Okay, I know it’s not healthy to hang on to resentments. The goal here is “meh,” but that said, cheaters create some of the most ridiculous situations to resent. At the core is some over the top narcissism, that is still jaw dropping. I want to hear your best moment of resentment.
You may have the sadly ordinary tragicomic resentment — “While I was birthing your 9 lb offspring, you were off cheating with your coworker.” That’s shitty, (there is a special ring of hell for those who cheat on pregnant women), but for the healing amusement of fellow chumps, try and recall the most your most absurd moments.
Most absurd resentful situation gets a “meh” mug mailed to them. (Because after you dredge this shit up, please go right back to forgetting about it.) I’ll announce the winner on Friday.
The idea for this contest came to me when Namedforvera posted this fantastic comment, which might take the biscuit (or the “meh” mug).
I costumed a production of Amadeus where my wasband was Mozart opposite an actress, who, he later told me, aroused him so much “he finally knew what a *real* woman felt like.” This while I was working my fingers to the bone making 18th century frock coats, especially for him.
There is something perverse about a cheater dressed up as freakin’ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart enjoying the narcissist fantasy of being the world’s greatest composer/lady’s man, while his poor wife unwittingly aided this delusion of grandeur by sewing his frock coat.
I’ll give you two from my infidelity experience. Strangely, they both involve food (or not so strangely considering the girth of my ex).
A couple months into our marriage, and less than a month after moving to a new state, he invites his family to come stay with us for a week. His elderly mother, his sister, brother in law, and two small children. Of course, he has to work. I’m purchasing and assembling beds. I’m scrambling to clean a giant, still unpacked house. I put out flowers in the bedrooms, chocolates on the pillows for godsakes. Want to please them, make a nice impression. I ferry his family to every tourist destination in Lancaster County, (they preferred the outlet malls). I cook the meals. Weekend comes and that Saturday he announces he has to drive to Virginia for “work.” But he’ll be back that night. REALLY? The weekend your entire family is here? The one day of the weekend you can really spend with them? You’re WORKING?
Whatever. We all roll with it. (Me, not happily.) He leaves at the crack of dawn and comes home around 7 p.m. Walks in the kitchen and I’m cooking tomatoes. First thing he says is — “That’s not the way to make stewed tomatoes.”
Like he is the World’s Foremost Expert on Stewed Tomatoes and I’m doing it all wrong.
(Had a huge fight about it later. I was completely baffled how anyone could be so unappreciative and critical when I was entertaining their family alone all day. This was, of course, before DDay.)
Next resentment of absurdity — It’s after DDay, we’re in marriage counseling, I’m in unicorn chump mode and still cooking for him. I make pasta for dinner one night, and he says to me — gently, in his best therapy speak, like he has a huge nugget of insight to share with me: “You know how in therapy, we’re supposed to say what’s really on our minds and what our needs are?”
Yes.
“Well, when you make my dinner — I like the ratio of sauce to pasta to be 2:1 — there’s not enough sauce on this. I need more sauce.”
Okay, chumps — top that. Bring it on, and Happy Labor Day weekend! I won’t be posting again until Tuesday. But I do look forward to reading your seething resentments.
Back when my STBX and I were in marriage counseling, he complained that he didn’t feel appreciated when he got home from work. He wanted me to drop whatever I was doing when he got home, meet him at the door, and tell him that I was glad to see him. I was (like you) still in unicorn chump mode, so I agreed to do it- and did so for the next 10 months. If I was in the middle of cooking dinner, I turned off the stove and went to the door. If I was folding laundry, I put it down.
Cut to Dday when I found a secret account left open on his computer. As I read through his emails, I learned that he apparently had been meeting women- “to play” as he put it- at hotels during his lunch hour at work. And then coming home and expecting me to run to the door to let him know how glad I was that he was home. Talk about kibbles.
Wow! Just wow!
I could have written this one. Exact same thing. In addition, I found a massage parlor he’d made a reservation with on his open computer. His response, “I can’t believe I left that open.”
What an ass. They suck!!!!
Isn’t it amazing that their most truthful moments always involve getting caught and wishing they hadn’t?
…or finding the OW’s exposed breast photo on the family computer. When I confronted my EX…his response was, “oh, sorry you saw that”. Asshole
We say over and over and over again how alike they all are…and it’s true. Ex said that when he came home it was like no one was happy he was there. Why? Because I would be cooking dinner while overseeing homework and doing laundry and dealing with fighting children and ferrying their friends home and listening to their problems…etc.
And apparently because I didn’t run to blow him the second he walked through the door he had to cheat. Oh, and he did everything for everyone and no one did anything for him. He actually said ‘I give so much and now it’s time to give to me’. Mind you, he had been cheating for years, it turned out, so he’d been giving to himself for a long time.
wow- I had identical experiences but my husband not only said he wasn’t appreciated, he told me that he’s attractive and fun and successful and that he was going to do what ever he wanted for himself from that point on! This, from a man who went on a minimum of 4 golf trips a year, played an average of 3 rounds of golf a week, “worked” both Saturdays and sundays, and even left us on Christmas morning as the kids were begging him to play with their new toys and I was cooking breakfast to “work out” because he ate too much the night before. One last caveat….. the same guy who made me walk around Manhattan to shop for office furniture for him directly following a four embryo IVF transfer…… Wait! Wait! this same person insisted we go out to dinner with me 37 weeks pregnant with twins for his birthday before we stop at the doctors office to have me checked out. You see, I started having Bell’s Palsy symptoms while getting ready to go out; facial paralysis, ear pain, dribbling from the left side of my mouth…… I did convince him to go to the OBGYN first, at which time it was ascertained that I had pre-eclampsia and Bell’s Palsy and I needed to take the babies out STAT. My MF-er asked the doctor if we could stop at a restaurant on the way to the hospital because he wanted his birthday dinner And here’s the pathetic part…..I’ve only scratched the surface. I could be here all night typing away. P.S. As they gave me an MRI to rule out a stroke and then prepped me for surgery, he went to the nearest steak house and had a rib-eye.
He deserved it silly! It was his birthday for heaven’s sake.
Oh my god Stephanie, I think you win, what a complete and utter fucking asshole.
You’ve got a life threatening pregnancy complication and all he cares about is his steak dinner? WOW. Please tell me this man is your ex.
I kicked him out the day after he told me he” wanted to do what he wanted for himself from now on”. That was Easter 2009. He left and never came back. Of course I did the pathetic begging…pleeeease come home……let’s do what ever we can to make it work…..act. Mind you, we were on our 9th year of therapy with a fucking quack (he still goes to him- as does half of his family). It was a very hard decision to tell him to go- my boys were 9 at the time and I hadn’t worked since my second trimester. I filed for divorce exactly a year later and it’s still not near the end. Long story……. Here’s some icing for the cake I’ve presented: His father left his mother for 5 years and came back, his oldest brother got caught cheating, his middle brother got temporarily kicked out (?) and his youngest brother is currently living with his babymomma and not settling his divorce with his wife that he cheated on for years. Genetics???
My mother in law said to me when he was first out, “I’m sure you yell at him and are tough on him when he comes home late” And I’m thinking to myself, “yeah, because he’s been travelling hundreds of miles to fuck a married woman for the past 3 years”
Feels good to get it off my chest- You see, he socially threw me under the bus so he could remain socially active in our community, telling everyone I’m crazy and he’s not involved with anyone, that I threw him out because I don’t like that he works out! (I’ve worked out for 27 years myself) I just hated when he would leave for 4 hours on Christmas morning, or 20 minutes before company was expected. And another kicker, he carried on inappropriate relations with two of these woman from our social circle…hundreds of texts and many many phone calls. Their husbands (his friends) have not seen the phone records- I have. They fawn over him and it makes me sick. He hangs out with the mothers and gets drunk with them while the husbands are out and the kids all witness it.
Show the friends the phone records. They deserve to know he’s a pig and their wives are cheaters.
Agreed. At some point the whole ‘high road’ thing starts to look to me like ‘continue being a doormat’. I’ve told people what happened and I’m glad I did. Otherwise his tales of ‘the marriage was crumbling’ and ‘I didn’t get enough affection’ and all the other horseshit he spewed would have taken hold.
I didn’t take out an ad in the paper but I told my friends and let the word get around. Quite frankly, after what I found out there was no way I was going to sit around and go along with some ‘nice’ story about why we were divorcing. I was quiet for a bit but something snapped in me one day and a friend told me to cut the crap and stop lying for him, even if it was by keeping silent. So I started telling people. The looks on their faces told me that no, this was not my fault. As one friend said ‘no matter what happened in your marriage no one deserved this kind of crap’.
Indeed. Tell a few people and see what happens. But be prepared for him to be furious.
Agreed — show the phone records! Those poor fellow chumps deserve to know!
Yes.
I think that taking the high road is important, but that’s because it takes you to the appropriate goal. The idea is to achieve the settlement you want, the custody you can get, and to avoid the stigma of the crazy ex. However, taking the high road is different from being the complete doormat.
Quietly show the friends the phone records, telling them that you’d wished you’d been told. Then back off and let the chips fall where they may.
Oh, and yes, he’ll be furious.
I love how some people criticize you for saying what really happened and not sticking with the “it was mutual” story the ex promotes. Some of the most infuriating comments I got were “HE never says anything bad about you, you shouldn’t say anything bad about him.” This from the mother of my daughter-in-law. I wanted to punch her. Of course when a burglar breaks into your home and steals everything he doesn’t talk about it, but if it’s your house you yell it from the rooftops. That is the way it goes when one person totally takes advantage of another person.
Agree completely that being silent is like being a doormat. My STBXH wanted us to tell our adult children that “it’s been bad for years.” Meanwhile he told our friends I’d been a bitch for years and had some kind of fake “man to man” talk with our son about our sex life (apparently I didn’t want sex! who knew! it was in fact just the opposite). God only knows what other lies he spewed. I became angry enough to come out with the truth to everyone who would listen. If he was ashamed of what he did, he shouldn’t have done it. Now he has no one.
Been a lurker here for a while and have learned SO MUCH. Anyway, I put up a profile of him on Cheaterville.com. Now when you type in his name in Google, about half-way down the page the cheaterville profile pops up. Tee hee.
why is always a nice family that has some horrible tragedy …why can’t we read on the news that this entire family of fucktards crash and burn over a cliff somewhere
Stephanie, I am so sorry. The height of narcissism. He just wasn’t there.
Lyn, I agree. I just will not say that this was on me. Ex tells the kids that this happened because of me and him and that OW and all the rest had nothing to do with it. I simply tell them that when someone is dating a married person then yes, they are willfully and knowingly interfering in a family so she and the others did have something to do with what happened but that ultimately their dad is responsible for not honouring his marriage vows and his commitment to his family.
And I have no problem saying what he did and continues to do. If people perceive it as ‘bad’ then that should tell them something about him.
Wow! I would have said that the biggest birthday present was a healthy wife and baby!
Guess that’s the difference between a normal person and a NPD.
thank you everyone- nice to know there are normal people out there. Just to rub it in a little more….. He told me it was “no big deal” when I suffered my second miscarriage because it was only 9 weeks along. This was after numerous inseminations and my 4th IVF and I had seen the heart beating, went back for a follow up and noticed the little bleep stopped and the embryo was coming away from the uterine wall. Yeah sure…no big deal.
Stephanie, so sorry you went through that. I dealt with the pain of infertility for years and also had failed inseminations and IVF twins. I know how much stress it adds to a healthy marriage, so I can’t imagine what you went through with Mr. “No Big Deal.”
babies- I had two amazingly healthy babies.
Geez, Stephanie, I had a complicated twins pregnancy, I really feel for you. It’s more than physical, it’s emotional wondering if you will have two babies, if they will be early, healthy and so on. Every time you have too many contractions (I was on bed rest and monitoring) or anything it’s an emotional roller coaster.
I love my twins too, people would say “double trouble” and I’d answer “double pleasure.”
🙂 🙂 🙂
Wow, just wow, Stephanie. He sounds like not just a narcissist, but a real psychopath. So glad you survived and got the hell out of that insanity.
Stephanie,
I read your “incomplete” story with my eyes bulging and my mouth hanging open. “Douche” is too pleasant of a word to call him because a douche actually leaves you feeling fresh and clean on the inside – unlike your Turd of a Spouse.
I am reading the book “Almost a Psychopath,” and I’m thinking your almost XH has slipped over the line from “Almost” to actual “Psychopath.”
I heard this same complaint. It wasnt only regarding me, but our 3 pre-teen girls. “They dont meet me at the door like they did when they were little.”. (This justified the idea that they would be just fine if he left.). So I tried to make them be all happy when he got home. Now that I know better, I was running a chump factory there…message: your feelings don’t matter, as long as yo’ man is happy.
That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? The whole thing is about him/her being happy and if s/he is not well then they just have to go cheat. I realise now that not once did my happiness ever come up, or how I felt aobut things. It was all about him, him, him. What a dick.
A condition of our marriage was that our sex life was to be “spontaneous”
I thought that was fine…
…until one day he walked in the door after work, didn’t say a word, and just shoved his dick in my mouth. I obliged, because I was pretty well trained at that point.
But I didn’t hear the end of it for months and months… how my face hadn’t been eager and gleeful enough. How dare I! lol
witty29,
I don’t think “spontaneous” means what he thought it meant. What a fly-infested, oozing carcas! And how dare your face be stunned and stupefied instead of eager and gleeful when someone walks up to it and unceremoniously shoves a dick in it. Imagine that!
These people’s pictures need to be hanging in the post office.
OMG, witty29. OMG.
I love that when we met I had so many ambitions and dreams. I had places to go, things to do, and he went along with every single thing I said. I didn’t notice that he never seemed to have any drive of his own. No goals. No damn ideas for goodness sake. So we get married. We struggled all the way financially so lots of my dreams got put on the back burner but I pursued a few. Yet when he left for OW I was “too negative for him, I’d lost my passion” and Miss 22 is a self professed “dream inspirer” who helps teens and their parents to realise their dreams!!!!!! This is her calling apparently!!!!! 18 years of my dreams down the gurgler. Screaming on the inside.
Yep, I was ‘too negative’, basically because I didn’t cheerlead every single thing he did (actually, I did) and after he lost his third job and we moved again I lost my shit a couple of times and had some big meltdowns. Why? Because I was scared shitless that we were going to go under…because while I was always saving money he was saving nothing and it was my savings that bailed us out each and every time.
no, no, no. We’re not allowed to be scared when they lose their jobs. (probably because they were either looking at porn or fantasizing about it or texting their fuckbuddies.) We are supposed to blow them and then go sign up for welfare, all the while telling them how wonderful they are.
It won’t stop them from cheating however. He’ll say that you didn’t put enough sauce on the pasta. (just dump the entire pot of it over his fucking head). He was depressed. He needed “stress relief.” on and on…
OMG Laurel, I was trying to pick something from the smorgasbord of horrendous things I’ve been through. Dumping a pot of Spaghetti sauce on him- I did that!
One night he went across the street to her house, and told me he’d be ‘back in 15’. The front always was- she’s his pal, she needs something/wants to show him something, so I told him I was cooking pasta, please come right back. I LOVE to cook, and am pretty good at it, and it’s rare I have time anymore. I made this righteous Bolognaise sauce, it really was the best I ever did, couldn’t wait for us to eat it (he’s
American Italian). Sooooo, fast forward 2 1/2 hrs, Assface walks in the door with a bisquit and tells me ‘sorry, she cooked a chicken, I had to have some, it was reslly good,and I brought u a bisquit!’
I’m sure you can imagine my rage (I knew he’d been doing her for awhile), I looked at the stove, the pot was there (and hot), and I grabbed it and launched it and it hit him dead center in the chest, and all over the walls! He was stunned, I got a weird sense of true happiness that minute, it was worth it (even though I got to clean it up of course). The funniest part was when my middle son came out of his room, trying not to laugh, and asked what happened. I told him it was kind of embarassing, why do you want to know? He said- because it’s potentially hilarious! I told him, and it was pretty funny, because he knows his Dad, he had it coming, and I’m glad he wore that sauce!
Where’s the “Like” button? 😀
Ditto, like!
But when he wore the sauce — was the ratio correct? Was is 2:1?
That takes the biscuit… quite literally!
I’m too negative even when I do cheerlead him on. The problem? I don’t cheerlead him from his perspective. If I choose a different perspective for the cheerleading, I’m “tearing him down.” Whatever.
My WTF resentment moment came shortly after Dday. Back story. STBX has real issues with his feet. They always hurt, and he wears orthotics to help. Shortly after our marriage, I started to massage his feet so that they’d hurt less. He liked this. I did it pretty much every freaking night for 16 years. I started to resent it, as he never offered to massage my back after I’d spent all day on my feet doing things for him.
Then, just after Dday, I’d read a bunch of texts between him and OW about how much they lurvved each other, couldn’t wait to see each other, how much I sucked, and how they were planning on a motel getaway for a couple of hours. About an hour after reading those texts, I went upstairs to our bedroom, where STBX was in bed, his feet on the covers. Yes, he wanted his feet rubbed.
Heh. I used to give ex backrubs all the time. Then, after who knows how many years and a couple of kids I realised I was never getting a back rub. So I started asking for them. He apparently resented this as it lowered the number of back rubs he got.
KB and Nord, I rubbed his back for 35 yrs, almost every day, and same thing, funny how I’d do a full-on total backrub, and he would rub me for all of 5 mins and then it was boring and he’d stop (or try and turn it into sex!). The thing I used to think was- at least it’s a great work-out for me.
Yes, the backrub as prelude to sex. Which isn’t a bad thing, mind you, just not every time. Sometimes I am knackered and just want to be taken care of but nope, not on with ex. If there wasn’t something in it for him then it wasn’t going to be worth it. Oh, and I once pushed his cold feet away from mine on a cold winter’s night. This meant I was rejecting him.
feet on the bed huh ? I would have grabbed a club and pulled a Kathy Bates on him the POS
Ah but see the same thing happened to us and when I lst my shit for fear of going under I was being “selfish” then
yeah, it’s pretty insane. They don’t see us offering suggestions and trying to help as support. Only saying “you’re right!” and “poor baby” count.
OMG, that sounds exactly like how my ex talks! All about how he is a “dream inspirer” and he “brushes away other’s negativity” and endless bullshit about “following his passions.” Oh, and doing things like throwing away a career to make YouTube videos of himself dancing to Peter and the Wolf while wearing skintight leotards just shows “how confident” he is.
GIO… you are kidding me!!!! That is both sad and hilarious.
GIO — OMG, I found his youtube videos. This has to be him — motivational speaker (with 13 views total) and prancing about in a flesh colored leotard to Peter and the Wolf.
I don’t have words. That’s some kind of special you were dealing with there. Wow. It’s like when sparkles go all terribly wrong.
OMG. Wow.
I’m so sorry, GIO. You should really be glad it’s over. I just watched the video he made, lying in bed, naked (?), discussing his new book which I’m sure will be a page-turner.
Oh, my.
oh gawd… I found them too.
I’ve been studying dancing almost my entire life.
He’s the suckiest and you can hear the audience laughing out of embarrassment for him.
oh, and has he come outta the closet yet? cause I don’t know any straight man who would prance around like a fairy.
I just found them too!
OMG OMG OMG
I couldn’t help it, I watched a few. I just couldn’t believe that he is serious, but he is.
The leotard, the flute, his earnest delivery of his life tips. Just. No. Words.
LOL!!!! You could do a whole stand up routine using his antics.
Totally. It’s comedic gold.
I’m missing out, can’t figure good search terms
I think I put in Peter and the Wolf, and motivational
It’s fuckin BIZARRE, not that my X is any more normal, in his own way!
Just LOLs!!
OMG- I viewed the Utube videos. Im speechless. Im also certain that he’s gay.
GIO,
It took me until today to even comment because I was stunned beyond silence. Anytime you spent with him was a favor to him and the gods who sent you to him. My prediction for your future is that you will meet someone wonderful, who is not only intelligent, caring and honest, but this person will also be able to, shall we say, fill out a leotard, although Lord knows he won’t ever wear one.
this got me there, ddw.
youtube motivational speaker “peter and the wolf”
Ugh, you guys, I know he is bizarrely insane, and kind of hilarious, but he is also a sociopath. I don’t want him suspicious of how a bunch of new views came his way, and making any connection to me. He is dangerous.
Judging by what you’ve told us about him I’m sure he’ll brag about all the new lives he has touched…
Yes, RC. He and his family are under the huge spell of dementia. They boast that the phenomenal rise of my ex was entirely his making! Thankfully, in Indian societies, people are more aware of others’ lives. Many of his relatives, people in neighborhood and others, who had seen my efforts during our 13 years of marital life, supported me vigorously and didn’t buy the rewritten history by them. It will haunt them for a lifetime as all people who matter in their lives know!
But, Karma has a strange way too. His last job was phenomenal and the success therein had gone into his head! He has been fired from his job on complaint of sexual harassment and is jobless at the moment. 😉
CL, please delete the terms Laurel gave me from her post cos they are coming up on google analytics and I do not want anything to happen to GIO
Thanks
I feel bad upping his view numbers, but I had to see what you were talking about. I am speechless.
I don’t think he would give you credit for increased views. He would think it’s his sparkliness. He appears to have a very small umm…brain.
LOL!!!
He can’t see who’s viewed him, so you are safe. He sure is a wonderful specimen of a npd freak. His videos are rambling, go frequently off-topic and do not actually give out any useful information. His “meek,” “kind” demeanor, however, is what can rope someone in who does not know what to look for. He pulls every narc trick in the book including making the viewer feel sympathy for him. (bullied child) He professes to still love his ex and wishes her well. (seeeeee? I’m a really good, nice man.) However, if he had stayed married to you, he NEVER would’ve been able to pursue his dreams.
BULL FUCKING SHIT ASSHOLE!
oops… forgot to include a few things? like all the babes you needed to bang while still MARRIED in a not-so-thinly veiled attempt to prove to yourself that you’re not gay and that despite your lack of manhood (as clearly exhibited in the Peter and the Wolf nude tights dance of the fairy) are a wonderful specimen of masculine beauty and talent.
not.
But to him, not only is he God’s gift to the stage, there’s the benevolence. The most generous sharing of his tremendous well-spring of knowledge gained through his unique and most painful experiences. Barf bag. please. And, folks… only HE has cracked the code and is kind enough to explain to the rest of us well-meaning but dumb dolts how one can be successful at any (self-serving) idea, no matter how bizarre, unrealistic and grandiose it is.
We know to look at his eyes; there is nothing behind them. He’s a horrendous actor. I’m sure that his songs are equally bad. (couldn’t find them and no thank you anyway. heard and saw more than enough) He makes an insulting mockery of those of us who’ve spent a lifetime respecting and perfecting their art of dance, acting and music. Its all one big grandiose clusterfuck of pathology.
He’s so delusional, he will think that perhaps his “methodology” is finally taking hold and he’s gathering a following like a rolling stone.
GIO, he won’t know where it came from and I did realize I gave him a view, sorry! I understand danger, I live that every day so I won’t look at any more.
Me too
Once was enough!
Had to go see – couldn’t watch either one all the way through. Ewww!
Dat, there is no direct link from this site to his that would show up in analytics, so I think GIO is safe.
I was told I was too negative also. I didn’t like when he came home pie-eyed at 4 in the morning or when his reply to me when asked to leave a club or restaurant was, ” you fu#!%ng go”, and I would, leaving him to party with my “friends” who would drop him off at 3 am giggling loudly in front of my house.
Yes, Ex went through phases several times where he would be out very late, come home drunk, deny he was drunk and tell me I needed to stop nagging him because he was working late and doing it all for me. I actually bought into that shit or, often, just gave up because it wasn’t worth the hassle of arguing with him. I know now that he was off boinking whomever. This happened several times during one of my pregnancies. I was 8 months pregnant and he was out playing video games with his friends (cough) and didn’t answer his phone. At 3 or 4 am. Cue big fights and him telling me I was being ridiculous and hormonal. God, I look back now and I want to punch his face in.
Oh. My. God. He is the most effeminate man I’ve ever seen. I’m only sorry I’ve upped his views. He’s going to think he’s really “reaching” his public. Hahahahahaha!
During my unicorn phase and after our marriage counselor fired us because Richard the Brave would not end his affair, I asked him to cut contact with his girlfriend for one month to focus on what we had and how great it was. On Halloween, he stood in the kitchen, held my hands, and looked me in the eye to tell me he was going to try the month thing for me. The very next (12 hours after his vow!) day he flew to Arkansas for a golf outing that was really a weekend in L.A. with his “everything.”
Oh yeah, mine too – his response to the one and only time we went to a marriage counsellor was why do I have to give up my girlfriend?
When our youngest was 4 years old, she snuck some Easter candy after having been told that she would have to wait until after dinner. Wasband and I discussed the issue alone and decided together that her punishment would be to have no candy for one week – he was totally on-board. We sat her down and explained why she had to wait and that the sneaking around was the main issue. Two days later wasband took both children to the movies and bought them both candy. He told them not to tell me. Later the four-year-old confessed to me and when I confronted wasband he said he was just trying to teach our children that some rules are meant to be broken and they don’t always have to obey “The Man”. I shoulda known then…
this one makes me so angry, I just can’t tell you, but don’t beat yourself up. We all have gone through some variation of “I shoulda known then…” what an abusive pig he is! And a man who abuses his children is the lowest form of life there is!
what about a woman?
Was he in the black panthers and was it 1972?
LOL!
a week is way too long for a 4 year old. Just a gentle chat about sneaking candy would have done. 4 years old is so little.
However, what he did was unforgiveable.
When I was in the hospital after the birth of our son, he fought me on the name… it was 3 days later before we settled on a name, and yes, i caved! I didn’t know at the time he was cheating with the neighbor lady (and, a few other women) during my whole pregnancy. I resent that he would even think he had any say in naming our son when he was degrading his son’s mother in front of the whole town! Oh, I found out later that he was with her one night after leaving my hospital bed… Shows just how little he was thinking of his son! Oh, how i resent that!!!
Sorry double post!
So many examples to choose from….but this probably is the best:
My wasband and I had a HUGE argument while sitting naked in the hot tub about the fact that – even though recently I’d become very aware of the financial shell game he’d been playing for the past 15 years, he still wanted to go to the national teacher’s union “partyfest” – the NEA representative assembly being held in New Orleans in summer 2010. He had just gone to this in 2009 in San Diego and had padded days on both ends at our expense because he “had never been out west.” I said it was too expensive….and when he pushed, I finally said – fine – I’ll go with you then and we can at least enjoy it like our 10th anniversary (also in NOLA.) He FLIPPED OUT, stormed naked out of the hot tub (this is January 2010, BTW in PA- so shrinkage was inevitable) and said he had important work to do and I just had to understand that.
This fight continued into the next day when he announced that he was going to his best friend’s fishing cabin 2 hours away to “think about us.” I was terrified – chump that I am – I thought I’d been unreasonable, had pushed too far, had not appreciated the hard work he did for the union. As I sat there gulping down tears, he comforted me and said that this didn’t mean he was leaving or anything, but we needed time to figure out how to be better partners and lovers in the marriage. We each agreed to write a list of ten things to make things easier in this phase of our life together. He called pretty frequently from the lake, told me how the cabin was smelly, the lake was peaceful, he’d seen some deer and how quiet it all was. When he came home three days later, we met, had dinner out, shared our lists (his was all about making me more a part of his travels with the union, more time with his family, finding time to tell me that I’m the most important person in his life and always would be, etc.)
Flash forward to July 2010, post D-day. I’m combing through phone records piecing together the copious times he was screwing the OW……and I find on the January dates that we had the fight and he went 2 hours away to the cabin to “think”…..he was actually on a plane to Boston (using a ticket she purchased for him) to shack up in her room while she attended a regional NEA conference. When I confronted him – he was livid that I’d tracked all this down, and when I asked how he possibly could have been giving me any thought when he was spending every free moment screwing her, he actually had the nerve to say “Hey – I had free time when she was at the conference – and I thought about you and how to make our marriage better then!
And the most absurd part was – he really believed himself – he had lied and deceived so much that he had finally fallen victim to his own false narrative. He to this day continues to tell anyone who listens that he is a good guy who just didn’t handle this “situation” as well as he could of. But he’s a “good guy.”
While he was out screwing his girlfriend he claims he was thinking about you and how to make your marriage better? How considerate of him.
It’s like the Boston bombers saying they just left those backpacks to detonate because they were thinking of how to improve the Boston marathon.
Excellent comparison!
Geez, if that’s being a “good guy”, what the heck is being a “bad guy” supposed to mean? My stbx liked this tactic too, when called out on his bad behavior. “I’m a good guy, my friends all say so. Say whatever sh*t you want, I don’t care.”
And you hit the nail on the head, CHAR: they truly believe their own BS. What amazingly “good people” they are (and what horribly “bad people” us chumps are)! We “should feel lucky” have such “amazing people” in our lives at all, or so such cheaters often like to say. It’s just plain crazy.
One of the few comforts I’ve had moving on is realizing – like CL has often said – that you can’t argue with, reason with, negotiate with, or have any meaningful agreement with Crazy. It is just not possible. That mental deck is rigged and the house always wins. Heck, we don’t even know we are in the casino…
Oh, the good guy bit….
Yes, after his AP was arrested for her dui and hit and run and made the front page of the paper along with her mug shot. I so kindly went out and purchased several of those papers and left them on the table as he was living in the basement and will not leave. Later that night, I confronted him about what an idiot he is and what a class act she is. I am sure her husband and kids are so proud of her….. You picked quite a winner – now everyone can see this awesome person that you threw away your family for. Hell, even our kids can see who she is. Bravo!!! I told him that in my book he is a bad person and his response was “I am a good person. There are always other books.”
Problem solved then. Just get another book. Poor sausage… LOL
My X told me, while we were in the middle of discussing his 4 year adultery spree with the neighbor, ‘I like me!’
I think he was trying to convince himself.
Right before walking out on me and our 20+ year marriage, ex announced, “I like myself just the way I am. I never want to change.” I guess he likes being a cheating, lying freak.
I experienced a serious back injury. My husband’s negligent, narcissistic behavior was a major contributing factor to the injury occurring because he left me alone while I was very ill and in a delirious state. I later read that narcissists are unable to judge critical illness situations. The back injury nearly paralyzed me from the waste down; For 18 months after the injury, top US neurosurgeons diagnosed that one small fall or fender bender would cause paralysis from the waste down. The injury included a complicated, painful, years-long healing process. A week after the initial injury, my 18-year-old son, in another city, needed emergency surgery. Husband couldn’t attend either of us because he had a business trip to a city across country that included staying with his travel prostitute in a secluded house on a lake for three days. I traveled to my son and stayed alone through his recovery. For a week, we were both in a very sorry state. We needed help desperately. Narcissism is dangerous to your mental, emotional, spiritual, social AND physical health.
Wow Preya, that is interesting. My H nearly drowned two of our children because he did not check them once.
He also ignored me whilst my strep throat got worse and worse, I could not call out because I had no voice and had to break a cup on the floor to get his attention, to take me to hospital. I wasn’t making a fuss, I got IV antibiotics.
He was angry about the mark on the floor.
You are right, they are so bad for you.
The near drowning of two children? You’d think this stuff would wake us up to what is going on, but somehow it doesn’t. That’s a whole area to explore. Why does it take so much to wake us up to what is going on?
I resent the fact that the four times I went overseas. She couldn’t find it in her to be there with our daughter and the other wives and families to greet me when I got off the plane. I resent the fact she broke into a family friends house to steal prescription pills was caught on video tape and couldn’t find the courage to apologize to them face to face. I reswnt that for eleven years she couldn’t remember my fucking birthday. I resent that she said I was hard to shop for and that is why she would never buy me anything…..fucking bitch
Oh I also resent the fact that she cheated on me multiple times.
I’ve wondered if that tells you the marriage is bad, not getting gifts. I tried everything to jumpstart him giving me fucking anything at Xmas, never worked. I know it proves they’re a self-absorbed Narc!
I don’t know it seems petty but I went out of my way to get her things she wanted and surprised her all the time. She always said the things I wanted were too expensive. Thing is if she would’ve bought me a sketch book and pencils or paints I would’ve been ecstatic. Her doing things with me also was impossible. I got the we are always together why do you need me to do this with you. She needed to have tje surprise expensive vacations and that’s impossible to give on my salary and when she didn’t get the concept of saving money. Grrrr she sucks
Sometimes I think about all the surprise dinners and parties I gave him for special events like his graduations and milestone birthdays. He never once threw a party for me, although he usually gave me some type of gift. Many of my milestone birthdays he was out of town on business trips.
PattyToo–I don’t think it’s necessarily a sign that the marriage has gone south if there are no gifts. One of my former colleagues was married 40 years to a man she credited for saving her sanity after a horrendous childhood. They married when she was 18, and stayed married til his death 40 years later. He was a gentle, geeky man–almost a stereotypical engineer in that he could get completely lost in his work.
His sun rose and set around her, and she loved him to pieces. However, he could never keep birthdays or holidays in his head. He finally started using a Blackberry for all of that. It didn’t matter, though, because he’d do little, spontaneous things, or offer to take her out to dinner.
I think, more than the actual presents or remembering the major things like anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, birthdays–the more important thing is the desire to do little things like bring home flowers, or whatever. This is what makes the difference between a forgetful, but loveable spouse, and the “too busy” narcissist who just can’t be bothered.
Mine used to steal and wrap office supplies from work for my Christmas gift. One year, I got a box of copy paper. He also made note that it is for both of us to use in the printer.
RC, that not buying you anything? Classical hallmark of a narc. Because they have nothing inside of them, they just cannot GIVE.
Patsy,
Yeah i wish I knew that before..
Okay, mine is probably not a cup winner, but here is a favorite little tidbit from my relationship, which I was reminded of by CL’s 2:1 ratio story:
Before we were married, X and I went to couple’s therapy. At some point, X was talking to the therapist about how selfish I was. She asked for an example. In a disgusted tone of voice that some people reserve for child molesters, X told her “She never pushes in her chair. Nooooo, when she is done sitting, she just GETS UP! No thought for anyone else!!”, and as he said this he stood up and threw his hands in the air, in imitation of my cavalier ways. After that day, the therapist suggested that X set up IC sessions as well.
Don’t feel so bad about the chair. I don’t make pasta correctly.
I actually took this to heart and tried to be more conscious of my chair-exiting etiquette! Walking on eggshells much?
My abusive ex once berated me for
“walking into the room in a controlling way”
Yikes. Projection much?
Oh, my – there are so many to chose from! Here’s the one that cut me to the core:
Spring, 2008. XH is a college professor who runs a lab year ’round and teaches two grad school level classes in the spring. He’s always busy in the spring, preparing lectures, but that year was particularly bad, because in addition to his work stuff he was also working out regularly with one of his female grad students. Since he’d helped another girl get in shape for her wedding when he was a grad student himself 16 years earlier, I didn’t think anything of it. He’d leave the house at 6:30 am and often not return until midnight or 1 am. He never helped with kids, the house, the bills, anything. He was always gone. I was never so glad for a semester to be over in my life, so we could be a family again.
But it didn’t happen.
He was still spending lots of time at work; he also started spending more time at the stables riding, and he joined the Knights of Columbus. We still had no time together, he was still always short with the kids. Annoyed, I arranged for us to go out to lunch in late June while the kids were at summer camp.
Having kept my mouth shut for months over his continued absences all spring, I told him he needed to cut back on the extra-curricular stuff and start spending more time with me and the kids. He told me no.
“My friends say I should put my foot down and insist,” I said.
“Really?” he snorted. “And did they say how they were going to support you after I divorce you for being such a f*cking nag?”
I stared at him in disbelief. I couldn’t believe my ears. I complain ONCE…and he’s ready to divorce me? Say WHAT?
I ended the lunch and went back home – and cried. I didn’t understand what was happening, where he was coming from. Listless, with some time on my hands before I had to leave to pick up the kids, I went to my computer to look at the headlines. One in particular caught my eye: 10 Signs He’s Having an Affair.
I clicked on it…and discovered XH matched 7 of the 10: working out, working late, obsessed with appearance, guarding his phone, etc. I couldn’t believe it. I WOULDN’T believe it.
Ten days later, after looking at the phone records, I believed it. He was texted OW 1,000x a month, usually when I was asleep, at church, or he was driving to and from the stables, or the Knights of Columbus meetings. No, he wasn’t going to church with me, but yes, he was pretending to be a good Catholic devoted to his community – all the while carrying on with OW, the – you guessed it – 20-something grad student he was working out with.
Chumpity, chump, chump…
What an a*hole, so sorry that you had to deal with this. Abuse ala “you are not the boss of me” and “screw it all to hell” and “how dare you question me” style. These types LOVE to cut you down, ruthlessly and utterly, if you have even the slightest backbone. They love power and control more than anything (over you, money, kids, time, other women, information, etc.).
I literally felt that “WHAT?” moment all the way down in the pit of my stomach, from my own similar past hit and runs from my stbx. Hope you’ve been able to move on.
Thanks, SG!
“These types LOVE to cut you down, ruthlessly and utterly, if you have even the slightest backbone. They love power and control more than anything (over you, money, kids, time, other women, information, etc.).”
I had a HECK of a backbone when we were first married, but couldn’t find it to save my soul by the time we divorced. Now, 3 years after he moved out, I’ve rediscovered it, and he doesn’t like it. He still tries to treat me like the doormat he left, and gets ticked when I refuse cower and apologize.
EVERYTHING he says to me is negative, always blaming, always putting me down. I didn’t notice it while we were married – the proverbial lobster being boiled alive – but since it’s the only negativity in my life right now, it’s so obvious it’s ridiculous.
Mine would call and talk to his coworker girlfriend for hours at airport layovers, then text me “leaving now” as he boarded the plane.
Lyn – my XH did the same thing. He went for a job interview in another state, called me that night, and we talked for 7 minutes. Then he hung up and called OW; they talked for 3 hours.
So many to choose from. The one that really killed me was her last paramour. I had lost my job in 2009. I was out of work for 11 months. Not once did she try to get a job. After I finally found a job 1.5 hours away and our savings depleted she insisted we remodel our bathroom. This should have been time to get our finanaces back in order. It turned out that our bathroom was being remodeled by the guy she was fucking for the year previous. I didn’t even know this guy existed until he did the bathroom. Every time I took a shower in their was a constant reminder of the affair.
In addition rather than selling the house and moving closer to work, she would not agree to sell the house. So dumb ass me continued to travel 3 hours a day for work for two years of this hell. When I finally got an apartment closer to work she magically got a full time job.
Well she needed you to spend all that time commuting so she had time for her extra-curricular activities!
My stbx had hooked up with a friend from her high a school years. I don’t know at what point during our marriage they had their PA, but the first I heard of him was that we were all driving to another town to meet a friend of hers for his daughter’s roller skating party. There, my step daughter met his son, ans they became each other’s first relationship. A few months later, I am doing his divorce for him for free. Within a year, he is homeless, and we house him, and his kids during his visitation over the holidays, rent free. So, I represented, helped, and befriended a man who was or had been sleeping with my wife. AND, he often tried to give me relationship advice, and to talk about God and morality. It just galls me.
You aren’t the only chump lawyer here — we have a few! Same thing happened to my husband — he unwittingly gave free legal advice to one of the OM of his now ex-wife. You’re useful and they’re users.
Super long story made short:
My ex abuser and I were arrested in Panama on false charges. His business partner (an ex friend of mine, I chose to discontinue our friendship after she cheated on her husband and used us for a cover, among other things) was very wealthy and, we believe, paid off officials to have us thrown in jail. She then tried to steal all my property. I lost everything (she did not end up with most of it, but she damn sure tried). I was in jail for 32 hours, but he was transferred to maximum security prisons and stayed for 6 months. I can not describe what those were like. I lost our apartment, my business and our fishing boat, and worked everyday to get him released including dealing with his super fucked up family. He was sick, injured and mentally ill. finally got him on house arrest for medical reasons, where he stayed for the next nine months. All this time we were in negotiations with the accuser. At one point, late in the game, our attorney said he was afraid they were trying to get me thrown in jail to gain an upper hand in negotiations, so told me to go back to the US. I had not seen my kids for 10 months at this time, so gladly went. I left the abuser in the care of my attorney, who promptly took him out to casinos and whores. Several whores, who he evidently had had relationships with from before the arrest. I returned to Panama two months later to finalize his release, unaware of the whores.
I resent that.
When we finally returned to the US, I filed suit on our behalf against the woman that filed false charges against us. (We were all residents of Colorado, so though we had to argue venue and jurisdiction, we won.) We could not afford an attorney, even on contingency, so I filed pro se. I got the case far enough along that we finally got picked up by a great legal team. All this time, his PTSD was so severe he couldn’t hold a job. I worked full time, ran the case and tried to get his therapy taken care of. When he finally did get a job, while he was working he saw a woman falling down drunk on the side of the road, he stopped to help (such a nice man!) and this became his affair partner. I found out before our case went to court, but had to stay with him because I had lost everything, and my only hope of regaining anything was this suit. So I sent him to work in another state, and he begged and groveled until we were together, the he was his usual abusive self.
Yeah, I resent that.
We finally won the case, though I was the only one that saw any monetary gain (yay me!) and I left. That was almost two years ago. While I had kicked him out, he stayed with my best friend, in her spare room. I am here right now, and we were turning the mattress in the spare room, and all his pornography was still here, stuffed under the mattress like a high schooler. Super young women with large breasts. She and I laid down on the bed and laughed til we cried. Think I may finally be at meh.
I don’t have anything particularly funny or absurd. I think I mostly resent that I went back to work part-time because my ex’s job was on the line due to the recession, and he resented ME for that! I thought that I was being practical and careful, making sure that I had some employment in case he lost his job, and we had to switch roles (I had been a full-time SAHM for the six years prior to that). I would have gladly stayed a SAHM if he had shown any initiative beyond the grad degree he started, which is now going to take him five years to earn, so it’s not exactly something that would have helped us out right away. I knew that if he got fired, he would never go drive a UPS truck, stock shelves at Target, or wait tables somewhere– that sort of work was “beneath him.” So, in order to keep His Royal Hiney-ness from having to do such menial labor, I returned to work. As a result, my life became busier but was still manageable. However, instead of being happy that I had a good work-home balance for our family and that I was bringing home a paycheck, he felt sad and neglected, and he started up his A about a year later.
So, I resent that I was trying to do right by my family and be responsible, and he took offense to that because it meant fewer ego kibbles for him. There’s just no understanding crazy.
There are too many to list, but I wanted to chime in on this one, for my xH was fond of talking about HIS money, because we had separate bank accounts during most of our marriage. While I worked part time, in order to be home as much as possible with the kids, he worked full time, about 5 minutes from home, 4 days a week, including nights, weekends, and holidays. There were times I felt like a single mom, because when our kids were babies, it was really tough getting 3 in diapers down for bed, keeping them entertained all day or night, etc., and paying bills on my part-time salary. It was tough. He would often disappear for hours to go on bike rides or walks or take naps on his days off, leaving me to take care of the kids, as well. He would not accompany us to the kids’ games, school events, etc. He didn’t want to go on vacations with us. His excuse was always that his back hurt. I was not allowed to touch “his” money. If I asked for help, he would punish me with guilt. If he did anything around the house I would praise him and feel guilty that he was working so hard.
We have the same degree and earning potential, which is really quite comfortable. While we saved for retirement, we did not save for our children’s college education. The plan was for me to return to work full time as soon as the youngest got into high school, at which point the first would go to college. And that is what I did. Luckily, I love my job. xH hated his job, though he was good at it and won “excellence” awards, etc. He was well liked at his work, but he resented his job. He resented when I would counsel the kids to honor their father for working so hard (allllllllll the “over-time” he was putting in, too!) when his back hurt! He resented the fact that I was happy at work.
xH listed as ONE reason for having an affair that I worked full time and he was lonely at home. But on the other hand, he howled at having to split our assets 50:50 in the divorce, “I WORKED FULL TIME AND YOU ONLY WORKED PART TIME!”
Yep. Sayonara. Sucks to suck, idiot.
That’s great. I went back to college (at 42), to get my degree, he pouted the whole time, refused to go to my graduation dinner ‘I’m tired, you go without me’. AND started his damn affair in my last semester when I had to pass the Nat’l x-ray boards. He was lonely, yep, that’s what he said too!
Patty, don’t you realise that your reason for living was to serve him and to make sure he didn’t get bored with himself? Because god forbid he support your dreams, put your needs ahead of his once in awhile or notice that your aspirations were as important as his. YOu nut! How dare you think that you were an equal person to him and had the right to focus on yourself as well as him and sometimes do things for yourself and that he, as an equal partner, would carry his part of the bargain!
We chumps are crazy in thinking that what we give will come back to us in a relationship.
I was a total servant. I’m embarassed now, that I used to be PROUD of that! What was I thinking? That he would return the favor? Nope, it only escalated until he needed to stop working so he could smoke and watch TV all day, and then she came across the street to join him!
At least I got the truth now, here, not stupid anymore! (Though he still tries, but I refuse to play!)
I realise now that I was quite the servant and yes, I was proud of being this person who could manage everything and keep everyone on track. All it did was give him the freedom to do what he wanted, which was bone other people. Now the kids pitch in and the house isn’t as clean and we eat more takeout but at the end of the day we’re happier and more in harmony than we ever were before.
I bet if you hadn’t gotten a job, he would have complained that you didn’t help out financially – and had an affair.
I didn’t get the job, mainly because that night was dday and I was a wreck for months after.
Mine never got me anything – anything (not even a card) – for Mother’s Day. “You’re not *my* mother.” Funny, I felt like just that for 12 years. And every Father’s Day, I’d go all out and try to show him how it should be done…He never picked up on that.
He also met his work girlfriend at a football tailgate four days after we had a HUGE fight about an email I found from her – very flirtatious, despite the fact that he told me he had cut it off with her. She lives 2000 miles away and he swears he had No Idea she was coming. Partied with our friends and MY SON. (I couldn’t go to the game, as I was so devastated after DDay). I texted him like a crazy woman that day, because I just felt something was up…I was right. Vindicating, that…Oh, and those friends are not friends with him anymore.
My favorite to this day and it still riles me is when he’d come home from work with a $5k bike on the back of his truck, a a triathalon he was thinking of doing (never actually did and we had a total of about 5 or 6 bikes worth over $5k each + 2 mountain bikes worth over $4k each) or he’d come home with a new suit that he just ordered – min cost? $4k – Canali and Armani are expensive….when I’d bitch, I’d get told listen honey – one of us has a real job and the other doesn’t so shouldn’t say anything and besides, my money is for me and your money is our money….the kicker? I make more than him….arg, it still burns me how much he spent on shit he didn’t use or need.
Ha…mine came home once all red faced and sweaty. I asked what was up. He had gone out and bought a very, very expensive, top of the line racing bicycle. Two days after my computer blew up and he said he’d rather I waited to buy a new one until the next month. The best part? He also bought the most expensive bike helmet, bike bag and other bike accessories…and they all fell apart within a couple of months.
I would love to know the correlation between cheating and triathletes. My husband has been cheating with a fellow married tri-bitch for 6 years.
I was amazed when I discovered the affair and the AP wasn’t a runner or triathlete.
She now has a 13 year older fuckwit with a bad hip that hasn’t even been seen walking together let alone running. I thought the affair partner would have been a hunk. Must have been for the money and prestige.
Yeah, mine went for his boss. I heard from my son that his boss has now bought him ATVs, motorbikes, dirt bikes, some water ski stuff and a snowmobile. Glad it’s her money now and not mine 🙂
God they are all the same person! Mine never got me anything for my BD, etc – it took me 20 yrs to get a wedding band that I wanted and then I kicked him out b/c he was ‘dating’ his boss and couldn’t figure out why I was mad. It was always about him and never about anyone else.
Mine will not win the prize, but they are my resentments:
1) I resent the lying:. While married ex H agreed with me and stood by me about punishment when the kids lied about something they did… Punishment was longer if they lied; lying is wrong…… But turns out he lied for 13 yrs about that first affair.
And now… ExH still insists the new wife was NOT an affair partner. He insists to daughter that I am lying. Instead I am the bad guy who was angry and bitter about my bipolar mother living in the house, so he retreated and became “numb.”
2) I resent that when I saw spouse retreating in the marriage (but he denied any problems when asked) I upped the attention, including PDA at work (!). I was uncomfortable giving kisses before walking into the classroom, but he wanted it, so I did it (we were college professors). He acknowledges that I did it. But in the end, it meant nothing because although I did that, I did not do __blah blah blah___. (fill in the blank).
A few months before dday one of the kids got caught in a massive lie. We sat that kid down and read the riot act, making said kid rectify the lie and much drama ensued. The whole point was that lying is bad and it’s even worse when it hurts another person directly.
Ex was, at that point, involved in several affairs, including the one with current OW-
Yup, they are all hypocrites.
Yuck…reading these reminds me of so many different things with Ex: he said he wasn’t getting enough attention during the first affair because I was working and had two small kids. The rest of them didn’t mean much but hey, he didn’t feel appreciated because he did so much for everyone. After I became a SAHM he apparently resented this (it was his idea so he could follow his career around the world) and one day a casual friend offered me a part time position in my field. This happened on dday. I remember meeting ex and some friends for drinks and told everyone about it. two hours later I discovered the current affair and you know what he said? I went behind his back to get a job and didn’t tell him. And it turned out she wasn’t the only affair and that he had been cheating for years.
Ah, fuck me. These people really suck.
YOU went behind HIS back to get a job while he was screwing around on you with the umpteenth AP?? That’s like blameshifting on crack.
I didn’t even go behind his back. I told him two hours after I spoke with the guy.
Here goes – me pregnant with our first child, us married for a couple of months, he going on a beach vacation by himself because he didn’t go the previous year. Should have divorced him back then at that same moment.
Hah, mine went to Hawaii by himself, you know, to Clear His Head, to Hike in Paradise (to fuck the OW). Everyone but me thought it was weird that I would let him go to Hawaii by himself, but I thought I was being a good wife, giving him space. He started organizing his time off for when the kids were in school…so…weird…well, not if you’re having an affair and getting ready to abandon your family, I suppose.
if I were your brother or father it would be last time that fucker hiked on two legs the same shape if anyone treated my daughter like this…my sister and I found out about it…the asshole would have about 2 months of eating thru a straw to think about his next hiking trip
My X’s destination of choice was Hedonism in Jamaica. And I was the chump who agreed he should go, because he had been unemployed for so long and needed the break from job hunting. Chumpy AND stupid.
…..mexico….alone (with the OW) for golfing and ‘quiet time’
We own a travel agency. We can run it remotely, so that was the excuse for him going to Thailand 4 times/year by himself. Apparently, he liked the warm weather and the calm, peacefulness of it, and it made his back feel better… he always had a bad back, and I was evil because I didn’t give him massages all the time for it… and part of the cheating was related to the fact that I never did nice things for him like that.
Of course, I didn’t find out about the above behaviour in Thailand, until a year ago, when he started up an on-shore infidelity (and as I later learned, it wasn’t his first, he’s had many over the past 10 years). He had been leaving me in the office every Friday to workout with his “personal trainer”, who was actually some 19 year old party girl who had such low self-esteem from being raped at 14, that she was willing to screw a 52 year old for whatever he would buy her. So he’d go to the Sheraton every week to screw her.
When I found out, he was about to take her to Thailand… she wanted a labiaplasty… because you know, young girls’ bits need enhancing…. Oh, but that was just “payment” for her helping him “work out” all those months.
So, chump that I was, when he cancelled the trip to Thailand with her because he wanted to “work on the marriage” and “reconcile”, I let him do that. We started spending more time together, going on more holidays together, and he seemed sincere. But something was still “off”. But you know, unicorns.
Flash forward to this August. First vacations we took separately in a year. I went to the US to see my family. He dropped me off at the airport and proceeded to the Sheraton for some action. In his words, “But it wasn’t very much, only 2 or 3 times while you were gone.” Oh, and my personal favourite: “Well, you were so mean and sarcastic to me all year, it made me feel bad.” So his reaction was to go screw someone again while purportedly “reconciling”with me, because my sarcasm and mistrust made him “feel bad”? Riiiight.
When we were first married, 20 years ago, I went back to the states before our wedding, and I had a last fling with an ex. He found out a couple years later. I was a dumb, nervous 23 year old, moving to a new country (Australia) and it was a big mistake, but I purposely didn’t go to the US again, to stay away from that guy and prove it was over. I wanted to talk about the fling, because I think even then I was feeling discarded and rejected by him, since the world revolved around him… and that’s probably what made me do it… but he wouldn’t discuss it.
He blames his current-day infidelities on that. Apparently, he was SO hurt by my fling 20 years ago, that it was necessary to punish us both by spending the next 20 years screwing Thai hookers and young girls. I don’t buy it.
But I did. I let him use that guilt to justify behaviour that surely would have happened anyway, and let him keep justifying it. It’s amazing how they condition you.
I am a month from DDay. I am glad a friend referred me to this site. I am packing to move back to the US after 20 years here, and packing 20 years of stuff into 3 suitcases, most of my adult life!
But I know that distance and no contact will help, and being around my family and friends in the US.
Here’s another one – his very best friend divorces his wife (a really nice, smart, devoted woman) and moves in with another woman, who at the time was on her 3rd marriage (and countless fuck buddies). A few years later husband sleeps with her. He forgets to turn off the location sharing on his “smart” phone, so the whole thing develops in front of my eyes. Stupid me decides to “save” the friend and tell none but my husband. Even more stupid me is “relieved” that the long distance (international borders) affair going on at the same time may not have been that important to husband anyway
I resent the fact that he was sleeping with both of us, with ZERO concern about getting her pregnant or giving me an STD. I resent having to go see my doc and tell him why I needed STD testing, then standing in line at the lab waiting for my turn to get my blood drawn and give urine samples.
I resent all the money we spent on attorneys, and, yet, I appreciate having a good attorney.
You know, most of my resentment has been turned around back on him. What used to feel like hurt and anger, I now see as a direct reflection on the sort of spineless coward that he is. Good riddance, ick!
I resent not having filed for divorce yet
Get on that AHA!
Two things I do not want to forget (but someday hope to be meh about
Leaving me to do the bulk of planning and packing for a big family vacation abroad that we had been planning, saving for, and looking forward to for close to two years, and then cancelling with two days notice, and leaving me to handle all the cancelling, in a language I don’t speak. Then being angry that I was upset about it all. Then spending all his time “at work,” leaving me at home with a houseful of kids angry that their vacation had just been cancelled. Then deciding to dump me because I “got upset about the vacation being cancelled, and he had to cancel, because, work, you know.”
I also resent his disregard for our kids. “Well, every kid gets traumatized by something in their childhood, may as well be this.” His exact frickin’ words.
Don’t you know?? CHILDREN ARE RESILIENT!
Raise your hand if you heard that one. Oh, I see–everyone heard that one.
Yeah, I resent that one the most.
Frankly I resent myself for picking a loser to be my children’s father.
I resent Ex telling me that OWs father cheated on her mother and she got over it within a year so our kids would be fine. Not. Even. Kidding.
Lowest quote on that subject, he wrote his AP: “they will resent us for a while, but will get over it” – so the worst thing that would happen to our (and her) kids would be still… about THEM!
I got to read that quote in a long letter full of drivel that our MC instructed him to write, to see the pros and cons of staying in our marriage or not. We were in false reconciliation then and this letter should have been a red flag if there was one… unfortunately it took me still more months of immense hurt to come to grip with all the lies and deceit.
Looking back at the letter, it is almost hilarious. Things like “I will have to buy you [AP] a car”, “we will have to try and be present at each others divorce proceedings”… the worst things of ending our marriage. Staying in it: he wasn’t sure I could change. I was controlling. (Hey, there I am!)
Tell me… why do I feel such freedom now? As if a weight has lifted of my shoulders. And not just mine. The children stated during the holidays that I just gave them choices, with dad its just only what he wants.
Well, now that one of the kids refuses to spend time with final OW she and ex have decided that this is because I’ve ‘brainwashed’ him. You know, because the kid couldn’t figure out for himself that this slag doesn’t really want anything to do with him, she just wants to make nice so that the ex will think she’s fabulous. My other one has figured it out–she tolerates him because it suits her purposes but she’s around less and less when he’s at his dad’s. It pretty much sucks.
Mine’s also convinced I’ve “brainwashed” the girls, talking smack about him. I didn’t have to. All my girls had to see was me, a crying, sobbing, mess, frequently ill – all because of him.
He filed for divorce without telling me. When I told the kids he filed, he got mad – I guess it was supposed to be a secret. “You’re making me out to be the bad guy!” he said.
Newsflash, idiot: you ARE the bad guy! Jeesh…
Mine told me, shortly after dday, that I needed to keep quiet about all the other affairs as I had done enough damage with telling them about the final OW and he didn’t want the kids to think he was out screwing around all the time. Funny thing is, he WAS out screwing around all the time so why not just own up…or did he think it was WRONG???
My story is that when I bitched about all the text messages he sent her (more in 1 month to her than to me in our entire relationship) he said ” it’s not like we could date!” And when I bitched about no protection during sex he said ” she is clean.” I’m a nurse–trust me you cannot tell by looking!!! She’s clean but her husband would fuck anything that walked and she had sex with him but she’s clean???? Wtf ever. I could go on but these two galled me to no end.
Wow…just WOW!
My husband did the “SC Governor Mark Sanford” thing with a French woman we met on vacation. He “vacationed” twice with her in France last year, after me begging him not to go and trash our 30 year marriage. I do find it illuminating about his view of himself, but also resent his response, when I ask him what he is learning about himself from therapy. My favorite H response: He is learning that it is OK to put himself first. Needless to say, I was speechless. Yikes, you cannot make this stuff up.
It’s okay to put HIMSELF first, but NOT okay for you to put YOURSELF first.
You’re right – you can’t make this up.
Yeah, that’s the thing that I keep going back to. After dday he had a big old list of reasons for what had happened and it started to occur to me that everything he said was what HE wasn’t doing. It’s kind of impressive, the projection. And he still does it all the time. Sends me emails that are pure projection.
My mother became ill one day and was admitted to the hospital. She almost died. I asked my husband to pick me up from work, so we could go see her. He said he couldn’t go, because he had to go to a Very. Important. Work. Banquet.
So my college-aged daughter and I drove to the hospital ourselves, while he got all dressed up and went to his “work event.” I held my mom’s hand for three hours as all the doctors and nurses came and went, wondering if she’d last the night.
After leaving the hospital, exhausted – my daughter and I went to a local coffee shop downtown. I saw a familiar shirt walk by outside the front window.
It was my husband on a date with another woman, walking down the street. I went out and confronted him. He tried to lie. The woman, bless her heart, walked over, shook my hand and asked how I knew this man. As we stood there shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped, she explained he was actively involved on a dating site and had strongly pursued her for three months. It was their first date.
Of course, he had lied about everything to her. Said he was single, no kids – he even lied about his first name.
Totally f*g surreal just standing there shaking that woman’s hand as we stood side by side, staring at this unbelievable lying a*hole, while my mother was lying up in a hospital. We both left in opposite directions after that. He went chasing after her (big surprise.)
Oh, and to top it off: this all happened just a couple of days before Mother’s Day.
I started packing my stuff that night and moved out within a month. Sadly it is only one of many epic WTF moments in my life with that serial cheater.
So I guess this is one of my big resentments…one of my mom’s and my daughter’s too. Luckily my mom made a full recovery.
Oh, and what did he say when I confronted him at home that night? “I just wanted a normal relationship, for once…one that was real….”
Yeah. Turns out “normal and real” meant dating and screwing at least 12-18 other women over the course of 7 years (he always dated more than one at a time.) But that’s a story for another day.
Wow. This is a contender.
Can you imagine that woman’s Date From Hell story? I was on my first date when his WIFE introduces herself?
Worse for you and your daughter, of course. OMG. Real and normal… he wouldn’t know it if he fell into a punchbowl of it at a workplace banquet.
He can’t even reveal his real first name to someone he says he wants a real relationship with. Bog. gle.
these are the kind of dudes who say that they are looking for chemistry first and foremost on their dating profile. Translation:
I’m looking for a fuckbuddy and nothing else.
I actually despise that word.
in fact, when I hear it, I run in the opposite direction.
And I complained about not getting a gift for Mother’s Day…Good God.
I don’t know where I first heard this word, but **amazeballs** to this story, SummerGirl. Amazeballs. That is the only word in my head reading this exchange between you, the XH and the date. I’m guessing it was opposites day when he used the word “real”.
OMG, SummerGirl – I am SO sorry! I can’t even imagine.
This is why I’ve shied away from dating sites. Not only do most of the guys on there look like a rumpled mess, I often wonder how many are married.
Apparently, I now have trust issues…
I guess I’ve already posted a zillion times how he left his cyber sex open on MY laptop for me to read on July 5th, 2006. He was also discussing the size of my breasts to a woman.
Oh, could write a book on this topic, But, what hurt me the most was how he allowed his family to bully me.
We went on our honeymoon five months after our wedding to South Africa where his family lived. I had only spent a few days with his mother at the time of our wedding. (In true chump fashion, I paid for her ticket so that she could come.) His sister, husband and nephew, aged two, stayed in our apartment for a few days a few months before we got married. I liked his very much and we had some good talks. I had never met his father who couldn’t figure out how to come to his son’s wedding. We stayed in a lovely guest house on his sister’s property on a cliff overlooking the ocean in Cape Town. One evening, we were given a party in our honor. How lovely. The servants even ironed my linen jacket. It was never so unwrinkled! Earlier that day it was around 1:00 and all the servants and SIL were busy, busy, busy, making the chopped pickled herring and all of the other many, many delicacies being prepared in our honor. I didn’t want to disturb anyone, but I was totally famished and no one had made any mention of lunch, so I saw a large bag of potato chips and I opened it up and helped myself to a handful which I put on a plate and ate gingerly so as not to make any crumbs. After a minute or so, SIL sees this and shouts at me like the house is on fire.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? THOSE ARE FOR THE PARTY TONIGHT!!!
I was mortified. Husband appears and just stands there like a deer in the headlights. I looked at him and was horrified that he wasn’t going to say anything to her. I ran out of the house in tears and sat on the cliff for hours, just crying and crying… finally, husband shows up…
“come back Wawa. (his nickname for me) I want you to come back.”
me: aren’t you going to say something to her?
him: no, I don’t know what goes on between the two of you.
I meant to say that I liked his SISTER very much.
Ummm, did she forget you were the guest of honor? Note to self- always watch the family, before you get too involved!
Good advice. Ex’s family is highly dysfunctional. Anything that goes wrong in anyone’s life is always somebody else’s fault. Oh, and they freeze out people who don’t agree with them. Funnily enough, when I went NC on the lot of them because they were being such asses I was accused of freezing out anyone who doesn’t agree with me. The whole family is pure projection in their dealings with people. It’s pretty sick.
bingo.
No time for Project Resentment 😉
I have decided that I will soon engage in something more self-indulgent that I couldn’t ever get around to doing while married. I call it “Project Ultra-Geek” (PUG).
I’m gonna build an HTPC media center to go under my big TV in the rec room. I have splurged for the parts, and they should arrive in mere days, and then I expect a week or more of PMG to be the “Busy Obsessive Phase” (BOP) while I get the thing tweaked out, and then my hope is that on cold Winter evenings when I have nothing much else to do, I can move spend some time “Programming, Innovating and Gaming” (PIG).
That’s my plan: PUG, BOP, then PIG.
I’ll try to work in a social life if I have time between working and the PUGing, BOPping, and PIGging 😉
Going to build a mean Windows 8.x rig (to be upgraded to 8.1 in October):
1 xSILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel Grandia Series SST-GD08B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
1 xASRock Z87 Extreme6/ac LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
1 xIntel Core i7-4770 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I74770
1 xKingston HyperX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX16C9K2/16
1 xSilverStone Argon Series AR02 CPU Cooler with 92mm Fan for socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/2011, AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2
1 xSeagate Barracuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive -Retail kit
1 xKingston HyperX SATA III 120GB SSD
1 xEVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2771-KR GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card
1 xLG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner, Bare Drive, 3D Play
1 xMicrosoft Windows 8 Professional 64-bit (Full Version)
1 xNVIDIA GIFT Batman Arkham Origins
1 xKensington K72356US Black 3 Buttons 1 xWheel USB Wired Optical Mouse
1 xSILVERSTONE SST-ST75F-G Evolution 750W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Power Supply
1 xRosewill RK-700M Black USB Wired Multimedia Keyboard
1 xLogitech MK710 Black RF Wireless Ergonomic Desktop
I have no idea what any of this is, but I’m sure you’re having lots of fun with it. Good for you! I hope you and your Seagate Barracuda are very happy together. 😉
TimeHeals–Nice rig!
It occurs to me that divorce will mean upgrading on so many levels, but upgrading my gaming rig will also be on the list. I already bought the case. The CoolerMaster HAF 922 went on a very nice sale, so I bought it. I’d like to swing dual video cards, but will have to have a post-divorce place to live.
Your post was fun. 🙂
Heck, you could probably stuff water-cooling in that box.
I’m stuck with air cooling because I need something to fit on a shelf that’s 10 inches from the shelf above it, and the GD08 is about the same height as my Sony receiver, so I am stuck with an air cooler that must come in at less than 140mm, and the AR02 does that at 138mm (leaves me 8mm gap between cooler and the top of the enclosure).
So … no over-clocking except on the GPU, and that is stock over-clocked, and it’s a model of 770 that exhausts completely out the back of the case because I am air cooling.
So… some concessions were made, but nothing like I have made for years and years and years while married (haven’t had a rig that could play a decent game since before I got married, so… this is a big step up for me). Already working out how I can use my Kindle Fire as a remote for the thing when using it as a media/cloud server. Might add RAID drives later if I can do it without raising case temps.
My hope is that by next weekend I have Intel RapidStart, Win 8, Splashtop 2 set up, and a few games installed.
I’ll add that one of my big resentments is that while I did a lot of stuff that STBX really liked doing, he never made an effort to do anything of what I liked.
My family played board games back when we were kids. I love games. I love the social aspect. I play online since STBX won’t play board games, either. But I play games only outside of family time. STBX resents my time playing games. He thinks I should get up when he gets up, go to sleep when he goes to sleep, and basically hang around him unless he wants to do something that he wants to do.
Enjoy the new rig!
Very nice specs! You might check out CyberPower before you build it yourself, I’ve been using them to build my boxes for the last 6 years and found the cost only slightly higher. I am better with software than hardware so it’s worth a hundred bucks for me to have someone else build it and a single place for warranty issues. Right now I’m trying to spec out the new TV 🙂
Ohhhhh, I am so envious of your plan and system. It will be an amazing rig, and I hope the project is as BOP as you hope it will be.
Whhoooooowwww, new gear! Nice setup. I’m a geek from way back (punchcards, anyone?) and am still amazed that the default unit for memory is now a terrabyte. Amazed, yet somehow still appalled that we actually need that much.
I’m trying hard to “meh” the many, many insults I now see in hindsight, but just to keep this on topic – I think the thing I am saddest about is that whenever I tried to carve out some space for my life in this house STBX took it over. One year the kids persuaded him to buy me a new computer, all whistles and bells, and I got to write and game or all of three weeks in the spare room I set up as a study. Next thing I knew he decided to leave his laptop at work (a Ferrari laptop, I swear to goddess, Ferrari Red and made a racing car noise when you started it up…) because it was “too inconvenient” to haul the six blocks home in the new truck his company had leased for him. And then after dinner, when I finally had a chance to write, he would ensconce himself in front of “my” computer for “just a few minutes, to look a few things up”, and that was it for the night. I can only imagine now what he was really doing into the wee hours, but I don’t care anymore.
First thing I did when I kicked him out was get a netbook so I always have a computer handy. I also updated my desktop box with a new keyboard, hard drive, video card, monitor, and a spiffy new case with a blue neon light just because I could. Kinda the geek equivalent of a new bed and sheets, I guess! And now I write and correspond and cruise the net whenever I damn well want to. Yes!
New place after the divorce will have a kickass system including sound. I’m looking forward to that. I was always way better at the tech stuff than he was, I see now, and it’s so much fun working with it again, no comments, criticisms, or sabotage.
Ex went to Las Vegas for a family reunion. I stayed home, because our son was young and we didn’t have enough money for us all to go anyway. Ex sent me a text that he had gone dancing. I pressed for more info; he had run into a friend of his in Vegas and they had gone to some bar and picked up a pair of strange women for dancing. I was mad and told ex how inappropriate that was. He got enraged, went off on me through texts telling me there was nothing wrong with what he had done, they were just dancing and maybe we should get divorced. That was the first time he had EVER said anything like that.
He then put up a lengthy facebook status asking: “If a married man dances with female coworkers at a work function, is there anything wrong with that?” I got even angrier, because of course, that was NOTHING like what he had actually done. He got all sorts of replies saying the scenario he described was fine. Ex then used that to show how I was totally unreasonable, and everyone else thought I was crazy. Total gaslighting.
He insisted his facebook post had NOTHING to do with the Vegas incident, he just “liked asking hypothetical questions” to read what people replied. Yeah, just a coincidence he posted that the day he came back from Vegas. And he had NEVER ONCE posted anything hypothetical prior to that.
Looking back now, I realize he had to have fucked the women in Vegas, his over-the-top reaction indicates something a lot more than just dancing with a strange woman in a bar. I think it’s quite reasonable to be upset your husband picked up strange women in a bar in Vegas for dancing, or anything else. But he twisted the entire situation to make me into the unreasonable, bitchy out-of-touch wife. He never apologized for that incident. No doubt in my mind now that a lot more than dancing went on there.
I also found (as I’m sure many here have) that the over-the-top reaction was always indicative that there was way more going on. Not sure what that was about, but interesting…
I’m also thinking he could have found a legal brothel in Nevada about an hour away. My ex was big on trips to Vegas with friends. Once I asked to come along and he insisted I “wouldn’t be interested.”
I’m sorry, who has a family reunion in Las Vegas? What kind of people are these? Aren’t family reunions supposed to be in county parks with picnic tables or fire halls?
Ex once, early in our relationship, disappeared when we were out with a bunch of people, including his sister. I finally found him when I went to the toilet. He was sitting with two young women chatting. I walked past, grabbed my stuff, hopped in a cab and went home. HIs reaction? ‘My sister thinks you’re being ridiculous’. As in ‘Can’t you see? Other people don’t think you’re being reasonable therefore you’re not being reasonable’. I told him to piss off and we nearly broke up over this. Looking back I know I should have broken up with him as it was early days and he felt perfeclty fine flirting with two strange women for more than hour, thinking there was nothing wrong with this. While out for the evening with me and friends.
We’re on the East Coast. A few months before D-Day, XH flew to L.A. for a conference, then stopped in Denver for a day to see his mom. I thought that was nice…until he mentioned that after his mom went to bed @ midnight, he went and saw one of his female “friends” from high school, who was a nurse on the 11pm-7am shift. He told me he hung out at the nurses’ station with her until around 6 am, then went back to his mother’s because he had a 10 am flight.
R-i-g-h-t. When I demanded to know who this woman was and why he went to her work, he said they’d been exchanged emails for a while and he just wanted to catch up with her in person.
All this while he was also carrying on with OW. No wonder I never saw him that spring…
So many of these stories resonate so much with me. Do all these cheaters read from the same playbook?
Gah!
I think for me what I resent the most is the years I wasted on him. When I think about the time spent paddling and getting nowhere because I was the only one with an oar in the water. He was content to just sit in the boat and let me do all the work.
15 years. Time I will never get back.
One particular asshole moment was when I was pregnant with our son. We were moving to a bigger place, because, new baby. So me 7 months pregnant and him being so concerned with my well being, decided that he and a friend would go to the new house and clean carpets so that I wouldn’t have to do all that hard work. This friend of course was an AP, who had the gall to be so happy for us and the new baby. Such a supportive chum to dive in and help us out, all the while they were fucking.
My exH was an asshole, don’t get me wrong, but what kind of fucked up woman knowingly goes after a married guy with a baby on the way??
And then cleans the carpets? A desperate OW, that’s who. Wow.
Ya just can’t make this shit up!
XH’s OW pet sat while we were out of town, but the idiot shut the basement door so the cat couldn’t get to the litter box and the kitty peed on the floor. The house smelled horrible for days. I told XH I thought she was a moron and I wondered how she’d gotten into grad school.
I should have known something was up when he apologized profusely and cleaned up the mess HIMSELF instead of telling me to do it. I found out later that he bought OW lingerie as a “thank you” for pet sitting.
After Dday 1, we were trying reconciliation. I was working out of town for a while so I asked him to visit. It was the first time I was actually asking him for something. The night before, he would not pick up the phone. He told me it was because OW who worked with him had messed up big time at her job that day. Great! They were lovers and now on top of it I have to endure my husband’s bad moods when she fucks up at her job. He could have at least picked one that is good at her job….
The next day, he arrives. He is still grumpy at first but he manages to shake it by midday. The afternoon and the evening are great. We talk a lot, go the a great restaurant, have fun for the first time since DDay. The next week I tell my therapist that I think we are going to make it. I’m encouraged by his visit.
Three months later, I went through his emails (something was just wrong) and found so many message sounding like: “OW, hang in there, I’m driving M. to the airport tomorrow afternoon. We can have diner tomorrow night”. The same day, he had sent me a love message about how happy he was that I would be home permanetly in a couple months, how he loves having me around him… I resent that he could’nt wait for me to be gone while I was truly suffering to be going away.
The worst email I found was the one he had sent that “great” night he had visited me: “M. is in the shower. I tried so hard not to email you, but our attraction is just too strong. I don’t know what I am doing here. I wish I had stayed with you to take care of you. I’ll be back tomorrow”…… many more things I cannot repeat.
I soooo resent those lies, the false hope and most of all, I resent the energy I spent fixing this when he was writting those things. I had spent so much energy on the fixing the marriage that when dday 2 hit me I had none left for myself. Took me three years to leave after that. What a mess. It’s unbelievable. In retrospect, I should perhaps resent myself for not leaving after dday 1, when I still had the energy. The reconciliation thing is so consumming in chump energy. I had none left to leave when I knew it was over.
Oh….and I incredibly resent both STD screanings I add to go through… When the doctor (who knows you) asks: have you had unprotected sex? And you have to answer while fixing the floor “not me, my husband”… It’s beyond humiliating.
When my doctor became concerned about symptoms he thought indicated cancer, he got me in to see a surgeon who put me on his schedule for a biopsy the very next day. Obviously something was seriously wrong. STBX took the day off & drove me to the hospital but we had to wait since I was last on the surgery schedule. Despite the fact that I was nervous, scared & in pain, STBX left me there after about 15 minutes & went home to watch a baseball game. He was not present when the surgeon told me the tunor was malignant.
You can imagine how helpful he was during months of chemo, radiation & the three weeks total I spent in the hospital. I came home to find a big basket of dirty towels in the guest room. Of course he never considered quitting smoking. After treatment & recovery I felt so glad to be alive that I never told him I resented his shitty behavior during that time. When it came up in one of our few counseling sessions, he accused me of “playing the cancer card!”
I still resent him leaving me in the waiting room that day. Who does that?
Also, when I asked him him if he’d ever met the mad cow who’d sent me a menacing message on Facebook (their online hanky panky was less than discrete), he said he might have met her once. Oh, he’d met her once. One weekend when I was away, she flew cross country to fuck my STBX who she’d previously only known on FB. She knew he was married. So was she. I later learned that the skank took a picture of their hotel room number & posted it as her FB cover photo along with details of their weekend fuckfest. I didn’t find out these details until a year later. He lied to me for a long time, had a secret phone, secret email accounts, etc. It’s going to take awhile to get to meh but this site & the people here are helping me more than anything else.
Oh Martha, how dare you get sick! tsk tsk… and then you have the gall to play the “cancer card” on top of it?????????
the word, “monster” comes to my mind.
seriously. if you hold him down, I gladly rip his fucking eyes out!
btw, I always say this, but there is no “might” and there is no “once” He’s a dog turd infested with crawling worms. (actually, that might be too good. I love dogs!)
big ((((((hugs)))))) honey and how are you doing now, health-wise?
Hi Martha,
I am so glad to hear that you have your bad ass in action now. He should be arrested for his cruelty, abuse and inhumanity and given shock treatment in an electric chair!!!
When you wrote “Who does that?” It brought back memories of my saying that in response to many things my a hole did as that is what I said to myself and to him many times. Then finally I realized only completely damaged a holes do that and I want to be as far away as possible so I left.
Clearly the answer is they do that all the time! These they’s are sickos who in my opinion can not change because their perception of the world is backwards and upside down, kind of like a camera obscura. They could never see things based in reality or where they feel any pain.
Wishing you nothing but good things now and going forward!!!
xoxoDeborah
my A- hole left me waiting outside on the street for him for 20 minutes after a very painful test. He “got caught up” at work. The following surgery left me with one ovary and fallopian tube, and when I awoke in recovery, my doctor said he couldn’t reach my husband. My mother came and waited with me till A- hole showed up, at which point the nurse wheeled me out to the curb. A hole rolled down his window, took his cell away from his ear, and said, ” are you coming”?!? Fast forward to the birth of my twins…. recently paralyzed with Bell’s Palsy and 6 days since an emergency C-section, we take a ride to Babies r us for some supplies. A-hole gets into the drivers seat and proceeds to make a phone call. I, being an even bigger A-hole lifted all of the boxes into the back of his truck. (he never helped with anything and always said I should do it all because he works so hard and earns a good living) When I sat down, my incision opened entirely and blood and fluids came pouring out of me. He ran away and got sick and called my mother to come help.
This left me speechless. What a monster.
WOW. Just WOW. Leaving you waiting for a cancer biopsy to watch baseball. I’d like to mail you a mug right this second.
The STBX was useless when I was sick, but I see from today’s comments that callous disregard for the chump’s health is not unusual. They just can’t stand it when anyone else’s needs come first, for any reason. Even their own kids. How dare we get ill, or have babies, or aging parents? How dare we inconvenience them with serious life problems? How dare we ever ever ever put anyone’s needs before theirs?
Laurel, thanks for getting angry on my behalf (validation!) & for asking how I am. I have no evidence of cancer now & since DDay have been rowing, working out & taking krav maga – a self-defense class. STBX moved out just weeks after our house was ransacked & robbed. The window the robbers broke to gain entry hadn’t even been replaced. I felt pretty vulnerable on every level so took control of what I could. Five months later, I feel pretty badass & don’t look bad either. But if I ever need a second in a duel with this jerk, I’m calling on you, Laurel!
Wow Martha, they deserve one another. Narcissist freaks.
Dear CL– Thanks for mentioning the Amadeus story. I must say though, it’s not my main resentment, just one among many….. the actress in question was his best friend’s wife. The friend he told all about his escapades. The same couple we had over for dinner, and whom I fed copious casseroles to (yes, even in New England we do that!) for health emergencies, while they knew my husband was a whore-fucking lying bastard and didn’t tell me…. but I don’t really blame her for the fact that my wasband had a hard on for her, I do not believe it was mutual.
I’m angrier at him for what he’s done post-Dday: the lying, the coverups, all that shit. Not even worth contending for a cup, it’s so plebeian. For example, the other day I decided to find out exactly what Adult Fuck Finder really looked like, so I created account. What did I find but his OLD account from when we were “married…and he says he’s married, and his tag line?:
“So a duck walks into a bar…not really sure why I started with that since I’m really crummy at telling jokes. Let’s try again. A duck walks into a bar and orders a beer….wait…was it a beer? Maybe it was something else. Was it even a duck?”
Ick.
And you should see the CraigsList ads. Those completely slay me. It’s beyond resentment, into the territory of scarred for life. Telling women he meets that they are the most beautiful, have incredible eyes, describing their outfits down to the smallest detail.
This from a man who never, and I mean never, could stir himself to give me a compliment or a kind word about my appearance (I’m not a monster! honest…) and who, after 25 years, still never knew what I wore, what I liked to eat, where I liked to go…Methinks I should have seen the writing on the wall a long time ago.
But, the costumes were beautiful!
yes, a limp dumbfuck duck who’s gotten himself mired in the muck.
good luck!
you suck!
One day my husband came home & announced he had been asked by a co-worker & friend of ours (or so I thought at the time) to make a cake for her mother’s 50th birthday. No surprise there as he fancies himself as a hot shot chef even though his job mainly involves pressing buttons on a microwave.
There is a craft & baking place near where I work so I chumpily trotted over there one lunchtime & purchased a cake stand, gold edible glitter & some beautiful cream coloured sugar craft roses to adorn his creation.
The day of the grand cake bake my husband decides to tackle this task drunk (he was drunk a lot of the time) late at night. The next morning I surveyed the cake carnage, removed the bottom of the cake tin which was still attached to the half iced cake, covered its imperfections with a fresh coat of chocolate ganache & carefully put it in a tin for transportation to the party
My husband returns from work with a new shirt & announces that he is off to the party (‘It’s not that you’re not invited, just didn’t think you’d want to go’) & skips off with his cake masterpiece not to be seen again until lunchtime the next day.
When challenged on the appropriateness of attending a female friend’s family party without his wife & getting so drunk he ‘slept on her sofa’ he accused me of making him feel ‘unwelcome’ in his own home. Well I suppose auditioning for your future in laws behind my back might have that effect.
Those sugar craft roses cost me £12.99. That still pisses me off. Apparently everyone enjoyed the cake though.
Ha! The ultimate cake eater!
I’d like him to choke on those sugar craft roses.
More resentment: He told the kids that final OW had nothing to do with the divorce, that it was the fault of both him and me and OW was innocent. Well, the way I see it is that he and OW are why we divorced and yes, she had quite a bit to do with it, as she was meeting him whenever she could, texting and emailing and FBing with him when he was at home with the family and was sending him pictures of her watoosi. Yes, I do believe that she had soemthing to do with it but since she was just one of quite a few I think really it’s all him.
The kids won’t believe him, though.
That’s exactly what my husband tells anyone who’ll listen. He’d been focusing all his attention on the OW for more than a year & lying about it, but she had nothing to do with our split? I’m happy to set the record straight for anyone who cares to know but there aren’t many buying his crap. Most importantly, my son doesn’t believe this BS & resents being lied to on top of being neglected & abandoned.
Oh yeah, mine will tell whomever will listen, that the reason we split up was irreconcilable differences…..I tell them yes, he is right. When he sticks his dick in into his boss and doesn’t see anything wrong with it….we have irreconcilable differences 🙂
I resent that I just found out ex is back with his first OW and I still give a shit. I want to be totally meh.
Another one: Ex wouldn’t clean the toilet because it was ‘gross’. This goes along with the fact that we kept moving into expensive places and I was doing all the cleaning, cooking, etc. I kept saying that I was working full time (more hours than him) and it was getting too much (this was pre-kids). His response? He made more money than me so was paying more of the bills thus it was only fair that I do more of the cleaning (I was doing it all). So I said let’s move into a cheaper place where we both can equally share the bills. Nope, he wouldn’t have it.
He likes sparkles and showing off.
I can commiserate. I was doing all the cleaning, cooking, child care AND yardwork, yet ex complained that I wasn’t making enough money in my part time job, as if to insinuate that I was being lazy by staying home with the kids. I was so exhausted from it all, I used some of my personal money to pay to have someone else mow the lawn so I would have enough energy to do the rest of the gardening. Pretty pathetic that I identify with Dobby, the house elf. S.P.E.W.!
I have lots to choose from but the one that I’m particularly resentful about, happened after I went back after affair #1. I had moved back home to try and work on our marriage. I was still coming out of the hurt from the first affair, but knew things were still off. I knew affair 1 wasnt completely out of the picture but I had suspicions that my husband was now messing around with a different co-worker. I expressed my concerns but were told they were just friends. My husband had a work company picnic that he had been talking about for sometime that he really wanted me to go to. Being a normal, rational person…I thought to myself…surely he wouldn’t be messing around if he was asking me and my daughter to go to the company picnic. Right?!?
Nope…
I found out for sure a week later that they were f*** buddies. Only after he paraded me and his beautiful wife in front of his entire office. I was even stopped to say hi and thank her for the girls clothing (her daughter is older and gave my husband some clothes for our daughter (I know disgusting!!). So our daughters played and then she posted pics of them together on Facebook.
I also was subjected to playing corn hole with her. All the while, my husband acted as cool as a cucumber.
After I had my confirmation they were having an affair, I never felt more like a chump in my life!!!!
I can’t tear myself away from this site today – it’s like every post I read is someone talking about my life. My God, how many of these losers are out there? Is there some vast Clone Conspiracy happening that we are just becoming aware of?
I did have a blinding flash of realization today. Since the day of the Great Revelation (ILYBINILWY, etc etc etc) I’ve been really down on myself as to why I was so snowed by this idiot, me, an intelligent, well educated, high functioning woman, for so many, many years. Reading these stories I think I have realized that some of it come from every “incident” having the same weight with him, which kept me tremendously unbalanced.
It occurs to me that in these louts’ minds CL’s 2:1 spaghetti sauce would equal river’s “she never pushes the chair in!” would equal martha’s awful, awful ordeal would equal SummerGirl’s “Meet the Girlfriend” experience. That how my STBX saw everything, all equivalent, all equally annoying to him, not that he should do anything about it – but every irritation to him should be immensely important to everyone else, and dealt with immediately to his satisfaction! (or ignored, or gaslighted, or re-written, depending on what worked for him).
Toddler world. Except that they never grow up. No wonder I was off-balance all the time, questioning my perceptions – I expected him to be behaving like an adult, stupid chumpy eternally optimistic person that I used to be.
Healing thoughts to everyone. It does, it must get better.
Right before dday, ex and I were at a big family holiday party. My uncle happens to be one of the top divorce attorneys in the country. Ex cornered my uncle, and for over an hour pressed him for information, saying his sister was having marriage problems and needed info. Ex found out all he could about what his “sister” could expect in alimony and child support. My uncle even did the state program that calculates what is owed, all that sort of stuff.
We got home from the party, and ex immediately said he was taking the dog for a walk. Headed out with his cell phone in hand and was gone for two hours. He had NEVER taken the dog for a walk without me before. Came home and had little to say to me. The next night, he did the same thing. The day after, he dumped me while we were sitting in a coffee shop, although he denied having OW.
Well, of course it’s obvious to anyone he used my uncle to get info for the OW and for himself. Ex vehemently denied he had used my uncle in this way, insisting it was info for his sister. Even after we tried the bogus reconciliation, he was very angry that my family saw right through his actions, and said my uncle owed HIM an apology for not believing this info was for his sister. BTW, his sister has three kids, the OW has two. Ex told uncle this info was for a marriage with two kids.
oh two kids three, 18; anything goes! He’s a lying shithead.
a GAY lying shithead.
i am not joking.
he is sooooooooooo gay!
gay, gay, gay!!!
the vision of that large clumsy oaf is keeping me awake!
I’ve got a couple.
I helped her nurse her mother for two years through that poor woman’s final illness, and pretty much taking over all parenting duties for our daughter. That was immediately followed by her getting sentenced to home confinement (with the ankle bracelet) for shoplifting. The month after the bracelet came off, she started an affair.
A few weeks after D-Day, she was having a hard time understanding why I was so pissed off about the whole thing. We went to the location of my company’s picnic was to be held, only to discover I’d gotten the date wrong.
This sort of mistake would’ve normally occasioned a shitfit on her part, followed by a couple of weeks of smoldering resentment, followed by a new entry in the Life List of Things to Give Him Shit About When He Needs to be Taken Down a Notch.
Instead, she repeatedly and emphatically told that she forgave me! What, are you fucking kidding me? False equivalence much?
When she had family visiting (and I was secretly monitoring her movements) she snuck in a visit to her AP. After a long day of us both catering to them, she was resting on the bed. As I walked by, she held out her arms and said, “I need some TLC.” I replied, “I think you’ve had enough of that for one day already.”
When the divorce was already in motion but I was still in the house, I developed severe chest pain and had to ask her to take me to the emergency room. She insisted on coming in with me. Any breath deeper than a shallow gasp felt like someone sticking a knife in my side and twisting it. They loaded me up with pain meds that supplied a severe buzz but didn’t seem to touch the pain. I was a captive audience; she held my hand as the room seemed to whirl and I jumped with the pain of each breath, and kept asking me if I was feeling better, getting impatient that I wasn’t.
I got a break when they wheeled me off for a CAT scan. At some point the 2nd pain med started to work, they decided what I had was pleurisy, and sent me on my way. Pain free and a little less dizzy now, but still with half a pharmacy in my circulation, I shuffled out of the emergency room. As soon as we cleared the doors, she said, “I knew you didn’t need that CAT scan.”
Yikes, it’s like she’s some angel of death wanting you to die. Or feeling very inconvenienced that you might? But she needs a snuggle? Fuck that shit.
Thanks. I don’t know that it’s quite as macabre as that, but she is a really weird mix. She has relatives who are doctors, and managed a medical clinic for a while. She thinks she knows a lot more than she does, and likes to get involved with people’s health issues.
On the other hand, it was like pulling teeth to get her to spend on necessary health care for herself or the kids. She’d rather avoid any doctor visits and get her brother or SIL to write a prescription for something. I think that was the source of the comment about the CAT scan: that was going to generate another bill.
Some things are OK to spend money on. One day I had a car mishap, and caved in the rear hatch on her brother’s van. Her main beef with that? Having to pay for the repairs would take money that would’ve paid for 3 purses for her collection!
I discovered my STBX affair via phone text that were sexually explicit. When I confronted him he looked at me like I was mad and said, “What? What do you mean?” Repeat.
Also, when I asked him if his crazy AP (she had borderline personality disorder – no lie) knew where we lived so that I could be certain my child and I were safe he replied, “I’m not that big of an idiot.” Turns out he’d brought her to our family home and fucked her.
Nice.
This is way before Dday but shows what a entitled narristic person he is. He worked rotating swing shifts if AM he had to get up at 4. I would get up with him, make him a breakfast sandwich, pack his lunch make coffee and put out his meds. In the winter I would then go out and start the car for him so it would warm up. One morning he told me I didn’t start his car soon enough! Never did it again. As I type this I still can’t believe he would say something like that. There have been many others but this one took the cake.
I have been enjoying everyone elses best resentments.
hey – mine too. We have a one car garage and he went to work at 6am. I would get up and make his breakfast and start the car and same – one morning, I started the car too late and it was cold when he got in.
Donewit the question is did he EVER do that for you. Mine Never! I’d be out there on cold snowy mornings cleaning my car and his if he was leaving later than me!
mine did once, with an attitude, using a rake on every square surface of my new 745 iL BMW.
Nope – it was my job. As he let me know that he was working long hard hours that it was my job to make sure that the car was warm for him, snow removed and if possible, could I please shovel the walk to his car, so his $1,000 shoes wouldn’t get ruined – I kid you not.
I was responsible for my car too – never had him do the same for me in 20 yrs of marriage
Mine would have shoveled the drive, but then would have complained for the next week about how he broke his back doing so.
One of the big regrets is that we very rarely did any kind of household project together, and the reason I hated doing them is because he always whined about how he’d injured himself in the process. As a result, I’d tell him that he didn’t need to do that project, that we could hire someone, that I’d do it (in my non-existent spare time), etc. I’ve been involved in enough volunteer organizations to know that sharing chores builds bonds.
About 11:00 PM I realized I was in labor with our first baby. I left the bedroom so he could sleep. I timed the contractions all night on the couch and about 7:00 AM I woke him up to tell him that it was time to go to the hospital which was 40 minutes away. He asked if he could sleep a bit longer BECAUSE HE WAS TIRED.
That is really one of the most pathetic, self entitled things I’ve ever heard. They never fail to amaze me!
Are you kidding me!??!
And he would have blamed you if you had ended up delivering that baby on the couch and denied that he had ever asked for more time to sleep.
Again, there’s just no understanding crazy.
echo, you just reminded me of the exact same thing that happened to me. I was in labor at 2 am, timed them, made him a sandwich to take to the hospital, woke him up and he said, “Are you sure? Can I have a few more minutes?” and went right back to sleep. It’s so scary that they are all alike.
Just thought of another one. The last time me & my husband went on holiday together to visit his family he arranged for his moronic AP (obviously I didn’t know at this point) to look after our cats. I was a little taken aback as he never usually bothered with that sort of everyday detail (being far, far too important & busy for that sort of thing) & I always got a close friend to do it. Anyway I went with it.
On our return I thanked her for looking after our pets & was rewarded with a show of photos she had on her phone of herself in our house with our cats. She only lived a street away but had obviously moved in for the duration of our holiday. I mentioned to my husband that I felt uncomfortable with this but he shrugged it off saying she was having problems with her on / off boyfriend & needed some space. She was probably sniffing his pants & licking his pillow. God knows what the photos she didn’t show me looked like.
I resented this so much in the aftermath of D Day I had to move house. I still find myself apologising to the cats.
This is my 1st post here, I’ve been reading for a week or so, & I absolutely love this place. Besides feeling validated, I’m struck by the huge similarities between the narco cheaters, it’s as if they’re all actually the same guy, who somehow reproduced little pieces of himself. Sort of like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, maybe.
I actually have a title for this story, but I’m not sure about using his real name, so I’ll use one of my (many) private pet names. So here’s my tale of Manbaby & the Very Thirsty Weekend.
One of Manbaby’s pals lived across the way from us, in our little apartment complex. One weekend, the pal’s grown daughter came for a visit, so that night, a Friday, Manbaby walked over to meet her, just “being friendly”, of course. Later that evening he went to the gas station for some reason or another. The next morning, rather early for him, he needed a cup of coffee from the gas station. Why he didn’t just brew a cup at home like always, I couldn’t say. Neither could he, for that matter. So, later that day, after 2 more trips to the gas station, for soda, cause he just “had to have a pop”, I figured something was up, & my guess was that the something was the pal’s visiting daughter. Instead of confronting Manbaby, I waited. Didn’t take long, an hour later he had yet another soda craving. (Yes, he tries that hard to come up with believable excuses) So, still pretending to be fooled, I watched him leave thru the window, & sure enough, rather than heading to the parking lot on the right, he went straight to the pal’s door to the left. I still wish I’d recorded him as he made a perfect ass of himself out there, because it was priceless. He didn’t knock, or call out the girl’s name, he….how to describe his actions that day? At first I thought he was sniffing the air, like a dog. Really. He was stretching, straining, craning his neck, moving back & forth, & I finally realized he was simply trying to peer thru the screen door, in an effort to get a glimpse of his new crush. In his squirmy little brain, I’m sure he being very sexy. In reality, he looked so pathetic, even the girl-who could see him thru the window-avoided him after that. When came back-with no soda, I might add, I very innocently asked about the trip to the gas station. Of course he lied, so I gave him all the rope he needed to hang himself, before I revealed what I knew. The ensuing spluttering & stammering to make it look good was comical, even if that image of him straining to see the object of his (creepy) lust is forever etched in my brain.
I still love catching him off guard, if for no other reason than hearing the totally fucked up excuses he comes up with when I put him on the spot. We still live together today, but my daughter & I share a bedroom, he has his own. I’ve been waiting for my kiddo to be ready to leave, & thanks to Manbaby’s neverending mind games & fuckery, his true self is shining thru more & more, he’s pushing her away, just like he did with me.
I was 11 weeks pregnant when I found out about husbands affair with an employee – I confronted him, her, told her husband and kicked him out – he denied everything even though I’d seen our phone bill and the 70 texts a day he was sending her, eventually he confirmed it by accidentally sending me a text meant for her (it gets worse). In all of this we already had a 3 yr old and a holiday to Disney booked and after much drama (and bullying – by him) he ended up coming with us (I’d tried to cancel his ticket but couldn’t and he turned up at the hotel for his ‘family holiday’ to which he was ‘entitled’ (there’s still more)…. After everything that had happened in the previous weeks and given that I’d already lost one baby I just wanted as little stress as possible and agreed to a truce for 5 days for the sake of our son. All things considered everything went well. Whilst we were away I didn’t know but his business partner got in touch to say that the OW had handed her notice in. I didnt know this until he came back from the bar and announced that “i know i said i wouldnt contact her on hiliday but she handed her notice in today – I’ve just spoken to her and she wants us to carry on seeing each other but I’ve said I need to ask you first and if you think there’s any chance for us I’ll end it with her” – strangely I wasn’t that interested in trying to reconcile, despite his lovely offer!!! – you’ll probably be pleased to hear that later on the same holiday I threw his phone in the bath with him when he stupidly left it unlocked and I could read all their texts 🙂
Ok Ladies, I’ve got this one!
About 15 months before the 18 year marriage exploded, I was sitting on the couch with him rubbing his feet & drinking wine. It was about a week before Father’s day and a week after I purchased him a used $29,000 BMW( more on that later..) He made a humorous remark: ” I talked to your brother today and you know what he thinks is the perfect Father’s day gift?” I reply: “…knowing my brother I can only guess..” ” well a medium rare steak and a blow job would be the perfect gift!!” I laugh…” haha that sounds like my brother!!”
Then in the very next sentence he says..” I was talking to ( the now she bitch who at the time they were only communicating occasionally–RIGHT! ) the other day and I told her that when (our 16 year old son) goes away to school, you and I are going to have to re-evaluate our marriage vows..” WTH?? He is talking to another woman about me, our marriage and the need for more Blowjobs!! How dare he??
Back to the BMW…I inherited a large amount of cash from a distant relative that had no kids …and guess who was entitled?
He convinced me that he had made a mistake by talking to that ‘she bitch’ and that he loved me more than ever, and never really told her the “re-evaluate” crap and they were not communicating anymore. He also ‘advised’ me how to spend my $$ wisely. I paid off all our community debt , bought a BMW (for all legal purposes, it was for the family, but he would drive it primarily)..and no, I did not save it for my retirement!
18 months later I learned he had been texting her 33 times a day and talking to her for…wait for it…255 MINUTES while I was working the night shift at the hospital! What do 2 adults talk about for 255 minutes on the phone? Are blowjobs possible with phone sex????
When he decided to leave me and our son, who would now graduate in less than 6 months(6 days before Christmas) for the ‘she bitch’, I discover that the title to the BMW is in his name only!! …he claims it was that Father’s day gift!
What a BLOWJOB!
Yes I AM A CHUMP!
I wonder if a lawyer can help you get back the BMW or at least the costs of his affair.
We are working on that…separate property vs. community. That is where I am the chump. I paid off our home mortgage and several bank loans as well as the car.I can recoop the mortgage % , and perhaps the car, but none of the the ‘living’ expenses.The ? is..where did all his $$ go while I supported us? I am a CHUMP and an IDIOT!
Resentments, I’ve had a few!
As most of you know four days before she left for the New York Marathon I received a anonymous letter saying groceries was taking her lover to New York. She dismissed it as poison pen letter from one of the girls she supposingly was travelling with.
On the NYM. Website you could post a video or photo with a message that when the runners ran across a beam the photo would flash up on a huge asics billboard in front of them. The boys and I sent a great photo and message.
We also arranged for a huge bouquet of flowers to be delivered to her room when she returned.
She was so good at the bullshit. The girls she was supposedly shared the room with we’re jealous. What utter bullshit. Only chainsaw man so them.
The boys and worked so hard to support the marathon. She would supposedly go to yoga every Sunday morning but I subsequently found out after D day it was 200 yards from his apartment. I felt such an bloody idiot. Her mum and dad would come over every Sunday morning for morning tea and I was making excuses fir her being late. Never ever again will I be fooled At one stage we were going to surprise Mum but she insisted she was doing a girl thing. It was all a front.
They have no feelings. As CL. Says its just kibbles.
I cannot wait until he cheats on her. Then she will feel pain
Getting to meh but the resentment is hard to forget
You are strong and a survivor, and running the personal marathon to “meh” is a much better life accomplishment than any kind of foot race that your ex has ever done or will ever do.
My stbx takes great pride in all his marathon accomplishments, too. He even keeps a bloody sock from one as a trophy. True, he ran the damn things. But the one who bandaged his wounds, drove him to and from the races, high fived him, fed him, went through the course beforehand with him, had cards and balloons ready – that was me.
In the end, the trophies for being decent, caring human beings go to people like you and me, even if we are chumps And a wall of freaking gold medals won’t make cheaters any less of the epic human losers they are. They suck. We don’t.
Hang in there.
Baci, I remember being so supportive of things no matter what and planning nice things for Ex. Father’s Day was just around teh corner before dday and I remember the kids and I planning a very special surprise for Ex because we thought he had been working so hard and we wanted to show him how much we appreciated it. The special gift was tied to a big interest of his and it would have been amazing for Ex. But of course, after dday all I heard was that I didn’t think of him, I did nothing for him, he felt so unappreciated. Apparently I was supposed to put on the bells and whistles every time he passed wind and then sniff with joy that he gifted me with his bodily gas.
or something like that. Fuck him.
My biggest resentment? That I spent one minute of my valuable time on this earth with that man. that I gave him one second of space in my head.
How useless is that person? I guess I learned lessons. but I resent every one.
“I guess I learned lessons. But I resent every one.”
Exactly.
Ok here goes. In 1995 my connections got my ex a job as a division manager with a financial services company, which is the best job he ever held. He had a lot of talent but was a classic underachiever who reached his zenith as a local high school athlete. Anyhow, in his new job, my ex got to know the AP’s, two “co-workers” who are best friends.
In 1999, I was 34, and my children were 4 and 8, and I was pregnant with my youngest son (who is now 14). Out of the blue, I got a terrible feeling my ex was having an affair with one or the other of these women. Despite his repeated and devout protestations, I just couldn’t shake the feeling. My ex then went to my closest friends, my mother, and even my sisters, to argue his case, and recruit them to convince me that I was simply overly jealous, childish, immature and unreasonable….and they did (along with him). After 3-4 years, I became so stressed I started having panic attacks and had to go on medication. After that point, I became “sure” he was telling the truth about these women, and even apologized to him for my behavior. Even my older 2 children thought I was just one of those nutty women who was jealous when she should not be.
So the years go by, and my ex convinces me that these women are family friends. One is married, and we begin to visit back and forth with her and her husband (they live several states away) and our children play together. We go out to dinner as couples, stay at each others’ homes, etc. Sometimes the other woman (who is not married) is also present as these two women are such good friends.
In 2008, my ex forms his own consulting business and “hires” these women to work for him (they actually split the fees). I beg him not to quit his regular job in the financial services industry, but after some years of success, he has as usual allowed it to go down the tubes and he bails. These women travel together with my ex for his business, attend parties at our home, meet many of my colleagues, and are out and about in our community. The one woman is a decent painter and so paints pictures for me and my children which we hang on the walls of our home and at our vacation home near the beach. They stay in our home at times when traveling into town for business events with my ex, and sleep in the spare room or on the couch. We are Facebook friends, I have their telephone numbers in my cell phone, etc. I sometimes discuss with these women the rough times my ex and I had in our marriage, and trust that they are my friends too.
Then comes D-Day 1 1/2 years ago. Yes, you can guess it— my ex had been having separate affairs with BOTH women the whole time, as well as threesomes when they were all together. This had been going on with these women for 17 years of our 25 year marriage, and they had never used condoms.
I asked my ex how he could do this, why he did not tell me after all those years. I was stunned because he acted like he adored me and told me and everyone else how much he loved me every single day. He could only state: “I just always thought that we’d be together. There’s no explanation that makes sense now.” I kicked him out. He then told me he loved one of the AP’s more than me and was going to marry her (of course the one who was married with children). I read articles on how to manipulate a narcissist or sociopath and did it (yuck, I had to be weak and needy and oh so thankful for his “help”). I got the quickest divorce possible and then went NC. His main AP, the one he is going to marry, promptly left her husband and two teenage sons as soon as I threw my ex out, telling her husband that she and my ex are the “loves of each others’ lives” and would be getting married as soon as her divorce is final.
I was 34 when these affairs started. When I was 39, I began begging him for years to tell me the truth, he wouldn’t. Then he purposefully brought these women into the lives of his wife and children when he did not need to (oh so sick). And of course, when I was 52, I learn everything. Why in the world he did not tell me at some much earlier point along the way, especially with all those opportunities, I will never know.
Our children will not speak to him or see him. I met a wonderful new non sparkly) man and am recently engaged to be married next year. My ex has not yet married the AP (my daughter refers to the AP’s only as “the Worms”), and despite him telling me he was going to move 5 hours “north” to where the AP lives and marry her after her divorce was final, he instead leased an apartment in our community. I hear my ex has been out “cheating” on the AP with her best friend and other women and she refuses to believe it, and that the AP’s are suddenly and recently no longer working with him in his business or even on his website.
My ex refuses to go to counseling to try to get to a point where our children will agree to see him. Instead he is very comfortable texting them once every 6 months, and then telling himself that they refuse too see him so it’s not his fault. My daughter now 20 has become very depressed and anxious and recently had to start counseling. My oldest son now 24 has become angry. The youngest, 14, acts like he does not care but how can the abandonment by his father not affect him too? And my ex moves on taking care of the only one who matters to him….himself.
Kelly, I keep hearing children only need one good parent and you’re it!
It’s like they just become disengaged from reality. Really sad for the kids that they have to deal with this shit
“disengaged from reality”
That’s so it, Baci. Whatever personality disorder my ex has, in addition to probably sociopathy, it got much much worse over the years. And yes, one sane parent better do it because we don’t have a choice on that. Thanks,
Kelly
I can’t begin to explain my remorse as I read this story. There are no words. I will pray for your release from this nightmare. Your jerk takes the cake in my opinon.
Take care.
Thanks DenverGirl, I’ve approached Meh several times, but its so hard to watch your children suffer and not have a solution for them.
That is the toughest part: the kids. They don’t deserve to have their family blown apart and then, on top of that, have one parent suddenly ‘change’, which really means who that parent was all along but was hiding well is suddenly crystal clear and it’s heart breaking to watch. I can’t count the times my kids have said that their dad is like a stranger, that he’s changed and they just wish he would go back to who he used to be.
From the mouths of babes…they don’t get that who he ‘used to be’ was an act and with a narc you see all the sparkles for awhile and then they slowly start sparkling for others and that original sparkle never returns.
Kelly, Wow, you have my vote!! I experienced some of the same things. My feelings went beyond resentment to such a sadness that the person I thought was my best friend didn’t have the respect for me and the decency to just end it 🙁 I too am 52 and would have been 38 if he had manned up when HE went sideways.
Yes KDL, I have said repeatedly that if he had ever loved or cared about me, even just a little, he would have told me and let me go long long before I caught him. I think I’ve clung to the anger because I was afraid the sadness would just consume me. (((Hugs)))
KDL & Kelly – I know the feeling & it cuts so deep. After 33 years, how did I come to mean so little to him, and how did the OW come to mean so much that he was putting it all over FB so his faux follwers could see & congratulate him for following his “passion?” Sadly, our son could see it too so I know it’s not really about us, it’s about him & his failures as a partner, husband, father, human being. It is terribly sad – the person we loved is dead to us now. But my anger at his cowardice makes NC easy. I’m very lucky to have found Chump Lady early on & to have followed her advice rather than continue acting like a chump & “playing nice” with someone who has treated me so terribly.
Yes Martha, as my daughter (heartbreakingly) says: “My father is dead. There is a man out there who looks like my father, but he’s not my father.”
Yes, it’s tough: I could have been free at 28, and instead it was 42 and perimenopausal. ExH and AP (29) meanwhile, got pregnant almost as soon as it was agreed to end fhe marriage (but 5 months before the divroce!).
That helped my self esteem.
I am at meh, EXCEPT I still have some anger/resentment related to the kids and his treatment of them.
Yep, I would have been 40 if I had known about the first affair…but then I realise there were probably other affairs before that that I don’t now about and the technology wasn’t around to leave a trail, so that’s the earliest one I can pin down.
Why did he get married, have kids, build this life if he wanted to keep dating? Why jack up my life to this extent and then, for the icing on the cake, work his ass off to destroy me financially? It boggles the mind and it’s what makes it so unforgivable. Not just the cheating, which is sort of ‘whatever’ at this point, but all the other stuff, from badmouthing me to literally putting me on the dole. What in hell did I ever do to him?
Yes Nord, I am sure there were other affairs, these are the only ones I discovered. I often wonder why my ex got and stayed married, since he obviously was not cut out for a “normal” life. But we (the children and I) provided a good front and my career provided a nice income for him. It is very sad to realize so much of my life was given to a grifter.
Well that’s the thing. If we had broken up at some point it would have hurt but naturally I would have recovered. Now, 20 years later and my life in shreds with no career, middle age, two teenage kids and absolute financial ruin, plus his daily email fuckery…why?? Why do this to another person? Because he wanted to fuck other people? Go for it, dude, but why destroy my life in the process?
Nord, this is exactly how I feel. It’s bad enough that he cheated on me our entire 20 year marriage. It’s bad enough he left me middle aged, with no career, financially devastated and having to start all over again. Wasn’t that enough? Yet he still tries to hurt me whenever he can.
Is it some kind of end game for these people? They feel unless you are totally destroyed they can’t be happy? WTH!!! I can’t wrap my head around it and I guess that is a good thing. If we could understand this kind of disordered thinking and character it would mean we possessed it.
Yes, actually, that’s exactly it.
I resent having ever met him.
i use to tell a story about how we met and that it was fate. i prayed to God to send me someone to love me just as i am. and he did two days later.
second time i prayed to God ( 20 years later)it was when the kids and him were driving me crazy. so prayed that either hit me with a bus or give me cancer because i had had enough heartache in this life i was ready to leave. i got breast cancer ( early stage, all good after surgery) shortly after.
i learned one thing….God listens to prayers so now i just pray that since idiots’ a city bus driver that maybe God should point that bus in the right direction and aim good.
anna, I did the same thing – I believed that my husband was a “gift” and gave thanks for him everyday. He basked in my adoration and told me that he loved me every day. After D-Day, I was so angry at God. It took a long time for me to get my faith back. Now I just pray that God will remove him from my life and not leave me destitute. I fell horrible for wishing him dead. But after hardening myself to his passive aggressive attacks and drug addict victim routine, I just want meh. I’m sorry that you had to go through all of that and send out a prayer for you and your children.
A couple of weeks after D-Day, I found “I love you” written on the bathroom mirror. A couple of weeks after, the OW told me that SHE told him to do it. How fu*ked up is that? He told me that he had asked her what he could do to make me happy…and that he hadn’t talked to her since. This biotch sent me a message on FB, when I asked her what her husband would think about her having sex with my husband in a truck, she graphically ranked me out and told me to “go ahead and write a book”. So I did. I made a copy of her incredibly self incriminating verbal vomit and gave it to her husband. She wasn’t so smug after that. She went to the police and they called me – and verified that her husband had read it. I assured them I had no further use for her. The female police officer wish me well. Even though I got even (so to speak) I still get pissed when I think about my husband’s emotional immaturity and wonder how I missed it for so long!
Well done Dannette. Now please make this person your ex-husband. He was screwing his OW in your house, in your own bathroom?! Ugh! Such a violation when they do it in your home.
I’m pretty meh after almost 5 years, but one resentment still burns. Having to secretly paternity test my 13 year old son, and while swabbing the inside of his cheek lie to him and tell him it was a sample we needed for ID security, like, in case he was kidnapped (my doctor’s idea for a cover story). I still remember exactly where we were and how it felt. It had to be secret because if the test revealed I wasn’t the bio father it would’ve been harder for me to get equal custody according to my attorney.
So, he is mine biologically, but I still can’t believe that my ex-wife’s many years of living a lie even pushed me to have to lie to my son myself. I think that may be the only lie I ever told him, and I don’t think I’ll ever be meh about that moment.
Awful Nomar, I am so sorry you had to go through that, these people are just disgusting. My ex’s AP’s husband likewise had to DNA test his youngest son to learn if it was my ex’s or his (it was his, not my ex’s). The hell these filthy perverts put people through still continues to astonish me.
Thanks, Kelly. Yeah, truly rotten. The stuff that she did to me is so in the past. But that lie I told my son still feels like unfinished business. Not that I’m likely to ever tell him. It just wouldn’t help anything. So it’s just one of those scars we carry around from living with a serial cheater, like having a bum leg from a car wreck, I suppose.
Nomar – that story breaks my heart… I despise any little bit of this that touches our children.
I feel your pain Nomar. Similar for me except mine was only 2 at the time and doesn’t remember when I did the cheek swab. She was curious though and asked what I was doing. I don’t remember the lie I told. Like you, this is about the only thing I am not meh about. XW could not understand why I had done it since she had clearly told me that the affair didn’t start until after she was pregnant. She was actually upset that I did not trust that particular statement.
My ex told me he decided to leave because he felt guilty coming home after being with his married coworker AP on a business trip. He said he just felt happy when he was with her and not guilty, so that was the sign he needed to leave me. I remember thinking well no shit you feel guilty around me when you’re doing something you shouldn’t be.
I had just given birth to our first son. I offered to my ex for him to go home the very next night so “he could get a good nights sleep”. He invited the OW over to OUR HOME and they stay up until 2:30am doing whatever-the-fuck, and ex doesn’t get back to the hospital until mid morning, me by that time in tears struggling with learning to breastfeeding etc….
Oh and when our son was 10 days old and I was still recovering from a really bad case of mastitis and struggling with being a new mum in general….Ex tells me that morning he’s going out with the boys to “celebrate the birth” (TELLS me, doesn’t ask like he historically would have), says he’ll be home by 9pm…time passes and passes and I’m calling, texting, phone is switched off…prior to this he would NEVER have not called to say what’s happening so I assume the worst! I’m calling the police, and hospitals, his work, the pub where he was supposed to be going…I ACTUALLY think he must be dead or seriously injured, absolutely beside myself and trying to feed and look after a crying newborn!
He finally surfaces at 2am. Says his phone went flat and missed a train or some other pathetic excuse that made no sense…
I find out over a year later that that was the night he fucked the OW at the office for the first time. Classy. What an asshole.
I think dealing with shit like that when you’ve just had a baby is a special sort of hell. As if having a newborn isn’t crazy making enough!
All I can say is, I’ve been there too!
I’ve been there too, and just realized that I didn’t have post partum depression…it was “post partum married to a narc” which is ten times worse.
Oh and another example from a long time ago….we were both into music and wanted to learn how to dj….so I went out and bought us both decks, controller, speakers etc to suprise him with. When I show it to him? All I get is him pissed off that I didn’t consult him with all his electronic genius and states that this is my thing and doesn’t really interest him that much after all!?!?
Oh well, now that he’s out of the picture, I’ve splurged on new gear and am getting lessons and loving it! My new hobby now that my life is now single mum with a not even 2year old and am somewhat housebound 🙂
Ooh ooh and I’m also pretty resentful that all said and done and I’ve left the abusive, lying, cheating, alcoholic ASSHOLE for good, he’s now verbally abusing ME and trying to kick down my door and smashing glass at my home because I left him and trying to blame it all on me!
NPD doesn’t even begin to describe this guy…
So many examples I could choose; I will pick one inspired by another chump and my own personal “favorite” piece of abuse in pursuit of the Mug.
1. Like CHAR posted this morning, my ex-husband often used me standing up for myself as reason to gain space to spend more time with OW. Have you written about that tactic Chump Lady? Anyway, one day he randomly stopped by the house and told me that I was too overweight for him to really commit to our marriage and stay faithful. This led to an argument, of course. Me being hurt and incredulous…but I was deep in the unicorn stuff and actually cooled myself down and told him that I did want to focus on my health, be more fit, etc. basically telling him, “yeah you’re right, I’m too fat for you to be committed to me, I’ll fix that”. He proceeded to tell ME that although he appreciated what I was saying, HE still needed some time to feel OK again from our argument. So he dropped off the face of the planet for the next three days. Come to learn later it was to spend the weekend with OW. He needed an excuse to get away for those days, and THAT was what he came up with? If that’s not evil I don’t know what is. Still kind of shocking to me as I type it out.
2. Personal Fave: A few days after learning that OUR cat had terminal cancer and a couple of weeks to live, my ex-husband (a self-professed cat lover) came over to our house to make dinner (we were separated at the time, in counseling, trying to “work on it” and this was a date night). I was distraught over the cat and after ex cooked and we sat down to eat, the cat came out to visit us on the deck. I see the cat, start to cry, and sit down on the deck to pet him. Fast forward to the next counseling session – husband brings up to the counselor how upset he was with me for ruining our dinner that he worked really hard on cooking by being upset about the cat. Side notes – Husband was cheating on me at this time and the cat passed like a week later. I think that gem deserves a freaking mug, wouldn’t you agree fellow chumpy pet lovers???!
Totally agree! Do you think the kitty was trying to tell you something??
Mine once accused me of loving that cat more than I loved him. He may have been right. The cat didn’t shag some pool playing skank in the spare room of our flat while I was asleep in our bed.
Chumpaholic, I feel your pain! SBXH and I were separated but talking. Our dearly beloved 14 year old black lab, Willie, was on his last legs. I made my shit-head husband aware and that I was calling the vet to come end his life gently at home and he asked me to schedule it for a time he could be there. Well, I’m sure this come as no surprise to my fellow chumpettes but he never called and never showed. How awful is it to wait on a freaken no-show when your dog is being put down? That’s when I knew that he had absolutely no empathy or connection to anyone. All of his fuck-buddies were just as deceived as I was. A true sociopath fakes everything. He is so broken that his life is just a big facade, I can’t wait to be free from him.
XH and I were eager to start a family but sadly suffered three miscarriages of very wanted pregnancies. After months of continuing to try to conceive, we agreed to move on to the next step of fertility treatments. At some point during that stressful time, I later learned (while he was in rehab — this onion has many layers) XH decided to visit a call girl who performs “erotic body rubs” so he could “feel like a man again”….I could almost give him a pass on that…nothing like recurrent pregnancy loss to destroy one’s self-esteem and a couple’s sex life.
Cut to several months later, when I was compelled to kick him out due to a major relapse in his alcoholic drinking. I thought he was going to stay at a friend’s condo. I later discovered he had moved in with the whore. I like to think that most men who visit prostitutes don’t enter into living together arrangements with them…but my man is very economical.
Next stop: intervention, followed by rehab and relapse. Ever the devoted and compassionate wife (read: chump!) I sent him to stay with his mother in his small hometown, figuring getting back to his roots could only help. His last words before departing were that he wanted to work on our marriage.
Three weeks into being home, the phone calls stopped. Turns out, he located the only woman in town who’s biological clock was ticking louder than mine…she was willing to overlook the fact that he was a married, alcoholic, drug addict and became pregnant.
The Blessed Event arrived two months ago (mere weeks after our divorce was finalized). They chose a name that he and I had selected.
They all suck.
Yes, they do. I’m sorry for your losses, and I pity that child.
They used your name. That is absolutely vile.
Agreed. That is seriously disgusting. But then I think these assholes use anything they can to dig at us because somehow, in their little pea brains, they’re the victims and we’re the bad guys.
He’s a monster. And she’s married to a cheating, alcoholic, drug addict. Way to win the prize. I’m sorry for that kid. How awful, I’m so sorry.
Thanks CL, Kelly and MO —
It was an excruciating several years. Even his mother told me some day I’d thank him for leaving.
But, in the spirit of Meh,and becaue I’ve had excellent counseling and support helping me get closer to Meh, and because I’d like to win the mug (I’m one of those competitive ChumpLawyers), I’d like to point out a few of the upsides of this experience:
1) I now know I dodged a bullet not sharing a child with XH. This was the toughest blessing to see, but so many stories on this site have reinforced that lesson. However, my resentment still stands: they took away my chance to be a mother.
2) In Re The Whore: I got to learn about the seedy underbelly of society, even when it comes to “upscale companions”… She came into my home (while I was out on a retreat planning a major fundraiser for needy kids), she used my computer and was too dumb to clear her history. I confronted her (before I knew how she earned a living) and she claimed she “doesnt interfere with marriages”. Then she stalked me…but the very best part? She is a Conservative Republican Grandmother who masturbates men for a living. What’s the upside of this you ask?
I can top almost anyone’s stories! My tell-all memoir is going to kick ass! (Sadly, the people of Chump Lady provide frequent exceptions to this rule.)
3) few people know the full scoop…but my dear college friends do. They sent me a gorgeous round 24 karat gold pendant, naming me the winner of the 2012 Pain Olympics. I’m so ready to pass the torch, but would never wish this shit on another human being.
This weekend marks a year since he’s been gone.
Many thanks to this site for helping me hang on ’til Tuesday.
Oh, they’re not married. My divorce wasn’t final until one month before the Blessed Event arrived. Unlikely they’ll be married…he’s aware traded down and is bummed because she’s not that smart and “doesn’t get” him.
Just reread my entry and Can’t believe I left out the kicker: he hired the professional body rubber because he wanted to feel something again, but ‘didn’t want to cheat on me’ (obvs that was before he moved in with her and her 19 year old daughter. Yuck.
OMG. I had to stop at conservative grandmother who masturbates men for a living.
Love that your friends sent you a gold pendent. Keep the good people close.
While my stepdaughter was on her spring break visiting her bio mom, my XH asked if we could have a special date night to “reconnect” because we needed “us time” badly. So, I booked a night at a swanky hotel with a swanky restaurant and bar, left work early and met the XH for what was to be a “fabulous” night at this lovely destination. As he drank himself into oblivion, he insisted he wanted to sit in the outdoor lounge at the swanky restaurant bar to “people watch” the comings and goings at the valet rather late into the evening. This from a man who has never wanted to “people watch” in the entire time I knew him. Needless to say, there wasn’t much reconnecting that night. Found out after I left him two months later he was waiting for his AP and her husband to show up at the restaurant at our hotel that night. Guess they were planning to have some sort of bathroom tryst while the two chumps sat and wondered where they’d gone.
I divorced him. She left her husband to be with my XH, and now, I’m tempted to send her a thank you card for saving my life 🙂 I hope she enjoys people watching!
High five! Let the sluts be together.
I had my husbands married girlfriend sit at the bar with her girlfriends and watch us eat in the dining room. When I asked if he knew any of the girls who were staring at us he said no. Then, she waved and said hello. Then he said, “oh…..I think I went to college with her sister” Turns out he did but that wasn’t the story. He had been secretly screwing her for about a year at that point up at our vacation home- right under her husband’s and my nose
Were you married to my ex? I called mine at work to let him know I was in labor with our first child, and he told me to call back later when the contractions were closer together (it was an hour’s drive to the hospital from our house). Fortunately, his boss overheard and sent him straight home. He got home and then insisted that he needed to nap because he had a headache, and “didn’t want to have a headache at the hospital.” Five hours later, he decides he’s ready to go. We barely made it to the hospital in time. After the baby is born he decides to head home for the night, because “I need to let the dog out”. He didn’t come back until 10 a.m. the next day. I spent my first night/morning as a new mom completely alone. And, no, there was no push present. No flowers, nothing.
Amazing how similar these people are. I wonder if you spakled that episode? I spakled it up so well that I went on to have another baby with the narc. What the heck was wrong with me? Oh yeah, I have a high chumptitude.
My best resentment? We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in Ireland. He insisted on bringing his laptop, so we went from pub to pub looking for free internet access (not a given in Ireland). At one point we walked down a beautiful, medieval cobblestoned street with our iPhones looking for an unlocked wifi signal. I thought he was addicted to playing Mafia online, so I thought it amusing and harmless. Little did I know that he was probably texting his girlfriend–on our second honeymoon. Did I tell you I thought it was a romantic trip? He complained that I didn’t make love to him enough. The whole thing makes me so sick, someday I want to go back to Ireland to make up for this–ALONE.
Jade: im so sorry about Ireland, I do hope that someday soon you will go on the trip of your dreams. I feel your pain. For our 20 year anniversary this past March I wanted to do something special (by this time I had endured 3 known affairs and countless others that i didnt know about). He didnt want to do anything. When i mentioned maybe dinner he said he’d get back to me. I later confirmed he was taking the AP to Vegas instead. This week I am going on a ‘bucket list’ trip. Far far away from that psychopath. You will get there.
Hmmmm. I thought long and hard about this one. Because there are a SHIT TON of things I could name for this. I consulted my husband to which one would be the deepest one. And sure enough, I have an answer, but we couldn’t settle on just ONE. Because these two are equally deep resentments:
First, the goddamn video games. The only thing porn came second to. Video games were his number one. All day. Every fucking day. Entire days from…well…I can hardly say morning considering he’d haul his ass out of bed at like…2 pm every day. So I’ll say from 2 pm to 2 am, were spent on video games sometimes. Other times, it was 8-hour blocks. Other times, it was back and forth from console games to computer games.
There are three distinct occasions I remember that stick strongly in my mind:
1) (This may be TMI for some). I had just purchased a bottle of strawberry-scented massage oil. The house was empty, except for us. So I stripped down naked, covered myself in the massage oil, and seductively made my way downstairs to where he was *surprise…* playing a video game.
Not only did he not notice me until I stood in front of the tv, blocking his view of the game screen, all he said was “You’re in my way.” I protested, given the nude, oily state I had put myself. He said he’d indulge me. …Later. >:( He did. But not until he had finished whatever level he was on.
2) He had promised me he would spend some time with me sharing a special night. Dinner, a bubble bath and a movie. Did that happen? Sort of. We had dinner, but then he came home and guess what? Hopped on the frikkin’ computer and before I knew it was playing Team Fortress 2. Hours started to tick by. I came downstairs saying I was waiting for him. And he said “When this round is finished….” ….Apparently “this round” lasted another 2 hours. I went to bed. Alone. Trying not to cry while I waited for him for another hour. The only thing that happened that night was the dinner.
3) I had been talking to someone, and this person said to me probably the rudest, most insulting, cruel and mean-spirited thing to me that anyone has ever said to me in my life, bar-none. It upset me so much that I began to sob. I stopped talking to that person and went upstairs to find him *sigh* playing a damn video game. Again. I was absolutely sobbing. Tears streaming out of my eyes and gasping for breath.
…He didn’t even look at me. Eyes were GLUED to the screen. I sat next to him, still crying. He didn’t even ask me what was wrong. Nothing. I had to fairly shout “ARE YOU LISTENING?!?!” To get him to finally turn his head for a few seconds to look at me and say “Yea.” He couldn’t even pause it for THAT.
So yeah. I resent those video games pretty fucking much. I like video games myself, but there are a good few that leave a bad taste in my mouth because of him.
And now, part 2 of my deepest resentments: The sex.
It was his way or the highway. He wanted it when he wanted it and if I didn’t at that moment, then I was out of luck for a good while. I either gave it up right then or got nothing until he wanted it again. If I wanted it? Oh no, he couldn’t right now. He’s tired, he has to work in the morning, why was I pressuring him? Can’t I just take no for an answer? What was my problem?
I remember once saying I was in the mood, and he looked at me and said “I think you might be a nympho. You should get help for that.”
>:(
I was pretty upset by that comment. Despite what most frat-boys would think, being a nympho is actually a crippling neurological condition that makes life extremely difficult. People with hyper-active sexual tendency (the REAL name for nymphomania) often cannot work because they are incapable of controlling their behavior. I could get into a whole segway about how shitty having that condition really is, but getting on with it…)
Anyway, I want sex? Oh, I’m a nympho and I need help. He wants sex? …I remember occasions of him pushing me to my knees and shoving his dick in my mouth. Sometimes that was his way of telling me he was in the mood.
When he decided he wanted to try anal, he pressured me until I gave in. Honestly, I hated it. It was painful. I never enjoyed it. But I was too afraid to tell him I hated it because I feared what would happen if I flat out said NO. Would he show me even LESS attention or sensitivity than he already did? LESS time away? MORE time on games? If that was even possible…Or maybe suggest some other, equally unpleasant sex act in it’s place? I didn’t know, and I had really, REALLY low self-esteem at that point. I mean, this was my absolute rock, gravel, algae-bottom of my self-esteem.
So…I ask him for sex and I get told I’m a nympho, I need help, I’m “pressuring” him, I can’t take “no” for an answer.
Yet, he’s fucking everyone and their dog behind my back, and I have to have it his way or possibly no way at all.
So, for those of you who have stuck around for all that, can y’all see why I had trouble picking JUST ONE resentment to submit?
Dump that loser. Do you know how many men out there would LOVE a sweet nympho girlfriend? It’s not you — it’s him. He’s a total waste of human flesh.
When I was dating the ex, we were both in our early 20s. Healthy and attractive. I would expect most men at that age want to get it on every possible chance they get. My ex told me I was a nympho because I wanted to have sex three times a week. God, why did I go on and marry him? We didn’t even have sex on our honeymoon in Hawaii.
I did dump him. 4 1/2 years ago. I got married to someone else this passed July.
Yea!!!
Awesome Kara
Kara,
So glad you dumped him. Way to go!
Thanks. I don’t miss him. My new husband and I moved to a new state after the wedding. So Im safely in Mehville and no chance of ever seeing the ex in public again. 🙂
Oh, oh. And I have another one. At one point my ex actually told me about the OW, saying what a great high school friend she was. It was Christmas, and she actually sent us cookies. I actually ate this bitch’s cookies. Makes me completely want to puke. My kids ate those cookies too. What kind of perverse animal is my ex, who would feed us food from his fuckbuddy? When I left, I considered taking the tin with her name on it (“from the A**in family”), thinking it might be useful as evidence–but the mere thought of it turned my stomach.
Jade: we have traveled similar paths…fucktard actually brought home a cake AP made specially for him…his favorite, yellow w chocolate frosting. So
Sweet, huh? I know this hurts so much Jade, but it does get easier. Sometimes its minute to minute, inch by inch but we’ll get to meh. Hugs, nmc
MNC, somehow I am reminded of an old Alfred Hitchcock episode where someone bludgeons a person to death with a lamb chop, then roasts it and feeds it to the police. Why, oh why are we made to eat the evidence??
Oh wow, I am watching this on YouTube. You HAVE to watch this. The woman was pregnant and the husband comes home to say “I am going to leave you so I can marry someone else.” No spoilers, but the episode is called “Lamb to the Slaughter.” I love Alfred Hitchcock…
Jade,
I watched the entire thing and was quite entertained. At least she was just a chump for a few minutes!
Well I have a good one
STBX is supposed to be going out with a friend (male) at 2:30 in the morning I am walking the dog. Jet lag. Well i see the friend get out of a cab and go into his building.
STBX arrives half hour later and when asked why he wasn’t with friend he says he stayed in the bar. Goes to sleep, i pick up his coat to hang it up and low and behold find condoms and Viagra. I wake him and ask what is going on…..his response”I’m seeing someone” and goes back to sleep.
this is someone I was married to for 32 years
You guys, this is like a cornucopia of horror! I haven’t read all the comments yet, and forgive me if I don’t post on every one, but OMG — the assholes out there!
May every one of these stories be about an EX. If you’re writing this and you haven’t dumped this person yet — please, for the love of God, get them out of your life. Or throw vats of spaghetti at them (see one of the above stories) that works too, apparently.
DDay was officially April 10, when he told me over the phone at work that he was “in love” with a co-worker. He moved out back on March 28, and we went no contact.
Fast forward to mid-May, when he texted me out of the blue: “FYI, I have a lump on my right testicle and it’s very tender. I don’t know what it is because I will get it checked out tomorrow.” I didn’t respond. He texted the next morning “FYI it’s not cancer.”
Fast forward again a month later, when he wanted to get back together (of course, no remorse for the affair), he said, “I’ll have you know that you were the ONLY person I contacted about the lump on my testicle, and you didn’t respond! You DIDN’T EVEN CARE!!!”
Not sure if this is necessarily a resentment story but it’s definitely a “are you fucking kidding me?!” story.
What, did he think you were his mom???
I was with him since I was 17 years old, so probably. I was this close to saying “Have your AP massage your nut for you.” But I didn’t. 🙂
smart boy. He’s catching on.
On behalf of my late mother-in-law, whose husband cheated on her and had a long-term mistress. I never knew my father-in-law well. He visited his wife and family once per week on the weekends, arriving on Friday mid-afternoon and leaving on Sundays just before noon. Yes, less than 48 hours with his wife and two sons. One son was 7 while STBX was 14.
Late MIL gambled on outliving her cheating husband. She was afraid of her shadow, and life unfairly dealt her terminal cancer. Her cheating husband was with her in the hospital in the last days.
After she passed, do you think he married his long-time mistress? No way! Not until less than 2 weeks before he died of cancer!
So I resent the younger son, who is now in his later 40s, writing on FB that he is thankful that he and his brother were raised by a “real American hero” who tried to save their mother’s life and spent his life’s savings to do so.
Nope. Not how that went down. Yes, he was retired military, and yes, he spent a lot of money on his wife’s cancer, but he also spent nearly $1000 per month for the next five years boarding 2 horses that were pushing 30 because the woman who owned the stables needed a bit of extra money. Translated: that’s another woman he was banging. He gave away all the valuables in his wife’s house–stuff that even I knew that she had earmarked for the grandchildren–to his own niece. He owed his mistress over $13K because while he was paying for his horse boarding, he didn’t have enough to pay property taxes on his wife’s house that he’d never put through probate.
Yes, I resent him on her behalf, and I resent him more than I resent STBX, who seems to want to emulate his father in every single way.
Oooh ohh I have one more. Before DDay when I confronted him about the cheating, he said “Yeah I have been talking to her a lot because she’s been giving me advice on what to do about you.”
And when he tried to reconcile, he said “She said, ‘of course she’ll forgive you, you were broken and depressed, and you are her husband, she will take you back.'”
WTF was she, Mother fuckin’ Theresa blessing our marriage? How nice.
Oh man, I want to slap her for you!
Yuck…Ex told one of the kids that he got to know final OW when they started talking to each other about how unhappy they were in their respective relationships. Her being barely out of diapers meant it was her uni romance that didn’t transfer into the real world. Him it meant this grown assed man was telling a kid about how his middle aged 20 year marriage wasn’t as exciting as it used to be.
Just thinking about it grosses me out. Her all wide eyed and ‘I’ll make you happy!’ and him revelling in her stupidity while sparkles shot out his ass.
These people are ridiculous! Unreal!
Valentines day this year, a few months after Dday. He’s taken our luggage and 2 older boys on a trip and I need a bag for a weekend away with the baby so I dump stuff out of one of his bags that is still at my house. (the OWs house, where he now lives, is just too small for all his crap. So Sad.)
In his bag I find a nice memento – a room tag with their names on it dated the night of what he said was a Very Important Meeting with a board member that he HAD to attend.
I remembered that night so clearly because i had begged him (and I NEVER beg) not to leave me alone with our 2 young boys. I was days or maybe just hours away from starting labor with our breech baby. I was baffled that this “meeting” could be that important. But off he went, confidently predicting that everything would be fine. Yeah, fine for him. What an asshole. Good fucking riddance already. I resent that. I resent that I spent 20 years with this self-centered coward. I resent that he accuses me of “neglecting our relationship” which is why he was fucking young miss ho-worker for 18 months. And I resent no-fault divorces which in my case really screw the people who are not at fault – the children and me. Infidelity is a big bowl of suck.
GettingOverSuck
OK, one last resentment before bed.
When I was done and told him he had to leave, he says to me – you know, I don’t even know if that boy is my son. I should have a DNA test done. I was floored – couldn’t figure out where this was coming from….then a few months later I find in our family pictures box photos of him with various women over the years – including the time when I was pregnant or had just given birth – here he is straddled with a half naked drunk woman on his lap at a frat party…arg! I guess he figured if he was cheating all these years, maybe I was too? WTF? Who asks if these types of questions?
Have many more of these wonderful moments brought to you by your local NPD supplier; but for now, it’s time to go.
Oh it’s totally typical of cheaters to accuse you of cheating. It’s a little glimpse into their amoral universe. Mine did it to me to after DDay 1. “How do I know you’re not cheating on ME?” I threw my watch at his head. I’d been married less than 6 months to him.
Yeah, they deflect so well. I think they lie so often to themselves and blame everyone else that they actually believe the crap they spew.
First ex-husband and I were painting nursery, ninth month of my first pregnancy. I tired quickly, and sat down on floor next to dresser we were about to move. Pulled a folded piece of paper from under the dresser leg, and he grabbed it and ran outside to throw it in the trash–“It’s nothing, I just put it there to balance the dresser:” Later I found it: a young girl’s photo and a gushing letter thanking him for a wonderful night, dated the night he left me alone to do an “important all-night truck hauling job” which strangely he was never paid for.
I resented more that he disappeared on Thanksgiving and came home the next afternoon with a black eye and an illogical tale involving his truck being stolen. His friend Dave dropped by, they had a very quiet talk, and H came in the kitchen to tell me about his evening. “Now I’m not sure what happened, but I just woke up in bed with this woman, and I don’t think we did anything, but somehow Dave thought we did and he hit me with a bucket…” I left a few days later. I presume Dave must have said “You tell her or I will”, since it was, after all, Dave’s girlfriend.
This one is ancient history though, and the current exBF is the one I resent most of all, but coming to this site has helped me understand the similarities in the men I have married or been serious with, and I am only now realizing the depths of my life-long chumpdom. Bless you for helping me untangle my own skein, Chump Lady and company.
Like everyone else I literally have an endless supply of resentments, but two that pretty much cover both aspects of his gaslighting/cheating are :
I resent that he checks his online profiles while I am in the same room and thinks that because he takes off his glasses so I can’t see his computer screen reflected in them that I am that stupid.
And….after a history of my taking out cash advances for him to buy cars or help his family, we had $6,000 in the bank. I knew I needed to go to the dentist and would need a lot of work done. Before I could breathe, his mother showed up (apparently out of the blue) and said she cracked a tooth and needed $5,000 to pull her teeth and get dentures, because her teeth were falling out and rotten. My husband said of course.
Idiot me even found the best dentist, set the appointment and took her. My parents took her to get her dentures!!!
So when it came time for me to have gum surgery I had to put $6,000 on my credit card.
Fast forward a year or so, he files for bancruptcy (I couldn’t), meanwhile I found out that he and his mother had already spoken to each other behind my back and he had already promised her that money before she “showed up”. My credit card is maxed out and he finds out he’s going to get VA $$$ to go to college.
I say that with that extra money we could pay off my credit card and he says “Why should I pay off your credit card.” I said because if you hadn’t given your mom my dental money it wouldn’t be maxed out” and he replied, “What do you mean your money.”
That’s my relationship in a nutshell, emphasis on nut.
I think Stephanie has the biggest loser X with her pregnancy story. I hope you’re in a much better place with him out of your life Stephanie.
I don’t remember if I posted this about my X’s affair. Apologies if I have. I took my 2 boys away to a beach resort for a long weekend, which happened to be my birthday on the Friday night.
My wife was to follow the following day, the night of my birthday. She phoned late in the day and said she was sick. She never made the trip. My 2 sons and I were truly disappointed.
I eventually discovered she spent the whole weekend screwing the OM, both morning and night. He is so ugly, fat and bald. Just picture a plumber on a nintedo game console.
So every birthday since Dday (3 so far) has been a nightmare I just pretend isn’t happening. All I see is my X screwing super Mario.
She had to go and 3 months ago I made that happen. One day I hope my birthday will be a great day again. Perhaps the day that was the catalyst for a better future with that witch out of my life.
my husband caved in and came with us on a trip overseas, but I found out after filing for divorce (and looking at phone records) that he had a secret overseas cell and was talking and texting constantly with his skank.
Im working every day on getting to a better place- albeit slowly- but in the right direction. Thanks and same to you.
Ugh this happened to me as well. They really are all the same! He pressured me into a trip to Jamaica weeks after the first cheating was discovered. Said that we could work on us in paradise. The trip was awful, he was a jerk the whole time and I had no idea why. A couple of months later I discover that he was texting with OW the entire trip. A year later I found out that he told her that the trip was with his buddies and that one of them surprised him by flying me down there in an effort to help us patch things up. WTF?
and…..when on this trip to Europe, he initiated sex (something we hadn’t had much of in years) and as soon as he was done, got up and removed a heart rate monitor from his chest, stating, “I wanted to see what my heart rate went up to during sex, my brother did it too” and he walked away (the brother who was cheating on his wife for years with the local 23yr old bartender-girl.) Gosh…it just keeps comin…
Oh, I know what that was all about — these older men are tapping the elixir of eternal hard ons (viagra) in order to keep the young stuff (and themselves) impressed. Sooner (usually) or later they wonder if they are really in good enough cardiac shape to handle all that fucking and they see a cardiologist for a workup and legitimate prescription.
Wouldn’t want the posthumous embarrassment of it being known you blew a gasket and croaked while humping someone young enough to be your daughter.
My ex made that appointment shortly after he moved out. His double life was giving him a real case of high blood pressure, for which I was duly blamed.
Incorrect- he was 43 at the time and had been fucking a triathlete- and trying too be one himself.
Trying to?
You want to hear a funny one? About six months after I kicked ex out some herbal pills started arriving in the mail. addressed to him. I just passed them on with the kids and thought nothing of it. Then collection agency letters started arriving so I opened them. Turns out they were some sort of ‘natural booster’ pills but since final OW was there when the kids handed them to him he denied ordering them. Hahahahaaha. And hasn’t paid for them, thus his screwing his credit up with this bullshit.
I have a few personal favs, not sure they would win the mug though
1 In the early part of our 16 years my Narc EX H frogmarched me chumpstyle to a local STD clinic because he thought I had given him an STD…………………he had thrush! He forgot about all his principles and disapproval of casual sex when he met his whores online and f@cked them whilst I was at my Art classes- he did say my pictures were good though- well done!
2 Post BD and stupidly doing the pickme dance my eyes lit up one day when he said that he got me a gift (rarely got anything, although he always got stuff from me, ‘Mrs Chump please alot’. As I waited with my eyes closed he presented me with a new pair of trainers and a water bottle so I could look ‘cool’ at the gym.
3 He offered to drive me to the airport when I left him to go live abroad and put some distance between us, me stupidly believing he may miss me and try to save the marriage, he let me pay for the fuel for the trip to the airport and rang me as I went through the boarding gate the to remind me to turn around and wave, (I was distraught, could barely breathe). I divorced him 5 mths later after he dumped me again (3rd time) via Skype.
4 I couldn’t clean up cat sick correctly.
5 Last one, as I lay in the critical unit of a hospital slowly haemorrhaging to death, the surgeon told him that it was very touch and go, it would be a waiting game to see if I would survive, I told him in my morphine induced high not to worry and to go home…….he did!!!!! ( I think this was in his 5 yr pot smoking phase)
After I survived, (oh, btw, he missed the life saving 2nd Op they had to perform to save me) he said he was glad that I couldn’t have kids because the birth process may have killed me!!!!!!! Later on he said the trauma of it all broke the marriage up, we weren’t even married then!!!!!
Well, Golly, Digbert, what in hell are you thinking? You can’t clean up cat puke properly? Then dang it, you DESERVE to be cheated on!
They really are all nuts.
One of my ex’s biggest resentments of me was an idea she rationalized that I did not support her when she decided to clean up and get sober. But I knew AA was not for me. I cleaned up on my own and I’m still sober going on 5 years.
So she goes to AA and cleans up. Good. But then she does the 13th step with a friend. Bad. Here’s worse though; the friend’s wife is drinking very destructively. She encourages this friend to dump his wife and take up with her – when the wife needed him most… Exactly like she said she had needed me…
These two recently married each other. “Friends of Bill W.” – forever…
Most of the things I have read on here today have made me shake my head so hard I have given myself a headache. Wow! We chumps are so….chumpy! I have many resentments, but, one in particular is actually very funny, put into context. Uncle daddy “found” his meaning of life directly before he was laid off from his electrician’s job in 2008. This is a man that for almost 20 years I have helped financed his various “meaning(s) of life”, such as home- beer brewing (my personal favorite), 8mm movie making, fly tying, fly fishing, knife collecting, comic book collecting, wood working, metal working, furniture making, hand building pottery, wheel building pottery, fast cars, detailing trucks, small electronic repair, saute-ring(?), music recording, writing fan fiction, writing “the great American novel”, blogging, you get the incredible detailed and expensive picture. He came upon a gaming store that specialized in fantasy role playing such as Pathfinder and the game of all games, Dungeon and Dragons, which, according to Uncle daddy, was the main focus of his life from the ages of 12 to 17 years. According to his mommy he played for 6 months at 13 years old, go bored with it, sold all of his paraphernalia to the kids at school and moved on to the next thing, never to return until late 2008. As we as a family struggled in 2009 and 2010 with his permanent layoff from his very good union electrician’s job, as I work two jobs and Uncle daddy becomes Mr. Mom and finds time AND the money to pursue this new hobby of his, I don’t particularly care. He seems happy, he’s cooking supper every day, (although I am still doing the cleaning, the laundry, the shopping, etc…) and he’s not whining how he feels so “unfullfilled”…yeah, I used to hear that and I thought I would puke. He becomes “best Friends” with the stores owner and his ugly, yet “ethereally gifted” wife. Yeah, that’s what Uncle daddy called her, cause she is so into this gaming, that her pretend characters are so detailed and so awesome and so perfect that they are LEGENDARY in the role playing gaming community in our area. OK—–flash forward to October 2011, and my now devoted to D and D spouse has asked me for a separation because of one fight we had in April in front of one of the 16 year olds. It took me only a very short time to read on facebook about how much he loved Ethereal, how he was the only person who truly appreciated her gifts of character building in the game, and how he could not wait to rub her tummy, and kiss her and allow(?) her to “heal” him from all of his afflictions, those caused by having to live with his unappreciative wife. (The character she likes to play in these games is a healer of some sort?) That more than ever, he appreciated her “genius”, and could not wait to be alone with her that night so they could re-enact an erotic scene he had written just for the two of them, in character! Did I mention writing erotica as one of his hobbies? I think I forgot — Anyway, that’s the night I chased him out of the home, got a lawyer one month later, divorce final a year ago, and up until this past two weeks of moving my twin daughters to two different states to go to college, I have been virtually NC with him and it has been fabulous – I have had very good days intermingled with horrible days, many more resentments, a lot of laughs with family and friends, changes abound, but, that by far, was something I can look back on and chuckle about. Even though I cannot get the time I wasted on that Fuckhead back, at least I helped him go out of our marriage in “character”. A spineless, worthless, morally decrepit character, but, still…in character!
Oh and one more. After I had kicked him out and I was still crying over what had happened, how it could have happened, what could I have done different – I was saying all that to him and his response was “get over it, I did” – this was a week after I had kicked him out.
Mine waited two weeks to say that. I feel blessed.
There are too many… Short version of the worst thing was the night after I found he’d gone back to the OW for the 4th time and refused to accept his usual promises, told him we were divorcing, sent him to his apartment. He called in a drunken rage saying over and over “that’s my house, those are my cats, you are my wife and I’m coming home, I know my rights” (notice I am last on that list?). I thought I’d calmed him down and convinced him to wait for morning to talk about it again. I was wrong, he busted in the house and attacked me, I called the cops but when they came I didn’t tell them all he’d done, I literally had a blank memory spot (PTSD) that I recovered in therapy much later. Meanwhile in the other room he told the other cop that I attacked him. The cop talking to me was all for sending ex home in a cab but “his” cop threw me in handcuffs and arrested me for domestic assault. I spent several hours in jail and was barred from my home for 3 days. Then he tells the only two friends I have what happened before I’m out, HIS VERSION of what happened. I get out and my friend is telling me that he AND I have hit bottom and need to work things out, WTF? It wasn’t until he started drunk dialing both friends and telling them truly unbelievable crap that they thought to ask me what happened.
So, he got me put in jail, he co-opted my friends leaving me totally isolated, he moved back into the house (remember, he knew his rights to the marital home) and he tormented me for months longer before finally pulling a gun out and threatening to kill himself, the last time I saw him outside court was him chasing me to my car with the gun in his hand. FYI, I got a “deferred dismissal” & spent 2 years on probation, that’s why it was so hard to get away from him. He once punched himself in the face to get me arrested again, he did too good a job and bruised his hand so he didn’t call them. BTW, he got a DUI the day of the gun after I called the cops, BUT he convinced the cops he never brought the gun in the house and they believed him even though it was loose and loaded in his trunk. All he got was a DUI. I did get him committed for a few days to a mental hospital, I did get a protective order which cost me $8k in lawyers fees and his own brother testified for me, all that because of my “record of domestic assault”, the record he gave me with his LIES. This is a very condensed version, I also resent the 2 years of dealing with PTSD and the thousands of dollars I spent to get therapy and divorced.
The most light hearted resentments I can come up with;
After he moved back in (against my will) he was drinking all the time and started dribbling piss in front of the toilet. After I stepped in it, gross, gross, gross, I asked him to please either make sure not to do that or use only “his” bathroom. He started doing it more rather than less. When I stepped in it again I got angry, told him to quit being a child pissing on the floor, his response was “you have anger management issues, you are not allowed to harass me” and he kept on doing it. So stepping in his piss, cleaning up his piss before I could use the bathroom every fucking day until I finally locked it on him, threatening to get me arrested again because I didn’t want to step in piss, yes I resent that.
I guess that wasn’t so light hearted after all. Let’s try again; When I wanted a puppy he “forbid” me to get one, I was like WTF? So he cried and said he couldn’t deal with puppy because he lost his wolf (I had waited a year since his wolf was put down but I need pets in my lift). So I said fine, I will get a cat, he fed me same bullshit. When I said I was getting the cat anyway he told me fine, he would have nothing to do with it, blah blah. So I found a breeder, I picked out my kitten I went and got him alone because ex refused, he did not want a cat. Later he convinced me to get a second cat because he wanted “his own” cat – ended up both of them followed me around, in fact his cat was afraid of him but that is a whole nother story.
Fast forward to crazy train time. He tells me how much he loves the cat and invents a fairy tale about how he found a breeder, picked out my cat and the breeder didn’t want to part with him but he persuaded her to do it, the story was really convoluted and it was what I had done except with a lot of fanciful embroidery. This is taking gaslighting to a new level and I’m hearing this and wondering WTF is his point in doing this? What? I realize later he’s trying to lay claim to my cats because of divorce, a bit of leverage. During divorce I pretended I would let him visit the cats, I also made sure I had the sales documents showing I bought them (the breeder was very supportive when I couldn’t find the second cats sales papers she sent me some).
Ummm…He had a WOLF?
Yes, what is called a 10 percenter but is really wolf, it’s illegal to have a wolf, that is a whole other saga that would take too long to explain. Wolf dog crosses and wolves should never be pets.
I resent him for insisting on going to marriage counseling in order to fool me into believing he had stopped the affair. During this MC, what did he write in his workbook when asked to list the things I did that upset him? Number one was when I called his OW a whore.
I resent the hell out of the marriage counselor who convinced me to keep trying to try to save my marriage even after he gave me an STI. I resent the hell out of the assholes making money off our misery selling books like “Just Friends” and “My Husband’s Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”. Especially those damn books, my first reaction was to divorce, it was those books that let my ex to continue to manipulate me and led to all of the worst things that happened. If I’d never read them or agreed to counseling I would have been so much better off.
Yet again I’m posting to say this happened to me, as well! Ugh! Did my ex do ALL THE THINGS? I am now wondering…
He attended a year of marriage counseling with me in an effort to extend cake. To make me think he was trying. And it worked on me and the counselor…things like “well at least he shows up” were regularly used as excuses for no progress. See, counselors can be chump candidates, too, when faced with a Narcissist’s BS! He told the OW that the regular Tuesday night session was him going on his own to help him be a better boyfriend to her. He was good…got two manipulations out of one little counseling appt.
Yeah, I can relate to that. We did the Retrouvaille program during the bogus reconciliation. Retrouvaille is all about dialoguing, which is writing to each other in a formulaic fashion. Ex and I were dialoging on what our favorite things were about each other. I wrote a whole list, which I am now ashamed to admit, included how he wasn’t afraid to follow his dreams. All sorts of stuff that I loved about him. And when he handed me his notebook so I could read what he had written about me, all he had was:
“I can’t think of anything I like best about you, and that bothers me.”
It still hurts to remember that.
Yeah, but they can come up with an 8 page dissertation on what’s WRONG with you…..
I just found that the other night amoungst other divorce mementos I stuffed in a box when I moved. I’m going to have some ceremony under the next full moon and burn it.
Oh honey, just remember: He has a very small brain. That’s why he had such a hard time with all the thinking.
Don’t take that too seriously,GIO, they just can’t even see us as humans, or the world outside their head as even existing! And I’m not exaggerating. My X could go on for an hour about, for instance, how his left big toenail looks funny and hurts. But anything I was concerned about, something like house in foreclosure, he would shut down and say something dumb like ‘I can’t talk about that today’.
Man, that’s cold-hearted!!
Gladitsover, of course what he wrote about you wasn’t true, it was an emotional bullet meant to main and soul kill. And he wrote that with that in mind, not because it’s what he thought was true. They never want to admit they thought we were wonderful.
GIO — he sucks.
And I can totally relate to the Retrouvaille moment. I did one of those weekends in my first marriage and during that exercise he wrote only one thing — this is after all these people stood up and said heartfelt warm fuzzies about their spouse — his single item was that I was “organized.”
ORGANIZED. It’s laughable! I’m not a chaotic slob, but no one who knows me would EVER put that in my top 10 qualities. Okay, not even top 100. I do not shine as an organized person (except probably to a hoarder).
And yeah, it hurt. What are we — cubicle co-workers? The whole thing was a pick me dance of desperation — and I quickly divorced afterward. They called me to volunteer months later and I said I couldn’t — I was divorced. And I was MUCH HAPPIER, thanks very much.
I resent being resented.
One night after the kids were in bed so they wouldn’t hear us, Mr. Potato Head and I faced off across the expanse of our king sized bed as I grilled him on whatthefuckwasgoingon.
He said he resented me. Resented my family. Resented my animals. Resented especially the way I “just did things” with out consulting him, the person with the Biblically granted authority around there. I was a shrew that needed taming and as far as he could see I was incorrigible.
Now since it was my money that bought my animals, my money that bought our farm and my family that had been nothing but supportive of us, that was tantamount to saying he didn’t regard me as even a human being, and all my efforts in our relationship going back over 25 years was wasted.
And I really, really resent that he thought the proper way to raise our daughter was to have her where she could see how a real woman (the whore) treats a man. Otherwise, she’d turn out like me!
And oh yeah, I resent the hell out of getting that copy of Dr. Laura’s “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” wtf
Oh, yes, and I resent his GD sisters, all of whom would have castrated their husbands in a similar situation, for coming to his aid and support in “dealing with Chumpalicious”, instead of telling him to quit fucking around.
I resent my inlaws for pretending they loved and supported me yet were scheming behind my back to help him screw me over. Fuck them. 20 years of me holding their nutty family together and taht’s the thanks I got. Fuck. Them.
One of the saddest and yet most comforting things I’ve realized on this site, and others like it (and it’s been pointed out here before), is the commonality of it all. It’s rote. Predictable. Not even quasi-imaginative. I have several things I will always resent. ALWAYS.
Planned a vacation of the Western United States for two years. Saved, and planned, and called National Parks to make sure we could get accommodations – our family’s last big trip before our daughter completed her senior year and went off to college. My husband had almost lost his job, but found another one in a commuting situation, from Texas to the Bay area in San Francisco. We weren’t sure until the last minute if we would be able to afford to go. He traveled for work the two weeks before, and then we set off for our 8-state adventure. Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Arches, the Grand Canyon and then Vegas. It was a dream come true for us.
He was a surly, bitchy, horrible prick the whole time. The kids and I were either extremely tense, not knowing what might set him off, or we developed inside jokes. He did have the kids help him pick out special postcards to send back to “work”, as well as have them take pictures of him in various locations on his phone. I thought he might still be smarting from the job situation, so I tried to be patient. On the last day there, he went to a pool with our son in our hotel (there were several). I texted him to find out where they were, he never texted back. Finally found him, and he was LIVID that I showed up. Went back to our adjoining room (the kids were next door) and confronted him. He told me he wanted a divorce, that he would be a better friend to me than a husband. I was stunned. Then he said, let’s all go to dinner and gamble! I cried all through dinner, and the kids were traumatized. Idiot chump that I was, I told him how much we loved each other, and that we should focus on that. He agreed. In the moment.
Flash forward to one month later, at his parents 50th anniversary. He made a fool of me, and our children. His parents had no idea what was going on, and frankly, I didn’t want to ruin their time. He was either on his phone (almost all the pics of that time are of him on his phone – how clueless can one person be?!) or him begging me to take a nice picture of him on his phone. My family and our friends that attended all asked me what the hell was wrong with him, but at the time, I didn’t have any idea what was going on.
Our daughter wanted him gone first. After the anniversary, she told me to throw his ass out. I told her it was just a phase, he was having a hard time. I told him to talk to her, as they were historically close, and it troubled me how angry she was. He took her to the park to tell her “this is my time” and “I’ve done my duty being a husband and father”. I had no idea what the content of that conversation was (not at all how he reported it) until friends called from church to say my daughter had left the service, and was hysterical. I think she felt more comfortable telling them, it was too painful to tell me. At least at first. That’s when I looked up the cellphone records. He had met the younger coworker while he was out of town in the two weeks before our trip. She had no issue with participating in the his time with his children (and of course, he didn’t give a fuck at all), and they were declaring their undying love for each other starting on our trip. After two weeks! What sane people do that?! I know, I know, we’re not dealing with sanity here. I found the tens of thousands of dollars he had siphoned off of our joint accounts. I found the email about the Viagra I signed for at delivery, as he needed pills to get it up to screw her (because he was barely being intimate with me, so I know it wasn’t FOR me).
He ruined our daughter’s senior year, and set our 14 year old son on a path of self-destruction that’s still being unraveled. I know it’s in my best interest to forgive, but I am certain I will never forget ANY of this.
Colleen! You don’t have to forgive, but you do have to put one foot in front of the other and move forward and away from the awfulness. You also don’t have to forget. Anger can be a motivating tool. Use it!
After going home to sleep when our firstborn was being born (2hours mind you), a few days later he got HIMSELF a gift, which he said was for me! ( a piece of equipment he needed).
Mine did this all the time. It got to be a joke. “Look at what I got me for your birthday”
Now if I had ever dared to do the reverse……..
One I can laugh at! While separated a new restaurant opened, Cajun/Korean fusion and I went to check it out. I had mentioned to ex that it was awesome. Later he says I told him I would take him and would i please go with cos he felt uncomfortable going alone, so I did but made him pay for it, he liked it.
Later I saw an email exchange where his OW was gushing about how manly and adventurous he was for taking her to such a place, how wonderful the food was and again how great it was to be with such a manly man who could make decisions and bring her to new experiences. He tells her he is always wanting to try new things but his wife isn’t up for it. OMG, I laughed at that, he fucking begged me to go with because he had to have me there the first time so he could be comfortable enough to impress his OW & I figure he got a kick going to the same restaurant with 2 diff women in one week. Their email was like two 15 year olds, they really are a match, if only they found each other before I met him.
My ex pulled somethign like that. One dday I went to an exhibition with a friend, then met ex and a bunch of other friends for drinks. I was talking about how great the exhibition was and how we should take the kids. A few hours later was dday. A week later he took final OW to the exhibition. She was going through a photography phase.
But you know what’s funny? In the beginning, when it was all exciting, they did things like exhibitions, etc., showing each other how cultured and fab they were. I’ve always done taht sort of stuff but ex never really loved it or took the initiative. Well, I still go to things at least once or twice a month. Ex? Nope. Never.
She is going to love the adventure and chaos of living with a pathological liar! Wheeeeeee!
In the throes of the “pick me” stage, he told me that if he decided to come back, it would be necessary for me to 1. Consider plastic surgery , 2. Keep the refrigerator clean, and 3. Make couponing an obsession.
The biggest irony was that he had just given OW six thousand dollars, and I guess the coupons were supposed to balance that out.
The saddest part is that I was messed up enough to agree to all three things. Thank God for regained sanity and the “meh” that time and no contact brings! And my refrigerator is just fine.
Wow. What a list! Who did he think he was, the King of Siam? That these a-holes can treat us like sh*t and think that this gives them EXTRA bargaining power boggles the mind. Almost as much as the mind is boggled at how much we Chumps agree to so we can hold on to our hurtful partners.
That is a very weird list of things to want in a wife.
I resent that after we were married (college sweethearts) he told me it was always his dream to go to medical school. I had a good-paying job, so told him we could make it happen as I could support us. We had an agreement where I would support us through medical school, residency, and fellowship, and once that was done, I no longer had to work a demanding corporate job. We talked all the time how I could stop working and focus on my hobbies.
I held up my end of the bargain and invested well over $100k into his education — in addition to the money I spent on his video games, house in a town he wanted to live in (lost $100k on that), etc. And then, just when the payoff should have come to me financially, he confesses to an affair with a coworker.
So much more behind this, but I would have been on track for early retirement several years earlier had he not stolen so much money from me. I got to be a scholarship fund for an NPD and possible sociopath, as the divorce laws in my state suck.
I had “us” on track for early retirement, we kept our own 401Ks. I had him do max to catch up to mine and i only did company match and put the rest in an investment fund, but when we settled the fund I had been the sole contributor to was split, so now I am on track for late retirement or none. Yes, I resent that.
I have no retirement fund. So essentially I’m fucked.
I’m floored by those of you here who have managed to buy homes, start businesses, travel and such. Despite working hard, I have had to borrow rent money from my mother the past couple months. Haven’t had health insurance the last two years. Savings, ha, there is nothing. Retirement, don’t make me laugh. The ex let our house foreclose (he lived there 2.5 years without paying mortgage while taking in renters to the two extra bedrooms) and that is on MY credit report as well. The ex filed bankruptcy, also on MY credit report. He owes me around $20K in support arrears, I doubt I will ever see any of it. I drive a 2001 van that isn’t in good condition. I worry about the future all the time.
I’m 49. It’s unbelievably discouraging.
My father is the cheater, still, and I resent what it did to our family life growing up. We found out 16 years ago when the OW showed up at the house, with pictures of two girls she said were his. (she raised them as her husband’s at the time). He already had five kids, so her two make him having seven kids.
I found out about the affair three weeks before I had my first baby at age 33. He said he made a mistake, once. (that resulted in two kids? wtf.) anyhow.. He always lied and we already hated him, so it was almost a relief. I was busy having my babies and raising my family.
As time went on, and my mother stayed, he never changed. My brother passed away, and he never changed. The guy is never going to change. My mother still insists we respect him, because you are supposed to respect your parents. She has enabled him to remain doucey.
He has never paid for meals when we eat as a family. With so many kids, we all just chip in, but not him. He thinks he is doing us a favor by letting us pay for him. Well, I decided that I was sick of his shit, and my kids were starting to get mad at ME for fighting with him, so I decided it was time they find out the truth about him.
I asked him his “policy” for paying for meals. He told me his “policy” was if he is invited to a birthday, he (my chumpy mom) will bring a gift, but if we eat, he will not pay for the food, but if he does pay for food, it will come out of the money for the gift. Okay. Fine.
Here’s my policy. you are not invited. Who needs that shit??? So I told him that I was disappointed in him as a father. Here is the NPD part. He told me he was disappointed in ME. This is an exact quote “You are a disappointment! You didn’t have a fiftieth wedding anniversary party for me and your mother!”. Me. “What? You chose to be deceitful. Him. “She was Obsessed with me!” oh, you are the victim here.
Me “Who would celebrate that? Who do you think is supposed to have the party? Him “the children!” Me. “Which ones?”
Next visit I snub him and he has a huge fit. He screamed at me in front of my kids. He said, and I quote exactly “You were raised Christian!! You are supposed to forgive me and you haven’t!!!!!! I asked for forgiveness!!!”” scream scream scream.
wtf. Who raised me? You? I was raised with christian values (according to him) but he is mad at me because I am not forgiving him for cheating for 20 plus years while in this Christian household???
my daughter promptly told me after that one that she never wants to go there again.
If I win the mug, please send it to my mom with the link to chump lady. she needs it.
(((hugs))) Nancy. Cheaters don’t consider their wives, OR their children. Its all about him and his fucked up priorities. They minimize, lie, project, and all sorts of other crapola stuff that’s nothing but infuriating.
I’m so sorry he turned out to be such a personality disordered nitwit, but you don’t have to forgive him. I happen to hate that hackneyed platitude. “forgiveness is for YOU!” NO, ITS NOT!!! Some things are NOT forgivable and I don’t care what anyone says.
Forgiveness means writing him off if need be. Brava to your daughter. You’ve raised her well! Because who needs an abusive loser in their life, EVEN if they happen to be half of your DNA? Mine was too. My wasband was the diametric opposite, but not really… just very, very passive.
CL:
If we’re allowed to vote, I’m voting for Nancy’s mom.
Can I send your dad a bag of flaming dog turds instead?
Cl, I appreciate your support. If you sent him something, he would tell people he won a prize for being “most memorable” for something. 🙂 I found your site because I wanted info on going “no contact”. So, no contact. His superlative in this category will go down uncommemorated, but in that case I consider that a win for the chumps and their chumpy kids.
The paying for meals thing — that drove me crazy. When we were young and just starting out (struggling), my father (who was well off) would invite bunches of family for dinners out. He invited, he paid. Well, you would have thought he had been offered charity and his pride was hurt. He never failed to try to snatch the ticket from my dad and make as if going to pay the whole thing himself, when everyone knew we couldn’t afford that. The struggle would end with him paying for us, and me hearing about it all the way home.
Fast forward many years, and the STBX, having moved out, has decided it’s time to teach the kids financial responsibility and make them pay their own way for meals out with him during visitation. Here’s how he would do it — they’d go someplace modest, say even for an ice cream cone, and when it came time to pay, he’d whip out a hundred dollar bill. Of course, the modest place couldn’t make change for the hundred, so usually my son would heave a disgusted sigh and step forward and pay for it.
When I got the divorce discovery going, I found out just how many meals out he took the whore to — paid for by debit card that was in his wallet the whole time.
He’s such a shyster.
It’s horrible, but it’s also funny – screaming at someone you were supposed to forgive me!!!! Lots of remorse there.
I noticed another commonality among the XWSs on here that I’ve never really noticed before: their indifference when their children are being born.
While my birth stories are generally pleasant, I look back now and see how I spackled XWH’s somewhat distant behavior. As far as I know, he wasn’t engaging in an A during those times, but he did put himself first. He would go home and get sleep, go back to work and not take time off (until I insisted with baby #3), etc. He never really seemed genuinely excited to be having a baby. He wasn’t grumpy, but I know that there are some dads out there who are genuinely excited to be meeting their newborns. I always thought that, maybe, XWH just needed time to bond with them.
When I was giving birth to DS #2, my older brother came to the hospital. He had missed the birth of DS #1 (and in the spirit of full disclosure, it’s because he had cheated on his first wife and married the AP– we loathed her, wanted nothing to do with her, were hugely disappointed in and angry with him, and he was estranged from us for most of the six years that they were married… hopefully, he pulled his head out of his arse for good when his marriage to the Owife collapsed due to her cheating). Anyway, my brother really wanted to be there to make up for his stupidity, so he came at whatever ridiculous hour of the morning it was to check in with me, say hi, and then meet DS #2 when he was born and hold him. My brother said that the one thing he found really strange was that XWH slept on the recliner while I was in labor (to be fair, when I had the epidural, so I wasn’t in agony). My brother said, “I was super excited to meet my nephew; there was no way that I could sleep.” He thought XWH was really weird. XWH also did this during my numbed labor with DD; he didn’t want to stay up with me and keep me company even though this was our last baby and only girl.
But, I spackled. Oh, he was tired. It was best if we both weren’t tired once we got home. Maybe that’s true… but when I admit it to myself, I think he just wasn’t all that interested. He was going to do his duty, like he pays me CS every month dutifully and has the kids for visitation when he’s supposed to (and probably only because his mother would kill him if he didn’t), but… there wasn’t any real heart there.
I pity him. Holding my babies for the first time was such an emotional experience for me. I told my children that looking at them reinforced the existence of God for me because it was so incredible and awesome. That my XWH doesn’t have the capacity to have those feelings is truly sad. His life is so very limited; I don’t think that he’s capable of great joy.
I think that the lack of excitement in their babies being born is another red flag. It’s too bad that it manifests when it’s too late, and we’re already tied to them with a child. I don’t know if this is true for the Chump Men on this site– did your XWWs behave strangely, selfishly, or distantly when your children were born?
I’ve been reading these posts (so many) and a huge percentage of them talk about the resentment due to the lack of interest/enthusiasm or compassion during the birth of a child. And cheating on their wives during pregnancy. Such narristict behavior.
During the birth of my 2nd child I remember thinking, in between screaming (back labour is a bitch, right ladies?), that Ex seemed almost annoyed by me screaming. It was a fleeting thought that I immediately dismissed but I look back now and think maybe I wasn’t all that far off. The 2nd kid just wasn’t as exciting or fresh or new as teh first one. Plus, I was the centre of attention (again! twice!) and he wasn’t really getting the sparkles he needed.
As a Chump Man, I’ll add. Parenthood didn’t shape up anything like I expected. We had 2 girls and knew beforehand. I was a little apprehensive about that, being a guy and my only practice with babies being with my nephews. I more or less expected to be 2nd fiddle as a parent. But whereas my W had always been pretty good with babies it seemed, she quickly demonstrated a very small tolerance for dealing with her own. Turns out she had a very limited store of patience for them, and found next to no enjoyment in being a mother. As quickly as she could, she found child care and went back to work, even though I encouraged her to not rush back, and her job didn’t do much more than cover childcare expenses.
Our second one was born 3 months after her mother died. She’d always felt very close to her mother, and expected this one to somehow fill the void she was feeling. That didn’t happen. She told me one time about looking at me, delighted to be holding our new baby, and just feeling empty.
Besides all the resentment for her bad behavior, I feel sorry for her. Our kids are 14 and 19 now, and she’s missed out on a lot because of her inability to bond with them. I have a little mental room for that, one because she never approached the heinousness of some of the things I’ve read in these comments, and two because I’ve been well out of her web of deceit for a while, and close to “meh” most of the time.
To touch back on the main topic, I must say that Chumplady read my mind, because “cornucopia” was a word I was thinking as I read through the comments. Getting ignored or cheated on when delivering a child or having a major health crisis? Enduring an evening out the asshole arranged in hopes of a bathroom rendevous with the AP? Resorting to stripping naked to distract him from his video game, and still getting ignored? So many mug-worthy stories. You all have my profound sympathy.
You have my sympathy. Your wife and women like her make me see red. Here you are, a man who really loves being around his children, and she shits on you. Most of us on here would have loved to be with someone like you and she has no appreciation…
My husband and I have two small children (1 and 3). He hates watching them. I love holding them, taking care of them, etc. He pushed me to stop working from home with the first child because he wanted me to “pull my own weight.” Okay, fine. So I went to work full time and proceeded to get a far better job than he did. He’s now trying to tear me down while I go to graduate school because he doesn’t want other people to think he’s a loser compared to me. I don’t care how much he makes, I just wish he would appreciate with WE are building together. No, it’s about him. HE didn’t sign up to be a “babysitter.” HE deserves the same level of professional kudos that I’ve achieved. HE is angry because I get to have a masters in computer science paid for because of busting my ass. I don’t deserve it because I worked myself into a place where it was possible from having a freaking ENGLISH degree. I started behind the line and outpaced him. Now he’s mad.
Sorry to rant. If you’re still with me, know that many, many good women would be damn blessed to have a man like you in their lives. Don’t blame you if you don’t trust us because of your whore wife, though. It’s a bloody waste.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
It’s tough living and parenting with someone who just can’t be pleased. Something I remember that was the first step for me in ending the “pick me” dance: we went to MC, which the W predictably checked out on after about 2 visits. I went a few more times. The counsellor finally told me something that really stuck with me: “Your wife needs to learn to be self-regulating. You need to learn to be self-validating.”
It was really freeing to realize that there was no way for me to make her happy. I’d been listening to her and trying for years, and it hadn’t gotten me anywhere good. She just has too much chaos within her to achieve much or gain any real contentment in life. I’m much better off following my own judgement, and staying as far as possible from the messes she generates.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be up for another relationship. The kids still need some parenting, I have a very demanding job I enjoy mostly, and I relish the peace and quiet in what free time I do have. It does get lonely sometimes, but the thought of getting out there again just makes me cringe. I feel like I’ve already expended about 120% of my lifetime allotment of tolerance for others’ shenanigans. I’m certain there are a lot of good women out there, but after this debacle I have zero confidence in my selection ability, and zero capacity to deal with the stuff I’d likely encounter dating. There, rant right right back at you!
Sorry that you’re still embroiled in your own difficult situation. Kudos though for aiming high and making good progress!
vre, what you said really resonates with me: “I feel like I’ve already expended about 120% of my lifetime allotment of tolerance for others’ shenanigans.” That says it exactly. I’m going through the divorce process now, and friends and my therapist have suggested that I think about dating in the next year. I can’t even imagine it. I think I had rather be lonely sometimes and try to focus on enjoying the peace and freedom I now have (at least, most of the time… sharing custody of a 13 year old still means contact with Drama Man). I feel as though I will be exhausted the rest of my life from those 18 years with him — the anxiety, the depression, the low self-esteem, the fear, the questioning of reality, the feelings of being inept and unappealing, the need to try to “fix” myself to meet his unrealistic expectations — just exhausting.
vre–I play video games. We don’t talk personal lives much, as we’re in different parts of the globe and keeping personal life out of the discussion helps keep healthy boundaries, but I will always remember the comment that one of my buddies made about his daughter.
He wasn’t completely sold on the whole fatherhood thing. He’s older, very conservative, and feels that women are hardwired for parenting. However, at the birth of his daughter, he held her in his arms, and she grasped his thumb in her little hands.
He melted.
He is completely dotty about his daughter, and now that she’s married, he’s eagerly awaiting grandchildren.