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One of the other women was my very close friend. I don't feel he "affaired down" or up or anything else. He cheated with someone who I've loved like a sister my whole life. She is a good person. I miss her friendship and the memories we had are still fond for me. She helped me through hellacious times when I was younger. She made horrible choices when in pain. I'm quite familiar with that and the consequences of those choices is the loss of a friendship that was important for both of us. She still reaches out but I can no longer be friends with her.

I know that some of the OW/OM I see described here are horrible people. I don't doubt that a bit and I think when someone is so vile and putrid of a person if there is a physical aspect of them that can also be added to the mix it's natural to do that.

By the same token people that are hurting and that "you" become close to in pain and go on to enjoy getting to know because of the wonderful people they are become beautiful and you really don't see them any other way.

[This message edited by uncertainone at 9:26 AM, November 16th (Friday)]

Here is my take on this.

SG, I understand what you are stating in your post and I also understand when some of us BS bash the OW, I think sometimes when we see what they chose to cheat on us with it is like "WTF, For me OW was not pretty, but not ugly but didn't have anything over me NOTHING, and that was heart wrenching because it was like "WHY", most of what was so ugly about her was her behavior and personality. But, I would bash her looks, her everything, because I myself was also in a black hole of how could he have done this with HER of all people. I think it is a coping part of some of us.. Childish "yes" but like you said after awhile that fades and you focus on how it was really about your WH and his brokeness.

I am sure you are not nor look like you say. People are beautiful all shapes and sizes.

If I ever hurt anyones feeling on here I sure never meant to.. In the beginning I was venting now OW is just a losehole and wannabe. Nothing great about her, one of those woman who act VERY inmature for her age and thinks she is a ganasta!!!! She needs a thug in her life... so she stated... WOW, is all I could say...

But I am very sorry if I was someone in the past that hurt your feelings.

Oh and I wanted to also add..

I see ALL BS as beautiful, wonderful people. We are strong, and forth right. Why because of our values, morals, integerity, honesty, faithfulness, love, compassion, we have a gift and that gift is here, we were given the gift of friends that understand us, that will cyber hug us, pm us, be there for us, love us, guide us, and be that should when we feel so abondon and alone.

So to me S/G you are beautiful no matter what you see in the mirror. Your heart is GOLD!

(((((SouthernGal)))))

I feel the same way as you.

Many of the times H crossed boundaries with another girl, it was with someone significantly more physically attractive than me, plus being the ethnicity he prefers (I'm not that ethnicity, and this issue raises complicated feelings in me). It makes the mind movies worse, imagining (and seeing) how adoringly he stares at them, hearing him call *them* "sexy".

Frankly, it makes me want to write an angry letter to all the ad companies, WWE, AskMen Top 99 lists, and about a million other places to tell them to STOP giving us impossible to meet standards. Every time my H pays attention to a girl who matches those standards, I feel a little bit less like a woman. I hate it!

(Like you, people sometimes mistake my voice for a man on the phone. I have buck gapped teeth, perpetual dark bags under my eyes, stretchmarks all over my hips and lower back, and my H is forever searching my face not to kiss me but to pop the pimples - so bad skin. Half his OW, on the other hand, were "perfect". )

[This message edited by silverhopes at 10:56 AM, November 16th (Friday)]

In my sit we have some of the same characteristics. Neither one of us are pretty. Now sorry to say that hurts and always will. I will never feel "pretty" because of that.

Difference is I am not her and I am here she is not. I believe she is ugly simply because she wanted my superficial life. My home, the hot rods, and my man. She would be incapable of doing the work required to maintain it.

One of the other women was my very close friend. I don't feel he "affaired down" or up or anything else. He cheated with someone who I've loved like a sister my whole life. She is a good person. I miss her friendship and the memories we had are still fond for me. She helped me through hellacious times when I was younger.

That sucks UO. I'm sorry.

I know I've made some very disparaging remarks about the woman my H hooked up with in October, based on the limited amount of information I have about her. It's just whatever I have, I turned into a weapon. She has a pretty face, but she is a couple of sizes heavier than me. And she works at a service-related job. OK, I have friends who are much heavier than her who I consider extremely beautiful. I have friends who work in non-professional or service-related industries who probably have less education and make less money than this woman. Yet last night I said that she's the kind of fat slut you can find in any trailer park around our town.

I'm not the kind of person who makes that sort of elitist snobby judgement in my everyday life. I don't LIKE being that person.

In this case, the OW really was rather innocent. Her "crime" was taking home a guy she'd just met, who told her that he was getting divorced. Is that such a terrible thing? She doesn't deserve my venom.

Yet she gets it. In other cases, where the OW knew the man was married . . . I think it would be next to impossible for the BS NOT to spew hate.

We all come at this situation (the betrayal) from different perspectives and experiences, and those play into our grief. Once we start to climb out of the grief, our perspectives shift and the experience of betrayal becomes just another part of our existence.

In my case, the OW looks quite a bit like me. However, I know it was not about looks for the X; she made quite a bit of money, which was very important to him, and she stroked his ego to the point where he believed all her bullshit. He was tired of the daily grind and wanted to live the fantasy. I can accept and live with that now, but it took me a long time.

My disfunction over the other woman? She was a '3 time loser', having been divorced 3 times; I had only been M once. I was very vocal about this 'flaw' in her character. I now see the error of my ways; the fact that I was M once makes me no better than someone M multiple times. It takes some of us longer than others to lose our prejudices.

I cringe when I hear someone putting the total blame (or a huge portion of it) on the OP when their spouse was the one who really hurt them. I silently hope they will see things as they are, but I realize it's only my perspective.

I hope you can move past this, SG. I guess we all heal at different rates and levels.

Hey SG,

I totally understand what you are saying. I've read this on here before too. Especially with all the comments lately that are flying around about Patraeus' wife... ugh. I cringe every time I hear them. I saw a picture of the two of them from when they were much younger. The wife was absolutely adorable. It reminded me of the hot cheerleader in high school with the nerdy geek. Most people don't understand... people will age... there's a charm in growing old together. Patraeus isn't all that hot himself...disgusting. I don't even find Broadwell appealing either...with her big forehead and aging face she looks much older than her years. If you want me to be critical.

I am tiny, petite, weigh 100 lbs with perky little boobs wavy hair and just cute. I'm about the size of the average 8th grade girl. This is what I am told all the time! I'm a magnet for older men who want some young little chick to feed their egos. Yes,... my XH totally affaired down in the looks department and I relish in it. He's with a beast of a woman now. EXCEPT when people say these comments to me...I immediately respond: "they both lacked values and morals and did not care about who was getting hurt in their crossfire" She got a wonderful prize...OW got the liar and the cheat and now she has to live with it. I have my son who I will teach the difference between right and wrong. This was all definately wrong. XH will have to face this one day.

SG, take comfort ...you know what you are worth. Upstanding citizens do too. Even ones never involved with infidelity... people of good characteer understand it is all wrong with no justifications.

I am a fixer. When something doesn't work I figure out how to fix it. I believe that people like me who have their spouses affair down can't understand how to fix it. If she was thinner, I could lose weight,etc. In those cases, how do we fix it? For me it is a control issue. I was insulted my husband threw me away from someone like her.How do I fix it so he won't do it again? I do know that I really can't control it but it is like all the passwords. I get them but it won't keep him from cheating. Only he can do that.

I personaly do not get insulted when others describe the AP and I have some of the same features. I am older, very thin and I have been enhanced with surgery. They are venting. We hurt and we spill it out. No one here ever means to make a dig at any BS spouse. I am sorry that it has hurt you. We are all very sensative after being so deeply hurt.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

I guess I just wonder if people look at me and think, "God. No wonder he cheated. His wife was fat, had short hair, dressed badly, doesn't wear makeup, has a voice like a man ..."

It is the same kind of reaction I have when I hear people say, "Why would he cheat in her? She's gorgeous."

For the most part I don't think about it a whole lot. My ex was a serial cheater and it lasted our entire relationship. Some of the OW were prettier than me. Some were not. A few were totally clueless. Some knew he was married and did it anyway. One of them was married and cheating on her H with my H. One of them, a particularly sad specimen was the OW through his first M and our entire M as well as a cinstant through all of his other As. I do wonder what was in it for her. She's never been more than the OW for more than 20 years. Boggles the mind.

But ultimately I blame him for his choices, for deceiving me, for cheating on me, and in one case bringing the OW into my daughters life while the A was active.

I have a few OWs that I don't like and whom I believe to be wastes of skin.

But I blame him.

I just can't help feelin that some people would believe that I somehow deserved it because I'm not very pretty.

I started a thread once here about the OW's looks. It was called "She Ugly". And, she is.

The truth is she is just an average looking, at the time, 40 something women. She is/was thinner than me. The really ugly of her is inside. Her ugliness shines through and she is no longer "average" but truly ugly.

I used to love, love, love Mel Gibson. Thought he was the sexiest man on earth. Extremely handsome in my eyes. From the first time I saw him in a movie, "Mad Max", until it was revealed that he was cheating on his wife. I still didn't know I was cheated on. He instantly became very ugly to me. Mel's inside ugly overcame any of his physical beauty.

Now, FWH met me when I was 21 and a beach bunny hottie. I was 5 ft. and 100#s of T&A. My FWH was a 6 ft. handsome, well muscled, buff, longish blonde hair ( the 70's) man. In the almost 40 years we have known each other we have changed a lot. I still have the T&A, but they are in different places now. About the only thing I can say is the same about me is that I am 5 ft. tall. My FWH is still sexy and handsome, but the hair, well, it isn't there anymore, his body is still pretty much the same, but he has lost muscle.

When we look at each other we see the 20 somethings we were when we met. We see each others beauty still. In fact, my FWH is more handsome than the day I met him.

My point is a persons inner beauty or inner ugly always shines through. Maybe we don't see it if we meet for the first time, but after you get to know someone, you find out if they are truly beautiful or truly ugly.

We are human beings. It is in our nature to look at "looks". There is nothing wrong with that unless you let it prevail in your judgements of people.

It doesnt matter what the OP looks like and it doesnt matter what the BS looks like. What matters is the cheating. You know what when he married me I was young, thin and firm. Now I am middle aged, not thin and saggy and he still didnt have a right to do what he did.

My WW had an A with a Doctor/Bodybuilder. I can't help but think that had some bearing on her decision. The ego strokes and player game he had sealed the deal I'm sure. OM is also a serial cheater and general POS.

I may or may not be in OM league in the looks dept. I don't know that I really care. It has changed my view of my WW though. She hasn't been as physically attractive to me since I found out. Before the A, she as a knockout to me. Now she seems cheap.

I completely understand. Often I have read (and occasionally written) something that I realized would probably make somebody feel bad. Some things that have made me feel bad. But I realize that its not a real attack on "fat""old""ugly" its just the pain coming out through hatred. Really boils down to what JanaGreen said

It's just whatever I have, I turned into a weapon.

It really isn't about the OP. I have to admit that on D Day, I knew OW#1 and the very first words out of my mouth were, "But Babe, she's ugly" He hung his head and said, "I know." Now, 6 years later, I have to admit that she's not ugly. She has a beautiful smile. At the time it was just what I focused on.

Now, there have been 6 OW that I know of. I am white, and all these OW are not. They are of a particular nationality that I will not mention because there may be some of the same here. In talking with my WH, I never understood why he married a white woman if he was really attracted to these others, and he continually insists that he's not attracted to them, that they keep throwing themselves at him.

Well, I met a man, a complete stranger, who asked if I was married. When he found out where my WH worked and what industry he was in, he said, "What happened, did he sleep with a ________ woman?" I was shocked and asked how he could possibly have known that. He said that he grew up in that community, and they're nice people but their society is so F'ed up that __________ women will sleep with any guy who has 2 nickels to rub together. He also said their men treat them so badly that these women are like dogs, who will sit under your kitchen table and accept whatever scraps your husband tosses their way, so it's easy to have affairs with them because they never ask for more.

This long, rambling story is to make 2 points. 1 I was obsessed with why my H cheated with an entire ethnicity that he claimed to have no attraction to and 2. if they are broken enough to cheat, they will cheat with whoever is willing, looks don't really matter.

Aww S/G,

I hope you really don't think people look at you and really thought "I can see why he cheated". That breaks my heart. No one deserves the pain of betrayal. And to me he was the fool because you know good woman don't come around all the time. Meaning a forgiving woman because he was a serial cheater, a woman who is a great wife not perfect but great as far as being faithful, loving, taking care of family first... you know where I am getting at.

But, you know you seem happier now, and who cares if your voice is deep, you can't help that, and your short hair, well shit it's the WAY you like it, and no make, then you must feel good about yourself not to have to wear it. And scurbs well its your job and I know a lot men who think woman in scurbs are sexy. And your weight, who the hell cares as long as YOU are comfortable in your own skin.

You know, when I found out about DDay, I lost 40 pounds in a about 2 months and could not put it back on due to emotions, and my wh made SO MUCH fun on how sickly I looked, I was so embarrassed about how I looked, my cheeks were sunked in, I shook all the time, my hair was dry and brittle, I looked a HOT MESS, and I hated the OW because she was not going through what I was as the wife. Nothing I did made him want me at that time but to release hatered at me. I was so insercure because I knew what I looked like before the A and what I wanted to get back to. Not until about a year ago when I started to get use to my new life that I started putting weight back on, (now I just have to get toned up again)and I feel on top of the world cus I am back to a size 6 and not a size 1. And I have a little muffin top when I sit but shoot that is okay with me, my hair is back in good condition, and I look healthy.

My piont is that it goes both ways and if I knew now what I didn't then is that we are all insecure about something and we will use that as a weapon when hurting so so badly.

I still think your harder on yourself then others may think about you!

Wow - hit the nail on the head SisterM with the Mel thing!

SG, I've thought the same thing myself, but I think the JFO BS, in particular, is prone to look for any and every fault in the OP that they can find. It is a defense mechanism and a way to vent the anger.

Me - I never much focused on them, some were pretty some were meh... so what. My WH however, got a lot uglier in my eyes overnight.

I know what you mean, SG. I'm not unattractive, but I have 50 extra pounds on me, I've had 3 babies and my body shows it. I don't often FEEL very attractive with the extra weight. I also don't have the money to afford a lot of clothes, so what I do have is plain and mostly functional, not necessarily highly fashionable.

OW was/is a late teen, early 20s woman, who is tall and thin and in perfect shape. She works full time and can afford nice clothes. She doesn't have the responsibility of 3 children, so she's not tired all the time and probably has lots of young, sexual energy. I don't, personally, find her face attractive (and yes, I'm subjective, but I don't think I would have pre-D-day, either), but she's also not ugly.

He didn't necessarily affair down in the looks department. He affaired down because she will never, in a million years, compare to me in the character department.

I know that when I was in the thick of things, and I focused on the fact that OW has crooked teeth and looks like a twelve year old boy, it wasn't really about her.

It was about my own insecurity. I was directing that at her because she was an easy target, since I already had so much anger directed at her.

I was trying to make myself feel better by tearing someone else down.

It didn't work, but it's a very natural human inclination. Heck, my mother does it every time I see her.

ETA: The things that eventually did make me feel better about myself were letting go, forgiving, reclaiming my life, and a lot of IC.

[This message edited by Amazonia at 10:58 AM, November 16th (Friday)]

I think that the pain from the betrayal takes us back to childhood and the easiest thing to do is to projected all that pain on to the OP and label them everything our little 8 year old mind can think of. (which isn't much if you think back to the playground) :)

As we get more comfortable living with the pain, our brains can function better and our adult reasoning skills come back as does our vocabulary. It seems to be a stage most BS's go thru in the very beginning when all is raw.

I actually had to back off here a bit in the past month as the negativity was getting to strong. There was so much raw pain being posted. I am almost 3 years out from D-day and the rage has subsided for me.