“She’s A Homewrecker” is a site where people call out other people as “home wreckers”. There are a few men listed but the site appears be overwhelmingly women calling out other women who have cheated with the complainant’s husband, boyfriend or SO, or in some cases a friend or relative of the cheated on party is doing the call out. The cheating man is often acknowledged in these bitter essays as being at fault, but the tone is generally the same level of chastising you’d give a dog for digging the trash, and the big guns and moral judgement are reserved for the other woman.
The site content is IMO an accurate reflection of common social attitudes where the primary blame in these scenarios is focused hugely on the other woman not the cheating man. There’s almost a sense that men, or at least their men, are passive helpless pawns in the face of sex being offered to them and the other woman is an aggressive predator.
Men are ethically and morally equally to blame in any scenario where their penis winds up outside the fence of the marriage. Why is there is huge tendency to treat the other woman as the main offending party?
It requires a low opinion of both men and women, for different reasons.
Women are frequently portrayed as evil temptresses and manipulative bitches, and women buy into these narratives just as much as men do.
Men are frequently portrayed as testosterone-laden dumb dogs who can’t control their sexual urges, and women buy into these narratives just as much as men do.
Add in the fact that people are loss-averse: If a woman values the stability of her relationship, and a man cheats on her, it’s much easier to blame the woman he cheated with than the man himself. If she blames him, that stability is shattered. She has to do something about it. She might lose her relationship. She must protect the status quo.
This is probably the same reason child sex abuse victims are blamed for their own abuse. Some combination of twisted gender stereotypes and preserving the status quo At All Costs.
Well I believe it stems from the idea that men lack the ability to say no to a woman who is willing to have sex with her. It’s really quite a sexist idea when you think about it.
Are we talking about married men cheating with married women or with single women?
In my experience the married person gets the lion’s share of the blame. Deservedly I would say. If both are married then it depends on the circumstances. Have small children?
More blame. Wife/husband supported you through school? More blame.
I have not seen the women getting blamed more, all other things being equal.
Nowadays men get the brunt of the blame, as can be witnessed by any court agreement in the last 20 years.
I’m separated and was paying 43% of my take home salary to my ex until recently, when I managed (after a year of court appointments) to get it reduced to a paltry 30%.
I’d always assumed it was in reference to the expected endgame. If a married man or women cheat, they are just looking for a little something on the side; something they’re not getting at home. If a single man cheats with a married woman, he’s just looking for sex. If a single woman cheats with a married man, she’s looking for a husband and is therefore intentionally setting out to wreck the home.
I don’t think these characterizations are correct, but I bet a good many people, especially in years past, did believe them.
Why else would you reference court agreements, how men are blamed, and how much you’re paying in alimony in a thread specifically about infidelity?
Also, is alimony usually allocated based on who is blamed for the end of the marriage? Do court agreements typically factor in infidelity? I thought alimony was about income disparity.
My impression from the OP was that the women being blamed as ‘‘homewreckers’’ are the women who cheated with the men, not the spouses of the men.
I’m trying to understand what the courts have to do with deciding who is to blame for infidelity. I know infidelity is a common divorce-related smear but not how it actually affects the outcome of the case.
I’ve learned through observation that people can be mind-bogglingly shitty to one another, and to their children, during a divorce. And I’ve also learned that court cases sometimes devolve into shit-slinging fests, but I always sort of assumed most of it was dismissed by judges as pointless shit-slinging.
My husband’s parents went through the worst divorce I ever saw. They divorced when his little sister was twelve, and were battling in court over custody until she turned eighteen. During the course of those six years, his little sister became a severe alcoholic and developed a host of other behavioral issues, and his parents were too busy fucking with each other to take care of her. I lost complete respect for his mother. I’m pleasant with her but I will seriously never forgive her for what she put her children through. His father was an awful asshole, but he at least had the decency not to put the kids in the middle. (The kids are all right - she just started EMT school.)
My general impression was that the judge was exasperated by both of them.
Infidelity was in fact the main reason for my separation.
We’ve been to court numerous times and the courts don’t ask that question, because, let’s face it, there are underlying reasons for infidelity which need to be pulled back like layers of an onion. The courts don’t care about that shit.
I have probably a more sympathetic view toward infidelity than the average person, it seems like a symptom of a larger problem in many cases and I am not inclined to villainize anyone involved, generally speaking.
Oh, don’t be sorry. I was the guilty party. But like I said there are underlying factors. I was totally guilty and assumed complete responsibility for my actions, and I stated as much to the marriage councillor we attended. But the councillor never once, in 4 or 5 sessions ever asked me why? Any comfort and compassion from anyone at that time was welcomed by me.
Hmm, okay. I thought of a reason that really has nothing to do with sexism. In fact, when I examined my own feelings, I find I tend to have less sympathy for the person outside the relationship who is doing the cheating.
It has nothing to do with viewing men as weak, but with viewing infidelity as a symptom of instability within a relationship. The people in the relationship are struggling to have their emotional needs met, and the person outside the relationship is exploiting that vulnerability.
I think this is a view that privileges couples over single people, and I’m not sure it is ‘‘correct.’’ But it is another way of looking at it.
I got involved in a sort of emotional affair with one of my best friends sometime last year. He was going through a divorce and I was extremely lonely and not mentally stable at the time, so we chatted online for hours at a time, dependent on one another to make it through the day. Because we’re both writers who dabble in erotic fiction, we talk about that stuff quite clinically, but soon enough the lines started to blur. I didn’t realize what was happening for a couple months, and when I did realize, I had a total meltdown and told my husband right away. He wasn’t angry with either of us, because he is a saint. I think it helps that the way I framed it was, ''I don’t want him, I want you. I miss you." When people tell me he seems like a sweet guy, I remember the moment I told him I had feelings for one of our best friends, and think, you have no idea.
But on the flip side, I have tremendous respect for my friend for never exploiting the vulnerability in our marriage. Even when he was emotionally bereft from his own loss, and even though he had feelings for me too, he always pushed me toward my husband, not away from him. He was in a very vulnerable place himself, but he still did the right thing.
Firstly, do not presume that your case is necessarily representative. Secondly, is the Court aware generally of your cheating? Just because it is not referenced does not mean it’s not something the judge might have at the back of his mind in making a decision. In every area of law there are some intangibles which may affect the outcome. Infidelity in a family court setting (in a jurisdiction where it is not otherwise considered) is certainly one of them, along with others.