If You Accuse Me of Cheating, I Will Cheat

Mr. Mindfuck

“If you accuse me of cheating, I will cheat!” Huh? Is it possible to put the idea of cheating into a non-cheater’s head and thereby turn them into a cheater?

***

Hi Chump Lady,

What the hell is going on with people who say, “If you accuse someone of cheating they will.”

I recently heard a therapist say this, and it brought me back to all the times my cheater said, “If you keep accusing me of this, you’re going to make me cheat!”

At the time I bought it, but now I’m like WTF??? Me pointing out that you are behaving suspiciously will make you cheat?

Where the hell did this idea come from and why do people believe it?

Thanks,

Clichegurl

****

Dear Clichegurl,

Yes, Clichegurl, among your chump super powers — you know, that special mojo that compels people to cheat on you — is jealousy. See, he never would’ve had the idea to cheat if you hadn’t planted the notion in his head! It’s all your fault!

I wonder what other ideas you can plant in his head and make him do.

Flap his arms and be a chicken? I mean, if you’re going to THINK CHICKEN he may as well just be a chicken.

Where the hell did this idea come from

Ortonville, Michigan? Satan? Lousy therapists? I don’t know, your guess is as good as mine.

and why do people believe it?

Because victim blaming is a thing. Instead of sympathizing with you for being duped by a cheat, it’s less disturbing to think you somehow deserved it. See, he isn’t a crappy, worthless person — you drove him to crappy worthlessness by your super powerful mind rays.

You assumed crappy, worthlessness and so, figuring that your perception of him could never be altered, he succumbed to crappy worthlessness.

Think about this decision tree.

Let’s say you think something false about me. (I’m a chicken.) And no matter what I do, you persist in this fiction. (That I’m a chicken.)

I could:

  • a) insist that I am NOT a chicken.
  • b) Provide complete transparency as to my humanity.
  • c) Decide that I’d really rather not be with someone who doubts my essential being and dump you.

How ridiculous would it be to choose d) Become a CHICKEN?

Gurl — your therapist is a quack and your cheater is a mindfuck. Your cheater is just threatening you — that if you persist in questioning his shadiness, he will do the very thing you fear he’s doing. (Except he’s already doing it.) If you keep accusing me of this, you’re going to make me cheat! is blameshifting. The problem isn’t his shadiness, the problem is your “jealousy.”

Generally speaking, good people don’t keep you off balance — only mindfuckers do.

We don’t make anyone do anything. Your partner has agency. And so does your shrink. And so do you — please dump them both.

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getting real
getting real
7 years ago

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

I really needed to see this post today!

My FF has been contacting hookers, joined dating sites… And tells me yes he’s been emotionally mentally cheating but he hasn’t physically cheated.

But if I keep hounding him on why he travels with Viagra, keep asking for him to be above board and transparent about what he’s doing, keep acting suspicious and asking questions… He may just go ahead and fuck somebody else!

This is what I hate about the blame shifting and the mindfuck: these people are already being deceptive and lying. We called them on it, and of course the relationship and the level of trust has been destroyed. And naturally we are suspicious and rightfully so as our partners have yet to earn back trust.

This pretty much solidifies the cake argument. Potential cheater whines and moans about having being held accountable and responsible, so blame shifts on the hurt and rightfully suspicious partner by saying “if you remain suspicious I will go fuck someone else:”.

Essentially emotionally blackmailing us to shut the fuck up and not challenge them, and put on a smiley face and be good girls. And to put up with their bullshit behavior no matter what.

That is why we have attorneys 🙂

2xchump
2xchump
3 months ago
Reply to  getting real

I say…let’s trade phones and computers…you look up my stuff, I look up yours. The right to get forensics on it too. I’m open,let’s compare!!! I trust, you trust. Repeat monthly. Throw in burner phones etc…all accounts.

anonymous
anonymous
4 years ago
Reply to  getting real

HONESTLY…I AM A VICTIM OF BLAMESHIFTING…ON THE OTHER END.

My boyfriend was “divorcing his wife” and honestly did….but during our time together he would project onto me his cheating….

I don’t believe we were truly together, and I had been taking months of emotional abuse – him calling me a liar all of the time, accuse me of flirting with guys. I was HEAD OVER HEELS WITH HIM.

I moved from the NE to the SE to be with him, although not discussed, I was “THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE.”

Anything I said wrong, he would punish me by “staying away” to “think.” I would stand me up, at home or at the bar.

The two weeks prior, I took call after call, text after text…I didn’t want you hear, we will never be together, I don’t trust you……You are flirting…(I never was).

So I truly, after weekends of being home alone crying, went out with a friend I had met a month prior and just LIVED! I ended up making out with him, Cheating….(or was I?). This was a friend though, not just some stranger, a person I trusted with me…not being used….but I used him. I just wanted to feel loved and be happy and why not? I was accused constantly of cheating.

I told the man I waited 3 years for about the situation, only to be called a whore…and how could I? I have had so many relationships, never cheated, was actually always the person cheated on (and I would turn the other way faster than they could say my name to come back).

Blameshifting can turn into reality…Run before it happens to YOU…and your cheater/abuser had the room to hold that OVER YOUR HEAD…mine did to me!

FYI_
FYI_
3 months ago
Reply to  anonymous

Blameshifting does not turn into reality. That is the whole point of CL’s post here.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  anonymous

Just a head’s up for the future – a man who is in the process of getting divorced – especially apparently a lengthy process – 3 years! – is not a good prospect for a relationship. There’s a reason he was getting divorced, and that reason is probably what you ran into. People don’t change for other people, they change for themselves. I would not go out with or course (married) but also, divorcing men, it’s a big red flag. Wait till it’s all done or find someone who is unencumbered.

Brit
Brit
3 months ago
Reply to  Mehitable

Nearly divorced isn’t divorced, it’s like someone saying I’m a little bit pregnant.
People with integrity don’t date until they’re divorced.
I don’t know how anyone going through a divorce would consider starting a new relationship..Unless you’re a cheater.and lack character.

Bexy
Bexy
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

Travelling with viagra…. this was the first ‘sign’ i saw. But when challenged he spat at me that he only took it with him to check if i was snooping while he was gone… Snooping? At this stage i had never ‘snooped’, They were in your sock drawer ffs, i go to put the laundry away an the pills are gone…. i must have been snooping, bad wife 🙁

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  Bexy

That’s about when I would have bought a pack of condoms for him to “find”. The Magnum size.

saw
saw
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

I came home from a trip only to be abandoned. I was left with a book titled, “How to Survive Obamacare”, the health insurance bill and his top drawer full of Viagra. He faked being ill to trick me. The, he told everyone that I left him and he was going to make me pay for it. 19 years of marriage. He was forced to retire and mad at the partners. Their fault. Then, I became the target. He didn’t know how to live off a budget, so I was collateral damage. Good luck finding another person who will care for you as well as I did Dr.N. Mr. Integrity my ass!

2xchump
2xchump
3 months ago
Reply to  saw

My problem is I thought I was special.and only i.could understand his spending issues, mental health issues, buying addiction, sex habits…only.me. he could not leave me, i made more, loved more….only me. SURPRISE!! IM NOT SPECIAL!!I’m just cheaper than sex workers and even coworkers. But not special.

Brit
Brit
3 months ago
Reply to  2xchump

I thought I was special too. He told me all guys watched porn they just hide it from their wives. I was lucky he didn’t and I was the understanding wife.
Not like all the other wives.

I was convinced our relationship was stronger than other couples.
Even though I felt uncomfortable it was more important for me to keep him happy and put my feelings aside. After all I was the great wife.
NOT SPECIAL! what a surprise. No, not special, I was a FOOL or Queen of Chumps.

Uneffingbelieveable
Uneffingbelieveable
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

getting real – yeah, that’s what hookers are for – CONVERSATION. What a douche.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago

Stop reading my mind verbatim! 🙂

BetterDays
BetterDays
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

My D-Days started with him answering sex ads and contacting hookers too. I believed him when he said it was all “fantasy” and I got mindfucked for the next several years until I caught him on a date with another woman. He told me that was “fantasy” too. And then there were the “fantasy” text messages with two other whores in two different cities. And all the stuff I found out about after the breakup…

My advice to anyone who’s got one of these online, it’s-only-fantasy cheaters is RUN.

Kelli
Kelli
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

Seriously, he travels with Viagra? That’s not just a red flag, that’s one of those big banners the football teams run through before football games–painted solid red.

I think it’s pretty universal for the first chump reaction to grasp for a straw that, however far-fetched, gives a more comforting explanation than, “Your partner is cheating on you.”

When I was going through the ex’s cell phone, and I saw the sonogram photo of the child he conceived while “on a business trip,” but the contact info said the texted photo came from his childhood best friend. At first, I was happy. “Yay, [friend] is having a baby! Good for him.” Then, my inner monologue went something like this:

But, hang on, [friend] just got divorced a few months ago. He’s already dating and knocked someone up? That’s weird.

(Reads further back)

And, why is he saying “we” are having a baby? Is that like a majestic plural? Shouldn’t he say he and his lady-friend are having a baby? Odd…

(Reads further back)

Why in the hell would [friend] go to the ex and worry about the possibility of being pregnant? They are close, but not *that* close. The dude didn’t even come to the hospital when the ex and I had our first child 14 weeks premature. And he’s using that “royal we” again.

(CLICK)

Oh….

So, my advice? Taking Viagra on a business trip is the kind of evidence that doesn’t require questioning. Some certain inalienable truths: Bros don’t send other bros sonogram pictures. People don’t check into hotels with people of the opposite sex to proudly exclaim about their treasured spouse at home, and faithful partners don’t travel with viagra.

((Big hugs))

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  Kelli

What happened with him and baby mama whore? I’m always surprised at the complete lack of caution these FWs and their whores/man-whores practice. It’s not uncommon for them to conceive children and I would think that would be the LAST thing they’d want….but of course, a baby is an anchor a whore puts on a John.

Bexy
Bexy
7 years ago
Reply to  Kelli

Thank you Kelli, you cant imagine how much i needed to read that right now. … A BIG FAT DICK OF A REMINDER faithful partners dont travel with viagra.

For all the other hundreds of signs that popped up in front of me, this one doesn’t need any translation or figuring out. The second i realized the pills had gone on the trip with him, without question i knew that ‘the love of my life’ was with a liar and a cheat. I should have left him immediately 🙁

After getting caught taking the pills with him, next time he tried to be smarter and plan ahead. The next attempt he out of the blue on a Friday said “oh we have run out of pills” i thought to myself hmm thats weird i put the laundry away this morning and there were two in the drawer…. my ears pricked up then but i said nothing… Sunday morning he announced that he was going to Taupo for a work trip leaving Monday morning… ding ding! This was it, i immediately checked and found the pills moved away from where they normally are, said nothing. Next morning after he left i checked, pills gone 🙁 one pill came back. When i confronted him, he said that he knew i had been snooping so he decided to trick me and teach me a lesson, he took one over the weekend and hid the other one…. i then said well if you took it on the weekend how come we didn’t have sex then??? He said he was too tired…

And still this dumb bitch stayed 🙁

Thank god three i am finally getting my shit together and planning my separation.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  Bexy

I think the need for Viagra is God telling them….you’ve had enough sex.

Brit
Brit
3 months ago
Reply to  Mehitable

Couldn’t agree more..

CAGal
CAGal
7 years ago
Reply to  Kelli

I remember once I sort of got my head wrapped around the reality of my situation, I found myself explaining Occam’s Razor to people pretty frequently. I never had the 100% irrefutable proof that he was sleeping with the HoWorker, but really, it was the most likely explanation. Occam’s razor is (to paraphrase) when consider several theories to explain something, the theory that requires the fewest assumptions is most likely to be true. Some very sweet and well meaning people would try to say “Well, maybe it’s just this…” to some bit of craziness I uncovered. I would say – could be, but Occam’s razor says that he’s probably fucking her, because that requires only one assumption, that he’s fucking her.

Arnold
Arnold
7 years ago
Reply to  CAGal

The lie bias we have, CA, intereferes with our ability to accuratel perceive.
I am a case in point. I am a trial lawyer,trained,to an extent, to ferret out truth and be skeptical.
Yet,upon coming across my wife’s writings,wherein she expressed a desire to stop” sex with strangers”, I ,somehow, convinced myself that this was just an expression of a fantasy.
I could never imagine she would cheat in a million years.
Thankfully, her sister put me straight. But,this was 2years after I read her stuff. Amazing,when I look back on it.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, what I now ask myself is why did I stay with someone for whom logic and fairness were foreign languages that he had no intention of learning or using? Independent of the cheating, it is SOOOOOOOOOOO much more pleasant to be by myself than with someone consistently trying to mindfuck or undermine me.

Emotional abuse, and having one’s partner behave like an overgrown selfish toddler, are themselves reasons to leave.

Arnold
Arnold
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

The really weird thing about their lack of a sense of fair play or logic or reciprocity,Tempest, is that, often, they are reasonably bright.
So, you are left wondering; how does someone who can function reasonably well in this world, like by earning a living and having a decent career etc., subscribe to such irrational and unfair thinking?
Then, one stumbles upon the information about the Cluster B’s. This happened to me as I followed the information about cheaters into the information about the Cluster B’s.
There were references all over the internet to the relationship between cheating and having personality disorder.
I found my answer to how my XW’s mind worked. How a reasonably bright woman saw no unfairness, no illogic to her double standards. Her thinking stemmed from one of the fundamental premises of the Narcissist : I am better than and more entitled to things etc. than others.
Her logic made sense if one accepted that underlying premise. Of course it was ok to have other lovers when your husband was locked in a sexless marriage; of course family assets were justifiably depleted to allow her to engage in her adventures; of course her husband would have to shoulder virtually all the child rearing and housekeeping while still working a full time job; of course she got more time out, more leisure, and on and on.
I know many, especially cheaters and some of their ” reconciled BSs, think I am nuts when I lump most cheaters into the personality disordered category.
I hear it all the time ( at least before I get banned) that “if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” etc.
But, stop to think about what is required, personality wise, to be in an affair for any length of time. One must be very comfortable with lying ( ever notice they sleep well and appear to suffer no effects from the stress). One must lack empathy and a sense of fair play ( i.e. no conscience).
And, one must have a huge sense of entitlement and lack of compassion.
When I hear the mantra of the RIC that I am off base and somehow invested in seeing all cheaters a alike in this regard, I think of what Louis Nizer used to say ( paraphrasing) that the most likely answer to a question is the most obvious.
If people act with no integrity, no empathy, a sense of entitlement, as, by definition , all cheaters do, and you have a DSM listing that corresponds to these qualities, why look any further.
I know they hate being diagnosed, and, seldom will you see a disordered type even aware that they have a problem, let alone seeking help for it.
I read this wayward sections of SI and shake my head. There are folks there scurrying to lay blame on their spouse; folks lamenting the length of time it takes for their spouse to recover to any extent; and even more revealing, folks insisting that they have their own private hell and pain to deal with ( why even raise this, as they caused it and , also , have a boatload of fond, exciting memories to fall back on when times are tough).
The circular reasoning is amazing:” I am a fundamentally good person who “made a mistake”. Yet, fundamentally good people do not do this, just like they do not kill puppies.
And the type of person who does this for any length of time could never have the capacity for true remorse, anymore than Michael Vick does for what he did.
It is simply impossible for someone with a conscience to do this long term, or serially, as many of them do.

Chumpolicious
Chumpolicious
3 months ago
Reply to  Arnold

My FW was diagnosed with OCPD and NPD. I didnt believe the NPD, OCPD is very similar. But I researched and found Covert NPD, it was an Aha! moment. I thought all Narcs were grandiose. I appreciated that I had a really good PHD psychologist, who was familiar with PD. So I agree cheaters probably fall under PD. Entitlement, zero empathy, controlling behavior, vengeance, attention seeking, victimhood, lying, manipulating, dupers delight. Its hard to believe people who have all these are not mentally ill. Just like its hard to imagine people who commit violent crimes are not crazy. I guess it depends on the definition of crazy. Do you know right from wrong?

Brit
Brit
3 months ago
Reply to  Chumpolicious

I believe they are mentally ill. A sane person couldn’t cheat and look their partner in the eye without feeling an enormous amount of guilt and shame. Cheater can not only look their partner in the eye, they enjoy the feeling of dupers delight, they’re giddy. So much so, they will do it again and again. Look their partner in the eye, and blame shift, gas light, accuse them of being crazy and enjoy seeing their partner confused. What sane person could watch their partner, who they claim they love, suffer?
A sane person wouldn’t do those things in the first place but if they know they had done something to hurt the person they claim to love they’d feel bad. Cheaters aren’t sane, they’re sociopathic.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  Arnold

What you say about the simple lack of conscience is so true – and the amount of lies they have to tell on a regular basis to cover up their activities. I think some of them do feel “guilt” or perhaps it’s stress, but that usually comes out in attacking the spouse and kids. Much of the time though they lie like they breathe. People like this are frightening and to be avoided and NO ONE should reconcile with anyone who is capable of telling lies like this. You can’t trust them in ANYTHING. Oftentimes these affairs involve financial crimes too. These people have no morals or conscience. I don’t know what being a “good” person is to them…perhaps it is something like “I don’t kill puppies.” But there are people who probably do who STILL think….they’re good people. There’s always somebody they think is “worse”.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  Arnold

It’s a lack of morals/ethics. They just don’t view situations in the same way you do. If you or I saw a wallet in the street, we’d try to find the owner. They might look inside, take the money or just take the whole wallet and the attitude would be “Finders Keepers”. It’s a lack of morals. I’m not sure these people HAVE any morals at all, but they’re not the same as the Chumps. It really doesn’t have anything to do with intelligence, some very high IQ people have NO MORALS – like Dr. Mengele. They might be able to reason out the consequences of their cheating but they always figure they’re smarter than the Chump and they can cover it up indefinitely and many do cover it up for years, or even decades.

2xchump
2xchump
3 months ago
Reply to  Arnold

I don’t know that we need formal diagnoses..i.usee to be close to 200 pounds. Now I am normal weight. Did I need a formal diagnosis to tell me I operate for my frame? It’s obvious. The reasons are plenty and of course one could be wrong. But for a general assumption, there is some kind of personality disorder. Yup. Great summary Arnold

2xchump
2xchump
3 months ago
Reply to  2xchump

OVEREAT!

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Well-put, Arnold. I couldn’t agree more.

(the irony–my cheater actually teaches complex formal logic. smh)

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest, I’d say he specialised in it to have better tools to twist facts and mindfuck people. It’s just ammunition to these people, not a discipline.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Oh Lord, yes.

lostntx
lostntx
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Couldn’t agree with you more. A lot of my thought these days is why have I allowed people to abuse me in the past? It’s something that I have to answer and fix before I even think about any future romantic relationship. Even just friends for that matter.

NoMoreEvil
NoMoreEvil
7 years ago
Reply to  lostntx

+1 I’ve been thinking a lot about this, too, Lostntx. I need to find a way to stop attracting and allowing negative, disordered people into my life. When I look at all my past relationships, that seems like all I’ve ever had and it sucks!

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  lostntx

I think that’s true for many of us here, Lost. But that’s the insidious nature of gaslighting. I can’t speak to your own story, but I CAN tell you that if XH had behaved the first year of our relationship the way he behaved the last year of our relationship, I’d’ve kicked him to the curb pronto! But by the last year, I’d already invested 16 years of my life with him, so in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t so bad.

But now that I’m alone, I feel far less glitchy, as Tempest said. Sorta like a Matrix movie where Neo’s mind is blipping back and forth between reality and the Matrix, for me trying to make sense of word salad. I see more clearly now.

ChutesandLadders
ChutesandLadders
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Our son’s mental illness and addiction forced me to attempt a “coparent” communication this past weekend with X. I was worried about our son’s safety and needed to know if X had seen him in the past 24 hours.

Although the text indicated it had been immediately “delivered,” he didn’t respond for hours. Then, within three curt texts, he was able to blame me for our son’s problems, “correct” me on my grammar (he detests text shortcuts) and insinuate I had stolen money from his mother, who has been dead for five years.

He never ONCE addressed our son’s current mental health state or attempted to work with me. Because his hatred toward me for standing up to him when we divorced four years ago still bugs the shit out of him.

I have to remember this the next time I forget he’s a disordered, hateful fuck and think he would care about his kids and their health and safety.

Susannah
Susannah
7 years ago

Is your son okay? Were you able to find him? How are you doing? I’m going to worry until I hear an update on this.

ChutesandLadders
ChutesandLadders
7 years ago
Reply to  Susannah

Susannah, physically he is safe for now. I finally heard from him this morning.
Thank you for caring.

Frances
Frances
7 years ago

I’m having to do this now. He’s behaving when we talk about my son, but treats me like I’m dangerous when my son is not around. We are separated and trying to establish support amounts. I thinks he’s either afraid of me or how he’ll react to me . Regardless, I think he doesn’t know how to act now that I’m holding him accountable and not quietly going away.

MissDeltaGirl
MissDeltaGirl
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, Yes!

BetterDays
BetterDays
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Yes!!!

paula
paula
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

“Essentially emotionally blackmailing us to shut the fuck up and not challenge them, and put on a smiley face and be good girls. And to put up with their bullshit behavior no matter what.”

What a tidy, well written piece of brilliance. Very well done GR!!!

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago

I got a slightly different flavour from my X. I called her out on some shady behaviour after D Day. She denied it and told me afterwards she would be a lot more “cautious about reconciliation with me” because I had called her out. A more subtle version of “I will fuck someone else” but still a threat.

After I realised what it was, I knew she had done something post D-Day and quickly brought the curtains down on any idea of reconciliation.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

Good for you, FSTL. Who knows how many miserable months of faux-reconciliation you saved yourself.

lostntx
lostntx
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

We should all take such quick action! That type of threat is just crazy. She’s going to be cautious? Just wow!

Kimhopes
Kimhopes
7 years ago

It’s not just the threat – mine accused me of behaviours he was doing – of spending money irresponsibly when he was spending thousands of dollars on dating sites. They always throw it back at the chump. A real red flag.

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Kimhopes

I was constantly accused of his behaviours too. It became really bad after DDAY but in hindsight I see he did it from the beginning, but I wasn’t wary then and I would believe it and try to improve my ‘bad’ behaviour. It took the enormity of the DDAY bullshit to make me question his blame shifting.

saw
saw
7 years ago
Reply to  Kimhopes

Yes!!!!

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago
Reply to  Kimhopes

I got that as well, but about cheating itself. Fits of rage, pity (“I couldn’t sleep while you were out tonight”) and other controlling behaviour because she insisted I was cheating on her. One night I was out with work colleagues and she never let me forget it, even thought I now know she out with her Fuckbuddy the same night.

So fucked up….

FeralBlue
FeralBlue
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

Yep, I got the same twisted narrative from friends. I was at a wedding shower an hour away for one of my best friends. I got a call from another friend of mine…. The (now ex)hole is at a party with OW(ife) telling everyone about how I’m out “whoring around right now in *location 1 hour away*”…. Wtf.

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

And as I looked back over my marriage, realised there were other examples over the years where she had done the same thing (ie accuse me of affairs), so I assume she was having an affair then as well. It is a HUGE red flag.

Virago
Virago
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

FSTL, also a red flag if you are told that there would be no point cheating because you, being so clever and intuitive, would KNOW immediately. I feel like a duped toddler when I think of those brief exchanges. (while he was exchanging briefs, perchance!) V

WhichWayDidSheGo
WhichWayDidSheGo
7 years ago
Reply to  Virago

My ex used to say that I knew she wouldn’t lie to me because her memory was so bad; she’d be caught out because she wouldn’t be able to remember her lies. Funny thing is, her saying that was always unprompted. I never accused her of lying in the first place!

Not sure what to make of that, but something your comment brought to mind.

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago

My X made a few unprompted comments that I now see as red flags for lying. For example, she volunteered to me that the OM was the only guy she cheated on me with… whilst she had a twitch on her face. Much earlier she volunteered and explained to me why she had started going out a lot more with work colleagues.

Wasn’t anything to do with the convo we were having, but clearly her brain was worrying about it and needed to get it out . It’s a defence mechanism for liars.

Virago
Virago
7 years ago

WWDSG, likewise, these comments were unprompted by me as I NEVER had any inkling or suspicion. ONE woman made me very suspicious back in the 90s. I was quite upset and my family doc, with whom I confided while being treated for a systemic condition, called his behaviour ‘high risk”!! Made me think, but not hard enough!

And when he met his ‘Just Friend’ AP that ended our 22 years, a chill ran through me like electricity (the old ‘someone stepped on my grave’ feeling). He spoke of her to all kinds of people (his kids, acquaintances). I thought that was ‘odd’. Heh. You know the rest of the story. Shite.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

I had the opposite–mine said sporadically that he wouldn’t care if I were cheating. Red flag, though I thought he was just attempting to be Mr. Urbane.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

not that it’s urbane to cheat, au contraire, but in his mind he thought it was. Even called me bourgeouis for my oft-pronounced anti-cheating views. Fucker.

Verity297
Verity297
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest, mine said the same, didn’t care if I found someone else. It was his shitty way of saying he wanted out.

Confused
Confused
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

But then what does this say about us? When we are suspicious and ask about their behavior? Does that make them automatically suspicious about us? Even when you are innocent? The projection thing hurts my mind, because then I get worried that me questioning something will be treated as projection.

Finally Awake
Finally Awake
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

Very familiar. I could never work out why my STBX would accuse me periodically of cheating (2 young kids, covered in spit up and dressed in sweats, yeah sure) but after d day I noticed how they matched up with times he was out a lot in the evenings ” just had to go to the workshop for something”. I was so overwhelmed with the kids and guilt ridden for staying at home with them and not working I didn’t think to question it.

They need to teach projection in schools. Both bad peoples projection of flaws and our own projection of trustworthiness.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Finally Awake

Finally Awake, projection is such a powerful red flag, if you can spot it. But if chumps know they’re not cheating (or spending all the money or eating all the ice cream) and no sensible person would think so, then that is likely to be projection.

NoKibble4U
NoKibble4U
7 years ago
Reply to  Finally Awake

“Both bad peoples projection of flaws and our own projection of trustworthiness”.

FinallyAwake: This is so true!

I was married to a Passive aggressive/Conflict Avoidant cheater. He really never talked about anything deep. I just projected my values on to him since he really never shared. I always assumed he was happy and kind. At the end, I got the “You should have known!” bit – like I’m supposed to be a mind reader!

When he told me he wanted a divorce he also told me that I was unattractive (physically and emotionally – just in case I had any sort of hope of worth), I kicked him out. He came back 2 days later and said he missed me and wanted to try. He was staying at a hotel and wracking up hotel charges, so I told him I would stay with my dad for 3 weeks so that he could get into counseling. I packed up my car, work computer and printer, arranged for my physical therapy to be transferred out of state (I had just had right knee ACL surgery and was still in a leg brace). I drove 5 hours to my dads with braced knee and a sinus infection from crying. Returned 3 weeks later to half emptied home. I dropped 18 lbs in 3 weeks. Upon seeing me he said that I must have found someone new. Unbelievable.

MotherChumper99
MotherChumper99
7 years ago
Reply to  NoKibble4U

I too was “was married to a Passive aggressive/Conflict Avoidant cheater. He really never talked about anything deep. I just projected my values on to him since he really never shared. I always assumed he was happy and kind. At the end, I got the “You should have known!” bit – like I’m supposed to be a mind reader!” STBX screamed at me and our four children that he hated every minute of the pa screamed at me and our four children that he hated every minute of the past 10 years of our life and their lives. What a sick horrible person.

Divinelife
Divinelife
7 years ago

Yes, motherchumper, this was my Horny Goat, too.
How the fuck do they pretend to love and cherish us….while seething underneath? I will never understand that.

lostntx
lostntx
7 years ago
Reply to  NoKibble4U

What a nut job! you can’t make this stuff up. If we could just go back in time. You could respond with yeah I found a real MAN!

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  lostntx

You’re right, lostntx. Everything I’ve read on this site is much stranger than fiction. (If only it were fiction…)

getting real
getting real
7 years ago

BTW:

IF the MC tells you that your being suspicious of them screwing around may create a self fulfilling prophecy where they will go screw someone: TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF.

My MC said that to me. GR, you could create a self fulfilling prophecy….

I asked her why she refused focusing on FF behavior and his calling prostitutes, leaving for work trips with Viagra and traveling unnecessarily to call escorts in another country while leaving me home with an infant, his flagrant disregard to DO remorse and rebuild trust….and instead why is she focusing on my reaction to his behavior and my now lack of safety (indicated of course by suspicion) in the relationship because of his pill popping high flyer traveling prostitute seeking.

Crickets.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago
Reply to  getting real

I think a good opening question to marriage counselors is: “How many times have you cheated on your spouse?” Cause you know a LOT of them have….

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

Same here. MC was professionally trained abuse on top of the naturally gifted traitor’s. Someone on this site once said that MC with a cheater is like giving first aid to a terrorist wearing an explosive vest. Couldn’t have said it better.

Virago
Virago
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

getting real, I love your reply, your feistiness, you mind!! That kind of response would have taken me . . . let’s see . . . how long to come up with? Uhhh, eternity, perhaps! Bless your heart. May newbies, read and learn!!! V

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

Wow. Getting real. You are SO MIGHTY. And very brilliant !

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

Marriage counselors focus on chumps cause it’s easier, and more profitable. Cheaters enjoy having their shit behavior validated, but they will quit going if it’s about their flaes and wrongdoing.

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

Flaws, what the hell are flaes ???

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

Scottish flaws.

Cupcake
Cupcake
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

Flagrant Lewd Arrogant Egregious Sins (FLAES)…. 🙂

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  Cupcake

I guess, lol. Autocorrect put in flaes. Must be a thing.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Hahahahahaaaa!

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago
Reply to  getting real

My MC asked for feedback on her counselling and I made this point as well…. she did nothing to build trust between us and it was all about me fixing myself. Nothing about my X fixing her shitty character or eg dealing with the justifications that lead her to cheat.

My X recited back to me that her “needs were met by someone else”. Was enough to make me vomit and just formed the basis of a series of manipulations where she wanted me to dance to her Pick Me tune. I pulled the carpet from under her when I said it was over and she chased me then, but it was all about money at that point so the mask was off.

Marriage Counselling is a complete waste of time unless it first deals with the cheaters shitty character. If anything, the cheated upon shouldn’t even be there until the cheater has sorted their shit out (assuming the victim is willing to hand around, which I suggest you don’t – go get some space instead).

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

FSTL, I agree with every word you wrote here.

lostandfound
lostandfound
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

I totally agree. Thousands wasted over years he was criticizing me, blaming me and still cheating. And the MC always took his side and never made him talk about the affair (which never stopped). She even suggested that I get a third job to make his life easier (because he said he worked so hard because I spent all the money). She asked if I had foo issues because I “nagged” him to talk about the affair and wanted to talk about why we had a completely sexless marriage. She told me that I should cut off my son financially because my h bitched that we were helping him out financially (thank God I didn’t do that!!). And the best thing ever- since my h had been in alcohol detox in hospital twice (by now, it’s 5 times), the MC said that he could do ‘responsible drinking’ and didn’t have to go cold turkey. A waste of time and money. If they don’t want to change, if they just want to keep gaslighting you to keep a roof over their head while they plot to take everything and leave, if they just want to keep playing the game, MC won’t work. They have to do the work on their own before there is even the slightest chance that reconciliation will work. Oh, and they have to stop fucking other people and lying about it.

Kb22
Kb22
3 months ago
Reply to  lostandfound

I know for a fact that there are fantastic, ethical therapists out there…but far too many unstable nut jobs are drawn to this field.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  lostandfound

And lostandfound, what a quack! I would love an explanation as to why these MCs enable cheaters.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Part of the general societal trend that “there’s two sides to every story.”

Except that the two sides to every story are not necessarily equally valid.

And yes, I will say it, analytic thinking is not a prerequisite for admission to many counseling programs.

Khris
Khris
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

If you can stand one more on the MC, I was also given the “you have to accept 50% responsibility for this” line. That was until I posed the following to the counselor: If i take your car without your knowledge, commit a crime, bring the car back without telling you that would make you 50% responsible for the crime I committed, right? Because it was your car and even though you didn’t know what I did with it, it still makes you 50% responsible, right? His response (in an angry tone): “I will not be cross examined like this” and he ended the session. But I thought it was a legitimate question. That was also our last session.

Arnold
Arnold
7 years ago
Reply to  Khris

Very nice, Khris.

Sicatrose
Sicatrose
7 years ago
Reply to  Khris

My MC told me that I “like to complain a lot.” Yes, when you are financially supporting a drug addict and his (adult)children , all of whom refuse to help you around the house , and then you find out about WH’S LTA with a crack whore, it gives you a lot to complain about. MC said lots of other nonsense too, but this one really got me. Like somehow my nagging WH to pay a bill or God forbid, wash a dish, drove him into the arms of a sleazeball.

Vastra
Vastra
7 years ago
Reply to  Khris

Nice comeback Khris! Counsellors or psychiatrists who say this have no idea, or more likely are cheaters themselves. The comments I got along the theme of “50:50 responsibility for affairs” or “he has a right to be happy” have come from husbands that I have since learned are confirmed or suspected cheaters.

SureChumpedAlot
SureChumpedAlot
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

^^^^THIS^^^^ is priceless Tempest. I love this. My ex-wife’s therapist wanted to choke her!

Vastra
Vastra
7 years ago

Tempest sometimes it only takes a minute to spot a cluster B in inpatient settings like my work. Dead giveaway is when they refuse to come to the interview because they are too busy (smoking or eating a snack) or take the bigger chair by the desk!

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest
You are so right. I just completed a five year psychotherapist training program which was person centred and existential in orientation. Great for most counselling but left most unequipped to deal with narcsssists or related personality disordered clients.
The usual way of thinking is that narcissists do not sign up for therapy willingly anyway. Colleagues of mine who have run into such clients (usually court ordered) find them impossible to engage with as person centred therapy requires them to move past their arrogance, condescension and lack of empathy. One give away sign is that they always try to take control of the session and leave the therapist feeling drained and incompetent. This I think is why narcs so easily run rings around most therapists. Most let them control things rather than admit defeat and do the un thinkable of identifying a client as a lost cause.
One good rule of thumb choosing a therapist is usually to ‘trust your gut’ whatever their ‘reputation’ or qualifications. This of course hard for chumps who are being gaslighted and don’t know which way is up.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

True. And what’s the old joke among therapists–if, after a few sessions your client wants to kill you, you’re dealing with antisocial personality disorder. If, after a few sessions, you want to kill your client, you’re dealing with a borderline (or narcissist).

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Yes!! When and where did that mindset originate, I wonder? They obviously teach it in Quack School. I’m curious what esteemed historical figure invented the concepts that have been twisted into today’s cruel version of the Reconciliation Game for Fun and Profit (except no one’s having fun and the quack is the only one profiting).

Khris
Khris
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

I think we had the same MC. No joke. Mine refused to call the ex out on cheating. At one point I sat there and said “so he can do whatever he wants and there is no accountability? When are you going to confront him on his behavior?” The MC replied “You can’t dwell in the past. If you are not going to move forward there can’t be any type of reconciliation.”

Luckily I found Chump Nation and the next visit to the MC did not go well. I learned so much in that week and used it on the MC. The MC response? “I think you better start figuring how to divorce with the least disruption to the children as its obvious you aren’t serious about reconciliation.” I told the MC, “No, I am not going to be played for a fool any longer.” Saw my lawyer the next morning.

Wish i knew now what I didn’t know when the ex suggested MC. I would never have bothered. What a waste of time and money. Oh, the ex was continuing to see the AP while we were in counseling! But I was the one who was not serious about reconciliation?

FTSL
FTSL
7 years ago
Reply to  Khris

My X was seeing the Fuckbuddy as well. I always suspected and then got confirmation when his wife (who I told) got his phone records and showed their contact… which lined up with my suspicions. She criticised me for “not trying” at MC – whilst she was banging another guy at the same time….

One of the earlier comments is so true – as a Chump we will reach for ANY explanation which is easier to accept that you are being cheated on. If you suspect they are cheating, I would stick with that. It’s a hard thing to accept at the time, though.

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  FSTL

FSTL
You sound well balanced, healthy and sane. Your comments will help so many others make sense of their dysfunctional others.
Good luck!

paula
paula
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

Cappy – I was just about to write the same thing re:FSTL’s comments. So spot-on and perfectly stated. Exactly what a newbie needs to read. Heck – exactly what we all need to read!!!

FSTL
FSTL
7 years ago
Reply to  paula

Thanks – my sanity was saved by Chump nation, so glad it is rubbing off!!

Loulotte02
Loulotte02
7 years ago

Unfortunately so true and accurate, as we chumps needed more validation to trust that they suck…
Good thing is, Chump Lady/Tracey made me smile again with her “chicken” comparison…
Slight difference here for me too: I’ve had “friends” asking me if what Fucktard told them was true: “did you really have affairs during your marriage?” ?

unicornomore
unicornomore
7 years ago

He did accuse me of cheating (most memorably on a day when I worked a 16 hour night shift in a Neonatal ICU caring for critically ill babies – he was SURE that I worked for 12 hours then fucked my coworker. No you asshole, I was making double pay to buy our kids tubesocks) but that wasnt his favorite blameshift…

Right after DDay, he had “decided” to stay with me and break up with OW, but apparently it was a 49% / 51% balance where the winner could shift by the settling of a feather on the scale.

A few days into this wreckonciliation, I tried to hold him accountable for some of his wretchedly abhorrent behavior and his poor widdle self didnt like accountability so he screamed “DON’T TEMPT ME UNI!!!” as in “dont make me answer to things I dont like because I will just walk and it will be your fault”.

and I buckled

I wish now I would have said “If being accountable for your own words and deeds makes you panic and run away then you weren’t really here to start with. If we reconcile it will be with you talking responsibility for what you have done”.

I set the bar way way too low.

Annie Get Your Guns
Annie Get Your Guns
7 years ago
Reply to  unicornomore

The only satisfaction I get about having a second DD, is that if I ever run into the OW I will remind her that after he was caught he chose me over her. And that the only reason she has him now is that after he was caught again, I chose me over him. She never was nor will she ever be of any consequence to me, because if not her, than someone else.

KB22
KB22
7 years ago
Reply to  unicornomore

The minute anyone threatens to leave if you don’t toe the line (whatever the reason) you should ask if they need help packing or simply tell them to get the F out. Again, I’ll refer to alcoholics looking for an excuse to drink, cheaters will look for an excuse to exit or cheat. No sense dragging out what is inevitable.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

I loaded the ex’s moving truck alone while he watched agog (even though he was the one moving out by his own choice). I handed him the key and said, “OK, go.” He asked me how I could be so heartless. I said “Now that I know they number in the hundreds, I just want you out. Please leave.” He did. He was crying as though he was the victim. Completely self-absorbed.

NoMoreEvil
NoMoreEvil
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

+1!!!!!

Chump Mama
Chump Mama
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

Great analogy!!

Murphy Cee
Murphy Cee
7 years ago

Thanks! Love the idea of my powerful mind rays. Maybe I could use them to get the douchbag to sign our divorce papers and give me what the court says he should give me. Thanks ChumpLady!

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago

My ex and I watched the movie Sideways together. In that movie, a guy tells an unknowing woman that she is being lied to and used by the guy’s friend, who is having one last fling before getting married. The woman breaks cheaters nose. My ex was disgusted that the guy ratted out his friend. I can remember sitting there trying not to understand how repulsive and revealing his viewpoint was. They tell us and show us who they are all the time. We just need to learn to listen.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Dixie, I should have that tatooed somewhere visible — “They tell us and show us who they are all the time. We just need to learn to listen.” It’s true! They do! ALL the damn time.

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

Mine was the scene in “Love, Actually” where the guy who’s in love with his best friend’s wife does that thing holding the cardboard signs at the door telling her (without speaking, so the husband can’t hear) that he loves her. — My response was that was totally inappropriate, but XH thought it was cute and romantic because he wasn’t going to DO anything about it. — I remember looking at XH and thinking, “Who IS this guy?” Well, I was about to find out, as it happens.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

Yeah, I do like that movie, but that bit plus the “cute-i-fication” of pornography aren’t palatable at all to me.

UXworld
UXworld
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

One of my favs Dixie — but the cheater character took on a whole new meaning once KK dropped the mask. Whoever wrote it knew what (s)he was talking about.

If you’ll recall, immediately after getting his nose broken, the narc bangs a married waitress and is chased away by her husband. Back at the hotel room, he cries and implores his friend to go back and retrieve the wallet he left behind, as it contains the wedding rings to be used in the ceremony the next day:

“I can’t lose Christine, Miles. I can’t. I know I fucked up, I know I did a bad thing, and I’m a bad person! But you gotta help me, Miles! You gotta help me! If I lose Christine, I… I am nothing! I’m nothing!”

I’d recommend that film to anyone who wants a crash course in revealing the entitled, fucked up derelicts we are forced to deal with.

Arnold
Arnold
7 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Good golf scenes in Sideways,too. Also demonstrates the acceptance of female on male violence. Once again,reverse the roles with a female cheater taking a well deserved beating.like the guy,and it would not be acceptable.
We saw this when that NPD ,Tiger Woods was drugged with a golf club by his wife. I hate that MF ,Woods, but found the lack of public outcry about the domestic violence by Elin interesting.

Arnold
Arnold
7 years ago
Reply to  Arnold

Drubbed. Auto correct sucks.

Lothos
Lothos
7 years ago

Thing with cheaters is blame shifting never stops. I was separated for 2 years and now divorced for almost 2 years. My x is having a hard time with our daughter because she grew up. Our daughter remembers everything that has happened and she no longer wants to see her mother and her mother keeps trying to convince her she was abused by me which never happened. So the two of them get into arguments because the mom insists they did and my daughter insists they did not and then her mother punishes her.

Got this super long email from my X about a huge argument the two of them had and it was all blame shifting. Everything was my fault, my X took no responsibility for her actions. She went with the same song and dance even though all evidence shows she has been lying about everything. What I noticed is she mixes 10% truth with 90% fiction hopping that since the two add up to 100 that people will believe it is 100% truth.

It is sad when things get this bad, the only people who win are lawyers and I am exhausted paying them.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Lothos

Sending hugs and encouragement, Lothos. It’s really tough when children are involved and you still have to deal with the Evil Empire. I have to say, your daughter is one tough cookie!

Lothos
Lothos
7 years ago
Reply to  Fifi

There is a lot more honestly. I sent Chump Lady an email a few days ago about it. I swear common sense has vanished in the judicial system and although they yell “Don’t get children involved” at the same time the yell “If you don’t you the liar will win!”

Mind boggling!

Eilonwy
Eilonwy
7 years ago
Reply to  Lothos

Excellent description of how cheaters do math. I think mine took the same course. If one detail in a story he tells is true, he demands the kids accept every word of it as gospel. Unfortunately, my kids are not quite at a place psychologically where they are willing to call their father out on this.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Lothos

I’m sorry, Lothos. It’s true that these Cluster Bs are the gift that keeps on giving. If your daughter is 11 or older, courts often will not force visitation, and your daughter can choose NC under the circumstances.

icandothis18
icandothis18
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest–I am curious to know how a minor can choose NC? Two of my kids won’t speak to my ex and haven’t for almost a year(kids are 12 & 14 & we are in CA). They are having to do reunification therapy which isn’t proving to be successful. When/if we get to the point of court how can my kids be heard? All the professionals want to push a relationship and they all say that having a relationship with both parents is necessary for kids. I can’t change my kids minds even when I try. My ex blamed them for his unhappiness and lied to them so much. They witnessed how he treated me etc. It’s a mess. 🙁

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  icandothis18

Children whose lives have already been blown up by a cheater already feel helpless; they don’t need to be made to feel MORE helpless by having re-unification therapy shoved down their throats. That is irresponsible (and I have discussed this issue with several excellent therapists).

What is the time frame for the reunif therapy/custody arrangements? I have had the intent of writing a letter that anyone in CN can use when this issue crops up, but the past few months have been insane (had to get house ready to put on the market = hell). Email me at tempest.ariel2014@gmail.com and I’ll see if I can cobble together something by Thanksgiving.

Joyce
Joyce
7 years ago

My ex tried that line on me after last D-Day, but I shot him down quick. I asked him why he cheated when we were engaged, and after we were married, after we had oud Son. I never accused him of cheating on me then and he did it anyway.
Last time i did accuse him because I knew with every fiber of my being that he was. This time I did not ignore this gut feeling I had, as I did THE other times. And I knew the signs now wel enough to know that he was. And he told me, he’s a grown man no one tells him what to do.
So when he tried to use this line on me, I told:” you said it, your a grown man and no one tells u what to do.” So if your cheating your doing it because you want to, and not because I’m”accusing”you. What made you cheat al THE other times, because i never accused you of cheating on me? That shut THE idiot up real quick and he never tried that line on me again.

Ugh no...
Ugh no...
7 years ago
Reply to  Joyce

Oh man. This post was great. When my cheater tried to give me the suspicious minds lecture I finally told him that at my age, my instincts and informants were so good I could probably write the follow up to The Art of War.
He didn’t like that too much.

theotherwhitemansburden
theotherwhitemansburden
7 years ago

Months D-Day, I was packing up the apartment, taking care of kids, and dealing with a major leak in the house. He was half way around the world in a bar planning a vacation in Bali when I asked him to send an e-mail to a contractor. He answered that I was “destroying him” and proceeded to sleep with a woman he met in the bar because he was so “distraught.” He told me “I wasn’t gonna do it, but I did it because you pushed me.” Apparently my powers to guide his penis into another woman’s vagina extend half way around the world. I must be quite something.

Soldiering On
Soldiering On
7 years ago

Talk about being “MIGHTY”!!!

nomoreskankboy
nomoreskankboy
7 years ago

Would you use your powers to give me the winning lottery numbers, please?

theotherwhitemansburden
theotherwhitemansburden
7 years ago
Reply to  nomoreskankboy

Alas, my powers seem to be limited to remotely guiding that particular penis into a large number of vaginas. Not good for much else…except for getting my head out of my ass and my ass out of that marriage. That’s definitely a superpower right there, and it won me a whole lot more than the lottery.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
7 years ago

THIS!

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

That’s it! We chumps think we have super powers to change our cheaters into loyal, decent people. But in fact, we each have a super special super power to guide the only penis we want into all the orifices we DON’T want it to go into!! Damn!

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago

TOWMB
Apparently my powers to guide his penis into another woman’s vagina extend half way around the world. I must be quite something.

OMG. Brilliant ???

paula
paula
7 years ago

It’s like “snooping”, right? Don’t you just hate the multilayered bullshit encapsulated in that concept?
In reality, is it even possible for a spouse to snoop? If you are in a trusting and loving and committed relationship what could you possibly uncover? Shouldn’t every phone and computer and tablet be open and available – we are one, for fuck’s sake!
I discovered my ex’s affair because he loaded Angry Birds on his phone for me to play. Stupid me was just hanging on the couch with the family, focusing on that silly game and a text came in from his girlfriend. I was destroyed. I also turned into an unabashed investigator (as we all seem to).

It was always astounding that my ex blamed my digging for information for his affair – somehow my uncovering his FIVE year affair resulted in the affair. WTH????

This is another example of the extraordinary lengths cheaters will go to justify their miserable behavior – always at great cost to us chumps. Oh and their delusion – wowza – cannot be quantified.

Limey Chump
Limey Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  paula

Cheating and the rise of smartphones – there should be a thesis written on this! The first thing I noticed was how often the ex was on the phone. Then how she had taken to locking the phone and then how she had begun to ensure there were no notifications for texts at all. Of course I felt bad for ‘snooping’ but believe it or not I was actually looking for signs of her fidelity – not signs of her infidelity. She only grudgingly started to admit the truth when confronted with the itemised phone bill which demonstrated that she sent more texts to my erstwhile friend than to anybody else. I honestly expected her to break down sob and beg for my forgiveness (which incidentally she would have got) instead she was very angry with me for finding out and told more and more implausible lies to extend the length of the pick me dance. There was a time when I looked forward to those two cheaters falling apart from each other because how could they possibly trust each other? They are still together 3 years later and actually I’m okay with that – I can’t think of a worse situation being with somebody you are absolutely certain you can not trust.

Blindside
Blindside
7 years ago
Reply to  Limey Chump

The phone nowadays is the biggest giveaway. My wife’s phone is never more than 3 feet away from her. If it’s not in her hand, it’s face down on the table on silent. She’s on it non-stop. The kids aren’t allowed to touch it either. It goes to bed with her, to the shower with her….and it’s always locked. It’s just the giant red flag that they all fly.

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  paula

Ditto regarding “snooping”. I had NEVER even touched this guy’s phone til he told me about his fuck friend and that he wanted a divorce. Which apparently he didn’t want, cause he would not go willingly. I honestly think I wasn’t ” jealous ” enough (I wasn’t jealous at all…) and he wanted cake but wasn’t getting enough just fucking an easy lay whore and calling it “love”. Wife cake is the best cake of all.

David2016
David2016
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

I bought an expensive GPS tracker to put in my XW’s car. I stared at it, thinking, “What have I become? Is this what it’s come down to?” And drove to my attorney instead, literally chanting aloud to myself, “She doesn’t love you she doesn’t love you she doesn’t love you…”

The tracker is still on my shelf, unopened. I think it’s been too long to get refund.

theotherwhitemansburden
theotherwhitemansburden
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

Keep that tracker unopened, as a trophy — that’s your sanity and dignity, intact, wrapped in hard-to-open plastic.

Annie Get Your Guns
Annie Get Your Guns
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

Same here. I was on the point of hiring a friend (retired cop) to conduct a background. I realized if I was willing to go that far, I already knew the answer and it was over.

I also would like to add that if I had the superpower to make him a cheater just by saying it was so, then I would have used it other ways. For example:

“Your honesty is the key to our healthy marriage” = he’s no longer a lying son-of-a bitch and our marriage is healthy; or perhaps

“You’re an unselfish lover” = satisfaction

What a superpower to have to just say it to make it so. The real reason they tell us our constant questioning will make them cheat is that they know we are getting closer to accepting the truth and they are setting us up for the fall.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

You can stick it in your car and then track it if it’s stolen… 🙂

Beachgirl
Beachgirl
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

David, I too had a moment when I was driving past his house at 3am and breaking into his garage to see if OW was there that I realized I had become a complete crazy person. It scared me more than anything he had done to me because I had lost who I was, he is a cheating avusive asshole, but what was happening to me was worse. Big wake up call that it was time to stop.

The horse is dead. Dismount.
I read this phrase very morning to keep myself on track.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Beachgirl

Wow, Beachgirl. The horse is dead. Dismount.

Inspirational.

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

David 2016

Well done you for not going down that rabbit hole. Impressive

Eilonwy
Eilonwy
7 years ago
Reply to  David2016

If purchasing the tracker is what it took to find your boundaries and get free of a bad marriage, then I would say you got a great deal! Heck, some people spend tens of thousands trying to save their marriages as they pay for counseling, take reconciliation trips, etc. Maybe you deserve the bargain hunter of the year award!

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  paula

” is it even possible for a spouse to snoop? If you are in a trusting and loving and committed relationship what could you possibly uncover?” I agree, Paula. It shouldn’t be a big deal if you have nothing to hide!

Martha
Martha
7 years ago

I was never accused of this to my face (having Super Powers that would make him cheat if I accused him of cheating.) BUT, I did see a Drop Box photo that he took of a Christian post someone sent to him (probably our pastor who had no problem blaming me and holding me accountable for my ex cheating and lying). The post said something like, the husband will “pull away” if the wife accuses the husband of cheating and lying. HE WAS cheating and lying! I wasn’t accusing him of anything! I was showing him the facts of what I found out! And then he’d blame shift and gaslight me. I do hope that one day someone totally fucks with the pastors mind like my ex fucked with my mind. Maybe then he’ll understand that there are wolves in sheep’s clothing lurking in the church. Not everyone who looks holy and “nice guy” at church are actually holy. There are actually people who go to church every week who have double lives that are less than holy and pure.

And if I did have these Super Powers that would made him cheat. Well then, why did all my years (15 to be exact) of me not saying ONE WORD about other women, putting up with all his female “friends” and him having an affair and going to strip clubs when I was pregnant — why did my Keep My Mouth Shut Super Power, stop him from cheating then?

You see, you can’t win either way! Because the problem isn’t you, it’s the cheater and their character and entitlement for fresh supply of women (or men.) You could be the most absolute most perfect spouse in the world and they’d still cheat. It’s not you, it’s them. I trust that he sucks. Thanks, Chump Lady. 🙂

Lyn
Lyn
7 years ago
Reply to  Martha

There were many times I got very angry and upset about what I perceived to be my ex’s lack of boundaries with female coworkers. Time and time again, he’d invite me to come along with him on a business trip to a place like Hawaii, then end cozying up to his female boss while leaving me to trail behind. Other times he would take her calls in the evenings to discuss her sex life. She even called him her “work husband.” For some odd reason I found this behavior upsetting and inappropriate, but nothing I said or did seemed to stop their behavior. The problem was that I was too jealous. It wasn’t that he had no boundaries.

When the second coworker came along his behavior became even more upsetting, I started refusing to socialize with her and her husband. He ended up falling in “true luv” with this woman and leaving me (which he swore had nothing to do with her). I asked my counselor if she thought my refusal to socialize with his coworker drove him into her arms she said, “I think you were just trying to protect yourself.” I’d never thought of it this way, and it made me feel a little better. Up until then, I thought my jealous outbursts might have caused him to act like that. Sometimes in relationships it’s hard to determine which came first, the chicken or the egg.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  Martha

Yeah, Jackass was all righteous about being “accused.” How dare I accuse him of what he was doing? How dare I notice the patterns of his behavior?

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Yes, LovedaJackass, you said it! I think that was the most annoying of all, my ex’s outrage and pompous posturing. Usually about stuff he accused me of but was doing himself. After two years I still miss what I thought our marriage was going to be. But when I think of his true character I feel a lot less sad.

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Martha

“The post said something like, the husband will “pull away” if the wife accuses the husband of cheating and lying. HE WAS cheating and lying!” — This is only hilarious because it’s SO ridiculous and logic-defying! They get so wrapped up in their own lies that they believe them themselves.

The Ex-orcist
The Ex-orcist
7 years ago
Reply to  Martha

OMG Martha I tolerated the same stuff. I’m so embarrassed now about it. Why Why Why did I not stand up for myself?? The abuse was horrific on so many levels.
It hurt awful when he decided to take off with Cock Slobber to punish me for not starting a business for him in my name. (Note: I told him no for once). Today I thank my lucky stars he did that. Yup, he didn’t think I would flip the script once I found this site. It wasn’t easy to break that co-dependant bullshit. Thanks Chump Lady & Chump Nation. I’m meh, and he is fucked ??#sorrysociopathbwahahahahaenjoythedowngrade

Anita
Anita
7 years ago
Reply to  The Ex-orcist

Cock Slobber. I love it!

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  The Ex-orcist

The want the WOB status that comes with being a female. I didn’t want to do it either. Not a good idea at all…

Martha
Martha
7 years ago
Reply to  Martha

“why *didn’t* my Keep My Mouth Super Powers…..”

ANC
ANC
7 years ago

My super powers drove asshat to find prostitutes in the Bay Area (SF). I STILL see his ugly ass face and hear his fugly voice when he threatened me to Do It !!! (hook up with legit ho’s) when I confronted him with the evidence found on his lap top.

He still lies. Now instead of involving my vagina in the mix, it’s stupid stuff about the kids. I call him out every single time.

ANC
ANC
7 years ago
Reply to  ANC

I feel like I need to clarify this lap top thing because it encapsulates his cruelty:

He would work frequently from home (when he wasn’t entertaining fuckbuddies across the US and Canada). He gave me permission to use his lap top to send emails, research kid and home related crap, etc… Similar to him sharing his travel photos (with his fuckbuddies in them) with me and the kids, this lap top crap was another FU, ANC! passive aggressive thing he got off on. So me finding the stuff and him threatening me to DoIt! were all parts of the same mindfuck.

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  ANC

Disgusting and extremely abusive, ANC. They have a lot of f-cking nerve. That’s what gets me. They just don’t care about anyone but themselves. Karma takes care of things pretty well. Trust me… What goes up, must come down. And boy does it come down!

JC
JC
7 years ago

The purpose of marriage counseling is to address problems in the marriage.

But cheating is not a problem in the marriage. And it is not caused by problems in the marriage. And it is not caused by the chump.

Cheating is caused by poor character…and it happens in happy marriages, sad marriages, and in unwed relationships.

Marriage counseling has as much chance of addressing cheating as as cough syrup does in fighting the ebola virus.

I learned this the hard way, Clichegurl (with what sounds like an equally harmful MC). Quit MC. It’s a waste of your time and money. If your cheater is a unicorn and (a) stops cheating, (b) attends therapy on his own for a long time to address his entitlement issues, and (c) apologizes profusely and bends over backwards to win you back…maybe, possibly, give him a chance. Otherwise, move on.

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

+ 1000 JC! I fantasize about making beautiful postcards with a tranquil scene and that quote printed across it, and mailing it to every marriage counselor in every country in the world.

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Fifi

Great idea!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

“The purpose of marriage counseling is to address problems in the marriage.

But cheating is not a problem in the marriage. And it is not caused by problems in the marriage. And it is not caused by the chump.”

Repeat out loud when needed.

lostandfound
lostandfound
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

Agree 1000%

Free Vixen
Free Vixen
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

YES, so very true. I think we should have a whole column on this exact concept.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  JC

Applause!!! Well-put, JC.

Loved this: “The purpose of marriage counseling is to address problems in the marriage.

But cheating is not a problem in the marriage. And it is not caused by problems in the marriage. And it is not caused by the chump.”

KB22
KB22
7 years ago

Alcoholics do the same thing. “Give me a hard time about drinking, ok, now I’m going to drink”, “You did xyz, ok, now you have caused me to drink”. Any excuse will do. Such losers.

Lyn
Lyn
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

That’s a good comparison, KB22. Hadn’t thought about alcoholics using the same tactics to blame you for their drinking. Hmm.

KB22
KB22
7 years ago
Reply to  Lyn

Drug users, alcoholics, cheaters, gamblers, thieves, etc. are all weak defects. Even if they give up one vice it only turns them towards another vice or defective behavior. Even if they stop whatever vice they may have, you’ll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is no way to live.

WhichWayDidSheGo
WhichWayDidSheGo
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

If addictions are health concerns, possibly influenced by genetics and environmental factors such as abuse, I’m not comfortable referring to affected folks as weak defects. No more than someone with cancer is a weak defect.

People on this very site have children who have been adversely affected by a parent’s selfish actions. The children might be self-harming, might be unsafely promiscuous, might turn to drugs or alcohol for the sense of relief they need from feeling unwanted or unloved by someone important. I don’t think they’re weak defects either.

None of this is to excuse unacceptable behavior, but these are people too.

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago

WWDSG, I agree.

Ever_the_Empath
Ever_the_Empath
7 years ago
Reply to  KB22

Yes, that’s part of my story too. He kicked his addictions but turned to her an d once I knew about it, and he was apparently trying to regain my trust, he blamed me for asking questions that reminded him of all of it, thus making him do it again. TRUTH was they were still in contact even when I didn’t ask.

Ever_the_Empath
Ever_the_Empath
7 years ago

My ex said, near the end while we were struggling with wreakonciliation, that me asking him if he had talked to the AP “reminded him”/ made him think of her…. if only I hadn’t asked he would have forgotten she existed….

lostandfound
lostandfound
7 years ago

He would come home after leaving me for her (4 times in 5 years!) and say that he wanted to be with me, was meant to be with me, but I had to help him get over her. And stupid me, that’s what I tried to do. I should have said you can have each other, but I danced a little more until I finally gave up.

SureChumpedAlot
SureChumpedAlot
7 years ago

Of course its blame-shifting.

The cheater is just prepping you on telling you in advance.

They know that the truth will eventually surface. They just want to cover their bases knowing that when the truth inevitably comes out they can say, “see I told you that you would make me cheat”.

My 5 year old used to use tactics like this. Peleaaase!!

AllOutofKibble
AllOutofKibble
7 years ago

Yeah, I got a version of that too.
The smarter me knows next time to accuse him of diamond shopping without me so he can surprise me the following weekend.
Oh, that’s right, the smarter me won’t be having a next time!

DavidB
DavidB
7 years ago

Again….. another classic standard cheater phrase! Under a cloak of darkness and passwords, they really are so easy to spot!
Mine used this when I would get close to the truth….. I see it as a scare tactic. Makes the chump pull back on reality….. fear that it may be true. I was such a pathetic loser!

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  DavidB

No, no. It is not being a pathetic loser to fear insulting someone you love. That is a good, kind instinct that cheaters use to manipulate us.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
7 years ago

Saddam told me I drove him into her arms after DDay. Cos you know, they were ‘just friends’ before I found out about it. And like many above the projection starts up pretty fast, he accused me of every shitty thing he’d ever done (and was doing). Don’t fall for that shit Clichegurl. Jedi Hugs!

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  Datdamwuf

OMG, I hate that phrase “just friends.” It’s a big trigger for me, brings me right back to that horrible time with D-Day and me trying to find a place to live and negotiate with Snake-Face who the whole time insisted that he and the Ho He Rode Out On were just friends. I’m gonna go barf up my donut now. (Shouldn’t be eating that crap anyway)

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Fifi

Ho he rode out on! Love it!

Anita
Anita
7 years ago

If someone accuses you if being jealous, it is time to RUN!!!!

Some people do have a jealous nature and they actually are jealous in all relationships. But I think they are aware of it, as well.

Every single time someone has called me jealous, they were actively doing something to cause that. Every time. Trying to fuck whores while married usually leads to “jealousy”, when it should actually lead to divorce.

NoMoreEvil
NoMoreEvil
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

Yes, Anita, I told my XH prior to getting involved that I had trust issues, but that it was my own issue and asked him to be understanding and help me work through them. Instead, he used it against me and blamed “my issues” as an excuse to really cheat, but make me seem like the crazy one and that it was all in my head… And had the nerve to get mad at me when I would questions him about suspicious things!

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  NoMoreEvil

NoMoreEvil, I started off all of my relationships saying that the deal-breaker was cheating and that I had been cheated on in my previous relationships. Just like your cheater used your trust issues to start the cheating, all of my cheaters blew right by the deal-breaker speech and got right on to cheating. They just don’t give a sh-t…

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  Anita

I agree, Anita. They are simply trying to project and weasel themselves out of the situation that they are in. By making us out to be the bad guy and they are now the victims, they take the focus off of them and put it on us. That’s been used on me a few times until I caught on and called it out as BS. Every time he would try it, I would put up my hand and call him out. They just never stop trying to manipulate. It’s absolutely maddening.

blessingindiguise
blessingindiguise
7 years ago

I’ve posted about this “self-fulfilling prophecy” nonsense before after I visited a child psychologist about my STBXH’s slightly (understatement) deviant sexual behaviour. According to this psychologist, the fact that I was concerned about my children because STBXH had about 80% of the parental characteristics for child sexual abusers (from the PeacefulHeartsFoundation) meant that it was likely to happen.
I figure it would be comparable to me pointing out that someone who smokes might get lung cancer.
If all of the conditions are there (because of someone else’s actions/choices/character), then how the hell could it be my fault?
Same shit, different pile.

Lulu
Lulu
7 years ago

Well, I actually did have an extremely paranoid and controlling boyfriend who was constantly accusing me of cheating or accusing me of contemplating cheating.

I will admit that this caused me to think, in moments when I was getting hit on by someone who was attractive, that if I was going to deal with the aggravation of being treated like a cheater then I might as well get the enjoyment of hooking up with someone else.

But that’s also the point when I realized I needed to leave the relationship, and that if I actually did follow through with cheating, I would only be validating his bad behavior and entrenching myself in toxicity.

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Lulu

And that, my dear, is the difference between you and them. You realized the relationship was bad and left. THEN you found someone else. — The order of those actions is actually fairly important, as it turns out.

moving forward
moving forward
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

This!

babe99s
babe99s
7 years ago

The ex was trolling caught him with the skank, told him he needed to think about us, he come back the next day packs all 15 years of stuff and out the door he goes. 2 months later he come back for some stuff he forgot, I thought he had moved back home to find out he moved in with the skank he tried telling me since I did not go in the bedroom and beg him to stay he would not ove moved in with her and cheated. But then he said that he did not know her then when he left what ???? So I said you knocked on a strangers door and asked to move in she opened her arms started pole dancing oh she is a stripper to boot. AND WHAT i LOVE THE MOST NOW IS SHE IS A BIGGER NARC THAN HE IS KARMA IS A BITCH…………gotta love it

Portia
Portia
7 years ago

What bothers me the most about this stuff is WHY did I expect to ever get the truth from a proven liar? It’s like that old adage about drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. I think that somehow our minds just don’t want to accept that we could be betrayed – so easily and so repeatedly – by someone who is supposed to love us and be committed to us. The blameshifting infuriates us because we expect them to know that we would not do something like that, because they should know we have character. It is such an effective tactic — it throws us into defending ourselves, and gets the heat off them.

I decided long ago that I hated the lying and deception more than I hated the actual cheating. In the long run it was more demoralizing. The anger will drive you to fight back, and defend yourself, and launch your own tactical warfare. After a while, you just get worn down and tired of it, and you don’t have the energy to care anymore. That’s when you realize you are done.

mehmehdancer
mehmehdancer
7 years ago
Reply to  Portia

@Portia – yes, everytime I recall the times I was blissfully unaware and 100% trustful of him while I was with the kids/at home/going about life while he had cooked up some excuse (gone to the supermarket, work trip/conference) to be with her (still married but hubs ran off – I wonder why??) and her 2 kids (from different men), his lies and deception literally makes me sick. I cannot face another day with a monster who lies through his teeth.

Aletheia
Aletheia
7 years ago
Reply to  Portia

Yep, it is definitely the lies that I resent. The lies took years of my life. Even now, I only know what I discovered and I am sure there is a huge pile of shit I don’t know. I know enough.

Peakyblinders
Peakyblinders
7 years ago
Reply to  Portia

“WHY did I expect to ever get the truth from a proven liar?” **THIS**

Diana L
Diana L
7 years ago

Apparently, everyone should just think of their cheater giving them a generous divorce settlement and it will happen.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  Diana L

Can I think reeeaaalllly hard of my cheater spontaneously combusting? That doesn’t break any laws, right?

kiwichump
kiwichump
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I think of him and the whore really hard dropping dead in her smelly house with 20 cats, their bodies not being found and her cats eating their faces. Perfectly legal. It’s my happy place.

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
7 years ago
Reply to  Diana L

Haw haw haw ha….unfortunately there’s nothing in it for the cheater so it will never happen. Ha ha haw….made my morning, Diana L!

Michael
Michael
7 years ago

What a childish set up to plant such a lame excuse for when you discover that he’s been cheating the whole time. Your therapist should be paying you to make her/him feel like a therapist.

Beachgirl
Beachgirl
7 years ago

Ahhh the old “of you keep accusing me I might as well just go do it!” strategy. Looking back I remember watching the tv show “The Affair”, cheater asked me what I was watching and when I told him I got the “hmmmmmm isn’t that interesting, why would you watch something g about cheating Beachgirl unless it’s in your head”. Little did I know at the time that he was in full on affair with his comworker. Project much?

During wreckconciliation was the worst though. After I caught him planning to meet a random girl he found on a sex site, and he said sorry, I dared bring it up again and he exploded with rage and dared to say “I’m over these mind games and the issue won’t go away until you’re ready for it to go away so why don’t you go fuck someone else because I’m not interested anymore!”. That one had me scratching my head for a long time. He cheated AGAIN while telling me I was his only true love and he wanted to grow old with only me, he plans a random hook up and I dare to bring it up a week later and I’m the bad guy. He then disappeared, haven’t heard from him since. I guess he only wanted to grow old with me as long as he could fuck around and I never ever dared mention it or have any feelings.

WTF
WTF
7 years ago
Reply to  Beachgirl

Wow Beachgirl. Sounds like you were lucky that he did you the favor of disappearing. Definitely not someone to waste your time growing too old with- life is too short to be wasting your time with a known cheater.

Beachgirl
Beachgirl
7 years ago
Reply to  WTF

WTF, the problem is he never disappears for long. My challenge now is to keep him out of my life and my head. I struggle daily with the raging abusive person I now know he is vs the loving caring husband I thought he was.

WTF
WTF
7 years ago
Reply to  Beachgirl

Dear Beachgirl- you know he is abusive you know he is no good you know he will not change. Find friends who will support you in keeping him out of your like. Abusers are manipulative, he will play nice lull you into complacency and then strike again. Ask yourself is he worth it? If being with a cheater, a person who disrespects you, lies to you, uses you, betrays you, treats you like dirt, is okay with you then stay, but dont complain. However, if you believe you deserve better- then know that he is not the one, and get a new and better life without him. Only you can decide who will be a part of your life and the type of life you want- life with someone who does not respect you or a life feeling good about yourself. Remeber you only have one life to live and only you can determine who is a part of that life.

Beachgirl
Beachgirl
7 years ago
Reply to  WTF

Thanks WTF. After 14 years of his covert abuse and many Ddays, I still struggle with the concept that he never truly loved me. I poured my heart and soul into our marriage and then saving my marriage, all to no avail. He is poisen, I know this and I am working to get better. I think when his mask falls and the true rage comes out it just sends me into a tailspin. How could I have picked and stayed with this person? Still trying to untangle what is wrong with me. One day at a time and right now I’m low but coming here is a point of strength for me.

WTF
WTF
7 years ago
Reply to  Beachgirl

Dear Beachgirl- work on yourself, figure out why you are willing to accept his treatment so you dont do it again. He knows your weaknesses and uses them against you. Chalk it up to a lesson you have learned and discover how not to repeat the mistake again. Yes he was a mistake, your mistakes, but we all will make mistakes in our lives, we will love the wrong person now and again, we will trust the wrong people now and again, but mistakes allow us to grow to change to learn – learn from this mistake. Pick yourself up, put that lesson in your bag of life experiences and forge ahead with your knowledge that you deserve better than being with a turd. Only you can determine the outcome of your life- dont give anyone else the power to determine your happiness. Wish you strength each day to treat yourself better. Remember- its your life and your power. Keep your head up.

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago

One thing I would like to say as a new chump is that I am so grateful for this site and the many ways it protects new chumps from wasting too much time on trying to rescue their already dead marriages. It enables new chumps to recognise cheater strategies and behaviours that I would otherwise have taken months if not years to know. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to read all of our stories here but also funny and empowering to hear all the grit and courage and proper shiny self- help hope going on.
I have not had any blameshifting from mine. He just continues to batter away at my boundaries with sad sausage travails and drain me emotionally from thousands of miles away.
I guess I’m trying to say that this site is really really important and it means a lot.
Sorry for being such a sad sausage myself! But just can’t manage at all yet without this site and the courage and laughs it gives.
❤️

Limey Chump
Limey Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

Sorry to hear of your recent troubles, Capricorn. I don’t know if this is true for others but it was true for me. Betrayal like ours is like grief and the average adult takes two years to grieve so give it time. Just like grief the pain doesn’t really go away but the gaps between each twinge of pain get longer and longer until you realise you have reached meh.
This place has been so important to me I only wish I had known about it in 2013 when it was all so recent and I was performing the pick me dance…
Anyway, good luck with it all!

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

Capricorn, Remind me again why you aren’t no contact with him? I can’t remember, do you have kids? — I only ask because you’re going to have a hard time getting to Meh with him tugging on your heartstrings — NC is the quickest way to do that.

Example: The other night, I woke up in the middle of the night and for a moment allowed myself to remember how nice it used to be to reach across the bed and feel his warmth there. I would just rest my hand against his back or hip and drift back to a contented sleep. — That same night, I had a terrible dream about us being back together; it was terrible because we were happy and I woke up with all that emotional hangover from the love feelings I’d had in the dream.

I’ll bet I haven’t thought of XH in that way for over two years, and yet my body remembers. My brain remembers. Those are neural pathways built up over decades, so it’s reasonable to think it will take time to extinguish them. Each time you re-trigger feelings of love and compassion and affection for him, it’s like a dying plant getting a burst of water to revive it.

If you can’t go full NC, try to find a way to distance yourself from him. Thousands of miles is too much space to be battered from. Good luck.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

How funny, NWB–I wonder it this is a common phenomenon? We are roughly the same amount of time from D-day, and just this week, I had a “phantom marriage” experience. As I left work, it momentarily crossed my mind that I was headed home to an intact family & marriage. “Weird,” I thought, since I have crafted a new life for myself.

Is it our subconscious re-activating old memories in order to finally get rid of them? Or now that the raw emotions have subsided, we have the freedom to think back fondly on some aspects of our relationships? Anyone else have this about 2 years out?

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

For me, it’s the freedom to think back fondly. Or try. — I feel like, ultimately, it’s going to be important for me not to feel that I “wasted” all that time, and to do so, I have to honor that the relationship (perhaps from only my own perspective) had value. So I dip a tentative toe in the water sometimes and let myself think, “Yeah, that was kinda nice.” And sometimes I think it’s my brain tricking me, but I don’t think so this time. I’m much less brain-volatile than I used to be.

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

Thanks NW

Fact is I am no contact mostly because I am an idiot. We do have 3 boys together and he is back out working in Asia. I found out in June, filed a couple of weeks ago. He is back for a week in early December to sign papers and hand in financial stuff then the divorce will be final a couple of months after that.
I was basically a single parent for six years as he worked abroad, he had affairs for four of those. We FaceTimed every day and texted a lot. We talked a lot. Even about all the dangers and difficulties of being so much apart. But he earns a lot and we have University for two boys to pay for.
I was his emotional prop. I didn’t realise he had three others over the years one after the other. Now he is (I think) alone and doesn’t have me or the boys (they went NC). I worry he will implode taking our financial security with him. I was a SAHM for 20 years while he was often away.
I guess I am thinking of a cost/benefit thing. Appease until divorce final then try harder on NC. I guess I should confess to actually just being afraid of NC. I worry he will get angry or cut us off or some such thing. I’m not a very brave chump really. I did do the divorce thing and can go back to being a therapist next year (I can’t yet as I am in a mess myself). I do like Dixie suggested try to do a hard thing every day but NC cold turkey is just hard even though I know I am making it worse for myself. He trained me well I guess. I’m trying!

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

I’m going to say something from a very privileged perspective, so please take it with a huge grain of salt: I think, Capricorn, that at some point, you have to think, What is the worst thing that would happen if he [cuts us off / gets angry / takes our financial security with him]?” — I say privileged because I don’t have kids, I have a portable career, and I had a bit of a financial cushion when XH & I divorced. In fact, I ended up giving HIM money but less than the courts would have awarded (long story). AND I know there are some horrible stories out there about angry cheaters who have been very vindictive and violent. So I’m not encouraging that, by any means.

But if I will also say this: (and this is really none of my business, so take it with a huge grain of salt, OK?) — You may end up having more self-respect in the end if at some point you just say to yourself, “Fuck it. Let him do his worst!” and then advocating entirely for yourself. Other chumps may disagree and say the best plan is to play nice until everything is resolved. That’s up to you. But a) playing nice doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be cooperative, and b) I’ve seen chumps here claw their way out of absolute rock-bottom and come out mightily on top.

I will also off this unsolicited advice: Work helps. I’m a veterinarian, and going to work every day gave me something to focus on that wasn’t just my self. — I know you feel a mess, but giving yourself a goal outside of yourself and your own pain may help you feel better. And knowing that your life matters, you are helping other people, that’s got to help, too, right?

As I said, these are just suggestions. But for as long as you sort of play along with him, I think you’re going to continue to feel bad. If you absolutely must do it, then mentally cast yourself as a heroine of a movie, who has to play along with the bad guy to survive & escape for herself and her son. Watch the movie, “Room,” because it’s not an exaggeration to say that you are that woman — we were ALL that woman — and we are mighty to do what we need to to survive.

Aletheia
Aletheia
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

Secure your mask before helping anyone else. Knowledge is power. Figure out where you stand money-wise and health insurance. If you can manage the time from his implosion to your employment readiness… there you go.

I’m being easygoing to secure myself and my future on my terms. It isn’t easy nor satisfying. But, it does please me to be strategic and not letting crazy moments rule me.

Capricorn
Capricorn
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

NW
Thanks for all the thought that went into that reply. You are of course absolutely right. I think I am having trouble because I only found out four months ago and we were married for 22 years. Its feels like turning a container ship – it takes a while.
You are right that work will help. I will definitely begin soon. As I work as a therapist I have to ensure I am fit to work emotionally speaking.
I do have to go NC. I am struggling but I do give myself a bit of a pass that it is early days.
Thanks so much for the reply. I have copied it to read over in the next few days.
❤️

NWBiblio
NWBiblio
7 years ago
Reply to  Capricorn

I always forget it’s so early for you yet. I sincerely apologize. I forget how capable we all are of sounding sane while inside our brains there’s the chaos of grief.

Of course you’re struggling, and you go ahead and give yourself a pass for as long as you need to. I just remember that everytime I would break NC (usually by snooping on his FB or instagram), it was like a fresh dagger in my heart. I can still see the afterimage of that first photo, mere days after he moved out, of their feet blacklit in a bar, wearing flip-flops; she was sitting on his lap by the photo.

Good luck — you are mighty!

Fifi
Fifi
7 years ago
Reply to  NWBiblio

Capricorn, I second what NWBiblio said so well and eloquently. My (very good) counselor said it just last week — “the body remembers.” So true. NC if you can, my dear- it’s really painful but you get past the pain quicker than if you drag out contact.

moving forward
moving forward
7 years ago

Ah the cheater logic. It always gave my analytic mind a throbbing headache, like trying to figure out a math/logic problem: A) you don’t trust me + B) you are too controlling = C) something is wrong with our relationship/you, therefore the answer is D) cheating is the only solution.

Fast forward past DD#2 and divorce, to a conversation with friends who said “what could you do? you are a trusting person”.

The bottom line – cheaters cheat because they want to.

CalamityJane
CalamityJane
7 years ago

Hang in there, Cappy. We have all been in your shoes.

I am changing the subject sort of. I have been communicating with a narc for the last several months to figure out what the hell I do to attract these motherfuckers and how I project onto them. Oh, hey, what do you know, I see things that ARE NOT THERE. I build character WHERE IT DOES NOT EXIST. I imagine attributes WHEN FACED WITH IMMORAL FLAWS. I praise POOP instead of flushing it down the toilet. This fellow I dated for a short time was a perfect case. Okay, I did use him for my experiment, but he was a complete asshole who pinched waitresses asses and pounded his chest like a gorilla. I was never mean and let it play out mostly by email. I think I was brought up that when faced with horrible character flaws to look the other way. I made life safe for cheating entitled assholes. I am so embarrassed I gave these POSs any reign in my life AS LONG AS THEY DIDN’T CHEAT. The one thing that I was incapable of doing was looking the othe way when confronted with cheating.

That’t right, fucking entitled assholes who could rule AS LONG AS HE DIDN’T CHEAT. Eyes WIDE OPEN NOW.

We really have to work on ourselves as to why we marry or why we would even contemplate continued cohabitation with such awful people. Like someone said, the cheating is only one part of the equation. It’s the other gaslighting, passive aggressive bullshit behavior that damages as much as if not more than infidelity. I continue to refer to this wonderful site and people as I find my way.

Fast forward, I told gorilla I am sorry we could not find romance but can remain friends as we are in the same social circle. He gets to be who he is..and now, so do I.

Tempest
Tempest
7 years ago
Reply to  CalamityJane

CalamityJane–I’m sorry the last romantic endeavor turned out to be more of the same.

My worry is that our attractions to dipshits are so implicit, so buried in our childhoods, that conscious work on “fixing the picker” is going to have minimal effect. Because we want to maintain the wonderful chump traits that make us who we are (compassion, willingness to help others), we are always going to be magnets for the disordered.

I suspect the best we can muster is veto power as soon as jackass traits rear their ugly head in a person. Statistically, we must at some point interact with people to whom we are attracted that aren’t disordered, right? Please? right?

Chump Mama
Chump Mama
7 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest, I agree wholeheartedly with this: “Because we want to maintain the wonderful chump traits that make us who we are (compassion, willingness to help others), we are always going to be magnets for the disordered.”

At this point, I am not planning on ever dating again. It’s early in the process for me, but I don’t foresee this changing. I feel like it is not worth the risk, and hey, I could be pretty happy with a cat, a cute little house, and lots of traveling.

Dixie Chump
Dixie Chump
7 years ago
Reply to  Chump Mama

Chump Mama, I totally hear you on dating. But don’t give up on love. The world is full of love and like attracts like. There is happiness out there for every chump heart.

CalmityJane
CalmityJane
7 years ago
Reply to  Dixie Chump

I have attracted other chump men. I dumped them for the assholes. But I know what I am doing wrong. I no longer have that overwhelming desire, because I am not the invincible snowoman, to show the fucktards what real love feels like. I am NOT SPECIAL. Thank you CL for that honest assessment of myself. I finally, FINALLY have accepted my version of real love and their version is quite different. If I am honest about what I will tolerate, the Jerks disappear. They are not interested in me. I am not their supply chain. I have to accept rejection (considering the source) and move on. It was a very short lived romance with the gorilla, because for the FIRST time in a very, very, very long time I did not put on my faded rose colored glasses and saw the cliff awaiting me past the cardboard cutout.

The world is full of love. You just have to wait ’cause it don’t come easy. It’s a game of give and take.

Tempest. You are right. It stems from an old childhood wound and my adult Calamity just took care of little Calamity’s way of doing business looking for approval.

SureChumpedAlot
SureChumpedAlot
7 years ago
Reply to  CalmityJane

Dixie, Chump Mama, Tempest and Calamity Jane-

In regards to being attracted to someone that isn’t disordered….

You see, I think I know what might work here….at the very least it should minimize being attracted to the disordered.

I think you have to *first* observe the potential xxxx from a distance. Not a one-time, “oh he is kind” or “oh he opened the door for me” or “oh he asked me out.” I mean *observe*, week after week after week. Don’t let them know you are observing them. If they chat to you, chat back – but continue to observe. They have to first prove to your intellect and emotions that they are worthy for you even consider to date them.

So which setting defines a “week after week after week” setting. For starters, any clubs that your are passionate about, church gatherings, bazaars, the server at the local coffeshop, etc. Anywhere where you see this person on a somewhat daily/weekly basis. Your goal is to see how they interact with others. You want to see genuine kindness from a distance, their compassion from a distance, their humor (or whatever touches your buttons) from a distance. And, if you like what you see at this point, you should then be naturally attracted. Time-to-make-the-move! By doing this, you just gave yourself a bit of a comfort zone. The comfort in getting a glimpse of their character *without* their interjection. Judge them on their actions to others and not their words to you (at first).

For me, this excludes bars, online dating, blah-blah-blah, etc. People in bars or online dating are usually on their best behavior especially if they are disordered. They embellish. They lie of emission. The list is endless.

Virago
Virago
7 years ago

CL, your cartoon guy looks terribly like MoFaux. I had to get up and run around the apartment uttering intelligence like “Argh. Gack. Urgh. Ewwww.” If I was overheard ~~ there will be ambulance sirens soon.

Clichegurl raised the fascinating, yet preposterous supposition that an accusation could be causative. In that case, I have a few retrospective accusations for MoFaux:

‘I have reason to believe that you are an excellent lover.’

‘There is evidence to support that you have been scrubbing toilets, vacuuming and dusting. EVERY single weekend.’

‘Someone said they overheard you telling the truth the other day!’

‘I’m really starting to think that you are exhibiting signs of loyalty.’

‘Some days I wonder if you are harbouring kind thoughts toward me and I’m worried that you will even start to defend me as a rightful member in your family.’

If I had only known. V

Jojobee
Jojobee
7 years ago
Reply to  Virago

^ ” The preposterous supposition that an accusation could be causative.”

If only. Tell me, why is it that everyone can see the absurdity of your statements Virago–yet it seems like almost no one in our culture can suss out the absolute stupidity of the supposition that an accusation of cheating causes cheating? I have to admit that I fell for this one too–and shut my mouth. I always felt like there was something wrong with it, but literally EVERYONE I knew just kept parroting it back to me. Thank you for stating things so succinctly.

Virago
Virago
7 years ago
Reply to  Jojobee

Jojobee, we were all ‘under the influence’. We trusted our life partners. We were invested and loyal.

BUT, we were operating through well established neural pathways, grooved wider and deeper every day. All influenced so strongly by deception and withholding of affection (HUGELY affective & effective).

Our thoughts and behaviours were governed by hormones and neurotransmitters that are powerful operating systems. This physiologic state prevents intelligent, capable chumps from seeing truth. From detecting the absurdity.

As for the rest of the folks out there, I’m unsure what accounts the bizarre cheater apologist stance. V

K
K
7 years ago

Well said CL. The other day I was talking to a male friend of mine, and he was telling me he broke up with his fiance because she was very jealous and possessive and it drove him crazy to be painted in a light that didn’t reflect who he is. He did the adult thing and BROKE UP WITH HER. This was after therapy and letting her look at his phone whenever she wanted, and having all his passwords. I asked him if he was ever tempted to cheat because of her behavior, and he looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I try to prove her right when the whole point is that she was off base and that hurt me??” he asked. One forgets that people without this twisted logic walk the earth. But they/we do. We really really do.

UXworld
UXworld
7 years ago

Kunty Kibbler’s variation on this, but directly in line with the mindset of “you made me/will make me to this,” was:

“I know I’m going to make mistakes, and I’ll need you to reel me back in when I do.”

It became very clear in a very short amount of time that this meant: “I’m going to continue to try and keep my activities hidden from you — and if you do ever find out, I’ll take any short-term lumps but learn to hopefully be better at deceiving you next time.”

There was also the time I confronted her with evidence from her iPhone of the most horrific kind (accusing me of physically abusing her to one of her fuckbuddies), and her response was, “Well, I guess I can’t trust YOU now, either.”

unicornomore
unicornomore
7 years ago

Odd thing…without anyone saying so to me, I thought that accusing someone of cheating without ABSOLUTE proof was a dishonorable thing to do. I never ever accused him.

So it is ironic to have learned that he was a serial cheater who was NEVER accused.

In his universe, everything made sense IF you accepted the premise that I was a horrible wife who deserved whatever he chose to dish at me. The cheating, the meanness, his assumption that he was noble to stay in the marriage…it all worked if you just believed that I was awful.

but I wasn’t awful – I was a great wife

ChumpionoftheWorld
ChumpionoftheWorld
7 years ago

Hey chumps,

Instead of sharing my cheatin’ ex wife’s blame shiftin’ (I couldn’t help it! you were negative!) I want to share a quick story from a female friend of mine:

My single friend Deb met a guy in her cycling group who was charming and friendly. He was attracted to her, revealed he was indeed married and said he wanted to have an affair, He said he needed to because wife would not have sex with him.

She asked why, and his answer was “because she caught me having an affair”.

Sort of an infinite spinning shit causal loop of narcissistic logic.

notadoormat
notadoormat
7 years ago

During my 20 year marriage my now exh regularly insinuated that I had, was or would cheat on him. And as an aside I definitely need to address why I put up with that shit.

I never cheated but more than once I did say to him that if he kept accusing me I might as well go ahead and cheat – at least I wouldn’t be accused for nothing.

In the end he built up this whole story in his head how I cheated on him. That became his justification for his emotional infidelity. Shortly after DDay he even had the gall to say that now I could come clean about my cheating. I just looked at him, shook my head and said: “nope, sorry, I’m not going to start lying now. I’ll say it one last time I never cheated.”

unicornomore
unicornomore
7 years ago
Reply to  notadoormat

I think on DDay, he REALLY thought he was going to fess us to OW and I would say “well what is good for the goose is good for the gander, I had my fun too” but I hadnt…and I think he was shocked. I believe it was part of his internal narrative for so long that he hadnt questioned it in a long time.

There he was on DDay looking at me heartbroken face when he told me his relationship had turned physical. So he backpedalled and said it hadnt (my mind was so freaked out and desperate for any relief of pain, I shoved that data into a compartment I refused to open) and he denied the sex part until his last breath.

To a certain degree I think it was his undoing…a giant failure he could never fix…a betrayal of the good wife who was faithful and believed in him. For the last 5 years of his life, I would go into his office and he would be hunched over his computer and he looked like he hated himself. I even asked him why he hated himself when he had such a good life…he had painted himself into a corner of Biblical proportions and the one person who sought to help him was the one he hurt most.

So when he interacted with me, he felt bad…it must be me. He was ready to leave again and now I know why…if he had left he could have started over, fresh slate…but he still didnt want to be the bad guy. I will never know how it would have unfolded if he had lived.

Libflow
Libflow
7 years ago

Oh my, very interesting read. I love your logic and how you handle mind fuckers denial and excuse. Can I offer you feedback on one thing though? It’d be really great if this “Leave a Reply” widget is located above the existed comments, because in order for me to leave a reply now, I have to scroll down hundreds of amayzing replies, which is a bit of tiring *mind you, my energy has been squeezed by a narc ex loitering around my life.

Just for the chance to reply and read your articles, I thank you again.

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago
Reply to  Libflow

My reply button is right below your comment. I don’t have to scroll anywhere. If you don’t have it showing, maybe refresh.

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago
Reply to  susie lee

Whoops just realized this was an old post, I read through though, some good posts and a few really odd ones.

LookingForwardsToTuesday
LookingForwardsToTuesday
3 months ago

I hope that Gurl got this worked out. A good therapist will help you process “stuff,” work out what it means to you and what you can do about it. Part of this process is about what it is that you need to “own” and what it is that you don’t (or shouldn’t) try to “own.” The narrative here has the therapist trying to “own” responsibility for their Cheater’s choices ….. clearly a this therapist does not fit into the “good” category and needs to be dumped.

On the subject of “not very good therapists” I had one (and we only did one session before I dumped her) say to me – in connection with my reaction to something crass that Ex-Mrs LFTT did just after our divorce was finalised – “LFTT, you are a good looking guy and what you need to do is get on Tinder and just f*ck your way out of this.”

That was a “hard no” from me in terms of what she recommended, a “hard no” when it came to scheduling further sessions and the conclusion that some therapists really should not be allowed to practise.

LFTT

Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior
3 months ago

LFTT, not quite on point but another example of what seems to me to be a weird reaction to a situation. I’m a UK lawyer. I met a male KC in a professional context. Coincidentally the ex had worked at this man’s then law firm many years ago but that’s a whole other story! He asked me to what I considered to be a professional lunch at a stuffy London club. During lunch another coincidence: he used to share a house with one of my male law firm partners. I mentioned him to the partner because there were some work opportunities there. So far, so dull! At our firm Christmas party this week, the partner sidled over to me and said: ‘Mighty, KC is a lothario’. When I stopped laughing at his use of the word ‘lothario’, I said ‘we met professionally and he’s married’. The partner said ‘but Mighty, he was married when I knew him and that didn’t stop him’. I looked him hard in the eye with my toughest Paddington stare and said ‘but him being married does stop me!’ Having a relationship with this KC had never crossed my mind! And I find myself justifying myself. It was all about work. I hate people thinking that I’m trying to hook up with every man I meet!

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago

That’s so inappropriate and such terrible advice. It sounds like she had the hots for you. I bet she’s on Tinder herself.

LookingForwardsToTuesday
LookingForwardsToTuesday
3 months ago
Reply to  OHFFS

OHFSS,

I’m sure certain that she didn’t have the hots for me; she did clarify that “guys aren’t my thing” as an afterthought. I’m also self-aware enough to know that I’m not attractive/charismatic enough to make women want to throw themselves at me 45 minutes after we have first met.

Fundamentally she was missing the point in why I wanted to talk to her. She seemed to think that “I am struggling to process how something that Ex-Mrs LFTT has just done is affecting me” meant “I am struggling to get over Ex-Mrs LFTT leaving.” It was also (in my opinion) just plain unprofessional of her to suggest ….. well, you get the gist.

Anyway, (to quote Forrest Gump), “That’s all I have to say about that.”.

LFTT

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago

Okay, understood. I find it weird that she talked about how attractive you are and made sexual suggestions, because that’s a no-no for therapists. It can create transference.

My FW claimed a therapist advised him to use Tinder.
I found out that in actual fact he was warning him how lonely and sad his life was going to be. “You’ll probably be using Tinder.” meant; “You poor dumb slob, your life is going to suck. ” FWs are as self serving with their interpretations as they are with their lies.

LookingForwardsToTuesday
LookingForwardsToTuesday
3 months ago

Minor edit; I meant that the therapist was trying to get the Chump to own responsibility for the Cheater’s choices.

Viktoria
Viktoria
3 months ago

I’ve never heard of this one before and it’s a new level of WTF.

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago
Reply to  Viktoria

I never heard it touted by a therapist, but my ex said tht to me early in our marriage. He was spending some time with an older woman, and I didn’t like it. He said “if you accuse me I might as well do it.” Shut me up for 20 years until he left me for his whore, and told me he never loved me, and had been cheating for 10 years. I am convinced he was lying, and had actually been cheating on me our entire marriage. But, he wasn’t ready to leave until he got full use of me and my youth.

Elsie_
Elsie_
3 months ago

I didn’t experience this, but OH MY! The immaturity and blaming!

As if adults have no control and agency. My ex certainly told me that if he cheated, it would be my fault. So if I’m in another state, who unzips your pants? YOU!

I remain thankful every day to be in this chapter of life. I’m going to a local Christmas party tonight with some of my dearest post-divorce friends. Life is good.

MotherChumperNinetyNine
MotherChumperNinetyNine
3 months ago

Maybe it’s that time of year when my temper is short, but I’m getting more enraged by cheater apologists and the irrational mindset of cheaters/narcissists/sociopaths…. It’s ABUSE! Tracy, I know you are changing thoughts on this and it cannot come fast enough! Gurl, run away from these types…. They are dangerous!
PS- I woke to a message on my college student’s parent site about two separate incidents of sexual assaults against two students that occurred on a single flight home last night. WTF???!!! Two perpetrators! Two victims! On a single flight. It’s abhorrent and I’m angry. Apparently the FBI is involved and both victims (previously unknown to each other) are pressing charges.

Squeaks
Squeaks
3 months ago

lol I got this one too! The OW was an employee of my FW’s. I spent months hearing about how she was unreliable, lazy, kind of insane, stinky (she liked patchouli… like a LOT of patchouli), and attention-hungry.

Of course there was an extended period of denial and gaslighting prior to DDay, during which I genuinely thought I was losing my mind but couldn’t shake the feeling that FW was cheating.

After DDay he was like, “I think you put the idea into my head. She isn’t even my type.”

Okay, buddy. There are medications you can take, now, for this sort of delusional thinking. Seek help.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 months ago

It’s things like the old “you made me do it with your telepathic Voodoo powers” that clearly demonstrate how cheating is on the same continuum with domestic violence. It’s all classic “shit that batterers say.” In fact, I think learning this demented mental blame jujitsu in childhood from abusive role models (a blameshifting ritual that was probably honed and polished over many generations) is what lays the ground for abuse in the first place.

Researching studying the process of “neutralization” or the elaborate mental process of “guilt/stigma reduction” observed in a range of serial offenders note that individuals with “zero empathy” are relatively rare while domestic abuse is alarmingly common so most abusers arguably have to use mental tricks to selectively switch off empathy in order to live with the heinous things they do, moreover continue to repeat these things. I suspect it all starts with learning to blame others for negative emotions and events. Every human being experiences bouts of disappointment, fear, shame, anger, etc. Abusive personalities simply learn from infancy to externalize all of it like hot potatoes, typically to partners but also to children, underlings at work or to entire marginalized groups of people. In dysfunctional families, this is also a way of throwing another member of the family in the path of an abuser who’s on a rampage. I think it creates a lifelong superstitious pattern of responding to fear of any kind of pending negative event (bad economy, aging, getting laid off, health concerns, looming potential consequences for ill-deeds, etc.) by knee-jerkedly heaping shame and abuse on a designated scapegoat to “appease the gods of doom.”

Anyway, no surprise that, especially when caught, blameshifting is what oozes out of cheaters’ every pore because it’s the sick thinking pattern that preceded and paved the way for abuse and betrayal. Designating scapegoats is basically their fundamentalist religion. And just like indoctrinated members of a cult, abusers like this may go berserk and double down on their “articles of faith” if anyone casts doubts on their sacred blamey rite.

Elsie_
Elsie_
3 months ago

My therapist talked some about the elaborate process as you describe. She had been an ER nurse, then an occupational health nurse, and then got her PhD in her 50’s. Her approach was always very sciency and analytical.

She called it a technical process of the unraveling of normal human emotions and thought processes and the rebuilding of a false structure that supported their own beliefs and emotions. My ex was in his sixties, and she said it was a lifetime of work to get to that point. She had seen us both separately over many years. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked out and cried all the way home.

My attorney got it but later admitted that he had underestimated just how delusional my STBX was that way. He coined the phrase “no empathy and no regard for the law” as my STBX’s guiding principles.

My ex has re-partnered, thankfully many states away. I realize that disordered people sometimes attract disordered people, but oh my.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 months ago
Reply to  Elsie_

“I realize that disordered people sometimes attract disordered people.” So true but, at least when they’re young, some disordered types might be trying to fight against repeating destructive patterns of their dysfunctional families of origin. Instead of marrying the doppelgangers of their toxic role models, they may attempt at first to swing wide and find the reverse. Which is where chumps come into play. Except of course chumps don’t have Voodoo powers to “inspire” criminally inclined douches to be “good”– which criminally-inclined douches tend to see as the failure of chumps (this can partly explain why cheaters seem so enraged at their own victims). Also FWs eventually get tired of all the mirroring and mask-wearing required to remain in a relationship with an ethical person. Wearing the disguise of a “good guy” to avoid rejection can get pretty tight in the crotch. So most closeted FWs are eventually going to “come out” with a vengeance and boomerang back into chasing the psychic twins of their dysfunctional role models. Which is where affair partners come in handy. Clearly affairs are excellent filters that only let in the most toxic POSs– those willing to participate in the abuse of someone they don’t know or even aid in betraying and robbing the college funds of children.

If you ever saw the old Sopranos series, there was a brilliant and observant bit about this regarding Tony Soprano’s choice to marry Carmela. Given Tony’s psychopathically narcissistic, filicidal mother, the therapist character notes that the smartest and healthiest thing Tony ever did was marrying Carmela who was so different from his mother and probably the only thing keeping Tony from going fully off the rails. The therapist notes that one way that Tony keeps trying to blow up his life is in repeatedly getting involved with side pieces who are toxic dead ringers for his mother.

The series is very fair in showing the price that Carmela pays for playing the part of human “moral bulwark” or “brakes” against her serial murderer husband’s high speed descent into hell. We get to see the irony of the fact that the therapist doesn’t fully appreciate what she’s condemning Carmela to by encouraging Tony to keep his marriage together.

Elsie_
Elsie_
3 months ago

Ah yes, I forgot about Tony Soprano.

I’ve often thought that I was the safe choice, but not the woman he really wanted. He was bad about making comparisons that cast me as inferior. His type was promiscuous and sexually aggressive. I connected those data points many times and wondered if I was headed for trouble down the road. I was clearly not his type, so then why did he marry me? That shattered my confidence.

The woman he’s with now is nothing like me and is more like his ideal. But that type isn’t necessarily the type that stays around, and they can have their own game in mind. Not my concern though.

Kb22
Kb22
3 months ago

Alcoholics say pretty much the same thing…”Ok just for asking me not to drink, now I’m going to drink!” It’s a “see what you made me do” because hey, it’s your fault not the cheater or alcoholic’s fault. Such losers.

Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior
3 months ago
Reply to  Kb22

Kb22, the ex behaved in precisely that way. He was a functioning alcoholic. I would watch dumbfounded when, having suggested that we go home from a dinner or party, he would say ‘ok’ and immediately grab himself another large glass of red wine or three. We had so many rows either when I was driving us home or on the tube, inflamed by his drunkenness, especially at this time of year. He convinced himself that I drove him to drink (ignoring the fact that he was always drunk when with exgfOW – I knew them both a little before they split up for the second time 30 years before he left me for her). I never suggested to the ex that he was cheating during our 26 years together. Foolishly it never crossed my mind that he would do so. He often said that he was an extremely loyal person. I now realise that he did not mean loyal to me! I am therefore living proof that even if you don’t accuse them of cheating they still cheat! It’s impossible to do right for doing wrong.

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago

People believe a lot of things that are errant nonsense. That includes therapists. If you have developed your post-chumping bullshit detection system, you’ll be able to spot it and dismiss it.
I’ve learned that you can’t talk most people out of these kind of irrational beliefs. They cling to them as if they were a life raft, so obviously they must be extremely important to them. Leave them to their sad little self-delusions and just get away from them.

Elsie_
Elsie_
3 months ago
Reply to  OHFFS

I didn’t find Chump Lady until I was post-divorce, but probably my favorite saying ever is TRUST THAT THEY SUCK. Yes, they do.

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago
Reply to  Elsie_

Yeah, and you have to keep trusting they suck even if they decide to pretend they don’t suck.
It also answers the burning question of why they did it. They did it because they suck. No further explanation is necessary.

Elsie_
Elsie_
3 months ago
Reply to  OHFFS

Exactly. With one exception post-divorce, everything he did from the time the attorneys got involved until now sucked big time. I suspect the one time he didn’t suck was driven by a girlfriend.

And he spawned all the mess because he sucks. Big time. Thankfully, I’m happily divorced, and he’s occupied by the latest tru luv.

2xchump
2xchump
3 months ago

This is not Friday challenge day but I have to share from my experience with 2 shady blame shifting cheaters and wonder about your experiences. #1 cheater said he got the idea to cheat from my cheating brother in law who ran off with the pastors wife while my sis was pregnant and had a 5 year old. Cheater.#1 said to me.”well Chump, it’s better he run away with the pastors wife than to blow his family away with a gun like some guys do!! He deserves to be happy if he’s not happy. Big clue on the cheater that was referring this story of FREEDOM from a boring marriage . Cheating is BETTER than murdering your wife and kids in cold blood.
Second cheater told me that his daughter making her husband sleep on the couch and refusing him sex was grounds for that son in law to cheat . What better way to ” show her” he was a man and had needs!! So my take from these two conversations with the two cheaters I had was…listen to what he says Outloud about divorces in the family,and see what level the sewage gets up to. Just a thought..

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 months ago
Reply to  2xchump

Very telling that spousal murder is the “natural alternative” to cheating. Since spousal murder is squarely on the spectrum of domestic violence, the analogy suggests that cheating is as well. On the theory that DV is really nothing more then brutal enforcement of one-sided monogamy, this may be why so many cheaters go on scorched earth campaigns to destroy chumps’ self esteem. It’s spiritual murder, a way of ensuring that “After me, the flood.” The scorched earth thing might not be quite as “effective” or permanent a form of cockblocking (or, in the case of she-FWs, “twatblocking”) as outright killing the primary partner but it’s still a pretty potent means of preventing victims from moving on to better pastures.

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago

Yep. My fw never gave me a thought until almost a year later when he found out I had gone out with someone. (I wasn’t hiding it, no need to).

Anyway, he stopped by the next day in full uniform, to tell me “that guy is too old for me”. Lol, what an ass.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 months ago
Reply to  susie lee

I think in most people there’s a small part of genuine love that involves territoriality. We’re animals after all. We defend hearth and home. But for abusers, it’s all territoriality. This “thing” (partner) was once “mine” and now no one else shall have “it” (person), even if I have discarded it (human).

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago

Makes sense. I assume most cheaters have an exaggerated sense of self worth. After all, it is why they deserve more than others.

Mehitable
Mehitable
3 months ago

That ole saying “If I can’t have you nobody can”….

susie lee
susie lee
3 months ago
Reply to  2xchump

They give clues for sure, but the murder vs cheating thing is cold blooded. Though I think more cheating men murder their wives than we will ever know about, they just get away with it. Usually to keep or even attain more assets.

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago
Reply to  2xchump

That’s disturbing that he thinks murder is the only alternative to cheating, rather than just getting a divorce. Creepy!

CountryChumpkin
CountryChumpkin
3 months ago

Mine said if we didn’t have more sex he would have to have it with someone else. Except he was already having it with many someone’s, I learned later. The reason he wasn’t getting laid much? He never helped with the evening routine. Dinner, kids bedtimes, all of it was me, and mostly after I had been at work too. Then he hit me up when I collapsed into bed exhausted. When I said no it got ugly. When he told me he’d cheated (throughout all 20 plus years of marriage and relationship) I got in the bed and said I was only there to avoid upsetting the kids, he wasn’t to touch me. And felt the biggest relief.

chump changed
chump changed
3 months ago

I was basically told the same after the fact. I couldn’t have as much sex as my ex wanted due to a severe neurological injury that left me mostly bedridden and unable to care for my own needs, let alone his. Yet I tried to have sex as much as I could for fear of him leaving or cheating on me, and because I loved him and wanted to feel loved in return. Always his “needs” in this area were made known to me, pretty much daily, through silent treatments, severe moodiness (that could only be improved by sex), inappropriate comments to me about other women, complaining that his shoulder was injured from masturbating too much, sighing, punching walls and stomping on the floor like a toddler, on and on. I regret now all of the times I made his dick my focus. If my vagina was too painful for sex (which it often was due to chronic vaginitis that “mysteriously” vanished once we separated) my first thought was how he would react to this news (answer: not well), never to my own pain or discomfort. My own desire meant nothing and I often became completely numb when we had sex; I felt nothing, no sensation at all, and once completely dissociated to a degree that it scared the hell out of me, a full out of body experience (and not in a good way).

I now know that I dissociated during a period of intense gaslighting, and that the chronic vaginitis was caused by his affairs, ironically preventing him from having more sex. I now know that he kept me in a state of dependency and illness by gaslighting me as I attempted to recover from a brain injury, literally telling me that I couldn’t trust my own mind or perceptions. But my intuition and dreams and mind and logic were right all along, it turns out, I was just made to think it was my brain injury telling me otherwise. That I was crazy, paranoid, insecure, and broken. That he was loving and caring for me when no one else would. That he would never cheat on me and could never lie to my face. Even when I brought up opening up the marriage so he could “meet his needs” (which I didn’t want to do), he refused and said he didn’t want that, he just wanted me to be healthy again. Yet he was keeping me sick. I know that now because my healing has accelerated remarkably since we separated and divorced. I now know that gaslighting can make you very sick and prevent you from healing.

And I could almost forgive a man for being unable to cope with the intense illness of his wife at a young age, and for having affairs to “meet his needs.” But the affairs never stopped, even when I’d recovered enough to be interested in sex again on a regular basis. And the gaslighting never stopped, even after I discovered the truth. Still he tried to manipulate and control me while telling me that my healing was “the most important thing to him.”

And then I went back through my old journals, from the year or two BEFORE I got sick, when we were having marathon level, amazing, athletic sex. All of the same behaviors were there already: the addiction patterns, the anger outbursts, the silent treatments, etc. We could have 2 hours of incredible sex in the evening, and if I didn’t immediately give him the blow job he wanted upon waking the next morning he would give me the silent treatment the rest of the day and pretend it was related to “work stress,” when I knew it wasn’t. He claimed he was “just stressed” and had a “high sex drive” and it was “normal.” I often felt like I was dealing with a man-child, offering up my breast to placate a screaming baby, and sometimes resented having sex after the fact, realizing I didn’t want to do it. I was shocked to read that even then I feared that if I couldn’t meet his sexual and emotional “needs,” he’d find someone who would. I’m not sure exactly when he changed. Some patterns, like entitlement and arrogance, were always there. The stomping, wall punching, silent treatment, mood swings, devaluing, etc? I believe these started with his affairs, even though I only have definitive proof and confession for the final one.

The point is… it’s not actually about sex. Ever. And yes… how freeing it is to feel in charge of one’s own sexuality again. What a relief!

P.S. Reading through the archived comments I see that there was once another Chump Changed! I probably should pick a new name 🙂

OHFFS
OHFFS
3 months ago
Reply to  chump changed

😡 He’s the type of domestic abuser Lundy Bancroft calls the Demand Man. Read the book Why Does He Do That. You’ll be amazed at how many boxes you will tick off in the lists of abusive behaviors.
I am so sorry for what he did to you. It’s unconscionable to treat a person with a debilitating illness thay way, and it’s rapey as hell. He coerced you. I hate your ex FW.

Last edited 3 months ago by OHFFS
Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 months ago

How vile and violating. It often seems like cheating is an act of rage and punishment by overgrown infants who expect partners to fulfill some mythic parent role of fulfilling all needs at every moment.