We’ve all been chumped in some pretty outlandish ways. This especially came to mind reading the comments on yesterday’s post. (The “banana bread” in the Victoria Secret bag.) Okay chumps, lay it on me — what’s the dumbest lie you fell for? Other than “forsaking all others til death do us part.”
I’m not even saying you had to swallow it whole — you may have paused before pulling out the vat of spackle. I mean the sort of lie you didn’t immediately walk out over, because it was so preposterous.
I wear the chump crown here, so I’ll begin.
A week before DDay, I woke up to find another woman’s thong in our bed (at his cabin, where he’d been “hunting.”) His excuse? “Well, I used to own this cabin with my ex, and I was cleaning out some drawers and doing laundry and it must’ve been there in with the sheets.”
I didn’t buy it. But then again, I didn’t divorce him immediately either. (I did, however, begin snooping.)
A couple months after that, around DDay #2, he went on a “ski trip” — yeah, alone with promises to be oh so transparent, and checking in. It was in the 40s, raining in New England that weekend. Not great “ski” weather. He never answered his cell phone. He told me, oh the signal was bad in Vermont. Everywhere. He also told me he SLEPT IN HIS CAR. For two nights. In JANUARY. Because I wanted the name and number of the hotel he was at.
Okay, I was lawyered up by that point and threw him out shortly thereafter, but it still boggles the mind he thought I was THAT stupid. (In fairness, I was that stupid — spackle is an amazing thing.)
So, see if you can top me. Dumbest, most transparent lie ever laid on you?
Ok
I just have to say this
Really
I had been suspicious for years, and he was always coming home late because he “working” or “previewing homes” or “had a showing”…
A week before d-day He came home one night, and as usual I gave him a peck on the lips – mostly to figure out how much he had had to drink before he showed up – and I swear to GOD his mustache smelled like – sorry here folks – twat. and I bought it when he said he was at “xyz” property.
Really – no kidding.
Chumpdom at it’s best. (or worst)
Makes me want to puke to this day.
OMG I am not going to be able to concentrate for the rest of the day. Un-effing-believable, mmburned. I am so sorry you got a putrid whiff of the OW. I am barfing in my mouth.
There’s a great line in the HBO series “Treme” when the jazz trumpeter character is out whoring around and he comes home. His wife says “You smell like pussy.” He says — “That’s not pussy! That’s barbecue!”
Watch it here:
Antoine is the epitome of the sparkly narc who, you gotta give it to him, has got game.
NOLA forever.
Thanks for posting that. Barbeque indeed.
What, exactly, was he “grilling?” 😉
OMG!
I had the exact thing happen to me.
He came home from work, only about an hour or so later than usual. I gave him a peck on the mouth – and my first mind screamed at me “he smells like pussy”. But then I seconded guessed myself and whipped out the spackle “Nah he couldn’t be that stupid” I thought.
But I couldn’t shake the thought. So an hour later I came back hugged him and asked him – “hey, you smell funny, what’s that smell on you?” He looked me right in the eye and straight faced said “Oh, must be my lunch I had a hoagie from the grease truck”.
Yes, it took a whole vat of spackle for me to swallow that one. A hoagie, from a vegetarian who I never knew to eat hoagies.
I just threw up in my mouth a little! YUCK!
Do I get bonus points for tasting it on his d*ck?
“I must have got some shower gel there”
VOMIT!
witty29, I’m pretty sure I had that happen to me as well, but I told myself of course he wouldn’t let me go down there if just had sex with someone else. Gross, gross, gross!
Yep 🙁
Yeah, she came home one night and I tasted what I thought was ejaculate while I went down on her. I told myself it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let me down there if she had.
That is so sick! These people are such shitbags!
These “people” (and I use that term loosely) make me want to vomit
Seriously, I wish we could round these filthy POS up and stone them like in biblical days.
Same here, hard to get past it, especially since that one time was him insisting and crying that he could not live without me and that he’d never had sex with the OW, i think now he came straight from her bed to me that day, and i know for a fact he gave me an STI that day. My ex is a sick fuck.
A HUGE part of what they get off on is just this. Haha she or he doesn’t know what I’ve just been doing! How desirable am I? Maybe I’ll get a couple more AP’s to juggle, and see how long I can fool them all!!
I definitely think if they are NPD, they totally get off on knowing they are fooling you. In fact, that’s one of the sweetest parts for the disordered.
Not a lie she told, but… from 2002 to 2008, every time we had sex, she got a painful uti. In 2008 or so, I noticed a discoloration on my thigh. I put an antifungal cream on it, and it went away. In 2002, my wife was having sex with my brother in law. Yup… I caught my sister’s yeast infection, and carried it for 6 years.
My greatest troubles with wasband began in 2002, but I did not know it. A few months ago I found an e-mail he sent to one of his high school friends who lives in another country, telling this person that we had not had a marriage since 2002.
I was clueless. He never said a word to me. That was the beginning of my doubts. I was still very good looking and youthful in 2002. He was proud of my first major book that was published that year. We sponsored a music festival and had so much fun. Why 2002? Maybe you came up with a reason, I never have. It all really sucks.
Yoder, 2002 was probably when he started to cheat, or cheat in earnest. But since it’s all about him, that’s when he (retroactively) determined that he did not have a “marriage” any longer… Because he said so….Because it sounds better than the truth….Because if he has to look at himself and his friends and explain what happened, in truth he’d have to say “2002 was when I started to blow up my marriage for no good reason, except that I am a selfish sick fuck” These NPD sociopaths just are not gonna do that.
Agreed. I ran into one of his “friends” awhile ago who told me that Fucktard told him back in 2002 that we had an “arrangement”. That was news to me. Coward NPD asshole. Unbeleivable. It still makes me feel nauseous to think about it…
That’s exactly what my ex would think she was outsmarting me but weirdly enough I think she wanted me to know. She would leave this set of sexy pajama shorts and top laying out on top of my things in the closet, I didn’t buy them and she never wore them around me so I put them with her stuff. Next thing you know they are laying out on my stuff again LOL. I already knew she was effing her best friends husband at this point and didnt care I was just waiting her out – year and half before she left – or as she put it “was ready” to leave. I told my Lawyer once that everyday I hoped she would get hit by a bus and it didn’t happen, so today I applied for a job at the bus company.
That’s some kinda shower gel…
The truth is I suggested it first and he agreed with me. He didn’t even have to make his own ridiculous shit up, I did it for him. *sigh*
Oh Chumpatty! What is even worse than getting chumped is when you hear that faint banjo music in the background! Seriously, we could not make this shit up! Screwed for being the kind of people who couldn’t imagine doing this to others….spackle is kind of like using rose scented air freshener on a steaming pile of sh*t & pretending it doesn’t smell!!
Literally the grossest thing I have ever imagined. Witty, I am so sorry.
Omg, you win. Hands down. Don’t think i can imagine anything worse
Mine said oh no thats not pu$$y its from me masterbating while I was at work. Mind you He’s a truck driver!
So fucking nasty. That he didn’t even bother to wash his filthy, adulterous face before coming home just shows you how unbelievably contemptuous and disgusting these pigs are.
She was diagnosed with genital warts and her doctor told her it was from using a hot tub at her gym.
Do I win for dumbest chump?
The competition here is pretty stiff, P.F., I don’t think so! But man, that sucks.
Just before d-day (or was it just after), he came home at around 11:30 PM, in a dreamy mood, with a bucket full of cherries. Told me he had lost track of time, and had been helping an elderly client in a nearby town pick cherries off her tree. Yeah, sounds about right. Late night fruit picking with the elderly. What a guy.
AP had a cherry tree on the side of her driveway.
Is that symbolism?
My STBX doesn’t lie. His truth simply changes daily.
LOL
Good one!
That’s the best line I ever heard about them lying! Fits them all to a T!
And Margo – It’s sadly true.
To him, anyway.
One of my wise advisors suggested to me that my X had “an uncomfortable relationship with truth”.
And truer words were never spoke.
Isn’t it Stephen Colbert who talks about “truthiness”? That’s what narcs have, truthiness.
My ex had special ring tones for us, for instance “Boot Scoot Boogie” was the tune he had for our youngest son because it was his favorite song. Well, once when he phone was ringing I picked it up. The ringtone “I want to lay you down in a bed a roses” by Bon Jovi was playing, and his coworker’s name was on the screen. I was already suspicious of this relationship with his coworker and had talked to him about it many times. Well, when I saw that ringtone was assigned to her I felt sick and faint. Ex saw me as the blood drained from my face and came running over as I collapsed onto couch.”You have that ringtone for HER?” I exclaimed. He immediately put his arm around me and explained there was no specific ringtone assigned to her, that his phone chose ringtones at random. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and said “Thank goodness. That kind of thing could cause a divorce.” What a chump.
Another time I saw my ex interacting at an event with his coworker’s young children. They kept calling him Uncle Bill. I asked why her children were calling him that and he said “I don’t know, they call all men “Uncle.” I actually thought that was so stupid I just laughed.
Hah! Lyn, the effin ringtones, to this day they make my blood boil!
He was obsessed with ducks, we used to feed the ducks and owned a few over the years. I thought it was OUR thing, those ducks. He gets his first iphone, and the neighbor across the street is- a duck quacking (and that sound drove me nuts!). I got to be- a barking dog
Fuck him.
When my ex turned all control-freaky as the affair progressed, I made sure he understood my displeasure with my ringtone for him: The Imperial Death March from Star Wars. (Darth Vader’s Theme) Yeah, we weren’t going to save *that* marriage.
I only allow texts as a form of communication from him, but I would still have that ringtone if I did talk to him.
Hehehe
My picture for him on my phone, since I knew he was cheating, is a hideous Moray Eel’s head with a big gaping mouth. I love it!
The only form of communication between ex and I for the past few years is text. I’d block him altogether, but we have a son who does spend a couple evenings a week with ex. Anyway, my name for ex when he comes up on my cell is “Fucking Liar Sociopath”
My name for the ex is “nobody special”
I was very cautious around the kids with my opinions of their dad and his whore employee. But I had her phone number in my cell as “Homewrecking Slut” You know how kids love to snoop………
I dont even answer her texts….nothing…. I act as if she is invisible anytime we are in the same vicinity …she doesnt deserve a shred of my attention and it works. I had on my phone when her number showed but gone now because of kids was ” Town Bike” lol but oddly enough in this very little town there is this old fellow that fixes up donated bikes and sells them cheap outside his little shop, he has dozen’s of them displayed . My youngest son saw that in the car one day it went off and said ” why is the bike guy calling you , you buying a bike from him ? all his bikes are crap !” …LOL ooops… yeah I was thinking about it maybe and quickly took the conversation another direction and changed my phone message.
Town bike…. that’s like the village bicycle, right? Everybody’s had a ride? LOL, love it!
Lol, mine is of a giant Donkey we saw at a petting zoo !!!!
You all are cracking me up! I thought I was clever to just rename my ex as “Teacher” in my cell. You all are a lot more creative than I was.
Mine too…but more cos he’s an Ass! Hehe
Prior to Dday my exH was listed in my phone as ” A great husband” two reasons for that, 1. I thought he was and 2. It would be first on my phone since he was first in my life…when I asked him to changed my ringtone from family guy’s Stewy to our wedding song or “whatever it is” by zac brown, he looked at me like I was insane after all I had the theme song from “enchanted” as his tone because it was our first movie together…looking back I should have paid more attention since ex barely did any of that…well after we were married and asshole appeared. He told me I shouldn’t be so “insecure”….hmmmm
After Dday, I changed it to a great liar…still first in the phone but since he never once called me I didn’t have to see it. Now his number is gone altogether but unfortunately I still have it memorized….
Heh, I had a horse’s rear end from a carriage ride as the photo associated with xh contact info. Then I thought poor horse… now it’s a photo of a scorpion. A reminder of the story of the frog and the scorpion.
Maine is a turkey… LOL
How about programming in DON’T ANSWER so even if you are half asleep or have had a little wine you can just follow instructions and put the phone back down.
When the ex and I were in R, he promised that he would NOT see the OM under any circumstances.
Side-note: The ex loved to be spoiled with material things and while we were in R he hinted to me how much he’d LOVE it if I bought him a Coach wallet. I of course ignored it, mainly because:
1) Coach wallets for men are a ridiculous waste of money. I get women flaunting their Coach and Louis Vutton purses. I DON’T get men with Coach Wallets. You can get a wallet at Walmart for $5, nevermind the fact that it’s an object that spends the better part of your day pressed up against your ass. Nobody ever sees it thus there’s no need to accessorize.
2) My student loans don’t pay themselves.
Anyway, my ex had planned a day of drinks/shopping with a female friend, ostensibly to shop for an upcoming baby shower for a family member. He and I had plans for a date-night the day after.
I arrived the next day and found him carrying around a brand new Coach wallet. “How could you afford that?”, I asked, confused as to how my ex who always cries poor-mouth could afford the relatively pricey wallet in addition to the baby shower gifts. He said it was the wallet was an impulse buy and then went into a poor-me story about how the combined purchases were going to set him back financially.
Anyway, we went to dinner that night in his car, and did some additional baby shower shopping. We were loading the bags into his car when I saw an empty Coach gift bag, decorative tissue paper and all, sitting in the open trunk.
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY I REALIZED that the wallet was CLEARLY a gift that the OM bought him. And OBVIOUSLY he wasn’t out with a female friend the day before but the OM.
*Cue “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” theme*
I gave my ex the thousand-yard stare, to which he replied: “Oh, that’s how they do it when you buy something. Coach likes to class it up, y’know!”
Of course anybody with half of a brain knows that any retail establishment will only package your purchase into a gift bag if you request it (oftentimes the gift bag costs extra). Otherwise your purchase is going into a generic plastic bag emblazoned with the store’s logo and off you go.
But silly, chumpy me bought that RIDICULOUS lie, mainly because that’s what I wanted to be true.
….And of course I paid for Joe’s Crab Shack and the movies that night.
10% Spackle
10% Ostrich behavior,
99.99% CHUMP
Nice how he left it right there where you could see it. What a tool!
I gotta pretty present! trumps any sentient thought in their little NPD noggins.
Oh Chris, that is some in your face bullshit
joes crab shack?…..you better be careful it’s not Chris’ Crab shack if you catch my drift
OK, here is mine (don’t judge me, I’m pretty stupid and chumpy):
About a year before D-Day, I had become very depressed and took a month off of work. I realize now that it was due to the gaslighting and ambient abuse my ex had been subjecting me to for decades. Anyhow, he suddenly claimed he just “had” to go on an overnight business trip for his consulting business. The meetings were in New England. He said he would call me as soon as he got to the hotel that first night, because he knew how fragile I was. But he never called. And when I tried to call his cell he at first did not pick up, and then later the phone was turned off. I finally called the hotel and they told me that he had had a reservation, but that he had canceled it. I called his female employee’s husband at 11 pm that night (we were all “family friends”) and her husband said his wife was not home, and was out at meetings but at a different location and supposedly not with my ex.
I did not hear from my ex until the next morning. It was a rough night for me as you can imagine. He told me he had been at the hotel all night, and that he could not believe the hotel told me that he was not there and had canceled his reservations! He was in the bed sleeping for god’s sake. He just forgot to call and must not have heard his cell. He said he was going to go right down to the front desk and yell at them before he left! I IDIOTICALLY BELIEVED HIM.
Right after D-day, I asked him if he was with that AP that night, whether he had refused to call me or talk to me when I called to try to drive me completely crazy? He insisted he was not with the AP, even though he admitted they had been having an affair for many many many years. I still sort of believed him, I could not believe he could be so cruel, or lie since he now had no reason to lie anymore, right??
About a year after D-Day, I was going through our tax returns and his business receipts. He’s OCD, so he always marks the backs of his receipts. I found a receipt for an expensive meal and bar tab in the city where he was staying, and he kindly marked onto the back that he was with the AP for “business.” The receipt was from a very nice restaurant, and showed a very expensive dinner and lots of drinks. The time on the receipt was 11:00 pm that night.
Chumpity chump chump……
I would’ve fallen for that. Totally.
Me too, because WE DONT KNOW HOW TO LIE, especially to our partner who isn’t well. That was very cruel, Kelly, not that he’s losing any sleep over it!
PattyToo has said something very interesting.
Chumps don’t know how to lie.
Or at least we don’t like to.
This is another area where Chumps have to recognize that folks are different. I can’t say that I’ve never lied, but it’s rare, and unless it’s just something less than significant (“Oh, you’re new haircut!?? Well, it’s very….exotic”), I feel guilty as hell. In fact, I really do worry about how others feel. If they are angry, I worry that it might be with me, etc. etc. This is Chump stuff.
So, we don’t know how to lie and can’t do it without really suffering. This means that the mental world of “the Other,” a.k.a. “the narc,” is really quite foreign to us. They speak/live another emotional language. Sadly, lots of people just lie.
I’d bet that the majority of CL’s readers, if they found a wallet with a thousand dollars in it, would return that wallet to the owner. I would just do that. If I didn’t, I’d worry that someone didnt’ have money for their family, didn’t have money for medicine, or was just in agony over losing all that money. Our narc friends would not think twice about such found money. Narcs make good gun-runners, good drug dealers, good lots-of-things. But the bottom line is that their internal emotional organization is different from ours.
So, just as they learned our ways, just as they learned how to feign behaviors, we need to learn their ways. We need to realize that people will lie. And remember, manipulative people do not lie and abuse all the time. They will push the limits and then pull back, and then push again.
In any case, PattyToo has a great insight here. The smart Chump who has learned does not project her/his values onto others. Got to remain self-protective and slightly suspicious. We need to teach this to our kids.
One thing, we do not/not want to learn how to lie, but just how to accept that others can lie, and can do so without worry, pangs of conscience or guilt. This essential defensive information for us and for our kids.
David, such an important point about the chump projection.
Because I don’t lie, it never occurred to me that other people lie.
That is projection, plain and simple, and stops me protecting myself.
A chump habit to be stopped.
Projection; that’s the key word. I really thought that my ex was just like me when it came to being honest with each other. We were “soul-mates” after all. But…I had overheard her tell her parents some real whoppers, and some of her friends too. I should have been clued in right there, but I was blissfully asleep at the switch. I just knew she would always be truthful to me. Then, she became pregnant unexpectedly, and suspiciously, since we were careful about BC and weren’t planning on children just then. I insisted I go with her to the OB’s office, but she was reluctant to allow me for some reason. I told her I wanted to be in the loop as the new expectant father, but actually I wanted to find out the exact time the conception took place, because I knew there were big gaps in time where I was absent. She knew I had her at that point and spilled the beans about another sperm donor in the picture. Of course she was immediately evicted from my life at that point. Later, I learned what a POS cheater she really was, and that she had been lying to me for months. What a chump I was, but happily I escaped major damage and she is now just a footnote in history.
Well, David, I’ve always thought of myself as gullible, and too truthful to a fault, as in, I have to strain to tell untruths, and my default is to be truthful. I have been trying to become more protective and watch and listen to people. And I really love the ‘need to know basis’- I only answer questions that people have a need to know the answer. One of my biggest pains from my marriage is that he turned out to be so devious, which might be true for us all!
Patty Too; I have the same fault and now realize that not all comments require answers, and that often people ask questions that are none of their business and do not need to be answered. You can just laugh, or stay silent, or tell them it is personal. People actually respect you for setting this boundary. And these Chump lessons usually do require setting more boundaries.
I used to answer almost every question with the unadulterated truth, now I don’t. I will stay silent or make some kind of joke instead of lying, because I still don’t like to lie, it’s not me. Hope this is helpful.
I think it’s also very uncomfortable to increasingly confront someone and turn up the heat on a particular issue. We don’t think we have any evidence and we doubt ourselves, so we let these sorts of things go, “he/she is likely telling the truth here”.
I never felt like I had concrete evidence. It was all just feelings in my gut which I didn’t trust. It would have been a lot easier if I’d had walked in on them or something.
Ooooo a month before Dday #1 (which was 13 years ago) I have to say we were living apart due to job circumstances. He came to town for a conference, and we turned it into a little vacation. We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas and I had taken up running and had dropped some weight…..we had sex and afterwards he tells me “I have lost too much weight because the “fit” is no longer good anymore….its not tight enough”
I believed him….fast forward a month later when he calls and confesses his double life that he had been leading with younger co-ed.
Scarier still……this ENTIRE scenario….played out again during the second D-DAY….the EXACT same line……….
I would’ve said “Well, maybe you’ve shrunk.”
ROFLMAO!!!!!
ChumpLady……..how classic..my first thought was Is there actually fat in that part of my body that can go away when you loose weight (Chumpity.chump chump…..)
BUUUUUUTTTTTTTT in response to your response…I don’t think it is possible for a tictac to shrink THAT much……
I digress and I am giggle out loud right now.
Bwahahahahaha!!! You People Are Killing Me!!!!
I don’t think I can ever have a tic tac again just so that i can avoid laughing out loud and having to explain about the “shrunk fit” to whoever is around me. This was really funny.
10 years later
Deja Vu anyone….fortunately I connected those dots and started the ejection process IMMEDIATELY
The MOST obvious lie this chump bought was with ex#2 (yes, I’m a three time Chump!) I had suspicions that he was having an affair with the secretary at his office but couldn’t prove anything. She left that job in October but was invited to the employee Holiday party in December.
The men all lined up to greet her as she walked in like some kind of conquering hero and she shook hands and said something to each of them. When she got to my husband she kissed him full on the lips (I was standing two feet away) and then wiped her lipstick off his lips like she did it every day, while giving him a little grin. He had his arms around her and a silly grin on his face, too. This in front of everyone he works with and some of the wives!
I asked him what the hell that was. His reply? “She’s a secretary. She’s just friendly!”
Yeah. I had to sit through that dinner, choking back tears of humiliation (he had the car keys) while he sat next to her and chatted all evening, virtually ignoring me. I didn’t have the guts to walk out and I Spackled over the event for another year before I finally called it quits.
As an added bonus, the Narc ex, demanding to know every humiliating thing ex#2 did to me (in the spirit of learning what NOT to do in our relationship – more Spackle, anyone?) convinced me that it was not proof of an affair, that I couldn’t go around saying he was boinking the secretary at his job without an admission from him, and that I really needed to let go of my anger over that guy.
I am imagining you at that dinner with the brazen twat whore and your coward jackass and I want to punch him and figure out some way to humiliate that soulless freak he was boinking.
That story makes me mad.
Fuck.
They all do.
I sound crazy.
Only on the inside.
Man, this shit pisses me off.
Go live a good life. It’s the best thing. Know that you escaped a roiling turd soup when you left a life with him.
Oh, my life is fucking fantastic now! 2013 will go down as the Best.Year.Ever! I live alone with Crazy Helper Dog and a new kitten in a space that I own, with all of my favorite things surrounding me, in a town where the sun actually shines, working at a job that I love that pays a Living Wage. I do what I want, eat what I want, wear what I want, go out when I want, see who I want and no penises are allowed 🙂
Life is truly good now that I’ve given up Hopium and accepted that the Unicorn of Reconciliation is a myth created by abusive people. We don’t have to go through life two-by-two if we don’t want to.
I’ve been single for 8 months now. It’s working out. I think I’m the one…
“I think I’m the one” — love that!
I love that to – “I think I’m the one.”
Not my original quote – saw it on FB somewhere and it struck me that, yeah, that’s exactly it, just how I feel. I complete me. I love my own company. I am perfect.
Not to me – as I was reading your initial response I was thinking “YEAH – WELL SAID GIRLFRIEND!!” 🙂
I have a couple more stories in the same vein, but really, how much of this shit can one person dredge up without going completely off the rails and doing something drastic? Or is that just me?
If it’s any consolation, they didn’t manage to make it work and now he’s “all alone” cue the violins 🙂
All of those people were older than me and I had been told that I needed to “grow up” and “be sophisticated,” which I guess is just ass-speak for “suck up your silly little feelings when your husband does something to humiliate you or you can’t hang out with us any more.” Whatever. I reached meh about that douche years ago.
Your story reminds me of the time I went to Hawaii with my ex on a business trip. When his coworker showed up he walked along with her in front of me, like I was the caboose. She kept calling him her “work husband.” This upset me and I told him later while we were alone in our hotel room. It made him furious and he made me feel like a crazy, insecure and jealous person. They all suck.
That’s what they all do – make us feel small and crazy so we stay around longer. Ego Kibbles and Cake – that’s all they care about. Wish I’d figured it out sooner…
2013 has been veddy, veddy good to me, too!
(attn: New Chumps — it gets better!)
Thank you, really
I can’t wait to be there!
(attn: New Chumps — it gets better!)
I need to hear this everyday!
how far behind DID you walk ?…was it far enough to get a running start and shove them both off a cliff…accidents like that happen all the time in Hawaii….just saying
Once I verbalized the fact that I knew he was cheating and I presented way more evidence than necessary to confirm that knowledge, any rational person would assume the game was over for him…except him. It was as if every day thereafter, became yet another D-Day. One lie unfolded after another. And the biggest and hardest lie to crack was his insistence that he DID NOT SLEEP WITH OW.
I went with him to his shrinks office and we brought the “I’ve been sleeping with another man’s wife,” which he referred to as seeing someone else, out in the open. His shrink, a woman, asked “How involved was he in “seeing this other woman?”
Wasband, said, “Well, I have a medical problem that prevents…” He didn’t even have time to say he was and had been, for years, impotent. She jumped right on it, was embarrassed and immediately took the session in a different direction.
Over the next few days I began to realize he had carefully calculated the ways he might be able to lie his way out of every cheating point I might bring up. I also knew there was more to cheating than fucking.
Then, we went to another shrink, a male this time, for what was called “marriage counseling.” This time, within five minutes, this guy had wasbands number. I seized the opportunity. I asked the shrink if I might ask the questions and he looked at wasband and asked if it was alright with him. He said, “sure.”
Previously when I or a shrink asked him if he had slept with OW, wasband’s reply was always the same, “No.” So I began the questioning with the easiest ones to give a straight answer to and the ones for which I had proof in emails, which I had carefully folded and placed in my pocket…just for insurance in case this shrink also bought into wasbands lies.
Me: Did you drive to Wichita, KS?
Him: Yes
Me: Did you meet her at the air port?
Him: Yes
Me: Did she ride with you to Hutchinson, KS?
Him: Yes
Well you get the picture. I went through every step of their vacation together and when I took it to “bedtime” he never balked.
Me: When you were in the motel room, did she take off her clothes.
Him: Yes
Me: Did she get into bed?
Him: Yes
Him: Did she get under the covers?
Me: Yes
Me: Did you take your clothes off?
Him: Not the first time.
Up to this point he had been adamant that it was a “one time” thing. My mind was whirring, but I stayed calm and kept trudging ahead.
Me: When you did take your clothes off, did you get into bed?
Him: I laid on the bed.
Obviously, another lie was creeping up.
Me: Did you get under the covers?
Him: Yes
Me: Did she sleep in that bed all night?
Him: Yes
Me: Did you sleep in that bed all night?
Him: Yes.
In his narc mind, if he was impotent then he could, conscience free, actually say, “I did not sleep with her.”
I looked up at the shrink. The look of realization was all over his face.
I said to him, “Classic pathological liar.”
He slept with her, I knew it, the shrink knew it and wasband knew we knew it.
It proved nothing more than that I was dealing with a narc and could never again trust anything he might say.
Hahaha! This one should be the winner 🙂
I love the way you told this story Yoder, very funny in hindsight right? But Anudi, she can’t win, the winner has to have BELIEVED the story… 🙂
I DID believe him, that is why I ended my post with I couldn’t believe I actually said that. I bought it all.
My ex took an impromptu vacation to Howaii to go hiking, to “clear his head” because work was just so stressful. Well, he HAD been spending a lot of time at “work” so it made sense. He showed me pictures of the cute little “B&B” he stayed in.
He did invite me to go, but gave little advance notice so I could take off work, and never made any attempt to see that the kids would be looked after.
WTF. What sort of father decides to spend vacation time by himself?
Hahah, everyone else knew it was ridiculous.
But me? I am a CHUMP! 🙂
Wasband kept telling everyone we were taking separate vacations. I told him only people who were getting divorced did that.
Yes, I really said that. What a chump I was.
I have you so beat. My ex wanted to go on a vacation alone because we had his wolf dog and no one else could deal with him but one of us (bullshit). But I bought it, so went to Hedonism for his vacation. I’m a naturist so I thought nothing of a nude beach. He told me before he went how jealous his coworkers were that I was cool with him going there. Only later did I find out he had reached out to swingers before he went, only later did I find out this is a place where swingers hang out. I thought it was just a resort where you could be nude. After he came back I found some shit that made me think he had sex going on, but he convinced me that he wanted to but said “I couldn’t do it once I got there because I love you so much”. I believed him cos he went “transparent”, that’s what the reconciliation complex calls it anyway. But he wasn’t, I realized upon my last Dday that he sanitized all the emails before I read them back then. Because believe it or not, after I showed him the last Dday email between him and OW he actually went in his account and cleaned up that email to make it look like nothing was going on. He tried to convince me I “imagined” the shit I read earlier. Sick fuck, he is.
‘Do you believe me, Wuf, or your lying eyes?’
I wish I didn’t have so many but here goes.
He didn’t come home, so I got up, found a sitter and went for a run because I was training for a marathon in an attempt to get my mind off if my messed up life. As I was running downtown, I noticed him in a car with the OW (his co-worker and subordinate) I ran up and flipped them off and kept on running. He told me that they were not speaking at work bc of some work stuff and that they were talking it out so they could be civil. He explained that they all stayed the night at another co-workers house because they went out drinking so he was being “responsible” by not driving home drunk. I wanted to believe so I did even though he told me that they had ended their affair months before.
I was basically lied to everyday considering they still worked together.
At least you got to flip them off. 🙁
Indeed. It took everything I had to not show emotion but I didn’t want them to “win”. They can have each other.
I have the exact same story!No flipping off for me though 🙂
Kristina- what did u do?
Me: I found an earring in your pocket when I was ironing that shirt for you.
Him: Oh – I found I on the floor at the club and picked it up, thinking it might be yours.
Awesome! How M-Fing clever he thought he was!
Now just HOW STUPID did he think you were?
What a Dumbass
You should have gon on and run over him with that turnip truck…
I meant my wedding vows when I said them.
My ex sent me a text recently that said he should have added “LOL” to the end of all of his wedding vows. Nice, huh? Who would send that to his ex wife? A sociopath, that’s who.
Thats terrible!!!
He’s trying to be cute.
But, it’s just pathetic.
Boo..what a jerk thing to do!!
That is HORRIBLE! Can you block that m-f’s texts?!
Atrocious sociopath!
You should’ve said lol when you first saw his dick…..just sayin’. 🙂
Kelly, that really did make me LOL! Ha ha you guys, but his dick isn’t as small as it looked in that video…….. he was wearing a dance belt underneath that compresses the guy’s junk and tucks it back between the legs. He considers himself to be sexy as all hell though, which he is not.
I know, but you STILL should’ve laughed….would’ve freaked him out!
I had to go out every night because I was too stressful being around you.
“It” was too stressful, rather.
I heard the same thing over and over again. Now that I moved out he wants me and can’t understand why I left. Really??!??!
We’re attracted to each other, but we’ve reeled it back to just a business relationship.
Reeled it back… I had to laugh over that. Nice line… and I bet you fell for it hook, line and sinker.
LOL!!!
Ex-wife worked in the publishing industry in the late 90s. Most folks there were some cross-breed of hipster/artist/bohemian/tech guru. One day ex brings home a framed piece of art. Says it’s a cartoon her boss drew. A gritty, brooding portrait of a guy in a flannel shirt, gimme cap, and 3-day stubble. Think Nic Cage in *Leaving Las Vegas* meets Wolverine. Meets Johnny Knoxville. Since it was original art and expensively framed, we hung it on the wall of our house But it was kind of creepy and leering, so without saying anything to the ex I took it down about a year later and stored it in a closet.
My gut was speaking, but I didn’t listen. . . .
Years later I found out it was a self-portrait of the boss, at a time when he has in the early stages of an affair with my then-wife that lasted somewhere between three and 12 years. It was a token of his angsty lurve.
And that shit HUNG IN MY HOME. Near the dining table where my family ATE THANKSGIVING DINNER. Makes me wanna spit. How my nut-job ex was able to live that way I will never understand.
Though it was great fun after the divorce to discover that picture and burn it. Yes, friends, sh*t does burn.
Nomar, did you have a blog? Because I recall reading this story a while back and I even recall the grotesque visage of the quasi-hipster/bohemian/gritty (as in sand in my spinach), IMO bloody fucking ughly idiot and the ensuing burning of the “art.”
I thought I read about that picture here? CL?
Well, the most obvious lies were that he loved me, was straight, would always be with me and would never want to divorce or break up our family. Oh, and that I was his best friend.
Others:
Back when we were dating, we belonged to the same gym. We finished a workout, and went into the separate locker rooms. Half an hour went by, I was dressed and still waiting for him to come out. This was way before cell phones. He finally emerged with some ridiculous story about how he had lost the key to his locker and so it took him forever to get someone to open it for him. I totally bought that one, but in looking back, it is obvious he was fucking some guy in the locker room, something he made a habit of.
Our last holiday together. He BEGGED me to let him go on a “business weekend” with a few coworkers, they were going to a cabin to discuss plans for the company. He said if I let him go, it would be my Hanukkah gift to him (I’m Jewish, he’s Christian.) I finally said okay. Anyway, as it turns out, one of his OW was in the group and the weekend was spent fucking her and orgies with the others.
Years back, I found he was emailing some guy he had apparently met through a list for married bisexual guys to hook up. He told me he had never done anything with the guy, he was just warning the guy not to be foolish and cheat on his wife.
Warning the guy, huh. I can almost picture his expression when he said that-wide eyed innocence, combined with deep concern & love for his fellow human? Manbaby would’ve added the wringing of hands, maybe batted an eyelash or two.
These popped into my head and couldn’t stop typing.
Seeing her old HS boyfriend working with her at a concession stand the night she had to leave early from my parents 50th anniversary party. Then telling me that he was just helping. Turns out they were screwing just a few days earlier. I could tell something was up just by the way he looked at me. Since I knew him from a long time ago. What a turd…..
The first lie of her telling me that she is not cheating on me when I asked because I found his phone number in her phone listed as a second listing of one of her female friends. Oh how I danced after that one. Sorry that I accused her of such a thing. Pissed off at me for looking at her phone. How dare I do such a thing.
3 weeks later told me she was going out to another place for a drink with her co-worker after the work Christmas party. (were all her friends are.) I went to pick up my son and went back to where she left and the coworker I was told she was going with had no idea where my wife was.
The worst ones are those that she is telling the kids and will probably continue to try to tell about why we are getting divorced.
My head hurts, this shit sucks!!
Oh yeah, “I have a right to my privacy” is a favorite of cheaters.
Really, wasn’t that just the worst?! My ex would say, “Are you my mother?! Stop going through my stuff!” while lying about his affair. I remember a good friend asking me if I thought ex’s response was normal, and what I would say if my ex accused me of having an affai. I told him I would laugh my ass off. I shoulda listened to my friend. 4 1/2 years later, I finally got out. So glad I am out of Crazy Town! Now to get to meh…
This one, oh this one.
When ToddlerBoi left I was still deep in Chumpitude, bought the “I need time to myself” line, and I trusted him. Ten months later after dutifully doing the counselling thing I found out that he had immediately moved in with his OW (who, he said, he had only met the week after he moved out – yeah, right). I am in awe at how he could blatantly lie in the joint counselling sessions, as he repeated over and over that there was no one else. And I won’t ever trust a counseller again, either – I don’t know what they talked about in IC, but I suspect she knew. I still feel like a fool about that.
The most hurtful thing – two of my kids had been living with them, and nobody told me. Apparently he had asked the kids not to mention this relationship to me because he wanted them to “respect his privacy”.
I still feel sick about this, and that I believed all his bullshit about “finding himself”. At least finding out finally made me realize that anything we had was long, long dead – that he really was a serial cheater and that I needed to go NC and get the hell out. I’m slowly, slowly getting to meh, but am still wondering why I put up with the assholery so long.
I think I heard that a gazillion times during the marriage. The problem is what cheaters expect is not “privacy” which is something like closing the door when you use the bathroom. What cheaters really want is “secrecy” which is different than privacy, because in secrecy there is usually deceit.
Exactly! I can’t agree with you more. They want to call it privacy…
After about 7 months of constantly calling the future ex out, asking him what the fuck was going on, we had one of the nicest, loveliest conversations of our at the time 22 year relationship. He recognized his inability to communicate. He assured me that nothing was going on because she had a boyfriend but was also too busy with her daughters dance stuff. In fact – he and the OW were just discussing how she and I could be really great friends! Then he asked if it would help if he introduced me to her. Would that ease my mind. Why yes it would! Yeah, that never happened.
I actually had a theory. My future ex isn’t quite as NPD like many other ex’s here are. He does however have OCD. Just recently, although not officially diagnosed, the future ex and i have come to believe our son is exhibiiting symptons of OCD. The future ex has spent a lifetime of covering up what he experiences, manpulating and covering up what he goes through to appear normal every day. I wonder if this has produced the unintended consequence of becoming a phenomenal liar – training you know? I’ve actually put this question to him in the context of being able to recognize this in my son so I could tell if he’s lying to cover up any symptoms he’s experiencing. Haven’t received an answer yet.
I noticed months ago that there were like hundreds of texts every day on my asshat’s phone to the same number. He said they were to a high school friend that had moved out west a few years ago. What do you talk about so much? I asked. Oh, we just say dumb things like what’s up and how’s it hanging, asshat said. I believed him, never once doubted that he would lie to me. After the truth came out, I found out he had lost touch with that friend and hasn’t talked to him for years.
Another time the kids and I were at a flower nursery. Our car wouldn’t start. In a panic, I called asshat, knowing he was at a ‘friend’s house watching football’. He didn’t answer the phone. I had to get someone else to come and jump start my car. Later on he told me that he didn’t get any cell service at his ‘friend’s’ house. Oh sure, the truth couldn’t possibly be that he was too busy committing adultery to answer his phone.
every day…..
“Oh sure, the truth couldn’t possibly be that he was too busy committing adultery to answer his phone.”
I can’t hear the ringer.
I don’t know how to get a text.
My phone was turned off.
I don’t have any calls /texts from you on my phone – what are you talking about.
I must have been in the bathroom
I must have been in the copy room
It was in my coat pocket
I left it in the car
My battery was dead
Don’t ever bother me when I’m working
Don’t ever bother me when I’m hunting
Don’t ever bother me when I’m fishing
Don’t ever bother me when I’m with my friends
*sigh* whatever….
Chumpdom is a mighty thing my friends.
“I didn’t have an affair. I’d never do something like that you.” – Soon to be ex dumbass, one month before D-Day
That would be “TO you.” 🙂
To this day, the ex can’t admit the truth about anything. But because he was pounded on so severely as a child for lying, he also can’t lie. So I got non-denial denials, such as:
Me: I need a bunch of money to make the quarterly payroll deposits for Girl Friday (the AP). Do you have a spare divorce war chest somewhere?
Him: I’ve always loved your sense of humor.
Me: Where were you (For THREE freaking HOURS)?
Her: At [friend]’s house. (truth: she was at her friend’s house for about the 1 minute and 30 seconds it took to drop our 2 year old daughter off there. She then went to f*ck her boyfriend silly.)
Me: I drove by there a few times and didn’t see your car there.
Her: Hmmm, that’s weird. It had to be there.
Me: Oh. Ok (ahahahahaha… what a chump!)
We moved in together almost immediately, of course. Well, he would always just disappear for days at a time. He would shut his cell phone off so he didn’t have to hear me call over and over. He always just said he was super depressed and had to get out of town. Turns out he had a girlfriend who lived out of town. I still stayed because he said I was his everything and he just didn’t know how to end it with her. That was affair #1; although technically I was the affair. I never, ever looked at it like that until a therapist said it to me.
He said he had left his cell phone in his shoe in the car all weekend by accident.
I found condoms in his car and he said they were for some other guy. I called the guy right then and there and he said they weren’t his. My Ex said he was just embarrassed and didn’t want me to know. Yep, I stayed through that as well.
He didn’t come home one night and said he had slept in his car since we weren’t getting along.
There’s so many things I let slide, I bet I can think of some really, really stupid things I let go, the more I think about it.
My ex was really good at avoiding having to out and out lie, he’s just evade or turn the tables on me so I’d end up feeling guilty for even suspecting that he was anything but the bestestest husband evar! (blech)
But you what they say about hindsight and all….
One of my favorite lies is when I dug through the computer and found his convo with OW #2 (another ho-worker) where they’d discussed going to the bar and the neeked pics of each other they had exchanged via email. His “explaination”? They were just friends and he met her at the bar after work so she could tell him all about her problems with her bf so he could advise her.
Right before Dday #3 (which really by this point should I have been surprised?) We were barely speaking and you could cut the tension between us with a knife. Well, one Friday night he didn’t come home from work, he was on 2nd shift. But he didn’t come home at all. He’d told me before he went to work that he might stop at the bar for a beer with the guys after work, and frankly I was to the point of “whatever”. So I call his cell phone at various times during the night, no answer. Finally, 10 am THE NEXT MORNING he calls me. The story? He claimed that he was so drunk that he got lost coming home, pulled over and passed out in his car. In a town that is 45 miles in the opposite direction from anywhere along the route he’d take from work to home.
In looking back I knew he was lying, I just didn’t have the courage to face what the lies meant.
“My mother booked a last minute trip for the family to go to Singapore over Christmas, so I’m having to deal with the time change. This is why it’s taken me so long to get back to you and I can only text”. Disappeard on Christmas Eve. He was actually packing up and moving to the States to be with his wife, who he had married while we were dating( unbeknownst to me, of course).
This was right after ” I forgot your Christmas present in the car, let me go and get it” and then “oops, looks like I forgot to bring it”. We’ll open all of his presents first…even bought a present for his cat!!!!
And of course, “I’m going away for a few days for my best buddy’s wedding…( oh wait, it was actually his wedding). Missed that little bit of info as well.
Oh, Sara – I’m so sorry! What a d*uche bag!
Thank you Red! Seems completely ridiculous now, especially when I write it down but I fell hook, line and sinker at the time. What a shmuck
About six weeks before D-day, XH told me he would be late one night because he was “working a grant.” I woke up around 2:30 am to an empty bed. I went downstairs to see if he was there and he wasn’t. Then I called his cell phone.
Me: Where are you?
XH: Working a grant
Me: At 2:30 in the morning?!
-Woman laughing in the background-
Me: Who is that? Who’s there with you?
XH: Uh…nobody. I have the radio on.
Me: Come home.
XH: ‘Kay.
He did come home about 30 minutes later, but didn’t come to bed right away. After DDay, I went back and checked the phone records and discovered it was because he stayed up texting OW from 3 am – 5 am. They’d been together all night and were just continuing their conversation….
OOOoo the brain is hurting………comes home after night of drinking with buddies at the club. I am going through pants pockets and find condoms. Confront him about condoms and he says…someone threw them on the table at the country club so I picked them up………………Hmmmmmm
Interesting question and difficult to answer because he doesn’t tell the truth. I got (and, if I spoke to him would continue to get) outright lies and deeply qualified or situational “truths.”
However, there are two lies that stand out to me for some reason. The first time I realized he was cheating (we were dating) he told me with a straight face, “I am not sleeping with her. That isn’t the type of person that I am. She is just an interesting person and it is difficult being with you at times.” I believed I was responsible and added ballroom to my tap dancing until my shiny dancing skills had him picking me.
The second lie that stands out in my mind that I totally believed because I saw a unicorn floating around the ceiling fan, “I slept with her but I couldn’t even maintain an erection. I didn’t even enjoy it.” This even though I read her very graphic text message to him which was the proof of that lie. And he returned several more times to have more of the non-erection giving sex because it was just so awful. But of course, why would I believe my lying eyes when I could instead believe his lying lips. If he could pretend he didn’t enjoy it, it’s really not f*cking dontcha know. I must have used all of the Spackle at Lowe’s and Home Depot to cover that pile of stinking elephant shit.
Chumpety-Chump-Chump.
I fell for the “I fooled around with her but couldn’t do anything because of the anti-depressants”. Chump-o-rama. After a conversation with her, I learned it wa a mutual “13th step”. They suck.
What is a 13th step?
…oooooo…. lots to choose from. Aside from the run of the mill – “I was with X or at Y” but really on a screwfest with someone – mine XH would elicit the sympathy card and MAJOR drama excuses. Sadly, I knew things were off but still believed them…..
1) I didn’t come home last night because I was in jail. I hanging around the softball fields after the game, and this guy was pushing around his GF. Me and some other guy I don’t know, tried to stop it. The police were called and I got swooped up in the mess and they didn’t release me from the station until 9AM. I didn’t get a chance to call (days before cell phones).
2) I didn’t answer the phone last night while you were traveling away on business because my mom – was feeling very dizzy and she called me – to drive 60 miles to take her to the emergency room. Don’t say anything to her about it, she’s embarrassed to have made such a fuss.
3) I was too home at 6AM while you were again traveling for business, and called. The 14 year old babysitter that answered the phone, and said I didn’t come home – she was sleeping when I came home and I didn’t wake her.
4) I was just restless. I know I told you I’d be home for dinner and it’s 24 hours later – but gosh I called in sick and decided to take a road trip. So I drove to the Mackinaw bridge 200 miles away, then slept in the car. Wanted to watch the sunrise over Lake Huron. Yes, I should have left a note. Sorry.
5) I had to give some guy CPR at the bar. He had apparently just got off the Greyhound bus and was lost outside in theses sub zero temps. He walked into the bar and collapsed. I gave him CPR. I don’t know if he made it. It really shook me up and I just lost track of time.
….and I can’t claim this one, but his second ex-wife years later shared with me her “can’t believe I fell for it” lie that takes the cake: I was in the hospital. I passed out walking to my car after work. The ambulance was called by someone and I spent the last 18 hours in the hospital unconscious and I may have an aneurysm. I will need to go back for tests but they said just to take it easy. (She figured it out only when no insurance EOB’s or bills started coming in, but said he went weeks “having Dr’s visits” and offering seemingly valid medical explanations.).
Wow, the lie that keeps on giving! He’s a professional!
That’s some creativity going in that “brain.” Wow.
My ex has heart issues beginning at 41 years old. Twice he went to the hospital for heart issues and was released immediately because nothing was wrong, he pretended to get my sympathy. The depths assholes will go to in order to control you is breathtaking.
I was always bothered by how solicitous OW was at his workplace. STBX always worked late one night of the week. He’s in an IT field, and it is not unusual for them to need to work late on the systems. He’d come home around 9:30pm and I’d feed him his supper. About 18-20 months ago, he told me that OW was working late because she was taking a class and needed peace and quiet to do her work.
That was the dumbest thing I bought.
In the summer, when things were apparently getting physical, OW had quit her job at STBX’s place, she’d call up with some sort of crisis. I knew that she had her eyes set on STBX, and told him that basically all these calls were excuses for her to see him. He seemed to believe that there really was a crisis, and he would go there to help. Sometimes the crisis was a tree branch down. Other times, she claimed that there was a weird stalker hanging around. The latter totally sent STBX ballistic.
The really chump thing was believing him when he said he’d go check it out. Now, since then, I discovered that he really does believe that she’s been the victim of some kind of weird stalking campaign and that the police are doing nothing about it, but I bought into the belief that he was going there just to calm her down.
I now no longer believe him when he says he’s going somewhere. Today, he didn’t have work. Also, a worker at his place had a tragic death in the family (truly. and this made the local news), so the funeral was today. He called me on the way home from the funeral, saying he was going to get the car washed. So where was the funeral? Yep, in the same neighboring community as OW. I figured that something was going to get polished….
And today’s lie that I didn’t buy was that he’d not eaten breakfast. He came home from the barber/shopping for his stuff, when he said he was really ill. He was. I clucked sympathetically, saying that it must have been whatever he ate for breakfast. He said he hadn’t eaten.
Liar! After 16 years of marriage, I know that he’d have been sick if he hadn’t eaten, and also I know what he looks like when he’s ill from not having eaten (his metabolism is such that he’s not great with skipping meals). Also, the receipt from Denny’s in his wallet confirmed the lie.
I think the biggest lie he HOPED I would buy were, “There is nothing more, that’s it, that’s all the secrets.” I actually have this in black and white from him, after our D-Day. I continued to find additional misspent money, and additional affair partners.
I got a fun twist on the “working late” lie too: he would (legit) get orders to be at meetings across the country for the week. He’d tell me they were going to have to pour on the steam and work hard through the weekend to finish up, and not to expect him to be reachable until he headed home Sunday. In truth, the meetings wrapped up Thursday so everyone could travel Friday and be home with their families. He’d travel Thursday night to one of his Affair Partner in the midwest, and then fly home Sunday, which was when I’d been told to expect him. I bought that shit for a long, long time.
He used to always be on the phone after work, in his car after he’d pulled into the driveway. For years I bought that he was just trying to get home as soon as he could, but was still wrapping up work. (His work in military medicine legit requires private communications on both fronts, so I never questioned it.) I would just see him there, I’d wave, he’d wave and smile . . .
Most outlandish though, that’s another story. I think it was the three and four hour runs through the woods, at our last base. He was the fattest long-distance runner you ever met. Seriously, he almost got drummed out of the service several times for being so heavy.
My man does the same thing! He sits in his truck for hours sometimes just staring at his phone reading his emails, he says. Most of the time when he leaves, he won’t answer his phone and barely texts back if at all. He was riding around, he says. He got fired from his job on Friday. I didn’t know until Tuesday BC he kept leaving pretending to go to work. Where was he if he want at work? Sleeping in his truck innocently. He was trying to get his job back a few days ago and had to take a drug test, which took him nearly 4 hours. And then when he kissed me, his face smelled like pussy, and his mouth tasted like it. He loves giving oral. He won’t spend any time with me, and when I talk to him about our problems, it is always somehow my fault. He doesn’t do anything wrong. We don’t have any conversations anymore. We rode together last night for about 2 hours to drop my son off, and we literally had nothing to talk about. Deafening silence and thick ass tension muffled and cut by his stupid as hell techno music bumping on the huge ridiculous speaker he bought. He thinks he is so cool.he acts like a damn teenager. I feel dumb, used, ignored, unloved. Ugh… And crazy.
I keep trying to talk to him so that we can get back to the good relationship we had. I admit the wrong things I do, but he will not apologize for or even acknowledge his faults. We have a 3 year old son together, and it really hurts thinking of giving up. But idk how much longer I can take being in a relationship where I am taken for granted and invisible. My bf was in rehab for meth addiction and got out 6 months ago. I forgave all the shady shit he did before rehab- he probably cheated, although I can’t prove it, but I let it all go. He apologized profusely for treating me bad. He was a changed man for about 5 months. He begged me to marry him. We were so in love. Now all of a sudden, it’s back in the toilet, and Im mourning how we were. At least I haven’t married him. Another thing, he can be so cruel. Like, he sees me crying my eyes out after he stayed out all night, and he doesn’t even try to make me feel better. I just get the cold shoulder. I would be nicer to a stranger crying than he is to his gf, the mother of his child.
My God, these balls of turd lie sooooooooo much. I’m truly floored by some of these whoppers, yet at the same time, they don’t surprise me a bit. I think the worst part of all the lies I swallowed over the years is that now I am unable to trust any man, because I assume they are all lying POS like my ex.
I agree GIO. How will we ever trust again? It’s way too early for me to think about another relationship but I can’t ever see it happening.
Some of these are so crazy that they wouldn’t seem possible if we didn’t know what whack-jobs these losers are. Love this column though. At least we are getting some good laughs. Here’s one of mine:
Ex was on his way out for a guys night out but not wearing his wedding ring.
Me: what the hell, you aren’t wearing your wedding ring?!?
Him: I haven’t been wearing it for the past 8 months. You barely noticed now? (Not sure whether he was hoping to blame-shift or what, but if so it was the stupidest attempt ever.
Me (actually kind of believing him, because I never pay attention to details of people’s appearances. I know it’s weird, but I like to think I pay more attention to the people themselves. Also, it never occurred to me that ex wouldn’t be wearing his wedding ring.): Wtf, you haven’t been wearing your wedding ring for 8 months? Why the hell not?
Him (with a sheepish grin, obviously realizing he was digging himself deeper by the minute): Same reason as Mike, for security reasons. (OK, Mike, his serial cheating best friend, worked for the CIA. He told his wife that if people knew he was married, they’d try to track down his wife and kids and do bad things to them. Of course, my ex had told me Mike was a serial cheater, and so he knew that I knew the real reason Mike didnt wear his ring. Plus, my ex didn’t work for the CIA!!!).
Me: What the hell are you talking about, security?! You’re a postman!!!
Him (again grinning sheepishly): No, um I mean, the bar we are going to is in a really dangerous area.
Me: Wtf, you said you guys are going to the Four Seasons Hotel bar in Georgetown (and on my dime, no less)! You guys always go there, and it’s probably one of the safest, most upscale bars in the country. Plus there are a million security guards! What the hell are you talking about, security issues?!?
Him: Um, yeah I guess I could probably wear it…
Wtf I was thinking to let so many obvious and illogical lies go, I cant even begin to say. I knew he was full of shit, but even after all that I just thought that he was an idiot and trying to look cool in front of his friends. It never occurred to me that he could be cheating. Of course, now, and multiple whores, prostitutes, and abandonment for an OW later, I realize that he obviosly wasn’t taking off his ring for his guy friends. Guess I was the idiot on that one :$
Sunshine you seem to be in the DC area, post in the forums, maybe we can meet up sometime.
Hi DDW, Alas, I used to be in the DC area. Now am on the left coast 😉 Would’ve been great to meet up with you, particularly since Im new here and don’t know too many folks :/ But at least thankful to have this forum 🙂
Me: where is your wedding band?
X: I accidentally left it in the gof cart
…
Me: where is your wedding band?
X: I [insert rounds two and three of bullshit and lies here]…yes, Madame Chump kept replacing the rings that, in retrospect, he may have been pawning for drug money. Insult, meet injury.
Mine stopped wearing his wedding ring around the time he started getting involved in a “friendship” with coworker. He stopped wearing his ring and told me it was because it got in the way when he was working around the farm. However, he wore his other rings when traveling, just not his wedding ring.
I almost wish I had such great examples. A sign, again, that my cheating ex is just a run of the mill type, not a narc.
But I was a classic chump.
1) I believed he was just infatuated with AP #1. In hindsight, really, he wrote her poetry in French, he never wrote me any poetry.
This let to believing future big lies, namely:
“No, things are fine between us, it is work I am unhappy with”…. This when I saw the same behavior I had seen during the first affair.
But, of course, I did not know that…..
Took another 2 years to find out the truth, 13 years total.
For me there are the lues I still wonder about, and won’t ever know the truth about. But alot of the biggies I called him on straight away. I’m a chump, ladies and gents, because I stayed anyway. 🙁 what a waste of friggin time!
Just a few actions that were lies…
He was generous when it came to gifts but didn’t like me to show them off (jewelry for example) and never ever wanted me to introduce him to people. I thought he was shy…now I know our whole life together were a lie and he was afraid of dots connecting.
Right after my Dad died we were to go to my sisters house for Thanksgiving to support my Stepmom. Not something we really wanted to do (espc. Him “Mr. Shy”) but it was the right thing to do. We got dressed, he was on the couch…when it was time to leave and I opened the front door he said “i’m not going…forget it”. Leaving me to leave shocked – in tears- having to answer over and over again the question “Wheres Tom?” My Dad died Nov. 1 and I was devastated and I REALLY needed Tom there.
Every year my company has a formal Xmas dinner. Over 200 people including the family that owns the company who are old family (my family) friends that have done a lot for Tom and I. When we walked to our table, we were short one chair, I sat down and when they came back with his chair (5 minutes later) he was gone. Just disappeared. Left. Me. There. Alone. In front of the whole company that I have been with for as long as I’ve been with him. I was so humiliated and everyone was so bewildered and sympathetic. I took a cab home early and when I got home he wasn’t there, he finally got home in the middle of the night to say “I embarrassed HIM” because I didn’t even care enough to make sure HE had a seat reserved.
And the best part of it is the only time anyone at my job had even seen him (NO introducing…remember?) was when he came by 3/4 times a week to get cash from me….for gas I thought but NOW know to buy a $20 crack rock on his lunch break to trade for a blow job. Something he admitted on DDay. Which is also why he abandoned me at the Xmas party…Ain’t Love Grand??? And to think of the anger and hurt and how I cried and cried over things like this because He blamed ME!!!
I tell you what, I may be going through some depression right now but I have no idea how I survived all that shit…and that’s just a couple of examples…. Love you guys!
Super Jedi hugs to you. My ex found someone else and let me stew in severe depression over my Moms death, and later said it was my fault because I wasn’t there for him. classic bullshit, you take care of them and when you need some support they fuck you over.
My mother passed away at 57 from cancer. I was left to deal with the aftermath of moving my stepdad out by me and write thank yous and follow up with everything else besides working full time and taking care of my kids. I ran myself down and got sick – ended up with bronchitis (ain’t nobody got time for that! LOL). I carried on for about two weeks continuing to push myself before I went to the doctor and was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher almost in tears because I felt so horrible. He was sitting his ass on the couch and said to me “I think you gave me what you have”. Really, fucker? What an asshole! I finally went to the doctor and got meds and was fine. But looking back, my wellness was not an issue – he was more concerned with his well being.
During his affair, he eneded up giving me strep throat – prick…..
My wasband began feeling much better after several years of ill health. I have been the sole bread winner for over a decade. I was exhausted, taking care of him, an invalid and my working a very high pressure full time job. The result was that I developed trauma induced type II diabetes. None in the family genes, not over weight and no sweet tooth. I had never heard of trauma induced diabetes. It was during the hot, hot summer of 2011 that he began feeling well and was driving again. I, on the other hand, in a motor home with an outside temp of 107 to 110, day after day, week after week, began to cook from the inside out. I was new to diabetes, so I was not aware what heat does…it cooks your organs and your blood sugar goes totally wacko. I lost about ten days that summer. Have no idea what went on, except that he left, saying we would be taking separate vacations and that he would be back in a couple of days. I am not sure why I did not go into a diabetic coma or why I didn’t die. No one called, no one checked on me, no one knocked on the door to see if I needed anything, as he took our only form of transportation. I was just to sick to care.
Oh, Toni, your note brought back some horrendous memories of our last official outing as a couple – my birthday/office party. it was a casino night. He offended one of the firm’s partners and told a hired blackjack dealer to eff off. One of my colleagues, a former nightclub bouncer-turned-attorney dressed in a Santa suit, did me a solid and helped me put the X in a taxi. I joined him; him bitched he was having fun at casino night and didn’t want to leave. I had cabbie drop me at our house; X went to screw the Professional Mastebator. On my birthday; following my office party. One hundred lies. They suck.
Typos courtesy of iPad. Please overlook.
Aside from believing that he abhorred cheating, thought that cheaters were the lowest of the low, that cheating was a dealbreaker for him as well…
There is one time that he did something fishy that I spackled. We had gone to a local street festival with the kids, and while we were there, I admired an expensive pair of earrings. After we got home, he said that he was going to go out for a little bit. Well, of course, I figured that he was going to go get the earrings (which he did– I got them for my birthday), so I didn’t question it.
However, he didn’t come back for TWO HOURS, and the street festival was about two minutes away. When he came back, I asked him where he’d been, and he said, “Oh, I just went for a drive.” I’m sure he did– he bought the earrings and either spent two hours talking to her on his cellphone or met her somewhere for a tryst. I didn’t question it, though. I figured that the poor baby was entitled to a little downtime, so I didn’t even give it a second thought.
Chumpy though I might be, there is a happy ending. I got a beautiful pair of earrings that I still enjoy wearing on a regular basis, and the OW got XWH. 😀
When a spouse who has behaved like a normal reliable partner and and hot after you for years and years (over 30 in my case) suddenly goes cold and tells you, “I love you and care deeply for you but I am not “in love” with you anymore,” your gut tells you not to buy anything the person says and start snooping into what s/he is doing.
It did; I did… and my gut was right. What the phrase “not in love with you anymore” translates to is “I am in lust-crazed dementia over someone else and not available in this marriage anymore.”
There is ONE exception: When someone who is cheating says,(among all the other obfuscating drivel that they spew) “It’s not you; it’s me,” you can believe it…. because it’s really and truly NOT YOU. (Hence the screen name).
Authentic people who are honest in relationships feel like chumps when in retrospect years of red flags finally line up (like a slot machine) and there is a disillusioning epiphany about the real nature of the person you believed you could trust; but here is the thing: You honored your commitment, and you trusted. You did the right thing; your partner did not. Fortunately “Chumpdom” is time limited. Character deficits and personality deficits are much more tenacious.
For those you that read my letter that CL answered a couple of days ago, will know that we weren’t married or living together. We lived 30 miles apart and would spend weekends together.
One weekend about 8 months before DDay, was spent as his house. I got there Friday night after work and then on Saturday went to do some laundry and found women’s clothes (not mine) in the washer.
Upset, I asked him whose clothes they were. He gets angry that I would accuse him of something and then recovers and says that so-and-so’s washer is broken and she asked if she could do a couple of loads in his yesterday. He gets even more angry when I start to ask why the fuck didn’t she come back Friday and get them. Who leaves wet clothes in a washing machine all weekend? He writes it off as her being a ditz and I buy it.
This was also the first time I’d seen him angry like that and now realize that is often how they act when they are caught out in a lie.
I must have been unbelievably trusting , there were so many lies I bought and now feel so stupid , but the biggest lie my NPD ex told me was when we had all gone to a sport tournament for my oldest son ( 12 yo) in Canberra ( our countries Capitol ). The day before the tournament finished , my Ex told us he had to rush back to Sydney ( where we live ) to have a satellite linked conference with Kofi Annan . I had to drop him off at the bus terminal , and was left in Canberra with three kids and hours of sports matches and then had to drive the 3 1/2 hours home while he was in a luxury hotel with his AP. He had me believe that he was starting a new business with global healthcare as the goal and that Kofi Annan was going to help him !! Needless to say the meeting never happened , neither did the business, but 2 years later he is still with AP .
Mine used to put his hands on my shoulders, look deeply into my eyes and say, “I would never, ever, do that to you!”. This started when first one, then the other of my brothers in law started fucking around…not too long afterwards, it was my own cheating husband planning to fuck around, then, fucking around … and looking deeply into my eyes telling me he would Never. Ever. Do. That. To. Me.
And I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? What kind of monster would go out of his way to lie like that, after all? Still one of the most painful memories. Trying to let it go, now….
And here’s the most repeated and least true:
“I’m not going anywhere.” (To reassure me that he’s in this marriage for the duration.)
Right.
My ex said that all the time, along with “I love you madly”, and of course my favorite, “who’s got it better than me?”
THIS
Except of course by the time he started saying this he’d already decided he wanted me more than the OW and had come back home and was hiding the affair. Pretty sure you’d already been somewhere, asshole. I’m so glad it only took you a 10 month affair to figure out how good things are with me and our baby son.
Creepy how they can look you dead straight in the eye and lie repeatedly about something so devastating….
About 6 months before d-day #1, I came home, went upstairs to our bedroom to find my ex-husbands assistants pen and the business card of one of her friends on the floor, next to our bed. This was one of those “trust your gut” moments that Chump Lady talks about because my heart immediately started pounding out of my chest! When I confronted him, he said he had no idea how her friends’ business card got upstairs. As for her pink pen, he simply said he probably was using it. I bought the story of him using her pen, but I could never think of an acceptable reason for that business card being up there. I’ll never know for sure, but my guess is , they were in a hurry, and that stuff fell out of her pants when she was taking them off, The kicker is, this person was my friend. I introduced her to my ex because she needed a part time job. needless to say, she is no longer my friend. My friend said to me, “yes, you were ok with her working with your husband because you trusted him, but come on, she’s 23, blonde with big boobs!”
And now for something completely different which was covert abuse or at a minimum disrespect. I honestly think this is a thing that illustrates my ex’s fuckedupedness more than anything else he did and it’s part of his trashing the house regularly because he knew I couldn’t have anyone come over if the house was messed up. So tell me if you think I’m crazy, I’m sure I am not.
When ex moved in with me I bought him a MR. Coffee coffee maker (I don’t drink it). For a couple of years it was fine. Then for some reason coffee would leak onto the counter from the coffee maker. He told me it was a crappy coffee maker, he needed a good one, I bought him a better one. A year later the same thing, coffee running across the counter. I asked him to be careful, I asked him to clean up the stains it was making but I always ended up doing it, never him.
I bought him a new coffee maker pretty much every year after that and ALWAYS within a few weeks there would be coffee leaking onto the counter. And ALWAYS he would say the coffee maker was shitty, he needed a good one, a better one, the last one I bought cost over a hundred bucks. The coffee leaking out of each one never stopped and I always ended up cleaning it up. He always said the coffee makers sucked and he couldn’t help it, he needed a better coffee maker. I’m talking years of him telling me every damn coffee maker was fucked up and me cleaning coffee off the counter every fucking day. And I believed it.
After he was gone I started to use the last coffee maker to heat water for tea, somehow I never had a leak on the counter. Guess what, if you pour the water in the basket rather than the back it will leak onto the counter. I found this out when my friend used it for coffee making a year after my divorce. She house sat and had no issues with leaks until the day I came home and we were talking, she accidentally poured some of the water into the basket, coffee leaked on the counter. She immediately cleaned it up and told me she was sorry, she hadn’t paid attention and poured the water wrong. I had a moment right then, like, seriously, that’s exactly what happened with every maker I bought my ex. Gaslighting & control tactics take many forms. That realization was bad for me.
So for 15 years my ex fucked with my head over a coffee maker, he knew why it “leaked”, he wanted a better coffee maker, he deserved it. And honestly I think he enjoyed getting me to clean up after him, otherwise why wouldn’t one of those damn coffee makers stop leaking? It was a passive aggressive form of control.
Even after my friend had the accident with the water in the coffee maker, it took me a long time after to realize, to really understand, that he did this shit on purpose. I just could not believe anyone would do that, once I wrapped my head around it I realized how sick he was.
This seems like a small thing, right? It is not. It is the creeping abuse and control a person can exert when you do not realize who they are.
It’s the same thing that led him to “drop” his cig plastic & other trash on the floor, and ignore my requests to not do that, control, he wanted to make me pick up his trash. He kept doing that even after “his” cat (not) nearly choked to death swallowing that plastic and I begged him to make sure it went in the trash. He kept trashing the kitchen even after I begged him not to because I couldn’t keep an appetite if I had to clean it for an hour before I could cook. His response was that I never did any cleaning and to leave his mess. Oh that last bit? apparently he wanted me to lose weight even though I was not overweight and he was way over weight. I remember him telling me how it wasn’t fair his life was fucked up over the affair, he was screwed but now I was pretty again and leaving the house and so he HELPED ME so much. Yeah, he helped me become a skeleton and I was leaving the house to escape him.
I guess that got so long it may not be clear. The stupidest lie I bought was that every coffee maker I bought him over 17 years was defective and I cleaned up the mess he made because he “forgot”.
I really think this kind of shit is allegory to the cheating aspect. Disrespect, control, entitlement and eventually after crossing every other boundary and gaining that control, cheating is no big deal. After all, you exist only to take care of the cheater. And you put up with every boundary crossing, little by little by little, creeping normalization, until one day, the asshole thinks you will be OK with anything.
DDW-I get it, I have one of those too.
It’s not trivial, the things they do, they love to watch you twist on the end of a string! My X constantly made huge messes, and then bitched at me and the kids about, for instance, how the silverware was arranged in the drawer, or who touched one of his tools. It’s total crazy-making BS. I think it’s designed to keep (me) too exhausted to ever escape! This is why I asked about leaving an insane X, and the guilt that brings up.
I’m ready to go now, though, it just takes time to sort it all out, the decades of insanity, and I deserve a break.
DDW,
This! It is the day to day “under the radar” abuse that is what ultimately destroys you. The death by a thousand cuts analogy. The randomness of the attack (that you don’t even recognize as an attack) so you are always on edge. Until you walk away from it, you FEEL it, but you can’t actually SEE it for what it is and, consequently, you don’t really UNDERSTAND why you’re feeling the way you do.
I didn’t have the coffee maker experience per se, but I completely understood what you were talking about because it FELT familiar when I was reading it. It is the kind of abuse that is an assault not just on your mind but on your soul.
I’m glad you are getting out PattyToo, yes the guilt – my ex was very good at the guilt. It’s not your mental illness to manage and mental illness is not an excuse to hurt other people. Just be careful how you get out.
Thanks Chump Princess, you get it, lashing out at me for never cleaning the kitchen when I ask him to clean up his mess was pretty obvious. I think the coffee maker shows the calculation in him, that he knew what he was doing, that it wasn’t because he’s messy or an accident or he forgot to do a thing. Most of that shit was very purposefully done.
DDW, I also know what you’re saying. I felt crazy and seriously depressed living with my ex. Once I got out, I realized he lied SO MUCH. Even when caught in a lie he wouldn’t admit to it, and my daughter (22) was a witness to that several times (helped me know I was not crazy). He did fuck with me too acted like I was crazy many times and I can only believe he enjoyed himself thoroughly.
Ambient, subtle, gas lighting abuse is the worst. Thank God she cheated. It got me out,
Oh, yes! The silverware! The tools! The pots and pans and a million other things. My stuff had to be packed in boxes in a mouldy, unheated back room because his things were so much better. I couldn’t have any projects out in plain sight in case company came over (which he didn’t even allow) and I was not allowed to touch any of his things. It’s like living in a prison where you get demerits for touching anything unless you’re cleaning up after them. Crazy-making in the extreme!
Oh my goodness – my ex claims to have OCD – but he’s really messy… (apparently living with me makes him messy… of course – if it weren’t for me he’d live in perfection, right?!!) – I have spent years following him around cleaning up after him and explaining it away as ‘helping him with his condition’ – condition my arse – he’s just lazy and wants someone to do everything for him!!!
He has never cooked me dinner (even the night I got out of hospital having had our first baby)… he has never done a load of washing or put the dishwasher on – or hell, even put his own dishes in the dishwasher… there are no children’s toys allowed on view in the house incase of visitors (which we NEVER have cause he doesn’t really get on with people) – he’s too busy you see with his mega important career…
How has it taken me so long to start seeing all this?!?!?!
It all fits…
The reason you haven’t seen any of this BS sooner is because he was distracting you with other BS to keep your attention focused away from him and his schemes. They do it on purpose. Thank goodness you’ve found Chumplady and can now decode his crap.
Some claim to have all sorts of disorders to gain our sympathy. My Narc “has” PTSD, which is perfectly logical considering he’s been in a couple of devastating auto accidents. Perfectly plausible. I spent years doing everything I could to keep from “triggering” him. Everything from talking softly to cleaning up after him and soothing his poor, jangled nerves whenever he needed it. He was never there for me (didn’t made me a simple cup of tea in 11.5 years because he “didn’t know how”) but I was on call for him 24/7. He used his “traumatic past” and “disability” as sticks to (figuratively speaking) beat me with for years. They are masters at this kind of manipulation. Sounds like we have a matching set of assholes, NSM. Uh…that doesn’t sound quite right…
I’m laughing out loud – (partly at the notion of matching arseholes – eeeek) – feel so free – after all these years of feeling crazy and not knowing why I could never get it right, never being good enough – I feel like I’ve found the answers. This site has quite possibly saved my life!
Time to stop thinking he’ll see the light, change, beg to get me back. He doesn’t care… Time to look to the future!
Here’s to freedom!!
Toooowwwwaaannnnddddaaaaa! Fried Green Tomatoes reference 🙂
I am cracking up at all of this!! I am so thankful to hear these stores. Mine also claimed that he was a neat freak so chump me busted my ass making sure the house was clean, dishes done, laundry done, you name it. He never did- hard to make that effort from his pedistal. I would always tease him though because I would put his folded laundry in a clean hamper by his dresser. He never seemed to have the time to put his clothes away. Hmmm, I made sure my kids did and also myself. I have to admit, I did throw that in his face after I found out about the affair. Really, douchebag, you didn’t have time to put your own fucking clean clothes away, but you had time to sit on the phone with her. Fuck you, douchebag!!
He is still in the house and lives in the basement like a fucking cockroach. Things should be final soon, I hope. Currently, after every load of laundry I do I clean the lint trap. That is the courteous thing to do, right? Well, since he is doing his own laundry, he never cleans the lint trap when he is done. As petty as it sounds, I clean the lint trap before I put my clothes in the dryer and throw his lint on top of the dryer. What an asshole. In all reality, if it is really no big deal to take care of the lint, that why the hell can’t he do it.
So, Dat — what reason did he give for not just going out and buying own damn coffeemaker?
In long marriages, “the frog in boiling pot” effect happens slowly, subtly and with some occasional temperatures soaring. There are just so many times that you get the feeling that all is not okay, gut is shouting from within…just so many times.
I found a set of sexy night suits, bigger than my size, stowed away in a suitcase. He brought a slightly similar one for me in his last overseas visit. Why this second one? This was much before D-day. He explained to me that he bought it for another colleague, who wanted to gift it to his wife. I had met this wife and knew that she was oversize. But, I still did not buy this. Then he called on that colleague’s phone and told him wittily that “his stuff” had landed him into trouble with his wife. I knew (my gut told me not to believe him) that it was all fishy. So many times…and each time it appeared that I was the wrong wife going after the “poor husband”! It could well have been a scene in a cheating comedy movie!
He came over at 4:30 am after a ‘party’ at Friend-Who-Happens-to-be-Female’s house , and told me he had stayed so long because he was “talking to Friend’s parents all night about politics–it was SOOO interesting”. Of course he felt so hot and sweaty from this that he was too tired to have sex but he would shower in the morning and then we could Do It.
Odd thing is, she was not one of OW I found out about. It only dawned on me maybe six months after Breakup, that they had been fuckbuddies for years and maybe still are. Other dalliances have come to light, but since I remain NC I have not had the pleasure of confronting him. He apparently fucked anything he could get to hold still long enough, for the entire six years I imagined we were ‘together’.
That she keeps a diary everyday how much she loves me. I never saw her scribble or anything. When i asked if she can let me read it, she said she’ll show it to me when the time is right…
“I only held her hand……………..we went for a walk in the sunset…………”
(he grabbed my hand to illustrate the point, looked at the sky, then me, and said straight to my face, “nothing happened, this is what we should be doing, this is what WE should have done”)
I said ” Last time I asked you to go for an autumn walk” (we used to all the time- when he wasn’t a fuckwit???) you refused, and proceeded to play your Xbox instead………………….
Enough said, I should have divorced him there and then :-@
I called my cheater at work in the middle of the day (before cell phones) and he wasn’t there. When he got home I asked him about it, and he said he had to take his older married co-worker to the auto part store because she needed…wait for it… a new dipstick. And now you know his name.
🙂
🙂
On dday, he told me that he and one of his coworkers (she turned out to be AP fuckbuddy) were taking lunch over to one of their other coworkers (she turned out to be “soulmate” AP) because she was sick. Umm, she had a husband to do such things for her, my ex and the fuckbuddy both had jobs they should have been at that day. Later that day, ex and I went for coffee and he dumped me, saying he’d been miserable our entire marriage, had nothing in common with me and never should have married me. Insisted of course that there was no one else. It was only later after I found out he did threesomes with the two APs that I realized that “lunch” was a threesome, not the AP sick.
Holy shit Glad, we really have lived THE SAME LIFE!
My XW had to feed the homeless on Christmas day( All day). She missed the entire family dinner due to her compassion for the homeless.
Arnold that is so sick.
They’re all so HELPFUL!!!
It just warms my heart.
She is a virtual Mother Theresa. Now, she is a “certified spiritual counselor” and head of the women’s recovery program at an upscale CD treatment place here in Minnesota.
Her second husband divorced her, after she had refused to continue in the labor market and , essentially, retired o a life of leisure, while he worked 12 hours a day.Got old, I guess.
Funny, despite counseling people on the 12 step program, she has never come to me and admitted what she did and made amends.
I researched this issue about 12 steppers not admitting adultery, despite the instructions of the 9th step.
Seems BILL W, himself, was a serial cheater and continued the behavior well after he became sober. Founding members of AA would assign one of their group to him at meetings to keep him from hounding women for sex.
So, his position, only on the issue of infidelity, apparently, was to not divulge. Pretty convenient position, eh?
Wanted to add, that , after reading “People of the Lie”, by M Scott Peck, I did a little research ion him. Seems he was a serial cheater, a drunk and an absentee father whose long time wife left him near his death and whose kids would not speak to him.
Bill W and M Scott Peck, virtual saints to some people , but, most likely, IMO, big time NPDs.
My final mega-chump-moment came just over a week ago –
Friday night – apparently he has to be away with work, and he needs the car which means I’ll be stuck home with our daughter for 2 days.
He gets back on Saturday while I’m out having had a nightmare getting around… but hey he really really needed the car you know?! (I remember thinking it was weird he cleared all the kid’s stuff out of the boot but that’s another matter)…
Saturday I find a hotel receipt. A couple’s package retreat – 2 drinks, 2 drinks, 2 dinners, one room, 2 breakfasts… you get the picture… and booked as a special package FOR 2 PEOPLE.
I actually believed him (well, tried to believe him) when he said he was there with a young female co worker, who yes, fine, he does fancy a bit… and he did have dinner with her, just the 2 of them, BUT nothing happened and she had her own room which was just on a separate receipt so I’m just paranoid – and besides why am I checking his stuff..?
I also believed him a few weeks before when he came home with a load of condoms in his washbag and said they’d been given to him at a train station… and he’d kept them for us… I’m 5 months pregnant!!! he apparently ‘forgot’ this when he took the condoms…
Fucker!
I’m just escaping now and starting to realise the full extent of his scumbag behaviour. Hoping it won’t always hurt this much…
He’s still denying all BTW… despite the huge mountain of evidence against him throughout our relationship..
make me feel like I’m mad but I just know, you know?!
you know, get rid of him now!!!, save yourself, 2 dinners………..one room, it will hurt until it subsides a bit, then you will eventually have a lightbulb moment………. ‘aha’ ……..and it won’t be as bad (as it was) and gradually u will see………………..the fact you are on this website shows you are a lot smarter than he thinks …………..
NSM, thinking of you and sending strength your way. The initial escape is surreal, isn’t it? The amazing part is the clarity that follows in time.
Thank you!
It is surreal – exactly… I just keep thinking what an idiot I’ve been – and how many people must have seen what I kept refusing to.
Feel so angry, so hurt, so confused about what is true and what isn’t… feel a bit like I’m going mad to be honest.
Why do they do this to us?
They do it because they can. Ego Kibbles. Cake. They feel entitled to do whatever they want to do because we Chumps are too nice to believe that monsters hide in the skin of people who promise to love us forever.
So sorry you are going through this. Welcome back to the sane world…
Thank you!! – reading this site I’m really starting to feel lucky. Crazy hey – single, pregnant, mother, nowhere to go right now and yet… still lucky to be free!
You ARE lucky to be seeing through his lies now. You and your children will be able to get away from him and live better lives. Everything will work out in the end. Much luck to you and your babies!
NSM, my ex denied his 4+ year affair despite damning evidence. Yes, they want you to feel crazy. My daughter told me if I didn’t talk to the OW’s husband, she would (she’s awesome!). So just to bust ex, I called OW’s man. Turns out he didn’t know but OW wanted to stay married to him, so she cracked under the pressure of all my evidence. The day I got that email from him saying OW confirmed the affair was wonderful, and I forwarded it right to the ex. Gotcha, asshole!
Hang in, it will get better. I’m 4 months out, a long way from getting through the divorce (thanks to asshole’s dragging his feet) and a long way from meh. But I have scraped bottom and there’s nowhere to go but up. It won’t always hurt that much! And I also send strength your way. You are brave!
And back to you – massive amounts of strength to you, although sounds like you already have a load of it! well done for escaping!
Why do they have to be SUCH horrible people… can’t even come clean when you’re there begging for truth?!
Today feels like a good day – being on here has boosted me up – tomorrow, who knows… he’s coming round to talk about a ‘plan’. Urgh! Can’t wait to be out of our house and someplace safe he can’t invade…
Be careful and don’t trust him. Can a friend or relative come be a witness to his ‘plan’?. Try to find a way to get some seperation from him, too bad he can come in your house.
Sending you luck and love!!
Thanks for the massive strength back. I do need it! Good days and bad, but more good than bad now.
And yes, they are HORRIBLE people, not apologizing and not coming clean on top of the all the cheating and lies. Complete assholes.
Also, PT has some good advice. Don’t trust ANYTHING he says. Remember that the fact that he is a cheater means he is a liar in all aspects of his life, so be wary of his ‘plan.’ Take care and let us know how you’re doing!
So his plan is pretty simple – to completely fuck me over.
He wants ZERO custody of the kids (cause his job is too busy and important and he couldn’t possibly commit to time with them but if he finds a window then he hopes I’ll be ‘flexible’)
He will be giving me the absolute minimum in maintenance payments (which is not near enough to live off – he earns a 6 figure salary – guess he needs it all for himself, right?)
He suggests I get a job to support myself and the kids (I’m due to give birth in a couple of months – not his problem apparently) and apply for social housing
And why? cause apparently I’m a terrible person who fucked up his life and saddled him with 2 kids so it’s all I deserve… (wasn’t aware i was the one that lied, shouted, pushed around, lied again, withheld love, insulted, degraded and generally abused – no, I seem to think that was him…)
Speechless, shaking, reeling… he has no heart.
Oh, and I might add he screamed all this at me – no civil calm chat as hoped – he screamed it 2 inches from my face until I ran and locked myself in the bathroom.
I can’t believe anyone could be so mean 🙁
NSM, don’t believe a word of his mindfuckery! I’m so sorry. I wish I could hug you. Make him go away or get yourself and the kids away from this monster! I hope you have friends or relatives to lean on. If so, do it NOW. Sending healing vibes your way, although it feels like far too little.
NSM- please go look up a abused women’s advocacy group, screaming in your face is very violent, and you need to get some help, OK? They can help you document what he’s up to, and possibly hook you up with a lawyer! Don’t listen to his lame offers, you’ll get better than that (although I’d be loving his total child custody for you idea!). Keep your head up! Try to believe that you’ll survive, we’re all pulling for you, Dear.
Really sorry to hear it went like that, & I agree with PattyToo, his behavior was not rational, & if there’s a way to find an advocate, that’s excellent advice. Here in the states, I emailed the YWCA about their community outreach programs, & was assigned a caseworker, they can help in a lot of different ways. If there’s anything similar to our women’s bureau, that would be the place to start. I don’t have any other advice, this guy doesn’t sound stable. At the very least, I’d say not to be alone with him. Sounds like we’re in the same situation, to some degree, my stbx is absolutely a heartless pig, but physically, there are no issues. I know finally having support makes a big difference. And, of course, CL & everyone here, are perfect. 🙂
Adding my thoughts of strength & healing, just know you’re in the right, & you’ve done nothing wrong. None of us deserve what we’ve been put through.
Dated “divorced for 10 years” ex-boyfriend for 8 months, and thought a number of things were a little strange. His “XW” would come by every Friday and drop her dog off for the weekend; the XW lived in a condo the boyfriend actually owned, he said “She doesn’t make much money, so I help her out”; all the decorations, sheets, wall art in boyfriend’s house was very feminine, etc. So I started digging:
Me: are you really divorced?
BF: why would that matter anyway?
Me: I said when we met I don’t want to date a married man. But there’s no record of your divorce in this county.
BF: (goes ballistic, how dare I look stuff up about him) Those people at the county records are not educated and only make $9/HR, so of course they make mistakes! Also, uh, we didn’t file in this county!
It’s a legal requirement in our state to file in the county of residence, where numbnuts and the alleged XW have lived continuously for nearly 30 years.
Other WTF? moments included: why did he never introduce me to any friends? Because ” you’re precious to me and I don’t want to share you with just anybody!” Why didn’t he introduce me to the table full of people he recocognized and chatted with at the restaurant? Because “they’re people my son used to play baseball with, and they probably don’t know I’m divorced.” His son is 25 years old, and the divorce was allegedly 10 years ago.
This doesn’t even in include the part where I found out all those trips to California so see his “96 year old father” were to see another girlfriend.
Scam artist! Where did you meet this guy?
He lives in my neighborhood, and we met while waiting for the bus! He was so sweet and gentlemanly. Too bad he was also probably still married….
Ex was friends with a married guy who was a hairstylist (yeah, that should have been a warning sign right there). The guy owned an upscale hair salon in our town, his wife was a makeup artist there. Ex and I both got our hair cut by this guy. Ex would never have an appointment the same day as me, though. And he always had to have the very last appointment of the day. He said this was because the friend didn’t want the other salon workers to know friend did not charge ex for the haircut. This guy OWNED the place, he could do what he wanted. Anyway, after the haircut, ex always said he and the friend went out to smoke cigars (not something ex ever did any other time). I believed this shit for well over a year. Well, of course it turned out that the married guy was on the down low with other men. “Smoking cigars” was just ex’s cute little euphemism for the two guys blowing each other after the haircut. Ex got his hair cut quite frequently, believe me.
I’m pretty sure that other guy eventually divorced his wife and came out as gay. Too bad my own ex doesn’t seem likely to ever do the same.
Jeebus, GIO, the man is insufferable. He treated his/your entire marriage as some sort of deeply fucked-up practice at seeing what he could get away with. Ogh, he just makes me so mad and DISGUSTED on your behalf.
Gawwd, he sucks.
My curiosity was piqued after writing this, and I looked the guy up. I found him on Facebook, listed as single and “interested in women.” Sigh. Maybe he got “cured” like my ex did. They go to the same church.
I wonder if they dance around in nude colored leotards and smoke cigars.
‘I don’t love you any more and never will again. You have been a terrible wife and you have let me down. This will justify my complete emotional abandonment indifference and cruelty towards you, because YOU CAUSED IT. Yes, you may pretzel and take the blame and work very, very hard to try and win me back, and I ‘might’ allow this one day. Do not talk about divorce’.
And, yes, I tolerated turned off phones, not answering calls, tremendous late nights and drinking with the boys, and smelling make up and perfume on his face…
You simply cannot get more Chumpy than accepting the above and not seeing what it really meant (OW). I was so stupid.
You aren’t alone, Patsy – I feel the same way some days. Then I remember that I was doing all the child rearing, housekeeping, yardwork, along with full-time paid employment and helping to care for a seriously ill mother. I was so tired that I had no energy to care about what in retrospect were all the signs of his sneaking around with other women. It isn’t that we are stupid – I’m guessing you are probably another “high-functioning” chump, as the MC put it to me once – it’s just that we are exhausted all the time, both physically and mentally. And our asshat spouses are master manipulators always managing to turn our strengths against us, so we question our well-demonstrated competence and don’t give ourselves any credit for all the stuff that we do right. “If you weren’t so busy (taking care of the kids, your mother, cleaning the gutters, working) our sex life would have been better and I wouldn’t have had to find someone else…..” And we just work harder, and get more exhausted, and take on more shit that doesn’t belong to us.
One of the hardest things for me to realize after D-day was that being competent in life is not a curse, or something to be constantly punished.
Expected, all the late nights with the boys ended after I found OW. But he still insists he was drinking with his team…
Some of these lies are so common. How I found the OW was that he had told me he was doing an important deal in the city, and that I wasn’t to come to the hotel because he would be too busy. He was also too busy to see any friends or meet up for supper, he only had room service….
That weekend he came home and didn’t acknowlede me at all. I looked through his wallet and there were the meals for two every evening in different restaurants.
He had flown to our country, and chosen to spend the week with OW rather than come home.
I agree with the car bumping and reversing and trying again. The level of devaluation is just not human.
i love the bridget jones movies a lot. i too wanted someone to love me just as i am. i use to hear him say that line often and it always made me smile. and i bought it. he then turned around and used it as a reason to leave and have an affair. apparently he hated what i was, so he found something better.
I so got this one! LOL
About 8 months before D-day, I received an anoymous letter.
The letter began…”Dear XXXX this letter is to inform you of the pig you have been living with, I have been sleeping with XXXXX for the last six months.” The letter went on to describe things about me, most of which was well known, such as my profession, but there were a couple of items that were a tad personal and not known to everyone (such as that I am somewhat obsessive about my weight).
It was the day before Thanksgiving when I received this little correspondence in the mail. He supposedly was on a hunting trip and wasn’t due back until late the next day (Thanksgiving). He came home early, and walked in the door about three hours after the letter came. I got the mail around 3pm and he walked in the door with flowers about 6pm.
I was sitting at my computer at the desk in the living room when he walked in. He kissed me and handed me the flowers. Shaking, I handed him the letter (which was sitting in my lap). I didn’t say a word. He proceeded to laugh and feigned indignation. He than made some comment about “how bad it looked that he brought me flowers, of course he nothing to hide, he just saw the flowers and thought of me”. Of course he denied any and all wrongdoing and implied someone was out to get him…maybe his ex wife she had it in for him and just didn’t want him to be happy. OY….I bought it, not completely, but I definitely WANTED to buy it. My gut said otherwise. I should have listened.
I had to got out of town overnight for work. The day I returned, my 4 year old kept talking about a new girl she played with named Zoe. She then proceeded to tell me that “daddy took me to a sleepover at Zoe’s house and I met her mom Judy and her brother Wyatt”. I knew in that moment that all my suspicions of his cheating were now confirmed. However, in true chump form, I decided to give him a chance to explain. We had a 4 yr old, just moved into a new house, and I was 3 months pregnant…surely there had to be a reasonable explanation. When I asked “who is Judy, and why did you think it ok to leave our daughter in her care overnight?”, his response “She’s Alisha’s (a close family friend) neighbor, all the kids played and the adults stayed the night too. Come on, I wouldn’t leave our daughter, I dont know that lady. I spent the night at the house.”….and I bought it.
Flash forward to today, I am now about to give birth and we are not together. Judy’s name ending up coming out of my daughter’s mouth numerous times since then…and he finally admitted that he was dating her.
Yes, I’m a true chump.
He’s “dating” her, or he’s “fucking” her. I’m thinking the latter. He’s no gentleman. She requires no courtship. He’s just fucking her.
I despise these sleazy idiots.
Special place in hell for those who cheat on a pregnant wife. I’m with CL on this. That place in hell is right next to where the people go who bring their kids along for the dalliances and normalize the whole thing.
Completely mind blowing how some people live.
I just wasn’t raised like it, and I cannot fathom how people carry on with such puke in their hearts and minds.
Ugh.
“What are the symptoms of prostate cancer?” (We recently had a friend who was diagnosed.) “I think something might be wrong, because things aren’t working right down there lately.” They were working just fine for the whore who worked for him. Classy on so many levels.
My husband left me alone during Hurricane Sandy. He was supposedly a workaholic, and he told me that since they didn’t lose power in his building, they decided to just work straight through to make up for the less dedicated people who had left. Someone had to cover for them. There were obligations that could not be swept aside.
I was so used to being alone all of the time, that I figured I should be okay. He showed up the next day, and since we had no power and it was cold, he insisted on bringing me to his mothers. I asked him if he was going to stay with me. He said no, that he was going to stay in our home. I insisted on staying with him, telling him that during times like these, a woman wants to be with her husband. So we spent one night at home. The next day, he insisted that he had to get back to work, and that since he lost time, he probably wouldn’t be back that night. So I stayed at my mother-in-law’s for the next three days.
He only showed up there once.
I found out later that OW had a fit when she found out that he was going to leave her alone during the storm, so he stayed with the squeaky wheel. I was way too accommodating and his gas lighting skills were excellent. Then again, he had been working on me for 21 years.
Oh, Goldie – I feel for you! It was a terrifying time.
My XH was in L.A. with OW during Hurricane Sandy and did not call once to check on me or the kids. I heard from his family, my family, his co-workers, and many of his friends – all checking on me and the kids – but never once from him. Yes, we were divorced, but he didn’t call to check on his kids? D*uche bag!
Same, we were not even divorced yet, newly separated, at time of Sandy. Our oldest son lived in a high-rise in Baltimore near Inner harbor, daughter in college, youngest son and I am home in house he still co-owns. Never even e-mailed to check if children or house ok.. Windows blew in on 13-year old and me overnight, fences down, etc. I ripped him in an e-mail. His response? He was up all night worrying about how to make more money in his consulting business. By the way, that has nothing to do with his kids–due to my having made so much more money than his sorry ass, he pays no child support, etc. Asshole.
They. Just. Don’t. Care.
We chumps can’t wrap our chumpy minds around that. Like those little cars that go forward, bump into a wall, back up and try again, we just keep thinking it can’t be so. Incredible.
I just watched Fried Green Tomatoes again a few weeks ago. What a great movie! I can’t get the memory of Kathy Bates trying so hard to please her man out of my head. Every sap should watch that Saran Wrap scene again and again and again …
The Spark Back in Marriage Scene from Fried Green Tomatoes …
► 1:34► 1:34
movieclips.com/cZLv-fried-green-tomatoes-movie-the…
Oops … the clip didn’t seem to post here. Just google it, and you’ll be laughing as hard as I am at it!
I still can’t believe I fell for this one! At the time, it didn’t even cross my mind that it was a big effing lie! Scumbag wanted to give me a heads-up about a bill that might show up from “Convenient Care” because he had been there earlier in the day to have a spider bite on his penis checked out. (I had just ?seen? his penis the night before…duh.) He said the doctor told him he probably got it from his hunting clothes and not to lay them on the floor anymore!!
My niece called me in a panic to tell me that Grandpa was rushed to the hospital, and her mother was on vacation. We were at the Cape, but I assured her we would be home in 2 hours. X left on his own, telling me he needed time with his father, and to come home with the kids the next day.
When the kids and I got to the hospital the next day, Grandpa was thrilled to see us, and we had a wonderful visit. X was supposed to be there, but didn’t show up until an hour later.
Later that night, when X strolled into the house, he told me he didn’t want me visiting his father in the hospital any more because he didn’t want me seeing him like that. I asked him where he was earlier that day and he told me he was at the gym.
That’s what he called his dumbbell girlfriend, apparently.
About two weeks before Dday, both our girls, who were in the Girl Scouts, had a field trip to one of the big amusement parks in the area. We decided to make a family day of it. XH takes son (then age 5) to hit some of the rides while the girls and I go with the Girl Scout group. XH texts me about 20 minutes later, wanting to know where I am. I give him the locale, and he dumps off S 5 and takes off. I don’t see or hear from him again for the next 6 hours. He won’t answer calls or texts. S 5 is too small to go on many of the rides, so I have to stand and watch while the girls go on ride after ride.
We have lunch without XH, then go to the waterpark section of the park where the girls promptly get lost in the massive crowd. I can’t find them, XH won’t answer phone, and S 5 is bored and wants to go in the water. I lose it and start crying. The other Girl Scout moms promptly come to the rescue. We find the girls and get things get back on track.
When it’s time to leave, I send one last text to XH: “We’ll be leaving in 5 minutes. If you’re planning on riding home with us, be at the car.”
He does meet us at the car but demands to know why I’m “Copping an attitude.” When I hollered at him for abandoning us and not answering his phone when I needed his help, he snorts and says, “I thought this was supposed to be a fun day, so I was off having fun. If I had known you expected me to work all day, I would have just stayed home.”
It literally took the whole ride home (1.5 hours) for me to wrap my head around the selfishness of that statement. He’d been “working” so much for months – usually 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week, that I’d become a single parent. I was looking forward to some family time, of sharing the load with him. But he was looking for yet more ‘me’ time and just took it at my expense.
Upon looking at the phone records after Dday, he spent those 6 hours on his own on his phone the entire time, talking or texting OW. I’m surprised he didn’t have her follow us in her car so he could spend the whole day with her…
Paraphrasing Chump Princess, what a flying monkey pig from hell babboon’s ass.
I know that guy, Red. He does not deserve you, and you deserve much better.
Thanks, Echo! I still can’t believe his gall sometimes…or that I put up with if for 5 minutes, let alone 25 years…
They’re so self-absorbed, it just makes a Chumps head ache. He’s lucky you didn’t try to kill him on that ride home!
I believed him when he said he always erases everything on his phone. But not really, as I eventually did check it. And the whole story was slowly revealed: he was/is a serial cheater.
I believed this one… actually i believed ‘my phone just doesn’t log calls’ – it was a i phone, same as mine… argh, what a chump indeed.
drives me crazy that I have never actually found any definitive proof… just a million clues and a gut feeling…
what a-holes
Hire someone and bust his ass! I truly wish I had. My STBXH lied to me, many times over, straight to my face, and then went even more underground with his affair for the next 4+ years. I could kick myself! I finally got an anonymous letter in May, and contacted the husband of the OW who confirmed it. Best feeling ever to bust him. Now just need to pick myself up and move on. Easier said than done…
You’ll get there. Just keep telling yourself that you’re better off without the jerk, even when part of you doesn’t want to believe it. I’ve been there and while I’m now pretty close to ‘meh’ I still have my moments when I miss my little family being together and wonder how in fuck this could have happened.
Thanks, Nord. Every day it gets better. Weird how time has slowed down for me since D-day. Four months feels like four years. Not looking forward to our first holidays without fuckface. I so wish I could fast-forward to two years from now.
These stories are too funny, and sad! But just like mine. Glad I keep such good company!
So, he’s reaallly late for my parent’s wedding anniversary dinner, said he ‘lost track’ of the time. The next day he stops in to see me at work (which he NEVER did before) to let me know that my SISTER may tell me something, but it’s all a big misunderstanding. See, he bumped into a friend (female, and gay) and had lunch with her the day before while I was waiting for him to show up for dinner and my sister’s friends saw them and got the wrong idea. Even though my sister described his lunch date as having short dark hair and pushing 60, and his gay friend is 35 with long hair, I STILL BOUGHT IT! That is until a few days later he left his email open, and I saw the notes describing the ‘near miss’ and plans to hook up later that week, what an idiot I was. By the way, my sister NEVER believed him, I should have listened.
He purchased new underwear, manscaped and started shaving his face with a straight razor. When I questioned this he deflected (“not everything is an insidious plot against you, NMC!”). He also said, and this is a good one: his “new” friend: an older, big, black unidentified man , told him to do it. Seriously. It boggles the mind.
While not the most ridiculous, far & away, the worst lie was “that’s all there is, there’s nothing more you don’t know.”
There was more. And more. And even more after that.
Of course there’s still more. I’ll never know the whole truth, never see the big picture of my marriage or those years of my life.
During MC & false R, I started breaking out from hives/rashes and felt like my skin was burning every time he opened his damn mouth. I knew it was time to call it. Dead. Done. DNR.
I found this quote attributed to Marisa de los Santos that summed up how I was feeling,
“I can’t stand lies. Probably no one can. Probably everyone is, to some varying degree, allergic to them, both physically and spiritually. Lies make me feel low and ignoble, and also itchy, like there’s sand under my skin.”
My siblings still tease me that when I was a teen, I would automatically confess to my parents when I got in trouble. STBX was incredulous at these stories. I told him once, “of course I confessed. If it wasn’t worth being punished for, I didn’t do it. I never expected to get away with anything, I always expected to get caught.”
Disordered people never expect to be caught and so what if they are? They’ll just lie their way out.
They ARE smartest person in the room after all, you know.
Always assume that anything they tell you is only the tip of the iceberg. Habitual liars/disordered types will only admit to what they think you already know, or are about to find out. One thing I learned through brutal experience with my ex is there was ALWAYS more to the story. I know that all the terrible things I know about are only a fraction of what he has actually done.
During bogus reconciliation, he was always bleating about how good it felt to be 100% honest now, how he was completely honest at last, how there was nothing left I didn’t know about, or that he wouldn’t tell me. What bullshit. It was all a con game from the start.
I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve heard all these statements over, and over,and over! My XH has told me that the OW now knows all the truth and he has been completely honest with her. He also continually says it’s to bad I’m missing out on how much he has changed and he’s going to be good to her like he should have been to me…what???
Yeah, right. He tells you all that to make you feel horrible, so you’ll wonder if it was all your fault and he’s really changed and wonderful with the OW. HE’S NOT. He’s the same exact lying POS he always was. The fact he would say such things to you proves not only has he NOT changed for the better, he’s actually even WORSE. The OW will find out soon enough for herself. Serves her right.
I know! My divorce was just final last week and up until the day we divorced he was telling me he wishes I could’ve been just a little more patient and I should have given him one more chance b/c he has changed now. The first 10, YES 10! times of letting him come home were not enough.
There is a special place in hell waiting for that bitch!
He wants you to feel horrible, and I think they also still think you must want them, and they like to try and keep you on the hook a little, just in case! That’s why NC is so important to us.
I agree that they think we still want them. After the first 5 or 6 weeks I did not want him. I missed him, I mourned the loss of our family but no, I did not want him. It’s been almost two years since I threw him out and as recently as last week he was emailing me saying ‘you are like a heartbroken schoolgirl’. I didn’t bother to respond but it made me laugh at his arrogance. He really does think I’m pining away for him and hoping against hope he’ll come back. He doesn’t seem to understand that I think he’s a gross, abusive jerkball who treated and continues to treat me and the kids pretty badly. Now, why would I be pining away for someone like that?
Gina, my ex spouts that crap and then, in the next breath, tells me I exaggerated his double life. So final OW doesn’t know much, I figure, other than what I told her and it stands to reason that she doesn’t believe most of it, or is spackling like mad in order to keep things sparkly.
Poor thing. She’s going to learn the hard way.
Moxie,
That is crazy, I was affected with rash around my collar and my chest, the moment she moved after getting caught, and then proposing divorce to me (yes she initiated) I was a chump and wanted to work shit out still……funny how those vows can fuck you up. Anyways, My rash has gone away.
She also had a problem with the fact that I was so honest, I would tell the truth about the simpilest of things. It bothered the fuck out of her. “You don’t always have to tell the truth” Last I heard being honest was a good thing and something to honor, but you stupid bitch can’t tell our children a simple truth. Fuck it.
StbxW and her cousin were talking on fb…..we were just getting back together from our first split. I had her password, she didn’t know anyways, they were talking about him working out and how big he is getting. She mentions the size of his dick and wonders how big it is, he says he’ll send picks, she ask for what in exchange, he says tits and clit…….
She sent me picks soon after this of her shaved and her posing in the mirror naked, i’m guessing that he got the same pics. I confronted her , while my mind and stomach were reeling, She lied, said she would never do that, said how disgusting he was and wouldn’t talk to him again…..I wanted to throw up in my mouth yet I swallowed the lie and threw a ton of spackle. Tried to forget about it. She said that he is known for things like this. Making out with cousins possibly sleeping with them. Who knows? A whole new level of fuckedupedness. Is incest a narc quality????
One of the stupidest lies I bought (not the only one) was when the doctor told me I had a sexually transmitted disease. So I tell my then husband. He gets really mad (REALLY MAD) and says he is going to call the doctor about it. When I ask him later that day what the doctor said, the doctor apparently hadn’t returned his call yet. Next day I ask him what the doctor said. Apparently, the doctor said I could have got it from the hot tub when he questioned him. No way was he sleeping around, so it must have been our hot tub. I never checked back with the doctor and get this …………………….
I worked in a lab at the time!!!!!!!! I know better.
I just couldn’t take in the truth, so I spackled over it. It wasn’t and couldn’t be possible………yeah right.
This has to take the prize. How stupid, stupid, stupid……………………………….
Don’t feel stupid…just ignorant of the truth. I was a juvenile probation officer, degree in psychology and corrections and a masters in Administration of Justice. It was not that I knew better, it was that my loving husband of over thirty years only pretended to love me. He got away with it because I wanted to believe he loved me. I just didn’t know he didn’t. I, as many, grew up in an era when fidelity and family came first, always. Attending 50th golden Wedding parties was not unusual. I did not realize at the time, that in order for me to do the things he wanted me to e, i.e., published author, artist, filmmaker, etc., would mean that I would not be his playmate. He was oh, so proud when I began to accomplish things, but was not willing to sit around bored while I did what it took to accomplish those things. I, on the other hand, stood by him when his career soared and found ways to keep myself occupied while he spent long hours climbing the ladder of success. Life isn’t fair…wish it could at least, be truthful.
Another one popped into my head. During our first split, while I was doing the pick me dance. She “lost” her wedding ring. When we R’d I wanted to buy her a new one. She would come up with excuses as to why we couldn’t. “Can’t afford one”, “They are too expensive”, “I don’t deserve to have a new one” …That last one was the constant, and should have woke me up from the fog of her shit. We could afford a new one for me, but for her….nooooooooOooOooooooo.
She was right though, she didn’t deserve to have a new one. I wish I was smart enough to drop her when she abandoned my children and me.
She’s currently lying to my daughter. Saying new man is just a friend. I corrected my daughter after she told me “No, they are just friends, dad”, After my S(6) told her that W and new BF slept in the same room at grandma’s this weekend (daughter was at SIL’s house). Letting her know that “friends” don’t sleep in the same room together. Daughter was visibly upset at this news. I tore my fricken heart out. I wanted to keep her talking letting her know it was okay if she is upset and just to talk to me. She couldn’t though, so I changed the subject to school and if she is liking the new school.
Triumph for me!!!! I’m taking the narrative back into my hands and not letting X dictate everything. I’m talking to my children about W actions and seeing how they are feeling about it, asking them to talk to me. Earning the trust I want my children to have with me. I know they trust me but I want to earn it through actions.
Most of all I’m not letting my daughter get played by her mom.
I bought that he had an “emergency” business trip to give a presentation to “save his contract” and even went to the mall with him late the night before to pick out something nice for him to wear. So, I basically picked out his date outfit for the AP. He went on the trip, called me the next morning and said it went well, then came home the day after. I found that he had eaten a big breakfast that morning at IHOP in our city (well – 2 people ate breakfast there). I proceeded to make him a 6 egg omelet at home that he had to eat with a smile on his face. I was hoping his stomach would explode but no such luck.
And this one! I have a furnished rental property that is currently vacant. I went over there to check on it and get any mail that was there and noticed that all of my toiletries and incidentals were not there, but his were still there. I looked all around the unit and found my stuff in a paint bucket in the back of the laundry room. So I guessed right away that he was having a tryst over there…called him up and said what did you do with my stuff at the unit? He claimed total ignorance and said someone must have broken in!! oh sure….they broke in and hid my stuff but left his stuff in place. That was the same week that he had my car detailed, then he, freshly showered, came to pick me up after my night shift and my car smelled like perfume…also found a receipt for two for dinner, after he claimed he wasnt feeling well and had stayed in all night. Finally confronted him about this one and he stormed out of the house asking “is this just a game to you??” To me? – no.
It’s actually amusing how enraged they get when you challenge their lies. And they turn it all back on you.
Hey ThatGirl1 !
… i hoped his stomach….
I love that.
Actually my business partner (who was basically married to the same douchbag that those in this forum were married to) and I used to say that we fantisized, when our husbands were out at the local where-the-hell-could-anyone-actually-be-at-this-hour drinking hole, that we would get a call from the police that our “mate” had driven into a river or a building or something… you are correcto – No such luck.
Geez, there are some good ones here…I am sure I cannot trump!
One Sunday evening, he comes home from working (he would work on Sundays to catch up from the week) and his hair is slightly damp near the nape of his neck…and I was like: What gives? Why the wet hair? He claimed that water dripped off the awning at the entrance to his office just as he was walking out. Really?
Later on that evening, he wanted me to go down on him and so, in Pick Me! fashion I did it…but as I was down there…I pulled out a long straight hair. I have long curly hair so no way was it mine. So I stop and say: WTF is this????? He claimed it must have come from when he was working out at the gym.
I was in Chump high-mode so, although his answers seemed improbable, I bought them because I wanted things to ‘work out’. Yeah, while he was literally ‘working out’ on another woman.
Sheesh.
I’m reading all of your posts and there’s ‘lightbulbs’ going off in my head in all directions. He walked away over a year ago without the courtesy of letting me know our marriage was over for him. Long story short I went no contact immediately and have spent the last year trying to keep my ahead above water. I haven’t heard from him since the day he walked out.
The post that really hit me was the prostrate cancer, I recall a similiar conversation with him and his response ‘why didn’t you tell me that before, you know my brother died of prostrate cancer” there’s an all time low right there.
They have no boundaries
Xw, sadistically, came home at 3 am and proceeded to describe the body of the young man she had been with that night. Later, when she sobered up, she explained that she did this because I was an ex athlete and she thought I would be interested i his physique such that it would distract me from being upset that she was out so late.
Later, after I read her journal, where she expressed the desire to ” stop having sex with strangers, she claimed that she never had sex but that some of her “inappropriate” relationship were such that ” the chemistry became sexualized”.
Wtf does that even mean?
Oh,and another time she punished me by coming home 12 hours late at 3 am because I had mistakenly told her that her girlfriend’s flight arrive at the wrong gate. So, they decided to cruise bars to teach me a lesson.
My ex told a couple beauties during the whole mess, and I bought them in varying degrees. The biggest was during counseling, by which time I had seen emails the spelled out the depth and breadth of her year-long love affair with the married guy who was coaching my daughter in youth sports (nice, eh?). In one of her emails she wrote “I love you more and more every day. If that’s possible.”
So we’re in counseling, and she’s blaming our problems on me (I’m “controlling”… I “yell at the kids,” I never take out the trash… blah blah blah), and I pipe up and say that at some point we have to talk about the affair. And she says (I swear I’m not making this up): “It wasn’t an affair, it was more of a friendship. We grew up in the same area, we had a lot in common. We talked a lot.”
Uh huh…
I didn’t buy that one. There was one I did kind of accept. Both of them played in a co-ed hockey league. In the middle of the season she switched to his team. Highly unusual to change teams during a season. She claimed that there were a couple very tall players on her team and she was afraid they would crash into her. Right…so they are less likely to crash into you if you’re playing AGAINST them than playing on the same team….
I had already suspected an affair but I didn’t put up much resistance after she switched to his team. A couple months later, she was out playing hockey on the same team, I found the password to her email account and found the indisputable proof. First call was to the ex. Second call was to the guy’s wife. After that we did counseling for a year, which is when she rolled out the “it was really just a friendship” lie. Eventually it became clear she wasn’t interested in trying to fix the marriage. She kept playing hockey with the guy even after the affair was discovered…On my 50th birthday, she gave me…nothing – no card, no gift. That was a year ago and today she’s gone, the house is mine, the divorce is final, the kids are calmer and less stressed.
The life ahead isn’t what I expected, isn’t what I wanted, but it will be better and more fulfilling than if I were still married to that narcissistic-schizoid whack-job.
Dear Anybee: im going to be 50 next month and this isnt what i had planned…Dday was 6months ago after a 20 yr multiple affair marriage and its just me and our son in my home now. Yes its peaceful, but still oh so painful. You sound like you at meh. How long did it take you to get there and have you pondered life at 50??? Nmc
He came home with a giant hickey on his neck and a story about how it was actually a bruise from being attacked and bitten by his new BFF (a girl, of course) who happened to have PTSD and was triggered into “going for the jugular” when he snuck up on and attempted to hug her. At the bar where they were already hanging out together, with all the other immature losers. How he could possibly think this sounded BETTER, let alone believable, I do not know. The ensuing nervous breakdown I had after putting him back on the plane at least got me started on individual counseling as well as good meds for my OWN PTSD and anxiety disorder, which he certainly contributed to and which gave me a good “bullshit” meter for what behaviors do/do not fit PTSD 😛
Mine is a class act liar. He moved into a mutual friend’s house while we tried to work things out. He would answer his phone sparingly whenever I called blaming our friend’s house had bad reception – I bought it. Well my friend didn’t. On a Saturday night, she had me call his cell – no answer. She then called his cell from her cell (he didn’t have her number) – he answered, she hung up. I then called from mine – no answer. I tried to convince my friend it is just bad reception. She called again from her cell – he answered, I said, “this is your wife”, he then hung up. I called again from her cell and got the “f” you button (pushed to VM after a couple of rings) and there after his phone went straight to VM. THE NEXT DAY, when we met up in CHURCH, I asked him about the night before and recited the whole scenario to him. While sitting on a CHURCH PEW, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I don’t know what you are talking about, I didn’t receive ANY phone calls last night, plus I went to bed early… See,” as he handed me his phone with a clean call log for the previous night. My heart sank – I knew then what I was up against and knew I had to move on. One of the worst feelings in the world for me and especially while sitting in church next to my “devoted” God fearing husband… I officially branded myself CHUMPTIFIED during a Sunday Sermon. After that, ALL the SPACKEL CRUMBLED and my reality became crystal clear… All in part because a friend challenged my naive perception.
Not exactly a lie I believed, but this seems to fit here. If any of you read Redbook Magazine, you probably know they have a “Hottest Husband” competition every year. Readers send in photos and stories of their husbands explaining why they are so wonderful. Lots of touching stories of really great men there.
Anyway, I actually nominated my ex a few months before Dday. I sent in some pictures of him and a letter saying how kind, how devoted, what a great dad, what a giving, caring person he was. I actually wrote about how hard he worked to support his family without ever a word of complaint! And I meant every word of it. The winners that year were announced shortly after Dday, and I remember dreading that somehow he might win and I’d have to explain he turned out to be the worst husband, not the hottest.
It’s hard for me to believe and remember how devoted I was to him, how much I loved him, how much I wanted that marriage to work out.
Glad, I really really hate your ex.
I have two great whoppers from my NPD ex.
While cleaning and dusting the top of his dresser, I noticed a receipt from a food court restaurant at LaGuardia airport. In checking the date, it was for the day BEFORE he arrived “home” from a business trip to NYC. When I confronted him about it, his initial story was that he had driven out to LaGuardia from mid-town Manhattan for lunch. Really? In New York City, arguably one of the top culinary destinations in the world, a city where you cannot swing a cat without hitting a wonderful place to dine, you go to LAGUARDIA AIRPORT to get a $3.50 hot dog? Seriously? That is all the better you can do?
The second absurd lie is equally good. My now-ex used to keep quite the pharmacopeia in his Dopp kit. One day, I was looking for an antacid and opened his Dopp kit to see if there were any in there. I found a large bottle of lube in there (we didn’t use it, and he had been having impotence issues for the prior 18 months). When I confronted him, he told me that his doctor said that he should be mastuebating frequently, hence he bought the lube to do it. Yeah, you are going to buy a $10 bottle of Astroglide vs. a $2.00 tube of Jergens lotion. Like I am buying that.
As far as stupid excuses given to former chumps, these are pretty damn good.
GotCatz
In the first year of my three chump assignment my W was having an affair with my cousin and I was just starting to piece it together. In the midst of this she was laying out this story about how she was having PTSD, lost, confused, etc. In a show of angst she tearfully told me she did not deserve me and the kids and she was going away and not sure what she was going to do. She drove off in a panic and expressed that she did not deserve to live. At the time it was pretty believable and I was just starting to get clued in that she was just putting up a massive smokescreen. So she left and texted ma and her Mom (who lived with us in an in-law apartment) that she might end her life, and then she stopped answering her phone or text for four days.
Needless to say it was very stressful at home and me and my sons discussed how to handle this and spoke to medical people for help with this. After one long specualtive discussion about how to handle this my youngest son told me he had to tell me something. At this time she had moved out of our bedroom and moved into a room way at the other end of the house. My son needed something that was his and in her room and he went to get it in her drawer. It wasn’t there but he did find a box of spermicidal birth control. He was only 13 so he wasn’t totally sure what it was so he googled it. So he told me what he found and that it was a few weeks back and he had been agonizing over telling me. BTW, the birth control was not ours. He also told me the box was opened and being used. I wanted to be sure that what he saw was really what he thought so I asked him to show me. I opened the drawer and it was missing, along with my wife who was away on her suicide tour.
I figured out that I could check her speed pass to see where she was and sure enough, she was with my cousin.
She came home after four days as if nothing had happened. I asked her about her birth control and she came up with a whopper. She said she saw that me and my oldest son had looked at the Suicide Grils on the internet (which was true) and in a fit of jealousy drove to the pharmacy and bought the birth control in an act of madness, and then decided to throw it out. I asked her why the box ewas opened and used then and she said that my youngest was wrong and it was not opened. I mentioned to her that he and his bf was with him at the time and they both have no reason to lie. Then she refused to talk about it again. So she bombed our family with her threat to kill herself and her disappearance, hooks up with her lover, does not apologize or even mention how she did all this, lies about the birth control, blames it on me and two of my sons.
Wow, only a sick, sick person would use suicide as a cover for an affair. Evil. Rick, I hope this horrible woman is either your EX wife, or very-soon-to-be ex.
Onetime my W was out “jogging” for almost three hours. I went online and checked her phone log and there she was having a hours long conversation with the OM. When she got home I asked her how the jog was and that she could have jogged a marathon in that amount of time. Also, she was not even sweating. Her answer, she was gone that long because her shoe broke and she had to fix it. I never told her I knew she was on the phone with the OM!
My ex used the “walking the dog” cover for hours-long conversations with his OW. Up until that point, he had NEVER taken the dog for a walk without me, and most certainly not a walk that lasted two hours.
I am jumping in late on this thread and I have a laundry list of stupid lies I believed… The first one, which stands out in making me feel very chumpy now, happened when we were still newly married. We only had about 2 years of wedded bliss under our belt and had just moved to his hometown (which happened to be several hundred miles away from my family). I took some vacation time to visit my parents for a week. He did not go with me because things were “too busy at work.”
The first night I was back from my trip, he and I were watching tv in the living room when I noticed the pillow I had my head resting on reeked of perfume… NOT my perfume!! I asked him what woman had been on our sofa while I was gone. He denied anyone have being there at all until I insisted he smell the pillow. He then said he had let one of his buddies use our apartment to entertain a lady friend one evening. I was disgusted, refused to sit on that couch again and hosed it down with Lysol, BUT I believed his stupid story…..
It turned out to be a common theme over the course of our 23 year marriage – he couldn’t get away from work. I took many vacations alone with the kids. Found out after our divorce that that’s when he had many of his dalliances…