“I love you but I’m not in love with you” is classic cheater-speak.
Chumps misunderstand this statement as a definitive goodbye, I’m leaving for my fuck buddy, when I really think it’s more subtle — it’s cake and impression management.
Lyn asked:
I was just curious about your opinion on using “I love you, but I’m not in love with you,” to end a relationship. I have no doubt my ex felt some sadness over “falling out of love with me.”
Sometimes I wonder if he understood how allowing himself to get involved with his married coworker sucked the life out of our marriage? I felt the distance in our relationship, it seemed like something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Whenever I brought up my concern about their relationship he adamantly denied anything was going on.
On D-day he told me “I have so much more in common with her. All we ever had in common was the kids.” The last thing he said before walking out the door was “When I look into my future, you’re not in it.”
In Lyn’s scenario, the cheater leaves. But not before a long period of cake eating. As Lyn points out, their marriage might’ve stood a chance if her husband hadn’t directed his energies to his co-worker. But to a cheater, they see a different, justifiable reason — “I’m not in love with you.” So I can cast about and love someone else.
So, which came first? The falling out of love, or the permission they gave themselves to cast about?
We all know grown up love means not feeling “in love” all the livelong day. There’s no butterflies when you’re doing taxes, or visiting the in-laws, or cleaning up after a kid’s stomach flu. I love you but I’m not in love with you is simply impression management. Translated it means – “I did unloving things, but telling you ‘I love you’ makes me feel better about them.”
It has nothing to do with you, chumps. This is about maintaining the cheater’s self image. And it softens the blow — hey, you wouldn’t impose consequences on someone who loves you, would you? They think they’re letting you down gently.
Cheater love is a compartmentalized kind of love — “I love you, but I put that aside while I was fucking someone else.” The two things aren’t at all connected! Why should “love” get in the way of a good time?
Chumps naively assume that people who love us act like they love us. Cheaters subvert that assumption and turn it back on chumps. “But I’m not in love with you” is a subtle blameshift. I don’t feel giddy and effervescent. I need sparkles. Alas, if you had only twinkled brighter, perhaps it would not have come to this.
It’s so disappointing the way you’ve let them down. What can you do to make it up to them?
“I love you, but I’m not in love with you” is your cue to perform the pick me dance (sung to the tune of “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.”) They may be dumping you anyway, but some parting kibbles would be nice.
Cheaters take credit for loving you (they’re so noble) — but they’re unburdened by their commitments because King’s X! they’re not in love with you.
Chumps, don’t try to parse with your cheater which parts of you they love or what their butterflies are saying to them today – state what you need.
“I need to be in a relationship where I am fully loved and respected. You don’t love me the way I deserve to be loved. Buh-BYE.”
Don’t ask yourself what you did to be so unlovable. Don’t dance the pick me dance. Just let ’em go. I’m sure their butterflies will be migrating again soon.
This column ran previously.
I got ‘I love and respect you as the mother of my children’ Yeah, you had a lot of respect for me when you were fucking your whore, in my bed, whilst I was at work pregnant and our son was sleeping in the next room. I could write a book of the bull crap that I’ve heard!
Ew gross. I’m sorry you got treated like that mrsmeh ?
Mrs.Meh2016… I got the same thing, “I love and respect you as the mother of my children” followed by “I just don’t love you as a wife.” So awful!
I’m new posting here. I’m only 2 months out from DDay but I’ve been reading here all along. We are in MC but I don’t know if I can stand it. We’ve been married 8 years. I found out in May he’s been screwing his coworker for a year and a half. I was pregnant with our second child when it started apparently. I caught him when he was away on a “business trip”… I’d had my suspicions for a long time. I threw him out initially (bc he said he LOVED OW)… But miraculously, he decided that although he loved her, he wanted to rebuild our marriage for the children’s sake (this turn around all inside of 3 days).
Everyone loves my husband (he is very sparkly) AND I was his “first”. Friends and family keep telling me to give our marriage a chance, he is just so “inexperienced”.. Like that’s a REASON. He’s doing everything I ask. I’m being the Marriage Police. IDK if I can stand to live with him anymore. Makes me sick.
Hey Katbug. The moment I found out I told him to leave, I was 18 weeks pregnant. My baby is now 5 months and we’re divorced. He didn’t ask for a chance, he likely knew he wouldn’t get one. Keep reading what others have been through, it helped me. I’m now at ‘Meh’ I saw his OW, didn’t care. I’m happier than I have been for years! Ignore the family, I had comments and interventions which I ignored, they leave me alone now.
Thank you Mrs.Meh. I’m so glad I found this site. I spent the first few weeks only reading SI and the like. I was listening to his family say how SORRY he is (sorry he got caught) and reading how I can MAKE MY MARRIAGE STRONGER! It was all so confusing.
CL should be the FIRST thing that comes up on Google when searching for help.
Katbug – so glad you posted but so sorry you’re going through this. In my opinion, you are married to a man who’s emotions are pretty stagnant. They don’t run too deep. He loves her, he loves you, he doesn’t love you, he’s not sure if he loves her . . . what he’s really saying is he loves how she makes him feel so good about himself while you are otherwise engaged with your children. It is all about them.
I have a suggestion. Next time you have a MC session, keep quiet. Let him do the talking. I would bet you’ll be able to hear a pin drop in the room. My X and I went to three MC sessions and he sat there like a stone. These types of people have no access to emotions and displays of emotion scare the hell out of them. They want it to stop.
He may be doing everything you ask so you’ll stop telling him what a prick he is. I just hope he’s not a complete narcissist who will revert back to his old ways when the dust settles. It was horrifying to me when I realized I projected all sorts of human characteristics onto a man who had none. I finally admitted to myself that my X was NEVER invested in me, our child or our marriage. He only invested in himself.
I think when DDay happens, it’s just another heaping helping of attention for the Narc. Now he’s being a “good boy”, has rallied the troops (his family) to talk you out of divorcing him, and has created the excuse that he’s inexperienced and needed to sow some wild oats. You know what? you don’t sow wild oats when you’re married. No excuse for it.
I wish you all the luck in the world and keep close to CL. She’s the voice of reason in this shit storm.
I’m really trying to wrap my head around everything right now. I mean this was a guy that never missed a school function, came home for dinner, we went on family vacations… All the time he was seeing HER?! How could I miss this!!??? My own dad cheating on my mom. Mom left and I had to deal with my Dad’s girlfriends. I intentionally picked my H bc he seemed SAFE! I mean what’s more SAFE THAN A VIRGIN?! Interestingly my mother warned me he was too “friendly”… Like my dad. Ugh! I feel like I’m losing my mind. I did the pick me dance almost immediately when he came back ( after 3 days). Sometimes I desperately want my unbroken family and other times I want him to die! I can’t even IMAGINE MEH right now.
He seems remorseful, he’s being transparent, doing counseling. I just am gob smacked how someone this “family oriented” could lead such a double life for so long! My big concern is that his response when he returned was he couldn’t just walk away without “trying” WTF?!?
” I mean what’s more SAFE THAN A VIRGIN?! Interestingly my mother warned me he was too “friendly”…”
I’m not sure because someone is a virgin, that they will be safe. I have 2 friends who married virgin men, and 10 years later, the men said they didn’t want to be married anymore. That they wished they had screwed around more before getting married. I’m not saying all men are like this, but these men sort of regretted not having experiences before getting married.
Also,if your mother warned you he was too friendly, what signs was she seeing that you dismissed? Maybe your husband is a player, despite the fake appearance he is putting on. Again, I’m not judging, but merely asking questions so that you can see his true colors. I’m not so sure he’s the model citizen he portrays himself to be.
Easy – the majority of it missed it. 20/20 vision shows us the red flags that should not have been ignored. But we swept it under the rug because WE honored our vows and thought we married someone who was going to do the same. THAT is the biggest reason we get blindsided.
Katbug
Guess what.. my h does the dishes, goes hiking with me, spends all day at the lake, takes me out to lunch, makes me a cake complete with homeade frosting. Buys me presents, takes kids shopping for gifts. Compliments me, tells me he loves me..That was Literally yesterday. Today he had a “meeting” thats code for f*ing around with his howorker. Oh he slipped her a couple texts while were out shopping btw. All smiles and happiness though! I cant leave yet but these people kill your soul. I feel hollow as Im sure you do.
Believe nothing your husband says or does.
Katbug, the trust is gone and it’s never coming back. I tried for years and years to swallow the first betrayal which was when he called off our wedding out of the blue because he thought he “saw someone else.” Then he came back and begged me to take his ring back. I was so young I didn’t realize this was typical cheater behavior. For 36 years I was always on the lookout for signs…and they were there. Low and behold he walked out right as our kids were getting married and moving away. One of the things he told me was “I just saw someone different.” Almost the exact same words he said 36 years ago. They never change, and when the trust is gone, it’s gone.
Katbug, “My big concern is that his response when he returned was he couldn’t just walk away without “trying” WTF?!?”
I’ll tell you WTF that means (IMO). A mindfuck! He will dick you around with wreckconciliation for as long as you are willing, he doesn’t want a divorce, he wants his marriage and his cake. He will continue his affair, it will mess you up worse than quitting now would. The first time he cheated (10 years earlier) he did everything right…so I spent another 10 years with a cheating asshole before I caught him again. Exasshole came back after 3 weeks begging to stay with me. I fell for it but not for long, the extra pain dealing with serial betrayal I regret deeply.
Get a divorce.
I wouldn’t really put too much credence in this guy being a Virgin either. There’s no way to prove or disprove this, and he’s a known liar.
Welcome, Katbug, although I am truly sorry you find yourself here. So many others have made such great comments, so let me just add that I hope you wont settle for a marriage to a known cheat who makes you feel sick to your stomach. And no one should have to “try” to want to love and stay faithful to their spouse. There is no try, only do. Love doesnt require private self pep talks to achieve. If it does, then one is really just loving the benefits that come with the marriage, not the actual person. Good luck and hugs.
“Believe nothing he says or does”, Snowflake is right. They absolutely do not respect you as the mothers of their children, and all the other bullshit.
Now you are in the early days of DD, besides lawyering up etc. make sure you check your life insurance. I bet it is set up to be paid out to your husband in the belief that he would spend the money on your children’s upbringing. That same spouse is scheming behind your back with the AP. If something happened to you, they would discuss all their important decisions with the bloody AP too. Guess who would get lots of prezzies? Not your kids.
Change the beneficiary to your parents or, if your family is not trustworthy, a professional trustee. Do not let those cheaters in charge of your children’s future if something happens to you. Change your will, etc. Also run along to your GP and make sure the cheater is no longer listed as your next of kin.. You wouldn’t want them to decide whether to pull the plug on you or not, after they call the bloody AP for advice and commiseration.
I am so sorry for your situation, but you must protect yourself, you no longer live with your loving spouse, you don’t even live with a friend anymore. They confide in the AP, they listen to the damn AP.
Sorry, this sucks, there are no words to describe how awful this feels, but you need to protect yourself and your kids. They cheat while you’re pregnant, they cheat with your kids around, they stick you looking after their kids while they cheat. They have NO CONSCIENCE. Don’t leave yourself or your kids vulnerable to those snakes.
After you’ve taken these precautions, if you still want to go to MC, in your next joint session tell them what you have done with life insurance, will, etc. in front of the MC. If the MC thinks you’re being paranoid, get a new counsellor or stop MC altogether. Also observe your spouse’s response very closely.
Uneffingbelievable, I came to the same conclusions as you. I realized my ex has the emotional depth of a puddle and the depth of my emotions scared him shitless. Any empathy or compassion is impossible with a partner who cannot access their own emotions.
I, too, realized that I projected my loving feelings for him onto him and assumed he felt the same about me. (Uh… No.) He has attachment disorder (never received or felt love as a child), and is thus incapable of feeling love or expressing love. He projected his lack of loving feelings into me; I was accused of not loving him enough, of not adoring (i.e. Worshipping– did I mention he’s a narcissist?) him, etc. Never mind that I did love him– you cannot fill a leaky bucket! (Believe me, I tried!)
After his moving out three times and me feeding him cake, I finally filed for divorce the fourth time. That was five years ago. The divorce finalized 2 1/2 years ago. I have been in a LOVING relationship now for 2 1/2 years with a non-narcissist capable of love. What a difference– night and day!
There really is light at the end of the dark tunnel! (Btw we were married 20 years)
Val,
That is very encouraging news! I, too, was chumped after 17 years of marriage with my high school sweet heart. As soon as I found out, I retained an attorney and was divorced within 1 year and 1 month. It was excruciatingly painful. Our two teenage children and myself had to have lots of counseling. He was an awesome dad and engaged in the family life. Then for about six months, he wasn’t around. He began being angry and hateful to us.
Then DDay, I will never forget my mom calling to tell me what she thought to be true, had indeed been confirmed in a phone call to my ex-husband’s mother. I literally threw up for two weeks and lost so much weight.
After struggling to heal, I decided my son and I would take golf lessons. I called the coach recommended to me. Six months post DDay, my new golf coach began sending me flirty texts and pursuing me relentlessly. It was flattering and he was attractive and funny. My friends convinced me to give it a chance and maybe it would help take my mind of my ex with his OW.
After a three year relationship, and some gut feelings something wasn’t right, he confesses to me he wasn’t divorced, but is indeed still married and his wife just found out. I have been NC for almost three months and I am devastated all over again. There is much more to the story and so many lies on his part, plus he was from a different culture. He produced separation papers to prove he was separated. While we were dating, he supposedly went through the divorce, and told me details of the agreement and would discuss the proceedings as if it really happened. I feel insane and an idiot.
Seeing counselor again tomorrow to see what is wrong with me that I attract and choose men who lie to me!! Trying hard to navigate this world as a divorced 40 something mom and some days, it just stinks!! I have two great kids that help remind me the true purpose of my life. It would just be nice to have a relationship with a great guy who has morals and character.
Val – I’m so happy you found someone to love you the way you deserve to be and also someone who allows you to love him! It must be so lovely – cherish every minute of it.
My X said that I didn’t tell him he was wonderful anymore as well. Prior to knowing he was a lying, cheating scumbag, he was distant, preoccupied, self-serving, passive-aggressive, dismissive of his family, emotionally and mentally abusive, and just an all around asshole. When I pointed those things out to him and said that he wasn’t wonderful, he looked at me like I was insane! They just don’t get that their actions precipitate reactions from others. The whore told him he was wonderful because of the way he treated her. We told him he was a complete jerk for the same reason. It just didn’t compute to him. SMH . . .
“I realized my ex has the emotional depth of a puddle and the depth of my emotions scared him shitless.”
“Never mind that I did love him– you cannot fill a leaky bucket! (Believe me, I tried!)”
Val, this explains everything I went through. Your words give me strength, thank you!
I had ‘But you kicked him out!’ Er, what exactly was the alternative?
‘You’re lucky his supporting you and the children’ So he fucking should, he’s lucky he still has his testicles intact!
And from his aunt ‘I was the OW once, am I a slut?’ Yes, yes you are!!
I’ve also had some goldies from him, the best being ‘We stopped when she went to America’ and ‘We might not be good at marriage but we can be good parents’ WE?? I literally look back and laugh!
Mrsmeh2016 I have to say I’m impressed at 18 weeks pregnant you left. I feel like a coward right now. I have the financial means to leave. One school age child and of course the baby, but I CAN leave financially just fine. I don’t know why I’m letting everyone get in my head. The “it’s only been this ONE person” “He thinks she’s his soulmate but he’s just confused” “he’s willing to do the hard work”… Blah blah blah.
He didn’t confess… I caught him. He cried like a baby. I wanted to think he was crying over what he did to us. After reading everyone’s postings here… I’m thinking not so much. 🙁
His crying is nothing but impression management. Mine cried. It’s a facade. Once the dust settles and he thinks he has you and life back to ‘normal’ he will be back at it again.
YOU are NOT the Coward, HE is!!
How many more times do you have to catch him? At what point will it be enough? I caught mine three times over the course of 5 years, and I’m upset with myself that I spent all that time waiting and pick me dancing. It’s not worth it. Being the marriage police sucks. And he’s being ‘transparent’ umm my guess is he’s taken things underground.
It’s not easy Kat and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about taking him back. Every time I felt weak I reminded myself that he didn’t care about me while he was shagging the whore. He lied to me and about me. He would’ve happily had me leave the house whilst pregnant, taking our son out of his home. I remind myself daily how selfish he is and how lucky I am to be out of that marriage. That first step and few days are hard, but you won’t regret it
Bamboozled, I second your comment! Exactly what mine did, until I found the 2nd secret email account and busted him for the 3rd and last time. Cowards!
Katbug,
It’s not easy. It’s confusing as hell when the person you thought you loved is not the person you’re married to. Please don’t beat yourself up for not seeing this. I’m trained at recognizing deceit in others, interview & interrogation, observation skills, etc. I didn’t think I ever had to use my professional training with the person I loved and trusted. There are others on here who are just as capable professionally as seeing through deceit, but personally, never saw it coming. If someone questions me for that, I simply tell them to fuck off.
I caught mine too, after 26 years of marriage. Mine also came back begging for another chance. I let him because I didn’t want to give up without knowing for certain that it was over. I don’t regret trying again, I only regret having sex with him again after I took him back.
You say yours is being transparent. I call Bullshit. I thought mine was too after he got caught. He wasn’t. He let me see what he wanted me to see and claimed transparent because what he allowed me to see was wiped clean. He told me what he knew I wanted to hear, not the truth. They are never transparent. If someone told me their cheater was transparent, I would ask them, “For how long?” If it’s under a year, I’d tell them to tell me again after a year has passed.
So I was sitting out on my back porch and all of these crazy thoughts were running through my head. What he did, what he said, what everyone else has done or said. I finally told myself that it was enough. At this point, I had reached 27 years of marriage and it became clear that the questions wasn’t, “Do I want to give up 27 years of marriage” but “Do I want to live like this for the next 27 years?” The answer was that I do not. I do not want to live with someone I have to question or doubt. I do not want to live with someone who does not value me and endangers my physical health and emotional well-being. I do not want to live with someone who is so weak minded and cowardly that he is able to justify his choices as mistakes and never take responsibility for them.
So tune everyone out but you because you are the only one who has to live with your decision for the rest of your life. Even your children will some day grow up and leave you. Then what? As for me, I hit 28 years married before the divorce was finalized. It’s still harder some days than others, but knowing that I no longer have to live with the consequences of his bad choices gives me peace of mind every single day.
In 36 years I barely saw my ex shed a tear, but after he was caught he was sobbing and crying and curled up on the couch in a fetal position for weeks! He kept saying he felt tremendous guilt. Duh.
One thing I do agree with is to listen to your gut. I wish I’d listened to mine instead of learning to override it and ignore my intuition years ago.
Please remember 3 things Katbug:
YOU’RE NOT A COWARD
YOU’RE NOT A COWARD
YOU’RE NOT A COWARD
He’s a selfish coward bastard cheating on a pregnant wife with a young child. You are not a coward, no matter what you decide to do, try to reconcile, kick him out, whatever. You’re not a coward, you’re not unforgiving or whatever his family will try to tell you.
His family should be disowning him, not defending him.
Run as fast as you can Katbug! Mine would look me right in the eye and tell me he loves me and wants to spend the rest of his life with me and he was so sorry. 10 minutes later he would be texting his howorker and telling her the SAME THING! I kept believing his lies after 27 years I finally had enough. Divorce was final in May and I am moving on. He is with the Ho. Bets on how long it will be before they cheat on each other.
After three OW and the discovery of an Ashley Madison account, even I wouldn’t respect myself if I kept saying, well I should still hang on to hope that he will get himself out of that fog eventually. He obviously doesn’t respect me AT ALL and some of that is my fault for laying the foundation in his mind that he can act in a despicable manner and I’ll just keep taking it like a trooper!
Even if he was able to get his act together and really start the difficult path of changing his pattern of behavior, how does one move past all of that deception and betrayal? At this point, there’s just too much sordid history to try to get past.
They all cry. It’s in the handbook Katbug. Mine cried too. I fell for it. Wreckonciliation for 3 years. 3 precious years of my life I can never have back.
From where I’m sitting these are the facts:
1.) He didn’t confess-you had to catch him-check
2.) He’s not actively participating in MC-check
3.) He’s not going to individual counseling-or at least you didn’t say he was.-check
Doesn’t matter “if they only do it one time.” For starters it’s the only one that you know about. Once they see they can get away with it once, they will likely do it again. If you don’t respect yourself enough to want better treatment, you can’t expect them to respect you either.
I tried to give the ex credit for “doing all the things I asked” but I shouldn’t have had to ask. If he was really sorry he would’ve figured out for himself. Plus which after three supposed years of no contact, he married the OW before the ink on our divorce papers was even dry.
Giving a cheater another chance is like giving them another bullet because they missed you the first time. If finances aren’t holding you back I’d get out. It sounds like you’re young. Don’t give this guy more of your precious life.
If you’ve got the financial means, get the hell out. Otherwise, you’re going to be looking over your shoulder for the REST of your life. I, too, had/have the financial means and getting rid of that cheating POS was the best decision. In addition, the stress of being marriage police will impact your kids, your career and your health. You need to stay healthy for the kids!
I know you are receiving some excellent advice and are so am going to keep my point simple.
Leave him.
Cheaterssuck has summarised the facts; after 20+ years of marriage I tried the ‘pick me dance’ and frequented all the ‘unicorn’ sites. If only I had found Chump kingdom sooner!!
It will hurt like nothing you have experienced; his family will try and downplay things; but if you have the financial wherewithal leave.
Six years and a huge, painful emotional and financial journey later, my young adult children and I are happy – they know what really matters; honesty, love and caring for each other not empty words and occasional presents.
I feel myself again, and a moment of feeling like that makes it all worth it. No more marriage police!!!
Leave – don’t look back; he won’t change – you and your children deserve much better and you should go find it knowing Chump Nation has your back.
Chumster thank you. I am honestly drawing strength from your words and the advice from everyone here at CL. If it wasn’t for the kids I wouldn’t be so paralyzed with fear. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never be normal again if I stay in this marriage.
Katbug:
I’ve been thinking of you and praying for you! I hope you are doing alright and have the support you need to make the right decisions for you and your children!
Thank you Nyra. It really means a lot. I do need prayers that’s for sure. We changed marriage councilers and I like this one much better. Makes H take full responsibility. H keeps saying “he can make this work” and assures me we’ll recover from this. Honestly, I’m so guilt ridden about my children. Like if I don’t give him a chance at least once, I’m giving up. Problem is, I don’t think, in my heart, I will ever forgive or trust him again no matter how hard I try or how much counciling. Every time he says he loves me, I think BULLSHIT. Instead of slowly getting LESS painful… The longer it sinks in, the MORE it hurts. Is this normal??! I think I was more open to forgiving immediately after D day than I am now. I will say, it certainly helps when people like you and others in CN share their stories and offer support.
katbug – ‘The longer it sinks in, the MORE it hurts. Is this normal??!’
In my experience? Absolutely, YES it’s totally normal kat.
It took me a very long time for his betrayal and unbelievable deceit to sink in.
At first, in my shock, I’m thinking – no big deal, I can get over the fact he invited her into my house, my bed, my hot tub, my kitchen and did the worst things possible…..I just wanted to buy ice cream and slide right over it.
Until – I DIDN’T.
Once the reality of what he’d done started to sink in after about 6 mos, I knew I could never ever get over it.
We never really talked about it.
And, I loved him with all my heart – didn’t we all?
I turned absolutely Neanderthal on his ass in an Oregon split – second. (Like NY second only a little slower) once I found out he was still seeing her!!!!!
I started raging after I found the panties in my bed, kicked him out and I got my power back – which I didn’t know I had.
The anger was what got me so jerked-up to get my hard ass hat on.
He definitely underestimated me and, it was an insult to me that he didn’t know me better.
He sure does now.
Sure, I miss him and have dreams about him still….2 yrs later, but they disturb me more than comfort me.
Look forward to the day those are gone.
What a process this is!
I wish everybody find their inner strength to get through it – it’s there! We lived amongst the disordered who taught us what we forgot.
Right vs wrong.
Do unto others.
We learned it all in Kindergarten.
At first, in my shock, I’m thinking – no big deal, I can get over the fact he invited her into my house, my bed, my hot tub, my kitchen and did the worst things possible…..I just wanted to buy ice cream and slide right over it.
Slide right over it. God you nailed it Nyra. We went on vacation last week as it was paid and planned for 6 mos ago. Why I felt obligated is beyond me. I tell myself “for the kids” to “make things normal again”. Friends, family … Everyone trying to act like all is good now. I feel like I’m screaming inside. I wanted to scream “Does anyone realize he slept with another women for a year and a half?!?!” “WHILE I was PREGNANT?!” This is his family though… So of course..
You said your anger was a slow build too…& then you caught him again and that was the push you needed. What if your ex didn’t cheat again?? Would you have found your strength? Would one D day have been enough? I’m not sure mine would do it again (I know, I know…unicorn) but i can’t get passed that on D Day he was leaving me and now the feeling like he’s with me ‘begrudgingly’ (even though he says not) 🙁
katbug – ‘You said your anger was a slow build too…& then you caught him again and that was the push you needed. What if your ex didn’t cheat again?? Would you have found your strength? Would one D day have been enough? I’m not sure mine would do it again”
If he had of had a ONS, I MAYBE, maybe could have forgiven him. But, a 3 yr affair – no fucking way. With my x-bff to boot.
That showed some balsy deceit by both of them. I could never ever get over all the lies he told me during all that.
Those were worse than the fucking around he did.
Katbug – it’s a bit like being in denial, isn’t it? It’s completely understandable just wanting to believe this is a one-off, he’ll never do it again, he’s making all the right noises now . . . I don’t think it really has much to do with what HE’S going to do in the future. It’s more about how you feel about what he’s done to you in the past.
Him “entertaining” the whore in your house speaks volumes about how attached he is to you and your children. I would bet anything that he looks at your home as HIS, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to breach that sacred territory. It must be nearly impossible for you to not look around your house and see it as tainted. On DDay, I asked my X if she’d ever rode in his car. When he said yes, I made him get rid of it the next day.
I may be cynical but I find it hard to believe that he was able to be so vile as to bring that pig into your home and now he’s done a complete 180. I think this is more about money. Is his practice owned by the hospital or is he incorporated? Because a piece of his practice would be considered yours. He’s looked at what it would cost monetarily to divorce and I don’t think he wants to pay that price.
I would seriously speak to a divorce attorney and hire a forensic accountant to do some serious digging. Be sure he didn’t start diverting funds away from joint accounts since the beginning of the affair. He could have diverted payments due to him to another physician in his practice. At least find out what he spent on his affair and make him give you that in cash whether or not you leave him. That is money he stole from you and your kids. He OWES you that.
I just worry for you, Katbug, that he’ll go back to his old ways once things calm down and he feels he’s on solid ground again. I know you are between a rock and a hard place and you must feel that there is no good choice to make. These jerks blow up our lives and then pile their garbage into our laps to fix and make all the decisions. Please make your decisions based on what’s best for YOU. He certainly wasn’t thinking of you and your children when he decided he deserved an affair. He also felt like you deserved that as well.
In my opinion, there are absolutely no unicorns. Any cheater who suddenly “behaves” is in for the struggle of their lives. And they will need someone to blame for being so unhappy. The blame will be pinned on you. Suddenly being a good man is diametrically opposed to their thinking and behavior which got them into this mess in the first place. The fact that he was able to betray you in that way should tell you all you need to know about his character. That is who he is at his core. His good behavior now is just a result of him wanting something, not because he’s riddled by guilt at what he’s done to you.
I wish you lots of strength in the coming weeks.
Great answer to katbug, Uneff – ‘I would bet anything that he looks at your home as HIS, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to breach that sacred territory. It must be nearly impossible for you to not look around your house and see it as tainted. On DDay, I asked my X if she’d ever rode in his car. When he said yes, I made him get rid of it the next day.’
This is spot on. The X was mine who brought her, not only into my home without any boundaries, but also took her everywhere in my very sacred motorhome! Bastard. He definitely felt that ‘since HE made all the MONEY, he could damn well spend it the way he wanted’ (This was when he wanted a very expensive sports car and I said, no.) So, he obviously felt that OUR home and motorhome were all HIS. Looking at it this way, sure opened my eyes to how he could ever possibly make such a colossally selfish move without conscious. Finally, explained to me. Thank you!
However, since all of his shenanigans went into the divorce decree (that he signed) for a judge to see, he was very worried the judge wouldn’t like what he did.
Oh yeah, he also squirreled away over $200g’s that I caught him red-handed with. Fucking bastard. If I hadn’t caught him, I’d probably be broke today.
I’m sure the judge wouldn’t have liked that either.
So, he agreed to a decent settlement. Ha, take that asshole, for the rest of your life!
Hope her B/J’s were worth losing 1/2 of everything you so proudly thought was ALL YOURS.
Including what was once a stellar reputation. Go hide in your hole at the trailer park you’re now in.
Oh, I’m sure those blow jobs were just “priceless”, lol.
You are a Bad Ass, Shechump! Way to go! These disordered fucks think that marital money is all theirs – glad your judge showed him otherwise. It’s disgusting that stealing marital assets is not considered a crime. If your husband had diverted 200K from his business partner, he’d be in jail for that. Stealing is stealing, no matter who your victim is.
My X had the audacity to say to me with a straight face “I put a roof over your head and fed you”. Ah, Dickhead, I’m your wife, not a stray dog. This is actually how they think. Too bad they can’t be honest up front as to the way they think. If I had known my X thought that being a good husband was feeding me and giving me shelter I would have dropped the engagement ring like it was radioactive. Douchebags like them should be tagged before they’re set free in the dating pool.
It is normal. Denial is part of the grieving process and then the reality of it all begins to set in.
Please be very careful as you process things and go through the anger stage! The anger is a “normal” stage of the grieving process as well. Be VERY careful during this stage! Do not sin in your anger or you could become “the guilty” party!! The extent of my anger terrified me. It was all consuming. I used vocabulary I’ve never used before to express myself and to inform him of what he had done and exactly how I felt. I even reacted (mildly) physically twice!! I was falling apart while he was acting calm and cool. I was trying to help him and hold the family together while he took no responsibility for my distress and even began excusing his many deceptions and adultery. That is when I knew I had to get out and wait for him prove himself by his actions – not my efforts.
I hope that your husband is sincerely repentive and proves that to you in every way! Until you know for certain and can trust him, I would strongly suggest that you do not attempt to share the maritall bed. He is not entitled to anything!
Please do your best to take good care of yourself! Remember that God is on your side and He is holding you as you go through this!
Katbug,
Is your husband aware that he violated you? That he committed violence against you? That he soul raped you (as DM correctly describes it)? What is he doing to help you heal?
You have been violated/soul raped. You have every right to be hurting and grieving as you accept what has happened. On top of that you are focusing on the other victims of this — your children.
The best thing for them will be whatever is best for you!
Would I have stayed if…
I stuck with him for several difficult years. I gradually began to sense that something was terribly wrong in our marriage. The more I gave, the more he took. Everything had to be his way, but whenever his endevers failed it somehow became my fault.
He became infatuated with himself and had squandered all of our resources by the time I discovered what I thought was the depth of his sexual immorality. Why did I stay then? I believe it was because I was in a state of shock and I just kept carrying on in survival mode as usual. I was also far from home at this time & had absolutely nothing except
my children to protect.
After 5 more years of
perseverance and moving around the country, I thought my prayers had been answered. Then his mask began to slip again (unicorn was gone) and his infatuation with himself, younger men and his younger female subordinate could not be missed. It wasn’t long before I learned that what I feared was going to happen already had on more than a few occasions.
Upon my discovery, he cried and said he wanted us to stay. He confessed a few things that I had suspected and seemed remorseful…until a few weeks later when he wasn’t anymore. He “unconfessed” everything except a few prostitutes. He told me that I should start going to counseling with him again because I was the cause of all his issues and the stress in his life! (I was going separately).
I missed several days of work because I was so distraught. He never missed a beat!
It was on one of my “sick days” that I asked God to show me a reason to stay. That morning xh accidentally left his gym bag behind on his rush out the door. It contained unmentionables.
When I confronted him about its content, he cried. I informed him that the children and I were going to live with family for awhile so he could be alone to think things through and make some decisions.He thought that was a good idea because he didn’t know how much more of my anger he could take!
The kids and I never returned. Within a week it was apparent why going to work was more important than being home with wife and family.
It has been a tough road for the kids and me. But, it is so much better than the alternative. We thank God for delivering us from evil! God heard and answered my prayers —
I hope this LONG reply helps someone out there!
Nyra, I like the way you put that, “he became infatuated with himself”. That’s exactly it, I just never could put my finger on it. The Whores are just an extension of that infatuation, with themselves ! Ughhhh, glad you ditched that loser.
katbug, don’t listen to other people. It’s time to listen to the voice inside you. None of his family members were left sitting home pregnant while he carried on a 1 1/2 year affair. He may be back home because his family is appalled at his behavior and pressured him to “save the marriage.” Stop listening to anyone who doesn’t have YOUR best interest at heart.
I think you know you have all the evidence you need that he’s one screwed up individual: “His response when he returned was he couldn’t just walk away without “trying.” That sounds to me like walking away was option #1 but it didn’t go over well with his impression management efforts.
You say he “seems” remorseful and is “doing” counseling. What, exactly, does that remorse look like? How much work is he doing in counseling? How tough is your counselor on him? Because if you have a powder puff counselor, your cheater is just putting in time until you accept that he’s back and you stop talking about the cheating.
Whatever else you do, get your ducks lined up while he’s in remorse mode. See a tough-minded attorney and find out what you need to do. I’d consider having divorce papers drawn up and ready to file. Find out what you need to know about custody and child support. Make copies of all of your financial and person documents. Start your own savings account and insist on sitting down every week to review where the money goes. Ask for a pre-nuptial agreement about property division, child support and custody.
Make sure you have an individual therapist helping you sort out the FOO (family of origin) about cheating that might be distorting your thinking about relationship. (I was raised by a narcissist, so that was lots of work for me to do on me). Start working on getting your own life together–he can babysit while you go to the gym or take a pottery class or whatever makes you happy. If you aren’t working, start looking for a job.
He got away with this because he is good at doing the bare minimum–school functions, dinner, vacation–while carving out lots of time for an AP. Phone calls. Texts. Business trips. Going out with the “boys.” Because no OW hangs around for an affair that doesn’t involve lots of time and energy going her way. It may well be going on still with him saying “we have to lay low while I get money and custody lined up my way.”
Sad to say, I don’t think a man or woman who carries on a double life for a year and a half is a viable marriage partner. But you can find out in a hurry if you stand up and insist on a life that will be sustainable if you catch him again or if he walks away. Assume you don’t really know what’s going on with him. But start standing up not for your marriage (you aren’t the problem there) but for YOU and what you will need whether he stays or goes. Have expectations about your own happiness and well-being. That is good for you and for your kids.
“Sad to say, I don’t think a man or woman who carries on a double life for a year and a half is a viable marriage partner.”
And he stopped only because he was caught. Otherwise, imagine how long his cheating would have continued, for years and years.
I know you’re right Kellia (and everyone else). He wasn’t a player when we met. Sort of a nerd actually. He followed me around like a puppy. We broke up several times (because he seemed emotionally immature, not for cheating). He always won me back. Again, I felt SAFE. No way this guy who wants to please me (& his whole family) would EVER be like my Dad. How wrong was I?!?
I should add, he’s now a very successful Doctor (surgeon)… Think he’s got a new “view” of himself and the attention he’s getting from women.
To answer Lovedajackass’ question about remorse… Idk. He does everything I ask. I take him to work, make him FaceTime me throughout the day and he goes NO WHERE without me. MC started off shaky. He gave 101 reasons why he felt compelled to cheat and “fall in love” with someone else…. But added “no excuses, I DID A HORRIBLE THING. Im a good person though. Everyone knows who I am.”
Really ?? I DON’T!!!!
MC wants me to own my part in this so we can make progress… I need a new MC.
Katbug – what you wrote about him suddenly getting attention from women now that he’s a successful surgeon – that makes me crazy! Can’t he see it’s ONLY because he’s making good coin that women who dismissed him at his nerdy stage are now interested???? I don’t understand how any man or woman would want attention simply because they have the capacity to make money.
I’d throw that one in his face. Tell him how disgusted you are with him that he would sell himself out so easily and be swayed by women out to exchange pussy for money. Ask him where all the attention was when he was a nerdy med student. I worked in a hospital years ago and those places are like Peyton Place. Nurses and lab techs banging married doctors in supply closets. The place stunk of desperation.
Own your part? Own your part in his cheating? Time to drop this MC and the cheater and find a good IC for yourself. What a load of crap ?
“His response when he returned was he couldn’t just walk away without “trying.” That sounds to me like walking away was option #1 but it didn’t go over well with his impression management efforts.
This is so exactly what I thought! It’s when I got the ILYBINILWU… Or “I just don’t love you like a wife” BS. He follows it with, “but I’d never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t at least TRY.”
Chumpy me felt RELIEVED. Seriously, why am I RELIEVED?! He going to give us another chance and not leave our family! Yay! 🙁
It’s not very romantic is it? My ex snowed me for years, telling me in very sappy tones that he loved me so much and was so lucky to have me. He bought me flowers for no reason, thoughtful gifts for special occasions, tried to make best friends out of my family members, gave me all his paychecks and passwords, etc. Then after he was caught cheating, suddenly all his talk was about how he wanted to ‘make it work’ with me. Those words, they sucked the life out of me. It was like, in those three words he was illustrating perfectly his lack of feeling for me. And like he was making some huge sacrifice of his personal happiness to fulfill his obligation to the marriage. Blech, they all suck!
“..but I’d never be able to forgive myself if I did’t at least TRY”
This statement is very telling!
•It’s about him – nobody else!
•He doesn’t see anything wrong with his 1 1/2 year affair and the pain he inflicted on katbug and family as long as he makes it obvious that he is “TRYING” now. If the marriage ends, he isn’t responsible for blowing his family up because he came back, he didn’t walk away–he TRIED!
•If he “at least tries” than the “failed marriage will be katbug’s fault if she divorces him it’ll be because she didn’t try hard enough. He won’t have anything to forgive himself for if she was to leave him when he was TRYING! It’ll be her fault, because she wasn’t able to forgive.
•He is a manipulator. He’s wanting everyone to see that he is TRYING. However, it’s what he does when others are not watching that defines his character!
I am thinking that a legal separation might be in order at this time for grounds of adultery (plus other protective measures that others here may suggest). Katbug can file first to get the upper hand. She can let him prove his character in her absence. She can take a break from being marriage police and be around supportive people who care about her and the children. If he is a real unicorn, what better way to prove it than when they are not together . He broke his vow and her trust in her absence. If he is a true unicorn, he can prove it while she is away!
Dump that MC right now. You have no part to own for your husband cheating while you are pregnant. I would tell the MC that statement from him/her is abusive.
Nyra. OMG you are so right. I didn’t even think about it that way. If he TRIES and I can’t forgive…. Then it’s on me. I’m really pissed now.
Thanks, that’s the kind of reality I need to hear.
Katbug: Unfortunately, it is because of my own experience that I saw that. I hope it can help you in some way!
Divorce Minister is a site that has also been very helpful to many of us. If you have not checked it out, you may want to!
uneffingbelievable: You are so exactly right! OW was a nurse! Oh yes! A married nurse, no less. Apparently they hooked up at work, hotels, conferences…. You name it.
Katbug, Nyra nailed it! I would bet my last dime that he is already crying the blues to his family about how unforgiving you are and he is trying so hard!
In my opinion he never should have been allowed back in the house until he EARNED your trust back. He screwed up, he broke your trust, he broke the marriage vows, he didn’t care enough about keeping his family together to worry about losing you.
Someone who is truly sorry for his actions says he is sorry, owns his actions and understands he has a lot of work to do to earn your trust again.
I would be really curious to see how long he would stay faithful ( if he is now) if you kicked his sorry ass out until he proves he deserves to be part of the family again. You take a break from being the marriage police because you know what? If you can’t let him out of your sight for fear he’ll cheat; the marriage is over. You should not have to lay down laws and monitor him; he should be doing everything he can to reassure you. How does trust rebuild if he is never out of your sight?
You have become the warden and he doesn’t even habe to grow up and be responsible for his own actions.
If his family doesn’t think he should earn your trust they obviously don’t trust him either.
So often wives of cheaters take on all the responsibility for the relationship, including ensuring he remains faithful, because deep down they know he doesn’t care enough to do the what is necessary to save the marriage.
Let him prove what he is made of and talk to a good lawyer. And to hell with what his family thinks. Time for the boy to step up and be a man without his family stepping in trying to fix his Fuck ups.
Katbug your post about how him being nerdy and a Virgin when you meet just gave me goosebumps. My ex too seemed so safe and was just a nice guy. He was so nerdy he would never be able to get anyone else. He was a shy guy and i actually used to make jokes that i never had to worry about other girls as he was so crap at flirting. Looking back now i see that he was a projecting a character that was not true. He was very charming and always socially confident. He would play the good guy and good friend to get his OW (Not a doubt in mind now that there were multiple OWs)
looking back now he was the one that always brought up being a Virgin at 27 when we met (I call bullshit) and not been good with women. Itwas all MINDFUCK. He created this version of himself so i would believe his gas lighting when i found dodgy messages from howorkers and he could talk it away.
Scary how my view of the world has changed once the blinkers have been taken off my eyes about reality versus gas lighting. My whole past has been rewritten. This time i follow my gut
Wow. I’m flabbergasted. Just when you think something about your situation is unique… I see the comments about the cheater’s playbook and it’s so true. I read your post and this awful feeling of “what was EVER real?!” came over me.
Years ago I recall hearing two guys telling another young guy that the best way to get as much sex as possible was to tell every girl he was a virgin and shy aroung girls. Apparently it’s practically a magic spell; and it works.
Your spot on lovedajackass , good advice , I sent my cheating EW back to work full time. Funny how her 2 year affair fell over. I convinced her by quitting my job, I was over it.
Yes only sorry they got caught. Bastards. Asswipe wanted to see how long he could get away with it! You dupe your wife how stupid is she this is fun having big secrets and he and the whore laughed im sure but he wants to remain good friends and date me. Date me!!!! Disordered pod person? Oh yes. Good riddance who needs friends who absolutely get off on putting one over on people they supposedly care about. Not me. Pod bastard. Ive developed pod radar can see them coming for a mile. Single status for me. Maybe im wrong but i will never trust another male again. I will probably be wary of most anybody but we will see.
Me too Kar Marie, I will remain single. My ability to trust is gone.
+ 1000 times and that includes the ex’s enablers, our 2 adult kids.
Katbug–I want you to think about how many lies it took for your husband to flirt his way up to an affair, screw the woman, meet her for coffee, then come home and kiss you on the lips, for 1.5 years. Count them up. How many lies per day? How many decisions per week?
I understand where you’re coming from–I divorced my husband over an affair he’d had 8 years in the past (he was smart enough in his deception, it took me that long to discover it). There was a LOT of pressure to forgive him because it was in the past and he had “come back” to the marriage.
But….I could not even hold hands after that without my limbic system screaming, “DANGER!” If someone can do it to you once, they can do it again.
Big hugs–this is very painful.
I just think about….. how she was always late getting home from a 3.5 hour drive…. many excuses about it…. but arriving home expecting a kiss…. then finding out she just blew her boy toy few hours ago….. at least for a guy, that’s pretty hard core to deal with….. they suck they suck so much I cant comprehend it…. let them go!
Katbug, Your gut is telling you the truth. He makes you sick. If you stay with him you Will get sick! This is ABUSE! It is damaging you now. Any man who can carry on a double life for a year and a half, while you are pregnant and welcoming a child into the family is Disordered! you can NEVER trust him again, and without trust, what have you got? I forgave 2 “one night stands” early into my marriage. Gaslighter demonstrated “remorse and contriteness” and we went to marriage counseling. I thought we were waaaaay past that shit. Well, at 35+ years of marriage (38 together) I found out about Schmoopie. I filed. its been over 2 years and we are still not divorced. I will be 60 in January. The dots have started conecting… I have found out about so many more women, and realize that he has been a serial cheater all along. They just get very good at he con. They HIDE behind the MASK of their committment to their long term marriage partner and being a “Family Man” and respected in the comminity. You are their perfect cover. Meanwhile they lie, cheat, and con behind your back. Mine has cheated business partners, stiffed contractors and friends, and we are in a huge lawsuit because of it. I was totally bamboozled. I thought he was as honest and the day was long! I vouched for him, defended him and stood by him more times than I can count. I wish I had had the courage to leave him when I discovered the first infidelity. Guys like this don’t change – they can’t. They are wired wrong. Go to “SafeRelationshipsmagazine.com” and read their materials. Don’t let him steal any more of your precious life. You deserve better. It’s a huge eye opener, and a bitter pill to swallow, but until you see who and what he is with clear eyes, you can’t move forward. Sending (((Hugs)))
Hey Katbug, welcome to a club full of wonderful people you never wanted to meet. From experience I’ll warn you to watch out for improvement that only comes when consequences are mentioned. Also watch out for the subtle difference between cheaters being sad about what they did to you and how you were hurt by those actions as opposed to being sad about the consequences of what they did and how that’s hurting them now.
MC finally stalled (thank God) when I refused to start working on the marriage (i.e. all my problems that made my wife cheat) and insisted we work on the affair and the betrayal first. That was too hard a concept for the therapist or for my wife to understand.
Being the marriage police is mentally exhausting work and that’s NOT YOUR JOB. You have a much bigger job – caring for yourself, your child, and the life inside you now. I told my wife to go work on her own problems for a year (during separation) and get back to me when she’s changed into someone I can love and trust. Maybe I’ll consider MC then, or maybe not – no guarantees.
“being sad about what they did to you and how you were hurt by those actions as opposed to being sad about the consequences of what they did and how that’s hurting them now.”
This. It took me a long time to understand the difference. His sadness was never about me. It was about him.
You are exactly right – “It was about him”.
I just finally got this…. Chumpforlife said it… It’s not about the hurt they caused, but the consequences…. and then… comes the manipulation to keep you trapped there in cakeland… Run…Katbug…RUNNNNN
ChumpForLife, this is such a smart way to do it. It should be standard for all chumps. “I told my wife to go work on her own problems for a year (during separation) and get back to me when she’s changed into someone I can love and trust. Maybe I’ll consider MC then, or maybe not – no guarantees.” And your insisting that the affair be the focal point of marriage counseling puts the focus on the betrayal and the cheater. Good for you. That year-long separation allows for the Chump to get out from under the gaslighting, the deception, and general mindfuckery that cheaters who prefer the double life are so good at. As we know, it’s tough for disordered people to keep the mask up for a year of tough scrutiny. And the year gives Chumps a chance to focus on learning to put their own needs at the top of their own list.
Katbug, timewise, I’m where you are. Haven’t been brave enough, like you, to tell much of the story, though, because it spans years with a broken timeline. As in, I was 22 when it started. Also unlike you, I have to buy time before I can leave (attorney and therapist agree).
And part of buying time now involves our seeing a MC.
I don’t know how you feel in MC. If you feel okay, then never mind what I’m about to say. If you don’t feel okay, even in the slightest: STOP. ChumpforLife’s post is spot-on.
I went to the first post D-day MC appointment last week. It was awful. Sordid specifics aside, it was the LAST place I should have been. I got traumatized in yet another way. Honestly, I didn’t think it could get worse. It did.
I’m not going back. I told H that I needed time in my own therapy before proceeding with MC …. that there was no harm in BOTH of us getting “a little more settled.” (He’s dutifully seeing his own therapist. What a joke, from the arrogant tidbits he tells me.) I mention these lines I delivered just as a possibilities, because your creep is character- or personality-disordered, and your discomfort with MC won’t matter a bit.
If you’re not ready to run NOW? If you can at all, avoid MC. I’m so sorry he’s putting you through this hell. Good luck.
Thanks ClaireS
I just wanted to say it took 6 weeks of me reading here daily to finally post. I was just so overwhelmed by not only a situation I never saw coming, but by the conflicting “professional” options (yes including MC) and by friends and family. H doesn’t seem to be a serial cheater (not that I’m aware of 🙁 ) and maybe my story isn’t as horrible as some. Still, a long term affair whilst pregnant clueless me thought my life couldn’t be better, pretty life shattering. My point is, I’m so glad I did post my story bc CL and those that post here have WAY MORE insight than I’d ever imagined. They make you think of things you hadn’t and advice from those that really know and care… Invaluable. Even if my lying, cheating H is truly sorry, even if he changes…I’m thinking I just won’t ever get past it. Went to counseling last night and asked how in the world a relationship could ever be “better than before” after knowledge of cheating ?!? Was told it takes “time and hard work” and I need to “have an open heart” I’m thinking I already work hard enough and I have a broken heart.
Katbug, this is my opinion. The only person who could possibly believe a marriage is better after cheating is a cheater. Yeah, they get what they want but you will NEVER feel the same about them. The best you can hope for is to feel about the same as before the adultery but I don’t see how it could ever be better.
And I don’t think I could ever feel the same. I mean you never see them the same again right? You know what they are capable of. Doesn’t that change how you view them forever? I asked my sister… So what’s the best I could ever hope for? What will counseling do for my marriage? That I start to think of him lovingly as a man who worked hard to make me trust him again after he destroyed me? ?? Appreciate that he didn’t leave me?? So dismal 🙁
I will say that I could never love my ex again after the cheating. Of course, this was after innumerable “d-days”. I might have been able to if he hadn’t kept at it with the whore. But following RIC pretty much guarantees that they will keep it up.
I got where I detested him. I think I did all along but was in that fog you hear about. If I didn’t have a child with him I never would have tried but I did. I wasted a lot of time on that loser. I will repeat, though, I never again felt true love for him after he threw me over for some whore. There was always hatred boiling under the surface.
I agree, although I would advocate for a legal separation so you are not responsible for any further debt.
Just so you know, once the Mask has slipped, and they know that You Know who they really are… (I suspect he is Character Disordered) … the game changes big time. Better to learn more about Cluster B’s but keep mum to him about it. Go for that Oscar winning performance and let him continue to think he is in control, while you line up your ducks. Mine turned from Sweet as Pie to Cold as Ice in an inkling. It was chilling. Evil actually. After Decades of the “Perfect Family”. This is no joke. He has shown you what he’s capable of. Believe him. Don’t allow him to steal your future too…
+1: I’m in a similar situation. After my fourth D-day, I dragged my cheating wife to marriage counseling for a couple of months. I gave up when it became a what ‘betrayednomore’ did to cause cheater wife to cheat. If I started to discuss her – ignoring me and the family, her cheating, the love she gave her fuckbuddies, and the venom she reserved for me – she would shut down and the counselor would tell me I wasn’t playing fair pulling out my trump card.
But I found Chump Lady, I found my words, and then I found my voice. My cheater wife betrayed me and our family. She is the liar and cheater. I wrote fifteen pages outlining her behaviors that are unacceptable, what actions she needed to demonstrate to start to gain my trust again, and the consequences when she deviated. Most importantly, she fixes herself first. Period. Don’t like it? There’s the door; go be happy.
She chose to stay with me and the kids (it helped that her fuckbuddy is a married serial-cheating hourly plant worker whose daddy is in prison for child sexual assault. But he’s a really considerate and sensitive guy!).
Two years later and I am an amateur computer, phone, and financial forensic scientist. I can trace her daily movements via mileage, tolls, bank activities, credit cards, texts, email, and GPS. I read various cheater websites to catch up on all the latest techniques for chumping dumb-assed chumps (“Don’t worry, just heading out with the girls for a couple of hours!“).
I still experience panic attacks and periods of mild depression. I trust that my cheater wife is a habitual liar taking advantage of me. I trust that she has learned to hide her cheating. I am on constant watch for any hint of her narcissism and then I get to shut her down hard (consequences BITCH!). I’ve resigned myself that the only reason I stayed was so my kids can thrive in a good school district.
Does THIS sound like a marriage? Does THIS sound like love?
No, I’m so sorry you are living with that kind of pain.
Looking back my 9 months of MC were 9 months of very expensive emotional abuse. I listened to him blame me for everything, project his vile emotions on me. He was never challenged by the MC. After a few months I stopped trying to defend myself, said as little as possible, tried to get the focus on his shit. It got even worse, the spotlight was on him so the phone calls to the AP 2nd ex-wife/whore ramped up, he got a lawyer behind my back and started the character assassination with his kids. Meanwhile I was pick me dancing at home and doing all the f$$$ing appreciations for Imago counselling while he was doing nothing except plotting with the whore and his lawyer.
The counselling was the worst thing I could have done, it has damaged me so much. The only benefit I see now is that I found CL in November, reflected on what had been going on in MC and realised how badly I had been abused the past year. I would not have understood it without CL, by that time I had become suicidal.
Not joking, MC nearly killed me. That idiot was completely hoodwinked by the traitor.
By January this year I wrote to her to explain all the lies he had fed me and her in counselling. I kept saying they were lies in counselling. I asked her for individual counselling, she refused. Then I had proof through the VAR so I wrote to her to warn her that her “method” relies on people being sincere in their efforts..
All that wet towel could say was that she was so sorry for both of us, it was soooo sad. These people should be licensed and you should be able to get their licence revoked.
The wrong counsellor is potentially lethal.
Kiwi, this and all the other MC stories are horrific. You called it: it’s abuse, and a special kind at that, because you’re already horribly traumatized, in trenchant agony, only to find that an alleged caretaking specialist … piles on more. Thank God you somehow hung on, found CL, hung on some more. As did so many brave others. I shudder to think ….
No.
Betrayed nomore Is that how you really live ?
After D-Day 2(million), I loaded his moving truck (alone, while he cried, even though he planned his own move.)
As he talked about the huge mistake he made and how weak he and how he needed my help blah blah, I told him that I didn’t know what the future held, I just knew that right now I needed to divorce and start with a clean slate. I had heard it all before, you see.
He set up MC for us and asked me to go. I went. He cried and acted very sorry and contrite. I set boundaries, calmly and rationally. He worked hard to persuade me otherwise. I held them, calmly. He said all the right things. I had heard them all before.
He was having sex with, and planning large trips with, several other people the whole time.
Cheaters are trained professional liars. The lies trickle out over time, and not always from the cheater’s mouth.
I think your feelings of sickness when you imagine continuing along with him are intuition. It might be true that a trial separation would unravel the truth. It might be worth considering. Then these friends and family (who might go in the removal pile, too – most of mine did, which was devastatingly hard, but worth ever tear to get my sanity back) can’t hound you with throwing in the towel.
Cheaters are trained professional liars.
THIS^^ The MC looked me straight in the eye, apologized for riding the fence on his conclusion about cheater, and said “he is a masterful liar”. I appreciated his honesty. Unfortunately it was an individual session with me so it wasn’t said in front of cheater.
To be honest with you, sometimes I think they believe their own lies. That’s why they’re so convincing.
Agreed!
Amiisfree, they are professional liars and they SUCK! The more you try to talk / reason with them about their behavior, the more you are giving them the playbook! That’s really how they think! The lies trickled out over time in my situation, and yes, other people that knew did drop subtle hints!!! It’s up to you over time, to piece things together because you will NEVER get a straight answer from a cheater/Narc. You have to TRUST your intuition in spite of someone you love telling you otherwise.
Exactly. The soft underbelly has a target in it that con artists can see. It isn’t that we’re stupid. It’s that they are that good at the con.
The only weapons against the con are time and careful observance. The edge of the mask can be visible for seconds at a time if you’re aware enough to look for it.
Exactly, time and observance. Well said Amiisfree. If the guy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it is bound to come out if we just wait long enough to see the whiskers pop out.
Once you see behind the mask, there is no unseeing it.
Exactly LAJ! There’s no unseeing it and they know it too. That’s when mine gave up all pretext of trying to save the marriage – once it was clear to him that I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) “unsee” the serial cheating that he was willing to cop to. I’m sure there was more but whatever… A decade of cheating with strippers and continuing to have unprotected sex with me was enough. There was no way to spackle that “good guy” mask back on his lying, cheating, stealing face. Even though I’m happily divorced and totally NC with my ex, there are still occasional WTF moments when I think about how he fooled me, my entire family and all of our friends into thinking he was a good person for thirty plus years.
What grown man needs “experience” to be able to keep a promise? The crap that comes out of these cheaters mouths is ridiculous.
“I think your feelings of sickness when you imagine continuing along with him are intuition.” You said this perfectly. I listen to that feeling when on the job, but ignored it at home. I paid for every time I didn’t heed those feelings of sickness.
Have not read all the comments Katbug, so apologies if I am repeating. Get out & get out now. Do not let this man waste one more minute of your precious time. Your husband made a vile departing comment, that you should NEVER forgive or try to move past. Even if he had fallen out of love with you he thought so little of you that he could not be bothered to try be kind, apologetic or respectful when leaving for OW. I seriously doubt he had an epiphany and all of a sudden respects you as a person. He does not love you and so what he’s a weak creep. You deserve better.
Katbug. Does whether or not he loved you, how much, or in what way, really matter in making a decision? Even if he loved you desperately, I can’t help thinking, “so what?” Whatever passes for love and commitment in this guy’s mind does not exclude cheating on you (for a very long time). Respectfully, that would be all I needed to know.
I deserve someone whose notions of love can’t live in the same space with infidelity.
Well said JK, I agree.
Katbug, being financially independent of your cheater is an enormous advantage that many of us chumps did not have when we kicked them to the curb. The fact that you won’t be subject to the whims of your cheater, mediators, and/or a judge during a divorce puts you in a position of strength that I hope you can use to help you move forward.
And while there is no denying that ending a marriage when you have two small children is challenging, to say the least, if you end it now you will spare your children years of modeling an unhealthy, toxic relationship. I’m glad you see your cheater for what he is now, before you do what so many of us did, which is to spend years modeling codependent acceptance of boundary-violating behaviors with a hefty dose of emotional abuse thrown in.
Based on my experience, some men who marry “their first” are gay or otherwise struggling with their sexuality, and “trying out” other women to see if the “problem” is just you or all women can be part of that struggle. Most likely this is not the case with your cheater! But I thought I would throw it out there in case there might be other red flags on that front.
Other Kat – AMEN to that! A very valid point. I can attest to that and it’s worth looking into the signs of that particular side of him.
Those were the first word out of her mouth when I asked her what was going on. In the deepest pit of my heart I knew she had someone else and it was over.Took me many months to get that to my head.
I got “I will always love you, I’m just not in love with you.” And then he showed his love by suing me to reduce/end child support THREE times in THREE years post decree. And the kids tell me he’s talking about suing me again this year “because I won’t talk to him personally, only in text and email.” Well, that’s how I show him that I don’t love him. Or even like him any more.
Mine did the same thing (re: child support). I kept thinking the court was going to reprimand him for wasting everybody’s time. They never did. He finally got things the way he wanted them by ‘having a nervous breakdown’ and going out of work on disability. Then presented his reduced pay while on temporary disability to get his already reduced child support lowered $900/month more. We have 4 children together, he makes slightly more than me, he rarely sees them, and is garnished $300/month. I have not once taken him to court to raise it, even though I probably should. He thinks he won, but our kids can see how I struggle and how little he contributes while spoiling himself, his tramp, and her kids. They know who their real parent is and who they can go to for any kind of support. Even with the pathetic amount of support he contributes, and living in his tramp’s house rent-free, he is bankrupt and had his precious car repossessed. Idiot.
In addition to trying to ‘escape’ modest child and spousal support payment, my STBX, in spite of telling me that he respected me as the mother of our children, on the same day he filed for divorce in court, filed a restraining order against me in which he asked the Court to prevent me from ever getting within 100 feet of our children as he falsely claimed that I had molested our youngest, attempted to rape STBX (then husband), stolen things from him before he legally separated from me/moved out, etc. Projection much? STBX also regularly accuses the extended family of abusing children although they do not. (In fact, my relatives still try to be kind to him! He bites the hand that (literally) feeds him.) He takes our children to police stations to tell the police that various members of my family have abused them. The list of the terrible things my STBX has done to me and others is extremely long and varied. Can’t wait for someone to nail the coffin of this vampire, my STBX, shut.
My first therapist put ILYBINILWY in perfect perspective for me. He said these kinds of people are not capable of real human love. They mistake intensity for intimacy. If it make them feel excited they think it must be love. CL is so correct, those butterflies will migrate again.
This exactly. My ex. Incapable of real human love. He doesn’t even know how to love his children. It took me a while to realise it wasn’t me. .it was him.
Asswipe admits hes screwed in the head i suggested he go see someone to work on his anger and emotional issues by himself. He knows he should go, he knows hes has problems wont spend the money or give the time. Told him way cheaper than losing three quarters of your stuff no? And hes stupid enough to marry again cause it will make the other person happy but not him. He told me relationships last as long as they do. Huh. Then why promise something youve no intention on honoring? But hes a GOOD guy! Blah!
“He told me relationships last as long as they do.” Meaning, there’s just an inbuilt shelf life to relationships, such that they all “just” end?
If that’s what you think he meant — wow. That’s the language of discard. Before the fact!
He never said that before his whore feast only afterwards he said it. You know cheater speak. Falling in lust with the whore brought all those gems out. Yet he sits and gives everyone relationship advice. All three of my kids said dad dont talk to me about relationships you know nothing of love and they cut him off when he starts giving advice. They know a bold faced liar when they see one. If he had said that line to me while we were dating 30 years ago i would have dumped his ass otherwise i told him why would i invest in a family and building a life figuring any day it would end and hed always be looking for someone better! Assholes the lot of them. Beware the pods!!!!!
Relationship advice? Lovely.
I understood that he said the sentence I quoted AFTER the whore … I just wanted to be sure I was clear about his meaning, because he’s announcing what very few of these crazies will advertise: their end game is dicard. Glad your kids aren’t fooled!
Me too. He cant fool the kids they have his number.
Shelf Life….lol I love yoga and practice it regularly, but this would be something I’ve heard before from my x wife. Shelf Life = relationships come and go for a reason; a purpose in life, a reason to grow…yada yada yada….(yoga talk)
Yeah, like tell your spouse your issues…..!!!!! Like i can help! Or a therapist!
lol – yeah, that shelf-life-expiry date.
X came back from his one and only private therapy session and just smugly said….She told me we were just ‘kids’ when we married 37yrs ago.
He felt proud she justified his reasons.
Guess he got a lot out of that session so he didn’t need to go back.
I’m the one that needed therapy and help – so he said
So, what is the time-continuum…? History doesn’t matter?
All those years don’t matter because you were so young when you married and now you need to go explore life at 60 yrs old and wipe out the history?
It is amazing that the human mind can actually comprehend life like that.
Pretty childish, self-serving, self-centered, selfish = yep, he was all that and a basket of cracked eggs.
My therapist gave me the same explanation when I was on the receiving end of that cheater favorite. There’s nothing loving about that statement or what follows it. He doesn’t understand real love or even what the basic foundation of love is. Love is not the initial flutter of butterflies, the covert meetings in parking garages or secret text messages. It’s building a life with someone and dealing with both the mundane and wonderful experiences in life together. That other crap is not sustainable and eventually fades leaving the cheater to crash hard from his “love” like the end of a sugar high.
I’ve seen him crash three different times from this “love” high. It’s not pretty. If that’s his idea of love I’d stay far, far away from it.
And you’ll see him crash even more times. This is what the dating world is like out there. You date people and it doesn’t work out. He’s just mistaking dating for love. He’ll learn, he’s still emotionally immature and naive. More crashes coming up…
Yup. The sparkle of the new, better love has worn off. And now his new wife is just human…. and a cheater.
Done4good, exactly, the sugar high eventually wears off and then they crash. With the original AP that lasted a whole 6 months after he abandoned me. I would have never even known that he was thinking about the butterflies at all, except that was one of the explanations that he gave me a couple of days after he left. I sat there in disbelief, I had done the usual projection of actual adult feelings onto to this “thing” that sat in front of me and told me that he needed “butterflies” of excitement to “know that it was love” and that I didn’t feel like that for him and he he didn’t need feel that for me “anymore”. We had been married for 22 years at that point. I’m pretty damn sure that feeling the “butterflies” happened and were over about 20+ years ago. What “kind” of adult thinks like that. I pretty much knew then that I was married to a 14 year old girl.
Your name, then, is that much more awesome! (I haven’t read everything, so if that’s a repeat observation, it just goes to show that being on the receiving end of cheaters’ behavior has appallingly consistent effects.)
me too, He didn’t have the “desire” and wanted a “relationship.” That’s what the idiot had: a relationship. He’s looking for a new sex partner.
There are all flavors of this. I got, “Well I want to give you all of me.” Insinuation: I won’t or can’t because I also love somebody else, and that makes me really sad. Me me me me me. Incapable is exactly the word. Also “less than human” also works.
“Incapable …. [of being] human”?
That’s so right. My ex ended our relationship with the exact same words he began it – “I’m utterly enthralled”. Same words, different woman. The moment he said that about the OW, I walked away. Best thing I did.
I’m a great subscriber to Love is a Verb not a Feeling.
An insightful post into the ILYBINILWY bomb, which seems to be a universal cheaters’ mantra. Do they get “taught” this in therapy??
My first reaction to hearing this was shock, and then trying even harder to become a husband that was lovable again. If only she had been more honest and said “I’m not in love with you,… and I’m f*cking my co-worker” it would have saved me lot of money in marriage counselling.
You’ve hit the nail on the head with your translation: “I did unloving things, but telling you ‘I love you’ makes me feel better about them.”
You’re so right. How much time and heartache could be saved if we could just shoot these cheaters up with a little truth serum. He had said that his boss was texting him about the work schedule for the next day. Imagine my non-reconcile reaction if he would have instead said, “I’m telling my subordinate employee that I will give you some excuse about why I need to get into work early so we can have unprotected sexual intercourse in my office. We need to do this early so we don’t get caught and fired.”
Or if we could just shoot them. Period. End of action item. No use wasting valuable truth serum.
I got the “I don’t love you and never did” speech …at the time I would have preferred the ILYBINILWY speech but in the end they are just different flavors of shit sandwiches. It capitalized on my WORST fear…the fear that my husband didn’t love me. (If he had simply said “I’m divorcing you because I choose to” I might not have tried so hard to change his mind but he didnt because cake).
Rather than hire a good lawyer, I used my precious limited energy to make him see he should love me or did love me – which was a terrible mistake. What Chumps need to know is that these words don’t mean “game on” they mean “game over”.
What a jerk! He not only stabbed you but twisted the knife. I am so sorry, that statement may have ended with me shoving those words back down his throat.
Your husband is a colossal jackass. If he never loved you then why the F – did he propose to you, make vows, bought engagement rings, went through an official ceremony, lived with you for years, and told you he loved you throughout the years and then he states he never loved you. Wow, just wow. I’m so sorry. He’s a charlatan, putting on an act the entire time. If you don’t love someone, you don’t marry them asshole. It’s that simple. I’m sorry you were married to a fraud.
Yes, this is the exact mindfuck I was given, The I love but I’m not in love with you. My now XH made sure that I understood he “had never been in love” with me. You see he said we had never been “spiritually connected” and that his new affair was his soulmate. Thus his confirming statement that I was his “best friend, great wife and we have wonderful relationship” which lead me to the longest pick me dance… I was so confused sure that he was just infatuated in this new fantasy he had created and soon he would remember and realize all the love between us.
So still to this day I question was my whole marriage a charade? To be told someone has fallen out of love with you is bad enough, but to tell someone that you never were in love with them is cruel and like divorceminister.com says it is soul rape.
FUCK HIM!
Spiritwoman,
Every word you mention that was told to you by your cruel ex was also told to me from my now ex-wife – I mean VERBATIM!
I am years divorced now and after spending years processing this cruel mind-fuck, this is what I came up with…
Cheaters confuse limerence (which is shallow) with true love (which is deeper). Cheaters are fixated on the initial feeling of “in-love” – did is mention FIXATED? They fear swimming from shallow waters to deeper waters.
They learn this convoluted depiction of love in their early years. From media, TV, romance novels, or just being plain immature. Now you throw their disordered character, entitlement and impulsivity issues in the mix – whallah….CHEATING and justifications for re-writing history!
Even though my ex-wife and I said “ I love you”, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY to each other (even the morning of my last DDay), I realize now that those words were as empty as any vacant lot.
Look we all will have moments of not feeling “in-love” with our spouses – it’s completely natural. I know I did. What I did when I felt this way was simply to remind myself how grateful I was to have her and our love and our family. I accepted her imperfections and all and didn’t lower my standards by doing so. I would honestly wake up in the mornings and have thoughts – then actions – of what can I do today to make my wife’s day the best one ever. That is what true love is about.
I don’t believe for one second that my ex has never been in love with me. To prove it to myself it was as simple as me re-reading cards that she would write me throughout our marriage and her loving actions alike. Especially the early cards. Her words clearly expressed that she was in love with me – the proof was in her own handwriting. Unfortunately she is not capable of that type of introspection.
So you ask spiritwoman, “was my whole marriage a charade? I don’t think YOUR marriage with your ex was a charade but what I do think is your ex-husbands marriage with you was a charade. He is an emotionally immature and cruel being. He is not a man.
+1
Thank you for your clarity, it’s hard to keep a certain balance of what I know is the truth and what he now claims is his truth. How is it that normal people live their life authentically just being who they are honestly and yet others can act out their whole life. Of course, I believe he was in love with me, there were so many of the usual signs early on, even his best friend and family think he’s trying to use the “never in love” excuse to justify his infidelity. It’s not comprehendable that someone personality can completely change from what you know to what actually lies underneath the surface until it is exposed. Most people feel awful when breaking up and try to let the other person down as easy as possible.
The fact is the my BD came on a morning just after love making, while I still had my head on his shoulder and his arms around me. The ILYBINILWY comment blew me away such that I could hardly take my next breath. I literally felt time stop as well as my heart. My only reply was “If you’re not in love me then who are you in love with?” My brain was able to process the obvious but my heart was already broken. As you know its the kind of day that will never be forgotten , I still remember the date, time, the weather, etc. of the moment that forever changed my life. I truly thought I was going crazy but thank God for people like you who help me through without judgment and compassion, who still give me some hope for humanity.
The picture you painted for us to see is just shattering spiritwoman just shattering. – “morning just after love making, while I still had my head on his shoulder and his arms around me” then ILYBINILWY. –Offering you a belated hug 🙂
Cheaters have many disordered character traits. One specifically is they are not able to live a noble life. If they were able to have nobility, the nobility would always supersede the lust, limerence, “in love” and “soul mate” (gosh I hate that word).
They are not happy with the love and unconditional love they receive from their spouses. That is not enough for them. Nor is it enough that we helped make and raise kids with them – that we also bonded with them . Because of that we deserve a certain level of respect and instead of getting that respect, we get our worlds blown up instead- just cruel.
In the end though, good riddance. I have never been so authentically happy since getting rid of her. My home actually smells nicer without her there.
Ugh, my God! What SureChumpedAlot said. It just never ceases to amaze me how cruel these cheaters can be–how utterly selfish and unfeeling and unthinking they can be.
I agree on your limerence thought. To me it is not love because you cannot love someone you dont know and you cant actually KNOW a person when you are simply projecting our wishes onto them. They have all sorts of traits you are ignoring while you convince yourself that you see all sorts of wonderment. I dont know H1.0 and OW brokeup…I dont know if it played itself out or if one of them got cold feet. I hope they got into some nastyass fights and realized each other were asses
“To me it is not love because you cannot love someone you dont know and you cant actually KNOW a person when you are simply projecting our wishes onto them. They have all sorts of traits you are ignoring while you convince yourself that you see all sorts of wonderment.” – Spot ON!!!
Freaking Homer Simpson has more emotional intelligence and emotional maturity than EVERY.SINGLE.CHEATER.OUT.THERE!
“Even though my ex-wife and I said “ I love you”, EVERY.SINGLE.DAY to each other (even the morning of my last DDay), I realize now that those words were as empty as any vacant lot.”
This is what pained me the most. It was a switch that just flipped. After reading these posts today I’m horrified repeatedly by the lack of conscience and humanity these assholes display.
“It’s not comprehendable that someone personality can completely change from what you know to what actually lies underneath the surface until it is exposed.”
SW I saw him totally exposed after he got served. He fluctuated from complete rage to offering me a mint and telling me he thought about me all the time once the settlement was signed in the courtroom. He never expected me to file. He wanted me to fight for him and I pulled myself out of that game.
His old blameshifting crap he used to keep me hooked never ends. Recently, he said, “I can see you haven’t changed.” And I’m laughing because I have changed tremendously and have a future. His words have NO impact on me anymore. Don’t care.
Doingme, thanks for yoyr acknowledgements. Lots of wisdom in your words.
So so so so so so true! My STBX is having a crisis because he could never be the person that cheated. He HATES cheaters and then he became one. And he told me last week he doesn’t know what love is now. I told him it’s NOT excitement! It’s LOVING someone even when you don’t. True adult love is finding your person, making the commitment and CHOOSING them and the commitment EVERYDAY! Sometimes you aren’t in love with them. Then you remember why you chose them and you fall back in love with them. It’s not excitement. It’s getting through the shit of life with your best friend and someone you LOVE and want to protect and want to be with regardless of excitement and that stupid fucking “spark” and those GD fucking butterflies. It isn’t hard! But apparently it is. I’ve spent days sobbing over our old pictures and cards and love letters we wrote each other. We were SO IN LOVE and I still was (and am). I just wish he could get his shit together and realize life is more than excitement. It’s the memories and the struggles and getting through in a partnership. I’m so sick over this whole thing. And having an awful morning.
Sadly, some people are incapable of love. My ex said the words, constantly, for 16 years, and signed every card and note with “all my love,” but there were day-glow red flags waving had I been paying proper attention. He claimed he wanted to marry me because he “felt more committed than he ever had before, and had ever thought possible.” Sounds nice, right? Then at our wedding, right before the ceremony, he whispered something in my ear. It sounded like “You’ll never tie me down.” I asked him to repeat that before I informed our seated guests that the party was over before it had begun. He said oh, no, no, he didn’t mean THAT, he was just so nervous he was babbling, he really wanted to marry me, blah, blah, blah.
Looking in the rear view mirror, I realized that the Fucktard had given me his version of full disclosure. More committed than zero, isn’t much commitment. All his love meant all his love, if any. And he did in fact tell me I’d never tie him down, though he immediately and vehemently denied that.
There are some sick ratbastards out there who play the long con very well.
OMG… “The long con”. It’s criminal to steal a person’s life like that. I’m so sorry you had that experience. I got the long con too. If Gaslighter hadn’t gotten caught, it would have gone on forever.
We should do a post on Cheater Obituaries! Giving Chumps the last laugh…
Chump Change, great idea! For those cheaters still among the living, perhaps their long suffering chumps could construct a fitting demise and tribute? For entertainment purposes only, of course.
My POS cheater ex actually did have the good sense to die a slow and painful and untimely death, after achieving professional disgrace, pretty much what I would have wished for him, but by then I was long gone, and I’d been enjoying a blissful life of no contact for years. I heard the news secondhand and months after the fact when alerted to a brilliant work of fiction that was his obit in the latest issue of a national magazine. Written by one of his most favorite and longstanding flying monkeys, of course. Given the opportunity to rewrite history, I think I’d feed him to hungry pigs instead of letting him have a touching memorial service, but that is just me.
It seems so funny now to see him referred to in present tense..he is no more…we wreckonciled for 7 years after that nightmare (he continued to suck) but he died 3 years ago. He lied to the very end and I didnt learn he was a serial cheater until a year ago – 3 months before my wedding.
He was odd during our courtship…he pursued and promised right to the point of getting engaged then he ran away…3 times. We were very young but had dated 3 years and were living in different states…he continued to make uncertain nebulous promises. I finally had enough and I said “we move forward together or Im done”…mind you we WERE NOT even living in the same state, I was neither pregnant nor mentally fragile. There was no gun to his head…all he had to do was walk but we got married.
I want to say marrying him was the biggest mistake of my life but I simply cant wish my kids out of existence. I come here to process the shocking info that the man I believed was faithful for the first 18 yrs of our marriage (until Susan of Seattle came along) was actually cheating all along.
He was a genuinely horrible husband…ghastly, sucky. Im remarried to a wonderful man who was dumped by a cluster B 12 yrs ago. We have a great life together because we REALLY appreciate the toxicity that we escaped.
Lied to the end …. discovered by you to have been a cheater all along two years AFTER he died, and three months before you remarried? What abominable waste. I’m thrilled for you (and him!) that you’re happily remarried.
(And, a little selfishly, relieved to see yet one more example of someone who made it. I feel unhinged and embarrassed — ashamed? Whatever the case, while I welcome becoming wiser, I will never be a cynic. But it’s hard to get on solid ground with little hope. So I watch others.)
“abominable waste” is an apt description of how he chose to live his life..he was cute, smart, & funny but very very immature and very poorly coping…very narc attitude that he should never have to choose what he wanted because he should have EVERYTHING. He love the part of a decision where you get to regale in your wide array of wonderful choices (houses, jobs, women) – but he wildly detested having to pick one thing to the exclusion of the others.
My new husband is a gem…ironically, he is everything my latehusband wished he could be but wasnt. I really trust him which is HUGE, as you might imagine.
ClaireS, unhinged and embarassed, yes. You are not alone in those feelings, sadly.
Nowdeadserialcheaterwife fed “I love my husband, but I’m not in love with him” AND “I married my husband for security and for a baby, but I never really loved him” to her online and RL boyfriends, in the chat logs I discovered after her death. She was probably “trying on” different versions of the history rewrite to see which one made her feel better. She never did get around to feeding either line to me – why would she risk me kicking her out of the house I bought us before she had another meal ticket lined up?
Mine told me that he married me because he thought I would be good at taking care of him, taking care of a home and taking care of any children we might have. He then said that in fact, I WAS very good at all of those things, but he just didn’t feel any “passion” for me.
I wish I had understood that I was being hired as a maid and babysitter, not lovingly taken as a wife, when he asked me to marry him. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wasted the prime of my life, two decades I’ll never get back, on a man who was cheating even from our dating days.
I also heard similarly that he had married me because I was his best friend and an honest woman, and he thought I would be a good wife. Well he got that right at least, and I too thought he was my best friend and an honest man, and that he would be a good husband. I unfortunately go that part wrong!
I think that my H1 loved a little during our best times, but not much…just enough that he didnt want anyone else to have me. He thought I would be an ideal wife and I was. We used to laugh that the military literally told then to marry a Nurse whose father was in the military – both of which were true for me…I had no idea there was truth to him just checking a box where I was concerned.
After he died, I found an anger mgmt worksheet (I dont know why he was assigned to go to anger mgmt, he must have pulled a stunt at work) dated 2005 where he wrote in one of the boxes “I never loved my wife, that made everything harder” but that was smack dab in the middle of his affair, so who knows if he loved me at a different time.
I wonder how much he sees from where he is…Im Catholic, I believe in Purgatory and I think he is being held accountable for the bombs that went off after he died…I wonder if he saw me find this stuff. If he is developing a decent character in purgatory, he likely appreciates the love my new husband gives me.
“I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”
To me this means “I’m not capable of loving other people because I focus so much energy on trying to make them love me”
I wonder if when I was thinking thoughts like “I’m so lucky to have such a beautiful wife and to have been together since we were young and to be so familiar and comfortable…. I’m going to do this nice thing for her because I love and appreciate her so much” she was probably thinking something like “He’s so lucky to have such a beautiful wife like me.. I’m going to do this nice thing for him so he’ll love me and appreciate me more”
Ah yes, I heard that awful, twisted thought. A friend later said to me and it’s so true, love is not a feeling you fall in and out of, it’s a choice. You make a commitment to another person. These cheaters think it’s a feeling…and that feeling feels like kibbles. It’s that new butterfly in your tummy, exciting, lustful new love. Real love is mature, reciprocal, respectful, trustful. I spent 24 years walking on eggshells, maybe not as much in the early years, but I was duly trained from his comments regarding other couples, his silent treatment, my needs ignored.
Dodo tried and is trying to make me lash out to make him feel better. To justify his own behavior. That horrible little mindfuck was just the beginning. How do they all come up with the same words and behaviors?
Good words you speak lady jane.
They ALL come up with the same words and behaviors because they are ALL at the same emotional immaturity level.
A more accurate statement from a cheater would be “I really loved all the things you did for me, before you found out I am only in love with myself.”
So true.
Very close to what I was thinking too Over and Out. When a cheater says “I love you” they don’t necessarily mean that they love you in particular but rather that they love what you do for them and they love that you make them look like a good person (the facade). At least this was the case with my cheater ex.
There you go.
Mine meant “I love that you really love me.”
Ugh, I got this speech too. And then he continued on with: I don’t think you could forgive me. I read up, and came back to this, and said: Stop putting MY emotions in the way. Why don’t YOU want this to work. Then it came out that he didn’t want to lose his “friendship” with his co-worker. That’s when I knew it was over. Because there was no friendship. Any decent spouse would put their spouse WAY above a “friendship with a co worker” any day of the week. He’s also addicted to the butterflies of being “in love” which he thinks is “true love”.
Since then I’ve stopped letting the narc dictate our divorce, and he’s started threatening me. It’s quite scary to have him go from what I thought was a loving husband and dad to a complete psycho. Now I can’t wait for this farce of a divorce to be over so that I can move on with my life. And he can move the fuck out.
“Then it came out that he didn’t want to lose his “friendship” with his co-worker. That’s when I knew it was over. Because there was no friendship.”
You’re right, there is no friendship. He’s fucking her and that’s what he doesn’t want to lose, a warm place to put it. And he thinks it’s true love, give it time. Once these jerks are divorced from their wives, things all of a sudden go awry with the AP and they turn on each other. It’s just a matter of time.
THIS. It took only two weeks after I kicked him out–AP dumped him. Oh how he suffered, at least in the texts to her. But he had someone lined up in the wings, and left on a trip with her a month later…to Europe. WTF.
Unfortunately my cheater’s twu wuv with his Whore shows no signs of abating one year on. Throughout our entire relationship and marriage he was trying on other women on for size and he left me for this one. I was completely oblivious about his cheating until he left me for the final Whore and then it all came out.
I keep reading Chump Lady’s “The Dreaded Fear They’re Going to Be Better for Someone Else” article and I keep hoping it’s true but he left me for this Whore and a year later they’re still together and off on vacation celebrating our divorce. That really hurts.
Chumpella – your comment pulled at my heartstrings. He’s still with her because she is OF USE to him at the moment. It’s impression management: “See? I’m able to maintain a relationship for a whole year. See everyone? We are meant to be together and she is my Twu Wuv!” My bet is that he’s kept her around during the divorce to have someone on his side. When all of the excitement and upheaval (cheaters love upheaval) he’ll look at her and blame her for her part in the destruction of your marriage. She was of use as an ally through your divorce and then she’ll be of use as the blame garbage can.
He’s not capable of real love. Keep saying that to yourself when you’re feeling discarded. He’s not in a real relationship with the OW. SHE IS JUST OF USE – For now.
Thanks for your sage comments, uneffingbelievable. I really, really hope that you are right.
I was completely oblivious about what was going on and what he was up to throughout our entire relationship and the fact that he left me for this last Whore is the thing I am struggling to deal with. I am hoping against hope that now everything is out in the open and I am removed from the equation that their twu wuv combusts but as I am lucky enough to be completely No Contact I will never know.
*yawn* I got ILYBINILWY as well, with help from CL and IHG I got to understand the real meaning, as elegantly explained by CL above. A year later I’m nearly divorced and much, much happier. The affair was just the apex of years of crappy treatment by a crappy selfish woman who always put herself first and didn’t even care about the effect on her own kids or the kid of the married man she was screwing whilst myself and his wife were at work. Crappy lowlifes, your life is SO much better without them. I am now seeing a woman who treats me with kindness, respect and consideration. What a difference! Kick the cheaters to the kerb where they belong, in CL’s words, go find Real Monkeys to bond with.
Great post! I’m so glad you saw the cheater for what they were, crappy selfish self-centered person. I’m so glad you got out and found someone who treats you well. Good for you!
I got that the first time he was caught cheating(for a year, with a friend of ours,after he had said it was a 1 night stand and I took him back,,chumpy me). He then begged to stay after the year, and I let him) biggest mistake of my life 4 years later and down by half of my retirement savings (at 55) he left for anotherAP. He didn’t bother saying this a second time. The mask was completely off by then.. really evil and ugly they are. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I think it means “I want to be married, but also chasing strange ass.” ” I mean it can’t be wrong cause I don’t love you. No, wait, cake !!!!!”
All it really means is they are an immature piece of shit trying to act mature, and benevolent, and worldly. Things they know nothing about.
Yup, I got the ILYBINILWWY speech too. I was blindsided. Cheater ex then went on to sing Schmoopie’s praises and try to get me to commiserate with him over the hard life he was helping her overcome.
Say what! Here I was working full time nights, going to nursing school, running a household and mothering two teenage boys, all on three hours of sleep a day. And here is this colossal asshole not only announcing he is having an affair, but wanting me to problem solve for his mistress. My heart just froze and my mind was boggled. I was only a couple of months away from graduation, so I decided to stay long enough to finish school and get my license, and then it would be adios jerkoff. I refused to sleep in the same bed with him after that. Get this….he was “hurt” I moved out of our bedroom. He couldn’t have cared less about my feelings.
He is long dead now. I’m still glad. It’s a sorry testimony to one’s life when someone is happy you’re dead. I’m not a vindictive person, but you know…… he earned my attitude.
More than earned it, Tessie. He was an evil man.
Pure evil. I only know him through Tessie’s posts here and even I’M glad he’s dead.
Yup. And I hope he suffered.
I hope he suffered for a looonnnng time. I don’t think I believe in retaliation. But I believe in what the law calls “just desert.” (Which, if you start thinking about the double entendre, gets better and better.”)
“ILYBINILWY”
I’m sick of hearing this statement! It’s the same as telling a person “I don’t love you”. We want the passionate kind of love that spouses have for each other, not the kind of love a man feels for his mother. So when I hear ILYBINILWY, it’s the exact same as telling me I don’t love you. If he loves me like his sister or a family member, then he can go be with them. I’m out.
I got “I love you like a family member” (really, I wonder what strata of “family member” I was loved at. Was it mom, his brother, or was it his distant Mormon cousins that he hadn’t seen in 20 years?). He continued: “If only I had felt a spark for you while we were in Hawaii (We had my mom’s ash scattering and funeral in Hawaii with my family 6 days before he sprung this shit on me). A few weeks later, he told me that he hadn’t felt butterflies for me for 6 weeks prior to when he dropped the bomb (when I was learning how to walk again after ACL surgery and arranging my mom’s funeral?), wait, no it was 3 months, then 6 months. I also got the “I don’t think you can forgive me for what I’ve done”. All the while denying an affair.
Once again, Chumplady nails it. It’s about the sparkles. He wasn’t getting the requisite (but unexpressed) amount of SPARKLES. As his “wife”, I should have known what the appropriate dosage of sparkles was. I failed and was demoted to the level of his distant Mormon cousin. Nice to know they’re there in Utah – if you need a free place to crash when you run a marathon in Salt Lake, otherwise, they just like your selfies on Facebook and tell us how fabulous you are.
Cindy, it shouldn’t be funny but I had to laugh at what your ex told you. He expected to feel sexy sparkles with you during your mother’s FUNERAL? You couldn’t keep him interested in you while you recovered from KNEE SURGERY? Sheesh. Then it’s definitely all your fault.
A counselor once told me that my ex was high on affair hormones when he said this kind of ridiculous stuff to me. That’s why it makes about as much sense as the excuses that hormonal teenagers give.
My ex told me he loved me “like a sister.” Well, sheesh, so was he fucking his sisters as well?
I was told the same thing… All the same things cheaters say. But specifically in regards to… I love you like a sister. Come to find out cheater actually sexually abused his younger sisters for 8 years while growing up. He was kicked out at 19 yrs old because of it. I met him at the same time. His family hid this from me.
So yeah in a way mine did f*ck around with his sisters. He’s a disordered prick leaving victims eveywhere he goes. They’re all disgusting lying pigs.
x said the same thing. Loved like a sister, means that you should love them forever because siblings love for ever. Ummmmm no. No that was too weird to hear and I was not going to go there. How “nice”, he would still love me like a “sister”, and at some point in time I would get to hear his sad story and feel sorry for him when the AP left him. Oh hell no. He told me so much stuff in such a short time that I was overwhelmed but I remember it all. Crazy f*ck. And the weird thing was that when AP did leave him, his one thing to tell me was that “you were right” she did leave me, no shit, he didn’t see that coming???? Stupid, crazy, f*ck.
“We want the passionate kind of love that spouses have for each other, not the kind of love a man feels for his mother.”
No Kidding! I’m already the mother of his kid. He just wanted a baby mama, now he wants a “relationship”
I got a slightly different mindfuck. Cheese Fries (formerly known as The Entitled One) told me he loves me, he’d never love anyone as much as he loves me, and that I’m his other half straight through three d-days, two wreckonciliations, and the day before we went to divorce court for the first time. Somehow his “loving me” never precluded infidelity, walking out on our marriage, destroying our family, devastating our kids, and fucking other women.
Took me a long time to understand that whatever “love” means to him is not my definition of love.
+100
Yeah, when they pull out ILYBINILWY, ask them to define what “love” and “in love” means to them. And listen to the response, even if it’s nonsense or . We chumps assume way too often that disordered cheaters are occupying the same universe that we are.
BetterDays, I got and get that version of mindfuck, too. Verbatim. Plus “I was afraid of how much I loved you.”
Telling moment ON recent-ish D-day: I was sobbing. He was mostly silent. Then, in what sounded like a truly bewildered voice, he said (about a 5-year affair), “But I ALWAYS loved you.”
I was stopped cold. Found myself for a moment. Replied, “What you have done is NOT love.” The angry response, right out of the Pretend Emotional Correctness in the Wrong Context Handbook? “You can tell me what you perceive, but,” his voice rising, “you do NOT get to tell me what I feel.” I was too shell-shocked to reply.
I have never had the, I love you but not I’m love with you but this passage is like turning a light bulb on.
Cheater love is a compartmentalized kind of love — “I love you, but I put that aside while I was fucking someone else.” The two things aren’t at all connected! Why should “love” get in the way of a good time?
On her wait out the door to Prince Cheating, Princess Sluterella said “I realize now we’ve just been really good friends all these years.” I didn’t even get to be “loved,” I was apparently just a buddy under the false impression we were married.
These slimeballs are all the same…if they don’t really love the spouse, then leaving for somebody better must be morally fine, right? It’s even necessary!
I had a neighbor who pulled this crap on his loving wife of 35 years. He found an AP and all of a sudden, he came out with proclamations like this, that he was never in love with his life and he realized he was just good friends with his wife. Btw, the wife gave up her career and moved away from her family to be with this jackass. And the AP was oh so wonderful, he had found the love of his life, he couldn’t believe his eyes, she was so wonderful bla bla bla. 4 months after the divorce, things were over with the AP and they hated each other. So much for true love huh. These people are mentally unstable.
sorry – Never in love with his *wife*.
I kinda like the typo! Agreed, mentally unstable (tame version), such that they ARE chronically dissatisfied. Couldn’t love a life OR a wife with anything that resembles maturity. Grow the fuck up. Oh, wait. That’s too hard? Or you’re disordered such that you’re incapable, but you’ll pretend?? GO AWAY and steep in toxicity with your own kind.
Ok, first, Princess Sluterella, ha ha ha ha! Awesome!
Second, who is this “we” of which she speaks? Doesn’t sound to me like “we” belongs in her sentence about friends. She should have said you were here very good friend, that’s what’s true.
It’s like my ex saying “can’t we be friends again?” No. We can’t be friends again because there is no again. Friends don’t do what you have done. You have never been my friend.
Yes, before the BD I too thought we were best friends, in fact, I thought that was the best component of our marriage. We were great companions, sex was awesome, we even worked together having fun too. Every day he held my hand, told me he loved me, we talked about everything. After BD he told me he had met his soulmate and realized that he had married his best friend. He loved me but more like a sister etc. It took quite some time for me to acknowledge that a true best friend would have told me how he was feeling, wouldn’t have lied and sneak around, then stab me in the back.
“It took quite some time for me to acknowledge that a true best friend would have told me how he was feeling, wouldn’t have lied and sneak around, then stab me in the back.”
This is spot on!!
Nowdeadserialcheateriwfe’s literal motto, the centerpiece of everything she said about me in speeches, toasts, etc, when we got married was “I’m marrying my best friend.” Everyone, including me, thought it sounded lovely and romantic. In retrospect, it was a red flag the size of a football field.
I told my ex if this is how he treats his “friends (or actual wife / mother of his children)” I’d sure hate to see how he treats his enemies.
I always thought being ‘best friends’ was the best thing to happen in a marriage, especially when the lust wore off.
A more mature love.
In their case, they make it sound like we weren’t soul-mates but roommates, to whatever whore listened to that.
Oh, /absolutely/ necessary! Nowdeadserialcheaterwife had a little “romance” manifesto she would copy/paste out to each new boyfriend (I wish I’d kept it when I deleted her chat logs for my own sanity) detailing how she was a special class of human being called a “romantic”, and romantics can only be with and be satisfied by other “romantics” [which basically meant she expected to be lovebombed continuously, forever]. As a fundamentally different and better class of human, they deserve this.
She really believed this, I think. But to the savvier scumbags on the singles chat she was addicted to (before she replaced that addiction with opioids) it was more like “these are the lies you need to echo back to me to get into my pants.”
She was a special class of human being, all right, the kind I loathe most: perpetrators who think they’re victims. That you had to figure all this out after her death just sounds horrific.
A twist on this – I am a lesbian, and was in a relationship with another woman for 20 years. TWENTY YEARS! We were still – ahem – intimate up to a week before she dumped me for a man. (Not to mention all the years she spent declaring I was the love of her life.)
Running out the door, she said, “I don’t think I ever really was a lesbian”.
LOL
Right. She just played one on TV.
So she said she was using you as her Beard? I mean that sounds like all the women here who found out their husband was gay. What an asshole. Jedi Hugs!
Good Lord. Sorry you had to go through such bullshit, SnowyEgret. The sexually confused ones really play a number on your head. When my ex dumped me for a married woman (they didn’t end up together, however), he admitted he had had sex with hundreds of other men in gay bath houses, but this OW had “cured him of his homosexual urges” and that he was actually “straight but confused.” Well, he got the “confused” part right, anyway. He’s still balling other guys, though, so I don’t think the “cure” stuck, LOL.
Regarding sexual orientation confusion. One day my STBX tells me that he has had gay affairs; the next he tells me that he never has. One day my STBX tells me that he had sex with female prostitutes (before and during our marriage); the next day he tells me that he never has. I don’t care whether I ever know the truth. S–t sandwich either way.
Yep. Plus with the really disordered ones, like both of our ex’s, the little dribbles of truth that either they tell you or you find out on your own are always only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their full depravity.
Raising my hand – being married as a beard.
The o/w he went to was just another cover.
Surprised me at first because I thought it would have been a man.
But, he played her like he played me.
Why doesn’t he get over his sexual issues and just damn well come on ‘out’?
Well, because he doesn’t want to disappoint his Mama.
What a colossal rip-off.
Katbug, I’m 2 months out from Dday also and what you may be experiencing is shock and paralysis from what you uncovered. Because you actually had REAL feelings for him, it does take longer for everything to truly sink in. I can tell you that there is quite a bit of manipulation on the part of the cheater to keep you around (for cake eating purposes only is what I realized). These people DO NOT CHANGE… They just repaint the mask and make it a little shinier and more colorful. They find ways to hide what they are doing even more so than before. Once you realize you’re in the same hell that you’ve always been in, you’ll get up the courage and strength you need to leave. Thank GOD for ChumpLady….. I needed a new kind of brainwashing. I’ve been on this site for the last two months to help me get to the point where I WILL tell him what CL said. “I need to be in a relationship where I am fully loved and respected. You don’t love me the way I deserve to be loved. Buh-BYE.” Good luck to you…
“I needed a new kind of brainwashing.” ^^^^This.^^^^^
Peakyblinders “shock and paralysis” is so dead on. You’re two months out? Did you decide to leave? MC?!
Oh yeah and I got “I love you like a family member” too. Now he wants to try and “rekindle what has died”. Apparently, this involves me “taking better care of myself.” Ugh
Only pods incapable of real love go after “perfect.” Ex was an athletic, handsome, Sparkley Cheater, after Dday I threw up for six months when I realized how much of a fraud he was. Women threw themselves at him our whole marriage and it never occurred to me that he was. that. shallow. The Disordered want Barbies to fuck (and twenty different positions cause that’s what porn stars do) and they believe this reflects well on them. Mine even had his “true lurv” story published. He stated he only stayed married to me for 20 years because of our kids. WTF ever! Yet he was still fucking me. And OW for the last two years. Crazy making to be sure. We all deserve better than this!
Katbug, there is no rekindling what was dead. Been there, tried that for a long time. The trust is gone, my happiness in our relationship is gone. I can’t even look him in the eyes. My belief that he will change or be a different person was wrong to begin with. I’m on my way out the door next week. I told him last month that I would be watching over the next few weeks and what I saw was about a week of sweetness and doing things that I’ve been asking him to do throughout our 2 year relationship (thank God only 2 years).
Over the last few weeks, there were miniscule trickles of the SAME OLD SHIT. That triggered my gut and intuition AGAIN. All I can tell you is your gut is RIGHT. Don’t wait for any more proof. JUST LEAVE HIS SORRY ASS and get your life together! I will say it again… HE WILL NOT CHANGE, only the mask will be screwed on a bit tighter and it will be just a tiny bit more sparkly. Let me give you a quick example…
He used to spend a lot of time on the couch at night because “he couldn’t sleep, the couch is comfy sometimes and he didn’t want to disturb my sleep” Another neat trick was the 45 minutes plus in the bathroom. (Lots of people on CN can relate to those two things…All excuses to talk to her/them without you knowing and make plans for the next day/week.) So now what he does is he makes his plans at a different time and then when he has followed through with his plans, he will tell me how he is going downstairs because he can’t sleep and invites me to come with him! Sneaky, huh?
I’m just saying that to say this… think about the times you spent getting to know and like your husband when you first started dating. When these guys cheat, they have that same exact connection with the AP. Why? because they are incapable of real feelings. Please believe that just because you catch him doesn’t mean he is going to stop that connection with the OW. And don’t think for a minute that he isn’t prepping her that he needs to lay low for a bit until things “cool down” with you. He’s also continuing to talk to her because there is that “connection”. They will eventually find another way to get together. I’m saving myself the time and humiliation of really catching him with her/them and just leaving. I know all that I need to know. Read June 29th archive for some of my story. They are all MINDFUCKS. Please trust and believe it. We’re all here for you and again, don’t tell him you are leaving until you have every single last duck in a row… HUGS
Ah yes…ILYBINILWY…That was followed up shortly by “our marriage was over anyway.” I think that one gobsmacked me even more seeing we were still telling each other “I love you” every day, still having sex, still going on vacations together. Being the epic chump that I was, I stayed for three years of wreckconciliation…which was just one long mind fuck after another. Not to mention my exhaustive stint with the marriage police force. (Take heed reconcilers).
When I finally got sick of it and told him I wanted a divorce, I demonstrated what it really meant to end a marriage. I had the tough conversation and moved out of the house. After the requisite cheater request that I stick around for the holidays of course. I’m not sure what chapter it is in the cheater handbook that all marriages must remain in tact until the holidays are over but I’m guessing it’s in the impression management section. Or it could be in the “get back together with schmoopie so I never have to be alone” section. (they’re married now)
Anyway, I was divorced a mere 5 months after our initial conversation. And that folks is how you truly end a marriage!
Or the “don’t force me to be responsible about money when I want to buy everybody presents so they know how great I am”… oh, wait, you’re right, that pesky image management. Gr.
Mine told the kids “this has been coming for a long time.” Sure as hell shocked me to hear that! If had been coming for a long time I had no clue. He also told them our marriage imploding had nothing to do with his coworker.
I got… “Are you happy? Because I don’t think I am.” Cue the Pick Me dance! Stupid me, I really believed I was only competing with a desire to have freedom, not another woman. I bent over backwards next 14 months while he ate cake. It came to the point he said “divorce”, I lawyered up, then he got angry. Then I got… “All of these years, you’ve just been a waste of my time.” He moved out, right into a woman’s home that I’d never knew existed. In hindsight I realized I had been the stable launching pad he needed while building the relationship with Wife #2 up to the point the transition would be painless (for HIM).
Delusional fuckers, once while I was sobbing uncontrollably he came set on the bed next to me and said
If you really love me you don’t you want me to be happy?
I said shouldn’t I be the one asking that question, oh yeah, you don’t care if I’m happy.
These repeated types of conversations that I experienced with the non-rational idiot were like bouts of torture. Sometimes I’d replay the conversations in my mind over and over because I just couldn’t believe that this wasn’t just a case of midlife crisis. Now I know that is simply is that they are really fucked up people.
They really are “fucked up people.” While Chumps are busy and content and proud to be playing by the rules they are sneaking around behind our backs and blowing everything up. Ex married OW. LMFAO! Good riddance!
OMG… every time I read a new column I am amazed by all the cheaters playing by the same script!!! Unbef*ckinglievable.. thet are all the same…
I wish I had found this website 4 years ago when I heard those words “I love you but I am not in love with you”. The year before Prince Charming told me that his best friend was Cinderella and how lucky he was to have TWO best friends – me and her. At that point I told him that was unacceptable. But they carried on behind my back because she was the District Executive for the Boy Scouts of America and he was the District Chairperson and they had to work together. At that point I should have insisted that he resign from his position -especially after I found the text that read “Thanks for the snuggles. XOXO”. Not long after that I found one of her bras in my laundry. Funny no one knew how it got there and I must have brought it home with me from a trip 7 months earlier. RIGHT.
All during the first phase of our divorce – he kept insisting that he loved me but couldn’t give me a solid reason why we were divorcing. He knew that I had issues with his “friendship” with Cinderella. Then came the wreckoncilliation because he wanted his family back. We were going to take some time to reconnect as a family before he moved back in. We had a vacation scheduled. My sister passed away from a brain tumor. He was very solicitous during that time…until I found the card with her ultimatum – “I don’t want to be demanding or put ultimatums on our relationship. But I;m doing it for us. Our Sanity! Our Bond! Our Family! I am asking you to chose us! I love you.XOXOXO”. Went ballistic when I found that card. Argued screamed etc for 7 hours driving back from the planning of my sister’s funeral. He was crying and telling me that he loved me but thought he was “in love” with her. But he was going to break it off. The coward sent a text at 11 pm telling me he was chosing her, it was over and he was calling his lawyer to restart proceedings. I went to her apartment to confront her and that was when I found out the truth behind his lies. See he had been lying to me the entire time saying he wasn’t involved with her or sleeping with her. I called him a jack ass and her a cunt. I asked if she knew about him signing reconciliation papers with me and why was he doing this. All the time the Prince Charming is crying and saying he didn’t want to hurt me.
I went back home for the funeral. Returned to my home and found him and all his shit there. SHE kicked him out. How dare he consider going back to his “bitch” of a wife. He was crying again and asking for a second chance because he had no where else to go. I made him call his father and tell him that he had been living with another woman for the past 2 1/2 years. He begged me for his wedding ring back and told me he would never take it off again. Now remember this is a woman who wouldn’t allow him to add any personal touches to “their love nest” or tell anyone where he was living or have his sons over. Because if anyone found out her reputation would be ruined! GASP!
Chumpy me, took him back partly because I felt our sons needed a father in their lives. I also have an adult son who is Autistic. HE needed his father as well. Made him promise to do all the things they say when an affair is discovered. But I forgot to include her brothers, who I have since found out, carried messages from her to him.
Prince Charming planned his second exit on Thanksgiving Day 2014 behind all of our backs. Came home on 12/10 and packed up his stuff in his truck and helped the boys cook dinner for 4. When I got home from the gym, he sat me down and said our living arrangement wasn’t working for him (I made him sleep on the sofa) and he needed space. I asked if he was going back to her and he said no. I wanted to know who he was moving in with – again another co-worker. Between that day and February 2015 I played detective and found out he was living with her brother. When confronted with his duplicity again he cried told me he still loved me and didn’t mean to hurt me. At that point I told him he never deserved me or our children. I also go the line “I would marry you all over again, but make better choices, because of those boys”. Thanks fuckwit. on Feb 13, something made me go by Cinderella’s apartment. His truck was there and the lights were off. I went home packed up the remaining shit he left at my house and dropped it on her door step.
That was the day I declared I was no longer going to take this bull shit any more and took control back of my life. Like I said I wish I had found this site 3 years ago because I would have save myself a lot of time and energy not playing the Pick Me Dance with this prick.
I will say this – because men who utter the phrase “ILYBINILWY” are shallow. I hope Prince Charming and Cinderella have their happy ending, but I doubt it. When she discovers at the age of 40 she is married to a 61 year old fart she will dump his ass for a younger model with more money.
The BS oath.
God, I am so sorry. What a complete douche.
It’s okay I am well on my way to Meh. He is a complete douche canoe.
Along with the normal bs everyone gets i got. I got i still love you but its 80 percent guilt and 20 percent love. Seriously im a percentage? And a guy can love two women at the same time. Sure asshole go love ten women at the same time one of them wont be me. The sparkles, worship, newness, thats what got him and the whores money. But hes a good guy you know everyone respects him. If only he knew how hes lost the respect of everyone close to him including the whore. And of course its all my fault. Fucker, what an asshole rewriting and reinventing history. They are all assholes.
After D-day, mine professed he loved me, but evidently I didn’t love HIM because I couldn’t forgive him. I didn’t love him after D-day, that’s true.
Tempest, I got the “you’ll never forgive me for this/you’ll never let this go” line too.
It’s taken some time for me to realize this but “you’ll never forgive me” actually equates to “once you’ve seen behind the mask, you can never unsee it”.
So I think they know their mask won’t work on us anymore and blame-shift that to us by saying we’re not able to forgive them.
Me three! He said – I know you’ll never get over this…
I actually agreed with him, he knows one of my deeply held beliefs is treating others with respect, how could I just snap my fingers and forget he betrayed me, and tried to hide it? And, smirked in my face about how ‘desirable’ he was, with two women after him? She gets to have you, asshole!
I think the whole thing made him giddy with power, being the Ringmaster of the Clusterfuck Circus he made our lives into! So much more interesting (ONLY to him) than our everyday lives had become. Funny, that’s the life he now claims to want so badly, if only he could get it back.
I’m busy, though, doing whatever I want!
Mine told him he felt happy with her, but guilty when he came home to me (before I know). So that made me the less desirable one. It had nothing to do with his own conscience trying to tell him what he was doing was wrong. LOL
Percentages? Outrage that betrayed doesn’t “love” enough to forgive (RIC I’m looking at YOU)? Too stupid to process the word “guilt”? I’d call it pathetic, but even that is too kind.
Yep. Asswipe was more concerned he hurt her and her family more than his own. Whore 2 years me 28 years. He needs professional help help for pod cteatures.
I got this ILYBINILWY several times — at the last one (several weeks after the gauntlet was thrown down), I put it to her:
“Even if you don’t love me anymore as a husband, but only as the father of your children, and haven’t for a long time as you claim — how do you explain telling [fuckbuddy #6] that I gave you a black eye after an argument, when you really got it in a BDSM session with [fuckbuddy #2]? How is that love on ANY level?”
Her response: “(sigh) You’ve got to find a way get past that and move forward.”
“No, Lady, YOU have to find a way past that without me to kick around. I don’t EVER have to get past that, because it happened, and you did it, and you think it’s reasonable, and that’s how I know you are not worth one more second of my precious life. I will remember that so I will always recognize complete bullshit when I see it.”
I got the ILYBINILWY and was floored when I first heard it. Not until later did I find out that it’s the most common excuse used by an unfaithful spouse.
God I wish my wife would read this post….but sadly it would just go right over her head like a small bird flying by. She’s been with her married COW for lord knows how many years, gave him her happiness, gave him her love and appreciation, put all of her efforts and emotions into that relationship, and left me in the background to deal with reality. Coming home to me and the kids after work must have been quite the buzzkill.
But in the end, “it wasn’t about him” of course. No, to her, having a full scale relationship for several years with someone outside of the marriage didn’t have any impact our relationship. It was all about me and my failures as a husband, and my inability to make her as happy as she apparently was with the OM. I am by no means perfect and there are plenty of things that I could have done better, but for her to take the stance that this A had no impact on our marriage is just flat wrong.
So for all of my unsatisfactory efforts as a husband, I get to lose my kids, lose my house, and start my life completely over – but at least according to her she still loves me. Not enough to avoid destroying ours and our children’s lives (or to stop running around with another woman’s husband in an effort to capture the happiness fairy). But again, at least she loves me, she’s just not in love with me.
Blindside, you do NOT have to lose your kids. Most men don’t fight for custody, you will fight for custody and an equitable settlement. Usually these days custody is 50/50 unless there are special circumstances. Get going with an attorney. Jedi Hugs!
I know it will be 50/50, but I consider not being able to be with my kids EVERY single day as an unacceptable loss. I will only get to see them half as much as I see them now for the rest of their childhoods. That’s what kills me the most about this – and for what? Not for anything that I did or didn’t do. It’s all because my wife couldn’t keep her shit together. God I wish I never married her.
YES – Blindside… go get 50/50… don’t take her word for ANYTHING. Your kids deserve a parent with a moral compass… and they won’t find it in Mommy and the APs house/marriage. Hugs.
Blindside, I could have written this exact post. To top it off, I recently starting dating someone and, right on cue, as soon as the ex found out about it she contacted my girlfriend to try and sabotage the relationship. She is still seeing the OM, of course, but she says I deserve to be miserable…
And, yes, missing out on half of our kids’ lives because their mother sucks at life is hard to accept.
Blindside, I completely understand where you’re coming from. Losing 50% of the time I’d have had with my kids and grandkids is what makes the angriest. As time goes on, however, I’m just focusing on making the time I do have with them the best it can be. My heart goes out to you!
“I love you but I’m not in love with you.”
Translated, this most often means:
I love how you spackle over my lies.
I love how you do the parenting.
I love how the knowledge of my affair(s) has made you even MORE eager to please me. (Pick me! Pick me!) Oh, the delicious cake!!!
I love how you give me chance after chance after chance if I make even the *smallest* effort to “save our marriage.”
I love how you are the responsible person in our family.
I love how I can take advantage of your compassion with my fake _____ (tears, difficult childhood, “confusion,” etc.)
I love that our past years together support my image of being a decent family man/woman.
I love knowing that I can get away with just about anything. Oh! That thrill of deceit makes getting blowjobs in the BestBuy parking lot even BETTER!
….and on and on and on.
No, he/she DOESN’T love you IN ANY WAY whatsoever. They love the SERVICES you are providing, because you are an APPLIANCE to them.
ABSOLUTELY! because now he has to take responsibility for his own relationship with his sons and is failing miserably at it. They are adults, they own cars and have cell phones. My eldest son hasn’t heard from daddy dearest in almost a month….They only call him when they need car repairs or money.
lldodo, a lot of what you said resonates with me. Our stories are very similar except I kept taking him back for five years when he wouldn’t give up the OW. I heard ILUBINILWY many times over the last ten years, and I danced. How I danced. Now he is gone for a bit more than a year. I filed and we are divorced just a few days. I haven’t seen him in more than a year as he went total silent treatment on me when I caught him the last time (May 2015). He also is unable to maintain a relationship with his one child, our adult son, who has seen him once in more than a year, and who he texts maybe once a month if he can manage it. He abandoned me completely and financially when I caught him, and my son gets nothing from him, nor would he even ask his father for anything.
It’s so damaging- all of it- and the mc was a huge mistake. We went for years and he never stopped lying. She never made him confront the affair (that never ended) and instead blamed me for all of it, saying I was a nag and who could blame him. She never figured out that ILYBINILWY means: “I am having an affair”. CL taught me that. It’s all so sad.
Yes, it is translated to:
I love you (like a family member, mom, sister), but I don’t love you (I am not sexually attracted to you). It means I care for you like a sister, but there is no sexual attraction between us.
Actual, real, adult relationships involve lots of sobering responsibility. That’s where cheater’s shit-personalities break down, they can’t handle the non-fun stuff. And they think it’s their right to be sublimely happy all the time, which is ridiculous, and something that actual adults know just doesn’t happen.
exactly! Our youngest tried to commit suicide, his mother and my sister both were diagnosed with brain tumors, oh yeah and I was going through menopause. THE TIME when I needed that shit head – he was boohooing to Cinderella because he didn’t want me to see him as weak because I was so strong handling everything. I was handling everything because you ran away because he had no coping mechanisms for life when it wasn’t all going your way.
“because he had no coping mechanisms for life when it wasn’t all going your way”
I’ve heard this too, where these disordered people have no coping mechanisms when things get rough. They just can’t be relied on. People like this are just useless, because they we can’t count on them when we need them the most. We’re just better off without that person in our lives, they usually make things worse anyway, based on what I’ve experienced. Total parasites and you get NOTHING in return.
Yet again, wise words. And people who give real, nourishing love — which you and we all richly deserve — show up or already there when their loved ones need them. Especially then.
Mine said, “There’s a part of me that will always love you” as he moved forward with his fuckbuddy/deep-pockets exit plan that included stealing from me and my kids, shoring up his finances in a secret trust fund, creating the narrative that I was a cold-hearted bitch who made his life miserable, and lying to me and his kids TO THIS DAY.
No part of that says”love” to me.
omg, you are so right. There is no love in any of his behavior. He’s sick.
ILYBINILWY means, to me: “I have zero understanding of mature love and mutual sacrifice. And, I have no interest in learning a thing about it. OH LOOK – a squirrel.”
I pity #4… and all the others that will come after.
Those words, sad though they are, set me free… just like abracadabra! (Well, almost!)
exactly, meh
When my ex said this to me, I thought, “Well, I lost the “in love” feeling years ago, but just assumed that was part of real love. You know, the day-in, day-out commitment to each other. If I’d left when I lost the “in love” feeling, it’d have been many years before he said this to me. Guess that’s why it just made no sense when I heard it.
SAME! I even told him. I lost that exciting OoOo! Obsession feeling s long ass time ago. But I LOVE you and want you and that’s real adult love. It’s not about OoOo! It’s a choice! You make the choice to be with your person! And he said “Isn’t that settling?” NO YOU STUPID FUCK HEAD! Because you trade excitement for stability and safety and love and friendship and a life you build together. That’s the way of shit. He said he was 80% happy and missing 20% in the marriage so he went out to look for it ???? and he found it between whoremat’s legs apparently. But now he’s lost the 80% so how happy is he going to be? ? I’m so fucking upset. He never spoke up about his REAL unhappiness and ASSUMED I wasn’t happy either. REALLY?! Because when I told you “I love you!” Daily and all the other shit that was me faking it?! And I tried to do more but obviously that wasn’t good enough either. So frustrating. He thinks this thing with whoremat could be something. Yeah. No. It won’t be. He’s thrown away everything good for fairyland. But good luck stupid idiot! I am the best fucking thing to happen to you but you don’t care.
I’m no longer plagued with thoughts of some other woman getting the good and decent version of my STBX. He himself lamely attempted to play the pick me dance with OW 2 who was engaged at the time of their “coupling.” She had no intention of leaving said fiancée and even asked my STBX if he’d be willing to be her side dish after she was married. I guess he wasn’t but not because of that status quo. I think it was more about it taking too much effort on his part.
I realize now that even though to this day he goes on and on about how much she understood him and was the closest thing to being his soul mate (a soul mate engaged to another man who sees him as her sex toy) he put as much effort into winning her over the fiancée as he did with saving our marriage. If she was “the one” he sure didn’t put up much of a fight to try to be with her. He didn’t even have to wait for her go through the motions of a divorce because she hadn’t even married the guy yet! That alone was enough for me to realize how quickly he’s willing to give up on something and how expendable people are to him.
She didn’t take too kindly to his quick escape but that’s a whole different story.
Oh, come on–we’d love to hear that one!
LOL – maybe someday. She’s no Glenn Close, but I wouldn’t put it past her to boil some poor helpless bunny!
Done4Good, was your ex by chance a very competitive person? Sounds like he enjoyed the competition. I’ve never thought about it before, but my ex was incredibly competitive. Come to think of it, when I discovered his journal he wrote about wooing his coworker away from her husband to have to himself. He was always the kind of person that would set a goal and say he’d be happy when he achieved it, but as soon as he accomplished the goal he’d just set another one and start the whole process over again. It was exhausting. Nothing was ever enough.
Not so much competitive really because that would mean he would have to put forth some kind of effort towards something. He typically goes for married/engaged women which I guess is a way for him get all of the kibbles of the extra attention and the new sparkly “love” but without the need to actually make a real commitment to someone. I do believe in his messed up brain he really thought he was in love with these women but it took me pointing out his pattern of being drawn to women already in committed relationships for him to finally realize he had a serious problem. But going to therapy and trying to work on his issues requires far too much effort on his part. The last OW was divorced and not involved with anyone else, to my knowledge, but she lived on the other side of the country. Hence providing him with yet a different kind of barrier from making a long-term commitment. It’s all kinds of messed up.
The version of this I got was “I’ve never been passionately in love with you”, followed up with “All of my friends thought you were so great, I figured someday I would feel the same way.” It was at that moment that I knew he was truly delusional. All he cared about was outward appearances. Whelp, I am not falling for it anymore! I was outta there so fast it made his head spin more than it already was!
Ohh O Ohhhh! WhaAaat’s LOVE got to do with it…got to do with it??? It’s just a second hand emoOOshun…
When my cake eater of 40 years told me he was moving out, I got the standard “I love you, but I’m not IN love with you”, right before tossing in the classic “I need time and space to figure out what I want.” He said he no longer felt “connected” to me… apparently, my glitter wasn’t sparkly enough and my butterflies didn’t fly high enough.
He repeatedly and adamantly denied that he was involved with someone else. I requested that we go to marriage counseling, and he agreed, albeit kicking and screaming. He promptly fired the first 2 counselors; they were getting too close to uncovering the truth, and more important, were threatening to damage his pristine self-image as a dedicated family man with unquestionable integrity. It took just 1 session for the 3rd counselor (a highly skilled therapist who has dealt with hundreds of cake eaters, understands their slimy tactics and was fluent in cake-speak) to finally get a confession out of him… it turns out his affair with his married coworker had been going on for at least 6 months, during which time we’d been happily planning our retirement and shopping with our realtor for a new house to buy! After the confession, the rest was downhill. Just before uttering the words, “I want a divorce”, he said, “We have nothing in common but the kids. I want to be with someone who is more like me – and she is”. The icing on the cake is that the OW and I share the same first and middle names; so much for creativity!
We were separated for 3 years before our divorce was finalized 1 year ago this month. And he still can’t seem to figure out why 4 years into this journey, I don’t want to be friends, want nothing to do with him and have put a zero contact boundary in place. Truth is, it’s not my job to make him feel better about himself and his crappy choices; being “friends” with him would not only make me feel as if I were somehow giving him permission to construct a cute little footbridge right over the top of his infidelity (i.e. being able to tell others, “Yes, we’re divorced…” and then smoothly segueing into “…but we’re friends!”), but I also believe it would impair my own ability to be authentic in my own life. Sorry, but that is not negotiable.
Almost the exact same story here. Said all the same things but assured the kids we’d still be great friends and do things together as a family.
“And he still can’t seem to figure out why 4 years into this journey, I don’t want to be friends,”
Yeah, the being friends line. My friends and I get that line after a breakup where the guy quips “let’s be friends”. They have the same playbook. It’s almost comical this phrase is uttered so automatically, we just ignore it. And within days, the guy has someone else lined up. Just ignore the “friend” request, just like you would on social media.
Oh, and per his statement “We have nothing in common but the kids”. Then why on earth would he want to be friends with someone he has nothing in common with anyway? Oh yes, let me guess, it’s to be able to use you afterwards in case he needs something from you. That’s what “being friends” means, it means being able to use you. No thanks.
+1000!
I got “I do still love you” on my D-Day?!? These days though it’s been downgraded to “I care for you” !!!!
My husband said this to me a few years ago. He also brought a book (cannot remember who it was written by) called “I love you but I am not in love with you”. I was white and pale blue on the cover. He brought it home for me to read… we are still married but we are nothing other than room mates, if that. However, at the time I never looked past my own nose about this book or what he had said. I believe he had groomed me to be too trusting of him. Does this make sense? We have been together for 20 years and while we get along, there is not much actual love. We don’t even have sex anymore because he cannot keep it up. We are in our early 40s. Any advice? Why would my very own husband say this to me AND bring home a book with the same title for me to read? And yes, I did suspect him of having an affair, yet a couple of years later when I wanted to leave and asked for a divorce, he held on fiercely. Why??
It means he’s not sexually attracted to you, but it holding on because you’re a habit and you’re familiar. I mean you’re in your early 40s and he can’t keep it up. This isn’t normal. I’m in my early 40s and men that age definitely can keep it up. But because you’ve been together since you were both in your 20s, chances he doesn’t know any other way of life and is scared to move on. He’s no longer sexually attracted to you, hence his line: I love you (like family), but I’m not in love with you (sexually attracted to you). Why would you stay in a sexless marriage or relationship?
“However, at the time I never looked past my own nose about this book or what he had said. I believe he had groomed me to be too trusting of him.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe he groomed you to be too trusting of him. Someone who wants you to trust him would not have bought that book and brought it home for his wife to see. You’re the one who is not seeing the signs. The fact you mention the book shows that it’s your brain talking, but you’re refusing to see the signs. It would be the same if my boyfriend came to my home and brought the book “He’s just not that into you”. I wouldn’t be sticking around, that’s for sure.
Leave now, don’t wait until you are in your 50s. I bought the can’t physically have sex deal, it was because of his porn habit and deep psychological problems. I was in a sexless marriage for nearly 5 years, convinced myself to deal with that because I loved him. Didn’t stop him from cheating…it sucks. Get a divorce, you only have one life! Jedi Hugs!!
I didn’t even think he had a dick anymore but he did like to watch porn. It was sexless for at LEAST five years and it was killing my soul but I thought he was physically ill. Little did I know that he didn’t want to cheat on the OW he was fucking. Apparently he wasn’t even into me enough to have sex with me. Now he is 62 and last time we spoke he said: “She wants to have sex everyday.” There isn’t enough soap in the world
“he didn’t want to cheat on the OW he was fucking”
OMG – that makes flames shoot out of my ears! My poor, sad sausage told me (complete with Droopy Dog face) he couldn’t continue his relationship with OW 3 because he was afraid he’d hurt her too!! I’m sorry, you’re afraid of hurting someone who knows you’re married and was aware that I was asking, neigh, begging you to come back in order to keep our family intact??? Is that admission of feigned compassion supposed to make me feel sorry for you or her?
Obviously, this was the reason he gave her after he made the decision that he wasn’t getting much out of that relationship because she lived on the opposite side of the country and the kibble servings only consisted of rapid-fire text messages back and forth all day and night.
JaydeM–you deserve better. Why in your 40s would you tolerate no sex from someone who claims not even to be in love with you? Life alone is far better. You don’t need that kind of disrespect.
If you choose divorce and he holds on again and tries to have sex with him, do NOT comply. You could end up with an STD, possibly a life long one. Jedi Hugs!
The more I think about it, the more I believe that ILYBINBILWY may be cheater code for “I’m no longer sexually attracted to you.” Think about it. You love your mom, sister, brother, family members, but there is no sexual attraction there. But you love your spouse which means you love them like family + the sexual attraction. So cheaters who spew this line, means to me that they are no longer sexually attracted to you, probably because they are sexually attracted to someone else. In which case, the relationship is over and it’s time to move on.
Well, in my case it was code for “you are too fat for me to have sex with”, all the while, get this, having sex with me on a regular basis.
Yeah, it happened to me too. Where my ex confessed to a family friend of his that he wasn’t attracted to me AT ALL and was having sex with me, while telling me the sex was great. Con-artist.
Yep. And the dumb whores they are cheating with believe the no sex thing too. Dummies…
Kelley, I think you hit the nail on the head.
Thank you Lyn. To me ILYBINBILY means: I love you (like family. i.e. my mother, my sister, an aunt), but I’m not in love with you (sexually attracted to you). It all made total sense to me once I started seeing it this way.
Yeah that’s not the case for me. He still wants me and while we were going back and forth and “figuring things out” we still had sex. Good sex. He says the intimacy isn’t there and it’s friends with benefits. ??? well sex isn’t always super intimate. But apparently it is. And in just crazy and not able to have intimacy with someone. And he WUVS the whoremat. Even though his deep love for her has lessened significantly in s just a few weeks. FML.
Truthfully, what I think ” I love you, but …” means is that like all the other stuff these disordered losers say: it means NOTHING.
Like the apes at the zoo, they are just picking up random shit, flinging it at the wall, and seeing what sticks. If they can confuse you or upset you, so much the better. It’s up to the chump to assign some deep philosophical meaning to this drivel. When there actually is no meaning.
Unless they leave and go no contact, it is all a contest for cake. Those who stick around don’t want the whore, they want you AND the whore. I.e. CAKE.
Anita-
“Like the apes at the zoo, they are just picking up random shit, flinging it at the wall, and seeing what sticks.”
You are hilarious. I would love to see a meme of that!
Thank you, SureChumpedaLot, I may have to try that.
The Monday before Christmas 2014, (Christmas was on a Thursday) with my mom and dads 60th wedding anniversary and party on Saturday, my POS told me in a restaurant (that I can never eat in again, because it has the bad memory), “I’m not attracted to you any more!” Well Merry fucking Christmas to me. What was I suppose to do with this announcement??? Now I have to gaslight everyone including all 12 of my family members that we’re a happily married couple/family at Christmas and wedding anniversary party, because I wasn’t going to RUIN my parents 60th celebration. We even had professional photos taken and at the end I asked my STBX to step out of the frame (I set it up with the photographer ahead of time) so I could give those photos to my parents vs the ons with him in it. This is how I announced to my family that we were divorcing.
I heard that too.
It takes a real piece of work to make that announcement right before something important like the holidays or a special occasion.
Mine chose New Year’s Eve 2014 to tell me I was asexual (news to me having regular sex with Mr who wouldn’t even sleep in the same bed and complained I came to easily…) and he wanted to have a menage a trois with his 2nd wife.
I cried my eyes out, told him if we had some unbearable sexual incompatibility I would accept him seeing a sex worker for those “special needs”, but not a mistress and especially not that ghoul.
So he lied about going to see his 3rd son, stuck me on the farm with the ghoul’s son for the weekend and went to fuck her anyway.
I suspect this had been going on for much longer, if not the entire length of our relationship since he used to hand out with her a lot, “for the boy, because his first divorce had gone so badly with custody of the kids”. Righto, digging this past year revealed the ghoul and him got together when the 3 rd son was 3 months old. No wonder his first wife wouldn’t let him have main custody of his kids to be raised by that whore. Found out from his brothers this Christmas that his dad had disinherited him 17 years ago because of how he treated his first wife. The stories he had told me all along were all untrue but I bought them.
January 29th I found his twodicksinoneass.com porn downloaded on our computer while I was in town picking up whore’s son to bring him home for the weekend. Now I know what his special bond with that whore is.
ILYBINILWY means “you won’t do that kinky stuff I need to get it up cos I’m not much of a man”
Yep, I’m pretty asexual compared to that, thank goodness…
I read something interesting, can’t remember where. Any way, at a crucial point in their development, young people will take on their style of relating sexually to their partners. I think this was pretty much based on what they observe in their family unit.
The first style is seeing sex as a way to be close to someone, to show love and affection, etc. It’s an extension of the relationship.
The second style basically just sees sex as a separate entity from the relationship. It is all based on physical attraction and novelty cause they can’t see it as an emotional connection. It really is just fucking with these people. So when you become less attractive, older, heavier, etc they are out of there because they can’t relate to someone if they don’t get an instant hard on. That’s where the affair comes in, cause the situation itself gives them the hard on, not the other cheater.
There’s probably something to that. My ex was never happy with our sex life after the kids came. He grew up in a family where sex was a big deal, whereas my parents ended up having illnesses that took that part of their relationship away, but they continued to love and take care of each other. It wasn’t the be all, end all to me, but guess it was to him. I used to say he could go for a month without speaking to me, but as long as we had sex on a regular basis he would say everything was great. It was so empty without the emotional connection for me…
Mine didn’t say ILYBINILWY, he went for, “I love you but I don’t feel passion for you.” When I then filed for divorce, he was dumbfounded and asked me why. I replied that he was cheating and had told me he didn’t love me and never had. He actually got angry and said that he never said he didn’t LOVE me, he just said he didn’t feel any PASSION for me. Whatever.
Disordered cheaters like my ex can’t bear to live without sparkles and butterflies of excitement every single day. Grown ups understand that life is mostly regular moments, and that excitement isn’t a permanent state, but disordered are less than toddlers. Add to that their tendency to rewrite history to suit their need to feel good about themselves and blame others, and you have “ILYBINILWY.”
THIS: “Cheaters take credit for loving you (they’re so noble) — but they’re unburdened by their commitments because King’s X! they’re not in love with you.”
A marriage vow is a committment… I think that is the hardest thing to wrap my mind around some days with Mr. Sparkles… why get married if the last thing you want is monogamy. (I know – cake.) So then the truth becomes even more obvious – he never loved me. Not. One. Day.
The peace comes from knowing unless he spends, nay invests!, in real personal growth and reflection and behavioral change… #4 isn’t getting “love” either, though she may think she is right now. I don’t envy her the 12 years I lost being with Mr. Sparkles when I could’ve been with someone genuine. Not. One. Day.
I never got the ILYBINILWY either. Exasshole kept saying “the marriage was already dead” and despite the fact he was the one who refused to have sex with me he also said “we haven’t had sex in years”. No sex was really hard for me! ONCE in the early days he said “I never loved you, I just wanted a safe place”. I think this was one of a very few honest statements he made in a very long time. Later he insisted he had never said he didn’t love me sorry asshole you slipped up…
Prior to D-Day, I was getting variations on ILYBINILWY speech, with the added blameshifting mindfuck of “and it’s your fault”.
Snake claimed he just didn’t and couldn’t feel the same about me after I rescued a couple of dogs. That was how I singlehandedly brought all the misery down on us. That was my heinous crime, that justified his skirt-chasing. Not that he ever admitted to fucking around, but it became pretty clear soon enough.
Fuckwit.
Me too, also heard “this is all your fault.” Basically I didn’t know he was unhappy because he didn’t tell me, but it was my fault because I didn’t know. He even admitted he never told me what he was unhappy about. Basically he just decided he wanted a different kind of life.
Yep, nothing like a compassionate deed to mess it up for everybody.
Yep….. heard that one. Heard the marriage is dead. Heard about what all I needed to do to change myself and be better. All deflection to keep your attention elsewhere. She asked for separation also…. Every sign of cheating right there in front of my eyes and guess what? Missed it! Funny how they all do and say the same things and mostly we don’t want to believe it. Identifying and catching a cheater is pretty easy if we the chumps were not so trusting in what we believed them to be!
Yes, I got the “I love you but I am not in love with you” and this came after he had, had sex with the SE Asian prostitute which sent me to the doctor to be tested and my ex has been the only man I have been with. I spoke to a new therapist about this betrayal yesterday and her exact comment was “so what, many people keep secrets in order to get sex” he never did anything wrong. Another pearler from her was that “I didn’t go to court to support my ex when he had committed fraud”. The fraud was not the problem it was my lack of support for him. I realise that there are people who will excuse anything and everything and not hold people to account and this was my ‘new’ therapist. I am determined to get through this on my own now and work it out. I simply cannot be bothered speaking to people who overlook my ex husband’s betrayal and behaviour. The clincher was, there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at the age of 64 years living with a 24 year old 3rd world prostitute because many, many males are doing it. I am done and dusted now.
OMG, well you know everyone’s doing it( bullshit line that implies its okay)
I hope you fired your therapist immediately. She’s beyond incompetent. Also, you need to interview your next therapist, to make sure it’s a good fit. I had to interview 3 therapists before I found a good one. The others were siding with my mother, who is a malignant naricissist who wanted to destroy me. You need to filter therapists, not all are qualified to give advice.
Kellia, to say I was dumb struck is an understatement. At first I thought her favouring of my ex may have been just my mind set but she kept on supporting his choices and the hairs on my neck stood up. She also wanted to know why my mother singled me out of the 4 children to call me a bad seed, a mischief maker and many other things at the tender age of 5 years old as I am the 2nd in line. When I stated that I didn’t know she said “why didn’t you ask her ever”. I felt like I was in a Spanish inquisition. She will not be seeing me again. I will get through this because I just will.
Yes you will get through this Maree. Honestly, the therapist sounds like a nutcase to make statements like she did. She totally favored your ex. And how do you know she’s not a woman hater or some other hoebag who cheated on her ex. You don’t know the personal history of these people. One of my friends had her male therapist hit on her! I mean really, you’re all vulnerable and coming to see a professional because you were molested as a kid, and your own friggin therapist hits on you. So yeah, please have a phone call with these therapists first or if you see them in person, you need to ask them specific questions to see what their position is on such matters. I learned the hard way, and I’m giving you the benefit of my hard earned experience. You don’t need to go through what I did when I was at the lowest point of my life. Good luck!
Maree – that therapist should be tarred and feathered. When you hear advice like that from a therapist, you can bet they are cheating assholes as well. My X had a therapist who told him that my anger about his affair was “pathological” and that I was being abusive toward my husband since I hadn’t gotten over it in a month! Dude had never met me and was taking the word of a known liar as fact. This guy is a total dirtbag.
I happily got back at him just a week ago. I was telling this story to the therapist I’m seeing now and she asked his name. I told her and she laughed a little. She told me that this asshole had called her practice asking her for referrals of the patients she couldn’t fit in. (Can’t imagine why he would have openings!). My therapist said she had had three complaints about him. I told her it would ruin her reputation if she referred anyone else to him, he was that bad. He is now cut off from any referrals from her. Take that, Douchebag.
uneffing, the therapist said she noted a lot of internal anger in me, surprise, surprise because I told her that when I first sat down. What I do not like is that we the wounded go to these people seeking some help and respite from our anguish and they make it worse. I will seek out a new therapist but only one more time, no more.
I would like to make a suggestion, if possible, seek out a therapist that practices EMDR. I came farther in three months with my new therapist than I did the previous 5 year with three other therapist.
I know others on this site have highly recommended it.
EMDR saved me, nothing else was very useful, went through a lot of bad therapists too. But even the best one wasn’t very helpful until I found EMDR, make sure they are certified.
yep, because anger is the correct adult emotion to feel when you have been betrayed.Just tell me you had a plan from your GP and you didn’t have to pay for that crap. And, if you did, tell your GP you won’t be going back as she is a truly crappy therapist.And she wants to know why your mum gave you a label when you were FIVE?I want to punch her on your behalf.She’s into victims having all the responsibility, isn’t she?
Maree – of course you have a lot of anger in you! Any therapist worth their salt would understand that you’ve been through a shit storm not of your making and that makes you angry! I’d bet she’d have anger in her if you were to write a complaint about her to her governing board.
And how dare she admonish you for not supporting your ex when he was charged with fraud. You chose not to support a criminal – that would make sense to any clear-thinking individual. I hate that you went to her for help only to be made to feel worse. That woman should die of shame.
I didn’t even get the ILYBINILWY – my son got “I love your mother but I can’t live with her.” in passing, on the sidewalk in front of the house, as Shithead was carrying out suitcases (I was out helping my folks with their estate liquidation and not aware of what was happening).
Shithead broke off all contact with me then; I have had only about 4-5 emails from him in the last year, and all those were about dividing assets or threats to prosecute me (I “hacked” his email and found uncovered him) if the division didn’t go his way. I have neither heard from him or seen him since our last court date in March.
From what I’m reading, I’m thankful I didn’t have this particular garnish on the shit sandwich with which to deal.
Geekmom, belated, I didn’t catch this earlier. Telling your son?! Yes, there are benefits to the silent treatment. It is, however, also a form of abuse, which is exactly what he’s using it for. I am NOT advocating contact, just saying that whether it’s a vacuum of silence, or a torrent of hateful words, it’s cruel. They are cruel.
The night my husband left, I got “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” More confusingly, though, he had just taken me out for our anniversary the night before, and as he was walking out the door that night, he told me I was the love of his life. This was a few weeks before I found out that he was actually having an affair, and was in a new relationship, with a mutual friend. He’s with her now — taking her on the trips that we had planned for the summer, calling her my nicknames. It’s a mindfuck.
Sarah, I am very sorry that you are part of our community. The community that nobody wants to belong to. My ex of 37 years said the same things to me as your husband / ex husband said to you and also that I was his soul mate whilst he patted me on the back like you pat a dog on the rump. It does mess with our minds for sure. My ex has replicated our early life together with a 3rd world prostitute in SE Asia and he has dedicated many of my favourite songs to her because he is so love sick. I don’t listen to music any more but maybe one day I will again.
OW number 2 posted on Facebook something about ” their song”.It was the same bloody song! They couldn’t pick something, anything, else? Wouldn’t be surprised to find that OW 1 and 3 think it’s ” their” song as well.
I got the ILYBINILWY 5 hours after he had dropped me off to work and kissed me as usual and said I love you as he did daily.
5 hrs later it was “we need to talk”
Me: ooh this sounds serious, on a scale of 1 to 10 how serious is it? (Chumpy me)
XH: 5
Me: Okay…..errrrr…….. I will see you in a bit, cut to me receiving the ILYBINILWY and being blindsided 2 weeks before Xmas
I also got the following pathetic excuses:
“We are more like Brother and Sister”
“I hope we can still be friends….”
” And you wonder why I had to have sex elsewhere”
“I wish I had of sat down and talked first (rather than bolting) but to be honest, it wouldn’t have made any difference”
” I fucked up” I can’t forgive myself, YOU can but …..I CAN’T!!!!!!!!!!! (cue wailing and crocodile tears)
“I did LOVE you, well……I meant what I said AT THE TIME”…………(cue angry man)
” I just wanted to be LOVED” (more crocodile tears)
I have been 100% no contact for 15 mths and it’s the best thing ever, no more contradictory bullshit excuses, the ILYBINILWY is just cheater code for “Kibble source secured elsewhere, I’m done here”
I think the fact that he couldn’t be arsed to discuss things because, “well, to be honest, it wouldn’t have made any difference” was more insulting than “we were more like brother and sister”.
The subject matter was, for him, a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10? (That alone makes me think his empathy-NOT score lands him in Cluster B). No, he, his cheating, and his blameshifting, poor-me, minimizing creepy babbleshit are an 11, where 10 is the “Way Beyond Inhumane Now”
? I dread to think what 10 would have been on his scale then, ……,probably losing the controller to his XBox
Hi Lyn,
I’m 3 years out now, and yes, I find my self laughing at how utterly ridiculous he was.
My mom’s funeral was 10 months after she passed away suddenly at age 64 of a heart attack. We were all in shock as she hadn’t been ill. We thought by going to a beautiful place and laying her to rest that it would be closure. We had a ceremony and everything. He, the sociopath he was, stood and spoke about how wonderful my mom was to him. He actually cried. It’s chilling to watch the video of it. It was supposed to be healing for my entire family. I did feel better and at peace for all of 6 days. I even initiated sex (it had been weeks as I was just coming off of knee surgery and he was alway too “nervous” to hurt my knee), but I insisted. Well, he had difficulties performing – he never had issues prior. Seriously, it was the worst sex I’ve ever had. He must have felt guilt for cheating on his whore with his wife.
He dropped the bomb on me on the way home from the airport. Literally on the freeway. Fucker.
My IC agrees with yours. He said XH was like a teenager. I let him read an email XH had sent a few days after he told me he wanted a divorce. He laughed and said he was mentally age 16. He said that is exactly the way a 16 year old boy breaks up.
He deserves his personality disordered whore. In fact, I think they are soulmates.
“I love you,” means “I’m so magnanimous,” while, “but I’m not IN love with you,” means, “But I don’t really love you, nor do I find you attractive, and I’ve moved on to someone with whom I’m IN love, so be really happy for me.”
I got, “I never loved you.” And I believe it.
I don’t hate him for never loving me. I really, really think he tried. I think he wanted to love the wife appliance, but he didn’t. I begged him not to tell the kids that he never loved me–I was afraid it would break their hearts as it had broken mine.
Well, then a few weeks later, I guess he reckoned that “I never loved you,” made him look bad. Maybe someone like his mother, aghast, said, “YES! You DID love her!” You see, that way, it made him less guilty of something, I suppose, because he DID love me. I mean, how crappy would it have been to have never loved the woman you’d built a life with, raised 3 kids with, gone to school with, shared vacations, memories, etc. It’s just that FATE and circumstances and REAL love were at play.
So then I got out of his confused-looking face one day, “I mean, I DID love you, but it took a while….” VERBATIM. And what the fuck does THAT mean? I think it means, “Someone pointed out to me that ‘I never loved you,’ sounds really really shitty, so I guess I must have loved you, but…something….”
By then I just was so done. That Beyonce song, “To the left, to the left…” played in my head.
Hi Stephanie,
You mentioned, “I don’t hate him for never loving me. I really, really think he tried.”
Did he ever share his feelings or lack of feelings for you before engaging in cheating? Also did he ever articulate his definition of what love and marriage is to you? – Pre-cheAting of course.
Looking back ex’s actions communicated WHO he was. We had sex the entire time we were together but I never felt truly intimate with him. It was like he had a picture in his head about it all and that is what he would do. Every time. No creativity, no spontaneity, it wasn’t good and hindsight tells me love was missing. I don’t know if he was cheating all along…looking back I can definitely say there were red flags. I excelled at raising our kids, doing volunteer work, taking care of the yard and house, and supporting my husband in his pursuit of happiness whether it was hobbies or career. I put family first. He always put himself first. Fuck me. Biggest mistake of my life.
Drew – same here! They use our bodies to masterbate. As with everything else in life – it is all about them.
xH did not articulate that he didn’t love me, but he showed it in a myriad of ways, from very, very early on in our relationship, starting with sharing his feelings for other women while we were seeing each other, and when he asked me not to tell anyone we were seeing each other so that he could date around. We were more like pals, really, who slept together. I wanted more, but he was quite critical of me, even as he was so socially awkward himself. And he always seemed sort of restless. He was typically irritated with me, and evasive, preferring to spend time alone. (I thought he was alone….) After we married so that he could have a family (he reluctantly proposed, only after I was pregnant with the baby he begged me to give him), he informed me that he was in love with a succession of women (all of them blonde, while I had red or brown hair)–then complained that we didn’t have enough sex. He was right that we didn’t have enough sex at various stages of our relationship. He didn’t want to do what I wanted to do (pro baseball games, the garlic festival), didn’t like the things that I liked. Our home was never updated because we couldn’t agree, and he was grouchy and short-tempered when we shopped. I never realized he was holding me at arms length. I see it now. He never, ever articulated what love is. (Huhn…) Marriage was a place-holder. The mother of his children. I was never acknowledged as a good mother, quite deliberately (he knew this hurt me.) His spouse. Someone to share the bills, but with a separate bank account, because nobody was going to take his money. Someone to share a bed with, though he preferred a different bedroom, and at times throughout the marriage he moved to the couch or to another room, because of his back, or because of lighting, or preferring the aesthetic of a particular room. (Uh-huh.) A babysitter for the kids (but I was also not as good as our babysitter–SHE was fantastic, he would say.) He didn’t like it when I carried extra weight (anyone who knows me would gasp at that, as I am very thin). He never outright declared that he didn’t have feelings for me, not verbally.
I don’t know if the last OW was the first one. I doubt it. And even if he never physically cheated with anyone else, I know he struggled in his mind and heart with longing for various other women throughout our marriage. I can’t decide if I’m naive here, but I don’t dwell too much because it’s over now, and he can’t hurt me any more.
I wasn’t perfect. But sometimes I think I was confused by his behavior.
I see it all now so clearly, like I can see the forest, now, AND the trees. So weird. I think NC and experience, and everyone here sharing their stories has really been enlightening.
Quite a story Steph. I am so glad he is not hurting you anymore. Sounds like he was obsessed and fixated on looks (blondes) instead of developing a deeper love. Honestly i dont think he is even capable for deeper love. He seems very very shallow.
After i revealed that my ex wife was cheating, she would mention, “rob i tried to love you, i really really did”.
Interesting – she really really tried but not once talked to me about how she felt. Trying to me would mean to start with communicating to me on how she supposedly felt and we work from there. She didnt do that. She didnt try – she was justifying and covering her own ass. Thats image management and I didnt believe it for 1 second.
I don’t think they feel love. I think they feel feelings, but they don’t know what love is. They are truly empty souls, always searching for something to fill the void–but nothing ever does. They are navel-gazing vampires.
And, as I always say, the cheating is a gift, because it provides such clarity once and for all.
+1 Stephanie – nicely said!
+100 – “They are navel-gazing vampires.” – love that!
This is probably one of the most painful threads I’ve read on C/L.
It sure strikes a chord and every single post I’ve read just tears another hole in my heart.
I’m so sorry for everybody that has heard similar words to ILYBNILWY.
It stings more than anything possible and it haunts you for a long time.
I’ve been here a long time and everyone knows what I heard once a week over a 3 wk period:
(my 3 d-days)
1) I don’t love you.
2) I’ve never loved you.
3) I’ve never been romantically attracted to you.
You bet it felt cruel at the time. But, the more I read here, the more I’ve let those horrible words roll off my back – 2 yrs post divorce.
I absolutely didn’t give him a chance to take those words back – I was done.
Yes, they will always haunt me because it was true. He was a shitty lover and very selfish, so it sure made sense to me.
Just feel foolish that I thought he loved me for those 36 yrs.
Later he wrote – oh, I loved you ‘Wildly’.
What an odd thing to say to somebody who didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.
He must have mistaken me for his whore.
I’m really sorry for everybody tonight and I haven’t cried tears for quite awhile.
Shechump. Wonderful words of compassion from you.
I dont believe for 1 second that your ex didnt love you all those years.
What i do believe is he has no idea what love really is.
Love to him is based on intensity. If he gets excited well it must be love.
Doesnt sound like he has the capacity to feel what true love really is like yourself.
Set him free in the woods so he can “Wildly” hump any 4-legged creature of his choice. Good riddance shechump and a hug for you.
SheChump: On the last d day I heard, I don’t love you. I never loved you. And yes, the sex was always shallow and seemed unfulfilling to me but then he blamed on me and told me that I wasn’t skillful. He said that she “works around his disabilities” and also, “that a word can get you hard.” I would find cling wrap all over the house, meaning he would rather masturbate than have sex with me (why cling wrap?). I also thought he loved for those 40 years, but nothing he did in the last ten years at least spoke of any love. And it was always about him- selfish, selfish man. I can go back to that hurt in a minute, that sad lonely hurt when the person you trust and love the most tells you that they don’t love you and they never did. But I do know now that one thing he said is true (probably the only true thing he ever said) is that it wasn’t about me. Is he happier now- a year down the road and finally divorced? Now that he is with the OW, who he could never give up once it started between them? I don’t know but I suspect that he can never be happy.
lostandfound – I would find cling wrap all over the house, meaning he would rather masturbate than have sex with me (why cling wrap?). ‘
I’m a little late on this response but I’m quite fascinated what the cling wrap meant?
I don’t have much to say as I am disgusted and speechless. But may I say I am not surprised at all by any means. No doubt in my mind this is my Xbear because this is all too familiar… Its as though we all have the same story…. I don’t know if I am #10 or #20 or even #50…. But I must ask one thing…. are we truly talking about the cheating, lying, manipulative, and always broke as Fuh “emperor of Rome”who is a “ARTist”??
oh and wait!… he has how many wives? & how many kids????
I am straight sickened inside.. But like I said not surprised by this… He is one heartless individual living near O-town…whose toxins are contagious….. to literally anyone and everyone that is around him.