“Trust that they suck” is a mantra that bears repeating. It’s so easy to fall for the propaganda. You see your ex, tagged in some mutual friend’s Facebook page laughing uproariously at a party. The children come back with tales of Shiny New Things. People who were your family for decades now exclude you. It sucks. It’s hard to remember the suck belongs to them and there’s not something wrong with you.
“I get the nagging feeling that he and the OW have a fulfilling fairy tale relationship. So please, please beat me over the head with a refresher on ‘trust that they suck.'”
Trust your senses, chumps — they suck! Some pointers:
1. All that shitty stuff they did? The affairs, the gaslighting, the character assassination after the fact, the denial, the neglect? THEY DID IT. Yes, pinch yourself, it really and truly happened.
2. Connect the dots. If all that truly happened… you don’t want this person in your life, right? It doesn’t matter how wide screen their television is, or how fabulous their vacation pictures on Facebook, how sparkly they seem — YOU DON’T WANT THAT, remember?
For the affair partner to get the goodies, they have to endure — or will soon — the cheater’s true nature. That’s not going away. Your cheater didn’t get a character transplant. All that entitlement, all those crappy life skills — they’re still there. It’s a package deal.
If there’s been a binge of shiny new thing shopping it’s generally to salt the mines. You know, make a commodity appear more valuable than it really is. Crappy people need hooks. Cheaters are to sparkles what Bernie Madoff is to promised dividends. Any “reward” of their company comes with a very steep price tag, eventually.
3. Let’s say for the sake of argument, that they did have a character transplant, they are magically no longer their crappy selves, the affair partner brings out their very best self. They are now 100% sparkle, no filler.
They still cheated, abused, and gaslighted you. They still destroyed your trust. They still destroyed that relationship. This isn’t a person you can feel safe with. Maybe someone who never knew the old them will be able to do that, but you will remember. Those things happened, which caused the relationship to END because of their infidelity. Their new life is no longer your concern. YOUR new life is your concern. Treat their success as you would a stranger’s. This person has no connection to you.
4. You don’t share the same values. If you feel like the break up was forced on you, that you didn’t want it, that there is something to miss — change your focus. You can’t be with your cheater because you aren’t a good match. You don’t share the same ideas about love, family, and relationships. To be with them would be squelching a fundamental part of yourself — the person who demands reciprocity, honesty, and fidelity in marriage. In a way, it’s nothing personal. You are just two people who have nothing in common except shared history.
Let ’em go, chumps. Trust that they suck.
This column ran previously. Feel free to comment!
Amen to this! I love the part about how even if they do get a character transplant they still ended your relationship. The trust was obliterated. There’s nothing you can do about that except to accept that and move on.
So, so true.
CL does it again! So true!! Just what I needed to hear. Focus on your new life. Thank God that I’m in the process of being free from someone who could be so callous and push aside everything we built together, the love we shared, and the covenant we made to be faithful! We all deserve better. Especially when you are divorcing and going no context, yet they use your groupon account to buy rock climbing passes for two and you get the email. He may sparkle- but he’s still a cheap, no good, dumb asshole.
Ugh..sounds like my ex cheater and her new Mr Wonderful using MY grocery store rewards for cheaper gas..when I emailed her about it she was incredulous i was so “petty”…fuck her
Or the Netflx is in the fucktards account- you don’t really think about that because there was only the movies on that TV in YOUR living room and you see all the rom-coms he’s been watching in the weeks since he left….likely with shmoooooooopy. Good/great to know.
This they never get, Dont understand why it cant be the same ever again. Better maybe yes for them, but for the BS trying to heal, accept, forgive, welll… That the part that “they’ dont ever truly ever get.
It bears repeating CL–again and again and again. I needed it as he is out there telling people how sparkly his new relationship is. Leaving work on time to be with his new family (while I basically raised our kids alone), going on trips now we couldn’t afford because he felt entitled to not work for the last year and part time for 5 yeas prior, working hard Now. After I can’t get spousal support since he didn’t work last year. Lots of expensive diners flowers etc while love bombing his ns/AP/ sugar mamma. Acting like a happy daddy to her 10 year old while our grown kids gets crumbs (nothing in the case of our son). Yes he sucks and is working hard to continue to financially and emotionally rape me. The separation agreement can’t come fast enough for me with this wackjob..they suck all right….
Sadlady15, big hugs to you.
I so relate to the whole they couldn’t do it of the original family but they are able to now do it for the replacement. My ex even refers to the new step children as being his and becomes offended when people take a while to work out who he is talking about.
oh they suck, trust they suck. and be grateful that you are no longer enslaved to their sulkiness.
hoping your agreement is final real soon
Sadlady15, I truly don’t think any one thing shows being a psychopath like deserting your own children. I can even understand cheating more than I can understand that. It is just my number one Red Flag ever. I have one child and no man will ever come between me and her. I read the article yesterday about Dr. Seuss’s cheater second wife who sent her kids away because he didn’t like them. Psychopathic old whores, both of them.
Anita– what article was this? (I recently discovered that Dr Seuss had left his wife for another woman– so disappointed…)
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/29/nyregion/public-lives-mrs-seuss-hears-a-who-and-tells-about-it.html
hope this works.
This article starts to give you the flavor of Audrey. Being from San Diego, we all know that Audrey is a wicked witch. I mean a truly horrible person. But we also know that Ted was too. The two of them were very rude to any children who managed to find their way up Soladad Mountain to knock on the door of their favorite author. Ted also did not want his work licensed. That is why you didn’t see any sport of plushies or sucky broadway shows etc, but his body wasn’t cold before she licensed his stuff. She is our own Leona Helmsley. Her daughters will toss her off Torrey Pines cliff when she gets old. She would deserve no less.
I live near you. Do you know of a support group? I just found out
i’m from sd area, heard the same stories
Knew I didn’t like Cat in the Hat for some reason…
Wow….just Wow. I never knew this. I bought all the Dr. Suess books for my Daughter when she was a child and I have been doing the same for my Grandchildren. After learning this, I will never put another dime in the OWhore Widow’s pocket. I have to go lie down for a few minutes now. I feel sick.
Never again will I buy one of his books. That forever ruined the Grinch- it probably was a autobiography, except Dr.Seuss’s heart never grew it just got smaller. What a scum bag!
Holy crap on a cracker – life is so full of nasty surprises!
And “Mr. Peanuts” too… Soooo disappointed …
This is something I’ve struggled with also. He’s near tears at times when he leaves our daughter or talks about how he misses her and wants to see her more. Like I’m keeping him from her? I don’t. I encourage him to spend more time with her. It’s him that can’t seem to find enough time for her. I never kicked him out of the house. I never told him he couldn’t come back. He’s his own worst enemy here. I forgave and forgave and it was never enough. I also don’t understand women who want to be with a man that can leave his child behind. That would be a huge red flag to me regarding building any sort of relationship with a man. I just don’t get it.
DoneForGood.
This is exactly why the Limited is making contact with his adult children after 2 years. They can’t sell themselves to anyone decent. The old pity me story is lame now that he can no longer use me as supply. I maintain no contact for life. They are users. For years he played the victim to his children.
My ex’s affair partner didn’t care about his lack of interest in the kids because she’s happy enough to have stolen mine for occasional step-parenting. Apparently she never wants kids of her own. Last I heard anyways – it could have been yet another lie, but it hasn’t happened yet. Of course, if it does, I worry that he’ll suddenly have even less time for our kids.
Ditto. How can they leave their children? WHO in their right mind would choose anyone who leaves their children for sex. Disgusting. I am seeing the mental turmoil with my STBX cheater. I think they get really messed up if they have any tiny inkling of a conscience. What a horrible existence it must be. They HAVE to be mean to justify their very existence.
I must live under a rock. I did not know that Dr. Seuss was a cheater who hated children.
That article makes me sick. I will NEVER buy another Dr, Seuss book for anyone’s kids, ever again. Unfortunately I read them so many times to my children, I know some of his books by heart…still after two freakin decades.
Screw you, SAM I AM!!!
CS, LOL on “Screw you, SAM I AM!!!” I, too, didn’t know this about Dr. Seuss. It’s sickening. And his widow – yikes. She’s a narc and obviously proud of it. Yuck.
It’s really covered up. I was researching Dr. S for a school project and happened upon it. I was shocked too.
disneyland dad. So many of us can relate to this. They couldn’t be bothered to do a damn thing but now all of a sudden they are so invested. That’s been my biggest hurdle to overcome but I’m getting there. He only does this to save his image since his old image was destroyed when he cheated. He can no longer profess to be a great guy so he compensates by pretending to now be a super dad. I’m so thankful that my tribe of people know how he was before and also see right through it. They constantly remind me that he sucks.
Yep yep yep. All the same for me.
And he doesn’t know how to just be a parent. To just be around the kids, living their regular lives. So he entertains them. Ask yourself: could he spend one month just being a single parent, staying home, doing laundry, fixing dinner, helping with homework, meting out consequences for bad behavior, doing the carpools, cleaning house, managing the schedule of activities–not a Schmoopie in sight?
My ex and I co-parent our sons, but he does not want to have the kids half the summer holiday. “What should I do with kids three weeks in a row?” What about same as me: love them, talk to them, take care of them? No, can’t be away that long from cake, so sad…
You you nailed it, With Brave Wings! SO TRUE!
Exactly! My EXH#2( “The Evil One”) could not be bothered doing things as a familynwhen he was with me, but him & his wife (“Mrs. Dumb-Ass”) and her two kids do family-fun stuff ALL the time, with or without our daughter. He sucks to infinity and beyond!!!!
Sadlady
Is your attorney telling you that about spousal support? Cause I would get another opinion. It is possible that he was planning his exit from your marriage and did the underemployed/unemployed stuff on purpose. His wages can and should be impugned.
My attorney told me it’s a phenomenon judges and lawyers are aware of called AIDS, Acquired Income Deficiency, or X’s variation SAIDS, Suddenly Acquired Income Deficiency. The year before we separated his income dropped $40,000 from the previous year. His attorney even claimed that I, a public school teacher, earned more than he did as an attorney in private practice, and that I owed him alimony. We had a good laugh over that. He now pays me a healthy amount of child support and alimony. I’d get a second opinion too.
Sadlady, this astounds me so much as well. He was NEVER around for years. Always too busy doing his own thing to be involved in family life. Now he takes his now OWife’s kids on holidays, movies, to soccer (they have a real father who is very involved in their lives). My kids got nothing, wouldn’t even come on holidays with us and still nothing except a couple of crumbs about once a year in the form of a text message saying he misses them…. Even when our son was really sick in hospital, he never even turned up. Not once. Will never understand this.
It’s easy. He gets way more sympathy and attention when he bleeds from the mouth about his evil bitch of an ex who never lets him see his kids. Actually stepping up and parenting is too much work. With stepkids he can leave all the discipline and ickiness to their real parents. What a good stepdad he is, hanging back respectfully and letting the kids’ mother take the lead in rearing them.
So true Kettle!!! All impression management. Doesn’t have to do the hard yards and comes up looking all sparkly!
Or possibly he is in competition with the ex husband now for super step dad status kibbles…but it is not about those kids, it’s still about him, always about him.
Oh yes and I have been painted as the nasty ex wife. Even text messages from the OW telling me how horrible I am… It is funny because the first thing I knew that we even had a problem with our marriage after 20 years was the day he packed up and left while I was at work and I found him at her place a week later. No conversations, no arguments, nothing. Just an empty house.
Cause the new one with kick him out if he doesn’t? Were we to easy on them?
Same here JABT! I will never understand, but I’ve come to accept it.
Thanks for the post.
I see it too. My STBXW who cheated, and said she “loved” her AP. Why is she taking 1 year to divorce to be with him is he is so awesome? Why wait? He is 100% narc (I know his STBXW).
And she sucks (and not in the good way haha). He can have her selfish greedy ass… I know she will just as difficult with him as with me! She is not my problem anymore!
SDK, I’m years divorced and I still can’t help to chuckle at these cheaters – about how they “loved” their AP/’s. Their values and beliefs on love, family and relationships are only justifications for their own self gratification. They are not only selfish, immature, characterless or inept but disordered.
These are the same ass clowns that are buying swamp-land in Florida or buying a bread-slicer on late night infomercials. Just sheer stupidity.
II am the luckiest man in the world to have dumped my cheating ex-wife and like yours, she sucks (also not in the good way-hehe).
Haha! My cheater also dragged his feet through the process, though he never got teary. He was entirely unapologetic about the affair. In fact, he never mentioned it, and avoided mentioning AP’s name at all.
They’re getting married in a couple of weeks. The ink was barely dry on the decree before they were engaged, and in fact, they were to be married in October, but pushed the marriage up to June. I know it can’t be pregnancy. She had a hysterectomy a couple of years ago (a big relief to me, as I knew that she, at least, was taking about making babies with him–unprotected sex for the win!–and that would have depleted his finances even faster).
I know that he sucks. He unfriended everyone he knew in our small town who knew that he was married to me and knew that OW likes sleeping with other people’s husbands. The only people he has left as Facebook friends are those who moved away. He hurt a lot of people’s feelings, including the people he worked with who counted him as a friend.
He’s not man enough to own his actions. He’s still trying to cover the affair up!
He’s not man enough to own his actions. He’s still trying to cover the affair up!
^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^
To this day— a year now — he has yetnti admit to an6th I ng, though i have talked to his OWhores, i KNOW what he’s done and he sucks.
My STBXH said in the Divorce Letter, “We don’t have the same values.” At the time I was like, “We don’t?” I could have sworn we had the same values, but I now realize we don’t have the same values at all. We don’t have the same values are love, family and relationships. We don’t have the same values about being true to your vows that you made to each other and God. He’s a Jesus Cheater, but his best ho-worker came to him for marital advice and he told her that marriage counseling was “a waste of time.” His bestfriend also is a cheater like my STBXH. What do they say? Birds of a feather flock together. My best friend wouldn’t be a known cheater, who cheated on her husband and cheated with a married man. She not only broke-up her marriage, but another mans marriage. And she doesn’t think she did anything wrong. And I’m sure my STBXH doesn’t think she did anything wrong either. Nope! We don’t share the same values. They suck!
I got the, “We don’t have the same values” too. And, like you, my reaction was, “We don’t?” It took awhile for it to sink in that we really, really don’t have the same values. Mine: Honesty, fidelity, family, faith, community. Him: Him and instant gratification.
I got : we see love differently . After I pointed out how his cheating did not give me warm fuzzies towards him. He later said we were not compatible. I replied that it is hard to be compatible with a cheat and a liar.
Martha,
I swear you and I are living the same lives just in different parts of the world……….. everything you have just shared and some.
Tonight watched my XH’s new chump (she was not the AP that was a dude) walk arm in arm with an ex friend who the chump now seems to be very close too. The ex friend engaged in an EA for close to 4 years ending two marriages and is now shacked up with the guy all while proclaiming to all that her husband is ok with the new relationship and everyone else should just get over it.
I am glad I do not share the same values as these people, ally cats would have more going for them than this self proclaimed bunch of good christian bitches.
I remember the look on my ex’s face when I told him that no matter how he felt about me, it was wrong to try to come between another man and his children. His eyes, which I’d always loved, looked at that moment like he hated me. That’s when I realized he wasn’t who I thought he was. Even though I used to get frustrated with how much he traveled, how I couldn’t talk to him about emotional things…I still believed he had integrity. That was the moment I realized he didn’t.
Lyn–I can relate to what you said about seeing a look in his eyes. When I confronted my ex he looked like pure evil and hatred. I knew then that there was no going back.
The eyes — “evil and hatred.” Yep!
Bird of a feather flock together indeed. Ex’s best friend is a major narc. Never understood why ex hung out with him until I stopped smoking the hopium and saw ex for what he was.
“We don’t share the same ideas about love, family and relationships” – how powerful and true!
These cheaters are unhappy people so they seek happiness in others when they should be seeking happiness in themselves. You might ask well why do they do this? Best answer I have is because THIS IS WHO THEY ARE.
Ditto!
I remember telling X how he and Skanky were perfect for each other. When he said, Thank you, I think so, too,” I laughed and snarkily responded, “You don’t know a perfect insult when you hear one.”
Good refresher! All that sparkles is not gold…
(Plus I’m still laughing about pigs playing banjos from yesterday!)
It’s not meh, yet, but it’s almost Tuesday. 🙂
My attorney is sending me a draft of my initial divorce papers to review this morning. I’ll probably sign them tomorrow. I’ve been in limbo for about 18 months, given my wife every chance in the world, and made many of the chump mistakes CL said not to make in her book. My wife doesn’t even have the guts to pull the plug (she’s in cake land), no I’m the one that has to do it. Yes, I now completely trust that she sucks.
That said, it’s CL, her book, her blog, and all of the CN that’s helped me get through this…and to help me keep my eye on that light at the end of the tunnel (that I am now starting to see). I really appreciate coming here every day.
“My wife doesn’t even have the guts to pull the plug (she’s in cake land), no I’m the one that has to do it.”
Amazing how many of these cheaters can’t be bothered with the adult stuff of ending a marriage. The Entitled One was the same way. Left for the cake buffet but “didn’t have time” to hire an attorney.
I’m sorry you have to be here but glad you found the awesome community of CN! Stay strong.
My husband tried everything in the world to make me file for divorce, even though he was the one that wanted it. The one who had secretly planned it and instigated it. Isn’t it amazing how they try to duck responsibility? After the divorce was underway he drug his feet, and towards the very end (when he knew I was trying to settle so I could move into my new house) he started backpedaling on some previously agreed upon items. He never closed out our joint bank account like he was supposed to, so I had to do it. In order to get things wrapped up so I could move on with my life, I had to suck up to him and tell him “let me take care of that for you, I know you’re busy). God. It made me so furious, but I kept telling myself once the divorce was finished I would never have to deal with him again.
It is all about controlling the narrative isn’t it?
In your case Lyn, his favored narrative might have been that your filing was the proof that you gave up on the marriage while he still loved you unconditionally and wanted to repair the marriage [insert scoffy tone – as if they are able to do that].
In my case, he wanted to file as the plaintiff so anything I would say post-divorce he could turn into “she is bitter because I divorced her.” Instead, I filed as the plaintiff and tell people that I divorced him after finding out about his adultery. He is very pissed off that “I keep bringing up the past,” questioning for how long I will repeat it. I learned on CN a come back that has been invaluable: “for as long as it remains true,” which I said once before going back to NC.
One way or the other cheaters want control, and when they lose that control over their chump and the narrative of the demise of their marriage, they start switching through the three stations of the mindfuck channel – https://www.chumplady.com/2014/09/the-mindfuck-channel-only-has-three-stations/
Thanks to CL and CN, I am building my immunity to Cluster B(ullshit), and truly trust that the person I though he was never existed. In fact, I trust that the callous cheating lying coward he turned out to be during our divorce proceedings is his real self. Good riddance.
Chumptitude, I like that comeback, “for as long as it remains true.” I wish I would have known that one while we were married. Maybe once a year my STBXH would do something that would make me “bring up the past.” He’d say, “Why do you have to bring up the past?” It was like I wasn’t allowed to remember all the horrible things he did to me. I would bring up the past, because what he was doing in the present was related to what he did in the past. I would have never brought it up again if he didn’t continue to flirt and see women behind my back.
Martha, your STBXH and mine sound like identical twins who were separated at birth! Why do we have to keep bringing up the past? Because IT’S STILL GOING ON IN THE PRESENT you f’ing Idiot! It is SO exhausting!!!
@Lyn :
Wow, so much of what you said is the same exact thing as The Evil One did!!!! So exhausting!!!!!
@Chumptitude :
Yes, “as long as it’s true” thats about right!!!!
Mine got very self righteous when I pulled the plug, stalled the settlement of our family property for 9 months and still had a joint account with me up until a month prior to marrying his new chump.
but if you ask him, he had to battle me all the way and make up the most hideous lies to get free of me, he didn’t really cheat.
you are so right when you say that they are children and are not grown up enough to do the right thing.
my ex would not engage in the process to formally end our marriage but willingly paid a solicitor to write to me to enforce me putting a heap of his shit back into our garage an not on the curb for council collection. It eventually went to the new chumps house within months of them meeting and sure enough next collection day she put it out. Pity she was not smart enough to put the cheater out. she married him a year later instead. but it is early days.
Yes, mine claimed that I refused to hire a lawyer and it wasn’t fair to divorce me without one. ..,.pffft. I hired a lawyer and it took 3 days to serve him because he kept ducking the server. Then, a week before the court date, I had my lawyer call the OW because he hadnt heard anything from ex in the 3 months since the serving.
OW was furious with ex as he had been telling her a load of crap. She dragged his ads to the hearing and made him sign the papers in front of her. My lawyer said she ‘loomed like a shedragon while he signed, apologised for the wait, and dragged him back out of the courthouse as only one of us has to appear before the judge. (didn’t want him getting last minute 2nd thoughts I suppose).
Many of us were left to clean up the mess by filing, and that’s what it is, the first step in cleaning up the mess they made. If we’re as awful as they all told their APs we are then why didn’t they divorce us upon discovering they found their twu luv? Why hide it for days, months, years? oh, yeah, they’re using all of us. Let the APs have them.
Congrats on the paper signing, Lost2015! This hellish process could necessitate a new moniker; maybe ‘Found2016’. All the Best.
Congrats Lost2015 and great moniker idea Virago!
+1
Great idea, and gosh I hope I get there. Thanks!
I am exactly in the same spot: I have the papers drawn up and they could arrive any day now… I also have tried and waited, just to get knocked back down again, so I filed. He didn’t, I did. He still cries that I didn’t give him a fair chance, him having a girlfriend and all (nr 8 since Dday). Good luck and sign those papers, let’s end this shit and start living. I will.
I got the drafts, I could only make it halfway through before I had to stop for a while. Having to start a process where the best case scenario is that you lose your wife, half of the time you get to be with your children, and most of the money and assets you’ve spent your adult life working for really sucks.
And I know the language in the divorce complaint is fairly standard (I’m a lawyer, so I see this crap all the time for crying out loud), but I still feel bad for what it says about my wife and my marriage. I feel bad for dropping the hammer like this, and I still feel like softening it up somehow so I don’t upset her too much. But that’s why I was in limbo for so long, feeling sorry for her.
This whole thing is just ridiculous and wrong.
It IS ridiculous and wrong. Society is supposed to be so “advanced” now and we are all “free thinkers” and blah, blah, blah…but the victims of most crimes are actually treated as such. People throw benefits for them and bring over casseroles and basically treat them with empathy and care. Victims of the ultimate betrayal though, the chumps who are cheated on and shit all over are for some reason viewed by society not as victims, but as someone who had it coming, that they did something to deserve having their entire life annihilated and be left to pick up the rubble and try to rebuild everything from scratch while mourning the loss of what they thought was their real life.
I think that No-Fault Divorce is the worst thing that ever happened to spouses who have been cheated on and that the division of Marital assets based on Community Property laws instead of “You played, now you Pay” are absurd.
If I killed someone’s spouse and got caught, the surviving spouse would not be required to send their children to visit me in prison on the weekends. They wouldn’t have to sell their home and give 1/2 of the proceeds to me. They would not have to pay me spousal or child support because I am not gainfully employed, being in prison and all…and yet those are the consequences you face if you dare to stand up for yourself and declare that you are not Plan B to be left hanging in the lurch while Mr. Superdick (or Ms. Sparkletart as the case may be) is out banging the whore de jour. NO, if you refuse to be disrespected, betrayed and exposed to STD’s by the person who actually took a legally binding oath to NOT do bad things to you, you are just a big, whiny baby who needs to suck it up and move on. Blows my mind.
^^^^This…all day long.
Excellent post, Now I know. You summed it up perfectly.
PREEEEACH, sister, prrrreeeeach!!!!!
Omg! Send that to a newspaper! Or FB! Chumps unite! We need a convention/conference!
Your’e a good man, @Lost2015. You have compassion for the mother of your children. You are making the most of an absurd situation. Guy chumps got each-other’s backs.
I have repeated this mantra to myself many, many times. Whenever I start to feel misty eyed or sympathetic towards him, I repeat “trust that he sucks” and recount all the awful shit he put me through. Works like a charm.
+1
Your timing is perfect CL. Saw cheater pants for the first time yesterday since February when he FINALLY moved out. He was leaving our community after having met with a mover to access his part of the move, I had tried to avoid him altogether so I spared our dogs a confusing visit with him and took them for a walk. I was standing at a corner with what used to be OUR dogs…which are MY dogs….he gasped and started to sob. It pulled at me for a short second, but my neighbor who was chatting with me wouldn’t even look at him because she knows how much he sucks. Sorry, not sorry cheater pants, you can’t unfuck your whores. He 100% sucks and it was great to read this again this morning. Thanks so much.
Stay strong!
Early on, my ex used to cry at visitation. When that didn’t work he switched to screaming at me. It’s all about them and how unfair it is that there are consequences to their actions! Boo freaking hoo.
As CL says, the mindfuck has only three channels: charm, pity, rage.
I remember when I first read that. It was truly a lightbulb moment for me.
I used to be subjected to what I called the three day cycle. Regular as clockwork. Reading cl about the mindfuck channel was an ah ha moment
Thanks kaBree for your post it brings me some relief. I am waiting for my fuckwit to get out of the house and move to his new rental. We have dogs that are now MY dogs and he keeps crying as he moves his shit to the garage and wants hugs from me and cries to the dogs and wants to see them after blah blah blah.
Hey SD. It’s been almost one year since I sold our old home and moved into my new and divorce anniversary is first week of July. As much NC as possible has been the best advice. He has since faked suicide. Still texts me song lyrics and poems because trust that he sucks he has no feelings so no words of his own. You can do this!!! You’ll be better than ever. I’m on my new deck with my dogs right now and enjoying my Sunday off. No more one sided marriage. And I’m for sure meh. And it’s great. I swear to you my best and most valuable resource through this entire mind fuck and incredible betrayal has been Chump Nation.
I wish you every happiness. You deserve it.
KaBree
Thanks KaBree this website has been so helpful! I keep looking forward trying not to think about what I thought he was or what I wanted it to be and just focus on making the best life I can for myself and my dogs. Thanks for your comments and keep enjoying your fuckwit free better life on your deck with your dogs!
I needed this today since I went pain shopping on FB to find out who he was sneaking out of his apartment when I showed up with the kids a couple weeks ago. Some twentysomething looks like. And he’d posted a picture of himself a year ago vs. now — he’s lost 50 lbs. One of his chickadee friends said seems like the last year was a “necessary evil” for him. Another said “you’ve already won in so many ways.” Well, that’s two ways to describe leaving a long-term marriage with kids for a “life of spontaneity” and to “see what else is out there.” Of course, he’s spreading around the cheater manifesto of how the marriage was dead anyway, we were just roommates, we’re very different people, he was suffocated in the marriage … and he’s doing so much better now, it’s proof the problem was a bad marriage! He doesn’t cop to the sex ads, the hooker, the other women, the porn addiction, the rage episodes, and the emotional abuse. #winning
I badly need to trust that he sucks. That feels more real this morning. I hope whatever protective shield has descended on me sticks around for awhile.
Betterdays-
I don’t know it you have children with this guy but regardless you really don’t need to check out his social media crap. FB is just a photo album gone viral. You don’t keep pictures of the worst moments of your life just like no one posts their worst moments on FB. It’s a snapshot and it’s not real.
It’s so much easier to forget that he continues to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide if you block him from every aspect of your life that’s feasible. I have yet to hear one good argument about why someone needs to maintain social media accounts with an ex. Block him on FB and you truly will have better days and you’ll trust that he sucks that much sooner!!
Jedi hugs
I agree, and Betterdays does, too, because she calls looking at his FB “pain shopping.” There’s enough pain in being chumped; we don’t need to shop for it. People who make a practice of discussing their affairs, separations and divorces on FB (or other personal busies) lack boundaries and filters. (In the white-hot pain of DDay, we all might vent a few times, but we understand that ranting in FB is what my students call “putting your business on the street”). And cheaters who disrespect their chumped spouses or their marriages in public (on FB or other social media) are making a written record that they suck.
I have a good friend who desperately wants a better job in her own field. But on FB, she vents about the issues on her current job. As a result, I would have a hard time giving her a reference. And I really like her! I just think she is not discreet and professional. So—while we see those sparkly FB photos and fear that there is a reward for cheater behavior, others who are not involved see those things and wonder how a man or woman could be so callous and thoughtless as to post things that might hurt their kids or former spouse. I don’t have folks like that in my FB feed and if they turned up, that would be the end of them on my FB feed.
Oh yeah, I know better. He’s blocked on FB but I’ve caved twice and unblocked to check out his page — a couple of months ago and this most recent time. I do have kids with The Entitled One which is why I’m privy to more of his life than I want to be, and I’ll admit I was curious about this woman he was sneaking out of his apartment at drop-off. There is an upside to seeing the naked bullshit though. The first time I got an eyeful of the FB shitstream, I finally stopped feeling like I was in love with him. Today, I feel like there’s a bit of armor forming between his life and mine.
Something similar happened to me when I finally unblocked Jackass on FB (my page is still Friends only so he can’t see anything but the basic page info). What I found out is that he has some pretty extreme political views that he was directly dishonest about the whole time I knew him. I didn’t need more armor, in my case, but I feel like I really, really dodged a bullet.
Looking up the X on FB, while tempting, ends up being about as productive as breaking No Contact. And it’s not real life anyway.
Agreed and no contact should also be extended to one’s thought process. No contact in your thoughts works wonders.
I so need to find a way to go “no contact” with my thoughts. That’s been killing me the last few weeks. Of course since we’re still in the middle of the divorce, there’s no avoiding some mental crap, but I would dearly love for it to be less.
Better Days, I highly recommend the “Fuck That” meditation. Over and over and over. Meditation: all about thought control; however, this one is also delightful:
“Breathe in strength. Breathe out bullshit.” Hahahaha. I LOVE THIS.
rofl! I’d seen this before and it’s hilarious. But, this time, I actually did the exercise, meditated and it WORKED!
lol – so, go ahead and relax….
BetterDays, what I have successfully done to go “no contact” in my thoughts was to just reject those thoughts and replace them immediately. Those thoughts popped up hundreds of times a day – I just kept rejecting and kept replacing the thoughts. The trick is to reject them as quick as they hit you.
My motivation to not give that thought any space in my mind was simple – it does absolutely nothing positive for you.
Years later, the thoughts occasionally try to get in usually because of some trigger but they have no chance now!
Just remember and know that you are loved, make changes in the way you think, practice loving-kindness, and accept what is will help to not breed these thoughts. – Good luck with your divorce!
Thanks, SureChumpedALot. Did you come up with specific phrases or mantras to replace the thoughts with? May sound like an anal-retentive question, but my mind is so out-of-control with thoughts of him and reliving our relationship and all the things I’d like to say to him that I need all the specific help I can get. 🙂
Better Days,
I think of him still, but when I was at the “out of control thoughts” of him I started small with making a list in my head of what I needed from the grocery store, what errands I needed to do, what my goals were for the week, going through my nail polish to decide what color to paint my toes, whatever I could turn the focus on me in the short term. I’m hopeful that one day my kids will reference him and I will not be able to remember the last time he used up my mental space. It’s still several times a day, but no longer hourly, or every minute.
I’ve been doing the same when my thoughts drift into bullshit territory. I ‘take the thought captive’, imagine a brick wall blocking my view of the mind-movie scenario, and replace the angry or sad thoughts with ‘I need healing. I want healing for myself’…bring my focus back to me, my needs, my wants. It’s hard sometimes. ‘Fuck that’ meditation is extremely helpful too.
The last few weeks has been tough because we’ve broken No Contact. Him first, wanting to know if he left his passport here. Great, rub it in my face you’re going on a holiday…that was tough. I got through that by ‘UBT’ing the texts.
And being clinical in my replies. I didn’t acknowledge the “xox” or his ‘hope you’re ok’ txts in the conversation. Grey rocking.
What CL says, ‘his life is none of my concern’ …I repeat that to myself too.
This week I had to break NC again to discuss a business matter – we still have $ tied up in co-ownership of a small business. It’s been two months now, and I still cry at least once every day, but I’m not crying ALL day anymore.
I am looking forward to the day there’s no reason to have any contact at all.
Hiya Better Days, I never used a mantra or phrase to replace my thoughts with – I wish it were that easy. I just have conditioned myself to only acknowledge the thought. Immediately thereafter I kick the thought to the curb. It’s kind of like saying “Fuck-off thought”, lol. I will NOT give the ex-wife any space in my mind. PERIOD.
What I am speaking of is something in addition to meditation. It’s getting yourself to a serene authentic place that makes it easier to process and eliminate a lot of your negative thoughts.
I hope this isn’t too long but I will share with you what works for me in an average day starting with the night before:
Before I go to bed every night, I make sure that my mind and soul gets placed in a serene place. I spend about 10 minutes on how grateful I am to have been blessed with my 3 kiddos, our home, our financial means, the rest of our family and friends, our health, the food we eat, the air in our lungs and our life. Then I spend another 10 minutes on thinking of what I can do to make my kids, business and my own life better. Maybe more one on one time with the kiddos, or maybe actually working when I am at work, lol or maybe just anticipating the 20 mile muddy bicycle ride that I’m going to take the next day. By this point I am put in a safe and serene place. I go to sleep, and if I can do this every night – it’s guaranteed every subsequent morning I wake up starting the day with these great thoughts and feelings.
Usually by mid-morning I spend about 20 minutes in meditation (yes I have a job, LOL). Now I am feeling on top of the world.
Here’s the kicker – the curve balls – the unexpected – the ex-wife (soul sucking tramp!). These things really throw your serenity off. The question is how far off? I have found that if I am in my serene-zone, these curve balls get dismissed rather quickly. When I don’t do all of the above I tend to be more irritable, less focused and my mind wants to hone in on only the negative.
2 things you have to work on immediately to allow all of the above to work is:
1). you have to just stop reliving your relationship. You are just going to have to just say “No” – Please say, I will not commiserate over a someone who doesn’t respect and value me. You have to set boundaries for yourself in the sense of not allowing these repetitive thoughts to infiltrate your mind. Process these thoughts once and reject them every time thereafter. Talk to CN or family – process then reject.
2). You have to also stop the notion of “things that you would like to say to him.” There is nothing that you need to say to him. What you can do is write these things down in a journal only at a pre-defined time of your day. Don’t let these thoughts fester throughout the day. Your goal is to eventually not have anything to say to him.
If you do all of this, I think you will see and feel that you will be in a better place very quickly. Sorrrrry for the long nature of this- I have some free time right now.
SureChumpedAlot thank you!!!! I too have been struggling lately with racing, random thoughts of my ex. I’m desperately trying to move forward, as my divorce is (thankfully) final and a new life awaits. Loved ones encourage me to relax, that because it has only been 6 months since this whole thing began that what I am experiencing is to be expected. I get that, I really do. But it is imperative that I start over, that I not waste one more second on the one who betrayed me and it frustrates me when scenarios and thoughts pop up. Thank you again for the great advice, I look forward to putting it to use!!!
Dropping back in to say a belated THANK YOU to AnnieGetYourGun, FeeIndeed, Lyn, LAJ, SabineSavory from a later post, and especially SureChumpedALot. You guys dropped a ton of wisdom on my head.
So far I’ve been imagining the brick wall and a stern “No!” whenever thoughts of him bubble up. This morning I made a to-do list that’s mostly self-care items like don’t overeat, get on the exercise bike for 30 minutes, have some FUN with the kids, plan some FUN for me. (I was the typical parentified child who lost her ability to play a long, long time ago. I’ve only recently realized how much that tendency of mine can suck the joy right out of life as I concentrate only on work and responsibilities and getting things done.)
SureChumpedALot, thank you so much for the detailed description of your meditations. I’m going to try that tonight!
When my thoughts were out of control I found that working to memorize certain passages of the bible that I found meaningful helped stop them. My brain couldn’t learn something and ruminate at the same time. I’m sure this would work with memorizing anything that’s helpful, such a poem, or passage. Anyway, repeating the verses over and over to myself was healing because the words were positive.
I’ve always been prone to rumination and depression, I’ve got to battle the bad thoughts all the time. I appreciate others sharing what they do to cope with them. I like the idea of visualizing a wall to stop yourself from going to places in your mind you don’t want to go.
I’ve also discovered that I can “rewrite” some painful memories in my mind by imagining them differently. For instance, there was one traumatizing memory that cause me so much pain, but I discovered if I imagined both my grandmothers standing on either side of me, saying positive things about me to combat the negative things coming out of his mouth, it rewrote the memory so it stop torturing me. Anyway, hope this helps someone else.
BetterDays, music and satellite radio helped me a lot in the months after DDay. I had most of these thoughts when I was in the car, driving alone. So I would put on one of my playlists and sing. Or I would listen to news, talk or sports radio–something that would require the part of my brain that was running on the Jackass Hamster Wheel. Pretty soon I didn’t think of him any more.
SureChumpedAlot. That sounds very peaceful. I have a very hard time meditating as I can’t sit still that long. I know, I should take up yoga or something to help me with that.
Also, I don’t know much about spirituality or ‘inner peace’ but I know many people who’ve nailed it.
This is part of myself I know I need to work on.
I found I had to go through every single thought process until it was completely done.
No taking corners for me.
I’d play the mind movies – not about the sex but about his deceit for so long.
As you all did, I went from waking up in the middle of the night to potty and it consumed my thoughts….it consumed my thoughts as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning and every second of every day for many months; and the early days, I was dangerous even to be driving…I could not concentrate on anything but this. Couldn’t read a book, watch a movie.
I decided to keep up my dog-showing to keep me sane and it took me all over the country on roads we traveled many times. So many triggers. I bawled and bawled. Hell, I had to get that out of my system because it’s the long route I have to take to see my Cdn family.
So, I got through those road triggers I faced head on. Didn’t try to think of anything but what a good time we had and how he could have ruined that entire wonderful memory of this or that m/h park with the dogs.
Wasn’t easy but I was determined to begin a new life without bitterness. I had to be triggered over and over before the trigger started to lose its mystique. 3 yrs later, I am almost trigger-free because I feel, I didn’t try to mask over my feelings. I couldn’t feel any other way.
I think whatever works for you but we all DO get through this.
I am happily on the other side, finally getting the house-sold after 2 full yrs and having to talk to him, now – to complete N/C.
It’s just a wonderful space.
He’s fading all the time.
Fading to black…..
Pomdscumbgone, Applause, applause, applause to you!
You nailed it by saying, “it is imperative that I start over, that I not waste one more second on the one that betrayed me”. This is the starting point for your new serenity and authentic filled life. Now live it – love it – and believe it. Do the rest as mentioned and let me know how you are transforming. Hugs.
SheChump,
If you have a hard time meditating because you cant sit that long thats quite all right. Have you ever tried walking meditation? I do it all the time. Do it outdoors in nature – the forest preserves are loaded with inspiration just as walking near a body of water also. Walking in fancy neighborhoods is also super peaceful. The key is when you walk meditate you have to completely clear your mind. Think of nothing. Thoughts will try to pop up in your head especially when you start -this is normal – but just reject the thought – good or bad – reject the next one and so on. Focus on absolutely nothing. Breathe breathe breathe also. Before you know it you will feel that you are living in the present moment. You will be gazing at the emerald color leaves blowing against the backdrop of the clear blue sky. The sounds are just as calming as the sights. You will start to look forward to “your time” daily. If it rains – oh well – equal amount of beauty and sounds with rain vs sun.
As for inner peace and spirituality there is a ton of material on that. Go to a book store and treat yourself to a nice book. There is just something about tangibility. Pick one out that you connect with.
I also did all the hard work about going through all the thought processes until it was completely done – how excruciating that was, right? Now its time for the rewarding stuff that you so deserve!
Thank you SCA – actually, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve gone into the deep woods.
I used to walk the dogs there in a weird limbo when he was cheating and I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
I concentrated on the new mushrooms sprouting up, not the green leaves, just the deadening leaves, and I just walked without thinking.
I know the exercise saved part of my sanity but I was quite unaware of it at the time.
I do recommend the woods and the water for serenity.
Lately though, I have started to notice more flowers and leaf colors.
It’s helpful to have started a new garden of rhododendrons, azaleas and hydrangeas so I’ll have something blooming all year long.
I find that to be great therapy.
But, no – I cannot even sit down for a manicure! Or a massage! lol
I’m racing all the time – I guess it’s my nature as it’s nothing to do with the divorce.
The divorce made me sit on my ass for an entire year, don’t get me wrong.
But, now at meh, I’m back to my super-fast speed and myself again.
Walking dogs on the beach is my meditation and my time with the universe and God.
And, I am thankful I wound up on the other side when I thought I was going to die.
by my own hand.
Trust that he sucks is my mantra – thanks CL!
I only have to have a very minor disagreement over our daughter and his full on anger surfaces. His entitlement and anger are just (ever so slightly) beneath his veneer of pretending to be a fine upstanding person. I know he’s an angry and controlling man and if I ever doubt it I only need to remind myself of his cruel actions toward me. He told me he “should have” given me an STD…that one kills me but also reminds me of how evil he really is.
Your X is a massive POS thensome!
Just when I think I can’t be surprised anymore. Thensome-I trust that your ex sucks and I don’t even know him. What a total douchecanoe!
This is timely. Over the weekend a childhood friend sent me a friend request on FB and the first pic I see is his beautiful (skinny) wife and 4 handsome children and 2 grandbabies. I was blown away for a short while and feeling a bit sad missing the “perfect family”.
Then yesterday I had to contact X because of his poor communication skills with his 24 y.o. daughter. He proceeded to fill me in on how poor he is and has lost all his savings and how much he has to pay for his kids’ student loans and how he’s looking for a new job at 59 and how he might have to move from NYC to IN (family farm) because he can’t afford NY anymore, but he wishes kids would meet his “twu luv” because she’s not “going anywhere”. I basically told him he needed to learn to communicate with daughter and not to expect adult kids to welcome “twu luv” any time soon.
My mind soon jumped to an image of him as a hamster spinning his wheel in his cage while I now feel like a balloon enjoying my freedom. It was a real “meh” feeling!
Good for you, Mom9193. Sounds like you saw past his facade of a “perfect” life.
Oh gosh Mom9193, your X is a piece of work. He’s in a financial disaster situation, can’t communicate with his own daughter, and all he can say is he wishes his kids could meet his gf? Is this guy for real, he sounds like an 18 year old. Very immature for sure.
Mom9193,
Or an image of a rat on the wheel. Or a big blobfish in a small tank.
Apologies to rats and blobfish.
That’s priceless!! Thanks!
Taking my marriage out of the equation for a minute, I can always circle back to the jaw dropping
“Who do you think you are?” about my xh. Without a care my xh:
Had sex with another man’s wife,
Gave her/by proxy OWH an STV.
Destroyed her kids future.
Tried to get me to run up and LIE to a church tribunal (so he could get a Catholic annulment – to marry his mistress.)
(Yeah, I called that the “Fool Jesus” plan.) He thought I would have no problem lying, because “I would benefit too!”
Forgetting everything he did here in my home, in my world, look at the atrocious entitlement this pig has.
Wow Magneto, just Wow… “Christian White-Out” coined yesterday by happily ever after just took a whole new dimension.
I’m not joking. At BD, when XH was laying out his plans to “be happy” and he asked me to “go along” with his claims during the annulment process — even in my traumatized state, I pulled it together enough to say; “Do I LOOK like I want to be fried by a lighting bolt in the church parking lot???”
I’m going to go lie to God so he can annul our marriage to marry his girlfriend??? God won’t know.
Seriously, who does he think he is??? – Jesus cheater, personified…
The smoking gun of his affair I found was a birthday letter to OW dreaming of getting the Catholic Church to free him from me so that they could share this important part of his life…and he was still living in the house with his wife and kids while he tried to get Jesus and the Pope to bless his relationship with Susan of Seattle.
We live in a very conservative Diocese that doesn’t hand out quick or easy annulments. He was so annoyed that he couldnt have everything he wanted right when he wanted it….and his OW had a ticking biological clock.
He got his wish, our marriage is in fact over and I was free to remarry in the Church and I did. Never did get that annulment though, my cheater however did get a lovely Catholic Funeral Mass.
….loud scoffing laugh here unicornomore, couldn’t happen to a better guy…….
Thanks. I needed to hear this today. He sucks and his AP also sucks.
They all suck. Wished i had learned that lesson the first time and not the third time. I would have had at the very least a more peaceful life and not walk on eggshells i could have had my cash to spend my way. Ah live and learn. I have my children, my fur babies, a few real close friends and peace. Im not a meh yet, but im good.
Here’s where being chumped in your 60s is an advantage. When I was in my 30s, I dated a man who, to be charitable, had centrality issues. I don’t want to paint him with the narcissist brush, as he was in many ways a very positive force in my life. However, his world revolved around him, often creating chaos for those around him. At the time, I was in what I now see was a “pick-me” dance with his ex-wife. They had been divorced for years by the time I came along, but she was very possessive, competitive and created a lot of stress for everyone involved (once she even turned up on a vacation we were taking out of state). Anyway….back then I had some pretty unhealthy thought patterns. I was into impression management in a big way–watch my weight, keep a perfect house, have a fabulous this or that. I worried about “winning” when I probably should have been ending the intimate relationship because my own life and self had become distant planet orbiting this man’s solar system. We were fine as friends, but I was still in the “a man is the center of the universe” state. It took me years to understand that there is a difference between having a great life and creating the illusion of a great life.
The great life involves integrity–your words, your actions, your choices all align with your values. Jackass gave me a refresher course in all of that, as being chumped sent me off into a “I am better than MOW” spiral. But thankfully, that was just a stage I went through on the road to really, finally gaining a life. Right now I am always on the lookout for that tendency to do “impression management,” to make sure my life looks good to some invisible audience. But in truth, the people who love me don’t care what my house looks like, as long as it is welcoming and full of love. They don’t care if I gain 5 pounds or lose them, although they are happy for me to look and feel good. We aren’t competing with anyone–most particularly the APs and the Switzerland friends and the cheaters. We are, I hope, sorting out who belongs in our lives–the people we love and who reciprocate our love, our friendship, our commitment, our companionship. We want people with high standards and we want to be people with high standards. It’s sad and sorry that people we once loved got on the wrong road and went the wrong direction. But trust that they suck.
^^^AMEN!
Yes! ++
Thank you LAJ. I was so caught up in his dreams that never surfaced The underlying message was always that his dreams were unobtainable because of me.
I worked harder and he exoected me to fulfill his ‘dream’ retirement.
Now I have a future.
LaJ, this is beautiful. We were trained in the 50s to give the man centrality. By our families, society and our culture. ‘Father Knows Best’ was a telling title. Centrality for a loving Father who nicknamed his daughters Princess and Kitten did not seem like a bad idea to me! My Mother had the good fortune to invest her efforts in a deserving man. I, on the other hand, proved to be a gambler rather than a wise investor.
Ha, my mother sent me to college to find a husband and to have a job “to fall back on.” Back in the day, they called it the MRS. degree. I was more of a tow truck, towing losers through life.
LovedAJackass,
Your tow truck analogy is well said, funny and sad. But, it is so hard to see these things beforehand. Who can predict the cruelty that is coming our way because we are empathetic, kind people who actually DO NOT have hearts of stone? Who have a moral compass?
Willa Cather the author aid this:
No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.
I believe this is true.
The Eagles said it again in Lying Eyes: I GUESS EVERY FORM OF REFUGE HAS ITS PRICE.
Meth Maggot Cheater is moneybags. There was no mooching there…he gave me money and gifts and helped tremendously with my dogs and home maintenance but took away my health and (almost) my mind. He nuclear fusioned my trust.
I was tired of working, and he said he would take care of me.
The take away from this is: You had better find something you LOVE to do to earn money. Who cares what the world thinks? (Impression management). If a man wants to give you some money, that’s gravy.
But no one is going to save us. We have to save ourselves.
The person who is paying your mortgage might wake up one day and decide he is bored and wants to fuck another woman for a while.
Meth Maggot Cheater never broke up with me. He would be right here, getting high, cheating and lying if I had allowed him to do so. Some small scrap of sanity remained and repeatedly slapped me across the face.
Oh that is funny 😀 I am directly related to Willa Cather on my father’s side 😀 She was a great lady!
Beautiful post, LAJ. This particularly struck me: “but I was still in the ‘a man is the center of the universe’ state.” Even though I’m in my forties, I was raised by an extremely old-fashioned family and despite aligning myself with feminism, the truth is I somehow absorbed the “man is the center of the universe” principle. One of the hardest things for me now is coming to terms with how I built my entire adult life around him and his goals and his dreams and how I never took my own seriously. Except the dream of a family and he shat all over that. So it very much feels to me like my entire life has been destroyed and I’m floundering around trying to figure out how to build a new one…or even what to build.
I’m the same as you, BetterDays. Not that he ever asked me to make him central in my life, I gladly did. I wanted to be a good wife and mother. I supported him with his career goals and allowed him to treat me like I was the least important person in his life. When I would say I wanted to spend more time with him (and all of us as a family), I’d get the, “What do you want me to do?!! QUIT MY JOB?!!!” No! I just want to spend more time with you. And he purposely withheld himself and his time from me. And it left me lonely, always waiting for him to someday not have to work so much. So, now he can go to work for the next six years and pay me half of his salary and I can try my best to figure out what God wants me to do with my life (I thought it was to be a good wife and mom).
Yes. I feel the exact same way. Thanks for voicing it.
BetterDays and Sketchyokgirl,
Your entire life is not destroyed because you see it….you have insight and understanding now.
It would be destroyed if you were on your death bed and just realizing this. This may sound glib or trite, but I have discovered that exercising TRULY helps. (This is from a person who will watch movies until 4AM while frantically shoving buttered popcorn in my mouth and swilling Coke). There is something about moving around that helps you gain perspective and see the possibilities. I think it has to do with our neurons and making new connections THAT ARE NOT RELATED TO THE CHEATER.
I am not being Molly Naive Motivator. I am telling you…I would stare at my ceiling for hours over Meth Maggot Cheater. I was non functional. Right after the first (tragic….there was a second one) D Day, if I got my teeth brushed and combed my hair, this was a 5 star day.
I got better when I started moving around and exercising. I still eat what I want (THIS IS NO TIME FOR SELF DEPRIVATION! I MADE HOMEMADE DONUTS TONIGHT!!!).
I mean….just move around for YOU!. It works as effectively as an anti depressant and it forms NEW PATHWAYS in our brain to see that:
Your life is not over. You have many meaningful experiences ahead of you, that do not involve a human cockroach.
You loved him, and there is no shame in that. You are not telepathic. How could you know what misery he had in store for you? You couldn’t.
I hope this helps. Fake feeling like exercising, even if you would rather roll around in fire ants that go for a walk. The motivation comes after the movement. You can trick your brain.
And that exercising, I am telling you…it is a magic bullet. Also, being tired helps with obsession and regret.
It is a 100% no negative solution.
Beautiful post LAJ!
Well said laj!
I need this refresher daily. It’s still so tough to remember that they suck. Thanks for this.
Remember this Marked711….
She cheated
She lied
She gas-lighted you
She broke your family unit and the kids lives are changed forever (assuming you have kids)
She intentionally hurt you
She continued to intentionally hurt you
She mind-fucked you
She demonized you
She re-wrote history
She left you in a financial hardship
She has no loyalty
She has no integrity
She is dishonest
She eats cake
She has no values
She has no respect
She is selfish
She is entitled
She is a narc
She is disordered
She has no empathy
She justifies her actions
She didn’t love you
She has no soul
She has no character
She didn’t communicate with you
She didn’t fulfill her marital obligations
She stole
She exposed you to disease
She took your serenity
She FUCKED YOU!!!
SCA, thank you so much for this. I’m going to print it out and put it on my bathroom mirror so I see it first thing every morning. 🙂 It’s all so true.
This is nowdeadserialcheaterwife. Every. Last. Point.
Thank you.
@HeatDeath – I am so grateful for the guy chumps ’round here. Keep up the mighty good work.
For me, “trust that they suck” is so important because he continues to try to get me to drop the divorce. He can be so convincing sometimes. Just this week, when he dropped off the kids, he said in such a sad and pitiful way that he missed me. But a check of the turnpike toll records shows that he left 15 minutes later to go spend the night with his newest random slut. He missed me so much that he couldn’t wait to get to her. Yes, he sucks. Give them enough time, pay attention to their actions and not their words, and they will continue to prove that they suck.
Of course he wants you to drop the divorce. Cake! He wants to keep his money, have a home and family for that “family man” look, and still cheat. No consequences! Of course he misses you and wants you back. You’re awesome and you do things for him! Even when he tries to get you back, it’s all about him.
So true. It’s all about him. He actually said to me that he needs me to help him work through his “problems” (he is claiming sex addiction). I am being such a meanie for abandoning him. No thought or care whatsoever to the emotional trauma he has put me through.
What he needs is you to help him maintain his cake supply. What a jerk. I heard much of the same from my X.
Phoenix2016, trust that he sucks! I know from experience, as all you yet divorced chumps will find out, that once the divorce is final and you have pretty much cleaned them out financially they come running back in record time! My Ex also got the double whammy when he aquired a very nasty cancer. Schmoopie couldn’t wait to get rid of him! Along with her kicking him to the curb, she had kept a record of every dime she had to spend on him and now she wants her money repaid! I’m sure he would love to pay her off, but smart little Schmoopie was the one who pushed him to finalize the divorce and quit his job to move in with her in a different state! He has little income and what he does get comes to me per our divorce agreement! Funny that these whores get all “legalistic” when the great love affair ends. Too bad they didn’t honor the legalities of a marriage license my Ex and I had. They were only too happy to ignor that while banging our husbands in random hotel rooms! Just be aware that these sad sausages do circle back around! BEWARE!
“Funny that these whores get all “legalistic” when the great love affair ends. Too bad they didn’t honor the legalities of a marriage license my Ex and I had. They were only too happy to ignor that while banging our husbands in random hotel rooms!”
GREAT point, Roberta!!
SOP (spawn of phlegm) manipulated so many things during the 30 years I was married to him, it felt “normal” to me, I was a spackel expert. He always played it so that he could say he was looking out for my best interests too. I used to complain that I felt he paralleled me and our children, it felt separate, isolated…, I felt so lonely and separated from life, I also felt I was ungrateful and Incompetent and so lucky to be loved by him, he took care of everything.
His wifetress told my adult daughter SOP made all of her dreams come true, that it was so hard working with him and loving him from afar for so long but so worth the wait.
So worth the wait that she let him sell her home that was nearly paid off in a very fancy area to buy a big status filled home in a not so great area and have a mortgage again, cash out her CD’s, borrow against their new home to fix and sell our old home (he let fall into disrepair and promised his daughter and husband they could buy) and the profit will be used to pay back the loan…um right…I heard she went on vacation for Mothers Day without him, cause he was too busy working on the old house to sell.
After 5 years of his giant cake eating with his adult children, they will not be wishing him a happy Father’s Day this year, they have gone NC.
He has not changed, he is still manipulating, narcissistic and cruel in a sparkly poop, oh so worth it way.
I trust that he sucks.
You know the one thing that always confused me and managed to keep me in limbo for so long was trying to understand why he didn’t just divorce me like he said he wanted to. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t because he was hesitant or fearful about losing me or even unsure if he really wanted the divorce because that’s what I desperately wanted to be the reason. No. It was because he was biding his time to try to find his “soul mate” so that he could leap from me, the sure thing, to his real “love.” Problem is, the type of women who will oblige a married man aren’t typically soul mate material are they? They’re just filler. A poor substitute for the real thing. My therapist used the following example to explain how affair partners are chosen. She said to think about talk show hosts and compare them. In your marriage, he has you, Oprah, the top of the line. You’re his true north. His equal partner. You’re better than he could ever expect to end up with, but he’s not satisfied. When a person cheats, they don’t end up with another Oprah because Oprahs have too much self-respect to get involved with a married person. No, typically, the spouse ends up with what they can get which is usually a Jerry Springer-type (sorry Jerry, but you’re no Oprah). It’s a funny analogy but it really helped me to understand the substance level of the affair partner. After that in our sessions we just referred to her as “Jerry.”
I remember reading in a text to Jerry that my DC felt that I was afraid of being alone and that’s why he struggled with ending our marriage. The truth is, HE is the one afraid to be alone and he knows it. I never strayed. Never even considered cheating on him. I’ve lived in limbo for the past two and half years without ever succumbing to any temptation nor am I even in a place where accepting another man in the role of partner is desirable. He’s the one dragging his heels on the divorce he apparently so desperately wants. It’s fear that drives him to continue searching for a new partner. But bars and dating sites are apparently leaving him dissatisfied with his options. I wonder why?
I did all those things Chump Lady talks about right after finding out about Jerry. I visited almost every “save your marriage” website and read tons of “affair proofing” books. But the truth is, you really can’t save your marriage alone. Especially if the other partner has no desire to change their behaviors and feel that they are not in the wrong here, it’s you, the one who drove him into the arms of the drug-addicted, 28-year-old with an oblivious fiancée to boot. I think it’s extremely reckless and irresponsible to shift any blame to the Chump. I wasn’t perfect in our marriage. No one ever is. But I didn’t do one-tenth of the horrible things he did to me, without any second thought to my feelings or mental health. One of the worst things about discovering and reading the transcripts from his cheating text app was how much I felt like I was so easily discarded and even a non-entity. While she lamented about what a bad person she was by betraying her fiancée, I was barely mentioned by my LC. It was almost like I had been wiped clean from his memory and there was little thought about how his actions would affect me. I think once he stated in his texts that he felt I “would be just fine because she’s so strong and capable.” Well, being strong and capable is not an open invitation to do whatever the hell you feel like because the other person will be “just fine.” I would have been better off if he had just told me straight out that he didn’t want me anymore and wanted to end the marriage instead of dragging me for over a year through what felt like miles of broken glass. If he had been honest about his feelings for me (or lack thereof) in the beginning when he first left us, I would most likely be in a much better place mentally by now. Instead he pretended that there was a chance to work on our marriage. During that first year we spent almost every weekend together. Every special occasion, holiday, even family trips were a regular thing with us. I can’t imagine why I thought there was a chance of saving our marriage when he was around all the time!! I guess I didn’t realize that all that time I was just his cake.
And he is still trying to have his cake as I get every excuse as to why he can’t file the divorce. “I have to finish law school.” “Not during the holidays.” “I just started a new job.” Etc. Etc. It’s time for him to get his cake and kibbles elsewhere because I have nothing left to offer. I’ve neglected myself for too long. It’s time for me to leave this soul-sucking party and leave him to his soul searching/soul mate journey. Good luck sweetheart. I no longer fear that some other woman is going to get the “good husband.” The one I so desperately longed for for so many years and through so much shit eating. I see now that she’ll get the same POS I lived with because it’s who you are on the inside. It wasn’t me making you out to be a bad person. I wasn’t the bad spouse, you were, and being with someone else, someone “new and improved” isn’t going to change that. Whoever you end up with I hope she likes eating shit because eventually she’ll be eating a lot of it, trying to figure out what she’s doing wrong to warrant the verbal assaults and cold shoulders you’ll inevitably rain upon her when you don’t get your way. When it gets to that point, I hope for her sake she skips the marriage-saving books and websites and goes straight to Googling family law attorneys. I wish someone would have given me that advice a long time ago.
D4G, I am almost sure you stole my notes….. Same dragging and even same textlines he sent to AP ‘she will be fine’, well I was not. I am now. I lost a coward and a fool.
Cowardly fools they all are. Incredibly, after everything he put me through, all the false hope, the lies, etc. it’s me that has to do what I never wanted and file. I’m the one that has to be the adult and end this finally. The unfairness continues.
Ditto!!!
Done4good, your post is a must-read for everyone still married to a foot-dragging, excuse making, cake eating cheater.
I wish now that I hadn’t wasted so much time on those marriage-saving websites. They gave me false hope and kept me in limbo much longer than I should have been. They also enforced the mentality of blame sharing, as if there was anything I could have possibly done different that would have made him not be a liar and a cheat! Never during the two+ years of me “improving myself” so that he would want to come home and be a good spouse did he ever do any work whatsoever to change what he identified himself as his own flaws. The work was solely on my part and in the end, it didn’t matter to him. My improvements did however made me healthier, go back to school and concentrate all my love on my daughter. So there’s that. He even tried to take credit for my improvements and told me, see, you’re better off without me. I responded with “I’m better in spite of your abandonment, not because of it.”
This^^^ Done4Good. Thank you. You just gave me the ultimate answers for what I have been feeling. So succinct yet so powerful. “I’m better in spite of your abandonment, not because of it” YES!
Standing O, Done4Good. An excellent post.
Done4Good, Excellent post. I like your analogy about the talk show host!
Excellent post! There is so much truth to everything you wrote. I think most of has had to deal with this on some level. I was lucky that she did something early on that was like a punch in the gut for me. I might still be doing the dance if she hadn’t slipped up so early. I promptly told the attorney to proceed asap with the divorce. My attorney actually set a court date for my divorce to be heard in order to force her to do it. You sound like you are well on your way to Meh! Yeah, They SUCK!
Done4Good, Excellent post! My Ex always had an excuse for dragging out the divorce. Then I got very sick and the court notified him that the divorce would be on hold until I was well. He and Schmoopie must have been counting the days. As I stood in the doctors exam room waiting for my final checkup my cell phone rings. It was my attorney telling me my Ex wanted to go to mediation to get the divorce finalized. My Ex knew I was against mediation, but I called his bluff and agreed to it. My attorney was superb and my Ex looked as if a Mack truck had hit him as he left that day. His Schmoopie had come to town and was waiting for the “good news” that day, but I’m certain she was less than thrilled to learn he had given me everything and more. Schmoopie had tried mightily during all this time to make sure I would get little or nothing by meddling in every offer I ever sent him. Her handwriting was on every margin and ONLY hers of each and every offer! For me, mediation was the ONLY way to keep Schmoopie from deciding what I would receive after 41 years of marriage! Funny….I don’t remember deciding what she got in her divorce? Nobody asked me! But I loved your post because it shows the mind shift you must get to in order to get through a divorce to a gutless, selfish cheater. It was my final white hot burning hate for his abuse that made me call his bluff and it worked! I finally realized that day in the doctors office just who and what he really was! Get mad and use it to your advantage folks!
“why he didn’t just divorce me like he said he wanted to”
Yes, and I also loved your post. I spun around with this question for LONG LONG time. I was too afraid to admit that the answer was “cake”…I still thought he was better than that and I was wrong.
I dont know what it was that kept him and Schmoopie from going off into the sunset together, but I have guesses. I wish I could know the truth…Im certain that it wasn’t “because I love Unicorn”.
Like you I hoped his hesitancy to put the final ax to the marriage had something to do with loving me but it didnt…after he died, I found an “anger management” excercise he did (mind you he wrote this during his affair) and in it, he wrote “I never loved my wife which made everything harder”. Whether he loved me before or rediscovered his love for me later, I don’t care…he was able to lose it when something sparkily came along and that is all I need to know.
I KNOW my cheater sucks. Before Dday, I was getting suspicious. During one conversation, he told me he was wondering “what else was out there”. He had been emboldened to wonder out loud that day and then on the day I confronted him with evidence of his cheating, he claimed they were just friends and said that I was blowing it out of proportion due to the way I found out about their “friendship”. I also remember him lying to my face to create an alibi for himself so he could see the OW. And the last time we had sex, we did it outside on the way home from a wedding late one night. He wouldn’t go home. I felt cheap and used afterwards. It was surreal. I had wondered, after discovery, if that’s how he and OW had sex. Outdoors. Did he picture himself with HER that night? It wouldn’t surprise me. That was only 2 weeks before I found out the truth and kicked him out.
Now, he drags his feet on his financial responsibilities to me and our son. He took a new job where health insurance isn’t offered leaving our son without insurance. I’m sure that was on purpose. And it happened after open enrollment so I can’t get it even if I could afford it. I am ready to write all about it on my blog and shame the shit out of him. What a complete loser. I can not believe he is the father of my son. He is shallow and selfish and such a sad sausage. So is the OW. She took a boy’s father from him and then pretends to be a sweet lady by making fucking candy for him when he goes to visit. She smartly blocked me from her social media. She felt my wrath on Dday. She does not ever want to see my face. I am an in-your-face stark reminder of what she is, and what she most definitely is not.
I absolutely trust that he sucks.
If you have a “qualifying event” usually you can get on your company’s insurance beyond open enrollment. There is usually a time limit but divorce/separation almost always is considered a qualifying event. You should speak with your human resources representative and find out what your options are.
Yes…in most companies a life event such as this will qualify you to have the chance to amend your benefits choices
Yep Conniered, they always use the “just friends” story. Of course I had to hear that as I was standing in a hotel room at 3:00 am in a whole different city where he and his “friend” were staying! It was special!!! NOT! And the worst part was these two morons thought I would buy that particular brand of mind fuckety! Sheesh! Some people!
Much needed….since yesterday I had to face my STBXH Whore in court yesterday. She filed harrassment charges on me, this hearing has been continued 4 times…and all the while the Whore has been texting me using various apps on her phone. She went so far yesterday as to say I was stalking her “in her flower garden, taking pictures”….Hmmm I planted all those flowers…for 15 years. But I digress.
She had the nerve to say to me that my ex came looking for her because he was so miserable for 18 years…blah blah blah…I said yes…and it makes you a whore, but thank you because I got my freedom, his money and all you got was a child molester.
Yes…he molested our 18 year old daughter.
Suck…yes…and That Whore got on her knees, sucked and swallowed for that creep.
Goodbye…good riddance.
She has to always be thinking…Did he really molest her.. .Did he really fuck his secretary….Did he really…..
Not for me to question anymore.
I should send that Whore a Thank You Bouquet.
Tracy, It’s a special breed of F’ed up whore that files restraining orders against the betrayed spouse. I had one of those as well. I mean really, THEY are the victim?! Such bullshit. I don’t deal with the skank anymore and was devastated to learn that she and my XH (she’s the wife-tress) have moved to the town I live in. Ugh. I will always go out of my way to avoid them.
“I will always go out of my way to avoid them”.
No you do not, m’lady. You own your town remember?
What gall to move the harlot into your town!
Pure and simple entitlement.
You hold your head high and try to run into them any chance you get.
They’ll quit walking the streets.
Don’t confront, I’m not saying that, but put on your Princess Di sweats every day and (hey, get a poodle or something) and walk on by.
I dunno, I was successful in getting a certain idiot girl out of town because I knew far more people than she did and she was weird.
People will look at your X, then look at her, and the Scarlett Letter will be placed.
Find a cool hat and sunglasses as you pass by proudly with your poodle.
I am kidding, but this could be fun…I know small towns.
How fukcing DARE him to trot the donkey out on the street.
No offense to Donkeys!!! Really~
You’re so right She Chump. It’s MY town. F them. I seriously think she went for my XH because she wanted my life. The moved around the corner from where we used to live.
The “trusting they suck” is so very easy for me, it’s the damage and confusion that he’s inflicted on our beautiful son that I can’t ignore or get past.
I’m just thankful that I KNOW what he really is so that once my son IS old enough to start asking WHY I will have the answers and be able to explain.
They are all so much alike. Asswipe and his cheating troll just spent a week in Destin…NO child support check for May….I just told him “you had a nice vacation and that’s all that counts right!?” Such a selfish dick.
I can’t even stand the sight of him anymore.
Thank you for this post. It came at a VERY good time for me. Needed to hear that (even though already know it deep inside).
A very timely piece for me today CL and I will read it a few times more so it really sinks into my thick skull, thank you. I caught up with a girlfriend yesterday and she seriously asked me what I did to cause my ex husband to cheat and take off with a 23 year old. To say I had steam coming out of my nostrils and ears is an understatement. I put her straight about the old chestnut that men are driven to cheat by their wives or partners because their needs were not being met but women are just cheap tramps when they cheat. She apologised to me but it spoiled my day which had started off so well. If this friend so much as makes another comment like that again I will stop associating with her and she is well aware of that. Some people love to kick you when you are down or just like to spoil the day!!
Think of it as “educating” someone.
Maree – omg. That’s the last thing you want to hear from a ‘good friend’.
When I told my brother about it, of course he was devastated for me but he eventually said….
Mantra – well, I heard when a man leaves a woman, she wasn’t giving him enough sex.
Suffice to say I exploded on him and inappropriately told my brother than he withheld sex from me – so there, asshole!
Doubt he’ll repeat that stupid stereotype again, but it is out there.
The husband needed sex cuz his wife wasn’t giving it to him.
The wife needed sex cuz she was just a slut.
Love those stereotypes.
I have been a member of the CL community for over 6 months now, and I LOVE this site. It has helped me so much in my recovery from my husband’s affair and subsequent divorce. My husband was a SAHD, and had what I like to call a “flagrant” affair with the mother of my son’s best friend, who was a SAHM. While her husband and I worked full time, they hung out at the pool with the two families’ kids and complained about how awful their spouses were. Everybody in our small neighborhood saw them all over the place together, and they ultimately humiliated their families with their affair. I am now divorced from my ExH, but the OW decided that she “maybe” wanted to reconcile with her husband. For some reason her husband agreed to try, and the OW and her husband have been in a wreckonciliation since last December . . . while she has continued the affair with my ExH. Her husband is either oblivious, or just doesn’t want to know what’s going on. Last night my son said that the OW had a really hard decision to make, she had to decide whether she wanted to be with the man she loved (apparently my joke of an ExH) and have her kids upset with her, or be with a man she didn’t love (her husband), but not hurt her children. Made me want to puke! To hear this revolting story about her having to make such a gut wrenching decision between her husband and children and my Ex-H, and how their were being denied their twu wuv, because of those pesky kids and husband. I am sooooo thankful every day to be out of that mess, but it put me back a step on my road as I thought of the my Ex and the OW and how their love was the undeniable love for all the ages . . . so this trust that they suck article could not have come at a more perfect time. Even if those two end up together, they deserve each other . . . and the misery that they will bring to each other and every other person they come in contact with 🙂
Send her husband a link to CL! He needs it badly!
Two bums that want to live off of their hard working spouses, all the while trashing them and carrying on an affair. I do hope they end up with one another.
Ohhhh…..what ever will they do when one or both have to actually work!!!?? Sigh.
Then all the fun is over and real life begins for them. Good riddance to the free loaders.
You are truly blessed to be rid of him!!!
Thanks, I agree . . . I feel more and more blessed all the time to be out of that hot mess!!
I think I might be the exception that proves the rule, the spouse who sucks even though she wasn’t the cheater. My first marriage ended not because of cheating, but because he was abusive in other ways. My second marriage was… man. He is still mad at me for making him look like a bad person in front of our friends by “forcing” him to constantly chase other women with such sins as having orgasms too easily (“women of quality” have to force themselves to enjoy sex) and Not Having Inverted Nipples. And being too supportive and undermining his self-esteem by constantly telling him nice, true things about himself so he became “numb” to kindness from his spouse.
And now both my exes are in happy, loving relationships with kids and great families and careers. As far as I can tell, they seem stable, forever homes.
I wish I could believe it was they who sucked, but once you took me out of the equation, they STOPPED sucking.
Sorry to be whiny. I would just like… I dunno. There doesn’t seem to be a logical way out, that involves me ever snuggling another person again, but if anyone can help, it’s CN.
(Or at least cheer me up.)
(“women of quality” have to force themselves to enjoy sex)
What century was he born in?
I wouldn’t put too much stock into what their lives appear to be. After all, for over ten years my STBX and I appeared to be a happy, loving couple in a stable marriage with wonderful kids. Little did everyone else know (including me!) that was a big farce (except the wonderful kids…they are truly wonderful). He had been leading a secret double life of prostitutes, girlfriends, and porn addiction. So no, do not trust the appearance that all is glorious with them. But even aside from that, forget them! You’ve got your own life to make authentically wonderful.
Thank you. That is true. I hope.
Sounds like you put a lot of goodness into that awfulness. I hope it gets returned to you a thousand fold.
I’d take their so called fabulous lives with a grain of salt. I know of many couples that are totally miserable but put on a great front.
Aunt.
You chose not to accept abuse from the first X and didn’t accept the seconds undermining. Sounds about right.
Abuse and cheats are both liars. It’s a fantasy be glad you’re out of that pit . Most people don’t change. It’s too easy to stay the same.
I think your post was timely for a lot of us. I just need to be reminded regularly that he sucks. A few days ago my STBX brought me a birthday cake. Yes, he gave ME cake haha. When he dropped off our daughter for the evening. There were lit candles and singing on the porch and his sweet sad smile. I wanted to smash his face in it. But I didn’t, because my daughter was there… but I keep picturing that. I’m going to eat every last piece though because it’s my favorite cake. Not going to let him keep me from enjoying my cake.
Then on my actual birthday he decides it would be a good time for him to ask me some details about the court process (which of course I’ve explained like 3 times). Ending with a comment about how he hates that the divorce is happening. He “understands why” but he just hates it. Of course he hates it. He has half his stuff.
Fortunately I have a couple of close friends who’ve been through this ride before. They are quick to remind me that he’s full of crap and he’s only doing this to impress our daughter with how good a guy he is. He cycles back and forth between the charm and pity so much since he moved out. He decided the rage wasn’t working for him, but I see hints of it every now and then. He’s so into image management and he’s a quintessential Jesus cheater so it’s hard not get at least rattled by what comes across as sweet and kind sometimes. One of my friends told me last night to remember that EVERYTHING he does is for a purpose — to help himself. It’s never selfless, there’s always an ulterior motive behind it. It helps that every now and then I hear from a friend that has heard him bragging about his ongoing conquests.
It’s still so hard to reconcile who I thought he was with who he actually is. But I’m getting there.
I modified this to ‘Trust that HE sucks’ and it helped immensely when I was in the grip of my physiologic withdrawal symptoms. 10 months later, the ‘he’ is unrecognizable. A betrayer, yes. But as I reflect, his betrayal had to do with him and his values.
I fell for the ruse! When I was in early elementary school we played a game at a birthday party where everyone, upon hearing a certain phrase, was to make a noise (as loud as possible). And I did so. Except everyone else was instructed NOT to do so. I was shy and introverted so felt the flame of the humiliation deeply. Probably far more deeply than was ever intended by the young girls. I recall that afternoon, falling for the ruse, when I hear these stories of betrayal.
That evening I resolved to never knowingly humiliate or betray my friends and classmates. It was the beginning of the establishment of a moral compass based on experience. In my 60s, like LovedaJackass, I am still challenged and have to keep refining. I had to go through gagging self loathing, searing anger, and righteous indignation that occasionally bordered on martyrdom. And I was reminded that all instructions and people are not in our best interests. Some SUCK.
A good reminder for the Jesus cheaters: and those of us who loved a Jesus cheater…
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. .”
To me this says that I know the path that I want to take. I will continue to walk it. Yes, the path is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish – to me that means not only WILL there be selfish people and acts, but you should EXPECT to come across these types of people in your life.
For me, this leads directly into “because there will always be selfish people testing me, I should expect it and there is no justification for me to act in a selfish manner just because someone else treated me poorly.
So, yes. Trust they suck. Trust that they will be around you. Does not give you a reason to be sucky back, but mind your own path.
Thanks, Magneto. I needed this today. I have been “sucky back”, because of the anger over all that he’s done to me and our children. I’m trying to chose a better path to walk. Thanks
My ex is the poster child for this– he married the OW, they play Brady Bunch with her kids and mine, and they moved into a giant, showy house. He’s all about image management and trying to prove that his marriage to the OW is based on true love and isn’t a sham. From the outside, I’m sure it looks like they have everything, and maybe they do… in their narcissistic eyes.
What they don’t have are the things that I care about– a relationship based on mutual trust and decency. They don’t truly love and care for their children, at least not the way that I love and care for my children. They happily destroyed both of their families so that they could be together. Actually, the only reason they’re together is because I refused to stay with my ex, and he needed a soft place to land. He wanted to try and fix things; I wanted out. So, as far as I’m concerned, her “dream man” is what I flat out rejected because he behaved so despicably.
At the end of the day, my ex is a difficult man to live with even without the cheating. Add in the cheating, and he’s definitely not worth it. They can buy 12 giant houses; it doesn’t change who he is. The only “good” thing about him is his family money, and since I’m not a person who thinks that money is more important than character and honesty, there isn’t anything good about him except for the three children he created with me.
My ex’s current life and behavior is nothing more than a facade– he reminds me of that moment in The Wizard of Oz when the Wizard says, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The Great Oz has spoken!” He wants to worl to think that he’s the big, bad powerful Oz, complete with sparkly special effects, but he’s nothing more than that silly little man behind the curtain who tries to fool everyone into thinking he’s someone he isn’t. Well, call me Dorothy. He hasn’t fooled me!
world, not worl!
Beautifully said, MO. Bravo.
To Movingon, the sting of humiliation is awful, but our only real flaw, if you want to call it that, is trusting too much and empathy. We are the type of people who would NEVER even entertain doing these horrendous things to others! I too am in my 60’s and I feel defeated by my so-called flaw often. Constantly flogging myself mentally for not learning this lesson. But if I don’t trust, then I will constantly live in fear that I will be eventually hurt. It’s a double edged sword!
Thanks so much for the reminder to trust that he sucks, along with his family. There is no doubt they all are bottom feeders who thrive on gossip, innuendo and drama. Case in point, for some reason his sister and a cousin find the need to email me photos of him, the cockroach, and other family events. I don’t get it. They wanted me gone, were all too happy to embrace the cockroach and yet they still have the need to show me what a fabulous life they are all living.
I guess there’s nothing exciting in their lives so they’re looking for a reaction from me so they can feed on it like the vultures they are. Not gonna happen, this eagle has flown far, far away…
In one of the last texts I allowed satan…
satan: ‘I couldn’t replace you if I tried Jeep. Do you think you could ever love me like you did again?’
me: ‘satan, shooting me in the face would have been more humane than what you did to me, the way you treated me.’
satan: ‘I would like to come home. I would like to try again.’
me: ‘That is enough now. Goodbye. I am blocking you now. You leave me be.’
…
Yes, I trust that he sucks. i know he is a coward and a liar and as evil as they come…I sometimes pray for the women stupid enough to get involved with him…I know what they are going through at the hands of that abusive, greedy, soul sucking child. He and his kroger ho did me a great favor. Thank you for my freedom and awesome fulfilling life you two! Buhbye!!! 🙂
He didnt even react to you telling him he caused you pain and dove right into what he wants. Keep him blocked and run away like your hair is on fire
Yep JeepTess, and they all eventually want to come home! Just cracks me up. They destroy your trust, your spirit, they are callously cruel and then all of a sudden we are their “real true love”! I call bullshit! They just realize they screwed up their soft place to land!
Yes, getting caught with your mask down, along with the accompanying consequences has a way of letting the harsh light of reality shine on their hidden sparkly fantasies. Poor babies. :-/ so sad.
Like SheChump said, Divine Intervention called game over! Yep. I feel like a power outside of myself influenced events…my sister said it was our mother :). Whatever or whoever, I am so grateful to be free 😀
Thank you unicornomore 🙂 It is hard to see the truth of the matter when we are so close and mired in it. I remember any communication from him gave me hope, whether it be good or bad, it just gave me hope…now…meh 🙂 I haven’t communicated with him in almost a year. June 12th this year it will be a year since I allowed communication. There will be no more for the rest of my life, if I have any say in it.
My daughter in law read his texts when all the hell was going on and she said, ‘Mom…everything he is saying is all about him…he never says I’m sorry, please forgive me, nothing like that…just me, me, me… He made his bed, leave him lay in it.’
I’m now over a year divorced and a little over a year in my new home, getting acclimated to my new, awesome abuse free life and my daughter in law came to see me and she said, ‘Mom, I saw dad…he is the most miserable human being I have ever seen. I don’t feel sorry for him. I think all the horrible things he did to you sit with him day and night and he gets no peace.’
…wow…
…but I can’t even feel sorry for him, or anything really, anymore. It’s like SheChump said, ‘I’m just realizing the world is my oyster.’ 🙂 Yep! That’s what I feel now!
Cheater #1 – – 32 years ago: Same cheater, new victims along the way and currently
Cheater #2 – – 20 years ago: Same cheater, new victim along the way and currently
Cheater #3 – – 2 years ago: Same cheater, new victim currently
T*R*U*S*T. T*H*A*T. T*H*E*Y S*U*C*K
It’s a lifestyle.
But, I’ve got a brand new pair of rollerskates… : )
My ex prances around all happy happy happy. Not a care in the world. It gets to me. It makes me think that I wasn’t good enough. That I was replaceable – and completely upgraded to boot! That all of those years meant nothing to him. It’s easy to forget that he sucks when he has trained me to believe that any suckage on his part was due to some way bigger suckage on mine.
Well fuck that. He does suck and always has. I hope he and his whore marry and have children (asshole will never get to retire if that happens, haha). And one day I’ll actually be happy while he is still trying to sell his knock off version of it.
Thank you CL and all the chumps for reminding me that cheaters totally suck. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
“It makes me think that I wasn’t good enough. That I was replaceable – and completely upgraded to boot! That all of those years meant nothing to him. It’s easy to forget that he sucks when he has trained me to believe that any suckage on his part was due to some way bigger suckage on mine.”
I could have written this too!
I broke NC and answered a call from STBX for the first time in weeks. Within minutes he was right back to blaming me for “never accepting him as a person,” “yelling at him that he didn’t make enough money” (total lie!) Ever since the call I’ve been worried that maybe I was the problem….. Ugh, NO!!!!!
Mother Chumper 99, a lying cheating fellow whore can never be an upgrade. Even if they were “better” before they started fucking a married person, they no longer can be. Automatic downgrade to the lowest of the low. It’s the worst “non criminal” thing you can do.
#3 and #4 are speaking to me soo much right now.
I came across the archived FB message folder and saw quite a few messages that I forgot I had received. I was shocked to see a message from my ex, (I had blocked him and him me) that I thought had been deleted 4 years ago. Seeing that I was no longer blocked and realizing that I wasn’t in a full-blown panic attack, I decided to test my resolve and see if I could handle seeing him and how he had been doing since leaving me for the chick that he cheated on me with back in ’10.
I experienced a plethora of feelings, I laughed, smiled, was angry, felt guilt, betrayal and I cried. He looked very, very, happy being with her. I was able to confirm the day they met 04/10 and the day they got together 12/10, by her “life event” posts. All confirmation that he had been cheating on me, and it turned it was longer than I even knew. We were still engaged through Nov ’10. I have texts & emails from 12/10-03/12 where we trying to work things out and get back together. I even have texts where he flat out apologizes for his actions and asks me to get back with him.
Even though I know he’s happy and has the (instant) family he has always wanted, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him as he’s raising her 3 kids and a granddaughter, he’s only 35 & with a woman who is in her mid 40’s and I can’t help but feel took advantage of his generosity with his money, his insecurity, and the knowledge that he won’t leave her. I also noticed that her FB page has barely any photos of them together and the two main profile pics are not of them, but of other people and I didn’t see in the timeline that she had ever had a pic of them posted. On his page however, it is wall to wall pics of them together, with her kids, and hanging out with his family and friends.
It is what it is. He has made his bed, and has to lay in it.
I’m proud of myself for not getting emotionally destroyed and being able to process what I was seeing and learning relatively normally.
A year ago I had a full meltdown after just seeing his name in my google contact list. I’m talking screaming, crying, shaking, panic attacks, and utter hopelessness.
His health has gone downhill since I had last saw in ’12, he gained over 100 pounds and looks to have gone up and down till now. He doesn’t appear to be working out anymore and unfortunately looks to be around 375-425 pounds currently. He posted that he was hoping to lose weight to be able to put his socks on by himself and sleep without assistance from a C-PAP machine. I just hope someone is looking out for him, because knowing how his friends and family treated him during our 5 year relationship and subsequent engagement. He was a virgin when I met him and was his first ever kiss and girlfriend.
He was nothing but a walking bank to these people, I worked and had my own money so I was able to be on the outside looking in, to how seemingly NO ONE truly cared for him. They only cared about what they could get from him. I tried explaining what I was seeing to him and even gave him a play by play example of what was going to happen when one of his “really good friends” that he has “known forever”, called him after he had been unable to reach them for quite a few days. I told him that I saw that they only came around when they needed money or a favor.
He tried to play it off and how his friends just mess with him like that. I could see how hurt he was after my play-by-play came true. I told him after we left his friends house, who he just lent money to for a BS sob-story about them being totally broke (no food or gas, and couldn’t pay rent), that he/we would not hear from them until they got their financial assistance. Sure enough they didn’t contact him until they paid him back which was a couple weeks later.
What made it worse, was that we drove down their street during that 2 week period and saw them having a BBQ/party with neighbors and friends that he/they knew. Twice. It’s painful to see someone’s heart break like that. What is more painful, is that he made a conscious choice to keep those people around, even after witnessing first hand their total lack of respect for him or the friendship.
When I was early in this mind fuck, I did the same as you. For the life of me, I could not get my head around what he did to me. We had what I thought was a great marriage. I really had no clue.
But I had to train myself to see the truth, that I’d been married to a man who was cheating on me for at least a year and lied to me like a champion the entire time. I had a journal and used to write out all the fucked up shit he did once I found out what he really was. Later, I found out more of what he really was, and it was like I had been married to a mirage.
You’ll get there. Focus on what they ARE, not what you thought they were. It gets easier once you accept that. I’m saying this to you as a person firmly residing in the Land of Meh.
Oops . . . this was meant for Marked711.
I found it. 🙂 Thank you. I know that I truly loved who I thought she was. I gave her real love. Like you I’m concluding she was only a mirage. It’s still hurts so much some times.
This article (trust that they suck) reminds me of CL’s post some time ago that I found very helpful: the fear that they will be better for someone else. Seems like a lot of Chumps are getting the show-off-y “see, I can be a good person and have a fabulous life, just not for/with the Chump. So, that’s evidence that my behavior and my crappy life before the AP were all the Chump’s fault! See how sparkly things are now!”
yes. They want to show their “winning”. My new husband was dumped by a wife who decided to find greener pastures. She wanted more money and prestige than she thought he could give (which is odd because he had reasonable portions of both).
Anyhoo…those green pastures were harder to find than she expected and years later she married a guy who seems like a nice fellow but had less prestige and money than her X. I think she coped with this blunder by telling herself that her x was worthless as evidenced by him being forever single after the divorce. Kicker was, he wasnt worthless, he was just picky…waited 12 yrs for someone as fabulous as me.
They had been d for YEARS before we became a thing but she has reacted in white hot fury ever since. We went to Europe for our honeymoon, they borrowed his brothers cabin (nothing wrong with that unless you are a selfish narc who hates to lose).
Unicornomore I love your happy ending, and you are indeed fabulous!! I love the thought of (and the luxury) of being picky because the end result is glorious… and deserved!!!
I mourned the man I thought I knew. I just didn’t understand how a loving husband/father could change 180 degrees seemingly overnight and then become all cold and businesslike as if I didn’t mean anything to him.
Well, then I wrote down all the bad things he’d ever done to me… and it became clear that he wasn’t as perfect as I always thought. I re-read this list often to remind myself of his real character. My new mantra: “do not mourn who you thought he was or who you hope he could become”. He is simply not the man I thought he was. Very hard to realize. But yes, he sucks and I deserve better.
I’m 10 months out. This morning I decided to make a list in my journal about all the things I did not miss about STBX, and that took awhile. Then I decided to make a list of what I did miss, and drew a blank. Trusting that he sucks for the shitty way he ended our marriage, and going no contact, has helped move me closer to meh. Thanks Tracy and Chump Nation.
I needed this today – thanks!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3622265/Embarrassing-Bodies-surgeon-accused-punching-threatening-kill-daughter-row-white-whore-lover-sobs-cleared-attacking-her.html#comments-3622265
Sad sausage much.
I needed this too, because I keep having to do the self-talk to stop me going back and ‘trying to support’ the Sinister Minister.
Even if he turns into Mother Teresa in the future, it will be because of my prayers, not because of my ‘support’. He’s trampled all over my ‘support’ up to now; I have no reason to think he will suddenly turn into the lovely man I thought
And anyway, he still did it. He still sucks.
AND I DON’T.
When you have given your all for the one that you love…the ‘love of your life’…and it mattered not…
When you have cast aside all that you dreamed would be…all your dreams…
…for theirs…
…and even then they were never happy…
When all you cared about or hoped to achieve, earn, learn, see, feel, touch, taste, experience…
…and were told…’that is simply stupid’, ‘you can’t do that’, ‘that isn’t possible’, ‘we can’t afford that!’, ‘we don’t have time!’
When your life has narrowed to the point that all that is ‘possible’ is what is ‘allowed’…
…spend hours / days / weeks / months / years…of your life…waiting…just waiting for the next crumb of love…compassion…care…reciprocity…respect…
(ok…I’m crying now…for me though…not satan…)
…you do not have to give anymore…you are free to walk out the door.
There is still one that will cherish all that you are…
…they were there all along…
…just waiting for you to remember…
…it is yourself…
Love yourself.
Tempest…
I’m crying too. This is beautiful.
I’m sorry Annie…I didn’t mean to make you cry…I…geeze we are soooo lucky to be free from the no win situations we have lived in for so, so long! 🙂
Love yourselves Chumps 🙂
Yes, this is beautiful and how I currently feel too, Jeep!
You and I must have hit meh at about the same time.
I could leap onto a cloud – I’m that happy to be living alone and, truthfully, I am finally thanking a Higher Power for this ‘opportunity’ I was served up on a silver platter.
What could be better?
I have my dogs (which he abandoned – like kids – who does that shit!?)
I have my own little house on the beach I remodeled.
I gave away everything of value I owned to charities (too much clutter), including a Steinway piano. That was the best since it reminded me of him.
I have practically no furniture because I want room for the big dogs and I’m fine serving people on bar stools.
Did too much entertaining in the old big house and I’m DONE. No dining room table or couch, for example.
(just need a Lava Lamp now and some scarves to throw over the lamps – lol)
And, like you, I looked at the Con list vs the Pro list about staying with X.
And there was not ONE Pro on it!
It is so nice to be released and free of bonds.
But, after this many years, it’s taken me awhile to figure out how much freedom I suddenly have.
He was very controlling of my time and I spent far too much time under his thumb.
Can’t wrap my brain around the fact the world is my oyster right now.
Cheers to you, JeepTess!
🙂 Cheers to you too SheChump!
Meet you on that ‘meh’ cloud over there in the sun!!!!
Dance on girl!!!! 🙂
@JeepTess, now I’m crying too. I always enjoy reading your mighty comments.
Ian 🙂
We are so lucky to have gotten away from them.
I hope you are doing well.
OMG. Now I’m crying. This brought instant years to my eyes. Yes, the waiting. Oh how it hurt. Thank you, I was not alone.
Marked 🙂
I keep walkin around in my new stress free life and pinching myself 🙂 It is just so amazing here, so peaceful and serene and filled with breathtaking moments of the simple joys of life. …even when ‘storms’ suddenly spring up, there is no negativity spreading doom and gloom, there is only possibilities 🙂
No, we are never alone 🙂 And once we realize how harshly we are treated, despite all that we give and give and give some more, we are free to walk out the door and never look back. Sometimes I wonder if satan ever realizes his cruelty and abuse was the key to my freedom from his cruelty and abuse 🙂 …not my circus anymore 🙂
The sun is shining here 🙂 Wanna go hike in the woods with Beau and I? Its a perfect day for a hike and a picnic! I got the kites!!!! 🙂
“All that entitlement, all those crappy life skills — they’re still there. It’s a package deal.”
This!
It’s early or late and I’m busy preparing myself for the arrival of friends. I try and keep my comments to a minimum but this topic has stayed with me throughout the day. Yes they do suck.
I began keeping a journal because quite frankly I thought I was losing my mind. He lied, he hid things, he was cruel, he wasn’t there when needed him.. he was a a straight up bitch! The journal gave me some sense of reference. I started to track his lies and counter with the exact time and words of his lies. I also started to notice a pattern in his behavior and quite frankly mine as well. I honestly thought the guy had an emotional problem. No, he was just a plain old cheat.
I have videos of this guy in all of his arrogant glory. The smirks, the frowns, and the just plain old not giving a shit. Did I say he was a bitch? I was walking on egg shells, stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure. Well an emotional problem can be treated, but being a cheat is a decision. Once I knew the cause of his behavior, I finally left.
I’m happier to be free of this man and his issues. Cheaters do reap what they have sown and he is no exception. The easiness in which women give themselves have cheapened the trophies of his sexual conquest as he realizes he didn’t talk anyone out of their panties. In fact these hoes knew they were going to sleep around before they met with him while getting dressed. The game was how can they separate him from his money. And used he was. Sex for him has lost its excitement and those little blue pills come with side effects…. As well as being less effective with time. He paid a lot of money to get laid, when most are giving it away free.
Were these women beautiful, attractive, intelligent….NO! It was all about him and his ego. They had to be less so that he could be more. Eventually he was burned real good by a homely little troll, that he desperately wants to hide.
It’s cold out there for a played out playa.
And no, I do not wish him any harm nor do I long for him. I’ve come to accept he wasn’t the person I believed him to be. I’m grateful for getting out and b being able to live life.
Thank you for the reminder. Another reminder helped me a lot yesterday: that life is about challenge and growth. Since that my beloved partner has shot our relationship in the head, I have been questioning my life decisions, the fact that I got more education, that I changed places several times, put myself through so much hurdles and pain, while some people of my youth chose comfort, have big houses and stable marriages in the villages where they were born. Were they right all along ? With Ex, my world has shrunk until I couldn’t move. Time with him ended after 10 years but I wanted more because of comfort, I couldn’t let go. Life is a journey. Nothing is permanent. He became toxic after he had done his part, just like an actor shows his true cold self after he exits the stage. Comfort is often living the same thing day after day, reading the same page of the book over and over. I will let that sink in, hoping to recover.
So, afte the D forced the sale of m big lovely home, I just bought a liitle townhome. In the same month,my cheater ex got married and bought another big house. (Wife #2 is not an OW – nothing against her, just pity). This after bitching for years how he just wanted a beach condo, was tired of the big mortgage upkeep, yard work, etc. It was a point of contention in the marriage. Several counseling sessions, that was in his top five gripes-how I’d pressured him to buy the dream house.
At first the news stung a bit. Then I realized it’s all just part of his spackle for the new chick & his new image. Rest assured she has no clue what lies beneath. Poor thing.
This is a lesson that I have put together, and the kernel of it was “Trust That Thy Suck.” It was so hard for me to grasp that the Cheater is my life was capable of the horrible things he did. I could not believe it. My mind was frantically searching for a loophole. How could someone help me trim dingleberries off a stray dog’s bottom, and sext with a meth whore? How could someone care about my sexual pleasure so intensely and want to put his dick in another woman? I could not accept it.
I then had a “moment” of clarity (spurred by logging into this website). I do not have TV services, but watch TV when I visit my mother. (to keep sane). She had these programs on: Dateline and 48 Hours Hard Evidence. Not having TV for years, I was shocked to see program after program of husbands and wives murdering each other. Smiling over the mac n cheese at the table and plotting to beat their skulls into mash. Fixing their “beloved” a cup of tea, and dumping rat poison in the cup.
I got it: People are capable of EVIL. Real evil. The kind that dwells in Mordor, and the kind that plots to take someone’s life so they can fuck someone else.
TRUST THAT THEY SUCK. They suck.
I described it this way to my cheater: We had a beautiful pristine mansion, and you took a big shit in the middle of the kitchen floor. Gross, but true. It can never be fixed.
And that people can plot and scheme worse than cheating….to take your life so they can cheat or can avoid spousal or child support?
It is not a matter of being naive. It is matter of truly grasping that people can be critters….vile beasts that want to hurt us and do not give a damn if we are wailing in pain.
I know this now. It would have been better if life had spared me this. But I know now.
Sabine – “It is not a matter of being naive. It is matter of truly grasping that people can be critters….vile beasts that want to hurt us and do not give a damn if we are wailing in pain.
I know this now. It would have been better if life had spared me this. But I know now.”
I’ve been sort of an addict for true crime books and crime shows my whole life.
I liked the forensics of it.
But, when it started happening to me, I KNEW I was in danger – big danger.
Everybody should see how and why these murders happen – they are ALWAYS over a love affair.
I was married to the nicest man on the planet – at least I thought so for 35 yrs.
When he wanted out for his tru-whore, and I was in the way, I saw ALL the signs and yes, he started getting violent with me for the first time and started buying guns for some reason. We had big guard dogs and I just couldn’t figure out what he was up to.
I truly felt afraid for my life when he grabbed me one day (he’s an ex-wrestler and big) from behind and physically threw me out of our office because he didn’t want me to have our family checkbook. I didn’t have a clue what was going on but it was awful. He had never treated me physically before. He was a gentle man but became extremely scary in both actions and hygiene and looks. Like he turned into the devil the longer I was around him. I could have had him arrested for that assault when he threw me onto the floor, but not before my legs knocked everything off his desk, including computers.
Annd….when I left him in the house alone for one hour – he stole everything (gold, my gun and a bunch of cash) from the house and scooted away like the Wicked Witch riding her bicycle in the Wizard of Oz (oh, he had a sign outside his office saying – nobody gets in to see the Wizard. Yah, classic projection.
I could have had him arrested for stealing – I mean, that’s how desperate this ‘normal’ man became. I was in extreme disbelief.
Since his attorney totally disapproved of this, that’s when I got the locks changed but I had many nightmares and still watch the crime-shows.
Nobody should trust anybody during this phase of anger of splitting up! Please.
SheChump, I didn’t realize you were married to satan’s clone…I am so sorry you went through that.
I think that was the hardest part of the whole ordeal for me…when satan started the physical abuse. The meowing had went on for months and months…I was totally gob-smacked by that alone. One night he started growling instead of meowing and grabbed ahold of my left little finger breaking it at the first joint…I almost peed my pants and passed out it hurt so bad…the abuse escalated from then on…till I called 911 and he was taken from the home. I am sure he would have killed me had I not stood up for myself.
…you know…he tells everybody that my lawyer told me to accuse him of domestic violence and that he never touched me. ??? For the life of me I can’t figure out how he lives with himself and his lies…but, I no longer dwell on him and his mess. I have better things to do with my time.
I am grateful we all got out and away from the nightmares we were living with.
Hi SheChump and JeepTess,
I have girlfriends who smugly believe domestic violence cannot happen to them. It can. I completely know that wild adrenaline panic…the first time you start scouring your house for weapons to protect yourself from the monster you loved.
I think what shocked me the most (again the naivety) was the person who CHEATED was being VIOLENT WITH ME….??? Shouldn’t we be the ones being violent? The moment my righteous indignation would flare up…he responded with threats, violence, or the silent treatment, or cheating.I never imagined that someone would betray me so catastrophically and THEN ALSO THREATEN ME??? And hurt me? And take revenge on me for being angry?
As a little girl, or young woman, no one warned us about these real life monsters. I know this could be considered a luxury problem (dodging bullets in Aleppo, Eating Tree Bark in North Korea) but our limbic system, our brains, only know real fear and real danger and real betrayal.
When my meth addict cheater had a brick paver stone raised over his head to brain me, it was as bad as it gets. The only small (minuscule) lining in that shit cloud was that the stray dog I took in that no one wanted (no one wants a black, elderly chow who acts sketchy) took a piece of meat out of his calf. She came from behind the couch and startled him out of his rage. (Don’t worry, she is relaxing on her Sealy orthopedic bed with my other three dogs, after having chicken, rice and carrots after their woods adventure walk…she will have a home until my last breath).
What lesson do we take from these nightmares? I have been thinking a lot about it. I do not want for any of us (what a wonderful group of people!) for our analysis to become paralysis. This life is so brief. Sometimes I can’t get my reply button to work, and I wanted to thank you both for responding to something I wrote, and I referenced this point that resonates with me: They are not pacing the floor and hand wringing.
They are living life (as fake and shitty as their lives are). As a wise woman told me, real love is calm and sane. That is what we have to find and DESERVE!!! I was a nun for this guy, and spoon fed him salted caramel milkshakes in bed after a meth binge (co dependency anyone?)
So what is the best take away from what happened to you and to me and our tangles with these critters?
The lesson could be to never underestimate how low a disordered , Cluster B, possible sociopath but definite narcissistic will take you. The first time my cheater allowed another woman to answer his phone and scream at me (why didn’t I hang up?) I was in shock. I did not believe it could get any worse, but it did. It kept getting worse and worse until I could not think clearly, and I became physically ill.
So, the moment someone physically or verbally pistol whips us, we have to understand that this is the first taste of who they are, and this is how it will be. There is no floor to how low they would take us. “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them”.
There is no second chance, or working it out, or seeing how it plays out, or hanging around for the potential (codependent behavior).
They will take us as low as we will let them. I was reading a post from Emma on the No Contact Outtakes and she talked about giving her cheater a blow job and the other woman watched. I was not sure if that meant the freak OW was spying or watching to get off…but that her ex would allow her to do that….vile, abusive, putrid maggot. My heart went out to her…she never believed she would be taken so low.
They will take us down into Dante’s Circles of Hell and there will be no empathy, no compassion and no kindness for us.
Your last line: I am grateful we are out of the nightmares…YES! I am on 15 days of no contact after probably 30 attempts. And it was not the drug use that finally made me see it: It was the cheating that finally made me see. Sexual betrayal rips your guts out and leaves you on the floor.
Leave a cheater, gain a life. I actually say that to myself out loud.
Sabine – you said it perfectly – ‘They will take us down into Dante’s Circles of Hell and there will be no empathy, no compassion and no kindness for us.”
My husband was a religious man (not over-so) and I am not quite so much so I haven’t read all of the Bible. But, I sure never thought I’d find myself in Dante’s Circles of Hell – like, overnight. A switch just changed overnight. And the aftermath was definitely Hell on Earth. Now I believe. Heaven and Hell.
I also believe we don’t get out of life so easily.
I think I was living in a bubble for a long time. Had no issues, kept healthy, fine marriage, good work, great friends and family and I really never experienced anything so awful like a Tornado. Sure, the usual deaths, suicides, etc, but not truly emotional tragedies that come from discovering an affair. (especially when they lie about it and you have proof) Spare me.
So, I think I have much much more compassion about people today than I did before d-day, and for that, I think my higher power wanted it for me. When I see somebody crying wildly on the phone now, I will go up to them and give them a hug – because I know what they’ve been through. A woman did that to me in a grocery store one day when I was falling apart. She knew.
That is my new job now, to feel much more compassion for other people.
I think it’s a much better life and a great lesson learned.
Now, HE, otoh, will never get that and never have any ‘real’ friends.
He’s too phoney but it takes ppl along time to realize that.
Who knows and who cares where he winds up.
Sabine – “When my meth addict cheater had a brick paver stone raised over his head to brain me, it was as bad as it gets.”
That is bad. Brick is bad enough.
Add drugs to a weapon, and you’re a dead woman.
I think you dodged a HUGE fucking bullet there.
But, their anger can happen so quickly. Drugged or not.
We had a huge – almost physical fight over the temp in the house.
It was freezing cold and he wouldn’t let me turn it up. (yep, this was our ‘mansion’ and we could well afford heat)
Nor would he let me turn on any lights at night.
And, I like heat and lights at night.
(this is part of his cruel behavior I couldn’t figure out)
So, we actually got into an ‘elbowing’ fight at the thermostat.
I’d turn it up.
He’d get up and turn it down.
Lasted 6 times and then, that’s the first time it got into ever actually elbowing each other in the ear. (oops, that was me)
I finally gave up and went to bed.
But, that’s when the physical shit started and I’ve never elbowed anybody in my life.
Him taking all the guns (have no idea why he had them) out of the house, including the one I bought for myself he wanted for ‘my protection’, he stole.
He followed that up with an email that said – “I have all the guns and the knowledge to use them”.
Boy, that got him in big trouble as I immediately sent it to lawyers (his was appalled) and he had a CWP that almost got revoked because everybody, like I did, interpreted that as a threat.
It didn’t help him in the settlement because when I filed, I wrote all this down and he never disputed it.
Gonna take a long time for him to rebuild his reputation.
Mine is intact. !
Hey Sabina – huge congratulations for your Chow saving the day – and one you rescued. He will always be your Heart Dog!
SheChump,
Is he out of your life forever now? Meaning…can he access you? He is scary, just like the Cheating Meth Maggot.
Yes, I could have been killed on numerous occasions: choking, shoving, talking about guns.
It was like I was in a fog. People would express outrage, fear, horror for me…and all I could focus on was the infidelities. There was something (is something) deeply wrong with me.
When your Cockroach was physically abusing you, did that seem secondary to his stomping on your heart?
Or, does it show how life breaking cheating is? I read this site a long time before I posted, and I have read so many times about D Day. On my D Day, I sank to my knees. When I would put a bite of food in my mouth (no exaggeration) I would be running to the bathroom within 10 minutes. When he would not call, my mouth would go dry and I would become obsessed with him calling. OBSESSED.
Now, I do see what a big bullet I dodged. I see it now. I think it was just sheer luck…I did not deserve to be spared but I was. I was “in love”.
WHAT AN OBSCENE JOKE THEY MAKE OF “LOVE.”
Here’s to being alone and SAFE!!!
Yes, thankfully, he’s completely out of my life and has moved away, so no longer anything to fear there. But, he had me good and scared after he threw me on the floor. So scared in fact, and get this for chumminess…I went downstairs and made him a sandwich. WTF was I thinking? I guess I was in shock or something because he’d never been violent before. I’d never been a victim of DV before and maybe this is how victims react? No clue. But, after he stole my gun, and I remembered his latest rifle purchase and he said to me – I have all the guns and the knowledge to use them….well that not only freaked out our lawyers but me too and was able to change the locks. However, the entire time the divorce was underway and he had to be in town a lot, I was scared all the time because he had that concealed weapon. Thankfully, he’s somebody else’s horror show now.
I’m so sorry you went threw that horrific abuse by your X. I truly feel I can related to abuse victims now, not including just emotional and verbal abuse.
And, yes, it almost felt as bad as d-day but the tensions were mounting while living together for those 4 months before I kicked him out, and I could feel it escalating. And, like you, I thought I was still madly in love with him.
You are so right – they just rip out your heart and stomp on it with whatever means they have.
I was down in the gutter before that happened and he made it so much worse than I already felt.
I hope you are free of your Maggot Meth Head!
Your rescued Chow and my rescued Chocolate Lab, Beau – aka ‘Monster Killer’ were sent to us for a reason! To SAVE US 😀 Beau nearly relieved satan of his scrotum one night when satan decided breaking my back would make me forget the secret cell phone he forgot he had in his hand. So, YES! Beau will also have a forever home with me as long as I live 😀
That’s awesome about your rescue dog, Jeep. My best dogs have been rescue dogs – smart, because they’ve had a long life.
And, I have a very protective huge great dane and, the problem is, he knows the X, so I totally wouldn’t let him have contact with any of the 4 dogs and he happily gave me all of them, without complaint, during the divorce. Didn’t even offer to pay for any vet, boarding bills, he was so nice.
But, now, he’s been gone long enough, I’m sure if he showed up at my door and alerted my big guy there is danger looming, he wouldn’t recognize X….or would he and wag his tail? Anyway, that ain’t gonna happen. Ever.
I’m not sure why he knows my address but I don’t know his.
P.O. box only.
What a drifter…
Hang on a minute here, Jeep.
“Beau nearly relieved satan of his scrotum one night when satan decided breaking my back would make me forget the secret cell phone he forgot he had in his hand.”
He broke your back????????
Oh no SheChump! satan WOULD HAVE broken my back had it not been for Beau! I am BLESSED with Beau!
OMG – you gotta totally feed that dog once a week with steak!
He prevented him from breaking your back. THAT is awesome.
I had predators come around me when X left me with this ‘mansion ghost of a house”.
They came out like rats, I swear to God – because I needed so much work to maintain the house.
One fellow was so obvious my dog almost took his face off.
I fired him. He was very scary and texted me at night when I asked him about his workload the next morning…..and he said, omg – I’m watching the most awesome porn right now and jerking off….wish you were here.
I sent it to his wife and that was the end of that!
Creeps out there taking advantage of the emotions of a newly-abandoned spouse.
Just won’t put up with that shit and my dog makes sure of it!
Oh you betcha!!! He is one of the MOST spoiled canines on the planet!!!! 🙂 He flippin DESERVES it!
THIS is why us (forever single?) gals need a good protective dog.
I don’t do guns.
I do good dogs that love and protect me.
Unlike the X.
Believe me, nobody bothers me with my dogs and that’s the way I like it.
Signed….forever single and only with guard dogs. 🙂
I am forever single too i have guns for target shooting only i enjoy the challenge i also live by myself with three protective dogs but way out in the boonies with a 45 min response for help and noone can hear me scream. Got crossbow lessons on my bucket list. Once i can move to a regular neighborhood guns will go in a gun safe. As i said target and skeet only. And dogs truly are a girls best friend.
SheChump this boy, Beau, he has rescued birds, kittens, a flippin SNAPPING TURTLE baby (no bigger than a silver dollar) … he brings them to me!!! Oh…and he EATS spiders!!! YA!!! PLUS he is just a lover 🙂 He just loves to walk with me and ride with me and he just loves people…except for satan 🙂
Jeep – he sounds awesome. We need a dog-channel here. I could talk about dogs all night.
SheChump 🙂 I love animals and appreciate them more than most people 🙂 Animals have more compassion and care than most people. I appreciate that he loves and cares for me 🙂
If you want some inspiration…
I just rescued a 175# Great Dane (Big and Black) to give to an 88 yr old woman who has shown danes all her life.
She never had a rescue before. Only purebreds.
Very poor widow living only on social security that I’ve taken under my wing.
So, I got Fences for Fido ( a great group and growing) to build her a fence so she could have another dog that she wanted so bad.
You’re talking a very lonely woman without resources.
Well, this dog came in a skeleton in rescue at 100#’s.
She has now gotten him up to 175#’s (37′ high) and easily controls him on the leash and has taught him a lot.
He became a Greeter at the exit door of Cotsco yesterday as we were loading dog food.
She is 88 yrs old and 90#’s and she has complete control over this dog.
You wouldn’t believe the criticism I got from the community for making this adoption happen.
(how DARE anybody to challenge me – I’ve been doing this for rescue work for 25 yrs!)
Well, I’ll tell you (just like my experience with open-adoption with a nice of mine with a human) it was a total success.
This stuff really makes me happy. And, I loved that movie, Happy, for what it’s worth.
Yes! SheChump we are so Blessed with our awesome dogs!!!!
NO ONE CAN SNEAK UP ON A WOMAN WITH DOGS.
Our loyal, faithful companions!!! Alert even when we are sleeping!
I sleep better just knowing that Beau is on guard 😀
Yep, this is what i have to keep reminding myself regarding my exes — BOTH of them. Both ofnthem kying, cheating pieces of shit.
MollyAlabama – I’d much prefer to be single, thank you very much.
It’s very ‘meh’! 🙂
I haven’t commented in a while because I’ve “left my cheater and have gotten a life.” But I had a setback last week with a very, very sick cat. I’ve been no contact with the X since November but emailed him to tell him about the cat – the one who’d been his pet for eight years – and to ask for help covering some of his medical bills.
My kitty – who has been by my side through everything, curled up on my lap as I cried after leaving the cheater, greeting me in my lonely new apartment when I came home from work, etc. – is in kidney failure and has already been in hospital a week. It’s dire, tragic, and becoming frighteningly expensive.
If I ever needed a reminder about the piece of shit that is my X, it was when he ignored my email then literally went to a huge party that same night and posted the photos all over social media.
I wish him well in his empty life where he doesn’t understand the meaning of love or obligation or compassion. We adopted this cat together from a shelter when he was just six weeks old. Now in terrible shape, the X doesn’t even inquire about his condition in the days since I sent the email plea.
This is a metaphor for his life – dancing through it, untouchable, and turning a deaf ear to the suffering around him. He’s been fighting me in court already for seven months to not provide even the support owed to me. He hasn’t even gotten around to sending his disclosure to my lawyer. This man makes triple my salary and can’t send a few bucks to save his cat’s life.
I’m glad I’m free of the vast emptiness inside the beautiful, successful shell that is this broken man. I will fight for my cat’s life, bearing the thousands of dollars in cost, because that’s what we do for ones we love. He’s not just a cat – he is my closest relationship since I left the cheater. Without him and his brother, I would have had no one. I owe it to him because that’s the meaning of love and responsibility.
Emilylonging,
I am so sorry for the additional heartache you are going through. I think that our pets know our emotional trauma and they know who will be there with them forever. They provide so much more care for us with their companionship then we humans can ever possibly give them back in return. Big hugs go out to you.
Asswipe wanted to take the dog which was his dog. Considering how much attention he gave said dog was nothing. Forward to new whore and her dogs always out playing with them throwing the ball etc. His dog very little attention. Since he left the dog his dog has attached himself to me like glue. Runs away mostly from asswipe hes angry and yells alot. When i move he wants me to give him his dog back. Over my dead body!