Wanting to see the OW

[Ormiriathomimus]

OK. Many of you know my story. In short I am 3 month down the line from discovering DH's affair with co-worker. It's over, we are reconciling and doing quite a good job so far. After a few bumpy weeks when neither of us knew what we were supposed to be doing he answered all my questions, been unfailingly supportive and loving. He has addressed all the things that bothered me when his affair was going on - distance from me, intolerance towards DC, lack of interests in family events. Our relationship is (cautiously) better than it has been for years. In turn I have had a good hard look at the way I have been - I can't blame it all on my depression and on tiredness. We have explored stuff that went on in the past that set up resentments that never got addressed. It's fucking HARD WORK and I still get bad days when images dance around in my head and I just want to scream ...but I think we're getting there.

So..... all good stuff. BUT.....

...I want to see the OW. I knew her before the affair, I know where she lives, I have met her kids and her H, I went to her wedding. But since I found out it's as if she has snapped out of existence. And I want to see her again because inspite of the fact that I know she is a very ordinary woman with her own issues and problems and not some irresistible femme fatale - she has taken on an almost mythic significance in my mind. I want to see her being ordinary. (Ideally I'd like her to see us being happy together but I am quite prepared to admit that is childish and a bit needy ). I want to lay the ghost.

She has texted DH once a few weeks ago as if she wanted to resume contact but he sent back a very simple 'Please don't contact me again' so seeing her would be stupid and counterproductive. And she should be nothing to me. My issues and any unfinished business are with DH not her but still...w hen you have a sore tooth you can't stop prodding it with your tongue. She feels like that to me.

I won't do it. But I want to. Is that crazy?

I want to as well. Like you I won't, but it's about hearing her side of the story and finding out what he said to her/what they said to eachother to justify what they were doing.

I hate this, that this is my reality. But it is, and there it is.

I know exactly how you feel - however I do not know the OW and she and my STBX are no longer an item and if it hadn't have been her it would have been someone else

She lives in my town and when I get on the train etc I look at candidates (30, small , dark hair with specs apparently) and wonder if it is her

I also know where she lives with her DH and it is very tempting to go and buzz the secure entry and tell him that she was shagging my husband for over a year (but I will never do that)

I did see the OW in my case. She pretended to be nice to me and lied straight to my face (said she hadn't slept with my DH).

I had just found out about the affair and DH had just admitted to sleeping with her. She didn't know this and took the opportuntiy to lie.

I know you want to see her, but it won't really help. She has shown exactly how deceitful and low she is by asking to resume contact with your DH when he is clearly trying to fix his marriage. Ask yourself what would be gained by talking to a liar?

Just watch out how much of the blame you are putting on yourself. You, as the wife can take some reponsibility for marital difficulties (maybe 50%, maybe more, maybe less), but that is very different to taking any responsbility for the affair. He chose to do that, he should have chosen to fix the marriage but he chose to have an affair and that was nothing to do with you. It rarely is, affairs are about arrogance and selfishness.

I wonder if all betrayed spouses feel this? I certainly do and its a year down the line for me. About three months in, so about where you are now OP, I sent an email to the OW asking if she would be prepared to talk to me, she replied and agreed. We arranged time and venue and I turned up, shaking and having been phsyically sick on the way. Needless to say she didn't appear. I despise her even more for this cowardness. It was like another betrayal really and left me feeling ashamed of my neediness to "get more the answers".
I also echo what you say about getting her side of the story...I don't feel I've heard the whole version of events...its like only hearing one side of an arguement.
Would it of helped?...I don't know..I'll never know..and I hate that not knowing!

"You, as the wife can take some reponsibility for marital difficulties (maybe 50%, maybe more, maybe less), but that is very different to taking any responsbility for the affair"

Totally agree. I am not taking any responsiblity for his decision to have an affair. Nor did he ask me to. But we are using this time to look at all the crap that was lying around in our marriage - if a hurricane takes the roof of your house it's a good time to chuck out a lot of the junk stored up there.

tbh in this situation, if the OW was pig ugly, I don't think I could bear my DH to touch me again.

Apparently there was a study done on this, and percieved ugliness of previous partner does have a strong influence on how attractive a woman views a man. Vice versa and it has no effect on how men view women!

Has she moved on or does she continue to work at the same establishment as your dh, Orm?

RedRoseorWhite - I see what you mean about getting one side of a story, but there is no point getting the other side when it is very possibly a pack of lies, as in the case where I met the OW. You shouldn't feel ashamed of wanting answers, we all want them. But a lying and cowardly OW isn't actually going to yield any of those answers.

She's still there izzy. Odd considering how good the other job was

They don't work together anymore. I am choosing to trust him. I can't do anything else really. It feels OK.

You shouldn't feel ashamed of wanting answers, we all want them. But a lying and cowardly OW isn't actually going to yield any of those answers.

So true. Especially as she has made efforts to contact your DH again. You're not going to get answers from her. It might help to try counselling so you can get over these negative, destructive emotions.

I've been following your posts and tbh I think you are going to really struggle to get over this. I do feel for you. But seeking out the OW is likely to be unsatisfactory at best and highly damaging at worst.

" It might help to try counselling so you can get over these negative, destructive emotions! Blimey! I don't feel particularly negative or destructive. I feel quite positive and constructive at the moment....

Orm, I wanted to do this as well - difference in my case being that my ex stayed with her. I never did see her, and I'm glad - I feel now that I was investing her with too much importance.

I know you know what she looks like and have met her and spoken to her so it's a touch different - but what do you really hope to get from seeing her again? Is it so you can look for the mark of adultery? So you can see how she looks at your DH? Or is it because you want to speak to her? Or perhaps cut her dead so she knows how unimportant she is now?

You see, all of those things, IMO, still give her too much importance. Your DH has chosen you. He is working hard to get past the affair. She may still be at his work, but he's not working with her and when she tried to contact him he told her to get lost.

If you like to reduce it to such simplistic measures, you have won. You don't need to see the loser to know this.

thumb - I think the thing I need is to reduce her to normal proportions, to stop her being the bogeyman.

Can you maybe go to their place of work and see her in situ there? rather than up close, iyswim? Would that work for you? (Although you have just confirmed that you're definitely investing her with too much importance)

Feel for you.

I get urges to email or text the OW just to confirm what DH has told me is true - particularly so if I've had a bad day. I've obsessed about what she is like and what he saw in her.

But she lives hundreds of miles away so I tell myself that to move on I have to believe what DH has told me. And most of the time I do believe what he has said and then a tiny voice in my head starts saying 'What if...."

It's all so shit being in this position.

Don't know what to say ORM other than your feelings are very understandable.Sadly I see OW far more than I would like to.To enable DH to stop all contact with her I now take care of customers in the area he previously worked in, for the sake of keeping our business going in an already tough market.Believe me given a choice I wouldn't go anywhere near the stupid bitch.

And if that sounds harsh things she said to me when I did talk to her initially, and things I've learnt about her since ie. she's got herself in similar situation sending suggestive emails etc. and being an outrageous flirt behind her DHs back before, make me feel justified in thinkingif her that way.
I thought talking to her would help straighten out my head.It messed with it.She was so concerned and sorry and felt so stupid.
And yet it was all about HER. She was missing my DH and felt so empty without his friendship.She just found it exciting and fun.She was so relieved her DCs didnt know the trouble it had caused with her DH.Her DH was 'doing her head in' fussing around her all the time.He found the texts poor guy?She had been given a load of grief about it.Talk about ME, Me,Me.Like another thread on MN at the mo where the woman is having an affair after 20years.
Sorry ORM this is a chance to vent.Because now when I see her I feel nothing much.Our life is good and getting better,as hopefully yours will continue to do.Stay positive and strong.Shes not worth the mental energy or head space.But I do understand completely how you feel.But time really does heal and help as long as your DH continues to do his stuff.x

Hi I have followed your posts and think you have behaved and written with extraordinary strength and dignity. I have no direct experience but My father had a affair and my mum wrote to the ow (this was the early 1990 s) and asked to meet. They did and she found it very helpful in that to filled in the blanks for her but ultimately it meant she was able to establish the 'truth' which led to her leaving my father as he had still not been honest with her. She has never regretted that. However the fact that you have decided to believe and trust your husband means that no good could come from it IMO. It would just be looking back rather than working to move forward.

I think that what is at the bottom of this is a trust issue, not surprisingly.

I feel the same way- my h met all the women he sex chatted on the net and had some of them on messenger. He deleted all as soon as I forced a confession out of him, and I would kill to have seen it for myself, the two sides of their conversations. Even though I know from my own evidence that they were numerous, and therefore most of them will not have gone beyond a very few conversations.

My reasons would be , for me, so that I can verify for myself that they were as short and unemotional as he says (so why keep some on messenger?), and not internet relationships as such, to verify that he didnt actually meet any (none over nearly six years, really?), and to be really clear that the reasons he has given me for doing this fit with what the actual conversations show.

On the other hand, I suppose, Orm, it's just another way of processing the hurt. If any of us found out some extra pieces of information, and we had them at the beginning, they wouldnt have made much difference to our decisions to stay, would they?

In which case, if that is true, the real problematic issue is certainty of the truth, which we cant ever have.

And that is how life will go on in the present, too, because if they choose to do it again you wont know till afterwards, and maybe not at all. Its coming to terms with that, which is the issue, isnt it?

I have been there too, I knew the OW, but not as well as you. I didn't meet her but I had a long phone conversation with her.

She told me endless lies, I have no idea what she thought she would achieve, perhaps she thought I would leave him and he would turn to her?

I knew the things she told me weren't true- I had seen both their emails and texts, but her words still haunt me now. Yes I can rationalise them with the facts, but sometimes it doesn't stop things whirling and looming in your head does it?
I also find I mull over what I said to her and what I wish I'd said/hadn't said. Part of me wishes I had never spoken to her (she rang me), and another part still wishes I had asked some other questions.

I don't really know what I am trying to say here- I guess I wish I hadn't spoken to her, but it did give me an insight to her I wouldn't otherwise have had. Her behaviour towards me gave me the justification to blame her too I think?

I have followed your story and you are far more mature, dignified and understanding than I was. I still hate her and wish horrible things on her when she comes into my head- mostly that I want her husband to cheat on her so she has to cope with the feelings she was part responsible for dealing to me. I wish she didn't take any more of my energy, but I still have those dark times and we are years on now.

I know what you mean about wanting her to see you and DH are happy, I was deperate to get in night out/wedding etc photos with DH that I knew she would see. She wouldn't have known this I guess, but I can see the desperation in my face when I look back at those pictures and I regret this.

Our relationship is better though, I know people say this but it's true. After about two years it suddenly got much, much easier. I wish it hadn't taken this for DH to address his issues, but it did, and I have a better man and husband for it.

Orm - I can sympathise. Part of me would like to meet OW and ask her why the h*ll??? But obviously I won't, as it would just draw her back into my world, and frankly I am better off well rid.

Weirdly, one thing does get to me. I have seen photos of her (she posted a whole load of 'look what you are missing' type photos on an open facebook page after H dropped her). She isn't pretty, she's dumpy and ordinary, and has no boobs what so ever. She isn't bright either, and H has always had a thing for intellectual women.... It can't be that she was filthy in bed, as that part of our marriage was always great. I don't get why he'd dump me for someone so, well, unattractive. So I want to meet her to see for myself what it was. There must be something. But it wouldn't help me to know, so I've got to let it go.

In some ways I am glad the affair happened, as through it I have found myself again. I had lost my way, started to drift, lost my identity. Now I'm tough, and ball-sy, like I used to be. An old boss once said to me I had 'more balls than a rugby team....' At the time I was taken aback, but now I hang onto that, and live by that. H can never hurt me again, because if he cheats again I'm gone.

As for OW, well we have all of us got to let it go, and stop questioning, because if we are to move on with our marriages that is the only way.

Big hugs Orm, I wish I knew you in RL. You have so much rational strength.

I think in your situation, if she stays working at hte same place as your DH, then eventually you will see her again, if only at the Christmas party/another colleague's party etc.

You can't let her (rather than what your DH did) become an issue, so don't avoid going to work dos, other colleague's parties to avoid her, she'll be there, but she doesn't matter.

Eventually, she will see you two being happy without you having to rub her face in it, but more importantly, if she sees your DH every day at work, she'll see that he he is happier (which I'm assuming he is now, or at least will be if, you are sorting out some of the other stuff). She'll see he hasn't just stayed with you out of obligation and is now miserable, she'll see by observing him just get on with his life and being happy that she wasn't the love of his life, just a distraction.

And that is your revenage - you get to show her how unimportant she is/was, without having to do anything other than get on with your own lives, together.

For anyone still wondering about what the OW'has' to offer that you dont, I think all that is a myth.

What they had to offer is the type of fun on offer on a first few dates....ie they gave admiration, hadnt had time to spot any flaws, and didnt talk about bills or kids etc. They were in that early stage of making the man feel important, either consciously or not.

That admiration is the thing I think they are looking for, away from the marriage.

As someone said, referring to the thread from the woman wanting an affiar after 20 years, it is the attention.

There's a quite by one of the poets - George Herbert - I think.It is Living well is the best revenge.
That's what I intend to do.Both with my DH and for myself.Interests, hobbies, friends and treating others as I would like to be treated myself.With honesty,respect and empathy.
OW can go take a hike as far as I'm concerned.Yes I still have to cross paths with her,but thankfully dont have to deal/ speak to her directly.Hopefully now when your DH sees OW at work - that can't be easy for you- it will just remind him of how stupid he was ,and how lucky he is your still there to come home to.

I'm looking forward to the future,rather than back at the past and mistakes we have both made along the way.Hope in time you can too.

Good lord! I don't want to talk to her. There is nothing to say. I think I know why she did it and I know why DH responded to her. No mystery there.

I DO NOT want to here her version of events. Although I know all the material 'facts' now I am still hearing little snippets of incidental stuff that is helping me build up a fuller picture. At the weekend DH told me that the only time she expressed jealousy of me was when he was planning my birthday present. He told me earlier that they had had a text 'row' on the day when Dh, I and the DC were out at Thruxton racetrack for his birthday present - he waxed too lyrical about his day in his texts and it pissed her off. Although there isn't much about actual events that she could tell me that I don't know, it wouldn't take much to tip me back into uncertainty - her different take on certain things would be enough I suspect. Don't want to go there.

But I think I just want to see her - see her doing mundane things, like taking her kids to school - to make her human and ordinary. It's like she dropped off the face of the earth.

And to answer the earlier question, yes, DH is much happier. He smiles more, laughs more, sleeps better, enjoys doing things with the children. Tuesday evening I came home to a deserted house - then heard voices - Dh and the two boys were up in the attic playing with working on DH's model railway. All 3 absorbed in one activity. Made me so happy.