CN, why haven’t we deconstructed the bullshit trope of the Trust Bank yet? OMG, I’ve let you down! Recently, I got a letter that went like this:
Two years into the relationship he left his email open and I found the Craigslist ads, dating site profiles, etc…, but he eagerly agreed to couples counseling and we met with an expert in sex addition for over a year, making deposits into the “trust bank”.
As you can imagine, the story didn’t end well. Lo and behold, despite his trust deposits…. he was still cheating.
BUT THE TRUST BANK!
Yep, the reader was making deposits, and assumed (probably because there was a licensed sex addiction therapist involved) that cheater was too, and her Trust Bank got robbed. All her hopes and dreams were gagged, duct-taped to a chair, and pistol-whipped.
What dopey therapist came up with the Trust Bank, and how is this a Thing? I don’t know, but it’s a tenet of the Reconciliation Industrial Complex and can be found at the Healing Library at SI and some site called REAL marriage, among other unicorn outlets.
Gee, Chump Lady, you bitter harridan, what do you have against rebuilding trust?
For diplomatic missions overseas, or consumer confidence after an eColi outbreak? I’m fine with it. I am, however, skeptical of trust-building’s efficacy with people who have willfully abused you.
Here are my beefs with the Trust Bank:
1.) It’s a terrible metaphor. Banks are regulated. By federal agencies. Your heart is not. The Trust Bank seems to be entirely ginned up so that the chump feels like they are DOING something. Look! A trust deposit! We have a structure! And a metaphor! We can SAVE this!
Cheating is not an over-drawn checking account whose coffers you can refill with a little adult-like money management and a part-time job. Cheating is abuse. The RIC isn’t just asking you to wait patiently for your bank balance to fill, its asking you to go into business with the person who just robbed the bank.
Oh, and not only invest with the bank robber, but do it uninsured. Investment without a safety net! Because isn’t that what trust is? The whole idea minimizes the tangible harm of infidelity.
(To any unicorns reading — trust bank all you want to. Please still get a post-nup.)
2.) The Trust Bank assumes accountability. Oh hey! He let me see his cell phone! She gave me her passwords! We are building incrementally toward MORE TRUST! Baby steps for the Timid Forest Creatures!
Do not question the Trust Deposit. More deposits will be forthcoming!
But uh, it’s one deposit. Which really has nothing to do with the off-shore accounts in the Caymans. Cheaters tend to bank in more than one place, if you catch my drift.
3.) The Trust Bank traffics in the false equivalency of two bank accounts. Chump and cheater are both supposed to be making deposits. Sure, the cheater has a zero balance, but cheater needs assurances that you won’t just bail on them. They’re very delicate now. Won’t you make a good faith deposit?
Ugh. Chumps aren’t responsible for this shit. Nor should they offer assurances, let alone be expected to shore up cheaters on their “trust issues.” YOU JUST GOT CHUMPED.
So, how can you rebuild trust? For the chumped, it is always an act of faith. ALWAYS. The cheater can yes, do the honorable thing day in and a day out, words aligning with actions, but you will never un-know that they are capable of casual betrayal. There is no fiduciary mojo or imaginary bank balance that takes away that risk.
And if that doesn’t convince you, read about the joys of twitchy hypervigilance here. Let’s UBT, shall we?
To start with a clean slate or a zero account meant that he had to bare his soul and lay it all on the table. This brought him back up to zero. After about 3 months I was able to start letting him make deposits. Deposits started small…for example, every time he told the truth about something that he would have lied about in the past he got a deposit.
Bitch cookie! What a GOOD BOY!
Noble how you’re weaning him off his steady diet of constant lying. And “letting him make deposits”? You’re LETTING HIM? Every day truthfulness should be a given. It’s not 12-step.
But yeah, right, you’re supposed to believe this is all about your hesitancy and your inability to trust him. “Letting” was the tell there, Twinkles McUnicorn.
He was to have no contact with the other women at all. Any attempts at contact by the OW’s were to be brought to my attention and he was not to read anything that was sent to him by them.
Try tethering his dick to a post. I hear that works.
He got a deposit when he brought an unopened envelope from one of the women and gave it to me. In the past he would not have given it to me in an attempt to not hurt me. He has now learned that would have hurt me more…because eventually the truth comes out.
HE MADE NO EFFORTS NOT TO HURT YOU. Dude gets envelops! ONE of the women? There were MANY women sending him Hallmark valentines? WTF?
Oh goodie, he gets a deposit and you get a singular kibble. The unopened envelop of his deceit.
Sweetheart, this is sad. Really, really sad. Yes, eventually the truth comes out, but you have to believe it.
He earned deposits when he was, where he said he would be. He earned deposits when he said “hey listen to this voice mail, I think it is her voice”. He earned deposits when he said “I got an email from her and I didn’t open it. You come deal with it.”
HE IS TORTURING YOU! He is GOADING you into the pick me dance! Come DEAL with his fuckbuddy email? What? Widdle sad sausage can’t hit the delete button?
Chumps, see what you’re missing?
The Trust Bank got robbed. Take your business elsewhere.
Not even my cheater liked bullshit enough to pretend to do this. Glad I dodged this particular bullet.
Someone robs you. The Trust Bank Advocates recommend that you go to an ATM, withdraw $100, and give it to the robber. EVERY. FUCKING. DAY. Because maybe giving them more of what they took by force will persuade the robber to not rob you again?
No thanks. My trust bank is The First National Bank of Trust That’s They Suck.
And then they double up by calling you a bad person for not being willing to give the money to the robber. You are somehow being a shallow person that is wallowing in self pity and will live a miserable and lonely life – because you would rather protect yourself and your assets from someone that has already proven they will steal them!
Spot on! I’m only protecting myself from now on, not his feelings or image. He’s proven over and over that he will steal from me.
See you around the First National Bank of Trust That a They Suck, nomar.
I make deposits daily.
I have never heard of this Trust Bank. Can’t believe this is a thing. Who does this?
Not only did I read this shit AOoK, but I busied myself making trust deposits into the trust bank while he did nothing and refused to cut Whore out of his life as much as possible considering they have a son together.
3 months into wreckonciliation, the Traitor went to his high school reunion 400kms away while I gave up going to see my favourite musician who was playing in NZ with my ex-ex who is his tour manager. Instead I stayed home looking after their son for 3 days and nights while the Whore was (allegedly) working. Except when I went to pick up the boy from school, he asked me why his dad had been at his house that morning but hadn’t come to see him (he saw the car parked outside his house from the school playground next door).
Out of the mouth of babes comes the truth.
I nearly had an accident when he told me as we were driving away, which the Whore then turned into me being a dangerous driver for her son. Because of course, all my upsets and my tears during wreckonciliation were duly reported to the Whore and helped paint me as this unstable, dangerous, crazy bitch.
But wait, there’s more: the MC flew up to the North Island to go to that same concert. Good to know where she spent the $1000s of counselling money I paid.
I made all the deposits in that trust bank, he made none. He refused to cut contact with the Whore and her family, then agreed and pretended he wasn’t going into her house anymore when dropping off his son. All lies and I found out the truth about 2 months later.
Trust that they suck!
nomar we use the same trust bank, “The International Bank of Trust that They Suck”
X lectured me on his integrity at every opportunity, in addition to stories of what a great guy he is.
He would be highly insulted if his “integrity” was questioned. Denial, blatant lying, a master of
retelling a story, playing the role of the victim, gaining sympathy and blaming me or someone other than himself.
The few times I questioned X on his fidelity, he had the wide eyed, “what? who me?” face that had guilt written all over it. I only wish I would have went with my intuition instead of my Chumptuition.
brit,
Sounds exactly like my STBX. I never heard of a Trust Bank, but after the first D-Day w/ his current whore, he did very little in way of depositing anything into this fictitious “Trust Bank.” While I, on the other hand, was gaslighted into proving how much I did trust him. And any confrontations or questions about him seeing the whore were returned with disgust that I could even think such a thing, as well as anger over my “false assumptions.” Because, you know, he LOVES me!
And this is why I tell my girls to trust their gut instinct, and that they never “need” proof, which always shows up eventually. But seriously, I wasted a lot of time waiting. (Never launched into a full-on hunt for proof, because of his manipulations. You know, because I had to *prove* how much I trusted him.)
GoWithYourGut,
Along with his look of surprise when I’d ask if he had been with someone, he’d chuckle and say, “he wasn’t that kind of guy.” He’d then tell me I should write novels with an imagination like mine, that maybe I had too much time on my hands or perhaps a low self esteem. Seemed like a lot of explanations for one simple question. Perhaps at that time he had been wondering what he’d say if I were to ask. I didn’t walk away from these conversations feeling better I still had that gut feeling he wasn’t telling me the truth.
I wanted to show X that I was a good trusting wife, avoided any confrontation or questions.
There’s that feeling of something not quite right when they’ve been with someone, you can feel it as soon as they walk into the door. I ignored those feelings, believing I was imagining them. Like you I wasted time, not going into the search mode, I was going to prove to X I believed in him and trusted my husband “wasn’t that kind of guy.” I will never ignore my gut instinct again. Glad your teaching your girls to never question themselves if they have that feeling that something isn’t right.
Brit, same here. Mine would tell me to see a psychologist to treat my insecurities. He went so far as to suggest why I would even think something like this and he inferred it was because I had a fear of abandonment and he then traced it to my earlier relationships and FOO’s. None of which I had, mind you. But I had accepted his explanations and the chump that I was I started questioning those insecurities. Why would I think that there was something wrong if he was simply away with the boys drinking, or spending vacation with his guy friend and not family, or or or or. I had told him a couple of anecdotes from my teen years when I was so much afraid of losing my parents (I just had a fear that they would die) and he tried to assign those untreated conditions to my every questioning of his whereabouts, integrity or his constant secrecy around everything.
It’s funny that now, when all this is on the surface and he can’t deny anything anymore, he turned this around and blames me for not putting enough trust in him. So he did not feel I could blindly trust him and that’s why he did it again. There is no way to win with them.
Gut instinct is right. That’s what I would have told myself 13 years ago, just trust your gut and don’t wait for the proof. I hope I can apply that advice now to all other aspects of my life.
No thanks. My trust bank is The First National Bank of Trust That’s They Suck.
^^^^^ This^^^^^ X 1000
Oh and when they cheat on you again, it is your fault because you could not trust them again.
The International Bank of Trust that They Suck is the only option to have any peace.
Does Bank of Trust that They Suck take overseas clients?
ClearWaters, this bank has branches in every country and in every little town. Go put your deposits there. Your investments into this bank are safest. The bank’s dividend is quite high – a cheater free life.
Ditto! I will also see you around the First National Bank of Trust That a They Suck.
I am fully invested there.
I too have never heard of this Trust Bank. Those who pray on us victims with this heinous shit should be prosecuted for fraud.
I’ve never heard of such a thing.
What a load.
I did marriage counseling in 2011 when I caught cheater wife telling her friends how she was trying to get with a guy in our neighborhood whose wife had been deployed to Afghanistan (yeah my wife is a real patriot). She was also saying inappropriate sexual things about him to her female friends and doing secret phone calls with him even after the guy’s wife told him she was not cool with him calling or receiving calls from a woman (I guess tracking phone records from Afghanistan- good for her!). I had no evidence anything physical had happened yet so I agreed to marriage counseling because we had a small child. The therapist (who was also cheater’s individual therapist- bad idea chump) didn’t use the term ‘trust bank’ but redeveloping trust was a thing that wife was to develop. I got the passcode to look in her cellphone and check on stuff. By month 3 wifey was annoyed that I wasn’t trusting her. By month 4 I saw a text she had sent a girl friend. Friend had sent an innocuous photo of her fiancé playing basketball with his friends. Cheater wife felt a need to express her hotness for one of the guys in the photo- even the friend was confused and asked for clarification. In a weird way I was exhausted and ate the shit sandwhich and accepted that my wife was this woman that had to say sexual things about other men. Humiliating- but I just focused on being a good dad and trying to keep track of wife not doing anything physical with other men and keeping the family together. I lowered my trust standards. In 2015 busted her Facebooking an exboyfriend- apologies, apologies, apologies- “let’s develop more trust”. And of course 2017 I busted her on a full blown sexual affair she was having with her massage therapist.
I think in all of this concept of trust bank is chump accepting that their cheater is a messed up person, we have to accept it, we have to help them, save them from themselves, live with it, it’s not their fault blah, blah, blah.
It all eventually breaks you though- it’s abuse and cheater’s just don’t change.
Every time I would check PreyingMantis’ voicemail, he would howl with anger that I had checked up on him. But every single time I checked the voicemails, I found smoking guns. Funny how that works…
Mine would say, “I would never even consider violating your privacy like that”. Flipping it so I felt like the shitty one. Good riddance to that crap.
Exactly!! Mine always flipped it on me! And I was such a chump, I let him. No more of that, though. I’m currently working on no contact, and enjoying the drama-free zone!
How do they find all these people to hook up with and so easily? Does anyone have standards or morals anymore? Can’t they get hobbies, friends, contribute to their community? The hurt they cause is bad enough but the waste of time an energy is mind boggling.
I wondered the same thing when it first happened to me. One X would hone in to vulnerable and/or available women at work, generally. He might randomly meet one thru mutual friends in a casual social event, and follow up later. Usually he took the easiest route possible, because “effort”. The other X had an elaborate hunt and search ritual he used in every restaurant, store, gas station, etc he went into, and of course the internet dating sites and Craigs List. He worked his “prospect list” like a top salesman — and it didn’t matter how many “no’s” he got, he was always able to find some “yes’s”.
I was so disappointed in what I found out about other women as I worked as an Undercover Super Spy on the Marriage Police force. I knew from previous experience in life that women could be unbelievable mean to each other, but I had not known before how low women would go in pursuit of a man, any man. Many did not care if the man was married or not, many evidently did not expect or need fidelity. Many otherwise educated and professional women would gladly jump with both feet into the deep stinky mire of gutter sex and sex talk just to get laid every now and again. Also thought it strange that both X’s had ED problems, and had developed an obsession with getting BJ’s all the time instead of having to do any of the reciprocal things I was used to from my own youth. Why did these women settle for so little from middle aged married men who weren’t either rich or particularly successful, or good looking? It’s a mystery to me. But it led me to believe that people with standards and morals are in the minority. These folks don’t want a hobby, don’t care about their community, don’t have any real friends. Everything is about me, me, me, and sex, sex, sex, and if other’s get hurt or damaged, oh well. Yes, trust that they suck.
100% correct. It is rather mysterious. Maybe those women are messed up like my wife. I don’t really know. I just know that they create destruction in multiple people’s families/lives including me and my daughter’s.
I wonder about this a lot while reading the stories here. Where do these cheating guys find all these desperate women? I was with my wife 20+ years and never had a woman signal her availability to me. (I’m no George Clooney, but still. ) Maybe because I wasn’t looking, and so was oblivious. But I had no idea so much cheating was happening around me, or that, so many women might be game. I still want to believe it’s not happening in my circle of married friends, but that feels naive now. As for my wife, I don’t think she was out there casting around. But when a longtime (married) co-worker told her directly that he was sexually attracted to her, she was quick to say, “Yes, please!” and unilaterally declare our marriage over.
This whole invisible, parallel universe of cheaters and APs is mystifying. I never considered myself some paragon of virtue or old-fashioned person who doesn’t understand how and why affairs occasionally happen. But this stuff appears to be everywhere once you scratch the surface. Today, a friend told me that not one but TWO of her married friends recently discovered their husbands’ affairs. It’s enough to make me want to stay celibate.
I used to think there where men who could just pick up on certain things, knew how to con women, talk to them in a certain way, but now after delving into my cheater wife’s brain I realize that some women are like that too. Chump Lady did an article one time- it’s in the archives- about that Eat, Pray, Love writer describing her infidelity issues. They are like hunters looking fill up their ego. Chumps just think different from these people.
I know! It’s like this seething, teeming mass of insects below the surface. They’re all over each other, and plentiful, while the rest of us are above ground, smiling at the sunshine & completely unaware of the debauchery taking place under our feet. It reminds me of the opening scene in Blue Velvet, where above ground life appears normal, but then cuts to a closeup of the swarms of cockroaches, etc. below ground.
When I busted my wife that was one of her proclamations of defense: “A lot of people at my campus (she’s a school counselor) are doing it (cheating on their spouse).
I guess she wanted to join in. I don’t know if this is the first time she ever physically cheated on me over the 17 years. Her “ways” came on to my radar in 2011. I’m reaching a point where I don’t want to know- it’s just so disgusting it makes me feel poisoned and dirty every time I think about it. I can never forgive her for that.
Yep, we will never be the same again or look at things the same. I almost hate him the most of this.
Isn’t it pathetic how they feel they are missing out on cheating and lying and destruction? The ex also exclaimed, “No one at my work has a problem with this! Everyone has opposite gender friends that they spend all their social time with!” I asked, “Really? Not one person goes home after work or spends any time with their spouse or children?” Then I got the blank stare.
Really, I should have listened more closely when he told stories of all the cheating and money spending and drinking. Tip of the iceberg. But hopium told me he was different. So glad to be off that drug of delusion.
Mine would also mention cheaters over the years. It actually made think that SHE would never cheat because she spoke of them negatively. Boy was I wrong.
KK too. When her sister announced she was “leaving” of 15+ years (after getting caught cheating for 6 months) all KK could do was roll her eyes and talk about how horrible it was that she would do that, even if she WAS unhappy with her life and marriage. I’m convinced that put a spark in KK’s mind: “I’ve gotta get ME some of that.”
Uxworld…I now wonder if her views changed on cheating OR she was cheating during all those years with other men and was just trying to throw some diversion info my way by castigating those horrible cheaters.
I shutter at the thought that this woman had such a double life.
Traitor used to do that, castigate cheaters, so I thought he would never cheat. He also used to castigate bullies and fat people. He also grilled me when we were first dating about whether I’d ever cheated. No one had ever asked me that before, most people assume it’s a given that you don’t cheat. Chumpy me projected that he had been cheated and hurt, and was afraid of being chumped…
Truth is he is a bully, a cheater, and fat. Not that being fat is a character flaw, just pointing out that they pretend to hate what they really are.
My cheater told me the same, Zell: “Everybody cheat. All our friends do.” He is convinced his own mother cheated on his father while it was the other way around and that’s why the parents divorced. He tries to convince me that I should just accept that as a fact of life and life in peace with it.
No, thank you.
I am guessing that a lot of workplaces have a filthy underbelly of rampant cheating that normal people wouldnt even know was there.
Cheater told me that married women often pursued him because “They had as much to lose as me” but he told it with the undercurrent of “but of course I would never do such a thing” …co workers from work and on trips who all lived not-close to us…he seemed to not shit where he slept but kept it at work.
Blue Velvet was a such a fucked up film but I am a huge David Lynch fan!
Spoonriver….I’m dealing with a Borderline Personality Disorder wife so she may have a certain way, but what I’ve gleaned this is what she does:
-finds a male she’s attracted to
-begins to hook him by convincing him that her husband (who does everything and is loyal) does not care about her
-tells him that her husband doesn’t have sex with her, leading separate lives, etc BS…whatever works + flirtation, seductiveness
-texting turns to innuendo to sexting to physical affair
As far as how men do it I have know idea.
side note: about two months before she started cheating she actually had an emotional meltdown about how I have hobbies like hiking, reading, art and she doesn’t have anything. I tried to give this 46 year old woman some hobby ideas. Instead she apparently chose adultery instead to giver her a high.
I make no claim to know how guys find so many. I having been married for 25 years and wasn’t looking. But it appears there are plenty of horny low moral guys. Like I have said she used different techniques depending on the situation. It was either I was all bad and we were separated or she was not married. Obviously she projected her availability because she had 10 plus guys at one time trying to get in her pants. In general, it appears character and morals are deficient in a lot of people!
What is it about hobbies and cheaters? The ex started many, many projects and hobbies over the 31 years I knew him, but generally didn’t continue longer than a week. Of course, he first spent oodles of money we didn’t have getting equipped with all the gadgets and expensive gear that would help him be the best at the hobby. Then the gear and gadgets would sit mouldering in the garage or basement for decades, unused. He often copied me, getting “into”my hobbies immediately after I did, but he had no staying power for any of them. I guess no staying power is the common theme. Squirrel! Gotta get himself a new tru luv. He told me several times that he flitted from hobby to hobby and sport to sport as a child and young man. I missed that red flag. Now he just has HO- bbies.
Finding Bliss – ‘Now he just has HO- bbies’
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
The X never did have a hobby he stuck with….except the 3yr old affair.
Hell, he was getting really boring anyway…
Wow, this is some crazy sadistic sh*t! WTH kind of therapist came up with ‘Trust Bank’ and ‘deposits’ into it?!? This is really sick. Some really crazy, sadistic sh*t! Sorry, I am repeating myself because I am kind of lost for words over the ridiculousness of all this. #dumbfounded
The same wacko kind that cheater sees. Went to see her once- very new age. She pointed at her forehead and then dramatically drew an imaginary arch with it and said she would help me cross the bridge into cheater’s world (not sure but think the trust bank was a block down on the left after you cross. Too scared to cross!)
Oh, no! Not the mind meld with a cheater! That would be ugly. Definitely don’t want a bridge into a cheater’s mind set.
There is definitely a scary, ugly troll under that bridge! I’m not crossing that bridge either.
Oh for crying out loud. As one of the chumps here who got left after three months of Pick Me, let me just say Thank God for Small Favors. This is what my life would be like if he had chosen to stay? Yeah, fuck that.
Tracy, you should write a book. Oh yeah, you did, and it’s awesome. Ok then, you should go on Oprah. Oh shit she doesn’t have a show anymore. Good lord, why is there only one Chump Lady v and entire RIC? Any monkey with a half-working brain can see the truth of everything CL says. Why in the world isn’t that narrative out there as Number One Normal Reaction to being chumped? Why are we all expected and conned into lying down and taking more abuse? Effing Crazy….
Just today, I learned that two (!) friends of a friend had discovered their husband’s affairs. Through my friend, I referred them to CL and her book. Turns out they’d already jumped on both. I think Tracy’s gonna do OK. 🙂
On dday we had the conversation of where we go from here. I thought we had agreed to work on our marriage and trusted he would break up with ow. It would have been his first deposit. When I left for work the next day he emptied our bank accounts and ran off with her. Yeah that worked out well for me. His excuse? I had to leave cuz you were mean when you said I had to give up ow. A trust bank with liars! LMAO.
Yeah. No. My trust bank experienced something like the crash in 1929 . . . it also led to a Great Depression.
If he could lie while looking into my eyes and saying he was trying (TRYING!) so hard to figure out what he wanted – he was just coming home from Pam’s bed – why would I believe his deposits weren’t counterfeit?
When the banks re-opened back then, they gave out cigars and corsages. My grandfather told them to stuff the cigar. Give him his money back!
Ditto, Grandpa! Ditto!
This reminds me of those grade school displays that Supernanny used to employ to get misbehaving kids to follow the home rules and earn back privileges.
(With British accent) “Here on the kitchen wall, i’ve put the Trust Bank. Every time you do a good thing, we’ll put a sparkly coin sticker on the bank. When there are 10 stickers on the bank, you get a special reward.”
I never had to do such a thing with either in my daughters. I certainly did not to be Supernanny to a 43-year old narc who suddenly decided she wanted to be Courtney Love.
“I never had to do such a thing with either OF my daughters. I certainly did not WANT to be Supernanny to a 43-year old narc who suddenly decided she wanted to be Courtney Love.”
(The perils of responding by phone during commute)
Exactly. The whole idea smacks of treating the cheater like a child. And it is an insult to many children.
The amount of responsibility put on the chump is infuriating. If someone embezzled money from a company, do they get cookies every time that don’t steal again? If someone was dropping bad checks around town, do we reward them for writing good checks?
The idea that someone should get ‘credit’ for sometimes doing what normal people do all the time is insane. I’m supposed to do back flips because a liar sometimes tells the truth now? You should not get bonus points for simply being a decent person. If they need this much hand holding an encouragement, they are not adults. They should not be in any adult relationship, they should not be seen as adults or treated as adults in any way.
My kids aren’t even teenagers yet, and they don’t get ‘trust bank’ points for telling the truth. The truth is just expected because normal, healthy people tell the truth. I don’t get a coupon every time I got to the grocery store and not shoplift. It is assumed that I am not going to steal, because normal people don’t steal.
Trust bank and the entire RIC industry assumes that a chump should allow someone to SLOWLY become a good person, and to expect ‘bumps’ along the way. When Little Dick was ‘diagnosed’ by a therapist as a porn addict, I was told to ‘expect relapses on the road to recovery’. What the hell? No, no, and no. I am not going to give someone who is supposed to be my husband, free tickets to pay to virtually have sex with webcam girls as part of his ‘road to recovery’. The same thing is told to people married to ‘sex addicts’. They are told to ‘expect relapses, but don’t assume that means they are not on the road to recovery’. What? I am supposed to just accept that my spouse might ‘slip up’ and have sex with a random stranger, but be happy if they are having less random stranger sex?
I used to go to some RIC forums and it was downright pathetic. People being told to give their cheater time to ‘come out of the fog’. Meaning, let them continue the affair until they get tired of the affair. When they are finally tired of the affair, be ready to allow them to win back your trust.
What kind of world would this be if everyone got one, two, or ten free f*ck ups? Oh, I robbed the bank of $2 million dollars. Once I come out of my ‘fog’ – meaning I spent all the money on whatever I wanted, the bank should be ready to welcome me back as a customer and allow me to prove I won’t steal anymore by handing me an account with no strings attached. Yippee!
Along with a beautiful, shiny toaster.
???????????? perfect cool Breeze Out!
Oh, exactly. After dday, was suddenly getting endless texts about where STBX was going, with whom, and to do what.
Too little, way too late. Zero interest in the doings of the cheater.
And the info they give you is not even true. just a smokescreen.
Cool breeze, standing ovation!!!
Wow! Exactly. Thank you for this point. I don’t give my kid allowance for cleaning his room- it’s his room, his mess, his job and expected of him.
“Try tethering his dick to a post. I hear that works.”
Haha, my good morning laugh with coffee.
The trust bank simplifies cheating and cheaters love easy. What I didn’t know hurt me. There’s such hatred involved with infidelity. The evidence I uncovered proved he planned well over a year to leave me in what he believed was financial ruin. Fucker underestimated me.
Better to deposit in the Trust They Suck Bank and line up ducks.
Can anyone here say that this trust issue was solely an issue with the marital relationship? If you can, my guess is you haven’t looked very hard. Lies after lies are coming out in cheater’s business dealings as divorce case proceeds. Is that a separate trust bank account or is it one big pot.
The kids- he had to lie to them too.
Mil, she must get high off the fog.
Feelingit
Thankfully, my accounts and everything else was seperate. It started with him booting me off his phone plan because I spent too much time talking to my good friend. Then he changed his car insurance to his own policy. I had a seperate checking account and credit cards as he had a seperate business account.
I had no involvement in his business and he’s self employed.
I closed my credit cards years ago and kept one. His credit limits were high and he ended up with his debt even though I’m on a no fault state.
Correct, FeelingIt. What came out in the marital relationship is what really lies beneath. That is their character. As my dad said, “A man willing to cheat on his wife will cheat his kids and anyone else in their life…in every way.” My STBX has proven that to be true.
Okay, I was really thinking about this more. Let’s go with the idea of a ‘Bank’ and that you belong to a bank and come to find out – the bank violates your trust and all your money is gone.
What would need to happen for you to continue banking there? I have dealt with security breeches with banks, grocery stores, and even jobs. Here is what usually happens IF the company is ethical:
1. They disclose the breech. No, it isn’t my job to ‘find’ the breech, they disclose it. Any act of covering up the breech is met with suspension and lawyers swarming around ready to sue their pants off.
2. They restore any damages. It it is found that that “I” suffered any loses due to their breech, they restore me to where I was before the breech. Period, end of discussion.
3. Credit monitoring. They then PAY for a third party to monitor my credit to ensure there are not additional evils or inconveniences to me as a result of their breech.
4. They spend like crazy to deal with the flaws the left them vulnerable to a breech in the first place. It is ‘their’ requirement to fix their own flaws.
5. They flatter, bribe, and do anything else they can to win me back as a customer. There is no such thing as, “Hey, we are working on our problems. Sure, we harmed you – but no one is perfect. What was ‘your’ contribution to the problem? I mean, if you weren’t our customer, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt!”
When companies don’t take those steps, no one trusts them. In fact, if a company has a ‘don’t give a care’ attitude, you wonder what kind of insane person stays with them.
So, why can’t we have THAT bank metaphor? The one where the party the did the wrong does ALL the work and the person that was the innocent victim just sits back and decides ‘if’ they want to continue to be a customer. And, continue to be a customer is NOT a condition that has to be met to be restored. They have to restore you anyway, whether or not you choose to ever do business with them again.
Perfect CBO. You nailed it with one. This is exactly what we should get for the metaphor to work.
So true. Paradoxically it is also why it would never work!
Here’s what I️ know about the trust bank bs: it’s bs. Whether my cheater is telling the truth now is inconsequential. Every statement he makes goes through my bs filter. Every. Statement.
I️ happen to believe these statements:
1. Did it because he thought it’d be fun.
2. Didn’t think he’d get caught
3. Didn’t feel guilty
The rest of what he says doesn’t matter because he clearly stated that I️ didn’t matter. At. All.
That’s enough for the Fed to close my Trust Bank. Wish I️ hadn’t wasted time throwing good trust after bad intentions.
*Sorry for the weird characters. Somethings going on with my phone.
Hah. Local branch off the Love Bank, I suppose, because that is also a RIC thing.
Well, my account is overflowing, what with being where I am supposed to be and doing what I ought to be doing pretty much all of the damned time, with brief forays to walk in the woods or sit by a river by myself to keep the sanity bank from getting overdrawn. Alas, my lifetime savings in First Federal Love and Trust net me precisely nothing, unless we happen to know anyone who accepts checks against that account in trade for food, tuition, clothes, etc.
Whatever. The STBX was too busy throwing virtual coins at digital whores and investing in alternate lives with a wide variety of junior colleagues to worry about “our” balance.
Yes the “love bank” thing. I kept putting in deposits over the years but they never went anywhere. Every time I slipped up even the tiniest bit a huge withdrawal would post in his brain, but the deposits never showed up no matter how big.
On the other end, he made one big deposit early in our marriage. He continued to live off that deposit for years without ever making a new one. By the time DDay rolled around he was pretty much already at zero. Now he is way overdrawn.
Forget love, now he is making deposits just to get back to friendship status with me. They are tiny deposits, however, and I seriously doubt he will ever pay back enough of his debt to get there in this lifetime.
I actually like the love bank idea. As a matter of fact, I do this with my kids (take time with each one individually to let them know they are special and loved).
But to let someone walk all over you is not making love deposits in your own bank.
My account was overflowing all the time. One mistake I made as a chump was to be so predictable. where I was, when, doing what, it was soooo easy for the Traitor and the Whore to run rings around me and use me. They could time almost to the minute when I would be away and where I would be so they could phone or meet and not get caught. I found all the evidence when I got our phone records. The regular patterns organised around my boring timetable…
The only deposits my ex was interested in making were in the Bank of Stripper Coochie. Member FDIC [Feeble Dick In Coochie]
LOL, Beth!
Ugh. Totally wanted to believe the affair fog deal. Oh, yes, he will come to his senses and see what he has done when the fog finally lifts! Snort. Nope.
That bank of fog, at least, is permanent. It is designed to keep us from seeing what is up, to keep us disoriented and lost, and to keep us pathetically and permanently hopeful. They are absolute fog machines.
Yes. The truth is – we are the ones on the fog. They see perfectly fine. They know exactly what they are doing, so much so they go through great lengths to hide it.
Isn’t fog about ‘not’ knowing what is really going on? It should really be called ‘chump fog’.
cashmere:
This is akin to the well-meaning people who tell devastated chumps, “Just wait, one day, he’ll wake up and have an ‘Oh shit, what have I done?’ day.
Umm, no he won’t. So stop waiting for it!
Trust bank – what a crock of shit! And as for gently coaxing the timid forest creatures into taking a little nibble of a delicate leaf before scuttling back to safety – screw that too. Hey, if a man doesn’t want to be with me that’s fine – just be honest about it. As for the timid forest creatures out there – I have just two words for them and the second one is “off”!
My Trust Bank is full.
Didn’t used to be. Lola’s Savings & Loans (Checks Cashed!) used to be like a Freddie Mac combined with a run-down pawnbrokers shop, with a shady clientele and an owner who huddled in a corner, hoping that this time they wouldn’t take EVERYTHING.
But then the whole thing came under new management.
Today, the First Trust Bank of Lola has big bars on the windows, a shield system inside that activates in a split second when the bullshit button is pressed, and a security system that sends a warning directly to my brain. (I choose to believe that this makes a noise just like the classic Enterprise alarm in old Star Trek episodes.)
But this is hardly ever activated these days. That’s because the First Trust Bank of Lola vets its customers carefully, before they are entitled to access the full suite of banking products.
The First Trust Bank of Lola also has an attractive modern facade, comfy chairs, and bowls of complimentary mints for our customers.
Love the imagery, Lola!
What’s with the cheater not trusting the chump? I remember sitting in couples counseling and asshat said “I don’t trust her!” Wait…. what?
The thing is I am the type of person who would rather hurt someone’s feelings with the truth, than deceive them with a lie… and asshat knew this! I’m guessing what he was really saying was, “I want her to lie to herself and everyone else about the seriousness of what I’ve done, and I don’t trust that she won’t.” That was after the first affair.
After d-day2 with multiple hookers, and filing for divorce, asshat told the kids “I can’t beleive your mother outed me to my family!” Imagine that… expecting loyalty but not giving it! Typical cheater.
There’s absolutely no logic to their reasoning, everything is filtered through false equivalency.
The RIC is horribly destructive to chumps when it comes to reframing the evaluation of trust. The only thing I learned from this trust bank mindset is what not to do when it comes to trust!
This exactly. They don’t trust us because we might tell other people about the shitty things that they did. What a selfish way of thinking.
Trust Bank? Sounds like something Esther Perel would come up with.
At least come up with something more apt to the situation, such as making a deposit at a Payday Check Loan Center or making a deposit with that “Prince” from Nigeria that keeps faxing my office promising to send me $50,000 if I just send him $1,000 first.
After D-day #1 (of 2), I told my then-husband that our marriage did not have a future and could not be repaired. In response, my husband had our neighbor, who is a Southern Baptist Minister, come over to our house to pray with us. Together, they explained my Christian duty to forgive my spouse, and my husband swore he would never, ever stray again…that it was a very brief mistake with someone he didn’t really know, and he actually found her physically repulsive, they were just both alcoholics together and she was older and wealthy and she paid the expensive bar tabs, etc….
My then-husband arranged marriage counseling sessions to further convince me how whole-heartedly he was dedicated to repairing our marriage. The counselor assigned “homework” like more dates (we had 3 very young children). We worked on lots of trust building activities, like obstacle courses and team building activities. We had married relations daily or even more often. He sent me racy photographs and mushy love letters. He sent me flower bouquets and chocolates.
My then-husband returned to AA, to address on-going issues with drinking and substance abuse. He found a sponsor. My husband and I took the kids to Church every Sunday. After dropping the little ones off in Sunday School, he would sit with me in the Church pew, holding my hand, staring into my eyes and declare his deep love for me and his complete remorse, sometimes with tears in his eyes.
My husband brought me a book from AA about the AL-ANON program, and along with our marriage counselor recommended that I attend meetings.
After D-day #2, I learned the affair had never ended. The amount of lies my ex-husband told EVERYBODY was mind-boggling. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the DEPTH OF HIS DISHONESTY. I knew the moment D-day #2 happened that I was dealing with a very sick person.
Later on, during the custody evaluation, my ex-husband told the Gaurdian-Ad-Litem that he had only been “pretending” to be an alcoholic, as a cover for his cheating.
After I filed for divorce, my husband once said to me, “I am addicted to lying. I lie all day long to everyone about everything, and I don’t know how to stop.” I believe this is probably the only true thing he has ever said.
So sorry, Stalked. You had a scary sicko there. It is the depth of the deceit, isn’t it? That they could lie and lie and lie with a straight face.
The ex told me once during the divorce process that he had deliberately posted all those photos of women’s cleavage and asses on his phone and that he let me catch him with OW so I would think he was having affairs again. He said he knew this would lead me to divorce him. I asked him if he wanted to be divorced, why didn’t he just file himself? He smirked and said he needed me to do all the work of divorce, because I get things done and he doesn’t. What lying POS they are.
wow, my cheater wife exactly. 2011- emotional affair but not evidence of physical affair. She booked the marriage counselor, apologies, effort, love letters, I was the only man for her, more contact/love, etc…. Started to fizzle away after a year- she couldn’t maintain it. 2015 starts communicating with exboyfriend- this time she was more annoyed than sorry but she made some efforts. 2 years later full blown affair with massage kid. She found a marriage counselor, we went for two and half months but more lies were uncovered (even lies going back to 2011) and I officially ended the sessions- counselor actually helped me to escape. So many lies over the years- so many! And so effortless and confident in the lying- I actually was believing some of the stuff. 5 months later its like the truth falls out of her head and she shocks even herself that she finally admitted to something. She won’t admit to being addicted to lying or admit that it is her natural nature, but I know it is. It’s creepy and bizarre.
We never got that far in our MC process. The counselor and I were too busy trying to convince him that I didn’t suck as a wife and the marriage was worth saving. The one condition was that he had to put his relationship with Schmoopie “on hold” while we were trying to reconcile (I didn’t even have the backbone at the time to demand that it just be over to even have a chance with me). He couldn’t even manage that. I guess he thought I just meant no sex not no contact. Both the MC and I told him that no contact with Schmoopie was necessary if our marriage was to be saved. They kept contacting each other, however, so I started confiscating his phone and I-pad at night so at least he wouldn’t be in constant contact with her while under my roof. Of course he got all resentful and “you’re not the boss of me about it”. Then he said “It will be more meaningful if I resist on my own”. Of course I bought that argument or maybe I was just too exhausted by the marriage police thing so I caved. Of course he continued to be in contact with her and of course it was all my fault because I wasn’t being “nice” to him. He needed somebody to vent to whenever I called him out on his poor treatment of me and refused to take responsibility for his bad behavior. That trust bank was way overdrawn and yet I kept making deposits trying to pay off his debt. It is so embarrassing to look back on those days now and see just how hard I tried to keep that piece of sparkly shit.
Here is the “Trust Bank” after cheating; anything you put into it is just going to fall out:
Exactly, Tempest!
Ahh yes the trust bank…heard of it often on the RIC site I frequented during wreckconciliation and even asked ex cheater to read about it with me so he could understand what it was and how he “could make deposits.”
Even if he did, here’s the thing. This whole thing is predicated on the idea that the cheater is starting from zero; like you would in a new relationship. That’s not even comparing apples to oranges; it’s like comparing apples to suspension bridges. It’s not the same thing. Cheating over draws the trust in the bank to about negative 1million. Good luck waiting for their pittance deposits to fill in that Grand Canyon sized hole. It’s a waste of your time chumps.
I never realized how important trust was in a relationship until it was obliterated. And newbies? If you’re coming to that realization and you think the trust bank is bullshit, please don’t let one of the militant RIC administrators tell you that what you had with your cheating spouse was “blind trust” and you don’t want to have that anyway. It’s not blind trust. You just trusted your spouse until they overdrew on their trust account. Trusting someone is paramount to intimacy so don’t let them make you believe that you should never have that again. It’s crap!
What a kibble supply! Watch ME…..listen to ME…..check up on ME……pay attention to ME……ME, ME, ME…. I am the important one here……and don’t forget the OW is there waiting in the wings if you slip up and not give me the attention I deserve, because the only person who matters here is MEEE…..
It’s enough to make a good Chump boot.
I remember seeing some of this bullcrap in my early days of Dday #2 with a second schmoopie over our almost 20 years together. I even thought it was shit then. I came across the Affair Fog Theory or Bubble and thought my then husband was on a ho high. I wasn’t ready for CL and CN then, I thought it too harsh for my timid lil forest creature who surely wasn’t that bad.
I didn’t trust that fucker as far as I could throw him even then. It’s really quite sad the amount of crap floating out there for chumps in the early stages of grief who want to latch onto any raft so they don’t drown. Thank heavens for CL & CN. I don’t think I could have made it through this shit again without you all.
I learned this one from CL/CN and it has been transformational for me to turn around the forgiveness/trust word salad with twisted logic pretzels on top from the RIC:
Talking about “making deposits to the trust bank” might work pre-cheating…
It would be like saying I gave Madoff my retirement money in good faith before any kind of investigation on him…
Based on what we found out about Madoff and his ponzi scheme, would I give him a penny of my retirement money? Nope.
So when a cheater is found guilty of being dishonest and therefore untrustworthy, does it make sense to invest more trust in that “trust bank”? Nope.
But what about the kids?? That’s the biggest shit sandwich to me… The “justice” system believes that human beings can compartimentalize trustworthiness… Their reasoning goes something like: “Sure your cheater was dishonest with you and cheated on you, but s/he can be trusted to put the needs of your children before their own.” So the courts force chumps to be in contact with cheaters, to even employ them as CPAs of their most precious treasures (kids) until they turn 18…
Massive shit sandwich and the only thing I can do is collaborate with X until our kiddo turns 18… As leopards’ spots don’t grow into stripes over time, I have plenty of opportunities to validate our kiddo’s experience of his selfish ways and of lying being his go-to problem solving strategy.
Will I trust people in my life to do the right thing? Yes, I do every day.
Will I trust my X again? Nope, he’s proven beyond reasonable doubt that he’s a fraud way beyond what any kind of FDIC insurance can cover.
Yup, that absolute only reason I am still here is because I would have to share custody of my kids and there is no way in hell I am giving Cheater unrestricted access to my kids. Especially not after I found out mother-in-law KNEW his sister was getting molested as a child by a family member and kept it all hush hush. Every chance he got the kids would be at my in-laws house. Right now – they know that won’t happen.
The idea that someone can be a shitty spouse, but a great parent is beyond me. No, this dude only cared about himself and no one else. He didn’t care about the kids when I was parenting pretty much solo, but all of a sudden he is going to become dad of the year? Nope. My kids won’t become a statistic because your freakish family doesn’t thing child molestation is an issue. Because yes, the molesting family member still shows up to family gatherings and is welcomed with open arms. Not on my watch!
I agree with Twiceachump, ‘It’s really quite sad the amount of crap floating out there for chumps in the early stages of grief who want to latch onto any raft so they don’t drown.’ I am still grasping at pieces of crap in the futile hope of staying afloat. I need to keep reminding myself to spend my time and energy swimming to shore with kids on my back under my own power.
This Trust Bank story is triggering in many ways.
My ex-husband used to surreptitiously withdraw small amounts of money, which was supposed to go into our kids’ college savings account, to pay prostitutes for sex. He never paid our kids back.
My ex-boyfriend appears angry that I (1) caught him in several lies and cover ups of lies and (2) calmly stated that he was lying. I can imagine him thinking, ‘D–n, Good Guy Cover blown!’
The sad thing is I am devastated that my ex-boyfriend who lied to me, invalidated me, disrespected me, didn’t want to be seen in group photos with me (because the ex-wife who left him might see, yeah right) and then kicked me to the curb for his co-worker told me that he does not want to talk to me on the phone, even when I offer to thank him for helping me create a wonderful new life (new job, finalization of extremely long, difficult divorce, etc.). He says that he doesn’t want to dwell on his ‘mistakes.’ You know that he ‘DID feel guilty for two weeks but was getting better,’ self-sacrificing, penitent one that he is.
I need to stick to No Contact and start feeling the pride I deserve to feel. Instead, I dream that society wants to execute me and I have to kill myself because society (my exes?) hates me, even though THEY abused ME. Still compare myself to my exes’ current partners, often the partners I was left for. Still playing the pick-me-dance on a stage in a theater occupied only by me. Why do I do this? This mindset and this behavior is what decades of abuse/mistreatment can do. I am embarrassed thinking about what type of abuse I tolerated over the last several decades. Trying to train myself to honor me after half a century of letting abusive, dishonest men ‘dictate’ my (lack of) worth.
‘It’s really quite sad the amount of crap floating out there for chumps in the early stages of grief who want to latch onto..”
yes, yes, yes. I latched onto a lot of it. I was the Amazon chump reading every book I could. In retrospect becoming more and more depressed then angry then depressed again. Chump Lady is saving my life. Helping me to SEE what kind of person a cheater is.
Yup. Same here. But thankfully I seem to be gaining more clarity lately. It helps that my Jackass continues to behave in truly terrible ways, so that there can be no doubt in my mind that he does indeed suck.
I told my X to get out on D-day because trusting him not to chase young p*ssy would be like cautioning my dog not to eat the rotisserie chicken I left on the edge of the kitchen counter.
LOL!!!!
Nothing like canine snark.
I know of one chump who was dying of cancer and her cheater asked if he could come by to see her. She answered that the gate was open even to the dogs.
If my cheater ever asks to come back I’ll have to tell him, sorry, but I demolished the kennel.
“… every time he told the truth about something that he would have lied about in the past he got a deposit.” WTF!
This ‘trust’ thing HAS to be a strategy that cheaters use to have their cake and look splendid, since I got this BS too: my cheater and I are in court for a hearing to try to reach an agreement about dividing our assets. Cheater has not replied to any of my SIX proposals made over six months after HE files for divorce and he shows up in court, all happy-go-lucky and spritely, but completely unprepared. He gets pissed when, in front of the lawyers and court mediator, I asked why he still hasn’t gotten his homework done after six months.
Then he says he will think about my SEVENTH proposal, made at this hearing.
And then, as though it were brilliant stroke of genius and with a dopey smile straight out of a CL cartoon, he exclaims: “Hey, Clearwaters, you can TRUST ME!”
Everyone’s brow wrinkles, even his lawyer’s. So I answer, tongue in cheek, “Please explain how one goes about trusting a cheater”.
He then has the gall to answer, now with an ‘sadz’ demeanor: “But I’m NOT a cheater!”
I ask one last question: “So, is (fill in with Flatterfuck’s name) an extra-galactic mirage?!”
VERY loud snickers in the courtroom and his lawyer looks down to her lap cringing in embarrassment.
Trust that these creatures are really sociopaths! Tether their dicks to a post! LOL
That whole crap about keeping you in the loop when OW contacts them. I required this too during wreckonciliation. It just kept the hurt going. How can you heal when continuing to deal with that?
My STBX once sent me an email on my birthday…went something like this:
“Happy Birthday! I would rather not talk to you about this on your birthday but I don’t want you to get mad either. ” He then went into detail about his attorney contacting him regarding OW.
(After counseling and deciding to work to save our marriage, OW filed a paternity suit against him. Therapist said that it was just a consequence but did not change what he had done. And if I had been willing to forgive him, this shouldn’t change that.)
I thought…you asked for this – to not be kept in the dark about anything. But seriously? Who sends someone they love an email like this on their birthday?
I realize that even if he had been faithful and not cheated again, every day was painful trying to stay in a marriage with someone who had hurt and betrayed me so badly. I wanted to believe the RIC line that our marriage would be better and stronger, but it wasn’t…not one single day during the 2 years of wreckonciliation.
That’s horrible.
It probably was no coincidence that it was your birthday either. Scumbag probably let bitch whore no when your birthday was.
Hugs!
Reading the link made my stomach turn. Ugh. The part about “letting” him make deposits was positively sickening. Yes, I caught the blame the chump game in that paragraph.
The RIC is just crazy pants. When you’re going through the fallout period, it is sadly, what you want to hear. “You can fix this! You’re amazing – more amazing than the OM/OW.” Looking at this whole entry by Erica on the Surviving Infidelity page is just seriously fucked up. So much better to live in reality than the land of make believe.
Hyper vigilance and cheater policing for the rest of your marriage. How appetizing. I didn’t even NEED CL’s interpretation to realize how effed up the cheater “trust bank” analogy is.
Yes, and all this does is feed the narcissist and keep the focus on them, which is just what they want.
Posting this comment on behalf of NoMoreNarcs:
One of the (many) problems with the Trust Bank metaphor is that it’s too simple – it needs concepts like collateral, income verification, criminal record, credit score, bankruptcy, and interest rates all woven in (plus bunches of other stuff – because banking is really, really complicated). Any real financial institution couldn’t possible operate without these – why shouldn’t people in relationships?
Trust Bank is more like a lame lottery (for the Chump) + pyramid scheme (for the Cheater).
Not to mention that cheater might be making deposits in undisclosed off shore accounts.
So true! Banking is really complicated and not at all the simplistic scheme this “Trust Bank” seems to be. The Trust Bank is the brainchild of a cheater. It even sounds like they’re hiding something.
One of the quack shit sandwiches that SHitler came up with after DDay was that if I had to be able to trust him, he had to be able to trust me. Like others have said above. What happened in my case is that X kept fanning the flames of doubt and circular logic. He preyed on my inability to make sense after DDay. So he started “making the sense” (or making the cents, since we’re on banking today! ha!) for me.
I would just really admonish chumps to listen to their gut. That instinct that is screaming at you that this is all wrong. Because it is. None of this RIC crap is anything but fodder for chumps carefully prepared by cheaters.
The “Trust Bank”, what a load of BS !!
You may ask yourself where this came from and how any MC would try to push this insane concept.
But if you want the truth about anything —- FOLLOW THE MONEY !!
The RIC is a BIG business !! Most have you have gone to a MC and have seen their hourly rates.
Now if they were totally honest, after a few sessions they would say to the Chump, “Cheater is disordered, is never going to change and here is the card of a good divorce attorney”.
If they did that, the money stops after 2 sessions. BUT since normally you have a Chump who is in shock, probably has children and is desperate to understand “Why” and regain the illusion of the spouse they thought they had. The cheater got caught, is scared that they will face consequences and is scared that they will have to break up with Scmoopie.
Thus you have a perfect storm of a couple who will pay for a lot of MC appointments. You have to give them stupid homework and tasks to do like a Trust Bank so the poor chump thinks there is “progress” and the cheater thinks the heat is dying down and he can continue his double life.
It’s all BS and the poor Chump is being put through Hell but hey, the MC is making money right ?? (I too went through MC with a New Age “Koombaya” MC and it was not only a waste of time and money but damaging to me).
Do you think if you have a stupid concept like the “Trust” bank for cheaters (is that an oxymoron?) you might also have a stupid concept like the “F-Up” bank for chumps? If we could get a Hanging Judge to rule on cases brought forth in the Morality Court, and win cash judgements to be deposited in the “F-Up” bank chump’s account we might be able to become rich instead of robbed blind by continuing to try to Wreckoncile with a Cheater. There could be agreed on fees for various F-ups, like $25 for an accidental dic-pic sent to OW, or $50 per hour for accidental porn viewing. Maybe $100 for Groping Co-Worker in the Copy Room? That way the chump could have more incentive to forgive yet another transgression than just the misplaced guilt forced on them by the RIC. Personally, I could have really used the extra cash to help pay for my attorney, and expenses for my children. I didn’t really derive any benefit from delaying the divorce and attempting wreckconciliation. I accrued more misery and disappointment, and sank more lost cost and lost time in my (lack of) Trust bank. The cheater just got more time to waste more money and hide assets. There were no deposits going in — maybe more empty promises, but no effort. Maybe the cheaters just know how to kite checks and appear to make a deposit in the Trust Bank?
So, how can you rebuild trust? For the chumped, it is always an act of faith. ALWAYS. The cheater can yes, do the honorable thing day in and a day out, words aligning with actions, but you will never un-know that they are capable of casual betrayal. There is no fiduciary mojo or imaginary bank balance that takes away that risk.
This.
Marriage is built on trust. Without that trust, there’s no love. Once that trust has been shattered, there’s no real way to patch it back up such that it never happened. Like the antique vase that the child smashed, even though it’s been reglued so that you can’t see the repair job, you know that it’s there, and even though it looks whole, you know that it’s not.
If you gave it away, the next person would enjoy it for the thing that it is, but you’re always going to know that what it is now was not what it was.
I’m actually laughing out loud.
Our MC was all about the trust bank. Even had a jar of marbles on the table in his office to demonstrate the meaning of the trust bank (because my ex, of course, DIDN’T GET IT).
Fuck the trust bank. Never again.
Lol, *a jar of marbles* . . . Good demo! . . . Yet it’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. Can’t get it. Won’t get it. Will never get it.
Sort of late to every party this week. I just wanted to note that the idea of an “emotional bank account” comes from the late Stephen Covey and his book, “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” The idea is a lot more comprehensive than the RIC makes it. It covers understanding the other person, keeping commitments, clarifying expectations [which presumes that the other person cares about your expectation], attending to the little things [kindness, extra effort], showing personal integrity, apologizing when you make a withdrawal.
This metaphor was never intended to “cover” massive betrayal, lying, manipulation, gaslighting and other narcissistic, Cluster B-type destructiveness. It was about paying attention to the people in your immediate circle–spouse, kids, siblings, parents, close friends–and taking note when relationships get out of balance or when one person is doing too much “taking.” The idea is not just asking one party (Chumps) to trust blindly; it’s that trust is built on kindness, reciprocity, being plugged in, and accountability. And for codependent types, it’s a good metaphor to help you see where people are taking advantage, and you are letting them. I don’t disagree with CL and her analysis; on the contrary, I agree that the idea has been perverted to make 1 personal accountable while the other one whines about “trust.”
But the original source? Covey’s idea are a good guideline for accountable living.
Late to the party as well but I just want to say a very big “Thank You” for shining your light brighter and brighter on the RIC, Tracy. I went down that path more than one time. It is the biggest reason that I stayed — the fact that they always wanted to give me hope (and Fuckwit ex would give just enough hope to keep me there). That said, I was still having to do some mental gymnastics to justify staying but that I did. So, I do take responsibility for my actions.
But the RIC approach, including the whole Trust Bank bullshit is flawed and this must be addressed. Why, in all my interactions with with RIC was I never enlightened about narcissism? Pathetic. Perhaps it’s because the whole approach has been devedoped by the the very types of folks we are trying to get away from?
Taking on the RIC is the next big thing that must be done to prevent chumps from staying and wasting more of their precious lives.