To think that ow genuinely fall for the lies their men spin?

It's always so one-sided on Mumsnet.

Evil manipulative man. Gullible other woman with low self-esteem.

Sure that's probably right in some cases, but it's not nearly as cut and dry as that. Women ALSO spin a tale and lie and cheat. Some women know that they're not hearing the truth but some women are also okay with being the other woman.

Bah, it's pretty well established when you have three parties that one person will control the interactions when sex is involved. Look it up

Usually it’s the case IMO that they want to believe them.

A friend of mine carried on believing that he was going to leave his wife after Christmas/after the summer holidays/once the kids had done their GCSEs, etc. etc. - for 20 years.
And then he died. Still married.

Psychobabble

It's called triangulation and is very manipulative so really, you can't say you don't know. You do! It's a game run by the cheater. They have control over it but you need to play it.

You don't actually have to...

An acquaintance of mine at work had two affairs with ones that were married and then another one who had a partner and ended up with someone who has been divorced because of affairs.
The thing is, they would be quick to be sanctimonious about other people having affairs ( own dad did and they ostracized him) but for them it was ' different' of course.
Nobodies perfect though , but some are ' do as I say and not as I do ' lol

I think humans can often believe a lot of things if they really want to, things they would obviously see as lies and bullshit from the outside!

Isn't that human nature to a degree, not specifically being the OW or OM but I think we hide things from ourselves or chose to overlook issues all the time

My ex husband left me for his secretary. I didn’t blame her. I felt sorry for her. He told her all the usual, that we led separate lives, has separate bedrooms, hadn’t had sex in years. Oh and that I was mental.

I was very calm about it. She contacted me as he claimed I was so mental he couldn’t possibly contact me for his cr that was in his name (he couldn’t take it, it was a car my dad had bought me, he lied to her again), I told her I knew he would have spun her all the above things and that actually, I was under the impression we had a normal marriage until he left, we were in the same bed etc.

Yup, she said he was right, I was delusional 🤣 There’s no helping some people. I wasn’t even angry, if he wanted to leave, so be it. That was out of my control.

You will believe anything when you are infatuated with someone.

Men and women.

You believe anything they say, even if you know it’s bullshit because you want it to be true.

Been there on both sides, seen it countless times, on both sides. People are generally idiots where “romance” (well, really wanting to shag someone) is concerned and will believe anything, turn a blind eye to anything in that situation, especially the beginning stages.

The unfaithful men are spinning lies to one woman so of course they probably are to the other woman.

It's not that I dismiss girl code.

It's more that I think we owe that morality to anyone - male or female.
I don't owe another female a favour of not sleeping with 'her' man because we both have breasts. But I do owe another human the grace to be kind, respectful...

And yes, to the women hating comment - I took your comment wrong, I'm sorry. I can see we def agree on that point!

Why do we never use the same terminology for men who wreck marriages? I guess because they tend to fuck off after a few years leaving the mess and accountability behind them.

I think it's largely because we find it easier to accept that men have ignoble sexual urges than women. I've seen a zillion threads on here like this one, effectively asking why anyone would be an OW; people really can't understand it and so all the explanations are variations of "she's evil, stupid and faulty, the kind of person who set fire to insects as a kid". I don't think I have ever seen anyone ask why a married man would have an affair. If they have, it's definitely been a fraction of the number of times people have been totally mystified at why a woman would have sex that she shouldn't, even when she's not actually committed.

And it's easier to paint the OW as pure evil who "made him divorce" than accept that you made a crap choice of man. Especially if you don't want to give him up.

Yes it's this. Very common

Christ, have I fallen into the 17th century?

Yes they believe it. They believe they are better than the wife or long term partner, ex or whatever.

A man only has to appeal to a woman's narcissistic element to make her feel special. She will be happy because he tells her she is special and different. He can give her absolute crumbs but that appeal technique will work very well so long as she is "special" and the other woman is less.

Seen it over and over again. Not necessarily low esteem, more like her esteem is bound up with a man and pleasing him.

I'm certain many men are shits who do not deserve to be in relationships at all. But I would like to put forward an alternative scenario with 'the other man' and roles are reversed For clarity - To me, the sole definition of the OW is the woman who knows a man is committed and doesn't care about breaking up his family or doesn't know initially but finds out and makes excuses, keeps things going. Both are inexcusable. I hope everyone is in agreement with me, but I suspect some women are happy to sweep their own unfaithfulness under the rug when their ex gets a new girlfriend.

Would be interested to discuss 'other men' and what they do. Based on my experience of men who wreck marriages, they are manipulative, selfish and convince women that they are 'entitled to a bit of fun' or 'some more attention, cause hubby is too knackered at that time to meet all all needs. Then OM wants to fuck off when shit gets real and woman wants to start something with him. Leaving the original woman angry that she is left with no one and bitter when her ex moves on 🙄just to be clear - the woman who enters the scene after the kind of mess I describe is NOT the OW. But all too often, she is treated like one and told 'oh if you knew how horrible he was to me. You'd understand and cheat too.' It's all done to justify bad behaviour and to save face. OM does not get such censure, in fact by this point everyone has forgotton about him or worse still praising him for the most basic things if there are kids involved. Double standards.

Why do we never use the same terminology for men who wreck marriages? I guess because they tend to fuck off after a few years leaving the mess and accountability behind them. Whereas from it seems to me that women are not encouraged to self reflect in the part their choices of actions may have played in a relationship breakdown. It's often seems to be 'oh he must have neglected her or done something awful to deserve it.' And if you hold negative beliefs about men, it's easy to use these to justify anything really.

Nice guys often do indeed seem to finish last.

surely anyone with a modicum of intelligence would not go near such a man unless she was a very very low value and poor quality woman.

Just curious - are the wives who continue the marriage after discovering the affair, and the ones fighting to keep the man, or the ones who take their exes back also low value and poor quality then?

I think they believe they’re the ones who can ‘change’ them and that they’re different and ‘better’. My ex was abusive and my friend at the time would comfort me when I told her about his abuse and I would go to her and my other friend as my ‘safe place’ to get away from him. Fast forward to when I was pregnant, it turns out my partner was cheating on me with this friend (she was also pregnant with her partners baby) and they ended up getting together. She apparently believed everything he told her, despite knowing about his abuse, and continued to send me hate and put all over social media victimising my ex. So some women are just entitled and pure evil.

she was a very very low value and poor quality woman.

You're being ridiculous now. There's no single set of values to describe every woman who gets into a relationship with a married man. Many might be blissfully unaware for example. Some might have low self esteem and think they don't deserve better. Some might not care. That doesn't make them poor quality women. Save the anger for the person who cheated on you.

‘The one-to-one support that an affair offers can be their lifeline. Please don't judge them too harshly.’

Except the pain is just passed on to someone else who doesn’t deserve it. Another person who ends up traumatised and dealing with the fallout widely now understood to be horrific for a betrayed’s mental health. I’m sorry but there are other ways of dealing with unhappy marriages nowadays. So done with this argument that an affair was their only route out!!!!

I was the OW when I was 19. I was incredibly naive and generally very emotionally immature and absolutely believed everything he told me. (I have since been diagnosed with autism which I think helps explain why I was always so far behind emotionally and maturity wise than my peers).
I genuinely and honestly believed everything he told me. And I was crushed when I realised it was all lies. In fact it pretty much damaged me for about 20 years after and struggled to have normal relationships. I still struggle with trust issues. But on thinking back to the "relationship" he was awful in many ways. He used to tell me no one would ever love me like he did. I thought it was romantic at the time. Now I realise it was his was of controlling me and keeping me with him. I wish I could tell his wife how sorry I am but I never meant to hurt her. I believed they were "separated". (They are since divorced and I hope she is much happier without him).

Why do you have to marry as a virgin and never have an abortion to be a moral or faithful person?

‘ a single mother from the school gate made him divorce’

😂😂

As for ow falling for a man's bs. Women fall for men's bs daily and they don't need to be the OW to do that.
I know quite a few affairs that have happened over the years. Alot of them ended in disaster once the affair was revealed. No one came out happy. However there have been a couple where it's been over 15 years now and they are very happy (ow now married to affair man). Yes affairs cause damage and destruction but they are very common and unfortunately apart of life. I don't think banding all ow in one box as low quality is right or accurate. Affairs happen for all sorts of reasons and women just like men are different aswell.

And many other things related with being faithful, being married with the same partner all your life, being dedicated to your offspring, keeping virginity before marriage, pro-life. Sadly all that does not exist anymore neither in the west, or the east or anywhere on the planet. Morals exist only in the hearts of very few people