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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Janos · 10/01/2010 20:36

Agree tmmj.

Reptilian is synonymous with being 'cold blooded' and a very odd choice of phrase to use in conjunction with 'love', which you would associate with being 'warm' and 'emotional'.

Then again, many people convince themselves that all sorts of awful behaviour is justified because they are 'in love'.

morningpaper · 10/01/2010 20:37

I know what anna means, she means primal and animal, like the collision of planets!

read some poetry

morningpaper · 10/01/2010 20:38

(I love how we all call her Anna, even though her name is Bonsior)

Janos · 10/01/2010 20:38

Fair enough MillyR. Maybe it's an appropriate phrase to use in some cases?

nooka · 10/01/2010 20:39

If someone who was married or in a relationship came on to me I would tell them to fuck off. If they were someone I cared about I might offer them some advice on how they might fix things, or how to call their relationship a day, and then I would back right away. Apart from anything else these things always cause a great deal of pain and heartache. To everyone involved. No amount of teenage romance or great sex would recompense in my mind. If there is a true love waiting, then it will wait. I don't see there being any set time frame for that, but relationships on the rebound are never very healthy IMO.

I don't have universal hatred for all those who have affairs. We are all human after all, but why take on a mess?

AnyFucker · 10/01/2010 20:39

reptilian love ? wtf ?

themildmanneredjanitor · 10/01/2010 20:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Janos · 10/01/2010 20:42

"I also don't but this 'know one can take a happy man out of a happy marriage' line."

Agreed.

Unfortunately, if an attractive person of whatever sex you're attracted to comes on to you and you think there's a chance you could get away with it...well, a lot of people do take that chance. Especially if things are not hunky dory.

And it probably has nothing to do with how 'happy' the realtionship is or otherwise.

What it does mean is that the person having the affair has little or no respect for their partner.

nooka · 10/01/2010 20:42

OK, so in what way is primal good? I mean animals don't appear to "fall in love" at all. Generally speaking the male after mating has little or no interest in the female ever again.

MillyR · 10/01/2010 20:43

I don't notice other people, apart from Josh Hartnett. I mean, why would anyone bother to meet someone else? They might want you to have more children. It would just be a massive hassle. I doubt some other random man would be preferable to DH.

BelleDameSansMerci · 10/01/2010 20:44

OK, so now what about those in marriages who actively pursue someone single because they feel that overwhelming worlds colliding thing? I am not boasting in any way but this happens to me all the time

IMO they should sort their existing relationships out first and then pursue but I think most men who want an out, or an excuse for an out, like to have someone else lined up first. I really believe that men need relationships more than women do.

I clearly have "only pursue if you are married" tattooed on my forehead or something but it really does piss me off!

MillyR · 10/01/2010 20:46

BDSM, is your ability to enthrall men why you chose your user name?

LoveBeingAMummyKissingSanta · 10/01/2010 20:48

To suggest a man can be stolen also suggests the man has no control and yes they do.

paisleyleaf · 10/01/2010 20:50

Those children probably don't remember a time when your DH wasn't there, so I guess to them you will always be the other woman.

Bonsoir · 10/01/2010 20:54

I don't notice other men. I haven't noticed other men since I met my DP. Our reptilian loves is a bonding force and what drives the development of our relationship over time. I mean, why lumber yourself with someone else's constraints unless you absolutely adore their company and share your thoughts and feelings with them...

Ronaldinhio · 10/01/2010 20:54

ah, the age old marriage wrecker
a siren song so strong and sweet that no man can resist, the poor hopeless devil

whatever
If he wants to be with someone else I would examine my relationship, my choice of husband and range of options

I don't believe that anyone outside a marriage can break a marriage or fully understand it
They can offer an option that someone can take them up on but that is all

However I don't think it serves woman kind particularly to forge any type of relationship with someone in a relationship with another.

Ultimately there are 20 more fish in the sea

BelleDameSansMerci · 10/01/2010 20:55

MillyR - I knew it wouldn't come over well.. I'm sadly not that enthralling as my lovelife is more of a car crash than a celestial collision!

I actually chose the BDSM name because I was WreckOfHesperus and then another MNer turned out to already have WreckOfTheHesperus as her name so I had to find another one quickly. I was drinking from a mug of tea with a Pre-Raphaelite picture of Belle Dame Sans Merci on it so chose that but I like to pretend it was because of the poem by Keats... I'm pretentious too!

MillyR · 10/01/2010 20:58

It did come over well! It entertained me, and I am very fond of the Pre-Raphaelites.

lowenergylightbulb · 10/01/2010 20:58

I'm not really bothered about the ins and outs of the OP's relationship and all that. What does raise my hackles is (a) people pointing out that the 10 year relationship was somehow invalid because the bloke in question wasn't married to his previous partner and (b) that the relationship with the kids from the previous relationship is unimportant because they are not 'his'.

He was obviously very involved in their lives for a number of years and yet now they're irrelevant.

My stepfather is now divorced from my mother and I'd be gutted if he sort of discarded me, or if people thought that our relationship was unimportant because we are not biologically related.

Furthermore, my partner and I are not married, but we have been together for nearly 20 years - I'd be bloody furious if some snippet started disregarding my right to a roof over my head because they weren't marital assets.

[/rant]

MillyR · 10/01/2010 21:02

I totally agree Lowenergylightbulb.

Anna, I believe in your reptilianlove, but I also believe that some people get involved with a married person because they enjoy a dramatic scenario. It is the whole doomed love that everyone is against, star crossed lovers thing.

BelleDameSansMerci · 10/01/2010 21:02

Now wondering if one's taste in art reflects one's stance on extra-marital hoo-hah?

Does a taste in romantic paintings mean that you are more likely to be swayed by love/lust? Or more likely to behave with decorum and respect because of the belief in love

I think I need to get out more.

WashwithCare · 10/01/2010 21:03

Well, they are hardly irrelevant... they are still costing us a fortune, have their own rooms in my house, and have been creating more rumpus than everyone else in the family put together...

Why aren't you married? Marriage is a legal contract, so you can hardly expect the same righs and entitlements as someone who hasn't entered into it.

OP posts:
themildmanneredjanitor · 10/01/2010 21:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MillyR · 10/01/2010 21:07

The Government are intending to change the law to give more unmarrieds more rights, so hopefully no more children will go through what the OP wants to put this 11 year old through.

I do think there should be laws to stop people taking away an eleven year old's home, regardless of who the parents are or their marital status.

rocketone · 10/01/2010 21:07

The words Morality, decency, respect, consideration for others (particularly any children whose lives get stuffed when families break up), spring to mind.

All these sordid, underhand 'affairs' are just that, sordid mean and underhand when you don't exercise Morality, decency etc.

I had some very young glamour puss (I'm a Dad not a Mum) just openly proposition me simply saying that I wanted an extra bonk anytime, she fancied me and was instantly available.

What a turnoff I have to say !

She knew I was married. I was a lot older, I had probably never even spoken to her before and was almost unaware she existed.

What a Pratess.

A good example of a vile and disgusting person of the sort that often breaks up families.

Unfortunately, My wife met a male version who had already managed to wreck several families.

And the only things wrong with my wife's marriage to me was the state of her obviously damaged brain.

By which I mean that it became clear only after I married her, that her various parents - real mum, adoptive mum & adoptive dad, then stepmum and completely unknown real dad, had all combined to provide a number of real traumas and upbringing absolutely guaranteed to make any child into an adult psychopath - which is pretty much what my wife became.

Maybe if I had dallied with the glamour pess I might have had a better deal after all, as my wife has certain completely wr4eckedc my whole life from the age of 28 to now at 61.

i.e., as direct result of her actions and behaviour I am spectacularly finacially and career wrecked and wrecked in terms of all normal relationships and social life which people have.

this is because a series of events has left me the single dad of an eleven year old child and all my normal social and family contacts have been smashed to bits by first my ex-wife, and secondly a schizophrenic woman I would never have met if my wife hadn't left me single again.

You may say it is not my wife's direct fault I compounded her buggeration up by allowing a schizophrenic into my life, and that is true.

But all life is due to random chance events and the schizophrenic was one of those unpredictable things that I was protected from by being already married and thinking I would never been available unless my wife died.

As she waas eleven years younger than me it was unlikely I would ever be in the market again as I was total loyal etc. You know that for better or worse and in sickness and in health thing.

I really believed in that and it's a pity so few people do.

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