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AIBU?

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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:
normalishdude · 12/02/2014 16:56

scary reading, this.

Rebecca2014 · 12/02/2014 17:04

I find it sad so many women would knowingly sleep with an married man. I know there is no such thing as sisterhood but it would be nice if there was more respect for the wife and the children.

stooshe · 12/02/2014 17:40

Some of the "I don't give a damn" mindset in here is scary. Maybe that is why I am not so quick to disregard the agency of females in all that they do.
"wrong and strong" comes to mind.

WooWooOwl · 12/02/2014 17:52

Many of the posters that have said they have been an OW in one way or another have also said that they were young when they did it.

Everyone makes mistakes when they are young, or does things that they wouldn't repeat, but they don't deserve to feel guilty for it. You live and learn.

I don't feel guilty for being with someone else's man because at the time I did it, I didn't know what it was like to be in a committed relationship, I didn't really have much concept of what it would be like to be cheated on, and I have never been the one to make the first move on any man, relationship or not.

Why should I feel guilty for a minor lapse in judgement over who to sleep with? Surely it's no worse than making the choice to have sex with someone who you know is twat in other ways, like having dc they don't pay for, or like the ones who want to have unprotected sex when they don't have any means of supporting any resulting babies?

HopeS01 · 12/02/2014 18:12

Often the other woman doesn't actually know that she is the "other" one! From my experience, it was the most heartbreaking discovery of my life Sad

It's easy to judge

AnyFucker · 12/02/2014 18:22

I don't think so

There is one bloke in my distant past that, with the benefit of maturity and hindsight, was definitely well dodge. He was shit in a lot of ways though, so it didn't last long and I expect any wife/partner he did have would have dumped him just like I did

cricketpitch · 12/02/2014 18:32

Misunderstanding there. What I said was that if you don't, for whatever reason, get your long term relationship in your twenties it is very difficult as a 35 yr old to find a man who is free and wants commitment.

Those who are interested are usually attached in some way although you might not know that at the time.

I did not have a long string of affairs but there were no single men in my social circle at all, (and my social circle was very wide as I had a great job, was a member of a sports club, had friends from University and lived in London and (for short periods) in Tokyo, New York and Paris).

I am now in my fifties and have been with my DP for nearly twenty years.

kotinka · 12/02/2014 18:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

sparechange · 12/02/2014 18:41

Unknowingly... I was about to move to another country and went out for a couple of weeks for a recce. While there, I was introduced to a friend of a friend, and we ended up getting together. He took me out for dinner most nights, wooed me and we slept together on the last night I was there, with him telling me he couldn't wait for me to move over.

When I got back, I immediately googled him and looked him up on facebook to find out that not only was he married, but he had two children including a 3 month old baby. His wife's facebook page was unlocked enough to allow me to see her status updates on the days we went out of dinner, bemoaning him having to work late but being thankful that he was doing it for the benefit of their family. It was a proper kick in the guts because in my head, I was going to walk straight into a fairytale when I moved.

After I moved, I didn't actively make contact with him, but did end up seeing him at a friend's party a while later. Stupidly, I did drunkenly sleep with him again, figuring that he had already cheated once, and sleeping with me twice was just as bad as sleeping with me once, where as I didn't want to put any more notches on my bedpost.

As it happened, the job didn't work out so I moved back to the UK shortly afterwards. I do wonder from time to time if I should have ever told his wife what a sleaze he was/is

LastOneDancing · 12/02/2014 18:45

Hope - I think it's an entirely different situation to discover that unknowingly you're the OW and finish it.

In that instance the cheater is betraying two trusting people, not just one.

FoxesRevenge · 12/02/2014 18:46

Yes, I've been the OW.

kotinka · 12/02/2014 18:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Quinteszilla · 12/02/2014 18:49

Yes. I was 20. I did not know he had a girlfriend. And a baby. Angry

I bumped in to him a few years later, told him I was engaged to be married and he said "oh, oh! We should get a hotel room, for old times sake, before it is too late!" He was serious. Hmm

Sparklysilversequins · 12/02/2014 18:51

Yes. More than once.

I was young and stupid back then though.

FlyingDucky · 12/02/2014 18:54

Nope. Never. Even when I was a teen I had no interest.

Turquoisetamborine · 12/02/2014 18:54

I have but he was 31 and I was 15 so don't think that was really my fault.

I was their babysitter. Luckily it ended without anyone finding out when we moved back to the UK.

kotinka · 12/02/2014 18:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PamHalpert · 12/02/2014 19:09

No, never.

Latara · 12/02/2014 19:19

Only once and it was a work colleague. He was the one I fell in love with. I knew he was married with children but they lived thousands of miles away and he said he would rather be married to me. Of course I didn't really believe him but it suited me when he said it.

We slept together twice then the guilt got too much. He moved to another part of the UK and his wife came over here with his children to live with him.

They've since had another child - I know because he's on my Facebook and keeps 'liking' my photos - I know I should defriend him but nothing will happen between us again.

I wasn't especially young at the time, I was 29. But it won't happen again.

I've had plenty of other opportunities to be the OW - I'm afraid to say that there's lots of men out there who are willing to cheat.
I turned them all down but I know that they're probably cheating with other women.

I don't trust men or other women very easily tbh.

Dontwanttooutmyself · 12/02/2014 20:56

I have as a young, naive ( for that read "immature dickhead") 19/20 year old - ONSs only though. And an on/off FWB relationship that overlapped with his girlfriend (now wife).

I think there are two types of OW who are not "to blame" so much as need sympathy themselves. Firstly, the young naive types, who font have he emotional maturity to understand what damage they're doing (or who believe the lies the men say).

Secondly are those who don't love themselves enough to form a relationship with someone who is actually available- my best fiend is def in this category, as all her major relationships have been with married men. She is desperately insecure and I can see that she goes for the unavailable ones as an ego boost and also precisely because they are unavailable - almost like she doesn't believe she deserves someone who can love her. Much easier to blame the fact he's married than to open up the can of worms that is "why am I single, what's wrong with me".

I say this because this was me in my younger less secure days. It took accepting myself for who I am and believing I was deserving of a loving relationship to actually form one.

Original poster
MeepMeepVrooooom · 12/02/2014 21:01

Dontwanttooutmyself

I think a lot of times the people in your second category think they are protecting themselves from being hurt by being the one a man cheats with and not on. It very rarely works out that somewhere down the line they don't get hurt too though.

OP posts:
Dontwanttooutmyself · 12/02/2014 21:34

I know - I see that in my friend, and it breaks my heart Sad

justmyview · 12/02/2014 22:42

Have never been OW and can honestly say that it's one thing I would never do

My first two boyfriends cheated on me & it took me a LONG time to trust anyone after that.

I can't accept the comments like "right person, wrong time" or "you can't help who you fall in love with".

I'm black and white on that. I sometimes wonder if society has become too accepting / non-judgemental. Two of my friends were OW and are now in long term relationships with the man. I do judge them for that, although we've never discussed it

WeekendsAreHappyDays · 12/02/2014 22:59

Kind off - dhs ex wife was in an open relationship in that she was openly involved with an other man - apparently that openness only extended 1 way - she could spend evenings and nights with her "friend" but same did not apply to DH.

So before we started a full blown relationship he left. She does not believe that but that's because she judges everyone by her own low standards.

ChoosandChipsandSealingWax · 12/02/2014 23:02

Yes. I was 20. We were at uni. We met at end of summer term party, and then in the holidays he sent me flowers, took me to dinner, met my grandparents and parents, came to stay, went to stay with friends for weekend - and then he told me he was still with his girlfriend and wanted to split with her when he met me but couldn't because her father had just died and mother had cancer.

I knew at the time we met he had a girlfriend but naively assumed because he was so keen/romantic on me and we were only twenty he had finished with her.

I officially finished it at that point but in reality we had on/off relationship for a couple more months - I only manage to properly end it by then getting together with his best friend, as I knew that then he couldn't touch me and knew I wasn't strong enough to end it properly otherwise.

Bloody painful at the time, but I learnt my lesson and glad I learnt it young. Have never let myself be used like that since.