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.

Oh I agree with blonde re predatory men targeting vulnerable women.

A married colleague did this to me within weeks of my separation from exh. He put a lot of pressure on me for years, offering a shoulder to cry on, claiming what great friends we were, telling me he had feelings for me and could he 'try me out' before he left his wife.

I have since seen him encouraging young women into his office to confide in him when they are having a bad time.

He is known as a happily married family man.

I agree too re predatory MM - there's LOADS of them.

The perfect storm of a wandering eye from a selfish, self centred person coupled with a needy and vulnerable person who is desperate for attention is what leads to the long term affair IMO.
(This could be either sex in either role btw).

The sharks started circling me within a couple of months of separating from my husband, every single one married and settled, most with kids. If I had been willing then I could very easily have been the OW several times over in the last few months.
The reason I'm not is because I have a good sense of self, have self respect and clear boundaries.
(I don't mean that in a nasty or smug way).

Must add, there are also LOADS of good, honest men too who have been genuine friends to me with no subtext.

Oh yes. I was targeted by predatory mm when my marriage broke down.

One was the husband of a good friend. I didn't tell her though because she's always telling me how naive he is and how he is often hit on by predatory single women or vulnerable women who have mistaken his friendship for something more...

The married man I met through friends at a party who pursued me for several months and even now tells me he fancies me when our paths cross. He has had a full on affair and a 'daliance' since we met. His wife has no idea.

Several colleagues ranging from "we had an arranged marriage and it's never been right. We're together for the children" to "she's older/let herself go/not feminine/no fun..." read as "nothing like you, you're amazing", to the guy who didn't mention he was married until a few days before our first date...

And just various chancers along the way.

Needless to say, I didn't take any of them up on the offer.

But I have a very dim view of most men nowadays.

yy to the majority of men being the predators, not the OW.

Also - I work abroad quite often, sometimes for long periods and sometimes shorter ones. 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: these men are quite open about it). I am not at all a catch - obese, straight-talking, zero tolerance for dickheads - but I can't recall off the top of my head a single trip in the last 10 years where I haven't been propositioned by more than one MM. I don't think all men are cheats- but I certainly think more of them than people would imagine.

But yes, when your H cheats on you, it's instinctive to blame the OW far more: I don't know why, actually, except that way, you can blame someone else for destroying your happiness, and kid yourself that DH never would have strayed if she hadn't set her sights on him. It's often the narrative, too, that the "repentant" spouse spins - along with the "I couldn't help it" (I just fell over and accidentally stuck my penis in her)

I remember vividly planning the "perfect murder" of the OW: and I certainly ran her down a lot more than him to my friends. At the end of the day, though, he was the one who had made marriage vows, not her. He's the one who behaved immorally, not her. And it's interesting that we also batter on about the morality of the OW in these cases, when we don't mention it ever in other situations these days- no-one says you're immoral to have sex - or children - out of wedlock, so wtf does the OW become immoral for shagging your husband when she's single?

I don't think about either of them very often any more - but I definitely hold him 100% responsible for his own actions, and not her.

Agree folkgirl I don't trust any of them.

Sometimes I think everyone is having it off with each other.

I got wooed by a married colleague just after i joined my current workplace. He told me how he was on the verge of divorce and how great I was and made me feel really special. He never actually made a move but seemed to be opening things up for me to make a move on him. I backed away because i realised we were in dangerous territory and thought when he leaves his wife we can give it a go at being together. BUT a few months later i watched him (still no further towards divorce) do the same thing with someone else. It was a huge blow to my self-esteem to realise I wasn't that special and actually I was just a single woman that was conveniently around.

I think how young the Man got married, is also a feature. In fact, I think Men that marry young are a huge problem. Not all, but many.

Most of the men that I know, who are cheats/have cheated, seem to have got married in their 20's, with only a few relationships under their belt beforehand. Often they married the first serious GF.

Ten years on, they feel they haven't played the field enough. Brought sharply in to focus, when there are lots of single women at work, who appear to lead uncomplicated lives, bar hopping at weekends, appearing glamorous, sexy, child free........at a time when he is going home on Friday night to his wife, who is up to her eyeballs in nappies/baby sick/screaming kids, who maybe hasn't had time to do her make-up or hair today, and only had time to throw on a tracky in her rush to keep everything under control. Suddenly "that" girl in the Office seems so exciting, by comparison.

Absolutely no excuse to cheat, of course. But that's men for you (sometimes).

Guys I know, who played the field and got married late 30's/early 40's, don't seem to stray. As my DH explained to me, he'd dated over 30 women before we met, he was exhausted and just bloody wanted to finally meet the one, settle down. No desire to ever play the field again. And I totally believe him. He is the polar opposite to my cheating first H. First H was out every weekend, always home late and drunk. Always late from Office parties etc. Or missing! My now DH, prefers to be home with me, share some wine, chat etc. Can't be arsed with Office nights out. If he does go, he's home earlier than he said!

Interestingly, of the cheating men that I mentioned in my PP, a few played the field and then remarried in their late 30's, and have never been unfaithful.

Just my two pennies!

The married one is definitely more to blame.

Two of my single, female friends have been the ‘OW’ for a fling. Both have low self esteem, both are unable to hold down relationships and both are now mid 30’s, very, very desperate to get married and have children and seem to be constantly unhappy with everything in their life – Career (or lack of) appearance (both are always on diets) etc…

Interestingly, both happened at Christmas parties where the companies were paying for a massive venue and the hotel costs – Both my friends knew the men were married and neither were under any pretence it would be anything other than a ‘one nighter’. However, I don’t believe either of them are in the right mindset to have ‘one nighters’, whether the man is married or not – There seems to be this weird destructive cycle in play ‘He fancies me so I must be attractive’ , ‘I must be a prize as he’s married, yet he’s sleeping with me’, however the next morning, they no longer have any kind words, nor any attention… so they feel low and used (they’ve both said this to me when drunk) even though they were completely willing to do this. Then they feel low and unattractive, so seek the next man to ‘validate’ them.

One was having counselling, but stopped as she didn’t feel it was worth anything – which is a shame as when she was seeing the counsellor, she stopped sleeping with anyone…. Now she’s not seeing the counsellor, she told me she’d slept with a guy she met off the internet a couple of weeks ago (I think he’s single, but who knows?)….

The whole thing is tragic – They’re both intelligent and funny and have supported me through a lot of my own personal issues, however in this one area they seem so blind and quite frankly, stupid.

H's OW had daddy issues. H was twice her age, her superior at work, nice home, family. had it made (in her mind). She wanted stability and she thought H could give her that. Little did she know that most of what we had I had earned and worked for and if we split we'd both end up brassic.

And come on...... there is an excitement to anything illicit. it can start out as just trivial 'harmless' flirting, no threat to anything, and can then change so easily into something more dangerous. The first step is the most dangerous but it doesn't seem so at the time.

felloutofbedtwice - off topic, I know - but I like your name

withasponge always great to see another Moz fan. Yours is one of my favourite lyrics- love, love, love that song... "That's nothing you should hear me play piano"

I didn't know he was married until a few months in and by that time I really liked him, definitely on the way to loving him.

I was young, he was older and I naively felt flattered.

When he told me he was going to leave his wife I broke things off as that's when I realised the true enormity of what I was going.

It was over 10 years ago now and I still can't quite believe I did it. I was just young and an idiot I think.

Despite me breaking it off with him he still left his wife about 6 months later. I guess he truly just wasn't happy.

I meant to add that we were together for 9 months before I ended it.

Because not everybody has the moral backbone we all claim to have on MN.
Because there are so many fucked up people out there.
Because people are lied to.
Because sometimes any human contact is better than none.
Because people are flattered by the attention.

The list is endless.
But the truth is we are all flawed.

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all explanation.

I've never had an affair or been cheated on (as far as I know). However, I know several people who have, because it's very commonplace. There are certain common factors, but lots of different ways affairs develop.

I think the workplace ones are most commonplace, mostly because they're the easiest to fall into. Someone up thread commented that a lot of steps have to be taken before you realise you are 'soulmates' with someone, so it's an excuse to say you didn't mean to but met your soulmate and were powerless to resist. I think in work situations, what happens is that many people recognise the pull of attraction but feel they can ignore/control it and would feel silly drawing attention to themselves by trying to implement avoidance tactics. So they find themselves spending time with that person. And they talk, innocently at first. But they soon learn a lot about each other and the working relationship imperceptibly crosses the line into a personal friendship that then further develops into an emotional affair without either party necessarily noticing at first. If the people involved aren't particularly self aware, they will then notice a corresponding drop in the feelings they have for their partners and find themselves unfavourably comparing them to their colleague. Once that happens, the affair can become sexual as the unfaithful person gives themselves permission to stray because their partner 'doesn't understand me' etc. For the single person involved with a married partner in this situation, they believe the natural progression of the affair, from colleague to emotional affair to sexual affair, signifies that it's real and that the married person will ultimately leave their partner for them.

Then you have the people who deliberately choose married partners (whether consciously or unconsciously) because they want someone who is unavailable to be in a proper relationship.

The truth is that anyone can 'affair proof' themselves. But you have to be searingly honest with yourself about your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and have action plans about what to do if you find yourself on the first step to temptation. You also have to have quite high levels of self respect. When you reach a point where your personal opinion of yourself matters more than the amazing feelings you experience around a sexual partner, it's quite easy to resist.

If you don't believe in monogamy, that's quite another thing, but in that case you should be married to someone who is genuinely like minded and this would be a non-issue.

IamlovedbyG, why would this make you sick? While we might all agree that a single person having an affair, has responsibility for the implications of their actions, you can surely imagine the lies (or sometimes truths) they are told. "my partner emotionally/physically/financially/sexually abuses me.". "my partner is already cheating". "My partner has already checked out of the relationship".
If you are told one or more of these things, by someone you have reason to believe you should take at face value... Well, why not?
I'm bamboozled by the idea that equal responsibility to uphold marriage vows(or equivalent) applies to the rest of the world, as it does to the person who (one assumes in their right mind) made the vows in the first place.
All this said, personally I'm comfortable with the concept of people "cheating" anyway, when they in any way being abused/mistreated,

They want the man by any means necessary and are willing to throw self-respect to the winds to get him

Very very occasionally it might be 'soulmate' stuff. Two people i worked with met at work. He was married (no DC) and she wasn't. They became closer and closer friends, not sure if there was a physical affair but definitely emotional. In the end his wife, who also worked with us, asked him if he'd prefer to be with OW. They split and now OW and MM have 3 DCs and seem blissfully happy together. They are definitely a better fit than MM and his first wife. Not sure what happened to the first wife as i changed jobs and no longer have contact with her but i hope she found equal happiness with a new partner.

Name change test!

I became OW whilst bored and unfulfilled in my marriage and met someone I felt deeply connected to and attracted to who was also married. His marriage was worse than mine and we had an affair for 6 mths before leaving our partners. That was 2.5yrs ago and we are happily in a "normal" couple now.

To answer the OP - I did feel guilty and cheating isn't ever normally something I'd have thought I'd have done. BUT I met this man who was WOW - and we thought the same of each other and wanted to be together. I think we both married the wrong people.

I def didn't have low self esteem at all. In fact at the time it was probably sky high!

I wasn't sure he would leave, but after I did I told him I wouldn't see him till he had left his then wife.

He split up with her the next day.

confusion, your respective partners would, I am sure, have appreciated being included in the conversations about 'boring' and 'unfulfilling' marriages. You denied them due process. Well done.

Yes - we both discussed the issues with our then-spouses. Mine realised he didn't really want to be married to me either (we are very different) and his wanted to try and make things work but by that point my now DP had realised so much about his marriage wouldn't change and he wanted to be with me.