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 ?

Yes but the op doesn't even seem to thi k they've done anything wrong at all. That's the issue I have.

why are you so intrigued about this question?
is it something you've only just noticed?
are you bored?

The OP is actually questioning why on a FB group women are blaming the OW for their partners affair. Which I think is a valid question. There will be a range of opinions on the OWs role, from those who think if she is single she can sleep with who she chooses and its not on her to be the guardian of male fidelity, to those who think that affairs wouldn't happen if OW didn't entice men.
My view is that the OW is given an over inflated role in any discussion on cheating. She is a random stranger, who like the majority of the population in one way or another, prioritises herself over a person who is nothing to her. Some people would never prioritise themselves in this particular way, others clearly do, and really what else is there to say about that? We already know strangers can't be relied on to act with our interests at heart, so our focus needs to be on those we have trusted to do so.
All the speculation about OW just seems rather pointless to me. We can't possibly understand the circumstances and motives of the individual, and it doesn't change anything if we could.
Its a little frustrating to see the air space this bit player in the marriage gets because it does tend to take the spotlight off the unfaithful spouse, who is the real problem.

The real problem is both of them. The driver of the getaway car is just as culpable as the person who carries out the robbery.

Absolutely. And I doubt any but the most doting of relatives would suggest otherwise. Yet when it comes to unfaithful men we're somehow all expected to agree that "He's a good lad really, just got into bad company and led astray".

I wouldn’t. Mine was very clear from the start that if he ever strayed I’d be wearing his balls as earrings but I certainly wouldn’t exonerate the other woman either. We all know that screwing someone else’s partner is wrong.

I dont think that's true..I do think there are many different types of cheating...someone who's just a serial shagger, will do whatever he can get away with and doesn't really see a problem, someone who makes a really bad judgement call on an alcohol fuelled ONS and everything in between.

I don't think anyone has said that. Most have said married/attached people who cheat are wrong but their bits on the side are too. It doesnt really matter which one is in a committed relationship so should not be cheating, if you shag someone's dp then you're complicit and as bad as them.

I know of two men. One married, one single.

Both in same group of drinking buddies. A single woman joins the group.

She has affair with married man whose wife has just given birth. It ends.
She and single man then form a relationship.

To nobody's surprise ((apart from her new man who is arrogant/stupid enough to think that they wouldn't do it to him) she then restarts affair with married man again-even though she now has a toddler with the guy she's now in a relationship with.

Most other women are just scummy people.

A poster on here argued that men are driven by biology to cheat (not their fault) and therefore women have a responsibility not to entice them. Another person argued that if no woman was prepared to be the other wonan, no men would have affairs (presumably overlooking that some OW don't know the man is married). So yes, people are saying this.
I don't agree that failing to protect the marriage of an unknown woman makes a person as bad as one who's betrayal destroys the life of a woman they are supposed to love.
The first is no angel, obviously, but failing to prioritise a stranger over yourself in no way compares to lying to and betraying a person who loves and trusts you.

See, I don’t think it’s about priorities, it’s a simple case of morality and it’s nothing to do with knowing or not knowing the betrayed woman. Obviously if the other woman doesn’t know the guy’s in a relationship they can’t be blamed but we all know that sleeping with someone else’s partner is just plain wrong. For me that means equal culpability not a free pass because you’re not the one doing the betraying.

I was once the OW. I didn't know the wife.

I definitely did not want to replace her, or get in on her marriage.
I didn't want her life.
I didn't want a life with him.

I enjoyed what he and I had; fun, drinks after work etc. I knew that wasn't the real him, and i wasn't the real me with him either. It was exciting and fun - his wife never found out. I was young and single at the time, and honestly, didn't really think how it would affect her if she ever did find out (he never spoke about her, i didn't know her).

I think there's a place between a free pass and equal culpability, where we accept both parties are wrong, but that they are different types of wrong, and that not all wrong doing is equal.
Like the difference between stealing a wallet in a crowd and stealing your grandma's pension after she's trusted you with where she keeps her purse.
Both are thefts that hurt someone, but the breech of trust in the second, imo, makes the perpetrator worse.
When considering the culpability of the spouse and AP, we conflate their behaviour because they commit the act together, and both hurt the same victim. But they are nevertheless guilty of a different type of wrong from each other, with the married partners the greater.

I suppose there's grades of how scummy I'd consider the other woman to be. If the married man was middle-aged with grown-up children, I'd not view her as negatively as a woman who'd cheat with a man who had children under 18. Especially young children.
Maybe him and his wife now have an open marriage of sorts.

But I would most definitely view as pure scum a woman who cheated with a man who had small children.
Sorry but I would. I'm no saint but I would never do that.
Having a hand in breaking up a young family? Scum.

I don’t recognise those differences @5128gap and @QuintadosMalvados. Right and wrong are pretty black and white for me.

A woman with a long marriage is just as prone to being hurt as a young woman with small children, with less chance of starting again if she leaves the marriage. Sleeping with someone else’s bloke is just plain shitty.

The question though is about why the other woman is seen as the villain, why are the cheated on wives angry about the OW. What you’re describing is the perspective of an OW and just because the OW doesn’t want to be replace the wife or insert themselves into their marriage, doesn’t mean that the wife doesn’t experience feeling like they are being replaced or feel that there’s another woman in her marriage. The intentions of the OW might rarely have any bearing on how the wife or cheated on spouse feels about the experience.

thank you all that contributed to the thread

Id guess mixed emotions ?

human nature ?

human nature ?

YANBU.

I’ve always thought it very odd when women describe men as being ‘taken’ or ‘stolen’, as if they’re an inanimate object that can be swiped off the table! It’s up to the person who is married whether they want to remain faithful to their partner, and to any promises they have made, and that’s a free choice that they make every single day. They can change their mind at any point and choose not to remain committed to you, and that is solely their choice. People who are perfectly happy in their relationship rarely cheat.

There is no such things as ‘getting there first’ when it comes to love and relationships. People change and want different things at different times in their lives, and other people are entitled to pursue what they want, just as much as you are. I think often, people don’t like to accept this because it threatens their sense of security, so they talk about their partner as if they’re some kind of possession which they have ownership rights over. And this is where the ‘other woman’ stealing mentality comes into it.