Dear OM/OW

[Lachicauna]

I came to this forum because I wanted to know what goes on in the OW mind. I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse. What do you hope to get out of the relationship? Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any? I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God. Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn? I just want to know what you truly feel about your relationship with the MM/MW. I am not trying to attack at all and if I come off as if I am I apologize. I am just trying to get some insight.

[Angel1111]

First of all, I don't believe that God punishes people so it may help to understand that not everyone believes the way you do. Therefore, the motivation of burning in hell or going against God isn't really a factor. But I don't live in a moral-free zone, either.

 

I'm no longer in a relationship with a MM but when I was, it was because he did a great job of befriending me and then seducing me, and based on his reputation of being a good and honest man, I believed that he intended to leave his wife if he was going to be with me. That's called being pathetically naive. From the very beginning, it bothered me a great deal that he was married and I ended it with him within 2 weeks of the affair. But he was persistent and I thought that actually meant something. Again, pathetically naive.

 

I did know how much it would hurt his wife and kids if they ever found out about us and, as far as I know, they never did. At some point, you start to rationalize that you'll give it time to see if he leaves. Sometimes you justify it by thinking that if he thinks so little of his wife and marriage that he's willing to lie and cheat, then that's a problem between them. It's a whole range of emotional issues but the bottom line was that I lost respect for a man who was willing to behave as he did. Not so much that he cheated, but that when I wanted to end it, he continually dragged me back in apparently knowing he wouldn't leave his marriage. I recognize that I'm accountable for my actions, but so is he - and for the longest time, I couldn't see that.

 

Most women would faint dead away if they knew the lengths their husbands will go to to get and keep the OW. I know that if xMM had been my husband and if I knew how he behaved with the OW, I'd dump him. What he did to his wife was pure betrayal and disrespect. I'm not saying that she's a saint and I believe that she took for granted he'd never cheat -- but she has no idea just how badly wrong she was. Regardless of their marriage, I got out of the situation even though it broke my heart and one of the main reasons was because I didn't want to hurt other people. I'm not saying that everyone feels that way, but I did.

[Lachicauna]

Thank you for responding. I really appreciate it. How long were you involved with him and what kind of things did he do to keep the wife from finding out?

[Star_Bright]

I'll bite. (Ducking) At the time I wasn't thinking about his wife, he was in hot pursuit of me and there was a strong attraction and I thought more along the lines of, if he wants to explore this, it's up to him. Later on I did feel bad for helping him hurt his wife (and now I still do). But at the time I was only thinking of myself, and he was only thinking of himself.

 

Also I had a pretty negative view of marriage and thought it was a bunch of show and pretend. I think people break their vows, mostly the to love and cherish part, all the time, and exMM said that his wife treated him badly and they hadn't been loving to each other in a long time. I'm from a family where my parents have treated each other very badly for a long time and I don't think cheating (or divorce) is any worse, I really don't. I'm not saying it excuses my actions or my exMM's actions but if you want to know where I was coming from, well, there you go. I still think it's silly to act like cheating is the ultimate sin when there are many other "sins" that people commit towards their partner. Not that two wrongs make a right but just that if there hasn't been real active love there for a long time and the partners have become neglectful or mean-spirited or what have you then I understand how cheating can happen. (I also know there are people that have loving spouses and who cheat anyway.) In a strange way being involved with exMM has improved my view of marriage, which I know is ironic, but it has. Now I feel that it is two people vowing to actively love each other and put each other first. If one stops then it all falls down. To me it has nothing to do with a covenant or some sacred thing. Yes it is special in that hopefully it is only done once and with the right person, but all it is, to me, is a commitment or contract to the other person to always put their best interest first and to care for them and love them unselfishly. If I vow to do that to a husband one day and he goes and pursues some other woman, well, he is no longer keeping his vow to me, and I really don't see how that has much to do with her. If he was keeping his promises to me then nothing she did, even falling into his lap naked , would have made him cheat on me. HE chose it, yeah I would be mad at her for participating but really who cares about her, for me it would be mostly all about him.

 

In my sitch it was clear at the time and it is more clear looking back that exMM was very unhappy in his relationship and was looking for a way out. Does this make it right? No, but my point is that he was going to cheat, he was looking to cheat, not in a slimy way but in a "I want to find someone I can connect with that will help me find my way out of this mess" type of way. I wish I had not helped him cheat because it was bad for everyone involved, including myself, and I think that is the biggest lesson I learned from this. I'm not trying to be a saint or even an unselfish person; I think that in some ways everyone is selfish and so to me the lesson is that being a OW hurts the OW!, as well as the W, but from an OW standpoint it is just not a fun place to be. So to me the moral lesson is don't do stupid things that will end up hurting you. And usually that includes not doing things that hurt other people (like being involved in cheating with an MM). That's just my take on it. Wow I sure rambled on a lot, oops sorry.

[Lachicauna]

Thank you for the response Star Bright.

[Confused4Now]

First of all, I don't believe that God punishes people so it may help to understand that not everyone believes the way you do. Therefore, the motivation of burning in hell or going against God isn't really a factor. But I don't live in a moral-free zone, either.

 

I'm no longer in a relationship with a MM but when I was, it was because he did a great job of befriending me and then seducing me, and based on his reputation of being a good and honest man, I believed that he intended to leave his wife if he was going to be with me. That's called being pathetically naive. From the very beginning, it bothered me a great deal that he was married and I ended it with him within 2 weeks of the affair. But he was persistent and I thought that actually meant something. Again, pathetically naive.

 

I did know how much it would hurt his wife and kids if they ever found out about us and, as far as I know, they never did. At some point, you start to rationalize that you'll give it time to see if he leaves. Sometimes you justify it by thinking that if he thinks so little of his wife and marriage that he's willing to lie and cheat, then that's a problem between them. It's a whole range of emotional issues but the bottom line was that I lost respect for a man who was willing to behave as he did. Not so much that he cheated, but that when I wanted to end it, he continually dragged me back in apparently knowing he wouldn't leave his marriage. I recognize that I'm accountable for my actions, but so is he - and for the longest time, I couldn't see that.

 

Most women would faint dead away if they knew the lengths their husbands will go to to get and keep the OW. I know that if xMM had been my husband and if I knew how he behaved with the OW, I'd dump him. What he did to his wife was pure betrayal and disrespect. I'm not saying that she's a saint and I believe that she took for granted he'd never cheat -- but she has no idea just how badly wrong she was. Regardless of their marriage, I got out of the situation even though it broke my heart and one of the main reasons was because I didn't want to hurt other people. I'm not saying that everyone feels that way, but I did.

I could have put in Bold everything thing I agree with but the whole thing would be in bold anyway. I'm with you on every aspect of what MM/MW can do...This pretty much very similar to my story except I was the OM not the OW.

[Silly_Girl]

I came to this forum because I wanted to know what goes on in the OW mind. I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse.

 

My guy's wife had been cheated on first, and they were on the verge of splitting up. He did not BELONG to anyone, he was an individual with the choice to act, or not act, as he saw fit.

 

What do you hope to get out of the relationship?

 

Friendship. It shocked me when it turned to more.

 

Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any?

 

I know what betrayal did to me in my 8 yr relationship. I never once saw any correlation between their relationship, and mine. I believed she really did not love him. They had no children.

 

I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God.

 

God has no place in my life.

 

Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn?

 

If we're talking karma, I've suffered FAR more pain than I've ever inflicted.

 

I just want to know what you truly feel about your relationship with the MM/MW. I am not trying to attack at all and if I come off as if I am I apologize. I am just trying to get some insight.

 

I feel we have something true, and beautiful and natural. I believe he got married for various reasons, none of which were true love, and certainly not passion (they have no sex life). I believe it took a lot (including meeting me) for him to see the reality in his situation after many, many years of denial and self-sacrifice.

[Dexter Morgan]

Lachicuana,

Here is what is going on in their minds, whether they want to admit it or not:

 

MM

 

See MM

 

Want MM

 

Don't care about the wife as long as they get theirs

[Circular]

I came to this forum because I wanted to know what goes on in the OW mind. I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse. What do you hope to get out of the relationship? Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any? I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God. Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn? I just want to know what you truly feel about your relationship with the MM/MW. I am not trying to attack at all and if I come off as if I am I apologize. I am just trying to get some insight.

 

It's strange. I read this and it seems all the blame is being shouldered on the OM/OW not on the MM/MW. It takes two to make it happen, I wouldn't blame the OW/OM anymore than I would blame the MM/MW. Matter of fact I would actually go as far as saying the MM/MW has a greater responsibility than the OW/OM... all through this board you see MM/MW who have lied about their situations, said they were separated, getting divorced, leaving their spouse, etc....

 

As for the God part, you open the doors to one of the most hypocritical components to modern religion, which is that God is an omnipotent benefactor, yet when warranted he doles out 'justice', it's a tad contradictory for an entity defined as omnipotent. I'm more in the Karma camp, negative energy bequeaths negative response.

[hopesndreams]

I came to this forum because I wanted to know what goes on in the OW mind. I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse. What do you hope to get out of the relationship? Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any? I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God. Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn? I just want to know what you truly feel about your relationship with the MM/MW. I am not trying to attack at all and if I come off as if I am I apologize. I am just trying to get some insight.

 

If people in A's cared about anything you have written, they wouldn't be in A's.

 

It's all about them. Big egos, competition, lacking compassion and a broken moral compass. That about sums it up, in my opinion.

[MorningCoffee]

I came to this forum because I wanted to know what goes on in the OW mind. I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse. What do you hope to get out of the relationship? Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any? I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God. Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn? I just want to know what you truly feel about your relationship with the MM/MW. I am not trying to attack at all and if I come off as if I am I apologize. I am just trying to get some insight.

 

Well, I was drawn into my affair only after several years of being single after being widowed. Started out as colleagues, then after she no longer was a colleague, occasional casual lunch friends, then an emotional connection developed, then it became physical. All along the way there grew a conviction in my mind that her marriage was dead and would not last long any way. Although she never promised to leave or be with me, I just felt I was willing to take the chance for the happiness I felt would be mine if it worked out and she were free to be with me. She made no secret to her husband of who she was with and where she was when we were together (and his lack of objection seemed justification to me, that he did not care), but she did gaslight him as far as how far beyond 'friends' our relationship had gone. He was just in deep denial, I think. I figured if their marriage was so dead anyway, then that was his problem, not mine. And I felt she was the one with the vow to him, not me, so that was on her. She was responsible for her part in the affair, and I was responsible for mine.

 

I hoped that she would eventually be on her own and give us the chance to see if we could have a real and more normal sort of relationship, whether what started as a secret affair could actually go somewhere above-ground. I think a lot of people involved in affairs have that aspiration for them. Unfortunately, if LS is any guide, that chance to see rarely occurs.

Edited October 21, 2010 by MorningCoffee

[KarmasTestDummy]

My ex mm painted such a horrible picture of his wife. Then he built upon that with an emotional attachment to me of the woman he had always dreamed of wanting an never having. By the point it went physical I was already so convinced he was the victim of some of the worst betrayals and deserved so much more. He deserved me, a woman who was single and in love, and owed nothing to this horrible woman. My loyalty was to him, and in giving him the happiness he was coming to me in search of. If you stick around long enough to read into the minds of the OW you will see that manipulation and lies and promises of love and a future occur. We are rarely the seductress. If your husband has been unfaithful to your bond and vows to both you and his chosen faith then unfortunately that can only be answered by him, but know that it is often much more than just lust. There is a chase and often genuine draw to the OW he can't even explain to himself. Even when it is broken off he rarely can stay away longer than a few weeks. We are just human.

[Kismetly]

If people in A's cared about anything you have written, they wouldn't be in A's.

 

It's all about them. Big egos, competition, lacking compassion and a broken moral compass. That about sums it up, in my opinion.

 

Oh if it were only as simple as that .... we'd all go to Confession seek absolution implement a zealous no-contact policy and all would be right with the world.

 

I suspect that without exception the people who are involved in EMRs who write on this board have given their "moral compass" quite a good work over and while their decisions may not live up to everyone's "moral compass" and maybe not even their own, it's a journey and not one that is as flippantly and judgementally glossed over with a string of adjectives.

 

I would also add it's not the only moral perversion that one can find oneself working through in order to learn life's lessons - none of us are immune to those. I've seen some equally dysfunctional things in relationships - the woman who spends all the disposable/and not so disposable income on cosmetic procedures and to hell with making the mortgage payments, the man who drinks with his mates every other night and too bad if his wife is at home struggling to figure out how to pay the private school bills, do all the family/house work and hold down a job of her own. But those guys don't haveBig egos, competition, lacking compassion and a broken moral compass cause their not involved in the big taboo .. ADULTERY. Puleez. Morality is such a subjective judgement and I'm not convinced it's fair or appropriate to apply one's own version of morality on someone else.

 

I work in developing countries, in places where men still have multiple wives and women are often exposed to diseases like HIV/AIDS and other STDs. I have a "moral" view that men should respect their women enough to be using condoms, taking their sexual health seriously and women should be sufficiently concerned about staying alive to raise their children that they should demand their husbands practice safe sex.

 

The Missionaries and Churches have a "moral" view that the men should abstain from sex with all their wives and other woman unless their are procreating. LIke that's going to happen.

 

The local mob have a "moral" view that if a man has enough pigs and women have enough gardens they should be able to do whatever the heck they want with their families. How do you think taking the "moral" view strategy works out in situations like that?

 

But back to the question at hand.

 

I am really curious to know how you justify having a relationship with another person's spouse.

 

It's not really able to be justified. I personally was able to take my lover at face value when he told me his marriage had been over for a long time, he was working 5 hours away from his family and had the kids for school holidays etc. I think I kind of knew in my heart that it wasn't as clear cut as he made out and I think I also kind of knew in my heart that as far as his partner was concerned he was "working" away from home. But I was also with him a lot, so I heard him on the phone to her when he called to speak to the kids and it definately wasn't a loving relationship. I guess I just believed that given there wasn't any real need for them to formally separate (because he was already living away from home) I could understand why they had put off the part about formally telling the family and the kids. Yeah - niave I know.

 

I've asked myself a lot over the past few days "if I had known that his wife thought they were still in a committed relationship would I have continued this affair for as long as I have" and I don't know the answer to that.

 

[code][quote]What do you hope to get out of the relationship?[/quote]

[/code]

 

At first I just wanted the gorgeous friendship, then I wanted the great sex, now I'm going to miss the emotional intimacy.

 

Do you have any idea how much pain and damage your relationship has the potential to do to the spouse their child/ren if they have any?

 

Yes - I think I do. However, having said that, I think he and his wife did a pretty good job of damaging their own relationship and that with their children on their own and my contribution is relative in relation to the lack of investment they've made on their own.

 

I understand that the MM/MW is the one that made the vows, but marriage is a covenant between Husband, Wife, and God. This means that you are going against God. Do you not realize that you are going to reap what you have sewn?

 

In my situation they have never been formally married ... but I don't think God has a tick list for those who've done it the morally "right" way. I think he's probably just as cross with me for my judgement and failure to respect another woman's committed relationship. Will I pay for my decisions? Sure - we all do - every single one of them. I guess the pay off is in the lessons you take from the pay-back.

 

But the thing I have learned from this affair is that we are all vulnerable to wanting and needing emotional intimacy and if we're not getting it in our marriage or in our other relationships we'll take the easy option and find it where we can get it. The risk is that once you become intimate with someone it's very difficult to keep emotions out of the relationship and one or both of you are left wanting more ... that's when people start to get hurt.

[Star_Bright]

Lachicuana,

Here is what is going on in their minds, whether they want to admit it or not:

 

MM

 

See MM

 

Want MM

 

Don't care about the wife as long as they get theirs

 

Yep, this was pretty true for me at the beginning. (Neither me nor exMm were caring about his wife as long as we were getting ours.) I guess I should clarify that I didn't "want" exMM, as in, wanting to steal him away from his wife or wanting to marry him blah blah blah. I "wanted" him in terms of physically being with him. I'm not proud of it now but at the time I knew the physical connection would be awesome, there was just this electricity and spark, and I figured that if he was the one married and willing to cheat, well, so be it, and I wasn't out to try to get him to be "my man" instead of "her man" or whatever.

 

The problem is that he started falling in love with me, or I guess had been in love with me for awhile and I guess we were having an EA without me really knowing what that was, and that's when it started to be like what Angel was talking about. At first he was only pursuing me physically, or so it felt, but then he started really turning on the emotional charm. He would tell me he loved me and was leaving his wife and wanted to be with me... and in our sitch he did leave his wife by moving out, and she had found out about us, etc., and at that point I began to see how it was affecting her. I guess it was one of those "it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt" type of thing. But by then, it didn't matter because he didn't want to be with her anyway and hadn't for some time, but just went about it all wrong (with my help). As I said I'm firmly convinced my exMM wanted to move out anyway, I know he is still out of the house even though we are not together, and he has told me he is getting divorced with or without me, but that being with me made it easier and that he did love me. So. It's hard to think of the wife when they are not thinking of her. I think we have an obligation to do that out of basic human decency, and I certainly will in the future. But I think the MM has a much bigger duty to look out for the wife because he is the one who married her and the one continually cheating on her and telling some other woman he wants to be with her and not his wife.

[jennie-jennie]

I am a woman, he is a man, we love each other.

[jthorne]

OP, I think you will find that a number of OW's here either do not believe in God, or believe in what benefits them. Some have gone so far as to say that God owes them. Actually, I think I owe God, not the other way around.

 

It's a sense of entitlement that I do not understand. And it looks as though you do not either, hence your thread.

[Star_Bright]

OP, I think you will find that a number of OW's here either do not believe in God, or believe in what benefits them. Some have gone so far as to say that God owes them. Actually, I think I owe God, not the other way around.

 

It's a sense of entitlement that I do not understand. And it looks as though you do not either, hence your thread.

 

Huh? Weren't you an OW at one point? Or do I have you confused with someone else? If not then I don't see how you can say being an OW requires a sense of entitlement that you don't understand. ? ? ?

 

Geez I feel like everyone is ripping on the OWs in the OW forum today, including the exOWs (if you are in fact one, if not, my apologies for mistaking you). That's so not cool! If you don't have anything supportive to say then why do you come here? If I had read things like "OWs are all evil atheists with big egos who feel entitled to cheat" when I came here, I would have never come back. Luckily I didn't because there was a lot of good supportive advice that encouraged me to stop being an OW and I really needed to hear it then. You can tell someone you disagree with what they're doing or that they will be happier doing something a different way, without slinging mud at them... ESPECIALLY if you have done the exact same things we've all done! Shame on you.

[bentnotbroken]

Huh? Weren't you an OW at one point? Or do I have you confused with someone else? If not then I don't see how you can say being an OW requires a sense of entitlement that you don't understand. ? ? ?

 

Geez I feel like everyone is ripping on the OWs in the OW forum today, including the exOWs (if you are in fact one, if not, my apologies for mistaking you). That's so not cool! If you don't have anything supportive to say then why do you come here? If I had read things like "OWs are all evil atheists with big egos who feel entitled to cheat" when I came here, I would have never come back. Luckily I didn't because there was a lot of good supportive advice that encouraged me to stop being an OW and I really needed to hear it then. You can tell someone you disagree with what they're doing or that they will be happier doing something a different way, without slinging mud at them... ESPECIALLY if you have done the exact same things we've all done! Shame on you.

 

 

Shame on JT. Shame on all of us. If we never speak up and talk about the things we have done wrong, who will learn from our mistakes?

[BB07]

I started a pretty long drawn out post with details but it depressed me thinking about it and it was sort of reliving it, so I'll try to do a summary.

 

I was told he was separated........once in 2004, but "he had to go back because it was the right thing to do". So yes I was in what I knew was an EA for a little bit more than a year after he "had" to go back. It just about done me in, pain, guilt and I just couldn't handle it anymore so I walked.

 

In 2008, we start again and he tells me he is separated. I wait 8 months into the separation because I want to make sure that there isn't a repeat of last time. It's now a long distance relationship and my family obligations prevent me from seeing him much and he "says' he has a 2nd job on the weekends, so our time is very limited.

 

July of this year......the BS and I finally talk and I find out that the two separations never happened, the 2nd job was a lie, almost everything out of his mouth had been a lie. He was living a double life........me a night or two during the week, her on the weekends. He used the poor me stuff so much that neither one of us had made him accountable for things. EVERYONE that knows him, or should I say they think they know him, thought he was one of the nicest kindest man.........he is NOT, he is seriously warped.

 

So.....I and the wife got played, lied to, manipulated by a very twisted man. Yes........I was the willing OW for a short period of time, I own it, but.........I would not have crossed that line if I had known what I was really dealing with to start with. The hardest part is he made me the OW WITHOUT my consent or knowledge, not once but TWO times. It's a whole lotta crap to carry around and sort through. Basta^%d!

[Star_Bright]

Shame on JT. Shame on all of us. If we never speak up and talk about the things we have done wrong, who will learn from our mistakes?

 

That's different than just pointing the finger at someone who is doing the same exact thing you yourself did and saying you don't understand it. That's like if you were a bank robber, and then you turned around and said "I don't understand the sense of entitlement it takes to be a bank robber." Umm hello, you were a bank robber so how do you have room to say that?!

 

I can understand if someone who has never been an OW makes a statement like that, although I still question the usefulness of a statement like that that is obviously intended to put down and point the finger at someone who is here for SUPPORT. But at least that person would honestly be saying they don't understand it, or judging something they have never been a part of. I think it's different if someone who has BTDT judges other people for doing the same thing they once did.

[Star_Bright]

Anyway, I'm not here to fight, nor am I the LS police but the person who started this thread wanted to hear from OPs about what they were thinking or how they could have done something. I've share what I was thinking at the time and how I could have done that, that so I'll be on my way now. I hope there can be overall more helpful answers and along the lines of what the original poster actually asked, than judgment being thrown around, but that's just me.

[Angel1111]

Thank you for responding. I really appreciate it. How long were you involved with him and what kind of things did he do to keep the wife from finding out?

 

Off and on for 5 yrs. Whenever I would break-up with him, we would sometimes be apart for 6 mos or so. He's the owner of the company I work for and lives in a state several hours away from me. I had known him for 4 yrs before our affair. I liked him and all but in my mind he was married and I had no interest in him. He seemed happy to me, too, so I was very surprised to learn that they had actually separated a year before our affair.

 

They often say that relationships are all about timing. On the heels of a bad marriage just ending, he came along at a time where I did something I wouldn't have normally done. Having been with a verbally abusive husband and being emotionally traumatized by that, MM was the complete antithesis of my xh and was like an island in a terrible storm. This isn't a justification, it's more of a reason that I can see now in retrospect - I was beat up by life and relished his affection and attention and how nice it was to be with such a wise and centered man.

 

The first night we went to dinner, he described to me in detail what I was wearing the first day we had met 4 yrs before. He told me that he told the Div President in my office to hire me (we met before I worked for his company), he told me a lot of stuff I had no idea about. I didn't even know he knew I existed so this completely took me off-guard. You talk about God, it honestly felt like God brought him to me because I needed a person like this so badly, and he brought such peace to my soul. I always say that despite everything, how the whole thing was wrong and it broke my heart, he truly did heal my soul and for that I'll always be thankful to him.

 

As far as how he kept his wife from finding out, he would make up excuses to come to the town I live in. It raised a few brows because he was here a lot, and he barely concealed his feelings for me in the beginning. Personally, I don't know how his wife didn't know what was going on except that she preferred to tell people that I was the one chasing her husband. At a xmas party one year, he was around me constantly, the whole night, and she saw this, saw how he approached me and stayed by my side. It was pure denial on her part. There were thousands of emails between us that she would've had access to and although I was cautious about what I said, there were a few times he wrote things that left no doubt we were having an affair. Not to mention the sheer volume of emails between us -- that alone was a dead give away.

 

Honestly I think he wanted to get caught and wanted things to blow up. I think he wanted a big change in their marriage. I recall a company meeting we had once - at the very beginning of our affair - I was in town where he lived. There were a lot of people at the meeting and it was an all-day thing. As I watched them, I realized that if I had been a stranger, I would've never guessed that they knew each other, much less that they were married. Not once did they speak, walk up to one another, nothing. They didn't appear to be angry at one another, just cold and distant. I was quite shocked. What couple does that? What couple doesn't speak or stand near one another for an entire day?

 

After a few months of us being together, the signs were there, it was just a matter of whether she chose to look or not. There could've been a big blow-up but I never knew about it. If there was, it had no effect on him still wanting or trying to be with me. If I had not ended it, we would still be together today. But I don't see that as a compliment to either me or his marriage. He wants both worlds and I'm just not willing to do it anymore.

[Angel1111]

Anyway, I'm not here to fight, nor am I the LS police but the person who started this thread wanted to hear from OPs about what they were thinking or how they could have done something. I've share what I was thinking at the time and how I could have done that, that so I'll be on my way now. I hope there can be overall more helpful answers and along the lines of what the original poster actually asked, than judgment being thrown around, but that's just me.

 

Some people want and need to believe that the OW/OM is a villain - it makes it so much easier to explain how a married person could fall in love with someone else, how a woman or man could fall in love with a married person. They must be the devil, they must be narsacistic and functioning on pure ego. It seems to be the only explanation.

[jthorne]

Shame on JT. Shame on all of us. If we never speak up and talk about the things we have done wrong, who will learn from our mistakes?

Thank you, Bent.

 

Had my post been read carefully, one would have read SOME feel entitled. Did it say ALL OW feel entitled? No, it did not.

 

For myself, I never felt entitled, nor did I ever feel that God owed me happiness.

[Angel1111]

I could have put in Bold everything thing I agree with but the whole thing would be in bold anyway. I'm with you on every aspect of what MM/MW can do...This pretty much very similar to my story except I was the OM not the OW.

 

Well, you know, all my life I had no interest in married men - it just wasn't my thing to interfere in other people's relationships. I definitely accept where I'm accountable, and xMM didn't per se lie to me or make promises he didn't keep, but I do believe that after a point, he knew he wasn't going to leave his marriage. I do know from another source that he did consider it, but he ruled it out at some point. But I think as long as I was willing to be in that situation, xMM was willing to let me. I think it was as simple as that for him because our affair took the edge off his marriage. Now he has to deal with it on his own.