The loneliest season: a tale of being the 'other woman' through Christmas

A Christmas season like no other follows a woman who spent years as the other woman in relationships. The piece, told to Carina Stathis, uses the pseudonym Marlenya Jones and recounts years of a hidden life that revolved around a married lover. The essay covers two long running affairs, first in London and then in Sydney, and documents the toll of the holidays on someone who rarely belongs to the family picture.

In London in her early 20s, the narrator met Oliver at a Soho bar. The relationship unfolded with frequent texts, late nights, and gifts that felt like a dream. The truth came when a baby blue high chair and a toddler in the corner suggested a family life she did not share. Oliver admitted he had been married for five years and that his wife lived at a second home with their child, a life that left their romance constantly under the Christmas shadow. The couple continued to see each other for six years, with special occasions, especially Christmas, proving the hardest. The first Christmas apart found him with his wife and children, while she endured loneliness in a small apartment. After months of this pattern, they parted in 2019, and she moved to Sydney to start anew.

Following the move, she met Jack at a mutual friend’s dinner in north Sydney. He spoke of love and claimed to be divorced, and their chemistry grew into a deeper attachment. Yet about six months in, she learned he was still with his wife. The relationship persisted, but the first Christmas apart cast a similar shadow. Jack spent generously on experiences and dinners, but rarely bought tangible gifts, and she spent the festive week alone, wondering what his wife would receive. The memory of a necklace and other jewelry framed Christmas as a test of who counted. The film Love Actually is referenced to illustrate how the on screen scenario can deviate from reality, with the wife receiving the day and the lover being celebrated elsewhere. In real life, the narrator found herself waiting in solitude as a text arrived saying she could not call because his wife was present. The pattern of distance and return continued as winter wore on.

Loneliness at Christmas becomes a through line. She recalls childhood memories of waking up on Christmas morning and the glow of lights, contrasted with the hollow feeling of an adult season spent hiding. The narrator notes that the other woman is not first in the world of the relationship, a painful realization that can linger through December. She describes wrapping her own gifts and decorating her own apartment to feel some sense of existence, while the world around her lights up. The piece closes with the acknowledgment that the cycle remained, and that a season of visibility rarely came for her. Marlenya Jones is a pseudonym and the piece was told to Carina Stathis.

Beyond the personal essay, the article also compiles guidance from a dating expert, Dr Lurve, on signs that a person may be the other woman. The list covers clues such as secrecy, a partner who is consistently private about the relationship and avoids introducing you to friends or family, a schedule that is unusually rigid around holidays, promises that are never fulfilled, emotional highs and lows, persistent invisibility, limited knowledge of his real life, a habit of cancellations, and a nagging suspicion that something is not right. The column emphasizes trusting gut feelings and the danger of a partner who treats love as something to be earned rather than freely given. The two pieces together illuminate a difficult, often misunderstood experience that can accompany the festive season and invites readers to reflect on belonging and visibility during culture rich moments of celebration.