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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

do i write this email to 'the other woman'?

46 replies

SevernTrentWater · 23/03/2010 15:45

I just broke up with my other half after finding out he's cheating, i was very polite about it and just told him he had been cruel but i forgave him and was moving on. Now, the other woman doesn't know he has a daughter and girlfriend, or at least, she thinks i'm a monster. Do i send her this email about how i don't have anything against her, i forgive him, he's probably a nice guy just hasn't been great to me, explain the saga of how he abandoned me when i was pregnant and how he tried to force me to have an illegal abortion etc (which basically is me screaming bastard i guess) and how he was cheating on both of us essentially, and tell her that i don't want my daughter being told nasty things about me because i'm not a monster and neither is her father, it just hasn't worked out.
Or not?
I feel i NEED to do this for closure, i can't bare the thought of him feeding people a total pack of lies about everything that happened and running gleefully off with this other woman.
Is there a better way of writing it?

OP posts:

Maggie00 · 24/03/2010 08:19

You can't make a man be a father, and it's best to let them 'find their own rhythm' as a father if you know what i mean. my x comes about 5 times a year, and I don't nag him to come more, he would feel like coming LESS if I said anything.

RonaldMcDonald · 24/03/2010 08:25

write the email or letter and send it to yourself
simply writing it will allow you to feel much better

cheatedon · 24/03/2010 08:32

I know I'm gonna get blasted but.....I just sent an e mail to the OW a couple of weeks ago. Completely different circumstances however, but I did do it. I needed closure after my H's affair and I did it purely for me. I don't know her and they had a fling, but has broken up my marriage.
I wanted to tell her what had happened post her affair and because she had been slagged off by H as chasing him etc I wanted to hear her side of the story and have some closure on the whole thing, however I didn't do it when angry and was 18months down the line. I told her I forgave her and blamed my H for the whole thing (she was single he was getting married to me). Actually when I had written it I felt much better, didn't give a s**t whether she thought me a nutter quite frankly, it was for me. I did get a reply, a very nice one actually, which confirmed the arse that my H had been to her. I felt relieved and got the closure from her that I needed.
Anyway I understand it is not for everyone, but just wanted to say my experience.
This situation is different of course and I totally agree with writing it and not sending it. I really feel for you severn, I would feel the same, I would at least want her to know I exsisted....If you really do need to send it, at least give it a lot of time, not a thing to be done in anger.

Eurostar · 24/03/2010 21:08

I emailed an OW (he was just a boyfriend and we were quite young) once when I discovered emails that showed an affair where P had pretended he was single. We had split up anyway but I thought she had a right to know as I'd been taken in by him and I'd have wanted to have been told if it had been me. She didn't reply but I was told she finished with him because of it.

He didn't learn his lesson though, he continued to be a serial womaniser and now has 2 babies with 2 women and another mistress on the side. I think I did OW a big favour by giving her advanced warning on what she was risking with him.

Friend of mine was recently heavily lied to by a married man who said he was living in a hotel because he'd split with his wife (actually he was just there cos working away) - she was quite glad to hear the true story from the wife when it eventually came out. So personally, I think if you just present facts with no accusations, you could be doing her a favour.

kittya · 24/03/2010 22:16

what gets me is the way they feel the need to slag their exe's off and make them out to be nutters. Does it make them feel better? and, sadly, the OW usually believes them so the ground has already been laid if you do get in touch. Its a tough one.

Leslaki · 24/03/2010 22:28

Write it all down in a diary. Best advice anyone ever gave me. It is amazing how much I have relied upon dates, times and details etc fromit when we have been to court.
She won't believe you - and she will find out about you and dd when the CSA start chasing him for maintenance .
But I totally get where you are coming from. My X's OW wrote to me a few times to say what a bad mother I was etc etc etc (I was 'stealing' money from X - known to other people as maintenance! ) but I never replied even though I wanted to. She was vicious. Those letters from her were eventually used to help when I had to get the police involved when she was done for harassment against me. She is the nutter - I am serene (ha - only on the surface and to them but not really) and it really annoys them!

imamissandamummy · 24/03/2010 22:41

Eurostar your ex sounds familiar to me... lol. care to share his initials? i wonder how many of them are around living secret lives?

i know this is a bit off from the op but why do male exes feel the need to be so nasty to previous girlfriends? the mother of the child or the most recent ex is always 'a psycho' or 'a stalker' etc...

if they really were, then why d'ya get involved in the first place? lol

xxx

AnyFucker · 24/03/2010 22:46

I would like to know why so many of the new victims girlfriends believe the lying pricks when they say the ex-wife is a psycho...

she is probably a "psycho" because she has been fucking driven to it...

and it is a very convenient way to make sure no useful information is ever passed along the line that might possibly paint him in a bad light

BrahmsThirdRacket · 24/03/2010 22:54

I suppose they believe it because it is plausible. How many of us have an ex who is a bit of a nutter? There's a lot of them around. Presumably the men feel there is something 'wrong' with their exes otherwise they wouldn't have left them. Whoever says of their ex 'Yeah, he/she was really really top'? Deliberately making up stories is another thing, of course; there is usually a grain of truth which they blow out of proportion.

kittya · 24/03/2010 23:01

Changes phone number out of the blue and makes sure they have already bad mouthed the ex so when she starts making enquiries as to why he has changed his number, the friends have already been forewarned she is a nutter!! god, it drives me mad. thats happened to my friend recently.

I know several men who only have nice things to say about their exes so I dont think its all of them.

Just the ones that have been screwing around.

AnyFucker · 24/03/2010 23:02

having "psycho" exes is a well-recognized red flag that may signify a tosser of a bloke, or a tosser of a woman, of course

especially when every ex they have ever had has tried to "ruin their life", "won't let them see their kids", "took them for every penny they had" bla bla blaaaaa

personally, I would not trust any man who could not be at least civil and courteous about the mother of his children

some one who cannot do that is quite often a cock of the highest order

LadyBlaBlah · 24/03/2010 23:03

I would defo send something. It is your right to and will bring closure for you

kittya · 24/03/2010 23:07

Oh, what about when they sing the praises of the wife, what a brilliant mother she is, how fantastic his kids have turned out, how marrying her is the best thing he ever did, they are best mates, like brother and sister really........ whilst he is getting yet another woman into bed. And he has never, ever done this before. BOLLOCKS!!

SolidGoldBrass · 25/03/2010 00:00

If all someone's XPs have been mental, abusive, untrustworthy etc, then run a mile. Because the person is either lying, or so appalling to be with that previously nice people go a bit mental in the course of a relationship with him/her - or is a complete fuckup, possibly a whinyarse professional victim who can't take any responsibility for anything.
Anyone can have one lousy relationship or be the victim of abuse, it's not gender specific. But if someone you have just started dating tells you all about the awful XP on the first date, run a mile further. Because the person is either all of the above or, if a nice person who has made one unwise decision, not sufficiently over it to be good partner material just yet.

Eurostar · 25/03/2010 00:01

imamissandamummy - I am sure there are many, many of them around. Well, I know, as I posted a while back, I thought I'd try out posting on a "casual" dating site and the literally hundreds of contacts that came through from married men was one of the most depressing eye openers I've ever had.

It's a good question, why do women believe the lines about wife being psycho/it being over etc..maybe because they want to? Cos we're conditioned to believe in the fairy tale?

Or, I think if you're a caring, straightforward person who wouldn't use others it's easy to get taken in by the lies when you are first exposed to it as you just have no idea that there are people out there prepared to go to such an extent.

If someone says all their exes are a bit psycho I will be straight out of the door because, if exes have behaved irrationally, they were probably driven to it by the bloke in the first place.

kittya · 25/03/2010 00:07

I agree with you totally. And its even worse when you hear the same thing from their friends "oh, that one was a nutter, the other one was a psycho" its like they are all in on it!!!

littlestmummystop · 25/03/2010 00:08

Write it and send it.

When my ExP got together with his now wife, she sent me a massive email about how wonderful he was and how happy they were together etc and how any problems in the past should be forgotten etc.

I replied that yes I agreed we should move on. But I also politely pointed out how he left me without a home, money and holding our baby. How he is not always what he seemed ( he was violent but I didn't go that far) and how I hoped she had a good support system to help her if and when things failed.

It was my opinion, my right to say what I thought, as it was her right to tell me what she thought. If I sounded bitter, I don't care. I know I am not, but I am also not going to sit by and nod when his new gf tells me how 'wonderful' he is...

Ignore all the do gooders saying: 'No point, she won't believe you' etc.

Just have your say if it brings peace of mind and closure. Essentially this is for you and not her ultimately.

kittya · 25/03/2010 00:13

Im trying to stop my friend from doing this!! if it was an email then I would be for it but she only has his home address and there is his wife to consider (although she probably has seen it many a time). I do understand where she is coming from though, its horrible not been able to get your point accross.

WhenwillIfeelnormal · 25/03/2010 00:37

I too am astonished how many women fall for the "ex was a psycho bitch" line....by men who seem only too happy for that same psycho bitch to raise the children that they very rarely see.

I wonder how many Mums would be happy for their kids to be raised by a psycho bastard?

Or the OW who believe all sorts of nonsense about the wife who was lazy, didn't want sex and who has let herself go? Don't they realise that this will be them a few years down the line when they get a bit older (and a bit more knackered because the "prize" they won turns out to be a lazy selfish git who does nothing round the house)? And just as they did with her, at the first sign of trouble they will be unfaithful with someone else?

OP, as I said downthread, if your motives are pure and you want to warn this woman and set the record straight, invite her for a coffee. Even if she's still in cloud cuckoo land about your ex, your warnings will stick in her mind. I just think that E mails are a particularly bad form of communicating a message like this - and your motives can and most likely will, be misconstrued.

kittya · 25/03/2010 23:22

I think face to face and sober. I dont know how that could be arranged though.

akhems · 26/03/2010 08:05

As others have said, write it but don't send it.

I found myself in a similar situation recently and wrote a long rambly email because I wanted OW to know the truth behind all the lies she'd been told about me.

Thankfully I sent it a very good friend who stopped me from sending it to OW because as my friend rightly pointed out, it would just give her more bullets to fire at me and as it turned out my friend was right.. I never sent it but still recieved a barrage of abuse from this interloper.

the writing of it was very cathartic tho.

Hope that helps

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