Why Is the Woman Always the Villain? The Strange Logic of Blaming the ‘Other Woman

[ApriloNeil2026]

Reading a group on facebook about are we dating the same guy etc and a few people were blaming the woman for a guy cheating and being a marriage wrecker.

basically what the hell, in my view if the guy is married etc then why or how is it the womans fault in any way ?

No- blame is not finite. Both parties deserve to be criticised because both have behaved badly. I absolutely agree that the person who has betrayed their partner carries more blame than the affair partner, but they are both to in the wrong- assuming the affair partner was aware of the situation.

Multiple things can be simultaneously true- it is true that the person betraying their partner is wrong. It is also true that being the affair partner has not made any promises to the person being betrayed. But it is also true that social norms dictate that deliberately engaging in behaviour which causes harm to another person is also wrong- even when not illegal. It

Knowingly entering into a relationship with a person who is married/in a long-term relationship (and even more so when there are children involved) is knowingly being involved in a deep and painful betrayal, knowingly being centrally involved in causing harm to another person- and sometimes causing emotional harm to their children. I personally think that’s an awful thing to do, and deserves censure- not more censure than the partner who is betraying their spouse, but definitely can be blamed for their own immoral behaviour.

An anaology would be that the getaway driver doesn’t get to say “but I didn’t hold a gun and shoot anyone/steal anything”. No, but they knew something illegal was going on, they were in on the planning and they helped it to happen- ergo, they are still deemed to have committed an offence. Equally, if you knowingly enter into a relationship which is an affair, you are knowingly doing something wrong. Not as significantly wrong as the person who is betraying their partner (and family, if they have one), but still wrong.

So is wrecking someone’s life purely through spite 🤷‍♀️

I think if someone fucks you over then you do what you need to do. It doesn’t bother me that much if someone is a cunt to me and I don’t take revenge but i get why people do.

What you're describing though is an act of revenge not being the other woman as such.

Maybe part of the judgement of the OW is rooted in the idea of the Sisterhood - sleeping with another woman’s husband/partner is seen as a betrayal of the Sisterhood - women holding other women to a higher standard to that to which they hold the men.

There is a part of me that thinks that, if someone knowingly starts/gets into a relationship with someone married/in a long term relationship, especially if there are children involved, they are behaving particularly reprehensibly, but that applies equally to men and women - I don’t think women deserve more criticism in this example.

And the married/committed partner who cheats on their OH is definitely behaving worse, imo. If the marriage is bad, they should leave before starting another relationship. I suspect there are people who don’t want to end one relationship until they know there’s a new one, ready and waiting for them - and they don’t give a shit about the people who get hurt in the process.

I'd be very surprised if the 'revenge' affair was a common tactic. I mean, whatever floats your boat but I don't think you can extrapolate from that scenario which you seem pretty steamed up about to make any kind of general point that excuses being an affair partner knowingly.

So how many times would she have to sleep with him to be the OW? It went on for months

I’m not steamed up but just think that MN is batshit sometimes - most people in RL understand that things are not as black and white as people on here claim.

No i just think in RL people aren't brave enough to say what they really think and nod along when people explain their affairs as soul mates or whatever. I've been both the cheater and the cheated on. In both scenarios I can absolutely explain them in black and white terms. At the time I said all sorts of self justifying crap, as did my.now ex when it was his turn..but thats what it was.

No set amount of times but I don't think that the situation you describe falls into the definition of other woman as most would see it.

No in RL people understand that life is complicated and that nobody is good or bad 100%

I realise that things are sometimes not black and white.
I realise that being the other woman can be a tacit arrangement where all 3 people know and are OK with it. So nobody is being awful. Same with being the other man for the wife here.
If all the children are grown up, I see no issue with it but I don't think this is the common scenario that most people are thinking of here.

There isn't a sisterhood....

This notional bond because we're all women is a crazy fiction. Up there with women are nice, women are kind, women make better bosses/politicians/doctors/etc

People are individuals not groups. Sure we'll group together against a common foe but in the absence of that foe usual human emotions reign supreme.

Life's better when we acknowledge that fact and treat people as people.

Women blame the other woman as it’s the easiest thing to do. If they really had to look closely at their husbands behaviour, they wouldn’t be together.

Its the easy way out rather than blaming their husband for treating them like shit.

If they had to really be honest and admit their husband was a complete twat, then they would have to leave him or throw him out.

Some women are so desperate to make their relationship work or stay in that relationship that they can’t blame their husband long term for their cheating, so they do the next best thing and blame the other woman. Obviously they led him astray, they threw themselves at my husband, she’s a tart, so he had no choice etc. etc.

I have 2 friends who still blame the other women despite their husbands being serial cheaters. They don’t want to leave their husbands/cushy life/don’t want to be alone, so they put up with it and just blame the other woman. I’m honest whenever they raise it and tell them their husbands are cunts. No idea why they are still friends with me 😂😂😂

Because men aren’t seen as responsible for what they do with their willies.

I never said they were. But in relation to this particular aspect of them, of us, I dont think its as complex or nuanced as some like to pretend.

You're right about there being no sisterhood, however, you are wrong to suggest that people are people.
Clearly wrong given the fact that the vast majority of sexual crimes are committed by men.

Yeah I agree they don't want to leave cushy lives, behind closed doors though, she's probably giving him hell.

Some people really do think it's either or don't they?
Like I said before, if we're going to down the road of who's the cunt here it's divided: 2/3 husband, 1/3 other woman.

Nobody thinks well of a woman who does this. It's a shit to thing to do.

Any other woman who thinks she' s blameless is fucking deluded.
I suspect that a lot of other women tell themselves this to feel better about themselves.

I think that's a bit harsh and reductionist. Its not about a 'cushy life' - its accepting the wreck of something they may have invested decades in, have children involved in, children that probably love their dad and want to have him stick around. Its not as simple as 'oh he's a twat now, throw this one back.'. Especially if it was a brief fling or ONS I can understand why some would want to find a way to resolve that. If the ow is irrelevant then it doesn't matter if the wife hates her does it? I would never condemn a wife for choosing to stay within their marriage, protect a family for young kids IF the guy was genuinely remorseful and changed. Its not for everyone but Im not one of those people who believes there's anything much in those mantras that get trotted out about 'once a cheat' etc.

This is controversial but if my dh was an otherwise reliable man who went away on a trip and had ONS that I only found out about because I did some serious digging, I'd let it go.

If however he was the sort of dopey prat who was so inexperienced with women that his mind went a bit loopy cause another woman touched him and he's now in 'lurve', I'd not be happy.

Most men are pathetic when it comes to women, though, so it's sort of interlinked.
A man who is driven enough to be successful does not want to lose the family life that he's sweated for and is probably going to be away a lot so if cheats, it'll be a ONS.

It'll be apart from my life.

Barry who has a humdrum life is probably going to be cheating with the pub's lady of loose morals. So every fecker will know about it. Can't live with that, Baz, feck off.

You can't expect to protect your marriage by imposing a moral obligation on random members of the public.
We know there are all sorts of people out there who do things they shouldn't, but the onus is on us to avoid them and take responsibility for our own behaviour.
If your husband has failed to do this where another woman is concerned, that's as much on him as if he'd been arrested for a bank robbery, because his mate had asked him to drive the get away car.
In that example, unless you were very much in denial, you wouldn't say the friend was equally responsible for your husband's criminality, because you'd have rightly expected him to refuse, regardless of how nicely his friend asked him.The 'bad influence' mitigation has no place after childhood and wouldn't wash in any other circumstances. Just as risk mitigation in no other circumstances would involve a plea to strangers not to offer temptation.
If your spouse has betrayed you, the AP should not be centre stage. They are an object, a prop in your story not the subject. You will know little to nothing about them and their motives, and you don't need to. They did a bad thing, it's no deeper than that. They are nothing to you, so it seems pointless to subject them to so much scrutiny.

Sorry am i supposed to take the blame for having my mother die and getting cancer and having a 2 yr old at the same time he lost his father - so I am equally responsible for the affair!

I would admit that neither of us supported each other well as we grieved, did not go out and simply existed.

OW offered my EX a supportive shoulder to cry on and feel loved whilst I puked my guts up. I knew she had always fancied him and this was an opportunity and she took it and he was dumb enough to take it.

To put it into context, she and her DCs had come round for tea, I took toddler to bed and whilst upstairs started puking so went to bed, whilst downstairs EX and she shagged with her DCS having gone to sleep on the sofa! Both are equally awful but not sure I take the blame for their pisspoor behaviout

At the risk of being that #notallmen person...

Yes. The majority of crimes are committed by men but the majority of men dont.

Its also worth noting that crimes are things that we have deemed bad, and which we have legislated against. So men (who seem to have been primarily responsible for creating and upholding such laws) are trying to police other men. I struggle to think of any more gendered law than the definition of rape - literally by definition women cannot commit that crime.

It's also worth noting that many of the things we deem as violent crime are desirable attributes when we come to defending ourselves and protecting women, and not only cease to be crimes but are demanded of men (on pain of being shot) when governments decide.

So I stand by "treat people as people, not as a group" unless you want to acknowledge the positives of a group everytime you consider the negatives.

So as a woman (or man) you'd feel as safe sleeping at night (if you were stranded on a desert island) surrounded by 100 men as you would a 100 women.

Right...