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.

@placemats

I also agree.

The bitter ex wife troupe is a bunch of crap for most. The general consensus is that the cheated on are glad to be rid in the end, because the cheaters and their affair partner are generally drama lama selfish types who centre themselves and their own needs. Who can be arsed with that??

@Getawaywithit

I am many, many years post being cheated on and the OW lasted about 18 months. I am not sure I would have ever accepted her in my children's lives largely because she was an incredibly unpleasant person and very bitter about the fact my ex was a lying dirtbag and the realisation she'd fallen for the script hook, line and sinker. I was just pregnant when he walked - would have loved to hear him explain that one to her.

But sometimes meeting the right person can be what makes you realise you're with the wrong one

That doesn't justify an affair, does it? You can still walk away from the relationship before starting a new one. It's a particularly unpleasant trait, I think, that people suggest that the end justifies the means. There are real people in these situations who's lives are literally blown apart. Why don't they matter?

Oh, I agree that meeting the right person can make you realise you're with the wrong one. I see nothing wrong with that - sometimes couples grow apart and it can be difficult to notice/accept that you're unhappy because you don't fit together anymore.

However, meeting that new person who does make your heart skip is what what should prompt you to end the relationship - leaving you free to either pursue a new relationship with that person, or someone else.

This, however, seems to be an alien concept to some people, who aren't brave enough to just end things, and instead want to 'test the water'. It's incredibly selfish - getting over being cheated on can take years and years and years - why would you knowingly do that to a person who you once loved? It's so much easier to move on from a relationship that both parties accepted just wasn't working anymore. Introduce a third person, and you actually introduce a level of trauma.

The ones I find weird are where a relationship was where two people jump into something, it was all too much, too fast and things sort of start and finish within a couple of years, and were never going to work. The ones you can see going wrong after a year and within two, someone's left for someone they actually suit, and it's over

Then twenty years on, having been married to the OW for say 18 of those, the original partner of 2 years still sees themselves as the significant partner, and the woman who actually has the successful long term relationship, a marriage, a family unit, just some other woman. I find it so sad when someone was with someone pretty fleetingly but spends the rest of their life bitter, essentially on the basis "but I was there first". I think a long term relationship between the affair partners also cuts deep, because it demonstrates that they are more than capable of holding down a long happy relationship with the right person, and people don't like to admit someone else is better for who they always saw as their partner.

Have you ever been the betrayed party on the other end of a spouse's affair OP? Because until you have there is no way you can possibly understand how deep it cuts - for many people the emotional damage it does to them lasts a lifetime and can never be undone. It's easy to say 'I don't understand why they can't just forgive and forget' if it has never happened to you. A betrayal of that magnitude changes you inside, it is one of the worst things another person can do to you and the damage caused is extremely complex. I've been on the receiving end of a betrayal and I can tell you I will never 'get over it' ever - and will never forgive.

I think it's natural for exes to harbour bad feelings towards their ex and new partner if there was an affair involved.

However, I do think that after a couple of years have passed it's best to keep your hatred to yourself/between friends, as after time has passed it does start to come across as an obsession, even if that's not the case at all. Especially severals years in when the ex and new partner are married/have kids of their own.

@Magicpaintbrush

Abs for all the other betrayed spouses - male or female

I’ve saw first hand the devastation. I had to take a girlfriends children to school for weeks because she couldn’t get out of bed when she discovered her so called best friend had been fucking her dh of 20 years.

It’s not even what they both done to her - it was the way they behaved afterwards.

It was horrific.
The cover up was worse than the crime.
Bastards. I’ll never forgive them.

@TwinsandTrifle

The ones I find weird are where a relationship was where two people jump into something, it was all too much, too fast and things sort of start and finish within a couple of years, and were never going to work. The ones you can see going wrong after a year and within two, someone's left for someone they actually suit, and it's over

Then twenty years on, having been married to the OW for say 18 of those, the original partner of 2 years still sees themselves as the significant partner, and the woman who actually has the successful long term relationship, a marriage, a family unit, just some other woman. I find it so sad when someone was with someone pretty fleetingly but spends the rest of their life bitter, essentially on the basis "but I was there first". I think a long term relationship between the affair partners also cuts deep, because it demonstrates that they are more than capable of holding down a long happy relationship with the right person, and people don't like to admit someone else is better for who they always saw as their partner.

Yes I agree. Quite often the 2nd marriage surpasses the first in success and length, not even through anyone's fault but just that the first coupling wasn't quite right.

But sometimes meeting the right person can be what makes you realise you're with the wrong one

That doesn't justify an affair, does it? You can still walk away from the relationship before starting a new one. It's a particularly unpleasant trait, I think, that people suggest that the end justifies the means. There are real people in these situations who's lives are literally blown apart. Why don't they matter?

In the case I referenced I think it was more of a "I want to be with this person instead so I'm leaving my wife". Of course, there will be an emotional element to it, but then you'd hardly decide that someone was The One without having any sort of attachment to them, would you? Even if there was an affair, it's always assumed that people will always do the right thing. Unhappiness and loneliness can do funny things to people, as I know from my own past experience.

There always seems to be the assumption that the person who left doesn't suffer any negative effects (e.g. guilt, even if the alternative was staying in a relationship that made them miserable) and the person who was left was entirely blame-free and therefore entitled to feel aggrieved.

I was an OW I suppose and I’ve been with my husband for ten years. Our relationship was an exit affair for both of us - we were both in marriages where our spouses had been unfaithful but we had tried to move on. (I don’t think it works.)

I get along fine with Dh’s ex wife. We’ve got a positive working relationship I guess. We’re not the grudgey type.

However, meeting that new person who does make your heart skip is what what should prompt you to end the relationship - leaving you free to either pursue a new relationship with that person, or someone else.

This, however, seems to be an alien concept to some people, who aren't brave enough to just end things, and instead want to 'test the water'. It's incredibly selfish - getting over being cheated on can take years and years and years - why would you knowingly do that to a person who you once loved? It's so much easier to move on from a relationship that both parties accepted just wasn't working anymore. Introduce a third person, and you actually introduce a level of trauma.

Completely agree in principle but think in reality unless the couple splits with genuinely zero involvement with anyone else - even down to having the feelings that you described here and nothing more - then the person who initiates the split will always be regarded as having cheated by the person who is left, if they go on to pursue the person they had the feelings for.

Ending a significant relationship, especially with children involved, is always going to result in recriminations unless both mutually and calmly agree it isn't working, which is likely rare.

Depends on each person I guess. I have a female relative, 2 young children. Her DH was having an affair with a work colleague. It's been 15 years now, they have a child together and are married but for lots of their mutual friends and our family, she's still the ow. Both are just seen as cheaters who pretty much fucked up a lot of my female relative's children's lives.

There is a member of our extended family who has never to my knowledge acknowledged that a relationship is over, until they have the next one underway.

And then they always quite seriously claim the new partner is 'the one' and the previous partner is allocated all blame for everything that is wrong in their lives.

It's honestly no way to live.

Thank you for all your posts as it's made me step back and think I may have judged people to harshly and without feeling sometimes. I see that something so traumatic can be carried with you forever and its not as simple as time is a great healer and you should just move on.

A colleague of mine had an affair for a year then left his wife and quickly divorced her to marry the OW,
15 years and two dcs later she is still referred to as his other woman or bit of the side by all of his family and a lot people.

She’s lovely and they are a great couple but I do still judge them both for their decision to have an affair behind his wives back, as do most people who were close to him and his wife pre affair.

Fair enough some people find their ‘soul mate’ when they are already in a relationship, I accept people fall out of love or marry people that they aren’t 100% compatible with and then happen to find someone they are…..
But there’s no reason anyone can’t end the relationship they are in before starting the new one other than just being shitty people.

And for that reason i will always judge them quietly, I think this is probably the main reason for it.

I think it depends on the circumstances. If there are children involved that forces the first wife/husband/parter to maintain contact. To them and any children, the OW will always be the OW. I’d there’s no need to maintain contact with the wronged party then it’s a lot easier for everyone else to move on and accept the OW as the new partner.

DH and I were married to other people when we met. We were both planning to leave but hadn't yet, and were actively looking for an exit plan from our current marriages.

We fell head over heels for each other and ended our first marriages within a couple of weeks of meeting - we had no intention of having a long-term extramarital affair or sneaking around. We were very clear almost immediately that we wanted to be together.

We've been together for just under 6 years now, and are married with two children. I think others in this thread were right when they said that it depends on the perspective of the person as to whether the new partner is still seen as OW/OM. We have moved halfway across the country and changed jobs since we got together. In the place we now live, to our new friends and colleagues, we are just an established couple. We are open about how our relationship started if it comes up in conversation (which it often does), but people know and like us and accept us as a family unit.

To both of our families, our spouse is our spouse - we are not still seen as OW/OM. Both families knew we were unhappy in our first marriages (and one of us was being abused) so were supportive of our plans to leave our first spouses for each other.

To both of our exes and their friends, we are the OM/OW and will be until we die. We both lost friends when our first marriages ended, and until we relocated it made work a bit more fraught, because some of our former colleagues knew our exes and were understandably loyal to them.

The abusive ex is particularly difficult and continues to badmouth us to everyone involved years down the line, without acknowledging that the abuse was a big factor in one marriage ending...

If we had stayed in the same town and in the same jobs, I think many people would have seen us as the OW/OM forever, as they had known us in our first marriages. But now we have moved and have made new connections, very few people seem bothered at all, even when we tell them how our relationship started.

"However, meeting that new person who does make your heart skip is what what should prompt you to end the relationship"

the above is limerence not love.

If you are the type of person who will leave the mother/father of your child because of limerence you are telling the world you are the type of person who is happy to use people for your own ends and are driven by your own self interests primarily

When you make your peace with it and move on with your own life. Holding on to it harms no one but yourself. Well that was the case for me. Some people aren't able to do that and that's ok too.

Holding a grudge only hurts the grudge-holder. I absolutely couldn't waste the emotional energy on thinking about "OW" etc. Relationships sometimes don't work out and if there are children involved, the onus is on the adults to model the kind of behaviour they would like their children to learn.

It isn't the same as "forgive and forget", but more a case of drawing a line under it and not letting it poison the rest of your life and particularly not your children's lives.

IME, if you're forced into that kind of situation (as I have been), you might as well just get on with everyone because it just creates problems if you don't. None of this excluding people from x, y, z. In any kind of 'step' or 'half sibling' situation, everyone's related to one another whether they like it or not, so they might as well get on and try to make the best of it.

StoneColdBitch
did you or your now husband leave behind children?

@LittleMysSister I don't know, only one of my significant relationships ended due to an affair. As upsetting as the end of each of those relationships was, it was only the one with an affair that took me so many years to heal from. Gosh, I think it took something ridiculous like 7 years to recover from the trauma. If my ex had any respect for me, he could have waited until we broke up (it was heading that way anyway), and I wouldn't have wasted so many years of my life with low self-esteem. Honestly, waiting wouldn't have made much of a difference to him or to her in the end, but it would have changed my life.

At the time, I was beyond hurt. I hated him. I hated the OW.

I don't regret hating my ex, because he did a shitty thing, but I do regret harbouring such resentment towards the OW. Society conditions us to hate the other female, but let's face it, she didn't really owe me anything. Maybe basic sisterhood, but whilst she was definitely the OW, I don't know if she knew that. My ex kept two very separate lives in play, and it's entirely plausible she thought we'd already broken up.

I'll never want to be her friend and I have no interest in knowing what she's up to, but I do wish her well.

As for my ex, for a long time, I'd have been reluctant to spit on him if he was on fire. Now, many, many years on, I'd pour water on him, and I'd even administer basic first aid. However, I wouldn't follow up to find out how his recovery was doing.

I am fundamentally a nice human being, and for a long time, I didn't feel able to extend basic human courtesy to him. That's how much he broke me with his actions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the end of a relationship will always be hard. However, there's no need for it to be traumatic - would-be cheaters would do well to remember that. If you cared enough about someone at one point, there's a kinder way to end things. Don't have an affair - physical or emotional - just get out first. Ending things cleanly won't have much of an impact on your life, but it will ensure the person you're leaving manages to get over things within a normal period of time, and isn't left in pieces.

I've put the pieces of myself back together, but when something smashes into so many pieces, even with all the glue in the world, it's never quite as perfect as it was before.

My friends husband had an affair. The OW was also married and had children.
My friend now has a lovely life with a partner and children. The ex and OW have both had some bad luck over the last few years...shame. They lost their jobs due to covid and her children have chosen not to see her due to her choice to move away with my friends ex and her treatment of their dad. They don’t get talked about often by my friend but when they do they’re always referred to as the cunt and the OW/bitch.

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?

Of course (almost) everyone deserves to be happy (some people are just evil), but you don't get to do it at someone else's expense in this manner.

If you're unhappy in your marriage, then look to fix it or look to leave, and follow through. That's being honest and treating your spouse/partner with the respect they deserve, even if they're not happy about it.

If you're unhappy in your marriage and decide to betray your spouse/partner (and family) by focusing your attentions on someone outside the marriage, that's really shitty. It's doubly shitty if the OW/OM knows you're married, have a family etc, and carries on anyway. So they both suck for just looking elsewhere rather than trying to fix the marriage or leave it respectfully.

So I think the OW/OM label can stick forever since there were better options, frankly. They brought it on themselves.

I find it interesting that people think of the OW definition as a 'grudge' and something that must be actively maintained by someone else. I don't see it that way at all. I see 'cheater' as a property of the cheater, a character trait that they've chosen to give expression to and that they carry around with them, whether or not anyone else is bothering to think about them at all.

I’m trying very hard currently to be happy for a couple that got together as the result of an affair. He was half of a couple that were our very very best friends and we holidayed together with our children etc. She was the other woman and they worked together. When the affair came out we experienced first hand the destruction and heartbreak that it caused.
Now a few years on and our friends have split after initially trying to make it work and he is living in the old family home with the his new partner or the OW.
They are getting married soon and although i’m desperately trying to be happy for them, I struggle a lot with the morality of how they behaved and the pain they caused their children and his wife. I know that I need to move on but I do find it very very difficult having spent so much time with him and his family.