OW

[Whisperingeye1]

Sure I will get flamed for this but..... looking through some of the threads I have a question. Why are OW seen as devil incarnate whilst the lying, cheating bastards who actually made the commitment in the first place seem to get less bad press. Men are seen as easily led. Seen posts questioning how they can save their marriage (to the lying cheat) whilst flaming OW. I am not an OW by the way and have never been cheated on by dp (as far as I know!) so am curious.

That does sound unbelievably shit TheFormidableMrsC. She sounds a narcissist. Believe me, despite my agreement with what morriszapp says, I'm not championing destroying lives, even if it's done out of loneliness or neediness or low self-esteem. All of that can be worked on without a man. I'm nobody's OW! Never gone down that path. I left my own asshole, don't want somebody else's!

Oh it really was, I've got nearly 3,000 posts over 3 threads on this lovely site about how utterly shit it was and the support I had literally saved my life. I think she's a sociopath but narcissist probably slots in there somewhere! I don't disagree with Morriszapp per se, I am just not in a place just yet to have a broader view. Let's face it, nobody needs an asshole in their lives do they? Actually, I should say, in so many ways, I am glad he's gone, that's a much longer story. What I hate is the damage it's done to my kids and his complete dismissal of us overnight. Like we were nothing, an inconvenience. I hate the stories he told to justify what he did. I hate that he sent me an email saying "please understand" and listing an utterly fabricated story of our life together to show OW and others how awful I was and how wonderful he was. I have one particular friend whose husband left her for somebody else. However, he admitted it immediately, said he'd fallen in love with somebody. He treated her with complete respect. He made sure she was financially stable. He did everything he could to smooth the path. The OW stayed out of the way, for several years actually. The kids weren't introduced to her for a very long time. The result of that is that my friend and her ex have a good relationship. She also has a working relationship with OW. When people start behaving like arseholes because they want to cover up how vile they are, that's when it all goes horribly wrong. My husband and his OW could have made things very different, they chose not to. So now it's shit. Is it worth it? Who knows...only time will tell!

I felt sorry for her. She got my sloppy seconds a nd in the long run did me a favour at her own expense.

'It's the age old double moral standard. Married women relying on other women to preserve their own marriages rather than expecting fidelity to come from within the primary relationship.

Society always 'blames the woman', it's easier that way. '

I don't agree with this. Sorry Morris. Society blames the man, always, but at the same time is pretty unimpressed by the woman (and vice versa where the cheating is the other way round). Seems fair.

As for replying on other women to preserve their marriages that is utter bollocks. It really is. As someone who has been a 'victim' in all of this I can confirm that at no time have I considered it the responsibility of other women to keep my DH faithful. That is his responsibility.

Getting angry with OW/OM is as simple as that. Anger. When your life (and that of your dcs) has been ripped apart, it is human to be more than a little pissed off with everyone involved in that. Anger isn't the solve preserve of women. Plenty of men have punched the OM.

In my (limited) experience OW are often very damaged themselves. 'Mine' was divorced in her twenties after both her and her DH cheated with third parties. She went on to target MM at conferences, and to be crude about it slept her way round the office with whoever was willing. She wasn't even faithful to her affair partners. That isn't the behaviour of a happy balanced person. I feel sorry for her, but also pretty angry at her.

MrsC I'm so sorry. What a bastard

megan...you said what I wanted to wine. Thank you

I think it's very unfair to expect rational thought from someone who's just discovered they've been betrayed.

Honestly. I have never felt such pain. Not just emotional - I cried more or less constantly for a month (when I was alone); it was physical too - I ached all over - even my teeth hurt so I couldn't eat much. And mentally I was all over the place.

You just feel anger towards those who have hurt you. Including the OW.

So yes there was anger towards her as well as him. But far more towards him. Believe me.

I am someone who got my H to leave when I discovered his affair, 15 months ago. As he had 'form', my discovery meant our situation was terminal. My fury and distress was directed solely at him.

In the post-mortem, the more I gleaned, the more I hated the OW. I had used my MN detective skills to uncover his deceit, but it was in his sporadic moments of honesty that I uncovered her absolute complicity in the destruction of our marriage.

While he was completely in charge of his own fate (and, by extension, mine and our four young children's), the fact that she declared to him (five months prior to my discovery) that NOBODY could ever possibly love him as much as she did was the cruellest and most destructive thing that anybody could ever say.

His pathetic side-line signalling of his desire to reconcile (which I did not in any way encourage) was completely derailed by her chicken-souping, her soothing words, her whispered words of advice (she is a lawyer), and her buying of bedding and pyjamas for the children to stay at his new flat.

This is a woman who believes that she has found her star-crossed lover, and can totally ignore the fact that our marriage and children existed for a long time before she did. I believe her to be self-absorbed, naïve, grasping, and predatory. After an 18 year marriage, when told to leave, H
did not make the mature, detached choice to be on his own. He rented an expensive flat, but chose to accept invitations to stay overnight with her for ... what? Comfort? Love? Needing mummy?

My anger at her is locked into his persistent ability to make bad bad choices, and she is facilitating and encouraging that. Me? I try to ignore and move on, but I have four very young, very impressionable children and, while I have to involve their father in their lives, I do not want to involve someone whose selfishness, greed, persistence and single-mindedness corrupts the relationship my children have with their father.

I have no choice in this. My H has been until recently been begging me for reconciliation, but she WANTS him. Since I don't, he thinks 'well, OW does, so ...' and he persists in making bad, weak decisions. And ultimately, he lets her steer his decisions.

I am in no way unclear about my H's wrongdoing. I am, however, more clear about hers. That is why I reserve the right to hate her, fear her, and perceive her as a continued threat to the wellbeing of me and my children. I can't even use the STBX soubriquet because (a) I don't live in the UK, and things don't move fast where I live, and (b) his procrastination means that I am paralysed legally and financially, while he and the OW feather their nest. To this day, he denies he is in a relationship with her.

I am absolutely clear about the difference, which is the point of this thread. But while I attempt to move on, the OW is the bad ghost that contaminates the logistics of our separation. H allows it; I can't do anything about it.

Good point vikingvolva. All very well talking about gendered expectations of women's sexual behaviour etc, but if we're going to talk about the impact of sexism here we need to also acknowledge the way in which women are expected to repress our anger and feelings. Personally I'd rather do a wronged woman the courtesy of respecting her right to be angry with who she likes.

And wrt the OP, I'm not sure where all these threads are.

Can'tGetYou
What a well writen post.
I do hope 2016 will be better for you and your 4 children.
I just don't get how OWomen, knowing somebody is married with children can get involved with somebody.
Just walk away.
If he cheats on his wife he'll probably cheat on OW too.
I read on MN -'If you marry a man who cheated (with you) on his wife, then you marry a man who cheats on his wife.

There is that part of a c of e wedding (not sure about other ceremonies) where the congregation is asked whether they, the friends and family of the newly married couple, will support and uphold them in their marriage now and in the years to come. I guess in previous generations that congregation would have been much more consistently the social context of the whole marriage whereas now couples are far more likely to move around and have a social / work context full of people who weren't at the wedding. No man is an island and no marriage either. Those around can either be a positive support. Or they can be destructive, male or female or indeed in laws, parents, siblings etc.

Attitudes to cheating are very sexist and gendered, in many ways we haven't moved on from typical 1950's values.

Other woman, mistress etc have no male equivalent that carries the same judgement. Home wrecker, tart etc likewise.

On MN we hear that 'if he cheats with you, he'll cheat on you' . This may be true, but again is heavily sexist and makes the assumption that the man is the prize in any relationship. There's little acknowledgment that sometimes the man may be desperately in love or lust with the woman, and that she might choose later on to cheat on him.

Lastly the whole 'you're just a warm hole to him, you mean nothing' is in my view, hateful misogyny which again has no equivalence the other way round.

If people have experienced the pain of betrayal then all bets are off - they're entitled to vent as they see fit. But for adult, emotionally intelligent women to attack someone who posts on a forum for support is unforgivable in my view.

Morris I disagree with you entirely. The advice that someone who has cheated with you might well cheat on you applies to men and women and is common sense. If someone has demonstrated no moral problem with crossing that line before logic suggests they will have no moral problem with doing so again. It isn't about the cheater (male or female) being a prize.

Attitudes are not sexist and engendered, comments apply equally to men and women. MN however by its nature has a bias towards conversations where the cheated on party is a woman and comments and discussions reflect this.

'You're just a warm hole to him' is a disgusting comment, and completely untrue. Vicious spiteful comments like that have no place.

I find that most of the advice on MN that excoriates the betrayer and the person they betrayed with is applied to either and both genders and orientations.

What I do find misogynist is the attention to silence women's anger.

It's OK to be angry.

It's wrong to limit that anger to only one person because they have done worse, when actually both have conducted themselves on ways that mean anger is an entirely reasonable response.

I think a the OP here has admitted an agenda, based on the reaction to her being an OW. Instead of reporting personal attacks which are a breach of site rules for deletion, there have been a series of threads telling women what they should think of OW. No insight whatsoever into what has actually provoked the anger.

Yes, betrayal is that bad. So bad that even the 'lesser partner' (ie the one to whom the innocent partner is not married) has crossed a significant threshold.

I think that sums it up edith

For all the "she's not the bad guy" posters, ask yourself if you would knowingly sleep with a married man, with a family, and if you would would you really feel you were a good person?

Because I would know that it is wrong.

Good post Edith

187
You put it so much better than I could.

Edith, I could kiss you for that post. Thank you

Edith I don't disagree with your post entirely but for the your point about 'insight'. Any person who has been cheated on will have that, but only from their own perspective.

I've never read on this board (except from a very few truly GFs) that having affairs is a good thing. It never is. I speak from my own experience on that having had an affair myself (not married) as a much younger woman with a much older man who was married. It was the biggest and most painful set of events ever and I would not repeat it.

I think when OW post here, there is an opportunity to explain, to show the other side of the story and perhaps to change their perceptions of what they're doing. Nobody needs to divulge anything that is raw and painful. I don't believe that people are inherently bad but they DO sometimes make horrible decisions that have impacts to other people. I think some people set out to achieve their prize 'come what may' as MrsC and CantGetYouOutOfMyHead have said; others do not, they get swept up in emotion and do not escape unscathed either.

For myself, reading what those very erudite posters and JonesTheSteam have said would have made me stop and think. I don't know what it's like to be an OM, obviously, but being an OW was a miserable time for me and there was absolutely nobody to talk to because it's such a taboo.

It's very difficult because I would imagine that we all post from our own experiences with the relevant OW/OM in mind and vent accordingly. What breaches guidelines - and isn't acceptable - is to allow that tirade to leach over onto posters and it serves no purpose other than perhaps to allow the gleeful GFs to stick the knife in more by needling further.

Yes, betrayal is that bad. So bad that even the 'lesser partner' (ie the one to whom the innocent partner is not married) has crossed a significant threshold.

We know that affairs can cause (emotional) harm. People cannot cheat on their own. The most someone can do on their own is think about having sex with someone else. They can't go ahead and do it without someone else making the decision to make what they want to do possible.

If someone shoots someone else you might get angry at them, but you might also get angry with the person who handed over the gun they needed to be able to physically go ahead and carry out the shooting, if the person who supplied the gun knew the gun was going to be used for this specific purpose.

People are free to try to infer sexism and misoginy in this anger, but I'm not sure any difference is made to whether it is legitimate to be angry with OW or OM, or not. It is perhaps a bit like trying to analyse whether the person angry at a black mugger is a racist or not as part of an argument for why they shouldn't be angry at the mugger.

Edith I do agree with that silencing thing.

So often women are told to hold their head up high not to say anything do anything, not to react. their is dignity in not having any outward discernible reaction. I think that if you can let a bit of the rage go by throwing a sandbag overboard, so to speak, maybe that helps MORE in the short term when you need the outlet, more than the comfort of knowing you acted in a dignified manner will help you in the long run. I know being dignified is of some comfort in most situations of course. But there is pressure on women not to react at all to the most appalling cruelty and disregard.

Personally I don't post with any relevant OW/M in mind because neither I nor anyone close to me has been in this situation, to my knowledge. I just have a big problem with sexist expectations about the way women are allowed to feel and direct anger.

LyingWitch, I understand and in general have no problem with what you're saying. We all come at this with our own perspectives.

But I can't let one thing go: What really, REALLY gets to those of us who have been the cheated upon spouse is when an OW comes on here and makes statements like yours when you said, It was the biggest and most painful set of events ever and I would not repeat it. The "woe is me" grates tremendously.

"The biggest and most painful set of events ever" is telling your 12 and 10 year old that you are splitting up. The most painful set of events is having the 10 year old think you are joking because the news is so out of the blue. She's hardly ever seen her parents disagree more than mildly with each other. The most painful set of events is going from feeling that you have stronger than average marriage with an active (and non-vanilla, if you're wondering) sex life to having your whole marital history rewritten by someone trying to justify the unjustifiable.

I think when we're all young and stupid we think that affairs just can't happen to a decent marriage, that there must be something wrong with the non-cheating wife/husband and the marriage. What is a complete mindfuck and impossible (truly) to understand when you've never been on the other side of it is that sometimes people just cheat because they want to and they feel entitled to. My husband was really one of the last guys you would ever think would do such a thing, until he was. No one, and I mean no one, can believe it. I have lost count of the number of people who have said some variation on "You were the last two I would ever have expected to break up." So, so many of the OW who come on here to post just can't get their heads around this. And, in some ways, who can blame them. I'm not sure I could have totally before this happened (though I was never an OW, and believe me it was not for lack of offers in the male-dominated environment I worked in as a younger woman).

Like others have said, of course I primarily blame my husband. I threw him out immediately. There is no confusion with me or him over who is primarily to blame, but as Edith says there is plenty of anger towards a person who took part in the destruction of a family. Nothing can make that OK. If an OW wants to come on and understand what happened, no problem. We can tell our stories from the other side, and I would never, ever condone name calling, particularly of the misogynistic type. But please, please don't expect us to hold someone's hand and tell them "There, there, dear. Poor you. You were just a victim in all this."

dontknow... you've made an assumption that mine was a 'woe is me' kind of post. It wasn't, I can assure you. I wouldn't post that way even if I felt that way because I've read the anguish here for long enough not to do that and I would baulk at any attempt at hand-holding, I would find that beyond patronising.

When I say that 'it was the biggest and most painful set of events ever' I meant that it was a series of steps that were taken to the affair. I started typing 'mistake' and re-thought it given that it was a conscious decision, each of the steps was. It's a painful realisation (when it comes) to know that you've been complicit in such a massive deception and I helped put that family at risk, however obvious it seems to be to the general public. The affair was never discovered and that realisation didn't hit me for several years.

I don't think you understand at all beyond your own circumstances, which is fair enough, why should you?

I think some of the 'beliefs' stated as fact at little more than a panacea (and an unhelpful one at that). Bad marriages don't necessarily result in cheating partners although they might, ditto for good ones. It's just not possible to generalise on this topic, it really isn't, as tempting as it is (imo) to try to put it in neat boxes.

One thing I do know for fact is that 1) there are a LOT of affairs going on, somebody is having them and they're currently undiscovered and 2) the subject on MN brings an awful lot of interest and posts and it's like catnip for cheated-on people who are trying to understand 'why?'.

I personally think that it would be better brought out of taboo because as a poster upthread mentions, when a couple married (previously), the congregation were asked to help uphold and support the marriage. I think in order to do that, 'cheating' needs to be discussed, upfront, up-close and the 'mystique' and 'enchantment' aspects quashed. That's what I think anyway.

' 2) the subject on MN brings an awful lot of interest and posts and it's like catnip for cheated-on people who are trying to understand 'why?'.'

That's insulting. I personally am very insulted.

People who have been on one side or another of a situation often post on threads about such situations on MN because they are relevant to them. I used to post a lot on threads about nervous aggression in the doghouse also, as I have a dog with that problem. I can learn from and share on such threads. Similarly affair threads. They aren't catnip, no one is getting high here. I don't give a shit about the whys.

Why are you here? Catnip? No, thought not.

Bitchiness aside, you are right, the subject should be brought out of taboo. Your experience is interesting and relevant. OW, OM, betrayed spouses, all of us should be able to talk about things in RL rather than on forums. I was open when it happened and my friends were a huge support. I never mention it now. Why? Well it's over' isn't it? We've moved on. Or have we?