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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to believe you can't steal husbands?

359 replies

WashwithCare · 10/01/2010 14:35

I have been perplexed to read on here that some posters seem to believe you can "steal someone else's husband".

I am sure you can steal a dog or a handbag, maybe even a good idea(!?!)... but spouses, even if belong with each other, certainly do not belong to each other.

Equally, I'm rather confused that once a man has married or other moved onto the ummmm... the "new model", how can the lady in question continue to be termed the OW? Surely, she is now "The Woman"...

Just wondering as people keep referring to the NM culture about this issue, so sorry if it has been debated before.

OP posts:
drloves8 · 11/01/2010 01:01

expat you have a 24 yr old whos your senior? that makes you 17 ! .... now im .

expatinscotland · 11/01/2010 01:08

'Nice to know the harpies have got together and are getting off on the prospect of drawing blood '

LOL, WWC troll saddo.

Keep telling yourself that like some of the others in, um, similar circumstance, who start thread after thread about their other half's ex and how awful she is, what a terrible mother, partner, whatever they can think of to assuage their insecurity.

We know plenty of people who are second, third or even greater than that number spouses and well, they just don't even need to go there because their OH was free and well clear when they met them.

It makes all the difference.

Best of luck because, well, you're going to need it, sooner or later.

expatinscotland · 11/01/2010 01:11

the hint was in the '7 years my senior'.

but yes, we married when he was 24 and i was 31.

and he's now 32.

3 kids and nearly 8 years later . . .

and i never have to start any threads about his ex's, or he about mine.

how tedious!

drloves8 · 11/01/2010 01:11
Sad
curiositykilledhaskittens · 11/01/2010 01:12

I really think the facts are not that WWC is trying to do anything to the children. It sounds as if she has welcomed them and financially contributed herself but is now getting pissed off with the whole situation and especially that the XP seems to be using the children to abuse her and DH.

Why should the XP be supported by the DH? Why should her children? The XP should be facilitating contact and support from the children's biological fathers. The XP is the one refusing to allow the DH contact with the children he loves not the OP. She can't have it both ways. If she feels terribly deserted and wants to do the best by the children why is she denying them a paternal relationship? Having a £100 trust fund set up for your children and being allowed to rent a nice house for £1 a month is hardly having the rug pulled from under her. These children are not even this man's biological children! He is kind to provide for them and seek contact but there's nothing he can do if their mother is refusing contact and manipulating the children.

I think some of you need to actually go back and read the OP's posts. You might think the way she puts things comes across in a superior way but why does that mean she is being horrible to the XP. Clearly we only have her POV but from what she has said, which is all we have to go on, it seems very clear that the XP is emotionally abusing the children and depriving them of various opportunities to have a father.

Being married or not married is legally very important if a relationship breaks down as is having parental responsibility or not. Lowenergy - it costs around £40 to be married in our local registry office.

expatinscotland · 11/01/2010 01:12

sorry, my junior.

lol.

it's late and insomnia is getting the better of me.

cold as well.

best off to bed.

curiositykilledhaskittens · 11/01/2010 01:14

*£100 grand! lol not £100!!!

expatinscotland · 11/01/2010 01:15

oh, really, who cares, curiosity.

it's some troll or journo or sad wannabe novelist.

c'mon!

they're a dime a dozen on here.

and you'd best hope it's such because otherwise, boohoo!

who'd want to have a daughter like this?

for real!?

i've got two myself.

hope they never grow up to be so, well. . . drama queen, sad, loser, predictable, immature, every-flavour-of-unpleasant as such an OP.

gah.

yawn!

expatinscotland · 11/01/2010 01:19

'Being married or not married is legally very important if a relationship breaks down as is having parental responsibility or not.'

Oh, yes, my dear, yes it very well is unless you've made legal provision otherwise.

curiositykilledhaskittens · 11/01/2010 01:26

expat - Well actually I care, clearly, why else would I be posting? I'm getting pretty damn sick of people being called 'troll' every five bloody minutes and I feel sorry for the OP. People are being really, really nasty, misinterpreting things and making things up. 'Who'd want to have a daughter like this?' is a really stupid and unnecessarily cruel comment IMO. If you don't care don't post and I'll post if I care. I'm not going to leave the thread just because you say I should be bored with it (more likely I'll need to sleep!). I fail to see why it is necessary to attack so personally and I think lots of apologies should be made for this, the harpies comment the OP made and other fairly personal attacks made on the OP. I usually agree with everything you say but tonight I reckon you are way off. So the OP is new and posted clumsily/appeared superior... I really don't see what terrible crime she has committed by feeling desperate about being abused by someone else's children she has been involved in financially and emotionally raising for two years. I also cant see how this post has been brought back to the other by her, it is other people who are mentioning the other thread.

curiositykilledhaskittens · 11/01/2010 01:27

expat - yeees? The OP's DH didn't... That is my point...

nooka · 11/01/2010 03:15

As the OP said that the fathers of the XP (god how complicated) were abusive there may be quite good reasons why she doesn't want them in her life. Perhaps not good enough reasons, but then she may have felt that the bloke in question was there for the long term and being all the dad the children needed. We don't know why they broke up, but it is quite possible that it wasn't what she wanted at all. Likewise there are all sorts of reasons why people don't get married. For example my brother's ex didn't want to marry him because she was frightened that if she did and things went wrong it would give him power over her and her (and his) ds. Given her past experiences I can understand why she felt that way. I don't think them being unmarried made a jot of difference to the reasons why their relationship broke down.

mathanxiety · 11/01/2010 05:54

The really funny part comes a few years down the road, when the OW becomes the demented ex-wife, and the exH of two (and counting) is being 'stolen away' by yet another woman who thinks she is 'the' special woman he has always needed, poor sweet baby, all those wimmin after him with their claws out, the poor misunderstood, tortured soul...

Apropos of nothing, is homewrecker the opposite of homemaker?

ScaredOfCows · 11/01/2010 07:42

WWC - do you go about your daily RL in the same way and with the same attitude that you have displayed on MN?

I read your other thread - the one where you were debating making your new husband cut contact with his older, long-standing family in favour of you. I also read your nanny thread.

Does it ever occur to you to show a little humility? Or to be quiet for a while, get the 'lie of the land' before launching yourself quite so thoroughly? Or are you one of those very irritating people who just loves the sound of their own voice and opinions?

You do come across as superior, both to your husbands other family, and to posters here whose opinions you clearly can't value or consider.

AF - room on the broom for a little one?

AnyFucker · 11/01/2010 08:12

< squidges up a bit more and breathes in >

curiositykilledhaskittens · 11/01/2010 08:35

nooka - A man being abusive to you is not a good enough reason to keep them from having contact with their children. I'm not judging them for their decision not to marry or seek parental responsibility more just stating it as a relevant fact as it means if the XP wants to mess him around and deny contact she is completely free to do so. That is why I think he might be better to offer contact one time directly to the children and then leave it after that. The XP is stopping the contact and winding the children up to be abusive according to the op. Nothing to do with her.

blueshoes · 11/01/2010 08:58

The only husbands that can be stolen are the ones not worth stealing.

Bonsoir · 11/01/2010 09:19

There are some extraordinarily pious views on this thread that are absolutely not backed up by law. Remember, people, that English law is just about the most generous in the world to single mothers (whether never married, separated or divorced).

A never-married mother of two children can only make claims for maintenance for her children (not herself) to the biological father(s) of those children. There is nothing new or ambiguous about this.

The OP's DH has been extraordinarily generous to his former girlfriend and her children over the years. His generosity while they were all living together is not an open cheque book for the rest of his ex-girlfriend's life.

lowenergylightbulb · 11/01/2010 09:27

I wonder if I should reimburse my step father for my uni fee's, kids xmas presents etc seeing as we are not 'blood' and technically he should just ignore me now that he's not married to my mother. I must tell the children tonight to not call him 'grandfather' anymore...

Obviously the 10+ years he spent raising me when I was a kid means jack diddly.

There are some extraordinarily wankery views on this thread IMHO.

Bonsoir · 11/01/2010 09:35

If your stepfather paid for your university fees, that was very kind and generous of him and I can quite understand that you and your children have a close relationship with him.

Had he not done so would not have made him "mean", however.

MillyR · 11/01/2010 09:42

I cannot believe you of all people have the audacity to say that Anna. After the constant interference you have had in the lives of your stepchildren, and then discussed on MN, how can you feel that it would be morally right to drop all responsibility for those children in the event of a relationship breakdown?

Many people on here in second relationships seem to think children from the various relationships they move in and out of are some sort of fashion accessory.

Bonsoir · 11/01/2010 09:45

It's not a question of audacity, but of the law and of parental responsibility, which stepparents do not have. As an adult living in a household with stepchildren, you have shared household responsibilities which include all the normal task of raising children. If your relationship breaks down, you are in violation of the law if you try to continue that.

Janos · 11/01/2010 10:21

'Iore the nasty envious bitches'

Sorry, but what are all the 'nasty bitches' envious of? Please explain that one.

MillyR, it's not worth engaging with Bonsoir. She just enjoys stirring people up for reasons best known to herself.

Bonsoir · 11/01/2010 10:27

This thread is very interesting. On the one hand there is the law (which is very clear) and on the other there are a lot of female posters who seem to think that all men who pass through their lives somehow owe them money forever...

claw3 · 11/01/2010 10:31

OP you are quite right you cant steal husbands, unless they want to be stolen.

Sounds to me that you are putting all the blame on the women and portraying men as helpless and weak.

Takes two to tango.

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