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Original poster

To ask if you have ever been the OW

153 replies

MeepMeepVrooooom · 12/02/2014 10:34

Not a TAAT but it has been inspired by another thread.

After reading another thread the ladies in my office got chatting about whether or not we had ever been the OW.

We all have by some standard have been in the position of the OW. One example from myself, I slept with a married man. Silly one night stand at around the age of 19 with a man I vaguely knew and had met a few times. Didn't find out till after that he was actually married. The other ladies stories vary between them knowing, knowing they had been married but told they had split when they hadn't and then not knowing.

How many of you have either knowingly or unknowingly (at the time) been the cheatee?

OP posts:
cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 11:27

hopping hare - you are right - he would have left her if he'd thought I was the right person, but they'd been together since she was 17, her father was dying, they had just bought a house together, he cared about her very much. As I said - we didn't sleep together. But I accept what you say.

and I did eventually get together with an available man - much older than me -who had already had his family. We have been together now for 18 years and neither has cheated.

I am not saying it is the right thing to do - I am just saying that it is not as simple as it seems.

momb · 12/02/2014 11:30

No.
..and to those who say that they would or they have because it's never simple, I say that it may not be simple from the outside looking in, and it may not be simple for the disingenuous party, but it might be a very simple thing for the cuckold.
I have been in the latter position and it's pretty shit.

HMG83 · 12/02/2014 11:32

Yes.

For 7 years Shock I'd still do anything for him and I still get butterflies thinking about him.

stopprocrastinating · 12/02/2014 11:34

Never ever been the OW with a married man.

I snogged a boy once, and found out after he had a girlfriend.

Original poster
MeepMeepVrooooom · 12/02/2014 11:34

momb

I'm sorry. I have been on the receiving end and I know it's not nice. The thread isn't meant to upset anyone, I was just curious after another thread and a conversation at my work.

OP posts:
Takingbackmonday · 12/02/2014 11:37

Yes, twice.

One more complicated than the other. I don't have ONS now and wouldn't knowingly be OW again.

cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 11:38

I do know it's shit if you are the person cheated on. I know and I am not trying to be cruel. I have also been cheated on and lost someone to someone else - and it is horrible.

Two of the men I was involved with were when I was living abroad and I didn't know they were married when we started the relationships. with one I finished it when I found out. With the other he told me he was separated. I went on holiday with him. He came to see me in the UK. His wife came over to try to "get him back". I was stunned, and felt ashamed. We split up. He stayed separated though and is now happily marreid to someone else.

akachan · 12/02/2014 11:39

I was accidentally when I was 17. He was in this late 20s and foreign and it turned out he had a wife at home. What a cunt.

issey6cats · 12/02/2014 11:40

yes a long distance relationship i didnt know he was living with his then partner and 3 kids, told me he was seperated and single, after we got together as in living together found out, in the end we married two years later and 6 years of marriage and he cheated on me , so a serial cheater

ormirian · 12/02/2014 11:40

Depends what you mean by OW. I was chatted up and 'wooed' for want of a better word by an older man in my first job - he was a QC no less. He sent me flowers and chocolates and took me out for a meal. Nothing more happened because my boyfriend at the time suggested that ..erm..perhaps he wasn't just being nice. I was a little naive Hmm.

Had a bit of a thing with another older MM at the same job but it got as far as a snog ... so again not really an OW as nothing much happened but I think it would have done if I had let it.

Then I had a full-blown EA with another man with a partner - because we did nothing more than hold hands and talk a great deal it never occured to me that it was more than an 'innocent' flirtation until he told me he was leaving his gf to be with me. Of all three it was the most damaging - it left scars on my relationship with H and I have no idea what happened to the man and his gf as I left the job asap and had no contact with him.

But have I ever been someone's mistress or been in a position to want them to divorce to be with me. No.

Until H had an A I simply did not realise how hurtful and toxic it is to do those things. I always subscribed to the 'well I'm not married to them so I haven't broken any vows' bullshit - and it is bullshit. It still hurts and it's still wrong Sad It hurts all parties involved.

BurningBridges · 12/02/2014 11:42

Someone said earlier they'd "outgrown" that behaviour and I think that's very true - its something that happens when you are young and inexperienced. I was the OW - or rather the OT - other teenager with a couple of older men, I'm talking about when I was 16 17 years old and the men were much older. Then age 21 someone told me he'd split up with his partner and of course, he hadn't (he even ate 2 christmas dinners that year) - but it is something you grow out of. At that age (and that was many years ago) I had no idea what I was doing. I remember posting that on here once ages ago and people coming back on saying oh yes you did you evil cow etc. but I guess seeing as I'm on a thread with other people saying similar things I should be safe?!

MorrisZapp · 12/02/2014 11:43

Not that I know of but in my youth I had many ONS and flings with guys that objectively speaking I knew little about. So I wouldn't have known and it never crossed my mind to ask.

SelectAUserName · 12/02/2014 11:43

Yes. Once. We've been married for 13 years now.

momb · 12/02/2014 11:44

Meep
Don't be sorry. I'm not upset or triggered or anything. It's just that people say that they fall in love and it can't be helped, but it can.
You can be attracted to someone and not act on it if they are not free.
As for people who are being unfaithful: their hearts shoudln't be open to the possibility. If their relationships are so bad that they are looking elsewhere, then they should end one relationship (and tell their partner that) before looking elsewhere.
...and it really doesn't matter how 'unhappy at home' someone is, or 'how my wife/husband doesn't understand me' or 'how I never felt before the way i feel with you' because you just cannot tell how the relationship is perceived by their partner; whether they have lied and are pretending it's OK, or if they have acknowledged that there is a problem but are ostensibly working through it.
It's just dishonourable and weak.

  • with a disclaimer obv for those who don't know that their new partner is married/in a LTR, but that's less of an affair/being OW.
cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 11:46

Meep I know that you didn't mean to upset anyone - nor have I with my posts although I can see that I have been a bit insensitive. Can't be nice to read some of these things if you are in the middle of seeing your life fall apart. BUT I do think it is worth discussing. If you were attractive/ lucky at the right time you can't possibly know what it is like if you were not.
People, men and women, often do not leave a relationship for nothing - there is a huge fear factor. It is much more likely that they will look for someone to leave for. Not right but natural and common.

Skivvywoman · 12/02/2014 11:46

Nope

BurningBridges · 12/02/2014 11:51

It seems quite a few people are falling into the teenagers/young girls being naive or lied to by an older man category. Is it worse if the woman is older, meets a man who has been married a few years and then it all comes out and screws up his wife and family - can there never be an innocent party in "affairs" or even ONSs?

meddie · 12/02/2014 11:51

Once. Only found out after the relationship ended when his wife phoned me. Was totally floored as I didnt know he was married. He gave me his work number, when I would phone the receptionist knew who I was and would put me through to him. When we went back to his house it was a total bachelorpad. No signs of a female anywhere. Turned out the house wasnt his family home but owned by the club and used to house visiting players.
He was well practised and totally slipped under my radar and I was furious about it. I have strong views on cheating within relationships.
The wife sounded very bored by it all. I wasnt the first and wouldnt be the last apparently. She accepted it for the lifestyle he gave her.

Original poster
MeepMeepVrooooom · 12/02/2014 11:52

BurningBridges

I agree with you actually. I think in youth we have not had a lot of life experience and therefore don't understand the dynamics of a more grown up relationship. If you don't understand it you can't possibly know the damage and heart break something like that would cause to the innocent party.

I don't know about others but I definitely had a selfishness in my youth of if it didn't affect me then it wasn't really my problem. It probably wasn't until I truly experienced an adult relationship that I understood. However through certain circumstances I have found myself in the position since and although not proud of it I'm not ashamed to admit it either. I didn't knowingly sleep with a married man or man in a relationship, I found out after.

I have had a couple of friendships that have gone way beyond the boundaries but not as far as sex. I think there are a couple of women out there that if they had known would have classed me as the OW even if at the time I didn't myself.

OP posts:
cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 11:52

Momb I agree with what you are saying - up to a point - you are right we can always say no.

higgle · 12/02/2014 11:53

Before I was married I had a boyfriend much older than me. He and his wife were separated but as they had set up a business together and didn't want to end their financial connection they had never divorced. He was chair of a group of companies, she was head of finance. Everyone was very open about it all, I new he was telling me the truth because all his senior staff told me the same. He was business obsessed and dinner out always included his lawyer, accountant or sales director, so it soon got a bit too much for me. I suppose I was OW but not in the usual way.

cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 11:58

Got to go out. Interesting discussion here though - and not something that is often talked about in this way, ( at least not in RL).

My view is that although I would never knowingly break up a marriage there are in-between stages and it can be messy.

I also think that the question of "spinsterhood" is not as outdated as it might seem.

I just look at my single friends in their fifties who were fat, lacking confidence, too involved with career progression to settle at twenty eight and who are now childless and without a relationship having only been pursued by marreid or very much older men.

Stinklebell · 12/02/2014 12:01

Not knowingly.

But then DH and I have been together since we were 18 and my list isn't very long so it's unlikely

Sparklymommy · 12/02/2014 12:01

Yes.

When I was 17 I was the OW. He was 24, married but 'misunderstood' or so he told me. He 'left' her and moved in with me for a couple of months (coincidentally whilst he was working near to where I lived). It all unravelled when I discovered I was pregnant. He went back to his wife and I had a miscarriage three months later. I contacted him to let him know that I had lost the child and never again.

Since then I have also been the OW twice. But it was complicated. Both times have been friendships that have included sex. Both times when the sex started he was single and both times when he has got with a partner I have backed off but then inevitably we have fallen back into bed. It is very complicated but I can't honestly say that I feel guilty. They are friends that have been lovers at different times.

FreddoPops · 12/02/2014 12:06

No, never. Find the whole thing vile.

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