In the last decade or so of my life, I have witnessed how immature and emotionally unintelligent people can be.

There may have been huge amounts of alcohol involved. And not consumed by me.

But it has shown me that there is a surprising number of conniving women and clueless men out there.

The basic scenario goes like this: Mr. A is married to Mrs. A, and they have been together for some time, it doesn’t matter exactly how much time, but long enough that they have been through some shit together and continue to evolve having reached an easy comfort level and love for each other. Maybe they have some kids.

Unfortunately, ease and comfort can inadvertently turn to boredom. Then Ms. D comes along (sometimes she’s married, and they become couple friends, or she’s one of their workmates or a friendly neighbor, and she has kids too.) She sees how great the A’s relationship looks from the outside, without comprehending that it only looks that way because the two of them have continued to choose each other day in and day out for years, they have done the work to get to such depth, and Ms. D decides that is the relationship she wants and does not make the connection that she could have a relationship like theirs if she worked on her own. She decides what she needs, is a man like Mr. A, although she goes a step further and decides, not just a man like Mr. A, she decides she wants Mr. A.

Completely disregards her own husband because they can’t/don’t/won’t communicate.

So, she sets about becoming better friends with the couple, calling and texting, oversharing, offering to look after the kids, inviting them over, and doing couple things together. She gains the trust of Mrs. A and starts to reveal gaps in her own relationship,  inevitably Ms. D may even catch Mrs. A in a moment of frustration, after a quarrel or a selfish decision by Mr. A and pretend to be a solid listening friend, agreeing and commiserating with Mrs. A, coincidentally, later she’ll reach out to Mr. A when Mrs. A is at work or something and seeing as she overshares everything, anyway, tells Mr. A her own relationship is having pretty much exactly the same frustrations, or they are going through the same stuff.

This initial communication then opens the door for Mrs. D to freely text or call Mr. A whenever she wants about her own frustrations and whatever else. Mr. A starts to think they have so much in common.

I do have to take a pause here and point out that usually around this point, Mrs. A will question why Mrs. D is in such constant contact with her husband, and he’ll just blow it off, and seeing as they have been together for so long and she trusts him, Mrs. A puts it out of her mind, after all, they have been together and a single trusting unit for so long, they both have friends of the opposite sex, she doesn’t see it as a threat. And she has a gazillion other things that demand her attention.

From here it’s all downhill, as Mrs. D weasels her way into the relationship, ultimately causing the implosion of the A’s marriage. She offers Mr. A ease of friendship without any consequences or expectations (except the big one of wanting to be Mrs. A) She starts telling everyone Mr. A is her best friend when Mrs. A hears this and questions Mr. A and tells Mrs. D to back off. Mr. A  tells Mrs. A she has nothing to worry about and may attempt to resume the date night tradition they lost along the way; they may temporarily be close again. But then some fundamental cracks in the foundation start to show.  Mr. A likes the attention and will not tell Mrs. D to go away. After all, she isn’t doing anything wrong; he doesn’t see a problem. Mrs. A feels insecure and resentful and does not trust Mr. A’s naivety in the situation. Mr. A continually tells Mrs. A that Mrs. D is just a friend, and he feels sorry for her, that she’s having such a hard time in her marriage, or some other equally dumb-sounding excuse.

This wears on Mrs. A and they start arguing more. He starts disrespecting their marriage. His wife and their home. And Mrs. A does her best to hold it all together and get through this rough patch. Eventually enough has been said and done that Mrs. A comes to her senses and makes the decision to get out of the marriage and away from the toxic mess it has become.

This is where it gets funny, (and not funny ha-ha) because not every man runs straight to Mrs. D, often they just go into a tailspin, Mr. A either makes a concentrated effort to get his family back together or retreats into a self-medicated blur of denial, that he didn’t do anything wrong, either way, Mrs. D sees this as her chance and starts actively throwing herself at him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I’m sure you get the gist of it, after her concentrated efforts, she might even get an intimate moment, (because, you know, men) she then launches into “I love you, but you’ve changed”, complete with eyelash batting and crocodile tears.  And proceeds to moan to whoever will listen to her false narrative about the “relationship” she never had.

I have seen this scenario play out numerous times, even in my own life, and I can not understand a couple of things:

Why do women think they can “steal” someone away from what they perceive as a great relationship, and it will suddenly become her great relationship?  

How don’t these women realize that the only way to have a great relationship is by doing the work? That only by choosing each other day in and day out through the good times, the boring times, the tedious times, and especially the tough times is the only way to ever have a great relationship with someone?

Nothing tears your soul apart quite like realizing that the person you thought was your human was simply waiting for a better option. And they could make some monumentally horrible life-altering decisions.

I don’t get it, and I’m sure there are many shades of grey surrounding this scenario that play out in relationships everywhere, I can only speak from my own experience. But the longer you live, the more you notice the same things keep happening because as humans we are all so very similar. And so very predictable.

But in the slim hopes of someone thinking about indulging in either of these roles or knowing someone who is, remember this: the grass is always greener where you water it.  And just because you may catch a married person in a moment of vulnerability, that is not an invitation to worm your way in there in a lame attempt to take what they have built.  It’s just not.

The type of relationship you attempt to covert is built on years of trust, communication, and love. It cannot be stolen, no matter what they think. Only broken.