Let's reject female rivalry!
People are often surprised that I spend so much time with Corry, my ex-husband’s second wife, and that I speak so fondly of her. I love the woman, so do my children, and she loves them. Obviously, she comes as a package with my ex-husband, so he always comes too when we hang out, but I enjoy our time together nonetheless.
Traditionally, women who have bonked the same man are not expected to be friends with one another – definitely not if marriage is involved. If the second wife is younger, the first is assumed to be bitter and jealous, as though all that had attracted the husband to this new woman was the elasticity of her skin. The “newer model” is then often accused of having “second wife syndrome”’; insecure and resentful that her beloved had built a whole life with someone else that she will never live up to, even though it all went tits up.
The expectation that we must hate each other has forced both Corry and me to defend each other many times over the years, when friends and acquaintances presumed that they can make disparaging remarks about one of us to the other. But I am not envious of her, and she has never tried to get my ex-husband to lure our children into the forest and leave them there with only a husk of bread to eat.
Before Corry, when my ex and I were still deep in the agony of divorce, he began seeing a woman who did have a more Grimms Fairytales approach to blended families. I suppose a romantic meal with a new beau is slightly marred when he notices his ex-wife has left him 20 messages alternating between screaming rants and sobbing contrition. But so what if we need to spend a little time fantasising about blasting the “other woman” into outer space, while we process our fear or hurt? Women in particular are shamed for feeling jealous. But the more we can talk about this emotion, the quicker it will pass.
Years ago, when I was a student, I was furiously jealous when a very pretty woman in my local pub flirted with my then boyfriend, who flirted back. At one point she was on his lap. After trying to act like I didn’t care for a while, I flounced home in tears. The next afternoon, the girl turned up at my door. I was taken aback. She had bags full of grocery shopping. “I was horrible last night, I’m a bit jealous of you and, I dunno, I was a cow. I’ve come to cook you lunch to say sorry,” she said. We spent a happy afternoon drinking wine, giggling and scoffing food straight from the pan.
Everything is fixable if you own how you feel. Sometimes you can admit you are a boyfriend-stealing fiend and be forgiven. Especially if you are bearing food and booze. I broke up with the boyfriend but remain friends with The Cow to this day.
So are Corry and I really unusual? Or do we only notice when women are hurt and not coping well with being pitted against each other? We are constantly given the message that other women are either friends or foes, either we trust each other with our lives or we freeze each other out. We are expected to define our relationship with each other, good or bad. It’s not the same for men. I can’t think of a time when a first and second husband have been splashed on the covers of magazines and newspapers inviting us to compare them and decide who is better.
The first time Corry, my ex and I all went out for a pub lunch with the children, she and I had an arm-wrestle to determine which of us was the best wife. We all laughed ourselves silly, putting aside any notion that we would ever be seriously competitive with each other. (That said, it’s important for me to tell you that I won the arm-wrestle. Fairly easily, if I am honest, which is possibly why I mentioned it at all.) I quite enjoy the kudos I get when people know that I do not wish to boot my ex-husband’s second wife into a lake of fire. I casually drop it into conversations: “Flat white, please, no sugar, and did you know my ex-husband’s second wife knitted me this shawl?”
This article is from New Humanist’s Spring 2025 issue. Subscribe now.