So why do the OW do it?

[carolst]

So loads of threads discuss about the H and why they have an affair/emotional affair/whatever and the fault mustlay at their feet, but the OW have to take some responsibility don't they?

Why do the do it? How could they do it? Especially if breaking up their own family in process, and even worse if they have children?

My H obsessional texting affair OW has split her own family, claims her problems are from her own mother having an affair and splitting family, but yet shows no remorse and is actually out to get me for blowing whole thing open?

Explain please?

[Uppatreecuppatea]

I

[clam]

"You can't own a person."

But earlier you said, "He's mine."

[rockinastocking]

True. You've got me there. He feels like mine.

But if he went off with someone else, I guess I'd know he wasn't mine any more.

[Uppatreecuppatea]

I was the OW for a year. It was thoughtless and unkind, I know that. I don't know why I did it apart from falling in love with someone else. It became an obsession. I was married and so was he. He for 20+ plus years with grown children, me with an 8 year old son.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn't help myself despite knowing that what I was doing was destructive - I was willing to stumble in the debris of it all. It was an obsession. I thought I'd never be happy again if I wasn't with him.

My ExH caught us (he put spyware on my computer) after I confessed I was in love with someone else. He didn't tell me he'd 'caught me'. Instead, he confronted OM's wife with all the evidence and then they both confronted us separately at a pre-ordained time (after confiscating both our phones) - obviously at our separate homes.

I'd say that m ExH put me in a position that I could not endure (same for OM) and we were both put in the position - which we wanted - of leaving our spouses to be together.

We are now married and have been for three years and we are very happy. We honestly believe that we belong together.

The pain we have caused to our Ex-spouses is unforgivable and I wish our happy and stable marriage had started under better grounds.

I DO NOT think I have created a vacancy for another mistress. The misery we have suffered (also our Ex-partners who have suffered 10 X as much) would never incline me on this path again and I would say the same for my DH. It has caused MISERY for everyone involved. We are lucky in that we are sooo happy together and I don't regret our union at all. I just regret the way that it happened as there is no pride in that.

I never thought it would be this hard. For any OWs or OM out there: think very carefully about what you want. It is a difficult road ahead and nobody apart from your very best friends will accept you.

My DS is very happy though and loves my new DH. My EXH and I get along very well and we share custody 50 / 50 and are better friends now than when we were married.

It's not an easy path and I wouldn't recommend it. For me, it was worth it. I hope that you take some heed from my tale.

[AmITheOW]

I'm really interested reading this thread and would also be interested to know people's opinions of my position.

Ultimately I suppose I am the OW, but it really doesn't feel like it (apart from the fact that I can't tell anyone about him).

I'm seeing a man who has been leading a separate life to his wife for ages. They haven't shared a bedroom, let alone a bed for 6 years now and never go anywhere or do anything as a couple. In fact, they barely speak. Their children are in their 20s, one lives away but comes home most weekends, the other lives at home because it's convenient for her.

The key question is why they're still living under the same roof and it's purely financial. The fact that he hasn't actually divorced her yet is the only thing we ever argue about. He seems to want to do it all at the same time when he's finally in a position to sell the house which needs work doing to it before it can go on the market.

So, would you consider me to be the OW?

BTW, to answer the OP's question, I truly believe, as does he, that we're meant for each other. I never dreamed I would ever meet someone I could totally be myself with and not have to apologise for the fact.

[Merl0t]

AmITheOW, i would say that you are his partner emotionally but he is locked into a financial partnership with his wife.

I don't see why you can't tell SOME people, if they don't share a bed and don't socialise together.... do her friends know that they just live under the same roof now? or does she want to keep up the appearance? Does she not want to divorce even though the relationship is over? does she know about you though even though his friends don't know?

[Merl0t]

ps, sorry for all the questions, but you have a lot going on there, you need your own thread!!

[TheOwlService]

AmITheOW
Wow, you're brave posting that comment on this thread!
Hope you dont get too much of a savaging :)

[AmITheOW]

It's agreed between them that it's over and divorce will happen but I suspect she's keeping up the pretence for some reason. Yes, some people do know, and we spend time with some of his friends. I'm more wary of telling mine because I feel it's too much to explain.

I've often thought of starting my own thread but have been too scared about being flamed!

[AmITheOW]

Owl I know (see x-post!) but I'm not the first to have confessed! (Which comment in particular?)

[TheOwlService]

If you do start your own thread you may well get some "constructive criticism" !!! for sure.

Ultimately if you believe, as you say, that you are "meant for each other" then time will tell wont it.

I would read Upatreecuppa's post again, tho. Particularly the last paragraph.

[redbobblehat]

because thats all they can get imo

[TheOwlService]

Sorry AITOW, I meant your post as a whole, not a specific comment.
No you are not the first to have confessed, of course not. Just prepare yourself for the inevitable ...... Have a cup of tea and a biscuit ! :)

[Zavi]

I don't think the OW is doing anything wrong - assuming she's not also committing adultery/deceit.

There isn't an OW in the world who could lure a man - who didn't want to be lured away - out of his own relationship, of his own free will.

I've never been, and never would be, an OW (I wouldn't want anything to do with a cheating man ) but I don't think OW are doing anything wrong. After all, they're young, free and single!

I think any woman who thinks that an OW is responsible for the breakdown of her relationship with her deceitful OH needs a reality check to be honest.

[asktheaudience]

Surely you former OWs who go on to marry their OM realise that he must have felt as much love and devotion to their exWs as they do to you now, or they wouldn't have married them?

So you must all know better than most that relationships change and evolve? Which is why I don't quite get why you are saying how you belong together, it was meant to be etc. Maybe you're ok for each other right now, but who's to say one or both of you won't end up bored after 10 or so years, and start wondering what else is out there again?

As for not wanting to go through that pain again... well childbirth is painful too, remember? But we get a lovely cuddly baby out of it. And then we might want another...

[badinage]

AmI if they are separated and living in the same house, why doesn't his wife know he's in a relationship with you?

Sounds like you don't have the full story here. Would be very interested if you ever had a chat with his wife and asked her to confirm what he's saying. I bet their stories would differ.

To me, it just sounds like excuses to stay with his wife and keep you hanging on for a day that will never come. Even if it does, how many years will you have spent not living life the way you wanted to?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Actually, quite a lot of people get married because all their friends are getting married and/or they are under family pressure to marry, and the person they are currently seeing is all right, pleasant, similar libido, solvent, no addictions and no signs of violence or cruelty... sometimes people even marry because the relationship is stagnating and they are rowing a lot and they think that a wedding will fix things.

And at some point a new person enters the scene who is much more suited to one of the partners than his/her officially sanctioned spouse is. So an affair begins, blah blah, the new couple end up madly happy and, after a while, so does the other spouse, in a better place than stuck in a stagnant marriage.

[rockinastocking]

Sounds like our situation, SGB.

Hope so, anyway.

[KirstyWirsty]

lovingfreedom I think you have totally hot the nail on the head re the type of people who become OW

I would never become involved with someone who is attached never mind married .. Can't understand anyone who would!!

[Skyebluesapphire]

Kirsty - I'm the same, I never would cheat on anyone, or get involved with an attached person.

How I laugh now when I recall the conversations that me and XH had when we first got together, about how we hated cheaters and how we could never do that to anybody.... he had been cheated on himself and could never do that to anybody as he knew how much it hurt ............

[Greensleeves]

What a fascinating thread. Particularly Lovingfreedom and Merl0t's posts to one another - you both express yourselves so well, I have really gained an insight into how infidelity feels on both sides (it never having happened to me).

I agree with SGB that you can't "own" a person, have always believed that (but then I don't really believe you can own an apple tree, or a lake either)

but I have the same gut response of "he's mine" when I look at dh as Rocking describes. I think the "he's mine" thing is simply a function of how much and how deeply I love him, in relation to anyone else apart from the children. So it doesn't really imply ownership - they still have the right to sovereignty over their own genitals (rr. SGB threads passim ) I think maybe the possessiveness that complicates so many relationships may be to do with not articulating and properly understanding what rights and responsibilities each partner assumes are automatic when you lve somebody that deeply and have "committed" to them.

So while I don't agree with SGB that heteromonogamous relationship are soooooo last year, I think people have different expectations and presumptions about what a marriage - or a mutual attraction - entitles them to, hence the "we had no other choice" and the "yes you did" etc.

[Merl0t]

WEll, I would never do it now. But I was in my 20s once upon a time, and now I'm in my forties! I'm single now, but wouldn't dream of going down that path now for several reasons, because the man who'd want to initiate that sort of relationship would have NO appeal to the me I've become now, and because it is destructive, and self -destructive too.

[Alittlestranger]

@Wobbly and others. I do think the relationship between the parents and children is the most important one of all. Which is precisely why I think we have to get better at seperating it from the relationship between the two parents. Children shouldn't feel that daddy doesn't love them because daddy fucked over mummy. It's a tall ask I realise.

[Lovingfreedom]

But can we also recognise that when daddy fucks over mummy he fucks over the whole family....and all too often mummy is left to try to explain why everything is now fucked up but without mentioning the fucking over bit cos that would make things too fucking difficult for daddy....incidentally if my dc believe their dad they will think I kicked him out for two kisses on the cheek by an old school friend....crazy mummy...!!

[Merl0t]

It's a dilemma alright. lovingfreedom I also feel for different reasons like "daddy fucked over mummy" and I have told my children that daddy wasn't nice to mummy. Some people might think I did the wrong thing spelling that out but I was the one who face the particular questions posed by my children. I needed to give them a reason. Not immediately funnily enough, about four years on, there questions became more specific. I had to say that Daddy didn't treat Mummy with respect. I didn't want to endorse the version he will give them; that Mummy fucked off on a selfish, impetuous, whim. But, when the dust settles, they'll know it just didn't work out.