To think that ow genuinely fall for the lies their men spin?

[aimans]

Men who have affairs, leave or are kicked out, destroy their children's mental health, speak awfully about their wives/exes , ignore/ let down their kids regularly especially when an offer of sex/ drink etc comes up?
The majority of us know that these men are shit in every way but do you really think that their OW's believe their bullshit or underneath it all, are cut from the same cloth?

My dad told the OW that his marriage to my mum was in name only and that he slept in a different room - both lies. I then asked her why, when she knew my dad was married, did she continue with the relationship. I added that I knew it was an impertinent question and she didn’t have to respond. She said he was very persistent and wore her down. She said she knew it was wrong but his persistence paid off and she fell in love. My dad and the OW had two children then two years after the second child was born, he left the country. That’s when my mum found out, and though she was furious with her, she totally blamed my dad. The fact is there was a third woman with whom he had a child the same age as the OW’s youngest! OW and TW lived less than two miles apart

I got to know the OW many years later and really liked her. She was kind, fun and generous with her time. Ironically she and my mum would’ve got on brilliantly in a different life. I know the OW had many regrets but didn’t regret having her children. Separately my parents stayed friendly for the rest of their lives, as did Dad and the OW

I’m in touch with my half siblings and we get on very well

@LilBus One of my sisters is also having an affair and she is single, it’s not the only reason but is one of the reasons I went NC. She is a thoroughly horrible person though. I know her like I know my own left hand she has always even as a child been a mischief maker and seems to enjoy watching people suffer. Unbelievably cruel she used to set fire to bugs in the garden as a small child. I have edited to add that all the other siblings also cut her off.

The only other OW I know is a friend who has crushingly low self esteem, she does believe all the BS he feeds her. She is pathetically sad really.

He's a nice guy who can't leave his wife and children because it would destroy them so he has to stay married blah, blah, blah............... it's amazing what people will convince themselves of to justify their decisions.

As far as I'm concerned, if you're married or in a relationship then you keep your hands to yourself, man or woman.
Some people just want to have their cake and eat it.

People tell themselves what they want to hear. We are all blind to our partner’s faults at first, so why would they be any different?

There is also a kick for some people in stealing someone’s partner, I think. It’s an ego boost, which makes people ignore the warning flags- it’s not because you’re so irresistible or your love is so special - it’s because the bloke has issues and needs validation.

but people ignore these signs. It takes a long time to realise that the way people treat you is all about them. You could be anyone.

I had a friend who had an affair with a married man that lasted years, when her daughter was primary age (her dad had moved abroad), so in her 30s. She even moved her daughter to his home town 60 miles away. She bought a bloody boat with him! We all knew he was married, her parents knew he was married! It was all very bizarre and how his wife didn't know I have no idea, perhaps she did and turned a blind eye. But it was years. He literally lived a double life. It eventually fizzled out when he wouldn't move in with her but she was utterly obsessed for years. Bonkers and we were all honest with her about how we felt about this relationship and how wrong it was but she took no notice and drifted away from us, her long standing friends.

Women hating 🙄

Yes, of course, bloody 'girl code' - let's pit women against each other and not get angry with the guy who couldn't stay faithful to his vows.

@ItLiterallyJustSaysFoldInTheCheese so you dismiss my comment as ‘girl code’ in this modern age where enthusiastic/informed consent is deemed important to women (we’re actually educating young women in this) and affairs are widely seen as removing that right to consent for the betrayed partner right…

I’d still rather stay on the right side of this moral conundrum! But you do you!

And the woman hating is in reference to the constant misogyny comments on threads like this for anyone who thinks being an AP is wrong.

It's difficult to say this on here because I know a lot of women whose husbands have cheated/left them find this website a safe space to vent, and there is definite value in that.

However, there has also been some nasty misogynist statements on this thread, so I am now feeling less sympathetic.

It's not always lies that the cheating husband is telling, much as you might want to think it is.

Sometimes he genuinely falls in love with the new woman, and genuinely will treat her differently, because he has genuinely stopped loving his wife, sometimes for "valid" reasons. (Not that anybody needs permission to stop loving someone).

My mom was to OW. She is still married to my dad 50 years later. The love of his life. He had his reasons for falling out of love with his ex. Probably hurtful to her, but there you go.

He and my mom should have waited till he was single before starting the affair, sure.But there you go, everyone doesn't always behave perfectly all the time.
There are loads of similar examples - people still with their affair partners years later, very much in love. You must know people like this - I am amazed if you don't. My own ex husband - still with his affair partner. They seem very happy - they are better suited than he and i were, so good luck to then. Why would I waste my life feeling bitter?

So in answer to the question, sometimes the OW (like my mom, or my ex's new partner) believe the man because he is telling the truth. I'm sorry if that hurts you. Its hurtful nature doesn't make it any less true. Sadly.

But would OW not t check facts with exw in time or at least family or friends of hers to get the truth? It's all a little too naïve sounding l

I can't speak for all ex wives but personally, I refused the OW any kind of audience or communication with me. She made her bed. I didn't feel the need to warn her or somehow develop empathy and mutual understanding. She was an absolute bitch, treated my children terribly and used her professional status to reduce my divorce settlement. I walked away with my friends, the ones I knew before I met my ex, not the wives and girlfriends of his friends (none of whom ever got in touch), who would not have entertained her either.

They didn't break me and they knew it. My strength came from nowhere, it felt, but I was clear on my boundaries from day one. They lasted 2 years - he spent much of that time trying to come home.

I'm sorry if you don't like my terms of said women being of low value and or poor quality. I'm open to any other terms and despite me always holding the men to account for destroying his wife and children's realities , I do believe that there is something lacking and desperate about a woman whom knowingly colludes in this .
I do not believe it is ever the OW's fault that the children's and wife's lives as they know it have been destroyed at that time, but knowingly engaging in the lies and secrets tells us enough about a woman who would do that. I certainly want nothing to do with them as a friend , for example.
Feel free to interchange the terms men, women and OW and my sentiments remain , regardless .
To add, I'm on line dating and my feed is filled with married, attached men. They don't even try to hide it. Vile humans.

I think you need to see that you have indeed picked a low value and low quality man in the first place. After all you fell for him like the OW in the first place enough to marry him. So surely you can't be so confused as why another woman falls for him aswell.
As for going round asking his family and supposedly your mutual friends. I mean in what world is that ever going to happen? She would look like a nutter.

To the poster: I absolutely see where you are coming from: from a human perspective of what morals used to be and such women were called low value, etc ...the word fornication still exist.

Feel free to interchange the terms men, women and OW and my sentiments remain , regardless .

But it's only the women you want to vilify. It always is. This thread is about the women. You can't understand why they'd be OW, but nobody ever questions why a man would cheat. Because we know why. We just can't accept that women might have all the same ignoble urges and all the same reasons to follow them - even when they're not the ones who committed to us.

OW might all be the shittiest humans who ever lived. So what? Your husband made the promise to you that he'd forsake them all. If he broke that promise, it's entirely on him.

Everyone is different, you can't possibly suggest that every OW is the same. Sometimes the DH and DW have just fallen out of love over the years, or it was never quite right. Sometimes they genuinely do fall for someone else, leave and marry the OW. They don't always leave immediately because they genuinely don't want to upset the DC unless they are sure and need time for it all to sink in before they make the break.

This is what happened in my case. It was very sad but nobody's fault and after the break up we all remained good friends as DW knew the marriage was over anyway years before he met me but they hadn't split because of the DC (and it was a long time ago so there was much more stigma attached to divorce). I was single before the affair. We remained happily married until he died, had our own DCs, and he had shared custody of his DCs so I had a good relationship them too and all the DCs got on well together.

Maybe I was fortunate, but I would not judge anyone as you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. In my experience, women particularly often use an affair to find a way out of a very bad marriage. The one-to-one support that an affair offers can be their lifeline. Please don't judge them too harshly.

And many other things related with being faithful, being married with the same partner all your life, being dedicated to your offspring, keeping virginity before marriage, pro-life. Sadly all that does not exist anymore neither in the west, or the east or anywhere on the planet. Morals exist only in the hearts of very few people

As for ow falling for a man's bs. Women fall for men's bs daily and they don't need to be the OW to do that.
I know quite a few affairs that have happened over the years. Alot of them ended in disaster once the affair was revealed. No one came out happy. However there have been a couple where it's been over 15 years now and they are very happy (ow now married to affair man). Yes affairs cause damage and destruction but they are very common and unfortunately apart of life. I don't think banding all ow in one box as low quality is right or accurate. Affairs happen for all sorts of reasons and women just like men are different aswell.

‘ a single mother from the school gate made him divorce’

😂😂

Why do you have to marry as a virgin and never have an abortion to be a moral or faithful person?

I was the OW when I was 19. I was incredibly naive and generally very emotionally immature and absolutely believed everything he told me. (I have since been diagnosed with autism which I think helps explain why I was always so far behind emotionally and maturity wise than my peers).
I genuinely and honestly believed everything he told me. And I was crushed when I realised it was all lies. In fact it pretty much damaged me for about 20 years after and struggled to have normal relationships. I still struggle with trust issues. But on thinking back to the "relationship" he was awful in many ways. He used to tell me no one would ever love me like he did. I thought it was romantic at the time. Now I realise it was his was of controlling me and keeping me with him. I wish I could tell his wife how sorry I am but I never meant to hurt her. I believed they were "separated". (They are since divorced and I hope she is much happier without him).

‘The one-to-one support that an affair offers can be their lifeline. Please don't judge them too harshly.’

Except the pain is just passed on to someone else who doesn’t deserve it. Another person who ends up traumatised and dealing with the fallout widely now understood to be horrific for a betrayed’s mental health. I’m sorry but there are other ways of dealing with unhappy marriages nowadays. So done with this argument that an affair was their only route out!!!!

she was a very very low value and poor quality woman.

You're being ridiculous now. There's no single set of values to describe every woman who gets into a relationship with a married man. Many might be blissfully unaware for example. Some might have low self esteem and think they don't deserve better. Some might not care. That doesn't make them poor quality women. Save the anger for the person who cheated on you.

I think they believe they’re the ones who can ‘change’ them and that they’re different and ‘better’. My ex was abusive and my friend at the time would comfort me when I told her about his abuse and I would go to her and my other friend as my ‘safe place’ to get away from him. Fast forward to when I was pregnant, it turns out my partner was cheating on me with this friend (she was also pregnant with her partners baby) and they ended up getting together. She apparently believed everything he told her, despite knowing about his abuse, and continued to send me hate and put all over social media victimising my ex. So some women are just entitled and pure evil.

surely anyone with a modicum of intelligence would not go near such a man unless she was a very very low value and poor quality woman.

Just curious - are the wives who continue the marriage after discovering the affair, and the ones fighting to keep the man, or the ones who take their exes back also low value and poor quality then?

I'm certain many men are shits who do not deserve to be in relationships at all. But I would like to put forward an alternative scenario with 'the other man' and roles are reversed For clarity - To me, the sole definition of the OW is the woman who knows a man is committed and doesn't care about breaking up his family or doesn't know initially but finds out and makes excuses, keeps things going. Both are inexcusable. I hope everyone is in agreement with me, but I suspect some women are happy to sweep their own unfaithfulness under the rug when their ex gets a new girlfriend.

Would be interested to discuss 'other men' and what they do. Based on my experience of men who wreck marriages, they are manipulative, selfish and convince women that they are 'entitled to a bit of fun' or 'some more attention, cause hubby is too knackered at that time to meet all all needs. Then OM wants to fuck off when shit gets real and woman wants to start something with him. Leaving the original woman angry that she is left with no one and bitter when her ex moves on 🙄just to be clear - the woman who enters the scene after the kind of mess I describe is NOT the OW. But all too often, she is treated like one and told 'oh if you knew how horrible he was to me. You'd understand and cheat too.' It's all done to justify bad behaviour and to save face. OM does not get such censure, in fact by this point everyone has forgotton about him or worse still praising him for the most basic things if there are kids involved. Double standards.

Why do we never use the same terminology for men who wreck marriages? I guess because they tend to fuck off after a few years leaving the mess and accountability behind them. Whereas from it seems to me that women are not encouraged to self reflect in the part their choices of actions may have played in a relationship breakdown. It's often seems to be 'oh he must have neglected her or done something awful to deserve it.' And if you hold negative beliefs about men, it's easy to use these to justify anything really.

Nice guys often do indeed seem to finish last.