Lots of you sent me that article on Yahoo news last week: “For the Thrill of the Affair — Why Married Women Cheat.”
As expected, it was full of familiar little character studies. (I wonder… do you need character to be a study?)
- The sophisticated cheaters — the sort that sit “bored” and alone in parking lots, perusing Ashley Madison profiles on their phone.
- The entrepreneur — “Hey, if I don’t destroy marriages, someone else will!”
- The unicorns — Forgiveness is “truly saying I will never hold this against you, ever.”
Had to fire up the Universal Bullshit Translator for this one. I need the power of technology, otherwise I twitch and spit a lot and just go “GAH!”
When women cheat, it’s often considered a scandal, and never has cheating been as easy as it is now, when finding a willing partner is click or a phone tap away.
But what drives women to cheat? And do they stray as much and for the same reasons as men?
Does it matter? Why must we untangle their little skeins of fuckupedness? Do women cheat because they didn’t get a Mother’s Day gift, or were they victim to a deep, spiritual connection? Where does the analysis stop? Do gay people stray for the same reasons straight people do? Are left-handed Presbyterians more likely to cheat than right-handed ones? What about people from Michigan? Are they randier than Ohioans? Or would they rather be ice-fishing? Hey researchers, how about we just lump all the cheaters together, okay? Nothing “drives” cheaters to cheat. There are no “reasons” other than they’re jerks.
Watch the full story on “Nightline” tonight at 12:35 a.m. ET
Did anybody watch this? In college (1988) I was an intern at Nightline, and God bless Ted Koppel he did boring shit like Yassar Arafat and peace process in the Middle East, or the lack of funding for organ transplants, or the civil war in El Salvador. Has Nightline been reduced to this tabloid crap? I’m old and I don’t stay up late anymore so I wouldn’t know. If so, sad day. Hope Koppel is enjoying his twilight pension years and doesn’t watch Nightline “news.”
Katherine, whose name has been changed, said she and her husband were married for 14 years. After undergoing major weight loss and multiple plastic surgeries, she began looking for excitement outside of what she said was a stale marriage and turned to AshleyMadison.com, the notorious dating website for “casual encounters.”
I mean, why waste your breast implants on a stale marriage? That’s what I want to know.
“I was feeling very lonely one night,” Katherine said. “I was bored, on my phone in the parking lot, sitting in my car, pulled up AshleyMadison, and decided to open my first profile to see what would happen.”
You were wondering what would happen if you offered no-strings-attached sex to married men on a cheating site? Let me guess, Katherine, they found you IRRESISTIBLE!
AshleyMadison.com’s motto is “life is short, have an affair.” Noel Biderman, the author of “Adultropology: The Cyber-Anthropology Behind Infidelity,” started the site more than 10 years ago. He said he makes more than $40 million a month from it.
Nice work if you have no conscience. I’m sure you modeled this on other successful franchises like: “life is short, shoot endangered wildlife!” or “life is short, bludgeon an orphan.”
“We’re the second-biggest dating service on the planet,” Biderman said. “This is not a kid’s game. This is an enterprise of significance.”
Let no one say you’re sleazy, Noel. You run an “enterprise of significance.” Sounds much classier that way.
Biderman and his wife Amanda Biderman, who rarely gives interviews, agreed to sit down with “Nightline” to discuss his website and their marriage. She said when he first told her about the idea for the site, she was leery.
“I wanted to make sure he wasn’t having a mid-life crisis,” Amanda Biderman said. “Then I got to understand it more and thought it was interesting.”
Amanda said “interesting,” in that universal way wives do. Your husband puts on a loud plaid sportcoat, “That’s an interesting look.” Or he makes you sit through four hours of Wagnerian opera and wants to know what you think. “It was interesting.” Or how did you like the company sales dinner. “Interesting.”
In other words interesting is: “I’ll shut up to keep the peace.” Amanda’s price? $40 million a week.
Noel Biderman said he has built a billion dollar business betting on infidelity, and now has 25 million members in 37 countries, but doesn’t believe he is encouraging people to cheat, just providing one outlet.
“Long before I launched AshleyMadison there were affairs, and long after I’m gone there will be affairs,” Biderman said. “What I’m trying to do is help people have the more perfect affair.”
Perfect is a superlative, Noel. You can’t say “more perfect.” It makes grammarians everywhere grind their teeth. But for cheaters perhaps that is the more perfect word choice. See, perfect isn’t good enough for entitled douchebags, they need MORE perfect! Because they’re very, very special sausages who deserve only the best parking lot hookups.
You’re just a forward-looking businessman, Noel. You remind me of that entrepreneur and 19th century slave trader, Ezekiel Horehound who said, “Long before I launched ShackledCruises.com there was slavery, and long after I’m gone there will be slavery. What I’m trying to do is help slave owners have the more perfect slave-owning experience.”
“I’m encouraging secrecy, yes,” he added, “but I’m not necessarily encouraging infidelity. I don’t think it needs all that much encouragement.”
That’s right, Noel. You’re selling secrecy. Anyone can shop at AshleyMadison for secrecy! Teenagers, CIA operatives, fat people hiding donuts. The whole cheating on your spouse thing? Total coincidence. I mean, why encourage it? These people just find you.
Wendy Plump knows all about the elusive allure of an affair: keeping secrets. She said she strayed with three different men during her 18-year marriage.
What drove you to cheat, Wendy? Was it your name? Did you have to prove that Plump people are attractive? Or are you passive-aggressively seething that you took your husband’s name? Plump truck. Plump pudding. Pleased as Plump. What was it, Wendy? Call you speak for all women?
“It is like a drug, a rush,” Plump said. “You know what it’s like when you fall in love with someone or your spouse? It’s like that when you have an affair, all over again.”
Yes, love is a lot like a drug. Kind of wears off though after awhile. Or makes you nauseous if you take it on an empty stomach. I don’t mix love and alcohol. Fucks you up. When love stops working like it used to, I try a new brand.
But it turned out that she wasn’t the only one in her marriage who was cheating. The final betrayal, she said, was discovering her husband had fathered a child with his long-term mistress.
That’s some bad karma, Wendy. A baby Plump.
“I remember having everything crash in at the time,” Plump said. “Something incomprehensible as to how you could get around that. … I don’t want to make it seem like he was terrible and I was good because we both let the marriage down.”
Yeah, how could you ever get over that? A child! A incomprehensible physical manifestation of your husband’s infidelity. Unlike actual infidelities, which are comprehensible and a lot like potato chips. Can’t just stop at one! But babies? No. Fucking. Way.
Plump, a veteran reporter, turned her failed marriage into the subject of her memoir, “The Vow.” She and her husband are now divorced.
“I got many letter from women who had affairs or whose husbands had had affairs,” she said. “This is a lot more common than I would have imagined.”
So your takeaway from these letters isn’t — gosh that sucks? Or gee that’s sad? But that it’s a lot more common than you imagined. Because when you did it, it was edgy and sophisticated. But lots of women do it? It’s common? Is this like your mom getting on Facebook and just kind of ruining it for everybody, huh? Or do you mean common like “Hey, everybody does this”? In which case what you did wasn’t so bad.
Some statistics show that 21 percent of married men have had an affair, compared to 15 percent of married woman, according to the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey. But that number for women has spiked in the last two decades, up nearly 40 percent.
Plump said society still judges cheating wives much more harshly than cheating husbands.
Because cheating is a feminist thing, not an asshole thing.
“There’s a much bigger stigma for women who cheat than for men,” she said. “Women are expected to be more chaste and proper, more faithful to the home and when women cheat it’s viewed as having cheated on the family, whereas when men cheat, they cheat on their wife, and I suppose that it’s viewed as not a big deal.”
So what’s your point, Plump? That women who are faithful are chaste? Do you even know what chaste MEANS? It means “abstaining from sexual intercourse” or “virginal.” Women who are faithful to their spouses fuck ONLY THEIR SPOUSES. Because they made a promise in front of their family, friends, and God to only fuck their spouses, and their spouses promised to only fuck them. Being faithful doesn’t mean you don’t have hot sex. It means not fucking people you aren’t married to.
“More faithful to your home” — WTF? I’m not going to cheat on my toaster. We don’t swear fidelity to homes, just spouses. Oh… are you saying that faithful women are kind of square and Betty Crocker like? We care more about our domesticity than fucking our husbands? Because, that’s what society expects of Good Girls? Gosh, I’m so glad there are renegades like you Plump to show me another way. Fuck “The Feminine Mystique.” I want liberation of the Ashley Madison kind.
“When women cheat it’s viewed as having cheated on the family.”
Sure, no one faults men for abandoning their families. I think women should be given the same God-given rights as men to abandon their families, so long as no one judges them for it. Judging people is the bad thing. Abandoning families, hey that shit is common.
According to AshleyMadison.com, a woman is more prone to cheat at certain stress points in her life, notably right before turning 40.
“Women cheat because they believe that they’re missing something — don’t feel loved,” Plump said. “For men, seems like they want to cheat because they want to sleep with someone else, less an emotional thing.”
Yeah, there’s nothing gender stereotypical about that.
That’s what Katherine said happened to her.
I “didn’t even want a physical relationship with anyone else, I wanted to be wanted,” she said. “I wanted to be adored, wanted to be chased, wanted every man to think, I have got to have her.”
In other words — you cheat for kibbles. For the illusion that you’re adored. No, hang on, adored isn’t enough. One man could adore you but really you need a “more perfect” affair — every man needs to think “I have to have her.” Yeah, that’s attainable…
But for both Plump and Katherine, the aftermath of cheating on their spouses was devastating. After Katherine confessed her affair, her husband said it left him crushed.
“She said, ‘whatever vows we made, I’m breaking them right here,’” said Katherine’s husband, who asked not to be named. “I asked her, how dare she? How could she? … I was furious with her.”
But Katherine’s husband had a secret of his own — he started having an affair long before his wife ever turned to AshleyMadison.com.
“I really don’t have a good reason why I cheated,” he said. “I can come up with all the excuses … but it was my decision alone. … It was something new and exciting. And I don’t know why I did it.”
What? No excuses? You weren’t “driven” to it? Oh that’s right. You’re a man. We don’t untangle your skein. Ho hum. New sex. Whatever.
Though AshleyMadsion.com markets infidelity, ironically, Noel Biderman said he and his wife Amanda are happily married and completely faithful. Both said they would be devastated if the other cheated, but still did not agree with the accusation that Biderman’s website encourages cheating.
“I don’t see it as encouragement or enabling,” Amanda Biderman said. “It’s going to happen. It happens regardless of the business.”
In other news, Phillip Morris today announced that people smoke cigarettes regardless of Phillip Morris’s business model (growing tobacco, manufacturing cigarettes, marketing them globally…) Asked for a comment, the Marlboro Man said “I don’t encourage smoking. I’m just a cowboy.”
Noel Biderman insisted that his business does people more good than harm because the threat of infidelity can be a martial wake-up call.
“I see it as a platform that helps people stay married. Millions of people have affairs because they want to stay married,” he said. “I help millions of people find contentment, passion and happiness through my service.”
Better living through cake.
Biderman argues that hey, he doesn’t encourage cheating. Nope. He just sells secrecy. But if he was the kind of guy who DID encourage cheating, hey, it’s good for your marriage! Thanks to his “services” people find passion and happiness. He just won’t really say what those services are, except to note that they are “an enterprise of significance.”
But that is not how marriage counselors Jim and Elizabeth Carroll see it.
And now we talk to the Unicorns.
“I don’t think infidelity helps any marriage,” Jim Carroll said. “People should work through their problems before it gets to infidelity.”
Subtly implied there — problems in the marriage lead to infidelity. Let the problems go unchecked, infidelity is the result. Versus, oh — people cheat because they have crap life skills and cheat regardless of their marital “happiness.” Because they’re entitled jerks.
The Carrolls run marriage retreats all across the country for embattled couples, forcing them to talk and even fight out their issues, as seen on WeTV’s “Marriage Boot Camp.”
“I think the AshleyMadison site is a brilliant marketing attempt to capitalize on the basest human behavior, the least disciplined human behavior, and I think it plays directly into things that will destroy our culture,” Elizabeth Carroll said.
As opposed to encouraging people to stay with cheaters, which is positively improving for our culture.
Even for those couples like Katherine and her husband, who have both broken their vows, the Carrolls believe there is hope.
“The key to the solution is learning how to forgive, truly forgive, truly saying I will never hold this against you, ever,” Elizabeth said. “It’s a long road.”
Saying “I will never hold this against you ever” is a long road, is like saying walking to China in leg irons is a Sunday stroll. “I will never hold this against you ever” is the benchmark for reconciliation? Seriously? I mean, I can see aspiring to — based on your demonstrated remorse, I will rise above this and remain twitchy, don’t ever leave my sight. But never hold it against you ever? Fuck boundaries, have them. Whatever I need to do to demonstrate my complete unwavering faith in your trustworthiness, I will do (because really my inability to trust is the problem here…) What kind of unicorn dope are you people smoking?
Today, Katherine has deleted her AshleyMadison.com profile, but is estranged from her husband and kids. She said she has turned to her faith for healing.
How come Jesus always gets this crap?
“It doesn’t matter how bad it is right now … how gross it is, how much horrible darkness is in your life … you can always turn your back on it, can always let it go,” Katherine said.
And her husband holds fast to his own faith –- that his wife will come home.
Okay, this just doesn’t make ANY sense. Katherine has found God, she’s estranged from her husband and kids — but he wants her to come home? So, in other words, this “estrangement” is Katherine’s idea? Like, she prefers living apart from them while she tries to be “adored” by every man? Poor Katherine. Cake is a horrible darkness. Like chocolate ganache.
“I don’t believe my marriage is over. … To me, this is just another chapter,” he said. “I see my wife as someone who’s struggling internally. … She’s someone I made a vow to and a promise to. … If things don’t get resolved, I want to know that I put forth every effort and I went out swinging, and I supported her the best I can. I don’t want to just walk away and give up.”
Dude, that’s exactly what you need to do. Walk away. Give up.
That disgusting couple who own AM.com make me want to puke. I don’t really believe in hell and judgement day, but those two make me wish there really were such things so they could both go straight to the hot, burny place for eternity.
Glad,
LOL; since I do believe in Hell, I think this couple is exactly what the Big Guy had in mind when He designed it….just imagine all the pain and betrayal to chumps and their children set in motion by this site. Whooo….it’s HOT down there…
Hey, people are going to use heroin/cocaine/whatever the pill du jour is…why shouldn’t we profit from their misery too?
*hork*
This is so sad and gross to me. I can’t understand people who do this. It scares me that infidelity is everywhere. It is horrible. I feel like I’m in the moral minority. I am glad for this site because it helps me see through all the mindfuckery. Thank you, Chump Lady.
Exactly Heather. It feels so horrible. That we are the moral minority.
You are NOT in the moral minority. By their own statistics 85% of women and 75% of men are completely faithful. They just WANT you to think that you are in a minority, that you are that strange person in the corner refusing to play cards because gambling is the work of the devil, because they think it makes them look better. Oh, don’t be so stuck up they say, this is COMMON, everybody cheats. Guess what, not everyone cheats, and most people don’t think its OK. Find those people, and your life gets better!
” It’s your Loneliness that makes you Believe you’ve Sinned “.
It’s not AS Common as THEY’d Tell Ya. and THOSE People aren’t ” LONELY”..how can THEY Be ” Lonely” with all that Free SEX All Around Em with Multiple People??
We’re not Alone, Heather…it just FEELS that way cause the BAD gets More PRESS.
That’s a relief! It seems like everyone else says half of each gender cheats. I’m like really?
I was hearing the same thing statistically as you, DatingSucks, and I know so many people personally who have been chumped that it is really disheartening. I have to say I agree that the cheaters get the most attention though. We don’t see many headlines featuring people who have been faithful through the years in good times and bad. Keep in mind too the scumbags are always regurgitating each other so they can actually have less numbers while appearing to have more.
Here’s my take on being in the minority. Statistically, we know we are not, however, as I think many of have experienced, when those majority people slip into apath role, we might as well be the minority. The victims become isolated because “good people” think your ex and OW are just great people and they get the invites to their children’s bday parties. One of the Faithful actual told me how impressed she was that ex and OW wrote out thank you notes to the invitees of my daughter’s bday party. She knows the story and knows why I was not there. Yeah thanks for sharing ” Faithful Majority.” People just suck.
CL, you are funny as fuck! AM and its moronic owners are not.
Ha ha, as far as I know my husband was too cheap to pay for all of the sites he used for cheating. As far as I know……
“People cheat because they have crap life skills…” Yes, THIS! My cheater avoided dealing with anything hard, any life challenge and off he went like a checked out jackrabbit. Not surprising then that he led a deceptive life…he was so busy dodging reality that he made fantastic poor choices. I do believe the internet has given cheaters easy access to like minded people, and while I am not against hooking up if that’s what you want to do, don’t lie to someone you married. Yes, it’s the whole “marriage” thing that bothers me. You know all those vows people are pledging to one another. As for the “people” who own AM they are morally bankrupt (by about 40 million).
I could have written that Drew. Everything was too hard for him, he didn’t like confrontation, but the amount of effort and work he put into keeping his dirty little secrets….sheesh! And the fuckers got married today too. I wonder if he has to still put in as much effort?
Same here, Nat1! Life with me was just too damn hard. I nagged, I bitched. Gee sorry I wasn’t supposed to try to talk about day to day life with kids, bills and jobs. Gee, I’m sorry that I tried to share the burden with you. Had I only known, I would have kept it all to myself! I’m sorry that I didn’t realize how hard it was for you to try to work with me on things..I should have understood that from the way you hung up on me when I would try to talk to you; and wouldn’t respond to my phone calls for days on end. But gee, I’m really super-proud of the hard work you did keeping your 3 year affair and double life secret! How impressive! It’s lovely that you and the OW live in perfect harmony..no, she doesn’t bitch or nag you..what a great gal! Heck, if someone rode into my life, paid all of my bills and bought me gifts on a continual basis..I wouldn’t bitch or nag either! Of course their perfect life has nothing to do with their lack of responsibilities together..no kids; no debt (because he handles it all..bully for him. It’s okay that he paid her bills and left me and the kids hanging), no dang kids to get in the way of their happy-go-lucky lifestyle. And dang it..I should have known that if I went out with you to the bars, got into fights, and thrown into jail together..that would have bonded our love forever! I didn’t realize that since you and the OW do this quite often, this is a lifestyle you embrace whole-heartedly. Damn! If I had just known..
I’ve come to believe that people cheat both because they are supremely selfish and entitled, which gives birth to their crap life skills. I’m not even convinced they have crap life skills. I’m more convinced that they’re just selfish whores who know exactly what they are doing, and the pain they will cause, but they just don’t care. I mean, really, that would take the focus off of themselves, right?
They want what they want: sex with anyone they can hook up with and a faithful spouse at home who will put up with the un-sparkly parts of their lives. The socks under the bed, the skid marked underwear, those pesky kids, the bills, the grocery shopping, the sex that gets routine after several years (and let’s face it, affair-loving whores don’t care about lighting your spark, they’ll just go get some strange).
Cheaters don’t want to see or deal with the un-sparkly parts of the partners they made vows and promises to. No. That would require true caring, perhaps leading to empathy, and well, that would again take the focus off of their NEEDS and WANTS.
I think my narc ex does have crap life skills (from incredibly fucked up FOO plus low capacity for empathy), but he’s a smart guy, there are about a zillion things he could have done to improve those skills. And in other areas where he wasn’t ‘born’ knowing how to do certain things, such as school and career, he worked his butt off getting those skills, never stopped! Ph.D., then MBA, multiple certifications, tons of books …..
But he was WAY too entitled, lazy, and cowardly to do anything about the complete lack of intra- and interpersonal skills. He even recognized at times that he had no idea what a good parent was like, or how to ‘do’ relationships. He just didn’t give a fuck about anybody else, and figured we existed to serve him up kibbles. The only times he ever stepped up to improve how he dealt with anything related to parenting or our relationship was when there was a threat of losing me and/or the kids, and even then the change would be a) as minimal as would do the job of keeping us around, and b) short-lived.
Trust that they suck, ’cause they sure sure do!
Blah, I watched some of it online and just had to turn it off when Plump with her hair on end like a twenty something started going on about how addictive they are. GIVE ME A BREAK
Noels wife seemed a little twitchy during the interview, I wonder why. I can think of a lot of reasons.
I could not watch the entire thing, sorry.
I wish you would put the lost unicorn poster on coffee cups it is just the best
Agreed!!
Under the picture it should say, “If spotted please stop doing Hopium.”
So should we go on Ashley Madison and sext, agree to meet (obviously not actually do it) then once we have the evidence alert the spouse? I’m just wondering what effect a bunch of people doing this might have on their business model. Bwhahaha, not sure I could do it but damn…Motherfucker is making 40 million a month off pain? That pisses me off.
Maybe he’s making 40 million a month. Maybe he is happily and faithfully married. Maybe he is lying about these aspects of his life with as much flare as he’s lying about whether his site encourages infidelity.
Oh, I’m sure his business is profitable, but beyond that I don’t think we should give him credence for any of his claims.
“So should we go on Ashley Madison…then once we have the evidence alert the spouse?” That would be great.
I think Trashley makes money when you sign up. You don’t have to find anyone for them to get paid.
My personal belief is that there aren’t that many married women on there looking for affairs. I think it ends up being a place where married men hook up with prostitutes.
Anyhow, they’re getting rich off of other people’s pain.
yes, you pay them a monthly fee to sign up. My thought was if someone collected a bunch of cheater info and blew up marriages then the cheaters might be less inclined to sign up. The main reason it’s popular is that cheaters think if they bang someone else who is already married then there is less likelihood that person will cause them issues. Like they won’t have the pressure to leave their wives/husbands.
Actually, it’s free to sign in, but you pay to contact and do other stuff. You do have to make a profile to sign in–and it’s free to “hide” your profile if you don’t want it to be seen “for now”, but you have to pay $20 to delete it! So chumps who want to search out their spouses, if they want to go onto AM and don’t want to keep an AM profile, have to pay to get rid of it.
Sad, just sad.
I honestly don’t know who is worse – those who are profiting from AM or those “therapists” who push the reconciliation-at-all-costs bullshit. Seems like both are profiting from others’ pain and misery.
Just give up and walk away, indeed.
IMO, the Unicorn Salesmen are worse because for them… it’s a one-on-one thing. It’s definitely more personal. The guy who runs the local cheater bar, or Ashley Madison never get that intimate with their clientele.
Sure they both broker is things that raise social misery, but… you have to have real balls to have a one-on-one conversation with your victim and sell them a maladaptive coping mechanism: become a “pleaser” and “rug sweeper” and nice people into the correct behavior.
To me, the question is like “What hurts worse, sliding down a blade into a vat of lemon juice, or sliding down a blade into a vat of vinegar?”
Both are hurting people. Both are shallower than a pond in a desert during drought season. Chumps can’t control who goes to AM, but they can control whether they bash themselves on the head with RIC morons.
My husband is on Ashley Madison– it’s how he met his current girlfriend that I’m not supposed to know about. Until I found out about her and how they’d met, I guess I stupidly assumed that most of the women who register on that site are professionals. (Which sounds kind of sexist of me, actually. I don’t mean to suggest that I think men are rutting pigs and women are pure as the driven snow, just that the dynamics of a sex website are so screwy.) Like the shady couple who own AM, I’m sure my husband tells himself it’s a “dating website” too. The sad thing is that his girlfriend also has a young family, and each of them justifies their supposed sex-only relationship by insisting that without that outlet, they’d have to leave their respective marriages. It’s just so fucking unhealthy.
And yes, I’m making plans to leave him. My heart breaks when I look at my sweet little five year old and think about bringing his family to an end, but I realize that it has to happen. Like I said, the whole thing is just too unhealthy.
My husband’s first affair was six years ago with someone he worked with (coincided with my pregnancy). I found out when I was seven months pregnant, and I was desperate to keep our brand new little family together, as most new moms or dads can probably imagine. Now that he’s on Ashley Madison, I realize he has an endless buffet of potential affair partners to “date.” Doesn’t matter in the end, I guess… he was a cheater before AM, he’s using it to cheat now, and when the next big thing comes along in the affair-facilitating “dating” world, he’d use that to cheat too. Which is not to say that I agree with the AM owners’ “hey, I’m just filling a market need” bullshit. But it IS to say that I married a cheater who will use whatever resources are available to cheat, and that’s probably true for most cheaters.
“Life’s too short, have an affair.” Really? Really? Too bad staying faithful or leaving like an adult isn’t a $40mm per month business. Life’s too short, keep your dignity.
Another Rebecca, you are not bringing your five-year-old son’s family to end. Your husband has already done this by having multiple affairs. You are performing the necessary task of extracting yourself and your child as much as humanly possible from the shit this selfish man has brought down on you both.
“Life’s too short, keep your dignity.” Had to repeat this. Thanks Another Rebecca!
Yes..THIS.
Another Rebecca – what Jamberry said. YOU are not destroying you family – the cheater did that.
I used to pray – to beg God – to save my family. I thought that would mean that exH would stop cheating and abusing us; that he would change.
But God saved my family – by having the exH leave. Sometimes we get the result we want and deserve, but the road to it is different than what we’d planned. My oldest was 5 when he left, so my heart hurt when I read your post. Hugs and prayers to you.
“The sad thing is that his girlfriend also has a young family, and each of them justifies their supposed sex-only relationship by insisting that without that outlet, they’d have to leave their respective marriages.”
But of course, they don’t want to give you and her husband the choice about whether you’d rather end the marriage or live with a partner who is having sex with someone else. Because they know what you would choose.
Stepping in as a chump daughter here. My bio dad was a huge cheater and narc. He walked out on my mom shortly after I turned six, moved in with one of his many OW, and eventually married her (they did stay together for the rest of his life.)
When my mom told me he had left and that we would have to move from the neighborhood with all my friends, I cried and cried. It was like the end of the world. I hated going over to his apartment every other weekend, and the OW/wife wasn’t very nice. Once I turned 13, I said I didn’t want to go to his home anymore, and he did not bother to contact me again until I was in my 20s. I only saw him a couple more times after that, he didn’t even go to my wedding although he was invited.
But you know what? A couple years after the divorce, my mom met a wonderful, wonderful man, and married him. My step dad loved me like his own flesh-and-blood daughter, and was a fantastic father for the next 30+ years. He died ten years ago, and I still miss him very much. He was a good, honest, faithful and hard-working man who adored my mom in the exact opposite of how she was treated by my bio dad. And he was a fine role model and father for all of us kids.
My rambly point here is that you should NOT think of divorcing a cheater as destroying the family, because the CHEATER did that. And it’s quite likely that up the road, right past Meh-ville, there is a GOOD man who will be a fine step father and role model for your son. I know my life was made much, much better by the loss of my bio cheating dad and the gain of my step dad. I’m not saying divorce is good, but I do believe that when a parent is disordered, they need to be out of their child’s life. And sometimes life has a way of working out just fine, especially when you move on into a bright future without a cheating loser holding you down.
That’s a great point, Glad. Sometimes what we pray for comes in a different form than what we expected.
Oh gosh. Thanks so much for the support. These messages are like a booster shot of perspective for me. Thank you so much.
Amen Another Rebecca. And ouch. You deserve so much better.
Disgusting, really.
My soon to be ex found his Soulmate Schmoopie on Ashley Madison as well. He said he looked up five different women but the one he’s now living with was The One. He also told me he was her fourth married affair partner from Ashley Madison during her ten-year marriage. (This during a nanosecond of false reconciliation when he assured me he’d ‘come clean.’ Unicorn speak for “Not freakin’ likely to start telling the truth, the whole truth, at this late stage of the game.”)
So… doesn’t that seem kinda like, well… maybe not a super-sparkly and honest and, um, well, loyal woman to plan to spend the rest of your life with? She had no qualms about affairing with married men on what would be a regular basis… but now STBX is so sure that he’s magical and so forth…
I wish them both every happiness they deserve.
Mehsmerized, please do tell us all about his “magic penis,” the one that is soooo special that it will make the thought of any other strange penis unfathomable for his Soulmate Schmoopie!
LOL!
Really weird that anyone would think they could find true love on Trashley.
Diana, it IS true love—for the next couple of years or so….
My STBX just went to Reddit for his affair partner…
On The Unicorn Salesmen:
They aren’t that different from Ashley Madison. There will always be a market for codependency just like there will always be a market for cheating hookup places. They are both selling things that overwhelmingly contribute to social misery, but the Unicorn Salesmen sometimes look right into they eyes of their victims, so to me… that’s even worse.
I was just thinking about this the other day when somebody used that old canard, “What if she had an affair because her needs weren’t being met” which implies even less subtly that the betrayed spouse in some way is at least partially responsible for the choice to cheat in the first place. Their selling codependent, magical thinking: Maybe if you are 100% super-wonderful 100% of the time (even while you sleep), you can ‘nice’ your cheating spouse into never cheating? Maybe you can control them by exuding oodles of niceness, so if you catch her getting chatty and touchy with another guy, you just turn up the old charm, and she is rendered faithful once again?
You can’t nice somebody into not cheating. Manipulating somebody and nullifying their option of having their own thoughts and the ability to make their own choices not only sounds dysfunctional, it also sounds exhausting.
When do you get to be yourself? When do you get to experience interdependence (you know, two independent people agreeing to work together as a team with healthy compromises made regarding things like “no infidelity”, sharing life goals, and so on)?
they’re, not their. Err, sorry. Having first cup of coffee now.
Great comments, TH. And, I totally agree: the whole thing *is* exhausting. Someday I do hope to experience what you call ‘interdependence.’ In the meantime, I’m glad I can let out the breath I’ve been holding and just BE. All the energy that used to go into “pick me” is now being redirected into the much more important business of simply BEING ME. The fact that it feels strange and new is both depressing and exhilarating. I mean, that I could have wandered so far off my authentic course, like Hansel and Gretel discovering the bread crumbs were gone, but then now I have another chance. That part is cool.
I still have to check my driver’s license regularly–I’m still working on doing the being me part.
CITS, I hear ya! And that’s such a great way to frame it, too–you see the picture, check. My face. My hair, eyes, the jacket I bought 2 years ago at Winners. But this profound disconnect to the actual person. You know? It’s like this book I read a few years back called “The Echo Maker.” The main character gets in a really bad car accident and suffers a severe brain injury and a resulting illness called Capgras Syndrome. It’s where you think people in your real life are all imposters or doubles. So his sister (I think she’s a nurse) comes back to help him recover. Uproots her whole life for him, but the whole time she’s bending over backward to help, he can’t recognize her. He just thinks she’s there to fake him out.
I think what happened to me is I became a double of myself. So it wasn’t other people I couldn’t recognize or trust, but rather myself. How many of us have done that, just to try to hang on to what probably never was there to begin with? And the whole process is so insidious. Over a period of time, months, years, you start to trust the imposter version of yourself.
I’m gonna keep checking my driver’s license regularly, too, CITS. I hope someday soon I’ll be able to connect internally to the image I see, and TRUST that connection.
I’m getting weepy over here….
How come Jesus always gets this crap? I had to repeat this I just loved that line have thought of it often in many different situations ( serial murder find God ect…)
I think even us chumps have been tempted to cheat; there have been more one time in my marriage when I have been hit on ( one guy tried more times than I can count) but I would never have thought of doing this. I have gone out of my way to avoid temptation (oh I hope you don’t mind I brought my ssister with me) and why because I could never hurt my H by cheating on him. The thought that someone would anonomously troll on a website for a partner is so .. well I can’t even think of a word ( I leave that to you CL) sure marriage gets boring I always thought it went to a different level of love and commiment ( that’s the chump in me) but I don’t think it’s chumpy to think that way. The internet has made it easier to do this anonymously read this post this AM so sad sorry just rambling thinking alot these days as my period of false reconciliation goes on.
I agree. One of my side-lines was real estate. There were a few clients that I knew were more interested in me than buying or selling a house. I was flattered but, never acted on it. I knew my boundaries and respected my wife.
To aggressively seek this shit out is bazar to me. It was said once before. Cheaters have a hard time staying monogamous and chumps have a hard time cheating. We’re just not wired that way.
I don’t get it either, in a committed relationship I simply have no desire for anyone else. On those occasions where I was attracted to someone else I just had my little internal fantasy and then let it go.
You’re doing it all wrong, then.
First you have to assure yourself that any flirtation/attraction is perfectly innocent.
Then… when you can’t keep up that lie, change it to “I can handle this. Nobody has to get hurt”.
Then… when your spouse senses something is wrong, admit to yourself that it’s not your flirting with infidelity that is the problem (despite anything your spouse says about you seeming disconnected), it’s your spouse that is the problem; they’re just a control freak.
Then when in the throws of infatuation and now knowing you really can’t control this and that was another lie you told yourself, realize that if you really loved your spouse you wouldn’t have feelings like these for somebody else, and gosh darn it, you’re a nice person, but you’ve just discovered your one, true soul mate, and besides you and your spouse were really more like roommates anyway, and now your no-good/downer/controlling and suddenly clingy spouse follows you around at home trying to find out what is going on is like a parasitic tick you have to figure out how to remove without leaving its head embedded in your tissue.
And that’s now “nice” people have affairs, inflict horrible trauma on their spouses and families. It all begins with lies: this is innocent, nobody has to get hurt, then it’s not what you are doing that is causing disconnection, it’s the deficiencies of your spouse who you’ve managed to completely dehumanize as this progressed, and so on.
You too could have an affair. It’s easy. All you have to do is lie to yourself, pretend nobody has to get hurt, pretend nothing is happening as you pursue new ego kibbles, and so on.
I think that’s why there’s a cottage industry in blame-shifting this onto the betrayed: there is a cultural bias to believe that only bad people (who know they are bad) do this stuff, and I am good so I would never do it even though I’ve done it before (but it was a *special* exception), and people also want to believe it would never happen to them, so they like to think that they have some control over their spouse’s choices (if I am not a shrew, then Pokey won’t stray), but the truth is… it’s more like a tornado. It could hit anywhere, it could hit your family, and there’s not a thing you can do about it except make sure you’re not the tornado.
If your spouse gradually goes tornado, though, you’re probably going to lose a house.
In case it wasn’t clear… the stuff about “good people” was satirical in the vein of Bertrand Russell’s “On Nice People”.
Good one.
TimeHeals, in all seriousness, your comments are profound, wow! So true how the cheaters devolve, and dehumanize us, along with themselves. So true that we become like ticks to them that they simply want to remove, perfect analogy.
TimeHeals, That was exactly my experience. All those little choices. My ex’s favorite line, “It just happened.” Glad my pussy doesn’t make decisions for me! It’s amazing but in my twenty year marriage I had always flirted with all our friends (we all did), married or not, and not once was my behavior misinterpreted. I think Chumps have a line we don’t cross because we ARE committed to our marriages. I could see the value in loving someone over many years, People do grow and change and that’s exciting. I don’t think the same value exists for Cheaters because they ARE putting it out there. Fishing, you know. We have a saying in our family now: You are either the ping pong ball in the ocean of life, being tossed around and at the mercy of waves (poor choices, affairs, drug use, staying stuck, etc ) or you are THAT SHARK. Swimming intentionally through the water making healthy choices, for you, and those you love.
Jeez, TimeHeals. Thanks for making my eyes mist up. Now everything’s all blurry. 😉 You had to go and talk about:
“When do you get to experience interdependence (you know, two independent people agreeing to work together as a team with healthy compromises made regarding things like ‘no infidelity,’ sharing life goals, and so on)?”
I haven’t experienced that with another person in the last, oh, 15 years of my 20-year marriage to the cheating — now thankfully former — husband. It’s been so long that the concept itself seems like a unicorn pipe dream. It’s what I most long for — that and to have a happy, close, intact family. I picked a man who isn’t capable of it.
Nice to hear that there are still men out there who actually believe in such things.
Yes, in a world of FB “friendship,” Google hangouts, cell phone sexting, and Ashley Madison, cheating on all levels is a lot more convenient. And in some cases, a lazy Cheater can keep multiple EA partners going while sitting in his recliner. So its nice to know that there are men out there who still want interdependence and a deepening commitment.
I just looked at AM site for thefirst time. I thought it was just an American thing but no, I can find myself a fuckbuddy even here in Australia. Blogs about how to conduct your infdelity and everything. It would have ben like reading a manual for him, hedidn’t really have the gumption to do it by himself. No one made him have an affair, he didn’t need any encouragement, but for tjose with no drive, it just makes it all a bit too easy doesn’t it. And I thought i was safe with the nerdy geeky guy! Fuck I’m gonna vomit now. Excuse me.
Ashley Madison is an online dating service and social networking service marketed to people who are already in a relationship with the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair.”The website was launched in 2001. The name of the site was created from two popular female baby names “Ashley” and “Madison”
In 2009, NBC banned an Ashley Madison ad from appearing in Super Bowl XLIII. Biderman described the banning as ridiculous. Biderman considers the NFL demographic a core audience of the site and promises to “find a way to let them know about the existence of this service
On February 22, 2010, the company approached the city of Phoenix, Arizona with an offer of $10 million to rename the Sky Harbor Airport to Ashley Madison International Airport for a five-year period. Even though the city was in financial trouble, it rejected the offer.
In 2010, Ashley Madison made an offer to rename New Meadowlands Stadium to AshleyMadison.com Stadium.
“Biderman considers the NFL demographic a core audience of the site and promises to ‘find a way to let them know about the existence of this service.'”
Wonder if the NBA, Nascar, and ProRodeo turned him down, too?
He just doesn’t get it. Just because HE’S okay with infidelity doesn’t mean everyone is.
AM recently banned in South Korea.
This site needs a virus. Error: IS a virus.
http://www.imfcanada.org/issues/unspeakable-link-between-stable-families-and-prosperity
This study in Canada suggests that intact families=higher amounts of spending money=stronger economy. They recommend making an ad campaign supporting marriage.
I think the money would be better spent following South Korea’s model–ban all sites aimed at extra-marital affairs.
Oh sure, there will still be affairs as long as there are narcs to have them. But do we have to hand it over to them on a silver platter? And maybe it could cut down on some of the STDs out there.
Good to know there are people out there with some morals!
“Long before I launched Ashley Madison there were affairs, and long after I’m gone there will be affairs,” Biderman said. “What I’m trying to do is help people have the more perfect affair.”
Gambling, drugs, prostitutes, kiddie porn – hey, it’s going to happen anyway, so why not profit from it and enjoy a $500 million a year lifestyle? Who cares how many lives it damages or how many divorce lawyers get rich? So long as it doesn’t impact HIM personally, he’s okay with it.
25 million people in 37 countries. Wow! World War I produced 17 million deaths in 26 countries. So Ashley Madison is devastating MORE families worldwide than World War I.
His mother must be very proud.
I think I’m going to be sick…
This.
Sadly, wounds on human spirit don’t count.
I never heard of AM before Oct 2013. A divorce atty told me about the site. It was a WTF moment for me. Asshat preferred Adult Friend Finders because it did not require an immediate subscription to create a profile. AFF only requested payment once there were matches you wanted to look at. When he told me this rationalization for saving our joint liquid assets only for “good” matches w/o an upfront subscription charge, I was floored.
He then went the most cost effective route by fucking coworkers, hiring sex workers and then meeting his own very special Wendy Plump loser at a bar while away at a conference.
Ditto. Add in craigslist and fetlife though. Oh wait, no sex workers. Blech either way.
Mine was using Backpage (on craigslist) that one is free, rub maps, etc.
excuse me while I go vomit
Biderman is full of shit. The tagline to AM: “Life is short. Have an affair.” is another way of saying “Go ahead, have an affair! It’s okay!” The tagline justifies it. Sheesh.
And I don’t for one second buy that Biderman is faithful to his own marriage. No way. There is no way he dreamed up AM, yet himself is a moral man.
Lets hope life is Truly SHORTer for The ASSHOLES who USE their ” Services “..and might I add, Infinitely More Painful.
Yes! Life is Short when your AP’s husband shoots you for fucking his wife.
Dishing out a public ass whooping is a misdemeanor where I live !!
It boggles my mind that sites like trashley madison even exist. I couldn’t watch that interview because I paid good money for the new TV I bought when I fled my cowardly, cheating asshat and I didn’t want to break it-which is what would’ve happened when I most assuredly would’ve hurled my remote at it!
I find what he and his wife are doing as disgusting. I’m not particularly religious but I do believe in some of the things I learned in Catholic school; “two wrongs don’t make a right” springs to mind at this moment.
The RIC is equally despicable in this because they are all getting rich telling people to prolong their pain and selling the drivel that your “marriage can be stronger than ever” or (my favorite) “My husband’s affair was the best thing that ever happened to me” – That is an actual title to an actual book. I haven’t read it, nor would I but unless that book says “Because I left the son of a bitch” and nothing else then it’s bullshit. Everyone knows that nothing enriches a marriage more than a spouse who fucks other people right?
Chumps want to believe all that crap which is why I think the majority get sucked into chasing that unicorn and smoking the hopium pipe. We get sucked in, and endure second ddays or worse. We need more people like CL telling us how it really is!!
I actually talked to the woman who wrote that book and her husband talked to my husband on the phone during our false reconciliation. I cannot believe the lengths I went to in those 4 months when I still believed his cheating was due to mental health issues and he really wanted to stay with me, just me.
Anne Hecht is lucky because her husband had the insight to work out why he was doing what he was doing, and share it with her. He faced stuff about himself and that improved the marriage.
The mistake Anne makes is to think that her husband is the norm. He isn’t. I have talked to two people who do say that their marriage is better after the affair and that they don’t even think about it. That is because of that same thing: the cheater looked at himself, and mostly his selfishness and his propensity to lie to get his own way.
I really bought into Anne Hecht. It then started dawning on me that my husband was NOT Brian, when there were 10 ‘how to heal from an affair’ on my side of the bed and the usual war and fishing ones on his.
I had the common or garden personality disordered immature freak. Took some time to accept this. Not even THIS amount of pain was worth looking at stuff? Nope.
Patsy- My ex didn’t want to be bothered either, except he doesn’t keep any books on his side of the bed because “I don’t even like reading about subjects I enjoy”. That was his answer when I asked him why he didn’t read any of the suggested books following his infidelity.
Yup, I stayed married to that for 27 years. Forehead smack!
It’s not like there are any studies out there that could necessarily be made accurately about the RIC, because, let’s face it–it’s not like the cheating spouse out themselves as cheating again if they’re gorging themselves on cake. I put no stock in any stats on that topic.
Noel Biderman is a pimp, the people he connects are whores and johns, and the business they’re engaged in is about as cutting-edge as woven baskets and the atlatl.
“This is an enterprise of significance.” Uh-huh. Right. And what it signifies is human waste. Your family tree must be a cactus, Noel, because everybody on it is a prick.
“Your family tree must be a cactus, Noel, because everybody on it is a prick.”
Awesome zinger. Going to the top of the list of those held in case of emergencies for the ex. Hope you don’t mind.
Hilarious Tree-cactus. Reminds me of exh who had so many various hobbies. One was cactus’ and they were the worst things I had to water, prune and take care of. They actually SHOT painful needles at me when I tried to touch one to water. I guess that’s a different thread on Analogies. Jerk never carried through on any of his hobbies, so I get to sit here and clean out all his shit. . glad he’s found a new hobby…cactus are going to be burned. ha
Oh yes, Nomar, you said it!
Also, Ashley Madison? Should call it Dolly Madison, since it’s really all about CAKE.
:)..Right on, as always, Nomar.
of Course DOLLY doesn’t Deserve such a BAD Reputation.
you know..I wonder if there’s Actually an Ashley Madison, out There, to Sue for using HER Name to be Associated with such FILTH.
Oh, but I found a way to see the picture of the “Ashley Madison” the site is named for. Just do a Google image search for “fat old slut.”
But keep some acid handy to wash your eyes out after viewing.
Uh..I’ll take your Word for it, Nomar.
Too Much UGLY is BAD for the EYES and the Soul…
Knowing it Exists is Enough.
The sad thing is about how they found the name for their site. Innocent nice girl names. I have precious nieces named Madison and Ashley. What a perverted way to sell something like this today. Guess whatever names work to attract all the weirdo’s out there. Oh, maybe there’s a young, yet-to-be-puberty girl (no hair!) on that site for JUST ME…..puking up vile amounts of stomach acid on that one.
Supposedly they “fatten” up the profiles with extra false profiles of women to get men to feel like they have more choices; apparently they have more men than women on the site…
Men and women whose partners have cheated using Ashley Madison and cost them pain, suffering and financial loss should sue the company, even if it doesn’t go anywhere. “If you are divorces because your cheater partner used AM to find a male or female skank, and you have experienced betrayal, deceit leading to pain, suffering, and financial devastation, call Smith, Jones, and Faithful to see if you have a claim…” There are some deep pockets there, by the Skank Enabler’s own admission.
Now that would be good to see.
YEP..You know, You Drive the Getaway Car, You get ” Accessory to Crime “..
That’s EXACTLY what A.M. is Doing.
Boy, I wish that I could have. I wouldn’t mind a piece of Biderman’s ill-gotten gains for my pain. I wouldn’t keep his blood money, though. I’d donate to Chump Lady! 😀
Imagine if Chumplady had $40 million to spend on renaming sports arenas and airports!
It’s quite sad that so many people are indeed using these kinds of websites to have affairs. It makes me wonder about the mental state of these people that get a thrill from the lying and the cake-eating. I don’t care how short life is, there are so many amazing things out there to experience and to live—in an honest way. There’s no need to create illusions to be happy.
THIS.
:). Yes, THIS. Makes me wonder what a PET/MRI would show. Cheater brain vs Chump brain. And the ability to use it. Lol
It’s most likely genetic, dontcha know?
Just wow.
I must just be a simple-minded girl, but I don’t get these people (which is likely how I got chumped…).
Why not be like, say…George Clooney? You like hot, young girls. So you find a new one every year or so, and pretty much all of them know you’re not interested in settling down or having kids (hoping the George has been fixed, just to be sure…). But he DOESN’T GET MARRIED! So nobody has this crazy notion of long term fidelity, and they enjoy the ride, and it ends. Why can’t these cheaters just do that? Why take vows, and make babies, and then blow it all up?
And worse yet, why encourage anyone to do that? I’ve said this before on this site, but to the OW I had the nauseating honor of speaking with; and to all the other ones who say things like, “but nobody REALLY gets hurt”…I wish you could have seen the look on my daughter’s face – she was about 9 at the time – when she said, “you know what’s really sad? I’ll never know what it feels like to have a dad.” Or my son, when they’re talking about a dad/son campout, and he looks at me and says, “I guess that’s not for boys like me.” Nobody gets hurt? Fuck you.
Postscript – the dad of one of my son’s little buddies just asked if they could take my son with them on the campout. So once again, good is greater than evil. Hugs to chumps everywhere.
“Nobody really gets hurt” yes. FUCK those bitches. This whole thing makes me want to scream.
3 rd ed
Oh ReDefining, I am choked up reading about your children, yes indeed:
“Nobody gets hurt? Fuck you.”
WE’RE the “nobodies” that get hurt! Fucktardress.
Perfect Paragraph, “Why not be like…” But especially, “Why take vows, and make babies, and then blow it all up?” Yes, this. 🙁
I love it:
“life is short, shoot endangered wildlife!”
and
“…entrepreneur and 19th century slave trader, Ezekiel Horehound who said, ‘Long before I launched ShackledCruises.com there was slavery, and long after I’m gone there will be slavery. What I’m trying to do is help slave owners have the more perfect slave-owning experience.'”
and
“In other news, Phillip Morris today announced that people smoke cigarettes regardless of Phillip Morris’s business model (growing tobacco, manufacturing cigarettes, marketing them globally…) Asked for a comment, the Marlboro Man said ‘I don’t encourage smoking. I’m just a cowboy.'”
CL, you really nailed it with Trashley, here.
I move we all post these in the comments whenever Trashley opens their mouth.
We can link back to CL to give her credit.
Also, CL, I move you submit this to HuffPo, maybe just part about Trashley to make it short enough for readers.
I don’t want to sound sexist but, men are typically the aggressor and women are the submissive ones. It’s very for simple for a woman to find someone if she makes herself easy. AM makes me sick that women are willing to do this.
My STBXW didn’t need this. She used FB instead. While I was working 3-4 jobs to support a family of 6 for over 20 years, she tells me she needs a change. I suggested; finish her BA, get a job, volunteer, or all three. NOT do drugs and guys!
What was I thinking?!
After I found out about the last OW I went on all social media sites to check things out and found my ex had an old profile on myspace. It had been created 5 years earlier and listed him as single. He had created it about a month after he convinced me to marry him, what an asshole. Now he has to go on places like AM because he’s living with the OW, I’m sure she pays much more attention to his online shit than I did.
The nerve.
My ex also had a secret profile on Facebook, using a screen name that he had when he was single,. Why have a second profile on FB, under a different name, when you’re married?!?! Only for the reasons we’ve discussed here on this blog: entitlement. Ugh.
I asked the H why he had no relationship status on his FB page. “I don’t know how to do that” was the bullshit answer I got. Lo and behold..the reason was because he was having an affair, and didn’t want any of his FB friends to realize he was married, and had been for 25 years. I kept questioning the repeated postings of one particular person, and got “she’s just a friend”. Uh huh. Then, suddenly..he “shut his FB down” because it was too much of a hassle. Turns out he blocked the kids and I, so we couldn’t see the affair spread all over FB for everyone to see.
Facebook and Cheating…. Like The Herpes Virus and Lesions… One Goes with the Other, when it comes to Those kinds of Creatures.
But I’m Grateful for Facebook…in all honesty.. Cause it was Facebook, ONLY ,that led me to the Truth about My Asshole EX, that his Fucked Up Family DID NOT WARN ME ABOUT…Yea..So they were COMPLICIT…Absolutely, and I Hold them as Such.
Sandy, my STBXH also deleted his Facebook when the affair started. He didn’t want his schmoopie to see that he actually wasn’t in a bad, terrible, good for nothing marriage like he claimed. He also claimed that “it was taking over too much of his life.” Yea right, liar.
I now very much warn other people that when a spouse shuts down Facebook, there might be something going one. So far (unfortunately) I am 2 for 2. Both friends found out there significant others were hiding affairs.
My Ex was Always Shutting Down and Reupping it… Constantly..Usually After I busted his Arse doing stupid shit and Outted him on Facebook for All of Sundry to See. They Gotta Erase All the Evidence They are Arseholes, Before they Set Back up, Dontchaknow.
When we were still married, I ‘requested’ my exH to add me as his wife… he refused… 8 times… He put his relationship staus as ‘In an open relationship’, he thought this was hilarious…
Giant red flag…. I can only see it now, looking back! D’oh!
Verity..same for me. All I asked him to do was put “married” on his status, and he always refused. As you said “giant red flag”. But..I trusted that he wouldn’t cheat on me, too! But now when I look back, I totally understand that it was a big clue. I’m pretty sure I knew in the back of my mind..I just didn’t want it to be happening!
ANY Married Person who Refuses to acknowledge His or Her Spouse is a CHEATER..the Only Exception Might be Someone who is FAMOUS and wants to Protect their SPOUSE’S Privacy ** CRAZZED FANS and All, Don’t want them to Be Stalked or Harrassed by Nutcases *** ..but Even Still..They List Themselves as Married..just not to WHOM.
I never put any identifying info in my profile. In fact I made the profile very private. Lots of security after former BF’s started pinging me with friend requests. So basically it’s a profile open to only friends and family.
Conversely, asshat’s profile has zero privacy, lots of identifying info and NO mention of his relationship status. What.a.fucking playah. Creep.
with brave wings..he didn’t even shut his FB down..He just blocked the kids and I! He SAID he shut it down..that was a lie. He just blocked the kids, me and his MOTHER so we couldn’t see the affair taking place right there for everyone in America to see.
I know the Feeling..
It makes me Shudder to think what went on Behind my Back That EVERYONE ELSE was privy to Except Me…
I know they ALL Got a Laugh at MY Expense..the Sick FUCKERS…but then Again..I’M FREE of ALL of Them and THEY are Stuck with THEMSELVES Forever…
GUESS who’s LAUGHING NOW ? 😉 🙂
I LOVE My NonToxic, FraudFree Life !!! 🙂
Yeah, Facebook. They can block, they can start up pages under fake names, they can sprinkle a few extra friends on there as camouflage. They’re so stupid that they don’t realize the people they are betraying can just have a friend log on and even if the page is custom or “friends” only, the public profile will appear. The jackass was angry because I found his public page that was in his name. He put up his school affiliation and because I have a bunch of friends with that affilation of course I got a friend suggestion for him–which was a big surprise to me because he hadn’t told me he had a FB page. With his OW as the only friend and no posts so it was all private messaging. And obviously he didn’t put up a relationship status or even friend anyone in his own family.
Oh..The FAKE Names and FAKE Profiles… the EX had them in DROVES trying to SPY on me Through My Friends Pages after I DUMPED his Arse…
S I C K !!!!
The aggressor in my situation was the married woman, mother of three, who wrote to my partner, who kept that secret from me. It progressed quickly to Facebook and from there, who knows? But it was all my fault because–I accused him of having an affair AFTER I found the Facebook page, with only one friend, the OW. Oh, the mindfuck. Facebook is so easy–full of old high school and college exes and old crushes that never amounted to anything and your buddy’s bored little sister who want somebody new to feed her cake. So sorry that it happened to you, to. It’s horribly painful. And when they say they “need a change” or in my case, “my life is different now,” that is code for “I’m either cheating now or getting ready to.”
CL, we need a lexicon, a code book for this stuff.
Oops, “to you, too.” I hate typos…
You know, I Feel sorry for the KIDS of these D.B.s…
They have NO IDEA what their Parents Are..
They are Sideswiped HARD over what these Selfish Arseholes Do..what they Really Are..
To the kids their Parents are probably Saints…
Makes me Want to ThroatPunch ALL of them.
At Least when you see a Scorpion you KNOW what it’s Capable of..and that Odds Are it IS Gonna Sting You…so you don’t TRUST it…makes it Hurt alil Less to have a Headsup.
I think the Bidermans are crazy people. Some emotionally irrational jilted husband or wife could seriously hurt them. It’s only a matter of time. It’s there timebomb they built. They don’t understand the pain this stuff creates because this has never happened to them.
AM = proof that you can buy anything online, even reprobates. Well done, CL.
Yup..Sad thing is They ARE Slaves and just don’t Know it..and they Put Themselves up on Their Own Auctioning Block…Some Other LOSERS getting Rich at THEIR Expense.
SOULS..So Cheap to Buy These Days. So Very Lucrative a Business for DEMONS, though.
ChutesandLadders, when I read this thread, I thought of your story about your son baking the birthday cake for his day who never came home to celebrate with him. I will never forget that story. I don’t care how many millions these people make, your boy’s heart was worth far more that the $40 million a week or a month or a year that Biderman makes and whatever that adds up to in the end. “What does it profit a man that he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Indeed.
THIS.
I’m crying again, so true 🙁
New tagline for AM, instead of “Life is short, have an affair”, should be more like:
“Get an OW. It’s way cheaper than a hooker.”
All you have to pay for is a membership, plus her ceasar salad at Ruth Chris.
LOL.
liningupducks, First, your name rocks. Second, “Get an OW. It’s way cheaper than a hooker.” Should be a bumper sticker. This makes me laugh until I realized my ex and his OW cost me my family, my house, my job, my community, my savings’, our children’s savings, my health (and insurance), and my marriage. It could not have been saved though. Too much Cheaterese. Those two years before and those Narc two years after pretty much told me what kind of man he was. My children and I are learning still how not to spackle. I do realize our marriage was MISSING something…and OW is who and what he deserves.
🙁 You’re right Drew..it IS Expensive..for US.
A couple of years ago Biderman (unsuccessfully) offered a $1Million bounty to any woman who could prove that Tim Tebow (an unmarried Christian athlete who believes in pre-marital chastity) was not a virgin.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/tim-tebow-virginity-ashleymadison-1-million_n_1452912.html
I’d pay good money to find out what kind of soap, Mr. Biderman’s wife uses to attempt to cleanse the slime from both her soul and her body that has to result from staying married to a completely depraved individual.
Boy, that’s vindictive. What did Tim Tebow ever do to him?
Cheaters can’t stand it when everyone else doesn’t stoop to their level – you either have integrity or you don’t.
You know, He did this Because he HAS to Believe EVERYONE is Filth Like him to make HIMSELF Feel Better. After All, NO Man can Turn away Poontang, Dontcha Know…
Certainly Not TEBOW..as Though HE gets to Pick and Choose WHO has INTEGRITY and Honor in their Chastity..
It’s Soo Foreign to that JERK, that’s Why He had to Try and Trash it..He FEARS it…as it Exposes HIS Weakness…and takes it Personally..Like TEBOW keeps his Innocence Merely to Spite Him..Fucking Narcissists Again.
Blooming,
I believe there is so much truth in your observation about the FEAR that drives such people. They are a bottomless abyss of FEAR because they do not know how to live life in a spirit of benevolence and honor. They refuse to climb out of their pit, but they want to drag everyone else into it with them. There will NEVER be enough money or thrills to fill the void in their souls. A pathetic existence.
Yep, This.
They Can’t see Anything but Their Nasty View..So anyone who Doesn’t just HAS to be a Liar.
To Admit there are Innocents who Take responsibility for their Actions Means that the opposite, which is THEM..and is a CHOICE actually exists as well. They make the Wrong one and instead of Kicking their OWN Asses, and vowing to never do it again, instead Kick the Crap Outta Those who Never Made Their Fucked up choice to Begin with…as Though it’s The Innocents’ Fault that They are Shite.
Tracy,
I believe that all Biderman accomplished was a one-way ticket to a future “Wrath of God Party.”
And I LOVE this suggestion by one of Biderman’s critics:
“Actually if I’m Tebow I do one better, I make sure the offer is in writing and a bond is put up. Football is a tough and dangerous sport and you never know when you will go from Playoff QB to punt protection so when the time comes when he meets the right girl and wedding bells will ring the very next morning the happy couple can go to Ashley Madison and collect the bride’s dowry.
And what a joke that would be on a business sustained by cheating spouses.”
Anyone else think Mrs. Biderman looks pretty nervous and unhappy for a chick with $40million a week to play with? Methinks all is not as “devoted” at home as they claim…
The “Couple ” of ASSHOLES that Own this site who have ” Never Cheated”…and ” Don’t Encourage Affairs ” but make CRAZZY $$ FROM said Affairs Sure do LOVE those Ever Increasingly Larger Profits from said Business of CHEATING SPOUSES….
“Hey, I’m Not a Druggie…All I DO is PRODUCE the HEROIN..THEY TAKE IT… WE’re BETTER Than our CLIENTS.”….FUCKING FILTH.
You know, I Knew a guy who once said ” If I Didn’t Cheat with her Someone Else Would Have “..MY Response…” You Shoulda let Someone ELSE “.
I HOPE BOTH of THESE ARSEHOLES HAVE AFFAIRS OF THEIR OWN, ARE DEVASTATED BY THEM AND DIE BROKE AND DISEASE INFESTED.
GOD, I HOPE THEY DON’T HAVE KIDS.
As for The crowd they ” Don’t Encourage to Have Affairs ” ** just Profit Offa Their LACK OF CHARACTER, by Providing a Place for Said ” Deficiencies ” to Occur ** I Hope EVERYTHING They “LOVE ” Deserts Them…INCLUDING their ” Faith”.
and Tracy….as Usual…This Entry of yours…B R I L L I A N T.
The Plump Lady play on Words…. LMAO.
Wikipedia’s entry of Ashley Madison is interesting
In 2012, the company was sued by former employee Doriana Silva, who stated that in preparation for the launch of the company’s Portuguese-language website, she was assigned to create over a thousand bogus member profiles within a three-week period in order to attract paying customers, and that this caused her to develop repetitive stress injury.[22]
They create fake profiles? You don’t say?
Unless they know how to opt out of the ‘Ashley’s Angels’ feature, the site’s Terms and Conditions say that users who have not yet paid the site any money (‘Guest’ accounts) may get computer generated messages from fictitious profiles that “are NOT conspicuously identified as such”. These may cost money to respond to. The site says this feature is “to provide entertainment”.[23]
The site also charges money to delete accounts, although they may be hidden for free.[23]
You have to pay to be removed?
Reminds me of that Kris Kristofferson song from the remake of “A Star is Born”
O..Even the Devil needs money
Even the President needs money to cover his overhead
That’s why he opened Hellacious Acres
Or so his press agent said
…
Get down and study
Suspicion and Doubt
At Hellacious Acres, listen mischief makers
Admission’s free, you pay to get out .
AM created fake profiles? Sounds accurate. Just another form of cheating….no biggie, right?
I can hear the Cheaters Now..you LIED to Me ?! Oh The Horrors of the Comeuppence.
Of course they would be pissed! They are narcs entitled to kibbles but you better not do the same to them. I stumbled upon a “cheaters anonymous” message board where one of the female cheaters was absolutely fuming that her married OM had two accounts with AM (where they met).
So for those keeping track of the score at home: OW is pissed that her OM still has an AM account and is still trolling for more strange. You can’t make this shit up!
You are on a roll, BloominRose, just wanted to let you know I enjoy your writing.
Thanks Drew 🙂
And I Apologize for The Rollercoaster ride of Reading the Ups and Downs..
I’m trying to break it. Stupid Old Habits.
I tried to make an(other) one with a nym my Ex often uses, and it’s not available. I kind of doubt he’s using Trashly Had-Some, for a variety of reasons. SO I think it’s the too cheap to close out the account thing. I certainly didn’t pay $25 to delete the fake account aI created!
Charging money to delete accounts? Blackmail.
Trashley will do anything.
I guess if they are creating fake accounts, he could be making up the amount of the profits, too!
This shit just infuriates me. When are people are going to realize that nothing “drives” anyone to cheat. CL is right, it’s just crap life skills. I’d be willing to bet that for many here the infidelity came out of nowhere; we all thought our marriages were doing OK before this shit hit the fan.
And people are now making money off of this shit?! And the people who started this are MARRIED?!
This all makes my hair hurt.
I notice that it’s women who are “driven” more; men choose. (word salad).
When will they realize the cheating limo chauffeur is really themselves on a plastic hot wheels trike…
” Angels ” on THAT Website ?? LOL.. what a Fucking JOKE.
OH..NEVER MIND…SATAN was an Angel too ..ONCE.
I find it more troubling that they use a kind of doublespeak for a description:
Fake user profiles sending fake computer messages to lure people into subscribing = Angels.
Nice.
Uh Huh…
I HATE * say it a Dozen times more ** Fake Profiles..
Seriously WHO Are These ” Fake” People… Do They KNOW their Image is Being USED ??
I Worry about if there are Innocents’ Being USED on a Site like This…Who have NO Idea their Image IS being Used.
What Might Happen to them Cause of All that Greed…
Perhaps Facial Recognition Technology is Not such a BAD thing…Especially if you can Run your OWN Image through and See if Someone is Using YOURS for EVIL Purposes.
You know..I Couldn’t care LESS if a CHEATER gets Taken for ALL He or She is Worth.
Liars Deserve Their OWN Company…Feel BAD for Them, I Don’t.
Well, of course you have to word salad it to make it marketable.
Who would spend money on:
“Sign up for our site.
Your fantasies of cheating will never make it in reality, but give us your money, time, emotional and physical energy, and marriage in the meanwhile.
All the good-looking women are fake, but you get to screw the fugly ones.
Life is short–why stick to quality when you can have quantity?”
It says it is a married dating website. So infuriated I decided to make a profile for my loving husband, only on naming his greeting…im a stupid shithusband I got a error message saying..
“Sorry, that uses bad letters or words. Please try something else.”
Are they kidding me?
bad letters or words?
Very upset here, these people are like from, hell
As CL has said: “People who don’t care who they are hurting, who lack empathy synapses and introspection? We call these people sociopaths.”
LOL. Adultery, sure. Swearing, though, that’s just sinful.
CL’s site is the complete antithesis–swear but expect fidelity.
THIS..EX CHEATER,DEADBEAT DAD TO SEVERAL KIDS BY SEVERAL DIFFERENT WOMEN..WHO HE DENIED,ALL OF THEM..and HIS ” Honorable” FAMILY, BACKING UP THAT LIE ,So OTHERS ,WHO Wouldn’t Deal with him At ALL if they were AWARE of The TRUTH about Him AND Them, ARE GETTING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF..
And you KNOW what THEY Complain About ME the Most….
My Liberal Use of the Word ” Fuck “…. SERIOUSLY.
As in THEIR Fucked Up Family FUCKS OVER GOOD PEOPLE, For Their FUCKED UP BROTHER, SON, Who FUCKS UP Everything He TOUCHES, and FUCKS EVERYTHING with a HOLE…Thereby , FUCKING UP CHILDREN’s LIVES.
YEA… F U C K THEM.
it did like
im a great husband my wife says so
as the greeting
barf now
Gotta Pay to get Removed…..
Yep, Stained FOREVER unless you PAY….
Sounds a Bit like BLACKMAIL to Me…
but Then again…It’s GOOD for People to SEE what Their ” Maybe” is CAPABLE of.
What Scares Me is Vindictive Psychos making Fake Profiles using OTHER people’s Pics and Info to Ruin their Reputations… and BELIEVE me there ARE FREAKS out here who WILL Do THIS…
I Know MY EX and his Arsehole ” Friends” ARE Such People. ”
” Birds of a Fucked Up Feather , Fuck Up, Fuck Around and Shit on Decent People Together”.
“I “didn’t even want a physical relationship with anyone else, I wanted to be wanted,” she said. “I wanted to be adored, wanted to be chased, wanted every man to think, I have got to have her.”
Maybe Katherine was hoping to get all this attention by just having emotional affairs. But the plastic surgery was good enough and she had to offer more for the attention was craving. Just saying…….
Correction: But the plastic surgery was NOT good enough and she had to offer more for the attention was craving
A sucking black hole of narcissistic need and entitlement. Just sayin’.
“How come Jesus always gets this crap?”
Made me laugh out loud. XD Excellent take-down as usual.
Also, what is with people excusing infidelity as “what inevitably happens when problems are unresolved in a marriage?” I mean, some people (chumps) just don’t have it in them to cheat. Don’t any of these pop/evo psych people think of that?
“How come Jesus always gets this crap?”
Ummmmm–I’d say because he asks for it…
Just in case anybody wants to see these cretins in the flesh:
(NOTE: The video is mis-titled and purports to be about the upcoming Disney documentary “Bears.” But this is in fact, the correct link to the Nightline piece. Not sure if this is viewable in all countries.)
A few notes about the video:
1) The shadowy Katherine whose face and voice are disguised met over FIFTY men off of AM, and according to video: “Somewhere around thirty to forty of those encounters led to a sexual encounter.” Jesus! I’m single and in my early 30s I don’t sleep with that many people!
2) Plump’s observation: “Women when they cheat are viewed as having cheating on the family. When men cheat they cheat on their wife.” Sadly, that seems to be a pretty apt double standard. There doesn’t seem to be that societal accountability towards men who destroy their families via infidelity the way it seems to exist for cheating wives.
3) True to CL’s report about Katherine’s cheater husband holding on to hope that his estranged, cheating wife will come home, the video shows him still wearing his wedding band.
4) Noel Biderman is a businessman, to be sure, and he seems to be doing really well for himself. Sadly, he’s putting some REALLY bad karma out into the Universe. I wonder what Biderman would think of cheating wives if this ever happened to him.
5) Katherine says how addictive cheating was, and obviously she went back for more since she left with 30-40 dudes. But later in the video she claims: “Ashley Madison was suicide. When I went to bed with the first man, I knew I was dying inside.” Soo wait is this a “poor sausage” moment or is this a cheater’s stunning moment of clarity that at the end of the day It’s Just Not Worth It?
It’s a GREAT soundbyte because she spent the first half of her interview telling us how much gosh-darned fun she was having meeting these men in bars, hotel rooms, and even traveling out of town for her illicit sojourns! But towards the end she said it was killing her inside. So which is it? Was it lots and lots of sexy fun or was it soul-crushing?
If I can put my CL Thinking Cap on for a sec, since she’s estranged from her husband, I’m going to go ahead and chalk up those feelings of “dying inside” to “no more CAKE.” Now that her short-term flings have gotten her nowhere and she no longer has a husband sitting at home waiting for her, the Thrill Is Gone. Poor sausage.
6) The Marriage Boot Camp folks seem like a really sweet couple, and their hearts are certainly in the right place. Sadly (as CL’s article and the video demonstrates), they’re feeding the Reconciliation Industrial Complex by peddling this nonsense: “I will NEVER hold this against you again. Ever!”
The video is a great companion piece to CL’s tour-de-force bitchslap above.
Per Katherine being a sad sausage — sure, that’s got to be part of the narrative. If she just has sex with 40 men, she’ll be judged a slut, so you have to have the requisite penance, but I’m soooo miserable cheating!
Don’t most of our cheaters do this? Tell chumps all the time how they suffer and never really enjoyed it? (They certainly don’t enjoy the consequences upon discovery and divorce.)
IMO, the proof of Katherine’s true feelings are this — she’s gone back for more 40 times. Ye-ah. She really hates it.
They were like potato chips maybe? You mean to have just a few, but the next thing you know you’ve eaten half of a large bag?
And then you feel sad because… you do the calorie math, and that’s going to take jogging about 40 miles to work off?
Which is to say… eating potato chips doesn’t make me sad. The fact that I can’t seem to regulate eating potato chips sometimes, and then there are consequences just sucks.
maybe that’s why I don’t get it, I can actually eat just one potato chip, what an amazing thought
Me too 🙂
Bwahaha! Forty more boxes of “Narkables”…the snack that never quite satisfies. “Betcha can’t eat just ONE!”
Half a bag? No, that was the WHOLE BAG!!!
I can feel sorry for Katherine. She’s empty inside and needs tons of reassurance. Plastic surgery didn’t work, she had to keep conquering new guys. It never satisfies her.
I would not advise her husband to stay with her, but I can believe she is miserable and making her problems worse.
Diana,
She is empty because she is probably personality disordered. Without having scores from a reliable, comprehensive personality test and an extensive clinical interview, it is still pretty obvious that she exhibits some traits common to both Borderline and Narc PD. It is sad for those she damages and also for her, but our culture seem to worship the narcissistic…and I don’t see things getting any better.
This article (while not scholarly) has some pretty accurate common sense information
http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2010/06/28/relationshipstrategies/20-identifiable-traits-of-a-female-narcissist/
How to Identify a Female Narcissist
Physical Appearance
1.She dresses provocatively, flaunting sexually suggestive body parts.
2.She focuses attention on makeup and hair, even for the most mundane tasks or events.
3.She is overly confident about her looks. Research shows that narcissists are no more attractive than other people, but they believe they are much better looking than other women.
4.She places high value on brand names, and feels entitled to wear “the best.” She frequently purchases new clothing, and does not distinguish between wants and needs.
5.She is more likely to have plastic surgery, most commonly breast augmentation.
6.She enjoys being photographed, and often asks others to snap her picture. She enthusiastically shares the best pics of herself on Facebook or other social media sites. She will sometimes invest in a professional photographer for a portrait that she uses on Facebook or for online dating.
Personality/Character
1.She insists on being the center of attention, and is often the most charming person in the room. Narcissists are very outgoing and excel at marketing themselves.
2.She often seeks favorable treatment, and automatic compliance. She believes that she is special, and that she deserves fame, fortune, success and happiness.
3.She is highly materialistic.
4.She is prone to envy, though she presents as supremely confident. She seeks opportunities to undermine others, and enjoys sharing confidences about how the two of you are better than others.
5.She is convinced that others are envious and jealous of her, and often uses this excuse for her lack of real, intimate friendships. When her friends enjoy successes of their own, she finds ways to punish them by downplaying their achievements.
6.She lacks empathy, and even common courtesy at times. She puts others down, including you. She does not hesitate to exploit others.
7.She is very competitive.
8.She believes that she is intellectually superior to her peers.
9.She blames others for problems. Narcissists don’t believe that they make mistakes, and lack the ability to process shame.
10.She displays a haughty attitude when she lets her guard down or is confronted. She will act impatient, arrogant and condescending. She will often excuse her own shortcomings by claiming that others are pressuring her or expecting too much of her.
11.She is dishonest and often lies to get what she wants. She will never admit this.
12.She is “psycho:” She engages in risky behaviors, has an addictive personality, and is prone to aggressive behavior when rejected. (Note: This is most common with Histrionic Personality Disorder.)
13.She is unpredictable in her moods and actions. You have trouble figuring out what she wants and where you stand.
14.She is capable of short-term regret, and will apologize profusely if backed into a corner. However, she will quickly rationalize her behavior and return to narcissistic patterns.
* shiver* I Know a COUPLE of These ” creatures ” of feminine persuasion.
Funny, I’m none of those things. I later found out I was in early menopause at 38 years old and got better once treated with HRT. My husband and I received counseling and are on our 23 year of marriage.
Those two deserve one another, he was cheating before she went on AM and had the gall to be upset that she cheated? WTFever. They should reconcile, they really should.
They could call it an open marriage and be done with.
Of course, that takes away all the “fun”, I guess…
The video leads in with scenes of hot, steamy sex between young attractive people. I wish images of cheating were more realistic in our society. Why make it seem glamorous?
His wife does have a really sad look to her. She defers to him a lot, more than I would expect.
Nightline should have done a little more reporting – investigate and talk about things like past accusations of fake profiles. Do they lie now? Who’s really on there?
The really, really should have interviewed someone who lost a spouse to Ashley Madison for the other perspective.
‘Noel Biderman insisted that his business does people more good than harm because the threat of infidelity can be a martial wake-up call.
“I see it as a platform that helps people stay married. Millions of people have affairs because they want to stay married,” he said. “I help millions of people find contentment, passion and happiness through my service.”’
Talk about minimizing the trauma of infidelity! In logic, we call this a false analogy–i.e. a fallacy of reasoning. These are not the same thing. A wake up call is a slightly unpleasant call in the morning from the hotel staff…NOT a raping and rending of your unsuspecting spouse’s soul!
I wonder how many letters this man has received from the faithful spouses “thanking him” for saving their marriage through their spouse’s facilitated infidelity. Probably can’t read all them for the influx of gratitude for his public service. Just sick.
Logic. Critical thinking skills. Yes. First clue. Sort of like saying, “YOU are going to MAKE ME CHEAT.”
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
-Sinclair Lewis
Did anyone see this yet? hehehehehe
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20808978,00.html#vid
There’s another video on People of Tori and Dean where he says he wasn’t attracted to the person he cheated on Tori with. She was just a “warm body”. WHAT? I’m not even sure what that means. It kind of sounds like he has sex with very recently dead people. Ew. These two deserve each other completely.
I wonder if Mr. Biderman ever thinks about the children his little site helps to devastate?
I mean, I’m an adult. My ex cheated on me with the whore he met on AM. I put my bitch boots on and divorced him.
But my children? And the OW’s children? That’s FIVE children whose lives you helped to devastate, Mr. Biderman. FIVE. What the hell did those little kids do to deserve that? Perhaps that will be the next weapon in the Cheater Arsenal: the children drove the cheaters to have affairs because they were too loud/not good at sports/had too many temper tantrums/wouldn’t eat their broccoli/didn’t have all As in school, etc. Maybe Mr. Biderman could include a special section on that on his educational site: Kids Are No Fun, So Have An Affair to Escape Them.
That always seems to be the part of these exposes that they never acknowledge. They don’t talk about how little kids’ hearts are broken. They don’t show how the role models that these children looked up to desert them. Instead, if they interviewed my ex and his Owife, they’d probably say something like, “See! Look at how awesomely their cheating turned out! They fell in ‘love,’ got married, and have a wonderful blended family together! Ain’t life grand?”
Yeah. I’d like Mr. Biderman to see my kids when they cry before they go off to Cheaterland for visitation. I’d like him to sit in on their school support group to hear how much they LOVE being children of divorce. I can’t imagine what it must be like for the Owife’s children who had their whole lives uprooted– she moved them away from EVERYTHING they knew so that she could move into my former marital home and play Brady Bunch with my ex and my kids.
People can say all they want about how cheaters will find a way to cheat anyway even if there weren’t a site like AM. But, as someone who has watched the devastation of her family (and financial future to a certain extent) because of the charming “service” provided for johns like my ex and whores like his OW, to this I say: Fuck you, Mr. Biderman. May your children never know the pain and devastation that mine have known, but may YOU get EVERYTHING you deserve.
I nodded my head reading your entire post, MovingOn, you said it!
EXACTLY!
May you receive Tori’s karmic retribution…
MovingOn – your post tore me up. The poor children involved are really what this is about. Yes, other families are torn up (I only have a dog family, not to mention our extended families completely torn up by this) and cannot understand how anybody could do this to children. Dogs, thankfully, have a way of accepting whatever comes their way. Because I’ve never had kids, but some wonderful nieces and nephews that I’ve seen become so sad when their parents carelessly remarry and try to make this fantastic life for their blended families…well, I guess dogs express the loss a little bit, but little innocent kids wear their hearts on their sleeves. It amazes me that anybody that thinks a whore that will spread her legs for a married man is not doing an incredible tornado amount of damage to all those that loved that person. Do they even know the extent of the love we had for them? I’m just not getting it after 35 yrs with my guy…..a complete foreigner who is happy to leave me with all the dogs so he can go to the playground. The KIDS should be going to the playground with them. I really thought we were both a little too old for that stuff. Where do they get the balls? I bet they don’t have even one to rally around a golf course with. Just pathetic Cripples, the lot of them.
I had the experience of discovering my ex wife’s Ashley Madison liaisons when she left her email open one evening. To see my address given out to at least 4 strangers who ended up in my bed, in my home where my 10 year old daughter lives was enough to make me nearly pass out.
Sure, my ex was going to find a way to do this without a cheating website, but I don’t know how the founder of that site can live with himself. Oh I know, he’s a greedy, sociopathic narcissist.
Your HOME address was posted on an international website for cheaters? Admit1 – there has GOT to be something illegal about that. She is putting you and your 10 yr old innocent daughter in incredible harm. I hope you put an end to her and her careless antics. She’s not worth the dna she was born with. Your child needs you more than ever – please get out of your home with her as soon as possible. This just scares the shit out of me. So sorry to hear the pain this must be causing. The balls of these people to not think of consequences.
OMG… Your ” Wife” DESERVES a KICK in The TEETH.
Stupid Bitch Could have Put your Whole Family in Harm’s Way.
Reminds me of Michael Corleone – ‘”IN MY HOME! IN MY BEDROOM! Where my wife sleeps… and my children play with their toys.”
THIS.
Sometimes I just feel like the world is spiraling out of control at such a pace. What should be up is down, black is white, bad is good, good is bad, backwards is right side up. My heart truly aches for mankind. When social pressure for decency is removed or overruled by shamelessness, this is what we get. For those of us who believe is honesty, trust, being accountable and doing the right thing……well, sometimes I feel like the World’s Biggest Sucker. And even if at the end of the day I can say that I am doing the right thing(s), it sure is a lonely place to be. this new world. Changing so fast & now it is the whole world, not just the US. Corruption, materialism & immorality are the soup de jour. I guess I am a “poor hotdog” who is not only worried about this place, but trying to find meaning in it. I am sorry Chumps if this post is a downer, but I need to express it. This AM thing is a travesty. There is no way he can believe his own shit, he just loves money & will lie & have “fake” things going on to make it more profitable. His wife is a fool not to unload his ass, at least she won’t have to work for the rest of her life due to her divorce like some Chumps (myself included.) That blood money would be (is) covered with the screams, cries, tears & the forever scars of millions of children and adults alike.
You are Soo Right.
Shit..One of the Reasons I HATE my EX is, He Left Me NO CHOICE but to raise my Daughter ALONE in this Dangerous World..And I Have to Protect Her AGAINST Arseholes LIKE Him. HE Seriously STOLE from Her and Me, EVERYTHING we Deserved to have Because He just HAD to LIE about EVERYTHING he was, Cause He KNEW No DECENT Woman would EVER Deal with him, if they KNEW the TRUTH about him.
It’s fucking FRAUD. I Deserved to be Married To and have a Child By a DECENT Man..My Daughter Deserved a GOOD FATHER…not a Lying Manipulative MONSTER.
Fucker STOLE from she and I Something we’ll NEVER Get BACK.
Peddling in human suffering – same dynamic, different product. We are going to hell in a hand basket.
There are far too many parallels in the modern world with the decline of the Roman Empire (over taxed, over centralised, too much bureaucracy, moral collapse). ‘The West is sleepwalking to disaster’ – Thomas Sowell.
Please please please can this asshole be slapped with a class suit, by several traumatised children.
Whenever somebody pitches you a “Decline of the Roman Empire” speech, suspect them because chances are they don’t know what they are talking about and know you don’t know any better either.
For example, Constatine split the Empire into two: The Western half (spoke Latin and was Roman Catholic and the Eastern half (spoke Greek and was Eastern Orthodox Christian).
While the Eastern Empire thrived for hundreds of years, the Western Empire began and almost steady decline due to a number of factors:
western part of the Roman Empire fell, the eastern half continued to exist as the Byzantine Empire for hundreds of years. Therefore, the “fall of Rome” really refers only to the fall of the western half of the Empire.
Other fundamental problems contributed to the fall. In the economically ailing west, a decrease in agricultural production led to higher food prices. The western half of the empire had a large trade deficit with the eastern half. The west purchased luxury goods from the east but had nothing to offer in exchange. To make up for the lack of money, the government began producing more coins with less silver content. This led to inflation. Finally, piracy and attacks from Germanic tribes disrupted the flow of trade, especially in the west.
There were political and military difficulties, as well. It didn’t help matters that political amateurs were in control of Rome in the years leading up to its fall. Army generals dominated the emperorship, and corruption was rampant. Over time, the military was transformed into a mercenary army with no real loyalty to Rome. As money grew tight, the government hired the cheaper and less reliable Germanic soldiers to fight in Roman armies. By the end, these armies were defending Rome against their fellow Germanic tribesmen. Under these circumstances, the sack of Rome came as no surprise.
http://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp
Left out of that discussion is why was the Western (and this is true of the Eastern Empire too) so reliant on mercenaries? Because early Christians believed killing–even in war–was a sin, so they refused to fight, and since both states were Christian theocracies, this was tolerated… at least until Church officials later determined that it was not a sin to kill in battle (even aggression) if it was state sanctioned.
In the longer-lived Eastern (Byzantine) half of the empire, Caeser was regarded as Christ’s direct representative on earth, and it was Constatine in this role who oversaw the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (you might remember that this was the beginning of formalizing Christian canon, and the Third Council of Nicaea produced the first official, canonized Christian Bible).
Now… much later after the fall of the Western Empire and in the waning days of the Byzantine Empire, taxation did become an issue, but mostly just for peasant farmers who fell victim to rising taxes, predatory loans to pay their annual taxes, and land confiscation by wealthy creditors who–due to their power in the court–managed to get themselves exempted from these taxes. The primary cause of the rising taxes on the poor, then, has two causes: the wealthy being exempted, and the reliance on costly mercenaries to fight the many, many continuous and ongoing wars of the Byzantine Empire.
To escape their creditors, men would join monasteries and send their families to join nunneries and such because the alternative was imprisonment. Religious enclaves were a real growth area as the population declined otherwise due to people migrating (fleeing really) the empire.
Eventually, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire.
That’s oversimplifying things a bit and just hitting some highlights, but I think it pretty much addresses why Sowell is off-mark and is taking liberty with history to promote his own agenda.
THIS !!!!
Hey, anyone else question the 40 million a week figure? I know about business, if those numbers are real, competition would have swooped in by now. I call bullshit. Maybe someone should also call the IRS. I think this guy could by Angola.
Hey guys, all we have to do is go on leisurely picnics and look at our part and infidelity will help our marriages THRIVE!! Or so Dr. Alicia H. Clark says: (some highlights:)
“Here’s How Your Marriage Can Survive And Thrive After Infidelity.”
04/19/14 02:40 PM ET
By Dr. Alicia H. Clark for YourTango
“Betrayal, deception, mistrust…but if both parties are willing, a marital affair is something that can be worked through, allowing the marriage to not only continue, but in fact to thrive.
Here’s how to process an affair to come out ahead in your marriage.
1. … In my 15+ years of working as a psychologist, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing countless couples revive their relationship after a marital affair… Forgiveness is a choice and a method by which we move forward.
2. Take responsibility for your part now…opportunity for both parties to examine where they may have emotionally defaulted… What types of support can they now start to implement?
…responsibility for their role…This can be hard to absorb for many people in the throes of betrayal…
3. Institute kind, open and routine communication . Free-flowing, yet always respectful, communication…Fluid speech involves sharing your feelings as well as listening carefully to your partner’s experiences, and peppering your day by being in touch when you’re not together…
4. Be willing to stretch…when you are angry at your partner — take a step back and ask, “What can I do for him/her today? How can I give? What wishes can I grant them?”
5. Make dates. Whether a two-hour leisurely picnic in the park or a full-on Broadway show night on the town, make sure to schedule in dates at least once a week…
Using the above methods to restore a relationship’s positivity will inevitably lead to restoring trust and returning real, ever-present love…Ultimately, as hard as it might sound…a marital affair can be a turning point for recreating a solid, united, lasting relationship.”
If I’d only gone on a picnic and anguished more over what a failure I was.
She should go on picnics with Andrew G. Marshall. I think he’s available….
FUCK THAT NOISE !!!
Exactly. But I’m stunned she got published–certain people just shouldn’t be granted freedom of speech. Yep, flowy communication and a picnic with canned self-flogging would certainly have saved us. It would reinforce that he could be a dick AND I would feed him, while apologizing for taking up his fuckbuddy time. Why didn’t someone think up these revolutionary ideas decades ago? “Communication” with my soon ex was akin to having a heart to heart with a refrigerator.
From today’s comments, I think there’s a new slogan to combat Trashley – “life’s too short to stay with a cheater.”
Being very new to this blog, I only just read this. I had no idea a dating website specifically for cheaters even existed.
The amount of mainstream press given to cheaters and why they cheat is disgraceful. And the theme always seems to be some variation on “cheaters cheat because they’re unhappy”. Fuck that. They cheat because they’re entitled, bratty little assholes who should all be shipped to Atlantis.
Would be great to have a website where you could create a profile of your cheating spouse, with photos, that could be browsed by anyone. Could even somehow hook it into the existing dating sites so that you could run a check on potential dates to see if they’ve got a history of infidelity. Facial recognition software these days would do a pretty decent job of matching people’s profile photo’s.
Kendoll, there is a site called Cheaterville where you can do exactly that.
I am Katherine from the news story. I’m happy to report that my husband and I received counseling and have now been married for 22 years and living happily in a new town.