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.

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.

I absolutely agree with this. I think its about honesty, and people being honest with themselves about their actions and motivations. And like a PP said, giving the spouse to opportunity to make choices based in the facts. And if its just about a man wanting to have his cake and eat it by having an affair and still maintaining the home life of the marriage then thats pathetic.

I just know that if I had had an affair and someone started acting like I didn't know my own mind and that the OM was in some way responsible for choices that I had made I would feel like my ability to take responsibility for myself was being minimised.

bb888, that's because you are viewing it from the position of someone who is honest.

My husband was one of those who wanted me, his home life and a huge dollop of adulation & ego massaging on the side.

If I had thought for a second that my marriage was disintegrating or struggling I would have tried to fix it - if I thought it was irretrievable I would have left.
I thought my marriage was a happy one, my husband is still adamant that he was happy - he just wanted the extra too (because he is greedy, selfish and able to minimise his actions).

Grin, the OW is a fool if she takes the MM's version of events as fact.
I have found out over the last 6 months that:

• We had split several times, where he had moved out for periods of time
• We had a volatile relationship and often argued and fought
• I was unfaithful to him
• I was lazy and did nothing round the house, he did everything
• I had no real time for the kids, it was all left to him
• I treated him like crap

All of that is utter bollocks, but it was the story that OW was being fed, lapping up and using as justification for being his side piece for 10 years.
She is gullible and stupid, he is a lying, deceitful twat who completely rewrote our actual lives to keep her hanging on.

Aargh! Font fail, sorry -

This is what he told OW,
(It was all utter bollocks btw):

We had split several times, where he had moved out for periods of time

We had a volatile relationship and often argued and fought

I was unfaithful to him

I was lazy and did nothing round the house, he did everything

I had no real time for the kids, it was all left to him

I treated him like crap

I just know that if I had had an affair and someone started acting like I didn't know my own mind and that the OM was in some way responsible for choices that I had made

Is that what they are doing though?

Maybe the people who buy fur or who bought cosmetics tested on animals could take a similar view that any suggestion of wrong-doing on their part means you are denying autonomy and the capacity for decision-making on the part of the people actually performing the experiments, doing the killing.

People cannot cheat on their own. Most someone can do on their own is think about having sex with someone else. It can't physically happen without someone else making a decision that enables this choice to be made.

Lot's of analogies on this thread, so let's have another. Friend gets over the limit and asks you if they can borrow your car to drive somewhere. You say yes despite knowing that they are over the limit, and off they go and someone gets hurt. Are you off any kind of moral hook because they used their own freewill to go drink-driving? I'm sure others might disagree, but I'd say you have some responsibility for the harm caused because your decisions enabled and made physically possible the hurt to be caused.

I'm not sure that acknowledging the role of the person who enabled, aided, abetted, encouraged actions that caused harm, in the harm, is quite the same thing as saying that the primary person's mental capacity is being questioned.

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

This.

Despite the enormous, endless pressure my ex-h put on me to have a baby many years into our marriage, he later said that our DS was a "mistake" and "should have been aborted", as if I had tricked him into a pregnancy. I still have that text, quite possibly one of the most painful things I have read. I can't begin to describe quite how precious and beautiful DS is. The truth is, I wouldn't have ever had a baby had I known about the endless affairs and that current OW has been in the background throughout the entire duration of our marriage. Re-writing of history is one of the most evil and disrespectful things a cheater can do, I have really struggled to come to terms with the things that he has said that are completely and utterly untrue, still I guess it gives OW an "excuse" as she has rescued him from his evil wife

MrsC - your post made me cry as I resonated with so many cruel things my ex has said to me that I won't ever be able to un-hear or forget. for you.

The rewriting of the history of the primary relationship is because they're too cowardly to look inwardly and admit they've been cruel, and selfish.

Far easier to blame other factors rather than admit they've done something awful.

Far easier to have an excuse that everything was shit at home to justify cheating, rather than just admit to being a cheating bastard.

I've always hated cheaters but I became the OW and it ended in a life time of guilt

Many many years ago I became close with a older man at work, he did all the running. I was a lonely soul and thought he just wanted to be my friend - daft I know

Then it became clear he was interested in more and by this time I felt very close to him in a friendship way. One night out drinking he made a move and I was stupid enough to go with it

I may add had he been a single man he would of been what felt like my perfect partner apart from being too old for me.

Anyway I seen him a few times but couldn't deal with the fact he had a wife , a wife of many years. So I broke it off and said I could only be his friend as what we were doing was wrong, despite him saying he wished he hadn't married his wife she made him unhappy , in my eyes none of that mattered, she had stood by his side for years, she deserved respect

He went home and told his wife of the short affair , then he killed himself

I live with the guilt every single day. If I hadn't got involved he would most likely still be here today

I destroyed his family more than you can imagine . I will never forgive myself and still think about it all the time.

So now when I hear of people having affairs do they really know who bad the outcome can be.

Salene, I don't want to sound patronising at all, but that is how it will come across anyway probably - I'm sorry if it does read like that.

You have NOTHING to feel guilty about. Nothing.
Somebody has to be very troubled to choose to end their own life, he made that choice and would more than likely have done that regardless of you.
You didn't destroy his family, his actions were his own.

Bunny. Thank you I've always blamed myself , people have told me a man doesn't end his life over a few week long affair

But to me I will always shoulder the blame, maybe he would still of killed himself no one knows. I missed a call from him just before he did it, what was he calling to say.? Could I of stopped him. All these things go runs my head even now years later. And his wife his poor wife, to learn her husband of decades betrayed her then he is dead, I caused that I know at least the betrayal , thats a huge guilt I hold.

Anyway for me when people get involved they should think about the worst thing that could happen and could they live wth it

What if wife found out and killed themself, could you live with blood on your hands..? Because I do and it's the most soul destroying thing to shoulder.

Anyone reading this who is considering getting involved with a Married person take it from me, just don't. It's really not worth the pain tha can be caused.

See, I wouldn't say you were an OW (as I define it to be).
You made a mistake and then did the right thing by ending it.
You are in no way to blame.

To me, an OW is someone who carries on the 'relationship' with the MM with full knowledge.

The man in your situation obviously had his own issues.

Some women get their self esteem boosted by taking someone else's happiness and partner.

The thought of kissing someone that was definitely kissing someone else is repulsive.

I don't believe alcohol is a excuse and even after the drunken night I seen him 3 or 4 times stone cold sober yet new he had a wife.

I try my best to put it to the back of my mind , but it still niggles away. It always will. What's done is done though and I can't change it, I've just learnt to live with it.

After this I had major struggles with another partner and I believe this was karma catching up with me for what I did.

Thanks for your kind words Bunny I thought I would get flamed for admitting what I did. But I told my story in the hope that someone considering a affair might just read it and reconsider what could happen and stay well away.

You stopped it because it was wrong, Salene. What he did after isn't your fault. I knew a man who killed himself after leaving his wife for another, that too was neither the first nor the second wife's fault.

To get back to the OP's question- I still cannot see what one might gain from being an OW either. Apart from sex which is easier to get elsewhere and lies one doesn't need.

MM+OW:

1. DW doesn't know- lies and furtive fucks for OW
2. DW knows but decides to stay- more lies and furtive fucks for OW or MM drops OW, she loses the sex she wanted
3. DW leaves and MM moves in with OW, finds new OW for extra sex and is now financially worse off, OW probably gets to feed and house him as well
4. DW leaves, MM wants to move in with OW who didn't want that, so she loses even the furtive fucks

There is nothing positive in this sordid transaction for the OW or the DW.

You are a brave and honest woman salene. I admire you. Remember it was not the fact you had an affair that hurt his wife, it was that he had an affair.

I do think OW are culpable, but hate to think of you living with such extreme guilt years later. I think you are that rare person, a good person who does a bad thing.

You take care and please do not think you are totally to blame. He ended his life because he choose to, who knows what he was thinking at that time.

salene I agree you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. You cannot blame yourself. You are very brave and did the right thing.

The most mystifying thing of why a woman or man would get involved with someone who is married is that they know for a FACT that they are a cheater.

Yup, the rewriting of history has been pretty much the most painful part of the process, although that's stopped now. Even his therapist told him she didn't think his cheating had much if anything to do with me or the marriage! It. Just. Didn't. All the shit he threw out once discovered was jaw dropping. It would have been almost funny, except for how destructive it was. He said things that just didn't happen. And I don't mean things on which a person could have a different view, even if I strongly disagreed with it. He mentioned things that didn't happen, or things I didn't agree to which I had agreed to years before or things that he blamed me for that were crazy (like his own medical decisions that I had no input into). It was mindfuckery of the highest order. I really was on the edge of losing it, and I am pretty much the most restrained, together person I know. He has admitted now that it was, from start to finish, pretty much bullshit. God knows what he told OW at the time, though.

I just feel that all these cheating "good guys" think they have it all for a little while but ultimately they all end up making fools of themselves and losing the respect of friends and family. They all inevitably get older no matter how much they try to hold back the years when the midlife crisis strikes.

So true in my case. He has been scurrying around in a panic since found out. He is (in his own mind) the ultimate nice guy. Charming. Can't do enough for others. His self-image as that guy, though, is what I believe sent him to the insane contortions he went through in his rewrite of his life. The two things (his image of himself and what he was doing) were absolute opposites and after a while the cognitive dissonance was turning him into a shell of himself. Almost pitiable, except when I wanted to stab him between the eyes.

Big hugs to all of you out there. We really didn't deserve this.

I don't get it either. You know he's a liar and a cheat. You know he lied to my face for minths. As soon as i found out i got rid, i know i deserve better and it really is black and white to me.but she still wanted him? Why?
She's a cheat too though.
Now the excitement of sneaking around and missing and wanting each other is gone it's the same life of work and house chores. Except now he's living it with a cheat who is 15 years younger than him. Sad really.

In my ex's case the ow doesn't mind 'winning a cheater' because she cheated on her DH too (several times, several men).

Her DH doesn't know his marriage ended because she was having an affair with my ex. I've been tempted to tell him but he's moved on and has a lovely new partner so it would seem cruel. Just annoying for me to see that they still have this lovely amicable friendship, when this is only because he doesn't know what she did throughout their marriage.

These mm really are pathetic though. My ex has become the sort of man he used to laugh at, an absolute mid-life crisis caricature and a laughing stock.

We get the last laugh eventually songbird.
I'm hurting so much right now, but I know it won't last with her I know he will end up sad and lonely. Hopefully by the time that happens I will be past caring.

Marriage is among other things a financial contract. People take this into account when planning careers, children, pensions. OW are aiding and abetting fraud.