Why Would Someone Be The Other Woman?

Why would someone be the Other Woman? Who does that? How could she participate in an affair when there are kids involved?

***

Dear Chump Lady,

I realize that you have addressed the issue of the Other Woman many times, and yet, here I am, 7 months post-separation, still trying to understand how someone — the OW — could carry on a relationship with a married man.

Who does that?

I understand that, as much as she sucks, my soon-to-be-ex sucks worse. I do. I get that. And yet.

This Other Woman accepted gifts from my STBX and engaged in an on and off relationship with him for years. She has 2 children of her own — how could she participate in an affair with my STBX, knowing the impact that their conduct would eventually have on MY children? As a mother herself, how could she not have had compassion or empathy for my STBX’s children? Again, I ask, who does that? (As an aside, middle-aged men from my past have reached out to me from time to time on social media over the years, but I never engaged with them because I was married and, in most cases, so were they). Who are these women (and men) who think it’s okay to participate in affairs with married people? Do they ever give one single thought to all of the people they are hurting?

After I discovered that my STBX and the OW were back in contact 8 months ago, I was furious and hurt and upset.

I called the OW because I wanted to hear her explain to me why she thought her conduct was okay.

She didn’t answer my call, of course, nor did she return it. She then blocked me on Facebook, as if I am a crazy stalker.

My children are, justifiably, angry with my STBX, and I can tell from his words and his actions that he is taking advice from the OW as to how to deal with them. WTF? Why does the OW — a woman who has carried on an affair with a married man — believe that she is remotely qualified to dole out advice regarding my innocent children? Where does that kind of chutzpah and idiocy come from? The OW is a moron, a loser, and a slut; is she incapable of recognizing these things about herself? Does she believe that my children will ever want to meet her?

I want to stop thinking about the OW because I know she is not worth my time or any space in my head.

And yet, I can’t seem to stop. The fact that she undoubtedly thinks she “won” infuriates me. The thought that she and my STBX discuss me is maddening. I’ve had the opportunity to tell my STBX on many occasions exactly how despicable he is; maybe I just want the opportunity to tell her too?

Why does the thought of her make me so angry when it was my STBX who cheated on me? How can I stop thinking about her? Please help. And feel free to use the 2×4 as needed.

Sincerely,

So Done

***

Dear So Done,

It’s pretty common to get caught up in hating the affair partner. After all, you didn’t have children and sunk costs with the Schmoopie. You didn’t love that person, so there’s nothing to undo. Ergo, you’re left with the purity of your hatred, disgust, bewilderment…

Of course, you’re entirely within your rights to despise this interloper.

As I write in my book, however, the affair partner does not get the gold medal in suck — that honor goes to your spouse — but they do get the silver or bronze.

All the questions you’re asking — like why would someone be the other woman? You could put to your soon-to-be-ex husband. Who gambles their children? Who gets involved with another married person? Where is his empathy?

… But you’d just be untangling the skein of fuckupedness. Who does this? People who SUCK, that’s who. You can trot out theories (unmet needs, toxic shame, the Midlife Crisis, gamma rays, pesticides…) but you’re still left with the devastation of their actions. That’s what you need to navigate from — ACTIONS — not the murk inside the shallow puddle of their souls.

Chumps spend a lot of time caught up in the How Could They’s?! instead of scanning the room for the nearest exit ramp. You’re still in the divorce process. The fuckwits are central. They won’t always be.

Your unanswered phone call to the OW was an answer.

She’s not there. Who does this? Someone who’s trying to pretend you (and your children) are invisible. Someone who’s rather a void herself. Someone who needs to feed on the life-force of others. Someone who is so desperate to be “special” she’ll just create her own alternative universe of reality. I am the Great Protagonist in the Hallmark TV Special of My Life! Bring me a child/prop! Watch me play the part of Concerned Friend! Or Star-Crossed Lover to Tragically Under-appreciated Bob!

You wanting answers is you trying to shame this idiot into reality.

You can’t shame narcissists.

Oh sure, some of them come around after they’re thrown under the bus, or maybe years later when it happens to them. Others go on to write smug listicles at HuffPo.

Look, by the time your OW finds her conscience, or her yoga mat at the Enlightenment Spa Retreat, you’ll be at meh. She’ll be a big whatever. The boogeyman cannot hold its power over you forever. If I ran into the OW today (one of them… there were a bunch), my reaction would range from ridicule (“Nice hair scrunchie, Alyson”) to pity (how could you waste your life on such a horrible person?)

But see, that’s the sticky wicket — I know my ex is a horrible person. The pits. No prize. Anyone who “won” him would rather win a bucket of toxic sludge. (Hey, at least the bucket stays home at night.) Anyway, my point is — trust that they suck. Your ex and the OW. You don’t suck. They’re not your tribe. Direct your thoughts elsewhere.

You’ve only got so much time on this earth. Do you really want to waste it on the motivations of fuckwits?

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TooLong
TooLong
5 years ago

And vice versa for OM. The sam question. How could he. Why…
Balla, balla, ballq…

But I dont guve a fuck anymore. Shes gone girl now. Im on my own. Im regaining my life back.

person1
person1
5 years ago
Reply to  TooLong

So frustrating.

WishinForHappiness
WishinForHappiness
5 years ago
Reply to  TooLong

Ugh! Am I only one that had hoards of unwitting other women that cheater spewed lies at on dating sites? :/

I can’t find it in me to hate the unwitting other women. They were played and lied to just as much as me. And what was worse…I knew one of them was a lovely lonely woman that was really hoping to meet her Mr Right via online dating. Instead my ex found her and then she had the awesome job of telling me that he was a cheating bastard. I saw his opening lies to her…and if she hadn’t known who he was then she would have been sucked in just like others had likely been.

The cheating was ALL on my ex. His other women were being fed lies and shit sandwiches just like I was. He was a predator -pure and simple. He USED online dating to hook single women looking for love. It was disgusting. He was disgusting and I am so well rid of him.

Anna
Anna
4 years ago

In my case I was the only one that they lied. The OW, I thought she was a friend. I knew her at a party when she set at my table. She is 10 years younger than me( she is only 27) she has two sons an an unfaithful husband. But I found out she has an affair with my H and it goes on for at least 2 years. So she introduced herself in my life. I never met such an liar and sociopath person in my life. I bought her birthday gifts, my 10 years daughter went to her son birthday, and my H become friend with her husband. I just couldn t understand how this persons can be so fals. In all this time she was fucking my husband. It s so complicated for me since I can t leave my H yet. We are separated in the same house. I hate him so much…. My daughter knows all and despise him because she was the firs to catch them. But he still behave like is all ok. Not sorry, not taking any responsability. He continue to lie to everyone. But all our friends knows the truth. The cheater an OP deserve each other.

Postpartum Chump
Postpartum Chump
5 years ago

I’m so glad someone has a similar situation to mine. Although I am in the dark since I don’t know if my STBX husband’s girlfriend knows he’s not divorced yet. He most likely met her on a dating app since she’s not from here and they have no mutual friends. Although the rough timeline seems to be that they started dating in November and they had already started doing sleepovers and introducing their kids to each other after about a month. I’ve never met her and when I confronted him about her he said he didn’t have a girlfriend (although she is very public about their relationship on her public Instagram). She also knows we have a 2 month old baby, which means he started dating her when I was 9 months pregnant.

I feel like anyone who dates a guy with a pregnant wife should know he’s still married unless she’s that stupid. But then again he’s a classic narcissist so he probably crafted a tale that was too hard to resist. Even though we’ve never met, I’m sure in her head I’m the crazy ex wife who abused poor little him while he tried his best to help me with my “mental issues”. Little does she know he’s still calling my uncle and my cousin to check up on me (since I have no social media so there’s not many other ways to get info on me).

OhLawd
OhLawd
5 years ago

I am glad to hear a story similar to my own…except from the other side! After divorcing my narcissistic serial cheating ex-husband, (which is how I originally found CL) I embarked on my first date which turned into an eight month relationship with a co-worker. He seemed wonderful- successful single Dad, good looking, sweet and supportive of me especially when my ex narc would rear his ugly head and harass me. Since we were both single parents I didn’t think much of us not spending weekends together but with our children instead (didn’t want to rush things). But after awhile, things started seeming suspicious and shady. To make a long story short, I did some digging, found out he was Married!!!! No one at work knew he’d been married for seven years (he’s worked there 15 and I’ve worked there 5 years). Serial F’in cheater who kept it a secret!!! I went straight to calling his wife who only had suspicions, told her how he acts single and gave her my word not to see him again. But the next day she texted me…and though she was thankful I told her, she’s still gonna stay with him and hopes he “won’t do it again”, since his issues are “bigger than the infidelity”, though he doesn’t want to go to counseling. Sadly, I have a big feeling there are more DDays in her future to come. The term “predator” is so apt- he told me he didn’t think it would turn into the relationship it did since I was just divorced and (in not so many words) knew I was emotionally abused. I’ve read now that some men go after us chumps thinking we are easy prey. Sad, but makes these serial cheaters suck even more.

Renee
Renee
4 years ago
Reply to  OhLawd

I emailed CL and she was kind enough to respond, even though I was the OW. And I am scared to even post this; but, thought it would help (and yes, I feel awful and guilty and dirty and unclean.)

Dated a separated man. Knew guy for two years as friends. He and wife were separated 7 years.

We started having feelings. TOLD him to GO back to wife and talk. MAKE sure a divorce was going to happen. He came back a few weeks later and said there was nothing to save. Began dating. Five months later he tells me he moved back home and to leave him alone.I cried for three days, then pulled it together and moved on. Two months later, he tried to be “friends.” I squashed that.

Year later, after I had gotten stronger, he reached out again. Told him I could be his casual friend (we work together) for the sake of less awkwardness. Some texts/emails through the week. He would share news about awards he won and/or promotions and I would be a cheerleader.

Told him my friends knew I was talking to him and HE should tell his wife.

Anyway, eight months later, told him I appreciated the contact. Getting back to the collegiality/simple talk was healing for me. He said he didn’t know why I would speak to him b/c he wasn’t a good friend. I told him I was moving closer to seeing an end; but I was glad we would end on good terms. Four days later, I check my phone and all of a sudden he tells me “his wife knows we are communicating. She’s hurt. He cannot talk to me anymore.”

Right. Okay. I TOLD him to tell her.

Anyway, I point out that we work together, IN THE SAME building. And I also point out that I have done NOTHING to try to get him back. In fact, he knows I am seeing someone…not at work.

I am confused. It feels as if the moment I said I felt healed and could see us not speaking anymore, all of a sudden I get the “I love my wife. And she’s hurt I talk to you. And we can’t speak anymore.”

But, he hasn’t blocked my number and has agreed to meet next Saturday to fix the “collegiality” – no, I don’t plan to actually meet with him. I have blocked his number and am moving on past the friendship.

I just am confused. I worked hard on getting over him after being dumped. I accepted that absent divorce papers, this was MY fault.

We have been collegially speaking for almost 8 months.

Why does it seem as if this man really, truly hates me? The minute I feel ready to move on, and tell him so, with a HUGE thanks for the chats and conversations that helped me heal, all of a sudden “wife knows and he can’t hurt her”. The number of times he says, “She’s been hurt too much already. I never gave her the chance to really understand my pain. I didn’t share w/her what I have shared with you and she’s hurt.” Apparently, he accidentally left his email open.

And then he says, “You told me to be honest. Now she knows and I won’t hide anything from her. I asked her if we could keep talking as friends and she said know, she deserves all of me. You said we would end eventually and now that it’s happened you are all upset and don’t know how to let go.”

I don’t communicate w/this man OUTSIDE of work. He just sent me an email, when HE was not at work, telling me how much my kind words have meant to him.

It’s as if he wants to “wound” me reminding me he gave up on the divorce and I wasn’t the “love of his life.” Sheesh. I KNOW they love each other and I never tried to get him back or beg for him to leave her.

My question: why does he hate me so much? why would he wait for the moment I finally felt better about everything (and had made peace w/my BAD behavior) to do this? It’s as if he wants me to be miserable when I have done everything NOT to be a problem. He even applied for a new job and asked for my help w/his CV. A job that will mean more money and better things for his family. I LOVED helping him w/that and only want the best for him and the woman he loves (kids are 22 and 16).

In any case, CL gave me some sound/good advice. Just thought I would post my story. And I know, I deserve all of your venom.

preggychump
preggychump
4 years ago
Reply to  Renee

He’s an attention whore, a narc who gets off on the attention and causing pain for the pick-me dance that comes next. You can consider yourself a victim also, but you can choose not to play. You can choose not to take part in further injuring another woman and his children. No contact is a great way to keep yourself safe from his manipulation and injurious behaviors. No need to even desire some sort of friendship or “collegiality”. Really, why would you even want to interact with someone who purposely hurts you? or hurts his FAMILY? It’s fucking insane. You work with him – fine. Treat him like the bitch in accounting who gossips behind your back. Avoid at all costs, and aloof and professional when you cannot. Just get away from him and consider yourself lucky to have escaped, while that poor woman married him! You’ve learned a lot from him. Take those lessons and use them to find a better man, an available man. A man who isn’t a cheater.

Renee
Renee
4 years ago
Reply to  preggychump

Thank you for the reply. Pretty much on par w/CL. And I will follow your advice.

Arrived at work today and he has taken the entire week off.

I know. Not my business.

I have to get out of my cycle of blaming myself/playing the victim.

And I am glad I was dumped. Will admit that when I cried about it two years ago, I told my mom it wasn’t fair b/c “she” won. I honestly couldn’t believe after 8 years he moved back home. My mom replied, “She didn’t win, she has him. He did you a favor. Thank him and keep it moving. You are not his first. Won’t be his last. And I DOUBT he “just” moved back home. Probably had an apartment he shared w/other cheaters.”

I still feel like an a**. And I am so sorry she/the children were hurt.

Thanks again for replying w/out judging.

QueenBee
QueenBee
5 years ago
Reply to  OhLawd

I know this happens more often than we think. It makes me leery to stick my toe back in the online dating pool. I am now naturally suspicious. Imagine meeting someone, hearing their story, returning home, then promptly embarking on google searches to ensure that they spoke the truth. I harbor no desire to be a private investigator, but it seems as if that is what is necessary. If someone tells you they are not married, I suppose it has become our duty to disprove that. Makes me want to stay home with my puppies instead!!

OhLawd
OhLawd
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

I hear you! Though I realized looking back there were many red flags with the things he said. I mistakenly projected my own values on to him. And I have to admit I also thought lightning couldn’t strike twice- that I went through someone so tough on me that I was finally going to get my “prince”. I realized I still had a lot to learn about valuing myself first, trusting my intuition, not being afraid to let people down or not be liked by questioning them for clarification. Some of the same mistakes that got me into the relationship with my ex. The “sparkles” and compliments can be blinding, but I realize actions are where it’s at. I have to put myself first and trust myself, be my own advocate. It’s been a long learning process, that’s for sure.

WishinForHappiness
WishinForHappiness
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

To get me dating again my mother bought me membership to the dating site my ex used to cheat on me! LOL I rolled my eyes so hard and regifted it to a single friend and told her to watch out for my ex!

Then I tried another online dating site and met a lot of great people, many chumps, a few buttholes but otherwise met a lot of people looking for the same thing I was – something real and good.Made me more angry at what my ex was doing to people who were trying to meet people and find love. Dating is hard enough without adding snakes to the pool!

I now have a wonderful new boyfriend, I love my life and I am happy. I am really glad that I dipped my toe back into the dating pool and at I kept moving forward with my life! 🙂

OhLawd
OhLawd
5 years ago

That’s great! It gives me hope. I have to tell myself it’s just the last two ass holes I was with, not all men in the world are cheaters. My narc ex was on match.com while we were separated and still living together. I came across his profile, and what a scam. All about him being a devoted Dad and his main trait he wants in a woman??? “confidence, confidence, confidence!” Ironic, considering not only did he delight in tearing down my confidence throughout our 6 year marriage, but he listed his age at 42 (not the 48 he was) and over estimated his income by quite a bit. Not the most confident thing to do, right?! ????

OhLawd
OhLawd
5 years ago
Reply to  OhLawd

Sorry this second comment was a reply to Queen bee

Sugar Coated Lies
Sugar Coated Lies
5 years ago

I had this too WishinForHappiness. The main OW showed up on my doorstep sobbing, she had no idea my exH was still married. She was an incredibly kind, incredibly lonely lady who fell for him hook, line and sinker.

I could never hate or blame the other women, they were just as much victims of The Bastard.

ozchic
ozchic
5 years ago

Hook line and stinker!!

Gentle reader
Gentle reader
5 years ago

The one thing you must bear in mind the ow has no loyalties to you. The ow did not make vows to you. He did. Sometimes it seems easier to blame the other woman because of this sisterhood thing of how could another woman do this to me. They want what you have. They think it will make their life better.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

The thief who steels your wallet had no loyalties to you either. He/she still sucks.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago

Ex is the one who cheated on me and he is the one I divorced. He is the one who lost assets and income to me. He is the one who now has a complicated relationship with his kids. He is the one who suffered direct consequences from me. He is the one who lost my love and respect (Schmoopie never had it). That being said, Schmoopie is still a POS. She fucked me over by encouraging and enabling ex to screw me and the kids and there is no reason why I should ever be compelled to treat her with anything but the upmost contempt. She is not at fault for ex’s bad behavior but she is still responsible for hers. I have a right to take issue with ex claiming she is a good person when good people don’t fuck other people’s husbands and encourage them to tear their families apart. There is no reason why I should be friendly towards her in order to facilitate other’s acceptance of ex’s relationship to her. There is no reason why I should facilitate the narrative that she is a good and blameless person who did nothing wrong when I know that isn’t true. She knowingly and deliberately took action that she knew would cause harm to others for personal gain. She used manipulative tactics. Ex is the one who made the final decision to tear our family apart, but she is the one who egged him on. She is the one who made a deliberate effort to influence him in ways that were harmful to his family. She wanted our family to be torn apart. If it hadn’t been her it may or may not have been somebody else, but it wasn’t somebody else, it was her. She chose to take on the role of homewrecker. She worked very hard to earn that title so now she gets to live with it. Ex is to blame for destroying our family. He is a selfish self-centered homewrecking slut. That doesn’t mean that she isn’t also a selfish self-centered homewrecking slut. If she had chosen to be a good person, he would still be an asshole, but she wouldn’t.

It isn’t just that she slept with ex. He went looking for that. It was her taking it to the next level and encouraging him to tear our family apart to benefit her that makes me loath her. There was a previous OW. She slept with him too, but then broke it off because she didn’t think it was right to be fucking somebody else’s husband. She may have been a bit dim for sleeping with him in the first place, but at least she had some moral compass. She wasn’t willing to let others get hurt for personal gain. I don’t have a lot of respect for her, but I also don’t harbor any real ill will towards her. There was also a Schmoopie 0.0. That was the emotional affair several years ago. She tried hard to get ex to have an affair with her. Back then he chose not to. He made the right choice then. I still despise her. I don’t despise her for succeeding, I despise her for trying. She is also the one who planted the seed in his head that if I wasn’t good enough for him he had other options.

I agree that despising the OW should not distract from leaving the cheater and gaining a life. It is the cheater to whom we need to meet out consequences, but that doesn’t mean that our loathing of the OW isn’t justified.

struggling
struggling
5 years ago

I could have written most of this myself. Agree with every word

Jojobee
Jojobee
5 years ago

This!!!!^^ I never understood letting the AP off the hook because they hadn’t explicitly made vows to you. We don’t go through life explicitly vowing not to lie, cheat, steal, from every other person on the planet–but it is understood that even in the absence of such vows we SHOULD NOT DO THESE THINGS. Oh sure, I have special blame and anger for my cheater ex, but the whores (both amateur and professional) that he ENDANGERED MY LIFE with, do not get a free fucking pass and some namaste zen wish you well either.

Mommamarsh
Mommamarsh
5 years ago
Reply to  Jojobee

^^^^ This!! You’re absolutely right. Human decency should be informing the choices and actions of ALL of us, but instead, cheaters’ sense of entitlement rules, and they don’t give one thought to anyone (including their own children) or anything but their self-serving desires. My ex was (and probably still is) a serial cheater, and most of the women with whom he cheated were howorkers of his who KNEW he was married, yet they still chose to engage in this despicable behavior with him. And, as you said, I do hold him mostly responsible and have that special blame and anger for him, but the AP’s are also not blameless. He married the last howorker with whom he cheated, who was also married (marriage #2) with a young child and, of course, they each knew the other was married. But none of that mattered to either of them, and they both proceeded without flinching to devastate and sacrifice two families in exchange for their own “happiness.” The only thing that gives me peace is knowing I’m rid of him and his dysfunction. I just grieve for my kids….they didn’t deserve this.

ivyleaguechump
ivyleaguechump
5 years ago
Reply to  Mommamarsh

The MOW went after my cheater because she just “had to be honest with herself”. Cheater LOVED it. “It was soooo romantic!” He said. Yeah, she went after him. But he jumped in with both feet.
She inserted herself into my life, buying me books, little things when we would meet up at conferences. I, of course, had NO idea that these were probably guilt offerings. I thought they were given purely out of friendship, and I thought it was quite thoughtful of her. After DDay, I happily threw the books in a large puddle near my car, ran over them back and forth with my car, then, after they dried out, burned them.

I rarely take out anger on inanimate objects, but I not only wanted those things out of my house, I wanted them destroyed. It was slightly cathartic.

Yes, I trust that she sucks. She loudly proclaims her scientific ethics, while her moral ones appear to be on Mars, if they exist at all.

But, as Tracy says, my REAL issues are with the cheater. HE is the one who didn’t have the backbone to say “No” when she came on to him. HE is the one who gaslighted me, and lied to me thousands of times over the years. HE is the one I married, not the OW.

What floors me is that the OW was, according to cheater, devastated when she found out her husband was cheating on her (prior to meeting my cheater). How could anybody who has experienced that devastation knowingly be the cause of that same pain to another person? I realize this isn’t my skein to untangled…but the utter lack of empathy and selfishness of the behavior still gobsmacks me.

Cardigirl
Cardigirl
5 years ago

A wallet has no will of its own, but a person can’t be stolen. Marriages are not destroyed because some magical being waltzed in and captivated your ex away. The cheater made the decision to cheat.

I think it’s easier, sometimes, to be enraged at the Other Person because we don’t love them, and we want to blame them for our hurt. It’s a betrayal of what we thought was true about us and our marriages to find that someone else is involved.

I’m not trying to defend them (the Other Persons) but I feel that really hating on them is a waste of energy. Use your anger at the situation to propel you forward, and let the dust settle where it may with the Other Person.

Your new life will be yours and will be awesome.

QueenBee
QueenBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

Agree completely. Well said!!

Jo
Jo
5 years ago

Amen! The burglar who steals your TV. The con artist who steals your investments. The whore who stole your illusion of marital monogamy. Each “had no loyalty to you”…. nor to anyone. They are DISLOYAL. Because they suck. Let disloyal people be in relationships with each other. Water sought and found its own level there.

ChChChChump
ChChChChump
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

Yes, it was Fucktard who made vows.

BUT

It was ENRAGING when OWhore shrugged off any blame for HER behavior by saying this: “I feel no guilt- I didn’t make any vows to you, HE did”

FeralBlue
FeralBlue
5 years ago
Reply to  ChChChChump

I heard “What goes on between you and your husband is no business of mine. Conversely, what goes on between him and me is none of your business.” …the fuck?! I let her know that as the ONLY person that had financial and legal ties to him as well as emotional, I damned sure was entitled to know exactly what was going on between them. …not that she cared..

WisedUp
WisedUp
5 years ago
Reply to  FeralBlue

Exactly. It’s not an even playing field when those 2 know the reality of the affair and the Chump is home wondering what they did to piss the cheater off so badly that he’s ignoring or abusing you. All I ever wanted was the truth. If he wanted to be with someone else instead or even if he wasn’t sure he wanted that, in my mind just knowing you want to “play the field” means you owe your spouse their freedom too. I will never get over having 16 years of my life robbed by a serial cheater that I was clueless was doing that to me.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  ChChChChump

The OWhore has a black hole where her soul should be.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

and a bigger whole between her legs

nodancing
nodancing
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

Yes, they want what you have! When OW was my so-called friend I distinctly got the vibe that she envied my life, my husband, my marriage and even my children! At the time things seemed good between X and I and she was divorcing her supposedly cheater X so I had sympathy for her. She also seemed like no threat to my marriage, she is older than me, a lot fatter, hated exercise (we were gym rats), has chronic health issues, is unbearably pretentious, wacko-religious (we were atheists), a long-time acquaintance of my family, and has 4 children and my X didn’t even really want a third of our own. She can have him though, he withholds affection to control, withholds sex, he’s morose, vindictive, two-faced, a liar, a cheat, a user, and a covert drunk. I really should send her a thank you note, it might have taken ages more to discover his duplicity, she revealed his character. I just don’t want that skank with my kids, but I cannot control that. At least he’s not duping a good person, maybe…there is never just one after all.

Marci
Marci
5 years ago
Reply to  nodancing

I had a call from the OW the day after I threw cheater out (he had to move in with her since he had nowhere else to sleep). Amazingly she tried to shame me for having “locked him out of the house”. I immediately concluded that she hadn’t been planning on sharing her tiny skanky apartment with him…but preferred to just shag him occasionally.

My response to her was to beg her to keep him and please not send him back. Then I laughed and hung up. That felt good.

It wasn’t until about a week later that I got proof that they had been actively trying to poison me. Goes to show you can never tell a psychopath by their appearance or daily behaviour.

Soldiering On
Soldiering On
5 years ago
Reply to  Marci

Holy Cow! It just goes to show that all those murder shows on TV are only scratching the surface.

So glad you got away from him.

FeralBlue
FeralBlue
5 years ago
Reply to  Marci

Poison you?! Omg. You definitely kicked him out just in time.

Eilonwy
Eilonwy
5 years ago
Reply to  nodancing

He does sound like a prize! I hope you are flourishing without him.

QueenBee
QueenBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

I understand the anger and hurt, but it is best directed at your spouse who carried out these actions. Blaming an AP for your spouses actions is like blaming auto manufacturers for the drunk driving problem. If they wouldn’t make the cars, people would not drive drunk. I am certain that the AP are hearing the same type of crap we are…lies upon lies.. The pain is understandable and the blame is natural. Put it where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of your cheater. He SUCKS..period. Use your anger to propel you forward to a new life.

Paintwidow
Paintwidow
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

Well….that “auto manufacturer” may not of taken vows with me but she knew he was married THE WHOLE TIME and bought him a burner phone so he could knowingly deceive.
Complicit……she deserves everything she gets.

honeyandthehomewrecker
honeyandthehomewrecker
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

For years now, I’ve tried to discern whether my fury towards HomeWrecker has been warranted. I’ve heard countless arguments both for and against laying blame on affair partners. I don’t believe it’s a one size fits all answer. This is how I see it after reviewing so many opinions and articles on the subject.

In a criminal case, for example, when working to establish the guilt of peripherally involved parties (accessories), we look for complicity. How much did they know and when did they know it? Were they a hapless victim that got dragged in, or were they the one enticing the prime suspect into commit the crime?

The level of culpability is discernable with evidence. We chumps often lack evidence because the people we trusted most manipulated that trust so we wouldn’t even know we should be looking for any. In my case, because I got some, I know for a fact that the OW knew all about me and our marriage and our 2 babies, yet proceeded to entice, interfere, and insert herself in profoundly inappropriate ways anyway. Of course, Honey is the one who set out to cheat and lie about it, but she went along with the program without any demonstrable guilt or hesitance whatsoever.

This is considerably different than an OW that goes along with the program not realizing all of the lies they’re being fed. Cheaters claim their wife is unloving, they are unhappy, the marriage is miserable, the wife doesn’t give them sex, that she’s materialistic or is crazy – fill in the boilerplate lie from page 12 of the cheater’s handbook. And the OW believes it. That none of it is true is lost on the OW. She feels special and important, completely unaware that men have been saying things like that since the dawn of time to be let into other women’s beds.

Not every OW story is the same. Some of them are horrific and complicit and some are just clueless and will have to learn about the nature of their new true love through their own trial by fire. But whatever the level of complicity, CL is right. The end game needs to be that they are no longer even on our radar, because we have far more important things to do. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, but Tracy’s reminders sure help.

struggling
struggling
5 years ago

Yes not a one size fits all answer I agree. In my case, I know for a fact that she fought tooth and nail to steal him. He told her he’d rather stay married and keep seeing her on the side forever. She was surprised and angry to find out he wasn’t sure that he wanted to get divorced, angry to find out he would just keep her as a side-dish fuck. Any person with the slightest morality would have backed off. But she did the opposite. She said she’d “try it for a while”. Oh brother. She was stalling, of course. She pushed him to spend more time with her, to meet his parents, to meet my children (the fucking nerve). She got furious if he would get a text from me when he was with her. I couldn’t believe how she felt so entitled to someone else’s husband, someone who was fighting to save her marriage. How do I know all this? He told me. In great detail. Over and over. He LOVED it. Two women fighting over him. And he loved telling me all about it. He was so cruel. I thought he’d lost his mind (now I know better). I can’t believe I let him abuse me like this for as long as I did (about three months of pure torture). Indeed he gets the gold medal of suckitude. He’s a cake eating bastard who would still be eating cake if he could. But I fucking hate her, she was more than complicit. She was manipulative and entitled. Like Tracy said, a star in her own drama of “Look how incredibly special I am, he loves me so much he’ll leave his family for me! Well he deserves to be happy and so do I!” I have no doubt in my mind that she wished, and still wishes, that I was dead, because I am an obstacle to her happiness. It staggers me that she would destroy another being to go after what she wants. Who does that? Lol, title of the article

Born Free
Born Free
5 years ago
Reply to  struggling

Oh crap Struggling! Whata bitch! What a bastard!

I’d be tempted to start flirty texting him right now while he’s with her. Just to piss her off.

Naw … I’m just immature.

struggling
struggling
5 years ago
Reply to  Born Free

lol thanks I appreciate that. For the first year or so after he left, he did send me some mildly inappropriate texts. He also used to come by where I work, and other inapporpriate cake-eating type things. I allowed it for a bit because I wanted to see if he really would treat her that badly. Got my answer. I called him out on it, and he stopped

P.O.’dAtTheRightPerson
P.O.’dAtTheRightPerson
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

Yes, but don’t let it consume your existence. I’m struggling with this. I’m pissed, but i’m borderline harassing him for what he did to me. And I know I shouldn’t but again… it’s the… “How-could-you-mentality.” I am pissed. And I want to move on. But I also want him to pay! You guys here do give me strength though. I’m right in the middle of my divorce and my STBXH has found himself in the middle of HER divorce. Because he might be subpoenaed to appear to price she was unfaithful. This gives me SOME joy, that he got caught up in drama. But I can’t help but think that he’s thinking she’s worth it because he LOOOVVVEES her. This shit is hard! They both suck! But will they ever get their payback? Or do they get to continue fucking into the sunset?

Drew
Drew
5 years ago

Payback is losing you and “loving” her.

P.O.’dAtTheRightPerson
P.O.’dAtTheRightPerson
5 years ago

Prove*

KB22
KB22
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

I dunno. It’s like the cheating spouse robs the bank and the OW/OM is the getaway driver. Both are guilty. Both are scumbags.

Jeanm
Jeanm
5 years ago
Reply to  KB22

KB22, yes they are.
In my case I say, Predator+criminal= victim, because they have a kid now..

KB22
KB22
5 years ago
Reply to  Jeanm

It is a shame these creatures produce……the kids don’t stand a chance.

Nobody2U
Nobody2U
5 years ago
Reply to  KB22

Yep…the dirty skank was married too with kids…didnt keep her low life ass from screwing my husband tho… garbage just seems to attract garbage.. never mind my kids don’t have a father… hate them all for what they have done. No moral compass of any kind… for an orgasm… really , how petty and low class…

Letitsnow
Letitsnow
5 years ago
Reply to  Nobody2U

All for shiny pussy. Ugh.

GetMeFree
GetMeFree
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

Whether the AP is being fed lies doesn’t take away the facts that they most often do know. That they are getting involved with a married person who often has a family.

Yes, my cheater is where most of my anger is directed but I still feel violated by OW. In the same way I would feel violated by an intruder in my home, a thief, mugger, etc. they knowingly took something without a care of the hurt or financial cost to you or your kids. We are allowed to be pissed at them, too. As long as we don’t focus on them in order to avoid facing the reality of who the cheater really is. I did this with OW#1. And then I got burned with an OW#2. But both OWs had knowledge of cheater being married. Which means they both suck as human beings, too.

IslandGirl
IslandGirl
5 years ago
Reply to  GetMeFree

I have days when I am just fixated on the OW. I know its not healthy but some days it gets the best of me. OW had her girlfriend call me to tell me about the affair after it had been going on for 2 years. OW and STBX were out on a date at the time. STBX took her on many trips and they conspired to deceive me. OW is 64 years old and never married!!! Her plan backfired on her though. He broke up with her and now has a new girlfriend and we are divorcing after 27 years. I was totally blindsided. I’m still a mess. D-Day was 10 months ago and I just moved out of the house. Hoping to gain some wisdom and insight from ChumpLady.

suckered
suckered
5 years ago
Reply to  GetMeFree

I have known of two situations where the ow not only knew but deliberately worked at destroying the relationship of married couples before any affair ever began. There are evil people in this world. And there are dumbasses who fall for their shit. That doesn’t negate the dumbasses responsibility in the first place but for those folks where I saw it happen and for the wicked whore who would deliberately approach my husband when I wasn’t home and would send him unsolicited pornographic texts for months until he caved I hope that something just as evil befalls her. She and the other person I watched do this are the lowest of the low. To deliberately work at destroying a marriage for months and months until they get what they want. In this situation I place more of the blame on her as they did what they did intentionally and knowingly while my x although morall bankrupt was suckered in. He should ‘ve talked with me more but over time she turned him against me and made him believe that he couldn’t trust me, only her. I truly feel sometimes there is an element of mind control.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  suckered

suckered
This same thing happened to me. My husband was lured by the homely single ho mother of the decade, with manipulation, most probably convincing him that she was the ‘better’ woman and that he should be with her. She worked and worked at it. She saw him on a regular basis from what I could gather. That big whore worked her way into my in laws life (I am putting the pieces together now) to the point where they had to have hospice in her fucking home town. Oh, did you not know, he died and the whore was still involved…I believe she even picked out the engraving on his tombstone. Because Now that I dumped the whole family cuz one of his sisters is the evil bitch that I know has to know alllll about this company whore. And I am certain she enabled it to continue. That evil bitch. Partly because she has no friends so I can see her condoning the cheating behavior because then there is something in it for her too. They are all into how much bling somebody else has, and the whore had a huge brothel where I am sure they were delighted that if he continued fucking his whore, in the end, they alllll would benefit by her brothel by the sea. I know that whore howorker slut mother of the decade, did the same thing, she probably turned him against me, because she had to have my husband cuz NOBODY wanted HER and she convinced him what a great life they would have probably because she had big whore house by the sea,. Who’s she fucking now is the question. I guess she can count all my marital assets well she slips some new married man into her brothel to screw

Drew
Drew
5 years ago
Reply to  GetMeFree

Damn straight. One thing I understood right away, even as ILYBINILWY was trickling out of that idiot’s smug mouth, was the fact that he and his fitness skank deserved one another. Same values and ones I didn’t share… Karma right there. A strong person doesn’t go after anyone involved with another. If you want to know what OW are like just take a gander at the one’s making the news lately. ????

Alexandra
Alexandra
5 years ago
Reply to  QueenBee

Yeah sure they hear the same lies, but they are aware of us existing and the spouse being in a relationship with us.

I could never imagine being in a “relationship” with an otherwise taken person.

In grade 10 I had a crush on my art teacher who didn’t wear a wedding ring. When I found out he was actually married I felt guilty for the rest of the semester. That crush evaporated instantly. I felt embarassed even. That one fact precluded everything else. (Including the fact that I was 15 and he was my teacher LOL)

Newlady15
Newlady15
5 years ago
Reply to  Alexandra

The AP f#cked him in my bed and in my bed at the cottage and in my bed in my house in Florida. There is no way she didn’t know there was a wife or partner with my things all over these homes. She sucks too no matter what lies he told her to get her there. Just sayin’

OldCrone
OldCrone
5 years ago
Reply to  Newlady15

Yep – the AP of ten years f*cked the turd in our bed and various places in our house while I was at work or out of town. She definitely knew he was married – she lived across the street from us for 15 years. I did so much for her and her family over the years (poor, poor single mother), helping with her kids’ homework and fixing their computers and phones, buying shoes, school clothes and birthday and Christmas presents. The turd was always asking me to help her. He actually wanted to include them in family celebrations (holiday dinners and get-togethers). I would come home from work and she would be parked on her lazy ass waiting for the turd to feed her. She would look at me like “WTF are YOU doing here?” Uh, it’s my house, skank. So after the turd cut her loose, who did she lash out at? Not the turd who used her and threw her away. Yeah, she lashed out at me, viciously and relentlessly, to the point where I had to threaten to go to the police. So, yeah, I blame her. She saw me all the time. She knew that I never did anything but nice things for her and her kids. She saw how well I treated the turd. She saw the work I did to make a nice home and keep things running smoothly for the turd. He told me that she was crazy jealous of my life and house. She knew it was all my work and effort, so she should have pursued me if she wanted the “good life” instead of the lazy turd who has done nothing but drink, golf and cheat with as many people as would have him since he retired 12 years ago. When she had to move out of the rental house she had been living in across the street, the turd asked me to help her find another place. (This was before DDay) I found her a few possibilities and heard him call her with the leads. The conversation got a little heated, so I asked him what was up? He said that she told him that she didn’t need my help, that I had a chance to be her “friend” for 15 years and it was too late now. I was offended at the time, after all the help and presents I had given over the years. Now that I know what they were doing behind my back for all those years, I am 100 times more offended. I had a chance to be HER friend? She’s trash.

Now I.C.
Now I.C.
5 years ago
Reply to  Alexandra

Good job! I hate the old trope, “You can’t help who you fall in love with.” Bullshit.

If your filter is set at the ‘anything goes’ level and you have poor character then that is true, you fall in love all the time no matter how inappropriate. Falling in love is defined as a surge of adrenaline and a tingling in the naughty parts.

True love wouldn’t stand for that.

catharsis2017
catharsis2017
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

This is it. This is it exactly:
“They want what you have. They think it will make their life better.”

The disgust I felt when I realized that the “old class-mate” no longer was married, and was living in an small apartment 500 meters from our house… Suddenly my wife’s interest in taking long, late-night walks with the dog made sense. My wife bears the full responsibility, but I cannot shake that he went after my wife and ruined our 25 year long relationship and the family for our three kids. Horrible horrible man.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
5 years ago
Reply to  catharsis2017

You don’t know for sure that she didn’t go after him or open the door to his interest. It’s not like these jackasses tell the truth.

Jeanm
Jeanm
5 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

LAJ; as always on the money, they lie ..always.

SuperDuperChump
SuperDuperChump
5 years ago
Reply to  catharsis2017

The great philosopher, Rooster Cogburn, stated: “Retribution comes one way or another.”

I believe this. You can’t go through life with an Integrity switch. Doesn’t work. Any piece of dogshit as described will have their lack of integrity bleed over into every aspect of their lives. Job loss, finances, family issues, health problems, etc.

We just wish that we could be the trigger….actually, it’s more entertaining being the spectator.

Janus
Janus
5 years ago

I am seeing the proof of your wise words, SDC. X is hiding out overseas, afraid to return to the US. Not only is he not paying me what we settled upon, but he is being chased by the IRS, the state tax dept., a storage company, Discover and other lenders. He uses my address and phone to pretend he lives here. I enjoy explaining to debt collectors that he actually lives halfway around the world. The narc sense of entitlement can result in theft and bankruptcy. As the rules we mundane people follow – like paying taxes and bills – do not apply to them.

Jeanm
Jeanm
5 years ago

SDC; In my world, this has come partly to fruition.
The Bells palsy, for Do over Dad, and the Kidney issues…
Yep, I am a beliver that the “Trade down;” in age, new fsmily does is truly retribution..
Resonates in that orb…
????

UnsinkableMollyX
UnsinkableMollyX
5 years ago

Yes, so true!!!
????????????

Rickb89
Rickb89
5 years ago

Damn that’s good…

Char
Char
5 years ago

That is the perfect quotation and from a great character in film! This is – IMO – one of the best articles yet from a sea of great articles by Tracy.

SuperDuperChump
SuperDuperChump
5 years ago
Reply to  Char
ihatehim
ihatehim
5 years ago

Love this!

MotherChumper99
MotherChumper99
5 years ago

????????????????❤️❤️❤️❤️

Struggling
Struggling
5 years ago

We need a “like” button here 🙂

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago
Reply to  Gentle reader

Yup your ex, when with the OW, was everything she ever wanted….he was attentive, caring, complimentar; the perfect man. He played a role and played the victim, and she was willing to buy his schtick for reasons of her own. CL is right, they both suck and don’t deserve your time or effort.

Okki
Okki
5 years ago

Some time from now you will want to send OW flowers for being the catalyst that removed your X from your
Iife. It took me less than a year and my children 10 years to realise their father is a fuckwit and that altough the divorce was traumatic, OW did us all a big favor by taking X on. She left her husband AND child to pursue a Dream Come True with X. Big part of the trauma for the kids was that X refused contact unless they would accept co-parenting from OW. Trust that they suck.

OutOfSparkles
OutOfSparkles
5 years ago
Reply to  Okki

This is the situation with my ex also. He has refused to have contact with my children without OW present from almost the beginning of his leaving. He told my elder daughter about her 4 days after he left and insisted on introducing them less than 3 weeks after. My elder daughter now refuses to see him and he is “distraught” but still won’t do it any differently. Younger daughter still goes along in this weird family that was forced onto them within weeks – and he married her 5 months after leaving (we were together 20 years but never married). My elder daughter refused to go to the wedding and younger didn’t go because elder didn’t and she didn’t want to go on her own. It has been awful for them.
Yes, their father is a terrible man, whose lack of empathy and entitlement is beyond comprehension to me, it even being present with his children (which I would never have foreseen). However, OW is not blameless. I have no doubt he has probably failed to tell her about elder daughter’s suicidality and self-harm in response to all of this. However, it can’t have escaped her notice that his, now 15 year old, daughter was never comfortable with any of it from the meetings/therapy appointments/refusals to meet him. She has 2 children of her own, although is widowed. She is very holier than though and promotes herself as this new age loving Christian. I find that most offensive of all, the hypocrisy. It is easy to be nice to people when it is to your benefit/makes you look good, of course. She has also turned up to places where I do activities (she has never been involved in before) and told my friends there that she just wants to be friends with me. No respect for me or my boundaries. What I find hardest of all, though, is where that concerns my children.
I absolutely get that the Weasel wins the gold medal in fucking me and my children over, that she has no personal obligation to me but that does not mean that she has no obligation to be decent as a human being, particularly towards children. The arrogance of banging on about being friends and playing happy blended families is particularly galling. I am glad that ex is preoccupied with her (although it hasn’t prevented him trying to be cruel to me at times still) and, if she had been decent, I would definitely pity her for “winning” a psychopath. However, she has afforded none to us – and I don’t.
I also get that it doesn’t pay to keep dwelling on this anymore than dwelling on the Weasel in the long term but, as yesterday’s article pointed out, anger is justified and, up to a point and in the beginning particularly, useful and not wrong. In the long run the less mind-space they take up the better. For me, it varies and does become exacerbated at times when their antics increase, but it is certainly decreasing – but I don’t apologize for negative feelings towards OW. It doesn’t mean I absolve the ex – which is what I think both So Done is saying too.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  OutOfSparkles

all of these skank Ho’s are hypocritical. The skank Ho that climbed on my husband for my entire marriage (don’t know why because there is nothing wrong with me) but that whore was on the council at the church. The hypocritical bitch. Who was she trying to impress god? or was she trying to impress loverboy? or did the two twisted assholes think THEY were the married couple? Did he forget who he walked down the aisle with? They were both living in covert narc land. Him being the Narc, her being the shameless no shame in her HO game ….game! They all think they found the best woman of their dreams. The HO is NOTHING more than a manipulative liar, that knows exactly how to ‘act’ to get the guy to think she’s different, better, smarter, whatever. They are Both complicit and collude to destroy. I wish all of them nothing but the worst that life has to offer. They are all Masters at the game

GetMeFree
GetMeFree
5 years ago
Reply to  Okki

It is one thing to screw me over. When they do that crap to our kids, it shines the light on how truly void of empathy and actual love they are. Someone who wants what is best for their kids would not force their kids to accept OW or cut them off. Makes it so much easier to trust they suck.

nomorecamping
nomorecamping
5 years ago
Reply to  GetMeFree

GetMeFree – That’s what I think, too. It’s one thing to dump me, but to do this crap to the children does shine the light on how they have no empathy or love. Our daughter told her dad how he felt about what he did to us and how she didn’t like his gf. Her dad told her that he feels like she’s making him choose between her and his gf?

What a dingbat. He HAS chosen his gf over his daughter. He chose that over 2-1/2 years ago! They are so dense.

When OW started working with stbx he told me how he was so impressed with how she knows how to get what she wants. Well, she got what she wanted: a man twice her age who is angry and critical of everyone and everything. His new situation did not make him a happier person. In fact, he seems to be more miserable.

He tries to text our daughter here and there and she’s just disgusted now.

Keepin’ Calm
Keepin’ Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  nomorecamping

This is almost exactly what my ex has done to our daughter. She refuses to see him as long as he’s with his whore. He claims our daughter is “missing out” on time with her dad. What s selfish jerk! For MONTHS, he put his whore above his daughter, choosing to spend time with her instead while breaking promises to his daughter and ignoring her. And now he’s upset because our daughter wants nothing to do with him? It’s pathetic.

anna
anna
4 years ago
Reply to  Keepin’ Calm

Is just another prove of how selfish and narcisists they are. Mine as well soends all his free time with his whore and her family then he get s angry when our daughter refuse to talk to him and refuses his guilt gifts. They just suck. But i made it clear that no way my daughter will ever again come in contact with that liar whore. And I also told her that she stay away from my girl.

Feelingit
Feelingit
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin’ Calm

As a parent, I think I would die for my child should the situation arise, I don’t think fuckwit would. After all, he won’t even give up a fuck buddy. I can’t even imagine how that makes my kids feel.

Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper
5 years ago
Reply to  Feelingit

Feelingit,
I am late reading the post topic and replies.
Your’s makes me cry.
My cheater did not want my daughter I was in first trimester for at DDY time and he said ow felt bad about taking him away from my elder daughter at the time. I notice I am typing “my” daughter as I type this.
My beautiful babies are “my” children, always and forever. He really doesn’t deserve them.
The fact that your five precious children know what a fuckwit cheater their Dad is breaks my heart.
But, you know what Feelingit, they, and you, are going to be just fine.
I read it in the strength of your posts. I feel it in the love that you show each day for each of your babies. ( no matter the age, we remember their birth and they will always be our babies).
I am feeling angry today and I want to reach out to you and encourage you in this most difficult time for you and your children.
Every day I pray for a good outcome from your court proceedings, and, I am gonna do a happy dance with you. I just feel it in my heart and every bit of my being.
Cheaters suck!
To hurt us is one thing, mess with our kids is another matter altogether.
A Switzerland friend once told me I am a baracoda when it comes to my daughters.
That bitch got that right!
Xxxxxx
peacekeeper

Cliqmo
Cliqmo
5 years ago
Reply to  Feelingit

My XH told me our daughter was now my responsibility and refused to help her when she had any spileptic seizures. That’s how fucking lacking in care or responsibility these narcs are.
Daughter and I moved out 8 months ago. To this day he has only once sent her a text but she chose not to reply. She is 19. Our son moved out a couple years prior to split and his dad hasn’t made any contact with him in 2 years and 3 months. Yet XH is happy to tell friends and family he is the victim and doesn’t see his kids! Luckily same friends and family know he is a total fucktard and know it’s due to his own lack of concern. They don’t pander to his victim mentality.

brit
brit
5 years ago
Reply to  Cliqmo

Cheaters don’t deserve the gift of beautiful innocent children. I think our children are better off without them in their lives.
What example do they set for them? that it’s okay to be dishonest, selfish, blame shift, leave your family?

Cheaters make me so angry especially when it comes to our children, the create so much turmoil and heartache and are too self centered to care.
Growing up is difficult enough with out having your life shattered by having a selfish jackass as a father.

They aren’t responsible parents or genuinely concerned with them or do things with the best interest of there children in mind. Children are better off without their disordered influence in their lives.

Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper
5 years ago
Reply to  Cliqmo

Cliqmo and GetMeFree,
Many many hugs to you and your children.
Your posts are so sad.

(Cheaters do not deserve beautiful, innocent children).

GetMeFree
GetMeFree
5 years ago
Reply to  Cliqmo

My 2 year old has seizures, too. Ex never got the training needed to be able to take her. They suck.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Feelingit

Same. I feel so bad for my daughter. She misses her dad. But when I ask her if she wants to talk to him, her first, immediate reaction is HELL NO. She’ll be 18 in May.

Peacekeeper
Peacekeeper
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

((((Keepingcalmanddaughter))))
I am so sorry.

GetMeFree
GetMeFree
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

This is my son, too. Hasn’t seen or done anything with his dad for over a year. But you know what, cheater put very little effort into a relationship with him for most of son’s life. So not only would he have to build a bridge over the last couple years but a lifetime. My son is 16. I know it hurts him but he has drawn a line in the sand and stupid cheater can’t or won’t do what is necessary to cross that line. That communicates soooo much to son and just reinforces his decision to not spend time with his dad.

Rebecca
Rebecca
5 years ago
Reply to  Okki

Same here – ex insisted his sons accept the OW.

They knew her for most of their lives and refuse to be in her presence.

One son refuses to see or have any contact with his father and the other only sees his father a few times a year without OW.

Big-shot ex had to come around to what the kid wanted.

I just smirk and wonder what lie he tells the OW when he sees the youngest son!

Message to CN – sometimes karma takes lots of time. Don’t wait for it but enjoy it when it rolls around.

LemonFresh
LemonFresh
5 years ago

Ugh

I am almost a year out from DDay, and it still bothers me sometimes. At least once a day the thoughts start creeping in, and I have to battle them. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.

But I am still in a much better place mentally than I was 10 months ago.

It seems that, for me at least, it is a long hard road out of hell.

MotherChumper99
MotherChumper99
5 years ago
Reply to  LemonFresh

Don’t lose hope. I’m 3.5 years out and my state of mind is light years better. One year is early days.
Hugs!

lost wishes
lost wishes
5 years ago
Reply to  LemonFresh

When I was going through my divorce last year, I made a sign on my cricut machine.

“When you’re going through hell, keep going” Winston Churchill

When I moved into my new home, a girl friend put that sign I made on my fireplace mantel in the middle of my living room. And that is where it is staying.

I truly did not know I was in hell, until he was gone.

Chumpiest
Chumpiest
5 years ago
Reply to  lost wishes

Lost, it’s incredible how we develop a tolerance for abuse and convince ourselves that it’s “normal”. In my case I guess it has to do with a borderline mother and a narcissistic father, who conditioned me to fall for narcopath Two-Legged Rat. Although my sons love him and and have lots of fun with him (he takes them traveling and to fancy restaurants, all with the money he stole from marital funds, which really makes me mad because I can’t afford that), when my gay son came out I was the first one to know, and just yesterday my other son asked me for advice about a problem with his girlfriend. I listened to him and helped him realize that he was being too empathetic (chump in the making?), and he agreed and thanked me for the insight. Food for my soul!

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago
Reply to  LemonFresh

Well said, a long hard road out of hell.

Blee
Blee
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

My preferred song 🙂
“Going down a hard road” – Hilltop Hoods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFCWHshsw_M

Maybe a Chump Nation anthem in the making ?

Not2DaySatan
Not2DaySatan
5 years ago

“You wanting answers is you trying to shame this idiot into reality. You can’t shame narcissists.”

7 months post 2nd d~day and I’m just realizing this. Even though I know you’ve said it a million times Tracy….I blame it on my slow recovery process. But thank you just the same.

I do want to shame him into reality, I want him to be sorry for fucking up my happy life… for his continued unicorn living while I struggle to get by. I don’t want him back, I want him to be miserable. But the higher powers have decided he deserves a life of being a unicorn; and I a chump.

Bottom line: I want him to feel deep deep shame.
Bottom line: it won’t happen.

ivyleaguechump
ivyleaguechump
5 years ago
Reply to  Not2DaySatan

“Bottom line: I want him to feel deep deep shame.
Bottom line: it won’t happen.”

This.

I think partly because I don’t want to believe I was such an idiot as to marry somebody incapable of empathy. And having to accept that my choice of a husband is partly to blame for my current pain. I should have seen the red flags. I should have paid closer attention. I shouldn’t have had such a huge bucket of spackle, complete with everything I would need to make those cracks just disappear (at least on the surface).

I’m working on removing the spackle, friends, and throwing the bucket far, far away. No more spackle.

Whatringofhellisthis
Whatringofhellisthis
5 years ago
Reply to  Not2DaySatan

Youre right they are un-shameable. And it took me years to believe it. How am I not able to get through to this guy!? I kept trying because I thought i was not getting my point across properly. In the end I realized he only had reasons and no regret. He believed I deserved it all. There’s nothing to work with. He’s a humanoid.

And actually the married coworker with 2 young children… she believed i deserved it too… bc according to dear hubby i was a miserable bitch horrible lazy crazy stupid wife that made him do everything at home. He took pictures of himself doing things on the weekend with me. Digging a hole. planting shrubs. painting a wall. the one time he made a waffle. I was right next to him… but I was not in the pictures. I never cared about setting the record straight with her. She’s a narcissist too. As the song goes… I am whatever you say I am. I have no ability to reverse a year long smear campaign with a whore that has a death grip on believing i am garbage.

I work with a majority of married men. There is a good percentage that talk shit about their wives to me and then flirt. About 25%. It’s how it starts. Only a dumbass whore takes the bait of the poor me routine. It’s very triggering and it makes me nauseous. If these weren’t my clients i would tell them to go f@%& themselves in their shameless cake gobbling asses. Instead I say try therapy and honesty. Women like honesty and effort.

Fern
Fern
5 years ago

“in their shameless cake gobbling asses”

This made me laugh out loud. You can be sure I’ll be using that line.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago

“a whore that has a death grip on believing i am garbage” She has to believe that so she can live with herself. Otherwise she would have to admit that she is the one who is garbage.

ChumpDiva
ChumpDiva
5 years ago

Whatringofhellisthis…great observation & even BETTER reply. You are part of the solution, sister.

Sausalito
Sausalito
5 years ago
Reply to  Not2DaySatan

Your last two lines are all anyone needs to know! I waited three years for Assholio to feel/express some remorse or shame for his affair(s). Joke’s on me; it ain’t ever happening.

Cliqmo
Cliqmo
5 years ago
Reply to  Sausalito

So true.
Once I came to accept that XH was fucktard #1 of all time and that everything he ever says is a lie it was easy to get to meh. That and finding a video he made of himself sucking off a strange bloke in our living room certainly made all residual feelings melt away permanently. That was the defining moment of me realising that clearly our whole marriage had been a lie.
Now I’m 3 months post divorce and loving life.
XH continues to be total cockwomble.
I give zero fucks now.
It’s a fantastic feeling to be free, to be me, to be rid of that toxic dicksplat.

Mandie101
Mandie101
5 years ago
Reply to  Cliqmo

And no mention of forgiveness! You’ve just gotten to acceptance and not giving a shit!
Frankly I’m beginning not to like the word forgiveness in the sense that it is used generally.
I’m a very forgiving person but I’ve learned to walk away cause people take forgiveness as a license to re-offend.
I, like you , currently give zero fucks! And it feels great! I have not forgiven him. My insides are not rotting. I’m not pissed with the world and full of hate. In fact everyone is saying how fresh and happy I look. LOL! I don’t tell them my secret. But you can make it out of this with your dignity in tact and no nam plam forgiveness given. God can forgive them.
In the words of the prophet, forgive them Father for they know not what they do. He left it to God and so will I!

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
5 years ago

Dear Done, I think of OW (the last one that I know of; age of my eldest son; dresses like a Christmas tree with expenses sponsored by sparkledick; has FOUR kids with THREE different men) this way: she is the proposta that makes Sparkledick von Glitterballs look totally ridiculous and evil and I thank her for relieving me of a blameshifting, entitled narcisist, sociopath.

Take care and just hate your ex. Read yesterday’s post about anger.

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
5 years ago
Reply to  ClearWaters

She is the PROP. Damn spell check…

Rebecca
Rebecca
5 years ago

When I asked the OW “how could you do this to my kids?”, who she knew since they were tiny, the response was “if you told your kids, that’s your fault”.

Kids were 18 and 23 at the time.

Knew right then that there was no rational person on the other side of the conversation. CL’s pile of lint would have been more understanding!

She is one skein of fuckedupness that I’m not going near ever!

I turned and walked away. And that is what I suggest all chumps do.

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago
Reply to  Rebecca

Yup, my ex actually told my MOTHER about his affair, seeking her sympathy after I kicked him out. But he insisted we not tell his family!

Stupidly I took him back and he ended up with the house and the kids after my nerves went and I had to be the one to leave in the end. First cut was the best cut but I was too emeshed to know that.

Triumphafterterror
Triumphafterterror
5 years ago

You’re in the early stages of post dday, so you are absolutely “normal” to think these things. Rational thoughts by a rational person, but the OW and your ex are NOT rational & don’t care. About ANYONE other than themselves. Trying to understand their behavior will make you crazy, because it’s not normal under any circumstances. These people are absolute cancer. It does get easier as time goes on. It still hurts when I think about it, but less than it used to & I try not to think about it!! ????
I’ve posted on here that the OW was a friend of mine, our kids were friends, she was married as well, we all live in the same community. Their actions were appalling to everyone, yet they (continue) to show up at community events & act like idiots. Piggy back rides in public, following me around to make sure I see them & how much fun they are having. She used to come into my house, huh me & then go “running” with my ex. That probably pisses me off the most.
The ex gave up custody of his own kids, picked a very limited visitation schedule & hardly ever sees them. He hangs around just enough to be a burr in their ass. They hate him, they hate her. The hard part is trying to help them see that there is nothing wrong with them that made their father walk out. Her kids are lunatics, I have a court order keeping them away from my kids until they are 18 (serious safety issues). How do you pick crazy kids over your own amazing children?? It all boils down to they suck, and they don’t care about anyone except themselves. Period. My kids have an amazing therapist and will probably be in therapy forever (as will I). If you’re not in therapy, find a good one & try to look forward, not back. It’s hard, especially in the beginning, but you’ll get there!!

Pret
Pret
5 years ago

It is mind boggling to know that a person can actually walk away from their kid. You and I see it that way but the cheater doesn’t. In his mind we’re the unreasonable ones who won’t cooperate. Why can’t we just get over it and be happy for them? I know my ex thinks he’s the World’s Greatest Dad ( as evidenced by the t-shirt he bought himself and wore every Father’s Day)… the truth is he is the worst father ever. He’s basically always been nonexistent. But these cheaters have a different mind set. They are not normal beings. They are fucked up assholes to the highest degree. I know in my heart that Cheater ex lost his kid. It’s just a matter of time before he realizes it…. that’s my Meh… my justice.

Born Free
Born Free
5 years ago
Reply to  Pret

He bought HIMSELF a tshirt “World’s Greatest Father” OMG I’m dying.

Katie Hallam
Katie Hallam
5 years ago
Reply to  Born Free

That’s what mine did too. And most likely told the OW my kids bought it! The kids thought it was hilarious.

Loving life
Loving life
5 years ago

Two of the OW in my narrative were actually really good friends of mine. One was a neighbor but I didn’t find out about that one until years after we moved. Another was with such a good friend that we would vacation with her and her husband. Unimaginable the gall they have. I look back and realize what some of the innuendos meant in conversations between ex ass and OW. They are borderline in my opinion. I don’t believe it’s that easy to be able to lead such double lives – out in the open – for mentally healthy people.

Triumphafterterror
Triumphafterterror
5 years ago
Reply to  Loving life

Agreed!! Mental illness is definitely present with my ex.

I think we should get the opportunity for one free punch to the OW. She has false teeth (which I suspect are from her admitted drug use) and I just want one punch to knock them out. It would make me feel soooooooo much better!!!! Probably not, but it would be so fun!!

Lady B
Lady B
5 years ago

Yep I day dreamed about just giving her a real hard shove that comes out of nowhere. I have very quick reflexes and shes a dwarf. She lands ass over tit and I give him a nice karate front punch and break his nose….

Ginger
Ginger
5 years ago
Reply to  Lady B

I gave one of them a kick up the arse when she walked past me smirking. Didn’t see that coming????????????

OutOfSparkles
OutOfSparkles
5 years ago
Reply to  Ginger

????????????

Lady B
Lady B
5 years ago
Reply to  Ginger

Nice one

struggling
struggling
5 years ago

“You didn’t love that person… Ergo, you’re left with the purity of your hatred”

Yup Yup Yup. I think this is the crux of it. I get told, sometimes, that I’m directing my anger towards the wrong person. Aggravates me. Of course, my ex is the one who married me, who promised me before god family and friends to commit to me forever. He was by my side as we brought four children in the world and suffered through multiple miscarriages. We lived through financial ups and downs, moves, and job changes. We dreamed together, built together, and I trusted him above all others in the world. I counted on him, I believed in him as my rock, my life partner. TRUST ME my anger is probably 80% towards him and 20% towards her. But this concept that she gets a pass, that he is solely responsible for destroying his family and she’s not culpable at all, well that’s just bullshit. Which brings me back to Chumplady’s sentence I quoted above. My ex is the father of my children. I have no choice but to continue raising children with him. And there is all that history there. He’s not the man I thought he was, and I regret marrying him. But I did marry him and he is my children’s father. What is SHE? A criminal, plain and simple. An opportunist who fought tooth and nail to steal my life. She is nothing to my children but “dad’s wife”. My ex is a lying cheating sack of shit that I’m very sorry I wasted my life on him. That occupies most of my thoughts. But when I do think of her, it’s with a hatred I would have for someone who had burned down my house, or robbed me at gunpoint in the street, or kidnapped my child. As much as I wish my ex would fall of the face of the earth, or get the karma he deserves, I don’t hate him the way I hate her. There is just too much history mitigating those feelings. Whereas my hatred of her is pure, absolutely.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago
Reply to  struggling

You explained my situation very well. I feel exactly the same way. I am angry at and blame my ex for blowing up our family, but Schmoopie is the one I hate. I am not even angry at her, I just hate her.

Struggling
Struggling
5 years ago

Hmm, yes. Hurt and anger with him, but hatred for her. That sums it up nicely

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Struggling

Yes, yes, yes. Hurt and anger with him – hatred for her. EXACTLY.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

And if they don’t like that we hate them, they can blame our ex’s for that. It was our exes that turned them into homewreckers.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  struggling

Struggling,

I could have written this word for word: “But when I do think of her, it’s with a hatred I would have for someone who had burned down my house, or robbed me at gunpoint in the street, or kidnapped my child. As much as I wish my ex would fall of the face of the earth, or get the karma he deserves, I don’t hate him the way I hate her. There is just too much history mitigating those feelings. Whereas my hatred of her is pure, absolutely.”

I posted about this on the forums a few weeks ago because I was having dreams where I was strangling the OW, beating her up, etc., while my ex just sat and watched, doing nothing to interfere. I despise the whore with the fire of a thousand suns. Yep. Pure hatred. It kind of ebbs and flows, depending on what ex has done to me lately. When he doesn’t contact me (I’m as no contact as possible), they both kind of fade into the back of my mind and I don’t think about them much.

I just want meh. I want to look at them both with indifference. But I have a sneaky suspicion that I will always, no matter what, hate the whore.

kiwichump
kiwichump
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

I picture her face on every thistle I grub with my heavy, sharp grubber. Works wonder is the farm is thistle free. It’s never been so clean.
And I’ve also dreamed that I was smashing her face with a hammer, over and over again and she didn’t die, she just suffered on and on. It was great.
Now I don’t anymore, I think my rage has settled, but it was necessary.
She’s still alive and I never touched a hair on her head. That’s my forgiveness.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  kiwichump

I’ve never met the OW. I hope I never have to. Because honestly? I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know if I’d look at her with icy disdain and come up with a great line, or if I would be classy and nice because that’s how I was raised. I’m hoping the former. That whore deserves none of my niceness.

Chumptopia
Chumptopia
5 years ago
Reply to  Keepin Calm

I’m pretty much at Meh now but there was a time I hated the OW’s guts and liver with a hatred I’d never felt in my life. I can’t imagine doing something so bad to another human being to make them hate you like that. I would be terrified to have that kind of hate upon me. I wouldn’t piss on her if she was fire. People are correct here that she wasn’t the one that made vows to me but she is every bit as guilty as my cheater ex husband. He held up the bank and she drove the get away car. Fuck them both.
I suspect the Karma bus is creeping up on them.
“The mills of the gods grind slowly, but exceedingly fine.”

struggling
struggling
5 years ago
Reply to  Chumptopia

“I can’t imagine doing something so bad to another human being to make them hate you like that” Indeed. Well put. How do you not have morals? How do you say “well that person will hate me until the end of time but oh well, as long as I get my man…” It’s just unbelievable that people this terrible exist but they do

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Chumptopia

I think the same thing is happening to my ex and his whore. About three weeks ago, we were having a fight and he said, “Maybe we should just have lunch and talk like normal people.” I was horrified, of course, and said, “But what would she think about that?” He said, “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

He hasn’t changed. It’s her turn to spackle now.

violet
violet
5 years ago
Reply to  struggling

I understand exactly how you feel. Yes, X bears the bulk of responsibility for his actions, but I will never give OW a pass. She is the one who deliberately set out to destroy a long term marriage. And for what? Money. For her, it was strictly a financial transaction-locate successful, older man in very poor health, play to his ego, run off his family, and run away with the money. Fortunately, she greatly underestimated me and she got nothing except the knowledge that she is a whore.

Rebecca
Rebecca
5 years ago
Reply to  struggling

Struggling,
It took years and a lot of pain for me to realize that the shell of my ex was present for all that dreaming, planning and building but it was really me who did it all. He would add just enough for me to believe he was as invested in our future as I was.
Over time you may realize how much of his participation you facilitated. Did you have to ask him to plan with you, tell him when and where to show up, told him your dreams so he could then comment on them and did he support you during those downs or were you always the supportive spouse?
This is a hard one to face.
Very often the committed spouse assumes the cheater has as much in the game only to find out they mentally checked out of the game a long time ago.

Struggling
Struggling
5 years ago
Reply to  Rebecca

Yes we’ll i can’t argue with this at all Rebecca, you are right. I believed he shared my values but he never did

bouncing back
bouncing back
5 years ago
Reply to  Rebecca

They never checked in IMHO. We were targets, plain and simple. We bonded. They attached like parasites yet unfortunately we projected our values and thought they were in it with us as we were.

OutOfSparkles
OutOfSparkles
5 years ago
Reply to  bouncing back

Yes, that is my conclusion now too, with hindsight, never checked in – so didn’t even have to check out really! And, it was me who drove the vast majority of building our life, with him participating just a very little – but enough for me to kind of think we were in it together. This included me facilitating his being a father – which was not exactly spectacular, but now he has left it is very obvious. Yes, too, to projecting our values on them – positive ones, of course (whilst their shitty values are projected onto us!).

KarenE
KarenE
5 years ago
Reply to  Rebecca

THIS, 100%! We had a great life together, and I foolishly thought that we had built it TOGETHER, and that he valued it as much as I did.

I did most of the building, and he came along for the ride. I valued it, he really really did not. Well, he sort of did, a bit, once he’d thrown it all away, but certainly not enough to make ANY effort to protect it, including his relationship with our kids.

They suck so much more than we can even imagine!

So Done
So Done
5 years ago

“Your unanswered phone call to the OW was an answer. She’s not there. Who does this? Someone who’s trying to pretend you (and your children) are invisible. Someone who’s rather a void herself. Someone who needs to feed on the life-force of others. Someone who is so desperate to be “special” she’ll just create her own alternative universe of reality. . . You wanting answers is you trying to shame this idiot into reality. You can’t shame narcissists.”

^^^^^ I think I need to keep repeating this over and over and over to myself until it becomes part of me. Intellectually, I know they both suck. My task is to stop trying to fathom HOW she (and he) could suck as much they do. There is no fathoming. They are just Awful. People. Who. Suck.

And you’re right — I don’t suck.

Thinks, CL. I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other and trying to banish these losers from my head.

Gfk
Gfk
5 years ago

We are nearly two years out from dday. Yesterday I was served a domestic violence protection order application by my x. I already have one on him and I think he copied and pasted the whole thing and just inserted my name. His flapperhead girlfriend filled out half the paperwork. These people are consumed by anger and desperately unhappy with the life they’ve dug for themselves. Why else would you go through this horrible process and continually try to “win” over the chump. Their universe is not the same one we’re on. Trust that they ALL suck

Lost 220# Deadweight
Lost 220# Deadweight
5 years ago
Reply to  Gfk

Gfk-
Mine did the same; I got a DV protective order after I decided to go NC. I think he needed to show his people that I was the unstable one. Lucky for me I documented EVERYTHING (his car parked down the street, saved emails and texts, him showing up at the house at 2am and taking pictures of my girl friend’s car; he thought it was some guys–yet her bumper stickers screamed ‘liberal female’, and the camera that he set up in my bedroom after he moved out). Prior to the DV order, he went to the local police department and wanted to report an alleged assault by me from two years prior. Do not trust anything he says.

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
5 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Except my exasshole who convinced the cops I attacked him when I called the police. I was arrested and charged with DV. It was a nightmare. When he pulled a gun on me later the cops believed him I was trying to get revenge. Getting PO was very hard, even my own attorney thought I would fail. I pulled out all the stops and am always thankful his brother was willing to testify for that. I got it and I keep getting it renewed. I think next year that’s going to be tough as hell, probably not doable.

Cuzchump
Cuzchump
5 years ago

The OW was my cousin. We were close when we were younger. We rode my horses and went camping together. I sat with her when she was crying after each time her mom would hit her and call her names. We lost contact until she moved in next to my in-laws. My children played with her daughter. I let her bend my ear when she got her divorce. Not in my wildest dreams would I think my Husband and her would have a long-term affair. My cousin also blocked me on Facebook. Yup, she screws around with my Husband and she blocks me.

My point is the OW doesn’t give a flying rats ass about the wife. It is the thrill of the pick me dance. If the OW had any morals or shame they would tell the married man to go pound sand. I do think that there is something seriously wrong with anyone who knowingly has an affair with a married man. Trying to understand why people are shitty humans is a waste of time. Because they do not care who they hurt as long as they get what they want.

Sausalito
Sausalito
5 years ago
Reply to  Cuzchump

“Trying understand why people are shitty humans is a waste of time.” I’m gonna tattoo this on my arm as a reminder every time I attempt to untangle the skein! 😉

lost wishes
lost wishes
5 years ago

I have no idea who the OW is. I know I can’t stand her fucking guts. Even though she has worked for my ex-husband for 32 of 35 years of my marriage. I know I had a problem with her when I was 30 years old when she gave my husband shirts for his birthday when I was going through 3 miscarriages. After that he never brought home any birthday gifts from her. He never told me she got a divorce. Over the years my ex husband separated both of us. I was excluded from anything to do with his work. I was good enough to have his 4 great kids, handle his psycho mother, handle one of my daughter’s having cancer twice, but the Jesus Cheater, co worker was the bomb, while I sucked. AND I BELIEVED IT FOR 35 YEARS! I BELIEVED HIM WHEN HE SAID HE WOULD NEVER HAVE A RELATONSHIP WITH A CO-WORKER. Until I overheard the OW on speaker phone, speaking to him. I had my head in the sand, I believed him. Very stupid of me. I would love to know what he said to her about me. My ex-husband should have been up for best acting award at the Oscars for the last 30 years. He fooled a lot of people. Yes, I can’t stand the OW, and am working on letting that go and concentrate on my new life without a seriously disturbed person. I do find it supreme justice, because the OW/Jesus Cheater/secretary/office manager has to send me a nice FAT check every month for the next 12 years. I got more than half of the assets and he has to work until he is 70 years old. This summer when the OW is working with my ex husband, I will be on the golf course.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  lost wishes

lost wishes
oh how I would love to have won this or any form of a big fat check. But he OwhoreHoworker worked with my husband my entire marriage and I believe she made off with some pretty hefty gifts…he died, she is still working at the same company, able to flitter in and out in her heels. HE had me fooled. I never knew that bitch existed. I believe he’s been with her for years. I never knew. I spent countless hours beating myself up wondering what backstabbing lies he said about me, while remaining pleasant and calm with me. Too bad for the whore that she “lost” him in the end. The whore. I wish her days to be full of suffering and agony. Everything that happened before during and after was due to her. My life was literally destroyed. She was able to insert herself in his life, his family (I believe) and his friends, to the point they all tried to insidiously ‘destroy’ me based on his cheating and their image control and management to clean up and hide the details of the fraud that was exacted upon me.

Valerie
Valerie
5 years ago
Reply to  lost wishes

Lost Wishes, living well is the best revenge. Good for you!

NotMyFault
NotMyFault
5 years ago
Reply to  lost wishes

You go girl! The OW was also a howorker with/ for my ex for 30 plus years. She did take time off when she destroyed the first man’s marriage (within same company) and had two sons. Fast forward, they divorce, and she is crying in my ex’s ear. He would actually keep me up to date on the saga of her life. i.e. She’s not making enough money, her son is in Alternate School and then the Juvenile Detention Facility, she just bought so and so’s house, etc. And because of all these “conversations” she knew every detail of my life! The vacations, the events out, the activities and successes of our two sons, the gourmet meals prepared, house projects, etc. etc. Yes, I hate her, I hate them! I agree that these are seriously disturbed people. I am almost at the point of appreciation for having been removed from my toxic life with a Sociopath. On to “meh”!

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  NotMyFault

how do they manage to go on cheating that long with a HOworker, THis is something I don’t undetrstand. It’s funny because today I came across their massive emails back and forth pertaining to work, but it was always pleasantries and him thanking her for her ‘continued support’ that was the Lay he must have been thanking her for in “LAYmans” terms…eg. in code to make it look like they were still on track talking ‘shop talk’ but I’m no dummy. That whore had him by the balls. That PIG was constantly rapid fire emailing him. She was like a desperate cow with her big tongue hanging out….you can tell that Whore did not want him out of her sight. I hate that big Kunty bitch…She knew he was married, she knew what he was after. As I sit here trying to get ready to take my Masters classes, the guy on the video (online) said Never trust a guy In business that would cheat on their spouse. These two were hiding their BIG fuck fest all these years. What a skank. She had a good thing going but it “blew up” in her face, in more ways than one….

PathOfTotality
PathOfTotality
5 years ago
Reply to  duped

The guy on your Master’s class video is wise. My boss dumped his gracious, gorgeous wife a couple years ago after she quit her high-profile job to relocate with him. He then married his co-worker/AP.

As one of my colleagues wryly observed: ‘If he’d do that to the mother of his child, do you think he actually has any of our backs?’

nodancing
nodancing
5 years ago
Reply to  NotMyFault

This exactly happened to me. X would keep me up to date on OW’s saga, but it got ridiculous to where she was the only thing he would discuss with me in any depth. I was drawn in to help her as well but it wasn’t long until i secretly disliked, then hated her.

Susan Devlin
Susan Devlin
5 years ago

You would be surprised about how many ow/om just leave their children, for the sake of “love”.

Drew
Drew
5 years ago
Reply to  Susan Devlin

IMHO, I think they leave their kids for the sake of “easy.”

kiwichump
kiwichump
5 years ago
Reply to  Susan Devlin

The Whore was the Traitor’s ex and we had 50/50 custody of their child. So she left her child with me while she was fucking the Traitor. I was baby sitter, maid, appliance for all of them.
Apparently the boy “hated the meals I cooked” ( I actually cooked, she just fed him chips and cereal bars and made him live in a house she turned into a cats’ toilet with up to 30 cats at one time, SPCA were called on her a couple of times). So now supposedly he doesn’t want to see me.
A worn out, under performing appliance. That’s all I was to them.
And she’s a psycho to have made her kid live like this. At least now she and the Traitor live together I know the boy gets to live in a clean house.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Susan Devlin

My ex’s whore has three kids – she’s had custody of them all this time. About two months after she and the ex moved in together, guess where the kids went? Back to their fathers because she couldn’t handle disciplining them. My ex told me, “It’s about time their deadbeat fathers took care of them.” And I thought, if they’re deadbeat fathers, WHY IN THE WORLD would you want you let them take care of your kids?!?”

Ex also told me, “It’s nice. We have the house to ourselves.”

These are CHILDREN we are talking about. That tells you all you need to know about ex and his whore. They are selfish, cruel and heartless.

Leavealyingloser
Leavealyingloser
5 years ago

They are desperate to keep up the storyline of the evil wife. It is what keeps their dumb ass together. Then when the evil wife wont play her part they have to give her some motivation.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago

True, after I threw him out, my then-STBX did not want me dropping off clothes & things he needed to his department. Would have ruined his narrative that I was batshit crazy and that he should have divorced me years ago.

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago

Yes! My ex would poke me and prod me and I had no idea why. It was to demonize me so he could justify his affair.

Lucky
Lucky
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

Oooh. You just brought back a memory I had suppressed. He would always pick fights with me when we were heading to his parents house (when Schmoopie was there) or to his brothers house. Schmoopie was his brothers girlfriend. He was relentless in his determination to start a fight. If I didn’t take the bait right away, he would change tactics and try something else. Eventually we would be fighting. I will never forget her smug face. Or his attitude of “see what I have to put up with?”

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago
Reply to  Lucky

YES the:
see what a witch I live with. After they bait us umercilessly. No wonder divorces used to be for ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ !!

Pret
Pret
5 years ago

Cheater ex’s OW was/is also married with two children. He claims that she was separated and the husband lived in the basement ( so did Norman Bates’ mother). Her daughter and mine are the same age. These two assholes actually sat down one day and “devised” a plan with an exact date as to when he was going to “leave” daughter and me. A woman who has a child can actually plan to have a father taken away from his child? Who does that? When I confronted Cheater about it- I said “What kind of woman does this to a child? What exactly is it you find attractive about this woman, knowing she would do this? And you planning to leave your own kid?” His answer- “We weren’t thinking”… well that pretty much sums up the last few years of your life. The way I see it- he traded his own flesh and blood, his only child for some other man’s child. My kid wants nothing to do with him. She simply goes through the motions because I tell her to “play” nice so he will leave us alone. It’s a pretty sad day when you have to tell your eleven year old this about her father.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago

Sometimes we get so caught up in things wondering ‘how could they (both APs and our partners) cross this line.’… as if each of tnese lines matters or makes things worse…

Schtupping with AP’s when people are trying to start a family, or building houses or while the spouse is out of work so they should have been looking for jobs. It makes it worse because it is important in your mind.

My sister in law long ago, at her gift opening made this comment that her husband now wouldn’t smoke weed. ‘Not now that we’re married ’… and that comment, and the guffaw it got from her new husband … made me think: why would a married man stop smoking weed? Why would it matter to him as a person more now that his hand bears a ring? Why did it suddenly matter to her? It was ok to have a boyfriend who smoked weed but not ok to have a husband. If you wanted a husband who didn’t smoke weed you probably should have married a boyfriend who didn’t smoke weed.

This is different. And we were all fooled beyond this- at least she knew he smoked weed but a wedding ring didn’t change everything about his leisure pursuits. Why did she think it mattered?

but that perspective makes me say: it’s always just rules or standards we set with understanding of what character is- and that’s why none of these lines matter to us and mean nothing to them . People will do that which they find acceptable. These folks don’t give a fuck about commitments or circumstances. These lines of ‘I can’t beleive he did this thing when I was pregnant of all things! I can beleive she doesn’t understand my children are sacred … I am very confused why he takes her advice or doesn’t care that we had rings on or he pretends to not see the idiocy that my son and her daughter (both his kids) are 4 months apart and it makes everyone’s skin crawl. Or that he chooses to smoke weed and drink when we didn’t do that. Or that he thinks he can go on vacation when child has surgery! Oh lanta’

It’s about stuff we internally care about and think mattered. He or she didn’t. Ever. The end. There will always be a bigger low. That’s the answer. None of what you have in your brain as the norm of promises or commitment or human decency… that’s all your standard.

He or she has seen the scale. Has pretended to love and live by it. Has chuckled at your idea that those lines no one should cross were real lines. Patted you on the head and thought ‘for you. You can choose to keep it in your pants and make your bed in the morning and take care of the kids first. Because all that matters to you, I will do me.’

In a gym, there’s lines of many colours all over the floor. The only ones that matter for basketball are the purple court lines. The blue ones off to the side oh that’s volley ball. The red ones? That’s hockey.
Kids playing freeze tag? They don’t give a tuck about hockey or 6 point line or the volleyball serve line. Your betrayer? He put a god damned stick in your hand and an ugly orange puck on the ground so you were staying in the red, trying to pass over the half mark, trying to keep to the rules. He’s over at the other end of the gym and is throwing dodgeballs with abandon at completely different people paying attention to the green circle and when you ask he’s gonna toss a bean bag at your head and the slut? she is gonna use tennis balls and huck them hard at your torso and you have this stupid stick and are worried about the red lines, the game you thought was being played. You want a penalty box.

They’re not playing hockey or volleyball or basketball or anything. Currently they are playing you. The answer is stop thinking these people abide by any rules.

There is no fair. There’s no real games or rules or standards for these people.

GetMeFree
GetMeFree
5 years ago

That is awesome. And exactly right. Whether they pretended to be playing by the same rules or whether we created that illusion ourselves doesn’t change the fact that it is time to get out of the game.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago

Brilliant analogy, CR

Whatringofhellisthis
Whatringofhellisthis
5 years ago

brilliant imagery to help get this point across. helps relax the mind if you are stuck reviewing and untangling.

cashmere
cashmere
5 years ago

Brilliant exploration of their complete lack of ethical or moral boundaries.

JC
JC
5 years ago

“the affair partner does not get the gold medal in suck — that honor goes to your spouse — but they do get the silver or bronze.”

This is a point I’ve often made to my friends; I have no respect for the OM, but he’s not the one who vowed fidelity to me. So, from my own perspective, he sucks less than my now-XW. He won the silver (and affair-enabling or -hiding “friends” won bronze).

Then I discovered that the OM was cheating on his own wife, and my XW knew it. So, turns out that he is ALSO a gold-medal winner.

And the worst part is, cheaters have the EXACT same perspective– that they deserve medals. But from a positive angle. They think they are SO amazing that they should get a gold for being “authentic” / “living life” and cheating on their deserving spouse, and they are so amazing again that they get a silver for relieving their AP from the drudgery of his/her marriage.

It’s a shame that unlike the real Olympics, these medals are won every day, instead of for just two weeks every other year.

Lucky
Lucky
5 years ago

Yes – MOW burns my biscuit still…..

He chose to triangulate and discard me. He allowed her to creep into our home life, let her kids hang out with our kids on weekends and he chose to lie,cheat and ruin our marriage.

But Miss Piggy wanted my life. Not just him. The kids ( they now play happy families with the youngest ones ), the big house ( joke’s on her – he’s terrible with $$ and the house is gone ), the position of being Mrs.Fucking Fabulous.

There were OW before her. There are other women now and will be in the future.

She did me a giant favour by allowing me to see what kind of person I was married to. But she is such a twat that when I do have to see her or deal with her I still want to strangle her with dental floss.

I do consider myself at Meh for the most part. But she can bite me.

nodancing
nodancing
5 years ago
Reply to  Lucky

It’s ironic that they want our life and don’t realize if they wanted that they needed to marry us, cheaters are terrible with the day to day.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  nodancing

Bahahahaha that’s such and awesome point, it needs a clap. “If they wanted that they needed to marry us…”

Got-a-brain
Got-a-brain
5 years ago

“How could she?” I clearly remember going through that whole transition after D-day #1. The pure anger at how someone else could be so disrespectful and void of empathy for a fellow human being.

It was painful to have my view of how the world should be, knocked from the foundation upon which I built how the world should work; that being common decency, humanity, morals, etc. I had to pick up those shattered pieces and sadly leave some where they lay, because they were just completely dead ideas. This is going to sound morbid, but I think it’s a good visual…. Think of it like a poor mommy animal hovering over their dead baby. They try to nudge them to get up, hover over them, lay with them to keep them warm, but eventually they have to accept the thing they cherish, a part of who they are, is gone. Their waiting and hovering becomes a fight for their own survival. She walks away slowly, hesitant to leave behind something so cherished and loved.

That is how I view the ideas I previously beleived should be part of the world. Sadly picking them up and carrying them with me would have been like carrying around a dead body. Instead I remember those idealized views, but I didn’t put them back into my foundation. I look at “should” as the mortar that holds those ideas in place. I left a lot of “should” laying on the ground after d-day.

Infidelity fundamentally changed who I am, and much of that change came in the form of how tied I am to the way I expect other people to behave in the world. Do I believe people should be respectful, courteous and have a sense of common humanity… absolutely, but those ideas aren’t glued into the foundation of who I am any longer. If someone doesn’t behave in those ways, I’m not left with a hole in my foundation from them taking a sledge hammer to those beliefs. When they hit my beliefs with a sledge hammer, it slides out, causes an “ouch” and then I can choose to pick it up and put it back in or not. I’m not glued to the behavior of other people, because if I was, every time someone busted out a “should” I’d have to take on a major repair project.

At first the idea of changing the foundation of who I was in response to assholes infuriated me. I’d be damned if I was going to let this shit sandwich blow up the architecture of my life! I pulled out the blue prints and set out to pick up each piece; putting it back EXACTLY as it was. Along the way I decided some things didn’t fit the way I wanted them to, and instead of someone else forcing that change, I chose to submit a change order and modify the foundation in my own way.

I guess that’s a really, really, really long way of saying that some day you will unglue the piece of your foundation that says the other woman had a moral obligation to uphold the commitment between you and your spouse. Is she a shitty person… yep! Is she obligated to uphold your marriage contract… no. She should have (swing sledgehammer … ouch) , but she didn’t.

Build your fortress strategically, not ideally.

Stigofthechump
Stigofthechump
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

I love your analogies GAB!

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

Great comment & analogy, Got-a-brain.

I think I have lost the ability to be surprised. or (save for life-threatening things like serial killers & poisonous snakes) to be scared.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

Such a great comment. I, too, have been fundamentally changed due to infidelity. It’s really like having blinders over your eyes and then having them ripped off. You see the picture so clearly now, and it’s so harsh that it hurts. But you learn. I feel like I was very naive before; now I feel jaded.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

You went full dark with that analogy but it was amazing. And everything you said is super mighty. Build your fortress!!!

cashmere
cashmere
5 years ago

I don’t think I want to live in a fortress, though.

I am ok with hanging onto some youthful or even innocent ideals. Maybe this is the teacher in me. Yes, we should know that not everyone shares those ideals–integrity, loyalty, love, faith, and so on–but then again, it is not only perfectly okay but downright laudable to champion those, anyway, even in the face of adversity. I want my children and all of my students to see and know at least one adult who treasures these things, and believes they are inherently worthy, and worth sacrificing for.

I have really struggled with feeling stupid about being chomped for so long, and tempted to toss those ideals and retreat behind a wall. I knew evil existed, but had never encountered evil quite like this before. It stunned and still stuns me.

And I am glad I am stunned. I hope I am always stunned. I hope I am always repelled. I hope it never becomes expected and ordinary.

I do want to recognize it more quickly, though, and trust my gut much more fully. My gut values those ideals and s reams when they are violated. It’s a good gut. I like it.

Now, I think that beating myself up about being a chump–wondering how an educated and sophisticated woman could allow herself to be so thoroughly manipulated and crushed–is kind of like asking an abused puppy why it allowed itself to be kicked, or a glorious and fierce tiger why it allowed itself to be shot for its pelt.

It’s the wrong way of thinking. A good dog’s loyalty does not cause it to be kicked. A rare tiger’s beauty does not cause it to be shot.

Sick people–people entirely free of lovely and fragile ideals of the sort that make us vulnerable and capable of love–kick puppies because they can, collect pelts because they can, harm and control and abuse and crush and destroy beauty because beautiful things like innocence, love, idealism, and grace bother them. They must control, conquer, or eliminate what they lack.

So, for me, eliminating ideals is absolutely not a goal. I am wounded, but not conquered, kicked but still full of exuberance, hunted but still running free,

I think wisdom and ideals can and should coexist, and are not mutually exclusive. I think in fact that they are interdependent. Wariness is not wisdom. Complete loss of innocence is not maturity. Our ideals make us vulnerable to predators, yes, but they are the very essence of us, they are the best in us.

I have a ways to go and know that I will not emerge from this quite the same person that I was before, but I think and hope that means not eliminating ideals, but nurturing them in fullness and freedom once more.

Letitsnow
Letitsnow
5 years ago
Reply to  cashmere

You are a warrior, mighty insight.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  cashmere

I take it a bit differently. I still have these values and consideration internally. But I don’t inherently assume others have them. That assumption that others are good? It comes with a grain of salt- massive monolithic salt rock . We shall see

Got-a-brain
Got-a-brain
5 years ago

I know, it wasn’t a pretty analogy. ????

Mehphista
Mehphista
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

Who cares? Fricking brilliant.

Kathleen
Kathleen
5 years ago

My ex OWhore passed away few months ago after he left me ( I actually threw him out) for her. They were
both cruel & tried to drive me insane. Married 35 years
thinking he loved me too.

I was in denial when it started.. didn’t want to believe the man I loved could do that to me. I had to save my health & sanity so I divorced him.

5 weeks after she died he found another woman who
he now lives with. The insecure narcissistic cannot be
alone. I may be lonely but st least I’m not being used
& cheated on.

Not a meh yet.. but trying to get there.

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago

I read an email from the OW to my husband, while we were still living together. She urged him not to worry because soon he was ‘moving on to love’. He responded that ‘you know who was giving him a hard time by making him look after the kids that day’. (I was out buying him a birthday present. That is why this ‘you know who’ was out that day.)

In her email to him she assured him that she knew he was going to make ‘a wonderful husband’ to her. They were planning their honeymoon. He was still living with me and the kids and they were planning their honeymoon! We were together 26 years at that point. His mother was in a nursing home and I was spending time setting up her room and buying her clothes and neccessities out of my own pocket.

No wonder I feel nuts some days. But it does fade with time. To be betrayed so cruelly takes a lot of time to digest and process.

OW’s are masters of hearing and believing what they want to.

The only way it works is if they demonize the innocent wife/husband.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

The bigger problem is that WE were masters of seeing what we want to. It requires a cataclysmic shift in our world view to process that our greatest enemy was the one we welcomed across the threshold.

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

I was not a master at fooling myself. HE was a master manipulator and player. The mask slipped in time. He fooled a LOT of wise people. He was very skilled in con.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

so well said they fool so many people (image management) to the point where we look like the bad people and because they wear a mask then nobody would ever ever understand what that manipulator con artist said and did because in the world they only show how charming, wonderful, kind, etc etc and you know the truth. that you are sleeping with the enemy. It’s like a cancer that eats away at your soul. It’s insidious so you don’t even know its happening. Intelligent people are drawn into their web. We are fooled. They are masters at the game. Psychological abuse/crime at its best Your soul is being murdered. How do you recover from that?

OhLawd
OhLawd
5 years ago
Reply to  duped

So true. I have often told people that being with my ex was like the frog in the boiling pot scenario- the water heats up so slowly that you don’t realize you’re being boiled to death. He had everyone fooled with his “salt of the earth” simple man routine. Even my sister in law and brother told me not to be suspicious of him cheating- they knew him longer than I did (my ex and brother were friends) and that he just wasn’t that type. They have since of course changed their idea of him, and my whole family feels fooled by his persona. I read his Instagram feed and realize it’s his PR media platform for the guy he wants people to think he is. Ironically, the OW’s husband contacted me when he saw my picture with him on Instagram and read my Ex’s post of “family first”. OW’s husband realized I must have no idea of their affair, and contacted me. I thank god he did that. At least someone had enough respect to tell me what was going on.

KathleenK
KathleenK
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

“The only way it works is if they demonize the innocent wife or husband”>

^^^^^this

twiceachump
twiceachump
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

The latest OW for Dr. Cheaterpants was DD14’s 20-something asst sports coach in our kids’ Catholic High School while asshat was volunteer coaching. I had just got a new iphone and our iclouds were linked :). I couldn’t see everything they were texting, I could just see he was constantly texting her and had quit wearing his wedding ring (cover was he’s a doc on service in the icu so took it off). When he was busted he switched to email not realizing how I was seeing stuff so again, I could still see him emailing her and I actually got some of that crap to pull up.

He wanted to meet her for a beer so he could tell her how it all started 5 years ago. I have no doubt a 20-something damsel in distress (he was talking about how no one valued her and ever thought about her, blah, blah, blah) would have some great insight in being married for 20 years with two teenagers.

I always knew he was high maintenance, needy, and self centered. They idealize, devalue, discard was evident in EVERY aspect of his life. He had a victim mentality, I just never realized I was the villain.

He discarded me when the kids’ were 2 & 4 years old for a howorker (twice divorced and history of cheating on both husbands). Then came crawling back. I thought he came to his senses, but he probably got dumped. I thought he realized what he was losing and would never risk this again.

I thought he was dense to these crazy OW who were after him for his MD at the end of his name. I now know he was a predator and had gone further underground. I don’t think he intended for me to find out about his young ho.

These OW are nothing special. They are damaged goods, willing to be an accessory to a crime for their own perceived gain.

Leavealyingloser
Leavealyingloser
5 years ago
Reply to  Mitz

Moving on to love. Who talks like that? Are all these idiots out of work writers from a soap opera? Mitz i know emails like that exist between my x and the ow. I can just imagine the pure gas station grade cheese they ooze with

Mitz
Mitz
5 years ago

YES almost school kid like prose. “you light up the room when you enter’ Soap stuff for sure. OW’s lap it up. Most have never heard such flattery in their miserable lives.

Leavealyingloser
Leavealyingloser
5 years ago

Ows are masters of seeing weakness and an inability to take responsibility for ones own actions in others. They hone in on that shit. They are the soothing mommies these big babies “need”

ChumpSaidBuhBye
ChumpSaidBuhBye
5 years ago

They don’t care. Because they don’t follow the same social rules or have the same ethical boundaries as non disordered people. You can’t understand it because you’re not like them. I am not a mental health professional, so it’s not my responsibility to understand why the disordered do what they do. I just need to learn how to identify them and avoid them.

The Ex’s OW had no accountability. Her mind set is that nobody forced him to fuck her. She made herself available and he took up the offer. If he cheated while doing it, that’s all on him, it doesn’t have anything to do with her, so it’s not her problem.

That tells me all that I need to know about her.

brit
brit
5 years ago

Kathleen, they can’t be alone, I’ve never known one to leave their marriage or relationship and not have something waiting in the wings.

They will do and say anything to justify their “love connection.” Like yours, X and AP did everything imaginable to drive me insane. She is an attorney which gave him an edge in the courtroom with her advice on what to say and do along with his own attorney to insinuate I was mentally unstable.
I was accused of just about everything imaginable and was required to come up with evidence to prove them wrong. Sometimes it would be impossible being his word against mine.
During this time while he was with Attorney AP, X was a member of Match.com searching for someone new and eventually found his new true love abandoning his AP who he claimed he had so much in common with and had never been happier in his life.

I didn’t want to believe the man I married, who I thought loved me and valued our family, treasured our memories and claimed to be my best friend, not only walked out on me, but slandered my name, vilified me to everyone, I didn’t know such evil existed, it’s even more shocking knowing I married and lived with a sociopath for over 20 years.

Kathleen
Kathleen
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

Brit. It seems that we both were married to the worst kind of parasite of a man. As I read everyone here’s
comments it amazes me how many marriages are ending like this.

I still believe that there are decent truthful people in this world but lately I’m not so sure. I wish I could have
discovered his evil cheating ways years sooner. I gave
him my youth & his life now seems happier then mine.

I want to sleep at night without thinking of him & waking up with a peaceful mind. I’m hoping it comes
soon so I can be at peace.

I’m slowly getting there. Hope you find peace & happiness also. You are a wonderful person & deserve
the best life has to offer. ????

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  Kathleen

Kathleen
You are so right. I want to just be able to have happiness, I want to find joy and peace. I have not slept well in over a year. I am so f angry over how badly I was hoodwinked and I think of his whore and how she was complicit and colluded in how to f me over. The man I thought was so great and wonderful could smile in my face and be a shady MF all this time. There are no words

Langele
Langele
5 years ago
Reply to  Kathleen

I too was a long time chump.
Marriage was full of cake lots of it that I didn’t know about.
No I don’t have to live with that asshole who play sad sausage that works on my kind heart.
I’m going to send some money to my divorce lawyer but I don’t have all of it to make the full retainer yet but I have to keep moving forward with this.
I don’t want to be with him and I’m glad that I found out what he really is and I’m glad I found this place. thank you god.

Got-a-brain
Got-a-brain
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

I’m going through the same thing at the moment. My STBX wrote on the discovery paper work that I am suffering from PTSD from childhood. Funny, I had no symptoms of PTSD for the first 12 years of our marriage. It wasn’t until I discovered his affair, but of course he didn’t mention that part.

On that document he also painted the picture that I am a gold digger, forced him into providing the lifestyle we lived and refused to get a “real” job. Uh, we agreed I was going to be a stay at home mom as a job.

Our trial is set for July, and I have no doubt in my mind he is going to paint me as the crazy horrible gold digger who refused to work. I’m trying to prepare myself for that. Even though i know it’s coming, I don’t think you can ever fully prepare yourself.

How did you get through it all?

Lost 220# Deadweight
Lost 220# Deadweight
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

GAB-
Court rooms see this all the time. Go NC if you haven’t already. So he’s saying that you made ALL the decisions and he just had to follow along? Umm, no. He’s trying to paint you as a gold digging crazy…. just keep your discovery to facts and that should help. My ex brought up simple instances of the way I paid bills, how I controlled everything. He looked like an idiot with everything he wrote. I stated facts and kept it impersonal; I let him get caught up in his own lies and insecurities. He’s deflecting…stay strong, see a therapist, one that is good at his/her job and don’t waiver. In the end you want to create a better version of your present self. Don’t give him the power to fuck that up for you, he’s already created enough damage.

Letitsnow
Letitsnow
5 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

The PTSD part is projection. Listen carefully.

brit
brit
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

One of the things he’d do which almost had me questioning my sanity was tell me he was going to do something then deny we had talked about whatever it happened to be.
One incident I remember is when he finally agreed to go to MC. He asked to go in separate cars, he knew where the MC office was but he said he’d follow me. I looked in my rear view mirror and he was lagging behind and then made a right turn away from where we were going.
The counselor and I waited, and after about 25 minutes X walked into the office.
The counselor asked X about our marriage, he pretended to be surprised, looked over at me then the MC, as if he was horrified, she lied, she told me we were here to discuss our son, he then walked towards the door, saying I’m done, I can’t be married to her and walked out of the office.

Alexandra
Alexandra
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

My husband did a no-show to me at MC twice. That actually stings just as bad as the infidelity – if not worse.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago
Reply to  Alexandra

Mine showed up for just enough sessions to provide the laundry list of all of the reasons why I sucked. As soon as it became clear that it was not all about fixing me and that he would have to improve himself too, he bailed and ran off with Schmoopie. I wish now that I hadn’t bothered to show up.

nodancing
nodancing
5 years ago

Yes, we had several sessions where he talked about everything that was wrong with me. By this time I was a scared shell of myself from his constant terrorizing abuse at home. I finally got up the courage to bring up his multiple contacts with other women and the next session he bailed. I have considered writing to that counselor that she should have seen the signs that I was being abused and helped me. In retrospect it was plain as day and he even told the MC that he was verbally abusing me. I don’t understand what her thinking could have been.

Valerie
Valerie
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

Brit, you really had nothing to work with there. So sorry for your pain.

srfrgrl
srfrgrl
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

You and I have wondered if we were married the same guy, now I’m convinced.
Identical behavior, speech, actions. Eerie.

Golfgrrl
Golfgrrl
5 years ago

CL is so right. Cheaters are lying, abusive, douche bags. Long term APs who KNOW they’re APs are exactly the same – except you can add pathetic to the equation. I mean, who voluntarily stays second banana? For years?

The thing is, like any equation, no matter how it’s computed, the result is the same: THEY SUCK.

Trust it.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  Golfgrrl

golfgrl
yeah long term AP knows she’s nothing but a side of smashed potatHo’s yet she hangs in there with baited breath. Keeping loverboy on a short leash. Going evvvvverrrrywhere with him. Asswipe taking her golfing and everything, and in OUR brand new car. That nasty bitch. NO wonder he was always keeping those cars clean. He had to clear off that nasty HO’s remnants off the seats. Pathetic only begins to describe that high level executive climbing whore.
they SUCk and she sucks more. And probably still is as she is on to the next married man…I’m sure!

Blindside
Blindside
5 years ago

My ex-wife’s OM was also married. And they used to arrange for all of us to hang out together frequently (and around my ex’s friends who knew about the affair). While me, our kids, and his wife were sitting there obliviously while they gabbed away with one another.

Who does that shit? What do these people tell themselves? I struggled with that for a long time, but I finally concluded (after reading about untangling the skein from CL and hanging out on here) that they’re just a couple of selfish f-ing idiots who apparently bask in the glow of drama.

It also helped me understand that my ex and I are completely different people with completely different values and completely different outlooks on life – and that’s actually helped me move on. They’re just people who are complete morons, that’s all.

DavidB
DavidB
5 years ago
Reply to  Blindside

They say, they exposure and name dropping, is a part of the sick thrill.

Zell
Zell
5 years ago
Reply to  Blindside

Psychos do that. Scumbags do that. They are the lowest of the low. That includes the knowing friends. Disgusting filthy people.

Blindside
Blindside
5 years ago
Reply to  Zell

I don’t know how these people all handled it. I mean, this went on every other weekend for a few years. If I were my ex or the OM, I would have had a nervous breakdown. Not to mention how embarrassed I’d be carrying all of that on in front of my friends. It’s just not something I think I’m even physically capable of handling. You might as well ask me to go rob a bank – I couldn’t do that either.

As for the “friends” watching all of this – I would have been so uncomfortable, I would have made it a point to have “other plans” or got the heck out of there (who wants to watch that crap?). I’ll never understand these people.

Zell
Zell
5 years ago
Reply to  Zell

In my case, two women who actually entrusted me to watch over their own children, all the while celebrating my Cheater Wife’s “coolness” of being a cheater.

hollowbunny
hollowbunny
5 years ago

I’ve learned a lot about myself and others in the last 4 years. I’m not healed. But Im really good. The biggest eye openers have been that some people need to Win or be perceived as Winners. Of course that means there are Losers, and losers are what make Winners Win. That people want to “win” at all costs, even within a nuclear family, came as a shock to me. Perfect chump that I’ve always been, I accepted being the designated loser. Spackling, everything necessary to keep the game going. I realized that I only want to be in relationships where everyone wins. People need losers to help themselves feel Superior.

The other thing I learned was that needing to be perceived as awesome is a major driving force for the disordered. All the cartwheels and circus tricks necessary to convince others of ones awesomeness are somehow easier than just quietly being awesome, good, generous, honest, loyal. I seriously had no idea that people did this.

Third was that people can look you in the eye, say they love you, and not mean one whit of it. I didn’t know this was possible. And I’ve been around the block. I can teach a bird to say I love you, he probably doesn’t mean it, but man, is everyone fucking impressed. No offence to the avian community.

Accepting that people don’t care about me, people I trusted and needed for 30 years, people I believed, was a tough pill. But now I get it. And I appreciate the relationships I have that are genuine and true. I’m lucky I have those, so no loss on the other assholes, just shame at the time I wasted feeling guilty about those assholes. Gaslighting is an art, isn’t it?

So as to what motivates these pieces of shit, it’s hard to ever know. The intense fear that people have about being genuine and being themselves, the fear of being judged or perceived as less than, is what I’ve noticed in my past relationships, platonic, familial, romantic. Watching someone spend an entire meal making sure the server (never to be seen again) is impressed by him/her as opposed to engaging with the people at his/her own fucking table is pretty unsettling. Being the person ignored at the table for a whole evening, then being told by said server how fucking lucky I am, really screws with your head. Then I realized that none of it has anything to do with me. I’ve just been an inanimate trinket, treated as attractive when necessary, used to accessorize the true star, then put back in the drawer. And of course met with incredulity when I ask “wtf was that?” Just writing that gives me that nauseating tightness in my chest.

This is when I really understood “trust that they suck.” I have to accept it the way we all accept the weather. It just is.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  hollowbunny

This is a pretty awesome summary of the suck.

JustWondering
JustWondering
5 years ago
Reply to  hollowbunny

Hollow bunny, you have written beautifully about these painful truths. I still struggle with accepting that “I love you” can mean absolutely nothing coming from some people’s mouths. To me those are holy words, to be said in the most special and meaningful circumstances only. But then, I’m not a narcissist.

RickStarWife
RickStarWife
5 years ago
Reply to  JustWondering

Yeah, Hollow Bunny.
I remember my boyfriend walking with me hand on hand, then coldly tellling me hat he didn’t see me in his future, and then within half an hour telling me, ‘I love you.’ WTF? I also remember another day after discarded me (he discarded me more than once while I was still foolishly hopeful that I could win the Pick Me Dance, him asking me if I loved him. As a loving Chump, I truthfully said ‘Yes.’ He then told me that he didn’t love me as much as I loved him. WTF? Why ask if you have already decided to discard the person you know loves you? I think that him asking was mainly a covert narc’s bid for kibble. I still remember him telling me shortly after we started dating that his hairstylist asked him who pursued who and he replied that I had pursued him. I don’t think that he ever truly loved me. I think that he loved my adoration of him. Oddly, he seemed to love his adulterous, abusive ex-wife but not me, his loving, loyal friend/girlfriend. I suspect a case of considering someone who is hard to get more valuable and thus more desirable. Why do so many people feel compelled to play these games? I used to feel quite humiliated that he treated me way, way worsethan his horrendous ex-wife, like garbage. What did him treating me way worse than her say about my value? Now, perhaps I am a bit healthier. I think of him treating her way better than me (instead of appreciating a fellow Chump, me, after such abuse), as I sign of his disorder, not so much as a sign of my failings as a human being. I am starting to fully realize that although I, like everyone else, am imperfect, I deserved way better treatment than I got.

ICanSeeTheMehComing!
ICanSeeTheMehComing!
5 years ago

So Done… Chump Lady is so right (shocking, huh?). I obsessed about the final OW (my X was a internet dating whore, but left for this Gym Girl w/2 kids and nice big house and a rich family)… and it was really misplaced energy. She was a fuckwit in denial. She considered my X available to date because he moved out of our home. He didn’t file for divorce (I finally had to after a year)… he didn’t tell her the truth (he told her we took separate vacations prior to his moving out, nope, never happened)… he made her believe he loved her (he was still trolling Adult Friend Finder for couples/groups)… and you know what – she hated ME… that’s the irony here folks… TRIANGULATION is Disney to a narc… all kibbles with extended park hours.

Get off the ride. Get a lawyer. File. Go no contact (it can be done, even with kids… I’m doing it and it works fine.)

The OW – who cares. If the only thing that bonds your spouse to the OW/OM is scheming about YOU, that relationship isn’t going to last. Step away… go live a new cheater free life.

Langele
Langele
5 years ago

Nobody knows what was said to the other woman.
In my case he made it clear that he was living with his son and his sons children he was available oh yes available.
I waited more than a month and a half
of his persistent predating
And probably a couple months of stalking me before that.
After I was hooked and took me about 10 months to unhook myself and two more months to rid myself of the horror that that relationship was.
Narc sociopaths are dangerous people.

Langele
Langele
5 years ago
Reply to  Langele

Two more years

brit
brit
5 years ago

Well said Hollowbunny, I know exactly how you feel when you have people are telling you how lucky you are to be married to this person who has been performing all evening. They have no idea who he actually is behind closed doors.
This is who the AP has to look forward to once the honeymoon period ends. They don’t magically change, only for appearances.

hollowbunny
hollowbunny
5 years ago
Reply to  brit

My cheater was so in need of being awesome that he found himself, a clone of his disordered self, as the ow. No love, just a 6 month fuck mirror. Granted she wanted the life I’d spent 30 years building, as if she thought she and her 4 kids were entitled, let alone she was married. But what he discovered immediately was that being with someone like him totally sucked. Getting sucked into her vortex of selfishness, lying, instability, and bad parenting was not fun for someone who had gotten used to being with a kick ass hot shit like me. Smart, responsible, a true partner, dependable, trustworthy, and presentable – how boring for him. He had no idea how lovely life with me was, until I wasn’t sweeping up behind him. Once this loser (me) was gone, away from his crazy family, he suddenly had to deal. And his shit spiraled downward. In his search for the golden ticket to lifetime happiness, he never realized that the ticket was me the whole time. And the look on his face when the therapist told him that, was like watching wile e coyote get blown up. He saw every mask in his life of disordered shits slip. The truth had been right beside him and he had chosen liars instead.

yooper01
yooper01
5 years ago
Reply to  hollowbunny

hollowbunny, you hit the nail on the head. The only eventual regret these “cheaters” feel is the regret of losing the person who managed their lives. They lost their “easy street” lifestyle that allowed the time to cheat in the first place.

Langele
Langele
5 years ago
Reply to  hollowbunny

Kick ass hot shit.
That’s my mantra for the week.
And the rest of what you wrote too.

Damn straight.

Calmafterstorm
Calmafterstorm
5 years ago

My rage is 100% directed at Fucktard. But I have to say I view CFMD as a weird biological specimen. Something that I peer closely at from time to time, trying to figure out what her place in the evolutionary ladder is.

How does she function? How does she not see that co-writing emails and texts with Fucktard to me is not ….. done? That giving my children who are legally barred from seeing her cast off cheap jewelry and used books at Christmas is tacky? That sending handwritten recipe cards home with my kids after they visit their Dad is thirsty as hell?

One would think I was the Other Woman.

How does that psychology work? What lies has she told herself to make this marital bliss with my ex work? Why on Earth would she ever think that I of all people! That I would want to learn to cook her eggplant lasagna? It’s intrusive and gross.

What makes her tick, I wonder? I cannot wrap my head around such astoundingly bad judgement in all the things that she does.

NotANiceChump
NotANiceChump
5 years ago
Reply to  Calmafterstorm

Boundary issues. At least you have good ones.

Leavealyingloser
Leavealyingloser
5 years ago
Reply to  Calmafterstorm

Calmafterthestorm these ows are so horrid. If you only knew the cheap tacky secondhand garbage that somehow made its way to my house. Gross. I still find myself in total shock.

KB22
KB22
5 years ago
Reply to  Calmafterstorm

Could be a couple of reasons for her absurd attempts to reach out. She could be threatened and trying to win you over so wait for it……you won’t steal her man! Your could be triangulating you without your knowledge. Another reason could be a desperate attempt to make sure to stay in his life through his kids/family. One Owife I know was desperately trying to ingratiate herself with cheater’s kids and ex wife as cheater was checking out of the marriage for quite some time. He actually started shortly after they married. She thought this would keep him in the marriage. She was very friendly with the ex wife (after blowing up her marriage) and assumed the part of the devoted step parent. Of course it did no good. OWife was dumped for another woman and cheater’s kids, while civil to her, never really forgave her for breaking up their family when they were young. They have nothing to do with her. It is if she never existed. The first ex-wife and cheater’s (now adult) kids still treat the cheater with kid gloves but that’s another story.

KB22
KB22
5 years ago
Reply to  KB22

“Your Ex” could be triangulating you

I Got The House
I Got The House
5 years ago
Reply to  Calmafterstorm

She’s CRAY CRAY!!! Probably a flaming codependent who cannot stand the fact that someone doesn’t “like” her.

kimmy
kimmy
5 years ago
Reply to  Calmafterstorm

Calm……she wants to impress you. She wants you to like her. She wants to show you that she isn’t all that bad. Maybe she even wants to be your friend. She won over your husband with her charm and Martha Stewart ways……now she wants to win you over too! CRAZY!!!!!!

Roberta
Roberta
5 years ago

The OW I dealt with lived in a bubble for sure. She did not answer her phone when I called, she tried so hard to convince everyone that this was her “first rodeo” so to speak. Yep, she was soooo innocent and my cheater just swept her off her feet!! NOT! My beloved FIL assured me that she was walking a well worn path that her behavior was the normal (read: old whore). She wanted anything of value that I had and would drive past my house numerous times while she was in town. I guess she was trying to guess how much it would be worth on the market. These OW/OM are soulless creatures, but so are the cheaters! Let them have each other and watch them eat each other alive. Their relationship has nothing to do with real love, but more to do with their comfort and financial bottom line. If that isn’t working for them then they bail pretty quickly. We mean nothing to them. Our kids even less. We are mere impediments to their nirvana. They cannot and will not talk to you and if they do it is in nonsensical circles, like going through a blender! Just don’t waste your time. Divorce and move on.

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
5 years ago

I (and I’m sure many others here) always get a slightly different perspective on this because my WS was also the OW. In the eternal debate – who deserves more blame, the WS or the OW/OM? – my XW plays both roles, so I don’t even have to decide.

Strangely, in many ways I am angrier at my XW for destroying OBS’s marriage (15 years and two kids) than my own (17 years and three kids). Perhaps because I am aware of the problems in my own marriage, and somehow feel like since it was her marriage too she has a right to torpedo it if she so wishes; but OBS is just a wonderful person who didn’t deserve to have her life yanked out from under her this way. If the only way to fill the hole in your soul is to destroy your own family, I guess that’s what you’re going to do – but was it really necessary to destroy another whole family in the process?

UnsinkableMollyXinAlabama
UnsinkableMollyXinAlabama
5 years ago

So you cheated, then married your mistress who then cheated on you???
What does OBS mean?

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
5 years ago

OBS = “other betrayed spouse”.

No, my wife cheated with a married man. Broke up both marriages: mine to her, and his to OBS. So my normal perspective is as a man whose wife cheated on him, but when women write in about “what was the OW thinking”, I sometimes put on my other hat and reflect on how my XW was doing that too: she was destroying another marriage (as the OW) while she was destroying mine (as the WW).

After all the divorces were finalized I had a very long conversation with OBS. My WW has never acknowledged that the affair happened at all, but the OBS knows the timing pretty well (she has credit card receipts, and got a kind of confession from her then-husband). Our experiences were uncannily similar and we’ve become pretty good friends since. We keep each other up to date, since one or the other of us is going to get sued for majority custody so our now-engaged ex-spouses can move to be together. I’m hoping OBS will get stranded in Atlanta some day so we can meet in real life.

UnsinkableMollyXinAlabama
UnsinkableMollyXinAlabama
5 years ago

Oh, OK, gotcha.

You’re right. The idea of how can they… will drive you nearly insane.

I lived outside of Hot-Lanta long ago, up near Rome.

RealMonkeyLove
RealMonkeyLove
5 years ago

IG

Same here, my ex Cheating W was also OW. She’s simply a self obsessed arsehole who only cares about herself. As long as she gets what she wants, who cares. I think OM wanted my life as well. I’m pretty successful while he isn’t. Simple as that.

Golfgrrl
Golfgrrl
5 years ago
Reply to  RealMonkeyLove

Ditto.

kimmy
kimmy
5 years ago

So Done…….I can relate to everything you wrote. I felt the exact same way. I asked myself the very same questions. What I discovered was that I was giving the OW (married mom of 3) more clout as a compassionate human being BECAUSE she was also a mom. I thought she should have decency than my then husband just because she was a woman and a mom. One that wouldn’t want to see her children hurt either. You know, I thought, men are just prone to this cheating gig. Woman…..not so much. (Sorry to the men of CN. I realize this is just not so).

Men and women who cheat are just horrible individuals who have no morals, no empathy and lack self control. They are selfish and do not think of the devastation that will fall in their wake. And they don’t care either.

Your STBX and his OW are on the same level. The fact that she is mom changes nothing. Except for the fact that she has now hurt her own children as well.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  kimmy

This is so true. No one deserves credit/benefit of the doubt for the ability to procreate, regardless of their gender. Being a shitty person doesn’t render you infertile.

Zell
Zell
5 years ago

How can an AP be an AP ? The same reason the cheater is a cheater. The cheater and the AP are one and the same. Same dysfunctional unhinged thinking. Groin Thinkers. They are a match made in Hell. Let them live together there.

cheaterssuck
cheaterssuck
5 years ago

The ex and OW were both gold and silver winners. He won the gold he sucks for our marriage while she won the gold she sucks for hers. While going through wreckconciliation it was so much easier (on the ex) for me to focus all my hatred and anger on her. Once we divorced I focused that anger towards him.

Sure she was a horrible human being who helped implode my children’s in tact family but she did me a huge favor. I would have stayed with that emotionally abusive crap weasel for the rest of my life if she didn’t come along.

As for how OW/OM can knowingly be an interloper? Because they can. The OW pulled the “it’s not what I did it’s how you reacted to it routine” with me after I informed her stbx of the shenanigans of the past three years. He apparently responded with not wanting to have anything to do with her ever again. To her that meant “I hurt him instead of hurting her like I intended”

Of course she would think that. She’s a deludinoid who believes the entire universe revolves around her. I get a little warm and fuzzy when I think of the prizes they both “won”

Good luck with that!

Golfgrrl
Golfgrrl
5 years ago
Reply to  cheaterssuck

Ditto here, too.

RealMonkeyLove
RealMonkeyLove
5 years ago
Reply to  cheaterssuck

Amen to that

cashmere
cashmere
5 years ago

Ah, the AP. bothered me endlessly at first, which is a completely understandable and human reaction. I don’t think I quite buy that he gets the gold medal in deception and infidelity. I think this is a team sport, and though he may be the captain of the team, she absolutely stands right next to him on the podium, and gets a medal all her own.

In my better moments–I’m not yet highly evolved enough to have a ton of these–I feel some compassion for them both. That they would never, ever grasp that is actually part of why. Not sure how a person goes through life with no moral compass at all. You’d think the dark places they end up in with nothing to guide them would lead to a breakthrough, but no. Their version of satisfaction comes precisely from submitting to nothing higher. They are pure willfulness, and that is scary and sad in about equal measure.

At first, I imagined that there was some sort of compelling love or intimacy there that I just was not good enough to inspire, but then I realized that, no, there is nothing of love about what they have wrought.

Not the kind of gold medal any good person would want to earn. Wonder what anthem plays as they stand there receiving it?

Something by Wagner, maybe? Or AC/DC? Maybe Black Sabbath? Hard to say.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  cashmere

I vote for the theme song from Jaws.

Cardigirl
Cardigirl
5 years ago

Remember this about the Other Person. If it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else. They are not super special, they are not magical, they were found by your ex and got involved. If they had not gotten involved, it doesn’t mean your ex would now be your loving husband/wife, it means that it would have been a different Other Person.

It took me awhile to realize this, but when I found out that there had been multiple Other Persons throughout the marriage, it became clear to me that the Other Person, while behaving in a way I find immoral, was only Somebody New for my ex. The fault was in his moral makeup.

KB22
KB22
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

So true!! The OW is not special and always a downgrade to be honest. The crazy making though is the cheater has checked out and has not informed his wife/family. The wife & kids have no idea cheater has checked out as he pretty much goes about his life as he always does until the other person pops up and is available to him or he lands one of the women he is pursuing. Then the dismissive attitude, being annoyed at the way you breathe and the lies all begin.

RockStarWife
RockStarWife
5 years ago
Reply to  KB22

KB22,
^THIS^

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

My therapist told me this, too, that if it wouldn’t have been this OW, it would have been some other woman. So no. They’re not special. At all.

RealMonkeyLove
RealMonkeyLove
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

Yes!!!!

OhHellNo
OhHellNo
5 years ago

“If I ran into the OW today (one of them… there were a bunch), my reaction would range from ridicule (“Nice hair scrunchie, Alyson”) to pity (how could you waste your life on such a horrible person?)”

I have spent (too many) long hours fantasizing about what quippy one-liners I would sling at OWs if I ever ran into her/them. (Although truthfully, I would probably just break down into a weeping, sobbing mess and run from the room.)

Still, in my fantasies:

“Darla, I’m sorry your newborn missed out on having a mom all those long hours while you were fucking my husband in the basement the month after she was born.
And I hope your episiotomy repair didn’t get infected since you didn’t wait the recommended six weeks.”

and my very favorite:

“Oh, Jenine, sorry. I didn’t recognize you without cum dripping down your face.”

There are more OWs and more quips but those are my favorites.

Dana
Dana
5 years ago

I think there is a big difference between random fuck buddies and the OW who we know and have spent time with.

It would be very easy to ignore and be dismissive of some slut my H screwed. Of course he is responsible
for his actions and my focus needs to be on him.

But I am not letting the OW in my life off the hook. She is a co-worker, knows me and our family and yes, my H did
betray me, but so did she. The two of them led double lives until I put a stop to it. I had the pleasure of telling her H
and I am so glad I did.

The blames shifting was classic! I was accused of telling her husband as if I did something terrible; there was no ownership
of their affair and all the damage that caused. BTW the husband was so grateful. He knew she was cheating but had no idea
who the guy was, although my H was on his short-list.

I pray daily for her to suffer tenfold for the pain she caused me and for my cheating H, I have my own special prayer.

BowTie
BowTie
5 years ago

I had an interesting conversation with my barber a week or two ago. He’s well familiar with my situation and sympathetic.

We did get on the topic of what he would do if he lost his own wife. He jokingly said that he would be a “man-whore” and that there were a lot of women around married and not that would take him up on it (possibly true – he’s good looking, personable and reasonably well off).

My reaction was quick to tell him that I didn’t think that appropriate and he sobered up and agreed and will probably never suggest that again in my presence.

But where I’m coming from on this story is that a probably huge portion the un-chumped world would be open to screwing around with someone who was married but willing if they themselves were available. For my barber the fact that he would be causing harm to people just like the guy he’s known for 30 years who happens to be sitting in the chair in front of him never even seemed to cross his mind.

In my own case I’m sure that OM never gave a rats ass about the destruction that he jointly with my ex caused in multiple people’s lives. Other than perhaps having to listen to my ex “IF” she talked about it as she dragged out leaving me for him I expect he wasn’t even thinking about it.

Some people are selfish. Selfish assholes make selfish assholiean choices.

BT

NotANiceChump
NotANiceChump
5 years ago
Reply to  BowTie

This is profound. I also think that people buy into the whole “it’s just what people do” narrative, so they are able to act selfishly because it’s tacitly condoned by society.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago

Ug the OW. I didn’t ask for her to invade my life. I didn’t pick her but I still have to put up with her. I try to avoid her but ex keeps insisting on having her turn up wherever I am, back to school night, my kids’ orchestra concert, my son’s boy scout pancake breakfast. I am sure she will be turning up at the little league baseball games this season, probably high school graduation as well. She even turned up at the accountant’s office two and a half hours away. My appointment overlapped with ex because we had some deductions that we had to split from 2017. His appointment was first but he stayed around through mine. I didn’t want to walk out with him so I slipped out while he was making small talk with the accountant. When I walked out I saw her in the parking lot. Seriously, doesn’t she have a life? What about her four kids still at home, don’t they ever need her? I can’t get away from the turd. I knew I would still have to deal with ex turd sometimes due to the kids, but her too? Now ex is putting pressure on me to acknowledge her and be cordial whenever we are in the same place. Of course I realize that a lot of this is my own damn fault. I have been cordial towards ex because it makes coordinating kids, finances, etc. easier and it is easier on the kids to see us more or less getting along. I am starting to think that was a mistake, however, because ex seems to think that now Schmoopie deserves the same consideration. She isn’t related to the kids though and I don’t feel that me “getting along” with her benefits the kids in the same way as “getting along” with their Dad. Dad has the option breaking up with Schmoopie and finding a new girlfriend. I would welcome that as it would give me a chance to prove how cordial and friendly I could be to a new love interest who isn’t in the habit of tearing families apart. Unfortunately, I don’t get to pick who fucktard chooses to fuck. He also doesn’t get to decide who I choose to be cordial to and who I chose to ignore. He can try and thrust her into my face all he wants. I will just work that much harder at refusing to acknowledge her existence. He can also try all he wants to convince people that she is a good person. He may even convince some of them, but it’s still a lie. They both suck and although some may be fooled, most people are going to recognize it on some level. I don’t think they will ever have full acceptance of their relationship by anybody who is aware of its adulterous nature. I am sure ex will just blame my “rudeness” for that. He really is a clueless fucktard.

Feeling Stronger Every Day
Feeling Stronger Every Day
5 years ago

There is a great scene in Little House on the Prairie where Pa and Ma are invited to spend time with some snobs at a big horse farming mansion near Philly.

The couple that own the mansion both conspire to get Ma and Pa alone with them so they can make their adulterous sexy time moves.

The conniving rich wife gets Charles “Pa” alone by himself at her lake. She grabs his hand and tries to be coquettish and says “oh my your hands are so strong.” Bats eyelashes. Licks lips.

Pa pulls his hand back with a definite disgust and says: Yes. They got that way from shoveling manure.

He then stands up and says it’s time for us to leave.

The world will always be full of temptationand …..the devil is always whispering on every side. It is very easy to tell someone *Get lost.*

As CL excellently stated in the article, to extrapolate it a little more- I’ll be damned if I’m going to be in a relationship with someone I have to police.

OW are legion. OM are legion. With social media, literally cheating is as easy as a click. (The Internet bites back)
If you’re with someone who wants to cheat, there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop them- except exit stage left.

Perhaps my nights are dullsville . But I would rather be alone then watch the X makes eyes with anything with a pulse. Fuck that noise.

Let those critters have each other. A life lived of peeking over one shoulder, checking phones and under the bed and stomp down drag out fights over who’s zooming who? ( to quote Aretha)

Pass.
What’s next?

Free Vix
Free Vix
5 years ago

My ex’s OW was married at the time of their affair and (blessedly) had no children. Now she and my ex are together and they share a toddler who is now the same age my son was when they were cheating. I occasionally wonder if motherhood has changed her perspective on the amount of damage she (and ex) did, not just to her husband and me, but to my child. And the answer to that question is no, otherwise she would have made some effort to repair the damage they did. My former in-laws, her ex husband, and I have heard radio silence from her on this front. (Which is fine, as I don’t want to hear from her.) My ex once told me (in a way that was unintentionally highly insulting) that now that they have a child, they’re “just amazed” by how much I do on my own. The bottom line is that they are convinced of their own superiority and the inevitability of the outcome. I truly believe that they think “life” dealt us chumps a bad hand and that they are just bystanders who happened to be in a particular place at a particular time. They are idiots.

JC
JC
5 years ago
Reply to  Free Vix

Radio silence, yup.

But I wouldn’t believe anything she said at this point, regardless. If CW reached out and apologized, saying that she’d grown and seen the damage she did to me (and you, your son, and all of our families), I would say “Thank you” and then hang up the phone.

My attitude is consistent with the reason I left her: at a certain point, even if she told the genuine truth, I wouldn’t believe her…because she’d trained me to expect dishonesty and manipulation for so long.

It’s like The Boy Who Cried Wolf…er, The Skank Who Claimed Remorse.

She destroyed the right to be taken seriously.

Free Vix
Free Vix
5 years ago
Reply to  JC

Yep, absolutely. I have no need to speculate about what she *might* think about the consequences of her choices as a new mom when I have all the evidence I need to demonstrate that she gives as many fucks now as she did then (which is none). If she keeps hanging on like an epic clinger on the backside of a furry dog, then I’ll eventually have to deal with her, and that will be a tough conversation for her to try to initiate. Regardless, I agree that anything she might say to either of us would be about her own agenda, and ain’t nobody got time for that.

I Got The House
I Got The House
5 years ago
Reply to  Free Vix

Oh God, I’m so thankful no children were involved in my break up. I’m so impressed with how you fellow chumps make your way through this crap when there are kids involved. Free Vix, I would have wanted to punch him in his stupid face for that comment…”just amazed”. WTF. Fucktard.

Lost 220# Deadweight
Lost 220# Deadweight
5 years ago

Douchbag McGee and I called Homeslice when he decided he wanted to work on the marriage and I was deep in the Pick Me Dance. While the three of us were on speakerphone, I asked her if they were having unprotected sex because we were still having sex. She asked Douchebag McGee if that was true. He sadly said, “yes” then asked me what the fuck was I doing and how I ruined any chances for him to get promoted (they work together). I spoke to her at length and told her if not for me, have enough respect for our children to let us end this how we need to. She told me my marriage was fucked before she ever got involved (apparently so, however why didn’t anyone tell me?……always the last to know).

Four months later I showed up at the hospital where he was having surgery (I refused to take him since I told him I wasn’t going to be in the role of caring for him any longer as long as he did not act like a husband). She was in the waiting room with his personal items. I walked up to her and told her this would be the last time I had a discussion with her about being involved with a married man and that any further discussion would be through the courts (my state is one of the few where you can still file alienation of affection/criminal conversation against the other person). I walked away, couldn’t help myself and walked back and said, “by the way, you are a lot fatter in person than your pictures”. Not my shining moment, however I was calm and it did make me feel better for a moment.

It hurt, it hurt like hell. I also have come to realize that we cannot expect others to behave on the same moral compass that we do. We compare ourselves to the OW asking ourselves what they have that we don’t, how we could be more like them. My ex even told me he wanted me to treat him like she did……hard to do that when you are fucking around. NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING is lacking in us. It is something that is lacking in our exes as well as the person that chose to have that relationship with a married person. It is about entitlement, them deserving to be “happy” and having their own needs met, even if it hurts people. We all should just be happy that we don’t work like that. I believe we all have something better to offer than living a life trying to mold ourselves into a caricature of what someone else wants.

kb
kb
5 years ago

CL and CN are spot on, as usual.

My sister once shared an apartment with a woman who had a thing for married men. Once she discovered this, my sister was disgusted by her roommate’s morals. This woman would talk about how the men thought she was irresistible, and then she’d go sleep with them. On one occasion, she let it be known that she was sleeping with a man who was married with four children.

My sister let loose on her. How could this woman casually destroy the lives of 6 people? How could she ruin the trusting wife’s life by cheating with the husband? How could she casually disregard the needs of those four children?

The answer? “He could have said no.”

And this is why the Cheater sucks. Lots of people face temptation, but the majority know that any attraction they feel is ephemeral and will lead to heartache if they follow through.

The OW (or OM)? Yep, they suck too. My sister’s old roommate was a predatory woman. So was CheaterX’s Schmoopie. Schmoopie’s only long-term relationships were with other people’s husbands.

So yes, Schmoopie is no saint, but in the Adultery Olympics, she gets the silver for douchebaggery; CheaterX still gets the gold.

knittedrobin
knittedrobin
5 years ago

I suspect they particularly choose a married man with young kids because when he rejects his family for them it makes them feel so thrillingly important. When I read emails from my OW to ex it was clear he was the second married man she had taken away from a small son. Years later she wrote a sob-story email to my son about what a hard life she’d had, how her parents had rejected her and always preferred her brother… Strange how it all fitted psychologically.
I’ve just been working (in a professional capacity) with a woman who took half a dozen husbands away from their small children in her lifetime. She also told a sad tale about her childhood where she was endlessly rejected by her own father and by foster parents.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  knittedrobin

They like the conquest (cue the link by Elizabeth Gilbert I posted the other day). It’s like skiing–the bigger the hill conquered, the bigger the rush. Hence men (or women) who are married and with children are bigger affair “prizes” than singles.

Cheaters don’t think like we do; as Hollowbunny said above, they think in terms of Winners and Losers. And they are determined to be the Winners no matter how many innocent people they trample.

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

To them it’s not necessarily about destroying your life- it’s about proving to themselves they are worth more than this great life the spouse already has. It’s fucked up. They don’t see it as the same when they are trying desperately to maintain their connection as the new winner with the cheater, that’s different. Because they are broken in their brains. They are the real definition of special snowflakes. They think they are new and shiny and unique but the story is the same. They are awful and demented and surface people

duped
duped
5 years ago

No you know what it is…it’s that it’s that a SINGLE guy would not have that whore…and if our husbands weren’t any good, then they would not be going after him…The big Howorker that fucked my husband was actually excelling in life by knowing my husband. She was only into snagging my husband because I know she must have thought, wow, this guy really likes me he’s showering me with gifts and I all I have to do is tell him how great he is and screw him
I am sure that boosted her self esteem. Then they Were such BIG sleezes that they were able to keep their little fuck fest to themselves. Being i separable on their romantic getaways etc. and rubbing her cow udders on him at work. I can just see that whore’s face and know what she was doing…she did not give an F about anybody but herself. SHe was out to snag a good looking sexy successful guy and she was never going to let him go. THey thought they had it made. I hate that bitch. She was calling the shots telling him how to get rid of me, I Know it. She’s not innocent. She went for what she wanted. She is an ugly skank with saggy tits

Cardigirl
Cardigirl
5 years ago
Reply to  knittedrobin

Did she hold a gun to their heads, this woman who ‘took half a dozen husbands away from their small children’?

I understand that for some people there is a challenge involved in seducing a married person. But in the end, those husbands chose their actions. They may have regretted doing so, or they may not have, but she didn’t ‘take’ anything that wasn’t available.

And it sounds like this lifestyle of hers was not ultimately satisfying.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

She encourages and facilitates them. She is like the drug dealer to addicts. It takes two to cheat. She was the willing other half to many and she doesn’t stop at fucking them but pressures them into blowing up their families too. True the assholes were willing, but she was definitely exploiting their weaknesses and good people don’t encourage bad behavior in others for personal gain.

knittedrobin
knittedrobin
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

You are right. She didn’t take anything that wasn’t available. Maybe over the years she had learned the right thing to say and do , though,which ,made it easier for those sleazy husbands to cave in.
I increasingly think the entire world is divided into people who are (or would be) chumps, and those who would always be the OM or OW. And the two groups really dislike each other.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago

I do buy it that OW wants the cheater’s family to be invisible and irrelevant. Maybe we’re even awful, so that she can swoop in like a savior empath, and rescue that poor, beleaguered man from the wife and kids. (Boy, isn’t SHE in for a surprise….Surprise!)

But I do not buy it that she had no obligation to me and to my kids. It’s not a lot to ask of anyone that they not be a sleazy piece of shit, and stay in their own lane. It’s not a lot to ask that anyone, including an OW/OM be a decent human being, and leave married people and their families alone. You know, unless there is something really fundamentally wrong with them, mentally/emotionally. Which, well, evidence. So maybe we DO have to give them a pass. And good luck to the two of them.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Stephanie

I completely agree, OW/OM bear some of the blame and the responsibility. They violated morals, a social contract, and a “girl code” or “guy code.” Whatever excuses they make to themselves, they helped cause the break up of each one of our families or relationships. They have agency, and they used it for evil rather than good, for pain rather than positivity.

Cardigirl
Cardigirl
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Tempest, do you really believe that if they hadn’t broken the “code” your relationship would have remained intact and thriving? That’s what I don’t understand about “blaming” the other person for “stealing” someone’s happy life. If the OP disappeared today, what would happen?

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

p.s. In the original post, I didn’t “blame” the AP for “stealing” my happy life. I assigned to them moral responsibility for their actions.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Perfect. Agree 100%!

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

Whether an OP disappears or not is irrelevant; my own view is that once a person has cheated on their partner, the relationship is over and should not be revived. Who wants to get back with a dishonest person who stabbed you in the back deliberately. I don’t believe that reconciliation or getting back together with a cheating X is a good idea under 99.99999% of circumstances.

Tempest
Tempest
5 years ago
Reply to  Cardigirl

The woman I divorced my husband for having an affair with was long-gone (I discovered his affair from 8 years prior). Did her affair cause me to suffer through a massive devalue with a lot of pain? Yes. Did it signal the beginning of the end of my marriage because the relationship no longer had a fighting chance? Yes, something switched off in my X after that affair, even though he stayed in the relationship (I noticed this even though I had no clue about the affair).

If it hadn’t been gradwhore, would it have been someone else? Yes. Does that absolve her of responsibility? No. Would my relationship had been thriving even if she hadn’t appeared in the picture? No, can’t ever have a ‘thriving’ relationship with a narcissist (as my X clearly is). Would my marriage have been intact without her? Yes. [Don’t get me wrong–I am glad my marriage ended, and that X’s affair gave me the final push to leave him. As Tracy says, though, for the AP to take credit for that is like drunk driving & killing someone, then claiming it led to the person’s mother developing a talent for public speaking through MADD.]

If NO one ever violated a girl or guy code, there could be no affairs (except unwitting ones). Most moral philosophies take into account the Intention of the actor. OWs and OMs cannot, if they know a person is married, have perfectly good intentions. If they know children are involved? Quadruple the blame. Therefore, whether they succeed in breaking up a marriage or not is irrelevant. They have engaged in behaviors that society deems wrong, and they deserve some of the responsibility for the pain they cause.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Pppt! And what about a “kid code”? You don’t fuck with kids by playing a leading role in fucking up their family.

The coward showed how much he cared about my kids when he ran off with a female who profited from and encouraged his lies, who was delighted as they and their mother were being gutted. How is that attractive in a woman? How does she sleep at night? How does he? I’ll never understand that.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

WOW! Brava, Tempest! I could not have said it better.

All I had was this: just because my ex turned out to be a dirtbag coward doesn’t mean the twat he ran off with isn’t one, too.

I do sometimes think about mailing her a big thank-you card. But I won’t. He burned my kids and me. She handed him the fuel and matches.

They’re both scum. I don’t know how they smile.

Keepin Calm
Keepin Calm
5 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

“They have engaged in behaviors that society deems wrong, and they deserve some of the responsibility for the pain they cause.”

THIS.

During a conversation with our daughter about the Whore, my ex told our daughter that he was 100% responsible for what he did (I know, amazing!) and not to blame the whore. My daughter shot back, “She knew you were married. She’s just as responsible.”

And that’s exactly right. She could have said, “No, you’re married, and I do not have relationships with married men.” She didn’t.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago
Reply to  Stephanie

Ok. I just picked up a bag of dog poo off the back lawn, and it has me thinking about the Cheaterr/AP dynamic.

I totally GET that thiefs, squatters, skanks are a dime a dozen. I totally get that. Super common, and if it hadn’t been the rescue twat in my situation, sure as he was on AFF/AM, and trolling at work and back home, there would have been a different soul mate (there were so many soul mates of his in our relationship, all one-sided, as far as I knew….) I get it.

I get that the best defense against intruders is a solid front door. I’m sure most married men and women have had plenty of opportunities to cheat, and don’t. I know that I did, personally, and I didn’t cheat, even when my husband at the time treated me like crap.

I get it. My ex opened the front door and let her right in–only he could have done that. It was HIS responsibility, as it was mine, to keep that door closed, and he failed. Well, he didn’t so much fail as do it deliberately.

But she didn’t have to walk on in. She could have walked away.

Like I said–I had plenty of opportunities to do to some family what she did to mine, and I didn’t. Because I’m not like her. Thanks God, I’m not like her. I think that’s where anger is best channeled–use it steel your determination to never be like an AP.

duped
duped
5 years ago
Reply to  Stephanie

Stephanie
its because that whore walked right in that door that he opened up for her. it takes two to tango. and this Howorker whore that was climbing on my husband all these years was a left over skank with two kids and she must have cried her tears to my husband and for some reason he felt she was an easy target to peg, cuz she had no problem opening up those legs for a lay and probably cried that she needed help raising her kids. GOd only knows who she fucked prior to him
Their secret took a lot of effort. She was able to parade around with her in a multi billion dollar company. I bet other people knew about them. That skank. I hope she chokes on something large or better yet I hope some other married woman kicks her broad ass

Mehphista
Mehphista
5 years ago

The OW in my case, a.k.a. The Downgrade, was my ex sister in law, broke up with Mr Fab’s little bro when her Kiddo and mine were small. She moved in down the street, we were great friends with her and new partner. Felt sorry for her because she said lil bro was violent. No such thing.

She would send her kid down the street every morning so I could walk the cousins (like sisters really) to school and then go to work. The street curved and she was on the third floor. Post d-day, I found out from the shopkeeper who gave her her name, Downgrade would be in my place with Mr Fab before we were even around the corner.

Post Dday of course, they shacked up immediately, told Kiddo to lie because it would effect settlement.. blah de blah. Fast forward… Kiddo and I escaped, she starts college this fall and I will likely never financially recover. No regrets at spending all my savings on therapy for my innocent, traumatized kid. But Downgrade is a special kind of fucked up-literally a cuckoo. Of course I was a crazy bitch to point out to lil bro that a paternity test might be warranted…

This kind of post can send me down the drain, but instead when I start thinking about those two, I make myself chuckle by either playing the Benny Hill theme in my head, of the first few bars from Duelling Banjos (Deliverance).

Meh is creeping in-my life is NOT and episode of Jerry Springer or Jeremy Kyle-Kiddo recognizes their dysfunction and addiction for what it is. Still working on that career part for myself and kicking depression every god damned day. But it is nothing like the about-to-be-hit-by-a-bus feeling I had all those years. Something was up. Now I know what it was. Fuckuppedness, and that is all you need to know whether OW is your sister or a complete stranger. They all suck.

Epilogue: Kiddo back for a visit, Downgrade offering unwanted advice. Kiddo, “Once upon a time when you were my auntie I might have taken you seriously, but now you are just my dad’s girlfriend”

Keep walking, Chumps. Tuesday is closer every minute. There is no bottom to your ex and the AP’s behavior-the deeper you go, the thicker the shit.

Love to all Chump Nation

Creativerational
Creativerational
5 years ago
Reply to  Mehphista

Kiddo is amazing. That’s a great response!

Mehphista
Mehphista
5 years ago

Kiddo has Chump Nation as godparents, people a little further along the trail to Meh have been no end of help to us both. I am hella proud of her.

Stephanie
Stephanie
5 years ago
Reply to  Mehphista

I love your name for OW!

Mehphista
Mehphista
5 years ago
Reply to  Stephanie

Can’t take credit for it-it was the corner shopkeeper. I must have crawled in looking hellish and he told me he thought Mr Fab was up his own ass and she was a Downgrade.

Sunflower36
Sunflower36
5 years ago

I hate Mrs. Twatwaffles’ guts and I’m not sorry I do.