The other day I was watching TV and this ad came on for glitzy, casino holidays in Oklahoma.
God help the ad executives who were trying their darndest to make Oklahoma look sophisticated and “fun.” Instead of the tornado-afflicted backwater that it actually is. (And is anything sadder than a casino?)
Who sets their sights so low that they’d take a casino vacation to Oklahoma? No offense to any chumps who live in Oklahoma, but if you’ve got the disposable income to take a holiday, given the whole world of options — Varenna, Italy! The Grand Canyon! Disney World! Hell, Gary, Indiana! Who would possess such awful judgement as to choose Oklahoma?
My husband said: Cheaters who marry their affair partners, that’s who. “Perfect metaphor. Write a column.”
You have to understand the Texas perspective here. Texans deride Oklahoma as sort of its dim-witted, poor brother to the North. Why go to Oklahoma? Because it’s cheap, easy, and requires little imagination.
Much like affair partners.
Say you’re a cheater and your cake is destroyed. You’re trying to figure out what next. Do you do the hard work on yourself? Try to make your marriage work? Take a spiritual path? Or do you follow the bright, sparkly lights to the slots and put your money down on Schmoopie? They’re there. They’re easy. And your “commitment” will convince everyone this wasn’t such a disastrous choice!
Marrying your affair partner is one hell of a gamble. The odds are really low that you’ll “win” at this venture. But you think you’re lucky! Exceptional! Sure, you might be stuck flinging quarters into a bottomless pit of need, but you COULD hit the jackpot and be SPECIAL!
Chances are, you’re either going to leave broke, or stick around with your ruinous “investment.” Meanwhile, you gambled away the things that really mattered — a faithful partner, your children, your self respect.
Chumps often fear that their cheater will marry the affair partner, thus “winning” the pick me dance. The most sucktacular thing about this outcome is sharing your kids with the affair partner. That’s a shit sandwich, no getting around it. But if you’re imagining bliss and blended family harmony, I think the odds of that are putting your life savings down on Red 25 and spinning the roulette wheel.
Think about it — marriage is the promise to exclusively love and honor your partner. “Forsaking all others.” What makes people so utterly disingenuous about monogamy want to get married anyway? Cheaters SUCK at commitment. So right there, they’re each marrying a person incompatible with fidelity. They can’t trust each other, so what’s the point?
Oh, but right, they’re SPECIAL and different and super lucky.
Cheap, delusional gamblers.
The ex married his schmoopie. They are both completely pathetic. They probably are a better fit for each other than I was for him– they’re both needy, dishonest, selfish, and suck at parenting.
I am fine with them staying together– hopefully, the fugly Owife will dance and dance for him to keep him occupied. When he turns his attention to me, he is hostile and attempts to control me. As my counselor said, “For someone who supposedly married his new wife and moved on, he certainly likes to communicate with you!” This was after I showed her yet another one of his long, poison pen emails to me.
While I would certainly enjoy watching them fall apart, I honestly think it’s better for me and for the kids for the dirtbag to have his sycophant looking up to him and telling him how wonderful he is. If he’s getting ego kibbles from her, he’ll stay out of our hair. How long that will last…? Too early to tell just yet. But they’re both needy in different ways, so may they live together dysfunctionally ever after.
That’s exactly how I feel! I don’t want them to breakup because that would mean his attention would need somewhere to land and that would probably be me and the kids. As it is whenever things aren’t going well over there he lashes out at me. Why? It is probably still somehow all my fault. 🙂
I say let ’em stay together – keeps them out of the dating pool.
I completely agree. I am thrilled the narc is getting married – perhaps his blame shifting will now start pointing at his soon to be bride! It also means he leaves my daughter and myself completely alone. He knows there are 0 kibbles coming from our direction. My daughter ( age 15) has refused to meet OW before wedding so narc didn’t invite her. In reality he is probably relieved because my daughter would probably call the OW a slut to her face and he knows it. He so badly wanted the perfect blended family and instead he got a daughter who disowned him and an x-chump wife who refused to dispense kibbles.
My daughter refused to go to her father’s wedding to the OW; she was 13, it happened 5 months post divorce finalization. Because of this, exH chose to not arrange for our son (9 yrs old) to attend and blamed it on daughter’s refusal.
I was relieved in general, but PISSED for my son’s sake. Always loved second best.
I called exH out on it, too. I never refused for son to go, and I would have made it happen for the little guy. He is so desperate for his father’s love.
i was torn by this for a long time. but i also think she is better for him then i was because she doesnt have any goals or ambition, she doesnt care where or how she lives in, or if the place is falling apart or if it is even hers, she has no problem packing up and moving from one place to another, quitting jobs, not paying bills, she can stay up all night drinking with him and keeping him company because she has no responsibilities. she has zero morals and zero values. it doesnt bother her to not pay her bills, not have a car, or not raise her children. she doesnt care if he is working, has insurance or retirement. no way forward thinking at all, the only thing she wants is to have a man. any man will do as long as she has a man she is “happy”
of course i wanted much more out of life and out of my man. when i found out about her and she thought it would be so fun to call me and tell me how much “he doesnt want you” and “you didnt treat him right” and how much “she respects him” i found out that she was still married, i actually was able to laugh and say “you two are perfect for each other”…….her response? “thank you” *shrugs* crazy thinking. i said “it wasnt a compliment”…..
anyhow, now that a year has gone by, i really do think she is perfect for him for all the above reason. and if he doesnt have a problem with her legally belonging to another man then why should i? actually i think who wants a man who bails out on his loving supportive wife, and trusting, loving, needing, believing children to take care of another mans wife and children? (i know he doesnt think that way, probably hasnt made that connection even if he did think about her husband) but i know i damn sure dont want a man like that.
so as much as i know it would hurt like hell if he married this slut, we are also better off. she has him so entertained, and is taking care of him so well that he hasnt called or texted or dropped by even once since fathers day last year. i havent had to deal with his drunk ass at 2am 3am in the morning. i dont have to fight with him about the children doing, saying or being anywhere. because as soon as i say yes to the kids, he has to say no. if i say to wait, he does it immediately, if i need it immediately then he will wait. Plus having both him and his hood rat talk badly about me, trying to make me look bad so he and she will look better. Or having both of them lie to me and the boys……
the kids are now looking forward to changing their name to my maiden name. although i was still on the fence, knowing if i do change their last name, boyman will be hurt beyond belief, he will take it as a personal assault on him and of course use it as another excuse to badmouth me and put me down…..but it is the 2 little boys (9 and 13) who are pushing for this name change the longer he is out of the picture. being as it is not like boyman is supporting them in anyway, financially, physically, emotionally, mentally….then i dont really have any reason NOT to change their last names (yes, it was on divorce papers) i just dont know what is holding me back.
That need to inflict pain is beyond comprehension. It’s more than justification on their part. His OW also said horrible disturbing things to rub it in and BLAMESHIFT. We did expect more and wanted them to succeed. Look at what YOU have, a cheater free future, with loving children who WANT to change their name. Think about yourself first and set up boundaries regarding contact.
My daughter also changed her last
name to my maiden name as part of the divorce. Do it if the kids want. I know it made my daughter feel
like she had some control over what was going on.
…and now I’m singing the opening number from “Oklahoma.”
I think one of the “advantages” to marrying the AP is there’s already a hypotenuse, already someone else trying the pick-me dance, if they start loosing the sparkle or demanding equality you can compare them to the former spouse and get them to prove how much they love you.
Oklahoma = OK
Marrying Affair Partner = STD
I see you’ve met my ex. He apparently drags me into conversation when final OW is feeling needy. Nice guy, eh?
“there’s already a hypotenuse, already someone else trying the pick-me dance, if they start loosing the sparkle or demanding equality you can compare them to the former spouse and get them to prove how much they love you.”
Wow. That caused me to make a sickening discovery about myself. I’ve actually been doing the pick me dance for 6 years.
X had a girlfriend in the city he lived in before he moved here. Originally, he was going to stay here for just one year for job purposes, then move back to where he came from, but THEN HE MET ME AND THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING. . He told me they had broken up before he came here, but I’m sure that wasn’t true now. They stayed in contact the whole time: phone, email, text, Skype. Once, when he was going to visit his parents, he drove 3 hours out of his way to see his ex. (I only found this out when he was dumb enough to leave his email open on my computer. He had no intention of telling me.)
He knew his relationship with her drove me bat-shit crazy. “But we’re just really good friends.” “You’re making WAY too much of this.” “You’re so jealous.” “She’s going through so much, I have to be there for her.”
I’m sure he made her equally crazy by dropping little tidbits about me to her.
And he may be doing the same with the ho-worker he’s screwing now.
Fuck that shit. What a giant hairy asshole.
SixYear, my Ex did this too though I didn’t find out until after DDay. I hunted down and found his two exes prior to me. He had never stopped being in contact with either of them and one of them he continued to fuck for 9 of the 16 years he lived with me. They had no reason to make this up and when they described the sex with him it was exactly the same. The one that he kept fucking for 9 years knew all about me, knew my children’s names, where I worked, she remembered a boating injury he got 10 years before DDay though in the story he told her, it was on a fishing trip with a friend, when in fact it was on a visit with Ex’s family members and me and my children. DOUBLE LIFE, anyone????
Muse, that other woman was just as guilty as your ex.
She knew he was married for YEARS, and still kept going at it.
I simply cannot understand why people’s time is so worthless they would throw it away on a married man for so long.
I always ask myself why the married cheater (my x) didn’t just be honest and get a divorce so I didn’t have to waste MY time.
If they were honest, they would have to admit they were in the wrong and they are incapable of doing that. My ex was never wrong! Nor was her mother. The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! (One of her favorite quotes).
Ha! Giant hairy asshole!
Not a pretty picture, but really funny! 🙂
This is too funny – and sad. I actually live in Oklahoma (was born in TX, so no offense taken), and since my DDay Oct. 2013, I’ve learned that Oklahoma has one of the highest divorce rates in the U.S. Probably b/c there are so many freaking skanks and kibble-loving whores around here.
My divorce was finalized Dec. 30 after I wasted 23 years with a life-long scheming, cheating asswipe. The whole time, this fucker got his kibbles from any whore-worker who’d dish them out: married, single, taken, engaged, it never mattered to him, as long as he managed to keep them coming, and I have no doubt that he had multiple bitches giving kibbles at the same time. You know – he’s so SPECIAL and deserving, meanwhile, fucker was happy to have me working my ass off to raise his kids and keep our house going, and his failed business going. (It only failed when I filed and stopped doing a damn thing for it) The last whore-worker? The one who he abandonded his wife and kids for? “Worked” in he HR office at a global company, and was married with two small brats. Yeah! This cheating asshole xh of mine is gonna raise your brats after SHOWING you he’ll abandon his own blood. LOL! That’s gonna be a great day when they both learn that they’re BOTH cheating on each other for their new soulmate! LOL! Meanwhile, I’m just now 40, cheater free, kids almost all grown, and moving on to better and REAL, no matter what that real is.
I’ve been humming “You’ve got to know when to fold up, know when to hold up, know when to walk away…” ALL DAY !!
Oh No, Muse…I’m plugging in my Kenny Rogers version and that song will be on my mind for the next 24-48 hrs! Don’t DO that!
ahem – ‘Know when to Fold them”, I think.
Yes!! Narcissist love the glitz and glamour of “getting married.” It’s full on attention for “their BIG day”… even if it’s a dumpy mess. They plan the wedding. Never how they are going to *stay* married.
Side note: My ex-H told our son (who knows about dad’s multiple affairs) that if his (soon to be new) wife ever thinks that he’s cheating on her… they won’t be married anymore. You think my ex gets this whole marriage thing?? I don’t!!
My ex’s final OW has boldly stated that ex will never cheat on her. This after knowing she wasn’t the only one at his rodeo. This makes me giggle.
Nord..I hear ya! The OW in my case was fully aware that not only was he married to me, but seeing her AND another woman at the same time..and has absolutely NO problem with it! WTF? I just don’t get it.
Hey…were we all married to the same ex?! HA! My ex dumped me on Valentines Day 2013, out of the blue. I then found out quite by accident that my ex was cheating on me with dozens of other women from dating & affair websites, local married women we both knew, and women our local trailer park. The current OW at the time knew all of this and she blamed me for not giving him enough attention–even though he was ‘cheating on her’ (with me–his WIFE) and others that she knew nothing about. She ended her own marriage to a great guy and moved her young daughter in with my then-husband and told me that she could give him the proper “prayer” and attention he needed so that he’d never cheat on her–because she is SPECIAL (and I was not). They married less than a month after our divorce was final, and being so incredibly classy, she was pregnant by my husband while we were still married. Every time I think about the two of them, I laugh my ass off. Two GIANT shit sandwiches who would never even *think* about cheating on each other….right.
Sara – And isn’t just the most illogical thing in the whole freaking world to think that your x cheating asswipe – that ho even said it – needs attention so he doesn’t cheat. So what do these whores do??
HAVE A KID WITH HIM SO THAT SHE CAN’T PAY “ATTENTION” TO HIM LIKE HE “NEEDS.” LOLOLOL!!! Dumbass whores, just breeding. Sad. And somehow the cheating douchebag men just keep hooking these idiots even after they’re found out to be the whores they are. Unbelievable.
I’m so glad you’re away from that crap.
Nord, his OW said, He will never cheat on ME. He was still texting two OW last time I checked. He got HIV testing and treatment for STD while he was living with HER.
My STBX told me, “I’M not a cheater” after I found OW on top of him in his car.
Homeschool, spot on! My ex focused on making the wedding as perfect as possible…but then didn’t focus on actually staying married!
You should see what we did for our wedding. Ridiculous! Weekend-long event in the mountains. Homemade favors! She wore her mother’s wedding dress; my mother took it in for her. We did SO much wedding planning, and then post-wedding review of the wedding, from the other side of the country (wedding was held on the opposite coast). And let’s not forget the tens of $Ks spent–by us, our parents, and all of our guests.
My wife then sorted through 6,000 digital photos and made an amazing wedding album on iPhoto. Seriously, you should see it. It’s beautiful.
Occasionally, I told her that we had to move on; as in, the wedding was OVER, and there were some things that weren’t perfect…and that’s fine…because that’s life. But no, she wanted to go back and regret about:
…how we didn’t invite former friend Jim because we were trying to keep the list manageable.
…how our plans for an outdoor wedding were ruined because it rained all weekend.
…how she wishes we upgraded for X, Y, or Z.
Sigh. This was all for a marriage that didn’t even last 4 years!
I hate that we all spent that much. I don’t feel like a failure, as I’m not the one who failed. But, I can assure you that no one if my family would have spent so much time / money on a wedding for a couple if they knew my wife was going to cheat before the 4th anniversary.
what a narc she was… “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille!!” LOLOLOL
JC
My ex-wife did the same thing. We and her family handcrafted the wedding for a year, working out every detail with love and care, and she threw me and everything away only six months after.
Homeschool, what you wrote remind me of something FooledMe wrote yesterday: ““If you can’t trust me, that’s a deal-breaker.’ Like the problem was my lack of trust, not his total lack of trustworthiness!” It’s all about appearances–not only the wedding, the “true love,” the big Day, but the appearance of trust from the chump, the appearance that they are good spouses or good parents, the appearance that the marriage is either happy (if they are pursuing cake) or unhappy (if they are justifying the affair).
Exactly!!! “Trust me and we’re good! Don’t trust me and I’m out of here!” (After I find my newest target of course!)
My ex just repeats the same words to all of his women. Words that come from the “Love Bombing” chapter of the “Narcissists for Dummies” manual.
Homeschool, what a great insight you shared! My ex N just got married to one of the OW. She was cheating on her husband with him. What a glorious union that must be! I had blocked him on FB, then their joint account showed up as people I may know. I have maintained NC for two years (for my sake …to acheive meh), but couldn’t resist a peek at this mess. iI think you are so right about wanting the attention. Their FB page is over the top and full of deep professions of love and declarations about how she is not like all the other women who didn’t understand him.
I blocked that page too…I enjoy meh WAY too much!
Marian, I 100% believe that couples get joint facebook accounts because of trust issues! Very fitting for them.
This is quite a timely post CL. My ex is marrying his AP in April of this year and my daughters are flying down to FL to be in the wedding. Poor kids just want to be in their father’s life is all and he’s paying for a trip to FL.
I figured since I will be alone that weekend, I’d see if the girlfriends would like to do a girls night – and I booked us a room at a CASINO LOL in CT. Should be fun 🙂
Right there with you, Kimberly. My ex is marrying the AP this summer. But they’re already wearing rings because they pledged themselves to each other on a beach, or some shit. They consider themselves married already. Yup — because marriage is just a word to them, a romantic notion, til death do us part unless someone better comes along. Can I meet you at the Casino? 😉
I wonder if they don’t feel they HAVE to marry the AP to (try to) legitimize the wreckage they made of everything.
My ExH and the OW wore rings before Dday #1. He wore his wedding ring while in my company. Took it off outside the home. Wore OW’s “real” wedding ring with her. He accidentally left it on once after coming back from her place. I never got an answer from him about it. OW explained it to me after Dday 2.
boyman doesnt even think or know about the wreckage he left behind. boyman is really really good at convincing himself of anything so now homewrecker hoodrat is the love of his life. i dont know what i am to him now after 14.5 years of standing by his side and fixing all the messes. but she is so much better then i am, she respects him so much better then i ever did……of course hood rat is STILL married, so she doesnt respect HER OWN husband, she doesnt take care or raise her own children, personally i dont understand how ANYONE could think she will take care of him and be by his side since she ran out on her own marriage and children. *shrugs*
That would be awesome – come on up/down whatever 🙂
I live in CT … we should meet up!
I live in ct too!!!!
Near both casino’s!!
One of you should make a new CL-inspired email address (e.g., Jamlady@gmail….) and post in the forums so you can contact each other. I met another Texas chump for drinks in January by doing that.
Ok … ‘Connecticut Chumps’ is in the Forums! Let’s get together.
Jam Lady, Rachel and Arnold and whoever else is interested- Let’s meet up sometime. Tempest has a great idea about making special e-mail addy – what a great idea. Thanks Tempest.
Count me in
Me too, if it’s OK. I’ve never been to CT.
My son was not invited to his father’s wedding since son is NC. My son has said that forcing kids to attend a parent’s wedding to the affair partner is a form of abuse. In my book, he’s absolutely right.
Totally agree.
I am from Milford, Ct, originalky. Will be there in April visiting family. I am in, if it is okay.
Sure thing – all are welcome 🙂
CL, I think you meant “Fucksaking all others”, lol
Well done, Irene!
This one took me by surprise, because it caused me a twinge of pain that I hadn’t expected (mostly at Meh these days!).
The thought that my stupid narc ex might marry Schmoopie was painful, ’cause we never did marry. In the beginning, it didn’t seem important to me; we were committed for life, having kids together, moving together for one or the other’s jobs, buying a condo … To me, this was MORE of a commitment than marriage, and since neither the ex nor I are religious, our cash was more useful elsewhere, and our families and friends were widely scattered around the globe, a wedding truly didn’t seem important at all.
Afte DDay #1 (7 or 8 years in), I did want us to be married, when we reached that blissful unicorn-land of trusting again, feeling close and committed again …. Which we never quite reached, because of his negativity, selfishness and entitled anger. But the ex brushed off the whole marriage thing (and little did I know that he saw reconciliation VERY differently than I did. Not a lucky break after a very close call to disaster, but proof I would take him back after he cheated). I let it go, especially as, over the years, I started feeling like maybe it was a good thing we didn’t have a legal tie as a couple.
So come DDay #2, after 14 years together, I was glad we hadn’t married. I had the pension – he had no right to any of it. I had the higher retirement savings – which he couldn’t touch. Our debt and house ownership were 50-50, and under Quebec law, child support is proportional to each one’s earnings and how much time kids are spending where, independent of parental marital status.
But even so, thinking that he might make that commitment to Schmoopie that he never wanted to make to me ….. that stung.
THEN I remembered that he and Schmoopie just got back together, after over 6 months apart, That was either their second or third breakup (2 and 1/2 years since DDay #2). He had tried repeatedly to convince me to ‘try again’, both when he was supposedly in a monogamous relationship with her and when he wasn’t. He has been just as disloyal to her as he had been to me (revealing stuff about her to me, and I am pretty sure dating other women as well, since she lives in a different city). She cheated on her previous husband, and hit on the ex, knowing he was married with kids. She neglected her own kids, who are currently a mess. He cheated repeatedly on his girlfriend prior to me (obviously I only heard about this much later), cheated on me, repeatedly, and is just a difficult, negative, selfish, entitled asshole. I think they only got back together now because he moved for his work to the city she lives in, he can’t stand to be alone, and he’s a huge coward about approaching women (lets them approach him. Lucky for him he’s good looking!).
And I have an advantage that many chumps do not. My kids made it clear to their dad from the beginning that they didn’t want the Quebec standard custody arrangement of one week with one parent, the next with the other. About a year after our separation, when they started to really see who he was as a father, without me to coach, educate and bully him into being an adequate one, they started refusing to see him at all. They now spend a few hours once a month with him, and he would never dare bring Schmoopie near them. So I don’t have to eat that shit sandwich of knowing they’re making like one big happy family.
So now I can say, if they marry, that will give me a chuckle. Maybe they’ve both been magically transformed into good, caring people who will live happily after. But the chances are low, quite low. I’m sure the karma bus would deliver them either another failed relationship quite soon (basically third ‘divorce’ for each), or perhaps better yet, decades of making each other more miserable than they already are.
KarenE, our timelines are similar, as well as our need for marriage or not. My nugget of desire was always a ring. I’m not even a jewelry woman, but always wanted him to give me a special ring. We married after 8 years of love and commitment, house, pets, cars, boat, etc.. but only legally married due to legal reasons really. But man, I always just wished he’d found, bought and given me a ring. I have no idea why my “thing” was a ring.. but it was. And, like you, now if I saw a big ‘ol pic of them on IG or something showing him giving his old ow or another of his loves a ring, I’d probably be sad for a second but then feel nothing but… well, nothing! LOL.. I don’t envy the woman next in line for his confused non-committal emotions. Wishing you the best future, Karen. I always love reading your wise and compassionate posts in the forums here. Thanks for being around 🙂
Thank you, UC! Curtsy, curtsy …
You knew what that ring would MEAN to you … and so did he. But he didn’t care, did he? And if he does give a ring to the OW, it’ll be because he learned from you what gesture might ‘work’ or look good, not because it comes from his heart. Ain’t no heart there!
that makes sense and a good way to look at it. he is doing things for her that i used to complain about or make a big deal about because he didnt do it for me. by that i mean v-day, b-day, etc…. he would wait until the day of and run out to buy whatever crap was left over at the walmart. if he EVER got me a gift BEFORE the day it was because my children would make him and go with him and pick it out. i cant count the number of v-days that i would stand there all happy with my card and chocolates for him before he got out of bed, knowing instantly when he didnt have anything for me. who cares if he came home later from the store with something (usually half dead flowers) and i would try to be appreciative, but it would bug the sh*t out of me!! i mean every single commercial on the tv and radio is about those holidays, come on……..now he gets her something nice. i mean it might be the same scenerio but given the timeline of the picture she posted i dont think he ran out first thing in the morning for that huge teddybear wrapped with gifts.
but now it makes sense. he is giving her this stuff because i made such a big deal out of it. he learned that gesture would “work” and look good. but probably not from his heart. still kind of hurts that i put in all that “WORK”, just waiting for my rewards and now he does it for HER for free….ugh then again any man who can ignore and forget his children has no heart….
My narc x spent $23 on a wedding band for me and gave me no engagement ring. I am not a jewelry person either but even at the time I was a little hurt. I spent a factor of 10 more on his wedding band and actually put a lot of thought into it. I guess the warning bells were going off from the start.
My STBXH bought a lovely and very original engagement / wedding band combo for me at the same place he bought a ring for his ex that he felt pressured into asking to marry him? And he told me all about it! They never married because she cheated on him …. or maybe the truth is he cheated on her??? Guess I should feel special that he actually went through it with me. If he marries his skanky OW it is definitely going to sting, but they will no doubt have a heinous life together. Oh wait, we have to get divorced first!
This, this right here: “to really see who he was as a father, without me to coach, educate and bully him into being an adequate one”. That is my experience completely. And now he’s pissed, why? Because i stopped propping him up? Not my job.
Ooooh. Same with my xh. He is having so much trouble communicating with the kids without me in the middle to help translate and repair and referee. It feels so good to not have to play that role any more!! Let the AP’s do the WORK and earn those lovely diamond earrings.
I bet you, like me, didn’t even realize how much their being decent fathers depended on our propping them up. My ex was only a mediocre dad, when we were together. I actually thought, for a month or so after the separation, that maybe if he was happier and more independent and didn’t have me pushing him to do this or be that with the kids, he would find a better place to be, as a father, and could step up and parent them better. Since he’d have limited time with them, he’d make an effort for that time. Thought it would be so good for the kids. Sheeesh, he sure showed us who he was on that front. So sad for my kids, and makes me feel like crap for breeding with such a fucktard. I deserved better from a husband, but at least I’m a grown up, with choices and options. This is the one thing I will never be able to forgive that asshole for.
Oh the homewrecking hood rat TRIED, but of the only thing she knew how to make her and boyman look better was by trying to make ME look bad. that and not letting boyman talk to the boys and making sure she threw herself bodily on top of him (and in between him and boys) while my kids were trying to play football, basketball, catch, tag. who does this? my kids were not impressed but i guess boyman was
HA, PAprincess and KarenE, I can’t agree with your comments more. My dog turd X wasn’t much of a father even when we were together – too much of a narc. But he actually thought he was a fantastic father. I did think that he would be better after he ran off and moved I with OW and would make the most of time he had with our daughter. WRONG. Without me there fixing his constant “open mouth and insert foot” he absolutely destroyed his relationship with his daughter. He was pissed I wasn’t smooth g things over and Is told him it wasn’t my job any more. X hadn’t seen my daughter in 10 months but just took her skiing for a couple days last week. It was not good. My daughter felt he largely ignored her, showed little interest in her and her life (which he knows nothing about) and did drop the bomb at the end he was getting married to OW this summer. He tried to talk her into meeting OW and my daughter continues to refuse to meet OW. So he didn’t invite her to the wedding or tell her when it was.
I am just laughing. Thank you CL for this article – perfect timing!!!!!!
I think a definite aspect of my x getting married is to prove it was all worth it, he really did this for LOVE so it was worth blowing up his life and everything he had. It was worth completely loosing his relationship with his daughter – because he has schmoopie’s young son! He has to do this to save face. He still views himself as a very moral, honest, trustworthy, upstanding, and loving person. This proves it. I am just a bitter bunny :). Of course he can’t live on his own so the OW may be pressuring him too. This is a man who just moved out one day and into the OW house.
Mommy Chump – we live in a parallel universe!! My ex is marrying the OW in June – on a sunset cruise in Key West (probably the same cruise we went on to celebrate our 1st anniversary and planned to do again to renew our vows one day). He has very limited contact with our oldest son who is now in college, and sees our youngest son (14) once a week or so but expresses little genuine interest in either of their lives. He is totally wrapped up in his new family – OW’s poor daughter who is currently in a mental hospital after a recent suicide attempt and OW’s son who is mid-transition to female but accidentally knocked up his lesbian girlfriend (he presents as a female lesbian) and is “going to make my Ex a grandfather! Isn’t that wonderful!” Neither of our boys are invited to the wedding. Repeat – he is not inviting his own children to take part in his wedding. (They are not toddlers…they are 14 and almost 19). I am totally convinced my Ex is marrying her to save face. To show what a super, sparkly great guy he is that he will marry someone with so much family baggage. To show my boys that they don’t matter to him enough to even ask them if they wanted to take part in this major event in his life. Sigh…so glad it’s Tuesday in my little world!
Wow, that’s a bunch of weird stuff. Bet you’re glad you’re not part of that.
My ex is marrying one of his AP’s in July in a big wedding too. He tried to get our oldest son (26 years old) and who he has had dinner with only 2 or 3 times since D-Day 3 years ago, to be his best man. Son said no and that not only would he not attend, he would not see his father even for dinner if AP was present. Ex said that was fine but then hasn’t tried to contact son since. Ex has withdrawn from all 3 of our kids, and appears to have been trying to get oldest son to be in the wedding to help save face. (Oh, and as an interesting aside, the maid of honor is the AP’s best friend, and she also had a long term affair with ex…and all three periodically engaged in group sex before D-Day). Wonder how many people will be in the honeymoon suite on their wedding night.
People, even their own children, are commodities to them.
HM
Dont know how many times in the last 8 months i have said those exact words to him…..
” this aint my job anymore” he has asked everything from … do you know where my insurance card is … to … You need to tell our daughter…
I still cant believe the entitlement. All I say now is ” check Teeeny’s purse” and ” call your mother”
KarenE: “But even so, thinking that he might make that commitment to Schmoopie that he never wanted to make to me ….. that stung”
Oh yes it does sting. I lived a very similar story. I understood that he had been keeping this “wedding” card in his game just in case someone more exciting came along. After all, I was willing to stay with him without a wedding, so why not save the wedding possibility as an escape route ?
To my boyfriend, “more exciting” was some plain (really) middle-aged Eastern woman he met on a language web site. She had a cute daughter and somewhat rich relatives. They met in foreign countries during his ‘solo’ sports club vacation, and he proposed at the third encounter. How wonderful to suddenly leave the unaware me, his job he doesn’t like, bills and chores, and wooooossshhhhh, fly away to a new exotic beginning. He wouldn’t have to deal with heartbreak, and I was doing most things myself anyway, so who cares, right ? Too bad she was chatting with several men, who all had a house by the sea, and eventually chose one who was more available (=no girlfriend).
He had the nerves to tell me “she did not make a good choice, I make more money and he is uglier”.
I just don’t want this little gem of wisdom to get lost, although the intervening discussion is so good! KarenE wrote: “And little did I know that he saw reconciliation VERY differently than I did. Not a lucky break after a very close call to disaster, but proof I would take him back after he cheated).”
This comment reflects what Gavin de Becker, in “The Gift of Fear” (linked above) says about responding to people who push boundaries (and sometimes in dangerous ways.) If you tell someone “no” 5 times and then give in, they learn that the price of getting to “yes” is hearing “no” 6 times. Years ago, I was in a relationship with a divorced man whose XW would let the phone ring 75 times, then hang up and dial again, trying to get to the moment when he would give in a pick up the phone. His therapist had forbidden him to pick up if she called; he had told her to leave a message and he would call back as soon as he could. So he didn’t pick up, and in a few months, she had stopped behaving that way.
KarenE’s point is that non-remorseful cheaters who want to “reconcile” are just looking at the chumps’ willingness to take them back as not having reached the tipping point where cheating would be a deal-breaker.
LAJ–this resonates with me a lot. I certainly had that sense whenever X tried to reconcile with me (and now that I know much more about his history, he had no intention of stopping his infidelity had reconciliation occurred). Thank goodness my limbic system just screamed “Danger! Danger!” whenever he was near, so the decision wasn’t that difficult.
Karen, my kids 15 &19 still refuse to meet Chainsaw Man. They stayed with their mother for 56 nights last year and she lives less than 2 miles away.
I agree you and I don’t have to eat the same shit sandwich as some do here but the kids sure do.
Chainsaw man and Groceries relationship, them buying a house together ( even though we are not divorced yet or even done property settlement) is totally against the boys wishes and to the boys the relationship is illegitimate. Therefore they have to tip toe around things with their mother and obviously she wants the boys to meet Chainsaw man but they flatly refuse.
What a terrible marriage that’s going to be forever managing walking on egg shells.
If I ever get married it will be pre approved and have the full support of the boys.
Reading other blogs marriages that begin as affairs have little chance of Success. The newest wears off and they have to live with the guilt. They lose their intrigrity, trust and moral fibre and run out of things to sacrifice to make the marriage work.
I wouldn’t like to live like that. I just wish I never had to see them again.
My twelve year old daughter told me this weekend that she was looking through her mom’s phone for pictures of something , when she came across numerous pictures of my XW, naked, and her new husband d’s penis ( this guy is not the affair partner but,rather, a married guy my Xw started banging while hew was still married and she was still living with the affair partner).
My kids, the three girls , hate this guy and never talk to him.
Arnold, I don’t get it. Groceries let our oldest son use her phone knowing full well she was in full flight in an affair. He read stuff that a 14 year old kid shouldn’t read. At the time he had no idea.
These idiots get married and they have no support from the children. How the hell does that work. Chainsaw man hadn’t a hope in hell of connecting with the boys. No apologies or attempt to explain his fucked up behaviour. This is a guy that is way older than me or the boys friends parents so even then they don’t know how they will relate to him. He’s abandoned his own daughters in New Zealand so how the hell does he expect to earn any respect from my sons.
Chainsaw man is just interested in chewing Viagra and keeping the boy’s mother away from them. Truly fucked up!!
“No apologies or attempt to explain his fucked up behaviour.”
Baci, not even for their children, that’s the part I don’t get.
Yes, and our X’s also should apologize to the kids.
I so agree that the Narcs should apologize to their kids. Instead my X is now trying to rewrite history to our daugter – he told her he is getting married this summer and was pressuring our daughter to meet OW (but didn’t invote daughter to wedding) and daughter refused. Then he spent the rest of the time claiming he didn’t actually have an affair wih OW and that he just misspoke 2 years ago. daughter was smart enough not to believe his rewrite. No apology for what he had done to her life or his disappearance from her life. He seems to think because he is so FANTASTIC AND SPARKLY she should be grateful he acknowledges her existance. And then is pissed she doesn’t buy his BS
The gambling metaphor works. I think cheaters are the kind of people who roll the dice through life, rather than making an investment, which takes time, compromise, concessions and commitment to follow through with another human being in a relationship. The entitled types are more prone to believing good things (winnings) should just fall out of the sky onto them with no or minimal investment from them. And curiously, on my D-Day, I remember thinking that X looked like he was calculating his odds, then decided to place his bets on OW and just destroy in five minutes our entire life of almost 20 years together, because there was likely to be a payout for HIM.
My ex is a literal gambler. He loves Texas Holdem. I think he thinks of his relationships as hands, and not actual people.
He has never had anything very hard happen to him. Never lost a parent or a close friend, never watched a family member get sick and die, never had a child. He went to jail for two weeks because of a DUI, but he played cards there. His biggest complaint was they made him wear an orange jumpsuit.
So I guess I need to meet a man who has been through something tragic. Otherwise they are selfish and superficial.
Interesting insight though Narcs will always turn the tragedy into something about THEM. THEIR sorrow, their feelings of abandonment that the deceased loved one left them; mine even spoke of anger towards his deceased mother for “doing that to him.”
My ex never had anything bad happen to him until last month when I got wind that his father had died. In the month after dday & runaway, I remember telling him how lucky he was with healthy living parents & siblings (my parents both died while we were married), a great job, his own good health, a beautiful home, 2 BMWs & a loving, devoted wife. Why I asked was it so important to throw all of it away? I got the shark eyes stare & nothing else. A death of a parent is devastating no matter how old they are. All I can say is how’d you like it now asshat? – a real tragedy in your life now.
hurt, I don’t think narcissists or sociopaths learn anything from tragedy or difficult experiences. (Just like they probably don’t learn from psychedelic/transcendental experiences.) You have to have a heart to learn from life’s hard knocks.
My ex is a covert narcissist, not the sparkly kind. So the more bad things that happen to him, the better for him, poor sausage! I’m sure he gets huge mileage out of my ‘not letting him try again’, and the kids dumping him (probably because of my alienating them from him, right???). Early last year his youngest half-sibling died, and he made such a big deal out of how hard it was for him. Yeah, the sibling you barely knew (ex left overseas when his little brother was about a year old), consistently criticized and judged (just like he did everybody else), never talked to or spent time with, and visited for a couple of days before his death. I know this loss was hard on the whole family, but really … he milked it for all he could, but it actually meant nothing to him.
boyman’s father died before i met him. (i say father because that man was NOT in his kids lives, tried to turn them into the Christian school because he didnt want them) boyman was ALWAYS so damaged about his fathers death thou. of course everytime he was drunk, i would find him out at the cemetery crying for dear old dad, and apologizing for being a f*ck up. i would try over and over to explain how he wasnt a f*ck up, he was better then his dad and he had nothing to be sorry for. it was past the 10 year mark of his dads death, and after fighting with the grounds keeper at the cemetery who wanted to call the cops on boyman for being disruptive and talked vandalism of things. i finally told him to “get over it”, along with more reasons. apparently all he heard was “Get over it”
after my daughters death (boyman was not her biological but helped raise her) in 2012, when we were talking in jan 2014 (before i knew of oompa loompa) he told me i was boring. i said wow! daughter just past away you know. he said “should i tell you how you told me about my dad?” and when i said what are you talking about he said “get over it. that is what you told me about my dad. to just get over it so you just get over it” again, like an idiot i was trying to explain that i didnt say that a year after his dad died, and he was stuttering something (probably because she didnt tell him what to say after that) when it hit me that i was never going to get anywhere explaining to him. i already said the same things over and over and he was still twisting sh*t to whatever fit his story.
hurt1, I’m not sure they feel that much. My ex was close to his grandparents but didn’t seem to miss them much after they were gone. I was once telling him how much I missed my grandmother and asked if he missed his and he said NO. That floored me because he practically grew up in her house. I’d say his life motto is “out of sight, out of mind.”
Jen, Muse, Hurt1, KarenE, SphinxMoth-
Wow, I think we married the same variety of Narc-Cheater. That political expression, “never let a good crisis go to waste” was my cheater to a tee. He was a gambler as well but looked down on all the other gamblers at the casino as ignorant trash…people he could use. Creepy.
So, no surprise that anything that crossed his radar that he could use to get kibbles, he was on it! As he was usually detached from people. places, things, and current events, I was agog the first time I saw him capitalize on someone else’s tragedy. Later, he worked to hide some of his true motivations from me, but the mask was off, especially after D-Day. I only wish, his last OW kept him. “They had such chemistry!” I don’t know the details, but after she had some conversations with me during R, I think she gave him the flit. That, and I think he realized she would be too much work. Wish I had never bothered with my chat…they deserved each other.
I’m not sure all people need to have experienced tragedy in order to have empathy. It’s not experience that the cheater lacks. If his marriage and family broke up, that was a tragedy (and don’t we all know that) but not from his perspective. People on the sociopathic/psychopathic end of the scale evidently do not feel emotion in the typical ways that average people do. They compensate by mimicking the feelings they see average people expressing, but that’s just a mask. So I don’t think the “experienced tragedy” thing is a key indicator. Spotting character disorder is about looking for what those people lack, and how their life arc represents the capacity for commitment, empathy, etc. Or so I think. If I met Jackass on the street today (with no prior knowledge, just listening to his life history would make me think something was amiss with him. Red flags everywhere for someone who isn’t spackling….
But I really don’t think he is a narcissist. He is a child who never grew up. We all start out with some narcissism. It falls away through life experience.
He started doing drugs when he was 14, followed the grateful dead till Jerry Garcia died. His girlfriends left him to fuck his friends. He sold drugs to afford tickets/hotel rooms. That was the atmosphere. His parents were not smart enough to guide him away from it.
I’m not excusing him, but in my heart I don’t think he is evil. My first ex can be evil and its chilling. And he hides behind church/morality. I know the difference.
He loves poker/gambling/betting on sports. He is a bro before ho kind of guy. He is not mean, but he can turn his back on suffering and look the other way. He was playing some weird game where I was the adversary, and he had to cheat/bluff to win.
I can’t play this stupid game anymore, and I hope that the OW becomes less interesting outside of his dumb triangle. Not because I want to win, I am mad I got tricked into this shit. Like some asshole playing craps with dice on the sidewalk.
Muse, yes…the calculating. When I was dating XH, we split up for a year, because I wanted to get married and he wanted to play the field. So I Iet him, moved away and was working on a very lucrative career. He dated several girls, drifted around, but always stayed in touch- he ended up begging me to get back together, which I did with the caveat that we discuss where the relationship was going.
I asked him after we had gotten married, what actually happened with his “me time” and these other girls? He said that he had evaluated and found that he “wasn’t getting anything from either of them”, so he figured going back to me was the logical choice. I thought he meant they weren’t putting out, but he corrected me and said that they just weren’t willing to buy him things and support him financially like I always had.
SphinxMoth, yes – so calculating and self serving. I remember actually feeling sorry for Schmoopie for a second or two, when Ex was telling me she wasn’t “the kind of person he could be in a relationship with,” he didn’t “100% trust her” and on and on he went about what she could do for him and what a great “opportunity” this was for him, (and how she was a better GF than me because she has no children though mine were grown and moved out 5 yrs prior), not ONE single comment about what HE could bring to HER life. Like I said, for one or two seconds, I felt sorry for her.
Muse, this calculation was EXACTLY what I saw my ex doing with my kids! He was always so focussed on what he got from them (and how entitled he was to it), with apparently ZERO consideration of any possible responsibility towards them, anything he should be giving them, any concern for their well-being. He has always been good about the financial stuff for them, but otherwise, NADA.
In a family therapy session he and I had (when he was trying to win the kids back after they dumped him), I remember commenting on how our son’s math tutor was so calm and patient with our son, in contrast to the ex, who had ‘helped’ son with his math and been impatient, angry and just fed up almost every time. The ex actually looked at me and said (with utter contempt as usual); ‘of course the tutor is calm and patient, that’s his JOB!’. I was floored, couldn’t even reply what I was thinking; this is your CHILD, your only son! Wouldn’t it be YOUR job to raise him to be happy and healthy? And if you had a bad temper, wouldn’t it be YOUR job to learn to manage it, so you could deal in a caring and healthy way with your child?
The most frustrating of all, to me, was that the ex couldn’t see that his ‘take take take’ attitude actually led to a highly impoverished emotional life. He couldn’t understand that there are profound satisfactions and pleasures in giving, as well. Our emotional lives are unbalanced if we only take (as they are if we only give), and we cannot be happy with that half-life. He couldn’t even understand that if you only take, you will end up alone. But I guess that’s OK, there are always replacement women somewhere, eh? All ready to provide kibbles,
Mine had profound smug satisfaction in giving to others. If there was a need that others had he would give them the gift of cash. Invest in time listening? Nope he is the talker. Invested in physically helping? Nope give cash and they can pay someone else to help. I am a good person. I have helped so many people and I am entitled to their loyalty.
As far as milking tragedy, you all are spot on. I just heard his mom is terminal and since we have kids I texted ” sorry.” Nothing about her really just that he and his dad will be okay and he will miss her. I have to figure out how to get one of the kids to visit without so much tension. He had nothing to do with them but we have not gone to court and he can say I did not let her see him which would e looked upon unfavorably. Every text I have gotten from him since we left is about poor pitiful me. He has never asked a question about the kids.
If you read here, you know I am not a fan of staying in text contact with these cheaters, but I wonder if the fact that you are text contact, and he never asks questions about the kids can help you in presenting to the courts the difficulties you are having.
KarenE–I’m experiencing the same thing with my cheater. He wants to win back the 14 year old, who is NC with him. What’s his first step? to tell her, “This isn’t all my fault” (because my having a few rooms upstairs that are too messy for his taste caused him to shag several students, don’t cha know?). She said, “Yes it is” and refused to talk to him afterwards.
Second step? He told me to take his promise of a $400/month college contribution for her out of the decree. If she won’t speak to him, he won’t contribute to her college fund. Kibbles or else…
And so it goes.
Tempest, I hate to say this, but she may be better off without his financial contribution.. That’s the price of freedom. None of us are actually entitled to a free education, and many of us end up in student loan debt. It sucks, but then we can say we did it ourselves.
I let go of a lot of money just to be free, and I don’t regret it. He is remarried and I love his wife, who I believe will be there for my son if she needs to leave or he passes. And if she isn’t, oh well. I never wanted to have strings attached to this demon.
There are many ways to move forward. I think the way that cuts them out of having any influence is freeing.
Jen–I completely agree. She opted for integrity over monetary perks, and I am very proud of her for it. It makes it less likely that she will marry someone like her father in the future, because he may not be in the picture during her formative teen years. I would not wish this experience on my worst enemy, much less my daughters.
Tempest, what is it about these entitled (former in my case) profs? My ex refused to let 14 yr daughter see her half sister over the winter break since she was no contact with him, saying the same thing. “If she won’t see me, she cannot see her sister.”
I am looking forward to sharing that tidbit at our upcoming court mediation.
Muse this is so true. What you say fits my X.
The guy actually knew he had a gambling problem, and told me so. But as you say, the gambling attitude was insidious, and he led a very risky life. Anyway, back to the gambling activity, he steered clear of casinos. But if we DID go, (like a group of us from work for instance), he would only allow himself to bet $50. However, I watched him one time when he won money. He pissed it away on more betting IMMEDIATELY, and he did it without even thinking about what he was betting on. In hindsight it was scary, and yet another big red flag that went sailing over my head, lol. On the other hand, I won $50; didn’t tell him, and stuck the money in my wallet.
Interestingly, when I was just 18, I went out on a date with a really nice guy who was about a year older than me. I had a big crush on him. The date was so much fun, and I was SO looking forward to seeing him again. After we got back, he told me, “I had a great time, but, you don’t want to go out with a guy like me. I bet heavily on the horses”.
You know what?? I think it’s quite possible that guy wound up being a gem later in life. He had the courage to see that in himself at 19, and not want to subject someone to his problem.
This comment is spot on. Another friend of mine says these folks kind of “float through life” and do what feels good at the moment with little regard for consequences. Sad really.
i agree with this. so many people like boyman and oompa loompa just “float through life” doing what makes them “happy” right now. i cant live that way. i worry about the future. i worry about being stable, safe and secure for our children. these people dont care who they hurt as long as they are HAPPY. sad thing is they never seem to have it bad, if that makes sense. i mean here is this person who left her own marriage, dated several men (some married some not), bailed on her children so she could stay up all night and party, has no car, no job, no house. was living with one person after another, depending on others for her food, to shower, hell just to be warm and sheltered in a house. and during living with one of boymans cousins, mets up with MY HUSBAND, knowing he was very much married, knowing i loved him and the kids needed him (she saw his facebook) but they got along so well, drinking and talking about how miserable their lives were….. she helps him walk out on his wife and children…… and both he and her are living life happily. they are now both living with someone, he doesnt have a job (probably avoiding child support) but i know he works to get money, she works. now one of her son’s have moved in with them (while they live with someone else???!!!???) and everything is just so damn perfect. you can just see the love (BAF) as some person posted on their pic. he is doing everything for HER that he should have been doing for me and our kids.
so maybe “floating through life” is not all that bad. it seems to work for him and for her. i did all the right things and what do i have? nothing! struggling to keep all the stuff i worked so hard for while he just Waltzes out the door and into a whole new uncomplicated life.
MrsVain, his life sounds like that of a lazy teenager living in his parents basement. Add some drugs, booze, and loud music and I can picture my X and his ho stopping by to hang.
Yeah, but that life he has now sounds like garbage, and at some point, as us responsible people who think ahead know, the rent will come due on that life they are living and as other people have written here who have seen it, it won’t be pretty.
i dont know Tony, people like that seem to just avoid all those nasty responsibilities. rent comes due, they move. hell it takes YEARS to catch one of those losers who have warrants out for their arrest. they are like cockroaches who hide right there in your face but you dont see them. they get away with everything and dont seem to have any kind of conscious to bother them. How could you sleep no knowing if your children are fed, or being taken care of. how could you sleep knowing the person who depended, trusted and loved you unconditionally is now broken because of something you did. my conscious would bother me, hell it DID bother me trying to figure out where I went wrong for months. how could you sleep knowing that the man you have walked out on his kids because of you? and you know what…..they sleep just fine.
i can remember having arguments with boyman where i was so hurt, so lost, so confused i couldnt sleep but him….he had no problem. just turned him back and soon snoring like it didnt bother him all…well i guess it didnt. i hate that i gave 14 years to a man like that
TheMuse, I couldn’t agree more. I also felt he was calculating. My X was always in need over our 24 years of marriage to change something every 4 years – things like change jobs, move, as I know now, change affair partners. In each case when the big change happened he had to burn every bridge and leave a path of destruction in his wake. I think it was so he couldn’t ever go back or have regrets because he ensured there was no going back. He did the same thing with our marriage, a wake of destruction. I also think his detachment from our daughter was part of the scorched earth approach – ruin his relationship with her too so there are no regrets for the devastation he created. He can conveniently label me and our daughter and bitches and move on. He can then just keep moving forward because that is the only direction to go.
Except he’s not moving forward at all. He’s just going round and round in an endless Groundhog Day loop.
Ha! If my XH marries Schmoopie it will be his SEVENTH time down the aisle. Now there’s a guy who believes in vows. I didn’t know about his past. And he luvved me SooOOoo much he insisted we renew our vows. Bwahahaha. Maybe he figured out he wasn’t good at marriage. You think? I’d bet a hundred bucks though she’d marry in a heart beat if she could. Because, kids she is SPECIAL!!!
he’s definitely the marrying kind. . . just not the sticking around kind!
😀
I don’t really care if my husband picks someone else. He already has lost my self respect and my only concern is the well being of our kids. The funny thing about the metaphor about casinos is that my husband loves to gamble. He likes a quick fix, the trill of a bet and possible win.
He gambled with our marriage and lost when I found out about his EA with his whore secretary. She has 3 kids with 2 different guys that DID NOT marry her….surprising I know. This was D-day #1.
D-day #2…I found out that he was a serial cheater. He wants to reconcile and save our marriage…right. He hasn’t done ONE thing to prove this. No books read, no call to a marriage counselor….anything. Instead he continues to gamble and actually said that when I met him that this is something that he liked to do…it is who he is.
I am a chump. I should have seen the signs. I ate the shit sandwich. But no more….I am exhausted. No more pick me dance. No more Unicorns. One day he will realize what he truly lost. Hope it was worth the gamble.
i dont know if they ever realize what they truly lost. unfortunately they are not WIRED that way, they just dont think the same way we do. so we think that they will miss their kids, or us, or all the good things we did for them…..but in reality, they dont even THING about us or their kids or all the good things we did. so how can they miss it when they didnt even realize they had it in the first place.
i am able to move on now that i understand that he will never “miss” me, he will never “realize” what he lost. but i had morals and values and i just cant live that way anymore.
I am trying to wrap my brain around this too. How could he not love me and my son after years, and holidays, etc.
I guess he was always looking to move up. And I’ve seen her facebook pic and heard her vernacular in voice mails, this is not a move up. But that doesn’t matter because she won’t last either.
It goes back to what I said about surviving sonething hard. My dad who was a kick ass engineer in the early eighties got very sick with type 1 diabetes. He lost his eyes, kidneys, legs, and fingers before he finally died. I was crushed when we had to call ambulances in the middle of the night as he went into insulin shock. This capable, intelligent, strong father died in front of me over a period of years. I knew then that it doesn’t matter if you are on top. We are all going to the same place in the end.
Ex doesn’t realize this because his narcissist parents are still thriving playing golf tournaments in Hawaii. He really thinks he is better and needs to win Miss America to his Mr. Universe. But OW is no Miss America. So I’ll let him chew on that.
My ex is finding out that ‘happy ever after’ is not as easy to grab as he thought! He can’t seem to get a gf to commit, they must all see through him in a way I didn’t until far too late. Worst thing is he always comes back to me, trying to get me back whenever his relationships finish. I’d love to post him to Oklahoma!!
I actually feel the opposite way: my 25 year old ex had an affair with her 55 year old co-worker. I am really pulling for them to go Facebook official despite his being in a relationship so everyone can plainly see what a mental case my ex is.
Ewwwww
😛
Ditto! Ew!
Ew in reverse for me–my then-56 year old husband had an affair with a 22 year old student. (Even he must have known it was sick, as he told me she had been 24 at the time). I’ve seen the 22-yo (who is now 30)–at 52 I have a better figure than she does (thanks, infidelity diet & running!).
Mine went back to CFMily from 20+ years ago. When he told me about her (I had figured it out about a year earlier) I asked him if he was planning to marry her. I did not yet know the concept of a shit sandwich, I just knew that was not going to be a fun day for me… all my kids lined up and smiling as dad takes CFMily as his wife. He then told me he didn’t really know but in the past few years he had realized there were certain advantages to being married. My eyes must have gone cold…like having a livein slave. Then he asked me if I ever planned to remarry. I said no absolutely not. He said was it that bad? I said yes, It was that bad. You know if it really is twu lub, I don’t know why she doesn’t quit her job and moved down here to be with him until they can move up to the perfect life in eNVy. But it looks like he is stuck here for a while. But if they do marry… they will be married in a state that made casinos a way of life, also cheapo quickie divorces in the 1950’s. And the rest of the state is sort of like Deliverance but with cowboys instead of hill billies. Perfection… Popcorn please.
Ringin–“He said was it that bad? I said yes, It was that bad.”
I am laughing so hard about that line. I’m glad you got to tell him that marriage to the jackass was akin to torture. Even before I knew about mine’s cheating, when he would bring up his potential death (he’s 12 years older than me), I told him I would NEVER marry again, thanks very much, once was enough.
boyman told me right away that he was NEVER getting married again, i always thought that i would get married again. but you cant believe everything boyman says, so it wouldnt surprise me if he got married again and as for me, i dont even have a date prospect much less a life partner potential. so ironic, he saying he never will and he probably will and my saying i will but probably never will…
I filed for divorce as soon as I could after discovering his affair. I’m pretty sure the affair was over by the time he was served but that didn’t matter. We were headed for divorce for years; he was just too much of a coward to end it himself. Within months (3 at best) he had another girlfriend, and 18 months later I’m pretty sure he’s still with her. All I can think is “God help her.” And I laugh, too, because her name is Susan, as is mine, as was the woman he dated and proposed to before meeting me. Scorned by two Susan’s already … she hasn’t got a chance! Run, Susan, run!!
So he’s desperately seeking Susans.
Oh I love that movie! But that sounds more like, “the new Christine” with Julia Louis Dryfus (spelling?)
Good grief, you can’t make up this stuff…
OMG Greengirl that was priceless ha ha ha
I propose from now one Jam refers to her cheater as DSS.
Several of my ex’s mistresses had the same or similar names as mine. They all looked sort of like me… only uglier… too. I’ve heard a lot of cheaters do that sort of thing. Crazy!?!?!
My first ex always picks women who look like me. I would be flattered, but it’s possible there was an ex before me who I look like. And I just don’t care.
Agh! I thought that was only mine! Good God. Same height, weight, hair color…it’s just creepy.
My ex has a thing for teachers, three of us in a row. Hot for teacher I guess. I mostly think he has a thing for women who want to help and do the work of educating and coaching and encouraging…. but he wants it even when he won’t do the work that goes into a real, loving, reciprocal relationship. I can’t wait until this one finds out that all that is allowed on the curriculum is HOW TO MAKE HIM FEEL GOOD ABOUT HIMSELF 101, 102, 103..
I have to ask out of curiosity..was his Mom a teacher?.
Ugh, my ex has done this too. I looked very different from his previous long-term gf, but maybe look like one of the people he cheated on her with. And both OW #1 and #2 look a lot like me. Something creepy about that; maybe just another sign of how replaceable we all are to them?
My husband’s AP looked similar to me too. Same height, build, hair color. Gross.
My ex-husband’s affair partner turned wife looks more like him than his sister’s do. Tall, red hair, green eyes and freckles. His sisters and I are short brunettes with dark skin and dark eyes. How narcissistic to marry your own carbon copy.
Mr. Hanecita did the same thing… I couldn’t figure out if the attraction what that his affair partner reminded him of himself, or his mother…Go figure.
Mine always sticks with (or marries) petite brunettes and always cheats with blondes?? Weird. Coincidentally his Mother is a petite brunette.
Jam lady, they don’t happen to be in Austin, TX? My ex Susan ran off to be with her guy in Austin. An old high school boyfriend. Pathetic. Trying to re-live her glory days. But 30 years together really makes it hurt for me. I think they won’t get married because then the alimony would stop. And she is all about the money (he makes a lot more than me).
I don’t know if Xh will marry Schmoopie. He told me once when he was being a sad sausage that he thought he would never get re-married (good idea, ya think!!). But he might get married to Schmoopie just to “prove” to everyone what a good choice she was as a mistress.
What I hang my hat on is that those 2 cheaters deserve each other. What more could you ask for than someone who would throw away all that is sacred and holy for a fuck on the side!? If that is what she wants, then she can have him!! I don’t really want to give the other woman any of my brain space, but REALLY…what kind of person are you and what kind of life do you really expect being a cheater and being with a cheater???
Oh, I forgot…he was just a poor sad sausage whose wife didn’t meet this needs. She will be the one who will understand him and treat him so special. Well good luck with that Schmoopie!!!
I’ve never understood it. The idea that you could MARRY someone who cheated their spouse to see you… F’ed up!!!
When ex and I were off, I briefly dated a boy I went to kindergarten with. He lived in my apartment complex and saw me at the mailboxes. Contacted me via facebook, as I did not recognize him.
In kindergarten, I remember having a crush on him. We played the “farmer in the dell” and he picked me to be the wife. So it seemed kind of perfect.
But as we got reacquainted, he told me his plan and execution of leaving his wife, (which brougt him to my apartment complex) who would not have sex with him anymore due to a back injury she acquired working as a volunteer EMT. He said he was mad she wouldn’t consider surgery that could potentialy leave her paralyzed. I stopped contact, and felt guilty for not giving him an explanation, but geez. If you can’t back your spouse’s health, get the hell away from me.
yep, those hood rats are so stupid to believe that he is just a sad little sausage whose wife did all these bad things to him…..how the F*CK can they really think that it is all the wifes fault. i never understood that one. if a man ever said that to me….”yes, i am married but i want to get divorced because my wife blah blah blah” or even “i am separated from my wife because she blah blah blah” i was running away from that POS. i remember the only time i ever fell for this was right after i graduated from High School and i still was very much naive…
and i also cant understand how they think that someone who cheated, lied and betrayed their spouse is going to be a good spouse to you. of course in my case, homewrecker oompa loompa is STILL married to her husband and my husband was just boyfriend #6. it boggles my mind how boyman THINKS she is so special.
maybe they just dont care because they both just “Float thru Life”. nether of them really care if it is a committed relationship or not, as long as they are “happy” and are “having fun”
I think these OWs are also Narcissists. They really do believe they are So Special.
I’m a life-long Oklahoman and I really wish Texas had kept my STBXH’s downgrade harlot right there in Texas where she came from. You could at least have kept the happy couple there permanently after their first “twu wuv” getaway to meet her Texas family. (He apparently lied and told her he was separated at the time– news to me!) I know, I know, if not her, it would have been someone else.
Maybe we can come up with some kind of Red River exchange program. Texas can keep the cheaters and occasionally send them north to spend money on low life casino vacations. In exchange, we’ll take your intelligent, kind, and honest chumps looking for authentic, faithful relationships. After all, our sunsets have legendary healing powers and we know how to sit alone and talk and watch a hawk making lazy circles in the sky.
Seriously, your timing is terrific. The legal wheels are turning very slowly and while my head knows a relationship founded upon lies and deception is doomed, my heart sometimes wonders if he will give her the kindness and faithfulness I believed he would give me for a lifetime. Yep, I’ve heard you: “Trust that he sucks.” Thanks for the reminders!
An exchange! Ha! If you think I’m mean about Oklahoma, you should see what I say about Texas. (My poor husband, he loves Texas. ) I think it’s the color of dead grass, the politics are insane, the climate is unbearable and people say “Bless your heart” when they mean “fuck you.” But for all my Texas gripes, it is what it is. Texas doesn’t pretend to be anything other than Texas. Whereas in that ad, I think Oklahoma had pretensions to be the French Riviera.
We do have a lot in common! Both states use great words like “harlot.” Both states have evil no-fault divorce laws that favor cheaters. And chumps from both states now have new meaning to our college sports rivalry term: bedlam.
which one has the best little whore house? isnt that in Texas? i forget.
I named one of my sons after Woody Guthrie (b. Okemah, Oklahoma, 1912), and the Talamina National Scenic Byway is one of the prettiest drives in the country (http://www.talimenascenicdrive.com/ ), but if you choose to spend your vacation at a casino in Oklahoma you are dumber than dirt.
Why would anyone spend time in a smokey building with no windows when our wide open skies invite the most amazing fresh air that welcomes healing breath and new life?
People smoking the “I will hit a jackpot” hopium pipe.
People with no understanding of statistics.
I don’t give my ex any credit for thinking at all (unless it was with his dick). I do believe he had quite a bit of overlap… Lol. He did gamble away my love, my trust, my financial security, and our family, but it did not happen all at once. Little by little, day by day, moment by moment, he chose to sabotage his relationship with me, and he chose to fuck over his family. He didn’t exhibit any integrity when he left either. Choosing scorched earth over sane. He stayed true to what he had always done, he made choices only to benefit him. Those decisions led him to where he is today, married to his sloppy OW, a father whose kids are growing further and further away from him every day. And though it hurt at the time I saw it all coming even before HE did. Shit life skills, entitlement, no boundaries and a woman dumb as fuck throwing herself at Mr. Sparkles. As tragic as it was I didn’t fail to see the humor. Guy can’t be alone with himself for a minute. Triangulation and controlling the narrative work for them both, him and his OW, but I am so lucky to be away from disordered. Honestly I know I won. I want authentic and he has shown the world who he is. Oh, ex will never be happily married, he didn’t choose better. Honestly the idea of losing a good man and a good relationship was only an illusion of mine, it was never my reality, because-really!-Who the fuck is this guy?!? CL says it best to all Cheaters, “You gambled away the things that really mattered–a faithful partner, your children, your self respect.” Good luck with that.
I haven’t read the comments yet, but I hope you’re correct. To me, even though I know better, he did win the pick me dance and got someone special. I know it wasn’t real, but I still struggle with how special she was in my mind. She was the true love of my life and now he has her. It just still hurts. I imagine that they will live happily ever after while I’m lost in loneliness. I so hope you are right. I shouldn’t care, but I really don’t want her to be happy. Oh well. Meh is still way over the horizon for me. I will get there some day. 🙂
Mark,
You are such a sweet man. Some cannot even remember their wife is special for 45 minutes & you seem to be able to for a lifetime! You deserve to be treasured that same way. Her charm will wear away. How she has abused your good heart!
He won a hologram. Someday you’ll find someone who loves you fully and truly and you won’t miss the lie.
Marked711…. 12 billion people on the planet…. Odds are you will bump into another person worthy of your love. Dont put her on a pedestal …she likes the view from up there… Put her where she belongs…in the gutter and at the back of your brain. ” he got someone special’ if you mean ‘special ‘ … she is slightly retarded way. Or did she cure cancer? Save a bus load of drowning children?
One day you will wake up from this bad dream and realize… She aint so special … She is just another human being with flaws and didnt think past her nose about me…
Marked–I remember your story from weeks ago. Trust me, you sound fab and will not spend your days lonely. (I admit you even piqued my interest when I saw “Austin” in one of your posts, and was disappointed to learn that we got your cheater instead of you).
Here’s how to help move on–write down a list of events from her affair and post-D-Day, save any emails or texts she sent, and READ THEM DAILY until you are relieved to be rid of her. Works like a charm, since we chumps are destined to remember the best in people. Unfortunately, the “best” in these cheaters is usually a fiction we created.
Mark.. she’s not fit to wipe your boots!
Hey Mark,
I know exactly how you feel, I’m only two months out from D-Day. I hate feeling like the other guy won (especially when I feel I am a way better person in SO many ways)….I loved her completely and thought she was perfect. I’m slowly realizing I put her on a pedestal and didn’t see the warning signs or faults that were apparent from the beginning. And although I still struggle with trying to reconcile the person I loved to the person she turned out to be, I know I have to see her for who she really is. Someone who couldn’t bother with caring about the devastation she left in her wake. They aren’t worth our time, feelings, effort or care anymore man. It’s a daily struggle, but we’ll find people who are worth the investment. Keep strong!
Mark, take a look at this. You wrote: ” I know IT wasn’t real, but I still struggle with how special she was in my mind.” You got it 1/2 right. You do, indeed, “struggle with how special she was in my mind.” You saw her and thought of her as special. You are holding onto that perspective on her and the feeling that went with it rather than the actual person, who is a lying cheater. A hyena, not a person. Just sayin’. Now, the first half needs to be reframed to: “I know the person I thought she was isn’t real.” When you write “it” in that sentence, you seem to be referring to the relationship, which was indeed real for you. There was, however, only one person in it because your X is not a special person; she’s a hyena.
It’s typical–normal– to see this person you loved as special. That was the single biggest hurdle for me, trying to figure out how someone who was my dear friend and later my partner, I thought, could devastate me without a second thought. He can do that because he is not what I thought he was–he has a character disorder. Start knocking the spackle off this person you’ve got on a pedestal. It will be hard to move forward if you are still idealizing her. And it will be very hard to fix your picker if you can’t see where you missed the giant waving red flags. Tempest gave you a great idea above. I would add a second list–what about her didn’t add up before DDay? Where did she show you her selfish side? Her lack of empathy? Her entitlement? It will be there. But you have to look. We’re rooting for you. Somewhere, there is a beautiful woman–maybe a chump with a little boy–who needs a man who knows how to see her true worth. You want to be the guy that can see the honesty, the honor, the loyalty, the steadfast unselfishness, the kindness of a good woman–not the guy who will get his head turned by a clone of Ms. Sparklypants Cheater.
Thank you all for the kind words. Unfortunately I think the reason I’m so Blue is because I just put in my application for a Declaration of Nullity (annulment). I have to document why I think the marriage wasn’t sacred from the beginning. I’m having to do the things you’re suggesting. It just hurts to have to drop the fantasy after so many years. I met her when I was 19 and she was the only woman I’ve ever loved (not blood related). There will be another to love, but I have a lot more healing to do. Thank you all. Meh will come some day. CL & CN are the greatest!
I was 18 when I got married. There’s something about the passion at that age that makes us ripe for falling for the fantasy.
Marked711,
You’re right in that you have a lot of healing to do. It seems impossible from where you’re standing, but you will heal. Promise.
Best wishes,
LilyBart
Back at D Day 10 years ago, I really (as in “with every molecule of my being”) thought that the WORST thing that could possibly happen would be that husband would leave me and marry his howorker.
I learned that the worst thing that could happen was years of doing the “pick me dance”, fake reconciliation, continued lies and losing YEARS of my life to a marriage that he was never devoted to.
I now wish that I had helped him pack his bags for Schmoopieville.
Take heart chumps !!
I feel the exact same way! Maybe my ex would have had several divorces under his belt already instead of several false reconciliations with me. I kind of liked AP#1… she was nice to my kids (when they all went on a date together – her daughter included). AP#3 was a young, fresh out of college, lady with no kids (dating my 30+ something husband). I bet our 3 kids would have wore on her REALLY quick! Bummer I missed that!!
Let him/her and the AP have their consequences!! Walk in the other direction chumps!
Cheap, cheesy cheaters, just like tacky casino’s, great comparison CL. My friend recently experienced her XH marry his AP 3 days after their divorce was final. He invited his 2 grown kids, 3 young grandkids to what they ‘thought” was a birthday dinner for the AP. It was actually a wedding and he tricked/forced them to sit there and watch them get married. Both kids left in shock and disgust afterwards and called their mom (my friend) saying there wasn’t enough alcohol on the planet to help them process it all.
Nothing is too low for these narcs. I don’t want to think about STBXh marrying, still realing in from 30 years of cheating. Fuckers!
unbelievable! though lying and tricking people is clearly his M.O.
It’s pretty sad when you have to trick people into attending your wedding/approve of their partnership.
There is nothing that should surprise any of us at this point. My NX showed up at a regular restaurant for special occasions with his AP on my son’s birthday, hoping to see him, after a year of estrangement. …WTF… Thank God we planned to go the following night. No matter how old your kids are we should try to protect them from all the evil, especially ones that are out to harm purposefully.
XFIL lived about 4 hours away and for some reason, always felt the need to spend Father’s Day with XH even though they rarely talked the rest of the year. One year, when XH didn’t invite him for Father’s Day, XFIL just showed up on our doorstep unannounced that weekend, courtesy of someone who dropped him off and would return in 48 hours to pick him up. Say what?! We had plans that weekend that we had to change to accommodate XFIL. It was all very strange. After he left, I told XH, “It’s pretty sad when you have to be left at your kid’s doorstep to have any kind of relationship with him.”
Sadder still is that if XH ever pulled a stunt like that with either of our girls, he wouldn’t be invited in. THAT’S how much more estranged he is from his kids than his father was from him…
Gigi56—Ding, ding, ding!!! I think we have a new low for cheaters–tricking their children into witnessing the marriage to the AP. Un.be.liev.able.
My Idiot brought our kid on dates …. Yup … Burned her mind… Kept telling our kid ” what a coincendence we bumped into Tweeny again… Lets go for pizza”
What an asshole, Clip.
Well, my ex spend a fortune derived from liquidating about $20K from his retirement fund to buy a Barbardos wedding in December (high season – top dollar.) Rented a luxury villa oceanfront near Paynes Bay. Send invitation by email to my daughters telling them how much he and the OW wanted them to share in their happiness. My daughters declined – even though everything from travel, 10 days in Barbados and their passports would have been paid for by him. As I said – he hemorrhaged his TSA for this gig so that Shmoopie (who earns more and owns the house) wouldn’t have to lift a financial finger.
Anyway – my daughters said not to send any pictures or messages or anything – they wanted no part of it. And the OW’s son had them pay for flight, passport etc for he and his girlfriend and then informed them that he had no intention of going – he just wanted the airfare for when he wanted to travel somewhere. So he effectively conned his whorebag mother and my ex out of a bundle – because the ticket was in his name and could be traded for something else – they couldn’t get it back from him! HA!
The daughter of the OW is a bit of a chippie off the old block and wasn’t looking a trip to the islands in the mouth – so the wedding consisted of my ex (with no family) and the OW with her daughter and her roommate. But the BEST part was the floral arrangement she carried for this island spectacular. See – I’ve never had to meet the whorebag face to face – and in fact the first introduction I had to her existence in my husband’s life was the shaved vagina spread eagle shots she had sent him and he kept on his phone. So when my daughters and I decided to stalk the FB pics for shits and giggles – we just about died to see that featured in her bouquet were – SWEAR TO GOD – those pink leaf tropical flowers that have a line running right down the middle of the petal. They looked excactly like vaginas. We just about died laughing. It was the only thing that she had going for her apparently – vagina pictures, vaginas to fuck and vagina flowers. It was so perfect – I almost cut and pasted and sent to him. But we decided to enjoy it for what it was – the perfect symbol of their deep and spiritual connection! 🙂
Omg….love that!! You keep laughing girl!
I just want to know, what happens when a wrinkled old vag and a wrinkled old dick are staring at each other which is bound to happen if they want to stay on this planet.
Do they look at their photo albums or iphoto of when their vag and dick were in their prime.
“Oh, Gladys, look at your vag when we met, what a beauty.”
“Oh, yes, it was a beauty. And your dick wasn’t so bad, either, honey. Just look at this picture back in the day.”
Together, “Let’s frame it!”
Seriously, I think this is their future.
Oh my gracious.. these people are insane! Hooray for the kids, who always see through it!
Char, I am at work laughing like a loon over those vagina flowers.
I’m not sure what to even say about this. I am slightly disappointed that you chose gambling and Oklahoma to pick on–but I still love you CL. The reason people would go to “party” in Oklahoma is that they do not have any money. They spent all their money on Schmoopie. They do not have money to go to Italy. They have maxed out all their credit cards on secret rendezvous and gifts so now they can only afford Oklahoma. Mind you I am not knocking the big OK, I have been there and found some of the nicest people ever. Yes some are dimwitted and “financially challenged” but they are honest, hard-working, and would give you the shirt off their back even if they only had one.
My ex probably would go there because he would sell it like a champion used car salesman:
“Schmoopie, I got us a grand deluxe suite with a heart-shaped bathtub and disco lights. It has a mirrored ceiling and a velour padded headboard so that when I am making love to you (cough, banging you) you won’t hurt your head. See how considerate I am “smile blink, smile blink. “We can gamble all night on the penny slots and I will buy you all the drinks you want!”
As for gambling, at least you know you are taking a chance–no surprises, no hidden snakes. You know the house has the advantage and you will be out of money, forced to stop at that time. I only wish our narcissists were so kind. They continue to bleed us blind, beyond blind towards insanity, and we are still hoping for that payoff. Ugh!
Funny, I will actually be in OK next week on my way to visit family in Blanco TX. If I am near that casino, I will have to visit it just for shits and giggles. I’m actually smiling and super excited for this trip. This main highlight of this trip is that my dear friend’s daughter has grown. We were neighbors from when our girls were little, 18 mo old. Her daughter will be graduating from the Air Force basic training at the end of this month. It has been an honor and a privileged to be part of their lives throughout the years. I have been given the privilege to attend her graduation and be part of her life, my ex is not allowed. How awesome is that!! So go ahead and take your Schmoopie to an OK casino and gamble and I will take my road trip through OK, gamble, visit amazing family, attend graduation, and enjoy my life.
Now I feel bad I dissed Oklahoma casinos! You have a wonderful time! As I said up post, if it makes you feel any better, I’m probably more vicious about the state of Texas. The Southwest is wasted on me. I hate hot weather. I hate flat land. I hate drought. I’m indifferent to BBQ. I think jalapeño peppers are Satan’s sprinkles. I can’t pay attention to the politics or my head will explode. And yet many Texans are just wonderful. Great and warm and friendly. You’ve got to have a lot of grit to live in this place.
I’m in Pa. right now and even though it’s March and dreary, I swooned at the sight of tall trees. And soggy greenness. I’m weird.
“Flat land”? How dare you! What about the Hill Country?
Kidding, of course. I grew up in TX but now live in New England. I love having actual seasons. I love the snow. I don’t even mind shoveling, though the record snow damn near killed me this year. We all have our quirks.
I have a ton of family and friends in TX and think about moving back someday, but my eyes are wide open.
It’s true, StrongerE–I am an hour away from trying to run up a big f*ing hill in Austin in my quest for Ultimate Fitness.
After D-day, I ran so often and so hard that I started beating X (who is a very good runner). My dream is to enter the same road race as him one day, and have him eat my dust.
I love that goal, Tempest. The literal goal to the one you’ve already metaphorically achieved.
Hello from Pittsburgh–blue skies here, but very high rivers.
Howdy! 🙂
LaJ…when is the YINZER CHUMP meetup?? (Never realized you were also a Pittsburgher!)
I was quite impressed by Pittsburgh, when I was there. nice, nice city. Hilly and with rivers.
Really liked Portland, Ore. when I was there last year.
wait!! what do you have against jalapeño peppers? who doesnt like jalapeño peppers !?!?!?
just kidding, i am just giving you a hard time. i realize everyone has their own opinion about where they live, what they like and i dont take every single word personal. sometimes you just have to gloss over the things you dont agree with so you can absorb the whole message.
Pain is not a flavor.
Snort! That is hilarious. I am a pepper lover but I get what you’re saying.
My ex did not marry the woman he cheated with. The Other Woman dumped him before the divorce was even final. He ended up finding a woman who was married to another man. She moved in with him long before her divorce was final. Her story is that her husband was abusive. I bet he told her I was abusive to him, too. If you’ve got it bad, he always has the same thing but worse. Whatever. He married her a few months ago. I’m eating popcorn and waiting for the next installment of the saga. I wonder which one will cheat first, but I don’t know if I’ll find out. The kids are all adults now, and they don’t want to have anything do to with him.
“And next up on the Lifetime channel…….”
Bwaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa! It sounds like a made-for-TV saga, doesn’t it?
Same scenario for my XW, EL. Cheated on her affair partner at about the 18 month mark and got involved with a then married man.
Now , they are married and, according to my kids, fight all the time. Nice.
What a chivalrous knight your Ex is! My Ex’s OW told him that her husband was addicted to pain killers and when she told him he was leaving he pulled a knife out on her. I honestly said “Am I supposed to feel sorry for her?” But for a violent drug addict she was really quick to split custody with him 50/50. I mean if my ex was a violent drug addict I’d be putting up more of a fight for sole custody.
Two weeks after my divorce was final. Ex married the HomeWrecker. I was glad since he is scary off a leash.
Only thing interesting, her Ex husband owned an office. He trusted her so much (she was his office assistant) that she controlled all the finances… And siphoned off $160K and then divorced him & lied about him & screwed him over again financially in court. (I ran into him once, and we talked)
So, Mr. ExAsshole has met his match. Bets are on as to who will win this crazy greed fest.
Ooooh, Friend, this sounds like it’s going to be FUN to watch, down the line! Have popcorn handy!
Friend, hopefully, you’ll have front row seats.
Thank you for this post. Timely…as I’d been panicking that he’s out there, HAPPY and having fun for/with someone else.
I think that’s called Poetic Justice though. Once I got to the point of divorcing him–that meant that I was a lot stronger than on D-Day, I could see him clearly. Him marrying OW from D-day?? Good God, that is something I would have paid cash money to have happen. For them to have to sit across the dinner table every night, trying to think up things to talk about after all of the destruction they caused. Shackled together for ….oh…..eternity hopefully? She was a real piece of work. I definitely would have wished her on him and vice versa.
Sex only goes so far, when it’s open and loving and especially when it’s illicit and disgusting. It’s not a thrill anymore when it’s all hanging out there for the neighbors to know—they have no idea whether they’ve even got anything IN COMMON other than fucking and sneaking around and lying (to each other as well as everyone else).
No, XH’s OW dumped him shortly after the divorce. All of the glee with which she announced she’d won the prize was silenced when they had to spend real “quality time” together. She hated the kids, they hated her. It was drama and fighting and drama and kicking out and drama and making up and drama and oh well you know. Drama.
I know he moved on to some woman he met through his bicycling group….but he was really cheap with her, made her pay her own way on a trip to meet my XILs. What an asshole.
They don’t change. I’m remembering that more and more now, knowing it in my bones. He won’t be better for anybody else, he is who he is–and even if he does somehow meet someone he’s willing to do some changing for? He wouldn’t do that for me.
Yep, kids, life, schedules, doing taxes, paying bills.. it’s not nearly as glamorous as part time relationships with schmoopies where everyone is on their bestest behavior. It’s all fun and games until you are up all night with a sick kid who is throwing up all over you. LOL. I read somewhere that relationships that start with infidelity have like a 3% success rate. Because affairs are fantasy. Real life is a lot harder. This is common sense to people with half a brain.
Good point SphinxMoth, what do they have to talk about? What kind of Vows do they write?
I “E”, a serial cheating narcissist, alcoholic, drug abusing, porn addict, pathological lying, asshole take “N”, the drug addicted, shit scooping, hard up, ugly bar whore, abusive, cheating piggy, dream girl who have me BJ in the casino parking lot to be my wife. To fuck and cheat on for the rest of my disordered days.
Hahahahaha!
Woody Allen married his affair partner so he wouldn’t look like the major asshole/quasi-pedophile that he was for screwing his step-daughter. Oh silly me, I forgot, he married her because he loved her….projectile vomit.
Seems to be a trait in narcdom…trying to prove that what they did was for love. Hurl…vomit…puke.
CalamityJane–the Woody Allen case still gives me nausea. I have a hard time watching his movies now (unless he is only the director, no cameo appearances). He is one creepy MF, and now his narcissism in early movies doesn’t seem so benign.
I think it has mostly to do with the cheater’s and the AP’s need to be “right”. Even if they’re both feeling unsure about the other – if they stick together at least the image will be solid, and they’ll APPEAR to be extra special. Which is all that really matters for people who don’t own an actual feeling heart. Image control at it’s finest.
I was just thinking this, UC. I actually kinda pity XH a bit (just a bit!) because I think his back (?) is to the wall right now. If he dumps POW (prev OW), then what becomes of all his “She’s the ONE!” justification for ditching me? No, I think he’s stuck, whether he love-love-loves her or not.
As for her? Well, I don’t know her too well, met her a couple times at his restaurant and such. She just seems really really young. But maybe she’s a gold-digger and has always wanted to “own” a restaurant. As wife of one of the owners, i guess she will be. Hmmm, I wonder if the other two wives will feel at all awkward sitting next to their “peer” who’s about 20 years younger than they are? Probably not. The restaurant industry is a hive of superficial narc types.
I also think of one of the first things my sister said when she heard OW was ALSO going through a divorce: “Well, THAT’S gonna go well! Two walking wounded involved with each other!”
My own feelings are more somber. I could give a shit what happens to their relationship (although I do still in my heart of hearts hope there’s some serious pain out there waiting for him somewhere — not expecting it, mind you, or waiting… just hoping), but if they have kids (and I think they will, in spite of dozens of assertions on his part, as recently as March of last year, just before Dday that he did not ever want kids), I pity the first woman their son takes up with.
Yes, UnderConstruction, image is everything and people are objects worth sacrificing if anything challenges that image. God forbid the reflection not be perfect!! They keep each other balanced by maintaining a mutually exclusive admiration society of two!
While the winstar casino is not my main tribe(Chickasaw) I am a native american living in Texas. I would much prefer you visit the casino In Durant Oklahoma to line the pockets of my “tribe”(choctaw) To support the benefits that I will receive when I lose my health insurance do to my husbands adultery and my sahm status. I am so raw from this adultery/narcissism/divorce that I am looking forward to the day that I return to the people of that love me in Oklahoma. Yes I know that Texans look down on us Okies/Indians but I’ve never longed for the healing touch of a dirty choctaw so much as I do now. My family of Okies is the only bright spot in my world. Oklahoma for me is the promised land for me. The land where I may find myself again even if I am “joke” by other people’s standards. My children may discard me for their father who makes a lot of money but they will never receive more love that what comes from indian territory Oklahoma. My screen name come from a “joke” that my son sAid. “Oklahoma girls are sketchy”. I own that and am proud to be a sketchy oklahoma girl.
One of the few mutual friends that actually picked me over XH, is from Oklahoma. She’s a stand-up person, with values and integrity, and I consider myself lucky to call her my friend.
Dear Sketchy, I was wondering if any other Oklahomans would post today. My Oklahoma heart goes out to you as you continue your healing. Our plains are so welcoming they seem to make it a little easier to breathe, especially when the warm wind blows and the wide open skies send spectacular sunsets. We’re here. And as so many chumps have said on this site, it really does get better. Hang in there!
I’m from Oklahoma as well. I’m the chump and the cheater is from Washington state! I have morals and integrity and loyalty, him, not so much. I love Oklahoma, born and raised here. He bashes it all the time. Yes it’s hot, flat, and the weather is bi-polar! Lol, but it is my home and I love it, you should hear what we say about Texas! The joke is that Oklahoma is so windy is because Kansas blows and Texas sucks! Lol. But seriously, I love Texas too! Just have to learn who is worthy of trust and who is not, regardless of what state they are from. To each his/her own. We are all individuals and love the states, regions we love. Love this website and all the regular and new posters keeping it real and with spot on advice and love to all of us chumps!
Unicorn is my name, where is autocorrect when you need it!
Hi Unicorn. I agree. I’ve rarely posted but can’t imagine how much more difficult this past year would have been without the great advice and support here!
I’m sorry I picked on Oklahoma!
Sketchyokgirl, there is nothing in the world like the people we consider family. Sherman Alexie once wrote about all the “tribes” we truly belong to–those various circles of people who hold our hearts and understand us at the deep levels. Wishing you comfort and happiness–it does get better.
I can’t help thinking about what Dr. Simon wrote about getting out of toxic relationships…it is us chumps feeding the slot machine with our loyalty and dedication only to receives intermittent rewards that keep us hooked…
I think marrying the OW is equivalent to going all in. They are pushing what is left of their stack of chips into the pot.
But what does this say? WE settle for too little. WE mete it out our resources and protect ourselves and our children and hope for a jackpot which is very rare. Their bets are big and attention getting and may be a total bluff.
We slot players are very literal…we don’t bluff.
All relationships are a gamble…I’m working on learning how to count cards.
(to further mangle that analogy)
When I first came across this blog on November 22 2014 I was more than a bit miffed that my exH had married his AP, and they were living “happily ever after”.
Thanks to Tracy’s pithy advice and, after doing a bit of digging, I was able to swing my viewpoint 180 degrees.
Now I’ve been able to put together the true story…
1. After 3 years of living together and no marriage AP get’s pregnant and they get married about a month before she’s due. They get married in December. (Now who the hell gets married in Dec in UK? It’s cold, wet, and miserable!) The Best Man is the guy who covered up for him at work, when he was cheating. (Sadly, that guy died suddenly about a year after the wedding)
2. She told him that she wasn’t as happy as she thought she’d be, being with him. (What a surprise – not !) She told her friends that he doesn’t seem happy being with her, but when she asks him “he says he is”.
3. Baby is born and dies shortly after delivery. (I’m sorry that baby died but I’m not sorry it happened to them.) She has a suicide attempt and a sort of breakdown and ends up in a mental hospital for 2 months.
4. Two years later she has another child but can’t cope. Mother moves in to help out. She ends up in a psychiatric unit with severe depression for about 3 months. He has to take time off work to look after the kids
5. Five years later they decide to move and buy a huge property. She can’t cope, even with mothers help, so they put it on the market and it takes 2 years to sell and they lose £30,000 on the deal. They move and downsize to a four bedroom house with one bathroom (ugh!) They spend loads on holidays in USA taking the kids to Disneyland etc.
6. Her mother develops premature dementia and has to go into a care home. They go for a holiday to USA (taking her auntie with them so wifey will have someone to talk to while my exH is sulking) and mother dies while they are away.
7. By now the kids are working ( having failed to graduate at anything) stocking shelves in the UK equivalent of Walmart. The daughter’s boyfriend has now moved in and so there are again 5 of them sharing a house with one bathroom – (Yuch!) She moans on FB about how much work she has to do washing and ironing (seems the kids don’t know how to work any domestic appliances ?!) and she has now given up work altogether.
8. Her FB pictures show him with a long face on every one except when he has a drink in his hand. Most of her holiday snaps show they have either taken her auntie along or a couple of her friends. He doesn’t seem to have any friends – no change there.
9. The expensive foreign holidays seem to have stopped and the best they can do is 6 days self catering in Playa Los Americas in Teneriffe at £175.00 a pop flying by budget airline.
That seems an awful lot of Karma biting them in the butt, by anyone’s standards – so Ho! Ho! Ho! (excuse me, but I’m not very charitable when I’ve been crossed…….)
Juliet, I don’t feel right around people who can still be charitable when they’ve been severely crossed, so I’m glad we can all have a little laugh when the karma bus hits the cheaters!
Have a tee-hee on me KarenE !!
I’m a chump but I see myself now as a former chump. I do trust that they suck and I no longer try to untangle.
What I do struggle with is how much we, as chumps, read into the lives of the cheaters and choose to interpret it how we NEED to interpret it. We tell ourselves that they marry to project and propagate the image of happiness and prove that their love is real but that they are not really happy. It helps us to hold that narrative. I also take every nugget and snippet of negative information passed to me through the innocent ramblings of my young children as a sign that all is not well in fantasy land. It suits me to hear what I want to hear.
What I should be tempering my thoughts with is the logical and common sense argument that two adults will inevitably bicker and argue, especially when there are three children, a mortgage, bills and every day life to contend with. And maybe my ex wife is happy with her boss that she left me for.
But then I receive nasty and cruel letters from her which push all my buttons and she protests how amazing her new life is and that I am the angry and bitter one which counters my previous argument. So much conflicting information but I know that I hear what I want to hear.
We are all chumps on here and we support each other by affirming everyone’s beliefs because it suits us and helps us heal. But are they really true?
matt, you have an important point, that we look for info that confirms what we want to believe.
But realistically, most chumps here had either a partner who never was nice or caring or easy to live with (and then cheated), or someone who SEEMED nice and caring but just swapped their spouses, and often their kids, out like lego pieces.
These are signs of poor character. And poor character does NOT change. These people are not motivated to do the hard work that true change requires – ’cause they’re fine the way they are, and anything bad that happened was somebody else’s fault, eh?
How likely is it that a person of poor character is going to have a happy marriage?
How likely is it that the woman who is capable of writing you those nasty and cruel letters can turn around and be fairly consistently kind, caring and loving in her ‘new’ relationship? How likely is it that the woman for whom commitment to you was unimportant is going to be really good at committing to a long-term relationship with someone else?
I love the idea of the karma bus hitting these cheaters, and their APs. But I don’t believe it’s some kind of ‘energy of the universe’ that evens things out and makes things fair. I think the same poor character that sabotaged their relationships with us (and often many other aspects of their lives while with us – financial irresponsibility, poor parenting, not knowing how to be a friend …) will continue to sabotage the rest of their lives, including their new relationships.
So yeah, I think this stuff often is really true. It’s certainly happening in my ex’s life right now.
PS, if you just switch around your ex’s accusations, you’ll see what her life is really like now. She says you’re the angry and bitter one? Then you have some idea how hugely angry and bitter she is.
Karen,
Your posts are always insightful and a pleasure to read. You are right, of course. I guess my mind still drifts towards chumpdom despite the abundance of evidence presented to me.
You are also right that my ex wife has never had real friends and resented me for having a small collective of extremely supportive and caring friends for such a long time.
I ask my friends to read the letters she sends and they have all confirmed that the words are a reflection of her own situation. I can see that, too, but yet I still have self doubt because she was seemingly such a nice wife and mother and apart of me still looks inward at her accusations to see if there’s a glimmer of truth. After a few days I see the letters for what they are. I’m glad you’ve also said the same thing. I’m hearing what I want to hear!!!
Her actions since before D day seem to be all about her and not the needs and best interests of the children. I always put her up on a pedestal when it came to the children. Now I realise that I’m an awesome dad and the only one they can truly rely on to put them first
Matt, I fully confess to making up whole scenarios of what is going on/went on/might go on with Jackass and the MOW. I can make up a whole novel based on 2 Pinterest posts. That thinking is just about as firmly based in reality as my relationship with Jackass was. What I know is that Jackass is over 50 and has never had a sustained, healthy relationship. 7 job changes in 10 years. 2-3 failed business. Poor relationships with his siblings. Somewhat estranged from his daughter. And MOW? Cheating on her husband at her brother’s funeral. Pretty much says it all. If they ever marry, I am sure they will have the problems normal to marriage plus those created by two people of bad character trying to fool each other….
Disordered people live disordered lives, it’s just that simple. My situation is different than most here, as my X was and is very ill. I knew he didn’t have much chance of living a rainbow filled life and he hasn’t. His AP was a differerent story, as she made it clear she wanted the pot of gold, not the rainbow. When that didn’t happen, she systematically destroyed her life and the lives of her children. I truly feel awful about what those poor kids have endured. Her? I will admit a certain ugly satisfaction in knowing that she is paying the price of all those years of manipulating a sick old man for a financial gain( which never happened). So yes, I do believe, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
Matt, these people don’t have character transplants.
Ask yourself, if she’s so blissfully happy, why does she need to send you nastygrams? Why does she think of you at all? Kibbles. If you’re not offering adoration kibbles, she’ll take antagonism kibbles — so long as you focus on HER.
Clearly Bossman isn’t enough to occupy her narky little mind.
I have now separated from my STBXW after she confessed to having an affair in August. She lived with me for a few months (the horrible, degrading, soulless pick me dance time as I refer to it). Still sending topless pictures, sexting etc to AP all the time whilst living with me. A terrible, terrible time. She left a few weeks ago and even though I miss my intact family I now realise she had no value on me. She even e-mailed him a few minutes after I begged and pleaded with her to stay in order to keep our family together. I have now gone minimal contact (barely spoke to her at my daughter’s parent evening – she tried to engage in a conversation about herself – completely cut her off). If she does marry AP (who is still with his wife) good riddance to her!! Still miss the sweet girl I fell in love with but have to realise that she was probably a cold hearted bitch all the time. Wrong side of 50 so probably wont me anyone but I have my own home, a decent job and the love of my kids, family and friends. If she remarries this guy they will both inherit untrustworthy and suspicious partners (they cheated once, chances are they will cheat again). I’m glad I am out of it despite the soul destroying pain I still feel
Don’t be too sure you won’t find anyone, plenty of decent single women on the wrong side of 50, many right here on this board. Jedi Hugs!
Just curious – which side of 50 is the wrong side? I’ll be there in just two years, kinda looking forward to it. Since I don’t get a 50th anniversary, I figured I’ll whoop up the 50th birthday…
Matt–plenty of fabulous women this side of 50 who would LOVE a kind, compassionate man. Ask how I know. I just got an email from a former colleague/friend of mine who found true love at 75!!!!! and just returned from a cruise around Asia (the email contained the link to his vacation photos). Never say never.
I know a dear man who found love again in his 80s. Over 50 is nothing. Besides, I’m in my 50s and I don’t want to be single for the rest of my life.
Matt, decent men over 50 who are genuine, solvent, and are not fundamentally flawed are like gold dust. As soon as your healing is done and you are ready to love again you are going to find a lot of lovely ladies waiting…promise!
Brendan, I’m 53 and just got married this last June, to a fellow chump. My new husband makes me realize what was missing during the 25 years I was married to ex-cheater. It can happen!
I am 50. Neither here nor there. Matt I feel for you. I feel the same way, but we’re both ahead of the game. I own my own condo in downtown and have a good job, but still feel like I’ll never meet anyone. Downtown Chicago is a great, lively city, but really so lonely. I will never give up hope because anything will be better than what I had. I just have to heal and be open. I will love again some day! Never give up! Oh, and my girls do love me as well. 🙂
My cheating ex-wife’s affair partner finally married her after a couple of years of her tearful begging (he apparently preferred to live rent-free in her house–the one I remodeled during my first marriage). I have no doubt they are unhappy and one of my college-age sons who lives with them tells me he suspects his mother is already cheating on the AP-turned-husband. It’s a cluster-fuck.
The cheating fuck-tard who married my cheating wife? That guy didn’t choose a vacation at a Oklahoma Casio. He chose a vacation at Love Canal. I don’t wish serious illness on anyone, but I predict cancer of the soul, metastasized in his pecker.
‘ I predict cancer of the soul, metastasized in his pecker’! This one made me snort coffee, nomar! The cancer of the soul we already know about, just waiting for the metastasis!
“But that actually happened!” – Dustin Hoffman to Sydney Pollack in “Tootsie” about Love Canal. I love pop culture references.
Me, too. Love that movie!
My grandfather actually married his much-younger schmoopie, his soul mate. They were as happy as they could be together, traveling all corners of the world. But now he’s much older and having problems with mobility, the tune is changing. He complains that she’s always off doing her own thing… seeing friends, going to classes, yoga etc. It really does seem like she will find any excuse not to be home with him.
On top of that, he complains about how none of his children or grandchildren call him or want to visit and how they spend all their time with his ex (my grandmother) but don’t make the effort for him. My Dad finally told the old man that you can’t just blow off your family for 20 years and then expect to have a relationship with them now that his young wife is bored with him.
Boy, there’s a cautionary tale if ever there was one. Too sad!
What the bathroom selfies and “dick picks” look like 30 years from now.
Lulu, I can’t get over their sense of entitlement. They lack the ability to appreciate the joy they have in life. They give it all up and then the world owes them something. I see theX as an old lonely man complaining. The narcs fate.
So far, my ex and his schmoopie haven’t married, but they are still together, years later. He told me during false reconciliation that she didn’t believe in marriage (it explains a lot about her willingness to fuck a married man!). I suspect if he feels her slipping away, he might start to pressure her into it, to try to trap her. After all, it worked on me (he told me later this is what he did!) and she’s very much like me, just way younger.
Half of me is holding my breath for the day she dumps him, because he deserves it, but the rest of me knows that this would send him into a tailspin that would only make our children suffer. He would never dump her unless he had something else better lined up. I sometimes wonder if he believes I’d be that comfy landing pad, because I haven’t bothered dating or anything since we separated. Ha! I do look forward to offering to keep the children for more time so he can focus on his life though.
Hey, I forgot one the biggest advantages if my ex stays with Schmoopie or even marries her. He won’t have any more kids to make miserable! She’s almost as old as I am, well beyond child-bearing age, he has again gone for an older woman (what’s with that?). I was really worried that he’d try to replace his kids, as he does his women, and he’d make MORE defenseless people to make unhappy. Never mind what it would do to my kids to see him be all lovey-dovey to new small kids (as he was to ours when they were small – I thought it was love, but it was just great kibble supply).
So maybe I should chip in on the engagement ring!
after d-day #1 (2 and 3 all at the same time because i was to busy spackling to see the ones before) i suggested that he get his tubes tied after he told me repeatedly that he did not want anymore children. i guess you can say that i tricked him to make sure that if he ever did leave me, my children wouldnt have multiple brothers and sisters out there. 3 out of 4 sisters of his all had children, got children taken away by state and had more children. i did not want my boys to have half siblings all over town. as well as i did not want to have any more children either. now he is giving his gift to some hood rat (he hates condoms cuz they make him smallER) but at least i dont have to worry about half siblings popping up everywhere. i guess that is another reason i am dragging my feet on changing the boys last names thou. he is not going to have another kid ever.
My wife didn’t marry her AP.
In fact, 5 months after I filed for divorce, her AP married his girlfriend and baby-mama.
Best I can tell, the AP’s marriage last 3 or 4 months before collapsing. Maybe his wife found out that he was a loser. (I never contacted her, given I didn’t have her contact info until my divorce was almost finalized.) Or maybe she caught him up some other married woman’s skirt.
During all of this, my wife intermittently asked me for another chance…alleging that she’d somehow undone the backward thinking that had lead to 20 years of cheating with every boyfriend she’d ever had, plus her husband, over a mere 9-month timespan.
I never told her that I knew about the AP getting married. It feels like one of those bits of knowledge that I’ll just keep in case I ever need it. I can’t imagine how or when, given I’ve now been NC from my ex wife for 9 glorious months. But, as we all know, there’s plenty we never thought we’d have to consider with our cheating spouses. And yet here we are.
Gee, you mean you turned down her offer to be Plan B?
To pretend these people have “plans” at all is giving them too much credit, CL. But I know what u mean.
To the extent that my wife had a “plan,” it was to eat cake for as long as possible. Once I ended that possibility, she clearly hasn’t thought through a next step.
It appears the AP got bored with my wife…who was probably a bit of a downer to be around given she’d just destroyed her life. Bummer, dude!!!
A post I can speak to: exH married his last OW. He also regrets (I think) not marrying AP #1 back in the day, cuz, ya’ know, he was in love with her, too. He lied about that first relationship, finally ‘fessed up to it 13 yrs later in our false MC. same time he finally fessed up to the most recent one, sorta. ExH still insists that the OWife was not an affair, our marriage was long over, etc. And for the fact that she is a cheater, too? Well, that is apparently “her story to tell, but no one misses him.” Ah, the knight in shining armor saves the young damsel in distress.
I admit it took a while to reach meh, and I am mostly there. As my daughter told me once, her father has a type. The three AP that I know of are all similar to me, just all younger; OWife is 12 years younger than me.
I have pondered this, why would they get married? Well, a) I think she wanted a baby daddy. She was pregnant two times before our divorce was final. First pregnancy ended in miscarriage; while I am not happy about that in a general sense, in this case it does not saddened me given how it would have affected my kids (which I have discussed elsewhere). 2nd pregnancy was “successful” and in the span of 5 weeks, they married, had the baby, and moved out of state. All this just 5 mit HS post divroce finalization.
B) ex is just a passive guy… OW wanted to get married, and apparently her father “insisted” since she was pregnant. Never mind that this was her second marriage, and she cheated on her ex.
C) image control. The affair is “ok” is you marry, then it was true love/meant to be.
Anyway, nowadays, for the most part, I can snicker at them. On the last DDay then H told me “I do not want to end up like my parents.”
Of course at the time, I was “WTF? We’re not.” (This was 3 months before he finally admitted to being in love with OW, but it was not an affair, don’tcha know). Well, he has ended up just like his parents. OW travels with him almost everytime he comes to see the kids (no one on one time with them), and he now CCs her on ALL email correspondence with me. If I email him, he responds with her added in. When I only reply to him and do not CC her, then he adds her in for the next round.
Just comical. Really, what input does she get on the medicines for my kids, or which school my daughter should attend next year?
I am really tempted to add a note in for her at the end of a message… He’s all yours! No way do I want to be with a serial cheat who endangered my health and is so childish he refuses to let our daughter see half sibling because she is no contact with him at the moment.
XH did not marry his AP because she had “trust issues” with him. She was always accusing him of cheating, which he was. He dumped her when she complained one too many times. That was in October, 2013. He married someone else in November 2014, after knowing her for 5 months. None of his friends or family went to the wedding. Wife #2 met S12 once and has still not met D15 or D17.
Oddly, the marriage doesn’t bother me, mostly because it ISN’T to OW. I also don’t think it will last long, as they’re SO different – different ages, education levels, races, etc. The only thing they have in common is the cult religious sect they both joined with their previous affair partners. Yep, cheaters marrying cheaters. A match made in heaven – right?
Wow, Red, just when I thought your ex couldn’t get any dodgier, you mentioned the cult religious sect. Like he needed to ramp up the ick factor!
HA! My ex and OW talked about when they can get married in a bunch of their emails- picking out monogrammed towels and all! Well- her husband took her her back and now he is divorced, alone, and sleeps on a twin mattress in the living room in our old house…I’d say he lost that bet! Whoops…
Who got the towels after the split? lol
LOL
Wouldn’t it be great if the towels said “Cheater” and “Mrs. Cheater”?
BAHAHAHAH!! That is funny! As far I know they never got around to the towels before she went back to her husband…He doesn’t even know that I know about the towels. I’ll have to tell my full story sometime.
Oh, I don’t know. My 48 year old STBX’s other woman, Heather Ann, age 27, probably feels like Las Vegas to him.
Eventually she’ll either start having needs of her own, or start looking for something better. Either way, unlikely to be Las Vegas for long, more like ghost town!
ML–See Lulu’s post above for a glimpse of Little Napolean’s future (assuming HA stays with him that long).
OMG, I love you, Tempest
My husband’s ex didn’t marry her sexual affair partner. Doesn’t even look like they stayed together but who knows. But I just chuckle because she can’t hide what she did, no matter how hard she tries. The truth is up on a blog. She tried the legal route to take the blog down only the truth still won and she was faced with her own pile of shit rebounding and hitting her smack in the face. She still thinks she can hide from the truth and prevent others from finding it. Eventually the shining lights on the casino light burn out, there’s no avoiding that, and you’re left with whatever is there in the dark that you’ve been trying to hide.
My ex didn’t marry his OW but now is engaged to someone else. The OW was a subordinate (divorced woman who didn’t have custody of her 5 children) so I can only imagine how that all played out once it was over & having to see each other everyday. At the time I found out I was crushed & powerless but wish now that I had called the HR department & reported it.
Great read everybody, thank you for sharing. I’d put 50/50 odds that my ex-wife marries her long time AP she had for the last four or five years of our twenty year marriage. I uncovered the whole ugly thing three years ago, so that puts them together for roughly 8 years. “Together” meant living in their humid and weird affair bubble, and after our split up, sort of still sneaking around due to the general social disdain, my kids’ anger and…or yeah… he had to get divorced from his long term marriage with four kids. Paradise! So sexxy!
Ask his soon to be-ex wife how she feels, she almost succeeded in running my ex and this guy (literally) off the road last year. I don’t approve of that violent behavior but I sure as fuck understand her rage.
Anyway, they are still in, as my friend calls it “the unholy union”. My level of “meh” is pretty good, but I’m not sure I could be so level headed about a potential marriage. The very deceptive origin of their relationship was based on stealing years from me and his ex. The level of their denial and self absorption makes me ill thinking about it.
When I contemplate my X’s possible re-marriage at some distant point in the future, my wedding gift will be pity & the card for my therapist. She’ll need it.
That gift is priceless
Your theapist won’t need it. The mistress will. Work on yourself and find peace. The ex is going down the drain.
Let’s see here: your ex is mid-60s with a history of cheating and a university sexual misconduct rap to his credit. You, conversely, are a barely 50, skinny jeans-wearing, fish-rescuing, compassionate academic superchump. Despite today’s topic, I’m not much of a gambler, but I’d put a lot of money down on who I think would get a marriage proposal sooner.
I know you’ve said you’ll never tie the knot again, Tempest, but just for the record, I think you are brilliant and all things wonderful. A year from now I think you’ll be rockin da house.
I second that, FMT
I’ve thought of this already. My gift would be a shadow box framed copy of Chump Lady’s book with a small hammer and etched in the glass it will say “break glass in case of infidelity”. They should get it.
A most excellent idea.
Tracy, thank you for this blog and your great insight into cheaters. So is there a vacation that is lower than a casino in Oklahoma? Apparently this is even too high of a bar for my ex-wife and her 20 yr older, flat broke, fat AP. They of course had a Wedding right after our Divorce(which took less than 3 months from start to finish). But they never signed a marriage license, because that would end ailmony. So acted like they committed but not really.
Can’t you stop alimony if they’re living together? Can up here in the Frozen North.
Agreed, check it out. In my state if you can demonstrate co-habitation you might get it reduced (though you need evidence that the other person is helping with rent, groceries, etc.
Karen, that only depends on how the divorce documents were drafted.
So let me get this right — they had a wedding? A big PARTY? But did not actually in fact legally get married? Yeah, I’d talk to your lawyer about cohabitation and get some pictures of that “wedding.” See what you can do to quit having to support their unholy union.
I don’t know how big the party was since most of her friends & family want nothing to do with them. And he moved from 2,000 miles away the day the divorce was signed. No U-haul needed, because in his 56 years of life every thing that he owed fit into a trunk of a shitty old Cadillac.I was sent a picture from her Facebook page of my young children in the wedding. I have never asked my kids about it and don’t plan to. They have been put through enough. I did talk to my lawyer and they do in fact need to be legally married to end ailmony. My lawyer and PI did confirm that they did not sign the license. At this point I don’t really care, I have 17 months left to pay ailmony. I am not going to sit around and worry about it. I have my kids 50% of the time and I am going to enjoy my time with them. In the end, I think my ex- wife and AP were happy for the excuse of ailmony to not get legally married. It means neither of them has to take on any responsibility but they think the Wedding helps their image. It’s sad and delusional.
My x and her lover are married. I have moved on and am currently engaged to a fantastic woman who knows how to love and do relationships with truth and deep deep honesty. It sucks beyond words that my two children have had to live with thier mother and her 3 time looser. I am a Christian and embrance Biblical standards for marriage, and my only hope for my children is that they see the contrast (atleast retrospectively) between their mother and I for the sole purpose of their understanding of what true commitment and love are. I have been very open with my children about remarriage and the odds of success, that it takes tons of work, is not just about fun but love and that they will most likely see either their mother or I Go through another divorce because 2nd marriage is high risk, though for me well worth taking with a truely good woman. My hopes for all chumplets (kids of chumps) is that we adults become the best version of us to model for them what true love is both in and out of marriage.
God Bless you all and keep up the fight.
God Bless you.. great post
VERY well said keeponkeep!! I like it….. chumplets 🙂
God Bless you too!!
They haven’t married yet, but I think it will happen eventually. She got a nice settlement for a work related injury and is a stay at home schmoopie waiting with dinner ready every night. She has an older daughter who doesn’t live with them, so she is the perfect supply. It’s all about him! He has still never introduced her to our kids or his family. It’s like he still has her in hiding.
He needs the money from her in order to live, she is needy and only wants to make him happy. He is her soulmate (fucking hate that word). Match made in hell from where I am sitting.
I’ve reframed soul mate, if a person uses that term I know to be careful around them, delusional people are not my cuppa tea
Same here.
Thank you! Schmoopie loves to tell everyone that will listen that they are soul mates. What crap. It certainly wasn’t their souls that were connected. But you are right, she is delusional. She will be me someday………
Well my soon to be ex husbands whore likes to call him her lifetime love. Was married to me for 29 years he is only 51 and he is her lifetime love. I say two cheating, liars who have no moral compass can have one another!
I am so fortunate that my X married his affair partner. Our D-Day came one week after I had given birth to our second child — I later found out my then-husband and his MOW had planned to break the news to me while I was still in the hospital immediately after giving birth. X lost the nerve after our son nearly died during delivery and instead waited a week. I knew from D-Day that if they stayed together I would never have to worry about getting “revenge” on them because nothing I could do would ever come close to the misery they would bring on each other. I was patient. I said nothing to the MOW (a former friend and work intern of mine) but I did maintain contact with her STBX throughout both of our divorces. We helped each other with info, videotapes, private investigators reports, etc. MOW told her STBX that my husband was going to give her the life he had never given her. Keep in mind her husband had made it possible for her to be a stay-at-home-mom for their entire marriage. (While belatedly finishing up her college degree, she had interned with me for a few hours a week for two semesters. When she finally graduated, she had come to me and asked me to help her find a part-time job. I did her one better: I hired her to help my husband out as office manager at his architecture practice — told her we would work around her schedule. Within a year both of our marriages had blown up.) She told her STBX that my husband was going to give her “the fancy house. The stylish clothes. The parties. The life of luxury her husband had never given her.” Keep all this in mind as you continue my post. About 6 months after our 18-month long divorce was final the affair partners ran off and got married. I found out when. I called X to speak to my children, and my little daughter (4 years old at the time) said excitedly when she picked up the phone, “Mommy! We have a new house and two new brothers!” Even though I knew it would eventually come, it was still hard to take. That night, I dreamed that I cried all night until I had no tears left. It helped me mourn my dream of a happy marriage and let go of it. Also, that was the last month I got a child support check from X. He quit paying the month he married her. That did not stop him from impregnating her (she was dying to have “his” baby and “seal their deal.” She got pregnant with twins. I was upset that he was bringing more children into the world when he could care less about providing for his existing children. I don’t know why I was shocked and upset after he had walked out on his one-week old son and 3-year old daughter just a couple of years before. I had not yet heard of that saying “when someone shows you who they truly are, believe them THE FIRST TIME.” Towards the end of the pregnancy, one of the twins died en utero and OWife had to carry both to try to keep the live one alive. Very tenuous and toxic pregnancy and dangerous for her and the remaining fetus. She had to go into the hospital for weeks prior to the birth. Her fab new hubby rarely visited. As she neared the (unfortunately very premature) birth of the remaining twin, lying there all alone in the hospital room she got a call from the finance dept. of the hospital. Her fab new hubby had let their health insurance lapse. Even WITH insurance this birth of a premie was going to be outrageously expensive. But without insurance they would be financially devastated. Years later she told me this was her first clue that maybe she had made a mistake. It was not lost on her that he had figuratively abandoned me during my pregnancy (because he was with her all the time) and that he literally abandoned me immediately after a difficult and dangerous delivery, and now she was experiencing similar issues. But it gets better. Even after they got married she was still kept hidden away like the embarrassing whore that she was and still is. He never ONCE took her out in public to a social event or client dinner. He drove his architecture practice into the ground. A lot of people didn’t want to hire him after they heard what he had done to the kids and me. She went into a deep depression due to the death of her other twin (the girl she had always dreamed of having) and came to resent any baby or young daughters, including her step daughter (my daughter). OWife told me (one of only two conversations we have had in the past decade) that knowing that her infant was “where she is” (meaning dead) that she can’t stand to see my daughter breathing air knowing that her child will never breathe. That is some scary shit! Then, she has to go out and get a job because her fab new hubby has no money. So she has to get a job at Target because no one will hire her. (guess who her only job reference was at this point? Yours truly!) She is really living “the life” now! She grew more and more resentful of my X. More than once she threw him out of the house — and on at least 3 occasions my kids along with him. In the meantime, my X had his fancy Audi repossessed and couldn’t even drive anywhere unless OWife gave him permission to use her vehicle. The man who for 16 years could come and go at his leisure (because I chumpily never questioned his whereabouts) was suddenly held hostage as a “househusband” – responsible for childcare of his baby plus two stepsons, the drudgery of household cooking and cleaning, and could not even leave the house without getting permission from OWife. Because of OWife’s tirades, I could no longer allow my children to visit their home when she was present and because he had no money to contest me (plus he agreed with me that it was safer for the kids to not be there) that arrangement stood. In the meantime, I eventually married my boyfriend — a fellow chump and a wonderful man who loves me and is crazy about the kids. Ironically, after working overtime supporting my X in his businesses all those years, I now am mostly a stay at home mom (doing some part time consulting work). We have a comfortable home and are reasonably financially secure. You know, “The Life” that OWife had with her first husband but threw away in order to take it up a notch with the “prize” she stole from me. Just his past year, we arranged for my husband to formally adopt the children and we moved two states away. By our own choice (no legal requirement) we encourage kids and Xhusband to communicate and ensure they have time to visit with him when we go back for holidays, summers, etc. The divorce almost 10 years ago was HIS divorce. The adoption last year was MY divorce. I share this story (sorry it’s so long) but to illustrate one example of how these scenarios can play out. My husband (the good one) and I used to call it “Operation get X and OWife Off the Streets.” When affair partners end up together, at a minimum it prevents/minimizes an innocent chump from falling prey to their clutches, and at maximum they bring about their own destruction.
Wow MDG – what a story! That karma bus not only hit them, but backed up over them a couple times. Nothing that they didn’t deserve. But OW wishing your daughter was dead because hers had died? FREAKY! I’m glad you got your kids away from her. Congrats on marrying a nice guy!
MDG, your experience just goes to show that the stories and particulars of a single affair don’t even begin to touch the destruction that is set in motion, with outrageous fallout that continues years down the line. I’m so glad you are doing so well now.
Would like to clarify that I was not gloating about the OWifes girl twin dying in utero or the remaining twin being a fragile premie. Those things are not part of the Karma but needed to be mentioned for context of the actual Karma issues. In fact, the surviving twin is a precious, sweet little boy and my children love him and dote on him when they do get to see him. Because of him, my little boy gets to be a big brother and he loves it that the little one looks up to him. I would never deprive my children of that experience!!!! My hubby and I make the child welcome at our home since my kids at cannot visit at his home.
Fabulous story… all of it. I couldn’t help but tell my STBX that I truly hope he suffers (actually, both of them) for what he has done (this is a repeat performance for him). I am in favor of karma but never ever “wish” for bad things to happen to people.
What a fabulous example of a loving home & family (especially for your children) after all of that you welcome their little brother in your home. Kids are so innocent, sucks when they suffer because of a parent(s).
I have a fantastic relationship with my STBX’s ex-wife. He did the same thing to her 10 years ago, I found this out only last year. My son and I are welcome in their home and her family (her boyfriend, her sister’s & her Mother) are all fantastic to me & my son. Her Mother recently said “a lot to be said for ‘been there, done that”.
That is a very powerful story…Thanks for sharing!
Honestly, MDG the best part about that story is that you and your new hubby are living an awesome life, far away from that craziness that is your ex and the OWife! I love that you shared your story!
Congratulations and all the best!
missdeltagirl65 – thanks for sharing this story. This is a true look @ Karma. Although, I’ll probably never see it in my case – I’m glad they both got their justice served in this lifetime. Thanks!
“The Bonfire of the Vanities.” Thanks for sharing, MDG.
Woah, MDG, what a stunning story, so glad it has a happy ending for you.
I think its ideal for affair partners to marry each other!!! It takes scumbags off the market at least for a little while so unsuspecting, faithful, marriage minded, monogamous people like us are less likely to cross paths with them!!!
Like! I never thought of it that way but it’s so true!
Bless their hearts. (Yep, I’m in Texas. And the politics ARE insane.)
CL, what you wrote about choosing the affair partner after the cake is destroyed is spot on in my case. My very-STBX put on the hard sell toward the end, telling me that he had broken things off with OW at last, and was truly going to change his life. He begged for me to give him another chance. I do think they were actually broken up for a few months–but by her choice. Anyway, he kept that charade up during those few months until he truly realized I was impervious to his many attempts to change me mind. Then he turned his charm offensive back on OW, and they’ve been together ever since.
For me, it was just a disappointment when he went back to her. What happened to truly trying to change his life, with or without me? It was the final confirmation–as if I needed any more!–that he had no integrity. She is so very welcome to him; I have never felt like she won at all.
Only look at what he said when I asked him point blank if they were back together: “Well?? YOU didn’t want me!”
My STBXH says he maybe doesn’t want to get married but would totally live with someone until he dies. I believe he is still with the OW but he has honored my request of not introducing her to our son until the divorce is final. I told him during our parenting mediation that I didn’t care if he moved in with a girl or married someone so long as it wasn’t HER. How could she possibly be any good to our son? She willingly took away his father. Bitch in heat. Excuse me. But I am more MEH these days. He is showing his true colors and I don’t like them at all. He is a stranger to me now.
yup, I remember telling STBXH that I wished the kids would never meet her, someone so selfish and immature, and a cheater as well.
me too. i felt the same way. i begged (litterally begged) threatened and cried about her not being there the first time he saw his kids in like 2 months. i asked him to not throw it in the kids face that he has replaced me already. i explained that the kids havent seen him for 2 months and want to spend time with just him and not have to share him with anyone. i pointed out that the parenting workshop that we both went to teaches us not to introduce the kids to the new partners right away. i begged for him to understand that the children dont even know that we were getting a divorce or what that really meant, and to please please give them time to adjust to the fact that mommy and daddy are not together anymore before he forces them to met his new girlfriend.
he did not say much except that the boys wouldnt even know that she was his girlfriend, how would they know, he wasnt going to tell them….and then never said another word as i tried to make him understand that it was in the childrens best interest not to introduce her too soon (since he wasnt even sure he was going to stay with her) etc etc
ended up, she and he plotted behind my back. he took her to the park first then came back and picked up the kids so that she wasnt in the truck when he came to pick them up. of course they figured it out right away (probably since she was always throwing herself on boyman) and told me she was there and how she tried to make friends with them….. i figure she told him that “i couldnt do anything about it” she actually has told me “i am just going to have to accept they are a couple”
well she “Won” she wanted him all to herself, 24/7, couldnt even give him 4 hours every other week, made sure he did not talk to the children alone (because little kids want mom and dad to stay together) she wouldnt allow him to talk to me or be in the same vicinity as i was (because men usually go back to their wives if the wife wants them) and did all that she could do to keep him (because ours was not the first marriage she tried to destroy and help the oh so unhappy husband get away) well…. she has him now, all 118 pounds of not working, whining, never happy, always the victim, gaslighting, blame shifting, projection, lying, betraying, self-sabotaging, drown your feelings and emotions in alcohol him.
They always put themselves first. As soon as I threw out the cheater and he moved in with his whore I stressed about my adult children being with them. My therapist told me to let it play out because he wouldn’t want to have a relationship with them anymore. I didn’t believe him but that is exactly what happened. He disregarded his three adult children. They do not respect him at all and never see him, his choosing. He also disregarded his teenaged grandaughter. She WAS introduced to his whore and it resulted in her losing respect for him. I explained to her that sometimes people are just selfish and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I feel confident knowing his history that he wishes I did the pick me dance and saved him again. At first I thought of his cheating as a sad ending of our relationship. Now I know it was a new beginning for me and a very pathetic sad ending for a very sick man.
Thank you for this Donna. i was always “Saving” him. i guess that is why he hates me so much now because by divorcing him, i let him down. i am sure when he gets older (and possibly if he gets sober) that is the way he is going to think of it. That i let him down by not doing the pick me dance and saving him again. and God help me, i really wanted to do it again. to save him one more time from this home wrecking b*tch who is so evil you can see it in her eyes. she reeks evilness and hatefulness, i guess he doesnt see it. it was extremely HARD not to save him from her. still hard to see that he is still with her even after she pushed his children away. as far as i can tell, he has nothing but i guess that it okay for him (and her) all he wanted was to drink, and i was bothering him by trying to get him to be better and take care of responsibilities.
@MDG, that is quite the karma story! Reap & Sow, be careful what you wish for (or steal from) in this case. Losers! All ….. Glad you are in a real loving marriage now.
One more comment on the casino analogy. I am from Las Vegas, ( live in CA now) those casino’s are no different than these little indian reservation casino’s in every state. Its all fake, shiny, cheesy – just like the AP, the newness wears off, the shiny wears off, the booze wears off, the money gets spent, nothing of substance is left bc it was never there to begin with. Oklahoma chumps don’t be offended, CL could have picked anywhere, it is what it is. I personally LOVED the analogy, We are ALL above these people, the places and things they do have nothing to do with us!
well said!!!
As a person who loved a gambler, I loved your comment Gigi. You got yo know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run!
I have an uncle who married an affair partner after 40 years of marriage to his first wife. They’ve been married ever since and seem happy. However, he’s been tormented for many years that the kids from his first marriage barely speak to him. Even though the new marriage worked out, they’ve both paid a price for the way their relationship started.
Sarcasm font here*. Who knew? Yeah betraying your family does that.
It really does seem like the best punishment, being married to someone you KNOW is a liar and a cheater. Plus, each one knows exactly how crappy they behaved in their previous marriage. They know exactly how far they went. We didn’t do this, or we didn’t do that, blah, blah, blah. They may have even convinced some people, with denial, but they know who they really are. Eeew.
I don’t know about anyone else, but casinos give me a migraine and I can’t stay in one very long. I’m just there for the free drinks and the cheap buffet. All those lights and noise and smoke just about give me a panic attack. The last time I was in one was in California with my three siblings. We were driving past and stopped, but nobody wanted to buy chips and we just left. I was so glad to get out of there, lol.
Casinos are also a great metaphor here because they’re basically in the business of selling you flashing lights and ringing bells, and nothing else. You give them $1.00, and they give you lights and bells and 94 cents of your money back. You paid 6 cents to be momentarily dazzled. And people do that over and over, millions of times, and that’s how they make money and build those palaces in the desert (or Oklahoma dust prairie).
It’s basically a BUSINESS built around SPARKLES.
And with these cheaters, you better be getting sparkles, because Lord knows you aren’t likely getting much substance.
I would have to respectfully disagree, Nomar. Put a dollar in, bells, whistles, flashing lights, and more often than not, no money back. That was my disordered ex and my married life with him. Gambling is not set up to win. Neither is “married to a Cheater.”
Mr Hanecita told me that his affair partner, who was married and living with her husband of 10 years, invited Mr. Hanecita to move in with her…This was a short 8 weeks after having slept with Mr. Hanecita(I was never sure if the cohabitation invitation included the Affair Partners Husband, who supposedly gave his wife his blessings to cheat with Mr. Hanecita..) Mr Hanecita was so proud of himself that he turned his Affair Partner down for cohabitation…that the two of them celebrated by taking a trip to Las Vegas, (way closer than Oklahoma) dropped off at the airport by Affair Partners Husband. I discovered the affair the weekend that Mr. Hanecita and his Schmoopie were playing Poke-Her in Las Vegas. If Oklahoma had been closer, they would have gone there
My exH is living with his AP now and has been since we separated. She wears a ring. She was wearing it even before her divorce was final. I don’t know if they plan on getting married. They deserve one another tho. The affair and the level of deceit of my then husband was astonishing. So many people believed him to be someone of higher morals who would never do this to his wife and children. He fell so far in the eyes of so many. She is his equal and I cannot think of two better people to be stuck together for the rest of their lives!
Same here. Whore wears an engagement ring now. XH moved right out of our home into hers. Wouldn’t tell me where he lives as, wait for it…he didn’t “trust” me in my “anger”. After 18 years together and no abusiveness..Whatever. He was “the nice guy”, everyone loved. Not so much these days. I wish them all the happiness they deserve.
I’m not divorced yet, but my fret du jour is that my kids will have to deal with the shallow headed, gold-digging trixie he’s sure to hook up with.
Crapweasel can’t marry his current AP… although I guess technically she’s a GF, since we are divorced. At what point do they become former AP?
Anyway, Narcissa-California Parkinson is still married to her other husband. Rimshot! But my Ex lives their house.
I do wonder sometimes, if their relationship will last longer than her divorce, or vice-versa, but I don’t really care, beyond how much it destabilizes him (i.e., work.)
Don’t know about anyone else but I started calling AP the girlfriend from the day i told dear Saddam we were divorcing. Can’t be another person or other woman when there is no primary person, amiright?
Right– I guess her hapless husband is the hypotenuse now, but I don’t think he gives much of a shit either, besides I’m guessing they are fighting over money. I believe CA is a community property state, amirite?
All I know is she was posting lovey-dovey shit on her FB about hubby while she & crapweasel were hooking up, months prior to our divorce being filed. (via a friend) .So, who knows with these scabrous types? wevs, bascially.
Dat, you are right! I prefer to call her a whore. I think it suits her better.
My 13 yr old daughter told me that her father told her that I must call the OWife a whore. Funny use of the term. I actually do not think in those terms, and exH should know that given that we were together 23 yrs. OW is insecure, selfish, and self absorbed, that’s how I think. Really interesting that he thinks in those terms.
I’m hoping X and his bimbo marry. He’ll still be the most selfish, cheap, crappy-in-the-sack turd he’s always been, and she’ll have her “dream man.” Perfect.
By the way, it occurred to me (as I was driving home from a job I love with the car windows open in the 45 degree day here in Massachusetts, singing to the Irish songs playing on the radio) that it’s Tuesday, and I no longer give a flying fuck what he’s doing or who he’s doing. Yay, meh and YAY, ME!!!! I’m finally FREE!!!
Welcome to Tuesday ChutesandLadders!
Woohoo for Tuesdays!
Another one made it over the hill!!! Congratulations Chutes, this is great news!
Tra la la
my cheater said he would never marry again. Hell, he said he would never have another serious relationship. I don’t believe that, but I do believe him not getting married again. In the meantime, he’s apparently playing 3 or 4 of these young 3rd world girls at a time. Since he isn’t “careful” all the time, chances are he’s going to get a disease or get one knocked up. It’s only a matter of time. What a great life he will have then……
He has no intention of ever getting married again. Such a shame because the man who was always cheating and undressing beautiful women with his fantasy eyes, gave his AP’S the same exact luv poems, and admittedly uses them for sex, ended up with the
U G L I E S T whore imaginable. She was arrested for assaulting an elderly man and broke into her last boyfriends house and assaulted him while he was drinking a cup of coffee. She was arrested and was found with drugs in her purse. THAT was the woman he called a DREAM GIRL in the poem and got a STD test after being with two others at the same time. To her he no doubt appears to be a good guy. Pretty boy narc meets disordered BP OW is a perfect fitting ending for a cheating couple. He was SO embarrassed when I saw them at theCASINO bar he picked her up at. Yes. he met her there while he was with me on out anniversary. I couldn’t find him for hours. He has been picking up women for years at the casino while I worked. He suddenly wanted to frequent the casino and I grew tired of going and said I would rather do something else. He became angry. He had been calling her to meet him there and disappeared with her while I searched in vain to find him. During the divorce my pension looked good to his piggy and I regret not filing sooner. I kept him on my Heath insurance and he CANT marry the ugly whore or he will loose benefits. Now she has the good guy, his aching back, pee drenched sheets, designated driver duties, and his small pecker. Yup! Two fucktards took the gamble and IWON. Life IS good! KARMA ! And I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he had to pay his OWN taxes this year. Poor cheatertards, it comforts me to know he can wrap his arms around THAT!!! Smile!
Cheater married the final OW a few months after he tried to come back and I emphatically said no. He tried the poor sausage line, “I’m an asshole,” to which I prompted responded “Yes, you are.” He was hoping I would be the old Uniquelyme and tell him that he was just broken and needed help, and of course we’ll get back together. Blech. Interestingly, he’s been more of an asshole after he got married. His occasional emails have not been very nice. A few weeks ago, he told my friends that I hate him. Yep, out of the blue. It’s so weird since I have been NC for over 2 years now. I also found out he has sought medical help a lot and is on medication for anxiety and depression. His new wife demands a very expensive lifestyle and is living off him. I guess he found a new way to define happily ever after.
This is a perfect example of how fucked up they are. Two months after they want you back they get married. For me it went from let’s buy a house to I found someone I want a divorce. There is no logic we can apply to this!
Donna, 8 weeks before he started the affair, he wanted another baby!!! Thank God, I didn’t go off the birth control, whew!
The first day that he and OW actually kissed was on a Friday. The next day, he and I went and bought a brand new car!
They are truly disordered.
Impulsive fucktards that don’t know what they want for sure.
My ex husband got engaged just days after the divorce. He was one of the ones who went poof and never looked back. He wanted my daughter who is 23 to be in the wedding. She said no. The only time she had met the mistress was at a funeral for my daughters grandmother. Hello we were still married for 30 years. My son aged 26 has agreed to be best man. He is Switzerland and is not taking sides. It is very painful, but I put my financial Ducks in a row from the get go and that is my advice. These people will do anything they can think of to try to manipulate you. Trust their actions not their words.
What puzzles me about the Affair Partners is why they get such a big ego boost thinking someone’s spouse picked them when they act like you are such shit to begin with. I talked to my husband’s slut once. I was called old, fat, lazy, insecure, jealous, etc. Even the C Word. So why was she so thrilled to think he was cheating on me , with her. He’s certainly nothing to write home about either. A balding, slightly stocky middle age man sneaks around with you behind his middle aged stocky wife ‘s back and suddenly your (affair partner) middle aged pathetic ass thinks you are Marilyn Monroe, or some sex Goddess for the ages?? No, you’re still the same homeless loser whore you have always been.
Mostly they want what you’ve got. That is all.
What you have got is a liar, a cheat, a person able to live a double life….they want that??? Go right ahead then.
NotJuliet, I used to tell my X these women had fucked up lives. They stumbled through life making mistakes and not learning anything and had shit for brains. Little did I know back then that this is exactly what he was seeking out my whole marriage. The dumber the better. Joke is on them when they are actually on their own. We made them look good.
All these cheaters deserve just what they get! I just spent the evening with the woman who is amending the chubs and my taxes per our settlement agreement. She is also a good friend of mine. The ink is barely dry on the divorce settlement and my X is already financially under water, but of course his Schmoopie has NO IDEA! He “chose” his AP based on the fact that she supposedly has money. Well, judging from what I got which was everything, and his tax liability and he got all the debt we owed, but no assets, we sat and took bets on how long it will be before he is back on my doorstep like some old alley cat! It was a hoot! Too bad we weren’t able to have a glass of wine while laughing our asses off!!!
Lol! Have that glass of wine, Roberta!
My ex married his OW, who was also the OW for another one at his workplace. Shockingly, it didn’t last long. I suspect he married her only for the romantic reason that he didn’t want her to testify against him in the big lawsuit by the other contender for that piece of ass against him and the employer he lied to to get his competition fired, and there is a marital privilege in our state that would prevent that testimony. Once the lawsuit settled and the OWife was served and cleared out, I got the most astounding love letter, and I could literally hear the Hoover running over the carpet, hoping to vacuum back the old lint. No thank you. I did not reply.
If anyone thinks cheaters sometimes marry successfully, I’ll agree. About 1% of the time it might work. Not a horse to bet. Lots of the time when it doesn’t, they think they’ll just go get back the person they tossed off, WHO DOES NOT OWE THEM THE TIME OF DAY. Resist that shit from the crapweasel who just regretted all to hell how they treated you. Be mighty!
I totally enjoyed blocking my Ex’s number when he suddenly realized what he lost when he left me for someone else 7 years ago – someone who has now cheated on HIM and left HIM. Ha!
Amen to that!
Actually, I’ll raise a glass of wine to that! LOL. Cheers!
I don’t know if my X will marry his skank, but I do see that he doesn’t seem to be suffering at all. He is definitely a narc, might even be a bit of a psychopath, but he has a successful career, is fiscally responsible, has a new place, sees the kids and doesn’t seem to be hurting at all after cheating on his wife of 20 years and blowing up our marriage. He hasn’t skipped a beat. Maybe after it’s all finalized, depending on what kind of settlement I get things might not look as rosy for them. We’ll see.
A man I know married his affair partner and went through 25 years of “hell”. His words. He says that throughout their affair she was sweet and sexy but transformed into a screaming haridan not long into their marriage. He told me that it should have been a big clue that her betrayed husband drove her and all her stuff to him in his van…delivered her to her lovers door!!
He admits that he never stopped loving his first wife. I asked why he stayed for 25 years with OWife and he said that he could not afford a second divorce and admit failure.
They did divorce and she tried to ruin him financially and the daughter they had together has no contact with him.
His good looks faded and his health broke down….how do I know? I am his carer.
Just a quick, cheap chime in – every single cheating “hook up” I personally know who got married to their Schmoopie is now divorced from them, All except one. And guess what? She has recently been caught cheating on him, she even left him and their two small boys, only to come running back when the OM’s parents (after he ditched his wife and four young children) slammed the door in her face when he tried introducing her (LMAO!!!!) and they are trying to “work it out” because “they are soulmates and meant to be together – it was a mistake” – oh dear, another Chump made.
Horses – that made me laugh – too funny.
My Ex (married 27 years) married the scanky hoe he left me for (she had a two year old – LMAO)…..and after 7 years she just dumped him for someone else. Ah, Karma!!! And I, on the other hand, married the man of my dreams. And Ex suddenly started texting me and wanting to “talk”. Not a chance, Loser.
Honey,
What did I tell you about wagging your wienie out in the open. It will only get you in trouble.
I am a 35 year old man. My ex-wife and I separated in April 2014. During that time she started a relationship with a co-worker.. We are now divorced as of this February. Over Labor Day weekend, she got engaged to the affair partner. She got willingly excommunicated from her church, etc, over all this, so needy and needing to be loved “on her terms”. It reeks of desperation.
I have no desire to reconcile with her at all. Just waiting for the karma train to come and do its thing. Thank you for the article; it’s a good reminder that eventually it will.
So, Did the train ever arrive?
This has been an amazing read for me. I’m going through it too. My husband used to be a great guy but has gone off the deep end over the past couple years. It’s really heart breaking. I have two small kids (5 and 8) and it sucks for them. I’ve felt so alone and so hurt. But reading this has made me feel so much better. I’m not alone, other people go through this and they live. It’s hard when you believe your spouse is one way, but really he’s another. It makes you doubt your own sanity, and the guilt that I feel bringing kids into the world with this person makes me insane. It just hurts. Thanks again for this blog.
I am so happy this year because the only man i love with my life who left me many years ago is back to me last week through the help of Dr Mack on the 2nd of July 2017 i came across a testimony which said Dr Mack help him to get his girlfriend back so i decided to contact Dr MACK through his email at:dr_mack@yahoo. com, to my greatest surprise yesterday my ex Husband called me and beg me to reconsider him into my life and today we are living happily as one family again through the help of Dr Mack. if you want your ex back or you want your lover to love you and stay with you forever contact him now through his email above…..