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.

I was well aware we had our issues, dome caused by me. But my efforts to talk and fix were never going to be appreciated and heard truly was when he was doing what he was doing and being encouraged to leave as he wasn't 'fulfilled'

Songbird, brilliant post.

The 'pretending' part really rang true with me - not wanting to bore your friends or family even more, strong face for the kids etc.

I was lied too and told he wasn't married. Even looked at marriage records online to see if he had one, but he didn't as he was married abroad. Swore blind for months he wasn't. I remember posting on here around two months in talking about how I'd not met anyone or been to his house and anyfucker saying he's married.

I posted on here saying I wasn't sure if to tell her. I wish I listened to the majority on here. She's since found out. He told her half the truth. She mailed me asking for the truth yesterday. He's begged me to lie. I refused. She deserves the truth and I told her. I apologised profusely to her. It won't make her feel better, but it's the least I could do for my part of her pain. I didn't know she existed. He's trying to cover his tracks and I told all. Not heard back from her. I'm leaving it now, but I do hope she finds some strength to leave his sorry ass. Although I expect she won't. Good luck to them I say. Think for me whilst it's hard I must move on and concentrate on me and not being gullible and stupid again to listen and fall for their lies.

Well, you made some mistakes there Nonot but a cold, callous individual you obviously are not

Nonot, fwiw I feel as much for people in your situation as the cheated on spouse.
You did nothing wrong, you were lied to as well.

It's rubbish that you can't just trust a person and assume that they are honest - people like him are scum.

You've nothing to feel guilty about, and nothing to beat yourself up over.
You were just unlucky to be on the receiving end of a twat.

Nonot

There's a world of difference between you and some of the OW on this thread.

You entered into a relationship with someone who turned out to be a shit. You didn't intentionally become the OW.

I still feel terrible and hate/love him, but what he did is disgusting and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Just can't get over the audacity of him begging me to lie else he's going to top himself. I told him there's the Thames, go head first. Funny he wasn't up for that after all. Emotional blackmail at its finest. I couldn't lie to her when she's asking me direct questions. Only a sick person would lie.

I wouldn't say sociopath, necessarily, monkey but some essential component is definitely erm not present. Imo.

On other matters - betrayal hurts unbelievably and cheating in a marriage is a very deep betrayal. Then blaming or lying about the character of the betrayed spouse twists the knife in an already unbearable wound. So yes most people are deeply damaged by betrayal on this level. In all worlds, even the third world. Betrayal: nothing like it on the agony scale; regardless where you live or how much money you have.

Someone way back up the thread, I think it was fell out of bed, said that she had been an OW once when she was 16 and had a relationship with a married teacher .

My dear, you were not an OW. You were the victim of a crime. I know you may think that you consented but the law says otherwise . You were a used and abused by someone in a position of repsosnility over you .

Yes of course you were stupid but most of us were at 16. That's why there's a law to protect children from this type of exploitation .

It's not your fault , it's his. I hope he served time for what he did to you.

Good post songbird. Samper that was exactly me too. I tried to talk to him. I said we don't feel like a team anymore. And the coward still didn't stop or leave.
Ow lied to me. He probably wrote the message. They truly deserve each other.

Management made a commitment to the colleague that the job was for her alone. Management actively pursued me for the job and broke that commitment. I felt no duty to decline as I had made no such commitment.

MM made a commitment to a woman that a relationship with him was for her alone. MM actively pursued me for a relationship and broke that commitment. I felt no duty to decline as I had made no such commitment.

Not sure that is quite the same thing. In the first example the person doesn't actually get the job. This would be more like a situation where someone makes you think they are about to ask you start dating, but then changes their mind and decides they want to go out with someone else instead. Not great, but you win some, you lose some, both in terms of getting jobs and boyfriends/girlfriends.

To make your first example more analogous to affairs, the first person would have to have "officially" been given the job by management, have every belief that they are working this job and under certain conditions and responsibilities, yet you are secretly helping management undermine them in some way in an ongoing manner that denies them knowledge about their job as it actually is, that might make them reconsider it if they knew.

Sure, you could still "I made no commitment" but if you wish to justify a notion with an analogy I just think a closer analogy is needed. And IMO I don't think that accepting a job that had initially been promised to someone else, captures what the OM/OW in an affair is doing.

It's been interesting seeing the pain of being cheated on being discussed here. We all have defining moments in our life. The happy ones, getting married, the wonderful feeling of just having given birth to a new baby. I feel like those have been stolen from me tainted by the man my ex husband really was. The lie I was living. When I look back on my life there are two moments of overwhelming pain. When I was 9 and was told my father had been knocked down and killed by a hit and run driver. Then the pain when I'd spent months dancing round a 'depressed' husband. Taking care of 4 kids on my own while he went on 'stag weekends.' And then seeing the texts pop up on my son's iPod. I will be able to recite them word for word for the rest of my life. The pain will never truly go away. When people are asked what they'd save if the house burned down it's always the photos, the memories. My ex husband's affair has tainted them. Made me question every loving moment. I feel like the last fifteen years have been a lie. When someone wipes you out of your life so callously it affects you deeply. You don't just move on. I never mention my ex. He begged me to take him back. I refused. He's living with her as he 'couldn't be on his own.' He sees the 4 children he saw being born and cried with the emotion each time around every 6 weeks when he can be bothered. I'm not bitter. I'm bringing up 4 children on my own and working full time to support them. I haven't got time. But this is the sort of man the ow 'wins' a cheat and liar. You can focus on all the failings of the original partner to justify your magnificent love.i made life decisions, turned down a great job as ex said he didn't want the move, had more children. All while he was cheating. No excuses. Honesty would have reduced the hurt. I hate these justifications that the betrayed partner was at fault. How weak if that's the case not to leave a relationship with integrity and be on your own for a bit. Who'd want to be an ow, propping up a weak man's ego.

to you onmy x
Weak coward liar cheat are the only words.
Why would any woman with any self respect want a man like that? I will never get my head around it. As soon as I found out he was gone. Well done you my ow you got him, I pushed him and he went. I know I deserve so much better than what she so desperately wanted.

"There's the Thames, go head first"

Perfect response to such blatant manipulation

On a lighter note, I actually lol'd recently at the utter lack of irony displayed by my OW.
I only found this out last week off a friend of hers that I have recently become friends with.

One of the many lies my husband had told her about us was that I'd been unfaithful to him (she understandably clutched him to her welcoming bosom and soothed his 'pain'). Anyhoo, in a recent tear filled tantrum (she feels he isn't giving her enough attention apparently), she wailed:
*At least I was FAITHFUL to him for all these years, not like his wife...
*

Ok then.....

There's some brilliant posts on this thread. SongBird , dontknow , MrsC , Tom , Jones , Jilly , Bunny to name a few of the recent ones.

There's also some of the foulest, most jaw dropping posts I've had the misfortune to read on MN.

Stumbly you are right that you did post an "unpopular opinion" last night. I'm still staggered you posted it in seriousness. Do you really believe getting cheated on and divorced is not that "terrible an experience." I had no idea just how horrific it was until I went through it but anyone with an ounce of decency and common sense would know it's a terrible ordeal without having to experience it.

It is not as simple as being upset for a while and then "moving on" Try being happily married for twenty five years and approaching retirement and then finding out your husband is having an affair with a woman you know, lied to you for your entire relationship and had also cheated on you for over twenty years.

Cope with that on precious little sleep because it actually hurts to go to bed. I used to dread turning everything off before going to bed and leaving my house in darkness and quiet with nothing to distract me from the tortuous thoughts that occupied my head from the moment I woke to the moment I'd finally got to sleep.

Finding out my entire marriage had effectively been a joke nearly broke me. All my memories have been tarnished. Most of my photos are in the loft because I can't bear to look at them. Our wedding, a joke as he wouldn't know vows if they hit him and I was marrying a cheat but I didn't know as he'd lied about that. Our son's birth, that was when I stopped paying him attention apparently. Our daughter's birth, not exactly our happy family complete as I'd thought as he'd cheated by then. Silver Wedding anniversary, he was in the middle of his affair then.

I didn't even get most of the tell tale signs of an affair. No change in behaviour towards me. He was so practised in lying and cheating it came so naturally there was no change to notice.

So I'm sorry I haven't yet dusted myself down and decided to move on. You really have no idea what you are talking about. Your comments are insulting to everyone who has been cheated on.

SongBird, totally.

Semper, you have described it exactly.

Onmyown, please make contact: I have recently found myself on my own with four children after fifteen years ...

And, yes, Iwas to the tarnished memories: even my 7 year-old Son cries for those.

Stumbly as for your job analogy comparing missing out on promotion to being an OW. Unbelievable.

Here's an analogy for you. Married man as the bank robber, OW as the getaway car driver. The robber is the greater perpetrator but the OW in aiding the crime is equally as complicit. I don't think the courts would deem the getaway driver innocent in it.

Confusion I appreciate you obviously don't know MrsC's story, and you hopefully now have a better understanding, but to imply her ex might not have cheated if she'd given him a nice greeting when he got home is really patronising and insulting. I know you've apologised but she has had a hard enough time without needing to respond to comments like that. Please show her the respect she deserves. Thank you.

Here is a scenario for you.
Man has been married for years. He and his wife married very young due to family pressure from her side. 16 years later and they live on separate floors of the house and the marriage is not happy due to the wife now refusing to discuss having children. Both stay together mostly for financial reasons and because they are both stuck in a rut. The man meets a woman at work and starts seeing her. He leaves the wife for the the OW. They divorce and the wife marries her boss who she was secretly in love with for years.
So....is the OW evil?

Unless she's spoken to the wife and knows for sure that it's a marriage of convenience, rather than the blatant and obvious lie that almost every adulterer trots out to the new object of his affections, then she is stupid, gullible and yes rather wickedly inserting herself into a marriage or family.

Is she certain they live separate lives? My ex told the ow that but it was a lie. Even if the marriage is in difficulty, the wife may think they're working on it with no idea that all of her efforts are pointless because the biggest problem they've got is that he's shagging someone else.

And it's not okay just because, after the dust has settled, the wife finds someone else. In time I might find someone else but am changed forever by the betrayal.

For me the main issue with blaming the OW is around personal autonomy.
We are all able to leave a relationship if we choose to do so, and none of us should feel trapped in something that isn't working.
We are all adults who can make our own choices. If I chose to have an affair I would be hugely offended if anyone blamed the OM - that would be a choice that I would have made, and I know my own mind. I don't think we should deny men that responsibility.

Thats not to minimise the effect of an affair - my view is that if a relationship has deteriorated to the extent that you would be looking to emotional or physical needs met outside it then its time either to look really seriously at whether it can be fixed, or move on. Having an affair is a terrible way to end a relationship, but still that doesn't take away for me the fact that IMO the person has an absolute right to end it for whatever reason is good enough for them. ( though if there are children then the priority should be for both parents to work together to secure the emotional and practical wellbeing of the children - and it seems like a lot of break ups that isn't achieved.).

(Just as an aside, since I've been single there have been a few married men who have shown interest, and wanted to speak to me about their marital dissatisfactions. Why would I entertain that I've just left a marriage. So clearly it is possible to leave if its over without an affair, I'm not being their life boat!)

Some very strong and wonderful women on here

Don't let the bastards get you down

Bur an affair takes away the autonomy of the wife. By being lied to she no longer has the full facts.

I was under the impression I had a strong marriage and there are decisions I made and fertility procedures I went through which I would never have done if I knew I was married to a weak cheating scumbag.

He held my hand all the way through - hardly actually the actions of a man who didn't want to continue the family life we had created together.

I bet he didn't tell the OW any of this.

I'm sure he went off and told her the same heap of shit that he eventually started to tell me to justify his affair - he compromised when we got married, he had never really loved me, I didn't understand him yadda yadda yadda.

A lot of my early anger was because I had lost control of my own destiny. He has since admitted he didn't actually ever want to leave me and he has dragged his heels over every step so far in the divorce proceedings.

For any OW, get real. You're not some big romantic love story when you have am affair, and just read chump lady. She has the psychology of a cheat down pat.

bb888 - everyone has the right to end a relationship that isn't working, but a thousand times crueller to the faithful spouse to engage in an affair before doing so.

If you want to leave, leave. Don't just suck it and see, to double check whether there's a better life out there before setting fire to Plan A. How cowardly.

And actually, as has been shown here, an affair isn't always an escape from a failing marriage, far from it. That's why, statistically, so few adulterers actually end up leaving their wives. They often end up begging for forgiveness, and only leave when presented with no other options.

I wonder how many ows think they supported their man to leave an unhappy marriage, unaware that he begged his wife to forgive him and is only with the ow because he has nowhere else to go.

And you know, I don't think anyone places all the blame on the ow. The unfaithful spouse is to blame, but aided and abetted by the ow. She is a difficult figure to have sympathy with, especially after reading some of the posts from ows on here who do nothing to dispel the stereotype.