How to treat the 'other woman'

[chinupgirl]

OK, I've got to put up with the fact that the hussy who broke up my marriage has sadly not been struck by lightning, died in a horrific inferno or broken out in disfiguring boils but is still very much out and about. As she shows no remorse about what she has done, she keeps popping up in my life (at cubs, as school, in the street)and smirks whenever I see her.

I've done my best to avoid her, but something clicked in my head today. Why should I be the one missing fun stuff because she has such crap taste in men?

So come on any good tips on how to handle these meetings, other than screaming TART at her, tempting as that might be? What was the best thing anyone else did in this position?

On a related theme, if I see one more advert for Valentine's Day I may throw up! Is it just me?

WWIFN Thanks - that's an interesting reply..

I think your list on the possible scenarios for having an affair is a bit trite. It makes it sound like spouses are working through a relationship flowchart ? ?I?ve told her I like beans, not sprouts... I?m unhappy ? I?ll shag my PS for laughs.....?

IMHO, people have affairs because they screw it up... no one wants their marriage to end because they?re caught with their pants down... to incite the justified rage of their ex2b, to upset their kids... to lose their home and so on...

If we could choose, we would all want a happy, loving fulfilled marriage... we would never have affairs... relationships would end respectfully and calmly... new affairs of the heart would begin when both partners were single and had ?processed? their previous relationship...

I think you can probably condense all your scenarios into one:
The marriage isn?t great ? the DH (or wife (or both!)) is vulnerable to an affair because he is unhappy in many ways... perhaps he feels unloved, perhaps the sex is rubbish, perhaps wife is a crap housekeeper, or spends too much money or has no interesting conversation. He may have told her these things, or he may have not. It might have been huge rows about her credit card bill, or hundreds of niggles about dirty floors and burnt steak. The wife may or may not have acknowledged her DH is unhappy.

DH has no intention of leaving... there is much inertia ? they have children ffs... a shared home.. a dog to walk, mortgage to pay... he may seek solace in his own pastimes... He knows his life isn?t wonderful, (or maybe he doesn't) but then everyone?s life is like this. No one leaves their wife because she has no converstation, is a terrible cook etc etc... She will have good points too of course....

DH meets X ? she is funny and interesting... it feels harmless... he catches himself laughing at things she said ages after they have parted... he starts to look forward to seeing her... By the time, he finally realises he has a crush on her, it is too late... he already has a crush...

At this point some men will own up to the DW ? who will then say... but it?s an ?emotional affair? ? it doesn?t matter that he didn?t sleep with her.... I have been betrayed! The cooking is a crap excuse and nothing to do with it ? he?s got an OW!!!

Other men will go onto to have varying degrees of physical contact with X before either getting found out, confessing or leaving... If they leave they may well lie about X in a bid to protect her, or to protect his DW's feelings or to make things smoother, in order to see children etc.. When DH thinks about it, he will justify to himself that the marriage has ended because it was miserable, not because he has met X.

Many people will blame the marriage breaking down on the OW ? but it always starts with a marriage that isn?t great.

It is objectively the worse way to end a relationship ? almost guaranteed to create maximum pain and upset. I?m not convinced that there is a great deal of either design or malice in it though. I think the DH, in scenario above, finds out not much before his DW that his marriage is actually not salvageable ? he is probably as shocked as she is that it could crumble so quickly, and that he is so vulnerable to falling in love with X.

I think there are men out there in happy marriages that then get involved witha woman that offers sex

it doesn't matter how much sex and how happy the marrieage is

there are some men that will stray just for that, they don't want to get caught and they want to stay in there happy marriage

if they get caught though -they know there marriage will need alot of work

they are a littl fritherless so walk as it is they think the easy option

just my thoughts on some men and affair

Hi all. Will pop back later and see how this is developping but quickly Sayithowitis - yes, that is the comment I was thinking off, apologies if I misunderstood - too much time seeing a one sided view on MN I guess.

WhenWillI food for thought - Again when you drill down we disagree on very little and I think actually you and Whizzy agree on quite a lot too (the trite comment is probably not condusive to you both agreeing on that immediately however Whizzy(!) and I found the list useful in terms of clarification to me) because I have seen WhenWillI post on the subject of emotional affairs, taking partners for granted and the need to "affair proof your marriage" before which suggests to me quite a lot in common in terms of views.

IvyKaty you're describing my dad and I don't disagree with anything you say. He's not the kind of person that I tend to think of in these discussions though. He's very easy to write off as a sex obsessed selfish git. But men who are generally decent like *WhenWillI's DH and my exH and many other men on here (although with varying degrees of selfishness and emotional stuntedness) make for a much more complex consideration of the situation and I think it is the latter kind of man that we tend to focus on.

I'm actually very glad that I did not find MN three or four years ago. As I've mentioned, MY exH and his OW are still together, quite happy as I understand it and getting married this year. Had I found MN all those years ago, seeing all the views on here about "once a cheater always a cheater" and "they will get what they deserve", "that kind of selfishness only brings unhappiness" etc etc then I would have REALLY wondered what was wrong with me that I was such an awful wife that my exH was the one person in the world to cheat and then go on, be happy and not have some awful karma. I would have found that very damaging actually.

Is it really bad form to mention other threads in threads> If so then I'm sorry and wont do it again if you tell me off but has anyone seen the recently resurrected thread by a woman whose DH has not wanted sex for over 7 years and has refused to discuss it and she has now started an affair> Now that affair has made things so much worse in my view and she would have been much better off to have bitten the bullet 6 months ago and just left her DH but do people (even those who have been cheated on) really not feel some sympathy for this woman> This actually backs up what both WhenWillI and Whizzy are saying - ie no matter what, it is a rubbish way to end a marriage but the point is, there are times were some compassion is needed.

Grace I shouldn't laugh but your tag of "laundry man" did make me chuckle - reduced him to the ridiculous eejit he is. And I have to hold my hands up to having used some pretty trite excuses for ending a relationship when the real reason is, as you say, "I'm just not that in to you".

Apologies again - > = question mark (computer keyboard problems).

Sorry - one follow up\aside. I understood at the time of my divorce (statistics, I know ) that about 50% of men who have affairs leave their wives for the OW and if they are going to leave they do so within 6 months of commencing the affair. I do not know if that statistic includes men who are kicked out by their wives as well as those who choose to leave. My expectation is that after that a relationship which began as an affair has no more or no less chance of working out than any other - which is to say probably not all that much if you consider how many more relationships break up than continue for life. But I don't think that you can read into that any karma that a relationship which began as an affair is unlikely to last. Same is true for most relationships.

Thanks Aussieng - and yes, you're right about the trite comment, hardly helpful...

I think many affairs fit your scenario Whizzy, but certainly not all. What it misses out is the love many men actually have for their wives - and their state of mind at the time, about other life events/situations, other than their marriage. How men might be feeling about being undervalued by life - and not necessarily their wives. This is especially true of men in midlife. Many affairs have got nothing to do with dissatisfaction in the marriage - they arise out of a general dissatisfaction with life.

This also places way too much responsibility on the marriage partners to control the other's fidelity - and whilst I have always said that having a loving and happy marriage is likely to be a better deterrent to infidelity than one that has gone off the boil - there are significant numbers of long-term marriages that are not happy and loving all of the time - and yet the partners are faithful, even when an opportunity to breach that fidelity arises. Their moral code won't allow it.

If that moral code isn't in place and a former infidel is still viewing infidelity as a reasonable response to unhappiness in a marriage, I'd imagine that's going to cause their future partner some worries. At some point in the new relationship, there are going to be times when things are not "great" - either because of other life events, depression, someone else in the family needing more attention etc. And so the cycle begins again - the person not getting attention is vulnerable to someone else giving it, that vulnerability is acted upon.... and the life script is repeated.

Aussieng, it sounds to me as though perhaps your H has realised that this was a lousy way of expressing dissatisfaction - and will take those lessons into his new relationship. In which case, perhaps he and his new partner will be like the couple I mentioned downthread - regretful about the deceit and hurt caused and determined not to treat eachother that way. Because I believe that "cheaters" are capable of change - either in their current relationships or in future ones - if that change is made, there is hope.

I think there is less hope for the infidel who believes that infidelity is to be expected if they are unhappy. The wise former infidel realises that they might be vulnerable to infidelity if they are unhappy, but resolves to spot the signs earlier - and take responsibility for averting another crisis. They do not place the responsibility at their partner's door for creating that vulnerability either.

Recovering couples need to have joint responsibility for affair-proofing the future marriage and building in that deterrent of a loving and happy union - but they also need to be realistic that there will be times when other pressures mount and energies are going to be focused elsewhere. Living a life in a state of paranoia that diverting attention away from one's spouse might result in another affair, would be my idea of hell. Fortunately, I now think that there is more chance of hell freezing over than my H having an affair, mainly because of him - and to a lesser (but important) extent, our relationship. My H says he couldn't do it to himself again - because it is about personal responsibility, self-respect and his moral code first.

Oh dear - sorry! Perhaps it came across as more pompous than it was intended to sound... over all, I thought I was respectfully engaging with your argument - but I do apologise if it sounded rude - no offence intended

Have to go collect HRH from a party now, but will come back later and respond to the substance....

WWIFN - we seem to agree that an unhappy marriage is vulnerable, and I would probably agree that someone with a strong moral imperative to avoid affairs would provide some protection for the marriage in the inevitable bad times that come in any marriage, but I find this idea that the infidel must repent, acknowledge his past mistake and bask in his new moral code all a bit implausible.

I can see how someone whose in a relationship with someone whose been unfaithful before might want to believe that... after all, it provides a reassuring response to the ?he?ll do it again ... ha ha? brigade.

I also agree that there are some people would never be unfaithful, however bad the marriage. Indeed there are some who would never end a marriage, even if their spouse was violent and abusive and they were as miserable as hell, but IME such persons are (thankfully) few and far between. Divorce is a common experience in society today.
You seem to imply that moral objections to affairs are a principle mechanism for protecting the marriage... tbh, I doubt this. Nearly everyone will agree that affairs are a bad thing in principle. Nearly everyone enters into marriage with the intention and belief that there marriage will last ? even though logically we know a huge number will fail. Everyone is opposed to affairs in principle, and most people understand they harm children, and would want to protect children, especially their own..

If you assume that a person?s moral code is relatively stable, the marriages of the immoral mob would fall at first hurdle... yet many marriages will fail after many years... If I follow your model, I would have to believe that my parents struggled on for 30 odd years with my father?s imperfect moral code pretty much by accident... how did they make it so long... The idea that he now has to repent his behaviour, and learn how to live through difficult times in order to have a long lasting relationship with his NP is pretty mad...

If you exclude the small % of folks who would never leave a marriage, I would guess that the driving factor in most relationship breakdowns is the quality of the existing marriage ? which is the factor which changes dramatically over time. It may be convenient to say that the DH or DW didnt? try hard enough and is to blame ? and needs to repent etc etc... but it really isn?t plausible. The relationship was vulnerable and broke up because the marriage was probably pretty lousy... and if marriage 2 has similar problems, then yes, it will happen again....

You seem to think of the marriage as being a "thing" in it's own right. But it's not. It is the product of two people, it has no independent existence.

A marriage is as good as the effort put in by the two participants. If it is bad it is because of those people, their actions (or lack of) and the dynamics between them. Now we are all the products of our environments, and have our own distinct personalities and travel our own paths, and so the dynamic of a marriage (or any other relationship) will have many twists and turns, times when we behave well or badly, times when we are more vulnerable or resilient. Sometimes external factors can put us under a lot of stress, and this plays a part too. Sometimes we bring a lot of "baggage" to our relationships and healthy dynamics are very difficult. We can choose to behave well or badly, we can put up with things that should be resolved, or get out at the first sign of things not going our way. These are all choices.

Personally I don't think that the choice to learn from mistakes when having an affair is about repenting so much as it is about learning. The person who doesn't learn from their experiences will repeat their mistakes. If those mistakes have had the effect of destroying other people's lives then choosing not to learn is the sign of someone who is both stupid and selfish, or has a total lack of insight.

What I find really quite odd about your reading of WWIFN's scenarios is that they seem to suggest that the person responsible for the affair is not the person who has it, but the other partner for not being good enough. That in my opinion is total crap.

Nooka I'm not sure why you think I'm suggesting it's the faithful spouses fault - that is far from my intention. I agree with your first line and following para - that a marriage is a product of two people..

I suppose my opinion is that failing at a marraige is a shared enterprise - and neither party is more culpable than the other for the marriage breaking down. Though I agree, it is the worst possible way to end a marriage... and in an ideal world, the cheating spouse should not have done it.

Can we unpack the idea of regret and repentance a little?

I don't think my father regrets his affair (he still lives with the OW). Surely this is the case for many. If you leave an unhappy marriage and end up in a happier place with someone else, I think it is difficult to view it as a mistake. One may wish that it had been achieved with less hurt or fewer legal bills etc etc, but why would you regret it?

It is not nice to hurt people, of course - but is there any pain free way to leave someone? My view is that my Mum would only have been happy if my Dad had stayed married to her - she has strong religious views that rule out divorce, and her whole life revolved round him. Her distress has been hard for me to square, as I know he is happier with his NP.

My father is neither stupid nor simply selfish - he is a good man. He felt he could no longer live with my mother and chose to leave. I think you are so over-simpifying to villify him for that choice.

Dear All,

You'll be pleased to know that I have been doing the 'looking fabulous and dignified' for a while. Don't worry, I do blame ex-h for affair just as much, and if you've seen some of my other posts, you'll be aware that he is an emotional bully. He is incredibly arrogant and selfish and has quite frankly made my life HELL over the last year. What I've come to realise, with the help of alot of therapy, is that we had a happy marriage, because I put a lot of effort into making it happy. In other words, provided I did what he said, we were happy. I think this affair is just his way of punishing me for not keeping the kitchen tidy enough and being more succesful at work (I kid you not!). He keeps trying to pretend that he isn't having an affair to me and solicitors, but admits it to everyone else.

But the OW was a good friend of mine (I'm her second child's godmother) and on reflection I realise that she was after him for some time. Not very nice when she was still pretending to be a friend. At least hubby walked out, she continued carrying on the affair whilst still living with her (second) husband. She did suggest to her husband that it would be so much easier if he and I hooked up. (You either laugh at this point or throw up!) Thank god she has now left the family house, but hasn't moved in with my hubby. Yes, it is all very, very odd.

Yep, she really is a piece of work. My plan is to ignore her totally, or perhaps I should send her the letter from hubby asking me to let him come back? Tempting you must admit!

very tempting...

don't send that letter now

but hold onto it

chinup, carry on doing what you are doing

you have been wonderful in the face of much fuckwittery

Thanks

Mind you, she's really religious and her church have just found out about their affair. And it wasn't me what ratted on them.

And yes, I am aware of the irony in that last paragraph...

I shall leave the house every morning from now on, thinking 'Fabulous and dignified'. A good motto for MNers everywhere.

Chinup, it sounds like you really are better off without him. Maybe she will realise what he is like in time, maybe not (or maybe if they are both emotional fuckwits, they are well suited after all? ), but either way, the main thing is that you don't have to put up with him any longer.

Also, if you were the only one putting any effort into making the marriage happy witrhout effort from him, this is unsustainable in the long-term and would you really have been happy to be making a unilateral effort?

Easier said than done I know, but find someone who appreciates and reciprocates when you put work into a relationship. To have stayed in this relationship sounds to me like it owuld have eventually destroyed your self-confidence anyway (speaking as someone who has been on the receiving end of a demanding/bullying ex-p).

Actually chinupgirl, I think that you do sound quite dignified and fabulous

Whizzywig, I've never met your dad nor do I know anything about him, so how can I possibly be vilifying him? I am talking in generalities, reflecting mostly on people I know personally. What I said was selfish was not to reflect on where you went wrong, whether you could have done things differently, both in the relationship and in why you might have chosen such a destructive exit route, and to learn from that. If you go on to have a happy relationship with the new person then of course you wouldn't regret that relationship, but not to even think about the other person because you have got out and you are happy is really not very nice. Note I am not saying your dad has done that - how would I know what has or hasn't gone through his mind?

My brother, who I love dearly, after years of a very rocky relationship (with someone who I also love dearly) had an affair, and is now very happy (with someone I like very much). I still think the way he went about things was totally crap. I totally understand why things happened the way they did, they are very tied up with his character and the character and experiences of his ex (his new partner from what I gather didn't know he was in a relationship). But that doesn't justify his behaviour, and he knows it. Sadly for him (and indeed for my poor parents), the major consequence is that his son has almost totally cut his father out of his life.

Chin-up girl, it sounds like you are doing just fine. I'm glad your therapy confirmed what many of us have been saying here - it wasn't that your H wasn't "getting enough" of anything, rather that he wasn't "giving enough" to your marriage. That marriage was happy as long as you were in "giving" mode.

It doesn't surprise me in the least that he is still in "official" denial about the OW - as Aussieng and I said downthread, this is a particularly nasty aftermath, because these men would like to pretend that the marriage ended because of their unhappiness - not the presence of what sounds like a particularly nasty OW.

No-one can take away your truth, your memories, or your dignity.

Nooka, I completely agree with your take on this - and I agree that the word "repentance" isn't what we're saying at all - this is about learning.

Whizzy, this might be uncomfortable for you to read, because I understand you also need to have a belief system in place to rationalise your Dad's behaviour. We can know nothing about his and your Mum's particular circumstances and no-one is trying to "vilify" him on here. I'm sure he is a good man - I've always challenged the notion that only "bad" people have affairs.

But you said downthread that you would feel "pompous" asking him at his age, about lessons learned. Therefore there is so much you don't know, because it's not a conversation you would have with him.

I find it frustrating that although myself and others can acknowledge that affairs happen as a result of an infidel's unhappiness, either conscious or unconscious, you refuse to acknowledge that affairs can ever happen in a happy and good marriage. Your response is to imply that people are deluding themselves if they believe differently.

I suspect Nooka is also picking up on a sub-text to your posts, which dehumanises the women in your scenarios - it's interesting that you choose to describe over-spending, poor cooking, unwashed floors, poor conversational skills and bad sex - a very stereotypical list of female faults that many male infidels use as justification for their behaviour, rather than a perhaps more rounded view that embraces the faults of the male infidel. Your perspective is therefore all about the male in this situations not "getting enough" and interestingly, NOT from the perspective that he was also not "giving enough" to his marriage. It is a very one-dimensional view of a marriage, which is perhaps what Nooka was reacting to.

It's also interesting that in your scenario, the only positive feeling you acknowledge in the man towards his wife is that "she has her good points". Whizzy, like I said downthread, this is far too narrow a descriptor of every affair. Men have affairs and yet love their wives very much indeed - they are far removed from grudgingly acknowledging that she "has some good points". Perhaps you also believe that men cannot have affairs and still love their wives?

Yes, that is what I was picking up on I must say I love your (totally erroneous!) use of the word infidels - it's such a great sounding/loaded word, that I feel it fits this use very well!

Whizzywig talking about her father reminded me rather of my mum talking about her mother. Because she adored him we were not allowed to criticism any behaviour that she associated with him (like working long hours) even though we weren't talking about him at all (I didn't even know that he worked long hours, although given his career I wasn't at all surprised to hear that he did). It is quite possible to love and respect someone whilst acknowledging that their actions might not always have been commendable (after all those that have built new relationships with unfaithful partners base their lives and happiness on this premise, often very successfully).

The other thing you have to recall in any relationship really is that the two participants often have totally different perspectives. Both may feel that they are giving and the other taking. Or one may feel that the other is being so good that they really have to be bad. All sorts of dynamics. Also plenty of rewriting the past too. I thought with dh that I was giving him the space he needed. He thought I had disengaged. What neither of us were doing was talking to each other about how we really felt. We were both trying the mind reading thing that often develops in long relationships (the "(s)he should have known what I was feeling" syndrome).

Um, that might look as if I am implying that chinugirl is fibbing in saying that her dh was the taking not the giving type. I as talking in generalities only.

just wanted to say (and this might not be apt, but couldn't read all as am too tired)...

my dad left my mum mainly due to a scarlet woman when I was 5... move on four years, dad and sw got married and she ended up phoning my mum every week for hints on how to live with my dad because he was such a nightmare.

mum tried to tell her that being on prozac, drinking a bottle of wine a night and living with my dad wasn't really the best plan ...

what goes around, comes around.

(and I know that it takes more than one sw to mess up a marriage - mum takes responsibility for her part, but Dad did try to come back 3 times in the first year, but mum wouldn't let him because he was such an eejit. true story! )

Chin up... always especially crap when you get left for a mate... I think you are better well rid too...

WWIFN Well, yes, I suppose I do think it's reasonable to believe that affairs don't happen in happy marriages. Maybe we are getting tied up with semantics... I wouldn't call a marriage where one spouse was making all the effort a happy one, for example... Nor is a marriage where one spouse is happy and the other is not.

I wonder if you're making it too complicated... marriages fail when the 2 people in them no longer fit. Surely both share responsiblity for the demise? I see no value in identifying faults (s/he didn't give enough etc) - who knows how much s/he would give in a different relationship?

As for my Dad - "a belief system in place"

OK, I believe my Dad was a shit. He saw some happiness chugging on by, and despite my Mum being a loyal wife for the better part of 40 years, he buggered off, totally disregarding how devasted she would be.

The problem I have with it is that he is undoubtedly happier - so although I know he weighed his happiness against her.. I don't see how we could demand his misery to appease my mother.

Funnily enough, I feel a lot more settled now my XH has married the OW. I now refer to her as "their [the DCs] dad's wife" (I don't think of her as their stepmother, even though she is). And it consigns my marriage to him more firmly to the dustbin of the past (phew).

I actually can't bear the thought of seeing either him or her. I started shopping in different towns to avoid the possibility of bumping into them, because if I saw them I would physically start to shake. I would just blank them totally. I couldn't even drop the DCs off at the door, or answer my own door when he called round (I would hide, and the DCs would have to answer). I guess I was traumatised by the whole thing.

And now, several years down the line? Still can't do it.

Say thank you to the pondlife for taking a lying, cheating scumbag off your hands.
You're the winner - you have won freedom from being treated so badly.
Your scummy ex and the pondlife are the losers. You may not feel like celebrating this now because you are still grieving. But believe me, you will. You will, I promise you. Been there.
Hugs