‘I cheated on my best friend… with her boyfriend!’

On Saturday, August 31 this year, 30-year-old Sylvia Kajomong’ was due to be walking down the aisle with her boyfriend of two years, Richard. Among her bridesmaids would have been her best friend, Miriam.

“Everything was ready,” says Sylvia. In fact, everything still is ready and Richard will be walking down the aisle — except that he will be doing so with Sylvia’s now-former best friend, Miriam.

Sylvia found out about Miriam and Richard’s affair about six months ago. She says that Miriam looked happy for her when she first introduced Richard to her and after that kept pointing out Richard’s positive attributes to Sylvia. “She joked that I was so lucky that she envied me. I took it lightly, not knowing that indeed, she envied me.”

Emotional bruising

Shortly afterwards, the two started dating behind Sylvia’s back while things between her and Richard spiralled south. “We began to argue more often. Differences we previously sorted out easily turned from molehills into mountains.”

She says that their dates became fewer as Richard made excuses not to see her, come over to her place, or welcome her into his.

“He claimed that he was retiring from work too tired and late.” Strikingly, Miriam’s calendar became overly loaded too. She suddenly began attending seminars and meeting clients in Mombasa.

The truth came out two weeks ago when Sylvia decided to drop by Richard’s house unannounced and found the two getting cosy on his couch.

“I am still reeling from the shock and pain. I would have turned up for my own wedding alone!” she says.

Sylvia is not the only woman nursing emotional bruises from a female friend she considered a “sister”, and neither is Miriam the first woman to “steal” her friend’s partner. Anne Mwasi, a 30-year-old credit officer at a city bank, once dated her friend’s boyfriend and feels no guilt about it; as far as she is concerned, she was simply going for what she wants.

“I am a go-getter. I know what’s best for me and I don’t feel guilty that she sees me as a sworn enemy,” she says.

“He was everything I’d been looking and praying for in a man. And he has proved to be more caring, attentive, and supportive than he was with my friend.”

The two have dated for one year now. Anne says that women who go against the grain to get the man of their dreams should not be labelled “love-thieves”. “And it is not true that relationships like mine are bound to end in ruins because of how they were initiated.”

Charlene Wambua, 31, does not agree. For seven months, her best friend kept telling her how good her man was in and outside their bedroom.

“She regaled me with so many positive stories about her man that I began to yearn for a piece of him, too. I wanted to know if he was as good as she claimed he was.”

After successfully launching her relationship bid, Charlene says they did not last two months. “I began to wonder what it was about him that she found unique and exciting. He was neither romantic nor good in bed. I found him too boring for my liking.”

The better option

While the ripple effect in such relationships is the inevitable end to the two women’s friendship, counselling psychologist Ken Munyua says there are instances where such relationships can actually work.

“If the man is not as compatible with your friend as he is with you, chances of your relationship working out with him may be as great as the likelihood of him and your friend breaking up.”

Pauline Ajuma disagrees, saying that making a move on your friend is downright unacceptable. “Even those who snatch their friend’s men wouldn’t want their men snatched from them,” she says.

While to women, “stealing” a man is the height of betrayal, men have different views. Joshua Aboke is dating his ex-partner’s best friend. He says that men agree to such moves as a hunt for the better woman.

“Nothing would stop a man from dating her girlfriend’s best friend if he thinks he has found a better woman. The two women’s friendship is, unfortunately, collateral damage,” says Joshua, 34.