To the OW: Would you.....

[BB07]

Of course not.

 

The very existence of the life crisis is what's making it impossible for many MM to make a choice. Until they have dealt with the issue at hand they are likely to remain on the fence. If they try to leave prematurely, they will probably just flip-flop between the wife and the other woman, being that they have not dealt with the real issue at hand.

 

 

Sounds like the ow.........just can't win because she waits and waits some more for the poor conflicted guy to sort it out and he obviously doesn't feel much inclination to sort it out because no one pushes him to choose because the bs is in the dark and the ow allows him to have both and fence sit. No one rocks the boat, maybe the two knowing parties are afraid to rock the boat because it would change everything and sometimes what is familiar is comfortable.

 

Just how understanding and how long should an ow wait?

[bentnotbroken]

Sounds like the ow.........just can't win because she waits and waits some more for the poor conflicted guy to sort it out and he obviously doesn't feel much inclination to sort it out because no one pushes him to choose because the bs is in the dark and the ow allows him to have both and fence sit. No one rocks the boat, maybe the two knowing parties are afraid to rock the boat because it would change everything and sometimes what is familiar is comfortable.

 

Just how understanding and how long should an ow wait?

 

 

 

Until he splits up totally and gets blown off the fence.

[Silly_Girl]

And it doesn't go away if a MM leaves and divorces his wife and ends up with the OM either. That crisis inside of him is STILL there and until he fixes himself, sorts it out, the cheating pattern will repeat itself.

 

Sometimes the crisis IS the marriage.

[BB07]

Until he splits up totally and gets blown off the fence.

 

 

Alright now........I spit tea all over my screen. :lmao:

[bentnotbroken]

Alright now........I spit tea all over my screen. :lmao:

 

 

Paper towel?

[pureinheart]

That's a tricky question to answer. I don't know that much about sex addiction. What I do know is that you can be in a relationship with any addict without enabling them, so I figure that must go for both the wife and the other woman of a sex addict as well as for the wife and the other woman of any other kind of addict.

 

As I said the affair brings the MM's issues to the surface. That's obvious when you read all the posts of MM and MW being torn apart by the dilemma of not being able to choose. The affair is in reality a sign of a deeper problem which the MP needs to deal with.

 

Ending the affair might unfortunately lead to going back to the old pattern of burying the issue until it rears its head again, often times as a new affair. Alas a serial cheater has been created.

 

Hopefully the pain of being in both the affair and the marriage leads to the MP dealing with his issues.

 

In my situation the M itself enabled (then MM) DM to remain stuck. DM's R with me forced him to look at his life and where it was going, and where he wanted it to go.

 

I wasn't his first EMA, although was his last. He saw a different side of life...he had been exposed in the past to life beyond complete and utter chaos, although he didn't know how to get there.

 

I just hate to see the demonisation that can happen with raw, hurt feelings...BTDT. Either way if a R doesn't work, then it doesn't. I feel good now, that if I opened a door, added a dimention to a persons life and made some kind of difference, then it was all worth it.

[Radagast]

I agree that the A itself helps to surface the issues, providing the MM (and whichever couple survives post-A - the A couple, or the M couple) with the opportunity to address and resolve the issues sustainably. For M couples who recover their M and for A couples who get together, if those issues are not adequately resolved, the very real possibility exists that either the pattern will repeat or the issues will resurface in some other (dysfunctional) way.

 

As I said the affair brings the MM's issues to the surface. That's obvious when you read all the posts of MM and MW being torn apart by the dilemma of not being able to choose. The affair is in reality a sign of a deeper problem which the MP needs to deal with.

 

Ending the affair might unfortunately lead to going back to the old pattern of burying the issue until it rears its head again, often times as a new affair. Alas a serial cheater has been created.

 

Hopefully the pain of being in both the affair and the marriage leads to the MP dealing with his issues.

 

And it doesn't go away if a MM leaves and divorces his wife and ends up with the OM either. That crisis inside of him is STILL there and until he fixes himself, sorts it out, the cheating pattern will repeat itself.

 

Of course not.

 

The very existence of the life crisis is what's making it impossible for many MM to make a choice. Until they have dealt with the issue at hand they are likely to remain on the fence. If they try to leave prematurely, they will probably just flip-flop between the wife and the other woman, being that they have not dealt with the real issue at hand.

 

I would agree with this description.

[Mimolicious]

You are right, life is quite unpredictable.

 

Who better to tell a BS how to handle the OW than a onetime OW? Hmmm?

 

 

Actually, how would you be able to tell that to yourself when you're rolling in the deep?

[Got it]

Stay in an A if you knew how the BS was going to act after D-Day? Or are there any OW who have stayed after D-Day where the spouse completely went ape shyt on you?

 

Here's the thing: I hold no ill will towards any OW on this forum as you are not the one that caused the pain and hurt in my life, however I do think that there are things that when and OW is in an A they do not consider.

 

First and foremost: For the OW out there that are single, without children and whom have never been married. One day when you finally marry a man, do you want to be on the other end of this? Do you want to be THAT BS? Chances are it's going to happen. Chances are when that does happen there are going to be innocent lives of children involved. Chances are those children are then going to end up screwed up because of the life shattering event called "My dad cheated on my mom and then my parents got a divorce."

 

Have you NEVER been in a relationship where you thought you were so in love with someone and then they just crushed all your hopes and dreams? That is what it feels like to be BETRAYED! Period!

 

Also, when you finally do enter a relationship with someone other than the MM that you carried on an affair with and after crushing another woman's life

her family, for stolen moments of lust, greed, selfishness, carelessness, etc. Are you going to be as willing to tell the man that you marry what you did?

 

All of the talk of HONESTY and how HONEST your MM are to you, when it comes time for you to be HONEST with the MAN that you marry, are you going to do that? Are you going to be open and honest with him about your past and what you did?

 

What you also don't consider are the moments that the BS and WS shared way before he met you. There was a bond and a love that created a union that was some how over shadowed by a WS selfish acts. I do believe that a couple can fall out of love with each other and cheating can take place, in those instances I can see where both would move on. However most affairs result in the BS and the WS trying to work things out, not for the sake of the children but for what it was that they had prior to the A coming to light.

 

Relationships are hard, they all are no matter what kind of relationship that you are in. So, with that being said, chances are as an OW, you will end up being on the other end as a BS sooner or later. When you are, how do you think you will feel? What do you think that you will do to protect what you thought you had in your marriage, your children and everything that you built together in your life?

 

I can tell you what I did.....I flipped SHYT on the OW! Plainly completely, flipped shyt! Not all or most BS's are the type of woman that is just going to lay down and let some other woman take over the man that SHE loved, HER husband, HER companion, HER confidant, HER father to her children, HER partner, HER soul mate, HER WORLD!

 

It also seems that most OW think that the BS is going to sit back and cry, be sullen, have low self esteem, and just walk away, not a chance in he!!. As a matter of fact, some BS, as in my case get a sense of empowerment because we hold the cards. We hold the key to the stay or go. We after D-day have a sense that WE hold his ba!!s in the preverbial purse, not you..... You can make all the demands that you want, you can put a deadline on what you think you want to happen, chances are....he isn't going to be with you and I can tell you why.

 

When a woman's family, whom she loves more than anything is threatened....we go on the defense. We can pull out our slutty clothes, langiere, do all the things sexually that we know he likes, because after all....we've been there a lot longer than you have and know a LOT more about his likes and dislikes than you do, same goes for cooking, and well just about anything about him. We can make him remember after the "affair fog" just exactly what is what about us that made him fall for us in the first place. After all, isn't this what all women do when we feel like OUR man is getting a little distant? We spice it up, we turn up the volume......

 

We will also fight for what we have, for our family and for the man that VOWED is love to us. We will tell the boss at your work even if it means that our WS will lose his job too. We will find out everything about you that we possibly can even if he lies to us, because deep down we know he is lying. We will attempt to make your life a living he!! as much as we possibly can because that is exactly what you did to ours. We will also make his life a living he!! if he chooses to stay for whatever reasons we can.

 

When MM chose to stay, they are subjected to many different emotions. He is met with love, anger, hurt, pain, betrayal, etc. The emotions run the gammit but he chooses to stay and deal with those emotions and then starts to become the man that we fell in love with all over again doing anything that he can and in his power to make things right. You have to ask yourself, where do you fall into this equation?

 

You will then be in the seat of the BS, wondering about everything that he said to you, every stolen moment there was between you, asking yourself if this was real then why would he do that to me, etc,etc. You then know for a fraction of a second what if feels like to be BETRAYED! You know what it feels like to have the man that you "thought loved you, cared for you, wanted you", lied to your face for nothing more than "something different", and you become nothing more than a bad decision in a moment of weakness because he does not choose to leave his wife whom after the fog lifts is the one person that he wants to be with.

 

 

Is this what you want for your life??? Why do OW choose to put themselves through so much sorrow and so much pain? Why do OW choose to put the unsuspecting BS through all of this for nothing more than something that is stolen, moments, glimpses and trists when the fact of the matter is....the BS has it ALL and more than likely WILL have it all after D-Day!

 

To the OP - I am sorry the pain you have felt but I think you are extrapolating your case and assuming others would be this way.

 

I don't fall into all of your criteria as I have been married but do not have kids. I also was with a WS that left and is with me so he did not choose to stay with BW. But if I end up in the BW role what would I do? Well I am financially set up so that money is not an issue for me in this which I know tends to be a huge concern. As with my prior marriage and then with any future ones a prenup was/will be in place so the fighting and figuring out of marital assets would be minimized.

 

To be honest, I do think each case of cheating can/is different. I know why I had an exit affair, what I learned from it and what I would and wouldn't do differently in the future and my talks with dMM have indicated the same. If he, for sake of argument, would cheat on me what would I do. I guess it would depend on the circumstances but I don't believe I would stay. I want someone to want to be with me, if I am not making them happy then I don't want them in my life. I do not believe in soul mates and believe that there is more than one person we are compatible with so I am not afraid of moving on. I love dMM a lot, find us very compatible but do not think he is the be all and end all and life will end if we do. I didn't feel that way about ex either. I do want those I love to be happy and so am glad when they find it (ex is happily remarried and doing very well. We are very amicable).

 

I disagree on the children factor. That happens when the kids are put in the middle of it. I found out when I was an adult my mother had cheated on my dad. It wasn't something discussed so I didn't know about it prior and my first and really only feeling on it was a frustration that they didn't divorce much earlier as it was apparent from the beginning they were not a good fit. But stayed in a volatile marriage and THAT did damage to the children.

 

If I end up dating others, would I tell about my relationship with dMM? Yes. I have told others, I have learned a lot of lessons about myself, life, etc that I am not afraid to share. It isn't something I see taking out a billboard on, as I am a private person, but isn't something that would be a deep dark secret.

 

As with my circumstances in my EMR and with my other relationships, I would take a differnt approach. I have no ownership over the person, I am not going to "fight to keep them". I want someone to want me and so I will walk away, if I am their be all and end all they will come after me. But I do not cling or fight to hang on. I didn't with dMM and I haven't with other men in my life. But I did hold power, as does each person in the triangle. I held the power to walk away as well. And I utilized that power almost immediately. We each can control ourselves, lay out the boundaries that we will accept, and take away the ultimate gift, ourselves and our love.

 

But that is it, the rest can be used (and in my case xw did use them) humilation, pulling in family members, work, etc. But at the end of the day that behavior and her prior behavior caused things to backfire. Because yes in a dday the BS is "in the right" but the marriage is more than the dday, more than the affair, and support may be determined based on that bigger picture. In my case BW had had her own affair, had not tried to create a relationship with his family, and had other poor behavior so when dday hit it was sort of the pot calling the kettle black and did not garner her support. And the behavior stated above by the OP was all behavior that alienated her and cemented in him that their marriage was done.