A Bs Point Of View

[Impudent Oyster]

I could understand a W "tolerating" it...AFTER a certain age...like 50 or 60...but come on.......a woman in her 30's or even 40's does NOT need to be subjected to an adulterous R for ANY price. I don;t care if the man is made of money. Money does not buy happiness OR peace of mind. I think once a woman decides this is her "fate" then she has pretty much given up on life AND her self worth.

 

This is a grandmother we're talking about, and she doesn't sound sad at all. If she wanted to sound sad she'd be wailing on an OW board about how her soulmate won't leave his wife because he'd be penniless and how she's just not worth it to him for him to give up his lifestyle. That's sad.

[Impudent Oyster]

Which I could understand WF.....a woman begins feeling insecure even in her early 30's about her man possibly finding a younger woman attractive

or more desirable.I could CERTAINLY understand this fear later on in life.

What about these women who are with these men when they ARE relatively young (30's or 40's) and stay with these men....wasting the best years of their lives on these cheaters. By that point..SURE..they've "earned" the right to live their life of luxury..but was the price REALLY worth it in the long run?? They have cars ,furs, vacations......and they have to enjoy it ALL ALONE??? Knowing their cheating husband is off with his floosy somehere?? WtH kind of trade off is that???

I 'd rather be a waitress at waffle house....making my OWN way..living with peace of mind and MAYBE the love of an honest man who comes home to me every night. It might not be paradise..but it would be on MY terms...and not some lying scumbags.

 

What makes you think she's enjoying it alone? I bet she's off vacationing with her friends, kids and grandchildren.

 

I bet she's having a ball, and probably doesn't care one bit where or what the cheater is doing. Again, good for her!

[serial muse]

It sounds like she enjoys the lifestyle he provides and has given up any hope that he will faithful. Maybe deep down so she does love him and no matter how bad he treats her she can't bring herself to leave. After all that time it is hard to admit to yourself that you wasted it on a person that betrayed you over and over again so her staying is almost a form of denial and stubborn pride.

 

I think there's a lot of truth to this. After spending two-thirds of your life with someone, I can't even imagine how hard it would be to do a 180 and decide to fully end that relationship.

 

I do respect the take-no-crap viewpoint, I really do; I certainly hope it's the one I'd take in her shoes. But I also know that I was pretty hard-line about staying with a cheater before I was a BS; and now I know exactly how easy that is to say when you have no idea what it actually feels like.

 

I'm not flaming anyone, just saying that from my own personal experience, it's pretty harsh to judge someone when you can't truly empathize; there are all sorts of subtle things that you have to be willing to deal with that aren't so obvious on the surface, and can really sink you. It's not just about self-respect, or staying with a cheater; it's about really accepting that you made an error in judgment, as Woggle says - and can you really imagine having the nerve to face that squarely after spending 31 years with that person?? Terrifying. I had a hard enough time divorcing my cheating husband of 7 years - that was 4 years ago and was only a fraction of my total life, and I still have trouble trusting my judgment in people now.

 

I hope I'd be brave enough to do it. I don't envy this woman. But I don't despise her either. Let her have what peace she can find.

[Woggle]

I divorced my ex after 2 years of marriage even though we were together much longer than that and it was still hard. I know I made the right decision back then but it is like a kick in the gut when you find out you have been investing yourself in a marriage that is nothing but a lie. It takes a long time to come to terms with that fact if ever actually do.

[serial muse]

I divorced my ex after 2 years of marriage even though we were together much longer than that and it was still hard. I know I made the right decision back then but it is like a kick in the gut when you find out you have been investing yourself in a marriage that is nothing but a lie. It takes a long time to come to terms with that fact if ever actually do.

 

Exactly.

 

Sigh.

[OWoman]

This BS has 'settled' for what she can get.

 

She's given up the idea of a real relationship, a real love...and has 'settled' for being financially secure.

 

That's her choice. I doubt that many BS's actually would agree with her decision...but given two choices, you'll always find SOMEONE who made the other choice.

 

Agree, Owl. It's not a choice I would make, nor can I easily relate to it as my values are different, but I can understand someone making that kind of call and she seems to be doing it with her eyes open, so strength to her.

 

Many MM also don't leave because of the loss of lifestyle that leaving the M would imply, so why should a BW whose lifestyle matters to her make a different call? She's probably considered the alternatives and found them less palatable than what she's chosen, so who are we to say that's weak or sad or wrong? It's her life, her path she's chosen freely.

 

(What I do find sad, though, is the way she felt the need to belittle the OW, and to stress how her H also deemed them "disposable whores", as if she needed to justify that she was somehow better. If that really was the case, and he was fishing for OW in a sewer, it would raise a question in my mind about his respect for women, and to what degree he respected her, and to what degree he was being honest with what the women meant to him. If she's at peace with it, cool - but then why the need to put down the OW so dismissively? If it really was OK to her, she'd be able to shrug it off without that kind of hostility. That suggests to me that she's perhaps not as cool with it as she claims.)

[serial muse]

If it really was OK to her, she'd be able to shrug it off without that kind of hostility. That suggests to me that she's perhaps not as cool with it as she claims.)

 

Very likely she isn't, and I agree that there's a bit of she doth protest too much. As I said, I don't envy her at all.

 

But wouldn't you agree that it's far ruder for him to have said it in the first place? He's the one betraying many people's trust, not she - and that includes the OWs' trust; presumably, most if not all of the OW he was with saw their relationships with him quite differently. Now that's despicable.

[Trialbyfire]

Went on a 'Women's Spa Weekend" this past weekend and met several women who I did not know. Weekend was my girlfriend's idea as I've been so down lately (she has no idea why). Anyway, sitting over several glasses of wine and some great conversation, the topic of men came up (as is usually the case with that many women). One woman (married 31 years to high school sweetheart) stated her husband was a serial cheater. Could not even control the impulse and I blurted out "Why do you stay?" I expected the same story as I hear here all the time......this is the answer I got:

 

 

Why would I go anywhere? Why would I throw away everything that I have worked so hard for and deserve just so some other woman can come in and enjoy it....He will never leave me and he will someday be too old to carry on the way he does. Every one of the women he has been with and got caught with he calls 'whores' and disrespects - I actually feel sorry for them because he uses them then throws them away - they are disposable to him but I am not!....he's been to counselling, I've made him move out a couple of times but, you know what, we have five kids, three grandchildren, a beautiful house, and he gives me whatever I ask for. He also knows after the last time I caught him cheating that I will never have sex with him again unless he uses a condom which I keep beside the bed. I had him transfer all the investments over into my name, I had him sign papers saying the house would be transferred to me if we ever divorced and I made him go have bloodwork for HIV and other STDs which humiliated him beyond belief (and he goes every six months now or he moves out)....and I gave him the choice - he could stay and love me or go and love everyone else. I won't be his victim - I'll leave that role to all the women who buy his lines and sleep with him thinking there is something at the other end. There is nothing! ....I am going to live my life and love my family and my security and he can either be a part of that or not. But the part he will never have, so long as he lives and breathes, is the confidence and knowledge that I still love and trust and worship him as I did when we married - every day he knows he destroyed that. I am the wife and mother....I am not going anywhere. If he hasn't got the guts to stand up and be a man and do what he promised to do, let him leave...but he knows it will be with nothing-and he has yet to find anyone who wants to take on the 'joys' of starting out with nothing with a middle aged, married man! At this stage in my life, I am not starting over; I am continuing on, enjoying all that I have worked hard to have......I have nothing to want for and that's how its going to stay!

 

----- she stays because this is HER life! SHE worked for it! SHE earned it! There was nothing about her that denoted sympathy or 'victim' ----- No bitterness per say, just pure fact that this was HER life and he was now but a small part of the BIG picture (kids, grandkids, enjoying the fruits of her many years of hard work, etc.) Her H's significance in her life was simply that he was accommodating to her wants and needs - and expected NOTHING from her in return as she had already done her part! I believe they get on well as far as being civil with each other - he dropped her off and was there to pick her up (in a beautfiul car I might add).

If she's happy living this way, good for her. It's her choice and no one else's.

[NoIDidn't]

What I think is sad in this thread?

 

This woman has taken control of her life and decided the important stuff for her own self, and yet we still have many OPs on this thread having the audacity to judge her for even that!!!

 

I bet you guys would be happier if she cried in her champagne at the Spa about her horrible, mean, nasty, cheating H. But no. She says she is doing just fine. She gets exactly what she wants. Maybe she isn't a romantic. I know that I am not. Only romantics get hung up on finding love and living at the level of infatuation that As engender.

 

Everyone that is focusing on the money portion is missing the point. SHE is in control here. He has nothing but a bunch of women that give him absolutely nothing but cheap thrills. Why all the judgment of her when its HIS doing? Not hers.

 

So what she has made what seems like an unpopular choice! If I had 5 kids, I would do the same. Why should I let others enjoy the fruits of my labor. The pride of my children's accomplishments. Sitting in the mother's seat at their weddings. Being estranged from my in-laws because of some ackwardness with the divorce.

 

There is so much more to life and married life especially than the OP will EVER see. EVER!! This isn't a square dance people! There is no dosey-doe-ing going on!!! This is her life, not a fling. And she seems quite sure in what she has and doesn't have.

 

I, like the woman spoken about, feel sorry for the women messing with this man in the hopes that they might be the one to get him. Now, THAT is pathetic.

 

Her view isn't as uncommon as you might think!

[imstunned]

I just think its a shame that its another thread that has turned into an opportunuty for BS & OW's to argue with each other.

 

Personally if I had been at a gathering of friends where somebody I ddnt know from Adam said all that she had to me - I would have taken it with a grain of salt. But - good for her if she is happy. So what.

[OWoman]

She didn't put them down, her husband did. She just told what he had said. It seems like she has no animosity one way or the other. At her husband or the ow.

 

Bent, I disagree. In repeating it, uncritically, she's putting them down. (She could have said, "he calls them 'disposable whores' but that's just mean and disrespectful!" indicating disagreement, for example.)

 

Of course, *IF* that is indeed what he said (he may have; he may equally not have made that statement but she chose to add that embellishment) then he is certainly being disrespectful as well. But either way, if it really didn't bug her she need not have repeated it. Repeating it in way she did, without distancing herself from it, suggests endorsement of the sentiment. And to me that suggests that perhaps she's not as OK about it as she's claiming.

[OWoman]

She gets exactly what she wants.

 

With all due respect NID, I don't think she gets exactly what she WANTS. I think she gets what she's chosen, and what she's prepared to settle for.

 

I think few people in life get exactly what they want - life is seldom like that and most of us have to make do with what opportunity and circumstance allow. Else we'd all live these completely unrealistic hollywood dream lives and no one would be cleaning the gutters outside on the fringes to make sure our lives stayed so perfect...

[luvmy2ns]

Man, the grapes are sure sour in this thread.

[OWoman]

Even if you are correct, why shouldn't she voice an opinion on the women that her husband is involved with. Even if I don't say it on here, my opinion of the ow in my situation is less than stellar.

 

of course she's free to do so. And people hearing her opinion are free to deconstruct it, as is happening here.

 

I don't think her choice is any more or less valid than any others. It works for her, and she has to live with the consequences and so would be best placed to know if it did or not. Only she knows the true costs and benefits.

 

My lifestyle is not based on material things, but it's also very important to me and I'd also think really hard about walking away from it.

[LucreziaBorgia]

Perhaps its just an example of a woman who enjoys the life she has and has no need for a man in it at this point in her life. Not every woman dies 'sad and alone' because they don't have a man. This woman sounds like she has a fairly comfortable life with or without this guy in it.

 

I think what people may be reacting to most is how this guy is treated at home as a result of his actions - and that he was shown the door, and like a good many MM refuses to walk out of it permanently. Another example of MM who don't leave regardless of what happiness they may find by leaving.

[OWoman]

All choices have consequences. We as adults just should try to make the ones that have the least amount of harm and pain for as few people as possible. I couldn't be happy knowing that the things that make me happy are at the expense of others.

 

Bent, while I can understand the sentiment, I think that gets into murky territory. How do you measure these things? How do you predict or anticipate these things? Long term, short term, known and unknown people... for example:

 

If one person is potentially being made unhappy through my actions, but my actions are simultaneously making several others happy, does that make it good or bad?

 

If my actions make one person a little bit unhappy (and they were unhappy to start with and would likely be unhappy in any event), but someone else very very happy - is that good or bad?

 

If withholding my actions made more people unhappy than my actions would make unhappy, would my actions be good or bad?

 

and... who measures, and who decides, whose unhappiness is greater or more worthy of consideration?

[KnownTruth]

Why would I go anywhere? Why would I throw away everything that I have worked so hard for and deserve just so some other woman can come in and enjoy it....He will never leave me and he will someday be too old to carry on the way he does. Every one of the women he has been with and got caught with he calls 'whores' and disrespects - I actually feel sorry for them because he uses them then throws them away - they are disposable to him but I am not!....he's been to counselling, I've made him move out a couple of times but, you know what, we have five kids, three grandchildren, a beautiful house, and he gives me whatever I ask for. He also knows after the last time I caught him cheating that I will never have sex with him again unless he uses a condom which I keep beside the bed. I had him transfer all the investments over into my name, I had him sign papers saying the house would be transferred to me if we ever divorced and I made him go have bloodwork for HIV and other STDs which humiliated him beyond belief (and he goes every six months now or he moves out)....and I gave him the choice - he could stay and love me or go and love everyone else. I won't be his victim - I'll leave that role to all the women who buy his lines and sleep with him thinking there is something at the other end. There is nothing! ....I am going to live my life and love my family and my security and he can either be a part of that or not. But the part he will never have, so long as he lives and breathes, is the confidence and knowledge that I still love and trust and worship him as I did when we married - every day he knows he destroyed that. I am the wife and mother....I am not going anywhere. If he hasn't got the guts to stand up and be a man and do what he promised to do, let him leave...but he knows it will be with nothing-and he has yet to find anyone who wants to take on the 'joys' of starting out with nothing with a middle aged, married man! At this stage in my life, I am not starting over; I am continuing on, enjoying all that I have worked hard to have......I have nothing to want for and that's how its going to stay!

 

----- she stays because this is HER life! SHE worked for it! SHE earned it! There was nothing about her that denoted sympathy or 'victim' ----- No bitterness per say, just pure fact that this was HER life and he was now but a small part of the BIG picture (kids, grandkids, enjoying the fruits of her many years of hard work, etc.) Her H's significance in her life was simply that he was accommodating to her wants and needs - and expected NOTHING from her in return as she had already done her part! I believe they get on well as far as being civil with each other - he dropped her off and was there to pick her up (in a beautfiul car I might add).

 

 

 

It sounds like she is actually very unhappy and mad. She is bascially settling for the life she has. No one should have to settle. If she left she might not have her "fancy Car" anymore, but she will have her self respect and a chance at happiness. What is worth more? Why would anyone want to have a man like that around? he would be kicked to the curb quickly at whatever the cost. Get a divorce! The woman ends up with half or all anyways... Material objects can be replaced, but not all the life you have wasted on your cheating husband.

[luvmy2ns]

Why do you think that grapes are sour. Adult women having an open discussion about a third party situation. It seems as if everything is civil. I don't understand why different opinions mean people are mashing sour grapes.

 

Because I see many OW bashing the subject of the thread, painting her in a pathetic light, and even refusing to believe what she has to say in some instances. I think that's due to the fact that the woman who is the subject of this thread feels victorious, in a sense, over the many myriad OW in her sick, sick husband's life, and over her husband as well.

[ConfusedGirl004]

LOL too funny...and what is it the ow does every night the man goes home to his wife. LOL it is so funny the ow does not interpret their own situation the same.

 

I wasn't mocking her....both probably cry themselves to sleep. The BS and the OW are both broken by the cheating man.

[whichwayisup]

It sounds like she is actually very unhappy and mad.

 

KT, so you were there with Katanya, heard the conversation, tone and all and decided that this woman that K was talking about is unhappy and mad?

You weren't there, so sorry to say this, you're putting your own spin on it and assuming this woman's life choices are making her miserable and she cries alot. Doesn't seem that way from what K has said about her. (See below.)

 

There was nothing about her that denoted sympathy or 'victim' ----- No bitterness per say, just pure fact that this was HER life and he was now but a small part of the BIG picture.

[Impudent Oyster]

I wasn't mocking her....both probably cry themselves to sleep. The BS and the OW are both broken by the cheating man.

 

Am I the only one who thinks this woman most certainly is NOT crying herself to sleep? Nah, no way is she doing that.

 

This doesn't sound like a broken woman to me, it sounds like a woman who got handed lemons and made lemonade. She's doing what she wants regardless of her husband, and that's exactly why she's happy.

 

Oh yes and let's not forget, she's not hurting anyone. This is a woman who can sleep well at night.

[whichwayisup]

She sounds like she's enjoying her life, as is her husband. Obviously they have some sort of agreement that works for both of them, so what is the big deal? I don't get why some have an issue with it, I mean wouldn't most of you OW like to have your MM have an open marriage, that his wife knows he's with you and she's okay with it? Or does that make it worse as knowing that he won't ever leave and be with you full time.

 

I mean no harm in asking this question, it just popped into my head right now.

[noforgiveness]

Am I the only one who thinks this woman most certainly is NOT crying herself to sleep? Nah, no way is she doing that.

 

This doesn't sound like a broken woman to me, it sounds like a woman who got handed lemons and made lemonade. She's doing what she wants regardless of her husband, and that's exactly why she's happy.

 

Oh yes and let's not forget, she's not hurting anyone. This is a woman who can sleep well at night.

 

 

LOL IO in the eyes of the ow she is hurting someone. She is blocking them from what they want by not kicking him to the curb because we all know mm rarely leave. They get kicked out. She is the barrier to their happiness.

[whichwayisup]

NF, you just answered my question...By allowing her H to continue to have affairs, have OW, all that does is solidify the OW's role as just being the OW.

[HappyAtLast]

a relatively intelligent woman. But, I thought I read that she had him sign over all of their assets to her, including the house should they divorce.

 

That being the case, if she truly has custody of all of the "stuff" in their relationship, and is truly happy with him or without him, why does she not divorce the lying dog and not further subject herself to the possibility of contracting some sort of STD?