What sort of woman is this?

[SpiritualKnot]

Hi, been on here about divorce lots of times, just got a Q, I know I shouldn't be wanting to know this, but things still raw and torturing myself at times.

Just found out this OW has targetted married men before. She went for a married man had an affair then gave him the ultimatum of it's you wife or me. The previous man chose his wife. My H was the next in line to be chosen.

Why do some women do this? She's only 24, there's plenty of men around, why choose a chubby 40 year old and break up a marriage, especially where there are kids? She has a young child, is she looking for someone who is a good father?

Know I shouldn't dwell on this and obviously ex as much to blame and I am absolutely delighted and ecstatic at times even to be rid of the bully bastard.

But just want to know why a woman would do this and what the outcome might be?

I dunno. I suspect, sometimes, it's a matter of power and control. I used to work with someone who was alleged to have had a string of affairs with married men. While the affair was on-going, she seemed to revel in the fact that she could destroy his life with one phone call to his wife. She was very much in charge and that's how she liked it. I had heard that on a couple of occasions the married man left his wife for her, at which point she got bored and dropped him before going on to the next one.

I doubt that's the case all the time, though. And, as you say, the person who has the real responsibility in such a situation is the married man who's having the affair. He's the one who's breaking his vows.

Try - Spider Women here. It might aptly described her. Felt the OW in my case was very similar......

It's about half way down the page - whole article very good though

There was a woman on the telly last night, post Channel 4 news and she was young and only went for married men. She didn't give a damn regarding the consequences, only wanted them, had four on the go at one time, because collectively they gave her want she wanted in a partner.

Unbelieveably self absorbed and selfish. Fascinating nonetheless but I wouldn't give her the time of day. Attention seeking at the very worst.

I don't know.. we had similar with the ow in our case, my dp was her 4th attached man.

I think in some cases it's the challenge of 'winning' and being able to steal a man away from his nice life.. does that make sense?

She's never won yet tho, after 4 of them she's still on her own, so her method clearly isn't working.

I hope she one day endures even a fraction of the pain she's contributed to in four relationships/marriages that I know of.. possibly there are more, who knows.

Wasn't there something on a thread the other day where someone quoted a list of about 4 or 5 key reasons why people do this? I think I read it someone, can't remember where though!

The power/control issue was one thing.

Low self esteem was another. A woman in this situation may want to feel loved and protected, and going for a married man in some warped way, might represent this. The man has publicly declared that he is attached (ie, he's not some single young stud who isn't interested in settling down). Maybe it's about attracting a man with the right qualities to settle down? Warped, I know, because he already is attached, but I guess if you have low self esteem, you don't see the reality.

In her book "Not Just Friends", Dr. Shirley Glass describes this woman as an "antagonist". There are links between the character traits of the "antagonist" and the "spiderwoman" character in the Dr. Frank Pittman article that counting has linked to.

Motives are complex I think, in terms of where they were shaped and formed - possibly Father issues, or within the family of origin. Sometimes they are shaped by envy of other women who haven't been hurt and there is often psychotic jealousy towards women who seem to "have it all" - looks (such women constantly judge other women's attractiveness in reference to themselves), career, children, friendships and (in their distorted view) the fidelity and love of a man who is considered as a "prize".

In behaviour terms though, this is a woman who is wholly defined by her attractiveness to men and the power she can wield over them. Women are viewed as competitors and any female friendships are superficial or non-existent. This is a woman who doesn't like women, but has marginally more respect for them than men, but only in the context of competition and rivalry.

Very often such women detest the female children of their married lover, believing that a daughter will have more power to hang on to her Dad than a son. So even a child is viewed as a competitor. Although the wife in the triangle has never done anything to hurt her and is often completely unknown to her, such is the intensity of the competition, that the OW can hate a stranger,instantly.

Her interest is maintained throughout the affair by "wins" and not deepening feelings. The motivation is to get a man to sacrifice his life for her. Sometimes this causes her to lose interest and back out when he does that, sometimes the interest survives until something tangible happens, like a divorce coming through.

Although the OW would regard being pitied by women as the worst thing imaginable, pity her we must. Her life is going to be a train wreck and without the sustaining love we all have in our lives, from our healthy relationships with fellow women.

SK you are the winner here in a competition you didn't enter. The prize she won is no prize at all and they will both lose out in the end.

maybe she sees a man in his 40s as a more able 'provider' than a man of her own age

when i feel normal, you have it so right.... it is three and a half years, yes I have girls and she had to have them out of ex's life, never met me, scapegoats me for everything, sigh..... convinced ex i am the reason he has no money not her, she has had him spend so much money on her... she married him, we are divorced not sorted out finances yet, I do wonder if once final hearing happens if she will hang around... he looked ashamed when I pointed out how much money he wasted on her.. which surpised me... he is a narc anyways and she seems inverted one to me... I just want money for my children and to give them a home, he has no contact with the children, she was odd to them when she did see them! long story... her father rejected her, her mother allowed her father and stepfather to abuse her, she seems to need to rescue men, and has issues with alcohol as her parents all did... weirdo and they are welcome to one another and i can see kids better off away from them!!! they have secured themselves a place in hell, of which she conveniently does not think exist, she believes in karma, i think be carefull what you wish for it may come true...

OP,

You asked 'But just want to know why a woman would do this and what the outcome might be?'

My Father was also pursued by a much younger woman to the point where he came home one day and told my mother he wanted her to leave as he was getting married again to someone else. And by leave, I mean leave on the spot, no packing, just take your bag, put some shoes on and get out. This was about 11.00pm at night by the way.

What happened? they got married, had a son, and soon after he became seriously ill after his kidneys started to fail. Along with that little new development, his true personality emerged as well as his flirtatious ways. His new wife suffered tremendously. Really truly suffered because as is the natural Law; what you reap is what you shall sow.

How did it end? he realized the grass was not as green as it had looked from the other side of the fence (used to whinge to their mutual friends that he had made a huge mistake), tried to convince my Mother to take him back, she said no thanks! and he died alone in hospital from a heart attack.

In conclusion; WhenwillIfeelnormal has summarized it quite well, there is no prize here (other than a dummy prize) and if you were to ask my mother about this, she is genuinely grateful for the OW 'saving' her from alot of future grief.

SA

I think it is partly low self-esteem and partly being a thoroughly rotten person!

A former work colleague is currently having an affair with a married man. She is going through a divorce. When I asked her why on earth she was having an affair (he is an asshole anyway) she replied that it was about competing with his wife for his attention and time!

She also added that his wife is "fat and ugly" and therefore doesn't understand why he chose this woman instead of her!

Truly awful behaviour.

good advice, do you let her know you are disgusted, or do you say nothing, years ago a friend did the same, and i used to not say anything to her and be disgusted at her behaviour, she married him, then tried to take his son's off his ex wife to live with her, she told me she did not like them, it was for him, she got all but one in the end, i lost touch as I think she felt bad about herself seeing the destruction it causes a wife having to see what the consequences are of what she did to the innocent side... and the last time she told me she was fearfull he was cheating on her, she puts on a good front, is probably killing herself to keep him with perfectionist behaviour as a wife... although she complained his wife did not do the ironing (she worked full time with four kids) I remember seeing piles of ironing at former friends house often.... it is all rubbish and i think these women would have done better to have a few years of therapy to get over their father issues, as former friend also had a father who left mother and was not around much after....

I have told her that her behaviour is distasteful. She has been cheated on in the past and I asked her to think back and remember how it felt to be treated so badly!

I reminder her that he has chosen to marry his wife and she should leave well alone and have more self respect.

I think she is deluded enough to believe that he will leave his wife and she would have "won". In reality it would be like holding the winning raffle ticket and finding out that first prize is a dog turd!

reminded her, I mean!

She is duhumanising her rival goodadvice - and her comment about her rival being "fat and ugly" is revealing in itself. I noticed you described her as a "former colleague" and not as a friend. This is partly what I was alluding to downthread. Emotionally healthy women who value eachother don't describe women in this way - we don't reduce eachother to an assessment of our looks and we don't describe other women as "fat and ugly".

We simply couldn't be friends with women who are like this, hence the anatagonist having superficial, or no friendships at all, with other women.

gosh, she and I did the dehumanising of one another, I was emotionally unhealthy at the time, I can't be bothered to hate her anymore, I got to the point, after nasty solicitor letters, court cases where she and ex lied to family court etc, kids being hurt etc, to three years later looking at her in her wedding photo and being able to think she looks happy, that looks like a nice dress and thinking he looks miserable and I know what life is like with him... and not having bad feelings towards her know, just what she did in the past... also what was revealing is that she and ex still have negative obessions with me... he let so much slip recently in finances court, he and she resent money for kids and their home, he was calling me again an insignificant memeber of society... it was a regular along with being ugly inside and out and having split ends and roots that needed doing, my friends at the time said it was all from her, and looking back they are not his type of words... also the scapegoating me, for what the law say she has to pay and ignoring the five figure holidays and engagement ring he bought her, getting himself into six figure debts... form E's show up so much!!! I had a hundred and fifty pounds engagement ring, I would say lets spend the money on a house deposit instead... she was all for wanting money spent on her, her friends and family.... and I am sure she will pay for it eventually....

maybe i am more emotionally healthy now that my anger is in the past, I don't feel like I used to, which was wanting to do violent things to her, if i walked past her in the street I would do nothing now, I get the feeling she would want to kill me...

can you believe that she and ex sit and lookthrough how much money I have to the point that he can check without looking how much I have from DLA etc, and is continually comparing his income to mine for the kids and house.... there has not been one judge who has not advised him that he has to pay for his children and their needs come first, it is all about him and potential future children in his mind... they sound like they love to sit and be negative about the money spent on the kids and get into a state about it he was on the phone to her when we were waiting to get back into see the judge and I could see the anger from him and her in his voice in the other end of the room depsite him trying to not let me hear... they are enraged... this is probably why they want to have married men the constant thing of feeling ripped off and scapegoating the ex wife, when it is the law that they are angry at, my children have entitlements and I would be a fool not to get them for them.... anyways the state will not help and tell you to go to court.... otherwise you make yourself purposely homeless, I would have been better off if we had nothing and I could have claimed benefits....

exh's wife does not have to pay, he has to, but i get the feeling she feels she is paying out of their joint income and she wants the money for herself!!

i also think that the ow picking on things is now something that through counselling I can see as projection of how they feel about themselves, this helps me so much now, not take on the abuse!

I think she's a crazy woman - I HATE that my DP once made the decision to spend his life with another woman, no matter how much he regretted it afterwards and despite the fact their 'marriage' brokedown spectacularly afterwards - or that I was 14 when it happened.

I think you all have very good points but I wonder sometimes if women have a tendency to psychoanalyse too much - maybe the decision to have an affair or be an OW is not the manifestation of a bad childhood/relationship with their mother/ underlying issues with themselves - but just happens because people are selfish/short sighted/think they will get away with it/ have feelings for another person. I see people defending cheating Hs all the time for various reasons and often think - no offence intended - they are looking for excuses when actually their H or P just wanted to or is a bit of a prick.

happiest but we are discussing a specific type of OW, not all of them. I would never say that all OW are like this at all. There are OW who love deeply and are kind and good people, engaging in a behaviour they feel guilty about, not least because this is so out of character - and deceit and hurt is not something they enjoy.

We are talking specifically about the type of OW who feels no guilt, seeks out these relationships and who is capable of hating her unknown rival and even children in her lover's relationship.

I have noticed that some MNetters cannot acknowledge that women are even capable of this behaviour and are locked in some time-warp stereotype about all OW being "victims" of unscrupulous men. Whereas I think it's more helpful to acknowledge that both of the parties involved in an extra-marital relationship are behaving badly and that some behave worse than others (the OW and the Hs).

Very clever of you WWIFN to pick up on the fact that I did not describe her as a friend! She is not!

When we worked together (and often saw each other socially at leaving do's etc.) there always seemed to be tension between us but I never really understood why.

Some years later she confessed that she was jealous of me!

She treated every guy she ever dated like dirt and on one occasion, when leaving for a promotion, made it quite clear she thought she was better then anyone else in the office! I did laugh to myself when she came back to the office a few months later - she left the new promotion under a dark cloud!

I caught her out telling a lie once and was always very wary of her after that.

I think a lot of the nasty things she says about the wife are projection to be honest!

This has brought back so many memories of her behaviour over the years ....

Thanks for the replies and for the link to the Spider woman article. Seems like quite a few people know about this type of woman, first time I've had the misfortune to come across one.

I really don't want my 11 year old dd to meet this woman really.She knows H left me for her and doesn't want to meet her as yet anyway (very brief meeting early on without my knowledge that dd wasn't happy about) Any opinions on this?

Wow. This is fascinating. The OW in my relationship has many of these traits although she is late forties and married. She tried to cultivate my friendship at the height of the affair and got very involved with my children. Yet, I always sensed that she had no empathy or understanding of women or of being feminine. She actually told me that she got too close to my xp because she didn't have any female friends she could talk to about her problems. She is obsessed with her appearance and is always planning the next bout of cosmetic surgery. She knows lots of women but seems to constantly fall out with them, texting insults like a 12 year old and even having physical fights. Her self esteem is non-existant. I always thought she was troubled but now I almost feel sorry for her. The last time I saw her she was blind drunk and in the process of getting thrown out of a pub for fighting with one of her "friends".

For that reason I have told my xp that if our 9 year old ds ever sets eyes on her again, xp and ow will regret it for the rest of their lives. Tellingly, my xp did not disagree!

SpiritualKnot, if your dd has chosen not be introduced then you've got some time to play with. Chances are, it will all go tits up by then.

WWIFN - ah I see. In that case a terrible sort of women. I think you're entirely right that these women are not victims - it's bad enough to go after a MM but if there are kids and you aren't doing it because of a serious, lasting and uncontrollable love then it is unforgivable