Solicitors letter to DH mistress in affair

[Bub3017]

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!!

Some BSs will make you wish you'd never been a third in their marriage/relationship by dishing out revenge

It won't be a popular opinion, but I kind of think that puts the BS in the wrong. Depends on the nature of the 'revenge' but it's quite likely that it would be no more honourable or justified than the affair.

Affairs are not usually 'intended' to hurt people; people get into them because they get personal pleasure from them. Revenge is intended to cause someone harm or hurt and I do think that's worse.

I think this is a perfect glitter bomb situation.

Personally, I wasn’t prepared to let the OW walk all over me. Hopefully, she will think twice about doing this again.
Personally, I'd be more concerned about not letting HIM walk all over me and being sure that HE wouldn't do it again.
No point in scaring the OW off if your partner gets seduced by the next evil temptress.

However, your post has made me realise the reason my marriage has survived this and others haven’t.

If you truly have the secret of making a marriage survive infidelity - honestly survive it, not just staying legally married while the relationship itself is dead in the water - then I do wonder why you aren't sharing. You say you want to support betrayed spouses, so why would you withhold this golden secret? It could make you very rich.

If it's got anything to do with interacting with the OW, though, then frankly it is horseshit.

@Gertiemotherwell thank you for your support and to others that have offered it.

I came on this thread because Bubs is not getting support for a perfectly valid emotion she’s experiencing. I want her to know that it’s normal, it’s ok to feel like this Gertie, plenty of posters (myself included) have said it's ok to feel like this, it is perfectly natural to feel rage towards the OW. BUT - it is, as has been said hundreds of times, deflecting her rage from the proper target.

Your marriage has survived infidelity; it is because you warned off the OW? You suggest it. I wonder how many other women have been approached? IF the cheater is apologetic, remorseful, distraught, blames himself (NO-ONE else! Not her! Not you!) then maybe... I wouldn't, but I'm worth more than a life with cheating arsehole. I couldn't love a cheating arsehole. And I wouldn't think for one minute he loved me.

And as I said, if I was single, in a bar and chatted up, and I fancied him, why wouldn't I have sex with him? Loads of threads on MN lauding women who take control of their own sexuality, enjoy sex, and can sleep with whomever they want. WE don't need to police the men - their relationships are theirs to maintain. If these women in bars had to get the guy to fill in a questionnaire before they sleep with someone (are you in a relationship? When did your last relationship end? etc ) well, that would put a dampener on any evening!

And IT'S NOT UP TO THE WOMAN to prove he is not in a relationship! It's up to him to NOT have sex with other woman!

I've been an OW, not proud of that. I was single at the time, he was not. The posts that strike a particular chord with me as being particularly insightful come from MrPerkinsisaprick.

If your husband (wife) cheats on you and you take them back then you have absolutely no business heaping the unused coals on the OW/OM's head even if it does make you feel better (until the next time). There will, in all probability, be a next time. The vows are already broken (from the cheater's perspective), so what difference would it make? They weren't important enough to uphold.

It's said that women fight like tigers when they're losing their husbands and I think that's very true... only the snake that they're 'fighting for' is the one that put their marriage in jeopardy in the first place.

If more women (and men) were prepared to end their marriages there might actually be a consequence for cheaters overall as the tide becomes one of having to rebuild your life under the mantle of opprobrium rather than being able to wheedle your way back in. Again, whilst some BS like to take the 'moral high ground', they don't have it in reality as they're on the other side of that same coin as PP have already mentioned.

This subject needs to come 'out from the shadows' and be openly discussed, no longer taboo.

I have no idea why you keep banging on to me elisenbrunnen when I’ve told you that your assumptions about me, my actions, my opinions, my DH, the affair and the state of my marriage are way off the mark. Repeatedly saying things doesn’t make them true and tbh, most of the content of your posts isn’t even relevant to my personal situation. I can only assume your comments reflect your own experience and I’m sorry if that’s the case 💐

I appreciate the thanks Bubs.

MrPerkins, well said.

I also totally agree with MrPerkins
We are all responsible for our own behaviour.

My point about OW being made to recognise and accept their part in the wake of an affair is all about improving morals in general. The more people upholding what’s right rather than involving themselves in what’s wrong can only improve our society.

My point about OW being made to recognise and accept their part in the wake of an affair is all about improving morals in general.

That is never going to work and is really incredibly presumptuous.

Haven't RFT, but from experience I learnt that OW is not a party in the divorce. Unless ExH and OW cohabit for more that 4 nights per week their finances are not relevant either.

Forget the OW, they are not worth the head space.

but from experience I learnt that OW is not a party in the divorce

I'd be sincerely worried if she were. A marriage is a voluntary legal contract between two people. It would be sinister indeed if it could legally bind anyone else outside of that couple.

As it is, the law recognises the concept of monogamy within a marriage, which is why you can divorce on the grounds of adultery. (You can't do that with a civil partnership.)

I’ve told you that your assumptions about me, my actions, my opinions, my DH, the affair and the state of my marriage are way off the mark. - Gertie, you've already said that you warned off the OW, so I assume your DP had an affair. You've said that you didn't want her walking all over you, and made her think twice, so I assume this was some sort of intimidation. Doesn't matter if the circumstances of his affair were totally different - if he's had an affair, the pain is all the same.
And cheaters go one of these ways;
It's all someone else's fault - the mates he was out with (made him do it), she was Gagging for it and he just couldn't resist, poor weak bloke, you know what she's like, she's a slaaaag...And you believe him, it's ALL HER FAULT!
it's YOUR fault, you didn't give him enough sex, or didn't wear enough makeup, or make enough effort with him, he just had to look elsewhere, right, but now that you know, you can make more effort, blow-jobs on saturdays, lose weight for him...Some people are so insecure and needy that they cling onto all sorts of turds, because, to them, even a man- or woman-shaped turd is better than no man/woman at all These people generally have to blame her, because otherwise it means that HE is to blame. And if they are to cling onto their turd, they have to airbrush over that bit.
OR
he takes the blame - is apologetic, realises that it is ALL HIM, that he will have to do everything within his power to repair this, up to and including answering all your questions, facing your tears and accusations and pain, and even then realising that YOU could walk away if you wanted to. These ones have a TINY chance of the marriage holding together.

The fact that you felt you had to 'warn off' the OW suggests that your DP didn't do #3. So it's one of the first 2.

You reckon you have such a 'strong' marriage now - I'm wondering whether you blame the OW because it's the easiest way to absolve your cheating DP? I cannot understand people who stay with cheaters. He'll do it again. Esp if he's never faced consequences from the first(?) time.
But if you're happy - I hope this thread has made you think. And made you look at your cheater in another light.

elisenbrunnen I agree with all of that. I think though that there's not much point addressing this to Gertie who isn't going to disclose what happened. I suspect this is making her feel very, very uncomfortable too.

So, as an academic discussion, if I were confronted by a BS, I wouldn't hesitate to take it formally if there were any question of violence or aggression and I wouldn't be 'warned off' either. Imagine, having to warn someone to stay away from your partner as if he doesn't have a mind of his own and a dick to match.

People do not own other people. Ever. They ignore/forget that at their peril. People who do not want to cheat on their partner simply don't. That is the crux. If they do then take it up with them - and only them.

Second PPs saying you can’t make an OW regret her actions. I was an OW once, and unlike FuckingIt, didn’t even have the excuse of being very young. His wife began harassing me when she found out: constant calls, texts and emails calling me names – ‘slag’, ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘tart’, ‘mucky cow’ etc. Rants about how I’d ‘dropped my knickers’, ‘spread my legs’, ‘torn a family apart’, ‘destroyed her children’. Lots of non-specific threats about ‘making me sorry’, ‘causing me trouble’, ‘knowing where I lived’. And of course, the obligatory message about me being ugly, and not being able to see why her husband would want me, when he had her.

All these messages did was make me feel less sorry that I’d slept with her husband, not more. Throughout our affair, he’d claimed she was unhinged and controlling. And here she was, acting unhinged and controlling. He went back to her in the end. He fell out of love with me as quickly as he’d fallen in love (right around the time he learned how much it was going to cost to him to divorce her, in fact). I’m sure he told her all sorts of rubbish about me, in order to get back in there, just as he’d once told me all sorts of rubbish about her. And I didn’t get off ‘scot free’. I was heartbroken, because I’d been foolish enough to believe everything he’d said about his marriage, and all the promises he’d made me.

I came regret my actions. I wasn’t responsible for keeping his marriage together, but I’d helped a man gaslight and deceive his wife, and I’m embarrassed to think of that now. However, this regret developed organically, with time and perspective. Her harassing me, in the most sexist terms, did nothing to speed the process up. It slowed it down. You cannot force an OW to feel a certain way, just because you want her to.

I would really advise against that.

Firstly, there's no legal basis for it whatsoever.

Secondly, if I were her...and to be clear I'm not in that kind of situation, I'm happily married...but if I were I would just think you'd lost your mind, raise an eyebrow at your level of crazy and put it in the bin.

So it's really not going to help. At worst you're going to look like a complete loon and she'll think 'I can see why her DH was looking elsewhere'. I don't think this is the reaction you're looking for but it's most likely what you'll get.

lying - I hope it is making her uncomfortable; I hate the idea that a woman has to cling onto a man, whatever. If he is a cheater, he is a lying scumbag and not worth hanging onto.

I know family and kids and finances and shit all mean that there are 100 reasons to stay and only 1 to leave (AKA lying scumbag) but i would never counsel a woman (or a man) to stay with a cheater. And I would never be with someone like that.

That's why i was on this thread - to throw the blame squarely where it belongs. If Gertie wants to believe everyone else is to blame for her DPs affair, that's up to her. But she should have the full picture, not just 'OW is to blame, the low-life immoral slag'...

Again, I agree with you, elisenbrunnen, that's why I posted that if a woman (man) decides to forgive their errant spouse then it's 'case closed'. The OW/OM is immaterial from that point.

I think if you're going to have the courage of your convictions and foster all kinds of bile to the person your partner cheated on you with - then that same level of vitriol is levied at your cheating spouse. And if it is, there's no way you could take them back and If you do then you're bit of a deceitful hypocrite yourself really - worse possibly, as you're making excuses for disproportionate anger at the wrong person.

That was the point I was making about Gertie being uncomfortable... she would be.

This thread is gross. The OP will "debase" herself by writing that letter? Her relationship with the father of her children is not as important as a marriage? She's suffering "cognitive dissonance" by blaming the OW as well as her partner?

Sorry, I jumped off the MN "Blame him, not her!" train a good while ago. Unless she's a freshly arrived alien who has never attended a wedding ceremony or met a friends/family members' new baby, she fully understands what took part in. We cherish these things because we know they are important. I don't think someone who cheats with someone they know is part of a couple - or far worse, part of a family with children that will be affected by the fallout - should get to skip away with no consequence just because they didn't make a commitment to anyone.

I wouldn't bother writing a solicitor's letter though. Just write directly to her, telling her what you think of her. And then put your focus back on him.

Unless she's a freshly arrived alien who has never attended a wedding ceremony or met a friends/family members' new baby, she fully understands what took part in.

Nobody is suggesting she didn't know. We are saying it is not her responsibility. She is not in the relationship, the man is.

We cherish these things because we know they are important.

Who's 'we'? As a PP said, if the man who was committed, who had the children with OP, who claimed to love her, didn't think his relationship was important enough not to risk, why would a stranger think more of it than he does?

I don't think someone who cheats with someone they know is part of a couple - or far worse, part of a family with children that will be affected by the fallout - should get to skip away with no consequence just because they didn't make a commitment to anyone.

Why not? You said it yourself - she didn't make a commitment to anyone. So what exactly do you think she deserves to lose?

And do you think a letter appealing to the guilty feelings she clearly doesn't have is going to punish her somehow?

I'm trying to imagine myself as an OW here. If I were, and I got a letter from the wife telling me what a scumbag I was, well....I don't intend ever to be in that situation, but I can't help but imagine that I would just think 'tell it to your husband'.

And PoorYorick, if the OW were to scan said letter and post it, in its entirety, to Facebook, I wonder who would come out more humiliated? The single woman who had an affair with a willing man? Or the willing man's partner? As I said at the outset, Arkell v Pressdram.

Depends on how many spelling errors there are, I guess.

Apart from the obvious fact that only someone who's in a marriage can betray it, there's the likely content of such a letter.

As some PP's experience has shown, there's a good chance it's going to contain a lot of misogynistic and sexist insults which wouldn't reflect well on the writer.

Even if it didn't, the overall tone is likely to be 'I am a morally superior person to you because of what you did', and this just isn't an approach that people tend to take the way you want them to. If someone's having an affair, they're clearly not working to the same moral compass as the wife, and so they aren't likely to suddenly see her as their moral tutor. As some posters in a similar recent thread said, they felt even less sorry because they didn't care for what they saw as the pomposity and self righteousness in the letter.

Those posters are remorseful now, but that's nothing to do with the letters; they grew and changed with time, as they would have done anyway.

Me too, PoorYorick, I agree with your view that the spouse should address this with their own husband/wife. Why would there be an expectation that the OW/OM should take responsibility when their affair partner hasn't afforded that respect to their spouse?

It sounds like you're staying with your DP and therefore don't accept that the affair is his fault, you're putting all the blame on the OW. Sorry but it IS your DP's fault. The OW bears no responsibility for his actions. She owes you nothing and you don't know what lies he may have told her.

I've been the OW and the guy didn't even tell me he had a partner. When I found out after a few months he claimed he hadn't mentioned it because it was basically over and they were only living together until their lease ran out. I cut contact with him and later heard that he'd married her. But I suppose it was all my fault that a woman I never met was cheated on?