Stephen Colbert coined the awesome word “truthiness” — when referring to politicians who spin their own versions of reality. They seem so sure of themselves, who cares if it’s not the truth? It’s truthy!
Similarly, the food writer Michael Pollan in his book “In Defense of Food” distinguishes between actual food (things “your great-grandmother would recognize as food”) and “food-like substances” such as Hot Pockets, go-gurts, and most public school cafeteria lunches. It’s sort of like food. Heck, it might contain actual bits of real food — but it’s not truly food. Pollan fears we’re losing our ability to distinguish and prefer the fake over the authentic.
I think a lot of cheaters exist in this alternate universe of truthiness and food-like substances. They’re sort of real, but they aren’t really. They look good, but they taste like sawdust. They say the right things — and gosh, they seem totally convincing — but they don’t really mean a word of it. Or they meant it when they said it, but then they walked outside and got distracted by a butterfly and forgot whatever it was they were convinced of a moment ago.
I call this phenomenon “situational truth.”
From a recent letter:
I thought he meant it when he said he wanted to grow old with me. Well even when all this happened, he said he DID mean it at the time. He just knew that might change.
So did he change his mind and forget to tell her? Did he say it because it sounded noble and romantic? Did he have his fingers crossed behind his back? Or was he simply keeping his options open, and shame on her for taking him at his word?
We’ll never know. We’re chumps. Our minds don’t work this way.
I think we all understand what it is to change your mind. To regretfully renege on a former commitment — “I’m sorry, I know I agreed to go dwarf bowling on Thursday night but I forgot I have a PTA meeting.” Situational truth isn’t changing your mind — it’s changing your truth. Instead of reality being a constant, for the “truthy”, the truth is fluid. It can adapt to your ever-changing whims and desires.
Let’s put it in elementary school terms. Suzy has cookies in her lunch. I tell Suzy “You are my BEST friend forever! And you’re invited to my birthday party!” Suzy, moved by this flattery offers me some of her cookies. I eat the cookies. But, alas, I want more cookies. I see Robert. I say “Robert, you are my BEST friend forever! And you’re invited to my birthday party!” Robert gives me his cookies.
Suzy WHO?
Look Suzy was all very fine and great so long as she had cookies. And she might have cookies again, and when that happens, I’m sure Suzy and I will patch things up. Did I believe what I said when I told Suzy she was my best friend? Well, sort of. My vision of a best friend is someone who not only has cookies in their lunch, they give me cookies. So yes, Suzy was absolutely my best friend in that moment. But then she just wasn’t that useful to me after I ate the cookies. I could wait around until tomorrow, when chances are Suzy’s mom might pack more cookies in her lunch — but that proposition is iffy. Right now Robert has cookies! — so best friend allegiances must shift.
We chumps get so hung up on veracity. To us, when you tell someone they are your best friend, you mean it. It takes a lot more than fresh cookies to rock our commitment. We internalize the things we say. We hold Suzy in our hearts. If anyone asks, Suzy is our best friend. We actually invite Suzy to our birthday parties. She is so much more than her cookies.
For the truthy, all truth is situational truth. It’s not a constellation based on the North Star, where the moral compass turns to an affixed point. No, instead the truth is an Australian shepherd puppy. You have a treat for me?! Awesome! Oh, hang on — SQUIRREL! Whoa… OMG! squeaky toy!!! Where were we?
Okay, perhaps that’s not the best analogy because Australian shepherd puppies are not malevolent, they’re just dim-witted. The best practitioners of situational truth are the personality disordered — they manipulate as easily as they breathe. They don’t agree with your version of reality because it’s yours, and withholding consensus on reality fucks with your head. Bonus!
So if you find yourself in the company of one of these wingnuts? Hold on to your cookies, chumps. And don’t invite them to your birthday party.
This column ran previously.
Took me way too long to figure this out. It was liberating in the extreme finally to grasp that the cheater really just did not, does not, and will not ever have any concern about or relationship to a concept like “truth.” It does not compute at all. The whole deal entirely eludes him.
In his world, there seem to be good things and bad things. Good things are things that make him look good or feel happy in the moment. Bad things are everything else. Any person, situation, or object might shift categories in a blink. It has nothing to do with truth.
We enter their “bad things” category without knowing it, but once we get how they operate it is far less painful. I like truth, love, faithfulness, and a stable foundation of ethics. Does not matter at all how he categorizes those or me. They are good things, and so am I.
Agreed with the “once we work out how they operate”. You can then accept them for who they are and it’s really transparent.
I see a lot of chumps here who have been in long term marriages like myself before everything completely blows up- then you can look back and see all the red flags and spackle. I think one of the reasons this stuff blows up is because the narcs are finally meeting their greatest fear- growing old- head on. While most people do not look forward to old age, they can face it because they have matured and find acceptance. Many like myself find that through spirituality and religion of some sort. Narcs are like Peter Pan and run from aging because they are caught in their egocentric universe and some of them like mine still have their mommies by their sides fueling this into their 50’s. They are caught in a crazy belief that they can defy aging.
People have asked if I think fuckwit is having a midlife crisis- it seems like that but it is never ending. One night, long before he left but while he was cheating, I remember him crying after an argument that I didn’t understand. He kept repeating, I don’t want to be alone and I kept saying I am not going to leave you. I now think he was referring to his parents- his dad was diagnosed with als shortly after. While his mom is his partner in crime(literally in terms of hiding assets), she is one cold fish. This was how my best friend (who knew her)described her upon finding out stbx was a cheater and she didn’t have to hold back truth any longer.
Feelingit
The Limited lived his life as if he missed something. Yet, I had few expectations. I was very independent and never stopped him from doing anything. What he lacked was courage, confidence, and internal motivation.
He was never a man, always a boy. I believed he lacked the ability to plan and always supported him at first by problem solving the necessary steps to obtain a goal. Then after repeatedly shifting the goalposts I’d ask how he was going to achieve his goal.
He feared growing old. And suddenly he was 57 with nothing to show for himself. Of course I was to blame.
He didn’t want to work and expected me to support him financially. he was looking for a woman with assets.
So desperate he settled for a needy woman who has no potential whatsoever. I used to wonder if he was happy, but now I can’t deny the monster. He lost. That’s the real truth.
I wondered this as well, the whole Peter Pan thing of not wanting to age . I was making retirement plans and couldn’t get him to help, he said why would I want to retire, then you just sit around and wait to die. Well his drug schmoopie half his age died so there you go
Truth (the real kind) computes just fine for my STBX — he insists upon it from everyone else. Lie to him (overtly or by omission) and the rage channel comes out in full form.
However, he is also a master at Truthiness — for himself. In his mind, he’s special like that. Lies of omission? Overt lies? Promises made and not meant? All of this is A-OKAY for STBX as long as it gets him what he wants in the moment that he wants it.
And, of course, everyone else must go along with his Master Truthiness’s bullshit. Because to hold him accountable is just simply unfair in his Almighty Entitled Universe.
My exhole was best at demanding loyalty, truth and honor from everyone around him. Not so much from himself. Ex-wife #1 (me) and ex-wife #2 (Owife) can attest to that. $5 says wifey #3 will be ex-wife #3 by 2019. It’s tiring dancing that hard for almost the entirety of the relationship.
OMG – that’s my STBX too! The rage when I dared to question why his financial disclosure didn’t add up!! How dare I suggest he had a hidden bank account!! How could such a lowly person as me understand anything so complex as finances!!! Of course he was never interested in my job and seems to have forgotten I ran payroll, prepared accounts and reconciled bank statements as part of my job for 12 years!! No need for a forensic accountant – dedicated chump research was all it took. Got him on the rails now … will be interesting to see what the judge makes of all the irregularities and if they’ll put up with the bull-shit excuses ….
Great job, Ms Sherlock! Nail that creature. I’ve become somewhat of an amateur PI, myself. Even IT called my Dday discovery my “investigation”, like he was some criminal mastermind or something. Give me a break! Mrs. Schmoopie posted an Instagram pic of the two of them on his fb page w wittle flowers cascading down over their heads for his bday. She, 45, dresses like a prepubescent teen. He, newly 64, looked like her bloated grandfather. Wow – what cunning they used to cover up their…schmoopiness!
Power on, Mighty Sherlock. I know mine will lie about money, too…he always has. In 30 years we never shared a bank account. Lucky me.
Well said cashmere and i totally agree.
The Traitor stood in the Environment Court stating that we would grow old together on the farm, 13 months before DD1 (by the way, isn’t that perjury?). 5 months before DDay 1, he was emailing the Department of Internal Affairs looking for an exemption to be allowed to be buried on the farm. 4 months before DDay1 he was emailing an old high school friend he had reconnected with after more than 25 years telling him about the divorce from his first wife, his failed relationship with the Whore and how he now was with the woman he should have married in the first place (me). 3 weeks before DDay1, after we had hosted his huge family for 3 days he hugged me and kissed me saying he felt the woolshed had now been blessed (that’s were we held the big family dinner. Large family!). On DDay 1 he said he loved me and he repeated for the umpteenth time that I was the only good female role model his children had ever had. 4 days later, after I refused to give him permission to have an open marriage just for himself with the Whore, I was a bitch and my feelings for his youngest son (her son) were filthy. The next day he said he wanted me to have time alone with this little boy on the farm while he went to visit his other sons for 2 days. 3 more days later his eldest son phone me while I was alone with the youngest, looking for Dad who was supposed to be with him…I had told the Traitor that his son would be safe with the bitch who had filthy feelings for him… Dad was with the Whore instead.
He’s wasted his talent, should have been in politics. OOps, he was when I met him…Switched parties 5 times. I should have known better.
Oh kiwichump,
Every time I read your story I become even angrier with The Traitor.
He lost such a beautiful, loving, giving person in you. The children lost a genuine, caring, loving gem of a wonderful lady too!
Kiwichump, you have picked up the pieces, moved on, with great dignity and class.
CN loves you, respects you, and calls you Mighty!
Xxxxxxxxx
Peacekeeper
Thank you Peacekeeper, you truly live up to your name. Hugs to you too.
Have you noticed that these cheaters are truthy in general, not just about their cheating? Mine* will bend the truth to our kids to suit his purpose or to not look bad. There are always shades of gray for him.
*I wish there was a way to refer to one’s ex with using possessives, “my” and “mine.” I’d rather not have ownership of that. Anyone have a suggestion?
“Without using possessives”
I only refer to the douchebag as “the dbag,” “the f-tard,” “the asswipe,” etc. Occasionally I’ll say, “the dbag from my scenario…”
NEVER possessive. That jerkward isn’t “mine” anymore.
Jerkwad – thx, Siri. ????
jerk prick is a name I use (see? No curse words!)
But when my kids are around, I try to say “their dad”… Sadly, I’ve noticed that my kids periodically refer to their dad by his first name. It’s definitely intentional.
My therapist says that it’s “less painful” to say “dad/father” did a shitty thing to their mom or to them. Who wants to know their father would do or say something hurtful? Better to name some guy and lose the title.
Still sad for me to hear, but I understand.
** Using his name is Less painful THAN SAYING “dad/father”
My daughter wants to change her name back to my madien name she is so fed up with her former dad turned peter pan…
I meant “Without using possessives”
I just call the people who betrayed my family Cold Slab O’Meat and The Sluterus. They belong only to each other now, thank god. The better to limit collateral damage and make each other miserable.
>>Cold Slab O’Meat and The Sluterus.
Goddamn, this nearly made me choke on my coffee.
— HeChump
Just use the definite article: The cheater, the sluterus (AKA the OW).
The X. STBX (with no article/pronominal adjective). Jackass or the jackass. These hyenas.
I use DBTE ???? Short for Dead Behind the Eyes
Love DBTE, C and B! Mine is in my phone as FAA…Family Abandoning Asshat. But given the insane level of his bagdouchery, a new title may be in order. DBTEFAA? Rolls off the tongue…
Mine abandoned me with our 1 & 2 year old babies for a stripper and moved to the other side of the country with zero warning to be an instant father to her 2 children. He hasn’t flown here to see his own children in 3 years. He’s so painfully non-confrontational and simultaneously deluded, he acts as though he didn’t do a thing wrong. When he Skypes the kids, he’s sugary and nauseating beyond words…I constantly stifle my desire to ask him if his loafers are comfortable and if it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. But then I see his (gag) neck tattoo of shmoopie’s name and remember…there’s no categorizing the kind of effed up he is.
These hyenas, indeed!!
Mr. Twatwaffles and his can of Alpo….because he enjoys cheap, dollar-store, meat
by-product on crackers.
No. Really. He does.
OMG Sunflower36 – you are hilarious!
Sunflower 36!
I really love this, especially the ALPHO!
Every time you say this I picture your ex with that big ol can and a spoon and spreading it on his crackers.
I can even SMELL it!
10 out of 10 for that one!
You rock girl!
????????????????????????
Oh shit, sorry, I spelled ALPO wrong, was thinking of the HO I guess.
????????????
Oh, AlpHO is even BETTER!!!
Why didn’t I think of that?
Maybe ALP-HO…so as not confuse anyone and make them think it’s pronounced ALFO because of the PH
LUZIANA!!
Wow, “Sluterus” is pretty awesome! Well done.
SLUTERUS QUESTIONS
Is it pronounced “Slooterus”? In which case it would include the word “loot” as in “she took the loot & she can have it.”
OR is the “u” a short vowel sound? That has the obvious advantage of stressing the “slut” aspect of the word…
Of course if it is like the truthiness of the cheaters, & we can change it as needed?
I read Sluterus as slut+ uterus.
I just refer to “it” as my kids father. I didn’t like saying “my ex husband ” either. Or my “baby daddy” is another one of my favorites. If u don’t have kids with them u can say ” my mistake or the person formally known as human, my attacker (this one always Make a me feel better seeing as how the shit he did should be criminal) , the abuser, the inmate, etc. U get the picture
I put ‘kids father’ in my phone as his contact 😛
I have ‘piece of shit’ in my phone 🙂
A picture of a pile of dog shit is what appears on my phone if he calls.
BRIT
how’d you get a photo of a piece of shit – to be in the contacts for your ex? Damn, all you people are so tech savvy…
Doctor’s1stWife&Kids, I googled “dog shit” and hit images, then sent it to my photos on my iphone then assigned to contact. (just did a re-enactment on my phone to be sure).
I was frustrated one day and the thought occurred to me that a picture of D. S. for his contact photo is accurate. Makes me smile. =)
Haha! I’ve used a picture of a dumpster full of garbage and then one of Pinocchio with the longest nose ever as his contact picture. I’m using dog shit next, just to mix it up a bit.
He is CHEATER in my phone. It was Asshole but that just sounded too nice.
For a few months after he left I had a grand old time changing his name on my phone. For a while it was “Lying Sack of Shit”. Then it was “Fucking Moron”. I have the sexy male australian voice for Siri. One time I was driving and I asked Siri to text him. I had to say the name as it was in my phone. And Sexy Australian Siri says “What do you want to say to Fucking Moron?” I was laughing so hard I could hardly drive. Eventually, I just changed it back to his real name. I didn’t feel like I needed to assign him so much importance anymore. He’s just a person with a name.
Sperm donor. Sir Cheatalot/Faux Dad. Him. Faker. Fuckwit. Douchebag. Asshole.
But usually, the most non-offensive name is Ding Dong. Or maybe, Dippo. I’ve noticed a lot of my labels begin with D. We’ve played that game here before, LOL!
I need a new name for mine. I hate using his name and I don’t like ex husband. I feel to young to have an ex husband without having to explain further how I got to this point.
former partner?
I use idiot or crazy idiot.
To be more helpful, you can just say my ex. It can mean bf or husband.
How about : the dumbass, the loser, that asshole , the morons, just take out the my, mine stuff and replace with plan old the, that, them etc..I like the flaming douchebag from hell, the twit, sir liesalot, just have fun with it.
On my phone I have the ex listed as “Himself – Don’t answer”. I started calling him “Himself” when I realized that he only cares about Himself. During the divorce I implemented a rule of only communicating via email, snail mail, or through attorneys so I never answered his calls or texts. Yes, we had minor children at the time, but they were teenagers.
How about a title related to his profession? The ex here is RonBurgundy. Guess what he does?
I don’t want to diminish the fact that I was married. It may have ended awfully and I get that it didn’t mean anything to him. To me it was really important and meant a lot. I know it probably doesn’t matter in the long run. The people who love me know the truth.
I have read your story, P.C., and my heart goes out to you. I feel what you’re saying here. I understand. It’s like this thing that was special and important and happened suddenly is nothing because HE treated as if it were nothing. It’s almost too much to bear on top of everything else, like a whitewashing of the story of your life.
I was married, I was a great wife, he trashed it all for a stripper, and yet here I stand with our 2 beautiful babies on my own. Our babies were part of a nuclear family, their parents were married…and then they just weren’t. My heartbreak over that was almost worse than what he did to me personally.
Mine left after 14 years together, when our babies were 1 and 2, and never came back. He lives on the opposite coast with his new wife, her 2 kids, and their new 2 year old son. The babies and I have had to overcome a lot. It’s been simultaneously horrifying and surprisingly empowering. You never realize what you’re capable of until you’re clobbered with the reality of 2 babies looking to you for their every need.
Or just X, as if that is his name.
I call mine “The Idiot”
the Limited would work great too… someone here on CL uses it too for hers.
I am trying really hard not to talk about STBX any more than necessary. You could always replace “my” with “the”. The ex did this. Or the ex is picking up the kids at 6.
How about…. that mentally disordered person to whom I was contractually joined..?? Or asshole for short.
or “the one who had to give me half his retirement”
Satan/Lost Boy/Shapeshifter
Love “Shapeshifter”!
Mistake? Impostor?
We call mine the chicken pot pie. He always acted like the sky was falling when I would ask for shit in the divorce and he gained like 70 lbs after he left.
He’s a stress eater, I guess full time schmoopie and her two elementary age kids are stressful, or your kids disowning you and losing half your shit……who knows.
Omg ????????????????chicken pot pie. I’m dying that’s hysterical. Stress eating ????
My uncle calls him the “bad merger”.
I’ve been calling him Prick Charming.
Prick Charming….hahahahahaha awesome
I refer to ex as “what’s his name” (or WHN in writing). No possessives and I don’t have to hear or say his name ever again.
How about Sperm donor?
For your own personal posts perhaps “zero” would work, because he’s just not there.
Maybe “kids dad” for other times because he is the kids’ dad, simple truth, meanwhile you may keep thinking “zero” in your head as in this role he’s just not there either.
This reply was to Pregnant Chump
I change the name to song lyrics. “tell me sweet little lies” is my current.
The musician Joe Walsh always refers to his ex wife as “The Plaintiff.” Since I ultimately had to file for divorce, I like referring to my cheating ex wife as “The Defendant.”
Also, the author known as Dr. Seuss referred to going to the bathroom as “using the euphemism.”
I’m totally going to start calling my stbx “the plaintiff” That is perfect! Very original too, which I love!! Thanks nomar!!
I am reminded of stbx’s deposition last week. He and schmoopie are pleading the fifth on the adultery- we live in a fault state. He produced a travel log in which he refers to schmoopie as paramour. My attorney asked him what paramour means? He replied it is French for friend. Attorney ask why he used that word and h said because that is what I said in the lawsuit. Attorney then said- do you know the definition? Husband, visibly agitated says no, I do not know the definition, I didn’t go to law school like you. Attorney says it means someone with whom you have had sexual relations. Stupid fuckwit. He is the defendant/counter plaintiff (he is claiming I abused him for years of course).
I’m sorry but that’s hilarious. What an idiot. French for “just friends”, right?
I hope he was humiliated.
Very funny. Unintentional confession. Doofus.
FeelingIt – OMG!!! A douchebag cheater AND dumb AF?? LOLOLOL!! I cannot love this any more than I do! LOL!!
Classic!! ????????
Oops. Sounds like he needed Esther P to do some translating….
BTW- Great update Feeling it !
That is the funniest thing I have heard today! What a dumbass…and I bet he sat there looking all indignant and feather ruffled…maybe his paramour should buy him a dictionary…I love when people try to make themselves look smart by using words they don’t know anything about…ooops..your fake-ness is showing! Thanks for the smile today I sure needed it!
My ex used to always scream that we treated him “like a leopard”.
I knew correcting him would just start something and so I would always just ignore the mistake and the kids and I always had a good laugh about it. In the divorce he tried to yell that was one of the reasons he cheated…..he felt like “a leopard.” I don’t know where it came from but my mouth opened and I yelled ” it’s leper you dumbfuck!!! I have heard you say it wrong for years but was too polite to tell you!!!”
That felt almost as good as signing my settlement.
LOL awesome Paintwidow!
OMG, I am crying I’m laughing so hard. Leopard…. hahahahahahaha
That totally made my day! Thanks PW!
You can’t make this stuff up! Hilarious. Maybe I’ll refer to Schmoopie as paramour what a hoot!
Paintwidow, I was feeling overwhelmed with things falling apart around the house, landscaper didn’t do what he promised, which caused my pool man quit because the plants are making a mess, they’re dropping things in the pool, so I was feeling down this afternoon, Leopard has me laughing out loud, that’s so funny! made my day. =)
Wow, unbelievable. What a dumbass! Well, as we all know, “leopards” don’t change their (cheating) spots . . .
LOL, how about a reply along the lines of “Yup, you’ve been spotted all right…” :)??
I’m DYING LAUGHING Paintwidow! You are most MIGHTY!
Yes!
Bwwwhahahah! Best laugh I’ve had in a long time!
Paramour is “French for friend” – OMG, that’s too funny, Feelingit!!!
Another LOL for Paintwidow – treated him “like a leopard.”
Thank you both. I laughed, and now I have a smile stuck on my face. Those are priceless.
I wish the attorney had said paramour is French for douchebag
So funny, I’m sorry!!
So good to be in the company of people who get it!!!! And we can still laugh ???? because the world is a funny place.
Mine is accusing me of the same thing! We are in a fault state as well, east coast.
He moved in with her, engaged 4 months later and 5 months later we were divorced. Seems a little backwards!
Mine is BAM … Brokeass Mountain … with never ending thanks to NeverWouldHaveImagined for her spot-on wit!!!
Lol! Considering his homo-on-the-down low activity and that you got a great settlement, it’s a perfect fit.
I just say cheater ex, no possessives there. I quit claiming his sorry ass a long time ago.
On a good day I just say “the ex.” On a bad day I call him names that would make a drunken sailor blush.
No doubt! He deserves it.
I usually say “the ex”. Sometimes it’s “that guy I accidentally married” or “the cowardly liar” or “the skeevy ex”. 🙂
Wasband works for me
Also have heard “hasbeen.”
I use either his nickname (Hannibal Lecher), or “the X” or “the sperm donor.”
Just use “the” – then it’s truly just an object.
I say The Ex to people, ” your Mom” if it’s the kids
How about “spouse-like substance?”
I call mine Fucking Fucker Fucktard Cheater Pants, or FFFCP for short. 🙂
Truthiness at its best…bravo!
Spouse-like substance or SLS.
Love it. Just like fake ice cream is called “frozen non-dairy dessert” and American cheese “pasturized processed cheese product”. Oh and if something looks cool but is a piece of junk it is called a “novelty item”.
I’m going to use this.
Just verbally point at him by nickname or an offhanded “the”.
Disordered X ( DX ) or ‘the X’ or ‘your father’ to the kids.
For DD1 PA partner from CN the descriptive term of howorker
After DD fallout temp-live-in who (they moved in after one month after separation but that lasted one month before running for the hills). My aim is to get to meh and to be so well moved on so that I have no reason to refer to him but I don’t care if anyone else does. Whatever.
In order to be as detached as possible from PreyingMantis, not only do I not refer to PM with possessives – I also do not refer to PM with pronouns. PreyingMantis is an *it* and a *they* in every cold, impersonal sense… just like the original. The experience is universal anyway… predatory narcopaths come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders. PM isn’t special or unique. Just another lying, ordinary, everyday cheater.
I call him “TIO” for The Insignificant Other that he became.
I call our kiddo’s step mother “his wifetress.”
No possessive needed :)…
I had this with my cheater ex Wife – who is narcissistic and told me (can’t believe she said this) that she was “committed to us NOW, but couldn’t promise that things won’t change”. That is, I am committed but only so long as I feel like being committed.
The best bit of advice I had was to not stay with someone who considers you just an option.
I also dated for a while a girl who I eventually recognised as having BPD. That was a whole new level of crazy. I feel sorry for her, but steady relationships and fidelity do not come easy to people with this mental illness. “You’re the love of my life” one day could be followed the next day by “what made you think I wanted a relationship with you”. Crazy making at the time, but with time and distance you get how fucked up all that is. The cookie analogy is perfect here as she could easily appear like she loved me and then the next day be with someone else who paid her attention or filled the black hole in her soul. Awful for her, but not someone I want in my life.
I wonder if cheaters don’t get the object permenance lesson as babies and toddlers? I know my mil was a harsh mother. Weened stbx cold turkey at 9 months by letting him cry for 24 hours till he took a bottle. At 2, he would come out of his room at night to find his parents so instead of comforting fuckwit, they tied the door handle to the one across the hall with a belt and they would find him curled up next to the door the next morning. I wonder if it was the same belt they whipped him with when he was bad. Should I excuse cheater for the pain he caused me?
I wonder about this too… ex husband was a wild toddler kid and teenager… his dad beat him up from when he was just a toddler when he would have toddler tantrums or break stuff… when he got older he got the belt for low grades while his sisters didnt. His father was also a cheater and alcoholic… and a millionair who spoiled him. So ex his upbringing was pretty fucked up… sometimes I still feel bad for my ex but for when he was a little boy and it makes me wonder if he really cant help being this limited and fucked up.
Feeling it and JungleChump…
🙁 bad memories…
…my dad is an alcoholic narc that beat all 5 of us kids and mom most nights…most of us (4 of the 5) are not like this…so…I don’t know…I just don’t, but your stories really make me sad for the little ones they were suffering as they did… 🙁 …I know how that feels…damn…
…still…they didn’t need to grow up and take it out on innocents that love(d) them! We didn’t! We wouldn’t because we know how it feels…and we have hearts and souls…
I told satan…when he was trying to hoover me back during divorce (probably more cause he suddenly realized our empire was falling than actual love…) ‘I hope you are never allowed to hurt and almost kill another with the love they feel for you…’
…fuckers… …please excuse my language…
…my blessed mother is deceased this November 13 years…my abusive father is living the life of Riley in a nursing home memory unit…alcohol related dementia…(thinks he’s in a 5 star hotel with hookers… 🙁 )
…he abused my mom and us for 21 years…
…yeah…we all grow up and learn from life…and we all have choices…abusers abuse…regardless of the reasons…they know they are wrong…they still do it.
JeepTess,
You are one of the kindest posters ever!
You always reach out with such a sincere heart, filled with love.
I will never forget your kind remarks to me and other Chumps.
(I am so sorry for how cruelly you, and your Mom, and your siblings were treated in the past).
Xxxxxx
Peacekeeper
Children and innocent adults never deserve to be treated so unkindly. This is a terrible crime, but still, it is never an excuse to treat others with disrespect later in life.
Junglechump and Feelingit, there’s no excuse for their abuse. They’re not small children who have no life experience, abusers know what they’re doing. X’s father was an abusive father and husband, his Mother had five children (separate births) in five years. X never experienced object permanence or bonding with his mother. She was overwhelmed, parenting was locking her kids in a bedroom while she watched soap operas. She allowed her children to be unfairly punished, ridiculed and abused, sometimes joining her husband with verbal abuse and ridicule. Everything had to be approved by her husband including her thoughts. His parents came to visit and I offered X’s Mother a brownie, I was stunned at her response, she waved her arms and she cowered telling me to put them away before her husband walked in on us. You would have thought I offered her a plate of crack cocaine or heroin. X’s mother was very timid and afraid to speak fearing his disapproval. Her body language and behavior was similar to that of a herd animal. Sorry if I went off topic and a tangent.
I remember asking X about it and considered ending our relationship if he thought the way his Dad treated his Mother was normal.
Cheaters are responsible for their behavior and are fully aware of what they’re doing. They’ve lived in the world long enough to look at interaction between people, couples and families to know what behaviors are acceptable and what isn’t.
Narcissistic/sociopaths, don’t care, people are disposable and easily replaced.
I’ve read so many stories and posts here on CN, to know Chumps are intelligent, kind, funny, and compassionate people. It’s disturbing that there are so many of us who have been slammed by these selfish, pompous, piles of dog shit. Couldn’t come up with what to call them, I decided to use the photo I assigned to X’s contact picture on my phone, “Dog shit.”
(((((((Peacekeeper)))))))
I am so grateful for you and all of CN 🙂 You guys and CL gave me the knowledge I needed to save myself 🙂 And Beau 🙂
Much love and lots of hugs to you sweet lady 🙂
…we, none of us, deserve abuse.
BPD is a cruel disorder…both for the person with it and for the people who attempt to share a life with them. Their self perception is SO weak that they need kibble just to survive, more kibble than normal people can muster. So they will chase it from any source…a weird new friend, an OP, whoever.
Their WORST fear is being abandoned yet all the shit they do leaves any normal person wanting to run like hell. They arent happy people and they are convince it is because of the awful people around them (there is, for them NO connection between that shitty thing they did and your anger at them).
My mom has BPD and alcoholism and finally drank herself into dementia. When the dementia finally took a firm hold, she was (for the first time ever) actually nice to me.
This is a really accurate description, UNM. My mom is also BPD and alcoholic, and bipolar I for good measure. As you can imagine, things were lots of fun at my house back in the day (not!). I’ve been NC with her for 20 years, which is very sad but necessary to preserve my own sanity and protect my daughters. It also gave me great practice for going NC with shithead ex.
My mom too but no alcohol. What I’ve deduced is that she I was her shame receptacle. She filled me with so much shame and prepped me perfectly to be a chump.
It’s awful.
I had an acquaintance who suffered BPD; her life and the lives of her Ex and children were made hell by her illness. Fortunately, she was able to find help from a doctor who finally (after much experimentation) found the right blend of medicines to change her brain disorder. There is hope for BPD, but it all too often goes unassisted, and as I said, ruins lives.
I have a great deal of sympathy for those who suffer from this disease, but I can definitely sympathize with healthy people who chose not to associate with those who are ill. Sometimes you just have to save yourself.
It’s sometimes hard to draw the line between what’s illness and what’s plain abuse. But when someone enjoys rousting you at 3 am so you can scrub the bathroom floor with your toothbrush (and then expects you to brush your teeth immediately afterward) and frequently uses your body as a human ashtray, the distinction is kind of meaningless. Yes, you just have to save yourself.
I’m glad you’re here to share your perspective, FMT. You give other survivors hope.
My mom is very narc BPD and relies on pills and booze. She criticized me and tortured me as a child. Stuck me in therapy “bc there was something wrong with me” and one day my therapist assigned my mom homework to write 3 nice things about me on a paper and give it to me daily. Shows u what I lived with. My mom lasted on that assignment 3 days. My father who coddles my mother and thinks she is just the most vulnerable thing would come to her aid and protection against the enemy- IE me. But I wasn’t doing anything wrong except trying to cope as best I could. Yes it made me the perfect chump. It was always my fault or there was something always wrong with me. Makes me unattractive to normal guys and bait for parade of narcs. I know it but it’s so hard to change that which was woven into the fiber of your being from a young age.
Not actual torture but she would always find fault in everything I did
(((hugs)))
I’m sorry, CF. That sucks.
You know the drill, tho, and that makes you mighty.
Hollow bunny,
Mine, too is a narc and I realized by reading here that she groomed me perfectly for a narc husband. Now in order to get healthy I have to limit contact with the two people I depend on the most.
Anyway, just wanted to share that I found helpful stuff on daughtets with narcissistic mothers website. So many “a ha” moments happened while reading that site.
The big difference between BPD and narcissism is that the personw/BPD also suffers, not just the people around them. This can lead them to seek and accept professional help, which can lead to significant improvement.
Narcs, nah. They’re fine just as they are, and any problem is always other people’s fault. So there is no change, no growth.
It’s not pretty when both BPD and NPD occur together, as I believe is the case for cheater’s mother. Her own parents insisted on taking cheater to live with them for several years because they knew she was nuts (throwing things, suicide threats/attempts, etc).
When cheater’s mother decided she needed slave labor/free babysitting for more time at the tavern (she had popped out a couple more kids, but grandparents barely had room for one), she took him back from his grandparents at age 13. They didn’t have legal custody so she could just do that.
Cheater’s siblings have confirmed all this (and other horror stories about their mother, nicknamed The Viper).
How lucky am I that cheater – whom I call The Python – only inherited NPD? He even admitted he doesn’t like that sometimes the “lies come out” because that’s “just like my mother.” Insight – yes, but it makes no difference because the lies keep on coming out!
This perfectly describes CheaterX. I don’t diagnose him as BPD, but he had more of the hallmarks, and wow! He was high maintenance.
Any disagreement was escalated beyond any realm of sanity. I could agree with him, but for different reasons than his, and he’d get angry at me instead of patting himself on the back for being so perspicacious that he had covered more bases than he’d intended. People were on pedestals or they were the dregs of humanity. Then there were the days where I busted my ass cleaning the house from top to bottom, and he’d come in and complain about how filthy it was and did I vacuum Room X? I’d point out to the conspicuous lack of dog hair. The mood swings and disconnect between what he said and reality caused me to go into tears more than once.
Chumpy me, I thought he was merely high maintenance with poor coping skills due to his stress on the job.
Now I see he’s just a disordered asshole who can’t say no. I think that Schmoopie was NPD. Their marriage didn’t last long, though.
Oh, and he has been constantly unhappy. He should have had a zillion reasons to count his blessings, but he couldn’t see them for the misery that he preferred to dwell in.
I don’t think UnderwearSugarDaddy (USD) has BPD, but is grossly disordered. It told me that it started the affair because it was afraid of being abandoned. What? I’d been by his side for 31 years, wasn’tgoing anywhere. He said his affair brought about the one thing he feared – a self fulfulling “profacy”.
Um, Yep! Good luck with those methods. Affairs really make chumps want to stick around forever, fuckwit.
The first XH was most likely BP. His mother was, his brother was. He wasn’t an alcoholic or drug user, but my God, I was with him for 15 very fucked up years and in the end, I left him and kept the kids because I was afraid he’d kill me. The years of fuckupedness were seriously difficult. I split up from him 15 years ago and never looked back. He was WAY easier to achieve the Mecca of MEH than Mr. Twatwaffles was.
I wouldn’t wish that life on anyone.
The horrible wasband was and still is trying to play and twist truth and reality. It has been very helpful for me through the years to learn more and more about how people twist truth and believe what they are saying. Chump Lady was my first teacher on “truthiness,” I also read from her suggestion Dr. George Simon’s material which explains how the character disorder believe they are good people. This was so helpful since the wasband kept saying, after being found out on 13+ years of cheating and a double life “I am a noble person”, “the truth is what it is and not what you want it to be (trying to convince me that our marriage had been broken for years, which of course I never knew anything about)”, “I pray Jesus will show you truth Gaby and He takes out the plank in your eyes”
Yep! The mindf…ry went on and on. I had completely trusted him for 20 years so it took me good three years after he left to detox from his poisonous bullshit and really KNOW in my heart how distorted his mind and soul are. He is still a noble person you know! And he totally believes it!!!
Anyway, thank you again ChumpLady and ChumpNation for insight and support. You have been a lifeline.
On the subject of “managing” the truth, here is another interesting article:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/03/17/paltering-new-way-not-tell-truth/TRB2ap22NK5Ya8KjF4x0GI/story.html
Dr. Omar Minwalla also talks on how infidelity is so much about distorting the truth:
http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/sex-addiction-induced-perpetration-saip-goes-undiagnosed-and-untreated/
Hugs from Rwanda Chump Nation. I am being mighty and traveling on my own (for the first time in my life) for four months!
Way to go Rwanda!
I reference this same Boston Globe article on “paltering” in my guest post from earlier this year —
https://www.chumplady.com/2017/04/paltering-another-kind-mindfuckery/
UXworld, this I love! Thank you for the link. Woody is most definitely a paltering infidel.
Sorry UXworld, I guess I didn’t remeber where I had read that. Thanks for sharing it with us, it was very helpful!
Dr. Omar is spot on- he needs to be mainstream!!!
Those of us who sought answers for our spouse’s “sex addiction” know Dr. M well. He’s been a champion of recognizing partners of sex addicts as victims rather than the co-addict, own-your-role-in-your-abuse bullshit that most SA therapists (most of whom are ‘recovered’ sex addicts themselves) spew.
For the record, I no longer believe that sex addiction is a thing. I think personality disorders are the root cause of “sex addiction”. I still value Dr. Minwalla’s work for partners, however.
My husband has said he was a sex addict forever…. and I believed it for most of our marriage. This last straw broke the camels back. He had a 5 year affair with the same woman. Addiction implies escalation. No escalation in 5 years. … whatever on the addiction. Ill look this fella up. All the SA stuff wants to make partners own a part of it. That does work in any other addiction….
It doesn`t even work in any other addiction, depending on the theoretical model used. Many `co-dependent`behaviours are just healthy couple behaviours such as helping your spouse and being loyal to them, carried too far. As with spackling; a LITTLE spackle makes our relationships smoother and more fun. Too much spackle ….
Beth I agree with you on the sex addiction bullshit. I think Minwalla doesn’t believe it that much anymore but the term is here to stay. That is why Minwalla is pushing for expanding the diagnosis to:
Compulsive-Abusive Sexual-Relational Disorders (CASRD) developed by Dr. Omar Minwalla (2013), emphasizes not only sexual and relational acting out patterns (problematic sexual behaviors alone), but also an integrity and conduct disorder with associated dynamics of perpetration, violation and abuse of others, such as patterns of lying, deceptive tactics, victim-blaming, and covert psychological manipulation.
“The reality here is that the preoccupation with diagnosing and treating these complex pathologies as simply “compulsive or impulse control disorders” (Carnes, P., 2001; Coleman, E., 1990), and focusing on treating sexual behaviors, while avoiding and omitting the proper diagnosis of abuse and covert violence, leaves dynamics of serious pathology untreated (Minwalla, O., 2011; Minwalla, O., 2012).”
We should help him get mainstream!
Gaby, I don’t know if he still does them, but Dr. M. used to do Intensives for partners of SAs at his facility in California. I know several women who attended and were greatly helped by them. The only negative about Dr. M is his writing is very thick with medical/psychological jargon. To the point where it’s very difficult for a layman to understand. I think that is a very important factor in keeping his work out of the public eye. I hate to say he needs to dumb it down but essentially, that’s what he needs to do.
In my (not-so-humble) opinion Dr. Minwalla is simply a poor writer. It’s not just medical/psychological jargon (professionals find it confusing and annoying to read too.) His writing is repetitive, confusing, ungrammatical, and disconnected. His otherwise brilliant piece The 13 Dimensions of Sex-Addiction Induced Trauma suffers the same problems. I wish he would get a good editor! Someone needs to rewrite his stuff, help him clarify what he means to say and say it clearly. His ideas are so important.
Lets have Chump Nation help!
http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/compulsive-abusive-sexual-relational-disorder-casrd/
Gaby – that douchebag got it wrong (#NotShocking). Jesus is not the one who is to take a plank from anyone’s eye. It is OURSELVES who should remove it from our OWN eyes FIRST, then worry about your neighbor’s issues. In fact, let’s have a look…
“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye. Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.” Matthew 7:3-6 NLT
More importantly, I love the part about us not throwing away our “pearls” to pigs. Never again – whatever those pearls might be.
Wow. You’re right! He does have the plank in eye thing backward. I consider myself a biblical scholar and didn’t catch that. Talk about Truthiness. . .
Thank you for bringing up the pearls to pigs verse. I had always thought of that as speaking to virginity before marriage but now I see it can apply within marriage as well.
I hate the way that it is done – they tell you that you are their everything. You BELIEVE this. You go about your life believing this, till the day that you are not. You are their nothing, your kids are nothing the life you had was nothing. Their truth changed overnight and you did not get the memo. The horror of realising that you are living in the film the Matrix. Happy with your little life ticking along – then you take a pill and realise that EVERYTHING you held dear was a lie – the life that you lived together was just bullshit.
Debbie remember this is his truth not yours or your kids! It is a bitter pill to realize that they are so disordered and that we accepted and loved them with all their flaws. I felt that my life had been a lie for the past 40 years but then I realized it wasn’t my life that was a lie it was his. I was a faithful good mother and wife and I raised three wonderful kids, did all the things a good person does and I’m proud of that. It took a lot of self talk but I have managed to cut him out of my memories almost completely. I want to move forward and if I keep looking backwards it won’t happen. Be mighty and make new memories for you and your kids. Lots of Hugs!
Lyndaloo – yes this is so true! I needed to read this. Thank you!!!!
Lyndaloo you are so right! YOUR life was NEVER the lie, his was. You and your children will continue forward in the world, and hopefully make it a better place, to the benefit of us all. That he isn’t capable of being part of that is sad, but his loss, not yours.
This part has been one of the toughest for me to accept. It is literally mind-bending (thinking of the spoon in the Matrix).
I had a bit of a break through the other day when my girls mentioned “the pumpkin pie” incident … an incident years ago in which I ate a piece of really runny, disgusting pumpkin pie. The whole thing ended up being absolutely hilarious. The whole family was there — even STBX.
When my girls mentioned the incident, we all laughed again. It dawned on me that it didn’t matter at ALL whether STBX was there or not. It was still a funny moment that the girls and I share as part of our memories. Then I thought about HOW much I love my girls. You know what — he can never take that from me. Whether he was there or not, I would have loved them all the same. And THAT is the most precious thing … my love for my girls.
So, fuck him. He deleted himself from our lives long ago. I’m just now catching up and deleting him in my head. The memories with my girls … those are mine. He can’t have those. 😉
Yes, I feel exactly this way, too!
This is IT….the whole thing was a lie because it hinged on their reality. Everything is ok till its not (in their HEAD) so then the whole family is lost in space and time wondering what the hell happened. This is even more so for the kids (i think even worse if late teens) because its their whole life experience so far. Tellingly after i made a comment about his wish to immediately sell the house from under the 4 of us he forlornly stated “there is no family home anymore …there is no family ” !!?? In other words once i pulled the pin and left you all to your own devices the family doesn’t exist anymore… couldnt get more pathalogically self centred….
My EX was a master of truthiness and its constant companion, gas lighting. Moreover, he prided himself on being truthful. Lines like, “I’m the most truthful person I know,” dripped from his mouth regularly. Since I believed him on that count, it took forever (which equates to 13 marital years) for me to realize that all he really meant was “I insist on being perceived as truthful no matter what I say or do.”
He always had anger problems, and now with my very pricey set of 20/20 hindsight glasses (they came with the divorce decree), I can see a pattern in his life. His relationships always blew up once someone he “trusted” stopped believing in his truthfulness–bosses, friends, family members, me. Then the “betrayer” became the target of his rage, which was distracting enough that everyone involved generally lost sight of the truth problems for awhile because they were busy running for cover (the smart ones) or putting out all the brush fires he was setting (me).
It’s like when they proclaim “I am a good person!”. Who says that? Who advertises like that? Narcissist liars.
I may like to think I’m a good person, but I know to be humble enough not to brag about it, so I don’t lose credibility, because it’s for other people to judge. They expect credibility and don’t think twice about questionable they make themselves sound, instead. I thought it was just something that man-puppies do and we’re supposed to pat them on the head and say “good boy!”. I didn’t think for a second that was a (lazy!!) form of manipulation.
KK said this constantly when I first initiated gray rock. When they insist “I am a good person!” they’re just trying to convince themselves of it.
So true! It took XH’s confession of love for OW for me to to believe my gut feeling that he was cheating, as he had told me so often what a decent loyal ethical man he was. In retrospect, truly decent people don’t trumpet their virtues to the world.
X would constantly lecture me on his integrity, “he was a man of integrity.”
He’d say I was so lucky to be married to him because he’s again, “a man of integrity.
X would be appalled if he noticed someone taking two samples from tray of samples at Costco. Always thought it was peculiar that he would lecture me on his integrity.
Maybe it was to convince himself.
He’d also tell me, usually when I was feeling a red flag moment, that I was his best friend. Looking back he’d say I was his best as a distraction when I’d ask if something was bothering him, he’d reply with, Brit, you’re my best friend, I’m sure thinking that will shut me up, make me feel stupid for questioning him. keeping me confused and less likely to question him in the future.
Turns out he’s the most dishonest manipulative person I’ve ever known.
Ugh. This was GUBU too.
I thought he had “integrity”.
He was the type to stop to save a kitten in the gutter, help a little old lady across the street, donate to charity, boycott any organization or entity that seemed evil, look down his nose at liars, cheaters, people who weren’t as “ethical” as he was.
He was a bleeding heart Liberal.
A vegetarian.
He had NO PROBLEM giving me shit if I bought the wrong kind of recyclable bottles.
And YET….
I believe it was real, how he felt, he just didn’t extend that level of caring to ME.
And I guess that’s all that mattered in the end.
Baby Seals and Sweatshop Children? He’s got them covered.
His wife?
Not so much.
I heard the same words about OW. “She’s a good person!” Said of course in an ultra-indignant tone.
At the time, I was enraged. Now I find it completely laughable. Yes, this mate-poaching slunt is such a “good person.” hahahahaha
Good times, man
Mine said exactly same thing, “she’s a good person”, “she’s praying for you”–how can a predator like that, who breaks up marriages for sport and $$$, be a good person? I laughed at him, but it wasn’t so funny when he said, “you’d like her too”. Delusional.
X#2 always said that about all her affair partners. “She’s soooooo cool! If you got to know her, you’d just love her! You guys could be such good friends!” Nope. Don’t need any more people in my life with conditional morality or that are willing to tolerate same.
I guess they all do that, don’t they? “She’s a good person” “You’d get along great” and the bone-chilling “She cares about you” WTF? He meant what he was saying. I remember explaining to him that it’s not impossible to fuck somebody’s husband and care about the wife. Those two things are incompatible. He just looked at me like he couldn’t process what I was saying. It’s a look on his face I can remember seeing many many times throughout our twenty three years together: complete and utter cluelessness, about my feelings, how relationships work, what emotions are, you name it. I would have had better luck explaining humanity to a toaster.
But what really had me riled up at the time when he said “she cares about you” was that it meant he believes she’s a good person, when in fact she spent three years of her life doing everything in her power to steal him. In other words they have EACH OTHER completely fooled that the other one is a good person. Oh lord, she can have him. Two terrible people. Entitled, selfish, and in complete and utter denial about what kind of people they really are. You know, it just happened, they tried to resist, all the usual shit. Assholes
I got that too!
Also–“She’s a great mother!!!”
Funny, I measure Motherhood Skills a bit differently.
Like, if she’s taking time away from her young children so she can sneak off to suck her boss’s dick,
or,
spending time, energy, and family resources to fund a romantic getaway while leaving her kids with extended family,
or,
leaving her chumpy husband behind while she leaves the marital home to “find herself”,
or,
spending hours and hours daily communicating with her AP (phone calls in the hundreds per month, and texts over 10,000 per month. And they saw each other at work EVERY DAY!),
or,
risking her job and her childrens’ future by boinking her boss. During work hours. In closets, stairwells.
Shall I go on?
I mean, wasn’t she supposed to be helping them with schoolwork, projects, baking cookies, helping them work out Halloween costumes, planning their birthday parties, play dates, taking them to the zoo….?
Hmmmm.
“Good Mom”?
Methinks not.
Yup, I get the “I am a good person” line all the time. I have come to realize that as long as he believes he is a good person, he has no desire or impulse to change his behavior/action – and knowing that gets me closer and closer to DONE.
The ow wrote this a lot. “What we are doing is ok we are good people”. “I’m a good person!” “She’s a really good person!”
If you have to say you is, you ain’t.
Yes. Another thing I’ve heard the ex say too many times (regarding work/business dealings) is “I’m not doing anything illegal”. Good friggin gravy, what kind of person needs to say that?
” I have come to realize that as long as he believes he is a good person, he has no desire or impulse to change his behavior/action” Yes exactly. That’s why these people are like emotionally immature middle-schoolers well into their forties fifties sixties and seventies. They don’t self-evaluate. They think they are perfect the way they are, so they don’t try to change, so they never change. They don’t think they need to learn anything, so they never learn.
((My apologies to all the wonderful, mature, selfless, caring, thoughtful middle schoolers out there))
Yes – I remember when wifestress called me after d-day to share details of their affair that exhole had omitted, she proclaimed, “I’m a good person!” Good people don’t sleep with their married bosses who have young children. Good people don’t get knocked up with a married man’s baby. Good people don’t call the betrayed spouse who is hanging on by a thread to twist the knife deeper so she’ll give up on her marriage. If you’re a good person, your actions will speak loudly enough. As hollowbunny says, “If you have to say you is, you ain’t.”
“Good people don’t sleep with their married _______” Anything, good people don’t sleep with ANYONE who is married. Period. More proof that none of these assholes are good people. In case you were wondering
“Good people don’t get knocked up with a married man’s baby. ” Yup, that’s what happened to me, 32 years married and grandparents and there goes the blasted rug being pulled out, grandpa is a dad but he told me “she feels really bad for you” , well darn , I feel really bad too, starting over again and my family blown apart but he reminds me how much good he does
Ditto here. Knocked her up and acts like there is nothing wrong with it.
Delusional to the core.
Poor kid. Daddy’s gonna bail as soon as the polish wears off.
Like Stuart Smalley…
“I’m good enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It! People LIKE me!!”
After I made it clear I was onto him and filed, X started referring to himself as a kind and empathetic man. Then he began promoting the concept of empathy in the various academic and art projects he’s been involved in since the divorce, which I find hilarious.
Mine walked around the house at the end going : “im awesome”WTF
One of the weirdest moments of him loudly proclaiming his virtue is DDay…I found the smoking gun and (not armed with CN wisdom) I called him, summoned him home and confronted him. He walked in the house, fully aware that I found proof of his affair…
He went to the kitchen table, sat down, steeled himself and made a proclamation “I have never driven the car in a dangerous manner with you and the kids in it” (he had a TERRIBLE history of dangerous rage-driving).
WTF?? Uh yes you have, many times. Did you not remember that I called you having found proof of an affair ? As you all know, they conversation went downhill from there.
and yet we stayed married 7 more years ::::facepalm:::::
Lol unicornnomore! Sounds like when my husband-like substance reacted with “I swear I’m going to declare all that money to the IRS” when what I’d confronted him about was actually that I’d found a woman’s prescription pills and vibrator (not mine) in his travel bag. I guess they’d rather distract you with a fight about something else than get nailed by the evidence at hand?
Did OW plant those items in his bag? Gross.
GUBU’s OW planted a pair of panties in HIS bag.
Certainly she was trying to move things along because he was dragging his feet on leaving me.
He was SHOCKED that she’d done so, and I believe broke his NC (agreed upon with me) to ask her if she really did that. That was part of why I mentioned it to him, as bait to see if he’d get in touch with her.
Of course, now I’m not stupid enough to believe they weren’t in contact with each other constantly anyway. But at the time, I thought I had a handle on being Marriage Detective.
I burned them.
But not before I noticed that they were XXL…
(No offense to the big girls out there! He just liked to blame his complete lack of desire on the “fact” that I wasn’t attractive enough, not in shape enough, so it stung.)
They act straight-up crazy. I used to think the crazy caused the cheating but I now think that the betrayal caused the crazy…
They do stuff that has the potential to create horrible comeuppance that they would NEVER want to have to be accountable for and as it gets close to their jig being up, I think the anxiety, fear and hope to distract/deny makes they act like lunatics.
My daughter’s father only wants to spend time with her when there is fun stuff to do. If there is nothing going on that entertains him, he’s a no-show. That’s another version of this. “I love my daughter” and I’m pretty sure he does, but it’s not the same kind of love that normal people feel for their children. It’s more like “I love my daughter when there’s something in it for me too.”
She’s 14 now, but when we split she was 12. I told her then “your dad loves you, but he is a selfish person and he will always put himself before you.” I thought maybe I was saying the wrong thing at the time, I don’t as a rule, talk bad about her dad to her. But I think this Truth was important and has helped her set her own boundaries with her father. Her dad is part of her life, and I want that for her, but she knows to guard her heart when it comes to her dealings with him.
I think that’s a great message to give your daughter FBO. You were truthful without trashing him. He IS a selfish person so it’s much better that she is forewarned in dealing with him. Kudos to you!
Much better than if she made an attribution for his behavior on her own like kids do. Like “Dad doesn’t spend time with me because I am not ____ enough.”
I have told my kids to pay attention to choices and actions. It is easy to spout words but what do they show you? STBX loves to send text messages saying he loves them, but then he doesn’t even make arrangements to see them for about 95% of his parenting time (and so many other crappy things).
I was just thinking about this very thing. I have told my daughter similar things about FOTY (father of the year) . While I want her to have a relationship with him, I do not want her to ever rely on him completely as he will always put himself first. I don’t want her growing up and thinking his distance and inconsistent treatment of her is somehow her fault. That would make her way too much like her chumpy mother, and I will do anything to avoid her becoming a chump as well. So, I prefer to be honest with her about his character.
One morning about 2 weeks before Dday we were bantering back and forth about aging and such. Out of the blue he said “don’t you worry I’ll be there for you” and he was very emphatic. I thought it kind of strange but then again it was a comforting thought. I suspect now that it was during the period where he hadn’t quite made up his mind and ‘should I Stay or should I go’. But it puzzled me as to why he would say that and 2 weeks later abandoning me??? I realize now that at that moment ‘ he must have been in the I’ll stay mode’ and thought he’d confirm that to himself with this idle commitment to be there for me in old age? This was his “truthey” for the moment but then later when he changed his mind it wasn’t relevant. So the lies weren’t really lies in his mind just “his truth”. I mean things change right? It’s the character flaw thing again, they can justify anything in their little pea brains with ‘ their search for true happiness’. Yikes, they are fucked up!
Mine insisted he wanted to help me more than past years with our son’s birthday party. He helped me plan the food and put together party favors and told me how awesome the cake looked… he cooked all day that day, took photos as a family behind the cake… smiling and being a family. 4 days later it was “I don’t know what I want”…the next day it was “I’m done” … less than two weeks after the party I had kicked him out of the house after he screamed at me on the phone that he wanted a divorce after I confronted him about 11 pm phone calls on our Verizon account.
My son’s birthday is today. It is nearing the one year mark of my life falling apart before my eyes and I wonder.. how? A year ago I would have never guessed this would happen to me. How could he? How could he act like all was well and then light the fuse moments later that would blow our family apart?
The only explanation is: he is disordered. And that’s just something I’ve had to learn to accept.
“My son’s birthday is today. It is nearing the one year mark of my life falling apart before my eyes and I wonder.. how?”
I’m sorry, I remember having those reminder dates pop up, and it feels as if you’ve been transported back to that moment in time, reliving the whole thing over again in your mind. This will eventually subside. I realized just the other day that it didn’t even register in my brain (on the 12th) that it would have been our 18th wedding anniversary. Important dates and holidays can be difficult, but I started going into them with a new mindset. Instead of thinking, “oh, this was happening this time during his affair,” I go into those events thinking “This is MY life, and I am going to make new memories and new traditions, because FU*K HIM.”
I’ve been there and just want you to know it gets better!
Facebook is really great for throwing up reminder dates that trigger. Had to shut that off.
Facebook can be a source of a lot of hurtful memories and can keep you tied into what cheater and AP are up to. I don’t subscribe to Facebook I don’t want to know what’s happening with cheater and I don’t want cheater knowing anything about me.
I shut my account down and opened a new one under a new name. No more shit reminders.
I shut mine down too as soon as I saw my son posting pictures of him and his asswipe father in Las Vegas. I didn’t want to look at that piece of shit, nor want to know what or who he is doing. Now I have a fb account – but with only people that have ZERO connection to Judas. No family – and I’ve explained to my family why I will not ‘friend’ them. It is pretty much just friends from hs and my boyfriend and his family. I have a total of 63 friends 🙂
I blocked STBX and OW on Facebook, and I don’t always love seeing his face in the memories that pop up, but I use them as an opportunity to cull my Facebook history. 🙂 I had already un-tagged him from photos, and now I just delete the ones he’s in unless they are a group photo and I have no others. Twenty-five years is a lot of memories. I’m just glad I have the option to keep or erase. He doesn’t have access to them at all.
My kids don’t speak to him for the most part right now. Will they eventually be upset that there are no pictures of them with him?
Their inability to be honest even with themselves keeps them playing this stupid game. Cheater also wanted to help more cooking etc., he was making me breakfast on s tray 2 days before DDay? So we know that this “unhappiness nonsense” is just plain bullshit. They want kibbles and that’s more important than anyone or anything else. I said to my cheater when he admitted to AP ‘don’t you think I’ve had plenty of opportunities to betray you over the year;but, I didn’t because I loved you and was committed to you.” He had no answers. It’s like talking to an 11 year old that’s been caught shop lifting. They only look like adults but are just aging adolescents. They are truly disordered!
Happy Birthday to your son!
Accept it…quick. we were burying our beloved pet rabbit after its sudden death on the sunday morning….12 hours later he engineered an argument and yelled/ blurted out he couldn’t take anymore (anymore what ) and wanted a divorce. In the next few days the other 4 rabbits we had also died mysteriously … i have my suspicions. … since he demanded the house be sold weeks after he left. Anyone else out there got any grisly endings as their fuckwit decided to run away rather than face the music. Just to make sure i dont ask any further awkward questions my shit for brains ex makes it clear to our CHILDREN that he will get a restraining order on me if i attempt to go see him (which is why he wont tell where he lives) total chicken shit coward.
Yup lyndaloo, once again we see your fuckwit and my fuckwit fell out of the same alien space pod. Six weeks before STBX abandoned me he declared, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” What a comforting sentiment, said while we were on a short vacation trip and having a great time. But it was only true for that minute, he wanted to say it out loud and see how it sounded I suppose, and stupid me actually believed it. How dare I. After 31 years, how dare I take him at his word. What a ridiculous and tragic way to live your life, to be so utterly spineless and disordered that holding yourself to your own statements is simply an option, and it doesn’t matter who you hurt with your casual lies.
Schmoopie will get that bullshit shoveled at her too. He forever reserves the right to withdraw all statements and any evidence of love and bonding submitted prior to his next epic F.U. and declaration that he never loved her at all. Too bad the Pod People don’t have warnings attached.
Now I.C.
So that must be it, alien pods maybe they’re brothers! It is interesting though how many similarities they share. I was going to say character traits but they really don’t have Character of any kind. You know you are probably right “aliens transplanted into human bodies” just clones! LOL We have to laugh at these morons because it is so fucking ridiculous when you think of their stupidity. It’s embarrassing to even think I married this goon let alone stayed with him 40 fucking years!!! OMG what was I thinking???
Lyndaloo, probably the same thing I was. That he loved me as much as I loved him. That I was his one and only, just as he was mine. That he was honest and true, as I was to him. Silly me.
“They don’t agree with your version of reality because it’s yours, and withholding consensus on reality fucks with your head. Bonus!”
All of this column is special to me, but that part in particular!
I thought we were happy(-ish) for several years after we first moved in together (his pressure to do so), because when I found sexy text messages he would deny it was flirting until he was blue in the face. To this day, “it was just a joke”. I believed it because I had no choice, but my gut and my logic were screaming.
But then, he repeated the behaviors, so the scale was tipped towards my line of thinking.
But consensus? Never, to this day. He had jokes, bets, conversations, you name it. All situations that would read as “inappropriately reaching for kibbles in the workplace” to every other decent human being.
To him, it was never flirting, it was never sexual (you wrote “will you be my sexy nurse?” WTF??), he pursued a woman on a dare (???), he was just making conversation (why keep it a secret, then?), he went to a wedding behind my back “because he didn’t want to upset me that he was going while I was out of town” (?????), he kept his Facebook invisible from me “because he didn’t feel he who could talk to me” (he never tried and refused all my attempts).
It’s the denial and the lies, and the denial of the lies and lying about denying…it’s been exhausting.
They’re never even good lies, dude! Disgusting.
X told me he had to hide his technology/social media from me because if I went through it, I would accuse him of cheating. That was after years of cockamamie excuses explaining away all of his shady behavior, which I accepted until I finally ran out of spackle. You are so right, they aren’t even good liars.
Our fucktards must be brothers. Always dodging and weaving excuses etc. He loved having me on his arm when it suited him for ego-I could imagine what went thru his head- look at me” I have a doctor girlfriend!!!!”-but when there were “woman friends” or social events I never felt like a participant. Many times he went alone or didn’t tell me. “Because he can’t tell me- I get to upset” “he has to keep things a secret- he can’t be honest with me” they are “just friends” I was just “joking”
I had the oddest experience when one night, in a restaurant, waiting to be seated, we ran into of his female colleagues (a weird girl that he had mentioned, that everybody treated like the joke of the office). I was taken aback when she barely acknowledged me, I thought she was being quite rude. I later understood that her lack of respect was because he didn’t respect me in his workplace at all. People knew he was in a committed relationship, but I have proof he didn’t act like it. It still bugs me to this day that a whole company (hundreds of people) knew him better than I did for a number of years. “Being on the outside looking in”. He really wanted to keep me separate from his work environment, I don’t even understand it fully, except this already happened to me in a relationship as a teenager (he was also a Narc and a liar), so at least I know it’s in their mental profile to do so. All he did feels so extra and unnecessary. Mess for the sake of a mess.
Mine told me three years before d-day he was unhappy. So, I made suggestions: therapy, changing jobs, re-training, joining a sports team, taking up a new hobby, not working for a bit to sort himself out. He shot all of them down. That would have meant making an effort, self-reflection, having the courage to leave me honestly (since he obviously thought I was the root of all his problems).
After d-day (he went on-line): You didn’t send money, did you? Him: No. Me: Reading text messages on his phone thanking him for sending money.
He thinks he is hard done by. All I want for Christmas is a divorce.
I suggested the sports team thing too… he joined a co-ed team at work called Cleats and Cleavage. You cannot make this shit up. Didn’t invite me or our son to one game. NOT. ONE. GAME. But he was quick to cry “you don’t love me”… when I mentioned it to our friends at a pool party one night. PUHLEASE.
Situational truth for sure for all cheaters is the M.O. I also think like cheaters exist on the spectrum, their lack of truth, commitment and integrity sit on a scale.
I think mine pinned the meter right- serial cheating, cheating on the women he was cheating on me with, outright lies to my face while starting at the truth (You say I spent $30,000 of marital money in strip clubs? What kind of excel sheet is that? How do you know that was for me and not for my customers, I was reimbursed for that by my company…), and completely void of human decency, integrity and morality.
CL says “The best practitioners of situational truth are the personality disordered — they manipulate as easily as they breathe. They don’t agree with your version of reality because it’s yours, and withholding consensus on reality fucks with your head. Bonus!” OMG you are so right, Chump Lady.
For the truly sick, it is a sport. What can I get away with and when consequences come from a chump finding out the truth and getting all uppity in their new found knowledge then deny, blameshift, burn the field they are standing on, rewrite history, air previously unaired grievances to all who will listen (justify), recycle and repeat.
Why work so hard to mess with the truth? Because the truth is what the chumps have that is powerful. They hate giving up power as much as cake. They deny INTENTIONALLY to get chumps’ heads messed up.
Hold on to the truth Chumps- not just becuase it’s as valuable as gold, but it should propel you to know your worth and act. Oh, and using Cl’s logic, withholding your consensus on their lies, justifications and blameshifts Fucks with a cheater’s head. BONUS!
Thank you for saying this: “Because the truth is what the chumps have that is powerful.” I never thought of it like that before! But that’s the case isn’t it? Once we see that yes, we are right about the reality of the situation, they do lose their power over us.
It’s very powerful Jojobee because we see through the lies and see who they are finally. No matter how long it takes or how painful it is- when you have the truth you can act with your feet and your heart and mind catch up. Powerful because the “game” we were forced to play against our will is over. New rules, Cheater! Power, clarity, trusting our intuition that was damaged and on to healing and creating a new life. The pain is finite. The truth sets us free. Freedom from a cheater? Priceless!
free2beme, what you said. Exactly.
Glad it resonated with you. I love your clever screen name btw!
Thanks! It was fun brainstorming for the right name.
It’s the denial and the lies, and the denial of the lies and lying about denying…it’s been exhausting.
They’re never even good lies, dude! Disgusting.
Thats brilliant ! I dont even get why they bother lying ! Why after they are caught do they keep lying its crazy making – NC is the only thing that offer clarity . I keep getting those wtf moments omg he was lying about that – then laughing at myself for not seeing it at the time
Before we started dating, my now-XW cheated on her prior boyfriend with a colleague.
So, during one of our arguments over her affair, I brought it up.
Her response? “You’re not supposed to know that.”
Me. Her husband. Life partner. Person who swore to be true to her, warts and all. There was truth about her past that I wasn’t “supposed to know.”
Even more amazing was that she had already told me that she had cheated on all prior boyfriends because “It wasn’t true love like it is with you, JC.” It was a live bomb for this idiotic chump who ate that shit up.
Talk about “situational truth.” My wife actually “confessed” to a history of cheating when it suited her needs, and then she was shocked and upset that I remembered this confession when it went against her needs.
And they breeze through life spouting those contradictions like it’s a normal thing !!
They never care or even notice that they contradict themselves often. Supposedly that’s a sign of personality disorder. My ex did that too. Never blinked twice about changing his version of things, like he didn’t even remember saying it. And he was quite apt at reconciling those versions, if called out on them, but not without some ragey contempt while doing so.
Whenever we would argue and I would point out something similar he did in the past he would deny it or give a different version. When I proved him wrong (which was always – hey I have a good memory) it was always “you and your little black book where you write everything down”! But when he brought up something from the past (or even invented a misdemeanour for me) that was ok. God I don’t miss the Twat at all!
My goodness, they really are all the same aren’t they? My SBTX hated being called out on his contradictions. Would always tell me I was remembering things wrong. And very much disliked being called out for past actions, complaining that he would hear about this forever. But when he left he launched a word salad of complaints from our entire 8 year marriage and that was completely ok for him to do.
The leech did exactly the same thing. Could spend hours berating me on my supposed shortcoming but there were so many 1/2 truths changes in the story different versions of his feelings. God forbid I called him out on it. He would rage and verbally attack me until I was a pile of mush and ended up apologizing.
I don’t mean to laugh, but cheaters are so predictably ridiculous. Who says you’re not supposed to know something that they intentionally told you?
My ex took a slightly different but similarly nonsensical approach to this exact issue. When I pointed out his pattern of serial cheating in all of his previous relationships, he looked at me like I was an idiot and told me “Those aren’t connected. Each of those were situational.” We went ’round and ’round while I tried to explain what a pattern is and that he was the common denominator. Nope. Not even a glimmer of understanding, because to him each new moment is a new situational reality that is unrelated to the last moment. (Unless, of course, it involves something he resents, then it is forever somehow connected even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense, such as “You asked me to take out the trash last month and I must therefore punish you today.)
It’s not situational truth, its situational advantage. I have no desire to be around someone who is constantly on a quest for advantage at all cost.
“Each new moment is a new situational reality that is unrelated to the last moment.”
This reminds me of your point that cheaters “just do shit.” They don’t think about it, its repercussions, how it may fit into a lager pattern, how it relates to their past or future. They just do it, and then they’re flabbergasted when things go south.
Reminds me of that monologue in Michael Clayton, in which he’s taking to his son:
“Big Tim… Uncle Boss… all his charming bullshit. And I know you love him. And I know why. But when you see him like this, you don’t have to be afraid, because it’s not how it’s gonna be for you. You’re not gonna be one of those people who goes through life wondering why shit keeps falling out of the sky around them. You have some real steel in you, Henry. Inside. I see it every time I look at you. I see it right now.”
Cheaters ARE Big Tim, Uncle Boss. They can’t understand why shit keeps falling out of the sky around them.
Love the quote. And it’s so true. They make things fall apart and then feel entitled to extreme and selfish behavior because things are falling apart. Cheaters: 50% chicken, 50% egg.
“For the truthy, all truth is situational truth” oh this is soooo true. Even before d-day I would ask fuck-face how he could be such a chameleon. It’s like they will say or do whatever benifits THEM in the moment. There is no depth to their character or morals. Fuck-face loved to “reframe” these chameleon like qualities by putting positive labels on them. “I’m not chameleon like, I’m flexible in my thinking, open minded, accepting, and of course non-judgmental.” What other people didn’t see is his super nice, complimenting demeanor only lasted as long as they faced him. The minute they turned their back he was calling them an idiot, uneducated… what-have-you. It’s like they have a hidden agenda in everything they do… of course the name on the top of that agenda is theirs.
– Like the pastor who frequents strip clubs in the name of “saving strippers souls by example of God’s love” ….And boy his wife should be ashamed of herself for being so judgmental, ungodly, and bitter over his strip club visits. SHE needs to work on herself.
Or…
-like the politician who pushes for anti-gay laws, and is having sex with other men in public restrooms. Poor chap, he can’t come out because society is cruel! Oh, so the way to fight back is to add to being cruel to make YOURSELF look good. “Eh, screw all those other LGBTQ assholes… this guy is number one! I’m like the magician who distracts you over here, so you don’t see what’s happening over there!”
It’s like they can slap a label on any behavior of theirs and it makes their chameleon like behavior okay! They are as shallow as a teaspoon of water, but convince you you are staring into the depths of a never ending ocean of meaning. They have an uncanny ability to draw people in with their charisma, knowing that they can change their minds about their agreements, views and opinions to whatever fits the situation in the moment; whatever it is that gets them what they want. Their shifty natures are of course, “flexible, open minded, and non-judgmental.” They have no sense of personal integrity, and the absence of guilt to go along with it.
Whenever the Twat really screwed up it was always “hey, I’m just a big kid”. When I pointed out that being over 50 and acting like an overgrown teenager stopped being cute years ago he had nothing to say.
Hahahaha. I love that u call him fuckface. That’s the name I had for an old boss. Reminds me
Of the pinched face ugly turd who thinks he’s hot stuff and grooms himself in the mirror
This cookie jar is sealed shit. I realize now I was literally his fuckstick. Fucker
“You are so naive nejla! You don’t take life on life’s terms!” (In response to my unmasking him and pointing out the tip of the iceberg of lies.)
Life on life’s terms?!?!?? Huh? Ah yes, situational truth.
I’m pretty sure I heard that exact line, minus the name of course!
I swear the longer I read here I am convinced that there must be a secret breeding society that clones these idiots and puts them out into the world. Of course I don’t really think there is a secret cloning society… but you get the point.
It is uncanny, our stories are almost interchangeable! All the same traits over and over! Maybe there is a secret cloning society!
LOL
I guess if you were a pathological liar there would not be much you could say to defend it other than the 5 or so versions of my above quote from my former pathogical lying turd of a husband;)
It’s got everything! A bit of gaslighting, a lot of blame shifting and, of course, truthiness.
Oh yeah! And word salad!! Can’t forget the word salad.
Is it worth it to continue to point out the lies? I’ve spent the last year recovering from the truth that my spouse of 25 years was having an affair with a public figure. He did not share this ‘truth’ but only that he was unhappy in our marriage. I discovered it several months later (right before telling the kids)and when confronted he continued to try to lie & say they were just friends.
Several months later I discovered that the same woman had been having affair with another person in my community. Now this woman is running for reelection and my STBX is helping her & probabaly still with her. My kids don’t know her identity but I live in a small community and people have started to discover the ‘truth’. I’m so tired of pointing out his truthiness but am worried that the actual truth will get back to my teenage kids, damaging their relationship forever.
The truth isn’t the problem. The ex’s shitty behavior is the problem. Truth helps them build appropriate boundaries. Don’t show them pics and all that but…. Keeping a secret that is on the cusp of coming out means they may not have time and privacy to prepare themselves for it. It may hurt more coming from others. I dunno. Just don’t protect the ex when you’re actually trying to protect the kids.
It is better for the truth to come from you then from someone outside the situation. Kids don’t need all the details, but to keep the truth from them, especially if others in the community know, is setting up a situation where they may lose trust in you, too. “You knew but didn’t tell us?”
I know how incredibly hard it is to have your kids learn awful truths and to fear that the knowledge will forever change and damage them and their relationship with their dad. I lived that fear for over two years. But that relationship is not mine to manage anymore. And I wanted them to find out the truth from one of us before it had spread through the community and got back to them. And finally, I realized that to keep it from my teenagers was to leave them in the dark and let them continue to have an unauthentic relationship with their dad. And I know what it is like to find out that the person I loved and trusted had kept things from me. I couldn’t do that to my kids. Was it hard? Yes. One of the hardest conversations I have ever had to work myself up to have, but the world did not collapse and my kids are doing amazing in spite of it. Just keep the conversation to facts and don’t name call or editorialize with your opinions.
And it didn’t change their relationship with their dad much. His continued behavior and choices in all areas did that.
That’s a shit-sandwich that he created. He screwed around without caring about how it would impact his wife OR his kids. It’s completely screwed up. But that was what he decided to do. The choice has already been made. The damage already done.
I recommend being the honest one — the rock your kids can turn to, no matter how bad the truth is. I had a serial cheating dad. Being deceived as a kid by your asshole parent is bad enough. Being deceived by both was devastating.
This is why I will not lie to my kids and feed them the “we grew apart” BS narrative that Cheater wants me to go along with. I’m not going to go into the gory details (at least not now), but I think they deserve to know that the marriage is ending because one of us thought lying, cheating, and gas-lighting was an appropriate way to deal with marital issues.
I’m sorry, to clarify- my kids know he had an affair but not with whom. Of course cheater never wanted to tell them anything at all because it would ‘affect their relationship’. Ya think? My son found out because he heard us fighting & then I made cheater tell daughter. His first questions was about OW & not his daughter.
Getmefree – “And it didn’t change their relationship with their dad much. His continued behavior and choices in all areas did that.” I needed to hear that.
Thank you all.
Moveon, I told my kids at the beginning that I would not share everything between their dad and me, but if they had a specific question, I would be honest with them. They now know quite a bit but not everything. Someone said on this blog once that the kids need at least one sane, consistent, and honest parent to depend on and they will make it through this. I have taken that to heart and keep holding onto it. Listen to your gut.
“You are all I need.”
“You are my safe harbor.”
“I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wife.”
“I want another 30 years by your side.” (pronounced during our 30th anniversary renewal ceremony)
This was XH’s personal version of truthiness… when he announced he wanted a divorce, I questioned him about all of the commitment-like things he’d said. He blurted out, “I meant them when I said them”… but he neglected to tell me they had a time limit; specifically, each statement was true only as long as it took for him to say the actual words and then boom, sorry, time’s up, the offer has expired!
Now he’s very likely whispering the same sweet nothings into his fiancée’s ear (she is AP #14).
What is with the vow renewal. Mine took the extra step of asking me to re-marry him. That was at 30 years married and after he was caught in an affair with.a friend of ours. Cue the sickening (now) wedding in Central Park /trip to New York. Those words of commitment mean nothing to them except further kibbles. It just meant he could keep stealing family money and abusimg me.
I was the chump who really believed he meant it and we would grow old together.
There is just no limits to the fuckupedness of these idiots! It’s almost laughable that someone would renew their vows while cheating at the same time. Boogies the mind!
Yes it does lindaloo,and I now think he couldn’t have just cheated then.. I think he had done it before -maybe many times( slimy charmer never home at night I raised our kids alone). No such thing as a mid life crisis i now say. I got ” at least you were good for making money”. Niiiice!!
Within a week of telling me he wanted a divorce and that he had been “involved” with someone for the past couple of months, STBX came to my one month old’s baptism and went up on the alter and promised to raise her according to the commandments and the faith. How I made it through the baptism ceremony is beyond me. As soon as it ended, I gave my daughter to my sister and practically ran to the back of church in tears. That was when I finally started to accept just how awful his character was and that he was morally bankrupt.
He had no business even being at the baptism.
The baptism was set before he dropped his bombs. A few days beforehand, I gave him the words of the promise he would have to make and asked him if he really thought he should come up to the alter to promise that to God and his daughter when he would walk out of that church and immediately break a commandment with AP.
I believe it was about impression management and the fact that promises to him mean nothing, whether to me, his kids, or to God.
getmefree, your x is what my friend would call ‘a first class useless asshole’. I’m not religious myself but I sure hope if God was listening she is planning a big surprise for this creep.
Even though I want him get his karma in this world (so I get to see it), I am having faith that at the very least, he will have to stand before God at the end of his life and account for his sins. And there is no amount of gaslighting or manipulation that will hide all that he has done.
NewLady,
I’m starting to wonder if the whole “vow renewal” experience is a way for them to re-capture some of the feel-good kibbles they crave.
You know, “Look at what a great husband I am! I am renewing my vows! People will be there and see how loving and terrific I am! The wife will love me more! We’ll be able to focus on the THINGS instead of on EACH OTHER…”
>>”but he neglected to tell me they had a time limit; specifically, each statement was true only as long as it took for him to say the actual words and then boom, sorry, time’s up, the offer has expired!”
????
Omg MyRedSandals thank you. That was a light bulb moment just now. There’s “fine print” to all their statements and promises. Like the rambling speed read disclaimers on the radio. Not sure why this soothed me but it clicked something that I must have been struggling to understand.
Xx
Yes this is so painful!!!! My STBX also said these types of things and when I called him out on it later I got the “I meant them when I said them.” These cheaters are all the same – gross!!!!
I wonder if cheaters never learned the object permenance lesson as children. Schnoopie has cookies but feeling it has cookies at home. Or is it, yes but feelingit expects me to help out and listen to her in order to get cookies. With schmoopie, I tell her she is beautiful and instant cookies. Why should I have to work for my cookies?
They never learned anything they are morally bankrupt!
Yes! this!! That’s the summary of the day, Lyndaloo!
Hit the nail on the head!
These fuckers even prevaricate about prevaricating!
Woody actually blameshifted his pathological lying to me in his word salad email to my brother and sister-in-law trying to convince them they that they don’t need to worry about their 19-year-old daughter being with 49-year-old him. Woody wanted to keep it a secret from me that he brought my niece Bazooka Jane back to live with him because “[Mehtamorphosis] would react harshly….But this is how [Meht] has conditioned me to communicate with her — either by omitting information or by being altogether dishonest.”
In contrast, Woody and Bazooka Jane “treat each other with complete openness, respect, and trust” because “ultimately the success rates are highest when the two partners treat each other honestly and respectfully, which is precisely how [Bazooka Jane] and I have treated each other from the moment she arrived.”
Chumps, have fun with that!
Background: I had invited my niece to live with us in Fall 2015 so we could help her with college, but I sent her home to her parents as soon as finals finished in May 2017 after I discovered the whole 16-month uncle-fucking affair. Woody begged me not to separate at that time, claiming that he loved me more than he ever loved anyone, that he would go to counseling for the rest of his life to fix what he called the “bugs in his program” (he teaches computer science), and be the devoted and faithful husband I deserve in Marriage 2.0. But the wreckonciliation failed because, according to Woody, I challenged him and made him feel bad about himself. He was afraid to communicate because I treated him ways that were damaging to him, and afraid to express his feelings because I always reacted so harshly and invalidated him.
According to me, he wasn’t fixing his bugs or doing the things that the Reconciliation Industrial Complex says are necessary to heal a marriage after infidelity, and my trauma symptoms weren’t improving after 6 DDays of trickle truth found in my marriage policing on his devices. It was a shock to learn that my adored and presumably adoring husband had been leading a secret life since at least 2011. Before I found the evidence I was actually looking for of the uncle-fucking that I had suspected for months after accidentally seeing some incriminating text messages on his phone, I found his email souvenirs from several emotional affairs with married women that he had hidden behind his Happy Husband mask. These, of course, were the things that I reacted harshly to and challenged him on, making him feel bad about himself.
When in early August he finally admitted he’d lost his motivation to be a good husband and thought he might have had his affairs because he didn’t want to be married anymore, I immediately left on a separation road trip — and without telling me he was doing so, a month later he crossed the country to get my niece and move her back into the marital residence in my place. During the wreckonciliation he had led me to believe that the two of them had ended their relationship and gone No Contact. Yah, sure they did.
And now he tells my brother that “this relationship has potential to be better than any I’ve ever had.” Even though it’s built on a foundation of betrayal, lies, incest, and mindfuckery?
Good luck with that, Woody! Divorce papers coming your way any minute now!
You suck, me meh.
What do your brother and SIL think of all this? Are they okay with their daughter shacking up with her uncle? Ugh. That is vile. I’m so glad you are out and doing well ’cause that is a serious mind fuck. You are mighty, Meht!
Beth, my brother said Woody is lucky he doesn’t live closer, or Woody would be missing some body parts and Bazooka Jane wouldn’t be having so much fun in the bedroom.
My brother and sister-in-law did their best to reeducate Bazooka Jane once they found out about the affair, but she believes Woody’s lies and trusts him. They’re in twu wuv, after all!
She has extreme social anxiety and never had a boyfriend or even a female friend in her whole life before Woody, and just socialized with her family (she’s the 4th of 6 siblings). Also she has self-esteem lower than whale shit. Either he groomed her well and she’s just gullible narcissistic supply for him — or, maybe the two of them are peas in a pathological pod and deserve each other. I was gobsmacked by what a good liar and actor she turned out to be. And she never leaked a single tear the whole time she lived with me, even when I confronted her about the adulterous incest and sent her packing.
Time will tell.
Yeah, I’m kind of thinking they deserve each other. No matter how socially isolated she may have been, she had to know that what she was doing so very, very wrong on every level. The Edgar Suit is an only child and my only sibling doesn’t have children so I can only imagine my reaction if one of my kids did something so heinous, but I imagine it would fall under the category of tough love – something like: I’m done with you until you are done with him and then we are going to have a serious talk about your values.
I’m so sorry that you had to go through such a horrible betrayal but I’m seriously impressed with the way you’re handling it.
Ummm…just wow. That is really messed up. Let’s up that relationship implodes. Can you imagine family get-togethers years from now?
*hope, not up…stupid autocorrect
Woody will never, ever be welcome at Chez Bro or Grandma’s house not matter how long they stay together. Hopefully they’ll implode before they decide to breed.
I’m so sorry! This is so awful!!!!
Wow. He’s beyond disgusting. Ick. Barf.
And barf again!
SO sorry, Mehtamorphosis.
Yes. But what about the niece? And if they do marry and have kids, family has a way of overlooking things in order to have a relationship with said niece or grandchildren.
GetMeFree, you’re right, my brother would definitely want to see his daughter and any grandchildren. And Woody may well use this to keep her bonded to him and try to manipulate our family into acceptance.
When we started dating he made a point of never wanting kids. I already had three in college from my first marriage, and Woody had never been married before. Now I can just imagine him telling her she’s the only one he ever wanted kids with, and since he’s not getting any younger, why not start their family asap? Wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear she’s pregnant, but hopefully they’ll wait until after he’s divorced from Auntie and they’re married.
Yuck, now I have to run to the garbage can and throw up.
Good god that is so messed up. I guess if she is 19, the parents may not be legally able to stop her, but if it were my daughter I would definitely try in any way I could imagine. I can’t even be sure that the thought of murder wouldn’t enter my head if I was trying to protect one of my kids from a horrible monster however stupidly she herself might be acting. And that would all be true whether the sicko had a wife or not.
Her parents did all they could to clarify the situation for her and convince her to stay with them, but she went ahead and left when they weren’t home. If she doesn’t wake up on her own before the divorce is final, my brother and I do have some niece rescue ideas we might try. But I don’t want to risk pissing Woody off before my assets are safe. If ever there was a time to put myself first, it’s now.
I’m so sorry Meh, but I think they are in the same camp. Who shacks up with their older Uncle? Who sexualizes their niece?
I wouldn’t touch either of them with a ten foot pole! No one can ‘save’ or ‘educate’ people like this, so I would save myself instead. Perfect use of NC, I think.
I’m not saying you are in contact, I think you’re away from this nut, right?
Thanks, FreeWoman. I suspect you’re right that she’s as big a spath as he is, but she’s young and I’m a chump, so I’m willing to be open to the possibility that she’s just an ignorant fool.
Yes, I am far away from Woody and Bazooka Jane on a road trip from Maine to California visiting with friends and family. I’m calling it the “I Love [my real name]” Tour, since my name is similar to Lucy, I’m learning to love myself again, mending my broken heart with the love of others, and enjoying my love for them instead of spackling and dancing for Woody. The timing worked because I was already on research leave from the day job and can blend work with pleasure. For any chump in a position to get away like this, I highly recommend it! It’s a speed track to Meh, and I’m actually having a great time!
Yes, I am No Contact with Woody except for terse business emails when necessary. Like, please call Eversource to put this bill in your name.
Even our friends who know about this are unfriending him on social media. I have no spies out there and am refraining from asking anyone anything about what the two of them are doing, although sometimes I’m curious to know whether he’s still pretending she’s living with Auntie for college, or are they going around holding hands like he used to do with me everywhere we went. I’m sure I’ll find that out in due time.
Your trip sounds like an awesome way to heal Meht! If you need a place to pit stop in Ohio and don’t mind big, excitable dogs, give me a shout. I’d love to meet up with a fellow Chump on a Meh roadtrip. 😀
Beth, wow, you know, if you aren’t too far out of my way, then I just might do that! I will be in Ohio October 2 & 3 hiking Clifton Gorge. How do we exchange contact info around here without revealing private info? Can we get ChumpLady to hook us up?
Oh boy you two 🙂 I’m not far! Would be great to have a meet up!!!! 🙂
Tempest 🙂 will you please connect us?
…Ha Ha Pizza in Yellow Springs? And then the Gorge and the Pine Forest and the Raptor Center???
Done!
I’ve heard other chumps say Tempest has hooked them up privately. Maybe send an email to CL about it? ????
Email sent to CL asking for help connecting me with Beth and JeepTess. I hope this will work out — could be such fun!
Last night I told my friend I’m staying with that, in a sick way, I have Woody to thank for changing my life for what may turn out to be the better. I did have a great life and loved being married to him, before he turned into a flaming dog turd. But now I’m experiencing new things, deepening old connections, and making wonderful new friends that I never would have if he didn’t fuck my niece. She can have him, I’m having pizza in Yellow Springs!
Oh wow, you will practically be in my backyard! Yes, JeepTess, HaHa Pizza or anyplace in Yellow Springs is a great idea! Can we take this over to the forums and work out details there?
Good idea! I started a new thread in the meet-up forum called Ohio Chumps Take a Hike. See you there!
Wow, they really are all alike, aren’t they? My cheater is all about situational truths and compartmentalization. Throughout our marriage, he created separate boxes and ridiculous rationalizations for any questionable or disrespectful behavior that put the blame on me for his lack of integrity and honesty (ex: it’s okay if I lie to you about why I’m coming home late from work because I don’t want to get in trouble with you….). But since I believed all the “I will love you forever” and “I want to grow old with you” trutheys I forgave and made excuses for all of these instances. Now I realize they were part of his character–his ability to deceive and disrespect was always there, he just took it to new levels.
This exactly. Mine would refuse to call me if he detoured on the way home. “Why get yelled at twice when I can get yelled at once?” So, he wouldn’t tell me and I would be left wondering where he was. He would then go do whatever he wanted to do and then get in trouble with me when he got home. I have two teenagers, and both of them are more mature than he ever was.
“Wow, you’re so honest.” “You are very ethical, aren’t you?” Two people in my life said these words to me and they both went on to royally screw me over — my ex and a colleague. They’re not complements. They’re warnings. Run!
Oh wow. Cheater would frequently tell me that I was “the best person he knew.” I guess it wasn’t a compliment –it was probably some cognitive dissonance on his part that I possess un-situational integrity and honesty!
Mine did as well. Verbatim.
Speaking of situational truth … when he was on Rage Channel, my “goodness” became a slur … “What’s with you and HONESTY?” He also liked to bash my desire to strive for integrity as “black and white thinking.”
Yet, when the Charm Channel flips back (even now), he’s all about what a good person I am.
Assholes, the lot of ’em.
mine said the same exact thing, i could never understand what he meant by that but it was used against me as in “you are too rigid to give polyamory a try”, blew my mind. I’m a good, moral, ethical person and it’s a bad thing that I don’t want you to bring a third party into our 26 year marriage so you can have all the cake?
Shakespeare said it best: Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
My X fuckwit is a sociopath. Truth.
Good ole Shake, he definitely could read people. One of my favorite sonnets.
I really think my ex believes his own truthiness. He rationalizes and justifies it all so much he believes it. He even snuck off to church without me, left me sitting and waiting for him, so he could go pray about it. I always knew he was high maintenance and a bottomless pit of need. Always needing validation and admiration. Always miserable and complaining how no one appreciates him or values him. Although he’s very outgoing, he’s not grandiose. I did not in a million years think of him as a narcissist. But I now believe he is a vulnerable narc.
I was tired of pouring every ounce of energy into him for really nothing in return. My mom was sick and I went to take care of her alot. He started a ‘friendship’ with our daughter’s 20-something assistant high school coach. I have no doubt he believes all of his own bullshit of why this is okay and how he has found the twu wuvs.
He is truthy alright. But I am done.
The science is there. Saw a study related to them. Once one lies repeatedly, they have a chemical change in the brain. If they ever felt bad about the lies or actions, that disappears. Now it takes a flawed person to take it to that point…… I can actually say, mine at first had moments she showed potential regret for her actions. Later she became a cold calculated cheater. All sense of right and wrong left her. People of poor character cheat……. but interesting to see there is science to show how they become progressively worse!
It’s habituation. Unfortunately, it happens to us as well. The first time they lie to us … it is devastating. Each subsequent lie becomes less and less upsetting. It becomes just something they do, like loading the dishwasher differently or leaving the toilet lid up. And we spackle our hearts out, because no one is perfect, “for better or worse,” and other justifications. If I had left his ass after the first big lie, I would have never even married him. Oh well.
I got to witness the progression, too. At first, he had guilt about an attraction at work and came to me about it.
Once that was fixed (in his mind) between us, it’s like the whole world of wrong-doing suddenly became acceptable and he escalated. I hate to think that was my chump defining moment, which also assisted him in going further, unbeknownst.
Very insightful – and of course it’s not the way someone with integrity, honesty, commitment would think, so no wonder it makes no sense to us chumps! But yes, now I can see that years ago, when he first violated my trust (he lied, but did not cheat, or so he still insists), that just led to more and more escalation of lying, gaslighting, and cheating on his part, rather than any true remorse or desire to be a better man.
I’m at the point now where I can see that I wasted so much time, energy, and effort in not seeing a toxic dynamic that had escalated for years before DDay. And all that time I felt broken and weakened. I’m realizing that’s how he preferred me to be, so that he could feel like some wonderful hero for having to “take care” of my poor pathetic self.
Wow this is blowing my mind. Of course the ex started lying to me when he started his affair. But what I didn’t understand is why he continued lying months after he had moved out. What was the point of it? Our marriage was over, what the hell did I care what he was doing? It was like he was lying out of habit. Like his knee-jerk reaction in any situation was to lie. He lied over stupid things he didn’t need to lie about. Not just to me, but to her, his parents, his employers, friends etc. I can look back on our marriage and see how I spackled over some truly horrible shit, but lying every goddam second is relatively new. “Once one lies repeatedly, they have a chemical change in the brain. If they ever felt bad about the lies or actions, that disappears.” Yeah, this. He was ALWAYS a narcissistic asshole, but he BECAME a compulsive liar
I don’t want to forget to mention how much he lied and still lies to our children. Holy friggin shit. He is trying to pass off OW as a new, post-divorce relationship. Actually had her leave their apartment when the kids would come to visit. His gaslighting was something like “she’s not living here, she just stays here a lot”. Oh for the love of pete… Pisses them off, the kids. They can’t stand him talking to them like he thinks they’re stupid, like they are babies and don’t know what happened right in front of their eyes…
I use the POSH (Piece of Shit Husband). Sorry for the chump husbands here….. POSW doesn’t work.
I personally don’t like saying “my kid’s father”. I feel like that implies she chose him to be her dad when in reality I’m the one that picked to breed with him.
At one point I told STBX, “You and 45 have a lot in common.” He is very into politics and very verbal about his dislike for Trump. He replied “You may be right.” Might be the most honest thing he ever said to me.
The truthiness is what mindfucks me. What parts were true and what parts weren’t? Almost a year ago, when he called me (while out with colleagues celebrating his birthday) he asked if I heard anything about my biopsy results. I told him I did and they confirmed I had cancer. He asked why I hadn’t called him with the news. I told him that I didn’t want to ruin his birthday. He told me he loved me (I can count on one hand how many times he said this to me during our 11 years together). Truth is, he had cheated on me weeks earlier. I was rarely a though in his mind when he made plans. A few weeks later, he made future plans with me to always go to a certain hotel with our daughter on our way to my nephew’s birthday party. He already had one foot out the door, so why say it? I asked him these questions. Why, why did you say these things? Did you mean them? How can you say you love me and then weeks later just walk away? He told me to just stop.
As I look back on the marriage, he lied throughout it. About everything. Stupid things.
After he put the dishes away, if I couldn’t find an item and would ask him where he put it, he would tell me he hadn’t touched it.
When we would stop for gas in my car and he got out to fill the tank, I would tell him to please fill it up all the way so I didn’t have to stop mid-week. It would seem like he filled the tank quick and I would ask if he really filled it all the way. Yup. But when I would drive it the next day I could tell he didn’t.
Often the a set of double curtains would be smooshed all the way over. I would ask is he kept doing this. No, it must be the cats. But after installing security camera in the house I caught him very thoughtfully smooshing them over one night. Very coincidental that after these cameras were installed, a lot of unusual behavior stoped in the house. And boy did he hate those cameras!
I should have seen all these little lies as red flags. They were just the tip of the iceberg. And the scary thing is, I do think he actually believes himself.
True sociopathic behavior. The OW(s) get to enjoy the crazy, you are free from that.
This relates to situational truthiness. I just snuck out of work to post this.
His Prentious Douchebaggery is actually emailing me for sympathy because he has a headache and blurred vision because he is being punished because he’s a liar. This is his words. But he spells it lyer. A scholar.
I am actually being elicited for sympathy when his physical complaints are from him living a double life. Using household funds to support slags.
You really can’t make this stuff up. ????
STBX just emailed to let me know that he spent the day in the ER and that he thought he’d had a heart attack after a run, “but don’t tell anyone, and oh by the way I’m going running again later”. WTF? I almost responded that he should make sure his emergency contact’s (OW) info was written on his arm & to make sure she had his mother’s info. But then I remembered NC, and didn’t respond at all. Raised to be kind, thoughtful, polite, it had never crossed my mind not to respond to his emails, even when he’d take weeks to respond to mine. I’m mostly NC for 6 months now except when dealing with our DS. NC is a beautiful thing. Thank you, CL, for opening my eyes!!
After moving out on his own the fuckwit put a glass pie plate on the stove top along with a pot of rice, and turned on the wrong burner. Pie plate exploded, sending Corningware shards of glass everywhere including shrapnel into him. He made a point to tell me how he “almost died” and would certainly have been blinded had he not turned away at that exact second of the explosion. He gleefully informed me how I would have had to take care of him the rest of his life if he had been disabled by the incident. Unfuckingbelievable.
Um, no, fuckwit, you would have been put in the crappiest possible ward-of-the-state care home as quickly as I could! The audacious nerve of that asshole presuming I would “have to” be his caretaker was as ridiculous as the rest of his narc behaviors. The care I might have provided my severely disabled fuckwit would include clogging up his catheter so would die a painfully slow, dick-rotting, septic death. No court would convict.
These are true WTF moments. It must be part of their slow descent into not seeing us as human beings.
I don’t know if it’s seeing us as a Mommy or just an appliance? After they have created one of the most gut wrenching situations we have been through -all due to their actions to get some strange -they actually expect us to have sympathy for them.
Can you imagine having such low self awareness? Or is it just unbelievable entitlement?
I did not respond either. This is the second round of the D Days and I have wasted too much time on this fool. I know with a concrete certainty he will never change.
They just don’t think they did anything wrong so you have no reason to hate them. They can’t help it if they fell out of love. It’s just one of those things. Not their fault. Personally I think loving or not loving someone (even passionately) is more of a choice than we realize. It is a matter of whether you focus on the positive or the negatives of the other person. “To Cherish” in the wedding vows means you won’t compare your spouse negatively to others real or imagined. If more people followed through on that one, cheating wouldn’t happen.
Exactly my thoughts, he doesn’t see me as an actual person. His elusive Happiness is the only thing he values, and ironically will never find because it ~is~ all he values. King Midas.
Actually I would be more likely to do something scatterbrained like that. If I was disabled, however, he would have spent the rest of my life telling me what an idiot I was for having done that too myself and how put out he was for having to look after me. Actually no, I probably would have divorced him then to avoid exactly that scenario and because I would not want to have been a “burden” on him. Little did I know that I already was from his point of view.
Prior to right this minute, I have never disagreed with you or your wisdom; you and CN have helped me navigate the total destruction of what I thought was a fairly happy 26 yr marriage and now that the divorce is stalling because his nice mask really came off and he is showing himself to be the monster that he always was, I read and reread your posts on a daily basis. BUT when you malign an Australian Shepherd puppy, I must take umbrage! I’ve been lucky enough to have a few Aussies and Border Collies, and must tell you that they are NOT dimwitted!! 🙂 They are very smart and loyal and easy to train AND full of unconditional love, which is more than I can say about my shapeshifting 56 year old entitled-to-all-the-toys Peter Pan lost boy. In fact, I would venture to say that any animal has more honesty and integrity and brains than a cheater, especially one who thinks HE is the victim and is now doing all he can to seek revenge on me. No contact is my salvation.
I know! How can they think they are the victim? I will never get that one. I am no contact also. The real true path to healing.
Healing and freedom. Mine is so stupid he used a credit card that was frozen in the divorce to attempt a multi day stay at a cheap hotel in the middle of a prostitution area in LA. It was declined for lack of funds, but he apparently forgot that I have all kinds of security alerts on the account and knew the MINUTE it was used. Made a screen shot of it for atty. It was DEF not lost or stolen. I can’t wait to hear how he lies himself out of that one.
STBX doesn’t deliberately and knowingly lie flat out, he just lives in a different reality. In his reality he did nothing wrong by fucking other women while married so no need to lie (although it is necessary to hide the truth with acquaintances who are not enlightened enough to understand his reality). Not following through on your promise to “Love Honor and Cherish” until death do you part is not lying because that was then this is now. Same goes for having written “from the man whose heart you will always have” on that gift tag. Also, emotional affairs and kissing and probably blow jobs don’t count as affairs so who knows how many of those he has had that he didn’t feel it was necessary to mention when I asked him “how many others were there?” after finding out about the first PA (several months after finding out about the second one – that I know of). In his reality he isn’t lying when he claims that Schmoopie is a good person because fucking somebody else’s husband and encouraging him to tear his family apart doesn’t make you a bad person. He also probably believes it when he says that he actually does still love me even if he isn’t passionate about me. Bullshit. If he loved me he would never have risked hurting me the way he did or at the very least he would stop and try to make amends. When you love someone (passionately or not) you care about their feelings and you don’t go looking to find happiness in a way that would cause that person pain. I could say the same about his “love” for the kids. But that’s my reality. Maybe in his reality hurting the people you love is ok. Also, in his reality someone who puts your needs first, supports you through career changes and moves and deaths, raises kids with you, facilitates your life goals, etc. doesn’t really love you but someone who gives you a few blow jobs and encourages you to tear your family apart for her is the one who truly loves you. In his reality the people you hardly know who have a proven record of selfishness are the people you should trust and the people who you know well and who have always looked out for your best interests can’t be trusted. In his reality selfishness is a virtue and compassion and empathy are faults. His reality is totally warped.
“He also probably believes it when he says that he actually does still love me even if he isn’t passionate about me. ”
Yes, this means he cares for you as a sister or the kind of love he has for his mother. It’s a sibling or non-sexual kind of love. And when he said he isn’t passionate about you, it means he’s not attracted to you sexually, but he feels sexual towards that whore. It’s the same as when a man says I love you, but I’m not in love with you. But if you really do love someone, whether the sexual or the non-sexual kind, you don’t hurt them and do look out for their best interests. And of course, he’s letting his dick call the shots, which makes him the same as an animal who has no conscience or empathy. I’m so glad you’re no longer with him.
But if you love your sister would you do something to hurt her for your own gain? In that case it would be a different act than fucking somebody else (because she wouldn’t care), but would you do anything to hurt someone you loved. Would you steel her money? Steel her job? Otherwise steel her future for the sake of your own gain?
Of course in his reality he was doing be a favor because he “wasn’t sexually attracted to me”, but somehow we were still sexually active and it seemed to be working pretty well until he started to stray and had a taste of new and different. Then it became much more difficult and I was left scratching my head wondering what was wrong. If he hadn’t done that, there is plenty we could have done to spice things up again. That would have required effort, however. It would also have required that he actually, truly love me.
These people don’t love anyone and are rarely capable of it. They are capable of fucking others, but that’s not love either. They really are shallow people, incapable of relating deeply with anyone. They are disordered and incapable of true connection and deep intimacy.
They are just like dogs in heat! They’d screw anyone or anything!
This has always bothered me, looking back. How can they so earnestly look you straight in the face, and lie through tonsil, tongue and tooth?
Did they really mean it at that time?
Mine was also presenting himself as “beyond reproach” as a human being and “just a NICE guy!”
He actually got offended when called a liar. Even when presented with the red handed TRUTH, you just get a direct stare and when pressed say; “I have said all I am going to say on this matter. YOU may not like my answers, but they are the answers that you are going to get.”
He didn’t change. He just took the same truthiness to our kids. He took away daughters car for money.
TILL this day he insists the car was marital property, not a gift to the kid, even though she paid for gas and maintenance for well over a year.
His response to her about 8 months ago? “The JUDGE made me list it as a marital asset. Stop asking me about it, I will never talk about it again!” {P.S. No judge ruling at all – total bullshit – what a complete whopper.}
The lies are there to facilitate the “story” of their victimhood. What runs out of their mouth is poison. If you listen to it, it will turn your mind to putty. It is so abusive to the chump.
Everything was truthy with the ex cheater wife
Gaslighting at Olympic levels
She was say something and I would quote her a few minutes later. According to her she literally never said it. It was as if I imagined the entire thing!
Everything in a 24 year marriage that was “good” never even happened according to her her. I guess I dreamed it all while plugged into The Matrix.
I like to think of this in visual terms, and I imagine the narcissist like a beach- say, on Puerto Rico. It is a very lovely place to sunbathe and drink frozen daiquiri. But the capacity to maintain integrity in the face of a turbulent environment is not a virtue sand possesses. There’s nothing to root it in place: it was brought and deposited there by a current, and by a current it will be taken away. If you are at the edge of the beach when a big wave comes, you can be swept out to sea with the eroding sand. And if you happen to be the poor sucker who is left there unawares on the day Hurricane Maria plows through and you shelter in place- what you like to call D-Day, well, good luck finding anything reminiscent of the topography you thought you were familiar with afterwards.
Covert narc coward lied, until he was done lying. Then he proudly admitted he’d lied, but strenuously objected to being called a liar, which he is.
Well, I *think* he was done lying.
Anyway, that’s not my problem any more, because the liar can lie all he wants. I won’t know, since I don’t speak to him ever, and so I don’t care. No fucks given. Except for being super happy about not ever having to hear from him and wonder if he’s lying, which he does.
All lies are probably still my fault, of course, because he’s a victim of something, or a lot of things.
NC is the way!
This is so right on.
Mr. Twatwaffles has never really told the whole truth. I cannot think of a single time where what he was telling me wasn’t either somewhat embellished or exaggerated or skewed. It got to the point where I just adjusted in my head what he was telling me. If he told me he’d hiked into the back country 5 miles, I adjusted down by half. I believed **I** was the problem because I valued accuracy. Interacting with him, left me feeling like I was way too picky. His mother was the same damn way.
We had two children born with birth defects and my XMIL forwarded an e-mail that she wrote to the members of her church, asking for prayer for us, that was so full of inaccuracies that I just could not keep from replying to all and explain the actual issues. She was very very offended, and it did not matter how much I smoothed over her inaccuracies with words like “complex” and “easily misunderstood” and “very rare and not very well understood by doctors or researchers” her son perpetuated this nonsense and it really made me uneasy.
This article today really snaps into place an issue that I could never really put my finger on.
Truth-iness. I did not realize to the extent I have been subjected to his brand of “truthiness” for our entire relationship. The rules most DEFINITELY changed without my knowing it and goalposts were constantly moved and score was constantly being kept unbeknownst to me.
That is accurate as hell.
Your comment reminded me that my ex used to get super frustrated at my expectation of accuracy. He’d say he was just telling a story and would use a number/amount, for example, as part of the story. So when I would question or continue the conversation about the details, naming the amount he said, he’d get upset because it was just a story and why did I have to get so hung up on the actual number. He’d insist that it was like when you say “a million things went wrong today,” but his examples were not standard exaggerations and I never knew if it was an estimate, exaggeration or actual number, and it was all my fault because I was too rigid in my thinking.
So interesting, my ex would talk about statistics in the way you describe. When he wanted to talk about a hypothetical scenario, where he couldn’t know the exact numbers, he would improvise percentages for the sake of the example, and then got furious that I’d point out they were unreliable and therefore making his point void. To simplify, it would go something like this:
“Let’s say this is 10% likely -and im just estimating a figure here- then you can see that’s quite unlikely”
“but you said yourself you’re estimating that 10%, so how can you draw a reasonable conclusion?”
“That’s just to make an example!!!”
It wasn’t often and I used to chalk it up to him being left-handed…actually, I spackled on quite many things thanks to that logic..sigh
Jgirl, that’s really funny that your ex did this kinda thing too. And your ex’s is particularly funny since it was an admittedly made-up estimate to prove a point!
Yeah these disordered folk have a warped sense of reality. But that’s not the worst part, then expect us to bend OUR reality and OUR truth to match their world. Imagine that! I need to give up my sanity to live in the cheaters F-ed up world and accommodate the disordered. That is evil, because it’s the same as invalidating my intuition, my sanity and any form of rational thought. How messed up is that?
Also, it reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode, where this woman who just had surgery on her face to resemble these other pig faced humans, who were commenting on how her face was so ugly (prior to surgery). She underwent facial plastic surgery to correct her face, and they remove the bandages, only for the entire room of pig faced humans to be horrified!! The surgery is a failure as it doesn’t correct her face. They finally show her face and it’s the face of an absolutely stunning gorgeous woman, looking close to Marilyn Monroe. They are all utterly horrified!! Now that’s twisted reality, just like the disordered mind. I’m not going to twist my reality so I could look like those pig faced cheaters.
Kellia, I love your post. You are a mighty chump!
Thank you Mehtamporphosis! Right back atcha Sista!!
I truly thought I was losing my mind trying to make sense of what I was being told vs what I thought.
You should watch the movie Gaslighting, if you haven’t already done so. The original version. The woman starts losing her mind, because of who she is associating with. It’s a Classic!
My ex is like the King of Situational Truth… I can only guess how much lies he told me that he thought were truths for all of the seconds it took him to say them.
yep X said ‘he wanted to grow old with me’ and many other sweet nothings. Shame for him that I eventually found out he was also saying sweet nothings to other women…
Definite selective truthiness when I tried to untangle the skein about the howorker.
Now selective truthiness continues via legal letters but this too will be finite.
Roll on settlement and meh one fine Tuesday.
Ex’s truthiness vacillates back and forth between two narratives: 1) Poor sad sausage, in love with two women, it’s a circumstance. He is a magical creature, cursed with loving two women, he will ALWAYS struggle with it And 2) We had a “friendship” marriage, “family” love, not what “real love” is supposed to be…
Of course he doesn’t see the contradiction of these two narratives: (1) We had love and happiness but he just tripped and fell into infidelity (2) I didn’t love him the right way so it’s my fault he had to cheat. Which is it, buddy? lol And of course, he certainly doesn’t see that he doesn’t hold HIMSELF accountable in either one of these conflicting narratives.
I think my all-time favorite, bat-shit crazy truthiness statement that came out of his mouth was this: “It’s not that you’re not enough for me, I just love her also. When you love your first child, that doesn’t mean you don’t want another child to love…”
its true no contact is good. my new cheaters reality is that “it wasnt a healthy relationship” this is his new narritive after he got caught.
some of the lines i hear now – you controlled the way i dress (before- thank u for updating my wardrobe)
i had to walk on eggshells (oh u mean talk to me with respect?)
you kept me from doing the things i wanted (thank u for the
vacation,massage,getting my house in order etc)
we spent all our time together (oh u meant when u stopped by to get sex
before you went to get your daughter, help you mom,
go to a meeting, meet with friends etc.)
The first time he discarded by his reasoning was “you never think about me!!” “We couldn’t even go see a movie I wanted to see!!!” this was in reference to the new jurrasic park movie that my back had a spasm due to the seats and I needed to leave early. He said it was okay to leave early and even acted like it was okay. Funny how the later version was different.
The best one was how before we started dating he insinuated that he was sexually assaulted by another male in a scary situation. It was all a poor me situation- let me get pity. When i asked him later about it he acted as if he never said anything and made it up.
He always talks himself up like he was a big guy- worked in a nightclub, managed a restaurant etc. When i spoke with his son- he goes oh yea my grandfather’s restarant. The leech got a job in management due to family connections. Nothing this guy ever had does or thinks in his life is on his own hard work determination. He doesn’t even vacation at 50 to his own places. He only vacations with his family to reunions or his mom’s house who sets up family events.
It’s good to see this post again. I’m actually the chump that wrote in to Chump Lady and was quoted. It made so much sense to read the wisdom and truth in Chump Lady’s post because I was in the fog and shock of the months following dday at that point. Her words reassured that I wasn’t crazy for believing him and that there is something wrong with these people’s thinking and their version of what is “true.” (And the funny was he used to accuse me of not trusting him when the opposite was true…I trusted him completely. And, as a result, I was completely stunned on dday…)
And, four years after my dday, my ex proved that he did not have a character transplant for the OW. He went on a work trip and met someone and came home and left the OW. Exactly how he had left me… I guess OW’s cookies ran out, and ex smelled ones baking in the oven somewhere else. If anyone wasn’t clear on his pattern before this, I think he made is super clear to everyone in his circle that this is just what he does…