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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone thinks they are without blame
It's just that the wives usually want the other woman to suffer for her pain and embarrassment.

It's less about blame and more about wounded pride .

Even if just briefly her husband chose another woman over her and for that she must pay

And because of “girl code”. It’s a mean girl, b@tch act to hook up with someone else’s boyfriend/husband. When you would never ever do it (and never have), it’s hard to comprehend.

+1 million

“Those” type of women. We all knew them in high school and college…and post-college. They made it a habit to try to bang other woman’s significant others because they thought it meant they were superior, a boost to their self-esteem. If the woman was prettier, etc,- then they must really be high worth to get her boyfriend/spouse to sleep with them.

They just got to be known as “easy pickings”. Guys use them. They know what they are good for: pump and dump.

I see this phrase bandied about frequently on this forum, of course it’s meant to dehumanize the AP, but it says so much more about cheating Zombie men. Betrayed wives aren’t worried about these types of women; they are concerned with mate poaching. Many if not most APs consider their affair a prolonged interview for a promotion with the attendant perks. I would wager only a small percent of damaged women want no strings ANYTHING. It’s a competition for limited resources and betrayed wives become addicted to the adrenaline of the battle. They prolong their antipathy to the OW because their husbands aren’t interested in drama over something that meant so little to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't condone sleeping with married people, or other affair behavior. I certainly don't engage in that behavior myself. And I can understand feeling anger and hatred towards someone who slept with my spouse.

But there are many people out there who talk about a married man having an affair as if they are blameless, and the OW is the problem. They'll use words like "homewrecker" that imply this. Or they'll imply that she's the one deserving of consequences. I've heard of people whose husband had an affair at work, who have sought to have the OW fired (but not the husband). Or they'll work on forgiveness towards him, and not towards her. They'll be polite to him in front of the children (for their sake) but then awful to her (which is also hard for the children).

In my mind, if my husband had an affair, then both people would be doing something wrong, but only one of them would be doing it to me, and that's the person who made vows to me and broke them. Being more angry at or less forgiving towards the OW, implying it's more her fault than his, or that her behavior is more personal to me than his doesn't make sense to me.

I haven't seen this. Can you point to any posts here that do so?

The one recently that Jeff wrote up. Has the wife basically stalking/interrogating the OW while her husband got off with a “sorry honey”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine will date/hook up with guys who are in various forms of committed relationships. I asked her about this, and she very kindly and patiently allowed my questions. What I came away with is, basically, that's on him. If a man is straying, it means for whatever reason he's not satisfied at home, and that's between him and his partner, and has nothing to do with her.

I couldn't do it, but I can understand her point.

But what’s her motivation? End game?

[Anonymous]

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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im a married woman who had an affair. It had nothing to do with my AP, tbh. It was all about my dissatisfaction in my marriage. He just happened to be the person I slept with.

This is the answer. I don’t understand why people don’t understand this: the straying spouse is to blame. The AP has nothing to do with it. People like to blame the AP rather than deal with the fact there are issues in the marriage—which means they are partially to blame themselves for the marriage being on shaky ground.

BS. Does the AP have something to do with it when they move from out of state, move into your neighborhood and then put their kids in the same school as your children? I mean, at what point do they lack innocence? APs are not blameless. And they damn sure are not all people who just want a lil non-attached sex on the side. Forums like ClubTOW have tons of "other women" who plot and plan to destroy marriages and have gigglefests over sleeping in a married man's bed. Whether or not the husband is to blame is not even an issue. OF COURSE HE IS. But these women need their asses kicked too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Im a married woman who had an affair. It had nothing to do with my AP, tbh. It was all about my dissatisfaction in my marriage. He just happened to be the person I slept with.

This is the answer. I don’t understand why people don’t understand this: the straying spouse is to blame. The AP has nothing to do with it. People like to blame the AP rather than deal with the fact there are issues in the marriage—which means they are partially to blame themselves for the marriage being on shaky ground.

BS. Does the AP have something to do with it when they move from out of state, move into your neighborhood and then put their kids in the same school as your children? I mean, at what point do they lack innocence? APs are not blameless. And they damn sure are not all people who just want a lil non-attached sex on the side. Forums like ClubTOW have tons of "other women" who plot and plan to destroy marriages and have gigglefests over sleeping in a married man's bed. Whether or not the husband is to blame is not even an issue. OF COURSE HE IS. But these women need their asses kicked too.

Ok. You are crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It isn’t that they are blameless. It is that the wife often focuses her anger and insecurities on the OW rather than focusing on healing and fixing her self. Attacking laying blame on the OW allows the wife to at least partially lay the blame on someone other than her husband because it is so hard to process the betrayal of someone who claims to love you.

It isn’t conducive to the wife healing and figuring out what she wants or needs to focus on the OW.

The BW can focus on healing and fixing herself while also having thoughts and feelings about the OW. No one's going to be detached and clinical about someone who was trying to break up their relationship. Additionally, these are primal responses . . . we've evolved to view our mates as prizes to be won (mate poaching) or protected (mate guarding). Understanding our biology and making sure it's working for us and not against us is a much better use of our time than trying to stop people from having completely natural feelings.

It's interesting to me when people get angry or annoyed at strangers who've been cheated on. You can tell if their advice is coming from a place of compassion (e.g."Of course you are understandably upset with the OW but let's focus on your healing and whether your marriage is still working for you") or some kind of internalized misogyny or attempt to justify actions that she knows deep down are crap (all the mean responses we see here regularly).

+1

I really like how you think very logical and thoughtful

[Anonymous]

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]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t an issue of “treating other humans well” and for what it’s worth there’s no social contract that we should “treat others well”. If you go through life thinking people are abiding by these rules, you’re only going to get taken advantage of.

You are vile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine will date/hook up with guys who are in various forms of committed relationships. I asked her about this, and she very kindly and patiently allowed my questions. What I came away with is, basically, that's on him. If a man is straying, it means for whatever reason he's not satisfied at home, and that's between him and his partner, and has nothing to do with her.

I couldn't do it, but I can understand her point.

She is rationalizing. And not very well. She's gross and she knows it. And she is avoiding any commitments of her own. That is part of her problem.

Damaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is easier to blame the other woman or man because it let you rally around your husband or wife. It’s not the other woman or man’s fault. It’s your partner’s fault. That person has the relationship with you.

No, doofus, it's both of the participant's fault. Period.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone thinks they are without blame
It's just that the wives usually want the other woman to suffer for her pain and embarrassment.

It's less about blame and more about wounded pride .

Even if just briefly her husband chose another woman over her and for that she must pay

And because of “girl code”. It’s a mean girl, b@tch act to hook up with someone else’s boyfriend/husband. When you would never ever do it (and never have), it’s hard to comprehend.

Can you explain “girl code?” It sounds to me like you think a “good girl” bands together with other girls in ann unspoken rule that girls would never be with a man in an exclusive relationship.

The flip side of this is that you are giving zero responsibility to men for upholding their side of exclusivity because they couldn’t possibly be responsible for saying no to a woman.

All I can see is the misogyny of this view in that all women are holding the emotional responsibility for a relationship.

I’m sure that logic is wrong so explain how I am not understanding. Thanks.

PS I am a woman and have never cheated. I’m raising a boy and hoping to make sure I don’t give him the idea that he can cheat on a girl because “girl code” means only bad girls with hit on him while he is dating someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone thinks they are without blame
It's just that the wives usually want the other woman to suffer for her pain and embarrassment.

It's less about blame and more about wounded pride .

Even if just briefly her husband chose another woman over her and for that she must pay

And because of “girl code”. It’s a mean girl, b@tch act to hook up with someone else’s boyfriend/husband. When you would never ever do it (and never have), it’s hard to comprehend.

Can you explain “girl code?” It sounds to me like you think a “good girl” bands together with other girls in ann unspoken rule that girls would never be with a man in an exclusive relationship.

The flip side of this is that you are giving zero responsibility to men for upholding their side of exclusivity because they couldn’t possibly be responsible for saying no to a woman.

All I can see is the misogyny of this view in that all women are holding the emotional responsibility for a relationship.

I’m sure that logic is wrong so explain how I am not understanding. Thanks.

PS I am a woman and have never cheated. I’m raising a boy and hoping to make sure I don’t give him the idea that he can cheat on a girl because “girl code” means only bad girls with hit on him while he is dating someone else.

You are way over-thinking this. I have sons and there is a similar “bro code”. You wouldn’t sleep with another guy’s girl. Bros before hoes.

[Anonymous]

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.