Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Solicitors letter to DH mistress in affair

475 replies

Bub3017 · 06/04/2018 20:17

Hi,

Can I send a letter from my solicitor to the other party in my partners affair; seeking compensation or an apology due to being behind in uni work, having my anxiety medication increased, failing as a person and every other emotional distress I have been under from finding out my partner had an emotional affair that later led to sex?

And yes I am being genuine!!

OP posts:
GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 15:24

I know Bubs
I’ve been there a long tome ago and I understand. It’s a perfectly normal emotion and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It will diminish in time, like a bereavement.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 10/04/2018 15:28

Stop,bothering stop seeking out some retribution.let it go.get on with your business
So what if she gets on with her life she entitled to just get on
What she and you don’t need is a lingering gripe between you both

Like you said you're educated woman,career and sorted don’t be defined by this or getting even with her

HarryLovesDraco · 10/04/2018 15:47

I think I will write the letter for myself as a way to get rid of some of my anger towards her - and it may be therapeutic. I think I will also wrote one to him as well!

I did this and posted it on here. It really helped! Just don't send it to her.
I have to say I fucking hated the OW for a long time after the affair and although it's totally misplaced it's also totally normal to deflect anger and pain into the OW. Doesn't make the OP mad, a Jeremy Kyle guest or a potential murderer ffs Hmm
OP hang in there. You'll get over this eventually whether you stay with him or not.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 10/04/2018 15:53

Writing the letter to self was apparently used by winston Churchill too
It’s v therapeutic

elisenbrunnen · 10/04/2018 16:05

you can’t imagine it at all. Unless you have been through this you have no idea - all too many of US have actaully been through it, gerite. You actually have no idea yourself who has and who hasn't. Angry
And yes, it is natural to be angry, incandescent, at the OW for being there ('in his way', 'available', 'if she hadn't been there he would have been fine' etc etc - but she was just the one who said 'yes' ...) BUT - OP should be angry at HIM, and only him. Even if she had been lying in front of him, stark-naked, legs akimbo, he is the one who should not have gone there. He did this. Use your anger at him. Chuck him out. Write to him. Ignore her - she is just a distraction and a deflection.

OP is giving way too much power to the OW. Yes she can walk away as if nothing happened - but she had nothing to lose. He did. And it sounds like HE is getting to carry on as if nothing happened too. HE is not facing consequences. He might be 'sorry' and doing all he can to make it right - but it is not going to be right. It can't be. He cheated, with all the entitlement, selfishness, deceit that goes with it.

She has no consequences to face - she actually did nothing 'wrong'. Morally, maybe. But actually? no.

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 17:20

I don’t know why you have the Angry face at me elisenbrunnen. Now you’re misdirecting your anger.

Of course I don’t know who has been through this but the poster who said they can only imagine, obviously hasn’t.

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 17:24

I also have no idea why posters can’t accept that others have different emotions to them and that they have the right to tell others their emotions are wrong.

Personally, I wasn’t prepared to let the OW walk all over me. Hopefully, she will think twice about doing this again.

Blangarang · 10/04/2018 17:33

Nobody was walking all over you though. You probably weren't even thought about, cold as it sounds

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 17:43

Maybe, if more people reacted like the OP and I, less women would be in this situation.

Not reacting is letting them think it’s ok, and it’s not.

Blangarang · 10/04/2018 17:56

Do you not understand strangers have no responsibility to you? If more people reacted to the ow like you and op, the only change that would provoke would be upping the harassment case statistics/police involvement. It's not healthy to obsess over the her in any situation like this. They are meaningless.

I wouldn't have thought anybody thinks it's OK, they just don't think about you at all

Blangarang · 10/04/2018 17:58

Also, if putting fear into other women is seen as a deterrent to sleeping with your partner, it doesn't say much for a relationship /humanity

Bluntness100 · 10/04/2018 17:58

I don't think it makes any difference if you react like a crazy woman or not if I'm honest, if a woman is going to fall for your husbands pick up lines, she's going to fall for your husbands pick up lines. These things are seldom rational.

He really needs to be your focus, the fact he's trying to get other women into bed in the first place. Not that he got one to eventually say yes,

Trying to scare the shit out of all other women so they are too scared to say yes, isn't really the way to go about resolving the issue, deal with the cheating scum bag your with.

Bluntness100 · 10/04/2018 18:02

I wouldn't have thought anybody thinks it's OK, they just don't think about you at all

This. As much as it hurts you're meaningless to them and they should be to you. Clearly if a woman was thinking about you she wouldn't say yes. She's just listening to what the horny dickhead is saying and promising her to get her into the sack.

speakout · 10/04/2018 18:02

Maybe, if more people reacted like the OP and I, less women would be in this situation.

Just WOW!!

So women are responsible for philandering men..

No words.

TERFousBreakdown · 10/04/2018 18:07

Maybe, if more people reacted like the OP and I, less women would be in this situation.

So you're basically suggesting that women, collectively, take responsibility for the behaviour of men in steady relationships at a societal level?

Biscuit

Also: *fewer

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 18:08

I think it’s interesting that the men are seen to be totally and only at fault here.

What an insult to women that they’re not deemed capable of taking some responsibility for their actions.

TERFousBreakdown · 10/04/2018 18:13

What an insult to women that they’re not deemed capable of taking some responsibility for their actions.

Of course women can take responsibility for their own actions. Such as the moral implications of a decision to sleep with a married man.

Women shouldn't - regardless of whether or not they technically can - have to take responsibility for safeguarding the relationship that random, potentially attractive men have opted to engage in with random women whom they haven't even met.

Unless, of course, you're suggesting that women must because men are simply to infantile to resist any potentially available vagina. In which case the insult is hardly to women ...

Blangarang · 10/04/2018 18:13

They do have responsibility - to themselves and their own life. Women aren't responsible to a man's partner to not cheat. The partner is. I don't understand how that's difficult to understand. It's a crappy thing to do, but they are nothing to you on a personal level. They don't love you and haven't made you any promises or fathered your children. It's also beyond the realms of obvious that if they can lie to someone they supposedly love, they can lie to her too. The majority of the time, neither women know the true man. If a man approached me saying he was married with children and his marriage is OK, happy enough etc but he's just looking for sex, my response wouldn't be sign me up!

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 18:21

Of course women can take responsibility for their own actions. Such as the moral implications of a decision to sleep with a married man

Many don’t though do they?
Perhaps, if they were made aware of the impact of their actions or the heartache they’ve contributed to, they would think twice.
They’re not all innocent women seduced by a predatory man you know. Despite what some posters think.

Bluntness100 · 10/04/2018 18:21

So women are responsible for philandering men

I think that's the thought process, yes, that if women could be relied on to say no, they would not have a situation where their husbands cheat, as such more women should attempt to scare the shit out of any woman who agrees to get involved with a married man.

Sadly it's never going to work, some women will, always be gullible enough to fall for what some lying scumbag tells them.

speakout · 10/04/2018 18:25

If women have so much responsibility and command over men, then I could argue that wives who fail to keep their husbands faithful are doing society a great injustice.

Blangarang · 10/04/2018 18:25

It's like you've got a fundamental block on understanding this. I doubt any of these women set out to cause the hurt etc. But it's not THEM causing it, it's the partner. They are everyone/no one - completely meaningless.

I'm sure they are aware. But do you not see that that doesn't matter? You could do a post affair fundraiser to 'raise awareness' and invite all ow...it still doesn't make your partners betrayal their fault

Bluntness100 · 10/04/2018 18:25

Perhaps, if they were made aware of the impact of their actions or the heartache they’ve contributed to, they would think twice. They’re not all innocent women seduced by a predatory man you know. Despite what some posters think

I'm sure they know, but they do what's right for them.

I don't actually see the big difference between your partner trying to shag another woman or actually shagging one. Surely the moment he's asking and engaging he's already effectively cheated. How is it so much better if women say no to him.

I certainly wouldn't wish to be with a man who was actively trying to shag someone else. The actual act is a moot point to me.

GertieMotherwell · 10/04/2018 18:25

It’s a sad reflection of our society that people accept that this is an ok thing to do.
That contributing to someone else heartache isn’t your responsibility because you don’t know them or owe them anything.

Selfish and entitled.

TERFousBreakdown · 10/04/2018 18:27

I certainly wouldn't wish to be with a man who was actively trying to shag someone else. The actual act is a moot point to me.

^^ This!