Problem, Adult Solution, Cheater Solution
It’s time again to play the game “Problem, Adult Solution, Cheater Solution”! I ran a similar post about a year ago, but I think it’s time to refresh for the newbies and see how far you’ve come for the old timers.
Chump regular Chris DiRico gave this great shorthand about how cheaters react to adult problems in selfish ways. His example:
PROBLEM: My wife and I argue often, mostly over financial matters.
ADULT SOLUTION: From now on, we’re going to keep a closer eye on our finances, cutting costs where we can. We’re also going to work to improve our lines of communication, particularly where financial matters are concerned.
CHEATER SOLUTION: I’m gonna go fuck a 20-year-old.
This prompted several chumps to pen their own little problem/cheater solutions. So today I’m inviting you to do the same.
I think it’s a great exercise for several reasons. A) It’s making fun of the absurdity of cheaters. Always fun. And B) It’s a good way to remind yourself that these people have CHOICES. That you didn’t drive them to cheat. There were grown-up ways of addressing real marital issues or their lives’ dissatisfactions and they chose infidelity. Good way to rewire your brain to think about this.
So have at it — problem? Adult solution? Cheater solution?
Problem: I haven’t got to washing husbands laundry yet. I have 4 other humans to care for.
Adult Solution: Husband help me with the kids so I can get to the laundy, or maybe, just maybe, he could do his own laundry…
Cheater Solution: That’s it! You haven’t washed my clothes, I will now go fuck strange women in the woods.
Problem: Need sex and attention. Wife won’t do wifely duty because she’s in hospital, having delivered baby #3.
Adult solution: Visit wife and baby at hospital. Return home in evenings to relieve grandma who watched siblings all day. Be a man and keep it in the pants.
Cheater solution: Abandon wife at hospital with excuse that friend is pushing to get our home expansion completed. (Didn’t get done for 6 more months.) Leave grandma to watch kids day and night (likely with excuse that he’s at hospital with me). Soooo…….
FREETIME!!! Off to see the whores strip and pay for sexual favors! Wheeeee!
BTW: I found and have saved two receipts from a stripclub timestamped after midnight from while I was recuperating from the delivery of our third child.
Also by the way: This was his solution for every problem and inconvenience for over a decade that I have proof of.
Wife unable to fulfill wifely duties because military sends you cross-country? Solution: whores.
Wife at wits end handling three small children 24/7/365/12, and house messy? No helping to clean up and giving her a break.
No, the best solution would be to photograph the mess, show it to strippers, and take them to a hotel for “needs”.
Conferences, out-of-state training, and job duties keep wife from doing wifely duties, because she can’t very well chase you around the country to keep you serviced. Obvious solution is to secure seven OW over those dozen years, (some concurrently!) plus a harem of stripper/prostitutes to pick up the slack that wife is failing to do. Ugh!
Then, Problem: The cost of strippers really makes family finances tight.
Cheater solution: Convince wife that economic downturn is apocalyptic, and spend the children’s college funds on whores.
Of course, I’m a hateful, horrible, bitch deserving of ongoing abuse because I ditched his sorry ass!
I think the spouses who do engage in spiteful aggressive behaviors do drive their spouses to cheat. Cheating is a sneaky passive aggressive act, as are all passive aggressive acts.
My husband drove me to cheat. I am glad I did. He was cheap SOB and he did a lot of sneaky passive aggressive things, like refusing to help me with chores claiming he needed same sex friend time. boo ya.
We have reconciled now for eight years and he has never engaged in passive aggressive behaviors. The marriage counselor pointed them all out to him and he has stopped.
If i were to begin acting passive aggressive in similar ways, and he cheated. I would understand.
Marriage is a two way street. My husband was not responsible for my decision to cheat, but he did drive me to it.
Just the fact ma’am.
I bet I will be attacked. Go for it.
Here Brittany, let me feed you more kibbles.
“My husband drove me to cheat. I am glad I did. He was cheap SOB and he did a lot of sneaky passive aggressive things, like refusing to help me with chores claiming he needed same sex friend time. boo ya.”
So, you cheated on your husband because he wouldn’t help you with the dishes and wanted to hang out with his buddies once in awhile? Yes that sounds perfectly reasonable. Instead of trying to work it out, you thought being someone’s punch-board would fix hubby’s behavior. You’d have us believe it worked, but anybody trolling an infidelity site probably doesn’t have a stellar marriage. And guess who’s fault that is?
Also, it takes a special kind of idiot to post such a thing in this space. I guess you’ll take kibbles anyway you can get them.
Brittany proves everything Chump Lady has ever said, and most of all, this blog post. There it is folks, Brittany proving that cheaters are just so full of shit that it’s pathetic.
PROBLEM: Husband is a cheap SOB and does a lot of sneaky passive aggressive things, like refusing to help me with chores claiming he needs same sex friend time.
ADULT SOLUTION: Talk to husband about his behaviour, tell him how it’s making you feel and that it’s not acceptable. Listen to what he has to say. Together, either come up with some strategies for resolving the situation or decide to end the marriage.
CHEATER SOLUTION: Cheat and blame husband. Log in to Chump Lady to try and defend decision, hoping that maybe someone might see your side and make you feel better about yourself. Get shot down in flames.
Well, nothing like a little emotional blackmail to keep your marriage right where you want it. So, what happens when YOU’RE not fulfilling HIS expectations, hmm Brittany? Guess you’ll just roll with it cuz hey, your emotions aren’t really connected to anything but your ego … Oops, that’ll send you into narc rage tho. Narcs can’t stand to be cheated on either. Good luck dear and God help your spouse when you become bored with the game you’re playing, which I’m sure has included more than the one fuck fest you admit to.
Justify cheating however you want. It’s still cheating and you’re still a cheater. Frankly, my dear, not one of us here gives a damn about your self-serving justifications. You’re just not that “special.” Now, your poor husband, on the other hand, needs to find a competent therapist and dump your sorry ass immediately!
Brittany!
WTF are you doing? Did you tell your H you were screwing around before during or after therapy?
WTF? Your passive aggressive actions did not lead him to cheat. I’m happy you both are in therapy, but you really need individual therapy because your coping skills suck. I do not think the MC you have done with your H is helpful at all. It’s just a dose of blaming him for your shitty choices. IC for him may be good as well to understand himself better, improve his communication skills and decide if he can spend the rest of his life with a liar, thief and cheater.
What will you do next when you decide, unilaterally, that his hoop jumping is no longer good enough for you?
OH….OK… Brittany , we’ll take you seriously because you’re a unicorn.
That’s gross, Brittany. WTF, is sex kind of like taking a shit to you or eating? You blast away with some stranger injecting you with bodily fluids because you claim your husband is P/A?
That is one of the weirdest and most disgusting ways of dealing with dissatisfaction. What is next, he pisses you off so you start eating fecal matter?
I bet this passive aggressive guy was trying to save some money and didn’t want her buying 100000 pairs of shoes.. probably wanted to retire and not work at 80 years old to support her shoe habit. Meanwhile, she had a perfect excuse.. he’s not spending enough, and his checking on my spending is passive aggressive.. the OM takes me to burger king and buys me a whopper, my husband only makes me dinners, fixes my car, buys me a house.. he never takes me out. Etc…
It’s all her fault, but he made her do it… Textbook right from the example supplied in this blog entry.
Brittany- I just have one question for you. My stbxh was a passive aggressive, emotionally abusive jerk many many times. I didn’t cheat, never considered cheating ever. Why did you cheat and I didn’t?
Oh I know! I know! You have good character and she has shitty character?
Brittany- all of us betrayed folks do so wish we had that kind of power to “make” other people do things. Wouldn’t it be so awesome to be able to cross my arms and nod my head and wipe out all the entitled assholes on the planet by “making them” take responsibility for their own crappy actions? Just like I dream of Genie?
Your husband didn’t make you cheat. My ex was the biggest, passive aggressive jerk on the planet and then he added cheating to the list of his crappy passive aggressive actions.
I guess I could’ve cheated myself but instead I chose to divorce him. That’s the adult response.
That would’ve worked for you too BTW.
Ah, here’s a great scenario!
Problem: Brittany’s husband is a passive-aggressive jerk who refuses to communicate.
Adult Solution A: Tell husband that unless he changes, she will file for divorce.
Adult Solution B: Retain a lawyer and file for divorce to get husband to wake up and smell the coffee.
Cheater Brittany Solution: Have an affair so she can get ego-kibbles from her Affair Partner, and get even more ego-kibbles when her husband does the Pick-Me Dance and admits he “drove” her to cheat. Let’s not talk a lot about potential exposure to STDs.
Not attacking as I know how frustrating it is to deal with passive aggressive behavior, but I would think that retaining an attorney, filing for divorce and leaving would be a far better solution. You ended up compromising your reputation and standing for the rest of your life. People will always think of you as a cheater no matter how positive your life and marriage may be today.
You may have been very unhappy in your marriage. You may have had every reason to be. You may have had an inadequate, spiteful partner.
But you know what you also had? A lot of options besides cheating.
You could have told him that his actions were making you unhappy.
You could have written him a letter starting that his actions were making you unhappy.
You could have performed a puppet show entitled, “Your actions are making me unhappy.”
You could have made a billboard-sized sign stating that his actions were making you unhappy.
Instead, you chose to cheat. Because I’m sure that communicated your unhappiness in a mature and thoughtful manner. It was your decision. Your husband’s actions may have been selfish and sneaky, but even if he had driven you to the rent-by-the-hour motel with a 144-count box of condoms and his best wishes, the decision to cheat was yours.
Your reconciled marriage would probably be happier if everybody accepted accountability for their own actions.
Wow… this pretty much summed up my experience.
Unhappy wife but never sat me down or wrote me a letter. I wasn’t showing enough affection because I was too busy making our financial situation better.
Fast forward, she decided to cheat and blameshifted because I was too busy improving our life so we can pay off the house (less than 3 years left when i kicked her out) and have another kid so she can stay home and not work if she wishes.
Fast forward, lost the AP. She begged back. This time I wrote her a letter to leave me alone even after all true remorse steps she took. Today is only day one of meh, struggling but uplifted.
Moral of the story, cheaters will loose it all eventually. For chumps trying to reconcile, grow some balls, really big ones and say sayonara.
Brittany, i hope my assumption is wrong.
No she is not happy after 8 years she is still trying to justify her actions cheaters never take responsibility for their actions
Geez, where to start? He was awful, you were perfect, you deserved to cheat, he’s reformed, all’s good? Methinks there’s more to it than that.
But if you like your cheater badge go ahead and brag, I won’t stop you. Nothing like a little betrayal to make things right in the world, eh?
Brittany…. You say u went to a marriage counselor? Was she Dora The Explora? Hola Amigos…. Can you say ‘ passive aggressive? ‘ Seriously…. Juvenile. Like kindegarten shit… He took my eraser so i broke his pencil…. So please Dora tell him why he should not be a swiper! Do ya get it Brittany? U are passive agressive too.
Fucking hilarious! I am glad you guys stayed together… Sounds like you are perfect for eachother! Please stay married we dont need idiots like u roaming around loose.
Obviously Brittany doesn’t have a very happy marriage and is only with her husband for convenience, cheaters don’t love their partners
…lol…Brittany but you did engage in spiteful aggressive behavior and sneaky passive aggressive behavior – you totally cheated to hurt your husband and to try to manipulate to get him to stop hurting you. You tried to get even hurt for hurt…
Sadly, you evened the playing field.
Yep, I heard this one too. My friends and I laugh about it all the time.
Brittany
Problem
You accuse your husband of being passive agressive and believe your act of cheating is your own passive agressive reaction designed to heighten his awareness of his passive agressive ways. Now doesn’t that sound exactly like Cheater logic.
Adult solution.
You have a pass on the adult solution as cheating is not an adult solution it is an entitled one designed to avoid responsibility for your actions.
An adult solution would have been to go straight to a counselor or your husband to determine adult like strategies to strengthen your inability to bond.
Cheater solution.
Fuck some strange, brag about it, BLAMESHIFT, and take pride in your fuckedupness. Hooray! Perhaps instead of attacking you as a familiar interaction I would suggest you read about the pain and destruction cheating causes. Brittany you don’t want to be this person. You have a lot of anger an pain. Work on yourself. I truly think you are very confused. Go into counseling.
The problem(s) may change, but it seems the Cheaters solution list is rather short. Bang somebody!
Remember, those cheaters who are willing to talk about it like Elizabeth Gilbert and the Serial Cheater, etc. all admit that it really had nothing to do with their spouse. Their spouses were wonderful and beautiful and so on. They just simply loved the chase and ego stroke of cheating. It’s ALL on them.
So true, it’s like they have to retreat to infantile suckling at the breast for comfort instead of facing and solving adult problems. I’ll switch it up to narc solutions for some re-wiring:
Problem: he didn’t like something I said at a party.
Adult solution: talk about it on the way home or sometime later, respect each other’s boundaries and feelings, apologize, kiss and make up.
Narc solution: fire off a humiliating insult at me in front of everyone and then, on the way home, accuse me of wanting to fuck every guy at the party.
PS: what did I say that spun him into malignancy? Well, some girls were joking about ear hairs on guys and I joked that their husbands should go to my husband’s barber cuz he takes great care of all that… how can that be misinterpreted and twisted into an insult toward him?
how dare you imply that Mr. Awesome had ear hairs, LOL???? how about this party memory: Ex and I are at Xmas party of mostly gay guys. Hmm why won’t Ex stand next to me? Later, in car I say “well, that was fun,” he says, “Are you kidding? every guy there was hitting on me!” I saw no evidence of that. Seriously WTF.
I agree, regardless of the problem or perceived problem, the cheater solution list is very short. Go find other people to have sex with, blame your wife for driving you to it, then blame your mommy issues, continue to see yourself as the victim, get angry and repeat for as long as you can.
Wow, this perfectly sums up my Stbx. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
mimon1, perfectly said! Love those mommy issues, victim stance, and blaming!
Problem : The catalyst to our relationship was when he gave me a beautiful diamond ring on bended knee in Cuba declaring his love for me, however a month later he was lying about hanging out in stripclubs where he was getting sexual favors. Adult solution: i busted him and left him thinking he would smarten up and try to win me back by being faithful. Cheater solution: he went on a sex fueled rampage trying desperately to relive his 20’s…online dating, picking up random people at gas station, bank, strippers. Meanwhile building a new house for us to live in for when he was good and ready with his sexploits..normal behavior for someone obsessed with sex
Problem: I don’t feel like he listens to me.
Adult Solution: Work on communication skills with a couples counselor. Develop reflective listening skills together.
Cheater Solution: Go to the bar and chat someone up. Sleep with him.
Problem: Husband working 4 jobs is insufficient to keep up with my need for clothes, like the 50 bikinis i bought in 2 months.
Disorderd adult solution: Bounce $1000 worth of checks around Christmas.
Cheater solution: Bang old boyfriend to tesch husband a lesson for causing hermtombounce the checks and not supplying more bkinis.
PROBLEM: “You like the Lazy Boy I gave you for Christmas so much that you actually sit in it and I’m mad that you don’t sit on the couch with me.”
ADULT SOLUTION: Say, “Sweetie, I’d love it if you would sit by me on the couch when we watch TV. If the couch is uncomfortable for you, perhaps we should look into buying a Lazy Boy couch.”
CHEATER SOLUTION: Fuck co-worker Beth.
P.S. He never told me it bothered him that I sat in the chair that he bought me. Until, that is, he needed an explanation as to why he was fucking Beth, his co-worker.
Carol……he also probably interpreted your chair sitting during TV time to mean that you didn’t love him anymore!!!
Here in the UK you have to be on the birth certificate to have PR, and he wasn’t around when my son was registered. Technically he could take me to court to have this changed, but I’m pretty confident he doesn’t have the money or the inclination to do that. The process is costly and drawn out
My ex is the same he is totally irresponsible with every aspect of his life although I didn’t realise this until the mask came down, he was great at mirroring my values, and lying about important things like drinking gambling and finances. The thought of him having unsupervised access fills me with dread as he is only capable of looking out for himself, but at the moment I really don’t think that will happen.
As soon as I made the decision to cut him out of my life the heartbreak lessened each and every day. It was the period that I was still clinging on.
I know how it feels to be in your shoes Amileia and it’s awful, your not the only one and I promise you that if I can come out the other side smiling so can you. x
Omg the chair!! I had this too, our new sofa caused my ex to start sleeping with his ho-worker while I was pregnant, and then rent a flat with her after I found out and threw him out, before our baby was even born. Coz nothing says true love co-signing a years lease with a man that has a child in another woman’s womb!
Apparently the fact we sat on different sofas everynight made him wanna fuck his googley eyed secretary. Except we only got the second sofa AFTER he started cheating, and I repeatedly asked him to come and sit with me on the other sofa.
That and the fact that a year previous, I had repeated a joke that one of his friends had made about someone else being better looking than him!!
Yes these are really good reasons to abandon a pregnant woman, and a planned baby
For what reason does a pregnant woman leave her husband/partner? For a damn good one. Always for a damn good one. I’m sorry that you went through that chumpetta. I found out my ex was a cheating pos the same week I found out I was pregnant with a planned baby. His gf posted pics of her and her two kids with him and his two kids claiming they were the brady bunch. This was about a month after I gave birth to my son. Those sorts of men should automatically lose their parental rights.
Oh man. I found all my husband’s porn and dating milf profiles a couple weeks after i found out i was pregnant with our first baby. Also planned. I’m 35 weeks now and it has been a rough Eight months of trying to work with him. And I’m the one who does all the work. After many times of getting my hopes up only to discover more lies, i have found profiles and chats of him sexting other women, soliciting them for sex, and flirting online. He is getting worse not better and i am miserable. I’m due in five weeks so i need him but I’m starting to think I’m a chump! I will be getting my ducks in a row as fast as i can hatch them.
Stay strong for your baby. I would get out soon after the baby is born tho. This way your baby won’t know the pain of having a cheater for a father… It will be hard but not as hard as staying and living in hell.
How did you get him to have no parental rights? I do plan to leave even though it would rip my heart out. We have been married only 14 months. But hes ripping my heart out already. Hes not responsible but he doesnt do drugs or anything. I don’t want to lose half my time with the baby to him.
Amelia and Kat, I’m so sorry you both had to go through this. Cheaters that do this to pregnant woman are extra awful (if that’s possible)
I dealt with the gaslighting while pregnant and trying to work out why he was all of a sudden acting so strange, then the narc rage after d day. I nearly lost my mind but after ending up on a drip in hospital a month after D day (at 3 months pregnant) due to stress I went no contact with that fucker until the baby was born.
He’s now 6 weeks old and Amelia let me tell you, you don’t need him. One baby is enough work you don’t need two to look after, honestly you will do just fine without him. You need to be worrying about yourself and the baby not him. Please look after yourself, don’t let you model this behaviour being acceptable to your baby. My exes father did the same to his mother when she was carrying him, but I am making sure the cycle stops with me.
He comes and sits in my parents front room once a week and holds the baby for two hours then goes back to his new life, I wish he wouldn’t bother. He’s not sorry, he’s just visiting to save his now ruined reputation. He has no parental rights so I’m thinking of cutting his visitation down to even less.
Like your ex Kat he’s parading the new woman around like he’s done nothing wrong, they both have no shame, but everyone looks down on them behind their backs.
Can’t wait till she finds out he’s a narc who lives a parasitic lifestyle, she deserves everything she has coming to her.
The one upside of being tied to him for life is i get a ringside seat watching him fuck up his life – pass me the popcorn!!!
**P.S. He never told me it bothered him that I sat in the chair that he bought me. Until, that is, he needed an explanation as to why he was fucking Beth, his co-worker.**
OMG, THIS!
I’ve learned about the narc cycle and the dynamics of it so I can recognize and brace myself when crazy is coming, but you just summed it all up into the silver bullet that has eluded me. Seeing it coming is valuable, but finally understanding the “needing an explanation” part is priceless.
Thank you Carol.
Nuclear tuna, I lived twenty years of my life like that. My ex NEVER, not one single time, expressed a negative thought to me in a prompt and healthy way. He went around acting like everything was perfect. He treated me so well. I thought I was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth. Until, I wasnt. And then the crap came rolling out, when he needed an explanation to justify the crappy thing he’d done to destroy me. These things ranged from the weird (sitting in the chair he bought me, like I should have just looked at it) to attacking well-thought out decisions that I shared with him and gave him opportunities to share his feelings. He did this to me when he was first caught cheating, in 1998. It took me years to get over the emotional abuse from being treated like that. I never thought he’d do it again, but, he did. The exact same thing. He spent all those years between 1998 and 2005 building me back up, trying to make me think he’d never hurt me like that again, and making me feel safe and cherished. And then BAM, the very minute I told him I knew he was cheating again, the flood gate opened and it was another spewing of attacks and mean-spirited criticisms and outright lies and weirdness, trying to justify that he’d been screwing a co-worker. That time, thankfully, I didn’t take it seriously, although it did destroy me that he did it all again. He can’t help himself. He can’t just man up and say, “I’m an asshole.” Nope, he’s just a sad sausage that has to fuck Beth the co-worker because I sat in the chair, I didn’t come to bed early with him on August 19, 2001, and I use the wrong spoon to stir soup. You can’t make this shit up. No one would ever believe that it actually happened. It’s more fun for people to imagine that I beat him or I was mean to him. The truth is, I loved that man and it showed.
Sorry, it was 1988 that he first cheated. Then the second time was 2005.
Sorry NT…site functionality won’t allow me to reply to WWDSG so I’m replying here.
WWDSG: I was told that I “didn’t understand what he was dealing with” (meaning his supposed sex addiction). I repeatedly asked him to enlighten me about it since he said he was doing the work. He never enlightened me, nor did he show any evidence whatsoever that he was attending meetings and seeing his therapist regularly.
On the other hand, he didn’t show much interest in my challenges and what I was doing to help myself. It sounds like your ex was pretending to be a partner and participate with you, but not really interested.
BTW – I loved Hyperbole and a Half. Great representation of how insidious depression is.
One of the things the ex said on her way out was that she wanted a real partner. Then a session or two ago my therapist said that because I was so overwhelmed with my emotional pain I was unable to be present and therefore unable to be a partner to anyone. It felt like the therapist validated my ex’s reasoning.
It gave me a boost to read someone opine that the ex wasn’t being a partner to me. I appreciate everyone’s kind comments and have found this entire thread to be a goldmine of reassurance.
I had set her up in my mind as the “healthy” one who I should aim to please. My low self-esteem lead me to place all of my self-worth in her hands, so when she left, any value I saw in myself went with her. That part is on me to own and I’m working on it, but it’s so hard not to despair. There are times when I wish for death, though I imagine that’s not shocking to anyone who has experienced depression. I hate that we’re all in pain and I’m grateful that this site exists and is filled with such wonderful people (who is a better world wouldn’t need to be here).
I think you should tell your therapist that she made you feel like you should be further along in your healing (how is that helpful?). And that you felt like she was validating your ex wife’s choice because you weren’t able to be a full partner due to your depression (ouch). She ought to know that, and she should be completely receptive.
Thank you for the advice. I did mention to her that I was upset all week because I felt like she had justified my ex leaving. As I’ve said, I don’t know if my ex cheated on me or left me for someone else, but my therapist is one of those “an affair is indicative of issues in the relationship” folks. She didn’t really react much other than to comment that yes, I was upset.
I had been seeing her for two years or so before the ex left. I’ve been thinking about changing therapists, but I’m worried that I only want to change because she doesn’t always tell me what I want to hear. As my therapist points out, I can turn any thought into a debate, so I may be here for a while. :o)
This is so awful. But it struck such a nerve, because it’s so manipulative & shitty. It’s like all of these narcissists have the same brain!
I was mean to him, I never wanted to spend time with him! He never said a word about being unhappy or being unfairly treated until he was exposed with women 2, 3, and 4!
I love how they reframe the past. Apparently he thought of me more like a sister (after 18 years of marriage), we didn’t share the same interests, and I was turning into my mother. Not that I ever heard any of this until he needed to explain why the OW was worth fucking.
I struggle with her reframing the past. I don’t know that she cheated on me, but I do know that she gave no hint of wanting to leave until she was out the door. I was struggling through changing anti-depressants amidst working through some long-festering FOO issues; my situational awareness wasn’t the greatest and I was pretty consumed with my pain. I have a really hard time figuring out what was real and what she twisted to justify her suddenly running off.
My depression tells me that everything is my fault and she had no problem using that to her advantage when giving her reasons for leaving.
WWDSG, So sorry about the double issue. My wife went through a major depression that lasted months and reduced her to a very sad state. My son and I were there EVERY step of the way and provided as much support as we possibly could. When my son early on told to her “Stay strong, don’t let it beat you”, I emphasized to him that this was not something you can just “beat” by willpower or character. During the process, and when she felt better finally, she thanked us, very gratefully. Our response was always along the lines of not to worry about us, our support was absolutely unequivocal and irrevocable. We were there for her, for the long haul. There would be a positive solution.
Anyway, I think that, or many variations of that, is how loving and strong families are for each other. It’s in my son’s and my DNA, and I thought it was part of my wife’s. Not so. When she got her game on again, time to shed the schmucks and partaaay!
You have a serious, objective problem. Not only did you not get loving support from her in a time when you could have really used it, she also used it as an offensive weapon against you. Godawful
Chumpguy, I really appreciate both of your responses. Thank you for your responses and for your support of someone with depression. And for educating your son on what depression is and isn’t. You really get it.
I think my ex did try to help at some level, but she didn’t understand that the problems might be recurring or cyclical. And then everything went to hell when I figured out my FOO issues and changed anti-depressants. When I was depressed I would tell her that if she ever couldn’t take it I’d understand. I now realize that that was my way of seeking reassurance that she’d never leave me, and that a far healthier approach would have been to express my fears.
I know and knew that living with my depression was a challenge. My depressed mind told me I wasn’t worth her effort and I felt guilty that she put up with me (even that language reflects my self-worth). I tried to make up for it in other ways, such as supporting her when she quit her job to go to nursing school. I was always explicitly clear that my depression had nothing to do with her and encouraged her to have firm boundaries, as I know depressed men can be verbally hostile. I thought that she loved me enough to make the depression a pain in the ass situation that we would suffer through together as I was working on it. I was wrong.
You have the admiration of a stranger for going through all that you did, and of course you have my sympathy that your efforts weren’t appreciated. I used to tell my ex that she was the best thing that ever happened to me. I suppose part of the problem was that she agreed, and if I didn’t tell her often enough, she’d say it for me.
I miss her and the relationship because I thought we had something special and I can also recognize that I have a lot of fear that no one else will ever want to put up with me and my issues. I’ve always felt broken and her leaving seemed to confirm it. That feeling of being broken tells me that I’m not worth the effort and she was right to run for it. Eh. I have issues (being melodramatic amongst them). My therapist is going to be able to afford a yacht by the time she’s through with me!
WWDSG- normal people would have empathy for a spouse with depression. I have a good friend who’s husband has depression. She says it is hard sometimes but they work on it together and they both are kind and loving toward each other and their 3 kids. It’s actually sweet and inspiring because this is how adults deal with these issues. They take their vows seriously. Unfortunately, all of us here made the mistake of marrying very immature people who can only think of themselves. Stop beating yourself up over having depression- you were the mature one who was working on a solution. She was a 5 year old who ran away. You really are better off without someone like that.
WWDSG: Using cheater logic, YOU had every reason to cheat (“I needed to feel better about myself so I flirt with and F others” “I have FOO issues that drive me to cheat”……), but you didn’t. And you didn’t pull up stakes and run from your marriage.
I also live with depression and it’s friends anxiety and anger. But I was upfront with my cheater about these challenges and worked throughout the marriage to conquer them. He did not work on his “sex addiction” though (pretended to go to meetings while he was really at the bar flirting with his favorite server).
During the marriage, I frequently blamed my issues for his withdrawal, which began on our wedding day when he couldn’t stop making eyes at another woman. He used my tendency to blame myself to his advantage. Sounds like yours did, too.
Keep working at it. Have some compassion for yourself. Nothing you did DROVE her to cheat/leave. I realize that now and I have CL and CN to thank for helping me really believe that.
Were you made to feel like a failure for not working at it hard enough? Or maybe for not doing it in the way your husband would have? I desperately wanted my ex to recognize what I was dealing with and how hard I was working to escape it, but I don’t think she ever truly got it. She read the enmeshment books with me and read the Hyperbole and a Half writer’s book, so I thought she was getting there. Instead she used it for ammo, telling me that other men in the enmeshment books had lost their partners and done just fine, so in reality she was possibly helping me along in my recovery by running off. So noble of her!
Hey, WWDSG,
My wife was always an absolutely incredible master at reframing issues from her side. I’ve had a couple of partners at large law firms tell me she would have been an incredible litigator/lawyer because of her tenacity, ability to make people play the game on her field, and to sell and persuade people on her point of view.
This site is an immense help because we have all been there in this situation at one level or another. I would guess the percentage of people here who have wrestled with the issues of “What did I do to cause/contribute? Is this really MY problem causing this?” is very high. We tend to be empathetic people who try to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, particularly in the case of a cherished h/w.
Some here are able to compartmentalize through this, say don’t let the door hit you, good riddance to bad rubbish, deal with the pain, and move on. I admire them, they are exemplars, and I do not minimize their suffering in the slightest. But all of us are wired a bit differently.
All that said, and with all respect, a good counselor can be an immense, huge help with this very issue. I had a hard time sorting through the bs storm she threw, and I was not dealing with depression. There were some times when up became down. The fact that I didn’t morph on command into a 60 year old party boy and club kid, well what was wrong with me? The guy I saw was able to enable me to put all this in perspective and make me realize that no, I had done nothing to merit the treatment I was getting. Her infidelity was on her, not me.
I can’t even imagine trying to sort it out if you are in a depressive state (I know about those, and mania too – wife is bi-polar). Hang in, you’re not all alone out there. And your analysis is spot on. They have an unerring and uncanny ability to focus on a weakness and will use it to their advantage. They just don’t care.
ThT is pretty much what I heard. Of course, I killed his dream, didn’t support his business and didn’t show him gratitude (now I know this meant I cut off kibble!).
Problem: We really wish that you would be more involved with all of us. You spend all of your time golfing or hanging out with your friends at the bar. I’m tired of being a single parent and the kids need their dad.
Adult Solution: Husband could golf/drink once or twice a week instead of 4 times
Cheater Solution: You make me feel so bad, I hate coming home. Now I will be out more and and BTW I’m auditioning your replacement
// , For some people all the world is just a stage, and they are merely players. “Auditioning” is a fitting word.
Problem: My wife is going to grad school while working full time and raising two boys, I feel slighted.
Adult solution: Talk out the issue as a couple and make sure we still have alone time, which wife would be in total agreement on.
Cheater solution: Find an old GF and Facebook, chat her up while wife is working on her homework in the same room, become abusive, travel to Miami to go on a week long sex cruise with old GF while wife is home taking care of home and kids…
Dang ChumpToTheMax, you pretty much wrote my story except replace with “banged the truck driver granny ho that works or (or under) me”
These cheaters have no brains, their solution is always the same.
They really are stupid.
Problem: My wife has Stage 4 Endometriosis, hormones raging up and down, depressed, hernia repair, and will have to have a total hysterectomy abdominally (the old-fashioned way), and therefore has little to no desire to cater to my every need/want. She lies around all the time “resting” and has difficulty with her “wifely duties” due to her husband.
Adult Solution: Help out more at home, quit being so ME- focused/selfish, get more involved with Autistic daughter, be more loving and kind to wife during her medical illness and recuperation.
Cheater Solution: Take as much money as I can out of the joint account and go out all night with my “friends” claiming to be too drunk to drive/come home- even strip clubs and hotels all night, re-connect with an old high school girlfriend – have an “emotional affair”, start chatting up another woman at the same time, ignore Autistic daughter- act like her difficulties are wife’s fault- do nothing to improve parenting skills, pack up and leave two weeks after wife has double-surgery, then claim to be felt “alone” in marriage.
Too tired or drunk to drive? Pay for a cab! I can take you to get your car the next day or control your drinking.
Thank you, informal— that was my argument- Every.Time.!!!
Wow, he’s a fuck head Unsinkable. I’m sorry you had to go through that. My best friend would remind me that “he’s lower than shit on shit” and that sounds like your x too. Hope your doing better. Hugs
Thank you, deepbreaths, I am!!! It has been a very difficult 90-day mind-fuck for sure… To this day he claims that I “made him feel alone” while sitting right next to him playing candy crush or pet rescue while he sat right beside me and was on Instagram, Facebook, Snap-Chat, and dating sites advertising himself because he was “feeling alone”- but I am the one that “abandoned” him… fuck head indeed!!!!
Addition to Cheater Solution: Tell wife you love her and just want to “find myself”, that there’s no one else, yet meet a 26-year-old online and lie to her, and high school girlfriend, and the other woman about wife- lie about her as a mother, wife, woman. Then get royally pissed when said-lies are exposed!!!
Problem: He is no longer attracted to me because he doesn’t like my long blonde hair, or the fact that I gained 7 pounds since our wedding ten years ago (current weight: 122, 5’8″ tall).
Adult Solution: Kindly discuss how much you like how I look with shorter hair, although long is ok too…but short is so sexy!! 😉 And let’s start walking every evening, so we can both be healthier together as we age!
Cheater Solution: I need to fuck dozens of other women from our local trailer park and from Ashley Madison, and I will do so in our home, our office, and at hotels during the day (when our home or office are both available). Double extra bonus points for me if they’re repulsive and vulnerable–such as if they use coke or heroin, have fresh track marks on their arms from needles, or if they have noticeable “coke nail”. I’ll also take other men’s wives from the trailer park with me on business trips and hide them in my room, because stealing other men’s wives makes me feel SO strong and powerful. Fuck my wife and her long hair and seven extra pounds, who does this bitch think she is? I’ll show her who’s da boss!
Problem: wife and are overweight, don’t seem to have much in common after 12 years.
Adult solution: talk about the problem, start walking/exercising together; build on what we do have in common.
Cheater solution: join a gym (individual membership), berate wife for still being fat, have affair with trailer park trash, start using illegal steroids, start running, refuse to let wife meet new fitness “friends,” have another affair (telling ow divorced for 8 years, a big lie), berate wife for being fat, having thin hair, never supporting him (untrue), etc. Tell son “I don’t like fat chicks.” Move in with ow (also overweight but apparently chumpy), who licks his asshole, as I call it.
Better off without the pos!!
// , Damn.
Are cheaters ever satisfied with us? I’ve been too fat (“cow” after giving him a child), too muscular (“you look like a guy”), and too thin (“Holocaust Walkingthruhell”… well, that was due to the infidelity diet as CL so aptly defined it!).
So the problem was that you didn’t ask him what the exact proportions were that you needed to be for him to find you attractive. How dare you beer even one inch from his idea of beauty.
Veer
Yeah, I was on the infidelity diet as well. When I finally left, I looked like someone emerging from Auschwitz right after liberation during WW2. Such shallowness from these cheater-freaks. Hugs for you, and all at CN. These posts are so heartbreaking (some of them snarky, yes – but still heartbreaking).
The collar on my dress was too high.
Uh, Sara, sorry but I want to be you. 122lbs at 5’8″ ! And minus your Cheater! You GO GIRL!
Problem: Wife is depressed over 2nd trimester loss and wants to have another baby. Husband doesn’t want another baby.
Adult Solution: Open the lines of communication regarding the loss and fears. See a therapist.
Cheater Solution: Fuck a married coworker who can’t have children.
Guess who accidentally got pregnant?
How dare you have feelings and needs. Didn’t you get the memo that only HE was allowed to be the focus of attention?
Slg188, (((Hugs))).
Ex’s Ambivalence re having children was one of my first red flags. As was the length of time we dated, eight years…. Apparently my ex wasn’t happy with me, our marriage, our children, or our life together (as the years grew he became more distant, self absorbed, and disengaged) as one day he was able to just walk out. Ex spent a majority of “his life” away from us any way. No surprise there. At work. At the fitness club, playing tournaments. Traveling for work. Spending time with guys who had no problem fucking over the women in their lives. I was the wife that never had any problem with any of it. (For a long time though he was a good spouse and father.) I was busy, happy, and competently doing it all. And trusting that he was invested.
My ex did have it all, a great family, a beautiful intelligent wife, three happy kids headed off to college, a beautiful home on twenty acres, custom built on a lot we had discovered on a beautiful day together, a rewarding job, a working spouse, and all the toys that your average middle class family has acquired over the course of 28 years together, plus years of happiness and challenging times together.
Problem: Ex really didn’t want all of the above. On the way out he let me know HIS “life was perfect, all except for… ” ME.
Solution: have that honest conversation and settle property division fairly. Keep paying the mortgage. Contribute to the kids’ well being and their college expenses (this our promise to all three and which was easily affordable).
What Cheater ex did: Went scorched earth. Blew up finances, dissipated assets, walked out on the kids college expenses (and daily support), dumped the house on a mortgage he could easily afford, walked away from the kids, bullied me before Dday and during the two years it took for the divorce to go through.(And six years later is still having a problem completing the QDRO.) Oh, icing on the cake, leaves a HIV test dated two years before Dday in his desk drawer for me to discover, then vandalizes our home when it has been foreclosed upon (and yes the family he ditched is scrambling to move out!). He then runs off and marries his skank racquetball partner, his AP of two plus years (Like all Cheaters he got off on the fact that he was screwing us both at the same time), and buys himself a new house. Brings the kids gifts but really doesn’t want them.
My solution. Give him that divorce. Move. Go no contact. Live and model healthy boundaries and an authentic, truthful life.
I am so Thankful I found this site. Drew I feel we have a common bond that is exactly what my ex did. He had a wonderful family, home, toys, He tried so many things to try and make him happy. I guess he decided since none of those things worked, he needed to replace me, with his secretary. Yes he kept in communication with her for 15 years. Not sure how long the affair was, could have been that long. He tried to hide everything and say he was leaving to find his happiness. Our QRDO is still in the working, the divorce was final last Oct. He would rather just pay me monthly and not pursue the QDRO. I thinks it makes him feel like he is still taking care of me, so he wont feel so guilty about destroying his family. I guess the problem was I didn’t give him enough attention and he felt his secretary is the ONE who he has been wanting for a long time. I didn’t meet his need anymore and he deserved happiness. I didn’t pay attention to him I spent time with my daughters. They were more fun.
Solution: Talk about feelings. Discuss doing things together instead of work always coming first. Sit with me and talk instead of watching alligator shows every night.
Cheater Solution: I have an emotional relationship with my secretary and we deserve each other, and yes those Cialis pills were for her. Oops sorry you found them in my drawer. I know he didn’t use them for me we hadn’t had sex in over a year telling me he couldn’t perform. Poor man!!!
You know when my marriage turned to shit the last thing I thought he’d been doing was someone else 🙁 . But I also addressed his behavior. Told him it needed to change. He must have been scrambling then, that whole double life thing of his was hemorrhaging. Problem was I was doing the work and extremely committed to our family. His disrespect and disengagement grew, typical, IMO, for people who believe things “just happen” and who have no intention of having a healthy relationship. Even grown up solutions don’t work. Fact is my ex chose his poison, same as all the rest. It is what he earned. Not because it was better, it was just that his crap life skills and poor choices put him there. In the end it was easier for him to make up lies and excuses than it was for him to look at his own crap life choices. Funny thing though, he is now living with those consequences. And still trying to convince everybody that he made the right choice.
Patty
X couldn’t perform for years and was unable to take medication. Special one has no idea he’s playing out his fantasy and still calling OW. Hysterical. I was tempted to give her their names and numbers but it’s more fun letting her pay his bills for the summer.
Same thing is happening to me right now Drew. Assholes.
Oh no, slg188! How did it end for you?
The ex is now married to the MOW and their miracle child is due any day. They are using a name talked about for the baby I lost. Yep… Cheater solutions are fantastic!
Geez what an asshole.
slg – going through a similar situation where ex is going to use one of a family name (my middle name) for her affair child, because ‘she loves the name so much’… the audacity of it blows me away…
I had recurrent pregnancy loss. We were going through fertility treatments when he fired up the big time cheating machine. His daughter was born one week after our divorce was final and he used a name we had always discussed using. They suck.
Sig188, so sorry for your loss. What a conniving and selfish — yet sadly predictable — way to hurt you. I hope her labor is long and painful.
Thanks. My kiddo was almost 10 pounds, so it quite possible that her labor will be pretty shitty!
Problem: Been reminiscing about sex life with ex-boyfriend.
Adult Solution: Huh?
Cheater Solution: Yep, That. Plus add abandonment to boot.
By the way that’s my ex-wife who’s reminiscing. Lol!
Michael, LOL! Gosh that is funny! I am glad so many of us here have such great senses of humor. It helps, because this shit sucks.
// , She did not even respect you enough to even make up a half-assed lie with a degree of plausibility to latch on to.
I hope her ex-boyfriend is violent with women.
Problem: wife changed after her mother died and I couldn’t make her happy
Adult solution: suggest wife may be depressed and encourage getting therapy
Cheater solution: find a pink cow that wandered onto your field in FarmVille, engage in EA and make money shot porn videos in the guest bathroom when you should be parenting your three year old son (subsequently marry the pink cow four years later but still live in different countries)
I actually did the Adult Solution in this exact situation. Unfortunately, my wife’s answer to her depression was having a long-term affair with her boss and lending him the bulk of her inheritance from her mother.
Pink cow on Farmville? Lol. What a dick.
Yes, PhysicsGal, this was my experience too! My mother died after a 1.5 year battle with cancer, during which Cheater was of little support. After she died, he thought I should be “over it” and why wasn’t the house being immaculately cleaned and his laundry done? No encouragement or comfort, or any thought that I might be depressed. He said later that since I withdrew, he had to find attention and passion elsewhere. Thanks…
Let me give you an official diagnosis of narcissism, just in case you had your doubts.
I think grieving is normal but too hard on the disordered. As is any life challenge. Kids. Sickness. A move. A new job. Any change good or bad and they struggle. Their default setting is to look for a quick fuck. Hey new life, right!?!? 😀
Could it also be that they love drama?
When there are dramatic situations where they are not at the epicenter, that’s where I noticed the tantrum from the cheater because our focus was naturally not on them but on solving some other issue. When there was even the slight possibility for personal or professional drama where they could be the headliner, that’s where they stirred the pot, whipped up a frenzy. I could see the elation, the high, in my cheater’s face. He loves it still.
THIS ^^^^^^^^ He has claimed several times in the last few months that I am the one creating drama, yet every time yet another woman or lie is exposed, he wants to blow up on me….yeah, drama-fueled much???? I’m the one that sits at home with our child night after night while he’s out having a grand ‘ol time with his loser friends and skanks, but I’m the one creating drama!!!
I told him, “Don’t tell lies about me, and I won’t have to tell the truth about you!!!”
Fucking asshole!!!
This ^^^^^^
Cheaters love drama at any cost. They will go to great lengths to create or perpetuate it.
So right, Drew! Never occurred to me before so I thank you for helping me understand this shitstorm. During “data collection” after DDay I learned about an affair that took place 12 years ago when we moved to a different state… totally supports your theory.
Wow! I am so sorry for you. I changed, too, when my mother died. Woke up from my “depression” and had the clarity to discover my cheater’s solution was to fuck his married co-worker who lives on the other side of the planet. Wasn’t feeling appreciated enough (ie., not enough kibbles). Your story leaves me speechless… can’t make that shit up!
Problem: His best reason for cheating was, ‘You don’t ever plan things when I come home.’ Husband works out of state five days a week. Wife stays home with high strung, difficult teenagers and also takes care of husband’s elderly relatives (one was blind with Alzheimers and incontinence; the other was almost 100!). Husband wants to relax and play golf all weekend when we gets home. Wife buys tickets for events, shows, concerts; asks husband to go to a movie or dinner. Anything because she wants to spend time with him. Some weekends he doesn’t come home at all and the tickets are wasted or have to be sold. He doesn’t like movies because he can’t sit still that long! Unless its something he wants to see.
Adult solution: Compromise with wife and play golf a few hours one day of the weekend. Notice that she barely has time to pee, let alone plan activities for the weekend, but that she tries to plan things, but he “has to work” that weekend and can’t come home. Spend a little quality time with your children that you don’t see all week.
Cheater solution: Have multiple affairs, including playing house in your out of state condo with your young whorefriend. Lie, lie, lie, even when you get caught with proof. When you’re home, put in as little effort as possible and ignore everyone while you furiously text and email that dumb ass who thought she was going to get her high powered exec AFTER THE BABY WAS BORN! Big dummy. He’s already moved on and she’s left raising a kid who will be well taken care of financially, but won’t have a father. Karma is a bitch, ain’t it?
Here’s one courtesy of the fuckwit I wasted 10 years on.
Problem: Newlywed husband stressed out over “growing up” and taking on responsibilities that come with being a married man in your mid 20’s (gainful employment, bills, renting first apartment, etc)
Adult Solution: Communicate fears and anxiety to wife, shift certain responsibilities around to help alleviate the stress (mrs does the bills, mr does the grocery shopping, whatever works), talk to a therapist, go to job fairs, Career Link, and check out online job postings.
Cheater Solution: Deplete bank account that parents set up at birth (forced to put portion of birthday & holiday $ into it) by withdrawing funds and depositing them to joint account with wife every 2 weeks to make it look like you have a job. Meanwhile, while wifey is at work, use her computer to arrange meetings with online skanks…and fuck them in the bed you & wifey sleep in at your shared apartment during her work hours.
All this only 3 months into the marriage. Def could’ve used CL advice back then. But I see the light…no more cake or kibbles for this twisted fuck.
FreedomFromCrazy, I have another Adult Solution: GROW the Fuck UP! (This for all our Cheaters!) waaahhh waaahhh waaahhh! You know life doesn’t give you all these gifts for you to bitch about how hard you have it! Babies (and all that damn work! Lol)–a blessing! Work–a blessing! Good health–a blessing! Marriage–a blessing! Cheaters, well they just shit on all of it.
Nailed it!
// , How can you warn others?
Problem: while married takes ten year old child out on a dates with his 18 year old GF. Tells child ‘ aint it funny we keep bumping into Tweeny! ‘
Adult solution: Get some balls and morals and fess up. Admitt you are unhappy in the marriage. Discuss divorce. Leave your partner with a good settlement.
Cheater solution: manipulate your child into not saying anything. Continue living a duplicitious life. When confronted spin the story. Walk out to unknown address. Become violent and threatening when partner chooses to explore her options in the divorce.
The Clip, sometimes that whole “unhappy in the marriage thing” bothers me. To the disordered I think it’s just plain UNHAPPY.
Drew,
I get it…. But i do believe that there are unhappy marriages. As there are unhappy people. Unhappiness is not an excuse to cheat. I do believe that people can be unhappy in their marriage and remain married without cheating. I believe there are loveless marriages too. People who get married for all the wrong reasons but remain married without cheating. A lot of people get married for all the wrong reasons .. . Too young… Too selfish…I had a friend get married to this guy that she never really loved… He looked good on paper. She wanted to be married… It didnt really matter to who.
I think if you identify that you are unhappy and dont want to do the work ( albeit on yourself or the marriage) then you bow out. Not cheat. Had my Idiot told me he was’ unhappy for x y or z reason. I would have asked him what he wanted to do? And if he said leave… I would have respected that… It would hurt but nothing compared to the cluster he created.
What pisses me off about ‘ unhappy’ is you dont hear about it until later and it is used as the excuse for cheating. I aint a fucking mind reader…. or wait, let me dust off my fucking crystal ball.
I hate the “unhappy in the marriage” thing too. I call BS! Unhappy people are just unhappy period. I bet most chumps were the kind loving person in the marriage and the cheaters were usually the jerk in the marriage, yet the chumps tend to be happier people because they know happiness comes from the inside. The “unhapiness excuse” is usually total BS and I hate when I hear that crap.
Right???! I was unhappy in my marriage many times. Many times I was so lonely I cried myself to sleep thinking eventually things would work out for us. I believed we would eventually work things out… that he would see what he was missing. What I didn’t realize is that he was cheating most of our 30 years. He didn’t “miss” any of it, because he didn’t value it.
That’s so sad IAJ but I can really relate. They just don’t get it because their emotions are so surface level. Hugs. Make a great life for yourself.
Problem: husbands Std results come in the mail.
Adult solution: admitt you have been sticking your dick in a piece of strange. Encourage your wife to seek medical testing.
Cheater solution: try to convince your wife the testing was for medical clearance at work. Tell her she has nothing to be concerned about and that she doesnt trust you. Look her strait in the eye and lie to her as the tears are pouring down her heartbroken face. But you stick to your story.
Imagine the humiliation of going to one of your college roommates asking to be tested and why. I work in the medical profession, me family practice, she ob-gyn. Luckily she understood, tested me, and sent me home with a prescription for sleeping pills.
Yup. Been there… Done that. Luckily negative for all…. I still feel dirty.
Ha! STD test for work? Is that because he is a male escort or works in the porn industry. Those are the only two “pro” areas I can think of that would require a periodic STD test for employment.
(Very, very very sorry for you. Had go do my own STD panel and also have received via the cheater the gift that keeps on giving. )
You know what’s weird about that though … about 2 years ago I thought I might have a yeast infection. I went to urgent care and they did a test. They didn’t tell me everything they put on the test panel. When I got the lab results back, one of the things they tested for was Chlamidia(sp) !!! I was shocked.
So, I AM NOT DEFENDING your guy, but, sometimes these docs or labs apparently do STD testing without discussing with patients!!!
…… It was the only test he had…. For stds….he was sticking his dick in an 18 year old girl. Busted.
Oh…a FYI… the same test that they do for yeast…. Typically picks up anything else. Just blanket coverage… And a good call by your provider. Women tend to develop symptoms and men not so much…. Any unusual vaginal discharge Should be tested for stds. Gold standard. Trich is the most under diagnosed… And u can harbor it for a long time without symptoms. There are only a few offenders for vaginal discharge…. Std, bacterial infection or yeast.
oh god. grrrrr
Problem: Adolescent steo-children are now in the picture who have never known another father than their own; hence, naturally hesitant bonding with new step-dad (but not opposed).
Adult Solution: Do activities as a family to establish relationships with new step-dad (ie. spend quality time with each other).
Cheater solution: Whine and complain to all who have ears that ‘the kids’ won’t talk to him and are ignoring him (not true, but hey!); off to one of his girls house he goes to commiserate……for a few days.
They don’t like their own kids, much less anybody else’s.
Problem: daughters boyfriends dad moved here from Hawaii and has no friends
Adult solution: invite him over for BBQs and Fourth of July festivities at family gatherings to make him feel welcome.
Cheater solution: Facebook friend him and then fuck him and spend weekends with him while claiming she’s with friends and then abandon family to move in with him and HIS daughter who also zipped on over from Hawaii. Aloha.
Ugh 🙁 who are these people!?!?
Subhumans.
Problem: Loving wife, young adult children gainfully employed, beautiful home, savings in the bank, and retirement on the horizon.(Real problem: Blindsiding wife because he didn’t have enough guts to mention or discuss any problems.)
Adult Solution: Continue into the golden years with your spouse who loves you, has stood by you through all the years, would do anything for you, and who loves you with in spite of your flaws. Discuss any perceived problems like adults who love each other.
Cheater Solution: F*** howorker and blow up the world of everyone around you.
One step: had the same scenario play out.
Problem: 2 yrs from retirement, good financial security, beautiful house, 2 grandchildren, looking for “lake” house, Sad Sausage receives his medicare card (turned 65!). Sad Sausage has been detached for long, long time. Discovered him sneaking around texting, talking, and attending happy hours and lunches with a howorker.
Adult solution: Respond to wife who has been standing by but begging SS to work on their marriage, rejuvenate sex life.
Cheater solution: EA evolves into physical affair with howorker who is 40 years younger. Lie and deny like crazy.
PS: Mediation last week and I WON big time. That financial security? Oh yea……. Thanks to Roberta for my inspiration! Days away from Meh, which will come on Tuesday.
Welcome to the winners circle! But these idiots make it so damn easy! Have a blast with your new and improved life on his dime!
Yup, that close too! Alien ate their brains?
Problem – wife feels tired and unappreciated because she is working f/t, doing all the household chores, looking after pets and bringing in more money than hubby.
Adult solution – husband pulls his weight about house, does more to help/ engage cleaner so wife can have some free time..
Cheater solution – Says “I don’t want a strange woman poking around our house” then proceeds to f**k employee in marital bed when wife out at work.
juliet, I got that one too. I had developed a chronic medical condition and cleaning toilets in 4 bathrooms, plus everything else was getting hard for me and I wanted to hire cleaning help that I would pay for. He freaked and said, “I don’t want strangers in my house!”
Must have been something he was hiding, perhaps. And then he bragged to me on D-Day how he had brought OW to our house while I was at work. Claims they didn’t fuck, but seriously? And she repeated mailed him cards, letters and a postcard with an artsy line drawing of a naked lady on the cover, to MY house at MY address!!! Brazen. both of them. assholes. good riddance. I mean seriously, I couldn’t have a cleaning lady but he could have a mistress?
Oh, wow, same situation and he did say “I don’t want a strange woman poking around our house”. I am not aware of him doing anything to the employee, but I do remember that she never came back, found a new excuse every time she had to work in our house.
So you are working long hours, at work, and at home, bringing in real money, taking care of your pets, and your poor “neglected” POS partner helps by fucking the maid?!? WOW, just wow. That maid I’d have a hard time paying. I think I’d even call her employer and complain. Bet “sleeping with client” isn’t part of “cleaning the house.” Jeopardy answer: Who is Schwarzenegger? What*total*shit heads.
Problem: Cheater can’t cope with reality – work (even though I’m doing lots of it for her at the expense of mine), various unresolved issues, angry all the time, depressed all the time, anxious all the time.
Adult Solution: Get professional help (as I kept begging for).
Cheater Solution: Blame spouse for everything in life, neglect spouse, totally withdraw from spouse – devote all attention and intimacy to narc living down the street who is cheating on his wife (who’s doing the same to him) while they “work on their marriage”
wife juggling 2 young children, managing finances of home and business, H away with work sporadically and for weeks on end. W working closely with H in business, but W making sure can work at home so can look after young kids, Exhaustion, and worry about business for wife, H not concerned thinks wife will make it all work. Trying to build a solid foundation for the future of the family without any support from H, H not lifting a finger when home, whinging and whining all the time about responsibility of family, but actually not taking on any responsibility other than doing the rudimentaries of job, leaving all heavy lifting to wifey….heavy lifting for business and home. Wife wants to chat it through and get some support and help from H because on point of not coping.
Adult solution = talk about how to alleviate the amount of pressure on wifey…listen when wife says she is bending under the pressure, help even a little by even JUST taking the rubbish out….just a little gesture of appreciation. Be appreciative when the house is run, the business finances are taken care of, the domestic bills are paid while you are away constantly. Don’t walk in and criticise how the furniture is arranged during
yet another household move while you’re away, a move forced by you because you have found yet another bigger and better house, even though wife and kids are very content in previous home and don’t want to move.
Cheater solution – Go away on a gig secured by wife (yes he’s freelance artist and I marketed his work) and fuck the x model assistant employed by wife, continue the affair for months and send wife and two young children interstate (900 k away) so you can “find your Creative space” in an inner city bachelor pad.
Finally decide wife is what you want and beg her to move back. Meanwhile wife suspects something is going on and asks straight questions and is given bare faced lies. Cheater continues to lie for a decade even though concrete evidence is found.
PS one example ….many more
Oh wow sounds similar to my husband… read below…
Problem: My foreign wife of eight years wants to start a family. I am so selfish and immature that this scares me shitless + we have to do IVF because I have an obstruction due to chlamydia infection in my early teens (yay for unsafe sex!) and I am scared that I am infertile and don’t want to dissapoint my wife who I do love very much. Oh dang IVF worked like a charm, she knocked up! She stay in home country where she feels safe because it is a difficult pregnancy, I don’t really like this, I got back to home country after IVF, but I need my cake with me all the time.
Adult solution: Skype wife lots and talk about worries and fears. Talk with friends and family, seek out a psychologist.
Cheater solution: I go home to latin land very happy about wife and baby but then after about eight weeks (right around when wife’s father dies by the way) I freak out about baby and start hanging out with the douchebags and party it up with ALL my addicitons full blown (alcohol, weed, a little coke) and I take local town slut out to many beach trips after partying, same convenient married-with-kids town slut I have banged since childhood and appearantly still know how to find! Then I start full blown affair with volunteer yoga instructor at my parents business! Then when it’s almost time to fly out to wife for birth, I run away with other woman and say sorry I don’t want wife anymore! Then when baby is a few months I miss wife and baby girl is actually very cute and I feel very miserbale, I miss them (and the tons of cake that came with my wife). Wife don’t want me back, but is open to being friends. I get mad, I want my most yummy cake BACK, so I blame her for a bunch of things that made me cheat (having a baby in her home country and not being able to sleep with fan on at night, this was always a biggy for him I guess!). I don’t want to be without cake so I stay with other woman whom I am only with for sex and because she does my marketing now and I dont know how to do that. I feel so sad poor me my life sucks and my soon to be ex wife doesn’t want to fly 14 hours with baby to see me and other woman :/
oh that should be chlamydia from early twenties
and he left when I was nine weeks preggers, so would have been without me for five months, come back six weeks before birth… real love and a respectful relationship should manage five months.
Problem: wife is too busy working full time, raising kids while husband is working on the road, or is wife doesn’t obsess over same hobby husband has which changes every three years, or is it wife doesn’t tell husband how utterly great, awesome, fantastic he is as much as he needs to hear it, or…. You get the picture the problem was different every time the question what’s wrong was asked.
Adult Solution: marriage counseling as requested by wife multiple times, a sit down discussion to lay out exactly what husband wants, needs, or even thinks would be a good start
Cheater Solution: take up with howorker and pay for her to meet up on business trips because she likes the same hobby he happens to enjoy right now, despite the fact that she is married. Miss wife’s birthday, kid’s birthdays, concerts, sporting events, and school awards ceremonies. When well meaning stranger sends wife proof of affair, deny, deny, deny. When asked about picture of you kissing other woman respond with “haven’t you ever played truth or dare?” When wife is u nconvinced by this response say you were just friends and later when asked how “friend” took the knowledge that wife now knows about the affair say “she cried, she’s really upset.” Because in your disordered mind this backs up your just a friend story line.
Wow. Same story somewhat.
It should be assuring for chumps to know that cheaters are not special and unique. I am amazed over and over again by what the cheaters do. Their M.O. is never different, just different geographic locations and sub in some other willing AP.
It does reassure me that it’s not US. We were all participating in the same relationship as our cheater. We all had the same stressors and yet WE DID NOT CHEAT. Our coping skills made us run faster, jump through larger and more challenging hoops, beg for therapy, whatever. We did not seek to solve our problems by fucking X’s, sex workers, conworkers or random holes or penises.
I know, right? I’m grasping the concept that aside from disordered, cowardice has a lot to do with it. I’m a very strong person. As shitty as this is I’m still getting up, kicking ass at work, taking time with my children, making sure the kids have what they need for back to school, food in the house, bills paid, etc.
Sometimes it is soooo hard not to laugh in his face at some of the things he says. Does he really think that his answers will fly with me? Maybe she accepts such bullshit as honest truth from the mouth of her twu wuv whom she is constantly showering in kibble, just the greatest evah! *insert pet name here*
Dear God, please let her divorce her husband and take him as husband number 4 when our divorce is finalized. Please, please, please!
Problem: Wife is not enthusiastic about visiting eastern countries much, and anyway, believes that taking time off from each other is a good way to renew interest. Wife suggests he travels on his own. But husband has no social skills and wants someone to take care of hurdles if anything happens along the way.
Adult solution: Tell wife “I do not feel like going on my own, I am not comfortable yet”, negociate a bit. Learn independence while on vacation, try to solve problems instead of sulking.
Cheater solution: Lure the tall homely Russian woman of the language site into meeting in Riga. Do it again for Sofia and Venice. Let wife go on vacation alone from now on, since she thinks it’s so great, haha. Plan on marrying the tall homely Russian, because it turns out to be twu luv.
Problem: Tall homely Russian OW has found a better match (= richer man with nicer home and no girlfriend)
Adult solution: Analyze the situation, admit that it was a big mistake, that all she wanted was a visa, feel really sorry, abandon immature behavior, plan good vacations with wife from now on, hoping to forget these awful months
Cheater solution: expect wife to understand the heartbreak, expect wife to buy gifts and pick-me-dance, rent an appartment 30mn from home to spend the workweek, chat on skype with Olga / Tania / Svetlana / Oxana / …, convince another single Russian woman to spend the holiday here, this time including wife, who will certainly be very happy.
Problem: Wife doesn’t sit next to me & rub my back and my feet. Wife doesn’t smother me with affection because she’s busy working full time and taking care of all house hold duties including being main monetary provider and 3 children (@ the time of first KNOWN affair I was pregnant with 4th child). Husband doesn’t get ENOUGH attention from wife EVER!
Adult solution: Take off some of the burden from your wife. When she asks for help. Help her! Don’t tell her other women have it worse than her! Communicate your need for complete hero worship from your spouse. Explain that you need sex daily and sometimes multiple times in a day just because you’re an uncontrolled selfobsessed teenager in a 38 year old’s body.
Cheater solution: Find women you can convince that you have a “dry” & cold wife with whom you’re in an economically convenient marriage and you’re able to have an outside relationship with another woman BUT IT MUST BE SECRETIVE. Plus you’re still in the marriage primarily for the children whom you don’t see Monday thru Friday just on weekends because the demands of work are so much but there’s no evidence of working extra hours in your paycheck because your boss is a tightwad and nothing stops you from changing jobs but you don’t until they fire your ass. A plus would be that other women be single mothers with children that don’t have daddies in their lives so that you can play daddy and convince the mommies that you genuinely have a good heart and that you married a bitch. It never should occur to the other woman that if you have so much time to spend and chat and date her that you don’t have time for your children at home. But you juggle several women so one woman may not have have too much time with you for her to figure it out since you’re such a great father and are there for your kids which is utterly bullshit but keep the pretense by attending Mass on Sundays with family.
Also have an out of marriage child and lie about it until your wife tells you to be a man and fess up. (Child was 7 months at time of admission and other woman was still expecting you to leave above-mentioned wife). Also VARIETY is the spice of life and who doesn’t deserve different pussy as often as humanly possible as long as there are gullible women out there willing to buy your story, stroke your ego & confuse sex for love. Being at home with wife and children is boring and is to be done only on weekends because weekends are “family time”. Convince other women that family time doesn’t include wife and there’s no sex with wife even though you have 4 kids with her. (During first affair wife was pregnant. First known affair woman becomes mother of your out of marriage child 6 years later. Women are dumb and can be convinced of everything and anything! Including wife because she believed affair was over & led to believe there’s only one affair when there are several.) Be the best at and hold as a great accomplishment pulling off lying to soooo many people! Have as motto on Tango account: “Success is not a secret; it’s a system”. And list yourself as 4 years younger than you actually are to entice more women because you can get more as long as you keep trying even with a dead dick because of a prostatectomy.
I lived with POS for 13 years after first affair convinced by him that I had a problem satisfying my husband and tried to salvage the unsalvagable marriage for my children’s sake thinking that a lousy father was better than no father. I WAS WRONG and should’ve dumped him while pregnant with 4th child and not wasted the years, the effort and endured the suffering. Hindsight is 20/20 especially when you extract yourself from the fog.
My best wishes to fellow chumps out there and to hell with all cheaters especially my former POS cheater!
Problem: wife repeatedly raises issues of being ignored and no communication
Adult solution: recognise she is trying to solve an issue, listen, and meet half way for mutual happiness
Cheater solution: react to this vicious, personal attack by telling junior co-worker you don’t love your wife any more, she doesn’t care, you only love junior co-worker, and putting her admiration and hot sex provided above all other things.
Problem: partner has become distant, sleeps all of the time and is gaining weight. Has become “grey rock” due to years of gaslight ing and projection concerning infidelity, finds GPS has been placed in her car.
Adult solution: get help. See a counselor as promised to deal with our issues sepeeate as well as joint counseling
Cheater/narc solution: make sure you have secured another source of supply, double down on shaming and blaming, remind partner how inadequate she is, DENY! DENY! DENY! Once other supply is secured, come home at 2:am every morning, force sex on partner. Partner catches you with pants down, remove your belongings from home of five years with partner, move into new supply’s home, discard old supply.
Problem: Your wife is asking you to routinely do at least one chore around the house, every day.
Adult Solution: Do the f#$%ing chore.
Cheater Solution: Do a f#$%ing whore. When wife catches you, complain that you were tired of being treated like “Cinderella,” even though you never actually did the requested housework to begin with.
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Problem: Your pregnant wife is taking a long time to finish graduate school.
Adult Solution: Have an honest conversation with your wife about your frustrations. Ask if there’s anything you can do to support her and help her finish school, like not working unpaid on weekends or seeking out a better job so the two of you can hire some childcare and get her more study time, or hire some help around the house.
Cheater Solution: Have an emotional affair with your co-worker. Stay even longer at the office and party until 6:30 AM with work-wife on weekends so that your wife is getting even less support at home. When your wife tries to set boundaries, tell her that you’ve prayed about it and God personally OK’ed the EA with the co-worker, so you aren’t going to stop and your wife doesn’t get a say in the matter.
———————————–
Problem: Your pregnant wife always seems unhappy and the two of you are arguing a lot. She is unhappy with your emotional affair. She tries to take you to therapy and begins asking 3rd parties, like your Mormon bishop, to intervene.
Adult Solution: Do the therapy. Actively participate. Realize that emotional affairs are wrong and the time you’ve been spending with your EA partner would be better spent supporting your pregnant wife.
Cheater Solution: Sit through a single therapy session, passively-aggressively answering all questions with “I’m not going to answer that” and “I don’t want to talk about that.” Ignore the counsel of your bishop; no need to feel alarmed that your wife is asking other people for help about your behavior. Tell your wife to be more careful to plan her dates with you around your time with the EA partner.
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Problem: Schmoopie is pressuring you to get a divorce, but your wife is angry and hurt right now and says she needs “time.” In Illinois, you have to wait two years for a no-fault divorce if your spouse won’t cooperate, and your wife says she won’t cooperate.
Adult Solution: Give your wife some time. In six months to a year, she’ll probably be the one begging for a divorce. Tell Schmoopie not everything is about her and if she really loves you, she can wait. Realize that taking 1-2 years to finalize a divorce is a perfectly reasonable timetable and be patient.
Cheater Solution: Badger the s^&% out of your wife. Lie to her. Bring the divorce papers to her place of business. Tell her you and Schmoopie broke up and Schmoopie won’t even talk to you. When the wife says she’ll consent to the divorce on the condition that you not see other women until it’s over, lie some more and agree to that. Keep coming late to visitation and leaving early, because your wife is an idiot and won’t figure it out. Then, 6-12 months later, long after Schmoopie has dumped you and the divorce is finalized, try to seduce your ex-wife, because it turns out she knew what she was talking about in wanting to wait on the divorce and you want her back, and other women want no part of your broke ass, but now it’s too late.
Problem: Any problem, great or small.
Adult Solution: Problems are part of life so let’s look for solutions together, because if we communicate and work together, we will find solutions that benefits all.
Cheater Solution: Consult know-it-all penis GPS.
Lol Unique! Best one yet!
This was mine too! All I required was that he be engaged. I did everything else!
Perfect!
I mean…this says it all.
^^ Love this !!!
Problem: “it’s hard living in a house with your kids.”
Me: “there haven’t been any kids living here in the last five years.”
(adult solution… um, wait, problem already solved… but still, OK, that might have been hard on you back THEN, and family counseling or we take time off four couple time, or date nights, or)
Cheater: “that’s another thing! all those trips to [city_where_kids_live we visited maybe 5x/yr like we did his family]. Guess I’ll have an affair and fuck someone else. She doesn’t have any children so she’ll be a better girlfriend than you!”
*for not “four” …. also:
problem: “you don’t pay enough attention to me.”
adult solution: I’ll spend more time with you, Muse, after you come home from your 10 hr days running your business and you cook dinner for me every night with the food that you 100% pay for, hey – I’ll cook dinner for you, Muse! would you like a glass of wine? how was your day? sit down, put your feet up, you work so hard to support us. Let’s do something fun together tonight, Muse! Why don’t I pay for dinner this time?
cheater solution: your job is easy, Muse, all you do is sit around and talk all day. MY job is horrible, everyone is mean to me! everyone hates me! it’s so unfair! waa waa waa the universe is out to get me! it’s all YOUR fault! yes, I’m mad and it’s your fault, don’t ask why!! that’s what’s wrong with you Muse, you should already KNOW what’s making me mad! it’s YOU, you and your children Muse! everything’s so easy for ‘you people’ !! my life is hard, it’s wa wa wa unfair – I guess I’ll keep fucking my old girlfriend for the first 9 years I live with you and your horrible A-student children, then I’ll have at least 2 other secret girlfriends, they make me feel like a “real man” instead of the low life scum sucking moocher that I really am. Oh yeah, how about I have secret porn and multiple computers and six email addresses and using that FREE cell phone you provided for me for 16 years I will call wierd numbers all over the country including a sexual identity counselor in washington dc. .. what you are CRAZY, Muse !! None of that stuff ever happened.
Problem: You feel inadequate because your partner is going to graduate school and you haven’t attended any college.
Adult Solution: You talk honestly and openly about your feelings. You apply to college and start attending.
Cheater Solution: Blame your partner, saying “it’s all about you”. And cheat on your partner while she’s at class.
*******************
Problem: You feel your partner and you have grown distant. You wish she would spend more time with you and there would be more intimacy.
Adult Solution: Talking honestly and openly about your feelings. Adjusting your work and free time schedules so you see each more. Plan date nights.
Cheater Solution: Sit on your Xbox for hours on end, while your partner is in a different part of the house. Cheat repeatedly. Look for sex and intimacy elsewhere.
Been through this before. Ex said that part of the reason he cheated was because I took way too long to finish school. Thing is when you are holding down a job in addition to going to school, guess what it takes a bit longer. He would make comments that getting through college was so easy, yet he has no degree to speak of to this day. Funny.
I’m sure the cheaters don’t realize how stupid their reasons for cheating are.
Mine never went to college either and told me he didn’t want me buying college plans for the children because he didn’t think it was worth it. Later decides he he is so smart he should be teaching college. Feel free to ask how that’s working out for him, but I bet you know…..
I think your husband is a bigamist…dealt with this exact same shit just with at least twoEAs, that I know of
Problem: You want children, your partner doesn’t.
Adult Solution: Express your wants and needs to your partner. End the relationship with honesty if you can’t live without children.
Cheater Solution: Lie and say you’re ok with not having kids and then blame your partner for not wanting kids (even though *she* was honest up front about not wanting them). Become overly passive aggressive. Cheat on your partner with a crack/heroin junkie whore and get her pregnant very quickly, while you and your partner are still together.
Ugh – I dealt with this too. Though I’m pretty sure that he didn’t “want kids” so much as he wanted me to have them and take care of them, quit my job, and be under his thumb. I’m 100% sure in retrospect that if I had kids with that fucker, he would told me that I was no fun now that I had kids, then cheated on me anyway.
Bullet dodged. 🙂
Agreed! I’m never sorry we didn’t have kids together. He wanted a family so badly that he cheats on his son’s mother. A tiger never changes its stripes.
Problem: husband retires from fire department (all he talked about for 5 years). Gets depressed, refuses to get out of bathrobe. Decides he has PTSD from Vietnam 45 years ago (never mentioned it in 29 years).
Solution: go to therapy for depression, join a group for Vets at Church.
Cheaterpants Solution: become “BFF” with our insurance agent cause no one understands you better then she does. Blow up your marriage and family but scratch your head and say “why is our family so disfunctional?”
Problem: You feel that you and your spouse aren’t communicating well.
Adult Solution: Make an opportunity to sit down and discuss how you feel and what you would like to have happen.
Cheater Solution: Run to a colleague and begin emotional affair that lasts forever and shut your spouse out of everything in your life. Culminate the emotional affair with nights in a hotel and then tell spouse you never had an affair.
Problem: Husband gets fired from his job for inappropriate behavior so wife gets two jobs to support the family while husband becomes a stay at home dad and then starts to feel demasculated.
Adult Solution: Talk over problem. Maybe Husband should get a job if wife bringing home the bacon and him changing babies diapers demans him.
Cheater Solution: To have numerous affairs with strangers off he internt and a married woman to make himself feel more masculine
Problem: My wife doesn’t like it that I keep sexting young employees at all hours of the night while she sleeps beside me. But I really like it! It’s fun! Plus, I think she’s starting to suspect my lies that it’s only sexting. This is a real problem for me.
Adult Solution: End the marriage. I don’t ever want to stop pursuing other women, and golly, it’s just not fair to the woman I married.
Cheater Solution: Gaslight, lie, create a secret life. Wash, rinse, repeat. I mean, this is the best set up ever! I have my home life AND I have the secret dangerous exciting one! I am the King of the World!
Sorry, StrongerEveryDay, but you have nailed this! Mine was that entitled too!
Problem: my wife working a 55hr workweek to help put my oldest through college and fund a start up business as well as make us debt free in less than a year makes me feel ignored by working wife. Also I am hitting midlife even though my wife is still a smoking hot size 2 in her 40s & Ive gained 45lbs becoming obese, I want someone with bigg if only we could be together tits who loves heavy metal music and isnt so religious because i deserve better
Adult solution: get marriage counseling again like we did 5 years prior when we had simikar issues and tell my wife I think I need more attention since Im feeling insecure about my aging and my floundering career. Try to talk more about why our faiths are now so different and how we can maybe pray together or share spiritual values in other ways. Stop watching so much porn & yell at wife calling her a psycho mistrusting b $#@% & orhee names after she clearly catches me talking at 1am talking to OW claiming its a job interview contact
Cheater solution: complain about time wife is gone with career but buy myself a motorcycle in cash with the money she is no longer needing me to use just to have us survive.Go on Twitter and meet exhibitionist slut who loves metal and doesnt mind sharung nudie pics while telling me how selfish my wife is to not blow me after a 10hr day working like she would. Get tattoo and have 8mo internet affair to feel desired again because wife doesnt have time to tweet kibbles every hour over dumb shit i say about every political thing under the sun. Poor thing she doesnt have a job where she can be online to stroke my ego hourly. Wife quits job to make me feel better then I decide Schmoopie is important and we can just be FWB and stay married. Figure out wife isnt going to become OW to Schmoopie and finally dumps her. Lose job months later after reconciliation because company found out foolish thing I did probably because BPD Schmoopie ratted me out when i dumped her-but i swear shed never do that to me. I meant to have that happen I hated making a decent income anyway so now my wife has to go back to working 55hrs a week so we can make the bills and Im right back where i started. Bravo.
Problem: What problem? We have no problems! You’re the love of my life. Without you, I’m not me!
Adult Solution: Continue life as normal, because Hey we’re fantastic together! Make retirement plans, start paying down debt, plan where we will build a cabin up north and continue to enjoy life.
Cheater Solution: Actually I lied. I haven’t been happy for two years. ILYBINILWY. Butter-face is from my old neighborhood so I made an executive decision to ditch everything to be with her. She’s going to divorce her husband too and we’re going to act like our two marriages never happened. I’m sorry, I didn’t plan this. Christ I told her I was happily married and the next thing you know, she’s blowing me at the park! Besides, once you popped me, things will never be the same so, I’ll just cash in my chips and hit the road. Love you though! For realz!
Also, I want that laptop back that I bought you for Christmas 3 years ago.
Times two. Said to me after the shit hit the fan, “No matter what happens, you’ll always be the love of my life.” Wtf? Then why did you continuously cheat on me with a crazy whore?
OMB, exact same story for me, Rumblekitty…except insert howorker and blowing me at hotels. Cheaters suck!!
I know that feeling. Sometimes I’d be amazed at how well we worked together and would proclaim what a great team we made, and she’d agree. As she was leaving she told me that she secretly disagreed but didn’t want to upset me. It was my fault that she lied to me! I should have therefore intuited that she was evaluating me and whether she should stay or go.
The following problems are only a guess, as I was married to a conflict avoidant, passive aggressive piece of crap, that never expressed any dissatisfaction with our marriage. Unfortunately, the cheater solution is the same for any alleged problem that may have existed in our marriage.
Problem:
#1) You are a competitive man. Your wife out-earns you in your mid-age. You feel inadequate, but never say anything…
#2) Maybe the problem is that you’re an enmeshed little momma’s boy. When your wife set a boundary with your over-bearing mother (after 18 years of abuse) and opted out of a relationship with the psycho, you may have felt hurt.
Solution:
#1.) You take promotions that are offered and work beyond your comfort level (you’ve worked at the highest tier of your entry level job for 20 years, so you’re a bit of an expert by now).
#2.) You have a talk and communicate with your mother. “Mom, I feel that when you tell my wife to fuck off, count the number of suitcases she carries vs. mine and make snide remarks, or complain to her about the money we spend on our agreed upon vacations, that is disrespectful. Please do not do that anymore.”
Cheater Solution: Take up marathon running. Run far and often. Devote all of your free time to running. Run out of town races in rural locations (so you can place third in your age group out of 10 and get a medal). Fuck a much younger co-worker that looooooovvvvveeesss to run (or whatever boyfriend dujour loves to do). Divorce faithful wife of 18 years, marry whore.
Nice to know I’m not the only one who checked out of a relationship with crazy MIL.
I’m not missing that hell-beast at all. She’s got her karma now in the form of the wife tress. Now she really has someone that it taking advantage of her golden child, but I bet she is keeping mum…for now. It must be killing the poor dear. 🙂
It was a revelation when I discovered the concept of enmeshment a few years ago. Suddenly all of my life experiences started to make sense. Of course it also destroyed the foundation of my narrative, as I had never before thought of my upbringing as abusive or particularly dysfunctional. It was about a year after starting to work through these issues that my ex took flight.
I would have never dreamed of letting my mother talk to her in anything but a respectful manner without throwing down the gauntlet. If there was a difference in opinion regarding choices, the vast majority of the time I sided with my ex. It didn’t matter that I owned my problem and was working on it; she still left.
I don’t know what my point is, other than shitty things happen on both sides of the equation. Some people with issues are lucky enough to have partners to stick it out with them. Other people are unlucky enough to have partners with severe issues that choose to go off the deep end rather than do the work. I have a special hatred for folks who have supportive partners whom they throw away for something shiny. My ex leaving added a whole new dimension to my suffering and grief work.
I’m sorry that you had to put up with such behavior.
Agreed. I don’t feel that he’s responsible for his mom’s behavior, but I think that he needed to address the hurtfulness of it and let her know that it was unacceptable. Like you, I’d never let my parents treat him poorly. When it comes down to it, my ex wasn’t committed enough to me or our marriage to address this issue. He just chose to ignore it. I excluded his mom from my life after she pulled this crap with me again, just 3 weeks after I unexpectedly lost my mother. I had had enough. I never encouraged him to do the same (nor would I ever want him to – I just opted out of that relationship with her.).
I’m sorry that you are suffering and that your ex left despite your efforts. Cheating is a cowardly way out of a problem. What ever the issue, it is never the solution.
(The following PROBLEM/CS is from HIS perspective):
PROBLEM: Wife just gave birth to son just months after moving my youngest daughter on to graduate school. I thought we were done! UGH!!
ADULT SOLUTION: 1) OWN the fact that he is God’s gift to you. 2) If you are having trouble coming to grips with the fact that you narrowly missed the unencumbered lifestyle opportunity in your 50s, maybe you should go to counselling … I know you HATE that idea, and will REFUSE any attempt to do it, but ….
CHEATER SOLUTION: My life SUX!!! Start treating that pain-in-the-ass wife of mine like the know-nothing, can’t-do-anything-right bitch that she is, literally upon arrival of said son to our home – and then have an emotional affair after I do nothing but bitch at that wife. THAT will fix everything!!!!! Watch – she’ll pay for the rest of our lives because she dared get pregnant.
Damn. I can’t even play Problem, Adult Solution, Cheater Solution. See what marital abandonment robs you of?
There were no intelligible reasons he gave as he was walking out, so I will grab at a few interspersed remarks that were handed to me over the span of a few months which seemed minor at the time but hindsight is 20/20.
Problem: My moderately attractive wife with good hygiene is excelling in her graduate studies, adores her husband, and enjoying life in general. I really want to crap on her parade.
Adult Solution: Engage in reflective introspection to question why this irritates me. Consider her offer to put her own studies on hold so I can pursue my MBA (although I will likely drop out again) or a low-paying internship in a field I want to explore (even though I have a great paying job and could care less about climbing the corporate ladder in my monkey suit). I might even try to join normal society and shave daily or cover my mouth when I sneeze.
Cheater Solution: Merry Christmas! I’m outta of here!
Sheesh. How does someone come back from something like this? It’s so nonsensical! If you figure it out, please share!
I read a lot of helpful things on here everyday, yet for some reason I’m still stuck. Therapy the last few weeks has made me feel worse rather than better. This past session my therapist asked me if I “can’t” get over it or “won’t”. And of course I’m impatient – it’s been 11 months, I should be living the high life by now (says my lying brain).
WhichWay, it has taken me a long time to come to terms with how my cheater ex blew our life up. And our children’s. He was everything to us. The guy I’d been with since high school. My kids were 17. 18, and 20. On the cusp of young adulthood, graduation, and entering college (one in it). We had everything going right. The legacy he left us with is unbelievable. Scorched earth when I didn’t play nice. Three years previous to his great grand exit our beautiful son was in an accident that had him fighting for his life and in a coma. Two weeks after that our girls slid off an icy road. Car was totaled but girls were (physically) okay. Then my mom ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery. I had a lot of hope and faith and sheer determination going. You think he was talking to me then? Supporting his family? His son? Or his daughters? Nope. Fuckhead was off in LaLa land, Running away yet talking to all his acquaintances and plotting how to get at the money our community raised for our son. In the following years he was setting up his future while destroying ours. Three years later and my family and I are recovering and he pulls the ILYBINILWY “I want a divorce” shit. Because you know running off to fuck your racquetball partner is all about caring for your family. Hell these zombies look like the real thing! Give yourself time. Six years out from my twenty eight year relationship and I am nowhere near dating. Doesn’t mean my life isn’t rich with people I respect and love, hobbies, travel, music, and a job I am damn good at. I am healing. I am finally putting myself first and I don’t need to sub in a man to make me real, whole, or “over it.” Whatever the fuck that even means. I think your counselor is well meaning but unless you’ve been through this you just don’t know. So baby yourself. Treat yourself to one kind moment a day. Do something new. Get out and meet the world because one thing is sure, these Cheaters just held us back.
I own it. It happened, it sucked, and it is sad to think about. It changed me. So I just own it.
Eventually, you realize anybody that can do something so heartless is just a jerk (expletive, actually). That is the bottom line. That you will have a more dignified life sleeping on the floor than being married to someone like that. That the three-ring circus they brought to your time is a crock you have no time for. That this is the “high life” even if it doesn’t feel so high.
But that takes time, so take your time. It’s fine to take your time. You are under no obligation to speed things up. One day you just realize that mere thought of it all disgusts you. . . So you think about something else.
I also think it is okay not to “get over” a marriage. It was a marriage and it meant something to you. Rather, you end up moving on or letting go. Some people do “get over” it and kudos to them.
Your therapist sounds a little rough. I dumped one of mine when she questioned my anger toward the affair partner. My response was, “Because I can.”
My cheater hasn’t given me a reason for the affair. He barely acknowledges that it exists. His reaction, when I told him I knew, was “And your point is?” He still lies about where he’s going.
I have decided that he has major issues that have nothing to do with me and more to do with FOO issues, conflict resolution issues, and general communication issues.
I own my part in spackling over his poor behavior and allowing him to wear down my boundaries. This is going to be part of my dialogue with the therapist, once my divorce is final. I don’t want a repeat!
KB. It has more to do with Character issues and personal Choices. I have all sorts of FOO issues but I didn’t go bang a stranger to improve my marriage.
I should clarify I never confronted him about the affair. He just walked out. I kept it to myself. What would have been the point? I just let my attorney drop it at the appropriate time.
Problem: Both W and H have full time jobs. H’s job requires frequent travel. W maintains home and raises child. H helps with routine chores but doesn’t ‘parent’ child and ignores W, never plans time with just her or helps her with anything to do with raising child, maintaining home, or with finances. Does complain constantly, add to the chaos and take credit for things that go well.
Adult Solution: W attempts to discuss feeling ignored with H, and requests that he help with all the things on her plate. H gets ass off couch and steps up to help W and actually be a part of his wonderful family.
Cheater Solution: H responds passive aggressively by agreeing to be more helpful then not following though. When W wants to talk again, H blames her for being controlling and not letting him help (ha!). He triangulates W and D. Cycle goes on for years with W feeling neglected and dumped on. W finally asks H for divorce because she’s miserable in their relationship but he convinces her once again that he will step up because he loves her so much and doesn’t want a divorce. Two more years go by and W discovers H is a serial cheater. He f’s everything he can at work, during work and when he travels for work, including random women, co-workers and prostitutes.
Next Adult Solution: W kicks his ass out. She gives him ample opportunity to get his shit together and make things right between them.
Next Cheater Solution: Lie more. Pretend to want to reconcile but make no real effort. Make sure wife gets only tidbits about everything so she amps up the kibble dispensing while telling her that the cheating is her fault. When all this fails to get you back in the house, stop helping with the joint bills and supporting your D. Perhaps this will force her to take you back.
Last Adult Solution: File for divorce from his sorry ass.
Problem: turn 30, all of my mates are starting to have kids. I feel left out. I want what they have but my wife isn’t quite ready to have kids yet as she is a 18 months off finishing a phd (a phd she started so we could have two incomes while living overseas temporarily because I wanted to advance my career… and we only just got back from overseas). Wife under the impression we will start trying for kids after phd is done… one thing at once! Wife also has to get medication in order/genetic testing done before getting pregnant so needs to plan ahead.
Adult solution: start an actual conversation with wife about children. For example, tell wife I want kids sooner, or even asap, and work out how we can manage issues with phd/kids/medical planning. Take notice that wife is looking into medical issues already and encourage/support her to finish that sooner.
Cheater solution: get impatient and frustrated that wife can’t tell I want kids right now… Surely wife should have guessed this. She knows my dad was a father at 23 so I’m waay too old already, and I’ve also been posing in photos with my hand across wife’s stomach for years? Its so obvious! Start having an affair with my 24 year old ho worker because as she promised to have a kid with me within 2 years. Leave wife because she “doesn’t want kids” anymore.
I could say we were married to the same man except mine hated kids.
What a loser. He had plenty of time.
Problem: You hate your wife. You hate working.
Adult Solution: You ask for a divorce. You go live with your parents.
Cheater Solution: Treat her like the hired help for 18 years, let her take on the burden of providing for and raising your three children, then fuck and fall in twu wuv with a coworker when your wife finally finds her backbone and calls you on out on your treatment of her and your chronic unemployment.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
While I certainly could have done without the past four years of gaslighting, stealing, lying, venom-laden emails and texts, and continuous douchebaggery toward our children, I am finally at a place in my life where I’m actually grateful to the skank for willingly taking such a lazy, entitled, misogynistic asshole out of my life.
ChutesandLadders, love that last paragraph. Well said!
Problem: My wife won’t eat dinner as a family with me and our son.
Adult Solution: Since I get home from work at 1 p.m. and she gets home after 6 p.m. (and I **love** to cook), perhaps I could prepare a meal from the Weight Watchers plan. After all, she is following it and she is having great success (man, she’s looking good!!). Besides, our son needs to eat before 6, when she gets home from work, which makes it impossible for her to eat with us so maybe I’ll just live with it, as she makes a good living for our family.
Cheater Solution: Lash out at her for not doing what I want her to do. Sometimes prepare rich, fattening meals that she can’t eat and maintain her weight. Use the five free hours I have before she gets home from work to F neighbors, co-workers and randoms from Facebook, Ashley Madison and other dating sites.
Ooooo, so many delicious choices!!!
Problem: Wife & I are really struggling in our marriage & financially since just having our first child & me beginning college. She says she needs help around the house & with our newborn & because I’ve begun school, we stand to lose our home from lack of money coming in.
Adult Solution: Table school for now. It can wait. What requires my attention right now are my newborn (that I controlled the planning for), my marriage (that’s failing because of my never ending selfishness) and our home. I make enough money at my current job to make things work, wife can go back to work once baby is not so new and we can do this together, as a team, like our vows stated.
Cheater Solution: Continue to attend college under the guise that this is all for my family…in 6+ years….unless I fail out…which I soon do…
Meet 18 year olds there with no responsibility and feel jealous of them and build resentment for my wife and all her needs and my newborn and all its needs (but display it only as resent towards my wife because resenting your own baby looks as to others).
Start pretending I’m a future doctor because I’ve decided that I’m going to be that and introduce myself as such to young, naive college girls…omitting the fact that I’m currebtly failing out of sophomore level classes. Meet one special chump who IS a future Physicians Assistant and convince her that I’m a catch and am a poor victim of a heartless wife and an unhappy marriage. Get her to sponsor me by believing the only reason I “failed out” of college (which I still, 2 years later, refuse to admit) is because of the stress from my crazy wife. Remove myself from my marriage, leave my child in my wife’s care full time and begin my new life with the 22 year old college girl who will be a gold mine in a year. Hope with fingers crossed that this one is less demanding, has less self esteem and self respect than the wife did and sit back waiting for her money & chumpy love to flow to my ever greedy hands.
Problem: Feeling trapped by the “suburban lifestyle” brought about by having to consider the needs of growing twin school-aged children
Adult Solution: Discussing these feelings and coming up with ways to honor relationship, doing a a measure of the childcare and housework so spouse was not forced to do it all, move back to NYC, which spouse missed because she moved to more suburb-y L.A. to support your career.
Cheater Solution: start an affair with a person cheating on her open marriage, determine it is true love; leave marriage and deem more that 15% custody too much for you because you are going marry other woman who threatened suicide if you didn’t leave your marriage. Plan to have kids with new wife because the problem with parenting before was that your wife didn’t let you do enough parenting and housework.
How is it the ones who can’t seem to handle the responsibility of a home/child/spouse are the ones with the rescue complex who think they can handle the problems of a person threatening suicide?
Oh….the disorder!
Makes perfect sense, stuntchump! I can’t imagine why you didn’t see his perspective & fully support him.
It’ll teach me to hoard all the heavy lifting and not threaten suicide so he can know what I REALLY want! 😉
Problem: I don’t think my wife loves me enough.
Adult Solution: Voice your fear to her. Let her know that you think there’s a problem and you want to fix it.
Cheater Solution: Don’t tell your wife that… she’ll think you’re a wuss, right? She’s so adept at resolving issues that she’ll right this ship too- she’ll be right about something else AGAIN. No way can that happen! I can’t give her the opportunity to show me up again! I’m going to do this MYSELF and SHOW HER that *I* can fix things too!
::decides to tell a female co-worker, so SHE can tell him how to fix it:: Idiot.
A good female co-worker tells him that the only relevant person on this issue, besides himself, is his wife… if SHE doesn’t know how he feels about THEM, how can it be resolved? DUH. “Go to talk to your WIFE about your wife, you ridiculous man! lol”
A ho-worker sympathizes. Asks him how he is. How the tactics she suggested yesterday worked out at home with his wife, last night. He tells her he did them but his awful wife… [fill in the blanks.] Pity-Me cookies are offered and seized.
An affair is conceived. Idiots, all of them.