Public reaction to affairs!

[NakedTigarCub]

Hi

I know this is a differcult topic but I would like others point of view on this please.

A couple I know well have split up. The dh had an affair and the wife kicked him out and he is now living with the ow and her kids. He has filed for devorce for HER unreasonable behaviour. The wife is fine with this as she just wants to get rid of the cheating twat.

Im truly shock that noone care he had an affair. Not his or ow kids, not his coworker not even the wife's Father that still sees and chats to the exh. When the wife was talking about it in a group another women said "I see you are still smarting about the affair"

The exh has not recieved any negative reaction from anyone. Is this normal now that people just swap and change partners when ever they want with no reprocusions?

What would you like to happen?

Do you want him put in the stocks on the village green so people can throw rotten eggs at him?

You could take out a page advert in the local paper (with photos and a full diary of the facts) to express your dissatisfaction that someone else's cheating husband has not been sufficiently vilified by his community for your liking.

Also the man still keeps 3/4 of his wage when the sahm income has gone down and the state is paying more towards her children than their Father is!

The law cant make the father see his children but if the mother does not provide the kids for contact she will be fined. It seems so unfair towards the Mother but noone thinks the dh did anything wrong and itd the norm now to have blended families!

It wouldn't be normal from me. Having been cheated on by an ex in the past, those scars still run deep despite 20 fab years with my DH.

There is no excuse. I appreciate people fall out if love, but end it before moving on to the next person. I can't fully respect anyone who would be so shitty.

He may have copped it from some people in private. And the kids are probably in survival mode.

"but noone thinks the dh did anything wrong"

Of course it's wrong and people think it's wrong. What on earth makes you think no-one thinks he's done anything wrong.

I ask again - What would you like to happen to him?

People have very short memories. There is a couple at school who got together when they had an affair. It went on for about 3 years behind their spouses' backs. The women were very close friends so double betrayal. Betrayed wife was even babysitting OW's kids while she met up with her husband. Everyone was horrified for a few weeks. Then the betrayed wife moved away with the kids and this couple moved in together and recently had a baby. Everyone is all over them cooing and congratulating. Like the betrayal never happened.

If someone hurt my dd I dont think I would carry on chatting to them and.inviting him and his new family to dinner. It just seems strange to me.

I dont know what I would like to happen!

I tend to think that if you get too involved in the personal lives of others and are too judgemental of mistakes and poor decisions then you risk ending up with a smaller and smaller social circle of people you deem perfectly behaved. Privately satisfying to be smug but who was it said 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone?'

I suspect it's more to do with people not wanting to get involved/take sides than it is them actually supporting him.

The woman who made the remark about her "smarting" over it sounds like a cow, but I think in general it's just very difficult to deal with this situation when the couple have lots of joint friends.

You will probably find most of them have an opinion on it but don't feel its their "place" to air it in public.

Also, it's very difficult to appraise a relationship from the outside. There are all sorts of things that go on unseen. And who put the very visible terminal nail in the coffin may not be representative of who actually left the relationship. That's not to excuse cheating.

it's only on mn that I have ever seen the level of vitriol directed at people who have had affairs.

In the real world I think that most people realise that very little in life is black and white, and we rarely know what goes on in someone's relationship. It's very easy to cast the cheater as the only party in the wrong, but very often affairs are a symptom not a cause of deeper issues within a relationship. That's not to excuse cheating, it's wrong and destructive and there isn't a justification for it, however we don't know what goes on behind closed doors.

And once someone has left the relationship and moved in with another party what should people do? vilify them for ever? What exactly does that achieve?

Nobody should actually be expected to take sides, because what goes on in a relationship is between the parties in that relationship. So actually I think that the people who can see past what someone has apparently done are better people than those that feel the need to judge something they probably only know half of.

F*ing cop-out from people who really don't care and can't be bothered, so take the line of least social resistance - the woman.
Excuses is usually: 'There's always two sides' - implying that your friend must have been a shitty wife and, therefore, deserves it all.
Or that 'things' were, in some unspecified way, complicated and cannot be discussed.
Also women are almost always weaker socially (don't bother with expections that prove the rule), so it is much much much easier to put pressure on them to 'take care of the children' and 'think of their responsibilities' and just leave them with no support because they should not need it.
Situation a million times worse when abuse is involved.
As to what should happen - tell anyone responsible for shitty behaviour that their behaviour is shitty - end of.
And, no, this is not draconian; it is moving out of your comfort zone to comfort another human being by validating their feelings of impotent injustice and pain.

I think it's especially difficult where there's a whole community involved, which is what this sounds like. Easy to throw people over if it doesn't affect the whole of your contact network, but if it does, maybe people look to the long term.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a lot of private judging going on, even so. And that can be more insidious than grand gestures.

The fact the man is sawning around without a care in the world and thinks the wife is to blame for his affair when his kids are hurting, depressed and angrybut cant tell him for fear that he will leave them the way he left their mum just grates so much on me I wish I could point all this out to him. He is in deniale and blames everyone else but himself and is unreasonable as he still spends his contact time where the wife's family spend their time. Its like he enjoys twisting the knife in and the wife and family just smile and chat like it happens every day! (when I just want to scratch his eyes out on her behalf)

You're speculating OP, you don't seem to have much information and it's really none of your business. Support your friend by all means but you sound quite overinvested as it is. Stay out of other people's business because you really don't know what goes on behind closed doors.

If you want to lash out at him and give him what for about his behaviour, well go and do it. Don't be surprised if he gives you a piece of his own mind.

Why not put this energy into doing useful and thoughtful things for your friend? Take the kids out for a bit so she can have some time to herself? Have a 'girl's night in' with treatments, etc. You don't mention anything like that so I'm just reading impotent annoyance from your posts.

Yes its a very small village with lots of family and exstended family and people who grow up together, families all live on the same street. So everyone knows each others business

You don't know everything out this failed marriage though, OP. I understand that it's difficult but you can support your friend in her grief without 'adding to it' if you see what I mean.

Some people like to talk about a partner's affairs, others don't. I never did and would have been really angry were other uninvolved, random people speculating and gossiping - and that IS exactly how I would have seen it.

Don't think openly calling people on shitty behaviour is a 'grand gesture'.
Now, if you are saying that others will avoid supporting the victim of abuse and/or betrayal in case it impacts negatively on their own little lives - then I think you have hit the nail on the head.
I also think that empathetic anger at the partner who betrays is part of what the betrayed partner needs.
It is a shame that there is as much on MN as there is little in RL

LivingwitchinW you are speculating

Helping my friend goes without saying, cooking, cleaning, childcare, taxidriver and supper supporter is my main roll right now. I just wish I could mend her heart and make life less stressful for her. She has other stuff going on right now as well as exh abuse and constant harrassment. She doesnt have time to react or get a brake. She is strong and will make it, she has good friends.

Well I'm not a mind-reader. Why didn't you put all that in your posts somewhere, hmm? In between your postings about wanting to scratch his eyes out, etc.

You're obviously a good and close friend to her and she's lucky to have you but, from your posts you could have been anybody - a good and close friend or a random woman who doesn't really know her but feels aggrieved and wanting a rant on her behalf.

I don't think that acknowledging that there are two sides to a story means that someone deserved it. Just that there is often far more to the breakdown of a relationship than one party having had an affair. And just for clarity, just as many women cheat as men, so to whoever it was who was going on about women just being expected to be weaker etc, you might want to stop projecting a bit there. because it isn't only men who cheat.

I grew up in a small town - actually it belonged to the company my dad worked for, and everyone knew everything about everyone else. There were in fact quite a few couples who were known to be having affairs with each other, and at some point their existing marriages would end and they would move in with the person they had been having the affair with, and everyone just carried on as if that was just how it was - even the kids. In fact I know that most of these couples are still together even now, which would I think imply that clearly there were reasons why their previous relationships ended.

And again, that doesn't justify getting involved with someone before you've ended your current relationship, but I do wonder, if someone fell in love with someone else and left their partner before getting involved, would people really be that understanding? I don't think so.

It's a sad fact of life that relationships do end for lots of reasons. I think there are certainly more ideal ways to end a relationship than to have an affair, but I think that if one party is left upset by a break-up there is an expectation of judgement and side-taking regardless of the reasons.

I think I would like to tell him that his behaviour is killing his ds and.he is hurting without being forced into a new family with the only option of take it or dont see him at all. Things like buying his new step daughter pets when he will not let his ds have a pet. His ds offering to pay for an activity so just him and his dad go but his dad refusing and leaving him crying when he goes with his new girlfriend and her dd.

Its the reaction of my friends dad that is friendly with the exh and invites him, his girlfriend and dd to dinner

Maybe its a case of nothing we do will change it so best move on and let.it drop?