Hollow laugh from the OW

[Dandythelion]

I was the OW. As well as sweeping me off my naive feet into a 50 shades type sexual thrall, he convinced me that the marriage was dead, he'd hated her for years, he only stayed because he felt sorry she was going bald (!), they only had pity sex, she was horribly unstable and always threatening suicide, was a total hypochondriac, terrible mother, educationally bereft, emotionally subnormal and socially inept.

He made me feel absolutely beautiful and special and I couldn't do without it, nobody can make you feel better than an emotionally abusive man, it's almost an art form. They get inside your head and worm out your deepest dreams and promise to make them all come true. Then he makes them almost come true, but just dangles perfection out of reach.

You'll go mad trying to get there and you won't have the sense you were born with, the madness takes you over and morality won't enter it because you want to believe the fantasy more than you will listen to friends, family, conscience.

For all the wives who've been left by this type, sleep a little better knowing that less than two years on, the beautiful clever perfect wam they left you for discovers he's pulling the same stunt on new woman, and suddenly it's easy to see why the mental health issues arose.

Don't waste time begging him to come back, he has a cock where a heart should be and doesn't say a word that hasn't been carefully chosen to get exactly what he wants.

Thought it might give a wry smile tp those who have been there.

A wise and serene approach, Emma.

She just filled a space. - Yes. The hardest thing for me to learn was that I'd only been a space-filler. There was nothing special about my love, except perhaps my amazing ability to withstand bad behaviour - a quality shared by all the OWs, so not that special after all.

Thank you Dandy, for your honesty and your ability to look at it and admit 'it isn't the marriage'.

This: I guess the point was more that all the posters who've said they had no idea anything was wrong just didn't know what they were up against in terms of how the marriage was portrayed by someone who's emotionally dead. That was all.

is what I am coming to terms with right now. It isn't that he doesn't understand, if only I could explain it to him one more time, or more perfectly, or find the route to connecting.

As you say, there is a big void where emotions should be. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. You can't cure them with your love and understanding, and they won't change for you.

And these people? Can wear nice suits with smart ties and hand made shoes and drive really good cars and are successfull in business. You can't spot them, and they only show it after a couple of years, just like Dandy says. By which stage you can be married with babies...

You are wrong, Bogey:

"He wasnt EA when you were shagging him was he? But suddenly he was when he left you? Cheating on someone, lying to them and dumping them doesnt make someone EA. Makes them a shit, a dickhead and bastard, but not EA."

Cheating is DEEPLY emotionally abusive, and is classed as DV by some therapists, because of the trauma and the PTSD that results. As I said to my H: why didn't you and OW just arrange to have me killed (we live in that kind of place!) if you wanted me out of the way?' I have NEVER felt such pain and humiliation in my life and equate it to being emotionally killed.

And do you know what? It was deliberate. He had an affair 'because I felt angry'. Another abusive flag.

Lundy Bancroft says that cheating sadly is very common 'in destructive relationships'.

emmafrost is right - so sorry emma what an awful story and what a twat.

Don't waste your anger on the OW. Because, as the point is made, she could be anybody. If someone wants to cheat then they will.

I stick by my arguments. If the wife can be deceived, so can the OW. If the OW isn't being fooled, that would make her smarter than the wife, right? And of course she isn't smarter than the wife, because she will be likely be discarded and replaced, like OP. Both women get shafted, metaphorically speaking, don't they?

The man is the villain.

And arguing that the OW would get the same level of boost to her self esteem from a single man? Not likely. Married men are generally much better at flattery, at pushing buttons. Why? Because they are not looking for a normal relationship, they are after a bit on the side and they will say and do what they know will get them what they want. And they are, by definition, liars.

While I understand what you are saying Emma...it becomes more problematic when the OW and your ex shack up and you have to see the twats every time you drop the kids off. Its is hard then not to have hatred for both the knobheads. Personally I think OW are absolutely weak and lacking in morals and utter cunts!!

I like yourb post wobbly. I wonder how many cheated on Ws comtemplate suicide like I did. The OW is only innocent when she didn't kow the man was married no matter how stupid and vulnerable she is. She has a CHOICE.

All the OW myex was involved with knew about the kids...what the fuck???Its selfishness on an unfathomable level...oh and the utter irony is that these women were social workers one in mental health (that's the current idiot btw).

I am 3 years down the line I have had couselling, my finances are pretty much sorted I have a good social life and a guy I see for companionship-but the utter emtional devistation wreaked by these selfich wankers (exH and OW ) is still a terrible burden. I will be OK and the kids are fine but I forsee quite a few more years of emotional work before I feel truely at peace. Thanks you UTTER UTTER SELFISH WANKERS.

See how angry I still am the spelling has gone to shit. No I have real hatred and contempt for OW. I have friends who have been involved with married men and have dropped one because I have been disgusted by the excuses she makes to justify her behaviour!

tiredofwaitingforitalltochange Sun 21-Oct-12 23:31:55
It's too simplistic. Married men don't usually get involved with women who are sorted, together, self respecting. No woman like that would bother with such a loser.

Of course, I suppose it depends on the married man.
DW is sorted, together and self respecting.

We've been married 10+ years.

I did have an affair with DW while I was with XW. I stopped the affair. I went back to my EA XW, and eventually realised I couldn't cope with abuse and left.
Later, I ended up back with DW.

Did she know I was married at the time? Yes.
Did I tell her I was unhappy? Yes.
Did I say I was going to leave? No, I said I had to stick for the children.

I admire the OP for sharing, and at those who deride her for doing so.
I'm sorry her man was a twat.
Not all men are, nor are all women put upon plaster saints.

If you're tempted by a married man, do suggest to him he'll end up much happier if he really leaves, first. I would have been. And it would have got XW's irritation over earlier.

One More Chap I don't feel empathy for you either.

The really daft thing about this thread is the 'pantomime villain' quality of it and I think some usually sensible posters are getting sucked into it to an extent and upsetting others and themselves in the process, which may or may not have been the thread's objective. Human beings and affairs are not one-dimensional entities.

Not all OW have low self-esteem or require levels of deception in order to have an affair with an attached man. Not all OW get lied to or see themselves as victims only after they've suffered a personal injury themselves. Some OW accept personal responsibility for their part in events, offer no excuses and don't need to blame anyone for their behaviour. If on the other hand they find out that a man lied to them, they accept that this was hardly surprising as they already knew he was lying to several other people. They have a 'duh!' moment and live and learn. They are however not responsible for the lies they were told. The liar is.

Not all 'betrayed wives' have appalling judgement in men and should have seen this coming to them. If their partners had no previous history of infidelity, compulsive lying or emotional abuse and unlike the above scenario there was no evidence of lying to others, they cannot not be held responsible for a lack of foresight or judgement. Again if they are lied to, the only person who is responsible for that is the liar. Of course, not all wives are paragons of virtue in their relationships either but their responsibility for their behaviour in their marriages is entirely different to taking erroneous responsibility for knowing that they are being deceived.

Not all men having affairs disparage their wives, are cruel about them and tell lies about their marriages. Not all men having affairs are emotional abusers who target various women as their next 'victim'. Not all men in affairs lie to the OW. All men in secret affairs however lie to their partners. Some men's motivation for lying is much like everyone else's motivation for lying; something everyone of us has done in our lives at some time. It's borne out of a selfish desire to get what they/we want from a situation.

Not everyone who is involved in an affair is an evil man or woman. Good people will often behave very badly at some time in their lives.

The emotionally healthy ones take responsibility for it and position themselves as neither victim nor villain.

AutumnGlory Mon 22-Oct-12 12:09:07
One More Chap I don't feel empathy for you either.

Wouldn't really expect you too, I don't think.

It's pretty hard to understand some things from another's perspective - and you may very well be a much stronger person than I was - or in fact the OP was.

Just before seeing Charbon's post, I was wondering whether I had the nerve to tell about some friends of mine. They started their relationship while he was married. He divorced DW1 for OW, who has now been DW2 for about 12 years. While they were having an affair, I hated what his deception was doing to his wife. I agree with Wobbly - it is abuse, even if the cheater isn't usually abusive.

He married the wrong woman first time, it's as simple and as sad as that. He should have stopped the affair and started the divorce - actually, he did, but could have done it better. Thing is, I don't see how people in that situation are meant to proceed? Should he have stayed married regardless? They weren't particularly unhappy, but both are a thousand times happier now (she remarried, also more compatibly). How could he have known DW2 was a so much better match - worth the mess of divorce - without first having an affair? If she'd refused an affair, they'd never have got together would they? He and DW1 would probably still be in a meh sort of marriage instead of the much happier people they are now.

It's tricky.

OP , if you are not a writer you should be.... you have such poetic turn of phrase. Are you fishing for ideas for something you are writing ??

ike yes I can see why you would be furious in that situation. I will be quite honest and say I am sure my serene countenance would have been severely tested if ex had brought OW fully into my children's lives. To have to give up my children for periods of time when they were having contact with ex and OW and that this woman now has a say in my children's lives and upbringing would reduce me to helpless fury. I feel sick and angry just thinking about it. It makes all the difference.

Hang on a minute, we have no idea about this OP except that she foolishly fell for a man that was married. Once married it's easy to say we'd never do that...

OP it's shit.

As someone who has been left within the last 2 yrs for an OW I think the OP has been given a very hard time.

As other posters have been pointing out - it's the man who made the vows who is breaking them. I am totally aware of how charming, loving, kind and manipulative my exH is capable of being. I was with him for 25 yrs ffs. He found someone emotionally fragile ("feminine" LOL!) that would adore him and not give him a hard time about not doing his share of the shit work around running a house and having a family. Well, not for a few years anyway

Yes the OW are morally wrong - the OP admits that, she is not excusing her behaviour she is trying to explain it. Those things are different.

I'm angry with my ex for hurting my children, and I'm angry with her for being complicit in that and I do take some pleasure in the sure knowledge that it will all end in tears but all this talk of 'sisterhood' seems to miss the point that it has to include being 'sisterly' to someone who puts their hands up and says "I was wrong, I didn't think I was wrong at the time, and that's why I did it - but yes, I now see it was wrong".

This is worth repeating:

GobblersKnob Sun 21-Oct-12 22:20:09
Why do people come down so hard on the OW?

If the OW is single she is free to shag who she likes. As far as I am concerned all the blame should lie with the man who is married and couldn't keep his cock in his trousers.

I have been cheated on and felt only pity for the OW, who had been fucked over as much as I as far as I was concerned.

I don't think it's that tricky. Your friends could have acknowledged the attraction and how affairs can be illusory states that distort perceptions of satisfaction in a marriage, so the most sensible thing to do for everyone's wellbeing is to withdraw and remove the clouds from the picture. If there is incompatibility and genuine dissatisfaction in a marriage, a person should end it. There should be no expectation on people to stay in miserable relationships, but equally people shouldn't expect someone to rescue them either, or assume that the next marriage won't have bad patches or times when objectives diverge and compatibility and satisfaction levels are low. I think that in most long relationships there are periods when both parties are perceived to be the 'wrong woman' or the 'wrong man' for the other and it's a bit naive and romantic to think that a new person is always going to be one's soulmate.

Had your friends acknowledged this and retreated, if the marriage was that unsatisfactory it would have ended. The new relationship could then have started with a more realistic outlook on human relationships, without casting people as being 'right' or 'wrong' for eachother all of the time. Friends' relationships and our view of them create distorted pictures too. In those 12 years there will have been times when privately, they've questioned their 'rightness' for eachother, although they might not express that to others.

Sorry, my post was in response to garlic's incidentally.

Sorry I feel no pity. The bitch currently involved in my kids lives has no moral compass or backbone. Why involve yourself in another woman's domestic life? As far as I can see alot of these twats are immensely competitive and jealous of other women... not naice people at all.

Most OW must be spectacularly dim.

The married man having an affair lies to his wife, his children, his friends, his family, his colleagues. His life is a web of lies, deceit, betrayal and untruth.

And yet the OW believes all he tells her, and never stops to consider he might be lying to her too?

Garlic that man should have taken steps to end his marriage before immersing himself in the relationship. None of us have guarantees that relationships will work.

Well Sidge depends on the definition of 'dim' ...the twat currently involved with my ex has a masters in social work. However she is a compettitive selfish cunt who has the ideal of 'star crossed' lovers in her noddle...