My FWH and I will be celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary next month.

I was unaware of MB on D-Day and throughout the affairs but my counselor at the time gave me suggestions very similar to these principles. We have been recovering for the past 4 years.

Though I very rarely post, I read and soak in as much as possible to try and understand why we reached that point in our marriage and how to avoid it in the future. I still have trust issues and am still absorbed in the reasons why he did what he did. His answers have always been, "I don't know." He has never blamed me for any of it.

After all the reading (site, books...), I have come to the conclusion that when I met my H I was the OW!!! (cringe!!!)
I have been racked with guilt!

I met my H while visiting friends in another state. He had been legally separated from his wife for 6 months and the divorce was contigent upon the sale of the home and some other property. They had no children.

My H and I began an 8 month long distance relationship. Once his home and property were sold, he moved to my home state and we lived together. Two months after being together, his divorce was final.

Am I pegged by the MB community as an OW??!!!! Is it strictly black and white or are there exceptions? Was I doomed from the beginning of this relationship..that one or both of us were destined to cheat on the other because of our beginnings?

Any takers?

Doesn't seem so to me. He was separated and on his way to a D when you met him. You had nothing to do with his marriage ending.

Who

Tatertot - I'm not here to tear you down, but married is married. Legally separated is STILL married.

Your biggest clue should have been how quickly he was jumping from one relationship to another. I think you see now that it was just a preview of how he really thought of marriage (disposable - just walk away whevenever you feel like it.) And I'm truly sorry you had to find out the hard way.
Mulan

IMHO, I don't think that tatertot has provided enough information for anyone here to come to that dire conclusion.

Every situation is different. I was separated from my XH for 7 years before we actually divorced. Our failure to move forward to a divorce had nothing to do with any chance of reconcilliation. It was because my XH didn't want to agree to a fair distribution of our joint assets and at the time I couldn't afford legal representation. I told him that if he didn't want to agree to a fair settlement, then we could stay married until he did.

It was only after he met someone and eventually wanted to marry her that he agreed to a fair settlement. I have never considered his W as the OW.




Sorry, but I can't buy into this. Yes, we are all wired for affairs and we are all capable of infidelity. But I believe that with hard work, love, and committment, we are all also capable of happy, fullfilling, affair-free marriages. If this isn't true then what are any of us doing here trying to recover from affairs? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

My FWH made a mistake, if that is an indicator of the only thing he is capable of, then I have wasted the last 2 years of my life rebuilding what I thought was a better marriage and so has he. I refuse to think that way.

Who

Are you an OW? I'll say literally yes, but effectively, no.

And I was similarly an OM.

I met my wife when her divorce formalities were almost final. Almost.

If I knew then what I know now, I'd have not started dating her until the finality - which occurred a couple of months later. Would it have made a difference in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. But I would have met the letter of the "law" so to speak.

I don't worry about it one bit, nor should you.

JMHO

No, I wouldn't say you were the OW at all. The only thing holding up their divorce was a minor detail...the home they owned hadn't been sold to complete the division of property. It is clear the marriage had been disolved and there was only a final rubberstamp action by the court remaining.

Secondly, the fact that you are about to celebrate your 14th wedding anniversary together tells me volumes. Relationships between wayward spouses and their other persons rarely last for 5 years. I've read articles indicating they have only a 2% chance of success. The chance of such a relationship continuing to 10 years is statistically so near zero it isn't worth discussing. That your marriage has lasted 14 years tells me it didn't begin as one of those that consumes us here on MB.

I hope, however, you and your husband are using a pro-marriage counselor to discover the underlying causes of his straying. He may not, in fact, understand why it happened, but it's important to find out why it happened so it will not rear it's head again.

Unfortunately, we are the wrong people to ask this question to as the only person that could really define/label you as the OW would be your husband's former wife.

I think statistics would demonstrate that 2nd, 3rd, 4th marriages are less likely to succeed and perhaps the conclusion can be gleaned from such statistics that they are more likely to suffer at the hands of infidelity. Perhaps that is something you both should have been aware of.

Perhaps the greatest lesson YOU can take from this is how susceptible we all are to affairs. You MAY have been the OW and it did not even occur to you until 14+ YEARS later. Individuals meet and form connections. The connection developes innocently at first and may or may not ever become inappropriate. The infidels usually never see it coming and are in way over their proverbial heads by the time IT happens. They don't take the time to concern themselves with the feelings of others as they both make horribly unhealthy choices. They abandon all their values and beliefs to blindly justify and rationalize their actions. Perhaps the lesson is your husband is not any more untrustworthy than YOU, right now and individually this may help you put his affair to rest.

Mr. Wondering

Tatertot,

You are not the OW. Some marriages just aren't meant to be. If he was legally separated - it's pretty sure his marriage was over. Don't be hard on yourself. Your husband wouldn't have married you and stayed with you for 14 yrs. Affairs that result in marriages usually don't succeed, like Longhorn said.

Anyone can make mistakes, in any marriage. I made the mistake of marrying too young, to an abusive man, and was always faithfull. I divorced after a couple of years, then dated while I was LEGALLY separated. I had no intentions of going back to my 1st husband -never in a million years. Although, I never dated anyone that was in the process of a divorce - everyone was single. But, once I got my legal separation, he was ordered out of the home, I felt I had no more ties to him - not legally or emotionally.

I am now in my second marriage and speaking as a betrayed spouse. If you are determined to make your marriage work, don't give up. Get all the help you can - do whatever it takes.

Mr. Wondering,



Well said. Although in the case of my FWH, he was sorta, kinda, looking for it because of some problems in our marriage.

But he did have to put aside his morals and values and bannish any thoughts about what the ultimate outcome would be for either of us, or the OW for that matter. Once "in" he immediately realized that it wasn't going to be some kind of innocent diversion easily continued or discontinued. Nor was it going to be some small part of his life that he could compartmentalize and keep separate from the rest of his life like he had convinced himself.

Either way, once the affair began, the harm and damage was done.

Who

OWs know they are OWs. Your sitch sounds more like you were duped. Not an OW.

The scary piece is if he did that to you back then, what else is he still capable of now? Hm..... seems honesty wasn't important to him then.

Learn to spin this to your advantage. This sets him back past your square one. He has a lot of catching up (improving) t/d b4 he is worthy of you.

JMHO,
L.

I'm not sure if I was "duped". I knew straight away of his marital situation and jumped in anyway. Of course, back then, I knew nothing of what I know now about how to have a successful marriage.

I'm recommending this site to friends and family. I don't want to be labeled a hypocrite.

"What else is he capable of?" I guess that was answered when he had several ONS's with a co-worker then left me several years later to pursue an EA with a different OW.

He's been trying to "catch up" the past 4 years.

Yes your are the OW. If you knew of his marital status, happy or not, he was still married and should be off limits by any woman, happy or not. My WH OW knew from the start H was married, but she jumped in anyway with the thought that she would eventually get picked in the end. It shows lack of respect and self confidence.

Ouch!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I wasn't in any kind of competition with his STBXW.

Wow, I would say not an OW, unless you go by the very strictest of definitions. Generally when the D is all but done, just waiting for a signature and S has moved away, there is no chance, wanted or offered, for reconciliation, I would say nope. Just my .02 (ducking now for the incoming 2X4s, and looking for a rock to hide under)

Did you even read the first post. Divorce papers had been filed when tatertot met him. Don't know your sitch star, but were you also in the process of a divorce when your WH cheated? IMHO, tatertot can't be held responsible for ending a marriage for which divorce papers were already filed.

OW? Yeah, kinda, but not on the same level most of us have experienced, i.e. WS still at home, married, finds someone else and starts to lie to cover it up, bounces back and forth from one bed to the other, lies to cover up that too, ducks calls from one when they are with the other, and vice versa....the key differences here are that in your case the paperwork was nearly done, so the marriage was already nearly broken, and there was not the deception that marks the typical affair.

Should you be sorry you dated a married man, even if it was only a technical affair? IMO yes, BUT you say you are wracked with guilt, and that must change. Yes, you made a mistake, yes it would have been better if you had waited those two months to start dating, but you did not ruin his marriage, and you need to forgive yourself for this relatively minor mistake and focus on your task at hand.

Also, because of the lack of deep deception, I do not believe your marriage is doomed, at least not because of that. While your WH's actions at the start of your marriage might indicate a certain lack of value to the marital commitment, wasn't he faithful to you for 14 years? I would think that gives you just as much of a chance as anyone here.

So, it's time to get to work - have you read up on Plans A & B?

nsyn,

I guess this is the answer I was most hoping for. OW, yes...but not in the same terms. Believe me, I know so much more now than I did all those years ago.

D-Day for me was actually 4 years ago. My H has been the most devoted, loving, husband and father ever since. I have access to all his emails, voicemails, and cell phone. I have no reason to suspect anything. However, I am still trying to figure out why he betrayed me. Not knowing a definate answer, I am still in fear of going through the nightmare again.

I have the books "Surviving an Affair" and "His Needs, Her Needs". Though my H has never blamed me for his affairs, I still work hard at meeting his needs. He is now reading these books as well.

I guess none of us really know why. Woulda, coulda, shouldas are constant in my vocabulary. However, it's the whys that keep the memories so fresh. If I don't know why, then how can I keep it from happening again?

Those are very valid points. Of course you will not feel safe until you know that he knows where he went wrong, and that he has boundaries in place that will prevent it from happening again.

Tatertot,

Maybe the devil is in the details.

You have probably read around here the standard advice to the BS to say to WS, “I don’t do divorce, I only do marriage, I do recovery.”

Was your H’s xW doing that? Was she trying to stall the D, or otherwise reconcile? If so, I’d say you are indeed an OW to her. You interfered in a potential reconciliation, which is what most everyone here always preaches, right up to the bitter end.

OTOH, if she is the one who filed or otherwise wanted the D (perhaps you were not the only OP involved) then she probably still does not care who or what you were.

My FWW’s OM was legally separated from his first W when he met his current W. His first W did not want a D. She was stalling the D, as much as she could, as if she was being personally advised by the old-timers here on MB. So, his current W was indeed an OW to her, and she still thinks of her that way even 15 years later.

And, like your H, my W’s OM had additional A’s after marrying his second W. Only one of which was the LTA with my W. Seems certain WS never change.

What you see is usually what you get.

With prayers,

Absolutely, Aphelion. Being a BS myself, I understand.

She left the marriage and filed. He went to counseling without her because she refused. She denied the chance at ever reconciling. I don't believe she was in a relationship when I met my H but she was dating. She was only 19 at their wedding and they were only married for 7 years, 2 of those years they were legally separated. I do not believe that she would ever consider me an OW.