Why do we ignore the fact that most affairs don’t involve an OW?

[AkakeSlumnering]

Or an OM for that matter?

Please, we all know most affairs in marriages are between married people.

Most people that are married and having affairs are having affairs with other married men/women.

AIBU to think there’s a focus on OW in affairs even though they make up a minority of affairs in real life?

Can someone who’s married not be an OW or OM? I thought it just meant ‘other’ as in, not the one they are married to

The OW is still the OW regardless of marital status surely

Why does being married make them not an Other Woman or Other Man?

This makes no sense. To have an affair there has to be another person.

....what? The OW is still an OW if she's married.. Her marital status doesn't stop her being the "other woman".

Two hats. One woman.

Yeah, unless the affair is with a non-binary person or some kind of machinery (am fairly sure there are men who have affairs with their preferred sport or computer game, I suppose), there is an OW or OM.

That doesn't make ANY sense OP

What?! They’re still the other person married or not
what a strange observation

Oh, I meant OW the way most people use it - to describe a single woman who they feel “seduced” someone else’s husband and tempted him into having an affair.

Most affairs don’t involve an OW like the way it’s usually described

Whether they are single married engaged they are still the other woman/man?

That’s just playing with words. There may be no intention to leave - it could be an itch scratching exercise. A married OW has as much to lose as you etc

A married person can still do this

But that's not the way OW is used!

Haven't you seen threads saying "should I tell OW's DH? Or similar?

"O" simply means "other"

I meant OW the way most people use it

eh?
Whenever I have heard it used, I have assumed the person using the term means the woman that their husband (or the bloke they are talking about) had an affair with. It has nothing to do with marital status, and everything to do with having a relationship with someone who is already in a relationship with someone else. So, she isn't his wife, she is the other woman.

I have never heard it used in the very narrow way you describe. I am nearly 60 and have always known it to mean the affair partner, regardless of marital status.

That is ow or om

I have never heard OW used the way you say it is. It usually just refers to the Other Woman, no matter what her marital status.

@CorylusAgain No I haven’t seen those.

I mean generally - the consensus is that the OW is a single seductress who is out to take someone else’s husband. People ignore the fact that most often the woman in an affair usually has a husband of her own.

I've never known or described like that. The 'othering' is purely to denote the person they are NOT married do, thus having and affair with 'another woman/man'

Isn’t it worse when the other woman is married? Not just breaking up one marriage but her own. Yes I know the man is also responsible before you come at me

Not in my experience they don't

Wtf is this nonsense.

OW and OM just mean 'other woman' or 'other man'. I'm not sure how you got the idea that it meant they are single. It doesn't!