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.

@IfIwasablackbird

I have a couple of friends who still consider their father’s partner the OW even though their parents split when they were children. It’s such a betrayal that I think it sticks. They’re equally bitter towards their fathers.

This will be because their mothers never stopped going on about it.

In my case the OW is always the OW. She had an affair with my married dad(fully aware that he was more in the wrong). This was a long time ago and they were married for decades before he died. There isn’t any anger etc now, however there never was any relationship with the OW. Loved seeing her skulking in the back at family events. Guess shame does that to you. We were civil to each other, but there was always a tension, a coldness, an undercurrent, basically disdain. Since he died we have had absolutely nothing to do with each other which suits both of us.

It's never happened to me personally, but if people got together by cheating they'll always be cheaters in my eyes. I'd never see it as a real relationship.

My stepmum has been married to my dad for over 20 years now and I still think of her as the OW.

When do you move on and stop referring to ow as ow
Those are two different things. My exh went off with his OW, they broke up a couple of years later, and all that was years ago now - we are all settled into different lives. But if I saw the woman in question I'd think "Oh look, there's my ex's OW" as that's simply how I know her. I don't hate her or want to express any bitterness if I think of her as the OW. It's like when I talk about my school friends as being my school friends, even though I left school in 1987. That's how I know those friends.

A relative of mine left his wife for the ow and married her. They both had teenage children. They are now in their mid 70s and their children are mid-late 40s.

None of the children have ever forgotten or forgiven. People are polite to her but no one will ever like her for what she did.

Never.

She can become the wife, mother of his children etc but the fact and significance (to others) of how the relationship started, will always be there, a part of that relationship.

If you're unhappy, have the courage to break up. Then start looking around. Conducting sordid affairs as an excuse to blow your relationship apart because 'she/he did it too' is just weak, childish and well, sordid.

With all due respect OP it's very easy for you to not imagine holding on to that pain because you've never experienced it on a visceral level. When that pain has been inflicted on you and more crucially your children and you've heard them crying at night then it's much more personal. When
mum or dad has left and moved straight in with another person and their kids and is trying to force the kids into a instant new family setup with very little regard to their mental health, then it becomes very hard to forgive.

It's a betrayal on a very deep level that fundamentally changes the way kids view the world. Their parent that they trusted can never be fully trusted again because they know how many times their parent lied to them. It invalidates their childhood memories as lies and for the parent that's left, that really hurts.

I think you are underestimating the long term pain it can cause and blithely saying that it's not good to be bitter doesn't really appreciate the seismic impact on a family.

Namechangeapologies
do you equate the longevity of a relationship as an incontrovertible sign of a happy and successful one?

That door swings both ways though, doesn't it? Some marriages aren't good by the couple's own standards - and a subsequent marriage can be a match 'made in heaven'... or not.

I agree with Hearts regarding the poison adage, it's certainly more pertinent than the tired 'vacancy' cliche that gets trotted out.

I don't think the OW stops being that until she gets replaced!

I know 5 relationships that started with affairs. The relationships are all happy and stable and have lasted many years. The longest is 38 years and the shortest is 11 years. All 5 couples are much more suited to each other than their former spouses.

That’s not to say that having an affair is a good idea, but the concept of “once a cheat, always a cheat” is a bit silly.

I think the term OW gets thrown around far too much.

I often see ANY woman that starts dating a man not long after a breakup being labeled as OW when in fact they are just a girlfriend to a man with a bitter past relationship.

To me OW is a mistress - so someone who is secretly sneaking with someone she knows is with someone else (usually married and with kids).

If she is the main woman (regardless of how people might 'think' she ended up with a man, whether he was married before, has kids, had a bitter divorce, or anything else) then she is not the other woman.

In this case, she is just the 'woman' because there are no 'other women' there just 'past women'.

Why do people assume that because one party (usually the woman) doesn't enter into a new relationship, that they haven't 'moved on'? My ex-husband had an affair; the woman concerned will forever be thought of by me as the OW, even though she is long gone. But just because I have chosen to remain single, does not mean I'm pining for him and can't move on. There is more to life than being in a relationship for some of us.

My brother had a midlife crisis, left his wife of 20 odd years and two children and took up with the local flirt who is young enough to be his daughter. His kids who are now adults won’t have anything to do with him and my brother is now playing dad to her three very young children.
She’ll always be the other woman to our family.

For many people these are sadly lifelong hurts.

Someone I know had met the love of their life, their first real boyfriend, settled down, got married, then has children in what they thought would be a permanent, loving home.

This person was absolutely devoted to the family and bringing the children up as successfully as possible, hoping to follow the example of their parents in having a long monogamous marriage.

Sadly for them, when the kids were 8 and 10, having scaled down their career to provide the best support to the home and family, he being the breadwinner, his nibs leaves in the middle of the night, and texts to say he has left.

It later transpires that he's been having an affair with a colleague for six months, and that they have both left their families to be with each other. At first he said you can have the children and the house, I just want to leave and effectively disappears. He takes no interest in the children, causing immense hurt and trauma to the son. The only record of the relationship is pictures on social media, making it visible to everyone but the wife. He still denies it.

After a short while the other relationship comes out into the open, is admitted to. They move in together, set up a new rented home. Then the financial crunch starts - he withdraws support for bills one by one, cutting off the electricity, the phone, broadband etc etc. He keeps paying the mortgage and then insists that he is the landlord rather than it being the family home. And so on. He sees the children but has developed a self-justified, warped perspective where he is the victim, despite living in luxury while the family he left behind is on its knees. He keeps bitching about every aspect of their lives, criticising the mum for being "chaotic" while in fact she is running everything while he lives like a teenager again.

I know that it would be better for this person to accept it and "move on". But I can't for one minute think how. One day, maybe. The one thing I would say is that I blame him 100%, not the OW. But she will forever be the OW, and if I was in the same room as them I would struggle to contain my disgust at the way they have behaved towards his wife.

Depends who you ask. A teenager who's parents have split might think of her as the other woman for years/ever (even if they end up having an ok relationship) The person who had been cheated on might still think of her as the OW especially if kids are involved.

Neighbours, work mates etc would be quicker to forget I think. Recognising that two people started off as an affair is not uncommon. That would only be in the couples immediate circle though, if they are together years later with new friends, new home etc then they will be a couple, just like everyone else.

My stepmum was the other woman. I love her to pieces… but she will always be the other woman and my dad will always be the person who had an affair 🤷‍♀️.

I guess people who don’t know the history wouldn’t see it that way, but to family and friends no amount of happy years changes the fact that they started out as an affair.

My mother never went to her grave hating the OW. I am polite to the OW to support my dad. ( My mum was quit e a pain tbh) However, the OW is not important enough for me to worry about her existence at all. I do not care if she lives or die. She was the nicest person when were kids and my dad left us. She is now quite ill and I think we’ll Karma is a bitch!

The whole OW thing is bull. First off, it’s the man who is married and betrays his wife. Secondly, DW might have been an awful person and DH desperately unhappy. Sure, having an affair is a bad thing to do but that doesn’t mean that DW wasn’t an unreasonable monster. People like a scapegoat.

I totally understand what you mean about wallowing in it.

I have a friend who's husband left her with 2 kids. It was 35 years ago and she still despises him and the OW "she-devil". This makes all family events for her now grown kids very awkward. She talks about it all the time still, and tries hard to hurt her ExH by always talking about how he ruined her life, how she's never dated since etc. But she doesn't see that he doesn't care, and all she's done is ruin her own chance at happiness by staying bitter and being the victim all this time. She chose to martyr herself rather than move on.

I do understand the sentiment - why should you be cordial when you actually want them to be hurting too, or want karma to get them. But the world doesn't work like that, and these people are only hurting themselves by holding on to the pain.

@Hattiehottie

With all due respect OP it's very easy for you to not imagine holding on to that pain because you've never experienced it on a visceral level. When that pain has been inflicted on you and more crucially your children and you've heard them crying at night then it's much more personal. When mum or dad has left and moved straight in with another person and their kids and is trying to force the kids into a instant new family setup with very little regard to their mental health, then it becomes very hard to forgive.

It's a betrayal on a very deep level that fundamentally changes the way kids view the world. Their parent that they trusted can never be fully trusted again because they know how many times their parent lied to them. It invalidates their childhood memories as lies and for the parent that's left, that really hurts.

I think you are underestimating the long term pain it can cause and blithely saying that it's not good to be bitter doesn't really appreciate the seismic impact on a family.

My parents divorced, both very quickly got with new people (my step dad is a fantastic dad and that first step mam was great although more like a big sister or cousin or aunt that a mam) and I had zero issues with it.

People act like divorce is the worst thing a child can face but I'm thankful mine divorced. They weren't good together at all, and that had a far more negative and traumatizing impact on me than their split.

mam

"If she is the main woman (regardless of how people might 'think' she ended up with a man, whether he was married before, has kids, had a bitter divorce, or anything else) then she is not the other woman"

I disagree that it is so cleanly transactional and labels can be neatly applied. In a lot of cases (not all but I would wager a significant proportion) and especially in the early days of the relationship between the OW and the married spouse, the very desire to be the "main woman" is what fuels the relationship for the OW. For the OW it literally is an unspoken competition with the spouse (even if the spouse does not even know it).
This is usually reinforced by the cheating spouse who will go to great lengths to badmouth the cheated on spouse, which the OW laps up.

The point is that an Ow was specifically a woman who had an affair with a married man that caused the breakdown of his marriage for her personal gratification and regardless of the hurt it caused his wife and any children. (Not exonerating the husband whose behaviour was equally despicable.) That being the case she never stops being the other woman in respect of the marriage breakdown regardless of what happens later.

Depends what you consider moving on to be to be honest. I’m never going to like my ex or the OW, they’ve been vile and utterly selfish in regards to seeing my child.
I’ve got nothing nice to say about either of them, why would I have!!
That doesn’t mean I haven’t moved on from that relationship though. I’m bloody glad he isn’t with me.
I’ve no intention of having another relationship either, again this doesn’t mean I haven’t moved on more that I can’t be arsed to deal with men’s bullshit anymore.

mam your parents got together with people after they split. That's a different situation from specifically deceiving their family over a long period and then moving straight in with their affair partner.

It's not about divorce hurting kids, that's a different subject entirely. I'm talking about long term affairs which an OW/OM is complicit. Its very hard to forgive long term planned deceit and then trying to force kids into a new family setup to make the parent who left and OW/OM happy.

@Franklyfrost

The whole OW thing is bull. First off, it’s the man who is married and betrays his wife. Secondly, DW might have been an awful person and DH desperately unhappy. Sure, having an affair is a bad thing to do but that doesn’t mean that DW wasn’t an unreasonable monster. People like a scapegoat.

I don’t think it’s that people like a scapegoat. I think it’s natural to dislike the kind of woman who has such low standards and morals to get involved with a man who has children. It’s a pretty shitty thing to do. I like to think that most women who get their man in this underhand way, are also likely to lose him in the same way to another ‘other’ woman.