Cosmic Signs You’re a Chump
Sometimes the Universe is just trying to tell us something…
We don’t see the cosmic signs right away, but we sense them. Only later, you look at the situation and think OMG, a SIGN FROM GOD I WAS BEING A CHUMP!
For me it was a truckload of cow shit. My 40th birthday was 2 months before my first D-Day and I just ordered myself a truckload of manure to spread on my new garden in the new house I’d just bought with the new (cheating) husband. I literally shoveled shit on my 40th birthday. Ankle deep in cow poop on my birthday I thought… hmmm, this is a metaphor for something.
And then my “metaphor” called me 6 weeks later — the OW informing me of her existence.
For my husband, it was searing eye pain. He used to wake up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in his eyes, and feared he was going blind. After D-Day, it went away. Now he says it was like God saying “OPEN YOUR EYES!” Weird, huh?
I thought of today’s post after my husband and I spent the weekend with someone dear to me who just found out she’d been chumped after 20+ years of marriage. I won’t go into the ghastly details, except to say they’re ghastly. But as she was telling us her story, she mentioned that her STBX had a penchant for buying clunkers (he couldn’t afford) at car auctions and having decimated their finances, her car was one of his crappy, unreliable purchases.
She’s driving long-distance in this “new” clunker and she realizes all the check engine lights are on. STBX assures her it’s fine. So she drives the thing — 40,000 miles! — but the lights keep flashing. So she gets some tape and covers up the dashboard so she doesn’t see the light.
At that point my husband exclaimed: “THAT’S A CHUMP METAPHOR!”
So today’s question is — what’s your chump metaphor? What was your chumpy sign from God you didn’t read quite right? A burning bush? A load of shit? Inexplicable blindness?
Tell me.
LOL-Tracy, I posted elsewhere about you–you know shit!
Mine is a constant pain in the neck.
I litterally developed a pain in the neck. About 3 years before d day i got the most horrendous ulcer on my neck which absolutely refused to go away with creams antibiotics anything. In the end i had a biopsy because all my lymph nodes were up. The thing was so aggravating it used to keep me awake at night (in between the nightmares about him and his family not kistening to me and ganging up on me to abuse me -yes huge red flag waving) so i literally lay there sometimes repeating to myself “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” . You guessed it d day came and went and the horrible tracking ulcer which seemed to actually move round my neck eventually went away. Now i am left with a mark that actually looks like i have had a rope noose around my neck . People even ask if i have had a strangulation injury. Im tempted to say yes because thats what was happening to my life. Other big red flags were the extreme tiredness in the middle of the day no matter how long i slept at night. Yes the universe is screaming at you ! – but usually only in hindsight….
Ha! Or you could say I shovel shit.
Pain in the neck! LOL. I’m waiting for someone to post “pain in the butt.” 🙂
Yeah, but you can identify shit a mile a way. Someone emails you from miles away, you bend over the screen, sniff daintily a few times, and say,”Yup, that’s shit alright….”
Add the whole organic inspector thing, and you’re a PK, and I gotta say, you’re pretty well-versed in all forms, quantities and qualities of shit.
Well they say there is a thin line between the prayer list and the shit list.
Master of Shit. I’ll add it to my credentials. LOL.
Mine was scentlessness!
Husband came home after work very late (again) after apparently having been out for a Chinese with his work team. Now, I don’t know about Chinese restaurants in the US, but here in the UK, if you’ve been sitting in a Chinese restaurant for the evening, you smell very strongly of Chinese food. Your clothes smell, your hair smells & your breath smells.
Husband smelt of soap! I knew in that instant that something was very wrong. It then took me another few weeks to collect enough evidence to confront him but that was my Damascus moment.
My (original) wedding day car accident.
I was driving to it, and at a 2-way stop intersection in the countryside, I looked both ways, saw nothing, started into the intersection, and was blindsided (metaphor #1!) by a woman speeding through. Hugh crashing boom.
I passed out from shock (metaphor #2!) shortly after turning off the engine.
I kept waking up in the emergency room, suprised to realize my soon-to-be husband was there (along with my kids) and me saying things like “oh – you came! I’m so glad you’re here!” and then passing out again.
Repeated the process many times, each time forgetting everything from the prior time (metaphor #3!)
I suffered permanent knee damage, and kept thinking I really should call off the wedding, but instead just rescheduled everything for the next week.
So, let’s see, thats BLINDSIDED, SHOCK, DAMAGE – boyohboy I shoulda listened!
My wedding band. Supposedly indestructible and corrosion-free titanium, it started losing its luster within the first year. By the time I took it off for the last time 6 months post D-Day1, it was completely dull with no finish left on it whatsoever. Really looked bad. It was an apt metaphor.
Oh yes. The wedding band. Mine was an expensive titanium model from a very well-known jeweler (that one might have breakfast at). My finger started itching and swelling up around it noticeably. I kept taking it off, letting it heal, then putting it back on again, only to have the process repeat. My now-ex finally said, “Just stop wearing it for a while,” which I did. Didn’t matter. Whenever I put it back on, I’d react. No other piece of jewelry I wore had the same effect. Of course, later in false reconciliation, he told me it upset him when I didn’t wear my ring.
Yes, I had the wedding ring issue, too. His first ring literally fell APART (it was a fancy kind that had three strips of metal bands fused into one…until they fell apart). It wasn’t cheap, either, and was from a good store, so this was odd.
Then he flat out LOST the second one and we had to buy another one.
Then he kept misplacing the third one (maybe because he kept taking it off so he could flirt or bed women?!). Once i found the third one stuck in the drum of the clothes dryer – it was in his pants pocket and had gotten washed and dried, then stuck in the drum. sheesh.
OMG! I was thinking about all the wedding ring signs that I read here, and I suddenly realized I had them too! My engagement ring was bought in a hurry on a trip to Italy, I got to pick it out (in retrospect, I think he felt pressured and couldn´t do it himself) but it was the cheapest ring (though nice gold) with the smallest diamond possible. It was so thin that they couldn´t inscribe my name on it, and my fiancé said he would get it done “later” (it never happened).
For the wedding ring, my STBX´s father (the Father of all Narcs) gave us the wedding rings from his first wedding (his wife died of cancer when my STBX was 18 years old…probably stress related…) and said during the ceremony that we should return them if we were ever to get divorced!! I only wore the wedding ring on special occasions but the engagement ring I wore permanently and it got lost one winter in the snow and appeared when the snow melted, and then in the last ten years the little diamond fell out 3 times. I replaced two of them (without telling my husband) except the last one. . Now I see that it was a sign of the 3 OW….on Dday I returned both stupid rings….
We had a Case of the Missing Wedding Bands at our house, too.
(followed by its sequel, the Mysterious Case of the Missing Replacement Wedding Band).
Those babies were just flying off his fingers!
On our 10th wedding anniversary my ring finger was stung by a bee.
Later in the middle of the night my finger swelled to enormous proportions and hurt so badly I had to go the Emergency Room. Ultimately the doctor had to saw off my wedding and engagement rings.
The doctor was a very kind, elderly man and he kept saying “I’m so sorry to be doing this, your rings are beautiful. Hopefully you can have them replaced.”
Oh yeah, you bet I replaced them, Doc Patterson.
With a new man and a new life. 🙂
Mine also went through a lot of wedding rings – 4, I think. He was fond of saying, “It doesn’t matter if I wear a ring, I’m still married.”
I lost my ring right after DDAY1. It apparently slipped off while putting up Christmas lights, but I had no idea where it went.
I found it long after the snow had melted when I was doing yard work one day.
When I lost it, my ex (the self-professed Empath) said it was a cosmic “sign” that we weren’t supposed to stay together, and hence the EA she was pursuing was A-OK.
This is kind of why I roll my eyes involuntarily when folks mention serendipitous “signs”.
hahaha!
lol 🙂
PS. I have to suppress quoting Jeff Foxworthy by saying, “Here’s your sign”. lol. No offense intended to anybody else. The intended offense is to a specific party 🙂
Ha! You know in some mythologies, bees are considered messengers from God.
(I learned this at a farm conference seminar on beekeeping.)
My ex said he could wear his wedding ring because as a surgeon he was always washing his hands and he didn’t want to loose it. Yep, chumpy me bought it!
Ye,s mine gave me that one, too….said he couldn’t wear it at his job. Then I would visit and notice that other men didn’t have any problem wearing theirs……*sigh*
couldn’t wear………geez I need an editor.
The first wedding ring he had he “lost” it. The second one he never wore because he has a physical job and didn’t want to get his finger ripped off. The diamond fell out of MY wedding ring and he was going to replace it..for years..and never did.
Scotty, maybe it was a fake.
Which is also a metaphor.
That reminds me of another one…must have been about 3 years from d day and we were out celebrating at christmas and when i got home noticed the diamond had fallen out of my engagment ring. I had a huge sinking feeling of dread and took it as an omen. I reckon it was about this time he had ‘checked out’ of the marriage but played a very convincing loving husband until the day he left.
I never got a wedding ring. My X suggested there was no point me having one, as I could never were it at work, due to hygiene reasons. Money better spent on hers, in her mind.
She didn’t take my surname when we married, and she was a Ms, not Mrs. Yeah, the red lights were flashing like crazy on the dash board, and I ignored them like the chump I was.
I lost two wedding rings at the beach playing with the kids while she slept..The original and the replacement…Hmmm was i missing something?
Ohh man that sounds just like my STBX..She left me for a woman 12yrs younger than me…Those red flags too many too list..
I don’t think her not taking your name is a red flag, as a lot of women do not feel the need to give up their established identity simply because they marry. To be honest, I really struggled with the decision for a long time and completely regret taking his name, mainly because I’m known professionally by it and to switch back would be odd at this point. It’s a sad bit of patriarchy that will hopefully be rejected fully at some point – because I don’t see men falling all over themselves to take their wife’s name.
I would agree with Nord.
This chump kept her surname and has no regrets. The choice would have been different if I wanted kids.
And I still use Ms….
I don’t see why a title needs to reflect my marital status. His didn’t and I don’t see why it should be anybody else’s business.
I hear what you’re saying. I wasn’t intending to be judgemental regarding the choice of titles and married names. I accepted her decisions regarding those things quite happily at the time.
It’s just that with the benefit of hindsight, they were huge red flags in my case. My X is a lawyer, but was still a student when we got married. She had no established career with her name.
She has a friend who is a lawyer. She once said to me: ” I kept my own surname when I got married for work only. I took my husband’s name when we are a family, and all other aspects of life. It was just easier. I could see what a PITA it is for parents, who are married, to have 2 different surnames”…………..this woman is a family lawyer.
My wedding ring band cracked – broke right in two! And my veil almost caught fire as I leaned over to light the unity candle at our wedding. Both of those might be considered “signs”, but the biggest sign I had was my gut feeling that I could not trust him, although he said, “Look me in the eyes! I would NEVER cheat on you!” …this after he already had cheated. Always trust your gut. I knew I was a chump even before I became an official chump.
My ex did exactly the same, looked deep in my eyes and made promise after promise, but I couldn’t shake the gut feeling. In the end he convinced me (and some friends and family members) that I was “crazy” to be distrusting of such a loving husband and all around good guy.
I got “What’s the one thing I told you I’d never do to you? I don’t believe in cheating.” Not once, but many times he told me that. Even during the 3 year affair. How do they lie so easily?
OMG! that was the exact words my ex said to me! he already cheated and he was on his second skank! and while he kept telling me “stop over analyzing things, you think I am going to hurt you, cheat on you and tell you lies over and over, why do you see me like this?” because I just wouldn’t/couldn’t set the wedding date because I had a gut feeling that I couldn’t trust him either, also I felt something was really off, even though he was very caring, loving and sweet, but I couldn’t prove it and he was trying to convince me that my gut feelings were wrong. He did cheat on me with many, he did hurt me and boy, he told me lies over and over and over! Yep listen and always trust your gut!!
Not sure this is a metaphor, but I remember going to get a card for his birthday or our anniversary close to D day and standing there after reading all the beautiful cards with lovely words and having an extremely hard time choosing one cause I realized at that point, they were all too nice and I didn’t feel that way about him or our marriage anymore. But I picked a card and signed my name and carried on hoping things would improve. Should have listened to my gut!
I did that, too.
Same exact scene at the card store for me! None of the lovey dovey cards felt right, but I bought one anyway.
Hallmark should make more simple cards that just say “Happy Anniversary” or “happy Father’s Day. My family of origin was majorly fucked up and I’ve spent most of my life looking for cards that aren’t too sappy, and aren’t jokey either, because the Narcissists (mother, father, sister, husband) WILL take offense. I remember standing in front of a Hallmark Mother’s Day display and *sobbing* because I couldn’t say anything nice about my mother at all.
Me. I was the best indicator that something was off.
I’m normally a happy person who loves to laugh. In the last years of my marriage I was angry a lot and sad. I kept going to see my doctor because my STBX thought I should and “needed help.” Um,….no.
That and for my 20th anniversary I got a ring and the huge stone fell out of it.
Thensome, that describes me pretty well. I’m a person who really lives to laugh, yet the last few years of my marriage saw me as this angry, resentful woman who flew off the handle at any little thing. This, of course, is why ex had to cheat. But this does not explain why he was cheating well before that and the cause and effect that his cheating may (ok, very much did) have on our marriage. It’s when you sense something is up but can’t quite put your finger on it that you go a bit nutso. My kids say I’m a much happier, if much poorer, person these days. And I like it. 🙂
I had a diamond fly out of my eternity band.
The universe was shouting at me to GET OUT.
I forgot– the diamond fell out of my engagement ring several years ago, but I was able to find it and have it reset. I was so upset when I lost it, but ironically, I’ve been trying to sell that stupid thing for ages now, and I don’t have any takers! Maybe it would have been better if the stone had gotten lost and stayed lost!
Your eternity was a dud.
I remember a priceless quote my ex fucktard put into the legal financial settlement documents : “the respondant retains an expensive diamond eternity ring ….” twat….the irony was lost on him.
Indeed it was.
Can we sue jewellers for false advertising when you get an eternity band from your cheater?
hahaha!!!!
LOL!
That’s hitting rock bottom.
(Ok, I couldn’t resist the pun, I’m sorry)
I’ve got two. First was Debilitating depression that started right after he got home from nine months in Guam (where the affair began). He was so robotic and cold to me and I became so depressed that I ended up on medications and in therapy. Second was my wedding ring started to cause little blisters on my finger that were painful and annoying so I stopped wearing it. I thought it was from moving to a tropical climate (we were stationed in Hawaii). Nope, it was just a sign of the pain and annoyance that he was about to cause.
I had a dream: we were on vacation in destin, fl. He was out playing golf. I went to the hotel room to get something. There was writing all over the walls. On a small table sat three wine glasses, though there were only two of us.
Duh.
I hope you enjoyed shopping at silver sands and Destin commence 😉
I had 3,
1- instead of him coming to see me (in the beginning) since his car was at the shop, I said I will come and see you, 5 minutes away from his house my car just died and I mean just died, no light no nothing, my cell, no service and it was dark. I waited for couple of minutes then my car just started and it never happened again.
2-After dating for 8 months, I was invited to their family party so I can meet the whole family, got in my car and on my way there, there was an accident, so I had to wait for about an hour before they opened the roads again and I was late over an hour.
3-I figured one day I would just go and surprise him and have lunch together (in the beginning again) I was in left (fast) lane and as cars approached to the light I don’t know why but I decided to get on the right lane. My car and the truck on my left was the first ones at the light. It was a 4 way intersection, When the green light came on we both started to move, before I knew it, there was another truck and the driver obviously decided to burn the red light, speeding fast and coming from the left direction and t-boned the truck that was on my left, I swerved to the right, and I was ok, but if that was me on that left lane, I wouldn’t have survived that in my car, getting hit by that truck. I drive a 4 door truck now.
I should’ve took those signs as a warning…
So, you’re telling us that you have a smart car? 🙂
I guess I did have a smart car, much smarter than me, that’s for sure 😉
Wooow!
This is almost as good as a burning bush.
We had decided to go to Las Vegas to get married and I had booked the wedding at ‘The Little Wedding Chapel’ a few months in advance, The day we flew to Vegas everything that could go wrong did. When we got to the airport they had bumped one of us off the flight so we were stuck in the airport several hours longer than we anticipated. When we finally got to Vegas we rented some fun red car and were flying down the freeway towards our motel in it and turned on the air conditioner and the motor died! There we were in a dead car on a busy freeway with cars flying around us trying to miss us. I thought for sure we were going to get killed.
We had to get road side assistance back to the car rental place. We finally made it to our room and realized we were never going to make our wedding in time so I called and moved it up two hours. When I went to get dressed I realized that I forgotten half my outfit!! I was going to wear a lace cut out white suit and needed the pants hemmed and had left them at home hanging in my laundry room! I ended up wearing a pair of black jeans. On the way down the elevator I had some kind of panic attack where I couldn’t breathe (never had one before or since) By the time the elevator landed security and my soon to be husband were bending over me. My eyes were watering so badly all my makeup had come off. I said, ‘let’s just go!’ We finally got to the car and and drove to the wedding chapel. And swear to dog, it had burned to the ground and there was nothing but yellow police tape all around it. You can’t make this stuff up.
I knew at the moment it was some kind of omen. My mom had been dead several years and I thought for sure she was talking to me. Most people would have run, buy oh no, we found another chapel to get married at.
Gio, swear to God I was just going to post this! At my first wedding — the CHURCH CAUGHT ON FIRE! Never heard of anyone else this ever happened to! We showed up to the rehearsal night to find fire trucks. The roof caught on fire. They said the sanctuary was still okay, so the wedding went on.
As if the church catching fire wasn’t omen enough, we also had no wedding rings. The guy who was supposed to make them, fucked up. (Long story). Had to borrow rings.
Yeah… the universe was trying to tell me something.
Oh. Oh CL, you win, the only thing better would be if lightening struck.
It’s interesting that the burning church comes up. I had forgotten all about it, but right before we were to go meet with the priest to discuss our very small wedding, the church which I had attended all of my growing up years and where we were scheduled to get married, burned to the ground!! I had completely forgotten about that! LOLOLOLOL!!!! That church was over 100 years old. We ended up getting married in the nun’s chapel in the convent.
OMG! Church on fire!!!!
Burned down church – you can’t make this shit up!
It was literally weeks after BD and after my gut had screamed at me enough I confirmed wasbands affair with my friend and I had confirmation that is was physical.
So I’m truly not sure why it took me so long after the discovery of the invoice for a really really expensive silver ring to realise that he hadn’t purchased it for himself.
I guess your lizard brain only lets you know things at a pace at which you can cope with the information.
This man was love bombing and romantic right up until bomb drop!!
TRUST THAT THEY SUCK!!!
To be clear, the ring was purchased before bomb drop
Apparently, 95% of your neurotransmitters are in your digestive system–there is a belief that our digestive system–which may add credence to the whole “gut feeling”.
http://neurosciencestuff.tumblr.com/post/38271759345/gut-instincts-the-secrets-of-your-second-brain
wow…that is so interesting…I found out about one of my wife’s affairs which was long distance, but my gut told me there was also someone local ..Two weeks ago I went to dinner with a couple we used to hang out with…They thought I knew that she was also sleeping with our neighbor, while also conducting the long distance affair which is the reason we are divorcing…I did not, just the gut…as painful as it was I am so happy to know that my gut was right.
My gut told me about a second affair, too…he was never caught and I never brought it up….but my gut tells me it happened. Moot point now, since I left my cheater.
My gut did that too…I began losing a bunch of weight when I discovered that something was off awhile before I was dumped.
@Gio — You made me LOL and think of this:
Alyosha…Yes!! This was EXACTLY my wedding day!! Hahaha!!!
I KNEW it was an omen. I mean the whole day was so FUBAR’D and then getting to the wedding chapel and it was a smouldering heap with yellow police tape surrounding it.
I mean, what Bigger Omen could I have asked for? Gawd, a sane person would have ran so fast.
I actually said out loud, ‘Mom? Are you trying to tell me Something?’
Alyosha…Even funnier…..my mom’s name was ‘Dolores’ just like in the Steve Martin clip and I just knew she was trying to tell me ‘something.’
Great clip, Alyosha! (I embedded it for you.)
That reminds me of a joke.
A hurricane was coming, and this guy needed to evacuate. The police came to his home and said “Get out! A hurricane is coming!”
The man said, “I don’t need to worry. God will take care of me.”
The storm came. Flood waters started to creep in. Pretty soon, his first floor was underwater. A neighbor came by in a canoe. “Jump in!”
The man said, “I don’t need to worry. God will take care of me.”
The flood waters rose, now the man is sitting on his roof. A rescue helicopter comes by, the pilot shouts down, “Grab the rope!”
The man says, “God will take care of me.”
Then the man drowns. He’s in heaven all pissed off and meets God. “God! You let me drown! I waited and waited and waited for you! And you never came!”
God says “WTF? I sent a police officer, a neighbor, and a HELICOPTER!”
I’ve always loved this story – God (in my experience) doesn’t stand there in billowing white robes with a halo – but He does send us plenty of “help” in the most awesome ways – if you choose to see it. I think that you can believe in coincidence or miracles – but believing in miracles sure makes life more wonderful 🙂
I asked for a sign to show me whether or not the marriage was salvageable. Two days later I found the texts to and from the girl he met on eharmony! Oh, the cuteness, the lies…made the decision so much easier. He was the type of narc that didn’t even bother to clear his text history, because he was so convinced that I was too stupid to figure him out.
Whodathunk,
I had a similar experience – I knew something was off, and wanted to know the truth. A couple days later I found directions to my XW’s date with the OM, and the planning and lies followed and shortly after I was dumped.
RedefiningMe,
Sadly though, organized religion and I are not on the best of terms these days – it is how the XW met the OM. I simply want to make progress in this whole mess without having more nonsense come along and continue to push me down. It’s like the message is “No no no, sit back down, you need to remember your life still sucks”.
CW – I am so sorry that thisi whole nightmare is happening to you – to any of us. All I can offer is my experience with the hope that my words can help someone – even a little bit.
I remember being told that “this” would make me bitter; I could stay stuck in the drama; or I could take the lessons I needed from it and move forward into a better life. For whatever reason, early on, I chose “c” – and you get to choose too. This can be the beginning of a much better, more peaceful life… but it takes a while to see it.
Hugs and prayers to you. And whether you believe in God or are mad at Him, as a pastors kid whose had her own struggles with God – I can only say that He REALLY hates cheaters – and if your ex used church and religion as the way/place to destroy your family…yikes. Wouldn’t want to be in their shoes :). It will get better, and please know that goodness and decency still exist – often in the most unexpected places.
True dat!
Oh my God, these are making me laugh so hard! It’s just like that Steve Martin movie, “The Jerk”, where he prays, “God, if this is wrong, please give me a sign.” And things start flying all around him — so he says, “Nope, no signs. Guess it’s ok!”
Mine isn’t nearly as dramatic as a church on fire, but I had a dream back when we were dating that I was swimming through a tunnel to find catacombs, and when I got to the end there was nothing there, just a dead end. Yep. Of course, when I woke up — even though I actually realized this was about the relationship — I rationalized it was because catacombs are below, so of course this was a sign that I just needed to go DEEPER.
God almighty. I’m glad I can laugh about it now.
Not so much a metaphor, but definitely a sign…
I was married ten years, and for most of the marriage, I had this creepy, repetitive dream. I was wandering around my old junior high school, looking for my locker. I’d search and search, and when I finally found the locker, I couldn’t open it. Then I’d wake up.
So right around D-day, I find this dream interpretation website (dreammoods.com). And it says this, “to dream of a school locker denotes hidden feelings, knowledge, and attitudes that you need to learn and/or acknowledge. To dream that you cannot open a locker or that your forgot the combination suggests that you are unsure of where you stand in a particular situation. You feel you have lost some aspect of yourself. If you cannot find your locker, then it symbolizes your insecurities about your role or position in a situation.”
BINGO. So, exH leaves, and I discover over time that he’s been screwing around our whole marriage, embezzling $ from work…and the list goes on.
And I’ve never, ever had that dream again.
Oh my gosh also… I was sitting here thinking, gee, except for him “losing” his wedding ring like others said above and never replacing it and telling me he would never wear a wedding ring again (in hindsight during affair #1), did I actually have any signs? Then I read your post – I, too, had that SAME confusing, recurring dream for YEARS about not being able to find my locker or remember my combination (and now that you point it out, probably ONLY DURING MY MARRIED LIFE!) (although sometimes I also had a calculus final, so in addition to not being able to find my locker/remember the combination, I also couldn’t remember what period I actually had my final because I hadn’t been to class!) Wow, I have never been able to find an interpretation for that, but that is such an odd scenario and three of us have had this dream! This dream has puzzled me for years and I would even tell people I had this weird recurring dream.. and they thought I was just that .. weird! 😉
I should add this is something that always bothered me, so maybe this was my “sign”, but it was way before I met my now ex. They had a fortune teller at some function I went to when I was in high school, so I went with my friends and we all got our “reading”. Of course it was just for fun. But one of the things that stuck with me was that I would “not get settled until later in life”.
Fast forward. For years, I would ponder/agonize over what that meant, because I met my now ex in college, got married at 25, had my kids in my early 30’s, had a nice job, thought I had at least an ok husband, nice house, and I just couldn’t understand what that meant… was I going to die young because “settled later in life” must have meant that 25 was really “later” in my life. Because, after all, I had everything “earlier” in my life than what I considered “later”. Then all this started, and I realized perhaps this is referring to now. Because now that I no longer live with my potentially narcissistic passive aggressive ex, even though I am raising 3 kids basically on my own, my life is calmer and more peaceful, and I DO FEEL MORE SETTLED emotionally. In hind sight, I was not “settled” emotionally even though I thought I was settled?!
Oh my gosh! I would have this exact same dream!! I would also be wandering around the school trying to figure out my class schedule – I would go up to the door of random classes and peek in to see if it looked like a class I recognized (in my dream I had lost my printed schedule). I would wake up feeling disoriented, lost, frustrated and scared. A perfect metaphor for my marriage!
During the course of our 27 year marriage, the skin under my ring would occassionally peel and then it would spread to surrounding fingers. Sometimes it would get red, itchy and sort of irritated to the point where I’d have to take off both my engagement and wedding ring for short periods of time. This got really bad during our false reconciliation that dragged on for 3 plus years. Once I made the decision to divorce and removed them , I have no such peeling or flaking. I took that as a sign from the universe that I did the right thing.
When I was dating my now-husband (20 years ago) I consulted a psychic. The image she gave me in regards to him was that “he was torn between two apple trees”.
She predicted a long, bumpy road if the relationship persisted.
Yep.
During the Affair, when I smiled in pictures, my mouth would purse up. It became known as the “Chipmunk Face. “. I had become as small and insignificant as a rodent. I can’t even make the face now.
Ok, THAT I would love to see a cartoon of!
When searching for a venue for our wedding, we decided upon a classy, older, but popular landmark inn located in our area. Unexpectedly, within a year following our wedding, the whole structure was leveled with a wrecking ball, and dynamite, flat as a pancake, gone. I should have sought a divorce attorney right away. Who knew?
My mom cheated on my dad and is now on husband #4. My mother immediately hated my now ex-wife, told me not to marry her.
That was my sign in hindsight….no one can sniff out a bitch better than another bitch.
see, it takes one to know one lol!
Bah ha ha!!!!!
LOL!
I suppose the fact that he was out of town at the time and proposed via sms should have been a sign
o_O
LOL! I also should have known by the way he proposed..he went to a jewelry store with his Mom, came back and handed me the ring box and said “here”. Yep. What a story I have to tell!
I had been dating my stbx for almost a year and he leaned over in the car and said, ‘I want to marry you. If you don’t marry me I don’t ever want to see you again.’ Duh, now that should have been a warning. Yep, complete control freak. So romantic too.
You got a TEXT proposal? No freaking WAY!
Yes, but she accepted it!!!!!
Yeah, my health. Just at the time Ex started running ads in CraigsList and all that fine shit, I started having horrific migraines…and gaining weight….and blowing discs in my back…. My body was trying to tell me something! Thankfully now that I’m on my own, the headaches are basically gone (bwahaha), but I still have a ways to go on the other two. Just like the fall- out from being chumped, it doesn’t clear up over night. Going in for another MRI next week.(Maybe when my back recovers, it will be Tuesday, and I will have arrived at the town called Meh!)
But the other REALLy weird thing? HE started snoring. Never before, never since. But the whole time he was out cheating, or ineptly trying to cheat, he snored like a bear with plugged nostrils. Nothing fixed it. I decided post Dday that it was the ultimate form of passive aggressive behavior, which fit his personality. He could even do it in his sleep! Asshole.
“He could even do it in his sleep! Asshole.”
thank you for giving me a great chuckle!! :))))
Mine Talked in his sleep! Not in the beginning and not all the time but in some major concentrated burst’s…. Also in the last 6 months or so before I changed the locks I was having severe pain in my stomach…….which…..just…faded…away…
Toni,
too bad the fucktard didn’t tell you everything while he was talking in his sleep…now that would’ve been clutch 😉
I was always getting sick when I was with my ex for almost a decade, but guess what?? I haven’t got sick not once, not even a simple cold, since I threw him out! you see our bodies were telling us we were being screwed. Life is much better without the lying cheats, no anxiety nothing and I sleep like a baby every night now! 🙂
About a few months D-Day, all the Tiffany’s jewelry that my ex had gotten me a year ago had started to tarnish. I planned on going to get it polished together, but he would always cancel at the last minute for some reason or another and borrow the car (and since we shared a car, that meant I couldn’t go).
Then, the engagement ring he got me started to poke my finger to the point that sometimes it would start to bleed! When I would point this out, he would get mad and INSIST I keep wearing it, saying it was a symbol of our love.
Oh, and of course he would have insomnia, night sweats (to the point that I was washing the sheets every other day or he would sleep on a towel), and he couldn’t go the entire night without getting up twice to go to the bathroom.
Ooh, but my favorite is how he would criticize others for things (I later found out) that he himself was guilty of. He criticized his ex for jumping from relationship to relationship, but that’s what he did; he criticized his friend for not finishing his college degree, even though he didn’t even start college; he criticized me for not respecting him, even though HE was the one disrespecting ME by sleeping around! Gah!
I used to have a recurring nightmare that there was a huge rat in the basement (of our brand new house). Never had that dream again after D-day.
For about three weeks before D-Day, randomly I woke up after just falling asleep with a searing mental image of a giant hand ripping out my heart! For two seconds or so, this was accompanied by a huge whoosh, rushing feeling from head to toe and I couldn’t breathe and thought I was dying!
I didn’t know what it was, and I started googling to see if it was a symptom of menopause or something else… the last time it happened was July 20, 2013, nine days before D-Day. We were at my brother’s house helping my daughter move, and X and I were lying in bed going to sleep. We’d had a busy day with my family, and X was all jovial and helpful, hugging and joking with the kids, etc. but secretly (I found out later) was texting and sneaking off to call OW on the phone. He’d already been sleeping with her for at least a month.
I know now that my heart indeed was being RIPPED OUT.
It still makes me so sad and mad, even after six months of therapy, and accepting the facts that accountants, attorneys and the therapist have presented me with: that he is a snake, a worm who used me financially and abused me emotionally and sexually. I still feel sad that my heart was ripped out. But I know this was truly a sign… someone or something was trying to wake me up and tell me.
I feel like my heart was literally ripped out, too. It’s the absolute worst feeling in the world. I’ve been shattered in a million pieces by an uncaring, unloving person that I spent 26 years with, who decided that his 3 year piece was much more valuable then I ever was.
I’m right there with you, Sandy. It sucks. They suck.
No one can ever hurt me like this again.
Finding out none of it was real, he wasn’t real (diagnosed narc) just sucks.
I had a recurring dream that it was college exam week, and I had forgotten or not realized or not gotten around to attending class/studying/whatever. It was ‘test time’ and I felt blindsided and unprepared and a little crazy because how had I let that happen? I had this recurrent dream for YEARS. Anyone see a metaphor there? Interpretations?
Sorry, I commented too early before I got down here! As I said above, this is often the second part of not being able to find my locker/remember my combination – I too am at final time and same thing as you .. forgot when my calculus class was, hadn’t gone all year and now I had a final to take. So I guess this plus the locker combination one is a very telling combo for me! Wow. And thanks for the interpretation of this – I have never had success finding a good explanation for my convoluted dream!
Seriously – I love dreammoods.com. It has really opened my eyes.
Test taking dreams are apparently very common – it said… “Taking an exam in your dream implies that you are being put to the test or being scrutinized in some area of your waking life. As with most common dream themes, dreams about taking a test have to do with anxiety..” Yep, lots of anxiety in dealing w/cheaters.
I have had that dream a lot! Where I have a mid-term or final in a class that I have completely forgotten to attend all semester. Hmmmm….
Yes, whodathunk, that one! I’m not actually taking the test in the dream, it’s more the realization that I forgot or didn’t know ’til now . . . but somehow should have known . . . ahhhhhh . . .
Oh, I just remembered that about 6 months before D-day I had a dream where I told my husband “You can go to her, I’m strong enough for you to leave me now.”
We got married at a bed and breakfast and had our reception at a local restaurant. Over the past two plus years (while dealing with all this mess), the restaurant burned down and the B&B went out of business and was being sold.
When my ex returned after our first separation to try and ‘reconcile’, I got poison ivy that turned into a month long bout of systemic poison ivy! It took about 5 weeks to recover, he left again after 6 weeks. Good riddance to both!
It was always a joke that I couldn’t remember our first meeting. A few years later I did and recalled him asking me to dance and me refusing and walking away. He love bombed me into thinking we were both in love (well we were but with the same person – him!) . Nearly forty years later when he ran away I realised that my first instincts had been right – I should have kept walking.
Doesn’t it feel great, though, to know your intincts are right on?
inStincts
I don’t know how this qualifies but here it is;
I started having dreams at night that there was a guy down my street who was super hot in a Gabriel Byrne kind of way and he was always “around”. For example, I’d look out my bedroom window and I’d see him looking at me from his bedroom window a few houses down. I’d try to stay away from him because I was married and loved my husband but it was like a magnetic pull to the dude down the street.
One evening, the guy down the street was over my house helping me with something while my husband was out doing God knows what, and we’re drinking wine and just chatting. At some point, he decides he’s going to teach me to slow dance. So he’s holding me and looking into my eyes and I say I feel guilty doing this and my husband wouldn’t be happy if I was dancing with someone else, and he would always say, “You’re not supposed to be with that guy.”
I started having this dream around the same time my husband’s affair started, but obviously I didn’t know what he was up to yet. Now I’m divorced and I haven’t met whoever this neighbor is. 😉 Weird.
After my stupid ex denied even an emotional affair, I dreamed that he was closed off in a room with a heavy set long haired woman. I knew (in the dream) that they were kissing. I tried to get to the room but it was up a flight of stairs and there were snakes all along them. I tried to climb up the stairs but fell slipping on the snakes. In my dream I was in Bloomington Indiana. I learned when one of the monster women of Bloomington’s “birth community” visited our home with her offspring that my nightmare ex had an affair with he president of a “birth education organization” (mean girls incorporated) She wa pregnant at the time (motherfucker) and had gross stringy long hair. I almost had a stroke when I heard but somehow my unconscious knew. It did make sense after the initial shock was over. (I am still shocked at what people will do to others in the name of family support)
I’m new and just now seeing this thread. Chumpectomy, what you wrote really hit me, especially the bit about the stairs. A few weeks after DD and right before I moved out, I had a horrible nightmare in which my X was chasing me up the stairs and I was afraid for my life. Suddenly I heard a gunshot, and when I turned, I saw that my X had been shot in the back. In an instant, the fear I’d had completely dissipated and I ran back down to try to rescue him. Thinking of this now, it all seems so prophetic. Here’s the universe handing my life pattern to me on a silver platter: rescue the very person who’s bent on destroying you. HELLO!!!!
Would be very interesting to see what stairs represent in dream interpretation. Progression, or lack thereof? Me running back down the stairs would be the ultimate wake-up call if that’s the case.
I totally want to have that neighbor…especially now!
Well, if he exists, he doesn’t live down my street. 🙂 But maybe I’ll meet him someday when I feel like a normal person and not a newly divorced person. 🙂
I love this topic! Here’s my addition:
We had MICE in our home! About six weeks before I kicked him out for good, we started seeing droppings everywhere, but especially in the TV room where he would spend his nights texting and browsing the internet on his laptop for hours. That room seemed to be the epicenter of the activity.
I am a neat-freak so I scoured the house from top to bottom, cleaned and cleaned, and cleaned again, but they would not go away! After I kicked him out, however, the mice disappeared immediately!! All gone, with no additional action from me! Based on the influence of a friend who is into animal totems, I looked up the meaning for mice, and GUESS WHAT?!? They represent SECRETS!! Once he was gone, the secrets were gone from our family! Now it is just me, and my two beautiful boys, and a home filled with as much honesty, truthfulness, trustworthiness and love as we can muster! The Universe is amazing!
Also, related to the whole mind-body connection, in the past year since our divorce, I have GROWN TALLER and my vision is now 20-20… and I’m in my early 40s!! Again, the manifestations of living a true life are beautiful and hilarious!
Interesting about the mice. I make no claim to being a neat freak, but once our home was overrun with mice. I didn’t find it very fair that they seemed to have an affinity for my clothes in the closet, my dresser, and boxes of my books or my sons’ old clothes and toys. That is all very normal, except…they left my husband’s clothes, stuff, and shoes alone. Just my children and I were shat upon.
wow that’s so true chimera !! I had problems with palmetto (water) bugs in my house which drove me nuts and just like you I am a neat freak, did the cleaning, spraying nothing would work, kicked the asswipe out, guess what?? not one palmetto bug ever, completely gone since!!
of course I didn’t know at the time, but when he would come near me during his affair(s) my neck would get so stiff and would just ache, then I noticed I was only getting that stiff/hurting neck when he was around me, now that’s completely gone too.
Every time I took back my husband/future husband I got rear-ended. The last time was about 2 days after he moved himself into my new house. Coming home from work, about 5 blocks from home, sitting at a stop light, rear-ended again. Each time I was rear-ended, I was at a stop light. (And yes, my break lights worked)
It happened three times, twice before we got married, the last time after I discovered him cheating and took him back anyways. The universe was literally trying to give me that figurative shove forward.
My cosmic event was related to D-day, not that the marriage should not be…
then H came home one weekend and announced that he was tired of living a lie, etc etc (no mention of an OW for another 3.5 months).
I drop him off at the airport on his return to work in another state…..I just missed a horrific 10 car pile up on the freeway by about 3 minutes.
Two days later, just missed getting rear ended.
Then the cat died, the first piece of furniture we bought for the house broke, etc.
All signs of endings.
Talk about a kick in the butt…
I got rear ended on D-Day. Couldn’t get EX or his secretary on the phone. Unusual. Went home and while putting out the trash had a vision of her perfect fingernails. I just knew. It must have been the garbage connection.
Before our wedding, we rescued a second dog. He took a while to get used to life in a household, but became a beloved member of the family. The Ex bought this dog a collar that had the logo of the Ex’s favorite sports team embroidered on it. Because the doggie was a rescue who could run off when frightened, we made sure the collar was one that fit snugly and was not easy to remove.
One day, after a series of particularly hideous series of cheating and addiction-related events, I returned home to find Mr. CrazyMaker Extraordinaire on the couch. I knew I couldn’t be in the same building with him at that moment, so grabbed the dogs to take them for a hike.
As we drove, and then got out of the car, I prayed and prayed for a sign…”tell me what to do!” The dogs and I hiked, they ran around exploring. I lost sight of them for a moment…when they came bounding around the corner, the rescue dog’s collar was gone.
My prayer for guidance was clearly answered. I went home and told the Ex “I think we are going to have to get a divorce” and told him the story. Of course, because I’m a chump, I lived through several months of more bs, but that was the day I knew what to do.
I thank my dogs all the time for helping me be brave and for showing me what I knew I needed to do.
I laugh when I picture the two of them trying to get that darn collar off, what with no opposable thumbs to help…maybe my guardian angel buzzed down and said, ok doggies, today’s the day– let’s ditch this thing.
I went back and searched for the collar, which was nowhere to be seen. A year later, right before the divorce was final, it was hanging on the trailhead sign. I mailed it to the Ex.
My many signs from the Universe were not subtle!
“I thank my dogs all the time for helping me be brave and for showing me what I knew I needed to do.”
Love that story. My dog didn’t tell me to leave my ex, but he stayed right by my side throughout the aftermath of my divorce. I doubt I’m the only Chump who feels like he couldn’t have gotten through those weeks and months without a faithful pooch.
“If you don’t have a dog–at least one–there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life.” (Vincent van Gogh)
That’s a great quote, Nomar. 🙂 I love how my dog let me smother him with my tears and never once got annoyed. He really helped me when I was at my absolute lowest.
oh, Dogs are the best. I don’t think I would have made it through the past year without my Newfy-girl. We have regular cuddle time, when she gets up on the bed and we snuggle, back to back. And she lets me bury my face in her magnificent big strong furry self and wail. Then she licks my tears. I “rescued” her, but man, has she returned the favor about 1000x over.
I just…dogs… no words. Love dogs.
So at one point, cheater had his mistress, his oblivious wife (me), and a therapist, all of whom he lied to, of course. Our 2nd dog had died and I kept saying I wanted to get another rescue Newf. He always said no, no.
In hindsight, he had all the people-cake, and I couldn’t even have a (nother) dog for some love and kibbles (pun). He was literally starving me, emotionally. What bastards they are, not to smear bastards or anything.
After the divorce, I caved and got my son a dog from a rescue shelter. Our sweet beagle rescued all of us!
About two months after the dog came to live with us, X emailed me that he would be fine if the dog came on visitations, like the dog was part his, too.
I shut that shit idea down quick.
At the time during his affair, we had 2 cats and a puppy. The male cat who was extremely bonded with me, use to run from him, would not look at him and in the evenings would drape himself around my shoulders if I was on the couch, purring in my ear constantly. I now think those animals knew- they could probably scent another person on him but I also think they worried for my safety. The puppy who is full grown now doesn’t even know who he is anymore. And just like all of you, my animals surrounded and supported me throughout this entire mess. I’ll always be grateful to them!!!more loyal than my husband of 23 yrs!!!
The dogs are mine, and I’ll fight for custody. 🙂 I love our cats, too, but he does well with them and at least one of the cats would do better in a household without dogs.
Our younger dog keeps trying to make up to him, but he constantly rebuffs her. In fact, watching him interact with the dogs makes me grateful we don’t have children. He’s permissive, so they’ve horrible manners around him. Then, when it’s not cute anymore, he doesn’t understand why they still persist in the same behaviors he was rewarding moments previously!
My “universe” moment was while walking the dogs in the park 2 summers ago. The thought came in my head–very clearly, as if someone were talking–that we would divorce. At that time, I knew that he was being pursued by OW, but thought that he was fending her off. Little did I know that this is very likely when he first started sleeping with her, versus merely sexting with her.
Ok, can’t resist hijacking this thread a wee bit. My stbx and I always had Great Danes as our passion in life. Took one (his favorite?) up to #17 in the country. A great experience! Well, guess who just walked right out on our 4 Danes and the horrid wife without a look back? Oh yeah, he met the douche-bag at a dog show. Anyway, my dogs have been my heart and soul and I can’t believe anybody could just walk away from everything they ‘loved’ for something he thought he luved. Yeah, it’s extra work but it’s work I LOVE. I am genuine and I like that about myself 🙂 (I think the dogs were just part of his ‘accessories’ when it came right down to it, like me)
watching him interact with the dogs makes me grateful we don’t have children.
I had the same reaction to watching my dogs and my ex interact.
I gladly spoil them 🙂
Dogs are so smart!
Your story reminded me of another. We got my cheater’s dog in the divorce, as my son bonded with him, and cheater totally neglected the creature. (As in, “Oh his bladder can go for over 24 hours before I need to let him out.”)
Anyway, the dog was a friendly, sweet dog, and it had been his. Cheater comes over to get his things (with a constable escort) one day, and the dog is on the porch. They both haven’t seen each other in awhile.
Cheater says to dog “Hi Joey! Come here!” And smiles and tries to get the dog to come to him.
That dog just sat there and looked at him and would. Not. Come.
Later my son and I referred to the dog as “Joey Dog of Insight.”
My dogs saved my life!! He brought 3 inti the relationship and they all denuded up liking me best. Lol
Sorry for the typos! I was trying to say his dogs ended up liking me best.
Same thing here CL. My dog barely wagged his tail that last time he saw the X. It was funny because prior to splitting up, the dog loved him.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say my dog was trying to protect me. He sat right at my feet and wouldn’t move until asshole left.
Good dog, Rumblekitty!
Those insightful dogs! Those stories remind me that the same thing happened with the first dog (who LOVED the Ex). During The Troubles, he had gone out of town and came back to the house. He walked in, called for her, she came to the room we were both in and she absolutely ICED him. No eye contact, would not come near him, sat on my lap (a 60 pound lap-dog). That moment said more to me than any other. The man I thought I loved had left the building. Turns out he had been on a drug-and-cheating binge and any decency he had left had been extinguished. And she knew it. I still think that moment must have been one of the low points in his life.
Around the time my ex-wife’s cheating seems to have started, and her gas-lighting kicked into high gear, I began having “ocular migraines.” Unlike regular migraines, they don’t involve debilitating pain; instead, they involve a pulsing blob arising in the middle of your field of vision and growing until they sometimes blur over pretty much everything. When you don’t know what they are they’re scary as hell, and feel like you’d imagine a stroke or brain tumor must feel, but luckily they pass in 30 minutes or so and cause no permanent harm. In retrospect, I think *I was gas-lighted to the point that I couldn’t even see straight.*
And NOW I know what I was experiencing too! Thanks Nomar, I definitely had ocular migraines and was scared thinking that I was dying. Haven’t had one since he moved out. Totally enlightening. =)
WBW, here is an excellent simulation of an occular migraine from the Mayo Clinic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVFIcF9lyk8
Sometimes they’re bigger or smaller or cover different parts of the field of vision. Plus they can be accompanied by a sense of pressure inside your head. And more rarely (and most alarmingly) they can be followed by a period of an hour or two when your verbal ability is compromised (I would start sentences and be unable to finish them).
I still get them from time to time, but more rarely and much less severely. I consider it a relic of my infidelity experience.
There’s got to be a huge mind/body connection with emotional abuse. No migraines here, but I broke out in a weird rash and ground my teeth at night. After I left him, those things never happened again.
For sure. The folks at the Pain Management Center I went to today are very explicit about that, and they employ alternative therapies to help you learn to militate against the reaction. Stress and emotional overload (cortisol letdown, adrenaline spike etc.) can trigger underlying biological stuff big time.
It’s just the condiments on the shit sandwich! Instead of relish or mayo, you get…back pain, rashes, migraine. wheeee.
Huge mind-body connection, and one I try to caution people about. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s ( one of the autoimmunes) at the beginning of the end. My body was shrieking at me to put myself first, and to live a life of integrity, which means to eat no more shit sandwiches and to stop sharing a home with a liar. I didn’t listen to myself soon enough, so continue to pay the price with my health. But it is getting better. New Chumps: don’t be like me! Preserve yourself. Listen to your body and believe the signs.
To me the clearest sign was totally bizarre. I’ve written about it before, but right before D-day my ex had been traveling a lot for business. My family was visiting, and as my husband arrived home from his trip I opened the door to greet him. I smiled and said hello, but he didn’t look me in the face. A voice as clear as day said “There’s somebody else” into my ear. It was so real it could have been said by someone standing next to me, but there was no one there. I thought, “wow, that was weird,” and tried to quell the anxiety that rose up inside. I went back to visiting with my family and by the time everyone left I had convinced myself it was just a weird anxiety attack.
The voice I heard said “pay attention”. I tried but still saw nothing 🙁
Me too, Nomar! They are freaky!
I haven’t had one since I finally got all of his crap out of the storage unit post-divorce.
OMG! I used to get these all the time too! Now that I think about it, haven’t had one since he left!
Wow my chump sign from the universe was just this morning. I was talking to Verizon as my cheater (was going to type wayward) has been cheating and I having been swapping his phone with an old relic here to spy and see who is calling while he is at work. I have done it so much I freaked the account out and it said it couldn’t send my phone a code. So I am on chat with Verizon, they say you have swapped phones so many times from December and it is messing up your plan, what is going on.
I have a flash of intelligence as I type the words “I am spying on my cheating husband” to them.
And as I typed it I realized this is really stupid of me, and I went and made coffee and could not bare to even see what they chatted back to this chump.
When I started dating my STBX I had lost over 150 pounds over 2.5 years. When we moved in together I started to gain weight. At times I would manage to lose 10 to 20 pounds, but then I would go back to stress eating. By the time we got to D-Day #1 – I had gained back all but about 15 pounds over the past 4.5 years. A couple of weeks before D-Day #2 (3 months after D-Day #1), I went back to Weight Watchers. Now I have lost 56 pounds (plus the roughly 230 pounds of the STBX).
Also – I broke my ankle right before he cheated on me with OW#1 and I ended up in the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery a week later. He kept the “date” he had made with OW#1 (as I was supposed to be out of town for a bridal shower) while I was in the hospital. I threw out my back right before D-Day #2 (with OW #2).
Should have listened to the signs my body was sending.
I know, eh, hoser? 😉
The night I got engaged we drove back to his parent’s house to give them the good news. As I was getting out of the car, somehow I accidentally slammed my ring finger in the car door! It was smashed good, dripping blood and throbbing, so at a time I should have been squealing and proudly showing off my ring I was mostly in pain. For weeks my ring finger was swollen, black and blue. I cringed when people asked to see my ring because I didn’t want them to see how ugly my finger looked. My fingernail fell off and took a year to grow back, just in time for the wedding.
My signs: My cortisol levels reached epic heights, thyroid went bonkers, I gained 15lbs. But, even more interesting—HE started having health problems, namely an acute episode over a month of super high blood pressure. He bought a blood pressure cuff and was monitoring it 3x day, having panic attacks and wondering if he was going to have to go on hypertension medication, at the age of 40.
After D-Day, I immediately lost the 15lbs, granted from stress and lack of appetite from the trauma, but still, skinny jeans make me happy.
I told him “Why the fuck do you think you had that blood pressure episode??? because you were LYING.” He looked at me legitimately stunned–he never put 2 & 2 together. Asshole.
I saw a little karma during my H’s affair. He suddenly developed acid-reflux issues. So bad he couldn’t eat, and this guy’s an eater. Later, he said he thought it was caused from hiding so much from me. Poor fella. He still has it. He’s also developed over the top hi-blood pressure, immense arthritis everywhere, bad shoulder, bad knee and he’s losing his hair – ha – she can have the old Shit!
yup, my exH had health issues during the cheating/marriage issues:
nightmares for months… now know during affair #1; I accused him and was gaslighted, but I now know he broke it off then
insomnia for YEARS: guilt, I guess; that’s what happens when you hide the cheating and do nothing to work on the marriage.
I was quite angry when I heard the insomnia stopped when he moved to other city and got away from me. No, was not my fault, it was YOUR fault for keeping secrets and not working on things.
LOL, I’m not particularly superstitious, so I don’t know about “Cosmic Signs” (my feeling is the Cosmos is up to many things far more important than how my day is going on any given day–smile), but…
We got married in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We were staying in a cabin on Dauphin Island, and the day after the wedding there was a storm, and the island was flooded, and we had to be evacuated in caravans (driving in about 2 feet of salt water, unable to see the road). The road connecting the island to the mainland was nearly impassable due to huge driftwood logs covering it. Those first 18 or so miles took hours to cover.
In retrospect, it was a perfect metaphor for what I was allowing into my life 🙂
My dream: beautiful, idyllic beach vacation/honeymoon with a gulf-front beach house (nice one too) 100 ft from the water on the Gulf of Mexico.
Reality: Near hurricane, narrow escape, much difficulty.
It was a template for my hope for the marriage vs the reality of it 🙂
Speaking of dreams..I cannot escape the H, even in my dreams! Most nights I dream that I am chasing him and chasing him, and I just can’t ever catch up, and I watch him fade into the distance. I wake up bawling like a baby!
I, too, have had – not dreams – but nightmares about this guy I thought I loved. Funny, never dreamt about him before. He would be coming up the stairs, walking into my bedroom and it was so frightening. The dogs didn’t bark because they knew him. I was sure he was going to kill me I was so terrified. Ran to the bottom of the stairs, couldn’t get the door open after trying and trying and then he came at me. Of course, you wake up then but I could use that therapy of imagining a different outcome before I go to bed. The dream was SO real I don’t even have to write it down. Not uneasy to interpret, I guess. I was damn scared of the guy!
Sounds like this is recent for you. That goes away just as soon as you reconstruct your own personal narrative, I think. It did for me, anyway.
I am 8 weeks out from Dday. TimeHeals..how did you reconstruct your own personal narrative? I am open for advice, big time!
For recurring, upsetting dreams, it can help to write out the dream with as much detail as you can manage, but complete it with a better ending. Perhaps you see him walk away, collapse crying, then get up and walk towards a beautiful sunrise? Or a friend comes to comfort you and help you walk away? Or he walks away, and you shrug and give a little laugh and turn to walk another direction?
Then you read over this ‘revised dream’ several times a day, including before going to sleep. Weirdly, when they do this, people rarely dream the revised dream, but it often stops the recurring one!
Good to know..I’ll try anything at this point!
You start small.
For me, the first thing I resolved to do was walk my dogs twice a day. I have walked them over a thousand miles in the last year 🙂
Little changes add up to big changes. Start small.
Thanks, Time Heals, for the great advice.
what Timeheals said is true Sandy, little changes do add up to big changes. I should know 🙂
Thought of another. During my marriage to a cheater, I used to frequently dream about tornadoes. Typically I was caught out on a wide prairie with one or more tornadoes moving erratically on the horizon, leaving me uncertain whether there was any direction I could move in to be safe.
Just now looked up the meaning of tornado dreams at dreammoods.com and found:
“To see a tornado in your dream suggests that you are experiencing some extreme emotional outbursts and temper tantrums. Is there a situation or relationship in your life that may be potentially destructive? To dream that you are in a tornado means that you are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. Your plans will be filled with much complications and you will be met with a series of disappointments. To see several tornadoes in your dream represent people around you who are prone to violent outbursts and shifting mood swings. It may also symbolize a volatile situation or relationship.”
Now I read that and I think, well, DUH!
Lots of tornado dreams…
You know that’s funny, I had lots of dreams about tornadoes, mostly more than 4-5 coming at me from every direction and I was always looking for a place to hide, then my roof leaking, I also had that too more than once and in my last dream, the roof wasn’t just leaking, it was flooding in every room in the house and I was so upset. I haven’t had any of those dreams since I threw him out and went NC.
Dreams – this has GOT to be another thread entirely. I have recurring dreams of being on a huge, very high bridge that curves in the middle and I’m about to drive off it at anytime. They are the scariest! I’m sure it means I’m about to drive my life off a cliff. lol Need to visit that dream site.
Wow, I have had tornado dreams for years. Usually multiple tornadoes coming toward me, and I am responsible for herding a group of people to safety but can’t quite get them to cooperate. How is it that I never associated those dreams with my XH? I thought it was just a Midwest thing. Come to think of it, I have not had one of those dreams since I left him in June 2012.
One recurring dream I used to have (no longer) focused on the roof of a house I’ve never been in – it was always leaking or otherwise in disrepair, which I was diligently trying to fix. Makes sense!
“To see a roof in your dream symbolizes a barrier between two states of consciousness. You are protecting or sheltering your consciousness, mentality, and beliefs. The dream provides an overview of how you see yourself and who you think you are.
To dream that the roof is leaking represents distractions, annoyances, and unwanted influences in your life. New information is slowly revealing itself to you. Something is finally getting through to you. Alternatively, the dream means that someone is imposing and intruding their thoughts and opinions on you.
To dream that the roof is falling in, indicates that your high ideals are crashing down on you. Perhaps you need to rethink the high expectations or goals you have set for yourself.
Scotty, I ALWAYS dreamed the rood was leaking, that’s amazing!
Someone else with tornado dreams! I have been having them for decades. I don’t think mine are tied to my bad marriage, however.
They would always involve my failed attempts at trying to get everyone to take shelter from the approaching tornado. And I would wake up just as it was closing in on us.
I had lots of tornado dreams too nomar!
OMG, I did too. I thought it was because I kept falling asleep with the weather channel on (seriously).
I used to also dream about a bear breaking into my house. It was recurring and I would wake up in a cold sweat and practically panting. So I just checked out the interpretation of this dream and it apparently means that you are concerned about a sexual rival.
I had this dream before I found out and a little after but have never had it since.
For about 10 years prior to DDay, I would have occasions where I would wake up in the night with the feeling that my heart was stopped and I would gasp for air and cry out. After awhile I started to track when these occured. I even went to see a few doctors, convinced I had a heart problem. My husband (a doctor) was unconcerned, in fact he was extemely irritated because when these “episodes” occurred it would disturb his sleep which would piss him off. I would try to calm down quickly so he wouldn’t be mad at me.
Well as you can all guess, once I knew the truth of his double life, I never had another episode. And when I have looked back at the dates when the panic attacks happened, they correspond to his serial cheating. My subconscious knew something was very wrong while my conscious mind was in denial.
A few months before d-day I was feeling jealous at the attention my Ex was giving a mutual friend- he had been giving her this attention for years. Whenever I rose a fuss he would tell me she is like a sister, yada, yada, yada. This particular night I said the words “I am probably going to find out you’re secretly fucking her and I will not even be surprised!” He laughed it off and said I was being silly. I told myself I really only said that to get his attention of my jealousy- and I knew he would never really cheat on me. CHUMP!!! A few months later- on my birthday no doubt- that myth became a very real reality!! I look back now and realize God even put the words in my mouth as I still denied it!!
I once heard of a woman who blurted out “I know about all your affairs over the years” when she had absolutely no intention of saying that. To her surprise her husband broke down and started sobbing because it was true. She felt like God had put the words in her mouth.
Wow. I’ve had similar see below.
1) In the months leading up to D-day, I became depressed and emotional. I could tell stbx had checked out emotionally but he kept saying that nothing was wrong. I thought something was going wrong with me. I now know it was my gut telling me that there was something wrong with my marriage.
2) Around the time my stbx started his first affair, he developed a problem where he started pissing blood. When the affair cooled off, the symptoms went away. The day he started an affair with second OW, he wound up in hospital that same night with a bladder that was blocked up with blood clots. When he stopped screwing around, the blood disappeared. Through OWs 3 and 4, he was pissing blood off and on. The doctors could never figure out what the cause was. Symbolic, eh? For the record, I tested negative for STDs so I know that was not the problem.
1) In the months leading up to D-day, I became depressed and emotional. I could tell stbx had checked out emotionally but he kept saying that nothing was wrong. I thought something was going wrong with me.
Same for me, Mai Mai. I too could tell the H had been checked out emotionally for quite some time, but I chose to ignore it, thinking it was just a phase. (Yeah, a 3 year phase with the OW) I was depressed, emotional, and squashing the nagging feeling that something was truly wrong. So I spent the last few years of my marriage depressed and emotional, and now that I know about the affair, and his abandonment of the kids and I on DDay for the OW, I’m feeling depressed and emotional. What a vicious circle! (BTW, he’s happy as a clam with the OW)
I also became incredibly depressed and felt like I was a “worthless person.” My husband was gone on business trips constantly, and when he came home the first thing he did was go outside and start doing work around the yard. He would do anything to avoid spending time with me.
Mine was when I went for my annual pap and my doctor was like, “Do you need an STD test?”- I was like um no I why would I, I’ve been with him for 3 years now, and found the question odd because I had just had a baby 9 months ago. He tried to cover it up with oh I’m getting you and the girl in the next room confused? He must have known or it was just a slip up. Anyways I found out 6 months later dirt bag daddy was cheating on me. So I did need that test! And that really sucks, the feeling that someone you trusted put your health in jeopardy. Just to fill their needs. But I’m clear of any STDs.
Rain, that ‘fill their needs’ NEEDS to be in quotation marks ! ‘Cause we all know it means ‘fill their ego at little or no cost to them’.
Yes, I am a chump who ignored Cosmic Warnings prior to my marriage and Cosmic Signs during our 16-year marriage.
My first sign was on our very first date in college. We had been introduced by a mutual friend and had enjoyed a group outing the week before. But on our very first date with just the two of us, I had this very, very strong feeling of aversion, that I wasn’t safe, and I wanted more than anything to get back to my dorm room. This feeling was so strong that I finally feigned illness and he took me back to my dorm. Like many women, I thought the problem was all me not appreciating a nice boy. After all, he was much nicer, gentler, quieter, than my other boyfriends had been. And our mutual friend had grown up next door to him and vouched for him. So I go out with him again to give it another chance. We stopped by his dorm room at his college and when he excused himself to go to the bathroom, I happened to notice on his bookshelf an entire collection of porn magazines. Again, I had that sick feeling — what if I was out with a sicko? But later, I pooh poohed my concerns with “all guys look at porn,” especially young college guys. After that, didn’t date him any more for about a year. But after we graduated college, we reconnected just as friends as coincidentally we were both looking for jobs in the same region. We became closer as friends, then later that grew into a romantic relationship, then engagement. I thought I was doing everything right. Then, about two weeks before our wedding, I had a dream. I dreamed that my fiancé died and I didn’t even care. The dream felt real. I woke up sweating. I was mortified with myself that I had dreamed of such a terrible loss and that I didn’t even care he had died! What kind of heartless person was I????? I told no one about the dream. I convinced myself it was just a dream, a meaningless dream, and stuffed it deep down into the recesses of my psyche, pretending it hadn’t happened. Later, after we married, I began to have a recurring nightmare over the course of our 16 year marriage. I dreamed that my husband and I were sleeping in our bed, and that shadowy dark figures would break into our house and try to “get” me, all while my husband lay there oblivious. In the dreams, sometimes the figures would break in through the back door. Sometimes they would break in through the windows. One particularly vivid dream, they were in the attic and were coming through the attic access pull down stair just outside our bedroom door. Always then were coming for me in the bed and I would wake up just before they “got me.” Sometimes I would find myself halfway across the house running from the “intruders” when I would wake up. Often I would scream out in my sleep: “Mama! Mama! Mama!” screaming for my mother to help protect me from the intruders. One time I remember waking up to the sound of “I’m NOT your MAMA.” This was my husband saying this, irritated that I had called out in terror in my sleep. After 16 years, my husband left me and our two children (a week-old infant and a toddler) to start a new life with his most recent OW. I actually began sleeping better than I ever had in my life. I never had the dream again, and it has now been almost 9 years. Also, turns out he had a serious porn addiction that he kept hidden from me and he also serially cheated on me for at least 12 years (if not more) of our marriage. YIKES!!!!!
OMG where do I start?
The day before our wedding, my in laws were in town. One SIL went rollerblading and had a huge wipeout, badly banding up her elbow and knees. Later that night another SIL went to answer the phone in her hotel room and hit her head on the corner of the night stand, requiring a middle of the night trip to the emergency room for stitches.
Three weeks after our wedding, the bar where we had our wedding dance was destroyed by fire. The second night of our honeymoon, STBX forgot his ring at the hotel. We had to drive back from the next destination to retrieve it. Why the hell did he take it off in the first place? The souvenir ring I purchased at a nice little gift shop during our honeymoon essentially fell apart a few months later. (It was a sort of Southwest mosaic – all the stone pieces came apart.)
DDay number 1 happened 2 months after our wedding. We separated for 20 months. When I (stupidly) agreed to (false) reconciliation, STBX was in a car accident on the way to our first marriage counseling appointment.
Wow, I had almost forgotten this awful dream from my first cheater-marriage:
In the dream, I was about 9 months pregnant and at work (in reality, yes I did work 20 hours a week while going to law school but was not pregnant then, but had 3 young kids with cheater-X). In the dream, I came out of my office into the parking lot, and X was standing there pointing a gun at me. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, I woke up.
Later, in reality, we were meeting at a parking lot halfway between our two residences to exchange the kids for his weekend with them. When I got out of my car, he said, “Did you know that a man shot and killed his ex-wife here last weekend?” I had seen that in the paper but thought it very weird that he wanted to tell me that.
That’s downright spooky!
This is exactly what scares me. Since we no longer know who they are anymore, who knows if we’ll be the next one in the news during the D process!!!!
Creeptacular!
Mine is a DOOZY!! We got engaged at Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center in NYC. Need I say more?
Yikes!
It is an awful and tragic metaphor for our marriage. I remember vividly the day the towers fell – I was home with our youngest son who was sick with an ear infection – rocking him to sleep and watching the TV on mute. I could not get the image from my mind for weeks afterwards of my Ex going down on one knee at our table after my ring was delivered in the dessert menu – the wait staff all clapping and smiling for us – the complimentary champagne they brought to our table. I wonder if some of those same wait staff died ten years later? (we got engaged in 1991) I feel like crying right now typing this – we were so young and “in lurv” (at least I was) – and that was a magical night for a little country girl who had only flown on a plane one other time before that trip to NYC. I was so young and naive and bowled over by all the “sparkles.” I sometimes wish I could go back and be that young girl again and start over…but with a stronger backbone and the clear eyes of a woman of experience and reason.
Yeah, that’s some bad mojo.
OMG Nicole..when I read your post, it was so bizarre I had to laugh out loud! Talk about a big HUGE sign, lol!
I paid for half of my own engagement ring so I could have something “nice.” I also paid for both our wedding bands. I paid for his graduate school. The down payment for our first house came from my parents.
After we divorced, I realized that every nice thing HE left with – car, electronics, furniture, etc. – was bought during the marriage. Every nice thing I was left with – jewelry, antiques, art, etc. – was given to me by my parents. Yet he accused me of “spending all his money.”
Cosmic sign: if he can’t afford to give you a nice ring, he probably can’t afford to give you a nice life. Unless you plan to finance the relationship by yourself, think carefully.
I can totally relate to this from my first and second marriage. No engagement ring in my first, and the second marriage, Mr. Cheater recycled wife #2’s. Same deal, anything nice in my life, I inherited or received as a gift from my family.
That’s changed now. Very blessed. But boy, you’re right it’s a Sign — stingy motherfucking exes.
My ex-husband used to rotate cars. We had new (used) cars every 3-4 months. More than once, there was something he *had* to have, got worked up over it, got it, and it was on Craigslist a month later.
I used to joke, “When are you going to get tired of me and rotate me out?”
Joke was on me!
Hah! My cheater ex had THREE of everything! Three cars, three motorcycles, three kayaks, etc.
My mother said “He probably has three women. That should tell you something.”
I am dying over here!
Well come to think of it he had three wives. More than three OW undoubtably.
Was he a Trinitarian?
One evening I simply asked if he had rearranged the coffee mugs and glasses. He went into a narcissistic rage, screaming, “Are you calling me a liar?” over and over and over. This for a couple that never raised voices, fought, or talked about anything significant for 31 years. 14 months later we’re divorced and the OW is busy taking her place in history…
I had weird vibrations with all 3OW who worked with my husband, but I put them off as all of us good Chumps tend to do.
But there were the cosmic signs too: OW#1 helped me clean some old books (we are all historians) from which I got a sinus infection that her Chinese accupuncturist husband treated me for in their home (and the three times I went I felt awful and the sinusitis was never cured). The sinus problem only went away when OW#1 and husband left the country…
Seven years later (I thought that OW#1 was “just” a one night stand -CHUMP!)) I ask my STBXH for a divorce or a radical change because I was hating how he was treating me and the sexless marriage we lived in. He offered a third option – a temporary separation so he could “think things over.” I agreed (CHUMP!) but only on the condition that we would be monogamous (CHUMP AGAIN!) and that it would be short. As soon as he moved into his newly remodeled temporary place (Nov 2013), things started to happen there: the glass shower door completely collapsed on my youngest daughter when she was visiting him (fortunately, only minor cuts), he got locked out of the apartment several times, a closet door fell off, curtain rod broke, and since DDay (Jan 2014) he has hardly any running water…
But early in January of this year, after many horrible fake Christmas family events, I received a prayer booklet from my very religious hairdresser to ask for my husband to return to me after praying for 9 nights. I prayed the first night but was uncomfortable with doing so because the question kept coming up “why should I pray for something I don´t really want?” (I didn´t want him to come back and continue treating me in the same way). So the second night I could not even get past the first few words and didn´t continue to pray but 9 days later – Dday for OW#3! Though I kicked him out and started divorce proceedings immediately, (thanks to Chumplady´s advice) a month later (for Valentine´s) I started to get hopium for a post-divorce reconciliation after we had some great conversations that we hadn´t had in years, but once I realized how stupid reconciliation would be, I asked for another “sign” and two days later, when I was transferring some old photos from one of his hard drives I found 16 pages of poetry and pictures for an OW#2 that occurred five years ago….so a new Dday and the realization that he´s been cheating for the past 7 to 9 years…! Should have listened to my gut and kicked him out the first time!!!
Seems like lots of recurring dream chumps – how interesting is that? I was told it was because I was trying so hard to hold it all together during the day – to “keep up appearances”, so the only way I could get my OWN attention was to have these dreams OVER and OVER.
So now I’ve been having one where I’m almost ready to graduate from college, but I’m panicking because I’m not sure I have all the classes/credits I need. So I look that up and find, “To dream that you are at a graduation represents your achievements. You are successfully transitioning to a higher level and moving forward to important things. To dream that you do not have enough units or credits to graduate suggests that you are not giving yourself enough credit about your successes and achievements. You are short-changing yourself for your accomplishments.”
So I guess that’s better – there is hope, life is moving on…I just need to realize it, and start believing that I’m a Mighty Chump 🙂
Oh gosh, I have that dream all the time!
The day before my wedding, I went out for a “bachelorette party” to which the organizer decided NOT to invite my friends. So it was just she and I at this restaurant that was too rich for my blood. I wanted so badly to have an excuse to get out of there. Then, the lights in the restaurant flickered and went out. The storm of the century had arrived (it was in August), and roads were blocked off! I made it home safely, but it took two hours to drive ten minutes away. I should have seen the signs of the stormy marriage ahead!