Well, yesterday we explored how you can be completely blindsided by cheating. I mean, I had no idea. It never occurred to me to ask if he had a 20-year long affair, a kid, dodgy financials, or P.O. boxes. Whoddathunkit, right?
But like all chumps, in retrospect I could kick myself for being such a trusting chump.
So today, it’s time again to ask — in the vein of comedian Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might Be a Redneck If … — how you might be a chump. What are the signs? (See the clip for inspiration. If you’re a redneck chump — double bonus!)
Ever wonder what quirks are particular to chumps?
You might be a chump (YMBAC) if … instead of a happy marriage you have 80 perfectly tended rose bushes.
YMBAC if… you’ve bought the entire infidelity oeuvre on Amazon and underlined passages for your cheater, only to find them unread.
YMBAC if… you actually sort of believed he was sleeping in his car in Vermont in January.
YMBAC if… you received a tie-dyed license plate cover for Christmas… and that was the best present.
If your cheater has three cars, three motorcycles, four kayaks, and more boxes coming from eBay each day…. and his gift to you is a tie-dyed license plate cover? YMBAC.
If your children don’t really look anything like you… YMBAC.
YMBAC if… you book all your marriage counseling sessions… and pay for them.
Your turn chumps! I’m sure you’ve got material.
YMBAC if you assumed the thousands of texts and hours of phone conversations into the late night and early morning was “just” about an emotional affair.
YMBAC if you bought the “need” to go drinking and clubbing multiple nights a week alone or with “the girls.”
YMBAC if doubted your eyes and intuition even with hard evidence of an affair in the furry of a cheater at the height of gaslighting you.
YMBAC if you watched the movie “Fireproof” in marriage counseling and/or did the “Love Dare” to “win” back your cheater.
Cringe.
Double CRINGE…..
Triple cringe.
Quad to that.
YMBAC if you couldn’t understand why your youth-pastor husband WOULDN’T go to see “Fireproof” with you. I still have not seen it and I don’t think I can.
Don’t bother, it sucks. Wife cheats because husband is messed up, looking at porn, I think. He is the bad guy, and must win his cheating wife back. Message: cheating is justified.
Eww, perhaps evil does rule the world….
DM,
The OW “made” my ExH watch that movie Fireproof so that he could find his way back. ExH said “See what a great person OW is!” ugh
That’s just messed up, redless.
My ex gave Fireproof as the reason he decided we should reconcile. He said he watched it and didn’t want to be like the guy in the movie. Too bad that was total bullshit and there was nothing sincere about his reconciliation attempt. Turned out it was just a way to try and get out of paying support. I’m pretty sure he was still cheating during the eight months of bogus reconciliation as well. He’s a hardcore Jesus cheater.
I watched that movie twice during my break-up and even asked WAW to watch it and was thankfully met with indifference. The second time I saw it on I was actually going to text her and let her know…I am very glad I didn’t. That movie set me back a while.
I was encouraged to watch it. I’m so glad I didn’t. I admit I had a crush on Kirk Cameron in high school but that wasn’t enough to watch it. LOL! I had plenty of other things that set me back.
I actually asked a line from that movie to WAW. — “Do you think I am a good man?” I wasn’t expecting the answer I got. She said “Yes, but it doesn’t matter.” That will stick with me a while. I hate that movie.
YMBAC if you watched that movie while your husband hid behind his laptop and you think lalala that could never happen to me. LOL the movie sucked…but how odd my STBb. ashed all the indiscretions in that movie so admittedly! Now I know he was a single site and porn trolling extraordinaire WTH – crazy days!
What is ‘Fireproof’?
***Spoiler Alert: A movie that made its rounds here in the US among charismatic/evangelical/fundamental Christian circles about a guy addicted to porn who almost loses his wife. She is cheating on him with a married doctor. He does the “Love Dare” which is the nice way of saying the “Pick Me Dance” buys her parents some needed medical supplies then she finds out comes back to him. They do a marriage rededication. Many naive Christians think this is the way to solve marriage issues. Plus, the movie does little to actually address the affair. In my opinion, it is trash.
Nothing says “I love you” like medical supplies.
That made me lol. Catheter bag anyone?
I have had several religious types try to hoist this movie on me. I can’t stand Kirk Cameron.. can’t stand him. I would reconcile if my STBX had any sense of decency, but alas, he keeps lying and talking to the whore. No amount of medical supplies is going to do the trick.
My ex said it was the married doctor who cheats with the wife that reminded him of himself.
Geez. Sorry, Glad. 🙁
Of course, Glad, because Mr. Sasquatch is, like, a doctor!!
Aahahah!
Hahahahaaa!
Of COURSE your ex is like the married doctor! Completely clueless, that one. Ugh.
Glad, honestly? Your ex takes the cake.
I wrote a whole post about my disgust regarding that movie and its accompanying book….here: http://www.divorceminister.com/i-hate-the-movie-fireproof/
Wow, I was so sure that I could fix my marriage by doing the Love Dare! I went too three bookstores looking for the little brown book. I watched the movie…twice. I was so sure this was my saving grace…. Its just like everyone says, a load of crap!
Whelp, glad I missed that one. Sounds like mind fuckery at its finest.
Sounds like the movie makes a justification for cheating.
And for putting the burden on the non-cheater to “win” back the cheater.
What a crock of crap.
What I find particularly REVOLTING is the sanctimony this crap piece of fiction seems to lend to smug ignorant types who use it as justification for counseling chumps. It is further evidence that some people really are quite stupid.
WTF is it with married doctors? That was my ex’s first affair (that I know about). Maybe she saw the movie?
Doctors are a cheating group (not all of course) and many women like their status and paycheck (although both are falling) They (many of them anyway) have big egos that need filling! I am a nurse. For many years people said why didn’t you marry a doctor? That is why & then it happened anyway!
Oh no, Divorce Minister!!! I did the 40 day dare, too 🙁
Another spoiler alert; IT DIDN’T WORK!
I didn’t do the dare. But did watch the movie. My ex LOVED the movie. I remember her telling me that she loved how Caleb never confronted his wife for cheating but just the doctor. That should have told me everything I needed to know about her extra-curriculars…alas, it took a few more months before that became painfully obvious.
OMG Triple cringe!! I watched that movie and did the dare too. What a waste of time.
I’m embarrassed to admit I tried it too! Another waste of my precious time!
My now ex actually bought me the book for Christmas even though he was 2 years into his second affair with a second ho-worker. I threw the book into a fire pit after I found it. YMBAC if….
Irony. Definition.
Watched the movie with ExH. Waste of time. He read the book and underlined all the “to do’s” and the love types. Well when I left….the book got shredded and tossed onto the bed.
Me.
ME Me ME ME ME.
That sounds like your ex.
Oh, but I’m SURE he asked YOU how HE could be a better husband, right?
WHAaaaAAaAT? He didn’t???
I’m SHOCKED NOT shocked.
Quadruple Cringe.!! And I had ever other darn book frm the Familylife website. I read every article on that site on marriage all to no avail. Now they have some good info. Just doesn’t apply to a sociopath
That was the asshole the first 7 yrs of marriage, clubbing almost every week while I was sahm. I was young and naive and did not ferociously complain about this. On one argument he explained he goes to the clubs not to pick up girls but he just liked the atmosphere ( yup the sweet atmosphere of abundant free pussy on heels) Fast forward 7yrs I reminded him of this response and he looks at me blankly. Asshole apparently forgot he told me this.
“(yup the sweet atmosphere of abundant free pussy on heels)”
My coffee just came out of my nose…..hahaha
Holy crap, that is hilarious!
He suddenly bought a heap of new clothes and underwear, his phone developed connection problems when he was away on business, I never received the necklace I found a receipt for….
Saw the clues but did not connect the dots.
He gave me a handcuff charm ONLY, without a chain for my 40th birthday. That was it!!!! I learned later he gave a matching charm to OW with a chain and God only knows what else. He was in law enforcement. After that d-day I hated every gift he ever gave me. He was so thoughtful to his whores. I never bought a chain for that ridiculous charm, I think I LOST it. A-hole STBXh
Wait–
He got YOU, for YOUR birthday, a reminder of HIS occupation.
“Here, honey. I’m fabulous. I’m a cop. And for your special day, here’s a special reminder to put around your neck or wrist (whatever you purchase because I’m too preoccupied) of how fabulous I am. Happy Birthday, which is really about me, if you think about it.”
OMG! U too? I found a coach purse and a tiffany necklace receipt. Never got em!! They are all the same
She rated a Tiffany necklace for her birthday. I got a a $30 bouquet. Hmmm.
You got a birthday present? Better than Cheater #2. Don’t even get me started on anniversaries……GRRRRR!!!
Her Blondness–I’ve been thinking about you? How are you doing with Cheater #2? (and how are you yourself?)
You actually allowed your cheater to make you believe you were crazy, paranoid, disoriented, too anxious, too high strung, too weird, too negative, not sexy enough, don’t dress right, don’t cook the right meals, are not a good parent, don’t push the tube of toothpaste right, don’t buy the right salad mix, don’t wear high heels.. etc etc etc.
For a while, you really did the introspective work of trying to fix yourself and pretzel to keep your chump. Because you know you have faults and you took the criticism to heart.
If you did these things, YMBAC but alas, you are definitely a quality human being.
Keep your “cheater” I should say
>< Been there too… I guess luckily I've gone in to my next relationship very aware of how helpful all the introspective work was now that I'm in a healthy relationship!
I was told, when he started hanging out with 20 something single dope smoking losers (he is 41, paunchy, grouchy and recently a braggart) who I feared were a bad influence that “I am the alpha dog. They don’t control me. You don’t control me. NO ONE CONTROLS ME.” Found out he is cheating. I’m new to the chump arena and am still reeling. Apparently I have 4 kids. Not 3. One teenager was hard enough. Ugh.
Lol, you don’t buy the right salad mix, really? That is certainly grounds for an affair!
I left my coffee mugs in the sink, unwashed. I left pens in the pockets of my apron that went into the washing machine. I allowed him to treat me like ass.
I enjoyed the crab cakes HE made on Thanksgiving – after dday he said to me, “You think I like crab cakes on Thanksgiving?” WTF? I was also a snob & had a job not a career. Go ahead f the OWhore & life will be sooo much better than life with me.
hurt1, I still think that crab cakes story is one of the most crazy-assed things I’ve read on this blog. Who turns a Thanksgiving menu into a reason for cheating? Especially since it was his menu choice? gah
You know what, though, this is basically a metaphor for what all our cheaters do. They make choices to suit themselves, then turn around and blame us as if we were the ones who did it.
Even though I was in shock as he had just revealed his cheating a few minutes before, I was able muster a laugh & said, “you have to be kidding.” He answer was to spew all the crap cheaters use to justify their exit.
I kept the refrigerator and pantry too full of food.
I also spoiled the dogs so much that they whined at us to play with them when we tried to watch TV. My bad.
Tempest, how could you? No wonder he had to cheat, what with you keeping food in the house! 😉
Well, GladIt’sOver, sometimes a Tupperware container would fall out when he opened the refrigerator. You can imagine how irritating that must have been, and caused him to want to have his whatzit stroked by a 20-something (just to relieve the stress). I was such a bad wife.
Sitting here, shaking my head….
If only they would be honest.
“I HAD to cheat, because you are not strange puss to me, and you don’t revolve around me and tell me all the time how fabulous I am. And even if you could transform yourself into several different women who are all designed to please me, you still wouldn’t do it right. Plus, you’re not the boss of me, and I like to wander. Could you hurry up with my laundry?”
Yeah, and while you are at it get those crap streaks out of my underwear woman! You know my side piece is turned off by that, get on it!
Snort. I made the greivous mistake of having cotton balls in the house (they frightened him); buying an onion once in 10 years (no onions ever); and asking him to touch a wet towel (wet towels…wet laundry of any type was scary) once. How dare I.
Someday, someone will chase him in his nightmares wielding wet towels, cotton balls, and waving an onion. Giggle.
I didn’t do enough of his laundry when the kids were little, I don’t like sailboats and I dress too conservatively (says my Jesus cheater.) I think they actually believe this crap.
Mine accused me of not wearing high heels, even though I have foot issues. No man is going to tell me how to dress. F him.
Mine said the same thing about high heels. When I refused to wear them he said I just didn’t make him a priority. Then that was his favorite line and that is what he is still telling everyone. I didn’t tell him what to wear. Pig.
This is so patently ridiculous, it’s hard to even respond.
The thing is, though. you cannot win with these people. Even if your whole closet were full of Louboutins and Manolo Blahniks, they’d still find a reason that you were falling short of the mark and they needed to cheat.
Oh sure. Then it would be complaints how we dressed too slutty or something. Blah blah blah blah. Ultimately their words mean nothing. It’s just painful at the time.
I took the produce sticker off of an apple once and stuck it on the counter absentmindedly (instead of immediately putting it in the trash). And I saved plastic bags so that I could take them to Walmart to recycle (it made the broom closet too full he said). And left my shoes by the door when I got home, instead of immediately walking upstairs to put them in the closet.
All of this ^^^^^^ = me being a “hoarder”. This is what he told everyone in his family and his friends.
Keelog–you and I could start a new show, how Hoarder Chumps drove their Cheater to Fuck Around (on the Lifetime channel). I didn’t put my shoes away immediately either [ ;: O], and (even though our downstairs always looked like a home decorating magazine spread) the cupboards were too full of food & different sets of dishes (we entertained a lot).
Our poor long-suffering spouses. You can see how the horrors of living with us guaranteed they would need the solace of another woman….off to flagellate myself for my bad habits…..
YMBAC if you actually wondered how you could be the reason he had to cheat on you, the reason he KEPT cheating on you, and then the reason he had to give the other piece of ass up! I was actually responsible for all this without even knowing he was doing it! Talk about the magical powers I have! I make people do all kinds of things without even trying! And, I was willing to try to figure this mindfuckery out!!
Precisely my story too! Wasn’t wrong salad mix though – I didn’t use the right size pot to steam green beans in.
Apparently when I cook, there are cooking smells in the house. This is wrong, and I’m trying to kill him. Who knew that cooking a simple pasta sauce with garlic had so much lethality?
“Apparently when I cook, there are cooking smells in the house. This is wrong, and I’m trying to kill him.”….
KB….. I laughed so hard thought I was going to pass out!
Thats cuz he’s an emotional vampire, and garlic = death for him, you see. 😀
Bring on more garlic!
You have magical powers, kb, could you please give some to me?
Oh holy of NO-HE-DID-NOT say that! Laughed so hard I fell right off the chair. That. Is. Classic.
I used the wrong knife to slice tomatoes! Ugh.
I had too many different bottle of shampoo in the shower!!! Gasp! And when I ate chips, they made crunching noises. Don’t know how he tolerated me. 🙂
Jabber I bet that pot would have been the perfect sise for belting him over the head with!
Who the fuck cares what size pot you cook beans in? If they get cooked, they get cooked.
The stupidity of these cheaters never ceases to astound me.
newchumpatl, what you said.
if nothing you do is good enough
^^THIS!^^
Yes, my new name for X is “He-who-cannot-be-pleased.”
(any other Rumpole of the Bailey fans out there? he called his wife “She-who-must-be-obeyed”)
I loved Rumpole anyway, though!!! His nickname for his wife was so appropriate I really couldn’t fault him for having such a sense of humor about it. At least Rumpole was smart enough not to say things like that to her face!
I refer to asswipe as “he who must not be named” ala Voldemort in Harry Potter.
Magicrain that is it really isn’t it? If I listed all the YMBAC ifs I’d be here for weeks. So I’ll take yours and will only add:
YMBAC if you genuinely forgot, forgave, swept aside all the misdemeanours, insults, lies and could not see the fluorescent flashing alarm screaming signs even though you saw them. And then after all that you believed the non existent remorse was real. Only to suffer more of the same shit in different shades and aromas before yep more forgiving, forgetting, sweeping… And so on and so on and so on and…
These words are mine verbatim!
Ditto….damn
I had beautiful gardens and roses bushes. The inside was painted multiple times. It was picture perfect! How funny! A friend commented that it was all filling the gap…. Uh huh!
Same here. Once I moved out, my ex tended to the garden and took all the credit for it.
YMBAC if you thought you would die without the disordered asshole in your life!
Amen!
That’s right! How amazing that life can actually be easy, and we didn’t die!
I really thought I was going to die during the hellacious first months after Dday. Good Lord, what was I thinking?
Me too. But with time, pharmaceuticals & an excellent IC, I finally accepted the reality that he was a cheater, a liar & a spreader of an STD. I do get teary-eyed when I think of all the years that were loving & fun.
Hurt1, which pharmaceuticals. Thinking about going back on Lexapro, but open to suggestion.
The real problem is, I don’t think anything would be needed if I was in a place of financial and emotional support freedom. But my family other than my son consists of a bunch of narcissist assholes who love to scapegoat. I allowed my finances to be intertwined with his and we weren’t married. I hate to dump my problems on friends, at least at not until I’m stronger. So which meds work? I think I am going to try Lexapro again, just waiting on insurance.
Team Lexapro here!
Started with Lexapro, needed more support through Christmas and was put on Paxil…I am even a better me!
Jen,
Lexapro & Wellbutin saved me. Not to be all woe is me, but my parents are deceased & my brother lives overseas with his family.I moved to this area 26 years ago because of ex’s job. He’s gone & so is my financial security (until I’m 59 !/2 years old – 10 years way). Oh, how I wish I had had family to have helped me through this.
Visiting my only family now, my sister. Today I went to the cemetery and sat on my dad’s headstone & cried & cried. He was so wise, and I so miss his counsel. If anyone had the magic words, it would’ve been him.
The lack of financial security is the thing that keeps me pissed off at times. Everything ‘we’ worked for is gone. He has the money and I’m struggling like hell. It’s not as bad as it was but I definitely do not feel secure. Wish I was the kind of woman to go for a sugar daddy (or young enough to do it!).
Mehphista’s momma had the same thing happen, too. Somehow she got there, and is now in comfortable retirement. I think it was just plain grit, she had no choice. But she got her degree, worked her way up through her field, all after age 45. She’s awesome.
I get those days, at which point, I tell myself to shut up, and trust the magic. I think one of the post-chumpery headfucks after finding out you only control you is that the universe really does have the first move sometimes. Living hand to mouth is not what I had in mind, at all, nor am I working in my original field. Scary, but kind of scary good.
I won’t get what I planned, because much of it was connected to what I THOUGHT I had as opposed to what was, which was toxic. What I WILL get, though, is something new. Better. Meanwhile, yep, it sucks to be in your financial teens when rocking towards 50.
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”
bug hugs,
x-Meh.
Yep. I’m more or less meh these days except for the money. I know I will never see the $41000 he owes me. Considering he has moved back in with his father to live rent-free, still has no job and still is doing whatever he feels like doing, it doesn’t seem likely he is going to change. It’s hard for me to believe this is the same man who once had an excellent career and a lovely home.
Yes, I remember thinking I wanted to die but could not because of the children….sigh….
It is good to know I am so much better now. But I will never forget or quite fully get over that hurt and pain. It was more immense than the sea.
One of my friends was amused, because she checked with me post-D-Day to make sure I wasn’t going to harm myself, and I said, “No!! because then X would have to raise the 13 yo daughter!”
“But I will never forget or quite fully get over that hurt and pain. It was more immense than the sea.”
THIS! Thank you Kelly!
I still had a relationship with my MIL a few months after dday. I remember telling her that I had cried a bathtub’s worth of tears. Her response was “oh really” with a dumbstruck tone. WTF? Your son cheated, ran away & left me financially strapped for months until my attorney had me file for support. What the hell did MIL think I was doing all alone & scared for my future?
This^^ The first three days after dday. Glad I no longer owned guns. I would have eased my pain. Good It hurt.
**God it hurt!!!
YMBAC if you find a profile for Adult Friend Finder setup to his name and you believe it was because Microsoft AutoFill inputed his information even though it was his “friend” who was using the computer and site…
YMBAC if when he says ” Get health insurance, I want a divorce” over the phone part of you thinks he must still care for you in some capacity because he’s worried about your health
YMBAC if you catch him in more than 10 lies and you believe he only lied because he was afraid of your reaction to the truth (despite the number of times you’ve told him lying is far worse)
YMBAC if you send in all your post separation emails to some “save your marriage alone” guy on the Internet to ensure you are dancing the pick me dance properly
Today would have been our 5 year anniversary…today happily single (most days) and laughing that she took him off my hands.
Oh yes…and how could I forget….YMBAC if you were the mistresses clothing and believe you still might be able to save your marriage
Ashley..today would have been my 16th anniversary! Thankfully it was just “another day”. It’s been over a year since he decided to leave his family for the OW. I am finally comfortable with my life!
Ha Ha Ha “save your marriage guy on the internet”… I so did that!
YMBAC if your husband’s Internet search history contains the phrase, “guys fucking,” and when you ask him about it, he glares at you and replies, “So what?”
Or how about finding Plenty of Fish (dating site) saved on his computer and deciding he confused it with something about the ocean because he is a scuba diver?
Some of these are SOOOOO funny!
Have a happy weekend Chumps, go have some fun!
That’s priceless, Nicole S. I’m sure POF is FULL of marine biologists.
Lol! I’m brighter than that I promise. Just hardcore chump.
You win Nicole, that’s priceless!
Do I win a year’s subscription to POF? 😉
Only if it connects you with NON-CHEATERS!!
Amen to that.
YMBAC if you find a credit card statement with Ashley Madison listed and you actually believed him when he said it was a bill for the head hunting firm that recruited him for his vice president postion he was hired for…..
Head hunting. heh
He was telling the truth…. he was hunting for head!
YMBAC if you believed in your heart that he LYBIILWY …and found out that Schmoopie moved into your former home on FB.
His girlfriend (nothing against her, I’m just afraid for her) put up a new FB profile photo…she’s obviously standing on the balcony of the condo that I STILL PARTIALLY OWN because it’s taken my ex this long to refinance (closing might be Monday, fingers crossed). The divorce went through in July 2013.
I did all those things newchumpatl! I must be a Chump!!!
Ah, but you are a quality person….
Your idiot, irresponsible, immature, lying, cheating, unprofessional, moronic douche bag gets fired for sexual harassment and you suspect he was sleeping with the accuser or others and you don’t follow your intuition and stay with him anyway!
My ex had multiple affairs with coworkers, threesomes and orgies, sent pictures of his dick to a woman there, ran naked through a public park to “surprise” another guy there. And yet when they told him he could quit or be fired, he threatened to sue THEM for sexual harassment.
That is just gross !
Glad,
You should write a screenplay.
Yes, Glad, YOU should write the screenplay and be the one to get fame and fortune, instead of Sasquatch man. Wouldn’t that be sweet??
Kelly, I like your style! Go for it, Glad. You could get the Coen brothers to direct.
Are they the ones that did “The Big Lebowski?”
“This aggression will not stand, man!”
Call your movie “Delusional”
YMBAC if…he leaves to go on a surprise cruise trip (without you) and you send him texts wishing him a nice time.
YMBAC if…you write a check for his airline ticket from his recent trip to Germany to visit your son (who he visited one day but spent the rest of the week in a different town telling you he didn’t want to be “picked on by his family”) and then you see the name of his old girlfriend pop up on his phone shortly after.
YMBAC if…you garden, cook, work, pay bills, taxi children, book romantic vacations alone with a man that will tell you you are a frigid pole if you dare mention his affair and constantly remind you of what a bad mother and wife you are therefore he needs to cheat, (oh and you actually feel sorry for him and go to MC to save the rotten marriage)
YMBAC if…you let the MC convince you that if you just tried harder, “knocked his socks off in bed” or tried to do your best thwart his temper tantrums, that he may actually really become the man and companion you thought you married.
Sounds like our marriage counselor… I was BAD at the pick me dance. REAL BAD.
Chumpedtothemax, You totally get it !!!! Ditto.
Wow, ChumpedtotheMax,great MC. And that was a chump, too. Paying for it.
or a trip with “co-workers” to mexico. only to find out the ticket only had his and her name on it, along with the hotel reservations
YMBAC…….if you trust that most people are good.
YMBAC…….If you took back and forgave a cheat. Only to be burnt again 🙁
YMBAC……if you let a MC/psychologist tell you that you need to own your part of the blame in your cheating spouses affair!!
Wow, I could do this all day :))
Oh Kraft, that hurt! Because despite pretty much everything here fitting, these are the ones that fit me best.
Hi, my name is Karen, and I was SUCH a Chump. (Not anymore, though!!!!)
Me too Kraft….you just described everything about me and my story! I did the best “pick me” dance only to be cheated on again…but this time he left me and moved in with the ugly OW. That was a year ago…and I’m with you Karen–NOT ANYMORE!!
LOL at all the great comments!!!
YMBAC if… you believe your spouse when he wants to give a “random” female co-worker $1000 to help her and her struggling family because it’s the “right thing to do.” And she’ll pay it back…yeah right…
Oh the follow up – of course that turned out to be the OW… She paid it back all right…
Though, I guess at this point I’m kinda grateful, she has the crazy messed up narcissistic relationship (they are BOTH narcissists), and I actually have a loving, caring person who makes me feel like a princess. 😀
Was it paid back in pussy currency?
I thought it was called “Bit on the side” coin.
lol!!
Haaaaa!
How about “dyk currency?” lol My exazzhole told me he was helping a male friend cheat. That’s why thousands of dollars were missing from the account and there were umpteen hotel charges on the statement. And his response when i said well where is the money he paid u back? “Uhhh I spent it!” WTF?!!! A guy helping a guy cheat? yeah….right…..
OMG, mine did this too! He gave $1000 to his assistant to help her through some tough times. His assistant was horrible at her job and it had been suggested to him on several occasions by other managers that he should let her go. He told me he felt bad for her…now I’m wondering if he f’d her too but I never asked him when I found out about all the others. He was either f’ing her or she knew about his other ho workers and it was hush money. The $1000 did get paid back but I was pissed when he gave it to her. A manager should never lend money to a direct report – I tried to tell him there has to be a company rule about this! She still works for him to this day.
Yes! The OW was TERRIBLE at her job and even he talked about how he needed to let her go (he was her supervisor as well). I kept wondering why he kept her around…and found out the hard way of course.
The fun part was that I worked there too…so I turned in the evidence of their affair to the GM, and they were both “invited to leave.” Lol!
A manager should never fuck a subordinate but the only thing under ex was the OWhore.
My ex also was given $1000 by a woman who was renting a room in his house during our separation and during bogus reconciliation after Dday. I was suspicious about the relationship between the two of them, they seemed to always be texting each other and having long talks late at night. Long after she had moved out of the house and long after our reconciliation ended, I actually emailed her to ask if anything had ever gone on with them. Got a bizarre response, and then that very same day she loaned him $1000 to help write his book about himself (I saw the check on the bank account record.) I still don’t know for sure, but I assume my suspicions were correct and they were sleeping together.
OMG my cheater pants is ALWAYS helping someone! some friend of a friend. The magic amount was 5k. Every time. For years I believed him. Add this to my list of being a chump. Damn what a gullible ass I was.
YMBAC if you actually believed that the reason he phoned you several times a day was because he actually cared about you and wanted to speak to you.
Yeah, they do that to chart your whereabouts. Mine was constantly burning up my phone. But oddly not available when I called his. #redflag
Mine NEVER answered his phone when I called him…it was always “dead” or he was on a work call or he was out of cell range, etc. But whenever his phone rang at home (especially if we were in the middle of family time, dinner, discussion) he was johnny on the spot. Passive-aggressive douche.
Mine would call to make sure I was at the park with our son, then bring OW to our house to fuck her.
Yep: screenplay.
Oh Yes thats so everything I got…and CL the not avail when calling his phone. He has said recently….but I called you all the time because I cared. I know he called all the time to get his kibbles and to chart my whereabouts/
Shit, Shit, Shit !!!!!!
This makes me so mad! He would call me when I was on my job driving in a fucking blizzard, at night, to ‘see how you are’, and what’s your ETA?
It took me forever, and the find my phone app, to see what he was doing- running home to our house ten minutes before I got there. Ugh, I am a great big Chump, I thought he was caring about my welfare. I think he was, a little, but it was like 95/5, his kibble fun/my safety
Yup, me too. And he used to call on his way home to joke that I needed to make sure my boyfriend was gone. It’s so funny I forgot to laugh.
My x used to blow a gasket if I didn’t let him know my work schedule (I’m a shift worker), when I had appointments or even when I made plans to do the grocery shopping.
RED FLAG – spouse wants to know your whereabouts at all times but can’t be located, contacted or even vaguely describe their itinerary for you!
Or texts “are you getting off early today?” when I had slowdowns at work. Mother effer! His business at our house, now my house, its still here. Yeah right so he could get her out of my bed before I got home. I made the bastard buy me a new bed. A virgin bed!
A Virgin bed. I love it!
For a few years after dday before I thought about dating, I called myself a born-again-virgin as ex was the only man I was ever with sexually.
Yes me too. I was one for one. One fucktard to many. He probably lost count.
I’m impressed. He was number five for me, two of them were long term, engagements even.
My sister has numbers and thinks this makes for good experience. So does my son’s father, who when trying to woo me back imbetween breakups with current x, used his experience as a selling point. He said he’s gotten to be quite good now, better than he was when he was my fiancé/baby daddy.
I just do not care. Neither of them were the best I’ve ever had and I would venture to say I taught both of them a thing or two. It’s not about numbers. It’s about spirit, connection, and for gods sake just knowing what you’re doing.
They are so empty, of course they need multiple partners.
YMBAC if you are happy he is going out with co-workers because he works so hard and never had many friends.
YBMAC if he calls you to wonder if he should drive home drunk and then you say, “NO, Honey, be safe. Stay at the office for tonight.”
Same here, SSSF.
What about a cab?
Jen, I believe that’s what this whole YMBAC post is about. The answer is: I was a chump.
You know your a chump when you open the mail and there are records of him getting HIV testing within weeks of DDay.
YMBAC if you find period stains on your new sheets and you are post menopause.
YMBAC if he is no longer interested in sex because of excessive masturbation and porn use.
YMBAC if he constantly looks at young girl and on DDay you imagine he found a beautiful replacement only to find out she is ugly, trashy, addicted to drugs, gambling, alcohol, and has a history of disorderly conduct, assault, and mental health issues. Yes, I was replaced by miss piggy!
NewbieChump: Yes, but she’s so non-judgmental and understands what his struggles are at work! And he’s met her husband, and he’s okay with them having lunch together and going out to talk about work.
Oh Donna, big deal! Be happy! Water seeks it’s own level, who knew it was sewer water. He sounds like my ex, he met his “twin” on Facebook ! She can have his stupid ass!
Sorry Donna, that comment sounded flip. What I meant was, we are far better than the OW and deep inside our cheaters know this. They pick these unfortunate looking ,dumb as a box of rocks ,sub humans to make them “feel” superior! The ex is a miserable wanna be intelligentsia, problem is, he’s stupid as shit! She just makes him “feel” smarter! Besides, it’s hard to show her how brilliant and successful you are when your ex wife just stripped you of every damn thing you worked for all your life PLUS your future earnings and retirement pay too! Let Miss Piggy have him! She has a broke 60 year old man. Lucky her!
Roberta, it didn’t sound flip. It is right on. I would come home from work smiling and he would be angry. I kept saying, he just doesn’t like it when I’m happy. I love my job, my family, and my home. He was a dick plain and simple, yeah right. That is being too kind. The other woman is a classless whore. But him, he is an idiot. Both my therapist and lawyer both said he is dumb. I am laughing because the dick got a whore who makes less than half my salary. You have to be pretty limited to give up your entire family for a cheap fuck. He has no retirement and I kept my pension. He is pissing through the money he was supposed to be saving for our retirement home. I know he is NOT happy. She has him posing with a fucking lap dog with bows, listens to country music, and sits at a casino for hours with her on his lap chugging beer. He likes none of these things!! In the past I always took him back, this time I filed. He is also close to 60, balding, hearing loss, pisses the bed, and is the most boring person I have ever met. Narcissists do not age well and his supply is GONE. He doesn’t work for 5 months out of the year and instead of getting a job to hold him over he goes on fuck hunts for other women. I have finally detoxed from this asshole. He was always thinking he missed something. Yes, I agree. He missed a link to morals, appreciation, and love. I am past the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of the discard. There is no logic to their distorted reality. I expect some day a narcissist wakes up and realizes there is an ugly whore attached to the used up vagina. Lets face it, they are fucked if they stay with the OW and fucked if they don’t. They have no where to go. We are free!!! Our life will be so much better. I am sure of this.
Donna, we dodged a bullet. Let the HO take care of them! I agree they don’t age well. My ex has been nothing but sick, actually was hospitalized and has a central line in now because he gets so many infections in his lungs. He’s a mess! He’s stuck with that nasty piece of trash he found on Facebook now and no one in the family will have anything to do with him! I have been told he isn’t happy, but he supposedly wanted the divorce so he could be with the tramp! It’s just tragic all around!
It is tragic for them Roberta. At this point almost a year from DDay I cry less and have shifted my focus on my future. He try’s to inch his way back to familiarity using my granddaughter. She shares information about his life. He got a new vehicle (spending the money he hid). Asks how I’m doing (mask on) and missing supply. I was a forgiving person once. I have changed for the better. I remind myself that I am worthy of respect. I have become selfish with my love. He too wanted a divorce and never filed. He was confident I would do the pick me dance. My therapist said if I ever went back with him he would destroy me by upping the injury. I never wanted to face the pain and hoped he would change. We dated at 16 and got married at 21. We had three children and struggled. I loved my life and tolerated the abuse for 36 years of marriage. He was stuck developmentally and lived like a teenager. He always worked against me and blamed everything on me for many years. As sick as it sounds I loved a cold calculating narcissist tha lead a double life. It’s on them Roberta. The other women are objects. They only love themselves. I am grateful he has limited contact with our adult children. I have finally detatched from him and the false memories, complaints, detective work, lies, other women, triangulation, Reconcilliation, and hopium. We have ourselves back. That is what we can control, a brighter future.
Thank you for this comment Donna. It was something I needed to hear today. It was heart-healing.
I agree with Chump Princess. With a few minor detail changes this was my life also. Always looking the other way with the emotional abuse that comes with the territory of a narcissist.
Thank you, Donna, for putting this so eloquently.
“You know your a chump when you open the mail and there are records of him getting HIV testing within weeks of DDay. ”
My ex used to donate blood all the time, and this was back in the days when they would ask you not to donate if you were a man who slept with men. He would just lie about it. It wasn’t until years later that I realized he was using the blood donation process as a covert way of getting HIV tests. Actually, it amazes me he never tested positive after all of his gay bath house exploits.
YMBACI………..
He drools over his brother’s wife who is a tall willowy brunette, while you are a petite blonde. He says you should dye your hair to match hers. You think, well he’s entitled to his opinion.
You get into a small fender bender and you are upset and crying when you get home. He looks at you with those dead reptilian eyes and tells you to shut up. ……and you do.
You go to one session with a MC , cheater ex admits to an affair ongoing, and the MC refuses to even address it. You don’t stand up for yourself.
You find yourself with an outbreak of a permanent STD when the only person you have had sex with in the last ten years was him, and he accuses you of cheating and exposing him to it. And you don’t throw his worthless cheating mass out because you haven’t connected the dots.
Yep…..a chump to the core…..that was me. I’m older and a lot wise now. ZERO tolerance for narcissistic bull now. Thanks to CL for helping me understand better how they operate.
Aside from all the tell-tale traditional red flag signs of cheating…
YMBAC if your spouse acts like an entitled teenager instead of a partner.
YMBAC if you do research on open marriages after d-day.
YMBAC if you have Plastic Surgery and think you really did it for yourself.
YMBAC if a woman’s shirt that is not yours turns up in your suitcase after he flies to see you (at his vacation condo) after being apart for 2 months.
YMBAC if after that two months, you think that he made the effort because it’s Valentine’s Day weekend, but he has the chance to rent his condo and net a couple hundred bucks, so you spend 11 hours driving home on Valentine’s Day.
YMBAC if he thinks far enough ahead about Valentine’s Day to ask you to edit a photo of him and his daughters so he can have it printed and framed for each of them… and completely forgets it’s Valentine’s Day while you’re driving his ass 11 hours home.
YMBAC if you also notice his phone is now always left in his car or pocket when he’s at your house, even though he used to leave it on the counter, and you think it’s not good news, but you also don’t think you should leave without solid proof.
And best of all, YMBAC if even though you finally realize he’s having at least one affair, he treats you like a convenience, and you want out, but think you should stick it out a couple more months because you don’t want to dump him before he has knee surgery or right before his birthday.
YMBA reformed C if you’re lucky enough to meet the man I did right after I set myself free and finally realize I’m worth being treated like I’m the love of someone’s life. 🙂
Yep! HUGE clue! My ex used to leave his phone out in the living room charging or laying around overnight…suddenly it was attached to him and never left his person. Well, except that one day he left it out when he went running and I read all of their disgusting unicorn and rainbow lovey dovey texts with LOTS of emojis. I texted her from his phone that she should tell her boyfriend to password protect his phone and left. Long story but we had a vacation plan the next day and he went anyway without me!!!! WHO DOES THAT? He said we “needed a few days to clear our heads.” Yes, she and her husband were friends of ours. And yes, she told him the next morning that she was taking US to the airport. Which, he of course knew was a lie because he knew I knew because he was reading her emails…
Yeah, when the only time you see his phone is when he’s texting first thing in the morning, when he’s trying to hide that he has it when he goes to the bathroom for a long sit, If he grabs it and tucks it away when a text comes in when it’s lying on the console in the car… LOL
I have never looked in anyone’s wallet, gone through their papers, let alone poked through a phone, but when I was at his place one night and got up to let the dog out at 3am and saw it sitting on his counter charging…well, you better believe I looked. For all his stealth, he also did not have it password protected. All I had to see was that there were several emails and replies to emails from a “username@talkmatch.com”. Didn’t even bother to read any of them, because it didn’t matter. It meant he had to have a live account if he answered email.
Made the excuse that I couldn’t sleep, went home, found his active profile, composed a very short ‘dump’ email and waited. Sure enough, probably 5 minutes after he got his arse out of bed, the profile went to “online now.” I took a screenshot, pasted it in the email and hit SEND.
Done! Thank god I wasn’t married to the idiot, and getting out was relatively easy once he stopped stalking me!
That is so awesome. He had a match profile that isn’t active, but he checks the matches. (I looked at his email and knew he had read them.). I signed up for match.com with an awesome profile knowing he would likely get me as a match. I used a picture I cropped him out of as a profile pic. I only kept it open a month because I was getting emails I had no I tension of responding to. I hope he saw it though. I can play passive aggressive too!
Champ, Not Chump- Yes! I already had red flags- my intuition was SCREAMING at me. I’m not a big snooper either. I just needed proof and then poof 15 years of marriage was OVER…after he went to go run the marathon I started calling lawyers and moving half of the money. He had the nerve to text me that he PR’d. You know, in case I cared. Meanwhile I could only eat rice and would even puke that up thinking about them…ASSHAT
Ymbac … when you see a friend request he send to a downgrade on fb and swears that his fb has been acting up and is sending random friendship request .
YMBAC if you sleep with the fucker after a few hours of catching him in bed with the fugly owhore because you believed his lies and excuses ( seriously suffered from emotional/ psychological abuse)
YMBAC if you seriously considered believing the fucker that his online dating profile with his PIC was set up for a work colleague. Work colleague I was told could not approach women therefore enlisted his help to….to…to create a dating profile with assholes PIC. With asshole trolling the site for potential fuck buddies. With asshole online chatting/ calling/ meeting/ fucking these online hoes. I’m still trying to figure out how this helped said work colleague * insert sarcastic eye roll*
YMBAC if your wife shows up at 2:30 AM and says, “I just got a ride home from some guy, don’t make a big deal of it, I didn’t want to wake you up to have to come get me…”
YMBAC if you think, “My God, she wouldn’t actually demolish a 30+ year seemingly great marriage…by doing what it sure seems like she’s doing. Would she?”
YMBAC if you find yourself groping to change how you dress, look, relate because she always seems irritated at you for no reason that you can understand.
YMBAC if the harder you work to try to please her and up your game, the angrier she gets.
Yep, I could keep this up for quite a while.
YMBAC if the OW visits you at your home when you’re alone (pre D-Day), and you greet her with lemonade, homemade cookies, and an inviting chase lounge outside for her to relax on a hot summer day, and she, without asking your approval, takes off her shirt and bra and starts to “catch some rays” topless….and, though you think it a bit odd, you say nothing because you don’t want to offend her.
YMBAC if, right after D-Day, the same OW comes over to your house uninvited when she realizes you know the truth, sits in a chair in your living room, with your husband by your side on the sofa, apologizes for what has happened, and states “he will never cheat on you”…..AND YOU SO DESPARATELY WANT TO BELIEVE IT, THAT YOU BUY INTO THAT OVERFLOWING CROCK OF BS!
The audacity is breathtaking.
Yes, it was indeed a perpetual sucker-punch.
Well, isn’t she just one special lying exhibitionist cheater pants manipulator?
LMAO! Yes..yes she is….
Meanwhile (post divorce), I discovered that their affair is one of the worse kept secrets in our (my former) church, as my ex is (still) an Elder in that church, and she is the wife of another Elder in the same church. Both poster children for Jesus Cheaters.
And Latter Day Saints? They are the worst. We need to keep them out of political office. I’m not saying this because I am racist, I’m saying it because I had a first hand look inside, and it seriously messed up. There are good people submitting to a horrible dogma. Kind of like chumps submitting to cheaters.
Disliking a religion isn’t racist, btw.
People need to realise this.
Sigh, when will people stop attaching the actions of an individual to the church. As an LDS guy, the church promotes chastity. You should talk to that person’s bishop…
No kidding. I am an LDS woman that was totally chumped by my husband. The LDS church does NOT promote infidelity. Completely the opposite. In fact, the church helped me get out of my abusive relationship. I had nowhere to go and they helped with with my move, helped me clean everything, gave me food, helped with my daughter, gas cards, utilities that were so far in arrears because my husband would empty the bank accounts, go get loaded and go to hotel rooms over and over. They have even given me weekly counseling to help get through this. If I didn’t have the church, I would be languishing in a shelter until I could pay off my behind utilities and hopefully find childcare and a job that would pay enough for my daughter and I to have our own place. That’s if we got out at all.
Glad you left that church. Yuck! My husband was an elder at our non-denominational church and they kicked him out immediately from the elders and his teaching position. There are churches who follow the laws of the bible.
Wtf is it with the churches and the big shots in the churches? I’m anointed by God and can do no wrong? Fuck it, annoys the hell out of me cos the same assholes call atheists immoral.
Datdamwuf IMO, just like predators hang out were their prey lives, a lot of narcissists hang out where their prey lives…they camouflage themselves in positions of power so their prey will be powerless, i.e., church leaders, lawyers, paramedics, doctors or any position they can create a hologram of superiority, heroism or ultimate humbleness/kind volunteer….to prey on unsuspecting targets…its all about feeding their ego.
add College Professors to your list–tons of adoring students worshiping their intellect. Narc’s paradise.
I totally agree overcomer, churches are full of them because of great chump supply.
When I was interviewing to get into the US Navy as a chaplain, the officer interviewing me was very clear this was a concern. They really wanted to avoid the narcissists. And apparently its a problem with pastors. Plus, I would add they do not require a class on ministerial sexual misconduct for no reason at seminary. Clearly, these issues are old hat for clergy, sadly. But that does not mean we are all bad just as not all counselors are bad. There are so doosies, though.
I’ve repeatedly mentioned the holier-than-thou-God-has-brought-us-together associate past(wh)or(e) who is the OW in my case. The STBX was an agnostic (at best) until being a Christian and going to church was the price of admission to her vagina and lofty lifestyle. I have no ministerial credentials, but even with my simple layman’s faith I understand that God does not cause nor condone something he has called out as sin, nor does God have any part in chaos and destruction of a family.
Perhaps they should both read the passage in the bible which talks about God not being mocked and what a man soweth he shall reap.
Wait, she’s a wife of a church elder? Topless sunbathing? I swear, I canNOT keep up with religious trends these days!
Sounds like she liked the Cake Eating setup, so they put together this little act to placate you.
And, she likes to show off her boobs! Aren’t they special???
They were SO special, that, when I had my D-Day (in the form of sexts and emails to my then-husband), they included shots of just “The Girls”. My secondary reaction (after the first initial devastating shock), was “well…I certainly recognize THOSE!!”
Holy cow.
You have me snorting.
The more I read this stuff the more I am coming to understand churches consist of three main types of people, the narcissist, the passive aggressive and scapegoat, those labled as angry, outspoken, too black and white, unforgiving, judgmental or not really walking with God because their views differ from those in the first two categories.
Life is too short to submit to people who care only for themselves.
This the reason I have never been able to get my Christian husband to go to church. He says that when you put “organized” and “religion” in the same sentence all hell is going to break loose.
Sounds likE Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
I love this
YMBAC if you send your love when he ‘visits’ his best friends widow.
YMBAC if he suddenly starts making wine, refers to her as his ‘wine consultant’, spends hours on the phone to her and you’re proud he’s such a good friend.
YMBAC if you believe that he just wants time to ‘be alone’
Yep, I was a Chump
I he says after dday, you were always home when I was home. I told him it’s because I live here.
YMBAC if she goes to Paris with her “girlfriend”, but there are no photos of her and the “girlfriend” in Paris. Turns out her “girlfriend” was a male co-woker.
YMBAC if she needs to work with her “girlfriend” at her house on a report, and stays over because they are doing an all-nighter to finish it.
After D-Day, initially I did feel stupid initially for not spotting the signs…. but you trust, and they abuse that trust in every way.
I’m 10 months post divorce, and she can’t understand why I can’t be happy for her — she’s found happiness with her affair partner, and I just need to swallow the shit sandwich.
What a fucker
It boggles the mind that these people want us to “be happy” for them after what they did.
(LondonChump–in a few weeks, watch the forums. A few of us, state-side, will be flying to London the second half of July, and would love to meet up with other chumps.)
Oh London chump I’m so sorry. How devastating to think that while you were trusting and living your life she was off enjoying Paris. That just burns me. I hope your anger over the injustice of it all propels you to a better future
Oh, and YMBAC if at or near D-Day they seem to revel in being 10 feet tall, cocky, and bulletproof when you have been hit and shattered by the worst news of your life.
We so need a good code word for the above.
Mine acted 10′ tall and bullet proof, use to strut in and out of our daughters hospital room after d’day with swagger.
Would make me so made, he cared nothing for the destruction he had caused but bet he didn’t get his panties in a bunch when I challenged him on it.
They are so bizarre. They revel in the edginess of sneaking around, but then when they get caught, it’s like some sort of new phase they go into: “I can do whatever I want to do, and you’re not the boss of me! Nyah, nyah, nyah.”
I don’t know what the code word for that arrogance could be.
“I don’t know what the code word for that arrogance could be.”
I like to call it “wickedness” or “evil.”
Wickedness, evil…you’re right…I still remember the shock of seeing the cold, snakelike eyes and the emotionless smirk on X’s face during the one and only time we went to pastoral counseling right after the 2nd (known) d-day. It was chilling. It even shocked the pastor, and those guys have probably seen pretty much everything. The pastor cut the meeting short and told me in private to get out of the marriage and get out now. I am so glad to be free of that disordered and soulless train wreck of a person.
Kudos to your pastor!
Omg….mine was strutting around like he was banging Pamela Anderson and in reality she would make a train take a dirt road.
Blah ha ha that’s funny!
“Mine acted 10′ tall and bullet proof, use to strut in and out…after d’day with swagger…he cared nothing for the destruction he had caused”
Ah, yes. The effin’ swagger. The peacock strut. I never saw a smirk, but I saw the swagger. They are all the same.
Yes, mine, as I was doubled up with pain about the news of his affair from years past, and said, “Why did it have to be a 20-something to make me feel horrible about myself,” viciously said, “You’re lucky it wasn’t a 40-year old as that would have been more hazardous to my leaving you.” Fucker.
Tempest, FTG. At my absolute lowest point, when I wished a black hole would open up beneath me and swallow me whole, I was curled in a ball and couldn’t stop crying. I told him, “I feel so unlovable.” The words were ripped out of me; it felt like I finally made my deepest and most vulnerable spot of myself public. His response? He puffed up, still standing tall across the room, and said, “See? I know I’m lovable. I know I have a lot of love to give.”
I now know the truth is the exact opposite of that. He is the unlovable one.
Stronger- that’s so shitty
Thank you for the validation. It took me a while to get over that one. I have fully processed it and see it for what it is, but the absolute cruelty of it still manages to stun me. It’s hard to fathom how anybody could be indifferent to someone else’s pain, let alone a spouse’s pain.
Stronger, they prey on vulnerability initially and during the discard viscously carve out our guts for the slaughter. That is the way I felt with his parting words. I see my x as a sociopath that drew the line and instead of having the balls to kill me he preferred to enjoy the suffering. Normal people can’t do this! Then not only do chumps have to deal with the discard, they have to face the fact that the person they loved was an imposter. I am rewriting the script. When his parting words invade my thoughts I remind myself that he is disordered and everything that came out of his mouth was a lie. What he thinks will never control me again.
Donna, again – I am right there with you! This past week, I’ve been feeling/wishing a hole would open up in the earth and just swallow me whole. End the misery and pain. But I’m slowly starting to come out of it now. I did have a moment of clarity a couple of weeks back, when he lied to his family about why we’re splitting, made me the villain, and they started unfriending me on FB, and I thought – he will NEVER stop hurting me…not until either I am dead, or I walk away. And thank god for that one moment, because I really believe it’s the truth. The more I loved him, and the more punishment I took – the more he dished out. I believe that he had no respect for me to begin with, and me taking all of his shit just made it all more justifiable in his sick head. So, I’m walking away. I will not let him destroy what is left of my heart and soul.
TBC, I never considered how much abuse I tolerated until I found an amazing therapist with knowledge of narcissistic relationships. Within the first hour of therapy after telling him about the way he discarded me after 41 years he said he was disturbed and was a narcissist. There I sat wanting to know just how to stop loving this asshole. He told me he robbed me of my soul and if I EVER took him back from this point I wouldn’t survive. I’m thinking he might have been a chump at some point. Everything he told me was accurate right down to him escalating when I filed to the fact that he would discard his children. If your leaving gather ALL his /her information and accounts. Know it gets better and those days of disbelief will turn into relief. And as far as the OP, they also lack character. I imagine those bottom feeders waiting outside of a prison waiting to fuck the newly released inmates. They aren’t special.
The discarding is what I don’t understand, especially of the children. I mean, why?
Wish I had your therapist Donna, my ex did exactly all that including discarding the children too. At least we know what he is.
Standing applause, Donna. I too am rewriting the script. He projected so much of his disordered self on to me, and had me twisted up for years over *my* flaws. There have been so many moments of clarity since I’ve gotten some distance from him.
YMBAC if your spouse tells you that he “shared hotel rooms” with his female coworker but never had sex and you believe him.
or that he has several female “drinking buddies” at conferences, but it’s purely platonic.
Or he has a standing weekly coffee date with a coworker, and when you say you find that inappropriate, he tells you that you are being silly because nothing would ever happen, “She knows I am a happily married man!”
My H was so convinced that he and his Schmoopie had created some amazing new classification of human relationship…when I referred to her as his “girlfriend” with whom he had “dates”, he said “She isn’t my ‘girlfriend’!”. I responded “You two make plans and go places together just you two where you discuss your relationship…she IS your girlfriend and you go on DATES”.
He looked like he was going to shit himself…but only for a few seconds, he certainly couldn’t feel guilty or recognize he did something wrong, so he undertook some quick mental gymnastics to create a delusion to fix this awkward situation…heaven only knew what it was.
I also referred to the OW as his girlfriend and he constantly denied it. “SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!!” Used the same reasoning that you did Unicorn and he still just denied it. They are so stupid.
They sure are stupid. Mine would take the howorker with him and the kids when they’d go to the zoo or the Farmers market. I of course couldn’t join in because it was always during a weekday and I have to work. But HEY, I was invited. They tried. They’d follow up their dates with two hour phone calls at night, discussing “work and OW’s sick cats”. Sounds like dating, yes?
Oh, yes. The married people going on dates. Sigh….
What crazy planet are they from? This is why I was so confused, the cognitive dissonance was overwhelming my brain- once I was driving down State Street, and I almost blacked out, because I was thinking about all the conflicting info! I had to quickly pull over, I just couldn’t take it. Fun times! When your husband says he loves you, but the asshole neighbor is his constant companion.
YMBAC if you did not question your spouse’s need to travel to Vegas 4-5 times per year to “blow off steam”
YMBAC if you believed your spouse’s story that his phones were stolen from his Vegas hotel room because his room door didn’t lock.
YMBAC if you believed thousands of text messages were exchanged with other women because they were “just friends”
YMBAC if you believed that he erased all of his Facebook private messages because he gets too many of them
YMBAC if you yelled at your daughter for claiming she saw her father using zoosk
YMBAC if you believe what they say no matter the hard evidence
YMBAC if you believe it was “just a kiss” even though you’ve been ignored and treated badly for months and he doesn’t turn up at the hospital the day after your first child was born.
YMBAC If he says he needs a separate residence to find his “creative space” so it can help with his creative work , even though you have pulled him up on going out night after night with his female assistant…and he says its just chilling out after a hard days work. Then suggests and solidly pushes for you and two young children to move 900km away where your family live because “it’s cheaper there, and I’m away with work so much you will enjoy your family support”………THEN you stupidly do it
YMBAC then when you move interstate to give him “creative space” he suddenly brings totally new sexual moves to the bedroom
YMBAC if you contract Herpes when your first born is 5mths old and you have been with H for 7 yrs and never been anywhere since, and have found a love letter to his assistant….and still he explains it all away….and you believe his BS because you love him so much, and because he’s such a great fucking liar.
YMBAC if you find evidence of porn sites and he blames it on his male assistant.
Nah not may be….I am a complete Chump
Actually – and this SUCKS – herpes can lie dormant for years and years. You won’t test positive in labs unless it’s active. Extreme stress can make it flare… like discovering that my husband is an asshole and has been lying to me for years. .
Same with genital warts. I had two removed recently & the fucker has been gone over 5 years. It was quite a surprise to learn about STD dormancy. How nice, now I have a reminder of the OWhore in my own body.
YMBAC if your wife becomes vegan and insists the kids eat organic, but gets Botox and Breast Implants.
You’re saying those things aren’t natural?
Maybe it was locally sourced Botox.
Yeah….locally sourced Botox toxins packaged by new age hippy scientists. Lol…
Oh my God! No breast implants, but otherwisethis is my STBX
My stbx has breast implants and does botox … and eats organic … (and cheated).
So I’ll add
YMBAC if … you are still paying $300 a month for her breast impants
YMBAC if he spent hours every night in the bathroom with his laptop.
Mine did that too. In the big bathroom on the main floor. The kids pointed it out to me. Even if there was company – the guests would have to run upstairs.
Looking back he would be in there for hours……
I am a chump.
YMBAC if you find you have crabs and confront your only intimate partner and they are very calm in their response and tell you, ” you must have picked them up off a public toilet” and you accept this response despite spending days trying to remember the last time you used a public toilet.
YMBAC if your partner is randomly shaving his junk even though he knows you don’t like it. Because your opinion does not matter, because it is not for you.
YMBAC if you randomly receive a text from your partner that reads “you will identify me by the red carnation” when you question your partner expect some random comment about how they received some random text they thought they would respond to. Expect them to be offended when you press the issue.
They won’t know how you got it. Or what the problem is.
YMBAC if your husband can take time to have dinner on a regular basis with random members of a committee he is on but can only take you for coffee. And that’s only if he has managed to get some sort of voucher.
YMBAC if you suspect that you are and no matter what your partner says on the subject or how often they turn it back on you, if your gut is screaming RUN. YMBAC.
OMG, I had forgotten about the random text I received years ago… it said “have you ever done it with someone else watching?”
So weird. He asked me (in person), “have you ever done it outside?”
Seemed kinda shocked when I responded “yes”. I had to be the one to suggest we try our shower, I was the more adventurous of the two of us.
Thankful, he had crabs the first year we were married. God. I was so addicted to those shit sandwiches.
Donna, that just makes me sad.
Hugs to you.
YMBAC if you stuck with him through all the horrors of his poor sausage act and chemo. He was always to ill to talk, but not to work or go on business trips(yeah right).
YMBAC when you sold the house and he signed to put the remainder of the cash in his sole account. Daughter made me check with attorney and now it is my sole account! Ha, so sue me you miserable bastard.
YMBAC when he was going to see an elderly aunt on Valentine’s Day
So many lies and so much heartbreak after a 31 year marriage.
I might have been a chump but now I am an angry monster. I guess I do not know how to deal with the towering rage and the pacing nights plotting revenge, it is so not me and I find this angry, bloodthirsty, monster which I have let loose the most challenging aspect to deal with. I tell you I could rip their brains out…….but they haven’ got any. So that is that path closed. Taking revenge via his wallet is not so satisfactory but probably will be more sustaining then a long jail sentence.
YMBAC, if he got prostate cancer and you took care of all his needs, waited years for him to be able to finally get it up after two prostheses operations and in the week he can finally use IT he tells you he is DATING!
YMBAC, if you reconcile when the other woman tells him, ” you call THAT sex” and dumps him.
YMBAC, if you accept his inability to have normal sex because you still have compassion for the asshole.
What the fuck was I thinking.
“You call THAT sex?” From the OW
Bwahahaha
When the Cheater told me about the Whore and said “I’m in love with her, and she’s in love with me”, my first thought was She couldn’t possibly have had sex with you”, lol. Contrary to popular myth, Cheaters are sorry lays.
YMBAC if . . . at a social event you find yourself talking to a woman from work that he introduced you to, and she is very strangely and creepily interested in you and the details of your life, way beyond the social niceties.
YMBAC if . . . she grumps about having “no time!!!” to deal with minor household crises, even though she is a teacher and it is summer time, so you take care of them in spite of YOUR busy schedule.
YMBAC if . . . he gets irritated by your ‘hassling’ him and never giving him privacy, while minutes later complaining that you don’t pay enough attention to him.
YMBAC if . . . she pouts about you never wanting to go anywhere or do anything fun and exciting with her, then refuses to go when you arrange a fun, exciting trip as a surprise.
YMBAC if . . . you believe he actually DID run down the hall for the phone and THAT’s why he was out of breath when you called his cell phone unexpectedly during the day when he didn’t answer his office phone.
he forgot to tell you he withdrew all of your kids college fund and put it in an off shore account
YMBAC if you spend the weekend halfway across the country with your daughter, sweating while you assemble a slew of IKEA furniture (that does not fit together as advertised) for her first apartment, while good old Dad is home wining and dining the OW.
Or if you spend the day helping move your son into his dorm room his first year in college and having lunch with him, while she races off after about a half hour in the morning to get back to the beach, so she can have some “private time for just me”.
I love that these asshole cheaters ruin what are supposed to be good times for the kids…high school celebrations, graduations, holidays, everything college/expense related for our three young adults. Guess he was too busy paying for his new pussy while the rest of us were trying to live. YMBAC if you did “all the work” in the marriage and your ex would just “show up at his/her convenience.” I can count on two hands the number of times he attended anything at the high school. Not once did he attend son’s throwing competitions. Our kids were heavily into sports and academics. My daughter’s boyfriend (and his best friend, lol!) attended every game, her father…? Who knows what he was doing!
YMBAC if you find a mix tape of Ukrainian love songs in his car and still believe him when he says he’s not fucking his Ukrainian co-worker who gives you dirty looks every time you see her.
YMBAC if, after 4 years of marriage, he tells you he doesn’t like it anymore when you bring him lunch at work.
YMBAC if you ask your husband if you suggest a date night once a week (since he’s always out with his friends) and he tells you that you need more hobbies.
Because everyone enjoys Ukrainian folk songs.
Polka? Gotta love polka
Alright guys, cutting close to the quick–some of us are of Polish origin and actually like to hear “Beer Barrel Polka” at weddings, then eat kielbasa and sauerkraut to cure the hangover the next day.
Oh Lulu, My husband took up Russian poetry and said he’d always been interested in learning Russian, which his “platonic” co-worker was willing to spend time teaching him. I was “crazy, controlling, negative, judgmental”. When I found the texts detailing dates, outings, love notes, etc., he said it was only “emotional.” I believed him. He even offered her a special date idea that I had come up with the week before in an effort to rekindle our romance. Champion Chump! The reason I have never been invited to a single office event or get-together is because “I knew you didn’t like to drink”
YMBAC if … during reconciliation you bought her line of “I need some space” so paid for an office outside the home from which she “conducted her affairs”
LOL!
An honest cheater!
Good point! She was honest on that one 🙂
And if I get audited for deducting the office as a business expense, I suppose the IRS would say “it has to be used for BUSINESS affairs!”
YMBAC…..if he starts telling you to stop calling him at work because….he’s working. And you do. And his daily calls home cease as well.
This!!!
oh wow, major flashback…. ‘leave me alone! I am working!’ (when I called to APOLOGIZE for being jealous and doubting her)
Oh yes, of course the affair was with her boss – did you have to ask?
Yep! This! They all get so very, very busy and they just can’t see their way clear to talk or take a couple days off to discuss their marriage. Now I know what he was busy doing, sexting the whore at work, writing childish poetry to her, calling her on his work cell phone. I don’t even want to talk about the ten days he just took off to sleep with her in her husbands bed! Oh yeah……. So damn busy! POS!
I thought X was the only one who wrote poetry to his whored. And he would write poems to me about if he coul walk the straight line and talk as out his dark side. Yes he thought be was a poet, drummer, lover. He failed in just about everything he tried. Sick
Same here, Jobin. Affair with her boss — she used to call me at work all the time. but if I called her — way too busy to talk.
Yep, mine got all indignant about me calling and texting “too much”, yet phone records indicate he had plenty of time during the day to call/text that whore. She would often call and he’d call her RIGHT back, smack dab in the middle of the day. When I pointed this out to him.. he said “talking to friends is different than talking to you”… Ah, hows that? Plenty of time for the MOWhore but not enough to touch base with your wife?
Pfft.
YMBAC if you move from making joint decisions to having little meetings in which you know you are being manipulated to agree to a path you don’t like but is justified by convoluted cheater logic.
YMBAC if you’ve been suddenly and cruelly discarded but figure it might be because his father just died.
YMBAC if after DDay your write the “why wasn’t I enough?” letter/email.
YMBAC if you lived with someone who seemed apolitical and found out 2 years later that he is a wing nut political zealot once he ramps up his FB account from “strictly cheater” to “trolling for anyone with kibbles.”
YMBAC if you know he’s a liar, a cheater, a con artist, and a black hole of suckitude, and you spent the first few months post-DDay wanting him back and thinking what he did was just a mistake…..arrrggghhhh….
YMBAC if you drag yourself out of bed 4 days after surgery and, even though it hurts like hell, you mow the lawn (taking a break halfway through to go inside and lie down because of the pain). You do this because he is working extra long hours and he is exhausted and might be stressed from your having surgery. You mow the lawn so he won’t have to. Then, on DDay a few weeks later, you find out that some of those long hours were spent with the OW.
We’re divorced now!
YMBAC if you believed that all those late night cell phone calls in the car, in the garage, in the dark were with “his brother” or his drummer friend and that the two condoms his 17 year old daughter found in his wallet (after being picked up at the police station for his second DUI) were there, but he and skankHo were “just talking” and he wouldn’t have put them in his wallet “if he wasn’t drinking.”
He LET you mow the lawn 4 days after surgery.
What a fucking coward piece of shit.
My sentiments, exactly. He didn’t know I was going to do it – he was at work. But after he got home and saw that I had done it, I expected him to say “oh, my gosh, you shouldn’t have done it so soon after surgery! I would have done it! . . .” But he didn’t even thank me. Didn’t tell me not to mow again for a few weeks. Nothing. As you say – fucking coward piece of shit.
YMBAC, if he keeps a supply of dog biscuits in his car and you don’t have a dog.
YMBAC, if he spends 15oo on flowers on your 36 year anniversary and takes you out and calls the whore to meet him
there and you can’t find him for hours because he’s getting laid in her car. Yup.
I am so past this shit now. Thankfully, I filed and awaiting final order. I am getting my soul back daily. It’s really embarrassing to think I put up with such a disordered sociopath for 41 years total. The old anniversary date is coming up this month and I will call it my freedom day from now on. CN has been my guiding light to recognize I am not alone. We may be chumps but an educated chump gives me the strength I was lacking. CN is awesome!!
Jedi hugs and ninja wishes Donna!
Hugs to you on your first solo anniversary. I was only married a quarter of the time you were, but that first anniversary came and went without me even realizing it. I considered this a step on the road to meh
Freedom day! Love it Donna! Perfect!
How inconsiderate of you to have surgery! Look how it stressed him out. No wonder he cheated, married to a selfish wife like you. 😉
YMBAC if you all of a sudden he no longer has time to text or call you, however, can find lots of “me” time away from the family to be on his phone “reading the news”. Or when he goes out to look at apartments, because he thinks he needs some space and doesn’t come home until late in the evening….yep, apartment rental places are open til 9 or later…..Silly Chump.
YMBAC if you believe that he really is having stomach issues (for months and months) and has to spend hours a day in the bathroom…..And he gets mad at you for being concerned about his health and tells you that you are the potty police.
YMBAC if you believe all the horrible things that all of a sudden are wrong with you and they need space to work out “their” issues as it is not fair to you…..Oh Boy.
YMBAC if you ignore/accept that the physical evidence is “just me thinking about you at work”.
YMBAC if you believed the lies of “If you want out of a relationship, go, BEFORE you cheat”.
YMBAC if you really believed that you were working on the relationship, which he acknowledged, but the only thing he was working on was OWhore.
YMBAC if you took the high road and on DDay put the rest of his stuff in storage, paid the month rental, sent him a key in the mail and an email to pick up his stuff.
YMBAC if you thought that they actually gave a damn about you, your family, your home, your pets, your future, your health, etc,etc,etc.
YMBAC if you unknowingly did the pick me dance and could have won “Dancing with the Stars”
YMBAC if when you asked them for honesty he told you “I am being honest”. Really….Honest, huh?
YMBAC if when you asked on a few occasions if there was someone else and were told, “Oh no, honey, there is no one else”. (OWhore and possibly others would disagree).
YMBAC if you are on this site and finding comfort that you are not alone in your chumpiness.
I could go on all day with this…..
YMBAC if your H leaves your annual summer beach vacation 3 days early because attending his class reunion is more important and he can’t understand why you want him to stay with you. (Much later you find out that one of his OW is a HS friend).
YMBAC when your H schedules a week’s vacation with his work ‘guy’ friends out of the blue, lies to his boss by telling him he’s out on business, uses company funds to pay for it, doesn’t care that you’re upset about it, then tells you it’s going to be an annual trip.
YMBAC when your H completely blows off Mother’s Day and your birthday….but sits at the table while your family celebrates with you and never says a word.
YMBAC when you believe your H that he’s so busy at work that he has to constantly be emailing and texting on the weekends even though you don’t like it at all.
and, of course,
YMBAC when you completely trust your H’s commitment to you even though you don’t like the way he treats you – ignores you, makes you responsible for everything, doesn’t co-parent, talks bad about you to your child, and many more things that you resent but you let him keep doing these things because someday he’ll step up again.
oh and the biggie!!!
YMBAC if his words and actions NEVER match up!!!! Always promises to try harder, pay more attention to you, etc. but never does!
YMBAC if … during reconciliation you get her a new car and wonder how she puts 400 miles a week on it when she doesn’t even have a job
YMBAC if … you take sexy photos of her wearing your hat and new shirt and later find out she immediately texted them to the OM with a barf-inducing cheesy tagline.
YMBAC if … you notice texts sents from her phone the same time she was went to the restroom at the restaurant you ate at last night
YMBAC if … you had sex with your wife the same day she just go back from running a long errand
YMBAC if … your wife misses her period even though you have not had sex in 6 weeks
YMBAC if … the other parents in your community start asking why your wife never attends any of your kid’s sporting events
YMBAC if … your wife says “You know, I used to get a lot of attention from other men.”
YMBAC if … your spouse never leaves her computer out in the open any more
YMBAC if … after dday, your spouse says “But my emotional needs are not being met”
YMBAC if … you read an article off the internet about BPD and NPD and every point rings true
“YMBAC if … you read an article off the internet about BPD and NPD and every point rings true”
Oh yeah, I hear this one.
Damn. I’m a stay-at-home-mom. We live in a village and go to an adjacent village almost daily. I’ve put less than 600 miles on our vehicle since November. Valvoline knows my car well… it’s the only one they allow free fluid toppers on past the 3-month date because it has insanely low usage. At this rate, I won’t hit 3K miles until sometime in 2016, figuring I’ll have a few trips out of town to up the mileage. lol.
YMBAC if he reaches for a book to read as you climb into bed naked.
YMBAC if when he is around others he pushes his chest out so far he looks awkward.
YMBAC if your doing all the heavy lifting in your relationship, but he is always disgruntled in some way. But when you become disgruntled over something you are treated like you should be ashamed of your self.
But when you become disgruntled over something you are treated like you should be ashamed of your self.
^^This
This +1
Thankful, he was always disgruntled. I am laughing just saying the word. I can picture a cartoon cheater named Disgruntled. Hi my name is Disgruntled. I have limited interests. Why is your name Disgruntled? Because: my wife bought the wrong lettuce, she put too much garlic in the sauce, she left a space in the dishwasher, she throws the laundry down the stairs, and I’m just disgruntled. That’s why I cheat. Aren’t they so mindful?
YMBAC if you find condoms and porno in a camper, coat pocket, and pants pocket and your wife has been chemo paused and does not need them.
Informal, what am asshole to do this to you when you needed him the most. He deserves a special extra dose of karma.
YMBAC if… you asked her for the name of the hotel she was staying at with her “work girlfriend” (actually work guy friend-fuckbuddy), who she was going on an out-of-town “shopping trip”with….and you called in and paid to have the room upgraded as a surprise for the “girls”!!!! (palm to face)
Oh no… 🙁
I’m so sorry Don, sheesh, you didn’t know, it’s ok. Jedi hugs!
Don you sound very thoughtful. She clearly didn’t deserve you. A “normal” person would be so guilt ridden they couldn’t accept that gift.
YMBAC …..you truly believe the dive restaurant that he goes to for coffee every morning with the guys is innocent.
YMBAC…..you truly believe he wouldn’t cheat let alone with a trashy waitress younger than our daughter.
YMBAC….to believe when he’s talking behind everyone else’s back that he isn’t talking about you behind yours.
The list goes on and on and on…..
1) YMBAC if you believed him all those evenings he said he was working.
2) YMBAC if you believed that he could really never go on holiday with you because work kept him so busy (a variant of 1 above)
3) YMBAC if you believed when he said he had absolutely no idea why he could never have sex with you and that he was upset about it, and would do something about it…tomorrow
1. YMBAC if you sat next the Cheater on the couch every night watching “House of Cards” with him, featuring infidelity heavily in the plot (Series 1), and every night he’d say “time to watch ‘our show'”… watch it and watch you watch it not knowing he had been a serial cheater for 16 years and was currently in an affair… then when the show ended he’d kiss and hug you and say, “Goodnight, Love you!” as you went to bed then he’d whip out his phone and text OW on the phone account you were paying for.
2. YMBAC if you were just so happy he was safe and sound when he didn’t come home the night before, in the middle of the winter, didn’t answer his phone or texts for hours on end till you fitfully fell asleep worried he had crashed in a snowbank, then when at 8:30 a.m. you heard his key in the door you were just so happy he was okay!! what happened? you said and he said he was at a bar and had too many beers and dropped his phone in the truck and was too drunk to pick it up or to drive home so he slept in his truck in January. “No matter!” you said, I’m just glad you are ok!! (Wait, he drove home in the morning, why couldn’t he use his phone THEN?” Oh wait, you are a Chump.
3. YMBAC if you told him you got a weird phone call at home from Adult Protective Services asking for his EX-Girlfriend by name. “OMG, he said – she is Crazy! She must have given them this address and phone number!” No, you are a chump. He’d been reported by her for a domestic violence incident and told them that was her boyfriend’s phone number.
I also believed that not only did he sleep in his truck in upstate NY in January, but that he slept in his truck in a cornfield on his solo trip to the midwest to visit his family. Chump!! he coudn’t be reached, of course, because there was no cell signal in the cornfield.
OMG! Sleeping in the car! Apparently there is a cell phone outage and lack of affordable hotel space all across the Northern states in winter. Who knew?
My husband has been telling me that he’s been living in the car for WEEKS now because he has to leave because he “can’t take the criticism in our conflicts.” Those same conflicts where he is often criticizing me for being “too emotional, relentless, persistent” about talking about such things like “Why were you gone for seven weeks, barely sent us any money and yes, we are sad about that.” Uh-huh. The only comeback that works in his favor is “would I smell this bad if I was staying at someone’s house?” OKay, maybe that is a fair point…..
YMBAC if during your marriage you frequently felt like you were a mid-level manager constantly being given a “needs improvement” evaluation by your spouse CEO no matter how hard you worked, and you thought that shit was NORMAL. You also felt that each “needs improvement” evaluation would be the one to get you fired – during your entire 25 year marriage.
YMBAC if many of the negative traits (not self-aware, not affectionate enough, etc.) your cheater ascribed to you were actually HIS “negative” traits, but you kept analyzing and trying to fix yourself to make yourself a “better” partner .
YMBAC if the MC tells you in one sentence that it was your efforts that have held the marriage together so far, then in a later sentence tells you that you need to do MORE in order to make the marriage better and you continue to attend sessions with her because you’re so desperate to make the marriage work. ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!
YMBAC if you believe your cheater when he tells you that the names, services and prices of prostitutes he has scribbled on random pieces of paper are from “long before” even though at least one is written on an envelope post-marked only 2 days before you find it.
YMBAC if you catch your spouse “peeping-tom” your 19-year-old daughter (his step-daughter who he has helped raised from childhood) through her door while she is in her room getting dressed and you believe him when he tells you that he’s never done that before, doesn’t know what came over him and he will never do it again and you believe him.
And this is just the tip of the Chump iceberg.
CP, “YMBAC if during your marriage you frequently felt like you were a mid-level manager constantly being given a “needs improvement” evaluation by your spouse CEO no matter how hard you worked, and you thought that shit was NORMAL. You also felt that each “needs improvement” evaluation would be the one to get you fired – during your entire 25 year marriage.” This is exactly what I felt like for the 22 years I was married. And damn if that whole “fired” thing was exactly why I tried for so long to avoid. It was inevitable because he was always looking for my replacement and apparently giving “interviews” through the whole 22 years. Luckily there was one applicant that he couldn’t pass up, because you know he had to be “happy”. Freaking ass*oles all of them.
Negative traits were actually his traits! Yes! What a mystery that he hated all my “lies”. I would take so much thought to make SURE everything I told him were completely true.
I never really suspected him of being a compulsive, sociopathic liar until he smugly told the judge that I would kill my children. The look on his face: power and glee! jackass.
He had NO evidence. Dude, just ’cause you would kill and lie doesn’t mean I would.
(Lightening bolt, please)
Peeping on his 19 year-old stepdaughter? CP, that is the absolute lowest of the low. I am absolutely sicked! Thank GOD I got out before my girls had to go through that. UGH
FoolMeTwice, you have no idea. He had raised this girl as his own daughter since she was around 5 or 6 years old. That is just the incident I personally witnessed. I later found photographs (I believe it was right before or right after dday 2) that he had taken of her without her knowledge. I’ve been told that there was other creepy behavior, as well, but he never once attempted to actually “touch” her inappropriately. His “fascination age” seems to be with girls in their late teens/early 20’s. There was also a time when the younger children were under 5 that a sales clerk (she may have been 19 or 20) accused him of having flirted with her and asking for her phone number. He said that she was lying about him and that he had merely requested that she contact him when some merchandise came in. He and I went to the manager where I defended him and said that my husband was owed an apology. I remember the manager looking at me with sympathy. I will never truly know what actually took place, but knowing what I know now, I think the sales clerk is the one owed an apology – particularly by me.
I consider myself an intelligent woman but I was almost completely blind about this Flaming Turd from Satan’s Ass for a long time. There were red flags, and I see them all now in hindsight, but I simply was not able to see them because living crazy had become my normal.
My ex was the director of a Jewish Community Center. At functions he would greet board members and staff by kissing them, some on the lips. When I witnessed this and voiced my concern, he made it my problem. He said “we’re like family here,” I’m just a friendly guy, I can’t help it if people like me. The creepy gut feeling never left me and I soon found out he was a serial predator/cheater….especially at work. Some of the JCC people still think he’s a great guy, but myself and his kids can’t stomach him. Karma.
YMBAC If you find a white towel with Holiday Inn in big green letters on it in your bedroom, and believe his story that he found it.
YMBAC If you then find a pen from the same hotel in his pocket, and he admits that insane neighbor invited him there to hang out for a while, and have a few drinks – and you still believe him.
YMBAC If your hubby tells you – It’s someone else’s turn to work! (when you tell him the house will probably go to foreclosure next year, at this rate)
YMBAC If you think you maybe could save your marriage if he could just relax, maybe he needs a back rub every day, instead of twice a week!
But you are a SMART CHUMP if you leave, finally, and let her have him!
YMBAC if your boyfriend stays up until 3 am on the computer with the door shut.
YMBAC if your boyfriend refuses to let you talk to his friends for no reason.
YMBAC if you tell him one of your sexual fantasies of a celebrity crush and he gets mad at you for not thinking of HIM, but then proceeds to tell you he’s going to hang out with a girl he just met that’s “Just a friend, I swear.”
YMBAC if your boyfriend wants to go to Germany without you to see how many phone numbers of German girls he can get.
YMBAC if your boyfriend hasn’t paid his part of rent this month, but buys a new car…
YMBAC if your boyfriend sits there and continues to play a video game, not even pausing it, while you’re sitting next to him sobbing.
YMBAC if you meet a girl who didn’t know YOU existed, but knows your boyfriend and can name details of his personality and the time they spent together.
YMBAC if your boyfriend doesn’t want you to come out to his parent’s house with him because “You just don’t need to come this time.”
…Eyyyyeup.
Kara, the XH literally walked over my body as I was weeping in the fetal position on the ground. Not a care in the world about me…only cared about himself.
That happened to me too.
I literally froze up to the point where I couldn’t move, tears were running UP my forehead and he just shut out the lights and went to sleep. I laid there all night because the shock of it all froze me. I couldn’t even move at all. I have never experienced anything like that before or since. I should’ve have left after that. It makes me sick to think about it.
YMBAC if you tell your spouse that picking up strange women for dancing in a club in Vegas is inappropriate, and he angrily tells you that maybe you should get divorced.
YMBAC if you don’t question your spouse’s story about remaining in the gym locker room for 45 minutes while you waited outside because he “lost the key to his lock.” If that was the case, how did he eventually get his locker open and come out fully dressed? And why did he then go into a rage when you told him he had been inconsiderate? This happened during our dating days. Of course, years later he admitted that he screwed other guys in locker rooms quite frequently. Still, it took me years longer to remember the gym incident and put together the pieces of the puzzle.
YMBAC if you didn’t question your then-boyfriend’s story about driving home a Donna Summer drag queen from a drag club. You seriously believed he just dropped the guy off at his apartment and nothing else happened? C’mon.
🙁 Well, he was right about one thing, yeah, you should have gotten divorced, but not because you were too uptight, because he was a lousy cheater!
Which you did so all the better.
When I caught my ex boyfriend with his last OW, she told me that I should move on so they could be happy together with their love.
She was right, I did need to move on, but NOT for her sake. For mine.
And I am SO happy I did. Not just because life is better on the other side, but because he inevitably cheated on her too lol.
Glad – I wanna throw up.
Brave – what a POS.
YMBAC if he deletes his history before shutting down the computer.
YMBAC if after you bust him on his YAHOO account picking up other women, he suddenly goes to Best Buy and purchases a new laptop for himself and recycling the ‘family’ laptop that still worked
YMBAC if he names friends on his phone Bob/Amanda when “Bob” has a separate listing
YMBAC when he buys anything he fucking wants without consulting you – like sports cars and claiming it is for our son – who needs money for college more than he needs a fucking sports car!
YMBAC when for Christmas he gives his parents a $1200 grill (again without consulting me) and giving his wife a jacket he received for ‘a perfect safety award’ at work.
YMBAC if on your birthday he comes home from the bar at 2:30 a.m. and at 4 am is puking on the bedroom carpeting. And THAT IS ALL you got for your birthday
YMBAC when you take an innocent trip down to Texas with a friend and you come back to accusations that the reason you went was to whore yourself out.
YMBAC when on Mothers Day he says “Why should I wish you a happy fucking mothers day? You aren’t my fucking mom!”
YMBAC for him not telling you he loves you for 15 years becaus “He doesn’t want to get hurt again” due to an affair I had that never happened
YMBAC for being blamed for an affair that never happened for 15 fucking years
YMBAC if he accuses you of having a ‘secret contact list’ on your cell phone because you got a weather alert while we were sleeping
I got that too – “YMBAC when on Mothers Day he says “Why should I wish you a happy fucking mothers day? You aren’t my fucking mom!” So imagine how I felt last year when I found a gushy lovey dovey email to a 2008 OW, wishing her a Happy Mother’s Day.
Yes–far be it from the father of my sons to be a good role model. But I was the one who sent flowers to his mother “from him,” and he always worked on Mother’s Day, with no effort made whatsoever.
Real nice.
Your buying flowers for his mother reminded me.
When my XH’s grandmother died a few years ago (way before d’day) I just had this compulsion to buy flowers for my now XH and our kids to place on his grandmothers casket. I am so glad I followed my gut that day. XFIL also a cheater, had not bothered with flowers for his own mothers funeral and those that I purchased where all that were on her casket when she was laid to rest.
Dysfunctional types are selfish to the core.
xFIL probably resented all the attention his dead mother was getting.
Ewww, it’s not that Cluster B’s don’t know how to make a partner feel loved, it’s that they won’t do any of that, and you can’t make them! Otherwise known as ‘All the kibbles are for me, you should know that! Now go do your chores!’
So true. I didn’t understand why we didn’t celebrate special days like everyone else. Looking back he truly didn’t understand why people planned anything. Could not pick out a thoughtful gift to save his life. YMBAC if you forgive your spouse for not giving you gifts on any occasion. He did always buy himself stuff though.
My ex bought me the love dare book, i almost cried until i realized he bought it so i could use it on him. He was always buying me books so that i could learn to be a better wife. The last one was how to affair proof your marriage. Almost hit him with it.
He bought you a book on how to affair-proof your marriage???
WTF!
Is that not the height of narcissistic arrogance? As if your job is to SERVE him! As if he’s issuing you a warning–and honey! You better dance, and dance real pretty for him.
YMBAC if you dance.
Hopefully you’re reformed and now realize that he might have helped to affair-proof his marriage by being a loving husband and not fucking other women.
GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE!
YMBAC if you dance and don’t even know it. My ex had a terribly hard *snort* decision to make our last two years together. (Hey, red flags there but I was fucking clueless!).
Leave the marriage for his special racquetball whore or stay with his loyal family. Ding! ding! Ding! His choice? Leave, and fuck us over-me and our kids- financially!
YMBAC if you’ve ever had the love dare book thrown at you while your exH was working on the steps (Yep. That actually happened). Pretty sure THAT wasn’t part of the love dare directions!
**** Sorry if any of these are repeats from other posters ****
From my X’s EA:
YMBAC if you can do *nothing* right
YMBAC if you see an email from another person who tells your SO “I miss you”, then believe the explanation that “we are just working together on a project”.
YMBAC if your SO is convinced *YOU* are having an affair, and accuses you of such.
YMBAC if you are increasingly devalued
From my friend’s experience with her BF:
YMBAC if your SO guards their phone like Fort Knox
YMBAC if your SO has weird excuses for not answering his/her phone, or having it go right to voicemail.
YMBAC if sex suddenly becomes – just sex.
YMBAC if your SO tries to change you in some way
YMBAC if your SO has “a lot of friends” of the opposite sex
YMBAC if your SO makes plans with you, then, “needs” to break them or reschedule
YMBAC if your SO (who claims you are The One), can’t see you more than 1 to 2 times a week, when you know darn well they CAN.
YMBAC if you believe the jerk that he cheated on his former wife but won’t cheat with you because you’re “special.”
YMBAC if your H slams down his computer when you walk in the room.
YMBAC if your H stays out until 4 or 5 at graduate student parties, and everyone knows he is flirting with woman 30 years younger (except you).
YMBAC if you find notes for H to prep himself for a sexual harassment hearing plus condoms in his computer bag. (To my credit–I did twig at that point & bailed. September 11th–oh, the irony.)
YMBAC if he chooses to sleep in the loft endlessly because he doesn’t want his snoring to bother you and you believe him.
YMBAC if he always takes extra days while on a work trip to get accustomed to the time difference and you feel sorry for him.
YMBAC if he switches hotels from all his other colleagues while on his work trips so that he can get ‘a toaster in his room’ and you feel for his diabetic needs.
YMBAC when he buys an extortionately expensive car just after D-Day because he says he has not had any fun in his life for so many years and you don’t tell him where to go.
YMBAC when the MC gaslights you and you don’t tell her where to go.
LOL, mine slept in the guest room because of my supposed snoring. Then he spent hours sexting or texting OW from the phone account I’d been paying for him to have for the previous ten years.
YMBAC if you buy into the RIC / therapy agenda and make the “marriage a safe, happy place to be.”. It already was, that’s why they panic when they think you will find out they are a Cheater and will throw them out of the Dangerous Unhappy Marriage.
UMBAC if you try to outwhore the slut screwing around with your spouse. I did this, and can honestly say I have no interest in sexting, or trying to be sexy. Luckily I realized this pretty quickly and didn’t go very far into it. I’m not interested in photos of any guy’s junk. And I won’t be sending any either. Ditto with porn, chat rooms, Skype, etc.
Oh yes – the phone hoarding! OMG – can’t live without that!! The phone locking. The carrying of the phone along side his leg while he is walking thinking you can’t see it. Always having it on vibrate. Doesn’t get more than 2 inches from his body. Looking at a text and talking to you (referring to another text but wanting you to believe he is talking about a different text) that was sent out hours ago because you got the same fucking mass text. Positioning himself just right in the chair while watching tv so that he can glance at his phone thinking you don’t fucking know it is there! POS
Yes, such a classic.The death-grip on the phone…
Taking the phone into an outhouse on a road trip when we were streaming music. WTF….
How did cheaters cheat before cell phones? Did they just tackle the mailman every day?
They could have done what my XH did.
Hang out at known public toilets till someone came along willing to meet his requirements.
A real aristocrat, that guy.
YMBAC if…your response to a cheating spouse is to attend marriage counseling.
Your marriage did not cause the affair. So how will attending marriage counseling stop the affair?
A didn’t cause B. D through F caused B. So, working on A won’t affect B. Get that through your skull, ASAP.
(This is not to knock marriage counseling. If your spouse never cheated, or if you have a unicorn committed to reconciliation who works on his own problems for a few months, then try MC to make your marriage even stronger. But don’t, ever, think that your marriage “contributed” to your spouse’s cheating, and somehow working on your marriage will make your spouse a faithful person. That’s specious reasoning.
100% agree!
That’s funny JC 🙂
Thank you!
Ymbac if you got a plug-in electric lawn mower for your 50th birthday and you’ve use a contract lawn service for over ten years
Should have added it’s a 1 acre lot, and my 50th birthday was at the height of her betrayal. Sick shit. Yelled and tried to blame me in front of our son for telling her the wrong thing to order. Until I showed her what I circled BIG in the advertisement. Not close to what she ordered. But I said that’s OK it’s the thought that counts and gave her no grief for it. What a f#$%ing c#%nt she was then. Worse part is I’m still with her trying to heal. Not sure it’s any better.
They never understand any one else’s needs. I think the disordered love the power that says,”fuck you!” It’s a deliberate mindfuck purchasing something their spouse desires and was very specific with. During my marriage I just went out and bought what I wanted because with a Narc you are never going to get what you want. That includes a reciprocal loving marriage. Too, our argument was never about things but the loving, caring gesture behind it. My condolences.
*Not purchasing* as the case may be. :0
I wore the OW’S sunglasses for a while, i had found a pair in the car and just wore them with innocence, not even questioning why there is randomly a pair of ladies sunglasses lying in our car. And to put cream on top, at one time I found the passenger car seat was in lying position. WOW, how could I have missed that message?
Wow–sunglasses.
Huhn….
There were wrong sunglasses in his truck. I never figured it out. He must have loved that.
YMBAC when you find a random pair of women’s sunglasses in his parent’s guest room that had a long blond hair in them- while they were out of town. Then everyone tried to give them to me and they were not mine. He even did! And you don’t worry about it because you trust him so much.
YMBAC if he was constantly in love with women from work, and was open about it–“What! I can’t HELP it if I’m infatuated!” he would charge. “She and I have a lot in common–you and I have NOTHING in common!” This was the theme since you were dating, and he was in love with a classmate, and every time he fell in love with a different blonde tech from work, thereafter. But, you knew it would blow over, and every time, sure enough it did! And you STILL believed he’d never cheat.
YMBAC if you believed that it was a really good thing, actually, that he kept a separate bank account, and hoarded money and refused to buy you any token of affection when you were out together. I mean, you have your OWN money, right? And he’s so frugal, and who needs that junk–you can buy it yourself! It hurts a little, and it’s kinda irritating to be married to a withholding cheapskate who treats you like you’re a total pain in the ass, but you’ll get over it. Plus, fiscal discipline is a good thing. (Since the divorce, oddly enough, you’re doing really well. You’re not a spendthrift, it turns out.)
YMBAC if you hated to ask him for help because it might irritate him, or he’d say he was going to do it but never did, or, his bad back, so…. I mean, he works full-time, and you only work “part-time,” except for when you worked full-time. Either way, part-time or full-time, you took care of the kids and the house (inside AND outside, because of his bad back and also he’s not the one who wanted that quarter-acre lot, YOU did, though he does like to go out and pick fresh fruit off the trees you prune every fall.) It’s not his fault that you signed the kids up for activities that he doesn’t like, and that you chose to send them to schools outside the neighborhood. And, by the way, those charter school dues are voluntary. You might have more money if you didn’t choose to pay the requested donation that funds teachers and programs for the school, he reminds you. What kind of chump are you, if you pay, when a few of the other parents don’t pay, he wants to know. Just because you both earn high salaries doesn’t mean you should be a chump.
YMBAC if he refused to acknowledge that you’re a good mother. Everyone else says so, but he withholds, deliberately. The thing is, as he explains, his mom was a single mom, and had to struggle, while you have it pretty good. So you can understand why his standard is pretty high. She’s a really good mom. She did the best she could–she was resourceful, whereas it’s almost you don’t even know what that’s like since your parents are still married. It’s not that you’re a BAD mom, but…sometimes you raise your voice to the kids, and you really don’t need to do that. He never raises his voice at the kids. Just because you tell him that he’s a great dad, and you mean it, too, doesn’t make you a good mom. The childless babysitter you had for a while–now, she was good, he liked to point out. She would run the dishwasher even if it wasn’t totally full, and that’s just smart, if you think about it. And she does a lot of crafts and takes the kids places. I mean, you do, too, but it’s not the same. So you wait–one day he will see that you ARE a good mother.
YMBAC if you bite your tongue when he is a spineless coward who treats your father like a petulant teen would treat the detention monitor. Sometimes your dad can be a bit overbearing. So you can kind of understand how uncomfortable it makes your husband. That’s why he takes a nap the minute you arrive at your parents’ house 90 minutes away for a visit, and turns your dad down for any activity that he suggests. Even though your dad tries to think of things your husband would enjoy doing…why can’t your father just leave your husband alone on his day off? Ugh! It hurts to see your father treated like this, and it hurts to see your mother bite her tongue when her husband is being insulted by your husband, and it’s REALLY fairly off-putting, but that’s no way to think of your husband.
YMBAC if your home has a lot of furniture in it that was picked up at garage sales and rehabbed nicely by his mother. She’s really generous–she gives freely, even though she really doesn’t have a lot herself. She’s talented at slip-covering and finding value-priced attractive pieces in her wealthy community. It’s almost like she’s your personal decorator. Your tastes are not necessarily the same, but even with your combined salaries, there never seems to be enough money to buy your own furniture–it’s weird, but it must make sense somehow. And you can never agree on what you like, either. He gets really irritated and wants to buy the first thing he sees at the store. And since he’s the one with the full-time salary, you’re kind of stuck. So, you live with ratty old furniture in your run-down old house. Who cares, right? The kids are little, and you have a great family.
YMBAC if he bought the kids and himself used snowboarding equipment on Craig’s List, but nothing for you. You’re not good at it, anyway, and you can just rent. He says it’s pretty expensive when you rent, and he’s not going to wait in line with you–there’s a mountain up there. That time his work friends drove up to meet him at the ski area, when you were staying in a house with family friends? Remember when he ditched you to meet them, because you were taking FOREVER to get sunscreen on the kids, and breakfast made and cleaned up, and ready yourself, and his friends were waiting for him–and “J” was there, and he’s really good at snowboarding and he couldn’t wait to teach them all how to snowboard/show off? YMBAC if you just went along with it. It hurt, but whatever.
YMBAC if you were sorry for being a pain in the ass. And you totally understood why he really didn’t want you to go to his work functions and embarrass him. You’re popular amongst your own work-mates and mothers’ groups and friends, but I guess it’s his thing, and you might not fit in.
YMBAC if you totally understand why everyone else at his work has a picture or more of their spouse or significant other on their locker, but he doesn’t. I mean, it’s not like there ARE any good pictures of you that you’d want everyone to see, anyway. It’s not a big deal. You were just noticing one day when you visited him with the kids during his evening shift.
YMBAC if you really thought that he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the living room because “his back hurt too much” on the new, firm mattress on your bed that was too soft for him. YMBAC, too, if you were only mildly irritated that he wanted his own bedroom in the small, 3-bedroom house that you shared with your three children. And that he wanted his own house, and felt good about buying it, even though you could barely afford it–“it’s my get-away place,” he purred. And his mother helped to furnish the place with smart pieces reflective of her taste. He liked it. It was very generous of her, and made the place more comfortable. If you slaved away there, painting, and pulling weeds, and cleaning up after mice, using up your weekends, and buying inexpensive appliances, struggling to pay off your credit card, while he kept his bank account separate from yours, and sneered at you for being financially irresponsible, and you thought that maybe he was right? YMBAC. YMBAC if you were hoping that you’d be able to replace the 1950’s kitchen and 1980’s vinyl floor in your family home, but the other house needed new doors, and tree removal, and siding. If you lived in an embarrassingly ugly little house, while spending over double on his get-away place at the coast, and you thought, well…some day….YMBAC.
One weekend, your friends’ husbands pitched in to fly you from California to NYC with their wives and pay for your lodging and Broadway show. You couldn’t afford it yourself, so you’d begged out, responsibly. You were trying to pay off that credit card, what with the washing machine and dryer and dishes, etc. for his getaway place. That second home was expensive, but he loved it. And don’t look at HIM! You don’t NEED to go to NYC. So your SAHM friends surprised you! And it’s really not cool to think of your husband in a negative way. YMBAC if you felt guilty for wondering if it made your husband feel weird that other husbands were nice to their SAHM wives and to you like that. You wondered what they thought of your husband, but you’re all friends, so it doesn’t matter.
YMBAC if you spent another weekend driving to and from his getaway place, and helping to spruce the place up so that his latest work crush and her new husband would be comfortable when they borrowed the place for the weekend. He was so excited, wasn’t he! He really wanted the place nice for her. And surely he was over her, you figured, since she was a newlywed. So it was ok. He needed help. He has a bad back! (But never at his getaway place.)
YMBAC if you thought his impromptu solo getaway trip to Hawaii for “hiking” was to clear his head–I mean, work had been REALLY stressful for him! He’d been working A LOT!! That’s WHY he could never go anywhere with you and the kids. Plus, his back hurt all the time. You can’t expect him to ride in a car when his back hurts all the time!
YMBAC if you thought that he really drove to Yosemite–twice on an impromptu basis–alone, to sleep in the tent cabins in the dead of winter, because work had been really stressful, and he loves Yosemite, and ice-hiking! Speaking of freezing cold, you have more than a twinge of guilt, and maybe could even be called out for being a frigid, self-centered bore for not dropping everything–work, the kids, the dog–to go with him when he told you he was going at the last minute. You really don’t like the cold, but why should it matter what you want? He works really hard. You work full-time, now, too, but you used to only work part-time, while he worked full-time.
YMBAC if you thought the shaved wad of gray pubes in the toilet was there just because he’s absent-minded and was grooming for you. He’d been a little distant, but when you got together, there seemed to be a bit of urgency to do that one thing he likes.
YMBAC if you had sex twice after D-day with the loser. And you begged him to “fight for us!” and he just snorted. He was pissed at you for making him cheat on her with you. That kinda made your heart and head hurt, but he must have his point.
YMBAC if you thought that maybe when he was over his infatuation with the final OW that the two of you could be really close friends again, and maybe travel together as two single friends–maybe with benefits, *wink-wink!*. He hates to travel.
It’s such a tangled web. My story was similar, and all we can do is try to put it in the past. Keep saying to ourselves, live for right now! And adore the kids we got off these strange people.
That’s why, when I look back, I have a hard time saying that I’d have it any other way. I got 3 kids who are everything to me. (And good insurance, too. I kept that after the divorce!)
Hug your kids, FW!
Same to you.
It’s too bad my three sons have all the knowledge they do of their father. I’m sure they WISH they could admire him. They were hurt too.
But, they are all so strong, and just beautiful, intelligent people. I hope they choose well for partners, my oldest son definately has, she’s a gem.
YMBAC if, like me, you took the daily dose of birth control, when he was superior for taking NO medication. You carried and birthed three of his children, but he refused to get a vasectomy, because “I refuse to get castrated.” My dermatologist, testing me for a nickle allergy, wanted to know why I was considering a nickel-based tubal ligation procedure. He tried to convince me that a vasectomy was the way to go. It was a little humiliating, though he was well-meaning. I guess my gyno and dermatologist were perplexed as to why my ex wouldn’t take his turn and act like a loving husband. After the laparoscopic tubal ligation, my ex took forever to show up at the recovery room to take me home. The nurses kept asking me when he was going to get there. That was humiliating, too. But it’s not cool to be resentful of your own husband. YMBAC for thinking that way, you know.
When I had jaw surgery to correct a facial deformity, same thing. I had driven myself to surgery and stayed in the hospital overnight, recovering from major facial bone reconstruction. He took forever getting to the hospital the next morning, though I had made all the arrangements to get him a one-way rental car to the hospital so he could drive my car home. The nurse kept asking me when he was going to get there. It was humiliating. He arrived, and then left. The transporter wheeled me to the parking lot, but xH was nowhere to be found. I reassured the transporter that xH would be by any second to get me, so I declined his offer to take me back inside. And I waited in the February cold. Finally I weakly made my way on foot back to where I knew he would be–the cafeteria. I was trembling and fuzzy-headed. What!? HE was HUNGRY! YMBAC if, in my situation, like I did, you felt guilty for inconveniencing your xH and for making this all about yourself, and bleeding and bruising, and being ugly and swollen for a couple of weeks. He got a much hotter wife out of the deal, but, God, what a pain in the ass I could be sometimes.
I gave birth to our middle and third child at the hospital where he works. I popped the kids out, and he went back to work while I was in the L&D ward. He laughed that his co-workers clucked at him for leaving my side. YMBAC if that kinda made you proud, because your husband is such a good employee.
Miss Sunshine, mine too refused to have a vasectomy. I was having some female issues and was concerned that the pill may not be as effective as we needed it to be. Neither of us wanted more children (‘we’ had 1- ‘I’ had 2 – our daughter and him). I kept saying ‘do you plan to have children with someone else cause I’m not planning to have anymore’. And of course, after I found out about his cheating and asked, a’hole proudly said that he never once used a condom with his many women and prostitutes.
I often wonder if he had other children.
Well, there’s a clue that your ex is a complete freak. He bragged about not using condoms with prostitutes.
They really have ZERO sense that anyone else has a conscience (because they do not have one themselves). And forget about feelings. Everyone in THEIR world is just a drone.
As I like to say, these freaks are remarkably lacking in INsight and self-awareness for being so completely self-absorbed.
Reading everyone’s stories here makes it all so apparent.
Even getting my own story in black and white makes it more apparent. But it took the cheating to finally clarify everything.
I’m sorry the freak you were married to put your body and soul at risk like that. You didn’t deserve it. He was lucky to have you, but had no clue.
I read that refusal to use condom or birth control is a sign of a narcissist or sociopath. My ex always refused, even after I just gave birth. And he admitted in the end he never used condoms even when engaged in group sex.
My first husband (and father of my three grown kids) would not permit me to use birth control because “it wasn’t natural.” He preferred to use coitus interruptus, which was fine for HIM, and when I complained that it denied me my chance for pleasure, he started waiting till after I was asleep, exhausted from working fulltime, taking care of the kids, and attending school so at least one of us good get a good job to support the 3 kids we already had. So I would awaken to him on top of me. Many years later I realized this was rape. I divorced him a couple years after that started, after discovering his online woman. He then took up with a woman who had told him she never wanted children; got her pregnant and was “heartbroken” when she had an abortion. She dumped him too.
My “current” Ex, the cheater of 16 years that I am recovering from, NEVER used condoms. The reason he never fathered any children despite the unknown legions of women (and men) that he has fucked, is that he is incapable of normal, vaginal sex. I believe you are right that it is probably typical of narcissists and other disordered types, to refuse to use birth control. Anything that impedes their selfish pleasure… consequences don’t matter … that’s for the little people.
You’ve been twice abused, Miss Muse.
I hope you’ll have better. You deserve it.
Miss Sunshine, I hope your ex gets run over by a Mack truck. Twice.
Maybe “Suge” Knight is available?
Miss Sunshine, I hope his next wife is a husband beater with a fierce backhand. That happened to my niece’s POS ex. LOL. He lives in fear of his new wife and never knows when she will haul off and clobber him, but he knows that she will.
Glad, Buddy, and Finally–
How’s this for an active imagination? Every time I hear sirens, or read the headlines in my local paper, “Woman arrested for Domestic Violence,” or, “Man Arrested For Beating Wife,” I say a cheeky little prayer that somehow the ex and OW are involved.
Then I remember that the college tuition (half) he pays is pretty handy for our kids, so I can be patient. Youngest graduates in 3 years, and then, que sera, sera!
Um, but I read somewhere, and have a chumped friend as an example, that if the ex and OW don’t blow up quickly after the triangulation with the chump is over, then they tend to have a long and suffocating relationship that endures and drains, and is miserable. So, I’ll be satisfied with that, because I really do believe that will be the case with the Coward and the Twat Troll. They each have different loves. xH loves nobody, but whatever is his hobby du jour. It’s sort of a sad existence, really. OW has got to be realizing that she stole a moldy lemon. Perhaps she will find someone else to rescue soon.
I keep my outrage and hurt in a box on the shelf. It’s reserved for xH and OW, and their ilk. I bring it out here, as part of my ongoing therapy. I don’t show it to many people, least of all my kids. Nobody but enlightened chumps really can understand.
Truly, mostly I am at meh, SO SO glad that xH is not my ugly problem any more. I would have loved for us to have been an old couple who age together gracefully and graciously, loving our children and grandchildren, and our life together. But I was finally awakened to the truth, that that’s not possible for xH, and I am certain that he will never be a capable and confident man with ANY woman, if he couldn’t be that man for me.
I’d wish him well, but I don’t.
I am doing great. NC is the best invention ever. Chump Lady and this Nation have truly been a life-saver. I cannot imagine going through Life After Cheater with confusion and self-doubt. Tracy has helped to bring clarity to my life through her words of wisdom, with input from the experienced chumps here.
I love you all!! Have a great weekend, everyone!
“I’d wish him well, but I don’t.” Perfect!!! So glad you sound so good.
Miss Sunshine, your ex is a total swine.
“She and I have a lot in common–you and I have NOTHING in common!”
I heard EXACTLY the same words!!!
Yes, they have a lot in common, they’re both Whores.
I heard later from mutual friends (now my Ex-Friends because they stuck with Cheater) that Cheater and OW were drawn to each other in part because they had both attended the same state university in the midwest in the 1980s though they never knew each other. Wow!! If that’s all it takes, I should have been fucking every guy who went to the same college and law school as me, right?
That is so funny, Muse. I had the same conversation with my cheater. He and the Whore lived in the same low rent apartments when he was in his twenties. So of course they had to be Special Friends now. I asked him, So it is o.k.to sneak around with people from apartments, or schools,or work, or whatever since they are part of the past. You do know this would include thousands of people, right?
My college alone had over 30,000 people. So they are all fair game, as well as the thousands more I’ve worked with over the years. And let’s not even talk about neighbors. They really are stupid, aren’t they?
Muse, I think you figured out cheater logic. (Ex needed his Mommy. He cheated with a woman who has straight hair like his Mom. “I told you to straighten your hair more.” Sometimes I would do my hair naturally wavey and he would come up behind me with his hair gel on his hands and flatten my hair. Then, he would be totally baffled why I was mad.) And then, he took my children away from their Mommy. He just couldn’t handle the chaos of frizzy hair.
Miss Sunshine – I have a similar story. The two things that stuck out that you mentioned was the separate bank accounts and pictures. About 10 years ago my stbx and I got into a fight about “My” affair (ficticious). I left. He threatened that if I didn’t come home he would take my name off of our checking account. I didn’t come home. He went to the bank and had them take my name off! YES – THEY TOOK MY NAME OFF OUR JOINT CHECKING ACCOUNT! Now – he has the attitude that it is “His Money – it is HIS name on the paycheck, therefore he can spend it any way he choses!” So yes – he can go out and buy pool tables that are used as shelves or just sit in the shed while I am the one paying for school lunches, Dr. bills, Senior pictures, parties….As far as pictures…. I can GUARANTEE there is NOT ONE picture of me in his phone. But I CAN GUARANTEE there are lots of pictures of beer cans, morel mushrooms, and his friends.
Good luck with your divorce, M’Lady!
What a self-absorbed prick you live with. What a disordered, navel-gazing jerk.
You deserve a better life. And, we’ll see what the court says about “his” money.
Why do these freaks bother to get married?
Miss Sunshine, I’m sure you realize this, but he has/had a seriously fuckedup relationship with his Narc mother.
And he himself, is like, a Super Super Super Narc.
Yeah, I’m really not sure what to think about his mom. She has a rescue complex, like OW. I think these types feel like those who need rescuing cannot judge them, or something. And they live in fear of judgement.
She hated compliments and would act as though I was secretly insulting her. I realize that women often use fake compliments to humiliate other women, but I’m kind of shocked that she never learned to trust me. What can I say, but I often admired her talents. She did not accept this. For example, she tiled her kitchen countertop by herself. I was and am truly impressed. It looked great. I said so, completely charmed by her ability and drive. Same for the slip-covered couches–the covers fit like GLOVES. She would react in a hurt tone, “Well I don’t HAVE the money to PAY someone!!” I would back-pedal and try to reassure her that I meant that I was in awe–in a good way! And she just always seemed so hurt….
She hated when I would brag about HER GRANDCHILDREN. ?WTF? If you can’t brag about grandchildren to their GRANDMOTHER, well…. Did she see it as some sort of personal failure? Did she think I was trying to be a better mother than she is? Did she resent my lack of struggle, being in a 2-parent household with her son? To this day, I don’t get it.
She came alive when she could swoop in and help–such as bringing a Christmas tree to our house, because her son was too busy, and I was tied to 3 toddlers and not feeling capable of doing it myself.
She revealed BITTER resentment toward her daughter’s sister-in-law, who drove expensive cars, and required a re-model of their expensive home at a young age.
Interestingly, I do believe that xH is a covert narcissist. Perhaps xMIL is, too.
http://www1.appstate.edu/~hillrw/Narcissism/shycovertnarcissist.html
There’s another sad angle to his story–he is adopted within the family, from one dysfunctional woman to a relative in a dysfunctional marriage to a dysfunctional male. The whole thing is really sad, but I can’t help but believe xH has some sort of attachment disorder.
I’m definitely not perfect, myself. I’m sure that if xH were to weigh in here, he could come up with a long list of terrible things I said or did in our marriage–far short of cheating and abuse, however.
I can say that I tried, even without a lot of reciprocity. I was not married to a partner, I now realize. Sometimes I wonder if the poor dude did the best he could.
Then I throw up my hands–“Meh.”
http://infoselfdevelopment.com/covert-narcissism-know-your-emotional-abuser/
ExLoki did not do the best he could. I practically paved the path to happiness in yellow brick for him. He chose the path to misery.
I can say that he traveled the life journey with me as far as he wanted to. When I really looked and realized he would not be going anywhere further with me I decided that i would keep going to the finish line alone.
Sure, bad character stunted him, but he made a few choices when good and bad were as stark as day and night.
People say, “I wouldn’t want to be him when collection day comes.”
Wow!
That is spot on, I copied it into my CL archives.
‘Paved in yellow brick’, yes, so true. I used to tell our friends, after I knew he chumped me good, that he’d had everything handed to him on a Silver Platter (by me)
I guess I was trying to win the wife olympics, but now, I realize I never should have had to try so hard!
And that’s why my current life is easy!
🙂 FreeWoman, ty!
YMBAC if you believed that the late night “jogs” with your neighbor were because it was just “too hot” to jog in the daytime. And kids couldn’t come along on daytime “jogs” because….oh wait…no reason. Kids couldn’t come because they snuck out without saying anything and then came back to say they had gone “jogging”.
YMBAC – the “work wife” was invited and attended your baby shower
YMBAC – believed the “im depressed” crapola
YMBAC – gave x a weekend in mountains cause he had not been sleeping because of our newborn…he
texts ho-worker all weekend
YMBAC – believed him moving out was a way for him to find himself and then come back to marriage
The last one rings soooo true for me. Needed his “place” to work on himself so he could come home happy. I am so a chump.
Exactly, YMBAC if your spouse says the affair is over but wants to move out temporarily to work on mental health issues because they have to fix themselves before working on the marriage
YMBAC, if your spouse has new items around that house she did not buy and tells you they came from a person that is not their friend and they rarely if ever see them
YMBAC, if you been married over 10 years and all of a sudden your spouse is comparing your sexual abilities to a hypothetical person
YMBAC, if your spouse is a stay at home parent (child is in school) and never answers the phone and when you get home they just got home 15 minutes before you arrived
YMBAC, if your spouse has a ton of selfies on her phone with flowers and bathtub full of rosepedals but you have never received those selfies from her (in fact never)
YMBAC, if you have roll over minutes on your family plan cell phone with over 500 minutes and in a period of one month they all disapeared and you receive an email that your cell phone will be $50 more than it normally is
YMBAC, if your spouse is asleep in bed andw hile you get up for work and are taking a shower they are making phone calls and by the time you get out of the shower they are asleep again
YMBAC, if you come home from work and your spouse starts an argument to which you have no idea what it is about only to see them then turn to the children in private and tell them how bad of a person you are because you argue with the other parent (for what you still have no idea)
I can go on for hours on this and make a poster larger than ChumpLady did but I really have to work LOL!
YMBAC when your disgusting cheating boyfriend comes to the bar you work in, gets ridiculously drunk and has sex with a random woman in the ladies’ toilets while you’re in the next room working! And the chumpy cherry on the cake? Refusing to believe your colleagues when they tell you what happened. Oh yes, I was once that Chump! *facepalm*
Thank god there is humor here at this blog! It certainly helps to be able to laugh about some of this now, in light of the nightmare that all of us have experienced… thank you CL and CN!
YMBAC if you foolishly agree to try bogus reconciliation even though your spouse is the biggest cheater in the world and has a bunch of conditions for YOU if reconciliation is “to work.” And the two of you go to a MC for a consultation, and after listening to your spouse talk for an hour straight about all of his gay cheating and straight cheating, the MC says he does NOT recommend you reconcile and you should go ahead with divorce. But you still try reconciling for eight more months. 🙁
YMBAC if your husband asked another woman to go Christmas shopping with him because he didn;t know which tye-died license plate cover you would like best. She got jewelry that Cheistmas, And black leather boots.
From my fiance’s YMBAC file:
YMBAC if you are supposed to be in the Pentagon on 9/11/01 and when you frantically call your wife to tell her you werent killed in the attack she seems totally unaffected by the whole mundane topic.
YMBAC if your spouse writes her will and you arent in it
YMBAC if your spouse buys a house and you are not on the title
YMBAC if she decides to “leave” you and she makes you drive her moving truck
YMBAC if your XW has no job and uses the child support you send for your child to pay a cleaning lady
You might be a RECOVERED Chump if you heal from the pain and indignity, find a fabulous chump to marry and live a wonderful life that is much better than the one your ex found after chasing green grass and mirages.
You drove the truck…. Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re a nice guy, aren’t you? Honorable, and all that. And she chumped you.
Hope you’re over that.
I was proud of myself for sitting back and watching–very atypical of chumpy me–as STBXH packed up his truck by himself before moving to his luxury apartment. I was a little crazed (a lot) and sat and berated him.
But my chumpy side took over when he started to cry real tears about how he’d fucked everything up. I hugged him and told him it was all going to be ok–and I meant it. So, I guess we’re all chumps here.
I like the one about the will. I’m an attorney and I drafted my own will, health care proxy and POA. I was a chump because Cheater asked me to draft only a POA and a health care proxy for him. Either he didn’t have a will (doubful) or he had a secret one somewhere, probably naming his disfunctional narc sister.
Unicornnomore:
Congrats to you! 🙂
YMBAC if you thought he was serious about returning because he begged you and your kids!
Said he was losing it with out his family, but in reality OW was tired of him and dumped him.
Didn’t move back in because he wanted to give us space, or the flexibility of texting different OW at night.
Oh the stories!
It was complicated I thought she was pregnant cause I am fixed, she said she would tell you! (I already knew) She said she would send someone to hurt my family!
Oh then it flipped, you were never a good house wife, you ignored me, you are not a good mom, you are lazy, you wasted my money, you never got along with my family!
YMBAC if you sincerely asked your cheater if he missed the OW.
(cringe…cringe…)
YMBAEpicC if you crawl into bed with him to snuggle because he was home sick all day, only to discover a wet spot where you usually sleep. Nope. Not sweat or pee. Nope. Not spilled water. And the soda you like is half gone and he doesn’t drink your brand. And your shampoo cover is and your blow dryer is put away wrong.