Ok but why...Ow

[Sholiz74]

Just a quick question. I find it odd that the OW is so protected. Mine messaged me and called me to make sure I knew all the details...why are they untouchables MN?

I actually think ow come in for dreadful abuse on mn.
Often see them referred to in appalling terms... Whore, bitch etc....

Only what they deserve.
What kind of woman knowlingly causes children to lose their stable home life?
A bitch, that's what.

Pursued him relentlessly until she got her way?

Goodness, I didn't realise that was all there was to it!

If I'd known, I'd have kept pursuing the man who turned me down and broke my heart in 2004.

Nobody has to give in.

I agree that someone can be an unwitting OW though. Or sometimes they naïvely but genuinely believe some old shite about marriages being over, separate lives... still not covering themselves in glory, but if you want a hierarchy of bad behaviour I think naïve and lied to cokes lower on the scale than "don't give a fuck, I'll sleep with him anyway".

Its not that the OW is protected.
Its that posters point out to many people that they are redirecting their anger away from their cheating partner to someone who may not know they exists.

You have to wonder at the moral compass of a woman who will fuck and sleep around and screw a 'man' who is not spending time with his children.
Because that's what cheating husbands do, they spend money and spend time with the OW.
Time and money that should be spent on their children.

What kind of woman ow puts up with that?
Not a very nice person.

They are both cunts in my book

by definition, only one is

The OW can be the OW for a whole load of reasons, including that she didnt know her lover was in a relationship

A lot of the judgement comes down to how and why the OW was the OW.

But a deceiving man cheating on his wife knows exactly what he's doing. Very very occasionally you can kind of see why. In 99.9% of cases he's just either selfish, without integrity or weak.

She doesn't have a penis.

Women who don't know the man they are sleeping with is married or in a long term relationship are as much of a victim as their partners. As for things like one night stands, shit happens. But those who conduct long term affairs knowing their actions will cause pain to someone else, they are both scumbags. NEITHER of them should be spared vitriol.

I reported a post last week that was a personal attack on OP (on grounds she was OW).

MN deleted the post. I've seen vile, misogynist abuse directed at OW on here. No absolving from guilt whatsoever.

All the threads I've ever read on here have been pretty scathing towards the OW, but - rightly - moreso towards the cheating husband.

As others have said, it's not her who stood up and made vows, who has repeatedly lied to your face (and to your DCs), who has broken your trust. She may not have given you a second thought, but she also didn't come home and sleep next to you, pretending all the while it wasn't going on.

And yet often the wife will allow him back, try to make it work, all while bitching about the OW stealing her husband. Nobody can be stolen who doesn't want to be. As such, the reality is, the OW isn't as much to blame as the man and yet often receives the most vitriol. I think that MN calls it about right.

By definition what a load of bollox.

I hope you don't trot that line out to your friends when they have list their home and wonder how they are going to cope alone.

He takes two doesn't it. Two people sneaking around, ow knows when to text call etc because it's safe bla bla.

Sleeping with someone else's partner is fucking terrible behaviour.

Like others have said, it's not that the OW is protected but that the OP is often protecting their 'D'P and other posters want her to realise that the 'D'H is most of the problem.

If people don't realise that the cheater is most of the problem, it's more likely to turn out as
"A horrible bitch slept with my DP, he's lovely and we're working this out."
Other posters: "Your DP chose to sleep with her"
"No, it's her fault"
...
"Another horrible bitch slept with my DP"

I've seen threads on here where the OP is the OW and fishing for sympathy. She never gets it, in fact gets some very harsh responses (rightly so, I've no time for people who have affairs with married people).

However, there are a lot of threads with OPs who talk about their cheating Dh as if he's some poor innocent who's been duped into shagging someone else for a year, and it's this evil witch who has somehow talked him into it because otherwise 'he's a lovely father' etc etc. In that case, people have no trouble telling her that the Dh is every bit as culpable and she needs to focus on him rather than the woman.

I think you've been reading a completely different MN to me!

^This.

I find it odd that the OW is so protected. Mine messaged me and called me to make sure I knew all the details...why are they untouchables MN?

I'd say it's quite the opposite: women who knowingly have affairs with married men don't get off lightly on MN. But after all, it's the married man who's breaking his vows to the poster (usually).

The OW in your case must be some ind of nasty sociopath to force herself & her sordid details onto you. I hope you've ignored her.

My feeling was (in a similar situation) that I was not going to give the OW the privilege of knowing anything about me. I was impassive, I had my Non-Feeling armour on. She did not have the right to know anything about me.

I hope you're able to do something to detach yourself.

Take care

I agree Ellisandra - in the first instance I left him straight away. The guy even had to ask if we could get back together when the ow cheated on him with someone else.
Luckily in both cases they were short term relationships and no marriages/children were involved. Did make me super anxious for years about others' fidelity though.
Had a few friends drawn into relationships with 'freshly separated' guys only to find that their marriages were still very much active.
Such a complicated issue, but everyone ends up feeling shit at the end of it.

I've seen vile, misogynist abuse directed at OW on here. No absolving from guilt whatsoever

Oh rubbish.
Only on MN are OW seen as being 'without blame'

I call bullshit.
OW, 9/10 know exactly what they're doing.
I have been one
They're really not the blameless victims you think they are.
Really, they're not.
Maybe a small percentage are spun a line by the cheating husband, that the
''wife doesn't understand me'
'we are living separately'
'we are only staying together until the children finish X exams' blah blah blah.
but the majority of OW know exactly what they're doing.
They are just as bad as the cheating husbands.
Make no mistake.

It's about time MN changed their stance on this.

50/50 IF the OW KNEW about the marriage and that the DW (or DH sometimes) was unaware. They are complicit in an act that would tear someone apart emotionally.

Unexcusable.

If you find yourself falling in love with someone whom you are not married to then the decent thing to do is end the relationship BEFORE committing to a physical and emotional relationship with the OW/OM.

I don't give the OW an easy ride, I was cheated on by my H with someone who knew he had a wife and a family but there are exceptions, very rare, but they do exist.

I hope you are ok OP!! I know how hard it is to be cheated on. Don't let your DP/DH off the hook though, he is more to blame, he is the one who has made a commitment to you, whatever that commitment may be!

The wife should focus on the cheating husband. She should always focus on his actions. He cheated on their marriage. When the wife focuses on the ow she is trying to spread the blame. Lessen the blame of her husband. Find a reason for the affair. Then the wife is more likey to try to repair the marriage. He may even convince her for years it worked.

Mn will try to keep the wife focused on the husband and his actions. He cheated. He is an adulterer. He deceived his family. He will do this again. Probably more discreetly.

The ow is irrelevant to the marriage when the affair is found out. It is the husband who has to be held accountable and kept as sole focus by the wife. A wife who is quick to blame the ow for her poor husband being tempted away is more likely to forgive him -and continue to be a deluded fool.

Op what do you want the ow to do?

Maybe your name is appropriate teamcersei. There's a lot of threads where people have tried on line dating and been taken for a complete ride by lying men who claim they're single. They wise up ... after they've been left devastated.

As for the language of cunts, of course you don't say that to someone who uses the word in deep distress.

But that cunts is the worst word you can use of someone is really deeply misogynistic. As bad as using 'bitch' instead of 'woman' in a sentance. I'm amazed that a site that has a lot of strong women in accepts the use of cunt as term of abuse for the worst people going. Serious blindness and double standards going on there.

I think it's individual posters, although if their own DH had an OW, I suspect it would be very different.

What happened to common decency as a human being? Morals and values?

Quite often OW get slated and really, if an OW is called a slut, whore or anything else... It can't be surprising surely.

Women are held to a higher moral standard than men, whether we like it or not. That's the reality and probably always will be.

So when one woman, is directly or indirectly involved in marital breakdown and hurting another woman and possibly DC... they will get a raw deal.

But it is misplaced isnt it. while op keeps hold of the anger towards ow she remains with her cheating husband and is unhappy. If she placed the blame where it belongs, at his door, held him accountable for betraying his family, she may have found the strength to leave him by now.

Today 22:20 FritzDonovan

I also think they are equally to blame. OH may be grovelling and begging for forgiveness, OW generally doesn't give a shit at any point.

She hasn't broken a vow. She wasn't lying to her wife every time she snuck off. She was t fucking over her own children to be with someone else.

The only reason the man is grovelling is he got caught and has something to lose. That's not remorse!

Unless the OW is some way related to you good friend, sister etc, they aren't doing anything like what the husband did

I find the word cunt vile as well as its a misogynist term but many women seem happy using a word that was basically created to put down women in the worst way.
I swear like everyone but do we really need to use the word cunt like it's a casual insult?