Red Flags You Overlooked?

Any red flags you overlooked in your relationship with a cheater?

Today’s Friday Challenge is brought to you by Spackle! It brightens! It whitens! Do you have some unsightly behavior you need covering? SPACKLE!

***

Every healthy relationship possess a small degree of spackle. You overlook the bad morning breath, the way she leaves her shoes everywhere, how he drives 10 miles under the speed limit. You forgive. You’re a little deaf when she natters on about pinecone elves.

But bad relationships require loads of spackle. It’s the foundational substance. Spackle excuses the inexcusable and is the gateway drug to hopium. Hallucinating a commitment that doesn’t exist.

From the time you met this toxic person, what might you have done differently? What do you wish you would’ve paid attention to more carefully?

It’s not victim blaming to consider the overlooked red flags. After all, we all want to learn from this shit and fix the picker going forward.

No one deserves abuse. No one asks to have their boundaries trampled. There is no shame in loving with your whole heart. Speaking for myself, there is some residual mortification as a chump that I allowed bad behavior up until the point I didn’t any longer. And those mistakes — learn from them! — became the basis of this blog.

Got any red flags you’d like to share?

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Colour Blind
Colour Blind
3 years ago

Made me pay for all dates, belittled my job, made me buy him drugs, moved in with me after a month and then stopped working, got arrested, bought my engagement ring with my savings, made my pay for the wedding….

…perhaps I’m colour blind.

Silver Anniversary
Silver Anniversary
3 years ago
Reply to  Colour Blind

I also paid for my own engagement ring! First and not the last time he used my credit cards!

EmpathSaysB'bye
EmpathSaysB'bye
3 years ago

I just realized I paid for both our wedding rings and my mother paid for the wedding he offered to pay for precisely nothing! oh god! could have saved myself 17 years of a man who basically was a child – embarressing. Of course there was cheating through out.

EmpathSaysB'bye
EmpathSaysB'bye
3 years ago

HUGE red flag: VOWS: he left out the vow that says he would be faithful – i mentioned it after wards (stunned) and he defensivly and angrily retorted he had left it out because it’s a given.

red flag: DATING: He said a month or so after he’d met me was sad he’d met me because he had imagined himself remaining single for alot longer and once successful able to have any women he wanted.

red flag: MOVING IN: to his apartment we were pulling a huge bag up the stairs i stopped to rest and he pushed me in a vicious and aggressive way up the stairs and i fell i felt humiliated he said nothing – i walked over the threshold into ‘our’ new life thinking ‘what the f just happened?’

red flag: FIRST WEEK OF MARRIAGE: he started raging and would violently rage in my face until i’d sob (he was remembering sexual abuse so i put up with it)

red flag: DATE: he never paid we always had to go dutch. One time i didnt have my half of the money (expensive place) so he went ahead and ate and i watched, (he had enough money to offer me a meal if he had wanted to). I was hurt and humiliated but pretended i was fine with it and told myself this should inspire me to make more money. (it did)

red flag: I drank two gulps of his milk in the fridge, he was insensed and said i had stolen that milk. (i jsut throught he was eccentric or something – ignored it)

red flag: PREGNANT: told me he was going to have fun and go out and flirt with who ever he wanted to. I wasn’t the jealous type so shrugged and said fine. ( men flirted with me – it was harmlesss) i was very nieve, later found out what he meant was ‘make out’ with who ever he wanted.

red flag: MOTHER on the way to see his mother he got so frustrated with my driving he jumped on me and started to strangle me. He always was crazy when he’d see his mother, I put it down to stress haha god was a freaking crazy?

red flag: PREGNANT: he jumped on me pinned me to the wall by my neck (feet off the floor) when i said i wasn’t scarred of him anymore

red flag:SLEEP: he pulled the door off the hinges because i slept in and ripped the door to shreds we never spoke about it. he just got a new door and it was up by the time i returned home

red flag; He was furious all the time and i thought he would mellow out. he didnt.

red flag: before during or after doing the do he would nearly always say: “I just need variety” i thought well you just got me so that’s that really. what he was telling me was I am getting variety

red flag: during intimacy he’d say it is so much better when you do x,y,z. (i now realize i was literally being compared to prostitutes he was seeing )

red flag: walked into our bedroom and like a mad person enraged spat in my face then walked out (i still don’t know what i did) i did at least know that i didn’t deserve it, again shrugged and ignored it but was quite scarred of him after that

red flag: said before we got married ‘oh good looks like i will pay less tax’

red flag: bourght me an amathist $30 temporary engagement ring until he could afford a nice one. He never got me a nice one for 8 years until my mother triggered and got angry with him for not buying me a wedding ring yet

red flag: i bourght the temporary wedding rings he was going to pay me back for his and he never did

red flag: during engagment i bourght us a car he said if i got it he would re pay the $1000 back into my savings just before the wedding (which he did not pay a penny for my mum and i did) rather then contribute to wedding and pay me/the savings back he told me excitedly he just bought a motor bike for $1000. I said nothing but felt pain. no wonder he abused my generosity i would say nothing when he did.

red flag: He often told me his ideal women would be elisabeth shu i look nothing like her!

Cam
Cam
3 years ago

“… and once successful able to have any women he wanted.”

Holy shit.

BaconB
BaconB
3 years ago
Reply to  Colour Blind

A lot like my story. But now we know better.

RO
RO
3 years ago

Told lies about who he was speaking to on the phone, and started deleting his calls pretty consistently.

Kara
Kara
3 years ago
Reply to  RO

Another time, with a different ex (a lot more short lived than the other one, thank god) I noticed a questionable text conversation. We were at a roller derby event and he “went to the bathroom” which took him an inordinately long time. When he came back he claimed he just couldn’t find it. I went and found it within five minutes just by asking security.

He got up to get a beer, and left his phone sitting next to me with the screen still unlocked and I looked down and noticed a text conversation going on with someone named “Megan.” I only saw part of the conversation before he came back and grabbed it, but it said “Could you picture yourself with a 27 year-old, divorced auto detailer?” (Him) He looked at me and said my face looked like I was about to kill him, what’s wrong?

I said nothing because I wanted to finish enjoying my time at the derby. But later I checked his facebook and he had no friends named Megan. I should have asked him right then and there at the derby who the fuck Megan was.

Kara
Kara
3 years ago
Reply to  RO

Oo, boy yeah I can relate. When one of my exes got a new phone, he was doing the fingerprint access for the security on it. He did his, then handed the phone to me and said I should input my fingerprint too so in case of an emergency, I could use his phone if I needed to.

The following spring, he wanted me to look at a picture of a meme, and handed me his phone. The screen closed when he handed it to me and I tried to use my fingerprint to open it again so I could look at the picture…and the phone denied access, saying it did not recognize the print. I tried again, thinking I had just positioned my finger wrong. Nope. Kept getting denied. I handed it back to him and noticed he’d changed the access to a numbered password.

I’m sure he didn’t think I’d notice, but I did. And I’m sure he’d straight up deny it to this day if called out, but I tried to tell myself at the time that it wasn’t enough to prove cheating or make an accusation. But it turned out to just be one of many odd behaviors that lead up to an unsurprising end.

Thirtythreeyearsachump
Thirtythreeyearsachump
3 years ago

How much time do you have? This is going to take all day. I’ll start with this one, he was three hours late to the wedding. I married him anyway. Thus beginning my blighted marriage as a Super Chump. Trying hard to forgive myself for decades of tolerating his abuse. The upside? I see those red flags everywhere, now I know better.

DOCTOR's1stWife&3Kids
DOCTOR's1stWife&3Kids
3 years ago

33years,

I can’t even do this exercise. 35 years a chump and in hindsight SO many red flags were there. Literally too many to count.

It MIGHT be cathartic to list some, but today it feels like it would be such a trigger.

I’d spend all day feeling like shit and slapping my forehead in shame. WHAT A FOOL I WAS!

I almost pity a future man in my life b/c I’ve got lots of triggers now…

But then, I’m a great catch and very worth it.

So Done
So Done
3 years ago

Doctor’s1stWife&3kids,

I am with you! I was married for twenty-two years. There were WAY too many red flags for me to name or count. When I think about the red flags now, I am stunned and embarrassed that I allowed myself to be abused for so long. ????

That said, for whatever reason, the first red flag that popped into my mind when I read today’s post was this: I (repeatedly) asked my Ex for access to his phone to review his call history or whatever, and he (repeatedly) told me that he didn’t think it was appropriate for either of us to have access to the other’s phone.

This red flag alone should have been enough. And yet, there were thousands more. ???? It took me way too long to act on them.

Shelly
Shelly
3 years ago
Reply to  So Done

That’s what finally led to me declaring, I’m done.’ He wouldn’t let me access his ‘KIK’ account I had just discovered.
That was the last straw. 35 years of red flags.

Thirtythreeyearsachump
Thirtythreeyearsachump
3 years ago

DOCTOR’S1stwifeandkids, I was reduced to tears and sobbing by my post. So humiliating to be treated with such disrespect, it set the grounds for thirty five years of a lopsided shitshow of a marriage. Such a painful memory, I’m grateful it is in the past. I’m working on not beating myself up over past mistakes. It is done, over, and he cannot force me to stay married. Divorce trial soon and I’m praying he is late!!!!!

You are a catch and completely worth it.

Battle-Tempered Lionheart
Battle-Tempered Lionheart
3 years ago

Reading all of these self-flaggelations reminds me of a humorous quotation by my friend: “Never be ashamed of yourself. That’s your parents’ job.”

How about we change it to “never beat yourself up about something. That’s fuckwit’s job.”

In other words, why are we still doing their work even after they are gone?

CleotheFormerChump
CleotheFormerChump
3 years ago

I like it!

Givetimetime
Givetimetime
3 years ago

I would love to chime in, but there is not enough bandwidth in Las Vegas for me to upload it all.

Battle-Tempered Lionheart
Battle-Tempered Lionheart
3 years ago
Reply to  Givetimetime

Haha x 1,000! 🙂

Thank you. I really needed a laugh tonight.

CC
CC
3 years ago

Mine wasn’t 3 hours late, but immediately after the ceremony he posted to Facebook “It is accomplished.”
Who does that? I remember feeling like sh*t, but brushed it off as one of his weird quirks.

Now when I think about it, he never told me I was beautiful ever. He looks happier in our wedding photos when pictured solely with his family members than me. i was forced to spend the night in a suite with his family, whom I had never met, they day after we were married. It made me uncomfortable. He didn’t care. He did not contribute a single cent to the wedding. I could go on and on.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago
Reply to  CC

Yeah instead of dancing with me the bride, my Ex spent most of our wedding reception smoking cigars with buddies on some balcony off of the reception area. Too bad it took another 13 years for me to see his mask fall off.

Thirtythreeyearsachump
Thirtythreeyearsachump
3 years ago
Reply to  CC

CC, I too did not meet his family until after the wedding. I paid for the wedding and our wedding rings. Now I see why because they are not nice people, a pack of racists and fake Christians. I will be vindicated when he pays for the divorce and my name change.

The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
3 years ago

I paid for out wedding too. Must be on the cheater handbook

Yas
Yas
3 years ago

I paid for my wedding ring too.

Quetzal
Quetzal
3 years ago
Reply to  CC

when he complimented me it was so disingeuous, you know? He would say it in some stupid voices, and it was never believable at all.
He actually once told me that my degrading myself (when I was displeased with my weight) made him like me less because it’s like I’m criticizing his choice of woman. There was no way my late 20’s brain knew how to even process that. I spackled a lot over sociopathic classic speak because I had no box where to put it, so I dismissed it as “incomprehensible”. I know better now!

He would also sometimes break into these “sexy dances” at me that made him look like the caricature of a gay strip dancer.
WTF was that about, I will never know (yes, I do suspect now he might have some gay tendencies, but again, will never know).

DuddersGetsChumped
DuddersGetsChumped
3 years ago
Reply to  CC

Oh my god, you married a robot. Wow, that is some level of cold.

Amazon Chump
Amazon Chump
3 years ago

Not once did my ex tell me that I was beautiful. If I ever asked, “How do I look?”, he’d reply, “You look fine. Let’s go.” I told him that he was handsome all the time.

Yas
Yas
3 years ago
Reply to  Amazon Chump

Oh he would say, I’m not extraordinarily beautiful. I would accept that and shower with compliments on his handsomeness.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

So many red flags, but here’s one:

He treated his mother like shit. Total disrespect.

Little did I realize at 23 that that would be me in the future, the disrespected woman ????????‍♀️.

ThursdaysChild
ThursdaysChild
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Similar here. Pretty much hated his mother–she’s a narcissist for sure–and as a result could not and I do mean could NOT open his mouth and argue with her but instead talked shit about her behind her back and blamed her for everything he could. 25 years later? He evidently was ‘afraid’ to tell me how he was feeling but instead talked shit about me behind my back and blamed me for everything.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago
Reply to  ThursdaysChild

Same here. His mom was always not getting along with coworkers, her sister, her in-laws, and on and off with my Ex her son. So he was either not talking to her or talking too much to her. But he couldn’t talk to me about his feelings because he was afraid of me because of my job. Yet he could run his mouth behind my back no problem for at least 1 year prior to discard.

Battle-Tempered Lionheart
Battle-Tempered Lionheart
3 years ago
Reply to  ThursdaysChild

Yes! “afraid” can be a huge cop-out. It’s another way of saying “It’s not my fault. You made me do it.”

Afraid my ass. Wasband is six foot eight inches tall and pushing 400 lbs.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago

Lol. Yeah my Ex is 6’3 pushing 400 lbs and yet he was afraid of me. Such man babies!

Samsara
Samsara
3 years ago
Reply to  ThursdaysChild

But what about when their mother is “golden” and can do no wrong? This kind of “held in the halo of perfection” is another form of hell for the daughter-in-law / wife. No one is perfect but Mommy Dearest.

Mine never said ANYTHING negative about his mother. But he had plenty of negative things to say about me. I was “too strong” and “too dominant” among many other faults, so of course he had to cheat.

Zip
Zip
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Opposite, he treated his mother really well and his mother treated him like her husband. He was her knight in shining armour.
On one of our really early dates, he took a longish phone call from his mother at the table. It was nothing import / it could have waited.
His family is really enmeshed- too many examples.
Also the Big-time over the top infatuation with me the first year. I was the woman of his dreams before he even knew me very well.
It was a long fall…

Rebel XIII
Rebel XIII
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

I remember sitting across from him at a restaurant, on a date, shortly after we met, and he was told me all about how he lied to his mother to get money from her. The thought popped into my head, crystal clear: “If he does that to her, he’ll do it to you.” Unfortunately I spent the next three years trying to please that hobosexual, and yep, the financial abuse got worse and worse. I’m lucky I got out when I did, given what so many here have endured.

Gorillapoop
Gorillapoop
3 years ago
Reply to  Rebel XIII

Hobosexual! That is a perfect descriptor. I am using that one.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago
Reply to  Rebel XIII

You know I had forgotten about that.

When we were young he told me of many stories of him sneaking out at night, doing stuff and pulling the wool over his moms eyes. We were married at 18, so these stories came after our marriage, but those should have been a red flag to me. I think in real time I just chalked it up to being a kid. Yes, maybe so; but he did seem to be extra proud of it.

Most folks are shamed of their youthful indiscretions not proud of them. Or maybe not most folks, but decent folks.

cantbelievehechumpedme
cantbelievehechumpedme
3 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

This. Relishing memories of duper’s delight.

Meanwell
Meanwell
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

:). Mine was the opposite. Weirdly fixated with Mom . He would bring her up at inappropriate times. Very concerned about keeping her happy. Once married that fixation increased and he would ignore my and our children’s needs for her.
We were also 23 when we met and I attributed it to immaturity. Once he started on line cheating he would send pictures of Mom as a young women to his online flirts and sext partners. ( she had done some modeling) They would respond with how prettty she was as a young woman. Have no idea what to make of that. Over sexualized child hood relationship I guess. Once a widow, she dated married men. She never liked me and would criticize me behind my back or only address him and ignore me. It was not the cause of the divorce, but I think it gave him a sense of “ permission “ to cheat
And, lastly. The misogyny. There was always a Co worker or friend he would endlessly dump hostility on for no reason. Glad to be getting rid of them
Both

Lola Granola
Lola Granola
3 years ago
Reply to  Meanwell

Oh lordy. Cheater #4 had her photo prominently displayed – her as a young woman.

I found out later that all his girlfriends – including me – looked rather like her.

And that he was a walker for a wealthy widow, who wanted to take things further.

And had a long-term girlfriend in another country.

He was presented to me by a very gullible friend as a bachelor who was looking to settle down.

She’d known him for around two months. It took me less than one month to expose:
– the homosexual affairs
– the fact that he took Mummy on dates
– that his father was a serial cheater
– his prescription drug addiction
– his string of dodgy relationships with identical looking women
– the multiple suicide attempts and involuntary psychiatric admissions

After our first daytime meeting, he gave me a lift, and he had to blow into a device to start his car, because he’d been busted so many times for drunk driving.

But he went to Cambridge, you see.

No red flags here, folks.

This mini disaster was the best thing that could have happened, because I offloaded not only him, but the gullible and – as it turned out – abusive and disloyal friend.

Meanwell
Meanwell
3 years ago
Reply to  Lola Granola

Yes. Cambridge. Mine is a graduate of an Ivy League university here in the states. And has an MBA From a top school. Banker. Very fancy. Very good student. Good career. Had personality issues at work tho.
So smart yet so stunted. Took me years to understand how he could be so bright but so clueless personally. I veer toward his having something form of narcissism

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Meanwell

Oh the high IQ morons!

Sue_W
Sue_W
3 years ago
Reply to  Meanwell

Wow! That puts ‘mommy issues’ on a whole new level! That’s creepy.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Sue_W

Agree about that being a whole new level of “mommy issues.” So creepy and inappropriate!

Years ago, my former (now deceased) FIL was going through prostate cancer treatement. As we all now, sexual abilities can be impacted, so it’s nice to report that all is well on that front.

It’s nice to report that to close friends and your physician, that is.

I don’t think it’s necessary or appropriate to report that to your son except in a vary vague way, such as, “Fortunately, he’s had no ill effects from the treatment.”

Instead, my then-MIL wrote to my then-husband that she and his dad had had sex the night before. I remember she also drew a happy face after that. TMI! Am I a prude?

She also liked to share that she was still getting her period when she was in her early 50s. I mean, she did this at Thanksgiving dinners as we were all gathered around the table waiting for the patriarch to tell us what the preacher screwed up in his sermon and how it could have been better if he’d said x (at which point he basically proceeeded to give a sermon). Torture!!

The whole lot of them felt superior and holier than thou! My cheating ex probably still feels that way, adultery aside. He’ll figure out a way to keep the sparkle on.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago
Reply to  Meanwell

Big bonus losing the AWFUL IN-LAWS.

Lola Granola
Lola Granola
3 years ago

YES a million times to this. My cheaters’ families were mostly like the Addams Family, but with none of the charm.

Cheater No #4 – the last of the happy crew – was actually in Norman Bates territory.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Lola Granola

“Addams Family, but with none of the charm” OMG!????????????

Lola Granola
Lola Granola
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Snap!! Also that he was a bad drunk, a liar, and violent.

But marriage fixes all of those things, you see. So you should just keep planning the wedding, even when he slams your arm in a car door after someone else’s wedding.

That was Cheater #1. Cheater #2 was not memorable.

But Cheater #3 was egregious. Complete opposite of Cheater#1: sober, placid, diligent, opened the car door for me.

In fact, you wouldn’t want to get between him and a chance to do real good – mostly witnessed by others.

I overlooked passive aggression, managing down my expectations, workaholism, ignoring me and treating me like a piece of furniture, and the fact that his workplace struggled to keep up with who his real girlfriend was.

I just diagnosed him with Cushing’s disease instead.

Like you do.

I no longer date, and am much happier for it.

IDeserveBetter
IDeserveBetter
3 years ago

He went to a wedding in the days we used to have cameras on the table. When the bride had them developed he was in EVERY one. On one of our first dates he had a melt down because he couldn’t find the address. He took another woman out on a jetski when we were on our honeymoon. He lost his job due to sexual harrassment claims…I spackled this and 2 more claims over the 17 years and yet it was all still a surprise when I found out he was a Serial Cheater and I also found out what a Narcissist is.

tinybubbles
tinybubbles
3 years ago
Reply to  IDeserveBetter

Mine lost his job over sexual harassment accusations (which I believe). His average lifespan on a job is about 3 years, I supported him most of the 10 1/2 years we were married/together. He is also a serial cheater, and has a formal diagnosis of NPD. We do deserve better!

The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
3 years ago
Reply to  tinybubbles

Mine was also accused of sexual harassment. At the time, I believed his side of the story. Now, I believe hers. When multiple people accuse you of something, it is probably true.

Gorillapoop
Gorillapoop
3 years ago

My ex father in law was almost thrown out of the navy and prosecuted for sexual harassment of a young man under his care as a chaplain. By the time I came along, this was the story the family would tell:

Young man was emotionally disturbed and falsely accused ex father in law. Bad people who were against him tried to make the accusation stick. EFIL became so depressed about he was going to give up and was suicidal. EMIL found a lawyer to defend him and good people stood up for him, but they were financially devastated and had to eat ramen for a couple of years, but they grew stronger as a family, as a result. This is the reason cheater ex became a public defender.

Everyone gets served this story with a dish of “we are the perfect Christian family.”

One year after I caught my ex cheating, I found craigslist ads on our family computer showing my EFIL was soliciting sex with strangers (male) online from our home.

To this day, cheater ex says his father only did that because he was distraught over his prostate cancer (?) and that he never acted on those ads.

That poor kid in the Navy. I wish I could find him and tell him I believe him.

Gorillapoop
Gorillapoop
3 years ago

Hobosexual! That is a perfect descriptor. I am using that one.

Kara
Kara
3 years ago
Reply to  tinybubbles

One of my exes also lost a job over sexual harassment claims. At the time I tried to tell myself it couldn’t have been as bad as that…but…wow I was Grade-A, heavy-duty, lay-it-on-THICK spackling. We tried being “poly” (another stupid spackle move by me…marriage problems are not solved by adding extra people) and my understanding was talking about it was need-to-know basis, it wasn’t something that needed to be advertised all over. If I was asked my relationship status, I simply said “I’m married.”

He decided he was going to tell everyone who would listen, and thought it appropriate to start talking about it AT WORK. He said he only mentioned it once (which I no longer believe) and he said he just “complimented” one of his female coworkers on her gym routine, saying “It was definitely working.”

I’m not sure what parts of this story are true, except I don’t doubt he did talk about being poly in his workplace. But that was such a huge red flag it was like I was being outright whacked in the face with it.

ChumpDownUnder
ChumpDownUnder
3 years ago
Reply to  Kara

Mine also was accused of sexual harassment 2 months before the wedding. He lost his job a week before the wedding. I spackled like crazy. Never crossed my mind not to believe his version
Oh and he tried the open/poly shit too. Again I bought his line that it would put the spark in our relationship. It was more like a nuclear bomb for me. Him, not so much

Kara
Kara
3 years ago
Reply to  ChumpDownUnder

Yeah same. I thought it would help, I think at one point I really wanted it to work. But the red flags just got too much and I realized the marriage was over. It wasn’t the thing that fixed it, it was the thing that nailed the coffin shut. We did have a lot of other issues, but all of them could have been fixed if it weren’t for his need to be poly. That’s what made it truly irreconcilable. He told me he would stop doing it and shut it all down and I said no, because I knew it’s what he really wanted. Even if he stopped doing it in front of my face, I’d still know deep down he would be wanting to be with other women, and there was no way I could ever be okay with living like that. One of us would always be miserable and that would just poison everything. It had to end.

UXworld
UXworld
3 years ago

We’d been dating for about 9 months (1996) when she started working for a business writing company. She left some of her training materials in her apartment, including a set of sample emails announcing our engagement. (Red Flag #1)

Later that month, we attended a party at which the hostess took me aside and asked me when she should be expecting an invitation to the wedding. (Red Flag #2)

After the party, I told KK that I thought she was moving way too fast, that I was uncomfortable, and that perhaps we should think about slowing things down. She threw everything I’d given her out of her apartment window. (Red Flag #3)

A few weeks later, she called to tell me that she’d secretly had an abortion but provided no proof she’d ever been pregnant. (Red Flag #4)

After a few months of trying to remain friends, she started telling me about her hook-up dates with other guys — betting for sex over a game of pool, responding to booty calls, etc. (Red Flag #5)

And these are just the major ones. There are countless others — hostility when challenged, sisters always got preferential treatment, inability to contribute to a conversation that wasn’t about her, on and on and on

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Jeez, I think you married simeone I know. The casual dating attitude covering a kamikaze marriage trap bait and switch– check. Acting like a switched-on Elmo doll during adult group conversations only when the focus is on them and then returning to inanimate, slighly resentful baseline when the discussion shifts to, say, world politics or someone else’s life– check.

I wonder if the rest checks out. BPD? Expert level triangulation and fabricated character assassination against anyone who sets boundaries? Past eating disorders? Expedient tear trigger? Mate poaching? Embezzlement? Seething envy? Expediently going in and out of whispery weirdo baby voice?

Aunt Podger
Aunt Podger
3 years ago

I keep seeing red flags in myself. I read fantasy novels (in fact, T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Grace really helped me heal). I have past eating disorders. ( They were pretty much directly caused by cheater’s hateful attitude toward my body and physical and mental health, both of which I cheerfully destroyed for the sake of his sense of “aesthetics.” Not that this is any excuse.)

I keep wondering how the cheater gene gave me these only-appearing-in-shitty-people traits while completely withholding the ability to abuse and cheat. I just… can’t comprehend how you could do that to a person.

MedusaInMeh
MedusaInMeh
3 years ago
Reply to  Aunt Podger

What does reading fantasy novels have to do with red flags? I read them. Game of Thrones series brought the masses to reading them, in fact. Just curious.

weddingbelle
weddingbelle
3 years ago
Reply to  Aunt Podger

Fleas!

thelongrun
thelongrun
3 years ago

Whispery baby voices like this? “My precioussss!”

Epictetus
Epictetus
3 years ago
Reply to  thelongrun

The Voice Thing: BPD flag.

Nothing Chumpares 2 U
Nothing Chumpares 2 U
3 years ago

My awful, lying, cheating STBXW:

Silence and Not answering questions were the common theme for 20+ years. I saw this as marital stress but never saw it as a true red flag. We always seemed to move forward regardless. Looking back, I believe she was incapable of expressing how she felt and quite possibly had cheated long ago. Even after I found out about her cheating, she still cannot express any remorse for the utter destruction she cause to me and kids.

Other flags:

Sudden switch off of all emotion and affection (literally light a light switch)
Blaming you for everything
Saying “You deserve better than me”
Saying “Something is missing”
Becoming unusually irate when you state “well, if you want a divorce, I am going to tell the kids and family and friends the truth….I do not want a divorce, you do”. (Claws come out)
Lots of after “work dinners” with “friends”
Texts at all hours of the night “those are just my friends”
99% of the time staring at her phone
Illogical and non-rational behavior
Anger when you point out double-standards or illogical statements
Complete re-writing of your entire history
Blameshifting….I told her (even before I knew about the cheating) that “you are breaking your vows if you want a divorce…I have not ever broken my vows”….next day she says “You broke your vows too”….I said “really….how?”……of course, there was no answer
Calling you a Narcissist (projection of her own guilt and shame)

Di
Di
3 years ago

I’ve read that silent treatments and withholding are the calling cards of overt narcissists. It’s not “quite reflection” but severe punishment. Like – I can blink you in and out of existence.

NoMoreMsNiceChump
NoMoreMsNiceChump
3 years ago

Telling you that you deserve better is the closest thing you will ever get to honesty with a narcissist. My STBXH did this too. When I told him why I was upset that he cheated on me he just shrugged and said, “You’ll find a better guy.” His idea of a “better guy” was one of his male friends he may or may not have had a gay affair with. Yes, he tried to set me up with his maybe-lover.

I do intend to find a better guy someday, but on my own timetable and one that I pick for myself. He’s the last person in the world I would trust to find me a good guy.

Battle-Tempered Lionheart
Battle-Tempered Lionheart
3 years ago

NoMoreMsNiceChump,

While reading your post, I had a lightbulb moment!

I had been thinking about him trying to set you up with his possibly-former lover. I was trying to wrap my mind around why someone would do that.

(I realize this is untangling the skein, but it’s not my skein so does it break the rule?)

It suddenly came to me that setting you up with his would-be lover is another form of projection. Just like when they accuse you of things THEY are thinking and feeling.
Just switch the pronouns.

That is twisted. Is it possible that on some level they cannot distinguish themselves as a separate entity?

NoMoreMsNiceChump
NoMoreMsNiceChump
3 years ago

I always thought it was more of an image-management thing. If I’m with another guy soon after discovering the cheating (my divorce will not be final until February) Nitwit can say, “Look, I’m not such a bad guy! Look how quickly NMMNC found another guy and how happy she is with him. If she really loved me she would be devastated so is my cheating on a woman who doesn’t really love me such a bad thing? All’s well that ends well, right?”. And I guess he would know how happy this guy would make me in bed if he really did “test-drive” him for me (I have no hard proof that he had a gay affair, just circumstantial evidence, hard evidence of affairs with at least one OW, and knowledge of his character, or lack thereof).

But you could be right; they may not be able to distinguish themselves from the chump and so sharing a lover may not be a big deal to them, though the thought of picking up my husband’s sloppy seconds makes me gag. There was a thread last week about how the narcissist expressing suicidal desires may actually be a clue they want to kill their chump. Suicide and homicide of the chump are intertwined in their minds. They have no boundaries and often harm their chumps because they hate themselves.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

I think both things could be going on simultaneously—projection and image management.

Mine insisted I wanted a threesome with his best friends. I didn’t, but maybe he did.

The last play we say happened to be about homosexual love. When we sat and looked at the playbill, he wanted to walk out. He was visibly distressed. I insisted on staying, plus the curtain was rising. At the time I thought he might be homophobic. I think instead that he has homosexual tendencies.

And yes to their mixed hope that we find someone else. It would make them feel better but it probably pisses them off, too.

These types of cheaters have a lot going on in their minds. It’s not a pretty place. I almost feel sorry for mine. He’s just so screwed up.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

“saw” not “say.”

Gorillapoop
Gorillapoop
3 years ago

Or it’s just another ham-fisted way to get you to buy into an ‘open’ marriage, after the horse has left the barn. My ex thought I would let him stay married to me and financially supported by me, if he offered to let me sleep with other men. Sorry, dude, I’m not your mother.

ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
3 years ago

My STBXW was glued to her phone too. Constantly on it. Mind you she was sexting near 20 guys and storing men numbers under female names and she was making sexual videos and photos of herself on a daily basis to send to them all. She even hid in the bathroom to receive video calls from some. Plus the affair with one guy in particular who use to have sex with her in public places whilst she pretended she was at the store for groceries. I find seeing girls on their phone to trigger me about, maybe I have mild PTSD from all the abuse.

After I found her affairs, nothing I ever did was right. I would walk past her and not even look at her and she scream that I was giving her dirty looks. She did next to no housework. She cooked and did laundry and that was it. I did everything and she left piles of crap all over the house, so after her affairs discovered all of a sudden she was screaming that I do no housework. No logic to that.
Or the accusations of how I don’t love her, after 15 years together and three kids I suddenly don’t love her. Or starting fights over the most minor issues so she could scream about sleeping downstairs, ie, talk to him all night.

She called All her cheating a “mistake”. But she twisted it and said well you cheated on your ex. Yes I did once cheat on my ex when I was 18 years old. But we are now 36 and been together 15 years and have kids and I’ve never been unfaithful. Or how drunken rages at me and throwing it in my face that he makes her feel beautiful. I could write a book of all her abuse towards me.

Now we are broke up and she loves elsewhere as she had me arrested and she suddenly regrets everything and wishes she could go back in time and just have me. She deeply loves and misses me. She breaks down in tears when bringing the kids to see me. It’s exhausting dealing with this. I’m beyond glad we are over.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

Nothing Compares to U:

This one hits my personal bullseye: “You broke your vows too”….I said “really….how?”……of course, there was no answer

As does this: Anger when you point out double-standards or illogical statements

Crazymaking shit like that.

Btw, when mine realized the BS of his statement about the vows, he threw out this head-scratching beauty: “You’re blinded by your own self-righteousness. What?

Gotta agree with the part about my being blinded. The red flags were waving and I thought I was in a parade!

NoMoreMsNiceChump
NoMoreMsNiceChump
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

“The red flags were waving and I thought I was in a parade!”

Can I borrow this phrase? It describes being chumped so much better than anything I can come up with.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

Haha! Yes! Borrow away!

okupin
okupin
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

“The red flags were waving, and I thought I was in a parade!”

Ha ha. That was me to a T.

My ex exit-affaired me, so the signs there were pretty typical: obsession with weight-lifting/exercise, staying “at the gym” late after work, moving out of the marital bed, emotional distance and hostility. Textbook. In fact, I was starting to get pretty suspicious when he blew it all up and left.

Trickier are the red flags of narcissism. It took me months to piece those together, and I’m not sure I have all of them, and I’m still really scared I wouldn’t recognize some of the more subtle ones (the yellow cards?). But here are the ones I listed in my journal the other day:
—speaking disrespectfully to his mother and an ex-girlfriend on the phone
—calling all of his ex-girlfriends (ALL of them) “crazy”
—lying about raping an ex-girlfriend and getting her pregnant (I know, how did I miss that one? Well, because when he revealed the lie he just lied again and said the rape was a false accusation [even though the university made a report and he had to go to mandated sexual aggression therapy], and he got really sad-sausagey because his Ex-girlfriend aborted his baby, so I ended up comforting him instead of throwing him out on his ear).
—fits of rage over really minor shit like being a few minutes late to a concert
—yelling at me and calling me names after only a few months of sleeping together
—taking things out of my hands and moving me around physically; this went with a nasty tendency to do what he wanted to me sexually and ignore if I were in pain unless I yelled at him and told him to stop.
—changing moods like a switch was flipped: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
There were more, but these were enough, and now that I look at the list, I think I wouldn’t miss this stuff again. Some of it’s pretty flagrant….

Okupin
Okupin
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Thank you. I’m learning to be glad about it, too, a year post-divorce (1.5 years post d-day). Your site and book have been tremendously helpful: wish I found them a little earlier…would have handled the discard much better and saved myself a lot of unnecessary pain. But your good counsel still helped me get my head screwed on straight in the months that followed and really speeded up my recovery—and I was able to point a friend to your site right away when her husband did the exact same thing to her a few months after my d-day. Thank you so much for everything you do.

Mutha
Mutha
3 years ago

Phone hiding, porn watching, huge video game addiction. Substance use/abuse.

Yas
Yas
3 years ago
Reply to  Mutha

Phone hiding, porn watching, video game addiction, found his AP on the same game… Wow!

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago

His momentary flare of suspicion that, when I ran out of gas next to a freeway ramp one night a few weeks after we’d started dating, it was my attempt to play damsel in distress. It was a surprising flash of cynicism that didn’t jibe with the rest of his self presentation at the time. Difficult to explain– a cold, hard look. Then poof, it was gone. But apparently I didn’t imagine it because I saw that shark face again during the DARVO stage before D-Day when my health fell apart and my weight dropped to a BMI of 17. Seems I was just faking for effect.

Maybe the fact that I ran out of gas in the first place was a red flag– rare event. I should have asked myself what was soaking up my bandwidth. Intuition?

Tbone
Tbone
3 years ago

The Rev Cheaterpants frequently came off as obnoxious and/or basically a jerk on first impression. His MO typically was to say outrageous things to get a reaction or argue or ask people questions that they clearly felt uncomfortable answering.

Very early on in our dating, the he told me that it didn’t matter if a woman (although he probably said “girl”) didn’t like him when she first met him, because women would only remember that they had a strong reaction to meeting him, not what it actually was. So on those subsequent meetings, I guess he could work his wiles.

Basically, he’d rather be disliked than ignored, he thinks women are idiots, and he’s telling his girlfriend how he picks up chicks.

I used to make excuses for him (“I’ve toned him down—a lot”), now this is so blissfully not my problem. But boy howdy. What a red flag

Mary
Mary
3 years ago

He had so many extremely close female friends. So, so many. And they were always talking on the phone or texting or going out together for coffee or dinner. Without me, of course.

For the first 10 years of our marriage, I thought this showed that he was a truly caring, sensitive man. Someone who was always there to support his friends. A feminist.

Yeah, I was an idiot.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago
Reply to  Mary

Yeah the female coworkers needing career tips and the recently divorced female coworkers who shared their sexual exploits with him and others. During my hospital stay after a c-section with our 2nd child, I remember one of his female coworkers bringing a handmade baby blanket to the hospital. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors especially people I had never met before! She later remarried and moved out of state. But hey maybe during my pregnancy they fooled around and they both got some duper’s delight from the hospital visit. I would have never thought a thing back then but now nothing surprises me.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago
Reply to  Mary

Idiot or just blissfully missing the jealousy bug?

So many chump traits, if they existed in a better world, would be ideal.

JO
JO
3 years ago
Reply to  Mary

I did the same thing with spackling the friendships with women. I actually did not want to appear insecure and told myself he’s just different than other guys and can relate to women so well. Yikes

Zip
Zip
3 years ago
Reply to  JO

Mine also only connected with women, zero male friends. I didn’t think this meant anything besides not being a guy’s guy – he was never out and about with them or talking to them on the phone. What is with only having friends with the gender you’re sexually attracted to?

LezChump
LezChump
3 years ago
Reply to  Zip

Yeah – this issue was a real problem for me, since my STBX and I are both women. Most of our friends are also women. BUT, I’m not romantically attracted to any of the women I’m close friends with! My STBX, on the other hand, couldn’t make that distinction and had terrible boundaries (as you can expect). I now call them “affair-lite” friendships – even if they were not actively exchanging romantic language, they were still emotionally intense friendships with people to whom STBX was attracted. After her second “hot” affair, she admitted to crushing on her “best friend” for a while, no doubt devaluing next all the while, until she finally convinced herself that picking up a stranger in a bar would be preferable to actually telling me the truth about how she was feeling.

So yeah, intense friendships with someone spouse could be attracted to, are a huge red flag.

LezChump
LezChump
3 years ago
Reply to  LezChump

Sorry, *devaluing me all the while

ChumpDownUnder
ChumpDownUnder
3 years ago
Reply to  Zip

Mine too. Only women friends. And very touchy feely with them. I thought it was because he was in touch with his feminine side. What a fool I was

Zip
Zip
3 years ago
Reply to  ChumpDownUnder

Yes, touchy feely…. I felt like a tight ass pointing out how touchy he was with women and questioning why he felt the need to have his hand on a woman’s back for the entire conversation. I thought I was the one with the issue.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

Red flags while dating:

Number 2: He criticized me for not even trying to wear sexy lingerie for him. I was only 22 and a runner. Guess my naked body wasn’t enough. I stormed out of his apartment. But I couldn’t leave because he hid my keys and my purse. We argued and then had sex. The pattern was set.

Number 3: He threw a fit that I wouldn’t have oral sex when he had an active herpes outbreak.

Number 4: He got angry that I didn’t visit him enough. He lived 30 mins away. I worked full time. Had to wake up early…He didn’t care!

Number 5: He said, “You don’t do anything for me,” while I was nursing him after an eye injury.

Number 6: He asked how I would rate myself in terms of looks.

And chumpy me, married that man. Looking back at these (and so many other instances) makes me sad for my former self (and a little pissed at her).

I’ll stop….

But let all of our red flags serve as PSAs for those who are not yet married. Run away now if you see these and all the other red flags described on this site.

Gettingthereslowly
Gettingthereslowly
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

This one hurts to answer because my picker was clearly broken. On our first date, I remember him looking over my shoulder the whole time at other people in the restaurant. After we’d been dating about 2 months, he excitedly shared that he had filmed a session for a video dating program he had “paid for before he met me.” I should have walked away at that point.

I was always a step behind and loving more from our first date. Twenty one years and two kids later, he left us with a text for a woman half our age with whom he’d had a one night stand with on a business trip in China, and managed to bring her to the States so she could go to college and be with him. (He was 50 at the time and she was not his first business trip side dish).

I’m a different person than that young woman who thought I was lucky to be with this handsome but “slightly” selfish man. If I ever get the chance to be with someone again, I won’t settle for less than reciprocity and care.

AimingforMeh
AimingforMeh
3 years ago

Agreed, on one of our first dates my ex (rather proudly) admitted that he’d cheated on every one of his long-term girlfriends. He said he felt guilty about it but was also surprised at how easy it was.
Red flag anyone? I told myself our relationship was ‘special’ and it wouldn’t happen to me. Lol.
Other red flags (apart from the gaslighting and occasional abuse) included discarding his friends and family and not having any long-term sustained relationships of depth apart from myself. The pattern of love-bombing, de-value and discard was evident across many of his relationships. Makes me wonder what’s in store for our beautiful son.

Gettingthereslowly
Gettingthereslowly
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Yep. I was at Safeway with my 10 year old daughter. She said, “Mom, you need to look at your phone.“ Left our cart sitting in the bread aisle to get home to my 12 year old son who was home alone.

I’ve spent the last 6 years trying to help my adopted kids heal from that abandonment. To this day, better keep texts short or they won’t read them due to triggering.

Ex lives a thousand miles away with his child bride and I’ve had the kids full time since that day in Safeway. Sigh. What a sad excuse for a man.

NeverSawitComing
NeverSawitComing
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

ManChild ended our nearly 20 year marriage with a text message
the text also had a “joke” (to him anyways) about how he was doing me this big favor of ending my hopes of reconciling.
“Classy” to the end!

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

What a chicken shit !

The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
3 years ago

Yeah, I got the looking over my shoulder when out with him. He also flirted with every female server we ever had, and it used to annoy me that he’d be done eating and flirting while I was trying to decide whether it was impolite to eat my dinner while he was “chatting” with the server or whether I should just let it get cold. Big red flag — he wasn’t paying any attention to me on our dates.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Spinach– What was red flag #1??

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

Number one was treating his mom like shit.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Spinach– Oh, from your earlier post, thanks.

Did his mother just roll over and take it or did she turn around and pass the aggression buck, taking it out on others?

The former is tragic and the latter is sickening. I had always wished my FW had been harder on his mommy narc instead of drifting off and spacing out every time she aimed her hatchet at my head.

I did notice how his mother and sister– who hated me in this lurking, passive aggressive way from day one, much like Chris Watts’ mother and sister hated Shanann– let FW man-splain everything to them in a blathering, blustering, asshole voice. They would just soak it up like entrhralled puppets.

Back when we were really young and he was just starting his career and “shy,” the behavior really stood out. I thought it was an anomaly. I used to tease him about it– that I didn’t appreciate his family helping him hone his most obnoxious trait.

The women in the family giving him alpha elbow room wasn’t for free though. In exchange, they expected a free pass to meddle with me and the children, sort of hijacking top dog posts in the lower order “female hierarchy” that often exists within weirdly patriarchal families.

I’m sort of a natural social anarchist and never understood the suck-up/slap-down game. I once repeated to FW mum something a friend had said– that one good reason to never take shit is because it ultimately turns you into a buck-passing bitch. I think I put it more politely than that. Little did I know that FW mum’s NGO job entailed fluttering around and flattering epically evil, global level narcissists and power mongers. Naturally she took what I said as an affront.

Reason #2 to not eat shit for a living– turning sons into buck-passing bitches who compensate for how puny they feel in the accepted pecking order by taking out their aggression on designated lesser beings.

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
3 years ago

Thanks for bringing up the buck passing of abuse. Dr. Drew Pinsky referred to it as the two sides of the abuse coin. It’s been mentioned on this blog in terms of parents falling short with their kids because the other parent is a narcissistic abuser.
I noticed this disturbing interpersonal dynamic between my mother (a chump who was discarded by my father) and some of her “friends”, women who stayed with their cheating husbands. They either used her or were condescending. I saw their behavior as stemming from envy that she was free. One of the women was in a second marriage and her husband had adopted her son. Guess she didn’t want to be seen as a two time “failure”. And the other woman was abandoned by her own father, taken in by an uncle who sexually abused her and she didn’t have any job skills. She stayed for a lifestyle of the one percent $$$.
I was a narc magnet and one loser I dated flew into a rage over the phone once. His housemates’ teenage son (who played video games all the time) accessed loser’s bank account and stole $1,000 to gamble. I had been on loser’s computer earlier that day so he phoned me with accusations. When I told him I did no such thing, he screamed “You’re right ! You’re too stupid !” I didn’t yell back, just calmly responded “Why don’t you direct your anger at the appropriate person” and hung up on him. This is a man who had been in therapy for ten years. Supposedly.
I attended a presentation by Dr. George Simon. During the q&a session after, one of the attendees (a therapist) spoke of a client who survived the concentration camp during WWII by “licking up and kicking down”. Survival mode that haunted him decades later.
I have compassion for myself. I knew what I knew then and now I expect reciprocity and respect.
Hugs to all of you

Justleft
Justleft
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Yes this!! Expecting his mum to cater to his every need then when she was ill, resenting every visit.

Sue_W
Sue_W
3 years ago

Exactly my thought!?! Frankly, the herpes would have been a deal breaker from the get-go!

Sous-vide
Sous-vide
3 years ago
Reply to  Sue_W

Hey, maybe no herpes-shaming. Some of us good people end up with it and are not serial cheaters.

PathOfTotality
PathOfTotality
3 years ago
Reply to  Sous-vide

That’s right, Sous-vide. Herpes-shaming just shows people’s ignorance and judgment about the disease.

Now, trying to demand that someone have sex with you when you have an active outbreak, like Spinach’s husband did? That’s different.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Sue_W

I know. Right? Ugh.

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
3 years ago

During our first date, I asked her (jokingly): “So, why is it you don’t already have a boyfriend” and she answered “I do!”

I called a halt to our dating, but she convinced me that he wasn’t a “real” boyfriend (he’s not right for me – you’re so much better; I just need to wait until I can see him in person to break up; he’s unstable and I’m afraid about what he’ll do if I tell him). Those turned out to be exactly the reasons she gave for her affair, 25 years later.

Like many of my interactions with XW, I used to tell this as a cute story about us (I know, I know) but I now recognize it as a very early reveal of a very deep character flaw. I rationalized it away as cultural differences, but this was pure self-justification on my part (I didn’t fully understand that the date I’d asked her on was so expensive and romantic, because it wasn’t my home country), and totally ludicrous on her part (she was well aware of the nature of our date, plus of course she knew full well that she was already dating someone else). All I can say is, I was young and stupid and I have since paid for my naïveté in spades.

I’ll do better in my next life.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago

Involuntary Georgian,

I turned a lot of my ex’s red flags into jokes, too. Humor was a good spackling agent for me.

Example: While showing the kids pics of our honeymoon, I would say, “Here are pics of Dad on our honeymoon.” There were hardly any pics of me. “Here’s dad snorkeling. Here’s dad driving a mini moke.” I made a joke of it. hahaha…not.

NeverSawitComing
NeverSawitComing
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Yes – what is it with the pictures? I have pictures of 20 years of my life that include LOADS of pictures of HIM doing things and about 20 pictures of me total. Perhaps it is a reflection of their narcissism that they expect to be IN all the photos but would never think of taking one or of asking someone to take a photo of the two of you together.

The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants
3 years ago

I have the same thing — all the marvelous trips we took, and there are maybe five or six photos of me and hundreds of him!

So Done
So Done
3 years ago

Me too. And like Spinach, my Ex used to take unflattering candids of me. I have always wondered if he took those photos to share with the OW and laugh. What a sicko.

Skunkcabbage
Skunkcabbage
3 years ago

Not long ago I tried on line dating (ugh) and when building my profile I discovered that had NO decent pictures of myself. The few pics that XAss took of me I swear he purposely took to make me look as horrible as possible (bad camera angles, body positions, lighting). Yet I would be expected to take many, many pictures of him at any one time to be sure we got the best shot.

We are just bit players in their starring role, and god forbid we should upstage them.

LezChump
LezChump
3 years ago
Reply to  Skunkcabbage

I was the family photographer. So, not a lot of pics of me, either. STBX was super-picky about photos of her (we’re both women) – she has a lot of body-image issues. But I made sure to select only the best shots to share, or Photoshop obvious issues to make STBX (and others) look better. Very rarely would she thank me for my sensitivity and skillz: I guess she thought they just came along with the spouse appliance. Talk about spackling!

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Skunkcabbage

Bit players indeed!

In the end, mine, who rarely took pics of me, started to whip out his phone to take unflattering candids while I was mid-bite etc… WTF? Did he share these with the OW and laugh with her? Sick and childish!

Also in the end, when he knew he was about to fess up, he asked me to take pictures of him with our grandchild who was about 6 mos at the time. I remember the scene so well because he insisted on multiple photos–one with her wearing the new little furry vest she’d received and one without. I remember wondering, “Since when does he give a rat’s ass about how a baby is dressed?” And “Why the hell is he so intent on pics of himself with her?”

His smile in those pics makes my toes curl. Oh and the dead-eyed, far-off stare, too. He didn’t (couldn’t!) look at the camera directly. What a tell!

Anyway, the message to Schmoopie and whoever else received these photos was, “Look at me!!! I’m a great granddad!”

His level of cluelessness about the consequences of his behavior reveals itself in his assumption that he and schmoopie would babysit post D-Day. Babysit!! “This is just between your mother and me, ” he intoned.

Not so fast!

My adult daughter (and mother of the baby) has gone no contact. What was he thinking?

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Me too. I have another story I used to tell (essentially a “clueless father” story about me not understanding how to use conditioner on my 2-year-old my daughter’s hair) as an amusing anecdote. It wasn’t until after XW left me that I realized that another implication of the story was that my XW had never given my daughter a bath. It was actually a good “clueless single father” story; its only flaw is that I was actually married.

Bek
Bek
3 years ago

Viagra
A text message that said “I love you”
Being gone overnight on Valentines Day yet “making it up” with me on the next day, February 15
Taking a lasagna out of our freezer to feed “the guys” while they played cards. Men hanging out together don’t bake a lasagna! They grill or order pizza… He was feeding her family!
Leaving me alone on my 40th birthday during a pandemic
Not visiting his mother on her deathbed

Mitz
Mitz
3 years ago
Reply to  Bek

OMG Bek. He is a really creep.

Leslie
Leslie
3 years ago

About six weeks into our relationship, I came down with the flu. He came over to take care of me. I remember taking NyQuil then passing out on the couch until the next day. A few days later, I was looking for a certain website and went to the history tab on my iMac. Low & behold there were listings for “back page”- not knowing what that was, I clicked on them. Turns out, he was responding to ads to be a “third” for threesomes and sh*t. I confronted him – emailed him the proof – then dumped him.

A week later I took him back. His excuse? “I don’t know why I did it – you saw that no one responded – I didn’t do anything, have no clue why I went there other than I’m used to being single and did it out of curiosity.”

I took him back. I married him a year later. Six years into our marriage, I found out that he was having an online affair using Snapchat & Instagram with a girl who lived in Oklahoma (he used to work with her ex-husband years earlier which is how they were ‘facebook friends’). I started looking for a new apartment, but after the hordes of flowers, expensive purses, and shit – I gave in. Why did I change my mind?

“Give me the rest of my life to make it up to you.” –Asshat

Well, he didn’t “actually” have sex with her – all via text, pics, and such, right???

Exactly two years later: he had an 8 week affair with MY BEST FRIEND. Ah, there it is. The Jerry Springer episode! He ruined six peoples’ lives (she was married with two children, too) – all for a few booty calls. I may have a eventually took him back. But, it was my daughter (who was 21) who looked him in the eye (while I was crying my heart out) and asked, “Why are you still here????”

Suddenly – I snapped out of it. I was done with his sorry ass & thank God for her! She had the strength when I had ZERO. I made him leave at that instant. I’m so happy for finding your book & blog – and it helped immensely.

He didn’t become a better husband – he became a better cheater. Ten years wasted, but the one thing I learned:

He was NEVER the person he projected. The person he pretended to be would have never done those awful things. He was always a POS pretending to be a great guy.

It’s been 18 months ~ and I’m happier than I’ve ever been!

This is the only blog that I follow and need :).

ThursdaysChild
ThursdaysChild
3 years ago
Reply to  Leslie

Omgoodness, my eldest son 20 said the same thing only to me while pointing at his father, “Why is he still here?” I forgot about that until I read this.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago
Reply to  Leslie

“better cheater”

I have recently read a multiyear blog about a woman whose husband rev ealed a year long affair. The blog was about her and him working to rebuild their marriage, even with the reality of an affair child.

Though I didn’t try to reconcile with my ex after the one week he asked for and treated me like crap; still I was curious on how this worked for those who did. More of my research while in lock down. 🙂

Anyway, I went through fourish years of their journey, and frankly I was pleasantly surprised at their growth and their story of saving a marriage. As it got to the end the posts became less frequent, which you would expect. Then after about a year a new post, and yep he had another one, she did a last post and admitted he had evidently lied his way through the recon, I feel so sorry for her.

I just wonder what the real story is on reconcilliations of these sorts. Of course some have to work, but how many.

It is much like the stories of cheaters and schmoopies who marry, yes of course some have to be successful; but if the real story is known, how many really are?

It just seems that overwhelmingly like it or not, folks just don’t change who they are.

FreeWoman
FreeWoman
3 years ago
Reply to  Leslie

I love your daughter! She knew you needed protection, good for her. Gives me hope for the young women today.

I Survived a Sociopath
I Survived a Sociopath
3 years ago
Reply to  Leslie

“He didn’t become a better husband – he became a better cheater.”

^^^ this, and I experienced it for over 31 years ^^^

So Done
So Done
3 years ago

Me too. My Ex improved his cheating skills over time.

Magically Chumplicious
Magically Chumplicious
3 years ago

I didn’t take him seriously when he said he lies for sport and that bending the truth to the “technical truth” (ie., lies of omission or “you just didn’t ask specifically enough”) was a game to him.

His mommy issues hid deep seated misogyny and contempt for women. Donating to the domestic violence shelter didn’t make up for that.

Actions not matching words.

The constant comparisons to everything about everything, but specifically to his exes. I didn’t realize that’s a narcissist thing – triangulation – and a toxic form of manipulation. And it meant he was always on the hunt for something “better.”

The list of red flags is quite long, but what I most lament is that I ignored my instincts in the beginning that this was too good to be true. It was setting of alarm bells in my head and I just chalked it up to be being afraid to get into another relationship again. Ugh. I knew!

Anastasia
Anastasia
3 years ago

Follow

NoMoreRedFlags
NoMoreRedFlags
3 years ago

He didn’t actually even propose. He introduced me to his boss as his fiancé at a Christmas party… and then I had to buy my own ring.
He couldn’t stand things staying the same. New cars every 2 years, the furniture would constantly get rearranged… moved 15 times in 7 years….
Apparently he couldn’t stand staying with the same woman either. Always needed to be praised and bragged about to my family and would give me the silent treatment for days if I went “off script”.
Don’t know that I’d ever realized how bad it was until I finally left and eventually met my Mr. CL. Good people ARE out there. Not even a yellow tinged flag in almost 4 years.

Yas
Yas
3 years ago
Reply to  NoMoreRedFlags

Oh my God!!! Is that a red flag? I thought it’s just an ocd thing to rearrange furniture or buy a phone every year. I did agree with him in finding the environment ‘new and fresh’ after the furniture was rearranged. I once dislocated my shoulder pushing our bed once. He would always go for brand new things for himself and I would buy second hand to save money. Oh God!!!

Emma C
Emma C
3 years ago

I married a widow — 35 years of marriage til death did them part. I saw it as a sign of a successful marriage.

Red flag I ignored:
Q: Your wife painted such beautiful things — where was her studio?
A: I don’t really know.

Found out later from her best friend that she painted and neatly packed away her supplies to store them at at a secret storage room the best friend rented for her.

Chump_Dog
Chump_Dog
3 years ago

I was in the Marines. My fiancée was still at the U. On Leave, a friend told me she had stayed overnight in my best friend’s dorm room at another U nearby. I inquired, she and BF had the same story – she missed her ride home, but there was no sex. (Klaxon Horn – Major Red Flag). I overlooked the red flag because I didn’t want it to be true. Big mistake. Four months later, she and her parents came to visit me. When they were leaving, she said, “I’m pregnant and it’s not yours. I’m so sorry”. To say I felt like the world’s most foolish chump would be an understatement. I eventually got over it, but it left a scar.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Chump_Dog

OMG! I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. Of course it left a scar! She’s awful.

And I can relate to this: “I overlooked the red flag because I didn’t want it to be true.” Pretty much sums it up for me.

Shintoga
Shintoga
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Same thing for me, with the only (long distance) boyfriend I know for sure cheated on me – got a text apparently meant for someone else saying “my girlfriend works as a nurse” (or along those lines). Stupidly replied to correct him that I was a care assistant, didn’t hear back. But later, got texts back from his number signed off with a girl’s name, and then came the cruel discard of him saying he never asked me out. I still had the message asking me to be his gf, though!

Dare
Dare
3 years ago

He was hesitant to give me the Apple ID password to access iTunes. I had to drag it out of him which at the time was weird. Changed his phone password. Never left his phone unattended.

Had to have weekly massages for his bad back. Refused to see another massage therapist because apparently only she could relieve his pain. Turns out he was screwing her.

In retrospect, I couldn’t figure out why after a year and a half his back wasn’t getting any better! It wasn’t his back she was working on!

Samsara
Samsara
3 years ago
Reply to  Dare

The massage therapist was working on hers though…

chirral
chirral
3 years ago

The one I should of paid attention to:

When we were first dating and introducing each other to our respective families there was tension between himself and his brother. Eventually I found out why. About 3 years prior, his brother had been enagaged with the wedding less than 2 weeks away. Brother, fuckwit, and fiance went out for a drink. For some reason brother had to unexpectedly leave. Fuckwit and fiance stayed at bar and then they left and did the fuckwit thing.
I don’t know why this red flag did stop me in my tracks. This complete blowing up of boundaries was repeated years later when as a college prof he f**cked one of his undergrad students and knocked her up.

Missed that flag.

Marzy-d
Marzy-d
3 years ago
Reply to  chirral

He fucked his brother’s fiance 2 weeks before the wedding? Thats not a red flag, thats a nuclear bomb.

Meg
Meg
3 years ago
Reply to  Marzy-d

One thing I’ve noticed about cheaters is that they are always competing. They have a lot of rage/hostility lurking and then they do something to show who is “The Best.” It doesn’t surprise me that he fucked his brother’s fiancee two weeks before the wedding. He had sibling rivalry that never ended. And once they marry us/ make a commitment, then we get to be the one they compete with. They have to feel better than everyone. I think that my XH cheated when he gradually wised up to the fact that I was winning every competition without realizing we were competing: better spouse, better parent, better daughter, better worker etc. He had to find someone he could go out and feel superior to. For him to be one- up, someone has to be one-down. That’s why they never trade UP!

Epictetus
Epictetus
3 years ago
Reply to  Meg

Meg, Yes! They are driven by Envy and must compete in all things, even the most trivial. It’s exhausting to be around.

So Done
So Done
3 years ago
Reply to  Meg

“And once they marry us/ make a commitment, then we get to be the one they compete with. They have to feel better than everyone. I think that my XH cheated when he gradually wised up to the fact that I was winning every competition without realizing we were competing: better spouse, better parent, better daughter, better worker etc. He had to find someone he could go out and feel superior to. For him to be one- up, someone has to be one-down. That’s why they never trade UP!”

This ^^^^^^^^^^ 1000 times over

My Ex was ALWAYS competing with me, but I never realized we were competing. I too “won” all of the competitions. And so, he kept having affairs with women to whom he felt superior. What a Loser.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago
Reply to  So Done

Right. After the discard, I was on the phone with my friend and she said it was like he was competing with me. I had no idea until then that yes it was like I was the opponent who had to be defeated. I had the better job and I started a biz that was bringing in $. So all he could do was come up with an exit affair for the win.

No Shit Cupcakes
No Shit Cupcakes
3 years ago

“Every healthy relationship possess a small degree of spackle. You overlook the bad morning breath, the way she leaves her shoes everywhere, how he drives 10 miles under the speed limit. You forgive. You’re a little deaf when she natters on about pinecone elves.”

I call it “Selective Deafness”. But it applies to the little things that aren’t particularly important.

Spackle is reserved for damage and structural flaws.

Granny K
Granny K
3 years ago

He didn’t drink all the time, but when he did he couldn’t stop till he was absolutely hammered.
He stayed out till five in the morning “with the guys“ and slept in the car because “you wouldn’t want me to drive home drunk would you“. (In hindsight it would be highly likely anyone would sleep in the car in November in the Midwest and not freeze.)

vee
vee
3 years ago
Reply to  Granny K

Same problem here. He wouldn’t drink every day, but when he started and that often lead to poor impulse control, such a drunk driving, disappearing for hours and not taking my calls whenever he didn’t even let me know he’d go out drinking, deny every time I caught him drunk, coming back at 2 am without his keys and getting me out of bed to let him in because he had lost keys/coat/bag while he was drunk and somehow it kept happening.

The way he would spin it to me is that since we were from different cultures (he’s British and I’m from Europe and in my country we drink wine with food, we don’t really have a drinking culture unless you’re young and don’t have a family), I just didn’t get it. Mind you that he was doing all these things even when I was a young mum alone with a baby with no support because my family lived in my home country.

I remember always being super upset about these behaviours, but because he was kind in other ways I stayed. It was silly. Drinking wasn’t even all he was doing, he was having hook ups and affairs with all sorts of people (and I didn’t even know he was bisexual). Looking back it was a big mistake, I would avoided myself a lot of pain if I had left in the early years, rather than staying with him for 17 years while he clearly did not respect me.

ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
3 years ago
Reply to  Granny K

Oh I had that excuse once from my STBXW. She was sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and returning at 4 or 5am. I said where the hell where you on one occasion. She stated she just sat in the car park at Walmart all night on her own. This was in Wisconsin in January where it was 30 below.

Edith Lundquist
Edith Lundquist
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

yes, this!

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
3 years ago

Either he slept in the car or the “I left my phone in the car” Riiight…

Yas
Yas
3 years ago

He once left his phone at home, and was in a mad hurry to get home.

Another time he left it at home and completely peaceful without it. Until he was home, he did look tensed.

Mindf***

She Won't Even Notice!
She Won't Even Notice!
3 years ago

Sexually harassing a teenaged coworker while I was heavily pregnant SHOULD have been a red flag, but I was a fucking idiot.

Divorce Minister
Divorce Minister
3 years ago

Early in our dating life, she recieved a gift from a guy “friend” from home. I should have known then that she was fine with keeping multiple guys around feeding her ego kibbles.

Chumpawumba
Chumpawumba
3 years ago

Criticising my choice of clothes/shoes/going to a top university. “Forgetting” to pick me up when he said he’d give me a ride to work, so I had to run for the train. Twice (I said nothing). Smoking weed to a point of stupefaction most evenings and taking monthly nights out with a supposedly recovering addict friend to “party” with the harder stuff (friend subsequently died of an overdose).

Making rude comments about my friends and family. Making sexualised comments about me in front of his and my family (his family laughed). Laughing about falling asleep on an ex while she was performing oral sex on him. Calling his other ex crazy and always ill (she had a serious genetic condition – we are now friends and she is a smart and funny woman).

Piles of unpaid parking tickets and regular speeding fines. Cheating on his taxes. “Once” going to a prostitute “for a bet”. Porn addiction, including racking up a £500 bill in three months while I was working a minimum wage job and not even breaking even on my living costs. Telling me other women had “quality tits” when he knew I was insecure about my AAs.

In the first week, lifting my skirt up in the park in front of a group of seniors so they all saw my underwear. He lived in a windowless room with no furniture when we met and was not even paying rent to his friend who owned the apartment. Very sketchy on his childhood and would never admit how weird his relationship was with his mother. Hasn’t made a single new friend since the age of 12 who’s stayed in his life for more than a couple of years. Obsessed with soccer hooliganism. Yet somehow he convinced me I was lucky to have him. I developed anxiety, depression, OCD and panic attacks, as well as all kind of weird physical ailments during the relationship but never connected it to him.

22 years later, after many years of him working abroad and being “forced” to stay away over the weekend, I found out he’d been cheating on me for 14 years of our 15 year marriage and had been leading a double life for seven years. He pretended to the OW he was divorced and living in an apartment she was not allowed to visit and that his parents didn’t want to meet her because she’d broken up his marriage. When I found out, he gave me her number so I could call her and tell her the news he was still married. Two weeks later, she took him back.

Well guess what? It’s 18 months since D-Day when I kicked him out and the parents still haven’t met her, he never dares mention her to them (his dad calls him Walter Mitty) and his new city is about to go into COVID lockdown for a very long time. And I shall shortly be walking away with a tidy sum to start my new life.

Yas
Yas
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

This post is helping me recall so many. The first thing he told me when I got engaged to him, “you are so lucky”.

YouCantPolishATurd
YouCantPolishATurd
3 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

????

Teri
Teri
3 years ago

I repeated to him something his mother said to me, and asked that he not tell her I told him. As soon as we hung up the phone, he phoned her and told her what I told him.

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
3 years ago

My contributions to:
The Field Guide to Red Flags and Spackle.
Chump Nation, Editor.

– Made fun of me constantly
– Would say nothing when jerk brother would be petty and rude to me
– Would make a scene to make me pay for restaurants, parking, movies (unless there was someone to impress nearby, then he would pay for everyone in spite of being in debt, the reason he was being so petty about the normal outings of a couple who had been married for 39 years)
-Would demoralize me when having issues with discipline for sons (and did not care about giving them a bad example and reinforcing bad behavior)
– While innocently using sparkledick’s computer, found porn on it and he blamed sons
– Refused to show me his pay check and bank accounts so we could figure out together why we were always in debt (I wasn’t, but he was, but spackly chump here thought she was doing something wrong)
– Took out a consigned loan on MY paycheck and LIED to me that it was NOT him, that chump here was disorganized with $ and chump here made a big stink with the bank manager who showed her the ID of person taking out the loan and chump slunk out of the bank mortified
– Bellowed in chump’s ear that he was a failure and that it was chump’s fault
– Was working very hard almost every weekend
– Would never answer phone calls

WiserChump
WiserChump
3 years ago

The realtionship started on his terms, because he had young kids and wanted to take it slow…as in I did not meet his kids for FIVE YEARS. Also used words to describe himself like ‘scammer’, ‘devious’, which I took to as him being too hard on himself. Once he told me that he asked me to marry him because he didnt want to lose me, now I see those words in a different light… “I wanted you around”, not “I wanted to share myself, my life with you”.
Like many chumps, I saw all of the good in him, I still miss those things and the husband that I married (the one in my heart and in my head). So sad that he threw it away, because I loved him so very much.

JO
JO
3 years ago

We dated for a few months and he was a nice guy and didn’t attempt to sleep with me too soon. We took things slowly and I found it refreshing. When the time came to finally get it on, he couldn’t get an erection. Like never. So we part ways and that was that.

A couple of years later we reconnect (stupid me but he was so NICE). We finally have normal sex and he says he couldn’t get it up in the past because he had a porn addiction that he had now recovered from. Well he never had erection issues after this and I got pregnant but the porn addiction that was so severe that it caused erectile dysfunction was a huge red flag. His “addiction” has progressed into sleeping with the older neighbor woman while I was pregnant to hiring transexual escorts. I put addiction in quotes because I think it’s more about his personality disorder than an addiction. However, his sister is a heroin addict so there is that genetic component. Anyhow, I’m not a prude but porn will be a no for me in future relationships.

JO
JO
3 years ago
Reply to  JO

Also his phone was always face down. I noticed this early on and after some tequila one night I was like “you know only shady people always have their phone face down right?” His response “oh I guess it’s just a habit, I never realized” LOL gosh I feel dumb

Eve
Eve
3 years ago

He was 26. He lived with his parents. He had no job. He told me he wasn’t ready to get married.

Reader, I married him anyway.

Meg
Meg
3 years ago
Reply to  Eve

I’m glad you kept your sense of humor! It’s the only thing that got me through.

Adelante
Adelante
3 years ago

Humor as spackling agent. Great observation.

For me, assigning edginess/unconventionality to my ex’s actions was my go-to spackle. Instead of seeing his actions as reasons to run, I saw them as evidence that he was an unconventional type with an “artistic temperament,” and at the time, the last thing I wanted was a conventional life. I was foolish enough not to see that most of these actions revealed his elevation of his own sexual gratification.

So, for just one example: when he was in college, he slept with the married secretary of the department in the discipline in which he was majoring. The woman’s husband caught them in the shower and landed a punch on my near-sighted ex’s chin that left a scar. I used to tell this story as an instance of the wild things my husband had got up to in his youth. It should be noted that his father was a professor in this department–and that his father had left the family ten years before for a graduate student he’d been shtupping.

Adelante
Adelante
3 years ago
Reply to  Adelante

This was supposed to nest under Involuntary Georgian’s response, but the site crashed and I lost my place in the queue.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago

follow

Quetzal
Quetzal
3 years ago

Took his phone in the bathroom or otherwise kept him in his PJ pocket around the house and slept with his face inches from it (this was after busting him once).
Extremely defensive about it
Had FB but didn’t appear active at all for years (he claimed he just scrolled through it – lies – he was posting things so all his coworkers would read and reply, but not me)
Had no signal “at the gym”
The biggest of all: we went to live together and instead of being “newlyweds” he withdrew sexually. He was always “too tired – from work”. Sounds about right he was!!!
He would pick fights out of nowhere on weekend mornings while we had breakfast together. Never understood that one, as we would then spend to weekend together and it wasn’t ruined necessarily, but I guess in his mind he had to find ways to distance himself from me when together.

This was 50% but the other 50%, Im sorry to report, was behavior that had a perfectly good explanation, like evening or weekend shifts at work, going out to do shopping/errands, lunch breaks, times of the day when he was home but I wasn’t. Those were all times he used for his cheating behavior.

ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
ChumpyNoLoveYouLongTime
3 years ago
Reply to  Quetzal

My STBXW was the same with her phone. She use to leave phone sitting out and I knew the passcode. Then everything changed and she started keeping it on her at all times, changed passcode regular, even took phone with her to any room she went to in the house, kept it on silent and always face down. She really never wanted me to find the 15 men she was daily sexting or the one guy she was having an affair with. So glad the trash is gone.

CheaterDefeater
CheaterDefeater
3 years ago

When I started seeing ex-bf, I had seeing a counselor and told counselor about ex-bf Email address having a fake name and him lying about what city he lived in. Counselor encouraged me to see red flags and dump him, but I stupidly dropped the counselor instead. One year into relationship found dating profiles and Craigslist ads for sex. Believed nothing happened, he was just looking. Thought couples counseling worked. Invested another 5,5 years to finally do something about the parade of red flags waiving. Dumped him. So must happier not dating.

Kim
Kim
3 years ago

Mine threw me under the bus to placate his ex wife early on, then hired her as his realtor without speaking to me when WE were going house shopping because he “didn’t want to upset her”. From there everything had to be about image management and kissing his ex wife and daughter’s ass….i didn’t factor into anything.

Ironically she didn’t even turn out to be the real problem…..that was his ex skank gf who he kept around our entire relationship even as she made it to her 5th marriage.

And he was supremely conflict avoidant so nothing uncomfortable was to be discussed. Sports and the weather were ok but anything else made his majesty uncomfortable. He’d do passive aggressive shit like mutter nasty comments under his breath or walk behind me and change the thermostat then play dumb. It was very important that whatever douchbag thing he did be something he could deny and/or play dumb about because he didn’t have the balls to own anything he did.

And he didn’t have any patience for my then little kids. He wasn’t abusive…just nasty. He was in their lives for 13 years and now at 19 and 17 they never even ask about him….it’s like he never existed…that’s how little he means to them.

It’s unfortunate because he’s alone. He has one daughter who lives out of state and is generally self absorbed, and his two brothers live on the opposite coast. If he’d had any kind of relationship with my kids he might have two more adults that give a shit about him.

Oh well….not my circus anymore.

I will say that my biggest regret is not finding someone that bonded with my boys and I have apologized to them for that. Fortunately we are close and they forgive me. My only excuse is that their father was abusive and after that anyone who isn’t openly an asshole seems pretty good. I didn’t tell them that last part because he’s their fatger, and he and i get along well these days (he quit drinking). I should’ve spent more time single after that.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
3 years ago

– Moving super fast and/or “lovebombing”, especially when combined with “just coming out of a bad relationship” or being “pursued by” a person described as “crazy” or a “stalker”

– Showing intense interest in things that require others to work hard to accommodate the interest

– Having no respect for my time (which can include being late to important things, but also extends far beyond that)

– Subtly controlling physical space, like stopping in doorways and making their own body really wide wherever they’re existing, not moving over to make space when I come up to the couch, etc.

– Little comments that would pass easily but turn out to mean a lot: perhaps calling someone who doesn’t look anything like you exceptionally attractive, saying to remind them of their ex, etc.

– “Jokes” that make light of abuse or insult people unlike themselves, especially if you’re treated as oversensitive when I express dislike and say it isn’t funny

– Really, ANY behavior that isn’t considerate or respectful is fully orange flag territory at a minimum when it comes to intimacy. At least when it comes to intimacy with me.

okupin
okupin
3 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Yes, I agree on the “orange flag” of disrespect, and my ex did almost all of the exact behaviors you list (except the love-bombing–he was a covert narc and liked to play hard to get, which worked on me b/c of an absent father, etc….) About the physical space thing: My favorite was when we would sit on the couch together and he would put his feet on me as if I were an ottoman. Or hand me trash to do something with when we were in the car as if I were a trash can. I did push back at these things, but then I would just get laughed at and gaslit with, “Geez, you’re so sensitive!” Followed, naturally, by withdrawal and the silent treatment….

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
3 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Oh, and saying anything one does online, or on the phone, isn’t *really* doing the thing. Total dealbreaker.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
3 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

(Saying YOU remind them of their ex, that should say… Though the other would be weird, too, eh? ????)

Hope Springs
Hope Springs
3 years ago

He got a speeding ticket(92 in a 55) when we were dating and driving 2 hours from his service academy to his home. It was my fault because I had fallen asleep in the car ( at midnight after being up for work since 6 am) and he was angry that I wasn’t awake and amusing him. Dick.

Newly Chumped
Newly Chumped
3 years ago

The fact that when we finally started our official relationship, he needed to go spend a weekend with the woman he’d been seeing to break up with her in person first.

The fact that all of his friends were always women, never guys.

He is a doctor, and would give patients his cell phone number, and again it seemed like only female patients would develop these bizarre relationships with him and send him inappropriate texts – he would say “Are you kidding? If you could see what she looks like!”

The courthouse secret wedding with the promised family/church wedding never materializing. The engagement ring provided a year thereafter.

The gaslighting. The lies. The verbal and emotional abuse.

I left, he followed, I forgave all of the above. Only to find out he’d been having an affair with a nurse 20 years younger for the last 2 years (oops! Make that 7 years!). BUT HE LOVED ME THE WHOLE TIME.

Sigh.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Newly Chumped

Newly Chumped,

I can relate. My physician ex, who was a really quiet man, seemed to open up to the nurses, drug reps, and female patients. No boundaries!!!! I questioned this at times, and he dismissed my concerns, telling me I just don’t know what it’s like to take care of sick people.

Btw, he seemed especially intrigued by one patient who was a sex worker: S&M stuff. He gleefully shared details. She sent him a long note commemorating his retirement. A lot of YOLO, carpe diem advice! Good God!

Newly Chumped
Newly Chumped
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Oh, you mean the attractive female drug reps? Don’t even get me started on that! I had one get invited to a family event without telling me! No boundaries is exactly right. But don’t worry, he loved ME the whole time!

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  Newly Chumped

Haha. Of course you were! I, too, was oh so loved the entire time!

It was always odd to me how this man, who complained SO much about being SO busy as a doctor (All Hail!), had time to chat about our daughter’s wedding dress, sports, fishing, etc…

He knew all these details about these women and they knew so much about our kids (probably not about me).

This pathologically shy/quiet man who couldn’t get a date in college suddenly found himself amidst all these women who aimed to serve and please (and, in the case of the drug reps, to sell). He violated every boundary in the book! That piece of sh*t!
The OW ended up being one of those nurses. “She knew how I liked my coffee.” “She remembered the anniversary of my brother’s death.” “She said she got ‘wet’ when she saw my jacket hanging in the closet.” ????

The kind chump that I am, I took pics of him at his retirement party, which was only months before D-Day. In one, he and this different nurse (not the exit-affair OW but maybe a previous partner?) are so close that their cheeks are touching. I remember being shocked while I dutifully snapped the photo.

When I showed it to my therapist she deadpanned, “Oh, so he has no boundaries.”

But, by golly, he loved me the entire time! “I think you can love two people at once,” he said. Key word: think. He hedged it.

Leslie
Leslie
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Same here… not a doctor but in academia.
Going for coffee with a female student? Not an issue… apparently she was so bright and needed advice regarding her future / career.
Oh, why he never told me about it? It wasn’t ( or rather I WASNT relevant)
Meeting a hooker for dinner ( of course he did… he was not an average Joe… he cared about her… wine and dine and listen to her hard life and struggles) and of course f- in her.

Etc.

Giving students his cell phone number? Not an issue
Meeting them outside of the building for lunch? No problem

NoRainNoFlowers
NoRainNoFlowers
3 years ago

He told me he cheated on his high school girlfriend and then another girlfriend. I chalked it up to immaturity. He told me about the wife of one of his best friends hitting on him. About one of our neighbors hitting on him. He disappeared with a girlfriend of mine at parties. He put his arm around other women in bars. He made sexual comments about other women around me. He told me about his business partner who cheated regularly on his wife. About other cheaters in his office. About other cheaters in his industry. God, just writing this makes me feel like such an idiot. He told me over and over who he was and I refused to listen.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago

“He told me about his business partner who cheated regularly on his wife. About other cheaters in his office.”

My ex did a lot of that in the last couple years. Always with a note of disapproval of the offending party. I have come to view those stories as his confessions. Such as, “A fire dept employee (married) screwed his girlfriend in his office” “The mayor is having marriage problems” “Schmoopie is dating a 50 year old man” in actuality Schmoopie (his direct report) was fucking him, and he was 40. I think their fuck fest started when he was about 37/38.

He did a little of it in the early years of our marriage, but I didn’t pick up on it until hindsight kicked in. I think many of them confess in that fashion.

NotAnymore
NotAnymore
3 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

Cheaters encourage others to cheat.

A girlfriend of mine who blew up her own marriage with affairs constantly tried to talk me into having one. They desperately want to believe that “everybody does it” to quell their own guilt.

Badmovie19
Badmovie19
3 years ago
Reply to  NotAnymore

Yep My Ex over the years told me stories of this or that coworker or friend cheating. Lil exploits of oh married Bob met up with a coworker in the city for sex – one time thing, oh divorced coworker Pam still hooks up with her ex-h for sex, oh friend Tony slept with a stripper on the Vegas trip, Etc. Yep lil half truths where his name was omitted etc. And nice boundaries- a divorced coworker 10 years older than you is sharing that she still sleeps with her ex-h from time to time, I can only imagine how that came up in convo.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago
Reply to  Badmovie19

Honestly I think many times they are lying about the coworkers. They are confessing to their own sins, and changing the names and places to protect the innocent, namely themselves.

My Ex FW toldme that the police chief had advised him to just seek out another woman now and then, and not bust up his marriage. FW said, that just isn’t me, I am not a good liar. I said “not a good liar, you just told me you have never loved me or been faithful our entire marriage!” His response, I just said that to make you hate me.

Good Lord. PC never told him that, he was lying to make himself look like the good guy for just humping one toad instead of a bunch of them. Though after he married Toad, he hopped on more toadstools per my daughter in law. Evidently her magic twinkie didn’t hold his interest long.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
3 years ago
Reply to  NotAnymore

Yes! I would imagine it’s a common tactic to make the cheater feel better. “You cheat; I cheat; we all cheat! Hip hip hooray!”

My FW tried to get his best friend to cheat. I’m repeating myself on this site, but trying to drag your friend into your mud seems especially low to me. He tried to use another person in order to feel better about his own crappy behavior. I’m sure my ex envisioned double dates with his guy friend and their new young women. Ugh.

I’m so confused as to why this friend continues to maintain a relationship with my ex. ????????‍♀️

Ok. I need to let this one go. As CL would say, “Cull your social registry accordingly” (or something to that effect).

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

I think they do, but even more, I am thinking if the culture of the job is cheating, they will likely cheat too.

What today I think is funny, (though I didn’t back then) is that his whole life has been a mess post marriage detonation. (I mean a mess) I think of him at some point (back then) looking around and saying to himself “what the hell” I have no doubt he was riding high for a while, and he likely though it would last. I do think that is what prompted his “apology” letter to me. Hovering, maybe; though I don’t think it was about me at all; he likely realized at some point, he had exactly what he went after and it didn’t look as good after the smoke cleared. He was grasping.

tinybubbles
tinybubbles
3 years ago

That first rage, because he never came home for dinner and called at 10:30 at night. I said “Where are you, I was so worried?”. He started screaming that no one speaks to him that way, and “who the f*** do you think you are”. That should have been our last conversation, but I stayed 10 more years.

Attie
Attie
3 years ago
Reply to  tinybubbles

Oh the absolute rage that came out of the blue! We had been married about 2 weeks and he screamed at me. He was supposed to go for an interview in D.C. and I suggested it might be down by the Potomac. He went ballistic, how could I be such a stupid cow, who in the hell would put a shopping mall there? Turns out I was right – but that just made it even worse because he was never responsible for ANYTHING and he was NEVER wrong!

Hope Springs
Hope Springs
3 years ago
Reply to  Attie

Yep….no apologies, ever. If you’re right or helpful it’s a lucky guess, you’re a know it all, and only weird people use such big words. Strange how there’s a whole world out here who use such big words.

Happy Now
Happy Now
3 years ago

In the first few weeks of dating he told me he was taking his 7 year old son and some of his son’s friends to the movies but we could get together afterwards. 10 o’clock rolls around and I don’t hear from him and he doesn’t answer his phone. So I drive over to his house and see him in his kitchen with a woman. He calls me back eventually and tells me it was one of the friend’s mother. Says the kids were playing (at 10 at night???) I believed him and drove back and slept with him. There were many other red flags after that, but if I had listened to my gut so early on I could have saved myself 9 years and a whole lot of pain.

DejaBlue
DejaBlue
3 years ago

Not only did he get a matching tattoo with a woman from his gym who happened to be half my age, he had the nerve to bring her home with him so they could show them off to me.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago
Reply to  DejaBlue

This is the thing I have the hardest time with.

I get the official explanation of why they do it, but still can’t grasp it. Almost every woman I have ever talked to about this, has had the same experience. They have the need to bring the whore into their inner circle, including the wife and kids.

Nemo
Nemo
3 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

Duper’s delight. I know something you don’t know. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo. I’m putting one over on you. Stupid appliance, you’re such a sap for trusting me.

Hope Springs
Hope Springs
3 years ago
Reply to  Nemo

I can’t tell you how often the dick did this. Probably hundreds of times and women I don’t know about in addition to the 4 women I do know about. Maybe it would be easier to understand if I had somehow been cruel or vindictive to him? But I’m not that type of person. I’m honest , straightforward, and loving….a little, boring, and lazy. I did my best and always wanted the best for him at my own expense…..so what sport is there in that?

MidwestChump
MidwestChump
3 years ago

Before the 28 yr marriage… I was pregnant and we were engaged on my 21st birthday. He gave me a ring with my birthstone when we woke up. Awww… then left to go hang out with his band to practice and drink until after 10 pm. I sat alone and pregnant on my 21st birthday waiting for him to come back. I lived in his city… not my own. He ruined EVERY birthday for the next 29 years. Last year’s BD (big 50) was the first without him after DDay. Truthfully… it sucked. This year was the best birthday in 30 years. I didn’t have to ask what would be acceptable to do for my birthday. I had someone plan a whole weekend of celebrating me with my favorite (Covid safe) activities. I accepted so little for soooo long.

Hesatthecurb
Hesatthecurb
3 years ago

The night of our very first date while driving me back to my car after dinner, he said something very close to ‘I just want to set the expectation (a quirky–telling–phrase of his) that if the girl I was dating before you finds out I am dating you, she will try to insert herself into our relationship’. He’d been such a handsome, charming dinner companion and smelled so damn good I pondered it for a nanosecond and you know the rest.

Eventually I asked him to move in with me. He contributed NOTHING to the finances.
The ONLY thing he contributed was chaos. I call him POP–Predatory Opportunistic Parasite.

Turns out he had quite the harem, many of whom were aware of me and encouraged his using me for everything they could get–in particular, the town bike I referenced above.
I had to evict him, he wouldn’t willingly leave because he had no where to go. He ended up in a homeless shelter.

His life has been sucktacular for the ensuing ten years and could get much worse as he’s awaiting trial in Jan 2021 for assaulting a woman he was involved with.

xmaschump
xmaschump
3 years ago

Lovebombing and devaluing.
He met me in July of 2010 and I had a key to his house on Sept 1st. He called, texted all of the time. I took this as “I was special”. Calling and texting is his go-to, as evidenced by his long phone calls with other women glaring at me from the phone bill.
I remember the first comment he made to me. He rambled about how he wasn’t above dating someone that wasn’t considered attractive and I remember thinking “what in the actual fuck”. His ex (maybe he was still seeing her at the time we met, who knows?) told him that I was ugly and he took her word for it. I remember it being the first time I felt unattractive and was questioning my self worth. Years of this, feeling hideous, worthless, and trying to please the unpleasable.
I don’t feel this way anymore and none of it was true but it served him well for ten years.

Mitz
Mitz
3 years ago

He made a few really crude comments when we were dating. I objected, and he hit himself in the face a few times to ‘atone’ for what he said. I was a teenager when we met, I had very little life experience. He also referred to older women as old bags. I told him this was wrong. Boy was I naive. I felt I could help him. Barf.

Doingme
Doingme
3 years ago

He had no relationship with his mother and blamed me for years. She told him he was welcome with kids without me after I asked her to put the dog that bit my toddler leaving a scar. She blamed the child. After thirty years he spoke about getting money when she dies.

Fast forward she doesn’t like Nanthony. Yet he reestablishes a relationship and is the ONLY one who goes to the funeral of her crazy boyfriend after making fun of him for decades. They weren’t invited to my daughters wedding. He’s just like his passive aggressive mother. Yet she didn’t name him as the executor. Who even thinks of their mother as a pay day?

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
3 years ago

If I could have a do over it would be the letter incident. We were 18, he was in the military; I was in my last semister of high school. We had started dating when he came home for Christmas. Had one date, had a fund time, a few innocent kisses; he was very sweet to me. (We had flirted a bit when I first moved to his home town, but not dated in his last year of HS. (I was a year behind)

Anyway, after our date, he neve called back, so I just figured he didn’t have as good a time as I did. About two weeks later, I got a letter from him telling me he was sorry for not calling back, but he had a bunch of stuff to take care of, he really liked me and wanted to see me again blah blah blah. I even let my mother read the letter, and said I don’t know what to do. She said if he does it once, he will do it again. I pondered her advice and totally blew her off.

Twenty years later, I was dumped for the town whore. Who knew?