I was angry at the OW purely because she had an affair with my H. She wasn't led to believe he was single. She knew exactly what she was doing just as he did, so I was very angry at him and believe me, I showed my anger to him but I was also angry at her, because like Normal said, her actions had hurt me also. My anger towards her did not detract away any of the anger focused at my H.

He took 100% responsibility for what happened. He never blamed the OW. But IMO it's a perfectly natural emotion to have towards someone who has hurt you intentionally, whether you are married to them or not. If a friend hurt me, I would be angry at them.

Normal, my H also went to counselling, we both went at first but he admitted that there was nothing wrong in our relationship that made him cheat. I was doing nothing wrong that he could pick out. It was solely down to him and some broken part of him, possibly relating back to his childhood. So he had independent counselling for some while and I could see a gradual change in his attitude over time.

I agree totally with Lemon, try counselling and try to forget the OW now. xxx

helpme I've never been in this position, so I'll try to help and hope I don't put my foot in it or turn it into an intellectual fest....

Right, your H left you ONLY 3 months ago following the affair. 3 months is a very, very short space of time to collect your thoughts, for the emotions to die back a bit and for the head to start functioning again. Your DD is only 9 months old, so for the past few months you've had lovely post pregnancy hormones floating around/lack of sleep etc. So, your reaction is quite normal - you feel like you've been kicked in the head and it's brought all those emotions and hurt back to the surface again, to have to deal with AGAIN.

Yes, you can lash out at the OW and she's as much to blame as your H is. They are both responsible for the situation. You are married to your H. You're in a relationship with him and he must be held to account. Nobody can be lured from a very strong relationship where BOTH partners are as committed as the other.... Let me say this.

We often blame the OW because we face the possibility of losing our H if we lash out (either verbally or physically). We don't want to accept that the person we thought we knew 100%, wasn't the person we thought they were. He has let you down and he has let himself down.

Now, there are always two sides to every story. Only you and your H know what goes on behind closed doors in your relationship. That does not excuse your H's behaviour. However, that's what sometimes happens.

My SIL had an affair for a few months and when my brother found out, it broke his heart. I supported my brother, never said a bad word about my SIL, tried to support my niece and got my brother legal advice so he knew where he stood.

This happened at the beginning of 2004. They're still together and appear to be happy - but like I said, only the couple concerned know what goes on behind closed doors.

I would strongly suggest that you and your H go for counselling if you really want to make a go of your relationship.

And as for the other woman, let it go. As everyone else has said - karma.karma.

Choc - yes, it's this notion that blame must be exclusive, that I cannot understand. Even had I not been in this situation, it would never have occurred to me that a betrayed spouse could not direct blame in several directions.

And despite women on this thread revealing that they separated while they came to terms with the situation, that their husbands had counselling and medical help, that they challenged their DHs endlessly about their behaviour and exposed any delusions, it seems that these actions are not "punitive" enough.

Also, despite numerous posts to the contrary acknowledging that the men bear the most responsibility for this situation, it is still assumed that we are directing all the blame at the OW, that we believe our husbands were lured into an affair and that we should feel no ill will to someone who, quite separate to the affair, behaved badly towards us.

I don't reach those conclusions at all and it puzzles me why anyone should think it, and moreover express it so angrily - but it's difficult to guage where such anger and bitterness comes from, without knowing a person's story. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have been hurt very badly indeed - and are still hurting.

It seems almost like, if a betrayed spouse dares feel any kind of negative feeling towards to other person then they must blame them solely for the affair and cannot possibly accept that their wayward spouse was also responsible for the affair. That's not true.

I agree with everything you have said Normal. Again it is so familiar with me. I am not naive enough to think that my husband was lured away from me by the evil woman. I know he told her some lies when they were together. He told me himself because afterwards, like Normal said, the fantasy world of the affair came crashing down.

"Dittany is quite right that the husband is primarily at fault for providing the means for the OW to attack the family like this, but this does not mean that the person doing the attacking should escape our contempt, does it?" That is what I was trying to say.

I am coming more and more to the conclusion that in order to truly understand this path of rebuilding, one must have walked it. This is true empathy. However, I'd like to think that even if I can't truly empathise with a situation, I would as Morris said, be gentle in my challenges, especially to posters who are themselves not guilty of the contemptuous behaviour we are discussing here.

It is not surprising in the least for those of us who have rebuilt, that intimate details and confidences shared by the affair partners are now known to us. It is all part of the recovery process that if a betrayed partner wants to know everything, the betraying spouse must tell. But this includes everything, good and bad. Often it is during these discussions that the lies told during the affair are exposed, as well.

Interestingly, my DH's OW also disclosed a serious sexual assault by a colleague that had occurred a few months before. She did not report it at work or to the police, but told her husband, who similarly took no action of any kind. This, despite an entire career full of allegations made against colleagues and managers. She went on to say that as the H had taken no action, my H should not fear her H's reaction if he uncovered the affair.

On hearing this dreadful tale, my H was horrified, genuinely sympathetic and consoling, telling her that it was not too late to report the matter etc. A couple of months after the account of this incident however, the OW accidentally let slip that she had accepted lots of gifts and even flowers sent to the house, from the person who had assaulted her - and that they in fact had a warm, collegiate relationship.

When my H challenged the implausibility of this with OW, she responded that she had "forgiven" her attacker, who was actually a "really nice bloke". My H recalls her horror at the inconsistencies being exposed like this - she had forgotten that she had told my H the name of the attacker during the initial story. The stories about the gifts and flowers had another purpose though, a misguided attempt to make my H jealous of another admirer.....

We have concluded therefore that it is very unlikely that any assault actually took place - and that any activity was probably consensual. I suspect the motives for this sort of lie are complex and varied. For some sad reason, some women still feel the need to "apologise" for earlier sexual activity - and therefore claim no responsibility for it. It would have also destroyed the fantasy that the affair was the first incident of infidelity and to boot, this tale portrayed her as a "victim", which is a position she had reverted to for much of her life (e.g. frequent allegations made against people at work.)

I have the most enormous sympathy for anyone who has been the victim of a sexual attack - short of murder, it is the most heinious crime. However, I have no sympathy whatsoever for individuals who invent such stories - it is doubly offensive to real victims of assault.

It would have been very strange indeed if my H had not disclosed this story when I asked if she had ever been unfaithful before - and the value of this conversation was compounded when H recalled that she had also enjoyed a sexual encounter with another woman during her marriage. I pointed out to my H that this was as much infidelity as the affair - but neither he nor she, had viewed it like this.

These conversations happen with rebuilding couples all of the time, but the vast majority of ours focus on HIS behaviour - and not the OW's.

I cannot speak for others, but I would never pretend that my H was honest all the time to the OW, just as she was not honest with him.
I also think that for some people caught up in an affair, they tell the biggest lies of all to themselves and I agree that as soon as the fantasy is exposed, those delusions come crashing down. One of the most difficult areas we had to confront as a recovering couple was the tricky subject of the "lies by omission" my H told OW during the affair. This was a real wake-up call for my DH, who had been pretty insistent that while he told OW some lies, on the major stuff, he had been pretty truthful. He had however been in denial that by allowing statements she made to go unchallenged, what he was in effect doing was telling lies.

Both parties behave very badly during affairs, often to eachother and always to their partners. If lies have been told by both the affair partners to eachother (as in my case) one party is no worse than the other.

It is expecting the impossible of people who are still so raw (in the eye of the storm, as Morris says) about an affair to harbour no ill will towards the OW, even if she has behaved impeccably once the affair is exposed.

It will always be erroneous to blame the OW and not the H - but no-one on here has said that OW "lured" their husbands - or that their husband's behaviour was anything less than atrocious. The aim in recovery is for all parties to stop hating and blaming, but I'd imagine the best you're going to achieve in the way of feelings towards the OW is a sort of neutrality - and if the OW has made threats against your children, or made nasty remarks about them - try telling a mother to feel "neutral" about that. It is unnecessary spite and bile against a defenceless child, usually undertaken by cowardly means such as E mails and the internet.

Dittany is quite right that the husband is primarily at fault for providing the means for the OW to attack the family like this, but this does not mean that the person doing the attacking should escape our contempt, does it?

I actually think the "blind spot" here is about women's behaviour. It is perfectly possible for women to behave dreadfully - that might be because of hurt, psychological issues or a whole host of reasons - but I would no more apologise for a woman's behaviour as I would a man's.

Pretty inconsiderate moondog - am guessing you have never been through something similar yourself.
OP - I too expected more of the OW, at least initially anyway. Then as I started to move forward and make sense of the whole thing, I realised that she did not matter. At that point I was able to start working with my h to save our marriage. I see that trust is still an issue for you...........does h make himself transparent? That was imperative in my situation. Counselling helped a lot. Your h betrayed you at a time when you were very vulnerable and you need to work through those feelings - and he needs to know how that felt for you.

i dislike the term 'trot back to wife' to.
Recovery after an affair i think is as much about the wife changing - and it is bloody hard work. Everything you thought you believed in before has been destroyed.

I know my h has not 'trotted' back to me - although i think it probably gives the ow the satifaction of thinking that, after all it is easier for her to believe that he is only back for the children and that i am someone who should be pitied for accepting his behaviour. She can think what she wants - she is no longer part of our lives and never will be again.

My dislike for the ow is because i asked her to respect me and tell me the truth (her chance to redeem herself if you like) and she didnt. I felt then that i had every right to dis-respect her by making her life uncomfortable at work if i so wished (she had asked me not to mention it at their work). For a long time i did let her have the 'threat' of me publishing some of the emails she had sent h (she was not over complimentary about several of their collegues at the time either).

I never did - i doubt the ow sees me in any better light because of it but i felt justified in holding that threat and not using it. I know i am a better person than her as i would not have willingly destroyed her and her childrens lives.

Yes, for a while before the fling, and during it, my DH was a really awful person. In the years before that, and since, no. The affair was a part of that.

And, he spent a few weeks disliking the OW before ending it. But the first week (lasted approx 6 wks), he enjoyed having someone to say "poor you" and spend time with him. After that he felt that he'd destroyed what he'd set out to destroy (his current life, really, and this had been building up over a very long time), but felt that having someone was better than having no-one. It was still a place to escape to, but not one he liked.

The issues he had have been dealt with, and we're ok. He told me everything about the OW at the time, bad and good (she likes animals, wants ducks, ...). That was part of his telling me everything.

I have reason to feel angry at the OW, and I base that on her direct anonymous communication to me during her time with DH. I also base it on the communication that she did since, and that has only stopped recently. I haven't responded to any of that, because I feel sympathy for her, and hope that that will help her most in the longterm (alternative is probably sol's letter threatening restraining order).

What DH has said about her is secondary to that in forming my opinions, because that is not my direct experience of her. What else I know - partly from DH, partly from elsewhere - leads me towards a negative view, but also makes me feel sorry for her.

I said earlier that I have no way underestimated DH's actions and the damage that they did, to many people. I took the best part of a year (I wasn't there to "trot back to" as such) before feeling confident enough about DH and his behaviour since the fallout before committing to giving our relationship another go. And in the meantime he's had medical help/counselling and done a lot of work on himself.

I think it is emotional abuse to both the wife and ow. My h is appaulled at that - but has had to admit that he was cruel to us both. However the ow knew he was doing this to me but could not believe he was lying to her - so for that alone i think less of her. I cannot understand why she wanted to 'allow' him to continue to be so cruel to his family.

I dont think for a minute that during the affair he felt any disguist at the ow it is only when he has stood back that he can see how awful his and her behaviour was bad.

I dont feel hatred for the ow now -but still could never see her in a good light - that is my right now. She has morals i can never agree with and as i dont want a relationship with her i dont have to.
I have taken the time to 'understand' why my h did what he did and try and forgive him for that - many good things have come out of the affair.