To think it's perfectly fine to also blame the OW

[Kingofx]

I see so many infidelity posts on here with replies saying "don't blame the OW, blame your spouse"

I agree, the spouse is the one who broke their contract and their choices are to blame, but if the OW knew the man was married and persued the situation - even going as far as to battle for someone else's spouse- then I think they are a shit person.

I've been a member of an infidelity support group and while full of stories of weal, deceitful, pathetic excuses for husbands - the stories are also full of quite cruel OW.

People with no empathy, who will often harass the wife, refuse to accept NC and generally act with malice.

I can't picture taking someone else's wallet much less their husband. I think the OW is an adult in these situations and completely deserves contempt.

AIBU to think we give the OW too easy a ride?

@Anewnamea you are the 2nd poster that has mentioned married men on dating sites. I've noticed this on Hinge too. There are definitely married men online seeking another woman in fact It's WOMEN!

There is a complete element of delusion that is coming from OP.

Nobody is including a school student: ie a child, as an OW, ffs. Or any victim of abuse.

Why are people constantly trying to derail with ridiculous straw other women?

*Nobody is including a school student: ie a child, as an OW, ffs. Or any victim of abuse."

Why are people constantly trying to derail with ridiculous straw other women?
Agree with this.
I also think we've got to be very careful lumping a woman shagging the boss in with teacher-student /lecturer-student relationships where there's clearly a professional abuse of position of trust.

You don't have to spend long on infidelity threads to conclude that in a lot of affairs the men seem to be awfully keen to help out stay back for, develop work friendships with younger, usually more junior women. It's fairly rare that they make best-work-friendships with 55 year old Marie who is happily married with grown up children.

You also don't have to spend much time on threads to see the wide eyed fake-naïve, pick-me behaviour (hate that phrase but it does a job) where posters are apparently super confused that anyone would think that married Mike with 3 kids under 5 might be messaging and flirting for an ulterior motives. They describe themselves as best friends/work wives, get on so much better with Mike than other colleagues but they feel other people side eye them when there's 'nothing going on'. 🙄 Then they post that people are always joking that something is going on between them and Mike, but obviously it wouldn't because, fake shock, Mike is married. It's almost always obvious that the poster is waiting for everyone to say that Mike fancies them.
They might be a bit naïve by being 10-15 years younger than Mike, but there's a lot of fake confusion going on. They're not confused at all. They know he's married. They know they're flirting. They know Mike is flirting. They know that both of them are testing the waters.

This.

I’ve (unknowingly ) been the OW and let me tell you , I got more abuse and hatred and trolling than he did. His ExWife said immediately she would forgive him but never me and I didn’t even know he was married. I got stalked and abused and battered. His friends refused to talk to me and would say hi to him and ignore me. I got threats from strangers. I was 100% framed as the bad guy.

at the end of the day, it’s takes two people to ruin a marriage and in this case, I absolutely was not one of them.

Excuse me? It's the wife's fault here somehow?

How very convenient for you.

It wasn’t convenient because I didn’t know.

People who are happy don’t go looking for other women. why isn’t some of that responsibility hers? how was I more responsible than her?

Incorrect on one detail: it takes only one person to ruin a marriage, the cheater.

If he's not happy, he should divorce his wife and move on, not cheat. Being unhappy in the marriage is never an excuse to break trust. It's not the wife's responsibility to keep him from straying. This is 2023, not 1923, divorce is common these days and no longer socially stigmatised other than by some religious people.

I'm disappointed that the wife blamed you because it's 100% his fault, and I am disappointed but unsurprised that some posters on this thread reached for the pitchforks when you posted.

It's convenient now.
You fucked him. Blaming her, when you know nothing about her by your own admission, is deeply misogynistic.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

No pitchforks, just pointing out that "oh, it's somehow the wife's fault because Reasons" is b.s.

I didn’t blame her. I blamed him. But I was very unfairly blamed and hunted.

But with the information I have, I also think she had a part to play in destroying their marriage. Never said he wasn’t a huge dickhead for cheating and not just being open and honest.

Here are the rules of misogyny. Please review the first one, "women are responsible for what men do", and consider how blaming the wife or the OW for a husband's decision to cheat are both examples of the first rule.

ASCCM that's a shitty thing to have happen to you. I find it difficult to see how the OW/OM can be more to blame that the person in a relationship. He chose to see you and not be honest, he chose to cheat on his wife/family, he chose to lie, daily and he chose ultimately to continue to lie to his wife, which I have no doubt he has been doing, to ensure you were blamed rather than him. I believe in treating others how you would like to be treated yourself but I cannot stomach this narrative that "girl code" means that you take the blame for someone else's treatment of another woman - in most cases their wife/partner.

I know someone who had an affair with a married me, he left his wife and they have been together for 40 years now with a large group of grandchildren. This "vacancy" bullshit is just that - its not a one size fits all issue. People are individuals. Do I agree with people having affairs - no I dont - but what I will do is put the blame where it lies. On the person who made the promises and didnt keep them. Not some stranger who is most likely been told all sorts of nonsense.

@ASCCM

Depends on the source of the information doesn't it, but ok. But you then generalised it into " if a marriage isn't happy it's both parties' fault "
Know a couple where he cheated as wife was deathly ill.
How remiss of her.
People can create their own "unhappiness"/dissatisfaction all by themselves, as a previous poster has related.

@Kingofx

Again that's kinda my point.

This whole post is focused on the wrong doing of a women and saying on MN we give the OW a easy ride and how people are "censored" when they may say look at your dh and treat him like he has some agency here

I haven't ever been on a thread and saw a OW being given a "easy" ride. I have however seen multiple posts where the entire focus is the other women and ripping into her and absolutely nothing about the cheating spouse.

People are entitled to feel how they feel, but that doesn't just apply to people who have been cheated on. Some people flag all focus on the OW and non on the DH a bit ridiculous tbh. It's a forum conflict of opinions are ok unless you want it to a be a echo chamber ?

Most people say this to help a poster understand that focusing all anger with the OW doesn't help them or solve the issue.

It perhaps doesn't answer the question directly, but as a man whose ex-wife had an affair I would say a lot of the associated behaviours (e.g. gaslighting, blaming the cheated spouse for their behaviour, developing a sense of entitlement, a bad temper around the home, a lack of empathy - all of which is so out of character that they become unrecognisable) are common to both sexes and by extension I would say there's a fair chance the OW is exactly the same as your unfaithful husband. So yes, I would blame the OW.

However, what I would also say is that you should not dwell on the OW. You do not know that person and you don't want to know them. It's exceptionally rare that affairs turn into lasting relationships; normally they end marriages that were terminal anyway and then the affair itself fizzle out soon afterwards. So there is rarely anything for the cheated spouse worth worrying about when it comes to the OW.

In my ex-wife's case I never met any of her affair partners and I'm glad I didn't. She also became a more stable person when we decided to divorce and what she was don't wasn't cheating anymore, which made negotiating the divorce a lot easier than I was fearing!

Yes unfortunately it’s rife on dating sites…the dating pool is full of married men sadly! One guy on Hinge had a profile full of photos which cut off his face 😂 obviously he’s not single!

I read a post on here recently about a woman who walked into a restaurant and saw one of her online dating connections who’d been trying to set up a date, sitting with what looked to be his wife and young kids.

He nearly fainted when he saw her but she chose not to say anything as she didn’t want the drama and just deleted him from her list of matches.

@Anewnamea I can absolutely believe it.

I would never blame the OW for breaking up a marriage, I'd only ever blame the husband, its HIS choice to be unfaithful (regardless of what the OW 'offered')
However if she was aware he was married then can think she is a shit of a human being!

I don't think it's an exclusively male thing, to seek out dates when married. Since divorcing, there have been plenty of women like this too. Very odd and has put me off to be honest! I've got to the point where I think even if I ever did find someone else, I could never convince myself it was exclusive as everyone seems to be at it 😂

I honestly believe that if I was in a position of seeking romantic or sexual involvement that my initial process would be to evaluate who was available and who wasn't (married or attached people would be ruled out).

If I were to form by accident (spending time together) an attraction of some kind to a married or attached person, I would refrain from acting on it (even flirting) because I would personally feel responsible that I would be responsible for either:

a) harming another person very badly
b) creating a confusion for the man outside of his relationship

I don't believe, even very happily married people are ever 100% immune to being flirted with or paid attention repeatedly, by someone they perhaps like and know. We are all human, this kind of prolonged behavior can trigger feelings of attraction and it's just not fair on anyone to act on it.

If I ever got involved with someone by accident who was married or attached and later found out that they were, I would instantly drop them.

If I ever got involved with someone by "mistake" who was married or attached (for example loose boundaries and a few too many drinks at the office Christmas party when I was feeling down, then I would be mortified the next day and would not make any further overtures towards the man. Actually I would be sick with guilt.

If all of this failed and I ended up, through bad judgment and poor self-esteem or any number of factors to have feelings for someone who was married or attached and they told me they loved their wife and wnated to make it work, they would never hear from me again. No matter how much it hurt, I would leave the family in peace.

I don't think I am perfect, but both cheater and OW make a series of decisions that are very selfish and cruel and where they frankly don't think about who they are hurting.

Yes, I would hold my spouse up to higher expectations because they are supposed to love me, but I think there are basic standards of human right and wrong which apply to anybody.

Willing to be told I’m wrong here, but men I’ve known who are cheats usually lie just as much to the OW.

Spinning the woman a yarn about how horrible his wife is and how they’re sleeping in separate beds.

Totally agree
only exceptions are if they had no knowledge of you,

Definitely. In my case the ow was my best friend so knew about me and gas lighted me I was paranoid the whole time

@Kingofx The only thing I would say though is that my ex-wife would probably have said something similar 6 years ago and might even say something similar now. What happened in between changed her personality out of all recognition. I think if someone falls for another person by accident or even if the marriage is not in a healthy state (as was the case with ours) and they look elsewhere, people can tell incredible lies to themselves in order to justify their behaviour. It's why I don't even blame my ex-wife for the gaslighting, because she gaslit herself far more effectively than she ever gaslit me.

As the outsider looking in we can see the behaviour is wrong but the thought process of the adulterer is often corrupted to an unfathomable degree. I actually asked my ex-wife about this once and it was the one thing she struggled to answer. "Okay, fine, our marriage is not in a good state so you cheated on me. But how do you overcome the guilt of cheating another woman you've never met?" What I got was largely incoherent ramblings about how the men were unhappy, depressed etc. I came away thinking most affairs must be pity parties of sorts and not as much fun as made out!

I can’t think of one excuse/lie that could potentially come out of a man’s mouth to encourage the other woman into the affair that would be a justification for the OW to launch into helping this cheat take his wife’s right to informed sexual consent and her personal agency.

No sex, separate beds, not kind to the poor sausage, mental health issues, always busy with the children, doesn’t cook their favourite meal on a Tuesday whatever. None of these are ok.

OW choose to believe the lie, they’re not lied to.

I have followed many stories and other than the OW who did not know, I don’t know one OW who didn’t work tooth and nail to twist the knife in more.