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.

No.

You don't need to be autistic to doubt what the best decision is. Every day people post about dilemmas seeking advice. I think that you are a good person OP because you feel ashamed of your behaviour. Now is the tile to forgive yourself and let go of this chapter in your life. We can never undo things we have done but we can decide to do better in the future. Take care of yourself (and block the twat) 💚

A woman who cheats with a married man can never be trusted, her apology will never be genuine, it takes a certain “type” of woman to deliberately put herself first knowing she could be hurting someone else.

Let it go. You’ve had 10 years of guilt, you’ve done your time. Forgive yourself. Anytime the incident pops into your mind, stop yourself, remind yourself that the past is long gone and tell yourself that you won’t be thinking about this again, every time. Move on,

I think women blame the OW because they expect more of women than the do of men. They set the bar higher. I say this because my grandmother's pro-male bias was extremely obvious which I resented as a child which has caused me to stop and think every time I see different standards being applied. It's very obvious with child killers.

Did you read the OP? Surely people can change to the better. I think the OP is one of them. I have done things I'm not proud of when younger. Things I would never do today because I have matured and my understanding of myself and others have improved so I know that people aren't good or bad. We are all capable of good and evil behaviour. Since the OP can't let this go and feels ashamed of herself shows that she has matured.

I confronted the OW. She said that she had been selfish (after i pointed out the age of our child).

I accepted that as admittance of fucking up. Good enough for me

Like others, if the OW in my situation messaged me with an apology I would tell her, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off.
ExH leaving was the best thing that happened to me. Without him having an affair and leaving I wouldn’t have what I have now, but I blame them both for causing me massive emotional pain, mental health problems, financial struggles, and long standing anxiety and mistrust. An apology wouldn’t be worth my time to even read. She can fuck off and live with her guilt. Hopefully it would be as painful as what they both put me through.

You behaved appallingly, the kindest thing you could do is leave her alone.

I appreciate that. My comment was mostly in jest. I hear you. OP needs to forgive herself, it has been 10 years, she’s paid her dues, nothing is black and white and I’m sure she believed it was more important than he was at the time. I’m not justifying her cheating but she should not waste her life feeling guilty.

Absolutely not.

As an aside does anyone remember the storyline in satc where carrie gets fixated on making contact with Natasha so she can apologise for the affair? She crashes natasha's lunch and Natasha, with utter poise delivers her a mouthful. An absolute standout scene.

@TheBlueKoala but unfortunately her behaviour is also something the poor innocents wife with have no choice to live with for the rest of her life, she selfishly made decisions that for all we know had a lasting effect not only on the innocent wife but perhaps children, wider family. Hopefully she’s learned and keeps it to herself and does not contact the wife just to ease her own guilty conscience. I also hope the wife got rid of the cheating husband. No some things the selfish guilty parties should feel shame for. Some people would just never be that stupid or selfish thankfully they exist and have a good moral compass early on, its just not in their nature so being young and immature is just an excuse imho.

My first thought was that yes, absolutely she should apologise.

But then I realised that, even if the OW knew he was married, the husband made out to the OW that he was emotionally free and open to a relationship with her. That he was actually available except for being married. Available for a relationship. He had the time and the emotional bandwidth to invest in dating her. With that comes an assumption that the marriage isn't that great, and that he might actually be available down the line.

I'm trying to express, badly, that it's the husband who looked outward at the world and invited a stranger in. Of course she should have turned him down, but we don't live in a perfect world. Married men are predatory and might well have picked someone who needed love and affection.

Has anyone on here ever had an OW actually apologise?

Not in my case anyway . Otherwise I would be serving jail time .

I think they often want to deflect the blame because it's less painful that way. A woman on here the other day was full of invective for the OW whom she would never forgive but thought the affair had made her husband a better man.

It's easy to do because our sexist society makes it much much easier to deride a woman for sexual activity than a man, even when she didn't cheat on anyone and he did. Way, way more sexualised slurs and stereotypes for women than for men, just for a start.

Yeah, I imagine an apology would ring pretty hollow after the enormous amount of damage an affair does.

I bet Angelina Jolie never apologised to Jennifer Aniston.

Yep!

I think you should just leave her be. Nothing good will come from contacting her and reopening old wounds now that she's free of him.

What you both did was awful, but you can't change the past. I understand you feel bad for the hurt you caused and that you want to do something to ease your conscience, but I think you should just let it go now. Block his number and move on with your life for everyone's sake.

I think it probably depends on whether they are really apologising for the sake of the wife, or to make their own conscience feel better. The way the apology is delivered more often than not betrays which is the case.

If the former, I guess it can't hurt to try. If the latter, leave the poor woman alone.

How would you know from the delivery which was which?

Well that would be typical of Carrie. She always had her own interests at heart and wanted to be a selfish idiot but at the same time be seen as the nice girl.

I don't remember the scene though!

Your feelings are irrelevant. Leave her alone.

Well it tends to come across.

When the apology looks to minimise and smooth over, it suggests a salve to the conscience - the kind of "So are we good now? Do you forgive me?" style of apology.

If, on the other hand, it is a "I was a selfish idiot and there isn't really an excuse and I don't expect you to forgive me" then it might be helpful to hear it acknowledged from the horse's mouth.

This sounds like an apology that is almost all about you. I can understand why you regret it and why you want to apologize, but unless, for some coincidental reason you are already in her life, this is a bad idea.

The chances it will make her feel significantly better are slim (you are not the cause of her unhappiness, you were her nasty ex’s tool). But the chances you will dredge up old wounds and make her feel all the worse for having stayed with him all those years ago are quite high.