Question: Are There Any Ow/om Who Admit Fault In The Relationship With Their Mm/mw??

[littleflowerpot]

Originally posted by kiababy

My MM and his wife don't have any children - yet. That's the one thing I'm dreading hearing, I don't know why. Not that I would be anything but sweet towards any child/children they have - if I'm still around then.....

 

What makes me angry about my own children being treated like crap by my ex-husband's wife is: she met him after we split up - she knew he had kids and he knew she didn't like them. He went ahead and married her anyway. My kids are not nasty, snot-nosed terrors. My 14 year-old graduated in June with honours. I don't allow MTV in my house so they don't play loud music or talk like gangstas. They're smart, into computers, love the outdoors, love to play sports and are clean and polite. I dress them well and they have to bathe every single day and put on clean clothes every day too.

 

They're not perfect of course, but know how to behave in public. She was 30, never married with no kids when she met him. He treated her like a princess, takes her on all the great vacations I NEVER GOT TO GO ON DURING OUR ENTIRE 9 YEAR MARRIAGE......sorry, I'm angry and bitter at him and I hate her. Wow - I hate to confuse anyone - I sound like I'm the wife and she's the OW!

 

i broke up with my attached man (not married but with long-term gf). yes wives, i broke up with him. anyway, he didn't have kids and i seriously don't know if i could ever have been involved with him had he had children. i really do think that if his gf became pregnant during our relationship i would probably have ended it immediately. too many children get hurt way too often.

[fanou22]

Growing up in a small town, at times I would feel resentment towards my mom and her OMs. I used to think couldn't they have been more discreet. I had had a couple of arguments with my mom but knowing her she would turn things around that I am imagining things.

My dad was away all the time because of his job. I always wondered whether he knew. Unfortunately I would never know the answer to that question from his side because he passed away a few years back.

 

I had blamed my mom at times for my failure in my relationships with bfs. Being in an affair right now with a MM brings the sarcasm in me as in I am following in her footsteps.

 

I always have mixed emotions about my mother specifically. In a way I want to blame her and in another way I am old enough to make my choices and mistakes right now.

[BettyBoo]

There is a great website called http://www.bonusfamilies.com which looks at a lot of the issues you are raising here regarding children, divorce and and ex's new partners.

 

I think it is great when women irrespective of their status or involvment in any relationship can come together and discuss issues openly.

 

I am glad that everything worked out for you Supermom and yes the OW ( I never thought of her really in that way) did leave him alone . He made it very clear to her never to contact him. My main concern was for our marriage and it was his also ...so she really didn't stand a chance.

 

This all happened a very long time ago and yet it is a situation I would not wish on anyone.

[supermom]

i'm sure i know what you wanted when you started this thread. you wanted to hear how contrite we all are and wanted us to apologize for our wanton ways. for those of us that refused to do that (and why should we? you aren't our MM's wife), you want to call us out for being horrible, nasty monsters that go around wrecking homes and stealing husbands. but that pretty little package wrapped in a bow just isn't very realistic.

 

Little Flowepot,

 

This was NOT what I intended by this thread. I am really over what happened with my husband. I am the type of person that if I know that I do not understand something (and knowing this - by my brash posts before) I will ask questions.

 

I think you are being a little bitter, and probably from the bashing, but please do not jump to conclusions on this. I do have my views on the OW/OM regarding if they know, do not know, the situation (being married) before hand, but let me give you another thread of when I first realized how I really started feeling about this situation:

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t42680

 

This was awhile ago, I don't remember when I posted it though.

 

I TRY not to bash, but sometimes when I feel strongly about something I tend to voice is loudly.

[supermom]

i broke up with my attached man (not married but with long-term gf). yes wives, i broke up with him.

 

Why did you have to say that like that, like us wives are all attacking, winy bi+ches? Do you really think this of us?

 

We hurt alot when it comes to that is because WE took vows with the MM, and it hurts when someone lies about loving you. Just like when you OW's are hurt because your MM lied to you right? Well we are the ones to actually got dressed up, marched down the isle, said vows, did the "you may now kiss the bride" scene, had the reception, and so forth.

 

Thats why we tend to be bitter more....

 

Wouldn't you agree maybe?

[littleflowerpot]

Originally posted by supermom

Why did you have to say that like that, like us wives are all attacking, winy bi+ches? Do you really think this of us?

 

We hurt alot when it comes to that is because WE took vows with the MM, and it hurts when someone lies about loving you. Just like when you OW's are hurt because your MM lied to you right? Well we are the ones to actually got dressed up, marched down the isle, said vows, did the "you may now kiss the bride" scene, had the reception, and so forth.

 

Thats why we tend to be bitter more....

 

Wouldn't you agree maybe?

 

no, i wouldn't. i have been the OW and i have been the bride. my husband was a serial cheater (more times than he could ever count he now admits). it hurt, yes. but i swear to you it never hurt as much as the pain i am now feeling.

 

as i've said several times before, my attached guy wasn't married but had a long-term gf. they have no children. we were best friends for over a year before we became intimate. when i first met him, he was not my type physically or otherwise but as our friendship grew, the list of things we had in common also grew and i grew to love him. he says he came to love me as well. none of it matters since he has a gf that he says he loves and i know he will not leave (nor did i ever ask him to and there were several times they nearly broke up and i persuaded him to stick it out - you see, i'd never want him like that). i think if they had been married it might have made quite a difference for me. certainly, if she had become pregnant, i don't think i could have stayed as long as i did. but that in no way is a slam to other women that are in such a situation because i don't know as i've never been there.

 

as for the pain, when i broke it off with him i thought i would die. i absolutely do love him that much. and i know that some of the women here don't like it when we OW say we love them and i agree it should not be an excuse but i simply say it because it is true. i love him dearly. however, it was killing me and i knew there was no future but pain. i'm pretty young and i don't want to give many more years of my life for something that will never really be a happy relationship.

 

believe me, i hurt so much more now. you see, he is with her. he knows i cry myself to sleep every night but he cannot comfort me. he comforts her (even though she never found out about us). he holds her at night. he will father her children. she will be fortunate enough to be next to him when they are old and have grandchildren. she will be the one that is fortunate enough - yes, fortunate - to fight out the every day problems with him. i'd give so much for that to have been me. but it isn't. so no, i don't always think in every situation that the wife hurts more.

[morgana]

supermom - your ending touched me so deeply because it is so much how i feel. it's so hard to know that while you're crying that they can't be there. and what makes it so hard for me is that he's with her and she had told him that she didn't want to be with him. he didn't want to be with her. we wanted to be together and somehow things got f**d up and they ended up together and i ended up alone?!? a few months ago i lost both grandparents pretty close together (they were 95 so it wasn't a big surprise). he was away and was trying to "respect" his wife's wishes for not being in touch (i could be he couldn't, i know it's all i the way you look at it), but he said not being able to be there for me was killing him. and know that i think about it that's around the time he started to withdrawl more. maybe i'm imagining things or maybe he felt so bad about not being able to comfort me that he needed to start to distance himself until he figures things out.

 

i feel badly that you're in so much pain and i can relate so much. there has been NOTHING in my life that has hurt this much. i know it will never go away but i hope in time i will just get used to it being there and that i can get back to my life.

[littleflowerpot]

Originally posted by morgana

supermom - your ending touched me so deeply because it is so much how i feel. it's so hard to know that while you're crying that they can't be there. and what makes it so hard for me is that he's with her and she had told him that she didn't want to be with him. he didn't want to be with her. we wanted to be together and somehow things got f**d up and they ended up together and i ended up alone?!? a few months ago i lost both grandparents pretty close together (they were 95 so it wasn't a big surprise). he was away and was trying to "respect" his wife's wishes for not being in touch (i could be he couldn't, i know it's all i the way you look at it), but he said not being able to be there for me was killing him. and know that i think about it that's around the time he started to withdrawl more. maybe i'm imagining things or maybe he felt so bad about not being able to comfort me that he needed to start to distance himself until he figures things out.

 

i feel badly that you're in so much pain and i can relate so much. there has been NOTHING in my life that has hurt this much. i know it will never go away but i hope in time i will just get used to it being there and that i can get back to my life.

 

did you mean me?

 

i do understand what you mean. i'm not saying that i'm entitled to be what she (his gf) is. i'm just saying that because i'm not it hurts me so much it feels like i'm being punched in the heart every morning i wake up and i can't talk to him because it's over.

[morgana]

littleflowerpot - YES! my kids interrupted me in the middle of that message and i spaced. sorry!!!

punched in the heart is a good analogy, punched all over is probably more accurate. i had gotten so used to telling him everything that was going on in my life... it's hard not to talk to him and i know eventually i will call to see how he is. he said it was ok but i'm really try to make it as little as possible. does your MM know how much you're hurting or have you tried to keep it from him? mine knows since he ended it and got to hear me cry somewhat hysterically for a while.

just wish i could talk to him and see how he's doing..how they're doing and let him know how much i miss him. i know i can talk to him about the first two things but i need to try to keep all my feelings about him to myself. although the last few times i've hesitated in telling him i love him at the end of the call, he's said it first. i just hate feeling confused.

hopefully both of us and others will feel a little less punched as time goes on. i was reading some of the other postings in some of the other forums, whole lot more OW bashing going on there not that i'm surprised and i know there's a lot we don't understand about what the wives are going through, except for those of us who have been on that side as well. but i think they figure it's easy for us to walk away since the men were never really "ours" to begin with. i know it's nothing new to you but ... this is a lot worse than my divorce, or finding out about my exs girlfriend, or cheating boyfriends.....

[littleflowerpot]

i'm not taking away anything from any wive's pain because i've been there. i won't lie and say it didn't really hurt because God knows it did. i felt so ugly and so unloved. i'm not saying any woman, wife or OW has it harder than the other. i just think both sides have unique heartaches. i think it doesn't do any good to put any of us down. everybody hurts, you know?

 

yes, my MM knows how much i hurt. we have been involved for several years and for a significant portion of the time, we've tried going back to being just friends. unfortunately for us, it doesn't work. there have been LOTS of calls where i'm hysterically crying. i've told him exactly how i feel. i don't think he wanted to hurt me and i'm sure it hurts him to see me go through this. but it's just how it is. he loves her and i'm not her and that's that. i'm not sure what i ever was to him to be honest. sometimes i'm so filled with rage and i'm sure he just used me for a **** toy but then when i calm down i know that's not it either. we were friends as much as we were lovers.

 

maybe it's just me feeling sorry for myself (well, who else is going to?) but sometimes i feel that i'm the one that got hurt in the whole thing. she never knew about me other than we were friends and now he still has her. he's still a hero to her. i'm the one left out in the cold. they hold each other and no one holds me.

 

what makes me really sad is that i don't know if i'll ever be able to have a close friendship with a man again because i'll be too afraid to be hurt. plus, i feel all this guilt inside and i beat myself up a lot. i can never really understand when the OW tells the wife. i mean i DO understand the wanting to (because why does he get off looking like an angel and it seems he doesn't suffer anything at all) and i've fantasized about telling too. but then i realize i just can't. i don't want to hurt her like that and i honestly do love him and i don't want to hurt him either. so i just hurt myself.

[morgana]

easy to say, but try not to beat yourself up too much, you obviously have a lot to offer. i've spent a lot of time beating myself up this past week and no doubt will from time to time for a long time to come. spent part of my time on the phone with him asking him what i'd done wrong, what was wrong with me, was i not good enough, pretty enough....and feeling about as insecure as i could. kept thinking that it had to be me that if i'd done something differently or been someone different things would have been different. over and over he reassured me that it wasn't me, it was him and the timing. that he was the stupid one (his words). i know that those just could have been words to make me feel better, but i do think he meant it.

 

hard to know too that after being on his mind so much while we were together that at this point he may not be thinking about me at all. that he's focusing on her and not me. i'd like to think he still is but then i start beating myself up again and heading back down into that dark hole.

 

and there's the fact that i have one really bad habit when i start beating myself up... i ultimately end up at victoria's secret buying something i can't afford and telling myself that it's his loss that he'll never see it! helps for a bit anyway.... until i get the bill. collected a lot of stuff when my marriage was failing in an attempt to feel better about myself and now, i could be stranded on a desert island with my lingerie drawer and probably never have to do laundry. i guess what i'm trying to say is to take care of yourself, do something terribly decadent if it makes you feel better. but i know, sometimes it's just good to let it all out.

[littleflowerpot]

yeah, i do that shopping thing too and i'm really bad. at least i have a great new wardrobe!

 

yes, i know what you're feeling. i've been there. sometimes i'm right back there again too. for me, i just have to stop thinking about how we used to be. i have to make myself think about everything BUT him (which is sometimes impossible, i know). i think the truth is that it takes a lot of time. a lot of hurt, too, unfortunately.

[StillHurtin]

I am not OW, I am a W and I agree totally w/ what brashgal said. There is no excuse for having an A. The W is not to blame. A mm chooses to sleep w/ another W. He chooses that path and no one is to blame but him and the OW. I knew the OW my dh had an A w/. She worked for my dh for 3 years. She knew he was married. She knew he had children. She knew me. She tried so hard to be my friend but I wanted nothing to do w/ her b/c I knew she was after my dh. She was out to be my friend to get closer to dh (she told dh this and dh told me).

 

My M wasn't a very good one even b4 the A. I loved dh but it wasn't a good M. I was pretty distant from my dh b/c he was verbally abusive at the time. How can any woman want to sleep w/ a man that calls her a fat ass (I was only 140 lbs!). I didn't want to have sex w/ him. I even thought about filing for a divorce but was scared to be alone, scared of raising our children alone. He met the OW at work and was attracted to her. Not b/c she was attractive, or thin (she was heavier than me) but she paid attention to him. She made him feel good about himself. Well, if he didn't treat me like **** maybe I wouldn't of been so distant from him. He filed for a D and stated we didn't get along and was tired of all the fighting. A week after he filed for a D the OW filed a D from her H. Just b/c we were divorcing didn't give dh the green light to go mess around. He was still coming over to see me and was w/ me throughout his whole A. The OW knew this Dh told her, but she still wanted to stay w/ him.

 

They messed around for a couple of months and he came crawling back to me, begging me several times a day to take him back, he would change. We have been 2gether for a little over a year and things have changed but he still has that temper but he doesn't say hurtfull things.

 

I would don't blame myself for dh's A.

[supermom]

She knew he was married. She knew he had children. She knew me. She tried so hard to be my friend but I wanted nothing to do w/ her b/c I knew she was after my dh. She was out to be my friend to get closer to dh (she told dh this and dh told me).

 

Okay, this is the kind of s*** I am talking about when I hold some blame on the OW, when they fully know that he is married and w/ children (or not)

 

How old are these children and did they find out about the affair? If they did, how did you explain it to them, or did they.

 

How did the affair directly affect your children?

[StillHurtin]

How old are these children?

My children at the time were 9 and 7. Ds was 9 and dd was 7 (well almost 8, dh filed for a D a month b4 her 8th bday. She had to spend her 8th bday w/ her parent's seperated and going through a D but luckily dh and I were still on speaking terms and his parent's and us took dd out for her bday).

 

 

and did they find out about the affair? If they did, how did you explain it to them, or did they?

They knew about the A. I didn't tell them exactly that dh was having sex w/ the OW. I just told them that their dad had a GF and that is why he wasn't staying w/ us anymore. When they asked where dh was I told him w/ his GF or at the place where he was staying (9 times out of 10 he was probably w/ her.)

 

How did the affair directly affect your children?

I don't think it really effected them too badly. I know that they didn't like her at all and they would call her names in front of dh when he would come over to see them. He didn't like it, stuck up for her, but I let them say what they wanted, b/c I wanted him to know what they felt about her. The thing that effected them the most was having to leave their friends behind b/c I moved back to my hometown to be near family. I didn't want to stay there. I couldn't handle seeing dh and the OW 2gether. I had to get out of town and as soon as the kids finished the school year we moved. Luckily they adjusted well to their new school. Ds was in a class w/ a boy whom he knew (I was friends w/ his parent's as they are friends w/ my little brother) and dd was in class w/ her cousin, my niece.

[supermom]

Little Flowerpot,

 

Are you still with your husband? Do you have any children? Just wondering...

[littleflowerpot]

Originally posted by supermom

Little Flowerpot,

 

Are you still with your husband? Do you have any children? Just wondering...

 

no, thank God, i am NOT with my husband anymore. he was not only an alcoholic and a womanizer but he was also physically abusive to me and tried to choke me the time i finally left for good. i have one child but she is not his daughter and i had her after i left him. unfortunately like a lot of abused women i got involved with another guy similar to him (not a cheater but abusive) and he is the father of my child. i left him the first time his abuse shifted from emotional to physical.

 

i am also no longer with the attached guy i had a relationship with. we've been broken up for about 3 months now and i initiated the break up. i was and am still very, very much in love with him. he and his girlfriend of six years have no children and i believe sincerely i would not have allowed myelf to step across that line if they had. children are very important to me and i can't stand thinking of hurting them. i broke it off with him because i think i always knew it would lead nowhere and he often felt so guilty that i couldn't help but feel horribly guilty myself. i know it sounds like an excuse to say that we didn't just fall into bed together like it was nothing but it is true. we were best friends for two years before we crossed the line and became intimate. it happend on 9/11 of all days. he lives in nyc and i was visiting at the time when nyc went into panic mode. he was distraught for personal reasons and i was there and we let things happen that i know was a mistake now. my daughter knows him of course because he was my best friend. she never knew that he and i had a physical affair. i saw no reason at all to let her know that. i still think he is a good man and i know he loves his gf. we just crossed boundaries and once you go there it's hard to be just friends again. but he loves her and i'm not her. he loves me but he is not in love with me and he never will be. that was killing me. and now i mourn not only the loss of a man that i love so much but a friendship that i can never replace.

 

yes, i have regrets.

[ianniegirl]

Originally posted by littleflowerpot

no, i wouldn't. i have been the OW and i have been the bride. my husband was a serial cheater (more times than he could ever count he now admits). it hurt, yes. but i swear to you it never hurt as much as the pain i am now feeling.

 

as i've said several times before, my attached guy wasn't married but had a long-term gf. they have no children. we were best friends for over a year before we became intimate. when i first met him, he was not my type physically or otherwise but as our friendship grew, the list of things we had in common also grew and i grew to love him. he says he came to love me as well. none of it matters since he has a gf that he says he loves and i know he will not leave (nor did i ever ask him to and there were several times they nearly broke up and i persuaded him to stick it out - you see, i'd never want him like that). i think if they had been married it might have made quite a difference for me. certainly, if she had become pregnant, i don't think i could have stayed as long as i did. but that in no way is a slam to other women that are in such a situation because i don't know as i've never been there.

 

as for the pain, when i broke it off with him i thought i would die. i absolutely do love him that much. and i know that some of the women here don't like it when we OW say we love them and i agree it should not be an excuse but i simply say it because it is true. i love him dearly. however, it was killing me and i knew there was no future but pain. i'm pretty young and i don't want to give many more years of my life for something that will never really be a happy relationship.

 

believe me, i hurt so much more now. you see, he is with her. he knows i cry myself to sleep every night but he cannot comfort me. he comforts her (even though she never found out about us). he holds her at night. he will father her children. she will be fortunate enough to be next to him when they are old and have grandchildren. she will be the one that is fortunate enough - yes, fortunate - to fight out the every day problems with him. i'd give so much for that to have been me. but it isn't. so no, i don't always think in every situation that the wife hurts more.

 

 

I never quite looked at it the way you said it. You seem like such a smart girl and understand both sides. Hope you find someone that will love you only.

[supermom]

Thanks for replying to my question Little Flowerpot. I wanted to understand you a little better.

 

I too hope you find a good man who is with you and you only. Good luck. We all deserve it!

[littleflowerpot]

thank you both. that's what i hope for me too.

[supermom]

You know, I have to admit I've been on the OW side before, briefly.

 

When my ex and I were divorcing, we both had been dating our current spouses. Well after him begging and begging I gave in one day to shut him up.

 

Well yes, I felt guilty. I felt guilty for hurting my husband (then bf) but in a way, I didn't feel guilty for hurting his wife (then gf) because she did it to me and resulted partly in the destruction of my marriage. She was pregnant though and had a kid from a previous relationship, I felt guilty fo r them.

 

This was a little over 3 years ago..almost like a revenge thing.

 

Today - we are all friends. Isn't that weird? Our kids play together, we hang out, but I only hang out w/ his wife, and my husband hangs out w/ my ex. We're all over it.

 

I don't even really view my ex as my ex, just another dude. We didn't have kids together, and were only together for 3 years.

 

Life changes day to day. I never thought we'd be friends, infact, we've joked about it, but just like his wife and I have said - we're all adults now and the past is in the past. I have a wonderful husband and daughter now that I would of never had if she hadn't taken him off my hands so to speak.

 

The bad part though is this incident triggered the cheating incident my husband did after we were married. This is why I found loveshack in the first place.

[KnottedTummy]

Originally posted by StillHurtin

She knew he was married. She knew he had children. She knew me. She tried so hard to be my friend but I wanted nothing to do w/ her b/c I knew she was after my dh.

 

 

I'm assuming your H knew all of these things as well??? Married? Check. Kids? Check. Wife? Check.

 

Let's not forget who regurgitated those vows to you??? Not to be brash, but.... It wasn't the OW.