Being the Other Man/Woman

Since I have had the "Older Women" thread on my mind, I thought I'd put this up for discussion...
I was once involved with a married woman. She was 14 years older than me and was miserable with her marriage. In fact, she told me she was in it only for security and for her children. She hadn't had sex in 10 years (not even with her husband!) and even slept in a different room than her husband. Even going into the "relationship" we had, we both knew it was wrong and potentially dangerous (my only concern actually was her daughter who was like something of a daughter to me). Our sex was great, but we always had to plan out times when we would be able to fuck without anyone being suspicious.
After we had been secretly seeing each other for about two months, she then discovered that her husband had been seeing another woman for the past three years up to that time! For a brief time we considered our relationship a justification for his extra marital affair, but soon, I realized..."this is just WRONG...!" Despite my hatred towards him for his treatment of his wife and daughter, I gave the relationship up.
Was I wrong in doing this...? Or even getting involved to begin with...?
Anyways...does anyone else have a similar story to share...? Have you ever been the other man or woman...?

hmmm. well, i was once involved with a married woman, 7 years older or so. although it was a different scenario as her husband was aware of this and okay with it. most of the time the sex was at my place, but the first was on the couch in her living room while he was asleep upstairs. i think i was the only one somewhat weirded out by this. they really had a relaxed open relationship... but still.
i don't think what you did is wrong... i hate that word anyhow. if you care for such morality, then you might place blame on the married couple for being dishonest and unfaithful, but i can't see how you did wrong really. i might be mistaken. but as i am currently in the position of younger man in a relationship myself, i can hardly fault you.


"you can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, you can only be admired or respected, for things you did of your own free will." -waking life

Thanks for your input. That has been something that has always been a brick in my head for the past three years. It's refreshiing to know there is SOMEONE out there who has had a similar situation.
Although we never fucked at her place. It was always at my place or in the costume stockroom of the ballet company I use to be in charge of (she worked for the ballet company as well). Because it was so secret, sometimes we had to take opportunities when we got them...

Personally, I think it's an ugly thing to get involved with someone who's married, just as a general rule. But the terms that apply to a situation like this aren't "right" and "wrong"...instead, "acceptable" and "unacceptable" are far more accurate and descriptive.

I've been the other woman *once* (and they weren't even married). Once was more than enough. It was a shitty situation to put myself in, and my experience with it helped me form my feelings about it today.

I say shame on them for cheating on each other.

/my two cents

i think the fact that in my case it was openly known and that there was no deception on anyone's part makes me feel less strongly about it.

When I hear about an affair either in a committed relationship or in a marriage, I always think that the people in the relationship are most responsible but I still feel that the "other man/woman" holds at least some of the resposibility as well. Some people have a lot of trouble meeting people, and maybe if you hadn't given in, they wouldn't have been able to have an affair. Sure they would have THOUGHT about it, but anyone who's been cheated on knows that thought and deed are worlds apart. Additionally, remember that these are peoples lives you're talking about. Maybe the partner really loves the person you're having an affair with and just doesn't know how to deal with the marital problems that have arisen, maybe the person in the affair has trouble communicating their feelings or maybe they're both just stupid, but either way, that affair is usually going to cause terrible feelings on both ends. Are you comfortable with being part of that? And I don't buy the excuse that "it would have happened anyway". That is debatable anyway and even if it wasn't, think of it this way. If your tax dollars were going to support programs that got kids addicted to crack would you say the same thing? Kids are going to get addicted to crack either way, why does it matter if it's me paying for it or someone else?
Lastly, I feel that it just puts too much bad juju out into the universe. People are constantly bitching about how rotten the world is, do you really want to make it that little bit worse?

By that token, can't YOU be held responsible for being involved in the affair? Without a partner it's difficult to have one.

oh, yes. but i don't regret it. i do take responsibility. i certainly wasn't saying i was a victim of circumstance, or that it 'would have happened anyway.' as unnerved as i was, it was still my choice. if i thought my doing so was making the world a worse place in some small way, i might've done differently.

That is one of my problems.
I think one of the factors of me deciding that it was wrong was that if I was in a relationship, I wouldn't want to have to go through this.

This guy really didn't care about her. He has totally dogged her. I'm still not sure if it was or wasn't my place to show her the love that she wasn't recieving...

Maybe what you did helped dissolve a terrible relationship, maybe the woman will be better off without him, maybe she'll become the leader of the free world because of it, but you can't tell any of these things when you start something like that. Most times affairs cause exteme mental anguish in both parties. Are YOU the person to judge what's better for two peoples lives? I know for damn sure that I'm not. I don't want to sound like I'm coming down on you, you did what you did and whether it was right or wrong isn't for me to judge, but I'm always going to see this as the only black and white issue. I'm never going to do it, and I will always tell people that they shouldn't either.

I wondered if anything like this would come up and I'm glad it has. I was once the other woman, but there was also another man. Long story. Basically this dude, (quite a bit older than I am. He was 37.) was married to this lady and they had two children. She wanted to have a threesome. He was against it, but wanted to make her happy so he agreed. So, they had a threesome with another man. She decided she was "in love" with this other man after two weeks of txt messaging. Anyways, he found out, and was in a bad state. Apparently she "couldn't make up her mind" who she loved. (this is making a long story less long, btw.)...

We met online. He seemed down, I lent him an ear, and things went from there. Eventually we met and had the most amazing connection ever. We were both in bad places in our lives at that time and...our relationship was so passionate...Anyways, we met. Fell in love. But he still loved his wife who he still wasn't divorced from. She finally decided she had seen the error of her ways and wanted him back. He of course, went back.

I love that man. I always will. We shared one night of total...bliss, is the only word I can use. We used eachother and took from eachother and shared eachother and it was the most incredible experience of my life. I will never regret what we did or the relationship we had.

They have since sort of seperated. We still talk though not as often and I'm dating someone new. But I will never forget what we had and I will never regret it.
Being the other-woman is not something to be proud of....but I wouldn't have changed a thing.

I have no solution to what happened...yeah it's in the past and I should leave it there...BUT maybe this thread will help to convince whoever is reading it that it might not be such a good idea...unless the other two parties are totally open about it and are swingers...

in general, i draw the line where there are children involved.
i've known far too many people who've grown up fucked up cause their parents blew their marriage. it's one thing to be the "other man" when it's just between adults.
my two cents, is all.
but i like feeling guilty, sooooo.... yeah.

IMO the only people that were wrong was her and him for staying with him under false pretenses. Honestly after 10 years, I don't know why either would even care - is that even cheating anymore? It's a legal living arrangement, not anything more.

I've been the other guy twice. It never really bothered me but I don't want to ever do it again.

I'm sure the offers will become less frequent when you change that profile pic, tiger.

Until you've been in a marriage where you haven't had sex for ten years, don't think you know what was going on in their heads or hearts. There's a lot more to marriage than sex, and sometimes even the bad is good because it's bad that you know and have grown to love.

My thoughts exactly, lol

Don't be so sure that you know, either. Sometimes the bad is just bad, and knowing you'll hurt someone no matter what you do makes it worse.

I realize this too, and that's exactly my point. As an outsider to a relationship, you do not have the knowledge of how those people REALLY feel for each other. To justify having an affair with a married person by thinking that you do is a mistake.

And THAT is also a big thing to consider. Neither of them really loved each other. She was just with him as a form of security (because she had a stalker before they were married) and to help raise their children. They still had the word "married" tacked to them, so maybe that still freaked them out subconsciously...

OK...I'm a little confused...you say you were in love with this person even though you only spent one night with him...? I'm curious to know how long you "saw" him before you had sex with him...

that's exactly where i'm coming from.

I was in an affair that ended an abusive marriage. we shouldn't have stayed together but we did. unfortunately the baggage from the bad marriage stuck around...not an ideal start to a relationship, but it was intense and amazing when it was good.

I've been the other man in less serious circumstances. Ain't no ring, ain't not thing? Perhaps not, but listen to Lovelines...when a relationship goes bad, someone jumps ship sometimes just to send a wake up call to the other.

I dunno.

I technically have been
since i dated a guy who was married,
but they had been separated years
before i met him,
just too lazy to get divorced
he hadnt even seen her for like 6 years....or so...