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?

[LittleEdie]

Excitement.

[Zavi]

Merl0t, just out of interest: did your kids' Dad ever want to take the kids with him when he left?

I often wonder how many men would still leave their OH's if they had to take the kids with them when they left...

[DiscretionAdvised]

There is no one size fits all. I agree that there are some men(and women) who are just after what they can get. However there are many who simply fall in love. I believe it is possible to marry the wrong person, for the right reasons. It is also possible to fall in love with some one else. Sometimes it takes the lantern to recognise and be brave enough to address the former.

So here's my story....

Dh and I have been together 14 years. We had our ups and downs. We have three dcs 8,5,2. We get on well, we enjoy doing the same things has a good dad. However there has never been butterflies, rarely passion. We hadn't had sex for two years. I stopped fancying him. He's not a bad man and everyone likes him. We are from different backgrounds and have a very different education and careers.

I had known I was unhappy for a long time but lacked the back bone tondealmwithout.mwanted more but felt that the rest only really existed in fiction. What we had enough. However whilst on a work trip got to know a colleague, he is also deeply unhappy, wants out, lacks the courage and belief that there is someone else there for him.

That was 5 months ago. Within a week of my getting back from that trip dh and I agreed to separate. A intense ea with the om started immediately. We started with the physical, then stopped but restarted again. Dh moved out two weeks ago. He doesn't know about the om. The om will leave his dp in about month (financial). We have completely fallen for each other and I'd do have high hopes for the future.

It has been extraordinarily painful. Intense guilt - I do care for dh deeply. Gilt for hurting my children and breaking the home. I have spent five moths watching my phone waiting for texts, distress, frustration, vulneribilty. Thinking of your om at home as a family, no matter how dysfunctional, is horrid . Waiting for the om to leave is horrid. It's been a tough time. I believe that the om is a good man and that wee have a chance of happiness ahead of us.

So that's why I am the ow.

[ChateauCollapso]

Probably because it's an easy flirt. They think they can do it because a married man is a safe bet. No consequences. Ha ha when the wife finds out they don't want to know. I think it's a massage of both egos until they're found out then it's not a secret 'love' thing anymore and their sordid seedy affair is shown for what it is. Not so fab when the wife knows and they may be landed with an old fat git that they hadn't bargained for!

[DiscretionAdvised]

Chateau, that's completely narrow minded. I suspect it's a very small minority of ow that are happy being the ow and actually choose to be so.

[ChateauCollapso]

Sorry - maybe I'm just bitter!!

[GinAndT0nic]

DiscretionAdvised, I would have waited 'til the OM left his wife before I told my husband. I HOPE you don't end up on your own with 3 children. It's a long old haul.

[badinage]

I thought that too, but the husband doesn't know about the OM does he? Hope he's not being used as the fallback kid if OM doesn't follow through, or if he is that he sees right through it........

[DiscretionAdvised]

I made the decision ot leave DH regardless of the OM. DH knows nothing. I should have left my DH a long time ago but never had courage to do it. Catalyst / exit affair - call it what you like. Decision was based on my marriage rather than the OM. Whilst I hope it works out with the latter I have not left DH for the OM.

[badinage]

So what's the problem with being honest with your husband about your affair? After all, he presumably agrees with you that your marriage was bad for a long time because (again presumably) you told him it was and you tried working on the problems together, before you had an affair? Or is that not the case?

IME, people who leave only when there's an OW/OM on the scene delude themselves that the affair was merely incidental to their decision to go. There are usually only two reasons why they lie to their partners about there being someone else. One is to keep something in reserve if the new bloke/woman doesn't work out and the other is to avoid any blame for the marriage hitting trouble and ending. Either way, it's manipulative and quite cruel to lie about an affair and decide that it's an irrelevant detail a partner doesn't need to know about. I hope the OM is more honest with his own partner, that's if he ever leaves her, which is by no means a certainty.

[ineedabodytransplant]

Lovingfreedom,

You're no 4 poor thing.

I was in a loveless, sexless marriage. IF I had found myself with an OW I would have been telling the truth. But I never felt I deserved a shag!!

Mind you, after coming on for 16 years without a shag I deserve something, even if it's only a kiss and cuddle

[DiscretionAdvised]

So I haven't told dh because I feel that it will only make a fragile situation worse. We have three children and need to be amicable for them. To tell him now will create hurt upset and make it even harder to be co parents.

Fwiw I am hurting unbelieveably right now. The om has just told me he can't carry on as he is feeling too much guilt. He wants to be free before we continue our relationship. I have a lovely meal cooked here. He will move out in a months time but tell his partner next week. I have a crap time ahead. I have fallen for completely and incredibly vulnerable right now. Being the ow is horrid, no one would ever choose it and its certainly not selfish or exciting.

His dp is violent, manipulative and toxic. And no it's not just what he's told me to get into my pants. The latter he could have had in abundance.

[badinage]

It will make life harder for you of course because then you'd have to take some blame for the problems in the marriage, especially since you started your affair. But it might stop your husband blaming himself totally for the end of your marriage and the problems within it, but I don't suppose that suits you?

Unless you live in your OM's relationship, you've got no idea what it's really like. No-one has. Just as he's got no idea what it was really like in your own relationship, especially before the affair started.

What you're doing might not be exciting anymore, but it certainly is selfish.

[badinage]

Also, don't fool yourself that just because a man doesn't jump at the chance to have sex when it's offered, it means he's in love or is a decent sort. It could means lots of different things: that he's not very motivated by sex, that he's still attached to his partner and associates sex with ultimate betrayal or that he's just not that into you. What he's just told you sounds like cold feet to me, so I think you should prepare yourself for being hurt. FWIW I do feel sympathy for anyone who's hurt, but of course that includes your husband and your children as well as you.

[AnyFucker]

DA, all your posts serve to convince me that some women make the same shitty excuses for cheating and continuing to deceive their ex-partners way after it would have been kinder to tell them the truth, that men do

[DiscretionAdvised]

Maybe selfish, maybe not. The full situation isn't written here. I have posted it under my normal name and it far more complex but outs me (look at the read it and weep thread in reltionships, my other name is bpm). I will tell dh, but not yet. I had planned to do so in a few weeks time. I hate the deceit. Every single one of my friends that knows my situation and our relationship in rl says don't tell yet as it will gain nothing. These are people that care deeply for dh as well.

The om's relationship with his partner are certainly complex. He is the epitome of the abused wife going back for more. Yes, of course he could be spinning me a web of lies, but I truly don't believe it. I believe he will tell her next week which is why he's so fucked up at the moment.

I accept the point that maybe he's just not that into me which is why he has backed out. I believe though for the om, it's not betraying his dp, but lying to his dd. he is scared of his dp and knows she will not give him easy access. He is in a very very bad place emotionally right now. I do know that neither of us are bad people and I know that I have fallen in love. Again I can't stress enough that my marriage was over before this I just didn't have the courage to do anything about it. I decided to end it before the om but was going to wait. Wait for what I don't know. We haven't had sex for two years and I don't want to. It wouldn't right to stay for sake of kids. I won't go back to him even if it doesn't work out with om.

[badinage]

Yes that was the thread where you said repeatedly that your marriage was happy before what happened to your daughter wasn't it? Which was revised after the affair and the unhappiness backdated to long before the tragic incident, despite what you told an anonymous forum at the time?

You must know that the new 'my partner will become difficult about me seeing the children' is as hollow these days as the old 'my wife doesn't understand me' don't you? Family courts these days deal with children's rights to see a parent, not parents' rights to see the child.

I'm not saying you're a bad person. I think the whole family has had a horrible time, especially your poor daughter. And if you're convinced your marriage is over and you were deluding yourself in the early days of that thread, that's fair enough. But I don't think you're being at all fair or honourable in keeping your affair a secret from your husband and you're doing it for your own self-serving purposes, not his. I would think his guilt must be bad enough, without thinking he's totally to blame for the end of his marriage too. Knowing you'd behaved badly too in the marriage might actually help him deal with his own demons and guilt, because as you say, he's not a bad man either. He deserves to know the truth.

[jellybeans]

Because they are selfish and competitive? And maybe a little naïve if they think it won't get done back to them.

[AnyFucker]

DA, it has finally clicked "who" you are (without having to search out that other thread)

I am sure I have advised you to leave your husband. I agree that you should. But like this ? No, never. You are going to get very, very hurt and you are hurting a lot of people in the process.

[DiscretionAdvised]

Yep I know. I have ended my marriage. Dh wanted out too and it has reasonably amicable. The accident has not been mentioned. We hadn't had sex for six, before accident. I was surprised I said our marriage was happy, it wasn't.

[SnowBusiness]

Good luck DA (recognised you). I hope it works out and you all can move forward.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I am not in favour of total honesty. Sometimes it's kinder to keep quiet, and I think that would be so in DA's case.
Also, people who make a big deal of their own honesty are usually horrible. They consider 'honesty' a justification for being offensive and unpleasant.
GOod luck DA. Exit affairs are not so terrible, they are a step on the way to a better situation for all concerned.

[DiscretionAdvised]

Thanks.

Today I am broken hearted. I've hardly slept and feel bereft. I don't know why - the OM has emphasised again and again that he does want to make a go of it with me but not unitl he is free to do so. I guess its the mixed messages that I struggle with. It's only a few more weeks and hopefully we will be free to carry on. I know though that the guilt for me was at its peak when DH moved out. Since then I have been very happy, which, I guess, is why it hurts so much today.

I respect hi honesty but do worry that if he really wanted to be with me then he would have overcome his guilt. Especially so close to moving out. I completely believe him that he will.

[AnyFucker]

Exit affairs are not so terrible, they are a step on the way to a better situation for all concerned.

Perhaps, SGB. If it helps a woman to get out an abusive or even just simply crappy relationship, I am with you. However, do it with a man that is single. Because if you don't, you get another whole world of pain. Just like DA has got.

DA, love. Who are you trying to convince...us, or yourself ?

[badinage]

I don't think he's being honest with you at all DA. Ending things with you so close to him leaving just doesn't add up. But then, walking out and leaving his daughter with a woman whom he describes as violent, abusive, toxic and manipulative doesn't square with being a decent father either, so unless he's going to go for residence (and it doesn't sound like it) it feels like there are some more lies there too. Could you leave your children with a man who was so described?

Re. SGB's point about honesty masking being horrible, that doesn't appear to fit this situation at all so it seems like a pointless rant. This isn't about tact or diplomacy, but about examining your conscience and seeing what benefit there is to you in keeping schtum about something as big as this and how much a deceit is for your sake, not your husband's. As I recall from other posts of yours, he's asked you if there's someone else and you've lied, so he did want to know. As a poster who's scathing of blokes who walk out insisting there's no-one else (and there usually is, as we all know) it would be hypocritical to say different to you.

The other thing about honesty in relationships is that it's not a pick and choose thing. If someone lies to their partner and children like OM's done, it shouldn't be a massive surprise when he lies to you. I'm sorry you're hurting though, but I do think you're idealising this bloke for his 'honesty' even though you know he can lie when it suits him. I'd be a bit more sceptical about what you're being told, if I was you. If he turns out just to be the exit affair you needed to get out of an unhappy marriage, I don't think that would be a bad outcome for you personally. Because in time, you might start a relationship that wasn't founded on lies and trust will be easier.