Good Wednesday to everyone!

Our post from the other day spoke of my perceptions of the other woman and how they changed from prior to the emotional affair until now. We’re going to continue that discussion a bit here today.

Our topic centers around your perceptions of your spouse’s affair partner.

What are your perceptions of your spouse’s affair partner?

How does your perception differ from that of your spouse’s?

Has your spouse’s perceptions changed over time?

Please respond to each other in the comments.

Thanks!

Doug & Linda

See also  My Process for Forgiving the Emotional Affair

    17 replies to "Discussion: Your Perceptions of the OP"

    • Morrigan

      Interesting to do this! Kind of therapeutic, sorry it is so long. Well…

      My perceptions of her are based on both things he said during the EA and from what I read about her on her social networking sites & chats with her friends on those sites.

      Knowledge & Perceptions from social networking sites –
      – she is young, 10 yrs younger then I and 12 yrs younger then my WS
      – she loves to party, states that often , always talking about drinking, getting sick from drinking bars, raves etc.
      – she has been engaged before, and it looks as though she has been through 3 major but failed relationships
      – not judging but she herself complains that she hadn’t finished college and wants to, and tried the Navy and it looks like she didn’t pass the test.
      – she lost her license due to several car accidents.
      – she grew up having to watch her parents go thru a bad divorce, mother is not in her life.
      – she states on her site she is bi-sexual, as do several of her friends, this is another point my WS did not know.

      Knowledge from WS

      – when WS told me this was happening (he told me, I didn’t find out myself) I had called her, she denied knowing my spouse. The WS was surprised she denied this.
      – she now works 2 part-time jobs (not desirable ones) and still claims unemployment, WS told me this.
      – she would anger quickly at WS for not purchasing her things (once causing a ruckus in a sub shop when he wouldn’t buy for fries) WS walked out of the shop on her because of her behavior.
      – when the EA happened WS was helping her through a traumatic experience, I hate to say it this way and feel bad doubting, but she had told him she was raped, and the man tried to strangle her. This was when the “hero” factor stepped in. She needed emotional and financial help. However, there are lots of behaviors by her that indicate to me that this may not be true. And I have some experience working with people who have been through such trauma.
      – I remember WS saying one night after hanging out with her and a couple of her friends that he couldn’t understand why she hung out with “those types of guys, they were awful”
      – WS told me they had a lot in common, concerning growing up in difficult family situations and that she was “going through a really bad time, but that she was a good person and he wanted to help her, felt like it was his chance to help someone” FYI, I told him to help himself, and until he did that he wasn’t capable of helping others.

      So all in all, I think she is immature, shallow, more then a bit messed up. A girl who watched her father suffer through a bad divorce and now has no idea how to manage a relationship now, just stripping what she wants from the person she is with. I think she is very lost in life, that’s the best way to say it and she thinks others are going to help her figure herself out.

      In truth, I have no idea of what he thinks now, almost 10 months since NC. He doesn’t want to talk about it, just wants to move on. All I can say is that he did talk to his coworkers about her and they told him to “run, not walk, away from that friendship very quickly” That was when NC began.

      When I asked last summer what she could offer him that I couldn’t, his response was “nothing”. I have a good paying full time job, I am responsible, independent, talented, I have a degree and a good head on my shoulders. I have loved him unconditionally throughout the years, putting up with a lot as he struggled getting through his own past. I thought he had made so much progress, I guess he did but I just can’t make sense of why he would fall as he did, such a step back.

      Cheesy, but watching Hellboy last night, this quote was at the end of the movie, and you know how everything can be a trigger, but…I like this one. Makes me think I have hope with WS.

      “What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don’t think so. It’s the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.”
      — John Myers

    • Vanessa

      My perception of the OP is something I try to talk to my husband about but he says I am dwelling on things and I have given her more thought than he has given her.

      My perception of her is that she is someone who is lonely in her marriage, her husband doesn’t give her attention, she seeks attention from men at work to make up for what she is lacking at home. I believe she is a very self centered person who only cares about herself, doesn’t care who she hurts.

      My husband’s view of her has changed. At first she was just a good person, someone who was caring, that she wanted to help our marriage and she was concerned about me because I just had a baby and she was worried that I was going to suffer PPD (yes, my husband actually told me that). Now he realizes that she was manipulating the weak parts in our marriage (new baby, not Enough time together, stress of new job and baby). He also told me he felt betrayed by her. That did not sit well with me because he doesn’t know what it feels like to be betrayed. But he felt betrayed because she threatened to file sexual harassment charges against him at work after I called her and told her off and threatened to tell her husband. She was quite angry at that and started to talk at work about things.

      And after all of that my husband won’t even mention her name and hates to talk about what happened, which is hard for me because I still hurt five months later.

    • michael

      In my opinion he is a man with many problems. Some inflicted by others, some self inflicted. I will probably never know much more than that. Sure I’ve spewed my thoughts about him here and on my blog, but I probably will never know.
      I have never been able to get her to talk about him in a year and a three months. And she most likely never will.

      My word for this week.
      Acceptance.

    • Just found out

      My preception of the OW is she is very low! On her facebook page in her relationship part of it she has complicated. That tells me she enjoys getting into EA and maybe even SA with married men. She is divorced now but wasn’t when she was having the EA with my H. This was how she sucked him into talking to her, and my H said he enjoyed the conversation because he wasn’t getting this at home!!!! Well now he has a totally different prespective of her he calls her a user and that she used him for what exactly I’m not sure. I don’t understand. I don’t understand this whole thing and how he could do this to me. I felt comfortable in our marraige and then I find out 2 months after the EA is over that it was even going on.

    • Norwegian woman

      My husband had two affairs.
      PA: She had trouble in her marriage. Her partner wasn`t listening to her, he didn`t appreciate her, he was rude to her, she was almost cracking down under the pressure and so on. My husband was the oposite of her husband. She was very aggressive and showered my husband with compliments. After some months she started to demand my husbands attention in a very rude way (namecalling and so on) She left her husband, but returned 1/2 a year later (because my husband didn`t want her?) All of a sudden, her husband wasn`t that bad, after all…… She must have been very self centered with her needs and wants as priority nr. 1.
      EA. A woman that have had man after man, one after another, being kicked out every time. Very aggressive in her persue of my husband, liking everything he liked, showering him with compliments and so on. She is very self centered and quite an actress, but no one can fool everybody all the time, that is why she never could hold a person.
      So the common thing is that both theese women were in distress, they showered him with attention and compliments and they did it in an aggressive way.
      I am baffeled that my husband did not see it from the start. A person that is so unsatisfied with their lives, complains about others making their lives a living hell, and at the same time going behind the back of their husband/man and showering him with attention……. What does that say about their integrity and ability to solve problems in a relationship???

    • Morrigan

      I think we are going to begin to see a pattern in the perceptions and or characters of the OP.

      – they think they are in or are in some type of distress needing help
      – insecure
      – they showered our spouses with affection & attention
      – manipulative
      – they all have internal problems they need to settle within themselves, yet reach out to others to try and solve

      • Norwegian woman

        Another thing that puzzles me is the way they did it. I could never throw myself at a man like that, without feeling like a lovesick cat in heat…. The aggressiveness they showed was very intense. My H says that he really didn`t have to do anything. In the PA she arranged the meetings, called him, sent texts if she could call and so on. He never had to say much in return to get all this attention and compliments. In his EA he was blown to the ground of how intensly she wanted him and how wonderful he was.

      • Hope

        You are so right! Ditto….
        In my case, He had the opportunity, she provided the web and he crawled in…. The OW was needy, manipulative, and disgustingly selfish!

        His opinion, she was a friend and needed help… :>(

    • Andrew

      Its funny, I was just thinking about what kind of person I thought the OP was just the other day, and I was going to express that to my wife and ask her if that kind of person was what she really wanted. So, here is my perception of the OP:

      -He is 36 years old and still lives with his parents, he takes care of them for they are elderly. How can he fully take care of and support my wife if he is doing that full time?

      -He has no respect for marriage, as he has no problem having an affair with a married woman.

      -He has no respect for others, as he has been in my home when I have been gone, knowing that it’s not right.

      -He has no values or morals, as he has justified to my wife that there is nothing wrong with what him and my wife are doing.

      -He thinks that I don’t know what’s going on.

      -He truly believes that he deserves to be happy also, at my expense, and my marriage’s expense.

      -He is decietful, manipulating, and full of himself.

      And now my wife’s perception:

      -He is in management where he works, so he is successful.

      -He has the same interests, and they have so much more in common.

      -He is a really great person, and he does have respect and values, even though it doesn’t seem like it.

      -He makes her happy.

      -He is her best friend, they can talk about anything, etc.

      -He is fun, and likes to do things that she likes to do.

      This is just a short list of her perception amd mine, but as you can see, her view is quite the opposite of mine, as she is still in the affair “fog”, and thinks this person is far better for her than I am. This perception of hers has not changed over the 11 months of this affair, and if anything, they have gotten better to her. She truly believes that he came along to make her truly happy. Yet another manifestation of the fantasy that she is in, for he is only making her happy because she doesn’t see or know everything about him. It’s pretty crazy just how deep into fantasy land they have gone.

    • Cindy

      Where to start? She was a close family friend that set her sights on my husband. She showered him with compliments and flirted with him non stop. They started texting each other and he confided personal things that had been going on in our marriage. She used all that info to convince my husband that she was completely different than me, more fun, happier, bigger libido, told him daily how sexy and handsome he was and how much happier he would be with her. The sad part is that I thought we had a solid affair proof marriage but my hubby was in the throes of a mid life crisis and this black widow viper swooped in. I know it takes two but she used everything she knew about me and our family and extended family to reel him in. She even used his mother (close family friend) and turned his 80 yr old Christian mother against me with her lies so much so that his mother thought he should divorce me!! Really funny thing is she just went through an acrimonious divorce in which her hubby left her for another woman. She should have used all her time, and her conniving manipulating ways to save her own marriage. My husband and I are working really hard to get through this and now my husbands family Inc his mother have to get over the fact that they sided with this family friend. Family gatherings are awkward to say the least .

    • Diana

      My perception of the OW is that she is just playing a game with my husband and he is too blind to see it. I think it is sad that she gets on the computer and flirts with another woman’s husband while her own husband and children are asleep.

      I don’t know what my husband’s perception of her is now because he won’t talk about it without getting angry. I don’t think it has changed at all because the EA didn’t run its course. I gave him an ultimatum and since he knew she wasn’t going to leave her marriage for him, I guess he figured he’d stick around. I know that I am the second choice. I’m wondering now if I did the right thing by giving him an ultimatum. I “broke them up” like her dad broke them up 30 years ago, so will he ever come out of the fog or will he continue to pine for her? Will she just become more “awesome” and “amazing” in his memory and fantasy of her?

    • DazedandConfused

      Post affair (I hope!) my husband still has positive feelings about the OW. Unlike a lot of the posts above, she appears to be basically a decent person (as much as you can be while betraying your spouse). She initiated texting after my husband friended her on Facebook (she was old flame from high school). My husband was the one who convinced her to have a PA (after they were in an EA. He stopped contact when he realized I was done if contact continued. Since he still has positive feelings about her, I worry that the affair could easily rekindle in the future. Sometimes I just want to give up.

      • Doug

        Dazed, Perhaps your husband isn’t far enough removed from the affair yet (fog) to really see the true version of the OW.

      • tjt

        My husband still see’s his OW in a positive light too. He thinks they could go back to being friends but insists he wouldn’t do that out of respect for me. It would be much easier if he saw negative things about her too. It almost makes me want to find out terrible things about her, so that i can be assured a “nice” person wouldn’t do this to another family. Unfortunately, I can’t really find out anything like that, she seems like an okay person other then the affair. And that makes me want tell the world as well so everyone doesn’t think that she is so wonderful. I would never do this, but couldn’t honestly say at the moment that I don’t want to. :o(

    • Dana

      Doug
      Dazed, Perhaps your husband isn’t far enough removed from the affair yet (fog) to really see the true version of the OW.

      What ‘true version’? I think the way a betrayed spouse, and even a wandering spouse, might harbour anger toward an OW/OM is completely understandable and valid – there is no need to feel for or try to understand someone who has been the cause of great pain. The BS in particular has been exposed to the OW/OM’s darker side (selfish, manipulative and so on). However to imply or promote that this is ALL there is to that person is not only logically untrue, I don’t know that it is a particularly helpful thing to believe. If the WS and the OW are 50/50 responsible for the affair, then that same dark side exists in the WS. And yet, having chosen to stay with the WS, the BS must surely know that that dark side is not all there is to the WS either. If it is true for one it is true for the other. There is a true version of the A, the poverty of the ‘relationship’ that it entailed, perhaps. But not a true version of the OW/OM that only the BS/WS accurately knows. JMO.

    • trying to recover

      My perception of the OW has changed almost daily. She needs my husband, she can’t figure things out on her own, she needs encouragement. She persued him sexually, she called, texted, ect. Because she HAD to have him. Apparenty my needs for my H weren’t needy enough for him. Now I see her as pathetic. He sees her as crazy and feels like he was tricked. As bad as it sounds I sometimes feel “bad” for her because all she has to offer is sex and fantasy. It’s kind of sad. my husband says he knew she was never “marriage material” she was just and ego boost.

    • Dove

      Based on her social media profiles, she’s an online prostitute who lures men in for video and phone sex, posts illicit images of herself demonstrating various self-sodomy techniques, and then engages in online affairs with many men simultaneously in order to blackmail them for money to support her meth habit. She’s been arrested multiple times by Utah law enforcement for child abandonment, solicitation, drug trafficking, domestic violence, and shoplifting. My husband loved to chat with her because he said he felt like he could help her with her personal problems – the amateur porn was a bonus. I read multiple messages from her when she would be sexting with him and then ask him point blank for help with apartment rent or groceries. I spoke to her when I discovered her and she claimed she was trying to help my husband be more romantic with me. Hogwash. Any woman willing to sodomize herself with an upside down barstool in a dirty mechanic’s garage cannot teach me about real romance. My husband was attracted to her because he felt like trash, he said. Trash = Trash.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.