Is there "A Script" given to the OW when MM has no intention of leaving?

[Openupyoureyes]

I've seen various versions of "The Script" as given to the DW to make her think everything is her fault. Is there a version given to the OW to keep her dangling when he has no intention of leaving his DW?

Friends of mine have a daughter in her late 20s who has got involved with a MM. It has been going on for about 8 months. First of all he said he would be leaving DW and 3DC, then came out with the classic "I've told DW I'm leaving and she threatened to commit suicide so I'll have to stay a bit longer". He is telling my friend's daughter that he will definitely be leaving, she believes every word he tells her, including how awful his wife is.

My friends are distraught that she's got involved with him and is wasting her life, apart from the moral view of whats happening. She of course won't listen to anything they have to say, except to tell them they don't understand and what a wonderful person he is. Obviously he is just going to keep her dangling as long as he can. I'm sure there must be a script dished out to OW to keep them hanging on, if she could read it for herself it just might make her see sense.

I don't know about a script but I'm sure there are plenty of clichees. I'm equally sure that, even if your friends' DD read a book the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica full of those clichees it wouldn't make a jot of difference. She believes him and she's only going to learn the truth the hard way. I'm sorry she has such low self-esteem that she doesn't think she deserves better than a liar.

Sadly Cogito I think you're absolutely right.

tell her to call him on his home number during "family time"
I bet that he would never be available.

Well there are versions of it but it starts out something like, I'm in a loveless marriage but you've made me come alive again. You're my soulmate. I see my future with you but just have to wait till the time is right. ( kids are older etc)
Please don't leave me, just be patient for a little longer bla bla bla. Lies. All of it.

There is a website called TOW (The Other Woman) you should direct her to it. Countless tales of women who wasted their lives waiting for these men to leave. Most never did. Might help her see the similarities in these stories and that her MM isn't special or different.

However being involved with a MM is a bit like being addicted to a drug and can be v hard to leave. Only when the pain gets so great and the cost to ones self respect/ esteem is so high that someone will leave. And then it has to be a complete break, no contact. Cold turkey. Until finally you realise you were just an ego boost to him, a distraction and he never had any intention of leaving. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

Anti I have made that suggestion - of course she doesn't have the home number and he won't give it to her "in case it tips DW over the edge".

Scarlet I'll have a look at that website and direct them to it. You're right about the addiction side of it. She has a history of picking men who treat her badly. She's just spent 2 years in a relationship with someone who turned out to have a DP and DCs in another part of the country - which was what everyone was telling her but she wouldn't have any of it.

As said already your friend's DD won't care what anyone else says, her situation is "unique" or "special" and any outsider is either jealous or out of touch. She'll be so glad of any crumbs she gets, she won't listen.

I feel sorrier for his DW. Fwiw lines that sprang to mind:

We're more like brother and sister really!
She trapped me into marriage by getting pregnant (I wasn't even sure the baby was mine).
She tricked me into her second and third pregnancies.
She's promised to get help with her and until then I can't leave her.
I've been lonely and unhappy in our marriage for years and never knew happiness until I met you.
She has mental health issues and I'm frightened she'll harm herself.
She has mental health issues and I'm frightened she'll harm our DCs.
She's run up huge debts and I can't leave her until I'm sure our DCs are securely provided for.
When DC1/2/3 starts school they'll be more settled.

• oh I'm not having sex with my wife anymore, she won't come near me, poor me... (shortly before wife announces pregnancy)

• oh my wife is horrid, she would see me out on the streets penniless....

• nobody understands me like you... but I can't leave just yet until everything is sorted properly, I wouldn't want everyone to blame you...

• my wife is sick / dying / having a terrible time with her family / dog / hair I can't possibly leave yet

• I can't leave until the children are settled / potty trained / moved schools etc

• trust me we will be together one day....

Yeah like fuck.

The Baggage Reclaim website might a good one - if/when she is ever ready to look at why she is picking unavailable men.

Tell her to call me, I'll fill her in.

Thank you for your replies and the links. Unfortunately I think it will be as Cogito says, and she will find out the hard way, as she is so blinded by him. I feel so sorry for the DW, who is totally unaware of whats going on (I don't believe for one minute he told DW he was leaving). I will pass the links on to her parents anyway, and hope that something in them will give her the wake up call she needs.

If this is the second relationship she's had in quick succession with an attached man, I'm not sure anything that might make her feel victimised by unavailable and untruthful men would be of much help.

Private therapy would probably be a better bet, because there's something going on in her that causes her to act this way. Maybe she's always found it difficult to relate to women and wants to compete with them? Maybe there's something about her relationship with her father that she's trying to resolve in these relationships?

The previous relationship she absolutely didn't believe he had another life away from her. Everyone else became suspicious when he wouldn't take her to meet family or friends, he always came to her but never took her to his home. Eventually after 2 years he admitted he had a DP and DCs, who he couldn't leave because the DP would kill herself (as usual). Friends DD did end it then as soon as she found out, but with this,one she knew from the start he has a DW and family, but this time is convinced he has a life of hell and she will be his saviour. It is going to end in so many tears.

I'd be very sceptical about what her actual beliefs were during that other relationship. Because the proof is in the pudding. She's got no idealogical objection to intruding on another relationship and she probably only ended the other one because she had to publicly acknowledge he'd been lying to her. She doesn't seem to mind these men lying to their partners and of course lots of OW never make the link that lying to one woman makes lying to another very easy.

I am with familyscapegoat. Maybe she likes being the other woman or the homewrecker, granted the MM is wrecking his own home but she is helping.