I Was Addicted to Hating the Other Woman

How I Got Sober

Photo by Author. A snippet of the green bubble text conversation.

Gina. That’s her name.

Gina, the competition. Gina, the woman from my husband’s past. Gina, now exploding into our marriage. Gina.

I didn’t hate the others, but my hate for her existed as soon as she became a reality in my life.

The others were just Botts dots along my marriage freeway — thumping sounds to warn of drifting into the wrong lane. But Gina was not a warning. She was a highway message board — big, flashing, LED arrow — alerting of a lane closure ahead.

Gina knew about us. Gina wanted someone else’s husband. Gina willingly pursued a family man.

Thanks to social media, Gina witnessed in real-time the fakery being conducted by her infatuated sweetheart. A family trip in a quaint, oceanside town occurring concurrently with their blossoming affair.

Gina saw his smile in my selfies taken during an early morning run. She saw him laughing while getting a piggyback ride from our son. She saw him riding side-by-side on a boogie board with our daughter through the Pacific Ocean waves.

She saw four smiles and two dogs at the center of a sunset family photo.

Gina would see all of this and then resume conversations with the husband and father tagged…