I seem to be attracting a few trolls lately. I don’t know what I did to trip the troll wire, but apparently my existence pisses them off and they feel the need to tell me about it — and of course warn you all, lest I corrupt your gullible minds.
I know it’s best to ignore the haters, or reply to them with kitten pictures (as one chump brilliantly suggested). But today I thought I’d create a little Troll FAQ and respond to the vitriol.
Why is Chumplady still living in the past if she is happily remarried?
This is one of those “How long have you been beating your wife?” questions. To answer it is to concede that I “live in the past.”
I find it very weird that trolls think my blog is all about MY story. Generally speaking, I don’t write about myself. I answer other people’s letters, draw cartoons, and snark about infidelity in the news.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the personal memoir blog. Much infidelity writing online is of the personal journal sort — My Emotional Rollercoaster of Betrayal kind of thing. But I deliberately set out to create a different sort of space. Chump Lady is an oasis focused on saving chump’s sanity — not their marriages.
It’s a place for EVERYONE to share their stories. I participate in sharing my story because I lived this, and that’s my Chump Lady cred — I’m a chump. This blog began as a sort of brain dump about what I learned about infidelity, and it grew from there.
Now, it’s a fair point to wonder why — if I’m so moved on — do I feel the need to blog about infidelity?
Bloody-mindness, troll. To this day it still angers me that the overwhelming resources on the web are about reconciliation and guilting chumps into “owning” their part of another’s abuse of them. Every day the media posts some click bait on Why My Affair Is Really Sexy and Special… (“The Affair” won a Golden Globe, case in point)… and I feel compelled to offer an opposing point of view. That affairs are narcissistic, hurtful — and pathetically deserving of ridicule.
Call me crazy, but I think chumps are underdogs. Maybe it’s studying with African Marxists and my useless masters degree in history, but I believe in underdogs. I think their story deserves telling, and the dominant narrative often deserves a middle finger.
I also blog about infidelity because no one else was claiming the “leave a cheater” space. I had a hunch other people felt like I did and — 2.5 years later? Over 4.1 million page views. Yeah, a few people feel similarly.
I fear her anger and bitterness have permanently broken her picker. Maybe? Yes? No?
Oh dear. You fear for me!
Do you worry I might trip and fall and break my picker? Admittedly, I was pretty awful at choosing husbands, but I’ve improved significantly, thanks for asking. Very happily married for going on 5 years.
As for “anger and bitterness”? How is telling people to “gain a life” after infidelity angry or bitter?
Have you seen my cartoons?
See? It’s a cute monkey! And look! I can also draw unicorns! And teddy bears and boxes of Wheatena and Jesus.
I think the only reason you may find me “bitter and angry” is that I advocate gaining a life without a cheater (or failing that, staying with a very generous post-nup). So that puts me at odds with the Reconcile or Die folks. You can protect yourself without bitterness, troll, and anger is often the fuel that propels a person to protect themselves, so I’m not down on anger. It’s useful, if finite. 
Also she spends waaaaaay too much time focused on her past negative spouses. So much time that I fear she will spend too much time wallowing in negativity and ruin her new marriage. Not to mention all the time she wastes here focusing on long dead relationships.
I can’t help but think you’d love nothing more for me than to “ruin” my marriage, because that would vindicate a POV that advocates me clinging to my cheater. God forbid there’s a better life, or better relationship, on the other side. Much better to tell yourself that really my husband is a cheater, like your husband. They all suck and I’m kidding myself. I can’t distinguish steak from shit sandwiches.
As for wasting my time? I’m proud of my work here. When I get a letter like “Some Day“, I bawl to think Chump Nation helped someone that much.
Take heed chump sycophants.
Yes, anyone who agrees with me must be a sycophant. Pretty condescending there, troll. Scary to consider hundreds of thousands of people have found this blog and can think for themselves. I must have super powers! I can compel people to cheat on me AND obey me with their sycophancy!
The lady’s attitude and entrenchment in the past is toxic, IMO. Run. Ruuuuuun like the wind. Stop focusing on the past. Move on. Forgive your spouse or don’t, but for cripes sake move on.
Troll, I’m not focused on the past — Chump Lady is about “gaining a life.” A NEW life. That’s a focus on the future — the “what next” after infidelity. You could make a good argument that reconciliation is a focus on the past, an inability to imagine a new cheater-free life. (More self respect! Less mindfuckery!) It’s a long struggle to “move on” when you’re living with the very person who gutted you. Ask a bunch of survivors of false reconciliation how they know.
I find it weird that you think people don’t “move on” from this site. One of the interesting things I’ve found with this blog is the large number of people it helps who, hey, actually MOVE ON. Unlike unicorn sites, they’re not here 7 years later triggering. Don’t get me wrong, I love my veteran chumps, I get attached. But then I’m happy too when they write back to say oh hey, they reached meh and don’t read as much any more, or they send me their engagement announcements, or job promotion news. I’m kind of in the business of making myself obsolete, except so many new chumps are minted every day.
And I know it’s hard for a troll like you to consider, but some of us like to pay it forward. We’re not here to wallow and stay stuck, we’re here to help UN-stick the others. Think of it as a chump underground railroad.
These ladies are all bitches that’s why they were cheated on once and they will all be cheated on again. Let them rant. Your wasting your time. Just like the people who cheat and blame, they are bitches and blame. Like you said folks got to own their own shit. Chump lady is a chump mainly because what’s she going to do with this blog when her next spouse cheats, if she ever finds anyone to marry her, again. She likely will cause despite her muffin top, she’s kinda cute, but she sounds like a blamer and very unforgiving.
Gee, I can’t imagine why I don’t want to have a respectful exchange of ideas with this fuckwit. I get blamed for “banning” people — to date, none of the aforementioned trolls are banned — but do I have to point out the OBVIOUS here? Trolling is throwing a Molotov cocktail into the discussion — it’s not a dissenting opinion. It’s insults and no substance.
Now, if he wanted to call me a bitch and logically tear my arguments apart, I don’t mind. Curse all you want to. But this guy just wants to patronize me and let me know even though I’m unforgiving, hey, I’m still fuckable. Someone might even marry me! (OMG, we’re all lining up for a smooth talker like you, Bevin.)
If you’ve got something to say, dissenting or otherwise, you’re welcome here. If you’re a troll? Please fuck off.
Not getting into whatever I did to piss SI off, but if you want me to post more about it, I will, if anyone’s curious. Or I’ll address it in today’s comment. Not sure how much more air time I want to devote to troll grievances really.
I shared a picture of Anthony Weiner and Erica Holder running for Pres. and VP on the men’s forum…Get it “Wiener Holder”?… So, SI banned be for being political (tough not to be when you are a political science professor) …I am so glad that they did,or I might still be stuck with a serial cheater…Now I am free, divorced, and in love with a good friend from college I knew 20 yrs ago…I have truly reached “meh” and this blog was central to the process of gaining a life…Thank you so much!
CL, I think you have responded in a classy manner. No more to say. They’re not really listening anyway.
I am being totally selfish here but I don’t want trolls here and I think that giving them more of your time will encourage them. Well, that’s my fear anyway. This is a safe place to find support from other “in the trenches”. This site is a life saver. The scarier thought is that the trolls are the cheaters being discussed on this site. They will stalk us and use what we say here against us…if they can figure out who we are.
Exactly, people who won’t listen can’t hear. Doesn’t matter what CL say they’ll twist it into something else, and when cheaters run out of word the last move is typically labelling us as bitter
I agree – they don’t listen, don’t hear and/or don’t agree – who gives a shit that they call you names CL or try to categorize chumps on this site as bitter – we are not bitter we are mighty, Surely they have better things to do than troll and google this site where chumps find great support – honestly don’t they have hobbies??? Everytime an oppressed minority finally stands up and says fuck it I’m not going to put up with this shit any more there are an annoying vocal minority that don’t attack them. Thank you CL saying loud and proud – cheating is not OK and for empowering other to say the same, and thank you for starting this blog. Thank you for writing so insightfully and articulately regarding this topic and for not pandering to the ‘anything goes’ bullshit that seems to surround modern monogamy and marriage. I read this blog obsessively when I first found it after Dday – I read the book and wrote many responses. I helped me move from a very bad place and I am finally starting to feel that my life has started over – new job new state, new wonderful life. I didn’t think I would make it through the first 8 months without being sectioned or jumping in front of a truck…….. But sorting through my situation by reading others stories on line has helped me to process what happened to my life and how it destroyed my precious family thank you CL for facilitating that recovery and for building a platform for the public to share their experiences and wisdom on this topic
Conniered…….agreed!
Way to go, Cletus!!!!
Hilarious, Cletus. F’ing hilarious.
I have no political party affiliation other than Independent.
Me. too, Cletus. I merely mentioned Hillary Clinton as a betrayed spouse and was banned. No political content whatsoever.
But, before the banning , I got a few warnings that my continued advocacy for divorce and research on personality disorders was out of line.
So, they were gunning for me.
Despite SI’s representation that one can express pro divorce views respectfully, it doe not really tolerate a view other than pro reconciliation.
I agree, and their name is appropriate…SI is only about “surviving” and continuing to “eat shit sandwiches” … In other words, they are not named “Flourishing (after) Infidelity”… Which is the service CL provides.
I could not for the life of me figure out what SI meant. Now I get it.
I threw the fuckers out the minute I found out. Somehow I knew deep inside there was no surviving living with a cheater.
My pain was too great.
You are awesome, Calamity, and a role model to the rest of us! It’s true–who wants to live with that kind of pain, with the person who caused it still in your bed and your home? “Well, yes, I would like to walk around with this rusty nail stuck through my foot to build character.”
Cletus, I was booted from SI as well over something equally dumb. I truly can’t even remember what now, but my sense at the time was very much “I was banned for THAT?” After months of walking on eggshells and speaking in code about the futility of reconciliation. It just made no sense.
In retrospect, I think their M.O over there is to place anyone they deem an Enemy of Reconciliation on a Sh*t List and then look for pretextual reasons to give them the boot. The more unrelated to reconciliation, the better, as they are trying very hard to keep their bias hidden. That’s why so many folks are kicked off for politics and jokes and such.
The folks who run SI certainly have a right to edit their site so as to deliver their message more efficiently, but they should be above board about their goals and values when they do that. If I ran the Internet, I’d make SI run a banner above their home page that read, “Stay With a Cheater, Cling Desperately to an Painful and Diminishing Life.”
I went over there (SI) in the early post D-days (CL didn’t exist yet, alas!!) but even in my very confused state, I was seriously confused by the people who had multiple…multiple! D-days, D-people, the cross-switching cheating whatever that code is you cheat on me, I’ll cheat on you, we’re even, all better now? No? huh….)
I just could not for the life of me get the notion of hanging out for dozens of years of shit sandwiches. Now, I know there are folk here who have been through that special hell, but they tend to talk about their experience in , “I didn’t know another way out” kinds of terms, not “and then I was waiting for the next one”. And they certainly didn’t have little tallies of marriages, divorces, cheating episodes and what-nots after their names. I really did find that score-keeping pretty creepy.
I read more than one thread of Dday #5 and even #7, seriously ?!!! He doesn’t need a 2*4, he need to be smacked with a whole redwood.
A little off the beaten path, all, but I just saw this come across on facebook. Had to share. http://nypost.com/2015/01/13/wife-chops-off-cheating-husbands-penis-twice/
While I think every Chump feels that cutting out/off the offending organ might be poetic justice (and think hard about the analogous act for women!), I think the anger is better channeled at finding a cheater-free life. 🙂
It’s never worth going to jail for. Living well–ah! The best revenge!
It amazes me how the very folks that spout off that we all have a right to express ourselves – get really angry when an opposite point of view is expressed.
If this site doesn’t help you – find what does! I love You CL and all my fellow chumps. Reading about other chumps’ struggles help me recognize ups and downs that are inevitable in this process.
Yup. Exactly. I think a lot of the vitriol comes from their insecurity that most of those people intrinsicly know that the R is a complete waste of time.
Some seek affirmation that their 180 routine and such is the promised path to the magical unicorn. I sense many get pissed when their thin veil of happiness R is pulled away- they know their marriage is rotten but have been encouraged to save it at all (sunk) costs. That would piss me off too. So kill the messenger. It’s easier than dealing with reality.
I agree ANC. It isn’t that they have a dissenting opinion, they know that what we advocate is the truth, and they aren’t ready to face it. People who are comfortable with their decisions don’t get hostile.
I would be interested in hearing about the SI ban, but I’m going to guess that it’s because your message might put them out of business.
Well, it’s just a rumor, but the story I heard is that CL was banned by SI after she used so much logic and evidence in one post that the whole site locked up and wouldn’t work for three days until a dozen Waywards stood in a circle holding hands and chanting “But it’s so hard being us!” and the ghost of a unicorn appeared out of thin air and rammed the site’s server with its magical horn, rebooting all the of circular discussions about responding to soul-crushing pain with delusion and inaction. But that’s just a rumor.
Nomar – you kill me! 😀
That’s a hell of a post, Nomar!
I see a book in Nomar’s future, illistrated by CL.
LLL!
Oops, I mean LOL!
Where’s the like button?
Yeah, where’s the like button. That is hysterically funny! And true! These people are so obviously miserable that it has made them insane and they are jealous of your happiness Chump Lady. Being married to a cheater and trying to make that work would make me miserable too and jealous of those who are happy like Chump Lady. It is so obvious.
This is hilarious!!
+1 I want to hear too
I visited SI for a while until i read to many apologist. At least at TAM there are several members who can be the 2*4. In my opinion it goes like this:
CL
TAM
SI
MB
LS (should be looney shack, few are great though)
What are these sites full names? Understand Chump Lady and Surviving Infidelity, but the others please?
Talk About Marriage
marriage Builders
Loveshack ( where I have been banned three times for not being understanding to serial other women)
You left out a few of them, but it’s better not to speak the name of demons 😉 So I am not saying anything.
Although some of those sites are useful in a way they may not realize. There is an Australian woman who writes very articulately about her year of reconciliation, Shattered by my Husband’s Affair. Lots of astute observations, but when, 11 months after D-day, she was still on antianxiety meds, antidepressants, and noticed that for the first time, she had had more good days than bad that week, I bailed. “Is that what I’m in for if I reconcile?” I thought. Thankfully, I found CL the following week; the clouds parted and sun shone down upon me.
We’re into month 8 of reconciliation. Good weeks with an occasional YOU STUPID FUCKTARD thrown in for good measure. JK. There was Marriage Fitness, 58 (yes, you read this correctly) 58 books that we read TOGETHER on how to help ME get over HIS cheating (at age 60, I figured why not give this a shot after 30 years together?), marriage therapy, praying together, Marriage Encounter Weekend. I must say he is a changed man. Is it easy? NO IT IS NOT. He is a model of perfection. What I signed up for when I married him. So while it is possible to reconcile, HE must change and WE must heal. I will say that if he EVER so much as gives me ANY kind of hint that he is even THINKING of ANY cheating, he is GONE. Oh, we did a post-nuptial where I get ALL of the assets if he cheats again. It was the one condition I had for staying and trying to reconcile. When he didn’t hesitate to sign over the house and sign the legal papers at the lawyers, I knew I could give him another chance.
I dont know what SI stands for but i have been on TAM (with the same username). they were the first to tell me i was a doormat. i found the site to be helpful and the people were nice and direct (because my stupid head needs to be hit full on before i get it) i havent been back for a couple of years. the last time i read some of my old post were painful.
Chump Change……wow, thanks for asking the question; I thought I was the only lost soul on here not knowing what it all stood for. Got it now!
Reposting from yesterdays thread – I’ve been on SI since the beginning of 2013 and I haven’t seen a single person suggest that the betrayed spouse had done anything to cause the infidelity. Quite the opposite. In fact, it’s only the new members in JFO (Just found out) who come to SI with the naïve opinion that they did something to cause their spouse to cheat. They are very quickly corrected by EVERY single veteran on there. The entire site is focussed on either divorce and moving on or reconciliation under the strictest circumstances where the cheater demonstrates true remorse (not immitation remorse). I suppose it’s possible that it may have been different a couple of years ago, but it’s not like that now. At all.
It’s called ‘Surviving Infidelity’ not ‘Reconciling with a Cheater’
Yes, but it does treat cheaters as if they are normal, non-disordered types. This is a big mistake, IMO.
^ THIS!!!
I think that the view that most cheaters are broken people who can be saved with therapy and “owning their shit” keeps a lot of chumps stuck.
Time and time again chumps are on there talking about finding the right therapist, and doing the 180 properly and getting their cheater on the right meds, while the cheater…well keeps on lying and cheating and gaslighting. Even the protected wayward group are full of people who keep making “mistakes” and having “boundary lapses” and “lingering thoughts”. Pffft.
What SI should tell people that most cheaters are selfish liars to the core and will remain so in some shape or form for their entire lives. The rare cheater who cheating was not a symptom of their faulty character and just a one off “oopsie” is so seldom seem we should all play their birthday in the lottery.
Whenever I see a post in the “Just Found Out” section of SI with a list of multiple DDays and multiple OWs and OMs, I have to admit, I just want to scream: “You know what you’re dealing with already… just get the fuck out or OWN YOUR CHOICE to remain married to a creep.”
But not a single person actually says that. They just continue to treat the habitual chump as if he or she is a person being blindsided for the first time and that maybe there is hope for genuine reconciliation instead of rug sweeping.
I think you’ve hit on the big question. Are all cheaters disordered? Certainly, cheating points to (as CL calls it) “shitty character,” but I’ve known a few people who had affairs, regretted the damage, and fixed their character issues. On the other hand, we have people like we read about here, who have true character disorders and really (in the case of sociopathy or NPD or borderlines, etc.) cannot be helped in most cases.
The single most important thing I learned on this site was how to understand a whole lot of things that made no logical sense–how I could be in a happy relationship, making plans together and he encounters MOW and the next minute, it’s over, without a word to me about it. Which of course made it easier for him to keep my money. I do therapy every week with a wonderful therapist, but what reset my thinking was learning that it is possible to know someone for years and not understand that he has NO EMPATHY.
And apropos of trolls, there is something very wrong with people who need to come on to websites of generally like-minded people and tell them how wrong they are. There have been chumps in reconciliation here that I’ve worried about, prayed for, and hoped for. I was lucky. I had a great therapist who got me through DDay and a great friend who held my hand through the first weeks. But as happens with many chumps abused by someone with NPD, I was a trauma victim saying one thing (“I will never go back”) while thinking about how he would someday come up the driveway and say how stupid he was. I might have spent years in that emotional limbo, but CL and this site (as well as Lady With a Truck and Dr. Simon) provided the information I needed to understand that Jackass has NPD and thinking about him as a normal person is an exercise in futility. And perhaps more important, that information gave me perspective as I did the work assigned by my therapist and my spiritual advisor of confronting the relationship choices I have made over the past 40+ years in order to heal those hurt places that left me vulnerable to someone with no empathy or conscience.
I still read and post here because I am at Meh (most of the time) and owe such a debt of gratitude to this community. Reading here and writing here still helps me see my experience clearly and chart my recovery. There is nothing more inspiring than reading posts in which Chumps have been mighty.
Trolls, some vets (I am here less than a year) hang out for a while to give back and to support our Chump Nation friends who are at earlier stages or who get caught in legal struggles with ranging narcissists. That’s not bitterness. That’s empathy. Caring. Giving back. Love. And I will definitely stick around to hear Glad’s naked gardening story, no matter how long it takes….
LAJ – you’ve been a brilliant support too! Meh for me is so close I can almost taste it, and that’s wonderful!
What happened to us was life-changing and coming back here, where I received so much support and insight at the most dreadful time of my life is a touchstone of ‘sanity in a world gone mad’. Plus, I’ve grown to love so many people here – such kindness and humour and understanding.
LAJ, Glad already posted the gardening story yesterday. Check it out.
Oh, the internet was down at home and it was first day back for the semester. Off I go to read. Thanks Uniquelyme. 🙂
You said that so perfectly.
LAJ,
{{{{ HUGS HUGS HUGS }}}}
You are precious to me, too…..
You spoke what so many of us feel. Love You!
You too, Jayne…..
And I hope you found the ‘Naked Gardening’ account! Really Cool!
I’m of the opinion that the ONLY time a cheater would be able to be given a second chance is if it truly was a one-off, and the cheater came to you of their own accord immediately thereafter (without any threat of being exposed by AP or others), was contrite, 100% truthful on what happened and would bend over backwards and crawl through broken glass to help you heal. Things like signing over all their assets to the chump if it ever happened again, and stuff like that.
Fact is though, thats too much hard work for someone where their mindset is KIBBLES CAKE ME ME ME!!!!!! Too much personality-disordered fuckwittery in deceiving your partner, methinks.
Thing is, the level of deception involved (and lack of boundaries) are red flags enough to turf someone. Don’t know why you’d want to stay with someone who is weak-minded like that.
My biggest beef with SI is that there are people constantly referred to their own or the cheater spouses as sufferers of “Sexual Addiction,” which is NOT a mental disorder recognized by the last two versions of the DSM. “Sexual addiction”, however, is a common symptom of personality disorders, but any mention of this distinction is always treated derisively.
Pfft.
‘Sexual addiction’ is just a label for someone who employs no self control and acts like a toddler when it comes to wanting sex. As far as I’m concerned, theres no such thing.
Personality disordered types jump all over it as an excuse, though.
Heaven forbid we should have any self control when it comes to acting on sexual desire!
Actually, I found CL through SI, but accidentally, thank God in his infinite and wisdom and mercy for that. Someone posting there mentioned her and some advice she had given that they found useful and I wandered to this site to read it.
I visited SI a few times after that, but I realized after visiting that I would feel overwhelmed, depressed and like I wanted to die. When I read here, I felt empowered, I read things that actually made sense (i.e., cheating is abuse, they suck, etc.) to my situation and I would feel validated. Then I started to feel empowered and then I started believe there could be life after The Flaming Cheating Turd from the furthest reaches of Satan’s Ass, I stopped feeling suicidal and depressed – and when I would feel depressed, CL or this group of Chumps would always have commentary that brought me out of it.
Underground Railroad for Chumps indeed. You certainly saved my life (literally, along with my therapist) and my sanity. Not so much, SI. I salute you Harriet Whiteman! 😉
Oh, hell! I was curious about what SI meant and found out in someone’s post on here. Now I feel like I want to take 40 showers. I clicked on the “Wayward Side” and all they talk about is sex. Why the person they cheated on won’t have sex with them. Then other Wayward side fucks give advice about how to get their cheated on spouses to have sex with them. I’ll stop at that.
On top of their stupidity, it’s the stupidest site I’ve come across in my 5 years of looking for online support.
I think it would be an honor to be kicked of, CL. Seriously!
When I do engage in a conversation with other chumpities, I find 2 types. Victims or Fuck You’s. I like the Fuck You clan. This site, for me and my opinion only, reigns the Fuck You with a flying cape. That’s the side of the fence I want, the side of the fence that empowers me.
I have never felt like the victim. Sure I get pissed off and sad (sometimes), but I don’t wallow or play the ‘woos me’ song – only someone who was tangled in someone else’s web and had to find my way out ON MY OWN and some help from my friends (thanks Beatles 😀 ) – not dragging the world behind me with a costco sized box of kleenex. Yuck.
Tracy,
You saved my sanity. I wish I had something more powerful to say…. But all I can think of that I say with my whole heart and six generations of religious devotion is, “God bless you and your family forever and ever.” 🙂
Trolls are all about TELLING you who you are, what you should think, do, say. Kind of like some people you THOUGHT were “friends” pre D-Day.
I decided post D-Day that the only people whom I would call “friends” were those who, while making sure I had lots of information (“so, you are aware that…”), told me in words and actions that they supported me in WHATEVER decision I would make: stay or go, reconcile or divorce, take him back or shoot him between the eyes (JUST kidding….).
CL and the Chump Nation act more like friends than many whom I called so.
I only recently began to understand the term “haters gotta hate”. Not a common saying here in Australia, but I see it in action all the time on internet forums. Where there is anonymity, of course. These idiots are so gutless. They just have to throw a spanner in the works because they can.
CL, your site saved my sanity. You are so accurate, well considered and intelligent. Unlike the herd of idiots you quoted today. It may seem futile at times, arguing against the RIC, but trust me you are making big difference to many of us. Divorce is still not complete for me 18 months after separation, and 4.5 years after Dday. But almost there. I can’t wait to celebrate that day. It will be such a relief.
ChChChChump…..”CL and the Chump Nation act more like friends than many whom I called so”. Thats for damned sure!!!
CL….all this trolling is a reflection of your popularity…. Its kinda like highschool….ya know the girl who starts a trend… And at first the ‘ in ‘ crowd berate and talk it down…. Cause u aint one of the cool kids …. But next thing you know…. They want to be that girl.
You are Tracy from Hairspray…. Not afraid to shake it up…. Try something new….and lead the way…
They ( the Trolls) are still stuck and afraid… They wanna come over…they wanna be kool kids too.
Consider a ‘Chump’ t-shirt… I’ll buy one.
Clip: How about this one: http://sucioperro.com/shop/shirts/mens/chump-t-shirt/
Love. It.
Thank you for answering the trolls, CL!! Might as well converse with a windowpane, of course (and Bevin sounds like my bully brother-in-law,–the one I really wish would be washed out to sea).
What I most object to is the trolls’ patronizing tone. Anyone who writes as well as “Your [sic] wasting your time. Just like the people who cheat and blame, they are bitches and blame. Like you said folks got to own their own shit.” should really go get those Beginning Phonics readers they sell in book stores before they advance to full sentences and dishing out advice.
Hey Trolls:
I am a chump, and I am pretty much at “meh.” When I see the exH (and OWife) I pretty much feel pity. They both cheated on their spouses.
ExH and I are off to court soon over child support. This is not anger and bitterness– exH moved out of state, kids are with me full time, but ex does not want to increase child support. So, court it is.
I come to CL to help support fellow chumps, to let them know they are not alone. I share my experience when it helps, otherwise I am just here to be supportive. That is not bitterness, nor dwelling in the past.
Thank you, Tracy. Your blog is a lifeline.
Wow, that last guy you mentioned is total used-up douchewaste.. Total douchewaste. Nasty little douchewaste dwelling troll.
Why would someone who is happily moved on continue to talk about something bad that happened in their past?
IRL I know:
A Chump who went on to become a counselor and eventually did group-therapy with people going through a divorce (usually a lot of other Chumps). Did this for many years before retirement. Counselor Chump was happily remarried, and wanted to help other people. Kinda reminds me of CL.
A Bully Victim who went on to become a counselor for children and does talk about how bullying affected them as a young adult. It affected them enough that they went on to get many degrees and now has a counseling practice, and yes, young people/bullying is a specialty of it.
Both of those people don’t live in their past, the only time they talk about their past is when they are talking to someone living in a similar situation. They are both genuinely nice people and want to help others.
For some reason, sometimes when something horrible happens to someone and they overcome it, they get this odd desire to want to help others in similar situations. Because many times, people in horrible situations feel like they are alone, that no one else understands. And those that are over it, remember what it felt like to be in that situation, what they needed at the time, whether it’s support, hearing that their needs are not unreasonable, whatever. And for some crazy reason, they want to help how they can.
Yes, there’s a huge difference, in fact they are polar opposites, between living in your past, and making something better out of your past. The trolls (and the cheater apologists) don’t want you to discuss the past because they don’t want to be judged. My ex called any discussion of his lying and cheating and financial parasitism “rewriting history” and “character assassination.” Like young Claire from yesterday’s post, they don’t want to be judged for their “past mistakes” so if you dare to seek justice, or even mention what they did, you must be called “bitter” and obsessed with the past.
I am no longer a chump and, in fact, kicked major ass when X’s cheating was very publicly revealed to me. I first came to this site after I was seriously stalked by OW and needed a safe forum to get advice, comfort and well, just let someone know what I was going through without that being smeared all over the press. I found such a kind, supportive group of people and was able to talk about events that I had been avoiding for years.
I stay for alot of reasons. First, what happened to be was extremely traumatic and, like most traumatic events, it takes years to recover from that kind of betrayal. Sharing my story has helped my recovery more than anything I have done. I also like to think that my comments are helpful to people who are recent chumps, to let them know that they can not only survive, but actually thrive, after experiencing infidelity. I also love reading the comments posted here and find the folks, who take time out of their day to comment, to be smart, witty, and perceptive. Folks like Nomar and PF are freaking hilarious! The Clip should be looking to publish. And GIO never fails to make me grin…that Yeti clip is in a class of its own. I have also read some heartbreaking stories, like Tessie’s, and am in awe of her strength and grace.
So, I really don’t care if some troll thinks I am a “bitter bunny”. I will continue to come here for my daily dose of Vitamin Meh and enjoy reading the comments of good, honest people who are helping one another heal.
Violet! {{{{ Me waving pom-poms and cheering!! }}}}
{{{{Cheering too!!}}}}
I think you’re better, not bitter, Violet! I come here for the same reasons. Rock on, sista!
“Vitamin Meh” – that’s very marketable!
Violet, couldn’t of said it better! and I love “Vitamin Meh”
You go Violet!
I want a Vitamin Meh T-shirt!
I just found out that my STBX is trolling you site for anything i posted and his lawyer asked that i remove it (even though it doesnt have his name or mine) and wants me to sign some rule to not make “disparaging” remarks about in in social media or on the internet. The rule doesn’t give specifics and there is no way i am not writing about the abuse and betrayal i have suffered because it is part of the healing process. Your site has given me hope and courage and i can’t wait to reach Meh so i don’t need validation for my suffering anymore.Trolls are just people that are trying to block the truth and write their own story instead. Meh!
Hope your hubby reads this: “They aren’t disparaging remarks if they are true. Don’t like your press? Don’t be a douche, you control freak!”
^This times 1000.
If he didn’t want people to know he was a man whore, he shouldn’t have acted like one.
ThatGirl, that was my laugh for the day so thanks. Man whore…have to remember that one.
ThatGirl……”If he didn’t want people to know he was a man whore, he shouldn’t have acted like one”. I think you probably meant that he shouldn’t have been one!
Oh- yeah–Ex was a poor widdle snausage: “I’m sure you tell (daughter) all kinds of terrible things.” No.
(1) we don’t waste our time talking about you, ya dope.
(2) She knows the truth–if it’s awful, then don’t do awful things.
(3) I’m actually pretty chumpy (for daughter’s sake) telling her he loved her as best he could…[which is of course not really at all, since he lack empathy, but it’s a better message for a kid than, “Hey, your dad is a total asshat! He abandoned you emotionally when you hit about age 12.” ]
As if she, the abandoned child, doesn’t know that? Crikey! Talk about lack of Empathy….
My X does the same thing, NamedforVera. He is always pumping the kids for dirt on me, and it has backfired big time.
My youngest son recently had had enough of his father’s bullshit. He interrupted one of his father’s interrogations about me off with, “You know, Dad? I can’t remember the last time Mom even mentioned you. But you can’t stop talking about her and still want to know everything she’s doing.” Then he turned to the bimbo listening to the whole rant and said, “I’d be really nervous about that If I were you.” Did I mention my kids treat her like a big joke? I’m not thrilled by their disrespect, but she definitely is getting payback for fucking their father who was still married to their mother. One of my kids once asked her if she was worried about hell. She replied, “No, why?” He replied, “Because that’s where whores go.”
That put his father into a complete conniption. He told my son he’s just like me. My son deadpanned, “Did you mean to just compliment me? Because you did.”
ChutesandLadders–your son is Awesome, with a capital A!
ChutesandLadders,
Your children are MIGHTY, just like YOU! You have taught them well! THEY are authentic, courageous and precious!
High-five them for me, will ya?!
And C&L, l would not define your children’s attitude as disrespect—- I do believe that SELF-RESPECT is the definition for how that treat the twit. Some people do not deserve any respect and it is clear your children understand that concept!
ForgeOn, all………….
You did a great job with that kid.
Give your son a big hug and kiss from me. Love him!
Chutes…….LOVE LOVE LOVE your kids!! Beautiful!
So. Awesome. Chutes. Love your son!
Awesome son you got there! be proud, be very proud! 🙂
C&L your son sounds like mine. He too has been accused ( by his father) of being just like me. He thought that was a far better option than being thought of as being lik his father.
Kids are not stupid. My children know the truth about their father. We just choose not to dwell on it. But it enables then to decern their fathers actions.
I too am still chumpy to a point as I encourage them to engage as much as they can with their father as he is their father but they know the truth and see his action for what they are.
My job is to insure a safe place for them to fall when it becomes too hard.
Chutes, I love your kids. Are they available for adoption?
Hi C & L I was always taught respect is commanded not demanded. In other words live your life in a way you want others to see you. If you have a S%*tty character then you will be treated as such.
Bwahahahaha! Your son is awesome. The level of snark there – too awesome for words!
I wouldn’t call that disrespect either – just him calling his father out on his shit, which is what a healthy self-respecting person should do. And not tolerating the intrusion of the whore in his young life – showing he has great boundaries even for someone so young.
The sad fact is that your STBX could read any of the comments and see himself in them. Cheaters are neither special nor unique. They seem to have the same playbook. I am sure that if my STBX read this site, he’d be convinced that all posts are about him.
Unless, of course, he feels that his affair is “special,” and that he’s a good person in spite of lying to me, diverting funds to his girlfriend, etc.
Reading your post kb I now have Carly Simons ‘ your so vain ‘ running through my head.
Non of their behaviour is special.
My STBX had me sign a confidentiality agreement as part of our settlement. He Is scared of losing his job.
Sounds as though several of our cheaters are bully narc cheaters who want to do the crime but not do the time (or even let people know what happened). Yet, they repeatedly enthusiastically hurl false and extremely petty accusations at their targets–their own spouses. I wish you strength and support in dealing with these bullies.
This *^^^*
Yes
They are happy to cheat but not happy for us to talk about it.
If we choose divorce we have issues of unforgiveness.
If we refuse to give in to their expectation then they are happy to creat a narrative that paints them as the victim.
My STBX right up to a few months ago was telling friends he hoped that I would reconcile but due to my own issues he doubted this was possible.
No! Due to the fact you chose to cheat on me this is not possible. If they can’t work that out for themselves then they deserve to sit in the dumb ass cheater camp and play mind games with the Narc.
I have revealed my hand and decline to be dealt in any further.
ChumpedtotheMax, he’s probably someone else’s STBX – all the stories are so similar the cheaters can’t tell who’s who…
Jedi Hugs! And don’t sign that ridiculous document. Just get a new nickname
I find it amusing that the Narcs all think ALL we do is think about them…it’s LEAVE a cheater; GAIN a life. Not ,”Leave a cheater, spend the rest of your life mooning over said cheater”…. But when you’re a narcissist, it really is all about you.
Joke: How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb? One. S/He holds the bulb while the world revolves around him/her.
This happens sOOOoooo often, and as everyone has pointed out, the stories are so similar, how could he be certain who you’re talking about and who’s who. As long as you aren’t linking to him IRL, or sharing telling details (i.e., my ex, who lives in Bad Axe, Michigan at 513 Locust St…), I’m unclear on how that is “disparaging” him. Just seems like bullying control tactics to me.
Cheaters hate it when you stray from their narrative. Loss of control! Threats to kibble production!
And of course paradoxically they DO like to imagine you’re talking about them, because that is kibbles too.
Sorry you’re dealing with this.
Chainsaw man is not hard to put together. I’m not signing any agreement. In fact I’ll put a huge sign up on the sails of the Sydney Opera House ” Chainsaw Man Fucks Famlies”. I’d like see him try and sue me and try and prove that statement improper and false.
I thought that the cheaters would come here and cause betrayed spouses some dramas but I don’t think cheaters want to read anything that questions their shitty character so they stay away.
As for poor Annie and other trolls who use the terms “move on” and ” get over it”. Firstly you sound like my ex.
We largely do get over it because after a shock and being smashed around a bit we generally pick ourselves up, dust off the crumbs from the shit sandwiches and get on with it.
What the trolls and cheaters confuse with bitterness and not moving on is we have very clear boundaries and don’t put up with shit anymore.
My ex only sees the boys 60 odd nights a year. Annie darling that’s about 15% of the year. That’s abuse and abandonment.
I’m told I haven’t moved on. Well sorry we have
My youngest son had the best year of his life last year and reckons this year will be even better.
Bungy jumped off the auckland Harbour bridge, attended the inaugural Nines Competition rugby league festival in Auckland, attended his first concert Coldplay, his rugby league team won the grand final, has been chosen in the North Sydney rep side for rugby league, appointed school sports captain 2015, attended john butler trio concert, George Ezra. Going to to the Eagles Concert , 5th Row and his guitar teacher is opening for them.
I have a sensational girl friend who respects the boys, I’ve travelled to numerous places including TEXAS and spent a night in Fort Worth. Being to Phillipines Manila and installed lights at a school for under previliged kids.
We haven’t just moved on Anne. We are living a new life and we don’t put up with any shit from cheaters.
We would not have achieved all this if not for this site and people like Arnold, Dat, and everyone’s encouragement and sharing their own stories and experiences.
If you want to reconcile good for you. We come from Australia and we have a saying GOOD ON YA MATE. In other other words well done and what ever works for you.
The cheaters are just pissed because they are not accepted by many BECAUSE OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR BEHAVIOUR. Good luck to them!
Way to go Baci! It’s nice to hear from you, and great to hear that your boys are doing well.
Oh, so excellent, baci!!
“If they had wanted us to speak well of them, they should have behaved better!”
Loved hearing an update from you about your life and your children.
This is what this blog and Nation are all about…..Helping one another to excel, to achieve, to thrive, to see that the way we love our fellow humans and how we value loyalty & faithfulness is actually a credit to our all-powerful Creator who designed us this way!
All those who prefer lies, deceit, cheating and so on & so on are the work & the hand maidens of the Devil!
PS: Did ya get to see Tracy while in Texas?!
ForgeOn, all…………
Well we hung out out Billy Bob’s ( the biggest Honky Tonk bar in the world complete with its own indoor rodeo.). I spent quite a bit of time with the DJ and ended up giving him my Rabbitohs Cap ( Rabbitohs are famous Rugby League team owned by Russell Crowe) but I couldn’t find Tracy. Looked out for every Red Head!
Has a great weekend. Beautiful people everywhere
Well, baci, I guess Ms. CL just missed out, then, didn’t she?!
l have lived in TX and gone back to visit umpteen many times, but, nope, never been to Billy Bob’s! Sounds like you had a blast!
So glad you are living an authentic, joyous life and sharing it with all the like-minded people here at the ‘Nation’!
Take care, baci….and ForgeOn!
Wow, baci! Your life is a whole lot better than it was when I first came here and you were posting!
You and your boys are way better off without Chainsaw Man and Groceries.
You know, I was talking with my mom the other day, updating her on the divorce proceedings, and telling her I am really ready to get the damn thing finalized and move into the new house. My mom, who’s know about STBX’s cheating since August, made some mention about how at least I won’t need to worry about his comings and goings, where he is, etc.
I thought to myself that I’m largely beyond that. Most of the time, I just wish he’d go hang out at Schmoopie’s house and let me and the dogs live in peace. And I want to have a signed divorce decree and a new house so that I can go to a peaceful home. STBX starts talking and my older dog’s tail tucks between his legs because STBX speaks so loudly it scares the dogs, who think he’s yelling at them.
I have had to live with this crap for a couple of years. I am absolutely ready for Meh. Stories like yours inspire me!
Same here kb. Nord Nomar – so much encouragement in the early days. You just have got to go through the whole journey.
In the early days Groceries has me well and truely on the ropes. She knew what was going on and I had to be one Janes Bond. It wasn’t until I got proper access to her email and text that I finally found the TRUTH. The TRUTH sets you free. Initially you are in so much shock but as you obtain some sort of perspective ( while going insane concurrently) you realise who screwed up cheaters are.
For Groceries it’s all about EAT PREY LOVE. She would watch the movie over and over and I have numerous emails 6 months out from d day full of her crocodile tears. Concurrently she’s setting up with The Chainsaw Man.
They rented at the end of the road and have just bought a house together three blocks away. At least they’re not at the end of the road but not far away. I hardly see them now as they are further from the beach with a huge hill in the way.
She tried to get property settlement going in the early days but I sat on my hand.
I have now filed everything and I have a black belt lady who has a great reputation. She is cool as and has that martial arts image about her.
Looking forward to their response. Groceries has really backed herself into a corner.
She just has the 60 year old chainsaw man.( she’s 47). She’s not happy because we’re not on board with it all. She just has him. It’s not a life I would like but it’s a result of their behaviour. You reap what you sow.
Thank you for your love and support kb
Should be James Bond. Sorry
I am so, so happy for you Baci! HUGS, HUGS, HUGS to you and your boys!
My first post. I’ve been on the site just about everyday for the last year. A year since D-Day. I was told from ex that he was unhappy ( first time in 24 years) and he had been unfaithful. He felt needed but not wanted. As I put the pieces together, the affair had started three months prior ( while I had a broken ankle!)and many “business trips” we’re in fact not. The best lie was my ex being on an overnight trip with my 15 year old son and the OW staying in the next room. That was a turning point for me. I found CL and began to move forward. Sold the house, bought a house, bought a car, got a puppy, took some courses, took time off work, went back to work, finished a separation agreement where he will be paying for the next 11 years, filed for divorce and made him pay for it, go to counselling and continue to raise two kick-ass teenagers. Everyday, every minute of every second, I trust he sucks. When I posted on my Facebook wall my year in detail, CL “liked” it! I was so happy! Amazing, empowering and relevant advice every single time. I trust that Trolls suck and don’t require any more kibels. Thanks everyone!
Welcome Itrusthesucks. You are mighty!
Way to go. You must have some incredible strength. How could he do that to your 15 year old son. Groceries tried it early on but my then 12 year old ran away to a friends when Chainsaw man arrived.
It’s just unfair to put your son in that position. Cheaters are desperate for the world to accept their new relationship and soon find out they face a lonely existence.. They run out of things to sacrifice the new relationship.
Max – a popular quote that often makes its rounds on Pinterest…
“you own everything that happened to you. tell your stories. if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better”
Sing like a bird! you’re in good company here
I put this quote on the cover of my writer board. And if I am ever lucky enough to have novel #2 published, Jackass and MOW will see that their “true love” was very inspiring in that I learned a whole lot about betrayals of all sorts from them. They won’t like what they read, but then they should’ve behaved better. But of course, none of my characters are based on anyone, living or dead. Truly, much of what goes on in Cheaterville is too bizarre; it would not be credible in a work of fiction.
Even if you take a billboard out and plaster his face on it with Cheater in red written across it, it isn’t defamation if it’s true. I can run a hundred witnesses into the courtroom who know that the Cheater in my life is indeed a Jackass, mostly likely his (now former) MOW included. And we are all carefully anonymous here. So–for Mr. Cheaterpants’s lawyer, I say, tell your client that if you lie and cheat and betray your spouse, don’t expect him or her to keep your sad, sordid secrets.
Don’t sign anything that takes away your freedom of speech! He is trolling because he’s looking for any kind of argument. What a loser. Is his name Mike?
So, this fuckwad is allowed to control the narrative by spinning bullshit (which could be seen as slander on a lawsuit if it came down to it) but you’re not allowed to speak the truth?
Great cheater logic there! These twits are seriously devoid of brain cells.
Ha! What a Load. Of. Crap. Listen, Tracy, I was all caught up in diagnosing my cheater, on the reconciliation sites to gain perspective, bought out half of Amazon, in marriage counseling, individual counseling, and really tried to unravel the skein. While doing all of this, a little voice in the back of my head began chanting “Bullshit, Bullshit” so quietly it took months for me to hear it. Then I happened on your site and it was like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Bullshit!”.
You said what I already knew and didn’t want to face. This site is about letting go of the kite string and being completely honest with yourself. I am eternally grateful that Chumplady exists.
I doubt very sincerely that these trolls have ever been cheated on because of all the “helpful” advice they give about not being bitter, angry, and to move on, for god’s sake! I won’t forgive the unforgivable (I don’t give a shit what Oprah says!), and hell yes I’m bitter about some douche and some whore stealing my life. If my cheater had said, “I’m unhappy in this marriage and want to move on” like a fucking ADULT, I may have been sad, but I wouldn’t have been homicidal.
What these wastes-of-skin don’t get is it’s not JUST about the physical act of cheating. I really can understand that on some level. It is the deception, the hiding, the stealing of money, the total disrespect, the war that they wage against you and you can’t fight back because you don’t know the war is going on.
There is a saying that is attributed to George Orwell that I think sums this up so well: “The further society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” That is where all of this vitriol come from via trolls. It should make you very proud. You are a truth-speaker, Tracy. Thank you.
“Listen, Tracy, I was all caught up in diagnosing my cheater, on the reconciliation sites to gain perspective, bought out half of Amazon, in marriage counseling, individual counseling, and really tried to unravel the skein. While doing all of this, a little voice in the back of my head began chanting “Bullshit, Bullshit” so quietly it took months for me to hear it. Then I happened on your site and it was like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Bullshit!”.
You said what I already knew and didn’t want to face. This site is about letting go of the kite string and being completely honest with yourself. I am eternally grateful that Chumplady exists.”
THIS^^ was my situation and describes exactly how I feel about Chump Lady too. Thank you uneffingbelievable for putting the words together for us. We love you Tracy!!!!
@UEB……LOVE the Orwell quote……when the truth is spoken and someone doesn’t “like” it they make excuses, label you the crazy ex, justify, and try to re-write history…… Haaaa!!!!!
Exactly, Karan! They think the truth is elastic, that ‘intentions’ modify it, agreeing to disagree is an actual solution. One of the only things in this life that are still black and white is the truth. Bare bones truth. Did something occur or not. It doesn’t depend on how you look at it or you didn’t mean it to be that was. What don’t these psychos get about that?
uneffingbelievable,
Amen Sister Amen! Preach it! All that “gray area” shit that liars talk about – that’s the space in which they store their lies.
The reason the psychos ‘don’t get it’ regarding the truth is because there are far too many wishy-washy people with flexible boundaries, and apologists, who allow these twits to steamroller everyone with their demands.
They do it because they can get away with it.
If everyone in the word shot from the straight and narrow and didn’t tolerate this shit, there’d be a lot less crap in the world like this.
Word.
George Orwell’s quote is spot on. I think we need to be truthful about what our exes did to us. My ex made over 120k/year but chose not to pay our mortgage. $1500./month. The day he moved out was the last day he contributed to our family’s expenses. I had one child in college, one child entering college, and another child a year after that. I made 1/4 of his salary. You can bet my children and I spent the next two years scrambling. (While he and his whore went on exotic vacations, traveled, and spent money setting up their new life….wwweeeeeeee!) My dream home was foreclosed on, something I had spent years sacrificing, planning, and scrimping for. And when he discovered the buyer was handing me a financial incentive to move he came and vandalized my home. On Dday I discovered several things and none of them were good. Apparently all his creative financing and money handling over the last two years was done to leave me with as close to nothing as he could get. Ex’s second job (he already worked a ft job with the state) allowed him to pay for the divorce while also figuring out how best to screw me over in the divorce. Like fucking two women wasn’t enough. I was clueless. Gotta hand it to him he did his homework! He set up the community well too. He wanted his OW and I was full on PTSD and fearedhe might harm me just so he could “move on.” I was afraid and tiptoed around our community for two years while he and our family court bled me dry. He was and continues to be scary and uses his financial contribution for our children as weapons. The threat of course is to keep those kibbles coming or he will drop them from his health insurance or not pay me alimony-their education expenses are paid with this 🙂 – He certainly trashed us financially. Try getting any job handling money-McDonald’s anyone?-because I can not. You know it’s one thing to fuck around and then move on but quite another to destroy your family financially. All those things? His legacy to US. That is WHO he IS. Divorcing a disordered wingnut POS narc is difficult. (And he did worse but like many others too much to tell.) I think we need to make our next generation more aware of the character traits they should be looking for. Integrity, honesty, trustworthiness. If marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition then financially it’s a bad investment. Cheating just ensures a bigger dissipation of assets. CL’s site is a Godsend and much needed dose of reality.
^THIS^! Want to hear something really sick? My cheater was making 3/4 of a million dollars and told me he made a third of that. Bitched at me that I was spending too much buying clothes for me and my child at WalMart! After researching, found he spent $45,000.00 on clothes and shoes for himself in ONE year. Not to mention the money spent on the filthy whore and entertaining everyone after work at all the hot spots in town while my child and I dined on Mac-n-cheese. His reason for not telling me about his raises? Because he thought I would spend too much money if I knew!!! He actually said that with a straight face. SMH.
I have kicked myself bloody because I signed the tax returns without looking at them. But finally, I realized that I am not to blame for that. I trusted my husband, that was my only crime. I will forever know better than to trust anyone with my life and livelihood.
All stay-at-home moms, and even working moms who make significantly less than their husbands, should demand money be put in an IRA in their name only. Look at it is way: we made an agreement that I would stay home with our children. That took me out of the job market leaving a huge gap in my resume. I was housekeeper, childcare specialist, lawn service, snow removal service, valet, etc. Never got a day off, no vacation – hell, I never even got to leave my workplace. Then when hubby wants to bang a skank? I’ve got nothing that is mine. If he loses his job, he has continuity on his resume. He is employable. He has a salary history. Women? Not so much. Sad, too, because if mothers, both working and SAH ran companies, our economy would be fabulous!
As a betrayed husband, I say no. SAHM or not isn’t a license to have money set aside for you.
The “Mom Card” is really MEH for me.
I might be in favor of such a thing if it had strings such as if you betray your husband who is funding it, you only leave with a suitcase full of clothes.
If someone wants to leave, far be in from me to keep her against her will. But to allow her to take the kids, half the assets and none of the debt simply because she was a stay at home mom and not examine her character is a recipe for disaster.
Oh wait, that’s what we have now.
Fortunately for me and my daughter, she’s pretty much seen through her mom’s BS and spends the majority of her time in my home these days.
But I still have years of training to undo, for the 9 or so years she’s spent the majority of time with mom and whoever is the beau of the month.
You are right, Uniballer. I should have included the caveat that if the SAHM has an affair and leaves, she gets squat. I wrote that from the POV of my friend who was a SAHM for 15 years, husband is a cheating pig and has systematically hidden all of their money, has had no steady work for two years, etc. She literally has nothing.
There are plenty of SAHM who are disordered losers who pull the same crap. If she wants to diddle the milkman, then she deserves nada. I think with the devastation that infidelity brings, everyone should have a pre-nup. Then is the milkman or the secretary proves too tempting, you know what you’re in for if you act on it.
I’m sorry this happened to you, Uniballer, and so glad your daughter has your brains. Thank good you have time to undo some of the damage.
uneffing, this is a smart, profound comment; “It is the deception, the hiding, the stealing of money, the total disrespect, the war that they wage against you and you can’t fight back because you don’t know the war is going on.: That is it, indeed.
You are so right. I’m not bitter anymore, but my opinion of him – and what he did – is incredibly low and always will be. He could have broken it off before I caught him cheating. Once I did, he could have broken it off to be free to screw anything he wanted. He didn’t do that, he wanted to reconcile. My reward for swallowing my pride and fear was for him to sleep with yet another skank. And on, and on, and on while I untangled the skein that ended up being his shitty character.
As horrific as the initial discovery was, it was as feel-good as it got. For him to knowingly put me through that much soul crushing turmoil, so he could have his cake and eat it too? How do people expect us to feel? Come on….what we ended up with for our trouble was the certain knowledge that we NEVER MEANT CRAP to them. All that wasted time spent languishing in an emotional hell? Oh….it was for absolutely nothing.
I’m not bitter. It’s done, it’s over, my life is good now. But I wouldn’t pee on him if he was on fire. He’s on my list of despicable people, not because I’m some bitch, but because he’s a duplicitous person to whom I owe nothing,
“You said what I already knew and didn’t want to face. This site is about letting go of the kite string and being completely honest with yourself. I am eternally grateful that Chumplady exists.” This is what I got out of this site. The site, Chumplady and the rest of Chump Nation have helped me get through some unbelievably hard times. Trolls can go to Hades cause we are not bitter being on here We Are Better!!!!!
UEB, I could so hug you right now. You put into words my exact thoughts.
I was not devastated be my ex cheating, was a little blindsided that he chose to do it with guys, but what really rocked me was the depth of deception. Even while claiming to love me and wanting to make our marriage work while in MC weeks before D’Day ( at this point I had openly disengaged from our marriage requesting a divorce. My gut was now screaming run, yes the Mormon choir was in full swing). He went and hooked up, telling me about it after d’day was done as calmly as if he had gone to pick up milk and bread. Wtf?!!!!!
Einstein,
I love this.
I’m not bitter. It’s done, it’s over, my life is good now. But I wouldn’t pee on him if he was on fire. He’s on my list of despicable people, not because I’m some bitch, but because he’s a duplicitous person to whom I owe nothing,
I am adding this to my list of quotes to read when in his company eg at hospital or court, to remind me he sucks.
I don’t get why they care? If you want to work on your marriage, have at it. God knows there are multitudes of places you can seek advice and guidance. I searched and searched after D-Day to find a place where someone would confirm that I can’t fight the fight alone. My ex had no interest in keeping our family and marriage together. He was off enjoying his carefree life while I was picking up the pieces at home. Had I not found this blog I fear I would still be ingesting daily doses of hopium waiting for his “fog” to lift. Sometimes the “fog” doesn’t lift. Sometimes marriages fail. Who are these people to tell me to put my life on hold and wait? It’s not only unfair, but it’s unhealthy.
I can’t begin to thank CL and the Nation for all of their stories, help and guidance. I am quite happily divorced, enjoying my children, making the house my own, working hard at my business, spending time with friends, learning to trust and having a terrific time with my new fellow chump BF. Life is good. And I couldn’t have gotten to this point without all of you.
Look, none of us wanted to be here, but we are. Did any of us plan that this would be our story? I don’t think so. But circumstances lead us here and I for one am grateful to all of you!
Love your words Stayin Strong. My STBXH went off to live his carefree life without a glance backwards. Left me to pick up the pieces of our family and home. I hope to be happily divorced later this year.
I think most cheaters do not attempt to reconcile. Most just leave. Then, they blame their betrayed spouse for their cheating. Thye make things up.
So, I really wonder why these trolls expect a person not to dislike their cheater. It seemsnatural to me.
Arnold, you are one thousand percent correct. most cheaters don’t really want to reconcile, they pretend to reconcile so that it can save them face later down the line. ” I tried. See I really tried after you busted me.” Then, they can easily justify the affair because it wasn’t going to work out anyway. Backwards vile thinking
Yeah. I told people this a year ago. Great cover to create the pity party of how hard he tried and she STILL would not blow me. Fuck him.
Yes, often cheaters KNOW they aren’t going to stick around, but they are thinking about image control. So they do a halfhearted reconciliation, jabbing the chump all the while. And once the chump has enough, finds out the cheater is still seeing OW or whatever, and the chump ends the marriage, the cheater announces to anyone who will listen that HE tried to save the marriage, but Chump threw it all away.
That is EXACTLY what happened in my situation.
Ditto here! So good you could put it into words!
Thankfully, not all people buy this poo. Some do…..silly them.
Doesn’t bother me, though. God knows….THAT is who the cheaters have to answer to!
ForgeOn, Glad….Love Ya!
GIO,
You are right about them playing the card, “We tried marriage counseling but it didn’t work.”
I probably have one of the shortest faux reconciliations attempts on the planet…cheater STBX said he was willing to go to marriage counseling. Then 15 minutes into the first (and only) meeting, the perceptive MC calls him out on his bulls*t, closes the session, and tells me privately that I should consider the relationship is over and done. No surprises here! I was already mentally processing the same thing at the same time.
STBX goes home and gives OW a report on the MC session via text msg. OW is all reassuring about how mean and judgmental the MC was. Wonder if she’d been as comforting if she knew in that first 15 minutes STBX managed to tell the MC he was tired of all the responsibility, and didn’t want to be married at all, either to me or to OW. That, I think, was the only truthful utterance that came out of his mouth that day. Time will tell!
StayingStrong – really well said! Thank you.
The trolls care, because in true narc fashion it has to be all about them.
They can’t handle the fact that people are getting a better deal by kicking the shit to the kerb and getting a better life – so they troll in an attempt to drag people down to their own level.
It pretty much mirrors the exact same crap that you go through with a cheater, the kibbles, the ‘all about me’ thinking and stuff like that.
I’m interested in hearing the SI story! There is nothing else to read online today!
WHO – lolol! And here we are reading 200+ messages. You must read fast.
As much as I hate the trolls, I love that Tracy hasn’t banned any of the ones she takes to task. Just more proof she’s a class act. I love that she apparently values free speech, which many people just lost their lives over in France. Je suis Chump Lady.
Ohhhh, Karma Express….That is a beautiful reminder.
A beautiful tribute you just wrote . May those precious ones rest in peace!
CL,
Yesterday must have been National Troll Day Out! I had to deal with two on my website…the old hats…you’re too hurt to be ministering/writing…I pity you…and a newish one…you’re proud (because you don’t agree with me).
It is all part of the “Shut up, chump!” mindset in my opinion. The troll doesn’t have a substantive argument; so, he goes ad hominem attempting to discredit. Pathetic. Cowardly.
With all the “you’re too hurt” accusations, it is as if they do not realize to learn from the past that one has to think/talk about the past. This does not mean one is stuck in the past. Plus, it is necessary to talk about the one’s past if one is trying to help others learn from one’s past mistakes and experience as well. That does not necessarily mean one is stuck or bitter. It is a truly idiotic criticism if you actually think about it.
-DM
PS Thanks for all you do, CL. I am glad you exist and benefited greatly from you presence on the web!
If yesterday was National Troll Day out, when do we get to have Bring-a-Troll-to-Work day? I want Bevin. I will give him third-grade logic problems all day (well, probably he’ll only have time to get through one in 8 hours). Hully gets a crash course in American culture. Claire (the HuffPo author, thought not a troll)–she has to diagram sentences. Mark Sanford troll–he has to clean his hiking boots.
LOL!!
Ha ha ha ha ha…. made my day, Tempest.
You tripped the troll wire too, DM? Sorry to hear that. I like that you’re “too hurt” to minister. Wasn’t Jesus hung on a cross? Yeah, Christianity is for all the healthy gladiators, WINNING!
Like compassion is a bad thing… geez.
Yeah. Both claimed to be survivors of adultery. The first did not like my panning of the movie “Fireproof” calling me prideful and saying shame on a man of the cloth. And the second claimed to be a minister later retracting what was written saying it was written without proper sensitivity. This after I did not let them off the hook as this person clearly was judging me as unfit to minister. But even that apology was kind of a backhand…take care of yourself.
A double standard exists on these matters. I see how a local evangelical church rallies around a pastor losing his wife to cancer, and an official in the same denomination (my FORMER one) told me that they would summarily force any local pastor going through divorce out of the pulpit (regardless of circumstances). The hurt narrative is used to silence faithful spouses and shame ministers into silence who have survived adultery. Heaven forbid we have strong feelings against adultery and share them from the “pulpit”!!!
DM, reading your post has just induced a palm to the forehead in rapid succession.
In the initial days following my d’day it was put to me by my then minister that he had witnessed others go through worse than what I was facing (he loves to exaggerate his opinion for effect even if blatantly incorrect) who had stuck it out resulting in a blessed marriage. I also got this from the wife of the elder who began to manage me post d’day. I now think it is probable they themselves are/were cheaters/chumps. IMO many in this mind set in the church minister from an unspoken place of ‘if I had to stick it out so should you’. Sorry I have no desire to suffer for your misguided choices. Nor do I believe this is Gods will.
What is that old saying. “Misery enjoys company” and trolls are not happy unless they can induce misery.
DM, and how about the fact that all healing requires us to fully process our experience. To feel the pain, hope, grief, numbness, sadness, fear (terror, panic), and even the love. We can’t be fully alive if we don’t learn how to feel our emotions, process them and then….let them go when the time comes. The statement “you’re too hurt” is not only illogical, it’s cruel and abusive, even if that person actually knew you. Someone I know last November told me (less than 8 weeks after DDay) that I needed to let my anger/hurt/etc. go and “move on.” I told her, “These are my feelings and I will manage them as it seems best to me. I will be glad not to share them with you if it makes you uncomfortable.” And that was that.
Nice response, LovedAJackass!
Trolls, I would like to tell you what it is like to witness a family fall completely apart. Several years ago I received a phone call from my brother who was crying so hard I had trouble understanding him. He finally got out that his wife had deserted him and their children without explanation. I flew several hours, leaving my own family behind, to see if I could help. There was nothing I could do. The children were so distraught that they were falling apart. One child, a kindergartner, forgot to feed herself, dress herself, and began to wet on herself again. One stood at the front door saying over and over again,” she will be back she will be back”. Another acted as if nothing was wrong and of course it came back to bite her later. My brother had a job he needed to go to, small children he needed to care for and was absolutely lost in his own sorrow. Please tell me how that family was ever going to reconcile anything. The mother had abandoned them. Trolls, there may be families who move on from adultery but I have not ever seen one. My brother remarried, was happy, his children moved on, and still deal with it years later. What Chumplady has done is bring out into the sunlight the actual damage that cheating does to another person. Be sure and read every single thing on this blog because there are many people who forgave and reconciled only to be cheated on again years later. Dear trolls, please tell me what kind of reconciliation is that? It’s a shitty kind of reconciliation is what it is and you all need to go stick your head in the toilet.
I’m so glad your brother and his kids are healing. What a good sister you are to rush to him.
Let It Go – I do not understand either a mother or father for abandoning their children – ever. And, of course, who can forget Diane Downs who wanted to kill the kids to go to her lover. Exreme – yes. But common perhaps in the world of adultery. I saw first hand my niece get abandoned by her alcoholic mother at 4 yrs old. She’s a complete emotional mess today at 38.
“I fear her anger and bitterness have permanently broken her picker. Maybe? Yes? No?” The ow in my case always ended her emails to my h with a question. Triggers me (mildly but still) every time. Insecure, maybe? Can’t be alone, yes?
The best support I got was from the people who said to me “whatever you decide, I support you and your family”. that’s how I feel here. On si, it’s sometimes – not always – ‘ouch, your marriage us broken, don’t fuck up the reconciliation too”. Annoying, yes? A bit demoralizing, yes?
That’s a power move. Asking a question puts the questioner on offense and the other person on defense, rhetorically speaking. So pay attention when people ask questions, especially rhetorical ones or questions of the “when did you start beating your wife” sort. I never, ever watch Celebrity Apprentice, but I saw my fav crab boat captain from Deadliest Catch was on, so I watched the end. Donald Trump is a master of the nasty power question. Ian Ziering (one of the “celebrities” tried it on Geraldo Rivera but TV news guys are masters at it. But this sort of questioning can be a big red flag. I’d say that the writers has huge power issues based on that question following a statement intended to devalue and demean.
uneffingbelievable says
“If my cheater had said, “I’m unhappy in this marriage and want to move on” like a fucking ADULT, I may have been sad, but I wouldn’t have been homicidal.”
—
lol Thank you for putting it into words! That is how I’ve been feeling, but couldn’t sum it up so well.
I didn’t make my xbf cheat by withholding sex (he withheld) or being a bitch (I was very supportive and kind) or by withholding affection (that was him, with the flat affect) or nagging (I didn’t nag at all, he did).
Every good thing I gave with an open heart and with no expectations of anything in return was shit on by him. He lied and cheated and took everything he could get from me and then was pissed when I was finally done.
He started stalking me for a while to see if I was leaving him for someone. Because there was no way he could accept that I was moving on from him, not going to someone else. Psycho….delusional sociopath NPD crapweasel. ‘No, you crapweasel, there is no one else. You just suck and I’m done.’
Now, after taking some time to heal, I do have an amazing person in my life. I see exactly how I should expect to be treated. I know that I should and will never accept less than what I have now. If that means I’m alone for the rest of my life, fine. I will not put up with being treated like I was by liars and cheaters again.
ChumpLady and the community helped me with their support. I did the RIC and it is crazy making. No more. The people I include in my life from now on need to be assets, not detriments. They need to make me feel energized, not depleted.
The trolls are likely cheaters. If they have been cheated on, they are simply trying to support their flawed thought processes so they don’t have to face the truth and do the hard work of moving on.
Thanks CL and the community for all the support!
Bitterness?!
It is by means of clear, solid information, guidance and professional advice that one breaks free from bitterness. ALL of that is to be found here at this amazing Nation of precious, loyal, clear-thinking people.
We come here and LOOSE the bitterness. We have many experts and professionals in their fields that chime in, point the way to legal services, counseling resources and child advocates. We also are provided with a list of excellent reading material, written by respected experts in many areas—psychology, legal experts and so on.
And that makes us bitter sycophants?! Silly trolls!
How many great organizations started out due to a tragic trauma in someone’s life? MADD is just one example. Does that mean that the founders of those amazing organizations are bitter and living in the past?! Hardly!
ForgeOn, Tracy…..ForgeOn, Nation! You all are the best of the best of the best! Love to all……..
That was a classy rebuttal, CL. It IS difficult not to get down onto their level, because they’ve proven that this type of behavior is all that they respond to—disrespectful and hateful, JUST LIKE THEIR CHEATERS.
It’s familiar territory to them. If they aren’t in some huge pushing on a string type of circular argument with more crazymaking than anyone should ever be subjected to, they don’t have anything else,
You see? They have nothing else. Their cheater has made them twitchy, paranoid, and caustic. They are co-dependents to the extreme and they simply cannot see their life in any normal fashion. They, just like the cheaters and NPDs are abnormal in their thinking—were they born that way or did the Narc create them? Who cares.
The fact is, they sit on the internet all day and night….react and trigger to anything that smacks of making fun of this whole ridiculousness that IS cheating–does that sound familiar? Cheaters also cannot tolerate being made fun of–it’s a bully thing. Co-dependents are defending their way of life, which is so dysfunctional that a child can see it, yet they CLING. And cling. And cling.
I was told recently about a friend’s dysfunctional marriage and I asked him why he continues with it if he realizes things are just so awful? “Well, things have been this way for so long, I don’t know anything else.”
And that’s scary to small minded people. I don’t know any other devil, so I might as well stick with this one—and I also have to defend myself and them for the shitty situation that I insist on sticking with—damaging my kids, my family, myself in the process. But HEY! There’s NOTHING BETTER OUT THERE, so why try?
I would so much rather go to my water color painting workshop and have drinks with friends afterwards than get in my car and follow my cheater around, trying to figure out what he’s been up to. I would much rather be taking a long hot bubble bath than keylogging his computer so I can find those thousands of emails and secret email accounts. I would so much rather be gardening peacefully than wondering what the results of my STD test is.
I would so much rather be enjoying my kid’s graduation, standing all by myself—than always be tortured by the fact that I don’t know their paternity.
They’re the quitters. Plain and simple. The ones who got up out of the fetal position, lawyered up and defended THEMSELVES are the true winners.
Ten to one odds these trolls are actually cheaters themselves. How many people you know who have been cheated on say about infidelity, “It was just sex. No big deal?” And how many people who have been cheated on lack compassion to the extent these trolls do?
Trolls = cheaters
Yeah, and that dumb fuck had the audacity to call ME vulgar, Tempest. LOL.
I’d think that would make him vulgar for saying that.
I thought he was a cheater too, a narc spinning some bullshit story.
Only bitter, unhappy people get on a site and rant and insult just to get a rise out of people. I’m thankful that I’m in a good place and don’t have any hate and resentment that I need to dump on people.
Once again….glad to be me, and not one of them.
SphinxMoth – that was excellent! Thanks
There is a phenomenon I call the “Desire for Drama and Discord” that makes life worth living for some personality types. If you are enjoying peace and having fun, they feel the need to start something unpleasant by saying something inappropriate, or doing something annoying. They just cannot stand other people having any good times — that is one of the reasons they love to disrupt holidays and birthdays and anniversaries — and it draws attention TO THEM!!!! Strangely, they would rather have NEGATIVE attention, than to have no attention.
I believe this explains why a troll feels the overwhelming need to come to a site where he or she knows that he/she will not be welcome. The troll could go to their own home site and spew forth to a receptive audience — but that is not nearly as fun for troll-types as coming over to a site with an opposing viewpoint and showing them the error of their ways. There are many sites on the internet that spew forth the most hideous and erroneous blather I have ever heard. I have stumbled onto the sites by accident, when I was searching for something else. I quickly exit, and if possible disinfect myself by stepping into a cloud of Lysol spray, or dipping myself in sanitizing gel. I don’t want to exchange views with fanatics. As Winston Churchill says, “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” I believe the trolls desperately need to believe their fanatic BS. If they are wrong about that — they will be wrong about everything they stand for.
If you watch what’s happening in the world news today, you will see that the more fanatic the belief , the less tolerance the troll has. That is why the really dangerous trolls take weapons to places like a humor magazine’s office, or an ethnic grocery store, and kill people. They cannot tolerate an opposing viewpoint. They especially cannot tolerate the use of humor to deflate their “greatness” and “righteousness”. If we laugh at them, we diminish them.
Heard any good jokes, lately???
Portia nailed it. Most trolls are troublemakers who love drama. They are too chickenshit to pull stunts in real life, but the anonymity of the Internet makes it easy to stir the pot without actually exposing themselves to any consequences. Cowardly, immature, pathetic little fucks.
Portia, laughing so hard at your “quick exit” and “disinfect myself by stepping into a cloud of Lysol…or dipping myself in sanitizing gel”! I know I was so bothered just sleeping with (okay fucking) my ex that the second we were done I was in the shower washing myself off! TMI but the truth before I knew WHY.
Amen.
All I can say is that I wish that Chumplady. with her pithy comments and rational theories, had been around years ago when I was divorcing my cheating exH. From DD onwards, for several years I was given the message from (so-called) friends, family, his family, colleagues, newspaper articles etc etc that it was MY FAULT he cheated.
Consiquently, I wasted years/£s on self-help books/therapy/counselling trying to be a “better person” and feeling guilty that I hadn’t wanted to reconcile.
Finally, after two more guys had cheated on me I realised that there was nothing wrong with me, it was my “picker” that was out of whack, and I set about fixing that.
CL is saving many Chumps from having to learn the lessons I learned, the hard way. You go, Chump Lady !
This is an interesting article on trolls on the internet. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists
Need I say more…
Thanks, Ringinonmyownbell! I may go track down the original article the author mentions (although the graph pretty much says it all).
However, at the end she concludes:
“The next time you encounter a troll online, remember:
1-These trolls are some truly difficult people.
2-t is your suffering that brings them pleasure, so the best thing you can do is ignore them.”
I’m not sure 2 is fully true; it certainly does not pay to let narcissists get under your skin or reveal your suffering to them. But narcissists are also very sensitive to their own image. Mocking them tears down that image and may make the less-aggressive ones more likely to go away. Less effective because of the anonymity that the internet provides, but no narcissist likes to read contemptuous things about themselves.
Uh, these idiots have their panties in a wad over the fact that we’re calling them out on their shitty behavior, and nobody here is telling us to keep it quiet.
What they fear is that there might be consequences for their behavior, for their lack of character, for their cowardice. Wouldn’t it be terrible if the chumps got all uppity, and what-not, and quit putting up with their bullshit? Wouldn’t it suck for them if nobody cared about the cowards any more, because we’d worked it all out on a forum? We can’t have people calling a spade a spade, now, can we–recognizing abuse as abusive?
Just because you find someone who shares an experience with you, doesn’t make you a sycophant. We’re not in some cult that will have us marching off a cliff some time soon.
Never fear, though, cheater cowards. The world is full of chumps who haven’t found this blog yet. You’ve got plenty of cover.
I am a year past D day (the third D day) and today I’ve taken the time off of work to go file for divorce. Thank you to Chump Nation for helping me get to this point.
Yeah, MissCrystal! A new life awaits you without the emotional ball & chain.
I am starting to believe that’s true! Thank you.
Atta girl! You’re better than that jerk.
I am really trying to accept that!! Man it’s hard though. Thank you!
A great way to use that time off! Welcome MissC! And best wishes on your way to a future sans Cheater. It’s no way to live. We will be here to support you. Treat yourself to a little something nice too. Beautiful days are ahead.
Thank you for the support. It’s harder than I could have imagined. One step at a time.
Rock on with your bad self MissCrystal A Nelson! And Jedi hugs for the sad moments.
Aw you’re so kind!! THANK YOU! Hugs back.
Congratulations on your new beginning Crystal! And more ((hugs))!
MissCrystal – for me, it was the hardest day of my life. Cried non-stop. It is not easy. X didn’t know I was doing it and I hated doing it in the first place. But – here I am, one year to the day I kicked him to the curb – and now divorced. Hard – definitely. But, doing much better getting to meh. Wishing you luck and many hugs getting through the day. Yes – it was THIS SITE that gave me the courage to pull up the panties and file. It really gave me much needed confidence. I am now mighty. You will be too.
It was harder to do than I imagined. But it’s done and final, and now I have the next 6 months to get through before we are legally done. If it wasn’t for this site, I never would have seen through the BS and found my inner backbone. Thanks for the love!
Thank you!! I am ready to see what life holds out for me. Thanks for your blog. It helps more than you might realize.
A concern troll visits sites of an opposing ideology and offers advice on how they could “improve” things, either in their tactical use of rhetoric, site rules, or with more philosophical consistency.
A typical formulation might involve the troll’s invocation of a site’s espoused ideals alongside a perceived example of hypocrisy (such as contrasting “we value free speech” with the banning of a “dissenter”), and with a call for some relevant reform by the troll. This reform will frequently be burdensome or silly – the concern troll’s message is: “I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective.” Surprisingly, there are people who spend so much time on the Internet that this is actually a thing they worry about.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll
sounds like gaslighting! lol
So interesting.
In terms of infidelity trolls, it does give you a sense of how hot a topic this is for people, and makes you wonder why in the world anyone would want marriage reconciliation—regardless of deception and cheater abuse—as their ideal. I mean it not like there is any real commitment on cheaters part.
It seems to me that trolls and Dan Savage have something in common here. They both argue vehemently that it is more important to save or maintain a “marriage” no matter the costs to the chump. So Dan is actually a marriage-phile—Keeping that chump enslaved to “the marriage man.”
Marriage is just a ritual with social and financial benefits, if one party is living their lives without honesty and commitment to the other, marriage is just a farce. Nothing real there, except for the benefits to the cheater, so for most of us what is there to reconcile?
I wish they were banned from the site. I am not a fan of reading stupidity and sifting through the garbage. On a positive note, it does give me a sense of the attitudes out there (I never tried to reconcile although cheater wanted to–just no way–no trust there) so I don’t know very much about that world—it may come in handy in court though.
Wow. Concern Trolls are a Real THING. Just like cheaters, the disordered are eerily similar.
Oh yeah, they are real.
Their standard M.O. is… “I really care about you and hate to see you wasting your time this way, so why don’t you give up or do something else?”.
There’s even a piece in Time Magazine that mentions them, and there’s this Wiktionary entry too:
concern troll
(Internet slang) Someone who posts to an internet forum or newsgroup, claiming to share its goals while deliberately working against those goals, typically, by claiming “concern” about group plans to engage in productive activity, urging members instead to attempt some activity that would damage the group’s credibility, or alternatively to give up on group projects entirely.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concern_troll
Dear CL – I’m one of the lucky chumps who is feeling more each day like I’m moving on to meh. I do find that I read and comment less now that my divorce is well on the way to being final and I have a wonderful fellow-chump gf that has shown me what a loving, adult relationship should be like.
I finally feel like I am in a place to help others and give back to chump nation by responding to forum posts when I have some experience that may be helpful. You and others here have helped me so much, I only hope my experience can help another poor chump get to meh.
Yay you, so glad to hear Twins Dad.
TwinsDad – that is excellent and glad to have you pop in again from time to time. I wanna get there too.
Totally agree with you. I am also on the road to meh. NC and time alone helps with clarity. I am so much stronger than I was 2 years ago, 1 year ago, and yes 6 months ago. I have not really commented too much but I have taken away the advices of LAJ, DM, TH, Nomar, and of course CL. I really feel they are providing so much support, and wonderful advice. I like to call it giving back. I think that is the problem with the cheating individuals. They are like black holes they take, take, take, and never give anything back. They obviously cannot understand that. They are so devoid of humanity that actions that show empathy and compassion must frighten them. I was accused of being bitter and being in the past. I told them that in order for me to see a future I needed to understand my past. I told them I make no apologies for their discomfort. Fast forward to today and I really see the light. I am now in the unfortunate situation of helping new chumps but fortunate that I can support them and show them that what may suck today will not always be like that.
Thank you CL for this amazing site that you created, which allows the voices of so many people from all around to be heard.
It’s obvious that CL, an articulate and talented writer, who can brilliantly dissemble cheater speak, has offended cheaters and cheater apologists.
Cheaters want to own the narrative, want to display themselves as superior intellectuals who happen to groin dive on the side. Cheaters want to own the “victim” card, they wouldn’t cheat if their spouse was perfect and that requires blame shifting.
CL has changed the narrative, with insight, compassion, and a dash of humour. She empowers, encourages, and helps so many folks find their way to “meh”.
Cheaters and cheater apologists, don’t like it when chumps put down the shit sandwich and stand up for themselves. Too bad, chumps have a voice and it’s about time.
Thank you CL for your blog and all the hard work you put into. You are appreciated.
Well said. CL as saved my life with her wisdom, allowing me to see the narrative for what it truly was. If not for CL, I would still be in a living hell, trying to simultaneously self-improve, untangle, dance and fix something (me) that was never broken. Thank God for CL and her web site.
Tracy – Because of you I survived my ex’s betrayal and abandonment of our family. You kept me from wanting to fling myself off the roof some days because I was constantly being told by him how I had been a big part of his reason for cheating. Now, thanks to you, I have the ability to look at infidelity for what it is – ABUSE – and know that I’m not perfect, but I’m not going to allow anyone to tell me I “deserved it.” Almost five years removed from D-Day and a 25 year marriage I’d thought was “perfect”….and I’m finally looking at the new year as full of promise and happiness. Because someone (you) had the guts to tell the truth – cheaters are abusers. It’s okay to use anger to protect yourself and your family. Rage is a great motivator over the roughest parts. It’s a tool to survive – and once you get past the worst of the experience and no longer need the tool, you put it down and walk on to your new world unencumbered.
You don’t recommend living in the past – but you sure do preach LEARNING from it!
Trolls are just cheaters or cheater apologists. They can just stay off this site with their useless bullshit. Let them shovel it in their own world where apparently shit is valued. But not here – not where honesty is valued and truth is told.
“You don’t recommend living in the past-but you sure do preach LEARNING from it.” Char, yes! This!
I wish Tracy’s site had been here 17 years ago. I forgave my husband for cheating and endured couple counselling where I was expected to explore what I had done to make him cheat. All these years later it turns out he’s been a serial adulterer for at least the last 5 years. I’ve had my life stolen from me and my children are devastated. Today, because my husband will not help, I had to break my child’s heart because I’ve had to give up the family dog as I cannot manage the dog with all the other things I need to do and be as a newly minted single parent.
When the trolls say all these ladies are bitches I know they are wrong. I loved my dysfunctional husband for the entire 27 years of marriage. Every internet password, memorable address etc is around the day we married. We produced 4 wonderful children. And all of his family, all of my family and all our 4 children are appalled at his treatment of me.
17 years ago I would have been young enough to find a new life partner but sadly I put my faith in the myth of reconciliation. I do hope that I do get to MEH and never feel the need to visit this site again. But at the moment the pain is terrible and I need help from people who have been through this and who can give me the strength to cope with recognising that my husband has abused me, is never going to change and should not be part of my life.
Please, don’t think that age is a barrier to finding a new partner! I’m in my early 50s and I have a great guy who is my age in my life. I think 50 is the new 30…lol
It IS! Sam.
I too feel that I will never find love again. I’m 45, I live in a very rural part of Iowa, and I do not trust online dating. My chances of finding someone are pretty much zero, and it stinks because I’d love to find someone!
Guys, I have relatives who lived into their late 90s still playing tennis and golf. Do not EVER think you are too old for happiness. Even if you live alone you still matter because one best friend, one pet, one hobby can take you out of your sadness. Somewhere down the road you chumps are going to form clubs, travel together and enjoy the hell out of life. I’m guessing today is just the beginning.
Sandy R……On-line dating?! Uh, no….Do not go there! That’s where all the cheaters are!
Zero, you say?! You already have love around you everyday! The best kind! Love from God, love from this Nation and love for and from yourself! (And even love from pets, if you have them.)
Read some of the scriptures in the Bible about love. There are MANY! The book of John is often recommended for those who are grieving lost love. Meditate on these scriptures.
l am almost 57 and feel like my very best years are yet to come!!! Why? Because the best ‘love’ relationship is the one I have with my Creator! After that, any other ‘love’ relationship is, IMHO, just ‘icing on the cake’.
ForgeOn, Sandy R……Love to all…….
Amen, ForgeOn! I think sometimes that the first step to finding a new partner is learning to love everyone and everything around us, including ourselves. When I start thinking about meeting a man, I pull my mind back and say, “love God” and “love His world” and “love the bird over there” or “love the cats” or “love that person at work who drives me crazy” or “love myself first.” What’s got me into trouble over and over for going on half a century is focusing like a laser on being half of a couple. This time, I’m going for being a whole person first, one who is just grateful for all that I have, for this one moment right here. Then whatever the universe brings, I will be grateful for.
So enjoyed this. I get great joy and pleasure out of my pets, nature around me, the ocean, friends, old and new. But, hell – the last thing I’m ever going to look for is another man seriously. BTDT – I want to be free the rest of my life. (I was too controlled for too long) I think I’ll be just fine on my own and my dogs. Good luck to the daters. I wouldn’t go online for all the tea…
Thanks for the nice replies, guys. I do need to work on loving myself, that’s a given. I think we all do, after what we’ve gone through! Being cheated on certainly wrecks self-confidence!
Dearest LAJ! Took me awhile to get back to this conversation! So glad you and the others chimed in and encouraged Sandy R!
As I have shared before, the way I illustrate this need to be ‘whole’ in and of ourselves before we can ‘couple up’ in a healthy way is this:
An egg cell and a sperm cell. Both are actually whole and complete on their own. However, it does take one of each to form a new life. If one or the other is not ‘complete’ or is defective in any way, the child born of that union will be defective in some way & likely will not survive for long. If it does survive, the defects will cause the child daily challenges for it’s entire life.
Same for human relationships.
Yes, I held that same lie in my head as a youngster….that I HAD to have a guy!
Well, that unfortunately led me into the relationship with cheaterpants all those years ago. And even though he cheated right from the start, I just could not see myself without a man. Silly me…..So much wiser now!!
I know I am not the only one to have been suckered in to 35+ years of poo sandwiches.
Love all of you here at this Nation!
ForgeOn, LAJ…..ForgeOn, all!
While there are undoubtedly lots of cheaters and freaks on the online dating sites, there are also good people. I personally met Nice Guy through online site, and neither of us are cheaters. My brother is engaged to a woman he met online, neither of them are cheaters. I know a few other people in committed relationships who met online, and they are not cheaters.
It’s like anywhere else, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the one decent guy/girl.
Oh, and I’m 50 and Nice Guy is 59, so never say you are too old. You’re not. If you are interested, there are people out there for you. If you aren’t interested, that’s a perfectly good option as well.
Sandy, don’t think of it as you are alone, think of it as you are FREE! Just like Shechump, I decided to stay FREE 🙂 and believe me, I am enjoying my freedom immensely and its great! 🙂
PS: if you do date, stay away from online dating sites, its nothing but cheaters there. My ex was on Match.com plus other dating sites from day one, during our relationship, including after he proposed to me, while declaring his undying love for me daily and fucking married ho-workers, and was still looking for dates online the whole time…
Me too, Sam and Leli, I was remarried last June to a wonderful, non-sparkly, fellow chump, and am so thankful every day that I am free and living my life again…I never realized what normal was till now!
I haven’t commented here for quite sometime, but I really want to speak up today! The one year anniversary of Dday was on January 10th. My divorce was final on November 4th, 4 days before what would have been our 25th anniversary. My life has been a living nightmare for over a year now, and without CL, I would probably have jumped off the roof of the nearest tall building. I truly despise the idiotic trolls who feel the need to shove their condescending advice in our faces, and at CL. How many of these asshats have walked a mile in our shoes? How many of them have faced the devastation of their lives being ripped apart in a matter of minutes? How many of these trolls feel like there is something wrong with them..because why else would the spouse cheat? January 10th was the worst day of my life. Yet these trolls feel that CL makes it worse. Screw them! Without CL and the members of this community, I would be lost. We are here because we WANT to be. Because this is where we find relief from the rotten feelings we are experiencing every minute of every day, because our spouses/significant others decided they were more important than anyone or anything..regardless of the fallout. Oh and please..spare me your false concern for CL. None of you trolls give a shit about her. You just want to make yourselves sound like martyrs..we can save CL and her minions! Hooray hooray! Screw all of you. Take your fake concern somewhere else. We’re here because we WANT to be. Period.
“These ladies are all bitches that’s why they were cheated on once and they will all be cheated on again.”
Oh, that hurt. Because most women have never been called bitch. Yawn.
Or, “ladies” by someone who has no concept of the difference between the two. The dude has issues.
Being In Total Control of Herself.
If that what it means, then yep, that’s me.
I honestly do not know where I would be today without this blog. The irony, of course, is that I found it while looking for articles to help our marriage after the first D-Day and did not revisit it until my now-ex resumed his affair (https://www.chumplady.com/2014/01/dear-chump-lady-how-do-i-survive-day-to-day/).
I probably visited every site out there and this was one of a very, very few that made me feel like I didn’t have to be a victim. That it wasn’t my fault. That it wasn’t up to me to fix things. That he might really just suck.
It’s not easy – even now, post divorce with a reasonable settlement. This was the first place where I felt like there could be an other side, however, and I’m still working toward that. This is where I come on the hard days when I’m still trying to absorb this new life, but it is MY new life. An honest one. One that I’m not sure I would have had the mental capacity to consider in my devastated state had this forum not existed.
Thank you CL from the bottom of my heart. Fuck the trolls. The betrayed need this place.
Well Said!!
The trolls just confirm the messed up victim blaming side of infidelity most of us have dealt with and have talked about on these forums. People on the narcissist/lacking empathy side of the spectrum condemn people when they are weak and vulnerable for some fucked up reason.
Thank you, Tracy, thank you for you classy presence here on Chumplady, and your classy rebuttal to the trolls. This site has been healing to me in so many ways. While I am many years past D-Day it has helped me connect the dots, and has helped me still the occasional voice of self blame that pops up from time to time.
Thanks to Tracy, and this site, I have been able to start healing another layer, and it feels good. I have been largely able to let go of the ….If I had only done/said this maybe my child would still be alive……. It helped me to see that what happened was totally not my fault, and in fact that I did everything I could to keep me and my kids safe. I just could not overcome the ignorance of one person in the justice system. Even though my story is painful to hear, I have been embraced with love and acceptance here that I have rarely found elsewhere. That has also been healing.
Chumplady has also given me a place to share what I have learned along the way, and a way to perhaps keep some other chump and their kids from becoming victims of a homicidal, entitled cheating fuckwit like the ex I kicked to the curb. It’s not only about saving sanity…….but also about saving lives ……sometimes because,….. yes, …..some of the cheaters who are discussed here are absolutely dangerous.
As for being bitter……nope, I would not give the lying, cheating, fuckwit ex that much of my life, energy or thoughts. He isn’t worth it….or wasn’t…..whatever.
I don’t have to live in the past, but I can learn from it, and pass what i have learned along for the benefit of others.And that is what Chumplady is all about., and I am grateful.
Tessie, always good to hear from you. <3
{hugs} Tessie
Tessie, you are the mightiest of the mighty, so this is very high praise indeed. Thank you. I’m humbled by your example. You’ve overcome a nightmare few can imagine, and you’re still standing.
Bless you Tessie. You are what strength is all about.
Love you, Tessie……I really, really do….Love you so much! You are especially precious to me and I dare say to all of Chump Nation!
I, too, am grateful……To Tracy, to Chump Nation, to you Tessie and to all who share their lives here!
Empowerment to the MAX! Bitter sycophants? Not no mo’!
Love to all……….
Nothing to add to that…Tessie, I think about you all the time. And ForgeOn, love you right back. It’s ironic how the trolls point at say we’re bitter and here we are all full of gratitude, love, and strength.
Like so many other commenters today, I just can’t figure out why trolls would bother to come here.
I suppose it’s one of a few scenarios:
A. They are a chump and reconciliation is not going well, or
B. They are a cheater (and perhaps their CL reading chump has become a bit uppity).
C. They are an envious blogger who resents CL’s numbers (and book).
Angie, the troll from yesterday, doesn’t even have her troll facts right. CL doesn’t write about herself. CL is very clearly focused on the present and the future and not the past. So on top of everything else, their troll argument is totally weak. And because its weak I can’t even get worked up about them being here.
Anyone with any intelligence at all would quickly see, upon reading the blog, that the pain here is very real and very intense and CL’s guidance, and the guidance of our fellow chumps are what helps us to begin taking action, begin healing, and begin moving on.
Yep, you nailed it, ML.
Dear Chumplady, I sure wish you’d stop luring these trolls over to your site, hog-tying them, and forcing them to read every post and comment.
So funny, Tania!
Hee Hee Hee!
Yeah, I’ve got mad rodeo skills. 🙂 LOL!
Yea, CL got a ‘First Place / Blue Ribbon’ for them thar skills!!!
ROTFLMRO at all ya all!!!
Nothing better than a good ol’ troll roast…just warming my hands.
I’ll bring the marshmallows! Anyone have the graham crackers and chocolate covered? Cuz I loves me S’more Trolls.
Silly little trolls. It must be fucking terrifying for them when they come across Chump Lady. The mightiness and awesomenimity of this life-giving place scares them so much that all they can do is drop poop and flee to the safe harbor of Craigslist hookups, Trashley or the arms of the nearest fellow liar, cheater and abuser.
“drop, poop, and flee to …CraigsList…”
this, this is why I love all you guys!
Ha ha ha ha..I am having such a good time today.
I’m going to steal your line if you don’t mind. I love the snarky humor on this site.
Chump Lady, i have to laugh at the ridiculous thought processes of these trolls. They must have very boring lives if they have to go hunting for reasons to be miserable and hate filled. it is as if you were talking about them personally, why do they even care what is said on this site? If they don’t like it don’t read it. This kind of extremely defensive reaction usually comes from a person who knows they are wrong,
I have been told i should get on with my life and stop living in the past, That I did have writing skill but should blog about gardening or painting, something happy and not focus on the past all the time.
These people can’t understand that a person may want to just help people by sharing their experiences and providing a platform for people to give and receive support and understanding. Personally I feel if a person has a talent, such as an ability to put their thoughts down in an intelligent and informative way it is their duty to do what they can to help others. Of course the narcissists of the world want their victims to shut up and keep their secrets, everything was just fine until someone spoke the truth and gave an alternative.
What I find totally amazing is how willing these trolls are to show their ignorance. I am sure you don’t mind someone posting a well thought out, logical argument on your blog, free speech and all, but if someone chooses to do a character assassination instead of presenting facts and an intelligent argument it just proves you are having a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
As most everyone who comes to this blog knows, you can’t fix stupid. Nothing irritates me more than people who speak without engaging their brain.
I have to wonder what kind of impact these people want to leave on the world. Personally I want to leave the world a better place for being here.
Ladywithatruck, your blog explained the whole devalue/discard thing to me. That changed my life. So keep on rocking your narcissist-busting bad self. If you helped me, you’ve probably helped countless other people who had no idea how narcissists operate.
Lovedajackass, I am so glad my blog was helpful to you. Thats why site like this are so important. It is really easy to think you are to blame for the affair and/or abuse when your partner is telling you he would not have done this or that if you hadn’t done whatever or if you would only……….
I felt totally alone and was ashamed to admit what was going on. It sounded so unbelievable to my own ears. I thought if I am going through this there must be someone else going through it. When I started my blog I couldn’t believe the number of people who came in and said, “OMG I thought I was crazy, this is my story too”
When a person sees that hundreds of other people are going through the same thing they realize they aren’t crazy, it wasn’t their fault, they can’t fix it and the person they are with is a soulless bottom feeder.
Of course the abusers (narcissists) don’t want that information out there!
But it is time survivors of abuse started to speak out and not packing the shame and blame that is not theirs to pack in the first place.
My ex came in my blog and called my followers minions and said that I had them all brainwashed. hahaha like people don’t know the truth when they read it. You can’t make this shit up!!
Hugs
Dear Tracy
How I wish I had found you when my DD arrived, after doing the pick me dance ( fortunately for not too long) , and realizing that the last few yrs of my 28 yr marriage had been a lie. Not to mention the humiliation of having to get tested for STD’s and the realization that many of “our” friends knew and help facilitate his trysts.
I am now divorced but not anywhere near meh.
Some days I read your posts & I laugh, other days I read them and I cry.
Whoever said if he had ended the marriage, I would be sad — I so agree with you.
I also agree that most of these trolls are cheaters or have reconciled w/ their cheaters — but can’t sleep at night !!
Rock on Tracy !!
I would still be huffing Hopium if i had not found Chump Lady.
Most of life is not black and white and all or nothing. Cheating? It is wrong.
Not all cheaters are the same. But they are eerily similar. I had no idea they even use the same phrases! I consider CL to be Socrates for chumps. She is the gadfly of society…who must go to extreme lengths (humor, intelligence, potty mouth) to get the rest of us to see. Actually see. Reality.
Show me a cheater who is truly remorseful and never cheats again, and the world will be a better place indeed!
The rest of the cheating cheaters will still suck. No more Hopium for me!
I am proud to be a bitch. I have earned that title the hard way. I take it as a compliment – it keeps me from falling for any more “Narc-Sparkles” and helps me figure out who my real friends in life are.
I am a chump inside, but I am a bitch ( in the positive sense ) on the outside.
The trolls are just stupid people who fear losing their RC audience.
If we chumps stop loving them – God Forbid ….
All they will be stuck with are other Trolls!!!!
Lisa, add me too. If bitch means sassy, honest, intelligent, truthful, witty, and authentic, then that is me. Like integrity is a bad thing! Just missing CL’s ummm gorgeous curls and mad writing skills.
There’s a bumper sticker I like that reads, “You say bitch like it’s a bad thing.”
Tracy, keep up the great work as long as you can. You have helped countless people see reality. The reason it has to keep going is that resources on this side of the “Reconciliation Industrial Complex” are thin on the ground. People who are emotionally abused need to have some rational support.
I know I was not thinking straight at d-day time; it made me do a pick=me dance that was not necessary and definitely was humiliating. Since new chumps are continually realising their fate, then those of us with experience in how to cope owe them the kindness of providing some common sense advice.
I wouldn’t wish Chumpdom on anyone, but your Trolls could do with a dose of it. Entitled to their opinion? No, not if they are uninformed about what IT REALLY FEELS LIKE.
So glad I dumped my Cheater. Yay!
I just finished reading “Women Who Love Too Much,” which was originally published in 1985. It’s a weird book. But how it relates to this subject is that, IMHO, it’s an even less gentle version of “leave a cheater, gain a life.” It basically reminds the reader that we can’t control anyone but ourselves, and trying so hard to better the life of our partners (let’s face it, many of us fully supported our partners, with them contributing next to nothing for long periods of time: financially, emotionally, work-around-the-house, etc.) is both futile and not a very nice way to “manipulate” them. — Call me crazy, but I thought two people working together to better each other and their lives together was what marriage was all about, but I digress.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the reader is encouraged to “be selfish” and figure out how to love themselves and put their own needs first, … which might very well lead to the departure of their partners, once they realize they aren’t going to be mollycoddled any further.
Again, IMHO, this is a more austere and less spunky version of CL’s message: Find yourself, stand up for yourself, maybe you’re better off without that guy/gal. — I imagine there are some trolls who can’t quite get there and are either stuck defending their own decisions to stay & suck it up, or (as others have suggested) are cheaters themselves and would prefer their spouses let them continue their vampire ways.
I’m grateful for this blog, and hope to “graduate” some day to a lesser roller coaster. But for now I appreciate this community of support, to either take from or give to the experience of the recovery process. Thank you, CL & CN.
ChumpLady,
You don’t have to defend yourself to these “people” (we’ll go with that). I suspect the reason they are unhappy is because they are running out of gullible chumps to prey on and its all your fault.
It was unbelievably frustrating to have a clear inner knowing about how abusive, deceptive, fucked up and wrong what was happening in my marriage was and to look for support and find only bazaar ideas and confusion. To see myself and others in similar situations being treated the same way by their partners, therapist, the media, and the myriad of supposed “support systems” set up to address this was confusing to say the least.
Then subsequently being made suseptiable to the deluded theories about marriage reconciliation that are out there today and to the normalization of entitlement and infidelity and low character….
.
To know first hand how disturbingly wrong something is and to find no sanity or coherent support anywhere in the outside world about the true delusion being sold, makes people feel insane, hopeless and alone. In almost every case of infidelity and lying the truth is not complicated and why hardly matters. The factual absurdity of what was going on in my marriage was actually not complicated at all.
It was most disconcerting to see how entitlement, infidelity and low character have been normalized, trivialized, and rationalized in our society and in our therapist offices. To have “educated” therapist and well meaning persons of all walks of life respond to things that are obviously abusive and wrong in ways that are contradictory, confusing, misguided, distorted and HARMFUL can be very frustrating. It is akin to having someone using twisted logic to convince you through some magical thinking technique that the red ball they are holding in their hand is actually a green cube.
It was horrible to be in a shocked, broken, vulnerable state and to look for sanity, common sense and support and to instead find most “support” systems and popular thought were based on delusional and distorted thinking and on the normalization of very low character standards…. Encouraging people to be hopeful, forgiving, self blaming and blind to things that are actually very clearly abusive and dangerous to the overall well being of individuals and society as a whole.
Chump Lady has done more then just address this issue, she is shining a HUGE BRIGHT SPOT LIGHT on the delusions around this topic and her spot light is powered by truth,common sense and good character. I was so relieved and delighted to find CL. The relief to know that not everyone was deluded dumb and openly suseptiable to theory based magical thinking being sold as fact, It was an amazingly wonderful thing to first come upon CL’s work and I have to say it is encouraging to see how many other normal healthy people see the enormous importance of what CL is doing here. Trolling is an act of narcissism in and of itself.. .Shine the light on the troll, see it for what it is and then ignore it;s plea for the energy of our attention. Then like the narcissist, it can shrink back into its own empty black hole where nothing real, true or authentic exist.
BRAVO!!! Extremely well said.
I agree. One thing I’ve been thinking about is how the rationalizing and minimizing of affairs might be related to the fact that affair involve sex. It’s hard to imagine a person whose arm was broken by an abusive partner or whose bank account was looted by a partner who is an addict being told to look inside and see what he or she did to “cause” it. The people who make these absurd comments and the quack therapists who enable serial cheaters and psychological abusers have their heads twisted around by the idea that sex and infatuation are irresistible forces. That’s the thought I am mulling these days.
Lovedajackass- I agree, I felt like the infidelity and pathological deceit my X indulged in in our fraudulent marriage was very much akin to Embezzlement. It was like choosing a business partner I trusted and starting a business venture with them only to find they have joined this under false pretense and have been lying to me and stealing from me the whole time as he watched me work my tush off to make it work and to invest my resources into a marriage that he consistently knew was a fraudulent venture. They do all this as they indifferently watch you put your heart and soul into making the joint venture a success because you are all in and have honored the stated agreements and goals from day one. It is horrific to learn that the whole time you have been working to grow the venture of you marriage that your partner has been using you and lying to you, embezzling your life energy, making choices for you that you would never agree to if you knew the truth and destroying your financial security. It is no better than or different from embezzlement.
Agree. I was thinking about how damaging affairs and infidelity can be and how it’s not considered abuse by most. The ripple effects are enormous and long lasting. I can quite honestly, hand on heart say that I would rather be physically beaten than endure the insidious mindfuckery that I went through with my cheater ex-husband.
I think their problem is they don’t see cheating as abuse. They see it as a reaction to an unfulfilled relationship. Or they at least try to convince themselves of that. If this was a blog about domestic violence, would these trolls then say “it was your fault for provoking the abuse. You should had been more thoughtful to his feelings and maybe he wouldn’t had hit you with a chair.”
I noticed that are some seriously broken people in the world who honestly believe that anything “internal” is not real. Physical pain that you can see with your own eyes is all that is real to them. Emotional pain? What’s that?
These days I have very little patience for superficial people who cannot understand that there is something called emotional and psychological abuse. I just chalk them up as stupid and try to be grateful that I don’t share their ignorance.
This is something a friend of mine is trying to convince me of, and even I who suffered it have a hard time seeing it. XH abused me through years of neglect and disrespect and selfishness, while I was gaslighted into thinking if I could just be a better, happier, sparklier wife, I could “win” his affection. — Jesus! Already f-ed up, then he leaves me for a 25-year-old, who may be happier & sparklier, but I don’t necessarily think (married, as she was, as well) that she was “better.”
I even asked a couple of our close friends, when i was doing the Pick-Me dance for their friendship, “What if he had punched me, instead of this infidelity and abandonment? What would you have done then? Would you still want to be friends with him?” They said, “Of course not.” But they are friends with him, and not with me. I guess disrespect, abandonment, deceit and infidelity are now OK. Sometimes, I wish it had been as simple as a punch.
Only ignorant people would not recognize what you experienced as abuse. Looks like you have a good, true, smart friend who gets it. On the road to “Meh,” I’ve ended up evaluating all of my relationships. Remember that you have a built-in test for people in your life, post DDay. If they want to be friends with an abuser, they aren’t good enough for you.
Nearly a decade out from D-Day, 8 years post divorce and 7 years into a very happy marriage to second hubby (and fellow chump), I stumbled upon the ChumpLady site last year while nursing two very dear friends through traumatic divorces. How I wish CL had been around during my tribulations! I feel it is very important that Chump Lady and those of us who have successfully navigated life after chumpdom continue to come back around and offer encouragement, hope and advice to newer chumps. Does that mean we are “bitchy,” “bitter” and “living in the past?” Bitchy? Maybe. 🙂 I prefer to think of it as having Boundaries. But Bitter and Living in the Past? I don’t think so. What it does mean is that we are willing to share our experience with those who could potentially benefit. It means that we are not afraid to call a spade a spade (or cheating – or any other form of abuse – unacceptable). It means that we can be a catalyst for those new chumps who are immobilized by fear. And most of all, just by our very existence, we serve as a beacon of hope that “Meh” does exist and that chumps can not only survive — but thrive — post-chumpdom. I kind of like it when the trolls post here because it gives new chumps an opportunity to see in black and white the typical lines of BS that they are being fed verbally by their cheaters and the many complicit cheater apologists. Somehow, seeing it right there on the page exposes it for all of its stupidity. Consider it a chance to practice recognizing this bullshit for what it is, better positioning chumps to recognize it (and respond, or not,) in day-to-day conversations. Our responses have the ability to give new chumps the courage — and words — to call Bullshit! — whether out loud or silently — and, in doing so, validate their own sanity in an insane culture. My mother literally did this once, 30 years ago. While in the process of leaving my serial cheating father after 21 years of chumpdom, my mother and we (her four children) sat in church listening to a sermon. The preacher prattled on and on about how the wife should submit to the husband no matter what, yada yada yada. She stood up in the middle of church, right in the midst of the sermon, and said — very loudly — BULLSHIT. Then stomped out of the church, slamming the door behind her. SILENCE. The four of us kids sat paralyzed in the pew. Stunned. Mortified. Tears streaming down our faces. The heat of shame burning our skin. How could our mother embarrass us like this? Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut and suffer silently? What was she thinking? After church was over, we children walked the six blocks home, refusing to get into the car with her as she circled around the block in her peacock blue Lincoln Continental, chain smoking, rolling down the window and demanding that we get in the car with her. We pretended not to know her!!!! Fast forward a few decades and, BAM! Now I’m a chump. And now I TOTALLY GET WHY MOM DID IT! YOU GO, MOM!!!! I later found out that the preacher called my mom the next day and apologized to her. His wife tore him a new asshole when they got home from church that day. In this case, the person spewing the bullshit was open to a different perspective. Tracy, and all of us emerging from Chumpdom, must KEEP CALLING BULLSHIT.
Your Mom rocks and so do you 🙂
Your mother totally rocks.
Your mom is my new She-ro! Wow!!!!!!
Wow! You have an awesome Mom.
Love the image of the peacock-blue Lincoln (our family’s was mint-green … ooooooooo!)…. Love your mom, love you too. We chumps, burned in the crucible, distills some amazing wit, grace and courage.
I love your mom! I can just see that scenario … wow, awesome, and so are you, missdeltagirl.
Whoa! I want to be your mom when I grow up! What a woman!
Great post today CL 😀
I’m so glad you took the time to address these trolls, and, in contrast to their ‘hit and run’ comments, did so with so much class and well reasoned argument. Excellently done!
I, for one, am pleased you haven’t banned them from the site. I’m somewhat disappointed that none of them have the cojones to actually respond. They may be chumps, cheaters or cheater apologists but above all what they really come across to me as is prepubescent children who, having got bored with the words ‘poo’ and ‘fart’ now find they get real snigger value from trolling on the internet. I don’t really see the attraction to being a troll is, to be honest, but then again, I stopped giggling at fart jokes 40 odd years ago!
Anyway, as so many have already said, ChumpLady, Tracy and Chump Nation saved my sanity and frankly has been (along with freedom from abuse) the best thing to have come out of the dreadful nightmare I lived. ‘The Great I Am’ was a cruel emotional abuser and, having never dealt with anything on that scale before, I had no idea what was up, down or sideways. I recently came across a whole stack of letters we’d written to each other (yep, stonewalling was his speciality so if ever we had ‘issues’ we had to communicate via writing) and I can see why my head was so, so wrecked by this man. Had I not found Tracy, I think I’d probably be in a mental asylum now having imploded due to extreme mindfuckery! As it was, I came here, found out there is a playbook for abusers that they all go to, found out I didn’t have to ‘try to see the other side’ when ‘the other side’ wanted to justify / ignore / gaslight about the abuse, and that I really didn’t have to take it anymore. I’m not a stupid woman, but I was stupidly naive and trusting. Never again!
Hope you are feeling much better now Tracy, thanks again for creating this wonderful space and for your wisdom and humour xx
I found the most recent trolls amusing. They bop on to say CL and the rest of us suck, accuse CL of banning people, and never post again. Presumably their intent is for others to think CL banned them. We know better. Wait, maybe the SI board is not busy enough and they were trying to drum up some new forum members. Now that makes sense, in a twisted way…
I found them amusing too Dat. Do people have to pay hard cash to join this SI thing? What’s with the competitiveness? Anyway, I doubt very much their ‘disciples’ who dropped by to convert us will have had much success drumming up business, can’t imagine anyone was struck by the coherent, reasoned and inclusive argument (particularly 13 year old, spotty Bevin :-D) trollsville gave us 😀
Thanks for all the love, you guys. I’m so grateful to you all. If it weren’t for all of you bravely sharing your stories and bolstering each other, I’d just be a site with some articles and a few snarky cartoons. You MADE this place, and I’m happy to lead the charge or start the conversation for the day, but you’re the soul of Chump Nation. It’s one thing for me to say “oh, it’s better on the other side” — but then each one of you chime in, day after day after day with your tales of mightiness and perseverance. It’s freaking awesome.
Okay, some of you wanted the lurid tales of whatever I did to piss SI off. I’m sorry I don’t have a satisfying answer for you. This “feud” seems entirely one sided to me. We parted ways in September 2012 and I haven’t been back since. Yet, apparently if anyone so much as posts an article from HuffPo that I wrote, or links here, they’re immediately banned.
I was a member of SI from 2006-2010, and I learned a ton from that community. It’s where I learned in the power of chump solidarity. I started there in Just Found Out and I lived through 4 D-Days on SI trying desperately to reconcile. So they saw me at my chump-iest. But then I wised up and proto-CL appeared, counseling people to get out, and ask if this crap was acceptable to them, etc. I noticed the people in “Divorce” and “New Beginnings” seemed a hell of a lot happier than the folks in “Reconciliation.”
Anywho, I made a lot of friends online and IRL from SI. Every single one of them divorced, moved on, about half of them are remarried today. And the vast majority of those people were banned from SI, including the brilliant “Marzipan” who is the author of the Soulmate Schmoopie video series. http://soulmateshmoopies.wordpress.com
I wish SI were more open about its bias toward reconciliation, but it’s their site and they can run it as they see fit. That includes banning who they want to ban, and allowing what voices they want to be heard. I really don’t wish to diss them or be at odds with them, because I do believe they think they’re helping people, and that community was a lifeline for me at a difficult time in my life.
However, it’s a free marketplace of ideas, so I built my own site, with a clear message, right up there in the header, so there’s no confusion.
In the early days of the blog, when it was a few months old, I did post links to my articles on SI, like the “pick me” dance or “the unified theory of cake” by way of example, explaining a dynamic, and yes, of course, to share my site with people. I don’t know their policies now, but this was very commonly done on that forum. However, it offended SI (and apparently continues to offend them) and they PM’ed me and accused me of “stealing” their members and trying to divert traffic from them.
Which I find very weird, but hey, it’s their site. I would note that I don’t have that policy here. I try to encourage other bloggers. The only time I flag it (or the spam filter does) is if you’ve got so many links the spam filter eats your comments and I have to fish for them. But, you can put your URL in your screen name and I welcome news of new blogs and links to helpful articles.
Anyway, they didn’t like it. They took offense at an article I wrote here on MY blog that one of their members complained about. And I also think they felt very betrayed by me, that they had tried to help me with reconciliation and I defected to the Other Side. I guess they find me ungrateful and competitive with them.
I think we simply have two very different messages and approach infidelity from very different places. And as I’ve said, I think the Internet is big enough for the two of us. I don’t wish them ill. I wish they felt more “meh” toward me, but apparently they do not. Oh well. I’m confident in my position — I was on SI for enough years to see the stories play out over and over and over again — the majority of people wind up divorced, and the ones who stay “reconciled” seem very fragile indeed. I’m sure there are some honest to God success stories there, as well as reformed cheaters (I remember Inchoate and being impressed with her), but they are rare.
I stick with what I wrote above — I think reconciliation is a long shot with bad odds, but if you’re going to do it, PROTECT yourself legally and financially the best you can. And stop feeding cheaters kibbles and accepting their blame.
Anywho… there it is.
Thanks for telling us Tracy 😀
Still scratching my head at the problem though, can’t really see how you would have caused such ‘outrage’ 😀 Fair enough, if they find your message too ‘radical’ for their site to cope with, as you say, it’s their site – their rules, but how it inspires mad people to come over here to have a swipe, I’ve no idea! The internet is a big world, we don’t really need ‘fanatics’ coming over and getting all ‘fundamentalist’ about our ‘schism’ from their message on ‘Surviving Infidelity’.
I’ll bet the site managers aren’t really arsed about sending trolls over to ‘the dark side’ that is ChumpLady, but maybe some of the crazier contributors are afraid you went and nailed your banner page to their SI door? Mad as a bag of cats IMHO 😀
CL, I have gotten so very angry at the pain all you Chumps have gone through that I have invested some time reading blogs by betrayed/betraying spouses. There is a reason for that. I wanted to know how the cheaters justified what they did. I also felt there were many chumps who were floundering in cyberspace and needed some straight info. Nearly every time I recommend this blog someone immediately states how angry and negative this place is. Huh? Chumps shouldn’t be negative and angry? Trolls are trolling. Always.
Hi Let go 🙂
I found CL about 16 months ago and have read ALL the posts (went into the archives and read all of them too)! ‘Negative and angry’ seems to be a common critique, and truthfully, there are negative and angry posts here – a lot of them mine! – but I’ve found there is much, much more compassion and humour than anything else, so I don’t really get why there is such a harsh opinion being formed. Even at her most gladiatorial Tracy still accepts reconciliation could happen, she just doesn’t believe it happens very often, and here we have so many contributors that went down the false reconciliation road who sadly bear that truth out. Notwithstanding that, we still have chumps who are attempting reconciliation and I have never seen anything but concern and well wishes offered to these people. Despite our painful experiences, and while we might express doubt about the validity of a ‘reconciliation’ if we feel our fellow chump is perhaps smoking on the hopium pipe, we all offer positive and compassionate support if we can. I don’t see what is ‘negative and angry’ about that. Somehow (based on the trolls and the propensity to ban folks if they don’t tow the party line), I’m getting the impression that this level of tolerance is not found on SI and maybe other RIC sites?
Good for you for continuing to recommend this blog. It may well be that chumps, having exhausted all the RIC industry has to offer yet still find themselves floundering in their own private hell, will come check us out and figure out ‘negative and angry’ actually means ‘honest and loving’.
This is a safe place to vent and heal.
I think it is nearly impossible to tell our stories, especially in the beginning, without being rightfully angry and “negative” (bitter, afraid, traumatized…). But as someone said above, telling the stories and retelling them is powerful and healing. And pretty soon what was angry and negative transforms into other things, like snarky humor and using our stories as examples for others, rather than to get that poison out of us.
I’m so grateful I found this site. I believe SI is a good organization but not for me. I’m happy reconciliation works for some but cheating is a deal breaker for me. Thanks to CL and to Chump Nation I received honest information. I didn’t get guilted into reconciliation or waste a lot of time trying to figure out what part I owned in his cheating. I didn’t buy into, “He is not a bad person, just a good person doing bad things”. BS!!! He is an awful person doing really shitty things. My X is a serial cheater and a highly disordered individual. I like the way CL calls it like it is, instead of handing us the Kool-Aid and chasing Unicorns, she calls a FuckTARD a FuckTARD. It’s very refreshing to hear straight talk. The pain and hurt these FuckTARDs leave behind is unbearable. I rather have been hit by a car or pushed down some stairs. The healing process would have been a lot quicker. As for the Trolls, all I can say is FUCK OFF!
Dear Chump Lady, I would never been able to maneuver through the mindfuckery without your help. I am trying to resolve a jointly held property with my X. Here is the email exchange between me and my attorney that took place this morning. Of course I changed the names. See below.
Hello Attorney,
Any word from Mr. K-Y Gel? I haven’t booked a ticket yet. I’m holding off until we see a current bank statement confirming funds.
Thanks,
ChumpsOfHumanity
*******************************************
Hi ChumpsOfHumanity
I spoke to Mr. K-Y Gel this morning. Mr. K-Y Gel said that he will be tied up for most of the day today, but that he will be able to get me a statement confirming funds sometime this evening. I will forward the statement to you as soon as I receive it.
Thanks,
Attorney
**************************************************
Hi Attorney,
Thanks for the update on Mr.K-Y Gel. Hmmm….. too busy?? Mr K-Y Gel doesn’t have a job so what could possibly keep him that busy? Let me help. I’m not fluid in FuckTARD speak but here is my best guess, “… he will be “tied up” for most of the day today”, translates to one of the following:
1. Mr K-Y Gel has a S&M hookup he found thru Craigslist or Ashley Madison.
2. Mr K-Y Gel doesn’t have the funds.
3. Mr K-Y Gel is enjoying the Jerking Me Around Dance. The sadistic POS (not an acronym for Point of Sale) enjoys frustrating people.
Sorry, if I sound upset. I am. I have been trying to resolve this property for months and Mr. K-Y Gel has sabotaged and stalled these efforts every step of the way. It’s all smoking mirrors on his part. I offered to buy him out and walk away for $$k in December. He needed more time to mull it over, which means he will stall this process out for as long as he can. This is when I involved your law firm. Not only is he a horrible person, he “ain’t that bright”. Thus the name FuckTARD!
Keep me posted.
Thanks,
ChumpsOfHumanity
At 08:56 AM 1/13/2015, you wrote:
Perfect example of Chump snarky humor.
Just joined the CL Nation… was banned from SI circa 2010 and derided as a Troll… in their opinion. It felt like a return to Jr. High. My crime was stating my opinion that SI found intolerable: my objection to people using phases that use a suffix that deride the good people among us that have cognitive challenges. My son happens to be one of those people.
For the best, SI’s usefulness in my journey had become stale; better company here.
Contact with trolls is like contact with cheaters – an exercise in futility and frustration.
I am largely immune to the efforts of trolls to get me to engage, but I recently made the mistake of thinking it would be better if my STBX and I were on more amicable, if distant, terms – just to get the one source of deep unpleasantness out of my life.
And of course within a few exchanges I was feeling angry and frustrated and gaslit. He dropped a huge bombshell on me and hasn’t responded to my mild but rather stunned response for days, and now I am reading this column reminding myself not to feed my own trolls!
But the itch to engage when they get under your skin is very hard to resist. And that’s what they feed on, of course.
Grizelda, like you I tried to maintain/create an amicable relationship with STB-Baboon-X. I thought it would be easier on the children and family. That was brought to a screeching halt when I realized that just like one person cannot maintain or save a marriage, one fucking SANE person cannot maintain amicable terms with a cluster-mindfucking disordered covered in shit Baboon.
I finally realized NOT TALKING TO HIM, not engaging him WAS an amicable relationship – with me. No fighting, no angst, no anger – peace and harmony. The most important person with whom I needed to have an amicable relationship was me. I understand that itch of which you speak. Might I suggest investing in some Calimoron Lotion to deal with the itch. I have been training myself not to speak or react to STB-Baboon-X whenever I have to see him regarding the final leg of this divorce. I retained an attorney to talk for me. I’ve told her what I will and won’t accept. I don’t actually need to say a word.
It is so much more peaceful when I accept the truth that HE SUCKS and act accordingly. I’m sorry that this happened to you. Dust off your saddle and just climb back up on that horse. Sometimes the most amicable relationship you can have with certain people is none.
Now I guess that comment makes me a negative bitch. Cool. Suck Ass, Trolls.
“Sometimes the most amicable relationship you can have with certain people is none.” So true, Chump Princess, so true. What’s interesting is that my cheater ex now avoids me like the plague. I was the one who used to make sure we don’t cross paths and now the tide has changed. I no longer care if I run into him. f he has to attend work-related events (alas, we work in the same industry), he will NOT show up if he even thinks I’m there. He has missed funerals of dear friends and a few retirement parties of colleagues. No question; I am loving it. Makes my life a lot easier.
I don’t comment much here; not sure why, I’m a BIG mouth IRL. But I still read here every day, all the comments, usually multiple times a day. Contrary to the trolls’ opinions, I don’t find it negative or bitter at all. To the contrary, it’s much needed therapy for me. Listening to CL tell it like it is got me through an awful, scary separation and divorce and has truly made me a better, happier person.
The IRC and the concern trolls that advocate it might “work” for some people (I use the term “work” loosely). But lately I have realized that there is a difference between simply existing and actually living. Existing might be easier and more comfortable. But I’m ready to live now. Buying into the IRC would have caused me to continue to delay living in favor of existing (barely) in a soul sucking and intolerable situation.
I wouldn’t have gotten through D-day, divorce, and rebuilding without CL and you all. You made me realize that not only am I not alone, my story isn’t really all that different and my cheater X is just a common variety fucktard cut from the generic disordered mold. He’s not special; but I am, and so are all of you! Hugs!
((((Hugs back))))
Awesome post, DG. xox
I was banned too, can’t remember why. Who cares? In hindsight they were the last thing I needed as I stayed in a false reconciliation for a year which allowed him even more time to destroy finances. SI was not helpful, my husband was gone a long time before I realised it. Needed CL to help me with that and protect myself, unfortunately had not found her then so was left with SI which contributed to more destruction. There are a lot of dysfunctional and emotionally immature cheaters on SI, it is very depressing as they are supposed to be helping. What I have learnt since is that this is a site set up by cheaters who just wanted to justify what they had done. If only I had known there was a subtext to their advice. When I sought advice I was very vulnerable and SI contributed greatly to the destruction of my position. hindsight is everything. Oh, for a do over!
I have been reading some blogs of people who have decided to stay and try reconciliation….not SI but another one. And OMG!!! These poor, poor people and I mean that in the kindest way. I feel so sorry for them and one of the reasons is because I think they actually think they can work through this shit and someday come out on the other side. Maybe they can. Who am I to say? But they are so sad and miserable and absolutely CONSUMED with the betrayal. They have names like ‘Shattered’ and ‘Scarred Forever’ and ‘Broken’ …I just feel for them.
It’s so much more healthy for me to be over here at Chump Nation.
Because for me….the day I caught that no good piece of shit sticking his dick in Skank Woman it was OVER! O-V-E-R. I don’t care how sorry he was. If you can’t trust your own spouse, who can you trust? The only answer for me was to kick his ass to the curb and start the healing process. Not keep looking at his ugly mug. I would have been afraid that if I would have let him stay I would have drank too much wine some night and smothered him in his sleep. There’s a fine line between love and hate.
‘Because for me….the day I caught that no good piece of shit sticking his dick in Skank Woman it was OVER! O-V-E-R. I don’t care how sorry he was. If you can’t trust your own spouse, who can you trust? The only answer for me was to kick his ass to the curb and start the healing process. Not keep looking at his ugly mug. I would have been afraid that if I would have let him stay I would have drank too much wine some night and smothered him in his sleep. There’s a fine line between love and hate’.
LOL Syringa – that must be one of those ‘negative and angry’ comments we’re being told about 😀
Strange thing though – negative and angry usually just brings me down – so why am I laughing? Ah yes. because it was FUNNY! 😀
Wow! That’s for everyone one here today, btw.
As a chump I decided to forgive myself not the serial cheating narcissist after 41 years of sacrificing everything. The pick me dance lost its power over me finally! Once again he wanted a divorce. On my first therapy appointment I actually asked him to help me stop loving my ex. I realized how pathetic this must have sounded. I felt parylized. He told me he was disturbed. He told me he was a serial cheating narcissist. It took me months to get the strength to file for a divorce. His lawyer withdrew before our court date. Thanks to CL and all chumps! I am getting stronger knowing I have the support of a nation of chumps. It was with your help that I maintained no contact and be free.
For someone who has lived through two false reconciliations that spanned over two decades, I really feel badly for the trolls. In my other life, I may have been like them for only one, and only one reason: there’s truth in what I’m reading here and it scares me that my unicorn is indeed a unicorn. Thus, I need to diss the posts and PROVE them wrong so I could feel secure in my decision to reconcile. Doing that would have quieted the discomfort within.
Now that I have left the cheater and gained a life, I know that reconciling with a cheater, no matter how remorseful, is futile. I’m sure there are exemptions out there and I wish them well. If a friend would ask me for advice whether to divorce a remorseful cheater or not, I would say to file for divorce. Tell the cheater that if they really want them back, the cheater will work really hard to earn the chump back. I bet we can guess what the cheater will do if that is the condition for reconciliation.
Uniquelyme, that touches on one of the reasons I think that true reconciliation is such a long shot. The betrayal does lasting damage because the fact of it lodges in the most primitive part of the brain – the reptilian part, whose main purpose is to keep constant vigil, asking in an endless loop, “Is it safe? Is it safe? Is it safe?”
For the betrayed partner, the answer to that question will always be, “I’m not sure anymore,” when it comes to the cheater. It doesn’t matter if the cheater seems entirely remorseful and completely reformed. The lizard brain remembers. Its job is to protect you.
So, my cheater might one day learn valuable lessons that will make him a good partner. But he could never be a good partner for me. Some damage is simply permanent. All the forgiveness in the world won’t fix it. Because the problem is, you don’t forget.
Rally Squirrel–I so agree with you. I could even feel that reptilian part of my brain kick in every time I saw him after D-day. It was as if there was this quiet siren in my head screaming, “danger, danger.” Then it was either fight or flight–I either wanted so desperately to get away, or else I would lash out verbally. The night I had to sit next to him because we had season opera tickets, after about an hour I started having a sense of panic. (And you’ll love this–the opera was The Masked Ball, by Verdi, about….infidelity).
Tempest, we’re more alike than I thought. During false reconciliation when exH was temporarily out of state, I went to see him for a weekend to try to work on things. I remember not understanding why he would not even hold my hand, when we used to always do that in public. So what do you do when you do not want to interact with someone? We went to the movies, and watched “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”. It was awful for me, passive guy unhappily married falls in love with the younger coworker.
Wife is made out to be cold and insensitive.
and this was before I knew about 12 yr younger AP!
zyx321–don’t you HATE the characterization of the betrayed spouse in movies (or in The Masked Ball, the AP is portrayed in the end as a really nice guy)? It’s as if the writers have to portray that the victimized spouse deserved to be cheated on. That movie particularly grates in the portrayal of the wife; I am a pretty warm & cheerful person. However, life with narc STBX eventually diminished me to the point of being less peppy, and I was constantly having to call him out on stuff to maintain any dignity in the relationship. His justification for AP then was that “she was so upbeat, and not aggressive to me!” I really do hate him for the mindfuckery on top of it all; always a lose-lose situation with these jerks.
So true, Rally Squirrel! Ultimately that’s what did it for me. I tried for almost a year after D-day but couldn’t quiet that reptile down. It was like a siren went off every time he went near me. Honestly, though, the red flags I ignored before D-day also set off the reptile. It was just easier to ignore before the actual D-day.
Now I believe though that the “reptile” was simply my instinct, common sense, my “gut”, whatever you want to call it. I will never doubt it again. One of the most valuable things I learned from this whole situation.
The lizardy brain often knows — way before the rest of us knows. We gotta listen to it more often. That’s my takeaway from this whole traumatic experience, too, DefyingGravity.
Now, whenever I have to be around my ex for some event that has to do with our daughter, my skin crawls. Lizzy remembers.
I don’t go to SI anymore because it makes me really frustrated and sad. I would get emotionally invested in someone’s story and then be crushed when they remained with the cheater and endured betrayal after betrayal. I loved Marzipan and Inchoate. Most of my favorites over there were either banned or left.
I am grateful that you are telling the truth about how much better life can be when you free yourself from a cheater. Even if the “wayward” truly repents and changes, the fact that they abused their spouse doesn’t ever go away. Living with that memory would have made me way more bitter than divorcing did. I actually wish my ex well and for the sake of my kids hope he finds peace and happiness. But I’m so glad not to be living under that dark cloud of sadness and anxiety anymore.
Solange, I agree. I am so glad that perpetual dark cloud hanging over my head is finally gone. The best way I can describe is that I feel CLEAN. Life nowadays is easy, authentic, and carefree. It’s not all up moments but a million times better than staying with a cheater where I constantly felt emotionally unsafe.
Yes! I feel a lightness and freedom that I never would have had if I had stayed. I can live a life I’m comfortable with. My kids all know what happened and they see that I had enough self-respect to leave. Staying would have been betraying myself!
UniquelyMe, I know what you mean about feeling “clean.” My STBX was a conniving man and I ignored red flags that I should not have — it made me feel dirty to be associated with someone who lied and bent the truth constantly. And he made me feel stupid for being such a square. Now I know that was all an act to fuck with my head. I enjoy being honest — it fits my value system. He can keep going from one con to another.
(Oh, get this. One day when I was trying to convince myself to stay with him I thought to myself, “Well, did Carmela try to change Tony Soprano? No.” And I tried to justify staying with a man whose values were so different from my own. Thankfully I’ve come to my senses since then.)
I was always uncomfortable the way ex lied about kinda small stuff– saying had pneumonia or that computer was destroyed, to explain why his project was not ready. Seemed weird to me. Also, during false reconciliation, he told me I see everything in black and white, I was such a square, too. And in my (silly now) desperation I remember saying I realized life was complicated.
Actually, no, not complicated– I do not lie, I do not cheat, and infidelity is wrong.
ML, so funny…the Sopranos has always been kind of triggery for me. When we used to watch it together, I was SO uncomfortable with all the infidelity. I mean much more than just disliking the immorality of it; I was physically uncomfortable and sometimes had to leave the room. I realize now it was because my gut was trying to tell me I had to do more than leave the room…I needed to get the F out of the room, house, relationship, and preferably the state, if possible!
Yep, I am a chump AND I am a Proud Bitchy Chump at that!! HAH! 😉 and to all trolls out there, when you can’t argue with logic you trolls throw the “bitter card” at us. Oh noooooo that really hurts our feelings, NOT!! I for one reached at MEH and loving it!!! For 3 years I did the false R and was agitated, angry, stressed and very unhappy, while the fuckwit continued to lie, cheat, gaslight and suck the joy/life out of me, then by some miracle I found CL, Tracy, and I tell you, there she was, no BS, telling it like it was and talking the truth and it was AWESOME to find her and others who felt like I did. Tracy and others here made me feel validated and empowered, Too bad I didn’t find her and her blog sooner, if I did I wouldn’t have wasted another 3 years with the fucking loser. It’s been over a year since I dumped the fucktard and in NC and Life is definitely better without the lying cheat!!!
So to all trolls and cheaters apologists, kiss my ass and the rest of the chumps as well, WAIT…. on second thought don’t, because we don’t know where your mouths has been and we don’t want to catch anything, SO shut the fuck up and SUCK IT LOL!!! 😀
My ex thought we could be friends, really? I am sure he would love to use me to further his supply. He picked up other women by degrading the mother of his children for years, gaining sympathy from needy victims. NO Contact! This means he cannot say I have a great relationship with my ex. It also sends a message to my children that I am strong and only want to engage in positive relationships. WHY pretend?
My story, my former chumplady name was “Bellzero” but some how this disappeared so changed to cheaterbeegone. My d.day was just over 3 years ago. Like a lot of chumps I had no idea. I thought my marriage and husband was great. 4 teenage daughters, great job and all of us healthy and happy. But boy was I wrong.
I have come along way, cheating is abuse.
I love CL it provides me with support and power. Yes the power to see that there is life after cheating. CL has give me back my confidence, my zest. Yes I have moments of sadness but looking back I see they are getting less and less. Time is a friend to me. CL is a nation of friends who I have never met but have my back.
Trolls are bottom dwellers.
To all chumps, be strong.
PS.. I’m a hugger, yes! I hug all my children and friends. So to Chumplady and all chumps, I am giving you all a big cyberworld /www HUG. (Except trolls)
{{{{ Arms out / returning hug }}}} I am a hugger, too, bellzero aka cheaterbeegone. Love your comment….
Love this:
“I have come along way, cheating is abuse.
I love CL it provides me with support and power. Yes the power to see that there is life after cheating. CL has give me back my confidence, my zest. Yes I have moments of sadness but looking back I see they are getting less and less. Time is a friend to me. CL is a nation of friends who I have never met but have my back.”
Beautifully stated!! ChumpLady is providing an amazing education. So much emphasis is put on ‘higher education’ in our Societies, yet the best ‘education’ is that which shapes us into loving, caring, compassionate, empathetic, loyal and faithful human beings.
Learning the scriptures and applying them is the best way to become this type of human…..ChumpLady and ChumpNation is another excellent way! Yes, the information shared here ‘reeks’ of the Truth and the truth is what humanity needs. People hated Jesus Christ because he spoke the truth. That has not changed…..
ForgeOn, ‘truth speakers’…..ForgeOn!
As soon as I found this site, I never returned to the others. It is very effed up that people going through the horrific nightmare that is cheating to be told they are wrong for being adrift, for being sure they can’t forgive the infidelity or believing they can’t. For anyone to load more guilt, shame and confusion on an already paralyzed Chump is just wrong.
Instead of being misguided, maybe our survival dynamic was kicking in to save us from throwing our future to our Cheater as well as our past.
We get fired up defending this site because it has helped us deeply in a multitude of ways.
And as CL pointed out, why be here if it does not further your goals?
We have solidarity in having faced what has to be at the top of the list of Bad Experiences, a person who we thought we knew becoming a perfect stranger, and then staying that way. This is the most disorienting experience on earth, IMO.
I think CL is right, instead of getting fired up, we shouldn’t give these kind of people the time of day. We don’t change their minds, and they don’t change ours. (Maybe help us like an asshole streaker coming through the site to remind us of what we no longer want to associate with!)
Maybe they can just be forwarded to this response & thread, and we don’t have to venture into their level.
Ironically I found Chump Lady from an infidelity board. For two years prior to discovering her site I was limping along in false reconciliation and lying to myself. There were voices telling me that something wasn’t right but there was so much RIC advice. All of them telling me to “Do the 180”, “sit tight and wait” “I didn’t cause my ex to cheat but I should own up to my part in creating an atmosphere that caused him to cheat” “my marriage will be stronger because of this”
That little voice, trying so desperately to tell me it was all bullshit was being drowned out by the militant unicorns and then out of the blue someone put a link to Tracy’s site and I felt like someone wacked me upside the head and said “Listen to the little voice dammit!”. Everything and I mean everything that didn’t feel quite right-Chump Lady explained. All of her articles were music to my soul but it was two in July 2013 about Reconciliation and Entitlement and Real Remorse or Genuine Imitation Naugahyde Remorse: Those were the real eye openers! After reading them, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t have a real reconciliation going on with someone who was genuinely remorseful. 1 month later I told the ex I wanted out.
Naturally he cried, but by then I realized (thanks to Tracy) that the tears he shed were not over losing me, it was over losing half his money, half his stuff and all of my paycheck. Though that’s been a hard reality to swallow after wasting almost 30 years of my life with him, I can only be insanely grateful that he won’t get a moment more.
As for the trolls. I kind of believe that they’re reconcilers. Cheaters are generally too cowardly to go to a place where people speak ill of them. I can remember in my unicorn chasing days being a little feisty with people who dared to suggest that reconciliation wouldn’t work. Yes, I believe they doth protesteth too mucheth which makes me very sad for them. If they were truly happy and their unicorn was real they wouldn’t need to start crap here.
Like many others on this site I would still be toting hard on the hopium pipe if not for the chump lady, so I am grateful beyond measure that she takes the time to do what she does. I keep contributing because I think a lot of chumps smoke that hopium pipe for far too long so any help I can provide by telling my story or giving words of encouragement or even a cyber hug feels like the least I can do.
We’re chump nation and we’re not afraid of no stinking trolls!
Like Chump Lady, I also reached Meh a while back, but I was drawn to her site because she gave a voice to the pain, the unjustified pain, that we all have gone through. Not only did she give it a name (chumpdom) but she also vented her anger at, not her pain, but all of our pain of being deceived and our lives being turned upside down over night. Feeling like a bit player in your own life; feeling like everyone would rather that you just slunk away in the night, feeling like you were totally duped for God knows how long and for God knows why. That is her generosity….to get fucking angry at the a=hole who perpetrated our undoing. And I for one bless her for that. I am years out of the madness, but there is a hole in my soul that asks for justice. Tracy, in her unflagging anger at injustice, is the angel that fills my soul everyday. And to all the trolls out there, I say, god bless her and her anger (dare I say bitterness?). Because somebody needs to call these people out on their shit . As for me, I have moved on and made the life always wanted, just as Tracy has. But hell no will I accept the “we grew apart” revisionism, and I will revile the lies that these people will use to rebuild their lives with. Tracy, keep going, we need someone to tell the truth.
Beautifully expressed, BoundaryGirl.
You know the saying “to forgive is divine”. I feel that maybe after this life changing experience I may convert to judiism. There are times you cannot forgive and the old testament was clearer about adultry and divorce.
As far as the troll issue, welcome them here. They will eventually come here anyway because, reconciliation with these screwed up people is an endless road to nowhere.
I wish I had found CL sooner, right after my marriage fell apart five years ago. Maybe then I wouldn’t have agreed six months later to bogus reconciliation, during which every single day I prayed that God change my ex’s heart so that he wouldn’t continue to cheat. I knew that short of a miracle, that would never happen, and I KNEW I was making a huge mistake by agreeing to reconcile.
But I wised up and I divorced him. Life went on. These days, I’m about as close to meh as I ever expect to be. I still have some PTSD and baggage left from my experience, and I suppose I always will, but it’s nothing compared to how I felt four years ago. I love reading here, because there are so many mighty stories and mighty people here. Every day I read stories of courage, of survival, of strength, of picking up after the hurricane and rebuilding a life. That isn’t bitterness or living in the past. That is owning your shit, facing down your fears, picking up and moving on. And there are so many posts here filled with wisdom and compassion. And seriously, there are some HYSTERICAL stories here, told by some very funny chumps. The squirrel killer, the pillow muncher, the cheater bouncing down the staircase in a sleeping bag, the sex toys and insanity……. I laugh and shake my head every day reading here.
I’m not bitter. I’m not stuck. I’m not dwelling on the past. I have a whole new life now that includes a good man. But I still love reading and posting here because you guys are my people.
FUCK YOU, TROLLS. You’ll never have what the chumps here have — courage.
Aw-right, Glad! 🙂
Nuff said GIO.
“We’re not here to wallow and stay stuck, we’re here to help UN-stick the others. Think of it as a chump underground railroad.”
Bless you, CL. I discovered the Chump Lady site via something I read by Dr. George Simon. I have been trying for two years to wrap my mind around the manipulation, deception, lies and betrayals that my high-school-sweetheart-husband disclosed to me during our 25th year of marriage. The damage to our marriage and family is overwhelming. In my desperate search for help and resources, I found myself re-wounded and re-traumatized by the books, websites, and therapists who follow the codependency model. While I do believe our marriage has been one of codependency, it wasn’t until I understood and began to work from the trauma model perspective that I really began to heal. http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/ish-articles
CL after 40years of marriage I stumbled on your site. After spending hours reading old post, I knew I was a chump. My first thought was “To sir with love”. You have taken me from crayons to perfume, great teachers are rare. You are a great teacher. Keep decoding that BS.
The nature of being a Chump is that no one stands up for you. In fact, you are taken advantage of over and over again until you believe it is acceptable.
Thank you ChumpLady, for being the only one on MY side and helping me to see the emotional abuse that I must put a stop to. It won’t stop with reconciliation, that’s for sure.
And part of it, also, is thinking you can control or somehow persuade others to behave decently toward you with your behavior. The truth is, all you can do is control yourself, try to do the right thing, and own your own choices.
Holly; “The nature of being a Chump is that no on stands up for you. In fact, you are taken advantage of over & over again until you believe it is acceptable” Whooooa! That is a scary true statement there.
Unfortunately CL wan not here 5 years ago when D-day occurred for me. I did the humiliating pick me dance, sunk massive dollars in Amazon books and walked on eggshells, even though it was a deal breaker for me. I had a 4 year old son and was afraid of leaving because of money issue. I then decided about 8 months into reconciliation – Fuck it, fuck him, fuck it all, I am done! Now from that point on the shoe was on the other foot. He now worries that I’m going to leave and take half of everything and then some. I was bitter until 2 years or so after D-day until I discovered Tracy on Huffpost. I went to her site and was amazed. Every answer I was searching so desperately for was HERE! The wonderful posters, the love and caring from everyone. It was amazing. I became an even bigger BITCH! He has to toe MY line, not his. He got his wake up call when I told him not only would I leave, unlike his fucktard 1st wife, I would be taking my child with ME! I reconciled, but I just don’t give a shit anymore. He is home every night, doesn’t do anything wrong that I can tell and he is such a shitty liar and I now know all his tricks – he won’t fool me again. He knows I will blow the whistle to any and everyone if he does it again and he is in a government position that he could be fired from now if he fucks up again. So now I hold all the cards, and he dances to my tune and he knows that if he doesn’t – I am outa here! I told him I would tell his entire family, his children, our child, the neighbors, my son’s teachers, his boss, his co-workers (and I will confront if it happens again, especially if it’s a howorker), whoever will listen. He called me a bitch once and I said “well that’s better than being a lying, cheating asshole any day!” Shut him up right then and there. LOL Love all the chumps here, huge hugs, and be aware that the only time bitterness truly occurs is if you continue living with a jackass. I know, I’m doing it, but with the help of Chump Nation I’m getting better! LOL
Just watch out for the subtle taking hold of the narrative that could be pulled by putting all your cards on the table, though. Entitled people are masters at that crap.
To be honest, I wouldn’t personally want to live a life with someone whos a disrespectful jackarse, but thats your decision to make, after all. 🙂
I don’t think I could do the whole “Marriage Police” thing. I wouldn’t like who it turned me into very much.
But that’s me.
Time Heals–I agree, who wants to live like that?
Funny story connected to that, thought–My 13-year old is very angry at her father. She said that when she gets married, her husband will have to submit to annual lie detector tests, and she will have the passwords to all his email accounts, etc. I said, “Who wants to live like that?” She replied, “I do.”
I probably would have told her “Lie detectors (polygraphs) don’t work, and that’s why courts of law don’t accept them. They are pseudoscientific nonsense, and their only utility is as an interrogation technique provided the person you are ‘testing’ doesn’t know they don’t work. Ask Aldrich Ames”.
So much for that illusion of control, eh?
Mostly I was amused at her quick wit, and then saddened because now her whole construct of relationships has been damaged by her fucktard father.
I wish I had found this site after my 1st DDay back in 2011 but I was on a different site/planet then, barely breathing and functioning and it was on this MLC site that I came across a few articles being shared by people and that was it I was hooked. Now this other MLC site was not happy with CL and reckoned she was mimicking ‘genuine’ stories from the MLC site on her site – the timing of her articles was too co-incidental etc.
Needless to say whilst I did the ‘pickme dance’ for a further 4 months until my XH fuckwit bailed in spectacular fashion – up until then I was still utterly convinced he had been abducted by Aliens and had suffered some catastrophic mid life crisis which would explain his callousness etc etc etc. It was only after reading a few articles on the CL site that the penny finally dropped and I filed for divorce after months of mindfuckery. 3 years since Dday I am now planning to return to where I used to live in the UK ( I fled to Oz, it worked for NC and personal development up to a point) because I believe I am finally nearly completely at Meh and I am a much more confident and I have realised that I actually liked the life I had, it was only because of the fuckwit I married that I felt it was tainted. Nowadays I don’t blame myself for anything that went wrong in the marriage, and all his personal criticisms of me were untrue and hurtful, particularly ‘my personal sexual performance rating’ but that’s Narcs for ya…………..it’s always someone else’s fault………
I am taking back (I was financially ruined by the whole saga but have salvaged enough of a deposit to attempt to start afresh) my art space, my weekly life drawing classes that I loved, my gardening, the gloomy weather ( I’ll live) my television programmes, my own space/decorating etc. etc. I could go on but you get the picture I am basically starting again in my mid forties from scratch, no kids ( that’s another long story) but hellbent on not letting my XH fuckwit take anymore of my life, that’s not bitter Trolls , that is empowerment and it was only by discovering this site and realising that there are people like me who say ‘fuck that shit’ cheating is wrong, very wrong that I have been able to move onwards.
So Trolls I am ‘not bitter but better’ as someone stated here yesterday, and had I stayed on a reconciliation site or heaven forbid ‘forgave my XH” (I did it once- it won’t happen again) I would be have no doubt wasted even more of my precious years pandering to a selfish fuckwit whose only priority was himself and his dick.
And whenever anyone states that there must have been something wrong with my marriage for him to have done what he did I am very clear about educating them on the fallout of infidelity. I don’t care if they brand me a bitter spinster or not, I ain’t eating that shit sandwich – unlike plenty of couples I can see around me doing just that on a daily basis. My marriage was by no means perfect, but up until Dday I, like a lot of unsuspecting couples, thought it was, I was rightly ‘chumped’.
Should have stated “it was on this MLC site that I came across a few articles by CL being shared by people and that was it I was hooked.”
To my fellow chumps, and to any trolling visitors to our site, I would like to say this.
Before discovering this site I turned to many others including runaway husbands, mid life crisis (standing for your marriage) and others to try to make sense of my chaos.
There are many valuable sources to be found and I have respect for these sites and the people who use them…we all have to do this walk in our own way, in our own time, and from our own perspective.
If people want to fight for their spouses, wait it out, take them back once, twice or ten times then I respect their decision and would not dream of trolling them on it.
On this site I have learned many things:
1. My story is not special, unusual or uncommon. This happens quite often.
2. Deception, gaslighting and being lied to is hell, undermines sanity and self respect, and is always deliberate and often systematic.
3. Trust is extremely hard to restore once shattered.
4. Reconciliation is usually attempted at least once and often more than once.
5.Cheaters usually continue to lie and often reoffend.
6.Being with a partner who is engaging in this sort of conduct is soul destroying.
7.You cannot cause, control or cure what another adult chooses to do.
8. A person that you have spent decades with can become an unpredictable stranger.
9. We all process grief and loss in our way but share many experiences and feelings.
10. This site is not about hating, blaming or wallowing. It is about accepting reality, setting healthy boundaries, breaking a cycle of pain and misery, self love and survival.
If that is not what moving on is all about then what is?
Mary,
I agree 100% – you have summed it all up very succinctly.
Kudos to you !
Chutesandladders, how did you know his name, ha!
Chiming in late here. CL, you so totally rock, and finding you and CN has been without a doubt the single-most helpful tool in my recovery since D-day almost 18 months ago. It is amazing and humbling that you give so freely of your time and gifts to help out total strangers by giving us all a place to come together and share our stories, our strength and our hope. I honestly cannot thank you enough. What those trolls call ‘stuck’ is what we here call ‘PAYING IT FORWARD.’ Hopefully the trolls are willing to split the semantic difference and either stay away or contribute something meaningful.
On a personal note, I really don’t appreciate being referred to as a ‘sycophant.’-Though I guess I should be grateful that at least he or she spelled it correctly. lol