I usually bridle at the reductionist criticism “once a cheater, always a cheater.” We’re not the final word on anyone’s character. While I don’t believe in sudden character transplants, I do think character can change over time — slowly, painfully, with a lot of introspection, and a shit-ton of consequences. As I’ve argued elsewhere, however, I also don’t think character change is an attractive path for people who’ve proven themselves to be fond of escapism.
But chumps often get hung up on “Will they cheat again?” Will the Schmoopie choke on the humiliation for once? Will I someday roll on the floor with schadenfreude glee?
You don’t need to know. I’d argue in favor of MEH. Fact is, they cheated on YOU, and that’s the only data point that matters. Is this relationship acceptable to YOU?
But if you really, really need “once a cheater, always a cheater” to be true — today’s Fun Friday challenge is for you. Let’s look at the data points of recidivism. How many of us discovered that our cheaters went on to cheat on their affair partners and/or new clueless chumps?
According to the interwebs, my ex went on to cheat on more chumps. (One posted his profile on a cheater site as a warning to others.) So, my small random sample, it doesn’t appear that he’s exactly excelling at monogamy.
So, tell me CN, did anyone’s cheater get a character transplant? What’s the rate of recidivism?
TGIF!
Character change requires a lot of hard work, which cheaters are allergic to.
Short of a near-death experience, they lack the cajones to even think about taking steps to change. And even then, most of the time they will just that to further their victimhood complex.
Will just use that*
I have no idea if my ex-W cheated – I don’t keep tabs on her. I do know she told me how special her fuckbuddy was and how special he thought she was.
His ex does keep tabs on him (she’s in a bad place and has to because of kids) and she tells me about all the side dishes he has. So whilst my ex may not be a permanent cheater, the fuckbuddy she threw away her children’s happiness for is certainly a perma-cheater.
Different ex… but gf I had after cheater-ex wife…. She is definitely a perma-cheater. She tried it on with me, despite having a new love of her life. I suspect many, many cheaters fit this bill. They just want the cake and don’t give a shot about others.
When stbx told me he cheated, I told him I would forgive him and we could work it out. His response was “Once a cheater, always a cheater.” It is probably the only thing I would be willing to take his word on at this point.
God –
What a fucking asshole.
He just got worse. More often, more seedy. So after he discarded me and left for what ever piece of work the stopped over at my house and was all sad because his GF broke up with him because he cheated on her. So he’s still married to me (30+) years, living with GF and crying to me. WTF. I emailed his brother about this. His brother took him out to lunch and asked what the hell was the matter with him and that he was being cruel and inhuman towards me. Bless my introvert brother-in-law that was not easy for him. STBX now tells our adult daughters about his GF problems. The girls roll their eyes and say “high school drama.” What the hell happened to him? I don’t think he was always this way. Maybe I was drunk for 30 years. He used to be handsome, funny and sweet. Now he is fat, pasty and weird.
Same here. The AP cheated on him after about three years with a “common” friend (the operative word being “common”). The Twat was DEVASTATED so AP went from being “a nice person, you’d really like her if you met her” to “she’s an asshole, she’s a skank” and then he would burst into floods of tears – “how COULD she” do that to him!
Fat, pasty, and weird 🙂 I have an x that fits that description!
Is this a thing now??
My X begs me to talk to him because I’m his “best friend”. I haven’t seen him in years. He has emotional issues so I allow extremely limited communications. Mostly he wants to discuss his GF and their tumultuous relationship.
X was a Craigslist user and picked up randoms at bars, so no AP. I’m so detached that it doesn’t hurt – but it is quite strange to be viewed as a source of relationship wisdom for X.
It’s all so weird.
Yes. My cheater lied in marriage counseling. He went to a counselor by himself twice and couldn’t even open the book the counselor had him buy about unconditional love. I made him read the “not just friends” book by Shirley Glass. All he said was that it was painful to read. Then he went on to his next and next and next affairs.
I wish the MC saw his narcissism. He felt he was remorseful and sincere. He has regrets, but no remorse. And his regret is self-serving because he’s saddled with spousal support.
One piece of good news… I got reimbursed for the down on the house that I funded from separate property. (CA FC2460 for anyone who needs info.). He thought I’d get stuck with the capital gains on the full reimbursement. But it turns out I claim a higher cost basis which nets me the full reimbursement. (No interest and all the appreciation it earned is split.). When he comes looking for extra money for college expenses or a wedding, I’ll just ask him to float me for 25 years, interest free.
Whoops! She (MC) thought he was remorseful and sincere.
So here is a question that I cannot seem to find an answer to regarding Cost Basis:
Does the price of a divorce “buy out” count in favor for reducing Capital Gains to the “buyee”? Seems that it should count as far as cost basis goes, because I am essentially having to pay for half the house AGAIN when I buy cheater out of his share…while he gets away from ANY capital gains taxes.
Anyone know?
You need to ask a lawyer and structure your split to account for capital gains effects.
My ex had a near death experience and didn’t change. You would think getting shocked by electricity from a high voltage power pole would be enough, but no; still has the same evil personality.
Mine had a major heart attack and was hospitalized, and was telling me what a fool he had been. Meanwhile when I would leave the hospital he would be on the hallway phone calling the OW.
Interesting. My ex was the husband I married until a severe illness & near death experience. After that he became resentful towards me and was always saying that he wanted to “live” more and that life with me was so dull. He said he wanted to fall in love “for real”. Then I found out about AP years later. The rest is history. So he has the “twu wuv” he had always wanted and I have a new “interesting ” life with my kids. He was always a narc but something about that experience really put him over the edge of entitlement. He often would say “Life is Short” so gave himself permission pursue his friends wife & to ruin the lives of our 2 kids. I made my own choices but the kids didn’t.
My ex survived a plane crash and all that did was fuel his central, superior and deserving sense of entitlement.
Too bad, he could died with me thinking he was a good guy.
There is something so wrong with them!
Yes! The cheater ‘victim complex’… what the hell IS it with them?? Where do they get off playing the victim when THEY’RE the ones who cheated? Seriously…my ex has been throwing himself a pity party ever since I brought down his affair by calling OW’s husband. ‘People just use me…waaaahwaaah’… couldn’t help but point out that he used her to hurt me. God, they are such children.
Very simple. They think if they tell their disordered lies enough, that a “normal” person will second guess themselves and gaslight themselves into thinking its otherwise – and therefore they can continue with their fucked up behaviour while you are otherwise “occupied” trying to untangle the reasoning/methods/actions behind it. Notice when you call them out on their shit and stick with it – they immediately flip to the “rage” channel? They do this to try and keep you in line as well – threats of, and actual violence, to keep you silent.
They also cry “poor victim mode” because a lot of people will give others the benefit of the doubt upon first meeting them – which disordered people prey on. This is why they also go full smear-mode, and why “bystanders” will believe their bullshit as well.
This is why being NC/grey rock is so important. There is absolutely no use in trying to reason with one of these fuckwits – they will just laugh in your face and use it as ammunition to either discredit you to others, or as “evidence” against you in a moral crusade, or worse, legal proceedings. It is akin to trying to teach Chinese to a brick wall.
I needed to read this last comment. So true, so applicable to what I am going through.
Hmmmmmmm, not even near death experiences will help to change the disordered. After almost losing our son, and then our daughters, in a three week period many years ago, X’s biggest concern was…wait for it…himself (and the money our community raised for our son.) Just the other day I shared with my son that those experiences changed my life in that it communicated once and for all what really mattered. Family. That those who I loved and who loved me back mattered. Life is short and wasting time on someone who chooses to hurt you is not a good choice. Loving a cheater is one sided. I would have been devastated to lose my kids. Losing the Cheater, not so much.
Well…where to start?!?!
I do know that he and Miss Piggy have a “thing”. But I also know he dates, has a huge porn problem and generally can’t be trusted.
I just found out through child #1 that another good friend in X’s group ( did I mention that these are all ordained Ministers in their 40’s and 50’s ) just tossed aside his wife and engaged to a congregation member?
In fact, in their clique of clergy each and every one of them left their spouse within a year or so of my BD. Guess who the ring leader in this circus is.
Good thing they have all the “God Points” because one day they are going to need them!
So did Rev Ms Piggy ever get divorced? Your ex dates? I didnt see that coming, sounds bizarre with Rev Ms Piggy in the wings
Miss Piggy ended her marriage within about two months of our official separation.
Her x is a wonderful chump and he’s happily remarried to a great woman.
She is in limbo. My X still tries to keep their relationship secret ( 6 years plus the 3 while we were married ) and she truly got what she deserves!
Rev Ms Piggy cheater in awkward limbo…couldnt happen to a better gal!
For newbies…Lucky and I have been internet friends for years..us and Patsy and a few others here…met on a board that was RICish (not hardcore)
Sounds like a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” dystopia. “I’m so into the Bible, so you can just overlook how unChristian I behave.”
Hypocritical, self-righteous, phony assholes, every one of em.
Jesus Cheaters do so much damage and destruction.
I apologize to all of you on behalf of Christians. Please know that these “Jesus Cheaters” are not followers of Christ. They are beyond being hypocrites. Judgement Day will not be a day of rejoicing for them because they will hear Jesus tell them to depart from & that He does not know them!
Jesus Cheater are trying use God by hiding behind the name of Jesus. God cannot be mocked & He sees their hearts & knows their motives.
Please don’t let Jesus Cheaters tarnish your image of God. I know it’s hard. My faith has been shaken severely by Jesus Cheaters, the church and RIC. I’m determined to get back up and trust God again, if I don’t than the Jesus Cheaters will truly have succeeded in destroying me taking everything from me!
Jesus Cheaters are not representatives of Christ! They are far from Jesus. They are in bed with the devil !
Thank you, Nyra. I so agree with what you say. My faith has deepened and become much more real since my heart was broken – God loves the broken-hearted! I don’t know where he is at with God now, that’s not my business anymore. X
Agreed Nyra and most Christians are not like this it’s about 1%
They use religion as just another means from their disordered toolbox to manipulate others. They use everything at their disposal as nothing is sacred to them.
Nothing is sacred to those who spend dozens, hundreds or even thousands of instances lying and being deceptive. If it was – they would feel immense guilt (to the point where they would immediately stop the behaviour) even THINKING about doing such things. The fact they don’t, tells me all I need to know about who they are as a person, and that I want absolutely nothing to do with them.
After cheating our entire marriage, x ran off with the love of his life aka our best friends wife. She cheated on him, got pregnant and dumped him while the ink was still drying on our divorce decree. While cleaning out my computer after he left I found out he had been cheating on both of us. Oh, after ow dumped him she was demoted from the love of his life to “ a piece of ass” in his words. Classy guy
“Oh, after ow dumped him she was demoted from the love of his life to “ a piece of ass” in his words. Classy guy”
Schmoopie dumps the ex and he was upset and says “he lost his family for a piece of ass”. No he threw his family away for a piece of ass. Idiot.
Ex promptly got a new gf and then turns around and cheats on her with the piece of ass chick. It’s all about cake.
This is what happened in my former world.Cold Slab had the Pregnant Sluterus and New Chick doing the Hypotenuse Limbo for the last 3 years. He THANKED his NEW CHICK IN HIS BABY ANNOUNCEMENT, not the Sluterus. Eventually New Chick realized their afternoons out together to buy the baby things were Fuck festivals. And they were leaving her home to Babysit!
Friends, I was dumb. I was not that dumb.
Just wow.
I’m on 3 years of the divorce process and discovery just closed. Going through bank records I found a charge for $180 dated 9/17 for adult friend finder. That’s around 2 years after he started dating smoopsie.
So much for his unhappiness in our marriage (aka I was so awful he needed an escape) drove him to porn, strip clubs and prostitutes. Or maybe smoopsie is awful too – it couldn’t possibly be him, right?
Of course I highlighted that price of evidence for my attorney. Trial is next month… guess I’ll find out if he has an excuse for that one!
Peice … not price
3 years and just finished discovery? What’s going on?
My question exactly! There have been multiple orders to compel which end in contempt of court hearings. He magically is able to produce the day before contempt hearings and nothing ever happens. Other than he gets to drag it out to the last moment!
Our civil system is a joke! It’s easily manipulated in bad faith to drag out proceedings. There are no consequences to the foot dragger.
Your attorney should start including a demand for attorney’s fees in every contempt motion s/he files. Once it starts costing cheater money to drag his feet, he may take a different tune. If this behavior is a pattern, the judge is getting sick of it, too. Unfortunately, these kinds of delaying tactics are common and it takes a bulldog lawyer to put an end to them.
the d-attys talk. Remember that document you had to complete with your assets? Your Iwannahim2bmyx had to also. Then the attys look at and have rule of thumb-to take 20% of the assets in fees, 10% for one, 10% for the other. When there is $$$ those d’s will last for years-takes time to do the “legal” work to get the bills to 20% for thee and me to split. No $$$? Now that’s a quickie divorce. Attys have nothing to gain unless they create animosity between clients and too many of them will-it is often said the divorce attys and the ambulance chasers are the slime. But, so are so many politicians-they are too, attys and so many are corrupt. Seems to go with the lawyer territory.
I know exactly mine his EGO and s the size of Russia and nothing is ever his fault no he always has new supply and a scapegoat!
Mine cheated again. And Again and Again.
Yup mine was bringing them through the family home! Just unreal no shame at all!
My cheater ex-husband is definitely in the once a cheater always a cheater camp. Eight months after we separated, he was on his third girlfriend and had moved in with her and her 13 year old son. At my son’s wedding that fall he was loudly bragging to friends that she was a pharmacist and made bank. Three months later a co worker said my ex tried connecting with her on a dating site. She only recognized him because one of the pictures he had posted was with my son at his wedding. Yep he’s still trolling for other women. They bought an expensive house together and he now drives s new Jeep. Hoping karma visits him soon.
Omg these guys are unreal, my ex husband hooked up with a tramp off a dating site and she was after “HIS” paycheck! Desperate and wants the be taken care of!
Though I didn’t find out about my Sociapathiv narcissist’s cheating till long after my escape and when I had already reached MEH, I know he cheats on his current live in girlfriend. Multiple people have seen him on dating websites. How do they know it is him, he posts with pics of our kids and his line is “slightly used father of two”. Love to get, “saw your kids on a dating site”. His girlfriend is clueless. I so want to tell her but she is so kind to the kids and she is the one taking care of them. I also know he is “mean to her” from my 8 yr old. If I let her know and she leaves the kids will be ignored and barely cared for. If she stays my kids learn how to mistreat people. And AH is unemployed, I mean “disabled” and “cannot work” (he sits at desk) so no one will be there to do the grocery shopping.
Is there any chance you could get a lawyer on the fact that he’s posting identifiable pictures of your children on dating websites, at least make him take them down, that is just vile.
Agreecd good post I was just thinking about the safety of those kids faces being posted!
Please find a way to tell her and get more custody of your children. She’s likely being severely emotionally abused. She’s in hell. Document what you can and do the right thing.
I don’t think you ever trust a cheating ex, I think they have issues with boundaries. Or what they think they can get away with. I don’t trust mine, giving no contact works, because your not giving them the attention they want. We only talk about the kids, etc, not about his cheating, its a waste of time, because I realised he will never be honest about ow, phoning him at 2am, phoning 28 times on Xmas day etc.
Mine didn’t try to hide his affairs they were right in my face, full Narc using these women to try to make me jealous!
The POS Im nearly divorced from cheated on previous girl friends (I put that down to youth and not ready to settle ….yep was an idiot) cheated on me twice – that I know of and joined a swinging site when working away from home ….
Before he moved in with shmoops – I did the naked pick me dance (Im not proud – not my finest hour – I was hurting and I loved him was still desperately trying to save my family – enough of excuses – I was weak) Next day he was all sadz – he felt bad cheating on his gf with his wife… pity he never felt sadz about cheating on his wife with the gf …I am PROUD to say though all wreconsilliation attempts from him then on after – were firmly rejected from me. So he moved in with shmoops . I wish them …whatever they deserve – not my monkey and not my circus
Ah Debbie…. don’t feel bad… I did the naked pick me dance too- for about 2 months even though I know he was still with her. And I too got, “ I’ve already lost you, I can’t lose her too”… you know more justification for him to “give himself permission” to move on.
I, to my shame, bet I win first chump prize for the naked pick me dance. My stbx was deep in an emotional affair with an ex-student and “exploring” his “alternative sexuality” (his trans-ness, which really turned out to consist of desiring himself while dressed up as and acting like a pornified version of woman), and for about 9 months I accommodated him like a prostitute! Dildos, including a double headed one so we could both be penetrated together. Pegging (“I need you to fuck me!” he’d call out in a breathy voice). I exclaimed over his “breasts” while he preened about his nipples and pretended I was excited by him in ladyboy lace bras and panties, which half way through a session he’d want to exchange for some other item of lingerie so I could exclaim over some other imagined female part (either dramatic or anatomical) he wanted. I did it all, and more, squelching my own sexual needs to serve his desire for himself.
A sordid chapter of my life. For all I know stbx has reconnected with the ex student (she tends to go in and out of his orbit, and while we were hot and heavy, she was out), but I no longer care. Not my business anymore.
I’m so glad to be out and away and from it, and on to beginning to build my own life. Not saying there isn’t anger and grief, or loneliness and doubt, just that every day that passes I detach a little more, and become more convinced that leaving him was not only the right thing, but the only thing to do.
Oh my goodness, my ex weighed 112 lbs – I kid you not. Just imagining that in lingerie would have me peeing myself with laughter!
Cheaters (sociopaths) make us crazy. Forgive yourself for whatever shame you may feel. Most of us lowered our standards in one way or another after d-day. I think the stress of it all creates “crazy chemicals” in us.
Wow! How common is this?
Mine was also in love with himself. He became both the he & she in his love life. I felt body shamed. I was surprised to discover he had women on the side because he was turning into one! He was shaving everything & running around with lingerie under MY jeans! When we were together he was so focused on getting his planks in at the same time that I felt like a piece of gym equipment!!
I confronted him aBout what was going on & I was told that his parts needed the extra support that only female clothing offered & …he was so hot that he needed to shave down there!
I thought he’d stopped for awhile. Soon he was back at it though & I discovered he had added viagra to the mix & was oit to impress his female subordinate. He got her.
He’s all hers now!
Winner winner chicken dinner!!
Mine weighed in at a steady 240lbs at 5ft 10…had a gut that rivaled a woman 11 months pregnant to boot. I can just imagine him loving himself up in all that lace lol! Seriously though, he used mirrors to watch me give him blow jobs and anything else he could see himself doing. I could have been anyone…cuz it was all about him.
Yup, the sexual weirdness is part of their pattern. They want either none, or too much, or wierd stuff.
I am so relieved/horrified to read this, because mine definitely fell into the sexual weirdness camp in the last few years of marriage, all of which I accommodated while shoving down my own needs. 4 years before the big D-day discard day, my first red flag appeared and I didn’t recognize it for what it was at the time. If I only had a time machine…
After my first miscarriage (we were actively trying for a family for years) I caught my ex emailing all of these strangers on Craigslist, emails he’d deleted but forgotten to delete from the deleted folder. He’d been sending emails to men asking for ‘jack-off buddies who he could hang out with and have a beer with and watch porn together with’. He even implied in one of the emails that the man could come over to our house while I was at work. One email was to a local guy asking if he had anything stronger than the regular viagra he’d sold him ‘last time’. One was to a swinger couple asking them to do things to him with a broom handle. Another was to a prostitute asking how much she charged and what services she performed. I was horrified.
Chumpy me, when I confronted him he swore on everything holy that it was all 100% fantasy and he’d never met/seen/touched any of these people. He just emailed them and that was sexually thrilling enough just to pretend that he would go do all these crazy things. He was SO BELIEVABLE, and I wanted to believe him. But I told him he should leave me because I would never knowingly bring children into the world just to be the product of a divorce, so if this was the kind of thing he wanted, he should leave. He begged me on hands and knees to believe him, to give him another chance, said that I was the love of his life and wanted a family with me more than anything.
The promises were grandiose and the spackle was strong, and I was so sheltered/naïve/inexperienced with this kind of thing, I thought we might be able to move past it with counseling and lots of work to rebuild trust. So I gave a list of demands, which he complied with 100%. He went to church counseling, gave me his passwords, deleted that email account, all of that. He swore on the souls of our unborn children that I would never have cause to distrust him ever again.
After struggling through another miscarriage and 2 insanely high risk pregnancies, I finally gave him a beautiful son and daughter. When they were just 1 and 2, he walked away from the three of us with zero warning or signs that it was coming, and moved to the opposite coast for his secret AP. I will never forget the night of hell when I learned about her, the night before he just walked out on his life. He said ‘I just don’t love you like a husband should love a wife’. To which I replied ‘Well you’ve never once acted that way, how long have you felt this way?’ He said 4 years.
Soooo…the exact same number of years ago that you swore on our unborn children that nothing like this would ever happen again and that I’d never have reason to mistrust you again, and I forgave you and gave you a family anyway? That number of years ago?
ASSHOLE.
That is horrible…Im convinced that God will hold people accountable who act like their genitals are more important than their children
I hate him for you.
They are true heartless selfish dreadful inhumane self serving amoral parasites. They take all the love that we gave them and piss on it – laughing and gleeful . We never hurt them but they stamp on us and then behave like we deserved it with no remorse. They lose and hurt their children and its no big deal – sometimes I have difficulty even comprehending HOW it could happen – those are the days Pret that I need CN just to remind me that Im not alone. Others, like me, who tried.
Exactly. I will never understand how someone can do this to his own children. It makes me sick. Surely, there is a special place in hell for these monsters.
I loved also the “ you’ll never love me like you did before so…”
Fucker. What does he know, shallow Hal.
I’m 3 years out of hell, 2 years divorced. Took me all that time to unlove him.
So glad I’m not a shallow person.
Xo
Me too. Discard is happening with same words. Thank you for giving me a realistic timeline 🙁
My ex stopped touching me. I think in his warped mind he was being faithful to whomever his affair partner was at the time. His excuses ran the gamut — no sex drive (ha!), tired, drunk, herpes outbreak, whatever. He was a lousy lover so I didn’t try that hard. But I blame myself for holding on to a marriage that wasn’t working with a man who wouldn’t communicate. Without information, we make up what we want to believe.
This. // I think in his warped mind he was being faithful to whomever his affair partner was at the time. // Mine has done the same. Somehow claimed a faithfulness to the affair partner over her one-flesh spouse. “Bizarre loyalty” doesn’t even describe it. Forbidden sex does that, though. That’s why the marriage bed is undefiled, while all other sex defiles a person…makes us filthy. Defiled is a strong word. Too, I think it is a warped sense of having to pay some sort of penance that will, they believe, absolve them from the cruelty and treachery they know they have committed. My ex-wife (I hate writing that since she isn’t dead yet, so really isn’t an ex) dresses like a 15-yr old boy now, wearing sports bras under her shirts (to hide her figure) and hiking pants, no jewelry or makeup, like she wants to go unnoticed. I look at her now and have to compare pics from years ago to remember who I married. She is a 47 yr-old sugar-mama to a 37 yr-old gamer, so I’m sure he doesn’t complain about it. Life is probably pretty easy being her prostitute.
Giddy Eagle, mine did the same thing. She wouldn’t lay a finger on me once the bad stuff started; she wouldn’t even sit next to me. It was bad enough to learn all the awful things she’d done after the fact, but while it was going on she treated me like I had the plague.
After D-day, several times she gave me this speech about how awesome and wonderful this guy was, and what a self-sacrificing heroine she was for staying with me. For my part, my deepest wish was that she would’ve bailed sooner.
Traveling: they all do that. Mine abandoned me almost entirely as soon as the affair started – wouldn’t leave the house with me or even eat a meal with me. For months. I stayed in contact with OW’s husband after I exposed the affair and he said ‘She told me what kind of guy he was and I knew he had to be special to keep her engaged for so long’ (they reconciled, we split up – after all, he told her he was getting divorced from the get-go but she never promised the same, supposedly). Anyhow, point is: ‘special’ and ‘wonderful’ people don’t do that to their spouses. They’re selfish, narcissistic assholes who will say and believe anything they tell themselves to justify what they’ve done.
I think this is true, especially
“you never loved me”
F@%ing delusional
I heard that in counseling, I suppose that was his best excuse
The way he looked at me and lied that lie
I was done, never went back
Since I have no reason to contact cheater, I have absolutely no idea if he or she cheats or are together, (I gather they are). That is probably a blessing in disguise. I never ever saw a photo. Quite a stunt for a OW – she completely scrubbed the internet clean.
I hope I never know. I also home I’m so far into meh-land that I don’t care. Eyes forward.
I’m almost 5 years from D-Day and GTFO day; since I’m totally NC with Freakshow I only know what people tell me of their own volition: a year ago a friend told me he asked Freakshow was he still with OW and Freakshow said he was “seeing someone else.” Subsequently, about six months ago someone else told me Freakshow and OW have broken up and gotten back together multiple times and that presently “they are not a couple but he still lives in her house because he can’t afford a place of his own.” Better her than me, is all I can say.
We were together 16 years and though not married, owned a house together and were, at least I thought, a family with my kids from my first marriage that Freakshow has never spoken to since, in five years. But it’s clear to me after finding out that he was in fact cheating the entire time, that OW is his new gravy train/victim/enabler/Chump.
My data point is a likely YES, continued to cheat. Relying largely on unsolicited comments from one of my kids (between ages 12 and 17), who told me: 1) one of her long time APs went to her wedding to another, newer AP; 2) “some strange man, someone I think Mom works with,” sometimes slept at his mom’s house when the kids were with me (I had 50% custody); and 3) “I think Mom is cheating again. She went on a trip alone and didn’t really explain why, like she did when you and her were married.”
FWIW, I also know the the AP my ex-wife ultimately married, after he filed for divorce and was living with my ex-wife, propositioned his STBXW “for old time’s sake” (she told me she laughed at him).
These sick f*cks are slut-a-vores, subsisting largely on a diet of low-hanging fruit.
I’m going to assume Dr. Fucktard cheated on his girlfriend, like he did me, since he also physically abused her, like he did me. (She filed police reports like I did.)
My STBXH cheated on his first wife with a blond bimbo. He walked out on his marriage and two little children. Then the blond bimbo cheated on *him*.
And now of course, he’s cheated on me. Yep, once a cheater and a liar, *always* a cheater and a liar. It;s exciting, and it’s easy.
Ex married his schmoopie before the ink was dry on the divorce decree.
2 months after that, I came across his profile on Tinder. Way to go…or should that be way to ho?
Now they’re apparently “on the rocks” and he’s cheating with someone else. What a shock.
I’m just laughing on the sidelines and trying to shield my 3 year old daughter from Daddy’s stupidity.
My STBX is still with his ho-worker who was not even born when we married 32 years ago
Largely because I forced his hand and kicked him out 2 years ago
That said – his stringing me along while deciding who was Plan A vs Plan B and his continued attempts to reach out – after I went NC – were basically him “cheating” on the AP with me as far as I’m concerned
They sure do love CAKE
Just sayin’
I only know of the current affair. I don’t think I’ll ever find out anything else unless an OW seeks me out.
STBX is still with married ho-worker, one year on from Dday. Maybe this is their only affair. Maybe they will be happy forever. Maybe they will both learn from this and become amazing, unentitled, selfless people.
I know that man like the back of my hand. If he has a character transplant, it will be a miracle. But, for my kids’ sake, I still hope for it. No, I don’t ever want him back. He will always be the man who could cheat on me. But I would so love for my boys to see that they were worth the effort to change.
In saying all that, I’d love to find out that one of them (or both) cheated on the other!
My horrible ex cheated with his married assistant the last time. When I found out I grabbed the opportunity and threw him out and divorced him. He is now living with her. Living with, working with, commuting with, vacationing with…I’m gleeful because the rat got caught in his own trap. It now amuses me to see him moping with the sadz after all the pain he caused. He may not leave the whore, but he will for sure not stop visiting the other whores he knows when he’s traveling for work. While she’s left behind “holding down the fort” he will be out holding out his secret credit card to pay for sex. Too bad so sad for her…my life is wonderful without him and I firmly believe she did me the biggest favor of my life! Viva Chump Nation!
Oh, the lying and cheating goes on and on and on. He swore he is done with Schmoopie and that all his energy is now on reconnecting with us as a family and with me as his ” beloved wife and partner”. Then people tell me they have seen him walking in town, hand in hand with same schmoopie.
One year from DDay this month. I only had one DDay because I was too clueless to put two and two together in order to have any previous DDays. But I am finding out more about the various OWs and am in contact with their ex-husbands. From the emails the ex-husbands have shown me, it appears Douchebag cheated on the OW he was seeing in 2011 (with another OW) and when First OW found out she just went ballistic. She ripped him a new one in these emails. All while I thought I was married to a faithful partner and I was kept busy doing the child-rearing. Someday I am sure I will laugh at this. Just so glad I finally figured it out and kicked him out of my life. He cheated on OW while he was cheating on me so yeah I would say chances are pretty good he will cheat again.
Oh yeah. I know Cheater #1 married Schmoopie and has been happily cheating on her for years. For all her smugness about how stupid I was, she apparently is dimmer. She has now been with him more than twice as long as I was. So she has either been really stupid not to discover–or, she has resigned herself to her fate. Cheater #2 had problems not just with “falling in love” kind of cheating, but massive porn and hooker problem. He received zero therapy for it. I heard through the grapevine that yep he still has profiles up. I don’t know why you’d still have dating profiles on site you have to pay for f you were’nt using them. Across several sites that would get expensive. I haven’t done an extensive search to see if he is still reviewing sex workers, my psyche couldn’t take it–but my guess is yeah. So apparently, their cheater creationist mythology that I made them cheat with my boring personality has at least been proven false.
I was a pretty lucky person in this camp. 1 month before our divorce my ex sent me a letter dancing around the idea of getting back together, (he would never directly ask that from me), and telling me how miserable he was. It was nice to hear that from the guy that bragged to his friends that he was happy, but “she isn’t” after I threw him out. Three months later he married a former co-worker and less than a year later I get a lovely, grift-wrapped message on Facebook from a new, even younger girlfriend. Marriage number two has stayed together, but at least I know his cheating ways have never changed.
My pathetic cheater was on Ashley Madison and Match.com during the first three years of his affair
(he would go on to cheat 3 more years).
Funny story—OW was very upset by his being on Ashley Madison and Match while with her–how do I know? OW had been stalking me on anonymous infidelity support forum ( cheater had given OW my username and the site information as their affair continued) and I posted about cheater being listed in the Ashley Madison hack. OW reached out to me in the infidelity forum private message to ask about Ashley Madison and his Match profiles! HAHAHA!
And of course, when I first found out about affair, cheater had been out to dinner that night with a totally different woman than OW! When I pieced that all together–so many women–he told me the original OW, “didn’t care who he dated!” Yeah, right! 😉
I’ll go to a more basic component of this equation: Once a shitty person, always a shitty person.
KK is, if nothing else (and trust me, there’s every little else), incredibly skilled at art of paltering, of purposely using truthful facts to deceive. (I wrote a guest blog about this last year, it’s in the Archives.) It’s how she tries to maintain advantage, and to be able to say “I never lied” when she pulls some less than honorable behavior.
So even if she is to be believed, and she and RPD have this sexually-sophisticated, hip-and-modern polyamorous arrangement that allows them the freedom to act on whatever impulse they happen to have (and thus not technically be “cheating” as most of the world understands it), there will always be the deceptive self-centeredness that guides every other part of her life.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be unlimited data points of shittiness recidivism in the future, even if I never hear about them. Good luck with that, RPD.
I totally agree with this sentiment. My horrible ex tried for a year after I left with her “true love”. According to my kids they broke up and got back together every month for a year. Not the behaviour you’d expect from people in their 40s, more like teenagers. It made me realise that my ex is a spoilt teenage girl (or toddler) in the body of a grown woman who uses verbal aggression and manipulation to get what she wants with those unfortunate enough to be close to her. Both my kids (teenage girls) complain of being anxious. I wonder why.
She has now latched onto an older widower who, according to my kids, is calm and good-natured. I can only assume she is on best behaviour at the moment as there is no doubt benefit to her in this arrangement.
I believe now that I was only ever “of use” to her during our 15 years of marriage. She is awful. Nothing that’s come back to me from the kids has convinced me that she has changed her ways one bit. I suspect that the widower (1 year since his wife died) is maybe grieving and I hope she doesn’t treat him with the callousness and cruelty shown to me.
I wouldn’t go near her if she was the last person on Earth. Poor Sod, rather him than me.
She is a horrid predator. My ex went after a widower, too. They are vulnerable and easy prey for a cheater to take advantage of.
Well, look at that! I’ve learned a new word today: paltering. It sure sounds familiar from the Giuliani post yesterday. His “I never spent the night with her” answer might well have been technically true. Thanks, UXworld. If there’s a word for it, it’s a thing. And if it’s a thing, then you’re not imagining it. Wow. It really does pay to increase your word power.
Yeah. My ex maintained that he never “slept” with the OW either. Because technically he just had sexand then came home to sleep with me. They LOVE to use word play to mislead us. They LOVE to throw it back in our face that they never lied. It is all about conning people and having a shred of truth in it so they can cover their asses.
Lies of omission are just as shitty as outright lies.
Trusting & honest people with integrity are easy prey for them. We expect others to be the same.
My worst experiences in life (with long lasting consequences for me) have resulted from being manipulated by such people.
Hopefully, I’m a little wiser.
Satan is the king of lies & master manipulator. What they are intentionally doing to others for selfish motives is pure evil!
Hoo Boy–antibiotic-resistant STDS, anyone?
My prediction, courtesy of the Eagles circa 1975:
“My oh my, you sure know how to arrange things.
You set it up so well, so carefully.
Ain’t it funny how your new life didn’t change things?
You’re still the same old girl you used to be.”
A few months after divorce I was still able to log-in in our former “joint account” Mr. Tinderman was already with the howorker long distance romance. I saw a transaction of a “Gentleman Club” in the city where he lives. The cell phone account used to be under my name. I saw old records of his number texting on San Valentine’s day other ladies while he was staying in Howorker’s house celebrating
LOVE. Like someone said yesterday here. ” Once AP gets marry there is another vacant”. My theory is that there is no character transplant they either get old, no money & they have to be under the radar. Mr.Cheater pants changed his traveling job for a cubicule job a few days ago & will be working with howorker. They will be together 24/7 ????. No more long distance romance.Let’s see what will happen.
Is my Xhole cheating on the Circus Clown?
Don’t know, don’t care.
Not at meh yet, but I think it’s around the corner.
After my stbx moved in with his 22 y.o. coworker 2-1/2 years ago, I cleaned out the back room. I found his journal from NA/AA from 17 years ago. They have to write down their history as part of the 12-step program. He stated in this journal that he had never been faithful to anyone. He described relationships where he cheated the whole time. He said he doesn’t think he will every be able to love anyone as people are objects to be used for his ‘happiness.’ It was a kick in the gut, but there was truth and it couldn’t be denied. That’s what he is and will always be – a cheater who uses others.
One day OW was texting our daughter looking for her dad as he wasn’t answering his texts. Oh oh!
The cycle will only repeat. They don’t change.
I feel sorry for their baby boy.
Read my ex NA/AA journal that was gut wrenching and eye opening…
My cheater ex-husband has been married to his AP partner for 18 years – 2 years longer than we were married. My present husband’s cheater ex-wife has been married to her AP for 25 years – 10 years longer than they were married.
We believe that our ex-partners remain monogamous, according to the 7 adult children we share from both sides. How happy those unions are, who knows? Who cares?
ALL 7 children remain in a relatively respectful relationship with their step-parents. They understand their cheater parents are flawed people, but would rather have them in their life, than not.
I notice that after a day’s worth of posts, no one has touched the above comment. It’s like it doesn’t exist – curious. Is it because it doesn’t fit into the chump narrative?
So when you don’t receive a response, you become passive-aggressive. That tells everyone all we need to know.
Cheater parents are the scum of the earth. You are minimising their shit behaviour as akin to “making a mistake”. No – it is a choice, and hundreds, if not thousands of choices, to deceive their partner.
No, it’s likely because it’s a completely meaningless comment. It fails as an anecdote.
Most children, grown or otherwise, have no clue if their parents are cheating and tend to need to believe they are not. It sounds like you have minimal to no contact with them, so your belief appears to be based on very little.
It’s no different than me assuming all my neighbours are faithful to their spouses because I haven’t seen any of them throwing their spouse’s shit out onto the front lawn. While witnessing that would strongly suggest someone may be cheating and not seeing that could indicate they weren’t, it could also mean the other spouse doesn’t know, or I wasn’t home when it happened, or perhaps my neighbours excel at dignified self control in a way that I do not and don’t go nuclear on cheating assholes.
The real question is why is it so essential to you to disprove the narrative that you’re monitoring strangers’ responses to your non-anecdote? Why are you so invested in your cheating ex spouse being faithful to some other woman decades later?
The post didn’t really say anything, other than these people are still together, but who knows if they are happy. And the kids suffer through the mess and after it. What is the point?
Chumplady is a true healing place because it is real & honest. The “Chump Narrative” addresses the situation of adultry and affair marriages for what they truly are.
She acknowledges the pain & destruction the victims of it face.
I appreciate that she encourages us to be the sane parent. She does not call something evil “good” – no matter how long affair partners are married. Granted, we have to do our best to accept a bad situation & help our children do so. That does not mean we have to call it good or encourage our children to embrace it.
Thanks CL!
chumpchange915-no to your question. It just that on this site people have experienced serious pain and those who have reached meh,still have the scars. Your situation is atypical and by some miracle everybody seems unscathed, for the most part. Some of us feel the fury at the treachery until the day we die. Maybe we wouldn’t if we lived long enough to get past it. If time heals all wounds, would those wounds heal in 100, 200, 300 years? The deeper the love, the more pain the chumps endure.
YES, Danni…perfectly put.
CHUMCHANGE915,
it is so rare ,for that to happen , where cheaters remain faithful . and we will never know , because cheaters (most) don’t have fuckfest in front of witnesses or other people , they hide and do it in secret , because they know they are doing something shameful and horrible ,other wise they would be fucking on the front porch , or the car in the driveway etc. etc. really its common knowledge how few second and third marriages survive . so what is your point? especially when ITS TWO CHEATERS ……..AND CHEATERS SUCK…..
I wonder why you’re using a dynamic IP address that shows up on a blacklist at https://whatismyipaddress.com …
It’s just like super coincidental that trollish comments come from blacklisted IPs.
I. Love. You.
It’s been half a decade since OW came onto the scene during our marriage. There were many others and we have been separated pending divorce now.
He invited OW #1 to visit him and OW #7+? in the maternity ward after he and OW #7+? had their newborn. Apparently he and OW #1 are just friends. …????
We have several small children from our marriage so Grey rock is the best I can get.
Hannibal had been a serial cheater in his former marriage (I stupidly married him thinking his admissions were an indication of reform). Serial cheater in his marriage to me. Another member of CN found a secret email that I’ll bet any money he uses for on-line hookup sites at present. It is pretentiously named after a TV character he admires (the TV character is also an asshole, so…fitting).
Same. He said he had learned his lesson in his first marriage and was a changed man, but people who have already crossed that boundary and have given themselves permission to cheat do it again and again. They feel entitled to pursue their shallow desires at the cost of all else. Their previous cheating is evidence of poor character. Not of reform.
It is pathological.
He told our youngest he was married to one woman now (OW) and faithful to her. So what is the problem? She asked, “Did you love your first wife and think you’d stay together forever?” He replied yes. “Did you love Mom and think you’d stay together forever?” He replied yes again. “And now you love this one and think you’ll stay together forever?”
Yes, he said sadly. “That’s called a cycle, Dad,” she said. “You need to stop changing wives and start changing yourself and your behaviors.”
Yep.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Smart girl neverwouldhaveimagined .
Love that smart girl!!!
“That’s called a cycle, dad,…start changing yourself…” Your kid is amazingly insightful!
I read once that if someone loses a sense (sight, hearing…) the others are often enhanced. Maybe there is a similar effect for people indirectly (or maybe directly) impacted by the poor character of the cheaters, who often bring along with them other adversely impacting bad habits like lying, deceit, blame shifting, word salad, and worse, projection, deflection, gaslighting, angry outbursts. Many chumps report increased ability to spot disordered people better, so maybe there is a positive outcome that those newly enhanced character people (chumps and those close to them) will inadvertently pull societal norms back up to a more reasonable human status. I guess this ultimately means ‘changing the narrative’.
My dad and uncle were cheaters and it seriously took life altering events to unicorn, and have that character modification we all wish would happen instantaneously, but it came with a huge price, impending mortality. My sis and bro were cheaters, repeat cheaters and I cannot abide disorderd in my new life so I have no idea what they are doing now. By all accounts they are still married to AP #??? Maybe their mortality will catch up to them too.
I am 99.99% NC with my cheater troll, but a year ago, 18 months and 4 DDays into abandonment, while being raged at by him (currently married) for not attending a court hearing (which I was previously excused for cancer treatment) the ex cheater troll yelled “my gf has a new bf” while on speaker phone with our 18 yo DS listening, and then there were crickets…and I looked at DS and said “I have no response to that…is this a 3-way now?” DS yelled some profanities at his dad and left for work and I told ex cheater troll to contact my lawyer and hung up. During final divorce hearing, ex cheater troll narc lawyer demanded his portion of the retirement be ‘made available’ for a new wife, at which point I chuckled. Clearly this was schmoopie’s plan all along to take the fat bull for his benefits. I wonder how long he has before she dumps him and takes her “half” too.
Either way, I and my herd (kids and pups) are cheater free and working towards meh, I even have the shirt.
Standing ovation for your daughter!
Recidivism? Yes, in my experience. Let’s see here…he:
— Cheated on his high school sweetheart and fiancee with his first wife
— Cheated on his first wife with me on the other side of the country (unbeknownst to me, of course).
— Cheated on me with a sparkly waitress
— And, as his current girlfriend blurted out to me during a chat about my daughter (who has to go to their place for visitation), he cheated on her with a notorious barfly and wino-about-town. Which she only found out about because the lady kept calling him in the middle of the night and showing up wherever they were hanging out. Yuck.
Current girlfriend has probably usurped me as the greatest chump on earth because she knows about all of these things and can’t possibly expect that she would finally be the one that’s Important enough to not be cheated on. But it ain’t my skein to untangle!
After I left her and filed for divorce, she stayed with her AP.
–She stayed with him while he got engaged to his girlfriend and mother of his child.
–She stayed with him while he got married.
–She stayed with him while he admitted his affair and pretended he was going to stop cheating.
–She stayed with him and got pregnant with his second child, even though his divorce wasn’t finalized.
Q: Was she faithful to her AP?
A: I don’t know and don’t care.
Q: Did she have a character transplant.
A: Clearly no.
After Cheaterturd died and I had to handle his estate I found all the ugly proof ever needed that he was never going to change. He cheated on me, he cheated on the OW’s. And his MO was eerily the same from one to the next. From nicknames (princess) to how he hooked them in “I’m just a stand up guy who doesn’t play women or games. Straight up, that’s just who I am”, literally he groomed all his affairs like he had some handbook he followed. The lies and duplicity were staggering. My therapist concluded he was a sociopath. They never change. Run far, run fast fellow chumps.
I am so embarrassed that he actually admitted to me how he attracted women out in the world (it was how he lured me!) and he even had a name for the method. He called it the “Mope-a-dope” (playing on Muhammad Ail’s “rope-a-dope”). He would go into a bar and look all sad and women would flock to him (he had a really sweet face) and say “why are you so sad? lured like a moth to a flame.
When he told his story, I would laugh…like it was a funny episode from his crazy days of youth but now he had a wonderful woman and all that was in the past.
No, I was simply the very biggest Dope of all.
(can you believe I never ever told this story before)
I still have “hindsight memories” where I realize I had breadcrumbs all along the way that I just didn’t understand at the time. I literally will look back on things now and I still have moments of “duh, he was telling me who he was” shrouded in sweet boy innocence that I just couldn’t fathom at the time was evil in my midst. I’m grateful we all have CN to share. These turds really are cut from the same cloth, aren’t they.
Yes, he hinted at sex with my cousin (who is now oddly enough distanced from me) and a gal who we used to double couple-date with. He dropped tiny crumbs along the way but if I mentioned them later or asked for clarification, he brushed it off as a joke.
What a jerk (and more evidence that pity is the most effective of the manipulation channels).
Hannibal was very interested in a class that one of his divorced friends took about how to attract women, including postural advice (e.g., leaning back in your chair with one arm draped around the chairback). Stupid me thought it was purely academic interest on Hannibal’s part, until post-divorce I found a photo of him at an Arizona conference using exactly that pose while talking to an attractive graduate student.
“Mope a Dope” is one for my “No More Nut Clusters” journal ! In the same vein as the sad sausage routine or the pity play. When somebody tries to pull that on me now, my response is “That’s too bad. Good luck with your problem.”
Mope a Dope. Dear God. When you have a cutsie name for your sociopathic preying on women… I am so glad I’ve erased all of my dating profiles and don’t go to bars alone. It’s a scary world out there.
It was almost cute when he did it as a 19/20 yr old, but Im now sure that he kept it up for a long time…with the answer of “my wife doesnt understand me” yea, it became gross
My ex narcopath also has the same grooming habits during dating.
Usually finds them on POF and arranges a date. Plays poor victim of life, abused by ex wife and girlfriends, tells same stories, gives same compliments and then leaves the date and texts that he feels they have a “special connection”. She has a beautiful smile and he couldn’t stop looking at her eyes.
Then begins true love bombing and same texts sent to all women portraying himself as a wonderful cook (leaves a huge mess in kitchen and food rots on the counter) and doting father (signs boys up for sports because “his boys are his world” yet won’t pay for their gear and bitches and moans about having to take them), texts incessantly and on a very predictable time frame – when he wakes, all 3 breaks at work, when home and before bed. Uses alcohol to reduce a woman’s inhibitions and get her to have sex. Never uses condoms.
Constantly pushing boundaries and gaslighting (ie setting a time for a date and then showing up and hour early a pretending he didn’t remember, talking about previous sexual experiences, allowing his friends to hit on you and then laughing….)
Then phase two, nearing the end of the love bombing phase, is pressure to watch his kids when working, Then can you drop his kids off to their psycho mom so he doesn’t have to deal with her (and he needs a nap or is too drunk) this begins triangulation with ex wife who is pissed he can’t drop his own kids off, which sets her up as the “see, I told you she was crazy and unreasonable” when she texts him wyd?, Then answering his phone calls, training the puppy, working in his garden…..barf
He has the same routine every woman. It’s sick and he is a psychopath.
I didn’t know this till after final Dday and I did some investigating. Everything he did and said to me is what he has done to his ex wife and numerous others.
Omg Canada. Sounds exactly like my ex Dr. Fucktard. Profiling, hooks, lovebombing, triangulation, gaslighting. I connected with 3 of his exes and learned we all had the same experience. Chilling.
I will never know for sure how many shmoopsies where there simultaneously with the main AP – all throughout our 12 year marriage. But hey, it’s not cheating in my STBX’s vocabulary. It’s a “fascinating discovery of other personalities, It’s a never-ending curiosity to get to know other people and learn from them!”. Duh, you boring wifey!
He is not with his main AP whom he calls his “split-soul”. She is still married to her chump h and lives in a different country. He is also not living with the second-in-command married AP, ex colleague of his, whom he calls his “siren”.
But knowing him, he can’t be alone. And he can’t be satisfied with one only. He probably still alternates between these two, squared or to the power of 12 with others.
I was trapped for about 2 years post DDay thinking that he would change for the main one as soon as they would start living together. But at the DDay I only knew 10%. The following year was filled with multiple DDays with trickle truth and finding Tinder girls, in addition to the loves of his life, “recurrent friends” and just “interesting personalities”.
I know now for sure his character will never change. It’s not about a long-time love of his life romantic story that he tried to feed me after much gaslighting, denying and finally admitting. It’s a serial addiction. It’s that black hole inside that can’t be filled.
So I don’t know who he is with or if he cheats for sure. And I am happy that I don’t care anymore. Which is thanks to this invaluable education I got in the CL University. Thank you!
Ooh, I hate your condescending, full of bullshit cheater. Those words and that attitude are cruel and mean. I hope he ends up desperate and alone. Finding out the rest of their hidden story after DDay is so painful.
This post is somewhere on the heels of what i have been thinking about lately. The ric frames cheating as a “fog” or temporary lapse into insanity. But really i think we all saw the signs. We all saw the mask slip early on.
Maybe another friday challenge might be did you have no signs.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course.
CN seems to be a goldmine of data. It seems just the place that could quell this myth of “my spouse just suffered temporary insanity”
If anyone,looking back,really had no signs i would be interested to know. That would truly be a horse of another color.
But somehow i feel that really isn’t the case.
For me there were “no signs” because it seems that he cheated all along, so there was never a CHANGE to perceive, so I assumed that “no change” meant “no cheating” when in reality, monogamy would have actually been a change.
I was in the RIC for a long time and I was a believer in “Affair Fog” and he was acting crazy (I will now admit that I in fact had a rather whopping case of affair fog since I was so blindsided) but I now think that his behavior was the manifestation of his terror of having the WHOLE THING discovered…he was living on a razors edge of total discovery where the world would discover what a selfish asshole he was…he didnt seem to care what I thought, but he woudlnt have wanted to look like a bad guy to his parents/sibs/friends/coworkers/garbage man.
Same story here, unicornnomore. According to Golden D##k, he cheated on me from the very beginning. So, I had no base line to compare his noncheating vs. cheating behavior. There was NEVER any time during our 44 years together where he was NOT cheating. His behavior did change (for the worse) when he retired 12 years ago and our youngest child left for college. I attributed that to his retirement/empty nest syndrome. I thought that he was either depressed or going through a midlife crisis. WRONG! He was simultaneously starting up a long term affair with a neighbor, and cruising bars, public places and hook-up sites for sex with random men and women. Idle hands were definitely the Devil’s workshop for him. He used all his new free time to go deeper and darker with his cheating. Fear of discovery or arrest were probably the root cause of all the shitty behaviors he displayed to me. Throw alcoholism into the mix, and you end up with a very bad man. And a VERY bad husband.
On DDay I felt blindsided. After a few months of reflection I realized that there were plenty of signs that it would happen eventually (although not until several years into our marriage) and signs that it was happening when it happened. At first I felt foolish for missing it all, but hindsight is 20/20 and I was blinded by my faith in him and I don’t think having faith in my spouse was a failing on my part.
On DDay, all the pieces of the puzzle came together for me. All 30+ years was full of lies, deceit, gas-lighting, blame shifting. All he has ever done is lie & manipulate to get his way. He’s especially good at playing the victim.
I think Cheaters write the RIC handbook. RIC sets Chumps up for further abuse or to take the blame for problem, or giving up too soon.
With my second cheater there were no signs. Even in retrospect I cannot identify any. I found out in an utterly dropped out of the sky sort of serendipitous way. If it hadn’t been complete chance or act of God, I’d probably still be getting chumped.
Recidivism – such a big word for such small-character fuckwits. Here… hold my beer:
Let’s look back at Mr. Sparkles (from what I know/have learned through divorce discovery and unsolicited confessions).
. Mr. Sparkles had twin boys out of wedlock and then cheated on his partner with the woman who would become Wife #1.
– Mr. Sparkles and Wife #1 explored swinger parties (supposedly because his wife wanted it)… hmmm.
– Mr. Sparkles divorces Wife #1 and secures new supply (me) and I become Wife #2. (Post-divorce evidence suggests we overlapped.)
– Mr. Sparkles gets crabs (genital) while we’re dating, says they came from the bedding in Mexican hotel… hmmm.
– 3 years in to marriage – D-day #1 – phone records and credit cards lead me Craigslist hookers and hotel rooms… and marriage counseling.
– 4 years in to marriage – D-day #2 – spyware I installed on his computer turns up multiple dating profiles; six months email history; browser history looking at T4M ads… and back to marriage counseling (it only lasted 6 weeks)
– 8 years in to marriage – D-day #3 – he abandons family for his new “twu wuv”… D-day #4 immediately follows when Wife #1 calls to confess that she and Mr. Sparkles were fuckbuddies throughout our marriage… and to the lawyer I go.
– During divorce discovery, evidence appears that he is still seeking sex with women/couples/groups on AFF… while all in love with Schmoopie OW… she finds out and dumps him.
– He has a new GF within days and within 18 months they buy a house together…
Poster child candidate for recidivism… don’t make me laugh.
Rock on Chump Nation…
Here, hold my beer….
Hahaha. Lol. Cheaters sure are a piece of work!
“Here…hold my beer.” (howling with laughter)
I think nowdeadcheater was a retroactive serial cheater, so yes, more than one episode but it was in the past. I doubt if he ever cheated again after he left Susan of Seattle and wreckonciled with me/kids as a family (there were 5 years between return and his death) but no wonder he was miserable…I had no idea then that cheating had previously his escapist coping tool which he seemed to give up the last 5 years of his life.
I thought all along that Susan was his FIRST affair but reality seemed to later reveal that she was simply (possibly) his LAST affair. He likely cheated from when we dated to early marriage and on throughout with disconnected dabbling here and there. He did seem to believe that he had “fallen in love with*” Susan which seemed to derail his whole modus operandi of cheating, but I dont think he ever love anything/anyone.
*I hate that phrase…it makes it sound like were all subject to cupids pixie dust with no agency of our own…like were all a bunch of Mary Kay Letourneaus who could haplessly fall in love with a 6th grader or our Priest or the pool boy or a comatose person or our brother. I don’t know if I “fell” at all this time….I spent time with a good, decent, single, sober, successful, respectful person..I remember thinking “he would be a wonderful person to love, I hope that happens” we did come to love in a very committed, realistic, grounded, devoted manner.
I don’t think I have ever “fallen in love”. I am just too practical. I would be too embarrassed to display that kind of gaga over the top in love thing because it makes me roll my eyes when I see it in other people. I feel the same way about alcohol and getting drunk or high on drugs. That’s probably why I have never gotten into those things either. I don’t want people to see me acting like such a fool (huh, maybe I care about image too). I tend to creep into love based on a gradual getting to know a person. Alas, I have still managed to pick poorly in the past. That is partly why the breakup of my marriage is so devastating. I thought I had made a wise informed decision when we got married. I think I also thought my ex was more like me. He seemed practical and capable in so many ways, but in reality he tends to be more impulsive and emotionally driven than I am. He tends to not fully think things through and look at the big picture before he acts. I did not pick up on that early on.
Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like to “fall in love” and experience that level of emotional intensity. What would it be like to experience that high? I imagine, however, that it might not feel so good once that high wore off.
I think I have “fallen” in love at various times, but in my mature learning of what love really is, I have decided for myself that part of how I define “real love” is that it has to be based on accurate KNOWING and TRUTH.
If you dont know someone or what you think you see isnt true, then you dont love THEM, you have a tingly feeling for who you hope they are.
There are some folks who “fall” into quick emotions with who they think the person is and that person turns out to be what was hoped for, they applaud their own amazing abilities to fall for the right person. When we later learn we were wrong about who they were, we think we fell out of love, but I think it really means that our feelings were sparked by a facade/mirage/mask.
I really loved who I thought nowdeadcheater was (maybe who he could be for a few minutes at a time) and I loved who I believed he could be, but when I look at who he actually was, he was rather dreadful.
A person has to take numerous steps of intimacy to “fall” in love. It requires planning and deliberateness, both of which cheaters do well. Mostly, though, I suspect cheaters “fall” in lust.
Tempest, very true…”fall” in lust and into another person’s vagina!
Yeah, he fell into a giant used up pussy with a very small dick. That’s lust for ya!
Such a contraDICKtion from Sharon, 2010 who was duped.
“You call that sex?”
Fast forward to Slunt Nanthony, 2914.
“Best lover I’ve ever had.”
Haha, the Limited of course gets the standing ovation for the win with, “Is it in? Do you feel it.”
#Lottalust;nothrust
*2014
You. Are a riot.
Rock on CN
Ex tends not to make the same mistakes twice (well ok, he had more than one affair on me, but it was against the same primary partner so still counts as one mistake to him). As such, Schmoopie might get lucky on that account. He probably doesn’t see his devaluing of me as a mistake, however, so he might still do that to her eventually. Then there is always the possibility that she will cheat on him. I don’t know her well enough to know if she repeats mistakes or not. Of course in her case she probably didn’t see cheating on her cheating ex as a mistake. I guess she doesn’t see devastating me and my family as a mistake either. Ex might somewhere in the back of his head regret blowing up his marriage the way he did, but that will just make him more determined to not screw up the next relationship. It just bothers me because she isn’t the one who deserves his fidelity. I wish he would save that for the next one (assuming she isn’t an OW).
This is where I’m at, too … in fact, ex has told me he’s not going to repeat the same mistakes. Just by saying that to me, the one he hurt, IS repeating the same mistake … he is still hurting me, he is still capable of being hurtful. Also, he’s been hoovering … it might be because we still co-own the house and he wants to keep his grubby paws in it, but it’s still “cheating” in the sense that Poopsie doesn’t’ know he’s hoovering, doesn’t even know he still talks to me. I figure any lying or avoiding the truth he does with her in the guise of not wanting to hurt her is actually showing that he still has the potential to lie and cheat on her … the fact that I am Plan B shows that he hasn’t had that character change … and the fact he mentions to me how he’s not wanting to hurt her is just his victim mentality and his meanness shining through. So to the outside world, he’s not repeating his mistakes because he puts on an act, but he actually is.
I don’t think that someone determined not to make the same mistake would be very easy to live with. It sounds lovely, but it would be like living with a recovering alcoholic … I’m sure the OW, even if she’s too dumb to know (like my ex’s is), at least senses there is some tension in their relationship from living with someone who’s always feeling the pull.
The thought I keep in mind to try to reach meh is that he didn’t think ahead, and therefore makes bliss impossible … at no point did he say about this cougar, “Here’s the one I’m going to spend the rest of my life with” because when I mentioned that if he lives as long as his mother, he has another 35 years with her (and ex and AP are both in their 60s!), the look on his face was priceless. If “OMG!” had a look, it would be that one.
Whilst not impossible, I think it would be highly unusual that a serious cheater(as opposed to a one time only) would change. My ex cheated for four years before abandoning me. That is a lot of lying and absence of morals or integrity. To change would mean honest self-reflection and realising what they were doing was wrong and taking responsibility for their behavior and the consequences. More chance of finding a unicorn I think.
Georgie-I got caught up with a serial cheater and became the OW without my knowledge or consent. Of course I ended it, and found out much with my amateur detective work, even finding his ex-wives and yes a classic serial cheater. This so common that it’s boring, story-he was cheating with me, while living with the woman who he had cheated with when he was married to his previous chump. That was his second marriage to the same chump, on whom he cheated in their first marriage. Then during that marriage break he had another relationship with a joint house purchase and began cheating on her with his ex-wife and then dumped her to re-marry the first wife for the second time. Then he began cheating on this same 2nd time wife with many affairs. I don’t know what happened to him after I did an “out damn spot” to him. But I would bet a bunch that he is still cheating on whomever or whatever host this parasite has latched onto.
Wow, this guy is a one-man soap opera! Glad you got away!
With one of the multi-faceted layers of cheating being deceit, of course X is still “cheating.” He lies about job hunting. He lies about being “poor” to his children whilst sitting on a multi-million inheritance from his parents (who must be rolling in their graves knowing he financially abuses their grandsons). He lies on his taxes. He lies about EVERYTHING.
The attraction to Skanky has dwindled. My sons reported four years ago that dad has his own room, which was right on schedule; he moved out of our bedroom within the same timeframe.
Two of his three sons want nothing to do with him, and our third son keeps him at arms length for his own mental health and sobriety. “Dad” proposed getting an apartment with our son in recovery because, “…I don’t like where I live.” My son told him he couldn’t live with his father because …[dad] is an alcoholic who refuses to admit it.” For a kid on the autism spectrum dealing with horrific “sober house” drama, he’s already more honest and enlightened than his father will ever be.
And with another layer of cheating being the elusive search for “I just want to be happy,” X is still a miserable person who thinks the world is out to get him. He feels cheated. The irony is everything.
Oh, the satisfaction I feel to finally be free of such a deceitful, negative, hateful loser. Cheaters suck.
This is such a great point. I think my cheater thought he was justified to cheat because life cheated him out of the success and validation he was seeking.
I started dating my cheating STBXW the last couple of months of high school (married 14 yrs now). It was going to be a summer fling before college. I always told people I stole her from one of my best friends. I guess I should have realized her cheating nature as we flirted the months leading up to her breaking up with him (for a second, maybe third, time). She also asked me to escort her to a formal dance she was nominated to be on the court of. Her BF took her too, so she had two dates. I was friends with both of them. The BF was a fr in college (we were srs in high school), it kinda’ made sense. Maybe.
Before all that she went to a different formal with a guy, and left with someone else …
At the first college she went to there was a guy I knew she shared a mutual attraction with. She denied it for years. Admitted it, finally, sometime after we were married (like, for years). I still don’t think it was physical, but wouldn’t want to have to bet on it (never have really).
At the second college she went to, she did cheat on me. “Third base” with a guy who I also suspected something was up with but she denied. Awesome thing here is, in the last month or so I’ve learned there was another guy at this school. She doesn’t remember either ones’ name (I’ve never forgotton the guy’s that I knew about …). And I don’t know what she did with the other guy.
Post-college (we didn’t do undergrad together), there were all these “crushes.” I never worried about them too much. I figured her behavior was in the past. And, I think, it was until recently. The “crushes” seemed to concern her though. Lately I’ve begun to wonder if they were intended to be threats. Ways to manipulate me, control me.
Anyway, there was a recent guy she was hanging out with and I didn’t like it. I was concerned and told her so, but didn’t ask she stop hanging out with him. I’m not sure what all went down, but they haven’t hung out in well over a year. A couple of months ago our pastor told me he had to tell the guy to “be careful with” my STBXW. I think she was trying to seduce him now. Maybe something did happen …
The actual, known recent affair was with a (different than above) ex from high school. This guy is her “soulmate” someone “who truly gets” her. He’s also been charged numerous times on drug related charges, in jail two or three times, and has a couple of domestic violence charges too. Anyway, he’s several states away so it was an EA only. Until she went to see her parents and then drove another 3 hours to see him. Spent a night in a hotel. Story on what happened changed twice. What she admitted to makes it a clear PA too. And, yeah, adults go to a hotel room to do specific things, right? I asked her to move out when she chose him. I think he dumped her too. I don’t think they’re talking anymore. Again, I don’t know what happened but I have reason to suspect he didn’t share her “soulmate” feelings, and was put off by her aggressiveness (e.g., offering to meet him this summer for a hotel weekend).
My name her is my reminder. I’d put my spackle skills up against anyone. This woman has always let me know who she is. I just refused to see it. I did think her behavior and thinking was because of youth. That she’d grow out of it, that I’d change her. What I know now is, I’m a chump.
Yes, my last cheater started to feel trapped yet again, and started sniffing around a mutual friend.
I warned her off. She didn’t believe me, and thought I wanted him back myself.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I kicked the Edgar Suit out after DDay #2 when I found out he was banging a stripper. Of course, being a chump, I hung on for another two years waiting for the change and growth that would lead to happy leaping unicorns of reconciliation. We all know how that ended. In the end, it turned out that Stripper #1 was actually Stripper #9 or #10 by his extremely conservative estimate (he ‘couldn’t remember’ the exact number strippers he’d risked my life by fucking and then having unprotected sex with me). She was followed by Post Separation/Pre Divorce Strippers #1 and #2 before #3 “landed” the prize that is the Edgar Suit. Prize winner Stripper #3 (or #25 or whatever her real number is), who moved in with him before I filed for divorce, actually called me a month after the divorce was final to complain that Edgar was cheating on her with… wait for it… more strippers. I’m not sure what she expected from me. Sympathy? Sisterly bonding over his faithless heart? Not likely. Whatever. He is what he is. She is what she is. They deserve each other. No take backs, no returns and absolutely no regrets on my part.
He belongs in jail.
I just found out that my ex cheater was with his Skank OW for the two years following his cheating, finally moved in with her in March, it lasted two weeks, he moved out back to where he was, and now he is living with a NEW woman, less than two months later. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for what break down occurred on that scene, it couldn’t have been pleasant:-)
I found out he actually met this NEW woman a couple years ago after moving out of our home. So who cheated on who and how this time line all goes together is unclear but it looks like he was building a new relationship with this current person while still with OW Skank AND even moving in with her.
I am not surprised. So glad you are out of that mess!
I can’t say for sure what kind of person he is now, I’m 100% total no contact with the cheater and everybody who knows him.
But before I cut contact with people who know him, I heard a lot of gossip about him and based on my experiences with him, it’s all plausible and probably true.
As of my last bit of information, he’s still up to his same games. His sugar mama kicked him out, he was mooching off his elderly mother again, and still preying on lonely socially isolated women for money, gifts, and ego kibbles.
He’ll never change, he’s completely convinced that he’s amazing and everybody else is inferior to him. It’s never him that’s the problem, he says people are jealous and petty.
I *might* have a unicorn… the tricky thing is that I will never know until he’s dead. 😉
He did change, in horrible and painful moments and long, drawn-out ones too. He tells people about it at the most surprising times, when it would embarrass him. And he is embarrassed… but he’ll do it when he starts seeing a crack or a pattern in someone else. “Flirty” husbands don’t like him because he doesn’t play along. He calls them on their shit when they’re complaining about their wives and “joking” about finding a “side piece.” They don’t like him; that’s good. He’s gained actual friends, which he never had before… friends who DO things together and include their kids and spouses and when they’re at each other’s houses too long, MISS their families. Husband will go out to help a buddy with a project and go fishing, take any kids who want to go and the dog, and call me up to see if I want to come out for dinner because he misses me, the buddy is grilling, and they still have a few things to finish up.
He hadn’t talked to his mother (who was suddenly abandoned by her minister-husband for her professional-victim best friend when Cheater was 16) for 20 years and reached out to her, to apologize for ditching her and not looking back. For keeping her from knowing his children as babies. For breaking her heart by abandoning her too. He reflected on his cheating father (who died 6 years ago) and how HORRIBLY his mother was hurt and why she is the way she is now. How effed up I and the children would be, if he’d done the exact same thing. (His mother is nutty… but she has reasons, obviously.) He sobbed about it. Often. This was a HUGE thing. I had never seen him cry like that.
He invests in our lives now. He’s learned to Adult, which was a very slow and painful process with mistakes made and consequences had… which he learned to resolve by making those hard phone calls. He was never taught how to be an adult… collateral damage of being considered the smallest problem during the worst divorce. He had always pretended he knew, being ashamed he didn’t. Things always fell by the wayside. With me in tatters, he had to pick up the ball. He had to do all the things I was too MEH to do. All the logistics of three tweens. All the hard conversations that are constant at this stage. The homework. The glue and congealed cartridge ink and tri-fold project boards. Keeping the cars repaired, maintained, inspected, registered. The bill pays. How hard it is to budget min. wage base pay when commission fluctuates wildly and ends up tripling it by the end of the year.
I see his eyes cloud over when he sees a gap he didn’t fill because of being a selfish asshole before. All the things that he assumed his children knew or had experienced but didn’t… because he never was really involved. He hadn’t taught his children to do anything. They had no shared experiences beyond existing in the same place sometimes. He seizes those opportunities now. He starts projects with them. He goes to their afterschool clubs. He thinks of and discusses and plans vacations.
And he has put his money where his mouth is. He received a large inheritance from his maternal grandmother, whom he’d had no relationship with since the divorce. The only reason he received it is because he was “back on the family radar,” having reconciled with his mother several years before. He put the entire thing into our joint account and paid off my tiny credit card balance of a few hundred dollars, mingling it into my finances as quickly as possible. This, despite being informed by the estate attorney that inheritances were not marital property unless there was co-mingling. He co-mingled the shit out of it.
So, I have hope that he’s a unicorn… but I will never be able to have certainty. I will always plan out my future with consideration that I might have to leave and be independent at any moment I discover he’s been unfaithful again. He knows this; I make no secret of it. Instead, he does all he can to assure me that he’s ALL IN… that this is the life he wants. I can live with that.
This is over the past 4 years. There was no character transplant. I cut him down incessantly for almost 2 solid years. I let myself get angry and scream and cry and sink into depressions and start all over again. I gave up many times. And he took it all. He picked up everything I dropped and asked me for advice when I was able to give it. He took my advice even as I cussed him out for needing it as an “alleged Grown-Ass Man.” He took my freezing him out. My rants. My affection. He called his mother to ask her what he should do. He made mistakes and fixed them. He has invested all of himself, it seems.
But again, “seems” being the operative word. I will never have trust completely in anyone again…and maybe never should have. And he knows that he’s the reason for that.
……mine did all of the above for 7 years …sorry to say …blew it all for a one night stand when he was out of the country with a close male friend of us both …just when I thought it was safe to trust again. Family holiday just booked, plus our annual “just us” break had been booked we had had a great year with so much fun and laughter and what I thought was love. I actually, genuinely thought he loved me
I wish they did change …I hope yours has ..
Me too.
I will never think that it’s safe to trust anyone completely, ever again. The cheating brought out not only his but many other betrayals and deceptions in the works, from other people. I learned to form and keep boundaries like a mofo.
No one has my best interests at heart like I do. I’ve come to believe that that’s true of everyone. When push comes to shove, it’s reasonable to have the expectation that a person will choose him/herself over you. Just as I would, ultimately. It’s hard to be gravely betrayed, after that, with such an adjustment of expectations. Sad? Perhaps… but that’s reality. My ability to trust simply doesn’t exist anymore; it doesn’t matter if I had a new partner… I would never trust them completely, whether they deserve it or not. I don’t think people should trust anyone completely… it’s not prudent.
See? He killed it. I mourned the loss of my ability to trust AS I was trying to build it back… that’s when I found that I had nothing to work with; it’s just gone.
I have hope in plenty but not trust. I don’t need it. I can be disappointed but not BETRAYED. It’s empowering.
And I am brutally honesty about that too. I shut people right down when they say things like, “You can trust me” or “I trust you.” Liars and cheats of all kinds LOVE throwing that around… it’s the very first tell.
“Well, there’s no need for that. We’ll have something written up.”
More than nine times out of ten, something DID need to be written up… and I trot out that document whenever they decide to choose their own interests over the reality of their contract. It saves me a lot of trouble and takes what would have previously been an emotionally-charged and betrayal-filled situation and turns it into very simple matter of fulfilling the terms of a contract. No surge of emotions other than amusement at their temporary sense of entitlement.
No more bullshit. I had a life’s worth by 30 and I’m not dealing with that shit anymore… not when it’s so easy to avoid with raw simplicity.
Just yesterday a good friend asked me if I ever consider taking my X back. I said “not as the man he is and was…he could not be the same man I knew, and how would I ever really know either way?” So she asked me, what if he were deathly ill and had no one to take care of him (we are mid 60’s now)?
I told her that I’d take care of him if he were bedridden/in hospice..as long as it did not interfere with running my business. That is the entirety of the amount of risk I am willing to take for him…but he’d still have to be a changed man with enough evidence to prove it.
For me to believe he has changed:
1. He has not drank or smoked pot for two years+
2. Enormous amounts of money start to appear in my personal checking account…or 200 1oz gold eagle coins suddenly appear on my door step (to pay me back for all the debt I had to pay).
3. He’d had given up the computer/tv/smart phones/movies/porn ect…for two+ years.
4. Our former mutual friends and family come out of the woodwork and start telling me that he has confessed the truth about why our relationship ended.
5. HE confesses to me ALL of his lifetime filth w/o my asking him to.
6. He is already retired from the store that he used to snag women with.
7. He does not dare to ask a thing from me after doing all the above…but instead, takes his own initiative to see what I need and offer his help.
Then he can come back and live separately out in the cottage on my property…we will never have sex again because he burned that possibility down when he destroyed my self image with his objectifying and porn. Nope, we could just be friends.
Yeah, the objectifying women thru porn bit is a deal beaker for me too. For the ex and anyone else. Of course sex was never great – with the ex, that is. He was my only until after the divorce. Since then, I found out what I was missing all those years and I’ve never looked back. 😉
Sweetz-that’s so funny. I told the serial cheater who made me the other woman without my knowledge, cheating on the woman he lived with, who bought a home to house this low level earner/parasite (as I also learned) and his two sons, who he had cheated with when he was married, (his AP was also cheating on her hubby) a similar response. After I learned his true status and ended it he continued to pursue-so I sent him this: If you were in a wheelchair and had green peas dripping down your chin as you were being feed, I would pay you a visit in the nursing home, just to take a picture to remind me of what I missed, and even then I wouldn’t trust you not to cheat-adios..
My ex used to tout his “integrity” to anybody who would listen. Whatever. I love this Emerson quote, “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
An interesting post thank you. Sounds hopeful but you are right not to trust 100%. I won’t be doing that again. This post has given me something to think about.
Insistonhonesty, I read your comments, and I think you have posted quite a bit before now – didn’t you have to make your own toilet paper at one time, because you were so broke? Was that you? I remember the huge anger, anyway.
Thank you for posting this, because this is the unvarnished reality of reconciliation. This is what it looks like in real life. I hope ivyleaguechump is reading this …
But it seems such an unhappy life that I find myself wondering WHY you have stayed?
Mine did all of this for 10 years too after I found out about the “first” affair. The agreeable co-mingling inheritance money, the contrite reconciliation with family – everything you said…then I found out about another affair. And then I found out about even more cheating that happened during the unicorn days. So many wasted years with such garbage. Make sure you stay on top of the finances. Mine hid money and used co-mingling as a tool to fool me and distract me from the financial infidelity that was taking place. I’m not saying yours isn’t a unicorn but I’m glad you are being careful.
He can obviously withdraw all of that money from your joint account at any moment. Make sure you move all of that money into an account in your name only, and then see a divorce lawyer to write a post-nup. If he’s a true unicorn, he’ll have no problem letting you hold all the money individually. Him suddenly getting more involved in caring for the kids could actually hurt you in terms of you securing child custody, depending on your stare. And an “estate lawyer” you spoke to about commingling the inheritance is not necessarily a “divorce lawyer” — get good advice from a divorce lawyer who goes to domestic relations court and knows your local judges. They may have a totally different take on this.
@Jo- When my world came crashing down, I decided to build myself back up while he supported the family… and worked in sales for a while but ultimately decided that becoming a legal assistant, then paralegal, would be in my best interests. (An insider scoop and discount. 😉 ) This firm specializes in family law, divorce, real estate, and probate/estate planning.
Before I started there, however, he had already put our *paid off* house into my name. ONLY my name. There are no liens, the mortgage was satisfied, and he doesn’t have to the ability to leverage it in the future because it’s solely mine. His paychecks go into the joint account and entirely fund our living expenses. Mine go into my account. And we transferred half of the inheritance into my account; because if he spent it all, I wouldn’t be able to get blood from a stone and demand half of nothing. I don’t want the entire thing. His car is small but in both of our names. My van is in my name. We keep close to zero balances on 5 lines of credit. I wanted to make everything simple, in advance, so there’d be little to squabble about if/when I decide that I’m done, whether he’s cheated again or I’m.just.done. Post-nups don’t end up being very effective, here. We have one but it wouldn’t be enforceable. The idea was to just DO, in advance, all the things that the post-nup detailed, to make it easy to call a time of death on our marriage… and that’s whether I decide I’m done or he ends up thinking, “You know- this isn’t worth it.” Without debts and with substantial savings, he would be able to comfortably afford a rent/mortgage payment, pay child support, and live/socialize/save. If he wants to leave? There’s the door. He can afford it. And I can afford it, even if he took off so I couldn’t find him, to pay child support.
Whether I chucked him out and found someone new or I stay with him, I will never become so vulnerable to the whims of a partner again… not when it’s so simple to avoid. Trust, for me in general, does not exist. It’s a sweet notion and nothing more.
@LolaGranola- I had to make cloth diapers, not TP, out of towels because he’d overdrawn our account to buy himself lunch, after I told him not to buy a single thing until his paycheck hit and I still needed to buy diapers for our daughter.
14 years ago. It’s an example I’ve trotted out often, of him being entitled in general and how he’d be defiant (even when it hurt himself) just to stick it to me. “I don’t have to listen to you!”
Pain, sadness, humor, laughable, the stories about all these cheaters, basically schematic overlays of each other. What produces so many of them? Is it a gene? Is it an epidemic, but heretofore unrecognized virus? Are they to be recognized as a class of personage which we should classify as under law, respect and not discriminate, like the disabled, or certain religions, or specific selections of certain sex orientations? But then we should also make it lawful for volcanoes to erupt and unlawful to do anything to stop the flow of lava destruction. When we see the statistics of the percentage of cheaters in relationships, it makes me think, they think, “everybody, almost, does it so I will too.” Somehow it seems like we who think only of loyalty, never having thoughts of cheating are becoming the abnormal ones; that we who expect and assume loyalty, honesty, in our partners are the twisted ones. We certainly hear the recriminations should we dare to complain about what we perceive as a breach, that we are in the wrong-and that falls into the laugh category.
My ex-husband and I have been separated for four years and divorced for not quite a year. Recently my ex-husband bragged to me (or cried for help or both or neither?) that he had had 30 partners (women and maybe some men), juggling up to four at a time in the last couple of years. He probably cheated on a few, but I don’t care about the theatrical aspects of his life. I am trying to pretend he is dead so that I am not bothered by him. He harasses me on a regular basis (and sometimes harasses my parents). He’s highly disordered.
I don’t know if my last now ex, boyfriend cheats on his current partner as he has blocked me from all modern channels of communication, in spite of us supposedly having been friends for decades. (What’s that saying? ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed.’) I know that he is disrespectful, controlling, and dishonest, especially when he is uncomfortable about a relationship, which he often is as he is quite cowardly. (It’s amazing that he has done as well as he has professionally, become an executive who must schmooze with people, and socially, has a lot of long-standing friends, considering how cowardly he is.) I’m trying to think of him as a painful but important lesson in not trusting people, not getting involved with people who seem ambivalent, not hanging around people who disrespect you, and realizing that people who also lie to you don’t love you. Also, trying to ‘give him some grace,’ as he wasn’t all bad–he did try to emotionally support me to some degree while I went through a lot of trauma on several fronts over the years–and some of his bad behavior was probably not ill-intentioned; some of it was probably the result of him being emotionally very undeveloped. Perhaps someday I will thank my last boyfriend for being the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back,’ the guy who finally made me give up hope in humanity (at least in terms of finding a good guy with whom I could form a happy, healthy, committed intimate relationship), and the guy who unknowingly pushed me to become a Buddhist (nun).
At least I’ve learned (late in life, but better late than never I guess) that getting into and hanging onto relationships with people who seem unhealthy or incompatible with me is a bad idea and, at least in my experience, relationships that start off less than good will NOT improve. A guy that I met this weekend in a class asked me out. He seemed to have a lot in common with me and seemed reasonably attractive. But something about him struck me as strange. He couldn’t/wouldn’t answer some basic questions about his life history (e.g., were you on a sports team as a kid), which made me think that he had a hard time communicating with people, in spite of being a writer. A few days later, he suggested that I make dinner for him. Why wouldn’t he invite me out or offer to make me dinner as a first date? I don’t care to know the answer. Next! Even if that is me ‘having a date with me’ and being alone the rest of my life. Tired of weirdness, creepiness, and degradation of me (being allowed by me). I don’t want the drama of bad relationships to negatively distract me from my mission to improve life (support human and animal rights). Following the philosophy in kung fu of assertively redirecting others’ aggressive energy in a way that is self-protecting but does not harm others, even the attacker, when I think of things that went wrong in my intimate relationships and how I feel angry at my exes for how they behaved and angry at me for tolerating such behavior or feel sad about the lost decades, I’m going to redirect the ‘energy’ of the anger and sadness into creating a better world. I’m finally starting to notice that although I am often lonely and miss the ‘good’ parts of my last boyfriend/last boyfriend’s facade, I am glad that I will never again be insulted nor lied to by my ex-boyfriend and I, most likely being partnerless for the rest of my life, will likely never again be attached to someone who is always on the lookout for my replacement.
RSW- Love the Kung Fu redirect you found. Thanks for the reference.
I did the same but in a similar TaeKwan-Do philosophy & discipline.
The people in my ‘tribe’ now are real and don’t fit the cheater paradigm. As I get stronger (physically, emotionally and spiritually) I see nothing but benefits for Me in the future on this path.
Tracy, I’d say that if 99.4% of these assholes retain the same character, then a blanket statement might apply. The 0.6% of converts, well I’ll just leave it ‘Rite Thar’.
My vSTBXWW…I’m in the trusting chump category. Blind to everything before Dday but there were a few indicators along the 13 year path I didn’t cotton onto, or were finessed over by my “wife’ !?
I learned her history about the time she blew up our family and let the mask fall off. It turns out the she cheated on her 1st husband with his 2nd,3rd? cousin. Husband #1 got VAR evidence and supposed video as well. Ergo,,..Divorce # 1.
So she hooks up with 2nd cousin and he adopts her as his concubine. Great term btw. She gets pregnant a few years into this relationship and they marry. She cheats on Husband #2 and runs off for a few months then returns. I think that happened before she got preggy. She cheated on husband #2 before his tragic accidental death. She was spotted 3 days after the burial in a deep embrace with a renter. That’s all I heard about that. Now Hubby #2 had money and property. So Let the looting begin. That was until the Hubby #2’s family got involved with the estate distribution. He basically left everything to wife and daughter however his 4 adult kids did get to split a third. So now, Wayward has a money supply and starts burning through that. I met her in an AOL chatroom for adults over 40.
So behold Chump #3. Wayward left last September 8 to move in with camper -oy. She had profiles and was sending/ receiving genitalia pictures when I discovered her phone shenanigans. After a Labor Day ‘fuckfest” (her Freudian slip), she moved in with camper-boy. She had slept with another younger loser before camper-boy which was my Discovery #1, Camper-boy being Discovery #2 afterwards.
She still uses the address to further her decline into FICO score hell (480) and gets bills sent here. So she stops by to collect her mail (bills) and gifts for whoever she buys. During a visit I asked to see her phone and she GAVE IT TO ME. I jumped over to her FB IMs and low and behold two closet suitors.
Cheaters LIE ARTFULLY. Cheaters LIKE EASY. Cheaters CHEAT- It’s what the do.
So YES! I’ll go on record and Emphatically state, “Cheaters will cheat again”. Especially the deranged soul, serial type like mine.
Dr Phil is resonating in my brain now…”If they’ll cheat WITH YOU, they’ll cheat ON YOU”.
Marcus,
Is there any way you can stop her from getting mail and receiving packages at your place/get her stinky mess of a life away from you ? Her own box at the post office, package retrieval at UPS/Fed Ex ?
Dunno don’t care.
But during my marriage police phase of wreckonciliation when I was trying to parse out just who the fuck I’d been sleeping next to for almost 2 decades, I came across a comment he posted on a Yahoo news article about Tiger Woods that simply said, “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
From the mouths of fuckwits… takes one to know one.
My ex-husband’s first wife gave up her career to be a SAHM to their son. He always felt like he was the only one supporting the family, nobody cared about his worries or burdens. I have a really good career and handled most of the chores.
She wasn’t very thoughtful or supportive. I was always doing nice things for him, praising him, and was very supportive as he changed careers, handled his father’s estate, dealt with his son, etc.
She was wrapped up in her family dysfunction. Her parents lived with them. I had a nice family that welcomed him, but they were out of state.
He claims that they had an open marriage, but I was never allowed to talk to her to find out if this was a mutual decision or an after-the-fact one. He agreed when I insisted on monogamy saying that the whole scene “is gross” and “empty”, not fulfilling like the love of a good woman. All those years of searching and he’d found the what he was looking for.
I guess it’s technically not cheating if it’s an open marriage, but he couldn’t be faithful to either of us.
A now-deceased friend of Hannibal’s had an open marriage with his first wife. He ended up leaving her for his main (?only?) AP. While I don’t believe he cheated on her over a few decades, some of his behaviors seemed as if he was trying (e.g., to get me to sample Nutella, he put some on his index finger and shoved it in my mouth. Gross, and I made sure I was never alone with him after that.).
Thus, many non-recidivist cheaters may only not repeat because they aren’t successful at attempts.
EEEEWWWWW!
As far as what Mr Fab and the Downgrade do as extracurricular activities to their Twu Wuv Wewashunship: behold the field where I grow my fucks, for it is barren.
The likelihood of them cheating on each other is high, but I don’t waste time on it. Must be the Meh kicking in. I don’t need any more proof that they are shitty people (she was an in-law and close friend once). All I need to know is they are a long long ways away from me and Kiddo and that the karma bus doesn’t run on my schedule-in some senses the karma is that THEY will always have to wonder, and I get to have a life free of deception and abuse. The only thing that still grinds me is how he treats Kiddo (He will pay for vacations and tchotchkes but not everyday shit like, college. Or food: he short changed me on child support). But she and I agreed he is not a factor any more and expectations need to be set at less than zero, because anyone who prioritizes their dick over their daughter does not deserve a place in her life. To some extent that IS karma, even if Mr Fab is too thick to realize that his Twu Wuv cost him the last shred of respect his Kiddo has for him. At least Kiddo knows what integrity is, that character transplants never take, and hopefully history won’t repeat itself in her relationship choices. Even if he is now a model husband, I know and deserve better.
No unicorns here, in other words. Love to all Chump Nation.
ChumpNation,
go read this article again: it is chock full of information and knowledge related to reconciliation and recidivism.
https://www.chumplady.com/2013/07/reconciliation-and-entitlement/
Thank you ChumpLady!!!
I have absolutely no idea what Judas is up to. BUT – he “Never Cheated On Me….” (Going out and getting a fuck phone to sext other women and having a private email account to ‘pick up’ women doesn’t count as cheating don’t ya know….) My Facebook account has NOBODY that is remotely related to dumbass so there is no possibility of me seeing him or anything about the jackass. I’m not even friends with my kids nor any other family on FB – just for that sole reason. MY FB is pretty much HS friends… Nobody tells me anything about Judas either, which I’ve asked them not to unless he is in the hospital with Hep C or Cirrhosis or dead. It’s a bummer then nobody mentions him (that must mean fuckface is still alive….) My kids don’t tell me anything which is good because I don’t have ANYTHING good to say and I don’t think they want to hear it.
Like spoonriver’s X mentioned above – he used to be nice and good looking. Now he is fat, bald (comb over from ear to ear – looks pretty stupid) and an asshole that I want NOTHING to do with. (I can guarantee he is still an alcoholic though….)
“he used to be nice and good looking. Now he is fat, bald (comb over from ear to ear – looks pretty stupid) and an asshole that I want NOTHING to do with. (I can guarantee he is still an alcoholic though….)”. Were we married to the same guy? This is spooky spot on.
Cheater dad: dropped dead at age 43 of a heart attack induced by HEP B which he got fucking male teen prostitutes in SE Asia.
Cheater narc mom: 78 years old and still lies her ass off. H #3 is 16 year-younger former jock, dumb as shit, addicted to icy and Xanax. All of us 5 kids have either been chumped or are serial cheater narc BPD assholes.
Cheater sister: XH #2 divorced her and took all his inheritance with him, he got 60/40 custody. H#3 is currently being terrorized by her abusive rages and DARVO tactics. His 3 kids are caught in her evil orbit ????????????????. She is as mean and miserable as ever. Now that she’s 40 and 40lbs overweight the cute young married doctor ho-workers at the large teaching hospital where she is a MA no longer chase after her.
Cheater XH#1- divorced him 30 years ago. Our daughter has never had anything to do with him — his loss as she is wonderful. I’ve only seen him once in 20 years and he has become a total redneck hick Jesus-cheater. Fat, poor, ugly.
Cheater XH#2: his health is terrible. He still makes a ton of $$$ though. Golddigging young OW is still getting him to pay all of her living expenses and for lavish trips. XH has hovered back countless times in 3 years. Shortly after I booted his ass out I had a very momentary lapse in judgment and let him touch me… found out later he was living with OW… so he cheated on OW with me, his wife of 25 years. Then last month after he took OW on yet another lavish trip to Europe, I learned he was trying to get set up with a mutual acquaintance … told her his relationship with OW was “on again off again and complicated.” Yeah right! Bet OW didn’t get the memo! Too bad so sad.
He was introducing trollface to family within a month of our separation. (Married 29 years, 4 kids etc.. i pulled the plug on marriage after seeing craigslist posting, Ashley Madison account AND seriously disturbing pornsite issue)Nine months later, while still with gf he shows up as my “perfect match” on dating site. That was 9/2016. Fast forward 2 years later to today, moved into her house and guess who shows up as my “perfect” match once again..with new pictures this time? They DON’T change. (So, after seeing this twice now, i will not go on dating sites. They need to screen for liars and cheaters. When they can promise/develope an app for that…i may reconsider using one.) Trust they SUCK. Thank you for this website. ❤ CN
My cheater ex and the woman he left me for broke up before our divorce was final. When he started living with the woman who is now his wife, she was married to her previous husband. Since their marriage I know for a fact that he’s had STD testing at least once. I don’t even want to know the details. It was a very weird fluke that I learned about the testing. They are not very nice people.
I don’t have any recent intel because frankly, it interferes with my sense of “meh,” but when the Ashley Madison hack occurred a few years ago, an intrepid computer nerd got me all of the info attached to my ex’s email accounts and IP addresses, and she did the same for the OW’s information. My ex met the OW on Ashley Madison back in 2011, and they were married by 2013. However, according to the dump of info from the hack, the OW created another account with a different username in 2014, several months after they were married, so unless she did it with his blessing because they have an open marriage (doubt it– she appears to have ex-cheater on a very short leash), looks to me like she started looking for some strange when they hadn’t even been married a year! That’s true love right there for ya, folks!
I have no idea whether ex or OWife have cheated/are cheating/will cheat with each other, but suffice it to say that they both cheated on their previous spouses (OWife cheated w/2 previous spouses, and ex was serial cheater for our entire marriage), so if I were a betting person, I’d take those odds!
A decade on, and I still periodically get Facebook message requests from various women connected to my exH. Some asking if he cheated on me, others asking for clarification on why I left, all of them engaged in desperate Pick Me Dances. It’s sad actually, so sad that he reduces otherwise strong women to such desperate measures.
He messaged yesterday (yet ANOTHER new number) saying he has bowel cancer. He has no one to advocate for him, attend medical appointments and treatments with him, and seems to be under the impression I’ll step up to the plate. My response? “I’m sorry for your troubles. Wishing you a speedy recovery!” Then blocked him, because fuck off with that noise. You chose your life, you get to die alive.
*Die alone
No sympathy for your cheater from me. Too bad so sad buddy. I too hope he dies alone…. Ultimate Karma. I love it and envy you SCL…
Brilliant response! (And he is lucky you even responded!)
Excellent! “You chose your life”. Yep. Welcome to consequences.
I’m sure his recovery is going to be a “pain in the ass.”
I don’t think you can technically call it recidivism if they never fucking stop.
Less than two short years after we broke up (at which point I estimate he had been involved with his new chump for about a year) I was lucky enough to get independent verification that my ex still sucks.
While he living with the chump he left me for — and I was trying to convince myself that he sucks and that the break up wasn’t all due to my myriad failings as a GF and person — a woman I didn’t know approached me on FB.
She wanted to find out more about my ex bc he had been wooing her (unbeknownst to his current Chump, I’m sure).
They had been friends since high school but only recently had the relationship taken a less-than-platonic turn. But she (rightly) had a feeling there was something fishy about his sad sausage story.
He told her he’d been single since he and I broke up, when in fact his seemingly monogamous relationships overlapped by a year. He *never* was or is single.
She also told him I’d been physically abusive (I wish). ????????????
So his lying, blameshifting, gaslighting and smear campaign game is still very strong.
Anyway, I told the would-be chump the truth and, last I heard, she confronted him about his lies. His compelling response: “It’s so much more complicated than you could understand. I wish I could explain it to you.” Asshole didn’t even deny it because he was busted, and he knew it. Always playing that sad sausage pity card.
I sensed that she was deeply under the influence of the self-pity channel, even while she admitted she’d just gotten out of a controlling relationship and was a single mom of two. He undoubtedly knew that and saw her as a prime target, ripe for chumpdom because at his core, he’s a predator.
I believe they are still friends, mostly because I think she doesn’t want to believe the truth of her sweet friend from high school. Despite my urging, she stopped short of telling his GF, unfortunately. I’d tell her myself but he’s poisoned the well with her and there’s no way she’d believe me.
Either way, it was really freeing to know that he hasn’t changed at all. All the crappy stuff he did to me (lying, cheating, manipulating, blaming, gaslighting, exploiting), he’s still doing.
I wasn’t the terrible person he succeeded (temporarily) in making me believe I was. That relationship didn’t fail because of me.
It wasn’t about me at all. It’s about the toxic dung heap where his soul should be. These cretins never change.
I think my now ex, Dr. Cheaterpants, genuinely thought he’d found the twu wuvs both times he left for differing schmoopies. The first early on in our marriage when our kids were 2 & 4 years old and he fell for a howorker (twice divorced and history of cheating on both husbands nurse, her coworkers had nicknamed crazy). Two suspicious secretaries in the 12 years between. Then ultimately left again for DD14’s 20-something asst sports coach in our kids’ Catholic high school while he’s volunteer coaching.
His perception is his reality. I saw his texts and emails to his young ho because our iclouds were joined and the 46 year old high maintenance man child didn’t know. He was telling her he missed her, quit deflecting his attentions, he needed to meet with her to tell her how it had all started 5 years earlier, DD knew something was up and should he tell her he’d fallen in love with her coach?
I finally kicked him out and I filed for divorce. Will he cheat on his young schmoopie? I don’t know. They are still together. He’s bought a huge, expensive home, takes her on trips and they go out to the most expensive restaraunt in town frequently. He buys her expensive jewelry. He was always stingy with me and the kids. Still is as he’s dropping DS18’s car insurance since kid graduated from high school.
I think he’ll get bored, maybe years from now. The sparkle will wear off. One or both of them may look, or maybe he’ll be too old or broke to attract a better schmoopie. One thing that has helped me in addition to CL & CN is the infidelity help group site. I would recommend surfing around through there too. Dr. Cheaterpants surely doesn’t see himself as a nasty ole cheater. He had to leave for the twu wuvs. Yep, he’s special.
https://www.infidelityhelpgroup.com/2014/06/25/once-a-cheater-always-a-cheater-2/
Does it count as cheating if he is still having sex with you but tells the OW you are no longer together? Mine cheated on me twice both with two different soul mates…I do know he has dowloaded dating apps so if he hasn’t cheated he is planning on it!
I’m a believer in “once a cheater always a cheater”. Maybe some get slowed down by the biological realities of age.
But I’m here to tell you- if you were a fly on a wall you would find out how much your cheater is NOT remorseful about what they did.
You have no idea who these people really are. And when you find out- be afraid and run while you still can.
My ex cheated to apparently be a single 19 year old (at 30) But after less than 2 months seemed like the fun of that was done after she realized she had two small kids at home half the time and I wasn’t going to be her personal sitter while she parties
She met some chump who played for shit and basically helped her out with the kids. Obvious rebound and you wouldn’t have known they were dating .
She dumped him 4 times in less than two years . Usually I heard brcause hed drink too much. Twice on vacation he paid for. And of course my kid would tell me in between about ‘mommys friend (insert name)’ then the chump would be back. Usually after me and her had a blow out.and again I guess single mom life sucks and other dudes probably could see her for what she is.
Not all her though from what I was told each time she’s treated him like a sack of shit he’d beg to come back. I think shes shown no remorse or done the pick me dance with me because not only her character but also having this guy step in and do all that. Almost for me haha. And i dont bend or let her get away with any of the kid shit which is all we deal with .
Recently break up with him again because as my daughter was told by my ex’hes immature and acts foolish’ . Yeah…..he does…..see how long it lasts this time. I think im past her trying to come back even as we divorce if she hasn’t tried by now and has this guy as back up who will take her crap. So I dont even get the satisfaction of telling her to beat it!
So a cold selfish user still. Still messing with guys for what she wants not learning or growing up at all. Done with one guy. Onto the next. And so on. No end in site
Well let’s break it down. EX had two women that I know of.
Schmoopie – this is the one he decided was twu luv… AFTER I kicked him out.
OW v1 – this one he was seeing for at least 3 years. Not sure of her current status.
In the 2 weeks before I kicked him out, he had spent time with both of them. On my birthday, about a month before I kicked him out, as he was driving to get my birthday cake, he talked to one for an hour before and one for an hour after.
All during this time, when OWv1 and Schmoopie overlapped, he was going to erotic massage parlors and trolling back space for who knows what.
Now he tells everyone that he cheated because I wouldn’t have sex with him. Which is more like it was the other way around. He couldn’t get an erection.
I’m 100% sure he’ll cheat on her in the future, if he isn’t already.
Ewww. You must be happy to be rid of that stink!
My STBXH left just after Christmas to be with the OW he’d been having an affair with for over a year. He didn’t see her the last few months of the year as he has returned to do “whatever it takes” to save our marriage. I discovered an email account that he set up two weeks after his return to basically keep love bombing her in writing as he dismantled what was left of the marriage. He spent New Years with the “only woman he has even been able to be his real self with,” and he basically lives with her, using his place only on the days he has the kids (double-life).
A friend of his just called me a couple of weeks ago. He let me know that just before Christmas a group of them all went out with my STBXH. Turns out STBXH had a one-night stand that night with someone who is not the OW. Yet, two days later, there is an email to the OW about how much he loves her.
So much for true love. After spending a few months sleeping on the couch while “working on our marriage,” he wanted to make sure that his ED issue wasn’t so bad before re-joining his schmoopsie, so he found a substitute to test on.
The OW’s ex-husband has just learned of my existence through a mutual acquaintance. He has custody of the children and they’ve been complaining the last year about this guy that mommy brings around (turned out it was my husband). Last summer, he had a lawyer send her a letter informing her that the children have requested that this man not be around them. The ex-husband did not know that this was a married man until recently. He wants to meet me to pick my brain.
The ex-husband told our mutual acquaintance that the OW had her parents watch her kids recently during her visitation weekend so that she could go out with a man. The man came and dropped off his own two kids for her parents to watch so they could go out and have a good time. I can confirm that it absolutely was not my children (both STBXH and his OW have their kids on the same weekend so they don’t see each other). So, this means that she’s gone out with someone else on the few days she has her kids and does not see my husband.
Bahahaha!! I say nothing. They are each other’s problem. A relationship with no integrity. Please, fly off into the sunset and burn to ashes!!!
How do you know she doesn’t see him when she has her kids?
They have their kids at the same time. My kids would tell me in two seconds if Daddy ever had a lady around or took them somewhere where there was a lady. Last summer, while still married to me, he allowed her to spend the day with him and the kids on a weekend he wanted to have “Daddy time”. The kids told me right when they returned. That is how I learned that she was back in the picture when I thought she was gone in March when I discovered the affair. My kids say they have never seen her again.
Mr. Twatwaffles’ 49 year history with his two cheating parents, is a strong indicator that any quality character transplants, are doomed to be rejected. I’m hopeful/not hopeful he will never, ever change for the better.
I’ll even go so far as to say that even if he’s married to the new wife appliance until the day he dies, it will never ever be a relationship that I would ever find satisfying for myself. There is a level of intimacy that I crave that he was unable to provide… and he will never be able to provide. If that’s satisfying to her, well more power to her… personally, I deserve better than what he has to offer.
So maybe this answer isn’t exactly what everyone wants to hear, but it’s my experience, so it is what it is.
My x cheated on me at least 2 times in our 20 year marriage. I assume there were more, but there is no proof and I don’t care enough to try and dig any up. 2nd Dday I tossed him out.
I divorced him, took the kids, and left him to his karma. His AP didn’t last more than a month after I threw him out, and the GF he got a year later (might be AP again?? who knows) only lasted a couple months.
Then he ‘re-found God’. Claims he was never saved before but is now. Apologized for everything. Told me he considers us still married in the eyes of God and that he will no longer be dating, although he knows I don’t want him back and isn’t making a pest of himself. He asked if he could date me, I said no, and it hasn’t come up again.
So far he seems to be sticking to that, but I have little doubt this too shall pale and he will be on the prowl again.
But if it’s real conversion? If he actually never looks to strange skanks for fulfillment again? If he has actually managed a character change? Devotes himself to the kids and self-betterment? Well good for him. It doesn’t change what he did to us, or how it forever changed the way I am capable of seeing him.
I still don’t want him anymore.
Life is so much better at meh.
Oh he is definitely lying. Jesus Cheaters always are. Also, see the below.
HAHAHAHA that’s BEAUTIFUL 😀 😀
Country girls know this sorta thing.
“But if it’s real conversion? If he actually never looks to strange skanks for fulfillment again? If he has actually managed a character change? Devotes himself to the kids and self-betterment? ”
You ARE joking, aren’t you.
Sounds like he’s referring to the scripture passage in Matthew. He needs to read it again. My understanding is that Jesus gives the faithful spouse the right to divorce & remarry. The adulterer, however, is not biblically released from the covey with the right to remarry since his spouse did not break the covenant. He did.
That’s great if he truly has repented and committed himself to Christ! If he’s a changed man, he will accept the consequences of his sin & not pressure you into reconciling the marriage relationship because that’s his best option. How the relationship is reconciled is up to you!
Oh hell yes.
Fuckturd cheated on his late wife, something he swore he did not do, but I discovered he did. Says he didn’t cheat on Wife #2 but I suspect he did. He’s been cheating on me in various ways since before we were married. He’s such a narcy and extremely good at everything that goes with it: victim-playing, gaslighting, and so on. It’s a lifelong skill he’s practiced since his teens – something he admitted one drunken night – and always got him the women he wanted, at least for that night.
He’s told me he’s not cheating on me anymore. My private investigator sent me video and pictures that tell quite a different story.
So hell yes. Once a cheater, always a cheater. They do it for the thrill. It’s a game, a drug. They must have it.
No, they do not change. Ever.
Exh1 was a cheater even before we were married, though he didn’t condier it cheating because all he got were blow jobs from several women. Three years into marriage, he cheated on me full-force with a ho-worker, a subordinate. He actually confessed to me, and he ended up getting fired for it and we spent years recovering financially and emotionaly. Six years after that, he began online friendships with various women and in real life, became very chummy with a fellow ballpark mom who at one point I considered a friend and actually looked me in the eye and said that she was “no threat to {me}” in regards to her friendship with then-husband. Months later after their friendship began, he announced he wanted a divorce. It devastated me.
He and OWife#3 (ballpark mom) were together six years total when she threw him out— no car, unem,ployed, and homeless. It was glorious- GLORIOUS, I tell you— to see him be suicidal, despondent, hopeless, desolate, and weakened by her discard.
It took him a couple years to bounce back, but he did. After a slew of live–in girlfriends, fiances, he finally met, married, then divorced Wife#4— annnnnnd marryied Wife#5 (the OW with Wife#4) ALL IN THE SAME YEAR!
________________________________________________________________________________
Exh2/The Evil One of course still denies ever cheating and that Mrs. Dumbass wasnt the OW, but I know otherwise. They got married less than 60 days after our divorce was final. IF TEO is to be believed, then he met and married her within four months of knowing her. Yeah, OK, whatever.
They’ve been together about three years now and I can see cracks, I can see him doing the things he did when we were married…and know that he’s up to his old tricks. My guess is that he’s scoping out new prey— looking for someone out-of-state that he can run away to to continue avoiding paying child support. He’s driveing over the road (supposedly) so I have no doubt he’s been online looking for someone.
They never change.
You dealt with an OW saying to your face that she was “no threat to {me}” as well? I did as well.
Fucking deceitful cunts…
Yep, Lania, she did. I still remember it like it was yesterday.
Karmas a bitch on that level too, when she threw exh1 out, HIS OWN FAMILY kept her in their family and told exh1 and our sons that if they didnt like it, tough shit.
At this point, it has been ten years now since she threw him out, and my sons are now 24 and 18. His family does nithing for my sons, ever.
They really are deceitful cunts. She was such a vile bitch to my sons too, i hope I get the chance to let her have it one of these days. She is a fucking cunt, and I hate that word, but it so applies to her
I’m not sure if The Coward has cheated or will cheat on the Rescue Twat. I think, unlike with me, that he is madly “in love” with her. But to be honest, I don’t really know for sure.
Where once I prayed that one or the other would cheat, now I don’t care. Not my circus, as they say.
I do know that he has a AM/AFF account, and the precedent. I do think he is a passive-aggressive covert narc, and nobody is the boss of him. I know that she is financially dependent on him, and he probably has a love (control) hate (share) relationship with the idea. She is very beautiful; he is not. She might find a better deal someday. No doubt this eats at him, the way it did when we were married. He told me that he thought I would leave him some day (WTAF??)
Neither of them owes the other anything. Except financially. He stupidly married her. That must eat at him, too.
Oh, I don’t know. I’m inclined to believe that they are so perfect for each other, and that she can give him what I could not, whatever that is.
He’s a cheater, she’s a parasite. That’s enough for me to stay the fuck away. I don’t need Karma to know that I am grateful every day that I’m not married to him. He is repulsive.
Ex is sucking at the teat (literally and metaphorically) of a super wealthy, super narcissistic, super amoral, and very ill fuckbuddy whom he lives with. Whether rent free or not, I have no idea. He’s livin’ the CA dream now, alright. He seems to play up the “she’s superb, amazing” line, but since he’s hollow inside, I know it’s gen-oo-wine Cheater twu wuv. Every now and then I place bets with myself as to if he’ll leave/cheat when she gets to the diapers stage, but then, the allure of free rent in a *very* expensive zipcode is hard to pass up, ne c’est pas?
Don’t know yet in my ex cheater but why would they change? It was all our chump fault remember?
Of course it was all our fault! And also because they knew we “would never change.”
F.u.c.k. them.
Another example that did not change! NC and separated a year and half ago from DX (cheater-husband of decades). His next live-in (met and moved in several months later) messaged me recently after he cheated on her and she left (to share that he had boasted about deceiving me about DD1 – NOT’ just an EA’. )
Next DX moved in another live-in and apparently remains on online dating sites…).
As far as I can see, my cheater and his a.p. wife are 100% changed people, done come clean and come to Jesus, ridden off into the sunset in blissful matrimony, taking my kid on family vacations and buying new vehicles….it can be hard to trust that they suck. But seeing as I’m basically no contact, apart from kid logistics, and it’s see into a very small window and don’t associate with all the same old folks we used to, so I know it’s all bullshit.
They have survived about 5 years on and off until married over a year ago, a miscarriage, getting sober, (I think- atleast my ex legally had to; she’s possibly a dry drunk and I’m sure hormonal a.f. cause my kid said she had to ‘get fixed.’) Every so often my ex sends me some half friendly stupid nostalgic rant I generally ignore, then he tries to connect emotionally using our kid as topic…smh.
Will they ever cheat on each other, divorce or reproduce? Time will tell but I’ll be the last to hear about it.
Are they truly in love and compatible, and treat each other respectfully; whereas ex and I were horribly mismatched? Most likely.
Will my ego ever be vindicated with being right, about his skein I carefully untangled? Probably not but maybe, yet I shouldn’t dwell on it.
Is he the same non supportive, passive aggressive and critical asshole with her as he was with me? Probably, but honestly I don’t know, and I can give a fuck less…
I’m more at meh these days; and I’m probably not able to witness any sort of karmic justice they’re receiving.
Fuck em.
Cheated on her within one year, was common knowledge in the small town (I wonder if and how much he cheated on me during our marriage, maybe that was common knowledge too that I missed).
Schmoopie left him 3 yrs after our dday. I heard the last year they had scream episodes and after drinking she would beat him ????
I would really like to know how you can tell if the cheater would do it again. Because I thought mine would never do it, like most of you did. I feel that he is not lying to me now. They made a mistake and you forgave them. They did it again. I don’t want to make this same mistake. What I’m interested in is how this came about? I see so many posts about so many promises to be faithful, yet they were still carrying on the affair. What were they saying and doing at the time? Your thoughts please. What did you think when you found out? How log did the contact continue? And how? What were the signs?
You see, when one cheats, he/she weighs the options/risks and in the end, he/she did not choose you. It’s that simple. If one weighed those options and chose to risk it all and lose everything and willfully hurt you and others in the process, then he/she when confronted with the same opportunity is inclined to do it again.
Of course, one can go deeper on this subject when dealing with pathological liars/narcissists/sociopaths who lie without a conscience. Empathy is lost on them and they will never feel remorse no matter how convincingly they try to prove otherwise. Many cheaters have these traits. They are very manipulative.
Anew. Well yes, they made a bad choice. I think black and white thinking is a bit stupid really. With everything really. But then most people on here have been badly burned. What if they didn’t really weigh up the thinking first? So it is easy to put a label on everyone. Yes, they chose to risk it, but what if they were just fucked up at the time and didn’t think about the consequences? I don’t think it is as simple as you make out. You don’t think people learn from their mistakes? Is it everyone, or just your cheater?
You launch immediately into pathological liars, etc. What about those who aren’t? I’m thinking your cheater was a narcissist, liar. Other people might come hear to learn from you. I hope you would want to help them. So could you please answer the question again.
“What were they saying and doing at the time? Your thoughts please. What did you think when you found out? How log did the contact continue? And how? What were the signs?”
CL has an excellent post on this topic.
Divorce Minister also covers it well.
A “mistake” is forgetting your keys or buying a very expensive pair of shoes that you can’t actually wear because they give you blisters. Cheating is a deliberate (usually premeditated) choice. Also, you “feel that he is not lying” but you felt that before, and it turned out he was lying, didn’t it?
As to ‘why’ read https://www.chumplady.com/2012/06/untangling-the-skein-of-fuckupedness/ . You want to know ‘why’ because you think then you can make sense of it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. You can’t. You can’t control other people or get into their heads and untangle whatever set of issues made them cheat. You just gotta accept that this is what they are, and decide whether you’re ok with that.
Well I agree with that, a mistake is something silly. Calling cheating a mistake is probably not the right way to say it. But people are fallible. No one is perfect. Are you? I know I’m not. But I can’t help thinking what you are saying to me is because you are so harmed about what happened to you. Maybe everyone won’t have the same outcome.
You are right in that you cannot control other people. But could you at least find it in your heart to advise others? What happened to you is terrible. Others hope to avoid this.
What is it that you want to be advised about exactly? It seems like you are looking for reassurance that some people who cheat learn their lesson and never cheat again and you’d also like some evidence of behaviors that guarantee that you are in a relationship with someone who won’t cheat again.
There are no guarentees about how any relationship is going to work out because no one can know the future. Generally though, the way a person has acted in the past is a great indicator of how they will act in the future and I think in part – at least with cheating-it is because once a person has cheated, then even in their own mind – whether they are “sorry” or not – they think of themselves as a person who cheats-because they did. When we think something about ourselves it becomes part of our identity and the thought of who we are informs our actions. Most people don’t want to do the hard work it takes to change their identity because the struggle is unrelenting. Not to make light of it because it’s brutal to be abused by a cheater but in some way I think of the idea of a recovering cheater is like a person who struggles dramatically with their weight. Many battle to change and drop pounds, some are successful for awhile, some never try and a very few take it off and keep it off but it’s still a struggle and most of those eventually then backslide too. In the end though, all those people are still thinking about their weight issue even if it’s subconscious thinking because it’s a part of their identity.
Many of us here have our exs second chances (or more) but I think for most of us the price was very high and gave us little or no reward. Choosing to make the cheater’s cheating or their current or future behavior about us makes about as much sense as making what they eat and weigh about us: their behavior (if they will cheat again or not)might be compared to if you kept monitoring their food choices- they might eat celery sticks for 8 years and then suddenly decide to frequent KFC and undo everything in short order- but ultimately that has nothing to do with you. The question is do you want to police behavior knowing that it’s a pointless job and that you might very well end up being hurt even worse the next time?
Jackass dropped MOW like a hot rock once I found out about the affair because he was way too close to home, and the “good guy” mask could never survive breaking up MOW’s marriage. He was very close to this extended family and breaking up her marriage would have ruined him with those people. So he discarded her. Truth be told he did her a lot of damage. She used Pinterest as a safe place to put up stuff about her heartbreak and how she was “waiting.” A couple of years later, she divorced her husband.
He took up with a single mother of adult kids. I saw a photo of him on social media a couple of weeks ago and he’s gained a lot of weight–as he did when he was married to XW#2. That’s a sign of the Jackass Apocalypse. He also left his last job (no idea why but it’s usually because he knows more than everyone else). So the next cheating episode can’t be far behind. Or maybe he finally found someone sufficiently worshipful. He’s pushing 60 so maybe looking for a soft place to land. What I know for sure? By now she’s seeing his ugly side.
Hah. He cheated and convinced me he didn’t actually complete the act in 1999, then I caught him cheating again 10 years later… After I told him we were divorcing, he attacked me, didn’t get arrested for it, but I managed to get a PO eventually when he pulled a gun. 6 months after moving in with his OW, he attacked her, didn’t get arrested for it (despite my PO). She took out a PO but later rescinded it. 1 month after moving in with his OW he signed up for Ashley Madison and took a trip to visit a prostitute and a married woman. So yeah, he is the poster cheat for ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’ & once an abuser always an abuser.
I don’t normally post but needed to ask my ex cheated with the seceraty and left me and three kids not one asked to come home and is now still with the hoe wrecker four years later and. A child together while I’m still struggling to let go as I never saw it coming why does he get a new family and I gave to pick up the pieces of the one he destroyed
I Second what DoingMe says!
Cheaters can do it because they have no conscience.
I read some place awhile back that people who are Good are devasted by betrayal/abandonment . It takes people who are truly good time to recover from the traumatic crisis . (And you are thinking about your kids not just yourself)
People who want to “look like they are good” (Cheaters) don’t care, they have energy to invest in image control. They will do whatever it takes to appear “good”. This includes blaming others.
So sorry Abigale. It’s overwhelming and a struggle dealing with the pain of betrayal. We really do get that it’s much more than cheating. I’m hopimg you have a support system in place. Reach out to friends, family, and a therapist who can help you. This isn’t your shame. Keep posting.
I found out after I had made a commitment to Lady Liar that she cheated on her former girlfriends. I didn’t see that as a red flag because they were young and still learning about themselves and relationships. But over the years, I watched her do things to me that she had done to them (that she had accidentally revealed), and I now know with absolute certainty that she has a very clear pattern. I am not special. She is who she is.
100% Recidivism here. First cheater, I found out he had a wife! After I outed him he went on to cheat on her again. Second cheater, he died two years later, but he was a life long serial cheat as it turned out. And just before he died, he had begun the charm phase with a broke single mother (an actual client of the service where he worked) who thought he was God’s gift! Glad he can longer hurt anyone, ‘cos for sure, he would have….
My cheater XH has continued to cheat on schmoopie over and over. And she thought she had the platinum pussy to make that leopard change his spots. Hahaha
Chumps! 6 weeks after I caught my 35-year-old husband having an affair with a heavily botoxed 60-year-old grandmother and sent him to go live with her. I found out that she was actively pursuing a relationship with another married man the whole time she had been with my soon-to-be ex-husband. While I don’t know if my ex will cheat on her and fall into to the once a cheater always a cheater, he’s sure getting exactly what he deserved!
I have no idea if he cheated on the OW because I honestly think that he didn’t have time. BUT I know that he hired in his pub the woman that I am 99% sure that he cheated on me with months before he took up with the OW (she is actually the one that we broke up over because I wouldn’t just let it go).
I also found out after the fact that he had cheated on his Ex-wife. She won’t call it that but she left him because he TOLD HER that he went out on a date with one of his receptionists and kissed her. That was the last straw in a crappy marriage for her and she left. I just wish that she would have told me when he started bringing me around a few months later (He told me that she cheated with her new boyfriend… so I doubt I would have believed her anyway).
I thought my stbx transplanted after his affair (at year 5 of a 32 yr marriage). He was remorseful, worked really hard, attended counseling (together and on his own) and did a complete 180 within the marriage. In many ways and with the help of counseling, we were stronger after his affair than we ever were before.
But then about a decade later he started getting very dark moods and to deal with them he began day drinking while I was at my day job. He did a good job at hiding it, and was otherwise chipper and present when I was around. I asked him to go back to counseling with me, but he refused saying it was a result of our constant overworking (we both worked hard, him; 1.5 jobs, me 2).
It was the beginning of what would much later become clinical depression. And although he’s never admitted it to this day, I believe he had other affairs. I know for a fact he was having online affairs towards the end of our marriage. Basically, no matter what I did or didn’t do…nothing was going to convince him to treat his depression or take it seriously.
So no, I don’t believe in a character turnaround. I do believe he wanted it, and I think that’s what I saw during the great middle years we had, but his true character returned with a vengeance eventually. And now we’re splitting.
I’ve no idea if CheaterX is still cheating, and that’s okay. Knowing he cheated on me is enough.
Anyway, CheaterX cheated with Schmoopie, a woman who’d had two previous marriages and a track record of dating married men. No surprise but within 6 months after they were married, CheaterX discovered that she was cheating on him–with the same married man with whom she’d been in a previous relationship!
Oh, and she accused him of cheating on her with me. I found that out from a mutual acquaintance. Needless to say, I chortled over that one.
Definitely once a cheater, ALWAYS a cheater. At a family wedding where he was “ Best Man”, my Ex, who was recently engaged, brought a different married woman as his date…Then he DUMPED her at the reception, and left with someone else. Yup. His date then had the nerve to come directly to me crying and looking for sympathy. I said, “Sorry. Not my problem. They’re playing CELEBRATION and YMCA’s up next.”