Was the OM or OW a predator in your case?

[road]

The rest of what you are saying is bull*****. She was in the "frame of mind" to cheat... probably for a long bloody time. Maybe she got compliments from 9 ugly guys and chose to screw around with the first hot one. Who cares how many guys hit on her first! The fact is that she wanted an affair in advance of having one. The fact is that she was out looking for an affair otherwise this guy would have been blocked and deleted on facebook long before the sex chat phase began. It doesn't take a philosopher to realize these actions are cheating.

 

She eventually would have found someone else.

 

 

 

To say his WW had the sign up open for business to potential OM is ridiculous.

 

 

To say she was hot to trot in advance without proof is pure speculation. I have not seen anything to indicate this.

 

 

We do not know and most likely will never know how many OM pursued his WW. Whether they had a better game or not. Or if his WW was at a low point in her life that made her weak enough for this OM.

[road]

VBM, how is your recovery going?

 

 

How can this forum help you next?

[SawtoothMars]

I am certainly glad that some of you know what i was thinking 32 years ago... Thank you so much for setting me straight.

I never realized that i had a sign on me that said "open for business"....and i never knew that i would have jumped into bed with anyone that gave me a compliment....(actually i always got a lot of compliments...were those guys trying to take me to bed too?) I never realized that i was looking to have an affair......I thought i was going back to school....not shop for an affair partner. I wonder why i waited until the second semester...hell...i bet i could have jumped somebody's bones the first semester..you know...since i was open for business...maybe i could have made some money on the side.

Wow you guys have really enlightened me.

 

You are welcome!

 

Bigman...go back through this thread and read some of the posts by sawtoothmars that have been made...not about me...but about VBM's ww and you will see why i have my dander up.

You are right...i am not usually sarcastic....i apologize for being sarcastic.

You are also right...i am looking back with reformed eyes.... eyes that have cried billions of tears...tears for my beloved for what i did to him...tears for the innocence i can never give back....tears for those i see suffering from the effects of infidelity.

I am now very wise and i wish i was still naive and innocent...and i will never be again.

I know everyone here is trying to help VBM...and my heart breaks for him....I am 32 years out...and he is just beginning and the road is long and hard .

Again I apologize....i can be feisty...lol I may be little but i can be tough....

 

Feisty is good. It shows passion.

 

Keep in mind that I lived through this kind of thing as well. I'm not bitter about my experience and I genuinely want to help VBM. He needs to be able to look at his wife and her actions with eyes wide open clarity or any reconciliation won't last. DazednConfused is an amazing example of this... he often didn't even use the term OM and instead referred to him as "The Slime"... then after 3 years... bam he finally gets this and can't continue the marriage.

 

I'm 35, and while I was married had very attractive women flirt with me all the time. Even at 20 I knew exactly what kind of behaviors could lead me into cheating... so I avoided them.

 

Can you really say that you didn't know you were starting an affair? Can you honestly say that you didn't think it would hurt your husband? Most people just want what they want and only care about consequences once they arrive.

[SawtoothMars]

To say his WW had the sign up open for business to potential OM is ridiculous.

To say she was hot to trot in advance without proof is pure speculation. I have not seen anything to indicate this.

We do not know and most likely will never know how many OM pursued his WW. Whether they had a better game or not. Or if his WW was at a low point in her life that made her weak enough for this OM.

 

It is a correct analogy and just a bit hyperbolic.

 

It only matters how good a guys "game" is... if she is standing on the court looking to play. Nobody could make her play if she didn't want to...

 

Do you really believe that somebody can make you cheat?

[road]

Forced?

 

No.

 

Enticed?

 

Yes.

 

 

Not preyed on by OM wife does not become a WW. VBM's wife was not the predator.

[lgspot]

It is a correct analogy and just a bit hyperbolic.

 

It only matters how good a guys "game" is... if she is standing on the court looking to play. Nobody could make her play if she didn't want to...

 

Do you really believe that somebody can make you cheat?

 

No! No one can MAKE.

Yet----In the wild, a predator will strike at those most vulnerable first.

We as humans aren't much different.....

[Mrs. John Adams]

STM...I can honestly say...I had no intention to betray my husband.....when it first started i thought it was just flirting....he was that kind of guy. He flirted with all the girls....

 

I am very outgoing and flirtatious myself....and i don't mean anything by it....so when he teased me...i teased back....I did not think it would lead to anything and i did not want it to lead to anything.

 

When he put his phone number in my hand...I then knew i was crossing a line into dangerous territory......and i should have thrown the phone number in the trash...i kept it. First red flag.

 

I did not call him...but i kept that damn number. When i finally called him and agreed to go to lunch with him...i honestly thought we were going to lunch...and i knew it was wrong....SECOND RED FLAG....but i still did not think it would turn into an affair. I really never thought about "an affair"....

 

Listen....i only dated my husband...and i got married at age 17. I lived a very sheltered life...i was a stay at home mom. My life was my family and my church. I am not saying this to whitewash anything...i am being very honest...my god i have poured my heart out...why the hell would i lie about it.

 

I think the first time "affair" came into my head was when i was waiting for him in the parking lot and he was late. THIRD RED FLAG......i sat there literally arguing with myself...just go home...what the hell are you doing?

and then he showed up and told me to follow him....i remember i was scared to death...i remember thinking this is so wrong on so many levels....but even then...i did not think i was going to have sex with him. I thought i was going to get into his car and go to lunch. It was not until i went into his house that i suspected what might happen....FOURTH RED FLAG

 

Do you understand how hard it is to confess these things? to know my precious husband will read this and hurt all over again?

Waywards who come here do so because they want to help...help you to understand that while you as betrayed spouses are confused and hurt...so are we.

 

I don't know that woman that had sex with that man....i don't know where she came from...i don't know why....

 

you want to know why? So do I.....and i cant even answer it for myself except to say i was only thinking of me....i put my wants and needs before my husbands, before my children and before my God. That is not the woman i was before...and it is not the woman i am now.

 

I am sorry if this causes anyone to trigger....especially you John.....

 

My story is bad enough...i don't need anyone else to add to it or dissect or to judge me. I have done that for 32 years.

[autumnnight]

Sweet, precious, brave Mrs. A....

Edited March 11, 2015 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Full quote and off-topic commentary redacted

[Mal78]

This post flew fast, I was only away a few hours.

 

I think it's easier to find reasons and justify why your spouse would fall "victim" to an A with a particular AP when by any other circumstance he/she would *never*.

 

To me it falls under the same category as, "I was drunk".

 

Its all about consent. Two consenting Adults, it's not rape. They (both parties) wanted to.... so they did. Period.

[lgspot]

STM...I can honestly say...I had no intention to betray my husband.....when it first started i thought it was just flirting....he was that kind of guy. He flirted with all the girls....<snip>

 

 

I am sorry if this causes anyone to trigger....especially you John.....

 

My story is bad enough...i don't need anyone else to add to it or dissect or to judge me. I have done that for 32 years.

 

 

Thank you Mrs. John Adams!!!!

You are a classy woman!

Flawed perhaps, but CLASSY!!!!

Edited March 11, 2015 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Quote edited for space

[autumnnight]

Yes, Mrs A, you are awesome.

 

No. Buts.

[Mrs. John Adams]

very flawed....classy...HELL YEAH! lol

[JohnAdams]

As you can imagine, my wife's post is very painful to me to this day. She read it to me before posting to ensure I was ok with it. It is the naked truth. Unfortunately as Badkarma has stated, attraction with opportunity is all it takes. In the early stages, I remember asking why? over and over. I feel bad for VBM and I can relate to him. My wife blames herself, not the om. Yet, I wanted to blame the om. You really do not want to think your wife could do such a thing without someone so evil conniving her. While indeed, he was an experienced player who knew exactly what he was doing, my wife made the final decision. She owns that. Some things in life just suck, infidelity is at the top of the list.

[beach]

A well paid private investigator provided all these bits of info to me.

 

Sorry, I meant to answer your question at the end of my post. Having all this information allows me to see all sides of what happened and to see the big picture of how things started, why they progressed and what really happened and when. It allows me to have empathy for her, to corroborate what she tells me as truth. And while I've not yet let her know this I do see her as a victim in part.

 

I think it's risky of you to have empathy for her when she cheated on you.

 

And I assure you - she's not the victim.

 

She was open enough to it to participate willingly... At least until she got caught. That's no victim.

 

And no - my exH didn't have a predator either - he had a willing participant.

 

That's all you need to understand about any "big picture".

 

I was M 23 years - got hit on all the time - but I wasn't "open to it" so I never "allowed it to happen" - hence, I never cheated even though I had a stream of constant opportunities.

 

Your W opened that door with purpose. She's far from a victim - and I wish you would stop thinking she is - that way she could be more responsible for HER OWN behavior without you minimizing it FOR HER.

 

Your killing your chances of true reconciliation by thinking this way.

 

Let her suffer consequences.

 

 

 

He was a predator and she was a victim if he raped her. Did he rape her? I don't see where she was raped - so is like you to consider what a victim really looks like compared to the excuses you're offering for her.

 

Have you worked on codependency yet?

Edited March 11, 2015 by beach

[lovinDKT3]

The OM in our situation was more of a sheep. Believe it or not it was a major part of the attraction.

[bigman1]

the secret to getting someone to cheat is easy. Show them attention, if they don't shoot you down, get more forward, if they don't shoot you down, go for it. Of course, its the same formula to get anyone to get close to you or in bed with you. It doesn't work on everyone you use it on, but it works on everyone.

 

Think about how you got in a relationship (legit) or a hookup. Break it down to the fundamentals. That's pretty much it. Attention, escalation, ask, seal the deal. The thing is, a married person is supposed to shoot you down or cut you off or both.

 

Susceptibility, skill, are part of the equation, but boundaries set the field of play. Like Robert Frost said, "good fences make good neighbors." This discussion, however, will not predict the outcome of VBM's deal. Even the most wayward can see the light and the most forgiving betrayed can call it quits. She can't undo what she did, he can't help how he feels, and they will have to muddle through as best they can, as everyone does. Good luck to them both.

[SawtoothMars]

STM...I can honestly say...I had no intention to betray my husband.....when it first started i thought it was just flirting....he was that kind of guy. He flirted with all the girls....

I am very outgoing and flirtatious myself....and i don't mean anything by it....so when he teased me...i teased back....I did not think it would lead to anything and i did not want it to lead to anything.

When he put his phone number in my hand...I then knew i was crossing a line into dangerous territory......and i should have thrown the phone number in the trash...i kept it. First red flag.

I did not call him...but i kept that damn number. When i finally called him and agreed to go to lunch with him...i honestly thought we were going to lunch...and i knew it was wrong....SECOND RED FLAG....but i still did not think it would turn into an affair. I really never thought about "an affair"....

Listen....i only dated my husband...and i got married at age 17. I lived a very sheltered life...i was a stay at home mom. My life was my family and my church. I am not saying this to whitewash anything...i am being very honest...my god i have poured my heart out...why the hell would i lie about it.

I think the first time "affair" came into my head was when i was waiting for him in the parking lot and he was late. THIRD RED FLAG......i sat there literally arguing with myself...just go home...what the hell are you doing?

and then he showed up and told me to follow him....i remember i was scared to death...i remember thinking this is so wrong on so many levels....but even then...i did not think i was going to have sex with him. I thought i was going to get into his car and go to lunch. It was not until i went into his house that i suspected what might happen....FOURTH RED FLAG

Do you understand how hard it is to confess these things? to know my precious husband will read this and hurt all over again?

Waywards who come here do so because they want to help...help you to understand that while you as betrayed spouses are confused and hurt...so are we.

I don't know that woman that had sex with that man....i don't know where she came from...i don't know why....

you want to know why? So do I.....and i cant even answer it for myself except to say i was only thinking of me....i put my wants and needs before my husbands, before my children and before my God. That is not the woman i was before...and it is not the woman i am now.

I am sorry if this causes anyone to trigger....especially you John.....

My story is bad enough...i don't need anyone else to add to it or dissect or to judge me. I have done that for 32 years.

 

MJA, Thank you for sharing that!

 

I will only say to this that you are not alone. We ALL are weak to these things. I have been in a situation comparable to your third red flag and luckily walked away. Monogamy is hard as hell, but if we want to receive it... then we must be willing to give it.

 

I do not have any wish to judge the repentant.

[lgspot]

I don't think anyone can question that there is plenty of blame to go around in an affair.

There are PREDATORS tho....

 

 

Years ago I was a member of a large wedding party. There was a guy who was also a member I didn't know. Was an old friend of the groom and groom's family. Worked for the accounting firm that did family's business, etc...

At the bachelor party and after the rehearsal dinner there was a lot of drinking. I heard this guy make numerous shady and off color comments about the bride and how he would like to get in her pants, etc... Now he had never met the bride-to-be until just before the wedding since she was from "out of town."

I thought then that the comments were weird.

I noticed he kept his eyes on her every time she was around.

Fast forward about 10 years and the marriage is over.

Seems accountant boy and bride had an affair....

There is not a doubt in my mind that the seeds of an affair (getting in bride's pants) were planted in this guy's mind from day one and, he plotted and planned for it all those years.

I don't know the full details, but I'd wager a goodly amount this guy schemed, waited, and pounced.....

Sure she could have said no. Yet a guy with the patience and persistence to wait close to ten years is devious....

And a PREDATOR!

Needless to say the bride was devastated and didn't really know what had hit her....

[SawtoothMars]

As you can imagine, my wife's post is very painful to me to this day. She read it to me before posting to ensure I was ok with it. It is the naked truth. Unfortunately as Badkarma has stated, attraction with opportunity is all it takes. In the early stages, I remember asking why? over and over. I feel bad for VBM and I can relate to him. My wife blames herself, not the om. Yet, I wanted to blame the om. You really do not want to think your wife could do such a thing without someone so evil conniving her. While indeed, he was an experienced player who knew exactly what he was doing, my wife made the final decision. She owns that. Some things in life just suck, infidelity is at the top of the list.

 

I wanted to reconcile. My xWife refused to even admit an affair. I actually stuck a GPS tracker on her car and caught them in a hotel together. She claimed the were just talking. She didn't want a divorce and fought me like a wildcat all the way through the process... it took 18 months of hell. All the way to the bitter end I blamed the OM.

 

So... I feel you. For me this has been nearly 5 years past. It can't hurt me anymore. All that is left feels like apathy... like a worn down, tired, and threadbare blanket. I'm not sure how far out you are, but I hope you never get to that stage, because as long as it still hurts, you still love her!

[HurtOfGlass]

That frustrated, product of a faulty condom was a desperate bastard. He wanted my ex-GF to break up with me. From what I have learned they had sex only a small no. of times. But why did my ex do it?

 

She fully admits she was caught up in the excitement of the forbidden. She couldn't stop.

 

But once everything came out, the sister's d**k asked her to break up with me. She refused. And broke up with him.

[Arieswoman]

To respond to the original question...

 

"Was the OM or OW a predator in your case?"

 

Yes.

 

The OW in my situation was acting out "little girl lost". Her parents were getting divorced, she was having problems with her fiance. My husband found her crying at work (he was her boss) he felt sorry for her ...cue the violins....they went for a drink after work.....etc etc etc.

 

Not all predators are overt. Some, like these guys, Anglerfish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia just dangle the bait to see what they can catch.

 

She saw him as a manager with a good job, living in a "nice" part of town who was a solution to her problems both emotionally and financially.

 

Having said all that he was the one who asked her to go for a drink, and initiated the inappropriate contact by crossing the management/employee boundary......

[2.50 a gallon]

No the OMs, note plural, were not predators, more like bumbling idiots, who had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.

This all took place a good 30 plus years ago. My Ex was the first woman to work in what had been an all male department. Most were married and ranged in age in their 30's and 40's. My Ex was total fold out material. She knew what she had, and while she did not wear anything to show off her great cleavage, she was used to wearing tight fighting clothes that showed off her great curves. She was also very brassy and exuded sexuality. For them it must have been a shock to have such a sexy 22 year old woman thrown into their midst.

At the same time, I was much older than her, 35 and also 4 inches shorter than her. Add to it I am also skinny and at the time, had long hair way down past my shoulders. They must have felt, as one of the husbands of one my co-workers regrettably said, "I don't know if he is a man or a woman"

What they did not know, was although I might have been short and skinny, I was a big time partier, a good dancer, and had great luck with the ladies. If I had kept score, my score would easily have been in the triple digits.

Once they succeeded in breaking us up, I turned the tables on them and went after their wives. You might say that they in a way turned me into a predator.

[Taramere]

I was cheated on years ago - but within the context of a relationship, not a marriage. The girl Arieswoman describes in her post sounds familiar.

 

I'd had a few problems - losing my job being one of the main ones. My then bf had this friendship with a girl he worked with. She presented as very sweet and naive but in what I felt was a very obviously fake, passive aggressive sort of way. Obviously I didn't say so to my bf as that would have just caused problems, but I did express concern about the friendship...especially as she had flirted very obviously (in a "little ingenue" sort of a way) with him in front of me. The pair of them had a shared history of mental health issues. It was a bit like a Peter Pan, Wendy and Tinkerbell triangle.

 

Anyway, he cheated with her and blamed me for being insecure about their friendship. When he elaborated on some of the conversations she and he had had, about me, before sleeping together, it was abundantly obvious that this girl had been chipping away at an already fragile (by that point) relationship. He wasn't a stupid guy. He was quite insightful in many ways, but he let it happen and I can only assume that he let it happen because he didn't value the relationship enough.

 

So yeah, there are predators who will home in on weak relationships. I suppose the question is really, what state was the relationship in at the time? Was it a generally good relationship that was going through a rocky patch, and that should be salvaged....or was the predator doing a "shark - the rubbish bin of the sea" thing whereby they put the finishing touches to a relationship that needed to be offed?

 

With the benefit of hindsight, I would say that the ingenue predator in my case fell into that latter category, so while she wasn't my kind of a person generally I wouldn't bear her ill will on that score. I was with a guy who just wasn't good partner material. Not for me, and probably not for anybody to be honest. At the time, though, as far as I was concerned I had this great connection with a man, that was going through a difficult patch (read "I was less able to tolerate the relationship's many inadequacies as I was in the normal course of events) - and this wicked predator had helped destroy it.

[fellini]

OP.

 

Like you I initially wanted to know about the predatory nature of the AP.

 

And while I learned that he was a known "womanizer" I also learned some really clear things about both of them.

 

First of all, the idea of predator is surely only a word that those who are looking on, would use. A predator doesn't think of himself as a predator. So there is surely room for interpretation. And I'd say the lines between predator, womanizer, and someone who has a great rapport with persons of the opposite sex can be easily blurred by perspective. One man's predator is another woman's comfort that no lines will be crossed. It is just this way in the workplace relations between the sexes. Of course there ARE predators.

 

That said. Here is what I learned:

 

I wanted to believe my WW's AP chased her down, initiated the first contact, the first kiss, arranged all the sexual encounters. I wanted to believe this because it helped me to not see my WW in a different light (let's leave out "true light" for now as that's equally problematic language).

 

And yeah sure, it was EASY to see him that way. He was, after all SINGLE and DIVORCE and hadn't had a relationship in 3 years - since his ex dumped him (after a year of "fake R" for her AP).

 

I've already talked about this famous hug he gave my wife from behind, catching her off guard.

 

But here is the meaning that I have managed to discern from this act, after a ton of gaslighting and trickle truth from my WS.

 

Yes he gave her a huge unprofessional (but not uncharacteristic of HIM) hug.

SHE knew she confused her emotions from this act with that of a close friend who she thought, initially was doing the hugging. She KNEW she was transferring the good feelings onto him and so didn't say to him "hey, what's that about?". But the fact is HE FOUND HER ATTRACTIVE and like all the attractive women in the faculty where they work he saw no reason not to hug her like everyone else.

 

My WW's mistake: and this is where I think you need to hear this right, her mistake was allowing herself to think that HIS HUG FOR HER was SPECIAL. I know this because the two of them even talked about it, and he said "No, it was just a hug, I like to hug"....... of course this is 1.5 years later and they are lying in a bed that she has made available because she wanted to believe he was hugging her "differently" and his telling her this, in bed, now, was not going to be accepted.

 

This womanizer AP was more likely than NOT, not expecting to have sex with my WW. Even if he imagined it in his fantasies, he knew she was happily married and with an 8 year old child and her husband was well acquainted with all their common friends. It was not his intention to have an relationship with a married woman. EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A WOMANIZER.

 

I understand this feeling. I've had it in my youth. It's lots of fun to be flirty and a little more than warm with people you believe are safe because you aren't really going to do anything with them because you believe them to be completely unavailable. Well something clicked in my WW and she began to put herself as much as possible into his sphere, getting more access to more of the old touchy, embraces, etc. She FED off of this. And he being a womanizer, managed to feed her.

 

Eventually he began to see that she was indeed making herself available. And he saw no reason not to play his part. I suppose he thought, hey, I really like this woman, I like her breasts and she seems to be really wanting me. - whatever story he told himself to accept her advances and play this out are his to own.

 

She tried to convince me HE did all the advances (and he did, once on board, do a fair share) But it was her that asked him to visit her in her office for holiday break "proper goodbye" i.e. huge hug and first kiss. And it was her that agreed upon the idea of going to his studio apartment for intimacy i.e. sex.

 

Now that she "owns" that she was entirely responsible for what went on, and can no longer use his "womanizer" character to explain HER ROLE, she is left with the only thing that she actually had: What kind of friend was he? He wanted her to believe they were good friends, that he cared a lot about her, that she mattered to him, that she was really important. But she deduced that if that were true, he would have stopped her from moving forward because he should have known an affair was not the way to solve their issues of intimacy. So this is the story she tells herself - that he wasn't even a good friend as she thought - and that interpretation is for her to continue to explore and clear up.

 

And until she does clear up that attempt to redefine him after the fact I will not say that she 100% OWNS her affair.

 

She has to stop OWNING what he did with HER and see ONLY WHAT SHE DID NOT DO TO STOP HERSELF. What she did not do to SAVE our marriage.

 

That is owning it. Continuing to seek out externals is for me, not owning something 100%.

 

But unlike some here, I think that processing an affair takes time, takes energy, takes massive self-reflection that simply cannot be achieved by sitting down during the hours, days weeks following DDAY, but is probably a project for years to come. Distance allows us to see things in the shadows that the blast of sunlight from impact simply does not.

Edited March 11, 2015 by fellini

[Confused48]

A bit different take...

In my case, the ex was the predator. She chose what she wanted and took it.

She used casual hookups to extreme----without my knowledge, right under my nose.....

 

Women do it too.

 

The "What if" game is not a productive to look at this or any problem for that matter.

 

What if (insert hot movie star name here) called me up and wanted to have NSA sex and would not take no for an answer? Did that happen, were those the facts? No, so see how stupid it is to play what if?

 

The facts are that he was all those things that made him a predator.

 

You kind of missed my point. Granted, I was not clear. What I meant was it does not really matter that the guy was a predatory. (I agree, he was). What I meant was your wife did not know that, so assume your wife's frame of mind, nice guy, good person, (except for cheating) possible soul mate. She is/was willing to betray you for that.

 

Aside from some possible remorse and minor consequences, nothing has changed. A year or two down the line as the memory of the pain and consequences fade and she gets bored again, you fall back to being less watchful, anouther con artist, or truly good catch, comes at her aggressively and what will be the result?