Is this revenge on the OW fair or not?

I've noticed a few responses from people asking if someone is bitter about an affair when they strongly condemn unfaithful behaviour. I actually think that is very unlikely. My experience is that those of us who have been betrayed are more likely to be magnanimous about it, especially if we ended the relationship. Granted, there are those for whom it comes as a great shock but cheating more often than not happens in relationships that aren't working anyway. We move on, it heals, it didn't kill us, we survived and in most cases we thrived.

I suspect those most strongly condemning the behaviour have not experienced it, at least not directly. If they had experienced it then I think they would tone down the morality preaching and want to emphasise the importance of moving on.

What Eleanor Brown did (and what her mother and sister did) is not normal behaviour at all.

That sounds like my DB. He told his wife that was over as soon as he had feelings for someone else. She didn’t take it well. She printed posters and leaflets saying what cheating shites he and the other woman were. She put up the posters at his and her place of work as well as all around the town where the OW lived and the town where her parents lived. She went round the OW’s town putting the leaflets through peoples letterboxes. She then dumped all his stuff all over his work car park. It took a solicitor’s letter and the threat of legal action to get her to stop.

That falls under the convenient catch all of ‘an emotional affair’ apparently, and the ‘OW’ can safely be considered all types of tempting whore.

The judge didn’t sentence it as if it did happen. What the judge did is consider the risk the victim was maliciously and purposefully exposed to by Brown. The judge also considered the total lack of remorse, and the deliberate attempt to maximize the trauma to the victim by forcing them to testify.

The individual merits of the case will have been considered by the judge, as the individual merits of the cases will have been considered when deciding on which prisoners were eligible for early release.

This, 100%. 'if you want to have a new relationship, be a decent human and end your current one first' is the apparent gold standard on here. But in reality leaving because you've been drawn to someone else is deemed a brutal betrayal even if absolutely nothing at all intimate occurred before you did the 'right thing' and ended your relationship.

Meanwhile, if you're bored of your husband and don't fancy him any more but are thinking of just plodding on until the kids get older then you owe it to them to end it now because they will know you're unhappy and that's poor role modelling.

Make it make sense 🤔

It is a sex crime. If you have a 20 year old daughter, would you be happy with her being treated the same way? This woman is clearly unhinged, I can imagine if this had not happened with her father she would have found someone else to prey on, her husbands bit on the side, her BILs ect. People have affairs, it is a sad fact of life but incredibly common. We can't go around behaving like this. I appreciate this woman has a vile mother and likely a horrendous upbringing, but so do a large proportion of people in prison.

It is classed as revenge porn and noone deserves having photos like that made public. Personally I wouldn't ever pose for photos not even for a partner so it wouldn't happen to me. But I do see why the laws exist. And I am glad she has been punished. It makes it clear to others that such despicable behaviour is illegal and unacceptable.

Yes but that didn't happen. You can't lock someone up for something that didn't happen.

Awful thing to do I do not defend it but a prison sentence when people are getting released early due to overcrowding is absolutely mad.

Unless I misread she posted abusive messages about the woman on the husband’s business profile. She posted nude photos of her on an escort site, putting it under her husband’s number to contact him.

If his personal number and business number are on the business profile he could have a local business and all it would take is some guy to go in under the disguise of seeking his services to get to her or recognise her around and follow her thinking she is a prostitute and can do whatever he likes.

These things have happened. Women have been stalked and harmed for less.

Sometimes people meet and fall in love with someone else. Sometimes, inadvisably, a relationship begins before the current one has ended. It's not great and nobody is saying it is. But it happens and nobody should be expected to completely sacrifice their own life and happiness to enable someone else to keep theirs.

This is such a good point @Resitinas .

There was someone on a thread the other day on here - her DH had left her for someone he had feelings for, and she was mad that he could end their marriage for someone that he hadn't even kissed or had sex with, like how could you end a marriage over something so small. But what was the alternative? She wouldn't have been any happier to discover he'd had a 6-month affair before ending the marriage. I suppose the ideal would be that he did nothing - and then they coast along in their marriage for the next twenty years in misery.

I am surprised you didn't have an issue with the OW.

We all have a responsibility to behave with humanity. And that doesn't involve having sex with people we know full well to be married. Whilst the main fault lies with the person who is cheating on their spouse, the affair partner must shoulder (a minority of the) responsibility for having sex with a married person and contributing to the breakup of a family with children.

Unless of course your father tricked the OW into thinking he wasn't married.

Anyway, regarding the woman in the article. Her family's breakup and her father's infidelity with the OW obviously wounded her (and her mother and sister) to her core. I'm in 2 minds about it. The OW could easily have avoided this mess by not being an OW in the first place - she fucked around and found out. That said, I don't support criminal actions. But I do understand the hurt and can easily see how this happened.

Maybe if she'd been the least bit remorseful. But she wasn't. So, no. Prison is absolutely the right course of action.

Pretty sure the post was sarcastic.

I said it is neither a serious nor vioient crime necessitating a prison sentence in our over full prisons. So full that criminals are being released early

I didn't suggest she shouldn't be punished at all. Tags, community hours etc all more appropriate.

No, it really doesn't.

Ghosting a friend is hurtful. Not illegal.

Going no contact with a family member - hurts someone else, not illegal.

Promising to leave someone something in a Will and the secretly changing it - harmful, but not illegal.

People don't belong to other people, no matter whether they are married or not. Nobody belongs to their spouse, nor even to their children.

Do your suggest a legal penalty / criminal action recourse for a spouse if the other partner leaves them simply because the relationship is over for them? Or because their spouse no longer wants to have sex and that's a deal-breaker? Or because the spouse refuses to work? Or one of the multitude of other reasons marriage might break down? Or is just in the case of adultery you think that a legal penalty is appropriate?

Sometimes people meet and fall in love with someone else. Sometimes, inadvisably, a relationship begins before the current one has ended. It's not great and nobody is saying it is. But it happens and nobody should be expected to completely sacrifice their own life and happiness to enable someone else to keep theirs. It's very difficult for children when their parents separate, particularly if this is badly managed by either or both parties where the children are concerned. But to expect a person, male or female, to remain in what has become an unhappy marriage, even if the reason is that one party has met someone else is essentially saying that the right to happiness of that person is of less value than the right to happiness of the other person in the marriage. And it isn't. Ideally, the person wanting to leave extricates themselves before beginning a proper relationship with someone else, but life isn't always tidy like that. Human beings are messy, every one of us.

Adultery isn't great. But it's not the worst transgression in the world.

And it never, ever gives anyone the right to share nude photographs of another person without their consent or to systematically harass innocent people.

I don’t regard posting nudes online without consent as petty crime.

I don't think that's quite right, I think the Mumsnet attitude is worse than that. It's not that men can behave as they wish, it is that they are always in the wrong. If a husband cheats, it is because he is an arsehole. If a wife cheats, it's because her husband is an arsehole. The OM is "saving her." That's why the OM always gets away with it on Mumsnet.

When was she instigating a possible serious violent crime?

As I keep on saying prison should be for those who have committed serious and or violent crimes. Online harassment and posting nudes without consent is neither.

Our judicial system including sentencing needs a massive review.

Forcing people to stay in a relationship when they don’t want to? Yeah, I’m sure that won’t lead to an uptick in affairs 😆
Here’s hoping it isn’t an abusive relationship though.

She committed a criminal sexual offence aided and abetted by her police officer mother and sister. She deserves to be in prison. Im happy for taxes to be paying for that. As @phoenixrosehere said she can get therapy in there.

I would also be really happy if I heard that OW's family could go after OM's family for compensation like a hefty chunk of their police pensions.

Instigating a possible serious, violent crime makes her dangerous. You don’t have to pull the trigger to be held responsible.

She can also get therapy while in jail.

Bit of a fallacy isn’t it?

LTB for lying and cheating but the OW is more at fault and deserves worse punishment all in the name of “sisterhood” including being put at risk of SA and worse. That is definitely something I wouldn’t outright expect from another woman but a sick person/people, regardless of gender.

It is more like a ridiculous storyline I expect from a soap.

Completely batshit behaviour does not necessitate a 3 year custodial sentence. Serious and violent crimes yes.

She needs therapy, community hours, a bollocking etc etc. A custodial sentence in our over full prisons, so full that serious criminals are being released early, is what is batshit. Rehab the paedos though.

OM doesn't exist as a concept on here. It's only women wrecking marriages that have any moral relevance at all. Men can behave as they wish, and 'karma' is the OW being cheated on herself. Like in the Old Testament.

The people who are justifying EB's behaviour are forgetting that her dad is the OM to the other family. Don't you then feel that his wife and daughters are fair game to OW's family in the same way?