Wow, who knew the bar for sainthood was so low! I’ve personally found it quite easy to refrain from having sex with other people’s husbands.
The OP’s situation wasn’t a moment of weakness. It was a four year emotional and sexual affair.
Two Many Cats, I feel for you. Disrupting your family life to the point of actually showing up at your house was an incredibly shitty thing to do, and clearly that woman was vile. She was, however, still the very least of your parents’ problems.
I don’t think that anyone here has said that it’s okay to sleep with married people. It’s not. I maintain however, that you simply cannot ruin someone else’s marriage. It is not within your power. Even a straight up bunny-boiler like Two Many Cats encountered, as beyond the pale as her behavior was, was not responsible for the state of that marriage. That guy who kept seeing her, even after she showed up at his house to torment his family? HE was responsible. That woman who stayed anyway? SHE was responsible. Bunny Boiler was certainly responsible for her own behavior, but she didn’t crash that party, she was invited.
I don’t think anyone in this thread has said TOW ruined anybody’s marriage, only that she took part in something that typically hurt someone else very deeply, and was thus partly responsible for that pain.
No, TOW didn’t create the issues within the marriage that led to the cheating, whether those issues were dysfunctions of the relationship or the involved spouse just plain old being a lying, cheating pig. None of that is her fault. But her knowing and willing assistance in doing something shitty and hurtful to someone else is her fault, so people aren’t willing to give her a free pass.
We agree then. I’m certainly not issuing free passes here (please see above references to “shitty”, “vile”, and “responsible for her own behavior”). I’m just saying that even in that particularly bad case, where the woman in question was proactively harassing his family, I’d put the blame at about 95% his to 5% hers.
I think I myself would be more judgmental of someone who was cheating in their own marriage versus “the other woman,” but I’d probably consider them both to be doing something really wrong. I had one friend who once confided in me that she was cheating on her boyfriend with another guy and I hate to sound judgmental but it was really hard for me to really respect her. We’re not really friends–not so much for that reason but because she got really blame-y when I was sexually assaulted. But that’s neither here nor there…
Fucking someone else’s husband is bad. Fucking around on your wife is much worse. Got it. So… OP, how many of your friends know about you being the other woman?
I hope you aren’t referring to me with that ‘‘cast stones’’ comment, since my stance here on the role of the Other Woman has been moderate at best. If so, you seem to be confusing judging someone with ignoring the facts. I have no doubt affairs happen to a lot of otherwise decent people for a lot of different reasons and I’m not interested in casting any stones. I stated pretty explicitly upthread that I think too much blame is cast on the Other Woman and not enough on the person who violated the marriage contract.
However, the FACT is, to cheat with a married man IS a pretty universally recognized moral wrong… certainly morally wrong in my book. I am well aware the world is full of otherwise normal people doing shitty things, my issue is with those who seek to dissolve the Other Woman of any and all moral culpability on the basis that the affair is really between the husband the wife. It’s wrong. It doesn’t mean we should be branding people with scarlet letters, it doesn’t mean we don’t hold the cheating spouse accountable, it just means that cheating with a married man is wrong and it feels stupid to pretend otherwise. The OP herself has no problem admitting she did something wrong so I don’t understand why this rush to protect her from culpability.
As stated upthread, my Best Friend who I have known since fourth grade cheated on her fiancée Kasey (who had become a dear friend of mine during their four years together) and promptly broke off the relationship, moved out and left Kasey pretty much devastated. Best Friend had never done anything like this before, she was clearly unhappy with the relationship and the affair was a wake-up call to this fact. She felt 100% better after breaking it off and moved to Chicago with the Other Woman.
I care first and foremost for the emotional well-being of my friends. But I never minced words around the issue that what Best Friend had done was freakishly shitty. When Other Woman pushed to come to my wedding, I said she’s gotta be fucking kidding me. Kasey was a member of my wedding party and it was bad enough she had to sit through a wedding with her cheating ex at her side – no way in hell I was going to give tacit acceptance of the affair by allowing Other Woman to be there.
Best Friend is now married to Other Woman. They had a lovely ceremony which I attended wholeheartedly and I love and support them both. That said, I will never cease to feel that what Other Woman did was WRONG. She and my Best friend did something immoral that hurt the feelings of someone I cared about deeply. I’m not going to pretend otherwise so a bunch of people can continue rationalizing their shitty decisions.
IMO, there is a HUGE difference between someone cheating on a spouse and someone cheating on a BF/GF type relationship. I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt as much or it’s just peachy to cheat as long as there’s no marriage license to be found, but the stakes are not the same. In both instances, someone deeply hurts someone else, but in marriage there are other issues that come into play–like property and child visitation etc*.
Cheat on your BF or GF? You’re a jerk. You’re the chippie aka TOW(M)? You’re being a jerk too. But extricating yourself from that relationship, while painful and devastating, usually does not leave far reaching legal consequences.
Cheat on your spouse? You’re a jerk and then some. You’re the chippie aka TOW(M)? You’re being a foolish jerk. And there’s all the legal baggage as well.
I agree that no OW(M) ever broke up a marriage, but it’s kind of like that expression, “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” I’m with Chris Rock on this one: guns may not kill people, but they sure make it easy…
*Yes, I know kids happen outside of marriage and kids can be horribly hurt by the break up with mom or dad’s SO.
Well, I think if people are having kids with someone and you have a long term relationship but aren’t legally married, then that kind of cheating is definitely more serious than the more casual BF/GF.
How about, emotional cheating. Finding that man at work has all of your interests, makes your heart pitter patter, emails you all day long, shares views on music and philosophy and poetry and all the things that the wife doesn’t understand. That other woman is ok, right? As long as she had only his heart, but not his penis.
My marriage is very strange. I never talk about it, because it is impossible to explain. Open Marriage doesn’t explain it very well, but it comes close enough for this discussion.
The thing is, it wasn’t always an OM. When I met my husband I was a 15 year old Christian. After 3 years of him going at my mind like the jaws of life, he finally opened my mind to all kinds of new ideas, books and philosophies that changed my world view. I was no longer a Christian, and I was no longer interested in the idea of ‘marriage’ in the way that others mean it.
The problem is, there is a process that a marriage may go through, before a couple decides to have a so called Open Marriage. That process can be a long, complicated, intense and painful.
I remember putting my husband through a lot of heartache as he realized he would have to choose whether or not he wanted to stay with me under these new circumstances. I remember going through pain as he pursued other connections with women. It was quite some time before I understood that my husband if family, he has no interest in ever leaving me. It took time for him to come to that same understanding. In the mean time, other people were in the mix. It was not the other woman’s fault that my husband and I were changing our entire world view! She was damn near the victim.
I know for a fact that some ‘other men’ got hurt going through the ‘change’ with my husband and me. Now that my husband and I have completely worked out our understanding, and have been living it for 12 years, it is a lot smoother. But I still have ‘other men’ not just in the sexual sense, but in the emotional sense, that get very hurt, after becoming overly invested and discovering that I’m never leaving my husband.
My point of this long ass ramble, is that there was a years long process that we went through, on the way to our understanding. Times when I was the raving, confused, manipulative, mind changing, all over the map raving bitch wife at home. Times when my husband was the equivalent. And at those times, the other man/woman was not to blame for anything at all. They were outsiders that had no clue about the inner workings between two people that had vows to eachother. They can say, “Well, Nzinga, I don’t sleep with other men’s wives” and that is cool. Good on them. But the ones that chose to go ahead and go into the relationship that I was offering don’t deserve all the vitriol that people try to put on their heads.
Maybe some marriages are very simple. A man and a woman marry and promise to never sleep with another human and they never do forever and ever and they never emotionally cheat, and the children are never hurt in any way. But lots of marriages are extremely complicated, often very private affairs, and I don’t think outsiders should have to be responsible for how the vow keepers keep their vows.
For the record, if folks were just saying ‘fucking someone else’s husband is wrong’ everybody would be like, ‘ok, whatever’. But that is not what confuses me. What confuses me is the rage, the ire, the vitriol that the OW gets. Cause you know what I think? I think it is a personal emotional response, and it’s misplaced. Just my opinion.
Okay while I’m simply a beat cop (hated being a det) might i point out that attempts to bring in Criminal law are failing miserably here… Also someone considerably deeper than myself might want to ascertain while infidelity between tow consenting adults… (tech only on is being unfaithful) has invoked both rape, child molesting… and robbery??
Dial it down… a bit… and being the other person isn’t comparably to driving a get away car…
Well, I was at work for the past day, but I’m interested to see that the lively discussion has continued without me.
Some of the posters have accused me of being dishonest with myself, or trying to whitewash what I had done. That was not the point. If I wanted to hide anything, I would have posted it as a theoretical discussion, rather than coming out and saying “I did a selfish thing.” (I’m sure some of you will take exception to my use of the word “selfish”, that that isn’t strong enough; but bear with me, please.).
So I tried to be as honest as I could, given the forum. People asked, “Didn’t you feel guilty? How could you do that?” and I tried to explain my motivations (not excuses, just motivation). I said that I was selfish, thinking of myself, putting my own needs first.
So in answer to that, I got “Well, but how could you live with yourself?” How did you sleep at night?" And I tried to be honest about how you can rationalize it, how you can deny, how you can try to hide.
And in answer to that, I got “You are not being honest, you’re contradicting yourself.” And I tried to explain that, inasmuch as yes, that’s true, the thoughts and feelings were contradictory; that’s why it is so hard to figure out how I could do it, how I could stay, and how I could leave.
Some of the posters seemed unhappy with my answers and accused me of lying. I have no reason to lie, but I apologize if my posts were not what they were looking for. I have heard the phrase, “A lawyer should never ask a question that he/she does not already know the answer.” It seems to me that some of the posters are looking for a specific answer from me, and I have not provided that. I can only tell you my experiences, I cannot just tell you what you want to hear.
I did my best to answer the questions as they came up, realizing that I didn’t want to go into long, boring, rambling posts that would be too cumbersome for you all to read. I tried to be concise; perhaps I have been too brief and should have provided more detail. I was expecting mostly practical questions rather than ethical ones; as a matter of fact, I think I even said that in my OP. One of the posters mentioned his blond girlfriend finding long dark hairs in the shower, and being asked to not wear cologne. That was more the direction I was going for.
The fact that I am still disturbed by what I did, enough to create what I knew would be a controversial thread, tells me that I still have a lot of personal work to do. I am happy that others have joined the discussion and been honest with their personal experiences and opinions; I appreciate that very much.
In starting this, just wanted to make the point that this is a very complex issue, it is not as simple as “the wife must have driven him to it” or “he’s a pig” or “she’s a slut.” The fact that this discussion became so heated, with so many opinions, I think shows that it is more complex than that.
I think it is too. I think it’s totally a way for the cheated-on spouse to protect his or her view of the person who in reality betrayed them. It hurts less if you can blame someone you don’t know instead of the person you’ve been living with for several years that you don’t want to lose. That’s my theory, anyway.
Hell, I’ve seen that same amount of vitriol dumped on Other Women even if the man starts dating her AFTER he ended the first relationship. Even though she never violated anyone’s trust, she is automatically assumed to be some kind of evil bitch and everything she does is twisted to make her look bad.
I think it’s just how people protect themselves from such a shock as this. I’ve never been cheated on, but I’ve gone through these sort of mental gymnastics before to cope with betrayal by a person I trusted. It’s much easier to blame someone else than really deal with the loss of that person you cared about.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Nzinga. It’s easier to see where you’re coming from given that. I knew when I signed up that the expectation for my marriage would be monogamy, and it really IS pretty straightforward in my relationship. I don’t believe cheating would destroy our marriage, but it would certainly do serious damage. I’ve been attracted to other men before, men I know well and have emotional connections with, and I handle it by deliberately distancing myself and staying away from them. I can always tell when there’s a mutual connection and I do what I feel is the right thing by not even allowing the emotional attachment to develop. I’ve found it’s quite easy not to cheat even in the face of mutual attraction, but on the other hand I’ve got an amazing marriage.
Of course. I agree. I was just bringing up the whole legal mess that occurs when a marriage disintegrates.
Yeah. And I agree that it’s not all on the other woman/man, but I don’t consider the other woman/man to be blameless. The Chris Rock quote is a good analogy.
I did not blame the OW when my husband had an affair. She could have been anyone; he was unhappy and he made choices. If it had not been her, it would have been someone else. The alcoholic chooses the bottle of scotch; it could have just as easily been gin or vodka; same result.
He did, however, say he was justified in having an affair because of me. He said that “I had an affair because you’re a bitch” (direct quote). He never took any responsibility for his actions, which really chapped me. I mean, we had problems, and I’ll take half the blame for the failure of the marriage; but I won’t take it all, and I won’t take responsibility for his affair. He had choices, including staying in the status quo, having an affair, working to change the marriage, or leaving. He made his choice, and I resented him for blaming me for that choice. I made choices, too, but at least I own them.
Reading this, it’s hard to imagine why you found yourself attracted to a man who made the same choice your husband made. Seems like if I were cheated on, I’d just feel kind of angry in general at men who cheat on their wives. Did you ever make a connection between him and your husband who cheated? Were you possibly trying to understand your husband’s actions better?
You know, I’m going to be as honest as I can with this answer, but I’m sure someone will tear me apart for this. But here goes.
When my marriage broke up, I did blame myself for everything for a long time afterwards. Maybe I WAS a bitch; maybe I should have kept my mouth shut about his alcoholism; maybe I should have let him get away with being a giant man-child and just been grateful I had a husband. But as time and therapy went on, I began to realize that I would have been sacrificing myself and been miserable, just for the sake of not making trouble.
I realized that we were not compatible from the beginning; we were just too young and stupid to know it. But the fact that we were not compatible was not my fault, it was just a fact. I had lots of faults, to be sure, one of them being that I was afraid that if I did not marry him, no one else would ever want me; but I am at least aware of them and working to fix them. He, on the other hand, is still the same giant man-child as before. Nothing is ever his fault; if he loses a case, it was not because, uh, his client actually DID it - it was because the judge was an idiot or the jury was made up of morons. If he was late, it was not because he left too late, but because someone else slowed him down. If the marriage failed, it was because it was 100% my fault, none of his responsibility whatsoever. Again, I’ll take my half of the blame, but not 100%.
I can say that in retrospect, I am better off without him; but it is tough to be forty-something with young children who are looking to you for security and safety, all alone, with no help, and men are not exactly beating down my door. My self-respect and self-image took quite a beating, first from the marriage and divorce, and then from being single, alone, scared, and LONELY. Yes, I’m intelligent, funny, attractive, in good shape, and quite a catch, if I must say; but when two or three years go by of no dates, no companionship, no attention, no man giving me a second look - it’s scary to think that I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life. I still think I will be.
And then, here was a man, a very attractive, sexy, charming man, who was actually paying attention to me. To ME. The “bitch”. A man who actually enjoyed talking to me. Who listened. Who cared. That’s very heady. (Here’s where I say, this is not an EXCUSE for my behavior, but it’s a reason.) I was thinking of myself, of my needs, of my fears.
Do I think he’s a shit for cheating on his wife? Absolutely. Was he using me? Yes. Was I using him? Yes. The attention was very seductive (I mean that in a figurative sense) to someone like me, who was starved for affection. That’s what I mean by selfish; I was aware of his family, but I was driven more by what I was lacking, what I was missing, than my feelings of guilt or morality or right. I didn’t compare it to what my husband did. I just grabbed at whatever affection I could get. Kind of pitiful, really. I think it was worse because I was aware of it at the time and I still did it.
So eventually, after several failed attempts, I finally moved on, wanting to do “the right thing” and “be a better person”. And I’m still alone. Still no attractive fiftyish men beating down my door. I’m still petrified that I am going to be alone for the rest of my life. But I’ve done the right thing, haven’t I?
I don’t know how he justified it to himself that he could be with me; I would be curious to hear from some men who have done this, and if they take responsibility for it (new thread, anyone?).
Nzinga–I agree that no one on the outside can possibly know what the inside of a marriage is like. I don’t agree that “everything except his penis” is ok. Of the two, I’d probably prefer to be cheated on for sex, pure and simple, rather than emotional cheating or my husband’s desire for emotional intimacy with someone else–that would be salt in the wound indeed–in fact, that would send me to an attorney immediately, but I digress. That doesn’t make a one night stand OK or less despicable, just for me, it is more easily understood (not condoned).
I confess I don’t understand the ability to push aside reality (this person is married to someone else whose morals and agreements with their spouse are completely unknown to me) and just grab the short term pleasure. I’ve had married men come on to me–not blatantly, but enough to know that they were willing to do…something. I’ve been tempted to take a mild harmless flirtation one step further–that is, the thought has crossed my mind while flirting, but reality is always there. There is no not dealing with it. I just don’t get how people can step out of their lives and fuck around and then, what? 
I don’t understand the premise of entitlement–I want this, so I get it. It baffles me.
I think it makes perfect sense. Everyone can relate to feeling lonely and abandoned. Before I met my husband, god knows I made some dumb relationship choices where I look back and think, ‘‘What was I thinking? That was so not me.’’ But all reason was obscured by pain and the need to be comforted through a time of great sorrow. The best I can do is acknowledge my difficult circumstances and extend compassion toward myself for even feeling that desperate. And not make the same mistakes again, of course.
I can’t imagine this has been an easy thread to participate in, especially with all the discussion of ethics. So thanks for sticking it through and being honest. It sounds like being the victim of infidelity yourself is intimately tied to the choices you later made. I wish you all the best in healing from those wounds.