Does the OW ever feel any remorse/guilt?

[RealUnreality]

This is a very general question purely out of curiosity.

I'm am not or never have been an OW. I was the victim of one years ago, but that is not the issue.

This thread certainly has lots of experience, hence my question.

[MrsC1969HJ]

Discoflame...Oh no I agree, he left because he could and because he wanted to, no doubt about that. However, she made it VERY easy. They are two totally fucked up individuals, excuse my language, but if you heard my story (and there is a thread out there!), you wouldn't believe what you reading, you really wouldn't. You are right of course, weak, money orientated, put it this way, it's certainly not her amazing good looks, fine figure and sparkling personality! What I can't forgive either of them for is the damage to my little boy, just turned 3 years old, a baby he begged me to have while in my 40's as he was suddenly desperate to be a father after 11 years of marriage, then off he skips to be Daddy to somebody else's damaged child with the words "I will never leave you as a single parent" ringing in my ears...only to have OW tell me that I am the "worst excuse of a loving mother she has ever seen"...after my H assaulted me in front of my son and I called the police. Evil, the pair of them!

[riverboat1]

Random - I understand you have a different perspective. I don't think my friend IS essentially a nasty cruel person, she certainly wasn't looking for a family to destroy or trying to hurt anyone. She was/is a lonely person with not much in her life, who was so hungry for comfort and 'love' (even though it wasnt real love) that when this man started to offer it to her she took it. I totally agree it was thoughtless and immoral of her not to consider the pain she would cause the partner, but given her own mental state I am not surprised she didn't have the strength to put an abstract idea of doing right by a woman she didn't know above trying to temper her own unhappiness and loneliness. If it's any consolation to you, it didn't actually make her any happier, if anything it fucked her up more.

I think and hope I am a strong enough person to never have an affair no matter how tempted I might be. But it doesn't surprise me that lots of people just can't resist that temptation. I don't think it's a good thing to totally demonise all OW/cheaters because a) no one is all good or all bad, only human and flawed and b) if we demonise them instead of trying to understand but still recognise it's wrong we could be totally unprepared to deal with temptation when we inevitably face it ourselves.

[Discoflame]

MrsC I will agree that the ow in your situation does sound like a total psycho bitch but your husband still choose to leave. And frankly if money and material things are what he was after would you really want to be living with him still if the flicker of a fat bak account could steal him away?? He choose to leave. She didn't force him. He sounds like a weak arse and you are better off without him!

I feel for you and your daughter. I don't know how you would even begin to be strong for her. And to be strong for yourself. I wish you all the best. I have found this eye opening and it makes me more ashamed of my mistake but I do maintain that it takes 2 and it's not all the ow's fault.

[MrsC1969HJ]

*RandomInternetStranger"....oh that was nothing...that was the nicest email I've had...the rest just pure abuse, designed to hurt as much as possible and it has nearly broken me. I understand your comments about PTSD. To think this OW had only been widowed for 6 months yet she was quite happy to inflict a similar pain on me. Husband clearly not blameless, but that's another story.

Discoflame While I totally agree with your comment about "poor defenceless men", in my case the OW gave my H (who I had no idea was unhappy I have to say, not a clue) every means possible to leave. A home, money, a car, a business address, oh it goes on. They planned this very well and for a very long time. He admits he wouldn't have left had he not had the means to do so. She gave him the means and has spent the last 6 months blaming me so it doesn't affect her "business and reputation". She really is something else! I am not bitter and twisted, I am, however, devastated and grieving because the last 14 years of my life have been a lie and the future I thought I had has gone forever and what about my kids? My daughter was my H's stepdaughter since she was a toddler, the OW described her as "not my concern, surely the concern of her father"...try telling that to my devastated child!

[Discoflame]

Let's not forget also that these MEN are a piece of work also. Poor defenceless men led astray by the temptress

This thread has opened my eyes. I kinda thought that all ow were similar to me, made a mistake and got in too deep. It has been eye opening to see that some do go in for the fun or the "prize". Though what prize there is in man who can lie and cheat is beyond me.

For what it's worth my mm's wife never found out about me, as far as I know. I ended things when I grew up and realised what an idiot I was being. It was a mistake. I learned and moved on.

People make mistakes but all ow's are not the same, all men are not the same and I imagine all ex wives are not all bitter and twisted.

[Notallotherwomenareevil]

My husband was 20 and she was 31. He was immature and silly to trust her after the first time but his parents had died not long before, he didn't have anyone else and he wanted to make a go of his relationship with her for the sake of his child. Just because we met before they split up, it doesn't make us both evil and her the innocent victim. Not every situation is black and white. Like I said originally, I wish we had both split up with our previous relationships before we met but we didn't. We kept away from each other as much as possible considering we worked together and we waited until we were both single before becoming a couple. I'm not sure how we could have handled it any better.

I called her a cow because if 10 years of knowing her. She is not a nice person.

[jonicomelately]

I know a woman who is the OW. MM left his family for her. Apparently the MM pursued her pretty relentlessly and being the person she is, she fell for it. She's had bad experiences with men in the past and she's really flaky which could be a reaction to those experiences.
Mm is the biggest loser I've ever met. He's absolutely pathetic. He won't move in with OW presumably because he'll suffer financially (wife was the big earner in the relationship). OW is already sniffing around for another man. OW has never expressed any remorse as far as I know.

[RandomInternetStranger]

Wow MrsC the nerve of that woman! I don't know how you didn't go after her with a baseball bat. If she had e er wanted to do right by you or ever had any concern for your child she'd have stayed away from your husband. These women really are a piece of work.

[MrsC1969HJ]

Random...absolutely well said.

Notallotherwomenareevil - yet you still find it OK to call his ex a "cow", is that because of what he told you? If like my husband, he has rewritten history to suit, it's no wonder. To be fair, your partner was not trapped into having a second child. If he felt trapped the first time, he should have taken charge of his own contraception. The fact you didn't "physically" cheat means nothing. My husband was having an emotional affair with the OW for a long time prior to leaving me. That meant that I had absolutely no chance of addressing any issues, his heart was already somewhere else. It is not justifiable, ever.

educationforlife YES YES YES!! I thought exactly the same. She seemed really bewildered! I am glad her husband's parents reacted that way, so have my husband's, the OW will never be welcome in their home and neither will he after what he's done. These people tell themselves all sorts of lies, I had one email from my husband's OW telling me "should our relationship mature in the future, I will always do right by you and your children, my heart bleeds for your little boy"....you couldn't make it up...she had been living with my husband for 3 weeks at that point and was still coming out with this shit. No moral compass whatsoever!

[educationforlife]

I think what is so 'interesting' is the lies those who have affairs tell themselves.
Like the woman in the article, who says 'later, when we were in relationship' having already said that she and the married man had already been having an affair for months
This is as well as her puzzlement that everyone is not rejoicing ...
Weird or what?

[madsounds]

well said random.

[RandomInternetStranger]

I actually find the recent posts about OW who don't feel any guilt to be really distressing and I'm bowing out of this thread now. All I will say is to slap off the original partner because she was a meany is disgusting and no doubt everything the OW has heard about her has come from the cheating man?? Wow. That's a reliable source. According to the OW in my marriage I'm an alcoholic anorexic psycho with bipolar who abuses & neglects my child and tried to throw her off a cliff I'd never been to, oh and I'm lying about all the times my ex cheated and beat me and worse. Please - some women are so gullible but they'll learn one day when he's telling the next woman the same things about them. And as for the OW having problems that does not justify anything. My ex & the affair left me with PTSD and almost gave me a mental breakdown and saw me check in to the Priory for 6 months. Yet I'm still not looking for a married man with a family to destroy. Just because someone has issues is no reason to cause another innocent person issues themselves just because they can't find a single man to screw. I'm leaving now because I can't actually bear to think such nasty, selfish, cruel women are so common in society and it genuinely deeply upsets me.

[riverboat1]

I have a close friend who was an OW for ages, sleeping with a guy she worked with who lived with his partner and had a young child with her. At the time all involved were mid 20s.

My friend was/is fucked up in many ways, chock full of insecurities, eating disorders, OCD, anxiety, complicated relationship with her family, and generally disappointed with her lot in life.

I don't think she did really feel guilty or bad about what she was doing to the guy's partner. She had enough on her own plate to feel bad about, and as her friend I was much more angry with this guy for taking advantage of my vulnerable friend and making her miserable by stringing her along. Let alone what he was doing to his partner, who seemingly was alerted to the affair by a colleague.

Many years later, my friend still works with him and still isn't over him. He is still with his partner, I think they are married now actually. He still throws my friend crumbs occasionally. So to answer your question, I don't think the OW here did feel much guilt, but I still think the guy in the equation is a million times worse than her.

[Notallotherwomenareevil]

I think some couples unfortunately meet when they are still in other relationships. I wish DH and I had already ended our existing relationships but neither of us realised how wrong our existing relationships were until we met each other. 10 years on and I can't regret it as we have a happy marriage, wonderful children and our ex partners have both gotten married to other people and had more kids (neither of us were married before but he did have children with his exp).

I also don't feel guilty about splitting up his relationship with his ex as she was a selfish cow who trapped a man who was barely out of his teens because her biological click was ticking. She knew it wasn't fair to trick him into having a baby (she stopped taking the pill) but she didn't care as its what she wanted. They decided to stay together, had another child (she stopped taking the pill again) but by the time he got to his mid 20s he didn't love or respect her after she used him. That's when we met. I do feel bad for their children, which is why I am the best stepmum I can be, but it was their mother who created the situation. Should my DH have stayed with someone he didn't love in those circumstances?

The other reason I don't feel guilty is that we didn't physically cheat. We became friendly, fell in love, ended our relationships, then got together. His ex blames me for everything though.

[MrsC1969HJ]

Regarding the article linked above, quote : "I believe I was entitled to take happiness when I found it". I have never before read such a self-absorbed view of being involved with breaking up another marriage. What she fails to acknowledge is the depth of pain no doubt suffered by the wife and the fallout for the children. As the OW in this article feels so "entitled" and "glad" she put "me" first, I do hope she never has to suffer the unimaginable pain that I have experienced over recent months after my husband and his mistress decided to wreck all of our lives.

[educationforlife]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/01/i-was-other-woman-married-men

[RandomInternetStranger]

I don't think it's the thread which is idiotic.

[Offred]

What an idiotic and self-pitying thread!

[Donki]

OW has just thrown her toys out of the pram when MrD tried to spend 3 days of the Easter holidays with the YoungDonki (11yrs)

So no, she seems to have no guilt/remorse.

She's pathetic.

MrD is no better - he gave in to the emotional bkackmail.

[SpringyReframed]

You sound very well rid there,

I could never put anything above the welfare and happiness of my children and I am sure most mothers are the same. So many men seem to move on from their kids without a backward glance and so many women in relationships with these men at the very mildest turn a blind eye and at worst encourage it.

[RandomInternetStranger]

Exactly Springy. I dated a (single!) guy for a few months. First he told me he only had one child when actually he had 2 by 2 different women, he just never bothered with the 12 year old, secondly he never paid his maintenance but would blow it on nights out and thirdly when he did see h
them he couldn't be bothered with them and left them to occupy themselves I'm front of DVDs all day. The way he spoke to and treated their mothers was disgusting and I ended it because of all of that. There was no way I was going to be the third woman putting up with his attitude and having him treat my children like that, or me like those other mothers if we split up one day. If he can talk to them like that and treat them like that he can do it to me.

[SpringyReframed]

Three years down the line and I believe the OW in my marriage breakdown is pychopath. So is my ex so they are well suited.

I couldnt give a flying fuck about either of them, they deserve each other. However, the OW is only a couple of years older than my DD (yes, really) and I believe she wanted my DD's father as much as she wanted my husband. I think she is jealous of DD who is in always her superior. She has destroyed my children's relationship with their father. They have zero contact him now and whilst it is his weak choice, I guess he is now scared of being alone and does as she says. She definitely contributed to this. No one can believe this. My friends still cant come to terms with it and I tire of saying, no, he hasnt contacted them etc etc.

What sort of a woman even wants a man who has no relatationship with his children? I certainly would run a mile from that.

randominternetstranger - I agree with all your posts.

[VampyreofTimeandMemory]

what do you mean "i wish spells were real", all you need to do is google esango priest!

[VampyreofTimeandMemory]

I don't think I would have any respect for a man who could betray his partner, and especially children, to that extent. There's no justification, is there? 'The marriage is dead' bollocks would just be a line. So yes, it's mainly the man who has cheated on his partner who is in the wrong but as a woman and mother, why would anyone want to do that to another woman?