What to do with OW?

[jeannedarc]

Long time lurker, very rare poster and I have NC’d for this. I can hardly believe I am typing this.
I have recently found out that my husband of 16 years (together 20) is having an emotional affair. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, live in another country, no real support network, both working FT to afford rent and 2 kids with SEN so life is very full on. But I genuinely thought I had married one of the good guys and it turns out he’s just another cowardly cheat and I am devastated.
I am dealing with him and his betrayal as best as I can but my question here is how to deal with the OW. She is someone very enmeshed in my children’s lives through a hobby they do. She’s not running the sessions but sometimes helps out as a volunteer. My children know her very well and her oldest daughter has even babysat for us in the past. I can’t pull my children out of this hobby, it’s a big part of their social circle and I help the organisers too with their newsletters and socials, I don’t want to leave them in the lurch. At the same time, I want her to back right off my children. She is married too and I am seriously considering threatening to expose her to get her to step away from this hobby and my kids. I have photo evidence of the sexting between her and my stbxh, there is no ambiguity in what they’ve been up to so if I were to make the messages public, her marriage would blow up and her reputation would be damaged. Am I crazy for considering using it as blackmail? How else would you deal with this?

Surely the only possible response
to this would be hysterical laughter?

Nobody behaves this stupidly, surely?

Eh wind your neck in dictator! I’ll focus on what I like thanks very much.

At risk of adding a dampener - the OWs eldest is nearly too old for the activity- is she in an exam year then? If she’s year 13, I think I’d say you tell the OWs husband in the next couple of weeks or for the sake of the OWs child (who I presume is the one who baby sat for you etc and you quite like), hold off until after exams in the summer.

it might come out anyway, the OW might tell her dh once your H becomes a available, but then it won’t be you blowing up their family at such a critical time. (And yes, the OW should have thought about that, but the OP can still do the right thing by all the kids involved).

I do think telling the OW you know about the affair and have evidence from her explicit messages copied, you don’t intend to tell everyone but request she stays away from you and your dcs, including stopping volunteering.

I had an affair with a man whose children were in the same class as my children and there was some overlap in hobbies, activities, etc - we lived in the same village. To her great credit, my affair partners wife when she was told acted with complete dignity. She blanked me completely obviously but was herself when in the same room as me occasionally and gave nobody any fuel for gossip, etc. Her children and mine were largely protected from the 'fallout' at least in the public sense, whatever was going on behind closed doors. Life is not an episode of Eastenders and whatever temporary sense of satisfaction might be gained from some of the suggestions here, I think the better approach is to behave with dignity and self respect and with the children's best interests to the forefront..

The sort of response I was expecting.

But, as the OW, you would say that, wouldn’t you?

You’ve no idea what agony the wife was going through as a result of your actions with her husband.

Wow you sure behaved with dignity and thought about potential fall out for the kids when you spread your legs for a married man

Yet is only applied to women.

I call men skanks. It isn't only applied to women.

Common parlance where I'm from.

I didn't say I behaved with dignity, I said she did. And I didn't as you so charmingly put it, spread my legs for a married man, it was emotional rather than sexual and he wasn't a generic 'married man', he was someone I loved very deeply. Whose wife pretty much despised him long before he and I became close, as was widely known by pretty much everyone. All of us involved were and are complex and flawed people, not some set of caricatures. But the one thing all 4 people involved had in common is that we didn't drag other people into it more than could possibly be avoided and our children to this day know nothing about it.

I can only imagine what agony she went through and I accept my part in causing it, that's why I have such admiration for how she handled it. I didn't and don't particularly like her, we'd be very different people, but I felt she handled the situation with dignity and self respect.

Course it was.

Ugh it never fails to amaze me how these OW have no empathy for the other women they just go off by what the man says about them and then decide well they aren’t nice so they deserve this earth shattering event to happen to them. They cant possibly wait for them to end their relationship first.

A that’s the thing if she did say anything she is seen in the wrong and it’s respected she said nothing and made it easier for you guys. What a joke hope he does the same to you and you go through it. It’s not something that just makes you a bit miffed it wrecks your mental and physical health and on top you can’t even show it as you have children and by acting out you only prove the husbands point at how horrible they obviously are.

Ugh it never fails to amaze me how these OW have no empathy for the other women they just go off by what the man says about them and then decide well they aren’t nice so they deserve this earth shattering event to happen to them. They cant possibly wait for them to end their relationship first.

A that’s the thing if she did say anything she is seen in the wrong and it’s respected she said nothing and made it easier for you guys. What a joke hope he does the same to you and you go through it. It’s not something that just makes you a bit miffed it wrecks your mental and physical health and on top you can’t even show it as you have children and by acting out you only prove the husbands point at how horrible they obviously are.

Yawn

Is there a manager at the children’s event you can speak to. I would say that you wish her to be removed from any contact with your kids… on the basis that she used that contact to target in on your STBXH.
Ideally there will be a policy about contact with kids parents and she will get sacked.

All of this is of her own making.

Having revenge exacted on you may be an unpleasant experience to go through, but it is always ultimately self-inflicted. The standard reprecussions are well documented. The husband will get his through the divorce courts. OW through whatever means OP sees fit.

This isn't how employment works.

With respect you're wrong. The two events aren't related. I'd rather have not known. And I did listen. I knew my now ex h was telling the truth. He admitted the affair. I didn't read the letter from OW h. I stayed for personal reasons. There was no avoiding. I did protect myself and my dc.

Your just a suggestion was very patronising.

As was yours

My just a suggestion was NOT patronising. It was saying this is my advice but it was not an order. It was giving the person I was talking to the autonomy to make their own decision, if it was needed which I hope it wasn't.

Just to come back to this … I think I’m very, very triggered by the word tart. I remember my dad calling my mum a tart quite a few times for wearing makeup or dressing up etc … I’m not usually so offended by a word - it’s only a word after all - it just really - I hate it. It was nothing to do with you and I’m sorry we got into a spat about it x

Under those circumstances I can totally understand why that word would offend you. I'm sorry I upset you. I have very little respect for people who cheat, having been cheated on by someone I trusted, so I get quite defensive on the topic and that came through in our spat. Again, I'm sorry.

I’m sorry too. I’ve been cheated on as well so I think I was just triggered all over the place! I’m really sorry and I’m so glad i said so to you. I’m sorry you were cheated on as well, it’s horrific. Thank you again and sorry again too xxx

Have a lovely Sunday 😊 xx