Should OW apologise to the wife?

[owch]

If you are a woman whose husband has cheated on her, would you ever want / welcome an apology from the OW? Assuming the OW didn't end up with your husband.

YABU - Don't contact her. Don't open old wounds. It's self-serving.

YANBU - Say sorry. She deserves an apology and for you to acknowledge the harm you caused.

I'm not at all. My autism has nothing to do with that. I did know it was wrong. I was saying that my autism makes it hard for me to work out if she would want an apology or not. Now I know.

Unless the OW didnt know. In whichcase she doesnt own an apology. Then any apology is to ease her guilt not make the wife feel better

Leave her alone.

My ex cheated on me with OW and went off with her whilst I was pregnant. She was awful. Ringing me on withheld numbers and demanding I had an abortion because she was pregnant (which was a lie). She made the pregnancy utterly miserable.

Being my petty self (and probably hormonal postpartum), I cheated back with ex. Not because I wanted to get back together with him but because I wanted revenge. Worked as she ended up losing her job and getting deported. 😁

Years on, she still stalks me on social media. Recently she liked one of my LinkedIn posts from years ago.

I will never forgive either of them for what they put me through. She will receive a mouthful if she ever reaches out to me.

It's been over 20 years for me and I rarely think about it these days but when I do, that bitch can get to fuck

Write out what you would like to say then burn it/ bin it/ stick it in a postbox unaddressed/ post it anonymously online somewhere (with no identifying details obviously if you do that)

I think if I was the wife an apology from you would mean nothing to me. The only person to get closure would be you. Knowing that you were remorseful would not ease any anger I felt towards you and might stir up feelings I had got over.

I ripped her wing mirrors off her car....🤔 felt better.

Are you the wife or OW?

Nothing she could ever say to me would be worth listening to

Clearly the wife. What’s the OW got to be angry about?!

The wife (ex now of course)

I got an apology from both my ex and the OW. They've been together for 27 years now , married for 10. We now all get along fine, we even shared the same table at DD's wedding with no atmosphere. I think there comes a time when an apology is all that's needed to help put the past behind and concentrate on the future.

Too little too late is the phrase that springs to mind. It absolutely wouldn't undo anything at all, I say this as someone never wronged that way but my mum was and if my dad's partner tried to apologise some 30 yrs later what on earth good would it do, it wouldn't undo past behaviour.

Exactly this, its a bit too late for a sorry, you should have used your brain in the first place and thought about the marriage you will be destroying and the people that you will be hurting. There might have been children aswell.

If you're thinking of apologising now, its only so that you can make yourself feel better.

The fact she's got no wing mirrors.

Worked as she ended up losing her job and getting deported.

Because you slept with him again? How does that work?

I guess he's the lucky one, endless cheating sex for him. He's the biggest shit in the whole story though, so it's not very satisfying.

I'd assume that the OW was doing it to assuage her own feelings of guilt, not for the wife's sake. What good would it do the wife? Her life's already been turned upside down, and the OW played a huge role in that. (Not absolving her disgusting pig of a husband of the lion's share of the blame.) If I were the wife, I'd never want to see or hear from her for any reason at all. I'd hope she felt guilty, but I wouldn't want feel obliged to accept her apology in any way (including by hearing her out).

You were shagging him while she was pregnant. I’d leave it be.

So why do you feel the need to say sorry? You’re relieved it didn’t work out yet you kept in contact with him (and vice versa). If you were genuinely sorry you’d of butted out their marriage and never spoke to him again.

I think women blame the OW because they don't want to blame their husband. But unfortunately the OW has been played, lied to and disrespected too.
I know a man who has tried it on with virtually everyone. Eventually someone fragile, going through a difficult time, believed his lies and got involved with him. His wife found out and she blames the OW entirely. I feel equally sorry for both women but only one sees the truth.

The husband is the one who should apologise, the other woman has made no commitments or promises to you.

My husband left me for the OW, who he then had 3 kids with and married about 7 years after he left me. She knew me, she knew and had spent time with our then very young baby and yet she still went ahead and shagged him although he was of course just as culpable. She then left him with the 3 kids they had created together. She was just as vile as him and even wrote me a letter telling me what a terrible person i was event though the only thing i wanted was for my ex to see his child and pay me some child support and he was doing neither. Sometimes I wonder if she looks back and feels any sense of shame or regret, but were she to contact me and express any contrition or remorse I would ignore it as I would any similar communucation from him. Also realistically, it would never happen

Can you hear how stupid that sounds? He was the one who betrayed you, he was the one with (or should have had) loyalty to you and yet you were concerned with getting revenge on her!! What about him?

You would only be doing it to relieve your own guilt. And I would be telling you to fuck the fuck off

yep

Way too little way too late