SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I just wanted to point out though that there are BSs out there who may fit your descriptions of the OPs.

Me too, I have often wanted to point this out. For example, the poster who has in her tagline something offensive about OW needing to use sunscreen, implying wizened skin - well that's me and my skin and lack of skincare regime to a tee

Anyway, its very demeaning all round and capitulates to a notion of the female of the species competing for the male attention. OWs may be, but I sure as hell am not. Entering. That. competition. Like. Um. Yawn.

A few weeks ago, my son's soccer coach's wife (follow that?) and I were talking about my marriage. My WS is now in an open gay relationship, so it is well knows what happened to me. Coach's wife knows someone "in my situation" and wanted to ask me a few questions.

She looked at me and said, "I don't know why he cheated on you...you are so pretty."

One, he is gay. Two, my looks have nothing to do with WS's choices. I thought it was such a stupid thing to say.

Trust me, just because I'm attractive doesn't help my situation at all. I still was cheated on and used. He had affairs with very unattractive men because they were OK with him being married with 2 kids.

Funny thing...my WS is one of the most unattractive people I ever dated. I fell for his personality.

[This message edited by cmego at 11:26 AM, November 16th (Friday)]

I rail on how OW looks pretty often, myself. It's 100% to make myself feel better about the situation, but I can totally understand how somebody with insecurities about their appearance might get hurt feelings by my doing so.

The honest to goodness truth of the matter is, if she hadn't have played the role in my life that she had, I wouldn't have thought a thing about how she looked one way or the other. As a matter of fact, if she had been my best friend and supported me through some hard times and worked at a soup kitchen on the weekends, I could see calling her beautiful. We all look goofy and different, it's what light we walk in that determines our beauty. When I try to do a quick empirical sweep in my head of physically beautiful people I know, all shapes and sizes and colors of the "winners" pop into my head. As a matter of fact, my little no-makeup, bob-cut, pot bellied daughter is the most gorgeous person on the planet, and a lot has to to with her goofy little smile.

I think that there are a million and one way our looks can be judged, but for me the personality really and truly makes the difference between whether someone is gorgeous or not.

SouthernGal, despite what features you may not like about yourself I feel like you could easily be beautiful to many people. I'm sorry if any of my previous posts hurt your feelings.

(((SG)))

ETA: Posted as a member.

[This message edited by Jrazz at 2:39 PM, November 16th (Friday)]

I rail on how OW looks an awful lot, myself. It's 100% to make myself feel better about the situation, but I can totally understand how somebody with insecurities about their appearance might get hurt feelings by my doing so.

Surely if you are railing on about OW's looks to make yourself feel better, then it follows that you feel insecure about your looks??

As a matter of fact, if she had been my best friend and supported me through some hard times and worked at a soup kitchen on the weekends, I could see calling her beautiful.

Didn't work in soup kitchens, didn't call her beautiful, but thanks for reminding me. It's a great time of year to volunteer at soup kitchens. Just sayin'

Surely if you are railing on about OW's looks to make yourself feel better, then it follows that you feel insecure about your looks??

Sorry, this wasn't addressed to me, but I wanted to say, I think it's somewhat more about feeling powerless than feeling insecure about appearance. Just my $.02.

Why attack the looks then? Given the moral supremacy?

I just realsied the answer to my own question -

Is it attacking the OW where THEY might be vulnerable?

SG unfortunately we do live in a very media driven superficial world so we would automatically pick on looks but the reality is, it is the inner workings of the person that shows the truth of who they are and in our case OW looks the way she really is, her ugliness is encased in an ugly body! WH is an averagely handsome man but since d-day I don’t view him as such. All I now see is an ugly man, the adultery has magnified his bad features and they now overpower the handsomeness.

WH is vain and so to get digs in at him I pick on the fact that she is physically unattractive and not a nice person (work colleagues bitched about her often enough and their wives cannot stand her). By all accounts she is a lazy, bitter, vindictive, single mother who lives with her Uncle and Mom in a tiny house (mom and uncle are very controlling as well) and has no friends other than her married sister. She spends her days being bitch of the castle at work (she works with and for her uncle and her mom does as well) and her nights till very late playing Farmville on Facebook instead of caring for her child...her mom does that. At 34 she has achieved nothing other than being a rejected OW and a single mother.

I am pretty, fat (WH likes that) and I treated WH as if he were a King (as per 1950’s housewife hand book) and he still committed adultery, so it really is not about looks, marriage issues or the looks of the OW..it is all about the F’d upness of WH...but I still pick on her looks because it pushes his buttons.

Honestly I feel sorry for her and wonder what crappy life she must have had to have reached a point where she felt some seriously broken married man who will never commit to her and only use her for his own enjoyment is enough for her. That is sad

Why attack the looks then? Given the moral supremacy?

I really do think it's anything you can find to pick on and for women usually looks are the yardstick by which we feel measured so that's our go-to.

I've picked on these OW (not sure what to call them, most of them were not sexual but whatever) for the following things:

-Being way younger

-Being way older

-Using too many exclamation points

-Liking to drink

-Not liking to drink

-Being blonde

-Being overweight

-Having a tattoo

-Having braces

-Being slutty

-Being frigid

Anything. Doesn't matter. Ridiculous shit.

I'm saying this moderately tongue-in-cheek:

I blame Dr. Harley. Why? Because in his book "His Needs, Her Needs", he blatantly said that it is a male need to have a good looking wife/girlfriend/partner. His words, not mine! He doesn't say it's a physical or biological need, he says it's an EMOTIONAL one (pg 121). Talk about a shot to the ovaries! That emotionally, my H needs to see a good-looking woman, and that emotionally she makes him feel better about himself than I can BECAUSE she is better looking? Kind of like, she would give him a better-quality time in bed (yay porn!) because he got to be with a *pretty* girl, so he'd remember it more fondly - and I'm not worth the same effort?! Ouch! And then the term *need* - for the most part we cannot change how we look basically. To be told that we're going to be judged on something we have almost no control over... and then the cruel mainstream culture tries to say that "it's a biological thing"... Well isn't that nice. Biology. Thought we were more than the sum of our genes. By Dr. Harley's standards, I should want my H to be a good provider - we make the same due to disability and he wheedles half my money out of me for his own selfish purposes. Yet he's allowed to treat me like dirt because I'm not as pretty as those other ones? Where's the humanity in that?

Sorry, this topic gets me steamed. In terms of looks, we all lose (and I was seriously hoping H and I could enjoy being losers together, but instead - darn! - he's always out trying to get the attention of one of those *winners*). It's how "the game" is set up, at least here. With the ads, they have to convince us that we have a problem that they can solve. They choose looks more often than not because it's one of the things we really can't control. So of course they come in with their magic solutions that say "we can fix this" while dangling people in front of us who are anomalies and setting *them* as the standards.

I'd say Dr. Harley has been enjoying too many ads. I think H and I have been watching too many as well - only one of us has been "enjoying" them though.

[This message edited by silverhopes at 12:20 PM, November 16th (Friday)]

I just realsied the answer to my own question -

Is it attacking the OW where THEY might be vulnerable?

Most likely.

And I would like to remind everyone who is bitter about the OP, that no matter how much we talk about it being whats on the inside that really counts, it is still usually a felony to cut them open and show everyone how ugly they really are.

It would be nice if everyone were healed to the point that they could objectively assess the OP's appearance without feeling the need to attack it. It would also be nice if society had progressed to the point where appearance truly did not matter. It would also be nice if I finally got that damn hovercar everyone was promising me I would have by now when I was little.

It would also be nice if I finally got that damn hovercar everyone was promising me I would have by now when I was little.

I'm still waiting for my personal jetpack too.

I was putting a response together in my head and then saw aesir's and realized that he's done the work for me. Jana also helped.

My response to SouthernGal was intended to reflect the humility and introspection I experienced when reading her post and thinking about where she was coming from.

My going on the offense about OW's looks is definitely about me getting some kind of control over the situation, and feeds a little bit into the BS's desperation for the Affair to not be as bad as they think it is. It gives me some ridiculous sense of security if I look at it like he OBVIOUSLY had to be out of his MIND.

Like I tried to get across before, I don't think I have honorable reasons for making digs at OW's appearance. It was all in the interest of making myself feel better somehow. Being able to step outside this behavior, I see how meaningless this viewpoint is, as it wouldn't have mattered what she looked like in the end.

Well, I gave a big long wordy response anywho, I guess.

Insecure? - Sure.

Done learning about myself and how to look at things in a productive manner? - Nope.

Hovercar? - Yes, please.

[This message edited by Jrazz at 12:19 PM, November 16th (Friday)]

It would also be nice if I finally got that damn hovercar everyone was promising me I would have by now when I was little.

No shit. It's 2012. I thought I would be strapping on my jet backpack and flying to work, and that Rosie Robot would be cooking my meals and cleaning my house, and I'd have a shower/conveyer belt thing to get me clean and dressed in the morning so I could sleep a little longer.

[This message edited by JanaGreen at 12:19 PM, November 16th (Friday)]

Also:

It's a great time of year to volunteer at soup kitchens. Just sayin'

^^This.

Totally.

It would also be nice if I finally got that damn hovercar everyone was promising me I would have by now when I was little.

I'm still waiting for my personal jetpack too.

That'd be cool. Or maybe that teleportation device Deadpool carries.

(((SG)))

threads like that bother me too, especially the longer I hang out here on SI. to the best of my recollection, I haven't participated on any of them, except maybe (in the beginning) to say that I didn't know what the OW looked like, other than a vague description.

I will admit to be very amused that she's older than me, though.

in hindsight, I think I was fortunate to not see what she looks like until over 2 years after d-day, and over 1 year after ex left me for her. because by that point, it truly didn't matter what she looked like. and fwiw, I don't think she's an unattractive woman, as least going by the one picture I saw of her, over 2 years ago.

I do think, based on her actions, that she's evil, and that she got exactly what she deserved when she "won" the prize of my lying and cheating ex. And the ex, yep, he got exactly what he deserved too, with her.

(((SG)))

The OW in my situation does not appear to be physically ugly. I have always been honest with myself about that.

However, what I do acknowledge is that her soul is ugly. Her lack of devotion to her family is repulsive. Her sense of self must be in the gutter. That she could whore herself out the way she did speaks volumes about her character. All of these descriptors apply to my STBX as well.

I'm no raving beauty, but I think that I have some appeal, and that appeal comes from who I am. Rosalind Russell, one of my favorite comedic actresses, put it best: "Taking joy in life is a woman's best cosmetic."

I couldn't agree more with that, and even the most beautiful woman becomes ugly when she lowers herself to cheat. I also think that a lot of the folks on this board must be incredibly appealing IRL, like you, SG, because despite the pain we've endured with infidelity, we still find the joy.

Happy Friday, lovely SI folk.

It would also be nice if I finally got that damn hovercar everyone was promising me I would have by now when I was little.

I have to add smileys to my posts because I am so brief (economical )

I worry that I come across as rebarbative when in fact the opposite is true and I just am so curious as to how people think etc.

So here's the smiley: the above quote by Aesir is funny, good light relief all around

And is also just SO dismissive: