Today’s Fun Friday Challenge is flip the blameshifting script. Slam it on the mat and bounce it a few times for good measure.
In yesterday’s post, BeardBoy was told his wife had to cheat because he was a homebody and didn’t throw enough parties.
He wrote:
I never thought being a responsible father and husband would backfire so incredibly.
Struggling, comes out swinging and reframes that shit.
“I am a “homebody”, work too hard, don’t throw enough parties at the house, and am too narrowly focused on our nuclear family.” I just read this sentence again. Dude, you are the perfect husband and father. You are the type of man that many of us female chumps mistakenly believed we had married. It sucks profoundly for you that you married someone who doesn’t share your values at all, but that is unfortunately what happened. You being your awesome self didn’t “backfire”. Let’s reframe that sentence. How’s this: “I never thought being a responsible father and husband would mean nothing to the person I loved, trusted, and believed shared my values. I didn’t see her for who she really is…” Someday, this truth will be very clear to you. Give it time
Your job today is to reframe.
Whatever stupid shit they told you, whatever suckitude you’ve internalized, exorcise it today.
Blameshift: I’m a difficult person who fails to remember the proper pasta : sauce ratios.
Flip: I’m an awesome person who cooks for the people she loves.
We all have faults. But remember — you didn’t make someone cheat.
TGIF!
Wow, this just brought me back to a time I had forgotten.
While thinking of a submission, I remember how he loved to work on cars and loved to exclude me from everything. I remember yet again trying to get him to include me and I said “I can help work on the car with you” at almost the same time he said “yeah, and you’d probably insist on helping” and rolled his eyes.
I thought why not? I’m smart, clever, capable…while I don’t know anything about cars, I pick things up fast and if he needs help…why not me? It be a great way for us to spend time together and for me to learn a little bit more about his interests.
But that was not what he wanted. He wanted to be “left alone”…but not really of course. He just didn’t want ME involved. ????
But don’t feel bad, No sad sausage here. Once I confirmed the cheating and implemented boundaries and consequences he couldn’t get enough of me. Harassed me for 2 years actually! But a little threat of police action stopped all that ????
Sorry my submission was not on topic, just sometimes this site brings back the most fucked up memories for me.
It is SO NICE to be with someone now who loves spending time with me. We could do something has banal as grocery shopping and see it as a way to spend QT together. Lucky me ????
That reminds me of another of ex’s complaints. I didn’t share his passion for flying and was reluctant to learn to fly myself. I loved going flying with him and helping him navigate when we could find a sitter to watch the kids long enough. I didn’t think, however, that it was a good investment of time or money for me to take it up when I didn’t really have the desire to do so. I figured that money was better spent letting him take the time and spend the money for him to keep flying. I might have felt differently if I had known he was going to have an emotional affair that almost went physical with one of his flight instructors.
I imagined I might at least learn enough to be able to land the plane in an emergency when the kids were old enough that sitters weren’t an issue. I also imagined that we would go on many flights together. By the time the kids were old enough he didn’t want to take me flying anymore. He was too busy taking at least one Schmoopie, probably the current one too. After DDay I drove myself nuts wondering whether or not he had banged her in the back of his plane because I had never had that privilege. I wonder if she is or has learned to fly in order to please him. If so, she is a flaming hypocrite. Her then husband was one of Ex’s flight students and she complained very loudly and publically about how much it was costing them and she didn’t approve. This was before DDay and I remember thinking how lucky my husband was that I was so supportive of his flying.
Blameshift: I never took STBXW out for coffees.
Flip: I’m a father focused on my kids, so gave STBXW the opportunity for kid-free time as we couldn’t find a sitter.
Additional flip: I would have loved to have that kid-free time guilt free. On the few occasions that I went out with family or girlfriends, my ex would call and ask when I was getting home after I had been gone for barely an hour. What you did was lovely. What she did was not appreciate you.
Same here! My STBXH, was starting his own business and it required a lot of traveling and late night of balancing the books for him. He called me a home body and said he cheated because I never liked to go out.
Reality: I raised 2 beautiful girls, avoiding calling you nonstop with complaints of being home alone, taking girls too school, picking them up, doctors appointments, after school activities, play dates, maintained the home, and limited interruptions of your late nights to ask you to give me a break. That was the devoted wife I was. Instead, you and OW decided too start taking business trips together and I, YOUR WIFE, was just so irritating to you.
OMG this Challenge is perfect!
My MultiMarried and Divorced Cheater told me I had become ‘just so negative lately just like my first wife’ and the Sluterus was ‘always cheerful like you used to be.’
As if being lied to and used and devalued, then told to my face I was imagining things wouldn’t be a colossal bummer to ANYONE.
My response: ‘So what you’re saying is…you have a looong history of meeting perfectly happy women and proceeding to make them miserable? Maybe you’re the constant among variables here.’
And that frens, is why there was never gonna be a Unicorn with Cold Slab O’Meat and me. May he and the Sluterus enjoy many years of misery together!
LOL at “the constant among variables”!
I’m thinking you lost him there.
LOL this glorified Bank Teller never attended day of University but constantly LIED and called himself an engineer. I saw it on his resume!
So that bit, especially for him.
Yup ! Way over his head !
So what you’re saying is…you have a looong history of meeting perfectly happy women and proceeding to make them miserable? Maybe you’re the constant among variables here.’
This deserves to be written in stone…
Yes!!! Luziana wins the internet today!
Your response: Perfection!!!
I LOVE it! Spot on!!
It’s amazing to see the blameshifting come out since D-Day. It really is almost an artform. I roll my eyes and ignore it. Just another part of him that was hidden until his true character was exposed.
STBXH: You don’t tell me anything.
Me: I told you everything for 27 years. You hid things. I’ve just caught up. Plus you don’t ask.
Blame shift: You are not ambitious enough.
Flip : I focused my energies on helping her accomplish her goals and dreams and set mine aside. I took care of the kids when she decided she wanted to go for an evening out with her sister (it wasn’t her sister. ..). I reviewed, criticized, and edited her essays for her university study. I helped her with business ambitions that she could never find time to do herself and later abandoned when it was time for her to contribute after I spent nights and weekends on it for years. It’s true. I wasn’t ambitious for me at all. I was ambitious for her.
Some people just don’t appreciate the support they get.
I refused to quit my career altogether at Ex’s request (wasn’t willing to give up my soul for him – another complaint) but I did go down to working four days a week so I could focus more on the family. I was also the one who took time off from work for kids appointments and went to their school events. I put his job first. I kept my place in my career but didn’t really advance. That was the compromise. Later when he quit his high paying job, he complained that I didn’t ‘make enough money and should be farther along in my career after having worked all of those years. When I then started putting in more hours so that I could get ahead (which did lead to a promotion and a raise) he complained that I spent too much time focused on my work so of course he had to cheat. Whatever you do it’s just wrong.
This is so awesome! I like to say look for the common denominator.
Ooooo…that’s a good one.
Oh yeah. this! ‘So what you’re saying is…you have a looong history of meeting perfectly happy women and proceeding to make them miserable? Maybe you’re the constant among variables here.’
I think my Ex is now out of his fourth Long Term Serious Relationship (ie; you are so special, we will be together forever. Let us build a life together (based on YOUR earning power more than mine, YOUR friends ’cause I don’t have any, even YOUR geographical location)! He’s around 55 ys old, so he can do a few more of these, he’s from a long-lived family, and is the classic ‘tall, dark and handsome’. He has excellent taste in the women he targets for this (Shmoops wasn’t supposed to be a long-term thing, any more than the APs from his first 10 year relationship, or AP #1 w/me). But we do all eventually wise up.
Oh, wait! If he’s true to form, he is already IN his 5th ‘forever’ relationship! Even if he didn’t cheat on #4 (he MAY have figured out that cheating doesn’t work out well for him), he knows that Match is an excellent source of new targets. It took him 1 week to meet #4 after #3 (Shmoops) dumped him (for another man, for the second time) and 2 more weeks for them to decide they were ‘serious’.
Since he’ll likely outlive me (he’s 9 ys younger), maybe I’ll ask the kids to put that quote on his tombstone.
Blame: Magneto has – {insert one of 18 diagnosis’ here}. Never contributed to the family, makes all the decisions. Magneto is miserable. Magneto is a horrible wife who held her long suffering husband captive. So much, he needed rescue.
Reality: Magneto is perfectly, boringly average. Magneto did all the child care, child shuttle, health, dental and optical insurance. Did 85% of household “stuff”, averaging 12 – 15 hours a day of “on” time. Spent days organizing all family celebrations, (Christmas Eve was a three grocery store run every year).
Loves career. Career loves her back. Mag has friends. The more Magneto pick me danced, on the 1/8 tank of gas she had left every evening, the more criticized she became. Magneto is OBVIOUSLY a horrible wife.
Blame and blame shifting is a zero sum game. You will never make any points, only wear and tear yourself down.
Your post resonates with me, down to the percentage of household stuff, and number of hours worked per day.
-Horrible Wife ll
NRNF was “never going to be an interesting trophy wife”. Nope. That’s right. Because she decided to become “an interesting trophy divorcee”. Guess who’s having all the fun now?
Lol!
????????????????????????”…became an .interesting trophy divorcee!” Love this! That’s me too!
“Interesting trophy wife” is an oxymoron. Like jumbo shrimp or mobile home estate.
This exactly Magento :/ they do just suck
Sounds like my dysfunctional marriage!! Except my STBXH, didn’t understand why I simply shouldn’t give him my entire paycheck every month. (This request came after Dday #2).
Blameshift: I “never fully accepted and acknowledged my role in the ending of the marriage”
Flip: I (finally) stood firm and refused to bend reality and accept blame for situations I did not create, just to keep her placated and the home conflict-free
(Really tempted to do a parody to “Kung Fu Fighting but I’ve got meetings all morning)
The challenge is here all weekend. 😉 Just saying.
See below
Doo Doo Doo Doo doot doot doot doot dooooooooooo!!!!!
Oh my gosh, yes. My ex-wife (as of two days ago) said something along the lines of the following.
Blameshit (misspelling intentional): Don’t tell people we’re getting divorced because of my affair. This is on both of us. If you don’t own up to your part, you’ll do the exact same thing in another relationship.
Truth: Actually, I’ve worked through a lot of my issues in therapy, which I think we certainly could’ve done together. Tell yourself what you want, but the reason I’m divorcing you is 100% because of your affair.
Way to go MusicGuy.
Right on brother! My STBXW basically said the same shit. She complains about ChumpTight telling people why we’re divorcing asking me why I keep telling everyone about her affair. I just tell her Well because bitch I don’t lie and don’t be so embarrassed about your shiny turd.
A-fucking-men musicguy. Strong and inspiring comeback. The level of projection that my cheater engages in (which clearly your ex was doing) is exhausting and honestly a little scary as I contemplate how divorce will go. I need to have an arsenal of strong and steady comebacks like this one ready and waiting.
Just don’t engage. Don’t take the bait. Focus it all on the legal stuff and let the rest fly by.
I think BeardBoy wife and my ex must have had the same excuse 101 textbook. My ex was forced to cheat on me with Skankella. Because I did not want to have fun. I stayed home on weekends and took care of my grandchild. I was told that Skankella was fun to be with. She didn’t bitch or complain. Na, she only fucked her cousins husband. But, what my ex forgot was he was not pleasant to be around. When we went on vacation all he did was criticize and bitch. But, unlike him I did not use that as an excuse to cheat.
Of course Skankella could be fun. She wasn’t married with all the responsibilities.
Blameshift: I was only concerned about myself, wasn’t able to grow my business from home, I’m not someone he felt he could talk to
Reframe: I was trying to take care of my health as best as I could so my health wouldn’t get in the way of our life together, I tried very hard to run an innovative business on my own from home, without the help of anyone, since I’d relocated to follow him and take care of our house while he was at work, I’m someone who desperately tried to have serious conversations with him and he refused to resolve anything.
Bonus: I take responsibility for any and all of my shortcomings, but he should have talked to me about me not being financially independent if it bothered him, not continue to assure me that our “division of tasks” worked fine for him (he was the breadwinner, I was the stay-at-home woman-future-mom, trying to run a business from home, also in view of a future as a mompreneur)
Because in the end, my willingness to place myself at a logistical and economical disadvantage, rendered me a victim that he could both be disgusted by and feel superior to, which is exactly how he likes it, so he could continue being the hero, while conquering new territories (=predating co-workers)
“You never let me take care of you.”
“I’m a strong, independent, self-sufficient person, and I thought you were too. I figured that we didn’t NEED each other, but we were together because we WANTED to be. But, since we’re on the topic of “letting you take care of me”—it’s interesting that you actually left me flat the first time I actually needed you to have my back. So, thank you SO MUCH for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.”
IT ALSO ME ^^^^^.
“The Sluterus needs me. You only want me.”
“You’re good at too many things and it can be intimidating. It makes me feel small.”
Flip: “Mediocrity is IRRESISTIBLE, Damsel! Let me throw my shield and sword before your messy personal life and angry creditors! Office affairs are best with my subordinates!”
Also: Only I at 5 feet nothing and 169 pounds can make your 300+ pounds feel small! Beware Me, Gimlette, the last Dwarf in Mornia! Let the Skanks Come!
Yup! Never mind that the reason I had to be so self sufficient at times was because he didn’t know how to take care of me.
“You made me feel insecure”
Nah dude. You made YOURSELF feel that way.
Blame shifting, it’s been a couple years but it continues to be hurled my way. I left the lights on in a room after I left to take kids to school, do all the laundry and fold and would take me a couple days to put it away, I would run errands on Saturday instead of spending time with him and left him with kids, after I work a full time job and try to get everything done on a Saturday to enjoy the rest of my weekend, and the best was…it’s a lot of little things that made me leave you like how you wouldn’t watch shows about aliens with me. There was no winning this, and nowI don’t have to watch shows about his relatives. I win.
Omg. “Wouldnt watch shows with aliens with me…..”
Now there is a winner.
The delusion is strong with this one…
Sometimes they really have to stretch to find anything wrong.
ChumpedinCanada for the win – “wouldn’t watch shows about aliens with me…now I don’t have to watch shows about his relatives.” I snorted tea out my nose, but so worth it. You keep on moving forward bc that’s about as fucked up as it gets. ????
Mine didn’t like it that I didn’t Ike scary and Halloween movies. October always has a month of horror movies on. He would watch them relentlessly and badger me to watch them. He knew I did not like the scary movies. I don’t know why but since having kids I no longer like horror movies. It makes me feel insecure for some reason. Maybe it’s my mothering and protective instincts get threatened with horror movies. But he would torment me every October and berate me because “mom doesn’t like scary movies”. I began to dread Halloween and October some time in August and September when the commercials would come on for the horror fest.
Ya know what? our anniversary is/was October 30. So On top of it all he began to ruin our anniversary for me too Since the scary movie build up always culminated in Halloween, the day after our anniversary. His berating would reach a fever pitch at our anniversary.
Same here – the moment I became a mom I could no longer watch horror movies or anything violent. My Sister-in-law is the same way.
Picking on someone because they are afraid is some first-grade bullying bullshit.
I think like many male chumps I was told after many years of marriage of my unbearable “Terrible Toos”: too nerdy, too independent, too hard working, too moralistic, too much of a homebody, too careful, too neat, too sentimental, too organized, too nostalgic, too boring, too tired on Friday nights and too busy on Saturday mornings. You know, things she initially said made me attractive to her, and from which she benefitted enormously for 22 years. She used what I thought were my strengths against me, and perfected emotional jujitsu before I even knew I was in the sparring ring.
I realize now she was just pretending to like me (and in some cases be like me in the beginning) in order to “capture” me. Looking back I think she was ready to discard me once we had our child. She wan’t interested in the kid or me or that family life.
She’s probably BPD. I experienced the exact same thing: intentional capture and disinterest in our kids. She at least admitted all this to me. Apparently, after our first few weeks of dating, when I explained that this relationship wouldn’t likely go anywhere because of how odd her father was, she intentionally set upon a course of “winning”. She would not be broken up with. No way. She would not be rejected. She began to construct the perfect mirrored personage, and put me at ease on her father by admitting his oddities but explaining them as insecurities of a fundamentally good man. As a chump, I readily reworked my conclusions to see (invent) the best in him. For three years I spackled the red flags and connected deeply with the persona. She continued to cheat behind her false front. I asked her to marry me. She went through with it. I still remember the 10,000 yard stare and sick look on her face on the airplane to our honeymoon. I knew it was regret. But that made absolutely no sense. WTF was wrong with me to read it this way?! She must be tired, air sick, something. But looking back with benefit of all I now know, for her the party was over, the “game” of stealing my life was won, and she was faced with a moment of now what? These disordereds are moment-to-moment mood state seekers. They can plan certainly, but every plan is trumped to the extent necessary by securing mood supply. She quickly settled in on living her comfortable persona which I funded, knowing she had access to her fabulous real self any time she wanted. My trust was complete – and completely blinding. So it was 11 years later, one too many cracks and contradictions appeared and my spackling stopped. The truth began to come out. And part of that was admissions that our three children never meant anything to her. That she went through with the marriage for the sake of “image”. She’s subsequently been formally diagnosed by a specialist she herself selected as BPD with “features” of NPD and APD. She has described how she never felt “love” for anyone. They live right next to us, but within a completely different world.
Wow .well written…yup amazing how once the cracks start you see the real person that has duped us for years
In the beginning, she always said she appreciated how I left my life of drinking and partying for her. My hard work. I spent time with kids. I was the stability she always longed for! 20 years later, I was boring and could do nothing right. Her first known AP was ex from high school who did drugs, drank, had trouble keeping a job and lived behind his moms house in a shack. The exact opposite of me!
Welp, that makes 4 of us. I’m 3 months post Dday still living with cheating wife. I too was duped and captured. Pretty obvious in hindsight she simply mirrored my values and I fell for it.
Luckily the bar wench was too dumb to cover her tracks with even remedial measures. These dumbasses leave a technological yellow brick road that reveals about 1000 lies in 10 minutes.
I’ve only been married 6 years and I’m 28.
The blame shifting is so juvenile and illogical that it has no effect anymore. I will admit an occasional barb landed.
My favorite counter was straight to the point: “I didn’t deserve this and neither did our daughter. You’re a liar, a thief, and a piece of shit.”
Boom!! My favourite shutdown is also “I didn’t ask for this, and nor did our daughter. And neither of us deserve the shit that you have created.” The silence that comes after this is a beautiful thing.
SAME HERE!!! Everything that he used to brag about concerning me was now all.of the sudden a reason to cheat with a chick he met in a bar on a business trip in Chicago. Stay at home wife/mother, worked from home to be said Wife/Mother…cooked…ironed shirts…decorated for holidays…I was Martha Stewart and well be wanted JBlo… Blows don’t make great childhood memories…but beautiful holiday traditions with your kids do. Sorry that Blows became more important.
Sucks to be him now.
He can’t afford to retire now at 60. While I am retired at 50. That BLOWS for him I am quite certain.
“You know, things she initially said made me attractive to her, and from which she benefitted enormously for 22 years.”
Oh man does this hit home…24 years for me, and this is the exact same thing that happened as she was explaining to me all my faults on her way out the door
Good grief, what a whiny little bitch. Those are fine qualities. She might as well have complained that you were too witty, too warm, not ugly enough and didn’t cook meth.
They’ll use anything, no matter how stupid. I got; “You never went to my work parties.” These parties were always pathetic drunkfests where his howorker mistress was present, FFS, and either sloppily flirting with anyone with a penis or jerking some guy off under a table. I kid you not. He wanted me there to witness him being cucked? I think not.
STBXH visited his workplace mental health counsellor because he was “feeling sad”. (This was just before he started his affair). The counsellor gave him a bunch of pamphlets on depression and quizzes, workbooks etc. She told him he sounded depressed. She was a counsellor, not a doctor or psychologist btw.
He came home and told me that he had always been a happy person, and he had never been depressed…until being married to me. Ergo, he was depressed because I “made him depressed”.
We had been married for 15 years at that point. Had 3 kids. He had been through a lot of job turmoil, and dealing with his sick parents, and other things. But, yes, I was the CAUSE of his depression he had decided because, before knowing me: no depression. Married to me for 15 years: depressed.
He had successfully diagnosed himself! Of course, everything can be blamed on me!
Reframe! I forgot the reframe!
Depression is real and it can happen. I don’t deny that, and I never did. But someone can’t “give” you depression. Situational stress and anxiety is also not clinical depression. Someone can, however, give you a bad case of bacterial vaginosis because he couldnt be bothered to be worried about my health and wellbeing or use a condom when he fuvked his HoWorker. That is very real and it happened!
I could’ve written this, married 13 years with 3 young children. I drove him to depression. So depressed that he could only find relief in bars with men a decade younger, fucking AP in parking lots before coming home to sit at the dinner table with his wife and kids. I did all that, just being married to me did that.
I’m sorry Chumpd. It seems our fuckwits found a depression treatment that worked for them!
I’m kidding, of course ????
Me too. 14 years, 3 kids, sick mother that he parked in a temporary rehab home permanently until her sister and friends and I begged him to let her go home with a pt care giver.
Ex: “there’s other lives I want to live”
Reframe: while you’re off chasing strange with these “new lives” I’ll continue adulting.
Gee, I guess the curse of Melissa took 15 years to kick in. What a tool. Mine also blamed me for his alleged depression, at a time when there were deaths in the family and our daughter was seriously ill. We’d been together almost 30 years. But of course it somehow had to be my fault. He then used it as an excuse to cheat. They’re morons.
Blame : Went to the cinema and never went home to make his dinner so he HAD to have sex with his whore in my bed ( that i later slept in but he didn’t )
Really : I went to the cinema as he was ignoring me for days and i like going to the Cinema – My bad !
Cinema? Are you kidding me..?? Who does that????????????????
These were his exact words . Well that night you went to the cinema you broke me . I waited for you to come home we had meatloaf looked out for dinner and you never came home until like 9pm so i ramped it with her that night . She came round and we had sex for the first time that night .
Me – Where did you have sex ?
Him – In bed that’s why i never came to bed that night cause i was having a wank thinking about it again .
Unbelievable ????
Yuck. In addition to being an absolute douche, the guy gives out way too much info. Like you wanted to hear about him jerking off to his whore after banging her in your bed. Sick.
Blameshift: “She can squirt on command without me even touching her; you take too long IF you even bother to get excited.” – Defective Slip n’ Slide
Flip: Like most women, my sexual culmination is in direct correlation with my partner’s give a shit factor. I also don’t find rubber sheets and aphrodisiac. – Will Not Provide Vaginal Incontinence
LOL I can see the Social Media Management now! #jesussentasquirter #hashbrowndiaperedandblessed
Im dying here. Thanks for turning my tears into laughter!!
I cannot stop laughing it hurts????
???????????????????????? OMG
What bullshit that is. Her vagina is a supersoaker? What a loser!
That must be a fun life.
– “I command you to squirt without me touching you.”
– “OK” (pffffft!)
– “Well, that was fun. Want to grab a panini?”
this is comedy gold!!!
I just fried a keyboard. You’re the best, Uxworld!
I. Can’t. Breathe! ????????????????????
Typical fuckwit, he just wants everything to cum easy and doesn’t want to put the work in. Well the best things in life are always worth the wait. You don’t need this POS in your life and I’m sorry this happened to you. Hugs.
They’ve done studies. On squirters. Like, analyzed the…liquid.
*Whispers* It’s pee pee you guys.
Thaaaaat’s…not hot. ????????????
I’m imagining a really interesting game of beer pong.
Ha ha tell me you are making this up, but clearly you are not. How did you keep a straight face. Yeuch. However, these ones are always quite good because they are the ones you come back to and laugh. Had. few of them that were absolutely so ludicrous they were comedy gold and still are.
Blameshifting : you are just negative and your emotional instability doesn’t help me at all. I wanted to learn the healthy way of living and I thought that you may lead me in that process. I was mistaken- there is no leadership qualities in you and I just can’t do it any longer.
Reality: he asked me to help him “ become a better man and develop good character” ( I will do anything it takes) since for the past 15 years, my stand on honesty, trust, goal, moral values are the same and I live by them.
It took almost 3 weeks for him to realize, that “ working on developing character” doesn’t mean few talks and me cuddling his ego. I was calling him on his bs and lies non stop- and poor thing had enough.
You know, I was too harsh on him ????
Yes, I’m not a good leader- living by values ( respect, care, love, trust, honesty , fidelity) is not important.
Living in stressful environment caused by his abusing ways and cheating – is a walk in the park.
Ugh…
????????♀️
#nobuildingblocks to work with. Can’t make something out of nothing.
Blameshift:
You are too loud and intense. You constantly criticize. You and your family are confrontational toxic people.
Flip;
I am passionate and invested and present and I care. I give praise way more then I criticize; criticism is not asking for help and explaining why the change is needed. Me and my family are not passive aggressive people who sweep everything under the rug and pretend it isnt there. We get crap out un the open, we get upset, we are honest and we work through it.
I love this and it resonates with my story!
“she let me drink”
“she’s a slag”
“goes with everything”
Apparently she had been a addict since the age of 18. That’s the ow.
NEWS FLASH! was told yesterday that prostitutes used to show him their breasts, one said don’t show him your breasts, he’s not interested. I said if they do that why do you go there, no answer came back.
We actually split up 6 years ago.
He said yesterday he loved me, you couldn’t make it up could you.
Oooohhhh Susan, hoovering!
Him: “Don’t tell MAPs partner- you’ll destroy their family”
Me: “You kidding right?! Because what you both did will destroy their family as it did ours but my saying the truth isn’t what will.” Didn’t want to have families destroyed- shouldn’t have cheated. Simple. Get that blameshift the hell away from me. Mic drop.
My XW said the same thing when I told the Married OM’s wife. She didn’t want to destroy his life. ????????????
They’re so predictable. I told the OW’s husband and he accused me of destroying their marriage.
Me; “No, YOU did that when you fucked her in their marital bed and took her attention and affection away from her husband for more than five years, you hypocritical asshole.”
That shut his trap fast.
Blameshift: Why do you think I cheated again? I had to cheat because you couldn’t trust me.
Flip: You couldn’t trust me because I am a cheater.
“Why do you think I cheated again? I had to cheat because you couldn’t trust me”
My brain had to take a few seconds to process this because it’s SO FUCKING ILLOGICAL!
“You don’t get any more chances!” Was hissed (with spit flying) through the Fuckwit’s teeth.
That is absolutely right. I don’t get one more chance to forgive another affair, to let you sleep in my bed while your dick oozes green, to cover your stupid actions and make you look good anyway, to teach your children to respect you inspite of all of it, to protect your reputation in the community, to pick up your trash left everywhere, to make every meal to suit your taste, to swallow my tears when you forget my birthday and our anniversary and Valentine’s day again, to smile when my Christmas present is an unwrapped bag of Lady Bic razors, to hold back my fury when you treat every other man woman and child on Earth better than you treat the children I bore or me, or to nod in agreement when people at church call you godly.
Thanks for not giving me any more chances you Fuckwit.
Best thing you ever gave me!
Sorry Bloomingwithouthim
But i so laughed at the Unwrapped Bic Razor blades for Christmas – OMG ! How shit is that ! I’d have punched his face
Fuck face was crap at presents he use to give me £10 for Christmas and tell me to buy myself something which is considerably better than disposable razor blades !
Our first xmas, ex narcopath got me dishwasher pods. I thought the present in the tree (looked like a 2 year old wrapped it) was a treat for the dog. Nope it was MY present.
Because the week before on our grocery trip he wanted to spend $18 on a bucket of dishwasher pods and I refused saying I’d rather wash everything by hand.
One year I got a Thighmaster. Within a couple of days, X had taken it and was using it every day. I thought it was an insulting gift. Nope, just something he wanted for himself.
Ah yes, the Christmas gift “for me” which was really something he wanted for himself!!! Don’t miss that at all.
I am so sorry you had to live with that. My fuckwit would run to Wawa the day before or the day of (Father’s Day, Christmas, birthday day, anniversary) and buy me a $10 gift card. One year I got the Wawa Pez truck dispenser for Christmas.
the “Wawa Pez truck dispenser” for the win!
And a 10 dollar gift card as well? Or just the Wawa Pez dispenser?
You can’t make this shit up!
????????????
Just the Pez truck from her and a gift card from each kid. She put way too much thought into it ???? I mean Christmas does sneak up on us when we’re busy fucking other people’s husbands.
Her: ” You’re not sophisticated enough to understand an affair”
Flip: “You’re not sophisticated enough to understand lying, deceptions, conspiring, backstabbing, more lying, unprotected sex with a scum bag (‘friend’ of mine) and more lies!
Blame shift: “You went to the club on too many Fridays to have beers after work with your buddys and neglected me”!
Flip: ” You went to the club too many times after work on Fridays for beers so I decided to screw one of your buddys you went to the club with!”
Reality: This is just one of the weak rationalizations I used to justify going to a hotel numerous times with your so called ‘friend’ while you were at work earning my keep!”
” You ‘deserved’ it”!
Her: ‘ I can’t believe you would accuse me of screwing your friends’ – how sick!’
Flip : I can’t believe you would accuse me of screwing your friends – in fact I feel so bad that next week I’m going to a hotel and screw your ‘ friend’ !
(Actually happened)
Preemptive blameshift: You are too angry for a sensitive man like me. Oh, and did I mention I fucked another woman? Don’t you be angry now … I just told you I was sensitive.
Reframe: I AM ANGRY BECAUSE YOU FUCKED ANOTHER WOMAN. I may also have been angry in the past because you completely neglected me emotionally.
Followup blameshift: If you keep having these panic attacks, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
Reframe: I AM HAVING PANIC ATTACKS BECAUSE YOU FUCKED ANOTHER WOMAN AND SAID YOU NEEDED TIME TO DECIDE WHETHER TO LEAVE ME AND OUR TWO CHILDREN FOR HER. Also because you told me not be angry, remember?
Hilarious, I am so sorry. These jerks. Mine used to like to say/do things. I’d get angry and ask “why”. He’d respond “cuz I knew it’d make you angry” while also wondering why I was so angry. Total utter mindfuck.
Blameshift: you get angry all the time and call me names.
Flip: I have normal emotional reactions to your bullshit and call you out on it with well justified anger and well suited names.
Played – good God this is same for me! They’re like “Why are you being all hostile huh?” Gah!!!! It IS total mindfuckery – around and around we go. It makes me want to bang my head on the floor
Sensitive people aren’t just sensitive to their own feelings, they are sensitive to the feelings of others. He’s not sensitive, he’s just insecure and self-centered.
Wow, he threatened you about the panic attacks he caused? How very “sensitive” of him. What a champion narc.
Blameshift: “You were never weak or vulnerable or needed me. I need a counterpart who can show weakness and vulnerability in order for me to equally fully expose myself and show them as well, without fear of being told to grow up and get over it (whatever ‘it’ may be).”
(That is an exact quote so let me do a quick UBT here- “I abandoned you at every turn when you needed me and you learned to do without me, so now I haz a sadz and need to fuck a foreign chick half our age. She gets me.”)
Reframe: Yep, you ignored me for 3 decades and never grew up. You are much better off with a little desperate gurl that meets your emotional level. So go be the child you wish to be. Elsewhere.
I, too, got the “she gets me”.
Him: she gets me. She was in the trades and understands the bad days you can have.
Me: so let me get this straight. You’ve known her for 20 MINUTES and want to break up a 20 YEAR marriage because she “gets you”?
Him: well, she also kinda reminds me of Emma Stone.
I got “She gets me” too. Swapping a 20-year marriage and breaking up his family for someone he had talked to online for four months and spent three days with.
(Of course, I got “It’s not about her,” too.)
Ah, ‘she gets me’. The old classic.
Flip: She blows smoke so far up your backside, puts you on the pedestal I failed to keep you up on, doesn’t laugh at your appalling poetry and thinks you are dead sensitive because you’ve just read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (he’s 45, not 18 may I add). She has to ‘get you’ cause she is pick me dancing her ass off (I now realise) for a year to get you to decide to leave me and break up your family. And maybe she also ‘gets you’ cause you actually fucking talk to her instead of moping around with a sullen look of disdain contributing almost nothing except sucking the fun out of the room.
All so familiar. The worst part is that it is just a lie.
In our 31 year relationship we had our share of difficulties that should have bonded us and there were many times he should have been the leader of our family but he cowered. We put each other through school, almost lost a daughter to pneumonia, watched his parents’ decline and deaths, and built a life from absolute zero to an enviable level of enjoyment with an early retirement. But as with all narcs, they are always a day late and a block away when shit gets real. He abandoned me within the marriage long before he poofed by e-mail.
If he was physically around (but usually not) he turned into a petulant child who could not tolerate his mommy doing anything less than serving his needs so he got angry or ignored me. I was told that I had “better get over it because we are not going to do this every day” when I was barfing from morning sickness, the most temporary and joyful type of illness. When our daughter nearly died he hid from me and slept on the couch in his clothes and didn’t want to talk about her treatment or next steps, he couldn’t stand to be near me and no way was he going to comfort me.
So many other examples, all chances for him to support me when I was exhausted, sick, or frightened. And he NEVER, EVER, stepped up. I learned to cope with it and then got told I was the problem.
Hope Schmoops is enjoying life with the man baby.
Telling you to “get over” the effects of pregnancy and using an implied threat if you didn’t has got to be one of the most abusive statements I’ve ever heard.
He’s a monster.
Classic drama triangle.
In order to be a Hero, you need a Victim.
You were cast in the role of Persecutor.
Victims spend a lot of time on their knees, funnily enough.
Blame shift – You are too judgmental and you don’t leave the house.
Truth – I was injured, awaiting surgery (which is why I did not go out much – except to do the all marketing and errands). Judgmental, well maybe. Unless you count the times I didn’t judge and forgave at least two affairs, a foreclosure because you didn’t pay the house loan for 27 months, and the fact you spent all your time breaking, acquiring, and repairing off road vehicles.
To which I say – a mighty F%CK YOU. I was not a perfect wife. But what I did right, I did with an open and generous heart.
Blameshift: I’m too sensitive.
Flip: according to you, Dickhead, you only have one feelings. I guess if someone had 1.5 feelings that would be too sensitive for you. I wasn’t too sensitive, you fucking jackass, when I was tending to you after every surgery and medical problems you encountered. Just because you deliberating prodded and poked me doesn’t make me too sensitive. It makes you a damn bully.
Blameshift: I’m not fun anymore.
Flip: you sat right there and said that your son told you that I was going to kill you while you lay sleeping. No, other people saw it. It wasn’t me…it was always you. Like I said before, a bully.
I got this among many
Blame shift: you always wake my up with the blow dryer.
Flip: I go to work and need to wash my hair and dry it so that I look and smell good. Oh and you just get to sleep in and get out of bed after I leave for work, then when I get home from work you are DEAD DRUNK like you’ve been drinking for hours.
Lol “ I’m a real go getter, I take my wife to work and then I go get her”
Ah yes, coming home from work to a paralytic drunk. Except, the Twat would pass out and leave his key in the front door so we couldn’t get in. I used to think that was an accident until I took all the keys to a little used back door so that we could at least get in through that one – and then he took a different key and jammed THAT into the back door so we still couldn’t get in. It took that for me to realize all his crap was deliberate!
He didn’t actually blame me for his cheating and lies. But he did manipulate me enough with his “I’m so sad and my life is so hard!” act that I actually felt bad for him. He knew that I’m empathetic person who genuinely relates to people.
Me, reframing his manipulative act: You can be sad and have a lot of issues, that doesn’t give you an excuse to cheat and lie to the only person who put up with you, loved you and supported you no matter what.
Another way of reframing it: I’m also sad and have gone through a lot of things… But I never even considered lying and cheating on you just because I had a lot going on for me. You’re just an asshole.
Ah, thank you for this thread.
“You can be sad and have a lot of issues, that doesn’t give you an excuse to cheat and lie to the only person who put up with you, loved you and supported you no matter what.”
My husband said he had to hurt me (lots of ways, and also look at gay porn and shop gay hookups sites and more, for decades), because, he grew up in an alcoholic home, and so he knew people couldn’t be trusted, that if you trusted someone they would abandon you and shame you. So he had to be cruel to me (and look at gay porn and shop gay hookup sites and more, for decades), because people couldn’t be trusted, and people would hurt you, so I was a threat because wanted to love him, so he had to do everything possible to put me down, and push me away, so that I would not abandon him and shame him.
He also said, as he was angry at me for being hurt, and wanted me to stop crying and focus on him, I am sorry that my dysfunctional childhood family hurt you.”
With advance acknowledgement that we all have pain, and many have deep pain from truly hard circumstances—
I am gonna dissect this blameshift, how fifty-shades-of-victim it is: He is claiming he is a victim in all ways here—and the subtle blameshift rom Grumpy is that Gtumpy must pet and scratch and rub the belly of all these “poor victim creatures” or Grumpy is cruel and Grumpy is toast!
-A victim from his hard home, a hard childhood just living through it
-A victim of the inner damage of sadness and pain forever
-A victim of how this makes him into a person who feels exquisite hurt in intimacy—if someone loves him, it hurts him
-A victim of how this hurt actually makes him be lonely because he will not seek love
-A victim of all people because they want to shame and abandon him, everyone, no matter who or what
-A victim of himself, he says, because he is sabotaging himself
-And yet another subtle victim as it goes a level deeper: a victim not just of self sabotage, but to the inability to CONTROL his self sabotage. “I know do this (hurting people which hurts me), and I just cannot help it!!”
And, follow me here, another level: he also is a victim of self realization! A victim of self-realization of his inability to control his self sabotage: “I am so sad to think I am the kind of person who cannot control how I hurt other people (which hurts me).”
-A victim of not being willing to share his inner pain—he is not vulnerable about his shame and keeps it hidden, and it hurts to keep it hidden, and it hurts to know you are a person who cannot show their hurt to all the hurtful people in this hurtful world.
-A victim because real life people do actually distance themselves sometimes
Lately I have mentioned to him that he has been telling me this since we met. He has shared with me his hidden shame about how hurt he feels. The hidden shame he did not share with me was that he was gay and using me.
One evening, after an hour of me weeping and trying to express my grief related to DDay and him pushing back with everything, finally, he sighed big and deep, “what you have to understand about ME is ….”. It went on a long long time, and not about the gay, but about his pain through hurting people.
Eventually, loopy from my sleeping med that I have to take since DDay, I said, half crying, “Hooray! You did it! You win! You got what you always wanted! You did it! The person who loved you most of all, the person you could have trusted most of all—you have pushed her away!”
“You are mocking me!” He cried.
And yes, I am.
Blameshift: You pushed me around these past few months, and that was a huge mistake. You just pushed me away.
Reframe: You have this sincere desire to stay out of jail, and you found out I was using your name to steal money for my fucking around. Now that you know and you are all pissed about it, it is much harder for me to use your name in my fraud games. I need a new chump.
OMG I got the “you pushed me away” too
Blsmeshift: you pushed me away so I had to go (to her)
Reframe: I had been treating you like shit, then you wished up and stopped letting it get to you. So I had to find someone else to respond to my bullshit.
*wised up not wished
Blameshift- “I didn’t tell you I lost my wedding ring because I knew you’d jump to conclusions”
Flip- I took my wedding ring off to bang some chic and lost it, but you’re too smart to buy the bs that it just “fell off” especially when I come home coincidentally the NEXT DAY and tell you I want a divorce.
Blameshift- “You’re not fun anymore and you don’t drink enough.”
Flip-Thanks for parenting our children while I go out drinking with my “fun” college friends. Also, thanks for not being a closet alcoholic like I am so your liver will still function and you’ll be around for our kids long after I’m dead.
Blameshift- “You’re a terrible person Unexpectedchumpiness, you don’t even help out our friend V and her family, and R and her family.
Flip- He walked out of V and R’s lives forever, never to be seen by them again. I worked with V and her family for a year to repair their credit and buy the house of their dreams. And I’ve been helping R for over a year by having her live with me for free. I have changed her life for the better including helping her support 75 friends and family members that live in Venezuela and are starving and destitute because of the trashed economy. We send them regular shipments of food and essentials every month. It costs me personally close to $1500 a year to buy supplies and I help raise additional money by getting some friends and family to pitch in too.
I could go on….I think I’ll publish a book.
Oh yeah. Ex also complained about my not drinking. He had to “drink alone”. Well he also had a designated driver every time we went out and he always got home safe.
Seriously, I don’t see why not being a lush is considered such a horrible personality defect by so many people.
I also did not party enough. He chose alcohol over me.
This is because they can’t imagine being able to have a good time without being tipsy. My STBX made sure I chauffered him everywhere so he could drink constantly – didn’t matter if I had a migraine or was super tired – it was all about him. Now, he is with someone and they love to drink expensive wine and alcohol and he thinks it makes him sophisticated. He’s a dick – wish I’d never met him.
The dickhead used to buy expensive wine then drink 2-3 bottles straight off because that made him a “connaisseur”! And I used to get up around 1 a.m. to pick him up from the bar (drag him out of the bar more like) on week nights when I had to be up at 6 a.m. to go to work!
The last blameshift you listed—about how you are terrible because you are not doing a valuable thing, while you actually are doing it—I have gotten a lot of those! They are some of the worst blameshifts because they are not even distortions of something, they are just outright lies, and all directed at your strengths.
I frequently got a version of “I thought you would be the kind of mother who would have brought culture into our children’s lives.” Or he thought I would have coached them to sing duets with me at large community gatherings. Just mean. Like what: “I thought you would have been the kind of mother who took our children fossil hunting in hidden mountain gem mines! But you did not go fossil hunting, at least not in magical hidden gem mines, so you are a terrible mother, and you have hurt me by not caring about what I want, you never care about what I want, which means I have to look elsewhere and punish you for it.”
Meanwhile I was doing all kinds of teaching music in kids classrooms, organizing community children’s art fairs, taking groups of kids on field trips to museums, practing music with my kids, reading all kinds of books with them and talking about all kinds of ideas, volunteering to run the backstage at kids theater performances, performing myself, arranging music, teaching singing to preschool children and taking seminars in children’s music, creating a school wide writing enrichment program, planning family activities on vacations for museums, historical tidbits, etc. That sounds like so much it interfered with family life, but it did not because it was spread out and I was a great mom and a great spouse in all kinds of other ways—it is just that this kind of thing was something that brought me joy and public attention. But if there was even one dinner late, or if I left him one evening with the tween children while I went to a rehearsal, he would angrily say I was not meeting his needs.
Reframed: I envy your talents and want to absorb them to make myself look good. I will never be able to find and absorb all the praise I deserve to fill my endless leaky black hole of need. I resent how people admire you when they should admire me. So I will punish you by telling you that you have no talents and making it harder and harder for you to use them. And I will tell you that you are a horrible mother besides. Because that is also one of your greatest strengths, though parenting and relationships are one of my biggest failings. I hate it that the kids love you and that other people enjoy your wit and insight. Everyone should admire me! Everyone should love me! You are a threat and an obstacle when I thought you were my tool. I thought you would be the kind of mother who would sing Queen of the Night while riding a unicycle breastfeeding our baby and making fresh-sea-scallop dinner with artisanal tomato purée to serve me and post photos of on insta! Maybe then everyone would admire me.
Yeah, I got the same crap about how I was boring because I didn’t want to go out and drink and party anymore. Well, hmm, I was 50 years old and we had two kid so, I dunno, maybe it’s time to grow up and be responsible. He clearly did not agree, and continued to go out and pick up bar whores… How’s that working out for ya, old man?
This shit still winds me up when I think about it too much.
” You are a nag”
Yup I nagged you to stop sticking your dick in strange and doing in MY bed(s) ( yup every bed–my home, cottage and even the place in Florida we had just purchased during the pick me dance). He even allowed her to “shop” in our homes after the separation and take what she wanted, leaving me with what they didn’t want and to clean every.single. property. up. for selling.
“You can’t ever say no to sex, it is very important to me”
I said no maybe once a month, we still were VERY active right up until 3 weeks before he abandoned me to move in with schmoopie. I said no NOT EVER for the last 4 years after he dumped this little gem on me.
” I should be able to retire, I ran the business for 20 years”
You mean even though you blew our entire retirement fund in it–$500,000? Gee how am I( yes I) supposed to make that happen? ( I also ran my own business with no thought of retiring because I was pick me dancing so hard I was paying for everything while he stopped earning money all together in prep for leaving me and paying no spousal support.)
” You are all about money”
Yup , me, the adult that was still adulting and paying for everything, see above.
“I hate it when you tell me I can’t order what I want”
I was such a terrible wife I asked him not to order more than one of those $10 glasses of wine he was so fond of, never said a word about the very expensive meals he loved to order while I ate an appetizer and a soft drink to afford it since HE WAS EARNING NOTHING!! Again, me being the adult.
Wow I just bleed at how small I made myself. Unbelievable to me now.
How could I do that to myself?? I am crying now…..
We’ve all done it. I can’t believe how small I made myself, just to make him feel better about himself. How much I dimmed my light, so that his dimness would appear bright. You are mighty, Newlady15
(((((Newlady15)))),
You have earned the right to every tear.
I am so sorry for all you have been through.
NewLady, stay strong dear, you get to start fresh. It sucks when you put all your eggs in one basket,I had my share of that experience. Follow the light and have faith,everything is going to be alright.
His complaint: I don’t buy new clothes and shoes often enough and the clothes I do buy aren’t expensive enough. I don’t carry a high end classy purse (or any purse actually). I don’t go to the hair dresser often enough. I don’t look like a trophy wife.
Reframe: I am low maintenance.
His complaint: I mothered him by making his lunches to take to work for years and putting little notes in them.
Reframe: I was saving him time and money by making his lunches for him and putting in little notes so that he would know that I was thinking about him and so he would be thinking about me at least once a day.
His complaint: “Ew, I don’t want to kiss you goodbye. You don’t even look like a woman dressed like that” (when bundled up to bike to work in subzero weather).
Reframe: I still want to kiss you goodbye before I leave even after 20+ years of marriage. I bike to work to keep fit and healthy so I can still be attractive. Ex of all people knew what was under all of those clothes.
His complaint: “God your hair is poufy. You look like you have an afro.”
Reframe: I have beautiful hair thank you very much. Honestly, I get more compliments on my hair than anything else in life except maybe my kids. I have total strangers coming up to me on the street with random compliments, but after 20+ years of marriage he decided he didn’t like it.
His complaint: I had to do all of the laundry
Reframe: He is lucky I let him quit his high paying job to be a SAHD for a few years while also encouraging his dream of becoming a flight instructor. He is lucky I still helped out with dishes (even though he used every dish in the house with every meal when he cooked, although sometimes I cooked and did dishes) and helped the kids with homework and got them to bed and got up with the youngest in the middle of the night who was still having nightmares at the time. I also let him spend money we didn’t have on a housekeeper to clean house. I let him do the laundry because he had time and I knew he didn’t like the way I did it.
His complaint: “God that looks terrible” in response the seeing the window air conditioner that I had installed in our attic bedroom while he was out of town.
What he should have said: Thank you so much for spending the time to install that heavy and awkward air conditioner that was too big for the window with the frame and still getting it sealed around the edges and working so we no longer have to sleep in a sauna and that will make lovemaking much more comfortable. I am a lucky man to have a wife who is so capable. Let me contribute by finding a way to make it look nice too.
I could go on but that’s enough for now.
Oh this makes me cry. I know what it is like to have every little thing criticized, including my strengths and loving actions. Your marriage was 20+ years, you say, so I bet you could fill 100 pages per year listing all the criticisms. That’s 2000-plus pages. Hugs to you.
fuckwit: No one understands me on the same level that [skank MOW] does. Everyone else in my life only knows me on this shallow basis.
Reframed: There’s no depth to me. I am just a shallow shit puddle. The skank MOW understands me because she’s just as shallow and shitty as I am. Gentlechump had no chance to understand me because she has character and integrity.
Truth: High quality oil can’t mix with shitty water.
fuckwit: I couldn’t tell you the truth because I didn’t think you could handle it.
Reframed: I’m an asshole who magically can read Gentlechump’s mind and then tell her what she can and can’t process. I somehow know everything about her anxiety challenges even though I never bothered to learn or even ask her about them.
Truth: He couldn’t tell the truth because all he had were his lies. Telling the truth would require honesty and a grasp of reality and consequences.
Blameshift: “You buy organic food and it is too expensive. I can’t live like this anymore…” (this was one of the “reasons” he wanted a divorce)
Reframe: I’m a working mom who makes good money, and I like my young children and myself to eat healthy. Especially if I can’t be with my children all day, at least I can feel good spending my money towards something that I feel will benefit them.
Night before I am scheduled to give birth to second child, out of no where he tells me:
Doofus: “I don’t feel like you are supportive of me running.”
(He runs every single day, and I encourage it, bought him a running log to track things, signed him up for a 5k in another state because he wanted to run a 5k in every state. I might not stand outside with pompoms every morning to welcome him home from his run, but the fact that he was running every day meant that I was supporting it. If I hadn’t supported it, he wouldn’t have done it at all, but then again, I’m a chump and never would have gone to those lengths.)
I was so caught of guard, I was like what do you mean? What is it you want me to do to show that I’m supportive of you running?
His response: “Nothing, it’s just I don’t feel like you really care. It’s just how I feel.”
He literally made me start crying about this, when I was already worried about the birth the next day because they had told me the baby was really big and I was 10 days late. I don’t really know if this is blame shifting, or just him trying to rationalize to himself why he was cheating on me.
It was him trying to put the focus and attention back on himself. After all, your attention wasn’t fully on him because you were preoccupied with little things at the moment such as ypur health and the life of the child you were mere hours away from birthing. Narcissistic move to grab the spotlight.
You’re an a good mom and a good person.
Hope his running shoes took him very far away from you.
Too bad he didn’t keel over and die of a heart attack during one of his out of state 5K races…
Hahaha, for real!!!
Thank you so much, Fearful & Loathing!!! Yes, he’s out of my life as much as possible now, thank goodness!!!
The remarks that come out of their mouths during pregnancy/childbirth… WTF? This post triggered a memory I have tried to bury.
Blameshift: “Are you sure I’m the father? [of our daughter]” Said after 24 hours of labor, then c-section for 9 lb 12 oz baby.
Reframe: “I’m a cheater. Therefore, everyone else must be one, too.”
At the time, the question cut me to the core and completely confused me. Now I just shake my head that I couldn’t see what was really going on.
Nasty comment “You really look unattractive pushing our son in his stroller”
Response/Comeback ? I had no words. I was stunned and felt like I had been slapped in the face.
I got “man I can’t believe how fat your stomach is” – our baby was 3 days old!
I am wishing “Happy F*ck Off Friday” to all the exes (or soon to be for those in the process of divorce) who insulted and demeaned all the chumps ! In the rear view mirror.
For real, we are all so much better off without these crazies!!!
“You look like a total asshole insulting the mother of your child as she’s caring for your child. Oh, did I mention that your dick is small, too?”
Mone later made the comment that I didn’t “really” know what it’s like to give birth because I ended up having a c-section.
Yep. The whole growing a human being, being overdue, trying to give birth the (apparently) proper way, then having major surgery to get said human being out of me, doesn’t rate as a birth experience.
Mansplaining childbirth. It doesn’t get much more arrogant than that.
I never made a sound in child birth – I’m not a screamer – but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell. But because I wasn’t screaming, after our son was born he leaned over with his coffee breath and said “that wasn’t too bad at all”! Well I guess not from your perspective you dickhead!
Mine, many years later, actually stated “push”….it’s just a figure of speech, right? Needless to say, I should have PUSHED him off of a cliff! PS: No push present for me.
Oh my gosh, I got that one too! And he made sure to mention his ‘concern’ around every single person we knew; I found myself explaining and having to explain to people that hadn’t even known that I existed, much less concerned about a stranger’s business.
Reframe: I actually am sorry that your name is on the birth certificate. If I hadn’t been so stunned and mortified, kidlet and I could have made our escape years ago.
(MY friends, who called me Pure Pureness, couldn’t imagine someone actually saying that with a straight face)
Blameshift: You are extremely negative and controlling.
Reframe: I worried too much for my kids safety (I would always see how they could get hurt and warn them) and I tried to teach the proper techniques in sports and in doing chores.
Blameshift: You would always bitch about something.
Reframe: How dare you expect me and the kids to clean up after ourselves all weekend while you worked 12 hour shifts.
Blameshift: You put me in a really bad place.
Reframe: Fucking a married man and tearing apart Our family (while his family has no clue he’s a lying, cheating fuckwit and they are all still together) has put us all in a much better place. As long as she’s happy now, that’s all that matters. So I guess the Reframe is… You expected me to keep my wedding vows and commitment to the family like you for the rest of your life. (I should call his wife in Father’s Day to let her know who she’s really married to). Been struggling with that for 3 years now.
Do it. The only way I found out the affair was still going on (after he swore he broke it off and wanted to work on our marriage) was when the AP’s husband put a GPS tracker on her car and then emailed me to let me know they were still at it. Definitely the wake-up call I needed to realize what a massive POS I was married to.
“You’re the reason I drink”. Ha. The first time he got blackout drunk, he said it never happened before and was terribly sorry and it would never happen again. The second time, he said he never noticed how much he was drinking and asked me to watch out and let him know when he had enough. See where this is going? Next, who was I to tell him when to stop drinking? Finally, I was the cause of it all.
Well, he was the reason I walked home in high heels through dark stretches of north Toronto (before cell phones) the several times he disappeared and drove home drunk and left me stranded. Reframe: if I’m the reason he drinks, I can solve the problem easily. I left him. His parting shot: you can’t solve your problems by running away. Me: Yes I can. He went out and found a potential new excuse right away.
X: She appreciates me and it’s nice to feel appreciated for once.
Me: Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realize that by caring for our children pretty much single handedly, keeping our home going, our landscaping up, our second home up, following you in pursuit of your career (complete moves every three years) and leaving my family, I was somehow showing you I was unappreciative of you. I never gave you blow jobs at work because one, you never asked and I was always with our children and two, I’m just not that kind of girl. But I’m so thrilled you finally found someone that will accommodate you in that regard, appreciatively of course. I’ll just continue to do all the things I was doing before except now I get the pleasure of doing them without you and for that I’m now appreciative.
Never gave him blow jobs at work ?! Nothing says professional, safe work environment like a woman crawling under a man’s desk to service him. Did you two work at the same company or were you expected to come ’round during his lunch hour ?
@Sucker Punched, I didn’t work, his job was way too important and my job was to raise his (our) children and do everything else. I guess lunch hour is the preferred time for workplace blow jobs, luckily his accounting manager was very accommodating.
Chumpfor12, Me too. I gave up my career for his. Stayed home and raised 2 amazing children, managed 2 homes, planned vacations, social lives, managed finances, holidays etc, etc so he could focus on his job and all the while he took me for granted; replaced by lunchtie workplace BJ’s in the backseat of his skank’s car (after she moved the twin booster seats of course).
LTT, I’m pretty sure karma is just around the corner.
Blameshift: You want to control my sexuality.
Flip: I don’t want to live with your increasingly disgusting porn habit. I want a partner who is interested in real sex with a real person.
Blameshift: I don’t do X task (or Y task or Z task or On Beyond Zebra task) because you always criticize how I do things. I can’t do anything right according to you! Pout. I’m not going to try to do anything anymore.
Flip: You asked me how to do the task because you “didn’t know how and wanted to get it right.” I told you the way that worked for me, based on experience and on what I was taught. You decided you had a better way that was born of laziness and ignorance. You proceeded to do the task badly, so that it needed to be done over, and dangerously, so that you almost hurt yourself and damaged equipment. I was angry because you sabotaged the task, the equipment, and your own safety.
Oh, @Madge. I got such a perversion of that.
Blameshift: “You want to control my sexuality and make all of my sexual decisions for me.”
Flip: I want to have a good sex life with the woman I married and committed to, whatever that takes, short of allowing her to “go out and fuck 17 guys if that’s what I want to do” (her exact words)
Of course this wasn’t ever an issue until we were in front of a judge
Blame: Your honor she is controlling with our finances. She doesn’t let me see the bills
Reality: Your honor I take care of all the bills because I always have. When he was on his own he had evictions, late charges, terrible credit, avoided doing his taxes etc. All bills are setup electronically and paid automatically from our “Joint” account and he has the password to every electronic bill that is set up. (It was his password he uses for everything)
“Joint” account was another joke. He’d get bonus’s and per diem checks he’d cash and keep the money for what he wanted and spend the joint money on what he wanted as well. And of course making way less than I but in court he deserved equal everything even though he didn’t put in equal ANYTHING. But sure spent 90% more.
Sounds oh so similar 🙁
STBXW never had any interest in family finances until her affair and her wanting to give money to OM to keep him interested. Then of course it was the same blame-shifting that I was controlling of finances and therefore controlling of her. How can you stop someone doing something they don’t want to do. Hello!?
And yep, the same difference with spending. No problem for her to spend 500 on botox, but heaven forbid I ‘waste’ money buying our kids some ice-cream — grrrrr
What is it with this crazy rationale? I too did the finances – he liked to spend the money (on himself of course) and I made sure bills were paid and mortgage got extra payments. It turns out his own account was for his pot and viagra – which of course I had to split my own saved account (lawyer said it would cost just as much to fight it). Not to mention his very expensive solo vacation that of course I know now wasn’t solo. Then the asshole started this whole rant about how I had excluded him from the finances – even though I talked to him about everything and he had all the passwords. He is spending money like water but fought me on every penny after I had made my needs small and saved my money (may his money run out :). He is a complete dick who is busy telling everyone what an amazing new person he is (so delusional).
Same here. Dickhead spent all OUR money on himself and then would bang his fist on the table because he wanted to know where all the money was going. I was the one that kept everything going. Now he has had to put his big boy’s knickers on I would give my right arm to see the state of his accounts! Oddly enough Schmoopie used to post on FB about it being Monday but “HEY, WHO CARES, I’M RETIRED”. Dickhead is on a damn good pension but Schmoopie went back to work about 6 months ago “because she was bored”. Nah, I think she has probably realized what his spending is like and they ain’t making it. Must have come as quite a shock to her that half that money he was throwing around was actually mine!
Cheater-“Our boys are closer to you. They only come to you to talk or for help or to confide.”
Truth-that’s what happens when you stop at the no tell motel on your way home from work instead of being home for family dinners. When you lock yourself up in the home office to “work” or “study” instead of bedtime reading, helping with baths, tucking the boys in at night. Opting to go the gym/“study”/not attending family after game parties/going to your imaginary softball games (no tell motels) on the weekends instead of playing baseball with your boys
Cheater- “you were to smothering when I was hospitalized for 2 transplants.”
Truth-you asked me to run by your office every day to bring your work/mail. You asked me to bring you certain foods every day that you could tolerate while on chemo. Your blind mother and father with Alzheimer’s wanted to see you as often as possible because the doctors were not sure if you would survive. In actuality my being at the hospital with you diminished the time that Vajay Jay could be there.
Blame: You are the problem, you caused all this (divorce, tearing our family apart)
Reality: Apparently only I was supposed to be the faithful one and let him have his secret life, secret email, many affair specific web accounts and be ok with waking up in the middle of the night and catching him Video recording HIMSELF masterbating. Yeah yeah I caused the problem… ** eye roll **
Blameshift: She loves me unconditionally. But she’s “just a friend”
Flip: She accepts that I am running away from my responsibilities and she gives me a place, and drugs, to make it easier.
Blameshift: You are abusive.
Flip: I am okay enough with you to still plan camping trips and Halloween parties together. Why can’t we just do all the family stuff while I sleep with someone else? You not letting me be free is mean.
“You don’t have enough sex with me.”
” True. We hardly ever have sex, thankfully. I used to like it and have a decent sex drive but after being married to you and having sex with a semi-flaccid penis for 20 years, which caused nerve damage to me over the years and now I have vulvadynia, you’re not sexy or appealing to me at all. Sex with you is super painful. You don’t do enough foreplay, I just want it over with, and you watch so much porn I can see you watching it in your head while fucking me. The weird porn-video leer on your face is disgusting. Oh and sorry #notsorry that while I’m going through chemo and radiation and jumping into chemical menopause I don’t want to have any sex. #sadsausage.”
Well. That was cathartic. Sexless marriages ≠ reason to be a fucking cheating scum. Get a fucking divorce.
I hear you. We didn’t have a sexless marriage at all, even though he was (unbeknownst to me) a porn freak and was just using me to masturbate to his gross fantasies. Like your jerk, he was in his own head, never there with me during sex, and now that you mention it, he did have a weird look on his face. It creeped me right out, and he *never* looked at me during intercourse. We actually had plenty of sex before he started cheating and treating me like crap. We did have a dry spell when I was having a terrible time with menopause, interstitial cystitis, suffering from depression, a worsening chronic illness, and the libido lowering effects of an SSRI, all at once. I told him I was doing everything I could to get better, and I was. Shitheel still used it as an excuse to bang some ho and discard me like I was garbage. They SUCK!
Yep. It’s your fault. Everything is your fault. #solidarity, Chumperella.
Ok, here goes, might be a bit of a diatribe but well…
Her:
“I wanted a man, but you took the woman’s role in our marriage, while I had to be the man and work.”
Me:
“I gave up my 20-year career to start a family business with you. In the past decade you only had to teach part-time (about 13 hours a week) while I took care of everything else (admin, communication, finance, marketing, IT, event-planning, you-name-it). Like all new businesses we struggled for several years, but now the business is finally producing and will or would have provided a nice income for us and our kids into a sunset retirement.
I stayed up late many, many nights, finding ever more creative ways to keep us out of bankruptcy. But I got us through the ‘dip’ and now the business is a success.
I also did the lion’s share of looking after our children and the house.
I get the kids up every morning, make breakfast, prepare their snacks and do the hour-long round journey to their school. I’m generally the one who makes us lunch. Then I pick up the kids from school, prepare their evening meal, get them showered and into bed. Then do a bit more work on the business until I can’t stay awake any longer. On Sundays, when you inevitably have your all-day headache, I take care of the kids. I take them to activities, birthday parties, playgrounds, parks, the lot. Well, you do have your telenovelas.
I do all the supermarket shopping, pet shops, pharmacies, toy stores, etc. I organise & pay all household bills. I do the rubbish (trash) and a lot of the cleaning.
Nope, I reckon I’ve been more of a man by stepping up, taking responsibility and running a business while also looking after kids and a home.
…and with that 6-pack starting to appear now, I reckon I’m still a helluva catch even in my 50’s!
Just one problem — awful, awful taste in women — need to do something about that ;)”
It felt really weird to write that — quite wrong in fact — makes me look quite arrogant — but it’s actually the reality of what I though was “us” and certainly the past few years
And obviously the ‘manly’ OM is a bit of an underworked childless layabout, much younger too, who does a bit of sound-mixing for club bands at night and the odd part-time job here’n’there and not much else — sadly he’s too lazy to take her completely off my hands, so in true chump style I’m having to do all the work to get myself free (almost there!)
I hear you man. They won’t take responsibility so they have to justify their despicable choices. No amount of household service was good enough. Even when you have demonstrable proof that their assertions are false, a narc cannot be proven wrong.
For example, my wife says I was always on my phone. Uh honey, you used 5 times as much data as me this month. That’s 500% for any dumbass cheaters reading (are they all bad at math too?).
I feel your pain, so many of your positive efforts will go completely unseen and the rest of the world will shrug and think, “you probably deserved it.”
Or another one, you drink too much. I learned this is a classic one the cheater uses on their parents. Uh sweetie, you spent $300 last night at the old “bar and grill”. Did you buy a round for the whole place or were you getting shitfaced before blowing some funky old ex con while I stayed home with our toddler?
Narcs can’t even do basic reasoning so they won’t even feel guilty about any of it.
Yep, sadly you’re so right @Mac1234 — I’m slowly noticing that most people don’t really care about infidelity
CN was a good find for me to get me on the path of getting through all this (after wasting a year or so in RIC land) and generally it’s the same script whether you’re male, female, straight, gay, young, old or whatever — however there are some differences, namely the automatic assumption that the wife, even if she’s a lazy narc cheater, is still a good mother and always there for her kids — if a husband cheats then it’s “all men are bastards” and sympathy for the woman — if a wife cheats then it’s “well, we don’t really know what went on behind closed doors that forced her to stray” — I got told that to my face, hello, what!?
It’s been mentioned here in CN so many times that we have to be the sane parent and do our best for our kids. Hopefully at least they’ll remember all the breakfasts made, all the trips out, all the evenings we spent with them while their mum had gone AWOL again, even if no-one else does
Hi Shadows
You are right. Infidelity is not taken seriously enough and people really don’t understand how damaging it is to a persons psyche. My STBX told his teenage boys that he hadn’t wanted to be in his cookie cutter marriage for 12 years. That is a huge chunk of their life that he says he hasn’t wanted this family (fucking idiot how do you think that made them feel). So I said to my son if that is true then he stole 12 years of my life (I am not going to spackle for the man anymore — too much spackling beforehand).
Most people think this could never happen to them and that they would “be smarter” than me. I even have a sister in law who is trying to be supportive but says things like “I wouldn’t let him do that” and “boy would I pin his balls to the wall if it was me”. Really? I have let my kids know that this behaviour is horrible and selfish but my STBX insisted on living in the same house while separating so turning it into a war zone would do nothing but further damage my kids. It was more of an ice zone – how cold can it get.
I am not sure about the gender thing but I did have someone relate another story of cheating by saying “his wife was a bitch so she deserved it”. Hmmm – I guess it is easier to just have some pat excuses so you never have to self-reflect and think this could happen to you.
Good luck to you Shadows.
Spot on @Deee, most people don’t believe this could happen to them and I was one of those too
“cookie cutter marriage” — bit of a crass way of saying how he stole 12 years of your life, as you said, and that fits the recent theme here in CN of how we the chumps were never consulted about this, were never given the choice; because obviously none of us would have got together with them knowing that in 10/15 years we’d end up a traumatised single parent
I’m almost out of the in-house separation thing too — “ice zone” was a very apt description 🙂
My family was very supportive but I did hear “cudda, wudda, shudda” too, and how “I wouldn’t have tolerated that”. Sorry, but walk in my shoes for just a month and then get back to me on that!
I am blown away by how many of us didn’t “need” them enough.
“You didn’t need me like I needed you”.
Reframe: “I was a grown adult and he wasn’t.”
Blameshift: “Our marriage is falling apart because we don’t communicate. We need marriage counseling to solve our communication problems.”
What he really meant: This wife appliance is defective. She doesn’t read my mind and do everything I want her to do. Never mind that she is doing 95% of the chores to raise our 5 children and maintain our home. I need someone to make her comply. And hopefully, she’ll ignore the fact that I’m in love with another woman.
Ahh so did he use the classic cheater ploy of getting you into marriage therapy after he had already started his affair
Damn I got that too. The MC didn’t even bat an eyelash when the cat got out of the bag.
Another I’m sure is classic: Cheater feels so bad about the affair and wants to show they are taking responsibility. So, they will sacrificially confess to their parents.
In reality they are just spinning up some narrative that you would never suspect. That one was tough to catch but so predictable.
Holy crap! I just realized THAT’S why he pushed for marriage counseling that last month. Wow. That’s actually a relief to know.
Oh yep! A classic cheater ploy to delay things when they’re not yet ready to run off and also used when they want to pretend that they tried to fix things but you (the chump) were the problem and that they were so lucky to find someone immediately afterwards to ‘comfort’ them.
Add to that one, the cheater initiating divorce through a mediator, but then delaying things and breaking things off months later, saying we should get separate lawyers (I fell for that one too).
Thank you for sharing that one shadows. I’m a few steps behind you and it looks like that is in the cards.
“You never go anywhere or do anything.”
I never accepted this blame. Even when I was on hopium I thought it was stupid.
I used to travel the world, but my ex was afraid of airplanes and didn’t like to stay away from home for more than an evening, so I gave up that passion of mine.
We all make sacrifices for the people we love, right?
I used to have a car when I lived with Cheater, but I had to sell it. Cheater refused to get a job, so I sold my car to make my meager salary stretch. I walked to work while Cheater kept the car.
We all make sacrifices for the people we love, right?
So when he blamed me for not traveling more I was all like [mathlady.gif]. It wasn’t adding up. Of COURSE I stopped traveling. You can’t WALK to Europe, genius. What did you expect??
In honor of this exercise, however, I’ll reframe it: I am willing to sacrifice my hobbies and convenience for the people I love.
Hubby also blamed his affair on his little brother. Of course he had to fuck the next door neighbor! His little brother is in a wheelchair and might need his help! The fact that his little brother is an independent extreme-sport paraathlete that lives almost 3,000 miles away didn’t factor into this equation. I never asked him how fucking whores while I am at work is support to help his little brother, but what do I know. I’m not a doctor.
Reframe: ????????????????????????? You can’t reframe a picture that wasn’t all that clear to begin with.
I never internalized any of his blame, and was always ready with a reframe, so he would usually drop one blameshift, then come up with another. These are my responses. I would write them down just to have a record of his drivel. These are but a few of his many reams of bullshit.
Examples;
Blameshift; you didn’t like visting my family.
Reframe; I don’t enjoy visting the violent ward at a mental health facility, either. *You* didn’t even like visting them.
Blameshift; Not enough sex.
Reframe; Yet your mistress fucking you only twice in five years constitutes enough? Then I was a sex veritable machine.
Blameshift; You were controlling about my drinking.
Reframe; Your drinking was out of control, and you refused to stop. So how was I controlling it exactly?
Blameshift; You weren’t social enough.
Reframe; Meaning I don’t drink, because that’s what “socializing” means to you.
Blameshift; You were too sarcastic.
Reframe; I wasn’t aware sarcastic humor is so traumatic to you that it requires you to plow whore pussy to feel better. That explains why you first fucked her right after going to a comedy club with her. At last, we have the answer!
Blameshift; I could talk to her with no drama. We were always fighting.
Reframe; We only started fighting after you decided to discard me for her. That’s an effect of cheating, not a cause.
Blameshift; You didn’t love me anymore.
Reframe; Which you suddenly determined after you realized you wanted to plow new pussy. How very convenient for you.
Blameshift; You enjoy conflict.
Reframe; I do? Then I guess you shouldn’t have provided me with so much pleasure by coming home so drunk you could barely stand and being cold and nasty for no reason, then. I guess you shouldn’t have broken almost every promise you ever made, then denied making them. I must have been getting a ton of “enjoyment”.
He hated it when I did the air quotes. Hee hee.
Blameshift; You wouldn’t go on a bunch of overseas trips like my friend and my brother do with their wives to help their marriages.
Reframe; You mean the friend and the brother who have terrible marriages and whose wives can’t stand them because they’re treated like shit by those jerks? Sounds like heaven. Book us a trip to Bora-Bora. Oh, was that sarcastic? I guess you’ll need to find a whore right away to ease your anxiety from sarcasm phobia.
Blameshift; Everything was just so EASY with her.
Reframe; Except getting her to fuck you, to stop manipulating you and bossing you around, and stop fucking other guys practically in front of you. That was impossible. What was easy again, besides her virtue?
My ex husband (then in his surgical residency) told me that our marriage could not survive because I (an attorney) was unable to discuss detailed medical issues with him. He said it was the most important thing in the world to him, and unless we could have in depth discussions about medicine, we would never have enough in common to survive. We had been together for 13 years at that point.
My mind was blown. I always asked about his day and engaged with him about his job. I am educated, well-read, and have a variety of interests. Believe me, I can converse on a lot of topics. Also, who only wants to talk about ONE thing all the time? How one dimensional can you get?
It will shock no one to hear that he was sleeping with an intern…
Reframe: he was desperately looking for a justification for his actions and that weak excuse is what he landed on. Plus, he wanted someone who could fawn over his medical “genius” in more detail.
You could just as easily have turned it around on him and demanded he discuss legal issues. Notice how everything THEY are interested in is important and all your interests are trivial? I like in-depth discussions political and social issues, but shit for brains is too dumb to understand a lot of that and too shallow to care, so he preferred listening to his idiot mistress blather about her boring, self-centered life.
That should say “discussions of”. Need an edit feature.
Wow! Ex’s Schmoopie also likes to “blather about her boring, self-centered life.” I swear the woman never shuts up. But it makes sense that ex likes her because another of his criticisms was that I didn’t do that.
Hahahaha! Yet if you had, it would have been; “You blathering about your boring, self-centered life caused me to cheat.”
They make sure you can’t possibly satisfy them.
And-it wouldn’t have made a difference. I am a nurse, ex is a physician. I am more than capable of having intelligent conversations about medical issues. In fact one of the many reasons he just had to cheat was that often times I was a better diagnostician than he was
The office file girl who never graduated high school could hold more intelligent convos i guess????. I think it was just more fun to play the daily game of “guess what color her g-string is.” True story-the office staff would try to guess what color the g-string was each day. They found out when she started filing in the bottom drawers. Guess I just take professionalism in a medical practice a little more seriously! My bad!
AHWA,
I feel your pain, my last partner (now ex-oyfriend) is an executive at an engineering firm in a field that I have not worked in for many years but is his passion. Wanting to emotionally support him and also be a well-rounded person, in spite of being very busy, I read journals in his discipline and tried to hold intelligent conversations about it. Looking back, nearly two years post-discard, I was never good enough for him, but to him, his young, rich, brilliant engineer subordinate was exciting and worth marrying. And unlike me, who just enjoyed Star Wars, she was super into Star Wars.
Criticism by partner: My last partner also didn’t approve of the way my car trunk was organized.
Reframe: As a single mom, I was doing many different things and, die to my lifestyle, which included driving 80 miles round trip to see him for half our relationship (before I moved closer to his home), required me to keep a lot in my car.
Criticism by partner: My career is at it’s zenith, but yours is just getting re-started. That’s why I don’t see you in my future.
Reframe: You had no kids, which take time. I decided to raise my children and conduct research, often for nothing or little money, for the greater good. I am a charitable person. I also choose to spend precious time with you instead of trying to earn extra money. I am loving and devoted to my partner. And I never asked you to financially take care of my kids and me, so financial dependence is not an issue. I am not a gold digger and loved and respected you back when you were a middle-class kid.
Criticism by partner: You wear lipstick when you cycle.
Reframe: It prevents my lips from drying out and it makes me feel like the high-caliber athlete I want to be, making me feel good about me. If you’re not going to feel good about me, at least I should feel good about me.
Criticism by partner: You put on your bike a bottle of soda instead of a bottle of water today.
Reframe: Sometimes I like to drink diet soda or didn’t get around to refilling my water bottle. So what? You are nitpicky.
Criticism by partner, who is wealthy and doesn’t need anything when I gave him a photo of is for Christmas (complaining instead of thanking me): You’re smiling; you almost never smile.
Reframe: I love you enough to want to give you a nice photo of us together as I have never seen online a photo of us together nor seen any mention of me online by you. (I later learned, after years of being acquainted with and dating him, that he was embarrassed to be seen with me.) Perhaps I didn’t smile much because my ex-husband constantly harassed me and my then boyfriend lied to, invalidated, insulted, invalidated, criticized, and tried to exert control over me. I made a note to self to smile more often to make my boyfriend happy. Didn’t work at keeping him. He was quite ungrateful.
The list is a lot longer, but this gives an idea of what was going on.
I won’t list the examples of my ex-husband’s blameshifting and criticism as the would be longer than War and Peace.
The question is, ‘Why did I stick around people who treated me like garbage for years?’ I wasn’t perfect—I was sad, afraid (due to typical an bizarre challenges of my particular divorce and life) and I imagine seemed needy although I did not want to, but I deserved much better treatment from many of my partners. People don’t deserve to be lied to and denigrated.
I still feel angry at these partners for mistreating me and angry at me for tolerating this treatment. And I still feel sad and feel as though I have nothing to live for other than preventing my ex-husband from getting sole custody of our kids as I think that living only with my ex-husband and his numerous partners (40/year?) would be bad for our kids. I don’t plan to kill myself as I think that killing myself might be bad for my young kids and my exes would probably say, ‘See. This is why I had to leave her. She was crazy.’ I often really look forward to my life ending, and as I am in my fifties, perhaps I won’t have to wait very long, or at least not as long as the typical young adult or teen. I don’t bother getting screened for cancer any more as I, in a way, hope that I develop a fatal case of cancer soon, even though it is physically painful. At least I would be free of perpetual harassment and results of false allegations by my ex-husband. Knowing him, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if he would try to sue me after I died. Probably tell my family that I owe him!
I feel bad for many people on this board for being treated badly. I hope that your lives markedly improve.
FUU said, “I’m a bad husband. You deserve better.”
NSC said, “Yes, I do. Are you going to step up and do better, continue to mewl about how awful you are and look for pity or are we done here?”
FUU *jaw dropped*
Blameshift: “You always put the kids first.”
Reframe: “You created children with three women. I try, whenever possible, to unite them through family events, with us, as siblings so they can have a relationship.”
Blameshift: “I watched my mom and dad have a sexless marriage and I am not going to settle for that.”
Reframe: “I’m sorry you grew up witnessing an abusive marriage and instead of being committed to being a better man/husband/father decided instead to create a marriage just like it by serially cheating on me and I decided to protect myself from STDs until you got a blood test.”
Blameshift: “We need to fix US.”
Reframe: “US isn’t fucking around with strangers met through online dating sites and Craigslist. Fix YOU and then maybe we can talk.”
Blameshift: “You’re a BITCH.”
Reframe: “I know how to establish boundaries, follow a divorce order, and kick your shit out of my garage.”
Oh this is brilliant, and I wish I had the “US isn’t fucking around with strangers met on Craigslist” comeback a few years ago!! OMG… I was such a chump. Never again.
“We need to fix US.
US isn’t fucking around”
BRILLIANT
Blameshift: His career is failing because I’m a distraction and because of me he can’t focus on making it what it should be.
Reframe: Nothing I do, or don’t do, will make or break his career if he doesn’t do the necessary things to market himself, his artwork, and his services. If he refuses every walk-in client because he doesn’t like the design they have, doesn’t create a business account for himself and depends only on his personal fb and friends from high school he hasn’t otherwise spoken to in 10 years, only has 6 posts on his instagram, never sells any of his pieces, never gets commissions, and never goes to any conventions or events his fellow artists attend, it is his fault, not mine, that his career has not gone anywhere.
Blameshift: It’s my fault I get sexually harassed because I walked outside in a pair of heels without him to chaperone me, what do I expect? Women only dress like that for men’s attention, so that must be what I wanted when I walked out in those “slut shoes.”
Reframe: He was highly insecure about himself, his relationships, his self-image, and his life. It was easier for him to call me a slut for wearing heels in public than it was for him to examine his insecurities, and think about the real things that were making him angry all the time.
And a different person, but nonetheless a reframe-
Blameshift: We had sex, that’s not a big deal, I’m making too much of a deal out of it. I’m too clingy, I need to learn self confidence and how to be alone, can’t I see he’s just too busy for a relationship right now? I’m not fit for a relationship because I’m too insecure. Do I know what co-dependence means? (pat on the head)…so when are we going to bang again? (Actual quote there folks.)
Reframe: If he minimizes the signifigance of sex, invalidates my feelings and needs, disrespects me and tells me it is my problem and I shouldn’t even be in a relationship because there is something wrong with me, it is easier for him to shirk responsibility. It’s easier to manipulate me into sex without having to commit if he tells me I can’t handle a relationship. But the reality is I am not weak, broken, codependent and insecure, I can recognize when someone has lied to me and is trying to avoid responsibility, and the look of shock on his face when I told him he will either commit or there will be no sex ever again was priceless, and the continued shock of seeing how little I cared when he didn’t commit was even more priceless. It can actually be a little fun when narcissists see they aren’t the center of your universe.
Blameshifting: I am incapable of watching violence against woman and children on the TV. I leave the room.
Flip: I am a sensitive person with empathy, who finds the pain of the others almost to much to cope with. However I don’t insist on others behaving the same, I remove myself from the situation.
Okay this one wasn’t hard, who lists sensitivity as a reason for divorce!
Methinks the asshole got off on watching violence against women, knew it meant he was a sick creep, and deflected onto you to ease his shame.
My jerk always loved watching Game of Thrones, which is full of graphic depections of rape and murder, plus every other sick show which glorified violence, but pompously asked me how I could stand to watch “all those pedophiles and rapists” on Special Victims Unit.
Me; “Unlike on your beloved shows that celebrate violence and evil, it doesn’t show the violence, glorify the perpetrators, and has compassion for the victims, you hypocrite.”
That shut him up.
My take is that if a guy isn’t bothered by violence against women, he’s probably into it sexually.
Him: you never want to have sex
Me: tell that to my 44 year old FWB who is not a premature ejaculator like you
While denying he was having an affair, my then husband said I did not “do exotic positions or make a lot of noise” while fucking.
Oh yeah, I didn’t make a lot of noise either. Flip: We weren’t faking it when we had orgasms.
Blameshifter: “You had other lovers before you met me!”
Me: What the FUCK does that have to do with your cheating on me?!
And how about this gem–(paraphrased): “If it makes you feel any better, you’re better in bed than 3 of the 4 guys I cheated on you with.”
BB
Good grief. Are they dumb, delusional, disordered, or just plain evil?
I know, right? Makes me a huge chump for sucking this shit up. Considering she has Borderline traits, calling to her attention how soul-crushing her remarks can be has no effect at all.
She told me to try to see it through her eyes, her being hopelessly attracted to these men, especially the first one.
From my perspective, she was just a horny vixen with no moral compass looking for an exciting change on the menu.
BB
Roger that. Yup, I’m in the same boat.
Bluebayou, That’s pretty messed up . You know they are never happy or satisfied they only look for the next victim. I got traded for a younger man and it destroyed our family but the relationship only lasted two years. When a relationship starts wrong ,it will not last.
In our case, she went on a sexual rampage over the course of just a few months, screwing 4 men in the process & giving me an STD. So am I supposed to be “grateful” that it was chlamydia and not HIV? She was “nice” enough to drive me to the clinic for treatment….
BB
I hope you’ve decided to get DNA kits for the whole family.
i was lazy, stupid- spent too much money and he couldn’t trust me financially- even though i had excellent credit and we were very financially stable and i was maxing out my retirement etc. And i worked a full time job and took care of the house and our son. Wasn’t adventurous enough in bed- he resorted to having an affair and looking up teenage porn.
My rewrite:
I work a full time job, take care of my son- even though i have 50/50 custody- son complains dad never has laundry ready, or dinner ready (guess who’s lazy now). i took 1/3 of his retirement to supplement what i already had and am financially in a great place after buying my own place and setting up a new home. What do they have: She makes a lot less than i ever did or will, her house is in foreclosure which means her credit is shot. He recently forgot to log out of the family email and i caught his searches for porn and for her home and her ex-husband’s name (obviously some trust issues going on there). What is she left with: A man 8 years older- with bad knees, back, neck, liver, kidneys- on a cpap machine, using rogaine and cialis, who still has to look at porn and is paranoid cheater who had to give me a 1/3 of his retirement and a ton of alimony and child support right up until he retires! Thank you! Enjoy!
Everything about me was horrible, down to my dna level, according to my ex when she got caught banging my cousin.
Weird how that contradicted the years of her telling me she loved me.
Lesson….always observe the actions, not words.
Post divorce…..everyone else appreciates and loves who I am. I’m so confident in what I am.
Fuck that bitch.
Love it. I’m not divorced yet but I managed to escape for a weekend with my old chums (forbidden from household for cutting the buffet line at our wedding). It was cathartic to realize they still loved and appreciated me even after I abandoned them for a cheater.
Hi Rick
That is the lesson that has really stood out for me. “Observe actions, not words”. I was so busy believing the bullshit that I didn’t reflect enough on why he was not kind and loving anymore. I hope going forward that I recognize that I get better than this (as it happens with friends and colleagues too – don’t buy the bullshit see what their actions are screaming).
Thanks for the ammunition, everyone . . .
(music by Carl Douglas, lyrics by Chump Nation)
Oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhhhh
Oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhhhh
(Refrain)
Every cheater was burden-shifting
Won’t do no heavy-lifting
That explains their attention-drifting
And all of their annoyance-riffing
There’s no fun without the kids, no aliens on TV
There’s no squirting on command (even if it’s just pee)
You’re too calm and far too wise, and you routinely criticize
And the more I sit and think, you’re the reason that I drink
(Refrain)
…
You’ve outdone yourself with this one! LOVE IT!
Bravo ????????????
This!!!!
My toxically avoidant Cheater who never responded to my attempts to connect:
You are partially responsible for this, its not like I got to this place alone”
Me flipping the script:
“When you left the marriage to pursue a coworker, you did that ENTIRELY on your own”
He was unhappy being married to me. The list of reasons, which he kept to himself for 27 years, was just too lengthy to get into.
Now he’s unhappy without being married to me.
I am currently enjoying being living proof that his unhappiness was all about him, him, and him. I am also enjoying that the cheating accomplice is living proof that he is a jerk.
I’d just like to say that this entire thread has been more helpful than 6 months of therapy! ChumpLady FTW.
Blame: My music career was destroyed. I have radial tunnel syndrome. No more guitar playing after I lifted those heavy Costco grocery things out of YOUR trunk.
Flip: Yes, inflated injuries-bravo histrionics. I will hold all of your calls from worldwide producers looking for a late thirties, slightly tone deaf, man-child with a chain wallet.
Blame: Our sex life would be better if you did yoga and gained some healthy weight.
Flip: (At 5’1 and 97 lbs) Wow, body shaming- that’s a new one for women. I wonder if our sex life would change if I taught you about micro- aggression, structural oppression and cut off all supply of my emotional labor? Too harsh? Should I soften my reaction to spare your feelings? Maybe Siri or Google can help you with that. And your taxes.
I wish I were in a more snarky mood, but today I just feel like venting.
Blameshifting:
“Is this all there is? I deserve to have fun.” Said as he walked out of our 16-year marriage.
Flip (Rant):
What more could you want? I just spent the last week of my mother’s life taking care of her and making sure her final wishes were honored. I then addressed the issue of my father, who was diagnosed with rapid-onset dementia after Mom’s death – taking over his finances, getting him into a new living situation, etc. Oh yeah, and taking care of our daughter who had reconstructive knee surgery the day Mom died and was unable to walk for six weeks afterwards. And managing our rental property, dog, bills, and every other responsibility we had.
Did I not attend to your ego/sex needs as much as you wanted? I was wracked with grief and exhausted, you self centered asshole! FU. I’m freakin’ SuperWoman.
“Is this all there is?” Yeah. It’s called Life.
Enjoy your fun with LinkedInLove. I’m truly enjoying mine, now.
PS: your daughter and the dog don’t miss you either
It’s a very sad and disturbing commentary on who they are when the spouses are dealing with real-life problems such as parents, emotions, responsibilities, grief, and they are nowhere to be found. They have absolutely nothing to offer but yet bitch when you don’t smile as you come in the door from visiting your parents.
My mother passed away a month after D-Day while the ex and I will still sharing the house. He had already filed for divorce. Not once did he say anything to me, no condolences, no “how can I help”, didn’t even come to the hospital to see her. She was not a horrible MIL by any means. The one and really the only time that I really needed support and he was gone.
Cheaters suck. All of them just suck.
Blameshit (no spelling mistake, I’m plagiarising that cause it’s excellent, thank you musicguy1982):
I need someone to nourish my soul
Flip:
You think you are something pretty special don’t you
Blameshit: On asking what the hell had be doing the last several years carrying on as normal if things were ‘so bad it was making him ill’. I feel the highs very high and the lows very low, MY life is very experiential
Flip:
You think you are something pretty special don’t you
Blameshit: Have you thought about having therapy, not counselling, proper therapy where you look deep inside. I have and I have done the work on myself (all behind my back and obvs the person recommending he does this was OW)
Flip:
You think you are something pretty special don’t you.
I could go on, I think we all could. Happy weekend everyone x
Love this!
Blame-shift: I can’t get anywhere with you.
Flip Side: Leading a double life is expensive. The one date night I uncovered cost him $225.00 I now have financial stability, kept my pension, and because of earning more I’ll be able to retire if and when I’m ready.
–I got too fat (“disgusting” was the word. So nice)
–Secondary infertility turned out to be an issue. Who knew? My body was all around bad it seems.
–He “had said, at the time, a dozen years ago” that he didn’t want to buy our 1700’s house (bit ‘o gaslighting there), so it was all my fault (that we lived in an awesome house.)
–He just didn’t want to be a suburban dad anymore. (My personal favorite, which of course I have never told kid.) Welp, since they refuse all contact with him, he’s gotten his wish. Now it’s whiny time to kid…
All of these are direct quotes from the cheater. They were said to me directly to my face or in The Divorce Letter. The words either confused me/made me feel like I was going crazy or broke my heart even more. Today I will reframe them WITH THE TRUTH!
Cheater: “You never took good care of me.”
Reframe: “I never took good care of you. My career, job, friends, “friends”, hobbies, porn, and masterbating came first. You and the kids came after this.”
Cheater: “I think I have the PERFECT personality to be in a relationship with.”
Reframe: “I suck, but everyone thinks I’m great!
Cheater: “You see everything in black and white.”
Cheater: “You are so controlling and judgemental.”
Reframe: “We’ve been together for 23 years and I of course never mentioned that I thought you had black and white thinking or that you were controlling and judgemental. I actually know how wise and smart you are; you finally figured me out! So now I need to devalue you. Tell you things about yourself that are not true, so that the spotlight gets put back on you. The truth is, you were a great wife and mom. I told you this so many times and it’s true! But the jokes on you. I was only using you to do all the adulting in our relationship and family.”
Cheater: “At least we’ll have all our great sex memories!”
Reframe: “I’m a very shallow person. Sex is all I care about. The birth of our children; all the happy times together; all the sad times we shared; all our couples only and family vacations mean nothing to me. I’m that sha-sha-la-la-la-low.”
Cheater: “Ten years ago you said you’d never trust me.” and “I want to be with someone that trusts me 100%. You can’t give me what I want. Trust.”
Reframe: “I had to go back ten years to find a reason why I need to divorce you. It doesn’t matter that you don’t remember saying it, because I’m mind-fucking you right now and you don’t even know it! I’m really good at this! And lying too! You have ever reason not to trust me, because I’ve been lying to you and cheating on you for 23 years! And now you’ve figured me out! So, now I need to find a new chump who will adore and trust me. Until she doesn’t. And then I will need to find another chump……..”
My ex said we were roommates. Good luck finding another roommate who will cook for you, clean for you, wash your clothes, scrubbing out the skid marks and still have sex with you.
^^ same.
Blameshift: “You’re controlling because you won’t let me even speak to my multiyear affair partner. We are just friends! There’s nothing going on! How can you be so controlling?? I’m going to tell every person who will listen how much of a controlling monster you are!”
Reframe: I established healthy boundaries.
Mine told his almost-affair partner, who he’d known for 20 minutes, that we were coexisting like roommates. I agree with you about finding a roommate who would do and put up with everything and then still be in the mood for sex!
“You’re to close to your family.”
Flip- My parents were watching our children while I worked and covering bills we couldn’t pay.
Laugh-Same person who told my Dad “All you care about is your daughters broken heart” mad my dad didn’t care about him after his cheating.
“You are no fun.”
Flip- Someone had to be responsible for our kids, business, farm and household task
Laugh- I got rid of him, farm,business and now have tons of time for fun. He got all those tasks-so he is no fun.
“You clean to much.”
Flip- Because he didn’t clean anything and constantly made a mess.
Laugh-“He claims to be running a pig farm and he is the leader”
“You’re fat.”
Flip-I am average american woman size.
Laugh- He couldn’t wear my pants when we were married they were too small for him.
“You see things in Black n White.”
Flip- His lying was shades of gray I refused to believe.
Laugh- He said he could lie in more languages than anyone knows.
This is fun!
You’re hilarious, especially the laugh part.
Sorry for going off-topic. I just have a happy announcement: thanks to the advice from this community, I put in a clause in my divorce that anything the ex doesn’t claim within 30 days of the divorce finalization will be deemed legally mine to do with what I see fit.
I am really, really looking forward to getting rid of a house full of garbage that the ex was “storing” at my house indefinitely.
Just three more days to go before I can pitch his junk!
awesome!. i also had a houseful of his stuff. my divorce said whatever was in our possession at time of divorce was ours. months later he came back asking for some things. i said nope, gave him what i wanted him to have which were gifts from our sons and donated, sold or junked the rest. felt awesome and he was pissed and whined to our sons. they were totally supportive of me. yeah! doesnt make up for blowing up the family but helps some. Enjoy!
My house is also full of his stuff. He left the house with a toothbrush and took our tube of toothpaste. And some of his T-shirt’s and clothes and stuff out of his dresser drawers left everything else. Is that what they do expect to store things here and come back for it? Or just leaving it forever because it reminds them of us.
“I’m too focused on the kids, you don’t make time for me, we never do anything together, you only want me for my paycheck”
Translation ” I’m too lazy to pitch in and do my share of the parenting and planning of fun times, it’s much easier to let you do that and convince myself that you aren’t interested in me because it fits my narrative of being a victim. Plus I can use this to justify my behavior so actually I’m quite happy”
Heck, I was about to post this but you beat me to it. I was so focused on my child because she was cutting and suicidal and physically ill. But he framed everything as we never had sex and I didn’t appreciate him. Hard to be in the mood when life is falling apart. He told the OW that he didn’t feel loved and appreciated. Puke.
Yep, they get to tell the OW that their marriage sucks, that they are not loved and appreciated. That their spouse only wants them for their paycheck.
But Schmoopies is soooooooo different. Appreciates him so much.
Yep, they get to tell the OW that their marriage sucks, that they are not loved and appreciated. That their spouse only wants them for their paycheck.
But Schmoopies is soooooooo different. Appreciates him so much.
I got this exact blameshift. No fun and only want him for his money. I’m glad yo see this reframe. Makes sense.
Blameshift: “It’s your fault that I lie. I lie because lying to you is easier than telling you the truth — I don’t like dealing with your reactions when I tell you the truth.”
Flip: I am an honest, moral person with integrity and authentic emotions. I tell the truth, I expect the truth, and I own all of my reactions, which are 100% authentic.
OMG! This is great
“You were so focused on our daughter and she was such a handful, I didn’t think we had a chance anymore so I cheated”
Me: I did what was necessary and loving and supportive to get our daughter through the horrible teenage years making sure she was safe, protected and loved. You just wanted to just kick her out so all the attention could be on you. Now she has a university degree, a successful career and happily married. Where would we be if your cold and angry response to her acting out was the way we treated her? I don’t even want to think about it! And I still looked after you too through all that time and tried to keep you happy – no such luck and too bad! Much happier now!
Blameshift: “You’ve neglected me by playing Candy Crush and Pet Rescue”
Flip: yes, I play Candy Crush and Pet Rescue to decompress after working all day, taking care of our Autistic daughter, and keeping up with housework, laundry, cooking meals all the while stressing out about money since you can’t keep a job or hide your paychecks and refuse to pay anything towards the house or child care… Meanwhile, you had secret social media accounts that I was blocked from, openly flirted with other women for me to see, disappearing for overnights and would overdraft our joint checking account…
Yet, despite everything I remained a faithful, loyal, supportive wife but I *neglected you”?!?!
Fuck off asshole
Fast forward four years later now — he has to work and support OWife and her kids. OWife doesn’t work that much ????????????????????
Him: Life with you is nothing but busyness.
Flip: Being a professional working mom of two young kids, one with a disability, and looking after your mother while you keep our house in order and continue to try to plan outings for us is a lot of work that keeps you going everyday.
Him: You are an a-type, controlling person who never let me have a say in anything.
Flip: Hey, I finally understand your grievances when you have told me time and time again that you need me to do more. I see how it is that you work, take care of the kids and the house, look after all our family and social obligations, and continue to plan for our future. I should have stepped up all those times you wanted me to take ownership of more in our family life.
Him: You make everything complicated. Even camping is a big ordeal to plan.
Flip: You are a great organizer who tries to pull everything together that we might need when planning an event. We usually benefit from your effort and forethought.
Him: Life with you is just responsibilities.
Flip: My God, you work really hard. You were the sole income earner while I attended these last three year of full-time studies at university, while you continued to get ahead on the house renos and look after the kids needs. There is a lot placed on your shoulders .
Him: All you do is complain. I am tired of your criticisms
Flip: You are someone who speaks her mind and attempts to set boundaries. You call out things that you observe are unfair. You have expectations of others.
Him: You are too strong. I need someone who isn’t so strong.
Flip: You are strong. You don’t put up with my crap. I need someone who has low values and expectations. You stand for things. You get things done. You keep it together. How do you do that?
Him: You don’t know how to have fun.
Flip: You’ve stayed home with the kids and while I have been messing around with other women. Your version of fun isn’t mine because you have values. It is not fun to lie, manipulate and betray the mother of your children in order to satisfy my desire to “have fun.”
Him: You don’t know how to be happy.
Flip: You recognize that they way I treat you and the path of least resistance I choose is unacceptable.
Well, my STBX is trans, so it was like he was his own OW.
Blame shifting lie: “It is your fault that I am trans and want to dress full time now.”
Reframe: You started doing this decades before we even met, so this is not my fault. You are delusional.
That is exactly right, Different. My X is same-sex-attracted but in denial and acted like it was my fault that he wasn’t somehow cured of his SSA when he married me. The craziness boggles the mind. But its 100% fine for us to step outside that circle of crazy… and just keep walking!
Back story: I got pregnant with 2nd child thanks to angry breakup makeup sex after catching him cheating the first time, which he continued doing behind my back for another 7 years, all of them long termers. After baby was walking and we got married (while he cheated through both) I then played pick me dance for another 3 years, with multiple people involved, all his porn addled fantasies were his whenever he wanted them, except for the last two years cos his meth and coke habits were out of control, and I’d discovered radical feminism and the antiporn movement and didn’t want to be a porn star for him and his friends anymore.
After he’d violently tried to push me out of our tent at 3am at a music festival because I’d stayed up talking to a new friend (female, I’d lost most of my real life friends by now because pick me dance and the narcs isolating me from them) I was pretty much done, but the pick me script continued for another 18 months. I basically told him we needed to work things out because we’d both be financially ruined should we seperate. I was earning more than double him by now while he had multiple schmoopies over to our house during the day while he was allegedly at work.
Blameshift (for 7 years): You just reduce us to a financial transaction. You don’t love me because you don’t want to have sex with me (while I film and photograph it, while I masturbate to ejaculate, while I make you have sex with other people male and female but only if I organise it and I am present and I can film and photo it.
Flip: After finding schmoopie of last 4 years on Instagram (yep it crosses over with all those orgies he made me have on pretence he would cheat or leave if I didn’t) wearing the same underwear set he had been buying me in multiple colourways for same period I decided to do the bank account forensics (we were just over by now but only just, the Instagram post was from a year prior).
Financial transaction? Me reducing us to a financial transaction?
1. Multiple purchases on our card from playful promises, on checking the site it was full of plus size and smutty AF underwear. I’m not plus size. And I don’t do smutty underwear (whenever he bought me smutty it was basically his to wear in his autogynophillic fantasy role plays. Looked awful with his big beer gut btw).
2. Weekly $100 spends at the local pub to his work for 2 years. Sometimes multiple spends in same week.
3. A successful cash business he runs to zero each year and no cashies coming home to me.
4. Over $30k of unexplained cash withdrawals over 2 years.
5. 2 kids boy and girl living in what government classified as a crowded home because they share a room and their age by now (one at puberty) while we earn well into 6 figures but too much debt to buy a bigger house. Me looking at houses. Him telling me not to bother.
6. My “reckless spending” (his words). So reckless he would blow his top at me if I DARED suggest we look at the books, business and household, and all those bank accounts continuously in debt.
7. My annual bonus clearing our credit card every year so we could start again and do the same the next year.
The week I shifted my pay to a seperate account and suggested he do the same, imagine my surprise when I found I had $3k left over at the end of the month (including with my continued “reckless spending”). And the next month. And the next month.
Things have been a bit tight since as lawyers taking up most of that residue each month right now. And I need to save for the fact I’ll be doubling my mortgage once we settle.
He’s run his business into the ground so that’s worth fuck all in settlement. How’d he do that? By living his double lives from there so I never knew he was busy with his other women. Basically the boss wasn’t working at all.
So yeah, financial transaction my arse. That was YOU buddy. That was a grand projection. Now I’ve put the brakes on his selling meth to find his lifestyle and our kids in his time (drug testing regime by court order – yes he can still deal but he can’t use or he loses kids, not many addicts can do that) he’s Mr poverty line Victim of nasty old career woman me who “got the house and took the money”.
Yeah don’t forget the part where I pay you out $300k and am up for a grand a month in child support. I’ll pay for the kids btw, more than what chid support comes in at, but fucked if I’m paying that into an account where I don’t get to see what it’s going on with a meth and porn addict and serial cheater/love bomber/gift giver in charge of the funds allocated to our children.
I’ll show YOU financial transaction buddy. We’re flipping this script for sure.
1. Paper trail showing thousands being taken from our account from his card. Without my consent.
2. Business appraisal that very clearly shows tax evasion (child support administered by our tax dept so good luck going there).
3. My share of business equals half my super fund he so desperately thinks he’s entitled to. Handy for settlement.
4. Bank accounts with about $10k of “bill payments” over last two years from our friends. Drug money. They honestly coded it as bill payments. I’ll take the risk that I’m up for tax evasion on that should we need to get IRD involved for child support. No tax on those bill payments. Those bill payments also came from our closest friends who blocked me as soon as we split up thanks to his smear campaign. So they weren’t my friends or my bill payments.
The reduction to a financial transaction is perhaps the LEAST offensive projection I endured, but boy is it the most satisfying one now that I get to project it back.
Revenge is a dish best served cold that’s for sure. While moving on is the best revenge (and I’m so there) this one is the last thing to resolve. It will go for years as child support can constantly be relitigated after property settlement, but I’m prepared. And I’m winning.
After living with a parasitic monster for 15 years I’ve learned one thing at least: narcissistic sociopaths make everything a win win for them. My flipping that script so it’s always win win for me now may play into his hands that I’m the narc after all.
But who cares. He’s gone. Schmoopie (side ho for last 4 years including after we split and he got better main supply than her and kept her on the down low until that new main supply worked him out, thanks to her initiative in deciding to talk to me, and now she’s finally main supply – her investment finally paid off ????) can have him ????♀️????♀️. She makes her living by subletting her house (not owned by her either) to homestay students from Korea so, not much finances to sponge from there. She won’t last long but boy do I wish she would, maybe she will but just on the side. He only settles down (commits is too strong a word for this guy) if there’s a financial benefit involved. And there’s some poor bitch out there desperate enough to be that bank for him I’m sure. He’s pretty good at finding them anyway.
Oh and my other favourite blame shift? I cheated because you wouldn’t have sex with me ????
Flip? I didn’t want to have sex with you because you were emotionally blackmailing me into sex, with all sort of porn fantasies thrown in, and having full blown temper tantrums if I said no, which quite frankly wasn’t a turn on for me. Sorry not sorry dude.
Ooh! And wanting to have sex in really inappropriate places and places so that you can be humiliated, my Centrality is exalted, And your discomfort will give me an excuse to justify further affairs! And for bonus points, You get to be judged for your husband’s behavior (you married him, so you must be like that too)
Reframe: Hmm, I wonder why my adventurousness has diminished, but you seem to be having a pretty varied sex life all by yourself. I find it remarkable that my sex drive hasn’t been entirely traumatized out of me.
“You’re asexual.”
Reframe: We have sex several times a week, despite the fact it is often painful for me because of my fibroids. We’ve had 6 miscarriages in 4 years and I had 2 uterine surgeries. Immaculate conceptions, perhaps? Being yelled at is not good foreplay. And a man who only hugs or kisses me when he wants sex but pushes me away whenever I try to give him a cuddle as I pass his lazyboy while he is eating the meal I have just served him is not a turn on.
Blameshit: I only got an AIDS and STD test because you are SO paranoid and never believe me! . I never touched the woman!! We were just friends!.
Flip: The AIDS/STD test DID make me feel a whole lot better since he’s a lying scumbag. ( And yes, I asked for a copy of it. And confirmed it at our doctor’s office. One can’t be too careful with a compulsive liar and con.)
My XW didn’t blameshift, she just said “I’ve changed. I’m not the same person I used to be and I never will be again. I don’t love you anymore. I want to be single and I want a divorce.” When, in stunned disbelief, I asked “I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘you’ve changed’?”, she would simply rinse-and-repeat, “I’ve changed. I’m not the same person I used to be…”. There wasn’t much I could do with that other than accept the inevitable and suffer the devastation.
[note: I didn’t find out about her affair until after-the-fact. In retrospect, my naivete was mind-blowing!]
Hi Captain
My STBX kept saying that. He’d changed and become this amazing new man. He left out the part where he was popping viagra, screwing a married colleague (even while on his family vacation with us), smoking lots of pot, and even mentioned having “a dealer” to his son. He honestly thinks he is too good for me now. He has that wrong. I am too good for him. I still want karma to knock him on his ass — so far he is coming up roses. No morals with these people.
Deee,
Yep, mine too – she started treating me as a lesser person, like I was beneath her. It was a horrible feeling.
As for your STBX, he may be living the life of Riley at the moment, but it’s not sustainable. The seeds he’s sewing won’t produce roses. Karma operates on her own schedule, but she’ll eventually pay him a visit, rest assured.
~Capt
Blame-Shift: “You are too intellectual…and I was all about building a business.”
Truth: “You substantially outearned me over the course of our marriage while also being an avid reader and wonderful father. I took the excess capital and started flipping houses and fucking contractors. I am not familiar with this concept of “Risk Management.”
Ah yes, I got I didn’t chase hin. Sorry I don’t chase people who treat me like shit and abuse me. When I finally stood up for myself he went looking elsewhere. Suck a bag of dicks crazy pants!!!!
I was basically told he wanted out, because according to him I wasn’t happy, he said he couldn’t make me happy, then it was because we weren’t compatible, then it was because I was depressed.
Uh-huh: You are a coward and a timid forest creature who got a whiff of some old high school skank while in Hawaii and decided you wanted to be a man-whore again, but oh no you didn’t cheat, you would never do that, even though the phone records and lies tell a totally different story.
Now all the sudden, we HAVE to communicate, I HAVE to tell him what’s going on with the kids, ummm nah I’m good, nice try though. NO CONTACT has been working for me just fine. So please stop texting, calling and emailing at random and expecting me to talk or respond to you. I finally have peace and I’m free!!!
Blameshift: You’re depressed.
Reframe: Hey, Traitor, you’re the one who’s already been in treatment for depression twice, before we met, who lives on a beautiful farm, has 4 beautiful healthy sons, healthy and happy brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. I’ve got no family left alive, I’ve had 9 miscarriages, tried everything I could to have a child, too old now and I’m still smiling. I keep telling you we’re part of the 0.1% lucky enough to live in this beautiful country and we have the honour of farming this beautiful place. You’re the one complaining.
Thank you for helping me deal with my “depression” ABOUT MY CHILDLESSNESS BY SCREWING YOUR EX WHILE I’M LOOKING AFTER HER SON…
“you are too generous. you make me feel like a manchild” says the man who didnt work for 4 yrs and fell in luv with a jezebel 16 yrs his jr who he met in a bar while i was travelling and working to support his very comfortable life style. flip the script:
“i show my love with the support and gifts i give my family. i have taken very good care of my family and provided asshat a once in a lifetime opportunity to follow his dream where ever it took him. instead he threw his family under the bus for a piece of ass. that is on him”.
Internittantly throughout the day
I kept thinking of “I’m an awesome person who cooks for the people I love.”
That is just so beautiful & relavant.
& I also lol’d a bunch of times at “So what you’re saying is…you have a looong history of meeting perfectly happy women and proceeding to make them miserable? Maybe you’re the constant among variables here.’
Glad I have the weekend to peruse all the clever chump reframes.
CL & CN rock ❤
XAO–Blameshift: You don’t understand, I’m the victim here.
EO–Reframe: You have claimed the mantle of victimhood your whole life without yet explaining what exactly you are a victim of. You’ve now blown up your marriage and family with decades-long secrets, lies, and cheating, and the reality is: DS and I are now the victims of your toxic actions. (Except DS is totally not the victim type, and neither am I, so, fine, be the victim in your head. We’ll be over here, enjoying our lives without you.)
XOA–Blameshift: I’m straight, and you’re just putting this gay thing on me.
EO–Reframe: I’m sorry, but as best as I understood from the gay men I’ve been close to, having sex with guys consistently since high school might be an indication that you’re gay, not straight. The straight guys I’ve known don’t do that.
XAO–Blameshift: You’re bad for my mental health.
EO–Reframe: You had already been depressed and suicidal (and had abused alcohol and drugs) long before you met me. (And supposedly you were over that, though now we all know better.) Back when we met, you seemed to think I was good for you because I was a boring, stable, optimistic person from a large, loving family (who, by the way, also supported you through your periods of instability). How exactly, then, was I bad for your mental health? You were depressed and suicidal before you met me, and depressed and suicidal after I kicked you out. In between, no suicide attempts and seemingly content (though maybe stealth depressed?). I’m still not understanding how I am causing your bad mental health.
XOA–Blameshift: You don’t care about me.
EO–Reframe: I was totally committed to you and our family for 25 years, and now I refuse to bend to your threats of suicide, because your mental health and sexual confusion is your own responsibility, and you are living in a massive haze of denial. I am holding you accountable for your cheating, regardless of all that, because cheating has consequences, no matter the form. I can’t fix whatever is wrong with you, I don’t trust you, and you’ve become dangerous to be around.
XOA–Blameshift: You never tell me about what you find sexy.
EO–Reframe: Talking about sex with you now just reminds me of your obsessive and excessive porn habit and all the creepy (to me) fantasies you divulged on that traumatic D-Day 1. I don’t trust you enough to tell you what I find sexy. …Plus, we have a toddler, and I’m teaching AND writing my PhD dissertation. You really want to know what I find sexy? A FULL F*CKING NIGHTS SLEEP!
Uhh..gee – I feel like the odd ‘guy’ out on this conversation so maybe shouldn’t comment but..
My XH never once blame-shifted things to me, even once.
After reading so many posts about how common this is and how devastating it is….and they gossip to others…I’d be horrified and move into an Earth Home or something.
So, I feel like a lucky one who didn’t face this.
All he kept saying was, “You didn’t deserve this.”
So, here I am, one of the few times stumped on C/N that, because he never once wanted to reconcile, go to counselling, or fight for me in away (that made me feel bad right there because others had been fought for!)….
And, now here we are – I never even got blamed for ONE THING.
I heard not one word about all my faults.
Never – not once….and I said many cruel things to him on email, text and phone.
He never once swore back at my potty mouth, that I’ve always had, and he never did…nor did he argue about anything.
So, here I am again – all left out and I have no clue whatsoever about WHY he left.
I’m sorry but I find it all rather contrary to what so many others went through…I just wish he told me my nose was too big or something. But, he never complimented me either.
Who knows?
Now I feel like the real silly one on the bottom of the chump ladder on just this topic. But, I am on high on the chump ladder for other ones in the marriage.
Not at all SheChump–I get what you are saying, and though I ranted above (because of course it feels good, and where else can I say all this?), the larger truth to a great degree, my X has now reverted to a place where he has nothing but praise for me and has cooperated in the divorce. So in truth, after the few intensive blameshifts mentioned above, the blameshifting largely dissipated for me. (Although ultimately in my case I think that’s a manipulation tactic, rather than totally without strings, and I don’t want to spend time with him regardless.) I’m glad things have been better for you and your cheater seems to have some sense of morality and empathy. I’m hoping you never have to deal with this kind of crap in any situation going forward!
My cheater never complained about me either, except to say “We are just room mates” and “You won’t quit reading Chump Lady.” At the end of the day, I’ve decided he didn’t love me, he used me as a soft place to land after his wife died. He wasn’t attracted to me. He left me for a girl who is tiny, just like his deceased wife. Plus, I expected him to do a few things around our house and he was lazy AF.
She-chump – I feel your pain. My ex never fought for me either.
After the first D-day he said he was committed to our relationship and end the affair but he absolutely didn’t want to talk about it or seek counseling etc. When I busted him a few months later and asked why, he said he “didn’t know”. Then he evaporated into a puddle of nothing and disappeared into the ether.
Somewhere Tracy posits that not fighting means they realize you’re not a good source of cake. The upside of the cake eaters not fighting is that it makes no-contact, healing and finding meh-day a whole lot easier.
Your ex is right, you deserve better. It sounds like he has some moral discernment but he’s missing a spine.
Mine did not fight for me or want to work on our relationship. He just checked out. Told me he has a lot to think about. I actually thought that meant he had a lot to think about dropping the AP, but turns out it was a lot to think about leaving me and being with her.
I tried hard to spackle and dance after DDay I really wanted a better life with him. I started making him breakfast everyday. It was something I had stopped doing for him because he complained about the way I cooked. When I asked him how he felt how things were going and if was liking the breakfasts I cooked him, he said he was finding it hard to accept and believe that I was consistently being nice and doing this.
He walked away and, in his words, Murdered our marriage. Never offered a way to work it out never wanted to work it out. Never begged me for forgiveness. Never said he wants our life together. Only wanted a new and different life. He’s, in his words, a man I’m the world now Very depressing to me.
I’m trying to gain my self respect and self esteem back. To trudge on through and reach for a better life that hope that will be there for me. I am having him served and hope that has happened this weekend. I need the time to start ticking by so that I can get this over with. The divorce should help me move on. The waiting for him to change his mind and come back to our family was killing me.
Hi Shechump
Mine didn’t blameshift either. He refused to speak to me. Just stared at me with cold dead shark eyes – wouldn’t give me any answers. It was a total mindfuck. Lies, lies, more lies and cold cold behaviour – there is something deep and dark in his soul. Yet with others he is the life of the party – laughing and singing and dancing – it kinda freaks me out.
Deee, same here.
No blameshifting, in fact he told me I was a saint!
Yep, refused to speak to me too ~ just cold dead black shark eyes and no answers.
Total mindfuck? Oh yeah. And lie, lies and more lies with cold behavior like he doesn’t
even know me. After 30 years (17 of them married to him) he doesn’t know me!
Unbelievable and the absolute worst part of moving forward. After I quit trying to justify
his behavior or even understand it, I moved forward little.
But to others, yep ~ he is apparently something quite grand. Even has one of the local
churches here believing he is something he is not.
Freaks me out too.
Who are these people?
SheChump,
I rant here because as time goes on I am beginning to see things I simply couldn’t see before – red flags – and all of the ways I blamed myself for his behavior. It has taken time and it isn’t that I enjoy ranting it is that somehow it helps me to move on to see what was really going on – the emotional and psychological abandonment and abuse. All very covert and passive aggressive which was trickled down over the years so that it became ‘normal’ for me. None of it was blatant. Always the ‘sorry’ routine which I know now is all part of the DARVO move.
I rant because I want to reclaim my life and I need to be strong which is why I like how CL writes. She slams the truth out with her words. Not in an offensive, defensive or emotional rant but in well written and truthful ways – like a written intervention that has opened my eyes in a way nothing else has.
It is scary to have your past re-written and I think I held onto all of my old ideas because the unknown was more frightening than the know. The X didn’t just cheat 1x – he is a serial cheater and that, odd as it sounds, has made it easier to move on – to see the truth that he didn’t love me and that I wasn’t worth changing/fighting for.
Your worth has nothing to do with his deviance. He has a personality disorder that makes him unable to appreciate a partner’s worth.
Thanks Mitz,
My father was the same way. Gift of all of this is now I see it. Didn’t before and was carrying that weight all of my adult life. The Truth hidden in plain sight.
I do see this as a blessing because my eyes have been opened. I now have a whole new vocabulary that explains all the mindfuckery that was going on.
Especially helpful knowing about disordered personalities. The ‘ism’ in alcholo’ism’ = narciss’ism’. They can stop drinking but the ‘ism’ remains and if it isn’t treated – well, that is the story of my marriage….self will run riot by a TFC so it all looked nice and pretty on the outside but the inside…..wow, an entirely different story.
He wanted he ‘freedom’ and now has it but I think he isn’t as free as he thought he would be – heard the OW dumped him….
What I didn’t expect in the early days that what was being granted to me was my freedom because I hadn’t felt un-free.
Intellectually I get this. It is the healing of the emotions that lingers – not logical in its healing process but I see it and feel it happening as time distances me for the first Ddayay and
the finalizing of our divorce about a year ago. A process and I do have the time and the clarity now to simply take care of myself and our children who were slammed by his behavior too.
“Not enough drama … you’re too even keeled ..”
Reframe: Not necessary 🙂 … I’ve worked hard to keep my emotions in check, be respectful of other points of view and be comfortable with not getting my way all the time.
“You made me live like a pig.”
Reframe: I looked after your 4 kids from 2 previous marriages, cooked, cleaned, bought food and clothes for all of us on $50 a week on a struggling farm where I also worked. Thanks to my budgeting and frugality we managed to contain the debts. Two of your sons, after they had become adults, lived with us and off us for a while. I never once bought myself anything new in 10 years, everything went to you and your kids. But you bought new clothes and whined because you wanted a boat. Your whore borrowed money off us which forced me to postpone dental work and live in pain for another couple of years. Behind my back you gave her more money. You made me live like your scullery maid. But now I’m doing just fine!
OMG Kiwi
Blame shift: “I don’t feel forgiven”
Reframe: “Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that I will continue to be used, abused, ignored, and devalued. It means that I step away from the madness and live my life in a good way for me. This will include not hiding your infidelity and wearing your shame like a heavy garment, not ignoring where our money is going, and not stepping in to make excuses for your ‘forgetfulness AKA I was out f**king.’ “
Blameshift: “We were so young we didn’t know what marriage was.”
Reframe: “You speak for yourself & I speak for myself. I knew what marriage was and what it wasn’t and I believe you also knew. But you chose to ignore it. You were with me every pre Cana class, baptismal class, talks we went to together at our parish, couples groups, Natural Family Planning classes, and you had many discussions with me about our family, agreeing about the importance of spending time with each other. You are a liar. I lived out my marriage vows and you chose to break yours and then hide it from me.”
I got all the requests for what she believed was needed for our family . ..a bigger house , newer better car, the destination family vacations , I needed to cook, grocery shop , show up as room father for all three kid’s classrooms , be sure to get the necessary sports equipment be the only one working ( 2 full time jobs and assorted pick up gigs ) get the kids out of her hair as being a stay at home mom was too stressful (I actually understand this ) go to every school and sports event (alone) plus do my fair share of housework and all home and yard maintenance . On d day it was “well you never spend time with me and he showed me the attention I needed , besides we only kissed “. I shot back with , your ambition was my inspiration fuck off!
Blameshift: You emasculated me!
You focus too much on the kids and not enough on ME.
Reframe: adulting is hard and nearly impossible with a selfish fuckwit. My resourcefulness to get shit done is not tied to your immature behavior resulting in your need to stick your diseased dick in random holes.
Blameshift: “I don’t know what happiness is, and didn’t know how to tell you how important sex was to me, so I had to see prostitutes.”
Reframe: “If sex was so important, why did it only last 2 minutes? If seeing a prostitute was easier than talking to me, then lack of happiness is the first of your many problems. Sorry about the postpartum, my bad.”
Blameshift “You never seemed happy”
Reframe: “Didn’t you just say you don’t know what happiness is? Impossible to have a barometer under those circumstances.”
Blameshift: “I could never do anything right”
Reframe: “Perhaps it had to do with your distraction. Setting up your prosti schedule in 7 cities, along with massage parlors along the way can be very time-consuming. Kind of tough to remember to do anything at all with a full calendar.”
Blameshift: “Even though it’s Mother’s day, I had to leave the house for a few hours to call my favorite prostitute because she gets me and needed relationship advice. You never needed anything.”
Reframe: “Giving relationship advice to a sex worker while you are actively cheating on your wife and children means you are correct, I don’t need that.”
Blameshift: “We are not compatible, we see things differently.”
Reframe: “Correct again. I require honesty, loyalty, communication, and safety. You like strange puss.”
Blameshift: “We never communicated properly, in therapy I’m learning the necessary tools to fix this.”
Reframe: “Now you want to communicate since I’m basically No Contact? Happy to hear about the therapy, sad that you still don’t understand I no longer wish to communicate with you.”
Blameshift: “Since we are headed for divorce, I thought you should know that I’m going to start seeing other people.”
Reframe: ” I didn’t give you permission to fleece our marital accounts during the marriage, and I don’t give it now. Let’s move up the divorce, how does Monday sound?”
The biggest reframe has been ME. Thanks to CN & CL, you guys are better than any and all the therapists I’ve met. Your stories, support, have provided me with strength and some colorful language. Buh Bye Fuckwit, hello new life.
X. You had a separate life too.
Chump: Yes, at home raising your children 24/7. If you had been here you would have been a part of it too but you chose to be elsewhere and even when you were here you weren’t here.
Mighty Chump: I did raise 3 amazing children despite incredible odds, catastrophic illness, being lied to and cheated on for 3 decades. This included running a home which included homeschooling all 3 children, keeping up the grounds, raising a managerie of animals, supporting numerous sport activities for each child, giving up my career and savings to fill in the gaps of his income which dipped and dived over the years – not to mention the women I was probably supporting unbeknownst to me. I survived taking the shit from everyone during the adolescent years and now since X left – anger is still directed at me vs him.
I am recovering every day and it is a bumpy ride but the bumps are smaller and the light is shining at the end of the tunnel. Love the education I have gotten here so that I can see his lies for what they were. How empowering to have the words to label his behavior. A life saver.
Thanks to all who post here. I learn more and more daily!
Blameshitter: “I’m not a whore! You are!”
Me: ‘You are correct that you’re not a whore. Whores charge money, but you gave it away for free. I guess the word should be slut. Exactly what makes ME a whore?”–no response.
Blameshitter: “I’m a cuckold, too!”
Me: “Do you even know what a cuckold is? No one ever cheated on you in any of your relationships!”
Mine didn’t really blameshift – he just iced me out. He did, however, make a crazy comment. He had been denying that he had sex with someone else for 8 months since I caught him texting a woman and I knew he was lying but he wouldn’t admit it. Finally after 8 months and him wanting to have sex I asked him if I should be tested for STD’s and he said “it’s always a good idea to be tested for STD’s” and I said “you asshole women married for 25 years are not usually tested for STD’s”. His response to this was to say “I didn’t have to tell you the truth and this is why I shouldn’t have because you get angry”. Holy shit batman – seriously? Then my doctor called him a douche-bag when I went to get tested. The doctor actually asked me if he had been with prostitutes and to be honest I had not even thought of that so I told the doctor assume he has had sex with everyting :).
Blameshift: ‘You ask too many deep and probing questions.’
Flip: ‘As a trained journalist, I am good at asking simple, very straightforward questions such as, ‘OK, so if I understand this correctly, then you met your ex-wife while she was married to someone else, and you take delight in the fact that you ‘won’ her from her husband?’
Him: ‘I’m not exactly sure what her marital status was when we met. We didn’t discuss those things.’
What. A. Buffoon.
Blame shift: ur turning into ur mom
Me: I just stared at him
Me now: my mom is nice, has wonderful character, involved with family, and is a giving person. Plus a wonderful cook and has been committed to my father for 50 years. What a wonderful compliment
First, happy Father’s Day to all those fathers who care about their kids, and persevere in the face of infidelity by trying to be the the best father they can be to their children. Second, God bless and give courage to all the chumps out there that are trying to rebuild their lives after being treated like shit by the partners they thought were as committed to them as they were to those so-called partners.
Two-plus years out from D-day, and three-plus months out from absolute divorce; here goes nothin’.
Blameshift: You got to be too negative.
Flip: I’m a caring, sensitive man. Life affects me greatly. But eventually, I always rebound to the positive. You’d seen it happen w/me before, and I always bounced back. Unfortunately, this was the worse depression I’d ever experienced, so it took me longer than usual. But I never stopped trying to show you I loved you as best I could, both in words and deeds.
Blameshift: You depended upon me too much for social interaction.
Flip: I’m a family-oriented man who loved my wife and children. You and they were my main joys in life, but not the only ones. Now, however, it’s mainly just them.
Blameshift: You’re extremely selfish.
Flip: Right. All those years of more than doing my share to help take care of and raise the kids, so you could get out of the house and work (and not go crazy just talking to our little ones), start a business, become a roller derby player & a local politician w/dreams of more. All while I half-killed myself w/work.
And speaking of work: even when I was depressed I altered my work schedule to fit your schedule better, so you could go to those local political meetings and not worry about our kids. It’s more like I was the person w/a normal amount of selfishness, dealing w/you, a narcissist (or some other personality disorder). It’s now obvious to me that whatever I did, it would never be enough.
Remember your embarrassment when at the one true marriage counseling session I got you to go to post D-day (trying to get you to reconcile w/me & save our marriage), and the female marriage counselor was trying to think of some things where I might have taken you for granted in the marriage, and she mentioned shopping for groceries? And you had to admit to her that in the middle of the worse depression I’d ever experienced, I was the one for YEARS doing the shopping since you (now it’s obvious) had clearly left our marriage emotionally and mentally and was doing the bare minimum to act like a caring spouse and parent?
Sorry. This triggered a lot of stuff for me. Can you tell????? Please excuse my going on & on.
The last thing I wanted to say is Thursday’s post w/Beardboy, regarding his sorry XW, was that I identified so much w/what she accused him of. I knew in my head that others had dealt w/that same type of shit, but that really hit home.
Beardboy, you are SO much better off w/out her. We’re all so much better off w/out those fuckwits. Chump power! I’m a chump and I’m proud! Better a chump than a back-stabbing fuckwit of a partner.
I’m always torn. It would be suggested that I’m the narc if it were to come up. What does come up is that I am blamed for all of the things he’s actually doing. The pasta:sauce ratio is kind a niggler for me. If someone in our family, particularly me, liked food prepared a certain way he would prepare it in an oppositional way and then blame for being upset or too picky. “Nothing’s good enough for you.” I’ve heard this phrase is often a go to but it’s challenging to respond to because it all can be so easily turned around to make you look like a chump, it looks believable. It’s especially believable if you react.