What are your thoughts on women who knowingly have affairs with married men?

[champagnetasting]

And those men who have young children/ children with SN. Does it make these women any different in your opinion ?
But first, I need to say that I have never blamed OW for my exh affair or departure. That's totally on him .
Just wondered ....

He who casts the first stone and all that...so no I don't judge. The people I find who are happy to judge others the harshest are often the worst people.

I've known affairs where the person who eventually cheated was in an abusive marriage although I don't think many knew. I've known people who had exit affairs and were far happier in their second marriages. The exit affair types seem to mostly be very good people but who felt like they had to stay but ultimately met someone who fulfilled them to a much greater extent. I've known horrendous sales guys who simply shag everything that's willing wife be damned. There's all sorts.

I don’t think any different of anyone that has an affair or the OW.

People hate it but it happens. We all make mistakes and I don’t think having an affair or being the OM/OW automatically makes you a bad person.

We all have shit going on.

‘I’ve known affairs where the person who eventually cheated was in an abusive marriage although I don't think many knew. I've known people who had exit affairs and were far happier in their second marriages’

These are reasons to LEAVE an unhappy marriage NOT an excuse to put your spouse or partners sexual, mental, physical and emotional health in jeopardy while having an affair.

@drpet49

**Oh I totally blame the OW for having the affair too.

I really dislike the MN stance of well she didn't owe you anything, we all owe it to each other to treat one another how we would like be treated. The OW is complicit in the break up of a marriage.**

^This. I would judge any woman or man who had an affair with a married person. It would put me off them.

I actually agree with the stance that the OW doesn’t owe anyone anything.

It’s not her family, why should she care? Just so a bunch of people she doesn’t even know thinks she’s a decent person?

The husband made the vows. It’s all on him.

@Ladybug123

‘I’ve known affairs where the person who eventually cheated was in an abusive marriage although I don't think many knew. I've known people who had exit affairs and were far happier in their second marriages’

These are reasons to LEAVE an unhappy marriage NOT an excuse to put your spouse or partners sexual, mental, physical and emotional health in jeopardy while having an affair.

Life isn’t as black and white as that though.

frazzledasarock

Oh I totally blame the OW for having the affair too.“

You wouldn’t blame your husband at all? 😳

The exit affair types seem to mostly be very good people but who felt like they had to stay but ultimately met someone who fulfilled them to a much greater extent.

Ugh, well good for them. Never mind the innocent spouse and children who's lives as they know it are obliterated. As long as these "very good people" are much happier in the end.

I'm in complete agreement with pp's who say that the mn notion of the married one is wholly to blame and the affair partner is irrelevant is utter nonsense. It is not game on for single people to pursue or even gradually become entangled with a married person. It's not an acceptable way to behave and it ruins lives.

In my experience, married men almost always tell (or imply) a bunch of shit to the other woman to "invalidate" their married status.

"I'm married yes .. but not really, and here are the reasons".

They're always only staying for abc, the kids area big excuse. Often they;ll make out that they're staying in this invalid marriage because they're such a good guy they don't want to upset and disrupt their kids. The fact that they're betraying their mum and if the infidelity is discovered will at best destabilise their mum for years and at worse destory their family is rather obscure for them.

They're such a good guy.

Sometimes they'll claim the wife is not interested in them, that she's going through the motions too, that she might not even care or be upset if they have someone else etc.

There's a script and it's older than the pyramids.

Young women often fall for it because they don't have the experience not to. Also vulnerable women (naive, low self esteem, vain, damaged, unhappily single, not log out of a marriage/ltr .. often a bad one etc etc.).

Some people love the predatory woman idea but the reality on the vast majority of the cases Im aware of is actually more of a predatory man, v fast to make & exploit an opportunity for a bit on the side.

And as someone who's had overtures made .... men are usually either switched on and open to infidelity or not. Those who aren't you wouldn't even have the slightest opportunity to act inappropriately with the, and you'd be aware of the possibility of utterly humiliating yourself if you tried.

It kind of is actually. There’s no excuse for stabbing someone in the back in regards to the law. Affairs are a metaphorical stabbing in the back. It’s largely now seen as a form of abuse in psychological terms. It takes 2-5 years to heal.

Leave if you’re not happy. Seek counselling if you need validation from others.

And you may not like the idea of responsibility towards all but I actually treat others as I want to be treated. I wouldn’t knowingly damage anyone in anyway, so no I wouldn’t have an affair.

Ita definitely a form of emotional abuse, 100%

@onthinice I'm not sure a divorce "ruins lives". If DH was going to divorce me I'm not sure I'd care if there was an OW or not. The divorce would still be going to happen. People aren't things. They can't be stolen. I would assume DH was either deeply unhappy or I'd misjudged him and he was a serial cheat. If it was the former then I'm not sure it's relevant if he was with the OW before or after our official marital split. If he turned out to be a serial cheat he'd have done me a favour in the long run by not wasting any more of my time.

The ones who end up damaged kids seem to be the ones who have a parent who simply can't or won't move on from it.

Once ow get hooked on the line, they get caught up in a cycle of competing, or pick me, that is quite addictive.

he guy instantly seems higher status and more desirable than other man who are really single - because he's got two women. Because he's not quite available or attainable. He's got women competing over him, even if one of them doesn't realise she is.

They were also often hooked with the implication that he'll leave sooner or later (see he's really single, he's only technically married) and they get caught up in that too.

@WhiskeyGalore212

Once ow get hooked on the line, they get caught up in a cycle of competing, or pick me, that is quite addictive.

he guy instantly seems higher status and more desirable than other man who are really single - because he's got two women. Because he's not quite available or attainable. He's got women competing over him, even if one of them doesn't realise she is.

They were also often hooked with the implication that he'll leave sooner or later (see he's really single, he's only technically married) and they get caught up in that too.

I really don't like this trope. It's the equivalent of the poster above who said 'most men won't say no if its offered on a plate'

I blame the OW 100% for their role. In doing so I do not exonerate the husband.

I can say hand on heart that I would never begin a relationship with a married man, If one tried I’d tell him to fuck off.

The OP specifically mentioned that whether opinions would be impacted if a child had special needs. I have a child with special needs and my H has had an affair and left. It’s bad anyway but the impact on a family with special needs is even worse. Everything is harder and more complicated, I cannot get my head round how any woman/person knowing this could go there, She would have to be one ruthless bitch.

"This same thread title appeared last week and was deleted. Odd that it's appeared again, it's catnip for some."

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe
Catnip is exactly right. I wonder about some of these 'controversial' threads, but not really MN runs on Ad revenue and threads that make posters return to the website repeatedly are literally the Goose that lays the Golden Egg
Makes one wonder WHO is really behind such threads lol..

Agreed @CluelessnotShoeless . The fall out for our children with sn has been massive and we are a few years on . One of my children who is now a tween literally shadows me all day long and fights me to not leave his side . Separation anxiety on top of everything else . He is not doing well at all .
That's why I say I hold my exh totally responsible for what he did and having children sn certainly impacted our marriage negatively because he was not hugely involved or interested in their lives anyway and had an exhausted , frustrated and sad wife to come home to every day and a very high unattended libido to boot.
No, not ow's fault but fuck, a ruthless one for sure

Champagnetasting and cluelessnotshoeless, this is the point I made but it ALWAYS gets totally ignored because it doesn’t sit well with the ‘find your happy’ or ‘affair partner is not responsible’ crowd.

The other woman in my husbands affair actively encouraged him to leave his children so he could be there for hers (single mum). This is absolutely the truth. I saw the text messages.

My friends eldest daughter suffers huge anxiety due to her dad walked out on her when she was small, my friend has done her best but the damage is done.

This is the problem for me, the other woman and the cheating husbands make life changing decisions for OUR children and we don’t get a say. Until you’ve been there you simply cannot understand what that does to a mother.

No women should be involved in doing this to children. The damage to children from infidelity is well documented.

Sending a hug to both of you, it is so hard to know what those selfish pairs have stolen from your children.

And the ‘children are resilient’ line is ALWAYS used in these cases to justify the adults shitty, selfish choices. Makes my blood boil!

My children are completely
Messed up. The thing is ... is that every day We wake up and there seems to be no progress for them despite so much intervention. He doesn't actively want to spend time with them truth be told . His ap and her child will mostly come
First and our kids are starting to realise this as they get older . Selfishly , I get so angry as the fall out is so huge yet he walks away from
The wreckage .

@Doublestar

Well if I were the throwing-blame-kind, Id put about as much blame on OW as I would the wife for not realizing something was off about her marriage

Congratulations - this is probably the dumbest thing I've ever read on MN 👏

Really?

@PiggingPig ah OK. Well having been in the situation I can confirm that yes, it does ruin lives. Even if just temporarily while the cheated on wife and children scramble to adapt to their new situation, housing, destroyed sense of trust in a person they thought was their family and all number of other things.

I think they are either stupid, or have low self worth, or both.

I've been on both sides. Honestly a huge amount of seemingly perfect men will cheat given the opportunity.
Did I think my DP would never cheat on me? Sure did. Did I think he was perfectly happy with our mundane almost sexless relationship? Yup. Naive. I didn't attempt to fix it, he fucked someone else. shrug

@HugeAckmansWife

Be kind is bollocks. As is 'no judgement'. I have cheated and been cheated on. Judgement is perfectly acceptable in both cases. It's a bit like absent fathers you don't pay maintenance.. Are there 'shades of grey' there? Should we 'no judgement' them too? Maybe a bit more judgement and censure from society as a whole might help people keep some form of moral compass and not just pursue their own gratification no matter the cost. Only one of my friends told me wha am awful thing I was doing when I cheated, everybody else was terribly kind and understanding. They shouldn't have been. They should have called me out for the selfish, in lust twat I was being. Hindsight is both wonderful and awful. I look back and shudder but having seen it all from both sides now, I absolutely think a bit more judgement and less 'you do you' might not be a bad thing at times.

Absolutely this and thanks for your honesty. Surely most people can see the damage that cheating causes? My ex had friends who perhaps should have told him he was being selfish and appalling but they didn't. I would tell a friend if they were acting this badly and hope it might stop them.

Totally blame OW. She knew what she was doing, she knew we had an SN toddler. She made my life miserable and ex was too weak and controlled to stand up to her. He now has no contact and she is subject of an injunction. She was vile to my child. The woman is an utter cunt and I hope she and my ex get theirs eventually 🤷🏻‍♀️.