Please, I do not want to be dragged into some sort of screaming (typing) match. That is why I started my own thread. Please don't intrude on it with the arguing that has been going on on this board lately.

I am going to do something very hard for me here. I have some feelings about exOW that are very difficult for me to understand and to deal with. I thought that they might help M05 understand her daughter's step-mother (for lack of a better word).

I hate our exOW and I am equally drawn to her. I think that she was predatory and her goal was to gain my life, my husband, our (then) life style and our future together. Now that we have children I am shocked and appalled that if she succeeded our boys would have spent the rest of their young lives in an orphanage and been put out on the street at age 16 to fend for themselves. I tell myself that to think of her as anything other than my enemy is foolish and dangerous on my part.

And yet...

I like her. She is attractive and funny. In different circumstances we might have been friends. I have friends who have all kinds of beliefs, I doubt that I would have ended a friendship with her if I knew that she was seeing a married man. I would have counseled her that it was a stupid thing to be doing and would probably have even told her how immoral I think it is.

Both my mother and my sister have been OW. I don't hate them and haven't cut off relations with them. I don't think that they are scum of the eart and worthy of my disdain. If I rant about our exOW, Mr. J asks me how I feel about my mother and my sister. For a long time I had no answer and it made me angry that what he did caused me to feel differently about people I love. More recently, I have come to a different answer--I love them, they did not harm me and I have nothing to hold against them nor to forgive them for. However, I think that the wives of the men they had affairs with have every right to think that they are...well, what I think our exOW is.

She is a serial OW. She is single and happens to think that all the good ones are married--or is attracted to the drama she creates or who knows what. This was her second "major" affair--the first marriage she messed around in ended in divorce, but in the end the MM didn't stay with either one of them. She has had numerous "small" affairs with married men as well as the two major ones.

I think my attraction to her is like a moth to flame. I want to know what/who almost robbed me of my life. I want to know what he saw in her. I want to know what she had that I didn't/don't. I want her to like me--in some twisted way, if Mr. J liked her, and she now likes me that somehow makes me more....I don't know? Likeable? No...that doesn't make sense. She is somehow better than I am? After all, she almost got the man I love. Nah? I know it isn't that. I can't figure it out. I am not interested in some sort of life-long friendship or some perverse three-way relationship. She is still not welcome in my private space--my home and I am still surpised that she has welcomed me into hers.

ExOW and I share (no matter how small on my part) some responsibility and care for the same child. I have come to care for Precious and want the best for her. I anticipate as she gets older (Precious, not exOW) she will be spending summers with us; she will be some sort of sister to my boys. We find some common ground on being new mothers and our new focus on what is best for our children.

I firmly believe in the power of redemption. I haven't always been such a refined, dignified, Christian woman (tounge firmly planted in cheek) but my faith life has done much to help me mature. I hope and pray that she finds the same thing. Even without a spiritual life, she seems to be growing and changing on her own. Her love for her child has taken away some of her own narcissistic self-absorption. She is dating a single man. I hope she has learned her lesson for good this time. I know Mr. J has.

She has apologized. I have forgiven to the extent that I have surrended any future "get even" actions against her for her past actions--any present or future actions are open to all forms of warfare if she intrudes on my life again or even attempts to.

It is kind of like rubbing a bruise or picking a scab. It hurts but I can't seem to stop doing it. Well, I don't do it (become friends with her), but I want to--sometimes.

MJ

Maryjanes,
How very unselfish of you to share with me.
I appreciate your honesty and can certainly understand and accept how you feel about that.

I remember the first time I saw one of my husbands ow.. My first thought was what was the attraction ?.. he said nothing it was sex, and she was easy, I was sickened by that thought by both him and this ow. In time after many ow, I became numb and although I hated them as you hate yours, I stopped caring about life , about any thing, I just too care of my children and prayed he would not ask me for sex. Because for years it still sickened me, and to this day there are struggles with that.

I am not insensitive to her feelings I do know she has all those feelings, but I dont know how I can help her with them.
I do vent and gripe, but that is so I keep my mouth in check when she triggers something and I dont say something offensive to her.

Thank you for sharing I can appreciate everything you say, I am not with out feelings about this woman and her life, but I cant help her. I dont know how, I just try and be nice to her and leave the rest to her husband.. I dont have a clue what to do.

Mom <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I thought it might help explain some of her apparent attraction to you.

I know one other aspect of this I forgot to write down--better the enemy known than the enemy unknown.

I don't really hate her; I sort of like her. That's what creeps me out. I should hate her. I hold her partly responsible for this mess. To my mind she did deliberately intrude in my marriage. She went after him knowing he was married. He never told her it would be anything but an affair.

He is 75%; she is about 25% (in my mind). It is something I could never see myself doing to another woman and so I wonder why she would do this to me. How can I like someone like that?

It is this push-pull thing that I can't figure out.

All the best,
MJ

BTW, the request at the beginning of my email to stay out of fights wasn't directly aimed at you, just at the contentious nature of the board lately.

Thank you again for sharing, I do understand all those things. And I try and be aware of them at all times, But I have to move on with my life, and I feel by doing the things she does she keeps other man and I too close to each other. Because he always calls to find out what she said and if she upsets me to much I tell him and then they fight.. so it just serves no purpose for either of us.

a week and a half till the birthday party and its over thank god.

Hope you don't think I'm intruding, but this caught my eye because I sort of feel similar things about the xOW...

The xOW looks kind of like me. She is overweight, light in color, with long brown hair and freckles, just like me. At one point she even cut her hair like mine, because she thought my H would like it. Weird. I almost wanted her to be all pretty and sexy and thin--because then it would have been about sex, which it wasn't. I mean, my H made it very clear that he was looking for a "better" me.

I've always seen her as this kind of funhouse mirror reflection of myself. She was everything I was, but more for him because she didn't have ambition, and she worshiped him where I simply loved him. She didn't care if he got drunk or smoked weed or had female "friends". She works at a conveinience store, I work in the court and have (almost) two college degrees. You would think I'd be the better catch, but not for my H!

So, I am also fascinated and repulsed by this woman. She was clearly desprate for a family, and she was willing and able to be my H's victim as much as he wanted. I wasn't either of those things. But I can see how she felt, and I can almost understand her actions. Now, she has this bizarre notion that I would hurt her baby. If I thought that, I'd be protective, too.

It's hard to hate someone you understand so well.

EJ

no intrusion

I would like you to know that when I make decisions about this mess. I make them for my daughter not all the adults, I respect all the adults, but in the end it is daughter who needs us to get along.

Maybe if, I could ask you to take off your bs hat and put on your mommy hat, and maybe you can understand some of my thinking.

His wife and I are very different, but funny thing is I am very much like his first wife of 30 years.

It is going to storm, I must get off this thing.

I iwll add more later, Thank you for sharing and I am not in the least bit offended it is nice talking with out the other stuff. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Hi MJ MOF and the rest

MJ I'm feeling you on exOW. I never had the opportunity to meet her, we just had confrontation on the phone.

I hated her, I knew exOW wanted to walk in my shoes. exOW did a lot of things purposely to hurt me. She tried to get my H to divorce me and marry her but he refuse.

I do want to meet her. Not formally but just to see what she looks like. I like to know what the attraction was.

I somewhat admired her to. exOW seem to be a go getter. I was once like that, until my selfesteem was cruised. I'm in the process of rebuilding me.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by MALC:
<strong>
I do want to meet her. Not formally but just to see what she looks like. I like to know what the attraction was.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Speaking from my own experience having "met" the XOW last week....I wish I had done it sooner. How liberating <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
I used to dwell on her pretty much every day and now I can honestly say she's nothing more than a fleeting thought here and there...she was NOTHING like I imagined.
I kinda left out my dig towards her...after meeting her and coming home and being p*ssed...I shot off an email to her saying that I gave Doc herpes ( totally fabricated) last fall and wasn't sharing nice...made me feel better...lol
and Doc got a chuckle at this "glimpse" of the old fiesty me.I know STD's are no laughing matter , so no lectures please!

Doc says that her attitude towards him has changed since we met. She no longer says good morning <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

BTW...we're getting married Oct 5th...here at the ranch...I'm gonna have my fall wedding afterall

Dear EJ,

Didn't meant to ignore your post. Kinda creeps you out this repulsion/attraction thing, huh? Wish I understood it better--or understood it enough to make it just repulsion. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

MJ

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> BTW...we're getting married Oct 5th...here at the ranch...I'm gonna have my fall wedding afterall </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> ]Docgirl

You kind of lost me, if you and him just meant how is she the exOW?

Are you saying he was involved with her then they broke up and he meant you?

I though he was your husband and he was a WS and that's how she became the exOW

<small>[ September 01, 2002, 12:47 AM: Message edited by: MALC ]</small>

MALC

Sometimes our histories are confusing to newbies. I should let Doc's Girl explain herself, but I will tell you what I know.

Doc's Girl has been living with Doc for a long time, like husband and wife. A committed relationship. They have a wedding date coming up next month.

Doc strayed last year with a woman from his office. She claimed to be pregnant and later it was proved that she was not. Doc's girl had never met her and "the need to know" was motivating her to get a look at her to see what the attraction was. She, like me and everyone else here, has some idea that the OP must be something so wonderful, everything we are not, that we obsess until we see face to face what the big deal is. In most cases, the OP is nothing like we imagined and in Doc's Girl's case, was far less than she thought she would be.

Doc's Girl is one of three or four extremely lucky ones here who have gotten the perverbial "Get Out Of Jail" free card. They have either found out that the OP was lying and was never pregnant or they have found out that their Spouse is not the bio-dad and some other poor schnook is holding the bag.

Catnip =^^=

Thanks Catnip

I'm glad you explained, I though for a minute Her STBH was seeing exOW first.

Well she is one of the blessed ones.