Are you a little less chumpy than you used to be? Can you sniff out bullshit a bit better after you found yourself mired in it?
The Universal Bullshit Translator is a vain creature (given its insatiable appetite for both cookies and praise), but it bursts its sockets with pride to think it has spawned a multitude of other UBTs. An army of bullshit decoders and soldiers of snark.
Today’s Friday Challenge is to decode something with your own UBT. A cheater cliche (if you met the affair partner, you’d like them! … I love you but I’m not in love with you… I didn’t intend for this to happen…), a self-serving excuse, a vapid Schmoopie utterance. It’s all fodder.
Call a spade a spade and tell CN what it really means!
TGIF!
“I also shared hotel rooms with her on trips, but we didnt have sex”
UBT—>
I lied like a fucker, planned way ahead and had monkey sex with someone the Federal Govt trusted me to negotiate contracts with during on trips all over the country. The fact that I worked my travel schedule to accommodate my fucking while leaving you back home, painfully ignorant and caring for our kids and doing your job caring for dying children is something that did not phase me.
Now that you know most of it, I still wont admit to your face that I fucked her because that would cause me personal discomfort and I prefer to not do that. I convinced myself that you were “horrible” enough to betray but still good enough to handle all my life details for me.
I am now incredulous to realize what sorts of lies I swallowed. I now see that my responses were very fear-based. I was afraid to see the reality right in front of me because it would demand a response that I was too afraid to consider.
In the moment, I told myself that I was devoted (and that was likely true) but in all the murky soup I let him get away with no accountability. I was, however, already well groomed by parents who invented their preferred reality and refused accountability for their actions while holding me agonizingly accountable for every word or twitch of mine that didn’t suit them.
I now have a good and healthy life. I have moments of deep appreciation when I realize that my healthy functioning is a bit of a miracle. I asked God for a miracle and He gave me one, but not the one I asked for. He didnt change the selfish, disordered people in my life (God gives us Free Will with which we can be as big of assholes as we choose) but He changed me, my circumstances, and my ability to heal from it.
Your last paragraph is a gem and a great summation of Open Theology. I really like the book, “God Can’t” which explores Open Theology in the context of loss and trauma. It is very helpful for that phase of divorce that forces us to re-examine all our assumptions.
Thank you for this recommendation, Bruno. I ordered “God Can’t” and it currently has underlines on every page. Very helpful as I am stuck in the discovery phase with a cheater that is hiding as much as possible overseas! Super frustrating. That said, I appreciate your wisdom on this website. I know that you are at Meh, but it is so helpful for those of us at the beginning of the journey to have your insight. To anyone new, I also highly recommend Divorce Minister’s website and book “Cheated On” as well as “Cheaters in a Nutshell.” Of course, only after reading LACGAL on repeat until you take off your dancing shoes!
Wow. Such a great post Unicornomore. I feel so much of the same. Thanks you for wording it all so well.
“I was, however, already well groomed by parents who invented their preferred reality and refused accountability for their actions while holding me agonizingly accountable for every word or twitch of mine that didn’t suit them.”
This I know very well.
Thank you for that line Unicorn – that explains my life’s journey in a way I have never been quite able to articulate.
Im an extrovert, so I process externally…I could sit quietly in a room all day and not develop an understanding yet I can type a paragraph to a safe audience and truth flows from my keyboard…even truth I didnt realize was truth.
Yes! ????????????????
Amazing self awareness. You know, the biggest bitch cookie we have to swallow through it all, is recognition of our own role in our “demise” – the enabling, the denial, the fear of leaving, the hope, the doubling down and trying harder, the self blame.
With hindsight it looks so nuts. But own it we must. You demonstrate how that doesn’t mean we take responsibility for their fuckwittery, quite the opposite in fact.
I was shocked at my exes ability to compartmentalise his double lives (plural) when I discovered them (or rather connected them all up together). But I’m pleased to say, that taught me to compartmentalise the shit show our marriage was. What he did (one thing, infidelity, on rinse and repeat cycle, for years) and what I did (ignored it and denied it, and why I might have done that). Those compartments made it all crystal clear. And I’m grateful for that clarity. It’s Tuesday here.
Well said NenaB. It’s tricky business to navigate the fine line between looking at our own role for critical self-reflection on our way toward growth and taking responsibility for their bad behavior. Actually, the line isn’t thin at all, it is just that FW’s can do such a number on a person that it is hard to see the line.
NenaB, thank you. I had heard the term “co-dependent”, but never actually knew what it meant. My therapist gently suggested that could be an issue with me, so I looked into it.
Bingo.
But I wasn’t always this way. I have been mighty in relationships prior to the grand -FW, all of whom cheated on me. I was gone and done.
Oh, I had a myriad of excuses for why I stayed so long with him: we had a daughter with a rare medical condition. We had entangled our finances so much it would be sooooo hard to untangle them. We had a 30 year investment. There were people who relied on us AS A COUPLE. Oh, and I loved him!!! And he (said) love me!!! Even while inflicting deep emotional/psychological/physical wounds on me (hello HPV).
I danced and danced and danced on a tightrope without a net, while he was creating layers and layers of “contingency plans” (other women). Finally, I saw the truth of what he was – thank you UBT!! – and was able to move, with difficulty, on.
I am working on my own issues. I have wonderful friends, a beautiful daughter. There are so many things for which I am grateful, this website included. Thank you to the CL and CN for being my Light in the darkness.
Wow, that really struck a chord.
I’m sorry, Flower! Every child should be loved and cherished.
“I am now incredulous to realize what sorts of lies I swallowed. I now see that my responses were very fear-based. I was afraid to see the reality right in front of me because it would demand a response that I was too afraid to consider.”
Boy, does that ever sound familiar!
Unicorn, this is me, too! That description of your parents matches my experience. Thank you for this deeper clarification. I, too received answers to my prayers, but not exactly how I imagined. This whole experience allowed me more faith and trust.
Haha! I laugh loud and often about being the most sane person in my family ????
Unicornomore, quite simply you nailed it.
“I am now incredulous to realize what sorts of lies I swallowed. I now see that my responses were very fear-based. I was afraid to see the reality right in front of me because it would demand a response that I was too afraid to consider.”
Exactly, I think I knew soon after his promotion, the change in him was almost immediate against me. I guess he didn’t need my for show anymore, so on with the discard process. I think in my confusion and desperation I just hunkered down in hopes I was wrong, maybe it will fix itself etc.
So I bought his excuse of, “work pressure”
Klootzak didn’t make promotion and I think he blamed me for it. If his wife had been more supportive or shmoozed the right people, he would have made captain or even admiral! So his career failings were my fault and when his promotions stalled out and he was forced to retire, he didn’t need me around anymore, either.
Damned in either direction, aren’t we?
I also refer to him as “Major Cheaterpants”…he was passed over for O5 which was. of course, MY fault. It has nothing to do with fucking coworkers or refusing assignments, his failure was all me.
He told me of his intent to divorce me (“because you are a bad wife, there is no one else in this, its all on you” which was so damn cruel) just before his retirement and told me that since we were divorcing, I ought not come to the ceremony. He was setting me up to not show up so he could claim victim status that his wife “didnt even come to his retirement”. OW was in the second row with a fake date.
While at the event, he told his father (in my presence) that “I would move to _____ but Unicornomore is refusing to move there”.
He lied all the way around to everyone to try to not look like the asshole leaving his family. It was an endless mindfuck, that whole era of time. He was so damn mean.
He could have just said “Ive decided that I dont want to be in this anymore, you are a nice person but I choose to not be married to you. I will be fair in the divorce” but no, he was too much of a coward to own his shit.
Yep.
I absolutely helped him get his promotion. We walked side by side to support and get that mayor elected. I still think that mayor was the best choice, but yeah between my political work and whatever volunteer work he wanted me to do I helped him a lot. But as I said once he made it, I guess it was time to bring schmoops out and replace me with her.
Within a few months after we were legally separated, he got busted, put back out on the street, and lost his cushy office next to the mayor. The mayor did use him for a few months until the fall elections were over, then slam pal, you are out. In the paper the mayor called it organizational changes. Lol.
I suppose that was my fault too. Had nothing to do with him lying to the mayor to the city counsel and anyone else that needed to be lied to. He also took an early retirement. I didn’t know that until recently, when my son told me. Surprised me. I know he loved his job.
He evidently hated the mayor for stabbing him in the back. Can you imagine someone doing that? I mean my ex was loyal to the mayor, how dare he stab him in the back. I assume the mayor had no more use for him, once he revealed who he was. He had been pedaling the happy married man and church going Christian.
I really do believe he had the mayor fooled. If he didn’t have him fooled he would have never promoted him, as it put him (the mayor) in a horrible position since the whore was FW’s direct report.
What a big pile of hard earned wisdom!
Almost exactly the same!!!! Cheers!
Your exfucker needs to have a close encounter with a steamroller. Slowly.
Apart from taking out the word ‘dying’ in front of child and kid instead of kids. I’m just going with Unicornnomore’s entry, could have written every word.
It’s not incredulous that you swallowed it really, I managed to have social events and be friends (and remain friends) with many work colleagues both male and female, and didn’t have affairs with them.
I definitely think nearer the end there was much more I should have questioned but then I was caring for my dying father and frankly, it wasn’t foremost on my mind. The lucky break they got there and of course, any concern I did raise was met with a very swift rebuttal.
Truth!
Cheater: “I never meant to hurt you.”
MeBT; “I didn’t care whether you got hurt while I pursued exactly what I wanted.”
Cheater: “You just don’t fit my aesthetic that well and she does.”
MeBT: “You aren’t a novelty anymore and literally every person on the planet I haven’t yet met is new and therefore preferable to you.”
Cheater: “Why do you always have to dredge up the past?”
MeBT: “Why can’t I get you to stop focusing on what I don’t want to be accountable for so I can get back to successfully deceiving you?”
Cheater: “It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
MeBT: “It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun and arousing if it hadn’t included deceiving you.”
Cheater: “I feel so guilty.”
MeBT: “Feel bad for me so I don’t have to address how bad you feel.”
Cheater: “I’ve learned how much you mean to me and I never want to hurt you like that again.”
MeBT: “I’ve learned so much about how I got caught so now I will be better at deceiving you again.”
Cheater: “I don’t want to lose you.”
MeBT: “I don’t want to lose my appearance of normalcy or the function you provide in my life so my dysfunction is easier to pursue.”
Every person is new and therefore more preferable than you-ahhhhahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa
That’s hilarious. And accurate
A real game changer! Once I realized no matter what I did I could never again be new, everything else fell into place. Novelty seeking of any kind is one of my reddest red flags, and not just for romance. Reliability and emotional maturity absolutely matter.
This remind me of a mantra I had during my divorce. There was nothing I did or did not do that allowed him to betray, deceive and abuse me. Period.
I don’t care if he was drunk, women threw themselves at him, or even if I hit him over the head with a frying pan. Have some balls and either fix it or get out. Period.
It’s the years stolen from me that I can’t get over. They are simply gone. I just turned 60 and am figuring out what I want for the rest of my life. Kinda like my college daughter, but she’s at the start of her adult life and I’m at the last part of my adult life.
“It’s the years stolen from me that I can’t get over.”
Yep that is very painful. I was lucky in that I only lost 21 years, and got out and have been blessed with a good life; but I still resent those stolen years. He took my shining youth and used it for himself then threw me away at age 40.
26 years and left me at nearly 60. That part of it has been the hardest.
I understand. It was the first thing that hit me, he told me about the whore, and then told me he had been “dating for 10 years, and that he never loved me” He said a lot of other stuff, but basically I just stood there stunned.
Took me a while to come out of the shock, and be able to deal effectively.
Asshole used me for his own purposes for most if not all of our 21 years married.
Being totally honest here, my life turned out way better than his, (by all standards) but the pain of that never went away.
I have been happy, have a wonderful husband, sweet grandchildren. But, just because some scars remain doesn’t mean you won’t be happy.
Yes, very good point, Amiisfree, about Novelty. Dracula couldn’t stick to ANYTHING – jobs, hobbies, homes, etc. Once the “novelty” wore off, he went looking for “new”, in all aspects. It was a huge, huge red flag that I ignored.
Yes, my ex’s hobbies like golf, wine making, etc. all got replaced after a short time. I remember telling him he was always about instant gratification. No idea why I didn’t see then that he would do the same with me.
Yup, my ex went through 5 or 6 RVs
Year after year, the size was never right for whatever activity he was dreaming up once a year…
I never figured that that would be me either
But, its that general dissatisfaction…….
A flapping red flag for me now.
Lord the RV crap. While we were together it was boats, and then finally a river property. Then discard. I am so thankful for that discard as painful as it was. He would have drained my retirement account, and run me into bankruptcy. That is exactly what he did, with her help to them after they married.
Living a life like that would have been hell on earth for me.
YES. THIS. Ugh…
Thank you. All of this gold is getting copied into my notes so I can read and re-read.
All of this is very accurate. It’s sad, but true.
Perfect translation! My FW said the exact same things. Do they realize how stereotypically uncreative they are?
The only difference is my FW realized that the OW didn’t fit his aesthetic, well, only in the fact that she knew she was a side-piece and was happy to hide in the wings because she luvvvvved him. As soon as I found out and dumped him, he dumped her. He didn’t want to get stuck with her. hahahahaha!!
Now I’m living my best life, he is mr. mopey sad alone because I blocked him everywhere (he turns up like a bad penny every once in a while and I give him the old FU), and I have no idea about her and her broken heart. hahahahaha!
I love this, all of this – not the nightmare of it, but your ability to see it for what it is now and find humor in it. Did you mean to be funny? It’s funny to me now that I am out of it and I can see just how stupid FW is.
Both funny and sadly honest, yes. You picked up on both. ????
The MichelleShocked UBT will need cookies and to imbibe after this but here’s a “favorite”:
FW says “I stopped loving you 3 years ago.”
Ohhhhh… you mean when chump’s father died after a horrific 7 month battle with pancreatic cancer and chump was grieving? You mean when you didn’t get all the attention for a little while in the midst of chump’s sadness over her father? That bitch. How dare she stop being a perfect appliance for even a short time. FW didn’t even go to the hospital (chump’s father was there for months and it was only a few miles down the road) until the end. UBT wonders how chump stayed in love with a cold-hearted unempathic ass.
“It wasn’t me.”… “Ok, it was me, but I left the hotel room before the escort arrived.”… “Why didn’t I come home until 2am… I was just driving around THINKING.” – Mr. Sparkles
“It wasn’t me” = I have a clone… a doppelganger… a lot of people look like me (6’4, prematurely grey and a strut when I walk)…
“Ok, it was me, but I left the hotel room before the escort arrived.” = I have amazing self control. I like to spend money on hotel rooms and hookers because I can… but not because I actually want to stay and fuck strangers. I’m too special to sink to that level.
“Why didn’t I come home until 2am… I was just driving around THINKING.” = Do you think gaslighting you is easy for me… that it just comes naturally to me (well, actually it kinda does)… NO… I have to meticulously plan out my lies and layers of deceit… I need CAKE in all and any forms. BUT HEY… at least I did come home to you.
Happy Hour at Club Meh tonight… hope to see you there! Rock on Chump Nation!
Oh the driving around all night thinking. My ex wife during her first major affair was sneaking out in the middle of the night and trying to sneak in at 5am. One time I blew up at her and demanded to know who she was cheating with and I got the “I was sat in Walmart car park all night”. Yes, In Wisconsin in middle of January in negative two billion in a car that had a heater blower issue at the time. But me being the good old British immigrant with no family, friends nor support network and no idea of the area was that perfect chump for blatantly cheating on. She was sneaking off to a trailer park btw.
My ex (the serial cheater), couldn’t sleep and would go to Wal-Mart at 2am. Chumpy me felt sorry for him because he was doctor and had shift work that would screw up his sleeping schedule. He never did bring anything home from Wal-Mart on those late night excursions.
These guys are all alike, I know, I know; but it bears repeating.
My fw would stay up until about 12, then come in and say I am going to go ride around with one of the guys, I can’t sleep. He did this a couple times a week for the last six months. He made up an excuse for it and yes I bought it, well until the last couple months when I knew something was up.
Can’t get anything past me. ????♀️
WTF? My ex wife used the Walmart excuse all the time and said she slept in the parking lot in Wisconsin as well when she wasn’t coming home. What she didn’t know was that she had her “Share My Location” on, so of course she was never at Walmart.
Those are some busy parking lots in Wisconsin! hahaha
Klootzak goes to Home Depot for 3 hours at a time. Coincidentally, the Home Depot is near a bunch of hotels. He comes home with bags of stuff but I bet you shmoopie already gathered everything in the cart, he paid and stashed it in the trunk, then hit the hotel.
Mine would go to the tanning bed. For two hours.
Maybe we have stumbled onto a Wisconsin adulterous legend. Not just famous for cheese but also great car parks. This was 2009 so we only had crappy flip phones so sadly was not able to track her but in reality she was going to a crappy trailer park on outskirts of our rural town. Plus the other non believable aspect was our local Walmart closed at 11pm and the local police patrolled and never missed a thing as we lived in a small town.
What is is with these cheaters and trailer parks. I mean I know good folks live in them, but dang.
My fw’s whore lived in our local trailer park (though it was a well kept one). The last Christmas before the Dday Christmas, we and some friends went Christmas caroling and he took us to her trailer. Asshole took us Christmas caroling to her trailer. I remember my fiend making a snarky comment. I have always wondered if she was suspicious.
The following year during the Christmas season he was treating me like shit. He came in one night and said let’s go Christmas caroling. I said no, and walked away. Asshole. We did go visit my family and our son in AZ in the military during Christmas. I wish I had refused, but I felt so crappy, I though maybe it might help me.
I think he was just insanely trying to mark off all the traditions one more time before drop kicking me.
ChumpT and NoLove, “hey” from a fellow Wisconsinite, guy, chump. No overnighting at Walmart story here, but plenty of other cheesy skankery.
“ IT WAS DIVINE INTERVENTION! “
Translation: Since I am a devious and deceptive dung beetle, I will baffle the Chump by hauling out the big guns of religion. Who can disagree with being blindsided and abandoned when an all-encompassing lust affair sanctioned by the universe is involved?
He is a dung beetle. Gah.
So while you are home ACTUALLY living the values of your faith with regards to marital covenant, he is off porking some gal deciding that his fun was orchestrated by the same God who you asked to bless your union.
My Cheater also threw in a few of these sorts of bits that OW was “Christlike” and he felt the situation was from God. It is all so ghastly evasive and manipulative.
With years between then and now, though …I have developed some compassion that his life ended and he went to The Big Debrief with God to learn how badly he hurt the one person who loved him and was so deeply committed to him. I can’t imagine failing that badly…it likely hurts more than I did.
“The Big Debrief with God.” I love this and will use it often in diverse situations. A perfect description of what happens on the other side. More of an accounting for what we have done than a technicolor movie.
I need space = I have a space in mind and the whore is waiting for me
Arrgh- “space” is such a trigger for me now. HATE that word when I hear it. The FW used the line “I just need time and space” to tell me he’d be back after some indeterminate time of him gathering his wits or figuring out his life, or something.
This lead me to believe he just needed some time, just needed space, and he’d be back. Gawwwwd. I finally figured it out that it was time and space to do schmoopie. And I told him I can’t stay married to someone who has a girlfriend.
Yep.
Right after he got his coveted promotion, she starting ignoring me, and beiing kind of snotty. I asked him why he was doing that, he said “work stress” It will work out, I just need some space.
So I backed off and gave him space. He used it to continue unabated to spend more time and money on the whore.
I’ve been miserable for 20 years= I’ve been screwing other women for 20 years while you’ve been pretzeling to provide cars, boats, trips, a cottage and Florida second home—-jokes on you!
I’ll get the mortgage from the Russians ( or the Jews—sorry Jewish chumps, his words not mine)= I’m just that special that the mafioso‘s will fall over themselves to throw hundreds of thousands at me
“I’m a sex addict. I have an addiction.”
Translation: I’m not a shallow, heartless narcissist, I am an ill person. My CSAT told me so. Who better to advise a dick-centered loser than another dick-centered loser?
How could you blame an ill person for the things their illness makes them do? Because you do, it shows what a selfish cold bitch you are, way lower than me in terms of flaws and meaness. Once again I prove superior to you.
this, all this. blaming it on a force outside of their control. Because “Affair Recovery” (he actually paid for group counseling from them) thinks that I should take him back.
“I’m getting help now.”
Translation: I’m not having any sex at all because I dumped the side piece because she had no sparkle when I wasn’t deceiving you with her. I’m jealous that you’re now free and dating and I’m stuck in my falling down rental since you kicked me out.
An oldie but a goodie, from 2019 — my first song parody submitted here was a serenade to the UBT, in response to a Friday challenge
——————
(music by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, lyrics by Chump Nation)
Uno! dos! One, two, tres, quatro . . .!
Chumpy told CN about a thing she spied,
Tracy said “Translate” — UBT replied:
(Refrain)
“Wooly bullshit! Wooly bullshit!”
“Wooly bullshit! Wooly bullshit! Wooly bullshit!”
Chumpy told CN, “Something’s just not right . . .”
UBT responded, rousing sheer delight:
(refrain)
Chumpy told CN, “Something’s wrong with me . . .”
Sanity delivered by the UBT:
(refrain)
Liar: I’m not good at relationships.
UBT: I have a pathetic ego that needs to be fed by poor boundaries and ex gf’s.
Liar: you’re being hateful
UBT: You calling my whore a whore erodes my carefully crafted image. Nobody believes it but I’m going to hold on to the idea that everyone thinks I’m a great guy.
Liar: I look younger then I am
UBT: I’m trying to convince myself that my shitty toupee doesn’t look ridiculous.
Liar: I’m not good at integrating you into my previous life.
UBT: I need you to be separated from my friends because you’ll find out about my ex gf.
Liar: I can’t believe you walked away from our life together.
UBT: I can’t believe you’re not still paying most of the bills. How will I afford my whore and my little blue pills?
Liar: how are you doing? Have a nice day!
UBT: you can fuck off but I’m too much of a coward to say that so I’ll say something nasty under my breath, then smile and ask how you’re doing. Then when you don’t respond positively I’ll play dumb and ask why you’re being so mean after I asked how you were.
Liar: you’re getting harder and harder to make happy.
UBT: I looked for a younger woman (me) because I thought she’d help my ego and would tolerate poor boundaries and shitty behavior. I can’t believe I’m now being called out on my poor boundaries and shitty behavior.
Liar: I want a divorce.
UBT: I don’t want a divorce….I just wamt you to shut the hell up and stop making me uncomfortable by bringing up my poor boundaries and the fact that o kept my ex gf around our entire relationship. It was just catching up! OMG, what it someone saw my FB messages? In too stupid tp realize they were all private messages so when I briefly thought they were public I realized that all of my friends would see what a douchbag I really am and almost had a heart attack!
But I was just catching up! I can’t believe you just filed! Poor, poor me!
Ha ha ha….this is great. I could do this all day.
A text message I received from my ex-wife right after moving out of the marital home.
I understand I’m not your problem anymore. I would ask that you teach our children to check on me from time to time. If something were to happen to me on my way home from work no one would know. Just please teach them the right thing to do like I would for you.
“I understand I’m not your problem anymore.”
I’m going to make you my problem if you don’t feed my kibble. Triangles are a lot more fun when there are three people involved. Even though I understand this, please read on and I will let you know how I am your problem.
“I would ask that you teach our children to check on me from time to time.”
Since you don’t feed me kibble anymore can you teach the children how to do it? It was a lot more fun when I had you and my AP feeding me kibble but now that you are out of the picture the supply is getting low.
“If something were to happen to me on my way home from work no one would know.”
Please feel sorry for me for my bad choices. See, even though I used to talk to my AP every night on my way home from work and there are hundreds of cars that travel the same route and I have a cell phone, I could just vaporize into thin air and ‘poof’ no one would know what happened. How would I get kibble if no one knew? How would I triangulate if no one knew? How could you be so selfish?
“Just please teach them the right thing to do like I would for you.”
You are a bad parent for not teaching the children how to feed my kibble. See, I teach the children all the right things. For example, Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not cheat. Respect people. Treat others with kindness. I don’t follow those rules but I teach them to the children and you should as well if you want to be a good parent like me.
Wow, this is well-put.
Ohh I can’t even hint of all her lame excuses and lies right now as there was simply so many. I watched her actions and ignored her words and that proved all I needed to know for my divorce and leaving her though here is some classics from her:
Ex wife in message to one of her AP’s: “you taste amazing”
Ex wife when I read this message verbatim to her upon DDay when I asked about the tasting amazing: “he put his finger in my mouth” ????
Yes so she snuck out leaving me with the kids and met him in his car and they simply kissed and he put his finger in her mouth. Wow did you also see the pink elephant fly over my house?
Ex wife on DDay “there was only one other man”
Me : looking at screenshots I took the night before of her phone in which I counted nearly 20 other men. Many of whom hiding under female names. Sexting nearly 20 guys every single day.
Me to ex wife: so how many others did you fuck behind my back?
Ex wife: only the one.
Me: looking at screenshots of her asking 4 other guys when they would be in the area that week to hook up during her lunch break and one of the last messages from on of those guys saying “now you can go home and finish yourself off”.
Well tough shit for her as the divorced was finalised nearly three months ago and I’m rebuilding a far better life away from Hovid-19.
I have posted this before but just thought it was worth another look. It’s kind of fun to play with ‘snark’!
I love you but I’m not in love with you.
(Ever since i gave myself permission to lust after and then fuck my old girlfriend from 45 years ago. Such a coincidence!) What? You think I should have put some love and effort into the marriage? What do you mean? I don’t understand.
We grew apart.
Sure we did. We grew apart after 32 years of marriage because I detached from you to justify pursuing the fuck woman. I treated you with such distain and contempt that you feebly tried to defend yourself, and then I could tell the whore that you were crazy, that we had ‘drifted apart.’
I’ve been unhappy for 10 years. I’ve wanted to leave you for years.
(Since that old gf slut started emailing me and slathering me with praise, and we decided to meet for coffee and then lunch, I’ve come to see how bad my life with you is! Such a crappy existence, having fun with friends and family, travelling, golfing, skiing, hiking. I never realized how rotten it all was until the whore got my dick to rise up! (But only for a short time) She smiles at me all the time and agrees with me all the time. We have so much in common from the 1970’s! We are so perfect together! We should never have broken up 45 years ago, even though we fought all the time and had totally different goals!
She is my soul mate.
(She is always happy to see me (like a dog) and is content seeing me for a two hour visit or fuck once a week or every two weeks as long as i message her a couple of times a day. I love how my wife is completely duped and I can send messages to my fuck mate while my wife and I watch tv together in the evening! Also it’s so great how my wife makes arrangements for dinners and outings on the weekends and I can pretend what a great family man I am!) (Whore, shut up! I’m busy on the weekends and can’t see you! I’m really trying to leave my wife but it’s so hard! I’m working on it!)
We have nothing in common anymore.
(You like shopping and i don’t. I like violent/action movies and you don’t. Those are the two main reasons I am leaving you…when it’s convenient for me to do so. Also you tidy the house before we have visitors. It’s criminal!
Our 4 children, our many family holidays and gatherings, our travels together, our home, our friends… our skiing, hiking, golf, books….all non existent. Conveniently vanished from memory, or at least dimly remembered but who cares!)
You would like the OW if you met her. She’s a good person.
(She’s just like you except she’s had 3 husbands already plus a live in abusive boyfriend when her three girls were young. I would be the fifth or sixth partner but again, who cares if she’s cheating on her current husband. She says he’s boring!! She loves me now and I am so special!. I know you would get along so well.)
We are two good people on different paths.
(The cheating, lying, abusive path, vs the loyal spouse for 32 years path. I really am good, really. I’m good at lying now. I’m very good at deception and leading a double life. No one knows except the whore! She’s cheating on her husband too! How great is that! I am incredible! More than that, I am actually fabulous!!)
I need to be happy and you will not be happy if i am unhappy the whole time.
(I will treat you as though i hate you and have utter contempt for you until you kick me out and i can totally blame you for the marriage breakdown. Because you are too stupid and will never find out that I am cheating on you and have been for years. My plan is to produce the whore just after we separate as though we had just met! No one will guess I have been cheating! I am actually brilliant,)
I hope you don’t spend too much on lawyers.
(I see you bent over in anguish, crying because of the shock and trauma of my sudden and vicious betrayal of you, but all I really care about is how much of my money you spend. I’ve listed our assets and don’t want to have to redo the balance sheet to reflect expensive lawyers. Besides that, I want you to just roll over and let me have my fuck toy and playmate! Don’t irritate me with long drawn out divorce proceedings!)
The children will all get over it in time.
(It’s all about me, me, Me! The 4 adult children don’t matter as long as I am happy with the whore. I am pretty sure they will come to see how fabulous she is even though their Mom has broken down completely. The whore tells me the kids will be fine in a couple of weeks and I believe her.)
I feel nothing for you.
(I will just pack a few of these clothes you washed and folded, (btw, thanks for lunch) rush off to fuck the whore in a hotel for a couple of hours and I should be back in time for dinner. What are we having? People are coming over? I’ll pick up some wine on the way home!)
We are two good people on different paths.
On one hand I have a faithful wife, drudging away at her wifely duties, including always staying in touch with the kids, staying in touch with my family because I can’t be bothered to, and making social arrangements, looking after the household, believing in the integrity of and trusting me, her husband. On the other hand I am a cheating, lying fuckwit who does nothing around the house, who goes to work and visits the whore on the way there or on the way back. Who also visits the whore, for example, when my wife volunteers in the community, spends the day with friends, when she waits at home for me on our anniversary (extra thrilling to me), and that is just the tip of the iceberg. I am Mr. Fabulous for getting away with it for so long!
Jen, you have so accurately described my 32 year marriage to an only child of a dysfunctional family. Me, Me and more Me. Aren’t I special?
Open the front door and let the man-baby run.
Lock door.
Pretty much nailed it for me too.
I do think he was treating me so horrible to get me to kick him out. Unfortunately for him I put up with his shit until he had to walk out. Boy I showed him. ????
The last year of my marriage was a living hell. And I was too ashamed to tell anyone.
*The children will all get over it in time.
(It’s all about me, me, Me! The 4 adult children don’t matter as long as I am happy with the whore. I am pretty sure they will come to see how fabulous she is even though their Mom has broken down completely. The whore tells me the kids will be fine in a couple of weeks and I believe her.)*
This is where ex FW is at currently. He has tried to manipulate situations so my adult children accept what he has done! He’s alienated one DD who has told him that the only chance she’ll meet the Ho-worker is at his funeral. He was on her case within 5 days of leaving me. He was do desperate for them to accept his really bad behaviour. He would send pictures to them of food the new appliance had cooked for him. They mugged him off about that, laughing at how ridiculous he was being. One of the dishes was a baked pineapple…. That is now a standing joke within my family. They often say ‘mum if you’ve not baked a pineapple for us we’re off’ which then has us all laughing at just how crazy and fucked up this situation is.
The other 2 children are just ticking a box seeing him. They have no intention of meeting the immoral skank. We are all trying to get our head around this!! We were, well are, a very close family. I always refer to my children as my ‘home grown besties’. I’m grateful they are adults. Really feel for the mummy’s and daddy’s who have young ones. Navigating that seems like a total shit show. Hugs to them all.
Not at Meh yet but I’m sure I can see my Tuesday on the horizon way way in the distance.
This: “ The children will all get over it in time.
(It’s all about me, me, Me! The 4 adult children don’t matter as long as I am happy with the whore. I am pretty sure they will come to see how fabulous she is even though their Mom has broken down completely. The whore tells me the kids will be fine in a couple of weeks and I believe her.)”
6.5 years later…. our 4 kids LOATHE AP and refuse to be around her so XH rarely sees our kids. I see them and hear from them every day. They will never agree with XH’s and AP’s selfish actions, which continue to this day…,never!
XH is in a rage because kids won’t do what he says and they are grown now and don’t have to and because they accept my fiancé, who came into my life AFTER XH brutally devalued and discarded after years of cheating. False equivalencies don’t fly with them.
Too bad so sad, sausage.
Jen, I think we were married to the same man….
This is so brilliant and made me laugh. I saved it.
Same for me Jen. Ex girlfriend from nearly 30 years ago (with me for 26 years, married for 18 years). They are ‘soulmates’. Did you ever get the ‘Sliding Doors’ reference? How I hate that film!
Nailed it for me, too. Exactly.
Cheater: I never meant for any of this to happen.
UBT: I lied, misled and betrayed you for years and didn’t plan on getting caught.
Cheater: I am not sleeping at all. I lost my best friend too!
UBT: I killed my “best friend” whilst getting my kink on with married women. And now… consequences
When dating…
“I’m really super busy at work, so if I don’t call or text it’s because of that.”
UBT
“I’m totally married/partnered-up af and I can’t answer your call because I’m with them.”
————————–
“My ex and I are really close because of the kids.”
“We’re technically separated, but I hadn’t filed for divorce because of the kids/money/time.”
UBT
“My ex is still playing the pick-me-dance. Will you play too?”
————————–
“My ex was crazy.”
UBT
“I did so so so many thing to make them crazy and then tried to gaslight them into believing their concerns were made-up in their head.”
—————————–
“You’re amazing. You’re not like my ex at all.”
UBT
“I use this line as a way to build you up, so I can then manipulate you by implying you’re acting like my ex when you start to see through my bullshit.”
————————-
“My ex didn’t care about me or my feelings.”
UBT
“My ex existed outside of her relationship with me and I didn’t like it.”
“Your mother thinks I’m having an affair with her.”
—————————————————————————————————————————–
“I’m absolutely having an affair with her. And now that you (our daughter) are in your teens, you just might catch on to that, or your mother might share, so I’ll just immunize myself right now with a spot of proactive denial.”
I posted the above in the wrong place, not meant as a reply, sorry.
yeah, they are GREAT for that proactive denial, aren’t they! So helpful when I learned to spot that red flag.
“You are living in the past.”
Translate: cheater goes off to marry a 20something when he is a 50something
Chumpy me – a history major – loves the past but I don’t live in it nor do I try to reanact it.
“I miss you so much since you’ve been gone.”
Translation: “I miss your credit cards — you took them ALL when you left, even the ones on which I was an authorized user. My credit cards are all maxed out and I was counting on using yours! It’s your fault all the bartenders within walking distance refuse to serve me because I’ve had to run out on my bar tabs a few times.”
“I miss you so much I’ve done nothing but lie in bed since you’ve been gone.”
Translation: “I’ve been lying in bed with that woman over on C dock whose husband is deployed, with both of the women on that catamaran that was passing through, with anyone I could get to pay my bar tab and with my sister, too. I’d be happy to lie in bed with your sister again — what a fabulous way to get kibbles while sticking it to you at the same time — but she’s busy with her new boyfriend. Is your cousin free? How about your friend Karen — the one with the long blonde hair and big blue eyes?”
“You’re wrong”- You are so right, but I’m going to keep saying this hopefully I’ll brainwash you into questioning your reality so I can continue living my double life.
“I’m just {insert animal here} hunting”- I am most definitely not “just” hunting. I may hunt a little but I’m really escaping my responsibilities and going to see OW. Do not expect to call or find me, I’m off the grid. I’m far more important than you and can do what the hell I want, when I want. Don’t question me.
“We have to work together for my job!” I like having howorker with me as much as possible, it thrills and excites me that you are so trusting and I enjoy bj’s. I’m entitled to whatever I want.
“You are mean” I hate it when you are right and try to think I am accountable to you. Haven’t you learned I do not follow the rules of you mere mortals, I am special?!
STBX: I am totally NOT having an affair, we are just friends, when I was at her house for over an hour I was just picking tomatoes. See, here are 5 tomatoes.
UBT: I was at her house picking… something.
STBX: I HAD to lie about my “special friend” and the things we talked about because your mom would get so MAD and I just didn’t want to fight about it!
UBT: I am entitled to lie to cover up the betrayal of my wedding vows, AGAIN, because my comfort is more important than anything, including your mom’s feelings of safety and my own integrity.
STBX: I am going out to walk the dog… will you be up when I get back?
UBT: I am going out to walk the dog… will you be up when I get back to smell the “monster J” that I told my “special friend” I was going out to smoke… as I do every night… I need you to be safely in bed and not ask me any inconvenient questions about the pot smell that might linger…
STBX in 2018: I’d like to try pot to see if I like it…
UBT: I already started smoking in 2015 and I’d like retroactive permission even though we have a child in the house and I know you don’t like drugs. Also it’s totally fine to mix pot and alcohol even though I have a history of mood disorders.
I could go on… but there is no need.
sorry, I wasn’t clear; the references about “your mom” are about me, when my STBX was talking to our kid.
Oh wait I forgot one!
STBX: that’s fair.
UBT: that’s NOT fair, and I’m going to say that your perspective is fair and then spend several more paragraphs telling you how you are not being at all fair to me and must rectify your behavior immediately!
Inevitably a cheater has to gaslight the kids too (if any). So ugly.
right??? I remember my dad doing the same thing to me…
It’s amazing the lies they expect us to believe. I’m a man and no grown ass man goes to another females house to pick damn vegetables. If I was in that situation I’d have taken my wife or at least the kids with me. Or in all honesty I’d have sent my ex wife to get them. my ex wife, She had a friend who did grow vegetables and rhubarb and she always took the kids to get some. These excuses and lies are so damn stupid.
right??? thank you!!!
Looking at me covered in bruises – “that’s just not who I am”. He actually told me I must have been drunk and fallen down the stairs – and then picked myself up and fallen back down the stairs backwards in order to get the bruises front and back.
“It’s a shame to throw away 26 years of marriage” – damn, I thought you would just keep taking the beatings and letting me have access to your salary and fuck the skank on the side. This wasn’t what I’d banked on AT ALL!
damn Attie, that sucks. I’m so sorry.
Oh wow, Attie! I’m so glad you got away with your life. And I hope he never finds you.
Oh he knows where I am – I kept the house – but he’s in the States and I’m in France and I wouldn’t HESITATE to call the police if he tried anything. He won’t! I got a domestic violence conviction against him and how he avoided jail (which terrified him) I don’t know, but it’s water under the bridge now. He’s somebody else’s problem thousands of miles away thank God!
I’m sorry that happened to you, and I’m glad that you got way from him.
My FW “didn’t mean” to throw me into a wall.
They never “mean to” do they? I’m glad you’re safe now!
I’m so sorry Attie. That is so awful.
Oh I’m well and truly over it now but I can’t believe how long I held on to the thought “oh he wouldn’t” … when in fact he quite probably could have killed me. Not intentionally but in one of his drunken rages it could have happened – it was certainly heading that way. But the end result would have been the same for me wouldn’t it! I’m totally at meh now 10 years later but I am a fierce advocate against domestic violence and speak out freely!
STBX: “I never intended for this to happen.”
UBT: My wife warned me. Married OW’s boyfriend (my best friend) warned me. This was my NINTH affair (that my wife knows about anyway). I’ve been to counseling and read books on marriage/infidelity. I was exchanging seven THOUSAND texts a month with a woman who wasn’t my wife. For pete’s sake, how was I supposed to recognize that boundaries were being crossed?! Do you expect me to be a psychic?! You’re so unreasonable, it’s no wonder I had to cheat!
“We should stay legally married until you qualify for Medicare so you can stay on my health insurance (I’m 4 years older)”
UBT: I want to remain in control of our savings so I can keep paying my boy toys without I your interference and leave you penniless. (Turns out he prefers boys after 30 years of marriage)
Straight spouse chump, I’m a str8 spouse too, although he’s still hiding in the closet.
When I filed for divorce he suggested that we should just legally separate so I could stay on his Tricare. It would have been nice to have it because it’s great coverage, but I was close to 65 and getting Medicare.
It turns out that, although we were married for 44 years, all of it while he was in the Army, I didn’t qualify for Tricare as a divorced spouse. Because the 20-20-20 rule states you have to be married for 20 years, those 20 years while he was in the military, and the veteran has to have served 20 years.
Well, he did 10 years active duty and 9 years, 4 months, and 10 days in the Reserves. So I was screwed. But he got full benefits, including a monthly prescription for 10 Viagra pills that he only pays $13 for. The same Viagra that he kept in his work office. I was so past red flags by then that I needed to be hit on the head with a baseball bat to finally wake up.
Him “My Mother is like a chameleon, she can change to suit whoever she’s with”
UBT “I am like a chameleon, I change depending on which of my many women I am currently lying to”
Him “I’ve worked myself almost to death trying to fit into your idea of a perfect partner”
UBT “How dare you have expectations of me? I should never have to do anything in this relationship unless I feel like it”
Him “She (one of his students) is trying to get back at me because I didn’t give her a good grade”
UBT “I’ve been screwing one of my students and now she’s figured out I’m a lying POS I’m worried about what she might do”
“You’re immature”
UBT: I’ve gained enlightenment via random dudes cocks. You having a problem with strangers raw dogging your wife is due to your level of immaturity.
“I carry a taser because I’m afraid of you”
UBT:
You never once threatened or hit me during our marriage or after, but I need something to tell people so I can play the victim and get congratulated on escaping an “abusive marriage”.
My ex wife did the same thing. People fawned over her because she was an “abused” woman. They actually told me that I deserved to be cheated on because I was an abuser. Makes me sick to my stomach.
My XW told people I was financially abusive (because I took care of all the bills-paying paperwork, which she had zero interest in, so she could pursue her career) and that she was “frightened for her safety” (presumably because XW knew that when a cheating wife is leaving her husband there is maximum risk of violence; mind you, this risk had no relation to our actual situation, since (1) I was completely in the dark about her adultery, and (2) I’ve never had a physical altercation with her – or anyone else – in my entire life). But it played well in her new neighborhood when she had to explain why she had left her family just a couple months after we’d moved cross-country for her job. XW also told our daughter that I’d attacked her car – I’m guessing because her new car got dinged in the parking lot and she just assumed I did it – and put a nail through my tire in revenge.
I found an empty bottle of viagra in his truck door pocket. I said what is this? Are you having an affair?. He said no it’s for beating off. UBT: doesn’t every limp dick carry his boner pills around with him in his truck door? What if I am stopped at a stop light and see some cutie, pop a pill, give myself a hand-job in say 30 minutes and have a swell day. It’s what we do in our late fifties-always ready.
Thrive, my ex tried to tell me that he took Viagra for masturbating, too. At first, when I couldn’t find them in the house and confronted him, he told me it was none of my effing business and wouldn’t tell me where they were.
It was only months later, after I filed for divorce and we had a very short reconciliation, that he told me the Viagra was in his work office and that he used them for masturbation. So, he was taking a lunch break and jerking off?
I now believe he was using them with random gay guys and maybe even sharing/selling them. But I don’t care anymore.
This. Mine never copped to any affair, but the freaking herbal boner pills were everywhere. For jerking off of course ????????????
Using condoms to wank is also in the Man Baby Cheater Playbook
Same. Viagra was for jerking off. First he told me the ED was from me. Then he said I have no problem getting it up on my own and jerking off. It’s just you. Then it was … I had problems getting it up on my own so I used it to jerk off. The lies… the lies…the lies…I couldn’t find any trace of money spent on another woman, a hooker, etc… it was baffling.
Card carrying member of “Porn Slobs United” ?
Kucktard, on her 4th (known) AP, after being served divorce papers, “How could YOU do this to our children?!?!” (Hair on fire)
LeeBT, “How DARE you JUDGE me!!!! I’m the only one that gets to change the contract!!!!” #betterblowjobsthroughsecrecy #allthecake
They are truly amazing with their twisted world view and gaslighting abuse. My ex wife stated “you’re the one who left us”. Nope, I’m pretty sure her fucking dozens of men and continued to cheat despite being caught might be the damn reason I filled for divorce oh and her making false DV allegations that led to me being arrested and removed from my family home by social services.
As the cheater leaves on a solo camping trip: “I will be in the mountains out of cell phone range so you might not hear from me” translation: ” I will be too busy humping the OW/Soulmate to be checking in on my calls”
Fast forward 5 years and I randomly find myself face to face with the cheater. He starts spewing out regrets, the OW has shipped out leaving a financial/emotional tsunami in her wake. At the end of our conversation, he says: ” Do you want to go for counselling?” Translation: ” I am still blame-shifting and holding you responsible for me straying” – and this is why no contact brings me peace and harmony.
“You didn’t like me anymore.”
“I thought you would be apathetic.”
“I offer to live in the guest room but come and go and do whatever I want with anyone as I please.”
“These hookers like me for me.”
Disgusting piece of shit!!
Omg! I got “I know you love me but I don’t think you like me.” WTF??
Translation: Poor me. My marriage sucks but I don’t want to divide assets and pay spousal support. And I’d have to sell the mountain home and the marital home. And I won’t look like the successful man with the perfect life. So I’ll just pretend to be a family man when I actually want you, my AP. Maybe someday I’ll divorce her, after our kid goes to college, but by then I’ll probably have moved on to another AP.
Looking back, I realize I questioned him whenever something felt “off.” I thought I could tell when he was lying and of course I wanted to believe that the man who I married was a man of morals — honest and loyal.
Many, many years ago, I got a call from a man asking if my husband traveled and that he was having an affair with his wife. Husband said he never even went to that town and offered to show me his work travel expenses. I was uncomfortable, of course, but bought it. It falls me to realize that he went from one affair to another all those years.
Many years later I discovered quite by accident that he had been involved with a high school gf and he could not deny it, he told me it had ended a year earlier and I could check his phone records. He actually said he was a good husband and that he dropped everything when I had a ski accident and was taken to the hospital. (He had said he didn’t feel well and stayed home, but was actually with her.) Wow! Whatta guy!!
Oh, and two months later, while o was still using a cane, we were in Costa Rico celebrating my 50th, our 20th and my daughters 10th bday, he had a “work crisis.” The AP’s husband had found out. He said he spent a year afraid I’d find out.
Anyway, as far as I knew it was the first, it was over and he claimed it was an emotional affair. It happened after his mother died and he was distraught. We went to counseling, where he lied.
After DD#2, when I confronted him about lying in MC, his response was “Of course I lied. You were there.” MC bought his BS, said he really wanted to stay in the marriage, and that I was the one who needed to decide whether to divorce. As a child of divorce, I didn’t want my daughter to be without her father, so I hung in there.
He asked me “how long do I have to be in the doghouse?” UBT: I had no remorse. When can things get back to normal and I can pretend to be a loving husband and a devoted dad so everyone thinks I’m actually a good guy?”
Of course, I hid the relationship from my famiky and only told a couple of friends.
Only to be chumped again.
Of course, years separated these events. I had bought his BS and trusted the man I married, was faithful to, gave up my career for to care for our daughter while he traveled for work (and had affair after affair.)
Too bad I didn’t discover this site after DD#1. Or even before, which would have given me insight to open my eyes.
I’m 5 years out, divorced, have my own little home, kid in college and dating. But clearly haven’t gotten to meh yet. He’s living with the OW in a big new house on a golf course, living the image of success again. He makes the big bucks (like I once did) so he’s able to have his toys and vacations. But I get 1/3 of his income, retired and living quite comfortably. He’s on the hook supporting me for another 10 years.
Karma’s a bitch.
Sorry for the length of this post. I’m sure you all know what it’s like to vent.
No need to apologize. We all understand. Cheating is a massive blow and emotionally scarring. Even years later the faded scar is still there and is a little itchy some days.
“No one will ever love you like I do.”
UBT: “I will run you into the ground until there is almost nothing left of you. That is my version of love.”
My response: “That isn’t love. I choose life without you.”
“You can’t function in life without me.”
UBT: “I am so wonderful that you can’t possibly go on without me.”
My response: “Watch me.”
“If we just start over in a new place, we can make it work.”
UBT: “We will flip a switch and pretend that nothing happened in our marriage. I won’t be accountable to anyone, and I will be free of my misbehaviors. You will have no local friends to run to, only me.”
My response: “No rational person would do that given our history. Burying problems and pretending they’re gone because we’re in a new place is denial, and I live in reality now. And for what it’s worth, I don’t trust you enough to uproot my life entirely.”
“‘No rational person would do that given our history. Burying problems and pretending they’re gone because we’re in a new place is denial, and I live in reality now. And for what it’s worth, I don’t trust you enough to uproot my life entirely.'”
The only thing I enjoyed more than your UBT were your responses. Resonates – thank you!
Father: I’ve done everything for you.
UBT:
I abandoned you, and to make it clear that it was my wife’s fault and my children’s fault I had another family on the side and children, with a controlling psychopath, so that your life could be properly ruined.
And I was justified to not provide for you because otherwise I would have provided for you.
And why are you still alive, you were supposed to die so that all evidence of my actions would have been wiped off of the earth.
No, I am not comfortable with what I wrote. I tried to force myself to conform with the blog’s general view on cheaters, but I should not have done so, because, now that I wrote it, I know it is not the truth. What I lived, in my father’s case, was different.
In my father’s case, both he and my mother —shame-based “feeble-minded” individuals owing to family weakness— were accosted by the couple from hell. My parents were people onto whom everybody could project their shame. They kept being humiliated, but they would not notice. The couple from hell, the OW and her partner, were after resources. And it ended with a child. The couple from hell had found the resources for their own children as well. My father’s was a descent into madness. He lost everything. We were reserved ruin and subtle instigation to prostitution and suicide. My father’s, a drawn-out suicide of two decades. He was a man hollowed out in the end.
And all the voyeurs gathered one last time at his funeral. To gloat over the fallen man.
Not even this way. The truth is more likely the encounter or the friction of above two items.
“We’re not labeling it” Translation: your ex best friend who also happens to be my best friends wife and I are having an affair and totally in a relationship. But since she’s a money grubbing ditch pig we want to be sure this affair doesn’t impact any financial settlement she may be entitled to.
“I love you but I’m not in love with you” “The marriage was over years ago” Translation: I ALONE decided I was done and instead of putting my big boy pants on and talking through things and ending our marriage with dignity, I decided to be a self serving narcissist and have affairs or try to have affairs with our friends wives and point out every flaw you have. Also, I needed to show the world how crazy you are so I could justify my shitty behavior but since you are nice and people like you, I had to gaslight you to the point of you questioning your own sanity so that I could say “see she’s watching our alarm system and questioning why I opened the door at 4:00 in the morning” Never mind that your ex best friend came to our house and spent the evening with me while you were in Europe with our daughters and I fucked her for the second time that week while she lied to my best friend, her husband, why she left their two young children with a sitter. That’s not important. What’s important is that YOU were being insanely suspicious as to why I came come at 5:00 a.m. the very next day after you left for Europe and correctly suspected I was out fucking someone, but you just didn’t know who. And then you continued to be suspicious about why I disarmed the alarm at 4:00 in the morning from the phone and then the door opened immediately and you assumed (correctly) that it was someone leaving because she needed to get home to her kids before her husband came home from an overnight shift.
I could do this all day friends…
During the divorce, while he was claiming he ‘couldn’t find’ the records of his financial assets: “I’m not trying to cheat you.” Translation: “I’m trying to cheat you.”
That reminds me:
when trying to get me to use his lawyer: “I know you have no reason to trust me” SBT: “You have every reason distrust me, in fact you would be an idiot to trust me, and since I still think you are an idiot; lets use the same lawyer, so he and I can screw you into poverty”
We are both lawyers. He wanted to sort out the finances while I was a mess. He wanted to come to the house to ‘discuss’. Even in my suicidal state, I knew that he was trying to weaken me into agreeing to anything he wanted, so I refused. We had a pointless, compulsory mediation at which he said and offered nothing material. He looked sorry for himself and remarked that, because of my legal specialism I was ‘in my comfort zone’ while he, a mere commercial property lawyer, was ‘uncomfortable’. UBT, Mr Mediator, see, it’s all her fault and I’m a weak person who does not know what I’m doing, help me!’. And the mediator promptly did.
I stood my ground, knowing I had to tick the box and pay the mediator, and move on to court.
At the end, after lots of muttering from him that he ‘only wanted a fair settlement’ and ‘hadn’t hidden his bonuses’, I asked him whether he understood why I didn’t trust him. He just stared at me, shark-eyed. That ended the last shred of love. All I could see was a tiny, little, weak, ugly person. I felt nauseous and disgusted, with him, not myself.
I bought him out. Gave him too much money but so worth it to get shot. No kids so I never have to see that POS again. My UBT finally got its mojo back, after 26 years. And life feels fantastic.
” All I could see was a tiny, little, weak, ugly person.”
That is how I eventually saw the rat faced bastard. (thanks C6) I mean honestly, I saw him at our grandsons graduation and he looked like an actual rat. I had not seen him for years, and it was kind of comical. He wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. By then he and the whore had made a miserable financial mess of their lives, despite the fact that he got most of the assets.
All I got was a years temp maintenance while we were legally separated, and a small property (one bedroom house) that was paid for. Which was all I wanted.
He could have walked away and had he done what we planned, made a fortune, but he chose to start gambling and not only lost it all, but racked up almost three hundred in gambling debt. They had to file bankruptcy.
Honestly that surprised me, I knew he had turned into a bastard (or had always been) but I never thought he would be so financially irresponsible. Weird.
“I didn’t think she was a prostitute” : you just paid her to have sex after she quoted you a price
“You kiss better” : after seeing a text message he sent her (“your kisses are magical”)
“I don’t know how to use emojis”: then seeing the hundreds of text messages he sent her full of emojis
????????????
“I need more time”: to have cake, while “trying to resolve” his feelings for the prostitute
“Everyone has sugar babies now; you’re just old fashioned” : rationalizing paying the prostitute
“What’s a little money? I earn it”: when questioned about spending $1500 in 1 week on prostitute
“I didn’t realize marriage vows meant forever”: really? His parents were married 67 years…
And the cliche nuggets “You’d like her”, “Can’t you stop talking about it?”.
“You’re too good for me.” = You’re good enough to abuse.
“I’m not in contact with OW/OM.” = I’m gorging on all of the cake that I can. It might have sh*t for frosting, but it’s still cake.
“OW and I are over.” Sloppy seconds ditched me for another f*ckbuddy.
”We weren’t getting along.” = Adulting isn’t fun. Sloppy seconds didn’t expect me to care for my elderly parents and scrub the toilet, just send her a thousand emojis and selfies of my shortcomings.
“I’m sorry.” = I regret all of those financial and reputational consequences that I’ve experienced as a result of my navel gazing fuckery. I’m a victim too.
“I miss you and hope we can stay in touch.” = I hate missing out on those kibbles.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t my best self with you.”
Translation:
“I’m sorry I got caught, let me say something meaningless to try and reel you back in.”
And, of course, my response, which is…”How many selves do you have? Is there one that isn’t a jerk?”
“I just want to say that I love you very much and I think about making love to you every day. I love you very much”. MUBT: I just found out that some anonymous person sent OW’s husband a text message with dates, times, and names of all the men she’s fucked in the last 15 years and I am on that list and scared to death you’ll hear about it. Me(giggling and thinking) “I know you don’t think I sent the text because I don’t ever have a cell phone, but this is a pandemic and all you have to do is put on your mask, walk into Walmart, and buy a burner phone which you then toss after you’ve blown her boat out of the water.
Mighty!
That is so awesome. I used a burner email to send copies of one of the OW’s emails and nasty photos to her husband. I waited a long time until the D-day had blown over. OW had moved to the other side of the country. I just patiently lay in wait. I was awful and it felt good so I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. She had tweeted photos that she was all about her church ladies’ group and she was such a holy woman. I just broke. Holy, my ass. I sent the whole mess to her husband. She likely hadn’t seen klootzak in a year but to me, it was about settling the score. She was married. She knew klootzak was married. And I had wished so hard that someone had told me and I had not been chumped. I wrestled with whether I should tell him. Then when she claimed to be such a woman of virtue, that did it. He divorced her so fast. I’m happy for the guy. He didn’t deserve that. Neither did I. I don’t regret telling him one bit. Had klootzak lied to her, I might have let it go, but she was a willing accomplice and all about the cake. Eff that.
I waited 15 years until the OW was the same age I was when she fucked my husband and made sure I found out about it…that is her MO – fuck a married man and tell the wife. I know of at least two divorces she caused on ONE floor of an office building. I also told her husband that when he buried his only son, dead from leukemia, that she had her current AP acting as a pallbearer. I really dug to get the goods and then I delivered. I admire you for doing the same!
❤️
Soon to be ex gay in denial husband: ” I miss you. I just want to say hi and you won’t talk to me…”
Me: Do, tell, when do you miss me more… when you are getting fucked in the ass? Or when he is sucking your dick?
I can’t leave OW, she had a boyfriend before and she’d be so upset = After trying to seduce women and move in with them for years I’ve finally found one who will drop her knickers and let me come and live with her, otherwise, if I left you I’d have to find a bedsit if I let this one go when will another such come along
I want a divorce = Actually, I want access to the dosh and the house in case something goes wrong, so let’s wait 2 years so we can do it by mutual consent, by that time people will have forgotten what I did and I’ll look good. What….. you have filed for divorce, why have you done this to me, wah, wah, how could you, are you seeing someone else, that is shocking, you are cutting ties and this might go wrong for me and I’ll need somewhere to live, I NEED to control how this is going.
Well, no I wasn’t seeing anyone. But shame on you for asking our daughter if I was and trying to persuade her to stop me from filing
You’ve stolen my pension….I’ll be entitled to some of your inheritance when your parents die = I’m coming away with some money of yours from an inheritance, but apart from that I just want to cut off all ties including financial ones, well ones from me to you, not the other way round, why shouldn’t I benefit even though I’ve said I want a clean break from you.
Thankfully, my parents were still alive until some time after our divorce, both his parents however died while he was refusing to accept the settlement that, had he accepted it at the time, they both would have been alive.
On Ash Wednesday I went to the service and there was the reading about the woman taken in adultery and that made me realise that it would not be wrong to go off to be with her, God would approve = I conveniently stopped listening before the reader got to the bit that says go and sin no more, you know the bit that comes immediately , a good nanosecond after the good bit where she is not condemned; that would have been so inconvenient to hear
I’d not been able to go as was stuck on a train as a wire had broken and I arrived home around 4 hours late. NB he didn’t usually go, apparently, OW had planned to go but had forgotten when it came to it.
I might come to your father’s 90th birthday party [about 6 weeks after he left] = How could they possibly think bad of me, don’t they want me to be happy, how could they not want me, I’m special
I need to tell you, I had an affair with x and x’s daughter, and I tried to make out with your sister when she was a teenager and visited you = I’d better tell you about the ones that you might find out about so it doesn’t look so bad, let’s not worry about the ones who won’t tell you, and your sister won’t want to tell you what I really did, would she
Well, yes x did tell me. With others, jigsaw bits started to come together and I have a probable list
It’s all your fault, you didn’t come and help me look after my father when my mother was in hospital = why should I have had to do that, if you’d been there I could have gone out for walks and enjoyed myself and everyone would think that I was a great guy dropping everything to look after him
Actually, I did ask if he’d like me to come down, but he said no it was all ok, everything going well – until I’d gone to bed that night and he rang and wanted me to travel in the middle of the night because his father didn’t know where his wife was, and that was going to keep him awake.; when I said I could come in the morning after packing some clothes, when there were regular trains [he had taken the car because when he eventually was persuaded by his mother to come down it was too late to get a train, no if I didn’t want to come now when he needed me don’t come at all. Not quite sure how coming in the wee small hours when everyone would have gone to sleep would have helped, especially as I would have had to wake him up to let me in. Truth was that he thought himself to be too important to look after an old man for a few days, but boy how he milked the narrative that I refused to help him
Better stop there
CHUMP: But, you told me there was no longer any lead in the pencil and so there was no reason to fight about sex anymore.
FUCKWIT: I never said that.
CHUMP: (proceeds to describe the exact place and time and circumstance when those words were said.)
FUCKWIT: Well, then, it must have just been about you, then. I don’t have a problem when I’m with her.
Meaning: This is uncomfortable for me because you are twisting my story into something that is not my reality. Damn it, you’re supposed to believe that you have a horrible memory. I didn’t have you degraded down quite as far as I thought I did.
Temporary Husband who abandoned me and my child two months ago, via text: “If you want to talk or close it out, let me know.”
Translation: “I still have negative feelings toward you that I don’t know how to deal with so I want to lure you in with the idea of closure so I can dump them all over you and then feel better, just like I did when we were married.”
Me: No response
TH the next day: “Are you upset about something?”
Translation: “I want you to tell me that you are, so I can dump my feelings on you. I am waiting and I can’t hold them in much longer!”
Me: No response
Me, on the topic of communication: “Please do not call or text me. Please only email me. If you want to have a phone call, send me an email and we can schedule a time to talk.”
TH: “If you want me back or care about me, stop it. I don’t like how you talk to me in emails. I was just thinking about a nice memory the other day, but now you’re making me glad that I did what I did. You can’t control how I communicate, I will continue to call and text.”
Translation: “I have told all of my friends that we were trying to reconcile, and I am either bored or losing my validation from Schmoopie so I REALLY NEED to dump all of my emotions on you! I don’t know how to deal with them in a healthy way, and when I have a feeling, I need to immediately access you to dump all over you! You can’t set a boundary now! You didn’t set a boundary before! I want you to feel guilty, and I want to tell everyone that you are the one who is hurting me!”
Me: *Blocked his number, so guess who actually CAN control how she gets talked to?*
Wow, ClearMind, you’re doing SO WELL with your boundaries and you’re only 2 months out. You are mighty. My ex tried some similar bullshit in the early days. Isn’t it amazing how much it’s like trying to talk to a 5-year-old? Stay strong. I’m so sorry you’re going through this, but Chump Nation is here for you.
Thank you, Okupin! Full disclosure, this is my second marriage to a whiny baby-man; the first I had a kid with (and is way worse than TH!) so I get to deal with that one forever. TH did me a favor and left after just four months of marriage so no kids together or even common property… heading for a clean divorce and healing for me and my kid. You’d think I would have known better to not get with him in the first place, but I have to look on the bright side and see that I have experience with setting boundaries and filing for divorce in my state! (insert cackling emoji)
I was characterized as abusive and controlling for blocking FW’s number. I told him my expectations around communication, and my boundaries around how I needed to be treated and what I needed to see and hear – nothing new. I held onto those expectations and enforced my boundaries – unprecedented. Hence, “abusive”… of my power to protect and make choices for myself???
Ex: I wasn’t going to leave you.
UBT:I wasn’t going to leave you so I can continue to control your life.
Ex: I’ve been miserable 22 yrs
UBT: My empty soul is miserable as hell and I want you to be as well and work really hard on mind reading why I’m screamed this at you.
Ex: I was so tired from riding I couldn’t drive home.
Background:Ex rides motorcycles at tracks. He also took a specific female and maybe others too. I would shop for food unknowingly feeding both. I refused to go after going once for the day because I told him there was nothing there for me and I wasn’t going to be his track gopher pretending he is a good husband and dad. Track closed on Sunday and he developed the habit of coming home Tuesday. There were a couple of local guys that went as well but they always came one on Sunday evenings to their families so I would wonder what they thought of him and the other females knowing he had a family.
UBT: I was so tired of riding other women and them riding me that I couldn’t drive. My dick is way more important that my family.
* we were happy happy happy when he pulled out of the drive. We began our exit hours after he left for a weekend ride and as predicted to my attorney like clockwork he came in on Tuesday and started blowing up my phone. I didn’t answer until he called on his burner phone he thought I didn’t know about. His dumb ass remark was that I’d pick up a call from someone I didn’t know but not for him. I informed him that I knew it was his phone and he screamed it was a guy that worked for him. Waa waa waa was what I heard.
Mine had begun ending a lot of sentences or statements with “cause I’m honest” or “everyone knows how honest I am”.
This translates to “everything I say is a lie, but if I say how honest of a person I am, then people will not realize I lie constantly”.
Yep, mine would do that.
The top of the cake was when he had just told me that he had been “dating” for ten years, had been unhappy for ten years and had never loved me (21 years). Then the next sentence out of his mouth was, I am just not a very good liar, I can’t do it anymore.
Lied to me our whole marriage, lied to everyone else for years; but yeah sad sausage just wasn’t good a lying.
Cheater: She flirted. I’m so naive.
UBT: I’m guilty as sin. I love kibbles, and when I saw a young, available source, I pounced. Sure we were both married with kids, but what the hell? YOLO!
Cheater: She tried to end it by moving away.
UBT: I like saying this because it makes her look good, and I want people to think that I left you for a good person. It also makes me seem SO desirable. My awesomeness was SO great and our love so strong (think romance novel) that she had to physically remove herself from the state or else she would have gone mad with desire. Oh, and I’m too stupid to see this as a manipulation tactic on her part.
Cheater: I love you both. I didn’t expect this to happen until that last day or two when you (Spinach) reacted so badly.
UBT: I don’t love you. I’m not even sure what love is. But I like to say that I love you both because it makes me seem like a good guy with a tortured soul who is trying to make such a hard decision. POOR ME! I also like blaming you, Spinach. p.s. I still want cake!
TL;DR: I spew BS. That’s all I do.
“I hope when we’re through the hard part [of divorce], we can be friends.”
AdelanteBT: “I would like to continue to extract value from you (and limit the financial damage you could do during the divorce).”
Yeah. I got that, too. They’re so unoriginal. AdelanteBT nails the translation.
Oh, mine added, “I will always care about you.” So deep into the effed-up relationship was I that I almost believed this at first. ROTFL!
Oh yes exactly. Mine said I still want to be (daughter’s) loving mum and dad, and he talked about his new place being family headquarters number 2. I could go round and have dinner there and stuff. Mind fuck. And apparently Love Never Dies. Then at the same time abhorrent things said about us, me, ourtime together.
UBT: I will pretty much say anything as long as it only makes you look bad, doesn’t make me look bad and I don’t admit any of what has really been going on.
Once I found out a confronted him, guess what, I’m a horrible person who he doesn’t know any more and that’s just sad. Boo fucking hoo. Still waiting for the invite for dinner at Family Headquarters No 2. Heh heh.
Yep.
He said that to me on the phone, I hope we can be friends. I just said “No, I am particular about who my friends are” then said “get the D filed” and said goodbye.
Thank goodness he got it filed in a few days, or I would have had to; and I didn’t want to.
I’m living this every day right now. Midst of divorce living in the same house with two young kids. Everyday he puts so much effort into THIS ????
song by Crosby, Nash, & Young “Teach Your Children Well ”
You, who carried the load
Must have a code that you can live by
And now you are by yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye
Teach your children well
Their father’s hell is what they’re thrown by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s the one you’ll know by
Don’t you ever ask him, “Why”
If he told you, you would cry
So just look at him and sigh
And know he doesn’t love you
And you worn down by years
Now know the fears
That at first you tried to deny
And so, we all now know
The way we wasted our youth
Trying to know the truth
Before we told him good-bye
And teach the other chumps well
Their days in hell will slowly go by
And we will form the teams
That help each other finally know why.
Don’t you ever ask him, “Why”
If he told you, you would cry
So just look at him and sigh
And know he doesn’t love you
Excellent!
I got home late yesterday, and posted at the end of the comments about the “fix your picker” journey. If you look at all the lies posted here, and the refusal to take responsibility for bad actions, and blame shifting, and substance abuse, you see the obvious pattern and script liars and cheaters follow. After you see it, you are no longer in the thrall of loving an unlovable person. You save yourself for people who are deserving of your love and attention, and you push all the bad stuff out of your everyday experience. You have learned things you probably never wanted to know, but it will protect you going forward, like a shield of knowledge.
The UBT is funny. It is good to laugh at the ridiculous situations we found ourselves in. Laughter is a great cure, along with time, and clear thinking. Aunt Bea 619’s take on a CSNY classic is so right — you know what love is not, and that he doesn’t love you. That is the key concept for a new life.
“you know what love is not, and that he doesn’t love you”… and that he doesn’t share your values and goals, nor does he appreciate or determine your worth.
ooh yes, when we were at mediation and he was going on about being incompatible blah blah blah… I said well yes, you two share the same values and I don’t, so you’re right
The Python said: “You make my life a living hell.”
Translation: “I want to fuck other women and go into tens of thousands of dollars in debt for multiple motorcycles and other toys but you have the nerve to complain.”
Good gried.
Yes, my fw wanted me to sign for a river front property. I really didn’t want to as I thought we were already inn too deep with rental property and a big ass boat. So he whined “ok fine I will just sit home all the time” God forbid he spend any time home with me.
Anyway I finally caved, and it became his and the whores get a way. That is the one thing I still resent. That I helped him set up his love next for his whore.
Of course he lots that and every thing else to gambling debts (bankruptcy) after we divorced, but still she got to use it for a while.
I totally get how you feel.
After D-Day #1 (I smoked hopium until #2), he started his motorcycle buying spree and had enough cash for the first one but soon had his eye on another. He convinced me that it was really important to have one for commuting and one for “touring” (long rides during which I found out later he texted the various waitresses he was pursuing).
He had crappy credit and couldn’t get a loan so he convinced me to charge it on one of my credit cards and promised he would pay all the payments (even at that ridiculous interest rate). I agreed and he did make regular payments but it fries me that he used those long rides to try to build a harem.
It was always Opposite Day with ol’ Best Regards: basically if he said anything negative about himself, it was really about me, and vice versa. Once I learned the mirror trick, a lot of things snapped into place for me. To wit:
“I’m working out 2x a day because I don’t want to get fat and have you not be attracted to me anymore.”
UBT: You’re getting too fat for my tastes and I’m not attracted to you anymore.
“Why are you mad at me? I just got home from work!”
UBT: I came home from work mad and am taking it out on you, who is actually in a perfectly fine mood.
(When I told him I would never go out to dinner alone with a guy, even for work, because I don’t like giving out the wrong impression to friends and colleagues): “You’re being weird. Sounds like you really want to go have dinner with other men.”
UBT: I am totally dating another woman right now.
“You built a wall between us.”
UBT: I have spent the last 6 months building a wall between us out of absence, neglect, silence, rage, and criticism.
And so on. It’s a pretty neat trick, actually—very hard to catch on to for those of us who tend to mean what we say.
My ex did the same behaviour and would talk about a guy at his work saying ‘his face is so fat. Why doesn’t he take care of himself?” All the while looking at me with contempt.
Translated: you have gotten fat, you disgust me. I deserve more as I am entitled.
I said to the ex, “you should take a look in the mirror, you’re 127kg!”
I had put on weight but that will happen when your husband leaves for work at 4am and returns 6pm and I worked full time, did all the house chores, organised our child for school, did all the meals, bills, investments, finances, organised the holidays, weekends with friends, you know- everything.
What a lovely life for him seeing prostitutes, lying to his family etc.
So I didn’t take care of myself as I simply had no fricken TIME but I sure do have time now and am loving not having that ball and chain around my neck dragging me down with his misery.
“I only had unprotected sex ONCE with one of the people I cheated on you with.”
Translates loosely to:
“Not only did I not care about you, your health and our unborn baby’s health…I also don’t care about mine. I think the pullout method and showering is a form of std prevention when sleeping with strippers and drug addicts.” ????
But…but…they were all CLEAN strippers and drug addicts!”
My idiot; “I thought she was clean.”
UBT; “The fact that she was the town bike, ridden more times than the mechanical bull in a Texas dive bar, somehow did not dissuade me from forming that conclusion.”
“I was going to write you a letter but since I’m here, I might as well say it. Give me another chance?”
UBT: I can’t actually be bothered to write anything or make this special. Also I believe my physical presence/body language/mystic aura/specialness pheromones will overpower your good sense. Plus there will be nothing in writing that you can use against me.
Cheater to kids “your mum hates me now”
UBT “‘no contact’ is so inconvenient. How can I charm, manipulate, bully into compliance? (and dang it those new appliances keep getting out”
Cheater “I wonder why?”
UBT I’ve moved on years ago. bonding? decades of loyalty rewarded with cheating and lies? your point?
Cheater “she needs to get over it”
UBT It isnt at all convenient. she used to be good kibbles. she might be useful again.
No contact-Chump …Crickets 🙂
Me: What the hell is this!!!! (after receiving an anonymous email saying he’s having an affair).
Him: Absolute denial, looked totally shocked by the email etc. I’ve no idea flower, you know I’d never do anything like that, I’m not that kind of guy.
UBT: fuck, better think quick. she totally trusts me so let’s go with that and she does believe I wouldn’t do anything like that to her so that’s my cover. Not that I give one shit about her but what would my daughter think of me if the truth came out. She deserves it anyway cause (insert 1,000 of the usual reasons here).
Me: why are you on a member on a casual hookup site
Him: I’m doing this for us (never once has mentioned that he had joined and used such “services”)
UBT: I want my cake and I want your permission to have sex with any random that will stroke my narcissistic ego
” I’ve never had sex with anyone but you since we’ve been married and I never would ” translation. . . . ” I lead a double life for 15 years ” ” I wanted my dick sucked and I wanted it sucked by anyone but you, and I had a right to ” translation . . . there is none he actually said to words and he meant them.
Me: It’s as if you committed suicide. You killed your life as you knew it.
Cheater: Better a suicide than a homicide.
Me: ????
UBT: I spoke the quiet part out loud. If you were dead, things would be easier in so many ways.
Chilling.
Shmoops called me “devil woman” long before I knew she existed, thus my moniker.
Bullshit Translator:
“My beaten down evangelical mom and pint-sized Trump-looking drunken racist MAGA dad regularly parrot Trump and call AOC and Nancy Pelosi “devil women” (which was followed by actual, organized murder plots, oops). So basically I kinda want wifey dead– preferably burned at the stake by Cotton Mather himself– and I display the telltale ‘splitting’ behavior indicative of borderline personality disorder.”
I’m cheating a bit because my “Deep Throat” went to school with a classmate of shmoops and knew some of the dysfunctional back-story.
For the record, AOC isn’t rad enough for me, partly because of her choicy “sex work is work” position.
“Pint-sized, Trump-looking, drunken racist MAGA dad”
Woe is me. Why can’t I find a dreamboat like that on Tinder?
If you can’t dazzle her with brilliance, baffle her with bullshit.
Whoops, put this in the wrong place.
Cheater: “The voice of defiance keeps me going and wards off despair.”
Can anyone UBT this one for me?
“The voice of defiance keeps me going and wards off despair.”
UBT: “Occasionally I remember morals and values but just ignore them”
I’m in denial that I fucked up my life
No one is the boss of me. #entitled thinking about others, empathy, morals are for others
“Because I’m edgy and intellectual like that, and to prove it, I’m hiking the PCT and writing a book.”
Thanks for these UBT stabs.
The entitlement comes through as does the faux intellectualism. He hides behind words. They provide a mask.
As is often said on this site, judge them by their actions. Over the years, he impressed, silenced, seduced, and bullied me with his words. I’d hear a sentence like that and think, “He must be having DEEP THOUGHTS. But no, he’s a shallow man!!!
It all makes sense now–the image management (including buying impressive books that he never read); snowing everyone (me esp) with his words; faux intellectualism; hiding his true nature behind his Ivy-league degree and job. “I’m a physician and therefore superior!” UGH.
#fake #shallow #entitled
And I bought it all.
Tee hee! That woman is so obtuse. Her advice is dangerous. She condones abuse and romanticizes cheating.
*Cheryl Strayed, that is! Not a fellow chump. (Comment didn’t land where I expected.)
Agreed. She’s a self-aggrandizing douchebag as well. It sickens me that creeps like that get paid to hand out advice. Where are the advice columnists who call things as they are rather than pandering to amorality? They are certainly few and far between, and the existing ones are usually doing it from a religious perspective, which many people can’t relate to.
I think he’s been reading Esther Perel’s “acts of defiant exuberance” drivel — https://www.chumplady.com/2014/08/its-not-an-affair-its-an-act-of-exuberant-defiance/
UBT: “Recasting my fuckwit behavior as brave self-discovery is my best chance of keeping my false mask in place and finding more sources of supply.”
Defiant and willful like a small child or teenager having a tantrum/being a mouthy adolescent.
Probably so. And this chump introduced him to Esther Perel when he said he wanted a separation. He needed “some space.”
I know I know I know I know????????♀️
“I crossed the boundaries of our marriage”
UBT: “I fucked him”
…
Enough said
So succinct!! Love it!
Mine said:
If I could have faced the prospect of leaving then I would have hurt you less. The fact that I couldn’t face it ended up making it worse.
Anyone want to have a go at that one?
“If I could have faced the prospect of leaving then I would have hurt you less. The fact that I couldn’t face it ended up making it worse.”
UBT – “I don’t like consequences”
My ex said “I didn’t handle it right” Maybe he meant something like that. They think some inance little blurb makes them look better. Kind of like the old “I never loved you” Oh well then what you have done is understandable because THAT makes you look so much better.
In all fairness I don’t think there is a right way to handle adultery.
No there isn’t . If you really don’t want to continue the relationship, then be honest and communicate. Don’t fuck around.
But they are too much of a coward to have the painful discussion.
And what makes it weirder is that he kept saying he really didn’t want to lose me and now he hates me. I guess he really just wanted his cake
He wanted to have the cake.
He now hates you, because there needs to be a bad person in that story.
Naturally that has to be you.
My ex completely rewrote the story as well.
She is a theater nurse. Unbeknownst to her, one of my friends frequently works with her in the same theater as an anesthetist.
Apparently she has a new lease on life since getting rid of her asshole of a former husband. The fact that she fucked the surgical equipment rep who was also married at the time, doesn’t feature in her story.
Meh.
Yeah we’re such shitty spouses for wanting love, respect and loyalty. Mine was apparently quite depressed after he left me which is weird because if I was so bad why wasn’t his life better? He got what he wanted-a sex slave. I don’t know what he’s doing now but he claims he doesn’t need to work. Funny that, he lives the high life but can’t pay much child support. They are such dirt bags it’s beyond belief sometimes.
They don’t do life very well.
Towards you he only present the narcissistic shell.
Inside however , there is a slowly burning tyre fire of chaotic thoughts- grandiosity and entitlement, coupled with the realisation that he fucked up.
Pro-tip : stay far away from that mess
Yep, it is what I would have done. I mean he was treating me like dog shit; but I stayed loyal and honest.
If I could have faced the prospect of leaving then I would have hurt you less. The fact that I couldn’t face it ended up making it worse.
UBT: I’m a fucking coward.
Cheater: “We started to have coffee together at work-and then we started to have a lot of coffee together.”
Truth: “We met at hotels, we totally had sex, I bought her stuff, and she was pregnant with her husband’s child at the time. So I’m one sick son of a bitch.”
Cheater: “I don’t know why our couples friends don’t come and hang out with us anymore-you must have said or done something they didn’t like.”
Truth: “You were a constant Creeper and hitting on all of the wives.”
Cheater: 3 days before I moved out: “We should go to counseling together.”
Truth: “We should keep up this charade so everyone thinks we are a wonderful family. I won’t stop texting other women in front of you -and you can keep making dinner for the family and pretending for the kids that nothing is wrong. I LOVE this life!”
Cheater: (to whomever will listen: “She’s been begging to come back home.”
Truth: I’ve just closed escrow on the second house I’ve bought since I left him almost 3 years ago.
P.S.-I’m not coming back.
YES ????????
People must be putting aphrodisiacs in the workplace coffee. It’s the only explanation for how innocent coffee consumption leads to so many torrid affairs.
I work in a massive hospital – one always meets new people.
I started chatting to a woman and we had coffee .
She later messaged me , stating that she was in a ‘weird relationship’ and that she wanted me to be her friend as I’m a good listener . ( she doesn’t wear a wedding ring)
I just replied that I like a very simple life – and that this just didn’t sound right to me .
I haven’t seen her since .
But it just shows how easy it is to have an affair at work , emotional or otherwise .
You don’t need to come up with an excuse of your whereabouts or time with the other person. There could always be a professional reason why you are interacting with the AP .
It’s an affair with the alibi pre-installed
Hospitals provide the perfect culture medium for affairs–a massive petri dish for illicit sex. The noble profession serves as an effective cover for shitty behavior.
Note: I’m biased. Ex was a doc. OW is a nurse.
Well I’m a doc and have never cheated.
And I can vouch for the colleagues I’m also friends with.
But I know enough stories.
The OR is a typical place where they find each other .
Or conferences. If I wanted to , I could have cheated on so many occasions .
I had offers to come to hotel rooms initiated by female docs , so it’s definitely not just the men .
My ex’s colleagues would have vouched for him, they would have sworn up and down that he was not the cheating type.
You think you know a person, but then…
That is so on the mark Spinach. My ex had a lot of folks fooled. Now I am am certain some of the cops knew what he was doing, because they were doing the same thing. Police officers as a rule are tight lipped about that stuff. They only use the info if it benefits them, other wise they keep quiet because knowledge is power.
But, he absolutely had a lot of folks fooled.
This I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I’m sure you are correct – you never really know a person .
But I have seen how they interact at conference dinners and social functions, but wo knows ?
It was never for me – and now that I have been single for nearly 3 years, it’s still not for me .
My ex is a doc too. I was married for 23 years and he cheated on me the entire marriage. He cheated with nurses and hospital staff. When we were married, he would come hone and tell me about “other docs” having affairs in the call room and he acted as if he was disgusted by them. I have a sneaky suspicion these “other doctors” were actually just him and he got off on telling me about his dalliances.
” I have a sneaky suspicion these “other doctors” were actually just him and he got off on telling me about his dalliances.”
My ex did the same thing, only about other police officers.
I got this BS from ex, who would be disgusted by others’ behaviors when he was doing exactly what he was stating he was against. I was married to fucking Two-Face.
“I like a simple life and that doesn’t sound right to me.”
The ultimate fuckwit pesticide.
I hate rings, so I never wore a wedding ring. I can’t tell you how many pervs would use that as an argument when I told them I was married and not interested. One even straight up accused me of lying. I said; “Well, if you think I’m going to the extent of lying about it, that means I’m trying to get rid of you, doesn’t it. So why are you still here?”
Never heard from him again either. Lol.
“I love you, just not like I should. ”
UBT; “I don’t love you like I love her. Perhaps if you performed a naked pick me dance on demand and stopped being smarter and a better person than me, I’d love you like that. Just a thought.”
“I just fell for her.”
And;
“It just happened!”
And;
I can’t help it if I have feelings for her.”
UBT; “After 90+ lunch dates, twice that number of coffee breaks, multiple dinners, almost an entire summer spent together every second we could get, and several furtive shags, I inexplicably developed feeeewings. How was I supposed to know that would happen?”
“You weren’t meeting my needs.”
UBT; “You had the unmitigated gall to have needs of your own. I didn’t want to bother trying to meet them, so I dumped you for a fantasy.”
“I fell out of love with you before I started cheating. There was nothing I could do about that.”
And;
“It was just the normal ebb and flow of love.”
UBT; “I was chagrined to find that my heart didn’t skip a beat every time you walked in the room after being together and taking you for granted for decades. Hey, maybe if you took it up the butt, my love wouldn’t ebb so much. Just a suggestion.”
“What was missing in our marriage was there were not enough activities.”
UBT; “I cheated for ACTIVITIES, and yet here you are thinking it was because I’m a creepy, deceitful pervert who likes abusing you or something crazy like that. Why can’t you just blame yourself already!”
“Hey, maybe if you took it up the butt, my love wouldn’t ebb so much. Just a suggestion.””
I about spit out my water on that one.
That is the one thing I said no to, and that didn’t even come up until a couple years before we split. Maybe that is when he decided to marry the fuck buddy.
He makes his love dependent on wether you do or don’t enjoy anal sex?
You are a lucky person for getting rid of him.
Oh I know. Honestly, he didn’t make that big a deal out of the turn down. I was pretty adventurous, but not interested in anal. But he was actively cheating at that time, unknown to me of course. I am sure he already had his supply, might even be where he got the idea.
I think it just demonstrates how much abuse we have to take from the cheater.
My ex all of a sudden really hated my chest hair. It was never an issue before. Part of my pick me dance was to get laser treatment.
Surprise – that didn’t safe the marriage.
They just say demeaning things to us to devalue us and to elevate their and the APs worth. But as true chumps, we start thinking”maybe I should have had anal sex”or book in at laser hair removal places.
And it took me quite a while to realize how many of those comments she made the whole time. And how much easier my life is, without a narcissist’s running comment.
Exactly.
Schmoopie not only would not have anal, she stopped having sex with him altogether after awhile, and wouldn’t even kiss him for at least the last year they were seeing each other. He still preferred her. The draw is that they are new, it’s illicit and naughty, and the fw has no dreary responsibilies towards the schmoopie. IOW, it’s a fantasy. That is, until they leave for schmoopie. Then it’s suddenly not so much fun.
Chest hair phobia is a new one on me. Total bullshit.
Ah , she just needed anything to run me down.
I exercise a lot, by no means fat. But had put on some weight with work and kids .
So I lose 12 kilos , I had abs where there was fat before .
“ I can’t see the difference “
So, it’s all total bullshit .
But that’s how they are .
“The draw is that they are new, it’s illicit and naughty, and the fw has no dreary responsivities towards the schmoopie. IOW, it’s a fantasy.”
I don’t think there is any question about that. As long as the sneaking around is going on she remains more exciting. My ex screwed around with Schmoops for years. He didn’t turn into a shit head to me until the last year. In fact he told me at the beginning of the last year, if I got a call about him messing around, someone was just trying to cause him trouble. I am guess she told him he tells me or she does. Up to the last year, he was home every night, we were working together, laughing, loving and he was playing the church going family man. She wanted marriage, and he was her boss, as George Costanza would say “she had hand”.
He started staying away from home, and staying up late at night immediately after he got his last promotion. The final descent to discard was launched.
So I had to be disposed of. It was painful, I thought I would never recover but, It worked out fine for me. I recovered, then I traded up, he traded down. I just hope to help others see that it isn’t about the chump, in the end they are just not decent people.
Fuckwits do love some degrading sex. I’m convinced they consider sex dirty, thus they are aroused by dirty things like cheating and gross sex acts.
You know looking back, he was always into risky type sex. By that I mean, in places where he could get caught. On the beach, in the water, boat sex etc. Lots of examples. I went along with most as long as it was safe, and I was pretty sure we wouldn’t get caught. He was all I ever knew, so all I knew was what he taught me. We married at 18, he was the only one for me. I had boyfriends before him but no sex aside from kissing.
On the few times that I refused, he never got mad at me. I suspect he was getting it on the side for a long time, but up to that last horrendous years, it never seemed to affect our sex life. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me, if he didn’t come right home and do me to switch back into married mode. He had issues no doubt. But, I adored him and trusted him.
His mother told me years later that his dad brought home another man one night to have sex with her. He was drunk at the time. She chased the guy away, but it freaked her out. By the time that happened he was pretty much drinking non stop. He had a massive heart attack soon after that and died.
I often wondered just what the hell my ex saw growing up in that house.
Please note I am not blaming drinking, just stating what she told me. In all the years together except the first year my ex never drank, and my dad aside from an occasional beer was not a big drinker; so I know nothing about alcohol issues.
I do remember that the few times my ex did drink in the beginning, he was a happy drunk. He didn’t get mean.
My ex always had a selfish streak, it was usually all about him. But, he didn’t get mean until that last year.
Sounds like your ex/first husband grew with his father modeling selfishness and entitlement to him.
Yep. Funny thing is, I only knew his fad for a short time. He died just about four years or so after we married. And during that time ex was still in the Army, so we only saw him a few times for short periods. I couldn’t stand his arrogant ass. Funny that I didn’t notice it in the ex. Guess I thought he was different. He just hid it better for a season.
He did try to be a good dad, I will give him that. So between that and my influence (hopefully) I have an amazing son. He is 52 now, and shows no sign of being the arrogant ahole his dad was. For that I am grateful.
Susie Lee, never ever feel like you owe him any kind of sex that you don’t want. You would be in the same place today if you had given in to him, only you would have less respect for yourself. My ex and I had similar condition, counselor asked him if he ever let me know he wanted anything but vaginal sex. Answer, ” no ” Nothing makes sense. Weak men take the easiest way out, then blame it on you. Don’t fall for it. Head held high, you matter.
I know. I didn’t go along with it, to be honest, he never acted like it bothered him. I think schmoops or someone taught him that and he just wanted to try it with me. I obviously didn’t know he was cheating in real time.
I do wish I had CL in real time though. I handled it (the year of discard) all pretty well, but there are a couple things I would have done differently. I never had any problem taking the high road. I think though that a couple detours to the low road (being a little meaner) might have been good for me.
23 yr. old Cheaterslut: “I did it because I didn’t think you cared”
UBT: I did it because I wanted to , you or your feelings don’t matter , it’s all about me.
23 yr. old Cheaterslut: “I never got a chance to live”
UBT: I never got a chance to have monkey sex with dozens of men.
I never got a chance to live????
WTF??? That makes no sense. Jesus. Also, ME ME ME ME ME!
#classic
We’d been married 5 years with 2 small children and her affair was discovered a month earlier , this was her reply when I found she wouldn’t stop seeing him….same day I showed her the door.
Cheater: “My flight was bumped.”
UBT: I had no intention on getting on that flight! Not when I can get real hook ups here in Florida, while you’re at home in the cold Midwest, shoveling snow, getting the kids stuff done, and making nice dinners. I know there will be good leftovers whenever I get home!”
Cheater: “I just can’t make you happy.”
UBT: This line always does it. When I blame her for never being satisfied, she gets confused & forgets about the promises I made to be home more.
Cheater: “You never thank me for going to work. Why do husbands have to thank their wives for doing work at home?”
UBT: Ha! She just doesn’t appreciate all the work I do! Good thing she doesn’t know the perks I give myself. I can do what I want with my own money. She’s not making any. Good thing she hasn’t realized that I take out $200 cash before each business trip and I never get it reimbursed. She sees the checks from the company & thinks it tallies up! She still trusts me! I better do something nice tomorrow like bring her a cup of coffee from Starbucks. That’ll throw her off. And it uses cash. She knows I like to have a little cash in my wallet.
Cheater to son: “I’ll think about it.”
UBT: That shut him down. He believes me when I look up thoughtfully from my newspaper and say that. If it’s really important, he’ll ask again. Now, back to the comics.
Me: “I have to get up early tomorrow, honey. I’m going up to bed.”
Cheater: “Ok! Sleep well. G’night! I’ll be up after the news.”
UBT: Finally! I’ve been waiting sooooo long. I’m going to stuff my face with those flour tortillas, then cookies, then some bread & butter. Then I can get on my computer and surf totally by myself! This is the best time of the night!”
Unfortunately, I am not snarky and I almost completely lost my sense of humor over the past 25 years with a cheater. Sigh!
EXH: I’ve been selling my little blue pills to Tari. You know my health issues are really bad. I can’t believe you looked/checked up on me. Monster.
UBT: I just joined F&@C Buddies and am having the time of my life. I’m glad you are working two jobs to pay all our bills (I deserve it) while I lay on the couch and go on dates while you work. I just can’t believe you asked, you are not living up to ‘for better or worse’
I love you, I never stopped loving you!
such bullshit… really, you loved me when you were fucking a stranger you met on adult friend finder!?! not possible
Those are exact word for word of what my ex wife told me. Literally exact.
Ex-Narc #1: “I don’t like short girls, I’m not attracted to her”
Me: “Why does she keep popping up, and why does Ho stand close to you and use your cellphone when we were out at a brewpub with friends? Why does Ho call your (landline) to talk to me when you’re at work…and quiz me about how we’re doing, and ask me to go the gym together? Why did she look pissed when we were at her birthday party and you gave her a CD for her gift?
Ex-Narc #1: “She’s just friendly”
UBT: I’ve been banging her the whole time I’ve been dating you, telling you how in love I am, and asking you to move in with me. I tell her that I’m going going to leave you soon for her…but I feel sorry for you. You know when the phone rings late on Saturday night, and I say it’s my ex-wife and my kid has an emergency, and I rush out the door…it’s actually Ho booty-calling me…she is really freaky and I need a lot of variety…even though I do it three times a day with you and tell you it’s amazing.
Ex-Aspy Nerdy Liar#2: After I get back from week visiting my family, Liar’s married female friend tips me off by dropping into conversation that Ho stayed the night at his house when I was out of town. (One of the nerd guys was her husband…I wonder what he told her!)
Me: Liar, you told me Ho and the two nerd guys went home.
Liar: Well, I fell asleep upstairs, I didn’t know that Ho and nerds crashed in my living room.
Me: Did anyone sleep in the brand new bed upstairs in my room that we bought, and said no one else could sleep in?
Liar: Uhh, I’m not sure…maybe.
Me: Why did you lie to me and not tell me that Ho spent the night and people sleep in my bed?
Liar: We’re just friends. YOU HAVE A JEALOUSY PROBLEM.
UBT: Before he met me, Nerdy Liar wanted Ho. Ho told NL that she “didn’t feel a spark” and is only polyamorous, but still was fine to have him chauffeur her around and pick up tabs. He said that he couldn’t be “just friends”, it was too hard for him, and they agree to not see each other or go to the same parties. So he meets and pursues me…I spruce deep geek up, get him some decent and clean clothes, a haircut, teach him manners, etc. Then Ho comes sniffing back around all the time…yes, her name is actually “Sunshine” (barf)…but she always ignores me…but NL tells *me* I’m not nice to her. Now that I shined him up, and he has someone, Ho decides she wants him! Liar and Ho are now married with a kid! They did me a huge favor, actually!
Dummy: She’s my Twin Flame!
UBT: I found someone new who makes my dick hard and tells me everything I want to hear. She’s married, too, and that makes it even more exciting. We are living in a double triangle!!! It’s so fun to take advantage of you trusting and loving and generous chumps with no imagination! I am so clever! And being sneaky is fun!!
Dummy: She can read my thoughts, it’s uncanny. I will be thinking of a song and she will text me about it.
UBT: I am too dumb to realize she can see my Spotify account and all my activity
The spotify thing really cracks me up now. God, he is so stupid.
This!
I receive this text regularly, always prefaced with “Just so you know…I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you!”
Translation: “Just so you know -You’re still an option for me! I”m really a nice bloke. Please forget and keep me as an option too! Please never mention everything I did to you, because “I never stopped loving you”.
It’s coming up to five years since I kicked him out. Initially he sent these texts weekly. This year has dropped back to every 2-3 months. I never reply.
Can’t you block him ?
I have kids with my ex .
She wanted to continue to text me after separation and divorce.
I told her that she can use texts only if is about the health and safety of our children .
Everything else is via emails.
And I only answer her emails usually half an hour before ‘handover ‘
It took her a few months to understand this concept , but she got it eventually.
You must have those boundaries , otherwise your fuckwit ex can send those texts any time he wants .
I love you.
UBT: I use you.
I will always love you.
UBT: I will always use you.
I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.
UBT: I’ve never used anyone like I use you.
You are the love of my life.
UBT: You are the use of my life.
I love you but I’m not in love with you.
UBT: I used you but your use is wearing out.
Pretty straight forward. Cheaters really are a simple lot. That is why they all say and do pretty much the same things.
One of many BS correspondences from FW (now ex and thankfully NC – UBT was worn out!):
“I am sorry you are having a hard time today.
> I will not respond to what you’ve communicated. I don’t care about how my words and actions affect you, and I will not take any responsibility for your “hard time.” Not my problem! Oh, and thanks for the kibbles.
“I wonder if you are angry with yourself for sending me that hopeful email last night and now today you feel like taking the anger out on me.
>Again, instead of responding to you, I’m going to distract and bring up something else. AND I’m going to shame you for that genuine and thoughtful other thing you wrote so you feel humiliated and leave me alone. Then I’ll shame you for wanting to communicate and problem solve, for having feelings and for trying to get me to be truthful and accountable. I am a victim of your uncontrollable, undeserved anger. I am the adult, and you are the child.
“I am getting ready for the procedure tomorrow, but I guess you dont really care about that.
>I know you care a great deal, and I know how to hit you where it hurts most. And if you respond in “anger” to this, you will be a really terrible person because you’ll make me upset on the eve of my [routine, harmless] procedure. (Just like when you dared to be hurt after I first told you about my cheating the night before I went, not coincidentally, on a trip with my acquaintance with cancer? God, you are so shallow and selfish.) Also, never forget you are less important than me, and whenever anything is going on in my life, you don’t count.
“I stopped cheating on you, and I havent been as honest with you as you would have liked about all the countless horrible details, but I am not lying to you and havnt since you’ve been back about further contact with anyone else.
>I’m still not going to respond to what you want to talk about. I’d like to bring this back to something we can both agree upon (wink, wink), something that demonstrates my integrity and innocence: I stopped cheating on you. Remember, chump? I told you. We agreed! Also, you have unreasonably high expectations for yourself. Sure, I haven’t exactly been “honest ” in the past, but that has nothing to do with this! That’s your problem. Don’t take it out on me. There should be no consequences for the “countless horrible details” of what I’ve done and continue to do to you – seven plus years of cheating and all kinds of abuse, yada yada yada. I don’t care about you… don’t you get it?! (I am still cheating and lying, FYI.)
“Does it help you feel better to tell me over and over again that I have ruined your life?
>Stop looking at me. You’re the pathetic one. This is all your fault.
“Does looking at those pathetic emails that i sent make you feel better?”
>Don’t you dare try to understand or hold me accountable, past or present. I liked when my double life was a secret and I could lie and manipulate you with abandon. I’m entitled to whatever I want, and you aren’t. I can’t face the truth about who I am and what I’ve done, and I don’t want you or anyone else to know the truth, either. How can I twist this…? I know! I’m not pathetic, you’re pathetic. So there.
*Hmm, I think I confused UBT with a regular old subtext reader quite a bit here (and thereby attempted some skein untangling, which misses the point of the challenge!). My cheap, knockoff UBT is a poor substitute for the real deal!
I blame your cheater for breaking your UBT. ????
Thanks, Stronger. I can’t believe I engaged with that BS for so long. Pushing an anvil down the road! I caught myself stewing over a line of BS from that UBT, so I reframed it as a t-shirt slogan for cheaters:
“Life is kibble… the rest is just countless horrible details.”
Bread&Roses-That’s awesome!!
When I was still with my ex and in the process of moving out-I had a tank top made that said,
“What Doesn’t Kill You…Disappoints Me.”
Cheater: “Those condoms? I use them for masturbating.”
UBT: Masturbating is the term I use for screwing my secretary in our marital bed while you were away attending a funeral.
That’s hilariously disgusting and it really takes the cake! Was he worried that his hand had an STI so he had to wear a condom from himself? Gotta love the creativity!????
My ex tried that one as well. Except he claimed they were really old from when our two year old was a baby and we weren’t having sex, but the box, expiry date and batch number showed they were fresh off the shelves.
Gawd. That’s like when I found our computer with a web page open to porn and another tab open to local escorts, he claimed that he wasn’t looking to hook up with the escorts but he was fantasizing about it. And you know what? This here chump believed him ????. Years later of course after DDay he confessed to using hookers and then he said, “what the hell did you think I was doing?” So I’m not only a trusting chump but a dumb one too (according to him).
So the narrative changes to suit what they’re trying to prove. No, I’m only fantasizing for when he’s trying to maintain his innocence. Once the marriage is over and he’s got nothing to lose, it’s not that he’s innocent, it’s that you’re dumb.
Prick
Yep. He’s a prick. It’s all my fault Rachel.
Join the It’s All My Fault club
Cheater: (Screaming at me) “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GET OVER THIS ALREADY? EVERYONE ELSE HAS!”
Truth: I don’t understand why you are not pick me dancing and trying to please me and make me happy. You need to realize that people make mistakes and forgive each other all the time. You are so selfish for wanting to tear this family apart! Why can’t you go back to being the Totally Clueless Stepford Wife???”
Cheater: (At 2:00am and drunk) “We are NOT getting a divorce. I am NOT buying you out of the house. You are NOT leaving.”
Truth: “I guess if charm and belittling doesn’t work-I will just use force.”
I’m really baffled at the way they discard us totally and make us feel like the rejected pieces of crap. But then won’t really let us heal and separate. I know about the theory of Cake, but this is next level shitty. I really think my ex wanted me to be like this:
Hey, I’m so proud of you that after years of fucking other women and hookers you finally found the one that you like best. Good job! Of course I’m not upset. I’m so happy for you! No, I won’t ask for any money or for any of the retirement savings- your new woman should benefit from our 25 year marriage, not me. Yes, you can come over and eat dinner with us whenever you’d like. In fact I will make your favorite foods! You should also bring your laundry and I’ll do it for you while you flop out and play games with our daughter. Oh? Your girlfriend wants to come too? Sure! It will be better for you if you don’t have to leave her for an evening. You can come and go as you like. I’ll just tell our friends that we’re divorcing because I’m anxious and controlling. They’ll understand and they’ll all be happy for you too. No hard feelings.
They can easily discard us because they have never truly allowed us into their hearts.
I call my ex “Surface Man” because he never really, deeply felt anything. They can’t because that would make them vulnerable and cheater/narcs will never allow themselves to be vulnerable.
My ex always said that part of our problem was that I would never be vulnerable. He has projected sooooo much onto me, including that one.
The only thing they can do is project-its so frustrating!!!
How are you doing now?
I’m 22 months out. I go between being happy I’m free and feeling utterly broken hearted. Mostly I don’t understand how someone could be so cruel to me and to abandon me and our lovely daughter. Some days I get it, others I don’t get it at all.
This is so hard-and even harder with kids.
As CL says-you just have to trust that they suck and not waste your time trying to figure out how he could do the horrible things he did/does.
Because you aren’t that type of person-you’ll never be able to understand how someone could abandon their loved ones-especially their children.
As much as kids need both parents-maybe it’s better for now that he stays away because of his selfish, nasty behavior.
I know it sounds cliche-but things will get better-and you need to get even stronger for that to happen.
Concentrate on these beautiful children as the gifts that they are and give them your mental energy instead of the ex ❤️.
Emailing me at work after weeks of flirting and days of texting with lots of promise: “could you send me your phone number again as I inadvertently deleted it 🙁 ”
Ummm… Even if that was that easy to accidentally deleted a phone number, you had a huge trail of texts you could have referred to, dude. You’re married aren’t you.
Nope!
Me and the UBT are reading a book of Leonard Cohen’s last scribblings, poems and songs, gathered together after his death by his son.
COHEN:
Of course I don’t
say this to anyone
especially not to my wife
especially my kids
and not to anyone
bigger or stronger
or the boss
or the sadist in
charge of my mind
…
and it all looks
so peaceful
when you’re not
hunting for pussy
or sucking up to
the Lord
I advise you all to
get tired and old
and bored
…
A vegetarian a scientologist
a patron of the latest revolution
a private life with several ladies
and a highly dependent wife
whatever happened to my private life
whatever happened to my suit of Harris Tweed
and my long agean suntan …
whatever happened to the private life
the poets and singers promised me
to lead a private life
like a pirate with his knife
…
And I sought my beloved
when I was trying to make my marriage work
move from islands to cities and back again
when I was trying to make my marriage work
but I could not find my beloved
UBT:
I am on the constant look-out for the unattainable / conquest and I am so tortured, woe is me. Women love it when I say that in a deep voice, right?
The UBT has its own degrees and books and writes great poems and songs and is so tired of watching old men “confess” their soul-wrenching desires for off-limits women with bare shoulders, call it “love”: stolen love, love we had but for a moment, you showed me how to love, I’m dying for love, et fucking cetera. Really, when you read a whole book of a zillion variations on “you are the muse of my sensuous longing and subsequent tortured conversation with the angels” it just gets tired. But it paid well: the world is full of chumps who believe in the tones of genuine imitation naugahyde remorse!
COHEN:
To the young let me say
I am not sage rabbi roshi guru
I am Bad Example
to experienced persons
who have characterized my life work
as cheap superficial pretentious insignificant
you do not know how right you are
I am a whore and a junkie
if some of my songs
made a moment easier for you
Please remember this
UBT:
I am a sad, sad sausage. Please remember the good times!
Thank you for this, Magnolia! I fell or Cohen when I was much younger, but the mystique faded fast; I caught on to his misogynistic, faux-enlightened, entitled cheesy BS long before the cheater UBT came into my life. Plus, he took himself waaay to seriously. His music makes me laugh now. Are you and your UBT going to make it through the entire book? Glad you have each other!
Love it! I absolute could not stand that
pretentious, misogynistic narc womanizer who became a born again Buddhist in old age, no doubt as a result of narcissistic collapse.
Remember the famous Suzanne he wrote the song for? Years later she ran into him, and he pretended not to see her as she was standing right in front of him talking to him. He made a ton of money off her and wouldn’t even acknowledge her existence since she was of no further use to him. She said she thought he was embarrassed to know her, because she was still wearing hippie clothes and fashions had changed. Typical shallow narc.
That people lionize that jerk as a genius is baffling to me. Since you’ve read his stuff, you know it’s either self pitying pseudo-intellectualism or grandiose pseudo-intellectualism. Your UBT is spot on.
The absolute worst was this awful novel he wrote back in his heyday. My mother actually lost a friend over it because she said it was boring, pretentious, sexist crap. Her friend worshipped Cohen and never spoke to her again.
Thank you, Magnolia for this.
I was going to add my UBT, I did within first days after D-day but currently not in a good mental spot to do so.
For years and right from the beginning cheater was moulding his moods with Leonard Cohen. He needed him for sex, for getting into nostalgia, into depression with wine and whiskey and out of depression with many more.
I had always been the type to use music to get the sparks up. Energetic and joyful and I just couldn’t stand how our apartment, our whole life was being subjected to this soundtrack of woe, adultery and addiction. It was like a magic tawny violine slowly getting me down, too.
After birth of our child, I first banned LC from being played in the car (think of rage driving with LC playing, chumps) and then from the house. It got me so unstable and aggressive, I still have a weired relation to any music being played. So sad.
I am a whore and a junkie
if some of my songs
made a moment easier for you
Please remember this
No, LC they didn’t for me. Guess I’m neither a whore or junkie?
Dear Light Heart,
I had a boyfriend and he and I were truly in love and we were talking about marriage. We’d been dating for a while and he was asking me about what kind of diamonds I liked, where we might live when we got married, and what our life would be like.
Then one day he said, “I think Satan is trying to tempt me.”
I said, “What makes you think that?”
He said, “Because Satan knows I love redheads and white skin, and I saw a girl in the parking lot walking her dogs with red hair and very white skin. She was beautiful.”
I said, “Did you speak to her?”
He said, “Yes. But I didn’t think to ask her the names of her dogs.”
About a week later:
I said, “Hey, did you ever see that redhead in the parking lot again? The one with the two dogs?”
He said, “What are you talking about?
I said, “You know. You said that you were wondering if Satan was trying to tempt you.”
He said, “Here we’re getting ready to go out for the night, and you want to bring up something like that?”
I said, “I think you just changed the subject, and I was asking if you ever saw that girl again.”
He said, “Oh, now you’ve got me under the lights and you want to question me, over and over, like I’m at the police station and you’re the interrogator. What in the world do you get out of that?”
I said, “I guess you’re not gonna answer my question.”
And then I decided to break up with him. Not only because he told me about the girl, but because he didn’t have conflict resolution skills, didn’t seem mature enough for marriage and he smoked a LOT of pot.
I tried to break up with him but he had some kind of spell on me. Whenever I’d see him, he’d be in the best mood, and it never felt like the right moment, although I was looking for the right moment, and I loved our dates. I’d look forward to dinner, as he was an amazing cook, and we’d always watch a great movie and snuggle together on the couch, and that part was just amazing.
I finally broke up with him in an email.
Three days after I broke up with him, he called and said, “Can we just talk? You threw me away like yesterday’s trash, in an EMAIL, and I didn’t deserve that.”
So we talked and got back together.
And shortly after that, I realized I’d made a mistake to get back together with him, but the Christmas holidays were upon us. So we went through those, and after New Year’s Day, I broke up with him again; this time in person.
That night I couldn’t sleep, and the morning after, I went over to his place, unannounced.
And there, in the parking lot, was a red-headed woman with very white skin, walking her two dogs.
I said “hey!” or something, really loudly, and she turned around, and when she did, I looked from side to side, like I was looking around, too, for whoever shouted that, and I got a peek at her. She looked really melancholy, and I did not find her attractive, even though her features were perfect and her figure was hourglass.
My boyfriend and I got back together and we started attending pre-marital classes and talking a lot about marriage. Then one night I went over to his house, and heard his phone go off. Someone was texting him, and I looked towards the sound, which was very close to where I was sitting. His phone was propped up on the couch where I could see it, and there was the first and last name of a woman I had never heard him talk about. Her name was in a banner and I remember thinking at that moment that I’d never seen a banner on his phone before.
His phone went off again. I said, “It’s someone named _____” And he said, “Oh, yeah. That’s _____. She sent me a picture of herself,” and he showed the picture to me. It was a girl with red hair and very big blue eyes. And the other text was of the same girl, with glasses on. She was asking him which he liked better. “Glasses, or no glasses?”
I said, “Is she a love interest of yours?”
And he said, “No. She’s pretty but she’s an alcoholic.”
I kept asking questions. And he kept evading them and telling me not to be so insecure. We reached the restaurant and went in. He was telling me she was a girl he’d seen on Facebook, and he Liked one of her pictures, and I said, “And you didn’t know her? And now she’s texting you pictures of her with and without glasses, so you can choose which is your favorite look for her?” He kept up with that story for a little while, and then his whole demeanor changed. he said, “I’ll just tell you.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “She’s the girl I saw on the parking lot with the two dogs.”
I went straight to my car after dinner and did not go into his apartment.
It would have been the perfect moment to just leave him, for good, but I was so shocked that I couldn’t do it. Instead I went home and looked her up on Facebook. She really was beautiful! I discovered that she was friends with him on Facebook, and he and I weren’t even Friends there.
The next day I drove for Uber, and I picked up 10 people in my car. The first guy asked me a few questions about his girlfriend, so I told him my story and asked him what he thought. He said, “RUN!” So I told the next person, and she said, “He’ll do it again.” And the next person said, “He’s double-dipping.” And one guy said, “I don’t like that word ‘interrogate.'” And all 10 of them were unanimous with their opinions that I should leave him.
That evening was Sunday, and we usually went to an evening church service together. I texted him and told him I was not up for it. He called, and I told him what all the Uber people had told me. He said, “Just marry me!” And he said it three times.
The next morning I woke up and wrote him a long email. I said that maybe there was a Third Way (ala Rori Raye.) Maybe we didn’t have to try to forget about it, or break up. Maybe we could both just date other people. Obviously he had already started that, but I would put my profile up on dating sites and started dating other people, too.
That would have been a great thing to do.
But I didn’t want to do that. Bonding is such a big thing for women. And I was bonded to him.
I read my letter to a friend that evening, and she said, “It sounds like you just broke up with him again.” So I called him. It was 8pm and there was no answer. So I drove over to his apartments and his car was not there. (He told me that this red-head lived about two blocks away.) So I drove around to some of the other complexes in the area, looking for his car, but I didn’t see it.
I drove home and then went back at 11pm, and his car was at home.
He didn’t call me the next day.
I texted him the next evening (We’re at Tuesday evening now,) and said, “Do you want to talk?” And he texted back and said, “Let’s talk tomorrow. Do you want to come over for dinner?”
I didn’t answer. I drove over to his place again, and again his car was not home. I drove back at 11pm, and it was home again.
He has no friends. And he doesn’t just go out at night…
The next day I said yes.
That evening I wore a blouse that he loved, and I saw his obvious pleasure that I wore it and suddenly was painfully aware that he was loving all the competition between the women that he liked. And I knew I couldn’t do that ever again. I told him I tried to call him, and he said he’d been busy with _____. I said, “How did that go? I guess you got my email?” And he didn’t reply.
He picked me. He said she was a drinker; he didn’t like her dogs, he didn’t like her music and she didn’t like to kiss.
I asked him to de-Friend her on Facebook, and tell her that whatever they had was over. And he said he did. He said she bombarded him with emails and texts after that, and copied several of his previous texts and sent them back to him, and he said he told her to quit or he would get a RESTRAINING ORDER.
I said, “wow.”
Afterwards, I didn’t feel the same about him, and occasionally I’d bring her up and ask him about her. He said that they weren’t intimate. I asked him if he’d kissed her, and he said yes.
He said, “What did you want me to do, Light Heart? You broke up with me TWICE in the same MONTH!”
And he said that over and over again, ever since that day. And to this day, it doesn’t make sense to me. He had to move on to another woman the day after I broke up with him? And what is the significance of breaking up with him twice in the same month? (At that time it was not even about her.)
It’s over with him now, but I was just wondering if he was a cheater, or did my actions encourage him to go out with her, by breaking up with him (TWO TIMES IN THE SAME MONTH) and writing the email that we both should date other people? Did I bring this on myself? Should I try to ask the other woman for her story, to find out if he really cheated on me? He says he didn’t, and I believe him.
LH
* * *
Dear LH,
This is quite a story.
You know this guy doesn’t love you, don’t you? And that he was future faking because of your requirement for marriage? Why NOT lay it all out right in front of you? Why NOT talk about diamond rings? Why NOT say the “M” word? That’s exactly what you wanted! He just loaded you up with what you wanted to hear, and you went for it, hook, line and sinker.
And you know what he was doing when he started talking about the girl? He was already having an affair with her, (or he was thinking about it) and he wanted you to know about it so you could compete with her. He loves triangles. You say she texted right when you first got there? And that his phone was out in plain site, with the volume on? He was probably texting with her before you arrived. He probably asked her to send pictures.
The idea of him having two women at the same time made him feel like a super stud! He wanted you to know about it so he could enjoy the show. He LOVED all of your questions! He LOVED your long email! He LOVED it when you decided – again – to date just him. He set the stage and you walked out and did your number flawlessly. He lit the fuse and waited for it to go off, and enjoyed every second until there was a loud bang at the end.
He doesn’t love you; he’s using you for ENTERTAINMENT, and he’s the king of DARVO. He deftly Deflected the conversation away from your questions. He aggressively Attacked you for questioning him. He smoothly Reversed the conversation and became the Victim, as suddenly he was the innocent guy at the police station and – poor thing – the police (and you) were the Offenders by interrogating him.
He enjoys gaslighting you (“What are you talking about?”) and throwing you off balance. For him it’s a game of power. Oh, you think he loves her? He doesn’t. He doesn’t love anyone, not even himself. The only coping mechanism he has, left over from childhood, is what he perceives to be power, so he power plays you. And you go for it because you’re not versed in the ways of people who seek to dominate others.
Well now you have your experience. You can do something different from this day forward.
You did a great thing when you broke up with him. This guy is a cheater. Does it really matter if they got naked and frolicked around in her bed, or if they sat on her bar stools and kissed? No. It doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing. It’s cheating. Do NOT call the other woman. Do NOT ask her if they had sex. He would love to find out that you did that! Don’t play into his sense of power. LET IT BE.
The part about you being under his spell? Just no. You weren’t under any spell. You CHOSE to stay with him even though you knew he wasn’t the one for you. In a way, that’s very much like what he was doing with you! It’s dishonest. You say you want to get married and that dating is for courtship, and he is courting you, and you’re going along with it… that implies that he’s a candidate for marriage, doesn’t it?
Let your actions match your words.
And lastly… LH, he brought this situation to YOU. You were trying to manage it by writing that email, and that was a great idea. But it wasn’t possible to suddenly start dating others when you were nearly merged with him. Most women are not wired that way. HE didn’t waste any time, did he? HE read the part about the Third Way and didn’t even contact you. That was a green light for him. And he didn’t even bother to discuss it with you.
So – about your email… if that’s the way you want to date, LH, in order to find the right person to marry, does it even make sense to be a girlfriend?
No, it does not. You want to fix your picker? Have more than one person in your pile. I mean, doesn’t this sound obvious? You already hit on it with your email to him. How can you pick a person to marry after three dates? You can’t, so keep your options open while you’re getting to know each person. IT TAKES TIME. Date men and compare them. Get a notebook. Write down your feelings after each and every date.
But what would it involve, to date multiple people, looking for the ONE?
* clear communication with the guys you date, because you’re going to go counter-trend
* a very thick skin, because you’re gonna lose most of them (but you’re looking for just one, right?)
* probably holding off on sex, because having safe sex begs for exclusivity
* keeping your boundaries – a guy who has the same values will see you and LOVE who you are
* and keeping your values are the way to fix your picker
Have fun out there, LH! You’re doing great!!! And I believe you’ll find your man. And remember to keep three in your dating pool, (if it’s just two they’ll get focused on each other and it’ll get messy) until you have a ring and a date, and you’re over the moon about that decision. That’s when you become exclusive. From that day until forever.
It’ll happen.
(Sorry this is so long!)
Kinda helped me to write it all out. And see the ridiculousness of all of it.
DARVO…
It was so confusing for me. Or the gaslighting, or something. It’s just downright crazy-making. Easy to see on paper!
I’ve written it out before, trying to sort it out, but what I wrote before was just a lot of questions. This is better! Some of my friends call me when they’re going through a breakup, and I usually ask them, “If you could be your own counselor, what would you say?” But counselors so many times don’t say much… this was better for me! Looking for the bullshit in the other person, the story itself, and in me, too.
Loved it!
Anything gay ex husband says.
UBT: Trust that i suck.
https://youtu.be/K9kbsK2cMt8
“Gay ex husband” – I’m so sorry, NewChump!
I was just thinking about my story, since I wrote it here, and then translated it, and I do think I have to take some responsibility in him going over to her house for dinner, after I wrote him the letter that we should open things up and date others. Which kind of means we were (or I was) breaking up our agreement to NOT date others… haha… it seems complicated when you’re living it, but oh! so simple when you write it out. He never even talked about the email at all, and I spent SO much time on it. Thinking it through, realizing that one of the problems was the fact that we were exclusive, and we weren’t even engaged, and marriage wasn’t even on the table. (Talked about, but that was pie in the sky…)
Yes, to have had to do all that thinking about the relationship was such a red flag. When things are going well, you don’t have to stop and take stock like that. And he was waving red flags all over the place, gaslighting so much, negating what I would bring to him as problems and saying they were all in my mind.
And surely he would have known how it would have played out if he started talking about other women that he found interesting. And he did that a lot! He’d just casually start talking about a woman he’d met, and the conversation he’d had with that woman, as if it was nothing – and I treated it like it was nothing – but I got that pit in my stomach that told me it was NOT nothing.
Hmmmm… it’s two months today that I broke up with him and I’m so glad I did. Even though sometimes I miss him, and I have pictures and fond memories… it’s better to be alone than to be with him.