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Dear Chump Lady, My ex wants to live in my basement

cakemanDear Chump Lady,

My husband of 28 years gave me the speech 5 years ago.  He loved me, but was not in love with me, he wanted his freedom and he needed his space without any responsibility. Of course there was an OW. When I found their itinerary for a romantic beach vacation, I, or should I say, my oldest son kicked him out of the house. He went to live with his mother. And he is still living there at present.

I did the usual — begged, pleaded and pretzeled for 3 very long years. We went into marital counseling and I was under the impression (per his promises) that the OW was out of the picture. We would see each other and talk frequently during this time, and I really thought that our marriage was on the mend. Boy, was I an idiot, and a very mighty chump.

I was a complete mess. Lost 50 pounds, went on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, diagnosed with PTSD, lost interest in anything and everything except playing the marriage police. I became obsessed with my husband and OW.  It was truly the darkest period of my life.

Fast forward to today. I have been divorced for a year and a half. My adult kids and I are happy and thriving. I am dating a really great guy which I have loads of fun with. I have found myself again, and have learned so much from this whole experience. I know I will never be chumped again. I have reconnected with family and friends. Right now, life is pretty darn good. I still have my WTF moments, but overall I feel like I am really close to being totally healed.

Recently, my ex and I had to spend some time together due to our oldest son’s engagement. I was civil and talkative and had very little anxiety when around ex. This was a good thing for me because it helped me realize that I have finally achieved MEH.

Now for the fun part. My youngest son recently moved out of my basement, and I am now living on my own for the first time in 30 years. Since I saw my ex, he has been sending email’s requesting that I consider allowing him to move back to the family home with me to rent the basement. He is making all kinds of offers of help around the house and paying a large amount of rent if I would let him move in. He even had the nerve to tell me that I could “come and go as I pleased.”

I am just floored. What is wrong with him? Is this f’d up or what? I have absolutely no intention of letting him move back into my house.  I just can’t wrap my brain around what he is thinking.

Thank you Chump Lady.

Ruggermom

Dear Ruggermom,

First off, congratulations on your mightiness. You have truly gained a life — successfully divorced, no more anxiety, a man who treats you right, healthy kids, independence.

And now some cheating fucktard wants to move into your basement?

Yeah, you need that like you need an infestation of raccoons in your chimney. Actually, I think the raccoons do more around the house than cheaters. And raccoons are always cool with you “coming and going as you please,” as long as you keep the trash cans accessible.

So what is your ex thinking?

We’re not supposed to untangle their knotted little skeins, but I think what he’s thinking is pretty obvious — CAKE. He misses glorious CAKE. He had a really sweet cake situation before, you there begging, pleading, and pretzeling for the awesomeness of him. And he misses that kind of power and centrality. Romantic vacations with the OW, you at home sweeping up the dust bunnies and keeping the refrigerator stocked. Don’t you want that back? Heck, Ruggermom, he’s SWEETENING the deal! He’ll pay you RENT! And he promises to not be the boss of you! You can come and go! Yes, you will have your freedom because he said so. Isn’t that special?

God, if anyone ever wanted proof that cheating is about narcissism, this is it. The idiot still thinks he’s a prize.

Dude, you LIVE IN YOUR MOTHER’S BASEMENT.

And that, I’m sure, is not the status the OW was going for. And I don’t know about your ex-mother-in-law but I would guess she probably has curfew, being a person of advanced years. And she is probably not cool with the comings and goings of a grown-ass man. Hell, she might even expect rent, or things done around the house.

But you? In his eyes, you’re still a chump. You’ve fallen for his promises before. Why not again? He can promise you whatever. Insinuate himself into your life and deliver on none of it. But that’s okay, he would be there embedded in your house — broadcasting to the world (and your children especially) that what he did Was Not So Bad. He could control your world again. Put a stop to this ridiculous man who courts you, finds you attractive and worthy of respect. Because gee whiz, nothing creates relationship awkwardness like one’s ex-husband living in one’s basement.

Yes, to a dim-witted, narcissistic fucktard like your ex, this all seems like a very splendid plan indeed.

What’s in it for you? Absolutely NOTHING. There never was anything in it for you, just like the good ol’ days.

Tell him from all of us here at Chump Nation to fuck off.

And tell mom — no tag backs.

This column ran previously. 

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    • You outdid yourself on this one. Yet more coffee spit all over the tablet. I can’t wait to read the WP article.

      • And may I also commend you on your superb use of sarcasm? You are a sarcasm wordsmith!!! Love it.

    • OMG. I read that article. How could anyone live that way? How incredibly dreadful. This would be my STBXs dream

      • Wow – this guy found the path to legalized polygamy! He gets to squirrel his GF miles away from his family while avoiding paying child support and alimony and he gets to look like a decent guy making time for his family (minus the phone time he spends with the side piece while staying at the family home.) He’s the ultimate cake eater!! Seems like no one here is getting hurt by this absurd arrangement except, oh, I don’t know, the wife who cries and feels sick to her stomach, and perhaps his children who one day will have absolutely no idea what a respectful relationship is supposed to look like!

      • I stopped reading half way through after I threw up in my mouth. What utter drivel?!?!. Completely nauseating especially considering its in the “Parenting” section. What is the WApost editor thinking publishing such horse-shit.

    • Onward and upward! Love the national exposure for you – may your voice continue to ring louder and louder ?

    • Reading that article made me sick. Let the asshole drive hours, take the kids back to Schmookie’s for the weekend and watch what happens. They would be in the way of his little love nest. They could do this every other weekend. They would see their father, he would see them and the poor chump could be able to keep him from EVER setting foot in her house again.

      • Tempest, How perceptive and clever.

        She puzzles me. It makes me wonder if “Ben” is a sociopath and she is under his spell. She is so pretty, and she glows with health and vitality. Her acting skills are solid. I dated a man who was a Scientologist (see…my picker is WAAYYY OFF) very briefly and many Scientologists are personal assistants. Long story short, the word is that she is a genuinely kind person.

        The troll is cheated on her with was so far beneath Garner. I am sure there are more. I don’t even find him handsome.

        I don’t follow celebrity things, I don’t have TV services, but I read the news on the Internet. And I saw her story.

        Surely…she knows she could get someone better? A multimillionaire, beautiful, in great shape and she stays with the cheater. All that money, and the pain was probably just as searing, just as similar to a gun shot wound in the guy.

        In a sad way, it makes me feel less like a walking idiotic failure for being so conned and duped by a nobody.

        • She’s “Special” remember. After all she did cheat on her first husband to be with Affleck so how would this ever happen to her. .
          I’m sure she thinks Karma bus could ever hit her after such behavior.

    • I have read this article 3 times trying to get around this THING that has happened to this family. This is a man who lied and cheated not only on his wife but on his children. This is a man who had unprotected sex and got a woman pregnant. This is a man who moved miles away to start another family. This woman has to pay the price her, children have to pay the price because he left their family. I don’t even believe in the death penalty and I want to murder this man. The idea that he leaves the house to go call the other woman is so maddening to me that I am nearly in tears. She needs to take that fucking phone away from him and tell him while he’s there with his children he will be with his children. If he needs to speak to that woman that badly he can fucking go home. What are these two teaching these poor children? It is okay to have an affair and lie to your family, it is okay to have unprotected sex and get another woman pregnant, it is okay to move miles and miles away from the children you claim to love? What life skills are these two teaching these kids? What craziness is in this woman that she can write this drivel and be published in the Washington Post? He left. He is gone. He has another life. Tell him to go away. If he wants to entertain his children he can bydamn stay in a hotel with them for the weekend or he can take them back home to his sweetie pie but he ain’t stepping foot in her door again. What is even more maddening than anything is reading the comments. There are people who are just letting this be such a wonderful thing for the children. This is just being so caring and grown-up and thoughtful. What in the hell has happened to this country that we think it is OK for a man to blow up his family and get away with it, that everything is falling into place so beautifully for him while his wife and children suffer? The mother sees the joy on her children’s faces when their father comes. Well, I remember hitting my teenage years and looking at both of my parents, whom I love dearly, and realizing that occasionally they were full of shit. I wonder if these children will “thank” their mother at some point for the pretense they all lived with. Oh, I forgot…….she so casually mentions that the ow is 30. You know, it is amazing how often these men in their midlife somehow, accidentally, find their zippers open and their dicks fall into a young vagina.

      • “She needs to take that fucking phone away from him and tell him while he’s there with his children he will be with his children.”

        I got fed up with the STBX who continuously, while in our presence, texted and answered texts to his female “friends.” I finally told him if his need to respond to these women was so strong, he could go do it somewhere else and not while he was supposed to be giving his attention to his daughter. If he couldn’t stop himself from immediately responding to their texts, then his role as a father must not be all that important to him.

        It took our daughter to say out loud, “daddy’s on his phone again” in front of him before it finally hit him was he was doing.

      • “What in the hell has happened to this country that we think it is OK for a man to blow up his family and get away with it, that everything is falling into place so beautifully for him while his wife and children suffer?”

        My thoughts exactly.

        • It’s hard to believe,but it’s true, “we think it is OK for a man to blow up his family and get away with it, that everything is falling into place so beautifully for him while his wife and children suffer,” a fact I never understood. Woman are treated as disposable, at a certain age it’s time to replace her with a new, shiner model and it’s quietly understood and accepted.

      • What gets me is that the excuse given for this arrangement is that the children should come first. I believe strongly that we should put our children first. Putting them first does not mean that we model for them that life is peaches and cream and that choices do not have consequences. We do not give them ice cream for dinner. We do not teach them that they can go to the neighbors house and jump on the furniture. We do not teach them to accept a gift and then run off without showing proper gratitude.

        In my opinion, to put our children first means that we instill in them a sense of fair play and decency to their fellow man. We teach them to respect others and their property. We teach them to accept responsibility for their behavior and to make amends when they make a mistake. We teach them that life isn’t always fair and that we must make the most of what we are given and work for what we want. Putting our children first means that we raise them to become responsible and productive members for their future family and their community.

    • I am looking forward to the UBT on that insanity in the Washington Post. OMG!! All she is teaching her children is that horrible behavior is untethered from negative consequences and you can do whatever you want to people and they will allow it. He had to drive five hours and sometimes had the door slammed in his face? Why didn’t he call first? Why don’t you just engrave “WELCOME” on your back and the backs of the children and lay down on the front stoop? Let everyone know it’s okay for your EX to wipe his shitty shoes all over you and your children. I won’t comment any further because I think the UBT is going to be saying everything I’m thinking plus some. What the fuckity-fuck!

    • Does anyone follow Humans of New York on Facebook? I don’t follow it, but I have friends who do, so occasionally, one of the stories will pop up in my feed. Recently, there was one about a woman who was cheated on by her husband, he left her for his fellow cheater, married the fellow cheater, and now 25 years later with her adult children, she is celebrating MOTHER’S DAY with the two cheaters and her adult kids so that they can “all be together.” She’s trying to come across the same way as the Washington Post chump– “I’m going to put my feelings aside for the sake of the children.” Instead, it came across to me as sad and chumpy, like she’s put her life on hold because she’s afraid to seem “mean” if she draws clear boundaries and condemns her ex’s behavior (and I’m not even sure if her children know that their father cheated on her). She’s spent all these years spackling his image and doing damage control instead of letting her children see who their father really is, and all she’s really doing is letting her ex-cheater have cake.

      The comments online were pretty divided (like they are on WaPo), but what really pissed me off were the comments that praised her for being so forgiving. Folks, you can forgive your cheater, but forgiveness does not have to mean that you condone their behavior, pretend like nothing happened, and continue to let that cheater walk all over you.

      This is why adultery continually gets a pass. There are enough chumps who pretend like they’ve over it or act like they deserve it, and they let the cheater keep eating cake. Those of us who don’t put up with cheater shit are then looked at as bitter and as not putting our children first when it’s the exact opposite. I want to move on with my life in a healthy way, and for that reason, my ex-cheater cannot be in my life beyond the occasional email about kid stuff. I’m sure my ex would have loved it if I had him, his cheater wife, and her two kids over for my house for dinner every Sunday, but since I want to be healthy and show my kids that actions have consequences, that is never going to happen.

  • My ex has already requested this too. I told him no. He was so mad. Why do they want to live in our basements? He also wanted to pay me rent to put his motorcycle in my garage. I had to have said no at least five different times but he kept asking. Just have to start getting used to saying No! Congrats on your new life and the ability to keep your ex out of it. You’ve come a long way. Years ago you would have probably been thrilled he wanted to move back in and now you don’t want him anywhere near your living space. Good job! Keep it up!

  • Wow, what an amazing demonstration of entitlement!
    Is this what we have to look forward to?
    Way to stand firm Ruggermom, and Peaceful!
    Thank the heavens above for everyone here who preached No Contact, the path to the truth and the light!
    Looking forward to tomorrow’s column.

  • Of course he wants to move back. He is incapable of adult living on his own, and women with any sense don’t want a guy living with his mother because he can’t manage on his own. If he lives in your basement, he can tell prospective Schmoopies that “you parted as friends” and “See how great we get along. When we divorced, I just moved into the basement.” And maybe you’ll still clean up after him. He just wants his version of the marriage back, where he lives in your house with no strings. Cake.

    • Exactly! I agree with every word in this post. Where else is this fucktard going to find such a cushy arrangement, where he can use the chump even more. Talk about being a parasite wanting to latch onto the host. All for self-serving purposes. And you said it best, where he’s incapable of adult living on his own. Why doesn’t he go live the basement of the OW he’s porking?

  • What a wonderful metaphor for getting to meh: refusing to let our cheaters occupy our basements. The basement of our subconscious, the basement of our fears, the basement of our belief that all we really deserve is a flawed partner we need to fix. Fuck that noise. These days, I try to live above ground. Making lists helps. My values stated as visible words on a visible page.

      • U2: She Moves In Mysterious Ways

        You’ve been living undergroud
        Eating from a can
        You’ve been running away
        From what you don’t understand

        Nomar’s metaphor strikes a gong with me.

        Until I went hard core no contact, I was living in a mentally deranged, agony filled bunker..underground, living in a dank basement with a freak.

        At first, the light hurt my eyes and I wanted the comfort back of that stinking, black bunker. It is the repetition compulsion, craving the sick because it is familiar. I longed for that man who ripped me to pieces so desperately that it made me seriously wonder if I was sane.

        But the longer you stay no contact (as all out of kibbles wrote) the way to the truth and the light….you began see the sun. You see the truth of the canned shit sandwich someone was feeding you and telling you it was crab rangoon.

        One thing this Journey through Mordor (Lord of the Rings) has taught me slowly, slowly…is to accept no more lies. None. (Not a harmless white lie, yes your new hair style does make you look thinner) but no more living in the dark…underground.

        I have a neighbor who constantly takes advantage of me, and recently asked me to do a favor that a professional would charge at least $600 (home stuff). I am bit of a girl “git her done” only because I have had to be to survive or my house would fall down around my head.

        In the past, I have given in to her. But, after what I have been through, I don’t have time for her passive aggressive, user bullshit. Unless she needs something, this bitch does not speak to me for months. I live alone. A hello is appreciated more than she could imagine.

        I told her, nicely, that “would not work for me”.

        No apologies. No hand writing justifications. Just truth.

        At first I felt guilty (chump) but that has passed.

        I am not a mole and I will never live underground, in any manner, ever again for what remains of my life.

        Furthermore, anyone that blows up my life is not welcome to the scraps in my compost barrel, let alone the succor of my home.

        The cheater can go live in a ditch. Make no mistake: If the tables were turned, and the chump needed a place to stay, and the cheater wanted to impress the OW or he wanted you gone, he/she would slam the door in our face and laugh while they did it, and probably post about our humiliation on FB. Believe it.

          • Great post Sylvia and congratulations on standing up to your neighbor, your courage and strength making it to the other side and regaining your sanity.
            Yes, if the tables were turned and Chump was homeless asking to stay in the basement the door would be slammed in Chumps face as Cheater roared with laughter. It would be a great conversation piece and source entertainment to share with everyone for months to come. He’d embellish adding, Chump was falling down drunk, incoherent, as evidence of Chumps instability.

    • The basement is the perfect metaphor for me. In my old life with my serial cheater ex the basement was literally the scene of the crime – it’s where my ex watched his thousands of hours of porn, kept his spreadsheet (the irony of that term gets me every time) of porn star stats, texted and called his various fuck buddies, etc. It was his domain, his “man cave”. As soon as the divorce was final I went on the hunt for a no-basement, cheater-free home of my own. Found it, bought it, and plan on living there happily ever after.

      And the making lists thing too – I wrote up a “Man-ifesto” which lists all the things I want in a partner like: honesty, integrity, putting his family first, understanding that emotional intimacy is part of physical intimacy, etc., all of the stuff I used to think was a given basically. I’ll never take any of those things for granted again.

      • He kept a spreadsheet of porn star stats. Oh Beth. The Universe owes you something so great.
        I had to read that twice to make sure I was correctly comprehending.

        He had a warm, lovely woman upstairs…waiting for him…and he was using excel to obsess over porn sluts, holes for rent.

        Well, my cheater was not smart enough to figure out Excel, but I imagine this would be fun for him too.

        You know how Google Mail lets you see someone’s browsing history, locations logged in, devices used? If you know their Gmail password, you can dive into a treasure trove of informational misery, if you are playing Sherlock. Sometimes you just have to play Sherlock to get to the truth.

        When my doubts were rising, I checked my X’s Google history. He had been on YouTube, and looked at all kinds of porn, (and not one of them looked like me) but then there was one….it was calling F*cking Amal. The picture caught my eye.

        The “star” was a girl who looked about 7 years old. I scrolled down to the comments and many users had written things like: Is this bait to catch pedophiles or Oh, you guys were hoping for child porn, right?

        But, here is the bullet: He clicked on it. It caught his interest. He WANTED to see a young girl in a video referencing fucking.

        How low do they go? The basement is their penthouse.

      • I don’t think I’ll ever use the term “spreadsheet” again without bursting out laughing.

      • A spread sheet.

        Of porn star stats.

        That’s some pathological shit right there.

        • It was every bit as bizarre as it sounds. He kept detailed records on over a thousand women – height, weight, measurements, birthday, country of birth, sexual preferences (male, female, anal) and what web site he saw them on. Where the hell do you even find that information and why would you want it??

  • Do not let him move back even if it is your basement too close he will try and move back upstairs and first it will be dinners and well soon you will be his “little woman” again. You have worked too hard to get to your present state of MEH He is jealous and he wants CAKE !!! DO NOT DO THIS

  • Mine wanted this too. Although he wanted to live in the house, with me, things could be “the same” as when we were married. You know, I’d cook, clean, watch our child 24/7, give bj/sex on demand, bake those cakes everyday,etc. Except he now had the freedom to date/fuck whores. You know, Dating While Married (DWM). Uh, no thank you, mofo.!

    • Asswipe wants to date me now we are divorced. Now he wants to be romantic. Says we always got along well and loved each others company but the marriage was dead but wait, why not date. Well he made it that way. Wtf? Assholes!

      • Once they leave, they see the old chump as a renewed opportunity for a brief fantasy encounter. We become fresh new novelties to chase, cat and mouse. Then, once caught, when the challenge has been completed, we are, again, boring old news. Lather, rinse, repeat. Assholes, indeed.

          • Mine has discarded me entirely. My therapist sent me materials on the idealize, devalue and discard phase when tangling with a sociopath and it all reads like a check list.

            I must be careful because I did not realize they did this…came back after so violently discarding. The betrayal is so fresh, I would not think clearly. Mine has never hovered. He is too proud, too much ego….he would never beg me for anything.

            I must admit I would be delighted if mine chased me because I would feel some vindication. But this is a danger zone.

            In the spirit of honesty, a felt a wave of envy that your cheater is pursuing you. See, how sick it is?

            Truly, I would only wish this fate on child and animal abusers, the vermin of society.

            • Dont sylvia, all it is is sad and pathetic. He hates to lose and still wants to have some control over me. It also feeds that bs im a good guy image. The pod is fucked in the head and wants to impress everyone. He wants us to be besties to feed his ego. Fucker! He completely destroyed everything we worked for threw me under the bus to die. I only gave him five pictures of each of our kids. He threw our life away for that whore who licked him out again fuck him house sells im gone. No more cake for him! Ever!

              • I see now that you explained it very well. You are part of a community and it would whitewash his image if you “accepted” him. He would “win” and then would perhaps subject you to more mistreatment if you let him in the door. This would thrill him, yes?

                I have read all of your posts and the behavior of your X is appalling and cruel. My relationship was relatively young, but your path was the one I was crawling down with this cheater.

                I am happy for you that you have escaped this pain and I hope that life brings you love and warmth.

              • Yes he would screw me over again given the chance. No more! When i move the pods buying the house i leave him two letters. One is so embarrassing for him he wont ever want to face me again and the other is one that will piss him off and when he realizes im not lying in that letter that letter may give him a stroke. Either way one or both letters will hopefully keep him away. I wish he had just left flat out. Id be better healed right now. I will leave this house and never look back. I am done. Look forward sylvia i and everyone here has your back. I gave that pod fucker 30 years he will not get one second more. Hugs to you. I still hurt im sure i will always hurt where that asswipe is concerned but i no longer care if he lives, breathes or dies. I just dont care.

              • I only wish I had insisted we sell the house. He moved her in within 2 weeks and her whole family… remarried wI think a year of our divorce. Douchebag is what comes to mind.

              • Asswipe wanted me in a rental so he could move that thing in and she could take over my life. On advice of counsel i said uh no! He freaked out, name, calling, screaming, yelling. Uh no! Lawyer said stay put, do not leave even if judge awards you the house could take years before he buys it, he said the courts are too easy on their excuses, i could be in a rental for years and no way the judge could enforce him paying the rent. Asswipe is in a position to buy it now and i should be out in a month or so. Then absolutely no contact what so ever. Changing phone number, email and blocking his work and cell phone. He will never ever get another minute of my time and if because of the kids we are ever at a function at the same time i will ignore him and whoever he is with. He thinks it foolish and stupid i feel that way. Uh thanks fuckhead again my feelings are disregarded and we were friends for so long we can be besties now if i want. If i want? Again he puts evwrything on me. Told him nope sorry dont need friends like you who willing and purposing atick knives in my back and keep twisting them. The fucking nerve! Friends! Asshole!

            • Sylvia

              Your story was mine. I posted similar comments a few years ago. I too envied the fact that others were persued and I was simply erased.

              Once we get and know they are toxic to our very being and hold our ground it gets easier. Is it sick? Yes, for me it was Stockholm Syndrome. Bioth my therapist and lawyer saw it immediately.

              For us knowledge is the way to get our power and control back. Just thinking about them gives them power.

              When my therapist said it would take two years or more before I could even think about dating I was angry. He was right.

              It took me years to get to the point of losing my very soul and identity to this monster. I was left broken and damaged.

              At first it feels hopeless and we beat ourselves up for tolerating such humiliating abuse. And on top of that still loving them AFTER they discard.

              You will see that while the journey is long and hard it is worth every step you take. At first it’s self preservation. You will doubt yourself. Then as you detox and detach changing the WE to I you gain strength. You learn not to be selfless and giving to others. You rebuild your identity and see with clarity.
              You have hope now. It grows and you will be free. You are on the right path.

              • Your words of encouragement and true understanding bring me a tremendous amount of comfort. I am not sure why this happened to me. I feel like a gigantic fool…truly I have days where I debate what is the point of this life?

                But, I will move forward. He is not worth losing anymore precious time. Thank you.

              • I just went and read some of my materials quickly. It said something like this:

                A sociopath has no emotions other than deep self concern. They can only mime or mimic what they believe is “normal” so we do not know we are dealing with a literal alien. Imagine being in a love affair with no emotional connection to the person.

                That is what they have. Once we have served their purpose, they are bored, and want to move on and find new “supply”.

                The insight about having no emotions in a love relationship haunts and helps me. This is why I cry daily and he does not know if I am alive or dead, and does not care.

                A well meaning friend (though not schooled in the sociopath) said, I just can’t believe he does not care. I saw how he acted around you!

                She sent him an email and told him I was the victim of a violent crime. (She should not have done it, but you know, this is a time when you are wild with grief and stupidity and I hoped she was right.)

                No response. Not a word. Nothing.

                She kept texting me …He really did not contact you?

                Radio silence.

                No, dear friend, he never checked on me once.

              • I am so sorry slyvia, your ex is a complete and total pod. You are better off without that piece of shit. Some pods are more fucked up than others. It hurts i know it does ive cried bathtubs of tears slowly i dont cry as much there is a special place in hell for these assholes. And i hope they suffer somehow every bit of pain they caused. Sylvia they are pods. Big warm hugs to you. I hurt still i will hurt for a long time to come but it gets better.

            • Sylvia….^^same^^
              I too was just left…cold. I too have found my voice and he knows I know exactly who he is and that is why he will never try to come back….I’ve put too much of his shit on blast.
              I’ve made my peace with it. I used to think I couldn’t wait till it didn’t work with the AP and he came crawling back so I could kick him to the curb, but you are right that it’s a dangerous area. He would never even try it now. It only works if he can play me and he knows that ship has sailed.

              • No more kibbles. Winning is not giving a fuck about the cheater. Ignore them. Work on you.

            • While at a doctor’s appointment recently, my upcoming divorce came up and my doctor told me that she too had recently been through the same thing. Same type of abandonment, OW, him wanting his cake and so forth. (I guess most of these cheaters follow the same script. How very unoriginal.) Anyway, she said something that echoed what I have been feeling. The fact that her ex didn’t even fight for her, their marriage or their two children. She said for the longest time she asked herself, “was I not even worth fighting for? After two children and more than 10 years of marriage?”

              That’s how I’ve been feeling. How unworthy must I be for him to not even bat an eye at the talk of divorce and shared custody of our only child? How important must I have been to him to have been replaced so quickly and with someone of so little character? How terrible of a person must I be for him to be able to walk away from his child even though he said it killed him inside to be away from her? I did everything I could think of to make it easy for him to decide to move back home and keep our family together. I never once told him he couldn’t come back. Right up until the day I told him I was meeting with an attorney to start the divorce proceedings.

              At my lowest point, my chumpiest hour, I had suggested that he move back into the house to save money while he finished law school. Of course, it was the chump in me that thought if he moved back, he would see that we were a family and should stay together. But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. I didn’t know at the time it was because of some 28-year old new vagina. But even without her being in the picture I don’t think he would have come back. At some point he just decided that he didn’t want to play house anymore. Yes, he misses his daughter. I see it in his face every time he has to say goodbye to her. But it’s beyond his abilities to have to work at being a full-time patriarch.

              Even though I’ve come to the point where I understand that I don’t want him back, it still bothers me that he could just walk away. That when I told him I couldn’t do the part-time family thing anymore while he went off the rest of the time and lived the single life, he didn’t beg me to stay in his life. He never once told me, “I don’t want to lose you.” I still get a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I think about that. I don’t know if a person ever really gets over that feeling. Oh, I believe you can move on and have a good life again without your fuckwit, I just don’t know if that feeling of being discarded, of being unwanted and unneeded, every truly goes away completely.

              • Yes, yes, yes. Teary High Five, Done4Good.

                I feel like I lost something precious I will never get back. I kept waiting for the begging phone call, the card, the email…it never came. It does not come. I have finally stopped looking or hoping.

                The one thing that has helped is reading about sociopaths. (Lawyers have high rates of sociopathy).

                You have to be careful not to let it take over your life, (researching it) but the literature states that their brains are not like ours. It is their amygdala, from what I can gather.

                One study showed a group of sociopaths and “norms” disturbing images: torture, gore, death, murder, animal abuse, child abuse.

                The norms showed significant physiological responses: brain wave changes, rapid heart beat, some sweating….their adrenal glands were firing.

                The sociopaths showed no response biologically or mentally or emotionally. Seeing a woman raped, seeing someone being beaten, an animal harmed: YAWN.

                This was very hard to me to accept. I went to counseling through the SafeRelationshipsMagazine (The Institute to Reduce Relational Harm) and I kept saying to them, NO he just had bad character. No, he just lost interest. No, I don’t believe this is real.

                What my counselor kept saying over and over is that HE IS NOT LIKE A HUMAN BEING. He has no emotional attachment to human beings. He does not HAVE emotions like 99% of the populace.

                They only see us as transactional…what can I get out of this? Once that need is met, they move on. I know I have typed this before, but it is hard to understand emotionally that the entire relationship was a sham, and designed for one reason: to meet their primitive, base, reptilian needs.

                We are victims of a criminal mindset. That is why it is so traumatic and I agree with you, I am unclear how this will ever heal. One thing that helps is (this is bizarre) is to think of victims of Ted Bundy, Dammer, etc. We were victims, too, but we escape alive. Damaged, but with our life.

                But I know this: It is not a reflection of our worth. I saw who my X went to, and there is small relief in her life: a train wreck and her looks….gross. If she had been a Hawaiian Tropic Model… thank God for these small mercies.

                You said he left you for a 28 year old. It is no reflection of your attractiveness, worth or beauty, value or intellect. I do know that.

                He just got bored. Remember: they have no emotional attachment in a relationship. Without that glue….these predators do get bored. He discarded you and I was discarded, but the sociopath will discard anyone.

                I like this website. The write is direct and frank:

                https://datingasociopath.com/2013/04/05/why-it-is-difficult-to-get-closure-from-the-sociopath-after-break-up/

                We seek closure, answers, resolution. We will never get it from the sociopath. We have to find it somewhere else.

              • So sorry, Done4Good. That was/is my experience as well. When I asked him to move out, he obligingly did so, which is good. But he never, ever pleaded with me to reconsider or expressed any interest in finding a way to stay. He was very sad about leaving his child, but he expressed no regrets about leaving me. He viewed himself as having 2 options — (1) lie about boyfriend and enjoy being married with a family or (2) tell truth about boyfriend and be divorced. He never considered (3) leave boyfriend and keep family as a viable alternative. Even after 30 years together. Of course, he was with the boyfriend for 30 years as well, so that let’s me know that I was the secondary relationship all that time. And just typing that gives me that same sick feeling in my stomach that you describe. I have a feeling that is not going away, even in the land of Meh. The lower ranking and then discard is just too painful to fully get over.

              • Done4Good

                It was never about you. That pain you carry with you was planted by a sociopath. You are worthy of much, much more.

                -Zero repeatedly set it up so I would fight for him. After 41 years I stopped fighting. I had enough. The fighting made it more thrilling in his sick mind. And narcissists are cruel when they know we are on to the game. After two years he continues to pull the strings of the slunT with repeated attempts to engage me in triangulation. The puppet master had a new toy.

                It’s heartbreaking that another human being, a partner could inflict such pain. Get angry, see HIM as the asshole he is and know he cannot love anyone.

                Maintain as little contact as possible and take your power back. He’s not worth shit.

              • Done4Good, Sylvia, Dixie Chump, and all others who were discarded without a fight–Read what you have written about yourselves. You tirelessly worked to maintain a marriage to someone incapable of actual human connection. For years, and most of you set up households where children were nurtured and valued. I’m sure everyone contributed other fabulous gifts–cooking, conversation, playing nursemaid, etc.

                You are all fabulous. You did not deserve what happened to you. Write that on your bathroom mirror in red lipstick, “I am fabulous.” Then start to believe it. Consider the source of the ‘discard’–disordered wingnuts willing to upend families for some genital stimulation.

              • Two years post DDay and discard, I can attest to how painful it is to realize that the person I thought was my husband only existed in my head.

                A lot of hard recovery work later and I now understand that trying to figure out why my X did not fight for our relationship or our family post-DDay would be the equivalent of hiring Madoff as my financial planner… It seemed llike a good idea at some point, but evidence proved otherwise…

                I now invest my time and energy toward making fun and cheater-free memories so ever so slowly my new life crowds out my old one from my mind.

              • I’m there right now. I don’t know if STBX really has no emotions or what. But I can’t believe he wouldn’t want to fight for me. I guess he just doesn’t care. He moved out yesterday and he spent the two days during the pack up and leave crying. He cried non stop for two days. How can he leave and choose the whoremat over me when he cried like that?! It makes me feel so sad and empty that the innocence and excitement and beauty of our relationship ended with “Bye” and him walking out the door. How could my entire life go up in smoke like that? Three months ago was our tenth anniversary. We went on a little weekend trip together and then less than three weeks later d-day and now 11 weeks later and my marriage and future are gone. So sad. Such a waste.

            • Same boat here – never a glance back. Someone made a comment yesterday that resonated with me. I had no thoughts or feelings before living; why should returning to that state scare me? Likewise, before my ex knew me she never gave me a thought. She has returned to that state, though I have not. To her I might not ever have existed. Approaching the two-year mark for the sudden discard and I feel horrible.

              • He has already discarded the 28-year old and the one after her, so I do understand that it’s not me. It’s him. I also understand that he processes things differently than most others.

                He definitely got what he wanted from me and moved on. Then he got what he needed from the 28-year old and moved on. And on and on….People are like used kleenex to him. That should make it easier to push past the feeling of being discarded, but yet somehow, the fact that he has an abnormal personality makes it even more tragic because I was no more special to him than any of his other disordered female “friends.”

  • Durning my divorce proceedings I got the request For him to live in my basement too. Really? His lawyer who couldn’t agree to anything we proposed was the first to object…I basically said that I wasn’t giving him the opportunity to bring his whore into my house a second time.

    If I was the cause of the marriage breakdown and the source of all of your problems, then why would you elect to live with me after I kick your nasty behind to the curb? Since your ho was so perfect (as he told me) then move in with her then!

    As much as he is telling me to move on with your life, he really doesn’t want that at all…

    Speaking about moving on….I’m sunning my buns in beautiful St. Maarten right now with the kids and my sisters….Ha Ha…loser!!!

  • My XH looked for as many ways as possible to stay connected to me. It’s a sickness. The Cluster B personality disordered are not playing on the same field as the rest of us. They are operating in their own little self-willed fantasy worlds.

    The image in my mind for this writer is one of a woman laughing herself silly and, at the end of the hilarity, managing to catch her breath enough to say “Aaaaaaahhhhhhh no, dude. No f-ing way. Thanks for the laugh, though, that was hilarious.”

  • It’s Monday. It’s early. My only response to this is “WTF????”

  • What is it with these losers? A few weeks after I tossed skankboy to the curb, he asked if he could move to the other side of the house. We could date other people but needed to be discreet about it. How lovely of you to suggest this scheme. I didn’t even put words to my response, just shook my head no, VERY LOUDLY! IDIOT!

  • It’s all about cake for their entitled selves. Nowadays I just enjoy saying “No” in a calm voice to any stupid request the ex makes. The last time I spoke to him he told me “You know, if you want to be my friend you need to give a little”. I just looked at him and said “but I don’t want to be your friend….”. He left in a rage with the parting shot that he and the OW were having a blast to which I replied “well I guess I wasn’t crazy after all”.

    Hopefully that will be the last time I see him but I still have another six months until youngest is 18 and I can block him forever! Hugs to all who have to deal with pods like these.

  • If anyone else is considering this arrangement, (previously ran, brilliantly written) : I believe the following would happen very quickly:

    1) You would lose your current normal healthy boyfriend so fast if would be like the Road Runner cartoon smoke streaks.
    2) I imagine the rent payment would last maybe one month, if ever happened at all
    3) Most important point I have miserably discovered: A cheater will take you as down as low you let them. Very soon, you would hear the voice of another woman rising up from your basement, and perhaps worse. It would be a situation he could not resist….to torture you with his sick triangle.

    That is what I have learned. These people take pleasure in causing empaths/chumps (people like us) on this site pain. I also have discovered that their motives are NEVER, repeat, NEVER altruistic. He could be out of money, his mother might have said go away, bad dream or he may be planning to rob you, steal your credit cards….who knows? If you can look me in the eye and lie about one thing, there is no stop sign for you to lie about anything else. You blew up our life. No other act of betrayal is a big leap.

    As my relationship with my X progressed, he actively delighted in denying me what I wanted, and torturing me with woman calling his cell phone. “Friends”. It gave him a thrill to make me cry.

    As CL wrote, I cannot untangle that skein, but I know that he was a monster.

    And you don’t ever want a monster living in your basement.

    • Exactly! Monsters in the basement are what nightmares are made of.

      • -zero had a run of basement living while he was ‘dating’. The finally was conning his own daughter while he was dating three women.

        Before he could move in she needed to have work done. I was supposed to do the pick me dance but changed the steps. I threw him out, took his keys and he moved in her basement unfinished.

        He NEVER lived there. He ended up moving in with the slunT. She was the winner. He still seeing the other MOW. Yay, never having to deal with that shit is amazing.

  • Yeah, it’s like it’s all a game for them – cat playing with mouse. They know they’re going to win again if you give them the opportunity , because they don’t have any feelings at all . They just want power back, because you’ve taken it away and they’re just being sneaky now trying to find ways to get to you. Best thing you can do is shut them out, let them go find some teenager who is on about the same maturity level to go play with! Truly sick and absurd!

  • This letter immediately kicked off these lyrics in my head: “I’m not that chained-up little person still in love with you…”

    You go, Ruggermom, on creating an awesome life. I know this column ran previously, but I hope she pops in with an update.

    • From this day forward I am going to refer to your stbx as “The Trash Can Loser!”

      • Although at least Oscar was honest about not liking people; I’ll take that over cheaters pretending to love & be loyal while stabbing us in the back.

        • This x googol. I was kidding around about the world’s most adorable grouch, of course, but you are so right about the truth vs. lies. I can hold a space for a lot with an honest person. Not so with liars. There is no humanity in gaslighting. It’s a human failure.

  • God Bless the AP. My ex moved out of my house and right in with the woman he wasn’t having an affair with. I know he’s not happy there either since the cake buffet ended, even though he claims he’s deliriously happy ( what’s he gonna say? That is sucks?). I know as long as the AP hangs in there and feeds that ego that I’m safe. This woman thinking she won and keeping that fuckwit busy ( and on a VERY short leash. If he will do it with you, he will do it to you…) has allowed me to heal, find a life, and meet a great guy.
    So….here’s a shout out to the AP, she’s taking the bullet ( and rightfully so…..gotta love karma) Thanks for insuring that my ex won’t ask to live in my office…..but even if he did ask, I’m strong enough now to tell him to fuck off.

  • During my divorce, dickwad moved into the basement. He wouldn’t leave. Total piece of shit.
    The basement is where trolls live. Lol
    Good riddance. Divorced almost 3 years. No more trolls for me. 🙂

    • That’s the thing, once these cheaters move into the basement, they NEVER leave. You have to throw them out. As LovedaJackass said so well, they are incapable of adult living.

  • My STBX has tried to come back in the house after visitation drop off “to pet the dog” … the first time I let the dog come outside, mostly because I was caught by surprise. The second time? Nope … you need to get back in that car and drive away, sir. Now he knows to keep that car running and his ass firmly planted in the drivers seat. I wouldn’t mind if he just slowed down and pushed my poor child out without stopping … almost. 🙂

    • Oh, this triggered a memory. After divorce, ex wanted to “borrow” the dog (I took him when I moved out of marital home) to use at some audition for a commercial. I told him no way. He went on and on for a long time to our son about what a monster I was, that I was sabotaging his “career as an actor,” and that it was therefore all my fault that he wasn’t making any money.

      He ended up borrowing someone else’s dog and didn’t get the part. No doubt he blames me for his lack of talent as well.

    • Mine wanted to go hunting with one of my dog. No F’ing way. Then he came over for something and that same dog went running at him with teeth bared and fur up. I didn’t call him back or off, but I was thinking to myself, “I will give you the meatiest bone I can find, every week for the rest of your life, if you just take one bite from fucktard’s crotch.” It didn’t even have to be a big bite to get the job done. I know it was a petty little fantasy, and he didn’t bite him, but still, it was a good moment.

  • Isn’t it ironic, how these cheaters don’t want to be with the chump, yet once divorce has occurred, they keep coming back to use the chump and can’t stay away. Can I live in your basement? Can I live in some part of the house? Can we be friends? It’s like a parasitic fly that just won’t go away. These cheaters are useless and come back for more annoyance, to the point where their presence is like nails on a chalkboard. Living with the cheater in your home that he destroyed? nah, I’d rather drink an entire bottle of acid or get run over by a speeding train.

    • Kellia, they think you won’t divorce/leave them. Ex sure didn’t, especially after giving him numerous chances to straighten the fuck up. He thought the Cake Train would run forever!!! They are on a sugar rush from the cake!!! It’s all they ever really wanted.

      And why can’t these fuckers “adult” and rent a damn apartment?? Not live with mommy, or relatives, or the whores, or you? Just get an apartment, it’s not that difficult.

      • I know! Why the heck can’t they just get their own apartment? They can’t function on their own and always need to latch onto someone, whether its the wife, the AP, the OW. They can never make it on their own.

        • I think in a lot of cases, they don’t want to really face the consequences of their actions. If the Chump is still running their lives, making their choices for them, taking care of them, they couldn’t have messed up THAT badly. And in some cases, they’re narc assholes and they’re so used to their partner compromising to give them what they want, they don’t think any request is unreasonable. It’s the chump’s JOB to take care of the cheaters, right? So why wouldn’t the chump leap at the chance to make the cheater happy?

          I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

  • Ruggermom last wrote at a mightiness check in last February to say:
    I just love reading these. Such a mighty group of people!

    Big accomplishment for me was not responding to my kids sperm donor on his latest rage of how I “don’t give a rat’s a** about what is going on with his life,” and how he resents that our kids are closer to me than to him. Bwahahaha.

    By being frugal, and talking to a financial planner, I was able to purchase a small vacation home, on a small lake, where my 89 year old Dad and I can go to enjoy our favorite past time of kayaking. All while allowing my mother, who has dementia,to sit on the dock and watch us. I changed the whole interior design by myself, and was asked if I would consider designing other vacation homes in the area.

    Picked up my long forgotten passion of refinishing furniture, and have actually sold several pieces.

    Have, happily, reconnected with my brothers, and was asked to join them to sail part of the Caribbean chain, which I just returned from. So much fun!

    Have stopped trying to “fix” my alcoholic sister, and walk away/go NC, when the rage is directed at me. The best part is that I am actually OK with my decision to stop being around her.

    Have joined an all women’s shooting group and am seriously considering becoming a female small arms instructor.

    Still working on my private pilot’s license-taking longer than anticipated because there is so much fun stuff to do.

    Volunteering with a non-profit that flies in kids from rural areas for much needed medical attention at the University Hospital where I live. I am a retired pediatric nurse.

    Helping my elderly parents continue to be able to live in their home by cleaning, preparing meals, yard work, etc.

    Happily dating a high school/college friend that has introduced me to so many new experiences. I have done more/met more people, in the past 2 years than I did in 28 years of marriage.

    Have accepted that my Ex’s family, which I was part of for 30 years, have all (except 1 aunt) turned their back on me.

    Life is good!

    In 2016 I hope to get back to my fighting weight and strength. 3 years of false R took it out of me. At 58 years of age, it is a struggle, but I now know I can do just about anything.

    Thanks CN!!

    • All to say, she still sounds awesome. I’ve emailed her to let her know we reran the column. Maybe she’ll drop by.

      • It’s an amazing mightiness check in. And she was well on her way when she wrote the original letter because she knew moving into her basement was a cheater nutso idea.

    • Thanks for posting this. It brings tears to my eyes to read how well she’s doing, and to hope that I’ll get there someday. Our mediation date is coming up (required in my state) and if we don’t agree then, we go to court next month. I’m getting ready to move into a new house and sell the marital home. I’m hardly sleeping from worrying about how this will go plus processing all the ways he was so NOT who I thought he was. It helps to see these letters from the other side!

  • My STBX is STILL living at home. Once he’s out, no way in hell he’s coming back in to the house. Not even to pick up the kids. I’ll send them outside and he can wait outside.I don’t care if it’s pouring down out there. Or a blizzard. Nope. Not coming in to my house, ever again.

  • Ruggermom, congrats on completing your trip to the Land of Meh. I’m not yet 5 years into my own journey but I’ve rebuilt a pretty great life for myself, no thanks to Asshat and his latest Tinkerbell. The Land of Meh is just another couple of stops away on the train to total freedom, but what’s stopping me from getting there is the anxiety I still feel whenever I know I’ll have to breathe the same air as him. I’m not sure why that is because we’ve been 100% zero contact for 2 1/2 years now (my choice; he wants to be “friends”). Maybe it’s the lack of exposure that’s causing the anxiety, but I don’t intend the lower the drawbridge across the moat anytime soon. Our second son is getting married in 7 weeks (the first son’s wedding was incredibly awkward); I’m already feeling the stress of having to be in close proximity to him for all of the wedding activities. And I doubt he has enough brains to leave Tinkerbell at home so that will be interesting. My only 2 goals are (1) Be there for my son and his bride, and (2) Present myself as the classy, calm and confident woman I am. Everything else will fall into place. Maybe by the time our third son ties the knot, I’ll be on the beaches of Meh with you, sipping a Cosmopolitan.

    • MyRed,

      I understand the anxiety of having “to breathe the same air as him”. I had been no contact with asshat for a over a year when my son got married this summer. I felt such anxiety having to see him and OW/Wife. He, of course, would never leave the whore/wife at home. I had the same goals as you…I am here for my son and his lovely bride, and I will act like the classy woman I am. Although I feel like I am well on my way to MEH, the initial contact was difficult. But I did a fantastic job of rising above. People commented on how wonderful I looked and felt. I really didn’t feel confident inside, but I faked it well. It was such a major hurdle for me to overcome. The whole event seemed to push me more towards MEH. I just keep thinking…2 cheaters got each other. How is that for karma? I know seven weeks from now you will rock that wedding. And maybe when my second child and your third tie the knot, we will both be on the beach sipping that Cosmopolitan. Best wishes and big hugs to you!!

      • Congrats One Step, I know what a hurdle that was to get over. I had a similar experience at my son’s wedding the summer after our divorce was final.

  • Wow. I didn’t know that that much sheer chutzpah existed on the planet. Mental illness. There’s just no other word for it.

    You want to live in my basement after cheating on me?

    Three words:

    FUCK.

    THAT.

    SIDEWAYS.

    [Then you drop the mic, and walk away. Boom.]

  • If you want to hear something even weirder … my ex moved into his married AP’s PARENT’S basement after we separated.

    • So are the AP’s parents and husband aware that your ex is probably shtupping the AP in that basement?!

    • AHH HA HA HA HAH AHA HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH! This seriously takes the cake of them all. It’s hilarious! I needed a good laugh today and this was it. Still laughing…

      • Me too. The MOW gets her mom and dad to enable her affair–and the Cheaterpants can’t do any better for himself than his married lover’s parents’ basement. Pathetic.

    • I’ve heard something even weirder. One of the lawyers I saw mentioned to me one of his clients had a TOP WEIRD situation: his wife brought in the house her lover. The other man was this guy’s best friend, they were colleagues at work. “Imagine the weirdness in the morning”. Yeah, I can imagine the weirdness in the night. How f*ed up is that???
      At least the husband had the “good sense” to move out after 2 weeks.
      I personally don’t know how he managed. When I try to put myself in his shoes, I literally see FIRE.

  • “What is wrong with him?”

    Everything.

    “Is this f’d up or what?”

    Completely.

    “I have absolutely no intention of letting him move back into my house.”

    Good.

    “I just can’t wrap my brain around what he is thinking.”

    Don’t even try.

    (Some things in life are really that simple:-)

  • the few times in the past 6 months that I have allowed a conversation to occur beyond “yes” “no” “wow”, STBX has indicated he wants to “come home.” Huh?! He lives with OW, he pays 100% of their living expenses at a very expensive apt downtown– 1 bedroom– he has 4 kids! But, of course he abandoned them for a year so a 1 bedroom suited him just fine. He has been lying about it for the past year. I had to hire a PI to confirm. When confronted with proof he said “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Douche!

    Divorce is getting closer to final and he’s facing serious financial and custody consequences. All of a sudden he gets a 2 bedroom place, entices Dd 3 to live with them, is sending lawyer letters demanding overnights and vacation time with DD 4. All 1 year after abandonment and 20 months post DDay #1.

    Thank god kids have kick ass therapists who are setting major boundaries (vacation with homewrecker whom Dd4 has never met? HELL NO!) and I have the best bad ass lawyer in the city who is helping me to ishut these manipulations down.

    Fucker!

    • “Divorce is getting closer to final and he’s facing serious financial and custody consequences. ”

      Bingo! This is why he’s asking to move back in. He figures it’s cheaper to move back home. It’s all about his money and how things will affect his wallet. Wow, how self-serving and selfish can you get.

      • When our divorce was in process and I moved out, ex was enraged and kept insisting that I should continue to live with him to save money. He said people “did this all the time,” and claimed his own parents had done this after his dad divorced his cheating mother (a lie.)

        • “and claimed his own parents had done this after his dad divorced his cheating mother (a lie.)”

          Well if his parents are dumb and stupid as to have that arrangement, you sure are not. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so your ex’s genes are compounded by 2 stupid people breeding together, making him a colossal idiot.

  • Maybe others have already mentioned this (haven’t read all the comments yet) but I don’t think the cheater here is looking for cake, or at least that’s not the only reason. I suspect this guy is simply an incredible loser and a mooch. He’s already living with his mother, apparently unable to make it on his own. Now he wants to move back into his ex’s basement because it’s easy, it’s likely cheap (so he hopes) and he’s taking the easy way out by trying to recycle his former living arrangement rather than finding a room to rent or some new place to live on his own. A lot of these disordered cheaters are really unable to make their own way through life and are lazy to boot. So they are always looking for someone to use and mooch off, and it’s much easier to target a former source than seek out someone new.

    Thank God I don’t have a basement, because my ex would probably have wanted to live in it. Instead, he has spent the past six years moving from place to place, wherever someone lets him live for free or for cheap or in return for sexual favors. He lived in an old RV parked in his sister’s driveway for awhile. Now he lives with his dad. Just a loser who likes mooching off other people while bragging about how inspirational and great he is. I suspect the dude in the letter here is the same.

  • I only got through a few comments (damn work for interfering with my CL time), but I will finish later tonight and read the article. I wasn’t sure where the previously run column was going and the whole time I was excited about the turn of her life into one of happiness and cringing waiting for him to move into her basement. I’m so glad she didn’t allow that to happen. I thought that since her ex saw her happy that he had to do something to change that, and so he asked to move in. I’m sure that would have worn the happy right out of her. After all, people with entitlement issues are the only ones that matter and are allowed to be happy.

    Fucktard moved directly into the OW house, who he claimed to no longer be having a relationship with. He took absolutely no furnishings or the other trappings of what it takes to live in a home. I got the title to the home and all of its contents. What a complete idiot he is. I imagine that if she tires of him and kicks him to the curb, he will ask to be my basement dweller. Actually I have the entire upstairs, three bedrooms and a bath, of my house that in unoccupied and I’m sure will drive him crazy knowing that. I would rather have Freddy Kruger and that awful furnace as roommates than Fucktard.

    • Interesting, when I kicked my husband out 5 mos ago – cause he couldn’t stay away from 26-year-younger “true love” (really a satanical money-grubbing homewrecker) – he took a few clothes as we though we were taking space to reconcile. As we move toward divorce he told me he “pretty much took everything” when he left – which convinced me his emotional depth is ZERO.

      • 30 years of marriage, 3 kids and dog, 5 bedroom house and workshop and you just want a few clothes, your laptop and your golf clubs. Not attached to me, not attached to kids, and not attached to “stuff.” SCARY

        • Tired Chump

          -Zero took his clothes, drums and all the crap I packed in boxes. I have antiques and thought for sure he would assign a value to these items.

          I found his rings and asked my daughter if I should give them to him and she said sell them. He did take the grill but has no place to use it. He’s living in a second floor dumpy apartment with no yard or washer/dryer. He can’t play his drums.

          This is why they end up in basements. The have no belongings.

        • Ditto! 25 years, 4,000 sq foot house: he took 2 boxes of clothes in a jumbled mess and not a single memento or picture even. Bizarre.

      • Yep. Get it in writing before he gains any senses (if he ever does). You will be soooooo much better off financially. Emotionally it will take more time, but after reading Ruggermom, there is hope.

  • I read most if that article and it sounds really fishy to me. He spends every weekend with his ex, in her house, and the “mistress” if just fine with it??? Uh huh. Maybe she has her own side piece now, too.

  • And maybe, in a few years, when this lady has been certified officially batshit crazy she can write an article why this was the worst idea of her life.

  • That article resembles my chump almost too well. if he can’t set boundaries, I will be happy to do that for him.

  • I wonder if part of the issue at play in these cases comes back around to this nearly pathological lack of empathy these types seem to have. Because they have no frame of reference for the INTENSE pain and trauma they have wrought upon us, they have no idea of the amount of like hate and disdain we have for them. We all know the value of no contact/meh… but part of the reason for that is sort of coping mechanism. Like we have to eventually get to the point where we can’t live in the trauma, so we decide to put it all in the past and accept it happened and move on. It’s not that we don’t still hurt or sometimes have thought wander into our heads that is “Wow, that whole situation was fucked up”. It’s just we can’t live that way, so we choose to go no contact and meh. Since we are no longer actively screaming at the Ex or crying our eyes out every night, these fucking idiots think that means everything is just A-OK. Like since they are no longer experiencing consequences (in the form of us screaming at them), well everything is just fine and dandy. The fact that the Letter Writer is able to act like a functional adult at her child’s engagement shindig, to this guy means “great, she’s not mad at me any more. Now back to normal… what can I get out of her.” And any normal person would be like “You hurt and devastated her. You treated her with cruelty and destroyed your family. You have wounded her in a way that will always be with her, and the same to the children. Why, WHY would you even think of such a thing.” and the fucktard would be like “Really she seems totally cool. it’s fine.”

    Mine was all about acting like it would be just like always (we never had big fights or arguments, we got along pretty well day to day), we just wouldn’t be married any more. He had no idea the hurt and pain that he had caused me. I just walked away because there was no point.

      • Exactly!! The only pain they comprehend is their own. They don’t get that if their own actions hurt them so much, how must it feel to us?!? At least they knew the bomb was going to drop and could prepare. All we got was the explosion.

        • “All we got was the explosion.” newday, that’s exactly true. x told me after d-day that “he had grieved our relationship failing for the last two years of marriage”. I would have really liked that information at the time, so I could make my own decisions. Thanks for that stupid f*er.

          • I got that same story. That 18 months ago he flipped the switch and stopped loving me. I wasn’t part of us anymore. It was just him. And me. Not us in a relationship. Really?! You could have said SOMETHING! “I thought you knew the relationship was over.” That’s why I said “I love you” every single day of our fucking lives together?! W. T. F.

  • While negotiating alimony, one of his offers was in lieu of alimony, he and his cockroach would move into the house. I could remain in the master bedroom and they would take care of me for the rest of my life! You’d think I was 90 years old, feeble and lifeless! My attorney couldn’t stop laughing.

    Needless to say it didn’t happen and things didn’t play out as he hoped. Delusion gets you nowhere.

    • I’m sorry, I’ve heard it so now. Delusional doesn’t even begin to cover what these cockroaches are

    • Oh my… I am speechless. Your ex and his cockroach are Dumb and Dumber for sure!

    • Yes! When he wanted me in a rental if felt lokie just put mom in the home. Fuckers.

    • Seriously? No wonder your lawyer couldn’t stop laughing. What did mickeyblueeyes say on Friday, “You can get your head so far up your ass you can chew your food again on the way down.” Well, this is proof, head up the ass, check.

  • One of my aunts divorced a cheating husband, who went on to marry a 20-something and father a child (to the dismay of his original four children). Within a few years, he had nosedived emotionally and financially, and the AP had dumped him (after running through his money). He knocked around for possibly a decade but then, years later, after he had hit rock bottom, my aunt let him live in an apartment over her garage. He lived there until he died.
    The rest of the family thought it was totally deranged, but many many years had passed and I think she was way beyond meh. She had taken her settlement and started a stock picking club at her church and done very, very well.
    I think the original four children, who had no contact with cheating dad for years, actually, respected their mother even more – after she helped her betrayer…..she was so far beyond meh, it didn’t bother her.
    I could not do it.

    • That is a beautiful story of a selfless woman. But sorry, my give-a-damn’s busted so I’ll be with the trashcan landlord and rent that out to X. And I’ll throw all the dirty cat litter in there with him so the toxi parasite can finish its work. (This is a reference to a research piece that was in the general forum recently.)

  • What he wants is your attention. Why? Because he doesn’t have it. It’s all a game. A sad game to see whether they have enough charm to get you to turn your head. When that doesn’t work, they move it pity. What matters is that it does NOT and will NOT work for you. That much, we can assure you. He deserves as little of your head space as necessary. I don’t blame you for wondering. It’s another narcissistic head scratcher. I personally couldn’t think of anything more demeaning but sometimes I think they love the pain of that too! I’m not sure that the request even warrants a reasonse. Good luck with your new man!

  • AS for the Washington Post article, I can not wait to read your response Tracy!!
    As I am exiting my marriage after 30 years, I am NC with cheater, but still have to interact often with our adult kids 18-23 as they move (something about this age involves constant moving) from college to jobs to internships up and down eastern seaboard.
    I want things to be civil, but its complicated. as…..
    -Have recently been overly friendly/inclusive – e.g. he grilled with us on his birthday two weeks ago – and feel this shows my kids no consequences for soon to be XH’s mistreatment of me/ betrayal of family
    -On the other hand, kids take my lead/protect me so if I am exclusive and do not engage father in their lives, they follow suit
    -On the other hand, cheater expects me to continue to manage his relationship with the kids (stopping)…..even though he has discarded me…
    -Finally it is all so fresh, that each interaction / engagement / time together with cheater – even to benefit kids – SETS ME BACK, AS I SMOKED THE HOPIUM PIPE FOR 18 MOS AFTER DDAY and would have reconciled if he could have just stayed away from the 26-year-younger ho-worker.

    So Tracy – if you can tell us (using the bizarro DC /Post example of Martyr Mom)- how to help kids feel they have a “family” albeit non-nuclear, without liberating the cheater from consequences, and putting the chump in situations where she feels more pain/ smokes more hopium pipe _ I would be eternally grateful.

    TC

    • I am no CL – but I like your question.

      It sounds like you need to have a conversation with your kids about managing expectations. For the older kids, they are old enough to understand. They have had relationships end most likely. They have had falling outs with friends. I think you need to have an honest, sometimes ongoing discussion about your needs and their needs when it comes to their father. This family has been broken, and it does no one any good to sporadically play happy family and pretend it didn’t happen. You state your needs (I can’t be a go between for you and your father any more), they state their needs (it pisses me off when he ignores me and I feel like he only listens to you so please help)… and you find a solution. For the 18 year old, it will be different because technically no longer a child, but certainly doesn’t have the relational skills and critical thinking to understand what he wants, vs what he should want vs what is possible.

      • My children would commit me if I so much as entertained being friends with serial cheater X. They have no respect for him, think he goes through life with no integrity, and they sacrificed to provide me with moral support. Both daughters would have contempt for me (and rightly so) if I “forgave” my X in any way, shape, or form.

        • My children would have the same reaction Tempest. I can’t even imagine a scenario where I would be on friendly terms with my ex. He couldn’t possibly add anything of value to my life or the lives of my kids other than possibly an insurance pay out for the kids when he dies and I wouldn’t even count on him having that much integrity.

    • I read that article and honestly I see no value in ever pretending everything is okay -even when the children are minors. Children of divorce spend a lot of time wishing that mom and dad would get back together. How the hell does it help them if the ex camps out in the backyard every weekend? If that dad really wanted to make a sacrifice he’d move closer. He lived there before, he can do it again. No way she’ll ever be able to sustain a normal relationship with someone new while the ex is that entangled in her life either. I think that woman was off her rocker personally. Sure, don’t alienate the parent, even if they’re a cheater but camping out in the back yard???

      As to adult children? Hell to the no way! It’s up to them to navigate their relationship with their parents. I cut that shit out very early on. My kids wanted help, getting help from their dad and I intervened one time and then I got a very needed 2’4 upside the head (from chump nation). After that I refused. I told them that their relationship with their dad was theirs to manage. The End!

  • “Dude, you LIVE IN YOUR MOTHER’S BASEMENT.”

    Tracy this is priceless!

    • Shouldn’t we add that to Friday’s list, You might be a cheater if you live in your mother’s basement?

  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

    NO.

  • hoo-boy! One of the few things I am grateful for (and I’m not exactly sure it’s gratitude) is that Ex ‘gifted’ himself to an equally dysfunctional narc, on the opposite coast. Permanently, it seems (or, until one of them cheats on the other one). Not my circus, etc.

    But I never have to worry about him showing back up on my doorstep, or really, ever seeing him again. Narcissa can have him! Yuck.

    • “One of the few things I am grateful for (and I’m not exactly sure it’s gratitude) is that Ex ‘gifted’ himself to an equally dysfunctional narc, on the opposite coast. Permanently, it seems”

      Lol, an amazing gift if I say so myself.

  • Just thinking, wanting to live in a dark, damp dwelling……”Rodent Chong”…stand back and no one gets hurt!

  • My cheater ex wanted to build a house for himself in my driveway. He thought it was “progressive” thinking and would be good for the kids. Then he berated me for saying no. When I asked him what his home wrecker, whom he was living with, thought of it, he said, “she didn’t think it would be a good idea.” Yeah, NO.

  • Yup, same thing from cheater ex, and his (to him) irresistible hook was that we BOTH date other people. Projection much? I looked at him with my ….you bore the hell out of me……look and just said “Uhhh no.” And continued to repeat no at every “reason ” he came up with after that.

    Eventually, he gave up and told me he didn’t want to live there anyway because of my “fuck you attitude”. Damn right, dude. Especially when it comes to you.

    Score one for the chumps….. narcissistic asshole,……zero.

  • Bwaaaah ! bwaaaah!

    Excuse me laughing my socks off, but the more I read these accounts of cheaters’ actions I can’t help but wonder if they all have the same self-serving script?

    I asked my cheating ex to leave after DD and he was gone a month later to live with his AP and her mother. I got the divorce 6 months later. The house wouldn’t sell so I bought him out another 6 months later.

    Now I was a free woman and started dating, but guess what, he wanted to come back as a lodger (!) because he said he wasn’t happy with her….
    So I played him along and said “OK” and he suggested he redirect his mail to the house “so she wouldn’t see it”. I said OK. he asked if he could put some items in the garage and I said “OK” and he left me some black bin bags full of bedding (?)

    After a couple of weeks a letter came from a solicitor addressed to him and her, with the return address of the solicitor on the front. I was very curious, so I rang the solicitor, pretended I was the AP and said that the dog had chewed up the letter and could they send a copy? They did and I opened the 2nd one. It appears they were planning to buy a house together !!

    I said nothing and did nothing. After another couple of weeks I hadn’t seen or heard anything from him, the mail stopped coming, and so did he.

    I can only conclude that his actions were “bait” to get kibbles and when I refused to chase him, he gave up.

    I kept the bedding for another 6 months before it went to the charity shop.

  • That’s what they do–remove old wife appliance,install new one in old life. .Mine left and is living with ap but he now works at the old shop he gave up because he lost half of our retirement savings in it and now he wants the house. They can have it, I’ll have the money and they’ll be stuck with a huge mortgage. She can have my leftovers–lying cheating stealing POS husband and even the furniture. She can sleep in my leftover bed (she already fucked him in it so now she can sleep in my bed, her standards are lower than dirt). He can raise her 10 year old here. My grown kids will not fail to see how twisted it all is…I think I will see it as karma and finally it will be Tuesday and I will reach meh…

    • I like this, SadLady, you get to move on with your payout, and he can re-create the past life. Yeah, that’ll work…..NOT. He will bring his same persona to the relationship–BOOM!
      Meanwhile, SadLady15 is strolling into Meh! Perfect.

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