SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I got an apology...of course...AP was shaking in his boots when he gave it to me..terrified I was going to out him to his mother,roommates, Hell the whole damned town.

LOL.

FTR, I never would have done that. I knew immediately AP could have been anyone..WH was just looking for ANYONE..and AP was willing and convenient. I put all the blame on WH. I have no hatred for AP..rare..I know. I never would have outted him to his family and friends. But..he didn't know that...LOL.

Limbo, you nailed it. I got a "I'm sorry, butbutbut......". I yelled at my husband, he led her on, blah blah blah. She never saw it as her doing something wrong, so she really had nothing to be sorry for.

I would wager the vast majority of OWs and OMs do not apologize.

We do emphasize NC, so maybe it would be best, for you, to focus on mental no contact.

Don't give this woman any more of your life. She's taken enough.

ETA: After reading further, I'd call her a "girl" rather than "woman" (and yes, I know the age of consent was past). She was not out of her teens, and had father-abandonment issues. You made her part of your family---and your pushing-40 husband used her to stroke his OWN ego. That was exploitative.

She does bear responsibility for her actions, but I think the focus needs to shift. Your husband chose to get his needs met by a troubled teenager.

THAT is a pretty big issue to explore.

I would not leap to the conclusion that she was not traumatized. If nothing else, she lost the surrogate family you created for her. Yes, indeed---she is responsible for her actions. But the real grown-up--the one who reached majority nearly 20 years prior (as compared to her not-yet-20 years on the planet)--is the one who bears responsibility for making amends to you.

Was she a stupid, fucked-up girl? No doubt.

But I'd bet her experience with your husband only fucked her up more.

I don't think she got off as scot-free as you imagine. If nothing else, she lost the family you'd created for her--and that's a pretty huge loss for a girl with FOO issues like you describe.

I am very, very sorry for your pain. Truly I am. But shift the focus. Strive for mental NC with this girl (with perhaps, first, a prayer that your husband's actions did not damage her more than she already was).

And no. I'm not saying she was blameless. I don't know whether she was or was not. I am saying that married men pushing 40 who choose OWs who are 19 and have daddy issues cause harm--and not just to their wives and children.

[This message edited by solus sto at 1:26 PM, September 8th (Sunday)]

I don't know of an OW who has given a wife an apology...myself or some friends.

OW in Perv's case has made a competition with me and doesn't even know me...stole my life so that I am a shell of a person, and I don't ever expect an apology, no. She feels as if she saved him from me and a horrible fate and she can fix him-no (eta for spelling correction) one can because he doesn't think he has problems.

What I'm learning is that OW who will continually sleep with a married (formerly) family man in the first place, doesn't think in the same way that I do. She actually feels justified in helping him leave his family and the life he worked very hard for. She will and did fight tooth and nail for him, a man she hardly knew and just met, fought to break up a family...and he sees nothing wrong with that of her -that he will admit. For him it's ego and to that I cannot relate.

I wouldn't wait too long for that apology.

I, too, hated OW for a time, but now I feel a sense of pity if anything, because she hooked herself a guy who will sneak out in the middle of the night and who is capable of abandoning children. He's also already cheated on her and lied to "get" her, and she accepts this. What is that?

ETA also that apologies that came from Perv himself were kind of insulting, because they were always done with minimizing anything that was bothering me at the time. No sincerity or real remorse, flat and electronic.

Solo Sto has a great idea and it's something I've done in other areas...shifting the focus of your thoughts can really help. I used to feel that Ow, a/k/a "Fatty B", "stole" Perv...but in a way she can have him and good luck to her. Even if they get married, they have the rest of their lives to know what they did when they look in the mirror to three people who's lives got wrecked for their "happiness". They did not care.

[This message edited by Ashland13 at 1:33 PM, September 8th (Sunday)]

So she was 16 when she got close to your family. Perfect position for him to groom her.

They agreed it was just sex? How would she even know how that whole deal works at that point?

I've been exactly where she was chronologically. Just had experience with how fucked up adults can be so when he made his move he got quite a different response and risked getting a junkectomy.

I hope she's getting the help she needs. I hope he is too.

Maybe she felt like she loved him and still wants him, combined with your H having told her lies about how he felt toward her. She's then lied to herself to help her rationalize and justify her behavior. Her lies have convinced her she did nothing wrong. Why apologize when you've done nothing wrong? She might think you owe her an apology, since in her mind she thinks she never would have gotten involved with your H if you hadn't been such an insufficient wife, etc.

This...and the fact that I believe some OW simply don't have the maturity and perspective to understand that marriage is actually a lifetime commitment and all that entails.

In my case OW had already been divorced 2X but said to me "people get divorced all the time".

Her longest M was 7 years. Mine was 17. She obviously has no idea what it takes to stay in a relationship, and didn't think it was a major issue when my WS said he wanted to be with her. He did lie to her, but even after he came clean about wanting to be with me and that we were NOT divorcing-she stuck around and continued to allow him access to her.

His fault for starting it all, of course.

I think that these women who are ok with compromising their morality simply don't understand marriage the way faithful people do.

It's sick.

The only way I would ever expect an apology from OW is if she was in a long term relationship and someone did to her what she did to me.

Maybe not even then.

After DDay 1 I received no apology from MOW. She told me I had damaged my M before she even got there. She also had no regrets she said.

3 months ago she broke NC with me to scream about why she is up on a cheater site and to take it down or she would take legal action. She went on insulting me even going as far as to say my WH is staying with me because he is afraid I'll commit suicide. I told her I would take the site down and that she and my WH had hurt me very much from their actions. Only at that point did I receive an apology. She said, "well I guess I owe you an apology" Ya think? Her apology came too little too late.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 3:57 PM, September 8th (Sunday)]