Should OW expect to be welcomed into family?

[Nattyjackie]

Scenario: woman has long term affair with man with kids. Wider family (mother, siblings) find out. Marriage breaks down and man moves on with OW. Long term should the OW expect to be welcomed and accepted by family?

Please put aside Man's role in this for the moment which is of course the instigator of all this. I'm really interested in what the OWs expectations should be towards wider family.

@saranade calling someone vagina instead of their name isn't calling someone out.

I think referring to your mothers parter as penis instead of his name and saying that all he is is a penis for your mother would be pretty misandrist. And also weird as we aren't as used to degrading men in that way.

Depends on situation, was it a happy marriage that the affair broke up, did they have kids, did ow and man go on to have kids etc. But usually I would just say no, she doesn't deserve to be accepted.

@Leighhalfpennysthigh I'd love to see you tell a woman on here who has had her life torn apart, forced to sell her home, and living on welfare that "their lives has bigger problems than a relationship breakdown". How nasty and heartless can you be?

@KylieKoKo It clearly is to beautifulmelody's way of calling out her dad's OW. If that is how she deals with it, that is how she deals with it. I don't think you or anyone else gets to decide how she deals with her family breakdown. If she wants to call OW that name, that's her choice.

And again, women on here call men dicks all the time. I checked, and you did yourself on this site back in July this year. So are you going to call yourself misandrist? Is dickhead also misandrist now, too? What about arsehole? Wanker is male-orientated, so heaven forbid anyone call a male a wanker. What about women who call each other bitches? Seriously you demean to misogyny when you trivialise it like this.

Indeed not. But I think (and I am absolutely no expert, being anything other than a God-squadder) it's God (if you call it that) who can judge an adulterer, whereas all humans are flawed, so basically need to concentrate on putting their own houses in order, rather going around judging everyone else.

You forgive the sinner, not the sin. That doesn't mean you have to associate with the forgiven person. In fact, in this case, it would not be my forgiveness, because the sinner hasn't done anything to me.

If a serial rapist is released from prison, as a Christian, I am obligated to forgive his sins. But, that doesn't mean I have to invite him for dinner, or allow him into my life.

And if the OP is ready to have no relationship with her brother in future then she should absolutely do that. Because that's the kind of behaviour that leads people to go NC with their family.

He makes his choice, I make mine. Duplicitous individuals rarely change. If he can hurt his children, what is he capable of doing to me?

Sure, she has the right to have that opinion and other people have the right to object.

God help you if you ever make a mistake or realise you are married to the wrong person.

You know, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. But I have never gone behind anyone's back in making those mistakes. I have never purposely hurt someone because I don't have the courage to change what I don't like. That's the issue. It's not being with someone else. It's the duplicity in cheating.

I'm not sure about the word "expect". Many an other woman would view meeting or having a future relationship with her partner's family with trepidation rather than expectation.

I don't feel that it's appropriate for a man's family to shun his new partner/former OW. It's his life to live as he pleases and if he is happy in his new relationship there is no reason for anyone else to be unwelcoming of it.
Including the new partner into family life is'nt the same as excluding the ex partner/wife and/or the man's children. It's perfectly possible to get on with both and respect the roles held by both.

There are a few, a very few people who use the monogamy fetish to cause pain ie they repeatedly decieve their official spouse to have sex elsewhere but their motivation is not so much the sex as the 'getting one over on' the partner - or, in fact, causing the partner pain.
But most people who dump one partner for another just prefer the new partner. that's all it is. Monogamy's a construct - set up to benefit men more than women, but women are sold this idea that they should demand monogamy because it reinforces the idea that 'pleasing' and 'keeping' A Man is their life's purpose.

And let's not forget that some families take the side of an abusive partner who has been dumped because Marriage is For Life and all that bullshit.

@ReanimatedSGB, it is not about "death do you part", etc. It is about cheating. It is about sneaking out to f**k while your spouse is home, presumably looking after your children. It is about sneaking around behind your partner's back. Leave your partner if you're unhappy. Leave if he/she is abusive. If you can't leave immediately, tell your partner your relationship is over, and you plan on pursuing a new partner. Tell your children you are splitting. But don't hide what you are doing and cause pain not only to your spouse, but also to your children.

Winterlife
Because you can't disown family, entirely. Furthermore, it's not about forgiveness. It's about tolerating bad behaviour.

Why can't you disown family? If a member of your family assaulted someone, or burgled a house, or murdered someone, would you still support them, no matter what they did? Just because they're your blood?

Double standards come to mind here. Your relative is a cheater but you forgive them/tolerate their behaviour/accept their life choices but you wouldn't forgive the OW/OM?
What I'm trying to say is that the blame often seems to be directed at OW/OM while the other person's behaviour is tolerated/swept under the carpet/quietly accepted, etc just because they're family.

I never posted I’d tolerate a relative’s bad behaviour.

Ronnie24 you are talking about me but yes my daughter won't talk to her dad as he has made her life a misery this year. She turned 10 in the summer but this year in particular he started to manipulate and shout at her. One minute nice the other Mr jekyll has arrived.

That's how he is, we are used to him but she made the decision enough is enough. She was never a target of his before to be honest and she was daddy's little girl but she grew a foot and I think he saw her getting her own opinions and wanted to quash that.

I have always mitigated and looked at the bright side. Walked a tightrope to keep our family together. But he is abusive and her not talking to him has nothing to do with me. In fact staying married in some ways was better as I was always there to smooth things but contact is now without me so their dynamic changed. Yes they did spend time together before the divorce but not the same nature like 1 2 1 contact.

Separate to that is him marrying the ow this summer. So yes my choice is I would not go to her wedding if they were there.
Why would I go to where they would be when I don't associate with people like them. The same goes for anyone who I know exhibits behaviour like this. Im done with people pleasing and contorting myself to fit others. My daughters luckily know and love me and wouldn't ask that of me.

It wouldn't be making a fuss or a drama. It would be her choice, so if she mends her relationship with him and she may as she forgives him and forgets the worst of his behaviour, then so be it. That's her choice to make in her life. I won't condemn her if she wanted them at her wedding. I can love her and support her in other ways.

I'm not asking her to pick sides, I'm simply not playing ball.

Everyone would love me to suck it up and let's all put on a show and be friends but in my situation I'm parallel parenting and lc with him as he is abusive. But even if he was not abusive then I still would go lc then nc when my child was old enough.

I would distance myself from anyone who actively welcomes them. I'm not talking about politeness, I'm talking about those friends or family members who carry on as if nothing has changed. If they can't see and at least even for a short while adapt to help the wife and children left behind then I don't want to have any sort of relationship with them. It's not about causing problems or being bitter, it about human decency and kindness. Once people show you that you are disposable to them, whether they are his family or both of your friends then why carry on with them.

Yes you don't expect his family to cut him off but you should be able to expect them not to forget the wife and children left behind.

Someone up thread said about the old family forgotten by inlaws etc and friends that carry on like nothing has happenned. How hurtful that is.

And I'm really not bitter or resentful and when I take abuse etc out of my own personal situation. My view is no matter what goes on in a marriage or relationship unless it is an open one, then you break up with a person before you move onto the next.

You are unhappy, you end it.
You suffer abuse, you end it. (easier said then done admittedly. )
Never should have got together in the first place, you end it.

It's that simple but so many on this thread have made excuses for lying and cheating. You meet your soul mate but you are married then you end your marriage, you don't run around behind someone's back.

And sorry for my essay.

I don’t think I would want either of them as part of family celebrations. I would be civil if I saw them in the street but would not try and forge a relationship.

Don't be sorry for your essay, flirty girl. You made the point beautifully.

It's what I also wanted to say. Family should help the original family of wife and children by not treating them as disposable, as you say even if for a short while, to give them time to recover.

As a few others have said as well, it's the duplicity which has been wrong. Nobody's saying the husband and OW are not allowed to want to be together. It's the way they've done it that is unacceptable, because of the lack of respect for the wife and, by extension, children.

The family has a great opportunity to restore emotional balance and reassure the wife and children that they are still and always loved and important, by not immediately falling over themselves to welcome the OW.

And yes, just announcing that they are now together doesn't give the husband and OW the instant right to be respected. They have to earn that, and they're often coming from a position of negative emotional equity and have a lot to make up.

And as many of us have said, it all takes time. Give the wife and children time to (at least try to) recover.

(and yes I've discovered how easy and satisfying it is to use the bold function! ☺️)

@SaraNade no I wouldn't call a relationship breakdown the worst thing that can happen to a person. I'd say that was your husband or wife killing themselves.

@Leighhalfpennysthigh I never said the worst, but it certainly does destroy lives. This is a fact. There is a thread on here I had been watching, I'll see if I can find it, where a woman's husband had an affair, taken their money, forcing her to sell their home, one of the daughters is self-harming due to what their father has done to their family. You have a very heartless, cold-blooded and soulless attitude to it and seem to be completely oblivious to the harm and destruction an affair causes. Some people never fully recover psychologically.

@SaraNade I don’t think I’ll ever recover from my ex-h’s affair and the utter destruction it brought to my life and that of my children. It was 6 years ago now, we are long divorced but it’s always there in the back of my head somewhere. I am an also unable to trust anybody. The effects have been horrendous and have changed me as a person. Anybody who does this deludes themselves as to the damage they do because I can’t imagine it can be very comfortable to live with.

But in some of these cases you’re discussing abusive behaviour. Your DH left and behaved like a cunt to you and your children. Whether there was another woman seems slightly to be besides the point. By introducing these examples you’ve changed the question from that posed. Not every parent who leaves a marriage fails to provide for his / her children for example. If I had a relative behaving that way you can be bloody sure I would not be welcoming him/her into any of my family occasions. I would most certainly not shut up about that either or cut out the original family. ( the OM /OW being kind of incidental). But that’s not how all divorces happen.... parties do not all do that to each other and each is eventually able to move on. In that instance where I can see a relative is maintaining contact and paying a fair amount of support ( and being an involved parent) I would have no issue about the OW / OM.

A relative's husband had an affair which ended their marriage (she'd recently had a newborn). His parents were close neighbours of her parents and good friends; they'd all supported the new mother and their grandchild whilst he went out drinking; his parents were unhappy he wasn't being responsible. The second wife never wanted children but maybe if she'd had children it would have been different - or he'd have strayed again and moved onto wife number 3.

I think that if the husband had split nicely from his first wife (my relative), left it a few years then got together with his second wife or even had some discretion about it then relations with his family might have been better but I think the OW is callous, self-centred and lacking any empathy for others. I don't think she's very likeable so I don't believe she'd ever have been more than tolerated within his family. I don't actually think she cares about being ostracised from his family. They don't matter to her.

@TheFormidableMrsC Yes, from what I have observed the effects can last forever. People like Leigh have absolutely no idea whatsoever. Its almost like a form of victim-blaming, to me.