Obsessed with the OW

[Rooterfruit]

My husband had an affair 8 years ago at work. Although I no longer feel raw pain about it, I can’t help myself checking her social media.
She promotes being a supportful mother to other mothers offering advice, and speaking about how tough it can be. When she had her affair with my husband I had two small children, and the hypocrisy makes me quite sick. I know I shouldn’t look, but I can’t help myself and often am on the verge of replying to her posts and informing her followers of what a fraud she is.
How do I get past this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you go to hospital, the law of averages says that someone involved in your care probably had an affair at some point.

A better analogy would be a health care worker with a history of violence, who posts on social media about their work and how much they support victims of violence.

Do they? What evidence do you have of women abusing their positions of power over other women in this sector? Are there reports on this? It's quite a serious allegation that could potentially deter women from seeking help.

That does sound hard :-(

Try not to l9ok. She is a performance of sorts. Don't be in the audience.

No, that's a terrible analogy. Affairs are not violent!

If a workers presence would deter someone from seeking help, due to the way they had been treated by that person in the past, how is that issue dealt with?
The answer seems clear; it isnt seen as an issue.

Honestly, we cannot have an intelligent discussion as long as affairs are being seen as equivalent to GBH and child abuse.

If having an affair is as bad as abusing children, we should be saving at least some of our anger for the spouses who stay and forgive, right?

That's a reason not to be treated by someone you know and don't like. It's not a reason for striking competent doctors and nurses with faultless professional records off the medical register because they had indiscretions in their private lives.

Honestly, we cannot have an intelligent discussion as long as affairs are being seen as equivalent to GBH and child abuse.

Agreed @ReneBumsWombats

Life is far from black and white even though 99% of MN expect it to be.

Nobody who has an affair is bathed in glory, but let's not make it out to be something it's not.

Direct your anger at your lying, cheating scutter of a husband, not the other woman. She owed you nothing.

Criticising a behaviour automatically means it’s as bad as child abuse?
Touch of hyperbole to say the least.

Why wouldn't she be covered in glory if she's owes the wife/partner nothing? There's a reason you said that🤔

It's almost like we do have a moral duty not to do things we wouldn't wish for ourselves...

Someone equated it to Jimmy Saville.

Yes, it was more than a touch of hyperbole!

There's a lot of bad faith arguments on this thread. Excusing bad behaviour because you do a lot for charity is known as the Saville defence.

Presumably because Saville abused children...

Actually it was an analogy. That poster definitely wasn't saying that affairs are comparable to child abuse, just illustrate that what somebody's day job is doesn't define their morality like in the case of JS. it's true, right?

To be clear, this does not mean child sex abuse is anywhere near an affair, it is illustrative.

Yes, thanks for clarifying.

Your husband disrespected you when you had two small children. She owes you nothing, he cheated, she didn't.

Yes, you should be supportive of the OW in this new phase of her life, that would be the decent thing to do OP. Could you maybe also offer to clean her house for free and/or help with her DCs? she might be rushed off her feet with all this womanhood and motherhood positivity.
Or, just remember that it's perfectly normal to not have positive feelings towards arseholes who have hurt you.
Her public persona is insecurity, ring-fencing her 'perfect life'; she knows all too well how things can turn out.

I have to agree with this also OP

No one is excusing the refuge workers bad behaviour in having an affair though are they? People are merely pointing out that good people can do bad things, and that dependent on the severity of the 'bad thing' its possible for a person to act badly, yet still bring more positivity to the world than otherwise.
The JS analogy is highly inappropriate here.
There are some acts, such as child abuse, that are so heinous they do define a person, and no amount of 'good work' can redress them. Add to this that JS used his charity work as a vehicle and smokescreen for his crime.
Unless we believe cheating to be as bad as child abuse, and that the refuge worker somehow uses her work role to target married men for affairs, its a false equivalence, that does indeed seem hyperbolic.

It's understandable OP, to feel this way. It's all part of the collateral damage that affairs do. What you can do now though is assess whether you can move past this, even 8 years later. If it's still something you obsess over, then you aren't at peace with it and maybe you need to make a decision. Stay and consciously decide it's over and block all access to the OW social media, or acknowledge that the hurt was too great and leave. The OW isn't worth your headspace, she's trash, likely still sniffing around for devious men's scraps despite the SM profile. Social media isn't real, people only show what they want you to see. Maybe she would like to be a decent woman and mother, and this is the only way she can conjure up the image. Who cares, she's nothing. Your husband, if you knew then what you know now, would you have chosen him? Is he good enough? I'd say the last 8 years are 8 years you won't get back, so don't make it 9 unless you really really want to.

Yes, if OW knew he was a married man. However an apology would never be enough for the level of hurt caused to the innocent spouse.

The pain from discovering your husband has betrayed your marriage and been involved with an OW, is akin to experiencing the death of a loved one. It has such an impact mentally that permanent changes in the brain occur. The unsuspecting wife will never view life or relationships in the same way regardless of if she ends the marriage or reconciles. LTB doesn't stop the feelings of anger, injustice, humiliation at the other party or indeed the spouse.

@pumpkinsareshortlived The pain from discovering your husband has betrayed your marriage and been involved with an OW, is akin to experiencing the death of a loved one. It has such an impact mentally that permanent changes in the brain occur. The unsuspecting wife will never view life or relationships in the same way regardless of if she ends the marriage or reconciles. LTB doesn't stop the feelings of anger, injustice, humiliation at the other party or indeed the spouse.

This an accurate summation.

I divorced my cheating scumbag so fast his feet didn't touch the ground, yet it still took months of therapy to deal with the negative feelings caused by such a betrayal.

I’ve said nothing about supporting the other women. What I have said is you can move on with your own life. You can grow as a person without offering to clean the other woman’s house

OP - I agree with PP’s that Mumsnet is absolutely not the place for this type of advice. I’d really recommend the Reddit sub /AsOneAfterInfidelity - loads of really helpful advice around reconciling after an affair. I’d also suggest exploring therapy to address this. It could be that some EMDR could help process the trauma, or you might just need some techniques to notice and stop the constant checking.

Absolutely.
Not hard to figure out.