From the first letter: "Our friends have been very supportive, especially one woman whom we had both known for some time. Out of the blue, she sent me a letter "confessing" to a relationship with my husband about 25 years ago."

Okay, so this is a friend she's known for a long time, and also, this friend has been "very supportive" to her. Something is rather odd about all this. The widow had her "doubts" all along, but was mollified by her husband's denials, and they all remained friends for many, many years.

There was some considerable smoke way back when, and so, probably, there was fire, as well - fire that Everyone decided to look the other way about.

Perhaps the friend has felt deep guilt for a long time over her part in this drama. But she was not the only player in it, as a matter of fact.

The friend is not necessarily a loon or a horrible person. It's asking alot to forgive her - but she's not a "fly speck" either.

I think the wife knows the truth; it Did happen. She knew it all along and cannot really play the wounded victim in all this. Grief is tough, and this denial will haunt her, and make it tougher, I think.

Affairs happen. The friend should have let the past bury the past, or however that goes. It's not a happy event when the fall-out happens, but the widow could chose, if she desired, to let it go without needing to cast the "other woman" as the one who is completely wrong in all this. Clearly, they All participated, in one way or another, in this thing.

It's ill-advised for the "other woman" to bring it up now, but it might be misplaced (and, at this point, really unnecessary) guilt that compelled her to confess. Not craziness or spite.

Clearly, the wife won, and the Other Woman lost. Perhaps if she communicated that sentiment to her, the problem would work itself out. The Other Woman sounds like one of those types who always needs things to be about her. I'm guessing that the hostile reaction is just making her happier, while the wife's scorn would shut her up.

40 Years of marriage? Maybe the other woman is developing Alzheimer's and the lack of impulse control which often accompanies it. The LW should forgive her, but put distance between them, claiming a need not to deal with it right now.

Mara5525,

Actually, the other woman is a "fly speck." This isn't about spite. It's about staying away from someone who only intends to deliver pain and harm. If the other woman had honorable intentions, she would never have brought up this matter in the first place. The wife has two choices: First, deal with the grief as it is. Or, secondly, compound that already intensified grief by communicating with the fly speck. If I were her, I would turn on the windshield wiper and get her out of my field of vision...

I'm not buying the concept of universal guilt - it's a ploy to spread the culpability among the innocent and the guilty and it is bad form.

A police investigator interviewed a suspected embezzler and asked her if she thought it would be a good idea if everyone accepted some of the guilt. Her response was interesting; it was "Oh, yes! Then how much would I have to pay back?"

The wife has no guilt in connection with the adultery. She wasn't one of the cheaters. You can say that everyone participated, but it's wrong and untrue. The wife took part in the charade only to the extent that she wife to let go of her suspicions and get on with her life.

This is the homewrecking whore from last week 40 years down the line, in the throes of guilty dementia, going around to every recent widow she knows, saying, "I had an affair with your husband, too!"

This reminds me of that Alfred Hitchcock episode where the wife is "attacked" (they didn't use the r-word back then) by an intruder and then in the car on the way home from the hospital she sees a man on the sidewalk and cries, "That's him! That's the man!" and her husband gets out of the car and follows the guy to a vacant lot and kills him and then he gets back in the car and they continue driving and she sees a man on the sidewalk and cries, "That's him, that's the man!"

Karmic balance is restored.

Your Alfred Hitchcock episode was very similar to a science fiction story about a malfunctioning police robot who arrested and executed several random people for a robbery and murder.

Meanwhile, I can't compose a coherent sentence:

"The wife took part in the charade only to the extent that she wife to let go of her suspicions and get on with her life."

That should have been:

"The wife took part in the charade only to the extent that she let go of her suspicions and got on with her life."

There was a woman in my town who had affairs with several married men and broke up several marriages. They can't all have been great marriages, but she was the trigger for their collapse. Later, she married a guy whose wife left him for another woman. She told my wife that a third wife doesn't do very well after a divorce because the first two have claimed most of the guy's income and assets.

The big point is not the adultery, whether it happened, how long ago it was---it's this crazy woman calling someone who's suddenly widowed after a long marriage to comfort her...by confessing she slept with the late husband decades ago, and please forgive me by next Tuesday, if that's convenient for you. Now, I'm at the age when parents, and friends' parents, are passing away, and it's surprising how often people don't know what to say when they talk to a new widow; just saying how sorry you are for their loss is fine, but often people will focus on their needs in the relationship more than on the needs of the people who are in shock at the loss of their loved one.

This widow does not need to communicate with anyone narcissistic enough to make these kind of phone calls to a newly bereaved person, whether she had an affair with the husband or not. The time to ask forgiveness is long past. This is harassment, and if the letter writer wants to investigate this subject when the work of her grieving is done, that would be up to her.

It just struck me:

This "other" woman is trying to ease the pain of the widow by transferring the grief to anger.

Man, she is loco.

I don't think so. The other woman is trying to unload her own guilt and in doing so is causing even more pain for the widow. Increadibly selfish.

I'm not saying the other woman is right for what she did - either the adultery, itself, or the confessing of it, years later.

However, the thought that something other than spite or craziness might have motivated her to confess is possible, even if one still condemns her for her actions, past & present.

What troubles me is how branded the "other woman" is in affairs, in general. Outraged wives act as if they had no hand in what happened and no idea.

Husbands are seen as ignorant and pathetic. They get scorn heaped on them, but it's the "Other Woman" who is truly hated.

Someone wrote: "They can't all have been great marriages, but she was the trigger for their collapse."

Fair enough, I guess (it reminds me of that song Dolly Parton sang a while ago: "Jolene, Jolene, please don't take my man just because you can."

Certainly there are sharks out there of both sexes. On the other hand, if you marry some fool who is willing to drop his pants at the first, available opportunity, you might want to question whether it's really the right thing to put All the blame of that "shameless hussy", that "other woman".

Men are too easily let off the hook for having "needs", and then, too often crucified for the rest of the marriage, a la Kathy Lee Gifford.

Affairs are painful, but I bet alot of them are Not just about the urge to merge. Some might be.

At any rate, they happen Alot. I am tired of wives acting like they are wronged and playing this part w/o looking deeper into what really happened and why.

I'm not blaming people who are cheated on. But I see many reasons why it happens:

-monogamy, while wonderful, is not really a natural state

-people want to experiment

-people love their spouses but, for whatever reasons, need more

-the marriage is in name, only

-people are well-matched in many ways, but not in some crucial aspect that they need, so they have an affair, not wanting to divorce their spouses

-basic, physical needs

The last one bothers me the most, simply because a person can take care of that on their own, if, say, they are out on the road and away from their spouse.

Affairs happen. It's time to stop demonizing the "other woman". Sometimes marriages last longer, because of affairs.

The ideal is a marriage that is mutually satisfying and meaningful, but 40 years is a long time and sometimes things happen. The widow needs to forget about it, not dwell on how wronged she is, if it happened and just let it go.

After all, she let it go 40 years ago, anyway.

Mara5525:

...The ideal is a marriage that is mutually satisfying and meaningful, but 40 years is a long time and sometimes things happen. The widow needs to forget about it, not dwell on how wronged she is, if it happened and just let it go.

After all, she let it go 40 years ago, anyway.

Yeah, she put it to rest a long time ago, then along comes this selfish cow wanting to unload her guilt. What possible motive could she have? "I wanted to set your dear heart at rest and confirm your suspicions?" Yeah, right...

I do, however, pretty well agree with everything else you wrote.

I was that someone who wrote "They can't all have been great marriages, but she was the trigger for their collapse."

I agree that the "other woman" shouldn't bear all the blame for a married man's affair. After all, the other woman wasn't the one who cheated on the man's wife.

I am extremely opposed to the universal guilt argument when it is used to blame the innocent spouse for a cheater's affair. You can restate all of the cheaters' rationalizations, especially the ridiculous one about "unmet needs" but it doesn't change the fact that people are not compelled to cheat. They choose to do so.

tonto_goldberg:

it doesn't change the fact that people are not compelled to cheat. They choose to do so.

And, most people have the option of divorce, at least in the developed world.

I agree. A person with integrity would get a divorce before hooking up with Mr./Ms. Right Now. Way too many people can't get things in the proper sequence.

I usually get quite cranky when someone starts up the universal guilt argument that cheaters use to justify their affairs. Blaming the innocent spouse is an abomination. (...he was overbearing/she was cold...) Unmet needs, my behind!