Has confronting the other woman ever gone well?

[Anonymous]

I never said I supported or condoned it. I told her my concerns which certainly strained the friendship but unlike you I can recognize that there is more to a person than their worst decisions. She has some issues. As it seems you do. Just bc your spouse cheated on you doesn’t make YOU a good person either. Sounds like you use it as cover for some serious personality deficits actually. Here’s hoping you yourself learn some empathy someday because it sounds like you only care about yourself. Pot, kettle.

DP. I also read your first post and wondered how you could maintain the friendship. What your friend did is such a poor reflection of her character that there is no way that does not evidence itself in other areas of her life. You listening to your friend discuss this "relationship" made you complicit by providing some kind of inferred validation or approval. If you really expressed to your friend that you had no tolerance for it, she would not have kept discussing it with you. And before you deflect, I have been married for 30 years and neither of us has cheated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I never said I supported or condoned it. I told her my concerns which certainly strained the friendship but unlike you I can recognize that there is more to a person than their worst decisions. She has some issues. As it seems you do. Just bc your spouse cheated on you doesn’t make YOU a good person either. Sounds like you use it as cover for some serious personality deficits actually. Here’s hoping you yourself learn some empathy someday because it sounds like you only care about yourself. Pot, kettle.

DP. I also read your first post and wondered how you could maintain the friendship. What your friend did is such a poor reflection of her character that there is no way that does not evidence itself in other areas of her life. You listening to your friend discuss this "relationship" made you complicit by providing some kind of inferred validation or approval. If you really expressed to your friend that you had no tolerance for it, she would not have kept discussing it with you. And before you deflect, I have been married for 30 years and neither of us has cheated.

I think you can listen to someone and disagree with them and counsel them against what they are doing and still be their friend. That doesn’t make you complicit or an accomplice. Have you never stayed friends with someone you disagreed with? You can agree to disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I never said I supported or condoned it. I told her my concerns which certainly strained the friendship but unlike you I can recognize that there is more to a person than their worst decisions. She has some issues. As it seems you do. Just bc your spouse cheated on you doesn’t make YOU a good person either. Sounds like you use it as cover for some serious personality deficits actually. Here’s hoping you yourself learn some empathy someday because it sounds like you only care about yourself. Pot, kettle.

DP. I also read your first post and wondered how you could maintain the friendship. What your friend did is such a poor reflection of her character that there is no way that does not evidence itself in other areas of her life. You listening to your friend discuss this "relationship" made you complicit by providing some kind of inferred validation or approval. If you really expressed to your friend that you had no tolerance for it, she would not have kept discussing it with you. And before you deflect, I have been married for 30 years and neither of us has cheated.

I think you can listen to someone and disagree with them and counsel them against what they are doing and still be their friend. That doesn’t make you complicit or an accomplice. Have you never stayed friends with someone you disagreed with? You can agree to disagree.

DP. Not with someone whose morals are so far off from my own. No. There is disagreement in every friendship, yes. I don't stay friends with chronic liars or people doing things I really have a problem with. I will be there when they fall, but I would seriously step back while they were doing things that I morally disagreed with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I never said I supported or condoned it. I told her my concerns which certainly strained the friendship but unlike you I can recognize that there is more to a person than their worst decisions. She has some issues. As it seems you do. Just bc your spouse cheated on you doesn’t make YOU a good person either. Sounds like you use it as cover for some serious personality deficits actually. Here’s hoping you yourself learn some empathy someday because it sounds like you only care about yourself. Pot, kettle.

DP. I also read your first post and wondered how you could maintain the friendship. What your friend did is such a poor reflection of her character that there is no way that does not evidence itself in other areas of her life. You listening to your friend discuss this "relationship" made you complicit by providing some kind of inferred validation or approval. If you really expressed to your friend that you had no tolerance for it, she would not have kept discussing it with you. And before you deflect, I have been married for 30 years and neither of us has cheated.

+1,000,000

Birds of a feather. Who you choose to hang out with says a lot about your own character. It's why cheaters tend to hang out with other cheaters or people who don't find fault with it. In fact, these people often provide alibis.

We teach our kids to choose their friends wisely and you don't want them hanging out with teens doing drugs and cutting class or shoplifting or bullying, etc.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Reaching out to the spouse could get someone killed. Also so often the APs have a lot to lose socially if the affair comes to light. So the BW won’t confront the AP or her DH bc it would make the cheating husband look bad at work if everyone knew, expose him or his firm to a lawsuit, or whatever. So the cheating husband strings along the OW until she thinks it’s her idea to end it so he isn’t materially harmed and the wife says nothing because it’s her $ too.

Let’s change your first sentence:

Sleeping with someone else’s spouse could get someone killed.

Christ. The passion from betrayal causes stable people to do crazy things. It all would never happen if the cheating didn’t happen in the first place. End of story.

Yep. Again a poster trying to shame a betrayed partner for not keeping everyone’s secrets. The toll it takes on a person to let that happen and carry that secret is huge. It’s gross people are advocating he/she turn a blind eye and just let everyone keep up their harmful, abusive behavior. The only one suffering in this situation is the victim: the betrayed spouse.

No blind eye needed. Divorce is appropriate. And you can be frank about why, if you want, although sometimes there are reasons not to be quite as frank as at other contexts (e.g., tell your best friend or his mom or your shared old friend the details, but you don't have to bring it up to your child's middle school teacher that his dad was doing anal at the Route 66 No-Tell Motel while the other woman did 8-balls and honked like a goose, or whatever. You can, if you want, leave it at irreconcilable differences and a disapproving look. Or not. It's your child, you decide).

If you think extreme displays of wrath and comeuppance is the only alternative to "keeping secrets," then there is a problem with your imagination.

And no, I've never cheated, not been cheated on. Other bad things have happened, including physical abuse, but not that.

That’s very black and white thinking.

Divorce might be appropriate but I don’t think a 25 year happy marriage with a short affair indicates a spouse needs therapy not a divorce (necessarily).

Not sure why you have jumped to extreme displays of wrath when nobody on this thread has reported doing that or recommended it. I’m thinking your abuse has you in a pattern of this disordered thinking and I suggest DBT therapy for that.

Honestly, if people have been married 25 years, he’s probably just bored to tears with your snatch. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.

She likely is bored with his D and dad bod as well. But she doesn’t need to blow other men.

I heartily concur! Same old D is boring as hell. Why don’t they come to an agreement, then?

They did. The agreement was to be monogamous. He broke the agreement.

But if she’s bored as well, then why not spice things up?

Because they see more value in monogamy. People who always need to “spice things up” are chasing something that doesn’t exist. I’d suggest understanding why you have that unhealthy thought patterns.

Many people can’t be happy unless there is drama. It’s due to early childhood trauma and an addiction to cortisol which is released when engaging in risky activities. This is why when an affair is brought to light it becomes boring and rarely becomes a relationship.

Lol, there’s nothing sacrosanct about monogamy. Wanting something else is not pathological. Would you prefer your husband abruptly divorce you, than broach the topic of trying something a bit different?

An agreement is sacrosanct. If I choose monogamy that’s my choice. If my spouse agrees it’s on him to not break that agreement unilaterally. Taking away my choice breaks out agreement.

I’d rather my H bring up opening the marriage and I have the option to do that or divorce.

The problem is a H knows it will lead to divorce and they didnt want to divorce.

I divorced.

Always chasing “spice” is pathological. I suggest reading the “power of now” by Eckert Tolle to understand the root of your destructive thinking.

I simply disagree completely. Variety is the spice of life, in every regard. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Of course you do. These things follow patterns. That’s why it’s so easy, even from a few posts on a thread, to pick out those who have suffered abuse, molestation and abandonment.

People who can’t even sit quietly with their own thoughts. Those who must experience joy from a stranger telling them they are wonderful. People who can’t even imagine joy brought on intrinsically.

You’ll chase the “spice” to your own demise. Nobody will change your mind, I won’t stop you. If you stand in front of a fast moving train you won’t stop a train wreck. Some people need to wreck their own train to come to the realization of their disordered thinking.

It’s too bad. I wish you well on your journey down to the ashes and I hope you rise from them.

DP. You also won't stop armchair analyzing other people, apparently. Fascinating.

This doesn’t fall under psychology 101, you can find this information in “ All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”.

[Anonymous]

I was confronted and I apologized because I genuinely felt bad for the wife. AP made me swear, if ever in contact with wife, to not tell her all the horrible things he told me about her. I’m not sure she got much out of the confrontation. I’m not sure what she was expecting. From social media I see she stayed with him which still makes me feel bad for her. I know I wasn’t the first and probably not the last.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was confronted and I apologized because I genuinely felt bad for the wife. AP made me swear, if ever in contact with wife, to not tell her all the horrible things he told me about her. I’m not sure she got much out of the confrontation. I’m not sure what she was expecting. From social media I see she stayed with him which still makes me feel bad for her. I know I wasn’t the first and probably not the last.

Why were you with him? No judgement, just asking. A lot of unnecessary rage on this thread... The damage is done, people. A lot of unexpected people make these types of mistakes.

[Anonymous]

It’s really almost impossible to hold a civil conversation about this here bc people are so polarized and hostile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Found out about DH's affair and confronted his AP, only to be shocked by her accusatory stance and lack of empathy. Is this really happening?

How do you compare to her in looks? not that it is right, but if she is much hotter than you, she will think she has the upper hand. if you are hotter, than it makes her look like a loser on multiple levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Found out about DH's affair and confronted his AP, only to be shocked by her accusatory stance and lack of empathy. Is this really happening?

How do you compare to her in looks? not that it is right, but if she is much hotter than you, she will think she has the upper hand. if you are hotter, than it makes her look like a loser on multiple levels.

I was way hotter. Way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was confronted and I apologized because I genuinely felt bad for the wife. AP made me swear, if ever in contact with wife, to not tell her all the horrible things he told me about her. I’m not sure she got much out of the confrontation. I’m not sure what she was expecting. From social media I see she stayed with him which still makes me feel bad for her. I know I wasn’t the first and probably not the last.

Such a troll. Nobody says that.

They would tell you to deny everything no matter the evidence.

Besides anything he said was lies—I’m sure they didn’t have sex, and she was a nag meanwhile having sex with her more than you and declaring his love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Found out about DH's affair and confronted his AP, only to be shocked by her accusatory stance and lack of empathy. Is this really happening?

How do you compare to her in looks? not that it is right, but if she is much hotter than you, she will think she has the upper hand. if you are hotter, than it makes her look like a loser on multiple levels.

I was way hotter. Way.

Sure.

[Anonymous]

My sister was confronted by the furious wife of the pilot she was seeing. It was quite a cat fight, according to a friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Found out about DH's affair and confronted his AP, only to be shocked by her accusatory stance and lack of empathy. Is this really happening?

How do you compare to her in looks? not that it is right, but if she is much hotter than you, she will think she has the upper hand. if you are hotter, than it makes her look like a loser on multiple levels.

Not PP but my H OW looked like a man. Like Pat from SNL but taller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Found out about DH's affair and confronted his AP, only to be shocked by her accusatory stance and lack of empathy. Is this really happening?

Believable. My ex-H's AP told me I should've been a better wife and then told me she was the new Mrs. She never became the new Mrs, btw.