To disagree with the statement "the other woman owes you nothing"

[Sarahcoggles]

I see this time and again on MN.
Woman posts that husband is having an affair. She hates the OW and is very angry with her, as well as being angry with husband of course.
Then a load of posters pile in saying she should direct all her anger at husband, as he was the only one who owed her anything. The OW owed her nothing, so she shouldn't be angry with her.

I think that's wrong. We all owe our fellow human beings respect and courtesy. If I bump someone's car in a car park I should leave them a note. I don't owe them anything, I never promised I wouldn't bump into their car, they didn't put their trust in me not to bump into their car , I never promised to pay for any damage that I might do to their car. They don't even know me. But it's still my fault, my carelessness, and common courtesy dictates that I should leave a note and be held accountable.

Why is it perfectly fine to have a relationship with someone else's husband, knowing that you're going to hurt that person, just because they're a stranger and you never promised you wouldn't shag their husband?

Personally I think both parties are equally to blame, just in different ways.

Let’s have a look at Sophia Dorothea of Celle. Was divorced by King George I for adultery, and then imprisoned for decades until her death. She wasn’t allowed to remarry, or see her children even again. George I however had acquired a mistress very quickly upon marrying Sophia Dorothea, and essentially lived with her. He also beat his wife and treated her cruelly from the very beginning.

Just a lovely moral climate.

They’re equally to blame in my opinion if OW knows that he is married. Both are being selfish and hurting the wife. If the marriage truly isn’t working, at least tell your wife so she knows not to invest in the relationship any more.

My BIL cheated on his wife when they had four children (some still fairly young). BIL and OW were both teachers at the same school. They went on to have three children of their own. This happened over a decade ago. I married into the family recently and I socialise with them sometimes. They’re both friendly and reasonable-seeming people. I never knew BIL’s first wife, but whenever I see them, I always think of her.

I stongly disapprove of what they did. Because I’m a newcomer to the family, I don’t feel I have a place to say anything - also it’s kind of old news. But if my own brother did such a thing to his wife, he would get a lot of scorn from me. I’ve never been cheated on, but I’m able to put myself in another person shoes and feel anger on their behalf.

I agree with you Pinky. Some people here sound ridiculously stoic but in reality, if it was them, they wouldn't be having a cuppa with the woman who slept with their husband.
A husband is not a possession that can be stolen. He is a person that can choose to leave.

Did anyone say otherwise? Goes without saying

The point I was making was not that I '''owned'' my husband, he was free to end our marriage, entitled to do so. Had he ended our marriage and then screwed her I would view the scenario very differently.

My point was the OW could not fathom why it upset me they had an affair for 3 long years, lied and deceived so many - he was as I said ''hers'' so I had no basis to complain as to the deceit. The fact we were married, had children and a family was irrelevant in her mind. My own personal moral code and integrity renders the notion of indulging my wants and needs while wantonly ignoring the pain my actions cause others utterly repugnant. I wouldn't do it you, I wouldn't do it to anyone.

I think many here take the view that women are emotionally immature and easily led by those wicked men. People choose to have affairs and I suspect that lots of the women involved are well aware of the situation and enjoying the excitement. To suggest we're being so easily led astray would imply we should be locked away to be protected from our own behaviour.

Well no, but it’s not a case of one or the other. You can think someone is a fucking arsehole without considering them to have betrayed you. The betrayal is committed by the husband, who explicitly made vows to forsake all others.

“You only have your own lifetime as a frame a reference. By virtue of never actually having had to experience past eras you can romanticise them as much as you like. Outside of asking the Comte de Saint Germain though, I’m not sure it’s possible to get much real insight into their comparative virtues on a personal level.”

I don’t think we need to.

We can’t change the past but if we all looked at our own era with the same uncritical complacency nothing would ever change.

I feel no responsibility for anyone else's private contracts, no. I'm not responsible for your work contract or your husband's dick.

Which is not to say I would shag him. I wouldn't and nor would I go to the vault. It's dishonourable. But if someone did, and the bank manager asked me who I thought she should sanction, you can bet I'd point her to the crap employee. He signed the contract and he was trusted with the keys.

That wasn't my question.

I asked about whether or not you feel you have a sense of moral responsibility towards all human beings regardless of whether or not you've specifically promised not to fuck them over.

From your answer it sounds like you do. I think your use of the word 'dishonourable' indicates that you do understand that it's shit to do shit things to people, even if you haven't entered into a contract that explicitly forbids it.

Wow.

Those are some rose tinted glasses you’re looking through.

i did say ‘This had some pretty cruel results’. So I don’t think so.

I think it’s most important to have a clear view of the present because we can’t change the past. If I am comparing the present to a golden age in the past that never existed then I’m not sure that matters greatly.
What matters is that a woman should feel enough sense of sisterhood not to sleep with another woman’s husband. The modern trend for valuing individual freedom above all else has its downsides.
Having said that it’s difficult to argue that the unmarried party is as guilty as the married one, but it seems more offensive to say the other woman owes you nothing as if the wife and children have no intrinsic worth.

I agree with you Pinky. Some people here sound ridiculously stoic but in reality, if it was them, they wouldn't be having a cuppa with the woman who slept with their husband.

@Pinkyxx @pollypokcet

I have and I do have tea with the OW and we get on very well. Life goes on.

Good for you, and I mean that, that you can move past it. But at the time, I'm sure you didn't. I said nothing about holding grudges. I just find it weird that people are basically saying there is no reason to be annoyed because she doesn't owe you anything. But ridiculous and not realistic at all.

I don't get why I keep getting quotes, is it that controversial to think it's not ok to engage in cheating behaviour? Maybe common decency is out of style these days.

"but it seems more offensive to say the other woman owes you nothing as if the wife and children have no intrinsic worth"

I think the offensive thing for me was the blatent way the OW who went off with my husband spun the story to him (and to me via the mouths of my own children) of how the lines my exH was obviously feeding her were so true.
She was much much younger than him and childless when she got together with him but she still felt it was her place to comment on my parenting of the young children I had with exH. He line was always something like " your ex wife is hopeless, I could do it so much better, when i was growing up I did x y z, why are your children not doing that? It must be the way your ex wife is parenting" etc

Then, although my exH did not want to have more children (I know this both from what he told me during our marriage and (slightly horrifyingly) what he has said to our children when he is with them since - the OW persuaded him to have a child with her which he did. And low, now the child is here (coming up for 3) it seems according to my children to be a continuous story of the OW trying to avoid looking after her child and trying to get my exH (or sometimes my own daughter who is now 13) to do as much childcare and "babysitting" as possible.

So for me it is the entitlement, the arrogance and the sheer bare faced hypocrisy of the OW which feels offensive.

I don't feel she "owes" me specifically anything at all, but I do resent the masterful way she manipulated the situation (and yes, my exH went along with it no idea what he really thinks deep down now) and is living a lie when measured against how she said she would "do things" should she get what she wanted (be with my exH have a child etc).

My dh having an affair at a time I was heavily pregnant / had a new born was entirely his fault and makes him a complete arsehole. I don’t blame the ow as such for what he did - it was his choice.

BUT - I still also think the OW is a disgusting person. She might not owe me anything specifically but I think we all owe decency to other people and having an affair with my husband (to be at the time - we were engaged - got married with me blissfully oblivious to what had happened shortly after) whilst she was nicey nicey to be and my baby when she saw us makes her IMO a terrible person. Especially when I’ve seen the texts from then and he was telling her how guilty he felt (not enough!) and didn’t bad mouth me and she said she didn’t feel bad at all - from what I can tell she just liked the ego boost and thrill.

Why is it perfectly fine to have a relationship with someone else's husband, knowing that you're going to hurt that person, just because they're a stranger and you never promised you wouldn't shag their husband?

As an ex OW

…..I found it very, very easy to just pretend to myself that she didn’t exist. I didn’t once think I might be hurting someone else because I’m my mind there was nobody else.

Even looking back on it now I wonder how I was able to do this for so long. The only time the wife was ever mentioned was when he first told me she existed, and she was never ever mentioned again for the time we were together.

It really was compartmentalising at its best.

Your question is leading, loaded, outside the analogy, overly simplistic and makes a number of assumptions.

I personally would nor shag a married man or suggest that anyone does. It's wrong and I don't don't think anyone on the thread suggests otherwise. And I don't think anyone has suggested nobody has a right to feel aggrieved towards the OW.

But with regard to who is responsible for an individual personal contract, the answer is: the people in it. Some people don't regard marriage as anything special or sacred and they're not required to. It would behoove them not to get involved with married people because of the obvious hurt it can cause, but they're not obliged to think of marriage in the way others do. The person who is obliged is the person who swore to treat it that way.

I can try to shag all the married men I please. It may make me dishonourable, but ultimately it makes nothing happen. It becomes an issue only when a married man makes the choice to break his contract. Who cares what she does? It's nothing until your husband decides to join her. Her decision means squat. His decision means everything.

You cannot hold half the world's population responsible for a promise your husband made to you. I can only imagine what a sexually incontinent dog he must be if that truly gives you better odds than just holding him 100% accountable.

That’s fascinating. Because the narrative I see on here is the opposite. That men can’t help themselves and are easily led astray by wanton women. So the solution is for women not to be wanton.

i have heard people say that men lie about their marriage, whether by claiming they are single or lying about the status of their marriage, but it’s a fact that some men do do that.

It’s not the same as damaging someone else’s property. The ow is doing something perfectly lawful and acceptable- having a relationship with someone. She isn’t cheating on you because she has no relationship with you. It’s different if the ow actually is your best friend or sister but in most cases she is a stranger.

I think by all means be angry at her but the issue is that your dh deliberately chose to cheat. We should stop blaming women for mens mistakes. People can’t be “stolen”

Something I've long thought, and posts here seem to support, is that as bad as affairs are, there is so much more damage that can be done in other ways. The worst stories, of the worst husbands and OW, go far beyond having sex together. If an OW has harassed you, destroyed your property, abused your kids or stolen your money, that's all appalling behaviour that's outside the affair itself. It's gone beyond a husband breaking his commitment and become another issue entirely.

I think this is it. If a man is going to cheat he will cheat. In the vast majority of cases there will a whole range of women it could be with. It’s pointless blaming women as a whole for your dh behavior or expecting them to police him. If it’s not one woman it will be another. The issue is your dh needs to keep it in his pants.

“Undercut The honest price of sex”? Ewww.

i think this is how some women on mn see marriage- the dh is their property to give them money in exchange for sex. They have achieved by marrying some provider type. The other woman is effectively “stealing” their income and property if they “take away” their dh.

im a feminist. Men are responsible for their own actions. The ow is only responsible for anything she actually does to you not for your dh behavior.

@Allthecheeseplease if being buddies with the OW rocks your boat, good for you... I find the suggestion that anyone would want to be friends with someone who behaved in the way the OW in my case did, extremely odd. Why on earth would I want to share a cup of tea with such a person? Life does indeed go on but moving on does not require someone to become friends with someone who went out of their way to humiliate and hurt me.

Well what if the chocolate ( or fast food/ alcohol / cigarettes made your husband diabetic and got really ill and died early.
Yes you’d blame him for his selfish greed but I bet you’d still be telling everyone how dreadful chocolate/burgers/beer is and how you wish it wasn’t so available.

A man takes a job in a bank and signs a contract with the bank manager promising he won't take anyone into the vault. He is duly trusted with the keys. And then takes someone to the vault, because she asked in a really nice way.
**
Who broke the contract?
**
Who should the bank manager go after?
**
Second scenario: the man hasn't taken anyone to the vault, but only because he hasn't found anyone who wants to go. Yet.

Should he be trusted with the keys?
**
Ok so what if the woman actually takes something from the vault. The employee said it was ok or no one would find out.
That ok then or do we think she should work out it’s stealing?