Have you ever been the OW?

[Lily15]

I am not asking to start off a debate about right and wrong, or to start a war. As a betrayed wife I am genuinely interested to know if anyone is willing to shed some light on what goes on in the OW head and how it worked out for you in your situation? Especially insterested to hear from those OW that were young and unmarried at the time (like my H's AP)

OP, I'm very sorry for what you and your family's been going through.

I haven't exactly been the OW, but I think I almost was a while ago - when feeling distressed and low I almost gave in to some 'advances', although I narrowly avoided it in the end. I can tell you on the basis of that experience that in some moments I didn't think about the DW at all - it was like we inhabited different universes - and in others I was literally sick at the thought of what I might be capable of doing to her. I can imagine that an OW might also experience both things at different times - commit the crime during the former moments, and feel absolutely horrendous during the latter moments.

Although I know it's not always the done thing here, I also wanted to send virtual unMN hugs to prosecco and highlighta and any others living with serious regret and guilt. Truly hideous. It's very hard negotiating relationships. People fuck up. My recent close shave experience has taught me for once and for all never to consider that anyone's 'above' such fuck-ups. In reality we never quite know what we're capable of. Think of the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments. Think of all the otherwise 'decent' people who became Nazis in the 30s/40s. There are countless examples.
All you can do is try to live the best you can from this moment forth, and that includes, of course, doing your utmost not to cause any more hurt to anyone. But the past is in the past.

I also wanted to say that I agree, prosecco, that it can be very like an 'addiction'. I've seen people berated on here for saying similar, because it's deemed an 'excuse' for 'cheats'... but I believe there is good evidence that some quite similar processes are in operation. The ways people overlook all else to feed a coke/alcohol/porn 'addiction' are very similar to the ways people overlook all else when their brain/body has 'locked onto' a specific potential sexual partner (or perhaps the ego boost that person provides). It blinds people.

Thank you Ye, but I know I don't deserve any sympathy. Of all of the mistakes I have made in my life, this is number 1. I really am not liking myself very much right now.

The point you make about different universes is exactly true in my case. Like two different people... you have explained it far better than I could have.

The addiction part I also agree with. I have a friend, who is married but not really happily... she is on so many dating sites and chats to many men, even meeting up with a few. Most of the men are married she has admitted. Of course every one has an excuse, no sex, just there for dc etc etc.... I asked her how she could go ahead with the many meet ups (I know this is a little rich coming from me, but it is a bit different) and she said that it's what gets her through the day. I was shocked and quite angry at her, she came out and admitted that she is so addicted to the rush she gets when she chats and gets compliments from men, no matter who they are or what their circumstances are. Its what keeps her going these days as her husband isn't doing that for her.

I know her dh doesn't treat her well, but still. But she won't have it from any of us and cannot see what she is doing as wrong. (because the man has offered himself on the site so is therefore available and she has no regrets).

Highlighta- I'm not sure the just there for the kids is always an excuse. I think many people are together just for the kids, both male and female.

I'm sure it is like a drug to both sexes too. A very risky addiction.

Better, just using it as an example of excuses used really.

Thank you Ye, but as Highlighta says, sympathy is not deserved. Regarding the addiction, I know it sounds pathetic, but I would actually have panic attacks if we went for any length of time without contact. It was ridiculous. I genuinely felt unable to cope without daily input from him.

Name changed for this as i have friends on here and really don't want to be outed.

I have been the OW. I was very close friends to a woman who subsequently had an affair behind her partners back. As they drifted apart I grew closer to the husband, but we were always friends before (I was also married and husband working away)

I didn't think about my partner or his, when we were together it genuinely felt like nothing else in the world mattered. He did leave her for me and I was prepared to do the same, until I found out I was pregnant. At that point I knew I couldn't leave my husband. I wanted his baby and to stay with him.

7 years later I am happy with my husband, we have another child.

I am also still in contact with other man who now also has 2 children and is married again. We haven't seen each other but still very much have an emotional affair in the fact we have regular contact and I do have feelings for him. (We now love at opposite ends of the country)

It's a shit situation and I wish I could close the door behind me, walk away and forget about him but I doubt that will ever happen.

Yes. I didn't want a relationship and just wanted a safe, discreet sex buddy. He needed sex with someone who was very discreet and didn't want him to leave his wife. It was fun. I remain on friendly terms with him. I like him a lot as a person, he has many wonderful points but he's also extremely self absorbed and a bit narcissistic. He feels entitled to the sex he wants, that he doesn't feel he gets in his marriage, without uprooting his comfortable life with his wife. He won't be honest with her because he would lose, he has no guilt about what he does.

A second one worked away from home and liked to take me out on lots of exciting dates, he put a lot of effort in. He was very successful and he didn't want to die having resisted any exciting experience.

Both had that in common, they both loved traveling and seeking new experiences with a terrible fear that they'd die having missed some fun. That was the driver; life is short and they want to have lots of sex before they die.

Sorry to hear about your situation OP and some of the women on this thread have been treated appallingly - on both sides of the divide. But, it's shown how affair relationships are no more all the same than marriages are.

I'm an OW and have been for 2 years. MM and I are both in our 50's, his wife is 10 years younger. They have been together 20 years, have no children and are both professional people with similar incomes. They live lives separate enough for he and I to have spent a lot of time together.

Before we met he wouldn't have described himself as unhappy but they have become more like friends than husband and wife - no sex (yes, I do believe him and know lots of couples who are together but don't have sex any longer). He has never bad mouthed her. He cares for her and has told me in the past that he loves her.

I do think of her, not with feelings of guilt though. He has treated her very badly and she deserves to be with someone who loves her the way a husband/partner should.

He intends to end his marriage in the next few months. I am confident he will but if he doesn't then he and I will be over and he knows that. I would be devastated, he's the love of my life which is something I didn't believe in before, but I want a full time relationship and if he won't give me that then he isn't the man I need him to be and I will have to find it somewhere else.

Not me, but my sister was the OW. She had an affair with my best friends husband. It was devastating all round. BF had a one year old daughter at the time the affair started.
They're now married with kids theirselves and at the wedding the best man lied in his speech about how they'd met and how long they'd been together, I guess to spare his oldest daughters (11 at the time) feelings but she confided in me that she knew everything anyway and was more upset about the lie.
Mine and sisters relationship has never been the same since. I know they're happy but I can never completely forgive her for the years of upset she caused, especially as my father had an affair and left my mother when we were kids so she knew exactly the kind of hurt she would cause (my mum has never got over it)
I know hes as much to blame but she should never have done it - he was married and she should have left well away.

My

Do you mind if I ask you a few questions. I am not judging you in any way... but just wanted to ask:

If MM is going to leave his marriage, why didn't he do it when you met 2 years ago, why is he only going to consider it in a few months time?

Do you really and honestly believe they don't have sex anymore?

As you have probably read upthread, I have been on both sides. Been cheated on and the ow. I would love to have believed that mm I had an affair with was the love of my life (still battling a bit there but I really thought it), but I now know that he will not leave his wife and I would always be second. He also said along the lines of the fact that sex is pretty infrequent... do I believe that? No.

And why... because when my ex was having his affair, that is what he told his ow. And believe me, we were having plenty of sex. Also, in the email correspondence I found, he told her that he was going to leave me. I just found that odd, as in that same month we had just set up our business together... not something that one would do if you were intending on leaving your spouse.

I didn't want this to come across as harsh in any way. I just wanted to let you know of my experiences, from both sides. I do realise though, that not every situation is the same... but I do think you need to prepare yourself for this to not end in your favour.

I have never had an affair with a married man, or even been interested in a man with a girlfriend. As soon as I knew/know they have a life partner, it's like a bucket of cold water on me. I don't want to be with a cheater, or a liar, or someone who has a roving eye, so automatically, by making a pass at me, they've proved themselves not my type. I felt like this even when I was young. They are just immediately diminished in my eyes, I saw/see them as lesser.

Now I am older, I know my instinct as a younger woman was right. These are the not very nice end of the man pool. I can like them as friends or colleagues, but as a life partner, they just fail in the most basic requirement- which is to put me first! I can imagine meeting someone and if they left their wife first, I would consider it, but under no circumstances am I going to compete with somebody else, how humiliating!

Four I'm not competing, though I know others might do so, I'm just being me. That's what he wants or it isn't - no pleading, no persuading. If he doesn't turn out to be the man I think he is then I will stop loving him, it will hurt (lots) but I will know I haven't really lost anything because the man I loved didn't actually exist.

highlighta You don't come across as harsh or judgemental, you come across as rational and measured and your questions are reasonable because I think my situation isn't typical (and I know 'they all say that').

If MM is going to leave his marriage, why didn't he do it when you met 2 years ago, why is he only going to consider it in a few months time?

We both thought it would be a short term physical fling. It wouldn't be his first. We fell in love and though I say we've been together 2 years there was a break. I ended it after 6 months when I told him I wanted more and he said he couldn't (wouldn't) give it. I blocked and deleted and went on dates with other men. A few months later he contacted me. He'd told his wife he was unhappy and needed to work out what he wanted. We saw each other occasionally for a few more months, no sex at first but that resumed in the end.

He's not 'considering' leaving, he tells me he has decided and I know he has put plans in place. There is a definite timescale but I'm being deliberately vague.

Do you really and honestly believe they don't have sex anymore?

As I said in my PP, yes. I absolutely believe him. And yes, I know 'they all say that'. My assumption at the start of our relationship was that they were having a sexual relationship. It was many months before he told me they didn't, because I told him I assumed they did.

And why... because when my ex was having his affair, that is what he told his ow. And believe me, we were having plenty of sex.

That was your situation - that doesn't mean it's everyone's, which I know you appreciate. Some couples have sex, some don't.

I do think you need to prepare yourself for this to not end in your favour.

Yes, I am prepared for that. Even if he leaves, that's no guarantee of 'happy ever after'. Whatever way this plays out though, I will be OK in the end, one way or another.

My by competing, I don't mean in open competition but when you are with someone who is with someone else then they have less time, attention, energy for you, they spend time with their partner, you are not the sole emotional relationship they are having and that to me is being in competition. You are also hoping to 'win' this prize by him leaving her (although given he's had other short term flings, I don't think he's much of a prize).

You may not be in a competition in your head, but in his, there is definitely a weighing of the two alternatives, and I just couldn't bear there to be even one second's indecision if someone wanted to be with me.

Yes I was, it started 5 years ago and was on/off for a couple of years. I was absolutely besotted with him and he broke my heart repeatedly, although I do believe he loved/loves me too. He's in an arranged marriage and from a culture where divorce is far less acceptable than in ours and as well as not wanting to hurt his wife and children, he was also worried about being disowned by his mother and didn't want to bring shame on her. He did tell his mother about us and her response was to insist him and his wife move into her house, so they could all police him basically.

I wasn't 'faithful' to him and would hook up with other guys as well, then I met my boyfriend and chose to have something real with him instead of holding out for MM, who was good at making promises but who I'd run out of faith in by then. I really believe he's a good person, but he's weak and cowardly. So he lost me.

Funnily enough we're good friends now, he's got another girlfriend and is still in the process of 'consciously uncoupling' from his wife, says he's getting divorced next year when he's in the position to buy her a house but who knows/cares if that will actually happen. We still hang out together, which my boyfriend is fine with as he trusts me and I would never sleep with MM again unless we were both 100% single, that way madness lies.

As far as his wife goes, I kind of saw her as 'his problem'. I was single and didn't give her a lot of thought. I would like to be able to say I feel suitably ashamed of my behaviour, but the truth is I'm not sure I do. Someone wise once said to me that affairs are often about growth and I can really see that, MM and I have learned a lot about ourselves and worked through a lot of shit since we started our affair. I think it woke us up made us more self aware, if not necessarily better, people.

Yes, but it was before I met my now DH.

I feel completely ashamed of my actions. I was a very naive 19 and just presumed this was how everyone's relationships started.

I feel awful just typing this out.

Nope. Never. And never would I be in that position.
Anyone who has been on the receiving end, such as myself, would never want to put another woman or her children in that situation.
That said, I'm a good enough person never to have put myself in that position in the past, even before I knew what it was like.
Cheats are the lowest of the low.

My thanks for replying so honestly.

Whatever happens, there will be heartache involved. I do know that you already know this though. You seem strong and I do appreciate that its a difficult situation. You do deserve to be in someone's life full time though. As do we all.

Why does a full time relationship have to be the nirvana though highlighta? I find having a part time relationship suits me great. Time to do what I like when I like, no cleaning up after anyone, nice dates and meals out etc twice a week. What's not to like about that?

I have been ow and quite enjoyed it truth be told. It was exciting.

Didn't think about the wife much as I'm sure most people don't.

By full time I didn't necessarily mean living together and marriage, but I meant it more as a first on his list of important people. As opposed to being ow who is always going to 2nd option at best, behind his wife and family.

highlighta Thanks, I think and hope I am strong - I've been through lots of cr*p in the past few years that pre-dates my current situation and that has made me a much stronger person. And, yes, I do want, and deserve to be, full time/number one or however we want to put it.

Four I understand and do actually agree. I've thought about this a lot and I'm confident that once we'd acknowledged the way we both felt there was no hesitation about what he wanted, no weighing up of alternatives in that respect - it's more a case of time being needed to come to terms with and face up to the consequences. If I thought it was anything else I'd be long gone. Nobody should have to put up with being second best, with not being the top priority in their significant other's life.

Yes, I was. He left his wife and we have been together for 14 years, married for 9.

I was the OW back when I was 21, my lover maybe 23. For 3-4 months I tried to steal him away from his girlfriend (they'd been serious for 4 years). I stopped when he wouldn't leave her.

Why I did this? he had been
Cheating on her for years anyway, and mostly, he was the love of my life and I wanted to marry him. I really loved him since I was 13, we had a troubled relationship for years...

Yes without knowing he had a girlfriend does that count? We were all 18, he told me he and his gf had split up and I had no reason not to believe him (he still lived with his parents etc) he texted me regularly and we had a lovely 4 months of fun and sex.
Then the girlfriend returned from travelling and it quickly became apparent she wasn't an ex at all. Never felt so used in my life
I felt guilty for a long time but I honestly didn't know they were still together
He treated me impeccably while we were seeing eachother but he was a fucking bastard for what he did

Writing that down has made the seem very real