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?

It's exactly this for me. Ex DP cheated when our daughter was 9 weeks old, found out a month or so later and was devastated. I was already in that tricky, sleep deprived, self doubting new mum stage and the last thing I needed was the rest of my life crumbling to pieces around me. She knew he had a partner and a very young baby at home before anything happened and chose to do it anyway. I hated them both for a while. This was getting on for 8 years ago and my feelings have changed somewhat in that time. I no longer hate or feel any anger towards her for what she did. I'll always hold her responsible for the part she played in it. She reaped what she showed after a while, and he did to her exactly what they'd done to me. I feel that now I could actually sit down with her and have a civil conversation with her, our DDs are half sisters after all. However I've been told so many times that I was wrong for how I felt towards her and I shouldn't have felt that way. I find that a bit bonkers, my feelings were valid at the time and I was able to use them to move on with my life. I will always think she's a bit of a shit person for knowingly doing what she did. I think people will have so many different feelings towards different people when things like this happen. I think as friends, family and bystanders if someone tells us they feel a certain way about OM/OW then we have to accept that's how they feel, meet them where they are and help them through it. It's honestly not helpful, even now, to be told your feelings are/were wrong because they weren't married to you and didn't make any promises. People should take responsibility for their own actions and behaviours, end of.

@Survivingmy3yearold

However I've been told so many times that I was wrong for how I felt towards her and I shouldn't have felt that way. I find that a bit bonkers, my feelings were valid at the time and I was able to use them to move on with my life

This is exactly what winds me up. I think people in your shoes are entitled to blame the OW, to hate her, to call her nasty names. That's entirely your right. No one owes their spouses affair partner an iota of respect.

I am 80% sure the OW thought my ex and I had already broken up. But, even if she didn't know, she was his childhood friend, not mine, so owed me nothing.

I'm not angry we broke up. I'm angry about how it ended. We weren't working out, and the dignified thing would have been to have a conversation, admit it, and go our separate ways - and then for him to go after her.

I don't see the point in blaming her for anything.

My ex is a tosser. I forgive him, but he's an absolute tosser.

I think the OW’s hatred of the wronged wife is interesting too. Many years ago I was left for another woman six months after our wedding. I moved away and divorced him - on grounds of adultery and naming her, natch. Apparently she was livid. A few years later I got a significant new job which was announced in a trade journal. She worked in the same industry and was apparently apoplectic when she saw it - and they were married by this point. I think she was bonkers.

I think it massively depends on the situation tbh.

A friend of mine was unwittingly the OW a few years ago. He was from a neighbouring city and would drive down to meet her, they met on a dating app. He had no children and said he was a widower!! By the time he confessed his wife was very much still alive and living with him she was madly in love with him and it was a really dreadful situation for her. She still pursued it for a while, she believed he really loved her.

I had such sympathy for the wife when I found out, but I don’t know her and I do know my friend. I honestly think the only person who was purely shit was him? I know my friend shouldn’t have continued the relationship but she had given him nearly two years of her life. And she’s an adult so I could hardly stop her. So she was a bit shit but not completely

He had been manipulating two women, and ultimately broke both their hearts. I think we can say he’s the guilty one in the situation

To be fair, it doesn't matter who's to 'blame'. He chose to cheat on you, and that's all that's relevant.

Obviously you're unlikely to become best friends with the OW, but I doubt anyone is asking you to.

Never wrong to blame the OW especially if she knows he's married or in a relationship and actively went out of her way to destroy that because she wanted what the wife/girlfriend has.

In my case the OW was the same woman who also tried to get another woman/my friend in the office fired because she wanted her job.

Nasty, selfish pieces of work who deserve everything they get - including cheating men.

All this cheating ONLY happened because the men wanted to. Every single story on this thread only happened because the man did it - a decent man can have an OW throwing herself at them and he'd walk away without cheating.

Blame your husbands, ladies. Stop letting them get off with half the blame.

I agree with you, OP. Just because the man is responsible for cheating on his partner, doesn't mean the OW isn't a shitbag for staying with him once she knew he was married.

I have once, inadvertently, been the OW in my 20s. As soon as I found out, I phoned his OH, told her and said how sorry I was and that I hadn't known he was in a relationship, then I phoned him and told him what a shit he was.

@Orange67 it's not finite. If you give some blame to OW that doesn't lessen the blame to the spouse.

Literally nobody is saying not to blame their husbands! The point of the thread is that the OW is also a shit person. She is not a saint or somehow blameless because the man is also a shitbag.

@Orange67

AMEN!

i fully agree with ORange if your man was loyal from the get go you wouldnt have to be mad at any one else the other woman isnt to blame he is the homewrecker can lie to you behind your back yet sleep n do things with the other woman telling two women he loves them both for as long as he can get away with it having secret families yeh its the men even the strongest of us fall into a trap.

I agree OP. IHRTFT but I think that if there were no women in the world who were willing to have an affair with a married man, no women would get hurt by affairs. Regardless of gender and marital status, if you know someone is in a committed, monogamous relationship, you have a very dubious moral compass if you pursue an intimate relationship with them. Ultimately it is the main responsibility of the person in the relationship but both are accountable and responsible.

I had a friend who got together with a married man. He left his wife and children for her. They had a child together. He then cheated on her too and they separated. I wasn’t surprised.

You do realise plenty of married men lie about being married?

Even if they couldn't get away with the lie and women wouldn't sleep with them voluntarily... well, there's always prostitution.

Men who are shits always find a way to be shits.

@Kingofx

I've never, not once, in all that time heard a man say to another man "please don't blame the other man and speak insultingly about him". They instinctively know that if a man is texting your wife, flattering her, deliberately going out of his way to screw up your life - then he deserves no respect, no kindness, no moderation of thought.

Women can be shit people.

There's nowt misogynistic about despising or blaming one that has hurt you.

This idea that we have to dictate to women how they feel about or express themselves regarding the OW is really disappointing.
*

THIS

@herewegoagainfriends it's perfectly clear this thread is about women who KNOW and there are plenty of them. Quite how a person who is a mother themselves can meet and spend time with the wife and the young children and then be complicit in breaking up that family is beyond me. All the rhetoric about "it would have been someone else" I think is irrelevant. In my case, ex made it clear this was "true love" and "soul mates" and he had no choice, it wasn't random Mandy from the pub.

Exactly. By saying if no women were available to have affairs then no one would get hurt is ridiculous. If no MEN were available to cheat on their wives no one would get hurt either. They're basically saying the only way to ensure men won't cheat is to force it on them by lack of women. I wouldn't be happy in a relationship knowing that the only reason he hadn't cheated was because no one would have him! Rather than because he wanted to be with me!

@Orange67No one on here is saying that the cheating spouse (man or woman) is not to blame. Of course, they are. But, if anyone, man or woman, gets involved with a person they KNOW is married or in a committed long term relationship, they have some responsibility for being a shitty person and causing massive, long term damage to others. 100% blaming the ow/om is of course flawed logic but I don’t see anyone here doing that? It’s about shared culpability. So, i will ask you the question that I’ve asked many times, since no one on here seems to want to answer it. I personally have never promised YOU that I wouldn’t take a shit on your lounge carpet. But, if I did, could you honestly say you wouldn’t be pissed off with me??

The OW is responsible for her actions.

The cheating husband is responsible for his actions.

A lot of the reminders about placing blame with the spouse aren't about saying the OW/OM is blame free. It's about reminding the hurting spouse that it shouldn't matter what ANY woman/man does, the decision to cheat was the unfaithful spouse's alone.

You see it too much on boards where the betrayed spouse chooses to remain in the relationship or wants to work on things, but the posts end up reading like:
We can get through this with time. My DH has accepted that he crossed a line and he's really sorry. It's hard for him when he was just being friendly and wants to help everyone out. Claire took advantage of his good nature and positively pounced on him. DH says she's always flirting with men in the office. We've decided that he doesn't need to change jobs, but needs to keep away from Claire at work events. He knows now that he needs to be really careful when offering help to female colleagues because it's so easy for them to get the wrong end of the stick and think he's flirting back. He's probably only going to stay late at work twice a week now for specific projects and not be so willing to help other people out after hours because it would make me worry.

The DH here gets a free pass as the marriage will be fine as long as he stays away from the nasty flirty women.

@LolaSmiles i really hope that is not a copy and paste? That is just…..bullshit 🤬🤬🤬

i really hope that is not a copy and paste? That is just…..bullshit
It's me paraphrasing some of the things I've read on relationships threads. The blaming the OW to avoiding having to confront the full reality that your husband is an unfaithful liar who knew what he was doing happens quite a lot.

Whether someone stays in a relationship after infidelity or leaves is up to them, but there's a huge amount of mental gymnastics that goes on at times.

It's easier for a betrayed spouse who chooses to stay to convince themselves that the marriage will be fine as long as their otherwise great husband stays away from (insert requirements here, but usually any woman who is considered young, attractive or potentially a dating option) than it is to say "let's look brutally at our marriage, your actions and decide how to move forward".

@LolaSmiles that is….very sad for all involved. I haven’t seen many threads that say this, but I’m sure they exist. Blaming another person for “stealing” your DH/DW is an unhealthy form of denial, as is the thought that you can somehow keep them away from “dangerous” other people? No one should live like that 🥺

She took him away? What, did she chase him down the street with a giant Butterly net? Bundle him into a van and handcuff him? oh my god the language on here is hilarious. She didn’t ‘take him away’ I’m not and ever have been the OW and have been cheated on in the past but ‘she took him away’ come on now!

I don't think ANY woman is letting her cheating ex get away with the blame. Merely saying that the OW should be blamed too!