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?

Neighbours? Surely she lives rurally?

That’s not the consensus at all! Your post is implying that some evil temptress comes along and casts a spell on the poor defenceless man who can’t help himself. If a man has an affair he’s responsible. Your post is pretty misogynistic tbh.

Think the op has done a runner 😂

I don't think it's particularly misogynistic. It's just naive

Surely "other" is just "the one you aren't married to", irrespective of whether they themselves are single or married?

this last couple of pages has made me laugh

I think you need to move with the times. Most people don't think that OW (attached or single) go out of their way to 'seduce' anyone. If A was with B originally and had not split up but then C had a sexual relationship/affair with either A or B then they would be referred to as the Other Wonan/Man. It makes no difference if they're in a relationship with someone else. Cs partner however might refer to A/B as the other.

I'd never really considered who was most likely to have an affair with who. Are you sur its definitely mostly married people having affairs with other married people? I'm challenging that.

I must be the only person on here who can never understand posts which mention A, B or C as possible individuals in any given situation.

I need a diagram.

It’s not just you, i was lost at B

The OW finds time to manicure her nails, the OW is perfect where her rival fails. The OW enchants her clothes with French perfume, the OW keeps fresh cut flowers in each room. She's never seen with pin curls in her hair, and there are never toys that's scattered everywhere. When her man comes to call on her, he'll find her waiting like a lonesome queen, 'cause to be by her side is such a change from old routine!

(But the OW will always cry herself to sleep, the OW will never have his love to keep, and as the years go by, the OW will spend her life ALONE.)

Maybe she has seen the light and is out seducing a married OM? 😉

I'm going to be an old semester and I don't mind who it angers.

Men, more commonly, want sex and admiration. They are not generally fussy where they get it.

Women, can get sex and admiration generally very easily because men (see above) want sex.

So in every affair I've seen personally, the man gets into it for either sex or ego kibbles and the woman tends to have a fantasy of them running off together.

Because they've taken all this sex and romance to mean they are being swept off their feet. They generally don't want ongoing sex with someone they don't see as a potential partner.

Men do.

So often affairs involve a mismatch of goals.

That said, IMHO they're always a pair of idiots as infidelity is a painful and awful business and if you want to shag people you should get a divorce first.

Likewise if you want a new boyfriend, find one who's not attached.

Plenty of unattached fish in the sea.

i don’t think OP is saying this is what she thinks, she’s pointing out this is how people generally make it sound when men have affairs. I think she’s trying to point out the misogyny in how these situations are represented.

Gently OP, you've misunderstood what other woman means. As most people here have said, it simply, literally, means "the other woman". Her marital/relationship status is irrelevant.

I honestly don't know why we need thus over dramatic "evil temptress" nonsense.

Here's the facts

Sometimes married people try to shag other people. Sometimes single people try and shag married people.

In a sexual dalliance, there's sometimes a "persuer" and sometimes a mutual attraction.

Men aren't all chasing their secretary around the desk. It's not 1955. Affairs often do involve a woman forming a crush on a married person. They are sometimes not subtle about making that clear.

All people, married or not, are susceptible to flattery to different degrees dependent on character, self esteem and how vulnerable they are at that point in their life.

I've got a friend who's got a wealthy husband who's just declared himself in love with a girl 16 years younger who he's known for a month.

They've got two young kids and he's going to abandon it all after a marriage thats gone on 22 years. For someone he's known 5 weeks!

The wife went (as you do) to Look her up on socials to find she's pre-emptively been blocked everywhere.

Now, this husband is a prick, make no mistake. And he isn't "in love". He's an insecure, sad man with obvious issues who's flying high on dopamine from a young pretty thing probably acting doe eyed.

The girl, let's also make no mistake, could easily pick a man more her age or single (she's stunning) but she's probably decided she quite fancies the big house and the trips to the Maldives. She isn't in love either.

People who have affairs are generally so embarrassing! And women DO go for other womens husbands. The fact they're happy to be taken doesn't absolve them from shithousery.

Men think with their dicks in some cases. Sadly

There is no "most people use it" going on. It now and has always meant, the "other woman" whether she is single, married, divorced, widowed, sane or crazy. It literally means, "the other woman", i.e. not the wife. Or OM for other man.

I see ‘OM’ used quite regularly on here.

Ger1atricMillennial · Yesterday 21:07

Nah... I agree with OP, the term "The OW" generally conjures up the image of a young single woman rather than a married woman when discussed in popular culture. The single people that I know have had relationships with married people, usually didn't know that they were married at the time, and were just as hurt.

I kind of accept that if the OM or OW is already married themselves (i.e the affair is between two married people each married to third parties and with their own families so two whole families are being betrayed) then it might be logical to assume that the OM or OW full well knows what carnage they are likely inflicting on their affair partners marriage/family because they are doing exactly that to their own spouse/family.

But not always.

I have seen plenty of examples where the married people having affairs put so little weight by their marriage vows and care so little about the effect on their families of their actions that it is kind of irrelevant that they happen to be married themselves.

And contrary to the above quote, I have also seen plenty of examples where the single woman (or man) who has the affair with the married person full well knows that that person is married, has a family and very likely all manner of destruction will result and (like the two married people above) they just don't care. This is the type of scenario where the married man leaves his wife for the younger woman. Again the younger woman typically just does not care. It does not make her (or his) actions any worse than the "two married people being unfaithful but with each other" scenario.

All these scenarios carry untold pain and lifelong consequences for multiple people each in a unique way which is devastating and impossible to rectify. And the people having the affair usually do not care.
You cannot pass value judgments and say this situation is worse than that situation. The consequences (the absolute destruction of a family and often decades of or even generations of fall out and consequences for children etc) is the same.

Its like people saying "they had an affair with a person who was my best friend" - I accept the double betrayal feels like it is worse, but at the end of the day, the fall out is the same so the fault of those who did it is the same.

The OP was talking out of her ass, but the last few pages have really brightened my morning.

Off to order a MN chicken and start ironing everything in the house…

But that's not what she has posted. She has quite clearly stated that it is the stereotype of the ow being single that irks her. Posters are simply pointing out that it's not a universally recognised stereotype.

But according to MN a single woman having an affair with a married man is not really doing anything wrong, it’s all on the married man. I agree with you though most affairs are between married or partnered people who both have an equal amount to lose.

@millymog11 - the term OW may conjure up the image of a young, single woman for you, but for me it simply conjures up the image of a woman who is having an affair with a married man - it has no connotations of age or marital status - so I don’t think yours is necessarily the ‘general’ view. I think we’d need a much bigger statistical sample.

Yes it’s the misogynistic stereotype of the OW being a single, unattached, temptress, desperate to steal your man that she’s calling out/ is irked by. I get that posters are saying this isn’t a universally recognised stereotype but actually I agree with the OP that it is often how these situations are portrayed (and it is misogynistic). I think it’s the title of her thread that is confusing people as it doesn’t make sense .

It’s not a stereotype that I or 88 percent of the respondents on here have ever heard of though. So I’m fairly sure that means it doesn’t even come close to a stereotype.