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.

I think there's a difference between having a conscience and being ''woe is me'' .

I'd say witch clearly has a conscience. OW like TheFormidableMrsC's OW, they don't have a conscience because inn their head they have it all rationalised.

megandmog... I didn't realise it was bitchy or insulting, I'm sorry. I was going to write 'like a scab that you can't help picking' because that how it feels to me - also 'catnip' without meaning that anybody is getting a 'high' from it. I mean it as an irresistible 'eye draw', that's all.

I'm here for the same reasons that anybody else is. I've been on both sides of this.

I really am sorry to have upset you,

Lying the bitchiness comment was directed at myself, not you. I was a bit.

Having been on both sides gives you quite an understanding.

The picking a scab comment I can accept.

You're ok aren't you. For an OW (Joke)

megandmog... Oh. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to apologise and not just flounce off. :)

I suppose that my situation is odd. It does give me a bit of insight into how I felt from both sides of that fence and it's a bit of a juxtaposition really. I find that when I post here about this, I have to try to put what I'm saying through a 'wronged partner' filter first and hope that I don't offend. My filter isn't always successful because it's mine and I had a 'decent cheater' who didn't do many or any of the horrible things I read about here so I don't always feel the impact as keenly and certainly not now, several years after the event.

There have been a few OW who have seen my posts and contacted me via PM. I've been happy to talk to them from the point of view of acknowledging their pain but keeping the line clearly towards ending an affair and doing it with dignity, allowing the unknowing partners to keep theirs. I can say (filter in place) that these women do not escape unharmed albeit they've orchestrated their misery. The guilt is ever present (check!) and, however cognisant they are at the drifting or ending stages, they (we) suffered some kind of brain-freeze at the beginning when it could have been avoided.

I'll also say that however horrific discovery was or potentially is, nobody goes into an affair thinking of how that would be in reality. They (we) think that there is no hurt caused if nobody knows. Some affairs are never discovered. I know now that 'absence' from a family can be painful and unsettling even if a partner can't put their finger on why things are 'not right'. None of this is in the cheating partners' minds, I think, and this is why affairs need to move away from taboo so that nobody can sleepwalk into them without being fully aware of the arrogance and selfishness of what they are proposing to do.

Just for clarification, any OW that has contacted me wanting a willing confidante to 'squee' with them at the 'romance' (and there were two), have been given short shrift and blocked. I'm not entirely sure about the one suggested who is posting on this thread, she may just be posting carefully to see how the land lies. The taboo again...

I'd just add that even though I'm no longer an OW, that the affair didn't blow up a family (unknown impacts acknowledged), I will never be completely free of what I did. I will always try to talk an OW away from this path of destruction because even if they have no understanding of their role or how much of a cliché it all is, at the end of it, they will always be living their life (paraphrasing from Emma Thompson in Love Actually), as being 'less than' they could have been and that's no way to live because there's no way of making good the damage that's been done, only to undertake never to do it again.

Not every OW is unaware of the relationship the "cheating bastard" is in. Some women know exactly what is going on and exactly what they're getting into but simply don't care either.

Lying, your post really moved me and I am grateful for the time you have taken to type such a considered response. There are some very interesting insights here and I have found this thread quite useful given so many are "goady" and despite my still considerable pain, even after more than two years, I have not had the need to react as angrily as I might on occasion.

OnADarkDesertHighway, I appreciate your words and take them in the spirit in which they were meant. I think you need to accept that nothing you ever do will make the situation you have been complicit in OK for your partner's ex-wife or his children. There is no way you can "help" make it "easier". The best advice I can give you is never to have a baby with this man. IRL I know somebody just like you. After the dust had settled (not withstanding the devastated wife and children), she and her "partner" married and eventually had a baby. That baby is now 5. That OW has now been left by her husband for somebody else because apparently "she's changed now she's a Mum" no shit sherlock. It took 14 years for this to happen and she "can't believe it and never thought he'd do it to her". He is just repeating the pattern and will continue to do so. It's a tragedy. I would also counsel you not to believe a word your partner says about the state of his marriage because I can assure you that it simply won't be true. Re-writing of history is the first thing they do. In my situation, that hurt me more than anything because I seemed to have no right of reply, he could just say what he liked, regardless of whether it was true or not. Utterly disgusting behaviour really.

Finally, nobody should ever forget the ripple effect of these situations. Our families, both sides, have been blown apart by my husband's affair. My children's relationships with their grandparents have largely been destroyed, my daughter, at 17, is so cynical and mistrustful after what she has witnessed that I am fearful for her in so many ways. She has hardened in a way that no child should have to. It affects aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, inlaws. Nobody escapes unscathed unfortunately. This breaks my heart and is something I doubt I will ever recover from. Everything you know disappears, every memory is tainted, you question everything you ever did and yet you are left to try and repair yourself and your children. It is utterly horrific and I will never have another relationship after this. How could I ever trust anybody again?

I find this such a difficult topic because I have been on both sides. My ExP had an affair and left me for the OW. At first I was angry with both of them, particularly because I knew her (although wouldn't have counted her as a friend). However, four years on, they are now (apparently) happily married. Somehow that makes me less angry and I am now at peace with what happened. I think that sometimes people just meet somebody who will make them happier. Having an affair is never the best way to leave a relationship but sometimes it is not bad enough to leave until you know that you have met the right person. I no longer have any anger towards her and genuinely wish them well. I think that my anger was partly pain at the end of the relationship, and it was easier to blame somebody than to accept that perhaps our 8 year relationship was never quite as perfect as I wanted it to be.

I am currently in what I suppose would be termed an affair with somebody who is temporarily separated but not openly seeing other people. I think that meeting me may sound the death knell for his marriage. I feel very guilty because I can't help wondering if he might have stayed and made it work for the sake of his son (albeit in a situation where they live apart for several weeks at a time because of his work) if he hadn't met me. I am giving him space at the moment to end things finally if that is what he wants, and I have now not seen him for a while in order to give him time to be certain. He knows that I will respect and understand any decision he makes. However, I am sure I will be seen as the OW and that is something I never thought I would be.

I suppose what I am saying is that every situation is complex. Nobody can really know what has gone on in a relationship except the two people who are part of it, and that is as true for the relationship between the H and OW as it is within the marriage. My view now is that to some extent the OW needs to take responsibility, but I also understand that sometimes relationships have come to an end long before anybody else gets involved. But very often they are just not bad enough to end finally and for good, particularly if children are involved. I think that in those situations the OW may be a fairly passive player and can't really be blamed too much.

Of course there are women who are ruthless and selfish and manipulative (as there are men). But I don't know that it is always that black and white.

I think that in those situations the OW may be a fairly passive player and can't really be blamed too much.

I think that you need to believe that in order to assure yourself that you are not partly responsible for the ending of a marriage. While I understand what you are saying the facts are that he is cheating and you are helping him to.

You need to own that.

Bogeyface - I do own that and I do feel responsible, albeit that I have deliberately withdrawn recently to make sure that his final decision is his alone. But I think that whatever choice he makes will be the right one, just as I think that ultimately my ExP probably made the right decision for him.

PS I should make it clear that the temporary separation happened before I met him, partly as a result of his wife wanting to move back to her home country. But if I am being honest, I know that there is more of a chance that he would go back had we not met.

Ready123...you will be blamed and you need to prepare yourself for that I'm afraid. If I were you, I would end this relationship completely. If his marriage is what he says it is and I doubt it, then he will move out and initiate proceedings to end it. When that happens, then of course you are free to start a relationship. Anything else is going to be an unholy shitty mess. Read above!

I'm grateful for your comments, MrsC, I know from your posts that you've had a truly horrendous time and it looks like it's really not over for you because as you say, there is the 'ripple' affect, which ends in its own time and goodness knows when that is.

I hope it won't offend you if I say that if you accept that your ex re-wrote history to make his affair 'ok' in his head then the memories that he has had to over-write, were true. That being the case, those memories, whilst tainted in your mind, are not actually tainted in his. He has the truth of them hence the need to re-write them to make them palatable to him. The memories, whatever good you can glean from them, cannot be tarnished by him no matter what he does.

I'm sorry if that's missed the mark, I mean it to be comforting in that whatever he does/they did, they cannot erase or take away the goodness of those memories as they were at the time.

However crass and crappy his behaviour, I would imagine that he if could have seen into the future before he engaged in this, seen your pain and that of his children, he would not have taken this path and would therefore not be having to re-write it now for him to cope.

I do think of you, MrsC and I hope very much that you will find happiness again with somebody else worthy of you when you're ready.

I've always thought the anger directed towards the OW to be disproportionate.
The husband is the one breaking the promise of fidelity. He is the one to blame. No matter how predatory the OW is, it takes the man to decide to be unfaithful. (or the woman if the genders are reversed)

My exh was unfaithful twice. The first one I felt complete indifference towards, the second one I pitied. The point is, my ex was a shit, the other women had made no commitment to me - their morals were their business (and lord only knows what my ex had told them). His infidelity was a reflection on his contempt for our relationship. They were irrelevant.

Now in a meaningful marriage I know that no woman could make my DH be unfaithful.

I agree with MrsC on that entirely, Ready123. If you are prepared to give him space to work out his marriage and what he wants then why not end it completely and let him do just that? If and when he is single you are free to have a whole relationship with him and he with you - without carrying the weight of damage into it and having to build a relationship with a whacking great elephant in the room.

Don't be the OW unless 'OW' stands for 'only woman'.

TheFormidableMrsC - I have ended it, and completely agree with you. The only way it will continue in any way in the future is if he is free to be in a relationship with me and can be honest about that with everybody. If the situation is not as he says it is then I have no interest in being with him because I have a very fulfilling life and don't need somebody who isn't honest in it! Having said that, I do know for certain that they live apart.

I think that right now, at least, I am doing the right thing.

All the perspectives on this thread have been very interesting.

I think if I could say one thing with genuine thought for OW/potential OW, the thing I would strongly, strongly advise is that you never take a cheating person at their word when it comes to describing their marriage, or at the very least treat it skeptically. The outwardly nicer the cheater, the more likely they are to have to demonise the partner/marriage to deal with the internal conflict between how they view themselves and their demonstrably shitty behaviours. Of course there are exceptions, but they are very, very much the exception. I have seen this in every single couple I know who has gone through the experience. Every single one. Of course no marriage is perfect, but ordinary imperfections in an otherwise good couple are blown into wrongs done to the cheater. The good, loyal partner is demonised and every flaw exposed with no sense of the cheater's flaws and (lack of) input into the marriage.

As with MrsC, that has been by far the most painful part of my husband's betrayal. Some very serious things he's said are not just points where reasonable persons could interpret facts differently; in some cases, things simply didn't happen or he has spun things in a way that is almost crazy. It has been excruciating to have to just let that go, but I could never have believed the mental contortions if I hadn't experienced them. Any OW hearing them would have no idea whatsoever, especially coming from such a "good" guy. And, hey, most cheaters don't/can't present as scumbags because they'd never find OW in the first place!

Lying, I do really appreciate that and you're absolutely right, maybe in time I will see things differently. I must sound as if I spend my entire life mourning the arse, I really don't, outwardly I am absolutely fine. Inside though, I am tortured sadly. I can't get past what they've done and said and I can't get past the utterly evil things OW said to me. As my husband said "she will always hate you". Why? I have never done anything but exist. I feel very sorry for her little boy who has so recently lost his father yet was given no time to come to terms with that before my husband moved in. Neither of them are "normal" in the true sense of the word. The strangest thing happened yesterday. I dropped my eldest to a NYE party in the town that my husband and OW live. I stopped at a petrol station that has an M&S food thingy attached to get some bits for my own NYE. As I was paying, I glanced at the forecourt only to see OW filling her car up. Knowing that she was going to walk in pretty much as I walked out, I ushered my little one along. I am absolutely sure she saw me but because she had her son with her she didn't make eye contact at all. The one time I came face to face with her previously, she sneered at me. Unfortunately my son spotted them but I managed to usher him into the car before any damage was done. I have to admit, I looked at her and wondered what on earth my husband saw in her money and a lifestyle but whatever, he still chose to leave his little boy and abandon everything we had built together. I don't think my husband had any inkling how things were going to be. His appearance suggests that this has taken its' toll on him too. I imagine that he knows he's fucked his entire life up as he now has nothing except the clothes on his back. I hope it's worth it for him, I really do . Thank you for your kind words

Ready when I say end it, I mean end it. No texts, no emails, no nothing. No contact whatsoever. You get on with your life, he sorts his shit out. I accept and agree that some marriages have just run their course and probably need to end. Of course doing so is a lot harder in reality. If things are as he say they are, then he can take steps to end it and in time, maybe you will indeed be able to start again. However, if you're in the midst of it, you will be blamed by absolutely everybody, always be tarnished with the "OW" badge and even if it's not entirely your fault...everybody will think it is. You don't want to go there. You also want to be able to look his child in the eyes and know that you didn't break up his Mum and Dad! Good luck.

... and this is where my OW filter fails, MrsC. I've read and re-read your last post several times and I'm trying to understand how this OW could possibly be feeling. The best I can come up with is 'wrong-footed and over-compensating' hence her overreactions to your very normal and natural presence.

If I had been this particular OW, I wouldn't have ever said nasty things to you. Whatever your husband might have filled my head with, told me about you, I would have 'taken you as I would find you' coupled with an overriding sense of no fair play on my part. I could not have spoken to you with anything other than sincere apology and regret at the way things had turned out (that I had taken a steady hand in making them turn out that way).

I don't know how/if this OW interacts with your children, MrsC, but again, I would be stepping right back from interfering in their relationship with their dad - or your ongoing interactions with him - and I'd make it quite clear to him that whatever had happened had happened but that I wasn't going to stick the knife in you any further and would make any involvement as easy for you as it could be... and that I would expect him to treat you well in that regard too, irrespective of what he/I had done - there's no need for him to lash out and I wouldn't respect a man that would do that after already causing untold pain.

I realise that I sound like a loon putting myself in OW's position here. She's not being honest about the situation, that much is clear. If she were honest with herself, she would be treating you very differently.

Urgh...difficult one Lying. OK, OW's husband was killed in March 2013, a tragic and awful accident that was widely reported locally, particularly due to his public servant job. I knew by the June that my husband was up to "something". OW worked for my brother for several years from around 2000-2003. We married in 2000. She tried to get my husband to leave me then. I was onto her immediately. She left my brother's employ and moved away (to the next town to us unbeknown to me). My husband has since admitted to a liaison with her that would have taken place around 9 years ago (her son is 9, I can't even go there). I believe my husband has always been in contact with her, but I wasn't aware of that. I believe he was a "knight in shining armour" when her H was killed. They maintain that they met by accident two weeks before he moved in with her. I find that insulting. I have found out an awful lot more since. When I finally identified her after he'd left, she wrote to me, a really painful email describing her husband's death, identifying his body and how she couldn't bear to have sex with anybody as she loved her husband still, she couldn't possibly unsettle her son's life further and that if her relationship with my husband "matured", she would "always do right by me and my children". Five mins later, I received an email from my husband telling me they hadn't started having sex until he left. They hadn't got their stories straight. All the time she was going on, she was living with him. He was pretending he was homeless and bringing me his washing and appearing at my door looking like Wurzel Gummidge. It must have been stressful keeping up the "story". She was worried about her child related "business and reputation". When I questioned them, that's when it changed and her abuse started. She can't possibly have mourned her husband or indeed was having an affair with mine before he was killed. I know her, I know her backstory, I know how she has conducted relationships before. I think this is more about getting one over on me than about my husband, who is no catch for her at all. It's long and awful. I have 3 threads on MN about it and I actually think you have posted on them!

In terms of the children, eldest has cut him off, our 4 yo sees him twice a week but no overnights, only a couple of hours midweek and all day Saturday. I believe her input is limited apart from when she decides to tell my DS how awful I am and how lovely she is. She is not trustworthy and I will not allow my son to stay with them. Her hatred of me is so intense that I don't believe my son would be safe. My son has also been diagnosed with ASD and I believe (with the wonderful benefit of hindsight) that my husband is also autistic. It makes for a huge awful mess that will never go away. OW has ensured that my husband and I can't even speak. She has even had me arrested. She does not want us to co-parent. Because of her, my husband checked out of the diagnostic process for our son and has not been "allowed" to attend courses with me in relation to that. Insecure? I'd say so.

Sorry, I am rambling...trying to explain, it's really hard to do. I can't explain how life ruining this has been and how awful it is. I just can't. None of it will end well...of that I am sure...

omg, I@d love to go out for a glass of wine with you mrsc. my x had me arrested in 2007. I don't tell many people that because they just wouldn't understand that it wasn't my fault. But .......... although my situation is different from yours, my x was abusive and I had to escape, I know now with the benefit of time, two years is nothing. Ok, it's good that the first two years are behind you now because they really were the worst. But when you feel really truly over this you're going to be like the bionic woman. i feel a bit "re-built" now. Not only will you get the spring in your step back, but you'll feel like an improved version of who you were before. I know not everybody recovers completely from a really damaging life experience but I can tell that it's the intelligent, funny, warm people who do recover completely and then some.

NoMore....anytime you like! Would be delighted! Thank you for that lovely post...you have clearly had a similarly difficult time. It's very hard when you come across threads like these, easy to be angry and then the odd OW pops up completely oblivious to the destruction left behind. I am fine, honestly. I hadn't anticipated being in middle age with such a dependent little boy but we'll get through and rebuild. I am glad you have. I just wish that I didn't have to deal with two such utterly fucked up individuals who are only focussed on themselves. I will be fine...as will we all. Happy New Year to you!

MrsC... do you think she might conceivably think of you as the OW? I mean, if you married in 2000 and she was working for your brother around the same time, might she have had designs on your husband before you married? If your husband is confessing now to a liaison with her prior to or around the time you married (and her son might even be his)... it might explain the hatred she seems to feel for you? :(

After all, she can't hate your husband, can she? He's the target of all of her emotions from what it seems.

Does it help you to believe that your husband is autistic? He may well be, he seems well able to blot things out of his life and not take up the responsibilities of the children that he's supposed to love and protect. I suppose it would explain quite a bit and, if it gives you comfort in some possible answers, in the absence of being able to get a definitive diagnosis for your husband, I would prefer to anticipate an ASD diagnosis myself.

I think you do right to keep your children from the OW. Her behaviour towards them - and you - is not normal. Even if you were the worst kind of harridan (and I know that you are not), why would any woman - a mother to boot - take out her anger on innocent children? She would not. Something is obviously very wrong there and she sounds completely unhinged.

I know that I've posted on your threads before... but no more than wishing you well. It's very difficult to post meaningfully on a situation that I don't really know and I'm so desperate not to put my clumsy size 5s in too heavily and upset anybody...so I do 'platitudes', which are heartfelt and can be nice but they really don't have much value other than to show support for you. This thread is the most that I've ever talked on this subject, I think and I really hope that it's not causing upset.

I know you have a big following of supporters here, MrsC, I will happily add myself to that number and you can rant to me whenever you want. I would have cracked up if I were in your position so you must be incredibly strong and together. More and some - it should be gin!

EdithWeston I originally posted as I was curious. I am not nor I have ever been the OW. Both in RL and on MN I have noticed that the OW can seem to have more of the anger directed towards them. I do not have an ulterior motive and am quite frankly offended at the suggestion that I am the OW. I have been incredibly moved by some of the posts and my thoughts go out to all those who have been affected by affairs. Its a shit situation - one that I hope I will never find myself in. Thank you to all the people who have shared their own personal stories, it has really opened my eyes and I understand that OW have gone out of their way to be vile in some situations. I hope that all the mumsnetters who have been through this find 2016 brings them some much needed happiness.

bloody typos - have I not I have

Lying...well she might I guess! We married in 2000, I first met her in 2002 and literally watched her drape herself all over my husband in my brother's office, while giving me little "over the shoulder" grins (should make clear my husband had a building company and was doing some refurb work for my brother). I clocked her immediately, said to my husband she was a POS, he laughed it off. I can't be sure that anything happened then, what I do know is that he told everybody he "knew he'd made a mistake two years into our marriage". Coincidence? What I don't get is why he didn't leave then, we had just bought a house, but I had a really good job in the City, could have easily taken over the mortgage, she was single....

No, it doesn't help to think of my husband as autistic. I have always known that something wasn't quite "right" a whole other story but didn't actually have the lightbulb moment until DS was diagnosed and a whole new world was opened up to me...learning about ASD, doing courses etc. Had he been here, I would have made sure that he had got an adult diagnosis. She never will, because that would be admitting he is "flawed", remember this is the woman who said that as she was a children's hairdresser with a CRB check she knew my son wasn't autistic and I was "attention seeking" . They went strangely quiet post diagnosis! It's funny, we were referred for assessment at DS's 2 1/2 year check, his behaviour being obvious to anybody. My husband, to this day, denies ever being at that appointment.

OW wrote to my brother and said I was "standing in the way of her happiness". She really does think that I should have wished them well, handed over my son (they tried that..!) and handed over my house. Because I didn't, she turned. I am not sure what she expected. She's an overindulged only child, always had whatever she wanted. She also took my husband to her sons school, 4 1/2 months after his Dad's funeral and was all over my husband in the playground...much to everybody's disgust (we have mutual friends). Nobody does that, do they? I think she is fucked up, entitled and is taking all her shit and anger out on me. She clearly has never ever grieved her husband's death. I should say, he was a lovely man, very well liked but totally disliked my husband...I think he saw what I did!!

Anyway, I could go on and on about this...and I mustn't. It was my NY resolution to put all this shit behind me. It's hard though! I am grateful for your support and lovely words...I really am...thank you