AIBU to think there are few worse crimes on here than to be the OW

[OnADarkDesertHighway]

I think there are criminals who have been convicted of horrific offences who would get a better reception on here than OW do.

Personal attacks might be throwned upon but OW seem fair game. Cunt is a common insult to call OW and hardly anyone objects.

Yeah it is shitty to fuck another woman's bloke but no insult is off limits.

I do not believe some hardened criminals would be in receipt of the level of abuse OW get. Nor do the DH/DP's get anywhere near as much condemnation as the OW do.

To clarify further even though I hate the word - they are both C*S.

If the temptress in question said to DP, look I really fancy you (he is hot btw, this might well happen) but I won't sleep with you unless you become single, that to me is fair enough. I probably said it plenty times in my younger day.

I'm not trying to split anyone up, just saying yes, a shag would be great but not gonna happen while you're attached.

I've said no to plenty blokes in the two decades I've been with DP, sure he's turned plenty of women down too. If one day he decides to say yes, it'll be entirely his lookout.

Don't get me wrong, of course I'd loathe any woman my DP left me for. But that's an understandable emotional reaction. It bears no logical analysis and we shouldn't extend our subjective and personal circs and use it to spill hate and judgement on others.

Morris I think there's only one argument certain posters are interested in and it doesn't involve any kind of self awareness... Well said though.

of course I'd loathe any woman my DP left me for

I think part of the psychic shock of affairs is having to embrace someone you loathe as being part of your children's lives (where there are children). You can't really just ignore them. But it's an awful lot of cognitive dissonance for an already hurt person to suck up.

I've never been the OW. I've hated the OW though. In my mind I made her into a caricature of who she was because I couldn't see past how she could do this to another woman. I thought of all the little looks she'd given me before I found out and all the little bitchy comments and magnified them until she was as sociopathic as he was in my head. It was a sort of survival mechanism and she was fair game. Thinking of her and him together made my skin crawl. I knew he was an asshole, but she was supposed to be a friend - a woman who understood. I felt she'd let me down even more than he had.

Now ofcourse I see it a little differently. She's out the otherside having left him and married someone else. She's explained herself as believing everything he said. I see her as being more human again. But I still know in my heart that what she did was wrong - she crossed a moral boundary that she shouldn't have. That's how I see OW. They sit just over the fence in the field of takers who look after no. 1. And I like to sit in the camp of the givers who caretake and put people before themselves. We're different sorts of people and don't really understand eachother that well. I don't think one is better than the other necessarily, just that is how it is.

If she was your friend then of course what she did was appalling. There's no defence.

My own posts have been about OW who are not known by the wife.

morris I hope it never does happen to you, but I would say it's one thing to speculate how you would feel/what you would do, and another to actually have to live through the shock of a betrayal.

Why undermine someone who you once loved by lying, rather than give them the dignity and respect they deserve. It says a lot about cheater/OW that's not good. People can and do pass moral judgement on those who cheat on spouses and always have done. It does a lot of harm to the betrayed person in terms of trust and it harms the dcs far more than 'leaving honestly' would do imo. It's all very well saying its a grey area but theres no grey area in my book when you are actually in the process of having sex with somebody while you are currently married, and living with and acting as married, to someone else.

As with Morris I am talking about people commenting on and judging OW that they don't know and will never meet... Is it helpful to do this? Is it healing? Or does it feed the obsession of feeling victimized and keep the individual in some kind of emotional purgatory? I understand a lot of posters feel entitled to be angry at another persons bad choices but does calling them names and shaming strangers make them actually feel better? And if so what does that say about the person themselves?

Isn't a lot of MN venting opinions about strangers? Peter Andre springs to mind.

Winter, I totally get that. My first bf dumped me for another girl and I hated her guts ——still do—— but that's an emotional, deeply subjective response.

Friends close to me have been deeply betrayed and I've seen the pain, it is catastrophic. But I won't use individual, irrational emotions as a stick to beat women with, and to perpetuate Old Testament style double moral standards.

Men are to blame for their moral failings.

morris I do think my personal experiences are relevant to these threads though. I was the DC hurt by this sort of break up, not the ex-wife.
I wouldn't spill hate but I do judge because I know exactly what fall out this situation can have and how horrible it can be. I'm an adult and know that relationships can be complex now but there are less hurtful ways of going about things.

sky Yes I think it might make them feel better and that what it says about the person is that they are human and feel angry when betrayed/shat upon. Rather than what? just go oh well, perhaps they are really nice people? Well they may be ok people, but what they have done is selfish and hurtful. (Although there are others who will think OW has taken an arsehole off my hands, let the pair of them get on with it and good luck, chances are one or the other will shit on the other one later down the line.)

And of course the cheater is mostly to blame for that hurt, but the OW validates his actions by being in a relationship with him. So I don't think it's irrational to be angry with her too.

morris I agree men are to blame, women have affairs too, OM and OW also culpable etc. I think most posters judge the behaviour of having an affair first and foremost, it's a shitty thing to do, particularly if married with dcs

I detest the view that the OW carries no responsibility in carrying with a married person

There's a community aspect to marriage
You say your vows in front of your friends and family - they witness these - and I believe there's are community responsibly to support those vows as they best can, or at least not "put asunder" or actively torpedo

Of course the one your married has responsibility to you ... But I also believe in personal responsibility in not contributing to someone else's pain and chaos ... so the one your partner chooses to cheat with also carries responsibility

It's a joint enterprise, after all.

I'm a child of cheating parents too. My mum had an affair with my dads best friend, and left him for the bf.

It was awful at the time but we were shielded from the worst of it. My mum and stepdad were together for longer than double the length of my parents marriage. My dad also met someone quite quickly and has now been with her for three times the length of his first marriage.

They are all friends with each other and in fact go on holidays together (I know this is not typical!). But from my own personal experience I know that while the 'cheaters script' may be very apt in many cases, it isn't always.

My parents completely defy any stereotypes of 'cheaters'. They're just lovely, loving people who made difficult and messy choices in their personal lives.

And that suggests to me that lots of other people are fundamentally decent but have made mistakes or taken difficult paths in life. What the fuck do I know really.

blimey morris I'd say that is by far the exception! amazing story though. I suppose we all have different perspectives that influence us. Statistically the majority of cheaters do not end up with affair partners. My own experience bears this out, also that there were no major problems in my marriage beforehand (he asked to come back later) and that he was utterly shitty and nasty when he left having seemed previously devoted. I didn't and still don't give OW much thought tbh, I thought she must be insecure and a bit shallow, she knew full well he had young dcs. I wasn't especially worried about her as I thought if not her it'd be someone else eventually.
My own view about cheating was the same when I was married though, that it was a shitty cowardly thing to do, on the part of both cheating partners.

Wintersocks I am not saying that people can't have hurt feelings and need to see the good in others who have hurt them... Of course everyone is entitled to their feelings and opinions. But simply having feelings and feeling entitled to them does not excuse lashing out at strangers online to deal with them, even if that person is Peter Andre.

All I am saying is that if you're bashing the shit out of a person or a group of people online because you don't like them or agree with their choices you're not exactly morally superior... And you're not helping yourself either.

sky I broadly agree with that but I don't personally see much lashing out on here tbh, so it depends what you see. If it's a goady OW then I think responses which are negative towards them would come from a mixture of posters, not just those who've been cheated on. Same as with any U posters

There's a ton of lashing out on the relationships boards. I often dip in and have a browse and within a few posts there are accusations being made about the poster being an OW and then there will be a watershed of posts from users shaming the OP. I have seen it a lot on Step-parenting as well that the OP will get accused of being the OW. I honestly think in the majority of cases that anyone who admits to being an OW/OM on one of these boards is just doing do to elicit reactions and get people to rehash all those awful feelings and stories. I don't think it helps anyone for that to happen certainly not the people drawing on thier own experiences - it just feeds the pain.

I am also the child of a cheat. My father. He was morally bankrupt as are all cheats.

Well that's your opinion but I don't see my parents as morally bankrupt at all. It's a stretch to judge swathes of strangers because of your own fathers behaviour, though I'm not taking away your right to anger towards anyone who has hurt you.

I think the adult children of parents who had an unpleasant divorce are especially prone to this bias. You see it a lot in stepfamilies even without infidelity. If you read Wednesday Martin's book Stepmonster there are examples of adults with children of their own who still can't accept that someone "ruined" their family. I think it is largely down to how the children are parented post divorce whether or not they adjust. It might not be divorce or even cheating that made them a bad father/mother, maybe they just weren't cut out for the role. Some people aren't.

Sky posters may prefer to not say they are the OW however they get asked over and over if they are.

There are 101 reasons to start a thread without it being about getting a reaction.