SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Who are these women and why would sleep with married men knowing the possible outcome?
My WH’s AP dropped him shortly after our marriage ended and gave him the excuse that she doesn’t have time for a relationship.
Do people like her ever feel guilty for what they’ve done?

I would love what you think of women who sleep with married men.

I personally think they are sluts. I know a woman who does it because that's how her parents marriage ended and she finds some type of weird enjoyment from it.

I think many of them get a charge out of being the "winner" (whatever the hell that is in their bizzaro-world) - that was the case in my sitch with xOW2 (an ex friend of mine and FWH's). She was divorced, had zero boundaries or moral compass. Everything was always about her.

I heard through the grapevine that she remarried and was divorced pretty quickly because she was still incapable of fidelity. Her poor XBH never had a chance.

I personally think anyone who knowingly pursues a married/committed person is human garbage. There's no excuse for it and there's no justification for it ever. I doubt they feel true guilt really - it takes morals to feel guilty and they demonstrably have none.

All of that said, if they do participate in an A but then do the work and make amends and/or have true remorse for what they've done, then I have to give credit where it's due for people who fall into that category (but I think those are probably pretty rare).

Personally, I think there are as many different "kinds" of women as there are cheating husbands. I believe there is an element of society's expectations in that women are told they aren't valuable if they aren't married, that the quest to find a mate is "expected" at some level.

Most of the women my husband interacted with were strippers. He truly thought they were his friends and that I was manipulating him when I cried about the situation. He was just stupid enough to not see their manipulation. The two others had different motivations as well. One wanted my life, she was a single mom, had a history of dating married men, and was on the prowl, wearing completely inappropriate clothing to her job at a high school. The other one was also predatory, she was fired from a lucrative and prestigious job because she was extorting men in her office that she had slept with. I don't think she wanted money from my husband, but I think it was a mutually exploitive. He got ego kibbles from her and her from him.

Maybe there are other types who have less skanky motivations. Maybe some really think they are in "love" and that they are helpless. But I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can have such low self esteem that they settle for sloppy seconds.

Some of them genuinely don't believe they deserve better than being someone else's scraps. It's heartbreaking to see that.

Some of them have bad relationship skills and can't keep a whole relationship together, but love the NRE they get in brief affairs when they only have to give a tiny fraction of their attention and energy.

Some of them get pursued by married people and fall in what they think is love and don't have the fortitude to stop.

Some of them are gullible enough to believe the married men who tell them that the marriage is over, he's just waiting until (kid turns 18/he retires/spouse retires/career shift/insert random excuse here) to leave his wife and then they'll ride off into the sunset together.

There are a lot of reasons. Most of the time? I don't think they're bad people. I think many times they are broken people in various ways. Some of them are bad people. But not most of them.

I know it doesn't fit the narrative, but most of them aren't horrible people just trying to destroy marriage or lure in innocent husbands. They're people who definitely don't make the best decisions in their lives... but they aren't the ones violating vows. The husbands are.

A dear friend of mine was the OW for years for one married man. It broke my heart. He kept feeding her all these lines about how once his daughter was an adult that he was going to leave his wife and be with her forever (the daughter was 8 years old at the time). He loved her and only her, his wife was a harridan who made his life miserable and they never slept together anymore. I watched her wait, for five years, begging for any little crumb of attention that he'd leave her. Of course he couldn't text or call her when he was with his family, or see her very often, so any time she got a text or a call she felt loved rather than like someone who was getting far below the minimum she deserved.

I kept trying to tell her that she is an amazing person and that she deserved to be more than someone's dirty little secret, that she deserves a relationship that can be open and honest and fulfilling. But she was madly in love and couldn't let him go and was actually willing to wait the ten years on his word they would be together then.

What did she get for it? Turns out that the man's friend got busted for having an affair and tried to stay with him and his wife for a while while he picked his life back together- since he got thrown out of his home and unceremoniously divorced. So my friend's MM got scared and decided to break it off because he wasn't willing to risk going through that and dumped her like she was nothing. That was two years ago and she's still heartbroken over him and it kills me that she'd still probably take him back if he came calling.

My friend is absolutely, 100% in the wrong for being the OW, full stop. But she's not a bad person- just someone who doesn't love herself enough to see how much better she deserves to be loved.

I'm going to speak more broadly about single APs, not just women.

I think the attraction to sleeping with a married (or even more broadly, taken) person is often that you *know* you are participating in something illicit and exciting. Plus they don't expect to start a family or have a real substantial relationship with you. It's nominally a great method to get NSA sex because the BS is providing all the "relationship" juice and the AP is just there for sex and passion.

Yes, it's selfish and lacks empathy to the BS, but selfish people are gonna be selfish.

I'll answer from what I think I know about my husband's ex AP.

I don't know if she ever felt any guilt during their affair. I doubt it. I know that she was depressed at being number two, as my husband did place priority on maintaining the perfect family image at home...family gatherings, outings, holiday festivities and she was put on the back burner for that time.

But I also know that she felt like number one as my husband took her on a dozen business trips to Europe, and across the United States during their affair. So being married was not a big issue for her, she got what she wanted. And it trumped her feeling like number two during the time he was with me.

My husband's AP was "very happy" when he moved in with her after D-Day. But from what my husband told me, she was jealous of me, mistrustful of him, insecure, had self-doubts, drank booze even more than during their affair, and questioned every interaction my then ex husband had to have with me ( we were separating our assets) and every interaction he had with our grandchildren. Looks like she was a very controlling bitch. In my opinion, she seemed more unhappy than happy living with my husband.

Did she know the possible outcome during the affair...She knew that as long as my husband was secretly with her, all was well between them. Not perfect but good enough. On D-Day, she actually believed my husband would dump her and remain with me...so yes she knew one possible outcome of the affair.

Except I dumped my husband on D-day...and he went straight into her home and open arms. If you get what I mean, without being too suggestive So this was an outcome she was not expecting, and hence was "very happy" that my husband left me for her.

My husband did leave her abruptly after about three months. She did not see it coming apparently.

And later in time , we both chose R.

Unfortunately for both my husband and I, she has attempted to reconnect with him and has done at least one drive by our home...my husband is keeping NC. She is one Deranged Foolish Old Woman. (Three years older than my husband, in her seventies). Ok to be a wee bit kind to her, I'll give her Determined. :

I think there's a bit of narcissism in anyone that gets involved with someone already in a committed R. To believe that someone that cheats with them won't cheat on them. I don't think guilt comes into play because of that. Too much self-entitlement to care about others.

I've seen several reasons that singles get into an affair with married people. Sex doesn't matter.

AP likes the built in NSA factor. They really don't want a full relationship for what ever reason. It's easier to have flings with married people as your less likely to get entangled. Especially for men here as that relieves a bit of concern about unexpected pregnancies.

There's a certain attraction for some people to someone in a relationship. Kind of like them being tagged with a relationship worthy sign. Comparable to it being easier to land a new job if you are currently employed.

The thrill and power they get from stealing someone from another person.

It doesn't really matter it's a major sign of disfunction and brokenness in a single AP just as bad if they were a full wayward betraying a partner.

I’m the BH but my wife’s AP was single.

He wanted my wife, my sons, my house, my life as his. It was a grand delusion to be sure.

I don't think we should single out just single AP's. Anyone that sleeps with someone else's spouse is shit as far as I am concerned, and I personally think married AP's are worse.

Do people like her ever feel guilty for what they’ve done?

Some do - many don't. When I was really a tomcat many decades ago - I found that some women from other countries have way different attitude regarding marital fidelity. both European and Asian

Life lessons happen and we learn by experince. What I would accept 40 years ago - no way now.

Decades later - I have changed enough to regard them with same respect I give a rattlesnake. Admire from a distance but
stay suitably distant.

Those that continue on such path later in life - I think they regards the drama as just "the cost of living."

I don't think much of them, that's for sure.

...they aren't the ones violating vows. The husbands are.

I don't have to go around making vows not to punch people in the face. I don't punch people in the face though because it's WRONG. And the reason it's wrong is that my freedom to swing my fist STOPS at the other guy's chin. The way I think of it is that we're all surrounded in this little bubble of human rights, and we can do whatever makes us happy.... just so long as we're not fucking with other people's bubbles. If another person can say MY marriage and MY spouse, that's their bubble. Don't fuck with it. Not a difficult concept, right?

So, when people choose to fuck with it anyway, what that tells us is that they are so selfish, so needy, so dysfunctional, or so greedy that they don't care about the basic human rights of others. And yeah.. I get it. The needy, dysfunctional ones are pitiful and they CAN learn to do better, if they want to. The bottom line though is that they have to take 100% responsibility for being the kind of asshole who doesn't care about other people, who thinks that their freedom to swing their fist is more important than the health and well being of anyone else's chin. Until they're willing to do that kind of self-examination (and correction).. they can't expect other people to give a shit about what happens to them. They've thrown the first punch as it were.

typo

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 11:13 PM, Tuesday, November 30th]

but they aren't the ones violating vows. The husbands are.

I have never understood this line of thinking. I remember early into my SI days a thread that went round and round and round on 'who is to blame'... now at the time I was still fully in the wanting to hunt ap down and skin her alive phase of the proceedings, so it pissed me off to no end the people that were saying it was all the ws's fault because 'they made vows' and that no anger should be directed at ap's because they didn't. Thankfully these days, I no longer want to skin the ap alive - still can't stand her, still will be happy once karma makes the rounds - but I recognize that she was/is a fucked up kid and have the teeeeniest amount of pity for her that she actually for really reals looked at MY lazy, lying, broke-ass husband and thought she saw prince charming... Nowadays that makes me giggle and shake my head at just how stupid she actually is.

But none of the change in my feelings changes the fact that the little twat caused me massive amounts of trauma and hurt with her skankiness. She did that and I didn't deserve it. And she owns part of that shit, period. Yes my xwh owns more - he was a grown ass man dry-humping a child at work (groooosssssss) and justifying that shit. Yes the onus of adult responsibility was on him to not open that door. But she was not some innocent little waif that got preyed on by the big bad ws, and most ap's aren't IMHO (of course this does not apply to ap's who legit have no idea they are ap's, which I know does happen). She was an active participant in it and part of the responsibility lands right on her as does part of my anger.

Single women sleep with married men for a variety of reasons. In our case - AP was twice divorced, no kids - she wanted a man in her life - he told her from the beginning of the A that he would leave me and they would be together - she continually told him how happy she would make him. They both thought they would live happily ever after. He did leave me for her - very quickly (within three days) - he was texting me saying he had made a huge mistake and begging to come back.

I know she never felt any guilt - tried to justify the A when I confronted her - and continued to pursue him after he returned home. I once asked my H what kind of woman wants a man that could just walk out of a 30 year marriage and what kind of man wants that kind of woman? Any woman that would think it's ok to get involved with a married man - to participate in the destruction of a marriage - has to be a very broken person. To try to find happiness at the expense of other innocence lives is the epitome of selfishness. To feel no guilt for the devastation you have helped cause is psychopathic.

The ones who post online often seem to struggle with self-love and don't know what a healthy relationship looks like. The idea that someone will risk their marriage for an affair with them is a temporary boost, followed by a terrible crash when the MP dumps them.

Perhaps the ones who are more narcissistic versus lacking in self-esteem don't feel the need to reach out for advice online. I imagine they generally have laxer morals than most, and wouldn't hesitate to lie for advantage, cheat on taxes, etc. And so, who cares about the MP's spouse . . . The MP is seen as an ideal sexual partner because they won't expect too much or take up too much time.

I don't envy either type, or anyone in between. I want to live a life that blesses others. I want to be able to look myself in the mirror. I want to accept only healthy, good things in my life. And affairs, by definition, can never be healthy and good.

Ellie, I just put all the blame squarely on the person in the marriage. It shouldn't matter if someone throws themselves naked at a married person- they can always say no. So I believe that ALL the damage is caused by the married person.

I don’t really care about their reasons. I’m sure in their pathetic minds they justify it in all kinds of ways but really, they’re just skanks.

PSTI, that's heartbreaking about your friend. I had one in a similar situation with a married cop. She gushed about him and told me how his wife was controlling/crazy/etc. He was just staying for the kids . . . but he was going to leave her "soon" (this has been over 10 years ago and AFAIK he's still married). She believed every word he said, I tried to talk sense to her until I was blue in the face and all that happened is she stopped talking to me for a loooong time. She's a sweet person. Naive as hell. Not a great, supportive upbringing. Neglect, abusive, addiction on the part of her parents. She was being manipulated and she was an easy mark. I hated that guy, even though I never met him.