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.

I always feel a bit that the OW seem to think they've won a great prize
at least two unfaithfuls that go off together are taking each other off the market and sparing other people

it's not a crime to expect a bit of honesty and reciprocal trust and maturity in a relationship, particularly where children are involved

I am not referring just to you Houseofplain! Needless to say, I have been contacted in the past by other MNers who have been in not-by-choice sexless marriages who have had affairs but wouldn't dream of saying so on MN for fear of the flaming.

Surely if someone is in one of those sexless marriages that goes some way to justifying an affair?

Totally agree Sarahseashell... it isn't a crime to expect honesty etc etc

Maybe just maybe, there are reasons why a marriage can't be just thrown away just like that and sometimes in these cases, an affair might happen. It could end up as the biggest mistake ever or it could indeed keep a marriage going.

I think it's rather telling that I was accused of spinning some sort of "MN line" re. affairs, despite never having been on an affair-related thread before.

All I said was that, of all the OWs that I personally have spoken to, every one of them spoke of a similar process, which might as well have been scripted. I didn't make any claims beyond that. But now I'm told that I'm saying the same "line" that always comes up on MN, when I've never even seen it. I'd say that proves my point.

My ex stuck his dick in another woman because the poor diddums fell down the pecking order (of his own self importance) with small children whose needs, at that time, came before his own.
The OW opened her legs because she was desperate to get pregnant, having failed to sustain a mature enough relationship thus far in her life. Tis all very touching
Those of you seeking justification and patting each others backs for having the morals of an alley cat are quite pathetic, cowardly and most of all deluded. You lie, you cheat, you hide, you deceive. NONE of those qualities are in any way admirable.

Thank you mistressX, yes.

Before anyone thinks I am advocating affairs as the way forward for marriages, I am not! I am just trying to say that not 100% everyone who has an affair is an evil monster.

ok Owl then it wasn't the MN line... it just sounded like it

Seems to me OP lit the blue touch paper with a self-justifying post on an endlessly painful and controversial topic and after 2-3 follow-up posts has now bogged off.

I seek no justification Sassy, I don't need to. Nor do I have the morals of an alley cat. I live in a difficult marriage that I need to sustain, that's all. But I am one of the 100% cowardly, pathetic, deluded people obviously...

I am sorry to hear of your situation.

Like I said, I'm not emotionally invested here - I have no golden love affair, nor any resentment over having been cheated on. If they all say the same thing - and you tell me that MN also all say the same thing - can you really call it rubbish without wondering why that might be?

I'm not demonising anybody. One of the OWs I'm talking about was my sister. But there definitely seems to be a pattern to it, and it often seems to end with the man returning to his wife, leaving a heartbroken OW who still believes that it was meant to be and that the sun shines out of his arse.

Sassy I don't think anyone has been seeking justification and definitely not patting each others' backs.... can you not see that we are just pointing out that every affair is different and there are no hard and fast rules to this?

If affairs aren't wrong why do the two people involved in the affair keep it so quiet. Surely the people whose lives are beig affected by the affair should at the very least be told so they can make informed decisions which hugely impact their own lives.

Ex had affairs, I had no idea at the time but looking back I can pinpoint the affairs as they lead to him becoming very physically violent towards me and hyper critical of everything I did around the times he was fucking someone else. Had I known at those times it would have made it so much easier for me to wave him off to his new life with his very first OW (& jolly good luck to her). But he didn't want a divorce he wanted to fuck around and have me at home. I however personally like to have say in whom I share bodily fluids with and also being someone's punch bag and general slave was never one of my aspirations.

My personal view, if you're going to screw around with a married man you are responsible for your part. As a sane human being you have chosen to sleep with someone who has a wife and children then of course you are responsible and complicit in enabling the OM/OW in causing a lot of damage.

In my world it is simple I don't screw married men. For me personally it's not that hard a choice. Any man who wanted me to be his secret shag is not someone I want to be losing precious time over anyway.

I feel a bit sorry for exs OW the one he ended up moving in when I kicked him out. She got the biggest boobie prize.

Most MN all say the same thing because they tend to be wives who have been cheated on by their DH's and this, not surprisingly, colours their viewpoint to a large extent

I don't have the morals of an alley cat either

Fuzzy I am sorry to hear of your situation but there is a difference between fucking around serial womanising and one long term affair isn't there? Also the physical violence involved is unforgivable and no one on here would dispute that, but it is not always the case

But the people saying the same thing to me aren't the wives, they're the OW. BTW, none of them have had what I'd call alley cat morals, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. They've all had an overly romantic view of the man and the situation, believing that "love conquers all".

Not everyone does keep it quiet, fuzzy. Some women/men try to talk to their OH's but their OH's dont want to know because they would rather the marriage carried on like it does with no soul searching, boat rocking, no change, no making things better. Sometimes there are bigger reasons for this - perhaps a fear of the marriage ending and a preference to carry on in the marriage with affairs, as opposed to no marriage at all.

What you went through with your ex was dreadful.

Sassybeast, surely making one's partner feel neglected is a fault? or if that is too expressive a word it is a catalyst for un happiness. From the language you use about your ex it is clear you don't hold him in much regard. I'm just surpried anyone could speak in this way and then be supported by anyone thinking they were right.

Maybe not every man/woman becomes or is violent within his/her marriage when conducting an affair, I would be willing to place a very large bet however that they make their spouses lives pretty horrendous when in the throes of an affair, nit picking at everything their spouse does finding fault where before there was none...

I'm actually pretty ambivalent about people who choose to have affairs with married people I know of a woman who is having an affair with a married man, her reasons for having the affair, he loves her, his wife is awful to him and she's invested five years in this affair (during which time OM married his girlfriend and had a child with her!), so she doesn't want to give up on it just yet. All I see her doing is dropping everything for a quick shag with him and spending the rest of her time waiting for him to call her. Altho I think the wife has filed for divorce which has gotten friends hopes up.

I think the ows here are mixing up "justification" with the word explain. Nothing justifies and affair, but there can be explanations. It's all part of the process cheaters use to make themselves feel better. They need to "justify" it with reasons.

Then you have differing ideas of justification. "ohh it must be love...he's been screwing me for years"....."he's my soulmate"..."it's just me"..it's all just nonsense and all ends up pretty much the same way. Worst of all ows don't realise this is the same spiel trotted out by most married men, it's a script. But like someone said, I do think in a way, ows are gullible. They buy into the whole romance of the perfect guy, whilst he is deceiving his wife and kids, over years sometimes...it's just odd.

I do think though that on the whole most of the explanations are rather selfish. Bar the odd occasion where it genuinely is an abusive marriage, a marriage of power, with sex as a weapon, etc, etc. Mostly though people have affairs because they just can....I've never been cheated on, my judgement isn't clouded.

I really don't like this 'all OWs/ most OWs' type of idea. Not all OWs or even most OWs are the same and believe me, not all of them think that 'love conquers all' or some such rubbish....
But maybe some of them are looking for some kind of love, maybe it's because they have spent years in a less than loving marriage with an emotionally closed up DH but feel unable to leave because of their kids, the fallout, the huge life change whatever
How about cutting the OW a bit of slack?

There seems to be an element of setting oneself apart from the "typical" notion of an affair - with "typical" affairs being wrong, but this one being different. Because of the strength of love involved, the particular awfulness of the existing marriage, the hard life that one or both parties have led, their "right" to be happy now. Making a special case of it to avoid seeing it as any old man and any old woman, having any old affair.

Oddly (considering we're only four years into a really happy marriage, and neither has yet been tempted to stray OR experiencing a dip in the amount of sex we have) DH and I talk about this a lot; infidelity, affairs, marriages that survive them and marriages that don't... Partly it's because we both listen to the "Savage Love" podcast, and partly it's because we both read the relationships board here, and are horrified and saddened by the selfish behaviour that leads to so many people's lives being destroyed.

I think OWs don't get a 'fair' hearing on MN because most posters are parents. Parents who hear their children crying because Daddy doesn't live here any more, or who don't understand why Mummy is so sad.... a lot of the time we forgive hurt to ourselves quicker than we forgive hurt to our children. I know in my experience that I can be rational about people who hurt me - I can think about their reasons and their motivations, and reflect on how I'm not perfect either - but I am 100% irrational when it comes to people who threaten my children's wellbeing and happiness. I just want to destroy people who do that. SO .... I see where the 'rage' or 'bile' that has been noticed might come from.
I see it in myself.

Maybe that's why these threads are always weighted against the OW/OM? Because it breaks up more than 2 people's lives, and because one of them is having that break happening without their knowledge and consent? For what it's worth, I think monogamy is incredibly hard work and perhaps shouldn't be the gold standard of our society - but there are ways to open a marriage that preserve love, trust, and commitment - and an affair is definitely not one of them. When we talk about monogamy and whether or not we think we will always be monogamous, whether we'll 'manage' it - we have open-ended, frank conversations about what versions of 'monogamish' might work for us. Either one of us having a little something on the side, with our partner's permission? Probably not likely, certainly not in the next ten years. That would probably lead to jealousy and madness, knowing us... but hey, that doesn't mean that our attitudes might not change. A 'more open' marriage might be something we want, one day. We talk about it, we have friends for whom it works, friends for whom it was a horrible mess. But 'monogamish' is a possibility, with the understanding that our relationship, our mutual happiness and satisfaction, is what matters most. DH and I agreed that "honey, how'd you feel about a threesome?" is not a divorcing question, not even a 'our relationship is in trouble' question. But any kind of secret, furtive behaviour is.

What I do know is that betrayal of any kind, threats of any kind to our family and our children's wellbeing and happiness - the loss of trust - that would absolutely destroy what we have together, and that would be something I could never forgive. And DH feels the same way. So, erm, that's my long ramble over.
Sex is important. Excitement is nice. But trust and respect is paramount, and much, much more likely to be lost if either partner has an affair. And I think that's why OWs get a bad rap.

I agree with Eldritch, the OW OP has come in, given us her crap 'advice' and buggered off.

This isn't helping anybody.

I'm out.

Basically mistress all the answers you are all giving just compound people's opinions. In that scenario you gave the ow is entirely selfish. In her desire for love, she dosent care she is shitting on another family.

They don't want to change their life, it's called cake and eat it syndrome.

Exactly strings. The funny thing is you have ows saying don't judge...it's different....it's special. It's still the same unpolished crap.