I don’t understand how people claim the affair partner is blameless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not understand the cognitive dissonance that leads a betrayed spouse to vilify one party in their betrayal while continuing to have sex with the other party. That makes no sense to me. If you believe the spouse can be forgiven then obviously the AP didn’t do you such a bad turn that you’re not literally having sex with the person who brought them into your life.

Betrayed spouses who leave there cheaters and continue to hate both parties seem at least consistent to me.

And if you say “but I love my husband/wife!” then you’re admitting the pre-existing relationship matters, and therefore the AP— with no existing relationship with you— is off the hook.

Never cheated myself but have seen a few adulterous situations unfold in our social group. Much easier to keep the spouses who left the cheaters than deal with the hypocrisy of the ones who didn’t.

So you find people who experience biologically pre-ordained anger at mate-poachers to be so hypocritical that you kick them out of your social group?

What I do not understand is judging people on how they feel after being traumatized. That's a weird hobby. Do you also spend time judging people for how they react to other types of abuse?

Not how they feel. How they behave.

If your “biologically pre-ordained” anger leads you to vilify someone you don’t know for not caring about the impact of their behavior on you, but sleep with and pay bills for the other party who also didn’t care about the impact of that same behavior on you, and should reasonably have been expected to, I don’t want to hear about how the AP is such an irredeemable monster but we should all keep inviting your spouse to events.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[Anonymous]

I’ve been the AP. The husband said he was in an open marriage. I didn’t owe her anything. I was a consenting adult with a grown man making the choice for himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh for goodness sake. A betrayed spouse has every right to be angry that there are humans in the world that get involved with married people with families. Yes 95 percent goes to the cheater, but it’s ok as a society and as a hurt person to let someone know the impact of their choices. They may not care. That’s on them.

In terms of social circles, the previous post is really strange. Betrayed spouses who choose to do the extremely hard work of working on the marriage and healing do not deserve anyone’s judgment or wrath.

The AP is not in a relationship with the Betrayed spouse but that doesn’t mean she is immune from the impact of her decisions.

It’s kind of ridiculous to expect the AP to care about the BW when the BW very clearly would bludgeon and kill the OW if she could. Despite the pain that would undoubtedly cause other people in the OW’s life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my ex-spouse cheated, I asked how he would feel if another guy came into his family home and screwed his wife. Like, seriously, his kids, his house, his domain. He has a serious breakdown upon confession and agreed he felt awful and, yes, he was sorry.

I just don’t think cheaters have empathy or are capable of putting themselves in other people’s shoes. The OM of OW simply does not care about the spouses/kids or fall out/harm it will cause. They are very self-centered. And, yeah, that part makes me angry. I get angry at people that knowingly do thing they know will cause someone else harm. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I’m not religious, but believe in this simple golden rule I’m society.

And yet when it comes to looking out for your family’s interests you are most probably every man/woman/family for themselves. The OW is no different. She is looking out for her own interests as she perceives them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my sister was on OLD she ended up going out with LOTS of married men. Every single one of them said they had an "open marriage" ...

Bullllllllshirt.

The anger I've seen poured out at the "other woman" is completely unwarrented.

Even in this thread, using terms like "pump and dump" and I've seen in other places "Cum dumpsters" and "trash humans" or a "warm hole" ... wow.

Is there no compassion for people here? I mean, even in this thread about nobody in particular the women are being demonized.

Of course it isn't right to sleep with somebody else's spouse. But the real villian is your spouse. Not the AP. I'm not saying they are blameless, but they are not for you to blame. Your marriage, your spouse, and your actions are the only things that you need to focus on. Not the AP. Because it is your spouse seeking to cheat on you. The person sleeping with your spouse has their own sh!t to work on, for sure, and possibly their own work on their marriage or relationship. But they are not to blame for anything going wrong in your marriage. Not a thing. Whomever said the AP is a placeholder is right. They are so irrelevant to your marital problems.

What kind of call to feminism is it to critique BW for directing some blame at OW who may have been actively trying to break up her marriage? "To blame" someone doesn't actually do anything to them. It doesn't shorten their life expectancy, cost them money or a job or a relationship. It's just a feeling. A very natural feeling. OW are allowed to be hot messes with sh!t to work on . . . but BW must be stoic automatons who discover an affair and then smile benevolently at all involved? That is a weird double standard. If she dares to have *feelings* about this OW rather than forgetting her existence in a millisecond, then she must be failing to blame her husband, right? No human brain could possibly entertain both trains of thought at the same time, could it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been the AP. The husband said he was in an open marriage. I didn’t owe her anything. I was a consenting adult with a grown man making the choice for himself.

Pretty much this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my sister was on OLD she ended up going out with LOTS of married men. Every single one of them said they had an "open marriage" ...

Bullllllllshirt.

The anger I've seen poured out at the "other woman" is completely unwarrented.

Even in this thread, using terms like "pump and dump" and I've seen in other places "Cum dumpsters" and "trash humans" or a "warm hole" ... wow.

Is there no compassion for people here? I mean, even in this thread about nobody in particular the women are being demonized.

Of course it isn't right to sleep with somebody else's spouse. But the real villian is your spouse. Not the AP. I'm not saying they are blameless, but they are not for you to blame. Your marriage, your spouse, and your actions are the only things that you need to focus on. Not the AP. Because it is your spouse seeking to cheat on you. The person sleeping with your spouse has their own sh!t to work on, for sure, and possibly their own work on their marriage or relationship. But they are not to blame for anything going wrong in your marriage. Not a thing. Whomever said the AP is a placeholder is right. They are so irrelevant to your marital problems.

What kind of call to feminism is it to critique BW for directing some blame at OW who may have been actively trying to break up her marriage? "To blame" someone doesn't actually do anything to them. It doesn't shorten their life expectancy, cost them money or a job or a relationship. It's just a feeling. A very natural feeling. OW are allowed to be hot messes with sh!t to work on . . . but BW must be stoic automatons who discover an affair and then smile benevolently at all involved? That is a weird double standard. If she dares to have *feelings* about this OW rather than forgetting her existence in a millisecond, then she must be failing to blame her husband, right? No human brain could possibly entertain both trains of thought at the same time, could it?

No one is saying the wife can’t have feelings. She can be angry, sure, but the person who was ACTIVELY trying to break up her marriage was her husband.

Anger is generated when your rights are being tromped on. You can feel all the anger you want, in fact you aren’t really in control of that. You are in control of what you do with that anger and yelling, confronting or blaming the OW won’t help you deal with your marital mess. It is just a way to vent anger. Your rights were tromped on by your partner who you had a vow/expectation with, that is who your anger belongs to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that someone(s) is trying to make their point by citing OW who didn't know they were OW. That's a small minority of cases. I think a lot of people would dispute whether it's considered cheating on the AP's part if they don't know that the MM is lying about being single.

But like with all things, it's a bell curve, and you're citing examples of people at the extreme end of the spectrum. And the BW is even taking it out on the poor OW's children! And broadcasting the scenario to a large friend group! She's probably mean to puppies and old ladies too.

It's disingenuous to base your argument on an extreme example. Most OW are aware that he's married. Most BW do little that's actionable other than look at the OW's public instagram and text her BFF the most unflattering ones.

I mean, all Jean Valjean was steal some bread to feed his starving nephew! Why are people so judgmental of thieves? Am I right?

I don’t think it’s an outlier. Look at the many many MANY people lying about their marital status on OLD.

And on the other side of the coin are people who leave their cheating spouses and continue to hate both the spouse AND their affair partner. This seems entirely reasonable to me. But hating and wishing ill upon one party while you sleep with and vacation with the other is hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been the AP. The husband said he was in an open marriage. I didn’t owe her anything. I was a consenting adult with a grown man making the choice for himself.

This is not remotely the same as an AP who knows the person is married and NOT in an open relationship. You were also bamboozled.

[Anonymous]

I doubt anyone truly thinks the AP is blameless, it’s that so many spouses think the AP deserves all or the majority of the blame as if the cheating spouse would have never strayed without the AP pursuing, and entrapping the cheater.

The truth is that the cheating spouse has to be open to the idea to even consider it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my sister was on OLD she ended up going out with LOTS of married men. Every single one of them said they had an "open marriage" ...

Bullllllllshirt.

The anger I've seen poured out at the "other woman" is completely unwarrented.

Even in this thread, using terms like "pump and dump" and I've seen in other places "Cum dumpsters" and "trash humans" or a "warm hole" ... wow.

Is there no compassion for people here? I mean, even in this thread about nobody in particular the women are being demonized.

Of course it isn't right to sleep with somebody else's spouse. But the real villian is your spouse. Not the AP. I'm not saying they are blameless, but they are not for you to blame. Your marriage, your spouse, and your actions are the only things that you need to focus on. Not the AP. Because it is your spouse seeking to cheat on you. The person sleeping with your spouse has their own sh!t to work on, for sure, and possibly their own work on their marriage or relationship. But they are not to blame for anything going wrong in your marriage. Not a thing. Whomever said the AP is a placeholder is right. They are so irrelevant to your marital problems.

What kind of call to feminism is it to critique BW for directing some blame at OW who may have been actively trying to break up her marriage? "To blame" someone doesn't actually do anything to them. It doesn't shorten their life expectancy, cost them money or a job or a relationship. It's just a feeling. A very natural feeling. OW are allowed to be hot messes with sh!t to work on . . . but BW must be stoic automatons who discover an affair and then smile benevolently at all involved? That is a weird double standard. If she dares to have *feelings* about this OW rather than forgetting her existence in a millisecond, then she must be failing to blame her husband, right? No human brain could possibly entertain both trains of thought at the same time, could it?

There’s a frequent poster where who brags about keeping the AP’s kids out of school. There’s a poster— maybe a troll— who harassed the AP with questions about the affair. Plenty of posters here want APs ostracized, threads come up all the time.

But ask if their husbands should still be allowed to coach soccer, get a promotion at work, or be harassed by an AP and they’re horrified. That’s the double standard.

I begrudge no one their feelings, hypocritical or not, but the behavior has to match the commentary when you want to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been the AP. The husband said he was in an open marriage. I didn’t owe her anything. I was a consenting adult with a grown man making the choice for himself.

Just idiotic to get involved with a married guy, open marriage or not.

With all the single men in the world it’s just plain gross she stupid.

[Anonymous]

^and

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my sister was on OLD she ended up going out with LOTS of married men. Every single one of them said they had an "open marriage" ...

Bullllllllshirt.

The anger I've seen poured out at the "other woman" is completely unwarrented.

Even in this thread, using terms like "pump and dump" and I've seen in other places "Cum dumpsters" and "trash humans" or a "warm hole" ... wow.

Is there no compassion for people here? I mean, even in this thread about nobody in particular the women are being demonized.

Of course it isn't right to sleep with somebody else's spouse. But the real villian is your spouse. Not the AP. I'm not saying they are blameless, but they are not for you to blame. Your marriage, your spouse, and your actions are the only things that you need to focus on. Not the AP. Because it is your spouse seeking to cheat on you. The person sleeping with your spouse has their own sh!t to work on, for sure, and possibly their own work on their marriage or relationship. But they are not to blame for anything going wrong in your marriage. Not a thing. Whomever said the AP is a placeholder is right. They are so irrelevant to your marital problems.

What kind of call to feminism is it to critique BW for directing some blame at OW who may have been actively trying to break up her marriage? "To blame" someone doesn't actually do anything to them. It doesn't shorten their life expectancy, cost them money or a job or a relationship. It's just a feeling. A very natural feeling. OW are allowed to be hot messes with sh!t to work on . . . but BW must be stoic automatons who discover an affair and then smile benevolently at all involved? That is a weird double standard. If she dares to have *feelings* about this OW rather than forgetting her existence in a millisecond, then she must be failing to blame her husband, right? No human brain could possibly entertain both trains of thought at the same time, could it?

No one is saying the wife can’t have feelings. She can be angry, sure, but the person who was ACTIVELY trying to break up her marriage was her husband.

Anger is generated when your rights are being tromped on. You can feel all the anger you want, in fact you aren’t really in control of that. You are in control of what you do with that anger and yelling, confronting or blaming the OW won’t help you deal with your marital mess. It is just a way to vent anger. Your rights were tromped on by your partner who you had a vow/expectation with, that is who your anger belongs to.

"It is that the wife often focuses her anger and insecurities on the OW rather than focusing on healing and fixing her self."

"You don’t get to blame someone who never made a commitment to you."

"If you believe the spouse can be forgiven then obviously the AP didn’t do you such a bad turn that you’re not literally having sex with the person who brought them into your life."

"The anger I've seen poured out at the "other woman" is completely unwarrented [sic]."

"I'm not saying they are blameless, but they are not for you to blame."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been the AP. The husband said he was in an open marriage. I didn’t owe her anything. I was a consenting adult with a grown man making the choice for himself.

This is not remotely the same as an AP who knows the person is married and NOT in an open relationship. You were also bamboozled.

Trashy AF. If a guy told me he were married, I’d be gone in less than 3 seconds.