Talk About Marriage banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

I was an OM once - do you have any questions?

29K views 269 replies 55 participants last post by  alte Dame 
#1 ·
I was an OM who married his lover (I was single). We had two kids together. After 8 years of being together, she cheated and left me for someone else. I became the BS.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have about the OM mindset as I experienced it.
 
#78 ·
Since she was still with her husband at the time of your affair, and from your posts she was the one that you were going to be with, how did you rationalize her going home to her husband and having Sex? This is a major trigger for many that there SO is having Sex with someone else.

Did it not matter?
 
#79 ·
They compartamentalize. They also are around others who do the same thing, so they have support in these matters. Theres a bunch of "write offs" to rationalize these things. There's large percentage of single men who rationalize sleeping with someone's gf or wife.
 
#83 ·
I guess I'll ask some questions too. :D

Beginning of the Affair

You mentioned that the A started off as a random encounter. Please elaborate on this. You mentioned that she pursued you.

  1. Did she meet you at a bar, was she on a business trip, a GNO, at the gym?
  2. Did she in any way play the damsel in distress angle? Did she re-write the history of her marriage? Did she paint her BH as abusive, uncaring, not giving enough attention, et?
  3. How fast did the affair escalate to a full on PA?

Communications During The Affair

You mentioned that you were single at the time, that you didn't have to hide it, but she was the one who was married, so she at least had to hide her communications with you.

  1. What were her main means of keeping in contact with you?
  2. Did she have a burner phone, or did she mainly use her own phone. Was it a work phone?
  3. How about email? Did she use a work email addy or her own or secret email account?
  4. How often did you two communicate? Was it occasionally or all the time?

Sexual Aspects of the Affair

This is the part that gives BHs mind movies.

  1. We know about Trickle Truth. How often did you have sex with her?
  2. Did she ever have sex with you on the same day she had sex with her BH?
  3. Did she tell you that you were bigger than her husband? Did she ever mention if her husband had any sexual failings?
  4. Was she completely open sexually with you?
  5. Did she ever do sex acts with you that she never did with her husband?
  6. Did you feel jealous if she ever had sex with her husband? Did she tell you that sex with her husband repulsed her and that she stayed faithfuly to you sexually during the affair?
  7. Where did you have sex with her? We often read that a WW in an affair will basically do it with their OM just about anywhere. How about the marital bed? Did she have any scruples or was the sky the limit?
  8. How about sex with her after the affair? We know that the very act of cheating and sneaking around is what makes affair sex so intense. Did it become regular sex once the affair was over and you had a real relationship with her?
  9. Did you or her ever use protection? Or was it mainly unprotected sex?
  10. Did she buy lingerie or dress sexy for the sexual rendezvous?
  11. Did she ever just "make out" with you, or was it always PIV sex?

I'm sure I have more, but these are just the ones I can think of right now.
 
#89 ·
Just a few more questions that I'd like to add to this list:

  1. Does or would a married OM ever think of his wife while engaged in a physical affair with anothe woman?
  2. Does the thought of impregnating an affair partner ever cross the OM's mind?
  3. Does the thought of being "found out" by the BS, friends, family, work co-horts, business associates, church or other social groups ever cross your mind?,
 
#86 ·
At any point did you fear violence or some form of retribution from the BS (and vice versa for your current status)?

When you were the O/M, how long did you have to keep your relationship hidden. Were there many instances when you were in the BS's home and had to ensure of removing any signs of your presence there?
 
#88 ·
I didn't fear violence during the A because I was not living in the same area as them. After she broke up with him, it crossed my mind. I mentioned earlier that I saw him once afterwards, and oddly enough I was the one to put on the more aggressive stance. There were no words, no physical confrontation. Perhaps I had bonded with my AP so much or felt the BH didn't deserve her or something foggy like that. I was full of myself, no doubt. Maybe a KISA symptom.

I was never in their home. I would've seen that as disrespectful, a violation. I would've felt low if I had done that. I know, it makes you want to puke reading that considering I was having sex with his wife but didn't consider that an equal or superior transgression.
 
#90 ·
I dunno about you guys, but after six pages I am just reading too much rationalization still here...

Not a family unless you have kids? Seroiusly?

We are talking about someone's HOME. Their SAFE PLACE they retreat to after entering into the world and dealing with arseholes all day long.

Entering someone's home/marriage/life in a deceptive way to violate, contaminate, and interlope is destructive beyond measure.

I can't read anymore rationalizing.. I am gonna have to tag out.
 
#92 ·
When in the A, did you brag to others, or did you see it just as another "normal" relationship??

Did you ever regret being the OM before becoming the BS?
 
#93 ·
I've done it one time in my twenties. It was nothing to brag about. I did know men who would brag about banging peoples wives and I thought it was kinda mean.

Like I said the one I did it with was a "Party Girl" at the time, so she was with more than me.

I was cheating on my wife at the time. I regretted it, felt shame and guilt...

However, I could not understand the impact of devistation until my next wife did it to me. It is a lot of pain, stress, the pain is incredible. Much worse than breaking your leg time and time again. It destroyed my life.

So yes, I don't want my children committing this common mistake. I also don't want them going sexless either or starving their spouses.
 
#99 ·
Just a couple of thoughts as I exit:

1) the idea that a married couple with or without children is not a family is pure rationalization in this context. I remember being young and married before children and being very much invested in my family. Many of the more compelling stories here involve families without children. Bandit, Shamwow. There are many, many more.

2) I do not enjoy your pain, though it does seem you kind of stepped into it. Most upsetting, though, is what this will put your children through. I wish you and them the best.
 
#104 ·
He was crushed. She told me he curled up in the fetal position when she told him. That's when it hit me how awful we had been. I began to doubt her, doubt myself, and saw that maybe it had gone too far, especially since we weren't a "sure thing" at that time.

With him, it really was a cut. I expect it was going to happen with me or someone else. This is truth. It happened fast. She'd already had a PA and it was tearing up their marriage. She told me he had been webcamming with girls and now I suspect that it was because she was detaching from him and rejected him emotionally and physically. She said he even gone to see a prostitute but I don't know if that's true or at what stage during our A that occurred. This all sounds so tawdry but there's more to it than sex, of course.

I don't know if he begged, but I do know he pleaded. I am sure he endured a lot of pain, but it's not a pain I could have deeply empathized with at the time other than guilt and sympathy. But what is the sympathy of an AP worth? Nothing. He's part of destroying a marriage. I mean me. I was a part, yes, I understand that. I was wrong for engaging with her with she was a coward for cheating on her husband and not divorcing him instead. She was eating cake and then moved from one branch to another seamlessly. She's never been alone. I don't think she was able to do that. She even said so herself.
 
#109 ·
Our relationship is very poor, and we do not communicate very much. Mainly emails. Short and to the point. She would like something more cordial, but I carry too many resentments. For the affair, the breaking of the family, the pain of dealing with this alone in a foreign country, etc.

True remorse? I don't know if I have seen true remorse. Acknowledgements of guilt, some fault, regrets.. yes, she has done that. To my satisfaction? No, not even close, but I am sure every BS feels that way. She stills sees certain things in a very delusional way that only WS's can see them. It seems very much about her feelings, not so much about me or the kids. She will say knows she has really hurt me, that she failed our family, but it just comes off as empty and said more to appease something in herself.

She has expressed guilt over her first H as well. But to me, it sounds pitying of him. That he didn't deserve it, that I didn't deserve what happened to me, either. During her A, she wanted to track him down to see how he was doing. She heard he was married and I think that made her feel better. Post D-Day, I heard things like "I set him free to do the things he wanted to do" and really gross nonsense stuff like that. I don't know she feels now. During our separation, she told me that things with him weren't that bad, so I guess it means she knows she was manipulating in her betrayal of him. Honestly, I don't know what she really thinks. It's hard for me to fathom the words that have come out of her mouth at times.

I probably sound angry, it must be the headache. I should take a break, too.
 
#111 ·
When you pick your nose in the car do you wipe it on something or do you roll it until air and skin cells cause it to coagulate and congeal and then flick it?

I've always been curious how OM's deal with boogers. It actually makes an important difference when you think about it.
 
#118 ·
Originally Posted by staystrong View Post
It spoke of my lack of morals at the time, and poor selection of a mate. Keep in mind that I did not pursue her and I did not come on to her. She came on to me. This may mean nothing to you, but it makes a difference to me. It's one thing to hit on a married woman and trying to break down her barriers, and another to welcome her sensual advances. I had doubts and reservations, I judged myself, but I did not tell her no. It didn't feel like a cheap thrill. I know what that feels like and that wasn't this.
I read over what you quoted and yeah, you're right. I knew what I was doing and I knew that it was wrong. Whether I was the instigator or not it doesn't matter, because the final result was the same.

I'm just saying I wouldn't try to seduce someone who is in a relationship. Not then, not now.
 
#121 ·
It felt good to be a seducer. They used to call me a "Cassanova". My main mission wasn't people who were married and things, but they too would be attracted.
 
#119 ·
So that was me giving you the benefit of the doubt, which it seems like you do not want.

While I do applaud you sharing your story and being open to questions, I do have to say that it appears you are still in denial on many aspects of your past behavior.

You claim to have regarded marriage highly, yet had no problem fooling around with a married woman while her husband was in the same room. You justify it by clinging to the "her marriage was over, it was an exit affair." Notice the word affair is still attached to that. And since you fooled around with her the first night you met her, tell us again how you knew her marriage was over and how unhappy she was within minutes of meeting her? Guessing that part of the story came out later, after you had already taken a steaming dump on their marriage. Also, be assured she told the same story to her current man, but stuck around/ate cake longer due to more complicated issues around abandoning the marriage (kids, finances etc).

Knowing how your parents felt about marriage and commitment, how did they react to your behavior? How welcoming were they to your wife, given her previous behaviors? Were you honest with them?

You seem to have consoled yourself earlier on with the fact that your you weren't the first other man in her marriage, that her marriage was already over, they didn't have kids etc. You minimize the significance of the transgression and deflect blame (you were pursued, you were single etc).

But now that you have been on the receiving end, it is all about how awful this is because you have kids, are in another country, you thought marriage would be forever, and you were a good husband etc.

I feel bad for your situation, no one deserves to live through that kind of betrayal. I am truly sorry for your children. I do believe your wife is a manipulative narcissist. But I also don't think you take nearly enough ownership of your previous actions and the consequences they caused. You were not simply a witness or even just an accomplice to the crime. You murdered a marriage and actively destroyed someone's life.
 
#124 ·
I agree with all of this.

My only point was that it is one thing to play a hand in destroying a couple (and their extended family), it's another to play a hand in destroying a couple which have children. You are destroying the lives of innocent children along with an innocent spouse. It's simply more criminal to me. Am I the only one who has this opinion?

My parents were receptive to my ex. If they had their reservations, and I'm sure they had some, they did not express those reservations to me. I'm much more liberal in ways that my parents are not, and I've done many things that they did not approve of as well as things they did approve of. I'm like them but very different from them. Anyhow, they had seen the damage which had been done to some of my mom's family members through infidelity, but I don't know if they wanted to attribute that to their son. We did not tell them the details of how we had met, but they did know that my ex had been married at the time. I think my ex told my mother that they her and her first husband had grown apart, or that she had changed. My mother didn't probe about why they hadn't divorced, though in hindsight I do think they should've grilled me a bit on it. I probably would have defended my ex and myself, though. I was pretty convinced of our love and our choices.
 
#122 ·
Being cheated on and having my life demolished did HELP me in a few ways.

First of all the cheating, and non-support of family and friends gave my stress no where to bleed to. So my CNS was fired up 100%. I was never usually able to do this myself, so I got really strong in the gym.

Because I couldn't have peoples distorted realities in my head because they weren't helping me, I got my clearest clarity I ever had in my life. My ability to focus on demand was better than it ever had been.

I remorsed over the ex's who were so great to me. Helped make me the man I was, really good relationship partners who would cover my backside when it was turned, who loved to help me and see me happy.... It made me want to be a better man for a long term relationship. A more consistent, trustworthy man who wants to give to his wife long term girlfriend so much of himself, so that she knows every day how much i love and appreciate her.

I learned how to dress my confidence intentionally... Because the situation with ex would take it, so I learned how to manage it. Without that situation confidence would come and go like luck.


Without going through all that pain and craziness I don't know how I would have did it. I didn't even know it was possible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: staystrong
#127 ·
Hurtful, hurtful stuff and it is important to see both sides of the picture. You need to understand WHY you don't want to do it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: staystrong
#128 ·
Side note: In another TAM thread just started, someone mentioned a survey which stated that Americans were the least forgiving of affairs, and the country I am in (and my ex is from) is the most forgiving.

There are cultural differences at play here as well. Mine versus hers. But I can't imagine the pain of betrayal is any less here. Or maybe it is?
 
#130 ·
Thanks for sharing, Manticore. Let me ask you, how old was she?Was it only once? What happened after that for you? Did you ever meet her husband? Did you feel guilt and regret for him, or was it more for yourself? Do you know what happened to her, or if she cheated again?
 
#176 · (Edited)
Thanks for sharing, Manticore. Let me ask you, how old was she?
Was it only once? What happened after that for you? Did you ever meet her husband? Did you feel guilt and regret for him, or was it more for yourself? Do you know what happened to her, or if she cheated again?
how old was she?
24, I was 21 but I have always looked younger, some people though that I was I hisghschool years when that happened.

Was it only once?
yes only once.

What happened after that for you?
we talked about the whole situation, about the mutual attraction and how it was wrong, I quit the job next week (I was disswasher, and I didn't really needed the job, I was taking a break from college and staying with a friend doing nothing but patying and being lazzy), I quit and avoided her (mostly cell pone, she didn't know where I lived).

Did you ever meet her husband?
Never, I was in that job like 5 months, she told the other waitresses that her husband had an accident and he was now in wheelchair and he couldn't perform sex anymore, I never knew if it was true or not, we never talked about him.

Did you feel guilt and regret for him, or was it more for yourself?
at the very beginning I was more worried about her marital status than her husband, I was not thinking about him getting hurt but about what I was taught for years that marriage is forever and messing with married people is wrong, I mean marriage was supposed to be forever, so I keep thinking "no she is married it can not happen"

then Little before it happened I was more self abosorved in my own feelings and desires, she was hot, all my friends telling me that I had to bang her, all the waitresses playing cupid, the manager that had some affairs with the witresses braging about his conquests (it was like averybody supporting infidelity).

then when it happened I was more occupied with resisting in doing it again, I really wanted to do it again, there is a ego bost knowing that she choosed you over her husband, I knew that I could had lots of sex with just making a phone call and wanting it, so it was really hard, I began to patying even more to resist the whole situation.

finally when I calmed down I feel bad about her husband, was dissapointed in myself and feel sorry for him, let me fathom why in the next question.

Do you know what happened to her, or if she cheated again?

I don't know what heppend to her but I bet she did it again.

see, whe she began to hit on me, she didn't know my story or background, she didn't know I was being rebellious and taking a break from college, so the only thing she knew is that I was a 21 year old dishwasher, so she was not looking for a new man to replace the other (I was younger than her, with a low salaray job and for what she knew, no education) so she was looking just to get laid with someone she found attractive, I feel bad about her husband because I knew she will keep doing it until I guess she finally could found someone worth to Exchange him for. (I have had 10 years to think about the whole situation).
 
#134 ·
A confession.

First confession was a lie. She said she had met someone on a trip, slept with him twice and had feelings for him.

She told me this the day before we went on vacation with her family and our kids. Nice, eh? I think she had a strategy.

When we returned home, I confronted her alone and told things didn't add up. That's when she confessed to being in love with someone else and that I should get over her and I could live without her. Was she supposed to be with the same person her whole life? Didn't she deserve to be happy? Marriage isn't sacred. We have different views on family.

What a c*nt.
 
#137 ·
I just read your first few posts in your threads from late 2012. Your ex-wife is broken, but not obviously broken to new men that meet her. But all of her romantic relationships are doomed. And her broken-ness will become more apparent as she keeps repeating her same behaviors over time.

With first husband for ? years, married to him for 7 years, then cheated on him with someone else and left him for you.

With second husband (you) for 8 years, married to you for 6 years, then cheated on you with ? others, then left you for another man.

She pursued you, was infatuated with you, won you over.

She had to be with current other man, was like a "coke fiend" when it came to being with him.

Here is her pattern: She falls madly "in love," stays that way for the usual couple of years. Then settles in and out of force of habit stays with person for a few more years, even though the infatuation has worn off. About 6-7 years out, infatuation has worn off enough that she seeks it out and pursues it with another man, whoever is most suitable that she encounters at that time. It wouldn't surprise me if your wife had several affairs on you, shorter term, that didn't work out, before she arrived at this current other man.

If it makes you feel any better, she will lose her infatuation with him as well, stay with him for a few years after that out of habit while the infatuation fades further, then eventually cheat on him with a new infatuation "in love" target.

When does it all end? It ends when she can no longer "pull" a "better" or "equal" guy to the one she's with. My guess if she keeps herself attractive she may be able to continue this pattern into her early 60s? Unless she somehow figures it out before then.

The fact that the "in love" feeling fades after a few years is something I could notice in other people's relationships, and of course in my own, even when I was in high school. Apparently, some people never figure this out.
 
#170 ·
Yes you were fed a story. But you wanted to believe that story because it was in line with what you wanted. That's how rationalization works. You're a smart man. You know that what gets told is usually not the complete truth. You know to always take things with a grain of salt. Yet when she told you things you fully believed her. Why? Because you wanted to. That's not necessarily a criticism. That's human nature.
 
#171 ·
Yes, that is human nature. Also a lack of experience in a very long term relationship. I didn't have that experience but she did. So I suppose I felt less in a position to judge, and that everything wasn't as black and white as I had once believed.

But those conversations occurred after we had already been physical together, which I guess is the reverse of most affairs.

We'd already broken her husband's trust, so at that point it was probably just a matter of justifying ourselves.
 
#177 ·
Thanks Manticore.

I respect you. Don't let the absolutist d!cks on this board try and bring you down.

You were young and you got caught up with lust of an attractive woman. You made a mistake. You were weak, horny, and presented with opportunity. But, look, the problem was ultimately with HER. You just didn't know better than to give her the stiff arm. You didn't realize that the pleasure of it would ultimately lead to you feeling bad about it. You learned from that. That's the difference here. There are men out there who would not have batted an eye about having sex with that woman despite her marital status. For you, it caused you consternation. You understand you hurt someone else and yourself.

Ultimately, this is a support forum for BSs and the occasional WS who needs defogging. But, it's also preparation for people like yourself who will one day want to be in a serious M. I don't know your relationship status, but I think you will make a good partner for somebody. Take care.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top