But I Love Her (Him)

alwaysloveOn any given day at Chump Lady, you’ll see the following recitation: awful thing, awful thing, unforgivable thing, run-away-like-your-hair-is-on-fire abomination! …. and then the chump utterance, “But I love him.” (Or “But I love her.”)

Oh. You LOVE her? Then King’s X! Why didn’t you say so! 

I was totally mistaken that someone who threatened your life, insulted your outfit, called you fat, unlovable, sexless, and dim, cheated on you, lied to you, risked your health, spent your savings, ran up your credit cards, got pregnant, got someone else pregnant, quit their job, tripped your elderly mother, and then told you the entire clusterfuck was your fault wasn’t in your good graces.

Oh sure, you feel some consternation, or a fervent need for a reality check — It’s wrong to trip elderly women, right? Right? — but let the record be clear on this — YOU STILL LOVE THEM.

Stop the presses! OMG. This changes EVERYTHING! It doesn’t matter what the litany of horror is, if you LOVE the person, then all should be forgiven! There is hope! Because you LOVE! And love, we are told, is a super power. It conquers all.

How’s that working for you?

If you’re believing that your love will change another person? STOP. Please stop. You can’t love someone into loving you back. You can’t love someone into sobriety. You can’t love someone into monogamy. The love you feel stops and starts with you. It’s not a superpower. Love is a CHOICE.

Isn’t it infuriating the way cheaters cling to the narrative of The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants and “We can’t control who we love!” To hear them tell it, love is just this nebulous gas that descends on people, willy nilly. There’s no agency involved. One day they were out minding their own business and sha-ZAM! Love hits. Powerless against its force, the cheater is compelled to cheat — and it’s okay because LOVE. #somethingbiggerthanusboth

“Bullshit,” you say?

Well, chumps, it works both ways. You can’t go on and on and on about some abusive shit in your life and then say, “but I love him!” As if you have no agency. As if your love isn’t a CHOICE. “I love you” is an “I” statement. Any sentence that begins with “I” means YOU control it. (“I am having liverwurst and saltine crackers for dinner tonight!” “I am not voting for Donald Trump!” “I adore pinecone elves!”)

Start controlling who you choose to love. I know you’re still caught up in the shared history, and who you thought this person was, and the memories — and yes, the actual LOVE you feel. And I know that love and investment makes you feel very vulnerable and heartbroken. But you know what? You’re making a choice to confer love upon this person.

Ask yourself if they deserve it. Ask yourself if you deserve awful thing, awful thing, awful thing, abomination!

Then choose wisely.

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JackiesDone
JackiesDone
7 years ago

That was a slap well needed. That “BUT” causes the Chump to suffer more than the Cheater causes. At least I carry that BUT and it is heavy.

renee62
renee62
7 years ago

We love the person we thought that they were.They are NOT that person. They morph into what they know you want in a person. The “real” them is hidden until they can’t hide it any longer.
Love someone who deserves your love & gives it back to you in spades. Be good to yourself!!! & don’t settle for less!!!

mickeyblueeyes
mickeyblueeyes
7 years ago
Reply to  renee62

“We love the person we thought that they were.They are NOT that person. They morph into what they know you want in a person. The “real” them is hidden until they can’t hide it any longer.”

This is very true…It’s the one thing looking from the outside that is so obvious that they morph to gain approval of their latest victim. I wonder if this gets harder as they get older? Anyone got any experience of this..does it get harder for them to maintain the ‘false self’?

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

Mickey

As they age I feel it is about facing the false self. The Limited is an alcoholic and smoked weed daily. Can he maintantain a double life? Yes. Will it be as easy as it was before? No. He downgraded so low he has lost his supply. She put him on a pedistal and from what I know she is clingy as hell. His ‘poor me story’ ended when I divorced him. What’s his new narrative now that he is heavily in debt, has limited years to work in a failing business, and has aged significantly.
He will struggle until he finds a new victim. Next.

mickeyblueeyes
mickeyblueeyes
7 years ago
Reply to  Doingme

Maybe because I’m a man I’m looking at this from a different perspective to the majority of the people on here which is probably fair to say are female. (Apologies if that’s not the case)

My stbxw was attractive, charming etc.. New lover boy she’s with (not AP) has fallen for this hook, line and sinker and he’s throwing everything at her, designer clothes, vacations, cars etc…she’s created a new identity which includes a new love of football and regularly goes to the game with him, a new love of cycling and cold plays biggest fan also to impress him…all of which she hated with a passion prior to our breakup.

Her attractiveness and because most men (myself included but I have a moral compass and choose to be faithful) think with the contents of their underwear make it easy for her to convince her latest victim. So I guess as she ages her mask will be harder to maintain, maybe not, maybe I should just not give a shit whether it does or does not?

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

A quality man won’t be impressed by looks that much and will look for a package deal. Meaning not just looks, but personality should count for as much. Sounds like your ex was really fake and healthy people don’t put up with fakeness for very long.

Jim
Jim
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

I tell the young men I know that good looks are gravy. Find one who is kind, funny, smart, and true.

Jim
Jim
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

Time spent giving a shit about her could be better spent cleaning the toilet or washing the car

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Jim

or picking lint off your socks…

Other Kat
Other Kat
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Though if it’s any comfort, attractive women do have a short shelf life. She’ll have to try harder as she gets older, and desperation will likely set in. That said, I agree with others that thinking about it is a waste of time (easier said than done I know).

SureChumpedAlot
SureChumpedAlot
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

Mickey,

Does it get harder as the cheaters to maintain their false self as they get older? For some it gets harder for some it does not.

Some cheaters continue their devious ways until it’s time to take their permanent dirt nap.

Some cheaters just wind up settling for less (a lot less ) with their new love interest/s because they do get tired of the charade.

And some remain in between.

In the end… bad character, selfishness and lack of empathy are a hard habits to kick!

violet
violet
7 years ago

It definitely gets worse as they age. As their looks fade, they begin to seek the reassurance, from whatever source is available, that they are desirable. My X was very good looking and always enjoyed the attention and adulation of his young associates/interns. But when he became “old” that need kicked in to hyper drive and, given his position, there was always someone to stroke his ego. A woman finally came along that figured X was her pot at the gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately for her, she was unaware there was also a troll under the bridge-me.

Did I love my X? Totally, completely and without hesitation, for many, many years. Perhaps in some ways I still do. We were together over 30 years. But love without trust is unsustainable and quite frankly, soul destroying. I just couldn’t keep up the day to day battle of wondering whether he was still seeing her, and he wasn’t man enough to be honest with me about what he was up to. He would swear up and down that he wasn’t with her and then I would discover some piece of information that proved he was lying. An odd phone number, a throw away phone, a card with her home address written on it. Every time I thought we had finally put it all behind us, I was traumatized yet again. And every new trauma was worse than the last. I was becoming an angry, bitter woman and for what? His ego?

So, as much as I loved him, I loved myself more. I knew there had to be more to life than chasing a cheater. I wanted to be the old Violet, the Violet who didn’t give shit about where she lived, what kind of car she drove, or what other people thought of her. I gave myself permission, to grieve, to rage, to mourn, to act the fool. Then, over time, I began to put the past in the past. Would I have loved to grow old with my X? Damn straight and I’m not ashamed of that fact. But the universe had other plans for me and it was up to me to make a change. I believe am obliged to try and live the best life I know how. It isn’t always easy, but I’m still standing and I am proud of the woman i have become. A little ragged around the edges, but definitely stronger and more resilient than I ever thought possible.

teri bibart
teri bibart
7 years ago
Reply to  violet

Thanks for sharing!!!!

Proofofnotrust
Proofofnotrust
7 years ago
Reply to  violet

Thank you for this, violet. I felt like I could have written the words myself. Your post sums up exactly how I was feeling and is exactly what I needed to get through this morning of triggers and doubts.

“But love without trust is unsustainable and quite frankly, soul-destroying.” YES!

Pondscumbgone
Pondscumbgone
7 years ago
Reply to  violet

So inspiring Violet, thank you!
Today was hard for me, I had been trucking along towards meh when my ex halted that forward motion. I had to disconnect our cellular plan today, which was planned. What was not planned was the ex’s demand for payment of the phone up front, or surrender my phone back to him. I informed him of an easier option that would only require a call to the carrier, and he responded he wouldn’t be able to call until tomorrow (it would interrupt his phone time with his skank can’t have that!) .I called his bluff and secured a new phone, text him to inquire as to when and where to drop off “his” phone. Meltdown on his part, resulting in a panic attack on my part. Threats concerning legal action, claims that he had been nice so far.
The point of this story? I loved this man for a very long time. Our 23 years together conditioned me to please him, that I was the one at fault, always. He reduced me to those horrible feelings again, all because I am capable of love.
Thankfully, back to no contact. Back to square one towards meh and I do so happily, all in the name of love. For me.

FindingBliss
FindingBliss
7 years ago
Reply to  violet

Good for you, Violet. You expressed it so well.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

Yes its harder for them to maintain the mask and control the demons especially when the whore is pulling the demons out cause she thinks its cool. My kids and i all watched the demons come out and turn on us all. He showed the whore who he really was and she is delighted. Pods all of them not humans pods.

BEB
BEB
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

The thing that the whore doesn’t understand is that all the deceit and nastiness he throws his family – well, one day she may very likely be on the receiving end of it. She may think he’ll never be like that to her – they are soooo in looooove. But since her unicorn prince is incapable of love – when his infatuation starts to fade – well, she just might find herself getting the very treatment she watched him dish out that she was so impressed with. Then she won’t be so delighted anymore.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  BEB

Oh she got the treatment in spades but she thrives on it me i hate fighting she loves it what she doesnt love is the distance he throws at her. She thinks she can mold hum into her perfect man. Stupid bitch. They are broken up right now again and they throw money at each other you know their own true love. He will never change he gets worse everyday and the tornado is yet to arrive but its coming and the house will burn down.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  BEB

BEB

She is so insecure as he will never marry her. There are massive red flags they accept starting with they fucked a married man in my case. He has never changed his address and been lining there for two years. He’s still cheating. She is mentally ill and like the others believes she is soecial. She’s just a fuck in a long line of whores.

kb
kb
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

But you know what? I bet she doesn’t see those demons as demons because he used them against you. That makes it all okay. And of course, she’s special, it’s twu wuv, and he’d never do that to her.

Hah!

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  kb

Kb hes already doing it to her. Yeah! She pulled out more demons then she bargained for the dumb ass. True wuv i think not! Hope they both get exactly what they deserve.

Beth
Beth
7 years ago
Reply to  renee62

Yes Renee, preach it girl! Once you really understand that they are NOT the person you thought they were, it becomes so much easier. Not that it is pain free, by any means, but it is easier to see that the only real choice is to pick up the pieces and move on.

kbchump
kbchump
7 years ago
Reply to  Beth

Oh God isn’t that the truth!!

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  renee62

So true! I realized early on that I was mourning the “what could have been” you know if the Narcissist I was married to was a sane, rational, loving, compassionate, and kind human being capable of loving someone else with even a fraction of the love he has for himself. haha

patty
patty
7 years ago

me too. always a good reminder. especially when without them you wouldn’t have your amazing kids

NotTodaySatan
NotTodaySatan
7 years ago
Reply to  renee62

Exactly. I thought I still loved my ex at the time I filed for divorce. I thought we could consciously uncouple and all that. Only distance, therapy and CL helped me see that I had been in love with potential and not the reality, and that he really was a pathetic scumbag.

Lisa
Lisa
7 years ago
Reply to  NotTodaySatan

My daughter is telling me all the time I’m in love with the person I either thought he was or knew he was capable of being if he was willing to put on the work.

nomar
nomar
7 years ago

Because you can’t spell #biggerthanusboth without “anus.” #hiddenasshole

ChumpionoftheWorld
ChumpionoftheWorld
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Aces

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago

Let me guess….Nomar is a male! Am I right?

ForgeOn!
ForgeOn!
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Yeppers! One awesome dude!

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  ForgeOn!

Some RIC sites have banned me for even mentioning this website, so I have learned to imbed it sneakily into some posts. And, some said they found out by my posting this website there. Why would they not want to have all the links possible for people to read? Boggles the mind. ChumpLady lets everybody post their own personal sites and freely welcomes others. This is the way it should be.

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  ForgeOn!

No way! Nomar is a Robot. Trust me! 😉

He says too many funny and true things to be actually human.

UXworld
UXworld
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Outstanding!!

Chumptitude
Chumptitude
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Awesome Nomar!

Chump Princess
Chump Princess
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

How do you do it over and over again Nomar? LOLOLOLOL! I would love to know where you purchased your bullshit cutter! I would like to buy one. 🙂

EyesOpenNow
EyesOpenNow
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Lmao!! Best reply ever!!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  EyesOpenNow

I honestly don’t get it….why is that so funny or clever? I don’t see it. Because he referenced that they are assholes? I want to laugh, too.

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

#biggerthANUSboth … See?

Georgia
Georgia
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

yep I saw that straight away too… must be my dirty mind.

RefusesToBeStupid
RefusesToBeStupid
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Way to go Nomar?

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

excellent!

Roaring
Roaring
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Hahahaha.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

so good!

Kate
Kate
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Nora! ???

cheaterssuck
cheaterssuck
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Nomar for the win!

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Bwah hah!

piggy9117
piggy9117
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

OMG!!! Too funny. You know, nomar, I am just a little bit worried about where your mind is at!!! But I love it!

Chatty
Chatty
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

*wild applause*

Schmetterling
Schmetterling
7 years ago
Reply to  Chatty

I pin that on my mirror – brilliant Noma

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

How does nomar do it so early in the morning?

Kay
Kay
7 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Ha Nomar!!

brit
brit
7 years ago

Take the love your had for that person and love yourself. You are real they aren’t and you deserve to be loved. This person doesn’t deserve you or your love.
It takes work to change your thinking from putting this person on a pedestal and believing all the crap they fed us to realizing the person is an asshole and was never close to who we thought they were.

ChocLemonGelato
ChocLemonGelato
7 years ago

Yeah, the cheater narrative; “The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants” (THWWTHW), sounds a lot like what I was told by cheater cheater pumpkin eater on D-day two years ago; “It Is What It Is” (IIWII). Such a complacent way to end a discussion… lazy, and speaks volumes of his character.

Man, I have always hated that phrase… and now I can finally put my finger on why.

ChocLemonGelato
ChocLemonGelato
7 years ago

I think in the right context for a person, It Is What It Is does it’s job. It does signify an end point of sorts. As I explained above, IIWII was used in a manner which shut me down. My context was that Cheater suddenly announced he was leaving because I could not give him “what he wants”. I just could not believe that he was walking out on me, my 4, 2 and 11mo old children. I was blindsided. All I got was “It is what it is”.

It was triggering at the time. Nowadays, that phrase just serves as a bit of a bookmark. I’m not at all surprised or triggered on hearing that others appreciate its message. Whenever required these days, if after visitation Cheater is seeking kibbles from me (oh, “Master 2 was so grumpy today”… or “Miss 6 wouldn’t stop yelling at the boys”…) I flip it and turn it over, I serve it back occasionally to the ex, with a shrug of the shoulders and an “oh well…”

Needless to say, I probably serve up the discussion-ending comments more and more.

He’s such a fucktard. I hate him.

WhichWayDidSheGo
WhichWayDidSheGo
7 years ago

I got “So it goes.” tattooed on my wrist. Nothing but Vonnegut’s portrayal of the absurd quite captured how I felt about the sudden turn my life took.

Lyn
Lyn
7 years ago

I like that!

RNE
RNE
7 years ago

Mine said this too!! I hate that phrase!!! As if you have no control ever over what “it” is. Drinking problem? No control. Being a douche to the kids? No control. Screwing the hoe bag in my bed? Of course no control. But I guess it works both ways. When he asks why a Divorce? It is what it is.

It Is What It Is
It Is What It Is
7 years ago
Reply to  RNE

I use this phase as my handle to remind me that there was nothing I could do (although I pick me danced for a long time) to change him. “It is what it is” is my way of signifying acceptance of who he really is. My ex was the one who hated the phrase when I used it. It meant I was done dancing and done dispensing kibbles. Sorry if it is triggering.

GladIt'sOver
GladIt'sOver
7 years ago

I’m actually sitting underneath a hand-painted sign right now that says, “It is what it is.” I realize many consider it to be a trite expression, but it helped me a lot during the darkest days after Dday. I bought it at that time to remind me that there was no point in trying to figure out why my ex did the things he did, and no point in trying to untangle the skein, as CL says. It just is what it is, not worth my efforts to untangle his insanity and evilness.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

I use the phrase so as not to have regrets or grief about the broken marriage, and as a way to accept life as I have to live it today. See couples out on Valentine’s Day? “It is what it is.” Intact families on Mother’s Day. “It is what it is.” Have to deal with an electrician the day I was supposed to get other work done? “It is what it is.”

Georgia
Georgia
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

My mantra is: “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
Of course it ‘matters’ but in the end it doesn’t. If you know what I mean. Life goes on. He’s one guy out of 7 billion people in this world. He does not matter.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago

No, it’s okay! Not triggering. It is another good way of seeing it, coming from a person who is just trying to accept a horrible outcome.
It is…what is is.

Almost like an abbreviated Serenity Prayer. I think WHO is saying it is the key and the context.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago

I hate that saying too because I think it is actually “FUCK YOU, DEAL WITH IT.”

Deedee
Deedee
7 years ago

We love the facade they masquerade behind until it no longer serves them.I remember the shock of seeing the reality that lay behind the exterior,a Jekyll and Hyde transformation.I’ve since figured out he’s a high functioning narcissistic sociopath and he was very good at keeping his squalid secret life underground.Excellent in fact.
It takes time for the heart to catch up with the head though.Time,a lot of pain,and no contact.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  Deedee

Seriously!! I relate to the heart catching up with the brain bit. If my heart could have chilled out long enough to listen to my brain while I was ignoring all of those glaring red flags I would have been much better off! Now my silly heart wants to ache while my brain is celebrating victory. It would be nice for them to sync up.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago

This is why we would tell a friend to immediately leave a similar situation and we stay in our own for so long. We don’t have an emotional attachment to the friend’s betrayer, so we use our brain. I wish there was a clinical trial for a drug that could temporarily shut off the love feeling after dday. I think that if a stranger came up to us and told us half the things our exes said we’d either laugh in their faces or call the cops.

Lyn
Lyn
7 years ago

I agree Annie, I’ve often thought that trying to break the emotional attachment I had to him for 36 years gave me an inkling of what it must be like to go through rehab for a powerful drug addiction. There are still days that I miss him, or miss who I thought he was.

violet
violet
7 years ago
Reply to  Lyn

Same here. It is the daily ritual of the shared experience, the fact that you see that person every day for years and, one day, they are gone. It is like losing a limb, something feels missing. I try to fill that loss with activity, working, gardening, spending time with the people i love. I admittedly do not give myself much free time, and I still keep my guard up to an extreme. But I am at peace with myself and no longer angry all the time, something that was long overdue. The withdrawal symptoms were a bitch.

Flowerlady
Flowerlady
7 years ago

Me, too. Three years post D-day and I’m still trying to sync up. It’s coming along, tho.

JK
JK
7 years ago

Well put.

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago

I think the whole idea of agency can be confusing for us chumps. We spent so long giving the power to someone else, making our needs so small, that it’s almost a fresh concept for us to learn how to take control of ourselves, much less the situation. Then it becomes a skill that you have to cultivate in steps, deciding not to take it anymore, deciding to see an attorney, going through the necessary steps to meet with the attorney, etc. each is a building block to recovering your agency. Do it. You won’t be sorry.

mickeyblueeyes
mickeyblueeyes
7 years ago
Reply to  AllOutofKibble

“We spent so long giving the power to someone else, making our needs so small, that it’s almost a fresh concept for us to learn how to take control of ourselves, much less the situation.”

Ha this is so true! Even on the trivial things in life, these soon ad up though.

My new partner (and fellow chump) asked my opinion on what colour to paint her kitchen? And then took my advice. WAIT, WHAT? I was terribly confused by it all…it would usually go like this…

1) STBXW wouldn’t even ask my opinion, she would then just impose hers and do it her way
2) STBXW would ask my opinion and just ignore it and doing it her own way (Still at least she asked eh!)

When you find someone that reciprocates, listens, values you and your opinion its like a breath of fresh air! Or even if you don’t have a partner the fact you can just paint your kitchen pink with blue spots is extremely liberating!

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago
Reply to  mickeyblueeyes

Oh, mickeyblueeyes, it’s like the date I went on and the gentleman asked what I wanted to do. When I was silent he said “you get to pick things for us to do too.” Stunned silence. I honestly did not know what to say. The simple concept of reciprocity literally shut me down. I had to sit and think about it. Thank goodness he is a patient man.

mickeyblueeyes
mickeyblueeyes
7 years ago
Reply to  AllOutofKibble

AllOutofKibble just for the record my new chump partner painted her kitchen the colour I suggested too… Imagine that, accepting my opinion and following it through!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  AllOutofKibble

This is so important, AllOutofKibble. And to extend the point, a hallmark of codependency is that the codependent’s focus is not on his or her life, but on trying to control the disordered person’s disorder–get that sick person to “do the right things,” which is what the codependent wants that person to do. So in that sense, betrayal might actually put codependency in hyperdrive, making a chump frantic to change the disordered person’s mind. Cue the pick me dance.

In order to be in a healthy relationship, strangely enough, both parties also have to focus on their own lives, to maintain good interpersonal boundaries, to be plugged into what they are actually feeling, to know themselves well enough to say that some behaviors are deal breakers.

Drew
Drew
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Well said, LAJ. “In order to be in a healthy relationship, both parties have to focus on their own lives, to maintain good interpersonal boundaries, to be plugged into what they are actually feeling, to know themselves well enough to say that some behaviors are deal breakers.” I believe this. But as a recovering Chump I think my many years with the ex were spent supporting his life…until I recognized that mine had value as well. And ex was always looking for recognition. Was angry work didn’t recognize his greatness. I do believe he had a secret life, he couldn’t talk about his “feelings,” and it was frustrating being with someone who was so evasive and disengaged. All red flags I ignored.

CeliA
CeliA
7 years ago
Reply to  Drew

Drew, it’s funny how similar our ex’s are. Mine was looking for recognition all the time too. The cheating escalated after he secured a high position at his work. He was always flirting with female ho-workers and would make an excuses for his “playful personality”. At home, he is terribly disengaged and it was difficult to do “the talk” because of his evasiveness when he talks about his feelings. I’ve read that these are signs of power play. They have to keep you off-balance by letting you guess what they’re thinking.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

LAJ; “And to extend the point, a hallmark of codependency is that the codependent’s focus is not on his or her life, but on trying to control the disordered person’s disorder–get that sick person to “do the right things,” which is what the codependent wants that person to do.
Sad but true.
Cuts to the quick for some because it is often a reinjury familiar to the Chump from childhood…”this is how little you mean to me.”
It is as if supplying this injury makes the Cheater feel powerful. The pick me dance, your devastation, your looking inward for answers instead of leaving-all kibbles for the sick. Who among us would do this and sincerely get off on it?? When we are not thinking clearly, we don’t get this.
And right about deal breakers that we should have thought about in advance.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

If I would have had this information when I first got married, I would have divorced without having my children. One of the things that drove me bat-shit-crazy was his, “I know you’ll be mad” attitude. For example, his staying out way past when he should have been home. He was out drinking with friends. Instead of having one or two, he would start with what I believed were good intentions and then end up staying until last call. He would say all the time, “I knew you’d be mad.” Well if he knew, why did he do it. The answer is just what you wrote above. He was showing me how little I meant to him.

This lasted until the end. I was talking about us buying a pontoon boat we had talked about previously. It was set up specifically for fishing. I love the water and love fishing and it was something we could do together. I came back from a week of visiting my sick father and he says to me, “I know you’ll be mad, but I bought a motorcycle.” I was pissed. Not because of the purchase. We both work and make good money and could have afforded both the bike and the boat, but 1) He thought I’d be mad, but did it anyway, 2) he bought something for only him when I was talking about a major purchase that could be enjoyed by both, 3) he waited until I was out of town and for some reason thought he had to be sneaky.

Thanks for explaining this, all of you, it has helped clarify things in my mind. I can guarantee that I will never let this go again. My response from now on to anyone who shows me how little I mean to them is, “No I’m not mad. I’m done.”

Lyn
Lyn
7 years ago

“No I’m not mad. I’m done.”

That’s excellent. I’ll have to remember that!

Don’t you think when they say “I knew you’d be mad” it’s also a way of saying “you’re too sensitive?” or, “you’re unreasonable so I’ve given up trying to please you.” Those kinds of comments invoke guilt, which is manipulative.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  AllOutofKibble

Yes AllOutofKibble… it can actually be overwhelming to make decisions for yourself after allowing someone else that power for so long. I’ve realized that I question everything I am doing, I second guess it, I have to battle through the WWTND (What Would The Narcissist Do?) and the guilt and shame he associated with so many of my personal choices. It takes work daily but you are right… it is so worth it!!

Georgia
Georgia
7 years ago

Don’t love who you thought he was or who you hope he may become. Love who he actually IS.
Don’t bet on potential.

“If you’ve ever stayed in a relationship long past its sell by date, you’ll have worried about what you’ve ‘put in’ and become focused on getting a return on investment. Instead of thinking about who they consistently are and the present, you think about the good ‘ole days and wish they’d change back. Or you look to the future and practically squeeze your eyes shut and cross your fingers and toes that they’ll realise the potential you’ve envisioned for them and the relationship.”

(all from Baggage Reclaim) – also great quotes for previous post!

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  Georgia

You are so right, this is how I thought of it, and investment I was afraid to sell off before the market crashed.
Cross your fingers and pray “Please Lord, tell me I didn’t waste precious decades of my life on an Asshole!! Say it ain’t so!”
The market crashed and the little bag you finally run off with at least has your soul in it!

neverwouldhaveimagined
neverwouldhaveimagined
7 years ago

I regret I stayed so long and sacrificed so much of my self respect. It’s just there were so many reasons I kept crying, “but I love him.” I was totally invested and committed not just to him, but to our vows, to our family, to our future, to our legacy. My loyalty runs deep, and I’m not ashamed of that. Also, the needs of our family came before my own. Plus, I did not fully realize the landscape of our marriage had changed because he hid his infidelity, and things seemed so good between us. Add to that I didn’t even know there was a cheater playbook, and I guess I should be willing to understand why it took me two full years to leave him. But still.

Even though now the anguish of heartbreak seems unbearable at times, betrayal stings, and change in the wake of this tragedy is scary, I am much better off looking at my actual circumstances, facing the end of our marriage head on, and seeing that my spouse has lost his mind along with his moral compass and any shred of decency or good judgement he ever had.

I believed it when he told me he’d never do it again and actually thought he would move out or file if he didn’t love me. I was not thinking with the mind of a cheater who just wanted cake. My eyes have been open, CL, and through my tears I can see healing and a peaceful future ahead. I just need to get my bearings and move steadily toward them.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago

Never would have imagined – You are programmed correctly and that is to keep the bonds you have created as a family. Any normal person would feel like you do. In fact, with real men, it would take a gun to their head before they even contemplate leaving their families. But cheaters are never bonded with us to begin with, they are disordered mentally and never really attach. They go through the motions of getting married, having children, but they really aren’t invested. They just don’t put much thought into it, and when things no longer suit their needs, they just bail. Cowards do this.

kbchump
kbchump
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

“”But cheaters are never bonded with us to begin with, they are disordered mentally and never really attach. They go through the motions of getting married, having children, but they really aren’t invested. They just don’t put much thought into it, and when things no longer suit their needs, they just bail. Cowards do this””

^^^THIS^^^
My ex wife told me as she was dumping me for Mr Wonderful after 24 years together and 2 kids that not only had she been thinking about leaving for 2 years BUT it also “never felt right” in 24 years. Fuck her.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

I didn’t realize that I married a coward, but I know I divorced one.

Chumpfor12
Chumpfor12
6 years ago

I know this is an older post, but Annie Get Your Gun “I didn’t realize that I married a coward, but I know I divorced one.” Best line ever. Thank you for this little gem, I will remind myself of this every single day!

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago

I just told asswipe exactly that a month ago. Oh and hes not human but an evil pod. He became furious saying why? My answer was you didnt not tell me about your strange not because you didnt want to hurt me but because you didnt want to suffer consequences being called out on it ergo slimy, sniffing coward pod. Big strong tough alfa male afraid of itty bitty me. Waa waa waa. Hes is all bark no bite. Whores afraid of him it delights her. Me im not told him to bite me.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

“Bite me” is my favorite line. Yep, mine is a coward too. I didn’t want to admit it. What woman wants to admit that the man she chose cannot have a difficult conversation as an adult. I don’t like having difficult conversations either. I have them all day at work, every day, and the last thing I want to do in my personal life is confront a problem. But I’m an adult and it’s what we do.

I don’t scream obscenities at random drivers, I don’t get pissed at my kids and huff and puff around the house, and I don’t storm out of the house because my spouse calls me on my bullshit. I ignore reckless drivers, I tell my children what is expected and hold them accountable, and if my husband would tell me a concern I would have sat and listen and responded, not react in an overly emotional childlike behavior of denial, tantrums, or blame shifting. I also don’t feel the need to get tattoos on my body announcing to the world that I am a protector (in Latin no less) because I am a protector and my actions prove what tattooed words never can.

brit
brit
7 years ago

I lived with the same personality, complete opposite of the one he presents to outsiders. No one would believe it’s the same person.
I wonder this side of his personality has been revealed to his gf.
Not only a coward but a nasty bully. How brave he is behind the wheel of a car or to his wife and children. Same person couldn’t ask the gardener why he didn’t install the sprinkler system on the side of the house that we paid for.

Jim
Jim
7 years ago

What was he protecting ? Certainly not your marriage.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Jim

Good question. I’d have to say he was protecting his image.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago

Well said. Im pretty happy being me. Fuck that asswipe. I have the love and devotion of my kids. He doesnt. They only love him cause they have to just like he did with them they dont like him and one of them the girl rarely responds to him now. Hes talking to her about sharing holidays she puffed up and told him she does what she wants and she will see him when she wants not the other way around. Hes pissed at her and me about that blames me of course as always she screamed at her dad you are the asshole not mom!

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

I feel so so sorry for that poor child, it makes me want to sob.
The problems her Dad caused her, all for what?
And, she suffers the rest of her life.

Thank God for MamaBear!

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Shes all grown and tough she used to idolize her dad because he rarely even pays attention to her even worse sunce the affair. I text her she answers me right away the rare occasions he texts her she makes him wait two or three days. He asks me hows shes doing hes jealous cause she and i talk and text all the time. I told him call her fuckhead not my job to tell you how shes doing.

Jim
Jim
7 years ago

I regret I stayed so long and sacrificed so much of my self respect

In a nutshell.

So much time, and youth, wasted. And I did love her. I didn’t love me enough.

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Jim

Your comments are always very pithy! A man of few words. I hope it drives your cheater wild with frustration!!

Maree
Maree
7 years ago
Reply to  Jim

“So much time, and youth, wasted. And I did love her. I didn’t love me enough”.
Jim, my problem is/was that I never, ever loved or valued myself and that is another very long story. Having said that, I “loved, valued and respected” everyone and everything in my life so much so that I literally became invisible and I always referred to myself as just “plain old Maree”, never as someone’s daughter, sister, wife, mother or anything, I was just nothing in my own mind and yet now I realise I am something and of good solid value and that I always have been.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Maree

You are a gem, Maree.

Maree
Maree
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

:). Thank you LaJ.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Kahil gibran

This is all of us here in the chump nation.

Athene
Athene
7 years ago

NWHI, you have nothing to regret or feel ashamed about. You loved truly and loyally and of course you wanted to keep your marriage and your family together. Almost everyone here has followed the same path. Some got off the path sooner, and some later, but the point is the journey leads to the same place eventually. The fact that you can’t think like a cheater or anticipate the baseness to which someone can sink is a testament to your goodness, your moral compass, and your decency. His is in the toilet, as you now see. Don’t beat yourself up for not seeing it sooner.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

We should have flushed earlier!

mickeyblueeyes
mickeyblueeyes
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

No doubt they would be one of those annoying turds that take a couple of flushes!

Divorce Minister
Divorce Minister
7 years ago

And true love isn’t just purely permissive. It set limits for the health of all like standing firm against abuse.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago

Divorce Minister, can you give a little info about 180, no contact from a biblical perspective, love and forgiveness. I’ve been looking at 1Corithians 5 but I’d like more scripts if you can list them. No explanation needed but if I can get some references.
I at one time a looooong time ago, thought we were to suffer in silence, forgiving all the while listening to chanting monks in the background. My ex took advantage of that. I’ve since then changed but people often use Christian beliefs in an effort to further manipulate their victim.
Thanks

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

Just a note that “180,” as I understand it, is a reconciliation idea that chumps do a “180” and stay out of contact with a spouse in order to manipulate him or her into coming back or changing behavior. This contrasts with “no contact” as we talk about it here, which is a tool for getting the distance, perspective and peace of mind to recognizing gaslighting and manipulation from a disordered spouse or partner. “No contact” here is about removing ourselves from abuse in order to recover.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Thanks for the heads up, you’re right!?

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago

We’d all like to hear more Divorce Minister wisdom on that subject.

EchoNoMorre
EchoNoMorre
7 years ago

Now three years later, it just boils down to I really LOVED him with all my heart. I no longer love him anymore. Given the preponderance of evidence of the despicable, cruel and criminal things he did to me, my rational mind can not allow this. My heart wanted to spackle and not look at what was really going on… it still tries to love him from time to time. I can review the evidence and I have agency to make decisions in my best interest now…
One big example of just wanting to love him despite what a monster he was in the end is I would fantasize about being with the man I married who was long gone. It took me so long to accept reality but now that is all I have.

junglechump
junglechump
7 years ago
Reply to  EchoNoMorre

I feel the same about my STBXH. It’s so hard.

unicornomore
unicornomore
7 years ago

OMG everyone here is right…but it took me SO long to realize it.

After lies, betrayal and abuse, nowdeadhusband said to me “I wont apologize for falling in love” completely ignoring the neglect he subjected his family to in order to devote time to this nebulous thing that descended on him like fairy dust….and his “lurve” justified the whole thing. Fuck that.

Looking back now, I would have had more respect for him if he would have said “I have decided I no longer want to be in this relationship and we will be handling the details of our divorce quickly and respectfully, please do not try to talk me out of it”. But no, the desire for CAKE CAKE CAKE motivates him to play me and blame me and manipulate me and lie to me – THAT is what pisses me off now.

and I did CHOOSE to love him…I remember after one particular round of abuse, it was so bad that I felt myself come to a crossroads and CHOOSE to keep loving him (which I did for another 8 years until I learned more of what he did since the only truth I got was trickle truth). I would have been better off if I had chosen not to love him.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  unicornomore

Yes! My soon to be ex Narcissist has told me so many times “I deserve to be loved and appreciated” and “since you don’t appreciate me and since you abandoned me… you can’t get upset when someone else wants to love me.” He also insists that he never ‘cheated on’ because you know apparently having sex with someone else while you are married does not equal cheating. He justifies it all by saying that I had already emotionally abandoned him so it doesn’t count.

It Is What It Is
It Is What It Is
7 years ago

My exN said a similar thing, “you killed our love years ago so I no longer felt married to you”. He, of course failed to let me in on this information. He was still playing husband and father, while living a double life of debauchery. When asked why he didn’t leave “years ago” if he had felt that way, he replied that the kids were young, etc. He only decided to leave when he had an acceptable replacement he found on a dating site. Of course he didn’t actually leave as I was dancing desperately for another couple of years. Eventually, his girlfriend sent me a letter setting me straight about their “true luv” and I filed. Best decision I ever made.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago

Passive-aggressive! You are supposed to know that he loves french toast and doesn’t like your razor left in the shower, the kids to be in bed at a certain time, dinner at 6:00 pm, or some other lame excuse he/she has been holding against you for years. Seething under the surface with crazy lame shit to hold against you. Building a case against you while you are fat, dumb & happy thinking everything is fine & that they love you. Ugh.
You could really never win, the deck was stacked against you.

It Is What It Is
It Is What It Is
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

Amen!! They are the ultimate grudge holders. We constantly forgive them, yet they let every imagined slight fester against us.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago

Funny how THEY get to decide what ‘counts’ and doesn’t, what’s allowed and what isn’t! And it’s always in THEIR favour. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence ……

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

Great point KarenE. They are the supreme being and authority (in their minds) that what they say goes. Yeah, since they have such great morals and values that they should be the ones preaching values for others. We need to bend our narrative to fit their own fucked up notions. No thanks. Anytime I deal with someone who thinks everything is my fault, I’m out in a millisecond. I’m not dealing with that kind of mental toxicity. And this guy justifies that his affair isn’t cheating is a mental nut bag who belongs in the looney bin. No use in arguing with crazy.

StartofSomethingGood
StartofSomethingGood
7 years ago

So needed this today! Thank you!!!

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago

I forgave him, even though he was a cruel heartless, mean, dishonest, cheating SOB. You can’t fault a snake for being a snake.
Someone I know often says ” I love you with the love of Jesus.” That’s what my goal is now to love and not hate.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Not the gooey love that Chumplady is speaking of, but one we give to a despicable human being from afar.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Renewed

Love from afar? Love yourself, not the despicable. Part of detaching is to look at their actions. Had to get STD testing and treatment? Discarded as if I was trash?

The opportunity to detach with love was not in the playbook.

If you make two lists, one of the excuses they used to maintain their position on the pedistal and one of their actions you can detach with self love.

Reject the excuses which come with blame. It wasn’t love.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Doingme

:”Love with the love of Jesus” or “loving from afar” is not romantic or erotic love. It’s recognizing an individual for who they are, what they did and letting go of your right to seek vengence. If I hate him I only hold myself captive. We share a family together and any poison brought into the family will be carried by him only. He did what his character dictated and therefore is a despicable human being, but still a human being and the father of my kids with many talents. His loss, not mine.
We all reap what we sow. I have given the right of vengence to God.

Tessie
Tessie
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

Sorry, just not evolved enough to love cheater ex from any perspective. My best effort seem to be meh. Vengeance and justice are between him and Spirit. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I’m not giving him anymore time, thought or pain than I have to. Because of circumstances, I can’t opt out entirely, which sucks, frankly, but I do try to minimize it as much as possible.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

I can’t find that place first because I will never respect him. Secondly, every action was deliberate, and it’s a waste of energy loving an evil person

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Doingme

Also, loving an evil person can get you killed. Or at a minimum, ruin your whole life, and cause loss of sanity and happiness.

What is the pay off?

They see your love as weakness, and will keep coming back to exploit and hurt you until you are a puddle on the floor. They will step over you, and move on.

Loving that, even with detachment or some type of religion or spiritual bent would be…tragic and a waste of precious time.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

What exactly are you referring to as love? Praying that God has his will in an individual’s life is not a waste of time. For those that believe we are told to pray for our enemies. For me prayer has in no way diminished my life but in fact just the opposite. We do have some rewards here on life as well as after death.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Doingme

Find your peace and take care of you.

Carmella1722
Carmella1722
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

I don’t think it’s about making a choice between love and hate, its about accepting some very painful truths. The opposite of love isn’t hate it’s indifference, or in chumpspeak, meh.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

I do have peace and I am taking care of myself. I found that once I stopped loving my abuser.

ICanAlmostSeeTheMeh!
ICanAlmostSeeTheMeh!
7 years ago

This is so powerful to read. The same agency they employed to be evil… to lie, gaslight, cheat, and withhold sex, and leave me and our son is the same agency I can choose to use for good… to choose to let go of love that was abused… to let go of the hopium pipe… to let go of the past… and to create a better day today.

What Mr. Sparkles has now with OW isn’t love. It’s manipulation and lies and control. He began that relationship with LIES (and I will prove it in court, which is my superpower!)… and as we know, any relationship that begins with lies, ends with lies.

I choose not to love Mr. Sparkles today. I choose to stop looking backward because that view isn’t going to change.

As Georgia above said, “Don’t bet on potential.”… I add… “Even Charles Manson had ‘potential’!”

TheMuse
TheMuse
7 years ago

I can Almost, these are great!
1. “choose to let go of love that was abused”
2. “stop looking backward because that view isn’t going to change”

cutting and pasting these to put into my journal
thanks for putting these healing thoughts into words

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago

His potential wasn’t realized because I was doing all the work. In the end I was blamed because he couldn’t get anywhere. It’s funny now. He was living his potential all along I just didn’t know he was that Limited.

I had to alter my life around his business and business was his code word for cheating. His business is failing and he’s going into his future penniless. Lol

M
M
7 years ago

I really loved my husband. I still divorced him and got the hell away from him. When someone has deliberately, with malice aforethought, over an extended period of time and repeatedly taken actions that have threatened your life and your security and your spirit, then you need to run. You can still love them from afar if you must.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  M

M, this is IT, all the way.

I always thought that if two people loved each other, they could figure out the hard stuff in their lives and their relationship. That’s a big part of what kept me trying, after Affair #1. Well, I really did love him, and I kicked him out after I found out about Affair #2, still loving him. I knew my heart would eventually catch up with my head (and it did). What helped was recognizing that HE DIDN’T LOVE ME. He loved himself, and he loved some of what I brought to HIM, but not actually me, myself, as I am, the way I loved him. And what killed any love for him that I had left, killed it dead dead dead, was recognizing that he also didn’t love his kids, or at least not enough to actually think about their well-being, as he made a year and a half’s worth of decision that impacted their lives in huge ways.

That’s not love. I’m not sure what it is, I guess just kibbles and image management. Disgusting stuff.

Drew
Drew
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

Yeah, what kind of father bails on sending their kids to college (when he can well and truly afford it?), and steals their savings? Who never attends their children’s High School activities because he is busy fucking his skank? Who buys their children cars then wants them written into the settlement? Who hands out scholarships to other people’s children, takes a family vacation to check out colleges and just never shows up when their kid is off to college? Who vacates the family home with twenty eight years of stuff, returns to vandalize it and allows it to foreclose?!?!? Graduations come along and his whole dysfunctional family shows up. If that isn’t disgusting I don’t know what is.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Drew

My friend’s dad was exactly like this. He left her mom to be with other women, and never contributed a dime to my friend’s education. She went to Law school and become a successful lawyer. Meanwhile, he contributes to charities and other organizations, has a high position in his company, yet doesn’t contribute a dime towards his own child. Yup. I see this happen often. It’s disgusting indeed. Doesn’t give a shit about her mom and doesn’t give a shit about his very own daughter.

TheMuse
TheMuse
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

KarenE, I always love your posts. I think we had a similarly narcissistic cheater… when My Exhole was Raging at me, back in the a regular occurence on the cycle of abuse rollercoaster I lived in, he was always blathering on about me not “validating” him. Chump that I am, I would try to interject ideas about how we could, I could, whatever – do things differently. He would ALWAYS burst out screaming, “It’s! Not! About! You! Muse!” This went on for sixteen years. Silly me, I thought yeah, if two people love each other they could talk it out. But he seemed to resent my very existence. After being screamed at, spittle dribbling down his vile chin, I would sometimes cry because I could hold it in no longer. Voila! Cheater would instantly Burst Into Tears because it’s always (don’t you forget it!) ALL ABOUT HIM. He was the victim the poor little guy. Muse wouldn’t understand him, couldn’t understand his intensity (rage) over petty little shit that a normal person would just deal with. I don’t know if it’s scientific or not but my conclusion is that he was having a narcissistic injury… he actually hated himself. While thinking he’s Speshul.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  TheMuse

Oh god, Muse, YES! When things got bad (and to justify his cheating), my ex would always complain about not feeling loved, because I somehow wasn’t ‘showing’ my love. Meanwhile, I was ridiculously warm, affectionate, sexual, and supportive, and constantly responding to his always-shifting ‘needs’. Frequent narcissistic injury, and self-hate wrapped in entitlement and arrogance.

TheMuse
TheMuse
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

same here and not only was I loving, warm, and supportive but I would apologize on and on and endlessly on but it was NEVER enough for his wounded state. WTF.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago
Reply to  M

M, I feel the same way. I really genuinely love a man who has almost succeeded in ruining my life. But the turning point for me was realizing that he never actually loved me. He loved the supply I gave him, he loved what my love did for his ego… but it was never about me… anyone could fulfill that for him. It got easier to move ahead with the separation, no contact, and divorce from there.

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago

This. He didn’t love me but he loved that I loved him. And who wouldn’t enjoy watching someone else’s face light up with happiness when all you did was walk in the room? And the sad thing is that I recognized this fact 32 years ago, but I truly did feel that intense wash of warm, happy emotion when he was with me and I brushed the non-reciprocity out of my mind so as not to interfere with the dopamine rush I loved so much. Asking a chump to walk away from their beloved narc is like asking any addict to recognize their addiction is causing more pain than good. CL is our own personal Chumps Anonymous, I guess.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

In essence he loved that I loved him. No more

Georgia
Georgia
7 years ago
Reply to  Doingme

Yep, same as now he’s hurt because I am hurt… mofo!!!

Pearshaped
Pearshaped
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Wow, Dixie Chump. That old song “I love how you love me” just jumped into my mind. I never gave any thought to the lyrics before, but now it’s kind of an OMG moment!

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago

One counselor I worked with, way back when, talked about how you can’t make yourself stop feeling what you feel, so the only reasonable way to let go when you still feel deep love is to change your thinking about what the love means in your real life.

The “but how can I walk away when I still love him so much?” became “the feeling of love that’s been holding me back is still strong, but that is just one part of what’s happening, and it isn’t a problem solver.”

I see now that she was teaching me to allow my feelings while bringing thinking back to the front of my awareness, to empower myself to take action without invalidating my heart or wasting precious time and energy on impossible efforts. She helped me move into “Yes, I still love him, and maybe I always will, but he’s an asshole, and this is killing me, and I need my f’ing life back.”

Smart lady.

chris1731
chris1731
7 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Excellent point of view… Thanks for sharing Amiisfree!

I needed this post today:)

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago
Reply to  chris1731

🙂

neverwouldhaveimagined
neverwouldhaveimagined
7 years ago

Yes, lots of spackle. Lots of hopium. Ugh.

divorcinganarcissistblog
divorcinganarcissistblog
7 years ago

“hopium” I haven’t heard that one yet… its perfect!! 🙂

Over and Out
Over and Out
7 years ago

D-day was the ultimate buzz-kill for me. I had put up with 20 years of basic BS when I discovered the cheating… That was the deal-breaker.

Up until then he had me snowed and I played with the hand I was dealt because I loved my family, but from that day forward the rules of his game were changed. I still had vestiges of chumpiness to sort through (that perhaps he would straighten up and fly right), however, I started getting my ducks in a row as my gut was telling me he wasn’t gonna change. My gut didn’t lie.

Love yourself enough to not waste your love, time and energy in a bad investment.

strongwoman
strongwoman
7 years ago
Reply to  Over and Out

Over and out – this was my life too. Thanks for putting it into words.

Chumptitude
Chumptitude
7 years ago
Reply to  Over and Out

Same here Over and Out, up until finding out about my X’s affair, I was doing my best to build a future for our family, I thought we were on the same team, I attributed his crankiness to stress from work, from parenting, from missing our families, etc.

Then I found evidence about his betrayal and lies, and progressively figured out that his “I love yous” were really “Dang chumptitude, you make me look so good!” Deal breaker, and cue to divorcing him.

Now I put my energy towards my and our kiddo’s growth, a much better investment!

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  Chumptitude

Oh gosh, the crankiness!!!!!!!!!!!! The negativity, the criticism of everyone and everything, the judgment, the moodiness, the walking on eggshells, the trying to manage the kids so they wouldn’t act up and make his crankiness worse, the wrecking of perfectly nice days, occasions and trips, the doing more and more and more to take stress and annoyance off him so he might be less cranky ….!

Weirdly, I got super fed up with the crankiness almost a year before Affair #2 led to my kicking him out, told him I intended to end our relationship because of it, he said he didn’t want that and SUPER improved, much less cranky and unpleasant. The kids and I loved that, it was SO much better for us, we showed him so much appreciation for that effort, our sex life improved, everything was better.

So he fucked around again and I kicked him out, and later I find out that although he treated us better through that last period, he was still thinking ALL the same negative, critical nasty things, he was just ‘biting his tongue’ on them, and resented that I required him to behave better. And apparently how much happier the kids and I were meant nothing to him, zilch. Sigh.

Over and Out
Over and Out
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

This is how chumpy I was — when our kids were little, they would get so excited when Daddy got home from work. One night he told to me that I needed to keep the kids busy and off of him when he first got home because he was “tired after working all day and he needed time to unwind”. I was absolutely floored by that request.

However after his continued bitching about it, I started giving them their baths at that time to keep him happy. I also told him that some day he would regret being so selfish because when the kids got older that excitement would disappear and no one would give a damn when he came home.

From then on, he’d come home, grab a few beers and disappear to the computer room for an hour or so. The kids eventually caught on that he was home, but he wouldn’t allow them to bother him until he ready. That kind of deflated their enthusiasm.

Years later, I discovered why he had such a damn obsession with the computer… Porn and chat rooms.

All those years he missed out on our children’s pure joy to see him walk through the door every night.

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

Well KarenE you just described 20 years of my life in a single paragraph!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  AllOutofKibble

I wish these assholes would have appreciated you all…I truly do. You are so witty and well written, insightful and fun.

There was a friend of mine who told me the funniest, saddest story. She divorced her husband and had remarried and was so happy! I said, why do you leave your first husband? How did you find these happiness?

She stared into the distance, and she said…many reasons, but here is the main one.

Every morning, each morning, without fail, for 10 years….when the alarm clock would go off, and they were to start their day, her husband (EVERY MORNING) would

exclaim:

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWW SHIT!!!!”

Every. single. morning.

She said one morning, she got up, threw on a robe, grabbed her Pekinese Ming, got her keys and never went back. She never went back. She had her sister get her few clothes and knickknacks and she did it all through her lawyer. She never saw or spoke to him again. She learned of his death through the obits.

She is my hero.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Chumptitude

What’s up with the crankiness? these disordered individuals are always cranky, and we keep making excuses for them. I had 2 abusive exes and the crankiness was always present, and I twisted myself in a pretzel to be pleasant with them, to set the example for them. Now when I see someone is cranky all the time, I’m outta there. Life is short to be dealing with a friggin moody losers all the time. My mother was always cranky, and she was mentally ill, incessantly raging and NEVER happy. So glad I went NC with her. No thanks, she can direct her crankiness all towards herself.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

Yep, crankiness. His response to me saying how beautiful the day was, “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.” I think that if they were pleasant we would want to be around them and talk to them. This may have led to a slip of the tongue and an uncovered lie. Better to be cranky and keep you at a distance and focusing your energy on trying to make him happy then for you to get a closer look.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

I think, in some cases, the crankiness is a sign of the devaluation process. Everything we chumps do, or the kids do, or the cats and dogs do, irritates them and feeds the devaluation. Or because they have already devalued us, all that we do irritates them. It’s a cycle.

Drew
Drew
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

LAJ, this was a truth for me. I believe he started devaluing me in a Big Way the second he began his “true love” affair. I stood up for myself and called him on his crap because my children (in high school and college) were witness to it. I knew I deserved to be treated well. I wish I had the knowledge to key into those waving red flags though…as I do feel like I wasted a great deal of my life married to him. Now I am making up for lost time, trying to fit everything I want in (and still support my kids, who are still struggling with their pretend father and Disney Dad). Blech!

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Yes, because God forbid they approve of anything we do. The only way they relate to us is with contempt and disapproval. The goal is not to relate to us as equals, but to relate to us as inferior to them. And they train us to know our place, and this constantly sucking up to them, trying to gain their approval. I don’t play into that anymore. The second someone is perpetually cranky at me and disapproves what I say, there won’t be a next meeting. Or a next time ever.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

It’s a sign they are not getting their way, and other people will pay for that. Most of these cheaters, once discovered, also had some version of “You weren’t listening to me…you weren’t doing what I wanted…You weren’t doing what I asked,” as a way to justify their affairs.

Both the crankiness and their affair-excuses are a sign that they feel *entitled* to shape our identities and our behaviors; we are not human beings to them with our own thoughts, feelings, opinions–our value to them is dependent on how well we conform to their “perfect-life-for-ME” agenda.

Over and Out
Over and Out
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

The good old wife appliance…

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

~The Crankiness

I have experienced this as well, both with Meth Boy and some other freaks. I think it is because they do not have any inner resources to fall back on when they do not have the following:

drama
deceit
drugs
secret sex or sex in the moment
or some type of pleasure (to their warped minds)

They need constant stimulation because their minds are like wastelands, with parched soil and tumbleweeds blowing across it, no oasis of calm in sight. So, they get irritated, rude and moody when they are not being “entertained” or the lights are not sparking in their strange minds.

They are not capable of experiencing peaceful JOY from everyday pleasures or life; a good book, a cup of coffee, a morning walk, just talking in bed. They need the high drama, the he said/she said, the secret affairs, all that underground stuff that makes them feel superior to the trusting chump.

Meth Boy and I had no money problems, a true blessing in this economy. We had 4 homes between us to stay in, one on a river, nice cars, no children, and lots of free time, as I work from home or anywhere and he does not have to work. A dream life.

And guess what? 97% of the time, he was NOT happy. I can count on two hands the times he was truly relaxed and happy. (And it was probably chemically induced and false) He was always: sad, raging, high, passed out or distracted and acting cranky and nervous.

I would try to show him how lucky we were…a fool’s errand.

What a shit sandwich I settled for. It is pathetic. It is absurd what I accepted as “love”.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

SS; Great post! Loved the visual of parched soil and tumbleweeds going by in their minds. Cue up Tombstone Territory!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

Thank you Regina!!!

I know that topic first hand. I was sitting in Panera Bread with Meth Boy (thanks Anita!!!) and an elderly woman came up to me, put her arms around me at the drink machines and told me I was with a demon and that I needed to escape. She did not appear to be homeless or insane.

This is because he was eating stone faced, not speaking, barely holding his aggression in check and I had tears streaming down my face.

What a great life! And this I miss?

Now-I-Know-What-Hell-Looks-Like
Now-I-Know-What-Hell-Looks-Like
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

OMGosh Sabine! On 3 separate occasions complete strangers said things like that to me, just out of the blue! Of course all of our family and friends thought he was such a great guy because he was very good at hiding his true self when we were around anyone else. He even had our entire church congregation fooled while he put on a big show of studying to be a Pastor, participated in VBS, finding ways to entertain all the kids, etc. He had a VERY good mask and wore it well but somehow those strangers saw right through it and tried to warn me. I wish I had listened.

JK
JK
7 years ago

It’s very difficult to accept that you’ve loved in vain, even after you have the proof of years of infidelity and serial cheating in front of you. Inside, you just keep screaming NO! NO! NO! I think that’s at least part of the reason why so many of us try to reconcile after D-day – we’re trying to avoid the truth that our love was wasted on a person that did not value us in the same way. It’s very hard to come to grips with that if you were really invested, had kids, a home, built a life and had plans for the future.

Cheaters were not who we thought they were, we misjudged them, they exploited us, and we did love in vain (at least in terms of my own views of what love looks like). Bad enough, but after years of having our self-worth destroyed, we discover that the road home requires us to find something in us that has been siphoned down to a minimum over years of abuse – love for ourselves. Tough hill to climb, but that’s the path. Choose yourself, and stop investing in someone who doesn’t deserve you. You can never love yourself in vain.

FindingBliss
FindingBliss
7 years ago
Reply to  JK

Thanks for writing this, JK! I’m so glad to have found the way home, as you described it. Yes, my life was being siphoned off. I’m busy refueling and refilling the tanks now. Ah, that’s better

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  JK

Well-said, JK. We were conned, bamboozled, out of money, love, and years of our lives. Serial cheaters are nothing more than grifters, moving on to the next big score.

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Grifter is the PERFECT word, Tempest.

Tessie
Tessie
7 years ago
Reply to  CalamityJane

Nailed it Tempest!

Chumptitude
Chumptitude
7 years ago
Reply to  JK

Great way to encapsulate chump recovery, thank you JK!

Cry Me A River
Cry Me A River
7 years ago

I saw this last week and it seems to fit. I just wish I’d seen it before 4 years of ‘yeah but I love him’….

‘if you’re torn between your head and heart remember that one is specifically designed for thinking and the other is a pump’

I wish I knew who to attribute the quote to because it’s fabulous

Cheaterssuck
Cheaterssuck
7 years ago
Reply to  Cry Me A River

Awesome quote!! So true!

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago

I have often reflected on what it must be like to be the cheater and watch someone you are abusing in every way discover the truth and then continue to indicate they still love you in word and deed. How surreal that must be. “I am a complete shit. She knows it. She is apologizing to ME!! Wow.” I imagine they find it very affirming of their high self opinion and also extremely useful. There really must be no limit to really bad things they can now imagine doing without any fear of consequences. I suggest that we chumps turn these assholes’ world view on its head. Let them know they suck in your every facial expression, word, and deed. Their mother obviously never let them know they suck … so we’ll just have to do it ourselves. The world will be a better place. Be a humanitarian. Do it for Mother Earth, if not yourself. Just.Do.It.

Deedee
Deedee
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Dixie Chump I have often wondered the same.That’s why I could kick myself for ever having done the prolonged pick me dance.How powerful and smug he must have felt to have me competing for him.These disordered fuckers get a high from the triangulation.
I prefer silence to pointing out the horror of who he really is however.It is impossible to prick the conscience of someone who has none and who is utterly devoid of empathy.What these people hate is the sound of silence.No engagement.No energy.Nothing signals to their brains that you are done forever like NC.

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Deedee

You are right … No Contact shatters their world like no other action. At least I HOPE it does!!! I like to think he is occasionally lonely over in that one bedroom roach-infested apartment. Or perhaps “inconvenienced” … probably the best I can hope for. I am still working on not spending mental energy pondering what emotion he might be feeling at any given moment. Meh is still a long ways off.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Dixie,
Your point is so perceptive about how the cheater must feel with the chump’s Ghandi like forgiveness for abominations.
Meth Boy actually said to me: I would not put up with the shit I do from a woman for one second.

If that was not someone telling me who they were.. what was? I just stared at him in silence and I guess…shock?

They think we are fools.

Let me be clear on this: (Sorry if it is gender specific but I can only go on what I know)

When a man is done with a woman, he is DONE. He moves on and cheats and he is out there.
He is not on a website analyzing any of his behavior, mooning over how he wronged her. I think that they stay on when it is convenient (food, clean clothes, an errand runner) and when they get that bit sorted out, they move right on.

Forgiving them when they act like creatures from hell further emboldens them to act more monstrous. I see this now. It cost me a lot to learn it.

*Loneliness and the fear of abandonment, is a terminal disease and can make you behave like an absolute clueless fool*

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

“cheater must feel with the chump’s Ghandi like forgiveness for abominations.

and

Forgiving them when they act like creatures from hell further emboldens them to act more monstrous”

Forgiveness for me is a setting of boundaries. I think Paul said it best when he told us to expell the immoral brother and let satan have his way with him. Quite different than what you describe. We don’t swoon an twiddle our thumbs over the cheaters action. Quite the opposite.

You get out of the way ansd let God have his way.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

I think staying in a marriage long term with prove of fidelity is Ghandi like forgiveness. What else would it be?

It is certainly not holding them to any standards of decency..right?

But, everyone does not believe that a divine cosmic justice will make all the pain in the world go away. They just don’t. It is a deus ex machina solution, magical, to some minds.

But, if that gives you comfort that is super. But not everyone can hope that a Sky Wizard or a “Satan” idea will make years of abuse, betrayal, treachery and heartache set right in an abacus that no one can see, or has no proof of.

JeepTess
JeepTess
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Fellow Chumps…I got a text from satan 2 days ago…

…and it read…

‘Somehow I don’t feel responsible for everything that happened. I miss you everyday.’

…narc much satan?

…yeah…I don’t think there is much to hope for in relationships with these disordered users.

…I’m guessin he was ‘dateless’ or ‘lonely’ or ‘low on fuel – aka kibbles’…ugh

Carmella1722
Carmella1722
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

People get stuck for all kinds of reasons. And forgiveness isn’t condoning or accepting the behavior, it’s letting go which consequently gets you unstuck.

Deedee
Deedee
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

You will get there.It took me years to get to meh.
I don’t think these people are capable of feeling deep emotions.Their emotions are superficial and transient as sociopaths are incapable of truly bonding with anyone.
When you withdraw into silence and stop granting energy and attention it causes them the discomfort of feeling the lack of narcissistic supply.
I loved him with all my heart and soul and it caused me so much anguish to let go of the fantasy of who I thought he was.Healing took a long time but I am healed whereas he will always be a sociopath.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  Deedee

DeeDee

“I don’t think these people are capable of feeling deep emotions.Their emotions are superficial and transient as sociopaths are incapable of truly bonding with anyone
When you withdraw into silence and stop granting energy and attention it causes them the discomfort of feeling the lack of narcissistic supply.”

This is it exactly! Great post and walking away from a sociopath is the club I want to be a member in.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  Deedee

I want to be at where you are im getting there. I become more indifferent every day. When i hear you dont smile at me….you dont chit chat with me….why are you not listening to me? I just turn and say you fired me remember and being friends is not on the menu. Hes finally buying the house his shop is here so i see him six days a week. He acts like nothing happened i act indifferent as in when is the closing date theres a life waiting for me i need to get to it. He looks sad and still keeps yapping. They just dont get it. Him and his whore are broken up yet again. And again my fault. I guess a part of me will always love the man i married but im slowly burying those memories. The pod i divorced cant stand the sight of him whiny, crabby lying little pod bitch. Two different creatures i guess the latter is what he is since he let the demons out. I want no part of him and his madness anymore. I just want to be free and me. He talks about his future with huge dread and self pity wah, wah, wah. He puts on a fantastic act when other people are around but me, his family, his kids suffer the real him, verbal abuse and anger they dont deserve, neither did i. Let the whore have him, shes thrown him out four times she thinks she can change him. Ha! Good luck with that. I aint perfect but im feeling a whole lot better. Love you guys you have all been a life saver.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

“When i hear you dont smile at me….you dont chit chat with me….why are you not listening to me?”

If things were going well with the OW and they were still together, he wouldn’t be saying these things to you. It’s because he’s single again and needs attention, that’s why he’s coming back to good ol’ faithful Kar Marie. So manipulative. And these are the consequences of his decisions. Why should you listen to him or talk to him? Did he do any of those things when he was cheating on you? Too bad, so sad for him. He is realizing the consequences of his decisions and coming to grip with it.

NotTodaySatan
NotTodaySatan
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

It’s chilling to think about. Mine actually admitted that he didn’t think about how his actions impacted me or our child. He was well aware of his behavior and he didn’t think it was something that needed changing. Gives me the creeps in retrospect.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  NotTodaySatan

To this day, 1.5+ years out from D-day, mine disavows that he betrayed the children, too. And disavows that the affair was a big deal, and says it was 50% my fault because “marital problems.” He’d rather blameshift than try to win back DD15 who hasn’t talked to him in a year and a half. They don’t change.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Saddam flew into an utter rage after an MC session when he told me his cheating was 50% my fault and I told him it was 100% his fault. He lost his shit because I wouldn’t agree with that bullshit. What is it with the 50% shit? No, I had zero to do with your deciding to cheat, my admission that we had some relationship problems does not mean I’m responsible for your dysfunctional way of dealing with it. And by the way asshole, cheating on me because my Mom died and I wasn’t there for you is not a reason to cheat, it’s a reason to help me for Christ’s sake! The one time I needed you to take care of me you fucked me over because I was depressed and while I was supposed to help you through chronic depression you couldn’t even help me for 9 months? Fuck you and the stupid woman you fucked instead of helping me.

WiserToday
WiserToday
7 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

Other than it being the death of my son, same same. I’m sorry he wasn’t able to be there for you, Dat.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  NotTodaySatan

My ex also admitted to me that for a YEAR AND A HALF, from the moment Schmoopie hit on him, through my kicking him out shortly thereafter, up until our kids started refusing to see him, he NEVER thought about how all this was impacting them or would impact them. NEVER thought about how they felt through so many decisions he made that any functioning 10 year old could see had huge effects on them. NEVER thought about how to make this easier for them, how to help them feel secure in his love and caring, how to preserve his relationship with him, not a SINGLE THOUGHT.

This is NOT normal. Frankly it makes me feel sick. I SO regret giving my kids this man as a father. They would have been better off if I’d just had kids on my own.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

KarenE

This is what sold me on his being a sociopath. The fact he chose to discard his children and granddaughter.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

That reminds me of something I asked my X after D-day. I said, “you spent numerous coffee shop hours with her, then went to her apartment, then you started to undress each other. At any point, did you think, “I should stop, this would hurt Tempest”?

He responded, “No, I was too focused on lust at that point.”

Cheater psyche in a nutshell. These are people who would not pass the marshmallow test, even if they knew the marshmallow was supposed to go to a starving child.

Chump Princess
Chump Princess
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

“These are people who would not pass the marshmallow test, even if they knew the marshmallow was supposed to go to a starving child.”

This is as a succinct and accurate description of how a Cheater’s or Entitled Person’s mind works as you will ever get – and apparently you met my EX. 🙂

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  Chump Princess

My ex would never pass the marshmallow test, even if he knew the marshmallow would go to his OWN starving child.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

Not “normal,” as if “what decent people would do,” but “typical,” as in “how cheaters behave.”

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  NotTodaySatan

He didn’t think about how his actions impacted you or your child??! Are you kidding me? This is not normal, and denotes a total lack of conscience. And to add that he didn’t think his behavior needed changing, but yet was well aware of it. He’s likely to be a sociopath or psychopath. Someone who has an underdeveloped conscience and emotional maturity. So not normal, I shudder at the thought humans like this exist. I’m sorry this was your husband, what a monster he is. Big hugs to you.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

Kellia, I know a woman who has an son in grade school. She’s cheating. And she openly disrespects–devalues–her husband in public. She’s not thinking at all of her son. It’s all “me me me me me.” If cheaters thought about the impact of their behavior on their children and their spouse, they wouldn’t do what they do. In order to cheat, you have to devalue the people you are betraying. You have to think you are entitled to what you want and it doesn’t matter what happens to tun. In that sense, none of them are “normal.”

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

That’s just awful. As if these individuals get stuck at the age of 6, with no consideration of how their actions may affect others. It’s as if their emotional growth was stunted and they have adult bodies but the minds of 6 years old. You can’t expect a 6 year old to understand the ramifications of their actions, they’re not fully mature yet. Same with these disordered individuals, they think like children.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

I’m convinced that my ex is a 4 year old in a big, handsome man’s body. But he’s also very very smart, so I think it’s not just about immaturity. It’s mainly the entitlement; he doesn’t have to think about consequences, for himself or anybody else, because, well, he doesn’t have to. And anybody who requires him to is a pain in the ass, and anybody who maintains boundaries and therefore creates consequences is mean, self-righteous and bitter. He’s always right, and even when he’s wrong, he’s right, and EVERYTHING is somebody else’s fault.

Tflan386
Tflan386
7 years ago
Reply to  KarenE

Dixie Chump: Amen. You nailed it.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago

First off, it’s probably not love they have for the other person, it’s dysfunction and the highs and low drama makes you think it’s love, when it’s not. Love is calm, respectful, mutual. And waiting to be loved is not love. Also, if they love the person, then they should just shut up and not complain about the person or the relationship.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago

Ex gloated that even years later one of his OW still loved him and missed his d*ck. It was incredible boost to his ego to think that some woman out there somewhere was pining over him.Gag. He also referred to her as a troll in the same breath. History rewrite anyone? Towards the end he could not keep it inside any longer. A real gem.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Asswipe said every woman hed ever been with still wanted him and would never forget what a great lover he is thats why all of them contacted him on facebook. And when i think of him i will think of him in bed and want him again. What an ego what an asshole first thing out of his mouth re what hes good at sex. I told him when you suck as a father, brother, friend, boyfriend and suck at relationships in general your old limp dick is not important. Stick with the bondage bitches dude they only want to get off.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

Ego is right. What happens when that body part stops working?

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

The body part did stop working that why he went off into bondage sex really needing to feel like man cause that screaming penis was failing him. Lots of tricks to make it snap to attention hey our bodies are never gonna be like when we were young. I accept it he didnt. That dick stopped working and all hell broke loose. Stupid ass. Massive amounts of viagra and sticking that ego still dont work its a mindset and hes got a bad one.

TheMuse
TheMuse
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

My Ex had a “trophy” folder in his PC of all of his conquests. There was one photo of me, the woman who paid for all his food, housing and cell phone for sixteen years and loved him with all my heart, gave into his fetishes and let him dominate and control me and my children. I finally cancelled the landline phone in my (formerly our) house last year when an ex GF from a foreign country called here looking for him, probably because she was going to be in the states soon. I found out AFTER D-Day, because I contacted his two prior longterm ex GF, that he stayed in touch with and continued to fuck and take them out to dinner, for the first 7 or 8 years that he was living in my house with me and my sons and being my “boyfriend.” Obviously means a lot to him to have his Exes pining for him for decades!

When I kicked his ass out on DDay one and only, he pleaded that “we could get back together if it didn’t work out with OW.” Fat chance… I told him NFW, that if he was “leaving” me (because he didn’t really leave, I kicked his ass OUT), for another woman, there was no way in hell that he would ever be getting back together with me.

What an asshole. What an overinflated ego.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

It seems to be cheaterspeak to view the world as though another person’s genitals are such a specific point of unique focus that a person could/would miss the other person’s genitals specifically. It is so bizarre. By that logic, if someone loved your cooking, and you loved cooking for them, you would have to miss their taste buds, esophagus, stomach, and bowels (and anus, Nomar, LOL!) whenever they weren’t around.

So weird.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Ex would often describe a woman in particular by a certain body part. You know “so and so with the big tits.” He also suffered with ED and hid his prescription. Modern medicine has provided the cheater with an extended time to cheat. It’s unfortunate as couples that have this issue really benefit from these meds.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  renewed

I would expect a 16 year old to talk like this, but not a grown man. Would you ever say oh that’s the guy with the bulging dick. This guy has the emotional maturity of a pimple faced immature 13 year old.

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

Thirteen is to high, more like an infant… He sucks his thumb.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Renewed – You cracked me up!

Renewed
Renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Yes that’s correct. He was a closet middle aged thumb sucker.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

Sabine – LOL@ Larry with the huge balls! I burst out laughing.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Renewed

He really sucked his thumb? What does that EVEN MEAN???

Spot on. Imagine if I said to a person:..You know, Larry the guy with HUGE balls? Yeah, he bought a time share and had a problem…

No professional in my field would NOT know I said that. But when a man says it….

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago

I had it bad CL. I loved him and his love was greater. He loved alcohol, weed, fucking strange, lying, working out, playing drums, looking at women, getting hotels, and leading a double life. Face the pain the first time, its not love.

Cheaterssuck
Cheaterssuck
7 years ago

The night I found out about the ex’s affair, I thought I could actually feel the love I had for him vacating the premises. I tried to stop it because at that point it was a 24 year investment.

Fast forward to two years later when I was languishing in wreckconciliation and I found another text to him from the OW. It didn’t say much, only “what happened” but at that point I no longer cared. I could actually feel whatever residual love that was left evaporate. I knew at that moment I no longer loved him.

It took another year to get the courage to leave but during that year, the eyes I viewed him with had much clearer vision. I think it’s true what they say about love being blind.

willowtree
willowtree
7 years ago
Reply to  Cheaterssuck

I always felt like my love was a bungee cord – when he would be a giant fucking asshole I could feel myself pulling further and further away but would always rebound my way back to him,, I recall with great clarity the day that I felt my bungee cord “snap” and knew that was it over in my heart. I had kept trying but after the 3rd d-day, it was done. Love had left the house for good.

Tessie
Tessie
7 years ago
Reply to  willowtree

Yeah, I know exactly when love left in my case. I had just been in a minor fender bender, and I came home and I was really upset. And as I was sitting on the couch crying, he looked at me with those cold shark eyes, and simply said ….Shut up. I was so upset and scared at that point and it shocked me. And suddenly, as I looked up at him and his face was so ugly, I realized…..he doesn’t care. I’m so upset that I am in tears and he just said something unbelievably cruel. And I realized at that moment I no longer loved him. Pfffft….it was gone.

After that I started seeing him m with much clearer eyes.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Tessie

Your X makes the pattern clear for all of us. We have a human need for comfort, love, affection, and they find a way to say “shut up.” Some would just stay, “Why are you making a big deal? You are fine.” Or ” If you had been paying attention, you wouldn’t have been in an accident?” Or
“Don’t be so dramatic.” In the end, so many interactions, even those that seem normal, come down to “shut up, go away, keep your messy emotions to yourself,” but we speckled and tell ourselves that it’s something we did. But when you see the shark eyes, or in my case, the smirk, their contempt for us becomes clear. On the plus side, once you’ve been through this horror show, there’s no going back to the person who can’t or won’t see.

cheaterssuck
cheaterssuck
7 years ago
Reply to  willowtree

Great analogy!

Anita
Anita
7 years ago

I know Divorce Minister doesn’t like the movie Fireproof (and I agree that it’s totally wrong in that it puts all the blame on the porn viewing husband rather than the “emotional affair” having adulterous wife. I rewatched it not long ago and was really disturbed by him asking her to “forgive” him. Wow.).

Despite its flaws, this movie was a turning point for me. It was the first time I ever questioned what “love” really is. I had bought into the garbage society likes to perpetuate about love, I was groomed to look for “that feeling” that told me I had found the One. And I found it, a lot. And it was always dragging a loser behind it. Cheater, liar, druggie, drunk, abuser. As Chump Lady says, my picker was broken. Thing is, I never had actually realized I had a Picker. It was a truly amazing revelation.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

Anita,
Wow…that we HAVE a picker. We have a choice, agency, control.

I want to believe this. Intellectually, I believe it.

But, the first night I saw Meth Boy as adults again (he was my unreciprocated childhood crush for many years, the only one) I was goner.

I have thought over it. I should have immediately left the country or checked myself into a mental hospital after the first night we even saw each other. He captivated me, utterly. Watching him light a cigarette (nasty habit) was an exercise in ecstasy.

He even said, My God, babe after the 3rd date you were ready to marry me. (See the arrogance?)

What a horrible thing to say. And it was true.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago

Agency? But my X said “Affairs just happen.” (scratches head)

And I DID love him, but now I hate him.

Over and Out
Over and Out
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

When you get to meh, you will not feel any emotion for him at all. Except maybe pity that he is a fuckwit! 😉

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Over and Out

My justice-orientation is too strong; I have made a decision to always hate him, just on principle ; ).

Sagefemme
Sagefemme
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I’m with you tempest. I just hate anyone this cruel on principle.

newdaydawning
newdaydawning
7 years ago

It was easy for me to stop loving him when I realized I didn’t like him.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  newdaydawning

Yes!! In retrospect, I hadn’t liked my X for years. We had some fun times, we had some great discussions, but I had stopped thinking of him as a good person years ago (little did I know how bad he actually was).

Carmella1722
Carmella1722
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Me too Tempest. One day it hit me, what am I so afraid of losing? I can’t fucking stand him. I think I was the spackle queen.

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  newdaydawning

Exactly! Well said.

Blue
Blue
7 years ago
Reply to  newdaydawning

This!

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago

While i realize i let myself suffer this madness soon it will be over hes the one suffering so much now. I should hsve believed the first time he showed me who he was now he is so worried about everything. Careful what you wish for you bastard. Do i still love him yes but its fading fast and fades faster every day i dont hate him i never will takes up too much real estate in my head and he aint worth it. Now im indifference and i can see me not feeding his ego is bugging the hell out of him. My feelings
will continue to fade and thats good im heading towards a more drama free peaceful life and that makes me happy. I guess i will always love the more nicer person he used to be and the mask is on for everyone who is not close too him. I dont feel sorry for the whore shes getting exactly what she deserves hes getting worse in his attitude evert day. Soon i will be free of the madness completely. Yeah!

nomoreskankboy
nomoreskankboy
7 years ago

Tempest, that is what douchebag said “it just happened!” Idiot!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago

For many many years, I though that the love I had for my XH the drinker was all powerful. I waited nearly 30 years to marry him, while he paraded other woman in front of me, drank with his buddies, and groomed me to to expect very little. I was “In love” and no one else was ever quite good enough. A couple of weeks before the wedding, he threatened to call it off because I objected to one of his female friends drunk calling me to ask me to pick him up after a work party. But I married him anyway because love.

I still love him in the sense that I care what happens to him. He has much good in him but he has zero idea how to live a happy, healthy life and I’ve been on the business end of his mean streak many time. But I was with him because I too was screwed up. I thought that he would change! I had known him as a blackout drinker for 30 years and I thought he would change. Really. That level of delusion is all on me. Being a child raised in a home with a narcissist mother and an alcohol-abusing, workaholic father, planning my life around earning the love of a drunk seemed normal to me, even after years of therapy and reading about substance abuse and codependency. For me, being betrayed by Jackass after finally living XH was a true wake-up call.

I had to live in the present. No pining for what was gone. No daydreaming about a future that depends on someone else changing. Even when the present was unbearable painful, I lived in it, moment to moment and found there is beauty and power even in despair.

I had to focus on changing my own life, on taking responsibility for myself emotionally, socially, professionally, financially.

I had to stop normalizing the dysfunction in my primary relationship and admit that things were fucked up–in part because I was a world-class taker of abuse, trained from childhood.

I had to stop “fixing” the situations of others. I had to stop giving advice or thinking I knew what they should do. It’s OK to notice that someone you care about is making a giant mess of things, but it is unhealthy to take on the job of cleaning up that mess. Today, I will help anyone I can who needs help and asks for it. But it’s up to them to figure out that they want to clean up the mess and how to do that.

So a major point on the road to Meh for some of us is recognizing that I had to change my default setting in how I related to other people.

Tessie
Tessie
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Powerful, LAJ. Pretty close to my FOO. I had no clue of what was normal and healthy. It’s taken lots of time, and therapy to figure it out. Now I have a pretty good idea, vs none before.

LAJ, I always enjoy what you have to say, it always hits home with your wisdom. Let’s hear it for resilience. We are survivors.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Tessie

Right back at ya, Tessie. You are my inspiration, my survivor role model!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

LAJ, This is so insightful. My father was a catastrophic drunk who left when I was 12, but we saw him drunk and living in filth. My mother is a….soul stealer, martyr, BURDEN.

I KNOW…I am certain…this is why my picker is so faulty it needs to be trashed. Being with someone who is painfully abusive is quite normal to us.

I think when you know better, you do better. I am learning that my love, as grand and effusive as it can be, will not change someone. This is not a fairytale. I can keep casting my pearls before swine my whole life and I will get to the end of my life, if it does not change and no one will give a damn. I will have just wasted my life on assholes.

How sad would that be?

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

That’s why it’s so important for us to get right with ourselves and let go of the need to be in a couple.

Rarity
Rarity
7 years ago

The emotional affair with his ho-worker was the main reason I asked my XH for a divorce. But the other reason had to do with the fact that almost every time I asked him to do something for me–run an errand, perform a chore, coordinate on care for the kids–the response I got was, “Oh, I forgot.”

Did you put your paycheck in the bank? It’s been 3 days since I asked and my card was just declined. “Oh, I forgot.”

Did you take those computer parts in the trunk of the car to Best Buy for recycling? You’re the one who filled the trunk with them and it’s been 6 weeks and I’ve asked at least 10 times. “Oh, I forgot.”

Did you cancel your $200/month personal trainer sessions? “Oh, I forgot.”

Are you on your way home so I can take our daughter to physical therapy with our one car? “Oh, I forgot.” (And now it’s too late to get there in time.)

Are you on your way to get me for the date you asked me on? I have the babysitter here and I’m dressed up for it and waiting. “Oh, I forgot, I’m not going to be able to make it.”

I am not exaggerating; he would do this with 90% of the “adult” tasks that I asked him to perform or help me with. (Another 8% he would just do the most crappy, half-assed job I had ever seen so that I would have to re-do his work, and maybe 2% he would do and do right.)

It finally dawned on me that when he was saying, “Oh, I forgot,” what he was really saying is, “I don’t love you.” A person who loved me would not consistently “forget” to help me with so many things that were important to me.

And that made it that much easier to finally pull the plug and walk away.

Athene
Athene
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

This would be a great subject for a future CL post. What kind of phrases that have been dumped on us consistently in the past (and hope to recognize in the future) really mean “I DON’T LOVE YOU!”? Rarity got us started with “I forgot.” And she’s right. Here are a few others that I remember:

“I don’t want to talk about that any more.”
“I’m too busy.”
“I don’t want to go with you. Why can’t you do more things alone?”
“I’ll do it later.”
“We all gotta do what makes us happy.”
“You are imagining things.”

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

Any chore or errand, “I forgot.”

When I asked him anything important, such as asking if he wanted to go with me to visit his dad in the hospital, “I haven’t really thought about it.”

I’d come back from grocery shopping and he’d be gone golfing, the bar with friends, whatever. The reason he would give why he didn’t ask me to go with him, “I thought you wouldn’t want to go.”

The reason he’d give when I was angry because he was four hours late, “I thought I told you I was going out after work.”

His reason for not going to the park, swimming, hiking, whatever with me and the boys, “It’s too hot,” “It’s too cold,” “I’m tired and just want to relax,” “It’s too crowded.”

His response to me giving him choices of what he wants to do, eat, watch, “I don’t care.”

The reason he gave for not doing things with me or the kids, or anything such driving me to the emergency room for a concussion that I got when the garage door came down on my head because he forgot to fix it because he didn’t think about it, “I have to go to bed because I have work in the morning.”

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

“It didnt mean anything.”

Other Kat
Other Kat
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

“Whatever you want,” said in a snippy tone in answer to any attempt to discuss a mutual decision with him like two adults.

Chump Princess
Chump Princess
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

“I went there already and didn’t like it. Why do you want to go there?” (Anyplace he didn’t suggest going)
“Why don’t you do that with a friend?” (Anything I liked to do and wanted him to do with me)
“I’m not interested in doing that.” (Pretty much anything I suggested we do)
“I don’t have anything in common with those particular friends of yours.” (Any friends that I had before I met him)

My particular favorite was when I wanted to do an activity, he would turn me down saying he wasn’t interested, and then do that activity with someone else or a group of people. Then he would come home and tell me about it and what a good time he had. If I would get upset, I would be told how I was making a big deal out of nothing.

You can’t twist that shit into love even if you used a wrench.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

“I don’t have anything in common with those people.” (Regarding extended family)
“I just need time to figure myself out.”
“I don’t have to tell you about or explain (fill in the blank).”

GladIt'sOver
GladIt'sOver
7 years ago
Reply to  Athene

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

They do a rotten job so you will quit asking them to do ANYTHING.

Rarity
Rarity
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

I think this was it.

With my XH, there was some real mindfuckery going on because if I asked him whether he had done something, and he either had or he just hadn’t gotten to it yet, he would say, “Have faith in your honey!” He would chide me and shame me for asking him about it, because I didn’t have enough “faith” in him.

So I would try not saying anything about it. I would try just trusting that he would get it done and having that “faith” that he was always haranguing me about. I would let an allotted amount of time (days, weeks, whatever) go by before asking him about it. And that’s when I would get, “Oh, I forgot.”

Looking back, I think he intentionally shamed me, avoided doing, or did a crappy job because he knew that if he did that long enough, I would stop bothering him about it and just take care of it myself.

When he stopped making money at work and tried to push me to go back to work (2nd trimester pregnant) to support him so he could party with the ho-worker and spend all his time with her, that’s when I finally snapped and decided to leave.

Sagefemme
Sagefemme
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

Thinking back through my relationship I see a lot of him intentionally shaming me to make the marriage more comfortable for him too. Insightful.

Mehphista
Mehphista
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

Glad you did, 😉

Mehphista
Mehphista
7 years ago
Reply to  Regina

And then moan that you don’t feel like,having se with them because they have become your child…….blearGGGH.

Mehphista
Mehphista
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

Holy Shit, Rarity, that is Mr Fab to a T, except his go-to phrase was ‘Nearly.’
SMH, what I put up with….because I loved him.

x-Meh

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

Rarity,
What was important to him?

Rarity
Rarity
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

What did he care about?

– His dance “career” (I use the term loosely)
– His ho-worker
– Later, his mistress (different woman)

I eventually confronted the ho-worker and told her that her “friendship” with my husband was ruining my marriage. She claimed she had no idea and that he had insisted I was cool with everything (she’s an idiot for believing that). She broke off their “friendship” just a few hours after he basically told me he wanted a divorce. Suddenly he came home, begging me to get back together with him and swearing he wanted to work on the marriage, and also begging me to talk to her and help save their friendship. And that was how I wound up baking the ho-worker a pie (yes, I am the chumpiest of chumps).

Anyhow, you should have seen the look in his eyes. He was far more upset about losing the ho-worker than he had been telling me he wanted a divorce just a few hours earlier. It was sick.

Doingme
Doingme
7 years ago
Reply to  Rarity

I too was an afterthought in his list of priorities. I repeatedly discussed my needs and it was always about money. He preferred spending it on whores. I’m worth so much more, always was. His loss.

Eve
Eve
7 years ago

I knew I didn’t love X anymore. But l loved our three children, with all the pent-up, unstoppable force of a tsunami. I couldn’t imagine breaking up our family. I refused to inflict upon them a life of custody and visitation. For two years I slept-walked through life. Then, our middle child, turned 18 and left for college. With her gone, X gave up any pretense of caring about me. I hurt so much that I knew I had to file for divorce, even at the expense of our remaining minor child, S15.

The guilt of sacrificing my son nearly crippled me. How could I choose myself over my baby? And yet . . .

A year and a half later, I am healing, on my way to meh. Son is happy, grounded and NC with narcissistic father. When I chose to love ME, I chose life. And that is what this mama has done for her children.

Over and Out
Over and Out
7 years ago
Reply to  Eve

Eve, that was my life, too. I tried to stick it out until my youngest was out of high school, but I was so miserable that I thought I was going to lose my mind. I filed when he was just shy of 16 — hardest thing I ever did, not because I had any feelings for my then husband but because I loved my children and hated that their peaceful lives were going to be thrown into emotional chaos. I felt incredible guilt that my son had to go through the divorce without his older sister who was away at college.

We made it through it all somehow relatively unscathed. I stayed strong for my son. I threw all of my emotional energy into making sure he was ok and had the skills to cope with his dad who was acting insane during the divorce. My son is 22 now and will be completing graduate school in a few months. Both of my kids are well-adjusted and thriving on their own. They love seeing me happy and thriving on my own! 🙂

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  Eve

For several years, it was my kids well-being that kept me investing in my relationship with their father. Once he cheated for the second time, it was my kids’ well-being that kept me from taking him back. I needed to show them that marriages are NOT made of one abuser and one victim, one person who takes advantage and one who lets them, one who disrespects and the other who puts up with all that disrespect. I didn’t want them growing up thinking that was normal, and choosing which of those two roles would fit them best in their future relationships.

I stayed for my kids, and when I woke up from that, I left for my kids.

And ya know what? We’re ALL happier now, without that negative, unpleasant guy in the house. And he continued to show how little he cared about them, post-separation, so they have very little to do with him.

I’m now quite proud of showing my kids that self-respect is more important than, well, anything.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Eve

Right there with you, Eve. I openly admitted to a friend that I stayed for the children. But children don’t benefit by having one parent who has clearly de-valued them; better to have one parent who adores them and is willing to sacrifice for them (rather than a 2-parent household where one of the parents is willing to sacrifice the children for their own elusive ‘happiness’).

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  Eve

Eve- Too bad he wasn’t he concerned so much about the well being of his family and breaking up an intact family. The callous way they approach family values and their non-existent morals makes me shudder. The lack of conscience is baffling.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Eve

“But l loved our three children, with all the pent-up, unstoppable force of a tsunami. I couldn’t imagine breaking up our family. I refused to inflict upon them a life of custody and visitation. For two years I slept-walked through life. Then, our middle child, turned 18 and left for college. With her gone, X gave up any pretense of caring about me. I hurt so much that I knew I had to file for divorce, even at the expense of our remaining minor child, S15.”

I can relate….

Chumpbunny
Chumpbunny
7 years ago

Hi Nation. I’m fairly new to all of this. D-Day was on January 1, 2016. I pulled myself together and got a great settlement, the divorce is filed, my house is sold, and many positive steps have been put into play. What hasn’t been in play was my own understanding of how I could love someone for 17 years who put me through so much crazy shit. I had a cold this weekend, my daughter was at her Dad’s, so I relaxed in bed and read in depth about narcissism and realized that my husband had all 47 red flags of a narcissist. Every. Single. One.

I am realizing now that he never loved me. Never. I was simply a tremendous source of supply. He wasn’t wired for love and that all of my investment mattered not a bit once he was able to secure “supply” with the 24 year old girl who has “captured his heart.”

It doesn’t matter now that I pick me danced for about a month month, it doesn’t matter that as recently as a week ago I fucked him in his new bachelor pad, none of that matters and I’m not going to rake myself over the coals about my mistakes. What does matter is that I finally understand who he is, I got the best settlement legal representation can buy and I’m moving forward with my daughter, focused on gray rock/extremely low contact, my mightiness, my own recovery and living the rest of my beautiful, precious life.

I have a lot to be grateful for. Professional skills, a loving family, tremendous friends, interests and talents, and the most precious little girl in the world. I’m a long way from “meh” but I can even begin to pity his sorry, empty soul and know that old age will not smile kindly on my STBX.

I read CL every day and want to thank you ALL for putting me on this incredible path to discovery and recovery! Forget forgiving him. I’m forgiving myself and moving forward. That’s most important.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago
Reply to  Chumpbunny

Chumpbunny,you are a Chump All Star for getting out so quickly. Kudos!

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Chumpbunny

Well-done, Chumpbunny. There’s no substitute for time in this healing process, but understanding who they are, and learning to love ourselves are good steps.

BraveAgain
BraveAgain
7 years ago
Reply to  Chumpbunny

Good words, ChumpBunny. If I could bathe in the mercy I doled!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  BraveAgain

From the Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers:

SHOW THEM NO MERCY, FOR YOU SHALL RECEIVE NONE.

Now-I-Know-What-Hell-Looks-Like
Now-I-Know-What-Hell-Looks-Like
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Ahh, and spoken by a REAL man!!! I love the meme that I see every now and then. It says “Is wasn’t Disney that ruined men for me, it was Tolkien!”

neverwouldhaveimagined
neverwouldhaveimagined
7 years ago

Tolkien is one of my favorite authors ever. ‘The deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised..”

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago

When I was going through my first divorce after a twenty year marriage, I cried out to God “where did all the love that I gave him go to…was it just dumped like trash into a black bottomless hole”?

The answer He gave me was only three words: “I have it”.

You cannot imagine how much comfort “hearing” that was to me…perhaps some here will get some comfort knowing it too.

OUR love was never anything wasted…the Lord “has it” and will reward us for it in due time regardless of whether or not the cheater ever appreciated it.

geekmom
geekmom
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

Although I do not embrace a “higher power,” I certainly don’t feel my love “wasted.” It’s right there – in my beautiful daughter and her daughter and my wonderful son.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

Oh boy…I shouldn’t write this. But…I am not being ugly or challenging you. But do you honestly believe a Sky Wizard, A God, this Being would want you to suffer for two decades…in this short, limited time here on earth…like a cosmic joke? To go through this…for year after year? Why not intervene the first year? The second? Life is so brief.

I am, in good faith, trying to understand this. You believe that when you die, you will have a celestial reward or some never ending paradise/heavenly experience, and it will be enhanced because you tangled with a bad person. That the “Lord” has this love, tucked away in a celestial savings account, so to speak and you will get it back?

I am not being sarcastic. I am trying to understand where your comfort comes from. I don’t have that comfort.

Supermom!
Supermom!
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Your right Sabine You shouldn’t write that. Who are you to judge what brings others comfort?! I find your statements very passive aggressive!

Mehphista
Mehphista
7 years ago
Reply to  Supermom!

There will always be grounds for misunderstanding between those who have faith, and those who don’t. I sincerely doubt any offence was intended, and I sometimes share the same wistfulness-I wish I had something I could believe in that strongly, to carry me through the shitstorm. In the end, I chose free will. And free speech. We can all-including Sabine-express and describe our views as we see fit. If her or my words prompt you to further examine your faith-great! An examined and better understood anything is better than blindness, and that includes faith.

Atheists – and I speak only for myself, here- find cold comfort from, say, Codependents Anonymous. It is that ceding to a whole higher power thing- as absurd an idea for me as making a sacrifice to the Easter Bunny in the hope life gets better. As a cultural historian, I cannot but see the celestial reward paradigm (as used by Isis, Sin Fein and many a government) as a tool of abuse.

I do not beleive in a god, or an afterlife, therefore I live this life as if it is my only one, trying to do and be good to myself (finally) and others (in a healthy, boundaried manner) Atheism does not negate morality, it just means a different route to Meh.

I loved an abuser of my own free will-for a while, that felt like a waste. Because it was-time is linear and I will not get that time, effort, money and pain back. Twenty years out of my threescore and ten is a huge percentage. I do not intend to waste the rest…

Ultimately, though I came to the understanding that my definition of love was not a correct one, and I am learning to love myself in a manner which befits my beleifs.

In other words, God, Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Shiva and Nothing at all can be routes to Meh. And all preach tolerance.

We have all chosen the get-a life path, which means living, and letting our cheaters live, along with everyone else, including saying what we need to say, the way we need to say it.

love to ALL Chump Nation
x-Meh

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  Mehphista

Thank you Mehphista!

I was not being sarcastic at all. I was being serious. I have always asked questions about things I do not understand.

It is fascinating, in a nauseating kind of way, the one sided, strident and aggressive view that people have about religion, and they believe that it should never be questioned…but we question EVERYTHING else and have on this site: ideas of fidelity, love, marriage, respect, sex, relationships, gender roles.

Further, we would never take seriously ideas from 2000 years ago about hygiene, TREATMENT OF WOMEN, geography or even food preparation..but to question the belief system sends people into self righteous hysterics where they feel entitled, yes entitled to scold someone for merely asking a question.

And to admonish me….a grown woman…like hens pecking…it is so not cool. *There are no sacred cows.* Chumps should know that, right?

I guess the head scratcher to me was…if this comfort was that soul saving…I am not sure I would be on this site. The only reason I am on the site is because I truly feared I was (am?) losing my mind. Like real worry…Am I going to make it? As pathetic as it was, I loved him with everything I had.

CL’s writing was just so good and brutal. The bitch slap I needed. Her writing is the catalyst that keeps me on the straight path.

If I had “the peace that passes understanding” I would not be frantically looking for help on the Internet. I would be at peace.

I wish there was even a MOTE of evidence there was a cosmic justice waiting for all these despicable cheaters. It is much better than the thoughts I have that involve Chechenayan mercenaries, a hammer, and a pair if pliers and me and Meth man in a bunker locked in a bunker.

To the people who “scolded” me…let’s go to Vegas! Because you can read minds. You do not know me…not one drop…and I simply asking someone to explain something I cannot understand. Many people have called me Ms. Question Mark. In Judaism, it is your duty to ask questions.

To me… talking about Satan and what Paul thought (the biggest misogynist ever!) ….it would be the same as someone saying a Leprechaun or an Elf jumped out and gave them a hug and a pot of gold to feel better.

This person was representing that 20 years of a con marriage that involved catastrophic betrayal was given to the Lord and she felt no need for revenge, and indeed could
“love him like Jesus”. That is a bold, HUGE claim. Almost miraculous.

I found that fascinating…to believe that. If I could have that type of peace and comfort over someone abandoning, betraying and kicking me in the teeth…I would jump at it. But the part of my brain that seeks reason and evidence just can’t get past it.

Thank you for all of the wonderful comments and suggestions the time I have been on this site! But, I will peacefully check out…and not comment anymore because…..

if I wanted to feel bad, and have someone accuse me of things I did not do… I could call METH BOY. 🙁

That’s the damn truth.

BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR PATH TO MEH!!!
NO CONTACT or Here Comes the Pain.

WARMESET WISHES.
PEACE OUT.

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

So Sabine…I think that I am the one who you made your original comment to. I understand people who don’t believe, but was sharing my comment for those here who do. I originally came to this site when I received a letter from a woman that my most recent cheater husband #2 was trying to get into bed with. Chump Lady did a UBT on that letter…and I hung around because I saw so much that resonated with what I endured from Cheater X number two.

I too, went through hell when my first cheater X left after twenty years. I would fantasize killing him even…but instead, tried to kill myself. But one day, about a year later, after I got home from the hospital, my anger turned into grief and that is when I asked God that question…and He did answer me so quietly and unexpectedly. It put everything…all the love I thought I had “wasted” during that marriage into a much larger perspective. I guess I should have indicated a “time line” so you could understand that I too suffered…at least for the first year before I found my relief.

Having gone through this in years past is probably what helped me to see that “it is what it is” when I went through it a second time just a year and a half ago. I stayed on here, not because I am full of turmoil…but because I am NOT. I guess I was questioning if something was actually wrong with me because I so easily breezed through the final end of THIS marriage as opposed to the last one. So I read and read to see if something someone says can “jolt” me into feeling anything at all towards my recent cheater EX. So far, nothing has. I am just glad that he is gone…it is as simple as that after ten years of seeing his character play out and seeing the handwriting on the wall from the first year of our marriage. I KNEW it would end.

I am probably the one who should leave rather than you.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

No one needs to leave. While we are a tremendous, supportive community, we can hardly be expected to agree 100% of the time. Sometimes things are said that resonate with us, make us question, and may change our minds on an issue. Often debates can be therapeutic. We have all survived a life-gutting trauma (or know someone who has). It’s natural to be triggered, to take things too personally on occasion, and to take a few days break from CL to regroup.

What a boring world it would be if we all thought the same things. Everyone on this site has taken healing time, or lurks for a while and then posts. Trauma makes us oversensitive, but it can make us resilient. And we’re more resilient if part of a group than by ourselves.

flutterby
flutterby
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Sabine, don’t leave CL or CN. I believe in God, I believe that we suffer here on this plane to become better for the next phase. I didn’t take your questions or even some of the sarcasm that you used as disrespectful on that original reply, I thought that you were searching, you were looking to see if you could find something that might help you. Suffering for a Christian means a lot of things that a non Christian is going to question. Many times even Christians, because there are so many denominations and beliefs, don’t understand what redemptive suffering is. It isn’t just wasted suffering, it is something that Christians go through to atone, to atone for not being perfect, and if you are a human there is no damn way that you are perfect, there is something about each and every one of us that is f*ed up. It’s the way things are, this is our “lot” in life. That doesn’t mean that all Christians look “down” on non Christians, that means that we, as humanity, are always searching for something greater than ourselves, because if this life is it…….. then damn we are all spinning our wheels, if this is it, then there is no hope. In your heart you know that there is hope, there is hope that you will overcome this horrible situation, you have hope that you will love again, you hope that you will be able to step away from the crazy and that you will be able to have a good life, filled with joy, filled with happiness, filled with love, you hope that even if you do not find blissful joy and love you will find PEACE OF SOUL. That you will be able to be by yourself and that you will find peace, you will look back at your past and you will still feel peace because you overcame!!!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

I don’t think Sweetz was saying that God wanted her to suffer; I think she is saying that (in the words of the great novelist Alice Hoffman “love is never wasted.” If we love (and by that I mean not just feeling some emotion we call “love” but the actions that further the life and health of our beloved), that comes from a sacred space and is part of (in my view) the life force that powers the universe.

If we think that “love” is about getting emotion back from another person, it’s not love; it’s commerce. Business. Those of you who are parents know this (although narcissistic parents will not): even in those moments when you wonder why you ever had kids because one of them is one your last nerve, you would sacrifice yourself in a heartbeat for the same kid. Even if you don’t believe in God, watch a pair of wrens battle a hawk to save their nest and the babies in it. Love is a force in the universe. But even the Christian Bible cautions us not to love blindly; we are “to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” That’s one place where Chumps lose their bearings–and themselves. They love the cheater but not themselves.

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Yes,LAJ…
I made choices on “who” to love…some of them good, some of them obviously very bad. I was 18yrs old the first time I married…and not a Christian at the time. I learned that I chose badly. THEN, I chose badly AGAIN this time around at the time of 50yrs old…ignoring or hoping against hope regarding the “red flags” and buying into the misguided “unconditional love” stuff in order to forgive deal breakers. My faith worked both for me and against me (though I learned valuable lessons about good and evil). I learned that I needed to hone in my perceptions, beliefs and understanding about human nature and truth…and nothing was wasted in the long run.

We only get one life to live. I do not see “time wasted” or “unrequited love” as being the greatest part of the sorrows of my life. I see MY own character through all of it as being the main focus…how I handled rejection and the evil that often came against me, and how I taught my children by the things they watched me do.

newdaydawning
newdaydawning
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

Sweetz your last post is great. Especially the last paragraph. Thank you

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

*on your last nerve. Gack. I can’t type today.

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

YES.

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

And NO. You see, loving was MY choice…the Lord takes that into account…who I choose to love is something that He can work with to make ME a better person regardless of the circumstances/pain/suffering. Love is never wasted even though it is often misdirected. I ended up with four great kids in the end…for everything else there is Mastercard.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

+1

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

Sabine,
I am sorry that you do not have that comfort. When I was 28yrs old I gave my heart/mind/soul over to the Lord. There were no marriage issues present at that time. Fast forward, that faith in Him sustained me when the shit hit the fan years later. It is not something that I can persuade you of…especially here on this site.

I only know that when I was at my darkest hour, I turned to the Lord and He spoke comfort to me in my spirit…and at that moment, I understood that He was walking through the fire right along with me. Yes, He “could have” done something, like save my marriage (which is what I had wanted Him to do). But, I also learned that He is a respecter of agent and free will…which my ex chose to exercise against me. The Lord saw/knew that I was never loved by my ex…that there are wicked heartless people masquerading on this earth…like the wheat growing with the tares. He can use even that for our own good if we choose to let Him. I let Him.

HUGS

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Sweetz

I am not at all religious, but your way of viewing your marriage seems very comforting. I suppose any marriage that gives you four beasutiful children cannot be all bad. And as the country song goes … “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers …”

Sweetz
Sweetz
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Oh yes…and He did answer my prayers…but with a resounding NO! The way I look at it is that He allowed the divorce to happen to “deliver” me from a man who would never choose to love me as I had loved him. So that NO was Gods answer because it was what was best for ME and even the kids…although I could not see any of that at the time.

What I wanted was not what I needed.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Sabine, you don’t have that comfort. But this is NOT the place to challenge and mock others for their beliefs. (And YES your words are mocking.)

If you have questions about spiritual beliefs, if you really want to understand, there are places to ask those questions, but not here, and NOT so disrespectfully.

renewed
renewed
7 years ago

“OUR love was never anything wasted…the Lord “has it” and will reward us for it in due time regardless of whether or not the cheater ever appreciated it.”

+1

DavidB
DavidB
7 years ago

I have found….. that the farther out you get, the less you feel about them. The initial reaction is from the shock. Once the brain starts to function again, you see the situation as it really is. The sum total of what they did comes together and you get a clarity you can not get in the first year. The lies, the abuse, the life threatening diseases, the total lack of morals and character these people have just make you not like them. Once you dislike someone that much, the love fades at a rapid pace…… It just takes time to get there!

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
7 years ago

Tracy, this is an excellent post on the bull shit excuse of using “love” to remain in an intolerable situation. Bravo.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago

Tracy, I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, but you are one of the smartest writers and thinkers I have ever come across, in my life. And I am a reading fool.

You need to get an agent and get a talk show, Sirius show, some way to broadcast your thoughts into the world on a larger platform.

LIFE CHANGING WRITING.

blondebarrister
blondebarrister
7 years ago

Love is a choice. I really needed to hear that today. So beautiful, simple and true. Keep it real, Tracy. Don’t ever change.

Regina
Regina
7 years ago

So right CL!
Love IS a choice.
It is about how long it takes for the cheated on to reconcile who this person is that they thought they knew, and who this person actually is. You were counting on and believed in something that didn’t exist. Being naive and spackling was a lot more fun than the reality of “who is this monster?” And more fun than rearranging your life and future because of the selfishness and stupidity of your mate!
The upside is you don’t have to waste any more of your life on this creature who you made such an investment in and whom let you down in virtually very way possible. Must add, I was not the quickest to realize this,(did not have CL or CN for a few years in) but would love to help ANYONE to get there sooner!
Go Chump Nation!

lostandfound
lostandfound
7 years ago

CL, this is great today. Because, after more than a year of him not talking to me, lately I am thinking about contacting him. Then, I remember how he treated me and our son. How he lied. How he was just the ultimate drama queen. But after 40 years together (35 of them married) he is part of my soul. Because I am real. Because the love I felt was real. I still feel attached. The heartbreak is so deep, it will never fully be gone. I work. I have friends. I have my son. But some days- like yesterday- Sunday, he was supposed to be here with me. But of course, when he was here he just sat on the couch probably daydreaming about the OW. For the last ten years, he tortured me. i didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. And I still don’t. But I finally do accept that he is a really bad person. I don’t know if what I feel is love or if he had me so negatively conditioned that it’s Stockholm Syndrome. But whatever it is; it’s real and it still hurts.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  lostandfound

Its always gonna hurt so i try not to think about it. I dont believe the saying time heals all wounds it doesnt those open sore wounds scar over eventually but the scars remain. I will wear those scars with pride for someone tried to destroy me for no reason other than his own greed and i will triumph! Distance and no contact make us stronger and vibrant and then we feel better, much better. Those scars remain the hurt will linger but we overcome, let that shit go and come out more beautiful in the long run. That bastard tried to destroy me, steal my soul, take everything from me and still wants to be good friends. He they the cheaters will be left with only their own filthy, greedy black hearts and that my fellow chumps is justice the truth always comes out. Hes done his damage, hes proud of it. His sibling and kids have damage done to them he can never fix nor wants to they suffer cause hes an asshole let him suffer in the island of black hearts.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  lostandfound

Oh, please don’t contact him. There’s a great prayer in Marianne Williamson’s book “Illuminata” in which you pray to cut the cord that bind you to that person. I prayed that everyday for a long while until one day I realized the connection was gone. I had to learn to let go.

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

I feel much the same as lostandfound. Those many years together are very hard to forget, most of them when he was the most loving husband on earth. I wish I could hate the guy – I hate/love/hate/love, but that’s all just a form of love. I’m 3 yrs out from dday and divorced but somedays it’s very hard not to remember what a great guy he was. The great conversations, the trips….okay, I don’t miss the lack of sex we didn’t have and I keep bringing my head back to that. He really didn’t value me at the very beginning if that was any indication. I try and keep concentrating on how he was the last 4 years of our marriage and how awful he was….but my head keeps going back to the 30 yrs of good times before that. I imagine it just takes time but I have just recently gone fully N/C so I feel like I’m starting all over again. blech-

I make this promise to SheChump – I will never ever contact him again and hope that any feelings fade really fast.

Tessie
Tessie
7 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Shechump and Lost and found. I totally understand that feeling of love regardless. I have been married twice, both cheaters. Cheater number one…. met him at 16, married him at 19, divorced him at 22. Loved him so much, but came to think of him like yummy candy, but sadly, poison yummy candy. Yup, tastes good temporarily, but oh, the price you pay for that tiny bit of fleeting yumminess. The man could not keep his pants up to save his life, among other crappy things, so he had to go. It broke my heart, but I had a child to raise, so he had to go.

Eventually I came around to I and my son deserved better.

Thinking of the cheater as delicious but deadly poison helped me stay no contact in the early days when I felt weak.

Hugs to both of you.

lostandfound
lostandfound
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Thank you both. I didn’t have the urge for contact and now I do again. I only stop when I realize the options: (a) he will not respond, leaving more dead silence; (b) he will respond with how much he and pos OW are destined for each other, how happy they are together; (c) he will ask to come home, but only if I can help him get over the OW (been there, done that). All three don’t work for me. I will read Illuminata.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  lostandfound

You say, “But I finally do accept that he is a really bad person.” Read this every time you get the urge to break no contact. If you contact him, he will know there is nothing he can do that will close the door completely. That really is a powerful kibble source, knowing he can be abusive and you will still want contact. He’s a bad person. Trust that he sucks.

KarenE
KarenE
7 years ago
Reply to  lostandfound

lost, you were honestly attached o him, and that takes time and other interests, to wear out. A year of No Contact is not that much, since you were together so long. You’re still grieving. But the better and busier your ‘real’ life becomes, that easier it will be for the longing to fade.

Roberta
Roberta
7 years ago

I loved my Ex with all my heart, but obviously he did not love me. I’m certain that these cheaters have no real idea of what love really is. It was apparent in the remarks he would make to me about his reasons for being with his beloved Schmoopie. Such as, “she makes me happy” or “she’s loaded”! It’s all superficial shit that usually benefits the cheater and not a damn thing to do with deep love and commitment. They are committed to only one damn thing and it’s their “feelings”. Feelings are fleeting so once they don’t “feel” love or happiness with thier new Schmoopie then they will be off and running to the next best thing. It’s really kind of sad. I filed for divorce after eight months of false promises, lies and deception. It was the most heartbreaking thing I had to deal with in my then 58 years of my life. But the strangest part of driving to the attorney’s office was the strange sense of peace that came over me. I knew deep down inside of my soul that I could no longer subject myself to he and Schmoopie’s abuse. I knew they were getting off on my pain and it was the glue that was holding them together and I was right! As soon as our divorce was final he moved into her condo, four months later the epic love affair was over! Do I still love him? Yes, but I love who he was before Schmoopie! That guy is gone, destroyed by his own choices. Is it painful to be alone at 60 years old after 41 years of marriage? Yes, it sucks to see the sunk costs, but there is no real alternative. I can’t rewind the clock or look back because it changes nothing.

flutterby
flutterby
7 years ago
Reply to  Roberta

Roberta, “I knew they were getting off on my pain and it was the glue that was holding them together and I was right!” This++
I used to try to explain to people that that is what x is doing, but people who have not gone through this don’t understand. Especially when x tries to get me to be in the triangle again. Schmoopie left him after only 6 months of bliss, they didn’t even live together LOL!!!! After the 6 months of NC on his part he “finally” comes to the “realization” that he made a “mistake”. Ya motherf*er you sure made a mistake, you showed me exactly what you were and there is no way I’m going back to that. That was around 2.5 years ago, after 1.5 years we were thrown together for my daughters wedding, same sorry assed, poor, sorry, sad sausage bs, while he is with another gf. Apparently Schmoopie #1 is not impressed with Schmoopie #2 at all and the triangulation is not as satisfying. Fast forward to this year and I unfortunately have to break NC for settlement purposes, and yet once again I get the “I messed up”, and my thoughts are, sure you did, you idiot, you didn’t think that my presence in the triangle was necessary anymore. Not my problem, not my monkey, not my circus. It still stings though, knowing that this person that I wasted my youth for is nothing other than a soulless narc, willing and able to try to get me to go another round of pain and suffering.

FinallyAwake
FinallyAwake
7 years ago

Trauma bonds. Infatuation. Limerance. Obsession. Need. Dependence. That yearning, aching feeling isn’t love at all, for either us or them, it’s just what we’ve learned to call love.

Lola Granola
Lola Granola
7 years ago
Reply to  FinallyAwake

And addiction. And co-dependence. Don’t forget them.

So many of us need to learn what ‘love’ really is – what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like. It’s a huge help.

For starters, it’s NOT pain.

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Lola Granola

So true! Whatever the cheaters feel isn’t love. Idiot ex told me “If it’s love, it’s supposed to hurt!”. Uh, no.

He threw away a wife and daughter who loved and was devoted to him to chase a whore and her brat. We reconciled, and I convinced myself I loved him, but whatever it was, it was not love. I don’t think real love, once it is destroyed by adultery can go back to its true, original form. And whatever that it is can’t last. After I stayed, I just dispised him more and more and more. Hatred for him took over my heart, my mind, my soul. I could not stand to see him, hear him, touch him.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  FinallyAwake

Yes. That’s the list.

Mehphista
Mehphista
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

TY, looking that up!

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  FinallyAwake

And lust. Which is a base emotion. (I ordered that book about Limerance! 🙂 )

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago

My God! It is so true. I rationalize the hell out of staying with my cheater. I go through my whole list of rationalizations each day:

1. Her 5-month long affair was a one time deal that happened during a period in which I was preoccupied taking two full-time class loads at two different colleges while working 30+ hours per week. Of course, I was an unavailable husband.

2. I thought I was just “cranky” all of the time , but now I can see why she was under the impression that I had permanently turned into an abusive ass that she wanted to dump for Mr. Millionaire MacSunshinepants. It really was my own fault that she cheated on me.

3. Her AP lived the rest of his life in misery and addiction before choosing to end it all…He is not coming back and I proved to be the better man after all. I guess this means that I won?

3. My cheater is extremely hot and really looks damn good on my arm…at my age and income, I may never be able to get another woman like that. She tells me this all the time and I believe her.

4. If I divorce her, I will have to divide assets and pay her alimony. Damned if I am going to give her money to get her rocks off with some other dude!

5. I travel out of town for work most of the time, so I will be forced to either find another job or give her full custody. I have nobody else to care for my children while I am away.

6. She has made threats that if I ever divorce her, she will launch an epic smear campaign against me. She is very convincing that she can turn everyone I know including my children against me. She said that she will NEVER allow me a moment’s peace or allow me to have another relationship for as long as I live. She reminds me that her brother-in-law has close ties to an organized crime syndicate implying that “as long as I live” may not be very long after all.

In conclusion, when I add everything up, I feel stuck with the cheater. She is a true master of manipulation and I am honestly afraid of her.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

WTF!?

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Kar marie

Quit keeping her SECRETS, Cucked. They are what has the power over you. Not her. Ninety percent of the time, secrets are used for evil. They are really just lies of omission you are telling for someone else.

SabineSavoy
SabineSavoy
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

Cuckedofff,

Just threats. Threats are the tool of the weak. I don’t know what country you are in, but tell HER if she makes one more remark about organized crime and her brother in law, you will go straight to your local FBI office and spill the beans. She would be called in and questioned. The FBI is a whole different ball game than state or local law enforcement.

If she is TRULY has ties to organized crime, and they knew she was “bragging” about it…she would not longer have ties to organized crime because she would not be alive. (Believe me). This is my job. I write appeals for people in federal prison. I deal with them ALL. DAY. LONG. They never talk about it. You never talk about it. People who do talk about it end up not being around anymore.

You stating that she is “extremely hot”…maybe you get what you deserve?

You are afraid of someone..but still focusing on her appearance as one you desire and you “care” about what people think of how hot someone is “on your arm.”

Most people here are agonizing over children being ripped apart emotionally, families of decades being cast aside like 3 day old fast food, and you are talking about how “extremely hot” and “how good she looks on your arm”?

Really?

Kellia
Kellia
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

Sabine – I agree with you. So many people here go through agonizing pain in divorce, their futures and lives torn apart, fearful they won’t have a roof over their heads or be able to put food on the table, and this guy is thinking that his wife is extremely hot and he’ll lose his arm candy. So one of the factors for staying is due to some female body parts. Wow, talk about being shallow. Shaking my head…

Other Kat
Other Kat
7 years ago
Reply to  Kellia

I read cucked’s comment differently, as being one more example of the ways in which narcissists belittle and shame us by hitting on our deepest vulnerabilities.

In this case it seems that she’s taunting him for not having had any other partners and telling him he could never do “better” in terms that make HER feel superior, i.e. she’s amazing “arm candy” and the best he could ever do again will never measure up her sparkly beauty.

Honestly, they all find ways of colonizing our minds, as CL says. Cucked, I hope you can take the very on-point advice from wise chumps on this thread and start taking steps to decolonize your mind and gain a life away from this woman.

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  Other Kat

Kellia and Kat,

It is true that she hits me again and again at every angle: She is helpless without, the kids need me, she will destroy me, I am nothing without her, nobody else will have me because I am too old, not rich enough, slightly overweight, from a trashy family and so on. She reminds me of how attractive she is and that men would “line up” for her.

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  SabineSavoy

I am really not afraid of some hitman taking me out. I am afraid at the lengths she might be willing to go to make my life a living hell…although I suppose she is doing that to me already. Good point.

It is that I have a list of rationalizations that runs through my head on a daily basis that keeps me feeling helpless and stuck. I know they aren’t logical.

The truth is that I have only been in one relationship who is also my one and only real sexual partner. Now after all these years, I don’t know what life would be like outside of this situation. I hate it, yet I still cling on to my cheater like a wire monkey-mom. Every time I begin to feel strong, she does or says whatever it takes to keep me in check. The only spark of sanity I ever receive is from this blog. Thank you everybody!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

I’ve got the one-word answers to your question of what life would be like outside of this situation: Better. Happier. Healthier. Saner. Peaceful.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

P.S. You’re already in a living hell, IMHO. No one else should have that kind of control over you. Any alternative is an improvement.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

Uncertainty is not a reason to allow someone to keep kicking you in the teeth. Uncertainty sometimes leads to “better.”

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I just wish she would run off with some other guy and make it easy for me.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

Trust me, YOU want to be the one who takes action here. It is empowering. Otherwise you’re waiting for someone else to rescue you (e.g, the AP). That’s no way to start a new life.

Marci
Marci
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

Wow, I’d be gathering all the evidence I could of such threats. At in the years to come you would be able to prove to your kids what you endured. I hope you are slowly formulating a departure plan.

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  Marci

She caught me recording her and threatened to run in front of a moving train if I didn’t destroy all of my evidence against her. She cried and begged and went for her car keys while telling me that she wanted to die so to be with her AP and escape the world that has been so cruel to her. In the heat of panic, I gave in and destroyed all of the evidence right in front of her.

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

I’m still in rage mode right now, so my first thought was not to let the door hit her in the ass on her way out.

Okay, I would have called 911…..maybe…..eventually.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago

I’m with you, Annie. I might have handed her the car keys–I was trying to tailor my advice to something Cuckedoff might actually use ; )

ringinonmyownbell
ringinonmyownbell
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yeah, I wonder if I would have been brave enough to take the keys, start the car and open the door for her and tell her, “Your carriage awaits, Madam.” What a manipulative bitch. Run! Run! Run!

Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun
7 years ago

In reality I’d call 911, but (sigh), it sure feels good to imagine what we’d want to do. 🙂

I just had another quick flash of Snidely Whiplash. Was he really such a bad guy? Now that I have another point of view, it may have been poor Snidely just trying to help a girl out.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

Next time call 911–if she’s serious about suicide then she needs help. If it was manipulation, she’ll never pull that again.

Cuckedoff–you need to get documentation, and start telling your children (and others) what she did. Better yet–tell her you’re only willing to stay if SHE tells them (that’s what I did so that there could be no misunderstanding about the cause of the divorce. It doesn’t prevent a smear campaign later, but at least the core truth is out there).

You can’t live like that. It is a living death. You are of more value than to tolerate that. Many (most?) of us have had to sacrifice long-term friendships, and sometimes jobs, financial wealth, etc. to be psychologically healthy again. I’m not going to tell you that you won’t lose treasured things in a divorce (including, possibly, your income through alimony for a year or two), but GET OUT. Eventually, feeling like a doormat will affect your health and sanity.

Kar marie
Kar marie
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

You are being played, tell her to get help and take your kids and run!

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest is right. I used to get sick quite a bit. I had several specialists on speed dial. I haven’t been sick since the day a judge ordered my cheater to leave the house, a year ago. My necessary for survival medication had been cut by a third. I’ve kept most of my infidelity diet weight off. I no longer need a cardiologist or any other specialists. This shit will start to slowly kill you. Take care of yourself.

Keep a diary for your kids to read years down the line about what you are thinking related to them, about what she has said about turning them against you and how scared you are by it. A friend of mine suffered from parental alienation and her father kept a diary of his thoughts over the years, everything from “I wonder what you are doing today” to “I stood in the back of the room at your dance recital so no one would see me, you’re amazing” she went looking for her dad when she was 18. That diary helped her understand that he did love her.

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest,

You are right once again. She is the Queen of Self Image. When I demanded that she go public with her infidelity, she told me that she would never allow me to take that “power” over her. She must own the narrative that I was the one in the wrong and that I should take all of the blame.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

You’re going to lose friends, and sometimes family, to her smear campaign. I won’t kid you–my X behaved like an ass in many public contexts for years, I was the model of self-restraint, and I still lost friends to his lies. I won’t deny that it hurt, and made me furious with indignation, but…. I’m happier now than I was in the marriage, and I have the love & respect of all the people that matter (my children, and even X’s family). Better to get your word out first, then behave with class afterwards.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Listen to Tempest. Document. Sit down and tell your own family what’s goes on. See a lawyer for advice. Get yourself a good therapist to help navigate life with this crazy person, until your path is clear.

#3 and #4 on your list are pretty shallow reasons to stay with someone who may be deranged. Arm candy? Really? And division of assets, while often not as fair as we would like, acknowledges that both parties made an investment. So it’s not about “giving her money to get her rocks off.” #1 and #2 sound like you’ve been assigned the blame for her behavior and apparently you know that’s nonsense. So that leaves you with 2 things to content with:

#5 can be dealt with in the phase we call “getting your ducks in a row.” Why are you leaving your kids every day with this whack job? Are concerned about traveling out of town most of the time when your kids are the ones exposed to her craziness, watching her cheating. absorbing that role model? If you are afraid of her, what about your kids? My father left child-rearing totally to my mother, the narcissist. As my former therapist once said, I might as well have been raised by wolves. Looking for a job that will allow you to be primary custodian would seem to solve many problems. It may not be your dream job, but you only get to raise these kids once. They should be first priority, not maximizing income or career success. If you fail with your kids, how well your career goes will not mean much.

#6 means you need to see an attorney and a good therapist with advice for getting this woman some help and/or getting yourself out of the situation. If she’s this manipulative, if she’s homicidal, if she’s suicidal, you have a real problem that can’t be solved by rationalizing her behavior away. Good luck.

cuckedoff
cuckedoff
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

I am really glad that I wrote my list down and shared it with all of you. It made me realize how silly it really looks in black and white.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  cuckedoff

See, that’s what a true support system does. Help ground us in reality. Now write down 3 lists: 1) What you want for you life (without reference to Whack Job; 2) What you want for your kids; 3) What your next steps will be. And do NOT discuss next steps with Whack Job. This is about getting your own life back and protecting your kids, no matter what you choose to do. She will not aid you in those projects.

Chump Princess
Chump Princess
7 years ago

When I was struggling with the love/hate/indifference issue, I spent a lot of time in therapy and in reflection thinking about this. I struggled with it because in an almost 30-year relationship, it is impossible to say that it was all bad. Even if the good was them faking it, as a family, there were a host of good memories that we shared that I refused to let him faking taint because the children and I were fully vested and not faking it.

With that said, I know my EX is a sick fuck who is set to the “do the most harm” channel where I am concerned. Intellectually, I knew I could not and cannot have a relationship with him. However, I had to acknowledge that I had residual feelings for him and I was searching for a way to resolve the issue. Then I came across a quote from Leslie Vernick that completely resolved the problem for me – it was something along the lines of that it is true that God wants you to love everyone. However, that does not mean that God wants you to relationship with everyone. This is where I think we get confused – that to love someone is to have them in our lives. Someone who mistreats you does not deserve a seat at the table of your life or a room in the hotel of your heart. It’s like the quote I added to the list, “If I loved you, I’ve still got love for you. Stay away from me though.”

Thank you Tracy for this post. You have so much excellent writing, but this is truly one of the best. You have more clarity than most people “practicing” therapy.

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  Chump Princess

Totally agree Princess. I just cancelled my therapy appt after todays post.
Thank you C/L and C/N.
Priceless….not even MasterCard is needed! lol

Marci
Marci
7 years ago

The only people I give unconditional love to are my kids and myself. Everyone else has to earn it, and bad behaviour is a huge turnoff / lurv killer.

I can think of the d-days and the actual moments of discovery when my Love Meter dropped below zero for my various cheatin’ men. The best time for this to happen is before the Cheater realises they have been exposed. It gives a chump time to plan. No mushy stuff for me.

The greatest joy is the love one can feel for a long term faithful partner, true, but it is not smart to let sunk costs / sunk time interfere with any decision to end a relationship. Kids and self first!

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Marci

Amen, no more unconditional love for anyone except my child. It’s a blank checkbook to be abused. And even unconditional love doesn’t mean no consequences.

BraveAgain
BraveAgain
7 years ago

This post reminds me of the Eva Braun documentary called, “Mr. and Mrs. Hitler”. The young woman loved him, because he brought her a puppy when she threatened to kill herself. Nuf said.

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  BraveAgain

omg – I didn’t know that. I am going to watch that documentary since I’m a WWII fanatic.
The things you learn from that horrible time in history.

Shechump
Shechump
7 years ago
Reply to  Shechump

Ohbutt, the man loved his dogs, after all!

GladIt'sOver
GladIt'sOver
7 years ago

While it is very very difficult to control our emotions, we are always in charge of our REACTION to those emotions. It is completely possible to both love someone and leave that someone because his/her actions are not acceptable. We feel strong emotions all the time, and yet manage to control our response; just because I am very angry at someone doesn’t mean I can give in to a desire to do them physical harm. “Love” is no different — it does not take away a person’s free will or agency.

My suspicion is that most of the time when someone insists they can’t leave because they “love” their cheater/abuser so much, it’s really FEAR that keeps them in place, but they can’t bear to admit that to others or even to themselves. Our society romanticizes losing self control and willpower due to love, but does not do the same to actions taken out of fear.

Other Kat
Other Kat
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

Yes! I really do think the “but I love him/her” is the last-ditch excuse that many chumps use when our supply of spackle starts to run dangerously low and we begin to fear what life might look like without it (because once we can no longer spackle, we have to face the ugly reality and decide how to deal with it).

I have a dear friend who is at this stage now and it breaks my heart. She hasn’t even found (mostly because she doesn’t look) evidence that her asshole of a husband has cheated, but she has started to face up to the reality that he’s an off-the-chain narcissist who has emotionally and financially abused her and her children for years (as well as threatened physical abuse).

Every few months things will come to a head and her family and friends will start up round 112 of “You need to leave,” only to be met with, “I know he’s done some terrible things, but I can’t help it, I love the man.”

This, too, from a woman who has long been active in domestic violence advocacy. Which brings me back to my comment above about CL’s point about how narcissist abusers find ways of colonizing our minds, sometimes even in violation of our most cherished values.

Christina
Christina
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

It is definitely FEAR. And that’s with all breakups, not just where cheating is involved. FEAR of being alone, FEAR of never finding another mate, FEAR of not having enough money, etc. etc. But you know, you’ll never know if you don’t try, and if you have been to rock bottom, and made it back up, you will know that you can handle ANYTHING. If you stay in a bad relationship you will never know what happiness is out there! Don’t be afraid!

And by the way, you can be happy without a man. I am happily single right now, and I’m even happier than in my last relationship where we had arguments all the time. I realized I wasn’t even that happy with him. But I couldn’t see that while I was in it, or when I just came out of it. A RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT MEAN HAPPINESS. Lots of couples fake being great. Don’t look at their outsides (the way they portray themselves to the world), you don’t know what’s going on in their insides. So, do not compare yourself to other couples who may look happy but may not be. Don’t compare your insides to their outsides! Actually, stop comparing! Focus on yourself. I can’t stress enough: A RELATIONSHIP DOESN’T MEAN HAPPINESS. I know that now, and I believe it 100%, and I believe I can truly be happy without a man, and I am right now. But I also want to have a relationship again and I believe that I will find the right guy if I am in a good place. They say water seeks the same level, and that you will attract a mate that is as healthy as you are (i.e. the relationship is as strong as the least healthy person). Well, if you want to attract someone amazing you have to be amazing yourself.

I had a bad breakup before (no cheating involved) but I loved the guy so much, and I went rock bottom, I had given up my home, my friends, my family, moved countries for him. Settled down in a new place with no job, no car, no friends yet. And we broke up. I literally felt like I had nothing and that I was all alone. I went rock bottom. But I got out of it. I survived. And that’s why this time with a cheater I got rid of him asap. I now know I’m strong, and that I can survive, and that I can love again. I will not take crap from anyone anymore. Life is too short to waste time!

nomoreskankboy
nomoreskankboy
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

Glad, you nailed it. For around 2 years he ignored me, emotionally abandoned me. I no longer loved him….he killed that. But I stayed out of fear…mainly financially. Fear of being alone had already passed….I was alone for years. Dday came, that was it……..done, OVER. I struggle financially right now, but I have all I need at this moment, knowing this is only temporary. I needed him gone so I could have a future.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

Nailed it.

Chump Princess
Chump Princess
7 years ago
Reply to  GladIt'sOver

Pressing the LIKE button on this!