What do you think about Other Women

[Keptawake]

Just wondering what your thoughts are about the type of people that get involved with married/taken people with families?

I’m asking because DP left me 2 months ago for another woman. They’d been seeing each other for about 3 months before he left (an emotional affair which turned into secret dates although he was “respectful” enough to not get physical until the day he walked out). We have 2 kids. She knew he had a family.

It goes without saying that I hate him for this but I’ve also spent the last couple of months raging at the type of woman who could knowingly get involved with and break up a family.

Am I justified in thinking good people don’t do things like this? This might seem like an obvious answer but I’m just feeling a bit low.

If it works out I know at some point I may have to be civil with her as a potential stepmum to my kids but I can’t help thinking that there is no way I want someone like that as a role model in my kids life.

@TheBlueUniform

An example would be going for a job interview. If you sat chatting to a single mother who was saying how much she needs this job etc, you wouldn’t be expected to step aside. Humans are selfish by nature.

This is not the same at all. If you want to compare a job to a marriage, it'd be like walking into a company and insisting they sack her so you could have the job instead.

A job interview is like when you're going in first dates. All fair then really, no commitment been made. Marriage is when you've been in the role for years, you've committed to it and the company has committed to you.

It’s a loose comparison, making the point that morals are a social construct. We hope people will follow the ‘rules’ and do what we perceive as the right thing, but as I say, humans are selfish by nature at times. Ignorance is bliss and in this scenario they don’t have to put the needs of the wife above their own needs as they don’t know them.

I think there has to be a very selfish streak in them. But then I also think the same is very likely to happen to them sooner or later. What’s the saying - when a man marries his mistress, a vacancy is created?

They don't have to, no. But it doesn't mean they are absolved of any wrong doing. They know what the consequences of their actions are likely to be and chose to do it anyway.

It's not in anyway like an interview / selection process for a job. They are choosing to do something that could destroy someone else's life.

I feel both contempt and pity for women who go for married men. It doesn't matter what on earth he says, he is married and therefore unavailable- emotionally, physically (most of the time).

Most OW have low self esteem (and issues) which is why they tolerate a situation in which they are not chosen. They are 'Fallback girls' and who wants to be that?

Let's face it, most men who cheat don't live happily ever after with the OW, they either stay with their wives or cheat on the OW in due course.

I'd definitely drop a friend if I found out she was cheating with a married man. There is simply no need to get involved, it's disgusting and shows desperation and a total lack of morals which is not something I want in a friend.

I have to disagree with this, the man isn't someone who's having his head turned by someone casting a spell. In most cases he's probably already disengaged from his relationship. I'd argue most happy men don't cheat.

I used to work with a girl who would only go after married men. She didnt even really like them half of the time. I'll never understand it, but Ive known quite a few women who have no problem with it. Its always in a work setting too.

I didn't say she was casting a spell. But she can choose not to get involved with a man chasing her. She's not some innocent party unable to decide for herself what happens to her next.

It is like the analogy I used regarding the job interview. If someone sat beside you giving you their life story explaining how hard they’ve worked to get this promotion and if they don’t get it they’ll lose their house etc they’ve worked in the company for years and were told the job was earmarked for them bla bla. …. Very few people (if any!) would say ‘I’ll step aside then and put your needs above mine as you need it more than me’.

It would be laughable to think someone should put the needs of the other person above themselves in the above situation, but completely expected regarding men.

As a society we’ve decided what’s wrong/right and the job is fair game but getting involved with a married man isn’t.

My partner was unhappily married when we met. (They had decided to separate and were waiting for the house to sell.) We have now been together for 30 years.

Again, applying for / interviewing for / taking an available job is a very different scenario to getting involved with an unavailable person.

Let's try a different tack. If someone offered you a spare plate of food, it's fine to take it. You wouldn't walk up to someone eating and take their plate away from them so you could eat it.

The fact you can't see this actually says a lot about your morals.

There are women that solely go after married men. I know several and they are vile. I could never be friends with someone that actively does that. Not all are victims, some make the first move and see it as a challenge.

I disagree. Where a woman knows he has a wife then they go into it eyes open, knowing they're interfering in someone else's marriage. And they can be just as manipulative and conniving as the husband.

I think serial cheats are different to people who feel they’re in dead marriages, get close to someone emotionally, leave their partner as they realise they are done, and then start a physical relationship which lasts. It’s horrible for the other partner, but it always is when one party decides they don’t want to be in a relationship any more, and the other person isn’t quite there yet.

But you had evidence they were separated and of their situation, yes? Didn't just sleep with a married man because he said "I don't love her anymore and she doesn't get me like you do"?

Don’t underestimate the lies men will tell to position themselves in a good light. They don’t present themselves as happily married but going through the odd bump. Instead you’ll have been written off as a harpie who makes his life hell and has done for years

I hear what you're saying, but probably like the point @TheBlueUniformis making, "OW" probably thinks it's fair game if the man is saying he's unhappy and they both have an attraction. It might just be because the men are lazy, but I know quite a few OW who have been with their partners/husbands happily for years and are just nice, normal people not wily serial home wreckers (by lazy I mean that the man hasn't gone out and cheated again so maybe it was jist a genuine connection they had with the OW).

Doesn't change the fact you're choosing to do something that you know is going to cause upset to at least the wife and very likely some children.

Having a "genuine connection" does not mean you have to act on it. It's all choices.

"Other Women" (and Other Men) are just people. They have flaws, but so do all of us. None of us know what we might do in a potential future situation where we let our emotions get the better of us.
So, no, they're not bad people - they are just ordinary people who sometimes make mistakes.

Talk more about your rough patch OP, because I think in here is the clue for your own recovery from this. What part did you play in the rough patch, etc? Can you improve your listening and validating skills, or learn how to recognise your own emotional ups and downs better?

Don't focus any attention on what he did nor what the OW did - it will never be anything you can change.

Of course, I'm not disagreeing with that. People are selfish over minor things, so I don't think many would be wiling to sacrifice what they perceive as love for someone they don't know.

But what if the person tells you that the job was promised to them? so it wasn’t really available as you say, but they had to put it out to the public….

Your food and plate analogy doesn’t make sense in this scenario, as in what context would someone take food from another person without asking? That’s just odd behaviour. However if you’re talking in a life/death situation, then yes peope would take food from others in order to survive and they would put their needs first and that makes sense.

You’re calling the man ‘unavailable’ but he’s been very much available to the OW. It’s on him not her. HE should be putting HIS family above all else but he’s not so why should she be expected to if he’s not?

God knows what kind of shight these men tell the OW to get their end away. They are likely playing the victim and then the OW falls for him then it becomes more difficult to walk away.

He’s the one that you should be focusing your anger on not a stranger who has no emotional connection to you at all.

You have no idea about my morals and what I would/wouldn’t do. I’m simply saying it’s not as black and white as you seem to be making out. Your anger seems misplaced at the OW instead of the man and I find that rather bizarre.

As a former family therapist, here's a few things I know about relationship breakdowns and affairs.

Most often, its been male cheaters, but not exclusively.

1. Affairs and cheating are a symptom, not a cause. That said, its a horrible way to blow up a relationship and best avoided.

2. Cheaters lie.
   Many women don't even know the man they're seeing is married until it's too late. I've heard all bloody sorts. "He told me he was separated but still living together while they sort the divorce out" is the oldest one in the book. More often than not, the OW has been lied to as much as, if not more than, the wife. The wife is usually made out to be a dreadful ogre from whom the OW is rescuing him, giving him happiness again after however many miserable years, etc.

3. Never do the pick me dance.
   I would say this to either the cheated on partner or the affair partner. Don't set the OW/OM up as your rival with whom you are competing - for what? The "prize" being somebody that has lied and played both of you?

4. Everyone holds some share of responsibility for family breakdown.
   Yes, I know this one is a bitter pill to swallow.
   I'm not talking about blame here, I'm talking about responsibility, and those things are different.
   Yes, even if you got cheated on.
   You still have a responsibility, especially if you have children, to act like an adult, manage your feelings, co-parent appropriately, not parentify your children or put them in loyalty binds. I have seen plenty of behaviour from angry, cheated on partners that I would consider to be far worse than the cheating itself by the time it's gone on for years and damaged the children involved. I've heard of parents who over 20 years later still won't attend a child's wedding if the OW is there.

5. Good people do stupid/bad things, especially when they are lonely, angry or hurt.
   This includes cheating, this includes becoming an OW (whether knowingly or not) and this includes behaviours as described above, such as using children to punish a cheating ex. It's not ideal, but it is also the human condition. We are not always a smart bunch, and often led by our emotions.

This is one of the reasons I'm glad I didn't have children.

If I had a partner who I loved and trusted and he left me for some woman who I then had to grit my teeth over and accept as an extension of my family? There's absolutely no way in hell this would be happening and I wouldn't give a fuck how uncivilised it was. I'd go so fucking mental over that kind of betrayal I'd make Alice Evans look like Noddy in Toyland. I totally admit it.

Fuck that shit. I'm single by the way. Probably for the best

I totally agree it's on him for breaking up his family. But if you would choose to be part of that, then you have shit morals. And it is that black and white.

Doesn't matter what you've been told by the man. If you know he's going to cause pain to a family, why would you want to be part of it?

With the job, if someone tells you it's been promised to them, unless there's an actual contract in place it's not the same as a marriage where the man is saying he's available. Because a marriage is a contract, and if there's a binding agreement in place, that "thing" whether it's a person or a job is not available.