Hi,<P>I'll be different and flame you....<P>a flaming lamborghini (which is a cocktail here) or a beautiful flaming candle, take your pick.<P>I despise my H's OW, but I hold HIM largely responsible. He was the one primarily doing all the lying, the chasing, the deceiving of his family. OW has turned out to be pshyco woman - we call her Kylie "boil the rabbit" after Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's a fruitloop. You don't sound as though you are that type. I'm glad.<P>Anyway, I'm sorry for what you're going through - infidelity is not easy for anyone.<P>I must admit to a certain hestitation in responding to you, however, I do promise no flaming. The kind you mean anyway!<P>Jo

Welcome to the MB forum.b <P>Thank you for sharing your story with us. When I first discovered my H's affair, I was in shock. I blamed the OW for it all. I hated her. Don't get me wrong, I still hate her, but I now blame him just the same. I suspect he lied to her and still does. <P>You have a lot to offer at the forum, those of us who are betrayed, sometimes, we do want to lash out to the OP in our situation, but its nice to see some compassion for all. We are all human and we all deserve better than this. <P>Good luck, and keep posting! Dana<BR>

I certainly won’t flame you for coming to a place and trying to end an affair, but for this statement <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> These men are nothing but liars. They deceive us(OW) by leading us to believe they care about us.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I will. Don’t forget that <B>YOU</B> are a liar and deceiver as well. Maybe this one is just like rubbing salt in the wound for me in particular, because reverse the genders and you could be talking about my OW. Yet I fully take responsibility for <B>my</B> actions. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> I am in no way justifying what I did. I was emotionally unstable and very naïve, but I still know it was wrong.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yeah, but you’re still making excuses. That last statement is a good first step, but misled or not, lied to or not, <B>you</B> still made the decision.<P>Good luck on doing what is <B>right,</B> truly. But don’t forget, you are dealing with consequences from a decision <B>YOU</B> made. You can’t be responsible for anyone but yourself, and you can’t begin to truly heal until you take responsibility for what <B>you</B> have done.<P>------------------<BR>Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die<BR><p>[This message has been edited by WhoDat (edited February 28, 2000).]

I agree with WhoDat. I am not flaming, but you are trying to get us to put MORE blame on MM than you. IT IS ALL EQUAL! You said that he used you and pretended that he was a good H. Isn't that EXACTLY what you were doing/did? You never told your H of the affair you were having/had which proves that you wanted to APPEAR that everything was fine. You call him a liar and you did/do the exact same thing! This is what is boggling my mind. Your story was something that needed to be told, but it seems you are trying to persuade us to put more blame on our spouse and believe me, you have NO IDEA HOW MUCH WE DO BLAME SPOUSE! Yes we take them back and that might appear that ALL is forgiven, and it just DOESN'T WORK like that! It may take years if ever we can completely forgive, trust, and respect our cheating spouses for betraying us, their families and the RESPECT of our vows. Mostly the OP only gets called a few unkind words, but it in NO WAY compares to what the betraying spouse gets verbally, emotionally and yes sometimes even physically. If you get anything from these posts, UNDERSTAND NO CHEATING SPOUSE IS LEFT BLAMELESS, they get MORE than the OP could ever get from us.

I admire you that you took the initiative to lurk in here and see how the other side feels. Yes, "us wives who could not keeep their man happy". I'm being sarcastic but there is truth in it too. If we were meeting their emotional needs men would feel no need for a OW to satisfy them. I knew we had problems, but never in my wildest dreams could fathom that he would cheat. He is just not that kind of guy. Or so I thought.<BR>Please tell his wife. Who is to say you are the only one he cheated with? As much pain I know she will feel it's better for her to know who is she sharing her bed with. If you do not want to tell her, give him a chance. If he doesn't come clean please let her know.<BR>You screwed up, he did not rape you. I was tempted many times to do the same. We all are. You are doing the right thing for breaking of with him, so come out totally clean. You owe it to her.<BR>

Remember, MM is 100% responsible for his behavior & actions.....but YOU are also 100% responsible for your own behavior & actions.<BR>

I didn't blame the OW until I talked to her on the phone. At that point she knew my H wanted to work on his marriage, yet she is still trying to hang on to him. She knows what she is doing wrong, she know that she is hurting me and our kids, but she keeps doing it. It's not really that they had an affair that makes me angry - I had some responsibility in that too - it's that she won't give up when she knows she's hurting a lot of people. I hope that you will understand that part of it and move on to better things in your life.

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have been kind and supportive. It's not at all what I expected to receive here. And, hey, I did get a flame, on my folder next to my post, that's pretty neat. For those of you who had negative responses, I am not upset. In fact, I hope it helps you being able to vent your feelings. I don't take it offensively, because I do know what I did was wrong. There were a few responses though that I feel the need to address. Once again, I am not making excuses, I just hope I can shed some light on a few things so we can better understand each other.<P>Disgrace99_d: <BR> You wrote:<BR> You admit that you destoyed your marriage, and another family's marriage too.<P>That is not true. My H did a pretty good job of destroying my marriage before any of this happened, which he openly admits. I could have never had an affair if I felt there was one shred of hope in my marriage. <BR>As for MM's marriage, yes it was a stupid mistake. I automatically assumed that he was in the same type of situation. What did I learn from this? Never come to assumptions. I feel terrible, but I do know his marriage has other problems. He should have figured out exactly what he wanted to do before he got into this. He jumped in feet first, and had regrets later. I should have known better. The ring on his finger should have been enough to scare me away.<P>WhoDat:<BR>You say that I am making excuses. I'm not making excuses, just describing the state of mind I was in when it started. If I had been thinking more clearly, it would not have happened. It was like I was in a fog, unable to see the wrong in it, unable to make reasonable decisions. If it happened today, I would have no excuse rather than being a heartless sleaze. I have a broken heart over it, and it would be too easy to go running back to him, but I don't. I learned my lesson.<P>trying2_4give:<BR>You questioned why I say more blame should be put on the H than OW. I have seen so many W's, not all, but a lot, say what trashy slime the OW is, meanwhile saying how things are great at home and H is being so sweet, etc., etc. I'm not saying that you need to like the OW or leave her blame free. I'm just saying that it seems some W's turn their anger on the OW so they can forgive the H more easily. Although what we did is wrong, it doesn't necessarily make us all bad. I understand that some OW out there are horrible H stealing sluts with no conscience. However, I think most of us are just people who fell in love with the wrong person. We know better, but we let it happen anyway, and yes, that is wrong. The H on the other hand is lying to two women, one of which HE made vows to. He plays with us like puppets in his own sick little play. Everyone gets hurt in the end, but the H usually ends up being forgiven by his W, or he gets the OW as a consolation prize. The H usually always gets someone who loves him in the end, and whichever woman he doesn't choose gets her world ripped apart. That's why I feel A LOT of blame should be put on him.<P><BR>I will post again later. It's nice to be able to see how it is on the other side. In fact, I really feel like this will make me stronger and more able to resist Mr.Temptation. I wish you all the best of luck in rebuilding your marriages. <BR> HMIYM<P>

HMIYM, I guess it's understandable to at first, blame the ow, more than the spouse. After all, blaming the spouse is like realizing that the person we thought we knew and that we have loved for so long is actually hurting us on purpose.It's like we made a mistake in judgment, and people don't feel good about it or are not ready to accept that right away.In some cases it also kind of keeps the hope :"If she just back off, he would come back to me and things would be fine again", fells much better than "The fact is that he feels he doesn't love me anymore, and we either really change somethings or this marriage will have no chance". The first thought seems kind of an attempt to preserve self esteem, when it's quite low due to the situation.<BR>Most people can realise that it isn't always so, with time, and many do.<BR>I don't know of any case were the ow pointed a gun to our spouse and forced him to have an affair.Although as I said in another post, I don't really go much for the "falling in love" line, if the person is married the code word is "stay out". If by chance that marriage is really at a point where nothing can be done to save it, waiting for a divorce is the logical solution, anything else is just trying to excuse actions with a poor justification. But then again , most people learn by their own experiences, and it's difficult to have the insight without being in the situation.<BR>WHat matters is what we learn from it. ANd how we act after we learn it.<BR>By now, I'm sure you know the true meaning for the word [censored]*u*me , it's not very safe and the assumption is many times incorrect.<BR>I 'm not flaming you, believe me. From the begining I felt my H's affair was his own responsability and decision. WHatever the ow did to help, might have irritated me at times - to say the least - but I could see I couldn't pass the blame onto her. I couldn't take it all away from her either. 50/50 seemed fair. Her assumption that my marriage was "dead" without even knowing anything about it or me, is no justification. The fact that she knew he was married, knew I was trying to work on our marriage ( and later H too ), should have been enough. SO she's to share the blame.<BR>Don't take me wrong, I don't hate her. Actually I wish her luck in her life and future relationship - with a single man next time, I hope -. I don't see her as an awfull person or assume she has no qualities. I do question her judgment, and her values, specially after H ended the affair and she continued to attempt to restart it by any means she could think off including trying to create conflict between me and h.But I do hope, that she, like you, has learned something that she can use in her life in the future.<BR>If you continue posting here - I hope you do - you'll be able to see that most of us are ready to help and support you in breaking away from the affair and that the majority will be fair.<BR>This is not a hate board. It's a place where people that are hurting can come and find some comfort and learn. <BR>Take care<BR>Kat<BR><P>------------------<BR>Each and everyone of us is deserving of a kind word, a gentle thought, and the gift of understanding.

You say that "The H on the other hand is lying to two women, one of which HE made vows to. He plays with us like puppets in his own sick little play."<BR>You lied too, to your H, and to yourself for making it OK or making an excuse of "Well my marriage sucks so is MM so let's do it and you continued it. Believe me, I understand whay you are saying about the W forgiving the H and the OW is deemed the DEVIL. But that is the way a betrayed person usually reacts, as like it was said before NO ONE wants to realize that their judgement in loving someone and thinking that person would love and care for you for wrong. And you may not see it but you are doing the exact SAME THING wives do, misplaced blame. You are saying you know you were wrong, but this guy played with you and made you believe things. And exactly just HOW did he do that? By telling you these things, correct. Just like he tells his wife things that are not true, but she believed/believes him because she loves him and wants to believe him, just as you wanted to believe him. But since you found out the truth, now you are expressing that he is the MORE horrible one for doing what he did. Yes, we all know HE made the vows to his marriage, but you should have made a vow to your own moral character and self esteem of not ever coming 2nd to anyone, but come on, you knew he was a snake before you had him in your bed, now that the snake has bitten you, you act suprised, knowing all along what the snake could do. Both are guilty parties 50/50! He is no worse than you. I am not flaming, but just pointing out that yes wives blame the OP but you ARE trying to get the point across of how worse the MP is and it just doesn't wash. Now had you not known he was married then that would be a different story and what you are trying to put out there would be true, but you knew all along.<P>

HMIYM,I am not going to flame you either. You do not sound like my OW at all. My H is a people pleaser, he will bend over backwards to avoid having anyone get mad at him. He has trouble saying "no" to those he considers friends. The OW used these 'character defects' as weapons against our marriage. She also pretended to be friendly to me and pumped me for informtion about him. She is still sniping at him on a daily basis since he has not yet decided to give up the relationship completely. He talks to her on e-mail and instant messages and she refers to me as "the alien". That's this week, who knows what is coming next week. Before this she was trying to convince him that he was in physical danger when he was with me. He laughed at that one also. Anyway, you go, girl!<P>------------------<BR>I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

<BR>HMIYM,<P>The OWs that get flamed here are the women who spitefully hurt the wife. I've read about some pretty unbelievable stuff, but writing nasty notes, leaving nasty voicemails, and this kind of stuff. Look for posts by terri - "the slug" as she calls teh OW - has written some jaw-dropping emails, for example.<P>OWs like that don't post in here, as far as I can tell. Welcome to MB.<P>Bystander

HateMeIfYouMust,<P>I thought you might be my wife for a minute. <P>Gives me a new perspective. I've been so wrapped up in the two of us and our problems, as well as me "hating" the OM, that I've forgotten the other side of this.<P>My wife is the OW in his marriage.<P>Makes me wonder if she thought about what whe was doing like you did. She has said she felt that our marriage has been dead for a long time. I wonder if she held back on her feelings and letting things go so far but finally gave in.<P>I've thought of telling the OM's wife as a way to end their affair, but I never really thought about her or what that would do to her.<P>No flames from me. You've made me look at my wife as an OW and not just my betrayer. I don't know what that does for me but it gives me some new angles to look at and some new things to think about.