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.

@MitziK You only have his word for that, it would be a rare for a male to be on the end of 'financial abuse' and threats. Sorry, but I wouldn't believe it. You choose to believe him, but a man who is able to cheat on his wife, and then leave the OW is clearly a man with strength and I think it would be foolish of you to believe what he says at face value. Of course a man is going to twist it around so he looks like a victim. It's the classic way men who are abusers operate. Believing the 'oh she was abusive and mean' oldest trick in the book is like believing a man when he says he is married but still living together but living separate lives so it's ok to be in a relationship with (rhetorical) you. It sounds like he has sucked you in. I think you'd have to be very foolish to believe his lies.

While I think these things can take time, absolutely the man’s family need to accept the relationship and welcome the woman into their family sooner or later. It’s not healthy for anyone to remain angry and resentful forever. I say this as someone who’s dad left their mum for another woman when I was little. Yeah it was upsetting at the time but joe on have to get over it or it’s going to make you unhappy. I’ve seen what bitterness and resentment can do and don’t want to be like that personally.

My dad has been with his OW for nearly 20 years now, I don't think it would have been right to exclude him and her from the wider family for nearly 20 years, they are flawed individuals, not the devil incarnate (and I say that as the child in this situation).

They can't take the moral highground in refusing to see OW while continuing as normal with the man who actually did the cheating. That would be massively hypocritical.

@SaraNade
What is up with you? Female abusers are not that rare. It’s attitudes like yours that are the reason why abused men are 20x more likely than abused women to never admit that they’ve been abused. You know nothing about MitizK and yet you have decided her experience is impossible and that she’s been fooled by a lying man. How positively sexist.

Sotiredofthislife
I agree I cant know what it's like, I've never been in that position. I cant imagine the hurt caused by one day thinking you have a future with someone and the next day it crashing down. I don't believe women who are single are bitter - was single myself for over 10 years after an abusive relationship - this was my choice (refused any offers to introduce me to someone/no OLD). However in this case, her own DC say she is bitter, and her own DC are low contact. She bad mouthed their DF (and OW) all the time to them when they were younger and still does 20 years later. She still makes comments to them when they see their siblings (referring to one as 'the bastard child' as was born before my uncle remarried).

My DM tried for 10 years to include her as she didn't think as the first wife she should be cast aside, but in the end she couldn't take how negative each meeting was.

If they go on to have a long-term relationship, then the OW or OM is part of the family whether you like it or not.

I know of two families where the OW has become a step-mother going forward, in both cases very much part of the family after 25+ years. In both cases the step-mother has a positive relationship with the children, who were relatively young when she and their father married. In one case their mother also has a cordial relationship with the OW (which must have required great strength of character on her part!) and in the other case the mother has never seen the OW.

Here in US:
“But though women are three times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by a male partner than vice versa, up to 29% of straight men in the United States have been the victim of physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. (Even more — up to 48% – experienced psychological and emotional abuse at the hands of their partners.) Each year, more than 830,000 men are victims of domestic abuse — that's one every 37.8 seconds.”

www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a37016/male-survivor-of-domestic-violence/

Of course I’d accept them into the family. It’s not my job to act as judge and jury over my family members. It might make things a bit strained at first but no one knows what really goes on in someone else’s relationship.

The posters above who’re saying they’d cut their own kids off if they cheated on a spouse. That just makes you look like bitter, meddling, judgemental and rather pathetic. This notion that cheating on a partner is a cardinal sin is unrealistic and petty.

If it were my sister then I'm afraid I'd welcome whomever she chose to be in a relationship with into the family. If I refused to then I'd run the risk of losing my relationship ship with my sister and possibly her children, why would I want to do that?
I'd still maintain contact with my brother in law for the sake of the children but ultimately my sister is flesh and blood, I'd never turn my back on her or exclude someone she cared about from the family.
Or does this only apply if it's a OW and not an OM?

@SaraNade - would you say question or disbelieve a female who said she was abused?
There are many men who are abused that are unable to come forward because of attitudes like yours, I have seen this first hand.
My relative left his wife (DV -no affair) and had to fight to see his kids. She claimed DV and was immediately believed when he eventually told the truth, he wasn't believed. Only through her own lies did it become clear (she accused him of attacking her on collecting DC - he had a dashcam). He now has the DC FT as she is violent and abusive - but he fought for 4 years through courts were his ex was automatically believed but his experience disregarded. Sorry OP for the rant but that attitude makes me so angry!

GoldenEvilHoor

I think typically the OWiswelcomed into the family and the first wife is cast out.

I think the reality is that in most situations the first wife is "cast out". There are loads of threads where 2nd wife is upset if 1st wife is included in family events etc. And the general consensus on MN is that 1st wife should not expect to be even seen in a photograph on the in-laws wall let alone be physically present on occasions other than events such as dc birthdays or weddings.

I think for the majority of families that holds true even if 2nd spouse is ow or om. The nature of the relationship between siblings is usually more important than relationship with a former spouse.

Where the OW or OM is in a relationship with a parent that is more complex for their dc because they have an equal famial relation with the person who was cheated on.

Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone!

Over time yes. Initially I think it's really disrespectful to the injured party to meet/greet/socialise with them. My SIL is going through this now. She's done 30 years of Xmas and entertaining for her husband's family, he's now left her for another woman and they've barely spoken to her and are (according to him) going to meet his new girlfriend. This is literally less than two months from when they split.

Posted too soon, my ex cheated and married the ow. Initially his family were very protective of me and refused to meet her, but they married a year later, so had to! The new wife hated my ex's mum for staying on my side initially and has treated her like dirt forever after (as has her mother).

After a couple of years it needs to settle down and you have to accept the new person.

It depends, my mil has told me I'm always welcome despite h leaving me (no ow) no subsequent partner will ever have the same sort of relationship

You have to accept the new person Why? I was 24 when my parents split up and I never accepted the OW, as,she was a long time friend of my family. I think I only gave her house room once. My loyalties were firmly with my Mum, not my father.

Yes, she should be accepted.

Of course the situation is not ideal. But it's happened now, what's done is done, and actually the facts of their getting together has fuck all to do with the rest of the family.

If the OW is going to be on the scene as a permanent fixture, she should be accepted as such. Everything else is petty and judgemental.

I've never throught about this before. Thinking to the future, when my boys grow up, if either married and I have a beautiful relationship with their wife, maybe helped her through pregnancy and helped with my grandchild, and then found my son had cheated on her, and suddenly wanted to be with someone else!... wow. Mind blown. Cheating really does hurt a lot of people in so many ways doesn't it?

Don’t see why not, these things happen and eventually things have to move on.

Only unhappy people gave affairs if you start with this belief then i would be happy that my loved one, brother , father or son had found happiness. So yes OW should be welcomed, very hard to put into practice but walking through life with kindness and without judgement is the better path.

Yes

But the relationship would take time to built and the wife (or ex wife) should also be able to stay friendly with the family if she chooses to but she may find this too painful and it hinders her moving on

in my opinion if you actively played a part in breaking up. a family then youve no right to expect anything, its different if they met after the separation.

I think yes, providing she accepts that there will always be another 'OW' for want of a better phrase, who can choose if she has a part in the ex family or not.

Ex and I are friends, handle our families with kindness and honesty and despite not being together, my parents are still kind to him, just as his are kind to me. I'd hope that his new DW wouldn't expect me to be wiped out his family simply because we're no longer together, and likewise DH here doesn't get the arse because Ex is still part of things here (which he could, I suppose). It just takes time to move forwards when feelings are hurt.

InfiniteSheldon that's exactly what my SIL's cheating husband's family are saying. It's just a shame their son couldn't have walked through life a bit more kindly towards his stb ex. Yes marriages break down, people fall out of love etc, but there are ways of doing it. I have a huge amount of respect for my ex's mum, who said "I love you, you're my son, you can come home, but I'm disgusted at how you've conducted yourself."