Don’t know what to do with that wedding ring? How about the collection of Franklin Mint Elvis plates he gave you every Christmas? Her love poems? Consider donating them to the Museum of Broken Relationships!
In Los Angelos there’s a museum that curates your broken dreams, and all the detritus thereof.
According to a recent Washington Post article:
The museum has just opened its second location, in Hollywood — the original one is in Zagreb, Croatia — and has been overwhelmed by the response to its online call for donations, receiving around 500 so far. “Some people donate multiple items,” said Director Alexis Hyde. “When people bring me their objects, they get emotional. I can see the tension and reluctance to give me something. But afterwards, they feel a little lighter. It’s a real catharsis.”
The objects go beyond jewelry and cassette tapes to include oddities such as a wedding dress stuffed in a bottle, a melted flip phone and a mass of dreadlocks. Donors include men and women of all ages and origins, but they have a commonality. “I don’t know their race, sex, socioeconomic status,” said Hyde. “We are all the same, struggling with the same things. The human spirit is never crushed. We move on and start the whole process over again.”
So today’s Fun Friday challenge is — what would you donate? Come up with a description — provenance, how it should be curated, etc.
Here’s mine:
Tie-dyed license plate cover. First and only Christmas gift post D-Day, circa 2006. Because “you are a hippy chick.” Utterly hideous. Provenance: Tractor Supply, by way of China.
You’ll note the lovely typeset notes that accompany actual donations such as the one above “Wedding Dress in a Jar.”
Got a donation? Tell us about it!
Photo credit: The Washington Post.
I would donate his cat that he left. Only joking (saying “only joking” because a few people will probably take me seriously)
He has a tradition of leaving things, wife, kids, unpaid bills…,
Mine abandoned our cats too! No surprise, OW is allergic.
Yep, he left his kitty-cat here with me for two months, i finally had enough and put kitty outside in the back porch. Days later, he discovered kitty had been discarded, screamed at me, “You’re just going to throw him out like an abandoned child?!?!?! God help you if anything happens to kitty!!!!”
He came got it then took it back to his slut shack. My daughter is low-verbal skills so all ive been told is that “kitty not here!!!” I havent asked either, he probably got rid of it.
I was afraid my soon to be ex was getting attached to my new kitten, so I made sure to document the fact that I took her to the vet. I paid for her bills, etc. I though he might try to take the kitten away from me. He never did try that, but I made sure I had evidence that I was the kitty caretaker.
I haven’t got around to it yet, but I’ve heard there’s a group (in Aus) that makes gowns for babies born sleeping; they take wedding dresses as a donation. I thought it might be nice to give something beautiful to a devastated family. The dress means nothing to me. It would be like turning a negative into a positive.
In my area it is called Angel Gowns.
My dress is currently awaiting pick up.
It’s such a beautiful idea 🙂
I don’t really have anything else to donate. Stingey bastard.
I had the same thought, too. I am not avaricious, but when you consider the $$$ cheater spent on escorts and dominatrix, you realize that the primitively carved, broken key chain he picked up at the Dollar store as a gift for you, was not so charming.
Then again he did come through with flowery, expensive birthday and anniversary cards every year for 30 years, whose sentiments unbeknownst to me, were empty words.
But how about a collection of his Craig’s List classifieds? The images generated by cheaters words are a gift that could feed my PTSD for years to come.
The group is called Precious Angels in the Niagara area in Canada.
Thank you -I amCanadian and have not been able to part with my beautiful dress – what a wonderful way to put it to use!!!
Great way to use the dresses how sweet. Mine was a silk outfit i donated to charity i hope somebody can get some use out of it. It really was pretty.
I could donate the dried, pressed and framed portion of my bridal bouquet, that Ex husband was alway so proud that he had managed to organise with out my knowing on our wedding day. Only I put it out on the curb a year back during a council rubbish collection and the man who lives up the street took it. He held it up and admired it all the way home.
I could donate my first wedding anniversary gift, a book on the history of DS 23 Citron cars. Ex husband was so proud of sourcing said book because they were our wedding cars. He was so excited to get it for me (cough, him) as a gift because what else would a girl want. (cough, Flowers!) but I cannot as I packed it amongst the shit I packed for him to take.
I could donate the birthday gift I got for my 32 birthday from Ex husband of a socket set, and spirit level but I decided I will keep those as they have been handy despite their lack of girly charm.
they could have the garden patio furniture he bought me as an undisclosed sorry gift, or the ugly bed suite the insisted in buying a year before D’day, or the really ugly masculine charm bracelet he gifted to me when I mentioned years ago that I would like a charm bracelet for my birthday.
or best of all I could donate to them the used mobile phone and prepaid sim he just gifted to our 14 year old daughter for her birthday after boasting to the family that he had gotten her phone.
Ha Ha- yeah Thankful, I could have donated a container full too if I hadn’t already removed every. single. thing already. I’ve just moved and I gleefully paid someone to remove the last of the ‘shabby shit’ furniture he made me or his ‘genius’ paintings. Don’t recall the guy saying wow- are you sure you want to get rid of these, they are so beautiful. Nah, gone, forgotten and not to be revisited.
Absolutely Mikky I was so glad to see the back end of my Ex’s crap and no surprise it all went to the new chumps house. at the time if you believe the Ex he and her were not “dating” they were just “friends” they were absolutely not “sleeping together” being exemplary “christians” and he wasn’t “living” with her as he “lived” at his mothers. but he moved everything to here house, lock, stock and piano.
Oh, the paintings! I lived with that, too. It isn’t that they were bad. It’s that there were so many and they all had to go up in our home. ALL. Ugh.
Syringes and the last vial of self prescribed Pentamix solution for severe ED I found in my freezer a month after kicking Dr. Sociopath Surgeon out.
Because I alone was blamed for breaking his dick after just one year. Not the multitudes of prostitutes, neighborhood hook ups and porn since med school. Just me and my raging va-j-j. Provenance: No longer requires refrigeration; won’t be needed any time soon.
Love this. I have got rid of most stuff and I don’t think they would want his collection of ‘granny and morbidly obese porn or the collection of secret images he took of me. However I would donate his pubic hair trimmer, anti snore nose spray, nose hair clippers and his back wax strips. Actually the first sign I knew something was up was when he started going on business trips with his anti snore spray and a 6 pack of polo peeper mints.
^^This^^ makes me laugh and want to vomit at the same time.
Kiwigirl, my exh, aka (grandfather daddy)bought himself expensive cologne, watching what ate and change his wardrobe and ate altoids. lol
Now these twovwarped fucks have to buy, diapers, wipes, kotex pads, hemrroid cream, and the beat goes on lol
Lol! Karma??
kg, karma train, toot toot
“I hear the train acommin,’ its rollin’ down the tracks……..” Thank you, Johnny Cash.
I had made my ex a CD of images I took of myself that were meant for his eyes only. I found them in his pile of stuff before we got officially divorced. I decided that he didn’t get to see that after the way he acted. So, I grabbed the CD and shredded it. Not to mention the fact that he once sent a topless photo of me to his brother, but that is a story for another day.
The naked pictures of me and his first wife i found hidden after he moved in with the whore. His first wife was a drunk and drug addict, selfish woman. I burned the pictures he didnt deserve them the sick fuck and those are pictures children should never see. My were fairly tasteful as in not too bad but the first wife pretty as she was were disgusting never wanted the kids to see them. He doesnt know i burned them too bad so sad. Asswipe doesnt deserve anything for what he has destroyed.
My wedding rings which had to be cut off as they meant enough to me to have never been removed once in 34 years. Looking at the broken circle says it all.
🙁 Heartbreaking, newdaydawning.
Terrible and funny! Mine actually broke off my finger 3 weeks after dday. The universe was telling me all I needed to know!
How funny–the most expensive gift X ever gave me was an emerald ring, of which he was very proud. The emerald chipped and fell out 3 weeks after I filed.
Tempest…that is weird….your life sounds very close to mine. The diamond fell out of my ring very shortly before Dday! (Theme song from the Twilight Zone playing in the background.)
My engagement ring had 6 channel set diamonds, so I had it made into 2 pinky rings with 3 diamonds each for our 2 daughters. I told them the diamonds represented when I loved them – yesterday, today and tomorrow. And that having the 2 of them was worth it all! I paid for it with the gold from my matching wedding ring, which came in handy that first Christmas when I was broke from lawyer and PI bills.
What did their dad get them that first Christmas 6 weeks after the split? $25 gift cards to Applebee’s. Almost brings a tear to my eye….
Newhere, nice way to repurpose diamonds!
Yep giftcards, sure a lot if thought!
Yikes
The shattered pieces of every breakable object he left behind. I later found out some were gifts from previously us affair partners.
Pieces because I took an entire shopping bag of them to an outdoor gun range and blasted the hell out of them
OMG I wish I could have done that. Outdoor gun range awesome.
Ha I’ve been wondering where I could safety smash the memory flask exhole gave me for Christmas. Shooting range would be perfect.
Great idea! If Dr. Sociopath doesn’t pick up the trash bags full of his crap I not so carefully packed I might do just that!
Love that! It must have been so satisfying!
I could donate all the lovely female nudes I bought him (and hung in the bedroom – while I slept in the spare room during wreckonciliation) that were to remind him of every freaking woman he screwed during our 25 year marriage. Funny when he finally moved out, he didn’t take them with him. But, I’ve started selling them- only 3 left – going cheap!
He never bought me anything. I ended up paying for my own engagement/wedding rings (and his). 3 tiny pieces of jewelry in the entire marriage. Yep, I got nothing but taken to dinner for special occasions.
The gift of a very heavy 2 square foot rock cut into a heart and somehow the words “home is where the heart is” was cut into it. We used to laugh that we have moved that thing like 8 times all over the country. And it was one of our pet sayings. In fact, 2 days before disappearing, he texted me “home is where the heart is.”
Oh wait, I can’t donate that- I smashed it into very small pieces with a sledgehammer and put it in his toolbox for him to take wherever it was he went. That dust will be haunting him for the rest of his life. Lol.
Hahahahahaa!!!! Love it!!!!!
I ve got another to add to the gps. One Valentine’s Day I made a gift basket of sexy things for us. There was a little vibrator that fit over your finger. After being called whore and a used of fucking everything from the mailman to the mayor of our city I did not desire sex so he would just demand it and take it . I would try to go to bed before him and fake sleep then I would hear that fucking vibrator and I knew it was rape time. I put that and every fake assed live message or card he ever gave me in his stuff he took with him.
Damn loridachump what a bastard. Thank the universe you got away from him. Damn!
I could have donated the two photos that hung above our bed for 15 years, the one of us on his side of the bed and the one of him alone on my side of the bed, but they are in pieces in one of the may boxes of crap he took to the new chumps home.
or the framed bible verse done in hobbitex from the 70’s that read “as for me and my house we shall serve the lord”…………oH oh oh I know what they can have. The collection of matchbox cars that sat in a polystyrene box in our garage for close to 14 years that was ceremoniously put into a glass display case at his mothers as soon as he moved there. and despite his now being married and living with the new chump. still resides in her hallway. I will even volunteer to go pack it. oh yeah
I sold the engagement ring which cost him 18 thousand euros cos he loved me so much dontcha know.
Let it go for 6k.I really didn’t care as long as it was gone.I have another ring which I am currently in process of flogging.
What I could donate to the museum is a box load of cards and letters expressing his undying love and fidelity,words I believed back then.It was all a pile of shite.Had thought of making a bonfire and watching them burn but maybe the museum idea is better.
At least I’m at whatever….meh.
My rings were stolen by my oldest son to buy pot when he descended into darkness after the abandonment and lies. He got $60 for them.
I could donate the kissing lamp X bought me for my birthday when we were dating. It was the first thing he ever gave me and I loved it. Good thing, because as I was gushing over it, he said, “Yeah I like the blue, and it you hated it, I could have just used it in my house.” Red flag, anyone? I swear I must have been colorblind.
I can donate all the emails that prove when the affair started. X and bimbo continue to lie about when they colluded to destroy my family. It’s their “New Truth.”
Recently, X’s sister cornered my son in her kitchen during a party. She told him that “…[I] should just “get over it” because its been four years and [dear old dad] is happy now.” My son responded, “Actually auntie, it’s been five years since [X and bimbo] hooked up. Dad might be happy now, but he’ll always be a liar.”
Eh, fuck it. Let him keep living their lie. My sons and I live in the truth now.
Your son rocks!
I guess I should have kept the hideous vanilla candle he gave me (vanilla makes me gag)for christmas post sepstation. I couid also donate the jar of olives he gave our daughter ( who hates olives). Weird or what?
Narcissists are usually horrible gift givers, like the ones you describe. Are you sure your ex wasn’t a N or had some other personality disorder? It’s not weird when you understand he may have a personality disorder, this fits the pattern.
With gifts from Narcs, it’s not the thought that counts. It’s the complete and utter LACK of thought that really counts.
Love this!!!
Clap! Clap! Clap!
I agree. One of my coworkers got a bag of rice from her boyfriend. She hated rice. Another one of my friends got an eye glass case with out the eyeglasses in it, and my friend didn’t wear eyeglasses. Talk about crappy gifts.
I read this very quickly, and paused and had to read it again. I thought it said he gave her a “glass eye.” Still laughing. I guess I should read slower, but with some of these people, a glass eye shouldn’t surprise me.
Oh GOD – I’m just rolling off my stool. I read it the same way! He gave you a glass eye and you didn’t need a glass eye. I’ll be hurting in the gut til I hit the hay tonight, but you guys are too funny to got to bed just yet.
OMG – my ExH (signed the paperwork yesterday ya’ll!!!) was so weird about gifts. He would oscillate between giving people random objects that he could access easily on the cheap or he would just give them (too much) cash/gift card. I remember one year he somehow came to be in possession of logo jacket for some random Nascar driver. He was like this is nice jacket, and he decided to give it to his teenage nephew for Xmas. I was like “Is B even into Nascar?” (the kid seems to be into gaming and lives in New Jersey). But Ex was not to be swayed. “that’s nice jacket, that’s nice gift” he proclaimed. One year he decided everyone was going to get inflatable furniture because he had just imported a bunch from China for his business. I have the WORST hand eye coordination. Like super bad and nothing helps it. He got me golf clubs for my birthday one year. I am on record as saying “I will never garden. I don’t like to hang around the house and tend plants. I got stuff to do.” He got me gardening boxes for my birthday one year. The year he hand made his mistress coasters for her apartment he bought a Groupon and took me to dinner on a Groupon for my birthday. Or he would just freak out and get a random niece a $100 gift card for her birthday and then send another random nephew some sort of gaming paraphernalia that someone left at the office. So. fucking. weird.
Congrats on your full legal freedom, CalGirl!!
My “apology” gift was an orchid (which didn’t last long, kind of like my love for him after D-day) in a purple Halloween pot with a black web. Hey, Hannibal, that sure did make up for stealing 8 years of my life after you had a hot affair with a student!! Cheap fucker.
During wreconciliation he bought me a single red rose as we passed a vendor at a fair. I just burst out crying. I didn’t tell him why. It had been about 20 years since he bought me flowers.
After I caught my X out with his ho-worker, having drinks until 1:30am (“we are just friends!”). Two days after I invited my girlfriend over to my home to talk. She brought me flowers!!!! My X gave me flowers twice in 20 years. That same day, he came home from work, and I kid you not, he said to me, “I wish someone would give me flowers.” He was totally serious. And being the Super Chump that I am, the next day I ordered flowers for him and had them sent to his work. So, he lied to me and went out for drinks date with his “friend”, but somehow he got me to buy him flowers! And he had the nerve to call me controlling! He had some freaky emotional control over me. I think of that now and I’m like, what the heck was I thinking?!!
wow. The selfishness and hubris of cheaters never ceases to amaze me–“Hey, let me fuck my ‘friend,’ and then request you send me FTD!”
An empty prescription bottle of Valtrex? Amoxicillin? Provenance: CVS
I kid, I dodged that bullet somehow, but I know some Chumps weren’t so lucky and received gifts that keep on giving from these jerks.
Smartass comment not meant to trigger or offend.
My actual submission would probably be the drawer full of ridiculous T-shirts with sayings like “Proud to be Awesome” and “What? I can’t hear you over the sound of my AWESOMENESS!” XW would come home with. It just goes to show how little she actually paid attention to who I am as a person. That’s not the kind of thing I’d wear. Ever. But they say Narcs often buy gifts not based on the receiver’s likes, but their own. I’m sure those T shirts were representative of how she felt about herself. Or it was her passive aggressive way of pointing out how awesome I really WASN’T in her eyes. She excelled at the passive aggressive gift. Needless to say, the tags are still on them. Maybe I’ll be AWESOME next time I’m painting a ceiling in my house.
I could use a few of those shirts to clean up the AWESOME puddles of pee my old kitty leaves all over the house.
LOL. Your kitty’s pee probably deserves better. The worst part about those shirts, in hindsight, is how bad I felt when I knew I didn’t like the gifts she bought me. Of course I didn’t say anything and probably hid it well but I still felt terrible on the inside. I wasn’t raised that way, when somebody gives you a gift, you like it. Ahhhhh. Nothing like being a codependent people pleaser. Past tense.
LOL!
I would donate the pregnancy test kits I found (not once, but twice) in my ex-wife’s cupboard after DDay – when we hadn’t had sex in months.
I’m sorry man. What a kick in the balls. I had similar experiences when I was a full rank Detective on the Marriage Police Force.
Ouch.
Yep. North London. I too have a used pregnancy test from the STBXW. It’s evidence for proving her adultery at this point, but I quickly realized I was meant to find it.
I suggest North London, that that pregnancy test was “planted” by your cheater just to drive the knife further into your back right between your shoulder blades.
She’s saying to you: “That’s right NL, I’m fucking every man I can get my legs around. I almost cracked my pelvis riding this guy the other night. He’s a real man. He made me come 11 times in 15 minutes. You are a dead fuck, NL. I loved fucking him so much I let him raw dog me and come inside me.”
She’s a psycho bitch North London. Sorry you married a fuckturd.
Whoa, Housechump. Be a little easy there. Not everybody wants to hear those kind of TMI’s about their spouse.
It IS TMI, coming from a stranger – we have enough mind-movies as it is. 🙁
Thank you.
Brass Medium Pocket Compass. Engraved with the words “I’d Be Lost Without You.” Given as a Christmas present, December 2015, by someone who, after 15 years of marriage, navigated toward deceit, dishonesty, cowardice, and taking time off from work to invite people into our marital bed while our daughters were at school. Provenance: Stanley London, a division of Castle Navigation Inc.
UX, I would reestablish the symbolic value of your brass compass….use it to find your new direction.
As for the engraving “I’d Be Lost Without You” – just scratch out the “out” in “without”. Good luck.
Beyond sad
While he was already sourcing the OW at his CrossFit gym, Mr. Sparkles gave me a bronze sculpture of a couple holding each other (bronze for our 8th anniversary). Our marriage had been sexless for the last two years because of his using a picture from our wedding day on AFF and not being willing to get a blood test and wear a condom after I discovered the ad. Of course, I think it was sexless because he is Bi and he is a control freak narcissist, but I digress.
While he said the sculpture represented the love he felt for me and the relationship he wanted back with me, I could only look at it and think “WTF”?
He moved out 30 days laters for the OW.
I donated the sculpture to Goodwill… and then I sold my engagement ring and booked a trip to Hawaii with my 10yo son.
My only regret, not smashing Mr. Sparkles in the head with the sculpture as he moved out. But the upside is that I write this from the comfort of my breakfast nook and not prison 🙂
Have a great Friday CN. Let’s rock this day!
I sold my wedding ring but it only netted enough cash to take a trip to Walmart … which is appropriate since that is where he purchased it. This is a man who earns over 6 figures … cheap bastard.
I also sold mine and got only about half of what was paid for them. Such a rip off.
After leaving court the morning my attorney and I proved up our divorce, I drove over to the chapel where we were married 20 years earlier. It was empty and quiet. I sat in a pew for an hour remembering our wedding day and thinking of all the years, the kids, and events that made up our lives and family. Then, I got an envelope, addressed it to “GOD,” and enclosed a letter and my ring. I sat it at the foot of the podium and left.
I basically told God I was giving my wife back to him at the place he gave her to me, that I wore that ring proudly and faithfully for 20 years, that I always loved my wife and considered my marriage a privilege, and apologized for not being able to go forward under the circumstances. My letter gave the ring to whoever found it, trusting that they could make better use of it than I could.
I know that sounds so sappy and dramatic now, over two years later, but I was a total disaster at that time. (Discovered she was a serial cheater for the vast majority of the marriage). I think I may have just needed something symbolic to tell myself it was over – because I had to force myself to divorce her even after I learned the horror story that was the truth. Maybe that’s part of the draw of The Museum of Broken Dreams – sort of a symbolic leaving of the relationship at the alter.
I am so grateful for wherever I found the strength to divorce (codependency on steroids). I’m certain it saved my life, and has given me a chance for one I would never have had. Leave a cheater, gain a life.
JK, that is truly beautiful! In time, if it is what you want, you will find someone who cherishes that genuine and earnest loving heart of yours. And she will reciprocate in ways you can’t even imagine.
I’m crying for you and for me, JK. I like what you did with your ring. I’m sorry you ex-wife is a cheater. I hope you have found a great life for yourself.
This is not said enough thank you to all our brother chumps for being here with us. Guys hurt too. Lotta good guys in the world. I have two who are better brothers to me than my own and i love them both to death. I feel it is so nice to have a mans point of view.
JK, that is beautiful. You’re a class act.
What a beautiful and meaningful way to end your good faith part of the marriage. Very classy too.
Wow, JK. Just wow. My heart hurts for what you went through. No doubt there are good things waiting for you up ahead.
Beautiful and heartbreaking. I like how you told God that you gave it your best shot. I struggle with wondering why God brought us together, which I do believe for various other reasons.
JK- what you did and your recollection of it stuns me. I only hope I can find a partner In my post-cheater post-divorce life that has this type of care, morals, spirituality, and integrity.
My STBX doesn’t have one iota of any of these qualities, hence the divorce I was forced to file (after giving my STBX an entire year post DDay to snap out of it and leave the OW).
I don’t think that’s sappy or dramatic at all. It’s a beautiful story and a fitting way to symbolize the end of your marriage.
JK – A wise minister once said to me: “As Christians, we want to believe that God brings us things/people. But God can also take away people/things that are harmful.”
I think you returning your ring in God’s house, where you first received it, was a great way to honor God and the commitment you made.
Your story is far from over and your XW isn’t capable of going where God is taking you. Keep the faith.
JK…. You are a good man. All you male chumps restore my faith. Thank you.
JK, that’s not sappy or dramatic at all! That was beautiful. I’m a big believer in ritual and symbolic acts.
You’ve inspired me. The only symbolic act I’ve done so far is, after creating my Box of Broken Dreams, I took our Cinderella wedding cake topper (we were really young) out to the driveway and smashed it into a million bits. When the divorce is final in a few months, I’ll find something more like yours, a symbolic way to honor MY feelings and MY investment in the marriage.
Thank you all very much for your kind comments. If I ever go back to that chapel, I’ll leave a follow-up saying thanks for letting me find this site and the people on it:)
Thanks, JK. 🙂 I have reread what you wrote quite a few times. I’m crying again. It’s all just so sad. What these cheaters have done to us and our families……sometimes only tears can tell the story.
Dear Martha – I’m sorry my post upset you. I probably opened the door too much in sharing that second paragraph. I wished I had deleted it soon after I posted.
Now, what I didn’t tell you was that the chapel was about to be remodeled when I went there that day. In short order, there was going to be scaffolding put up and workers tearing old stuff out and putting new stuff in. That place was going to look different than it had for the last 20 years – and it was never going to look the same again.
It made me sad back then. Everything was going to change when I walked out that door. I liked that chapel the way it was. It was comfortable and held good memories. I didn’t want it to change. But I realize now that it was time for that place to have a makeover. It needed and deserved to be restored and shine again, and be admired and respected for the marvelous place it is. I know you get the point. Cry like Hell, Martha. I did. Then pick up a hammer?
Hi JK,
Please don’t apologize. I loved what you wrote. It was so beautiful. As you saw from all the comments you received from your post, you touched all of us female chump hearts. I can’t even imagine my now ex ever being even 1% sentimental over where we got married and our wedding rings; even our marriage, life and family together. It was all tossed in the garbage, where now everything that reminds me of him will go. So, please don’t monitor or regret that you wrote something. It’s a holiday weekend and everyone has said all the “firsts” will be tough, so I think that’s why I’m extra sensitive.
Like Newdaydawning above said, seeing male chumps post here gives me hope that not all men are cheaters and liars. 🙂
Wow, that’s interesting what you wrote about the chapel you got married in and it getting a make-over; I totally get your point! 🙂
Have a wonderful holiday weekend (that is if you live in the USA!)
I’m glad you didn’t delete your post, JK. It was beautifully written and a deeply emotional gesture to put closure on your marriage. You were faithful, that ring was a symbol of your faithfulness, and giving it back to God must have been healing.
JK, fellow guy chump here. Your writing is so tender and yet resolute.
Don’t know if you’re spoken for…. but I’m free on the 4th of July!
(Just kidding, buddy. Lots of love for you here today, and I just wanted to add my thanks for your very real story of suffering and persistence. Well done.)
So genuine and touching. You have a beautiful heart! Thank you for graciously sharing your story.
God bless you, JK, I hope you have found peace and a much better life these days. 🙂 You are truly a good man!!!
JK – your gesture was heartbreaking and poignant. I can’t for the life of me understand how people like we chumps end up with people who would read that and say, “He could have sold that ring and made some money on it!” After all this time, I’m still trying to figure out the reason such empathetic and sensitive people end up with selfish people who have the sensitivity of sand paper.
JK! I’m another one that is deeply touched by this. I have been sitting on some diamonds I want nothing to do with, nor do I want to try and sell them. You just gave me the best idea EVER~!!!! Thank you.
I am going to make a trek back to the Montana church we got married in 800 miles away – it’s a gorgeous church that is desperate for money. It is where my X’s family lives – and they like me.
And, I hate money because it drove my X nuts that he could NEVER get enough and hoard it away.
He NEVER gave me a gift, so I can’t add to those comments. He was a scrooge enough to ask me for my wedding ring back (the diamond) and the other huge diamond my g/f made him buy me for our 30th. Ha Ha Ha
That’s about 6 carats or something. pffft. Means nothing.
They are sitting in a box and I will never wear them, nor do I care to price them or get money from them.
I am now going to go and donate those, in an envelope, just like you did and donate them to that church.
I just LOVE finding answers on C/N – thanks so much for posting JK.
I one-day hope to meet a fellow chump who is a guy with a heart like yours. Thank you and all other Chump Brothers for being here.
To be completely honest DC and DANB… I also BOUGHT my engagement ring with stock options I had from the company I worked for… so I got the ring I wanted. I can’t tell you how often I looked at it and thought “was it really worth it?”… so I sold it for about 60% of what I paid for it (*lucky to have a jeweler friend and I was unloading it just before the holidays which is the peak buying season for diamonds!)
I could donate a box of those Hallmark figurines they put right by the register for clueless husbands to quickly select as they go through the motions of remembering anniversaries, birthdays, valentines day … because nothing says “I really thought about this gift” like a piece of colorful plastic from China. But they all went to Goodwill. Even when times were good, I had to bite my tongue and find an out of the way spot to put these things. He would have noticed if I had thrown them out because HE bought them and thus thought they had real sentimental value. Snort.
Any bobbleheads? ‘Cuz that would remind you of X for sure.
LOL … i think bobbleheads would actually have been more artistic then these pieces of junk, and that is really saying something. In the last few years, he started getting them for me used at the thrift store. All the money he saved is about to get transferred to me so i guess it all worked out for the best!
I would donate the half empty bottle of Herbal Male Enhancement Pills, advertised to make it HARDER, last LONGER, and make your partner BEG for more. God knows he wasn’t using them with me! Provenance…China by way of Amazon….ingredients grass clippings,sewage and god alone knows what.
Hahahaha mine was only 30 years old and taking Deer Antler Velvet as an herbal supplement to improve his stamina and vitality! He used to blame me for lowering his libido and testosterone levels. hahahaha
Horny Goat Weed was mine’s enhancer-of-choice. He never had trouble with ED but it requires extra energy to bang someone from Craigslist in the middle of the day and then come home and have date night with the wifey.
OMG….I have to stop reading now…I feel sick. Tempest, my nasty husband also had Horny Goat Weed. blech. The only good part about that is that I now call him (to his face) Horny Goat.
My god, that’s really a thing? I thought Tempest was being sarcastic!
You can’t make this stuff up.
Yes, horny goat weed is the actual name of an herb that’s used for increasing male sexual performance, and has been for hundreds of years. My ex also took it for a short time. Of course, as it turned out, my ex had no problem in getting horny for other people, especially if they were strange men in a gay bathhouse. It was just ME he didn’t get excited about.
I was so amused at finding it when I packed up X’s stuff that I took a picture for posterity:
https://i.imgur.com/Ta2kcYa.jpg
and that, my friend, is the title of your book
LOL, Sionara!
Can’t under that! Thanks Tempest 🙂
The things you learn on Chump Lady. Absolutely amazing.
Thanks for the laugh, Tempest!!! 🙂 I needed it!
Tempest – I see your horny goat week and raise you some “Skyn” condoms! LOL How do I post my pix? 😉
I go to makeameme.com, upload picture & add words (if desired), save that photo, then go to imgur.com to make a picture that can be embedded in html. However, other posters may have more efficient methods?
Wait. Is it just me, or was there a cat paw in there?
I was scanning my AAA magazine this morning and they had a list of local restaurants to visit. I don’t cook so all are on my list to try, except one. The Angry Goat Pub. I’m thinking its customers base is disillusioned cheaters. I couldn’t stop laughing. Although it might me fun to poke some old goats. Western New York anyone?
No cats–we are a 5-dog, 4-fire bellied toad, 2-parakeet, 40-fish household.
Annie GYG, I live in WNY.
Calling him horny goat- LOL
https://imgur.com/HSaxmPy
I shouldn’t laugh, but that made me laugh out loud.
I’m ready to donate for display his prescription constant supply for Cyalis that kept arriving at my address during time of separating for ‘wreckonciliation” ?
I would donate the library of self-help books that the Narcissist so sweetly gave to me over the years.
You see everything that was wrong was undoubtedly due to my personal inadequacies and not his Narcissism. He just wanted to help me be the “best version of myself” aka a step-ford wife that would continue feeding his ego. 🙂
Geez. That’s not even passive-aggressive. That’s aggressive-aggressive.
I’d also like to donate the travel coffee mug that said “Is running late considered cardio?” You see because I’m occasionally late for trivial things and was trying to drop a couple. I mean yeah, it’s kind of funny and I’m very self deprecating…but with 20/20 hindsight it’s just another one that fits a pattern.
OMG! I received the same thing, “How to feed and care for a husband” for Christmas one year, the selfish idiot always blamed the whole thing on me and bought me books to fix me, the last book I saw him buy, for himself, was “How to help your spouse get over your affair.” That made me so mad I almost hit him with it, since he didn’t buy until after 22 years of marriage and two years after the final dday (3 all together, but probably more I didn’t know about) that he tried to pin so unsuccessfully pin on me.
OMG I got the Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands too! Also the 5 love languages, how to deal with anger. Love is a choice. blah blah blah.
Yep, he was so desperate to have me read books like the love language, etc, that he bought digital versions and downloaded them to my phone! I deleted them all, not only that, but remember “Fireproof?” He bought that journal and gave it to me so I could do all those nice things for him, somehow that killed the whole point.
Oh Man, I got Fireproof and had to watch the movie too!! Is there a Cheater/Narcissist best seller list somewhere that we are unaware of?!?!
When my ex came around wanting to reconcile, he claimed it was because he had watched Fireproof and didn’t want to be like the doctor in the movie. Of course, as it actually turned out, he really wanted to reconcile because he thought I’d work full time and support him financially while he continued to cheat.
yep, mine lost his meal ticket too, in fact, I had to pay him to go away, thanks no fault state laws!
I got “The 7 Things He’ll Never Tell You.” Just not the useful edition.
The Sequel to “Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands,” with supplement.
love!
LOL!!!! 🙂
LOL. I had to read the Five Love Languages, too, and take the quiz. Ex expected that my love language would be gifts, but unfortunately for him it was quality time and affirming words, two things he couldn’t just buy and give me while secretly despising me as a materialist.
“quality time and affirming words”
I am cynical enough that I laughed at that–a cheater EVER giving affirming words? lololol
But deep down, it makes me sad that that is what you (and most of us) lived with–near-constant invalidation.
I brought both of those during my dancing days. I fucking chumped myself more than JAMF ever coulda. :/
I bought so many of those books during my dancing days, too. Mainlined them during our short-lived wreckonciliation over the holidays. The night he ended it (again), I kicked him out (again), then trekked back and forth to the trash bin in the snow and threw them all away. First time I’ve ever thrown away books.
I donated my gigantic (30+) stack of save the marriage books to the library in my neighborhood. I used to manage a bookstore, I couldn’t have just tossed them, I’d have burst into flames. 😉
Wow, just Wow. You do know that Dr. Laura is an OW? So it totally makes sense that cheaters would love her advice.
all we need is more guilt from Dr. Laura, like the X can’t make up enough on his own.
I recall that there was a nice warning at the front of the book that said something like “None of the advice in this book pertains to any relationships that are mentally/emotional/physically abusive or controlling in nature.”
I guess the ex didn’t read any of it before sending it my way!!
i missed the warning too, as i refused to look at it book- still have a photo from that christmas when he gave it to me, the confused look on my face when I opened it says it all
Yeah, I read “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands”, too. But I went to the library. Now I look back and think, “What a load of crap!” I bought into it’s “my fault” he’s unhappy. I spent our entire marriage taking care of him. Trying to “fix” myself, because the triangulation with all his “healthy female friends” made me feel “less than.” I honestly have no clue what more I could have done to “take care” of him? WHAT ABOUT ME? When did he ever really take care of me, besides financially, which I told him so many times, “Thank you so much for working so hard to take care of me and the kids.” I always appreciated how hard he worked for us. What a horrible book for laying all the blame on the woman for a failed relationship. A marriage takes two people to make it work.
Dr. Laura is the biggest misogynist that ever lived! Maybe it’s self-hatred? If I’m ever frustrated and need to take it out on someone, I turn on her program and let the f-bombs fly.
My xmas gift one year was a workout dvd entitled How to Get the Body You Always Wanted … my sister and i always laughed and substituted “Your Husband” for “You” in the title. Pretty damn insulting and I only weighef 120 pounds. Guess i wasnt toned enough for his liking.
I fled the marital home as if it were on fire when I moved out and left lots of stuff behind, including things he gave me, pictures, etc. so I don’t really have anything to donate. I did have a staggering collection of stuffed teddy bears that he gave me. Most of them were delivered to me at work and then I would get the third degree when I got home. He wanted to know how all my friends reacted to his awesomeness.
Last year I donated all of them to this place that helps abused children. The social workers found if they had a cute stuffed animal to cling to, while they were going through the process of telling what happened to them it made the child feel better somehow. It sounded like a great cause so I packed them up and sent them to their new home. I hope they gave comfort to the kids they were given to.
The only other thing I have left is my wedding bands which I intend to sell someday soon.
That’s awesome. Good for you! I too remember when the Evil One would send random things up to me at work, then I would have to go on and on about everyone’s comments. Ugh!!!!! More like spackling, cause no one at my work liked him, didnt give give two shits about it.
I would donate the champagne glasses from our wedding. I had them engraved with our names and the date. After the divorce was final, I broke them (and then threw them away because who wants to keep that shit?)
I broke mine, too! I wrapped mine in a towel and stomped on them. Did each one individually and videotaped it for my own pleasure. I also smashed our wedding cake topper and ripped up all of engagement, wedding, and anniversay cards except for the ones from his best friend and his cousin/mistress; I kept those just in case he wanted to accuse me of “throwing away his memories”. Funny story- one of the cards played “Here Comes the Bride”. After almost 21 years that sucker still worked! I grabbed a meat mallet and pounded that music chip to smithereens.
I guess I’m not the only one who destroyed some stuff. 😉 It felt so good and I don’t regret doing it one bit.
I destroyed all the stuff the OW had given to our family over the years–really expensive stuff. It takes a little more time and effort to tear up expensive stuff, but a determined woman can accomplish much. I’m sure the folks who purchased the house are probably curious about the divits in the driveway.
🙂 Divits in the driveway? That took some effort, but I’m sure it felt good!
I did the same. Right after I filed for divorce.
I’m keeping the wedding band in case I find myself in a hard spot and need some quick cash, but I could have donated a cross-stitch ex’s sister made for us with our wedding date and vows on it, if I hadn’t already thrown it away.
I got rid of most of my stuff, either donated, sold, or thrown in the dumpster. I’m sure when I unpack the final boxes I’ll find some delightful relationship reminders that would be good to donate.
I tried to selly wedding dress and band via an eBay store that had been in town for a few years, and they closed their doors the next day and declared bankruptcy. Local authorities said there was no recourse for those who lost things.
Sounds about right. 🙂
I would donate the platinum dipped rose in its decorative box that he gave me for our 20th wedding anniversary. He was so proud of that gift. He had researched it and everything. Found out that 20 years was platinum and went with a platinum dipped rose. He spent $100 on it and another $75 for the display box! Six months later he’s wiring money on a weekly basis to his cousin.
Ooh, I did start getting those! For Valentine’s Day…. The only time he would get me anything (seriously!) Delivered to the office along with chocolate covered strawberries so everyone could see how totally Awesome he was! I had 5 of those suckers. Smashed them to bits and threw them in a box as he was moving out! Guess he found them.
Mine did that too….even with chocolate covered strawberries once or twice but mostly with Vermont Teddy Bears. Once of the times he sent chocolate covered strawberries was after dday. Someone I work with commented he must’ve done something bad to send those. I just smirked and said “trust me, ain’t enough strawberries, chocolate covered or not, on the planet to make up for what he did!”
When he sent gifts to work, I would get immediately harangued when I got home so he could hear about how impressed my co-workers were at his awesomeness. Funny how he wasn’t impressed with that last one!
Yup I got a pair of $2500 earrings when he was cheating. Selling them now. ..
Now see I would definitely take the chocolate covered strawberries. I might not have been so dismayed by the rose if chocolate covered strawberries accompanied it. LOL Then again I’m pretty easy. Give me an edible fruit arrangement and I’m yours. But not for our 20th wedding anniversary.
To be fair he’s not much into gifts and was hard to buy for. I ended up giving him 3 different expensive bottles of bourbon that year.
Our vintage wedding cake topper, ca 1940. Damaged in move to chump’s new life: groom’s head popped off.
That says it all Free Vixen doesn’t it?
by accident, I’m assuming ; )?
It really was! I packed everything up before D-day and didn’t unpack until over a year later. It really did break during the move, and it was so hilariously symbolic when I unwrapped it in my new home that I kept it.
Wow! That’s poetic justice. Love it.
I would donate the Disney world scrapbook that he gave me for Valentine’s Day during reconciliation attempt 1….he was texting pictures of my kids to the bitch whore and being abusive to me on that trip. Because only a true asshole can ruin the happiest place on earth.
“because only a true asshole can ruin the happiest place on earth” hahahaha
No shit Brianna! My Exhole ruined a trip to Disney that I had spent a year planning. My daughter, SIL and our two grandchildren were there for the first time ever. Found out later that my Ex met up with Schmoopie there too! Found out he begged off going to the park one day so he could screw Schmoopie in the place I had rented! Happiest place my ass!
Holyyyyy shiiiiiit, Roberta!!!! Wow, what an asshole!!!
Ex’s only interest was cars. I used to tease I was going to send him to the HENRY Ford Clinic to “dry him out.” Gifts tended to be odd.
I’d like to donate the travel sewing kit packed into a container that looks just like a sparkplug and the (2 pound!) necklace made of ball bearings strung on a chain.
I would donate a box of 3 condoms, with 1 missing, in commemoration of said box of condoms, in which I discovered one was missing as Hannibal left for a conference 3 months after the wedding. Provenance: Trojan, via CVS.
(he made up some lame excuse about using it when he masturbated to see how it felt when I questioned him. The significance of the Missing Condom became clear only 19 years later, after discovery of his serial cheating.)
Wow Tempest. This reminds me—I too found condoms (had hysterectomy AND tubal ligation) among the twu luv letters. I tapped them all over the Quadro
(Strange freeze uo of iPad). I addressed the doc to X McCheater and Mistress Girlchild (real names used) in big 72 bold font to arrive at the office. I just couldn’t remember the names and thought surely the office gossip would get it to the right people. ?
LOL, HappilyEA! Love the Condom-bedecked QDRO!
Laugh of the day right there!
They really do all say the same crap. Gawd.
right, because every man is just dying to know what wearing a condom feels like?!? where do they even come up with this shit?!
Totally!
Wow!!! This reminds me of years ago, we had been married/together about 4 years then, and i found a box of condoms in the cabinet above the ‘fridge with one missing, maybe two. I got the SAME story as you did Tempest!!
Ugh, asshole!!!
No way, the same story?!? LOL, that must be in the Cheater Handbook, too! The handbook covers everything!
Yep, told me he had used the two to “test” them out before using them on me. Bullshit, lying, cheating bastard!!!!!!!
Asswipe gave great gifts i will give him that. I donated the wedding outfits to habitat for humanity. Jewelry im keeping to sell if i need cash. Everything else i got rid of. Wait a fancy jar really pretty think i will put all memories of him in the jar and donate that.
Same here. X was good at gifts, mostly jewelry because it didn’t take much time-the jeweler usually had something selected before he arrived. Strangely though, after 30 years, I was able to put most of X’s stuff in the back of his car when he left. He was never, ever involved in selecting furniture, art work or the like. In all the years of our marriage, I think we went to the mall together twice. From stereo equipment to cars, I was always the one who selected and negotiated our purchases. It was odd to look back and see how truly uninvolved he was with our daily life. I cannot remember him even so much as changing a light bulb. I don’t think he even knew how to run a washing machine. It was all done for him. I didn’t feel the need to throw much away because he really wasn’t connected to it. In every sense of the word, it was mine. I have saved the jewelry for my daughters and wear one piece that was given to me when my daughter was born. I wear it to remember her birth; it has no emotional connection to him.
Violet, could we have been married to the same cheater???? When I look at everything in my home, it is all mine…he had no interest in anything…except the remote control. He would fall asleep with his finger stuck on the porn channel……seriously , that is what he would say!!!! During divorce, he once said that the only thing he wanted was the rototiller….really????? You used it ONCE and now you were somehow interested in gardening!!!! Or did he want it to just continue churning up lies and sh**?
For the most part, my ex also gave me very nice gifts over the years. But at the nightmare Christmas that was only two weeks after final dday, he gave me a pink washcloth he bought at the drugstore. I left that behind when I moved out.
Box of word magnets and a card from then husband’s university (was a graduate student): this was my anniversary gift for our 5th anniversary. This was after pseudo DDay when I was gaslighted into believing there was no affair, just an obsessed fellow grad student. I found these items in a drawer after ex moved out.
Clearly, in hindsight, purchased last minute at the bookstore, and also in hindsight, ex was not engaged in the marriage. Sigh. We stayed together for another 13 years with two more pseudo DDays. Truth finally came out in MC which I dragged him to when he simply wanted to walk away after 18 yrs of marriage and 23 years together..
I would donate the “comfortable slippers” that my ex gave me for Christmas one year. Upon close observation I noticed the tag said they were “men’s” slippers. How glamorous!
They’d go nicely with the comfy tartan women’s pyjamas my ex-wife gave me for Christmas one year.
Lol … Or with my flannel jammies covered with llamas that were 3 sizes too big!! Clearance rack? Room to grow??
It was for when you bulked up after obsessively using the exercise DVD that you mentioned above.
Hahahahahaaaaa!!!!
Ha Ha … You are so funny!
I suppose I could donate the old AA book he left behind, how about a 100+ collection of empty DVD movie cases (cos he removed all the DVDs). Still need to go sell the fugly ring and other bits of jewelry, not worth very much. Already sold all the tools he didn’t use…
I did try to donate my mother’s 1939 wedding dress that I also wore to a museum at TWU. oops. They only collect First Ladies dresses and quite possible I was not his First Lady. So I boxed it up gave it to my daughter for her girls since it is a family heirloom. Thank goodness he took the ugly antique display case. The ring has a giant flaw in it so probably has no value. Kinda like X.
Oh, so many choices here!
There’s the book about selecting wines I got for my birthday, except I didn’t drink wine.
There’s the 100+ items of makeup she left that she never wore, at least around me, or the fancy underwear I never saw her in. All of it was reserved for one of the OM.
I would donate the box of pictures I found of the first OM, but I burned it all in the fire pit.
I found a cd full of pix of girl child and her spawn. With the love letters. Those are in an envelope addressed to my kids so they can have a “Bridges of Madison county” moment. They know about this package. And if X so much as try’s to spin the story they are getting this package early.
The very large, hardback, illustrated book : “How to raise Goats”. I kid you not….pun intended.
I would donate the hammock and stand that I gave him on our first anniversary along with a card about the wonderful laid back years we have ahead. He never gave me anything. I continued gifts and nice meals for years. Then it moved to me choosing a restaurant that I thought he would not complain about, dressed nicely (never a compliment), waited for him to come home (from where he basically lived with a friend 10 years younger from a party pad). When he picked me up, he drove100 mph there, still complained about dinner, drove me 115 mph back, sat and stared at me as I got out of the car, backed up and went back to his party pad. I let that happen about three years until I decided never again. After DDay, he suddenly reminded me we have an anniversary coming up. I told him I was through with those and if it was important that he could plan it. No celebration there!
He never put the hammock up. I finally put it up when we had kids and he complained it would be ruined. It was bought to be used. He was like that with a lot of thing the kids and I bought him. They had no meaning for him even though we were careful to choose things we knew he wanted because we actually paid attention. Anyway, when I got to go back, I couldn’t find the stand, but I took the hammock. I have the perfect place to hang it or if the thought is too much I can sell, burn, or now donate it.
I could also add his empty viagra bottles that were in someone else’s name.
It might be nice to keep the hammock. It was your loving heart and thoughtfulness that chose it.
How could I forget the illustrated book from his undergraduate days–The Gentleman’s Alphabet book?
With limericks for each letter of the alphabet, such A is for Aphrodisiac, B is for Bestiality, …D is for Deviate, …F is for Flagellation…M is for Masochist (that one rings true for me, having stayed married to him for 19 years)….W is for Whoremonger (‘nuf said).
Speaking of books, I would donate her book – 50 Shades for Grey – which I recently found on my bookshelf. I believe it still had the library check out card still in it. I remember she was reading that book right after my dday which was years and years ago.
Justice would be that she tries to cross a border and is arrested for unpaid library fines.
I would donate my sex addict’s dick in a pickle bottle but it’s still attached to him…
Hahahaha! Good one!
Love!!
I’m sure ChumpNation can help with that…
Calamity, the museum said they won’t display items as small as a gerkin pickle. Just put it in the garbage disposal!
“Like” x’s a thousand!!!!! Hahahahaa
There’s actually a new installation of pickled penii in the museum. Here’s one of the crowd favorites.
We also received a donation from someone with the initials “CJ,” but we’ll need an electron microscope to get the full experience.
We could find a really big pickle bottle and donate the whole ex.
THIS!!!
Love this idea!!!
lol! 🙂
In the 26 years we were married, I received 2 gifts I loved from him. One was a ruby ring that I will eventually sell and the other was a nicely crafted bird house. He refused to mount the bird house where I wanted it in the yard and then he made a big fuss about it with the MC about how ungrateful I was when he gave it to me. So I’ll either sell it or take out my aggression on with an ax – I haven’t decided which yet.
I did donate the excessively large collection of nails and screws he had collected over the years. When we needed a nail or screw for something, he would go to the store and buy several new boxes rather than look through what we had to find what he needed. He also had about 50 old Hanes t-shirts saved for rags, cause you never know when you might need one. Trash. Then there was the box of used auto parts meaning, used oil filters, etc. that you would never use again. Pure crap. I put that box with his stuff but he left it for me, of course. Just thankful to be rid of him.
I’m a sentimental sap, so I’ve already got what I call a Box of Broken Dreams wedged onto a high shelf in the back of my closet.
Many years ago I put the outfit I was wearing when I met him into a box and kept it all this time. The day after he ended wreckonciliation, I had myself a cry fest by reading all the letters and cards I’d saved — twenty-two years’ worth but most from the twelve years before we had kids (his dysfunction went into full force once he wasn’t the center of my attention anymore. I pulled the box with the clothes down from the closet, gathered the letters, cards, photos I couldn’t bear to trash (like a photo strip of the two of us in our early twenties from a state fair), a dried rose from the first bouquet he ever got me, the champagne stopper from our first anniversary Dom Perignon, my engagement ring box, a Be My Valentine thing I’d gotten him one year, everything else that reminded me of the good times, and tossed it all in the box.
I’ve been calling it the Box of Broken Dreams ever since. At the time, I thought I’d want to look at this stuff and re-read old letters in my eighties and remember the good times. Lately I’ve been thinking about burning the whole damn box.
If I donated it, I’d caption it with his infamous last line: “He said he loved me and I was his other half, but he needs the validation of other women too much to ever not cheat on me.”
All the jewelry he gave me over the course of twenty-two years — my engagement and wedding rings, a bracelet, and a pair of earrings — I’m going to sell and put toward a trip to France.
Betterdays, we are so much alike. You said, “his dysfunction went into full force once he wasn’t the center of my attention anymore.” Mine too. I never could have imagined that a father could be jealous of his newborn infant son. I didn’t know it was jealousy at the time, but it all makes sense now knowing he’s a narcissist. Enjoy your trip to France!!! 🙂
It’s horrible, isn’t it? At first, I thought he was suffering from depression and that his abusive FOO issues had gotten triggered (which was true too). Took me a long time to admit that he was jealous of and resented his own children. Medication solved his rage episodes and helped turn him into a decent father. He remained a shit husband.
The need for centrality just eats their soul.
Yeah, it was horrible and very confusing. He didn’t rage at all, because that’s not what he does. He just acted really weird. My mom and sister came to visit (they live over 600 miles away) to help and see our son. I think it was the first night they were here, our son started crying at night. He was determined to get him to stop crying. We had a book, “Parenting for Dummies” and here he was, holding our crying son, paging through this book to figure out how to get him to stop crying. He REFUSED to give him to me, his mom, who would have nursed him to stop him crying (he was only about a week or so old.) My X then walked fast down in the basement with our crying son. I followed him down there and I can still see him standing against the concrete wall, holding our son, refusing to give him to me. Who the heck acts like that?!! It was insane! And he’s the one who is painting me as “crazy” to his co-workers. Ummmm. No. He’s the disordered one, not me. The next day I pumped milk for the first time so that my X could give our son a bottle. Of course as soon as he was giving him the bottle, my X said, “Take a picture of ME.” Yeah, you are the center of attention again, jerk.
Their dysfunction always intensifies after children, when they are no longer the center of attention.
Highly recommend the trip to France–a champagne lunch on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower was just the thing I needed to forget Hannibal.
I’m going to keep that mental image of champagne lunch and Eiffel Tower in my head every time thoughts of The Entitled One creep in. Thanks, Tempest! 🙂
I’d be happy spending a day at the dump eating spoiled dog food while relaxing in a kiddie pool of Flint’s finest tap water if it meant I’d be free of STBXW.
What’s the name of the restaurant?
No restaurant–KarmaExpress & I went to a nearby wine shop, purchased the champagne, and then got food from the food booths that line the walkways in front of the Eiffel Tower. Highlight of our trip.
I also bought Eiffel Tower keychains in 2 colors (2 each color) to make commemorative Eiffel Tower earrings.
I really want to figure out how to afford to take my child to Ireland. It would be a beautiful and meaningful trip for us and it is a place cheater always wanted to go … so yes, SPITE makes me want to go without him so he can feel left out and irrelevant. Which he is.
Ditto! The tragedy is that once the grown children know the full story of his betrayal, they will cease to adore their father (if they haven’t already), thus removing another source of validation. I like this quote from one of the ancients philosophers: The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.
Great quote! And that, Sionara, could be the title of your book.
Love that quote!
Thankful to be rid of him, too.
Chump I am, I neatly packed his stuff for his pickup when I should have pitched it all on the front lawn. Not one acknowledgment of appreciation from him for taking the high road.
The charge card itemizations of his financial abuse on OW would have made interesting reading. Such love bombing was needed to keep her affections and head in his lap.
I was admonished each month for spending small amounts on kids and groceries.
Supreme asshat cake eater. She can have him.
I did the same with Jackass, and come to think of it, I did a lot of the packing when XH left too. Plus all the cleaning up. As long as we are on the high road, they are free to cruise the passing lane on the low road.
I helped pack cheater ass up using “flexible luggage”….aka Hefty bags! Hasta la bye-bye douchebag! So my contribution would be Hefty garbage bags!
Me too, but I used the generic kind and stuffed them very full.
I packed cheater up, helped load up our two cars, drove half his shit an hour away and across the state line, and carried his stuff up the stairs in blazing mid-day summer heat of Florida. I also helped him unpack and set up his kitchen for him, including all the useful kitchen items I had purchased for him at Walmart. Nice? Hell no … just wanted him gone, gone, gone as fast as humanly possible. That sweaty day was an investment in my cheater-free house. Nope … don’t miss him being here.
I would happily donate 30 years of Model Railroader magazine, monthly, except all went into the recycling bin, along with all his high school yearbooks. I’m keeping his money.
I could donate the beautiful wedding picture that sat on the end table in our living room for 20 years, but I can’t because I ripped it in half in front of him and said to him, “This is what I think of our sham of a marriage.”
I could donate the shadow box his mommy had made for us with items from our wedding. One of the items were the matches we had made. It said, “Martha and Cheater. A perfect match.” However, I won’t be able to donate it, because I emptied the contents of the shadowbox onto the lawn, poured lighter fluid on it and set it on fire with the “Perfect Match” matches.
I could donate the sand he brought back from the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France. He had sand from two different beaches. We found a really cool candle tube and he carefully put the sand in the tube, making sure that the sands from two beaches didn’t touch each other. For years after our wonderful trip, I so carefully dusted that thing, making sure not to bump it so that the sands would stay separate. Years ago I said to him jokingly, “You will know I’m really mad at you if you find your sand mixed together.” Well, that day actually took place. I took great pleasure lifting the candle tube up and shaking all the sand together and putting it back down on his desk. I left that behind for him, so I can’t donate that.
I could donate all the love letters he sent me before I move 600+ miles away from my family. All the letters him telling me I was the “perfect woman” for him, his “soulmate”, the “love of his life.” Well, he was doing the same thing to another woman after I moved here. So, those empty word love letters are serving a better purpose in a landfill.
I could donate all the meals he took me out for 20 years of wedding anniversaries, but he only took me out once and that was for our 20th anniversary. He’d already seen his ho-worker out for coffee and was already mentally preparing to see her for a drinks date when her divorce was final. He was distant and distracted for our one and only anniversary meal. Gosh, I wonder why.
I could donate the stuffed animals we purchased together when we were in FL for spring break. It was a mom and baby dolphin. He took the baby back to NY and I took the mom back to WI. When I moved to NY to be with him, the pair were reunited. They are in the landfill, too.
I could donate the dried rose petals of the dozen of roses that he sent me in 1990. The petals I dried and put in a special jar and sealed it up and it sat on the counter of our bathroom for 24 years. However, it’ll be hard finding them since I flushed them down the toilet after he told me that he “gave up Sally, Anne and Mary” for me and told me he didn’t love me anymore. You see, he gave up these women WHILE WE WERE MARRIED. How nice of him to give up women for his wife. Thanks for the favor, jerk.
I guess I have nothing to donate, because everything is either destroyed or I gave it to him. Like our wedding album and all the scrapbook/photo albums he made of all of our vacations with the kids. Who wants to look at photo albums when during this time he has claimed, “I haven’t been happy in ten years, but didn’t know it.” I even gave him back my engagement, wedding band and the ring he gave me for our 20th anniversary. To him they just meant money. He actually put my rings down as “assets” for his financial affidavit. My rings that took such great care of. I loved those rings. They meant something to me — vows, honor and commitment. To him they just meant money. He can have his fucking money back. And he can have his fucking last name back, because I’m throwing that in the landfill, too.
Martha, you are so brave and strong. Give all that crap back. You don’t need it anymore. You got this. You are MIGHTY. (((Hugs)))
NoMoreNarcs, I don’t have anything anymore! 🙂 It’s either destroyed or I left it for him to keep. The only thing I kept from him is our children together and they are the most valuable thing he ever gave to me. Thanks for the (((HUGS))). (((HUGS))) back to you. 🙂
Martha–your post captures the heartbreak of betrayal as well as anything I’ve read. You have your children, and your integrity–better than meals, rose petals, and the sand of Normandy rolled into one.
Thanks, Tempest. 🙂 And thanks so much for helping out CL with moderation! I always enjoy reading your replies to everyone. 🙂 Have a wonderful holiday weekend.
I considered ripping up the wedding photo, but instead pasted a picture of Francois Arnaud (Cesare in The Borgias) over the X, because a girl can dream.
I dont have Showtime anymore with my current cable plan….bastard evil one cut off my cable that had showtime in the plan….loved the Borgias!!!! Caesare is yummmyyy!!!!
Heartbreaking, Martha. And shows how much we invested in our relationships — because we were REAL — and how little they did.
I’m right there with you on the last name. I actually took mine back last summer after finding out some of the crap he was up to and made my attorney make the name change legal ahead of the divorce (which is still in progress).
You are so right, BetterDays. We were the REAL ones and they are a bunch of fake, lying cheaters. And yes, “how little they did.” Amen to that! He brought so little to our marriage, but he expected so much and I was expected to read his mind, too. He drained me dry.
Wow, I had no idea you could take your maiden name back before the divorce is final. Have a wonderful, long weekend, BetterDays.
I would donate a our TV cable bill…….where all of the charges for Porn are blacked out with black marker….all blacked out so that they can not be read!!!!! As if by him blocking them out they would disappear and not be there. his excuse, many times over, ” honestly, honey, I fell asleep on the couch and my finger must have gotten stuck on the remote some how….!!!!!” WOW!?!? Really!?! More than one time??? That would be the caption….the title being ” Cover it up, lie about it,I am sooo clever!!!”
LOL, he seriously blacked out the porn stuff as if that would fool you? That’s the sort of thing a preschooler would do. It’s amazing how immature these freaks can be.
This is incredibly juvenile and dumb. He watches Porn and then deliberately blocks out the porn stuff with a marker. He didn’t think it was obvious what he was doing. What a dimwit. Smh…
I would donate the doors of my kitchen cabinets, that I painted carefully during days, to reproduce ancient frescoes that he liked. Perfect to decorate the walls of the museum. Acrylic paint.
I could donate my wedding ring… Oh wait, I guess not as I gave it to dickhead for ‘safekeeping’ and he immediately hocked it.
I would donate the random white plate and box of chocolates he thought would make an ideal gift for my 50th birthday, after I had asked him if he would please just tidy his desk in our shared office as a gift for my big day. However I threw the plate and chocolates out of the bedroom window.
I have nothing to donate. Everything went up in flames in a bonfire in my backyard. It was fantastic. I highly recommend!
Yeah, I threw out our wedding album (but first I removed the pictures of my family), all the cards and notes he’d written me over the years, the workbooks from our failed attempt at reconciliation through Retrouvaille.
I left many other things next to the dumpster in my apartment complex. The jewelry box he gave me our very first Christmas together, a Himalayan salt lamp he gave me our very LAST Christmas together…. lots of other stuff. Those things were taken by other residents at the complex and hopefully are enjoyed.
I do of course still have many things he gave me over the years — how could I not, after 20 years married? But the things I kept don’t trigger me, for whatever reason, like the things I got rid of.
Oh yeah I forgot. The disgusting hoarder I lived with, who had the garden littered with half built rotting boats and who wouldn’t allow me to tidy up or move his crap in the 27 years we were together bought me a Christmas present of a book on de-cluttering!
You should see the beautiful home I have now that he’s gone.
I would donate the personalized “mini” Louisville Slugger she had made for me for my 30th birthday. Except I smashed it into bits knocking the glass out of all our picture frames after I learned she was cheating whore.
Sounds like an appropriate use for the bat!
Not if he missed her head Tempest!
I’ve been to the one in Zagreb. With my ex. How ironic? If you find yourself at its threshold – skip it for the gorgeous medieval city around it.
As for what I’d donate? How about the long string of insanely controlling documents that eventually became our prenup? Talk about red flags! I understand protecting assets, but his attempts to prescribe what a marriage should look like by outlining it in a prenup was insane. Only I married him – so that makes me chumpier than he was a narcissistic, insane, asshole. Bully for him.
Ha! I still win. Am thankfully divorced
(Big Thanks CL and Tempest for hanging in there for the rest of us)
I would donate the book I found, years ago after he returned from a work conference (mmmmHmm), “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. Said it had caught his eye at the airport bookstore because it looked like a bible but had a golden silhouette of a nude female on the cover.
I read that damn book and was so bought into our fairytale of a life together I never put it together. I could not believe that that kind of a lifestyle existed and only years later did I realize he used it as a guidebook to navigate his journey into becoming a (better) player. I shake my head at the clues I refused to examine.
I wish I could gift them the life size cutout of ex leaping into the air, arms above his head, legs pulled up… just like a middle-age, male cheerleader. That thing stood in our living room for a few years before I left. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess), I have no idea of where it is now. Probably in ex’s bedroom at his dad’s house.
GladIO–No one should have suffered through what you suffered through. That cardboard cutout is metaphoric in ways I can’t fully wrap my head around. Congrats on your recent engagement!
I guess I would donate the photographs he took of his penis posed with various props: feathers, apples, his foot at a weird angle. Or just the super closeups of his dick. Or the black-and-white photos of him looking very thoughtful, but naked and with a hard on. Keep in mind these were all taken in the days of film photography, so had to go through some photo lab for development. I’ll bet the employees got a huge kick out of them.
Or maybe I could donate the Glamour Shot photos of himself he had taken back in the early 90s and gave me for my 25th birthday gift. Good Lord, talk about a red flag of narcissism.
But I threw out all those photos, along with all of the normal shots of him, so no donations from me.
GIO, picturing those dick pics still makes me laugh out loud!
Oh myyyy.
Lol
Were they glamour shots of his dick?
I would love to donate the horrendous pink and white “clown pajamas” he bought for my birthday just after DDAY! Right now they are serving a useful purpose by cushioning some of my packed belongings. It didn’t help my opinion of him when I saw those gawdy, frumpy, joke looking pajamas. I happen to know that he purchased Schmoopie a very sexy nightie! I couldn’t even control my rage when I laid eyes on those horrible jammies! Once I relocate I do believe I’ll burn them! I don’t think even a museum would want something like that!
I moved out on my wife, so she had our possessions.
And so, during the first few months after I filed, my cheater occasionally sent me old letters, romantic cards, and small gifts that she’d given me over the years. They were items that expressed her love for me….or, more appropriately, her former love for me. She attached sticky notes, asking for another chance or telling me not to “give up” on us.
I’d donate those treasures, if I still had them. But I don’t.
I dumped them in the trash the same day that I received ’em.
Good riddance.
Oh, how could I have forgotten this? I would definitely donate the half-eaten box of Wheatena he sent me while our divorce was in process, along with a note saying he was giving it to me because it gave him gas. I actually briefly considered keeping the cereal, because I do love Wheatena and it’s no longer sold in my state, but then I got paranoid wondering if he had poisoned it, so I threw it away.
A year or so later, he texted me asking if I would like him to ship me a box of Wheatena from Ohio. He wrote that he had purchased it with me in mind. I replied no thanks.
I still get a laugh out of this. Every time.
@GIO—‘photos of him looking very thoughtful but naked and with a hard on’
LOLOLOLOL
“The Thinker and his dinker”
I hope it’s not a repeat, but I think there should be a special wing devoted to the Whore Phone, and all special apps related to cheating. Maybe with an educational slide show.
Like Ashley Madison app, Tinder, secret text app, etc.
@GIO–when I first joined CN, I would see references to Wheatena but I didn’t know the back story. Now I do.
It TRULY IS EPIC!
Very generous of the gas bag to pass his gas passing producer on to you 🙂 Sheesh
I liked the idea of a “bonfire of the vanities” that I read about on CL. I went searching and realized that after 27 years of marriage, I didn’t have any cards, trinkets, presents, etc. X was always proud of me for not being “materialistic.” I was proud of me, too. So smug. So chumpy. Sigh.
What gave me immense pleasure was packing up all of the crap that X-MIL had dumped on me over the years. X’s old baby clothes! X’s elementary school Field Day ribbons! Great Aunt Sally’s china! Lamps! Ceramic plant holders! Huuuuuuuge portraits of dead relatives! Nothing interesting, attractive or valuable.
X didn’t want any of it but couldn’t say no. So I sent X and his crap back to Mommy. Bwa ha ha.
I’d gladly donate my personally inscribed copy of Pema Chödrön’s “When Things Fall Apart.” I was agnostic before she left, but now I am full-on anti-theist because she loved that Shambala so much. Barf.
Methinks she might need that book for her post-divorce healing ; ).
My donation would be the gift he got me for our first wedding anniversary: a package of Mentos mints. Provenance: the mini mart between his office and our apartment.
No, I’m not kidding.
Lymri14 – say WHAT!?!
I got a card and a box of turtles chocolates for our first anniversary. Only it was a month late.
I got him personalized air fresheners with my picture and our wedding pictures on them for his truck and a hand made book of “101 Reasons Why I Love You.”. Clearly no thought put into the gifts the cheaters get us. So sad.
Too late. I spent $300 on a roll off dumpster. Anything not sent with her when she left or donated to Goodwill went into the dumpster.
Best $300 I ever spent.
I carefully packed all of second cheater’s clothes in bags which I deposited into a “for African orphans” bin outside the local supermarket. I did this the day after I kicked him out. His other junk was so juvenile, It just either went into the donated toy bin, or the dumpster.
I realised afterward that he’d never given me anything except books he wanted to read, and one incredibly cheap ring he bought on the shopping channel. I flogged the ring on ebay and some dude in Yorkshire bought it for £2!
First cheater, I just moved out, left the country, and never gave more than a passing thought to what happened to all the crap he gave me. Let him clear it all out…maybe it will give him pause for thought.
My life feels so free without sentimental stuff,
Why are cheaters such cheap, lazy assholes?
How about the cheap giveaways from horse racetracks (jockey bobbleheads, horsehead bottle openers, etc.) in exchange for the (really) hundreds of thousands of (our joint) dollars he lost betting there? I already donated the 19 blanket giveaways with race horse themes to the USO. Must have been weird for the troops to get a little “Zenyatta” or “Where the Surf meets the Turf” blankey.
Shoot! I would have bought those from you. Huge Zenyatta and Del Mar guy!
Well, if he’d just put all that $$ on Zenyatta (minus last BC classic) we may have been okay financially. Got so worked up I forgot I am “chumping at the bit” rather than “champing.” !!!!
A year or so after our divorce finalized, my son came home from a visit with ex and handed me a box of matches he said his dad had told him to give me. It was from a restaurant ex and I had loved way back in our dating days and early years of our marriage. The restaurant had gone out of business nearly ten years prior, so apparently ex had this match box from way back when. Why he decided to send it to me at that point, I have no idea. Maybe it was a sort of hoover, or just a way to play with my head. Anyway, I would donate those matches to the museum, but I threw them out because it kind of freaked me out, to be honest.
I got nothing. Seriously not one thing. We had a civil marriage so no dress. We never had a honeymoon so no momentous. He did give me herpes, so maybe a swab in a sealed Petrie dish???? This was a 20+ yr marriage with cheating beginning around the 2yr mark (mega chump married to an awesome thespian!).
Momentos
About a week after he left I methodically went thru every room cupboard and box in the house and anything that reminded me of him I bagged up and put in the dump master. Then I went and picked up the dog shit from my backyard & threw it on top. Hocked my rings, paid out my debts and bought a 2nd hand guitar. Oh the freedom!
So the first gift snake ever bought me was a unicorn. Prophetic. I’ve kept it as an ironic reminder, but I might consider a donation….
I am just warped enough to suggest that you put it in the garden of your new house, front & center. Preferably nestled among some…flowers? prickly bushes?
Speaking of broken relationships…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3670331/Eat-Pray-Love-bestselling-author-Elizabeth-Gilbert-splits-husband-wrote-love-story-hit-book.html
I wonder who cheated on whom. Watch this space.
Ugh, that woman is such a narcissist.
One guess.
I would donate my next to last Christmas gift from him – an extension cord and a pair of scissors. He got them for me because I was always complaining about him swiping the extension cord from my sewing machine and warning him not to use my fabric scissors on paper. He absolutely did not see any problem with that gift. Or I could donate any of the appliances he decided I needed over the years and received as gifts for any occasion – crock pots, waffle makers (I hate waffles), deep fat fryers (I don’t like fried food), you name it! The only jewelry he ever bought was my engagement and wedding band set and he never tired of telling me how he paid for them (used his student loan). He lost 4 wedding rings in the 33 years we were married. He did buy me a Claddagh ring post first DDay but when I discovered he bought OW an identical one at the same time, it went into the garbage. He bought her more nice jewelry in one year than I ever got. Provenance of extension cord and scissors – Walmart on Christmas Eve.
Nothing left to donate after cheater ex’s family burned my house down. Before that though, every pic of him went into a nice pile out in the back yard which my oldest son had the privilege of dousing with lighter fluid and setting alight. We went through and cut cheater ex out of every picture we had and had us a nice little mini bonfire.
I have to say it was very gratifying.
Tessie, you are amazing. I’ve read your posts from way back, and I hope there;s a special part of hell just for monsters like him, and his whole fucking family.
Except for you and your son. Sons.
These stories are awful, but it’s good we can laugh about it anyway. I had a great post prepared and then lost it to the ether-web when soon to be ex-MIL needed help with the new cable (now in my name) since her and my darling husband went and disconnected it a few days ago. Why do I help, you ask? Because it keeps her the hell out of my hair for a few hours while she tunes in to the boob tube.
ANYWAY, Durt and I went running errands on my birthday 6 months after we were married. I was already deep into the discard pile but was spackling furiously. Suddenly, he announces he has to get a car wash, so dumps me at Menards and can’t be reached for 30 minutes. Must have been a ho or harem emergency. I knew in my gut what these runs to the bank, or to get gas, or to wash the car were about. He needed to speak to some slut on the phone, probably slut puppet in this case but there were several others on the hot coals (I learned later). On the way home, I burst into tears. I told him that him dumping me at a store was bs. No-one suddenly needs a fucking car wash (I don’t swear but you get the gist) he said I was acting crazy.
I went for a walk to get away from him and his Mom. I get back and he is all ready to give me his gift, although he isn’t really all that thrilled about the ritual. The gift—-a garden fairy with a bow and arrow (price tag still affixed 8.99). The card—a happy anniversary card. He writes “let’s make this a good year” or some bs.
So l, I would donate the now headless, wingless and armless fairy (a recent storm, and an act of God); I took a photo but can’t figure out how to post it. It’s perfect! Along with the f’ing anniversary card I received on my birthday. Provenance: the dime store or something his mom purchase for me that he appropriated, origin ChIna. Current status: guarding the door to the tree, with his head at his feat. Surrounded by his broken wings, with his arm, bow and arrow next to it.
Sorry, but a fairy garden figurine and a happy anniversary card on my birthday did not make me feel sexy or wanted.
I would be happy to box them up and send.
You made me laugh so hard with “a ho or harem emergency.” But that’s a sad birthday story. And you’re still taking care of his mom? From the beginning you were way too good for him.
Oh gosh, I’m so sorry you were married to such a scumbag. I can’t believe that story about you had just been married 6 months and he ditches you on your bday weekend, goes MIA and lies he needed a car wash, and then when he reappears, he calls you crazy. No wonder you cried, he was treating you like total shit. This guy is such a sleezeball. If he was going to mistreat you to this extent, he should have never married you in the first place. That way he could have kept porking his harem, rather than making vows to someone and then treating her like utter shit. I’m so sorry you went through this, he’s a total shitbag.
Thanks. It helps to hear that. He is an absolute sleaze bag user and mutual friends have told me his lying and cheating and manipulating are out of control.
He wanted my money and the things I could buy, and my status for lack of a better word. And a woman who would allow his mom to live in the house too. It also makes it easier to recruit unsuspecting girls with daddy issues. He is married, he is safe.
He always has to have his main squeeze so his “legit” relationships somehow always overlap. But he always has to have side pieces and a harem. Crazy town.
I know how you feel. I dumped my ex-bf because he wanted my money and me for my lifestyle. I hate people like this because they are prostitutes, using people for money. I have zero respect for people like this, as they are scum. I’m so glad you’re no longer with this low-life charlatan.
Yeah, i never really got anything of value- either sentimental or monetarily and whatever shit he left here to go be “alone” (i.e. go be with the now Mrs. Dumb-Ass) has been either sold off, hauled off to the dump or burned off and he can fuck off.
I do remember our first Christmas he bought me a mousepad and speakers for the computer, loser. I took them back and got myself the pajama set imwanted and the new CDs i had told him i wanted. Ever since, he had a shit-piss-poor attitude about gift shopping for me cause i didnt shit rainbows and glitter at his lame ass gifts.
Oh well. At least i was 100% genuine and true in the relationship, and he wasnt. Fucker.
Pre-1970 gas lawn mower. Reputed to be superior to a new Lawn Boy or Toro but it over-rated. Doesn’t start without extraordinary effort and is too puny and ineffective to do the job. Provenance, his mommy’s tool shed, by way of some yard sale.
I never received one thing in 20+ years.
What I would donate would be all the things my husband bought for himself, that for whatever reason didn’t work out, that he was too lazy to return.
Hence wasting household space and a shit-load of money.
In this mixed collection is four shower knobs, a tree trimming saw, a bicycle, two shower heads, headlights that did not fit his model of jeep, more auto parts I would find in the basement with the two year old receipt in the bag.
Maybe I collection of bags with purchases to old to return. This would be a fairly large exhibit now that I think of it. I’m sure there are a lot more bags as I am no longer around to find these hidden treasures. My heart no longer sinks to realize I married a man too lazy or to above returning something and us becoming poorer.
The next donation would be the banker’s boxes left in the garage from the last day of the job he was fired from. Our garage was actually a time capsule of seven or eight covered cardboard banker’s boxes of all the things collected off his desk when he was hastily terminated.
You could open any given unmarked box and find cd’s, desk pictures of him and his golf buddies, (none of me of course) pens, paper clipped “important papers” several “business” contacts phone numbers, (cough, cough).
Living with my ex-husband was a nightmar. I’m a clean and organized person and he is a lazy slob. Take something out to use it and NEVER put it back.
BUT, back to the termination boxes of stuff. He would come home anxious and depressed, put his little bye-bye box on the garage shelf and there it would stay……FOREVER, if I finally didn’t throw the shit away.
Another donation would be his racket ball equipment. This was his Friday night cover story equipment. He just had to leave the family who waited all week to see him, to go play RACKET BALL with ” a friend”. Clears the HEAD after a long work week. Yayya, uuhhuh. Can you say unsuspecting chump. Equipment looks brand new due to lack of use so it should look good somewhere.
How about a donation of all the feminine things found in his Jeep that were not mine? I recall Designer sunglasses, one cubic zirconia stud earring, a sweatshirt jacket I believe white with gold leaves, a woman’s baseball cap, strawberry lip balm. That’s all I can come up with on short notice. Of course, the chump that I was, believed these were items his co-workers left in his jeep while they were at a “team meeting lunch” happy to donate.
I’m sure I could find more of his stuff to donate but we never purchased anything together and the only gifts given were ones I gave to him that I would find unused months after they were unopened.
On a side note: One year I decided to leave his gifts under the Christmas tree instead of putting his gifts away for him. I wanted to see how long it would take him to put his things away. After the tree came down, I created a pile on the fireplace hearth of the same stuff. The pile was still there on August 14th when my brother came to visit. He took the pile and stacked it on the side of his dresser. To this day, I have no idea if he ever used, wore, or put away anything from the last Christmas we had as a family.
Lazy shit never put anything at all away.
The museum could take it all.
“How about a donation of all the feminine things found in his Jeep that were not mine? I recall Designer sunglasses, one cubic zirconia stud earring, a sweatshirt jacket I believe white with gold leaves, a woman’s baseball cap, strawberry lip balm.”
Wiseoldowl – I think this collection of items plus the brand-spanking-new raquetball set would make a brilliant exhibit of cheater evidence. Tacked to the wall next to the collection should be a list of the most common cheater lines so unsuspecting chumps can figure it out for themselves: We’re just friends! Why are you so suspicious? Don’t you trust me? I’m doing this for US. So many of us beat ourselves up for believing their lies, and this is a great reminder of how hard it is to believe the worst about someone you love and trust.
The Entitled One went to a lot of concerts with, so he claimed, clients and colleagues. All part of how he drummed up new business. Since he works in an industry with a lot of childfree hipsters and rich assholes who socialize at concerts, extreme sports, new microbreweries, etc, I believed him. But one time I made a joke about all these “work concerts” and he was FURIOUS with me. Should have been a major red flag right there since anyone who wasn’t using those events as a hunting ground would have seen the irony and the humor, same as I thought I did. One thing about all this was true: his whores all work in the same industry he does. Convenient.
I was struggling to come up with anything to donate because whatever of his he didn’t manage to pack up and take, I trashed…
But this was just prompted by the ‘femine things’ BetterDays told us about:
DermaBlend heavy duty concealer in my car’s glove box. His sumo wrestler look alike ho had extensive heart surgery. I intuitively knew it was her’s, used it to cover the scars cos she always had her disprorotionately enhanced ‘chest’ on view. When I demanded to know where it came from, POP told me it was HIS–to cover a small scar on his face. Yeah right. The tiny scar was unnoticeable and ALL in the time that I’d known him previous to that very day, he definitely didn’t use DermaBlend heavy duty concealer.
Needless to say, it had already been disposed of by the time we had the conversation—AND oddly enough, he never asked where ‘his concealer’ was.
**disproportionately
Mine gave me great gifts of lovely jewelry but then again he stole much of it after we separated and he still had access to the house. ..not sure if ap had it or he pawned it…He even took the opal ring which was his first gift to me at 17 (we’re55)
Wow, that is callous. It shows that nothing, and no one, really means anything to these cheaters except for its/the person’s direct benefit to them.
I hope you called the police on him
I’ll donate my receipts from my psychologist and from CVS for my ADs.
Boy they sure are proud of those screaming penises arent they. You could turn it around stick it in the ground and put a solar light in it. Recycle. Is it hollow like his head? Haha!
Thank you to all the fellow chumps! Firstly for the geniune, have to stop to catch my breath Laughs. Secondly for sharing your stories which have helped me understand that I was/am not crazy for not believing the BS,stupid gaslighting tales, excuses, random acts of idiocy perpetually thrown at me by moron stupid enough to post pictures of himself cheating in advertisements for more hook ups on our share computer. And best of all for helping me to understand a bright beautiful future is ahead of me.
Just when I think I’ve heard it all…
I’m laughing and shuddering at the same time!
A bunch of rock groupies in the old days did just that called themselves the plaster casters. Shudder is right.
OK, Im in a serious round of “go through dead husbands stuff and throw shit away”…the stuff I missed first and second round are going …Im deep into drawers in the basement…so this is what I found (no shit)
travel documents for trips I know he took with OW
purchase paperwork for a $30,000 care he bought that he traded in 2 years later on a $35000 car that he trades in 3 yrs later (well before payoff) to buy a used Subaru which is (as we speak) not running and sitting in the lot of a homeless shelter on skid row in NY (where one of my sons works)
a letter form me begging him to intervene because his sister was a horrid bitch to me. He never intervened and sis later became a cheater and destroyed her family. Divorce not final since she cant sell her house but she cant move back in since she published a book about picking up men in bars. I shredded that thing commenting that she is a bitch broke ho cheater
a book and a video game by Tiger “How I play golf (and screw waitresses)”
and the last interesting thing in the drawer…
wait for it….wait for it…..wait for it…..
“How to Hike the Appalachian Trail”
now some Americans might want to clue our foreign friends into what Gov Sanford taught us about how he defines “hiking the appalachian trail” (except Im in South America screwing an OW while my wife tends out 4 sons)
“How to Hike the Appalachian Trail.” –that is priceless. Oh, the irony.
Well Hello CN, first post. Not much to donate here, although she left everything, cat included!! ?
Can I donate XW (kidding – no one is that “bad)??
Welcome.
Thank you! This Community is amazing. Chumplady.com is the place that really portrays the message we chumped people need to hear.
Yes it is. Saved me and so many others. Traci us amazing. The tempest too. Tell us your story if you would or laugh, cry, vent, rant, be funny and enjoy. This is a place of healing for me and i love it. Its the only place for people like us everyone understands and the support is so incredable.
Welcome, PTchump. 🙂
New here as well! So glad I found this place. Everything said here about cheaters is exactly how it happened in my situation. All the things he said and did, and all the things I (foolishly) did and said in response. Why couldn’t I have found this place last year when I first discovered the affair?! Would have saved me a lot of grief.
Welcome!
Two gold bands in a frosted glass swan candle holder. Currently sitting on the dresser in my bedroom. From Days Gone By, courtesy of The Jewel Box.
Our entire CD collection purchased over 24 years…she left it all as according to our daughter her Facebook page is all about reggae now and other music genres she never listened to but of course her AP has the same likes…so of course she morphed into that bullshit along with the sports teams she hated the whole time we were together but now she’s their #1 fan. Fucking sickening. Such a fake bitch. So close to meh now I actually smile thinking of her sitting there with that stupid goofy grin on her face. Much happier she’s fucking gone.
A light to go under a garden parasol, round the centre pole, from the last Christmas, only thing he could find at the garden centre down the road 5 mins before closing on Christmas eve. I don’t have a garden parasol; it would signify the amount of thought he put into things he got me. I suppose that it could also allude to what a huge arsehole he is
My wedding pictures since some of them include one of the sluts he fucked, one of my bridesmaids, and all the things I kept from our honeymoon in Napa. Oh wait….never mind….that was all trashed a week after I found out he was POS cheater.
And my beautiful Tacori engagement ring with the fake diamond. Looks good on the outside, but fake as fuck with no real soul.
OK, my empty box of 3 medications cuz one sexual transmitted disease wan’t enough!
*sexually
My ex was a terrible gift giver as well. Always gave me jewelry that was ugly as shit. He spent thousands of dollars on a new wedding ring a few years back that I honestly have always quietly hated. I am also very happy to be rid of the things he thinks are decorations, like empty beer bottles all over the house and piles of his dirty laundry.
Welcome to ChumpNation, @Evangeline !!!!
Same here with EXH#2/The Evil One – over the 13 years we were together, he probably updated his wedding band at least 10 times and they were never purchased by me except the first set, maybe. I of course was never given said updates and all I ever wanted was a plain gold band because his great-grandmother’s ring I was given never fit me and I was terrified to wear it for fear of losing it. He never got it fixed either because he said it was an “antique” and would not do well with it being cut or soddered, liar.
I havent seen it, but I wonder if his OWife is wearing it now.
The Gps I found hidden in my taillight. The battery was dead. Guess he got tired of not finding anything on it and gave up. Tried to lie and say he didn’t put it there, till I said I’d just take it to the police.
Guess who I caught cheating multiple times during our involvement……uh huh.
The mandolin he gave me during our last Christmas. “After he left his family of 14 years and moved out December 1st, I allowed him to come over Christmas Day to watch our daughter unwrap gifts. He presented me with this vegetable slicer, proudly noting that it was a really nice one, and that he remembered me saying I needed one. After our daughter left the room, I held the slicer and could only imagine one thing I wanted to run through it, his cheating penis. Instead of turning his junk into paper thin slices, I smiled at him sweetly, tossed it aside and told him he could burn in Hell. It’s never been used, just stored in a cabinet taking up an irksome amount of space. Lest I succumb to the temptation of using it one day on his fetid groin, I am donating it to the Museum along with this story, a cautionary tale to cheating spouses everywhere.”
We’re gonna need a bigger Museum.
I don’t know how to embed pictures. But this was my last birthday gift.
https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-1046-Pass-Pigs/dp/B00005JG3Y
Provenance: China, via children’s toy section at WalMart
Wow, Madison, you had a big spender. So glad you did “pass the pig.”
I’d donate
1. The snowblower that he left in the elements for five years without any maintenance and was then surprised when it didn’t work.
2. The boat he left sitting in our yard for three years with no maintenance and wondered why the motor didn’t work.
3. His pickup truck that he rarely changed the oil in, or did any other routine maintenance and traded it in because it didn’t work right.
4. The Teflon frying pan he used and turned over the meat with a metal fork. I told him he was scratching it and food would start to stick. He said he’d just buy a new one.
I think I’m beginning to see a pattern of him not taking care of things and wondering why they fall apart.
One year for my birthday he gave me a basket full of fruit which his secretary ordered for me. I told him that a fruit basket is not something that you give to a wife for her birthday so I let it rot in the kitchen and wouldn’t touch a thing. Prior to that, whenever he travelled, he would bring me a bottle of scotch – his brand; I don’t drink scotch. I thought that he was just being funny at the time. Now I know that he was just being a selfish bastard.
The last Christmas gift he gave to me after he moved out was a set of scissors and a set of knives! It was clear to me that all he was interested in doing was cutting all ties and severing our relationship for good. Oh well……
I do have some lovely jewellery which for the time being I intend to keep and later on redesign into something that I can wear.
My donation would be the belated birthday card that he picked up the day after my 40th birthday which he ignored – only one month after our wedding – and the little box of tea bags, my belated present. Provenance: the local drugstore. He spent the week prior in a city just 10 minutes from the mall that was open til 9 every night but he couldn’t choose anything then and there because he was probably drinking himself senseless with the boys after work. But, maybe not.
Mmargaret, I’m guessing you trust that she sucks. My X NEVER took me out for any of my birthdays or anniversaries All his birthdays were celebrated with a homemade dinner and a homemade cake and having his family over. My birthday was just another day to be marked off in the calendar. My 40th came and I really believed he might actually get a cake for me, buy some nice thoughtful presents. Yeah, no. He ran up to Target around 10:00am and got me a card. No thought for the rest of the day. No presents. No cake. We went to his parents house to drop off the kids. Of course no acknowledgment of my birthday. We ended up going to the mall to buy him some work pants and then we went to church in the pm, because I couldn’t take the heartbreak anymore (Saturday night service.) Another friend couple said something about my birthday and asked what we did. I said we went to the mall to buy the X pants. He cut me off mid-sentence. He had a reputation to keep!! Nobody will ever know he was a shitty and selfish husband he was. I’m sorry that you went thru a bad 40th too.