The Affair Partner Is Better Looking
The affair partner is better looking than he is and he can’t stop comparing. No more pick me dancing, says Chump Lady. Even if it’s in your head.
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Dear Chump Lady,
I have serious question that I have been wrestling with. I know my cheating ex-wife is a narcissist and tried to put all the blame on me. And yes, good riddance to her. What’s tough to swallow, and this is a serious question, is that on the surface the new guy is better looking, taller, and has more hair than me. Isn’t there something to just realizing this fact and moving on?
I wrestle with it, since I am dating as well, and yes there are some girls I am attracted more to. But trust me, I value character, integrity, and morals. My ex obviously didn’t.
She didn’t love me. How I looked. How I spoke. Everything. I snore. I know about the skein of fuckedupness….. that tangly mess. But isn’t it okay to own some of this? Or is it buying her shitty bill of goods?
Steve
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Dear Steve,
Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist and orator once said: “A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.”
Which is just a more erudite way of saying:
Consider the source.
A person who loves you will not insult you. And a person who does not love you, cannot insult you. Not really. They can’t really land any blows on you, because they’re not intimate with you.
When you love someone and commit your life to theirs, you make yourself vulnerable. One of the ways we make ourselves vulnerable is believing what our intimates think of us. You spend a lot of time around this person, and they mirror back to you every day if they’re pleased or displeased with you. If you’re with someone who is constantly and forever displeased with you (and then replaces you with someone younger and hairier), it’s hard not to take that personally, to internalize the message that gosh, you suck.
But consider the mirror.
It’s in your cheater’s best interest to reflect back to you that you suck, because it absolves them of personal responsibility (at least in their fevered, little minds). Your snoring, less-than hirsute ways make you simply intolerable, so screwing around on you is something they were driven to do.
Did you ever read Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen”? It starts out with the tale of some evil goblins, who have created a mirror that reflects everything into something ugly.
They’re flying over Scandinavia one day, carrying the mirror — and it drops and shatters. Fragments spread across the land in tiny pieces. Anyone who gets a shard of this glass stuck in their eye can now only see ugliness where there is beauty. The little boy in the story gets a piece of glass stuck in his eye and leaves his good friend Gerta to go live with the Snow Queen. (A fable for infidelity if ever there was one.)
Anderson writes about the mirror:
When we are at the end of the story we shall know more than we do now, for he was a bad goblin. He was one of the very worst, for he was a demon. One day he was in very good spirits, for he had made a mirror which had this peculiarity, that everything good and beautiful that was reflected in it shrank together into almost nothing, but that whatever was worthless and looked ugly became prominent and looked worse than ever.
Hans Christian Anderson
The most lovely landscapes seen in this mirror looked like boiled spinach, and the best people became hideous, or stood on their heads and had no bodies; their faces were so distorted as to be unrecognizable, and a single freckle was shown spread out over nose and mouth. That was very amusing, the demon said.
Your ex has a piece of goblin glass stuck in her eye.
I’m sure you do have a freckle or a paunchy tummy or a balding head, but these things have become distorted and seen out of proportion to what is true and good — that you’re kind and faithful man who is worthy of love.
It’s good to be self reflective. That’s a quality that sets you apart from the disordered freaks who have no empathy or powers of introspection. It’s great to want to improve yourself, whether that’s being a kinder person or a less chubby one. But the people who love us, who truly get us, look past our imperfections. We’re all imperfect. We all snore. It’s only narcissists who think they deserve special, super-human perfect people to feed them kibbles.
You were once apparently an acceptable supply of kibbles, until you weren’t. So, really it’s nothing personal.
You need to value relationships with people who don’t traffic in kibbles. I’m not saying physical looks don’t matter. We should all strive to look as spiffy as we can manage, but you only have yourself to work with. No one can make you taller, and who gives a flip really? Just like you’d like to find a woman with good character, there is a woman out there who wants the same. Who will likes you for you. Who delights in your idiosyncrasies and ignores your freckles. As you do hers.
As for your ex and her hairy companion? Practice “meh.” Who made her judge, jury, and executioner? Why are you giving her that power? Or as the shrinks say — “Don’t internalize the judgement.” Why would you look to a cheater freak for validation? You may as ask your local tinfoil hat schizophrenic for his opinion.
Surround yourself with the people who love you.
Internalize that love, and you’ll attract the right people. Examine your values — are you buying into the narcissist bullshit? That you’re only worthy if you look a certain way or earn so much money?
Don’t date the goblins, Steve and I’m sure you’ll be just fine.
Steve:
A narcissist will always attack physical traits that can not be changed, because that’s what they do.
An NPD person thinks they are better than everyone else, no matter what they look like or act like, and they can be charming for awhile an lure in people but they can not keep up the act.
Marriage is supposed to be about Marrying someone you are attracted to physically and emotionally and whom you are willing to grow old with and age gracefully with…..together.
We can look at infidelity as a case of a spouse leaving the injured spouse or we can look at it as the cheater spouse setting the injured spouse free.
They hurt us first, but they set us free by opening our eyes to their inner ugliness.
You wrote: “. . . or we can look at it as the cheater spouse setting the injured spouse free.” But at first I read, “. . . or we can look at it as the cheater spouse setting the injured spouse on fire.”
A bit of truth in that. I think that the crazy-making behavior of the cheating spouse (lies, checked-out behavior, withholding, etc.) does tend to drive the betrayed spouse in unattractive directions. Who is their most attractive when they’re stressed, devalued, denied affection, etc.?
Nomar:
I agree.
And, I think they did hurt us by setting us on fire metaphorically.
Yes, I was acting ugly and angry, and behaved in all manner of ways unbecoming to me and very unlike the normal me.
The pain of infidelity does that to people. I have been told it is normal to act that way after being stabbed in the back by the one person in the world you entrusted to watch your back.
Boy CL, this one cuts close to the bone for me. And it helps – make no mistake. Sometimes you get cut and you bleed precious blood. But sometimes you take a cut – say – right above the snake bite, and you bleed venom…
I think this post addresses the major issue I still struggle with the most. It’s been much easier since I found your blog – to be angry. To start seeing a shit sandwich when it’s on my plate. To start letting go and trust that she sucks – untangling the skein – practice the beginnings of meh and blame myself less. Yes, I left my cheater and we are past two years of divorce. But for how many of us was that truly the end of how we felt? You don’t just sign the decree and instantly get a new life complete with crystal clear understanding of who the fuck you are…
I think I’m like so many chumps – or at least – like the way I have begun to see us chumps as I read your words and the comments left by fellow chumplings. We are easy marks, like you say, in so many ways. We try to be good, upstanding, moral, loyal – to a fault. Only people like us who have been hurt in such a shitty way as being cheated on really understand how it feels and so we re-double our efforts to be kind to others so we don’t get taken for being hurters or actually become ourselves. But it’s part of what makes us chumps. I remember an episode of “The Flintstones” where Fred kept chanting “nice guys finish last…” Is that us? Is it unavoidable?
I still spend too much time thinking about how I sucked. How I deserved to be – well, not cheated on, but dumped. I think she could have done the dumping without cheating, but I was a very decent, (boring), guy to her… And a good dad to boot. Maybe she did have to cheat so she could be sure she’d get away from me? Thanks to this chumpmunity of good folks here sharing wisdom, I get to see that all the: “It’s good to be self reflective. It’s a quality that sets you apart from the disordered freaks who have no empathy or powers of introspection. It’s great to want to improve yourself… is still all to the good – but it just needs to be directed in healthy ways…
Why do I waste time owning my sucktitude in the same breath and reflective moment as I think about how it affected her? What does it matter anymore how it affected her? How did it ever matter? She dumped me because our personalities were different? How right she was! And how blessed I am to be myself and not her. Stuff like this has been occurring to me regularly this past short month that I have been lurking here.
I’m going to keep examining my values. I’m going to seek validation – from ME. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be writing my “it’s better on the other side” story soon. No hurries though. It does but only get better…
Beautiful, Bede. Thanks for sharing this.
CL, I’ve been thinking about this lately. I certainly was willing to concede that I was not perfect in the M. However, I also look at our M and see how crappy my STBX could be in various ways before he had the A. In several ways, I was probably even the “better” partner– very supportive of his career/schooling decisions, accommodating when it came to his hobbies (which sometimes involved travel), shouldering most of the parenting responsibilities, and pretty good about taking care of my appearance. He was… not super great with any of the above… but then he’s the one who goes and has the A.
Do all cheaters view themselves as the better spouse, even if they’re not personality disordered? Do they all see themselves as being bogged down with a nice but boring partner, and so they must go off and seek what they feel they deserve?
I don’t know if the answer to that really matters. I don’t want him back. It’s just something that’s been rattling around in my head; I admit that I have recently wondered if he’s relieved to no longer have to be with me. I find that both ironic and infuriating– that he would view ME as the lesser being, the burden, when he’s clearly the one who is screwed up.
don’t know how they all are, but I know mine (who I don’t think is a sociopath or anything, just a garden variety narcissist) definitely thinks he’s better than me. I always felt that somehow. Like a tiny little nagging in my head. It didn’t take the cheating to make me feel it – though sometimes I did think I must be imagining it. I don’t know if it came from how we got together (I guess you could say I pursued him), or what. Even though I knew it wasn’t true, it is still annoying that someone you love and that you believe loves you, might still think that YOU are the one that is lucky to be with them. I assume in a healthy relationship you both feel lucky.
The fact that I have lived with that nagging little feeling for such a long time makes it hard for it to go away now. Even if you know intellectually that it isn’t true, sometimes it feels true. Especially since he still believes it, even after what he’s done. Like, you won’t believe how he was when I asked him to even say one way he could have been better in our marriage. I admitted to my failings, but he is still clueless as to his. I’m not joking when I say he has told me what he did wrong in the marriage was not communicating to me all the things I was doing wrong! Can you believe that?!?
My problem is that I believe our respective members of the opposite sex (and society in general) will view him as a better catch than me. Because I can’t go and paint a scarlet letter on his chest 🙂 It’s the double standard that feels like it’s biting me in the ass now. I feel like he’s going to have a bunch of young girls throwing themselves at him because he’s a successful good-looking guy, whereas I don’t see a lot of guys lining up for a 34 year old mom of two. It’s not even that I don’t think I’m a bit of a catch myself at least for my applicable dating pool, but just that my pool is like a tiny little puddle.
But I would rather be alone and happy than with him and miserable. I can see where it is annoying to think he might be relieved to be without you. But he probably isn’t. Because you were the one taking care of all the crap, it sounds like. And now he has to do it himself. I know I DO feel relieved that my STBX is gone. And that feeling is how I know I made the right decision.
Hit the nail on the head, erica! I have the exact same nagging voice of being the lessor person in the R for YEARS, and 2 years past divorce, i still struggle to minimize it.
The only thing my X ever admitted to as a fault of his was being : “too good of a husband and provider so I was too dependent on him” . Um, No. He was a control freak who only liked things done a certain way or would be hyper critical to the point where i was too afraid to make a move without consulting him. Whatever.
Love finding my inner anger. I had “welcome” tattooed across my forehead for far too long.
Erica, you may be right. Several of my family members often commented on how he seemed to behave as though he were “superior.” One relative in particular commented on how she felt that he acted like he was smarter than I. I never felt that– I have always felt comfortable about my balance of intellectual strengths and weaknesses– but from the outside, others saw it.
The thing is, aside from the fact that STBX has family money and is quite good at managing that money… well, that must be his lure. He doesn’t have much else going for him. He’s not conventionally attractive– I fell for his mind/humor/talents way back in college when I was “in love with love.” I think that explains why I had the blinders on for so long. He doesn’t have the best personality. Another person in my life thought he might be bipolar– this person told me after I announced the end of our M that whenever we’d get together, she “never knew which STBX [she] was going to get.” He could be friendly and outgoing one night and introverted and grumpy the next. I spackled the hell out of that, of course.
But NPD or other personality disorder? He doesn’t seem to fit the bill when I look up the traits online. For some reason, though, he does think he’s better than I am. Oh sure, I got an “apology” and some blather about how he hoped I’d find someone great some day because I deserved it (bullpucky to help him preserve his “nice guy” image in his own mind), but ultimately, he got annoyed when I wouldn’t “admit” to how I shoved him into the OW’s arms. I was clearly supposed to take the blame (or at least a good helping of it) because he’s better than I am… deserving of more… I wasn’t giving him enough… etc.
I just don’t know where the hell that comes from. He’s not the perfect package. He’s a skinny, unattractive, socially-awkward snob. Maybe it’s a FOO thing– he’s more of a spoiled brat than I realized he was.
I love this: â€A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.â€
But someone else wise once said, “Trust that they suck.”
You can worry that she’s found true bliss, but trust me on this, she sucks. And one of two things is true: 1) He sucks, too, or, 2) He is in for a ruuuuuuuuuuude awakining, just like you were. Personality disordered people are often initially shiny, shiny, shiny, and very attractive, but only superficially. They’ll either eat each other alive if they’re both like that, or she’ll chew him up and spit him out, the poor bastard.
Either way, count your blessings and consider yourself lucky to be freed of such a shiny on the outside turd.
I have to keep reminding myself of that. My exH’s OW is really pretty. He must be really proud that he landed such a beautiful woman. Except I think he’s not that proud of her, actually. She’s shiny on the outside, but an alcoholic parasite on the inside. She’s a homewrecker and she hurts children and wrecks families. And so does he. He was crappy to me for a long time, and then I ran out of spackle when the cracks broke wide open.
Trust that she sucks, bro. Just do what is right for YOU and stay the eff away from her. She hurts people.
Stephanie-
I really connect with your comments. You are so insightful and spot on with your observations. SW, my STBXW is a parasite. She is a beautiful woman that uses her shiny, super sparkly superficial self, to seduce, capture & destroy all the while creating a scenario where she is the victim. She is a borderline that wrecks families, uses her children for her cover and is an substance abusing sex addict. It doesn’t matter how big the house she lives in now is or the new car that she drives around town in to justify her entitlement and behavior. She sucks and will suck the life out of this guy and many more to follow.
Thanks again for all of your great comments.
Sara and Stephanie & others……
Thank you all so much. You all are right and she does suck. It was an eye opening experience, where I have found out what she is really like on the inside and its not pretty. Borders have been placed, that’s what you do with a narcissist. Fences are erected. We co-parent that’s it. Strictly business. Here’s to finding and deserving reciprocal love.
Thanks again,
Steve
*awakening
Steve, I asked my husband for his take on this, as he’s experienced something similar and he wrote:
Dear Steve,
Should you “own some of this?†Depends on what you mean by “this.â€
If you mean the cheating? Then, hell-to-the-no. Cheating is a choice. It was your wife’s choice, made without input from you, in violation of your wedding vows, and contrary to your core values. That shit is on her, one hundred percent. Your ex could’ve been driven by snoring or thinning hair sleep in a separate room or buy a gift membership to Hair Club for Men, but no one is driven to cheating.
If the “this†you mean owning is a personal flaw, especially a cosmetic one? Then, sure. Go ahead. An impulse toward self-improvement isn’t a bad thing, especially around the New Year. But bear in mind that we have such flaws, the happy and unhappy alike. And snoring? As a flaw? Are you kidding me? I don’t know how old you are, Steve, but in the mid-life world where I reside, that is NOTHING. I have an ex business partner who’s been married seven—SEVEN—times. I had a family member who went more than a decade without paying income taxes. I saw a picture of the class officer’s from my 30th high school reunion a year ago, and it looked like a casting call for a remake of Cocoon. Except everyone was fatter and had blotchier skin.
But I would strongly urge you to avoid making any connections the first kind of “this†and the second. That is, between the Cheater’s cheating and your own superficial flaws. They may exist at the same time, but they have nothing—NOTHING—to do with each other. It’s like blaming global warming on, say, Honey Boo-Boo. Honey Boo-Boo can be blamed for a lot of things, Steve, but global warming isn’t one of them.
My shrink told me that the hardest thing for a betrayed spouse (especially a co-dependent betrayed spouse, which sometimes seems redundant) to accept is a lack of control. We want to think that we have it in OUR power to keep our spouse faithful. But the simple fact is . . . we don’t. All we control is ourselves. No amount of diet, exercise, Rogain, Viagra, youth, flattery, money, or hair can guarantee that our spouses will be faithful and loving. The only thing that will do that? Is character.
My own sense is that many cheaters play up the faults of the betrayed the spouse. For some it’s premeditated, a form of gas-lighting, a way to keep the betrayed spouse off-guard and working on themselves rather than placing blame where it’s deserved. For some it may be done at a subconscious level, a way the Cheater justifies to him or herself the shitty treatment of loved ones to whom they are supposed to be devoted. Either way, it’s wrong.
In my case, my ex-wife’s complaints about me escalated as her serial cheating became a larger and larger part of her life, over the course of at least a dozen years of a 22-year marriage. It was small things that made her roll her eyes (hey, I like Tex-Mex food and polka music and sentimental movies like On Golden Pond), but also big things. She indicated vaguely but often that I was hard to get along with. That I was too strict as a parent. That I made people unhappy everywhere I went. And you know what? I bought into that shit. For years I made lists of resolutions and beat myself up and generally Tried To Do Better. Even after the first D-Day. I clung to the idea that I might be able to keep my family together, if only I could change.
And when I found out she was still cheating, even while we were supposedly in reconciliation, it was a hard and painful blessing. A two-by-four square across the jaw: This, I could not fix.
Now, nearly four years later, I am happily, happily remarried. I could fill my own blog with all the differences between my old life and my new life, but the one that’s relevant here is this: She doesn’t make me feel bad about myself. Smelly food, dissonant ethnic music, my doughy paunch. These things don’t bother her. Some I think she’s truly come to find amusing; some I suspect she indulges because they make me happy. The thing is: I can’t tell the difference. I just feel loved. And I feel the same way about her. I can’t tease apart the parts of her I love more and the parts I love less. They’re all wrapped up together. I love . . . her. And I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
So go for a brisk walk, Steve. Eat more vegetables and buy some snappy new clothes if you’d like. But don’t think that has anything to do with what you’re worth or the treatment you deserve. Get your ex and her toxic criticism out of your head. The truth is that what you didn’t deserve was your ex’s abuse. You didn’t deserve the mindfuck. You didn’t deserve to be cheated on. No one does. And your ex? With her younger, hairier affair partner? She is clearly and dramatically trading down. As is he. Because the flaw that’s most worth hating in a partner? Is the heart of a cheater.
Wow….who says prayer doesn’t work. What’s funny the OM is older. Chump Lady’s cool husband- Thank YOU!!! Wow…..you hit a lot of my stuff squarely on the head. The eyes roll I had a ton of that crap. It was a lot of toxic criticism. The gals that I have recently dated are just frustrated with it (they want to slap me up side the head)….because they are beating down the door to get to me- a great guy with character and I have some great life pursuits, but I still drop self deprecating comments about myself. I know I have to shed that crap. You have given me great perspective to move through my wall of shit- and you can come out on the other side. Certain friends get so frustrated with me at times, but shedding the mindfuck is tough task, especially when you co-parent and you have a front row seat to her and her special friend (don’t worry CL…. Meh!). The heart of a cheater great comment- trust me that’s why I never ever take her back. Seriously. Some wise lady once told me “you don’t share the same values”. I also don’t believe in unicorns. And yes I am figuring out all her venom laced rants to me, especially in the end of marriage was looking at me as a mirror….I was a walking reminder of what was really in her heart which was lies, betrayal, and disception. YES- it was damn wrong…my fellow chumps.
But back to your great post…. your joy and happiness is great inspiration to all of us. I will go forward work out (for me and my health) and look for someone who will accept me for who I am and love me for the kind, trustworthy, stand up guy -that’s me.
Happy New Year,
Steve
Chump Lady,
In citing Frederick Douglass, you are pointing to one of the greatest of Americans. Here is a guy who was born a slave and wound up a major historical figure, an Abolitionist leader and ultimately our Minister to Haiti. Tremendous person. And a person who had to learn to turn off all the negativity beamed at him. Slavery was institutionalized narcissism for the large slaveowners. And everyone else — their wives, poor whites and, most of all, black people — got beamed constant messages about their own inferiority/guilt/etc.
I continue to find that your message, which is mostly directed at betrayed women (probably the majority of victims), has relevance for many others. There are Chump Ladies, but there are also Chump Men and Chump Kids. Once the child of a narcissist fails to supply the “ego kibbles,” as you so nicely put it, then that kid must be rejected. The N-person is like a vampire. He strikes a victim, drains them, and then moves on. Along the way, he (or she) will show some occasional kindness, since, if you are a manipulative person (and you intend to be successful at that), there is no point in being rotten all the time. Such people also often provide some benefits. They may be rich or physically attractive. But, deep down, they are trouble. And they are looking for us Chumps. And, what’s more, they do a kind of “head jujitsu” on us. They take one of the nicest qualities of Chumps — our tendency to forgive, to want to see the bright side — and turn it against us. In the end, they are a bit like feral animals, like a cute little fox cub that someone might adopt. In the end, they will always bite. It’s their nature. They are quite empty. In the end, they will face their Maker very alone.
But we also have to learn to write them off. To write them off as losses. The father with the new trophy wife who won’t support his kids (to cite one example), his money isn’t just GONE, it never was there. His love for his ex, for his kids, was conditional. So, afterward, his ex wife and his ex kids (and often they do become ex-kids), has to write him off. This was a sunk cost, an investment based in illusion. There was NOTHING they could do to have made it work. Time to move on. We’d like to think that El Senor Abandoner would get his comuppance, maybe a rare African disease that causes constant psoriasis itching in the groin. But that may not happen and it does not matter! In the end, the ex-Chumps have learned hard lessons and have moved on and are benefiting for themselves. I do believe that negative type people will continue to work their negativity magic on their subsequent partners. I also think that they will feel terribly sorry for themselves in the end, as their lives draw to a close, since their legacy will be so grim. But we Chumps can’t wait to see all that. (What’s more, the exes will do all they can to try to look happy, to project some kind of validating happiness about their abandonment-decisions to the world.) In the end, however, Chumps are not Chumps. they are CHAMPS! And they should celebrate the hard lessons they’ve learned, the successes that they will have earned and owned as they move down the road. A former Chump that now has her own job, her own little house, has more to celebrate than a chained-and-still-chump in a mansion waiting for partner to come home and keep them locked up in a state of semi-abuse.
Thanks for letting me ramble. The STBXs out there can be ex-parents, ex-bosses, ex-a lot of folks. Us Chumps have the stuff to be Champs. And never look back, over your shoulder, at what they offered us (money, looks, “excitement”). It was never really there. That says a lot that’s bad about them. And as soon as we take our good instincts and stop building illusions about the unworthy (and invest that generosity into flawed but real relationships that work), we’ll be so much better off that it won’t matter what happens to them. Let the exes recede into the rear view mirror of life!
Hey David, you’re pretty cool if you’re a Frederick Douglass fan too! My FAVORITE FD quote of all time is “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer… until I prayed with my legs.”
That just sums up chumpdom — all kinds, for all people — pray with your legs. Leave them and get the hell out.
You know, Dear Chump Lady, it seems to me that in my post above, I simply said in more words what you say in the title to your blog. “Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life.” I speak from the perspective of a Chump Son rather than a Chump Lady, but it ain’t all that different. And “gaining a life” might mean paying for college yourself, getting a job, living in a smaller house, but it will all be yours, and not something purchased at the expense of stolen dignity. In the end, I also think it likely that most Chumps turned Champs will actually do better in life. We often do better when our values are aligned with our actions than when we are getting some benefits in return for a corrupt bargain that degrades us an undermines us emotionally.
Anyway, gain a life. Learn to write off the sunk costs that a narcissistic relationship entails. And take away the best thing a narcissist can give: the life lesson that it’s important to build strong boundaries/keep distance from certain kinds of people. If you want to “forgive” them, well, that’s OK. But it should be a damned cold forgiveness, more like a recognition that the ex (ex-whatever) is a broken toy with sharp edges, so you don’t want to play with that toy any more. Just not safe. Just not approved by your own, brand new and enhanced internal OSHA.
Or, as they say in Star Trek, “Shields up, Mr. Sulu!”
This hit home.
The ex said to me in 2009 (and these were her exact words) “…and I know this is mean but you’re not attractive at all.” I tried not to internalize it but I did. In some ways I got some good out of it- I lost weight, put on some muscle, started dressing better and cleaned up my diet, and felt better. But to this day every time I put on a few pounds or I simply don’t feel or look my best I hear those words running through my mind in the background.
Let me retook you about my (current) experience: while my STBX was tired of me not providing kibble because I was unemployed, she made it very clear that I was no longer attractive at all. What’s more,I was beyond not attractive, I was a turn-off.
I did all that CL described in the humiliating dance of Pick me!, and more. I lost weight, primped and preened, bought clothes, the works. I still felt unattractive and like shit.
Then I did the “Passive Aggressive Dance of Fuck You I Don’t Give a Shit†(https://www.chumplady.com/2012/11/deconstructing-frumpiness/#comment-2057), letting myself go, and then moved out.
Now that she wants my kibbles, I am hotter than Brad Pitt, even if I haven’t shaved in a week and have drool crusts. I am a bit ashamed to say that I have had breakup sex and given her some kibbles, but it has done wonders to my self-esteem to see her doing the dance of pick me for a change.
I’ve been lucky to be in a situation where I’ve had a chance to stop measuring my lovability and self worth by how attractive I may be. Therapy has also done wonders. 🙂
I heard all through our marriage that I wasn’t sexy enough. That I was too fat. Always tried to “trick” me into losing weight. Bought “us” a treadmill. Told me when I sprained my ankle it was probably because I needed to lose weight. Toward the end of our marriage, I was even told that he wasn’t attracted to me at all. That he may as well be gay – that was how little attraction he felt toward me. He left me for someone who is at least 75 pounds heavier than I. After the relationship was revealed, he resorted to telling me that I didn’t appreciate him enough. That I never thanked him enough for all the projects he’d done around the house, all he had done to help me with my musical career, etc. etc. His assessment of me still sucked. But it changed to suit his need to have validation for leaving me.
As CL says – consider the source.
That’s horrible! Operafaust — I don’t care if you’re a cyclops, there’s someone out there that loves cyclopses. Fuck her! Really, I think with these nuts, it’s projection — SHE is not attractive. Cheating is not an attractive quality in a mate (heck, in some cultures they stone you for it — being ugly? Not so much.)
Purge those words from your mind. Be healthy for YOU — and for the next lucky person in your life.
Operafaust:
Your story is so sad. It says a lot about your wife too, none of it good.
One of the men I dated and fell in love with was not a very attractive guy. All my friends mentioned this. But I liked his personality. That is what i fell in love with. His looks were superfluous.
Alas, that relationship was doomed from the start because he was on the rebound from a broken relationship.
He was very upfront with me about his relationship and broken heart over it and warned me several times that if she changed her mind, he would get back together with her.
I should have run right then and there, but I didn’t expect her to be back and he had a lot of good and kind, and sweet qualities that I fell in love with.
Long story short, they got back together about 8 months later, and well, poof, he went back to her like an abandoned puppy.
They stayed together about a year, and she again, gave him the boot, whereupon he wanted to get back together with me.
By then, though, I didn’t want to risk it with him. And, I learned a valuable lesson. That being never date a guy on the rebound.
But, my point is that I initially fell in love with his personality, despite the fact that my friends did not consider him very attractive.
I dunno’ isn’t that what real love is. Loving the inner person and their good qualities and traits.
But here is the really really frightening part…..I fell in love with my husband because he had so many good traits, or so I thought. I guess I did a lot of spackling because obviously being a cheater, he is not a very good or kind or decent person.
So now, I can’t truly trust my judgment anymore. That’s one of the worst things about being cheated on, IMO.
Well-written piece, but I think this is the ONE area of Chumpdom where I managed to dodge the bullets. Partly because of counsel with a good friend (more on him later) and partly because of vanity.
I was lucky in that I can’t find a single person, straight or gay, who thinks my ex’s cheat-partner-turned-bf is attractive.
And by all accounts, the bf is weird, clingy, needlessly cocky, and has a rather deplorable, off-the-boat grasp of the English language as it’s traditionally written and spoken, despite being a natural-born American citizen.
The above paragraph was basically my pretentious way of calling him a hick…
Anyway, a gay friend put it best when he said: “Chris, I can name at least 10 guys who were crazy jealous of him [[my ex]], just because he was with you! Now look who he’s with! How many guys do you think are jealous of him now?”
I was never one to believe in “competing” with the Cheating Partner, because not only are you sinking to your cheating ex’s trashy level, but you’re also doing the Pick Me Dance postmordem, which is just a waste of time. Like any dick-measuring contest, literal or figurative, knowing you’re the winner brings you, at best, a few moments of ego-inflating bliss, followed by the inevitable comedown.
My friend and I had the idea was to take the competition and flip it on its head. That way it’s not a matter of: “Ha! His eyes are brown and mine are Paul Newman blue!” or “He’s only 5’6″ and I’m 6’2!” That’s a maze you’ll quickly get lost it.
Solution: Take that momentary burst of confidence/cockiness and say: “I will no longer compete with [insert name of Cheating Partner] because there is no competition to be had and never was. He/she is nothing like me and my cheating ex will never have the kind of relationship he/she had with me.”
Then take that new-found self-worth and bring it into a new relationship with someone who not only deserves your gifts but will give them right back.
Side note: That friend I mentioned at the top of this message is college-educated, successful, loaded and best of all. Like me, he got cheated on and left for some trailer-trash dirtbag. My friend was obviously crushed, his self-worth shot to shit, and the subsequent months involved lots of spackling, Pick Me Dancing, feeding the cheating ex her Ego Kibbles, before she finally left him for good….once again for the trailer trash boyy.
My friend applied the formula I described above and in the process went from benig the King of Pain to the King of Meh.
The last text converastion he had with his cheating ex included the following exchange:
HER: “He [trailer trash boy] is everything you’re not!”
HIM: “…I sure fucking hope so.”
I sure fucking hope so — brilliant!
Yes it helps to be pretty Chris, and it helps when the fuckbuddy is plug ugly. Although then you have a different sort of humiliation — like, THAT person? WTF? Really?
Absolutely do not compete. Good words of advice Chris!
[quote]HER: “He [trailer trash boy] is everything you’re not!â€
HIM: “…I sure fucking hope so.â€[/quote]
Boy, isn’t that the truth! I’m gonna keep that in the forefront of my mind–she’s nothing like me. Thank God. She’ll never be as good as I am. And I think he knows it.
Steve,
While your Ex’s new guy may be better looking, taller and have more hair, he’s in a relationship with a Cheater. I think that says everything you need to know; at some point he’ll find out that all the looks, height and hair in the world won’t stop your Ex from doing to him what she did to you.
LFTT
Love the snow queen and “ugly mirror” analogy. Hopefully Steve has long recovered from his temporary heartbroken state of delusion in which he perceived that the poacher/OM in his sitch was “all that” and that he himself was “chopped liver.”
I’ve seen the same kind of “somatic self esteem” collapse (feeling suddenly “ugly”) happen to women who were on fashion and fitness magazine covers whose douchy partners cheated on them with dumpy nannies or rotting zombie crackhead strippers. I’ve seen it happen to dedicated intellectuals who’d never– prior to being chumped– even valued or noticed external attractiveness because their entire focus was on a loftier, more esoteric plane. I think it’s because something about being chumped– sexually rejected and replaced– drags everyone’s consciousness down to the sleaziest, greasiest meat market standards (even when those standards were previously alien to them) and then– extra prank!– makes them feel condemned on that greasy, largely meaningless measure.
I think, like CL alluded to with the mirror-shard analogy, it’s just a case of captor bonding and spellbinding. One of the reasons I personally think people should be careful about who they get romantically involved with is because, by being in a relationship, it’s natural to start, for better or worse, “mind-melding”– seeing things through the eyes of a partner. “Better” is the jackpot because that person sees the world in a meaningful and elevating way. “Worse” is when, deep down, that partner’s perception or vision of the world is sleazy, crude and sick. At some point the normal partner may “catch” that distorted vision and twisted measuring stick like an STD, especially at the moment when being deemed a “failure” on the sick standard is brutally punished (with traumatic betrayal or abuse) as if it was a crime.
There is something spellbinding in being punished, even if wrongfully. This is why social scientists think that rape victims tend to feel bafflingly ashamed as if they’d been responsible for the crime they didn’t commit. The phenomenon is sometimes called “projective identity” where the victim seems to momentarily “contract” the perpetrator’s demented view of the victim which is invariably that the victim “had it coming/deserved it.”
As for whether narcissistic FWs and schmoops are objectively “all that,” science says mostly not. In a recent study, narcissists were found to vastly overrate their own objective attractiveness in self-reports. But we don’t really need science to tell us this. I think it’s perceptible and tends to play out in RL. Though some may amp up whatever God gave them with obsessive self-care and curated presentation, etc.,it’s inevitable that over-reliance on external traits will have diminishing returns and leads to a cheeseball ick effect. If they pride themselves on charm or being adorable, it eventually starts to curdle into crude performance art. If they presume they’re exceptionally talented or brilliant, they become brittle and pinched with arrogance. If they presume they’re transcendently beautiful, the haughtiness or “studied faux-modesty” that extremely vain people tend to cop start to reek and twist their appearance.
From working in fashion and media, I witnessed this process of “diminishing returns” happening to a lot of very shiny people who, even in cases where they were arguably endowed with better raw material in whatever sense, would quickly make themselves repellent by buying their own hype. The same thing doesn’t seem to happen to people disciplined enough to reject the hype. The latter seem to be protected from the admittedly mesmerizing level of hype in that world by genuinely focusing their passions outside themselves on things that have meaning in the world and humanity, not merely pretending to do so. From observing that, I decided one effective way to shield oneself from the deadly corruption of hype is to double down on the geeky passions or focus on a cause or dedication to family.
I kind of figure that narcissism is a sad case of people putting all the “eggs” of self worth into external trait/image “baskets” because on, whatever level, they feel their own humanity is worthless or nonexistent either from damage or neglect. So, like an air-filled souffle, that all important external image– whatever it entails– tends to perceptibly collapse when overcooked.
I remember when it hit the news that Shania Twain had D’d her butt ugly husband Mutt because he cheated.
I read where she said she had forgiven, but never forgets.
After unnecessarily torturing myself by looking at the profiles of the prostitutes that eX was talking to and meeting with, I observed that some of them were my age and look just like me and some were the same age as our daughters (very very young). This of course made me feel like crap and my mind “went there” with the “you are old now, no longer pretty and henceforth unloveable” thinking. I felt ugly and undesirable and worthless. This heaped additional trauma onto the betrayal trauma I was already trying to deal with. My confidence was trashed. Fortunately that thinking was just a part of the ptsd that I was dealing with and went away after so many months. Now I know that, that kind of thinking is simply part of processing betrayal trauma. I am back to thinking, yes, I am beautiful inside and out and I am loveable and valuable and worthy just the way I am! My eX is the ugly one, because of what he chose to do to me.
I was thinking along those lines- then I considered the source.
She was part of a committee of nobodies who thought they were somebodies who came into our workspace and faked redundancies for my boss and I when it became clear we weren’t going to go along with their BS.
They got reamed at the tribunal and we got paid out.
She looks very mumsy and let’s face it- that’s what Dickhead McCluggage is after.
A mummy bang maid who enables him, doesn’t talk back and lets him get away with all his bullshit.
She got a liar, thief and a cheat who tried to strangle his first wife and saw nothing wrong with leaving his second wife homeless after ghosting her for 8 months and counting.
What a prize indeed…
I have read the word “redundancies ” before, what does that mean. Just curious.
It’s when the job is no longer a position that’s needed , is disestablished and you get offered redundancy – a payout to get out as it were.
Nothing of the sort was happening in our case- they just changed the job titles 😆
Ahh, got it.
I meant just in this circumstance, I know what redundancy is. 🙂
So many people feel this way – I certainly did and often still do. My first cheater was very handsome and charming and left me for a woman who was the complete opposite of me in ways that I’m vulnerable to – cute, petite, dainty, whereas I’m more the big farm girl type (which I hate). I’m always aware of my imperfections – how can I not be, my own parents pointed them out to me. Yeah, I’m probably a 5 on the 5-10 scale, sometimes I can hit 6, but it is what it is. There are tons of 5s out there, cause there’s always more of the “average” so I have plenty of company! I wish I could do a complete redesign of myself but I can’t – I can just try to be a better version of myself that I can be. I would say the best thing most people can do is lose weight and try to be in reasonable shape. It’s not going to affect you with cheaters – so many people in Hollywood get cheated on and they’re ALL beautiful – it will help how you view yourself and the level of confidence you have to approach the world. The most successful people exude some level of confidence no matter what their personal appearance. Henry Kissinger, Ari Onassis, George Soros and frankly most politicians, are some of the ugliest people on earth. They really are pretty damn hideous by objective standards. But yet, they have been very successful. Yes, part of that is they’re all crooks (and I do believe that) but they exude confidence and to have that, you really need to work on presenting the best image of yourself that you can. As for the Schmoopies out there…..the ugliness people have inside them, in their nature and character, always comes out eventually. If you haven’t seen some good looking babe or dude for a few decades, sometimes you will be amazed at how they can age especially if they are not nice people or they have bad habits like drinking or drugs. We are all walking pictures of Dorian Gray. Focus on being the best you that you can be and also consider that you could be as handsome as Schmoopie is right now….but you could also be as big an asshole (which is what a knowing AP ALWAYS is). Would you like to be that kind of asshole or someone who finds that kind of orifice attractive? I think NOT!
The most attractive feature most people could have is a great smile which is an expression of the beauty of your soul and your delight in life. 80 year old toothless grandmas in Nepal can have the most beautiful smile and that’s what you’ll remember and love about them. It’s a cliche worth cultivating because it’s true.
I agree with everything you’re saying about true human value. Plus even within external beauty standards it’s all absurdly relative and changes year and year and from place to place. For instance, I lived and worked for short stints in a few places where “dainty and petite” seemed to be the beauty standard but these were always provincial areas. It simply seemed curious to me because, being from NYC where every top fashion model is basically a “big farm girl” on a rigorous diet, the fetish went way in the other direction.
At 5’9″ I was viewed as a bit short, lol. But the fact I’d internalized the “tall” standard means I can go to places where short is the ideal and weather passive-aggressive cracks about my height with a cocked head and a “rit iz?” look on my face. I don’t and will never understand and can never be made to understand why tall would ever be bad.
The only time in my life it unsettled me was when when the short, rather stocky anesthesiologist for a c-section who, the second she thought no one else could hear, started making not-so-veiled attempts to disparage my height as I was walking into OR, like “How hard was it getting a date when you’re so tall?” and “Doesn’t it bother your husband that you’re so tall?” But the reason it messed with me is because I thought she must be certifiably nuts to make what she obviously believed were negative comments to a pregnant woman and was therefore stricken with terror that she’d kill me on the operating table. If I could go back in time I would have halted the procedure and demanded she be replaced because the experience was harrowing. This was happening, of course, in “middle ‘Murica,” not the big city.
It made me feel bad for any tall girl growing up in the Styx because they were probably getting shit left and right so how could they not eventually internalize it? But I had the same defensive sympathy for short women who grew up in NYC and other fashion centers since they were always getting ridden over being “runts.” In the end it just goes to show you that this appearance hierarchy is bs and everyone should really STFU about it.
I just had a visit from my two cousins who are about 5’9″, maybe a bit more. When we were young I was always so envious of them. I was 5’5″ but more curvy. Not fat but curvy definitely. They were tall and slim, and could look great in anything. It had been about 30 years since I had seen them. They are sill tall, slim and gorgeous. I am still short and a little more curvy.
But, I am no longer envious, we had such a good time catching up. The one my age had a fw who left her for a woman 15 years younger when she was 42. The other had dumped her controlling husband after about a short marriage. She came home from work one day and he had re arranged her kitchen and thrown out a lot of the stuff she used a lot. She packed her bags took her daughter and left. She never remarried.
He had remarried, and had a couple more kids, but that woman divorced him too. About a year ago they found him passed in his bedroom.
Her name was still on the deed to the house he owned, so she signed it over to be dispersed between her daughter and his two other kids.
They do a lot of traveling together. The cousin my age pays for a lot of the travel because the younger cousin isn’t real well off; but they have a great time and relationship and I am happy for them.
I just find so many of these beauty standards absurd. Maybe because my mother spent her youth focused on career and was 49 when I was born, I got a veteran, multi-generational account of how radically beauty standards had changed over the years to the point of meaninglessness. When she was little, if you weren’t fat-faced, blond and unathletic, you were absolutely hideous.Then suddenly everything changed to Ali McGraw and then Farrah,
then Linda Hamilton and J.Lo. It’s all reminiscent of The Sneetches, which my parents read to me from the time I was a tot. Tall, short, curvy, skinny, long nose, short nose, thigh gap, zoftig, stars on thars or lack of stars– who fucking cares?
My mother laughed at all of it. When my older sister was born, my mother was warned by a pediatrician to withhold vitamins because my sister was so long at birth that she might grow up to be a basketball player. My mother thought this was stupid, gave vitamins anyway and my sister ended up over 6 feet tall.
Awwwwwww….we’re never good enough!!!! We’re too tall, we’re too short, we’re too pale (I have had a waiter actually say I was the whitest person they’d ever seen), we’re too dark, we’re too skinny, we’re too fat, our bosoms are too big, they’re not big enough…..and don’t even start with the nose!!!! I’m sure men have their own versions of this especially with height, but maybe a big part of it is about keeping people feeling insecure. Insecure people buy more products to be “beautiful”, LOLOLOL!!!! It is absolutely horrible that that person made a crack about your height – I know women who are well over 6 feet! (Not uncommon among the Irish), 5’9″ is a good height to me, I’m 5’6-5’7″ (depending on the weather, LOL). If I had your height, my weight problem would disappear! I always wanted to be small and dainty and dark, as my mother was, instead, I’m a big Viking type. My father used to say I walked like a Canadian farmer. No teenage girl wants to hear she walks like a Canadian farmer. Over 50 years later and I still remember that. People have to be more sensitive about the effects their cracks have on others, especially kids. I know I’m kind of all over the place today, but one more thing – today’s social media and the smart phones is SO poisonous in harming kids’ self image – they’re always comparing themselves to others and using these filters, etc to change their appearance. We really have to focus on being healthy, nicely groomed and learning to accept yourself, whatever you are. Americans come from SO MANY different backgrounds that there really isn’t any uniformity, we have to learn to accept many types of beauty and beauty in the ordinary too.
I know OP is long gone, but for anyone else with this problem….don’t let anyone else set your value….learn to set your value for yourself!
I’m on a roll here regarding subjective standards.Sometimes character grows in the gap of physical vanity.
Growing up, my mother was regularly informed by her parents that she was not pretty and would have to develop other parts of herself if she ever wanted to get married. Which, thank God, she did but her ambitions went far beyond landing a husband.
The weird thing is that, rather than having been homely, when she was younger and even well beyond middle age, my mother looked a lot like the old black and white film actress Merle Oberon. She’s what’s known as a “black Finn,” which can be either someone of Finnish descent who has a lot of Russian-Mongolian heritage or someone with tribal Sami ancestry who, though genetically no different than other Scandinavians, developed Asiatic features due to the tens of thousands of years the tribe spent trapped behind the glaciers developing extra-high cheekbones to support strong mandible muscles (for curing leather and chewing dried meat) and almond eyes (to withstand the howling arctic winds). To her blond, blue-eyed Finnish father, my mother was an embarrassing throwback to the part of the family with Sami roots (considered an “inferior” ethnic group in Scandinavia, even subjected to forced sterilization up the 1970s).
When my mother met my father, she was shocked and a bit put off that he thought she was beautiful. He thought she looked just like Jacqueline Roche, the last wife of Picasso (who, although a horrible side chick, made a great artist’s model). Maybe because my parents married and started a family late and my mother was already set in her perceptions, she just decided my dad was nuts and never bought the idea she was beautiful which is probably why she was so heavily focused on her own interests and work until the day she died. Whenever anyone would look at old pictures of her and gasp, she’d dismissively wave away the compliments. In the end, she was perfectly happy without all that objectifying bs.
More “eye of the beholder” and “regional perceptions” here. Remember Claudia Schiffer from the old Victoria’s Secret? She and another VS model used to work out at a gym in NY that’s part of funded artists’ housing (ergo, cheap but glam). I once ran between them on the treadmill which faced a wall mirror and looked like a veritable midget trotting along between two super-humans. And then Schiffer got off the machine and walked away like a hayseed– speaking of farmer gaits. Actually everything about her read “farm” from that milk-fed bone structure and powerful build. Mama made sure Claudia got enough protein for sure.
Of course because I was an impressionable high schooler, I thought that walk was the most charming thing I’d ever seen a woman do and dorkily tried to imitate her country bumpkin amble and arm swing. In a way I think what I admired and was imitating was a trait of character because, if she had been less gormless and basically simple, she would have worked a lot harder at getting rid of the bumpkin walk. I imagine she suffered horribly in heels.
As far as noses, when I was a little kid, I think I must have been channeling an LGBT dude because I was obsessed with old Barbra Streisand films and, aside from having that voice, I believed she was the most beautiful woman who ever lived. I told my mother this and, being an artist and anthropology buff, she told me, “Oh, yes, the Abyssinian profile is a mark of great beauty.” So then I told a playmate that she had an Abyssinian profile and looked like Streisand but she ran away crying and told her mother. I was totally baffled because I thought this was the highest compliment ever.
Following the publishing of Streisand’s autobiography, the media is posting a lot of old photos of her and, come to think of it, I agree with my kid self that she’s among the most beautiful women who ever lived. Thank God she resisted all the vicious pressure to get a nose job.
Being betrayed by your spouse and accepting ANY blame for their infidelity is like them stabbing you repeatedly and you apologizing for getting blood on their knife. Just don’t.
Yes, surround yourself with people who love you. If that is not your spouse, you have to weigh what is next for yourself.
My ex had an old girlfriend who periodically reappeared throughout my several-decade marriage. My ex talked frequently about how very pretty and sexy she was. I found pictures of her early in my marriage. Yup. She was definitely more of a looker than I am. When he made separation #2 long-distance, he ran off to the area where she was living, last I knew. There were other hints of other women too.
We divorced. I couldn’t imagine being with someone who despised me so very much. He also had addiction and mental health issues that were never fully addressed. It had to end.
A relative of his called a few months ago and said my ex was at a family funeral with someone nothing like me. They were horrified, being a conservative, religious family.
But she’s a looker…
Looks fade. What happens when OM starts to lose his hair and develops a paunch? At that point, FW will have aged out of her looks as well and will be full of frustration over not being able to attract new jerks and cheat with them. Age is the shallow person’s curse. Otoh, character only strengthens from a long life lived with integrity. So Steve ultimately wins, as do all chumps.
Or when he looks at her and says to himself “hey, I can do better than an aging woman”.
So many women go through this as their aging fw leaves them for a much younger woman. Most times when she has drained all the fun and assets she can, she will dump him.
I wish my fw had left for a young woman. I knew his 0-whore would never leave him, she couldn’t attract a decent single man at age 35, no way was she going to be able to as she aged. And she didn’t have the skills, or gumption to work on her own career. After they married at age 37, she got fired and she never went back to work. And to be fair, I am sure fw was ok with that; it gave him full control. I had already told him I was not quitting my job and living on a boat. He showed me. 😏
But either way, don’t let your heart be troubled, you will be ok and it likely won’t take long before you just won’t care.
I am one of those who believe most cheaters and liar’s get theirs, even if we don’t always see it. I am talking about cheaters and liars in general, not just those who commit adultery.
My attorney was older and said that among family law attorneys, there was often discussion of whose clients had finally “gotten theirs.”
He said that the legal system only goes so far giving justice, but wait. Sometimes you find out that their life post-divorce truly went very badly, indeed.
My mother was probably the most organically agnostic person I’ve ever known. She didn’t hate religion but simply didn’t relate to the usual concept of God and faith. But, all the same, she knew the bible back to front and loved quoting scripture for the truisms or as a kind of I Ching. Regarding horrible people, she’d say “leave them to God.” Or, as you say, “just wait.” Comeuppance always comes. In my experience, sometimes it’s so awful and cruel you have to avert your gaze from the blast.
“Comeuppance always comes. In my experience, sometimes it’s so awful and cruel you have to avert your gaze from the blast.”
So true, and sometimes it will even hurt their children, which makes it painful for a second time around.
It is so tragic that they just don’t care much until they hit bottom, and even then may times. They still blame someone else.
This happened to a malignant narcissist I dated in college. 20 years later, he’s gone nowhere in life and now looks like an ugly man someone melted in the oven.
Beauty is so fleeting and doesn’t mean much. We need to focus on big picture things like good character.
Beauty is fleeting. I dated a handsome guy in college who was a malignant narcissist. 20 years later, his looks have faded and he’s now as ugly as his personality.
It’s easier to see a loser for what they are once their looks fade, but you don’t need to wait that long if you don’t put too much stock in appearances in the first place.
Shitty people don’t have anything going for them except their ability to deceive others, but they tend to lose even that as people catch on and a lifetime of bad decisions compound over time.
So the affair partner is attractive? So what? Looks fade, and he’s a cheater.
She didn’t cheat on you because you may or may not be cute enough. She cheated because she’s an asshole who doesn’t bond with others. She won’t bond with him either, he’s just her flavor of the month.
My sister, cheater case in point..fell out of love with her Divorce attorney husband and father of her two children. She said he was bald, bossy and couldn’t make love as to boil.a pot of beans. She found a fireman with hair who could give her sex up to her standards. He was a little bit married. I told my brother inlaw, he cried and filed. My sis soon found a richer guy but he turned out to be a raging alcoholic. But she stayed for her pride and his money. She was never happy and looked at the surface and wallet. Not deep, no heart. It will always be something with a cheater and it always has to be YOUR FAULT. ALWAYS. So the tape player is on for you to do the dance when nothing you do Will fill that bottomless bit. You eill never be enough, you can’t be. You have to be the reason. This was an excellent writing day for Tracy, I laughed and cried. I fractured my wrist trying to set the heavy wooden clock my XCHusband bought me for our 25th Anniversary. I thought he loved me but he was already into E affairs for yeara and well massages from strangers
Today,. I drove myself to the ER with joy in my heart that he was GONE. He did not love me for me;just for what I could do FOR HIM. To know that is freedom. I love me so much, I’m a good hearted and kind person. To not be loved and think you are is a crime. My wrist will heal and I will take good care of myself i don’t need a demon in my life.
Amazing post CL.
Whether the cheater says you’re hot or not, says you’re this or that, good or bad looking, claims you need to lose / gain X or Y weight or insert: body issue in that moment, it’s all massive distraction from the main game. Getting away with their horrific behavior and maintaining the upper hand in the power totem is the main game. The outcome of the main game is always their image. THEIR image. Think about it. When they tell you how you look, in pure strategic terms, this is yet another way the cheater gets to tell you your reality! It’s another form of conditioning to get the chump so brutally confused, beaten down and yes broken and basically completely emotionally mentally and spiritually fucked. They need to leave the chump destroyed so they can say over their shoulder “see how fucked you are?” as they swan out the door. They tell YOU how you appear. They make it All Your Fault that you’re not shiny / pretty / tall / strong / hot enough for the Speshul Treatment the OM / OW is now getting.
The goblin story is on point 👏 however the psych story is that this is gaslighting.
It’s the cruelest of cruel to hone in on physical appearance in any context but to heap it on top of betrayal trauma and abandonment trauma is so many layers of intentional harm as to be unfathomable.
Any chump whose cheater used the chump’s physical traits against them, whether by way inferring (trading up for someone (say) better looking) or by actually saying actual horrific things to them as they dumped or discarded is a SuperFW.
We leave them behind in the rear view mirror and put our focus on the wide open windscreen ahead. That’s the real beauty and that’s our real power.
One thought that helps me:
Sure some people are just naturally good looking. But especially over time, if a FW is looking great, it’s almost certainly at someone’s expense. This was true for my FW, his married Schmoopie, and my now-boyfriend’s FW ex Wife. They spent more time, money, and energy on their fitness, diets, health, beauty and cosmetics, surgeries, clothes and possessions, etc. Everyone else, especially the Chump, had to work around their schedule/needs. They weren’t raising their own children – the Chump or grandparents were, in all three cases. If anyone is attracted to the aesthetic results of this entitled lifestyle — enjoy!! They’re all yours!
Sadly, this was not the case with my FW. He actually chose many (and I mean many) people inmany places that were surprisingly unattractive. Now I know that the orange jumpsuit attire and booking photo background can make anyone look less-than-perfect, but still..these people weren’t pretty or attractive or even cute in any way. They shared the “rode hard and out up wet,” look, and all seemed to be high mileage. The one physical trait they all had in common is that hey were all taller, bigger, heavier, far less fit and just generally less attractive than me. And they all were unkempt and slovenly. Turns out he had an “arousal template,” to the taller, heavier and chunkier big gals. Being a slender, petite, fit 5K racer was a turn- off for him. He liked them bigger than he was. His loss.
Mine denied that she “traded up” when she cheated, but mysteriously “fell out of love” when I put weight on and started to have health problems/hair loss. She will get hers-they always do.
Although this is a “golden oldie” the theme doesn’t change. We are attacked where we are most vulnerable. I very clearly remember being told “stop being so insecure” and my personal favorite “be a man” as I was falling apart from her constant sexting. Both hurt-a lot at the time. After pulling myself together I realized her idea of a confident man was an alcoholic, aggressive controlling, sponge, possibly with a criminal record. Any weakness, any insecurity you have shared (who doesn’t with their loving trustworthy spouse) becomes a weaponized against you. Don’t believe it. No matter what they look like, or their income, or anything else, they are just a sparkly turd and a cheater.
A buddy of mine is kinda portly, not fat, kinda bald, medium height. Women flock to him.
He’s a genuine good guy, very polite but has a strong firm personality. He takes no shit from anyone.
Good men are a rarity.
Join a gym, use this time to make yourself the best man you can be. I doubt you’ll have time to date them all. I’ve seen this happen over and over.