‘My Husband Got Engaged’

Her husband got engaged to his mistress and the divorce isn’t even final yet. How to cope with this news?

***

Dear Chump Lady,

My husband got engaged.

(This statement does not contain a typo, although even a search engine tried to get me to add “ex” to the topic prior to displaying the full results as apparently even the internet knows that this isn’t appropriate behavior). We are still married. Last night, he posted on social media the news of his proposal to another woman and is rapidly collecting many “likes” from people who either do not realize he already has a wife, or I guess they are just as morally bankrupt as my husband and his new fiancé.

How do I fully comprehend that THEY suck when I feel like I’m the biggest sucker of all? How worthless am I that my husband feels at ease to make a public announcement about his plans to spend the rest of his life with someone else even though we are not divorced? This has taken his devaluing and discard of me to a whole new pitiful level.

What will he and his next bride say when asked about their wedding date?

(Legally, it is going to have to take place after our divorce is final and that is nowhere on the immediate horizon). Perhaps I should send a congratulatory message welcoming my soon-to-be “sister wife” to our family. (We are not polygamists by the way!)

Being “ghosted” and immediately replaced after D-Day had already decimated my self-esteem. Every time I think I’ve seen the worst in him, he ups the ante again. I can’t believe I wasted 25 years of my life with someone who has absolute zero regard for me.

I know I’m not supposed to try to untangle the skein of what OW is thinking, but who accepts a marriage proposal from someone who is still married to another person? (She is well aware of his marital status and has known all along even when she first f**cked my husband in our bed after creeping out of her former fiancé’s bed after about an hour or so after having sex with him!)

Not sure where I’m going with this, but I really need to vent. My husband got engaged! I found CN when searching for some sort of help on how to recover from spousal abandonment. Very little out there relates to my situation and I’m struggling to cope.

Still I Rise

****

Dear Still I Rise,

You know, my old divorce lawyer had a term for this “my husband got engaged” phenomena — he called it “repeat business.”

Only really special fuckwits get engaged while they’re still married.

In fact, I believe Macy’s has a special registry for them full of subpoenas and scarlet letters (monogrammed tea towels! china cups! soup ladles!)

And think of the wedding cakes! They could have a cake topper of wife, groom, wife. Or make one giant Meta cake. Boy, I’m so proud to live in a country where straight-married-to-other-people people can stroll into a Christian bakery and order a three-tiered confection for their adulterous wedding adventure, and gay people cannot. (Hey, it’s nothing personal, gay people, it’s Jesus.)

Gah.

I’m sorry Still I Rise. I share your revulsion, but we live in a disposable society. (Look! Shiny thing! Faster consumerist! More! More!) Is the old wife worn out? Get a new one! And you don’t even have to divorce her properly to make way for the Shiny New, just stuff her in the back of the garage with that Bow-Flex you never use anymore.

You don’t suck.

How do I fully comprehend that THEY suck when I feel like I’m the biggest sucker of all?

By staying true to your values. You’re not a sucker, you were committed. You have nothing to be ashamed of. At this point, what’s embarrassing is spending five more seconds of your life with such fuckwit. I hope you have a very good attorney and you can leverage your husband’s desire to remarry into a good settlement.

You can also stay off social media and go strictly no contact. You don’t need to see how many people upclick this unholy union. He SUCKS. Trust it.

How worthless am I that my husband feels at ease to make a public announcement about his plans to spend the rest of his life with someone else even though we are not divorced?

YOU are not worthless.

Why are you taking that on? Why are you letting this idiot determine your worth? Do you respect his decision to cheat and abandon? Is this fuckwit your lodestar?

Surely you must see that he looks like an IDIOT. People are probably snarking behind his back (and probably liking his posts at the same time). Announcing your engagement before you’re divorced is tantamount to pronouncing: “I Fucked Around On My Wife, Celebrate Me!” It’s declaring that you’re kind of dim on monogamy, but hey let’s have a commitment ceremony. They might fuck this up too, but hey, some cash and monogrammed tea towels would be nice.

What will he and his next bride say when asked about their wedding date?

Something insipid. Not your problem, because you’re really engrossed in that fuckwit-free life you’re living.

Perhaps I should send a congratulatory message welcoming my soon-to-be “sister wife” to our family.

Tempting.

(No, not really. We’re about meh here.)

Who accepts a marriage proposal from someone who is still married to another person?

A pathetic person who is desperate to believe she’s special. So desperate, that she’ll commit her life to someone capable of casual abandonment. There aren’t enough ice swan sculptures to make that shit pretty.

Still, it doesn’t matter what kind of person she is — it matters what kind of person YOU are.

How are you going to live your one precious wild life?

I know rebuilding is hard and unjust — but like your name, RISE UP. These freaks are not worthy of you.

Maybe you’re going to have to fake it for awhile, but live as if you know your worth. Don’t live under some cloud of their rejection. They aren’t that powerful.

Here’s an engraved invitation to the rest of your life. Please RSVP yes.

Subscribe
Notify of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

174 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Thirtythreeyearsachump
Thirtythreeyearsachump
2 years ago

Oh Rise Up, how I hope you used those social media posts as evidence in your divorce trial in an At-Fault State.

There is nothing like the pain of knowing your husband has no respect for the vows he took in front of all the gods and witnesses. I reframe it like this, those vows are worthless the second time around. He won’t be faithful. He won’t change. He doesn’t see the need to change. He is a liar and a cheat.

I recently listened to Opposing Counsel complain during the divorce trial about the life insurance policies going to me. “Your Honor, my client intends to remarry. If both policies go to Mrs. Thirtythreeyearsachump there will be nothing left for my client’s second wife.” Yup. Right there in Court, his lawyer was expressing his concern for LTC Fuckface’s HoWorker now fiancé. LTC Fuckface would not look up, kept his head down. The Judge was not amused. “This Court will not entertain that line of reasoning.”

I found out in Divorce Court that Fuckface was engaged. I hope he does marry that homewrecking whore. She earned that misery. He will make her life a hell. Enjoy those skid marked sheets!

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago

LOL, the skid marks. I threw away a pair of shit stained sweat pants when now ex and I were dating. Dude was free-balling that day. Oh the things we do for love. No more!

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  ChumpOnIt

Like a dog marking its territory. But I expect this from dogs.

Nobody taught these guys how to wipe their ass when they were little kids ?! I don’t hear about this phenomenon in regards to female cheaters. ???? Chumps married to or partnered to females, please share equivalent “pissing on the floor near the toilet” behaviors for laughs.

Signed,
???? admirer

Dracaena
Dracaena
2 years ago

She was extremely tidy when we were married— actually criticized my housekeeping nonstop even though I was a stay at home mom and did 90% of the housework in addition to being a full time baby maid— and played this absurd game where she wouldn’t let me do the dishes because I was “bad at it,” but was too lazy to do the dishes herself, and then blamed me when the dishes never got done.

Since moving out, though, she has to come over daily to watch our kid before daycare starts every morning, and she has been leaving the foulest, most passive aggressive messes all over my house. Probably the worst was the soiled cat litter she spilled all over the floor. I discovered it when I stepped in it in my bare feet.

I suppose this is her new favorite way of acting out. It’s like how she let me find out about the affair by “accidentally” leaving a disgusting love letter on my side of the bed.

It’s a real shit sandwich and there’s nothing I can do about it because 80% of my take home pay goes to rent and her entire child support payment goes to daycare. She refuses to pay more, sobs to our mediator about how broke she is with her $120k per year, and won’t even agree to move forward with that because she “can’t afford it.” So I’m stuck relying on her to babysit in my fucking house for the unforseeable future and putting up with her gross tantrums every time she feels sorry for herself having to get up early and do her goddamn duty as a parent every morning. God I fucking hate her nasty ass.

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  Dracaena

“Acting out”, “nasty” is right. Cats are usually pretty tidy unless they’re sick or mad at their humans or other pets in the home.
What a brat.

Dracaena
Dracaena
2 years ago

Not really on the level of skid marks, but women can really bring their A game when it comes to covert aggression. Forgive me but it’s true.

Paula Mac
Paula Mac
2 years ago

OMG! I thought I was the only wife cleaning skid marked sheets and boxers! So horrendous and disgusting! There’s a local comedian named Bob Marley who does a routine on this very topic and I nearly died laughing at the absurd truth that this goes on!! I love my skid free new life!!

oldcrone
oldcrone
2 years ago

What’s with the impatience to move their illicit relationships along at light speed?
The ex actually married his AP in a ceremony in front of her family and friends. They exchanged rings and vows in a public park. While I was at work and entirely unaware of the relationship. I found out from her after he dumped her. He admitted it when confronted. He downplayed it, telling me “at least we didn’t go to the Justice of the Peace!”. Eye roll. We were still married and living together, dumb ass!

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  oldcrone

Some times I wonder if they are thinking that the amazing cheating sex is going to stay the same so they have to lock it up while it is hot.

I just wonder because so many of them seem to be reliving their teen years, and that is what most teens think, the excitement and romance will be forever with no effort.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago

My mother in law was the one who told me that fw gave whore a ring. At the time she was still team Susie; but that didn’t last too long after that. We were legally separated, and by then I was moving towards D with more confidence.

Thing was it was good news to me. My biggest fear when all this went down was that he was going to somehow escape marrying that alley cat. I actually prayed that he would marry her. (I repented for that later).

But, I can’t lie. I wanted him to marry her, and I wanted them to have to look each other in the eyes every morning for the rest of their lives. I knew if he married her he would never admit he was wrong. They did and I can’t say I am sorry. They created a shit pile of a marriage together from his cheating and bankruptcy to constant fighting with family. I only know because we share a son, and his wife hates them for the miserable sots that they are.

He left her penniless and deeply in debt. I assume she will just file BR again, but I don’t know because once his service was over my son walked away and it is doubtful they will ever see or speak to her again. That is on her, she could have treated them with respect; but she didn’t.

hazel
hazel
2 years ago

My husband said to me, very sadly, on the day I first discovered he was cheating, ‘I asked her to marry me but she said she doesn’t want to get married again.’ As if this was a sign of how noble and unusual she was, and how powerful his feelings were. I should stand in awe at the wonderfulness of both of them.

FuckWitFree
FuckWitFree
2 years ago
Reply to  hazel

Mentally disordered, much?

So sorry.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  hazel

Makes you want to gag doesn’t it?

I remember the few feeble attempts of my fw trying to defend his delicate flower of a whore. I basically just looked at him with disgust. He slunk away.

Sorry delicate flowers don’t generally fuck married men and stay hidden away in the alley for years while collecting money and gifts from the cheater.

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

Mine said to me after my suspicions were confirmed about their affair…
”Shes so selfless! She puts everyone ahead of herself! And she says she’s sorry to everyone!”
I recall his animated, upbeat demeanor as he was telling me all of office girls attributes.
Well, she never said sorry to me, and she parked herself right in the middle of my life. And…she bought my husband MATCHING WEDDING BANDS 6 weeks after he moved out of our home and in with her. (Thank you, by the way…It really made them both look bad…)
But why would I expect 2 morons to be a good judge of character?

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago
Reply to  TooManyTears

P.S. and we are not divorced yet.
He’s stalling.
Why?
Perhaps “office girl” has really started to say to herself: “I AM SORRY.”
Yes, you are.

Breakaway
Breakaway
2 years ago
Reply to  hazel

Or like my mine said to me,
“I meant my wedding vows on the day I said them just not any day since..”

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago
Reply to  Breakaway

o_O

MrWonderfulsEx
MrWonderfulsEx
2 years ago
Reply to  Breakaway

Probably the only honest thing he ever said.

NorthernLight
NorthernLight
2 years ago
Reply to  Breakaway

Breakaway, my spouse also said something similar! He said he meant his vows on his wedding day, but he knew that it could change! Tracy actually wrote a post about it back in the day.

hazel
hazel
2 years ago
Reply to  Breakaway

Wow!

nomar
nomar
2 years ago

After separation but while my cheating wife dragged her feet on signing divorce papers, I saw rumors online that my cheating wife was engaged to one her APs. I emailed wife and AP that she should sign the papers ending the current marriage before announcing the next one. AP responded, “No one is engaged to anyone,” which I think infuriated the then-wife.

Ex wife did end up strong-arming that AP into marrying her a couple years later (he is fundamentally weak). Ten years on and they’re still together though from what I hear back through my adult kids they hardly sound happy—lots of anti social behavior in that house. Frankly, I think cheaters marrying cheaters is the closest thing to justice chumps get out of betrayal. Like two rattlesnakes that have bitten each others’ tails and won’t let go out of venomous rattlesnake pride.

KatiePig
KatiePig
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

I agree with you. I hope my ex marries his girlfriend. She’s a criminal with domestic violence charges on her record. She tried to buy a handgun in our state and found that she can’t because of it. And the psycho was actually surprised by that.

My ex talked about wanting to murder me. God, please let him marry her! The two psychos can take each other out and hopefully leave everybody else alone! LOL

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

“Frankly, I think cheaters marrying cheaters is the closest thing to justice chumps get out of betrayal.”

Yes, yes and yes.

NotANiceChump
NotANiceChump
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Agreed. My cheater ex is neck deep in a relationship with a much younger woman who left her last relationship for him. Lately, he seems miserable (I only see him occasionally at child drop offs/pickups, but he looks terrible). I also see his car regularly during the day, mid-week, at a bar—actually the closest bar to MY house…like, there’re other bars pal—that I have to pass by to get home. I guess the point of my lil story is that the shine is off that apple and the reality of his perma-misery has prevailed. You can’t run away from yourself. Meanwhile, my life is thriving. Karma? I dunno. But I do believe we all get exactly what we’re looking for.

Italian Chump
Italian Chump
2 years ago
Reply to  NotANiceChump

You can’t run away from yourself…so tue! That’s the harshest punishment that they serve themselves: I could never be’ as cruel as they are with themselves: they are the own worst enemy!

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

“Frankly, I think cheaters marrying cheaters is the closest thing to justice chumps get out of betrayal.”

Absolutely, I remember when my ex called me to tell me that he and whore where jetting off to Vegas to get married. I just said why are you calling me? (we were D’d by then) He just said “I didn’t want you to hear it from somewhere else. ” I said “ok goodbye”. After I hung up, I couldn’t help laughing. What an idiot.

This was before CL or even internet. In fact I think that it was about the time Al Gore was inventing the internet.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

Thanks, Nomar. My x recently married the AP exactly 2 years after D-Day (and 1.5 years after the divorce). Both were married when they started their affair.

I love the image of two rattlesnakes and will try to use this to supplant the one I sometimes have of those two canoodling with each other on their sofa while searching online for a new home. I’ll picture snakes trying to do the same. That’s much better.

I like to think that cheater marriages go in one of two ways:

1. They’ll divorce after a few years and fulfill the “repeat business” prediction of the lawyers.
2. They’ll suffer through a miserable marriage and show a happy face to the outside world because to admit the error would be too big a blow to their egos.

BetterOffAlone
BetterOffAlone
2 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

I think I am really scared of 3. They will stay together for the rest of their lives relatively happy. That would be a fundamental injustice of tragic proportions. But I know it will be my Tuesday by then; so I try not to obsess about it too much.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  BetterOffAlone

Yeah. Honestly, that’s my fear, too.

I like to think that’s impossible. I like to think that karma is two cheaters marrying.

Thirtythreeyearsachump
Thirtythreeyearsachump
2 years ago
Reply to  nomar

NoMar, I agree. Cheaters marrying their side chicks immediately create a side chick vacancy. They deserve the particular misery of their “venomous rattlesnake pride”.

I hope they marry, they deserve one another.

Karmeh
Karmeh
2 years ago

Oh I get it

My ex was engaged and she was pregnant before we were legally separated . She posted pictures ( I don’t look now) of wedding dress shopping with her mum and he was still married to me .

I don’t understand still and I’m almost 3 years out who wants to get engaged while still married or to someone else’s spouse ??

I use to want to die at the thought of them getting married . But married they are an entire 14 weeks after divorce !!! They’ve been married almost 2 years now

RossLucy465
RossLucy465
2 years ago
Reply to  Karmeh

My sister started dating her ex while he was separated.

He cheated on my sister just like he cheated on his ex-wife.

I wouldn’t date even a separated person. IMO, they aren’t available.

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago
Reply to  RossLucy465

I started dating my boyfriend when he was still married because his (for all intents and purposes serial cheater ex) wife and he were apart for years, she living high off the hog that is her exit AP and refusing to grant my boyfriend a divorce (he didn’t give her what she wanted and she told him “fine, then we can stay married”, because what’s marriage, right?). Then COVID hit. he was finally granted a divorce by the court system over a tele-hearing. Finalizing shit can take a long time. It can be the continuation of the cheater’s abuse if they take it down that road. That being said, sure, still married can be part of a cheater’s script (i.e. “we’ve been living together but aren’t really married anymore”). Pretty sure that’s what my boyfriend’s ex told her exit AP to garner sympathy, affection, and a place to burrow.

Karmeh
Karmeh
2 years ago
Reply to  RossLucy465

I understand a lot of people date while separated as some divorces can take a long time .

It’s when they rush in to marriage with their AP that I don’t understand . My ex was married to his AP less than a year after he left me for her .

So in less than 1 year my ex left me , got engaged to his AP then married her and had a baby it’s crazy how fast they go .

I was completely abandoned just like the OP like I simply didn’t exist . Maybe sometimes the grass really is greener who knows but I know it’s crazy to get engaged while you are married to someone else

LifeIsGood
LifeIsGood
2 years ago
Reply to  Karmeh

The grass isn’t greener. Miserable people will always be miserable, even with shiny new toys. They are only shiny for a short time, then reality sets in.

My ex also got engaged within a year of our divorce, possibly married her (I’ve heard yes & no), and had a baby. But, they split before the baby was even 5-6 months old. The pattern continues, only the players change.

no-way
no-way
2 years ago
Reply to  Karmeh

They feel no shame.

Fourleaf
Fourleaf
2 years ago

My FW did so many things with APs while still married to me that it boggles the mind. However, he doesn’t feel like any of it was wrong because “in his heart he never felt truly married to me.”

Guess that’s all it takes.

One gut wrenching thing I remember him saying to me was that he and GF#3 were waiting until he and I signed separation papers before they had sex because “it was the right thing to do.”

Uh huh. I had finally been in this rodeo for so long that I didn’t buy that for a moment; FW couldn’t sell me any more bridges.

Also, there was the issue of FW wildly conflating “separated” with “divorced” but, in those painful days (pre NC) of me still stupidly engaging in conversation with him, pointing out that even while initially separated from me he was still technically married to me–still my husband–only netted me the “yeah, but I never felt married in my heart” prize.

Why was I still talking to this man when every conversation we had made me feel, like the OP above, worthless? My eventual lightbulb moment that I had to go No Contact (which, yes, includes putting a stop to pain shopping on social media to see what the FW/OW’s current relationship status is and how many people agree with it or like it) couldn’t come fast enough. The best thing you can do for yourself in these situations is take an afternoon to learn about your various media’s privacy settings (sometimes it takes some detective work but it is 100% worth the investment of time) and block, block, block, block.

There’s going to be a lot of painful stuff posted to social media. We chumps don’t need to see it and we certainly don’t need to go looking for it. I still remember throwing up seeing my husband post his first selfie with GF#1 (on the bedsheets that he and I had been giving as a wedding present from a family friend!) like it was a totally normal thing to do. The two of them beamed at the camera like I didn’t even exist (because for them, I barely did).

I’ve gotten better. These days FW and GF#3/Wifetress could post the same photo and I would blissfully never lay eyes on it.

no-way
no-way
2 years ago
Reply to  Fourleaf

Oh, the throwing up feeling of seeing AP#2 public instagram pics of them on holiday abroad.
We thought he was working a catering job in the Scottish highlands….
He sent fake pics of the kitchen he was working in to AP#1 but had told her he was working in Iceland on tour with PJ Harvey, and sent pics out the plane window. Google pics is your friend for using others airplane and scenic photos.
So one lie to me and his family and another lie to AP#1! What a lot of mental juggling on his part. Bet he felt so clever.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  no-way

My god.

Mine sent a photo of a fish he said he caught on a river in VT. Nope. It was Colorado. He was with the AP.

Looking back, I remember other close-up photos of other fish and also flowers. From a man who never gave a rat’s ass about flowers, I should have been suspicious. I should have seen them as red flags, little fake images to “prove” that he was where he said he was.

By the way, in his disordered mind, this lying, or, as he liked to call it “pretending,” was justified because he knew I’d react angrily.

ChumpMeGentlyWithAChainsaw
ChumpMeGentlyWithAChainsaw
2 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

The day STBX had his first date with his Troll I KNEW he’d been with someone else just by how he walked into the garage. He’d supposedly been at his friend’s house jamming (he’s a musician). It was just how he was walking. And his stature. I FELT it.

Within 5 minutes of being home he texted me pics of his friend’s jam room set-up. My antennas instantly popped up. He’d gone to jam with that guy a handful of times before that and that day was the first time he’d bothered to take pics. He’d also been gone longer than he normally would be when he went over there.

He literally gave himself away by doing that. Pictures of where I was!!!! Proof I wasn’t doing anything untoward!!!!!

Lying fucker. I called him out then and there.

M
M
2 years ago

I sometimes wonder if our “instincts” are really our senses of smell. Scent can be so subtle but did he shower and use different soap, or could you smell her on him? Or could you smell her house on him or her pet? It doesn’t have to be overpowering like perfume or sex, it can be a disquiet, prickling ‘you smell different’ knowledge.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  M

That smell thing is interesting.

I remember at least a year before the year of discard began, I had flown to my dads house for a visit for a week. Our close friends and my fw (I had no clue he was cheating at that time) came to pick me up. I got off the plane and my ex just had this eerie presence. We kind of circled and looked at each other, I got to talking to the friends. There was no hug or kiss.

My friend even said when we sat down to eat later at a restaurant. You two have been apart a week and no hugs or kisses. We laughed and then of course hugged and kissed. Talk about a huge blood red flag waving in my face. But I spackled for another year, then the year of discard started.

But after that incident, for that next year before the last year, we went back to sex, fun and seemingly normal life.

That fall our son got married and he had joined the AF. I remember after their wedding he got us on video and asked for our good wishes. I said, if you are half as happy as we have been, you will be fine. FW was stunningly silent. It was the first time I believe that I really noticed; something is off. By fall he had gotten his promotion to Captain, and within a couple weeks he was blatantly withdrawing from me, yet blaming work stress. Some times things were normal, sometimes he was in withdrawal mode.

I think that whole year I was just confused and rolled into the metaphoric fetal position until Dday, which was Christmas day a little over a year later.

I do think he was hoping I would ask him to leave, then he could slither around and a couple months later pull whore out of the woodwork. Keep his standing in the community and everyone would feel bad for the poor rejected guy.

Didn’t work, but best laid plans and all.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
2 years ago

My FW husband didn’t get so far as an engagement, but he and his howorker announced publicly that they were dating while he and I were FAR from divorced (he had only filed a month or so before). They received loads of congratulations and people telling them how cute they were and saying things like “it’s about time!” as if I hadn’t known these people for YEARS before she even showed up in my life. It was humiliating. However, I felt like it was more embarrassing for the two of them. Who even announces they are dating these days? They looked like a couple of teenagers. Howoker had been wearing a ring on her left hand for about a year before that. But it was a party favor mood ring! I thought it was laughable. I contrast that with one of my friends from college who never announced on social media that she was even dating. The first I knew of her relationship was their engagement announcement. That’s what adults do.

I cut every one of those “friends” out of my life completely.

It totally backfired for my FW to have been so public with his shiny new (actually years old) love: OW left him about six months after that announcement, and only four weeks (weeks!) after they moved in together. So publicly they looked like idiots. My stbx killed himself four months later. We never did get divorced (and while I never wished for that outcome, still, some small part of me has not been unhappy that I ended up legally entitled to all of the assets and his stupid gf got NOTHING; I also found out after he died just how fucked up their life together was – they were MISERABLE, whatever it looked like on Facebook).

You can (and will) get to “meh” about the whole thing. A couple of months after my FW died, I ended up reading all of OW’s love letters to him that I found at his house when I was getting my things (he took a ton of my stuff when he moved out). It didn’t hurt at all. I actually laughed my way through them. They were so over the top and ridiculous. Time was when I would have been angry and heartbroken. Not even the confirmation that their relationship was sexual from the beginning made me mad. It just made them pathetic. (I’m still trying to decide whether to burn the letters or send them back to OW with a thank you card, since she gave me the ticket out of my very abusive marriage and a damn good reason to “give up” on my husband, which I otherwise wouldn’t have done, since I am loyal to a fault.) I can hold my head up knowing that I acted with integrity and didn’t compromise my values (though I’m embarrassed how hard I tried to “save” my so-called marriage). OW has to live with what an idiot she was. She actually apologized to me after she left him (sort of – it was one of those “I’m sorry if you were hurt” kind of letters, and I never responded to her). I guess she realized I wasn’t making up the fact that he was an abuser. I also think she realized he’d been lying to her too, as she said she had been “operating under false pretenses” much of the time.

Your husband and his mistress getting married is the best thing for all involved. You are free. You can find out who you need to cull from your life. They will be stuck with each other, which is better revenge than anything you could come up with. YOU have the chance to be happy and FW free. OW is just beginning her nightmare.

Keep your head up. You’ll be okay. Your only “failure” is that you loved and trusted a person who was supposed to be trustworthy.

KatiePig
KatiePig
2 years ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

Mine acts like a teenager too. During the discard he even said to me, “I look like a little boy in high school still. I have to wear a beard to get people to take me seriously. It’s embarrassing to be seen with you because everybody thinks you’re my mom!”

And I remember being confused on so many levels. What 40 year old man wants to look like a little boy? What adult man would refer to themselves as looking like a little boy and think that’s a good thing?! And I should look like the mom of a high schooler since our son had graduated from high school at that point. But I also hear how young I look all the time.

But yeah, they act like teenagers. He’s less mature now at 40 than he was when I met him at 19. It’s completely bizarre. And really pathetic. It’s sad and pathetic now that I’m past the hurt. He’s the embarrassment.

SeeKay
SeeKay
2 years ago
Reply to  KatiePig

omg, Katie–you just reminded me of something I had totally forgotten. My ex would ALWAYS make comments about how he looked so much younger than me. He would say it as he was looking at himself in the mirror fixing his stupid hair. Who does that? Something we would both laugh off–but I really didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was incredibly insensitive and rude—and I remember thinking, “wow…this is the person who is supposed to have my back in the world?”. God, I don’t miss him AT ALL–but I do have a world of regret on my shoulders for wasting so many vital years with him. I was young and vibrant–and inside I felt so unworthy. Guess that’s how they want us to feel.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

“They looked like a couple of teenagers. ”

I always think of the teenager thing. My fw while unknown to me that he was speed fucking was acting like a hormone crazed teenager. I was fully aware of what a hormone crazed teenager was like, because my son had recently graduated from HS.

Anyway, after it all fell apart in hind sight I could see all the red flags; and yes it was all there. Anger at me, sneaking around, grinning ear to ear for no apparent reason etc. All crazy teen-ager stuff. Of course he had turned me into his parent for the purposes of his second teen life.

I even remember him bringing home a pinkish shirt. Now before that he would have never worn a pink shirt. But, he brought that one home and said he saw it and liked it. I am sure whore bought it for him and he got a kick out of wearing it under my nose.

Lord knows how much stuff he brought home, I was confused as hell by his behavior and willing to believe what he told me (work stress). Which to be fair, was likely in part true. He was also hiding his fuck buddie right under the mayors nose (she was his direct report) and he had lied to so many folks for so long.

It all came tumbling down when someone reported him to the city counsel. That was about the time he got nasty mean to me.

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

Yeah, I attributed all that kind of behavior to work stress, too, Susie Lee.

Ugh.

And it turns my stomach to think of the these cheaters parading around, reveling in their BIG SECRET. What a power trip! It’s part of the turn-on. It’s sick.

In this way, affairs are threesomes.

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

They are. I didn’t know about the triangle thing is real time. But, when I read it years later it made sense.

I mean you even see it in children. Two kids are playing happily, then a third one joins and all of a sudden there is fighting, or taking of sides.

You would think grown ass adults would be past that; but no. At least two of them still love it.

FuckThatShit
FuckThatShit
2 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

XFW (my then husband) and his AP also paraded around on business trips doing the whole teenage crush thing. I even found IG posts of them early on tagged #highschoolcrush on a client’s feed but it didn’t click for me until later ????‍♀️. He did the whole sneaking around, change of wardrobe, etc BS. I ignored all these red flags for months! I guess you don’t want to admit how a fully grown adult could be so completely emotionally stunted and morally corrupt until you experience it first hand.

Well they both got what they deserve now, each other! I am fully divorced 3 months, finally and his own words “a divorce wouldn’t be so bad” are taking an entirely new meaning for me now…

KB22
KB22
2 years ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

Ugh…can’t stand Facebook suck ups. It’s one thing to respond (and I’m not being mean) to a rather homely person’s selfie telling them how gorgeous they are but congratulating a married man cheating on his wife/family on his new love is really pathetic.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago

Only psychopaths and malignant narcissists act this way, Still I Rise. These people are double decker fuckwits with speshul fuckwit sauce. The inside of their heads is all raw sewage and razor wire.
Consider it a badge of honor to not be seen as valuable by people who are utterly worthless themselves.

You now have proof positive that he is an adulterer. Make sure your lawyer has this information.

This letter made me start to fantasize about ways to fuck up the gruesome twosome. I’d probably let them plan their wedding and set a date, based on the idea that I wouldn’t contest the divorce and it would be done by then, then pull some last minute stunt (” I have doubts. I need more time.” ????) to delay the divorce shortly before they are to wed. He’d be a bigamist if he went through with it and I could nail him. Then I’d “change my mind” again and let the divorce go through. At a minimum they’d lose their deposit on the venue and it would piss them off no end. It’s petty, I know. It energizes and entertains me to frustrate and anger fuckwits. It certainly isn’t a good idea for most people. I have a peculiar streak that fears no reprisals and welcomes a showdown. You probably don’t and should not try anything like that. I did things to enrage FW and his whore and it was satisfying for me, but I’m done with it. Eventually you’ll be done with agonizing over these clowns as well.

You’re probably best to just screenshot his appalling admission, then get off social media and never speak to either of these sickos again. Avoid any people who express approval of their engagement as well.

I really hate your fuckwit. In my estimation he’s so vile that he doesn’t deserve to live, as is his whore.

Whitecoatburnout
Whitecoatburnout
2 years ago
Reply to  OHFFS

Good advice. I am all for sliding a stone into their cheater shoes.

Greener pastures
Greener pastures
2 years ago

They really are delusional and live in the universe which revolves around them.

Mine said “we are already divorced in my mind.”

Ok then. Can’t argue with crazy.

Cam
Cam
2 years ago

Mine dumped me over email and rewrote our entire relationship, saying: “We were never together, we’ve only ever been friends, you misunderstood everything.”

Just the week before, he’d told me he loved me and wanted me to move across the country to be with him. We’d been dating and sleeping together for months.

These people are sociopaths.

MehBeSoon
MehBeSoon
2 years ago

Mine used the “divorced in my mind” line on me as well. I pointed out that the law said otherwise, which I now realize was a waste of my time/energy trying to reason with a disordered person.

They really are all the same with their delusions and lack of shame.

MightyWarrior
MightyWarrior
2 years ago
Reply to  MehBeSoon

Mine said at mediation that he was ‘single’ when talking about the money and I was insisting that he had a new partner, i.e. exgfOW. The answer ‘well no, you’re separated, not single’. But then he’d acted as if he was single ever since the day we got married. I was the OW in his head and she the wife to whom he had to be emotionally faithful.

Luziana
Luziana
2 years ago

When the Sluterus crowed to me about being the ‘Future Mrs. Cold Slab O’Meat’ said. ‘Congratulations you’re #4. Should the cavalry of Mrs. Slab O’ Meats pitch in on some paper plates for your registry?’

FuckWitFree
FuckWitFree
2 years ago
Reply to  Luziana

Can’t stop laughing

Langele
Langele
2 years ago
Reply to  Luziana

Cold Slab O’ Meat

Laugh every time I read this.

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  Langele

This and Chump No More 6 calling her ex’s side piece “rat faced whore” ????????????

Humor is a form of meh after being abused and traumatized.

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago

I like Klootzak, too.
Whose ex FW is that? I can’t recall but I laugh every time I see the name : “Klootzak” ????

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago

I like Klootzak, too.
Whose ex FW is that? I can’t recall but I laugh every time I see the name : “Klootzak” ????

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  TooManyTears

???????? (I forgot that one)

Newlady15
Newlady15
2 years ago

Fuckwits gotta fuckwit. My husband of 34 years immediately started calling AP his wife when he left. He bought her a car and told friends he bought “his wife” a car. They said “you bought(newlady15) a car?! Lol he even put another ring on his wedding ring finger. Yikes!! We don’t have to make them look stupid, they do a great job of that all on their own.

Suse
Suse
2 years ago
Reply to  Newlady15

This past summer, my ex-FW and I were at a bank appointment discussing how we would disburse some money between our two children for their university educations. I noticed he was wearing what looked like his wedding ring (which he’d taken off when we were separated and refused to wear again even when we were in the process of supposedly reconciling). Half-way through the appointment, I noticed he’d taken it off (because he’s a ridiculous coward and of course would have tried to hide something after it was too late). Once we were out of the meeting, I asked him why he was wearing his wedding ring, and he at first acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about, then said “it’s not my wedding ring! I don’t even know where that is. This is a promise ring!” So he’s now wearing a gold wedding band–a “promise” ring–given to him by his AP, who is still married to and living with her husband. This man just turned 60 years old. It is to laugh.

Anita
Anita
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, lol.

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

When confronted with the fact that his mistress bought my husband and she Wedding Bands, 6 weeks after he left our home (moved in with her the same night…)
My husband , “The Cowardly Liar” said, “They’re not wedding bands! They are togetherness rings!”
Ok, then.
I wonder how long the teenager thing actually lasts?

Suse
Suse
2 years ago
Reply to  TooManyTears

I am blown away by how bizarre it is but at the same time apparently very common! It’s actually helped me a LOT to realise that things I thought were so unusually cruel and inexplicable are actually really, really typical and boring and unoriginal and that FWs are a dime a dozen.

Goodfriend
Goodfriend
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

I wonder if AP’s husband knows his wife gave another man a wedding band/promise ring. What on earth was she promising?

Suse
Suse
2 years ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

I know … it’s so gross. We (the AP and I) work in the same building, on the same floor, use the same washroom, etc. I often see AP’s husband popping in to bring her a coffee (he’s retired) or waiting outside to pick her up (although my ex-FW also used to wait outside to pick her up, often in front of me, when we were separated but not yet divorced). I have no idea what kind of effed-up situation this is, but I do know that my ex-FW is considered by the AP’s husband to be a “good friend.”

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

OMG. You mean they are brazenly wearing wedding bands and he still doesn’t know?
Time for an anonymous letter.

Suse
Suse
2 years ago
Reply to  OHFFS

I suspect the wedding rings are not worn all the time.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

Did he give her his letter sweater.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

I hear he considered serenading her under her window with The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, but he’s a lazy fw so he did a John Cusack instead and played Peter Gabriel on his ghetto blaster. Only he didn’t have to lift it up over his head because a trailer isn’t that tall.

Fearful&loathing
Fearful&loathing
2 years ago
Reply to  OHFFS

“ so he did a John Cusack instead and played Peter Gabriel on his ghetto blaster. Only he didn’t have to lift it up over his head because a trailer isn’t that tall.”

That totally slaps! This is the best line I’ve read in ages, thanks for the laugh!

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago

Glad you enjoyed. I knew I was not the only one who remembers bad movies from the 80s where stalking was supposed to be romantic. They’re fodder for lots of jokes.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  OHFFS

Ahh ha ha, trailer, I love that. My fw whisked his whore out of a trailer park. Then deposited her right back into one not long before he died. But for a few years there before he gambled them into bankruptcy, she was riding high.

They put the trailer in her sons name so it couldn’t be taken away from her by their creditors. Tell me he didn’t care about her.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

Lol! Talk about cumming down in the world.

MightyWarrior
MightyWarrior
2 years ago
Reply to  Susie Lee

Teenage kicks!

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  Suse

Does he also have a friendship bracelet?

Pathetic.

Suse
Suse
2 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

LOL

ChumpedForANewerModel
ChumpedForANewerModel
2 years ago

Wow, at first I thought that this was a different type of FW but he is not. He is just a stupid FW like so many others. They just seem so proud of their new Schmoopies that they get carried away by the current of everlasting bliss. Hope that you live in a fault state. Make sure you get copies of his happy postings and share with your lawyer. Even in a no fault state it shows his behavior.
Hopefully, he will be so anxious to marry his twu luv that the divorce will go quickly and you can be free. I am in the midst of a nasty one right now but thanks to the FW being stupid and allowing his pics with Schmoopie to go on a family account, his behavior is not easy to defend. The funny part is that it was my 25 year son who found the pictures since he uses that to send us pictures of his Navy experience. My lawyer loved the pics! His lawyer not so much. The FW of course said that he felt good about posting his stuff since in his mind he left the marriage decades ago. Of course he could have filed then but what the hell, cheating just puts new excitement in the mix.
Trust that they suck. I am in that camp now and so new discoveries just go into the “yes, he sucks” category. My son also thinks his father sucks and has gone no contact. FW tried to contact him while he was home for Thanksgiving but DS did not answer his messages. Of course, I get blamed for him not wanting to see his father. My son is an adult with responsibilities and boundaries. I did not create those boundaries for him, although I am happy that he has great values. Just another shit sandwich to choke down.
I just hope that the FW will settle soon so this will be over. He can have his life with Schmoopie. She got the prize. Yes, a cheater whose kid doesn’t even want to talk to him is a real winner. Hopefully, they will be happy with the life the chose and created.

Susan
Susan
2 years ago

I could have written this letter. The engagement was announced – complete with photo of the ring! – while we were a year away from finalizing our divorce. I sent that photo to my lawyer who put it in front of the judge. She was not pleased, and penalized my FW monetarily. The allowance she had put us both on did not include funds for an engagement ring. Watching him fumpfer while explaining where he got the money for the ring and how much it cost was fun. They were married 36 hours after our divorce was final, a year later. I have good days and bad days. It hurts to be discarded. I hope I’m on an upward trajectory. And she’s now married to a man who cheats on his wife.

ChumpedForANewerModel
ChumpedForANewerModel
2 years ago
Reply to  Susan

Susan, it seems these APs are so happy with their prize. In addition to the pics, the accountant working with my lawyer found purchases and funds transfers to Schmoopie. This led to his having to reimburse me fully for that as well as his expenses are now monitored. I am just happy that I will be getting that back in the eventual settlement. FW was very unhappy about it but I see that as the start of karma.
Schmoopie is probably not very happy that funds are drying up. Hopefully this will help speed matters up. She is 30 years younger than him so if sugar daddy has no money, he may get dumped.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago

I am so glad you are getting your money back.

My fw had to pay me back, but he did it in the form of a years legal separation with a maintenance plan where he paid the house payment, the electric bill and the phone bill. I agreed to pay the water bill.

It enabled me to save most of my paycheck for the year. Only a small portion of which I paid to the lawyer. I could have gotten three years maintenance but in real time, I didn’t think I could stand living in that house that long.

Then to buy me out of his retirement I got the one small house that was paid for. He could have bought me out, but he didn’t go that route.

If it was just the sex thing, but these criminals lie, steal, con, gaslight etc for months/years; then have the audacity to lay blame on the victim.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
2 years ago

It’ll be interesting, exFw just sold the office building. His fiancée is 33 years younger. Drugs & girlfriend are expensive. He blew through $250,000 in the 2.5 years divorce took. She’s younger than the adult children. They are all NC. Her mother & uncle were all encouraging this relationship. Bunch of lowlifes. I am guessing he misrepresented how much she actually had. Girlfriend had no idea that I owned half of our vacation, dumb ass.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
2 years ago
Reply to  Sandyfeet

*much he actually
*vacation home

Mitz
Mitz
2 years ago

The writers stbx has shown who he really is. Again.

Heartless, tacky, foolish.

He and his new ho deserve each other

D
D
2 years ago

I have to be honest. After realizing that my my marriage was a sham and that I had actually contributed to him being able to cheat by being too accommodating (not taking any responsibility for his cheating that’s completely on him), if I were to live my life over I wouldn’t invest in someone the way I did with him. I put up with so much poor behaviour and stress from his family. I am learning to put my needs more forefront. I thought being flexible was an excellent personality trait and I still do but in our world it makes you fodder for these infidelity abusers. So many people can’t think beyond themselves and their desires (we have become a world that thrives on quick, sunny, disposable junk in many areas of our lives). I am 52 and just want to enjoy the time I have and live life in a positive way. I would love a partner as I miss the physical touching and connection but I am not sure if I can find someone for that. Best of luck everyone!

Halfthecake
Halfthecake
2 years ago
Reply to  D

Mmmmm no amount of someone being accommodating is relating to cheating. It just means that if someone doesn’t have character you’re going to end up more invested and hurt. You can’t say you contributed to the cheating unless you hooked it up with other people and sent him on his way. I wish for you you just hadn’t run into a bad guy. In love we give ourselves sacrificially. You were married. He vowed to love you and forsake others. He vowed to be yours thick and thin. Marriage is a vow to give yourselves fully. The marriage ended because he didn’t do that. You really did nothing wrong. You’re not supposed to need to protect yourself from your husband. If he fulfilled his commitment he would’ve been thoughtful and made you feel comfortable talking to him about your needs. Oh and he wouldn’t have had sex with someone else. Unfortunately there’s bad people in the world you were unlucky being married to one.

Halfthecake
Halfthecake
2 years ago
Reply to  D

Mmmmm no amount of someone being accommodating is relating to cheating. It just means that if someone doesn’t have character you’re going to end up more invested and hurt. You can’t say you contributed to the cheating unless you hooked it up with other people and sent him on his way. I wish for you you just hadn’t run into a bad guy. In love we give ourselves sacrificially. You were married. He vowed to love you and forsake others. He vowed to be yours thick and thin. Marriage is a vow to give yourselves fully. The marriage ended because he didn’t do that. You really did nothing wrong. You’re not supposed to need to protect yourself from your husband. If he fulfilled his commitment he would’ve been thoughtful and made you feel comfortable talking to him about your needs. Oh and he wouldn’t have had sex with someone else and betrayed you.

Chris W
Chris W
2 years ago
Reply to  D

Co-sign this. I’m 51, and I’ll never re-marry ever again. I’m focusing on my boys, now 15 & 11, and then ME. I put myself on the back burner for too many decades, accommodating the FW. No more!!

There are good people out there, I know that. But I’ll keep them as friends, not move them into my house & not marry them.

GetMeOutASAP
GetMeOutASAP
2 years ago
Reply to  D

Thank you for this D. I am realizing too that my flexibility with my cheating wife was my own codependent behavior, actually enabling her. I’m emerging from that fog now. Have a divorce consult with an attorney next week. It still feels unreal after 30 years of marriage. I keep rereading CL’s book to encourage me to keep moving forward.

MightyWarrior
MightyWarrior
2 years ago
Reply to  GetMeOutASAP

D, another one who shares your thoughts for the same reasons. I was nearly 60 when the discard happened. The affair has never been admitted. In fact it was actively and vehemently denied. I found emails on the home computer by chance, after he had been gone for 2 months. Without those emails I would never have known and there was a strong possibility that I would have blamed myself for what happened for the rest of my life. What I find interesting is how, informed by therapy twice a week for two years, I became like him during the 26 years. I don’t look like him (though hilariously he and the exgfOW look like siblings-they reflect each other perfectly). I became as hollow and shallow as him in my behaviour. In some ways I took on his character. I lost myself and who I am. It was a defence mechanism. To survive in the marriage, that’s how I had to be. It’s best exemplified by alcohol consumption. He (and his family) were (no contact so can’t speak for now) huge drinkers – mostly-functioning alcoholics. My alcohol consumption went through the roof when with the ex. He called me ‘puritanical’ so often that I accepted that I was a killjoy, a puritan, a spoilsport and gave in. During phases when I stopped drinking to try to get balance in my life, he mocked me openly, including with waiting staff in restaurants (they mostly looked embarrassed). I would smile sweetly and act like cool wife. With over two years of hindsight, I can see how dysfunctional I was in that marriage. I was on anti-depressants for 3 years, for work stress I told myself. But I never had a sick day! I had a challenging role as a CEO, but my stress came from my home environment, the undermining, the sulking, the tantrums, the sarcasm, the envy, and the lack of support. However, I have grown and changed with much hard work which will continue until I die. I have taken that from the wreckage and my life is the better for it.

Spedie
Spedie
2 years ago
Reply to  GetMeOutASAP

GetMeOutAsap: my first lawyer appointment is tomorrow right after lunch. I am halfway through LACGAL.

We are older with post up. In my state, an uncontested divorce can take as little as 6 weeks. No kids together. Only married nearly 2 years. It boggles my.mind I could be divorced my end of January.

I realized, too, that my “patience” and “understanding” only led to me enabling him to eat cake. Lots and lots of cake.

GetMeOutASAP
GetMeOutASAP
2 years ago
Reply to  Spedie

I know. My wife’s gorged herself on cake for almost a year now. Time for her to experience some serious involuntarily fasting. Good luck with your meeting with attorney.

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  Spedie

Here’s to smashing the ???? in your spouse’s face, with the help of your attorney !” Open wide !”

D
D
2 years ago
Reply to  D

* shiny not sunny

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
2 years ago

My first response upon reading this was to imagine the cheater dancing around like Pinky in Pinky and the Brain, tongue waggling, chanting “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Huh-ha, NAAAAAARF!”

I want to separate the “they suck” reality from the “I feel devalued and it makes me feel stupid and used” trauma response because I don’t feel like one has to involve the other.

For example, eventually you will heal from the trauma you’re experiencing and it will become more clear that when someone else is a lying cheating asshole, it’s not because you made the person that way, it’s because the person is that way all on their own. That isn’t something bad about you, it’s 100% something bad about them.

However, once you reach that place, your cheater and this AP will continue to be lying cheating assholes. Even if neither of them ever lied or cheated again for the rest of their lives, they’re still assholes who lied to, and cheated on, you, so they still suck.

Ergo, they suck, no matter how you feel about yourself at any given point in time, so it’s apples and oranges, really.

Also, they really, REALLY suck. Horrible, awful, terrible asshats. Dancing around like cartoons wailing “Look at me!” while sucking horribly.

I’m so sorry you’re having to endure this. You don’t deserve it, I don’t care how many shirts you ironed imperfectly or reasonable boundaries you set (or whatever other heinous crimes your cheater brings up to split hairs and “win” arguments), you still don’t deserve it. Eff them. They suck.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Yes, it’s like the old joke about the guy who is accused of being drunk. He responds; “Yes I am. But tomorrow I’ll be sober and you’ll still be an asshole.”

When fuckwit would call me crazy because of my PTSD (which HE caused!) I would remind him that someday I’ll be better but he’ll still be an asshole. Out would come the shark-eyed glare because he knew it was true. Snicker!

Jennifer
Jennifer
2 years ago

Years ago (in the years before social media) when I was the personnel officer for a maintenance squadron, one of our NCOs was dealing with getting rid of her cheater LT husband, who swore on a stack of Bibles that he was innocent. Then the Air Force Times ran an article about vacations or something along those lines. Guess who’s smiling faces were splashed all over the inside pages? LT Cheater and his AP, all geared out talking about caving and how they hoped to do more caving together. It was all there, bigger than shit. No one was laughing at the NCO or thought she was worthless. They were laughing at what a complete dumbass LT Cheater was.

Latitude69
Latitude69
2 years ago

Rise Up:

You are not worthless because the man you shared a last name with just fell off the Crazy Train. One lesson Chumps often have to learn upon exiting Cheater relationships (or abusive relationships in general), is that Chumps were far too enmeshed in the identity of the Cheater. This could be by way of being overly influenced by Cheater likes, dislikes, choices, decisions, etc. It is not emotionally healthy to mesh into another person to the degree that you cannot become untangled to find yourself again.

The only thing worthless here is your expectation that he was someone he isn’t. That’s what is eating at you, and rightfully so. Dig deep – extract the woman you are from this enmeshment. Redefine your identity minus him. That man doesn’t define you or determine your worth – you do. Stay true to yourself forward and don’t ride piggyback on a partner because it’s a long fall to the ground if you do.

Dracaena
Dracaena
2 years ago
Reply to  Latitude69

Yeah, this rings true for me. I didn’t realize until after she moved out that I’d been making so many choices, big and small, based on what I thought she’d like.

I internalized a lot of her devaluing bullshit about my beliefs, my values, my taste in music, etc, but from here, I can see that she doesn’t have much to brag about in those departments.

Lizza Lee
Lizza Lee
2 years ago

I’ll never forget the time my then-husband told me that he was single. Because he and the OW had broken up. Therefore he must be single, right? Sigh. We were in the middle of getting divorced and I had bought another house.

I believe he thought I would take him back. My house had a pool, and my health had improved. I would have been useful to him. He would have tried to pass the whole thing off as temporary marital difficulties. That didn’t fly with me.

After the divorce was final I told one person who worked at his company (a family business owned by the ex and his brother) that he had cheated. I never gave her any details, but I’m SURE a lot of people at the company found out. Must have been hell for a “fine, upstanding Christian businessman.”

Cam
Cam
2 years ago
Reply to  Lizza Lee

>I believe he thought I would take him back. My house had a pool, and my health had improved. I would have been useful to him. He would have tried to pass the whole thing off as temporary marital difficulties. That didn’t fly with me.

It never ceases to amaze me what shameless parasites these people are.

Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
2 years ago

Weddings and marriages are two very different things.

Weddings, which I have no problem with, are the fairy tale party where I got to wear the princess dress and be queen for a day, thinking I had found true love and the prince kissed me in front of God and everybody and we lived happily ever after.

Not.

Who accepts a marriage proposal from someone who is still married? The same kind of person who lies and cheats and asks someone to marry them while still married to someone else. The same people who hire a bookkeeper who did time for embezzlement. The same kind of person who thinks Bernie Madoff’s victims must have done something because he is a financial genius. The same kind of person who wins Darwin Awards. The same kind of person who teases tigers at the zoo and gets eaten (sorry…not sorry). The same kind of person who sends a marriage proposal to Chris Watts and Scott Peterson.

The world is full of mean, dim-witted people. I don’t want to be one. I don’t want to be married to one. I don’t want to be friends with one. I’m OK with buying something on eBay from one, or some other such casual brief association like driving through McDonalds for my Filet-O-Fish, but for serious things? I want the solid people I can trust, not the holograms who vaporize when things get tough.

The wedding is the easy easy easy part. The marriage is not. They’re broadcasting, right up front, that they don’t have the skills.

The divorce, or staying in a marriage with an affair accomplice because now you have a rap sheet and, thanks to social media, permanent documentation that you are a perp, is the really hard part, but we’re not at that scene yet in the move that has been remade a zillion times over since history began.

One thing every one of us here knows, better than anybody, is exactly how much engagements and weddings and marriages mean to these kinds of people.

Meditate on that.

Brownbird40
Brownbird40
2 years ago

Leave them to destroy each other

Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
2 years ago

TYPO

“MOVIE that has been remade a zillion times”

What kind of person thinks they can marry someone they cheated with and that person won’t cheat on them?

And the Darwin Award goes to……..

Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
2 years ago

http://www.darwinawards.com

Every so often I watch the episode of True Tori featuring the bedroom fight scene where, surprise surprise surprise, Tori is torn up because….wait for it!……DEAN CHEATED ON HER!!!! Which HE SAID HE WOULD NEVER DO!!!! WHILE THEY WERE CHEATING ON MARY JO!!!!

It’s schadenfreudelicious!

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago

“It’s schadenfreudelicious!”
????

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago

When Darwin takes out the garbage, as a comedian said???? No idea there was an actual website. Thanks VH

Eilonwy
Eilonwy
2 years ago

I suspect these jackasses believe that getting engaged while married to another person shows that they are serious about their new love and thus should never be mistaken for a run-of-the-mill adulterer.

Of course, they are right. They are much worse than those ordinary adulterers.

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago
Reply to  Eilonwy

100%! My ex ran through girlfriends until he found one gullible enough to marry him. If he could get married in a “whirlwind” romance of two months (i.e. was SOOOO marriageable), it must not have been him who had been the problem, right? Right?! Let’s just forget about the years of patronizing prostitutes that broke his first marriage and that fact that said whirlwind romance overlapped his relationship with his previous girlfriend. Bahahaha…

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  ChumpOnIt

Two months!!! Are they still married?

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

They are. It’s approaching two years. Two months could be only what’s on the surface to all of us outside the relationship though. On a phone call one week, new wife was casually answering my daughter’s question as to how long she and daddy knew each other and it overlapped his relationship with the ex girlfriend even more than previously thought, it seemed. Was holding in my laughter. I’m only in the know because it affected my daughter — asshole abdicated his spring break parenting duties because he was “quarantining” with this woman when I didn’t know she even existed and thought he was still living with now ex girlfriend (ugh, the drama). Moments later, they were married. I’m guessing he’s gone more covert and underground with his behavior. We made it six years before revelations and subsequent implosion. Not my problem though, unless it affects my daughter. As it’s been said in many ways on this site, there is absolutely nothing to be envious of and these people do not have the fortitude for anything meaningful/sustainable with anyone else. Now wife has been good to my daughter as far as I know, so for my daughter’s sake, I’m hoping he doesn’t shit the bed (of his sweatpants – see above comment on that LOL) on this one too.

ChumpOnIt
ChumpOnIt
2 years ago
Reply to  ChumpOnIt

*or his sweatpants (can’t make a proper low brow joke with a typo!)

TruthBeTold
TruthBeTold
2 years ago
Reply to  Eilonwy

Brilliant! I had never stopped to think about it this way. I suspect you are 100% right on all counts here.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  Eilonwy

Yes. That must be the thinking. “We love each other so much that we’re proving it by announcing our upcoming nuptials in this very public way.” “That pile of rubble that was my life? Ignore that. Look over here.”

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  Eilonwy

“Of course, they are right. They are much worse than those ordinary adulterers.”

Right? There are adulterers who have enough shame to at least lay low for a while. I wonder if many times that is being pushed by whores who are trying desperately to de-whore themselves.

I use whore interchangeably (male/female). But, I do think women whores are more into wanting “respectability”. Like they will ever have it.

I know my ex and his whore thought she would just step into my place and because of his status (that I helped him build) folks would treat her the same as they treated me. Yeah, didn’t happen.

Stig
Stig
2 years ago

OP, I hope you are far enough from the train wreck that you now see the irony of your words ‘pledge the rest of his life to someone else while still married to you’. We chumps attribute such specialness to FWs and APS, that somehow it’s them that have got what it takes and we are so unimportant that it was us that somehow weren’t special enough to earn that fidelity. You know that his vows to her will mean just as little right? I know it’s part of the process but I hope you are in a much better place now.

ChumpMel
ChumpMel
2 years ago

Mine has been with his OW for 6 years and has lived together for 2. He will not file because he thinks we need to do it together so he won’t look bad. I am not giving him that satisfaction. She has posted all kinds of things about them on FB and at one point my MIL asked him to tell her to take it down because he was still married. OW solution was just to block my MIL (who has never met the OW by the way). I would think her family would be saying WTF are you doing?? She has met our boys twice in 6 years. He says everything is ok though cause he stated he wanted a divorce so it is ok to have a GF. She lost her job last year and has no desire to find another so I hope he enjoys being a sugar daddy. She is also older than him.

Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
2 years ago

I don’t go to the hardware store for bread.

If I wanted a loyal trustworthy safe life partner, a person who cheated on their partner would not even make the list of candidates.

It really is better when people who have the same values, or lack of, stay in their respective groups.

Wishinforhappiness
Wishinforhappiness
2 years ago

It’s so true. It’s brilliant when cheaters end up together and take themselves out of the “partner pool”. The cheating exhole from my past preyed on innocent single women on dating apps. He was horrified when he thought they may have lied to him and not been single! ???? You know…exactly what he was doing to them. He could NOT see the hypocrisy.

I really hope the OP backs away from this with peace of mind. The best thing that could happen is f*ckwits marrying f*ckwits. Let them cannibalise each other. Gives us chumps more of a chance to find each other like I found my beloved husband.

Mardi Meh
Mardi Meh
2 years ago

A sentence I read recently in the NYT, which has probably already been copied and pasted here multiple times:

” I’m put in mind of an observation that Samuel Butler, the Victorian man of letters, made about the pairing of another difficult couple: that it had the virtue of making only two people miserable rather than four. “

Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
Velvet Hammer ????????❤️
2 years ago

And taking an aspirin for a brain tumor never works out…..

Chumpasaurus45
Chumpasaurus45
2 years ago

He’s on to the next in a continual queue of disposable partners, no bond, no love, no empathy, no soul.
100% fake, that’s who he is, the creator of erratic, dramatic chaos. He lives for it.

Two years before my divorce, I went online to my insurance account only to see his current gf ( now his wife) listed as another family member on our account! WTF?!
His very nonplussed response to my anguish was, “ well I do share an apartment with her”.
Like he’s some sort of hero, looking out for her insurance well being as well as any other way he can help, what a responsible caring man.
I only wished I could have taken in the degree of abuse going on at that time,instead of just becoming more and more crushed and confused by it.

Good thing you have CL an CN on your side!
Trust that he sucks and get yourself clear of that soulless predator.

And don’t think he is going to achieve the ‘happily ever after’ with any of these women he preys on. No chance.
It’s a con game, a fun repast that he is Einstein masterful at creating and implementing, played with peoples’ lives.

You will continue to rise, Still I Rise, and he will continue his descent into the hell he’s created.

Sorry you are being hurt so badly by this. You WILL get to a better, safer place, he will not.
Knowing that I am not responsible for the dark space he inhabits has been important to my healing.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
2 years ago
Reply to  Chumpasaurus45

Oh my gosh. The audacity to list her and act like it’s no big deal. They are amazing ????

Adelante
Adelante
2 years ago
Reply to  Sandyfeet

For one thing it’s insurance fraud! Pretty sure “my fuck buddy” does not count as family for insurance purposes!

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  Adelante

The insurance company might like to hear about this, after you secure your own policy.

OnMyWayToMeh
OnMyWayToMeh
2 years ago

A couple months after the divorce was final I did some online pain shopping and looked at the OW’s Facebook page. Found out she was engaged to Fuckwit with a date that was TWO DAYS after I had discovered their affair. Turns out that back in those raw early days when Fuckwit told me he’d broken up with her and wanted to focus on our marriage, he was…lying. Well, liars lie. Honestly, I wasn’t upset at the discovery of their engagement or that it overlapped my marriage. It seemed more proof that he was disordered. And then I blocked him, her, and anyone related to him on all social media. That was 3 years ago.

I see Fuckwit at kiddos sports events, but I’m as no contact as humanly possible. The kids rarely spend time with their dad. This Thanksgiving was his parenting time. I had plans out of town the weekend before Thanksgiving. My oldest teen was also out of town traveling with her university’s spirit squad to a football game. So, my youngest teen would spend 2 nights at his dad’s. I enjoyed my brief travels and upon returning home, my son could not wait to tell me about his weekend with his dad. Turns out, staying “at his dad’s” meant spending the two nights in a tent with Fuckwit, OWife, and their 2 dogs. Seems Fuckwit bought some cheap land on a hilly dirt road with plans to turn a shed into a tiny home and moved out of his apartment before the shed arrived. So, he’s living in a tent. In the cold. With a toilet seat over a hole. And a jug of cold water to wash up with. He is (or was?) a VP at a company with a good income.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  OnMyWayToMeh

Bwahahahaaaa!
That made my day.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
2 years ago
Reply to  OnMyWayToMeh

Youngest teen was so happy to see the sane parent return. ????

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  OnMyWayToMeh

⛺️ ???? ???? ????????????????????
What a downgrade

Chris W
Chris W
2 years ago

I love the toilet & hole emoji’s!!

????????????

Whitecoatburnout
Whitecoatburnout
2 years ago
Reply to  OnMyWayToMeh

This is a happily ever after story! I hope the mosquitoes eat him alive, LOL.

Marge
Marge
2 years ago

Hopefully this announcement helps her get divorced.

My own ex bought a house and had a baby while our divorce was being finalized. This wasn’t even his AP (well, not the one Our daughter caught him with). She is a coworker of us both.

Yes, it is a huge blow and painful at the time, but, in hindsight, it helped me heal. I realized he was gone. Never to return.

Acceptance is big. It forced me to grove and then move on.

My own d day was almost exactly 3 years ago, divorced 2 years. I have a lovely life, and am as constant, happy and optimistic as I could be, I
Tuesday has come.

My ex’s life is hard. A baby at 50 is tiring. His relationship isn’t working out and he is now alone. Our sin was living with him for university, but is coming back home. I have sympathy for him, but these are his consequences.

I have a new puppy who needs me.

Good riddance.

Whitecoatburnout
Whitecoatburnout
2 years ago

The very idea of these silly old men with their sneaky inchworm dicks slipping around hunting younger vaginas actually making a baby and having to deal with new baby stuff in their old age just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Sometimes, when I am sitting on the beach reading a good book and sipping an umbrella drink, I think about those guys and I just giggle. Sometimes karma wears booties, snort.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago

That is for sure.

My fw had to deal with her ten year old son, and her two loser teenagers who grew into worthless men. In fact her middle son was such a loser that he was still living with them in their trailer the day my ex died earlier this year.

My son could not stand her two older kids. He did try to help the younger one, but to no avail; he got hooked on drugs and alcohol. He died in a cycle crash at age 20. It was tragic.

Thrive
Thrive
2 years ago

So here is a new twist on an old story-I was reading my local towns community page and came across a post asking if anyone knew of a good divorce lawyer. I read through a couple responses and saw that the guy was looking for his girlfriend who he plans to marry. I wondered if her husband knew of his impending DDay. Made me sad for the husband and wanted to send him CLs link. Hugs to all!

Unicornomore
Unicornomore
2 years ago

My sis in law had a sister who announced an engagement before the divorce was final and I questioned the whole enchilada… they were hoping I would be Swiss on this and I questioned both the validity and wisdom of this endeavor and I was seemingly declared enemy of The Great Love and not invited to the wedding. I was not told when it even was supposed to be (which I thought was petty … did they think I was going to grandstand mid- ceremony? Not being invited was a great compliment to my integrity.

One of the “truths” FW spilled is that he had Susan of Seattle had discussed wedding jewelry as “a joke”. I asked him “how many other coworkers did you joke about wedding jewelry with?”

Goodfriend
Goodfriend
2 years ago

In the two years before I could get the divorce finalized, he proposed to two women and identified two others to friends and online as his “life partner” and “sole mate.” While I think poorly of women who’d get so involved with a separated but still married man, I admire these four (and a possible fifth) for dumping him, and like to think of them as karma busses. Beep beep! Smoosh!

Carol Scanlon
Carol Scanlon
2 years ago

My husband changed his Facebook status from “married” to “in a relationship”. Our friends commented, “does your wife know?” They thought he was joking..nope!

Kim
Kim
2 years ago

Here’s my contribution to the phony cheater party.

My phony, piece of shit ex had been married before me. He openly told me that they were “separated” for 5 years before they officially divorced because “it was just a piece of paper”. Of course that wasn’t true as every time she’d snap her fingers to “try again for their child” he went running back, which of course wasn’t his fault because he had no agency of his own.

I should’ve run like hell as soon as I heard this but stupid me didn’t.

So fast forward to our divorce….we have an agreement and I’m looking for a place to live. Phony demands to know if I’m “cheating on him” because apparently it’s not “just a piece of paper” when its not something his phoniness wants.

This was the same guy who kept a skank ex gf around our entire relationship and lied/gaslighted/stonewalled at every turn.

I laughed then and I laugh now. You have to see the humor in these things and let the anger go. And most of the people on social media congratulating them are probably talking shit behind their backs….seen it many times as the running community I’m involved in sees plenty of cheating. I don’t keep those phonies in my circles.

KatiePig
KatiePig
2 years ago

Those friends liking this announcement ARE just as morally bankrupt as him and his ho bag “fiance.” Block them all. They are garbage. I know it’s hard. I was left with 3 people after it all went down. Only 3. My sister is not one of them. She is still facebook friends with him, he hearts pictures of her cleavage and she tries to play devil’s advocate for him when I see her. I haven’t seen her in awhile because of it. I know it’s hard but you have to accept the reality of what people are and take out the trash.

The good news is that it opens up room and time for decent people in your life.

Brit
Brit
2 years ago
Reply to  KatiePig

My brother, and neighbors are on that list of garbage. All liking cheaters wedding photos, “cute couple,” and all the other BS compliments.

Acceptance that these people are garbage and blocking them has been freeing. I no longer have to listen to the “we can be friends with both of you,” or “he’s always been nice to me,” garbage.

NotMyFault
NotMyFault
2 years ago
Reply to  Brit

Had a supposed “ friend “ say to me at my son’s wedding that she felt like she was “being put in the middle”. I responded that I didn’t put you in the middle of anything, you chose the adulterer! People that condone adultery are no friends of mine.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
2 years ago
Reply to  KatiePig

“he hearts pictures of her cleavage”

Oh, no! Your own sister. I’m so sorry.

Kim
Kim
2 years ago
Reply to  KatiePig

Katie, FWIW I had something similar with my sister and my kids dad. I left him because he was abusive, and in exchange for him paying a couple of bills for her she threw me under the bus, proclaimed him her “brother”, moved in with him, and started a harassment campaign directed at me while simultaneously shit talking me to my kids.

As it turned out, my kids were loyal to me and she eventually got a good look at who and what he was. She ended up moving out and tried many times to reconnect with me….her actual sister.

I ignored her because I did not believe she was genuine and we were estranged for 12 years. But she did eventually own her shitty behavior and apologized, then told ne how deeply she regretted that she’d lost her sister over that piece of shit.

Now we talk all the time.

Keep the faith…..every dog has its day.

WeAreTheChumpions
WeAreTheChumpions
2 years ago

I think some of these cheaters start parading around our replacements immediately so they can twist the knife. I was with mine three years (not married) and we were serious and had talked marriage. Two weeks after he left me for Goldilox he took her out with his friend and friend’s girlfriend. Turns out his friend’s girlfriend was my roomate. She had no idea, had just been told they were going out with “some people.” She felt it important to tell me she didn’t know so as not to be implicated. She was completely disgusted with my ex and dumped her boyrfriend as a result.

My ex admired his cheating father and not so much his mother, the “victim.” Guess by doing the same he felt like the “big man.” These people are terribly cruel.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago

I agree. It’s another way to emotionally abuse the chump while pumping up schmoopie’s ego. So they get a twofer out of it. Sick bastards.

Mine didn’t have anything like an engagement to throw in my face since he and schmoopie were no longer in wuv or together, so he settled for telling me how awesome their relationshit had been, how sexy she was, how much he had preferred her, that she treated him so much better and they had been so compatible, bla bla and to cap it off, that I should be happy to be his plan b. The implication being that I’m inferior to a worthless, serial cheating, drunken whore and should be honored to get her leftovers of Mr. Dingleberry Pie.

None of the glowing things he said about how great she was and how wonderful their relationshit had been was remotely true, of course. Just cruel lies. In reality she cheated on him the entire time and bossed him around like a servant while he meekly obeyed and ignored her flaunting other guys in his face. He even had a picture of her snuggled up with another dude on his phone, FFS. She had demanded he take the photo. None if it even put a dent in his overblown esteem for her. I know cheaters live in self-imposed states of delusion and denial, but he took it to a whole other level.

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  OHFFS

Mr Dingleberry !????

WeAreTheChumpions
WeAreTheChumpions
2 years ago

I know! When I read that, I imagined him cutting a piece of his dingleberry pie and offering it to her. That’s what these creeps do, try to force-feed us their shit, marking us as their territory, attempting to make us so demoralized we become ineffective at looking out for ourselves during the breakup and aftermath. Mine found out the hard way and his little tactic backfired.

Goodfriend
Goodfriend
2 years ago

Brava to your roomate for dumping HER boyfriend for being friends with a cheater.

AuntBea619
AuntBea619
2 years ago

Dear Still I Rise, you stand tall, like yourself, you can not control him. Know this is not your fault, people of substance , which are the only ones that really matter, know this and respect you. We chumps hear you, believe it. We are now and will be in the future here for you. Let it out, let it all out here where it’s safe with people who have all been there. We all heal by helping others, give us that opportunity. Rest and be assured you can count on us. Blessings to you.

Carol
Carol
2 years ago

I had the same thing basically happen to me I’m now out of D DAY 6 years this month and like CL says get a good lawyer and access a good settlement out if this “PIECE OF SHIT” you wasted 25 years with in sooooooo sorry!????????

NotYourPlanB
NotYourPlanB
2 years ago

Add me to the list of similar stories.

Just a few months after D-day (for both me and for the AP’s husband) my EX and his AP were posting happy “family” photos on FaceBook (complete with her kids and mine, as she bounced my confused toddlers on her lap). Christmas cards, the works. On FB there were lots of “likes” and “oh you look happy!” comments including from his own father. It was like a million daggers to my soul, plus I felt like an enraged momma grizzly bear whose cubs are threatened, yet I was trapped in a cage and could not attack. I tortured myself for a day. I then blocked him and her forever on Facebook (she was a friend of mine too).

No divorces were even filed yet as I (so stupid!) and her husband were still trying to save our marriages.

Engagement came shortly thereafter. She wore her sparkly engagement ring to our court trial, when testifying what a great new mom she’d be for our kids.

Good riddance. Holy moly that was a horrible time. I feel for you, this crap HURTS, Still I Rise. Talk about kicking us when we are already down. The best solution I know of is No contact No contact No contact. Also, such social media theatrics flush out your true friends–those ones that click “like” are highly suspect. Confide in the ones that share your disgust at such behavior.

Fourleaf
Fourleaf
2 years ago
Reply to  NotYourPlanB

This happened to me too. GF#3/Wifetress and FW would post photos of their new blended family shortly after the reveal of my husband’s affair with her. Everyone called her “Mom.” The photos would get a ton of likes. “Your kids are so cute” the comments would say.

Daggers to my heart is right… I felt like throwing up.

You can’t control what they post. You can’t control what their friends do with those posts. We can only control ourselves and we have out own thresholds for pain shopping. I had to glance ar these heartbreaking photos several times over the course of many months before I learned to stop. The effect of stopping that social media pain shopping was almost immediate; I felt so much better.

Letgo
Letgo
2 years ago

This happened to my brother and his kids. One thing I have learned over the years is that these people have been practicing to act normal since they were young. Your not so ex is not normal. Period. You were married to a con artist. Don’t try to even look at the skein. Throw it out of your mind. My brother got angry and that made the difference. He was a wonderful father because his children still celebrate his birthday every year. Be that person. Be good and mad and get a bull dog for an attorney.

CMN
CMN
2 years ago

At least yours only got engaged while you were still married. Mine went to Vegas and married the OW while were still married. I had no idea about her. He told me he was going there for a few days “with the boys.” He even had me drive him to the airport! Bigamy, yes. Felony, yes. But he did it anyway, and he’s a lawyer! I could go on and on about the trauma to me and my then 14–year-old son, my now ex’s FOO issues, what happened after, but suffice it to say I have been diagnosed with PTSD and am just now feeling myself after 5 years have passed. On a positive note, I found out through all of this that I have the strongest, most incredible kid on the planet. ????

But enough about me. I’m very sorry you’re part of this “club.” Do trust that he sucks. He does, by definition.

OHFFS
OHFFS
2 years ago
Reply to  CMN

Yikes! You win the first annual Screwball Fuckwit of the Year award. The prize is that a freak is out of your life for good.
????????????

AFS
AFS
2 years ago

The early days post divorce are crazy. Usually the cheating ex does something terrible , whilst the chump is trying to resurrect their life.
We all have stories. I have told this one here before, but my ex wife turned up to pick up the kids with a packet of the “morning after pill” visible on the passenger seat.
When I asked her if she could be a little more discreet about those things in front of me , she just said ” oh , it was just a bad tinder date”
That was 2 weeks after she moved out. I remember the pain and hurt I felt.

And we all have those stories.

The point is : These people are not normal. They don’t divorce from their chumps because they have their life under control. All the chaos we feel in our life , the racing of the mind , the sleepless nights – all that happens to them as well.
We try to deal with it by following healthy activities : Grief, go to therapy, work out the finances for the kid’s future, meditate, go to the gym, talk to friends, post here, trying to find Tuesday.
They do instead what weak-minded people do. They seek their affirmation by trying to impress other people. Getting engaged (“look my life is so awesome! I am lovable!”) Fucking around with tinder dates ( “I am sexually attractive !”)

It is a long game.

Work on yourself. It will pay dividend. Whilst it is not a race, because you and your ex have found a fork in the road and are heading in opposite directions, I encourage you to visualize where you will be in 5 years. Set realistic goals and work on them.
Whilst they don’t matter , you could quickly think about where you would be in 5 years, if you would act like your ex.
Keep that in mind on those dark days.

Lorie
Lorie
2 years ago

Its mind boggling what these morons will do. My cheater didn’t get engaged. He wouldn’t get remarried unless he was painted into a corner. Mine was house hunting with OW during the separation. I didn’t find this out until some time after the divorce was final. Unfortunately I wasn’t practicing No Contact after the divorce and was still under the delusion (i was still believing his I still love you BS) that we were going to get back together. I found out they bought a house together and had been looking since the seperation. He told me he had to have her move in with him because he couldn’t afford the mortgage on his own salary. He then told me she was just a roommate ????????‍♀️ That was the moment I walked away and went total No Contact

Unicornscomingoutmynose
Unicornscomingoutmynose
2 years ago

Two years after D-day (and I went immediately NC), the Loathesome X had my belongings (at least the ones he and FBBL (FuckBuddyBossLady) didn’t want) dumped on my sister’s lawn (LX didn’t know where I lived). My property was packed inside boxes from items they’d received from their registry. One box “accidentally” contained a wedding invitation. They’d gotten married less than four months after my apocalypse.

WeAreTheChumpions
WeAreTheChumpions
2 years ago

Cruel.

Still I Rise
Still I Rise
2 years ago

Holiday season is massively triggering for me, especially being that December is the month in which my D-Day occurred.

The timing of the repost of my letter today was quite profound…and I almost missed it due to an usually long workday!

I’m still reading all of the replies and what truly resonates throughout (today and with every post) is that CL has created a loving safe haven for chumps which highlights our collective awareness that INFIDELITY IS ABUSE! Thanks to all who share here as it really helps to know we are not alone…regardless of how catastrophic and unique we think our own cheater experience has been. The similarities are absolutely astounding and cheating is a global issue which has been minimized and/or dismissed by many for far too long.

Thank you for creating your book and this platform Tracy! As I’ve previously mentioned, I have been leaving a copy of LACGAL in those Little Free Library boxes throughout the United States while trying to accomplish a goal of running a race in all 50 by the time I turn 50. It’s not an exaggeration to say that your book and this community are saving lives worldwide. Let’s continue to change the narrative MIGHTY Chump Nation!

Light Heart
Light Heart
2 years ago

Still I Rise,

I’m sorry your husband is insensitive to your feelings. I don’t think his actions have anything to do with you, though.

My husband got married while he and I were still married. Eventually our divorce was final, and in the grand scheme of things – (many years later) – it was just a tiny little insult, compared to the insult of him leaving suddenly, without trying, without discussing, without much thought.

The LEAVING was the insult. The finding of someone before the leaving was injury added to the insult. After the leaving? His choice. Bigamy? His choice. Making his new marriage legal? His challenge. Making my life good? My challenge.

Don’t burden yourself with questions about your worth. Your worth has nothing to do with it. You can’t be “new” all the time. When a man wants to chase, he has to have “new.” You can’t offer it. It’s his problem. Let the new girl worry about it. She can’t be new all the time, either…

Chumpasaurus45
Chumpasaurus45
2 years ago

????????????Here here, still I rise, nicely said. We do need to change the narrative and bring this stuff into the light of day. Infidelity is not unacceptable and 100% abuse.
Thank goodness there are people that fully get the harm it causes and the difficulty recovering. I don’t know where I’d be if that wasn’t true. Mighty grateful for Chump Nation. ????

MightyWarrior
MightyWarrior
2 years ago

For me, karma is the ex and exgfOW getting married! They deserve to be together. Their families of origin deserve to be united. Their friends deserve to spend time in each other’s company. The ex will be wriggling to get off the hook and exgfOW will make his life unbearable until she’s reeled him in. It’s taken me a long time to get here and I still have bad times, especially around Christmas and New Year (divorce was finalised in December 2020). Overall, though, my life is very different and richer than it was. More interesting, mostly because I’m learning about myself and therefore others which keeps my curiosity satisfied. In a spontaneous moment of self-expression, my therapist said ‘MW, you had a lucky escape from a narcissist’. The union of the ex and exgfOW, two narcissists, feels like serendipity. They are perfectly compatible. He was correct when he said that he and I were incompatible. It was the only truthful phrase he uttered during my brutal discard. It was a compliment, to me. So let the bells chime for their happy nuptials. The world is a safer place with those two locked together.

Susie Lee
Susie Lee
2 years ago
Reply to  MightyWarrior

“They are perfectly compatible. ”

I remember in real time saying to his sister: “fw and whore have way more in common than he and I do” I didn’t elaborate, but I did not mean that as a compliment. I am pretty sure his sister knew exactly what I meant. What I wish I had said was “she deserves him way more than I do”. But, it was many years before CL and I didn’t have my chump vocabulary in place then.

FT
FT
2 years ago

Sadly, this situation is typical of narcissists.

If you are really lucky they will ensure that you find proof of the engagement ring and proof of several affairs (including teenagers) long before they’ve picked the victim to marry.

We are well rid of these types. It is heartbreaking to disengage though from someone who sold you the dream of lifelong companionship.

Strongwoman
Strongwoman
2 years ago

I’m late in this one but the same thing happened to me. We had a meeting with our individual divorce lawyers and I was already no contact for about a year. We were married 20 years and he was serial cheating. Left when I saw evidence and never looked back. But…my lawyer let me know that he got engaged! It was on fake book and Switzerland friends were so excited for the happy couple! I heard she wore white at the big lavish wedding too. They are in their 50s and it wasn’t her first rodeo. Who does that? Humiliating and embarrassing at the time. So Meh now ????. What comes around goes around!

Sucker Punched by a Saffa
Sucker Punched by a Saffa
2 years ago
Reply to  Strongwoman

(Are there are ANY women who are 100% pure and virginal when they marry ? )

A fifty-something woman wearing white ? ???????????? Jezebel should have worn red .

Cloud
Cloud
2 years ago

My husband brought his mistress home to introduce her to his parents. We were very much not separated and very much still married.
I honestly wonder if their brain cells have sloughed off.

AwakeAtNight
AwakeAtNight
2 years ago

Same here: in a committed relationship for 30 years, married for 23. I discovered his double life and affair to a 20 years his junior co-worker in spring. He moved out a couple of weeks later, he got engaged a month later – even though both are still married. My mum in law just passed away and the OWname is listed at his side as the daughter in law. Mind-boggling. She didn’t even know my mil. I got some frantic calls from relatives who are asking if he’s gone bonkers.