What makes a woman happy to be the Mistress?

[RedishBlonde]

This link got me thinking - forum.psychlinks.ca/relationships/829-the-other-woman.html

I suppose I'm interested in the "professional mistresses" - The women who seek out and only have (the majority of their) relationships with married men.

My sister (on her own admission) seems to be attracted to unobtainable men, whether it is emotionally unavailable men or attached men.

She has recently been exploring and resolving some emotional issues that stem from her childhood and speaks of these men within the context of these issues.

Now, I'm not making excuses, I have no sympathy for a woman that willingly enters a relationship with a married or attached man but there has to be underlying psychological reasons behind their motivations.

I believe that all ow are fully aware they are being lied to, not just the predatory ones. I suspect they pretend to fall for the married mans lies because they don't like to admit they are happy with being used.

Tbh, I have often found the idea of an unobtainable man (attached man) appealing, although I've noticed only when I'm feeling low on self esteem and NEVER when I'm at a happy place in my life. I have never acted on this and wouldn't, mainly because I know it's a sign I'm not in the right place emotionally. I believe a happy, well adjusted woman wouldn't willingly enter herself into a complicated relationship.

What are your thoughts on the motivations of OW? Are you a mistress? if so, do you explore the reasons behind why you're happy to take second place?

I was the OW once...for almost a year. Did I know he was married when we first met? No, and by the time I did find out I was in love with him.
He took me and DS1 on days out, spent time with us, stayed for days at a time - and all the time he had a wife and 2 children at home - for them.

Then one day a friend called me and said "have you heard" and straight away I knew he had moved away far away. I spent months crying for him/for me I missed him so much.

10 months to the day he left he turned up at my flat unexpectedly with an explanation, which I believed maybe wrongly. We then spent 2 wonderful weeks together before he had to go back to where he had moved to. When he left he told me I would always "be his girl for life" and until I moved out of the area he frequently phoned/text/wrote to see how I was.

For me I fell in love with a man who was showering me with affection/attention/love/care after splitting with someone who showered me with punches/kicks/insults/abuse. NOT that that excuses my behaviour, I should have split with him as soon as I found out he was married but I truly loved him then.

Plenty of Irish people if their marriages are in trouble wait until all that is finished before finding a new partner. Of course people are often living apart but still married, plenty of them and even that puts me off a man but that's completely different from if they're still living in the marital home.

I suppose some people's emotions whether they are the married person or the lover carry them away and other people take steps to ensure they don't get embroiled early on if someone is attached. I suppose some peoplel ie but it doesn't take much digging to find out if someone is married. You make it your first priority. Obviously you look to see if there's a ring on, then you look for obvious signs like they are never available in the evenings or weekends, google them etc etc. Not hard. ANd of course they'd be particularly nice - they have a massive hurdle to overcome - their marital status - compared to unmarried men so of course they might seem nicer but they won't be.

I do know a fair bit about the subject because of my own family background and circumstances. Personally, if I "fell in love" (whatever that means, to quote Prince Charles...!) with an attached man, I don't think I would ever necessarily expect him to leave his partner. I might desperately want that to happen, but I would probably have more respect for him if he didn't leave specifically for me. I would take a view that he his primary responsibility would be towards his family (especially children) and I would never be interested in a man who did not put his children's needs as a very high priority.

As far as I am concerned you leave a relationship when it no longer works FOR YOU. I don't think it is a particularly good idea to leave specifically for another person.

The classic scenario is the man who has an affair, the OW puts pressure on him to leave, he agonises between his family and OW, eventually gives into the OW's demands. This scenario is unsatisfactory for everyone - the family who have been left feel betrayed, the husband who has left feels pressurised, the OW has wielded too much power and has shown a lack of insight into the complexity of the situation.

I have a (single) friend who put it very simply:

"At my age most men are married or attached. I find that my chance of happiness (ie with a MM) is more important than the wife´s happiness. I have to grab any chance of happiness for myself".

I find that incredibly sad Chandon.

Theres looking after Number 1, yes, but at the expense of others? How utterly selfish and destructive.

Your friend sounds like an utterly vile woman to be honest.

How sad that people cannot make their own happiness and must destroy others in order to be "happy". I imagine most of the time its a very short lived happiness but causes long term often irrepairable damage.

Sometimes the man leaving strawberrymarks is the best thing for the children ...

'Sometimes the man leaving strawberrymarks is the best thing for the children ... '

Sure. But when it needs to involve being a liar, which is what all who cheat are unless they've agreed to an open relationship, then that makes him (or her) a sorry, immature, low life, too.

I was confused about that phrase until I realised strawberrymarks was someone's name...!

After it was clear that DP and I wanted to be together, his family were told of this. He continued to live in the family home as his wife refused to let him go. We did not continue to see each other. He moved out somtetime later to a place of his own hoping that his children would join him (13 and 18) as they were living a hell with alcholism. They choose not to ..

Sometime later DP moved in with me to my home where we had dd. We live in the country now in our home, since then relatonships have improved with his children as he is now happier, more secure and not living with alcholism. He is now a position (which he never was in before) to support his children emotionally, realise his failings and talk to them about these failings.

I do agree that lies and deceit are no basis to start a relationship. I do agree that the pain this causes to the first family is wrong and possibly unforgiving but when a man meets another woman it does take some time before both can make decision. To end or to continue. We were unable to end and did the best we knew how to be honest about continuing. We have a good life, wonderful dd and a peaceful happy home and environment for DP's children to be in, visit etc if ever they feel they would like to ... They know this ...

'After it was clear that DP and I wanted to be together, his family were told of this. He continued to live in the family home as his wife refused to let him go. '

In other words, after you'd been shagging each other long enough for him to realise you were willing to be a replacement, he told his wife he was leaving her for you.

And the wife was just supposed to say, 'Grand! Congratulations. Let's discuss living apart.'

Again, there's always the element of 'He'd never leave me because I'm so much better than she is,' with a lot of these OW.

Funny that, though, because often enough, he put a ring on his wife's finger, but the OW continues to be just a 'partner' (who always asserts vehemently that being married means nothing to her, of course).

'but when a man meets another woman it does take some time before both can make decision.'

Yes. They can say, 'No. I'm married.'

And walk away.

'Honey/insert name, we need to talk because I am thinking of sleeping with someone else.'

Because in teh free Western world, adults are able to chose how to act.

Of course, self-control, self-restraint, personal responsibility and a sense of duty are probably not as attractive as the abolute bollocks a lot of people take for 'love' and shagging aroudn is much more exciting than decency and courtesy towards the children one chose to bring into the world with one's spouse.

No he told his wife he was leaving her, to be on his own, live on his own where there was a safe and secure home for his children to be in with him.

'No he told his wife he was leaving her, to be on his own, live on his own '

Which was a lie because he left out the bit that he was screwing around on her.

No wonder his kids don't want to see him!

If my dad did that when I was already 13 or 18, I wouldn't give him the time of day because I'd have zero respect for him.

He didnt leave out the bit that we had started a relationship together (of which was not a relationship of screwing as you so crudely continue on this thread) ... He lived alone for sometime where our relationship for sake of his children ended ....

Well, it is, MCDL. How would you feel if someoen did that to you? Or has he convinced you that it was all her fault because she was horrible and alcoholic?

How would you feel if your daughter's spouse did that to her?

Crude, but true.

His children had zero respect for both their parents whilst they lived together. His children have respect for him now but only after sometime and many very tough years for them all and need him as they have no respect for the on going alcholic behaviour that their mother continues. I hope for mothers sake that she is soon to stop and get some help.

My mother was an alcholic but has stopped now since 25 years plus. My father is deceased. We had years of similiar but maybe not as bad as DP and his children had. Both my parents destroyed each other, not their fault. They were good people but should never have married. They got stuck ... I spent my life wishing they could be happy. If either had met somebody else I would have been happy for them. I suppose this was my basis for DP and his children, thought they would be happy for him. But wronged spouse rightfully or wrongly did not allow that for them ...

So an answer to your question if my father left and was happy with another woman i would have been ok with that. It would have been best for my mother and us children.

My mother did finally leave about two years before my dad died and met somebody else, he passed away last year ...

'But wronged spouse rightfully or wrongly did not allow that for them ...

So an answer to your question if my father left and was happy with another woman i would have been ok with that. It would have been best for my mother and us children. '

Oh, please! He's done a grand job of convincing you it's all the fault of 'wronged spouse'. If his child was 18 that's old enough for the decision to have come from him/herself.

He sounds like a real catch!

It is never better for a person to go and shag someone else and then ditch his/her spouse and kids in such a way.

It's damaging as hell to those kids and there's thread after thread on here to prove it.

I always think of it this way:
If she wants a man, who'll take the ring off of his hand
And then turn around and say that he'll be true,
Then she deserves you.

Not the fault of wronged spouse, the fault of both, but sometime marriages fail. Living with an alcholic (Obv something u know nothing about) does not help.

I suspect you are correct in this, dittany.

OW have to have such deeply-entrenched coping mechanisms, don't they ?

or else, I guess they wouldn't be able to sleep at night

Of course, MCDL, I know nothing about living with an alcoholic. LOL. That's an excuse for screwing around on your spouse indeed. Keep swimming in that Egyptian river.