A 

21-year-old man and 
my childhood friend, 
whom we will call 
“X,” had a serious girlfriend for 
two years in college, and was 
very happy with her (evident in 
his Instagram feed with recur-
ring captions: “Grateful for my 
best friend”). But he was actively 
approaching other women and 
professing his feelings for them.
As an outsider, I would con-
demn him as a hypocritical 
womanizer. I always held the 
blunt belief that infidelity is the 
betrayal of trust, and those who 
help the cheater are complicit in 
the immoral act of violating rela-
tionship norms. Thus, getting 
with X was nowhere on my moral 
compass. Being on the other side 
of an infidelity equation was defi-
nitely not a place I ever imagined 
myself, but in a twist of fate — 
one nebulous night in New York 
City over the summer— I became 
the “other” woman.
Amidst aimless bar-hopping, 

when he tried to kiss me, I reject-
ed him because I knew he had 
a long-distance girlfriend. But 
he was insistent, saying, “We 
are still young, we should live a 
little,” and I drunkenly thought, 
“why not?”
Terrible decision.
I observed the dangerous 
effortlessness to indulge in my 
vices just the next night. An 
irresponsible fling subsequently 
bloomed.
Although I felt nauseous from 
being with him, there was a sinis-
ter excitement in the affair. After 
a long week of competing in cor-
porate internships, I itched for 
our fancy dinner dates in SoHo 
and the movie nights followed by 
romantic strolls through Times 
Square. I was living with a cou-
ple and they thought he was my 
long-term boyfriend.
The scenario was great, except 
it was all a lie and I was fully 
aware of it. But in my mind, I 
had already enforced a denial 

of his girlfriend’s 
existence because 
I 
was, 
honestly, 
ashamed.
A part of me 
even 
knew 
our 
fling was built on 
his insecurity. But 
I wanted to be 
flattered. I didn’t 
want anything to 
do with what was 
happening 
under 
the surface. Yet 
I was still, not so 
deep down, dis-
gusted at who I was 
over that summer. 
However, 
admit-
ting to myself that 
I have consciously 
betrayed my val-
ues and in turn 
ignited my inner 
dark cravings for 
the forbidden fruit 
was the inevitable 
self-confrontation 
I wanted to avoid 
in order to “live 
in 
the 
present.” 
In other words, I 
was the conflicted 
“other” woman. 
Soon enough, summer came 
to an end and confessions of his 
love for me arrived with it, which 
contradictorily enshrined the 
guilt-painted reality that he had 
a girlfriend. I was devastated 
that I helped a man cheat on a 
woman who had no idea what her 
boyfriend was doing behind her 
back. So I denounced the affair 
and we agreed to distance our-
selves when we returned to our 
respective colleges, and he went 
back to living with her. Yet, noth-
ing stopped.
We regularly fired text mes-
sages, where he couldn’t stop 
reminiscing on our summer dal-
liances and I couldn’t contain my 
guilt. He implied we should orga-
nize some New York City esca-
pades because “a guy who works 
out and has a lot of testosterone 
needs to have sex.” Two months 
earlier, I would 
deliberately dis-
regard such alarming statements. 
But now, I was the conscience-
stricken “other” woman, so him 

excusing his infidelity with the 
precursor of masculinity was a 
red flag for me.
I made some new discoveries. 
While he was seeing me and still 
in a relationship with his girl-
friend, he was also pouring out 
romantic messages to another 
childhood friend’s college room-
mate — a girl he had never met, 
but admired through stalking 
her Instagram. He was simulta-
neously telling his high school 
girlfriend that she was “the one” 
ever since they broke up four 
years ago. She was shattered 
when X misled her to believe that 
he wanted to rekindle their rela-
tionship but later refused to leave 
his current girlfriend.
With the growing tide of 
morality burning within myself, 
I started confronting my per-
verseness for feeding his falla-
cious ideas that he could just 
play with four different women’s 
emotions and presume there 
would be no repercussions. So I 
pressed his need to be truthful to 
his girlfriend for his own good. 
My role now changed to “the 
good friend.” 
In the following turbulent 
days, a mutual friend of ours, 
whom 
X 
would 
habitually 
approach for relationship advice, 
discovered his cheating and also 
urged him to tell his girlfriend. 
This is when X called me cry-
ing and said: “I have told her 
everything, she is sitting right 
in front of me.” I knew him well 
enough to know he was falsifying 
a mental breakdown just to stop 
conversations that made him 
uncomfortable. But I didn’t dis-
close that I didn’t believe him. I 
was exhausted.
A few sleepless nights later, 
our friend showed me new posts 
of X and his girlfriend together 
that confirmed he faked the 
whole event of telling his girl-
friend. Now, I felt the necessity 
of slamming the brakes hard on 
X. I was too guilty for fueling his 
twisted romantic perspective. I 
knew he would keep going if no 
one stopped him and I knew his 
girlfriend would be the one to 
suffer the most.
After a month of pondering 

about her well-being, I sent an 
email to her with screenshots of 
texts between me and X. I owned 
up to my complicity in getting 
with 
her 
boyfriend, 
despite 
knowing she existed.
Within an hour, X tried call-
ing me and I firmly refused to 
talk to him, because him desir-
ing my reasoning for sending 
the email only demonstrated his 
ongoing belief that his “obedient 
girlfriend” (in his own words) 
was not entitled to learn of his 
mendacity. But parts of me were 
crumbling — I felt awful for doing 
this to my friend, even though I 
believed I did the right thing by 
coming clean to his girlfriend. 
With contradictions flaming in 
my mind, I ultimately texted him 
to close the chapter.
Although without animosity, 
he expressed his devastation for 
hearing his girlfriend say, “You 
are dead to me,” and requested 
for me to forward the email so 
he could explain his “thought 
process” for every event. Of 
course, I was not going to help 
him sow more excuses. Instead, I 
implored him to face the situation 
with veracity, as I was now the 
“good moral being” in addition 
to my previous role of the “good 
friend.” He finally expressed an 
interest in understanding the 
root of why he kept on doing all 
this. After that, we blocked each 
other from everything (includ-
ing Venmo and LinkedIn). I 
never received a reply from his 
girlfriend, but I only hope I’ve 
helped her future in some way. 
Sometimes I wish this story 
never happened. I distressed my 
friend and possibly ended his 
relationship. Yet, I remain con-
tent with the thought that per-
haps we all learned to never drive 
down the roads of infidelity, 
deceit and lies again. And as days 
pass, I’m tempted to shelf this 
experience as a faint, vile mem-
ory. But I precariously attempt to 
hold on to the trajectory of will-
fully abandoning my moral codes 
and rediscovering them. After 
my stressful ride to the “other” 
side, I commit to exercising self-
control next time my impulses 
try to hijack my beliefs.

Wednesday, January 16, 2019 // The Statement 
7B
Wednesday, January 30, 2019 // The Statement 
7B

BY RAMISA ROB, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
Infidelity from the “other” side

NIGHT SHIFT

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily