Being the OW - why?

[StrawberryEater]

AIBU not to understand why some women choose to be the OW? I’m not talking about those who just want sex and don’t care if the man is married, I mean the single women who knowingly enter into long term affair partnerships and particularly those who hope the man will eventually leave his wife for them.

I think so much less of men who have affairs that I cannot imagine wanting to be with someone who would do that. I’d just not respect them. And wouldn’t the former OW always wonder if he was going to cheat on her next?

I find it baffling and am genuinely interested to hear from anyone who has done it. Honestly not to flame you! I just can’t get my head round it.

It’s often the men who are desperate, in my experience.

I understand it’s easier for people’s ego’s to believe their poor DH was relentlessly chased by a DESPERATE woman, rather than the idea that he was looking for more.

Why does anyone married have an affair? Maybe they're stuck in an abusive marriage from which they can see no way out and believe that an affair is their best choice. Or pick 999 other reasons.

Why are posters not listing to facts.
Plenty of people have said that for many women they want sex, flattery, good company and quite frankly they don’t care about the wife.
Lots of women would be happy with only “the best” of what someone has to offer.
I imagine being the OW means you don’t have to cook and clean for a lazy man.
They make an effort when they are with you. How many women ( and men) first suspect that their oh is cheating when they start taking more care over their appearance? Many I imagine.
Stop falling for the myth that all women are delicate simple little things who all care deeply about everyone else. They don’t.
I’ve said this before from experience, never expect anyone to care for your dcs the way you do. I’ve heard so many tales of step parents treating their step children with contempt. Women are quite capable of being selfish.
In real life the women I know who had affairs with married men did not have low self esteem, very far from it. Mostly they had good careers and were very attractive.
It does seem to be old man, young woman though.
Predatory behaviour perhaps by the man.
Maybe the simple truth is the man came on to them. They started to find him attractive. He flattered them. There was a lack of good quality single men ( in whatever they find attractive,) he asked them out for a drink, they thought why not. They found him even more attractive. They had sex. He made a big effort to please her. He makes her feel good.
One of the women I know who became the OW was only 16. He was in his late 30s married with a wife and child. He was her boss.
I don’t blame her at all. It was his doing.
Oh and as far as I know, these women all have parents who were together, no adultery involved.
People act on emotions and feelings.
Look at threads on here about how poor the quality of single men is on dating sites. Lots of dross.
Perhaps the married men just made more effort? Who knows.

But they're not though in reality. These threads understandably attract people very invested in viewing OW as unattractive. Always there are anecdotes from women who's partners cheated with women who were older, fatter, uglier, less intelligent, rough, with unpleasant characters and unstable tendencies, who if they werent prepared to take the scraps from a cheat no one would look at. Yet, somehow, the happily married man with the wife who is superior in every way, risks it all to sleep with her.
This seems very odd to me, and outside of my experience, where the OW were actually aspirational to the cheat (younger, better looking than him, or older and senior at work) or at least perfectly ordinary attractive women.
If my experience isnt usual, and it really is the norm for married men to choose these repulsive creatures over their wives, then that's all the more reason surely to ask questions around men's motives rather than keep obsessing over the OWs, as the man's behaviour is the more inexplicable?

If I am completely honest, I don't think many women willingly from the jump get involved with married men in the hopes that they will leave their wives for them.

I think it's one of a few things:

• The liar: The man has lied to the woman that he is single and he has revealed later on/she has found out, by that point she is in too deep and not thinking rationally because she is in love, and he has then promised her something that he won't deliver (he will leave his wife for her) and she believes him because she thinks she knows him and the affair carries on until something happens.

• The accident: Typically this is someone they know from work etc. Typically happens whilst drunk. She knows he is married, she's often married too, they get drunk, he is overly flirty with her and they end up sleeping together. She wakes up the next day and feels awful and guilty. He probably does this all the time.

• The mutual benefit: Typically both parties are in an unhappy marriage, particularly the woman. Both enter it knowing they're unhappy, and it is to be solely physical. I think there is a lot of 'burying your hand in the sand' in this one and both try not thinking about what they are actually doing at all. I think this one usually just fizzles out, or someone catches feelings because that's the natural course.

I am not putting all the blame on a man when I say this but I also think we massively underestimate the determination and lovebombing that come from married men. Out of all men I have come across, unhappy married men are the ones that pester single women the most. They know who to target as well, younger & more emotionally/mentally vulnerable women who they can spin their lies to, or older and unhappy women who want to feel wanted. I honestly think the percentage of women who get with married men out of 'spite' or with really malicious intent is extremely small. Not that it makes it any better but there is more to it.

I don't know, would never do it myself but saw seeing success stories. My grandad married the OW, my grandma's friend and their neighbour at the time 😱 , and they were married for 45 years whilst he was married to grandma for 15.... Charles and Camilla too.... It does work out sometimes

I think the answer is fairly straightforward really. The reason some women who are having affairs with married men wouldn't be put off by the fact that he's cheating on his wife comes down to what they find attractive in a man.

When I have mentioned to other women about finding a man (who is objectively physically attractive) not attractive and that he doesn't do it for me because of his mind, or his behaviour, or his attitudes or whatever, I've been met with perplexed looks.

Perhaps some women don't think beyond what is directly in front of them? If the MM is treating the OW well then that's all she sees?

The only way you could know that they haven't had sex for 15 years is for her to have told you. If she has told you that, she must either be someone close to you, or you know her via a medical/MH setting.

Shameful.

Its not ever going to be a success story as such though, when the basis was someone being cruelly deceived. The decent thing to do is leave your partner if you find you don't love them anymore, or you find you've become more attracted to someone new. Keeping your husband/wife as some sort of fall back, whilst you lie and deceive them, is horrible behaviour.

Ive saw charles and camilla referenced a few times, pointlessly I think, because Diana knew from the outset of her relationship with charles that he loved someone else. Diana had the full knowledge and the choice.

Its not ever going to be a success story as such though, when the basis was someone being cruelly deceived. The decent thing to do is leave your partner if you find you don't love them anymore, or you find you've become more attracted to someone new.

It might be the decent thing to do, but it certainly doesn’t guarantee a smooth, painless transition.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting it was a ‘success story’ for Diana, only that Charles and Camilla are a ‘success story’ in the sense that it’s a lasting, obviously loving relationship that was, at one point, adulterous.

And I can think of others, of people I know in real life. In some cases, the affair was short, and the marriage survived, and in at least one case, was stronger afterwards. In some cases, the betrayed spouse has gone on to remarry happily, in some cases not — one is visibly blissfully happy living alone in the country, and has a good co-parenting relationship with her ex. One is furious and bitter, 14 years on. But that has no bearing on whether or not the couple whose relationship began as an affair are happy together or not. Some are.

Well of course it doesnt, no one is suggesting different. People have the right though to leave a relationship they're not happy in. They don't have the right to lie and deceive. There's a plethora of excuses on this thread for the latter, and none of them are valid.

When people write on MN that they were blindsided by their dh announcing that that no longer love them and have met someone else and want to be free to pursue a new relationship that doesn't exactly go down well either.

In MN there appears to be no way a person (esp if they are a man) can end a relationship when they have realised they like someone else without them being painted as a villain.

@tutttutt , because I would imagine that the affair has already started by the time the man tells his wife/partner.

A bit like you'd made sure you actually had been offered the other job before resigning.

Because I was up to my neck in it before I found out he was with someone else who was divorcing her husband for him. I was young and a sucker so didn’t call time on it when I found out and I did the pick me dance until I realised he wasn’t ever going to. I was 20 and stupid and selfish

For me, firstly I was young and very naive. I look back now and his attention bordered on grooming.
He built up a friendship through and with my parents and surprisingly continued to visit me when they were away. They had asked him to ‘look after me ‘.
He asked me to accompany him to a work commitment. At that point I thought his wife was aware. We were neighbours with them and he picked me up outside of our houses.
In our relationship, the usual ‘ I should never have married her’ stuff.
He was miserable in his marriage.

I enjoyed his attention and liked him as a person. He was good to be around occasionally. In a way I liked having someone who cared, but still having my own life, nights out, went on dates.

I didn't want to sleep with him and never did.
He worked shifts (police). I liked the buzz, I suppose of him meeting me late at night or stopping me in his patrol car, to chat.

I didn't have any thoughts of him leaving his wife and made it clear that if he did it had to be because he was miserable, not because he wanted to be with me…I wasn't that sure I wanted a man with an ex and two kids.

Once married, my exH cheated on me. I felt I deserved it given what I'd done to someone else. It was only when it happened to me that I realised the devastation that could be caused

I know why my ex h had an affair .. because he wasn’t in love with me and probably never was ..but I was young when I met him and mistook lust for love.. once life got difficult ..he couldn’t be there emotionally for me so he checked out .. he was too cowardly to tell me and I wish he had so I could have started afresh sooner ..

my dm used to tell me that when you aren’t in love with someone you are open to falling in love with someone else .. he’d come to resent my existence so much that when I had a life threatening illness he told me years later that he’d fantasised I’d die as it would have made things easier … in my eyes he’s just a heartless monster …. and it’s refreshing to be married to a man these days who doesnt need to constantly tell me he loves me because I know he does ….. ex h used to say it constantly… yet not nothing he ever did matched his words .. these days I’m happy for them both .
. they seem well matched and well suited (selfish and self involved ) 🤣

He was married before me at 20 and cheated on his then wife but I was 22 and naive when I met him and believed the stories about how his marriage broke down .. I discovered years later he’d been meeting up with his ex wife behind my back in the early days and I’m convinced he was spinning her a line about getting back together …
these days he’s pushing sixty .. balding with middle aged spread so chances are he’ll stay faithful to OW as he’s not the catch he used to think he was !

Not necessarily. I'm replying to the poster who said when you find yourself attracted to someone else, that's you should leave your partner. Yet when people do this they are called the same names as cheaters are.

The quoted post was mine, and I wouldn't say the two situations are remotely akin (and its a massive generalisation to say that 'everyone' on MN thinks they are). No doubt there will be situations whereupon people are raw from their marriage ending, and perhaps express anger and hurt at their husband/wife for leaving them.

The thread has gone off on a tangent tbf, we were initially talking about the mentality and outlook of women who have affairs with (still) married men. Not women who get in to relationships with recently separated men.

No doubt there will be situations whereupon people are raw from their marriage ending, and perhaps express anger and hurt at their husband/wife for leaving them.

Perhaps. In my case that anger manifested itself as a leafleting and poster campaign in the town where I lived and at my place of work. It took a solicitor’s letter with the threat of legal action to get it to stop.

@testingsquared it's none of those things I don't know her at all and have never met her. We live 60 miles away from each other , there are no mutual connections at all. But I do know for certain I just can't say how.

Years ago over a period of about a year I had sex with a married man. It was just about the sex, I didn't love him and I didn't want him to leave her. I was also seeing other men at the time.

I think so much less of men who have affairs that I cannot imagine wanting to be with someone who would do that. I’d just not respect them. And wouldn’t the former OW always wonder if he was going to cheat on her next?

I don't agree with the basic premise that everyone who has an affair is the scum of the earth. Some of them may well be (particularly the ones who cheat multiple times with multiple different partners) but the reality is usually a lot more complicated than that. I find this kind of black and white, childlike thinking rather odd. Every person, situation and circumstance is different. You can't just make this massive generalisation.

I think so much less of men who have affairs that I cannot imagine wanting to be with someone who would do that. I’d just not respect them. And wouldn’t the former OW always wonder if he was going to cheat on her next?

Does that lack of respect filter down to the woman who often decides to take him back? I mean, she has proof positive of his form, right? Not even a question of if, but when.

Fortunately, your respect, or anybody else's, isn't wanted or required. People live their lives, do things that they choose to do and it has nothing to do with Joe Public.

I think so much less of men who have affairs that I cannot imagine wanting to be with someone who would do that. I’d just not respect them. And wouldn’t the former OW always wonder if he was going to cheat on her next?

In a lot of cases the “former OW” is also a “cheat”, so maybe the OM needs to be worried she might cheat again?