I have written a letter to the OW but not sent it

[OWquandary]

Maybe it will help? Maybe I should post it here? I feel slightly better. I have forgiven DH in the main and want to put it behind me but I can't get her out of my head. Not in a crazy insecure way but I just feel so angry with her. Displacing? Maybe. I googled her and found out what she looks like, found out about her infertility issues, childhood in care, identity crises etc. She had a very nice blog post on a website. She could be my friend do you know what I mean? She's no femme fatale, just a seemingly nice woman who got involved with someone whe shouldn't, and couldn't let it go. I saw her in person recently (we work in different areas but same employer). Made me feel worse then better (she isn't some gorgeous glamazon, her arse is fatter than mine)

I just want her to know how much she hurt me. And I do mean she - of course DH did the hurting in the first place but she hurt me too. I expected better from a normal woman.

Absolutely brilliant letter, and it encapsulates the PAIN that is adultery and betrayal, especially this bit:

I need to have the opportunity to tell you how your actions affected me, and still affect me. We do not exist in a vacuum and I believe that we have a moral responsibility to others. You may not be willing to look back at your actions with any self criticism, which is your prerogative, but I feel that I have something to say.
I daresay that you were told several lies and half truths about me and about my marriage. The modus operandii of the cheater is to justify the cheating to themselves and to make the ?other woman/man? complicit in this ? they need an accomplice who will reinforce the lie they have told themselves. If I may say you played that role very well.
Perhaps I deserved to experience the pain of being cheated on. Perhaps my husband owed me this wound. That?s between me, him and our respective consciences. What I know, however, is that you knew I existed, you knew I was completely in the dark and you knew I am a mother, trying to make a good life for my child. ...

Beautifully written, well done, did it help writing it down?

But don't send it. Write it again, even more venomously, with more pain, - and then burn it up the chimney.

Why must you not send it? BECAUSE SHE IS IRRELEVANT (especially a 3 week fling). She really is not the issue, she was a SYMBOL. For him. 'She' did not exist in reality for him. 'She' was not loved and appreciated for who she really was, any more than 'he' existed for her. Sure, they had lots of excitement and magic, but that is fantasy. And even if you had not found out, done nothing, THAT is why it would have fizzled out.

An affair is a triangle. It is a means that the betrayer uses to reduce the tension between him and the person he 'should' be dealing with, to sidetrack and distance, into a FANTASY.
It is a fantasy. This is why reputable and qualified counsellors will not see people who are in an affair, they refuse to give their fantasies any credence.
So, if you write to her, you give her far, far more weight than she deserves. It also means that you acknowledge the swamp in which two selfish immature unformed people wallowed.

Don't do it. She only hurt you, because the person who owes you emotional, legal and moral loyalty facilitated it. So focus on that.

Agree. Letter a bit poncey abd excusing h. Why the fick has he hit her number at all.

Strongerthanbefore and Stillhurts thank you for your wonderful, honest posts.

Stronger: he sobbed and said he was so sorry, didn't want to let me go but he had to ...

Is just the hardest thing for wives/OW/women. Where is the truth, and where is the lie? Was he spinning a lie, did he feel something? This stuff just hurts, so much.

Stillhurts, did you know you were an OW and that he was married? What did he say to you, that gave you a relationship? (If it is not too difficult). How did you wife find out, how did he choose?

Tbh, I think you should keep the letter and read it again in a few days.
There's quite a lot about your husband.

Not sure what you would accomplish by her reading this. At worse she might reply and you may be illuminated about the role your oh played in the affair.

For all she knew, presumably, you might have been a mental case.
If you want to be with your oh, it might be better not known her side of the story.
Or maybe you do?

You clearly are still hurting, so you haven't really forgotten your husband. You have just chosen to misdirect your feelings, yes.
Perhaps you need to have some counselling to sort out those feelings.

Not sure why you have forgiven your husband. He lied and stopped it because he was caught, not because he felt guilty.
I wouldn't forgive an affair.

.OP you said this: I expected better from a normal woman.

Women who have affairs are ^normal". They are not waltzing around in fish nets and flaunting red talons.

Sorry to be blunt but you are making her a scapegoat for your DH and your preoccupation with googling her and finding out all about her is unhealthy, IMO.

Your idea of "How could she do this to ME!" is misplaced.

You were of no consequence to her. It's your ego that is bruised here.

You are trying to find logic for a very illogical set of actions. Lust and high emotion are not logical. They are utterly selfish.

No matter how hard you find it to believe, when someone wants someone else, they ditch the morals and just go with their instincts- and damn everyone else.

You will never know what your DH told this woman. It may have been that he had a crap relationship at home, that he was only staying until the kids were older, that he had made a mistake , that she was his soul mate....SOMETHING he said made her cling to him and want him inher life.

Has he said why he had this affair?

Contrary to what most people have said here- bar a couple- you ought to feel sorry for her- because she was I think spun a lie by your DH. I doubt if she set out to trap him. IME- and I have a couple of friends who've had affairs and have a male friend who had affairs throughout his long and stormy marriage- affairs begin because they "plug a gap" in the primary relationship.

You need to forget her and you are being a bit of an ostrich- it's DH who needs the full blast of your anger. The fact that you kept up a pretence all over Christmas shows to me that you don't like open confrontation and preferred to keep the peace and keep up appearances- to protect him.

You need to direct your emotions on him.

Good Morning!
I have just been able to NC back but I have read every reply, last night and this morning. I have been thinking about it a lot since last night and have decided a few things.

1. I am definitely projecting. I have dealt with it in my mind by separating what he did from what she did - but this is not right. It is he who hurt me - yes, she did too but it was his lack of ability to deal with it properly that dragged it out for 2 more months.

2. I won't contact her. I don't want the potential can of worms that would open up TBH - denial? Perhaps - but there needs to be an element of denial in self preservation otherwise I'd never get over it.

3. I haven't forgiven him, clearly.

4. I have been trying to find out as much as possible about her to de-mystify her. I think it has been helpful and unhealthy in equal measures. One thing that has happened since writing the letter and coming on here is that I have started to feel sorry for her rather than angry with her. I think that's a good thing. I read this article yesterday here which resonated with me. I am 31 and the friends that I have with fertility issues are still full of hope and options. The only childless friend I have in her 40s is childless by choice. This woman is 41 and from her blog I know that she has zero chance of having a baby and she wanted one.

I have tried to understand her as if she were like me or my friends. She has acted like a teenager in many ways and I have been boggled in trying to understand her. I now think she must have fairly low self esteem and be pretty unhappy to have latched on so strongly to a guy she spent only 3 weeks with (yes, it was definitely 3 weeks, I know exactly when they met) and to have continued to be so dependent on his attention after the affair finished. The more I think about it, the more sorry I feel for her - and yes, I guess I 'won' (the booby prize ) I mean - I have the marriage, a bit wobbly but ultimately salvageable, and I have the child.

Something else occurred to me when I read her blog entry, which made me angry, then sorry for her. She told my H she was infertile and they forwent condoms on at least one occasion. She then hinted to him that she might be pregnant. Of course I was beyond furious - and told H in no uncertain terms that if she was pregnant that would be it for us. Having read her blog it is clear that she has a less than 0% chance of conceiving naturally. It was just a drama she created to keep his attention.

Right, I'm going to work on processing all this stuff and putting it out of my mind. She is not the problem here, she is just a symbol. The poster who said that affairs are triangular is so right. She was a distraction from the issues that were going on between us and she is the only one who saw it as something more. My H treated her badly too, I know.

OWquandary, it seems that you are on the right track.

This is for you, and your OH to deal with.
No point in dragging the OW back to the triangle, if it has already been broken.

It might be a bit different if it was still going on, but then I'd remove myself.

Wishing you all the best in rebuilding your marriage.

hereigo youre post is a total swearie rant
might sound good in your head
but trust me in rl its more a faggy mammy pram face logic

op stop goggling and obsessing about the ow
there is nothing to be gained from psychobabble and idle speculation about her. stop obsessing about her blog,her appearance,her fertility

time to move on
get some composure,get some closure

Hereigo wow- you sound nice and emotionally illiterate too.

OP you sound as if you are on the right track.

I think you have to understand that women who have affairs get no joy from them on the one hand they KNOW they are doing wrong- but they do it usually because the man has promised them something.

Your DH has mistreated both of you.

But look- life is long. One day you will be able to look back on this 3-week affair as nothing more than a blip in your ( hopefully) long marriage.

But stop focusing on the OW and decide if you want your DH- you both need to understand why he strayed.

Actually what would hurt her is that fact you have child and she can't .

Perhaps that's why she had the affair . She's desperate for a baby ...your dh has proven his fertility .... Fucking bitch . I'm not excusing what your h has done ..he is a fucking bitch too .

You don't need to do anything to get revenge or hurt her . You have everything she's wants .

Best thing you can do is to live your life and be happy . If that life includes your H or not is up to you ,but that's your choice to make.

droves did you compose that post to be ironic
or are you really so daft

Fuck understanding why he strayed , that's sort of looking to put blame on someone/something other than the fact he wanted an illicit shag.

There is no reason good enough to excuse a man having sex with someone other than his dw/dp .

I'd rather you look at the reasons as to why you want him to stay .

the dh and ow are duplicitous shaggers

but all this obsessing about ow,well it distracts fdrom the dh. look he wasnt coerced into an affiar he chose to lie - he purposefully acted in a way that caused hurt to his wife

Scottishmummy ...not daft .

Ow had a 3 weeks fling and was hinting at pg after she told the bloke she was infertile .

Who knows their pg after 3 weeks ?

Few ...unless their on fertility treatment & had blood tests ect.
Loony tunes.

Either way she seems , from what we are told to be a bit mixed up .

Totally agree with the two involved in the affair being equally to blame .

Op deserves much better treatment than that.

Who knows their pg after 3 weeks?
It only takes two weeks.

Anyway, yes, there are two in an affair, and the OW is to blame if she knows the man in married.
But: who knows what lies he told her AND he is the one with responsibility towards the wife.
If it had been a friend of the OP, then it would be a breach of friendship, and the OW would be responsible towards the OP more.

In this case, I think it's best to leave her be. No point in concentrating in the OW.
The issue is the marriage and whether it can survive or not, without brushing it under the carpet.

Lueji ...you found out after 2 weeks ?

Still think ow was trying to get pg to someone else's dh.

I think it's perfectly normal and understandable to be interested in the woman your DH had an affair with.

The people yelling at you to stop obsessing are being ridiculous - processing what has happened to you involves understanding it, and that is likely to mean attempting to understand the woman who tried to rip your life apart.

Sure, in the long term she is insignificant and not worth a thought, but until you have processed the lies and deception that had such a big impact on your life, you are not wrong to be "obsessive" about details of what happened and why.

Your husband didn't wake up one morning determined to have an affair with the first woman he saw.

Something about the circumstances in which he found himself created a situation in which he allowed himself to have a sexual relationship with this woman.

It's quite sensible to try and figure out what it was.

And sorry for all the arseholes suggesting that you and this woman are equal victims of your huband's perfidy.

Your husband mistreated you.

This woman deserved no good treatment from either of you.

She wasn't his girlfriend, she was his mistress.

Once the sordid ugliness that was their relationship was out in the open she could expect nothing other than being dropped like a stone. That's the deal when you fuck a married man.

No matter what lies you choose to believe.

What would worry me is that it sounds like your husband dragged out your pain to make himself feel like he wad being honourable in the way he told her to fuck off.

His loyalty should have been to you.

preoccupation with demonsing ow is classic mistake
it smacks of an errant dh can only stray for a sexually avaricious and cunning woman who would stop so low as to try trap another woman dh by pg

trap?look no one traps a shagger or compels another into an affair
people stray because they want to, because they chose it
the op husband chose to be unfaithful

OP- you sound better this morning. That's good. I don't actually think there's ow't wrong with googling people. I've looked at exes and their lardy wives on FB and slapped my toned tummy appreciatively.

What's important now is to work on salvaging the marriage. If you want to. I personally wouldn't,but hey ho.

a fleeting google is ok
gut wrenching over blog and quiz motives of ow is indulgent and toxic

you need your own closure and bit composure now op
dont turn into a bulgy eyed wronged wife in response to this

the duplicitious shaggerss are your husband and his fancy piece

droves, I knew when my ovulation was, had symptoms and then period was late.
Disclaimer: I was not having an affair, but was married.
Just to point out that from sex to realising you are pregnant doesn't need to take more than two weeks. Some tests can be positive earlier.

But I digress.