Have We Become the Other Women, Asks Stephanie Shaakaa

In contemporary relationships, a pressing concern has emerged: does having a title necessarily translate to having a place in someone's life, given the complexities of modern love and the ease of emotional outsourcing.

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The most stable aspects of modern relationships are no longer loyalty or love, but rather appearances, which has led to a quiet crisis that few are willing to address directly, as security is now determined by the amount of attention one receives, rather than their title or label.

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A wife may have the title, but still lack a sense of place or priority in her partner's life, while a girlfriend may have the promise of commitment, but still feel uncertain about her position, and even the woman who believes she is the only one may simply be unaware that she is no longer central to her partner's emotional life.

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The concept of the "side chic" has evolved from a topic of gossip to a subject of social theory, as it highlights the divisibility of emotional centrality and the ways in which modern love is changing shape, with the old notion of romance promising exclusivity and a single emotional center, now giving way to a more complicated reality.

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History has always understood this pattern, with examples such as Madame de Pompadour, who occupied a position of influence around Louis XV, and Princess Diana, who famously said that there were three people in her marriage, illustrating that the title of "main woman" has never guaranteed centrality or emotional priority.

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In Tudor England, Catherine of Aragon held the legitimacy and ceremony of being the queen, but Anne Boleyn's rising influence over Henry VIII shifted the center of gravity of affection, turning an official wife into someone fighting for love, place, and recognition, demonstrating that the architecture of relationships has changed, but the wound of emotional displacement remains the same.

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Side chic situations rarely begin with betrayal, but rather with emotional absence, attention reduction, and the thinning out of conversations and presence, which creates a vacuum that something or someone else can fill, often entering as relief, attention, or a sense of being seen, rather than as a direct replacement.

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This is why displacement is often gradual, with a slow redistribution of attention that the person affected may notice last, and it is not always another woman, but sometimes ambition, nostalgia, or the comfort of emotional escape that fills the void, making the question "who is safe?" a pressing concern in modern relationships.

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The unsettling answer is that no one is safe by title alone, not the wife, the long-term partner, or the woman with passwords and shared calendars, as safety in love belongs to presence, integrity, and disciplined attention, rather than labels or symbols of commitment.

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Society still trains people, especially women, to interpret security through symbols such as ceremony, acknowledgment, and public declaration, but lived experience often reveals a more complicated reality, where recognition can exist alongside emotional absence, and the woman with the title may be lonely, while the woman on the phone may receive the softness and attention.

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The phrase "side chic" has become powerful because it exposes a deeper anxiety about the ability of modern love to sustain singular emotional focus, with many relationships in cities like Abuja and Lagos losing to fragmentation, parallel emotional lives, and the constant external stimulation of technology, which has intensified the reality of divided attention and emotional neglect.

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Attention is always available elsewhere, and desire no longer requires distance or effort, with emotional breaches possible through a notification, a reaction, or an old connection revived under casual pretenses, making it clear that this is not an indictment of men or women, but a description of a culture where divided attention has become normal.

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The tragedy of modern love is not simply the existence of another person, but the fact that many relationships now produce the same emotional outcome for everyone involved: peripheral existence, where the wife feels unseen, the partner feels uncertain, and the so-called side chic feels unchosen, all experiencing the same ache of not being central in someone's life.

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Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth of modern love is that the language of relationships has become more complex, but the emotional outcome often feels simpler, with the fear of not being central in someone's life being a pervasive concern, and until attention is valued with the same seriousness as fidelity, many will continue to ask quietly if they are truly the one, or simply the one with a title.

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The oldest illusion in love is not infidelity, but the belief that naming a position guarantees emotional centrality, and in truth, love rarely collapses in a single moment of betrayal, but rather erodes in the quiet absence of attention, where a title has never been the same thing as a place in someone's heart, and being named is no longer the same thing as being chosen.