Why would anyone become the OW?

[StillAgainstTheWind]

I am mystified as to why any woman would knowingly become the OW.

My friend's marriage was destroyed by her DH's affair last year. Why would any woman choose to sleep with a married man especially one with children?

Statiscally I imagine those affairs that end in a happy, faithful marriage between the affair partners are a tiny minority.

Getting a shag from a single bloke isn't fucking difficult. If a woman is just after sex there's plenty of options other than a married man.

And if it's the soulmates bullshit, well it takes a lot of fucking steps to get to the point of feeling that way.

The reality for most is, I would guess, a snatched hour or two of furtive fucking. Lots of time waiting around for a call or text. Being let down at the last minute.

Why would anyone settle for so little? You hear of women who wait years for the man to leave and he never does. Their whole life on hold waiting for an event that doesn't happen.

How is it justified by OW morally. The man is the one who made the vows I guess?

My friend's husband was a knob anyway and was thinking with his dick. But he didn't make the OW any promises and months later I can't see the appeal for her.

Strawberry....I say this as a previous OW so not with any judgement (people in glass houses and all that)...

Leave him. Tell him he can't give you what you deserve and leave him. Absolutely no contact from there onwards (and I mean forever).

Then get yourself some counselling to deal with your childhood trauma and the trauma caused by your exH.

Build your life back up to what it was and meet someone who gives you more than the leftover crumbs.

I've been there. Done it. Now I'm settled down with a lovely, caring, loyal, kind DP and what we have is a million times better than what I had with the MM even though I loved him and had, in some respects, a stronger 'soulmate' type connection with him than DP. Even taking that into account I am a million times happier now.

strawberry please listen to song and stumbly. Something stumbly said there really hit home with me about how she had more of a "soulmate" connection with MM than with her now partner but that that doesn't mean what they had was better. That is spot on the same as me and my MM. We were definitely Soul mates if that's a thing. I knew what he was thinking without him saying it. We finished each other's sentences and thoughts- I always felt in some weird way we shared a psychic connection or something because we were uncanny in our similarities and similar thinking. It was all very magical. Even our books would have been friends, I was startled the first time I ever went to his house and his bookcase was my bookcase.

My husband and I aren't like that- he's a scientist and I'm not, he's very logical and sensible and I'm theatrical and firey. We are absolute opposites. Our eyes never met across a crowded room, I've never finished his sentences off, our books would never be friends. And yet everything about it is better. He is my real soul mate. The love we share is real and deep and strong. He puts me first and I put him first.

None of what I have now would have been possible without therapy- lots of it. I realise now that in my MM I was trying to save him because I wanted to save my Dad (similar, abusive childhoods, no fathers, grew up in poverty and without their natural parents). I had a lot of stuff to work out but I did work it out.

strawberry it's a fridge magnet cliche but today really is the first day of the rest of your life. Make today the day you cut him off forever and sort yourself out. He's a cunt, you aren't.

Strawberry, what you are doing is exactly what the self centred cow that had an affair with my selfish, bastard STBX husband for 10 years did.

She accepted the crumbs of phone calls, messages and snatched weekends/evenings or daytime meet-ups where poss. She 'loved' him and 'cared about him' as 'only she could', because I was an emotional iceberg (well, that is the bullshit lie he told her, anyway).

My husband never had any intention of leaving me or the kids, he begged to stay and try again; he said 'if he had a magic wand, he would erase OW from existence', he says he 'resents OW' for 'putting him in the position he's in, and not leaving him alone', he says he 'doesn't love OW like he loved me' but is staying with her 'because he may as well' (I've filed for divorce).

Seriously, have some respect for yourself - walk away.
He doesn't love or respect you as much as he loves himself.
He is a proven selfish, manipulating liar, who will NEVER put you or your feelings/emotions ahead of his own.

You are right of course, that if it wasn't you it would be someone else - I'm 100% certain that if my husband's OW had not clung on for dear life there would have been countless others. This is what selfish, self centred, greedy people like my husband (and your MM) do - they use other people for their own gratification.

BunnyTyler for you and ditto for everything you posted.

Thanks MrsC , ** for you too - it's a shitty old thing being cheated on, but there's plenty of life ahead to be lived and enjoyed.

I don't think I want to know why.

My father left us during my O levels for his now wife.

At dinner time today I got a phone call to let me know an obit had been stumbled upon, and my father died late last year. Another MNer has kindly confirmed it for me, so I don't have to google the finer details for myself.

I don't want to know why she thought his children finding out their father was dead thanks to a casual Internet search was OK. Anymore than I want to know why he didn't lift a finger to make sure that didn't happen.

I don't care why.

All I know is neither she, (nor my father,) were concerned about the number of people they trampled and the high level of pain they caused when they prioritised their wants over other people's needs.

And that is all I need to know. I'm not interested in justifications, rationalisations and assorted other " what motivated me" bollocks.

"My" OW wants a Daddy for her child and a decent pay packet, IMO. She is 23 and a care assistant. Several times, I have seen the texts from him ending it and her saying that's it forever then she calms down and texts him again and he falls for it, again. We had about 7 weeks with NC, and things were slowly working better, then she texts devastating, as he said he had totally blocked her) when bored NYE, he then starts to rewrite the family Christmas we have had, has slept with her wihin the week and has now left me. She comes from a very dysfunctional family, has, apparently, an ex who slept with her sister and her best friend and who gave her body image problems and anorexia when he criticised her when pregnant. My "D"H is appealing because he is a bit older (36) and a "good" father and in a good job. She has sent me a Facebook message telling me what guilt she feels yet I have also seen a text saying the children are "bound" to be hurt if their father left. Hurt? She doesn't know the meaning: my 9 year-old is wetting herself, refusing school, having tantrums which wake the neighbours and both refusing food and regurgitating it and sharing her worries with me till 1 in the morning, jealous if I contact my other children; my 7 year-old is very introverted and worries about me, crying because the memories he has of his father are no longer good and crying for what he will no lover be able to do with him in the future, he is also wetting himself; my almost 5 year-old is querulous, wetting herself night and day and not the Little Miss Sunshine he used to call her and my 2 1/2 year-old seems to have separation anxiety. Hardly a night has gone by when I haven't had one, of term two and sometimes three in my bed for comfort.

iPost, goodness am so so sorry to read your story. Just awful. .

Heartbroken, for you too. They have no idea how much damage they do to the children. I have have had similar issues with my DS and he also gets into my bed every night. It's awful. I hope you find a way through, all I can say is that it does get better eventually.

My family life was ruined by this.

Most OW are either utterly naive and thick or narcissists. And the men who use them are selfish, immature, insecure little gobshites.

"There are certain professions (that I won't name) where I don't know a single MM who is faithful to his wife (before anyone jumps, no - I'm not an OW:"

I used to work on a boat. Some of the men lived locally, but quite a few did a week on the boat and then a week at home so were away from wives and partners half the time. Apart from one newly-wed ALL these men were unfaithful or trying to be.

There are certain professions (that I won't name) where I don't know a single MM who is faithful to his wife

I think you should as a public service. NC if necessary.

I used to work in the city and in my office anyway, it seemed like only the ugliest dullest most introverted men were faithful to their wives. There were a lot of very young very thick secretaries who enjoyed being taken out and there seemed to be all sorts of affairs going on around me. I always used to be the last to know about the gossip as I was quite blind to me. Even though I was young, slim and (at the time) pretty, nobody ever tried it on with me, no wait, even that's not true, once I went for a job interview and he said ''oh, hang on, you didn't actually think I wanted to hire you!" and he laughed. And now I'm remembering incidents as well. So I have to take that back. But I don't think I was an obvious candidate for a cheap bunk up. But regularly I'd be updated with who was shagging whom and I'd always be boggle-eyed, as i'd hear them on the phone to their wives being the perfect husbands, you'd think. I don't miss that place.

Male academics and their female graduate students are a common one IME. It's perfect: there is an innocent reason to spend loads of time together (incl travelling- conferences etc), many grad students are young and enthusiastic about their research and so is the supervisor, creating a soul-mate illusion. Of course if one of those affairs ever leads to a marital break-up of the academic there is always the next batch of grad students to fear for the now no longer OW.

Banking, Law, Accounting and, I suspect, Medicine. I'm talking large firms, generally London-based. Very large percentages of MM in particular having affairs, so much more common than I even realised as a younger, single person when I was propositioned regularly. It can really put you off believing anyone is faithful. It's why I laugh when people go on about how people only cheat when they are unhappy in their marriages. I always suggest they work in The City for a while and see the role that money, entitlement and opportunity plays.

I used to think a Lasting Passion for a MM was an exciting thing now it just seems tawdry.

I imagine many MM are more available, if they are just looking for what we could call an affair, for want of a better word. They are most likely to know what to say to make the potential OW interested and are prepared to play a game of declaring undying love, with impossible hurdles, making them seem very attractive. If you don't think about it too much, it would be easy to be 'swept off your feet'

Sigh. I doubt they would target people with really string self esteem, as they would not be likely to fall for the story. Feel pity for anyone who does fall for it but cannot see why they would, if it were not for having very low expectations.

In academia, I think it s partially the awe factor. This famous professor all the students read about and now he's interested in a mere grad student and tells her what an amazingly bright spark she is, what a connection they are having, how much more intellectually sparkling she is than his dull wife, who he can of course not leave because of the children and nobody must ever know, it would put the student's thesis at risk!

By the time an insecure young student realises he's just a horny bloke who will say whatever it takes Professor Frisky has the next target student in his sight and she can still not say anything, or else everybody will think he wrote her dissertation for sex.

pax mine was my teacher! Got a theory that it's the perfect way to lure in a mistress if you're a pathetic little weasel because the girls you're targeting will be young, naive and as you say you've got the perfect reason not to leave and go public with the relationship.

Also the armed forces.

I was in the RAF and have seen countless affairs, one night stands and courses / detachment flings. I have been propositioned more times than I can remember by work colleagues, instructors and other ransoms - many of them married and usually happily so.
I was stupid to think that I would 'know' if my husband was at it too (he is in the RAF too), but I didn't.

I could have been the OW countless several times over if I had wanted to - but I didn't. That is the difference between me and people who choose to be the OW.

I agree with dontknow, a couple of posts back:
It's why I laugh when people go on about how people only cheat when they are unhappy in their marriages.... [they should].... see the role that money, entitlement and opportunity plays.

It really is all about opportunity, a sense entitlement, and a willing/available other party.

Also the armed forces.

I was in the RAF and have seen countless affairs, one night stands and courses / detachment flings. I have been propositioned more times than I can remember by work colleagues, instructors and other ransoms - many of them married and usually happily so.
I was stupid to think that I would 'know' if my husband was at it too (he is in the RAF too), but I didn't.

I could have been the OW countless several times over if I had wanted to - but I didn't. That is the difference between me and people who choose to be the OW.

I agree with dontknow, a couple of posts back:
It's why I laugh when people go on about how people only cheat when they are unhappy in their marriages.... [they should].... see the role that money, entitlement and opportunity plays.

It really is all about opportunity, a sense entitlement, and a willing/available other party.

Sorry! Double post.
I'm that desperate to make my point!!

When I was young and engaged I had a flirtation with a married man. Nothing happened, no kissing, nothing, but...it was wrong.

I realized that when I started having suspicions about my fiancee and a woman he knew (we were living in different states at the time while he was going to uni). Nothing happened between them either but I felt punched in the stomach at the thought. And then I thought about the wife of the man I was flirting with finding my number in his pocket (yep, stupid me had given it to him so we could talk as we were "friends") or hearing about us from someone, and how she would feel like that. And I was ashamed. I never talked to him again.

I'm married now. There have been men I've been attracted to but I'd just never go down that road. That's kind of how I feel about the soulmate business...you know you're getting in deep and you can cut it off if you really want to. If I felt like one of my vague attractions was turning into something more, I would completely cut that person out of my life.

I haven't read the thread, so apologies if this option has already been mentioned. I know this thread is asking about those who are sucked in, waiting for the phone to ring and believe its "true lurve" but I can't be the only woman in the world who was entirely content with just having the sex (so long as the sex is excellent, of course).

There are times in life when being in a relationship is simply off the agenda. Under those circumstances, meeting a man who is as unavailable as you are can be just the ticket. If you're being entirely honest, you will exchange - in brief - the reason for your unavailability, meaning you will know up front if marriage is that reason. Unless you fool yourself, you know the parameters and - frankly - won't want them if/when they become available, as we've all heard the saying that once a mistress becomes a wife, there's a vacancy created.

I haven't read the full thread ...

I could have been the OW countless several times over if I had wanted to - but I didn't. That is the difference between me and people who choose to be the OW.

Oh well, bully for you BunnyTyler. Perhaps you didn't mean to be offensive, but that is offensive. Life isn't that black and white.

Joylessfucker, couldn't you just find a single man who is equally happy with a no-strings sexual relationship? It seems so cruel on the innocent parties to seek out married men, or continue a relationship once you know he has a wife and/or children at home.