Reply to I think I’m going to have to contact my husband’s affair partner

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]After my husband's affair I had this strong need to understand why an OW would do what she did. I instantly understood my husband's motivations (mainly of the burning loins variety) but I could not understand why a single woman would enter a degrading proposition with such a small likelihood of "success" (coming out in a monogamous relationship with my husband in the end). I have good self-esteem, no history of trauma, etc., so I was not in a position to understand how a person might be handicapped in that regard. I remember reeling in the aftermath of DDay and briefly considering getting in touch with my high school boyfriend, who has always popped in every few years being vaguely flirty. He was even single at the moment. I knew it would prop up my self-esteem [i]temporarily[/i] and [i]falsely[/i] to have him want me while my husband was being so awful. But then I thought, no, that would be wrong . . . not so much in the disrespecting my shambles of a marriage department, but in the "I have no good long-term outcome to offer my potential AP" department. I decided not to do it out of respect for high school boyfriend and a desire not to cause harm, and because I looked down the road and knew it would only cause me more suffering in the end.

So anyway, I still couldn't figure out why a woman would do something that was obviously going to blow up her life horribly, so I started reading OW forums. I even gained access to the secret one by impersonating one. On another forum where I was openly a BW, I developed a penpal relationship with a dumped OW where we explored our feelings about our place in the triangle. This seemed like a worthwhile exercise until one day the OW, who had been all "rah rah, I hate that loser ex-MM" wrote to me that she thought he was stalking her because he had been seen in her large building's parking garage. I suggested that maybe he had a new OW that lived in her apartment complex, which she poohed poohed, but it turned out I was right. And then she tried to vent to me about how indignant she was about him having a new OW and I was like, dear God, I really have wasted moments of my life that I can't get back, haven't I, and that was the end of us being pen-pals.

Humans are interesting. We spend our time watching Reality TV and following celebrity gossip and who knows what else. It's natural to be curious about other people, none more so than someone who inserted themselves into your marriage. But there does come a point when you need to say, OK, hurt people hurt people, broken people break things; it is what it is. I don't know if OP is at that point, and neither does anyone else on that thread. All we can do is ask thoughtful questions and send her a bit of compassion.

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She dated a cheating loser, but you married one. Why did you put yourself in a  "degrading proposition with such a small likelihood of "success" " ?

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