How “the other woman” became one of my best friends

The sun was rising over the Nevada desert when my boyfriend informed me that for several months, he had been sleeping with my best friend’s roommate.

His confession shouldn’t have come as a shock. I’d seen signs of their intimacy all week at Burning Man, from their legs touching casually as we shared a hookah to the excuses he kept making to stop at his camp . And as someone who had expressly agreed to an open relationship with him, I was technically a willing participant in this triangle.

But that didn’t stop the animal rage from overtaking me at dawn. What was just an abstract idea of ​​sex with other women suddenly turned into the tangible reality of naked encounters with someone who shared toothpaste with my closest friend. A person I had known socially for years, whose generous confidence I envied, who drank his morning coffee in a kitchen where I had spent countless hours.

So I did what any rational, reluctant girlfriend would do in response: I screamed and screamed, waking up friends in nearby tents. I knocked over his bin of Burning Man costumes and sent colorful fabrics flying into the dust. I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe, and when I ran out of tears, I walked around our camp like a zombie until my eyes were ready to produce more. Needless to say, it was clear that our relationship was not strong enough to survive this information.

Earlier that summer, I had quit my job as an editor, rented a storage unit, and moved to Mexico City with nothing but a very large backpack and the uncashed Christmas bonus check from the previous year. I had spent most of my twenties in a journalism career, and after half a decade tethered to my laptop servicing the 24-hour online news cycle, I was feeling exhausted and ready for a new adventure. . I accepted a grant with a microfinance nonprofit and begged my boyfriend to join me in Latin America.

He didn’t want to leave the United States, but he didn’t want to break up either. Our relationship was one of those fiery relationships that hijacked my common sense, our catalog of inside jokes annoying to anyone who didn’t inhabit our world together, our alliances and our disagreements both equally explosive. When I wasn’t with him, I was fantasizing about our next meeting or worrying about the fight we inevitably got into the last time we saw each other. Like most other addictions, logic informed me that my life would be much healthier without it, and lust won the battle against logic every time.

“Maybe this would be a good time to experiment with opening up our relationship?” My boyfriend suggested nonchalantly as I gathered the remaining clothes I hadn’t put away and put them in my backpack. I was hesitant at first, but by the time I left for the airport, he had convinced me. After all, we would live 2,216 miles apart. Didn’t I want the freedom to build a life in my new city without giving up my long-term relationship?

During my first weeks in Mexico, I read self-help books like Sex at dawn And The ethical slut. I recited arguments in my mind about why it made perfect sense for someone you loved to enjoy intimacy with others, why lifelong monogamy was an unrealistic societal expectation that looked nothing like our biological roots, why simply because my partner was physically connected with other women. That doesn’t mean he loved me any less. I memorized the dictionary definition of “compersion” and tried desperately to absorb it into my psyche. I went on a series of hollow, meaningless dates and immediately felt guilty if I even kissed my suitors on the cheek at the end of the night.

But most of all, I worried about my boyfriend’s love life. I was obsessed with who he was and who he might meet. I looked through his Facebook friends list, looking for new women he’d added since I’d last seen him. I lost five pounds because I had constant stomach pain. Even though I had requested that our open relationship follow a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement, assuming I would feel worse if I knew other people he was seeing, the lack of information didn’t help. only freed my imagination to torture her. me with detailed and fantastic scenarios.

Then one morning, while scrolling through social media for the umpteenth excruciating time, I noticed that my best friend’s roommate – a woman named Ari with whom I had shared pleasant exchanges on several occasions – had posted a quote from my boyfriend’s favorite. book, Jitterbug perfumeon his own Facebook account. A few days later, a handful of photos of them laughing together at a beach party surfaced on both their pages. I had planned to meet a fellow student at a coffee shop that afternoon, but I was so upset at the thought of my boyfriend and Ari together that I canceled and moved on. the day in bed.

Very quickly, Ari replaced my boyfriend as the object of my charged fantasies. I checked her Facebook and Instagram feeds daily, sifting through even the most insignificant updates to try to uncover more clues about her life, interests, desires, and potential relationship with my partner. I looked through his photo collection, disarmed by his confident smile, his free spirit, his diverse group of friends. I was deeply jealous of her. I hated her. I wanted to be her.

I called my best friend on Skype. “Is Ari dating my boyfriend?” I let go before she could say hello.

“I’m staying out of it,” my best friend responded kindly, reminding me that I was the one who didn’t want to know any details about his love life. Still, his face all but confirmed that my suspicions were correct. And when I flew from Mexico to Nevada to meet my boyfriend at Burning Man later that summer, the misalignment in our relationship preferences reached a breaking point.

A year later, my Latin American escapades had run their course. I returned to San Francisco in search of stable employment and housing. My best friend offered me a coveted room in her house: a shared living situation for thirteen people in a historic Victorian mansion in the bustling Mission District. Ari, of course, lived there with her. But I had spent the past year recovering from my changing relationship with my ex-boyfriend, absorbed in the splendor of my travels. Although I still felt pain thinking about Ari, the opportunity to room with my best friend outweighed any residual discomfort.

My relationship with Ari was tentative at first: a yoga class here, a cooking session there. When we first met, I felt awkward and shrill, the girl who couldn’t stay within the confines of a modern, enlightened romantic setup. I spoke too loudly and immediately judged myself on everything that came out of my mouth, marveling at how easily Ari moved around our house, at parties, on Valencia Street.

Eventually, our forced interactions began to feel natural. We discovered we both loved tuna melts and spent an afternoon sourcing the fanciest loaf of bread and canned fish we could find, laughing as we concocted absurdly extravagant sandwiches . We realized we were wearing the same size clothes and regularly started going through each other’s closets. When she found out I was suffering from depression, she asked me for advice about another friend of hers and felt comfortable enough to cry in my presence. Finally, after a few months of true friendship, we broached the subject of our mutual ex.

It turned out that her relationship with him was the same as mine: passionate, volatile, unpredictable. When she found out how upset I had been upon learning of their relationship, she was devastated (he had spent the summer insisting to her that I was “totally cool with everything”). They were no longer in contact and she had no interest in ever seeing him again. In fact, we were both equally eager to broach the subject with each other – and equally relieved to discover that we had the same feelings.

Society tends to fan the flames of toxic female competitiveness, making the “other woman” a devious snake. She is unilaterally responsible for having seduced the man she loves, who proclaims his innocence. My friendship with Ari has taught me how inaccurate this story can be. Since living together in San Francisco, our relationship has only grown stronger. My best friend and I welcomed her into our fold, and now, as a trio, we form the basis of each other’s worlds.

Our thread is constantly buzzing throughout the day with triumphs, frustrations, epiphanies, photos and hot takes on everything from Ezra Klein’s podcast to season 4 of Succession to our latest vintage store finds. We share the mundane and the miraculous with the same enthusiasm, and I feel privileged to bear witness to their lives. It’s more than friendship, it’s an emotional life partnership. And I consider our relationship to be one of the things I’m most proud of, right up there with writing a book, staying sober, speaking Spanish, and training my dog.

A few years ago, during a trip to Rosarito, my ex-boyfriend texted me to wish me a happy birthday. Ari was next to me when my phone rang with its unexpected opening. In response, we made silly faces and took a selfie, which turned into a fit of giggles when I hit “send.” I threw my phone on the nightstand and walked out to join her in the hot tub before I could see her response. At that point, neither of us really cared what he had to say.

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