Long story short, my friend and I got into a discussion about being the other woman. She was in this position once, because she tried to marry a man who was already married in another country. So basically her whole wedding wasn't even "legal". She has since moved on, and she has a great laugh about her crazy wedding adventures. She is currently married to a wonderful man, legally, so this isn't a fresh wound.

We came up with different situations of what would be considered the other woman. We agreed of the majority of them, but here is one that we didn't agree on. This is an entirely hypothetical situation that neither one of us are in. This is just a situation for fun stimulating debate.

Mark has been dating Amy for 3 years. They are exclusive with each other, but Mark starts to see Lauren after 1 year (douchebag). He gets married to Lauren without Amy knowing about it. They have a small courthouse wedding, so Amy doesn't hear anything from the grapevine.

In this situation who would be considered the "other woman" in your opinion? Amy because she isn't the wife, or Lauren because Amy was already in an exclusive relationship with Mark?

Debate away. Yes yes, we all know that Mark is a douchebag who doesn't deserve either of them, and Lauren SHOULD get divorced, but lets keep that part out of the debate.

Or..are both of them the other woman?

The other woman is Lauren. She is the one who contributed to the initial betrayal. Amy has done no wrong.

I would say Lauren is, if she knew about Amy. If she didn't know about Amy, then I would say both.

You don't say if the Lauren in your story knew about Amy.

This would totally change my answer.

Oh, we actually never discussed whether Lauren knew or not. I guess for the debate, you can give both answers if she knew, and if she didn't know.

But as a point of law as I understand it, while Lauren may be "the other woman" in a social sense, the only thing that really counts is the marriage. Without a marriage (except for common law and that require seven years in most states) Amy has no legal status in the relationship.

I suppose she could plead "palimony" for the time she spent with him, but those have not gotten very far in courts.

I would hope that Lauren has a good pre-nup...she may need it.

I guess my concept of "other woman" really applies more to cheating in marriage. This strikes me as more of a "moving on" situation without a formal break-up. Tacky, but seems to happen rather often. I knew of several cases of this among college age people wherein one person is in school, the other in the hometown or away at a post graduation job (I was in exactly that situation twice...with the same girl - though I DID marry her), finds someone on campus or in the new location and neglects to send a "Dear John" or Dear (female equivalent of "Dear John") letter to break up the relationship. I had cases of this among servicemen and servicewomen who worked for me. In one case, a GI was engaged here, got assigned to Korea and ended up marrying some B-girl from the red light district. The girl back here found out about it only by a letter from a mutual friend - this in the days before Email. [And I as the girl's boss had to deal with this...fun, fun, fun.]

Jon

^ Well, this is cheating in a marriage. He married the "other woman" and by her becoming his wife, his real girlfriend has switched to the "other woman" role.

Jon, I do believe that what happened in my friends case was that the husband/wife just moved on and never went through the motions of getting a divorce. That isn't such a HUGE problem unless you want to get remarried!

You really haven't given us the whole picture and unless we know the full story we won't be able to comment properly.

We really can't comment on if's, but's and maybe's.

^It's a hypothetical...the entire thing is an "if"

Why does there have to be an "other woman"? I feel like the phrase "other woman" implies that one woman has claim and a greater right to the relationship with the man. It also shifts the focus entirely away from the person with the bad behavior in the first place (Mark in this case).

So, sort of a party pooper answer, but I don't really care who the "other woman" would be, but they're both better without the douchebag Mark!

I don't think that in every situation where a guy is seeing two women there has to be the "other woman" label.

I personally reserve that term for the female counterpart in an affair - when they know about it.

If Lauren knew about Amy and still married Mark I would call her the 'other woman'.

If she did not know about Amy I would consider them to both be victims of Mark's doucebaggery, and neither to be the 'other woman'.

That being said, if Amy were to find out about Mark and Lauren's marriage but continue to see Mark I would say she is the "other woman".

If two women are married or "with" a man and neither knows about the other woman in his life than they are both the "other woman", IMO. To their knowledge, they are having a monogomous relationship and they aren't partaking in any type of affair. I suppose the man might look at whichever woman came last as the other woman.

AlwaysOnStage wrote:

^It's a hypothetical...the entire thing is an "if"

Not really,

YumYumDoughnut wrote:

She was in this position once, because she tried to marry a man who was already married in another country. So basically her whole wedding wasn't even "legal"

I just like to know the full story before I'm asked to give an opinion.

YumYumDoughnut wrote:

This is an entirely hypothetical situation that neither one of us are in. This is just a situation for fun stimulating debate.

Just for clarity.

Mmmmm. One of these hypothetical people has your name.

^ Yup! Isn't Lauren a lovely name, and woman with that name are quite pretty, great drinkers, great cooks and humble too. LOL Plus this person has my name because I am a husband stealer and I would have no trouble sleeping with married men. *sighs*

Hummingbird the reason this story doesn't have a background because it is just a made up scenario of "what if". I just gave a bit of personal background about my friend, so you could relate to my hypothetical situation better. She was in a semi-similar situation about 15 years ago, but neither was the other woman because he just moved unto other people. He wasn't living with his wife at the time nor have they spoken to each other in 5 years.
This honestly isn't about either one of us, and this isn't even based off of a real life couple I know. This is why there isn't much of a background to the debate.


I guess if people can't get past not having a backstory, lets just assume that Lauren did know about Amy but decided to get married anyways. ( Hey....Amy & Lauren...if we added a Trevor to the mix, it could be a DDN love triangle!!!)

Obviously, both women are at fault. If they could satisfy their man, he wouldn't have to sleep around. Keep it freaky, ladies! Your marriage might depend on it.

panic wrote:

Obviously, both women are at fault. If they could satisfy their man, he wouldn't have to sleep around. Keep it freaky, ladies! Your marriage might depend on it.

Lauren and Amy should hook up and have their man watch.

^ I also think DDN has a Mark running around here somewhere....Marky Mark...

YumYumDoughnut wrote:

^ I also think DDN has a Mark running around here somewhere....Marky Mark...

Hi there! Scumbag as charged!

There might be a few Amy's and Lauren's out there, poor wilting flowers they be next to my sexual prowess and manly moustache of love. Perhaps the use of actual common names in the hypothetical might not have been the best choice. Maybe change them to Belly, Thorne and Plumbgap for Lauren, Mark and Amy respectively.

Sorry, nothing to add. But that's just me being a scumbag. Perhaps I should be a meme... but my name isn't Steve.

Mark

YumYumDoughnut wrote:

^ I also think DDN has a Mark running around here somewhere....Marky Mark...

I know you think you're being funny here, but I really don't like what you're inferring.

Erin.
::righteous babe::

I'm not sure what I am inferring?...I didn't mean to imply that your Mark cheats, is a douchebag, got married, is sleeping around, married me, is cheating on you etc.

I just thought it was funny that since an Amy and a Lauren appeared on the thread, all that was missing was a Mark. Then I totally remembered there WAS a Mark on DDN. I didn't create this hypothetical with Scarlet or Dancing_EMT or Slice ( she is apparently a Lauren too!) in mind at all.

I am not inferring to anything about Scarlet on this thread, AT ALL. Mark is such a common name ( I dated a Mark in high school) that I didn't have him in mind at all.

If Lauren knew about Amy then she's the other woman...but if neither one of them knew about the other then they weren't doing anything wrong. Neither are the other woman. Amy was dating him...Lauren started dating him and married him THINKING he was a single man. I always think of the other woman as one who enters a relationship with a guy already in a relationship and KNOWS about the other woman.

So hypothetically.....

^ So hypothetically, I think that Amy is now considered the "other woman" because she is secondary to the primary. He chose to have wedding vows with Lauren, which makes her the primary legally.

Morally/Ethically I think that Lauren is the "other woman" because she took away the primary position from Amy. Well she didn't really "take away" because it takes two to tango, but I hope you know what I mean. Even if she didn't know about Amy, that doesn't change the fact.
That is my opinion.

I refer to "other woman" as secondary to the primary person. If she knew about the primary girl and went ahead with it, I would probably call her another name that isn't "the other woman". I *almost* feel bad for the person who is the "other woman" because it must be horrible being second fiddle to someone.

Hummingbird, I get what you are trying to say now!

Ok so two hypothetical situations.
1. Lauren knew about Amy, but Amy didn't know about Lauren.
2. Lauren and Amy don't know about each other.