The other week someone asked me to decode, “I haven’t been happy for a long time.” (Also sometimes expressed as “WE haven’t been happy for a long time.”)
It’s trotted out when the chump is looking for an explanation as to why their family life just blew up.
Well DUH. “I haven’t been happy for a long time!”
This statement presupposes a number of things:
A) That the cheater’s happiness is the most important thing (and is a valid answer to the Why Did You Commit This Dreadful Betrayal?)
B) That they’ve silently suffered for a long time and gee whiz, isn’t it time AT LAST! that they experience some true happiness?
And…
C) How could you be so dumb that you never noticed how unhappy they were? Heck, how could you not notice how unhappy YOU were until they pointed it out? (WE haven’t been happy for a long time.)
This sends the chump into apoplexies of self reflection. Well, yes, I am sometimes unhappy, but it passes. Or… hang on, how could I have missed my spouse’s cosmic misery? Apparently it was long and went on for EONS. Am I just that insensitive?
Of course you have no way of challenging this “I haven’t been happy for a long time” statement because you are not in their heads. You have no idea what they feel. So if you say, “BUT YOU LOOKED HAPPY. You had kids with me! We went snorkeling in Barbados! You drank the coffee I brought to you every morning! You said you LOVED your birthday slippers!” the cheater can just say, “Nope. I wasn’t happy.”
But you looked happy. Happy enough anyway.
“No, I was full of sorrow. Every minute. My life was a burden of grief and misery. At night I used to gnaw at the invisible chains that kept me tethered to you.”
Oh.
So chumps, how are you supposed to interpret this “I haven’t been happy for a long time” crap? Here’s a few ways to look at it:
1.) Take them at their word. Okay, you’ve been a miserable sod for decades. You, cheater, are responsible for addressing the things that make you unhappy and adjusting your life accordingly. While as a loving spouse I want to support you, if your needs are not communicated to me, there is jack shit I can do to help you.
2) Don’t accept responsibility. If the cheater was so unhappy in the marriage, they had ethical ways to go about ending their marriage — beginning with trying to save it first. Or getting out honestly before they told all their “troubles” to a sympathetic fuckbuddy.
3) They’re bullshitting you. Cake is delicious. They were probably perfectly happy with you and the services you provided — paycheck, child-rearing, air of respectability. It wasn’t until they were busted at D-Day that their Great Unhappiness was revealed. Blameshifting their “unhappiness” on to you is an invitation to do the pick me dance. Oh, you’re unhappy? How can I make you happy? I can control that! I can WIN your happiness! Let me TRY HARDER!
And guess what, they’re probably pulling the same shit on the affair partner. Oh, my marriage makes me so unhappy, but I must stay for the children! I am a noble slave to convention! Woe! And the affair partner goes, I will PROVE to you that I can make you happy! I can control your destiny! I can WIN!
Cake, cake, wonderful cake.
AWESOME!!! As always CL 🙂
Don’t accept responsibility. If the cheater was so unhappy in the marriage, they had ethical ways to go about ending their marriage — beginning with trying to save it first. Or getting out honestly before they told all their “troubles” to a sympathetic fuckbuddy.
^^^THIS^^^ I was also asked “why are you such an unhappy person?” There is a difference between being an “unhappy” person and just being dissatisfied with your partners selfishness and irresponsibility. I mean how many times or ways can you TRY to tell someone that they are a selfish asshole “nicely”???
“There is a difference between being an “unhappy” person and just being dissatisfied with your partner’s selfishness and irresponsibility.” ^^THIS^^
Yep. I was told, “I drink because of you and your depression.” Well, duh! Who wouldn’t be depressed after 15 out of 20 years of living with the drama and chaos of a drunken, complaining, entitled asshole?
Feels good to be out, though!
Yes, I’m on my way to ‘meh’ one step at a time…
This topic is soooo awesome that I must rake my yard, go for a run & eat dinner before I can delve in the deliciousness of the 214 posts so far!
yes! great post. as much as i want to read all the comments i am in the middle of cooking dinner for myboys. i am sure to say more tomorrow but i just had to say awesome!
i know i will hear that excuse someday. now i have an answer to respond when he throws this excuse. if you were so happy then you should have figured out a way to communicate with ME (your wife) and not your hoodrat AND you had an ethical way of fixing that without distroying and blowing your family
“I can only say that I have been trapped in a place of despair and hopelessness for a long time. I had myself convinced that happiness was unattainable.”
Nailed it!
“I can only say that I have been trapped in a place of despair and hopelessness for a long time. I had myself convinced that happiness was unattainable.”
Is that an actual line that someone in real life actually said?
Stupefying.
Oh, yes, FoolMe, my ex-h. Isn’t he a special snowflake? Pages of the stuff. And a bit from his ho-bag’s text to me: “I love ______ with a passion and certainty I have never possessed before. I love the kind, gentle, caring man he is. I followed my heart and I believe love can heal trauma if given a chance.” They are ridiculous.
Here’s a two-for…. double the entertainment….
Idiot MOW to my X ” I want us to work together (did that)! You’ll probably get sick of me 🙁 I have to throw out there – I also want you to have time with your buddies and for me to have time with my girlfriends.” WTF? Are you 14???
My IDIOT X to the MOW…. “I love you more than all leaves and plants that were ever bloomed!!”
FYI…. these texts were sent two weeks after their “meet up” and they had been communicating for about one month. Fucktards!!
NCStevie – “I love you more than all the leaves and plants that have were ever bloomed?” OMG that’s hilarious. Is he a botanist or something? Does he really love plants? ha ha ha made me spit out my drink. Idiots…
IKR??? LMAO Fidiot!! And NO…. I have NO idea where that stupid shit came from. By trade he is a tile setter, transitioning into fitness as a trainer. Setting tile… not so fun… pays better…. but not enough kibbles. Trainer… hang out at the gym… lotsa girls in yoga pants or shorts…. he gets to show himself off and get oodles of attention.
Honestly… I think he KNEW after I caught him that there is no way in HELL I would have let him pursue a career as a fitness trainer…. seriously??? OWhore is an idiot.
I actually found a text from her that I had missed, she referenced that a friend of hers had shared a photo of her on Facebook and it reminded her “to tell you that I was voted Best Dressed my senior year of high school” Seriously??? Lmao!!! This dumbass is 41 years old and plugging herself for kibbles on being best dressed at her high school 23 years ago in Podunk USA. There was probably only 20 people in her graduating class, she STILL lives where she grew up and it is Smallville.
As I look at the date I can see this is not an April Fools line…… How does anyone think a vote taken in high school has ANY bearing on life? Deluded anyone?
Yes.
And the “I have long been unhappy” is often linked with the “and I have ‘tried’ for ___ years months ”
but the definition of “trying” at marriage for a person with a cheaters heart would look to us like
“I stayed here stewing, blaming and becoming more bitter by the day simultaneously applauding myself for the resentfully tolerating you”. Hmmm did ANY of them approach a spouse and say “Honey, I feel were disconnected, how can we regain the closeness we once had?” oh, I forgot, they don’t DO that…they confide in that gal at work, who understands them so well.
In a way, however, as stupid-ass as it is, when they say they are miserable, I do think we should believe them. In my saner moments I recognized that whatever depression he had was something I could not fix…his relationship with himself was his alone and if he wanted to break from the shackles of a marriage with me sooner, I wish I had made it easier for him to leave.
Does anyone else feel we are being forced to play their mother?
Yes, though in my case it was playing father role to my ex-wife (e.g., pay the bills, deal with all repairs of everything, discipline the kids, etc.). And then was resented bitterly for it. A no-win situation.
Same except with the genders reversed…so I was damned for having “emasculated” him.
Yes, well, since she couldn’t play the “emasculation” card I was told that every time I did laundry or swept the floors or balanced the check book my actions IMPLIED criticism of her. As in, b\”By doing this you’re expressing disapproval that I didn’t do it first.” What? It was such a head-spinning argument that I actually bought into it many times. And . . . apologized for working around the house? Yep. Yes, I did.
It’s a game you can’t win!
“Hmmm did ANY of them approach a spouse and say “Honey, I feel were disconnected, how can we regain the closeness we once had?” oh, I forgot, they don’t DO that…they confide in that gal at work, who understands them so well.”
I still have problems believing how they all work from the same script!
” In my saner moments I recognized that whatever depression he had was something I could not fix…his relationship with himself was his alone ”
I wish I’d had those “saner moments” sooner, instead of spending 5 years tying myself in knots trying to make him happy – seems like I was a bit slow on the uptake….
“Does anyone else feel we are being forced to play their mother?”
I don’t know about their mother – a bl@@dy psychic, more like !
Yes…when we were engaged he was worried about his mother disapproving of us having sex as we had to spend almost every weekend at her house. We lived in different cities in the week so sex was rare, guilty and not that good.
His mother issues only worsened after the wedding and looking back, the pick me dance started way back then and he usually picked her.
I tried so hard to be picked that I ended up in her role.
He liked sex to be hidden away and forbidden so affairs were inevitable….he left not long after mother died.
OW is a natural at “mother” and has even forced him to start eating his greens in his fifties and this is something neither his actual mother or I ever succeeded in doing.
Is my wittle baby boy gonna eat his wittle geen peas with the truck spoon and be a good baby…vroom…vroom…yum…yum..open wide my wittle honey bunny..
Yeah, I see how OW got him to eat his peas…piece of cake.
YESSSSSS. I am constantly pushed into a Mother Role.
OMFG. We have been together almost ten years and I feel like he BARELY even knows me at all. He doesn’t even need me for the arguments. He just argues against what his Mom would have said. He even runs away like a little kid/teenager! Runs away and won’t answer the phone or email or whatever. I HATE it. It is just so so so pathetic. Then if I bring up ANY issues I get told I am “shaming him just like his mother.”
They have such a screwed up relationship. I can only describe it as “emotionally incestuous.” She expected him to take care of her emotions which were, just, all over the map. She freaked out over two floors of Chinese restaurant last time I took her out. Jeez, couldn’t even order her own Chinese Food and then blasted her husband for ordering something “she didn’t like.” But the really weird part was when I told them about his cheating. She acted like he cheated on HER. It was just bizarre. Just so bizarre.
He’s an ass. Don’t get me wrong. But I can see exactly why he wouldn’t know how to treat a spouse vs. a Mom. But this is no way excuses the cheating. That was utter bullshit.
Zackly, Nomar….I had to parent Mr. Fab. No wonder I went off him, I am no Jocasta….
But thought it was me, blamed myself. I was responsible for his happiness. But since he never wanted to get it on without toys or porn or whatever, or doing the two shoves, one grunt and snores thereafter, In truth, I went off him, because he was already fucking around, treating me like an object and mentally abusing our kid.
I never listened to that little voice saying this is all.fucked.up. Not even after DDay
Trust your guts Chumps. Love to all Chump Nation
x-Meh
Yes. He wanted me to make all the decisions and he wanted me to change and fix. Poor whittle boy needed his emotions to be the center of our home life instead of that big bad reality of aging and our parents and our kids actual needs coming first for a few years.
X wanted me to make all the decisions so he had no responsibilities and he could claim he was doing whatever to make me happy and then he could turn around and rage and blame me for everything.
Why yes, I am in therapy because of this.
Kira – me too – exactly!
^^^this too^^^ I got the “you’re too smart, you’re too dominant, blah Di friggin Da…..” He purposefully never made decisions, plans, whatever, so that he could resent my choices ad infinitum. Didn’t realize this for the passive/aggressive maneuver that it was-just thought he was dull…..nope, he’s a Weasel with a capital W. Tangentially, he took great joy in binge drinking, seeing me ignore him, then going in to the kitchen and slamming the silverware into the “appropriate” compartments in the drawer (I admit, I don’t give a rat’s ass if the salad forks commingle with the dinner forks). All the while glaring at me as if this was just another horrible burden he had to endure……It defies explanation, but is good for a chuckle……
I have seen in a couple of my family members- that Ultra-Organization is the sign of a control freak, narcissist. They can’t stand anything ‘out of place’. Usually starts in the silverware drawer….
Smart is Hard–there is obviously something deeply flawed with both of us that we could care less that the forks co-mingle. No wonder our poor spouses were driven into the arms and crotches of another……our monumental failures caused it. (cheater logic)
Hahaha same here! What is it with the utensils that set them off. I didn’t nest the forks and spoons properly. Heaven forbid!! That was actually one of the reasons he gave for proceeding with the divorce.
Yes, yes and yes…my POS, the SA, told me that he was going to make me a mother if it was the last thing he did. W T F ????
Let me repeat: THE SEX ADDICT TOLD ME HE WAS GOING TO MAKE ME A MOTHER IF IT WAS THE LAST THING HE DID.
He was referring to ME “mothering” HIM. F’ing asshole. Whore/Madonna syndrome BIG TIME.
The only thing I didn’t do for this “id” was wipe his ass. He PAID someone to do that.
I have four children who have done very well considering their fucked-up family circumstances of fathers who left because they weren’t “happy”.
If these fools were walking down the street with a flashing sign saying “Make Me Happy” on their head, at least I would know they were a designated black hole and get the fuck out of the way.
The “make me happy” are the most selfish, fake, controlling, critical, soul less, lazy, slithering, emotion sucking, sexless, creatures I have known who never initiate ANYTHING. PURE ENTITLEMENT. They are so special and you are lucky to have them. BARF, VOMIT, THROW UP.
Whenever this fuckers say, “I am not happy”, your response should be, “So, why are you not happy with YOURSELF?”
Then, every time the fucker attempts to blameshift their “unhappiness” to someone else as the reason, you need to repeat it.
You may have to repeat it several times because they never hear you and won’t understand what you are saying.
I know what my sign said, “I’ll Make You Happy”. I have since unplugged and tossed it in the trash, so now I am a bitch.
You know what? I think that name has a nice ring to it.
“If these fools were walking down the street with a flashing sign saying “Make Me Happy” on their head, at least I would know they were a designated black hole and get the fuck out of the way.”
CJ, you are the bomb!
I agree 100% with FoolMeTwice…. that is fabulous and spot on!!
I like this part:
“I know what my sign said, “I’ll Make You Happy”. I have since unplugged and tossed it in the trash, so now I am a bitch.”
Nice. I’m going to keep that in mind. UNPLUG THE SIGN!
Oh I am just crackin up now Calamity!!!! LOL!!! THANK YOU!!!! All that is soooo true!!!!!
Calamity – your clear view of cheaters made me remember something that was initially buried in the detritus of Dday.
As XH began spinning his final version of justification (I was so unhappy) to my then 23 year old daughter, she texted me:
“I think he is confusing the marriage with himself…”.
I knew it was true, but I was so stunned at the time, it didn’t sink in. It has sunk into me now. But irony of all ironies…he is working his story so well now that this same daughter is getting re-confused by his Poor Me gear. Ugh.
You go on loving her and building your happy life. Don’t talk to her about her father, and if she brings it up, just say that you hope she can have a good and healthy relationship with him. If you detach from the outcome, chances are things will go as they always go with these hyenas. Remember the narcissist cheater LOVEs to triangulate and if you won’t triangulate with Schmoopie(s), they use the kids. So detach and let her work it out for herself, again, that he’s screwed up.
Very true, LAJ. Don’t triangulate and she will figure it out again. All by herself.
LAJ & CJ – i normally agree with your perspectives but not this one. i would not watch a boss, friend, or anyone knowingly lie or gaslight my daughters without saying what i see. i understand the theory and dynamic of triangulation. that may or may not be relevant here. i think we all figure things out when we are ready. i sure as hell would have figured things out sooner if someone had told me what was really going on (pre chump nation)
so i say something when i believe it is in my daughters’ best interests. what XH does with MOW is his business. my family’s new life going forward is mine. it will be liar, blame shifting and gaslighting free. or at least there will be a reality check on that shit.
I agree with you Chumpette–I outed my x’s lies to my 19 year old, and I think she was relieved, even though it bothered her.
Tell her the truth. Your daughter has to be able to trust YOU.
Totally agreed. I think our kids need to have somebody in their lives who’s standing for truth, so that they can grow up with an authentic narrative. There’s a big difference between saying, “Daddy cheated on me, and that’s not okay with me. That’s why we divorced,” and “Daddy is a conniving narcissistic asshole.” Because, hey, they will figure it out eventually anyway, and on top of losing their nuclear family, they might well wind up feeling chumped by US if we didn’t give it to them straight. I wouldn’t want that for my girls. Just my .02.
Whoa, I am in agreement. No bullshit to the daughters about daddio. I just won’t engage in the triangulation of me, dad and daughter.
I told them the truth. But his tale of woe to daughter, daughter and their sympathy for him is not going engage me in a dance with the asshole. “Ahhh mom, poor daddio. Can’t you lighten up?”
“Sorry daughter, daughter, the answer is no, BUT I do ‘hope you can have a good and healthy relationship with him'”.
Key word being “hope” and that father-daughter relationship is yours not mine.
In the end, they will make their own evaluation of Mr. Perfect’s It’s Not My Fault It’s Your Mother’s bullshit mantra.
CJ – clearinig up some confusion…agree no triangulation is best strategy , children deserve to know truth, they will arrive at their own conclusions in their own time. but my original post today was addressing something else.
although the original lie (adultery) may be over, when XH’s other disordered behaviors and manipulation continue with our children (i.e., “I was never happy” ) i do not think remaining silent is wise. and i do not think saying something is triangulation. IMO it is education and caution.
what seems to be working for my adult daughters, when they bring their confusion to me as XH continues his disordered behaviors is: 1) listen, and 2) simply label the behavior for what it is, i.e., “that’s called justification” or “beware of distortions” and “check this with what you know”.
IMO equal parts reality and equanimity can be a healing balm.
educate adult chidlren for their own mental health? yes.
triangulate by trashing cheater? no.
Chumpette,
We are on the same page..
“The “make me happy” are the most selfish, fake, controlling, critical, soul less, lazy, slithering, emotion sucking, sexless, creatures I have known”
YES, CalamityJ!! The endless cycle of criticism and blame over the most ridiculous things, then ignoring all the good we do to keep the house and children and relationship going why they are out moping about feeding the other woman sad tales about how they are unhappy in their marriage. Fuck the lot of them. May we go on to greater things, and may they end their lives with the realization that they made THEMselves unhappy.
Tempest you are so right… they made THEMselves unhappy. They throw away everything that REALLY matters for someone they often barely even know. X has been telling me that I’m an “unhappy” person for so long I actually believed it. I certainly haven’t been happy with the way we have been living but I’m not just generally unhappy. HE is an unhappy person….. NEVER satisfied… it has taken me almost EIGHT years to figure this out. More of that projection bullshit.
EVERYTHING he spits at me is actually a direct reflection of himself. “You’re unhappy” (he is) “You’re negative” (him) “Nothing I ever do is good enough for you” (my Mother said “I don’t think I ever heard him say you did anything right) “You are so selfish, all you ever think about is yourself” (really? laughable) “You stopped wanting me a long time ago (my personal favorite) ….. etc. etc. You know the drill.
“They throw away everything that REALLY matters for someone they often barely even know”-NCStevie
-Three days after dday when I was finally able to speak to him, I begged him to see how beautiful our 26+
years together had been. He said that he should have left 5 years ago (WTF?) because I would be farther
along in accepting that the marriage was over.
“It wasn’t until they were busted at D-Day that their Great Unhappiness was revealed.”-ChumpLady
-On Christmas morning X gave me a card that read, “Life gives you beautiful things, it gave me you.” Less than
36 hours later he morphed. It took me a few years to throw out that card.
“I think he is confusing the marriage with himself…”.-Chumpette’s daughter.
About 2 weeks after dday, I stayed at my in-laws for a few days. I was so lost & former MIL was always a
source of comfort. When I told he said he didn’t love me, she kept saying that it was not true. 2 months later
divorce papers arrived & I was instantly persona non grata to his entire family
“Maybe they are miserable because they did something truly awful–THEY LIED AND CHEATED on their
spouse!”-Divorce Minster
-after 5 years heccan’t be too miserable because he is engaged to a woman who was not the OWhore.
They are miserable….. because they are simply just miserable. As previously stated they make THEMselves unhappy…. they are never satisfied!! They are always relying on outside gratification to “fix” their unhappiness and make them feel “good” about their shitty existence. The main problem is that the PAIN comes from inside them…. when the shiny wears off the pain resurfaces they can’t FIX it because they can’t FACE it or even admit there is a problem and if they do… it is someone ELSE’ fault.
“..may they end their lives with the realization that they made THEMselves unhappy.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Truer words were never spoken.
Bottom line, folks, is that “They made THEMSELVES unhappy.”
B I N G O
CJ…. Looooooove it. Unplug the sign… Take down the tent…. Not my circus…. Not my monkeys!
“Not my circus…. Not my monkeys!”
! ! ! YES ! ! !
Yaaaaaay !!
Jen, you asked if we feel we were forced to play their mother?
Yes, yes I do.
But, frankly, there was no filling the hole that was left in his heart when his birth mother gave him up for adoption. There is more to the story–she hurt him again two decades later. The mother who raised him is lovely in so many ways, but she herself plays a victim and loves to rescue others. Both mothers are blonde, whereas I am have reddish-brown hair. I truly believe he was NEVER going to bond with me. He needed a blonde mother figure rescuer with no other responsibilities other than to him. And he found her, finally, on Facebook!
All at once, in my opinion, she became the angel blonde affection-dispenser perfect mothery sex object (ew?), and instantly I was relegated to house-and-calendar-keeper, sexless drone advisor and babysitter.
I think in his mind, he didn’t see himself as doing anything wrong. If I found out and got upset, that was an inconvenience for him, but not wrong. I’m sure the OW was up in his ear telling him that It Was Meant To Be, and that a man Deserves To Be Happy! In fact, we had sex a couple times after I learned of the OW. This was part of the pick-me dance, of course. On one occasion, several hours later, a darkness rolled over him, and he accused me of making him cheat on HER! Total mind fuck! He’d betrayed his mommy!
To be fair, I’d always wanted my man to be more like my own father–honest, hard-working, funny, assertive. My dad ain’t perfect, and I would not want to be married to someone exactly like him (bless my mom’s heart, but dang….) Still, in so many ways, my ex was the opposite of the best parts of my dad, and it bothered me a lot. And, yet, I loved him, and believed in him, and loved the ways he was different from the worst parts of my dad. In the end, he said that I’d never had any faith in him. He made that up in his head. The truth is that I’d had too much faith in him. I projected a lot of good onto him that he never deserved.
*sigh*
Miss Sunshine he sounds like a total jerk. And yes the kind of jerk that was born of some attachment disorder. Women like us want to be there for those people, but they are so fundamentally screwed up, there really isn’t anything anyone can do. Not even the other woman. So her punishment for having so little character is she will have to put up with him. And it won’t be fun.
I knew a couple at work that left their spouses for each other. Seemed to be crazy about each other, moved in, had a baby. She is my facebook friend. I can tell from her pictures and posts he isn’t in the picture anymore.
They’re jerks. Hapless and hopeless. So sad.
Sorry you were married to one, too.
No we weren’t married. We were together for five years, then broke up when I learned he had cheated. Then we were off and on. The last two years we were practically living together, but he was calling it friends with benefits so he could see another x the two days a week I wasn’t there.
Still hurts like a MFer.
Yes, I read this every day so I can remember not to go back. I am stupid enough to love him, but he isn’t capable of loving me. I figure is she wants him that badly she can have him.
Miss Sunshine & Jen–they cannot be made happy. They chase a quick fix for their woes, or their boredom, or their lust, or their inability to truly connect with someone else. Quick fixes don’t work, but it doesn’t stop them from trying, at our expense.
Once I realized that my X could not be happy, I felt a lot better. There was nothing I, or we, could have done short of becoming a fawning appendage to their egos and giving up ourselves and our own lives. No thanks.
Yes, I know, that is why I keep checking in here. When I feel strong enough I’m going to fade away. In the meantime this is keeping me from unrealistically thinking he is capable of being anybody’s partner.
Jen, don’t project your goodness onto him. Don’t let him crowd out the rest of you. He proved that he’s not worth it.
Keep coming here, and also go to your other loves–hobbies, friends, family, groups, charities, etc. Do what you LOVE. Don’t make up love where it isn’t.
Truth is, even you can’t really love someone who isn’t worthy. Those are strong feelings you might have, but it’s not love. He doesn’t embody your values! He’s not admirable! He’s not honorable!
You might feel a longing for what you know, or for what you’d imagined he could be, but you also know he’s an asshole who hurts.
You’re better than that. Be patient with yourself. Have a good cry. Shake it off, and hold your head high. And fill your heart with REAL love. YOU are worthy of REAL love from someone who will cherish you.
“Don’t make up love where there isn’t.”
I don’t know why I do that, but I guess I do. Thank you for your understanding.
“In the meantime this is keeping me from unrealistically thinking he is capable of being anybody’s partner.”
@ Jen….. ^^^^ THIS ^^^^ is SO very true….. they are NOT capable…. the good behavior is only TEMPORARY.
I happen to be fortunate enough to be pretty good friends with my X’s last wife, we have developed a friendship as I have been the one taking care of her kids every other weekend for the past 8 years. I never made her uncomfortable because I had nothing to do with the demise of their marriage, met him 2 years later.
Anyway, SHE is where I get a lot of my strength. She is my confirmation that HE is fucked up and that he is not going to change. Somewhere in this thread someone said “it’s a cycle” and that is SO true. They can only keep up the facade for so long….. keyword “disordered”.
One night right after D-Day #2 I was talking to her on the phone after X picked up the kids (I was home) and she put me on speaker phone so her boyfriend could listen and talk too. At the end of the conversation her boyfriend said “Just about every single word of that is EXACTLY what ___ has said about him, he is NEVER wrong and SO friggen selfish……same complaints…. same issues…. same shit…. same cheating.”
She told me a year ago that the lies would never stop, she was married to him for almost 12 years, I should have listened….but I spackled instead.
“becoming a fawning appendage to their egos and giving up ourselves and our own lives.”
Damn you have a way with words, Tempest. This is EXACTLY what the fuckers wish to achieve and in the end they will still leave you or cheat on you and call you a sap for being such.
Not only was I forced to play his mother, he acted like he was 15 years old. Sulking, unhappy, put upon, you name it. He was very sick for 10 years and I took care of him and kept a roof over our heads. 7 years into his illness, he met someone online and carried on a emotional affair with her. DD1 was 3 years ago but he chickened out of moving in with her. He swore it was over but a couple of months ago (DD2) he left and is living with her. During those 3 years of planning with OW, he kept it from me and was surprised that I hadn’t realized what he was doing. Guess I’m not the mindreader he thought I was.
We me 38 years ago this month.
Arrrgggg….kept them alive so they could continue with their assholiness…
Been there, done that.
The longer I am away from my cheater X the more I recognize how much of his bullshit he projected onto me. The “I can’t make you happy” “it’s never good enough” “you stopped wanting me”….. ALL of that shit is HIM. Truth is his life is SHIT because of his cheating and bad choices, he cheated on his XW and she kicked his ass in the divorce. Took me 7 years to find out the truth about his cheating on her…. had I known sooner I could have left when my son was younger so it wouldn’t be so hard on him.
“The longer I am away from my cheater X the more I recognize how much of his bullshit he projected onto me.”
Same for me, NCS. And with each passing day, I see with more and more clarity that my single biggest failing was the inability to morph into a completely different woman on demand. All I could ever be was myself. But then, that’s the lure of porn and of cheating. A click of the mouse, a turn of the head, a new dating profile, and BAM. You can disappear into someone else. These guys don’t do reality very well.
FMT,”These guys don’t do reality very well.” You nailed it!! And can I get an AMEN?
You got a 26pt AMEN from me, Roberta.
FMT, my “single biggest failing was the inability to morph into a completely different woman on demand” resonates. Hard to compete with all those fantasy women out there. Lol.
Yup, mine wanted an animated sex doll with a computer chip to praise him often and talk his favorite academic subject with him. No needs of her own.
Omg I told my sister last night that I was competing with a fantasy woman. FML
“These guys don’t do reality very well.” Isn’t it MIND BOGGLING??? My cheater X is SO frigging DELUSIONAL. He seriously behaves like we are “friends” and like he hasn’t just blown up our lives…. like he didn’t LIVE here in our house for three months while swooning & love bombing MOW.
it is ASTOUNDING the position he abandoned us in…. I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer (I have shared this before, however I am finished with surgeries, doing well & on medication for the next 5 years) but I had been a stay at home Mom with our son…. NOW I have the okay to start working (medically) and am in the process of finding a job… but…. HE is supposed to be paying the rent & bills here and is 3 months behind. I offered him the house because I couldn’t afford it & he said to keep our son here until school is out. ALL of his crap is still here, it’s not like I’m being an ass and just squatting so he has to keep paying… he hasn’t moved HIS shit out. And he shows up for visitation and just smiles at me as though everything were just right in the world. I don’t know how he isn’t having a nervous breakdown he is being so irresponsible and destructive?? It’s INSANE!!
He just ain’t aware, or as Dr. Simon puts its, he sees but disagrees…..woulda believe Mr Fab said-within minutes of him coming home on D-day and being confronted as the nestshitting coward he is. “I’ve been SOOOOO stressed out”
Good luck on your job hunt, and all blessings on your health.
What a Special special snowflake-http://youtu.be/NFSjZYc8eH4
Hope this song cheers you up. I am NC with Mr fab, the kiddo sadly isn’t, but we are 8000 miles away. I play it in my head when daughter talks about him.
x-Meh.
That was hilarious!! Thank you for the laugh, I needed it.
Thanks for the well wishes too 🙂
Mephista – That song was wonderful. I am saving for future narcs.
This is why we need to be able to identify these liars/cheaters and learn not to be so chumpy. If you are used to telling the truth, you don’t expect others to be liars, until you are chumped. Online profiles are usually full of lies and half truths. The predators consider them to be like resumes that cannot be fact checked. I have gone from a person who was trusting and who believed what people told me, into one who believes almost nothing people say. I watch people’s actions carefully, and look for underlying motivation for any action, now. When people start telling me things about their past life, I listen carefully, and store it away in my mental “This has yet to be verified,” file. Contradictions will be noted over time, and it is difficult to tell a lie the same way twice. So if you are paying attention and you give yourself plenty of time you should be able to assess the other person’s character. Don’t make rash decisions, don’t let anyone rush you. If they are in a hurry — that’s their problem. You don’t have to be inconvenienced or endangered because someone else wants you to solve their problem.
Even small lies indicate character defects — if you are actually 5’5″, don’t claim to be 5’8″. If you are a smoker, don’t indicate that you don’t smoke. If you are a few pounds overweight, don’t indicate you are athletic and toned. These are lies that will become evident when you meet someone the first time. Don’t be a chump and “forgive” these lies, and say “Poor sausage, he/she wants to be better, and it is just a white lie. Don’t be forgiving and understanding if the potential partner tries to move too fast, being the aggressor when trying to hug/kiss you for the first time. If they dominate the conversation, and try to push you around — they are bullies. And consider this carefully — this is their best behavior, because you are new and not under their control, yet.
I know how easy it is to be love bombed, especially if you have been starved for attention. But con’s always make things sound wonderful. If they sound too good to be true, they probably are false.
I agree Portia. Good points. One of the best pieces of advice I have received from CL is forget what they say, but watch where their feet go. Mine would swear his undying love and that he was “being good”, but then I would find evidence to the contrary and out the door he went to her! I am very cautious now.
To quote Mr. But I am a Good Guy-“the only problem with lying is if (IF) you get caught”. Can’t argue with that.
I was 43 and I fell for the lovebombing…. hook, line & sinker….. I never KNEW anyone could be so deceptive about their feelings and life!! I absolutely remember saying “He just seems to good to be true”……. because he WAS…. pretentious asshole.
“The longer I am away from my cheater X the more I recognize how much of his bullshit he projected onto me.”
Raising my hand too. The hindsight is stunning.
agreed!
That is the truth, but my kids also believed the BS at least partially. 🙁
Yep this one is often said around here. Really ticks me off.
Unhappiness. Well. I was extremely unhappy when I noticed my husband was acting like a colossal prick. I just didn’t know why he was being such a colossal prick. I didn’t know that his being a collosal prick meant that he was fucking any whore that spread her legs and opened her mouth for him. I was so ignorant. I rember expressing my unhappiness and telling him as I was crying that we had to fix our marriage. I can remember asking him what was wrong. Funny, he did not mention anything about being unhappy. He knew I was unhappy because I told him so. He was totally happy. He had me crying for him and he was getting all the fucks he wanted. He was very happy with the power he thought he was getting from his deception.
Off topic here, but how do you know if you are getting a fair or good settlement in your divorce? Is there any way of knowing?
Supreme Chump, you’ll get more answers to the question if you post it to the Forums, rather than here. But the general rule is, you consult a lawyer or two, they tell you what the courts would likely decide if it went that far. It’s often pretty straight-forward, and gives a solid basis for any negotiation, mediation, as well as deciding whether you do actually need to go to court to get fair treatment.
I do not see any link to forums.
There is a Register link and Log In link at the top of the page. After you register and log in, then the Forum and Log Out links will appear.
You’ll get the log-in via your email. The forums are a great place for extra advice.
Talk to an attorney and review case law in your state. Most states today are 50/50 HOWEVER if you can prove pre-marital assets such as a down payment on the joint family home etc. then that money needs to be returned to you before the remaining portion of the equity is split 50/50. Also if you received an inheritance while married that inheritance is not considered marital assets so you can keep it. If by chance you put your inheritance against the family home and can show you received XXX as inheritance and then made a payment of XXXX of equal or lesser value on the home you can then argue that you should received that money back as well before the 50/50 split of equity takes place.
In regards to Alimony, it is really based on why the divorce is taking place and who the judge believes. Adultery plays a huge part in Alimony. If the person who committed adultery is the one asking for alimony then they would get less, or perhaps no, alimony.
Child support in most states is calculated and is based on income from both parents and over night stays the child has with each parent.
Most states, including mine, state equitable distribution, not to be confused with equal, or what is commonly thought to be 50/50. My cheater kept banging this drum and the courts and mediators, assuming you have an attorney, can very well see the POS you are up against and take the negotiations in that direction. My husband knew from the first minute in mediation that if I didn’t get the 80/20 I wanted that I could certainly go to court, unmask him & Schmoopie in court and ask for even more! Funny, after a year of refusing to sign my offer, he signed his life away in a mere 3 hours! It was great!
Not all states work that way. Maryland is one of them. Adultery does not mean anything in this state other than getting a divorce faster (and it showing on the public record) and effecting alimony. Marital assets still get distributed 50/50.
Just a note on inheritances. In IL if you receive a sum of money and that money goes into a joint account, it becomes a co-mingled asset. Once it is co-mingled, it belongs to both parties.
OMG THIS!
“Unhappiness. Well. I was extremely unhappy when I noticed my husband was acting like a colossal prick. I just didn’t know why he was being such a colossal prick. I didn’t know that his being a collosal prick meant that he was fucking any whore that spread her legs and opened her mouth for him. I was so ignorant. I rember expressing my unhappiness and telling him as I was crying that we had to fix our marriage. I can remember asking him what was wrong. Funny, he did not mention anything about being unhappy. He knew I was unhappy because I told him so. He was totally happy. He had me crying for him and he was getting all the fucks he wanted. He was very happy with the power he thought he was getting from his deception”
#My.Whole.Marriage.
“He was very happy with the power he thought he was getting from his deception”
Which is why I now hate my X. He gamed me big time, and still had the gall to blame it on my faults.
I am sure there is room in the trunk of the car for two bodies!
Three
Done
How about “Our marriage has been over for a long time anyway?” I didn’t get the unhappy memo, I got the marriage was over for a long time memo. That really had me bamboozled; especially since we had a vacation in the Caribbean a mere 2 months before.
Is this an off shoot of “I haven’t been happy for a long time?” or is this another special mind fuck. That one really had my head reeling for a long time. Is that a separate topic?
Oh, I got this one too, three weeks after a cruise to celebrate his 50th birthday.
And I also got “It was a mutual decision to end the marriage” from his lawyer. I didn’t get that memo either!
In the end it’s all justification.
Me too. Wtf! I think this is the best argument for them to use to get into the other persons pants. It also helps them look good if they tell their needed support group as they throw us under the selfish bus.
amazingly, they seem to believe their own shit…”I left you a long time ago, Muse, I just never told you.” Really? doesn’t “leaving” usually entail taking your crap out of my house, changing your mailing address and eating and sleeping somewhere else? Oh yeah, he too, “had been miserably unhappy for a very long time,” after DDay revelation; found out later he was a serial cheater. So unhappy why the fuck was he with me in the first place? WTF
Yes Muse, it certainly usually works that way, but don’t feel bad. I have been divorced for over 30 days and mine has not picked his trash up yet although he constantly drives me nuts over it. Guess he thinks I’ll deliver it to him! Ha! Ha! And honest I would, but he has no real address. Do I drop it to his hotel room? Schmoopies dinky 950 sq.ft. Condo? His office at work? Gosh they are stupid! Mine made divorcing him and cleaning his financial clock as easy as falling off a log! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Donate it and take the tax write off
I believe their not taking their stuff is a way for them to keep a tether to us, and to keep us stuck. My stbx has taken very little, despite identifying everything he wants weeks ago. It’s now in the garage and if he doesn’t come get it soon, it’ll go to storage
Expatchump, yes, that’s what I’m leaning towards. Most of it is clothing he doesn’t even fit in anymore because he has lost so much weight he looks like the running gears of a katydid! The rest is military memorabilia of his and his beloved stamp collection worth zero! Useless junk! That’s what he was awarded in the divorce after 41 years of marriage! Sad!
Mine still has stuff here 6 years separated and argues that ( you have room and I do not). OW has made him get rid of stuff that he bought quite recently. He was using our son who still lives with me to transfer items to and from the loft until I got wise and insisted that he had to come directly to me.
PAPrincess–“I think this is the best argument for them to use to get into the other persons pants. It also helps them look good if they tell their needed support group as they throw us under the selfish bus.”
Bingo!! I’m amazed at how many women fall for the “my wife doesn’t understand me….my wife doesn’t pay attention to me…blah blah blah.”
Mine has taken to using the word” situation” when asked what happened to our marriage. He has bumped into a few of our joint friends. Hee are some of his gems… ” I left the situation….. The situation was horrible. ….That situation I was in. That situation had me so depressed”
I am gonna start using it to sign off my emails and texts. It will take him 3 years to figure it out.,
Similarly I got the “OW isn’t a bad person, she thought I was ‘fair game’ since our marriage has been over for a long time” but I never got the memo that our marriage was over…we still lived in the same house, slept in same bed/had sex and ostensibly raised our kids together (not that he was parenting much or well) but yea, that pesky missing memo…
Oh, I forgot… mine also told me he was a ‘free agent’ since the marriage was clearly over.
He just hadn’t actually told me.
Mine told his OW (and anyone else that would listen)—
“I’m only TECHNICALLY married.”
Really asswipe? Then how about technically moving the fuck out of my house, technically filing for divorce, technically paying your own fucking bills, technically getting a decent job (AND KEEPING IT THIS TIME), and technically paying child support?
Yeah. Such technicalities.
“If a man tells you that he thinks of you morning, noon and night–chances are he’s someone else’s husband.”
Prick.
Good points!
You guys have heard it all, so this wont come as a shock, but when he was at the pinnacle of his fuckupness, he said to me “We never really got married”. I said “Aug 30, 1986, there were 180 guests in a Catholic Church and 2 Priests and I wore a fancy dress and you wore a uniform …does that ring any bells?” He meant that he was so reluctant that his consent was invalid so the wedding was never real.
After we “reconciled” I told him that we should renew our vows because he told me repeatedly that they were invalid. He said he would in 4 years (at our 25th) so I waited. Just before our 25th he told me he would not follow through. He really never gave me a reason…I think he liked having a “get out of jail free card” …he could be married when he liked but he knew he could take his argument to the tribunal and get a degree of nullity.
I literally begged him…as a “married” Catholic person, knowing my husband considered our marriage invalid and refused to make good on them was a certain sort of spiritual abuse. I once wrote him an email imploring him and he responded that he would not. He made a comment that if he ever received a terminal diagnosis, he would reconsider. What he never expected was to drop dead. When I found him cold on the floor, one of my first thoughts was that now we would never renew our vows.
Outstanding SphinxMoth….. ALL of it!!! Couldn’t agree more….. they’re all pricks, even the women cheaters!
Are they really happy tho with the whores they left their families for? It seems that everything is going right for them, they have a nice house, good jobs and now have my daughter for Easter. The slut actually posted a pic of my daughter on her fb stating that she was so happy she was coming. I’ll never get to spend Easter with her bc my previous attorney fucked me over. I had to hire another one to undo the mess she made. I’ve been depressed since yesterday and it kills me knowing that he got away with everything.
Annabella, I don’t think they are every really “happy” but they sure make it look like it. The OW gives them the unconditional kibbles & adoration they crave (to feel better about their shitty insides) because they aren’t onto their game or tired of their shit yet… look how long it took some of us to catch on….
My X certainly “behaves” like he is on top of the world right now and I know that financially he is FUBAR and wonder HOW he isn’t having a nervous breakdown. Not only does he not appear to be concerned but continues to dig a deeper hole. I think OW has money and he is hoping it will “save” him?? I hope she is every bit the narc he is and I hope that once she really “has” him she will realize how BAD his finances are and dump him on his ass.
I am sorry about your situation, I don’t have to deal with that yet as OW is not divorced and still in hiding with the affair/relationship. I know my X moved his AP into his home 2 weeks after his last wife and kids left (ahhh the things we find out too late). I don’t know HOW she survived it all, how devastating. The AP didn’t last long, that was over in about a year. I am hoping for the demise of this one as well.
I have long wondered how it seems that the most awful people seem to always get by with screwing everyone else over…. but I think they suffer in ways we don’ see. I still pray for karma. I would rather be me and suffer through the pain than be completely VOID on the inside like these assholes.
Sending you some cyber hugs & good juju, be mighty!!!
Thank you so much NCStevie..I appreciate your words of wisdom. I’ve been in bed all day, crying and just can’t seem to get over this funk. It’s been 4 yrs since he left and moved on (he married owhore) but I’m still stuck. I know now that our relationship was so toxic and I have a lot of guilt over letting him get away with the abuse of my child and I. I protected him and saved his ass when he nearly killed me in front of our child. I could have ended his career by reporting him but I didn’t. I couldn’t have pressed charges when he beat our child (and continues to do so but now doesn’t leave bruises) but I chose to believe him in hopes of reconciliation and promises of working things out. How stupid and sick was I to let him get away with it all. Every time my child goes to his house I’m so afraid of what could happen. Also the owhore tells her that I’m a “bad, terrible person”. We are still in court and he now wants custody bc i reported him to the police after my child told me he beat her for peeing on herself. He’s using the court system to punish me since in the past I kept quiet about the abuse. He’s making it seem like I’m just a bitter, vindictive ex with an agenda. So far, he’s winning. I just don’t know how much more I can take.
Annabella,
Hang in there!
These jackasses have an expiration date.
Womenslaw.org might help a bit. You are mighty.
unicornnomore–What a horrifying story! I’m sorry that his claim he never meant the vows has haunted you. You KNOW he did mean them when he took them (to the extent a cheater can ever mean “love, honor, and cherish,…forsaking all others”). He was simply re-writing history to suit his needs. Mindfuckery even from the grave.
What Tempest said. Man, that’s one of the worst stories I’ve read on here, and there have been some real humdingers. I am so sorry, unicornnomore. Big hug to you.
I’m sorry to read that, unicornnomore x
Same HERE….. first “vacation” EVER for the three of us (plenty of trips for that asshole though) and we went to visit MY family in Mississippi and GET THIS…. they used casino comps for our rooms which was the ONLY reason we were even able to GO!! But…. two weeks before vacation…. guess who bought THREE pieces of gym equipment to the tune of about $2,000.00?? Yep… the ASSHOLE!! He met the OWhore the DAY before we left, we had postponed leaving because he HAD to compete in a bodybuilding show in our area that she competed in as well. And I don’t get it… she is VERY masculine…. I’ve always wondered if he had some closet desires I wasn’t aware of…. never could confirm…..
My HONEST opinion as to “why” he finally went off the deep end….. he competed years back and used to win all the time and now…. he hasn’t even PLACED in any of the last 5 competitions he has entered. It isn’t that he doesn’t look fantastic… he does… it’s just that competitive bodybuilding has changed a lot since his “prime” and he doesn’t have enough SIZE… he is ripped as hell but not “big”. Anyway…. I think his ego plummeted and he needed reinforcement…. his GOALS were unattainable because you know… he is “SPECIAL” and he was going to “WIN”…. except he didn’t…… boo fucking hoo!!
One month before starting her affair she took my hands in hers (we were at a restaurant eating dinner) and told me that she “was in love with me and never wanted to be with anyone else”.
That has mindfucked me for almost two years now.
Cannot wrap my head around this.
The “long dead” argument, as told to and reflected back from the OWhore in an email I later was able to (ahem) ‘acquire.’ And, for BONUS credit, her version of his excuse for not trying to talk to ME about it, why his going to the OWhore instead was ‘the right thing’ to do.
All MY fault, of course!
” But I’m not taking him from his wife. She walked away from him many years ago. (We were still intimate, sill going on trips and vacations, planning to remodel the house, yeah, all signs of me ‘walking away’!) Away in all but the outward forms. And it happened long enough ago, their current paths have deviated far enough that there’s no way back on it. Past the point of no return. Unsalvageable.
. . .needed to be out of the not-a-covenant. He needed to be away from it. The path he was supposed to be on, the path along which he was supposed to live and to learn and to grow and to glow, was away from that path that had him bound. Staying with the outward forms was keeping him from the life that was intended for him. (As in, intended by god, as specially told to her. OBVIOUSLY.) But he couldn’t get away from the outward forms. He couldn’t risk that kind of confrontation.
. . . needed to be not-there. But he couldn’t get not-there by himself. He didn’t have that kind of strength. He couldn’t simply step from there into not-there. He needed a definite here into which to step. He needed a here into which to become whole. He needed that from me as much as I needed what he offered.”
Are those real quotes? Someone actually wrote that? Or is it still April Fool’s Day?
Man. That is some serious psycho-religious babble going on there. An OW daring to use the word “covenant”? Where’s a bolt of lightning when you need one?
Real quotes, yes. She believed she was a literary genius:
“If you like my prose, you’ll LOVE my poetry!”
There is much, much more. All in the same style. When I read it all “D-day” – I don;t know whether it was her writing or the information that made me (quite literally) vomit.
(I submitted a portion of it to the Bulwer-Lytton contest, evil me).
I seriously cannot stop laughing. It’s hard to say who’s more repellant and ridiculous–the Jesus Cheaters or the Lord Byron cheaters. Good on you for submitting this tripe to the B-L contest. You might not have won the pick-me dance, but you got that competition in the bag. Hahaha! 🙂
*repellent
The “Bulwer-Lytton” contest for overblown prose can be found at http://bulwer-lytton.com/
The ‘official’ deadline is April 15, but the real deadline is June 30. Got any overblown text or email (or spoken) drama from your STBX or X or OW/OM? From well-meaning “friends” or from Fucktard’s family? Does Slutzilla deserve a cheater’s Pulitzer Prize?
Send entries in to the Bulwer-Lytton contest, and maybe they’ll get the fame they truly deserve! Maybe we can get the B-L folks to institute a new category: Cheaterspeak!
I’ve already submitted a few of OWhore’s gems (so much to choose from!) and may well submit a few more)
That is hysterical!! I hope she wins one year!
Sent to him during attempted reconciliation – edited for brevity(!):
“As the poisons seeped through me, telling me that you were going back to your wife, (with the painful vision of you living in the emotionally barren wastes where I first found you), the ragged pieces of me that had been sheltering in dark caves, now quivering and moaning and bleeding, out of their caves in the raw air, were saying, and then shrieking, that you were deserting me; you were in the process of vanishing, just like all the others, their numbers magnified by the internal propaganda.”
Loooooooooooooool! That is the funniest thing I have read in quite some time (including some of the mid-term essays I’ve just marked). Is there another shade of purple for that prose? Hahahaha! (wipes tears from eye)
Good lord. Any sane man would RUN from a woman who wrote such craziness. WTF.
Irony of ironies: he has taken out an Order of Protection against her. The letter I call her ‘stalker letter’ is actually quite a bit disturbing. As in: “if I die, the pain ends and it doesn’t matter; if you die, the pain continues and it doesn’t matter.” But I guess it wasn’t her lunatic delusional mind he was fucking.
So he was fucking Sylvia Plath?
Though Sylvia Plath was a chump (which is what probably pushed her over the edge). Ted Hughes was a notorious cheater–TWO wives committed suicide because of it. Total fucktard.
I really didn’t know her story, just that she committed suicide. The ultimate form of self-absorbtion. Not a poetry buff.
More like H.P. Lovecraft. All hail Cthulu!
CCCChump,
Bahaha! H.P. Lovecraft! Yes!!
“the ragged pieces of me that had been sheltering in dark caves, now quivering and moaning and bleeding, out of their caves in the raw air, ”
I read that and thought she was talking about her vajayjay being that time of the month.
bwahaha Chumpy. Yeah – send her a violin shaped tampon.
I am in the worlds worst mood and that passage from stalkerzilla OW made me laugh … I cant even
OMG, their numbers multiplying by the internal propaganda?? WTF? Her own paranoia, I guess.
‘….you were deserting me; you were in the process of vanishing, just like all the others, their numbers magnified by the internal propaganda.” ‘
Holy cow! How many others were there? You did get checked for STDs, right? She sounds like the town bike.
Remember – she over-dramatized. I’m guessing that “all the others” was maybe 3 or 4 over 20 years.
But yes, I did get tested. Even though Wasband insisted that she was for sure “safe” as she had an M.D. Of course having an M.D. didn’t prevent her from fucking him unprotected at JUST the right time of the month to maybe get pregnant. (She was sure, SURE, I tell you, that he MUST have had a vasectomy!!!)
…. and THAT email – about taking Plan B pills two days after their first fuck was un-effing-believable!
ChChChump–that is hysterical!! Love the imagery: “now quivering and moaning and bleeding….”
The B-L contest should give her a lifetime achievement award.
CCChump… O M G. Does she ride a fucking unicorn into work? Or watching too much Game of Thrones?
Oh my goodness, what was that load of emotional tripe all about? Has she got a screw loose ?!
Chchchchump, and what exactly does he “offer” to this obviously over dramatic tramp?? His cheating, deceitful selfish ego? If so then we have a winner! She can have him! And WTF with the over dramatic writings??? My husband I swear must have been studying soap operas or something. It was laughable the way he talked and his emails were even funnier!
BTW, I would have absolutely loved to have these to idiots read that shit in open court! I wonder if they would have been in costume for the dramatic readings?? Really I have heard of being ” in your birthday suit”, but I doubt that would fly in court! They probably would have needed a bed also as a prop! Of course it would have had more material on it than they would have had! Baahahaha! Too rich!!!!
Open court would have been a gas – too bad she didn’t contest the Order of Protection.
As for what he offered HER: an audience? mind-blowing (according to her) sex? a fantasy of twu wuv?
She was NOT HAPPY to learn I had all of her emails to him (it was WAY one-sided – he wrote almost nothing to her) and tried to get him to wipe them off our computer. TOO LATE! I had them backed up in several places he couldn’t get to. If I weren’t NC, I’d be tempted to send both of them links to this site so they could see the ridicule.
Chchchump, I printed this drivel out and I have it in a binder. I am going to use it as a “coffee table” book! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I have compiled my own “coffee table” book as well.
Would love to put some of the highlights thru the UBT.
May be a future post idea, CL!
Have you seen that Rob Cantor video, “Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf”? My daughter showed it to me a while back, and it is one of the freakiest, funniest things I’ve seen in a while. What I think you should do is send some of those emails to Rob Cantor and have him turn them into a video like that. lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI
when well-meaning friends asked him (after he stated how unhappy he had been for years) why he couldn’t talk to his wife about this”unhappiness”, he stated” oh there’s no talking to her .She just lashes out at me and is obsessive and goes on and on and on to the point that you can never talk with her about anything.” This of course making me out to be some kind of horrible vindictive verbally abusive monster of a wife which is exactly what he wanted me to look like in their eyes. As he looked like the victim. Of course ,denying there was anyone else in the picture. yep this is just a classic line that the cheater she is almost as common if not in combination with” I love you but I’m not in love with you.”. UGH!
Said both of those things to me just last night. He also said that WE are miserable with each other. I corrected him that I had not been miserable with him till now. Then he said ” well WE don’t have good time together.” I corrected him again on this. He tries to change my way of thinking and rewrite history.
It was pretty miserable being married to a guy who woke every morning and then spent every minute of his day sabotaging our marriage. Poor unhappy miserable sod.
Yep Sabrina. Mine said to me ” you haven’t been happy either.” I’m like wtf… don’t include me in on your narrative of bullshit. Solo sad that they all speak the same language.
“He tries to change my way of thinking and rewrite history.” yes Sabrina, I get that. And when I argued every point he made he got flustered and told me off for “confusing” him. Poor lamb!
Nat1 mine did and said the same…
…wonder if they are actually aliens? …they certainly seem to be from a different culture!!! Straight from hell culture!… LOL!!!!
Well this certainly hit a nerve. That was the line I got when I become suspicious and voiced them which happened about a week or two before the actual DDay. Yep, his happiness was not an issue before I got a clue.
I’m not happy and haven’t been for a long time.
Everyone thinks we have the perfect marriage.
I’m depressed and I don’t want to end up like your Dad. (The dude has PTSD from serving in Vietnam you ass)
What if there is more out there? What if I would be happy somewhere else?
Yes, it was all about his happiness. His needs. His way. Nevermind that he completely disrespected the woman he choose for a wife. The woman who gave him a beautiful son. The woman who worked hard to make a happy marriage. The woman who loved her family to the Nth degree. The woman who kept her figure. Stayed active. Yes, and gave that respectability. And everyone knew it. That’s the rub for him.
Yes, this definitely hit a nerve.
Spot on Tracy!! Mine used the line ” I don’t know why I’ve been so emotionally distant and pushed you away. I just know that my mothers lack of affection, and all the stress of my business going under has made me so unhappy and stressed out, that my only solace was masturbating to vile and degrading naked pictures of teen girls.” ” Yes Irish, I was just sooooo unhappy!!! But it’s not about YOU. It’s about my horrible unhappiness. No I couldn’t possibly share this terrible unhappiness with you. You are unable to help me with my unhappy self. Only porn can do that.” I hurt you? Really? Well this has NOTHING to do with YOU! Don’t take it so personally Irish. It’s about my torment. My gutwrenching sorrow and loneliness. MY MOM DIDNT HUG ME!! DON’T YOU GET IT!!! No, of course not. You thickheaded, selfish woman. You cannot understand my unhappiness, so I will continue to play with my precious and get my comfort there.” Just don’t take it personally. Kay????l
Oh yes Irish, I got that line when I kicked him out. He walks by me and says, “I’m sorry I was so emotionally distant all these years”. I have no idea what that even meant.
I also got the “It’s not you it’s me”. Well, you got that right!!!
But later, after he left, he said that it WAS me. See, I didn’t sit on the couch with him. I read books too much. Sex was “just going through the motions”.
The truth is just way too inconvenient so these cheaters have to try to come up with something that allows them to continue live in their fantasy world without so many of those dang consequences.
I’m convinced they make it up as they go. They say things they heard in bad movies, or just whatever they think you will accept then watch your reaction, if you seem to fall for it, that becomes the official spin.
Right… and even when we don’t accept the spin, they use it anyway. He wanted to tell our son that our feelings for each other changed. Now wouldn’t that have been convenient for him. I did not allow that. It wasn’t true. Our son KNOWS the truth. Oh he hated that I told him….and also shocked that I would tell him the ugly truth. Dude, that YOUR truth. The one YOU created. Sucks to be you.
conniered: “Sex was “just going through the motions”. ”
Mine said the same thing. In retrospect, he was right. By the time of his affair, I no longer liked him because of his emotional abuse and criticism, and I was no longer enthusiastic about intimacy. Wish I’d left then. He put me in a lose-lose situation.
Who would want intimacy with a person who devalued you? This is such bullshit from those MF’s.
Why can’t they say, “Honey, I am looking at someone else with feelings (or lust) and I want it from you, let’s work on it or I’m leaving”
Simple statement. But NOOOO, that’s too much energy that a “make me happy” wants to expend. YOU are supposed to jump through the hoops and figure it out. YOU should be doing the “pick me” dance to entertain the POS so that they stay faithful, happy. Surely the biggest fan knows what the star wants.
I felt like I was working a fucking RUBIK’S CUBE with a switched color block to solve the relationship problem while the POS slacked, ate his cake and watched. Passive aggressive fucktard.
This really strikes a chord with me. Fuck him, “Going through the motions”. Like we were enjoying sex with them while THEY were “going through the motions”.
Should have switched signs with the “make me happy” earlier and chucked the cube. He would have been gone earlier and saved me the years left on my life.
CJ…. BRILLIANT…. HYSTERICAL AND 100% SPOT ON!! Your comments are always informative & entertaining and what I call a crowd pleaser. Seriously…. one of us should become a fucking stand up comic and use this shit for material. Narc attack 🙂
Seriously what is with that PASSIVE AGGRESSIVENESS!!!! took me YEARS to figure it out. and even then i did not understand it.
Mine started with I haven’t been happy in a while. Then it changed to “ever since our wedding day” then it changed to “I never should have married you”. When I attempted to point out how confusing his contradictory statements were I was met with “see I can’t talk to you about anything” I sat there bewildered reflecting on myself and my actions and cried. I actually bought into the crap that I was a miserable person. It took me nearly 3 years to pull myself out of that thought process
its not us, it’s them.
This gives me the shivers, it’s all so similar. Mine also said his effort had been to tolerate me, his bad behavior (cheating, violence, belittlement) was only a reaction to my outbursts of frustration, our recent holiday (that I had paid for of course) had been ‘disgustingly bad’, his affair with the OW was ‘healthy, warm and loving’ and ‘we were not compatible’. I also bought into his conviction that it was all my fault. Not there yet, but moving forward towards the idea that I’m good enough.
Oh I got the “we are not compatible” line as well. I asked him who did he feel as though he was compatible with? Me, his ex-wife, his cheating partner(s), or his girlfriend who cheated on him in college? He picked the girlfriend who cheated on him in college and then uses the line that he can’t talk to me when I’m upset that he would take our 18 year marriage and say we aren’t compatible based on a college relationship in where he was cheated on. GRRRR!!!!
Yes, this makes perfect sense that he feel MORE compatible with the girl who cheated on him in college. If you had cheated on him, then he would have felt compatible with you. Because cheaters compare with cheaters. But since you did NOT cheat, because you were honest, loyal and trustworthy….he could NOT compare with you.
so sorry he did not appreciate you the way you should have been
THIS….
“Mine started with I haven’t been happy in a while. Then it changed to “ever since our wedding day” then it changed to “I never should have married you”.
Stbx has said many similar things or variations of this to me since DDay.
Sad thing is he asked me to marry him & he could have left at any time if he wasn’t happy. Now here we are 18 years later, married for 16 years, with an amazing 5 yr old child.
I hate him with the power of 1,000 burning suns!
I got this too. And “you would have known that I was miserable if you had been paying attention! ” As if saying it made it so. I hate that he has rewritten our history to justify running to OW. At least my memories are mine and he can’t rob me of them.
“you would have known that I was miserable if you had been paying attention! ”
Self serving asshole.
Like you were put on this plant to pay attention to him and for no other reason. What an entitled POS. Another BLACK HOLE roaming the planet waiting to be discovered….oh wait….he was! There’s another chump out there making HIM happy.
Flowers and chocolates to the OW for taking away the burden of serving an asshole for the rest of your life. You must have had a want. A foreign concept to self-centered shitbags.
well i MIGHT have been able to pay attention if i wasnt sooOOOOooo busy paying the bills, robbing peter to pay paul, raising, disciplining, teaching and feeding our children, cleaning the house, fixing the house, laundry, chasing his drunk ass down, worried if he was going to come home or if he was driving drunk, decoding all the hidden secret messages as he trickled truthed me to death, policing all the sh*t he was sneaking and hiding, planing birthdays, holidays and vacations etc, etc, etc
you get the picture
I heard the same thing last week “I’d still be HERE if you weren’t such an unhappy person!!” I said “No… you’d still be here if you hadn’t taken up fucking random vagina because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.” He left.
A P P L A U S E
😀 😀 😀
Ashley–I’m glad you pulled yourself out of that mindset, even if it took 3 years. Soul-sucking jerks, these cheaters, who prey on those of us with compassion.
Ouch. These were the second words out of her mouth. She started with ILYBINILWY. This was all news to me. When the hell was I going to be told?
That would be: 1) Not until she got caught. 2) Not until she exhausted you as a kibble source. 3) Not until something made it too hard for her to maintain her mask, her false self. Pick one.
I heard from a friend that X told her–“I’m going to ride that horse until it dies.”
Apparently, I’m the horse in this scenario.
Yep, Marked, I got that line of BS too! Straight out of cheater handbooks!
Let me make a correction. I just saw the first email she sent me after I left her a note asking why she was so distant. It started with “Dear Mark, I’ve been very unhappy on our marriage for a long time. …. ” The first words out of her mouth after she next came home was the ILYBINILWY statement. This was out of the blue for me. I’m glad I have CL & CN to help me see the real meanings. Thanks.
I got that too Mark. That and apparently he’s been unhappy all along.. also go the “going through the motions”. 6 years before Kid 1 and 8 between the kids and all that time he was “miserable”. That’s a hell of a long time to be miserable!
No, no newchumpatl. 22 solid years of misery was what my x told me. This through the birth of our 2 children, first one born a year into out marriage and his idea. I wanted to wait, stupid me I should have, I wanted us to be able to go out and have fun and get to know each other better as married people. He wanted me to have a baby so that “I wouldn’t leave him”. Um, huge red flag, I saw as him being insecure. Fast forward 21 years and “he was too young” and me being 4 years older (apparently a huge age difference in his mind) I somehow connived my way into “making him marry me”. My daughter, that first baby, asked me, after talking to her father, if he had been a “child bride” and which one of his parents had “sold” him to me. Cause poor sausage was way too young to have been “forced into marriage” by evil and forceful me. He’s 5’11”, 210 lbs. and I was 5’4″. 120 lbs, ummmm yeah I was so f*ing forceful.
FREAKS!
Yup
This is all part of the retroactive marriage history cheaters do. CL nailed that. It is funny how doing bad things can distort one’s perspective on these things. Maybe they are miserable because they did something truly awful–THEY LIED AND CHEATED on their spouse! It is hard to maintain one is a good person when reality is in your face. That’s true until they are fully deluded. This “I wasn’t ever happy” is just a stop-gap along that way to delusional-land in my opinion.
“Maybe they are miserable because they did something truly awful–THEY LIED AND CHEATED on their spouse!”
That’s an interesting idea, but perhaps only works for those individuals who are not truly disordered. I’m not sure my stbx every felt badly about what he was doing to me. It would actually be comforting to think that some of his terrible grumpiness around me had to do with him feeling badly about any of it.
I think it can work for the disordered as well when they realize they will have to work harder to manipulate once the truth of their cheating is out. Dunno. I realize some just do not care as well. My guess though is that this not loving is a lie they tell themselves after the fact to minimize what they did in their own minds or “justify” it.
I agree with you DM, at least in my case, because he admitted it to me. He said “I hate what this is doing to you. It’s tearing you apart.” The really disturbing part is that knowing it didn’t stop him. And of course it was what “it” was doing to me not what “he” was doing to be. Another subtle blame shift.
Personally, I feel the lying and abusive treatment of us will stay with all but maybe the vilest of them in some dark corner of their soul, never to be completely escaped. My EH moved out of town ASAP so he never has to run into me. He never could look me in the eye after discovery. I don’t see how he can ever be truly happy or at peace.
DM–I”ve done my own retroactive marriage re-writing. Since there were likely multiple other women in our marriage, and his deception put me in an unsavory and unacceptable position, I no longer consider us to have had a real marriage–just a polluted financial arrangement.
“Since there were likely multiple other women in our marriage, and his deception put me in an unsavory and unacceptable position, I no longer consider us to have had a real marriage–just a polluted financial arrangement.”
BAM. That’s it. That’s exactly it.
Very smart.
Yes! Just a financial arrangement. Because she lied so well I really had to re-think all my memories of her. Unfortunately, I’m finding it necessary to forget all my memories of her.
Thank you for that analysis. I had the “I wasn’t happy” thing thrown at me. Funny thing is, I noticed that things seemed weird in the year leading up to the marital implosion. I very therapeutically tried to address my concern that something seemed amiss. He denied, ever so sweetly and with much reassurance. He apologized that I felt there was a problem. “It’s just work, Sweetie. I’m so sorry you are worried.” But when shit hit the fan and it was clear that there was a problem, namely, he was cheating, SUDDENLY he hadn’t been happy for TWENTY YEARS. I call this, “emotional whiplash.” And then he ran straight out of the marriage and my life, and told everyone that he hadn’t been happy for our entire marriage and strangely enough, a vast majority of people believe that bullshit. Closed doors being what they are and everything. My daughter said, “Tell me he didn’t say that, Mom.” She knew what went on behind the closed door and it wasn’t unhappy. But, hey, whatever works. Whatever saves face. That’s all that matters to these fools.
Emotional whiplash: I got that. And emotional vertigo. I had to wait until he rewrote the rules to figure out which way was up.
Now I understand his,”I don’t love you right now” when compared to his,”No matter what happens, you will always be the love of my life.” Oddly, the second statement came after DDay, which made absolutely no sense. I promptly told him he had lost the right to say that to me, because in my (sane) universe you don’t cheat on the love of your life with a psychotic stalker! Guess he was in need of some cake…
Same here… and then I got I don’t think I ever loved you (after nearly 30 years of marriage). Try processing that one! It really played havoc with my psyche and had me questioning all the great times. Never did he say that he was unhappy until the end. He had been engaged before me and broke that off two months prior to the wedding, dated numerous women, and then we met and moved forward. Sure, we had some difficult times financially and emotionally (miscarriages and family deaths) but that’s life and I thought we handled all that was thrown at us quite well. When he was down, I was up and vice versa. And then he found the college gf (the one before he was engaged the first time); saved her as she was going through divorce because of her philandering husband, and now they plan to ride off into the sunset with him spewing “I think I’ve always loved her”. Twisted and delusional… upon autopsy I want his brain dissected.
No point to brain dissection- or I realise the relationship autopsy- “there is no there there.” (Gertrude Stein).
Susan – “and then I got I don’t think I ever loved you (after nearly 30 years of marriage).”
Oh man, I got this after 34 yrs. I didn’t react at the time. I just couldn’t. I’m one that has to think things over instead of respond, besides, I was too shocked to think of anything.
This post is great for me because I’m NOT over those 3 sentences he said over 3 weeks. “I don’t love you”, then, ‘I don’t think I ever loved you..and then, “I’ve never been romantically attracted to you”. I mean, I was spinning for weeks.
And, the fact ‘we had problems for many years and he wasn’t happy’ – yep, news to me.
After he went to IC once, he came home and said I never should have married him.
Oh – I see. Is that my fault I loved him?
These heartfelt and sad stories really help us know we’re not all alone in these hurt words – that it’s just cheater-speak.
But, it sure is hard to forget those words.
I am almost sure I will never get over them.
“We haven’t been happy for a long time” and “We’ve had problems for a long time and have almost split up several times before” was trotted out by X when friends/family members asked why I had left – had nothing to do with Schmoopie, remember, she was JUST A FRIEND. Both of those things were news to me, as he had never once told me he wasn’t happy, we never fought like some of our friends because I was a good little Chump and tried to smooth over everything, and no one had ever talked divorce/separation before Schmoopie!
Pre DDay (That I Know Of!) and deep into the gaslighting phase, during one of his Narc rages, X told me he had NEVER been happy with me, had always hated me and had just went along with it and kept his mouth shut so as not to fight. We dated for years before getting married. Married for years before having kids. If you had been unhappy from the start, why would you keep going?!
Exact same thing my husband is saying now. I think this is all the influence of his ho-worker. A lot of things he says are so out of character.
That’s ridiculous. You didn’t hold a gun to his head and make him date you.
Ah, but twist! Once Schmoopie dumped his ass, he was wanting to try reconciliation, and suddenly it was, “I just want my family back, I still love you, Kira is the best and sweetest, etc.” I even said, “What about all the nasty things you said to me? What about when you told me you had always hated me, never was happy with me, and just went along with everything so no fighting?” He said he didn’t remember saying those things and he didn’t mean them, he was just angry. WHICH IS IT? You either don’t remember or you didn’t mean them!
There are some things said that you just cannot take back, you know?
That’s the way it is for narcs – it’s all so very arbitrary. Depends on the situation. Depends on their mood. Depends on the context. Whichever way the wind blows. Today, I love you. Maybe tomorrow, I won’t. Today, I’m in the marriage. Maybe, tomorrow, I’m not. Whatever suits THEM best – in the moment. That’s about as far as their tiny, selfish minds can process life.
YES!!! ^^^^ ALL.OF.THIS.^^^^ Spot On tflan386… every word of it!!
When my ex came back wanting bogus reconciliation (really just a con game to get out of paying support) I asked him about all the awful things he had written and said to me during the prior few months. He replied that he hadn’t really meant it and that he only said it to hurt me. What the hell was I thinking to agree to that reconciliation? Thank God I came to my senses eight months later.
Mine did the same to me. Married 6 years before kid one and 8 years between kids.. that’s a hell of a long time to be miserable.
They are liars. Don’t buy it.
I went through all 3 items listed at the end of this post. My X (soon to be 42 days till its over) would say how un-happy she was and expect me to read her mind. In reconciliation with the family councilor she was asked several times about certain moments in our 13 year marriage. I would remember the moment as a happy moment and for her it was a horrible moment.
The councilor eventually gave up and asked my X “Can you tell me one happy moment in the 13 year marriage because I am trying to find one and the two of you have different stories. One is a happy moment and the other it is horrible”.
My X responded that there wasn’t a single happy moment in our 13 years of marriage.
ChumpLady refers to D-Day as the day you find out the other person cheated on you. To me D-Day is the day you realize you need to move forward. I would refer to the day you discover the adultery as Pearl Harbor and D-Day as the start of a new beginning.
To me my D-Day to a new beginning was just after my X made that statement to the family councilor. I realized at that point I was wasting my time and she wanted me to take responsibility for everything (including her denying still the adultery took place despite credit card statements and phone records to the contrary)
I agree that d-day does feel like a bomb exploding, but I think d-day actually stands for “discovery day” in this context. (But I could be wrong!)
Problem is D-Day has a strong historical reference to mark the end of the beginning for World War 2 in Europe.
To me Dday was the day he told me he didn’t love me. “Not in a long time.”
Before that I thought I could compete, but after that, why bother?
I still have trouble wrapping my brain around him not loving me. Why did he make me sandwiches in the middle of the night? Not shit sandwiches, real, edible ones. Why did he buy us firewood and make me a fire? Why did he always make sure I had an orgasm?
He did a lot of shitty things too. It’s just kind of hard to believe he didn’t love me at all.
Jen, don’t feel too sad, he probably did love you, in the beginning, and maybe for a long time. He denies it now, so he doesn’t look like such a shit for what he’s done. But for the character disordered, their love is always shallow, and easily switched off or transferred to someone else. It’s pretty shocking to see it happen.
I agree 100% with KarenE. I think they love us (at least for part of the duration) as much as they are capable of… which isn’t very comforting. They absolutely just “transfer” to the next kibble source and it is shocking, very painful to find out it’s pretty much all been a lie. My X left his wife for AP, after 12 years of marriage, within 5 months and NEVER even attempted remorse or reconciliation (she didn’t want to reconcile but still said he never even tried, not one word). THEN X left AP (live in for 1.25 years) right before we got together (NO I did NOT cheat, NO cheating for this girl…. EVER) and never spoke to her again that I know of…. ZERO attempt at reconciliation. X “almost” left me last year and then did a 180, he agreed to counseling and said he stayed because I “became nice again” (No I did not) and then…. 9 months later…. BOOM!! He blows our lives up 24 hours after yelling, in tears “I promised you I would fight for us!!” Side note: during 9 months of “reconciliation??” there were some moments of suspicious friends (out of state so I didn’t worry much) and when I tried to discuss… he got pissed…. when I reminded him he agreed to counseling he still refused.
Damn… I’d feel pretty special for winning the only attempt at reconciliation except I know it’s because I’m the bigger chump lmao 😀 His ex-wife always says “you loved him way more than I ever did”. ha ha
This is my ex’s story all the way, although the details keep getting switched around, as is convenient for him. He even has tiny moments of insight and honesty when he admits he’s always been unhappy, that it had little to do with me, that he knows he’s difficult to live with and has no idea how to ‘do’ relationships or parenting, that it was unfair of him to do nothing to maintain our closeness and reject my efforts to do so, then blame the lack of closeness for cheating, and that the honest thing to do would have been to make an effort to resolve our ‘issues’ or leave before cheating. But as soon as there’s any challenge to his presentation of ‘what happened’ or to how much of a ‘better person’ he is now, it’s ALL back to being my fault … for whatever reason is handy at that moment.
The weirdest part for me was that a little less than a year prior to Affair #2, I told my ex I wanted us to separate, as it was simply too hard to live with his unhappy, negative, critical, mean, selfish self. (I had been very clear about my unhappiness, and what I needed to be happier, for quite a long time, and he frankly did not give a shit.) He was very clear that he didn’t want our relationship to end, and made a big effort to be less unpleasant to the kids and I. We appreciated that a ton, and showed and told him so often. I was feeling moderately hopeful about our relationship for the first time in years! Even our frequent-but-not-very-fun sex life was improving! But then he went out of town for work 4 days a week for months, some slut at work hit on him big time (knowing he was married w/kids), and he felt entirely entitled to cheat,
Shockingly, this solution and its consequences didn’t make him happy.
Wanted to mention, that although I’m very frank and direct here, all my attempts to get my ex to collaborate in building our marital happiness, as well as his personal happiness, were made in the Chumpiest possible, supportive, caring, putting-aside-my-needs way. I did ALL those things you’re supposed to do to make your partner happy, including tons of appreciation and praise when he did anything good or caring, So much good sex, even during difficult times, that I bet he’s kicking himself about that until now, TONS of support for anything he wanted to pursue, whether professionally, friendships, leisure activities, The most diplomatic and ‘soft-start-up’ complaints you can possibly imagine. I was such a chumpy chump of chumpiness. I really loved the asshole, and had tons of compassion for his unhappiness. And I knew, after a while together, that I was stronger, happier and more ‘together’ than he was, so didn’t even expect full reciprocation,
Just took me a very very very long time to realize there was zero reciprocation, as well as zero recognition for what I was doing. He was entitled to all that, PLUS fucking around on the side.
KarenE, we were married to the same guy… by the end of it, I felt like I have turned myself inside out to help him, be kind to him, listen to him, sex was cold lust, soft start ups with complaints, more like, always thinking, ‘on a scale of lint to nuclear war’ where does this complaint fall, generally in the lint category so I was quiet. Mostly I thought, not that important, let it go, not worth the effort. Nothing, I mean nothing made him happy. So I hope CFMily makes him happy. One of my bff thinks she might make him neutral. My bff says he is incapable of happiness. She is such a complete step down from me, that he will never feel inadequate again.
Karene,
“He was very clear that he didn’t want our relationship to end, and MADE A *BIG EFFORT* to be less unpleasant to the kids and I. We appreciated that a ton, and showed and told him so often.” (emphasis added)
One of the reasons why he was ‘unhappy’ was because he HAD to “make ndEFFORT”. In their disordered entitled minds, they shouldn’t have to make ANY “effort”. Everything in their life should be EFFORT-LESS. Even though you and the kids appreciated his efforts, it wasn’t enough.
He didn’t want to be ‘appreciated’; he wanted to be WORSHIPPED.
“worshipped”….. This is exactly what a narc wants. Unfortunately after putting up with all kinds of shit from the x, I said one day, “I’m tired of all your shit. I’m not going to put up with it anymore.” That was the beginning of the end for me, in a way I am glad that it happened to me the way it did. I needed for him to abandon me in order to be able to let him go. And go he did, no contact, initiated by him (thank God) except for a couple of times when I called him, in true chumpy fashion, to see if we could work it out, counseling or something. I guess at these moments, he decided that he would “confess” to me that “he was sorry for all the girls”. Finally, things fell into place. All the girls he was referring to were the ones that I would ask about, why are they flirting with you, you flirting with them, why do they seem so familiar with you, etc. Every single time, over 22 years, he would tell me that I was crazy, that I was jealous, and that I was crazy once again for thinking that of him….. Talk about gaslighting, 22 years of it is enough to drive someone crazy. I so wish that I would have listened to my gut instead of him. I had a therapist that once told me that I should just pick, “do you want to be happy or do you want to be right” as a form of dealing with this. She was not certain that he was cheating since I had not caught him in the act. Little did I know that his whole married life was an act and that I had a bit part in it.
“I stayed here stewing, blaming and becoming more bitter by the day simultaneously applauding myself for the resentfully tolerating you”. Hmmm did ANY of them approach a spouse and say “Honey, I feel were disconnected, how can we regain the closeness we once had?” oh, I forgot, they don’t DO that…they confide in that gal at work, who understands them so well.
WOW!!!!! I could have written this ^^^^^^^^. Exactly my situation.
They are all operating out of the same handbook!
I actually think that describes me at the end. His actions continued to show we did not matter and I felt I was sucked into the void of bitterness for how we were being treated and cheated. I was too sad and unable to function to applaud but I did feel I was barely tolerating the situation. That affects mental and physical health. Its not worth it. We left and are so much better off! Listen to Chaz and Dave on Youtube “There Ain’t No Pleasing You.”
Yes, when I stupidly asked cheater for a reason recently (went into the skein) he ended up saying that I was controlling and manipulative because ALL the important decisions in our lives (getting married, having kids, buying our beautiful home, living in different countries) were mine first…I pushed him into them, though he was OK with them later, I was the one that forced him into the best things he has had in his life. So he was miserable because he was controlled!
Apparently, because choosing an OW and a new singles life had nothing to do with me, or my control, he is now happy! Karmabus will come the moment when the OW wants a show of more commitment from him, wants a home or anything that implies money , like going on a trip or buying her a nice dinner…He can´t afford anything …And he always hated that I made more money than him. Well now he has what he wanted, someone who makes half what he does and no one to control his rotten life! He should be sooo happy!
Yep…same guy! xmr said that I control by emotion…hummm…I asked him if that meant all the crying when I found out about his latest affair…no reply…of course…cause why? xmr cannot take the blame!
I agree with all of your comments and experienced so much of these too (even trying to express my unhappiness to him about our marriage and asking if we were going to try to fix it. Crickets from him about how unhappy he was then, right?). Yes, I also got the biggest mind blower for me: “I never loved you (our entire marriage)”. Um why did you ask (beg) me to marry you then? Almost twenty years before. I like that term above….emotional whiplash. Right on. Or major mindf*ckery.
Mine said the same, repeatedly, after D day. He stood over me as I laid on the couch, shell-shocked, he with his shark eyes, explaining, “I’m sorry, but I just never loved you. I never loved you. I tried, but I never loved you.” I told him that he could stop saying that–that it might be making HIM feel better, but it sure wasn’t making ME feel better.
I didn’t believe him at the time, and figured he was just grasping for excuses.
But in hindsight, with the clarity that cheating and abandonment force upon you, finally, I actually DO believe that he never loved me. It sure explains a lot of his behaviors over the years.
And I do believe that he never was happy.
Honestly, I don’t think he’ll ever really be happy, or wouldn’t know from happiness if it crashed into him. (It did! I made him batches of it!)
Poor dude. He really, really sucks.
Yeah, mine said similar… “For sixteen years” (our entire relationship) “I tried!” “I just couldn’t take it anymore!” NEVER had expressed that before. Apparently the entire 16 years was him attempting to tolerate me… hundreds of thousands of dollars later I’m scratching my head. But then, this same conversation he said, in response to my sobbing, weeping, crying, “I don’t know what you are so upset about, Muse – I stayed with you longer than ANY OF THE OTHERS.” Words still send a chill through me.. “The Others????” he had two longterm prior GFs, both of whom he cheated on, and then stayed involved w/ after moving in w/me and my kids, unbeknownst to me till after DDay. Two OWs that I know of. So, yeah. Um. He was “never happy” and I was in an extended probationary period.
“I tried!” “I just couldn’t take it anymore!”
^^^ THIS ^^^ I heard this bullshit too…. word for word. wtf?
I believe that they never really love us…I think they get carried away with infatuation, lust, self medicating with romance, prestige, power, money etc and they are not self aware enough to really know they they can’t love. So they do what society expects of them, marry us for the kibbles…but nothing, no amount of love, caring, success, sex, you name it, is ever enough because they can’t love…like the grinch their heart is two sizes too small. AT the end of it, at my daughter’s very successful graduation from a very good college, he is screaming, ‘I hate this fucking family.’ why because he was tired. They are all two year olds in grown bodies.
My xH actually married me to fill a spot in the timeline he’d designed in his mind (It’s sort of sad, now that I think of him as a very young man who’d not had good role modeling….) As we were dating, he was OPENLY looking for someone else, and I stood by, patiently. (Pup-chump!)
When nobody else would have him, I won!! I WON!
He’d broken up with me twice before we were married, and fell in love with many other women (openly) during our marriage, but every time, I WON.
He really never loved me, but I provided him with a wife, which, I suppose to him, is what a normal, respectable man has. I provided him with 3 kids, same.
We had doctorate degrees and very good jobs and a modest house and a sex life (not as often as either of us would have liked, but we had 3 kids, and he was always in love with other women, and kind of an asshole, too, so what’re you gonna do?)
We had friends and we traveled.
I wanted a different house, and we instead bought him a “vacation” house, which I also cleaned and weeded and painted. (Grown-up chump!)
And he wasn’t happy. And so he left. Now he’s out there doing his thing, I guess.
Ugh. So sad…. He has no idea. I feel bad for our kids.
I’m sorry Miss Sunshine – I hope you are doing ok, and your kids are doing well too.
We’re all doing very well, really, but each with a scar in our hearts.
I do love to watch my kids fall in love. They’re so much sweeter than their father.
My ex said that because his dad was emotionally abusive, it made ex settle for marrying a woman and having a regular job. But he threw all that away to follow his dreams, and become the shining inspiration of success that he considers himself to be today. Ironically, he ended up homeless and is now back home living with his dad.
Brilliant post, ROMOB. Thanks for this.
I got to hear from OW and a few family members (who were apparently in on how unhappy he was, telling them that he had ‘cried and begged’ Sphinx to help him fix our marriage but I would say ‘I’ll do better’ and never try. Yeah. Right.)—
“Sphinx, it occurred to us that when he said he never really loved you, that you loved him more than he loved you and that he’d always been unhappy in your marriage…then why did he marry you? You know what he said? ‘Yeah, I asked Sphinx to marry me, but it was just a joke. Then she took it seriously! I had no choice by that time! She told everyone I asked her to marry me!”
I confronted Asshole with this and he said, “well we were driving and you almost killed us in that snow storm, remember? I was traumatized and didn’t know what I was saying!”
A-Number-One Asshole. If this didn’t paint me as such a tragic dipshit, I would tell everyone I know. It’s kind of a Catch-22—you want to tell everyone, but you can’t stand the pity in their eyes.
That is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.
Wow. What they will come up with to justify their fucked up decision making skills. Anyone who would believe this crock of shit is on his same level.
Slimeball loser.
“Because we all know that major life decisions are jokes, and said jokes are carried on over many many months or years, right?” Thats all you need to say, to everyone.
Also, its classic projection on his part with the ‘poor sausage’ “I’ll fix our marriage” but do fuck-all to actually do that. Fucking tool.
great post. That is what my cheater told me too. Well, actually he told me he had realized that he didn’t want to be married anymore 10-11 years ago, and he didn’t tell me for business reasons(we were building our businesses together at that time). How CONVENIENT for him to keepe me around as his bookkeeper/sex partner while he pursued drugs and other random women (the drugs he gave up pretty quickly, the women he apparently did now, even though I didn’t find out until this past November). THe thing that PISSED ME OFF is that I gave him an out years ago, when I told him that if he ever decided he didn’t want to be married anymore or wanted to be with other people, just let me know and we would go our separate ways. But no, like all cheaters he wanted his cake and eat it too. Fucker.
Wow…these people are all the same! Disordered assholes…selfish entitled children! I was told the same things!
…one morning, after I knew about two of his OW’s – names, addresses, etc., he absolutely sat at the kitchen table and had a discussion with HIMSELF about how affairs are okay CAUSE EVERYBODY DOES IT! WHA???!!!!
We are all so fortunate to be out and away from these abusers…
…ugh!
I’m willing to bet that if you asked him, “Would it be ok if *I* cheated on YOU because ‘everybody does it’?” he would have done a 180 on his ‘reasoning’. Pronto!
Amen! Yep…a year or so later xmr began to ask if he could move HOME…if I could ever love him like I did…I asked him if he would take me back if I had done to him what he has done to me…he absolutely started crying…well…for whatever that is worth!
Yep…get out and stay away from them! The can’t and won’t change!
Injecting some levity 🙂 Mine did this same thing—promising, “I will do ANYTHING to get back what we had. I miss what we had.” Well, when you were spewing shit all over me and our family about how miserable we always made you….think I forgot about that? I haven’t changed, the kids haven’t changed. We’re the same people you said were shit. Why would you think it’d be different—oh yeah….because paying your own bills sucks donkey balls.
http://distractify.com/megan-mccormick/find-that-turd-hold-it-close/
Gypsy57, I actually told mine that since he had a “friend” that I guessed he wouldn’t mind if I got one also and dated. He stopped dead in his tracks and said, “You can’t do THAT, you are married!” REALLY? WTF!??? This while he was heading out the door to spend some “quality” time with Schmoopie!
If the person is already a cheater, then I believe like others above that these types of statements are rewriting history to justify their heinous actions.
If the person is not a cheater, then I think it could be an attempt at a warning shot across the bow, assuming the frustrated “unhappy” one has 1) been taking actions to improve the marriage and 2) sending other consistent warning signals.
On dday, my ex said a variation of this: he didn’t know he was unhappy until he met OW. (But since he had never seemed unhappy before that, I ultimately decided to interpreted that as he found the excitement of the OW to be much more “fun” than a long-term relationship, and that the new excitement made him more “happy” than the “boring” life with me) But then a few miomths later someone in his family told me that she “hadn’t realized how unhappy he was.” So, clearly, his story altered somewhat and he started telling people that he had been unhappy for a long time. I think some people questioned that idea (because we seemed like- and I thought we were- a very happy couple), and others were confused but figured that you never know what goes on in somebody’s relationship, so they believed him. Whatever. If anyoen asks me, I tell them I never heard a single statement about him being unhappy until dday. And from what I can tell now, he seems much more unhappy now with OW than he ever did with me! Seems it’s been rather up and down with OW….but who knows, maybe that’s what he prefers because it’s not boring?? Not my problem anymore though…
Yep! I lovingly asked what was wrong (affair two months in and I was chumpily unaware at this point and feeling very unhappy myself) I got sat down and told…..I’m unhappy, We talked and agreed to work on our marraige over the summer. His idea of working at it was to amp up his affair with his co-worker, tell me he was so busy stressed at work and had to take lots of biz trips whilst he ate cake. I sniffed a rat, checked his ph and read all the sordid details of just how hard he was working. The kicker was when I asked why ‘I have worked so hard I feel this is the universe giving me my shot at happiness that I deserve’ …… Ok. Off you go then.
He’s right about one thing… the universe will give him what he deserves.
Yes, THIS! I hope they get everything they’ve got coming to them in aces! They richly deserve it!
And I don’t even care if I’m around for the Karma bus anymore. I’m just glad I’m out, the further away I get from him, the happier I am. Funny that!
HA HA Lulu – yes he will!
MsChump, mine invoked The Universe too. He said he’d been miserably unhappy all along when the Universe finally gave him someone that paid enough attention to him. He said it happened in five minutes he “went from 100% committed” to me, to “100% committed to her” after knowing her for 2 weeks, at which point he “suddenly realized if he could end up in bed with someone else that easily there MUST be something really wrong with our relationship.” Mind boggling.
Mine had met Ms. Connection. Within a a month they were talking of getting married and planning their children…..but oddly enough he won’t sign the divorce papers I served him. Praise the Lord and the universe I say, they got these idiots off of our hands.
Mine too. Within a month they were calling her by HIS last name and making “plans” for their life together. The goofy assholes were putting their initials together in schmoopie messages with the numbers 1 4 3 (I love you). They even created new email addresses, hers was both of their initials with 143 after it…. his was their initials with their pretend fitness business name and the numbers 3 4 1 (you love I).
He proposed to me in under 60 days, I accepted…. but we never married (once I got pregnant with our son he didn’t have to follow through… I was stuck with him & he knew it). It was rather foolish on my part…. but we were inseparable from day one. Unlike OWhore I wasn’t married to someone else and living 4 hours away… AND… I did NOT NOT NOT make stupid juvenile schmoopie talk with him. The shit they say to each other is so immature it’s disturbing, I can’t believe grown ass people that don’t know each other talk like that. Wtf?
chewbacca acts like she is still in high school. exhole moved in with her 2 months after he met her (and i kicked him out on new years) but she RESPECTS him so much more then i did as she drives his low rise truck off the curb a month later. 6 months after she met him and 2 months after our divorce she gets his name tattooed on her chest UNDER the last guys name that was terribly covered up (you can still see the other guys name) even thou she is STILL married to her husband (who also has a live in gf and had another kid with that one).
they are still together. honestly i think the only reason is she washes his clothes and drinks with him (allows him to drink whatever he wants). she doesnt cook she doesnt clean. o but she got him a cell phone under her name (because he cant get one with his name, he owes ALL the cell carriers in the area). Honestly she is so desperate to have a man that she doesnt even care what kind of man he is. but she is perfect for him. she wont bother him with silly little things like accountability, and responsibility, she doesnt ask him for a house or car or to keep a job, she doesnt seem to care if she lives with other people, mooches off their good will and money, she doesnt care if the car is running or if they have food, electricity or water. it doesnt bother her if the door is broken or the walls are falling down. she is not pestering him to pay his child support OR to visit his children. (of course she wanted him all to herself and doesnt support her own kids) so they are living the happily ever after.
it amazes me that people can live that way. Damn sure i couldnt live that way so no wonder he was so unhappy with me. hahaha
“connection” I hate this fucking word…he kept telling me “we just had this ‘connection’ ”
I got to text Ms Connection that he was dead. I hope she considers him the love of her life and is miserable.
Yes, stop the world! My cheating husband is unhappy! Some unknown force in the Universe gives a shit!! It’s just surreal folks! Could they be anymore up their own smelly arses???
Yes. My ex was exactly like this. Exactly. And this is about how fast it was for ex and OW, and then dday and he was gone.
“…he didn’t know he was unhappy until he met OW.”
I don’t believe that they were sooooooo UN-happy with us. It’s that with the OW/OM, they think they’re happy-ER!
Gypsy57, again I agree with you. The OW is always acting as a catalyst and encouraging them to believe that life will just be “dreamy” if they leave wifey! Mine however is finding life a whole lot more complicated now. In addition to being near broke because I got everything in the divorce, he was incredibly impressed with Schmoopies bank account. I wonder how he likes being a “kept” play toy at 60 years old with nothing to show for an entire life of work? I have come to the conclusion, as sad as it is, that these fools don’t give a rats ass about anyone really. She will find out once he gets his hands on her money and blows through it! These people are as deep as a urine sample! I wish Schmoopie luck! She’s gonna need it! As a PS: she already bought him a car and the ink was barely dry on our divorce papers!
“I don’t believe that they were sooooooo UN-happy with us. It’s that with the OW/OM, they think they’re happy-ER!”, until they’re not, of course ….
My ex came back to try to convince me to ‘try again’, repeatedly, starting 6 months out from my kicking him out, and continuing off and on for 2 years. BECAUSE HE WASN’T HAPPY! I was supposed to stick by him even when he was unhappy (always), make it my responsibility to try to make him happy (always), stick by him when he fucked around the first time because he wasn’t happy, stick by him when he was aggressive and eventually physically threatening (in a very convincing way) because he wasn’t happy, let him go when he fucked around again because he wasn’t happy, and then TAKE HIM BACK, because he wasn’t happy.
It was really interesting to watch, in a ‘tarantula observation’ kind of way, as he tried again and again to get me to take him back, and said ONCE in maybe 30 conversations/e-mails about this, that he missed me and the kids. NEVER said he loved me, NEVER said he wanted to be with me. NEVER said he would try to make me happy. HE WAS SO UNHAPPY. Never recognized that he had thrown away some very valuable things; my love, my caring, our kids’ family, our circle of friends …. HE WAS UNHAPPY. So I should take him back.
It really is like observing some kind of alien, once you set aside assumptions about what they’re trying to accomplish, and start to pay attention to what they’re actually saying and doing.
KarenE – Mine too spent the last 6 months trying to reconcile, whilst lying and carrying on his affair. I listened and all I heard was (the same as you !) I’M UNHAPPY, I’M SAD (hang on, isn’t that why you had an affair because I MADE YOU unhappy? Now she’s making you unhappy…..common denominator here??)
I then started to watch not listen anymore. Like you, I think actions speak louder than words. I agree it’s out of this world / alien behavior. We must get very far away from them 🙂
“NEVER said he would try to make me happy.” YUP. pretty much.
NorthernLight, mine said something similar. That he was happy until he saw something he liked better. I think truer words were never spoken.
Mine casually told me he’d left me for “something better”.
Guess 30 years of loyalty and 3 kids didn’t count for much.
Happy till he saw something better?? Acts like a kid in a candy store! Isn’t he precious!!!
The people who use unhappiness and lack of satisfaction with their partners as an excuse to cheat are most often people who are the most selfish and least emotionally generous. Their hearts are basically black holes sucking out all the light and love from those closest to them before moving on to the next shiny thing.
Absolutely! They have NO idea what real happiness is!
They take and take and then are disappointed that that’s all there is.
Miss Sunshine, THIS! They wouldn’t know happiness if it came up and smacked them in the face! They are shallow idiots!
My ex also explained his unhappiness with our marriage by sharing, quite truthfully, that we didn’t share (some) interests. It’s true that I didn’t rock climb. Apparently, that caused him to cheat. And his friends and family seem to accept that as a valid excuse for infidelity. But it’s also true that my ex didn’t scrapbook, which is one of my hobbies. And I didn’t need to find a lover who did. Furthermore, he knew I didn’t rock climb when he begged me to marry him. Or when he seemed to joyfully participate in a marital blessing, when our marriage was validated in the Catholic Church. Or any of the million times he told me he loved me. Or when he wrote me a loving letter one month prior to D-Day, talking about how he was glad I got to enjoy my hobby that particular weekend. Yeah, our having separate hobbies was great until he needed it to not be, one minute before D-Time. These fools are so full of shit.
I think I got something about happiness, but I distinctly remember the “it isn’t working” line.
What wasn’t working? Getting along wasn’t working? A committed spouse wasn’t working? Catering to your every need wasn’t working? I never really got a lot clarity.
I did not find out about the crotch jockey until after he walked out; there was no opportunity for the pick me dance of cake baking.
He did expressly tell say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” It is the only honest thing the man ever said.
Yes, I got the “It isn’t you, it’s me, I’m the asshole.” thing as well. Followed by “I’m not cheating on you.” I told him I confirmed his king bedded room at the Portland Hilton booked with his name and his whore’s for his birthday weekend. The next thing he said was: “Refrain from contacting me. All communication will need to go through my attorney.”
Wow. Love the register shift there. You call him on his crap, and he goes from everyday language into legalese. WTF.
I know! Classic narcism. Once you call them out on out their shit they shut down. Mine does it every time and made me feel so bloody guilty at times. Then I woke up and found CL. They are never wrong ……. fine, your life now, off you go now. Us chumps are not interested anymore, we’re off to gain a life back 🙂
Wow. You don’t get to plead the 5th with your wife, dummy.
I also got the “there’s no one else” line. I wonder how she would feel knowing she was a nobody?
I never confronted my ex. He demonstrated he was only capable of lying badly, so what was the point? He was no longer privy to my thoughts, feelings, or intentions. I just let it drop through my attorney when he was not cooperating with the divorce process.
Dr I Can’t Believe I’m A Chump, you just made me laugh! My idiot ex husband actually did plead the fifth in deposition as soon as his paramours name was mentioned! It was VERY entertaining!
Roberta,
Seriously?!! My STBX pleaded the 5th in his desposition too when my attorney asked him how many women he had dated during the marriage. He said it wasn’t relevant. Apparently he feels that dating other women who are not your wife has a place in a marriage.
Even Satan bows down in respect and amazement to these assholes.
Chump Princess, deposition was a real eyeopener in terms of his dodgyness! He really thought he was brilliant, but he looked like an asshole. It was funny when we took a short break and my attorney was going to question him again. He went into the ONLY bathroom in the attorney’s office and proceeded to throw up! I unfortunately had to follow the pig into the bathroom, but it was that moment that I realized his “macho control” act was just that, an act! I pulled my attorney aside and let her know and she went after him even harder! He was cooked and he knew it! Judging from the smell he left in that bathroom, I would say Satan will very soon have him if he can stand that stink!
Cindy, your cheater did a not so subtle about face when he knew you had proof. These assholes crack me up!
Thank you all. You guys made me feel better. It’s hard, even thought it’s been almost two years since BD, to grasp the craziness. My friends and family are always so supportive, but unless you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to truly understand the depth of pain then can inflict.
Yes, this one hits a nerve. My ex was unhappy for years, and I knew it. I tried talking to him about it, but he consistently claimed it was work related, NOT US. So what is a chump to do? Encourage him to take a leave from work and take a one yr temp. position in another state. Why not? Our marriage was strong(he said so), we’d been through MC so we knew how to communicate, etc.
Ya’ll know what happened then… OW 12 yrs younger, and a ton of revisitionist history as to how long he had been unhappy.
During false reconciliation a good friend to us both told me everyone deserves to be happy. I agree in general, but I admit at that time it pissed me off. Yes, but not by intentionally harming others. By putting the spouse in harm’s way, etc.
Friend eventually understood my perspective when the depth of exH’s lies came out (at least three affairs, etc).
Exactly…: “Yes, but not by intentionally harming others.”
That pisses me off too, zyx321. “Everyone deserves to be happy” is the most hilarious (sarcasm) excuse for cheating. I’m unhappy because I have a POS car. Do you know what would make me happy right now? A brand new car. So by that “everyone deserves to be happy” rationale, I can just go steal one, right? It’d make ME happy! How dare the car dealership and the local authorities stand in the way of me and and my happiness!
It’s like excuses that would not be taken seriously in any other situation are acceptable by society for cheating.
After the tip of the ice berg was dumped on the kitchen floor on DDay, among the few things he said…”There were some good years weren’t there Blown Away?” Scumbag…you tell ME which ones they were…I seem to not have a clue!
Mine said, “I have some good memories from our marriage, but now it’s just a business deal that’s ended.”
Mine said “We’ll always have our memories.” My thoughts was “yeah, but now the memories hurt.”
Mine came up with the we had a few good memories. Yes but they are all tainted with the fact he was procuring prostitutes and “dating” other women during the majority of our 22 year marriage. I can’t look back and remember a time in retrospect where I do not suspect he was being unfaithful.
I can enjoy memories of family times with my children but not any of the time with him because he was screwing around since before we married and I was completely clueless. Hurts to realize I trusted somebody so slimy.
Totally agree with the ‘tainted’ comment. That’s what I said to POS cheating ex when I confronted him. I said, “I don’t know anymore what was real and what wasn’t. It feels like our whole relationship was fake.” And he said (with sad Shrek Cat eyes), “It wasn’t all fake.”
Gee, who wants to sit with a magnifying glass going back through all their mental pictures and trying to figure out which ones were photoshopped? Not me, man.
http://a1clean.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/shrek-sad-kitty-eyes.jpg
I now suspect/think that he was never faithful. For 35 years. Leading a double life while I was “all in.” It is painful, but I look at my daughter and smile since I was a great mom and good role model. I was also a great wife, something he did not deserve. It gets less painful after 2.5 years. But my memories are “tainted.” But I am a good person and continue to pick myself up and move forward.
Happy Easter and Passover to all. It is Spring and the snow is almost gone in Boston!
Yes, my ex played this card. But she has nothing to back it up, other than we didn’t fuck like teenagers anymore. This BS collapses under its own absurdity.
Nothing like shiny new love with your shiny new affair partner to contrast with your supreme unhappiness with the person you are married to. Limerence is blinding that way.
My cheater had always been incredibly logical. After he found Shiny New Girlfriend, it was extremely easy for me to poke holes in all of his justifications and arguments…All it took with the ‘We haven’t been happy in ages’ argument was to recall all of the pleasant and fun things we had experienced as a couple an family over the course of the previous 30 years. But drinking at a bar with SNG and playing cards with her and her lowlife friends (who were cued to call him ‘the Professor’) made him so much happier than a wife and children and responsibilities. Feed that insatiable ego!!
He went along with my spackle job, but stonewalled and resented me and one of our two children the a return to our marriage. He chose to be unhappy in the end. Pining after SNG. It was a colossal waste of the last 7 years of his life.
“But drinking at a bar with SNG and playing cards with her and her lowlife friends (who were cued to call him ‘the Professor’) made him so much happier than a wife and children and responsibilities. Feed that insatiable ego!!”
I’m sorry sorry, hanecita. That sounds like what a lot of us went through — enduring someone who prefers cheap fun over relationships of real value. I enjoy a few beers and jokes with new people just as much as the next guy (or maybe even more than the next guy!). But I’m fully aware that these fun times are of superficial value, and they are not the foundation of happiness. Looks like your cheater didn’t understand that.
Yes, yes and yes. I finally understand and accept that now. Too bad the cheater-version of “we were unhappy for a long time” and people that think every divorce has two sides, sticks around so tenaciously. So many people don’t want to judge, think there must have been more going on behind closed doors and weren’t there all those times I chumpily begged him to tell me if there was anything other than just two married people with kids and busy lives…
Where I chose to consciously invest more time and effort into our relationship every time life threw distractions in our way, he chose to confide in OW.
Lothos, well put, Pearl Harbor – since it really did come as a surprise attack. And D-day as the counter-attack, where you decide not to take the abuse of a narcisstic power-obsessed dictator any longer.
It’s funny because my dday was December 7th, 2013. A day that will live in infamy for me, forever.
My STBXH says this all the time- fucker. The reality is.. his confusion showed up right about the time the whore did. Coincidence? I think not.
Yep! THIS! You are right on target Newchumpal!
Thanks, CL. With your help, and all the other mighty chumps, I have been “waking up” to what cheater XH’s unhappiness was. is. (FOO, trauma, depression, personality disorders. this sums his up).
But MORE important I have been thinking about MINE and why we humans think our partners are supposed to “make us happy”. We can blame cultural myths, Disney movies or other Hollywood tripe (Jerry McGuire’s “You complete me” comes to mind).
For me, about half way through my 24 year marriage, I woke up. No, not to all his behaviors as prelude to a future DDay. But to my responsibility for my own happiness. My unhappiness was not his fault. His flaws were his flaws, period. I also realized happiness comes and goes. So I started seeking Joy. I rediscovered this in my relationship with God. While still being faithful to husband and co-creating (what i thought was) a solid marriage and good family.
With or without XH, and while still healing all the PTSD, in the end, I will always have my joy. Because this never depended on him. I personally think being responsible for one’s own joy is a key ingredient in long and satisfying marriages or committed partnerships.
I have been pondering what to say to my adult daughters about XH’s claim to unhappines as justification for his abuse of me. FYI there is a helpful thread about this on the Forum.
You are correct! Finding and caring for ourselves first and foremost is the key. These disordered assholes wouldn’t have found a way to get to us if we had realized this one simple fact. WE matter too. WE deserve respect and esteem ALSO…
I, too, am rebuilding my self esteem and learning who I am and what gives me joy 🙂 When I hit a wall I give it to God and soon, I get a whole new perspective 🙂
My life is no longer about xmr and his perspective! His opinion of ‘me’ …is really nothing more than his inability to face the reality of his actions…
I might be a wreck but I’m healing 🙂 and moving on with my new life 🙂
Don’t look back!!
CN lets me know I am not alone. I could have written so many of these. As my marriage blew up for the last time this past summer, my STBX douche-baggery included “we grew apart and he left me behind” – I guess that’s what you call trolling the web for fuck friends. “I lament that you don’t trust me” after repeated affairs with no real remorse. Or, “I don’t think you ever trusted me or I you” which makes lots of sense considering our 20 year relationship. I guess MOW and other APs were better to “share his intimate desires without being belittled.” Heavens know his wife wouldn’t want him to communicate his feelings. Better to catch him cheating…again.
Idiots.. they all use the same tired playbook.
I also got the “You knew I was unhappy” and ILYBNILWY talk. We had the usual problems that come with a 22 year marriage – money was tight, kids were teenager’s and needed rides everywhere, together time diminished, occasional arguments. The NORMAL things that people deal with, work on together and move on. I usually went along with what he wanted but in the last few years I started saying “No”. Should have known better, right?
My EX got fired from his job – it was such a huge blow to his ego and began his MLC. He had plotted and schemed for years at that job, pushed people out, had no problem firing someone who was in his way. Eventually that caught up with him and they let him go. He called it “a difference of opinion”.
He began his new job and met MOW boss lady (daddy co-own’s the company). Suddenly he has found a “soulmate”, someone who needed saving from her THIRD marriage, someone with the same morals and goals – make money and get rid of anyone who is in your way. He found his “happy” because by being with boss lady he could “sleep” his way to the top. He as been at that company for two years and they have laid off over 50 people and EX has convinced MOW and her father (practically his new FIL at this point) to push out the other owner (after 30 years of a business partnership).
His “happy” was power, control, manipulation, subterfuge, lies and deceit. That’s what makes him happy.
“I usually went along with what he wanted but in the last few years I started saying “No””
And the cheated started not long after…
Ugh! I get so irritated by this. Like you, when I had conflicts with my ex-spouse, I generally let her get her way because, frankly, I’m open to compromise and believe that it is necessary for two people to be happy together. The things I compromised on were not major.
But, as time went by, I had to start putting my foot down. My spouse’s expectations that she would get her way on larger and larger issues made me realize that she didn’t value the compromises I’d made. Instead, she took them for granted.
And within mere months of my saying “No” more than she was accustomed, my wife was in bed with another man, claiming she’d been unhappy for a long time.
No, dear ex-wife, you became unhappy when I started treating you like an adult partner, instead of babying you like a spoiled child.
Oh boy does this resonate;-
“But, as time went by, I had to start putting my foot down. My spouse’s expectations that she would get her way on larger and larger issues made me realize that she didn’t value the compromises I’d made. Instead, she took them for granted.
And within mere months of my saying “No” more than she was accustomed, my wife was in bed with another man, claiming she’d been unhappy for a long time.”
Swap the genders and that was my sitch to a “T”.
“you became unhappy when I started treating you like an adult partner, instead of babying you like a spoiled child.”
This ^^ x 100.
My exH complained that I’d become too much of a “womens’ libber”. Translation = I was now asserting my right to a marriage of equals and he didn’t like that.
This was totally my XH’s attitude. But because he was a Jesus cheater he wrapped it up nicely in scripture and decided that Joel 2:25 described our marriage, that the first 10 years of our marriage were the years that the locusts had eaten and that only if I turn a blind eye and ignore the latter 5 years he was having sex with male prostitutes, God would restore us, we would start our second marriage, so much better than our first!! The problem was that I was so unforgiving!!
Funny, I had no idea that the locust had eaten the first 10 years of our marriage, only he was privy to this information. Also, a year before D-Day our friends divorced due to infidelity and we made a pact to each other to speak up before we ever would let things get so bad that we were tempted to cheat. Little did I know he had his man to man dating webpage up at the time. Things weren’t so bad, they were exactly as he wanted them to be able to lead his double life and feel justified.
I think of the two decades of my marriage as the years the locusts ate. Now I get to have those years restored to me, free of the cheating, the lies and the abuse. Hallelujah!
And what is up with these cheaters who are secretly gay? I would actually have a tiny bit of respect for my ex if he would come out and admit what he is, instead of looking for another woman to cheat on with men.
Mine said didn’t you notice I was unhappy, depressed? I did and like a good little chomping chumper started the rally wagon. Let’s go places let’s do things. I’m pretty easy most of the time. I hate to fight! Now I know I should have stood up to him and stared him down. I didn’t pick my battles. I do now. I was always trying to keep the peace and calm him down. My mistake I should have let the back of his head come off and it will. Everyone walked eggshells around him when he was pissed or irritated when we all should have said including his father and the kids “fuck you”. When I met him he was always mad and on the verge of explosion. And then he calmed down for many many years until he started his own business and went full circle to angry lunatic. And bamm. Affair! I did everything a good loving caring spouse should do including taking all the blame and making my needs very very small. No more!! He doesn’t know how to deal with the non nonsense new me!!! Haha! Fuck him and any one who cheats. They don’t deserve to breathe our honest air!!!
I got the same, “I was unhappy for 6 weeks, no make that 3 months, no, make that 6 months. You should have known.” Um, ok, while grieving the unexpected loss of my Mom? While doing extensive PT for a torn ACL? While going through surgery and then rehabbing ACL leg after reconstruction all while working a demanding, full time job and taking care of the home? I further got, “I’m doing this with your best interest at heart. It isn’t fair to you if I can’t love you, and it isn’t fair to me either.” Of course, he left out the bit about fucking the OW, which he denied.
Son of bitch.
I got some “It isn’t fair to you for me to stay with you if I can’t love you like you should be loved” stuff too. Ugh. My ex, however, was upfront about the OW.
CL/CN, please, please decode “I’m happy now” (ex married other woman hours after our divorce)! I don’t understand how he could not “grieve”, feel “shame” or “guilt”? How can he be “happy”? This usually goes along with “I don’t care”…Why don’t I “believe” him?
Plain Chump, when you love, you love deeply. When you commit to someone, that relationship puts down roots in your life and your soul. So when it ends, you grieve, and if you treated the person badly, you feel shame and guilt.
If your cheater is a narc, his love is shallow, shallow, his commitment means nothing, and everything he does, he’s entitled to do. So they swap us out like replacement cartridges for the printer. And feel just about as much grief about it.
If your cheater wasn’t happy with you, it’s highly unlikely he’ll be happy w/OW for long. But some narcs are happy, as long as they’re getting tons and tons of admiration and attention. If he was hard to live with, for you, the OW is living with it too, and you know what it’ll be like.
Exactly right. Fundamentally, these folks are the shallowest of people, a mile wide and an inch deep. The only person who matters to them is them. Always.
Aren’t they just charming? Having these affairs and discarding us without any conscience because “They want to be HONEST!” Really??? And of course they have been nothing but honest! It just slays me! It’s the most convoluted bunch of BS I’ve ever seen. You cannot make this shit up!
So, okay, NOW that you are such an HONEST guy screwing such an HONEST cheating MOW I guess your life should now be just dandy! If it wasn’t so fucked up and heart rending then I’d have a good laugh!
Good point Roberta!
Them “wanting to be HONEST” means that the OW/OM has agreed to take them in and provide kibbles. They think they have a landing pad. If they didn’t have the landing pad, they’d pretend to act remorseful and pretend to acknowledge that they fuck’d up and want a second chance, and continue down the path of DISHONEST cake.
Absolutely Buddy. This unfortunate HO has always made it clear she will not only be available anytime for her”man”, but “mama” will buy him anything he wants and do any damn thing he wants! She opened her checkbook, her legs, her condo for him. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll be history soon!
Buddy nailed it.
Mine only feigned “honesty” when I shoved the truth in his face and lying was literally no longer possible. I actually told him “you couldn’t be HONEST if your life depended on it, you don’t have an honest bone in your body except for the one between your legs!!”
My X thought our marriage was perfect —– for him.
He asked our teen after I kicked him out: “Did you EVER hear us fight??” Well of course not, because HE was the one who got to yell and put me down sarcastically. If I EVER dared try to come back with something, he just got jerkier and louder.
If something was truly bothering me in our marriage, it was always (really, always) brought back to a flaw in me. If something was bothering HIM – lol – it was brought back to a flaw in … ME !!!
Gotta love ‘dem narcs.
For all 20 years of our marriage, my ex told me he was happy, that I was his best friend, that he loved me, that he would never want to leave me. Right up until Dday, when it suddenly changed to he had been miserable the entire time, he felt no passion for me ever, he never should have married me, we were totally incompatible.
Just a couple months before Dday, we had gone on a family trip to Yellowstone. We had a wonderful time, or so I thought. Got along great, saw unbelievably gorgeous scenery and animals, had a terrific time. After Dday, he told me and actually wrote in his book about himself, that he “had an epiphany” on that trip that made him realize he didn’t want to be married anymore. Surprise surprise, I think the two affairs with married coworkers started right around then. Needless to say, he did not bother mentioning that “epiphany” to me until after Dday. Up until then, he agreed with me about what a wonderful trip it was.
Glad, my ex had just taken me to Hawaii and I thought we’d had a wonderful time too! Looking back he was acting strange, though. He would wake up and run for hours before I got out of bed. He was really into his new physique. One night he had too much to drink and the look he gave me was of total disgust. I blamed it on the alcohol at the time, but later I realized that’s when his mask slipped.
Lyn, towards the end of my 37 year marriage I also got that look of total disgust when the ex had a few drinks and to be honest he wasn’t a heavy drinker just a social drinker, so I knew that the looks I got and the comments he made were genuine and something that he was too afraid to do and say whilst completely without alcohol. It would break my heart because I never knew why I was being treated so cruelly and devalued so much. I know now sadly!!
Raising my hand for “the look.” It was a couple of weeks before D-day, and I was trying to take his picture from across the restaurant patio table. He gave me a look of utter contempt, and I’ve never seen an expression like that directed my way from anybody before, and I hope to never again. I wish I’d just gotten up from the table and left right then. Anybody who looks at you like that is not worthy of being your partner.
It’s funny, though, because I also remember several years prior to that, when we were sitting around another restaurant table with some friends of ours. Mid-conversation, I looked over and realized he’d been observing me for some time, and the expression on his face was of complete love. Adoration, actually. To go from that to the contemptuous stare in just a few short years, and never know why until after the fact, is a singular experience. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Not even OW.
OW will know it. It is just a matter of time. These personalities have cycles of behavior, and the cycles get shorter, as they age. It is like the hormonal time at puberty, or the honeymoon phase of a marriage. It is impossible to sustain that level of lust and illogical thinking.
In addition, Reality Bites. When you find that you still have to do laundry and pay bills, and learn how to tolerate someone else sharing your bathroom — it becomes real. Chores and Expectations of how “we” will live have to be reconciled. OW will figure she doesn’t have to do the pick me polka anymore, and may not be as accommodating in the sack. Those stories of glory from days of old get boring after several repetitions.
One other thing — the OW KNOWS he will cheat. She may want to think she is special and he won’t cheat on her, but inside, she knows better. It’s like that film, JAWS, where you hear the music and know the shark is there, but you cannot see it yet. Just as a shark is an eating machine, your ex is a cheating machine.
Portia, I genuinely think/know that my ex will not cheat on his latest acquisition. He is madly in love with his teenage Cambodian gal and it is finally true love. He has sold up everything to be with this wonderful new love and that includes leaving our 2 adult children who don’t speak to me and now they don’t have a local parent, so to speak. My ex is so besotted that he has dedicated on the internet the Arrowsmith song “I don’t want to miss a thing” to his young love and this bloke is 63 years old. Maybe he knows that it is his final shot in the locker and he has fallen hard. I just feel very sorry and sad for my kids.
If he is 63, and she is a teenager, She has probably already figured it out. He certainly will not be able to take care of a teenager’s needs at 63. He will be very useful to her for awhile, and then he will either be left behind or he will die. Either way — not a good ending for him.
By the way — men having “problems” like ED does not keep them from cheating. The women who find it acceptable to cheat with someone who is both unavailable and incapable have an agenda of their own. These guys are so besotted with themselves that they just don’t know it yet. The never really love anyone as much as they love themselves.
Maree, I hope your kids will finally see him for who he is.
Yeah, you’re right, Portia. It’ll happen to her or her replacement(s). I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head and heart around that look. It’s not like I’m a stranger to disorder. My mom was cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but as crazy as she was, even she never looked at me like that. It still makes my blood run cold every time I remember that restaurant patio. SO glad to be away from that!
Like I said before, these guys don’t do reality very well. But in my new cheater-free life, reality is what has given and continues to give me the most comfort. Every day, I am so grateful for my bus ride to work, the newspaper flyers, the school permission slips, the ritual of the laundry hamper. All this stuff keeps me tethered to what matters most–my kids. As for cheater ex, he reminds me of this local ice cream shop that’s got like 1,000 different flavours (for real). He got so caught up in the wonder of all these bizarre flavours, like kimuchi and Swiss cheese, that he forgot to consider whether or not they would actually taste good. When all you care about is novelty, you can’t think about what will sustain you in the long run. There *is* no long run. There’s just the endless array of weird flavours. Good luck with that, dude.
Maybe, as a “wedding gift” someone should get her a chalkboard and some chalk. That way she can post the “Flavor of the Day” And perhaps, send some tummy meds for him. With all those weird flavors he is sure to get indigestion. Poor thing!
He will probably give her and all of her replacements “The Look” much sooner than he gave it to you. It is actually the moment when he realizes he is not getting what he wants. Since he is incapable of blaming himself, he has to blame his unhappiness on whoever is handy. Who is standing between him and his happiness??? Why, the flavor of the day!
“The look” picture…yes FMT…
At his military retirement function, I was taking photos and he looked right at me and I clicked….it was a look of “I wish you were dead” distain …unbridled contempt. Just to make it worse, he then turned to his guest (who I learned about 3 weeks later was OW) and he got a Schmoopie face on.
That alone should have sent me running for the hills but I didnt have any sense to do that.
Unicornnomore, your story really resonates with me. My ex was really weird about photos, at least after the first year. At one point I had posted a bunch of pictures on FB from a trip we’d just taken the previous weekend. He made a really hurtful comment about how he wished we could “go away for a weekend and not have to see all these pictures surfacing on FB.” I was crushed, and I never posted a single photo of him again after that.
What we do is story our lives, right? There are so many ways to do that (one of which is right here on this blog that CL hosts), but when somebody clearly tells you that they don’t want to be part of your narrative, you should just walk away, no matter what you think the stakes are. The pain of that rejection and the public humiliation he piled on me is something I don’t know if I’ll ever really get over. But I’ll tell you one thing: if anybody ever said that shit to me again, I’d kick their ass to the curb in a red-hot second. Lesson learned.
When our grandson was born, my husbands parents visited to meet their first great grandchild. Their 50th anniversary was soon as was our 25th. I hired a photographer to take family photos of us all at our house.
He got all annoyed/angry (his default mood) and told me I had “overstepped my bounds” what? I cant take a photo of my own family in my own home? He said his parents did not want to do it (they LOVED the idea of photos !!)
Towards the end of the photo session, the photog approached us and asked if we wanted a photo of just the 2 of us for our 25th …he said “no, I dont” and huffed away. The photog was a friend of mine and I later realized I was gratified that someone else saw how shitty he really was to me.
On our 26th anniversary he told me he wanted to find a job in California (my home is DC) he seemed to have again forgotten the whole “married” thing, but he died 9 days later.
I sure hope he had some good insurance!
Man, this post makes me want to cry! I can’t tell you how many anxiety attacks I woke up with in the mornings when I’d remember hearing “this has been coming for a long time.” REALLY??? I sure as hell had no clue. I beat myself up over and over for being so dense as to not see something that had been coming for a long time.
I also got “you’re unhappy too,” as if cheating and breaking up our family was doing me a favor.
Believe it or not Lyn, these cheaters really did do us a favor. We will heal, the “sickness” they carry has no cure. Even if they marry their fuckbuddy, that part of their sickness just lays dormant like chicken pox. Then it comes back with a vengeance kinda like the shingles! But now the “soul mate” is left spinning! Seems like a great thing to me!
I like your “shingles” comparison, Roberta. LOL
Six months post DDay, 3 months post divorce decision: finally started being able to breathe again… I developed shingles.
Thanks, ex.
Lyn, the whole “you’re unhappy, too” thing really cheeses me off. How dare they presume to speak for us?
I knew we had problems and should have split years ago BUT I kept hoping things would change. I had made a commitment and I was not a quitter! I stayed focused on what was in my control.
What I realized today, when he shouted he had been miserable 22 years, which was the amount of we had been married, that he was miserable because he had been caught. I guess he felt he had lost his freedom and entitlement because the jig was up and I would begin to put restrictions on him. He blamed everyone else and I did a long pick us-family dance. I put it together today that the explosions after that were all about a loss of his freedom and control. (The explosive behavior became more frequent after dday) His entire family is depressed so I went with the flow and he never mentioned about being unhappy. There is no way he could have been totally unhappy because everything was being done for him.He did ask once if the kids were happy? I told him no and he should leave. Oh, he was miserable but we were supposedly happy? I guess it true that misery loves company and he wanted us to wallow in his loss.
I also realized that he never really cared or loved me. I denied that in my head even when the kids said he hated me. Today those have been my pills to swallow. I hope he knows by us leaving and NC that we were unhappy too!
I was thinking that I will feel no pity when it comes to a settlement. I’m going to make a list all this and keep it in front of me during mediation!
Lightbulb day for me!
Well at least I was told for years she was unhappy. But no matter what I tried to do different, it was never enough. But as long as they are cheating, they cant be happy at home….. It doesnt mix! We chumps have to be the bad person!
DavidB, CL has a great post/column on this, where she says she’s inclined to believe that someone is unhappy…but the hole in their logic is that they’re still in the marriage.
Your wife may have actually been unhappy. But not unhappy enough to end the relationship. Instead, she was happy enough to stay in the relationship while ensuring that YOU were unhappy by having an affair.
That’s the cheater’s logic: I was unhappy, so I did something with no concern with how unhappy it’ll make you!
Makes perfect sense!!!! I dont doubt she was unhappy at times…. so was I. Difference being I kept my pants on away from home. Concern!!! Wow the level of no concern staggers the imagination!!! Unprotected sex with a basic stranger 5 times and she is still able to get pregnant.. no form of birth control. So emotional harm with a chance of physical!!! She may disagree on stranger…. but she knew him 8 days before drunken sex… then continued on and off whenever they could meet for three years…. who knows what he was banging in between her visits….
I knew my exH was ‘unhappy’ when he left. He was grieving his best friend (or so I thought). What I didn’t know at the time was just how much he was ‘comforting’ his widow. Chumpy me thought he was being a good friend, I actually told him how proud it made me knowing he was such a good guy!
Facepalm.
Ugh. Verity297, I’m sorry. That’s really gross. You deserve so much more!
As long as anyone believes that happiness comes from another person, or an outside set of circumstances, they will never be happy. Do you remember the childhood fairy tale of the fisherman’s wife? The fisherman and his wife lived in a shanty by the sea. He caught a magic fish, who granted him a wish. He wished for a nicer cottage. Not good enough for the wife, she wanted a bigger, fancier place. The fisherman went back to the sea and called upon the magic fish. An upgrade was granted. Still not good enough. Eventually, the fish got tired, and “POOF” back to the rundown shanty. The fish couldn’t make the fisherman’s wife happy, not even with magic.
The fisherman was the chump — he was happy with a roof over his head and something to eat. The wife will never be happy, no matter what, for all of her days. She abused the poor fisherman and made him feel inferior for not asking for more. How could SHE live with such a man, who didn’t want the very best for her? The fish was wise — when nothing makes you happy, you get nothing.
These entitled twits will always long for new, better, shiny. They will never accept that they are responsible for how they live their lives. They will always be unhappy, certain that someone else has something better than what they have. They have been treated so unfairly. Poor, pitiful sausage.
What we have to learn is to be happy with our own selves, regardless of what the catch of the day is. I might enjoy the companionship of a good fishing buddy every now and again, but having my shanty to myself is really a wonderful way for me to enjoy MY life.
Portia, this is so true. He was never satisfied with his job, family, home, or car. He was always WISHING for something better. And he will never be happy no matter where he lands. He took his lack of skills and delusional entitlement with him when he moved in with a needy woman he knew for a few weeks. Was I that bad that he could disregard his entire family? No, he was that disordered.
“Was I that bad that he could disregard his entire family? No, he was that disordered.”
Yep ^^^ This ^^^ I’ve asked myself this same question a thousand times too and the answer is always the same. No.
exhole was never happy with anything for long. he wanted this truck, so we (i) bought the truck, he took such good care of it, until he just didnt. i wondered by didnt really notice as so much other stuff was going on. he wanted more trucks, more cars, he would keep them for a while, work on them (complaining the whole time) and then would just sell them out of the blue. i would come home from work and it would be gone. i never knew how much he sold them for or how much he put into it to make them work. even the last 2 trucks he got, he took such good care of his, taken parts off the original to make it look better (never really worried about how it ran). then just one day, poof, he stopped taking care of it.
it should have been my “red flag” but i really didnt put the dots together. i noticed the pattern but i didnt put too much thought into it. it seemed to make him happy (even if he complained) and i wasnt concerned about the turn around or the sudden loss of interest. besides those are just material things anyhow, right?…. i should have paid more attention because that is what he did to me. took such good care of us until the day he just stopped.
i am a fixer type of person. if something brakes you dont throw it out you fix it. my kids grew up on hand me down clothes and toys. shirts, pants, socks all got patched and sewed. i dont understand the “throw away” mentality.
I guess this is similar to the line my husband used on me last night. “WE have been miserable with each other for a long time. ”
Rewriting history to include me in HIS misery. Makes me mad.
I have always been the happy person in our marriage. He has always been the moody one. He may have been miserable but it is no excuse to cheat.
I never got the “I’ve been so unhappy” excuse until AFTER I filed. After all 5 ddays…yep….5….he begged me to forgive him. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He wasn’t sure why he was still talking to OW. You know…….”poor me”. Anyway, he stated he was unhappy after the divorce was under way, to which I say…my God, you just should have said so! I would have happily stopped dancing and trying to save the marriage alone. All of that work and worry could have been avoided. The only thing a cheater is unhappy about is being caught! My ex would have been VERY happy to continue being my husband AND having a side piece! I mean really, that was fun shit for him.
So now……we are divorced and he is living with the OW and I couldn’t be happier!!!!!! Is he happy now? Who the fuck really cares!!!!!!!!!
Mine told me he wanted to change our marriage to be an “open” marriage. I said no. To me, that’s not marriage.
You weren’t “changing” to an open marriage. You already had one; she was just finally letting you know.
Exactly! They just forgot to inform us!
@ Kimmie “Is he happy now? Who the fuck really cares!!!!!!!!!”
^^^THIS^^^ Absofuckinglutely perfectly said!!!
Kimmy, I echo your sentiments! I don’t know if he’s happy, but who the fuck cares! It’s obvious that if he isn’t happy, he knows he can always fuck around on his dimwitted Schmoopie! I wish her luck she doesn’t deserve! Mine asked me the other day during a rare conversation if I was happy and I told him I was damn near delirious! I think it pissed him off! Like I care!!
aH HHA roberta. you gave a good idea. if exhole ever asks me if i am happy, i am going to say “I am so happy now i never knew HOW unhappy i really was!!!!”
hahaha love that
The posts from yesterday and today inspired me to look at Dr. Simon’s website. Here’s an illuminating statement from his post on “Making Amends,” which I think explains in part why disordered people have to blame shift when they are caught: “But they simply detest work they perceive is primarily on someone else’s behalf, or working for something that’s not clearly and intentionally self-serving, despite the potential benefit they might derive in the long run.”
So they perceive owning up to what they do as being work on the chump’s behalf, which they detest. That blog post also talks about how important it is for chumps and other reasonable people not to enable their abusive behavior.
When disordered people hijack the language in the way that they do, it makes it harder for “normal” people to notice that we might not have been happy walking on eggshells, putting up with scorn, verbal abuse, smirking, and provocative behavior like staying out half the night–and so on. Based on yesterday’s posts about cheaters and houses, I think many chumps have been unhappy for a long time but keep on hoping that the person they married/committed to will come around and be the loving partner they had hoped for and expected. I know I was unhappy to the point of being sick and crazy during the gaslight phase. But I hoped on until DDay and even then couldn’t process the shock of the betrayal.
But when cheaters talk about “happiness,” of course they don’t mean what we mean–the peace and satisfaction of building a family, of having a safe place to fall. When they talk about unhappiness, they mean: “I have become aware of the black hold inside me where a person should be, and I need massive kibbles from someone who worships me to fix it.” And “I have no interest in doing the things this person–whom I made promises to love and support–expects me to do, including being faithful, mowing the lawn, picking up my underwear, or being honest with money.” And “No one is the boss of me.”
But I think chumps should pay way more attention to their own happiness. Do we feel cherished? loved? safe? supported? respected? Do we feel like we have a partner? Is there any comfort or emotional security in this relationship? Is there any chance for the kind of happiness we want for our lives in this relationship? And if the cheater is disordered, the answer is of course “no.”
EXCELLENT points.
Always spot on LAJ particularly the final paragraph – But I think chumps should pay way more attention to their own happiness. Do we feel cherished? loved? safe? supported? respected? Do we feel like we have a partner? Is there any comfort or emotional security in this relationship? Is there any chance for the kind of happiness we want for our lives in this relationship? And if the cheater is disordered, the answer is of course “no.”
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LAJ… my Mother CONSTANTLY reminds me that early on when she first met X and we were at a family function I simply mentioned to him that his daughter (she was 2 1/2 at the time) needed her diaper changed and he said “I don’t like being told what to do.” Seriously WTF?
… that whole “No one is the boss of me” shit is as serious serious problem with these idiots…. they have ZERO accountability and truly behave like children….
“… that whole “No one is the boss of me” shit is as serious serious problem with these idiots…. they have ZERO accountability and truly behave like children….”
I agree 100%.
My exH used to say – when I complained about his houseful of unfinished projects – “the more you nag me to do it, the less I’ll do it” ( ?!)
How childish is that?
It began to dawn on me slowly that I was living with a sulky, petulant child….
Always so happy to read your posts, LaJ. Thanks especially for this one.
Living with my X was always about his needs. He was never happy or satisfied. He was always in search for some ideal woman that never existed. It was always about his sexual fantasy. There were always dreams he had that he could never fulfill because we got married young and had children. Whatever success he had in life was through my determination because he lacked the motivation and stamina to accomplish simple things like finding a profession, going to college, getting a realestate liscence. After years of putting up with his playing his drums in the basement, taking scuba diving lessons and never stepping up because of his drug and alcohol abuse I decided to take the reins and started his business and encouraged him in every way possible way. All this while taking care of three children. The only thing he ever really wanted was to sleep with other women. Then the porn addiction became an issue and he blamed it on his own son. I always out my children first and evidently that wasn’t sexy enough for the pig and he trailed on blaming his fuckedupness on me. I got two degrees knowing some day I would have to support myself. When he got prostate cancer and needed a prosthesis I was supportive and my reward for this was he started dating multiple women and discarding me. He has never been faithful but he had this urgency to prove he could still have sidefucks. His behavior and cruelty became unbearable. He really set out to erase and destroy me. He let me know that he told he he was unhappy for two years. I think I can too that, I was unhappy for most of my marriage. Hopium was such a powerful drug I was addicted. His cup was and always will be empty. I let him go this time because it would have killed me to tolerate one more second of his abuse. There is so much beauty in life and people worthy of my love and appreciation.
Oh yes– after I discovered what the ex was up to, suddenly the narrative of our marriage turned into: “I thought about divorcing you on the honeymoon… but I thought I’d give us a chance… then I thought about divorcing you before we had kids…”
THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU, MORON!?!?!?
Apparently, our entire marriage was on the brink of divorce, but he figured that he’d just wait it out to see if it would improve. The true story? Yes, perhaps he did want to divorce me, but he didn’t have anyone else lined up to take my place. No one wanted him IRL. There weren’t any other women who would give his ugly-ass face a second look (other than stupid me), so he kept me around because there wasn’t anywhere else for his needy self to go. Fortunately, the wonderful Ashley Madison came in and saved the day, and that prostitution site set him up with an ugly whore who was just as desperate to shatter her family life as he was.
While I’m glad to be rid of him, I am pissed to think that he might actually have thought about ending our relationship before we had children, and he didn’t bother. No, he waited until I was good and chained to him for life before he shat all over our relationship. Considering how often he seems to want to pull me into drama, I feel like he did it deliberately– he and the Owife can now attempt to play The Triangulation Game with me for the next decade or so. Too bad I’m not interested in helping them out with that.
I like this phrase, “on the brink.” Today I was thinking about this unhappiness thing a lot, after reading through the posts on here. I think there are some pivotal moments in our lives when we are actually on the brink. Not in the narcissist/cheater way, which is simply manufactured drama, but in a true, life-defining moment. We see it; we feel it; we know it. And those moments set a course for how things are gonna be. Several months before D-day, I knew something was wrong. I kept getting physically sick, there was that horrible absentee feeling from him, and of course his EA (PA) with Mother Theresa was off to the races. So one day, we’re in the car somewhere, amidst this massive stress of dealing with a terminally-ill child, plus a thousand other things, and he made a rude comment that I snapped at. And he pulled over the car and said something like, “I can’t keep going like this, with the way you are. I’m as unhappy as I’ve ever been.” The minute he said that, I realized it was one of those life-defining moments. He’d been treating me like shit for months, and I suspected but wasn’t totally sure why (Schmoopie). So there it was. Speak now, or forever be a chump. Well, I spoke. I said, “Let’s just call it, then. Everything in me is telling me I’m on the wrong path. Let’s just go our separate ways.” This was the truth; this was my gut speaking. But as soon as I said it, then he started backpedaling. All about how we fit like a glove; don’t abandon “us” now. We have so much to work for, and yadda yadda.
See, I think that is what these guys do. They throw out the “I’m so unhappy” line, thinking that we’ll swallow it hook, line and sinker. Keep toeing their line. But if we say “Yeah, me, too,” then it’s instantaneously all about the status quo. In fact, it was all about the status quo all along; it’s just we didn’t really GET what the status quo actually meant. In that moment, I *was* ready to walk, but as soon as he knew that, he gave me just enough to keep me reeled in.
Someone said on here a while back that cheating is all about power. That has certainly been my experience. I really hope the next time I have one of those life-defining moments (and I’m sure I’ll have many) that I’m smart and self-aware enough to recognize it and honour it in the moment.
I’m so glad you had the clarity of mind to call him out, and mean it. I missed my opportunity(s), and now I’m trying to get the upper hand on our impending divorce. Bravo!
I not only got the “I’m not happy,” but I got a laundry list of reasons why it was my fault he wasn’t happy. What was really fascinating about the list was that most of it was distorted truth or outright lies. It is impossible to defend or mount a challenge to something that someone has created in their head as a reason to blame you for their rancid-assed choices and behavior. Initially, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt and responsbility for the failure of the marriage. I felt I had poured so much of myself into the marriage and into trying to make him happy – how could I have failed so miserably. In his complaints of unhappiness, he also implied that I had failed as a woman and as a mother – and that my replacement had so much more to offer.
It wasn’t until I was able to get some distance and some clarity that I realized it was all so much projection and bullshit. I met and exceeded every demand, wish, command and mere thought that he ever put to me, but he was still unhappy. As I reminded him during one brief conversation – he was unhappy and depressed when I met him. Who was blaming for that? I patiently told him that the hole in him was so deep that I could completely fill it in the morning and by the afternoon it would be empty again.
Well now he has the well-healed, always wanted him, situationally moral woman of his dreams. Maybe she will succeed where I failed. Good luck with that.
Chump Princess – EXACTLY that.
I’ve got a similar scenario with my STBXW. I was blamed for everything related to her lack of accomplishments. I had been making her unhappy for months. Wait, actually, it was years. Or… wait… our marriage was almost NEVER happy or fair or a meeting of equals! I had invisible chains around her, keeping her from a life of fairy dust and sparkles and fulfillment and….
Now, I was a crappy husband some of the time, for sure, but that got distorted way beyond reason, and when I started questioning her accusations against reality (facts, numbers, etc.), the extent of the blameshifting started to become apparent, and I started to de-fog my chump brain and start to see through the BS.
Interestingly, she kept “asking” me for divorce, but I wanted some time to process and grieve and figure out what I wanted and how I wanted it. Initially, I reacted very poorly to that. But then I realized that her “asking” for a divorce and telling her family that I was so selfish for not “giving her a divorce” was also manipulative BS. She could have filed at any time, and then tried to work out the details with me. She could have taken initiative and offered a plan and a settlement, etc. Instead, she put on airs, wore her wedding rings to events where we appeared together, and just kept up with the facade.
If we’re all so terrible, why not take responsibility, and divorce our asses outright, instead of having an affair?
Because… at least on some level… CAKE. That’s why.
OMGoodness sephage!
Almost identical story to mine.
Chump Princess, she won’t and nobody can help these asses! I feel that no matter what anyone may think or say, my marriage DID NOT fail. I DID NOT fail my marriage. My cheater is the one who failed the marriage, me, his kids and sadly, himself! I take on none of the shit he tried to throw on my back. It was all smoke and mirrors. He wanted to screw around, so he did. He got caught in a hotel room by me with his Facebook married fuck buddy and I applied the proper consequences! This is on him and him only! My life is good. I survived him and Cancer this past two years and unlike the cheater I won’t squander the gift I’ve been given or the favor he did me!
I’m at work, but couldn’t help but peek at this column, because DING-DING-DING!!! *THIS* was the crux of his argument! I really look forward to reading all the responses above, later, relaxing after work with a glass of wine.
But here’s what I wanted to say: In one of the final emails I sent to XH, I actually used the term “yoke of oppression” (for which I was very proud — still am) because I could not believe the audacity of him trying to pin all the shit on me as if, “Oh-Woe-Is-He!”, he suffered SO stoically through SO many years of such a MISERABLE marriage.
Yoke of oppression, that’s what I came to represent. Dick.
I believe most cheating sacks of shit are unhappy. Yup. I said it. I truely believe that. I believe its exactly what they are looking for… besides rubbin themselves raw….its their high… Their crack. They want happy. And YOU are the source of their unhappiness. Bear with me.
I did a lot of reading after I was identified as the unhappiness in my Idiots life. I couldnt understand or wouldnt accept that he was unhappy. We had a great life. And yet as the affair unfolds and he is busted… What do I have to hear again and again and again…. ” im not happy”
So what did I learn about happy that put it in perspective for me? I learned that happiness is a fleeting emotion…and much like kibbles… One needs more happy to keep the happy meter at the full marker. Happy one minute… Now raging… Or crying. Its a fleeting emotion that is easily replaced by other emotions. Happiness is a grill cheese… Happiness is a moment in time… Happiness is ten seconds or one week. Now joy on the other hand… Well, joy is a much deeper more permanent emotion… That is more fufiling and is really the essence of your human being. Your place on the planet…and a belief that you are apart of something much bigger. The connectedness to this universe and all in it. I believe chumps feel joy. We get it. The value of a life.
Cheaters… They go for happy. YOLO! Yup life is a fucking Pez despenser of happy….. and they keep pumpin at that Pez despenser for more happy. And seriously its not more complicated than that.
Oh yes The Clip! I was trying to explain this to my older sister the other day and I’m not quite sure she got it! I DO get it and I believe that’s why after the horror of the last two years I can say I am now recovering and doing well. Happiness is fleeting and any truly mature individual can understand that. But joy is something that only you can possess and even though these fools try so hard to rob you of that joy it can’t be done! Like I told her, I can have a tough day, but I can bounce back. My ex has a bad day and he has to run to his Schmoopie to give him a shot of her special sunshine! He evidently was born miserable, he’ll always be miserable and he will die miserable! Forever unsatisfied! Not enough twerking whores to keep him happy!
Ha ha Roberta, thank you for the laugh 😀 “Not enough twerking whores to keep him happy!”
I truly enjoy reading everyone’s comments and replies on here…. but there are a few that ALWAYS entertain and have something phenomenal to say and TheClip is one of them. THAT… all of it…. every word… was perfectly executed….. the difference is JOY!! I love it…. I really wasn’t “happy” but yes “joy” in my boring, loving & everyday life with my children and family….my life isn’t easy but I do appreciate my life. What I didn’t appreciate was the unnecessary struggling caused by his irresponsible spending, I got tired of it. He made it so hard on everyone else, he NEVER went without… everyone else did. You can still love someone and NOT approve of their behavior.
Again… you are absolutely correct…..They feel happy…. chumps feel joy!! 😀 😀
Thanks! I needed the ego boost!
Standing ovation, TheClip.
Muchas gracias!
“Cheaters… They go for happy. YOLO! Yup life is a fucking Pez despenser of happy….. and they keep pumpin at that Pez despenser for more happy. And seriously its not more complicated than that.”
Life is the f*ing Pez dispenser of happy…… Love that TheClip. I believe that may be another memo that I missed along with the “I was unhappy, you were unhappy, we were unhappy” memo.
I have a photo I took of Ex, ten days before I found out he was cheating. He was sitting in his favorite chair in our living room and I took his photo, looking right at me smiling widely, looking right at me. Smiling. HAPPY. Ten days later I got a weird feeling when he gave some strange explanation for where he would be later that night, and when he didn’t get home till really late, I got suspicious and looked on the cell phone account. Seeing 100s daily texts and calls to one number I instantly knew. I confronted him that night and he reluctantly admitted it then launched into exactly this kind of revisionist history.
And lied, claiming he’d only known OW two weeks but was ready to destroy our sixteen years together for her. WTF? Seriously? It was months before I found CL, but I took that photo of him smiling at me, and made one of those meme captions on it… in which I wrote the date, and then “10 days later when I found he was cheating, he said he’d ALWAYS been unhappy in our relationship. Seriously? Lying Jackass.” I still cannot get my head around the fact that he was cheating from Day One and I never knew until six months after D-Day. And still tried to tell me he had never been happy with me. Had I known that, obviously I would not have wasted my time with him, but that is the problem with these flaming narcissists… that. Just. Doesn’t Matter. You are useful to them, until you’re not.
I have a photo of X that I took the first evening of vacation, this was the DAY after he casually met OWhore. We went to visit family in Mississippi so we went by their house first, our son wanted to stay with them while we checked in…. PERFECT!! Alone time for us!! So.. we had a fabulous ROMP in our fabulous hotel suite and I have a picture of him on my phone in all of his beautiful naked glory standing there with nothing but a beautiful smile and a towel hanging.
Less than 30 days later he would be professing his undying love to a woman he met 24 hours before this photo was taken. What.The.Fuck?????? And he wonders WHY I am painfully irrational??
I actually have video of ex at a party, saying how much he loved me, what a great wife I was, how I was always there for him, etc. etc. etc., which was taken by a friend at a party – when he was thick in his final affair, whilst still fucking other OW. Crazy shit.
NCStevie, it’s truly insane. It used to make me crazy now I almost laugh at how fucked up. I’ve always taken lots of photos and keep them all, so later, after finding his emails to OW#1, I could see he wrote to her on a Monday, right after a super nice weekend we had together, we went hiking, I took his photo next to a waterfall, lots of sex, I made homemade bread, etc. all our normal happy weekend stuff. The Monday email said “Thanks for a wonderful Friday night. You really made an effort for us and I truly appreciate it. It made up for a crappy weekend. Thank you for letting me into your world.” Crappy? WTF??? Tons more pics, line up the cheating with the normal, happy, seemingly stable family and couple stuff. Crazy making shit. I don’t look at the pictures anymore. I know enough to know this is a seriously seriously disordered lying POS who didn’t deserve to be in the same room with me, let alone a relationship for 16 years, side by side with me and my precious children.
WOW. Insane is right. THAT is crazy fucked up. I know our relationship wasn’t perfect…. but still… I was blindsided. While he was chatting up this whore at the competition I was driving 90 miles an hour back to our house to get his stupid posing suit that he forgot at our house and when I made it back with them before he had to go on stage…. he kissed me… thanked me and told me how much he loved me and appreciated me. Really? WTF is right. My new motto “WTF?”
And you are right… same with mine… seriously seriously disordered and my son and I both deserve better. I think I am finally starting to realize this.
Not.Redeemable.
I really hope CL can do a post on Cheater Photos/Videos. Like, recaptioning or restorying our lives. A sort of before/after Chump narrative.
Many times I’ve wished there was a place to post some of these WTF photos, perhaps with the face blurred like with CL’s Paris honeymoon pic, however, then you wouldn’t see my Ex’s psychopathic facial expressions, the smirk that probably derived from his pleasure in knowing he was getting away with his lies. Then there is that Xmas photo I always treasured… looked at it again after D-day and noticed something I never saw in all those years of treasuring photo of him hugging me and smiling for the camera… his middle finger sticking up behind my head. WTFFF?