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.

Should she expect it? No. Might it happen anyway if the wider family feel so inclined? Yes. Should others judge any of them for it after the event? No.
My best friend’s DF did this. Multiple affairs whilst married to her DM, two of which were very long term (20+ years) and concurrent. They all knew about each other but were relatively ok with the situation. Eventually, the DM and DF got a divorce but he spent just as much time (definitely NOT as a FWB though) at their house as he did with his two OW. He eventually married one of them and had children. All my friend’s friends and family welcomed all of his OW and children and they seemed quite happy and to get on well. I was very close to my friend and her family so, by extension got close to the OW and the younger children, they were all lovely people. Odd way to live, and not my choice, but worked for them.

Yes they should. It's th man that had the affair. Perhaps any anger should be directed to him.

You say "leaving the man out of it" but the man is the reason you'd want to invite the woman to anything.

Is the family planning to not invite him to any gatherings? Or to invite him but not his partner? Eventually if it's the sort of thing where partners are invited, the family are going to have to get over the circumstances in which they got together and invite her, or risk him not coming at all.

How long can people punish a person for a mistake?
I see others have picked up on this too. Not exactly a "mistake" is it?
And I would object to being expected to airbrush out of the family picture someone I'd presumably liked (the ousted partner), for a new person whose ethics (along with sibling's) I didn't care for.
I would be coolly polite, and take my time with it. And probably continue to support the ex-Sil or Bil separately.

”How long can people punish a person for a mistake”

@GinNotGym19, I agree with @CharityConundrum - a long term affair with a man you know is married and has children, is more than just ‘a mistake’ on the part of the OW. She knows he is deceiving his wife, and risking the stability of his family, and she knows she is a part of this - but continues with the relationship - that is a deliberate choice on her part, not a mistake.

If I were part of the man’s family, I would find it very hard to forgive his behaviour, and whilst I would be polite to the OW (and to him), I would not want to be welcoming or anything more than simply polite to either of them.

This happened in my family minus the kids. Sisters of man ( my uncle ) refuse to have anything to do with her or him or their son. This is years and years ago now, ex wife is happily remarried. My parents and I have them visit no issues.yes a horrible thing uncle did but people do hurtful things doesn't mean I blank my family over it like my aunts did.

Depends on age of children, custody agreement and entirely on ex wife.

As the extended family, my priority would be to maintain a relationship with the children and the ex-wife not start a new one with the OW. So the ex wife would get priority over family events and if she didn’t want OW there, I’d agree to that in the first couple of years. I think once exwife started a new chapter in her own life, things would feel different again.

I think each and every case would depend on several factors. There is no "one size fits all" answer.

It would probably take the passage of time though.

Maybe husbands siblings and or parents might eventually accept her depending on their relationship with ex wife. Obviously ex wife and potentially children cannot be expected to accept OW and their feelings should be respected - if they accept her great but If they don’t then she deserves it.

There is no point ever asking about OW on MN, OP. Surely you know that affairs are on a par with owning a loo brush?

You will never get a nuanced view about affairs or OW here.

I don't know. I think acknowledged, but not accepted. I think OW is a fool to be with him because lets be honest; a man who will cheat for years (if that's what you mean by long term) on his wife and CHILDREN will not settle for the OW. The OW has created a vacancy and will spend every....single....day of this relationship wondering who he is with. It's a shithouse way to live, and of course, every side piece/OW thinks she is the special one, the one to tame him, the one to stop all his affairs, the one to change him. Yeah right! Such fools they are. Almost never does a 'relationship' from an affair last. Imagine living every day, knowing what he is capable of and knowing he won't change for (the rhetorical) you. That is no way to live. So if the OW is never accepted it's probably because everyone knows the 'man' will leave this one when he has his next side piece lined up, so why bother accepting someone who won't be in the family long?

My ex had an affair. When my children are old enough, I will be making it clear to them that I won’t accept them having affairs and will have the bare minimum to do with them if they do. I will also write said child out of my will. I know that’s drastic, but the impact my ex’s actions have had on us all long term should be enough to deter such behaviour. Nothing wrong with making a mistake and realising you’re in the wrong relationship but end that relationship before moving on.

No one knows the real details of other people's relationships. If someone's brother or son or other family member ended up leaving their wife for OW, who are they to have judgements? Sure, it could have been managed better but the first relationship could have been shit, abusive, toxic or just wrong. Whilst it's not the ideal way to conduct yourself, ostracising the new partner is just inappropriate.

I don't think that the OW should expect to be accepted and welcomed by the man's wider family especially if the family have a good relationship with the man's wife and children (if they have any). Similarly I don't think the OW should expect to be accepted by any of the man's children regardless of their age. Of course it would be nice to be accepted.

Is that you, Camilla?

I kinda feel for OW who manage to snare the man because they as I said, have to live an existence every single day knowing what their 'prize' of a man is up to, and who with. I'd rather slit my wrists than live one day in that stress.

No, you cannot trust a woman like that so I would not want anything to do with them.

No, it would be over my dead body that I would welcome the ow into family

It depends.
Ideally parents and siblings would support their adult child's decisions even if they don't agree with them, ditto siblings. So mainly I think they would either welcome or accept the OW.

Depends on the circumstances. There is a wide spectrum spanning from:
If wife was abusive, and man didn’t have courage to leave until he met an OW who helped him recover self esteem and escape.
To
Loving, faithful wife and POS man just wanted to shack up with much younger OW with prebaby body.

Can’t say whether OW would be welcome or not because it depends.

@Nimello - I think there are a number of very balanced and nuanced responses on this thread.

If this were, say, my brother, I would want to keep a strong relationship with his first wife, not least because I would want to keep the relationship with the children. In real life terms, I'd want to keep up the relationship with my SIL anyway because she's lovely, and I'd be bloody furious with my brother and the OW. So my continuing relationship with both of them would be pretty iffy and, whilst I would principally blame my brother, I suspect I would struggle more with the OW in recognition of the fact that, if she'd backed off, the chances are that the family unit would have stayed in place. I know that's not a certainty, but I'm guessing that that is how I would feel.

I think that’s a really diffficult one, potentially yes the mil should side with the first family and support them if her son has had an affair but in reality the dil will turn to her family and eventually the mil may well not be needed for support. and in the mesn time if she’s rejected the ow the son may not want anything to do with her so she ends ups really lonely.

Mil is stuck between a rock and a hard place treading a very difficult line.

How long can people punish a person for a mistake?

A 'mistake' is reaching for the wrong bottle and pouring orange juice into your coffee instead of milk, misplacing car keys, or choosing to believe/trust a friend who ultimately let you down. KNOWINGLY having a long term affair with a man that has children is not a mere 'mistake'. It is a 'long term' continual deliberate act. You choose to lower your self-worth by cheating with a 'man' who will never be satisfied with just one woman, and choose to hurt his wife and his children, and wider family. It is with deliberate intent. It is not a 'mistake'. And, if it was a 'mistake', the man would have realised it was a mistake, and made attempts to rectify it, by staying with his wife and cutting off OW. Same as well with OW, if she deemed it a 'mistake', she would rectify it. A 'mistake' indicates REGRET. If the man and OW are together, they clearly don't regret it, thus it is not a mistake at all in their eyes.