The other woman

[deesdeli]

I'd like the views of others who have experienced a similar situation...

I am recovering from finding out about my exes infidelity with the same woman for over a year.

Whilst I have got rid of him and given him the sh*t he deserved I am now left with unbelievable rage towards the other woman.

The other woman was fully aware he was in a relationship and actively pursued him again and again....I cannot believe a word he says and suspect there is a lot more the to story he hasnt told me so I am tempted to contact her to find out the truth and to vent on her.

I cannot believe that women can behave like this towards another woman and I suppose I am trying to find closure to this horrible chapter .

My DHs previous gf cheated on him, she had been a friend of mine she eventually married her lover. When she found out DH and I were together she went all out to discredit me and I lost a lot of friends. Throughout it all we kept quiet and let her get on with it. We married had children and have had a good and long relationship( which does give me hope that we will get through the current problems, we have survived much worse).
There have been many moments when I realise that everyone gets what they deserve. However, when we had our first DC my DH commented that I now had the one thing ex desperately wanted and that it must feel good. I actually felt great empathy and sorrow for her since she would never feel the overwhelming love I was feeling at that moment.
When it later came out that her DH had not had his vasectomy reversed and that all her endeavours to get pregnant had been wasted I also felt incredibly sorry for her. But karma is a funny thing. I suspect that she regrets sending me that card congratulating me on my first miscarriage!

And by the way I was never the OW I waited nearly 2 years before I started seeing her ex. I wouldn’t have dreamt of making a move on him while they were together.

Never be tempted to speak to the OW. Wives who think about doing this are projecting their own qualities onto the OW - qualities such as honesty. By seeking answers from the OW you are assuming she will provide honest answers. This is unlikely to happen as she will either seek to minimise to absolve herself from responsibility to you, or she will embellish events to make you feel small. It would be a paradox for an honest woman to engage in an affair with a married man.
Take comfort in the fact that he has lost an honest woman (you!) and gained a lesser woman.

@Angrymum22 I am horrified that someone would be so cruel to another woman who had lost her baby. I am speechless.

@SVRT19674
Oh there’s lots of nasty ppl out there, my DPs ex wife is one of the most vicious hateful people Ive ever come across. No I wasn’t the OW.

My bf broke up with his exw years ago after she cheated on him and went off with her OM. They later broke up. Now, even though I appeared years and years later, she's a bit odd to me, too - not aggressive or anything, but e.g. telling their dd that she doesn't want to pick her up from her dad's as she might run into me. We've never said anything more than "hello" and "goodbye" but maybe she thinks I'm smug, or that he's told me weird stories about her and I'm judgemental. You never know what's going on in people's head.

Unless the woman above is actually a psychopath, she must surely remember sending that card with total shame.

I have no idea whether she regrets it but I still have it in a drawer somewhere. I am a very forgiving person, far too much empathy so needed to remind myself that not everyone deserves forgiveness.
I could write a book about the ten years she tried to create problems for us but there’s no point because ultimately she didn’t succeed.

@ravenmum
I could tell you tales of horror too, like @Angrymum22 says they don’t succeed and that’s the main thing.

She also sent my DH the same Xmas card every year for ten years signing with the name of his ex previous to her, DH still had a load of old cards from when he was with her and the handwriting was unmistakable, after 10yrs the pack must have run out! ( actually now that I’m having problems with this ex maybe it was her?) We did keep a lot of the stuff she sent in case it escalated but fortunately when DC arrived it all stopped.
To the outside world she is a vivacious, attractive fun person with her own business and a good life. Behind the veneer she is batshit crazy.
This is one of the reasons, despite my anger, I will not be seeking any form of revenge with current OW. Unlike his previous partners I suspect I am the least crazy and maybe the reason he decided to form a long term relationship with me rather than them.
There are only a few people I’ve shared this with in rl, on an anonymous forum it doesn’t really matter if people believe me or not. I’m quite certain that anyone who knows her would think I was making it up.

Thank god it all happened before social media!!!

Ooh, that is brave, volunteering to be the least crazy girlfriend :D
Not sure I'd be able to keep it up!

@Angrymum22
The xmas card thing is insane!!!!
The one I deal with is more obvious in her hatred, that’s too sly for her 🤣

Unlike his previous partners I suspect I am the least crazy and maybe the reason he decided to form a long term relationship with me rather than them.

Sending you that card when you miscarried was really wicked and she sounds awful. But this comment still disturbs me. Your husband actually said to you when your first child was born that you must feel great to have the one thing she wanted and couldn't have, which strikes me as weird. I can't help but wonder if he said anything nasty to her along those lines. It absolutely wouldn't excuse her sending that card but it would suggest that your husband might not have been a saint to her either.

Another here who has lived this nightmare.

It was me who the (very drunk) OW turned to full of frustration and rage that she couldn't 'hug & kiss' my XH 'because his wife's here'. Errrr that'll be me you husband stealing bitch.

I had vivid dreams of murdering her violently. Am unimpressed that my XH has all but abandoned his own kids in favour of hers. And in the early days of our split (the kids knew nothing of his extra marital activities) like a prize bellend he'd have her there constantly like an omnipresent weirdo. He told my kids (10 & 15) 'You have to like OW she and her kids are family now' approx 5 weeks after he left our family home.

As a PP said it's important to leave them to it. Move on. Become ambivalent as the rage and hurt only causes you grief.

Their moral compasses was broken.

So sorry for your pain. It gets easier quickly but I must confess I still have satisfying dreams where I stab the OW a lot.

sheba DH was very upset by the card she sent re the miscarriage I think it was just a reaction/closure. She had ‘apparently’ had a miscarriage after he dumped her when he found out she was cheating. It’s not only women who go through it when cheated on. She definitely played him in the last few months they were together. I think she tried to use the ‘pregnancy’ as a last resort to try and force him into reconciliation and marriage.
In contrast it took him a long time to get me to say yes to marriage, we were engaged for 5yrs. I wanted him to be completely sure and marriage was never a deal breaker for me.
As I say the things I have detailed are the tip of the iceberg. He did admit to a few anonymous phone calls in the first month after they split up but realised that she was enjoying the attention so stopped. She was and is a woman who loves male attention.

I think whether you are a woman or a man you are excused for anything you may say to your soon to be ex partner when they cheat.

I sometimes wonder whether men move on so fast in order to replace one ‘wife’ with another to justify their cheating and to legitimise the new relationship with family and friends. I suspect they actively encourage craziness in the ex so they can demonstrate why they left. By seeking revenge on the OW you are validating the reason they left.
DH ex was definitely crazy regardless, since her actions started when she realised DH was serious about our relationship 3 yrs after they split up and after she had married her lover ( who had also cheated on his wife).

The anger on here is palpable. From women saying they are over it. It is very sobering.

Op, as you’ve agreed no one is stolen, she didn’t take what you had, he just went willingly.

Venting at her, trying to punish her is unlikely to achieve anything. She’s not going to sit there and listen and cry and apologise, shes not going to take a punishment, and she’s going to come right back at you, and it’s not going to be easy for you.

It is unlikely to have the result you wish, you will be made to be bitter and scorned, and ultimately you’ll just feel worse. Much worse.

It’s not about how she could sleep with him in yout home. It’s about how he could sleep with her in your home. He did not fall victim to her womanly wiles, and her past relationship history is irrelevant.

You need to focus on you, try counselling to get over the anger. Don’t let it eat away at you for years. Focus on healing and moving on. It’s the only thing that will help you.

I am fully expecting a flaming, but I got full on revenge on OW and it felt wonderful.
But I had to bide my time and not do anything for months so she wouldn’t be able to trace it back to me (and therefore report me for harassment).

But without going into details, I got her sacked from 2 jobs, got the RSPCA to take away the puppy she had bought herself to cheer herself up after the ‘heartbreak’ of losing her ‘soulmate’ and sabotaged the sale of her flat which in turn meant she lost out on a new flat she had her heart set on.

It helps a lot that she has an open Twitter and Instagram account and is a huge oversharer because she has gifted me some of these opportunities to fuck her life over a bit.

But I absolutely wouldn’t recommend phoning up and ranting, smashing windows or any classic ‘crazy bitch’ behaviour.

But I would like to think she thinks that karma has caught up with her after a disastrous 18 months and has had a long think about her behaviour

@tenbob
That’s really really vile what you done. Nothing to be proud of, nasty piece of work to even think any of that is acceptable.
Did your ex get the some treatment?

Why is it vile?
The anxiety is caused her isn’t even slightly equivalent to what she did to my DC, the financial cost to her isn’t close to the cost of her behaviour to me, and she lost her job(s) because her behaviour was gross misconduct.

Like I said, it was fantastically healing for me, and hopefully motivated her to have a little think about her life choices.

I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again...

@tenbob

You know you're going to get a flaming? I hope to God you made that up. What you did to someone else like that. That is an awful thing to do. The OP isn't talking about anything like that. I hope you're not telling the truth.

I think I might be finished with Mumsnet. This is vile.

I’m sorry I’ve drifted off topic but as a late middle aged woman I have seen it all when it comes to relationships, marriage and divorce. My DSis is twice divorced, first time was cheated on, second was for very different reasons.
She held her head up and took the high ground re the OW, but will admit to being absolutely delighted when it didn’t work out. She loves her ex’s second wife and sees her as her DD’s second mum. The OW was a serial offender and worked her way round a number of their couple friends.
Nothing surprises me when it comes to relationships but I have learnt that you can’t iron over cracks. Sometimes you can repair them and move on sometimes you can’t.

[quote SBTLove]@MostTacticalNameChange
I don’t mean the wife has to be perfect, I mean there’s something amiss for the cheater, something lacking for them.[/quote]
Something lacking IN them you mean?