OW perspective

[ListenBeforeJudging]

I'm fully expecting a flaming...this will be long.

I've spent many months lurking and reading the posts about all the affairs and suspected affairs and to be honest, it's helped me get over my own hurt. It's not often that the OW perspective is aired and I wanted to just let you all know that we're not all evil home-wreckers. There are always two sides to the story.

I had a male friend at work. We were good friends for quite a long time - nothing more in it. Then one day, out of the blue, he confessed that he'd fallen for me. I was gobsmacked, hadn't seen it coming and immediately distanced myself - I was angry with him as I didn't know what he wanted me to do with that information as a) he was married and b) I'd never thought of him like that.

I had a lot of time invested in our friendship and knew him well (albeit only at work) and knew he wasn't the typical straying type. I considered him a genuine friend so over time we talked it through. He confided that he felt that his marriage had broken down and that he'd been wanting to leave for at least two years (they'd been married for 8, had married young, no kids and it had descended into something platonic). He was terrified of leaving as he knew his wife was still in love with him and would be very hurt. His whole adult life, his family and all his friends were wrapped up with her.

For months we tried to put the situation behind us and carry on as normal but he told me that for the first time, he knew that he had to leave as if was capable of feeling the feelings he had for me there was no way back to fix his marriage.

We became closer and I started to develop feelings for him but still nothing happened between us. Then he told me that he was going to tell her that it was over. I was away and didn't see him for a week and when I came back he said he'd told her that he wanted out and that the 'wheels were in motion'. It was then that our affair began. We fell deeply in love.

With hindsight this was my biggest mistake and greatest regret. Long story short she was devastated, he couldn't go through with the pain he was causing her and for the next two years we had an on/off relationship (while managing somehow to have a consistent friendship) while he tried to extricate himself from the situation.

Then she found out. He cut me out of his life 'temporarily' while he 'sorted things out' (by this point we no longer worked together). I waited 3 months before seeing the light and telling him that it would never happen and that it was over. 4 months after that he left her. It was too late for us. There had been too much pain caused.

He was the love of my life. I still miss our friendship. I've felt the worst pain of my life over this.

My point to this story? I never planned to fall for him although I accept that I made some bad judgements and got in over my head emotionally. I've spent the last two years regretting what happened. I dream about his (now ex) wife often and want nothing more than to contact her to apologise for the part I played in her hurt - but I know that would just be indulgent and of no value to her when she's trying to move on.

My genuine belief is that if all was well in a marriage there would be no reason for a man to find solace/confidantes elsewhere. My advice? Talk about your concerns with your DH - before things get to the point that you can't communicate anymore.

40 - I do know what you mean. My H despised people who cheat, his father left his young family for OW, his BIL left his sister and one week old baby for OW. And yet he cheated.

He said it was a long series of steps where he gradually broke boundaries, down the slippery slope into an affair - from innocent friendly conversations to flirty sexts and finally shagging.

Tadpoles and a couple of others - but having an affair isn't the opposite of monogamy. I agree that for some people monogamy can be an unnatural state that doesn't work. But the only reasonable alternative, IMO, is an agreement to have an open relationship.

If my husband were ever to decide that monogamy wasn't for him, I would want to have the opportunity to choose - before he slept with another woman - whether I was prepared to live in an open relationship, or whether I wanted to end the marriage. To have on a secret affair would be a high-handed and selfish denial of my right to choose.

For many people, choice wouldn't come into it - they embark on marriage intending it to be monogamous and lifelong. If their partner decides part-way along that this isn't what they want, then that's probably a deal-breaker for the marriage.

HoP, as I said, I don't know how, so I can't. The fact that someone else has seen it proves what I said.

And again, you don't have the right to criticise me if I say I can't be bothered to post, then decide I do want to respond. It depends how a thread develops, how work goes, how bored I am, what colour the sky is on a given day. Who the heck are you to tell me what I can and can't do? Crawl away.

Mad but that's different. you don't know what someone else is capable of. He may have thought he was wrong. That doesn't mean other people don't actually know themselves.
I know me. My good points and bad (which I try to work on) I know what I am capable of and what I am not. I have had my head turned by an attractive go worker who made it clear he would shag me. Me and dh were having a really bad time and had been for a few years. The other guy was attractive (me and dh have always agreed finding other people attractive is not cheating) but when he made it clear he fancied me, I made sure I kept my distance and was clear it was never going to happen. I told dh I was unhappy a few weeks later and we split for 6 months. we got back together and are better than ever. Not once in the 6 months did I go near the other person. If my marriage was over, it was because it was over. Not because some guy made a pass.

It proves nothing. You are wrong, you won't find anyone here using it. We aren't all at your level.

40 using THAT word is offensive. Quite ironic, given you first post.

'Some men are cunts. Some women are cunts and don't give a damn about who gets hurt in the process. I was a cunt when I was an OW but, as I say, it came good in the end. My sister's ex was a cunt, his OW was a cunt (she was a friend of them both) and now my sister and her current man are total cunts'

Um, I'd say this was a whole lot more offensive, wouldn't you? And to women... how ironic.

So that's why you used that word? Because someone used a word you don't like?

So where is the quote consisting of the word retard. You insist was used? We aren't playing snap here. You have insisted the women of mn use the word retard to describe men like your dh, they don't.

And that was by CanISawItOff btw. That, and nasty words by AnyFucker were the reasons I first posted, about the general vitriol and vile behaviour. Only any points I make are invalid on MN-land because I was once (shhhhh whisper it) an OW. No matter that I might be able to offer some insight, which is all the OP was trying to do and got a flaming immediately for being (whisper it again) an OW. But no, the self-righteous pompous perfectly moral-compassed on here command the threads and the forum and can dictate who the right to an opinion or not. MN makes me sick.

Maybe your points aren't valid, because they don't stand up to scrutiny and there is no truth behind them. Just saying.

Dprince - I get what you mean and I feel the same as you do about me having an affair. I would never want to destroy my family.

However, good people (as well as bad people) do have affairs and sorry to bring Shirley Glass back into this again but in her book she describes so well what would be happening in the cheater's head and in the marriage - unless you have well established boundaries and is aware of your vulnerabilities (and hopefully are working on these), its very easy to fall down the slippery slope into an affair.

She talks about the affair prevention myth i,e that having a strong marriage will prevent affairs, is a dangerous one. Addressing your own weaknesses, vulnerabilities and having strong boundaries are what will help prevent affairs.

She also writes about different types of affairs e,g exit ones where the person has one as a way of leaving the marriage...

'So that's why you used that word? Because someone used a word you don't like?'

No DPrince, I am far from that simplistic or that touchy. As I do not know how to link to old threads, I was using that as an example of the nastiness and offensiveness that goes on here. Because HoP pretends it doesn't and can't happen and MN is whiter than white.

There is nastiness on here and swearing I don't deny it. You shouldn't either...go back and read your first post. Rather snidey, nasty and confrontational.

You said however, mn posters use the word retard as an insult. They don't, they are more socially intelligent like that. You can't go around making points, with shockingly offensive words, such as retard, without it being true. It says a lot about the character of a person who uses the word regard in such a manner. I've never seen it used and condoned on mn.

Mad - I completely agree that the act of having an affair does not make a person bad. The action is bad, but I don't believe one mistake should outline somebodies entire life.
I think that is why I know I won't have an affair. I don't believe my marriage is perfect, its a good marriage, I don't believe I am perfect, I don't believe dh is perfect. We are people who have spent alot of time learning about eachother and ourselves.

Sugar no of course you wouldn't want to see me.... any more than you'd want to see any counsellor who would challenge your thinking, or read any of the many books where you'll see your own delusions that have been had by millions of OW the world over....it would frighten the hell out of you that your life was so scripted and your situation not unique or special after all. You're not brave enough for any of that. You'd rather hit out in spite at anyone who challenges your world view.

You also misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying that affairs don't occur in unhappy marriages.....that would be as absurd and absolute as your own position after all and I personally have no need of mantras like that. In fact I am saying that there are lots of different reasons for people having affairs but that marital dissatisfaction is but one of them.

It really is a very naive position to think that marriage defines people in the way you suggest - and is the sole source of people's happiness or unhappiness. Most people lead full lives with each aspect having the capacity to bring joy and disappointment in equal measure.

Within our western culture however, sex and romance is such a powerful lure and sex especially connected to competing emotions of pleasure and shame, an illicit sexual relationship has greater initial 'feelgood' power than more innocent pleasures, such as a child's success, a promotion at work, a bigger house etc.

What I've found is that people are vulnerable if the thing that has defined them strongly in the past is going badly. For example, people who've always had low self-esteem, especially regarding their sexual attractiveness or appearance. If this has been a defining thing for them, they are especially vulnerable to someone new finding them attractive, especially in middle-age. For others, it will be work - so a bad patch there and especially when they get some external confirmation that they are not as good as they've believed (e.g career failure) will produce vulnerabilities. Or if a parent or child dies/leaves home, leaving a role in life vacant. None of these things have anything to do with a marriage and I've found apply to the average joe who's a decent person at heart, but who hits a low point in a long life that has been lived for the most part ethically. None of this applies to serial philanderers of either sex because they have very different motivations.

You can know yourself if you've been tempted and said 'no' anyway, even if you could have got away with it and no-one would have been any the wiser. What you can never know is what someone else will do and also as human beings we go through different stages of life and are vulnerable at some times more than others. I'm afraid the recurrent personality trait regardless of any of these factors is selfishness and only the seriously defensive and deluded would disagree.

My genuine belief is that if all was well in a marriage there would be no reason for a man to find solace/confidantes elsewhere. So if everything is not hunky dory all the time in a marriage, then the wife only has herself to blame if the man has an affair. She should have kept her man happy at all times? Bugger off with your patronising advice OP

Who were you quoting? You keep saying this, but you can't say who? Again your points don't stand up.

Please don't pity me, I am not with my husband because he threatened to kill my kids.