How do you view 'the wife'?

[EpochTime]

Can I ask those posters who have had an affair - how do you view 'the wife'? I'm intrigued by the recent threads about going NC because often, when I read them, I wonder about the wife in these scenarios. What sort of person she is, where she is and what she might be doing when the affair is taking place, that sort of thing. References to the wife as a person are rare in threads written by those having affairs. I just have an intellectual curiosity - this is not designed to be an antagonistic post.

I’m confused what you’re asking here:

Do you want responses from ‘mistresses’ about how they viewed ‘the wife’ when having an affair with ‘the husband’?

Pulls up chair and popcorn 🍿......

That's it, yes.

What she might be doing when the affair is taking place?

Most likely working, looking after the children, doing his bloody cooking, cleaning etc thinking everything is okay while her cheating husband gets his dick wet elsewhere and she's none the wiser.

I'd be interested to read this too.

@iklboo

What she might be doing when the affair is taking place?

Most likely working, looking after the children, doing his bloody cooking, cleaning etc thinking everything is okay while her cheating husband gets his dick wet elsewhere and she's none the wiser.

Yes, all those things are the things which immediately spring to mind. But then I'm not having an affair. So I wonder if these things do not spring to mind to people who are within an affair?

This a truly goady post.

I got something of an insight into what my exh's AP thought of me, though it was in emails she wrote to him, so she might not have written what she was really thinking.

Basically, he told her a load of lies about things I'd done, and she found my supposed behaviour baffling - asking e.g. "Why on earth would you marry and have children with someone you didn't love?" (He'd actually claimed that neither he nor I was in love, so she could have simply asked him to explain!) Based on his descriptions of me she also told him I was probably a narcissist.

I imagine this is pretty typical tbh.

I can tell you what I was doing whilst my long term partner was embarking on an affair before he split out of the blue. I was in constant contact with my partner, we were looking at houses to buy as a couple because my daughter was about to go to uni and that was our plan to set up our own place when she went. We were still having sex and he was texting me that he loved me right up until the end. The morning he dumped me we were due to go to a festival at the weekend with friends and then to a massive wedding of one of our friends the following week, we had just spent time together choosing their wedding present. He came to me at 1100 on Saturday morning, at 1103 I was dumped. He went straight to his AP from mine. So I would assume the OW knew about me as a few days later it was all over her Facebook page about how in love they both were with each other and photos of them together announcing their relationship to the world.

@iklboo

What she might be doing when the affair is taking place?

Most likely working, looking after the children, doing his bloody cooking, cleaning etc thinking everything is okay while her cheating husband gets his dick wet elsewhere and she's none the wiser.

This such bullshit...

The view that the wife is the one who does all that, while he the husband is having an affair.

What about the wives who treat their husbands like shit, sitting at home doing nothing, while the husband cooks, cleans, does the washing, looks after the kids, does their homework, packed lunches and has to hold down a full time job.

Who begged and begged her to change for years and years till he finally gave up and, yes he should have just left, but looked elsewhere. She was financially abusive, used controlling and coercive behaviour. He has now broken free.

They are out there too.

this is not designed to be an antagonistic post.

And we all laughed. So very much

Speaking as the wife, if I could have been arsed I might have asked her - she knew I existed, so presumably had thoughts about me occasionally. In the end I didn't bother, and just divorced his sorry cheating arse instead!

@Newwayofthinking - the OP specifically asked about 'the wife'. It's the title of the thread. Which is why I responded about 'The Wife'.

I didn't say anywhere in my post that women don't cheat on their partners or aren't as culpable when it comes to affairs. I was directly addressing the question.

I would imagine the husband has told the AP a pack of lies about the wife and that she believes it all.

@Newwayofthinking this thread is about the wifes position.

It's a myth that the cheat always complains to the OW about how bad the wife is and how they don't have sex or sleep in the same bed. In my case he didn't mention or complain about his wife at all. I didn't think anything of the wife, she's a stranger and I wouldn't wonder about her day to day life anymore than I would about a stranger on the bus.

A couple of my friends have had affairs with married men. It always seems the same.
Wife is difficult, they don't get on, the affair is a 'symptom of a marriage breakdown' not the reason for it (seriously, that's actually been said ).
My friend seeing a married doctor even during lockdown has said his wife has become unattractive to him and they barely speak. Wife's not interested in him anymore. Despite two v young children together.

I imagine for most people it's out of sight, out of mind. Similar to when we buy cheap fast fashion because it's cheap and ignore the fact it's made in horrible conditions in sweat shops.

I don't think the ability to disregard other's suffering for your own convenience is restricted to OW or OM.

F

Well said @KylieKoKo.

And why the assumption that ‘the wife’ cooks and cleans like a saint in blissful ignorance? I never did. Too busy planning my new life away from my husband whom I had lost respect for; I didn’t cheat as such, he did, but that wasn’t the cause of the end of our marriage, it was indeed a symptom. I assume his AP felt sad for him and me, that our 30 year relationship hadn’t lasted the course, and got on with her life. She seems a nice woman, though I feel sorry for her being lumbered with my silly XH!

One of my friends had an affair, and I could not hear the end of stories/thoughts/hypotheses about the wife. It got so boring and draining to listen to, but THE WIFE was all she could talk about. Or she would find some connection to the wife if the subject was not strictly about her. My friend was absolutely obsessed. She thought the wife was more beautiful than her, she changed her hair colour to a similar shade, her style became more of the wife’s style. It was so creepy to watch.

@KylieKoKo

I imagine for most people it's out of sight, out of mind. Similar to when we buy cheap fast fashion because it's cheap and ignore the fact it's made in horrible conditions in sweat shops.

I don't think the ability to disregard other's suffering for your own convenience is restricted to OW or OM.

I think this is exactly it. The same way we don't really think about most people our actions impact - the homeless person you walk past, the child labourer who made your clothes, the people who's lives we are ruing with global warming. Is it ever enough to change most of our practices?

I for one do think of her and am jealous, quite simply. And yes someone is going to say 'why would you be jealous of someone who's husband is garbage' but life isn't that simple. I love him, she has him, so I'm jealous.

And no, he has never criticised her to me.

It’s really difficult to post on these treads without being flamed, but I’ll bite.

She wasn’t his wife but his long-term girlfriend with no DC. We had a mutual friend who he had been confiding in for about two years, increasingly sharing that he was unhappy, planning to leave, separate rooms etc. When I met him I wasn’t interested as I knew he lived with his girlfriend but we hit it off. A week in, he ended his relationship and started looking for alternative accommodation. Our relationship started as soon as he confirmed that he was leaving. I don’t think about his ex, I don’t know her, we don’t talk about her. I’m sure that sounds awful, but that’s the reality.

So, does that answer your question, @EpochTime - every affair, every OW, every husband and every wife is different, and because most people don't have huge numbers or affairs, or are not cheated on huge numbers of times, they can only describe their own particular experience?

NC for this.

My exH had an affair and after reading emails and communication between them- she viewed me as this awful woman. My exH had rewritten history to paint me as a psycho narcissist, the conversations between them about me were worse than the affair itself. She had not one ounce of regret. So you can imagine how gutted I was for her when he dumped her to try and come back to me (I didn't take him back).

However, I am now the OW. I have a fwb that has a long term partner who he lives with. I don't know anything about her, not her name, job or anything like that. I don't want to know. It is just sex, I never want nor will he ever leave her for me. If it wasn't me it would be some other woman. I know it's incredibly selfish to think like that, but it is what it is.

For the most part I tried not to think about her. I felt terribly guilty though and was always concerned about her finding out. I ended affair. The guilt was making me ill. I tried to make amends on another site to other bws.

They ended up divorcing a few years later after he had more affairs.

Although I've not been a wife, I've been essentially on both sides - having an affair with someone who was married, and also been cheated on by a long term partner.

I met the married man through mutual friends (who had previously told me about their friend X, his controlling wife and unhappy marriage - a staying together for the kids type scenario). He never directly criticised her as a person to me, just said he wasn't happy with his life and felt unappreciated (both home and work). We rarely spoke of her if I'm honest - we didn't engage in mutual bitching sessions or anything. It didn't sound from everything I had heard like there was any love there or that they were happy together.

When I was cheated on, he told her that he loved me, didn't love her but was seeing her for sex because of our limited sex life (she told me this). Her somewhat naive view was that if I loved him, I'd put out more regularly, however what she didn't appreciate was that he was rejecting me, as he didn't think I should have to perform certain acts (which he got from her instead).

What both experiences have taught me is that life is rarely black and white.