My husband thought up today’s post. In the vein of comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might Be a Redneck If … tell me how you might be a chump. What are the signs? (See clip for inspiration. If you’re a redneck chump — double bonus!)
Ever wonder what quirks are particular to chumps?
You might be a chump (YMBAC) if … instead of a happy marriage you have 80 perfectly tended rose bushes.
YMBAC if… you’ve bought the entire infidelity oeuvre on Amazon and underlined passages for your cheater, only to find them unread.
YMBAC if… you actually sort of believed he was sleeping in his car in Vermont in January.
YMBAC if… you received a tie-dyed license plate cover for Christmas… and that was the best present.
If your cheater has three cars, three motorcycles, four kayaks, and more boxes coming from eBay each day…. and his gift to you is a tie-dyed license plate cover? YMBAC.
If your children don’t really look anything like you… YMBAC.
YMBAC if… you book all your marriage counseling sessions… and pay for them.
Your turn chumps! I’m sure you’ve got material.
YMBAC if you have to schedule time off work for marriage counseling so she won’t have to miss tennis practice ( and her affair partner is her tennis coach!)
YMBAC if…you work full time, do 100% of the childcare/grocery shopping/laundry/bill-paying, etc., so he can work 80+ a week – and he accuses you of “holding him back” in his career.
or in my case works a 30 hr work week and tells you – you know – someone around here has to work and bring home the bacon, when you ask him to help around the house a bit because you are exhausted from only sleeping 4 hours a night, due to all of the above and working a 40 hr work week too.
This is soooooo true!
Oh boy this one is me alright. Before we split I was working full time, doing all the housework, shopping meal making and 90% of the care of my step daughter. When I asked for some help or more time as a couple. Well I just didn’t understand how it was for him to be self employed
YMBAC if you are told by a friend that she saw your husband at an open house for a beautiful mountain- top cottage with a young, petite, brunette and you immediately tell her she must have him confused with someone else. Even though she has known him for several years.
YMBAC if you find yourself genuinely worrying that the OW’s husband is going to beat your husband up when he finds out…
Yep – of course now I wish he had…
YMBAC if your husband, while on one of his many business trips, only calls you when he’s just about to go through a drive-thru, thus keeping such phone calls to five minutes, tops, and guaranteeing that any serious conversation you wanted to have will be interrupted by a scratchy voice asking if he’d like Satisfries with that. When you finally realize and point out the pattern, he acts surprised.
Wow, I think my ex did this, too. Never realized it until now.
…cause I was a chump!!! Sheesh.
Believe me, it took me several years before I saw the pattern. Cuz I was a chump, see…
Oh dear – so many of these…
YMBAC if you think it’s great that he’s finally taking some pride in his appearance, working out at the gym and buying new clothes…
…facepalms…
^^^This.
About two weeks before DDay, I saw an article online that read “10 Signs He’s Having an Affair.” XH scored 7 out of 10. Number 1 & 2 were working out and buying new clothes. Aaack!
I think facepalms are appropriate after pretty much every post on this thread. . . .
YMBAC if you read the posts with your palm continuously connected to your face!
LOL
Double lol
Face palms …. OMG..
I haven’t stopped snorting since I saw there was 346 posts. To YMBAC..
ROTFLMBO!!!!! That would be me!
Forge on, YMBACer’s, Forge On!…..
…Or when the XW suddenly has interest in buying new bras and panties after pretty much never doing anything of the sort during the entire course of the marriage.
YMBAC if it takes you twelve years to figure out what he meant when he said: “The reason I wasn’t at work when you called was because I had to take my ho-worker to get a new dipstick.”
YMBAC if he goes out every Sunday to play football with your 19 year old son. But tells son he can’t really play as he has to work overtime to save money so he can take Mum on a surprise holiday.
Again, just awful to do this to the children.
I really think cheaters who behave this way to kids belong in a special place….
I never thought he was capable of using them both in that way.
Yeah, mine is telling our 17 yo daughter to delete all texts between the two of them. Nevermind love bombing both our kids.
YMBAC if he takes 17 year old daughter shopping every week, but leaves her sat in the car while he calls into someones house to ‘arrange a surprise Xmas gift for Mum.’ (Which takes multiple visits to sort out apparently).
Wow. That’s an awful thing to do to your child.
Yes zyx321 it disgusts me when I think about it, see above what he did to son too. After DD and during FR he then ‘borrowed’ daughters phone to call OW. When OW calls back asking for him, daughter comes and asks me & STBX if we know who it is? This turns out to be the final straw for me & so STBX openly blames our daughter for our break up. He actually asked her why she was so stupid, why didn’t she think before she opened her mouth? Tells her its her fault.
Still mentions it to this day 10 months after DD. ‘if only daughter had thought before speaking we would still be together’ he says. Erm no, if only you’d kept it in your pants.
He is just a worthless person. What a terrible thing to do to your own children.
What an absolute piece of shit.
When I stormed out of the house after the phone incident. He proceeded to scream at her, smashed his phone up & while she was crying picking all the broken pieces up from the floor, he was telling her how he was glad he had a son, as he no longer has a daughter & that she was now dead to him for ruining everything.
One of my biggest regrets is leaving her in the house with him that day. I phoned her shortly after and could tell in her voice something was seriously wrong, I came straight back to get her & by then he had left the house. I made him leave later that night, but I wish I had never left her to deal with that.
There’s a special place in Hell for him, wow.
Not your fault. Everybody just does the best they can.
Just awful. The only (slight?) silver lining is she saw her father’s real self, maybe? Horrible.
She didn’t talk to him for a long time, she just refused. He bombarded her with texts and my father ended up telling him to leave her alone. She has started speaking to him again now, but she thinks he’s an idiot. She told me recently she was glad we were not together anymore because I deserve better than him. So does she.
When he’s old, sick, and alone and looking for his children to be there for him, I hope they throw his nasty abuse back in his face and put him in a cheap state funded home.
What an unspeakably terrible, terrible piece of shit he is. I can’t imagine how she must have felt, though the very faint – very – silver lining is that now she need never be confused over whether daddy is worth loving / running after / seeking approval from. It’s all been laid out clear as day.
When I think of my own wonderful dad and other awesome parents out there, and people who’d give anything to have kids but can’t… this guy… really… he deserves nothing but misery.
I’ve just now read this story, HEA. Holy smokes. I am so sorry your daughter had to go through that. How is she faring now? It’s a horrible way for her to have to wake up to your reality, but I’m sure the two of you will become all the closer for it. It sort of reminds me of when Alec Baldwin went off on his teenaged daughter and left all those vile messages on her voice mail. Anyway, any man who would put his own child in that situation and then make her the scapegoat when it blew up in his face is undeserving of the name “Dad.” Stay strong!
Ah, blame shifting to the kids. My exH blamed daughter for the fact that son did not go to his wedding to OWife. Explain why son could not go when he wanted to attend, just because daughter refuses to go?!
Daughter understandably did not want to go. she was 12 at the time, it was only 4 months post divorce finalization, kids had only met OW once, but her father had daughter keep the secret that they planned to move pregnant OW into the house against divorce agreement, pre divorce finalization … Shhhh, don’t tell your mom, she would be mad)
What sick F$%#!
Good lord! I hope she gets some therapy. Way to go to blameshift to the kids!
The daughter needs a real crash course in “you control only you” so she absolutely believes that daddy’s rage was all about him being a fucktard. Daddy clearly wanted both cake and kibbles.
yup, and he wonders why she is hot and cold about speaking to him….
Therapy underway.
Absolute Scum of a husband & Father.. Glad your daughter refused to be sparkled by him and wants nothing to do with him. Hugs to you both & Bravo to you for showing your daughter that it is not OK to cheat!
Shoot the messenger – even if it’s your own child. Wow. Speechless.
Daddy Monster Narcissist.
YMBAC…..if all of those lovely little coffee mugs, coasters and photos from all those cool locations he had to fly to for work were really not to include you in his experience in a positive healthy way BUT to inflict weird emotional abuse on you without even knowing some of the shit was gifted by the fuckbuddy.
BTDT. I got a one pound bag of coffee as a “gift” after a weekend away with the fuckbuddy.
I got leftover dessert from “business dinner”
OMgoodness, that is so tacky. CL, I think you could do another post solely on “Cheap Shit Cheaters Do”.
LUD — yes! That’s a future post for sure!
I got a package of pecans from Savannah when he took his whore there on a romantic trip.
I got that one, easy. Last Christmas I got a pack of gum.
That beats mine!
I got carry out from the same place he took OW to. He said he was “too sick” to eat, but I knew something was wrong when he brought home only one dinner, and it was from a new place on the same side of the town closer to where OW lives.
Also, I can tell when he’s had breakfast dates with OW, since he brings home a pound of bacon, lol!
I’ve got one for your “Cheap Shit Cheaters Do”, WS brought home a bunch of singlets for newborn son, he said he’d bought them from the OP shop. I was thrilled as he never had (and still hasn’t) bought our son anything, not even nappies or anything, so I was soooooooooo proud of him for doing something for the family I lavished praise on him. Only to find out he hadn’t bought them at all. The OW gave him her son’s singlets from when he was a baby. I still feel really sick about it every time I think about it.
Hey! Me too!! Forgot that treat.
YMBAC if…He brings you back an ugly tea set from Vietnam where he had “work” and later you find out he flew his Russian whore to stay with him at an expensive beach resort.
I found a place for it on a hallway table because it was so ugly. It makes me nauseous to think of those four years it sat in our house.
I recently received an assortment of Olive Oils from California. Same place we went to just before D day over a year ago….I have not spoken to him since last October and this was in February. Do you think he’s trying to make a peace offering? I didn’t acknowledge receiving it. It sits in a drawer….I will be regifting in the future. Thanks for that….daughter was asked if she knew if I got it……OMG I can’t believe these idiots.
Oh Gee, I got nice little gifts from every place they traveled on business all over the world.
Except for one handbag, the gifts didn’t fit or weren’t my style and I chalked it up to his not knowing my taste or size (which he never did).
Found out after that she ‘helped’ pick the gifts out.
And the handbag, she got a much nicer one for herself!
Sigh..ANC…mine would also bring me back t-shirts and little tokens from trips with his girlfriend(s). I also think there is a sick twisted emotional abuse aspect to it as well. Sick fucks!!
“YMBAC if… you book all your marriage counseling sessions… and pay for them.”
Ouch. I did exactly that in the beginning.
Ok I have one.
YMBAC if you smell something “funny” when you go to kiss your WH when he comes home from work and you believe him when he say’s it’s the sandwich he had for lunch.
Ever see Treme? “That ain’t pussy. That’s barbecue!”
“YMBAC if… you book all your marriage counseling sessions… and pay for them.”
bingo
and…
YMBAC if you smell something “funny” when you go to kiss your WH when he comes home from work and you believe him when he say’s it’s the sandwich he had for lunch.
Oh JHC! Now I know why my STBX turned away from kissing me! Said she had bad breath! Yeeah! It was bad all right!
OMG! BBQ!!!!
Hey, Guys!!!
They were all telling the truth on the BBQ……Most BBQ is PIG!!!!!
Forge on……
YMBAC if his best friend’s wife avoids you because he said things (don’t know what) because, if you two become friends, the jig is up.
YMBAC if when he comes back from a business trip with necklaces for you and your daughter, and you ask him who the third one is for … and then supply the answer for him: it is for his sister (of which he has two).
Sheesh.
YMBAC if you’ve ever been told by a counselor “well at least he’s showing up every week” as evidence of his commitment to you and your marriage.
(Please disregard the lying, blame shifting and evading going on in the actual session, dear client.)
This makes me so angry. We expect our cheaters to act like assholes but not our therapists. There job is to help us through one of the most traumatic times of our lives. I hope you fired his/her ass.
“their job” (doh!)
OMG! That happened to me! I so want to send this post to that one-celled moron that was our therapist!
Well who does it profit that he’s showing up every week (and making zero progress)?
The therapist.
YMBAC if you’ve ever heard “oh, um, I just fell asleep on [insert any male name here]’s couch. of COURSE you can call him”.
So you’re telling me he didn’t just fall asleep after “playing cards all night at Kyle’s”? Crap. IMBAC.
Last one!
YMBAC if you’ve ever had your spouse pretend they didn’t hear your calls trying to ring through on their cell.
“Oh my, does the phone make a sound when another call is coming in? Who knew!? Gosh darn, isn’t technology confusing?” (says the Sr. IT Director)
YMBAC if he tells you not to call his work phone because he doesn’t answer that after hours and don’t call his cell phone either because it is running low on batteries. Even though he is plugging it in now and charging it – still don’t call. WTF?
YMBAC if, after 15 years as his colleague, you have never met OW, now wife. And he says, after revealing her (3 months after leaving) “Really? You’ve never met each other? I’m surprised.” And you have met all the other colleagues over a 38 year marriage. And we have never met, why? Hmmmmm.
You’re not alone! During MC, two months after the declaration there is no other woman, it’s just us….he’s in love with this work colleague whom he never mentioned?!
No, she had nothing to do with the end of the marriage (snort)
The people they’re fucking never have anything to do with the end of the marriage. Same old, same old. I’d say every woman ex fucked had something to do with the end of the marriage.
YMBAC if you caught your husband kissing a colleague in your home when you woke up to prepare a bottle for your baby and then believed him when he said that she had forced him to kiss her, and that it was only that one night…
YMBAC if for seven years after the “stolen kiss” you don´t suspect anything from those female colleagues who “work” with your husband on Friday nights and come to your husband´s home office to “review” their “work”
YMBAC if your husband prefers to go directly to work on his computer when he comes home, rather than to talk, eat or sleep with you—
(OMG! I am such a huge chump!!!!)
OMG! I had the same thing where my ex would come home and go immediately on his computer (either to work or browse Craigslist), then immediately to bed. Even when I tried to initiate a conversation (or get intimate), he would just yell at me that he was too “busy” for me. (And yet not too busy to have an affair with his ho-worker!)
YMBAC if you see he received a text from someone saved as “Terry” and you believe him when it says it was a text from his friend “Brian” (whom you’ve never met)
YMBAC if you believe him when he says he stayed in a hotel room “alone” because he needed some “space”
YMBAC if you caught him lying to you multiple times and yet you believe him when he says you have “trust issues” (Gee, I wonder why!?)
My ex was getting texts from someone labelled “CNST” on his contact list. The text I found:
:)gn
When I asked him who CNST was, he said……”Consultant.” Duh.
Facepalmfacepalmfacepalmfacepalm……
Mine labeled his ‘Q’.
Perhaps he was alluding to the fact she was as evil as the character ‘Q’ on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Because she certainly is evil……
Forge on……
Oh, I had trust issues too. A week before he left, he told me I had trust issues and now when I look back I wonder what was going on every other time he told me ai had trust issues.
I was told I have trust issues quite recently. Because I don’t trust him. Imagine that I wouldn’t trust a man who had multiple affairs, left me financially devastated and has lied about pretty much everything, big and small, for years. I don’t have trust issues. I simply don’t trust him. At all.
Hear hear! When we look back, we see all the gas lighting they did to us. We didn’t have trust issues – our guts were just telling us to GTFO, but our hearts didn’t want to believe someone would be capable of so much BAD! Instead of seeing the evidence “as is” we gave them a chance to “explain” it away (and of course the explanation they always gave was “You have trust issues.” *eyeroll*
YMBAC if he says he needs to get away and get some sleep and you believe him. Then proceeds to choose a hotel in a city 1.5 hours from home, not tell you which hotel, pay cash, and use work as his home address at check in and you still kinda believe him.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! FacePalm…….such hard workers they are!
YMBAC if you arrange for the whole family to “kidnap” him the day he gets back from a business trip and drive him blindfolded to the site where he gets to skydive for his 40th bday, THE GREATEST DAY EVER, and then you discover he was fucking his secretary in Boca Raton.
Sounds like he got a lot of Cake for his birthday.
OMG. Too bad his parachute worked.
OMG! I’d have to hurt someone…
Does anyone here secretly wish they would reinstate the Scarlet Letters and Public Stockades?
Me!!!! Tattooing a large ornate “A” on the forehead would be fine too.
And, tattooing it on ‘other parts’, as well…..
I love this post, CL and Nation! I have to gather my thoughts so I can add a true “YMBAC if……” to this fabulous list.
All of your comments are amazing!!!
Forge on………
Yes, yes, a THOUSAND times yes! A Jeff Foxworthy “stupid” stamp AND a scarlet letter. What a time saver!
That would be AWESOME Happily!!!!!
I’d make stbxh’s myself!
YES. YES. YES.
Scarlet letter would be perfect.
I have been dreaming of that since DDay!
I wish that, and it’s not a secret.
YMBAC if your spouse suddenly wants to ditch the family plan and have “work” pay for his cell phone.
YMBAC if you suddenly notice new credit cards showing up in the mail after agreeing to stop using credit entirely.
YMBAC if you remove the key logger from your home machine because you KNOW you’re going to find something. Woah Chumpiness.
Yep Rumblekitty, “work is now paying for my cell phone” (I’m sure they are since you’re f”ing around with your ho-worker, and I dared to question why you needed to talk to her 20x/day when you just “worked” 12 hours together…”. Blech.
Yes!
YMBAC if you really believe your husband needs to text his co-workers at 3am, and then needs to meet shortly thereafter about ‘work’.
Yup. Years ago i went to bed later than H and told him he had an email message from grad school school colleague (we checked for one another, but i had never read any of his messages). He got up out of bed to read it, which seemed odd. That’s when I got suspicious and started reading his messages. Confronted him (no, not an affair, just infatuation, we went to MC, etc). 13 yrs later…yup, it was an affair
We can be so trusting and naive.
But, I refuse to regret those years due to my wonderful children.
YMBAC if you believe that he’s really answering work emails from China on the weekends at 3am.
YMBAC if you believed nothing was going on after finding love poetry email messages to another woman….in French.
(And when dating/post wedding you never received poetry of any kind from said significant other).
YMBAC if you’re truly worried he might fuck the babysitter.
Ha ha ha ha! I can relate.
Guilty. And to this day I still believe he did.
Or the babysitter’s mom…
YMBAC if after finding a few hundred dollars hidden in your husband’s car which he first lies about and then confesses that it is for going to strip clubs and then he is mad at you and says he “doesn’t know if he can live like this with all this snooping” and you break down hysterically crying because what other reaction is there? (Really? You are hiding hundreds in cash in your car for strip clubs (this is after dday of a year long affair with a family “friend”) and I am the bad person for snooping?)
YMBAC if you sit through your “romantic” birthday dinner and the entire conversation is a veiled attempt to get you to be more and act more like OW and you know it but just keep smiling and shaking your head.
Yes! Ex took me on a surprise date two months before DDay. He was acting weird, and now I see he was trying to get me to act more like the OW.
Yes! During reconciliation when I was still doing the pick-me dance, I used to draw these hot bubble baths for us, hoping we could reconnect. He would spend the whole time in there trying to get me to tell him about my sexual secrets. I found out later that this is what he liked to talk about with the OW. (He was really annoyed that I had nothing to tell him—-I’ve been with him since I was 17 and he was my first and only.)
Oh Flora, mine tried to get me to talk about sexual fantasies too. He also wanted me to go buy toys and try anal stuff. (I was with mine from 16 so same scenario). I’m not a prude or anything, but it was such an out of character thing for him that it raised flags. He was quite insistent too that I “must have some type of fantasy. The girls at work talked about what they liked all the time”.
His OW is the manager where he worked.
Yes, Trying, my husband became so obsessed with my fantasies that I used to make them up just to please him. He also wanted me to buy stuff at the sex stores. It was all about pleasing him. He made me feel totally inadequate in bed because I didn’t measure up to his fantasy life with his co-worker OW or the porn he watched on his computer. And all this went on AFTER I found out about the affair–why did I let him anywhere near me??? What a chump!!!
YMBAC if you and the kids start jokingly referring to his beloved new car as ‘the other woman’ because he spends so much time taking it out for long drives. And then you discover that yes, he was actually out driving the other woman.
YMBAC if you spent a decade+ living in a sexless marriage while working in earnest to solve THAT riddle . . .
Sigh, it’s ok. Mine wasn’t sexless, but not great sex, and I was always the one who initiated, etc. (YMBAC right there!)
Post DDay while in counseling (though he still swore no OW). I like xx before sex, you do not do that, etc. Uh, huh, and every time I asked “anything in particular you want to do….”
Yep, YMBAC if you are cut off from sex and believe it’s ED so you search your soul after 5 years of no sex and decide to stay for love – then find out he’s got an OW
YMBAC if his sexual performance is SO PATHETIC you’re just sure he’d never humiliate himself with the performance anxiety he surely would have when trying to impress a hot babe 20 years his junior. I never did find the viagra prescription, but I did find the cardiologist appointment for a stress test.
I guess he’s lucky he’s from the chemical generation. When we were first married he worked for a man who was doing his secretary with a penile implant. Feeling like a young stud again is important enough to mutilate yourself for. Can’t even imagine. That relationship didn’t last, of course, but nobody learned a lesson from the example.
YMBAC if you get completely cut off from sex believing it’s a medical problem and put up with it for 4 years, you convince yourself to stay for love and the kids, but then you find out he’s had multiple OW and your whole life has been a big fat lie for 14 years…
Whoa – is it a cheater thing to expect the chumpy partner to always initiate (and put in most of the effort from there) sex? Definitely my situation.
Wow…the same thing happened to me…I thought he had a health problem (he needed viagra), was depressed. After seven years of this I finally came up with the theory that he was gay ! Now I know from his emails and Skype chats that he had no problem at all with OWs, the problem was with me! He got the last OW an anal vibrator for Christmas while I got a chocolate bar!
“He got the last OW an anal vibrator for Christmas while I got a chocolate bar!”
LOL. There are jokes here, but I can’t bring myself to write them.
Yeah… I’m struggling to stay PG on that one. Better pass. **snicker**
Me, too.
Dollars to donuts SAChump, he got that anal vibrator for the OW to really use on him! The few playthings my cheater would buy, always ended up in service to his thrills, excitement, and erection! Wouldn’t have minded if there was some RECIPROCATION!
Which leads to my IMBAC if I believed his succession of hot sports cars, hair grafting, viagra usuage (which didn’t seem to work – I think he claimed to take them but was hoarding them for OW), and sexy underwear, had anything to do with looking good for his younger wife (me.)
On that subject, YMBAC if, out of the blue, your husband shows a great interest in a specific kind of anal play, which he’d never mentioned in 20 years of marriage, and when you ask him where he got the idea, he says a girlfriend did it to him once in college and he’d always wanted to try it with you. And you buy it. Then you discover the existence of his mistress, and his new trick suddenly makes sense.
Oh good Lord…….THAT explains that……..
OMG, Every time I read this blog I find out something new. Was he cheating on me for years before? He would complain I didn’t initiate enough, saying he didn’t feel like I wanted him and pouted by refusing to have sex until I “convinced” him… During the relationship (while i was still a factor) with the woman he left me for, my/our family friend, there was no convincing him… OMG I guess I MBAC! FUCK MY FORMER LIFE!!
Hahah! STBX was never great in the sack, and I quickly found out after we were married that it was sex on his schedule, as when I initiated, he was always too tired or busy. Guess I was YMBAC right there, even though I thought it was weird that a straight guy in his 30s would actually say “no” to sex. Maybe he was having affairs then, but I think he had performance anxiety which he compensated for by saying how great he was…
Wow!!! This sounds like my STBX, always bragging about how big he is to anyone who will listen, sadly it was all just talk!!!
Well as he packed I asked him about that, thinking at the time, with my limited information, that maybe he was gay and that would explain his lack of interest, his lack of initiation and, well, his lack of talent. Oh no, it was all my fault, he was raised not to
Believe in sex before marriage and so he chose to punish me for 18 years of marriage. Pity he was raised not to get little 22 year olds pregnant while he was married and still living in the familiy home!
Oh my God! My marriage was sexless for the last couple of years! I really beat myself up about that – ‘I should lose weight, make more effort, shave my legs more often’ – nothing worked. He had ED & poor hygiene issues during his frequent bouts of heavy drinking. After I kicked him out I found viagra purchases on his credit card bill. I never saw the benefit. To this day I have no idea if OW knows he needed blue pills to get it up for her!
I spent 20 years in a largely sexless marriage earnestly trying to make it work and figure out why he was so uninterested. Well, turns out he was having plenty of sex, just not with me.
YMBAC if you find a receipt for an $1100.00 ladies watch (with diamonds) in his wallet that you did NOT open on Christmas morning!!!! BTW……I was really excited about getting that fucking watch too!!!!
Oh Kimmy – I feel your pain! Nothing like waiting for a present that never comes…
YMBAC if you see him furiously texting a female Realtor *while* on a date with you (in a dark movie theater), and you believe it’s simply about refinancing your family home.
YMBAC if despite finding months of convos back and for with your husband’s ho-worker (thanks to a keylogger) where they discuss how hot they are to get their hands on each other, how great kissing feels, even the “L” word – said husband swears he never actually had sex with her AND it was my fault anyway for forcing him to get his needs met elsewhere. And I felt like a bad wife.
So what “needs” did you force him to meet? The need to kiss someone?
Yep. Mine told me “I had to have sex with someone” despite also telling me “I know we had sex 3-5 times a week I just never felt like you were into it”
It was never enough. Nothing I did was ever enough.
Because he’s too needy. But if you told him HE wasn’t enough, he’d be furious. It’s ALWAYS so one sided.
Right there with you Helen. Of course he said the same thing. But all I wanted was him to be home with the kids and I. It was the one thing he would never give me.
And of course, when he was thinking you weren’t ‘that into it’, did he EVER ask if you were OK? Did he EVER ask if the two of you were OK? Did he EVER try to improve that experience for YOU? Did he EVER ask if there was something he could do to improve it?
Yeah, I thought not ….
(Not that I’ve been THERE, of course
)
He had to get HIS needs met. Yours are totally inconsequential. Argh!
Wow! Same here. He actually called it ” having a slice” …… Of what???? Oh yeah (wack myself over the head with a log)- a Slice of Cake! Because having a fuckbuddy was not enough…
Hahaha..Angie, I too believed ex when he said he hadn’t had sex with final OW…yet. Then a friend pointed out that it would be a rare day indeed if a man was saying I love you and the OW was sending nude pictures if they weren’t having sex.
YMBAC if suddenly and without explanation after 16 years together your husband shaves off all of his pubic hair! And despite “sleeping on the couch in his office”, many late nights, unanswered calls, unexplained credit card charges, a new sports car, a new wardrobe, a sudden pedicure and facial habit (need I go on?), etc… You actually tell a concerned friend, “oh no, he’s not having an affair. There are NO RED FLAGS!!”
Hahahahaha! Where was my head?!?
Helen – I am so with you on this one! 20 years married and he finally starts buying his own new clothes? The gym, the haircut, the special diet and extraordinarily expensive protein shakes and supplements! I thought it was great he was looking after himself!
Mine did the same! Got onto Zija weight loss and started working out compulsively. Claimed the stuff was so great he decided it sell it on the size. Turns out he was selling it for his married coworker
OMG Helen – the shaving thing! And he shaved his chest hair too! And told me it was because “he didn’t want to be sweaty…” So, the first 9 years of our marriage, sweaty was ok, and now it’s not? WTF. It was such a turn-off to me – he looked like a 12 year old boy or a plucked chicken. Ick. The OW can have that nasty.
Mine shaved his pubes, too. Yuck.
Ditto
“The OW can have that nasty.”
LMAO – thank you!
You’re welcome
OMG mine shaved off the pubes too and bought new underwear- forget the tidy whities, he had to have colored briefs. Yes, the OW can have all that nasty!! I read somewhere that they shave their pubes to make their dick look bigger.
Meg…I am laughing out loud. That explains a lot.
Wow! so that’s why mine did that…… He took great pride in his hairless balls. I think there might have been a little tea bagging going on….what do you think? ewwwwwwwwwwww!
OK, I finally had to look up teabagging in the urban dictionary. Ewwww. I’m not only a chump, I’m a prude.
My ex switched to patterned boxers, apparently purchased by the OW
Mine did this too. I called it ” the optical inch” . He didn’t like the term. It apparently helps make things all glidy and nice when porking his fat-assed hag up the ass. No joke. Yuck.
I’ll be laughing at this all day.
OMG- my ex did that too!
Mine left his gray pubes in the toilet for me to flush. Just shaved them all off right into the toilet, and left them there.
I really think he was resentful that I was so chumpy. In retrospect, it was SO OBVIOUS he was having an affair, and I just never caught on. But his behavior and mannerisms throughout were SO REVOLTING (acting like a girl, acting like an ugly, old adolescent male, being begrudging, whining all the time about his health, etc.) that, frankly, I’d had it with him, anyway.
YMBAC if your husband works SOOOOOOOO much overtime, but doesn’t bring home a bigger paycheck. YMBAC if your husband books last-minute trips to Hawaii, or to Yosemite in the snow, feebly asks if you want to try to get time off from work, and the kids? Oh, them? Wul…. And you believe him that he’s doing this because work has been SO STRESSFUL, and he just needs to clear his head.
YMBAC if your Christmas present is a last-minute chore, wherein he asks you to find that $100 purse you wanted on line, and he sits there in front of you, and puts in his credit card number to pay for it. That’s it!
YMBAC if on that same Christmas, he asks you to return EVERY SINGLE Christmas present you bought him.
YMBAC if you’ve been responsible throughout the years for buying everyone else’s holiday and birthday presents, including his mother’s. She threw me under the bus. Hope she likes the presents now, cuz I am no longer his secretary. Maybe OW has good taste. Not in men, apparently.
Grey pubes in the toilet? My ex shit his underwear and left them in the TUB! Shoulda took a photo and posted it online. She can HAVE that!
Yeah, I do laugh when I think how real life must be going for OW now that she got what she wanted and married him. At least mine was so embarrassed about leaking in his drawers he wrapped them up in a garbage bag and snuck them outside to the garbage can. That was pretty decent of him, come to think of it.
Laughing so hard!
What is it w/cheaters, shitting, and cell phones? My exH used to sit in the bathroom for like 40 MINUTES every morning! We had 2 toddlers, and that was his only “family time” around the kids before leaving for “work” and then not coming home until they were in bed. The kids have very few memories of him (he left when they were 2 and 5), but my daughter has said, when I ask her what she remembers about her dad, “I remember him sitting on the toilet for EVER and drinking coffee and talking on his phone.” What a meaningful legacy to pass to your children. Asshole.
We’ve had this discussion about cheaters and shitting. Mine not only sits in the bathroom forever playing games on his phone, plans his activities around his bathroom schedule, and selects restaurants based on his scatalogical response, he also asked me whether I was going to shit when I headed to the bathroom. Ugh, I won’t miss that!
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/yhst-11870311283124/pooped-thumb.png
“What a meaningful legacy to pass on to your children.”
His grandchildren won’t know who he his, and is great-grandchildren won’t even know his name. They will, however, know yours.
THANK you Red; you are awesome.
Yeah if your gift is a last minute kindle gift card he grabs while buying your son a video game and then leaves it in the bag for you to wrap. Then sends you and the kids to your mother’s house for Christmas because home is “so stressful” and encourages you to stay till after New Years. Then days after you come back he needs to “get away and sleep” and all he tells you is the city he’s going to which is 1.5 hours away. AND YOU ENCOURAGE HIM TO GO!
My did the exact same thing- because they were bright ginger and he hated them, well they never bother me for 18 yrs, and when I look back over the years he had the odd hairless flirtation a couple of times before the actual D DAY.
I was no naive I believed him…..
Oh, and he suddenly started wearing a MANBAG, this was a guy who couldn’t choose a t-shirt without taking 1-2 hrs procrastinating about whether it went with this sneakers or not.
Last time I ever saw him he was wearing a fitted trendy check shirt – he obviously started shopping in different stores after I left then.
Protein shakes and a GYROSCOPE ? WTF must have been needing to improve his wrist action.
spellcheck! Mine …bothered
My ex switched his look after he left me. He doesn’t shop on his own, so I guess the OW decided to remodel him.
Mine started dyeing his mustache
How about after 16 years together and never complaining about his little bit of back hair, he asks you to come shave it for him while he showers. Mind you he’s been sleeping on the couch for the month prior. When you ask him why he suddenly cares about his back hair, he says it’s unattractive. “To who” you ask, “I’ve never complained about it” and you shave his fucking back anyway! How can they be so fucking heartless. I wish we could put them all on an island together and watch them play the pick me dance among themselves.
I completely understand this. My ex made me cook for the OW and her family after she had a baby (they started cheating when she was pregnant with her husbands child) The worst part is a feeling of being an actor in your own destruction and humiliation. Never again.
That is so abusive and cruel! His balls should be tasered!
My cheater had an old GF with whom he had admitted he once had a three-some and he claimed she was really gay and had no sexual interest in him. However, when we would go out socially, I always got a vibe that they had unfinished business and together they were cataloging my short-comings. He was always attentive to her but acted detached toward me, unless he was putting on a show, like he wanted to make her jealous of his relationship.
I would tell him my feelings about it, but of course I got the “you’re just too sensitive or not hip, or imaging things…” However, he would always hide his phone calls from/to her, claiming he couldn’t take my “over-reaction.”
SO IMBAC to not trust my gut about “old” GFs and supposedly “past” history because he never stopped contacting her especially on the sly (saw phone records or overheard conversations ) until she got married to another guy.
The past is prologue.
Chumperstein, please don’t be hard on yourself. He deceived you in the most despicable way. What a sadistic piece of shit. My story pales in comparison but I understand the feeling of having aided in one’s own demise. From my current perspective, I see that what I actually did was release myself from hell. It will get better!
Mine actually started growing facial hair.
YMBAC if, after hearing your husband boast of his clean-shaven appearance for years, he grows a mustache and goatee that not only makes him look 10 years older, but also suspiciously like every single one of OW’s ex-husbands AND you accept his explanation that he feels like doing something different with his hair.
YMB even more of AC if your friends give you the side-eye about how much your lazy husband is spending on extra stuff for the beloved car and you acknowledge that yes, it is an expensive hobby but other men have affairs with their mid-life crisis – at least tinkering with the car keeps him out of trouble!
CL – this is so cathartic! I am actually laughing about it!! Good grief, what a chump I’ve been!
When you’re saddled with a s reaming infant and a son with learning disabilities in your one bedroom loft in your multi family in your sketchy part of town where gunshots, backfire or fireworks is a nightly guessing game (I got pretty good, they were mostly gunshots) and despite having plenty of money and assists and options to get the hell out, we linger on a six year house hunt that has been deemed “my job” by Grand Pubah twerp extrodinaire! When I find one that can’t be argued with, we make the big move and he starts sleeping with a married mom whose kids was in my struggling kid’s class within two months, maybe less. When I complain about kids daily exposure to paramour, I’m told I’m overreacting.
YMBAC if your husband refuses to go to marriage counseling, so you go by yourself assuming you can fix the marriage single handedly. Spackle! Spackle! Spackle!
The counseling didn’t fix my marriage, instead it opened my eyes to all the abuse I was subjected to, so I in turn filed for divorce. 3 years out, still not divorced because I’m married to a control freak! Life rolls on….
Margo – Yes! I did the counseling and read the books. Along those lines…
YMBAC if you were filled with hope while reading “How to Save Your Marriage – Alone” by M.D. Ed Wheat.
Ha ha! This is SO not funny.
That is an actual book? The Reconciliation Industrial Complex is beyond parody.
Yes, that is an actual book. I have a friend who read and believed it. For awhile.
One more:
Then H is spending a year in Washington, DC, on leave from work, to pursue his dream job because he is unhappy at work (this you encouraged, never would have happened otherwise given that he is Capt Passive). He comes home every 4-5 weeks to see you and the kids. 5 months in, he takes a cool work trip to Africa. He writes a long Facebook post about all the cool things he has seen and interesting people he has met…. And ends it with a comment about how he cannot wait to return to his DC family (work colleagues, housemate, etc) and share his experiences with them.
Um…. Your children? Your wife? Chumpish chump, that’s me.
I called him on it, but still did not put 2 and 2 together given our past history and past MC (trusted him to tell me what he was feeling/what he needed….)
YMBAC when you smell pussy on your husband’s dick and it aint yours. Sorry…..I know that is gross but it happened!
I had that happened too. I got into the car after physical therapy following ACL repair. XH did a “run” while I was learning how to walk again. After my session, I get into the car with him and smelled the most God awful, foul stench. He laughed and said he has “high uric acid”. Seriously, I’ve been around him after he ran marathons and I never smelled THAT before. wwwwwww
That’s a big FUCK YOU to you, of course. These assholes are so disgusting.
My husbands car stunk all the time….I would ask him what the smell was. He would say….”what smell, I don’t smell anything!” It was moldy and sour….found out later he was hauling prostitutes around as well as homeless people. Said he was taking them to doctors appointments and such. He was being a good samaritan.
I would let my ex borrow MY car because it was an hour on the bus or fifteen minutes by car. It STUNK! He would smoke both cigarettes and marijuana in MY CAR and then when I comment on the smell, he would feign ignorance! (Classic Gaslighting: Who would you believe? Me or your LYING NOSE!?)
Cleaning my car was very cathartic! Now it smells AMAZING!
Drop the boxers… HA!!
Love the song Rumblekitty!!!!
YMBAC if for Christmas you get a beautiful sapphire necklace, and he gives the matching earrings to the OW
Oh dear. I’m almost afraid to hear the story of how you discovered this…
YMBAC if… he tells you that actually, he hasn’t been wearing his wedding ring for a whole year, for “security reasons.” And he is a mailman.
YMBAC if… he buys a Mothers Day gift for his mom and your mom, but doesn’t even get you a card. And you are in the hospital.
YMBAC if… a “friend” lets him borrow a brand-new iPod, which he listens to for hours non-stop. And it is hot pink.
YMBAC if… you accompany him to the local bar, and all the waitresses run up to hug him the second you walk in.
YMBAC if… he invites you out to dinner, and then makes you pay.
YMBAC if… he calls his OW to fill her in, after every marriage counseling session.
YMBAC if your husband comes home from his month-long Christmas/NY trip to Europe to “visit his dying mother” (because Christmas with you two adorable pre-schoolers is definitely never fun or memorable) and he has a suitcase full of new underwear and pajamas. And they are nasty (little icky black briefs and BLACK VELOUR pajamas, I shit you not.) And so I say, “WTF are these?” and (ex)H tells me, “That’s what my mom got me for Christmas.”
(Now, my ex MIL is/was seriously crazy, but that was freaky. I put them all in the trash, but found them later in his car. He dug them out of the trash. So. Very. Nasty. He’s seriously planning on sleeping next to me wearing PJ’s from the OW? And having me take off his porn star undies gifted from the OW? That is some seriously warped shit.)
Was it the polyester rayon kind of velour? I hear that shit is flammable.
I’m dying laughing! :’)
Seriously, shaggy black f’ing velour – the kind that leaves big chunks of black lint on the sheets and in the dryer. And it had a GOLD collar. He tried wearing it to bed ONCE. He was “well taken care of” in that regard, and I told him that if he ever wanted sex again, he better lose those jammies. I was still thinking it was his icky Freudianly-disturbed mother that was trying to ruin my fun….
I’ve given up trying to figure out if it was creepy MIL or OW with really bad taste – either way, so foul. And I’m sure that shit would have melted like butter. So that’s a nice visual to have – him wearing his skanky melting jammies in hell.
They come in all shapes and sizes, colors of the rainbow and fantasy shop horrors! OY!
YMBAC if you find mix CDs in his car with the titles written in flouncy, girly writing where the letter “i”s have circles for the dots….and he says they’re just from “a friend”.
Check! I got that one — I just remember the first song on it was the 80s hit “Micky.” Micky, Micky you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind — HEY MICKY!”
So yes, this coworker was like… 12.
Yep, that shit happened here too!
Me, too.
You must have been in my stbxh’s car about 10 years ago LiningUpDucks! His newest is the I have no idea of her ordinal number other woman and her kids are having pizza and playing uno at his apartment with your kids. I hope his dick fall right the fuck off. Maybe I’ll buy him some of those velour jammies and a pack of smokes and hope for the best.
Trying, I am so sorry you are going through this RIGHT NOW and I hope your STBX’s karma bus is either a Mac Truck or a frigging tank! Your scenario is why I stayed with SpongeBob Cheaterpants for 13 more years…only to be discarded at 52 years old for a second affair. You are doing the right thing and his “parenting” is on him. You don’t want him to model his shabby treatment of you onto his kids.
Oh, and your anger is a lot better (and more constructive) than depression. Let the anger work *for* you. Run your credit report to see if there’s any hidden cards and document (copy) as much financial stuff as you can and store it off site. I hope you’re keeping a journal of his parenting time. (Hugs)
CL, clearly your husband is awesome for this suggestions.
Are you sure he does not have an available brother or cousin? I am originally from Texas, if that helps in any way….
He is super awesome.
No available relatives that I’m aware of… sorry. But I think the state is full of great guys, so long as you stay away from the unemployed singer songwriters of Austin.
If you believe your cheater when they come home late and say “No, honey, *that* bar stays open later, didn’t you know?”….YMBAC.
YMBAC if you are ok with him going to the movies with your “BFF” and they choose movies that they know I will never want to see – Scary gory movies and then YMBAC if you actually believed that they went to the movies!
BFF yep, got that one too, I’m scoring pretty high on the YMBAC meter…
YMBAC if you agree (even encourage) that WH should go on a weekend trip to FL to learn a new hobby while you stay home juggling schedule of three kids who have to be in three different places at the same time because that is what makes him happy.
Then…YMBA bigger C when he tells you that he hates to travel without a companion and he has always had a “woman on his arm” since he was a teenager (this was as justification post dday. I should have known that?)
If over the course of two decades your spouse never gives you a single compliment about how you look, and you attribute it to a really healthy sense that they don’t consider looks all that important, YMBAC.
If during (false) reconciliation you declare it to have been a “hidden blessing” that you didn’t know about all those affairs over all those years because divorce would’ve meant less time with the kids during their formative years, YMBAC.
If even after you uncover an ongoing affair while in MC for another affair, and she moves out, you still go over to her house when it’s 95 degrees and mow her lawn because she’s never done that before and can’t really be expected to learn now, YMBAC.
It’s ok, Nomar.
_I_ found my STBX a place to live that would be good for the kids since he could not drag himself away from the OW long enough to do that.
Me too! And it was a better price and space than the one I ended up with. I wanted to swap since I found both apartments and we were running out of time. He said “no” because mine was too expensive and small!! I said right then, Do you think I am a chump? I am a chump” YMBAC when you ask your revolting X if you are a chump when the answer is clear. God I wish I never had to see him again.
Chumperstein
Ditto, but I thought it a small price to pay to get him OUT of the family home, that he insisted the kids and I stay in (but then wouldn’t leave).
Nomar,
The lawn mowing thing is sweet. I once heard that men judge other men (to some degree) by how they take care of the lawn i.e. a guy that makes his wife cut the grass is a dick. So IMO that’s only marginally chumpy
I was a TOTAL CHUMP because my ex was always “too busy” to cut the grass – I was mowing grass in 90+ degree heat during a high risk pregnancy because “he was so tired from work”. Sigh.
Oh, there was definitely some Yard Pride at work there. In a small town, everyone notices how your yard is kept and who is keeping it that way.
But looking back I am shocked that at some point while feeling the early onset symptoms of heat exhaustion I didn’t say to myself, “WTF? This is not MY job. She can do it herself, hire someone to do it, or ask one of her boyfriends do do it?”
I think chumps keep that voice wrapped inside a rug and locked in a trunk in the basement.
Ooooh, I agree, nomar–that is HOT that you did that. It says a lot about YOUR character, not about what a whore she is.
I did all our yard work. ALL. OF. IT. ALL the time. He mowed the lawn a couple times. Now he lives in a shit hole, because OW is too entitled to get dirt on her fingers, and xH is a loser who doesn’t have me to do the yard work any more. And, you know? It DOES matter. My affection for xH was diminished by his laziness, and by his willingness to let be the man of the house WAY too often. Someone had to do it, though. I spackled SO hard throughout our marriage, and the yard thing was a big giant part of it. Actually, a LOT of the “man chores” was a big part of it–hauling the garbage cans, bringing the Christmas tree into and out of the house while he played video games on the computer, etc. Ick. Obviously, I CAN do all of that, but it sure is something else to look over and see Mr. Limpy totally oblivious–or worse–irritated with me for caring. Ugh!
Miss Sunshine – who knew we have the same xH?
My ex asked me, fifth night home from the hospital after having given birth and had a tubal ligation, to help him drag the full garbage cans out to the street. No qualms, no shame.
Also, I feel you on the yard work. Mine was always just so tiiiiiired because he woooooorked. Evidently, he was the only man on the planet who worked a normal job and whose wife then had the audacity to ask he do something other than lay on the couch and get shitface drunk.
Miss Sunshine,
I think I was married to your XH’s twin. I did all this stuff, too, while he played video games or was sleeping or just lurking about. One day while I was fighting with the lawn mower in the heat, I saw him a few feet away with his hands on his hips “grading me.” He would say, “You missed a spot over by the tree.” So yes, I was a chump! Should have pushed that lawn mower in his face and walked away right then.
It’s soooooooo not attractive when you feel like more of a man than the man who wants sex from you, because he’s a spineless, whiny coward. ICK!
I am proud of my yard now, but GOD, I love a MAN who does MAN work. I know that’s not PC of me, but I LOVE it.
I hope the neighbors are thinking he’s a dick. He left the sprinklers broken so the lawn would die and he wouldn’t have to mow it any more.
Yep ReDefiningMe. And washing cars and pressure washing the drive way. I even painted one side of our house by myself. All in hopes that he would then have more time for the family.
Please tell me we will NEVER be so foolish again! Otherwise I’m hanging up the relationship/sex towel right now.
XH always took pride in his lawn and spent *hours* working on it. After he moved out, I had to watch two YouTube videos to mow the lawn – one to find out how to start the lawn mower, the other on how to attach the grass catcher. I sang, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!” the first time I mowed the lawn. I felt like an Amazon when I was done….
Well done Red, I second your post.
But my stupid exH said he didn’t think I could do it! So I learnt how to and told him to shove the law mower up his crapper.
We can and will survive cos we are worth it..
“Law mower” We are all Freud!!!! Love it!
I told mine that I did not know how to start a lawnmower & that as soon as I knew how, I knew it would become my job! So I refused to learn. Now that I live by myself, I did learn, did it for awhile & then hired someone.
YMBAC if you find a HUGE wad of tissues that are stuck together under the drivers seat of his car (because you’re the only one who cares enough to clean it) and when confronted, he says he spilled coffee in the car. Except the tissues aren’t stained brown and he doesn’t use tissues let alone keep them in his car.
YMBAC if after discovering this ^ all your spidey senses are screaming that something is terribly wrong and instead of investigating, you stand in front of the bathroom mirror and tell yourself, out loud, that you don’t want to know.
Stoopid Chumpy McChumpster with a side of doormat.
Hugs! It’s so hard when we see it in writing, but let’s try not abuse ourselves too heartily. Our fucktards have done enough of that already.
(BTW I’ve referred to myself as Chumpy Chumperson)
Thanks chumppalla, Hugs to you too. My self esteem is not only in the toilet, it has been flushed, treated and is now circulating somewhere in the Pacific. The signs were so obvious he may as well have hired a plane to write it in the sky. Chances are, I probably would have explained that away as well. Something like “Oh look, a strange cloud that appears to say “HE IS CHEATING!!”. Huh, whaddya know. Wonder what the meteorologists would call that?”
Circulating in the Pacific, yep, that’s where mine is, too. I think it’s specifically swirling around that massive ocean vortex-pileup of plastic bags, soda rings, and other sea trash. My only hope is that some unsuspecting turtle will swallow it and then puke it back up on shore, kind of like a fucked up version of Message in a Bottle.
Don’t feel bad. (See my post above about removing the key logger because I just didn’t want to see anymore evidence.) It’s amazing to me too, that my self-esteem was so low coupled w/ being emotionally ripped apart that I just put blinders on for a time.
I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I had to get myself together but once I was ready, the blinders were ripped off. My divorce will be final in a week.
Congratulations, Rumblekitty!
Thank you sweet baby.
I’m not happy yet . . . just faking it till I make it. 
Congrats Rumblekitty, you WILL make it!!!!
Congrats and welcome to your new beginning!
Congratulations Rumblekitty. Free at last!!
Congrats to you Rumblekitty. Mine is just starting. Yeah emotionally ripped apart is no joke. Mine tells me tonight that I’m out of control cause I’m pissed he’s got OW and her kids at his apt. with my kids playing games. Yeah and I’m outta control.
People can’t process that much devastation all at once! Don’t blame yourself for needing more time or smaller doses!
YMBAC if he spends every minute at home texting on his cell phone and you buy that he’s only talking to one of his soldiers that is having a hard time with military life.
YMBAC if he changes the password to your online banking when there is no bank branch on the island you live on, right before Valentine’s day and keeps “forgetting” to tell you what it is. Turns out, someone charged flowers on our account, but I didn’t get so much as a hug that day. What a dick.
YMBAC if he makes you feel like you’re crazy for being suspicious of his online addiction only to later find out that he’s finding and hooking up with other women through various dating sites.
Iiiiiiifffff your husband says he needs to live on his own for a while to work on his mental health issues…and you agree? youuuuuuuuuu might be a chump
YMBAC if you believe he wants you back in his life so he can work towards “making it up to you” and that he “hates himself for hurting you” but then find out he’s still f*cking the OW
YMBAC if your ex used to “work” almost 80+ hours, but still couldn’t pay for everyday expenses like gas, groceries, date nights, etc.
YMBAC if you cry every night because of the emotional abuse and neglect but still tell everyone you two are doing “great”
YMBAC if you find a dirty e-mail from a ho-worker and he insists that he already took it to HR last week (even though it was sent that day) giving some BS explanation of how e-mail works. (Puh-lease! I went to a Tech school for 5 years *eyeroll*)
YMBAC if the pastor of your church asks you about the woman he saw your husband with and you laugh it off and tell him that they are “running buddies.”
YMBAC if you didn’t file until you’d already spent thousands of dollars trying to come to an “amicable” settlement.
BTDT. Could own my own Porsche with all that money spent on collaborative divorce and other amicable solution. Glad I live in a state where adultery is a reason to divorce.
That’s awesome for you Meg. Here in FL he could have been fucking a new girl everynight and unless I can prove he spent martial assets on them it doesn’t matter one bit. Makes no difference that he’s a mentally abusive, lying cheating asshole. Almost wish he would have hit me just once so I could have his ass thrown in jail.
Really at what point will society realize this emotional and mental abuse is just as bad as the physical and should be dealt with just as harshly.
Hang in there! You can look for the marital asset trail or have a friend who knows numbers help you. The cheaters always think they are smarter than you are, so they don’t cover their tracks perfectly. They know we are chumps, but have no idea of the empowerment of Chump Nation. I took a calendar, the credit card bills, and the cell phone bills and managed to piece together where the marital assets were being dissipated. You can too!
Me, too. It leaves a bad impression with the judge and it might embarrass the cheater into a better settlement.
This is dangerous, I may not be able to stop.
YMBAC if you see his jacket hanging in the wardrobe with a large white stain down the front and you tell yourself that he must have spilled a milkshake….when he was at a football game……at night……and he doesn’t drink milkshakes. Because he’s so clumsy with beverages.
YMBAC when, heavily pregnant with his 2nd child, you bring him dinner at his office at 8pm at night and he yells at you that you are interrupting his work and you leave and cry all the way home because your husband seems to hate you with a passion. (I’ve since been told that OW no.2, an employee, was hiding in the copy room).
You probably WERE interrupting his “work,” if you know what I mean…. Shoulda checked the color of his balls at that point.
WfK- I don’t condone murder, but for your ex I would make an exception. What an ASSHOLE!!!!
Yep, I’ve had to talk myself down a number of times. But he is so not worth it.
As for the employee, when I confronted her last year she says – whiny voice – “..he was supporting me through a bad break up”. Oh for the love of God!
YMBAC if he texts you pics from his “work” trip (he’s actually out mountain climbing and horseback riding) and you notice he isn’t wearing his wedding ring in any of the photos. When you confront him, he tells you you’re crazy and accuses you of trying to ruin his great time.
YMBAC if you think all the red flags are just part of their charm.
word!!!
True that!
If, several months after discovering your wife’s affair, you believe that she set up a secret e-mail account and sent the OM an invitation to meet so that she could tell him in person that she never wanted to see him again…. YMBAC.
After I discovered he had an OW and was with her 1000 miles away, XH immediately came home and tried to tell me it wasn’t what I thought and he was just helping her with her kids (we have 4). He then went back to “Say Goodbye to her” and spent the whole weekend, missing our daughter’s birthday. I’ve heard of saying it with flowers, but he had to say it with (ahem)… something else.
YMBAC if you still take him back, believing he had really ended it.
If you accept: “because why not?” as a legitimate explanation for why your wife deletes hundreds of texts from only one particular number…..YMBAC.
Yeah try thousands in one month Alyosha. YMBAC
Sorry that came off a little condescending. My stbxh had 5000 in one month to the OW. There is no explanation. I think 10 texts a month from a married man to a married woman he works with is the most that might be acceptable in my book, and even those shouldn’t be deleted.
Man, clearly people you have deep wells of chumpiness you need to share! We hit 100 comments before 10 a.m. Central Time.
ETA — I’m laughing so hard at these, but hey, it’s only because I wear the chump crown. It’s not easy to out-chump me!
YMBAC if exH told you that he “left his wedding ring in Europe” during a trip because he was in a car accident and they lost it in the emergency room” – except that he never called to tell you there was an accident and doesn’t have a scratch on him (normally the guy would take out a billboard if he got a paper cut…).
Yeah, ER’s are always cutting wedding rings off of patients with no injuries, they’re funny that way.
YMBAC if your exH suddenly starts taking off his wedding ring at night and in the car “because his hands swell” – except that he leaves other rings on. And his hands are swelling why? Because he’s pregnant?
Turns out he’d told OW we’d been divorced for five years, and he was trying to get rid of that tricky little “wedding ring dent” – mine took about three years to go away.
You mean I Might be a chump if I believe that….he told our daughter he is living with one of his Prostitutes, her husband, 5 kids and several chihuahuas in a seedy part of town sharing a room with a 13 year old run away! No Lie…..this is the latest.
Happilyeverafter1959 – that is the best “he took a downgrade” story EVER!! Freaking hilarious.
Oh, I laughed, and then I cried…and I laughed and then I cried….
YMBAC when you know that the work ‘bike’ (tramp) your husband is infatuated with will be on the table at a work function and you are not told. But when you suspect she will be there and ask and was then told, I pulled the pin on us going 12 hours before said event. He is still trying to get into her pants but she has commented to one of his male work colleagues that she feels uncomfortable in his presence and yet he is still trying and that is 15 long years. I was an absolute fool to put up with him.
YMBAC if… you confront your husband, “I know you’re having an affair,” and he says, “Yes I did, but I only had sex with Trixie a few times.” But the affair you’ve been documenting is with Susan.
That actually happened to me three days ago. Oh and I totally did the the isn’t it great he’s taking care of himself — working out, going to yoga (YOGA?!?), dressing nicely, etc.
Cas, I am thoroughly impressed that you have found your way to this site in such a short period of time after discovery (it took me almost 18 months). You are definitely in the right place. Three days after DD1 I’m pretty sure I was dancing the pick-me interpretative dance of madness like a woman possessed. It was brutal and completely futile. Be kind to yourself, it’s the worst of times.
Hang in there, Cas…. It does get better.
YMBAC….
If you have a second D-Day !
or more!
Oooooh, Smart, that is the ultimate Chumpiness, isn’t it.
5 years later ….
I just had a 3rd DDay, had forgotten the first one six years ago, had the second one two months ago, and was in the process of divorcing him when I discovered No.3, which makes the last seven years full of OW I had no clue about.
Been there. Had one years ago but thought it was a blip. Turns out he never stopped cheating and probably cheated before that. He had several women on the go when I found out about final OW, who apparently thinks she’s special.
YMBAC if after the separation, he still has keys to the house to come in daily to have a BM….
No he didn’t!! I am laughing out loud!
Oh Hell No!!!
Bahahahaha! Thank you. Laughing through streaming tears, now! OMG.
What would Freud say about THAT!!
I’m STILL laughing about this one. Oh, holy crap.
What’s a BM? (British)
Do you mean sitting on your lavatory and having a good c p?
Yes. BM is short for bowel movement.
Or as some of us call it, “taking a [insert name of cheating ex spouse here].”
xH WISHES he could do that! He would sit 30+ minutes or more on the toilet, always with his phone or iPad or something electronic, especially after coming home from work. His clothes would be all over the floor and he would be sitting naked on the toilet, texting or whatever. In his own poop-stench.
Ah, memories…now that the separation/divorce is final, my bathrooms have never stayed so clean and smelled better…and I have two kids!
Oh my goodness. I thought my husband was the only one. Sitting there naked with his laptop/phone in his poop stench with the door locked. We’re talking HOURS at a time. I’m so sorry anyone else had to deal with this.
Ah, truly we were blessed! He left the door OPEN. So we could all enjoy the stench as it wafted through the house.
They must have both read that page in the cheater handbook.
That is truly special. No wonder you’re glad he’s gone!
Actually, my husband was having sexy chat sessions with the OW while on the john. I doubt they would have been as sexy if she had a visual to go along with text.
Hahahahahahaha!
My DDay was overhearing him trying to make a “date” while he was sitting on the toilet, with the door open. He didn’t know I was right around the corner. YMBAC if your very first thought in the above situation is “I am NOT going to put up with this too.” I mean in addition to the spending addiction, laziness, irresponsibility with the kids etc. I just ran out of spackle.
Where’s smellavision when you need it?
What is the fascination with pooping? XWH would also strip and sit in there and read an entire magazine. He had stacks of magazines that he had to read, in his “relaxation zone”.
I don’t understand what’s relaxing about farting, grunting and stinky smells.
Mine used to take his pants off when he got home. Drape them over things.
Also was a mysteriously long time in the bathroom pooper. Things You Never Want to Live With Again So Help You God…
Please please please, CL, we need a cartoon of the Naked Pooping Cell Phone Romeo. PLEASE!
They really do play out of the same handbook, don’t they? “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” –Simone Weil
Speaking of cartoons, the melting jammies in hell has had me laughing out loud all day.
My STBX even had the six women in his office conditioned to not bother him when he told them he was “Going to the library for a while”. He makes jokes about this routine to anyone around. I find it offensive and if I worked for him I would not want to hear this from him….EVER. Of course, he did the same at home and would go into a rage if I disturbed him, telling me he never gets to use the bathroom at work. I will not missed this a**hole.
My son got naked to poop when he was 3. Your WH is STILL doing this??? Yikes!!!! Oh, KT – I am SO sorry!
You sure it was BM and not HJ?
Okay, this is getting weird. My XH did all of this, naked on the toilet, sat there forEVER. Weirder still is that he never had anything to say to me, hardly gave me the time of day, unless I was in the bathroom with the door closed. Then he wanted in to talk? W.T.F?? Was Freud right about the anal phase? Someone do a study on the link between defecation rituals and NPD!
Bwahaha, my cheater does this too. Disgusting! I bet that cell phone has so many gross germs on it between the dumps, using it while chatting with the OW, and looking at porn. I never have to see or smell any of this again.
Just remembered…mine would get upset if I even spoke to him in the kitchen sometimes. He said he was working himself up to a poo and I spoiled it by distracting and interrupting him. Are all men weird about poo? Or is it just cheaters? Takes me 1-4 minutes. (Sorry if too much information!)
There is such a thing as “poopsterbating”! I read it in the urban dictionary. Strange.
Ok. I had to google that and it’s just as disgusting as I thought. I bet that was what XWH was doing in there all that time. Ewwwww!
I had to check that too. Fortunately, it was not QUITE as gross as I had in my mind’s eye…
Mine took the stinkiest most toxic dumps, they were just unfucking real! Bring tears to your eyes!! Was this another sign I missed? The rottenness on the inside venturing out? The bathroom would sometime stink all day.
Fortunately I found CL early on when I first suspected something and it helps me keep tethered to reality which is good since Trixie was a friend – we’d even planned family vacations together – and the whole thing has been such a massive mindf**k.
Oh I read a google’s worth of “Infidelity saved my marriage” types of sites and that stuff makes absolutely no sense.
Oh how I wish I had found CL, she went “live” right when I was in the middle my 3.5 month pick me dance. I did not find Chumplady for another year.
I’ve done a lot of googling too, and I’m appalled with all the marital snake oil out there.
YMBAC if you max your credit cards out because he guilts you into buying the latest and greatest technology “for the family”, and find OW pictures taken with “the family’s” digital camera on “the family’s” computer!
yep – YMBAC – if you charge HIS guilt trips to YOUR cards (trip for son to Cardinals spring training, big Carnival cruise with Christian rock groups for daughter) and they aren’t even paid off when you’re accused during the divorce discovery of being an “over charger” and “wasting marital assets” Yesterday was his birthday. I burned him in effigy all over again.
I guess cheaters don’t have enough money to go to all their women, huh? Probably guilted his other women out of money too? Or are we the only chumps?
Usually they’re in full-on love bombing mode with the OW. My husband is the cheapest person on the planet, but he took his latest EA out for an expensive lunch. (We don’t have lots of money to spare, so I don’t usually blame him for being cheap.) He couldn’t even bring himself to buy me gas station roses on my birthday the last few years, but he can drop money on her.
Long story short, they’ll spend on someone if they’re idealizing them. They’re idealizing the OW, so she gets all the goodies. For now.
No I think mine has OW helping to pay the bills on his apt while she still officially lives at home with mommy, daddy, recent ex and two little boys. So clearly, my stbxh is milking that cow too.
He didn’t milk me for money though, just my time, energy, emotion, and love. Asshole! I’d have rather paid him off and had him get the fuck away from me and our kids.
Yep raises hand.
I also financed all the vacations with my cards because the one he had with a limit of 12K was always maxed out! Maxed out on god knows what because I never saw any of it. Super chumpy of me.
Speaking of pictures! YMBAC if your cheater asks you to e-mail that sexy picture you took of him on a vacation, so he can use it as a “screen saver” (which he never does) BUT later find it on his profile at an on-line hook-up site….
Yep, I loved seeing a picture of the two of us where I had been cut out that he used on his dating profile. There is no shame.
Oh lord, my ex asked mr to fing a pic of him from years ago, and yeah, he used it on several dating sites….YMBAC in the making if you think the 50 something guy with a 30 something pic is right for you
YMBAC if…
you start thinking it is normal to take one’s phone to the bathroom.
you think it is odd that other couples share their mobile phones.
they seem to have the worst battery life in their phones.
they never hear the phone but when they are with you they pick up within a nanosecond of it ringing.
they bring you a t-shirt from their shagcation that they never invited you to.
they ask you to come over (when living abroad) for Valentine’s day but then they forgot they asked you and they tell you it’s best if you don’t come over, as they will be ‘busy’ with ___________(complete as appropriate).
they think it is OK to come over to ‘talk things through’ and 5 minutes in have their penis on show. And they get annoyed when you say ‘No’
YMBAC if…
you start thinking it is normal to take one’s phone to the bathroom.
Yes! Mine even took his phone into the *shower*
Just to say, AC_, that I think it’s something all of us chumps can relate to – cheaters and their effing cell phones!
YMBAC…if your husband’s phone keeps chirping while he’s driving and he sticks his hand in his pocket, turns it off, and says it’s his school’s basketball coach tweeting. Can he tell this by feel?
Yeah mine had a phone with the shortest battery life and never answered when I called, yet he kept the phone in his boxer shorts at home and when it would light up he said the battery was dying. YMBAC
YMBAC if…your husband didn’t propose with a ring, so you have to pick out and pay for your own wedding ring.
Oh
Mah
Gawd
I’d forgotten totally that I DID THAT. Chump from day zero. 1982.
Same here.
I still have the receipt. He may have used his credit card, but I paid his bill that month.
He spent more on toys for himself ($500+ on PEZ dispensers, $300 on RC cars, $200+ on model cars, to name a few) than he “spent” on our wedding rings.
I’m SO glad that crap is out of my house. Now the OW? She’s pissed that it’s in their apartment and wants him to get rid of it.
OMG! Me too! I paid the credit card bill for my wedding ring too!!!
$500 on PEZ dispensers? Are you kidding me? Does he use them?
I can do you all one better. My cheater ex gave me an engagement ring that WAS HIS SECOND WIFE’S.
He recycled.
(We compared notes after D-Day — she asked me straight up what kind of ring I had and OMFG it was her ring. She gave it back to him in the divorce.)
You are truly the Alpha Chump!
I wanted to make earrings for my daughters from the wedding ring because it was my cheater´s mother´s ring, but my soon-to-be-ex went crazy mad about my idea (stupid of me to have told him) and reminded me that when his father gave me the ring during the wedding ceremony he said “if you ever get divorced you have to return the ring.” So I did. I had forgotten that the ring was a loan! Son will probably wants to recycle it on the OW …
I had no idea that wedding rings were ever returned.
I mean, I know it’s the custom with engagement rings if the engagement is broken off, but… I thought people just had wedding rings turned into other jewelry or something.
Which reminds me… mine is still somewhere in my bathroom, I think. Yikes. what do you do with them?
Sell it on eBay. Cast out the evil spirits first.
I sold my ring to one of those places that buy gold.
Me too, then with the money i took me and a gf out for lunch and got a tattoo that says freedom in french. It is only little but i got it to remind me never to get trapped again. Rings might not last for ever but a tatt wii.
Same here! Got a good price for it and spent that money on the kids and myself!
I sold mine at a pawn shop. Then I went to the grocery store. Bought a few items and the expensive toilet paper. I figured it was worth more than the time spent with the whore.
I had the stones removed from engagement ring and a promise ring, then had a beautiful pendant made. I love it, and everyone compliments me on it!
Dear Time Heals and other chumps,
I took my rings & his band (he hadn’t worn it for YEARS so he did not miss it) and sold them at jewelers. The money went towards my ‘escape’ last year.
I did keep the central diamond out of my engagement ring and had it re-set. I did it as a way of turning something ugly into something beautiful! Reminds me that I have, albeit slowly, risen out of the slime!
Love to all of you Chumps! Forge on……
Unbeknown to me, my ex took back my wedding rings, including diamond engagement ring when he finally moved out. He felt that since I had filed for divorce he was entitled to have them back. When I noticed that they were gone, I knew he had taken them, but I decided not to say anything. After the years of hell he put me through I didn’t want any more drama. I think it bugs him that I have not asked for them back. I am sad that my daughter won’t get them, as I had always intended for her to have my diamond. Perhaps OWife has my diamond now.
It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone. Pawned the ring recently…spent $1500 and got less than $200 for it. What a joke! Won’t do that again!
I’m gonna sell mine for the value in the gold and take myself out for a nice evening!
CL, wait a minute, my ex bought me an ugly ring 2 years after we married as a Xmas present. He insisted he was allergic to metal so no ring for him. During divorce he asked for the ring because ” I know you didn’t like it, AND guess what, I found out I’m not allergic after all”. I sweetly told him it really meant something to me, I will sell it but no hurry, it’s a cheap ring
OMG CL. I recently found out that my STBXN(ightmare) gave me the ring he gave to his other fiance. She gave it back and then he gave it to me.
Mine didn’t propose at all. I picked out the ring, which I happily did. Problem was I paid for half of it!
Wow, thinking about it now, 35 years later, mine never proposed either. We had been living together for about a year and a half. I NEVER got a ring. Finally around year 28 I bought myself a ring and he gave it to me for Christmas. It looks somewhat like an anniversary ring. It made him look good in front of the kids. Chumpity chump chump.
Slowly raises hand.
Mine was sneaky about it though.
He proposed without the ring, then the next day takes me to the jewelry store so I can pick out “whatever I want”. I pick it out and he signs up for the store credit. 6 months after we’re married guess who stopped paying the bill so I had to take over paying it? Yeah I got chumped into buying my own damn ring.
Aren’t we part of a special club!?!?
I paid for my wedding ring, and his too, for that matter.
I miss wearing the ring (it was really a nice piece of jewelry) more than I miss my ex-asshat!
Mine did similar. At the time i was to pick out a ring but everything i picked he didn’t like. Girls usually have very particular tastes in rings but i ended up feeling like I was being really selfish so I settled for something that wasn’t me at all. I guessed it was money….but he spent so casually so maybe it was something else. Half way through our marriage i caught him on some chat site posing as “bored, lonely, 40 guy”, I’d just had a baby and he was bored and lonely!!!!! I threw my rings at him and never wore them again. That was 11 years ago. I now wear a ring of my grandmothers that I had remodelled. It has more sentimental value and generally is more valuable than the pixy rings he gave me to celebrate our marriage. Should have known then!
One day I will tell my daughter – never marry a man who isn’t thrilled to buy you an engagement/wedding ring. I paid for a 1/3rd of mine and he was reluctant to get me one at all. After 17 years of marriage he told me I could keep it when we were separating. Then he said maybe our daughter might want it someday – WTF? I yelled back – dam right I am keeping it, I paid for 1/3rd of it you a**hat.
I paid for half of my ring so I could have something “decent.” I was a chump even THEN (1986)… Good Heavens!
Damn, I didn’t pay for my engagement ring but I did use a stone that came from my grandmother’s ring so 4/5 of the value in that ring was mine. I’d always planned on eventually having it put back into my grandmother’s ring (which I’d had for 25 years before I met my ex) but the bastard left the door unlocked one day and the ring disappeared along with all of my jewelry. I am still pissed at that. And he never did purchase me a wedding ring, but I did buy him his.
YMBAC if….
The OW’s spouse calls you twice over a 3 months span to say that you’re both being chumped by them and both times you say… “Affair? No. Not my Unicorn!”
YMBAC
If your cheater is trying to forgive themselves on a continuous basis.
YMBAC….
When your husbands new “trainee” at work needs extra “training”, requiring him to stay later…
When your business trip is cancelled at the last minute and he’s more disappointed than you are…
When you keep getting suckered into stupid fights over nothing so he can storm out of the house to blow off steam….
YMBAC if: you think that someone really has such bad bowel problems that they have to take their laptop into the bathroom with them for HOURS at a time. (The door was locked, of course.) Seriously, we lived with my parents for a couple weeks after moving out of state while trying to find a new place. My mom kind of gave the side-eye on his sitting in the bathroom with the laptop for hours at a time. Completely humiliating having to explain that. Of course, he said I was being too controlling by bringing it up.
YMBAC if: you tell yourself that it’s not a porn/hookup site you see reflected in the window behind your DH as he’s sitting on the couch “surfing the web”. Of course he quickly closes the window if you decide to sit down next to him. Too bad the screen froze one time and I busted his ass.
YMBAC if: he comes home from working the night shift and sits out in the car for at least two hours before coming into the house. He explains that this behavior is normal, but when you look out the window it seems like he’s **ahem** texting furiously.
Like someone else said, YMBAC if: you think he’s sleeping in his car during freezing cold winter weather because he was too tired to drive home after his shift.
YMBAC if: he tries new moves on you. You say that it hurts or doesn’t do anything for you. He replies that you’re just too uptight and that’s why you can’t get into it. Every other woman LOVES that type of thing. (He’s supposedly only been with you as a sexual partner since you met at 19. How the fuck would he know?)
Sorry. This thread is addictive. I’ll quite before I depress myself.
If he gets angry at your suggestion that you meet him and his co-workers out for a drink last minute, and you think he’s just being protective of his “me time”, YMBAC.
Mine did that. He was in love with the girls at work. I never believed they were interested in him; I knew that he was being a…well, a chump. He’d go hiking and biking and running with them (his back never hurt at all). When I’d ask if I could go, he’d lie and say they weren’t going. Or he’d keep it a secret. He thought it was awesome that I was hurt by his shitty treatment of me and his pursuit of these women who were completely out of his league. Finally he said, “That’s like when Howard Stern says, ‘you don’t bring your girlfriend when you go out with the GUYS!'” Buuuuuuut, I’m NOT your girlfriend, and it’s not “the guys,” and WTF is a grown man taking advice from Howard fucking STERN for???? Whatevs.
Eventually he figured out that he wasn’t going to get laid by anyone but me…. And, how I spackled in order to not be disgusted by this sort of behavior. Yes, I had sex with THAT. I am such a chump. *face palm*
Who knew he’d eventually find a whore who would sleep with him and take him away from the misery of a hot wife and three awesome kids.
When before you are even divorced he has his bitch and her kids ( one of which may be his) over having dinner, playing games, and having fun with your kids like one big happy fucking family. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Kick his ass to the curb. He is loving being the king. Fuck him.
His ass has already been kicked Miss Sunshine. He’s doing this in his own apartment; that’s why I can’t do anything. I was very nosy and suspicious, plus I had suspected the OW had feelings for him for the past 3 years. She wasn’t welcomed or allowed anywhere near my house.
Oh, I get it, now. I’m sorry that your kids have to be anywhere near that twat and your foolish ex.
(((hugs!)))
YMBAC if you see him smiling smirkily at the computer screen as he sits on the couch, taking selfies and you believe him that he’s sending them to his co-worker.
Awesome chumps,
Some of these posts still carry the hurt inflicted by these evil cheaters, but many are truly hilarious. I thank all of you for the laugh out loud posts, and pray for all us chumps that we will all move on well; live authentic, peaceful lives; and be able to laugh again someday. Chumps are mighty.
I am rereading this post and laughing myself silly!! I think CL might have to illustrate those guys on toilets with laptops and cellphones, “tweeting” to their OW twats. You just have to laugh!
YMBAC if he takes your poor old dog and his cell phone on long walks, no matter what the weather!
Completely NAKED on the toilet with cellphone and laptop, and smell! OMG.
YMBAC if your estranged stbx husband gets into a car accident but waits over two weeks to say anything about it…. even though he bitches and moans over a hang nail the rest of the time. You feel bad and then, come to find out, one of his sluts was with him… wonder what caused them to run off the road??
YMBAC if you find a pair of strange underpants in your drawer and put them on assuming they are an old pair you forgot about and that must have just stretched out since they are too large.
YMBAC if you WAKE UP in your own bed with a strange thong stuck to you.
(Hello. That was me.)
Eeeeeeewwwwwww!
I am crying I am laughing so hard!!
All hail the chumpajesty! Good Lord above these assholes are disgusting.
So foul…I hope this was the last straw. (Cringe!)
^^ can SO relate! I was washing my delicates and after drying I saw 8 pairs instead of my weekly 7. Looked at them. UGH – cheapo lacy Walmart (no offense to WM people) but these were OLD and the lace was FRAYED. I don’t wear frayed anything under my clothes. I was disgusted to death that I had washed them but made it easier to take the rubber gloves, cut a nice hole in the vaginal area (choke) and added a nice embroidered red crab from our annual Seafood Festival here. He picked them up with the last of his clean ginch. Good riddance. And, yeah, they were 2 sizes bigger than me besides….3 EVEN!
WHO ‘forgets’ their underwear behind?
Rumblekitty and RNE – regarding cell phone usage. I couldn’t agree more.
Backstory: STBX and I own small business with 2 separate cell phone plans, each with 5+ phones. I’m responsible for administrative office stuff, including managing expenses and paying bills for these phones. STBX and my phones are on one plan – our kids are on the other. I discovered hundreds of texts and calls over months from STBX phone to a specific number, googled it, identified it belongs to a local female, concealed carry firearms instructor. (I have nothing against female gun handlers! I wish I were skilled in that area). He is a bigtime hunter/gaming/CCW licensed, etc…)
So…
YMBAC… if you ask your spouse “why are you making hour long, 2 hour long conversations at midnight?” He answers, “we talk about guns”.
YMBAC….if you find pink camo keys in the laundry.
YMBAC…if you confront spouse with affair, he looks like an 8 year old with his hand in the cookie jar. You tell him you know everything and want some answers. He replies, “Tell me what you know, and I will tell you if it is true”.
YMBAC…when he changes password on his phone account (which includes my phone) but not my kids’ account. He tells kids he now has charge of the phones because “remember that time mom was late paying the bill and your phones didn’t work for a couple of days?” (yeah… after we invested everything into his sinking ship of a business, were broke, and were paying everyone but ourselves). Funny that his kids, who are smarter than he is, could see that if the case was true, he would have denied my access to both accounts!
He’s off with his gun slingin’, camo-lovin’ target shootin’, animal huntin’ buddy – but only better! This one has a vagina!
“Tell me what you know, and I will tell you if it is true”
hahahahahahahaaaaaa!
An the Oscar goes to…
OMG! I haven’t laughed his hard in AGES!!!
Mine got one of those… gun-slinging, camo-loving, target shooting cunt with a vagina
All of his making… He has molded her into him perfect play thing
Ooh ooh! I have more!
YMBAC if you catch him looking at Craigslist Hookups and believe him when he says he can’t get off unless it’s “amateur porn”
YMBAC if you find e-mails where he CONTACTS people from Craigslist Hookups and believe him when he says his ex-girlfriend “hacked” his e-mail account and was sending them out (along with recent pictures!)
YMBAC if he hits you after you slap him (after finding out about the affair that was driving you crazy second-guessing your gut) and he says it was “self-defense” so calling the cops would get me in trouble as well.
Yep, YMBAC if you catch him looking at Craigslist sex ads and he says he was “just looking” and you believe him. And I got the “used for masturbation” excuse too.
Hmmm, years later, makes me wonder… I walked in on spouse with a frozen computer screen with naked girls, teenage or so. I asked him if there was anything I needed to know. His response, down,loaded free ware with a malware (or whatever it’s called). Never thought a out it until know. I wonder….
Argghh.. Never thought about it until now, 15 yrs later….
This must be more common than I thought. My husband joined sex dating sites – I found emails in his secret email account. He tried to tell me they auto generated when he opened the email account. I shot that down. So then he tried to say he did it for the pictures. You know, because there is NO free porn on the Internet. Only, he had a profile…….odd for someone just looking at pictures.
If your wife goes off on a trip to see “an old friend from college (female) who lives in Oregon” and then her credit card statement for that week shows charges in Las Vegas and you don’t even notice, YMBAC.
YMBAC if, even after you’ve found out about her affairs with 3 different men, you let her go to Vegas with her “Jazzercise friends” to show that you trust her again!
“Jazzercise”–there’s a new euphamism for cheating. Though it’d be an even funnier (and more off-color) euphamism if the second letter were changed.
Oh! LOL. I just got that without having to go to the Urban Dictionary!
YMBAC if: you find your husband’s secret email and send him a fake message pretending to be one of the skanks he’s contacting on Craigslist. You then decide to take the high road and just tell him he’s in big trouble. (As opposed to playing him and letting him make a fool out of himself.) He apologizes like crazy. Says he didn’t really chat with anyone or meet up with anyone. Lets you view his email account after he already deleted everything. (Thanks loser.) Then, a few hours later, you get a message in your fake email account. Turns out your WH wants the fake skank’s number. When confronted again, he claims that fighting with you makes him “lonely”. You don’t argue back because, frankly, you’re afraid you’ll kill him if you think about it too hard.
KT, sometimes killing them and going to jail would be worth it. That is how I thought about 3 years ago but not now. I have peace of mind now.
I can honestly say I had never felt rage like that before. Scary stuff. I’m glad you’re in a better place now.
Absolutely KT. I told my mother that I don’t know how you can go from loving someone with everything you are to hating that same person in a matter of hours. Hating to the point that you can honestly say that if he were to drop dead right now in front of you, it wouldn’t bother you in the least. As a matter of fact you would get excited about the life insurance you will inherit.
Boy I can relate to the loving someone with everything you are part. And the intense rage. Oddly enough I haven’t wished him dead yet. I just really really wish he’d take permanent damage to his man parts. I don’t know if the dead part is because I’m not to meh yet or if it’s cause I care about his three kids. Although at the moment he’s not trying to eff with my life. If that were happening I’d hope for a quick step off a curb for a meeting with a bus.
For some reason this thread have brought up so many emotions for me. it’s been a really rough week. Coming up on one year here since I threw his lily white ass out the door. My therapist said anniversaries will do that to you. I know in many ways my life will continue to get better as I move towards being able to truly let him go. We laugh here, we joke here, we tell our stories and commiserate with each other. This has been so healing for me in so many ways. And yet it infuriates me that there is even such a need for this. I so want to make a public spectacle out of him and yet I know that all that will do is invite trouble. Where the hell is the justice?
How many times can I thank all of you, and especially CL!
There will be better days…..Right?
Yes, there are. I’m ten years out, and while I’m still angry at the way I was treated, I have a wonderful man of character who loves me, flaws and all. He is patient and kind and considerate. I really thought all men were assholes until I met him. Chin up! Most importantly, do what makes you happy!
So Happy that you found a good one Lisa in Joisey……I am hoping for the same. I see assholes everywhere now, not just men. Experiencing something like this amplifies everything! I hear that gets better with time too. I still have days where I think I am in a dream, I will wake up and everything will be just the way I thought it was….Key….Thought it was. Man how the wool can be pulled over your eyes.
Happily –
It does get better. My exH left about 5 1/2 years ago – but there was lots of drama,and it just got stirred up again lately, which is when I found this site.
The first year was hell. I “celebrated” every month from Dday as “i’ve made it one month..two months..six months…” Now, I can’t even remember the date. It was August – the week our five year old started kindergarten. But I don’t remember the date anymore. So, YES, it will get better. And I laugh all the time now. And I truly think he’s pathetic. You can do this – big hugs…
Happilyeverafter1959 I am almost one year out from kicking him out. This thread has had me crying with laughter though. I think one of the most important things Chump Lady encourages us to do is to point at the disordered and laugh. I am finding myself laughing one minute then crying the next. What’s important though is the laughing. Ridiculing them takes away some of their power over us. It still hurts but every day I am closer to not giving a shit. Point & laugh Happily, point & laugh. It will get better for us.
Well done Alice. Well done.
If you don’t mind I’m saving your post as it’ sooo rings true for me.
Cheers bellzero
YMBAC if: Your X uses marriage counseling as a front for her affair and then asks you “Why didn’t you want more time?” right after your world just got crushed into a billion pieces.
The entitlement is the part that never fails to take my breath away. They think they’re so amazing that anybody would do anything to be with their amazingness. By that logic, who wouldn’t want want more time? After all, CW, she might have picked you…
Blech
YMBAC if after your husband picks you up at the airport (after more than a month apart), some woman and her friends are knocking on your bedroom window. My husband was so angry at them, but I just thought they had bad manners!! I can’t believe I only saw the light on that one after filing for divorce! That was after many Ddays with another OW… and I’m supposed to be smart…
YMBAC if you’re worried that his female relatives seem to do all the cooking.
YMBAC if you hop to every time he mentions a mess in the house.
YMBAC if you put the whole down payment down for the house.
YMBAC if you don’t ask him how he got those scratches on his back.
YMBAC if you give him library books on porn addiction and he can’t find them when due.
YMBAC if you believe him saying he doesn’t know how those images got on his computer.
YMBAC if you let him Facebook friend his old girlfriend and then he doesn’t want to sleep with you for months but you don’t make the connection because you believe the person you married would be honest about anything developing that would come between you.
“YMBAC if you don’t ask him how he got those scratches on his back.”
Yes….I’m having flashbacks.
Yes I ignored those too…except for the once because they were fresh.
He said he walked into some poison ivy and was itchy (he supervised techs who work outside). I let it go.
Mine had scratch marks too. When I asked him what they were he said he must have been bitten by something (insert slut joke here). Later when the affair was discovered I asked him to confirm that it was OW who was responsible for the back scratches. He responded angrily with “She always scratched me with her nails. I don’t know why, it was really annoying”. I was speechless.
Thanks for reminding me of something, Miss Sunshine! There is soooo much chumpy behavior that I’ve blocked out!
YMBAC if you buy your own Christmas presents and stocking stuffers during the year so that you feel like you got something, too!
YMBAC if you get an unusually nice anniversary gift…a gold necklace! Then later find 3 DIFFERENT receipts for gold necklaces when you know you only got one. Huh?
YMBAC if you allow your husband to raid your inheritance to buy a machine gun a couple months after you have a baby (and a couple of months after you find out about the first affair.)
YMBAC if you do the Marriage Builders exposure, then issue retraction letters because your cheater has you convinced OW’s daddy is dying due to said exposure. (Never mind that my parents are both dead, but Skanky’s and Sir-Skankalot’s parents are all still very much alive.)
YMBAC if, a couple of years after the first affair, you help your then-husband with a health condition that involves you cleaning his rear end (see pilonidal cyst…sorry if TMI!)
YMBAC if you actually believe your husband’s epiphany after the first affair…He has an accident and his lost wedding ring magicallyappears on the passenger seat!
YMBAC if you actually believe your husband’s epiphany after the second affair…He is driving while on travel (near one of their affair spots) and is ALMOST STRUCK BY LIGHTENING! (Supposedly, he saw the strike right by him when driving beside the bay and saw the water spray up. I wonder how much of this stuff he makes up?)
YMBAC if you discover that the person responding to your text messages to
your husband is actually the OW.
Oh no no no no no!
When you discover that the person sending your email messages in OFW, despite denying involvement with the OW, is in fact the OW. Guys don’t use multiple question marks for emphasis….
I have to ask… A machine gun ??
Yep, about a year after Mom died, I was having my ex’s baby. Meanwhile, he was both cheating (first affair) and spending Mom’s money on a machine gun (I forget how many thousands of dollars). I forgave and 13 years later he cheated again…same woman! Might I be a chump?
YMBAC if…
You believe it when your husband stops wearing his wedding ring and tells you it’s because he doesn’t want to get it dirty.
You say nothing when your husband explains his married coworker picked out your Christmas gift.
You believe your husband when he tells you the “I want to lay you down in a bed of roses” ringtone is arbitrarily assigned by his phone to his married coworker.
You thank your husband for not leaving you when the kids were younger.
You believe your husband when he says his married coworker’s kids call everyone Uncle.
You drive your kids all over the country for their soccer tournaments while your husband drives his married coworker all over the country to her horse shows.
You believe his explanation that the love note you found in his pocket is from a student who had a crush on him.
You say nothing when a new acquaintance says they met you once while you were jogging with your husband on lunch break when you have never jogged in your life.
YMBAC if you are pregnant and when he tells you he needs to spend the day with his ho worker because she just had a D&C, you think what a wonderful sensitive man you have married.
YMBAC if your husband gives you a pair of shredding scissors for Christmas… And leaves you the next day for the OW.
…did you use them? The shredding scissors? The next day?…
He’s lucky I was in shock! LOL! Those things went straight in the garbage.
YMBAC…
if your husband says you never had anything in common but the kids, and you blurt out “We both like Mexican food.”
LOL. Too funny. FWIW, I pitty anybody who doesn’t like “comida Mexicana”
hahahaha!!!! Awesome!!!
YMBAC when you take it as a positive sign when on D-day, you ask the big question, “do you love me?” and the answer it, “I do love you. I really, really like her too though”. You know, cuz “love” trumps “really, really like” in chump-world.
Ugh, I got “I love you, but I also like her and how exciting she is.” which later changed to “I’m just f*cking her, not dating her – I don’t date crazy!” and then an e-mail from the OW declaring they’re in “love” *eyeroll*
Definitely the best day of my life when I decided to really hunker down and go NC! My ex couldn’t keep his stories straight to save his life!
YMBAC if you find a bunch of herbal “stimulation” pills in his pocket. And he tells you he takes them for energy at work and you don’t shank him on the spot.
YMBAC…
if you go to a lot of trouble to leave a “last valentine’s day gift” for your husband and he responds by e-mailing you a proposal of how your assets should be split.
your husband’s married coworker delivers his dry cleaning on her way home and you want to slap it out of your hands but you don’t.
your husband leaves you at home with pneumonia to go dance at a ball with his married coworker because her husband can’t dance.
OOPS — your husband’s married coworker delivers his dry cleaning on her way home and you want to slap it out of HER hands but you don’t.
YMBAC…
if you call off the wedding when your fiancé announces he might have seen someone he likes better, but you take him back when he begs you to.
You can’t make this shit up!!
YMBAC when he says “you’d like her” and you still consider giving him time to sort it out and choose between you and her
YMBAC of a narcissist when he gives a beautiful necklace for 10th anniversary but has to make sure everyone else sees it
YMBAC…
if your friend jokes to your husband that he’d better not run off with another woman after buying his new Corvette, but he doesn’t laugh.
YMBAC…
if every year at Christmas your husband searches frantically for a tobacco stick snowman than one of his “grad students” made him, and find this odd because he’s not sentimental.
you give your husband quiet time to make notes in the journal he’s keeping for the book he plans to write, but you find it later and discover he’s actually writing about how much he hates being married to you.
“You give your husband quiet time to make notes in the journal he’s keeping for the book he plans to write, but you find it later and discover he’s actually writing about how much he hates being married to you.”
Oh! Oh! I did this for my ex-wife. Except it was an online blog written under a pseudonym. She led me to believe it was kind of a modern-day journal of life as a mom in the burbs, a hipper Erma Bombeck thing, or Sex in the City but with kids in a subdivision. Turns out it was raunchy and voyeuristic and filled with hateful false statements about me and how horrible it was to be married to me and ACTUAL PICTURES OF OUR KIDS. Found this out after D-day. Also found out she’d even been interviewed about it in the late 1990s by a leading newspaper in England and never told me.
These people are scary and sick!
My husband went through a kick where he was doing a video diary of himself. (This was when he was out of a job and should have been looking for something else, mind you. Turns out he lost it because he was never where he was supposed to be. Too busy sexting from the men’s room, but I digress.) He quit the video diary after a couple months. Why? He told me he decided to re-watch some of the entries and realized that he really didn’t like himself.
I’m not perfect, so I decided to check these diaries out for myself. I had to quit after one. He was at the park with our two year old daughter. Someone had left a cup from a fastfood joint out on the park bench. He paused his self absorbed reflections long enough to say that she had just taken a drink out of the cup. His reaction, “Oh wow. Now she’s probably going to get AIDS and that’ll be my fault too”. Flat line except for the self pity. No emotion or real worry. I couldn’t watch the others.
Sorry you went through this in such a public way nomar.
Yeah, plus I think there’s a connection between the narcissism that allows cheaters to cheat and the belief they have that their lives are SOOOO interesting and SO imporant and wouldn’t everyone want to know their every thought? And if their lives aren’t really all that interesting, they might just make some shit up. Total escapist delusional mental masturbation.
Oh KT – this is repulsive. I actually felt my heart break for you when I read this
there should be a line on the cheater “poets” and “writers”…here is one from mine:
YMBAC…if you find 16 pages of erotic poems he wrote and assumed they were for OW#2, and he answers that they were “very old” which leads you to have another DDay and discover that OW#2 was really #3 (or 4, 5, 6?)
and this one is borrowed from a friend:
YMBAC…if by accident, you discover love letters on your husband´s computer addressed to a female with a fancy French name that discuss you and your newborn, and you accept your husband´s explanation “they are letters for a novel I am writing in which you are one of the characters!”
That’s some artful mindfuckery!
Yeah, well, if there’s one thing cheaters are good at, it’s fiction. . . .
Ah, the memories…
YMBAC if after discovering your cheater’s reviews of his hot, hot sex with various prostitutes on The Erotic Review whose posted dates coincide with when you are working second shift or he was out-of-state on “business,” you believe him when he tells you he makes it up. He claims it is just something to do when he is bored at work. After all he is a germa-phobe… he couldn’t possibly do that with a whore!
Later you contact the webmaster to clarify how you qualify to get on the site and make said reviews – active participation with the prostitute/escort. The ho’s have individual code numbers and everything!
Oh, and I also learned that a “hobbyist” isn’t some guy who builds model airplanes in his basement….
YMBAC if your H’s airline miles disappear flying OW with him on business trips and you believe that he donated them to charity.
YMBAC if: you find a pair of thong underwear with tags still on them in a bag behind the seat in his truck and you explain it away that he forgot to give them to you!
YMBAC if: you find rope and lube underneath the backseat of his truck and he tells you someone at work is playing a prank on him to make his wife think awful thoughts!
YMBAC if: you find a rolex watch (still in the fancy box) under the backseat of his truck and first he denies it’s there and then he tells you that he bought it for himself but forgot to bring it in the house!!!!
His truck was the hotbed of surprises!!!!
Rope?!!! Dare I ask?
Guess he’s into bondage or she is! Whatever! Seriously, I was beginning to hate to look in his truck! But this is where I ended up catching him. I put a VAR in the seat pocket right behind the driver’s seat and I heard him talking to her and proclaiming his LOVE for her after five years of false reconciliation with several ddays throughout that time period.
Brilliant!! Painful, but the truth.
Good for you…sounds like the truck was a treasure trove of information…it did set you free:-)
YMBAC if you give suggestions to OW to please the cheater so he doesn’t get abusive to her.
YMBAC if you believe he uses the viagra for endurance for sports.
If you took some kind of solace from your cheater’s assurances that he/she never had sex with any affair partner(s) on the same day they had sex with you, YMBAC.
Because: 1) WHY WOULD THAT MATTER? And because 2) WHY WOULD I BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU SAY?
I mean, it would matter from a hygiene standpoint of course. But it has nothing to do with being faithful.
YMBAC if you wonder why he showed up four hours after his father died smelling of skank and believe him when he tells you, “I was at Mothers.” Even though Mother called you three hours earlier to ask why you haven’t shown up with her son and grandsons yet. Telling time got a lot easier when I stopped pretending all those lost hours magically disappeared.
YMBAC if your H says he needs to rent another apartment in the city to be near work and won’t give you the address (because he is afraid you’ll come over and “make a scene”).
YMBAC if you receive a letter in the mail from an anonymous writer saying your wife is allegedly taking a lover to New York in three days time and you believe her when she says its one of the fellow runners writing a poison pen letter.
And then you fucking stupid enough to send her a huge bouquet of flowers to be in her room when she returned after running the New York Marathon.
I am an idiot! But never never again!!! Lesson learnt
Baci, you’re not an idiot . You’re an honest man with a good heart. Hope you find someone like you. Nevertheless,you have yourself who is wonderful. Glad you found out the truth.
YMBAC if you believe that ‘they’ are ‘just good friends’
YMBAC if you are glad he’s found a ‘new’ hobby (that involves lots of contact with said ‘friend’)
YMBAC if you send your love to recently widowed said ‘friend’ when he visits to ‘comfort’ her.
YMBAC when you think that VERY expensive malt whisky she bought him for Christmas was a ‘nice’ thought.
YMBAC when you find viagra in his wallet and you foolishly look forward to bedtime.
YMBAC if you’re listed as the “defendant” on the divorce petition even though you did nothing wrong!
(that one still smarts)
That sucks, CW.
But you might take a page from the book of Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, who refers to his ex-wife only as “The Plaintiff.” As in, “The Plaintiff can’t be bothered with taking the kids this weekend” or “The Plaintiff, as usual, is full of shit.”
A friend refers to his sociopath ex-wife as The Respondent. Unless he’s using her other pet name, The Idiot.
YMBAC if…you discover your wife’s birth-control missing from your home and kind of believe her when she says the other man is a “friend.”
YMBAC if you don’t get invited to the Christmas work do, even though you work for the Company and it’s his Company (‘no significant others invited – good idea for workforce bonding’), you help him dress in his tux, then he turns up at 5.30 am – after ‘bonding’ all night with OW!
YMBAC if… you discover the secret cell phone, have a cosmic breakdown about it, and he balks at getting rid of it because of the early cancellation fees.
YMBAC if during FR he can’t change his number so that OW can’t call b/c she is moving and needs his help.
Thank God he had his priorities straight! (NOT!)
Oh – and I was the only person in the Company not invited to the do!
LOL – and while he’s getting dressed up in his tux you unpack and iron the new underpants he bought for this ‘special occasion’
My xH never wanted me to come to the company parties. He was in love with all the girls at work. I’m sure he made a complete ass of himself, leering and being silly. I never felt like the chump back then–I was just sorry to be married to one. He was such a clueless idiot–so embarrassing.
But! Not any more. All that shit’s on him, and I don’t have to pretend he’s sexy any more.
further suckage – when I told him I was hurt about not being invited to the do, he took me for a meal as our ‘works do’ (I figure that’s actually a date, not a staff xmas do – but hey, I’m a chump – what do I know!) and later I found out he texted the OW from the restaurant!
This reminds me of my idiot…I hoped he would grow out of it as I was too nice to hurt his feelings by explaining how goofy it looked. They think they look like ladies’ men as they look the fool, and I don’ t think I ever will explain it to him at this point:-) OW can handle it!!!
you ironed his underpants? … he was nuts…he will never find anyone anywhere as good as you … never
YMBAC if you discover that a trip your husband took with friends to visit another friend turns out to be just him and a female work colleague and he manages to convince you it was entirely innocent.
YMBAC if your husband attends said female work colleague’s mother’s birthday party, bakes a cake & buys a new shirt for it and he manages to convince you you weren’t invited as he ‘didn’t think you’d want to go’.
YMBAC if your husband stays out all night after said female colleague’s mother’s birthday and you believe him when he says he got so drunk he slept on the sofa.
YMBAC if you ring him when he fails to return from work at a reasonable hour yet again and you find he’s at said work colleague’s house and he tells you he is supporting her through a ‘difficult time’ as her boyfriend has dumped her.
YMBAC if despite all the evidence listed above he still manages to convince you that you are overreacting, controlling and down right crazy for suspecting he is having an affair with said work colleague.
Yeah… That’s pretty chumpy, alice. You’re a good person–remember that.
I love what someone posted earlier. He lost more than you did. He lost someone who loved him. You didn’t.
Hugs.
Thank you Miss Sunshine. I was an idiot. Thankfully I finally put the hopium pipe down and kicked him out in March last year. The decree nisi should be granted any day now. My life is good, I’m struggling with the anniversaries of my own chumpiness but I’ll get through it. Yesterday was the anniversary of the spackle finally crumbling to dust but I’m still standing. What has helped is seeing the OW outside a supermarket yesterday. I had been so worried about randomly bumping into her but when it actually happened I just felt like laughing at her. She was laden down with shopping bags and her arse was huge. I don’t normally judge people by the size of their backsides but in this case I feel completely justified!
OW in my case is quite pretty–but she is an unaccomplished twat who will always be financially dependent upon my begrudging xH. She is older than I am, and will never have children with my xH–or ever–so she will never know the joy and happiness I have. She will never be to my xH what I am. Though they have tried to desecrate everything, there are some things she will never take from me.
Still, I dread the day I ever have to lay eyes upon her, for I am certain my retinas will burn. I have resigned myself to just being myself, but to remember all my friends here and in real life who would urge me to hold my head high. I am a professional, a mother, a woman with a soul. I loved my family, including my xH, when it was difficult, but I have strong character. She has none of that. She is nothing but a twat troll who manipulated a broken, cowardly male with sex and empty words. She is vacuous and evil.
I am inspired by the fact that you did well seeing the fat-assed OW. You’re right, that the shape of her derriere is not what makes her a bad person, but it helps, in your case, to remind you that they NEVER leave us for someone better, even if that person is fitter, younger, wealthier, etc. These OP have dead matter where their hearts belong, emptiness where they should have souls.
You keep truckin’ miss! You’re awesome. All my chumpies are awesome.
yes….I loved him
WOW….I lost nothing…
or should it be
YMBAC if….when you discover your wife cheating with other men and believe her line that this is just her cry for help.
YMBACW he objects to hickeys because other people will know he’s “doing it”…
YMBACW you go to your husband’s staff party at the OW’s apartment and see a photo of him up in her living room….
…and he says it’s because he’s her only friend and she’s lonely…..
YMBACW you find that he’s bought a gift for the OW, and he says “It wasn’t expensive!”…
…and you know it was because you bought him the same gift for his birthday….
when he has the other woman and her kids at his apt. before you are even divorced playing house with your because she is HIS only friend. That happened tonight. I HATE his lying cheating ass! Leave my kids out of your sordid little games.
*playing house with your kids there too*
One more….
YMBAC if you find details of numerous dating sites, porn sites and fetish chat forums on your computer history and he says that a “spiderbot virus” invaded the computer and stole all his details then opened random accounts in his name. Details that included his height, weight, eye colour and location. I laughed heartily at this one – then I promptly placed this tidbit at the back of my mind and went back to being a stepford wife. Ugh.
Oh dear, yes. I remember that. Oh and the pop up porn which just appeared. And then his user wouldn’t work on the desk top any more, and it all just vanished, so he just used his work laptop from then on. I just merrily believed it all. I’m not finding this post funny at all. I’m reading like I’m watching a train wreck and I’m sinking really quickly. Heading for a dark place
Choose to laugh! We all admit that they chumped us! We are in this place together, realizing how naively we loved these cheaters, and letting go of the belief that we could make it work somehow. We ALL hoped, and dreamed, and spackled. And now we are letting go and moving on to a happier place. We, and you, can smile bitter-sweetly.
Nat – I know what you mean. I’ve been reading, wincing, laughing when I can (but not often enough) – so much here that I recognize, sometimes with shock, so much pain, so much betrayal of both me and my kids.
This one? It wasn’t me who saw the porn pop-ups initially, it was my preschool kids when they went on the family computer to play a game……
We know who these people are now. All we can do is thank goddess that we are out and able to live beautiful new lives, take our learning and never, never, get involved with losers like this again.
Keep the faith. You have friends and love here. Spring is coming.
Hi Nat,
(((hugs)))
I’m telling myself that the pain of dawning recognition I’m feeling is insurance against future chumpiness.
Cheap, funny, priceless insurance.
Herpes virus is more like it. With or without spiders.
Really – what is this mysterious link to the bowels? Mine used to (no doubt still does) spend at least 3 hours a day (often more) chasing the elusive BM! He had (no doubt still does) a complete obsession with his dick, nose and bowels!
When do these people find the time to work?!!! Or do they get paid to sit around pooping and texting all day?
That’s why they need the chump to pay the bills…
YMBAC if you lose 38 lbs before your 40th birthday and look fantastic (the neighbours all came and congratulated me getting into the car) in a killer outfit going to a wedding that had been planned for 8-10mths, only he cancels the hotel at the last minute (because he does not want to enjoy the party) oh, and he never complimented you on how good you look(ed) until the next day (be-grudingly) when you looked far from your best.
Come to think of it he left me at the wedding to go play ‘nice guy’ with everyone else – so I was left talking to his mate instead.
Mine did a version of this! We attended a country wedding reception for a member of his family and the entire clan left me alone with our newborn baby at a table for 8. I tried to get around and be sociable but everybody melted away strangely. I found my husband and asked him to dance and he looked at me as if I insulted him and he walked away. At that, I realised I was being shunned. I refused to cave, and I became very attentive to the music and the live band and made sure it looked like I enjoyed every minute. The memory stands as a testament to his mindfuckery. The marriage lasted two more years.
Why in the world would a whole family shun a new mother with a newborn at a wedding? “You brood of vipers…” Indeed.
Indeed. The bride and groom though treated me graciously. Likely they were too busy to know this was going on at their wedding.
Oh, my God! This makes me so sad!
Dammit, all these stories make me sad!
YMBAC….if during “reconciliation” you encouraged your husband to get the tattoo he always wanted, took the family with you to watch and film the whole event, and then found out later that as soon as he got back to the office he gave a private showing of it to his howorker (whom he, of course, had promised me he’d never speak to again!)
YMBAC if…your husband go buy a Mercedes and give you his old Nissan.
YMBAC if…you believe it when he tells you that all his friend’s wife should never say no when their husband want to have sex.
Gosh, I’m reading all these stories and realizing we are so trusting at heart and they are suck jerks!
OK, I thought of a few more, YMBAC if…
Your cheater falls in love with his aerobics instructor and you let him continue to take her aerobics class “for his health”.
After the second affair (13 YEARS after the first), Cheaterpants gives you the worst birthday card ever (something about ignoring RobinLee except on her birthday), and you don’t call him on it. No present…except he leaves a week later for good!!!
He guilt trips you for 25 years over snapping at him in 1988…it caused both of his affairs, don’t you know?
He spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on his hobby, but you have to ask permission for a pedicure!
Whew, now maybe I’ll put all this back into repression where it belongs!
Ooops, “Suck jerks!” How Freudian of me!
Sorry, my hands will not type this out correctly…”such jerks!” There!
Robin Lee, I like that. “Suck jerks”, also known as “jerks who suck”. Freudian indeed!
Yup. I’m a chump. xH spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a holiday home (I stupidly signed the mortgage, too…) that he called, “my getaway place.” He loved it because it wasn’t “cluttered” with life–like kids’ toys and clothes, etc. I worked my ass off there and hated it. I literally would have been better off lighting suitcases of money on fire–would have been a lot easier. But if I spent money at the vet (money I earned, btw) on my dog–who was more faithful and loving than that asshole? Oh, how irresponsible and reckless was I? He tried to get me to agree to a certain amount of money I would limit the vet expenses to. I refused. In total over all the years I loved my dog, it was less than 2 months of mortgage on “my getaway place.” Oh, he thought he’d get laid there–the girls at work would be so impressed with how amazing he is. BOY what a chump I was! What a chump he was!
The last time I was there cleaning up after tenants, he was probably texting that whore setting up a meeting at his getaway place. What a pig.
SO glad he’s gone.
I had to put my dog down due to cancer while he was in Ho-waii with the twat troll, errr, I mean alone, clearing his head.
She LOVES dogs! He HATES dogs–but they have two chihuahuas now! YAY!
This is awesome! I love dogs too, but the fact that he is stuck with two Chihuahuas is the icing on the “cake”! You know he is just hating life! Mine never complained about vet bills…probably because that would look so bad.
I’m sorry about your doggie:-(
Thanks, RL! It was her time. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I miss her more than I miss the ex.
I adopted two more rescues a few months later, just in time for them to rescue ME from his insanity. That’s some serendipity!
I miss my old girl, too. Congratulations on your rescues:-) I have seen the bumper stickers, “Who rescued who?”
CL, a tied dyed license plate cover for Christmas and that was the best gift.LOL you can’t make this stuff up.too funny
I mean tie dyed.CL, your husband rocks! Great idea he had.
YMBAC if STBX moves out of the house for 3 weeks and never tells you where he’s staying. When you finally ask he says “in a hotel”. When you ask how he’s paying for it (because you have handled 100% of the finances for 11 years and have not seen a single hotel charge) he tells you his company is paying for it…and though you realize there’s absolutely no reason in the world his company would pay that expense…you believe him and don’t ask again.
YMBAC if you consoled her when she was feeling like sh*t only to later realize that those were the times when she had been with him.
Ouch! They DO suck, so badly!
YMBAC when you realise that exH doesn’t need to carry the “work” phone as well as personal when he’s not at work.
Face palm xx
YMBAC when you realise BB in a text from skank whore means “Beautiful Boy” and stupid ExH’s reply of “GG” stands for “gorgeous girls”.
OMG
I’m a YMBAC.
Definitely another face palm moment.
Bellzero
Ha! Ha! Reminds me of when my son said, “Daddy has THREE phones!”
Bellzero, Beautiful Boy and Gorgeous Girl is too dumb for words. What is with the extra sappiness between Cheaters and AP’s? We were silly when we were young, but never that dorky!
I always told the narc that his phone was his third testicule.
Hahahahahahaha, that is hysterical!
Hey RobinLee, I kid you not all texts between skanky whore and stupid exH began with BB and GG. Finally got stupid exH to define the letters in the text. And my brain nearly exploded.
are you friggin kidding me… “How old are you both?” So for months if I had to text or reply to stupid ExH I would add some extra letters.
Like
DH – Dick head
GW- Giant Wanker
AH- Arse hole
FW- Fcking Nupty
stupid exH finally asked what it meant. Lol I just ignored the question.
FW- Fcking Nupty
Love this, too! I finally ran out of steam in the marriage when the ex (during their second affair) insisted on staying in contact with OW to “help her with her divorce” while also working on our marriage. And, according to him, if we couldn’t work things out between the two of us, there were exciting “possibilities” with her. Who could resist such remorse? I am so much happier without him.
Hahahahaha, Bellzero! That’s hilarious.
YMBAC if the secretary at your husband’s union hall tells you you need to get a hook on your husband and you say nothing and quietly don’t believe her. A few months later you find out he’s been having an affair and years later that he’s a serial cheater. Bless you secretary and all of you who give the truth.you are all angels and God bless you.let us all be angels and bravely tell the truth.the worst part about this infidelity is being in the dark.
YMBAC if, operating on the premise that a mindfuck is a terrible thing to waste, you write a heartfelt letter to OW soon after discovering your husband’s latest affair, thanking her for opening your eyes to what a treasure of a man you have that you never properly appreciated.
It’s driveltastic. And, poor sap, you actually are attempting to swallow this Be the Bigger Person shit hoagie with a heaping side of humiliation.
Thank GAWWWWD you locate your sense of outrage before you locate the mistress, so you never send that letter. But it will become a low water mark that will make you shudder years later, when something triggers the memory.
Like now.
Our memories are humiliating aren’t they? I do think it makes us better, more empathetic people in the end. A few years after cheater’s first affair, he expounded on how much the affair helped our marriage and suggested *I* send OW a thank you note. I laughed as I thought it was a joke, then realize he kind of wanted me to actually do it. No way was I going to poke that sleeping bear, but I guess he liked the pick me dancing and missed it. We are well rid of these freaks.
YMBAC if for valentines STBXH is taking you out for dinner and when we get back home the OW sends one of her daughters to ring my door and asks for my husband, he puts his cloths on and go hide @ the back yard and the OW was yelling me from the car that he told her that he was away in other city for work!!!
You chumps have made me laugh and cry and laugh again with this! Thank you SO MUCH!
But I need to add some of my favourite moments of chumpiness;
YMBAC if you’re doing what you believe is Reconciliation, and the narc calls from work to say that’s it’s last minute, but he has an offer of a ride to ‘drinks after work’, and would you mind if he went, and you encourage him to go. He’s never had friends of his own, he needs to socialize and relax more!
YMBAC if, after scenario #1 above, he comes home late, you realize he’s been with the OW again, and you mope for a few days but keep working to Make Your Marriage A Good Place to Be. It must be so hard for him to give this woman up! He will need to grieve that relationship! Well, once he actually gives it up ….
ja ja ja!! that how I’m gonna call that thing: the narc, that is a good one
YMBAC if… you discover that your computer has remembered a strange email address login in its web browser, and when you question your husband about it, you accept his, “I have no idea what that is” comment.
YMBAC if… when he says he has to go and run a quick errand and is then gone for two hours, you accept his excuse that he “went for a drive” to get a little down time.
YMBAC: your cheating wife leaves a minute voicemail as a result of a butt call to your phone, while she’s climbing into OM’s car. After 4 minutes of pathetic chitchat about were to decide for lunch, you assume they were just friends meeting for lunch. Thank god she is out of my life!!!
YMBAC: If your XH insists on using condoms after you have had an (unplanned) hysterectomy and then tells you it was probably better you never had kids anyway cos you may not have been able to cope with a pregnancy.
Digbert, there is cruel and there is effing evil and he is the latter. I’m so sorry.
There are special places in hell for these horrible people. I am so sorry you spent even a precious moment of your life with this flaming narcissist.
He couldn’t cope with us having a cat, he was jealous of the attention I gave it, “I love it more than him” lol
But never mind – all I can say is God help any future offspring he has with anyone else because once the focus is off this excuse of a ‘manchild’ he will be resentful and a shit parent and probably go kibble hunting.
Lucky escape!
re: cheaters and their toileting–you all triggered a memory of two of my xH’s most revolting habits.
He loved to take baths. He never rinsed before his bath, either. He literally loved to stew in his own filth, even after a BM and/or a sweaty workout. The stenchier and grosser, the better, I swear. He’d get all pissy if I asked him if he rinsed AFTER doing that, since I knew he refused to rinse BEFORE. I remember watching a documentary about Japanese bath houses, that the Japanese HATED when Americans would show up, because they never would go through the ritual pre-bath rinsing (which is just better hygeine–not that I want to bathe with strangers, but ew.) I discussed this with xH, but he insisted he had a right to bathe however he wanted. Which is true, but I didn’t have to like it. Good fucking riddance.
He would also cheat death a couple times a year by catching a cold. He would just be on death’s door, don’t you know. He insisted on using and re-using and re-re-using a wadded handkerchief to blow his nose into–one for the entire freaking day. When I expressed my utter shock and dismay that he was blowing viral loads of snot into the same hanky over and over all day, and wadding it up and putting it in his pocket, and not washing his hands again, he would get so indignant that I would DARE harass him in his practically terminal state. And, I mean–I buy CLASSY expensive, lotion-laden tissues, which can be used ONCE and properly thrown away. I offered boxes of the stuff–nope. Hanky. And then he’d want me to wash that shit in our laundry. Hell to the no–those got their own load with bleach. The twat troll can take it on now. I’m gagging. Yay! *ul!* It’s not *UL!* meeeeee!! *ULGH!*
Trust me, I’m not a total germ-o-phobe. I raised three young men, have dogs, had a cat, have dirty dishes in my sink right now. I’m not the most consistent housekeeper (I’d be a mean bitch if I tried to keep a perfect house.) But some shit is just unacceptable.
Whew! I feel better! I love you, my chumpy friends!!
You might NOT be a chump if you waved goodbye (safely, from a distance) to that shit for good.
*twat troll
ROTFLMAO I love that nickname Little Miss Sunshine. Maybe I’ll start referring to her as T.T. when I must talk to stbxh. It’ll drive him crazy wondering what I mean and the humor will keep me from wanting to punch him.
I had the same experience with the overused handkerchief. IMBAC cuz I would wash that disgusting thing by hand when we were on a trip. I thought he would know how much I loved him by doing something that was sooooo disgusting. to me. Made me gag at times. He doesn’t even remember, let alone care to understand what I was doing for him.
YMBAC when your partner hides the computer every now and again when you come in the room and you buy his response of “you’re crazy I have to close the screen because I see it better this way” to your worried, “Why do you do that? Is there something you don’t want me to see?”…
I told myself I was just being paranoid, he told me I was paranoid, so many signs blaring at me and I ignored them for so long.
Isn’t it great to have a word for that now: gaslighting. They all do it.
Reading all these I’m close to crying.
YMBAC if not only did you let him go on one last trip with OW to L.A. (we lived in Illinois) because he said he ” chose you, but wanted to break it to her gently”, but you actually called in sick to work for him for 2 days so he wouldn’t get fired from his job.
Yeah.
Thanks for all of your post. I’ve laughed and I cried as I recognized myself. Wow they really do suck and they have NO imagination!
YMBAC: When following a serious operation at the hospital they say it could be a long night (and you are possibly haemorrhaging to death) so your XH goes home………..to get some rest.
YMBAC: When recovering several weeks later your XH feels the trauma has affected him so much he needs to buy a new car, he buys one and changes his mind after 2 weeks of deliberation because his head does not fit, despite the initial test drive!!!
YMBAC: You also get accused of ‘using up all his leave at work’ due to your hospital stay. sorry!
I could go on and on, this is scary stuff! CL could be getting her biggest response yet!
Wow! So many posts!!
YMBAC-If during false reconciliation he tells you that on the day he “broke up” with his married co-worker, he thanked her because she saved our marriage?? and I continued to dance
YMBAC-If during false reconciliation he also tells you that OW’s mother was excited for their romance because “they were friends first and the passion grew from there and that’s the best kind of romance” When I suggested that the OW and her mother were batshit crazy because if I were married AND having an affair with a married man, the LAST person I would ever tell is my mother and she would not be congratulating me! His reply? “Well she’s an only child so she is closer to her mother than you are” WTF does that even mean?
Yup, I listened to that shit and I danced that dance for 3.5 years. When I finally had the nerve to ask for a divorce, little sausage was all mad. When I told him that his complete lack of effort was the reason he listed “all the things he did” Going to MC that I scheduled, not sleeping with the OW after I found out and not working with her anymore.
How I stayed married to him for so long (27 years) is a complete mystery to me. We went to court on 1/31 and my divorce will be final on 5/1!!!!!!
Congratulations!! You will love being on the other side of this mess. I have been divorced for almost 5 months (after 34+ years of marriage) and it keeps getting better. I haven’t got time for the pain.
Ladies, I was married for 37 years, divorced now for 2 years. I am finding happiness and peace in everything these days but I don’t know about you because I still get sad to think of my life being wasted on someone who didn’t really love me. The only good that came from our union are our 2 children (daughter 34 and son 31) and they don’t speak to me. They have chosen their sire who now has sex with 20 year old Asian prostitutes. I can’t believe it has all come to this. We could have had it all and now we don’t have anything. Particularly me, I have absolutely nothing left except my integrity and class which I suppose you cannot buy.
If he says he’s just friends with the elementary school teacher he met on classmates_com and you suggest inviting her to lunch. Then suddenly he doesn’t know her well and then launches into very specific reasons why she would be too busy to go to lunch. You smile and say it’s great he’s made a friend. YMBAC
YMBAC if; despite knowing he met a teacher online when he starts playing the song “Hot for Teacher” all the time it never even occurs to you she’s not just a friend.
If he does tech support and suddenly he changes his hours to go in to work at 4:30am when he’s actually going to the OWs house, and you listen with sympathy every day while he complains about his job? YMBAC
When he says in the first MC session he never loved you; and you don’t believe him? YMBAC
If you get home after the MC session and he insists he didn’t mean it, that of course he loves you; and you believe him? YMBAC
If your marriage counselor asks if you can allow your husband to continue email for a month with the OW because it’s hard for him to break it off, cos he cares about her; and you agree? YMBAC
If he misses days of work after he’s been living in his own apartment for a month and comes crying to you to reconcile, then you call his work for him and give them an excuse for his going missing? YMBAC
If after a few months of his living separately he starts asking if he can sleep at home with you once every week or so? And you let him do it, then find out his attorney told him to do that so you couldn’t file for desertion… YMBAC
When you use google earth to look up the OW’s address and see a car exactly like your husbands parked out front but you convince yourself it’s a common car, it couldn’t possibly be his? YMBAC
Oh dearie me…this is so bad…no words!
“If your marriage counselor asks if you can allow your husband to continue email for a month with the OW because it’s hard for him to break it off, cos he cares about her; and you agree? YMBAC”
_________________________
That marriage counsellor is a sadistic sick idiot .. its shocking to me that she would think that was appropriate.
Looks like we need another thread – you might be a bad marriage counselor if…
Yes! Stupid Shit Counselors Say!
I’m in! When can we start?
And, how about the other side of chumpdom? Once the cheater is gone.
Now that he’s gone:
If you take great pleasure in the simple fact that every morning the kitchen is clean and there isn’t a dirty dish in sight? YMBAC
If it makes you smile every night for months because you can read quietly without a TV blaring and you realize that damn TV has been on non stop for years? YMBAC
When you paint your living room plum and it makes you smile just seeing it, then realize if he was still there it would never have happened? YMBAC
If at some point after your divorce you realize you had been walking around with huge tension in your body all the time; and now it’s gone? YMBAC
You go on the Chumplady site and play “YMBAC” and you crack up at entries.
Wonderful! I have been painting and fixing up, too! It’s like waking up from a bad dream.
Oh, Datdamwuf. The one about him asking to sleep at your place one night a week so that it gets him out of a charge of desertion…truly, truly, truly no words will do. That move requires a special level of fuckupedness. So glad you offloaded that through-and-through POS.
Excellent!
except it should now be YMHOBACBN…. You Might Have Once Been A Chump But Now …..
what’s great is I could type all those and laugh as I did it.
…….you can’t believe how clean the toilet stays…….
Yes. I have been so excited about that!
My ex literally pissed on the floor in front of the toilet often so yeah, nice not to step in that anymore, gross!
What is it with the hygiene, anyway? My kids as toddlers had better toileting skills than STBX. He also didn’t believe in using soap, as it “dried out his skin”. And since he never cleaned a bathroom, it seemed to me while he lived here that I was always cleaning pee off of the walls and floors of the bathrooms, scum and hair out of the tub. When the kids were small I figured it would get better as they got older. But it never did.
One thing I absolutely love now is having a sparkling clean bathroom!
Ok, I’m late to the party, but I just thought of one.
You might be a chump if… you agreed to go to a party with him and his friends to watch them do lines of coke all night to prove yourself worthy after he accused you of not showing an interest in his life and hobbies.
Sigh. I sadly have many of these.
YMBAC if you felt relieved after discovering husband was sleeping with his best friend’s long term girlfriend. See, “relieved” because this meant he didn’t really love the AP (not the friend’s girlfriend) as much as he told her he did
YMBAC if he suddenly develops completely new computer habits – sitting in his stupid, big recliner just 6 feet away from you. Typing furiously, then folding his hands and smiling and chuckling as he reads the screen, then back to typing, over and over. This goes on all night – except when you walk by of course, then the screen is quickly closed.
When confronted he says he has “started an online diary.” Sorry, but your life is just not that interesting!
YMBAC when you confront again and tell him that it is obvious that he is talking to someone online. He finally confesses yes, that he is on a paid sex chat site, but he only chats “for free and never goes private.”
Nope, two years and half our life savings at $4.99 a minute.
Wow, Kammie there are no words. that is a lot of sex chat
It sure was.
But of course, being the gentleman that he is, that’s all it ever was – just talking. He never asked them to “do” anything for him in these private VIDEO chats. They just became the best of friends. Isn’t that nice.
Like I believe that – or anything else he says.
YMBAC if you ask who he is texting and he says it’s one of your friends as she is having marital trouble, and he is helping. When you ask to see the text he runs behind the sofa and deletes it and says he deleted it by accident, and you believe him.
YMBAC if you are stood in the playground waiting for your kids to come out of school and your friend who’s with you receives a text & giggles, telling you she can’t tell you what she’s laughing at because it’s rude. You later find out your husband sent her the text. You stay with him for 10 more years
YMBAC if during false reconciliation, he randomly stops what he is doing to look in your eyes and cry. Telling you how truly sorry he is that he has done this to you. You both cry and feel he is really remorseful. But 3 months later you find out he never ever stopped seeing her.
I had one of those episodes. After he had moved out and before I discovered the girlfriend. He put his head in his hands and sobbed “I’m so sorry” over and over again. Mostly it’s just self pity because he’s too far down the road to turn back and he knows he’s screwed. It gives you a little bit of false hope, but nothing changes. Fuck ’em.
As he was moving his belongings into his truck, he sobbed dramatically, “I’ve ruined everything!”
IMBAC because I hugged him and told him everything was going to be ok.
Hah, well, it is.
No worries, I got in a load of beration, as well. I told him as he was packing that he was a complete scumbag, and his relationship with an alcoholic–one that took him away from his family–was making a chump out of him. He did it to himself. IMNBAC after all….
My ex sobbed and sobbed and wanted me to comfort him for the hard time he was going through.
YMBAC if when cleaning out his pockets so you can wash the pants, you discover a small blue box with a necklace in it. Excited you put it back and leave the pants on the ground because you don’t want to spoil the surprise. He never does give you the necklace, and you feel very disappointed, rationalizing that he must’ve gotten it for his mum and you can’t say anything because you keep hoping that maybe he’s saved it to give it to you LATER on. Only to find out later that his mum hates jewelry and he never buys anything for his mum, so why would he start now. In fact he’s never bought me any jewelry either…
In the end you forget about the necklace.
YMBAC if his best male friend keeps alluding to your partner being a womanizer and a stud and says that he is very friendly with the ladies (really really likes them too) and tells me that he’s never going to change his ways (what ways? I wondered), an old dog won’t change he says (partner is 23 years older than me – I’m 28), and you don’t listen and don’t take his hints on board because you assume his friend must mean before our relationship because he would never hurt me like that would he? Stupid stupid woman that I am.
She comes home wearing a pearl necklace that you can’t remember giving her.
Epic thread, one of the best ones I’ve seen.
YMBAC if you you believe him when he said he had to stay at a work colleagues house or the night as he was too drunk and I wouldn’t want him to get caught drink driving.
You might be a Chump if… You slept with your ex for years without quite understanding that he was involved with someone else; but every time you had sex you couldn’t get into the shower fast enough afterwards to clean up. And still missed that clue.
and planning his new life.
You went on family vacations together and your ex was even more stressed out, absent emotionally, and resentful spending time with the family. Or me, I guess. I had a good time with the kids though
You spent a lot of time fundraising for children’s youth sports only to have your ex attend the big competitions by himself because “we can’t afford for all of us to go”.
Your ex was featured in a local news article two weeks before he abandoned his family and when asked about his wife said something like, “she’s always been supportive of me’. This while banging his TT.
Your ex was checked out during holidays, family gatherings, and could never share the spotlight with anyone. Absent emotionally when life brought challenges our way. Yet being a perfect Chump kept you making excuse after excuse for him.
You worry about finances because things just aren’t making sense but when confronted he never gets around to resolving any issues. Decisions aren’t made together but he always get what he wants and you feel badly when your priorities are belittled.
You might really be a Chump if you believe he won’t rob you of your life’s savings, walk out on a mortgage he could easily afford, steal money from your child’s college saving’s account, and vandalize the family home that’s gone into foreclosure.
You stop becoming a Chump when you discover an HIV test dated two years before he asked you for a divorce. I carry that in my wallet to remind myself Who he IS.
Cheating is never just one choice and it destroys families. Know your worth, Chumps, and as someone here always advises, “Move Forward to a Better Life.”
Good news Drew, I have convinced Dante that cheaters belong in the 9th circle of hell (treachery) and not the 2nd (lust).
I will NEVER forget the feeling of having an electric shock literally throw me out of bed after sex and running to the bathroom to ewwwww — get that stuff off me. That never happened until he started messing around.
That icky feeling is so strong that now I understand why I also avoided sex (though he NEVER initiated)….it was sort of humiliating since I had to do all the work. I got fed up and said that I couldn´t live that way anymore…so YMBAC if you give him two options either to end the relationship or have a radical change of attitude (with the help of therapy or whatever is necessary), he proposes a third option: temporary separation so he can “be alone to think about it” and you hesitantly accept but with one condition: no new relationships (you assume he has never cheated), he agrees. You later find out that he immediately made his new place a haven for “close encounters of the third kind” as he liked to call them….!
Treachery? That sounds about right.
Have had a lot of challenges in my life but the one that hurts the most is this.
I was pretty confident and happy but my ex sure took the prize. I know there’s never going to be any real answer as to why so many of our ex spouses chose to be such losers, but I just know it hurts and none of us deserved it.
YMBAC If you find a sample pack of 8 Viagra pills in his bathroom drawer and two are missing and he said that he used them with ME!!
I heard that one too!
We hadn’t had sex in over 6 months because he was living out of state for work. When he came home at Christmas he filled a Viagra prescription for 10 pills. He came back home for New Years and tried to get another 10 refilled. When I confronted him once I saw the proof online when I went to refill my thyroid medicine, he told me he wanted the pills refilled so we could have holiday sex. During the course of the divorce he said he started seeing the whore the first week of December. Interestingly, he officially left me in mid- January.
Holiday sex at home? Right away, Asshole. Try “Ho”liday sex.
YMBAC if you believed his excuses as to why he didn’t come home after band practice until 15 minutes before he had to leave for work in the morning… he fell asleep on the sofa because he had a few too many beers.
YMBAC if you agreed with him that men are only friends with women to try getting in their pants AND never asked or wondered why he had so many women friends.
YMBAC if you heard the lies pouring out of his mouth daily about anything and everything and truly believed that he only lied to everyone else. He’d never lie to you!
YMBAC if he tells you he’s only spending time with her because her 2 kids are his. You break down and agree he should spend time with his kids, the twins. Then, when you find out they’re not twins, you’re more concerned that he cheated on you twice instead of just once in the past….cause he certainly wouldn’t be sleeping with her now…
YMNBAC (n=not) if you find out those kids aren’t really his (he knew this) and tell his entire family about him lying about their paternity so no one would fuss and every one would approve of him bringing them to family functions. (Before I even knew he was cheating) They were pissed.
you can’t make this shit up, did you make that up? I mean srsly, he pretended to be the father of his OWs kids so you wouldn’t suspect? that’s srsly fucked up
Did not make that up. He told anybody and everybody that those kids were his and that I was being a bitch about not letting him see them. So, instead of everyone judging him for cheating on me (Openly! He took her to family functions and everything! Wtf?)… everybody “understood” how hard i was making everything when he “was just trying to spend time with his kids”. We had been together for 8 years and married for another year before all this happened… the kids were 3 and 5. So I had every right to be pissed whether they were his or not. OW was actually very helpful in straightening everything out. She was pissed he was giving excuses instead of just admitting to everyone he was in twu wuv with her. Her kids were from her first marriage. Dumb shit actually married him after I raked him over the coals in court. She also divorced him several years ago after he cheated on her too. Who would’ve thought…lol.
OMG, I soooo remember the second one! (From a cheating BF)
I got into sooooo much shit for having male friends, because guys were only interested in one thing, but HE could have as many female friends as he wished–even if he had crushes on them, or if she took her shirt off for him for a “massage because her neck hurt”.
How on earth did I not GET that?
“Yes, he lies to other people. And so expertly and comfortably! But of course he would NEVER lie to me.”
Yup. That was me, Naively Chumpmasterson, talking to my little ol’ self.
YMBAC when you discover porn on your computer and blame a relative’s partner, who had been staying with you, because ex denied it was him. Didn’t figure that one out until well after we separated.
YMBAC if everytime you come home from out of town, the sheets are washed and he’s never done laundry before..
….you’re planning on going to a family wedding 900 miles away and he doesn’t want me to go as he only wants to go alone in his corvette..(taking schmoopie through some of the beautiful scenery in Montana but leaving her at a motel while he’s at the wedding) ugh
….you find a long red hair in the pool and he starts to giggle about it. (I have short brown hair)
…yep – and that obvious brand new blue underwear (isn’t that the very first clue?)…maybe hides the skids marks better?
oh….so many more. Chumped for 2 full years.
Mine changed from regular whiteys to plaid boxers & would still insist if asked it was because he was sick of looking like Homer Simpson! Wish I was kidding! I had been with him for 23 years & did all shopping for him or I would never see anything different on him!
YMBAC if you get pissed every time he asks your permission to do something and you’re forced to respond ‘I’m not your mother, you don’t need my permission to go out’. You realise, long after the divorce is final, that this was his way of putting you in the controlling position he needed to rebel against – ’cause his mamma never let him rebel, under pain of severe rejection.
YMBAC if, on his band website profile, he listed himself as single, even tho you had been dating for 5 years. When asked why, he says “Technically I’m still single because I’m not married. ” And you let it slide because you didn’t want to be ” that kind of gf, the bitchy kind” that the guys would complain about.
YMBAC if you run into mutual friends who say how sorry they are that you couldn’t make it to the party 2 nights before on account of how sick you were. The last time you were sick was a year ago, but you go along with it because you don’t want him to look bad in front of the friends.
I must say it’s making me feel a little bit better to vent all of the stuff I’ve held in for years. Perhaps I should have been to the state of “meh” by now, but I am getting closer.
YMBAC if he begs you to take him back, saying he’ll “do anything” but then when his phone beeps and you ask to see who it’s from (not even to read it), he makes a big deal about what an “invasion of privacy” that would be. And you eventually let it go.
Yep-scheduled, arranged babysitting and paid for all my marriage counseling sessions.
YMBAC if…you haven’t had sex in 2 years, your husband shaves off all his pubic hair, comes home late from work every day, despite leaving an hour early, travels around with a giant bottle of mouthwash in a backpack, and it never occurs to you that he could be having an affair.
I hope those pubes itched like a mother fucker when they grew back in.
You believe that this time (after two years) he isn’t talking to to the ow (for real this time)
Oh, he never admitted to cheating. He was IM’ing all night, texting girls asking them out for drinks, joined sex dating sites, spent thousands unaccounted for, telling people at his rehab he was divorced, talking to a girl at the rehab for hours a day. But he wasn’t cheating. I left. I don’t believe shit that comes out of his mouth. And I read many other things on this post that I never thought anything of — he always pooped for an hour with his phone in there.
I just want to say to all chumps and chumplady that we are all awesome.
That this post may have made many laugh, cry, snort, face palm, groan, swear, cringe, sweat or pray.
But to me this post is all about us living!
It’s about me taking charge of my life.
And I hope that this is kinda felt by all in some way.
Cos we all rock
Thanks CL..
YMBAC if OW is a guest in your home, sleeps in the guest room, and she brings you paintings she made which you idiotically hang on the walls.
YMBAC if, during FR, you see a form for an STD clinic that he’s brought in with other junk from his Company car, and you apologise to HIM for making him feel uncomfortable and mistrusted. AND you feel you have to explain why you are so horrified by seeing the form – and you believe him when he tells you it must have belonged to the previous driver of the car – even though you’re in FR because you’ve found out about the OW! (Crikey – only just remembered this – so much suckage – so little time on the planet!).
Awful when you remember things that should have been red flags but you buried them. Been there and this post unfortunately made me think of some stuff from early on that should have made me run screaming.
Sorry to do that to you Nord –
I’ve often found parallels in my own horror story when I’ve read your posts. I think it’s not so much we bury this crap as there is so much of it going on that by the time we get to mentally process it time has marched on – and there’s another silage load getting delivered! Bugger ’em. Years ago there was a story about a farmer who’s home was repossessed by the bank so he went and sprayed the bank with silage – I was only thinking of this today and smiling at the thought of doing it to my ex (I’d have to get me a silage truck, some silage and lessons on how to deliver the one to the other – but hey – did make me smile 
) xxxx
…. or is it slurry? …. what would I know, I’m a citygirl through and through – cows freak me out – have you seen the size of them?
Hey Tracy,
With this post alone I think you have your second book !
Wonder if you will have to pay a royalty to Jeff Foxsworthy ?
YMBAC….if OW wears “Mom Jeans” and a midriff shirt over her “muffin top” while sporting a hairdo that can destroy a ceiling fan……and you are STILL insecure that she is somehow better than you!
YMBAC if you suddenly show up with an STD, and when you confront (now) Ex-H, he turns into a stark raving bully, yelling that you probably gave it to him, or maybe you got it from a toilet seat….and you believe him. And you work in health care.
(And you bust him 10 years later).
I’m not sure there are enough facepalms on the planet to cover that one. Barf.
If you kick him out after DDay, then buy him a bathrobe so he’ll be more comfortable in the hotel room, YMBAC.
yikes :/
Oh, yes. YMBAC if you suspect that the woman he lunches with, the woman he took to the academic awards dinner, the woman whose name keeps coming up, is more that “just a friend.” He gaslights you enough that you start to doubt your own gut, and you buy the reason that he can’t have sex is that his “back is bothering him.” Then, when you come down with an STD, you ask your doctor if there is any possible way to get this besides sex, because you *know* you have been faithful, and you are still drinking cheater kool-aid. When it’s reported to you that cheater and this woman were seen together at a doctor’s office, you still don’t want to believe it. (Incidentally, he never told me about the obvious STD gift from this woman,, who was married, ever. Didn’t even ‘fess up following d-day.)
Once D-day comes and goes, you eagerly look forward to his visits like a starving puppy. YMBevenmoreofaC if you sit and comfort him when she temporarily dumps him. You remain being a chump as you go off to law school treasuring the Blacks Law Dictionary he gave you, with a syrupy inscription.
You complete the circle of chumpdom when you start dating his best friend, and he humiliates you by cheating, too.
*Thankfully, these dudes were boyfriends and I never married either of them, but I look back now and wonder WTF was wrong with me! I would never tolerate that crap for a millisecond now!
YMBAC……
He takes up photography, starts with nature shots then starts taking model pics, then “graduates” to boudoir pics…I am supportive that he has a hobby but becoming uncomfortable, its just “art” he says…after a while I understand he is just doing it to see other women unclothed…..what an effing creep. It’s a long story, photographer, bathroom texter, cheater, narc…..in the end an absolute asshole, after 10 years….I am well done of that Germanic creep.
YMBAC if while you’re trying to reconcile with your husband after his office affair you agree to compromise with him about his long phone calls and coffees with yet another close female co-worker (“how about you wait until she calls you, or maybe you only have coffee with her every other month?”)
YMBAC if you are married to Jerry Sandusky and thinks that her husband is innocent, and the victims sensed a financial opportunity. When I saw this today on the Huffington report, I just couldn’t believe it. She is Super Chump!
Oh, I am late to the party, but I want to play too!
YMBAC if you find the empty Victoria’s Secret bag and gif box in his car trunk and you believe him when he says he bought a gift for you and then decided to return it. Cuz of course, he kept the empty bag and box AFTER he returned the lingerie.
YMBAC if he is having a difficult emotional time and wants to drive 3 hours to our alma mater and spend the night, since college is the last time he was really happy. And you and your toddler son wave goodbye and encourage him to rest and be happy. Only to find out later that he and OW shacked up at a hotel near his office.
YMBAC if your husband is SUCH A HUGE BON JOVI FAN, that he and a FEMALE fan club friend are driving to a private fan club concert in another state and you trust him and wish him well on the trip. Why not take his WIFE on the trip?
YMBAC is he comes home with a massive bite on his neck and one on his back and I ask what the hell is that and he says he was just “mucking around” with one of his work colleagues and to “get over it” and “nothing happened” and you do.
YMBAC if he receives a text message from the female work colleague who is also your friend saying “I love you, I love you, I love you” which you find and he says it was supposed to be sent to her cousin instead. You believe him. 4 weeks later he leaves you and your kids and you find him at her house. She too was married.
YMBAC if he is continuously going on boys weekends away camping, fishing, sailing, coffees with “friends” and then you get in trouble if on the odd occasion he was at home, you ask to do something with him as a family and he says why should he because he doesn’t like to do the things that you like and you just accept this.
YMBAC if he gets a text message from yet another number saying “I’m home alone tomorrow”, you ask him what is this about. He says he has no idea and must be a wrong number.
YMBAC if you ask on Friday night if we could take the kids to the football. He says why would he want to do that. Ten minutes later, he gets a text message from another female work colleague asking him to go to the football with her and he just says he is heading off to the football for the night and then wonders why you are really upset and says the only reason he didn’t want to go with you is because he didn’t want to take the kids.
Chumpiest chump….