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?

This'll go down well but people often aren't insightful enough to look at why their relationships have broken down. 99% of the time it’s a two way thing, ignoring each other, taking each other for granted, not making time for each other , simply not making the effort.

Plain truth is, people like top valued, appreciated and listened to. If they aren’t getting the emotional well being, they will look elsewhere for that comfort.

This, I thought was interesting , as the MN dialogue is that man will have new bed to jump into when it is actually women to who line up a new partner :

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-human-beast/201211/are-women-more-sexually-faithful-men

Whereas men who cheat are motivated primarily by sexual pleasure, women are most likely to have affairs if they are dissatisfied with their marriages. Infidelity is thus a way of moving on from a bad marriage to one that is more satisfying.

So men may indeed be more likely to cheat because they are motivated by sexual pleasure. This sometimes makes them appear shallow and irresponsible. On the other hand, by being more in control of their sexual impulses and using an affair to transition out of their marriage, women can seem manipulative.

I was the OW. He had a 5 year old child with his fiance. I spoke to him on the phone daily, nothing suspicious about his behaviour. I went to his house quite a few times and spent the evening watching TV and even stayed over. I met his child (we took him to the park and on days out several times). He told me they weren't together anymore and there was no sign of her at his house. Turns out he had told her he was depressed and asked her to move out for a while for him to "think about things". He was off work sick (another thing I didnt know as I work days and he pretended to work the same 9-5 hours) so their son stayed with him during the week and saw her at weekends. She worked evenings but saw them every day before going back to her mums. A mutual friend of mine and hers saw me out with him and then told me they were still very much together and had been trying to have another child. Obviously I instantly ended things with him. Never told her about it all though.

Well I refer to the ow as bitchtits. She went after my ex after he posted looking for sympathy when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. That said she did me a massive favour and got his abusive ass out of mine and my daughter's lives

However @bluntness I do think we as human beings have a moral duty not to hurt other human beings just for their own selfish wants. Breaking up a marriage is a huge act. Devastating many lives. I do not want to do that to another woman, I do owe her the right to live her family life without me destroying it.

So I do feel OW owe the wives.

I really don't understand how anybody can knowingly be the OW. I'd just think how dare the CF, who the hell does he think he is trying to have his cake and eat it?! Fucking cheek! I've never (to my knowledge) been cheated on but I expect I'd be more angry with my DH than the OW and I could never forgive him.

That’s a ridiculous excuse. If they aren’t getting the emotional well being, they will look elsewhere for that comfort. and as old as the hills.

We can separate and divorce. We can try to fix things.

We don’t have to lie and betray. Most of us who have been cheated on have been aware that this is the excuse men and OW peddle. In fact there’s a lot of research that says it’s more likely to be happy marriages but entitlement and opportunity that predict cheating for men. So a OW being pursuant or very available can make the difference between a happy married man cheating or not. In fact if there was no one prepared to be OW we wouldn’t have cheating unless they were totally in the dark.

I hated her much more, because I kind of felt that at least my husband was making a choice about a relationship that was actually his business (our marriage) and would affect his future if he stayed - but that marriage was nothing to do with her whatsoever, so it was pure spite and/or selfishness to get involved and help to break it up on her part.

I think it’s partly because the OW hasn’t put the work in to the relationship yet still feels she deserves your partner/husband and can do a better job. Maybe she can but it’s not up to her to decide the relationship is over.

Its horrible when he cheats but he’s in the relationship so you have some ownership over that; you can, leave or get angry or be miserable or kick him out. There’s nothing you can do about the OW.

However @bluntness I do think we as human beings have a moral duty not to hurt other human beings just for their own selfish wants

Sure, as I specifically stated every thing else is a moral judgement. But I don't believe strangers "owe* you anything. And when you need to rely on strangers to keep your partner faithful you're in real bad shape. And I mean real bad shape.

So thinking it's morally wrong, is very very different to directing your anger at the other woman and believing she should have rejected your partner to keep him faithful to you. That all women should and they owe you because if they all said no, he'd be faithful.

That's arse about tit. And as said, for me, it's the saddest mind set to be in, if you can't trust him not to make him self aavailble to other women, or go after them.

Yes I was livid so I slept with her dad and made sure she found out
Still don't feel guilty.
I can't say what I did to my exh as it will probably get deleted

I don't think the OW is blameless at all (presuming she knows he is in a relationship). She certainly bears some blame.

However- the OW did not make the commitment to me. Most of my anger would be, and was, at DP/DH. The person he cheated with is was kind of irrelevant to me, to be honest. It's HIS actions that devastated me.

my ex i felt sorry for the women who he was chatting up on match.com because he had set his settings to seperated and had a lovely tale to tell them about why he was seperated while living, working and sleeping with me his wife so they were actually innocent and when i kicked him out i didnt give a toss what he did , cos his true colours would show up whoever he was with

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

Refusing to get involved with the type of man who's willing to cheat on his wife isn't "sacrificing yourself" - it's making a lucky escape!

I have never been cheated on (as far as I know), but I do judge women who have affairs with married men. Yes, most of the fault lies with the husband, but that doesn't make the mistress's behaviour okay. No one with a shred of decency would help to hurt another person's (or several people, if he has children) in that way. I couldn't stay friends with someone who did that, just like I couldn't stay friends with someone who posted racist stuff on social media.

I know what you're trying to say but frankly I think we are a little unrealistic sometimes.. In my case it was the classic, young kids, busy jobs, juggling a lot of stuff, not much time for each other and here comes someone blowing smoke up his ass about how great he was. We are all susceptible to flattery and ego stroking and if it comes at a time when things are at a naturally low patch in the marriage (you know, the 'for worse', bits we're meant to ride out together) then it's not so much that we only have our marriages because someone knocked him back.. I 100% know because they told me that he and I would still be together raising our kids taking the rough with the smooth if they had had the integrity to step back from each other but the temptation on both sides was apparently too strong. That doesn't actually mean we were in a terrible place at all. It's like going shopping when you're hungry.. You buy all sorts of shit that's bad for you but if you wait til after lunch you make better choices. If ow had had the integrity to back off while my ex and I were in the trenches of a tough bit of life, my kids might still have their dad who they regularly cry for.

Put it another way then, @bluntness if a stranger hurts you, like hitting you, then I think we are a better society for punishing them in some way. Either by law, or by shunning them, or letting he injured party tell them how much they have hurt them. I don’t know why anyone would say that’s not on. An OW is hurting a whole family directly.

I was the ow briefly when I was a teenager.
I met a man through work, he was a client who lived far away. He was older than me and we got on. Headed me out and I said yes. I had no idea he was married, why should I?
Anyhow we dated when ever he visited the town I worked in.
Eventually he confessed that he was married with children.
I didn't ask him anything about them.
We didn't meet again.

And there’s also occasions when the OW really doesn’t know she’s the OW.

All my anger would be at DH

@hughjackman yes I was the same. We had a happy relationship, and I’d say I was the one being taken for granted if anyone was! I was just stuck at home with the child and he got a lot of flattery off a much younger woman. We were still having regular sex, still being a normal couple.

That one decision, made by both OW and ExDH, to be selfish, despite a good relationship, shattered our family. There were minor problems before but the betrayal was the biggest problem.

Yes I was livid so I slept with her dad and made sure she found out

You used someone for sex to hurt someone else? That's really sad.

Surely this thread simply shows that different people react to things in different ways. And that you can't predict how you will feel or react until it happens. My feelings towards my husband and the OW are not thought about or planned. They are just how I feel. They may well be different tomorrow or next week or next year. And that may well be different to how I'd have expected to feel or how others might feel in the same situation.

pinacolada you said that much more consisely than me!

Put it another way then, @bluntness if a stranger hurts you, like hitting you, then I think we are a better society for punishing them in some way

But ultimately it's not her that hurt you is it? It's him. It's his actions that caused thr pain. You woildnt be hurt if she fucked another woman's husband, but you'd be hurt whichever woman he chose to fuck, it doesn't matter if it's her or anyone else. It's the fact he fucked her that's hurting you. So it's him that's hurt you not her.

Is it really better to know he'd willingly and proactively fuck another woman if she would just let him, and the only reason he hasn't is because she said no? Is it really better to not know he'd be unfaithful to you if he could get someone to say yes?

For me, his desire to be unfaithful is as bad as the act itself. The fact she said yes is irrelevant. The fact he did is what causes the pain.

I agree @theycalled it’s totally up to the injured parties to react how they want (within the law!). However I don’t understand why anyone judges the wife for feeling anger for the OW. It’s simply not all the husband, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened!

Likewise if a wife wants to channel all her anger at OW and not DH, then that’s really up to her. Personally I would be worried if a friend did that, however I’d never stick up for OW.

And if we boil it down, does anyone really want to be in a relationship with someone who is only faithful because other women say no?

That's setting the bar far too low. His desire to lie to you, to be unfaithful to you, to cheat on you, is as bad as the act itself.

I don't feel anger or resentment at all towards OW. In fact, I feel deeply sorry for her. She ended up marrying and having a child with my (then) good looking but, in retrospect, otherwise awful all around fiancé. Who was obviously as much as an arse towards her as he'd been to me and everyone else around him.

She saved me from getting married to a man who would have made me desperately unhappy and ended up desperately unhappy and with a child who grows up wondering why his crap dad doesn't care about him.

So, really, she did me a massive favour. She had all these aspirations and hasn't realised any of them. I, on the other hand, has a near miss and ended up with exactly the travelling lifestyle andsuccessfuk career that she had dreamed about.

On balance, I seriously owe that woman!