A Letter to Doris, the Mistress

For the women who’ve lived through the devastation of being betrayed not just by a man, but by the girl who befriended you and then helped him do it, this letter is for you.

Dear Doris,

I’m not writing this because I want anything from you.

Not closure. Not answers.

Not accountability you were never going to offer. You are a compulsive liar anyway.

I’m writing this because for a long time, women like you walked around untouched protected by the silence of the women whose lives you helped fracture.

So let me say the thing so many of us were pressured to swallow:

You knew he had a wife. And you just didn’t care.

I need you to understand something clearly:

You didn’t “win” him. You are truly welcome to him. I was done long before we separated anyway.

But you did participate in the unravelling of a woman who trusted him, believed him, built a life beside him for 12 years.

You helped break something that was never yours to touch.

You allowed him to gaslight me, to make me sound crazy.

Do you remember when your sister told me the truth? Yet you sat across from me in a café’ and demanded an apology from ME! Because I cut you off as a friend.

I simply saw you for the liar you are, and removed you from my life.

And I want you to know something else that may shock you:

I actually don’t hate you. You aren’t worth the energy.

You weren’t the woman I loved. You weren’t the one I built a home with. You weren’t the one who made vows and promises to me.

But you were the woman who stood beside him as he dishonoured them.

And that is its own kind of cruelty.

The truth is, women like you always think you’re the exception.

That being chosen quietly means being chosen meaningfully. That the version of a man presented in secrecy is somehow more real than the one who lived in daylight.

You think being chosen in secret means being chosen in truth.

You think the lies he told you (which were many) sound different from the lies he told me.

But let me offer you a truth now, you’ll eventually learn the hard way:

A man who betrays his partner with you will eventually betray you too.

Maybe not in the same way. And maybe not out of punishment, but pattern.

Not because of karma, but character.

He didn’t cheat with you. He cheated on himself because he actually has no idea who he is. He never has.

Just a carbon copy of his father, the man who’s approval he will forever seek.

No integrity, no values, no ability to be a safe place for anyone. Not even himself.

His life will never be the same, his friendships are damaged, his reputation and respect for him obliterated, which is what he cares about the most if you haven’t worked that

out yet.

You were simply the hand he used to do the damage. A marvellous performance by the both of you. Bravo. You fooled a lot of people.

And you, trying to score several other married men along the way. He isn’t special. He is stupid. That’s why it is all quite amusing in hindsight.

And while you get to float around in whatever fantasy you have built in your head,  I was left to rebuild a life that you helped destroy.

But here’s the twist you probably didn’t expect: I got stronger.

Not closed. Not small. Stronger. Open. Bigger infact. I am the most me I have ever felt in my life.

Because women like me don’t collapse.

We rise. We heal. We rebuild.

We learn exactly who we are in the moment we realise we deserved better than both of you.

So Doris, my letter to you isn’t about anger. It’s about clarity.

You can have the version of him you got;  the secret version, the dishonest version, the escapist version, the one who needed to sneak around to feel powerful.

Because I’ll tell you something with absolute certainty:

The woman he lost is far more valuable than the woman he gained.

I walked away with my integrity intact. My conscience is clean. My future is open.

And a heart that knows now, more than ever, that real love is built with honour not stolen in secret shadows.

And that, Doris, is the part of the story you’ll never be able to take from me or rewrite.

A woman who finally knows her worth.

So no, I don’t hate you. I thank you. For the lessons, for taking him off my tired hands.

He is all yours.

Chez