Do people not feel anger towards the OW?

[ZaphodBeeblerox]

I'm just musing here. I was cheated on by a partner a long time ago - I was in my mid-twenties and we'd been dating 4+years and planning to get married etc. Then he asked for a "break" while he figured stuff out, and clearly already had started seeing the OW. Came back to me after the break, but kept messaging her. I finally found out and kicked him out.

I'm not still angry about any of it. I think he did me a massive favour because I was young, I could bounce back, I built up some self esteem and don't take BS from people, I had other relationships and eventually met my DH.

But back then I knew that he was the one who cheated / he was the one who treated me terribly.. but I still felt some amount of anger at the woman. I've more than once found someone who is in a committed relationship hitting on me (far away from their partner, usual BS after drinks about how partner doesn't understand them etc) and I've always just left and stayed away. Even though I was single, I didn't want to do that to another woman.

Others who've been cheated on, do you genuinely feel the OW is not at fault at all? Of course the person in the relationship is the person primarily at fault. But do you not feel anger and betrayal from also the friend or acquaintance or person who ate your food and drank your wine and then kissed your boyfriend? Or even didn't know you at all but knew you existed and didn't care?

I was the other woman.

Nothing I say now will change your opinion of me, however...

I feel awful for what happened.

I was young, he was my line manager at work and I knew him before his relationship started. We had a lot of chemistry and I truly believed we would have started a relationship if it was not for us working together.

When I found out he was dating someone (a friend of a friend - typical) I felt crushed, but I tried to distance myself from him.

However, as their relationship developed, so did ours and I ended up falling in love with him.

He started the flirting, the messages, the kisses every now and again. Soon, we were making up reasons to be alone together. We would stay late and although I knew it was wrong, I was addicted.

It broke up when he was promoted and he moved away.

They are now married with a daughter.

If she ever found out, I wouldn’t blame her for resenting me. I’d feel the same in her shoes.

But, I do often wonder if she would forgive him...

I did feel anger towards her, but I blamed him more.

It’s a shit thing to do. But often the man has fed them a pack of lies about how the wife doesn’t understand them, they never have sex, etc etc and I think some women are so weak, gullible and easily flattered that they believe it.

When my first husband rang off with his ow, (my friend) I felt anger, hurt, spite and vengeful towards both of them. Now I’m happily married to a much nicer man, have a much better standard of living because I’m no longer married to a tight fisted, mean spirited man child. I laugh to think she (the ow) thought she had ‘won’ when in fact she is rattling around my old house which will never feel like her home, living with my nasty ex, finding out just what an arsehole he is. They deserve each other. She has bagged herself a bully and he has won a tart.

The best revenge is a life well lived.

I felt anger towards my supposed partner and contempt towards the OW.
I've had 2 women friends who became the other women. They felt no remorse, made up a load of justifications, and I dumped them both.

The cheater is initially the bad guy, but when the OW knows he has a wife, knows he has small children and still schemes to break up the family so she can get her hands on a life she feels she's entitled to then I think she is equally to blame and arguably a bad person too.

The problem is that once cheating has happened, even if the cheater dumps the OW, trust is never restored.

The marriage may continue but everyone involved is a bit more wary, a bit less trusting, a bit tainted by lingering betrayal.

The OW must realise this, but continues anyway, and I wonder how many OWs realise that if he's done it to his wife then she is next in line.

I was angry the first time. She knew we were married, and he’d spun a lie that we had an “open marriage”. Why didn’t she ask me?! Why didn’t she question it!? That did annoy me.

All the other ones? Not angry at all, he’d lied to them as well as me. Glad to be rid of him, it doesn’t seem like he’s changed his ways.

Yes I feel incredibly angry towards the OW who destroyed my marriage. But, as I have now had time to reflect, I think that they now have to deal with the lying toad that is my exDH. That OW wasn't the only one, though I doubt she knows that, and I would be willing to bet my house that there have been many since.

If he did it to you, he'll do it to her. Karma.

Disagree with the feminist argument. How is it feminist to sacrifice yourself to another woman who "got there first"?

I was cheated on - DP and a woman in the upstairs office. I was shocked, felt humiliated by her because she was senior to me and she saw me every day but I didn't own my DP and I certainly didn't have anything over her. I decided I didn't want to continue with DP - (it was failing anyway) - but I wasn't angry with her. So long ago now....

I hated the bitch
I still think that knowingly being an affair partner is absolutely pathetic and shitty behaviour but I did forgive her eventually. What he did was much worse. But when you're in it, and trying to 'work on the relationship' she feels like a threat, and since you usually don't know the woman it's much easier to direct your anger towards her than your partner, who is probably doing and saying all the right things at that point.

My second marriage failed due to my exh cheating. I never did challenge the ow or tell her dh. But I do admit to day dreaming about doing it for about 3 years. I did hate her but tried to direct my anger at my exh.

Thankfully I couldnt give a rats arse about either of them now, but it’s been nearly 10 years since it all happened

If it was a friend it would be a different story because she would have betrayed me. But that has never happened thank goodness, (and won't now!)

When it happened to me I wanted to tear them both to shreds. Apparently she was really upset when I named her as corespondent - tough, love, you shouldn't have gone there, should you? He married her in the end and proved that a man who marries his mistress creates a vacancy. They totally deserved one another.

Well, the only time it’s happened to me (that I know of!), I ended up very good friends with the OW. Admittedly, she didn’t know about me when they started sleeping together and got in touch as soon as she found out. So he lost us both on the same day.

I think the extreme paranoia he (reportedly) felt when he found out we were talking satisfied my revenge urges. We let him believe we were bonding over shared anger at him, but actually we were out on the town looking for new (seperate!) mates.

@stifledlife

The cheater is initially the bad guy, but when the OW knows he has a wife, knows he has small children and still schemes to break up the family so she can get her hands on a life she feels she's entitled to then I think she is equally to blame and arguably a bad person too.

This ^ in spades!

As a few posters have said, the 'she owes you nothing' attitude is actually fucking vile. What kind of person says this/thinks this?

Also, during the past 10 years alone, I have known around half a dozen men who have cheated, and left their wife for the OW, and in 3 of the cases, he has cheated on her 2 to 3 years later, (and in 2 cases, they split, one is still together!) And in the other 3 cases, the OW left HIM. So he ended up with nothing.

Funny too, how men will only leave if they have another woman to go to.

Pathetic.

My son's dad went off with my so called best friend when I was pregnant, funnily enough it didn't last, he's seen his son once in 10 years! They did me a favour as I don't want people like that in my life but I genuinely hate them both!

One of my best mates cheated on his long term girlfriend, who'd also become a good friend of mine.

I was absolutely furious at both him and his other woman - him for cheating, her for knowingly pursuing someone she knew was attached. I refused to have anything to do with her, and said some pretty awful (but deserved) things to him, which strained our friendship. I was always angrier at him though, as he was the one already in a relationship.

Yeah I would because I would be thinking what does she have that I don't and it would make me question my own worth and so I would then want to pull the head off her. I would hate my dh too but I would definitely feel negative emotions towards her and want her to feel like shit. In reality I would probably hold my head up high and not acknowledge her existence but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be thinking bad things about her.

I had an open/ethically non-monogamous marriage, where we would date and see people outside of our relationship. It worked for us without any issues.
Then I met someone in the same situation. Because an open relationship was not an unknown quantity to me, I had no reason to doubt him.
Turns out it wasn’t an open relationship, and I only found out when he told me he’d no longer be able to see me, as they were trying to save their relationship.
Was I the OW when, to all intents and purposes, I had entered into the relationship in the belief that they were free to see other people?

If they are aware the person they're with has an existing committed relationship then they're just as guilty.

Obviously people lie 'open relationship/separated but not divorced/downright lie that they're single', that alone excuses the OW/M.

If they know about their partner's real partners then they're selfish cunts, simple as that. They're putting their own feelings and pleasure before another person's feelings, trust and possibly health, both mental and sexual. No amount of bleating about how crap and broken the original relationship is should make an OW/M alleviate their guilt.

If you purposely enter a fling/take part in inappropriate contact with someone who is already partnered then you're as scummy as the person cheating.

I've been cheated on more times than I care to mention and I've been angry at both parties. The only difference is I'm also sad and gutted with my partner, which to my detriment at times took over the anger, but there was only fury towards the OW.

I think we get far too hung up on the OW tbh. They have no obligation to us - our Partner does. They are the person we should be angry with. It's like we think men (or female partners) are so weak they can't resist an overture from someone. They use the excuse 'she came on to me', meaning they didn't care enough about us to resist. Which is rather pathetic of them really. Keep the blame and anger towards the person who actually deserves it: the philandering partner.

The OW in my case was colleague who was thinking of leaving her H, cast her eyes around at work and they fell on my then DH. She knew full well he was married with 3 DC, one with SN, but they still had an affair. I hate them both, actually. Him for his weakness, lies and betrayal and her for her selfishness.

She's now my DC's step-mother and exdickhead and she are slowly withdrawing their contact with my DC. DC2, who has SN (ASD) is now 19 and because he's an 'adult' they no longer have him EOW or take him on family holidays. However, his world is very small, he struggles desperately with socialising and will never go on holiday with a partner or friends. I feel my exH and his wife are abandoning their responsibilities to my lovely DC2 for their own selfish reasons. DC2 is an inconvenience to them.

I think ExH's wife has a lot to do with this as I can't imagine exH would be such a dick on his own account to his own DS. She has a young DS herself and their time now seems to revolve around his wants and needs.

If the OW was aware of the relationship of course she is at fault too. You don’t engage in affairs with taken people. However if she was lied to and told “I’m single” or lead to believe that then no it’s not her fault.

Some men are very good at the double life thing and why should a woman have anger directed at her when she hasn’t knowingly done anything wrong

I dunno. In the beginning i felt angry that she maybe had something I was lacking but now i just feel deeply sorry for her because AFAIk thye are still together. Actually what helped me was meeting her. She was so lovely and he didn't deserve her anymore than he deserved me. But she didn't know he was married when she first got involved. Obviously afterwards she should have realised he was a prick but i guess she was a bit naive as i had been. Now i'm grateful for her. I have a much better life now.

I blame the OW. I would blame DH too, but the OW does get a lot of blame.

I know sometimes the OW does not know he is in a relationship/he is a good liar and in that case I think I would be annoyed but could understand it.

It is the OW who know and do it anyway that I don't like.

I was the OW once in my younger years without realising. Met him on OLD so obviously gathered he was single because who wouldn’t... he even added me on social media and there was no sign of a OH. Went on a few dates with him, slept together, had planned next date when I received a message on social media from a woman asking if I knew he had a GF. Nope, news to me. She was surprisingly very fair about the whole thing, I expected her to rip into me but she didn’t at all. She stayed with him and I heard on the grapevine they’re now married with a child. The fact he was on OLD spoke volumes to me, I hardly doubt I was the only one he had cheated on her with...

Anyway, sometimes the ‘OW’ has no idea and is also being duped. That was my overall point. If you know for a fact the OW knew all along then yes, I would harbour a little resentment because that seems like a normal human reaction.