Man's Mid Life Crisis From the OW's Side

[Joy5]

Two years and a bit on from the end of my marriage, i'm starting to wonder what its been like for the OW.

Is it really that much fun to be with a man who's destroyed his family, and his children's happiness? Have all the problems been worth the new relationship?

Will the new relationship even survive long term?

Would just be interested to hear the other side's point of view.

Yesterday at work we discussed this situation from the perspective of a 48 year old French woman, who was the OW but has now been replaced by a 41 year old OW. It's not much fun for her.

So all men happy or sad in a relationship cheat?? Why even bother wondering what the OW and your ex relationship is like?

Seems like you've not had closure from what happened to you. And a lot of posts point the finger at OW when the finger should be pointed at MM as he couldn't keep his cock hidden away for the sake of a family.

And I was the OM, I told her everything few weeks back and am genuinely happy for the first time in 18 months with no more lies or cheating. And it turns out the she is the bunny boiler he told me she was.

Maybe she's thinking about you, who knows but does it really matter as they are irrelevant

I have never been a fully paid-up OW but I did have an EA with a guy who was in the process of leaving a long term relationship many years ago (not married, no kids.) it's no defence at all, I am still ashamed of it but he really was splitting up from her, we never got together (never even kissed) but I think his entanglement with me gave him a push to leave his gf.

Anyway... I did basically dehumanize the gf to justify what I was doing; told myself she didn't love him, found arbitrary reasons to dislike her. So I think its true that the OW creates a barrier to prevent myself facing up to what I was doing.

I imagine the denial and duplicity is much worse if its a full affair, but it's the same principle.

Like I say I am not proud.

So all men happy or sad in a relationship cheat??

No one said that. Merely that the assumption that only people in unhappy marriages cheat is wrong. Many people who love their spouse and are happy with their lives still cheat. They do it because they can, because they want to and because they think they will get away with it.

This thread is asking why the OW get involved, its not an unreasonable to question what they get from it.

Having read this thread there are 2 distinct types that have come up. One being the determined "I want and I shall have" types who dont let the small detail of a wife and family get in the way of them bagging the man they have decided they want to be with. And then there are victim OW, the ones who fall for the players spiel about being in a loveless marriage etc, and are used by the cheater just as much as the wife is. They believe the lies that one day he will leave, when deep down he knows he wont.

My exH was abusive Library so I don't generally consider his feelings relevant. DH should've left his ex rather than had an exit affair and she deserved better than that so I do consider her feeling relevant.

Some people seem to be confusing a happy marriage with a perfect one.

No marriage is perfect. 'Happily married' has as many definitions as there are happily married people.

Some will have an affair anyway, because the opportunity presents itself and because it fills a gap (sex, romance, thrills, whatever) in their otherwise happy marriage/life.

Which is why I wouldn't want to be 'happily married' to someone who has already proved themselves capable of that sort of deceit.

Most cheating comes from opportunity IMO.

Anyway, I've never been the OW and neither could I be. I did talk to my ex DP's OW on the phone when I found out and she said that he had told her all sorts. So she was under the impression that he and I were separated. She was so disgusted she was on the phone to him after calling him a 'weak excuse for a man' and he'll 'get his karma for being a disgusting dickhead' amongst other things. She cut him off completely.

So maybe there are some who genuinely have no idea that their partner is a lying, cheating scumbag.

I think in some cases the OW falls head over heels in love. I think in some cases the man convinces her, and himself, that he no longer loves his wife, or that he needs a different life and can never be content again since he has met her. In that example, it can seem like the marriage is being portrayed as over anyway, and many men claim they are going to leave anyway, in which case the OW is driven to think it would be MORE wasteful if nothing valuable came out of the affair and all that was left was devastation, and that she owes it to make their love work, since it has cost so much.

In other examples, I'm pretty sure that the part-time, all fun nature of an affair is a convenient sort of relationship for those who are more independent and want the fun side of a relationship without the hard work or mundanity. Though supremely selfish, OW may not be fully conscious of that thinking whilst they are engaged in the affair until afterwards and the real life relationship has to carry all that baggage and more.

I also think its significant that in a lot of these cases not all but a fair chunk OW is younger and single or at least not significantly entangled and therefore has very little empathy for the wife.

She may know rationally and morally that what she is doing is wrong but not having been on the receiving end cannot really take on board the degree of pain and devastation being inflicted on the family. Also these women are more likely to have somewhat naive "love conquers all" approaches to the relationship and convince themselves it genuinely is meant to be.

True.

Which makes the married ones with DC even worse - where both parties know exactly what they are doing and just how much destruction they risk inflicting on innocent victims, but presumably in an extreme state of denial about it.

In my own experience the ow was utterly mercenary. Took what she wanted and had the audacity to tell me it was none of my business. To this day they denied they had an affair, yet had bought a home together by the time my dd was 6mo and married by the time she was 18mo. To this day ow insists ex and I were over before they started and I'm just bitter. She dismisses the millions of inappropriate messages between them and the secret meetings when my dd was weeks old as 'just friends'.

7 years later they maintain this stance. It used to eat me up that they lied so viciously about it and continue to this day. I never understood why, when they achieved their goal, that they still had to lie about how they achieved it. What did it matter to them? But I've come to rationalise it that in spite of their behaviour, my ex and his now wife are professional people and have children to answer to. They don't want to admit they acted so despicably weeks after I gave birth, so they've made up a story that allows them to feel better about it.

Remarkably, my dd has now started asking questions and her dad and SM give her their version of events. (Mummy and daddy decided not to live together anymore and a while later, daddy and sm met each other')

In one way It pains me that dd will have a version of events that are not truthful, but rather that, than have her beautiful view of the world tainted. She loves them both and that's fine with me.

One thing the experience has taught me is that a) there's no such thing as karma. They've been married for years and now and have a bunch more kids and b) there are some women out there who are will take what they want and will be mercenary and vicious in their pursuit to get it. Of course my ex is the one at daily here because he went willingly, but if you think a professional, educated woman wouldn't hover over a brand new father and pursue him relentlessly, you'd be wrong.

Oh and one last thing. Ex still sees dr a lot, but no longer pays maintenance. SM refuses to even let him pay dd's lunch money. (Words from my dd's own mouth)

Embarrassingly predictable.

None of the OW I know fit these rather sappy, victim types that are being discussed here.

All are married or in relationships themselves. They knew exactly what they were getting into. None of them want to leave their relationships. None of them think their affairs are anything but a fun diversion for all parties (the ones in the know, at least).

My father was not one for monogamy! He had an affair when he was with my mum. Someone much younger, mum found out by finding a letter in pocket whilst on hols in Scotland. Move forward 16yr, OW is now dad's wife, she finds letter from much younger OW in dad's pocket whilst on holiday in Scotland.
What goes around comes around! Reap what you sow etc!
How many OW there were in between who knows, but I bet there were more.

Agree with your last post Tonandeather although sometimes it goes too far and the women involved that I know, fail to keep the control of their feelings that they had at the start of the affair.

I think it's true to say that affair partners see the 'best' of each other; no smelly socks, tripping over handbags - they're a more perfect and highly edited version of themselves, the way they perceive that they want to be - and can be - with somebody who doesn't know or have to see their foibles on a daily basis the way that a live-in partner does.

I think that must a huge draw actually; the closest comparison that I can think of must be where one partner works away for extended periods of time with only brief visits home.

I don't think of women or men engaged in an affair as 'victims' because they ultimately make the choice to engage in it, that's their decision.

I also very much dislike the notion of calling every little thing 'damage' which subsequently affects 'victims'. It's diminishing the word and its meaning and people should stop doing it.

I guess some do fall in love, but I think using the excuse of "I love him" can be handy apology for selfishness. Being in love isn't a defense for crappy behaviour toward other people. Who cares if you're "in love"? That doesn't make it all right.

No of course not, Tonandfeather, it's selfish behaviour. People ARE selfish, they inherently are. They look out for themselves and those they deem important. That's different from person to person but is essentially the same thing.

People say they are 'in love' all the time. What does it mean? It's a chemical thing in the brain, communicated to other bits of the body, resulting in some quite odd behaviour as something gets lost in translation. That's pretty much it.

Affairs are NOT a good thing, not ever. People who have them are not necessarily bad people but they are doing something that has the potential for major hurt and that's a bad thing.

On that we agree.

People who are the ow or om for that matter, know who they are and what they have done, deep down inside, no matter how much they deny or hide it.

When I said "Victim OW" I meant those who have very low self esteem, are very young and/or naive or have been the victim of past abuse. Those women are far more likely to fall for the charms of a man who makes her feel like a princess for rescuing him from his miserable marriage and bitch wife.

Of course she knows what she is doing, I am just saying that a certain type of woman is far more vulnerable to a player than someone with a bit more savvy.

I was an OW for a long while. I was young. He was my boss and a lot older.

I had just broken up with my lovely boyfriend of 7 years. I was starving myself and in a mess.

This man swooped. He insisted we were in love. Insisted. He played the love-sick puppy, he frightened me with his anger about his wife and begged and begged me to stay after work with him, to stay at lunchtimes with him when other colleagues had left, he lost loads of weight, he started turning up at my flat and ringing the doorbell - not taking his finger off it. He rang and rang the phone so I was afraid to answer it.

I thought I loved him in the end.

He had a two year old son.

I started getting anonymous hate mail at work. His mother wrote me a letter in capital letters calling me a bitch.

I couldn't get rid of him. I tried to move abroad but I was 26 and really had no clue how to move abroad. I went on frightening holidays alone to freezing cold places.

All my friends were finding lovely relationships with normal men. This man was like the embodiment of evil.

We had sex and he ordered me about. I cried all the time. He turned up on my doorstep with a suitcase and said his wife had thrown him out and I let him stay, but he kept turning all the lights out in my flat and sitting in the dark on the floor in silence or crying. He seemed to be ill and I tried to help him.

We went abroad and I didn't have a shit for a week as I couldn't handle the situation, had no idea how to get rid of him, no idea how to keep my job and get out of the situation.

I was ridiculed and humiliated at work. I lost loads of weight. I began to sick up blood.

I tried to pack it all in and he began sending me on terrible jobs all over the country.

I moved out of London to get away from him but still had to commute in to the job and his sick face.

He left his wife four times for 'me' and each time there was no 'planning' on my part, he just kept leaving her and turning up.

My name was mud and my joy in just being alive was sapped out of me. I called his wife a couple of times and begged her to insist he went home but not surprisingly she gave me hissing vitriol.

I don't think it was anything to do with me - I think I was the thing he used to torture his poor wife. He would suddenyl decide he wanted to go back to his wife, just as suddenly as he must have left her - he would start whistling, shave and bath, pack up his things then drive off leaving me a shuddering ill wreck.

He was a 'svengali' is the word. he insisted he wanted a blood brother for his child. I got pregnant. He left me immediately.

I had an abortion.

I have never recovered.

The BBC knew all about it of course, and simply moved him sideways into a very well paid job.

I had a nervous breakdown.

I am still in counselling. I understand that this man remained with his wife but now has a life limiting illness.

Not all OWs are evil callous cold scheming bitches. The married man in my case was an evil cold cruel and ugly man. His favourite books were The Picture of Dorian Grey, the Butterly Collector and Lolita.

I keep an eye and an ear open for the day he dies. I will have a small celebration for the demise of a black and ugly sould and a fucking good cry for the baby I wish i had kept.

I was the OW.

DH and I were both married to people we didn't love. We cared for them but didn't love them. We got married to our partners because we thought it was the right thing to do at the time. It wasn't true love, we tried, it didn't make us happy.

So, what's the choice, stay and be miserable or go and make your X miserable. Some people delude themselves that they have a happy marriage, they maybe happy but their DP is not.

Relationships are just that - a relationship, not a life sentence. Life moves on, people move on.

Me and DH appear to be happy, but who knows what is round the corner?
We don't own each other.

Some people on here need to get over themselves.

So, what's the choice, stay and be miserable or go and make your X miserable. Some people delude themselves that they have a happy marriage, they maybe happy but their DP is not.

The choice is whether to do the right thing and accept you marriage is over, leave and give you both the chance to move on honourably and guilt free, or whether to be a coward and stay with someone you dont love until a better offer comes along.

Cheating isnt just about having sex with someone else, its about treating another human being with such utter disdain. You could not have cared about your ex if you can treat him in such a way.

My cousin was the OW. She was very young and quite naïve, the MM swept her off her feet. His wife was actually pregnant at the time, so he couldn't even play the "we don't sleep together any more" card. My cousin loved him so much that she was able to convince herself that it simply wasn't important.

Needless to say, he left her for someone else some years later when their DD was two. My cousin was furious as well as heartbroken and I don't think it had ever occurred to her to think that if he could do it to his pregnant wife, he could do it to her too...

I think that they often tell themselves that if it hadn't been them, it would have been someone else because of course he wasn't happy. That is accopanied by a certain demonising of the first wife. You see it in on here a lot. A lot of fury about ex wives.

I think that second marriages often work out. Not always, but sometimes. And I think that children and wives can get over it. My children are not unhappy and they like their father's new wife (the former OW.)

I am happier because I found him awful to be married to.And if she hadn't come along, he's still be here. It did have to be someone and she has been kind to my children and is by all accounts a very nice person.