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Original poster

So ladies, am I the evil homewrecking "other woman"? [shock]

478 replies

BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 09:37

I posted last week about my step-daughter asking "Am I an evil stepmother". I was shocked at how I got lambasted in some of the replies, which literally accused me of being a homewrecker - all because I said that DH left his relationship to be with me.

Why is the assumption always that when a man leaves a relationship and starts a new relationship it's the "other woman" who is to blame. It just seems illogical to me - if he had been happy in his previous relationship (he wasn't) then he would not have left would he? If he got everything he needed in his previous relationship (he didn't), he would not have looked elsewhere (for company, friendship, conversation and yes, intimacy). He tried to make it work with his ex-girlfriend/partner for half of their 12-year relationship. I was a symptom of the fact it was not working - not the cause. It is tragic that he finally gave up and left the relationship soon after their child was born - but again - this is not my fault. We got married within four months of getting together.

The reaction I got on MN is exactly the attitude taken by my so called MIL whom I have never met and whose exact words to him were "That woman is no daughter in law of mine". His two sisters also sided with this view. Needless to say MIL and DS's aunties have never met DS (aged 3.5) and never will as far as I am concerned.

It is this toxic dynamic that caused DH to be estranged from SD for the past five years of her life - because had DH's family not been so judgemental of the situation, they could have helped both DH and his ex- during that first year of acrimonious and hostile visits to see his daughter, rather than making it worse.

I am sick and tired of people who don't know me judging me - or assuming that DH's ex is some saintly figure who was the innocent party in all of this. It's just like the DIana-Charles-Camilla situation isn't it? DH and I have been happily married for seven years now so surely if I was just a fling I would not still be here would I?

OP posts:
NKF · 05/06/2007 13:36

BSB - there's your problem with this thread. You don't think what you did was wrong. Other people do. The fact that there are worse things you can do doesn't make the thing you did right.

goingfor3 · 05/06/2007 13:37

Mt Dad left my mum for another woman when I was about three. They are still together now so I don't harbour any bad feelings towards the fact they fell in love with each other.

Original poster
BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 13:38

I already mentioned those things in an earlier post CC.

But people unfortunately took that as an oblique reference to DH's relationship with his ex.

I could also add - physical and emotional abuse, being overly controlling, manipulative, or possessive, getting into massive debt and not telling the other person. Basically anything that involves a massive betrayal to the original intention of the partnership.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 05/06/2007 13:39

Isn't it interesting how every single "Other Woman" thinks the abandoned parner os the one to blame for the breakdown of the relationship.

goingfor3 · 05/06/2007 13:39

The way the sitiaution is handeled can have an even bigger impact than the person cheating and leaving for someone else.

contentiouscat · 05/06/2007 13:39

BSB I would like to point out I am not bitter at all I am not one of the first wives club I very briefly had an unfaithful partner - I am just trying to understand you as I cant quite understand what you were expecting to achieve with this conversation.

The thread title alone guaranteed you would be flamed and tbh apart from Twigs little outburst you have got off relatively lightly these thing normally degerate into name calling.

persephonesnape · 05/06/2007 13:39

apologies for lateness.

i get on ok-ish with my ex who left me and 3 dcs when youngest was seven months old for another woman. After being with him for seven years, i culdn't just turn off the love i felt because he went off with another woman. I did see it as more her fault than his because she knew about me and the children. thats not to excuse his behaviour, but i knew him ( or at least thought i did) I still ahve an exceptionally low opinion of her. I would have scooped out her eyes with a spoon and fried them when he left her with a young baby i laughed for a week, because she now knew how it felt.

bsb - everything you think you know about your dhs ex is his opinion and he will be attempting to justify his behaviour with you by painting her as uncommunicative, depressed etc. I'm amazed at this ' i can't help who i fall in love with! it's magical!' claptrap. you sound like a teenage girl reading mills and boons. you can help who you fall in love with, if you're not completely selfish.

Original poster
BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 13:39

But the fact that we don't agree should not preclude a discussion - as long as I don't try and make you think I am not wrong and you don't try and make me think I am. That's the sort of thing that starts wars isn't it?

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 05/06/2007 13:39

It would be interesting to hear his Ex's side of the story because I bet it doesn't match your DH's version.

NKF · 05/06/2007 13:41

But it's possible for all those things to be wrong. And infidelity to be wrong too. An argumetn that goes: "we did this but these other acts are worse so therefore we were right" doesn't hold up.

Quattrocento · 05/06/2007 13:44

Yes soupy, it is.

Posted earlier about a friend who was absolutely vitriolic about the "other woman" only to become the "other woman" herself later on. The volte face was absolutely extraordinary.

I don't know how my then friend could have spouted all that cliched nonsense (read any of BSB's posts for a flavour) the second time around, having trotted out all the woman scorned cliches the first time around.

Some people have just no sense of irony.

Original poster
BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 13:45

I haven't painted her as anything - that is what some people chose to read into my post.

I think that two people are responsible for a relationship. So SoupDragon I disagree with your post - from my point of view anyway, as there are two sides to every story.

OP posts:
tribpot · 05/06/2007 13:46

Yes, there are other, potentially worse things you can do in a relationship. Doesn't make sleeping with someone else right. How would you feel if dh did that to you now? Would you be philosophical and say "oh well, it's not wrong, he fell in love with someone else so good luck to him"?

contentiouscat · 05/06/2007 13:46

BSB in all of those circumstances the honourable way to handle it is to discuss, discuss, discuss with your partner and if it cant be resolved then agree the relationship cannot work. Not bury your head in the sand, discuss it with a female friend, conceive a child with your wife and then leave her holding the baby to run off and marry your friend.

No I dont understand at all - sorry im glad to say its outside my personal experience and I wouldnt be close friends with anyone like that either.

Perhaps, if you really want to move forward rather than justify your actions to complete strangers, you need to acknowledge that you made a decision in life which was misguided and selfish but that doesnt have to define the rest of your life.

NKF · 05/06/2007 13:47

BSB - so they both tried and it didn't work. And while they were trying to make it work (and making a baby let's not forget) he fell in love with you. And what? Gave up trying to make it work with his wife? Realised it was pointleess to try any more?

Speccy · 05/06/2007 13:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Quattrocento · 05/06/2007 13:47

or (picking up tribpot's point) oh well, it's only sex, he could do something really against the spirit of the relationship like (using BSB's example) running up an overdraft

goingfor3 · 05/06/2007 13:48

BrownSugarBabe - sorry if it's already been asked but can you trust him not to have an affair if you go through a rocky patch. Men who have odes this once are surely likely to do it again especially if they don't feel they did anything wrong the first time.

Original poster
BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 13:48

I am not saying we were right either. What is right or wrong for me is not necessarily right/wrong for you as we are obviously different people.

Sometimes it is difficult, in some situations to do what is right for everyone. Does that mean then that you always sacrifice your needs for the sake of others, or for the sake of what others will think. Do you really do that ALL the time? Come on now, be honest.

OP posts:
contentiouscat · 05/06/2007 13:49

Oh and "I wouldnt be close friends with anyone like that either" wasnt meant as a personal attack im sure we would get on fine if we met in the street and I didnt know all this

NKF · 05/06/2007 13:49

Ah BSB - what you are claiming there is that the morality of a situation depends entirely on the view of the people involved in it. Some people don't agree with position.

tribpot · 05/06/2007 13:51

But if he had really sacrificed his needs to the needs of others, he would have stayed with his partner, forever, wouldn't he? No-one's saying that relationships don't end, and that people wouldn't be better off apart, just that there is a way of doing this with some dignity, that doesn't involve sleeping with one person whilst still with another (who was pregnant - so she can't have cut him out of her life to that extent!)

I put it to you again, would you be okay if he went and slept with someone else now?

expatinscotland · 05/06/2007 13:51

Does that mean then that you always sacrifice your needs for the sake of others, or for the sake of what others will think. Do you really do that ALL the time? Come on now, be honest.

When it comes to the lives of children, yes, I really do.

Because I was brought up to believe I, as an adult member of a society, has a duty and obligation to put the needs of the most vulnerable people before my own.

And I don't consider it a 'sacrifice'. It's just what a decent human being does.

'If she wants a man,
who'll take the ring off of his hand
and then turn around and say,
that he'll be true
she deserves you.'

Original poster
BrownSugarBabe · 05/06/2007 13:52

goingfor3. I was waiting for that one to be asked. All I can say is I trust DH and we have a loving and communicative relationship. I would like to think that he would come and talk to me if he was feeling that bad. Because we are practically inseparable anyway I think I would know something was wrong 'cos we are one of those sickening couples who do everything together, and phone each other about four times a day. Sorry - I guess you all hate me even more now!

OP posts:
contentiouscat · 05/06/2007 13:54

Honestly - I would never knowingly do anything to hurt someone else and, having experienced this briefly, believe me it hurts like hell! As I said before I wouldnt consider a man who could do something like this, particularly the getting married so soon, to be good enough for me.

I really hope you never experience it but, being naturally cynical, I suspect once you stop looking so peachy new history may repeat itself and this time you will be the wife.