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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

Original poster

My neice is the OW. How do I talk her out of it?

40 replies

NCforthisthread18 · 29/05/2018 22:14

Ok, I know I can’t really. But I’m so upset for her that she’s got herself in this position.

Apparently she’s been seeing him for a year. He’s wined, dined, taken her on romantic weekends away etc. And she’s totally hooked.

He has been married 20 plus years and has 3 dcs for goodness sake! There’s a 16 year age gap between them.

She’s always been quite easily influenced and if I’m honest, can be very selfish at times. But she’s also incredibly loving and trusting. He is wealthy and gives her lots of attention (the old well trotted out story of my wife doesn’t understand me, we got married too young, we’ve not had sex since the youngest was born yadda yadda yadda) and she is quite vulnerable and easily flattered.

What do I do to help her?

OP posts:
Hassled · 29/05/2018 22:16

I think there's very little you can do except be there when it all goes horribly wrong. I do feel for you - it's like watching a car crash. But she must know the implications of what she's doing - you spelling it out won't change a decision she's clearly made.

ByeMF · 29/05/2018 22:17

Just be there for when it inevitably goes tits up.

PestymcPestFace · 29/05/2018 22:18

Invite them both to dinner at your place?

Realistically you can tell her it is a bad idea, although she may not listen.

TheDrinksAreOnMe · 29/05/2018 22:18

Grass her up?

Sorry, but there is a wife and kids involved here and she clearly doesn’t give a shit

Original poster
NCforthisthread18 · 29/05/2018 22:19

Yes I know that’s all I can do. But it’s so bloody frustrating to see her wasting her life on a man who obviously isn’t going to offer her a future! And I hate to think of her as being someone who is ruining a family too. Should I tell my DB (her father)?

OP posts:
Myheartbelongsto · 29/05/2018 22:20

Show her some of the threads on here from women that have been cheated on and the devastation it has caused them and their innocent children.

But to be blunt if she has no morals then she will carry on regardless.

CatOwned · 29/05/2018 22:21

I'm not sure how much telling her father would help. Have you tried asking her how she would feel if she were the wife? Point out that if things were as bad as the man says, he would be better off separated.

Myheartbelongsto · 29/05/2018 22:21

Forget her father, tell the wife.

I wouldn't hesitate.

Original poster
NCforthisthread18 · 29/05/2018 22:24

Myheartbelongsto

That would be a fantastic solution. Unfortunately, a young 20 something headstrong woman in the throes of passion and stars in her eyes about a rich “Prince charming” (albeit married with children) thinks that love be conquers all. It’s really is like watching a fucking car crash in slow motion

OP posts:
Notveryladylike · 29/05/2018 22:26

Myheartbelongsto
Yup I would!

Myheartbelongsto · 29/05/2018 22:27

Tell her anonymously she deserves to know that two people are making a fool out of her.

His children must be young if she's in her twenties and him 16 years older.

Sickening to be honest and a horrible situation for you.

AtSea1979 · 29/05/2018 22:27

Glad everyone else has more common sense than me. I was getting more horrified by the second and thinking crikey she’s taken it well. Then realised the OP is not the wife!

Myheartbelongsto · 29/05/2018 22:28

Not very - what would you do, tell the wife?

Original poster
NCforthisthread18 · 29/05/2018 22:29

First of all, I don’t know him let alone the wife.
Secondly she is my niece and despite my feelings about this whole thing, my loyalty and support is with her.
It’s just a fucking mess. She says she loves him and he’s promised he’ll leave his family once the youngest turns 18 (she’s 11 now). I fucking despair

OP posts:
Ithinkididmagic · 29/05/2018 22:30

She sounds like foolish and Self centred girl.
The time she is wasting in her life, is no comparison to the four lives she and this man are ruining.

You could try asking her to imagine she had three children and was with a Man she loved for a very long time. And then how she would feel if she was humiliated and heartbroken by this Man cheating on her with a much younger woman. If she is capable of empathising with this woman and her children, it may help. But I doubt it, I think this will just keep unfolding until everyone is hurt.

SandyY2K · 29/05/2018 22:31

I'd get her (if she'd listen to you) to read
www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?fid=2

That's the JFO section ...just found out.

Infidelity can have terrible consequences....but while he splashes out on gifts and fills her head with nonsense that she chooses to believe...she probably won't listen to you.

I'd tell my brother personally and I know It would be over once my DB had words with the man.... he's not someone to mess with
My DN is his little princess and he wouldn't sit back and allow it.

Myheartbelongsto · 29/05/2018 22:33

7 more years!

She sounds horrible op, sorry.

I'd disown her if she were my niece. I have no time for cheaters.

SandyY2K · 29/05/2018 22:35

She says she loves him and he’s promised he’ll leave his family once the youngest turns 18 (she’s 11 now)

Oh my word. His words are so typical of the MM who isn't going to leave.

When the youngest is 18 .. he'll enjoy his single life..if he leaves and she'll be tossed aside.

Hopefully she won't waste her fertile years with him if she wants kids.

TheDrinksAreOnMe · 29/05/2018 22:37

my loyalty and support is with her

Then you are essentially supporting it.

It must be horrible to be in this position but gently showing her the way in this is not going for work!

SingleDingle · 29/05/2018 22:38

I wouldn’t disown her. But I’d consider telling her I don’t want to hear a word about him until it’s to tell me it’s over. That you’ll be there to inevitably help pick up the pieces; but other than than that, nothing.

unicornbear · 29/05/2018 22:39

Talk to him and say that if he doesn't break it off then you will tell his wife and say you have evidence (even if you don't).

Chippyway · 29/05/2018 22:39

Tell her father?!

Really? Why? What is/can he do? Lock her up for being a naughty girl Hmm

I find that quite creepy. He has no say in what she does or who she sees. I don’t understand why you’d even think of telling him, almost as if he has a say in who she dates

What she’s doing is morally wrong and I wouldn’t be over the moon if I was older and my niece was in this position. However she’s an adult, she can make her own decisions. She will have to deal with the fall out when it happens.

There’s nothing you can do. Let her make her own poor decisions and let her deal with the consequences. But fgs her father doesn’t own her. Leave him out of it

Original poster
NCforthisthread18 · 29/05/2018 22:40

my loyalty and support is with her

Then you are essentially supporting it.

No. I’m certainly not supporting this dreadful relationship. But she is my niece. And I’ve known and lived her since birth. The last thing I’m going to do is abandon her when she needs support the most. I just need to find a way to discourage her from this MM.

OP posts:
helenvelyn · 29/05/2018 22:42

God OP I will get flamed for this but here we go,

I was the OW up until very recently. He was married with two kids. Told me we would have been together if not for them. I got caught up in it all and loved the attention. I had never met his wife so that side of him didn't seem 'real'. It was easy to think out of sight, out of mind.

Then one day his wife came into work (he was a colleague) and I got such a dose of reality that I honestly felt sick. I started to think about the reality of the situation and ended it.

Has your niece seriously thought about the consequences?

He'll be paying maintenance and if he divorces his wife will probably lose half his assets.

The children won't disappear.

She will be hated and the ex wife may make life very difficult.

She will then be with a known cheat and liar.

She might feel huge pressure to make things work at whatever cost as she split up his family.

His baggage won't disappear.

He might not even leave his wife and she will have wasted 8 years.

I suggest you sit her down and get her to very carefully and frankly think about all of these things.

Idgie · 29/05/2018 22:44

How about suggesting she get a therapist? Clearly she has some issues of her own she needs to work on and maybe as those unravel she will be able to see more clearly what she's gotten involved in? Something is driving the attraction to what is obviously not good for her and she needs to sort that but out.