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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

My mate has a mistress, female perspective please

99 replies

CamperAntics · 18/10/2015 19:19

I'd appreciate a female (actually and any other males) perspective on this one.

I've got a really good mate, known each other for years so he tells me everything. He's a decent bloke but got himself into a situation....
He's in an unhappy marriage with two kids who he really loves. I know he's tried with his wife but they've grown apart and are just jogging along now. He won't leave his kids but can't see anything changing. He went online and met someone else. He's really happy seeing this other woman when he can and she knows the situation.
What do you think?

OP posts:
TooSassy · 19/10/2015 21:26

OP, your friend is just being awful

I don't know what it is with this cross section of people who have managed to justify taking someone's life from them. Because that's what married people who have affairs do. They take away vital years from their spouses. Years that that spouse deserved to know the truth and make choices based on that truth.

Instead they justify their actions (cowardice) by weaving a myriad of lies which they then spout to their circle of friends. For those friends to shake their heads and say 'poor bloke/ lass'.

Newsflash. You don't like your marriage. Fix it or get out. Nothing else is ever justified.

TooSassy · 19/10/2015 21:28

And if I hear of one more person using their children as a justification for having an affair as opposed to ending your marriage I think I'll go MAD!!!!

If you love your children so much, you'd never ever take this step. Ever.

itsmeohlord · 19/10/2015 21:32

He needs to either work to repair the marriage, or if it has gone beyond that be honest and leave it and leave his wife with some dignity. He is clearly having the best of both worlds now.

Of course if he leaves and goes to the other woman, the chances are she will be less appealing once she is no longer "forbidden fruit".

TRexingInAsda · 19/10/2015 21:35

His wife doesn't work so she is doing most of the stuff at home. Do you mean she does 100% when he's at work (obvs), but when they're both there they do 50/50? Or do you mean she does 100% while he's at work, 100% while he's out shagging the OW, and 98% when he's at home as well?

He says she's short tempered so at least he's there to take the kids out when he's not working See above - is she 'short tempered', or is she at the end of her fucking rope getting no help, and he's always disappearing off? Also, how fucking generous he takes his own kids out occasionally, when he's not too busy shagging OW!! [sarcasm] You do realise he can do that without using his wife and pretending to still be in a proper marriage with her? Except obviously he'd have to wash his own pants and change his own bed sheets if he left her, so he'd rather waste a few more years of his wife's life to save him these tedious jobs.

He's a cunt, and he needs to stop wasting her life. Planning on using her for a few more years and then ditching her is so unbelievably selfish and cruel. Why the fuck are you still his friend? He's a dick.

IamlovedbyG · 19/10/2015 21:41

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00100001 · 19/10/2015 21:54

I think we scared OP off...

AskBasil · 19/10/2015 22:35

Those asking why we are being so hostile and "antsy" to the OP, I suspect that it's because of his wide eyed tone of cluelessness.

It's because of shitty attitudes like his - the attitude that doesn't see women as properly human, so fails to see the sheer fucking cruelty of what his friend is doing - that men feel entitled to treat women like this.

If it were happening the other way round, he would immediately see what a shitty, shitty, shitty thing it is to do. He'd see the self-absorption, the casual cruelty, the self-justifying hypocrisy, the calculated manipulation, for what it was. He'd see his friend's pain as real. He'd see the wrong that was being done to him, for the horrific betrayal that it is.

It's because so many men don't really see the little women as being quite as human as them, that they are unable to empathise with women and see our pain as something a bit secondary to that felt by real people, men. And they excuse it as a regrettable detail, but really, not that important in the great scheme of things because the little women aren't that important in the great scheme of things - we're just satellites to the main planets. And so they enable the abuse of women by men, because they don't give the same weight to it, that they would give if their friends were abusing other men. The social opprobrium that men meet out to men who abuse men, is absent when those same men abuse women. It's bros before hos innit.

Most of the time we might have an uneasy feeling that that attitude lurks below the surface in many men, but we dismiss it as it's too uncomfortable to think about. But when it comes into our spaces and dances around in front of us and then asks what we think of it, it's not really that surprising that we get a bit hostile and antsy, is it?

TheFormidableMrsC · 19/10/2015 23:35

What AskBasil said. That.

I have been that wife.

Fourfifthsof · 20/10/2015 09:46

Just in case OP comes back any time, your mate is a dick.

He doesn't give a shit about his wife, if he did he would give her the dignity of ending their relationship before he went out and found someone else so she has the chance to get over it and meet someone who actually deserves her.

This whole 'his wife won't talk about it' crap grates too - anything to dodge or reduce his responsibility for the fact he is the one having an affair, it was his choice to do so and he actively pursued OW. He is trying to make it look like he has no choice. He does. He has plenty of choices. To stop being a dick being the first one.

She 'struggles with the kids' and is 'short tempered'? What does your mate do to help her? Takes them out when he is not at work. What a saint.

He isn't staying for the children, he is staying until he knows for certain he has a better deal elsewhere so he doesn't have to hugely inconvenience himself with finding a place / moving / doing his own washing etc.

Your mate is a dick and is also making you partially responsible for his deceit by telling you all about it and looking to you to be understanding. He is using you to help him to justify his behaviour.

flippinada · 20/10/2015 10:32

Spot on Basil - it's not at all surprising there's been such a strong reaction to it.

I mean come on 'he got himself into a situation'?! It makes it sound like he was out for a walk or something and accidentally fell cock first into the OW.

Fact is he planned it all. He went out looking for an affair and found someone amoral and credulous enough to go along with it, more like.

Nonnainglese · 20/10/2015 10:45

OP probably doesn't like the answers, whether he's genuine/ow/best mate seeking approval.

I bet the wife already knows something is going on, just hope she chucks him out- perhaps OP would have a spare shoulder for him to cry on?

flippinada · 20/10/2015 10:54

I can't help but wonder what sort of reaction he (taking the OP at face value here) was expecting.

Surely a cursory reading of the relationship boards would suggest a sympathetic response is unlikely?

TheFormidableMrsC · 20/10/2015 10:57

Perhaps OP would have a spare shoulder for him to cry on?

....and a spare room!

iamanintrovert · 20/10/2015 11:08

I think it's an option for some people in a sexless marriage, as long as:
He practices really safe sex.
The mistress knows she's only a bit on the side.
He hasn't "checked out" of family life.
He's very discreet.

I'll need to name change now.

SoupDragon · 20/10/2015 11:11

You missed off "the wife is in agreement"

iamanintrovert · 20/10/2015 11:13

:)

ShebaShimmyShake · 20/10/2015 12:31

What do you mean "as a guy I can see how this happened"?

It's you, isn't it?

TheFormidableMrsC · 20/10/2015 12:43

Valid point Sheba...the OP doesn't have a wife or children so how can he "see" how this has happened? Oh I forgot, he "knows" what the put upon with no support wife is "like". Yawn.

ILiveAtTheBeach · 20/10/2015 13:26

You can't help your mate. I'm unsure as to how you thought you could?

Anyway, it will all end in tears. Some OW can get very nasty when they get dumped (which he eventually will do) and they go all out to tell the wife about the affair. She will have nothing to lose, will she?

So wife's tears at first, followed by his when she leaves him, followed by DC' when parents split up.

It's all just a matter of time before the whole thing goes tits up, IMO.

A male friend of mine cheated for 6 months with a girl from work. Eventually he gave himself a slap and decided to concentrate on his marriage. He ended things with the OW. But, oh dear, the OW wasn't too happy about this. So she made a call to the wife and told her everything. Then she forwarded to the wife, every single sexually explicit e-mail he had ever sent her. A woman scorned....

IrianofWay · 20/10/2015 15:28

The hostility isn't towards you OP is it? It's towards a man, admittedly your friend, who is acting in away that most people thinks is seriously horrible. Why are you surprised, or bothered for that matter ?

ShebaShimmyShake · 20/10/2015 20:39

OP is writing about himself. It is so obvious. Ridiculous in an anonymous online forum but self-delusion is extremely powerful. He hopes that by couching it in somewhat detached terms, we'll kind of sympathise and make out it's not that bad really.

Because this story is totally not OP's! It's his friend's! A diamond geezer! His wife MUST be a hideous harpy because OP, sorry, his friend, is such a great dude and yet he's seeking out mistresses online! As an act of altruism because he loves his kids so much!

So he asks a roomful of women what they think because he ostensibly wants some female perspectives. And it turns out they don't think OP, sorry, HIS FRIEND, is a diamond geezer after all. So now OP has to outline to us that we don't actually understand his deep insight into HIS FRIEND THE DIAMOND GEEZER'S marriage, but luckily he can totally mansplain it for our delicate feminine minds because AS A GUY HE CAN SEE HOW THIS HAPPENED, and how it TOTALLY HAPPENED TO SOMEONE ELSE, WHO IS A DIAMOND GEEZER, AND WHOSE WIFE MUST BE HORRENDOUS BECAUSE THERE IS NO OTHER REASON THAT SUCH A DIAMOND GEEZER WOULD BE GETTING EXTRAMARITAL SEX OFF A FUCKING WEBSHITE.

OP, for fuck's sake. You like to talk about being a man, well act like one. Decide what you want and just fucking pursue it. If you're not happy in your marriage, end it. If you think it's worth a go, make a proper effort to save it. Stop dithering and pretending this is happening to someone else and that you want a female view and that you're just so torn because you love your kids so much.

Dithering is not attractive in a man. Take some freaking responsibility and own it.

TheFormidableMrsC · 20/10/2015 21:14

Bravo Sheba Flowers

Robotgirl · 20/10/2015 21:40

Haha! Sheba, that's brilliant. And I reckon you're spot on.

00100001 · 20/10/2015 22:47

...i called OP ages ago...

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