FYI...
Oprah's show this Thursday will be with Dr. Gary Neuman. This show will expolore the basic reasons why men cheat.

Hopefully there will be a "why women cheat" at some point.

Bingo.

I totally agree. I think she should have done "why people cheat".

She is just giving the masses of women who watch her show what they want.

I would like to know why people cheat. Do more men than women cheat? What are the statistics? How many are serial cheaters? Etc, etc.

Why men cheat? Because they can. Same as women.

I'd like to watch it if I'm going to be around. Do they rerun Oprah anywhere else? On any other channel, I mean?

Do you think that this episode will be enlightening?

Charlotte

Well, unless they are cheating with other men, it's likely men and women are equally represented in affairs.

I don't give any slack if one of the partners is not married. Even if they are not married, I suspect in most cases they know their affair partner IS married. Which means they are no different than one who is married.

In other words, one's marital status is not what makes you a cheater, it's either betraying your spouse or going along with another who is betraying her spouse that makes one a cheat.

Therefore, both parties involved in an affair, regardless of their marital status are cheaters. Either breaking vows, or breaking the social conventions surrounding marriage.

Oh, but you know the OW's that are going to be involved in any Oprah show are going to be innocent victims in the whole thing. :RollieEyes:

I can hear it now "what a pig to take advantage of women like that"...blah...blah...blah. :crosseyedcrazy:

I actually blame the OM more than my WW for the A. True, it was BOTH of their choices but the scumbag OM was a friend who was going through a D. I missed her EN's and her emotions were all whacked. He pounced on the chance.

I forgive my WW but if I ever happened to have a baseball bat when I run into the OM, I'm goin' yard!

I blame the OW more too! She was also going through a divorce (her H left for another man) and she preyed on my H like a bear! I think she's a total pig. But, she portrays herself as 'poly pockets' with her bee-bopping ponytail. Stupid girl.

Anyway, back to the point....Oprah did a show last year all about the OW. She did not seem to portray them as innocent victims at all. Actually, she was a little shocked by their non guilty attitudes.

Jim,

I'm also a BS, but I have to say your wife is an adult. Our society does enough to let women shrug things off on the men in their life. If you blame the OM, then you must also blame yourself since apparently your wife could not control herself. I'm not going to be married to a W who is one smooth talking b*****d from the next affair.

Blaming your spouses affair partner more and dreaming about baseball bats is pretty normal.

Eventually, you will put the blame where it really belongs. Blaming the third party is only fun for a while.

Whew, I don't know. I THINK I would be much more hurt by MY spouse than the other man. I don't think much of other people in general, so why would I be surprised if some dirtbag boned me, not giving a rats behind about me or my family? I hold my wife above all others, and I would be CRUSHED by her infidelity. I would hurt because of what she did to me, but I would also feel the pain because she was not what she appeared to be. Even now, after a year of hassles, snooping and finding nothing, I still find it hard to believe that she would do anything like that, but I would not be as incredulous as I would have been BEFORE reading this site.

I agree bigkahuna-

i was enraged at the OW (plural) for about a year- especially since 2 of them were my good friends. finally after my emotions calmed down and the emotional bleeding stopped- i realized that my FWH was the ONE WHO HAD BROKEN HIS VOWS TO ME.

the OW did not promise me anything.

Yes - they lied to me,

Yes, they ate in my house and came to many things with my family

Yes - they asked me often about my marriage and my H

but it was just too PAINFUL to look at the real person who had betrayed me - the ONE who had promised - legally and religiously - to love and honor and protect me..

when the hurt starts to fade - this realization appears.

SF

Sunflower - that is 100% what I meant and I totally agree with you. OM in our case was a "friend" too.

Oprah actually had a show on "The Other Woman". Oprah admitted that she at one time was the other woman and described it as a huge regret in her life and I think she used the word pathetic. I didn't like the expert on her show tho...did kind of portray the WH as preying on OW...

Thanks, Fiori, for posting about this. I am very interested to hear what Gary Neuman has to say. We have his book "Emotional Infidelity" but haven't read it yet...but the opening chapter looks good, it is about having extremely strong boundaries with members of the opposite sex.

I guess I'll have to wait and see (not that I watch Oprah all that often). I think KMS and I will have to tune in together.

I'm just assuming that Oprah would try to portray men as pigs in order to appease her mostly female audience. I could imagine a show, if it were about WW's, focusing more on how the husband was a jerk than how the WW's are cheating tramps.

I dunno about that. Maybe. But there are also a lot of times when the BS exposes the A and the OP is shocked to learn that the WS is married. Puts a real kink in the A.

I've read Gary Neuman's book Emotional Infidelity, and if it is any indication, the show is not going to let anyone off the hook for cheating. Gary's stance is that when you cheat you have made the WRONG choice. His focus (at least in the book) is on how cheating can happen in a marriage and how we can protect our marriage.

The ideas are very much in line with MB. He talks about how dangerous it is to have relationships with people of the opposite sex outside of your spouse because it is easy to find your needs met elsewhere. He encourages people to protect their marriages from not only the potential of an A, but from the emotional drain that happens to your M when you spend your energy on someone else.

The thing that intrigues me about Gary's approach is that he recognizes that life can be a barrier to change. He looks at how we can make it work in our marriages. I for one am looking forward to the show. I doubt that he thinks that only men cheat...it's probably just what the show is focusing on this time.

MS

OK, I am at this stage right now. I wouldn't call it "fun". I also wouldn't say the OP is completely blameless either (unless they didn't know their AP was married which does happen - we've had a couple of these come by MB upon discovery from time to time).

Here's what I blame OW for and why:

1. She stole my marriage from me. Not that it was a great M, but it was mine, not hers. She walked in and took it.
2. In the process, she infected me with her diseases. I don't seem to have any specific STDs (none that I've tested positive for anyway) but I have her cooties nonetheless. She might as well of broke into my house while I was asleep and injected me with a syringe.
3. She broke up my family. She broke up hers too, but I'm listing what she did to me.

Now I'm not absolving WstbxH of any of his responsibility in this - because his responsibility is to me as were his vows. But it is common decency not to steal from others, not to destroy their property or their lives and not to risk harming or maiming them in any way. She clearly has no common decency whatsoever. She is a vicious predator and unfortunatley the laws of our land allow her to continue her destructive path.