Why Cheaters Think You Could Be Friends with Their Affair Partner
Why do cheaters think you could be friends with the affair partner? One submission that I get over and over again for “Stupid Shit Cheaters Say” is the cheater insists — you know, you’d really like Schmoopie! You’re a lot alike! You could be friends!
The chump is absolutely gobsmacked by this.
Why does the cheater think that gee, if you only knew their fuckbuddy, you’d love them too? Sometimes they’re lucid enough to add the caveat “under different circumstances…” But often not. Usually, it’s some “sister wives” or queen bee fantasy. Everyone united around the centrality of awesomeness that is the cheater.
Some theories on why someone would say something so patently moronic.
All kibbles are good kibbles.
It’s a pretty good look inside their wee, narcissistic noggins that they view you and their affair partner in the same light. You like me! They like me! You both like ME! You have so much in common! Namely, ME! It’s all just kibbles to the cheater. You’re a kibble source, they’re a kibble source. You’re interchangeable really. And if either of you stops being a source, another source can be found.
They’re good because I said so.
If Schmoopie is a bad person, then that reflects badly on the cheater. So let’s say they are a good person! A charming, benign kibble source. You’d like them, because you’re alike! (That was a compliment, did you miss that?) Narcissists think they deserve only special people because they’re so special themselves. To say you’re a lot like their Schmoopie is their weird way of telling you, hey, you’re one of the lucky chosen few, and don’t you want to keep your special place? (Cue the humiliating dance of “pick me.”)
The cheater is not very original.
It may be in a very superficial way, you are similar to their affair partner. You both have big tits, or you’re both brunettes, or both had the same college major. The cheater may have a type. You’re being very narrow minded dwelling on the fact that you don’t share a penchant for fucking married people.
Us all being friends would be very ideal for cake eating.
Until D-Day, apparently this person wasn’t someone that they were going to introduce you to. But now that you’re aware of their existence, hey, let’s just all be friends. Wouldn’t that be great? Don’t consider the affair partner a threat — nah, they’re someone — if you just took the time to know them better — that could be a friend. The problem isn’t that the cheater is cheating on you — the problem is that you’re just looking at it all wrong.
My soon to be ex got to live this “fantasy” for 2 years. He cheated on me with 10 people prior to us getting married (I was unaware) decided to have an affair weeks after our honeymoon. He and the 11th OW (what an honor) decided she should date our best friend and become my friend. She actually became a “close” friend of mine, which was extremely fucked up even for an OW. When pressed on why he brought her deep into my social circle post D-Day, he said “I thought she was interesting”. Well, that didn’t work out for him very well, because she spilled the beans of all 11 people the day she decided she liked the best friend more than the cheater. Unfortunately the best friend is still of the belief that she is a good person who made a mistake and so she’s stuck in my orbit…
These people are sick and pathological. No one in their right mind with any sense of decency could do this.
I could not agree more.
My ex said to me “if you had met XYZ under different circumstances I’m sure you could be friends, she’s very like you.”
I think I deserve a prize for self-control and not smacking him in the chops.
I realized at this point that he was suffering from some very delusional thinking and there was definitely something wrong with hims brain. I made a mental note never to believe anything he said ever again.
“Unfortunately the best friend is still of the belief that she is a good person who made a mistake and so she’s stuck in my orbit…”
Why is that? Did you get custody of his best friend and therefore your STBX’s ex-OW? I don’t know, unless he is incredibly supportive of you AND can keep his wife/your STBX’s ex-OW far away it sounds like it is time to leave them all in your dust. I doubt you need them in your orbit.
May the divorce be final soon.
I don’t really understand your custody remark. We have a lot of mutual friends. He has kept her away from any event I attended for the past 8 months, though I am not sure how long it will last. The problem is mostly the context in the group of friends where we are both core members, though I have focused on those friends that are purely supportive of me. It’s a bit more gray than the typical cheating situation because it’s not the cheater/OW pair, this person is a good person he’s just being (IMO) chumped so peope feel bad for him. However, I am still phasing him out because I don’t want to deal with it, even though he has been a friend for 12 years and was actually the one who told me.
I agree. I know it will be hard to dissociate from your BF but it’s bringing you so much pain and heartache when she keeps coming up and exists in your orbit.
My ex’ wife’s schmoopie turned round to his wife in bed (according to my wife they were no longer having sex!) and said “you’d really like her (my ex) she’s alot like you but without the kids”. At that point she smacked him in the mouth and knocked two teeth out!
I love it !!
Lol Skipped! Good for her. My hero!
Ughhhh I’m glad he didn’t say this because I might be sitting in a prison cell right now but his sister said it to me. I was gobsmacked so couldn’t respond but really really wish I had said I don’t choose people who fuck my husband as friends..
Yes I got the, “You’d actually really like her if you met her,” line. During the twelve years of having an affair with her whilst trying to convince me they only ever talked. They are just pure evil. Then when it finally all came out she wanted me to sit round a table with her and her husband to help her save her marriage! Not only evil but deranged!
Pure Evil is the name in my phone for my ex when I get a message from her……. You are correct, they are Pure Evil.
Oh yes. So charming! I knew the whore from the business so when he told me it was her I was floored. First, she is a very dumb person (I worked with her so I know). Second she was horribly boring. Third she has no morals and she pretty much said that to me one day at work. Fourth she was a lesbian (confusing) Fifth she looked and acted like a drug addict. So when husband announced his affair and he was going to keep her on the side as his sex slave, he also said how much easier it was going to be if I could please just be friends with her so we could coordinate our schedules…I told him he could fuck right off and move out. Now she gets to have him all to herself…yay! You can’t make this shit up. How on earth are they all the same?
Yes, the ex’s whore in my situation was an acquaintance. A very boring, vapid acquaintance. So if I’d wanted to be her friend I’d already had the “opportunity”. He lied about the co cheater’s identity, probably out of shame. No, actually just to make it easier to lead me (and her) on. They are just plain fucking lazy.
Sounds like your ex is as stupid as she is to say such a thing. They were made for each other.
I have not posted in a while but get the steady emails. This post brought me back to respond because it is a CONSTANT THEME.
My x and I have been divorced since 2015 and I have remarried (with a fix picker) but the x did (and does) try and get her affair partner (they both cheated on their respective spouses and they both divorced and then married each other) and I to become friends etc….
I think its a combination of kibbles but I also think it is some way to justify in her mind that what she did is right. We have a daughter who is very much aware of what happened and in fact is counting the days where she does not need to see her mother anymore (court ordered her to spend 50/50 with mom and dad even after the BIA, 2 therapist and her all told the judge she does not want to be with her mother, that her mother is very unstable and abusive. Judge did not care and made it 50/50 anyways even after my daughter tried to take her own life after his original ruling his second chance at it and he did it again.
Anyways, I think its a way to try and justify it in their minds they made the right decision. It is a combination of kibbles and reassurance in her case. Since she has no career, no money, none of her kids from her first marriage want nothing to do with her and no savings she keeps trying to justify the move as a step up in her mind (it was actually a major step back).
These people are delusional and as everything keeps falling apart around them their answer is to always run away and restart with the same mistakes over and over again.
Be safe everyone and god bless!
Lothos, that is terrible. Shame on that judge. I will be praying for your daughter and hope that the day is fast approaching when she can be with you 100% of the time. Continue being the strong, sane parent that she needs. So glad that you fixed your picker and found someone that can model being a sane woman for your daughter. Keep up the good work! You are an encouragement to all of us that are starting this whole process.
My son stopped seeing his dad when he was 14. Lots of therapists later and no one could really make him. My daughter is 4 years younger and she did see him once in a while. Meanwhile cheater pants got his 20 year younger mistress pregnant and now they are married with a 4 year old. Totally abandoned our kids. Son is 20 and daughter is 16 now. Son hasn’t seen him in at least 6 years. Daughter thinks “he’s psychotic” and basically uses him to buy her stuff. I don’t talk to him or email him if I can help it. Kids are older so don’t really have to deal with him and his bullshit. Awful for your daughter to have such an dumb ass for a mother. Just disgusting. If she is 13 or older tell her to tell her whore of a mother that she’s not going. At some point, judge can’t make teenagers do anything they don’t want to do. Sorry for your pain. Our kids deserved so much better. As did we. Head up, stay strong, move forward!
Well my ex cheated with my cousin. So he could not use the line you could be friends. But, when I found out about them. I called her a low life POS. His response was “she is a nice person.” Nice people do not cheat with their cousins husbands. My cousin was such a nice person that she sent me texts calling me a bitch and that we will meet up someday. These cheaters sure know how to pick them.
Nice people don’t cheat period, cousin or not.
Ugh. The amount of times I’ve heard “but you could be like sister wives! It would be so much easier for taking care of kids (oh, so I take care of kids while you all fuck, no thanks)! She makes so much money that it would be so helpful!”
Disgusting.
I didn’t get this exact line, but my then 13 year-old son told me after meeting the OM my cheating ex-wife ended up marrying, “He looks a lot like you but heavier and losing his hair.” When I saw pictures I had to agree [shudder]. Don’t know what’s going on there as I now know she had several APs and they didn’t look like me at all. My best guess is she has a type to be a good sucker/spouse (nerdy, good income, loyal), and a different type for a side-fuck (edgy, low-earning, wandering).
Hmm, I guess my XH had a “type”, too… all but one of his 14 APs were married with children! The one exception was our 19-year-old babysitter.
One of the few common themes I could make with his choice of the OWs I knew of is that they were professional colleagues with reputations to defend (so bunny boiling “I wont be ignored” episodes would be avoided) and the 3 that I now am relatively sure of were all non-mothers. He needed me to push out his progeny (who all held his genetic predisposition for being large at birth) but he wanted his nulliparous vaginas for fun.
My cheater/soon-to-be-ex now tells me his affair partner is “a loving and loved mum and daughter“ and a “good and decent person“ who would never do anything to hurt my young kids. When she outed them (she called me in the middle of the night to let me know of her existence) he told me that she’d used our dead toddler to flatter him (such is his ego that I actually believe this), threatened to tell their bosses at work and me if he finished it (doubting the blackmail part as they’re still together, but she did do the crazy lady call to me) and skipped bedtime with her very young kids (youngest would have been 1 when they started) to have sex with a married man in hotels after work. She is clearly The Dream – he obviously thinks he is too. Safe to say, they deserve each other…..
How people treat their own children doesn’t guarantee what kind of person they are. It’s in someone’s own best interest to be kind to their children. I’m more interested in how people treat those outside their own family… such as other people’s children.
And yet, so many treat their children shamefully while ensuring that their public image is shiny. How people. treat their children *is* an insight into their character.
Mine used my kids and other people’s children as a means of image management – coaching, helping out at school parties and field trips, driving the kids to sports camps, etc. He was the fun and caring dad to the outside world. He had the loving father and devoted family man act down to a science when there was an audience. At home he was a cold, controlling, mentally abusive POS.
Mine sounds similar to that. Until he got sick of the act I guess. I thought he was a good stepdad for going to meetings and events even though he showed me at home who he really was (silent treatment or belittling). The last straw happened for me when he wanted me to kick my high school senior (who took college courses and played varsity sports) out of the house for being lazy. My stbx worked maybe 27 hours a week and relied on me to take care of things. Now that we are divorcing he works 55 hours a week. But my kids and I were the problem. It disgusts me. My credit is shot and he’ll come out smelling like a rose.
PS my daughter moved out & graduated early to get away from the abuse. Both of my kids are off to college with scholarships this fall.
PPS I wish I didn’t tie my self-worth to a raging alcoholic who I suspect is a narcissist.
Chumperella,
We were married to the same man. My XH used our kids to bond with the whore-neighbor AP. He coached her kids in baseball so those kids were used, too. On the outside he looked like a great dad. He was really making his kids complicit in the demise of their intact family. I was friends with this neighbor before I knew about the affair. As stated here, it did make things easier for them. We were all friends and they were hiding in plain sight. Like your husband, he was a jerk at home. We were never good enough.
She wasn’t just friend material, she was “Christlike” so we would be really great friends.
During an active stage of the Pick Me Dance, I had told him that he needed to end all contact with her but he was pushing boundaries and saud he was going to start a company and hire her, Im genuinely ashamed that I was to beaten-down to defend that boundary and didnt even react. Should have thrown his ass out.
When I think of how he wanted me and the kids to move 3000 miles to make his cake-eating easier, I become incensed. We would have lost everything. The one really good decision I made in the whole mess was to refuse to move.
Yup… we were both English majors… though the OW had her Masters Degree… I shit you not. He bragged to me about that little tidbit. He tried to one-up me like it was his uneducated ass that had a degree vis a vis fucking her.
She was also very much “like me” in personality… he practically replicated his lovebombing strategy that hooked me with her. It was creepy, like creepy in the way a serial killer gets smarter and better each time they kill someone… he consciously works on perfecting his lies and performances with each new victim.
Same here. I had voice activated recorders in my house to record phone conversations between my cheater and his AP. My cheater used some of the same jokes and same lovey-dovey nicknames. Then I found the love songs that he had written her. He had courted me by writing me love songs. After I threw up in my mouth, I realized what good fodder they would make for the attorney — and that his badly written poetry would be the last gift he ever gave her…. Cheap ass cheater!
Same here. My ex used the same jokes and lines on his AP that he did with me. And yes, he used the same pet names for her as he did me. Humans are interchangeable appliances to these shit stains.
Chump lady is right
My ex asked me to feel sorry for her of
Cause I didn’t
She picked moronic men, drugs alcohol over her kids so did my ex.
She wasn’t entitled to a opinion I heard how he spoke to her
He asked me to share him, I said no, split up 7 years ago
I got the “you’d really like AP – he’s a really good guy and he’s keen to meet you” from both my Ex-Wife and MIL. I shut that sh*t down straight away with the following:
– “Good guys” don’t get involved with other peoples’ wives.
– “Good guys” aren’t complicit in the cheater’s manipulative attempts to play “happy families” with the children. Particularly when the children have clearly stated that they want nothing to do with him.
– He may be keen to meet me, but I have no need or desire to meet him. He means nothing to me and never will. I reserve my friendship for people whose values match my own.
All I got back was a goldfish impression from the Ex-Wife, but to give her some credit, she’s never been so stupid as to raise it a second time.
Now 5+ years from D-Day, 3 years since divorce was finalised and the kids and I are doing great – and somehow I still don’t feel as if I’ve missed out by not meeting him.
My sister attended a family Affair I was too sick to travel to attend. It was my own sister that told me ‘oh, if she wasn’t cheating with your estranged husband, you two would be friends.’ That really burned. Took a long time to stop being angry with my sister. Some things you can’t unhear.
Unbelievable. Except I believe you. My sister, upon learning decades later that my grandmother’s employee raped me when I was 10, said, “But he was the best farm hand she ever had”. My step-brother looked her in the eye and said, “Good employees don’t rape children. Period.”
Friends don’t have secret sex with their friend’s partners. Period. That is not a “friend”. That is a manipulative liar who is complicit in abusing you.
Ivy, that’s terrible. I am so sorry that happened to you. That was so wrong; you were absolutely victimised.
The lack of empathy shown there by your sister is awful.
OMG Ivy. I’m so sorry.
My XW said this, “He’s such a nice bloke. Everybody likes him. You’d get on great.”
But I had met him before, he was my XW’s best friend’s husband, and he seemed like a total arrogant prick the first time I met him, smelt of narcissism from the first meeting. After destroying two families they have both been ostracised from their former close group of friends and have basically had to buy a house together far away to avoid being seen by any of their former friends.
The bit I really can’t understand is how my XW thinks I could get on well with a guy who thinks it is OK to move in on another man’s wife, and to cheat with his own wife’s best friend. I would probably disown any of my male friends if they had an affair with a married woman, or had an affair period, I just find it that disgusting (even before it happened to me.)
The fact that she is attracted to, and is still with, such a person and the fact that she also betrayed her best friend proves that she has no morals herself. I can’t believe I was married to someone like that for 20 years, they totally make my skin crawl now.
This insanity came my way on the very night of DDay. WTEverlovingF?!!!
I remember telling him he was out of his f**cking mind. He was thinking we could all be FRIENDS?! I am like her? No, I am not like her. I don’t f**k married men. And if I am so much like her, why is she in our lives? You are building a collection of Velvet Hammers?
He also told me that night that she was KIND. Oh, she’s KIND alright. KIND of crazy. KIND of sick. KIND of pond-scummy. Finish your sentences, bro.
I had a dream last night that I found out they got married. What happened after that in the dream was very gratifying and sadly wouldn’t happen in real life.
But I can dream, can’t I?
Permission granted to dream anything you want.
Oh yeah….. the ex tried to play up the OW by telling me how she was working on her masters degree. (If she was so educated, why the hell was she with HIM? Hell, why the hell was I with HIM?) I was having none of it. I don’t talk to OW, definitely don’t want to be friends with OW. He got married to her during COVID 19. There wasn’t a wedding and his kids were not even present. That tells me EVERYTHING.
I have noticed with the ex that, like every cheater, they have to LEGITIMIZE their relationship. They have to make it seem that they left because they were miserable and poorly treated in their marriage and that the new partner is so much better.
My cheater, though he dropped out of Community College after (during?) one semester, could have had a PhD in Moral Relativism.
????????????
Sadly, in the 3 narcissistic/cheating relationships I’ve survived in the last 21 years the affair partners were all friends of mine….the last one was a 24 yr old girl I mentored (he was 50). I’m happy to say, the last one did me in and I finally got the help I needed to set boundaries and ditch the narcs/cheaters (including those who I thought were my friends) in my life. It’s nice being able to see character flawed individuals and leave their asses alone. Now, if anyone even jokes about cheating around me or being abusive or acts like an asshole for no reason….I either leave or set major boundaries and keep my distance and my sanity.
Same here. He purposely would only cheat with someone I knew. Clearly I needed to fix my picker with friends as well.
Thankfully, this was a shitshow I didn’t have to deal with, as I didn’t confront my cheater until after I’d lined my ducks and filed.
However, CheaterX’s father was also a cheater. I don’t really know the logistics of what happened, but at one point–before I’d met CheaterX–the dad’s OW showed up at the house and the mom went out and reamed her a new one. CheaterX’s dad responded to the accusations that the OW was a whore, etc. by say, “But you’d like her! She’s a good Christian woman!”
Uh, no. Good Christian women don’t fuck other people’s husbands.
I think ex was just so immersed in the hormone induced besotted fog that in the moment he thought she really was all that so how could anybody not like such an amazingly wonderful person? He also seemed to think she was a victim herself (“There were tears on her side too when I told her we had to stop seeing each other for a while so I could try and reconcile with you”). He suggested that someday we would be friends in the old folks home sitting around talking about how awful he was. In other words, his shitty behavior would bring me and the OW together. Yeah, no. I have room in my heart to not be friends with either of them.
ChumpinRecovery – just no words for that.
I remember last summer when Ex’s aunt was expressing her frustration wondering why he and Schmoopie were still together and said “She is nothing like you” to which I responded with “thank God for that”.
My cheater actually booked me and my daughter in for therapeutic massages with his fuckbuddy while unbeknownst to us she was fucking him! The fucking balls!
Wow that is horrific. I feel violated knowing that my guy’s OW got to see pictures of me and the inside of my house. I can’t imagine if my partner had let her put her hands on my unclothed body like that.
After 36 years I was told, she wouldn’t like it if I talk to you. I have honored that for six years. After being harassed by Nanthony in public during the divorce, she approached me and said it was time to make peace. I told her that of all the women he’d cheated with she was by far the ugliest classless bar whore he picked up. . She went into a rage. What followed was multiple false claims to the police, running me off the road and more recently reporting me to the police as a drunk driver when she sees me at restaurants picking up food.
And the limited ever so covertly states he’ll talk to me at all invited family holidays. Be friends? Why is a very good question. It’s easy, offers centrality, image management. and looks good to the other, other women he’s seeing. Most importantly it allows access; narcissists love an opening, literally.
(music by the Romantics, lyrics by Cheating Fuckwits Everywhere)
What you’d like about him?
He’s just like you
Thinks he knows the real me but
Doesn’t really have a clue, yeah . . .
Has the kibble train on the track
Feeds me lots of cake and keeps coming back
Cuz he’s dim
It’s what I like about him
What you’d like about her?
She’s really thoughtful and kind
Her legs go up, down, open, closed
Like a venetian blind, yeah . . .
Should have buddied up long ago
When it comes to adulation, she’s no
Amateur
That’s what I like about her
That’s what I like about her . . .
Omg! I almost choked on my lasagne when I got to the legs part..with the song playing in my head…soooo funny! Thank you for being a lyrical genius! Lol!
We live in a troubled world
But these lyrics make it a whole lot better!
The best lyric ever! ‘Her legs go up, down, open, closed
Like a venetian blind, yeah . . .“
Haha, that will make me laugh all day.
The EX had prostitutes, not AP’s (at least that I knew of during the marriage), so I didn’t get any of the “friends” stuff. But he would brag that he didn’t know the names of his prostitutes, and so it didn’t matter, that he avoided any feelings. I think that is along the same lines–an effort to make it sound innocent, like we can all just get along. “She needed money, I wanted a quick fuck, and I didn’t even know her name, so you are fine with that, I’m sure.” It dawned on me after our divorce that he never fully learned my name either. We were married for 25 years, and I don’t think he could tell you my middle name.
That he didn’t care to know anyone’s names makes it all the worse! And I’m sure you’re right when it comes to your own name, too.
In my experience it’s because the OW models herself to a degree on the wife. She hears your husband talk about you, notices what your good qualities are, and copies those things in the spirit of competition and jealousy. Throughout the affair she maintains a “cool girl” facade and pretends not to be deeply jealous of the wife, which ensures her ongoing access to information about the wife and the marriage from the husband. He feels good sharing our private information with her because it allows him to maintain the illusion that everyone just has good intentions toward one another. The OW wants his wife to be happy! That’s why she asks about her, about her sexual practices and insecurities, so she can help you make her happy! Once the affair is exposed, this imaginary friendship between the two women becomes the most horrifying element of the affair for the wife, and the one potential saving grace for the husband, which exacerbates the clusterfuck.
I know I’ve kept my comment super gendered. I don’t mean to imply that cheating always involves a man stepping out with a woman, but that’s what my experience has been, so that’s all I can speak to. And I believe that this kind of cheating relies on specific gendered behavior in a society where women are raised to be fiercely competitive with one another while pretending not to be.
This is so spot on. I try to wrap my head around this desire for the AP to get so much info on the wife. The way you explained this is very helpful to me. I also think once the affair partner is exposed, the cheating spouse has now created basically a dramatic back-drop for the pick-me dance. He’s told the AP things about the wife, and has told the wife some things about the AP. Let the competition begin. He sits back and enjoys the show. I think that’s part of what makes it so hard to just leave…it’s like we think we are quitting by not participating in the fight.
The Twat told me I’d like the fat-ankled skank because “she’s smart like you”. Then one time I was sorting out clothes for my friend to give to charity and he asked if he could have them because “fat ankles” could do with dressing nicer just like you do. Oh my brain hurts!
I didn’t know about the major affair until 9 years later but during the affair I was constantly invited to her indoor climbing competitions, caving expeditions, she taught me and my kids to abseil. Even spent weekends together with the caving club they were both into. The triangulation was what he must have got off on. So I was friends with her without knowing. They’re sick fucks that’s for sure. I’ll never get over the colossal abuse and lack of remorse. I’m still suicidal nearly a year after kicking him out.
What an asshole to do that to you. I got a minor dose of that at work so I know how it feels. I have thoughts of suicide too. But please please live so you are the strong and lovely one that got away. That narcissistic ex of yours needs you to be miserable so don’t indulge him. At the end My ex used to actually say to me, “when you kill yourself, please leave some videos of you for our daughter” and he had tears in his eyes. Funny thing was I never told him I was suicidal I was just beside myself with his horrible deeds I’d discovered. Since then my therapist told me narcissistic people get HUGE supply/kibbles from a suicidal ex. and it’s actually a form of abuse what my husband said. Think about it-suicide would mean he got the money, the kid, the house and soooooo much attention from how tragic it was and the best of all-he’d be edified because he had a crazy wife, so see world! I was only cheating because she was crazy!! My therapist said abusers like him sometimes plant that seed in their wife’s head as an evil type of gaslighting. Now I tell you that so when you get that down remember that you cannot let them win this shitty game! When I see that Chumps feel suicidal I get scared and Im there too some days, but they are not worth our lives. Fuck them and their disorders.
Big hugs-I’m just across the ditch Down Under ❤️????????
I got “Surprise! We are poly now and have a girlfriend!”
After walking in on them in bed together. After being lied to and abused and neglected for months and months over her. After cheater had just abandoned me in the hospital/in my recovery. And even though she was 15 years younger and NOT someone I’d even want to have a casual conversation with. Yet somehow I wanted to bring this person, let alone anyone, into what I thought was our monogamous relationship…??
We did NOT have a girlfriend.
marissachump
That certainly takes some nerve. Wow. So disordered you cannot believe people would say something like this. I’d called it banged to rights. After things like that why would you want anything to do with them. That’s the delusional bit, that they think you’d want to be their friend.
Throughout it all is an attempt to deny us our OUTRAGE at being gutted, stabbed in the back, and cast aside as garbage. Until the garbage has a use again.
Well put
Close to CL’s #2 above: it’s a way to resolve cognitive dissonance… “I can’t be a bad person. I’m not cheating with prostitutes or low-lifes; the women I pick up on the internet are elementary school teachers! They speak three languages! They’re smart, accomplished, productive members of society.” Never mind that I picked up so many of these paragons of virtue in one month that I had to annotate my credit card bills to keep them straight. :-p
“She really likes YOU!”
I do have a pretty fun story on this topic. Cheater had a woman friend she was trying to sleep with and this friend wasn’t having it. Cheater, as I have since learned, tried to manipulate and coerce this friend into sex constantly that this friend did not want. Cheater also didn’t tell the friend about me for years. Finally I convinced cheater to tell said friend about me and for us all to get to know one another. Much to cheater’s dismay, the friend and I became friends at that point.
Then after that point, cheater tried desperately to convince us both to be cheater’s sister wives and would wax poetic about it constantly. Cheater also desperately tried to play us against one another and make us feel jealous of the other and compete for cheater. Neither of us were having it and we’d both just like agree with cheater when cheater would try to instill jealousy. We’d say things like “yes, you’re right, that person is brilliant/beautiful/awesome.”
Long story short, the woman friend and I are still the very best of friends and neither of us speak to cheater any longer. 😀
I’ve had this happen to me TWICE so it does indeed seem to be cheater playbook.
1) College boyfriend way back when: I returned from a trip and he was all excited to have me spend time with this new female friend of his. Kept selling how well we’d get along, how much we had in common. Organized hikes for the three of us. I found it very odd but was too naive to discern what was going on. Fast forward a year and he fesses up the truth.
2) 15 years w/ husband: he was selling AP’s virtues to me for quite some time as justification for why she’s a better match for him but a lot like me (puke!). AP and I WERE friends…she (and her now ex-husband) even attended our wedding…but post-D day friends?? That’s a big hell-no.
He is STILL pushing the idea I should be friendly and get along with his AP “for the sake of the kids” (even though he hides behind buildings and doors to avoid seeing me himself).
Ug.
STBXW said “if you just get to know him better you guys would be best friends.“.
Her cheating partner was one of my fellow youth coache, our neighbor, & her employee.
We were told by friends of ours to be on the lookout for sparkle dick because he loves married women.
Told her there was a reason why he had 5 kids with 3 women. He left his last ex and his 2 year old son for my cuntbag.
What kind of man has no problem moving into another mans house and drives my vehicles as well?
They lined up their schedules for the kids so they have 8 kids in the house at the same time. Shitty thing is my daughter is the only girl. Been told I can’t do shit about it. They’ve also alienated my two oldest from me. The two of them are disgusting fucking humans.
ANSWER: People with no boundaries, NO HEART
Sorry this happened toyou❤️
People with no boundaries, NO HEART
Sorry this happened toyou❤️
It sounds like outsourced stalking. If he hides like a bunny, maybe it’s also the AP’s campaign to rope you in as a reputation-cleansing tactic and also a way to neutralize any continuing threat from you that she perceives. He may talk about you too much. Good or bad, obsession is obsession.
“Disparaging the mate value of rivals” is apparently a chief tactic of mate poachers. They need fodder to do that. Perhaps the typical cheaters’ putdowns of their betrayed exes sound stupid, generalized, fabricated and false even to their APs who might like to make a more surgical annihilation of character, at least basing some of it on truth and then warping and twisting the facts from there.
Getting custody of any children to cut off child support in order to keep more if the cheater’s money for themselves seems to be another major tact of greedy poachers. Either way, getting close enough to the rival to collect intel seems like it could be classic poacher maneuver as well as a typical personality disorder hoovering move.
But I’ll never understand the impulse. When I’m through I’m through. Even in amicable breakups with boyfriends in the past and even if I remained friendly with them later, I never trolled the lives, friends or partners of exes. But I had one ex who tried to call up and wrangle all my friends and colleagues after I dumped him.
My solution? I dumped the friends who took the bait too, then dumped the people who remained friends with the bait-takers and fired several people who started spying on me for the ex when I was dating someone new.
The firings were based on genuine incompetence. The allegiance with the ex just tipped the balance. Big spring house cleaning!
That ex was an abuser in no uncertain terms. Ever since, I’ve categorized this kind of trolling as the domain of abusers. I said to my remainng friends that I’d burn every bridge that danger or chaos could cross to get to me or anyone I care about.
One of those remaining friends studied Taoism and quoted text that I’ve hung onto all these years: “If you want the universe to fill your rice bowl, clean it out.”
Scrub, scrub, scrub.
My stbx keeps encouraging me to form a bond with AP. Afterall, we used to be friends. AP and I had known each other, quite ironically, because we dated the same guy many many moons ago. Except that she dated him for 5 years and I dated him for a measly 2 months before I found out he was also serial cheater. So it seems this is a common thread. (sidebar I wish that I had also left my stbx after 2 months of dating him. How could I not see the signs? This really fucks me up)
Anyway the AP, bitch, would walk up to me in the mall and hug and kiss me hello knowing she was fucking my husband many many moons later. And she had his baby last year. Fantastic! That’s how I found out that stbx was also a serial cheater.
She has been very happy to remain mistress while he has been married.
Stbx doesn’t get my hurt or pain. Really? I told him to keep the bitch, and himself, away from me at all times. He says things like
‘but you used to be friends so you know she’s a nice person’
‘she’s a really good mother to her kids and a hard working person’
‘she makes me happy’
They can both burn in hell. I’m glad to report that since stbx finally moved out I’m actually relieved after thinking I’d be depressed and sad and moping around all day.
Back to the point though, stbx has been trying to get me to accept AP and perhaps even dismiss the divorce. It would make his cheating seem OK to the outside world if I condoned it and life would be simple again for everyone.
Fuck that.
Yup, got the, “I think you’d like her if you knew her”, “you two have a lot in common” and “I wish I could have you both”. The levels of delusion were off the charts. Ah, where is the glory in holding your partner who has recently given birth to your child hostage by introducing her to all the great choices she has when you decide that being a parent is too much like hard work and you wanna go chase tail? Fuckwith.
OMG, they think we can be friends with all of their flying monkeys, as well. My hopefully (any day now) STBX told me “I can be an advocate for you if you’d just let me.” I was stunned, and then thought “who the everliving fuck would I want your advocacy from?” The arrogance of that statement was just confirmation that he had said some pretty terrible things about me. What he was saying was “I’ll stop talking shit about you if you just accept my paltry divorce terms and go away. Well, stay in my life enough for me to feed my massive ego, I mean.” Like I care about his few friends and his creepy mother and family’s opinion of me? This guy was a lying, cheating, crossdressing freak who caused me a considerable amount of financial and emotional damage. But I got my strength back and I fought back, and I am happy to report that I am doing better than ever, and he and his advocacy can go wrap themselves up in a pair of crotchless lace underwear and go fuck themselves.
You go girl!
Bottom line is what CL says: You’re interchangeable really. In the cheater’s drama program, we don’t count as unique or special. We are replaced so easily by the newer, better model/understudy. I noticed they seem to try too hard to spackle sparkle on the AP to make them look better. I also think the AP really gets off on feeling better than the unsuspecting wife who she has heard so many negative things about. The truth is that the cheater never trades up. I picture my XH standing in a used car parking lot and settling for something less than the Porsche/Lexus/Mercedes he feels entitled to have. I’m glad it’s Tuesday!
Fuckup told me that the AP “has a good heart, like you.” and the we would like each other if we met “under different circumstances.” Um, sure.
Also, I’ve seen pictures of the two ex-girlfriends (the one who was the discovered AP and the other one, who was an undiscovered AP earlier our relationship) as well as the current girlfriend, who got in touch with me a few months ago. You wouldn’t say all of us look alike, but we have enough similar characteristics that it’s clear he has a type.
It’s coming up on two years of No Contact (no kudos to me: he only made the feeblest attempts to hoover) and, although I sometimes still miss the person I thought he was, it’s getting easier to “automatically” see him as a person I’m glad to have out of my life. (That is, I don’t always have to feel sad at first, and then forcibly remind myself of how badly he hurt me and how I don’t ever want to feel that way again.) I was hoping to be at full MEH by now, but at least it’s getting there.
My cheater left me for his AP, but said that ‘When the dust has settled, in a couple of months, let’s all go out for a meal together. You’ll really like her, she’s such a wonderful person.’ He also made a big show of asking me to be godparent to their eventual children. ‘I couldn’t think of anyone better.’
H
When I finally told him to never come around again (he was dropping in every Tuesday evening whilst she was at her choir), he couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to see him any more. He nearly hit me and said, ‘I’ve been so kind to you!’
According to the he never slept with this girl who he claimed is the only female he ever trusted and then later they must of been in a rough patch because he expressed how similar she and I were with the fact neither of us want to have sex anymore. It was more of an angry statement when I questioned him but I learned later he was on to someone else at that time. I can laugh now.
I’ve zero proof but feel that the one he verbally compared me too has his child that was born on my birthday. I met het twice because she was partnered with a guy I want to high school with and worked for the ex. I got daily excited reports about this miracle pregnancy and then what a great mom she is. My guess is the guy may have been sterile and it was with the ex. The sad part is he resented our kids. Even to the point of dragging how brutal life changes after kids to friends who were expecting for the first time with me standing three. I was so hurt. He had my camera supposedly to take pictures of jobs he completed. He came in one day saying the camera was broken and realized that as he was taking a picture of her and the baby. I was floored because he had no interest in our kids. I’m sure if that had taken, I’d have smashed it to bits like I felt my life was. So many red flags and I was paralyzed until I wasn’t. It still took years to get out safely and I lost 33 with him but I balance it positively with having the kids for 18 of those.
5 yrs divorced, spent a year filing contempt charges because he chooses not to follow court orders and now he filed against me last August to do away with them. He filed but resisted turning in paperwork leading me to file a show cause. This will go on forever since courts are closed but he has taken advantage of that as well by deciding it’s a great time to not pay in full what’s ordered. If you’re divorcing a disordered partner, make it as iron clad as possible with a lawyer that knows what you’re dealing with and know they’ll disagree at some point in the future. They don’t change do closures.
I didn’t get the friend-line, but I got sad-sausage-by-proxy on the AP:
She didn’t deserve to loose her job. You know, she had been delicately putting her career together and building it sensibly in that company from student on! It was important to her.
What an awful person and anti-feminist I am for informing the exams board on the affair and asking them not to accept academic quid-pro-quo evaluations, putting objects in the way of a young, striving person who has to work for a living (unlike me, lazy, ms-fatigued SAHM).
Do I have any idea how it feels to walk into the office or talk to a customer and not knowing whether and what they know about your sex life? How awful of me to rejoice at the fact that word had gotten around even to subsequent work places.
3 days after D-day from the in-laws: You could all be friends…we know a family who did that…it’s great for everyone. You can’t ask him not to see her with his daughter, because then it would be so hard for golden boy timewise!
From my innocent daughter after seeing in-laws
I was once given advice by a guy whose wife had four affairs in 11 years and she finally left him for the fourth one. He said how to still respect and cherish their mother in front of the kids and even joke and shook hands with the AP BF nowadays when he goes to get the kids.
Any man or woman who thinks this is okay is so pathetically weak. Respect yourself enough to never let that happen to you. You don’t have to be combative or emotional around them but do not ever shake the hand of a person who is such a lowlife. Don’t ever joke around with these fucks.
Yes, exactly!!
My ex married the OW and then she emailed me about 3 months into the marriage with the goal of being friends with because, you know, “for the children.” (I have 100% custody and the kids are nearly adult age and are quite capable of navigating this without me.) Anyway, I didn’t respond- and so my ex emailed me to express his “disappointment” because I didn’t respond to her “generous” email. I then (sigh) had to explain to him that I was not interested in a relationship with her because, you know, that little thing about her sleeping with my very married husband. “Oh that” he responded.
Yeah. That.