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?

@Kingofx I don't know what man has brain washed you into thinking all these OW lure married men and tempt into sexual acts. Ffs where is your self responsibility for the husband? I'm sorry but you need to snap out of this. I can understand OW being dislike however your choice of language isn't really on. Your bar sounds pretty low to me! He can decline the coffee, he shouldn't be meeting OW and exchanging numbers. You need to understand these men are not lured. Your husband made an informed choice! To fuck another woman.

Beautiful women don't feel the need to destroy what another woman has because of jealousy. The less attractive women are more likely to be insecure and jealous, and feel they have 'won' when a DH/DP cheats on their beautiful wife/partner with them.

Posted too soon... no it isn't a nice thing to do but if someone is going to cheat, the person they're doing it with is irrelevant. I'm not saying it's admirable behaviour but the blame and focus rests solely on the cheater. If an OW/OM harasses or is directly horrible to the betrayed partner or spouse, that is abhorrent behaviour and you can blame them for that... but the actual act itself? That blame and responsibility lies squarely with the cheater. To suggest otherwise means that the cheater isn't fully culpable and that this otherwise wouldn't have happened without the OW/OM. As I said before, same applies to cheating women.

No one has said that the spouse is not culpable. They absolutely are! But this thread is about it being also fine to be angry at the OW, in particular if she knew the guy she was seeing was already taken.

@Cupcakekiller

Posted too soon... no it isn't a nice thing to do but if someone is going to cheat, the person they're doing it with is irrelevant

Honestly, this is just absolute nonsense. Were my ex husband here, he would tell you that he never intended to have an affair, never wanted to cheat and would have lived 50 years happily married to me if that one particular person hadn't come along and pushed a very orchestrated set of very particular buttons at a very particular time.

He's still a friend of mine and part of my life, and he lived for 30 years beforehand without cheating and 15 years since. He's done therapy for years on end and he knows without a shadow of doubt that if it were not for that particular person in those particular circumstances nothing would ever have happened.

I completely believe him!

Interactions between people are very complicated. There isn't a set of men divided into cheaters and not cheaters. We all become different people when circumstances change.

That's why when you read infidelity books (and I have read them all) such enormous chunks of them are focussed on spotting emotional affairs when they are beginning or spotting what is or isn't a slippery slope.

They call it that for a reason.

Unless he was a child or a lot younger when the affair took place or otherwise vulnerable you're living in cloud cuckoo land. Hate her, call a slag, whatever but to suggest you would have otherwise remained happily married but for this one woman is absolute madness. Madness.

before you know it Janet is asking your husband to help her with double entry and your marriage is doomed.

So how is a female engineer, the only woman in her team, supposed to do her job then? Because apparently I'm some kind of husband-stealing slut if I ask for a peer review or a second pair of eyes.

It's truly eye opening just how much contempt you have, not only for your husbands who you think will cheat at the slightest glimpse of collarbone, but for professional women breaking into male-dominated jobs as well.

I assume they'd all be happy for their husbands to have topless lap dances every night from Margot Robbie while they put the kids to bed.

Taking a lap dance is cheating already. If your husband is getting lap dances and you're putting up with that, you have a bigger problem than an OW.

I completely believe him!

I don't. Funny how every cheating husband always claims that he's only done it once.

@Kingofx I couldn't have said it any better myself, although I did try 😁

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia
I completely agree that the cheater is primarily responsible for the affair.

But surely you’ve come across some sexually predatory people who deliberately pursue someone in a relationship? Whether or not the attached person actually has an affair, this type of predatory behavior is still despicable, isn’t it?

I’m genuinely surprised if you haven’t met a handful of these people, because I certainly have (mind you I’m 48 so perhaps older).

Still don’t get it do you? “Wrecking someone else’s life” “leave them the fuck alone”…

The ow isn’t ‘wrecking’ anything, the cheating husband is. As soon as HE crosses a line, it’s wrecked.

And as for ‘leaving them alone’ - it comes back to the misogynistic characature of the manipulative women luring the innocent hapless man away…

It really is scary how women will burn other women to save men.

Say what now 🤔.

Have you actually seen an affair start? I’ve seen more predatory married men chase women than women seduce married men.

The filthy fuckers don’t actually wait to be encouraged . They see, they want, they go after.

@Screamingabdabz So you just don’t believe that some sexually predatory people (any gender) deliberately target a person in a relationship?

Of course the cheater is ultimately responsible if they actually cheat.

@Barbiesback

I don't know what man has brain washed you into thinking all these OW lure married men and tempt into sexual acts

Oh my days. Women do hit on men you know. Sometimes aggressively so.

Ffs where is your self responsibility for the husband

Responsibility doesn't have to be just reserved for one person. People who go after married people are also responsible.

I'm sorry but you need to snap out of this

Snap out of what? 70% of people agree with me. The OW is also to blame. Maybe you should snap out of defending crap people?

Your bar sounds pretty low to me!

So does yours!

Your husband made an informed choice! To fuck another woman

A choice given to him by the person trying to fuck him. Lol. How can you possibly not see that person is also responsible?

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

You come across as having real issues with men here.

Plenty of people have one affair or cheat only once.

My ex husband spent years crying, devastated, remorseful, in therapy and lost his family.

His OW went on within about six weeks to shag another married man.

It might be very hard for you to accept but sometimes women are very nasty pieces of work.

And yet it is acceptable for women to burn other women because they wanted their partner/spouse?

The OW landed me in the psych ward for a month. Yes, my partner was to blame too, but she could have gone "oh, he is not available" and walked the fuck away. She knew he was with me, and still pursued a relationship. She was also with someone, so my ex was the OM so to speak. Both were unspeakable cunts.

Honestly, it is really not that hard... just go after single people!

Ugh. Just had a call from one of my closest friends and her husband is having an affair with someone 20 years younger.

What a world

@ShippingNews this exact thing happened to me. I was actually more hurt by her than him as her actions were doubly deceitful-she would take things if said to her, twist them, tell him and allow it to drive a wedge between exh and I which she then further exploited-all whilst letting me go out of my way to support her with her own 'failing' marriage. It's been 8 years here and I still can't see her, even from a distance without feeling distressed. I have to see the exh occasionally for child related stuff (they are older teens now so this is minimal) so I'm inured to that-but with her it's quite rare so it's still a shock to the system every time.

I agree with you op. In most cases, where the ow knew the man was married, she is also to blame.

@Kingofx I've covered this already. The married man holds the upmost responsibility. I didn't say the OW wasn't accountable at all, however its not an 50/50. Someone offered your husband a bit of fanny? Oh Christ!
If someone offers me cake and I accept it even though I'm on a diet then that's my perogative and responsibility. Same with the man he isn't a little boy. Sorry but your language is odd "lured" "tempted" "offered".

Poor husband having to have sex with OW and his as wife. It's a man's world alright! You seem to be around a lot of crazy women sounds unhealthy!

I don’t care if the Goddess Aphrodisiac flew down, tap danced naked on a table and begged my husband to become her lover, the responsible is wholly upon him to say no.

The idea that men are helpless to control their penis and can be turned by a woman, that they’re too weak to withstand temptation, says nothing at all good about the men you know, imo

If it wasn’t her, it’d have been someone else. Absolutely, I have no respect for someone that sleeps with a married person. To me it says they’re capable of a level of deceit that I don’t want in my life. But the cheater is the one that truly disgusts me. They broke vows. They destroyed their family because they valued their naughty bits over their spouse and children. Gross.

Argh. Goddess Aphrodite

The internalised misogyny on this thread is quite disturbing.

@LolaSmiles she kinda has though hasn't she. If your husband is sitting on Janet's couch and not yours, then she has. Fair enough he goes willingly but she'll have knabbed him all the same.
She hasn't knabbed him though.
That's my point.

It's a very slippery slope when women start accepting the misogynistic view that women are the ones responsible for male actions.

If the man goes willingly, he's not been stolen/taken/knabbed or any other phrase that makes it sound like he's passive.

Would you be more worried if your husband went for dinner with a woman in her her eighties or Margot Robbie? Ah, as I thought. That question was not directed at you specifically
I know not directed at me specifically, but that again rests on the idea that women need to be wary of attractive women, especially younger attractive women. I don't like it because it's pitting women against women instead of demanding appropriate standards of male behaviour and holding them responsible.

In an affair situation the OW is 100% responsible for her actions. It's reasonable for someone to have a negative view of those actions and for a betrayed spouse to feel anger.

The idea of "my Brain would never cheat, he's such a good dad/husband but you know that Louise at work, she got her claws into him" is infantalising men and blaming women for men's actions.

Being a sexual predator is wrong in and of itself, regardless of whether the target/victim is married. Hence the multiple current threads about Russell Brand.