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What Married Men Tell Other Women

Hi Chump Lady!

I would love you to write about “What married men tell other women, to get them to join them in the affair.” Such as my wife doesn’t pay attention to me, we no longer have intimacy, we stay together for the kids, my wife is going through menopause , she no longer turns me on… blah… blah… blah.

I know a married woman who’s having an affair with a married man, and she thinks he’ll leave his wife for her. It’s very obvious to me that she’s just another number on his mistress list. Please write! I’d love to share that article with her.

A Friend

Dear Friend,

Your enlightenment energies would be better spent informing the OW’s clueless chump, rather than trying to convince the OW she’s not exceptional. I appreciate your faith in my powers of snark, but sarcasm has its limits. Remember the Dr. Simon axiom — “It’s not that they don’t see, it’s that they disagree.”

It’s not that the OW doesn’t KNOW she’s an Other Woman, it’s that she disagrees that this will end catastrophically. Those other, Other Women weren’t THE ONE! And when you have that kind of super special once-in-a-lifetime connection on Ashley Madison? (Because HEY, there were like THOUSANDS of ads! and he picked HER! And she’s not even a cyborg from Russia!) Then you know it’s REAL.

Do you see what I’m getting at, Friend? You can’t talk sense to fuckwits. But I suspect that isn’t your true mission so much as curating the Stupid Shit Cheaters Say to Other Cheaters.

I can help with that. Chump Lady is nothing so much as a repository of Stupid Shit Cheaters Say.

In fact, I’m sure many chumps here have unearthed correspondence and discovered exactly what their married partners said to their witless enablers… and we still need brain bleach to forget.

My wife doesn’t pay attention to me.

So instead of trying to get her attention, by say wearing a giant chicken suit and waving a banner at passing trucks along the interstate (“I’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU, DARLENE! LOOK AT ME!!!”), I thought why not just secretly fuck random women I meet online? Like you. You’ll do.

I need a lot of attention. Did I ever tell you about that time I was a National Merit Scholar in 1983? Gonzo test scores! The likes of which Brandon Township had never seen before. Me. Me. Me. Memmeemmememememememeemmeemememmememe. Were you expecting this conversation to turn to you?

You’re a good listener. My wife doesn’t listen like you do.

We don’t have sex.

Except for when we do. And those, uh, children that came from somewhere. And that bed we share.

But we don’t have sex!

And if my wife asks me? I don’t have sex with you either! (We meet for Bible study. As friends.) And if you ask me about those other, Other Women? Never touched ’em.

My cheater mindfuck channel is set at “sad sausage.” Want to touch my sausage?

We stay together for the kids.

My suffering is noble. While my wife appliance shuttles kids to T-ball practice and dentist appointments, I’m here with you. #fatheroftheyear But I can’t leave my wife appliance, because — have you ever sat through a T-ball practice? Those wretched folding chairs, the interminable boredom, the piss-warm Gatorade.

I’d love to spend more time with you, avoiding T-ball, but I’ve come, and you haven’t, and so it’s time to leave. Back to home and hearth, where those little barnacles need me. I’ll be thinking of you! Text me a picture of your tits!

My wife is going through menopause.

Which means she’s at least 15 years past her sell-by date. My balls may be sagging and my ears may sprout tufts of scraggle-hair, but I deserve some fresh ass. You look younger and gullible, and utterly lacking in self-esteem! Are you still ovulating? Great!

Of course, I don’t want any more babies. (Hell, I’ve got grandchildren I don’t know what to do with.)

She no longer turns me on.

Actually, it doesn’t take much to turn me on. A stiff breeze, an errant thought of National Geographic, those Sears ads for thermal underwear. Fact is, I’m a walking boner (especially with a little pharmaceutical assistance). And I’m ALL YOURS! (See “I need a lot of attention” above.)

My wife? Oh no. Wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole. Of all the 3,454,788 things that turn me on, she’s not one! No sir! Just YOU! You’re special!

(Short bus special. That’s what I tell my other, Other Woman. I have no idea who this crazy woman is and why she’s so into me! I tried to turn her down gently, but she won’t take the hint! No, no she doesn’t turn me on at all.)

Feeling off balance? Nothing a little pick me dance can’t cure. Ooh, that waitress sure is pretty! I’d hate for you to Not Turn Me On anymore. Naked video chat later?

***

Well, that’s about all I can stand, Friend. CN, add your own. Do tell that chump, please. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Ask Chump Lady

Got a question for the Chump Lady? Or a submission for the Universal Bullshit Translator? Write to me at [email protected]. Read more about submission guidelines.
  • He told one of the other women that our baby we lost to miscarriage was a child from a fictitious affair I had. So it “didn’t matter” that the baby died.

      • Meanwhile, I was raising a 1 year old, infant and was pregnant again. On my own, because he had left us of course.

        When did I find the time for all of those affairs?

        • My heart breaks for this. I hope you all rebuild and have a beautiful family life without him xxxx

          • +1 newlady15! A woman who accepts that explanation about another woman: psychopath. So cheater and OW are equally monstrous.

        • He felt no tug of loyalty…not even to his child? Call his child a bast**d, in so many words? Ugh, that is one low, low snake.
          I’m sorry you ever felt his shadow cross you, not to mention the dating, marriage and parenting issues.
          All the best in your cheater-free future, truly.

          • I’ve heard that before. The spouse is pregnant, and the cheater says it isn’t his. Why? That would be like cheating on the OW with his wife.

    • Oh that is vile. If you would allow me to momentarily be a representative of the Universe, please accept our condolences on the loss and your partner having such a wretched response to it.

      I am pretty sure the “She has had affairs too” was part of the unknown narrative. I think there was an “unspoken agreement” part too which I never actually participated in. On D day, he said something like “well you have had affairs too” and I told him “If you had sex with other women because you thought I was also messing around then you made a terrible mistake”. The one specific day I know he believed I was out sexing it up was actually a day I worked 16 hours in a Neonatal ICU caring for critically ill babies.

      • I was lying in bed, 8 months pregnant with my small toddler lying between me and cheater when he said “I bet you’re cheating on me”.
        Yeah. That’s the first thing on my mind; sneaking around while caring singlehandedly for a toddler, whilst being very pregnant and suffering from all sorts of stress related ailments, including asthma. (Because fucktard cheater left me to have his own affair with co worker)
        What the actual fuck.
        Have they no shame???

        • yeppers…. that is called Projection. He was doing it to you. I’m sorry.

    • This is just the most abominable kind of projection of them all.

      • I am so sorry you had to know that came from the mouth of someone you loved. Heinous.

      • Yeah, just when we think we have heard every vile story, every possible terrible thing, we get a man who dismisses the miscarriage of his child–says it “doesn’t matter–and at the same time tells a heinous lie about his again pregnant wife who suffered that miscarriage and is caring for his other infant at home. Seriously, I can’t say how fortunate you are, Aloha, to be rid of this vermin. This is betrayal on almost every level other than deliberate murder. So very sorry for the loss of your child and for the pain this f*ckwit has put you through.

        • LAJ, vermin is right. He is evil. Aloha, I am sorry you had to go through that. Thank heavens he is in the rear view mirror.

      • Yes, hideous nematodes that spread to every organ, ending in him having fountains of worms spraying from every orifice

    • I am so sorry. Sadly, that is what disordered people do. They use a tiny bit of truth, twist and distort it until it looks the way they want it to.

      I hope Karma bites his tongue off.

    • Oh, dear Lord, that is HORRIBLE. I don’t even know what to say to that.

      • AF

        So sorry. Unimaginable to think how disturbed one has to be to say something so cruel.

    • That is on the top of vile things I’ve heard. Sadly, I can understand it issuing forth from the mouth of a cheater. Why? Because in CheaterVerse, they’re central. That comment about your miscarriage illustrates the sense of the Cheater’s centrality more clearly than anything else. A normal person hearing this would think “monster” and run the opposite direction. The AP? Not so much, and that tells you about APs.

      • You can make yourself sick thinking about this shit (and I do, unfortunately). But there is a special weird oblivious part to a woman who chooses to date a married man and believes what she wants. Many of these schmoopies are ex wives themselves…So, WTF?

        When I was suddenly hospitalized for grand mal seizures (you know, the sexy kind), my DOCTOR husband was “outprocessing” from the military so he could not fly out right away…

        = screwing the tundra Schmoopie. I have no idea what he told her but my guess is, nothing.

        When he left for the tundra and blocked me from accessing our joint accounts AND had me sign a waiver of rights (hey, I was fucked up neurologically and our son is testifying to that),

        I have no idea what he told Schmoopie, but my guess is, nothing.

        When our kids stopped speaking to him, I have no idea what he told tundra Schmoopie, but my guess is nothing.

        But what if she noticed AND IF she dared to ask? – then my guess is that I “brainwashed them”.

        I’m only now starting to dip my toe in the dating pool. And if/when I notice little or no contact between kids and a man I might date – I just won’t see him.

        Even if his wife really did bad mouth him, there are guys out there who don’t have ex’s like that, and I don’t want any more red flags as it is.

    • There is true evil in this world. AlohaFreedom, I am so sorry for your loss. We both found Satan unfortunately. About 1 week after POSH left me and our baby, who was only 3 weeks old at the time, he told me “I wish you both would just die tonight. It would make my life so much easier”.

      • To think that we once loved and trusted these evil monsters. I’m so sorry you had to hear these hateful words, IIWII, particularly when you and your little baby were at your most vulnerable. Big hugs for you!

      • Wow! IIWII, I can not even imagine your pain at hearing that. What an inhuman, scumbag. Power to you for hanging in there! Praying you’re doing well, and that you’ve moved on without that P.O.S.

      • IIWII, congratulations on escaping with your life. A person who could say something like that is extremely dangerous. I hope he’s out of your life for good.

      • IIWII, that’s a death threat, pure and simple, disguised as a wish. I hope you and your baby are far away from him,

        • Thank you everyone. I am keeping him at a distant. I have implemented no contact as much as possible. However, he is still part of my daughter’s life…when it is convenient for him at least. There are a lot of things looking back on that were signs of emotional, verbal, and mental abuse which eventually turned physical right before giving birth that I ignored. He still mentally and emotionally abuses me which is why I have to be no contact. Even on the family website used for communication that is court mandated.

          • That brought tears to my eyes. There are no words to express the repugnance. So sorry for you and your beautiful baby.
            “…..it would make my life so much easier.” One of the worst examples of the “its all about ME, ME, ME” syndrome of these psychopaths I’ve heard. So glad you’re rid of him.

          • IIWI,

            Hearing your story I am so sorry! This is where the law should be that he can never see his daughter because he left her as well as you to fend for yourselves. He deserves to never has access to your daughter or you. He should be locked up and throw away the key. Then he can sit in a cell alone and write journals about what a sociopath and Fuckwit he is.

      • Another demon walking the earth, your STBX. Fuckwad to the extreme.

      • Wow, IIWII and Aloha, you survived some vile partners. Despicable. So glad you are free.

      • His remark just made my jaw literally swing open. My eyes are popping. I’m not kidding. The shock and horror of a comment like that to me, a complete stranger……..well, I cannot begin to fathom what it made you feel. If there is a Hell, I hope he gets there soon.

    • I think it is so common for cheaters to “project” their cheating on us chumps. I was accused of having affairs with all the women in my divorce support group during our divorce. She definitely didn’t like it when I got the emotional support to file!

      • I was just thinking this, TwinsDad. My X had many women “friends” starting even before we got married. He’d go out to lunch or dinner with them. I was supposed to be okay and not jealous. “Everyone” did this, especially in college. So the one and only time in our 24 year relationship/marriage, I asked him if I could meet my guy friend from high school the day after our high school reunion for about an hour or two. I didn’t see any problem with either asking or going since he’d been doing that our entire relationship. My guy friend picked me up at my moms house (in town for the reunion) and even came in to say hi and goodbye to my X, my kids and my mom. A week after this meeting my X said to me, “Well, if you are pregnant, we know it’s not my baby (X had a vasectomy).!” I got accused of having sex with a friend from high school. This after he had all these women “friends” all those years and also I was pretty convinced he had an affair when I was pregnant. So he was projecting his own behavior onto me!! It all makes sense now that I know about projection. At the time I couldn’t figure out why he’d say that to me. I’m not surprised you X said that to you. Those cheaters are all the same!

        • Oh yes. I got “Men are only friends with women for one reason, the possibility of sex.” This was why I couldn’t speak to any male not family without him throwing a fair and accusing me of sleeping with them. …bit when I asked him why he had so many female friends if that was the case? …. lots of “that’s not true: I’m different: etc”

      • Of course they do this because if we’re cheating on them then it’s OK for them to do it to us. In their minds two wrongs really do make a right and they could never be wrong therefore we must be cheating. I got it too. And since Narkles the Clown traveled so much and I held down a full time high stress job and took care of the child and house I must have been cheating during those 30 seconds a week I used to….oh wait I didn’t even have 30 seconds to myself for anything. I couldn’t find the time to shave or get a hair cut or even floss on most days, but I must have been having an affair because it was the only way he could justify having an affair.

    • Aloha,

      Every time I think I’ve heard the worst of the fuckshit, there is a story that just takes the fuckshit level to a new low. So as if the fatigue and hormone surge associated with carrying a baby while caring for another child isn’t enough, your Ex felt the need to spread some extra shit icing on the shit cake you unwittingly believed was a relationship.

      There is no apology that can ever make up for what baby bitchman said to you, but I will extend a most heartfelt apology for that most incredibly awful thing he said to you and another one for every day you had to live with that walking piece of vomit disguised as a human. And here’s a virtual (((HUG))) to replace the one he probably never gave you when you needed it.

    • My mind is blown. That is one of the most obscene things I’ve ever heard. I’m so sorry for your terrible loss and that the soulless bastard said that. Like my Mom always said, consider the source.

  • I have only a single correspondence between Cheater and Susan of Seattle, but he tells her that “I dont know how things will turn our for me & Uni, but when it does, I hope the Catholic Church will bless our union” or something to the effect. So no ABSOLUTE promise to leave wife but a hedged promise that he will include her in the faith life so deep he manages the obligatory cognitive dissonance for her. Ah, true love.

    I am curious of the narrative he used though…really odd that he was able to have a number of affairs and no one ever called me. My curiosity is high but I will never know.

  • Apparently I’d walked out and left him and the kids. He was a single father and I was a Bitch! I’m now the lone parent and he doesn’t give a toss about his kids. (Not seen them since Easter!) He always had to get home because his mommy was babysitting! So no overnights with slut 1 or 2 but he did manage two trips to Berlin with each of them telling me he was away working!

  • We don’t have sex is bullshit. When I was married I always had a higher sex drive & got knocked back often over the years we were together – AND I DIDN’T CHEAT! If he had spent half his energy on being better in bed & bothering to put some effort into our relationship, we could have had mind blowing sex.

    • I hear this. Kim hopes. I felt the same way like “how is there enough of your efforts to share round?!?”

      Pah! I compromised with a poor sexlife for years

      • Add me to this one.

        I bought books on Sexless Marraige, we went to therapy because he refused to touch me and I kept this secret from friends and family for over 10 years.

        Prior to that, sex was bare bones, as in only one of us was satisfied, and only in the middle of the night.

        Then I found out he was faithful to the OW and that was why he didn’t touch me for 10 years.

        It took a lot of work to realize that none of this had anything to do with me.

        To those of you who are still feeling that gut-wrenching blow of not being enough, please work in knowing your worth. It is abuse and it is all on them!

        • “To those of you who are still feeling that gut-wrenching blow of not being enough, please work in knowing your worth. It is abuse and it is all on them!”

          Thank you. Having a bad day and needed to hear this today

        • Me too!
          “Add me to this one. I bought books on Sexless Marriage, and I went to therapy because he refused to touch me and I kept this secret from friends and family for over 10 years. It took a lot of work to realize that none of this had anything to do with me. To those of you who are still feeling that gut-wrenching blow of not being enough, please work in knowing your worth. It is abuse and it is all on them!”

          It truly was a miracle that I got pregnant with his heavy duty porn & hooker addictions and sex rations. There was never really anything left for me. I did keep his dirty little secret for a few years but then spilled the tea after I got therapy, found Chump Lady, left a cheater & gained a life. He died earlier this year so it doesn’t matter anymore. I have an amazing son and I have found a Mr. Nice Guy.

          But I’m not going to lie, sometimes its still hard for me in the intimacy dept. after years of damage/neglect from cheater. I still feel self-conscious at times but Mr. Nice Guy is so patient and kind-he makes me feel wanted and beautiful even during the times when we aren’t having sex. Even if the relationship doesn’t ever turn into anything serious, I’m grateful to him for bringing me back to life!

          • I could never get through to my ex that emotional intimacy is required for a better sex life. Spending time together, supporting each other, talking to each other. Those things are what feeds it. What doesn’t feed it? Spending all your free time with coworkers, talking to them, doing things with them. Then coming home and parking yourself in front of a football game and barely speaking to your wife. Yep. That makes for an awful sex life.

            • That’s what I said to the Traitor in MC…”Getting yelled at is not good foreplay”.
              Of course the MC didn’t pick up on that.

            • Amen! Whenever CheaterEx complained about not getting enough hanky-panky, I would explain that I needed more emotional intimacy from him to spark that connection. It was something I recognized and genuinely wanted to work on. Of course, he’d get pissy and argue that he needed more sex to feel an emotional connection.

              Similarly, when he would complain about me being too tired for sex, I’d suggest that *perhaps* if he could tear himself away from facebook after work, help with dinner, maybe give the kid a bath or do the dishes, feed the dog, check homework, start laundry… ANYTHING so that I wasn’t falling down tired when I finally got into bed, things might get better in the bedroom. (Or, perhaps if he came to bed with me AT ALL…).

              I’m certain the OWife got to hear about how we “live like roommates,” and I really beat myself up for a long time (after DDay#1) about this possibility. But, honestly, any lack of intimacy was on him. He created situations where intimacy wasn’t possible and then blamed me for it.

              • This is a big red flag “created situations where intimacy wasn’t possible and then blamed me for it.” I can relate. X was crap in bed too, disengaged and selfish, towards the end of my marriage I immediately showered off because of the “ick factor.” I now think he was getting off with a whole line of extracurriculars, my body aware even when I wasn’t, but I was so starved for a connection that even bad sex seemed better than nothing. Now I know that selfish sex is just another big red flag. People in affairs don’t spend a lot of time showing affection to their Significant Others (kissing, holding hands, etc) and its absence, coupled with a lack of interest in spending time at home, was yet another red flag I missed. I made excuses, he was working hard, etc. He even took vacations by himself and still came home exhausted. ???? When your mate is consistently too lazy to please you, he may be cheating. This is another thing I am seriously mad about, that I wasted all my great loving, and years of it, with a crappy con.

    • KK did this too — after the first 8 years of being open to just about anything and everything, it was 10 years of my hands being pushed away, “don’t use your mouth there,” “I can’t do that position anymore,” “I have NO desire to do that,” and her favorite “I don’t need the bing and the bang … just the boom” (IOW: “just get on top and I’ll let you know when I’m done”)

      Then suddenly at 43, it was: “You don’t meet all of my sexual needs” and “We don’t have any passion anymore”

      I won’t lie, it was a real kick in the gut. Still is.

      • It’s not you. It was just a cruelty from a manipulative woman. Trust that they suck – at everything apparently.

      • Same here. I was lucky to even get pregnant. Silly, naive little me didn’t realize that he was spoiling his appetite with whores and porn, so of course he was low on baby making juice.

        Knee jerk reaction after I left was to prove to myself that I was still desirable, and I’m sad to say that I spent a few months making VERY poor decisions. Grateful that I didn’t pick up any STDs before I finally came to my senses and realized that my worth didn’t depend on my fuckability.

        Chumps who have just started down this path — I hope you can learn from my mistakes and PROTECT yourself rather than trying to prove yourself.

        • Ditto on the bad decisions. Not something I am proud of. I actually waited a year after I filed because I knew bad decisions would be easy to make, yet, here I am cringing at my behavior.

          I also ditto the protect yourself vs. prove yourself.

        • Random sex w/fun people can be very healing. But there has to be condoms involved!

          Healing and fun! And sometimes even very bad… but that at least makes for great stories (names changed to protect the awkward…)

        • I didn’t act on the feelings but I felt the same way. There was so much mindfuckery in the bedroom with SHitler that I’ve really wondered if I’m in any way desirable. If there was someone else in my life now, would they find me as repulsive as X found me? But then say that they found me desirable and it was all in my head and these neverending crazy making mindfucks of blowing hot and then cold. AHHH! Some days I wonder if celibacy wouldn’t be the best option.

      • I don’t know what ex said to his Schmoopie, but after DDay he was saying all kinds of things to me that implied we had no sex life at all. He made some comment to one of the kids about how important a healthy sex life was in an adult relationship while looking directly at me. When I suggested he take a break and be celibate for a bit to clear his head after he moved out he said “That’s why I strayed in the first place”. That on top of telling the MC I had no libido and didn’t enjoy sex. All of this hurt like hell, because I was still making love to someone on a regular basis (once a week may not be lots, but it isn’t nothing either, and it would have been more if he had bothered to give me his attention). If that wasn’t him I was making love to then maybe it was his clone. If so, then why couldn’t he have at least left me the clone when he left?

        • Recovery, I too don’t know what he said to his schmoopie, but my sons and acquaintances got the usual spiel: ” we grew apart” (no memo about this as CL likes to point out), “I can’t stand to hear your mother’s voice”, “if it weren’t for your mother I would have had a better career”.

          And one day I got a furious crazy yelling into my ear ear (it hurts my left eardrum even to remember this episode) “I’m a failure and it’s YOUR fault!”

          I can only imagine what he said to schmoopie. But frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Not only do I not give a damn, but I am grateful to have been spared this huge pile of shit, it would have been the ultimate humiliation, although no where near AlohaFreedom’s.

          • Ah, blameshifting, that special skill all cheaters possess. After ten years of drunk-ass behavior, DUI’s, etc. I got “I drink because of YOU!” Yeah, mmhmmm.. I really had to hold that gun to your head, Asshole. And pour that cheap BOX of Franzia down your throat every night.

            • I got, “I drink because I have a marriage problem.” I then asked why he was still drinking since he had been gone for two months. Blah, blah, blah. They flip things around to justify their behavior and shift the blame. That is their character coming through.

      • Limited never initiated sex.

        Told OW there was no passion
        We were like brother and sister.
        He hadn’t been happy for two years.
        I was a bitch.
        He had to support me for years.
        She won’t give me money
        She’s a hoarder.
        I have to do all the cleaning.

        OW really believed she was special. I’m the one who came out ahead. Thankfully. I’m free.

      • The Manchild Actor complained that I lowered his self esteem until the point he needed to fuck his cousin, because I never made him feel desired. That for years he wanted to cheat on me (and probably could not find another whore) because “I wasn’t interested in sex”.

        After the smog-hopium left me, I realized I was very much interested in sex with him. I always did whatever he want me to, [TMI alert] vanilla BDSM, anal sex, dancing for him, all positions he wants me to be unless they hurt [TMI off]. I had sex with him in his office in college. Of course, this didn’t mean I was not wrong, and for some time I kept believing that our sad sexual life was my fault. Several years ago I had a season where I cried when he was inside me. In the dark, he could not see the tears running by my cheeks. I did not understand what was happening to me. I felt sadness and anger, and I remember reading one day about somebody who considered sex as her husband masturbating with her body. I felt so identified with it. But I did not know why.

        Then I remembered all those times when I asked him what could I do to excite him. I wanted to learn how to make him crazy. I asked and asked and asked. You know what? I never got an answer. He would say ‘ummh’ or ‘I don’t know’ and never answer. One day I asked him to do it with me again, and he said he needed to wait a bit. We never did it again. Without even being aware, I understood that I did not matter, that Me being there wasn’t important at all. I think he partly expected me to guess, even if he knew he was my first one so there was no way I could know things. On the other hand, keeping alive the emotional connection with me, the only thing that would help me to fuck him like he wanted, was too hard to do. He probably read too much Cosmopolitan and believed that doing laundry was the way to make me hot, for he complained that he did so much and I never had enough. However, he never did the thing that I truly needed: share himself with me.

        At the end, he told me that the histerical bonding sex we had was the best in his life. How can I love somebody so cruel.

    • ME TOO. I am embarrassed to admit it was me always “begging” him for sex. He told me it was his catholic guilt that kept him from enjoying sex. He was horrible in bed, selfish and quick.

      It took me a long time to realize it is part of the abuse. It was not about me, but his figuring out how to make me feel less than. After D-day he just kept telling me he never felt passion for me, he has never felt passion and he needs real passion. Plus I am to ugly to sleep with…. sick bastard.

      • He’s the ugly one. And selfish and disgusting. TheBestMe – love the name. Keep using it

        • There’s no telling with the disordered . . . mine turned out to be gay, but he had a high libido and managed to find work-arounds (gay porn, morning wood) for frequent sex with me, along with whomever and whatever else he was doing. Granted, it was mechanical, passionless sex that made me feel completely undesirable and, at times, downright repulsive, but it sounds like that’s one quality many cheaters share in common regardless of their sexual orientation.

      • the Best Me

        So Your hubby was bothered by the “Catholic guilt” about sex? OMG! Sex is the one thing being Catholic for which I had NO guilt. The DOCTOR was/is not Catholic – (he’s an adamant atheist now, and it shows).

        The priest who married us, told the us about how “both spouses should be ‘satisfied’ with the mutuality of lovemaking as it is NOT merely about procreation.”

        I loved that priest! (To be fair, the DOCTOR was good in bed for the first 2/3 of our marriage. It was one thing that probably kept us together so long).

        Your fuckwit should have done his research or admitted he’s neurotic about it. Oh wait, no he’s not. He was just lying.

        Sorry

    • Mr. Sparkles withheld sex to:

      – punish me for catching him cheating (again) with an online profile where he used a picture of himself from our wedding day

      – make me feel worthless

      – put the “problem” on me… I didn’t want sex from a man who was cheating on me, ergo I stopped having sex with him

      – asking him to get a blood test

      – NARCISSISTIC CONTROL… this I think was at the heart. For Mr. Sparkles, sex NEVER equates to love and intimacy. It’s like a Lion, he mounts, he ejaculates, he gets off. By his personal ads and his “I enjoy lots of foreplay” all I can say after 13 years was “You’ve got to be joking.”

      I’m glad I had the courage to stop having sex with my cheater. Kept me disease free… so there’s that.

      Harder part is relearning that sex can actually be enjoyable and fun and loving… and not the abusive shit that I settled for throughout my marriage.

      • Mine was all too understanding when I stopped wanting sex for months, while I was recoiling from a D-Day. Then when asked why he didn’t take initiative (knowing this had been an issue for us for years), he had a ready-made excuse: “but I knew you didn’t want to!”

      • His dating profile pix was one I took of him on our honeymoon, over looking Florence.

        • This is so infuriating. Your one simple sentence has me fuming on your behalf. What a dick. Truly – he is just a dick.

          • wow, Florence? Yeah, yeah…I’m speechless. He’s clueless and lacks empathy.

            I used to wonder what was worse, actually being cruel b/c they saw themselves as victims, OR

            so utterly lacking in self awareness that they just don’t know what you’d be upset about. In short, lacking empathy.

            Now I know it makes no difference to ME.

            But if I had to decide, I’d say the lack of empathy is worse. It has no predictability and means that they are lacking a kindness gene they can never get. No reasoning involved, just emotionally blind.

      • “By his personal ads and his ‘I enjoy lots of foreplay’ all I can say after 13 years was ‘You’ve got to be joking.’”

        What you wrote here is an absolute evidence of why we should NEVER believe what a cheater says or believe what he writes.

    • Every time I read these sayings I am reminded of the “kernel” of truth” I learned in counterinsurgency. Many couples have left the relationship. in part because we have a society that does not allow for being truthful. Love to some is a cooked dinner to others it is a hug, etc. Yet years go by and each thinks they are showing love to the other they are not. For many, it begins in courtship with lies about themselves because the ring and paper is so important.
      I remember one forum where a woman stated that” she would be “his little porn star until marriage” because she hated sex. Yet knew it is what he wanted. Of course, this is making for a great relationship!
      We make the mistake of committing to fast and not really examining the future. We will change. We expect out changes to be admired, accepted and are “surprised when she /he has another lover. For many, they were never there anyway. Everybody plays a part. we all make mistakes most of which could be solved with honest communication.

      • This reply makes me want to vomit. Is at once disingenuous and repulsively mawkish.

      • What the hell are you talking about????

        All that gibberish to say what exactly???

      • Yeah, like the honest communication of saying, “This isn’t working for me anymore” before you start fucking someone else.

  • So mine told the OW (who was 15 years older than I) that I was mentally unstable/crazy, and that the only reason that he stayed with me – even though we had been married 20 years – was so that our two children (one adult and one soon-to-be adult) would be safe. Not only did she believe this, but she thought that, through getting him, she would have an instant-family (she had no biological kids, So married husband number 3 only so that she could “get” his kids). She was very surprised when our children did not decide to move in with Wannabe StepWhore. To top it all off, when the OW found out that I had found out about the affair, she bought a pistol, took out a restraining order on me (I live in another state, 3 hours away from this excuse for a woman), and told everyone, STBX included, that she was scared that I would firebomb her house.
    The truly ironic thing about all of this, is that I am actually of sound enough mind where I have to pass regular psychological evaluations in order to stay employed at my job. Passed with flying colours, every single time – including right after I found out about their affair.
    Oh well! I guess that the OW needs to get her kibbles, too…Maybe thinking that I was a nutter (and STBX couldn’t figure out why I would find that he portrayed me as insane as offensive – possibly even more offensive than being cheated on) made her feel better about the fact that she chose to be a sad, saggy, old, diseased, child-stealing, adulterous whore.

    • ChumpedNoMore, Sadly telling everyone we are “crazy” is a standard cheater go to. My ex started telling his ho-workers and co-workers that I was crazy just after I caught him out with the whore who is now his girlfriend. And he did this all behind my back why we were in Christian counseling with my now ex-pastor. I am not crazy and never was my entire life. I had a regular, sane life like all other high functioning wives and moms have. I only lost my shit and looked “crazy” after he pushed me over the edge at home with his bs lies and strange behavior. And then his mommy got in on it. Then I lost it, but fully recovered after I was told by a psychiatrist that I had PTSD. I have a close male friend who was chumped and his ex-wife’s married lovers wife is crazy too. The adulterous ex-wife went so far to tell her own children that this woman was crazy and that’s why her lover had to have an affair with her. Believe it or not, but this woman is a very successful executive and is looked up to at the company she works at. To me, she’s pure shit.

      • It got so obvious who the affair partners were. Every time the Worm would tell me a woman was crazy, I knew that they had sex.

      • Wow, my ex tried to convince everyone that I was the crazy one. Even told her lawyer that if she disappeared, they should know it was probably me! I never even so much as raised my voice let alone anything violent in the 20 years we were together. She told her AP to watch out that I might try to harm him as well. She tried to involve the police in this craziness but that is when it fell apart. The police didn’t just take her word for it and I was able to show them how she was trying to manipulate them into getting me out of the house. After she realized her ploy wouldn’t work, it stopped.

        • I was labeled as abusive. I lost my shit the times I caught her but could never prove it (several times with different men). I was going insane but it was in response to not being able to trust my instincts. My behavior was reactionary but it added fuel to her sick rationalizations to continue her escapades. She too has a respected position where she works. It makes me sick but people know what she’s done. Those who’ll continue to feed her ego (which is the main problem) while knowing her character are fuckwits just like she is.

          • That is the thing. Everything we do is reactionary to what they have done or are doing! I keep thinking back on Tiger Woods’ now ex-wife chasing him with a golf club and then smashing the windows out of his car. I’m sure in every day life she’s probably a very nice, rational woman. But her serial cheating husband brought out the “crazy” in her; she reacted to his behavior. And like you said, our reactions adds fuel to the stories they are already telling about us. I seriously had no idea that I was “being played” by him and he was trying to get a reaction out of me. My lawyer at the time did say, “He’s trying to wear you down.” and he did! But he did in a very Spock-like demeanor. I couldn’t believe that the husband who one day was so loving towards me could just flip a switch (again) and turn into a cold, heartless, emotionless towards me and his kids (but sad sausage about himself), cruel, mean, evil, snake-eyed monster. All his harem and admirers never got to see the evil man I lived with on a daily basis. That special hell was my life and our kids got to see what a cold, heartless bastard that their dad could be. I hope they ALWAYS remember what how he acted all those months. The Disney Dad that he pretends to be now is just that. A big actor. The real dad is the dad he was all those years he put his job and whores before his family. I have said this a ton of times, but God has seen it all!

            • I too see the switch from loving to heartless bitch whore who loves for me to suffer (she wrongly got custody of my beautiful children…thats a whole other story…apparently it would take alot more than cheating for a dad to get his kids…) because I dont have full custody. I miss them so so so much. Anyway, what I realize after a lot of therapy is that she has always been of that character. Its that I just didn’t think she would treat ME that way. Disney Land mom. Yep. Except she passes the kids to her mom when she wants ‘me time’ to go whore around with her friends.

            • Yeah, it’s terrible and so hard not to react to the absolute BS. I remember in the beginning when I first found out about him and another woman, I freaked out, because any normal person would. But they take that as ammo and use it against you, like “see, she’s crazy, look what I have to deal with” (a story line they were already working on, BTW). It’s not normal or healthy, because they are not normal or healthy, and their behaviors certainly are not normal or healthy. At some point though, at least for me, I figured out what he was doing and I stopped taking him seriously or giving him the reaction he was looking for. That’s when he had to start ramping it up… (but I could never go back to that true reaction by then because I knew better.)

              • Yeah, it’s unfortunate the way we react gives them proof we are “crazy”. And yes, my X was pushing the “she’s crazy” story even before I knew what was going on. So I totally fell for it.

                And for all the people who knew me really well and fell for his story about me — I hope someday they realize what type of hell they all put me through with all his lies.

          • There is no point is keeping self rightous anger. It solves nothing. I realized that I had a part in this drama. So I stopped. I took responsibility for misunderstanding and poor communication. Then I realized that I had to change my ways.
            I am working on myself. I learned to be upfront honest. It’s hard and a lot of people do not like the truth. Inthe end it is better. No more assumptions. It is risky and painful to be told how the other feels. Why they want something that is missing. Some people don’t get it and continue with their ways. I do not waste emotion “hating” or judging. And some do stay for thekids as in not having their retirement foiled by having to pay for college.
            If you did not know some couples have become brother and sister not husband and wife yet look to the finances first. It does not mean they are “happy”.
            Several posters noted that there was trouble in their marriage. Some noticed that the sex was not to their liking or the mate did not seem interested
            It is not easy to hear “you climax too fast and leave me hanging”. “Always in the same position?” No passion(yes they mean their definition of passion and PDA and little things that make the other feel appreciated.. We all allow our baggage to be like zero day programs then wonder why. Sometimes it is not accepting the other’s quirks. In my experience,the best thing is to move on with grace. The faster I accept reality is the start of my changed life.
            I don’t believe in “chemistry” as far a long-term relationship, because just like chemical combination time changes things. Change is the one constant. Looking back I see I did not listen like I should have. Some of the problem was me. Blameing and getting angry is dysfunctional. It does not bring happiness nor peace. If the other needed something from you to feel appreciated and cared for but did not communicate it whose fault is that?
            Our romantic tradition indoctrunates us with myths and traditions from a bygone age. Planting land mines beneath our feet

            • Jon Vann, It does not sound like you have ever been chumped. Of course honest communication is the key to a healthy marriage but the idea that “he/she didn’t meet my needs and DROVE me to cheat” is total BS !!
              Instead of cheating, why didn’t the spouse whose “needs were not being fulfilled” find out why ?? How about having that honest conversation ?? If there was a medical issue, get it fixed otherwise go to couple’s therapy. Take a tantric sex course, whatever.

              The truth though is that for most of us, we were married to disordered people who will never be happy. Yes, you should absolutely work on yourself after a divorce and learn from it. BUT that New Age “no negativity” is BS!!
              If someone really harms you and shows no remorse at all, don’t you have the right to be angry ??

              Our “romantic tradition” crosses multiple cultures, races and religions for thousands of years for a reason –it’s TRUE !!!
              In your case (like mine), learn from any mistakes you made in the marriage and don’t repeat them in new relationships. But there was NO JUSTIFICATION for someone to willingly break their marriage vows —NONE !! It is a moral failing of them because as CL says —THEY SUCK !!

            • Jon Vonn

              no offense but you raise blindingly obvious points that are mostly inapplicable here. Why? Because by definition if we are here, we were duped. Most of us have done a painful internal inventory and work, already. We are aghast at being played.

              I “reconciled” for a decade after the DOCTOR crapped on our family the first time. I worked on myself and I forgave and let go of a shitload of selfish deceit on his end, to save the marriage and improve ME.
              I really believed we were past all this.

              And btw, the sex was great, and I communicated fine…

              and I believed lies.

              My husband was capable of tremendous cognitive dissonance (lying) and carried on an affair as we were being interviewed for a national tv interview on LONG HAPPY MARRIAGES…(literally).

              Mine was a 35 year marriage.

              Be careful with the self righteous tone about our anger. Let us have it as our call to action, and we can decide when to move on.

            • “If the other needed something from you to feel appreciated and cared for but did not communicate it whose fault is that?”

              I’d say the fault belongs to the person who needed something but didn’t communicate it. Or didn’t try hard enough to communicate it. Can the other be blamed for not reading their mind?

              Also, this sentence makes no sense to me:

              “And some do stay for thekids as in not having their retirement foiled by having to pay for college.

              • You are not staying for the kids. You are staying for the cash.

                Losing at least half your net worth sucks. The poor kids live with the dysfunction.

            • I understand that these are all reasons why marriages sometimes suffer, but going out looking for strange where you put yourself in the position of possibly falling for somebody else while your spouse thinks you still love him/her is not the solution. That is selfish and cowardly and I think it is ok for us to be angry about that as long as we don’t let it interfere with gaining a life. For many of us the anger has, in fact, helped with that.

            • Well, JonVonn, were you chumped? Cuz divorce due to infidelity is a whole ‘nuther ball of wax aside from just divorcing out of incompatibility.

              Perhaps you didn’t notice that many of us had serial cheaters who were perfectly content to suck the life out of us emotionally, financially, even sexually while they were off amusing themselves with stranger’s genitals.

              And perhaps you didn’t notice the strains of emotional abuse running through most of our marriages. Or is that justified because we folded towels wrong, and occasionally were too tired after doing all the parenting and household work to give the cheater a backrub? Were our flaws so substantial that cheaters diverting tens of thousands of dollars to hookers, escorts, or affair partners, were also justified?

              Do you see ANYwhere on this page or hundreds of other posts where cheaters asked for marital counseling to work on marital issues prior to constructing their Craigslist or Ashley Madison profiles? Hmmm, no, I thought not.

              Coming here to tell people in pain after the worst knife-in-the-back they can suffer that they may have been at fault for their spouses’ cheating is akin to telling a rape victim she shouldn’t have worn lipstick, or kicking a homeless person because they shouldn’t have lost their job during downsizing, or telling a domestic abuse victim that he should have let his wife have the TV remote and then she wouldn’t have hit him with a frying pan.

              We don’t accept false equivalencies here; betrayal is the worst marital offense one can launch. NOTHING else equals it, nor justifies it.

            • And there is plenty of merit in self-righteous anger; because of it, ChumpLady is changing the narrative on infidelity to prevent blaming-the-victim. Anger is a great motivator of change.

        • When I discovered mine was a serial cheater from dating-engagement-and 20 years of marriage I asked why the F he stayed married and let me believe in a fake life. He answer was that he knew I’d “off myself” if he left. WTF– talk about making your self seem so utterly important!!! Many of his whores were strangers in hotels while work traveling but of the, also many, colleges and co-workers and employees I can only image they heard this as well. And it is probably why we never went to work functions even though he was a VP and expected to go.

      • Martha,

        You are spot on when you state that the cheaters make us out to be the ones that are crazy. I recently was told by a close friend that my STBX told the OW and her parents that I was crazy and that only a crazy person would write the letters and of course none of it is true. The karma bus can’t come soon enough.

        • Maybe that is why they are posting pictures on social media to provoke me so the crazy woman they have protested me to be comes out. First, I’m not crazy and I will never give either of them the satisfaction of letting them no my feelings. Neither one of them are worth wasting anymore time on.

    • At he deposition, whore said fuckwit had told her I had mental illness and would rage at him for no reason.

      I don’t get her mindset and don’t try after all she was married to and her youngest daughter leaving for college was the catalyst for them leaving their spouses. I still have three at home.

      I wonder if it ever crossed her mind that Stbx being at bars and sleeping with her instead of being at home helping me with our 5 children might be a reason for rage. Did she ever think it was odd that he left his children with this “mentally ill” woman who had no family nearby and never looked back.

      The answer is no because all she can think about is the $$$.

      • Good point, FeelingIt. I was accused of “yelling” too much. Years of gaslighting, manipulation, and devaluing sometimes pisses you off (even when you are not recognizing it for what it is). Things like drinking and driving, being a no-show for dinner or kid events, and not answering his phone or calling back when I called are beyond frustrating…at least while you are trying to keep your marriage together.

        • I was also accused of “yelling”. Of course I did after I found out about one (of the many) hookups. Now I’m “crazy” and I “keep the kids away from him” even though he doesn’t give 2 shits about seeing them and has missed several planned visits. On top of it all, his mother runs around town telling everyone that he’s given me “everything” (lol) after he planned his exit and cut his salary in half so no spousal and very little child support. She does the damage control for him. I’ve stayed NC & don’t engage with him ever. It’s all through the lawyers now. He’s a sick bastard. Fuck them all. They’re all mentally ill. Good riddance.

          • Same here about hiding income and skipping out on parenting time. Yet he claims I am taking more than my share and keeping the kids from him. It is infuriating to know he is telling that shit to people and that people who don’t know me buy it. Or that his family is buying it. I don’t know how to deal with that or give any energy to it, so I just keep my distance from anyone who is supporting him.

        • Yup! I would get upset over poor behavior on his part, but in his mind, the problem was me criticizing him–which, yes, sometimes involved yelling out of sheer frustration/exasperation– but never the poor behavior on this part!

        • Yes, and yes. Sooooo tired of the “she’s keeping the kids away from me” line. My STBX’s OW posts nastiness online about “vindictive ex-wives keeping kids away so they can hurt their ex”. She clearly means me. Drives me nuts that this is their narrative.

    • Now now, let’s not invalidate our poor Xes for telling their Schmoopies we were crazy. Woody was right! I WAS fucking bat-shit crazy! Nutty as a Pay-Day bar for staying with him spackling and pick-me-dancing and sacrificing my own self-worth and assets trying to make him happy all those years when, unbeknownst to me, the sadz and anorgasmia were due to him leading a secret life of accidentally getting his dick worn out at the office. Amazing how fast sanity sucked me into its whirling vortex after I left him!

      • This!????And it’s good you left. Even when X walked out I knew it was a blessing! He has so much more in common with his whore.

    • He said my mother was controlling me like a puppet.

      Couldn’t be further from the truth.
      We were living rent free in her home after she moved to a senior facility.

      We were living there after X got us involved in a multi-million dollar lawsuit that drove us deeply into debt.

      My mom was very respectful and never demanded or was nosy about anything.

      Even today I could just punch X.

    • Yeah, I am crazy too. Whore and ex did the Injunction Against Harassment and Restraining Order game on me as well. I contacted the Whore one time, and found myself almost begging for my now XH. I quickly turned it around and called her a Whore and said she didn’t need a problem like me. (We work in the same industry and I know her boss). As for XH, I did flip out on him in some texts when his brother’s wife texted me a photo of the happy “just friends” couple at my XILs two weeks after our divorce (D took 2 months). I also yelled expletives at him when he served me with divorce papers the day before my 43rd birthday. Guess my sins are worse than theirs (at least in the eyes of the courts). Pathetic.

      • Yours royally sucks. Me, too. My STBX filed a couple of days prior to my 40th— the disordered are so evil in their timing.

  • Ah, thank you for the Floozie cartoon, CL!
    ????
    And I thought that the OW was the only one who used that label…made my day!

    The best gift of meh is being able to laugh at the past.

    • I know! It looks a lot like a ‘TopGun’ MK grifter from Corona CA. One thing asshat told her that was True was that I had no interest in violent sex, sex with minors/multiples or getting ploughed in the ass. Standards so low that only she could meet.

      Good riddance to diseased rubbish.

  • I’ll add another: “I’m not allowed to be the person I want to be around her/him.”

    Or Kunty Kibbler’s variation: “I can’t be the person I was always meant to be.”

    Translation: “My spouse knows me well enough that they’d catch on — and maybe even call me out! — on my bullshit if I act around him/her the way I act around you. You’re brand new, shiny and sparkly. You don’t know my past history of fuckedupedness. You’re a reset for me — I can be anybody I want, and you’ll not only believe it, but want to fuck me for it!! You have no idea how important that is for me!! I may cum just at the thought of it!!…”

    • UX, I got the “I can’t be myself with my wife” too. He told her she’s the only one he can be his true self with. He likes who he is when he’s with her. With me he always felt invalidated, bad about himself, and didn’t dare say what he really felt. Only with her can he be the honest, respectful, kind, faithful unicorn he REALLY is inside.

      Blech!

      • My ex was visibly relieved to be in his ‘serious’ relationship w/someone who had also destroyed her previous marriage by cheating, before hitting on him, the married guy w/kids. So great to be with someone who ‘got’ him and wasn’t all judge-y about the cheating, lying, abandoning his kids… Not like me, and the previous long-term girlfriend, who had expectations of him.

        He found someone at his own level! Too bad she ended up dumping him. For another man. Twice.

  • Apparently I was boring and unsexy according to a pros and cons list I found comparing me to the ow. He didn’t tell me he was unhappy with me for the four years of the affair.
    Apparently he also told another woman he was doing work for about his feelings. Why was I the last to know? All the while he still treated me well although towards the end I did feel his detachment.

    • Same here, ANC. I wasn’t willing to slurp semen off the carpet. Sadz. 🙁

      I found the text saying she was. What a fine lady. So happy she “won” that contest!

    • Georgie, he actually wrote a Pros and Cons list?! omfg

      Chump Lady, I sense a Friday post in this!

      • Mine had a pro/con list too. I thought I was the only one. You wouldn’t believe the things on it. Devastating.

  • Even after 3 years divorced this on still makes me so very angry.

    He told the first one that I was too damaged from my abusive childhood. He told her that we never had sex because I was just too damaged. The true reason that the sex was lacking is that he was too busy masturbating to porn while I was at work or cooking dinner or cleaning the house. He told her all the details of what I had shared with him in confidence, he was the first person that I had trusted with this. Pig!

    It still makes me sick.

  • Mine had a “list” also in 2012. Said things like bank account, keyboard, horseshoe pit… absolutely ludicrous things. (Mind you, nothing about our relationship, sex life or us.) I thought he was losing his mind! Turns out he was trying to justify his affair.

    • You’re now the 3rd person I know who saw such a list. Chump Lady is this rare or not?

      • A friend of mine suggested to me that I do a pro/con list of what I liked / didn’t like about Mme YogaPants as a possible tool for marriage counseling (which we never did).

        I ended up having to weight it (yes I’m that kind of exciting) in order to make the Pro larger than the Con. And this was an honest list too back in the days of the full Pick Me Polka.

        She was horrified when she saw it on the day she moved out but didn’t dispute any of the points other than one thing that I had as a positive (Pride) she felt was a negative. I pulled up the list just now to find that one thing. It’s amazing the amount of spackle I had to apply.

        BT

  • I found miles of texts messages and emails to various and sundry women he met through his work. ‘My wife and I are separated’ was a common theme (he just forgot to tell me), ‘my wife and I have nothing in common’ (except for the three businesses we built together in three different continents that created the amazing career he has now), ‘my wife is bi-polar and crazy’ (I am bipolar but have been medication-managed for 15 years) ‘my ex wife lives with the children upstate while I stay in the city’ (because he was so very tired and overworked he needed an apartment to crash at when his days in the city were long). The list is endless. And every word a lie that he used to get sympathy, attention and/or sex.

    • One thing I forgot – and he tosses this around like it’s the ultimate justification – ‘my wife emotionally abandoned me!’. Apparently being the sole parent to three special needs children while he travelled the globe with work meant that I had abandoned him. The fact that he was no longer the center of all my attention and effort equals abandonment. Go figure. One year after the divorce he still throws that one out! Poor baby!

      • MovingRightAlong–their excuses are crazy-making. Please realize they borrow just a nugget of truth for each excuse to make it plausible, then put it through the Massively Unfair Computer Program of their diseased little brains to spew out “reasons” they have to cheat on us. They are the ones who emotionally abandon us, no matter how much work WE are pouring into the marriage, children, trying to create a happy household.

        I can feel the frustration and helplessness in your posts, because I’ve been there. I was doing 90% of the parenting to two children with very restrictive diets (and can count on one hand the number of times X stayed home with sick children in our 19 years of marriage, despite my having a full-time job, too). Yet, I was accused of “not paying him enough attention” because I spent too much time on other people (those “other people” being our children and students in my job because I wrote too many comments on their papers, which took time away from him). I was accused of not being enthusiastic enough about sex with him after the second child was born, which was true, but his fault. He did something so emotionally abusive the day after second DD was born that I instantly fell out of love with him, and never again felt safe around him.

        Cheaters will turn everything around to make it someone else’s fault (#1 predictor of a cheater? Blameshifting). They are masters at finding our weak spots (e.g., your bipolar diagnosis, even though treated) to point out that WE are flawed and deficient, and thus cheating on us was only logical. Don’t believe it. Pretty sure if you and I took 5 minutes to write down their flaws and our list of unmet needs, we could fill a page or two.

        It takes a long time to absolutely, positively trust that they SUCK, and thus stop caring what bullshit they spewed to rope in women (or men) of such loose moral fiber that they would fuck a married person. It was not us; we could have been 99% perfect and the cheaters would have found that one Achilles Heel fault to use as a justification for their cheating.

        • Tempest and moving right along and so many others. You guys are such amazing people. To have to deal with such asshats and stillbe loving and caring parents – I don’t know how you did it. Or continue to to do it. So many stories of spouses walking out in their kids for selfish needs And sex and attention and egos. Just makes me sick to my stomach. You guys keep moving forward. So proud

        • Yes. I was “co-dependent” because I looked after the children properly which took away time from his Highness.

      • I got that one. He got plenty of attention, would have got more if he hadn’t left everything to me. Housework, child raising, cooking and work. I was ran ragged, my parents would comment that I looked knackered all the time. Funny how since he has gone I’m managing kids and house fine and look pretty fresh.
        Never found out what he told German slut, only saw the hundreds of photos and he sure as shit was not going to divulge much. Have enough info to know they both suck balls.
        My guess, is he slapped talked me to his co workers, from what he let on. I was domineering and controlling. I hope he meets someone who really is domineering and controlling one day and I hope she whips his ass.

        • Oh and I think they bonded over how much their spouses didn’t get them and neglected to see their true awesomeness. Yeah whateva. He lives alone now and German ho is probably archiving new lover photos in her sad world and still dicking around her husband.

      • I got the “you’ve emotionally checked out” one too. Ditto on the kids and traveling, though I think your situation with the kids is probably significantly more challenging. I just single-parented a highly anxious kid and another highly impulsive kid while he worked/traveled/played/masturbated in the bathroom. In equal measure!

        I kept questioning myself – am I holding back? Is that why we have so many problems? But I was too afraid to be vulnerable because it.always.blew.up.in.my.face. Every time, whether it took an hour or a week.

        So yes, there was truth in his claim, but I was distancing out of self-preservation, not because I was a cold-hearted bee-yotch. (Laughable to anyone who knows me, BTW).

        Moving-Right-Along, I think you are dead-on in your assessment- not being the focus of all their attention = abandonment!

        • Masterbated in the bathroom….

          I know we’ve touched on this before on CN, but it still blows my mind that X could spend two hours every night with phone and laptop in the John while I cleaned up dinner and got the kids through homework and ready for bed.

          Didn’t matter if we had family or company over either – still did it.

          But yeah – I was emotionally disconnected ????

    • Mine also said we had nothing in common. Nothing but 36 years of shared history and a family.

  • He put on adult facebook page. He knew the marriage was over because she said it was or I thought she said it was…he had asked in the middle of an argument can our marriage be saved and I had answered. “I don’t know”…apparently that means No….and I can cheat on you for the next 7 years but never actually leave. He also said we didn’t have sex for 3 months! It was a lie but I do remember thinking he had a bad back so that was why he wasn’t interested. (He was on Workers Compensation for it at the time). Then I found the craigslist posts saying he’s available anytime day or night!

    • Funny mine had a sore back a lot, when asked to help around the house or just get off the bed, never complained of it during sex, funny that

  • The OW in my story was thoughtful enough to send me a letter at work to say why I was not giving my X the attention he needed and that’s why he was with her. Yes I was raising two little kids with a full-time job (one of us needed to have a decent wage and insurance on the Family). So I didn’t have time to keep refilling the kibble dispenser. Come to find out she was a woman 15 years older and her kids had all left the house and she had a part-time job, yeah you have time and energy to make him your world Wow these OWs come in all shades of stupid, and age doesn’t discriminate.

    • Ex’s Schmoopie didn’t have a job holding her down either. She does have five kids, but she was perfectly happy to neglect them in her pursuit of him. That’s what makes her so superior to me after all. I wasn’t willing to neglect my kids.

      • Rescue Twat had no kids and no career and so lots of time to make The Coward central, especially when the wife appliance was working (he was a begrudging and cheap husband) or taking care of the home (HIS BACK HURTS!!) or the kids. So she’s got that going for her. Also she’s not intellectually threatening ego-wise, so, winner!
        But, he told her that our marriage was over (true, because it takes two, not one), he slept on the couch (also true), we had nothing in common (his choice), not enough sex (see first paragraph), and he was generous (lie). He did all the yardwork and a lot of the housework (HAHAHAHA!) He loves his kids (he has feelings, and he once was great, but actions speak louder than feelings). But I really don’t care what sorts of lies he told himself and her. What used to kill me was that he told her things that were supposed to be private between a husband and wife. No matter. He doesn’t know me any more. NC deprives him of triangulation, and preserves my privacy.
        God, we sure were all married to such fuckers.

  • During the Pick Me Dance stage, My ex lied to a direct question posed by his AP: Are you having sex with your wife? He looked her right in the eye and said NO. How do I know this? He told me! lol. This has been a particularly helpful thing for me, to look at how he treats HER. Makes it easier for me to say “what an asshole” instead of blaming myself (which I’ve done plenty of, and still do sometimes).

    It’s particularly dumbfounding to me, because his narrative is that he’s one of the Good Cheaters. Not a womanizer, not a lifelong cheater, but a good noble family man who was suffering due to being in a “friendship marriage” with “distance”, who met someone who made him realize what love is really supposed to feel like. Wait a minute dude, if you’re such a Great Guy, why do you lie to HER? And he said to me (for real) “well I had a good reason for doing that”. I called him out on this crap many times (how badly he has treated her), and I get the Blank Stare.

    Oy! Trust that they suck, right? I’m feeling crappy today because I had to see him at an event for teenage daughter, so the whole “we’re not a family anymore” thing was in my face again. And the AP turned girlfriend does school projects with my elementary schooler. Oh and they’re all going on a vaca without me. Again. Man that shit hurts.

    Gotta go back to what CL taught me: Trust that he sucks, she can’t replace me in my children’s lives, and focus on building a new mighty life for myself. It’s hard sometimes!!!

    • I have been feeling that way a lot lately too as ex has just recently started getting the kids together with Schmoopie and her brood. It is hard not to feel left out even if I have no desire to join that “clique”. That is when it is tempting to make those “poor choices” as described by others above. So far I have only fantasized about that. I just try to get out and make friends so I don’t have to feel so lonely. At least my entire sense of self worth doesn’t depend on getting somebody else’s husband to tear his family apart for me. At least I am not Schmoopie. She may have my ex and be trying to worm her way into my kids lives, but she still sucks and she is still stuck with herself and ex. Same for him.

      • I think this is one of the hardest parts–even if the EX is horrible or the EX-inlaws are horrible or Schmoopie is horrible or the kids complain about having to go. The fact is, you are left out. You invested years building a family and raising kids and coordinating family get-togethers (and probably shopping and cooking and cleaning to please inlaws and the EX), and now you are excluded. Even though you wouldn’t go if you were invited! The imagined future of family dinners and celebrations was stolen from us. It sucks.

        You are doing all the right things in planning alternatives for yourself, but I agree with you–it still is lousy. And as the holidays approach, so many of us know there will be a few days where the inequity of the situation is inescapable.

  • According to exasshole and his friends correspondence, they are both codependent and needed to break out of that paradigm. I give em some points for originality, unless some chumps here saw similar dialogues…

    • Oh yeah I got that paradigm crap, societal constraints and how I was ‘unevolved’
      Yeah put down the crack pipe already

    • Nothing like having an affair with another codependent to “break out of that paradigm.” It’s not even logical…

  • Let’s see:
    We lived in separate bedrooms.
    I was old and dried out and didn’t want want sex.
    He stayed for the money.
    I paid no attention to him.
    I didn’t support his hobbies.

    None of which was true. The truth was he was a bottomless pit of need. I worked like a dog supporting his lavish tastes while he floated from part time job to no job to part time job. I put him thru four schools because his “dream” kept changing: from massage therapist to firefighter to medic to nurse to motorcycle racer. He spent endless hours watching porn and I now know trolling women behind my back. When I finally talked to final OW I asked her how she believed all his ridiculous statements and all she could muster was “I don’t know”. I remember telling her if he would cheat on me he would cheat on her, she didn’t believe me until a year later when my prediction came true. Funny how offended she was that he would cheat on HER! OW believe what they want because it fits the narrative that they are special and they want what they think is our life.

  • The OW admitted to being selfish and that it was ‘just being about sex’to start with. She was aware that I was pregnant from the day they met but why would that matter to her, she was getting hers at mine and my children’s expense. He admitted that he like the attention that she gave him. I was a bit busy growing a child, working and taking care of the toddler we already had. I guess he then used the excuses that he told me to leave me to be with her.

    They now conspire about how I’m making it difficult for him to see his kids. In reality I think he didn’t like me going as no contact as possible and he tries to get a rise out of me but I’m working hard on grey rock. Consequences suck and he doesn’t like that.

    • Being an OW with a guy whose wife is pregnant is lower than low usually can go. You keep that grey rock solid, girl!

    • They are filthy pieces of crap, hope you have a rockin life and rub it in their face.

  • One of the best things I learned in the “Reconciliation Industrial Complex” was that it wasn’t about the other guy. That helped a lot. They did try to tell me that it was my fault which didn’t help, but that’s another story.

    I used to wonder about this a lot. I even a few times blurted out “What does he have that I don’t have”. As far as I know it was more cash, seasons tickets to the local Junior hockey team and best of all, discount priced yogurt (yes, he was the milk-man). When I did ask, Mme YogaPants was unable to answer and I would wave the question away as irrelevant.

    I’m thinking hard right now and I think I’m pretty much at a place where it doesn’t matter. Yes, it’s a Tuesday. He knew she was married and probably knew that there was occasional “married for nearly 30 years sex”. How they could individually justify to themselves breaking up a family is still beyond me other than knowing and having known for many years how selfish Mme was and probably is. On his side he was a recent widower who was probably happy to find a sympathetic ear and other body parts.

    To the best of my knowledge she’s not explained anything to our children even though they do know the basic facts that I’ve given them which is perhaps a corollary to this original post. How do you even explain to your children that you have abandoned the man who adored you for discount priced yogurt and good seats at the local hockey arena?

    It’s been a bit over 2 years since all this started and about a year and a half since she moved out and I have had very little visibility into what went on or what the current state of “affairs” is (thankfully). Superficially she’s a lonely middle-aged lady living alone in her tiny apartment. I don’t know what if anything she’s told her guy, or the people around her. She’s stayed underground about her relationship with a facade of “everything is fine”. One of my biggest frustrations in all of this is her complete inability to be honest with our children and yes, with me. Knowing her for more than half of her life though, I’m not surprised.

    Intellectually I’d like to know but that’s just pain-shopping. I try not to visit that store any more.

    • Hang in there, BowTie! Your kids are lucky to have you, the One Sane Parent in their lives.

  • Mine told other women he was ‘Sort of married’.
    Apparently that convinced them.

  • “I’m not quite ready to leave him/her yet …” seems to be the default bullshit setting for a good many?

  • Mine played coy with the first one. He groomed the situation by saying how controlling I was (we lived on $250/week net *without* any public assistance)… I wouldn’t even let him buy lunch at McD’s. I made a lot of soup and turkey meals (17cents/lb, on sale) and I knew he hated soup and turkey. I was a bummer to be around and dragged him down. On his days off, I’d be gone for hours (errands; he drove my car to work 5-6 days/week), “probably cheating” with my ex. (Uh, NO.) I’d even sometimes leave our 3 young children with him… how selfish to not want to dart around 5-6 stores, getting the cheapest good quality the sales offered, with 1mo, 12mo, and 27mo. olds! I was so awful I wouldn’t even let him have a FRIEND. (Her.) Effin’ A, man – he never had friends.That was my fault retroactively, I guess. That’s why he didn’t/couldn’t tell me about his new friend and why she couldn’t be known about… I hate friends. ::eyesrollingoutofmyhead:: Also, we never had an sexual activity, apparently. That resulted in very aggressive blow jobs for him. Poor baby.

    The second one was the very trite, “She’s not interested in me. She doesn’t love me. I crave affection.” Well, I’ll “admit” to boredom and lack of intimacy… but that probably had something to do with his refusal to do anything at all with me or his children. He’d change his retail work schedule *in order to* miss their events. His days off were spent playing video games, shooting the shit with gamers all over the world, and drinking a case of beer. Even when I got him a really well-paying job with more time off, he saw it as an opportunity for more gaming and we’d go off on adventures of our own. They gave each other affection in an activity I’ll call “carpooling.” There are just.so.many empty parking lots on the way to/from work!

    Not that my “controlling ways” or “lack of interest in sex” or “indifference” ever resulted in a lull in sex. One year, I actually recorded every orgasm on my cell phone calendar as an event. Mine or his or straight up sex. 200 times that year, we had intercourse. There were actually periods of WEEKS without sex… pretty sure that was when he was fucking around and why he’d complain so often that I was a nympho. I’d think that most husbands, after a decade together, would be happy with this. And yes, it was a lot of sex… but I had ZERO intimacy or affection (he kissed me with tongue maybe 4 times in 10 years) so I made up for it however I could. When the first OW told me that if I’d put out EVER, maybe he’d be more interested in me, and I was lucky she was only his “friend” and they didn’t have sex… that he was such a great guy because he’d not been able to “bring himself to do THAT” to his wife, I laughed in her face. “He CAN’T. We have sex almost every day!”

    What killed me with both OW is that he was intimate with them. He’d tell me he just wasn’t “that kind of guy” who cuddled and kissed and stroked hair… but that is the vast majority of what he did with them. It’s what I wanted most – and told him so often – and he gave it away to women who’d done nothing for him… given up nothing for him… built up nothing for him.

    • Heart breaking … you let him know that you craved the intimacy of cuddles, kissing, and stroking, and he used that information to more efficiently snow a new woman. Please know that if he ever did those things with others, he never meant them in a heartfelt way. It was just a means to an end. He’s a real shit. Hope you are doing better with each passing day. Hugs.

    • Boy that sounds familiar. I didn’t get many kisses or general affection either so I gave them often but he still blamed me for the lack of passion in our sex life. Sometimes I think that is why he was interested 5 minutes before my alarm went off, so that if I responded it would have to be quick and no time to cuddle afterwards which he knew was important to me. If I didn’t respond then it proved I had no interest in sex. Assholes the lot of them.

  • Asshat told 21 year old stripper I was the victim of childhood sexual abuse, had issues with sex, and he never got it. I was vanilla in bed, He stayed for the kids, the marriage was dead a long time ago, blah, blah, blah. That was in his “goodbye letter” I intercepted.

    The truth, I was exposed to pornography as a child and hate it. When we were dating he belittled his roommate behind his back for porn consumption – of course paInted the picture we were in the same page about porn. I Had issues with him spending more time surfing for porn than helping with our 3 toddlers (way back when), signing up for hook-up sites, and sending inappropriate emails to barely 18 girls, all while touting his religious morals to the church and youth group he volunteered for.

    I rarely denied him sex, and he would even demand sex when I was dealing with a flare up of Crohn’s disease.

    • Barbaric. My sister has Crohn’s disease.

      I mean between the debilitating diarrhea and the excruciating cramps, or the bone pain or the inexorable nausea- what part of you did not feel like being a sex machine?

      He should be pistol whipped.

  • “A person who lies to themselves and believes their own lies becomes unable to distinguish the truth within themselves or anyone else, and so loses all respect for themselves and others. And having no respect, they cannot love, and in order to occupy and distract themselves without love, they yield to their impulses, indulge in the lowest form of pleasure, and behave in the end like an animal in satisfying their vices. And it all comes from lying – to others and themselves.”
    – Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

    I do not know what he told the whore du jour, but I do know he told his co-workers and anyone else who would listen that I was “crazy.” In the Divorce Letter that he read to me. He said how our marriage didn’t work anymore and hadn’t for a long time — that was news to me! Absolutely zero signs that we had a broken marriage, so I’m guessing that’s something else he was telling everyone else including the whore. Months later he told me to my face, “You never took good care of me.” and as all Pick Me Dancing for years Chumps know — we worked HARD for our spouses every single day in order to keep them picking us and our kids. So the fact that this statement from him came out of left field and it was 100% against everything he said to me for our entire marriage (I can’t tell you how many times he said to me ‘you take such great care of us’ or ‘mom takes such great care of us’) — I know he was saying this to everyone else too and probably the whore. There’s so much other stuff he said to me after D-day that didn’t make sense and fxcked with my mind, so I’m sure all of that was being said to them too.

    And loling , Chump Lady about “Do you want to touch my sausage.” Thanks for the laugh!

    • Martha, AWESOME quote from Dostoyevsky! Thank you so much!

      I read that book years ago. May need to read it again. Incredible insight.

    • Perfect, Martha. Thank you.

      And you certainly do not sound crazy to me. On the contrary, you sound very lucid.

      My variation of “You never took good care of me.” versus how “we worked HARD for our spouses” is “you make me feel bad”. I used to puzzle over this complaint and what I was doing wrong. Now I know that it is indeed exhausting to lead a double life, so no wonder he felt bad.

  • My STBX runs the narrative that I was (and am) a control freak. Never mind that I apparently had no control over his multiple affairs with multiple women, his constant drinking (and driving), and him not coming home when he said he would.

    He also claims that he never got to make any decisions and felt left out of the family. Never mind that he was never around and he left about 95% of the parenting, house maintenance, and bill paying to me. I never was given the option of sharing the decision making.

    Yet, the two of them continue to spread that I am a control freak. I have had at least half a dozen texts from him over the last 9 months where he calls me that.

    • Getmefree…sounds like we were married to the same sad sausage. Mine also said he has no power in our relationship and I don’t “see” him for who he truly is. Barf.

    • I’m a Control Freak, too, GetMeFree. You know, because I like to control: having help raising his children, not worrying that his dick has accidentally fallen into an STDinfested vagina, getting bills paid on time. How terribly controlling to expect that the person who vowed before God to do life with you actually shows some adult fucking responsibility. How dare we.

      • Yes, we chumps really need to stop being such horrible control freaks! Enough trying to make them pick me! Enough trying to force them to cleave only unto their lawfully wedded spouse! Enough marriage policing and issuing ultimatums to be faithful or else!

        Whey they accuse us of being controlling, they’re really projecting. They are controlling us through manipulation.

    • Yep, control freak here as well! After I filed and asshat was running around with new smoopsie, I was tracking what he spent so I could get it back as dissipation. In his mind he made it about “the woman who just couldn’t let go of his greatness” and was stalking him. Bahahaha, sorry buddy, I no longer care what you do with your d*ck, but I do care what you are spending marital money on!
      They are so freaking delusional!

  • I used a VAR to confirm my ex-wife’s affair. She was the OW with a married guy. I don’t know what all she told him about me because I was late to the game, but I know that she had several conversations with her friends about how lame his wife was, how she didn’t understand why he was married to her, how she had a much better of a personality than his wife, how life would be so much easier if he and her were together……made me absolutely sick of course. It was obvious though that she was trying to justify interfering with their marriage by deeming his wife somehow “unworthy” of this idiot. I’m sure that’s how many AP’s think on some level.

    One (of many) of the problems that she overlooked with this plan was the fact that he doesn’t like kids and doesn’t want kids. Well, we have kids. Nevertheless, my ex thought he’d leave his wife (and a marriage with no kids) to be with her (and my kids). And why not, because if there’s something a guy that’s cheating on his wife and that doesn’t like kids wants to do, it’s to jump into a permanent situation where he has to immediately deal with kids that aren’t even his.

    You know how that plan turned out……I divorced her and he ran back to his wife.

  • In one of the e-mails, he said to her “I can’t wait to walk my hot young wife around our kids soccer games”…he was directing that to his married employee, who is ten years younger than me, that he left me for and just married two weeks ago. I was pregnant with OUR baby when he wrote this to her…I lost the pregnancy…guess now he gets his wish….

    • I’m sorry, Intergrity, about losing your baby. 🙁 I do hope you see you lost a total evil jerk?! My X had some type of affair when I was pregnant (never could prove it, but I just *knew* something was going on) and there is something so horribly disordered about a man who cheats when his wife is pregnant. I’m so sorry all this happened to you, but you are free of this horrible man. She didn’t “win” even though it’s a mind fxck knowing he’s with someone younger than you. She “won” the booby prize.

      • Thank you all for your kindness…and so sorry to everyone here for the lies that were told about them. I feel awful that I do not offer more guidance to others here, but I still feel so confused and hurt myself…I feel like I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer when I fight to move forward, and then still fee like I’m going to throw up, even almost three years out…I have so much to be grateful for and am SO lucky and have so much good in my life…I just still wake up and can’t believe it…I just can’t believe this all actually happened….

        • Integrity, I’m three years out too and I still have that feeling “I can’t believe this all happened.” I’m sure eventually that feeling will go away. You don’t not need to feel awful for not handing out guidance. It’s 100% okay to read, share your story and not offer guidance or advise. I truly believe we find healing in other peoples wounds and still after reading Chump Lady for almost two years now, I still have “a-ha” moments and a little more healing takes place. So just in sharing yourself here you are helping others. (((HUGS))) to you. We are all in this together to “gain a life”! 🙂

      • So very sorry to you, Martha…and for those like Pregnant Chump and others who have been through the same and worse…I have so much admiration for those here who have to “co-parent” with their exes, and who are trying to raise, or have raised, honorable kids who feel worthy of themselves despite the shit their asshole parent has inflicted on all of them…

    • What an asshole. So sorry you lost the baby. Your ex may have gotten what he thought he wanted but it will soon turn into a case of “be careful what you wish for because you might get it”.

  • The narrative changed. If the guy she was talking to knew me and knew she was married, it was all about how terrible I was etc….. if they knew she was married but did not know me, she was separated and filing for divorce because I sucked. If it was a random connection, she was single and available. One might say she has a disorder…. attention seeking drama queen. All in all, she was juggling 10-15 guys at once. One was her soulmate who wouldn’t take her on. The rest were toys to be played with. Some really sick shit!

    • Of course … the one who couldn’t quite be captured was the “soulmate” … Because it is all about the chase and the capture and accumulation. Filling that empty void and convincing herself that if just one more guy desired her, then maybe she was lovable. But she never really believes it and so must continue her delusional quest. The “soulmate” would have quickly disappointed had he ever lined up properly. And a new “soulmate” is always just over the horizon …

      Except for the hurt and damage they cause, I almost feel pity. Almost.

    • 10-15 guys?! How in the world?!!! My ex has of harem of women too that he keeps in contact to see if they will take the hook for an affair with him. I have no doubt in my mind that he has calendar on his computer that keeps track of all his “healthy female friends” birthdays so he can send out the predatory behavior “Happy Birthday” email each year. That’s how he found out his whore du jour was getting a divorce and he pounced on the vulnerable prey within days of her divorce being final. I saw the emails between them and she was all, “I’m so lucky to have such a good friend like you.” Yeah, it’s always night having a sociopath for a friend. He wasn’t thinking “friendship.” He was looking to get in between her legs and he succeeded. I can’t wait until she finds out that she’s not the only woman he wished Happy Birthday to each year via a oh so safe and friendly email.

        • It is unbelievable in its own way! And I am not exaggerating the numbers! I can only nail down two she was actually physical with! But just to juggle that is beyond my abilities! In one weekend, she nailed her boytoy, tried to get with soulmate, was in appropriately texting couple other 20 year olds, and met a guy at a bar!

          • That’s crazy!! I had a hard enough time taking care of a husband, kids, job, house and everything else that goes along with being a wife and mom. Like Nauseous Chump said, “Where do they find the energy?!!!!!”

            • Funny part is the “energy”! Come to find out, she was shutting bars down. Working. Telling everyone how bad I was cause she had to work that weekend. Once DDay 2 hit and she wanted to reconcile, she was always tired in bed by 9! I must be boring?!?

  • Mine brought out the old chestnut about how I had gained weight and let myself go, and he just didn’t find me attractive any more. But that was just what he told the skinny women he fucked. When he was screwing Plus size women — women who were my size — he told them all about how he was into BBWs and how unattractive he found skinny women.

    • My mother always told me: “A Stiff Prick Has No Conscience”. Whatever it takes to get sex is what their carrier will say.

  • Not yet married but I had one married dude continuously try to hit me up for nudes for like a month. He was my middle school teacher and we reconnected on FB, just to catch up I thought. It was fine for the first few days than he started asking to see my tits. I called him out on it (he had a wife) and he starts spinning this story about how she’s frigid and never fucks him. At this point I’m like- ok you just made this what I thought was innocent interaction weird and stopped talking to him. But anyway, the point of this long winded rant was that they claim that their wives don’t fuck them. Like that’s supposed to make unattached women drop their panties and do that fucking that the wife isn’t. Fucking gross.

    • And yet so many of those unattached (and often attached) women do in fact drop their panties. Seriously, some women have no sense of self worth at all.

      • Ugh gross. Who actually wants to tell a couple story like “well he said his wife didn’t fuck him and I felt bad for him. So I fucked him. Cause you know that’s classy.”

        Who wants to look or be that easy?

    • That’s it exactly. So what if their spouse doesn’t fuck them. Do these APs just think that they are rescuing them by fucking them? Nothing better to offer the world than your genitals? Then you are a pathetic excuse for a human being and a waste of resources…

    • That was exactly the line that an acquaintance used on me: that he and his wife did not bone—his wife “cut him off from sex at age 40.” Like this was supposed to make me want to leap up heroically and declare, “Pork me! I’ll save you!”

      Sadly for him, all it did was make me think he was probably crap in the sack. And definitely a cheater.

  • I have no idea what he told Schmoopies 1.0 or 2.0 as I never managed to get a look at his phone. I even asked him flat out one day “What did you tell these women to make them think it was ok to fuck somebody else’s husband?” His response was “I didn’t tell them anything, nobody thought it was ok”. Now he can’t comprehend why I think Schmoopie 2.0 is so rotten if she was willing to sleep with him and encourage him to tear his family apart when she knew it wasn’t ok. Seriously, he must have told them something bad about me and/or our relationship.

    The best I can do is conjecture based on all of the horrible things he said directly to me about why he cheated, was dissatisfied in his marriage, etc. He certainly unloaded a lot of bullshit onto the MC during our brief stint in reconciliation. She’s emotionally unavailable (no that was him), I had to do all of the laundry (while a SAHD by choice and he always complained about how I did it when I tried), She didn’t appreciate me and took me for granted (more projection), She has a low libido and was too predictable when it came to sex (he was the predictable one, if it was 3:00am, 5 minutes before my alarm went off or 5 minutes before I was about to walk out the door he was interested, the rest of the time, not so much). He also complained that I have no fashion sense, I am a poor speller, and my texts were full of typos. Ok, those last few are true but are those really good reasons to cheat on and discard your wife of 20+ years? I guess it is if you value image over character. I guess his OWs felt so sorry for him being stuck with a woman who doesn’t know how to text properly. Poor thing. Let me make it all better.

  • What male cheaters tell the OW is eerily similar to what female cheaters tell the OM.
    “We haven’t had a loving relationship in years.”
    “We don’t do it anymore.” (news to me!)
    “I’m no longer attracted to him.”

    And…”after he comes in sweaty from exercise, he smells awful.” (Ok, maybe that just applied to me. It still hurt.).

    • Because I’m sure *her* sweat smells like roses…? Jeez, they really do think they are superior, but they actually live in fantasy land!

  • And Schmoopie isn’t young or stupid and really should know better. That is why I wish I could have seen their texts. I would love to know who is manipulating who. It could be going either way. I don’t believe for a minute that it is actually “Twu Wuv”.

    • I understand how you feel chumpinrecovery. I read a bunch of texts. Until I saw it with my own eyes I just couldn’t file and I couldn’t stop doubting myself. Here is a peek behind my the curtain.
      To married whore #1: “I don’t know how to make her happy i try so hard she doesn’t understand me. She’s a miserable woman. She’s lazy and I do everything. She has no sense of humor. You amuse me and make me laugh. She doesn’t give me any attention. I’m a jack of all trades and she takes me for granted” (he sent her pictures of every single thing he did. Hundreds of pictures… I was a few steps away doing it with him but that didn’t fit the narrative. So he had me praising him thinking we were a good team and her praising him that he’s an amazing man that’s unappreciated.)
      To Tinder whore #2: “I’m single. I’m in the middle of a divorce it’s not easy coming to an agreement. She’s trying to take the house I built. (He didn’t build our house). You’re gorgeous and look like so much fun. I’m not looking for anything serious right now just a good time. I hate her with a hate like no other. Pure hate. She’s a miserable woman that doesn’t appreciate a hard working man. The only thing I’m upset about is that i need to sell my house. Come meet me for drinks in my hotel. I’m wild honey hold on. You look like a real good time” (he kissed me and told me he loved me… 3 hours later this awesome shit happened. 800 texts in 4 nights and phone calls and God knows what horrible shit happened. I mean seriously! your wife says have fun be safe to a business trip and trusts you to just have a good time having drinks with co-workers and friends and that’s not enough? He told me he only texted with me to throw me off in case I saw the phone bill.)
      To whore #3: nothing. This was a real whore. He just paid her. And she barely spoke English.
      To whore #4: I called her and she said he told her he was single and she was sorry.
      To our friends: I have psychological issues. I’m disgusting. I’d be a terrible mother. I’m giving bj’s in parking lots to my bosses and clients. I’m an alcoholic that’s drunk when he gets home. We don’t sleep together. I’m lazy insecure and jealous. I’m dirty. I wear sweatpants after work. Literallyyyyy alllll liesssss! Makes me sick!????
      When I confronted him about whores 2 thru 4 he said “i never wanted you to find out. I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t care. Shut up. Fuck you. I don’t careeeee???????????????????????? I’m a good looking guy I don’t need to buy a prostitute. I’m going to put you 6 feet under the ground. I’m going to find you. You will never get away from me. I’m going to kill you. I’ll haunt you in your nightmares and one day it won’t be a nightmare. Youll open ypur eyes and I’ll be standing there over you.”
      And now for the last year… “I miss you” “go fuck yourself” “I miss you” “grow up” “you did this to youself” “sexy wives dont get cheated on” “i just wanted you to love me” “burn in hell” “i miss you” on repeat over and over.
      F…..m……l!

      • Wow! Whatever he did or didn’t say to his Schmoopies, my ex is an amateur compared to yours and many others. He never threatened to kill me.

  • So.. in my lifetime (64 years), and many stories of infidelity, I can reduce the “causes”of cheating to three problems. This is what the OW hears.
    1.wife is a bitch
    2.wife is frigid
    3.wife is crazy
    All explanations can be boiled down to these Holy Trinity of Explanations. However; those don’t have to be the exact words. For example, my husband has revealed that
    “You (wife) didn’t understand me”. This means “bitch”.
    I’ve also found that the cheaters are working too hard. So often, the OW doesn’t need an explanation. They’d have taken any reason . Such as, “My wife separates laundry poorly”.
    What is the true reason? Read CL’s book. It’s all there.

    • 30 years

      Yes, evidently I’m frigid according to the OW.

      Funny thing is one of the women he dated told me he talked about his penis on the first date. He was trying to get pity on his wee little dick saying I wouldn’t have sex after he had his prostate removed.

      I went without for two years. She said there was something off about him. Her husband died from cancer. He told her we were separated.

      The other thing he told someone was that I never forgave him for cheating. Drop dead fucker.

  • Mine said;
    Not had sex in years,
    I was crazy
    A criminal
    My family were all criminals

    XH attempted to file a police report, they were afraid of work exposure and were trying to bully me into compliance.

    Thankfully, the officer who followed up the report with me, refused to even ACCEPT xh’s complaint, looked me straight in the face and said, “Ma’am, I just spent an hour and a half talking to your >Cheater<. NOTHING he is saying adds up, nothing he said makes sense…. I'm trained to not get involved or give opinions, but – take my advice… Divorce this man and get as far away from him AS FAST as you possibly can."

    I asked him what Cheater actually said, officer refused to give details, but the important thing was he became a strong supporter of my case in my divorce. His "reports" actually painted and called the cheater a "bold faced liar".

    • You got two out of three! “Criminal” is a Big Bitch! Seriously, it’s great that the officer saw through the BS. So happy that your cheater is an XH now. Peace.

  • He told everyone–all the other women, his friends, his daughter!–that it was ok for him to have OWs and a girlfriend because I was seeing other people, too. That was news to me. Liar.

    Oh and all the classics, we had a sexless marriage, I was bitter and crazy, etc.

    They suck.

    • I am 16 months post divorce and the ex just told our teen daughters exactly that! It was okay for her to have a “friend” because I was cheating as well! Just a lie. Our daughters actually called her out on the affair because they knew about it at the time. Kids are more perceptive than I thought. And that was her answer, that he was just a “friend” and that I was having an affair too. Fortunately, our daughters didn’t buy either excuse and the ex promptly sent them to their rooms in anger.

  • Just the usual narrative in my case.
    “We’d grown apart”.
    “She doesn’t care about her health” (I had some mosquito bites from a wonderful trip to the tropics that took a while to heal, and he’d decided they were warts I wasn’t taking care of!!! I was also so busy caring for 2 babies plus working near full-time, I didn’t have the luxury or funds to preparing 4-course meals of organic foods all the time).
    “She didn’t show she cared about me”. This one irks me to high heaven. I bent over backwards for that boy. He dismissed everything I did for him. Even today, a year after his walking out, I get an angry missive (after I didn’t instantly respond to a text) about how “you never cared for me when we were together, you didn’t answer my phone calls and texts right away. I never felt important.” Apparently me having a life outside of kissing the ground he walked on every day, or not being able to immediately respond when I was in a work meeting or out of phone coverage, were deal breakers. When I look back on it, that was all so controlling.

  • Mine told the other woman he was single, 38 when he was 42, and lived with a roommate. So I didn’t even exist in his double life. I sometimes wonder what he tells his friends about what happened between us for us to split. But then realize I don’t give a shit about that. Besides I told a lot of his friends what he did ???? Poor next woman. I feel bad for her

  • If I had a nickle for the times I heard “my wife doesn’t understand me” I’d be rich beyond avarice. I worked at an all-male company, so it was practically a barrage. I finally told the last guy, loudly and in front of everyone else, “I’m willing to bet she probably understands you all too well”. At least that particular excuse stopped.

    • Woe, Soldiering, that is such a great comeback. If anyone ever says ‘My wife doesn’t understand me’, may I use it before I kick them in the nuts?

  • I was always worried that CheaterX and Schmoopie would break up before I had my ducks lined up. CheaterX and Schmoopie had a very dysfunctional relationship. I have no idea what they told each other on those myriad phone conversations, but the texts were pretty banal.

    He was a Sad Sausage. He had no family. I kept thinking, what am I? Chopped liver? I have a large, extended family that love him and think he’s quirky and funny. True, his parents had died, and I won’t dismiss anyone’s sense of loss, but he does have family.

    She told him that she was being stalked by The Creeper, who magically was able to get past her alarms. She was psychic, too (red hair), and she believed This Was the Year She Would Die. I think he believed her.

    Looking back at them, and thinking of what I have learned from Chump Nation, I’d say he’s BPD and she’s NPD. And no, their relationship didn’t last.

  • All the emails my X wrote to his gradwhore AP, filled (I’m sure) with hot, sexy talk and the ways in which his marriage to me was deficient, are in the possession of gradwhore’s current dissertation advisor. I would pay a lot of money to get hold of those to see what he said. Mainly for intellectual purposes, as nothing in them would hurt me given the contempt with which I now hold my X.

    • Do you mean that Hannibal himself is her dissertation advisor? Because otherwise, I cannot understand how he isn’t out on his ass for inappropriate behavior with a student!!! grrrrr

      • He was called up to the sexual harassment officer for his affair with gradwhore, but he was not her dissertation advisor, she was not in one of his classes, nor was she his teaching assistant. Ergo, because he had no supervision over gradwhore, and she admitted it was consensual, no consequences.

        Now…if I were to show the sexual harassment officer his handwritten notes about the affair with an undergraduate, and his promises to “help” her get into the graduate program, Hannibal’s international career would come crashing down around his ears. Sex for favors probably wouldn’t get him off the hook this time.

  • My daughter is hilarious and awesome. Her five year old, verbally precocious, pigtail- wearing self lights up every room she wheels herself into. She’s the Glade Plug In of good mood.

    She is smart as fuck, and kind, she regularly asks strangers for hugs and kisses.

    She also rides the short bus.

    I respect this website’s irreverence and snark. I love the ability to say “fuck” when necessary. It acknowledges and validates my pain. Shows me that expressing my pain is more important than societal word-rules. I do not want to change that.

    I just wanted to speak up about how “short-bus Special” stung me this morning.

    Thank you for everything you do.

    • Awww honey … your child sounds awesome. My child is “special” as well. Please know that what we write here is sometimes very insensitive but ONLY meant towards the cheater we hate. My ex cheated on me with men and I know I have sometimes said some very regrettable homophobic-sounding things … hopefully I came back and apologized each and every time and know better now. Hugs.

    • I would agree, BTL. I know that the people here mean well, so I don’t think it’s intended, and I get the clear message that you see it the same way. It’s also important for us to realize that even if we don’t mean to hurt a person we’re using as an analogy (and make no mistake, if you cite the condition, you are using the person who lives with that condition), the fact that we use that person as an analogy objectifies the person with an added spin implying that the person’s life reality is a weapon of ridicule.

      It’s no different from calling a man a girl to insult him – why should resembling a girl ever be considered an insult? What are our girls supposed to think when they hear that resembling them means being weak and useless and worthy of ridicule? That may not be what people mean when they say it, but that message gets delivered anyway.

      Thanks for advocating for your beautiful daughter and for giving us all the opportunity to become more conscious of our word choices.

    • Battle-Tempered Lionheart.

      Sometimes we all need a reminder to be more sensitive. One time I posted on FB that my beloved football team’s special teams unit the same exact thing that stung you this morning. A few of my friends took me to task. I honestly didn’t think when I wrote it and I was just trying to be funny and sarcastic but that’s not a good reason at all. I should know better (my eldest son is handicapped).

      It’s good that my friends spoke up and it’s good that you did too. Your daughter sounds like the light of your life.

  • I was “depressed because I was forced to leave all my friends and family in Virginia to move down to the middle of nowhere in lower Alabama …” lol … so that is all pretty much true … what’s your point?! He conveniently leaves out any mention of his own behavior as contributing to that depression.

    Tomorrow is the first of the month … I know he will enjoy sending more than half of his money on over to my account. It must feel kind of “depressing” … heh heh

  • It really boils down to the cheater and his or her moral code. Entitlements and permissions.

    Once the Cheater has given themselves permission to lie, cheat, steal and bitch and moan about their life, Cheaters have then crossed over into the abyss of self absorption into MEme Land. Nothing really bothers them, nothing gives them pause. Not concerns for the children, not really – not if it gets in the way of strange puss, not the wife, finances, careers, savings, religion or moral code.

    The affair is all justified in their rationale, the side issues are justified to. Even when things have to be hidden, they carry on without conscious. It took me years to accept this.

    This is why a true unicorn is so rare. A truly repentant cheater would have to walk BACK through those gates of entitlement and land in humility land.

    OW are natural born bullshit eaters. They will accept ANY reason to carry on, once they have decided to “GO for it!!!!”, it is entirely useless to deal with them.

  • I had just joined a new company and had been there for 2 months, when this married guy comes to talk to me, and instantly starts complaining about his wife. I put my hand up immediately and said: STOP! I am not the person to talk to about this. If there are any issues in your marriage, YOU need to talk to YOUR wife. I looked at him dead in the eyes. I was going to be damned if this asshole was going to use me to vent about his marital problems, while staying married to his wife, while I was still single and entertaining this Fuck. I put a stop to that shit right away. He never dared to approach me after that. A couple of years later, he cheated on his wife and they got divorced. Boo friggin hoo. (Halloween pun intended)

    • Oh, and his gripe was how he didn’t have a good marriage, how his wife and him didn’t get along. Don’t give a rats ass buddy. Your issue, not mine.

      • Nice just job, Kellia!

        It’s actually one of the unwritten rules of marriage, right? “Don’t complain about your spouse to the opposite sex (or same sex if that’s how you’re wired).”

        Such behavior is proven to create a bond, no matter how superficial, between you and the other person. You’re sharing intimacy with her/him, instead of your spouse or a platonic long-term friend/confidante.

        Share your problems with your spouse WITH YOUR SPOUSE. Failing that, share with a long-term friend with whom you have zero chance of fucking.

        • Exactly JC and thanks! I felt that he saw me as this innocent single girl, like this prey, he could take advantage of. I was not going to let that happen. And you’re so right, it does create a bond, because he is turning to me for intimacy and consolation, when his wife was th person he should turn to. I was not going to volunteer for that no way in hell!! That’s why I have no sympathy for OW, as they too can put a stop to this type of behavior, yet they voluntarily choose to continue seeing a married man. They have a choice every step of the way!

    • CL helped me figure that crap out too… I have no more tolerance for it. I *used* to try to understand – before all the cheating was discovered – and Cheater would say “Well, you know how people spend more waking hours with co-workers than their families… it’s inevitable we get close, some more than others.” I had listened to co-workers bitch and talked them through hard times… but I also wasn’t angling to fuck them either. Now? It’s all pretty curt.

      “Hey, hold on. I can sympathize with you about having these problems… everyone has hard times. BUT – how is telling anyone else going to help? You need to talk to [partner’s name] about this, just like you’re trying to tell me now. NOT me. Not anyone besides the ONLY other person in your relationship, [Their Partner.] It’s no one else’s business AT ALL. She’s the one who needs to know all this, not some co-worker.”

      • 100% insistonhonesty! The poor wife is likely to be completely clueless about the cheater’s behavior. And people do not get close to their coworkers, there is a boundary that we do not cross. Never in my entire career have I ever let a married man confide in me about his marriage. It is so inappropriate and I feel bad for his wife, who is probably deliberately kept in the dark. I would see how this guy’s wife would cater to him, she would rush to serve him on hand and foot, brush off the crumbs off of his jacket, and other doting behavior. Only for him to turn around and try and badmouth her to me and his marriage. Not on my watch you won’t!!

  • As I’ve Mentioned before on here, he told the other different women, a lot of things. But the worst was that during my cancer, he said we weren’t together anymore. He was just staying with me to be good to me during cancer. Then he was leaving. They all thought he was such a good catch. He needed comfort sex… poor baby.

    He told people other things too, like I was mean to him, I was sexless. Even though I was risking my own crashed blood cell counts to try and be intimate with him. He let me risk stds while sick with his unprotected hookups. While telling me he was just going out with ‘friends’ to forget about my cancer and have some fun. It was such a downer to deal with, he derserves some fun.

    One of the worst with my last d day, was seeing that after I comminated with one of our friends after she had a bad breakup, she had text him to say how supportive I’d been. And he told her – I was trying to not be so bad …. wtf? I decide then, if these blow yards believed Mr, Famous liar, then they were never my friends. It was diabolical how he distoyed my character though.

    Then his next text to her how he met a stripper whose ‘ass felt so good’, and a picture of a Brizian fitness model at the beach with him, and said ‘my future wifey’…

    I saw an entire chain of texts where he villinized me to women, friends, etc. No wonder no one came to my chemo and radiation with me. They thought I was some abusive, sexless, killer of his dreams. And what a noble man he was… Derserving of all our friends support while he ‘endured me’ and enjoyed the new ‘strange’ he could use those lies on.

    I do not miss the mind fuck. I’m really still mad about it… my ‘meh’ Tuesday is still long off in the horizon.

    • I’m so sorry Chumptothe9th. 🙁 What a horrible man to do that to you, especially during such a trying time in your life. He truly sucks and your “friends” that listened to him — they suck too. I hope you are better now.

      • Martha, Thank you. I am working on it. If I am clear on my next set of tests, pet scans, etc. they will officially say I’m in remission! Which I am hoping for. Fingers crossed.

        It was hard to lose friends and my old life, but I did move out of LA and change my friends. I hadn’t ev n noticed they had started ‘blocking me on Social media. I was sick, not really paying attention. But I did learn recently from a old friend, what my ex did to get them on his side was tell each of them made up horrible things I’d said about them. He diabolically tore my life apart without me have g a clue. I guess if those people thought I said bad things about them, and my ex was ‘in their side’, I see why they turn there backs on me. However, I had never been anything but nice to our friends, and I ran my exes career. So his success was my effort/connections put into action. So If they believed him without question- then I guess they weren’t not real genuine friends. Just ‘Hollywood’ fake friends.

        Martha – I’m still bitter. I still have to fight my fantasies not to put him publicly.

        • Chumped–all fingers crossed your tests have “healthy” stamped on them. Smart move to leave the city after your divorce, though the loss of friends (and the reason for it is maddening). My X cost me all our joint friends, too, and it is maddening. I hate him almost as much for that manipulation as I do for his two decades of emotional abuse. The silver lining is that you and I are free to fill our lives with people of integrity now. Hugs.

        • Chumped, yes fingers cross all your tests come out fine and you are in remission. You are right that they couldn’t possibly have been genuine friends if they believed all his lies. My X got so many people turned against me with all his lies too, but there is nothing I can do about it. Time to find new friends!! That’s good you were able to move away. My goal is to move far away too once my kids move out of state. (((BIG HUGS))) to you. 🙂

          • Tempest, Curly chump, and Martha,
            Thank you! I can use all the positive energy my way. I will be taking it in the next week or so. As soon as my insurance approves it, I can take it. I see my Oncologist on the 6th again, so I’m nervous and hopeful.

            Thanks for this, I’m always wound up before the pet scans. It’s hard not to spiral into fear. But I come on this site to read other stories and get strength in shared understanding. Xo

  • I don’t know what my cheater wife told her AP, but I did find out in 2011 when I first caught her trying to cheat with a guy in our neighborhood she was telling him:

    “we live separate lives”, “we’re not intimate”, “he doesn’t make me happy”,

    she even said the worst:

    “he doesn’t pay attention to our daughter” (even though I’m actually the main care taker of our daughter and doing close to 100% of the cooking, cleaning, and spending time with the child while my wife is out partying it up chasing men)

    Our marriage therapist diagnosed her as Borderline Personality Disorder and I was told this is typical behavior of disordered people and their goal is to ‘hook’ the other person and explain away the immorality of their actions to the AP, her female friends, and even mentally to herself .

    • Yep! I’m convinced my ex believes his own lies. I’m convinced he believes all the lies he said about me and his rewriting of history. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me as I watched him go to the altar a handful of times and get anointed with oil while I thought he was praying for our marriage. The truth was it was all for show for his church peeps. There is absolutely no way he has a conscious if he can show up to church within days of telling me he wants a divorce because of my “trust issues” all the while he is planning to hook up with the whore he’s with now. He’s disordered. I could never do this. I’d hide my head in shame and never show up to that church again. Ugh, he makes my skin crawl when I think about him!

      • It’s so bizarre. I described it in couples therapy and individual therapy that it was like there were two totally different versions of my wife- one with me and one away from me. She lies and connives with such confidence- it’s like breathing for her. When she would have those moments of saying something honest it was like it would fall out of her brain and land in her hands. She would surprise even herself that she just revealed something truthful.

        • I did notice that the occasional truth is accidental and they try to cover it later with a lie. I have gotten very little truth….except when I contacted one of the other parties…. he sang like a bird!

        • Yes, Zell. My X is the same way. Two different versions. Evil twin. Nice twin. Shannon Thomas, a counselor that does great memes on Facebook says they are really the evil twin. Or the mean twin. Whatever adjective you’d like to use. My X’s evil twin showed up about a year after I moved to NY to live closer to him (we had a long-distance relationship for about a year). He went from nice boyfriend, to mean boyfriend overnight. He’s pulled this Jekyl and Hyde behavior quite a few times. I now know that he’s not the nice guy. He’s the mean guy covered by a lying, cheating, nice guy mask.

  • I have no idea what XH told OW, but I do know that XH’s father told his own OW that his wife was dead. Yep, that’s right: D-E-A-D. That was why OW couldn’t come in the house and meet the kids, because they were still grieving the loss of their mother. — Now, what he said was SORT OF true (i.e., XH’s birth mother, the first wife, was dead — murdered, possibly by XH’s father, but that’s a whole other story), but the mother of the other three kids (XH’s step-sibs) was very much alive.

    The kicker? OW married XH’s dad anyway. (smh)

    I will also say to any of you second-guessing yourselves (though hopefully you already know in your heart of hearts) that whole thing about “let herself go” is just bullshit. That was one of the excuses XH’s dad told XH why he cheated, way back when, so I thought “Hell no is that gonna be me!” and I was a fitter faster runner/swimmer/triathlete when XH walked out on me than I was when we met. They’ll find any excuse.

    • Wow, about saying the wife was dead AND she still married him after that whopper of a lie!

      “Letting yourself go” is a bunch of bs. Just another excuse to justify their actions. I know a ton of couples whose wives or husbands are a bit overweight and they seem very much in love. And there are also tons of stories, myself included (I always kept my weight down because my ex so nicely said to me way over ten years ago “Now that you dropped a couple of pounds, I’ll have sex with you.” Yep! I went from 130 to 120 and then I was acceptable to him. So I stayed around 120 for him and he still cheated!) where the woman is thin and attractive and they guy still cheats! THEY SUCK!

      • Martha, I don’t think it’s about how hot you are. Just think he enjoyed having control of your self esteem. Making you feel bad. Passive aggressive sh** these disorder humans do. I’m sure there are thousands of men who would love what you look like at 120,140, or 200 pounds.

        I actually know my ex only cared about obtaining me, and then slowly he tore me down. I lived him. The last thing you want to hear is your lover finds you unattractive. But I say some of my exes hookups, it was definitely about opportunity- not always about looks.

        I had a modeling career, won pageants, international commercials, you name it. And it still was not enough. Soon I was dressing too covered up. I was ‘letting myself go’, when I hit 120 pounds. It’s the mind fuck they like. Knowing they have you and then rejecting you brings them a high. I see now my ex liked to see me hurt. Thank god you don’t gave that douche in your life now!

        I

        • Wow, ChumpedToThe9th, I hadn’t thought of it like that. Like he enjoyed having control over my self-esteem. Gosh, that really sucks. That is just so mean that he’d think that way, but it makes sense with all his did and said over the years.

          Oh my you are a model, etc and it still wasn’t enough for your ex. And hitting 120 was “letting yourself go”. Geesh!! That’s exactly right. It hurts when they say stuff like that. I’ll never forget him saying that to me about my body now being acceptable for sex with him. It was a punch to gut when he said it. Douche is right for both of us!! I’m so sorry you were treated like that too. 🙁

      • “where the woman is thin and attractive and they guy still cheats! THEY SUCK”

        I’m confused about this statement. Did you intend that it came across as people who aren’t thin and attractive are somehow unworthy of fidelity on the part of their SO? We all know better than that, don’t we?

  • Mine took the easy route, said he was single (to the one that had integrity, who is in fact the only one who would talk to me and freed me). The other ones -that I know of-didn’t have moral standards to begin with, both had partners, allegedly.

    • Same here, Unknown. The Python’s first affair (that I know of) was with someone who, in the beginning (a few months of flirty texting), bought his story about being divorced. But she has a better bs detector than I, and she figured out (via internet research) soon after the physical part of the affair started that he lied to her about his marital status (among other things: he lies about anything and everything). She was PISSED and came to tell me in person what he was up to.

      Since then, we aren’t yet divorced but in all the text messages I’ve seen between him and his harem (“fans” who so far have all friend-zoned him), I am “the ex.”

      WTF – he won’t pursue anyone who would knowingly date a married person??? Hello!! Double standard much?

      So sick.

  • I think the most defining thing that X told me, which I believe he also told MOW was,”I don’t like who I have become because I’m with you.” Obviously, he told MOW the opposite. 3 years later, his words rang true for me, because I truly did not like who I had become (hyper vigilant, marriage police) because I was with him. I admit, sometimes it’s really great to see their projection issues work for you rather than against you.

  • While we were still married, my now XH told his schmoopie and posted on his Facebook page that he was a widower. Funny how he never told me I died.

    • I’ve heard that divorce is worth than death because the corpse is still up and walking around. Sounds like that’s true in your case!

      (Was your X attending dances for widows and widowers? If not, someone else on here has a similar story–her cheater was attending dances claiming to be a widower to pick up women while his chump spouse was back at home, unsuspecting).

  • Cheater ex was going around telling everyone that I was a hooker. Yeppers, the narrative was I was a prostitute. That’s why I was gone all night. Had nothing to do with working full-time nights, going to nursing school evenings, trying to keep up with house work, grocery shopping, cooking and laundry, and be the sane parent to two teenage boys. On three hours of sleep a day. No sir, I was out there turning tricks. He told people at church this, and they believed him. I know told his family this lie also. How do I know? After he kidnapped and murdered our youngest son, and then killed himself, I wound up having to prove to the detectives investigating my son’s homicide that I wasn’t a hooker. When the detective asked, I told him if that were true, I would be in a lot better financial shape at that point. He laughed.

    Cheater ex was also telling everyone that I probably murdered my first husband, who actually drank himself to death. Cheater ex’s story was that hubs # 1 was found shot to death in the woods under mysterious circumstances. Luckily I was able to produce a death certificate proving correct cause of death.

    Don’t put anything past them. They are evil creatures and will do anything to win.

    • This is just horrifying. Truly they are capable of anything and evil to the core. I’m so sorry and sad about the loss of your son. How awful!

      • Tessie my heart is broken for you. Your dead (thank God) cheater/murderer was no doubt a demon straight from Hell and is hopefully enduring eternal torment there.

    • He murdered your youngest son! My god, nothing can top that level of evil. I am so sorry for your loss.

      • Thanks for your kind words, it has been a few years since my boy was killed. There has been some healing, but it changes a person. I miss my child every day.

  • I didn’t hear much ( other than denials that she was a threat) but he did say she was “a supportive shoulder” as he worked through “this”. This being his unhappiness in his life.
    She had him reading self help books like the “5 love languages” – i suspect to show him how incompatible we were and how perfectly matched they were. (((eyeroll)

  • 1. I fell out of love with my wife years ago (nevermind that I told her that I loved her a week ago. I really don’t love anyone, but ME ME ME)

    2. She is controlling (projecting…its really me that is controlling)

    3. I tried to make the marriage work. I’m a descent, good man. (Nevermind that my wife never knew there was a problem in the marriage…there wasnt…I just LOVE. LOVE, LOVE shiny new toys….until they dull for me)

    4. She doesn’t understand me, my needs as you do (There’s not a woman on. The face of the earth who can give me the attention I need and DESERVE, but I will allow you to try, Even though I know where this is going…..or shall I say will end up)

    5. The sex is gone. I need sex to feel close (I have an insatiable need for sex…not making love….I don’t care if you are ill, just returned from flying around the world on a business trip the last 24 hours or if you are sad because your Mother died (everyone dies eventually), GIVE IT TO ME, ME ME)

    6. I’ve never met a woman like you, I’m so in love with you, I need you to breathe, exist. (Love bombing future ex-wife. Every woman I’m trying to rope into my web is special and unique….until I decide they arent).

    Horrible human beings. Karma is coming, Mr Dupicity….. If not in this life, in the next!

  • He told the long distance ones nothing–pretended he wasn’t married.

    The OW (plural) in town, he told them we were separated. Surprise to me! Still amazes me how he pulled off manipulating us all for so long to stay away from the others frequent hang out spots. He was one (scary) “talented” asshole!

    He told ME it was because we never had sex. You know what ruins your sex drive? Umm maybe FINDING OUT YOUR HUSBAND IS CHEATING ON YOU MULTIPLE TIMES! According to him, I should have gotten over it faster so he could get the sex he was entitled to. This is why he had to look elsewhere, etc, so the cycle never ended… until I filed for divorce and got the hell out of course.

    • Werd. It’s so f’ed up how they think what they want matters, but you don’t deserve any say in when or whether to have sex, that what turns them off is such a big deal while you’re supposed to be turned on all the time. But, of course, since the chump is an object, the chump can’t want anything anyway, right?

      • Exactly. We chumps are just objects for their sexual pleasure. How dare we think otherwise!

  • I jumped into the dating pool shortly after my divorce, which was a really good thing for me, I had a lot of fun dating. I liked getting out, having plans, meeting new people and trying new bars and restaurants. I learned about so many great new places around my city in my dating years.

    I liked to use Tinder especially to meet new people, but really I used a whole bunch of dating sites, and there were SO MANY CHEATERS on these sites. Often they are just upfront about it and start right in on the sad sausage tale. I would ruthless when I found out. I messaged wives, tracked down places of employment (one was a YOUTH PASTOR at a CHURCH) and generally read them the riot act on how scummy they were. Not sure if any of it helped, but I certainly scared the crap out of them.

    One that was a common theme was “my wife is boring in bed and I need to do kinkier things.” I’d always say, well have you asked her to try them? They’d say no, because she wouldn’t understand. Well then I guess you should try asking her, or you should go to therapy, or you should get a divorce and hopefully find a nice kinky woman to settle down with, but that certainly isn’t going to be me.

  • Ever since I got rid of Debbie Douchebag, I notice the beauty of everyday life.

    On my way to work this morning, I saw Batman getting on the school bus. I reckon the Batmobile must be in the shop.

  • When my ex first started his online love affair, he told his new gal pal I was his sister.
    That explained the same last name and our loving banter back and forth on facebook! I guess our biological children became his nieces & nephews.

  • I don’t know what my cheater told his whorestress. I was pregnant and left alone to care for our child while he was out screwing slag. I guess he must have convinced her I was the devil, because I just cannot come to terms with how any woman could involve herself with a married man with a small child and pregnant wife at home. It broke my faith in humanity. He won’t tell me who she is, a year after D-Day. He says he’s afraid I’ll go after her. Ha! She’s a parasite and not worth my time. I still want to know who I’m looking at when I cross her on the street or at his workplace. (yeah. From what I can deduce, she still works with him)
    The worst part for me, something I just can’t shake, is that he brought our small boy around this piece of shit.

    • Yikes. I read this to myself and realized how bitter I obviously am about this betrayal. Those aren’t my words… They’re words of the person I fear I’ll become.
      I can’t shake the anger sometimes. Some days I wake up and I’m fine. Other days I am so irritable and jumpy. ????

      • I don’t blame you for being angry; what an absolute shitstorm he left you with.

        While I know the standard line is to not pain-fish and find out details about your X’s life, if there is a not-labor-intensive way to find out who your X’s OW is (Spokeo or InstantCheckmate or another site–if they now live at the same address?), do it. I think some of your anger comes from the horrific power differential the cheater thrust at you, including not telling you who he was banging during your marriage.

        Information IS power, and you may feel better to have pulled one over on him, as it were,, by finding out information he wanted withheld. I know that I felt MUCH better to have uncovered several more of my X’s secrets after we were divorced. And since I was emotionally detached enough from him at that point, the information didn’t hurt that much (except to realize my whole marriage was a sham), I just felt a sense of triumph.

        (yes, I know other members of CN will argue to let it go, but I think this is an empirical question–you won’t know if it will make you feel better until you find out the information, and NOT finding out may keep you angry longer.)

      • I went through about 3 month period where I wrote horrible things in my journal – ways I wished karma would visit LadyLiar and make her pay for what she’d done to me and our family. I felt sick to my stomach that I thought those things and worried about who I had become. But it was temporary and I never acted that way in my life. I had to get the poison out of my system.

        • After I caught my XH and his cockslobber girlfriend fucking in a motel, I wanted to destroy them. That’s another reason I hated him so bad. He made me know what was in a murderer’s heart. I never knew that until then.

          • I was just talking to my mom about this last week…I told her it’s hard to wrap your head around understanding why and how people commit suicide, and why and how people can be so enraged and hurt to commit murder. It’s slightly disturbing knowing that you now understand those thoughts, and that the person you once loved and trusted more than ANYTHING and would NEVER even think about hurting, could now make you feel something so dark. My mom started crying, because she said she was worried that I would do something to hurt myself given how things have been the last few years….so I totally understand where you’re coming from….

      • Anger is energy. The fact that you are getting up and out of bed and caring for your children is all to your credit. Don’t feel bad about the anger as long as it is driving you to succeed (when it is driving you to spray paint his house, it is time to rethink it!) I believe that unloading our anger on this site is really helpful–the audience understands it, whereas sometimes the people we live and work with simply cannot.

  • This subject still pushes my buttons, although I am pretty meh about other aspects of the relationshit’s I was in, now. Time really does allow you to heal and get to a better place. I choose not to date most of the time, because I found when I was working on myself to fix my picker that I really became quite good at spotting bullshit, and seeing red flags. I was quite irritated with myself for not having developed this habit much earlier in my life. I think I understand the reason’s why now, and I am also sure my age has a lot to do with not wanting to date much. I was different in my 30’s and 40’s — still hopeful for a future with a significant other, filled with love and companionship, sharing and reciprocity. Now I don’t even make friends unless I see those things in the future with those friends — platonic love instead of passionate love, but love non-the-less.

    However, what I believe is the reason Cheaters Cheat and Lie, and the reason the AP chooses to believe the lies is simply because THEY WANT TO. As a chump I wanted to believe in love and truthfulness and character and commitment, and caring and fairness and all those wonderful things. I turned a blind eye to the red flags because they interfered with me having all those things with my partner. After all, my HUSBAND and I had taken vows, right? Why would he lie and cheat? He actually cheated himself out of a pretty good life, and me out of fulfilling my expectations of that good life. But he wanted that pussy smorgasbord, by golly, and it was more important than anything else. He just couldn’t rest and be happy without the pleasure of duplicity and the variety of endlessly changing and instantly forgotten strange.
    I think any grown man and woman should learn how to protect themselves from these entitled and often deadly human impersonators by learning to see and hear clearly. Perhaps it took my being chumped to make me grow up and learn to listen carefully to what is actually said, instead of hearing what I wanted to be said. Maybe I needed to learn to see clearly, and believe actions instead of words. Maybe I had to learn the hard way that monsters walk among us. I don’t know if it could have been different for me, considering how I was raised, but I tried to make it different for my children. My son’t are 27 and 30 now, and so far as I know they have not been chumped. Maybe they will benefit from the way I raised them, and the warnings I gave them — that remains to be seen. I hope the Hard Knocks education they received by being first hand observers of their mother’s misery made some type of impression. I want to believe this is possible, and that is one reason I touch base with Chump Nation almost daily. We have survived, hopefully we can help others to survive and learn from our mistakes.

    As far as the cheaters and affair partners go — they will eventually get what they deserve, because they cannot make a true connection or carry on a true relationship. Everything is about the surface and appearance of things for them, and age has a way of changing surfaces and appearances. Without character and shared experience and values to sustain a relationship, the only place you will ever be is alone. That’s where they deserve to be.

    • Wise words Portia. I was recently blindsided so I’m nowhere near the “meh” stage. But I’m working hard on getting there.

    • It seems an oversimplification on the surface, but it’s very true. Why does anyone believe these cheaters? Whether it’s an AP, spouse or girlfriend we believe them because WE WANT TO. Despite the gut feelings to the contrary, and red flags galore, the bottom line is we believe them because we want it to be true. I’m not sure there is anything to be gained by trying to determine levels of stupidity in their victims. Sadly, ANYONE who has ever been conned by one is just that, a victim.

    • Portia, you are one of the wisest people I know. You said something here three years ago that spoke to my heart and made me give up on the cheater for good. You got me to Meh. Let’s chat in the forums some time.

  • How about my spouse cheated on me? That coupled with a crazy will seal the deal because the affair partner says, whelp I won’t cheat and I’m sane so I’m safe! I learned that i will always be skeptical of a man who tells me his ex is crazy and cheated on him. I just need to know that you’re more insightful than that.

  • Let me see…..I will try to remember all of the “reasons” he gave to OW/now wife.

    We never should have gotten married……he wasn’t in love with me. (Maybe he was right on this one!)
    I am controlling. (there is a difference between controlling and being left to do everything!)
    He never wanted children and I forced him to have two. (He is partially right on this one!)
    I am materialistic. (THIS IS ALL HIM!)
    I don’t initiate sex enough. (I didn’t have to as I never got a chance to)

    Really……..what is interesting to me is……how mentally lazy the affair partner is in not working these things out in their own minds! However, the majority of affair partners are cheating too and telling similar lies!

  • ow and her husband were our best friends. We never had problems that I knew of and she knew that. At the end of the day it was two entitled people doing whatever the hell they wanted. After they were busted excuses came out of the woodwork. It was comical to hear the shit they both said about us as we spent a lot of time together as couples, her husband and I were amazed at their lies.

  • I was an unwitting OW my second marriage. We met on an airplane, there was an immediate connection, he told me he was divorced (not even separated, at that point), love bombed me from afar (he was in CA, I was in CT)(how convenient for him), moved in with me while I finished grad school (separation acheived, I guess) then MARRIED me…while he still wasn’t divorced. I had no idea. First class chump. It wasn’t until over a year later, that he ‘fessed up, when papers came in the mail. He had PILES of excuses….and I stuck with him for another 3 years. THEN he gave me herpes, and this is what he said, “I didn’t think it was right that I should have it and you not.” Marriage. Over.

    • As a woman who has had a herpes scare (the tests came back negative and haven’t had another rash), my heart cries for you. I’m SO sorry that this guy had you so wrapped up in his sick game. No, Fuckface, when you love someone you want them to suffer LESS, NOT suffer simply because you suffer!

      Glad you’re free of him and his horrific mindset. That said, while awaiting test results, I found a few online supports for living with herpes and they were a great community of people. I hope you go forever w/o another outbreak. But if you do have an outbreak, check for support online if you haven’t yet. Made me feel better during that time. Ugh, anyway, I’m SO sorry.

      • Seriously, can you imagine that you are horrifically injured and then wish your love to be horrifically injured as well??! Man… these people are so inhumane. Anyway.. glad you’re finally free.

    • He committed bigamy and intentionally, knowingly transmitted herpes to you??!! I don’t even have the words…What a frightening sociopath. This is truly terrifying and I am so sorry you have to endure this nightmare.

  • That I forced him to surgically extract sperm while he didnt want a baby even though he flew to Europe with me and gave me all the IVF shots and happily did all the procedures. That I am a bore because I dont like “adrenaline things” and LOL that he wants to be free???? Final OW is a pure sociopath so doesnt really matter what he said. Mostly though he shouted “I dont want a baby!!!”… I was 8 months preggers at DDay and now he gets to watch a beautiful woman raise a beautiful little girl, that he never met, all over a family whatsapp while his schmoopie beats him.

  • THIS: We don’t have sex is bullshit. When I was married I always had a higher sex drive & got knocked back often over the years we were together – AND I DIDN’T CHEAT! If he had spent half his energy on being better in bed & bothering to put some effort into our relationship, we could have had mind blowing sex.

    Amen sister. I got so sick and tired of being rejected and his dumbass excuses. He ate doughnuts that day, yeah apparently doughnuts made him have erectile dysfunction. Or “I can’t do it tonight, I’ll be too tired tomorrow, I can’t do it in the morning, I’ll be to tired during the day”, Truth was, he was out fucking every waitress and cashier at every gas station/truck stop that would have him. Or the Adult Friend Finder, Find a Fuck, Craigslist hookup he could. Nothing left for me.

    But to the credit of the other women, they never knew he was married. They all thought he was a great single dad who worked his ass off to take care of his daughters because they were the most important thing in the world. He had a house, and he kept lights on. Because “I work on cars and I need electricity and water”. It was his bachelors pad. Meanwhile, I’m taking care of his kids (not mine) at my house.

    Sooo glad I kicked his sorry ass out.

  • Tessie, my heart just broke for you. You went thru the worst thing a parent could ever go thru. Everything I went thru with my cheater x is nothing, nothing now to me. God Bless you.

  • Exhole told Owife he was single. Then I was his ex-wife. Then we were still married, but separated. Then we were still married, not yet separated but it was over between us and he just couldn’t move out yet because I was so sad and lonely. And then that he was cheating on me because i had cheated on him several years before we had married, so it was payback… I still dont remember cheating on him, bit it doesnt match his narative so oh well. Lol. Meanwhile, I was working 70hr weeks and had NO idea this was happening.

    He was telling all of his friends and family that OWife’s 2 kids (from a previous marriage) were his and that I was being a bitch by not letting him see them because I was so angry. Not to mention that, in order for them to actually be his, he had to have cheated on me with her twice before in the 9 years we had been together. All for everyone to pity him and not tell me when he’s seen out with her. So so glad that mess is done.

    • Whoa, FeralBlue, your cheater constructed a whole Lifetime movie in his head! Good riddance.

  • My x’s desperate office skank (1.5yrs “IN LOVE” affair) thought she was being helpful to my well-being by informing me that my husband only tells me what he wants me to hear. That he only lied to me.

    Well, joke was on her when she discovered that he only told her what she wanted to hear as well! LOL!

    Yes, I met with her in person a few times to compare notes and to (for me) strategize better. She was truly shocked and saddened that he’d been lying to her about almost every detail of our relationship, including our sex life.

    YES, ow/om are egoistic enough to think they’re not part of the cheater’s game! WHILE THEY ARE PLAYING!

  • Oh. My. Lord.

    I’m the daughter of a cheater and a chump (just 30 now, eek) and though happily partnered, have still had the dubious honour of older men hitting on me while wearing their wedding rings. Not very often, but still, yuck. (Sincerest apologies to all the honourable older gentlemen out there!!)

    Having seen my cheater dad in action, I could tell them that “My wife doesn’t understand me” often means “I behave unreasonably towards my wife”, and had they tried actually…talking to their wives…in plain language…and maybe even, y’know…spending time with them?

    Cue spluttering retreats.

  • I don’t think my CXH told his girlfriend anything about me. He just let her GUESS how bad it was. And she was desperate enough to believe her narrative. Since my CXH ‘let’ me catch him having an affair, as soon as I found out he ran off with her. When I married this man, he told me that I was his SECOND wife. Come to find out, I was his FIFTH…and he cheated on all of us.

    However, she is the Super Special Platinum Pussy that will curb that wandering dick. For today.

    The bad news is that he’s getting OLD and he can’t be the masher he once was, as women don’t find him that attractive anymore. Him and Schmoopie will probably stay together forever now, since he’s getting a little long in the tooth to fuck around. Schmoopie moved him 3000 miles away from me. Good for her.
    She can look at that drunk, passed out bald spot on her couch now.
    He does put money in my bank account for incidentals and things for the grandkids. I think he thinks he can always come back to me. He can think whatever he wants. I think I deserve a better man.

  • My ex perv/cheater never even mentioned that he was married to his online hookups. Nope! Just a single, hot guy looking for love/sex. No kids….no wife…no dog……just little ole him.

    He can tell anyone anything he wants. I know the truth. It is MY story…..not his.

  • My ex had an affair with her boss and I did the “pick me dance” 5 long years before I finally divorced her. I think he’s finally divorcing his wife, guess he’s going to marry my ex. It really sucks but there’s nothing I can do.

  • My ex told his whore that I had a medical condition that meant I couldn’t have sex, which was completely true. What he omitted was that it was due to my high-risk pregnancy.

  • I love the way the OWs and OMs cast themselves in the light of ‘helping’ with a person’s failing marriage.

    So you fancy yourself as the only one who really understands X? You want to help X at a difficult time in his/her marriage? You see yourself as an apostle to the unhappily married, bringing relief and calm to toxic situations with your ever-listening ear and other body parts?

    Here are some tips on how to help save a marriage:

    – babysit while they’re getting counselling
    – give the person you know good advice about making a marriage work
    – pay for therapy for either one or both partners
    – help someone leave an abusive partner with a midnight flit to a safe shelter after separating finances
    – help to pay for the lawyer for the impending high-conflict divorce
    – do some voluntary housework if the couple is overwhelmed
    – pay for a weekend getaway for them to work on their issues
    – help to pay for Viagra/vaginal pessaries/lube/whatever if the sex life is a problem

    Note that none of these suggestions include fucking the married person with the problems.

    • It’s similar to prostitutes who consider themselves a sort of therapist. A lot of them seem to pursue psychology degrees since they were so “helpful” and “good listeners” !

  • My XH told everyone who’d listen that I was depressed and never got out of bed and he had to do everything and be Mr. Mom. Of course he never explained why he was living 1000 miles from home for a job or what was happening at home while Mr. Mom was away. Somehow I worked 50 hours a week & took care of elderly parents & 4 teenagers! And no one else ever noticed I was in bed all day???? The interesting thing was that none of the OWs ever called to verify his story until his lies came apart and they found out they’d been cheated on!

  • Thankfully I don’t know anything about what asshole told his AP.

    I didn’t care at the time and I don’t care now. The fact that he cheated and destroyed our family for strange pussy was enough for me to instantly dismiss him as a Monster Unworthy.

  • Other women will spend decades waiting…and waiting…..thinking they’re special. Don’t waste the chump’s time like that.

    Tell the chump.

  • He claimed to be and abused man with a wife who was dangerous. I kicked him up and have zero contact with him, only texting him with matters concerning the children. She realized through my actions he was lying and dumped him when he found him on Tinder (where they met) meeting other women. She still keeps him around though.

    • I have a family friend. Our families have been friends for over 50 years. So this friend I’m closest to out of that family, her beloved cousin got fooled – big time.

      She was friends with a guy at work who was “looking for a way to get out of his marriage”. He claimed his wife abused him, and their children. She started falling in love. My friend and the family tried desperately to get her to get away from this guy. At the time she was 20 and pig-headed, and the guy was 30 and slick. Apparently he even came in to work one day with scratches and bruises. My friend said the bosses at her cousin’s job even told her that the guys wife was a nut-case. So against her family’s wishes, she wound up marrying this guy.

      Turns out, although the ex-wife was pretty awful – he was just as abusive.