Cheap Shit Cheaters Do
This post was suggested a few days ago and I thought it a good topic, as you see this dynamic all the time — the way the cheater devalues you and it shows with their craptacular gifts, or their incredible cheapness when it comes to real life grownup expenses. They tip badly, they make you drive crappy used cars (with flashing engine lights), they recycle engagement rings (or give you fakes), they give you their half-eaten box of Cream of Wheat. You guys have some awesome material out there, I know it!
The flip side of this of course, is the magnificent generosity they indulge in themselves and with their affair partners. And how they try to convince chumps that this flamboyant lopsidedness is Right and Normal. It’s good to be King/Queen.
My husband once told me that in 22 years of marriage to a cheater the best gift he ever received (and he was serious, he really enjoyed this gift — it was the BEST!) was a set of screwdrivers.
Contrast that with my tie-dyed license plate cover. Yes, we’re epic chumps.
Of course his ex, like my ex, spent a prolific amount on all sorts of gadgetry and gewgaws for herself. Boy, nothing says entitlement like the finances, huh?
Now I know some of you are going to write and say, no your cheater was terrifically generous, always sent flowers, pulled their own weight, and one day was abducted by aliens and ran off with the affair partner. Okay, you didn’t have a cheap cheater (but I’d wonder — did you look at all the credit card statements?) Today’s How Cheap Is Your Cheater? isn’t for you.
So tell me, what Stupid Cheap Shit did your cheater do? And what was the contrast to how they treated themselves?
Ok, I can’t comment for myself on this one.
But a friend of mine organized a b-day get-together at a restaurant. Cheater made a huge deal about welcoming people as if he had organized it, and ordered wine for all–more than once.
Then, right before the check, said the teen-aged daughter “wanted to go home”, stiffed my friend with the check on her birthday, dropped off the daughter, and went of to see OW.
I always took the POS for birthday dinners, heck one was week before his actual birthday day, so I paid like an early birthday dinner, then on his actual birthday we went out to dinner again and he pushed the check to me(which he always did anyways, fucking SPONGE!!) and said thank you for my birthday dinner, oh BTW he ran up the tab and ordered $5.00 drinks and everything else like there was no tomorrow, (its his birthday after all) then 3 months later it was my birthday dinner, here we are and he is running the tab again, I figured hey he will pay for it, then comes the check, he says he is broke and he is only paying for half of it, which he did, so on my birthday 50/50 dinner I end up paying some portion of his because he ran the tab up! And even though he got gifts from me on his birthday, he got me nothing for my birthday, claiming he was broke and 2 weeks later he bought himself a toy, for $1400.00 cash, secretly. Broke my ass!! That was the year I was on to him and we were having problems because of all the lying and other shit. Then when he wanted something he will go back to that “I was the love of his life”, yeah whatever! Mother fucker that still pisses me off!!
We buy me an 8-yr-old Volkswagen Beetle for 8k. He gets a brand new Toyota FJ for around 30k.
We buy my Northface mountain bike on sale at Dick’s for $350.00. He orders his special deal for 2k.
During his affair but before dday, my ex graced me with his last minute, drug-store valentine’s gift – a horribly tacky, plastic, mechanical-blooming rose. It didn’t so much bloom, it creaked with the sound of cheap plastic scraping together. Not only was this a last-minute consolation prize, it also showed how little he really knew me, since I would never like something like that. Ever.
Didn’t help that he was treating me like crap during this time period, and tossed me this gem on his way out the door to see the OW (who I guarantee, got a better & heartfelt v-day gift). Ugggh!
Love it! Last Valentine’s Day before D-Day I thought it was great that I got a dozen roses. Turns out his GF got jewelry that cost $1,700.00 and dinner at the most romantic (and expensive) restaurant in our city.
The best thing about the discovery process in the divorce was finding out all the places the ex took schmoopie to keep her happy while waiting for the 2 and 1/2 year process to work itself out (my fault for dragging it out). I looked up every single one on the internet and if they had a website, I emailed him and asked him for a restaurant review or recommendation on which rose petaled strewn boudoir was best. Drove him crazy.
No, he never took me to places like that ever.
I always enjoyed birthday celebrations and always tried to make sure my husband had a good one. Several times I threw him surprise parties, made his special favorite pineapple upside down cake year after year, hung balloons, etc. He never once returned the favor by throwing me a party, and most years he seemed to always have to travel for business on my birthday. He wasn’t there for my milestone birthdays. Eventually I started throwing parties for myself and inviting my coworkers and girlfriends. I decided that although my birthday didn’t seem important to him, it was certainly important to me.
Oh, I forgot that once he was in town on my birthday. We were driving through town and he suddenly stopped the car in front of a dime store and asked me to wait in the car while he and the boys went inside. He came out with a birthday card and tossed it in my lap. Happy birthday to me.
what an ass.
My cheating ExH was cheap but deceptively so. On the surface he bought me very nice gifts, on the surface. It wasn’t until the dust all settled that I realized I in fact had been financing everything all along.
Examples:
My rings. He took me to the jewelry store so I could pick them out myself. I kept asking him what his budget was. He said “what every you want!” as he and the salesman steered towards the expensive rings. I got a very fancy ring set, he got the store credit card to pay for it. After we got married he stopped paying the bill, and I, the responsible one picked up the payments.
When we went on vacation he always insisted that we have the best room, eat the best places, etc. His favorite vacation spot was Vegas. He would order “us” champagne, room service, etc and charge it to the room. Guess who paid for the room and airfare? Me.
He bought me a fur coat one Xmas as a guilt gift for all the repeat cheating. He charged it on the credit card that was paid out of the household bill fund.
Speaking of the household bill fund…he made nearly 6 figures yearly. I put my whole check, minus my car payment into the household bill account. Him? After he skimmed off the top to pay for his sports team season tickets, very large contribution to his retirement fund (which he regularly withdrew money from to do god knows what with), and spending money into his own personal checking account – that left him contributing on average about 10 or 15% of his biweekly pay to the household to help pay the mortgage, other bills, groceries, etc.
He is the poster boy for cheap WS. Only I was too chumpy to see past what he wanted me to see.
Pos…garbage.
How un-original they are.
My exH never bought me a gift; but for our daughter (4 or 5 at the time) two great example of cheap, disordered gift giving:
She had seen a Dora the Explorer doll at WalMart – he’d never gotten her a gift before (I did all the shopping), so he took my credit card back to WM (leaving the birthday party – he was gone for hours…hmmmm) and showed up after the party was over with the doll, “Look what DADDY got you princess!” Of course it was paid for by me, but that didn’t matter. She still has that doll. She’s 11. So sad.
A few months later, he showed up from one of his overseas trips to “visit his dying mother” (she wasn’t even sick) with a stuffed husky dog. I’m sure that it was a surprise from the OW (he seemed completely freaked out when he pulled it out of his suitcase – he hated dogs and stuffed animals and she had husky dogs on her FB profile picture…) but of course our 5 year old daughter thought the dog was for her. “Look princess, DADDY brought your a prsent!” So daughter is so very happy and excited, and takes the dog to bed with her that night to cuddle… and when I tuck her in, I notice that the dog smells STONGLY of woman’s perfume. Nothing like passing off a skank-scented gift from your whore to your 5 year old kid so she can sleep with it. I’m almost gagging thinking about it. Blech. And of course, she still has that dog too. Two gifts from her dad in her whole life – neither one real. Sad, twisted, cheap bastard he is.
Repulsive beyond words. Should be criminal.
IMO, this crap that sucks in the kids is the worst.
“When we went on vacation he always insisted that we have the best room, eat the best places, etc. His favorite vacation spot was Vegas. He would order “us” champagne, room service, etc and charge it to the room. Guess who paid for the room and airfare? Me.”
Yes, this!!! Mine did this, too!!! It was so infuriating!
His MO was to say things like “Well, I bought you that nice such-and-such, so I’m going to need you to pay all of the mortgage this month.” Even when I ended up paying at least half the bill for the such-and-such in the first place!! So i doubly paid for his “gift”!
Doesn’t it just frost your hair that they got away with that?
I’ve been divorced for months now and I’m still pretty pissed about it now that I see it so clearly. Mostly I’m mad at myself for being so chumpy that I fell for that bait and switch game.
What is it with drug stores? My STBX often stopped off at the drug store on the way home to buy me gifts on holidays. My favorite was a folding umbrella for my birthday.
Since we separated, he has now passed this tradition on to the kids. He bought me a pair of socks at Walgreen and had the kids (age 22 and 14) give them to me last year. And this year, it was a cheap kid’s necklace. The kids were mortified. (And by the way, he is a surgeon).
But my very very favorite cheap thing he did was one time when I was dropping off my son for visitation, he offered me his doggy bag from his lunch out with his parents earlier in the day.
Mine does the doggy bag and drugstore thing too. We are still together but I’m starting to wonder about him. For my bday he basically forgot then went to the store and returned with a $25 gift card to red lobster and scratch offs. I HATE scratch offs and I have told him this a lot. I’ve told him how I hate when people give them as gifts they might as well spend money on a gift card. Then he lied and told me his parents bought me the scratch offs and gift card. So then I was even more angry! He bought me nothing? Then he said it was him who bought it not them. Idk what to think really. But this is after 7 long years together. I don’t look forward to any holiday or bday because he cheaps out and gives me nothing. Completely unromantic. And the engagement ring he just bought? It was under $100 the tiniest diamond chip I’ve ever seen. A spec about 1mm big. Never seen an engagement solitaire that small before in my life! When I googled smallest engagement ring ever it came up. This was a ring he told me he was “saving for” for 4 years and that’s why he wouldn’t buy me presents. Is this guy cheating?
Oh and about the doggy bag thing. He brings home his leftovers from fancy lunches and breakfasts he has at work for me to eat. At first I was fine with it but then it started getting ridiculous. The amount of money he spends on food there is insane. Expensive food too. And then he has the audacity to give me what’s left. No romance
Man did you hit the nail on the head. Entitlement? My douchbag ex wracked up $175K in credit card debt utilizing both his cards, our joint cards and (yes – I was a mega chump) cards in MY name only. Because “I’m 40 – I deserve a nice vacation.” “I’m 45 – I work hard and at this point in life deserve to drive a Cadillac.” And so on. By the time I got wise – the financial situation was ruinous and he was in year 4 of his gym teacher affair.
YES – nothing shows entitlement disorders more than a bank account and credit score.
BTW – my last “big” Christmas gift before D-Day? Two of the ugliest fake reindeer I’d ever seen – coated in dyed rabbit (God, I hope it was rabbit) fur. Because I liked deer. 25 years of marriage…….
Flash forward to now – Mr. Crappola gift giver/SpendaLot has been discharged from his bankruptcy, is living off the OW/fiance (he actually asked my daughters if they wanted to see a picture of the ring) and, in the continued stupidity with money – has cashed in a large part of his TSA in order to – get this – get married in BARBADOS where he is renting a private beachfront villa for him, the OW, her two kids and whomever they are sleeping with currently and – had they not immediately shot him down when he asked – my children. FOR TEN DAYS. IN HIGH SEASON IN DECEMBER.
From BANKRUPTCY in 2012 to spending – at my best guess (he offered to pay for everyone’s airfare, food, passports, etc, as well) $20K in order to get married for the third time in a private villa in the Caribbean .
My youngest’s description was the best – she said his money handling was just plain disgusting. I think he just may win the crown for “most entitled, destructive Asshole” EVER. Thoughts?
Boy there is a lot of sugar frosting on that turd.
Yes there is – and thank GOD I have been cured of my diabetes where he is concerned.
“nothing shows entitlement disorders more than a bank account and credit score.”
TRUTH.
This is the spot on truth! If I had realized this when I first met my husband and understood the financial irresponsibility clues then were going to be a forecast of what was to come- I would have turned around and ran in the other direction- FAST!
isn’t it Suzy Orman who says you can tell how someone values and treats people by the way they value and handle money?
My STBX ran up $30,000 in credit card debt without telling me, we found out the hard way that there actually is a limit on the lifetime supply of credit…Going to take this college professor years to pay off my half…just a wonderful parting gift from her.
Well, cheaters think there is an endless lifetime supply of ego kibbles–why not an endless lifetime supply of credit? Surely, no one would enjoy the credit as much as they would….
Crappy gifts you say? How about nothing at all! My cheater came clean about his affair last July. We were together for over nine years at that point. The OW was putting the screws to him in June. She knew he was married and who his wife was. His cupcake started out sending a thank you card to him, mailed to our home, for attending a charity walk she hosted ( I knew nothing of his attendance), when it came in the mail his behavior was suspicious. I asked to see the card and he handed it to me, but as I tried to really look at it and open it, he ripped it from my hands, tore it into pieces and then flushed it down the toilet in front of me. Hmmm… I had already been suspecting something was going on, didn’t have proof, but it finally arrived in the mail that day. Then the “private” phone calls started coming in to our house. The OW’s birthday was June 26th. The card arrived in the mail June 25th. My cheater is self-employed (read that as perpetually broke). My birthday was the month before and of course there “wasn’t enough money to get me a gift” – there seemed to never be enough money for a while there… now I know where it was being spent. I do not give a flip for gifts, I have always bought myself what I wanted within reason, the point is the cheating asshole seemed to be able to find enough cash to by his “friend” a moderately priced Alex & Ani bracelet that she posted all over Twitter. My friends are good dectives too. I asked him about it and asked where he got the money from, then the other shoe dropped. I was the only one in the house with a steady job and the paycheck. He “borrowed” from me all the time and it dawned on me that he also asked me to borrow money in the amount of the piece of crap bracelet he got for the OW the day of her birthday. So not only did this jackass lie and cheat, he also got me to pay for his tramps gift. Talk about being a Grade-A Chump.
What a fucker- she needs to give that to you. It is, after all, yours.
Karma is a funny thing JMK… the day after she posted pics on Twitter of the “Love” bracelet her BF (my H) gave her, she was back on Twitter the next day whining about how she got into her car the next morning to go to work and her bracelet was broken! I saw all of this weeks after the fact, but it still warmed my heart to know that the universe does work in strange and powerful ways.
My cheater was really good about buying the things that I wanted, but I always had to pay for them one way or the other by profusely thanking him or other ways.
I write novels and my computer stopped working, so my husband said he’d buy me the MacBook Pro I was wanting to replace it but he said I’d have to pay for it with anal sex. Yep. Disgusting right? I thought he was joking. Nope. I got the computer and he continuously cried about how I never paid up. What a creep.
At least you got something. Im not sure if I was the woman or other woman or beard. All I know is there were no presents, vacations, dinners out. nothing!! Only lies, humiliatin, homlessness, and bad credit. I think he stole my id and gave me an std also. If he had a wife which he swore he didnt, i didnt know, i was punished big time and be grateful for the time you didnt have to spend with him playing videogame watching cartoon porn.
God Almighty, the gifts with high price tags. I hear you there, RNE. In my case they weren’t even things I wanted! The man seriously never even learned (or asked!) what I liked. And although he occasionally (rarely!) made big dramatic romantic gestures, those were *always* manipulative. All about his image and trying to get what he wanted.
Psyche, yesssss.
Yes! And there was always The Payback. If my ex got me something nice, I would pay for it emotionally, financially, somehow.
Yeah. And what about the coupon for gifts that never come. I got several of those.
Coupons? I don’t need no steenken’ coupons (old movie for you young’uns) ? I had a drawer full. Jewelry, dinner, massages, day trips, date nights.
Go buy something nice for yourself, he’d say.
So one day I did. I cashed them all in for Freedom! (Thank you G. Michael).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqomZQMZQCQ&sns=em
Yup. Mine bought outrageously expensive gifts (he was really into showing how affluent he wanted others to think he was). I was the one saying “it’s too expensive, stop spending so much money”. Well, sure enough, he would use the gifts as a stick to show how greedy I was. Like I had been begging for the 2ctw earrings? I finally told him if he ever brought up the earrings again, I’d flush them down the toilet. (Oh, & the price he paid kept going up. Thing is, I found the receipt in his pocket, so I know exactly what he paid. Still too expensive.) He was trying to buy my affection, & couldn’t grasp the concept that your actions speak soooo much louder than your words…most of which were lies.
This aspect of infidelity speaks to my experience. My ex spent lavish amounts of money on himself during our marriage, usually buying racing bicycles of all make and manner. At one point we had at least 12 bicycles. He has a Porshe and a motorcycle. Towards the end, he bought himself a new car and tricked it out w/ an expensive bike rack. Meanwhile, I was putting my kid through college and working 2 jobs. I drove a 1984 Ford F150. I chalked it up to having different work ethics and sense of responsibility for our children (we each had one daughter from first marriages).
We did have access to each other’s accounts at the credit union so I was able to see what he spent. I did not look into this until I suspected he was unfaithful. Imagine my surprise when I saw that he had wined and dined one of his OW at the exclusive Inn at Little Washington, where a supper for two costs more than $600. I began to see all sorts of restaurant bills that were not from the pubs we went to. As his cheating was revealed, I was so devastated that his spending was the least of my concerns but now that 2 years have past, it is one of those signs that I wish I had picked up on sooner.
I turn 50 this week. Yes, I am older but also wiser; no longer willing to be a chump either.
Happy 50th! I second the idea that you buy yourself an awesome dinner at the Inn at Little Washington. If it doesn’t have OW cooties, of course. One of those things you might need to take back.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Virthday from all of us!
Thanks!
Happy Birthday!!!
and damn, I live in the area and I still haven’t made it to the Inn at Little Washington. Maybe you should treat yourself to a dinner there 🙂 for your BDay. Also, stop by the forums, a few of us are going to get together in the DC metro area, we have a thread.
My STBXH always gave me great gifts. Not kidding. I received even better gifts after the first dday. And after each dday they seemed to get even better! You see, my cheater NEVER knew how to show his love. He wasn’t the type of person to go out of his way with some small gesture like cleaning off my car when it snowed or pouring me a cup of coffee in the morning. He buys love!
After the last dday (same OW for five long years) I received a brand new Camaro convertible for Christmas. Previous gifts were a $3k watch, diamond earnings, a $600 bicycle, upgraded my wedding band to the tune of $3500. All of these purchases meant nothing to me! I didn’t even want to tell anyone I had them. I did enjoy driving the Camaro tho!!!!
A simple, heart felt card and hand written message inside with words that showed he loved me would have gone a LONGGGG way with me! I needed to see it and hear it. The gifts were guilt purchases to help HIM feel better about himself and they had nothing at all to do with me!!!!
ICK!!!!!!!!!!!! Sadly, the Camaro is gone! I hate to admit it…..but I loved that car!
Did we marry the same guy?? Mine tried to buy a Mercedes (I know, poor me, but it was ridiculous & not what I wanted at all – pretentious ain’t me!), I had a fit & made him take it back – mind you this was after I told him multiple times, in no uncertain terms, that I did NOT want that car. However, I never got the small gestures – I hate filling my car up w/ gas. Just a thing I hate to do. I have told him repeatedly – guess who never, not once put gas in my car, drew me a bath & said “relax, you’ve been at home w 2 small children all day, you’ve got to be fried”. Nope, I was the one who was 8 mo pregnant leaning over a tub bathing my 20 mo old while he sat on the couch. UGH!!!!!! Then I would get the “Oh, you’ve got it soooo bad” speech. No, with stuff, I was flush. But emotionally, I was a pauper, literally begging for scraps.
buy another Camaro Kimmy, the newer versions are pretty cool 🙂
My ex asked me to pick out our wedding rings and had opened a charge card to pay for it; I paid off the account a few months before he disappeared.
We would snowmobile in the UP. He bought the waterproof Gortex snowmobile suit for $200; I got the $20 version from WalMart.
He tracked down a used Toyota for me at $8K; he bought a brand new Chevy pickup truck for $28k. No surprise here when I tell you that I paid that off the month he left, right?
In my defense, it was a really good screwdriver set, with a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 at amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-Screwdriver-Phillips-Slotted-Made/dp/B006YVTAFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395322760&sr=8-1&keywords=craftsman+8+screwdriver+set
And, yes, it has been pointed out how appropriate it was to be given screwdrivers by someone who was screwing me over–and screwing other guys on the side. Hey, at least the screwdrivers have a lifetime warranty, unlike the cheating ex-wife who gave them to me!
And though I know comparisons can be inappropriate and creepy sometimes they are unavoidable. Chumplady, as you can imagine, is a WONDERFUL gift giver. For Christmas I received an amazing animated German cuckoo clock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLJrowgpjWk
If you knew me and the nerdiness I embody, you would know that a more perfect gift could never be found.
File this under the heading, “Hell Yes It Gets Better.”
Mr. Chumplady, I just HAVE to ask? Is it a real German cuckoo clock? 20 years ago I had a heck of a time finding one in Germany that was German made. They were all made in Hong Kong, etc. This one looks pretty awesome I must say!!
I bought it online from Germany — and it got stuck in NY customs for 2 months to prove it. It came with some certificate of Black Forest clock makers to ensure it’s authenticity and it’s even dorkier than that video. His clock has the woodchopper AND a water wheel AND little wooden deer AND a St. Bernard AND twirling dancers. It’s cuckoo for cuckoo clocks. I figured if you’re going to buy a cuckoo clock, you need to go all the way. No half measures.
Or “Hell Yes It Gets Nerdier.”
You just have to find a fellow chumpy nerd who appreciates Bavarian kitsch.
Mr. Chumplady it should be known is the most awesome gift giver, as I’ve gushed several times about on this blog.
You all are making me laugh!
Herr Holzklotzfrau,
Ehrlich? Von allem Deutschland, sie moegen ein Kuckucksuhr am leibsten?
Warum kein Bier, oder Marzipan????
He likes beer. Marzipan — that’s me. I love marzipan.
Funny thing, we both did our DNA tests and his last name is German and he’s like 5% German. My last name is English and I’m like 7% English. But I’m 67% Western European (German) and he’s 25% English! I’m the Anglophile and he likes polka bands and cabbage. He probably should’ve bought me the cuckoo clock, and I should get him the BBC dramas…
I don’t need DNA testing–both my parents came off the boat. I’m half Pakistani and half German. I kick ass at accents!
Females of this particular Eurasian mix are Germastani, and males are Pakman…
“I’m half Pakistani and half German”
So, does that make you Germastani? Or are you Pak-man?
Mr Fab refused to even communicate when DD’s iphone (which he got for her without talking to me about how a web enabled phone would not be a good idea) got smashed. She put up with a cracked screen for two months, while he got himself the iphone 5.1
But I should be grateful, right? I mean, he eventually paid for half the cost of the therapy she needed, due to his behavior.
My exH was a good gift giver, which always made me feel guilty as I was never sure what to get him. Now I know it’s because he never opened up with me.
Three things stick out though:
Valentine’s Day during first then unsuspected affair: no dinner reservations, we drove around for a couple of hours looking for a place to eat
5 months later, post DDay after I confronted him, he denied/gaslighted, we were in MC: 5th anniversary gift… A box of word magnets for the fridge to make poetry and a lame card of a campus building from his grad school. Years later I found the receipt, it was purchased day of our anniversary at the campus bookstore (drug store equivalent for gifts)
Mother’s Day post DDay #3 (and final one) : still had not admitted there was another woman, he was out of town, 2/3 through the day… A text: by the way, Happy Mother’s Day.
Not as lame as some other folks, but given his past ability of good presents/good hiding, these were signs.
Mine bought thousands and thousands of dollars of high end electronic equipment, purchased several luxury cars, and watches. He also loved expensive art. He could afford it but when the bills came in he’d cry, “WE HAVE TO WATCH OUR SPENDING!!”
OUR?
Oh yeah finances were lopsided big time. He’d think nothing of blowing money on himself. His hobbies. His fitness weekends. Typical issue with ex was that I had to justify my spending while he got to buy whatever he wanted. Money became a big issue when he made plans to run off with his fuckbuddy. The big one was the new fully loaded Ford truck 33k, while he bought a Corolla for me and the kids to share. Vacations were a scream our entire family always shared one hotel room and while my ex was there physically most of the time he was checked out mentally. I can’t say I ever recall one vacation with him in which he was affectionate. Perhaps that was the point. 🙂 On holidays and birthday celebrations he showed up, that’s it. Never planned anything. Never purchased gifts. Oh wait I was a SAHM so that should be never “chose” gifts. Oh but during the last two years of our marriage and his last OW could not get rid of community funds fast enough. Purchased big ticket items to buy off the kids, took us all on vacation to check out colleges for our son and then switched hotels because we “needed a pool” when in reality he needed a computer. Lol. Oh it gets better. Walks out on the mortgage and tries to include all those gifts in settlement. I told the judge, “that Toyota forerunner was a gift to my son” (ex had stolen money from both children’s college funds and while dissipated assets are expensive to prove I wasn’t about to sell my children short) and had the settlement include language that each child rightfully had title to their own belongings. And made more than half my alimony (or maintenance) an Ed fund because I knew I could put my kids through college by myself. The ex has income over 100k/year. When I asked him how we were going to pay for our son’s education he told me, “he’s your son YOU figure it out.” I guess promises to a whore override promises made to your family. Oh after the house (you know the one we dreamed of and had built) was foreclosed on (OW are expensive you know) dickwad discovered they were going to pay money to assist me in moving out and wanted half. Uh, No, When you choose not to pay your mortgage you don’t get the Chump payoff. When he came to retrieve his belongings he took fixtures off the house! And two sentimental gifts my parents had purchased for our kids. I called the cops and he returned the fixtures. That’s it. Well I could go on but I am so over his mindfuck and our life together. Just wish I’d seen it sooner.
Im sorry. Hopefully hes been hit by a car by now. Garbage stains.
Perfect topic for today, as I am ususally 85% on the way to MEH. But not today…
Yes, the exH was wickedly cheap during the 10 year marraige – he HAD to have a brand new $20K+ car EVERY year; I drove the cast offs; he charged $20+ every day on my credit card of sodas and cigarettes, then claimed he “didn’t know WHO was using the card; wanted to go to Vegas 2-3x/year (what is it w/these cheaters and Vegas?)…but today
I just found out that despite owing over $80K in back child support (he’s paid just over $2,000 in 6 years TOTAL), not to mention half of the mortgage and legal fees (also unpaid), I just read in the newspaper that he bought a $200K condo yesterday. This from the guy who just claimed last September that he was “indigent” in order to get his child support (which he still doesn’t pay) lowered. How does an indigent guy afford a new condo? The new wife has apparently moved here now, but the co-signer/co-owner is a doctor – and a psychiatrist! I can’t even begin to understand this latest bullshit, other than to try to to tell myself that he will lie to this guy too; screw him over; but it seems so terrificaly unfair. I have had to work my ass off to provide for our kids, and have been so frugal and careful in order to rebuild our lives (our house was just valued at $85K..less than half of his…). I am reminding myself that we are blessed to have a home; to have kept our house, and that God has blessed and provided for us every step of the way. I am so very grateful for all we have, and I know this too will pass, but some days are just harder than others. Cheap with your ex-wife is one thing, but cheap/completely unsupportive of your kids. What a total loser.
I do believe the state will go after him if you show them proof he bought that condo and owes you support. I’m sure lawyers here can chime in better
Can’t you get a lien on the condo for back child support in your state?
Oh-so;
Maybe…but it just blows my mind that just a few short months after swearing in court that he’s “indigent”…he buys a fancy new house ($200K goes a long way where he lives). He really does believe his own bullshit.
He tried to get the child support caseworker fired because she “wasn’t being nice to him”, so I figure she’ll have some fun with this one…
First off, let me say, it doesn’t take much to make me happy and I have a feeling that all of us Chumps would admit to the same, maybe to our discredit in many cases. My husband for as long as I knew him always made a very good living. I did too, but not at his level.
My soon to be husband was off on a business trip and brought me back a wooden key chain that looked to be carved by a 5 year old for arts and crafts. My co-workers were always bragging about what their boyfriends/fiances gave to them. Needless to say, I was appreciative of his thoughtful gift but didn’t mention it to my co-workers. Later when I realized his appetite for checking out strip clubs when out of town, I realized I should have learned pole dancing if I really wanted to cash in. Or at least it made sense where his budget went and what his priorities were. Maybe it was a guilt gift, but then he really wasn’t feeling so guilty was he?
For Christmas, after we had been dating and we’re expected to get engaged, my soon too be husband gave me a pair of diamond (I hope so) earrings or what my co-workers later dubbed the “specs.” They were more wire than stone. Of course I was very appreciative, having never received anything like it before. I wore them proudly, but when I mentioned my coworkers’ comments, he told me it was because, “my ears were too big…” Ha ha, (and not true!)
A friend in the jewelry business was liquidating stock and going out of business. I had his mother’s engagement ring, which was very nice, but I didn’t have a dressy wedding band. At that point, I guess I was feeling queasy about our relationship. I saw that all his business cohort’s wives had dressier jewelry and thought it would be nice for a band. He told me to buy one from my friend and he would pay me back. I got a good deal but he never paid me back….
Of course after DD, the piece de resistance was realizing how much he spent on escorts, OW, even being a sugar-daddy apparently, porn-sites, and specialty BDSM services, etc…, after never even spending time to consider gifts for me – it was all just too much trouble to make an effort, even as I would delight in trying to find him something he might like or want. During the MC and reconciliation period, I told him his “offenses” weren’t something smoothed over by a bouquet of roses. Of course the next day, imaginative him comes up with a bouquet of roses from a client’s flower shop! He did later buy me a gold necklace and bracelet, but by that time it felt more like it was a blood money pay-off. I didn’t really want or need them, I just wanted to feel like I was worth something to him.
I laugh at my stupidity now, but it tore me up then.
Moral of the story: KNOW YOUR WORTH… and I don’t mean monetarily (but it might be a good indication!)
What annoys me about people who have never experienced this is how they judge you for caring about gifts. I express love by gift giving. If I don’t have much money (we don’t right now), I buy something very inexpensive but thoughtful. If I have more money, the gifts are nicer but still thoughtful. It really is the thought that counts.
My husband is super cheap and has pretty much made any holiday feel like an imposition. He then directs me to super frugality forums if I want to buy a freaking $30 dollar Christmas tree for the kids. Most of their presents were from his mother for the past few years. When he does get me something (which he rarely does) it’s the cheapest thing he could find. I would rather have a box with four Godiva chocolates in it than the huge discount box from Walmart. He’d have to go out of his way to buy the Godiva’s, though, and he couldn’t do it on Christmas day. Anymore I’m just, like, don’t freaking bother. And I mean it too.
(Did I mention he took his last emotional affair out for lunch several times and paid for her expensive-ass sandwiches? Whatevs.)
What annoys me about people who have never experienced this is how they judge you for caring about gifts.
Same here. When I had to get my now fiance to clean house of his just a friend ex, he accused me of being money grubbing because I could see from various receipts and cc statements he left lying around what he was “putting out” to get her to come out to see him. I said, if money is not an issue, then why do you hassle me to help pay for dates while you freely offer to take care of her. (even providing taxi fare to go home (to her boyfriend.))
Sadly, with the way our world is structured. You make a statement about money and how much you want (and /or can) take care someone whether you spend money or not. There’s “no pass” on this issue.
I’m with you KT. I thought twice about relaying these incidences because they make me sound venal or greedy. In reality, I feel very blessed in life and it is thoughtfulness and honest gestures that are important to me. It was just the total self-absorption, callousness, and lack of reciprocation from big things to small, and in light of his OWs, gambling, cars, and other expensive hobbies that made me realize I was just a replaceable functionary in his life.
‘I was just a replaceable functionary in his life.’ – yup.
That is the really hard thing to own, because it is so shameful.
It’s shameful to the cheater, not you. You were all in. It’s an important distinction. It just *feels* shameful — but it’s not. Don’t wear their shame.
The first 4 years of our marriage I put my husband through college. It took him 4 years to get an associate degree. When he graduated, he took a job in another town, so we had to move. When he found out how much the health insurance was going to be at his new job, he decided that he would take the insurance but leave me off the policy because it would be taking too much out of his paycheck. The really sad part is I had so little self-worth that I thought this was the right choice and went along with it. My mother had just died in a car accident and I was still grieving that loss and trying to take care of my teenaged brothers. He was gracious enough to let them move in with us, into the house my inheritance bought and paid for, but he never let me live that down. It was the only kindness he ever expressed in all 13 years of marriage.
I cannot relate to this! Art was generous in the peaceful years of our marriage. At the end
the issue was his failure to accept my music and my rights. and of course his failure to give up Liz Claiborne. Now his estate is being settled, probably his “Partner” Cathy Horyn who left the NY Times to “be with him” will get some money ,i will not, but i didn’t shout enough. and i don’t want his money ,it would be like groveling, i don’t grovel!!!
i think my fathers hostility at the end of his life and the cruelty of the community to this day is repellent to me. And the fact that i am left out of anything that happens in New York as if i am a ghost. And this abusive community, especially the “Yiddush Club” Urgh.
i am the bully target here and friends want me to move.i wont move. But if we want to talk about “cheap” where the hell is my Boesendorfer? Look infidelity harms children.
i put my children first, do they appreciate it? Probably not. i did it “My Way” .Muriel
Yes, Muriel.
Sheesh, isn’t that just the gift that keeps on giving? Friends being ‘neutral’. Which means you get slowly pushed aside.
My cheater had a relationship w a woman he worked with. She is a ‘food blogger’ as well, and they shared this interest. They would plan lovely extravagant ‘business trips’ and fine dining experiences. He impressed her with his knowledge of fine wine, and food snobbery. Meanwhile, at home, he began to buy would buy cheap food and junk to prepare for his family, (yes, he prepared dinner for his family, because he believed himself to be the best cook in the house), and get mad at me when I would protest the processed, sugar laden junk he would pack in our children’s lunches. All of this is sooo symbolic now that I look in hindsight.
These gestures are compatible to ‘gifts’, because, like purchased tokens, the value is in the preparation and thoughtfulness. Thankfully, their ‘gifts’ were expensed, on their employers dime, so I didn’t have to endure the financial ‘injury’ of those ‘insults’. But I certainly paid in time and energy spent reading through their IM’s and text msgs, to discover all this.
PS: there are so many people in need in this dying planet. Look at the Great Paul Newman.
IRC just asked for money in the name of Joanne Woodward Newman.Paul Newman left his wife Jackie with THREE children for his soulmate Joanne. He is will always be a cheater salad dressing or no, she will always be the woman who slept with a married man. Folks this is serious stuff. I dont want to waste time on these men (or women) they are douchebags!!!!!!thanksMuriel
You go, Muriel!!! ‘Douchebag’ is calling a spade a spade!
My computer screensaver has a Proverbs quote: “Better a poor man who walks in his integrity, than a rich man is crooked in his ways.”
Money is such a hollow legacy. And so much of it is “blood money”, made of the miseries of others. I’m actually glad I live close to the ground these days; it beats wasting precious time with lawyers, the IRS, stock brokers, and any of the other professional money grubbers out there. (with apologies to Mr. Chumplady and the other lawyers on the blog) Not much blood left in this turnip. That people can tell, at any rate.
PS: there are so many people in need in this dying planet. Look at the Great Paul Newman.
IRC just asked for money in the name of Joanne Woodward Newman.Paul Newman left his wife Jackie with THREE children for his soulmate Joanne. He is will always be a cheater salad dressing or no, she will always be the woman who slept with a married man. Folks this is serious stuff. I dont want to waste time on these men (or women) they are douchebags!!!!!!thanksMuriel
Wow did not know this….. won’t be buying his shit anymore…..
Thanks Muriel
Even this wonderful blog wants to keep on doing the same thing. so do it!!!!
i often repeat myself because i think no one gets it. sorry folks these cheaters are a waste of time.Love you allMuriel
Love backatcha Muriel. 🙂
Love your posts, Muriel! You rock!
I think you can always tell what someone loves by what they spend ‘their’ money on.
I wish I had figured that out sooner. Years of crappy gifts and always the same excuse, “I never know what to get you, you’re so hard to shop for.”
My 40th B-day and I got a pile of grocery store chocolate, right before he tells me I need to lose weight.
Roxie mentions her 40th and suddenly I am reminded. I very rarely got anything. If I wanted something I had to be specific and I guess in the end I figured he should know what to get or just want to get something. If I wanted something though he would spend generously, even if it meant not getting quite what I wanted but the biggest and the best. Selfish me fornot being grateful. For his 40th I pooled members of our family together to buy him an expensive camera. He was a budding photographer and all I did was squash that talent. He still never took any photos. I planned his surprise party though not having any froends of his own meant it wasn’t a very successful party. 6 years later. I planned and paid for a trip. A second honey moon where he made me feel like shit, no affection, no companionship, fuck all. I organised a gathering for my 2 best friends and their families and did all the reparation and paid for it all. And from him I got ……zip. Not even a card. He didn’t care. Down the track, when he realised I was squashing his musical talent, he thought he might like a bass guitar. I fought him and fought him, because I didn’t want to tell him I’d bought one for him for christmas. Well, he came home home with one because that’s what he really wanted. Effectively he got 2 bass guitars that year….and again I got….zip. This year on my birthday, I’m going to Italy. Fuck you little mam!
Roxie, what a passive aggressive douche!
I really think some cheaters purposefully set up chumps so they can keep them under their thumb in the long term.
Have lots of kids so that the chump has that much more responsibilities, and make it harder to consider a divorce.
Undermine looks/diet/mental health so that chump feels like it’s harder to move on with someone else.
Move ’em away from family/supporting friends. (Especially ones that have their number.)
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” ~ Luke 12:34
My husband always wanted me to cook like Paula Deen and eat like Guy Fieri but look like Giada de Laurentiis.
Thanks Andrea – I keep reminding myself of that verse alot 🙂
And I agree – exH wanted 3 hot cooked meals a day, and if I didn’t eat, he got mad, but I was supposed to be a size0? And when I asked if he could watch little ones so I could work out…no WAY!
Gift giving from ex usually turned into a total shit show at my house. You have to realize I never asked for or expected gifts for any occasion but my birthday and Christmas. Further because my birthday is near tax day, if things were a little tight, I would ask that no gift be given. So the only thing the ass is on the hook for is Christmas and every other birthday.
One year I got a silver charm bracelet (not my style as I don’t wear silver and prefer more simple jewery but was happy at the thought and was very appreciative). That Christmas, when I was pregnant and almost at my due date I got a charm necklace, which had the same charms as the bracelet and quite frankly was just ugly. (maybe appropriate for a 10 year old but not a 35 year old0. I get a kick out of all of my family and his family asking to see what was in the jewelry box and the silent and confused reaction when they saw the lovely bauble. It really was that awful and did I mention I don’t wear silver. (I was also disappointed because quite frankly the necklace was worth about 175.00. Now I realize that that is a lot of money but the man wears 500 Gucci and Ferragamo loafers and drives a 60,000 car and makes a very nice living-by those standards it was not a big gesture on his part). , Fast forward to next Christmas. No other gift-birthday,, mothers day, anniversary-was given. I get you guess it a charm bracelet. Yes another one-different manufacturer but a silver charm bracelet. Did I mention I don’t wear silver. Next birthday, rolls around and I get a replica of the charm necklace from two Christmasses ago. At this point, I politely tell him that he had already given me the same gift a few years earlier and returned it. Mother’s day rolls around and I tell him it would be nice to get a gift since I had returned the charm necklace. What did i get? A crock pot. Best part is that he had wanted a crock pot.
I realize that I should appreciate the fact I even got a gift but there was so little thought put into them and he honestly spent the minimum amount of money he could spend and still get “jewelry” was what really made me fume.
I feel like I need to make a list! Hahaha
1. He would buy my gifts off of Craigslist (including a broken Nintendo Wii)
2. He bought a bouquet of roses right after Valentine’s Day from a Safeway (grocery store) when they were on sale
3. He never paid rent/utilities on our apartment, saying things towards the end like “This is more YOUR apartment.” (Well then where’s yours, Mr. Smarty Pants?)
4. When he DID have a place (before we moved in together), he would ask to borrow $20 almost every week because in his words, he “used up the entire paycheck on rent and utilities and had no money for food.” Well, I found out later that his landlord was always pestering him about the rent he NEVER PAID.
5. He had me pay for everything during our vacations (airfare, hotel, dining, etc.)
6. While at his cousin’s wedding, he was on the phone the whole time with Verizon disputing his cellphone bill. It was embarrassing, to say the least… He insists he paid them and they were in the wrong, but now I think he just didn’t pay his phone bill.
So where was his money going? (When we broke up, he was a warehouse manager. Throughout our entire relationship, he was jumping from job to job for one reason or another) Well, he sure seemed to have a very impressive bong collection! He always had a variety of weed, too! Of course those hotel room visits with the OW don’t pay for themselves! Looking back, I think he’s a giant man-child with his priorities all messed up!
One thing I take solace in is that after I left, he ended up owing Comcast (for internet/cable) over $400 in the span of a couple months because he hadn’t been paying them! He also “moved out” of our old apartment, but I suspect he got evicted.
The only Valentine’s gift I received in 15 years was a month before he walked out and I now know it’s only because he was already at the flower/ candy shop buying gifts for OW. I guess the guilt was just too much to bear that day.
He wasn’t necessarily cheap with me but he has easily spent six figures traveling with the ho (divorce is not final) and buying her gifts. Making reservations for fancy meals, scheduling a babysitter (!!!) when he has the kids so he can take her out, scheduling massages, buying tickets to events, etc…
He never planned a date a vacation or a babysitter ONCE when we were together. Ever. Every detail of every date and trip we ever had was planned by me. And he would show up late every time. He even expected me to pack his suitcase for trips. He would roll in minutes before (or after!) we were supposed to leave for the airport and expect everyone to be ready. We’d have to rush, be late, stressed, grumpy, etc…
But I thought he loved me. And one of the reasons is because he was NOT cheap (with his money). I had full access and could buy myself what I wanted, when I wanted. That’s how I justified the complete lack of reciprocity in gift giving and special planning.
What a chump.
Glad I’m not the only one… I plan all our vacations (when we take them). I also make dinner for our anniversary and buy his mom flowers on Mother’s Day.
Helen, monies he spent on the affair are marital assets and you can ask for them back in a divorce. Tell your lawyer!
I found paperwork in Exh’s car showing him trying to buy a house for OW (5 blocks away from the house we rented from my mother). Lawyers LOVE it when you find stuff like that.
While it would be difficult to prove (and I’ve only an email to show it), I know that STBX paid for OW’s mortgage and COBRA over a summer she was unemployed. I didn’t know of the affair at that point, but I do know that STBX was chronically short of money, and was pretty thankful to the point of relief when the money from his father’s estate came in. Our finances are separate, which is why I think it would be difficult to prove the extent of his support, though with a good forensic accountant, I think it would be easy.
However, if STBX is unreasonable during the divorce, I will threaten to depose OW to have her testify to the extent of the support. Having that go on public record would be problematic, as he knows it will make him look stupid when it shows up on a background check.
That’s what I did to my ex. He took her on 3 trips to Florida and on a cruise in the first 6 months they were together. He thought I would roll over and play dead when we decided to divorce. Guess what? I didn’t. We subpoenaed all of his financials (because he wouldn’t cough them up) and I was granted reimbursement for all of those trips. Unfortunately, I keep having to take him back to court to try and get the money out of him that he agreed to pay me. Keep track of all of that Helen. Make a nice long list and give it to your attorney.
Yup, every gift, vacation, trip…bought by, planned by, packed by me. Because I was a SAHM! I don’t know what it’s like to have a partner. I had a man-child that brought home paychecks. Went on a trip w another family & their 9 yo said to my friend about my STBX “he doesn’t *do* anything!” From the mouths of babes. Of course, why should he? I did it all.
One year during his gambling stints- I got a DVD of the little mermaid for my birthday from CVS.
But the real ridiculousness happened during our marriage- he too loved to spend my money. And if I got angry about it, I was accused of being emasculating. That’s my favorite gas lighting line ever. No, I didn’t emasculate you actually. You’d have to be a man with integrity for that to happen.
A few months before DDay, I discovered while doing our tax returns that he had stopped paying his income taxes- likely to have extra hidden cash for his whoring. My $15k refund went to pay the taxes he didn’t.
When he moved out, he didn’t want anything from our house because he wanted all new shiny things. And yet he couldn’t pay any of the bills he owed me.
Like most, I could go on and on. They just suck, period, and in doing so… suck the life out of us in the process.
MyKnight, after D-Day I was heartsick and devastated but my cheating STBX was already that very same night I found out, telling me I should start refinancing the house so I could buy him out and we could “go our separate ways.” I was in such pain I was about to write him a huge check and go borrow the rest but my best friend and my daughter convinced me to wait. X then called me a “heartless bitch who only cares about money.”
ex-H was quite happy to do the showy stuff while I was with him. So, I’d get a huuuuuuuuuge bunch of flowers sent to work on my birthday & he’d want to know afterwards all the favourable comments my colleagues made, I got the Chanel sunglasses, Mulberry handbag, Hermes scarf – all the bling-bling stuff that could be shown off & he could take public credit for.
Behind the scenes it was a whole different story. There was forensic analysis of the accounts to ensure that he didn’t pay a penny more than 50% of his salary into our joint account, astounding meanness for gifts for people who “don’t count” and no fuss could be made of, resentment for upping his payments every time he received an increase in salary.
Once the children came, further acts of financial miserliness followed to ensure that he wasn’t “over-contributing”!!!! Who thinks of providing for their children in terms of “over-contributions”?
As soon as I pressed the divorce button, it was a fight to get a penny out of him. There is no show or glory in child maintenance & I now very definitely fall into the “don’t count” pile, so it has been the longest, grimmest battle to get him to pay his legal share for the children.
Well, our children are adults so I don’t have the CS issue thank goodness. I can definitely related to the “look how great I am” gift giving, however.
One year it was finally time to trade in the old family car, which was “mine” and get a new one. This happened to coincide around the time of my birthday; in fact, I picked the car up from the dealer ON my birthday. My H had me tell everyone that he gave me the car as complete surprise – as in picked it out and had it delivered to our driveway complete with a big bow on the roof – all by himself. Chumpy me I went along with it.
He badgered me all day wanting to know what everyone said about his greatness.
Before the ex got his real trophy wife, he tried to get me to play along with some of his ‘keep up with the Jones’ inclinations. Chumpy, party pooper me, always the source of reasonableness, did just fine with modest, PAID OFF conveyances. AND THEN……
After Sept 11, 2001, Dick Cheney came out and was interviewed on what to do about the hit to the economy sustained on that day. Stimulate the economy! Go out and buy an SUV! Honestly. I remember the interview! OH HAPPY DAY! It’s my husband’s Patriotic Duty to custom order the biggest, fanciest, damn diesel pickup they make! He must have just had orgasms going over the options list with the dealer. Dual rear wheels!!! Heated seats!!! Tow package!!! (had to get a horse trailer too) Clearance Lights!! Oh, and it was the first year of ON*STAR!!! Yes!!! Yes!!! YES!!!
The hit to his reward/pleasure center in his brain must have been phenomenal, because a mere two years later, while we were still making payments on the truck, he sits down beside me and says he wants to get me a Cadillac Escalade to drive. WTF!! I managed to shut that down.
He moved out before that truck was even paid for. Fortunately for me, I had moved the balance onto a 1.99% credit card advance offer (I had great credit I never used and had piles of those balance transfer checks — back in the day…) so it wasn’t too hard for me to deal with. I got it in the divorce — it was too old and didn’t blue book high enough to be worth his while. It’s still a great truck. And it’s PAID OFF.
AEL, I hear you. My son’s father paid less than baseline child support for YEARS. I had to agree to $300 a month to get him to move out. He earned a good salary too. I was that desperate to divorce him. Later in court it got upped. But he defaulted even on his cheap ass CS! Thousands of dollars before I sic-ed the enforcement agency on him.
Total miser. Blows my mind how he can do his kid that way. He actually said in court once “Well, your grandparents have money. Why don’t they pay?”
Really everyone is in the “don’t count” pile. The only person who counts is THEM.
My ex is totally unruffled by not paying the ordered child support, because he says my mother can help me out, so no need for him to bother. Seriously, and the most disgusting thing is his family totally back him up in this. They actually think I am greedy and selfish for expecting him to pay child support. Poor thing might actually have to get a real job again, might have to work, might have to give up on his “dream” of being famous.
I have a case with the state agency, but since he mostly works under the table, and has no assets whatsoever, they aren’t able to do a whole lot for me. He owes me well over $25K by now, probably over $30K.
ChumpLady,
So your ex did the “let someone else pay for my kids” thing too? They really do act and speak from a script! I remember when he called me to tell me he was taking me to court to get the (unpaid) support lowered. He told me he was claiming that he had no $$ and hadn’t worked in 5 years (despite there being multiple articles on the internet about his fancy job). I told him that I wasn’t going to spend the energy or time on him, but reminded him that lying would be a crime. And he says, “What do you mean?” I said, “You’re driving a $100,000+ new Mercedes SUV. A rational person would ask how you afforded that car…” SILENCE. Then he says, “It was a gift.” Really? It never occured to him that a decent parent, owing huge amounts of support for the care of their children, would sell that car, pay the back support, and still have enough left over for a very respectable car. IT NEVER EVEN CROSSED HIS MIND. They really do suck.
It doesn’t matter what the alimony and/or child support is. You could get a dime a week and they’ll be running around saying you’re sipping champagne in the Riviera.
My new mantra to divorcing people is “Don’t focus on what you believe you’re morally entitled to. Focus on what you are LEGALLY entitled to.”
Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? Chumps are so used to starvation rations and making our needs small — we often AGREE with our cheaters that we deserve less. In my experience, the courts recognized that I deserved more legally than I asked for. And I often got more each time I wound up in court.
My advice to chumps is — knowledge is power. Find out what you’re entitled to, and go for it. Listen to your lawyer. You’re emotionally wobbly right now and you need an experienced advocate.
My ex said that he didn’t have to pay half of our son’s braces (which the divorce decree specifically said he DID need to pay half of) because his picking our son up and then bringing him back home twice per week at their dinner visitations counted for his half of the braces. The drive was less than a mile between his house and my apartment. Unbelievable. And then he warned me that I had better not be “greedy” and that karma was going to get me.
That’s what I love about that mantra–because the cheating bastards always believe they deserve to get off scott free.
Once they see that their “moral entitlement” finally means sweet fuck all, they’ll bitch to any poor sod who’ll give them the time of day about how there chump is out to screw them (no, they stayed HOME to screw you–and you were the one out, shithead).
There are a lot of commonalities here: I too have had guilt gifts, drugstore gifts, gifts I paid for myself and jewellery gifts that made me feel bad. These guys really are all the same. I have an example of each but one I’ll tell is about my 40th birthday which was 1 month after we were married: on my birthday he gave me, “Happy Birthday!” as he left in the morning for work: nothing else. I cooked supper as usual. Night came and there was still nothing else. The next day he noticed I was upset, bought the drugstore gift (it was teabags), and a belated birthday card and left them on a table for me to find while he worked (hid out) in the garage.
I can vouch for the cheap ass cars….and he has totalled both of them in the past year since D day…..first one was on D day he had it while prostitute was in the car with him, forcing him to confess. when I got my Dad’s Car as a gift because he can no longer drive after having a stroke, he convinced me to give him my 92 toyota Camry we had bought for our teenage daughter stating that I had a car already so why did I need it. I did a few things to it and dropped it in a parking lot a few blocks from his brothers where he was living at the time. The things were minor. I poured really smelly room freshener oil all over the floors under the mats and between the seats. He can’t stand strong smells. Then I broke off the radio antenna as he claimed “you never let me listen to my radio station” which was bullshit. That’s all we listened to when in the car together. Needless to say the radio didn’t work after that. LOL He was lucky I didn’t do more to it. He never said a thing to me…I actually got a text that said Thank you from him afterwards. Last month, word has it, he totalled that car. Who knows what pile of shit he’s driving now. Karma I say…..and Tip if the iceberg…..
Well, my cheater was generous, BUT, he always made sure that everyone knew of his generosity. I never got a gift that he didn’t point out to EVERYONE that he had graced me with it. It wasn’t about being nice to me, but how everything looked to everyone else. “I did”, “I gave”, “Wasn’t that nice of me?”, “Pat me on the back please”. My cheater was all about appearances. Just like singing in the church choir (oh, yes, church each and every weekend three times each weekend). If he couldn’t sing in front of everyone, he wouldn’t go and if he had a solo, talk about an orgasmic moment for him. He wanted me to have a maid (I said no), a bigger house, a new car every 2 or 3 years. He always like a big bank account so he could tell everyone how much money he had. The best … we refinanced our home so we could remodel, but he kept putting the remodeling off. So we were paying 6 percent interest on money that he had squirreled away in his bank account making zero. After two years, I said remodel or repay. We remodeled. But, of course, it was so he could point out to everyone of the extent of the remodel. Oh, it just goes on and on.
Never received any gifts in 14 years of marriage! Nothing for my Birthday, Valentine’s or Christmas ever, not even a card! He even kept the checks that my in-laws sent me for my Birthday and Christmas every year for himself!
Apparently STBXH had no trouble spending plenty of money on his hobbies and OW!
Sad, but truely the biggest Chump ever right here!!!
That’s horrible!
MJ
Mine comes a pretty close second to that….rare card, occasional flowers, sometimes picked from my own garden. No lie….
The only fabulous gift I can remember is a brand new camera setup and printer about 5 years ago. It was truly grand.
Found out after D day….my daughters spurred him on to do it.
He was so proud of himself.
I told him he did so good I never expected anything else form him.
And he fullfilled that…..
I was always thinking about him and would get him little things here and there. It didn’t even have to coincide with a holiday or anniversary.
There are too many to list, so I will just say that while I lived on a budget, my ex spent lavishly on himself, secretly met with his country club buddies to drop hundreds of dollars in poker games and spent more than $33,000. in massage parlors for “services.” In some ways, what was more hurtful, was that he was cheap and stingy emotionally. During false reconciliation #2, on Valentines Day, I gave my ex a very heart-felt letter, filled with hope for our future. He gave me a cheap, shallow, “funny” card, and the only thing written in it was his signature. A big red flag for me, but I ignored it (high on hopium). He was cheap in every way.
Here’s a good one. My X and I have 5 children and they are fairly close together in age. One year on Mother’s Day when the youngest was not quite 2 (oldest would have been 10), Freakface hadn’t bought me a gift, as usual. I told him that I was exhausted and all I really wanted was a nap. So he took all the kids and left me home alone to rest. When he came back, he had bought HIMSELF an expensive bike and $150 clip-on shoes to go with it. Happy Mother’s Day.
WOW, EL, what a narcissist FREAK. Me, me, mother’s day? ME.
I think this one takes the cake for all that I’ve read…. how friggin selfish and entitled and emotionally cruel.
I imagine in his disordered mine, he figured since he was being “super parent” by watching the 5 kids for 2 hours, that HE deserved a mothers day present.
good god
SMH…….
OMG what a self-centred fucktard!
I never got diddly squat over the years. Truth! Christmas, my birthday, our anniversary, Mothers Day..never a thing in the 26 years we were together. Just the occasional card. Pretty much shows me now that I look back that I must have meant zero to him our whole marriage. On the other hand, I’ve found out that he’s bought the OW a jewelry set over the last 3 years..1st year the earrings, 2nd year the necklaces, this past Christmas the ring. He’s paid her bills..and I’m not even sure how much he spent on her bills over 3 years. He’d pay all of her bills before ours, and would leave the kids and I struggling from paycheck to paycheck. He’d take her entire family (kids, grandkids, her Mom, and probably the dog and cat) for dinners every time he was in town to see her (he is a truck driver on the road, and was thus able to hide the affair the entire duration), taking her grandkids out for ice cream (he treats her grandkids like they are his own..better than he treats our own children), paid her cell phone bill so they could talk and text 24/7, and God knows what else he’s spent on her over the years. Of course hindsight is 20/20 because as I look back over the last 3 years, I realize he even stopped giving me CARDS for occasions..including our damn anniversaries each year! Another kick to my gut? Our last 3 anniversaries he “had to work” and couldn’t be home to celebrate. You guessed it..he was with the OW on OUR ANNIVERSIES taking HER out and buying her gifts! Our ANNIVERSARIES for pete’s sakes..how could he?
My husband is quite tight with money in general. From what I’ve seen, though, many people are. I guess I always wonder if it’s just something wrong with me. As I said in a previous post, I tend to like to do little things for people. Most of the time I don’t expect them to reciprocate, but on holidays like Christmas or Mother’s day it would be nice. (Really, I’m mostly concerned with how embarrassing it is when relatives/friends ask what your husband got for you and you either have to lie or admit he did nothing.) Same thing goes for big life events. I was thrilled that he didn’t sleep through labor and delivery of our second baby like he did with our first. Everyone asked if he got me flowers or anything. Hardly.
Is it a chumpy trait to do little things for people even after you’ve been in a long relationship with them (i.e. when the infatuation has faded)? I like to make nice meals for my parents and my husband, give him random hugs, little gifts, etc. and generally be pleasant. He’s actually told me that this behavior is “childish” and that he doesn’t do these things because he’s “grown up” since we were first together. It makes me feel like a freak or something.
Not completely chumpy.. whenever ExH used to get pissed that I hadnt done something right (Didn’t clean the house like his mother would clean it, etc) I would scramble to get back in his good graces. Which usually meant I would shop for stuff for him that I really couldn’t afford just to smooth things over. Aka: rewarding him for treating me like shit. The best case of this (when it finally hit me what was going on): During fake reconciliation, we visited the local Renaissance Faire to try to dump some of the stress. He swore he had stopped seeing OW, but I knew he still was. We passed a tent with weapons and armor set out for display. Both of us were drooling over a $600+ sword. He says to me “It’s too bad you didn’t bring your credit card. You could have bought me this sword.” Wtf? Then OW called my phone asking when we would be done at the faire as he had promised to see her that night. That would be the 3rd and final time he got kicked out.
My first mother’s day STBX went to Vegas & had himself a little fling! I spent it w/ my 10 mo old son & in-laws took us to lunch. “Business trip”, you see…
My first mother’s day the ass purchased himself a porsche. You can’t make this shit up.
Not chumpy at all! Sweet and wonderful 🙂 He was just gas lighting, as usual.
My first Mother’s Day, I got not even a card from the asswipe! I waited for him to wake up (after feeding the baby breakfast, and a bath) and went out shopping by myself and bought myself a great outfit. That was the beginning of all the wonderful gifts I got – from myself. When it was a present for him, he would pooh pooh the little things I bought him. At least I bought him SOMETHING, after all. But he would cry about how I only bought him things that he NEEDED, not things he wanted. I knew full well that I would end up getting him BOTH. I was the breadwinner in the relationship. What a Chump I was!
Mother’s day… I never got anything because I’m not his mother… true story… I think on my 1st or 2nd we were at a mother’s day party he was a jerk and then disappered. On this day when I thought I was supposed to be loved and pampered and he would take the bulk of the responsibility of our son so I could relax and interact with friends he was no where to be found for the next few hours as I looked around where we were at, took care of our son, took him for a walk to get him down for a nap stayed with him while he napped and then took him out for another walk I finally found him hiding and pouting in the car. Seriously, he said this whole thing was BS, didn’t want to be there, wanted to go home. OMG… you know it was after our son was born the he really became a jerk. Could he really be that much of an ass that he was jealous of the attention our son got from me or anyone? He certianly wants to be recognized and the best father ever and loves the accolades he gets when he brags. Is that really who he is?
That is SOOOOO who he is! He’s such a self-centered ego kibble addict, he can’t stand that a child would take your time and attention away from him. A Mother’s Day party must have been torture for him! The focus is on YOU, because you had that child who took all his kibbles!!
He showed you who he is.
My STBX had 8 jobs over the past 6 years. He was never good with budgets and money, and so of course as a chump I took over taking care of the finances. One of his “reasons” for wanting to end our marriage is that he did not know what was going on with our money. Even though I had everything organized on a spreadsheet and showed him how to access it online.
Over the 5 years of our relationship I paid for – bus trips to visit me when we first started dating, gas for my car to visit him, his back taxes, the debts for his car being towed/crushed, numerous dentist appointments, and almost our whole wedding. Whenever he was out of work we would rack up the credit card debt because we continued to go out for dinner and he would still buy alcohol.
I paid off the phone/internet/cable bill AFTER moving 300km away because otherwise I could not transfer it into his name. I am paying for our divorce (although thankfully it is non-contested, and no children and no property – so fairly cheap).
Needless to say I felt completely used, and so did my parents as they would often help us out when he was unemployed.
A year after I left the jerk, I have paid off almost $10,000 of debt. He still has a super crappy credit score and can’t take financial responsibility for anything. Yet instead of paying me back what he could, when he could – he accepted money from his parents for a new patio set, bought himself a fancy new smart phone, etc etc
Asshat!
But, but, but … you can’t expect his Specialness to be responsible for his one money and bills, surely?? How could you be so demanding?
Asshat indeed!
The 8 jobs in 6 years was my alarm in her post. There are people who also feel that employers owe them their ideal job–that somehow, the atmospheric vibrations should coincide with their personal energy levels, the mere earthlies like schedules, pay, deadlines, and um…WORK, should conform to THEIR expectations,and not the other way around. And everyone is against them, btw.
Y’ a l’air d’un vrai con. (I had to add that, since we’re all Canucks in this thread…)
A few gift stories.
First, this past Christmas, STBX was very good with his gifts. He decided to give services (gift certificates for manicures/pedicures) to the women in the family. This worked great for teenager through senior citizen. The only thing that marred it (outside of the fact I knew him to be a cheating SOB), was that he confessed to me that this was a much cheaper gift option. Now, I have no problems with economizing on gifts, but I don’t tell people that hey, I got this great idea for a gift–and it was cheap!
Second, for the entire length of our marriage, STBX has been really awful with my birthday. Initially, when I was just out of grad school and we still had a lot of my grad school friends in the area, he’d want to have a barbecue at our place. The only problem? Well, I’d have to cook, and when I told him I’d like to have a day when I didn’t have to do the cooking, he assured me he could pull it off. By the end of the party, he was angry because it turned out that coordinating cooking times was hard, but of course, that’s what I’d do when we had people over. I used to ask that we go out someplace for my birthday, but he was always “too tired” to go anywhere on a week night.
Conversely, I used to take a half a day off of work to make sure that I could make him the birthday cake or pie he’d request and whatever he wanted for supper.
This is one reason why it irks me that STBX takes OW out to dinner when he thinks he can sneak off to do it. If he’s been too tired for years to take me out, why this burst of energy on her behalf?
Then I realize he has to do it. He’s alternately love-bombing and playing Pick Me with her. And those are yet more reasons why I’m taking more steps to make him STBX.
Hehe. Idiot was 49 when he ran off with a22 year old. He would sit here every night falling asleep in front of the tv (if he wasn’t engaged on his computer) how do you suppose he stays awake now, especially with a new baby in tow?
The Mother’s Day “Gift” – me too! Wow! On Mother’s Day, my ex presented me and his mother with a box of chocolates thinking himself clever to give us a combined gift and asked us to share it.
He gave me a couple of iPods, in grand gestures. Very nice. But then there was everything else. One year I got a cooking pot and a fake plastic poo for Christmas. That’s it.
But it’s the stuff he refused to buy me–on his six-figure salary–that I bought for myself, or, worse, that my friends’ husbands paid for, that mean a lot. For example, there is the $30 pair of Converse that I get a million compliments on every time I wear them. I bought them myself the day after xH refused for no good reason. There is the $10 used book from the book store that xH refused to buy me–I bought it myself. There is the bracelet I bought on the trip to NY with my girl friends that xH refused to pay for. I was nearly broke, because he neeeeeded a $3300 a month second home (and could have easily come up with the air fare), and I “only worked part time” (you know, to take care of our three children). It was my fault if I couldn’t afford a girls’ weekend. He insisted that we keep separate bank accounts at the time. So my SAHM friends’ husbands paid my way as a surprise–and he let them. The bracelet reminds me of my friendships, and a little bit of what a DB he is.
Fake plastic poo? WTF? There’s your chump metaphor…
I told you you could ID shit miles away! 😉
Try this one on for size…
Ex (this was 10 months before we got married) wanted a new car. Went to the dealer and picked out a brand new (at the time) 2005 mustang, green with leather seats. He called me from the dealer, as I was getting out of work, to have me meet him there. Between him and the sales man, I ended up buying that new mustang…. with my Father as the cosigner (as I didn’t have much of a credit record at that point). Of course, he promised that he would always be with me so I wouldn’t have to worry about paying for it. He bought a new car for me (for him) with my and my father’s credit ratings and my money. (Be loved to slap his friends in the face -literally- with the 2k he made a week, but his credit sucked so bad he couldn’t finance a tricycle) Chumped me and my dad!
This was the car he proudly displayed as one HE bought for ME. Oh, and he took numerous young groupies and eventually the mistress out in it all the time. My car… fast forward to 2008 and my lawyer is patiently explaining that the car is my premarital property and exh cant have it unless he takes out a new loan to cover the amount I had left to pay on the original… if I agreed to it. For years afterward he’d tell everyone that the car was HIS, he paid for it! My rebuttal was, when that loan hits his credit records, he can have it.
*shakes head*
I posted about this before, but he used to love going to car dealerships to “just look.” He actually bought a car at one point (I had stopped fighting him on the issue of affording it…he wasn’t listening anyway) and he had to bring it back a week later because the bank withdrew the loan. XD
Yet he could never seem to pay my mom rent on time. All she was asking from him was $20 a week. But a new car? Sure! A new PS3 when they first came out? Yup! New games for it whenever he got a whim? Absolutely. Constantly talking about all the expensive accessories he wanted to buy for his old car? Totally.
Going on a nice date to the Cheesecake Factory ONCE? Bitch about it the whole way there and wait until the last minute to get ready. Then complain about how I’d made him dress nice because there were people there in casual jeans.
Y’know, at this point, I’m looking back on all this and laughing. Actually laughing. I haven’t been mad at myself for putting up with this for like, 3 years now. Meh is a wonderful place. It really is.
I remember dressing up for our first date in months (baby was 1yo), after recently finding out about one OW, we were going out and I was trying to delight! Put on a little black jersey wrap-around dress that I bought on sale at BR, that had been sitting in my closet for months with the tag on just waiting for a chance, and he complained that I was going to look overdressed for dinner and told me to take it off and put on jeans, like him. I think I almost cried. Oh and he was taking forever to get ready and we were getting late for reservation which he blamed on me for having to change out of a dress. PS I paid for dinner, as I always did since he thought a job with a boss was beneath him.
Kara, enjoy every moment of Meh; you obviously deserve to! 🙂
I’m an easy keeper and always have been. So the ex would buy things that interested him and give them to me. We used to joke about it: “Look what I got ME for YOUR birthday!” Things like a set of handblown glasses, pinched in the middle while the glass was still hot so that you could get a firmer grip on it and not drop it. Like so: http://www.magellantraders.com/Tumbler-Glass-16-oz-Pinched-Glass-in-Cobalt-Rim-Hand-blown-glass-from-Mexico_p_144.html
Or when he was going through a Classical Music period (usually he was CW) while trying to identify/bond with his dad, I got a CD collection (FIFTY of them) of classical music. That was at least original, and I did appreciate it. I got to use both the tumblers and the music, so I guess that’s good.
He couldn’t do a personal, intimate gift or card to save his soul though. No imagination I guess.
I got a meal in a very fancy Michelin starred restaurant for my 40th.
He paid for it with gambling winnings.
He still owes me over 10k from gambling losses.
One very expensive meal for me!
My cheater was always careful with money but not exactly mean. In this case it wasn’t cheapness as much as a total lack of interest and imagination re buying presents for anyone he was close to – me, his mother, his kids.
After he admitted adultery and I in my chumpy way forgiven him and taken him back (after all I had invested 36 years in him at that point and everyone can make a mistake can’t they!) it was our wedding anniversary. He said he would take me out to lunch and indeed did do that – but it was a sandwich and coffee on the riverbank. No flowers, no present, no attempt to show me he cared and, as I realise now, no investment in trying to make up for his infidelity. I should add that the two night stand with his ex GF the month before was in a cheapish hotel, using my AAA discount and paid for on our joint credit card. Lucky woman.
KT,
You’re not a freak. You’re a giver. You express love by giving, and you love to give. There’s nothing wrong with you. On the contrary, there’s something very right with you. But, you just need to fix your picker, and not give too much or to the wrong people, like your husband, who are too selfish to reciprocate or appreciate. Being a giver is a blessed thing, but chumps like us have to develop discernment, and that’s the hard part.
My XH graciously took his time to sign up my son for a season of soccer, emailed me to inform me of the registration, and then proceeded to dock MY child support check for the registration fee. When I commented that the child support figure was set by the court, and not subject to change or his whims, he cried poor-mouth about having to pay the $100 fee for our son and that I should be paying that since I was the one getting support.
Three days later, he went on a two-week holiday to Hawaii with his schmoopie.
Wingnut.
A good (yet former…) friend had her 50th a couple of years before me. Her hubster planned a great big party, rented a place, DJ, bar, the works. It was really fun.
Rolls around to 6 month before my 50th. I said what I’d really like would be a weekend, or even night away on the Cape or something (I’m in May so it would be just barely off-season rates).
I did say the ONE THING I did not want to do was cook and clean for my own party.
Guess what asshole did? Invited everyone we knew over to the house…told me 2 days in advance. So I cleaned, I cooked, I cried, I fumed. I had a really shitty time at my 50th birthday, that’s for sure.
And the icing on the cake? He blamed our daughter for the idea…. what jerks these people are . Really, just unspeakable jackasses.
I did an amazing surprise party for my STBX´s 40th birthday, planned to the detail with his family because they love to throw decade parties and recreate scenes from that person´s life. I was in charge of everything, catering music, videos, etc. All his family congratulated me on the Best Party Ever in their tradition. My 40th: he forgot it, and didn´t show up until midnight, I was waiting for him with a friend and my parents…so disappointed. He tried to make it up to me a year later by imitating the party I made for him and inviting some friends from the past (Highschool) which I totally did not want to see, plus it was a surprise party which I hate…it was very ackward….