Does anyone pity the OW...?

[Pixikitten0123]

I know I do 😜

I think that OW are just flawed, imperfect humans like everyone else. We all have our reasons for doing what we do. We have all acted in ways we later came to regret. I pity any woman who is deceived and manipulated.

My story is this: A man who is married recently confessed feelings for me. He says we have a connection - the kind that happens rarely. I want him too. But I will not be the other woman. I have my own reasons for that: the guilt and feeling of wrongness would wreck the self esteem I have worked so hard to build over the years. I don't know if I can believe the lines he's fed me. I don't want to be a party to the massive pain and fallout caused by an affair. I just want better for myself.

So I've told him clearly that I like him too, but if he's serious about me then the only circumstances under which I would consider beginning anything with him is if he was fully separated, living apart, and there had been at least three months clear space between the end of one relationship and the beginning of another. Those are my boundaries. I've told him that and then removed myself from his life. No cosy chats, no social media engagement, no texting, no nothing. If he wants anything at all to do with me then he knows what he has to do. I'm not going to be his bit on the side - not in any capacity. My own feelings have meant these have not been easy boundaries to set and maintain but putting that space between us definitely makes things easier.

I realise full well that according to some Mumsnet purists, this already puts me in OW/EA territory. To which I can but shrug. I know that I have done my best in a difficult and tempting situation to behave as ethically as I can, and I approve of myself even if others don't. I am in my forties and he is correct that this kind of connection happens rarely. If he really does feel what he says he does, and he is prepared to take the necessary action to show he is serious, then I will take my chance at happiness. However, if he is not then he can back the hell off. I'm not hanging around. I'm not waiting on the back burner. I'm not engaging in a "friendship" while he considers his options. He's in my life properly or he's not in it at all.

But if I had a friend in my position and she had the affair? Would I pity her? No. I would feel that she was making poor choices, and I would feel worried for her. But I would accept that as an adult she was responsible for herself. Would I think her choices selfish? Weak and unethical? Shortsighted? Perhaps. But I'm not perfect and I'm not in a position to judge others. Consenting adults can do what they like. But they must own the consequences.

I only know of two OW. I do feel sorry for them, for both of them it's almost 100% guaranteed that there's now at least one new OW. Both men before seperation were disengaged with their families, they love their children but when they're in family settings, it's still like they're not really there, they are both real loners. Their wives were never their best friends or really deeply part of them and no one else will ever be either. People who haven't started families might not know this before but OW have the advantage of seeing it and I feel sorry for them that they get themselves entangled anyway.

No. 'My' ow knew us both well, was fiancé to DHs best friend. She was my maid of honour at my wedding and went on holidays with us. She had no pity for me when she slept with him in my bed while I was out and he had a party for his mates and had an affair with him. They are still together 10 years on but they caused a huge amount of hurt, to her fiancé as well as me. Both were culpable.

Yes.
Poor things have no idea what they are like.
Well my ExH OW found out pretty quickly and the others along the way have also found out pretty quickly.
ExP though... bless her, he's been cheating on her from the start and she has no idea. I'm not about to tell her.
Let her carry on in her oblivion until it finally clicks.

Very glad to be very single, thanks very much.

The OW in my FH (Foolish husband) life: Yes and no . No because she started heavily with him knowing he is a married father, who was then living far away from us because of his work and my refusing to join him with the kids (it was best not to join him because my little one needed all kind of care). Yes: sure enough the idiot was delighted the first days to have a mistress (like everybody! Wrong belief Monsieur) and one that was totally infatuated with him (I have never been infatuated with him or anyone else)- but still it is clear (evidence) that even during the first days of the Affair he made it clear to her that he loved me (?). He stopped the Affair quite quickly but she kept stalking him(no-one compares to you I will never love anyone the way I love you etc) following him wherever he was -paying for her own tickets and doing incredible stuff for him etc this OW didn't even get to taste the luxury that is usually the privilege of mistresses and had to accept that she is a category Z woman (and with a category Z man -yes my FH is exactly that by accepting to fall in her web..
). The number of times they had sex is very limited (not because of his lack of sex drive-unfortunately he has a big sex appetite; not because of his lack of availability-but because his dick let him remember othatften than not that he is a married father and because he didn't find her that attractive physically-he enjoyed more that she came from a milieu that see him as a super Kuffar to be hated etc and yet she was totally and fully in love with him ...) . The affair was brief but the consequences are quite horrible... I pity her a bit for relinquishing a sordid one-way love affair but not for having heavily initiated it and to a great extent directed it and not for her behavior post affair and not for the consequences ( tragic for us..) In short I love men but I would never ever accept to be just a c** and a good scratch to their ego... (i don't even speak of the fucked up.moral.compass and low self esteem you.must possess to start with a married father who tells you that he loves his wife but his dick is "hugely" gratified by you breaking up with your milieu for him....

I'm curious why other women get all the vitriol but not other men. But I digress.

People fall in and out of love all the time. People want different, want more or less. You can't help who you have a connection with and sometimes relationships break down. Yes they should end properly and then move on after but the world isn't perfect and sometimes things end and people are too scared to end them sooner.

I was cheated on once and they are still together now, 9 years on. A painful notion but obviously I was not the right partner for him and he wasnt me. By him stepping out, all be it it could have been handled better I've been able to learn more about me and expiernece more than I would have if I'd have stayed.

If they knew they were shagging a married man, absolutely no sympathy at all they decided to drop the knickers anyway so whatever comes their way 🤷🏻‍♀️

If they genuinely didn’t know then you have to feel for them really as they’ve been lied to as well

Cheating is a very low thing to do, most people cared about the partner at some point even if they feelings have changed now so why treat them that way? Yes ending things is hurtful but it’s 100% better than being a dirty cheat and liar

The OW/OM I pity/don't like are the ones who heavily INITIATE relationships with people that they know to be already in relationship... I say heavily but that does not mean that the object of their acts see them as such. Unfortunately people (especially men but not only) are not always aware of flirtuous games to attract them away from their paetners...especially when their partner's is emotionallyor physically far from them as this makes them.more vulnerable to OW/M with no moral compasses...

I think pity is a funny word to use here.

No one knows what goes on in a marriage, what it's really like between two people, and no one knows what's said between the cheater and the ow. There is endless different combinations there. So I don't think there is any one answer. No two scenarios will ever be the same.

No sympathy whatsoever for ‘my’ OW. She knew he was married with young kids but went for it anyway. Other than being dumped it’s not like she has particularly suffered anyway. I didn’t get the impression that she was madly in love with him, it was all just a bit of fun to her.

Nah, I don’t pity anyone who is involved in an affair - the ow/om or the cheating partner, in fact anyone who even sleeps with somebody whilst in a relationship or knowingly sleeps with somebody who they are aware is married or in a relationship.
No pity for them, just disgust from me. They know what they are doing and they know there will be victims who suffer. If it ends up being them that suffer themselves too then they deserve it for willingly going there.
Harsh I know, but it is how I feel.

@kidsneexfathers..at least other posters have been honest about it and said men get their heads turned by women.
Your post veils it rather but basically another person saying poor unsuspecting men can't help it they are lured away by manipulative husseys with no morals or empathy.
Why is it that men are seen as 'victims' and women as 'perpetrators' in affairs.

My theory is it allows wifes who stay with partners who have cheated to justify it and make it less painful. They don't have to face up to what their partner did if they can paint them as poor defenceless men who were sucked in by manipulating evil woman.

It just isn't like that.. Men are adults with their own brains and voices and can say no.. If they want to that is.

Any man can say no, an affair or even a one off shag is a choice. There is always a way to either say no or at least end a relationship if you feel the need to cheat.

Same goes for women too.

Yes I do. The ow who has an affair with my ex and now lives with him after ending his own marriage. I don’t think she knows (maybe I’m wrong) that he was at least the 4th person he had an affair with during our marriage.

I wonder if she’s learnt yet that he is self obsessed, arrogant and a compulsive liar. I also wonder if she knows yet that he has to take viagra just to have sex because he drinks a bottle of wine most days

I on the other hand am in a wonderful relationship now with a new partner who is kind and honest and has a beautiful soul. And I feel very grateful for every day.

Not sure if this is the place for this but I'm 'the OW who never was' and I'm sure there are more around like me.

I was divorced and tired of meeting useless men who weren't worth the effort. I started a new job and he was there. We got on really well from the start and I soon realised I was falling in love with him. But he was married with 2 young children.

The paradox is this - if he'd cheated on his wife with me, let alone left the family for me, he wouldn't have been the man I thought he was, and that was who I loved. I was in love with a decent, honourable and honest man who was a good husband and father - just the sort of man I'd never been able to find for myself. I know the attraction was mutual - there were kisses at works parties, loaded conversations when he had to drive me anywhere for meetings or home after necessary extended overtime.

After 3 years of crying over him every night, I left the job. We lost touch and I eventually met the man I'm now married to. By huge coincidence, the day before my wedding I walked into him in a supermarket. I told him I was getting married and moving out of the area. He kissed me and said he still missed me. But I don't play whatifery. It's a futile game.

I do feel sorry for the OW to an extent because as people always say 'you can't choose who you fall in love with'. But you can choose what to do about it and sometimes it hurts, my god does it hurt!

I think that OW are just flawed, imperfect humans like everyone else.
I think that too. I know other people who've had affairs. The only ones I'm angry with (admittedly less so with time) are the ones who discussed me behind my back like I was subhuman. I don't think I'm superior to them. I am angry abut the specific things they (mainly he) did to me. And would not be this angry if my ex had split up with me decently, no. After this time, I'm fine with him not being there - more than fine - but I still think it was crap of him (for example) to go round telling lies about me. It was part of the affair self-justification.

One good thing about having your name dragged through the mud and coming out the other side is that you do learn to accept that some people will see you badly, whatever you do. So if someone thinks my feeling bad about my ex's affair shows what a nasty, judgemental [irony alert] person I am, I can't change that and should let them get on with it.

Weird idea, though, that me falling in love and starting a relationship with my ex when he was single is described as exactly the same as someone falling in love and deciding to start a relationship with him behind my back, knowing he was married to me. I don't personally see that as the same thing.

a year out and realising what an abusive, controlling arsehole ExP was, I'd like to buy her a drink. She did me a favour.

Yup, this is how I feel too. At least, some of the time. Other times I actually almost feel guilty that she basically took my place. I hate to think what she’s going through now.

Mine was the classic ‘woman from work’ that so many of these men seem to meet. He strung her along and avoided telling her that he had a girlfriend (of nine years!) for as long as possible, so I don’t really place any blame on her although they did get together awfully quickly after we broke up. There was definitely some emotional overlap and some very disrespectful behaviour from him, even if they never sealed the deal physically.

After we split it took a few months for him to admit to me that he was actually dating her now, during which time he was sending me pity-party messages saying that he’d always loved me and that he wanted to try again with me. He refuses to admit any wrongdoing there but something tells me he didn’t exactly show her those messages!

I had actually been thoroughly miserable for years but it was too hard to leave him, so when he finally became distracted by her it was like he loosened his grip at last and I just bolted. He wavered a bit (when he thought she wasn’t interested, basically) and said it was all happening too fast and he hadn’t meant to definitely end things at that point... but it was too late, I was already gone.

An old friend recently told me that their relationship seemed very ‘up and down’ and my blood ran cold. I can only imagine what that might mean.

I do. I found out she’d been fooling around with him for 8 months after I threw him out. He left his phone behind. I threw him out because he was being violent however. One day she’ll find out I was telling the truth about it all and she’s going to need someone who won’t be fooled by his denials.

theredjelly you are entitled to think that I am just spinning a narrative to justify me staying with him. I can tell I got written evidence and behavioral evidence and you can still tell that my theory is not beyond reasonable doubt. And it is absolutely fine by me. What you don't know is that i am not trying to justify him. I will yell you: i did not care about him having an affair when i was so far away from him. It is negligible compared to who he is. The tragic consequences are difficult to process ( they are the results of his kindness and compassion my kids say) . BTW I have noticed that people who have affairs (not the OW/M who know that their object of desire is in relationship and are jealous of it) are usually soft/compasdionate/kind/forgiving and accepting the frailty of the human nature. .these are great qualities in my eyes

Good god! People who have affairs are what type of person? Soft, compassionate, kind and giving?

Soft in the head, giving their partners a bucket full of lies and kind of arseholes? Not sure that I can fit compassionate in their though.

What iadamanera said

I seriously dated a guy in my 20s (living together and planned marriage) who had a “wandering eye” so to speak

The reality was, there were all sorts of negative (non emotionally healthy?) reasons why we WERE together.

He was well off and I craved stability. We actually weren’t that compatible as people. Communication was rubbish.

He was frustrated he hadn’t got the career he wanted and I didn’t know what I wanted to do as a vocation. I’m glad we’re not together now, not in a “oh he’s such a dick” way but just as it wouldn’t have been good for me.

It was far, far easier to focus on whether or not his relationship with other women was “proper” or not than move on with my own life and do my own thing.

I’d say there was a lot of pain associated with his behaviour?

But there’s a good thinking technique which we use at my Buddhist centre called “where does emotional pain begin”?

Did the pain allegedly “caused” by his infidelity start with him feeling insecure? Or me feeling rejected as a child? Or me being rejected by my father, who in turn was rejected by x? Which was due to being institutionalused which was due to Y governments decision. Etc etc etc.

The point is it’s easy to blame One Scarlet Woman for everything. When actually things are more complex and interconnected than that.

So rather than try to put anger on one person or cause, it’s better to try to mitigate the anger and move forward.

Labels and extreme stereotypes hurt people.

I wasn’t some frumpy unfeminine reject OR some supportive angel

My ex wasn’t some bastard Lothario OR someone trapped by grumpy me.

The women he was semi- dating weren’t some wonderful sexual beings offering something I lacked OR some immoral sluts.

Sorry I see you said forgiving? All for giving themselves orgasms with someone other than their partner?

(I am not talking about serial cheaters who just look out for some prey/sex..I am talking about people who have an affair at some low vulnerable time in their life and then use it to become better...