Other Woman Asks Chump Lady to Inform the Wife About an Affair
A mistress writes to Chump Lady requesting her help to inform a betrayed wife about an affair the OW had with her husband. Now that he dumped her, she thinks the wife should know.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I would like to tell you my story and ask for your help if it’s possible. (Sorry but I used Google translate!)
I had a passionate but sad relationship with a man who was in a civil partnership with a woman.
They had two young children. I was also in a civil partnership, but I decided to tell my husband everything, as I wanted to leave him. The other man said nothing to his wife, even though he was pressuring me to leave my partner and live with him. He wanted me to tell him “I love you” often.
I needed time to get my life in order before taking the plunge. I ended up feeling a lot of love for him, but he gradually withdrew from the relationship, thinking I wasn’t fully committed. I had even managed to get an apartment for him/us, and then he left for good, leaving me with cold, distant, even curt and abrupt messages, avoiding the dates I proposed.
I had asked him several times if it was really over with his wife.
He always answered yes, supposedly planning to move soon. He listed his wife’s flaws, surely to justify his infidelity. And just when things were getting serious between us, he would change his tune, saying, “She’s nice, she’s a friend.” And suddenly, he found qualities in her that he couldn’t give up. I had opened my heart to him…
I regularly messaged him to ask how he was doing. Nothing, no reply. He gave me a bunch of reasons: my wife is kind, we don’t have any tension, I want to stay with my children, she might tell my whole family and my father would disown me.
In one of my last messages, I told him I understood his avoidant attachment style and his behavior, and that I didn’t hold it against him, that we would surely maintain a strong, invisible bond between us. And now, he’s subtly coming back, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He’s observing me.
He’s a cowardly and fearful man. He’ll never tell his wife.
He cherishes his comfort and routine. This whole affair has robbed me of my peace, and a year later, I still can’t move on. I think about it every day.
His wife has questioned him several times about possible infidelity. He’s always denied it, always lied. I think it would be wise to warn this woman and confess to her.
I don’t want revenge, but I want to tell her the truth because she suspected something, and he fed her a long lie. He’ll probably do it again.
My pain will be acknowledged, and I will be freed from the burden of being the only one who knows, making the lie impossible and placing responsibility where it belongs.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
I am so afraid of the consequences for my current life (which I can’t seem to live to the fullest): my child, my partner (we’re trying to mend our relationship, it’s difficult), my job (we were colleagues).
Could you perhaps consider sending an email to this woman, saying that I confided in you about this and that I left it up to you to decide how to proceed with revealing the truth?
Kind regards,
Gutless
***
Dear Gutless,
You didn’t leave me a screen name so I made one up for you.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
Yes, Gutless, you are being cowardly. Also incredibly tone deaf. And manipulative. I’m the “Leave a Cheater” lady. I support chumps, victims of infidelity, not cheaters. Yet Other Women frequently seem confused on this point after they get dumped. Suddenly telling the wife is now of great importance. Because, gosh, you aren’t special. The FW lied to you too!
This does not make us united in sisterhood. You KNEW he was a cheater. The chumped wife is an innocent you conspired against. I’m #TeamChump.
To me, your motivation appears to be getting your ex-boyfriends’s wife to leave him. So then what? He sees the errors of his ways? And comes crawling back to you, so you can chuck your consolation prize husband for a second time? Or he doesn’t come back, but he can choke on some of the pain for once?
The chumped wife’s welfare is clearly NOT your foremost concern.
I had a passionate but sad relationship with a man who was in a civil partnership with a woman. They had two young children.
In other words, your “passion” trumped those kids’ intact home life and her well-being. In your value system, getting sexual attention from a married coworker eclipses:
- Not being stupid on the job.
- His wife’s lack of consent.
- Hurting young children.
But, this all falls under “sad.”
The other man said nothing to his wife, even though he was pressuring me to leave my partner and live with him. He wanted me to tell him “I love you” often.
This toxically lopsided situation was okay with you — why?
I needed time to get my life in order before taking the plunge. I ended up feeling a lot of love for him, but he gradually withdrew from the relationship, thinking I wasn’t fully committed.
That’s rich, coming from a married man.
Why do you think this idiot is a prize?
I had even managed to get an apartment for him/us, and then he left for good, leaving me with cold, distant, even curt and abrupt messages, avoiding the dates I proposed.
Wow. This didn’t go at all as you expected, huh? I guess you weren’t sufficiently committed. Good luck getting that security deposit back.
I bet it is at this juncture that dawning awareness for his chumped wife’s welfare entered your mind.
I had asked him several times if it was really over with his wife.
If you have to ask, it isn’t.
He always answered yes, supposedly planning to move soon. He listed his wife’s flaws, surely to justify his infidelity.
I don’t know, seems to work. Those flaws got you paying for an apartment. Must save him a fortune on hotel costs.
And just when things were getting serious between us, he would change his tune, saying, “She’s nice, she’s a friend.” And suddenly, he found qualities in her that he couldn’t give up. I had opened my heart to him…
You got used.
But the funny thing is you expect ME — Lady of the Chumps — to care! Are you so blitheringly narcissistic as to think I have anything beyond hafuckityha? YOU KNEW. You were okay with his WIFE being used. You’ve been hoisted by your own petard. The leopards ate your face.
I regularly messaged him to ask how he was doing.
Yep. Still not special. Check back again later.
Nothing, no reply.
Am I supposed to share your horror that a lying liar who lies lied to you?
He gave me a bunch of reasons: my wife is kind, we don’t have any tension, I want to stay with my children, she might tell my whole family and my father would disown me.
Thank you. You’ve been a nice orifice. But now your services are no longer needed. Please exit the stage.
An ‘invisible bond.’
In one of my last messages, I told him I understood his avoidant attachment style and his behavior, and that I didn’t hold it against him, that we would surely maintain a strong, invisible bond between us.
You didn’t hold it against him except in that tell-his-wife kinda way. Heck, he couldn’t even agree that you had a special invisible bond!
And now, he’s subtly coming back, watching me out of the corner of his eye. He’s observing me.
Of course he is. He wants to know if you’re going to report him to HR. Or his wife. But as long as you remain a lovesick moppet, he’s good.
He’s a cowardly and fearful man. He’ll never tell his wife.
He cherishes his comfort and routine. This whole affair has robbed me of my peace, and a year later, I still can’t move on. I think about it every day.
Yeah, you blew up your family (and probably workplace reputation) for a creepy coworker. KNOWINGLY. Perhaps you should get some therapy and work on your terrible life choices?
Confession time
His wife has questioned him several times about possible infidelity. He’s always denied it, always lied. I think it would be wise to warn this woman and confess to her.
Yes tell, even if you don’t have the purest of intentions. But do it honestly with your name and proof and offer to answer her questions. And then let go of the outcome. She might reconcile, but at least she won’t be in the dark. I’d probably also look for a different job or a transfer.
I don’t want revenge, but I want to tell her the truth because she suspected something, and he fed her a long lie. He’ll probably do it again.
YOU fed her a long lie. Look at your own culpability here. He is a FW, but you aided and abetted in that woman’s abuse. You’re confessing to her for what YOU did. Her husband is her problem.
He’s not the Big Baddie who led you down the road to perdition. You went happily tra-la-laing down the path and you’d be sharing an apartment today if he hadn’t dumped you. Yes, you probably are not his first or last workplace affair. But the wife needs to know so she can get STD tested and stop the theft of her reality and finances.
Your pain is entirely besides the point.
My pain will be acknowledged, and I will be freed from the burden of being the only one who knows, making the lie impossible and placing responsibility where it belongs.
YOU are responsible for your choices. Your pain is self-inflicted. Tell because it is the ethical thing to do, and don’t dress it up as some noble whistleblowing.
However, am I being cowardly by asking you for help with this?
No, you’re being gobsmackingly entitled. Really, you think a strange blogger in a distant land is going to wade into your fucktangle? Do I look like your chaos janitor?
But, you’re Chump Lady! You’ll help the chumps! There’s a chumped wife out there suffering unknowingly! Here’s some tasty bait! HELP!
YOU hurt her. YOU clean this up.
I am so afraid of the consequences for my current life (which I can’t seem to live to the fullest): my child, my partner (we’re trying to mend our relationship, it’s difficult), my job (we were colleagues).
Interesting that you condemned your affair partner as cowardly and fearful. Who “cherishes his comfort and routine.” You’re the same. I’m not surprised it’s difficult to mend your relationship. What kind of person wants to be Plan B the Consolation Prize?
You’re gutless.
Could you perhaps consider sending an email to this woman, saying that I confided in you about this and that I left it up to you to decide how to proceed with revealing the truth?
What makes you think I want your flaming bag of responsibility? As you’ve left it up to me to decide, I’ve decided to hand this decision back to you.
Tell because it’s the right thing to do. Accept the consequences because they are yours.
She opened her heart? What heart?
I also see that she lacks a brain, and courage.
If she had any of these she would not be in the situation SHE ENTERED INTO.
When she gets to Oz, I hope the wizard gives her a gold medal for projection.
I always appreciate a look into the disordered thinking of people who have affairs.
It reminds me that I lost nothing of value.
What I am most disturbed by is the harm done to the involved children.
😪
As for the “no one is perfect” defense that is often spit at the betrayed by cheaters?
Perfection, impossible for any human, is not the standard. Accountability is.
And that’s missing here too.
Well Gutless, as you can see, no one here will be very sympathetic with you, because you knew he was with someone and yet still you did it.
Worse than that, you chumped your partner too.
This is not a “I didn’t know he was married/with partner” and slept once with him, and then tried to confront this person: you sustained a one year long relationship with a person that was in a relationship and you cheated your partner too.
Sorry, but I don’t believe you. You want REVENGE, and get the least repercution possible asking for CL to give you a way to tell his chump wife, because you want him ruined, not because you care of the chump partner.
Do something different instead, tell your partner about the affair, and be honest. Give him the choice of pick you or dump you.
No hugs for you from me.
Gutless hasn’t acted in the Chump’s best interests thus far …. so why would she start now? Doubtless she’ll do whatever serves her best, and look to avoid ownership of the resultant consequences while she’s at it.
“People” like this don’t qualify as people in my book.
LFTT
First of all.. just wow. The ignorance and entitlement of the woman are horrifying. She does not see herself as what she is, a cheating whore, only as a victim. She is a victim of her own unethical and cruel behaviour.
My Cheater’s OW wrote him a sadz letter, after he got rid of her, bemoaning the fact that he ruined her life. That she left her husband (lied to him about why, using all kinds of lame justifications), couldn’t eat or sleep, was waiting for psychiatric help and so on.
I communicated with the OW’s husband a couple of years after the fact to tell him the truth of what happened. Interestingly it was just at the point where the OW had contacted him (her husband) to get together for lunch, see if the old spark was there, and he wanted to see her again. They were not divorced, just separated.
The husband was not angry with me for telling him about the cheating pair. it had gone on behind both of our backs for about 4 years. He was disgusted to find out the truth and immediately made arrangements to divorce her. We still communicate from time to time. He was left in rather dire financial circumstances.
It is possible the the woman who wrote to CL never told her husband the truth about why she wanted to exit her marriage. She may just have spoken about her ‘unhappiness’ which in my mind is cheaterspeak for, ‘ i think i’ve found something better than you but i am not going to tell you the truth.’ If she were to write to the cheater’s wife, reveal herself, she would be risking her home life and job as CL said.
Its really all about her and no one else.
There are two kinds of woman ones that cheat and ones that don’t. I will never understand the former.This woman sounds like the Jumbotron chick, its not me, blah blah blah. Loved the Chumpladys response, right between the eyes. Don’t these people have lives outside the bedroom to deal with? Who has time for all this diddling anyway? It makes me scratch my head that women like Gutless always have a man, must be the readiness to hop in the sack with just about anything, There must be a greater goal than screwing up literally people’s lives, innocent people.