what about sisterhood?

[babehunmug]

Hi I'm fairly new here. I posted something about my DH and his OW and was surprised at a couple of replies that seemed to be saying its all DH's fault and that OW has not committed to me so don't blame her.

Now that has surprised me cos I believe in the sisterhood and have always steered well clear of married men or men that I know already have a partner. Why? because life is difficult enough without making it worse for a fellow(?)-woman. Before this OW appeared I always thought I wouldn't like this to happen to me so I'm not ever going to facilitate it for a man who might be tempted to cheat and cause pain and suffering to his wife/partner and children and all the other people that get hurt in the process.

Is there no more sisterhood?

EndedupanOW , brave of you to post and interesting to hear what youve got to say.
Not flaming, but do you ever think about what will happen when the wife and the children find out ?

How do you feel about being kept a secret ? , do you think hes done this before ?
As i say im not flaming, just interested in how you see things.

I spoke to the ow who actually laughed about it all. At the time my children and myself were distaught, as you can imgine. She had a real sense of " well if you couldnt keep him happy , im better than you ect ". He had told her that he loved her and she beleived him.

What she didnt know at the time was that there was a third party involved too, and worse, i found out in the past that he had visited prostitutes. When confronted he did the the usual begging and pleading and actually referred to her as a cheap slag that meant nothing.

Stupidly hed said a lot of this via texts which i happily forwarded to the ow. Shed gone from thinking she was in a big love affair and better than me to realising she had been used in quite a horrible way . I started divorce proceedings immediateley and bizareley my Eh actually held HER responsible and was really awful to her , ringing her up and being abusive to her.

Btw I never buy that "if it wasn't me it would be somebody else" excuse. "Everybody's doing it" is an excuse used in the playground to encourage other children to smoke or cop off at parties, and the correct response is "not everybody - I'm not, for a start". We are not responsible for what other people do, only for what we do ourselves. If it is somebody else that is HIS choice and nothing to do with you. If it is you then YOU DID IT, never mind what he would or might have done otherwise. So it's a complete non-argument.

babehun, if you read the threads about affairs on here you'll see that they do seem to almost follow a script.

It got so that I could predict what my p (and ow) was going to do next, just from reading here and 90% of the time I was spot on.

It's complete and utter bullshit, this sisterhood theory.. I don't believe it exists, because generally, people are too bloody selfish to see beyond their own gratification.

Of course you should be angry at the ow, I'm fucking furious with the one in our situation, but that doesn't mean I'm not also mightily pissed off with my p too

I actually feel sorry for the ow in my case. She was lied to by my h and because she did not know him as well as i do probably can not see that.
I too was lied to - but really that was because he did not want to lose us - the ow was not worth that much.

I think if all ow could understand that - he is lying to get what he wants without having to give up what he really wants to keep, then there would be less heartache all around.

My DD still asks me lots of questions about ow and i try and answer honestly without painting her as an awful person. but the question i cannot answer is 'why did she hurt me(my dd) - she knew after all and still didnt care enough about me?'
My DD has said one day she would like to meet ow and tell her of the hurt she caused - i try to tell her not to bother. She has also asked my h lots of questions and his pain has been evident for her to see so i suppose she sees 'justice' has been done for him. Whereas the ow has not appologised for her part (in my dd eyes).

"he is going about lying to his family's face with no intention of even wanting this woman long term but purely fancying a bit on the side. you must see that that is worse surely?"

Of course it's worse. Why does criticising the OW's behaviour imply that you don't know the husband's behaviour is worse?

You can see the man for the shitbag he is, without thinking that it's OK for the OW to do what she's doing. "Well he's worse than me" isn't really an argument, is it?

I agree that knowingly becoming a mistress is a really rotten thing to do, but it doesn't necessarily mean the person is evil.

Often they are very sad and a bit deluded, with some major issues that mean they cannot see how to stop themselves, or why they ought to.

Sometimes they are really very desperate and the fact someone is already married isn't enough to make them stop - they may feel as though this 'love' is their only chance at happiness, because they've never had that experience before.

They might not know how to deal with the pain of denying the relationship, once it has begun to develop.

I'm not excusing the behaviour but am trying to see how and why it occurs.

Obviously there are some really screwed up people who deliberately go out to hurt others, and seem to enjoy it but this isn't so usual I think as the lonely person who just has no clue what is the right thing to do - and may not even have any women friends so knows no sense of sisterhood.

I have never really understood 'sisterhood' stuff as it seems discriminatory against blokes, somehow, and a bit weird - but then I had poor relationships with the women in my family.

I would never want to become involved with someone attached, not now that I am aware of what can happen when someone does this. But I think often the OW is a bit irrelevant - even the stick analogy is a bit weak, in that the bloke wanting to beat the kid will just go and pick up another stick or even take off his shoe and use that instead...iyswim. He's still the bigger bastard.

In my case there is no need for the man's wife and kids to find out.

He's not going to tell them, nor am I. He's unlikely to be accidentally found out because of the way his life is organised (and his aptitude for secrecy - I'm not his first affair).

I don't really think my actions are currently damaging anything in his domestic life. He loves his wife and adores his kids and spends as much time with them as he did before.

Provided these circumstances continue until the end of our affair, which I give maybe a couple or a few months' more in longevity, then he'll go back to the way things were and his family will be fine.

Of course I can't speak for the next OW he'll find. But I for one am not interested in getting any more involved with his 'real life' than I am already (i.e., less than 1%).

All you women discussing this issue are those who have found out a partner or known someone close who has found out a partner. Think how many more affairs, flings, one night stands etc go by without ever being discovered.

Nope, I've never discovered anyone being unfaithful to me - or know of anyone whose husband had an affair.

But yes, I'm sure a lot of affairs go undiscovered.

endedupanOW...you are really a very sad and despicable person

does it feel good to be on a conveyor belt of shags on the side for this wonderful man ?

is his dick gold-plated or summat...there must be something really out of this world for you (and a long line of others) to lower themselves in this way

The simple point is that both the Hs and OWs are selfish -totally selfish. And the ones who suffer most ie the children are totally innocent.

The other interesting factor is that the single OW has nothing to lose. But all the other parties do.

So there is an incentive for the single OW -man to gain and nothing to lose.

"I don't really think my actions are currently damaging anything in his domestic life. He loves his wife and adores his kids and spends as much time with them as he did before."

You sad deluded cow, if he loved his wife and adored his kids, he wouldn't be fucking you on the side and spending his family's money on you.
He is the worst kind of "man" and you are enabling his fucked up sense of entitlement, I don't know how you can sleep at night.

"His aptitude for secrecy" do you mean his ability to lie like the bastard he is?

Men like him act in the way they do precisely because of stupid women like you.
At least prostitutes are honest about what they do.

It's silly to generalise about this, because there are all sorts of variations in human relationships.
Sometimes the man is lying to both women (ie to his wife, that he is not seeing anyone else and to the OW that he is separated/separating/single/his wife's a bitch).
Sometimes the wife is a bitch. It's not impossible for women to be abusive partners, after all - and the thing with abusive relationships is that often the only thing that saves the victim and gives him/her the strength to leave, is an affair with someone else who demonstrates that abuse is not normal, that the abuse victim is lovable, etc.
Sometimes both the man and the OW are silly romantic twats who believe that each other is The One and their love is so special that they have no control over it and nothing else matters (people who think like this very often have affair after affair, it's one of the types of hysterical monogamism to insist that each time you vaguely fancy someone that person is The One and all other relationships inferior and disposable).
Sometimes the original relationship was an inertia relationship anyway (one partner was keen, the other one - the one who ends up straying - was thinking 'Oh, this will do, gotta settle down some time'), or the partners had outgrown one another and the affair is what gives enough of a jolt to trigger the end of a relationship.
Don't forget that sometimes a partner having an affair and leaving can come as a relief to the other partner, who was also bored to death with the relatinship but didn't feel it was 'bad enough' to end.

Mustbetheend: you said I had a man to gain, I don't want to gain a man - not him anyway. I don't want him to leave his wife and I don't want a long term 24/7 relationship with him.

Malificence: why do you assume he's spending "his family's money" on me? He spends nothing on me except for the petrol it takes to drive to my house. Do you think because I'm a mistress I must be getting showered with gifts or taken out shopping? Again, another misplaced generalisation.

endedupanOW
she will find out
i hope she's on MN and has worked it out

'Men like him act in the way they do precisely because of stupid women like you.
At least prostitutes are honest about what they do. '

No, no, no that's not true. You can't blame it all on the enabler.

Where is the man's responsibility in that statement? He acts in the way he does because of probably some deep seated feelings about women which he is unaware of on a conscious level.

SGB I totally agree about thinking a relationship is 'the one', that can be a powerful illusion especially to those who have not had many previous relationships.

The thing is - how DO you know when a person is someone you have the potential to be with for a very long time, if that's hat you want? There is clearly the option to wing it, but surely with most relationships (say those that inspire people to marry) there is more to it than 'well let's see how it gos, we might fall out tomorrow but today is good and he is available'.

It can be a fine line I think when you feel very attracted to someone.

There are many successful relationships that begin when one person is already seeing someone else. So when people instigate an affair, they might very well be thinking 'he is going to end his other relationship very shortly so we can be together'.

And sometimes this occurs...but sometimes it doesn;t, and you can get caught in a situation where you are just waiting for ever. It's really sad. When do you walk away though, if he keeps making promises?

May I ask you something, Endedup?

I just wondered what your relationships were like with your family, when you were young.

I think sometimes a mistress can be someone who has issues with her own mother and father, for instance perhaps her mother was jealous of her spending time with her father, and tried to limit the time they spent together...so she feels on some level a sense of triumph at the deception of the wife?

This is probably usually not something an OW will be aware of consciously, and I'm sure it isn't universal, but I think it's one reason it can become such an easy situation to fall into for an OW...the patterns of things that were learned early on can have a huge and lasting impact.

there can be a lot of subconscious anger against the wife as she represents this obstacle to the person you feel so strongly towards, and you are in a sense 'correcting an injustice' according to your mind.

Quite disturbing, but difficult to get a handle on if you are programmed in that way and unaware of it.

never mind all that psychobabble, fliigtht (no offence to you, love)

a mistress who does what she does knowingly is a selfish woman who gives not a shit about anyone else but herself

like many people who hurt others, their upbringing does not excuse the mayhem they cause later

Yes, I concur it is extremely selfish. I think that when it comes to such powerful things as believing you have found the perfect partner, though, selfishness is a strange grey area...basically I suppose because it involves two of you.

So if he wants you and offers you something despite his already having promised it to someone else, it might feel very counterintuitive to reject that offer. Iyswim

It's definitely very complicated.

complicated, my arse

I don't see how any of this lets the H off the hook in any way

It doesn't, Sakura...we are just exploring the other side of it I think. Well I am anyway..(might be at cross purposes to everyone else!)

But Fliight if I had a £ for everytime I had heard/read that the DH was

1. vulnerable/depressed/emotionally immature

then had a

1. moment of madness/weakness/stupidity

after being

3.seduced/enticed/lured/tricked/trapped/conned/mislead

by the OW who is a

4.treacherous/malicious/evil/spiteful

5.Whore/slut/homewrecker/bitch

[delete as applicable]

Of course the OW is on dubious moral ground and of course it helps to deflect the hatred and anger onto someone else but so often it seems that they wife can only move on and forgive her husband if she absolves him of the responsibilty for the affair, in effect infantilising him to the point where in their eyes he had no free will.

If my DH strayed I know where my anger would be directed and it wouldn't be wasted on the OW.

Yes, Nancy I agree with you. It does seem often to happen that way.

Endupow , you say theres no need for his wife to find out, but yet she might. She might suspect something and follow him to your house. How would you feel if that happened and you were confronted by the wife and possibly the children ? Again not flaming just generally interested.

Also you say its not his first affair.Do you ever worry about stds , after all his wife could also be having affairs. My poor freind was infected with herpes from her cheating husband , obviously condoms offer no protection.

Maybe the OW who contrived and deceived with my H to destroy our marriage didn't think I would ever find out, my H certainly didn't think I would, they were so clever with their well rehearsed routines, he even said to me that he had no intention of leaving me ever, but he did just that once the s**t hit the fan.

They are still together and I question her morality and her compassion for others as she willingly entered into this relationship, with her eyes wide open.

Subsequently hurt not only myself but 2 DC as well, caused untold pain and sadness, changing lives in two families forever.

How can people say not to direct anger at the OW or that anger is deflected from the H?

I hate with a passion the OW, she is selfish and despicable. I have no time for her, nor do I care what happens to her or how she feels about the misery she has been implicit in causing, nothing can absolve her of that.

I hope she lives with guilt for the rest of her life, she will never truly be happy knowing what she has done.

My H is fully aware of how I feel about his whore/slut/scrubber/slag (many more names spring to mind) and he also knows how angry and disappointed I am in him to. No deflection going on here.