’s apartment just as she was on her way to school. Our meeting was a pleasant one, surprisingly. She remarked how good and young I looked. But of course, I took care to look my best – wore my most flattering dress, suffered my girdle, had my hair blow-dried. I told her in turn she was everything my husband told me she was. Inwardly, I groaned – she looked so young, fragile, and innocent.

She told me she didn’t really have to go school that day. “Great,” I said. “Why don’t we drop by his office – and watch his jaw drop."

When we entered the office, holding hands and beaming, work ground to a halt. We must have made a grand show.

Yes, my husband's jaw dropped as we made our way to his cubicle. When he recovered his senses, he said: “Let’s go out to dinner.” We made plans for the three of us that night – noble, win-win plans. Silently, I congratulated myself. How clever I was!

If our lofty plans had materialized, Leny would study full time. I would be her guardian, mentor and friend. He would meanwhile keep distance from Leny.  When she finished school and started a career, we would be the best of friends – all three of us.

Two months later, Leny was pregnant by my husband.

Monica tried a similar approach.She arranged to meet Eva, her husband Ding’s officemate and paramour.

Eva turned out to be really nice. She promised to forget Ding. And she also asked me to bring her home so she could meet “Ding’s children … so I can stand firm on my decision to break up with him." Taking a crowded bus, we were hanging by the estribo all the way. When we alighted, Eva said: “You could have pushed me from the bus, you know.”

Incredibly, Eva was as as good as her word. Maybe it also helped that she was fired out from the office where she and Ding worked. Ding grieved Eva’s loss but Monica’s ordeal was far from over. It wasn’t long before Ding found another lover.

Not all wives can manage their dark impulses when meeting their husband’s mistresses for the first time. Carla is one of the feisty, uncontrolled ones.

Carla happens to be Nena’s sister, fiercely loyal to each other, but poles apart in temperament.

When Carla got wind of what was happening, she did some research to confirm her fears. Once she was certain something was afoul, she followed her husband Ben as he drove supposedly to overtime work. She left her own car behind and instead took a cab so Ben would not notice he was being tailed.

Inside Carla’s bag was a gun, Ben’s gun.

He parked by a narrow alley in a semi-depressed part of Manila, went out of the car, and walked. I paid the cab, and watched him enter a small yard where a petite young woman waited. I was in turmoil … I must have entered the yard too and walked past him. All I remember is holding the woman by the collar and pointing Ben’s gun at her temple or neck or head. I cursed her and I warned her I’d kill her if she saw my husband again and told her I meant business. My husband pulled me from her and there was shrieking all around. Everything happened fast. The next thing I knew, I had pulled the trigger and a shot rang out and the girl’s foot was bleeding. I rushed out. When I passed by my husband’s car, I stopped to pick the largest rock I could find. I threw it with all my remaining anger at the windshield, breaking it to smithereens.

Tess also wanted to hurt an unexpected visitor to her house one morning. It was Sarah, the one big thorn in her marital life. Sarah came to confront Tessie’s husband for his dwindling visits and possibly for money for their apartment rental and their baby’s milk.

I wasn’t the hair-pulling type, I guess. What I wanted was the most caustic acid to pour on her face to disfigure her forever. All I could find was muriatic acid which we use for  cleaning toilet bowls, and I wasn’t sure it would work. Carrying the bottle, I came out into the yard where the two of them were talking only to find my young children – ages 13, 11, and 8, had pre-empted me. They had thrown rocks at Sarah and she was bleeding from her cuts and crying and crying. My husband was scolding the kids, but I wanted to pull them and hug them and to laugh and laugh.

Can a wife be blamed for uncontrolled behavior when she meets the other woman?

No matter how “goody-two-shoes” a wife ordinarily is, she can be transformed -- under pressure -- into a woman-dragon spitting fire. She is after all, a woman threatened, scorned .. and very very scared. Why not? Something of hers is being taken away from her. Something very precious to her. Her spouse, her love, the stability of her family, her happiness, her peace of mind. Her very life if she is still naive enough to  think her life revolves around her husband.

Fear can bring forth all the wiliness and malice we may not be aware we are capable of. Fear can drive people to do things they never imagined they can do.

An affair that has broken out into the open escalates inevitably into a war – or at least a psy-war.

In Nena’s words: “In the eyes of the betrayed wife, the errant pair looms larger than life, while the rest of the world fades to the background. Home, children, work, profession, friends – they no longer count except as support systems to help annihilate the enemy.”

Hair-pulling, face slapping. and kicking incidents are commonplace. Shouting matches more so.

But some wives are not content getting physical.  They take punitive action in ways that damage the other one's career, job, and reputation.

A wife filed a complaint with the Professional Regulatory Board against a nurse who happened to be her doctor- husband’s lover. The nurse was stripped of her license and was forced to start a new life abroad.

Another wife reported to the employer of both her husband and his paramour, accusing them of immoral conduct, and hoping that would make them toe the line. Still another talked with the young woman’s parents hoping they would exercise their parental authority and control the misbehaving daughter.

If you are a wife, is there anything you would stop at doing to keep someone from trespassing over what you consider your exclusive property?

And what about the other woman?  Isn't she supposed to have feelings too, with her own tale of perhaps being duped, wronged, condemned, stigmatized?  Yes of course ...  but that's another story.

(Watch this channel for a story on "The Other Woman's Christmas.")