Publicity

'Meet the Mistress'
- Sue De Groot

She's seen several of these women at her practice, she says. They've come for help because they've found themselves unable to resist men who are married or involved - usually happily, with no intention of leaving their wives or girlfriends.

Most mistresses go into an affair thinking that they can handle not being number one in their man's life and can cope with never going out with him openly, but many end up feeling rejected, humiliated - and determined never to be in that position again.

So why do some women choose to keep doing it?

romancing the ring

Jodie*, 29, an insurance broker, grudgingly confesses that she is a serial mistress. She meets a lot of men in the course of her work, she says, and many of them are married. Jodie has had three affairs with involved men over the past four years. 'I don't know why I'm always more attracted to the married ones,' she says. 'Maybe it's the excitement of an illicit affair. Maybe it's because they're unattainable that I want them. It's not something I consciously choose to do. After the first affair ended badly, I swore I'd never get involved with another married man. Then I fell in love with Jim*, who was engaged and living with his fiancee. We met secretly for almost a year, but eventually the guilt and the sneaking around got too much for him, or maybe he just got tired of me, and he broke it off.'

Again Jodie promised herself that the next man she dated would be single, but a few months later she met Trevor*, handsome, successful, charming and ... married. When he asked her to lunch, Jodie couldn't resist. Their affair lasted six months, until Trevor's wife found out and instituted divorce proceedings. Suddenly Jodie didn't find him that attractive anymore.

'It was all very ugly,' she says, 'and Trevor just crumbled. I looked at how he was so broken-up about the divorce and I didn't see the strong, confident man I had fallen for. I also didn't want to be his refuge from divorce. I wanted him to come to me on his own terms, because he wanted me, not because mine was the only place he could go. I don't entirely blame myself for the split - he had had other affairs before me, so the marriage probably wasn't destined to last - but the fact that I was the one around when the break finally happened meant that, if we'd stayed together, I would be seen as a home-wrecker. I couldn't handle that.'

no dirty dishes

Women who choose to get involved with other women's men don't want to deal with the chores that sharing a life entail. When it looked as though Jodie could have Trevor all to herself she was clearly far from thrilled at the prospect.

'Most women who habitually get involved with married men are looking for some sort of escape from a humdrum life and don't want the mundane things that come along with a ''normal'' relationship,' says Karen.

When you're having an affair, you don't have to pick up his dirty underpants every night or replace the cap on the toothpaste; you don't have to explain why you're home late from a girls' night and you don't have to spend time with his colleagues - his wife does all that. You get the sex laced with the erotic fear of discovery, the intensity of moments snatched from the dull routine of his normal life. Which is why very few of these affairs last when there is no longer any need for secrecy. The fun goes out of them.

Cherie*, who runs a dating agency in Johannesburg that specialises in helping single women meet married men, says, 'You'd be surprised how many single, attractive, emotionally and financially secure women in South Africa consciously choose to have an affair with a married man. They enjoy the romance, passion and undivided attention they receive from a man in this situation, as opposed to a live-in arrangement where things rapidly become mundane, stale and domesticated. They don't want the man to leave his wife; they are quite happy with things as they are.'

It's not just about sex and it's not just about putting out the rubbish; the serial 'other woman' usually wants to give less of herself too.

'The women I've met who believe that having an affair is a harmless substitute for a proper relationship are usually avoiding commitment,' says Karen. 'They have a problem with intimacy, and having serial affairs is simply compounding the problem, not solving it.'

Of course, the women who go to see Karen are those seeking counselling - presumably because they are unhappy with their lives. But there are serial 'other women' out there who don't see anything wrong with their lifestyles. Are they all running from reality? Or is this a realistic way of handling modern life, allowing men to have someone at home and someone on the side and allowing women who don't want permanence to enjoy the occasional commitment-free bonk?

For those who believe in monogamy, this is a scary state of, um, affairs. The thought offends us mostly because we're afraid of being the one cheated on - the one who gets hurt. But what about the women cheating? Don't they care about that? And don't they get hurt too?

a business affair

Although Jodie says she believed that she had fallen in love each time she became involved with another woman's man, other 'other women' are a bit more cool and calculating about doing it. Some of them have even signed on at Cherie's dating agency, geared at enabling discreet affairs between single women and married men.

Perhaps you can understand the men's motivation, but why do women join this kind of agency? Three of them were willing to give their reasons - anonymously of course.
Caroline* got divorced when she was 27. She's now 30, runs her own business, and says the last thing she wants is a permanent relationship. She signed up with the agency, went on several 'blind dates' with prospective men, and now sees one of them regularly, or at least when it's convenient for him to get away from his wife.

What would happen if she decided she wanted more from the relationship? 'I don't,' she insists. 'I have my own issues to sort out before I get involved with anyone.'

Caroline does not want to be the cause of a relationship ending. 'I'm very aware and very careful. I'm not prepared to do anything that would jeopardise someone else's life. If I feel a strong attraction to someone on the first date, then I won't see him again.'

Eva*, 28, is a single mother who was engaged to a man who let her down. She decided that all men were untrustworthy life partners. 'But I missed going out,' she says. So she joined the same agency, and now sees an out-of-town businessman whenever he's around. 'It does feel wrong that he's married,' she admits, 'but a guy looking for an affair is going to have one anyway. At least this way there's less chance of his wife finding out. I enjoy his company, but I don't let myself forget that he's married.'

Claire*, 29, says she joined the agency because she is a high-powered professional and has very little free time, so she finds it difficult to meet people socially. Also, she says it's difficult for a woman to go out on her own in South Africa without either being frowned on or hit on.

She opted for the agency that would introduce her to married men because she doesn't want the pressure of a permanent relationship. In fact, she tries not to see the same man too often, asking the agency owner to set her up with different dates. 'If these men are doing this then their marriages have already broken down,' is her justification. 'I wouldn't be able to live with myself thinking that I had broken up a marriage.'

In a sense these women are more honest than the serial mistresses who bounce from one married man to the next blaming their behaviour on uncontrollable emotions.

But Karen doesn't believe they're all as carefree as they may suggest.

part-time love

The serial 'other woman' can be locked into a self-destructive cycle, says Karen, where she feels she doesn't deserve the exclusive love of one man, and having affairs is her way of punishing herself.

'It's never a conscious reason,' Karen explains, 'but many women get involved with married men for the same reasons others make suicide attempts. It's a cry for help, for attention. They are emotionally needy and lack self-esteem. They know that the affair is destined to end in pain and trauma. Part of them wants that to happen.

'These are the women who come to me, usually after some huge emotional upset. Almost without exception they are women who have low self-esteem and don't feel able to handle a ''proper'' relationship, for whatever reasons. The affair is simply an acting out of this insecurity.'

That's not to say that every woman who has an affair with a married man is a writhing mass of self-doubt and emotional immaturity. But it's likely she'll be in denial to some extent.

Because the time she spends with her lover is limited, the serial 'other woman' sometimes feels she's in control of her life, says Karen. But that's an illusion.

These women also tend to be out of touch with their own feelings. 'Either the ''other woman'' becomes very emotionally involved with the man and talks herself into believing that he will leave his family to be with her - and inevitably she gets badly let down - or she tells herself it's just a bit of fun and isn't doing any harm,' says Karen.

Sometimes you can't choose who you fall in love with, but women who aren't interested in a man unless he's involved with someone else could probably benefit from a bit of self-examination.

They may discover there are benefits, too, to being the woman in a man's life rather than being his other woman. Okay, picking up his smelly socks may not seem like a benefit, but being able to cry on his shoulder or laugh at his jokes whenever you want should make up for that .

* Name changed