Advice for the OW

[babycow38]

I can only tell you about me and my husband and two beautiful daughter
We had a lovely llife, we did everything together. Does that make you stop and feel awful? You didn't give a crap about my children but I want to tell you about them
They love their life with Mum and Dad, they come home from school and feel happy, they do school work chat to mum and. Dad, they feel happy, secure, wanted. You come in their life? Other woman?? you hate the fact dad is in their life, you are jealous, dad distances himself to appease you , you have awfully messed up girls

"What is the proof for the “some women are predatory” argument? "

Because I know some in rl, have read posts from some on here. Because it's common sense. Because some men are predatory so some women must be too. Or do predatory men not exist either?

Doesn't excuse the man's behaviour, or remove any blame from his shoulders, but to suggest that such women don't exist is ridiculous, naive or disingenuous, not sure which you are.

Who competes with a wife who doesn't know she's competing. Who bags him to leave his wife and drips poison in his ear. Who never faces consequences for her bad behaviour and may in fact be quite cruel should she eventually 'win' her man.

THIS
My best friend's husband's ow said she wanted prove to him she was the 'one ' for him.
6 monte into their emotional affair. She was obsessed and would have trampled over anybody to get to this end.
Self obsessed and selfish.
In any situation these traits don't go down well.
But to set out to do this.
Lowest of the low ...

And it says a lot about some posters on here, that they're tying themselves in knots to defend the ow when op posted in such distress. You read a woman's painful story and the first thing that springs to mind is 'defend the ow'? Really?

I don’t think it’s defending. But so often we see women on here believe everything the husband says, (much like the ow did) and take them back and direct all their anger in the wrong place. 5 years later they’re still stuck in a shitty marriage. If the anger was directed in the right place initially, most people wouldn’t stay. It makes it easier to stay to shift blame.

If the OW knew a man was married and was more than happy to have an affair they both deserve equal measures of the fall out. Obviously the dickhead deserves more so much more.

My exH is a lying, cheating bastard who used all the cliche lines in the affair book to start his affair with the ow. It is him who threw away our marriage & family life. It was him that lacked any respect for me & the vows that we made. Of course marriages go thro unhappy times but when his affair started actually our marriage was on a fairly even keel (Altho it obvs deteriorated during the next 18 months till I found out) and like @CarrieMayBe said I’d have tried to work at the lows in our marriage since I respected our marriage. Him obviously not.

I did feel anger in the beginning towards the ow and wrote her a big letter which I never intended to post but actually in the end I pity her. She’s early 30’s, has hung around for 2 years in secret waiting for him to leave us (it took nearly 5 months after I found out before he moved out) and we’ve now been separated for 6 months but his kids don’t know she exists, he hasn’t told his parents about her. She thinks she’s bagged herself a rich boyfriend - he’s having to pay me so much maintenance & because of where we live I’ll get half his pension - he’s not that rich!! He’s living in a shitty flat.
He’s a crap father to his kids & nearly 50 so doubt he’ll want any more kids. So all the anger I had at her has just turned to pity.
I’m so much happier since he left. I have beautiful kids who I can’t get enough of & they are doing so well even tho they only see their father once a week for 2 hours max (that’s all he can be bothered).

OP I can recommend writing a pretend letter but you need to let the anger go towards her. She’s a sad pathetic person who doesn’t deserve any more of your time.

I always think the married partner is ultimately to blame but some OW & OM behave appallingly. A friend of mine dated a footballer in the 90s, he wasn’t massively famous like David Beckham, etc but he was well known if you followed the sport & treated like A-list in our university town (I’d never heard of him). OMG, nights out with him were an eye opener, women would literally throw themselves at him, press against him, sit on him, perform seductive dance routines in his eyeline & this is with my friend next to him! Even though he was a nice guy my friend had to end it as she just couldn’t handle it.

I do think some OW will do anything for money or a particular lifestyle.

I would never defend an OW but all these husbands that are that weak that they'll run off as soon as the OW clicks her fingers clearly don't care that much about making their marriage work in the first place to be honest. I wouldn't want to be with somebody that spineless.

I cant stand the free pass given to other women on here because they havent broken any vows !
To target somebodies husband is despicable and yes of course he is mostly to blame but she doesnt get off scot free .
OP i am sorry for your pain. X
this

"But so often we see women on here believe everything the husband says,"

But no evidence of that on this thread at all, which is why all the defending seems just plain weird.

If op had come on saying she'd forgiven her darling husband because the horrid seductress was to blame then maybe all of it would've been justified, to give her pause for thought or whatever. But she didn't say that. She wrote an open letter to the ow in order to say things she'll never get to say in rl. We've no idea what she's said to her dh.

Yet now she's gone because people were more interested in defending all ows everywhere it seems.

they both deserve equal measures of the fall out. Obviously the dickhead deserves more so much more.

You can't hold both of these positions at once. Which is it?

And if an affair partner is unattached, with no other partner or kids, how can they possibly get an equal measure of the fallout, if they've no family to betray or lose?

people were more interested in defending all ows everywhere it seems.

Oh bollocks. Nobody has said that shagging a married person isn't shitty. What some of us have said, simply, is that if your husband betrays you and your family, hold him solely responsible for that. Hate the OW by all means, but don't dilute your husband's responsibility by treating her as if your husband's promise was hers, or as if she stole him. You can't steal people unless you kidnap them.

Gloomy - I’ve not seen anyone on here defend OW! What most of us are trying to say is that yes, of course the OP is entitled to be angry at the OW but the person she should be more angry with is her H. He is the one who fucked up the marriage. If it hadn’t been that OW then it would have been another! Nobody can be stolen or tempted unless they want to be. The OP obviously doesn’t blame her H because she described him as a ‘good dad’ and their marriage as happy until the OW came along! I’m shocked that this view of the ‘poor weak husband being tempted by the predatory OW’ still exists! People are responsible for their own actions and can only be ‘twmpted’ if they want to be.

I don’t think I’m defending the ow. But what the op said about the ow keeping him from his kids struck a chord with me because of my own experience. Her children’s father needs to step up and be a parent and everyone needs to stop blaming someone else for his failures. There is no one on this earth who would stop me being there for my kids. Yet when men don’t want to see their own children it’s another woman’s fault.

We need to leave responsibility for parenting with parents. And not accept any silly excuses from men.

"What some of us have said, simply, is that if your husband betrays you and your family, hold him solely responsible for that."

Impossible not to proportionally blame ow in some circumstances. Do you know OP's story? No, not really, and now you never will.

"OP is entitled to be angry at the OW but the person she should be more angry with is her H."

We don't know how angry she is with her husband because she didn't come to mn to discuss him.

No, nobody has defended OW. But as it's MN, if you don't follow a particular thought process regarding affairs, you are automatically defending OW, accused of being one yourself, etc etc etc.

I know it's an emotive and painful topic and I am not dismissing that in the slightest. But it's precisely why I think it's important not to let cheating spouses off like that by sharing blame, or giving lip service to 'oh well obviously he's more to blame' purely as a route to getting round to focusing on the OW being a slut. Even on this very thread (as always) there's the misogynistic language about luring and tempting and an overall tone that women, still, are at least partly responsible when a man shits all over his family.

As ever, if your husband's trying to have affairs and is faithful only because he keeps getting knocked back, does that make it OK? Presumably it does, if women are in any way responsible for marriages that aren't theirs.

It's not "defending" an OW to hold a man 100% responsible for his own commitment and his own actions. Never mind OW, if married men (and women) all kept it in their pants, that's what's required for the job!

No but she does blame the ow for him “distancing” himself from his daughters. They’re his daughters and that’s on him.

Impossible not to proportionally blame ow in some circumstances.

Well yes, of course if OW doesn't just sleep with the husband but also terrorises the kids, sends threats to the wife etc then yes, she is responsible for that. But if we are talking simply about the affair itself - the act of shagging Gemma while married to Sarah - that is on the man. He is responsible for his commitments. Nobody else.

Gloomy - It comes across in the tone of the first post that she doesn’t blame the H. She insinuates that the marriage was happy until the OW came along and ruined it and that the OW is making the H distance himself from the DC. If that’s not shifting the blame from him to the OW then I don’t know what is! Her anger is misguided, she should be holding him responsible for cheating and being a shit father! As I said before, I’ve been there and whilst I fully understand her hatred towards the OW, she should be more angry at her H as he is the one who fucked up their family. The OW is irrelevant to their marriage.

Well there are lots of people in this world I haven't made vows to . Does that give me the right to crap on them from a great big height because I feel like it and want what they have ?
Surely common decency dictates that we should treat people with respect and indeed treat them as we would like to be treated.
Old fashioned sentiments yes but still hold true.
Anyone can act as they please but to imply that they are absolved of any responsibility or consequences is just ridiculous.

Exactly. "Dad distances himself to appease you" - Dad is a shit! What an utter shit! Dad is a terrible father!

Well there are lots of people in this world I haven't made vows to . Does that give me the right to crap on them from a great big height because I feel like it and want what they have ?

Well if the people who did make vows to them keep them, you wouldn't be able to crap on them! Why on God's earth are you responsible for a promise I made?

All this focus on who's to blame/ moral judgement feels like a red herring to me. What's really troubling me - every day, after 5 plus years - is how seemingly good men (and lovely dads) can do this to their kids - ie abandon them just because someone else says they 'have' to live far away.
My situation shows this really clearly as i was the one who broke up the marriage, on the face of it - he didn't run away with OW. He was awful to be married to but a great dad and super-involved, worked part time to share childcare etc. We always said it would be 50/50 if we split up and i believed that completely. But as soon as he met OW he moved miles away, started an exciting childless life and sees our daughters 2 or 3 times a year.
Needless to say they are devastated.
What i want to know is how is this possible? Those of you with 'good' husbands doesnt it scare you to think they could do this at the drop of a hat if things go wrong between the 2 of you? I genuinely had no idea - i thought the role of dad meant as much to him as mine as mum, ie it's for life, come hell or high water. But no. So was he just acting? Passing time? Or worst of all was fatherhood just the 'price' he was willing to pay for being with a woman? Please tell me what you think - what's actually going on here and could i have realised or done something to change it? And don't all say 'oh my dp would never abandon his kids' as you just don't know what he's capable of until you split up and he has difficult choices to make.

Married men who have affairs are obviously totally at fault for the destruction of the marriage.

Doesn't mean that the OW can't be judged for HER shitty, disgusting behaviour and absence of morals too.

Two people involved in the affair - of course the OP can be angry at both for their behaviour.

I know someone whose best friend had an affair with her husband. Years it went on for. Don't tell me that she wasn't allowed to be angry at the OW (her best friend) for what she did? Doesn't mean that she wasn't even more angry at her husband or the she blamed the OW entirely.

The cheating partner is to blame for the affair. The OW/OM has still behaved disgustingly.

Because we are responsible for the fall out from our own actions.
Even children are taught that and learn by experience.
If you have an affair you know full well you are hurting another woman and probably children . It may be convenient to pass all the guilt if you have been the. other woman but it is rubbish. Both are to blame
The husband holds responsibility for breaking his views of course but the ow does not get off scot free.