When does the OW stop being the OW?

[Worldwide2]

Hello all

Due to a couple of other threads regarding affairs with married men and men creating second family's with the 'ow'. It has got me thinking when does everything get forgotten and forgiven? As in when does the OW stop being referred to as the OW and is accepted as exes wife/girlfriend. Is it normal to get over such betrayal and move on without feeling bitter or is hard to not harbour a feeling of resentment for a long time towards them?
When you hear someone being referred to as the OW after a number of years you kind of thing ok let go now it's time to move on but is it so simple actually?
I'm not condoning affairs at all but I do know of people who were desperately unhappy with their then spouse had affairs and are now very happy with the other person. Doesn't everyone deserve to be happy or not when it comes off the back of someone else's happiness? I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts on this without it turning into a bun fight of course.

Also this isn't just affairs between married men and women it goes for married women too.

@TheFormidableMrsC Wether you like the word or not sometimes it fits as to what the person has become. The meaning of bitter is someone who is angry and can't let go of something bad that happened to them in the past. It's descriptive of some people, it's not to look down at anyone. People can become bitter for all sorts of reasons I guess its just a fact.

About 2 years in my family. My stepdad was the OM huge shock and drama after about 2 years he was just (his name) 46 years later he is granddad to my children my niece calls him by his name but acknowledge him as a grandparents figure. My sister was 12 at point of divorce I was only 5 I do not recall our parents together.

I dont really care he was the OM he and my mother had a long lasting relationship and I have no doubt they loved each other

"I disagree I think people very much can change grow and be different to how they were in another time in their life."

Yes people can change, but personally I think if their "offences" are in the category of deception (for example, infidelity when married, or financial fraud or theft etc) then often times that suggests something very fundamental about their personality which is much less likely to change.
I accept that there are some personality limitations which can "lie dormant" and hence move the person to a healthier path in life / better choices / better relationships. For example a sober recovering alcoholic.

But infidelity is a bit like addiction - once there are episodes of it in someone's past, you know it is always a latent capacity in that person.
I would argue that a spouse who runs off with another as a result of an extra marital affair will always be more capable of doing it again than people who have never and would never sanction cheating.

And I think that goes for the "OW" as well. If someone is prepared to enter into a relationship with a person the KNOW is married at the time (even if they have been fed the usual bullshit about "we are separated/my wife does not understand me" etc) then throughout life they will be the kind of person who will contemplate and possibly act on opportunities for overlap relationships with someone who at the time is technically unavailable/taken.

The problem with arguing that after x period of time/y signs of "respectibility" about the relationship, the OW is no longer the OW but assumes a status acceptable in society as the second wife or whatever - is that it effectively commoditizes relationships as disposable if someone is experiencing limerence. Hence you always get the talk about "i did not realise how miserable i was with my spouse until i met my [affair partner]" etc. Always coming at it from a pleasures of the flesh point of view.

My mum and dad met through an affair. She was married, he wasn't. His family were pretty accepting straightaway but it took her very religious immigrant family a long time to accept my Dad. About 8 years I think. I'm not sure if they realised that he was a good guy or whether his many trade skills and willing nature won them over.

I know affairs are never ok but DM was married to first husband for 15 months and her and Dad were together for over 30 years until his untimely death in his fifties.

@Practicebeingpatient It's examples like these that I think people make mistakes but it doesn't mean they are fundamentally flawed. They were unhappy at some point and yes didn't make the best decision which would have affected other people but are generally good people not likely to repeat history.

Don't they say when a man marries his mistress it creates a vacancy...

This is so old now. Some people will always cheat, and have failed relationships, but there are endless people, who have left a relationship via an affair who find happiness and stay with that person for good.

It was interesting when a PP said, there can only be another woman if there are two women. I'd never really thought of it like that, but it's actually a lot of sense. By continually referring to someone's actual wife as the "other" woman, it just demonstrates that the person still sees themselves as one of two. They can't let go. She was the other woman, of course. But she isn't once the separation/divorce etc has taken place. By referring to her as that ad infinitum just reflects on the original partner not being able to remove herself from the equation. Big difference when someone says, ten years on "she was the OW" compared to "she IS the OW". It shows unacceptance that they are not part of it anymore, in order for there to still be the "OW" she still regards her herself as the woman and that's not healthy or leaning towards a happy life.

I think when it comes to people having affairs and leaving for another person. Every situation is entirely different and it's not always black and white. Although even the cases where people end up very happy for the rest of their lives, their actions still could cause alot of pain for others despite it being the best situation for themselves.

People make mistakes and have short-lived first marriages all the time. To me, the relevant and important thing is not that they ended a bad first marriage for a long and happy second one, it is how they chose to go about doing that, that is the measure of the person.

Openness, honesty and leaving? Or secrecy, deception and lies?

So as my exh and I were together for more than 20 years, and he only stayed with his [insert whatever term it is you find acceptable] for 2 years, does that mean I was allowed to be sad for longer than if he'd married the [acceptable term] and lived with her for 20 years too?

[quote Worldwide2]@AryaStarkWolf That was my point my friends mum didn't move on and enjoy life she wallowed in her bitterness always bringing it up. My friend had a great relationship with her dad and stepmum and her mum was very nasty about it 30 years later and going strong.
But I understand you mean you can see someone as the OW forever and still get on with your life. It doesn't always mean your bitter its just that's how you will always see her as the OW.[/quote]
Yes I was talking more generally rather than this specific situation

I know someone else too who was the OW but I had no idea as it was over 25 years ago. She's a brilliant stepmum the girls now adults love her and she's such a gracious generous person. Just what you would call a good egg i suppose. But yes she was with someone previously and so was her now husband. Two marriages ended due to their affair but they seem like very decent solid people if you were to meet them. It was a bit of a shock to find that out. When you see examples like these I just don't think 'once a cheater always a cheater' however she could be very well thought of as the OW by the ex wife or maybe the ex wife sees her as ex husbands new wife? No idea.

@AryaStarkWolf Ah I get you

It's really tricky, because whilst an affair can often end up being public knowledge, what isn't, is what went on behind closed doors for years first, within that marriage.

For example, let's say DH starts becoming mean to me. Maybe starts to become verbally abusive. But we've been together 5 years, and it's new behaviour, and I still love him. He continues, and I become unhappy, but can't leave as I have nowhere to go, financially dependent on him, don't want to break up the children's family home, don't want the humiliation of a failed marriage, all sorts that make it not just a case of "duh, LTB." To the outside world, I smile.

He continues, and my self esteem is affected. I want to leave, I can't see how, I start to make plans for when the children start school. He's really unkind and I'm often in tears.

If I then meet someone, who shows me love and kindness, and offers me a way to leave, into a new and happy relationship, then am I really the devil? On paper, I would be a cheat. The reality is, I stayed for all the wrong reasons with someone who wasn't right for me. I tolerated it as long as I could when I didn't have the means or opportunity of happiness anywhere else, but as soon as I did, I got out of there.

For my husband to then bitterly call him the OM as if he were some deviant that stole his wife, well, it's just not right. And to still be doing that 10 years later?

Each case is different. There will be the stereotypical "cheating bastard" there will be those who were never that suited anyway, there will be those who are just complete arseholes to live with, and the fact that partner cheated is not why the relationship failed. It's how it ended, and sometimes people do stay with complete arseholes, much longer than they should, usually guilt, or for the children, and it's only when someone shows them the physical path out or reminds them that happiness does exist that they manage to break away.

Each person knows what really happened in their individual case, irrespective of what they let the outside world see.

@TwinsandTrifle I’m that situation I’d still be a little concerned at these pre school age kids moving in with Prince Charming without much time to get their heads around their parents splitting.

An affair really isn’t the answer- why in that scenario couldn’t the wife ask to go to therapy as he’s become unkind?

Even if the husband is full on abusive it’s still not a great idea to jump into another relationship so fast- particularly with kids.

[quote 5thnonblonde]@TwinsandTrifle I’m that situation I’d still be a little concerned at these pre school age kids moving in with Prince Charming without much time to get their heads around their parents splitting.

An affair really isn’t the answer- why in that scenario couldn’t the wife ask to go to therapy as he’s become unkind?

Even if the husband is full on abusive it’s still not a great idea to jump into another relationship so fast- particularly with kids.[/quote]
Why would anybody want to go to therapy with someone so horrible? For the kids? Staying with someone for the sake of the kids is not going to provide the kids a happy home either.

There used to be a poster on here sapphire something or other.
Sapphire had an affair with the husband of the TA at her children’s school.
Sapphire was married also - all the children went to school together.
The situated exploded when they were discovered.
The TA lost her job after sapphire reported her to the school for going round her house and shouting and swearing.

Sapphire LOVED the fact that the T A lost her job and her husband had now moved in with her.
Sapphire talked constantly about her experience and gleefully ridiculed the woman and her children who she enjoyed withholding child support from.
It’s the power you see. Sapphire had won in her mind and she loved coming on these boards to talk about it and bring her story to life because she enjoyed it.
I got deleted because I called her a
Sapphire finally stopped posting when everyone cottoned on to how awful she was and prevented her from using this platform to relive her seedy little story.

It’s not all flowers and romance.
Some people men and women are just awful awful people who love to bolster their own poor self image by getting one over on others.

For those people, everyone else is just collateral damage in their pursuit of whatever they want.

5thnonblonde

I agree.

The fact that you couldn't (or more likely do not want to) face the prospect of being a single mum instead of being in an abusive marriage (albiet one where you have a degree of financial and other provision) is not a reason to jump directly from the marriage into an affair with and (because you then can) living with "Prince Charming".

Does that not pre suppose that a woman, once she has children, is not prepared to live alone but MUST be in a relationship (because he can provide all the material things she would lose by leaving her husband and because the new man she is having an affair with is her knight in shining armour

Onyernelly

I agree.
I think a big motivator (for different reasons) for a lot of extra marital affairs is the massive ego trip both parties to the affair are on, often at the expense of anyone and everyone around them.

For my husband to then bitterly call him the OM as if he were some deviant that stole his wife, well, it's just not right. And to still be doing that 10 years later?
How about if the husband is factually calling him the OM as that's the term for someone's affair partner, and still calls him that 10 years later because he has very little to do with your life any more, only ever refers to him in the past when he was indeed the OM, and has no need to update the terms he uses?

@Practicebeingpatient

My mum and dad met through an affair. She was married, he wasn't. His family were pretty accepting straightaway but it took her very religious immigrant family a long time to accept my Dad. About 8 years I think. I'm not sure if they realised that he was a good guy or whether his many trade skills and willing nature won them over.

I know affairs are never ok but DM was married to first husband for 15 months and her and Dad were together for over 30 years until his untimely death in his fifties.

But did your mum actually marry her first for love - or because her religious family made her

I call her his wife or his current wife if I’m referring to the present. If I’m talking about the past I’ll say she was the OW. because she was.

I have not forgiven my ex husband and never will. She is nothing to me and owed me nothing so there’s nothing for me to forgive her for.

I know someone else too who was the OW but I had no idea as it was over 25 years ago. She's a brilliant stepmum the girls now adults love her and she's such a gracious generous person. Just what you would call a good egg i suppose. But yes she was with someone previously and so was her now husband. Two marriages ended due to their affair but they seem like very decent solid people if you were to meet them. It was a bit of a shock to find that out. When you see examples like these I just don't think 'once a cheater always a cheater...

Perhaps not. But a person who has always been capable of acting ruthlessly in pursuit of her own self-interest, being deceitful, dishonest and underhand in the course of doing so? Yes.

Those are very adult motivations and actions. They have nothing to do with her ability to be a wonderful, generous step-mum to children.

But if push came to shove and her deepest interests came into conflict with someone else's - you already know how she'd behave. Ruthlessly and, if necessary to secure what she wanted, deceitfully.

While her life is going well and there are no major conflicts of interest, there is no need for her to revert to this pattern of behaviour.

@lottiegarbanzo

Following on from that, a really useful question to be able to answer would be 'how can you identify whether or not someone has the potential to cheat, before getting into a relationship with them?'

Everyone has the potential to cheat. Many don’t, most do.

Approximately 60% of people are unfaithful in unmarried (40%) or married (20%) relationships. That’s from Wikipedia, so it’s lazy.

The point still stands: everyone has the potential to cheat.