UBT: Will the Sex Get Boring?
Oh the horror should Schmoopie luv grow cold.
An alert chump sent this advice column from The Times (UK) by Suzi Godson to the Universal Bullshit Translator for a proper snarking.
Q I have been having an affair with a man for the past two years, meeting up once a week. We have now decided to leave our respective marriages and get together full-time. However, I am worried that without the excitement of the affair, the sex will become mundane. How can we stop that from happening?
Cheat on each other. Why be mundane? Consider opening your Full-Time Get-Together to the public. Perform in a plexiglass box. If Maurizio Cattelan can dangle a dead horse from the rafters of the Tate, why not suspend yourself by a crane? Think of the excitement.
(Oh hey, it’s me Chump Lady. The UBT will now tackle Godson’s reply. Send Lebkuchen.)
A Swapping your marriage for a relationship that has, so far, involved nothing more stressful than steamy sex once a week is not going to be smooth sailing. Within those parameters, I’m sure this relationship is perfect,
Deceiving two partners and risking their health during a global pandemic is so un-stressful as to be unmentioned. #perfect
but take it into the real world and it won’t be just your sex life that feels the strain.
There are those pesky divorce settlements.
Affairs can seem to pour champagne sparkle on the domestic drudgery that defines family life,
You need a ride to band practice/chemotherapy? I’m sorry Cindy, Mummy needs her champagne sparkles and you are drudgery.
and the magic can sustain you for days.
Like meth without the bad teeth. #magicmindfuck #crystalrevelation
The minute you say goodbye, you start looking forward to your next hello.
No one says that about band practice.
That sense of anticipation alone ensures you are brimming with lust and overflowing with excitement the next time you meet.
I realise that you probably wouldn’t have had an affair if everything in your marriage had been hunky-dory,
Fucking around in secret is entirely permissible if you unilaterally decide your Marriage Is Less Than Hunky-Dory.
so it is possible that you have simply pre-empted something that was on the cards.
By Chlamydia, I mean “pre-empted.”
Research by the family psychologist Paul Amato, who is one of the world’s leading experts on divorce, has consistently found that infidelity is more likely to happen in troubled marriages — which perhaps isn’t a surprise.
… when one partner is a deceitful fuckwit. (Sorry the UBT slipped.)
You didn’t do a bad thing, the Bad Marriage made you do that thing. AKA the Dual Accountability therapy model. Blame the chump! That’s why we have therapists!
But his research also finds that infidelity increases the level of distress within the marriage.
Also found: bears shit in the woods, the pope is Catholic, Jeff Bezos is a space cowboy.
It is not uncommon for the guilty party to try ramping up issues to force their unsuspecting partner to demand change, or even an end to the relationship.
Because they can’t use their words to demand change, they can only fuck strange.
You already know what happens to sex when you sleep with the same person every night,
OMG, what happens? The UBT is an innocent machine. It wants nothing more than to cuddle the toaster and enjoy the warm glow of its grill and (XXX!) some sparks. Maybe some toast (carbs are the UBTs love language). It cannot imagine the unbridled happiness of a stable committed relationship with a fellow appliance. WHAT HAPPENS?
Drudgery? The UBT is a machine that eats pure bullshit as its day job, so it’s not dissuaded.
but you have no idea how hard it will be to keep this relationship fresh and fun when you are both battling solicitors and ex-spouses on the side.
Enjoy the frisson of the triangle (rectangle, dodecahedron…) now! Soon your ex-spouses will have settlements and new lives and you’ll be a bad stench they used to smell. You have no idea how hard it will be to be Fun! and Fresh! 24/7. One wrong move and it’s NOT HUNKY DORY. Consider your obsolescence. Dance!
Because you have sacrificed so much to be together,
The domestic drudgery. The unnamed suffering of unnamed partners whose distress doesn’t worry your steamy sexcapades…
you will both be determined to make the relationship work, but be aware that leaving the past behind is no guarantee of a happy-ever-after.
You still suck. But I’m sure you’ll apply your top-notch relationship skills to whatever troubles you. Create a dating profile, for example. Pre-emptively.
In 2017 the psychologist Kayla Knopp and a team at the University of Denver conducted a study of 484 couples through two sets of relationships, and found that prior infidelity emerged as an important risk factor for infidelity in the next relationship.
Several million members of Chump Nation could’ve told you that, Kayla. But you got a sample of 484? You go girl.
You are also right to be concerned about the impact that getting together on a more formal basis will have on your sex life. You could try to hang on to the routines that made your affair so exhilarating.
Are you worried about mundane sex? What you need are more routines! Why, it wasn’t the deception and abusive power trip that got you horny, it was suite 402 at the Best Western.
If you used to meet in hotels, for example, make a point of booking a night somewhere nice once a month; if you snogged in the cinema, make sure you have regular movie nights. Secret sexting? No need to stop now that you share a remote control.
He’ll never guess where it came from! What with those pre-emptive dating profiles. #noneed2stopnow
Once you are officially a couple you won’t experience the adrenaline rush that the secrecy of your affair generated. You can, however, achieve the same effect by doing activities that raise your heart rate and make you feel excited.
Just go for a run, the whole urge to fuck over innocents will pass.
People who have affairs are often risk-takers;
In that whole “I’m too chicken-shit to tell you I’m unhappy” kind of way. Or in that can’t-introduce-you-to-anyone-he-knows way. Or that signed-the-hotel-register-under-an-assumed-name way.
Boldly going forth! Don’t tell my spouse! I’ll pay cash!
#didUeverknowthatyouRmyhero
whatever you do, do your best to avoid boredom.
Tether yourself to a car battery with a jumper cable. Bring the sizzle back. #zeroboredom
Oh my.
Well, he who marries his mistress creates a vacancy. And being discarded is one heck of a roller coaster ride. The hysterical bonding sex alone will surely be worth it.
(And hey, Kayla got a sample of 484 COUPLES, which is actually pretty good going. I’m all in favour of more research into this type of dysfunction – the science is on our side, and not on Esther Perel’s).
How stupid is this letter writer!?
Yes, lady, this sex will become a routine. In any committed relationship that involves sex, there will be sexual habituation.
Even if you explore new kinks together, the sex will not produce the same high that it did when you were in the discovery phase .
How do these people have enough sense to find their way out of their own goddamn bathroom?
My jaw dropped reading this letter. She publicly admits to getting off on hurting other people and either doesn’t realize or care that she sounds like a total dipshit.
I don’t know if anything can break through that degree of narcissism.
Velvet Hammer’s “three legged stool” analogy comes to mind (affairs depend on triangulation and existance of the “victim leg” for their thrilz. Remove the third leg and they collapse).
So even the discovery phase of sex isn’t tingly and thrilling enough to someone with personality/attachment disorder if the relationship is normal, betrayal isn’t involved and the specter of genuine commitment and intimacy loom. Abusers tend to leave the idealization stage and sabotage immediately (even if covertly) unless there’s something seriously inappropriate about the bonding (big age gap, partner lives 3000 miles away, partner has a partner or, say, the couple commits serial murdes together to keep the spark alive!). The second things become “appropriate” in the “forbidden” relationship, the toxic cycle begins afresh.
There’s this very old book that a friend lent me by psychologists Steven Carter and Julia Sokol titled *Men who Can’t Love* that was written intentionally as an antidote to Robin Norwood’s goopy, chump-blaming *Women Who Love Too Much*. By popular demand, Sokol and Carter later included female “commitmentphobes” in their analyses. To this day, the book is still a pretty fresh and accessible nitty gritty breakdown of personality disordered types in relationships, how to spot them and how to keep from being victimized.
Interesting. My FW dumped the OW when I found out and dumped him. I know the sex was routine with her; it wasn’t with me. He didn’t want to get stuck with her. Her only appeal was that she was “forbidden” 3rd leg of the stool.
Excellent question Ross.
How stupid is this letter writer…..
Poor thing, such a terrible doubt to have gnawing at your soul…
Sweet schadenfreude. She is already worried about losing him lol. She deserves it.
LOL, right on RossLucy. I don’t understand people like this. Stick to flitting around if you live for the highs and otherwise do not value other people!
“But his research also finds that infidelity increases the level of distress within the marriage….Also found: bears shit in the woods, the pope is Catholic, Jeff Bezos is a space cowboy.”
This column is a great exactly why I’m getting closer and closer to Tuesday! Thanks for the belly laugh.
Agree. I almost peed myself laughing at that one.
example as to
“Just go for a run, the whole urge to fuck over innocents will pass.” Hahahaha you are too fucking good.
I love this deep dive into the shallow waters of a cheater’s mind.
Also, I chuckle whenever I see this drawing. It’s an entire micro-fiction: the older man with the not-so-tighty-whities looking lustfully at a younger woman who is trying so hard (the outfit, the rouge) to please.
In the back of her mind (which is shallow) is a concern that not only will the sex get mundane, it’s *already* kind of mundane, if she’s honest with herself.
But she’s not. During this embrace, she’s making a mental note to buy more lubricant.
Oh, and she’s also VERY worried that not only will the sex get old, but she’ll get old. Rouge can only do so much.
It must be SO HARD to be in an affair. All these worries!!!
>During this embrace, she’s making a mental note to buy more lubricant.
Bwa, ha, ha, ha!
Cartoon whore always looked like a hag to me.
hahaha my favourite, too. Thanks for the very funny deconstruction. It’s a perfect illustration of delusion
That’s my favourite, very à propos, cartoon too! It says it all doesn’t it!
Yeah, this one’s easy. If the big concern is the sex life getting boring then best they both go forth and be single… that way the drama remains ever present without that dull secure relationship nonsense.
Thank You Chump Lady.
I was waiting all morning for anything from you because I Cracked over the weekend and checked my x’s and her Tru Wuv’s social. It gave me the results that I anticipated— total depression. For some reason her Tru Wuv just posts selfies of himself— with that nasty I fuck married women grin. He posted Halloween pictures ( clearly meant for my children and for me to see and be jealous. ), he posted a Christmas tree with gifts meant for my children, he posted a babies car seat sitting by the door ( my daughter’s ). All I could think of was how easily I was replaced and how happy they are and how miserable I’ve been this past year. But, then I realized, that that happiness is just a facad that these evil people get off by involving me, by causing me pain. That, though I “lost” the pick me dance, I actually won because I’m freak free and, as the UBT states above, they’ll be chasing that zing forever. Back to NO Contact, remember she’s a whore. I failed this weekend, but today is a new day.
The “I’ll just take a little peek at what they are up to” slips happen to all of us. Success can be measured by how many days apart your last slip ups are… then how many months apart… then how many years apart. I slipped up last year (or was it the year before? time has no meaning anymore) and it had been *years* since I had sneaked a peak on FW’s public social media account. It was full of happy family photos of him, “Mom,” her kid, and my kids. It… still hurt as much as it had when I was first metaphorically photoshopped out of his family narrative and replaced with the Wifetress whom my kids have also called Mom ever since. However, this time I was able to stop myself from looking after a few seconds (which is so much better than I used to be in the early days when I would just stare at the screen in agony).
From what I saw, FW’s online public presence was a strange mix of wholesome good family times and “look at my great life; I have a sexy wife; do you have a sexy wife? I have a sexy wife” photos. While it stung like a knife to the heart (years later even), I was very proud of myself that, after about 10 seconds of looking at that nonsense, I exclaimed out loud to myself “What in the world are you doing?! Stop it” and immediately exited the webpage. I haven’t looked since but I’m sure I’ll slip up again down the road; we all do. (Accidental looks, like when those photos pop up in your feed because you haven’t figured out how to block them yet or other cases like that, don’t count.)
Your next “Oops, I shouldn’t have looked at that nonsense” shouldn’t be for a long time now. Take a deep breath and onward and upward from here.
No one (at least, not a narcissist) posts their bad days & dissatisfactions on social media. It doesn’t mean it isn’t there. She faked being happy with you for awhile, didn’t she? It’s just as likely that one or both of them is faking happiness now.
I feel you, Xioba. I had a rough weekend myself and have been waiting for a new post on here.
STBX and I have everything out in the open now and he knows I’m leaving. And while he tried for a couple of days to convince me to stay, he got over it almost immediately and now he can stop talking about all the things he’s going to do/be able to do once my kids and I are out of his house so that’s been a fun kick in the teeth.
I ventured to social media myself this weekend – except I went and blocked his Troll finally. As well as a lot of his family and acquaintances. I just can’t with any of this shit anymore. I’m so god damned tired of thinking about STBX and everything that’s happened. So I’m working to move on.
Hang in there Xioba. We’ll get there eventually.
*can’t stop talking
Dear Xioba Xioba,
I feel your pain, and as Spinach said: don’t beat yourself up too much.
I got my biggest kick in the ass when checking fw’s social media – worse than when we split up, worse than when I went NC. (He announced the birth of a new baby with I don’t even know whom, OW or who knows someone else, meaning he made a woman pregnant just after weeks/months he said he wanted one with me. And now I’m getting too old to still have babies, he always knew that’s my pain.)
After seeing that, I understood once more – but this time profoundly – that fw can only cause me pain. For a split second he got me feeling: he’s getting on with my life, and I’m here still alone and miserable. But since then I realised the guy is not a gift and I’ve never looked back. Ever. Do I still wonder about his new life after me? Yes of course. But in the same time, I really really really do not want to know. I’m freed from the need to stalk him online. My body just says no. I hope he’s no longer stalking me, too. (I blocked him everywhere, so I hope not.)
As you understand yourself their whole situation is a pudding based on lies – there is no foundation and I cannot see how his situation will not implode at some point. Ask yourself really: is it better being her or being me? And I think you know the answer: you rock! It sucks to be them.
(and PS: know that I’d love to know men like you, so I am sure there are other women like me out there!)
One of the easiest red flags to spot a narcissist is if their social media is full of pictures of themselves.
It’s such an honest reflection of their inner world, me, me, me.
Sounds like your x met her match. No way that relationship isn’t going down in flames. Block her again and soon enough you’ll hear the sound of the karma bus coming round the bend
Please, please stay off of social media (I know easier said than done). Nothing you will find there will help in your healing (unless, you find one of their obituary notices).
Xioba Xioba,
We all slip off the NC horse from time to time. Don’t beat yourself up.
Your x and this grinning dude suck. You already know that. They’re into image management. That’s what that is. Oh, and they want to hurt you further, which does say so much about their character.
I wouldn’t assume they are so happy. I fight this assumption all the time. We imagine a fairy tale life. Their social media posts reinforce that narrative, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. We don’t really know. And it’s best to ignore the entire charade. Turn away from that circus. Build that new life.
I don’t think that the grief of betrayal shrinks; it’s just that our new lives grow to the point where the grief appears smaller. Now *that’s* the kind of smoke and mirrors I like. #goodratios
Today IS a new day. Onwards and upwards!
Thanks Spinach@35, I love your role modeling and encouragement. It means a lot. I don’t know why I’m so tender today. Must be the holidays.
I wish you an awesome year.
The time of year is hard. You don’t want to be vapid Xioba x 2. You can’t pick and choose the areas of your life where you’re vapid. Vapid people are vapid in every aspect of their lives. It’s hollow Santa Claus syndrome: shiny foil, cheap, thin chocolate and absolutely nothing in the middle – always a disappointment. Far better to be a single high end dark chocolate stuffed with the most delicious fondant or caramel or nutty filling, perhaps with a crystallised ginger snippet on top. Now that’s satisfying. Chin up, sweetie.
Thanks for that mental image, MightyWarrior. I especially like the crystallized ginger on top!
Yes, one high-end confection definitely beats out the bins of penny candy.
I feel ya, but you need to block her completely and entirely. Whatever they do is no longer your concern. Don’t live in their cheap and shallow heads. They are not worth one second of your grief. I know, easier said than done, but it does get better! Hang in there!
Thank you Almost There. Sometimes I wish I was vapid so I could just never care and be rock solid. But, as my sister tells me, if I didn’t struggle then I wouldn’t have faith. I guess faith is my reward at this point.
If you didn’t struggle you wouldn’t have character either. Reset the no contact counter and try to stay strong.
My millennial daughter seems to think that relationships should involve EXCITEMENT.
I tell her that marriage to an assassin or crack whore would surely be exciting but that doesnt mean it would be good. Regular life is dull in the best way : Stranded on the side of the road in the rain? Call the person waiting for you at home who is happy to come get you. There will be time for sexual fun after you you both get home safely. (Happy Vanilla is my favorite flavor).
I think that building a relationship on deceitful excitement is likely its own punishment.
“I think that building a relationship on deceitful excitement is likely its own punishment.”
One can only hope…
#singingtothechoir
ps If the relationship founded on deceitful excitement isn’t enough of a punishment (or, horrors, not a punishment at all), then I’ll fall back on my twin hopes that my x’s fishing arm and penis fail to function. Hmmm. Such is his addiction to fly fishing that I can’t figure out which would be worse for him.
Oops. Dipped my head in the mind-fuck blender for a second there. It’s out now. ????
Have a good day, fellow chumps!!!
I laughed when I read this, Spinach. Why choose, when you can wish for both?! Not in the spirit of meh, but I see no need for skein untangling here. I harbor similar dreams, FWIW.
With great highs may very well come great lows. Even keeled is the best way to be as an individual and in a relationship. At the very least, if you need to get high off of other people, maybe make sure you’re on the same page as the other person with that. Deceive someone to get your kicks and you’re now a terrible human being. Then you can compartmentalize it like the rest of the sick fucks and continue running around and getting yours without genuine consideration for other people. What a way to live. It’s not boring to be an honest and caring person, or to want an honest and caring person in your life. Honestly, it’s a relief — nay, a THRILL — when you have someone steady and loving at home, particularly when the rest of the world can be so cruel and chaotic.
Suzi has lost the plot…she does not mention at all entitlement.
Those FW are entitled teenage wannabes. I guarantee the spouses are the ones doing it all and holding the families together while they are at their “business meetings”.
I am pretty much at “Meh” but when I look back, I realize I was a single parent and the breadwinner even when I was married. The spouses are so much better off without those tumors in their life.
Exactly. So much of us fear being “alone” but in most cases we were already alone. When he moved out there was one less person to cook for, clean up after, and cater to – life only got easier.
So very, very true!!!
So true. I was recently telling a long story about a horrible, impossible situation I had to resolve several years ago. And at the end of the telling, (which is one of many times I have told this same story), the thought landed in my brain for the very first time…… where the hell was FW?
I’ve always been a single parent. Just didn’t know it.
Chump lady – I love this post! Thank you for rocking it today! Your work will change the world.
Every time I had serious parenting challenge, FW either wasn’t there or made it worse. I realized that things always went fine when I handled it myself. The more he has been around (pandemic… grrr), the harder it has been to care for our son. He has in recent times tried to act like Father of the Year. He volunteered to take DS to school. I said sure. I went to pick up DS later (who is only 6) and he came out of the school with no hat, gloves, nor any jacket or coat at all. It was 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The teacher came to the car to discuss with me and I told her honestly that his father had brought him in the morning and I would discuss it with him. How hard is it to make sure your 6 year old has a coat to wear when it is 40 outside!?! If I had taken him, nothing would be left behind. But FW wants it on record that he participates all of a sudden. He doesn’t cook dinner or help DS with homework or supplies or special projects. He never downloaded the app to see what is going on at the school or what needs to be done. In the past, he was gone more and not inserting himself in the process. It was so much easier. DS would follow my instruction and there was peace, except for occasionally running late. We are much happier and better off when I am single parenting. For that reason, I don’t fear doing it one bit.
I had to force FW to have a meeting with the school principal because the school was wanting to hold back our oldest son. He didn’t know the principal, did not even know her name, even though she had been the principal for our sins 6 years at that school.
Once the affair came to light he puts on “Father of the Year” act. Still does, 12 years later. ????
*sons
Decades ago my mom told me that a long term marriage can NEVER compete with the excitement of an affair. She was explaining to me as a teenager why some people have affairs (one of her best friends husband cheated on her friend). But a marriage is not 100% excitement 24/7. That is a reason a spouse can’t compete with a AP.
My question is when did the world birth so many people with shallowness of character? My ex, who I thought was a respectable man, was one of the many cowards we discuss here. Thirty years with him and *POOF* he “suddenly” was unhappy with our marriage (when he met his 29 year old coworker). It’s all BS…just a way to act on selfishness. Who pays? Everyone but the character disordered. Society has just fostered female and male Peter Pan Complex Cowards unable to live in the real world and up to their promises. Sorry…I was just reading this on another blog and am feeling like so many feel they are entitled to whatever they want in life – Mommy and Daddy said I could have ANYTHING:
https://loveletters.boston.com/2021/12/he-left-with-no-warning-after-18-years.html
For a birthday present, the AP gave my x the number to a suite at the local Hilton. Supposedly, it would be their “first time.”
The Penthouse forum entry writes itself.
Of course that’s exciting AF. In my pre-chumped days, I might have enjoyed reading about this or watching the movie. Now I know better. There’s a chump behind the scenes (or, in my case, two chumps) who are being betrayed and set up for Ddays that will nearly destroy them. #nearly #gainalife
The game is rigged. You can’t compete with that. I have no idea what I gave him that year, but it sure as hell wasn’t brand new illicit sex.
And I suspect he won’t go looking for illicit sex now that he’s married to the AP. He MUST prove that what he did was for true love. The alternative is intolerable. After over three decades of a mirage, I know that much.
He’ll have to be satisfied with porn.
“He’ll have to be satisfied with porn.”
????
In which case, both your fantasies will come true when he eventually develops porn-related ED, plus gets severe carpal tunnel from fapping too hard and too often. I’m assuming the fishing arm is also the fapping arm, but I suppose it’s possible that he’s ambidextrous.
Thanks for “severe carpal tunnel from fapping” though OHFFS ????
Mine already developed porn ED! Porn didn’t give him the high, so he started buying sex from online “door dash” hookers that arrive in 30 or less. He hasn’t moved on because there’s nowhere to move to. Hookers in other states are a different story. I cannot compete with 25 year old hookers who make a career out of making losers feel good. At 43 after 5 kids, there’s no way to measure up to the excitement of the first time. Just not going to happen!
I could not compete with the highs of him scamming insurance companies, cheating on his taxes, tricking friends and family, affairs etc.
A person does not want to compete at all in these ‘contests of sick acts’
Eeeewww. Door dash hoes.
Mine was starting to develop the inability to ejaculate with a partner, caused by excessive masturbation to porn, when Dday arrived. So Dday came but he didn’t. Lol. They get what they deserve eventually.
I refer to it as “whore dash”! Lol. Yes about the not coming though, but that’s not an issue with the whores apparently. Hmmmm
This is proof that dreams CAN come true; we just have to wait sometimes… ????
Ha, they see each other once a week – of course it’s exciting. I bump into my postman about once a week and I’m like a puppy – all excited and wagging my tail! Wait till one of them get a dose of Montezuma’s revenge or halitosis/morning breath. I’m sure they’ll be chewing off their arms in bed to get away!
Hahaha!!! My ex had the worst halitosis – ALL DAY! So glad I don’t have to have that mouth under my nose anymore. I’m sure he brushes his teeth and tongue about 50 times a day for the youngster, though.
haha
This reminds me of what someone once wrote about how much she loves her UPS man: “He gives me what I want, and then he leaves.”
I am going to steal this one. That is too funny!
Whoopi Goldberg repeated the reason some men hire prostitutes. They pay them so they’ll leave after the service has been provided.
This is classic! So love a belly laugh… #betterthansex
Tether yourself to a car battery with a jumper cable. Bring the sizzle back. #zeroboredom
“However, I am worried that without the excitement of the affair, the sex will become mundane. How can we stop that from happening?”
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*Coffins not included. Please use wisely. Buh-bye Fuckwit LLC is not responsible for any unfortunate results.
How about addressing this for what it is?: immature.
How do you keep the sex forever new and exciting? Forever Exhilarating? … How do you stay young forever? How do you prevent menopause and ED as you age? How do I just focus on myself and not worry about adulting — taking care of children and my elderly parents and all their pesky needs and wants? How do I get money without working?
FFS. ????♀️ FWs need to grow the fuck up. Or at least stay out of my way.
I guess FWs don’t want real adult life to get in the way of their sex buffets. Life happens, circumstances change and sadly we all age. FWs don’t seem to get that. My FW found his Schmoopie and she is a buffet for him. Those things like taking care of your home, being with your kids, working through health issues, dealing with work stress don’t count. Yep we should have been their buffet but we failed because we let the faulting get in the way.
My FW can now be Schmoopie’s very own barrel of excitement. Let them have their daily buffet and deal with life I and when they can stop feasting. As for me, I don’t mind responsibility and look forward to a nice settlement and being free from a FW. Yes, FW you and Schmoopie will never age and will continue to sparkle all your days- NOT.
It’s gross, but I think that once they destroy the other parties anal sphincter the high may be lessened.
The proctologist. Google rectal prolapse but on an empty stomach.
Agree with all you say except for one phrase CFANM. If we are lucky we age. We adults know that ageing is a benefit, not a right. The alternative is generally unappealing. Some don’t make it. FWs and Schmoopies seem to struggle with ageing and FOMO. These are the same people who create ridiculous romantic fantasies about what their lives will look like (all superficial) if only they can be together. I don’t want to spend time around these people. Life is wasted on them. They have no idea how to say ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ or ‘I’m sorry’.
True, that. I hope that I have many happy years living in this aging body. My FW got himself a 32 years younger Schmoopie. During discard, he constantly brought up the effects of aging on my body. Yep, 25 years ago I had a kid, yep, I had a hysterectomy, yes things are not as perky as they once were. That is life. I am not ashamed of my body or the scars. They are a part of my life and the story of survival. He is only an Adonis to Schmoopie as long as he has money to spend on keeping her in style. Unfortunately, he will have to settle and that will leave him with less than what he had whilst sneaking around. Not to sound bitter but it has been a long road to find all his Schmoopie expenses and his sparkly sex life has been $$$$! Just getting weary of FWs and desire to get back to my dull life.
I get it, CFANM. Dumped at 59, now nearly 62. ExgfOW is only a year younger than FW. I am a few years older. He’s hit 55 now and I can imagine the ranting and raving about his age, his rapidly disappearing hair, Covid, the weather, aged parents, traffic jams, you name it and it will have been done to spite him. I’d rather relax of an evening with my puppy, snuggled on the sofa and without the tv, reading my book with a resting heart rate in the low 60s. Not having to see that jutted out sulking lower lip is worth the money I had to give him to get rid of him. He was totally joyless. Can you imagine having to spend time with these people as they get older! They don’t age well. And free of them we are our true selves. Yes it hurts like hell but it’s finite. And feeling bitter is ok. ‘Feeling or showing anger, hurt, or resentment because of bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment.’ What’s wrong with that? When someone says to me ‘don’t be bitter’ I say why the hell wouldn’t I be bitter? My life was blown up and I was blamed for the explosion. That’s a bad experience and unjust treatment. I can’t make marmalade without bitter oranges and I’ve got a lot of preserve to keep bubbling!
Thanks Mighty Warrior! That gave me a lift. I am very close to my 60th (weeks). FW is 69 and pretending he is a swinging single. Just brazen about it too. My son (yep, son is no contact with FW) is 25 and found his father’s nude and Schmoopie’s on a family share account (all that sex must have made him forget to log out after seeing son’s pics of his new duty station). Thankfully, I had already had the Ddays before my son was exposed to his father’s shit. Experienced the RIC for about a month and that wanted me to take blame for cheating! Yep, menopause, having a kid, working and moving my parents to a retirement home caused this to happen. Nope, wasn’t buying that shit. Got documents gathered up, lovely pics of him and Schmoopie from PI and lawyered up. He is trying to fight but it will not go well for him she nice adultery makes a difference here. Schmoopie can have the cheater once the settlement is complete. Not sure how long it will last. We are mostly no contact and last contact was him whining that it is my fault son won’t talk to him.WTF? DS is 25 and made up his own mind after seeing his pecker plastered in the photos. It was a visual that will probably haunt us for years. Hope the two of them live their sparkly lives until his money runs out.
Well CFANM, the image of that 69 year old dangler has winged its way to London, where it is resting uncomfortably in my brain! I am sorry that your son went through that. Bound to shatter any remaining illusions. While cheater men and their OW are slagging off the bodies of the women the cheaters married, having a good giggle together, they are merely distracting themselves from their own horror film when they look in the mirror. Shortly after my wedding to FW, I was showing my photos to my beautician who was waxing my legs (nice!). Without having any idea who she was, the beautician commented on the photo of my now thank goodness ex mother in law and said ‘she’s got an evil look’. And she shivered. It was a shocking reaction and stayed in my memory. The ex looked exactly like his mother. The thought of waking up to that every morning to the end of one of our days now fills me with disgust. The truth about these people will out. It seeps from their pores. That gives me comfort as I work yet another 6 day week to pay the mortgage. Your 69 year old STBX is a stereotypical stupid delusional man. Cheaters are ugly to their core. Let them live together in their smug foolishness while you live a beautiful life. Settlement day will come!
IMO this stupid cheating slut doesn’t deserve any help with her “predicament “. Once the dull everyday life hits when they are finally with the other cheater, her question will be answered. Two unfaithful people will lose the excitement when living together then one probably will cheat again.
I almost laughed when reading this post if I wasn’t the chump wife of a ex narcissistic husband. ????
I indulge in a not-so-secret pleasure when I have a day without “obligations.” I binge watch a streaming series. Oh, I feel so much better now that I have confessed to chump nation! LOL
This past Saturday I watched Click Bait. If you have not seen it, want to see it, or are afraid it is too triggering, you may not want to read on. I found it to be an interesting study of human nature. There are several red herrings, and plot twists, but basically it is all about how obsessive and selfish we can be, even when we are living our lives and seem to be fulfilling our responsibilities. Of course, there is cheating and affairs — this is the source of so much media click bait. There is violence, and revenge — and essential to human drama, vigilante justice. However, the driving force seems to be boredom, and the inability of the characters to entertain themselves without using other people, and the ever-ready accomplice, social media.
No one in this drama seems able to get through a day without touching base with other people, some of them strangers known only through an online presence. I found it truly amazing that the online “lovers” could create a whole fantasy world, and even elevate themselves to the status of “mistress”, or “fiancé”, without ever even meeting the “true love” of their lives. I was appalled that one of these women felt compelled to go to her dead lover’s town and try to integrate herself as a person of value and place in his life while the police investigation was going on and the media frenzy was at its peak. Before his funeral, while his family was still reeling from his death — she had to show how “special” she was. I could not wrap my head around the desire some of the characters had to fill their empty lives by causing and thriving on other people’s vulnerabilities, secrets, and pain.
The media came off as a pack of ravenous (and venomous) jackals. The police and lawyers were concerned with their careers and status. The human feelings that some of the characters displayed made them vulnerable. The angst was very believable. Overall, the series made me feel sad for our species.
When someone finds that they are unhappy, they tend to look for someone to blame, and/or someone to make the sad go away. They do not turn the focus inward and try to find and fix what is fixable to make themselves happy. I think this is the base thinking of those who lie and cheat — they deserve to be “happy” and will do anything to achieve a mythological state of eternal happiness, even though they will hurt or destroy others around them by doing so. They will do anything but face the fact that they may need to fix something inside of themselves and develop a way to make themselves happy. They know what they are doing, but they have no compassion for anyone. They destroy all the possibility they have for a normal life, with both good and bad moments, for a fantasy life of eternal sunshine, happiness, and rainbows.
The problem, of course, is that fantasy is not sustainable. No one gets through life unscathed. Real life is often hard, and sometimes boring. Real relationships are about a whole lot more than occasional frenzied sex.
When I was doing my marriage police stint with the love bomber, I found one of his online statements quite revealing. He said, ” I want a relationship that is an eternal honeymoon, and I believe my perfect woman is out there somewhere, and we can have that.” Really? This is a giant red flag. If you believe this, you need some serious therapy. Affairs don’t solve problems; they cause more problems. Believing you can steal your own happiness from the lives of others is a big red flag. I don’t know if there is enough therapy to help you if you believe this.
Reminds me of something cheater said to me before Dday, “I no longer feel butterflies in my stomach when you walk into a room.”
At that time we had been married 19 years, had a teenage son, responsibilities.
I wasn’t sure how to reply, so I didn’t.
Cheater’s remark is no different than this woman asking if sex will get boring.
Immaturity will confuse infatuation with love. Infatuation is the fantasy of the unknown, new and sparkly.
Infatuation fades, just like the butterflies and the excitement of the weekly forbidden tryst.
“When someone finds that they are unhappy, they tend to look for someone to blame, and/or someone to make the sad go away. They do not turn the focus inward and try to find and fix what is fixable to make themselves happy. I think this is the base thinking of those who lie and cheat — they deserve to be “happy” and will do anything to achieve a mythological state of eternal happiness, even though they will hurt or destroy others around them by doing so.”
FW: I’ve had a mistress for a while now. She’s my soulmate. I’ve been arranging for our divorce before you were ever even aware I was feeling that way.
Chump: You understand that this is not only destroying everything I thought we were building together and both our families and our relationships with our workplaces and our friends but you are also destroying me.
FW: Yes, I’ve thought about it and I am prepared to make that sacrifice. I deserve to be happy.
Chump: …at the expense of all the happiness around you?
FW: What do you mean? There’s only me and OW; therefore everyone I care about is happy. [tut-tutts] Really, you are so clueless sometimes.
I loved that series! Unbelievable? Yes of course, but it had a sting in the tail that I didn’t see coming!
^ All of this!!!
I wonder if the letter writer was concerned herself about the “excitement” wearing off or if she has heard her AP chatter on a few times too many times about how “exciting” he finds their weekly fuckfests? Is she suspicious of herself or of her AP? I hope it is the latter–that she is getting a taste of the insecurity chumps too often feel.
Good point.
Also, if he goes on and on about how hot she is, she might worry that she can’t keep that up. It might take two hours of primping to get ready for their trysts, and even a dim AP must know she’ll age.
Oh for fuck’s sake. My fantasy life just became even more vivid as I imagine forcing the author to attend a convention of chumps. She can attend the small group session I will lead, “What to do when Your Husband pulls a gun out during an argument”. Then we listen to open mic night, “Things that cheater did to me”. We will all have a three minute window to relate our trauma. Then to end the convention we will have noted epidemiologist speak, “Lifelong effects of various and sundry sexually transmitted diseases”. I want to bitch slap that fool, I mean advice columnist with Tracy’s yellow book.
I would like to attend this conference.
????
I would pay to see that.
Looks like a Holiday DDay is brewing.
I sat ringside to one of these exact scenarios, except the illicit fuckbuddies had been carrying on for about twenty years. I was their housekeeper after they moved in together after ditching their respective lawfully wedded buzzkills.
It didn’t take long for her, the more sober and functional of the two, to realize why their marriages sucked. It was them.
He was in the habit of getting fired from jobs because of his drinking, and then he’s hanging around the house during the day, drinking and watching golf on TV. She would come home from work and find out he had been home all day, drinking and watching golf on TV. She would ask me, crying, if he had been home all day drinking and watching golf on TV.
It didn’t bother either of them that the bedroom furniture in their new Love Nest was half of the bedroom set from his marriage. Though they had plenty of money to buy a whole new set.
How romantic.
There’s a reason there are abandoned chateaus dotting the landscape of France. Expats with romantic visions who buy them quickly find out why the French have abandoned them. Like with cheating, the romantic idea is very different from day to day reality. The expenses that keep coming after the leap is made is the ultimate 2 x 4 of truth.
The world is full of people who suffer fools gladly. I don’t want to be one of them and I don’t want to be married to one of them, and when it comes to relationships there is no bigger proof of fool than being involved in an affair. Let other people try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Visiting a French chateau is very different from owning and maintaining one; stand aside and let Madame Experience teach them a lesson while you practice crowing, “I told you so.”
just wait until the spiteful step kids hide his/her glasses and won’t give up their location, under no circumstances; the dog bites his/her ankle because he’s not to be trusted; and the new wife/husb has a bad stretch of days from an emotional perspective, let alone hormonal imbalances and vaginal dryness/impotence.
then there’s the negative bank balance because the heady infatuation days involve a lot of spending, right? and the never ending spousal support/child support payments transferred out of the checking account.
kind of drag for a thrill seeker. these are shallow, shallow people.
I’ve been on Chump Nation for 8+ years now. Still read every day.
Your post really gave me a belly laugh and one I’ve been waiting to read!
Thank you.
I predicted my husband and his Howorker wouldn’t last a year once they moved in together and faced the reality of three shared kids, two ex spouses, legal battles, and taking out the garbage and other mundane household chores. I was being generous. They lasted FOUR WEEKS. The affair had been going on for four years and they seemed to be on cloud 9 (judging by her ridiculous letters and their mushy Facebook posts). But being in the same house 24/7 is a completely different story. I don’t know about their sex life, other than that she sure had a lot of fetish clothing/gear and a copy of The Joy of Sex by the bed, which tells me they had to work to keep it interesting. (Unfortunately I had to go sort through his things when he killed himself a few months after she left him.) Creepily, some of the lingerie was mine (stuff I’d had for ages that was not something he could have found elsewhere), things I’d left behind when I moved out and apparently he took with him to his new house with her. It was mixed in with her stuff. Not sure what weird thrill he got from that, or whether she knew whose it was.
Four weeks, omg
My ex shows many signs of mental illness. I wonder how many cheaters are mentally ill?
“I wonder how many cheaters are mentally ill?”
Not sure but I think most disordered (Borderline, Narcissists, Histrionics, Sociopaths) people do cheat. The need for chaos, attention and deceiving is overwhelming for these people.
My X definitely is, which made it hard to leave him. I had very mixed feelings, but over time just had to save myself! He spent 32 years priming me to stay no matter what he did, but he overplayed that hand eventually. Just pushed and pushed the outrageousness, because that’s what mentally ill people do.
I spent way too much energy trying to help him, until I started helping me! Here’s a LAJ quote, that’s on my desk- Normal healthy people focus on themselves. Focus on you. Your life. Your needs. Your goals. That is not selfish, that is actually living your own life!
(Much thanks to ALL of CN!)
Ummm…I’d be more interested in how many chumps develop disorders after DD. I personally went through five different doses of two different antidepressants and lost 60+ pounds. I now use a prescription sleep aid nightly and rarely leave my house…and that was all pre-pandemic.
I lost 30 lb (and I did not have it to lose) and was an anxious mess. My doctor was very concerned and put me on an anti-anxiety medication and forbade me to exercise until I’d put the weight back on (all good now).
During my marriage, I contracted a lung infection that typically only affects immunocompromised people (AIDS patients, the very elderly). It nearly killed me and took two years of heavy medication to eradicate (though it has left me with permanent damage to my lungs). I am 100% convinced my body had had enough because of the near constant stress and verbal/emotional abuse I had endured for well over five years.
We definitely don’t make it out unscathed.
I’m convinced my ex was bipolar, though he refused to consider the possibility. Interestingly, his mother thinks the same. He was also an alcoholic, but denied that too.
My husband’s girlfriend is legit unhinged. I think she has some kind of disorder, though of course I can’t diagnose her with anything. Anxiety for sure. But (unfortunately) I knew her, and I’ve seen her go completely nuts (self harm, screaming, etc.).
I have never seen so many medications in my life as I found at their house. It was like a pharmacy.
They were two messed up people who (mistakenly) thought that their problems were external and could be solved by changing their circumstances (and by “twu wuv”). They only exacerbated each others’ issues.
Way to be mighty without those FWs! I’m glad your kids are coping with that trauma of losing a parent (even a FW) to suicide. May your walls sing.
I just wanted to add that dysfunctional affair partners rely on their chump spouses to hold their lives together. Without them, schmoopies often can’t cope, AND I’m sure you’re right in this case that they ramped each other up for those four weeks. They clearly also had extremely unrealistic expectations of how life would look once they could Be Togever Fowever (swoon). It’s amazing, isn’t it, how life always feels like getting hit with a Mack truck when our expectations don’t match reality. I agree with the chumps above who have pointed out that this is a very adolescent, immature approach to life.
He continued to rely on me to hold his life together for a long time, even after he left me. Things like making doctors’ appointments, getting his dry cleaning, picking out his clothes, cleaning the house, yardwork, cooking, managing the money, taking care of our son whenever he was sick. I was such a spackley, hopium-filled, pick-me-dance contestant chump that I did it all for a long time. When I finally stopped, he got angry that I wasn’t paying for his life anymore, as he was publicly with another woman.
When we sold the house earlier this year, I did 100% of the legwork and he just showed up to sign the paperwork. It was exactly the same as ten years previously when we had bought the place. He took no active role, and then got angry because the house that *I* bought ended up having some issues. He ended up wanting to sell the house because he did zero maintenance on the place and everything started breaking and falling apart. (Like our marriage, he preferred to walk away and start over than to maintain/repair anything.) It had gotten to the point that I couldn’t afford to fix it if I had taken it, so I agreed to sell, which surprised him, I think. I had wanted the house (I loved that house), but I was grossed out because schmoopie had practically been living there during the first few months of Covid and I didn’t need the constant reminder of my previous life and his cheating. I am happy in my new apartment, that FW never even saw, let alone entered.
His OW, sadly, couldn’t keep her own life together, let alone his. Once I stepped out of that messed up triangle and left him (and her) to manage his own affairs, he went broke and fell apart. He accused me of borrowing copious amounts of money from my mother because he couldn’t conceive of the idea that I was able to take care of myself (on my own) when he couldn’t (on two incomes).
I did so much emotional labor for him too, always trying to help him regulate his moods. I am pretty convinced that if I hadn’t been there over the last 15 years, he would have killed himself long ago. I practically scraped him off the floor a few times. On his 30th birthday I found him on the kitchen floor with a nearly empty handle of gin and and airsoft gun, which he said he wished was real because he was “nothing” and his life was “over” because he hadn’t yet become a successful filmmaker. I dragged him up and took him out for a night with friends. That was far from the only time.
I never wished him dead, even at his worst, but I can’t deny that my life is so much easier now. He was very, very abusive. It started out as emotional, progressed to vicious verbal abuse, and finally physical violence. I was constantly getting threats from him, nasty text messages, screaming phone calls, attempts to manipulate the court to take my child away (painting me as an abusive parent, incompetent, mentally unstable, etc.). I would have panic attacks just hearing the sound of an incoming text message (even if it wasn’t my phone) – you know that one that automatically comes with iPhones? I once heard someone else’s phone ding in a store and I actually had to sit down because my heart started racing, I was sweating and dizzy and couldn’t breathe. That doesn’t happen anymore. I have more money in the bank than I’ve ever had. I’m not constantly being put down and called stupid and lazy (he called me lazy when I was working two jobs while pregnant and also doing 100% of the household chores- go figure) and fat and ugly and worthless. I feel good about myself again. My life is peaceful and happy. My ex didn’t know what peace and contentment were. He was always chasing drama and excitement. I don’t hate my body anymore, which he was always criticizing (no matter what size I was). I feel beautiful again (and I have to say, I looked like a MILLION BUCKS at his funeral – I needed to, to have the confidence to face all those Swiss friends and defectors who supported the affair. My best friend came to support me, took one look at me in my little black dress, black biker jacket, and stiletto boots and said “I see you wore armor” [there’s a reason I love her]. So many people told me how good I looked. Like they were fucking surprised. Also my hair worked perfectly and I had cascading red curls to my waist.)
Anyway. Yeah. A FW-free life is wonderful. My story is crazy and tragic and I never thought I’d ever have so much drama in my life. But I made it. I feel like I can make it through just about anything at this point. And I like who I am now better than I’ve ever liked myself before. I am a badass bitch with a big heart. And I’m so happy single I may never have another relationship. And if I do, we will just be neighbors. I don’t plan on giving up my autonomy and precious alone time for anyone ever again.
Oh god. Your story is so sad.
These are disordered people. I’m sorry this happened to you and can’t imagine the pain of going through his things and finding all that stuff. The shared lingerie is truly creepy.
I hope you’re doing ok. ((hugs))
Thank you.
I’m actually doing great. Yeah, it was awful and weird (and gross). But it made it easier somehow. I was wavering in the edge of being really sad he was dead and seeing, you know, the good times. Going through all that shit made me remember who he really had been to me.
I honestly had a good laugh over it, as I piled ALL of it right on their bed so that whoever else came in the house (landlord, OW, her family, or whatever [since she had to go and claim some things too, and I knew she was coming]) would see it. It is the only petty revenge I ever took.
A few months later I read all her letters and found them hilarious. They were so over the top and so indicative of an immature, disordered relationship (you should not be declaring your undying love to a guy you’ve known for a month). The best one was where she was trying to convince my husband to tell me about her so we could all be one big happy family because she was sure I liked her. (Excuse me while I die of laughter.)
His suicide letter (20+ pages long) was not funny in the least, but it did show me that the sparkly image they projected to the world was a complete fabrication. They were miserable and seriously messed up (alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide attempts, money problems, etc.).
Her life is still a mess, but I have reached “meh” and honestly don’t care what happens to her. Not even to gloat over her suffering. I cut off all contact (she tried to reach out several times to me and to my stbx’s sister after my husband’s death). My life is only getting better and I’m too busy enjoying it to waste time on her, or on untangling the skein of fuckupedness that was my marriage. I spent several years doing that, initially blaming myself for the whole thing. Therapy and a million videos on YouTube helped with that, and now I know all that I need to know. Two people blew up everything around them because they were selfish and entitled. Full stop.
I’m actually happier than I’ve been in over a decade, maybe than I’ve ever been period. I love being single (peace! freedom!). I’m healthy again (the anxiety and depression almost killed me), I’ve got a great job, my own place, hobbies, money (for once! my ex was a spender who had no idea how money works), true friends (and being single, I can spend 3 or 4 hours on the phone with my best friend and no one can say boo), family (I even gained my inlaws, because my husband hated them, hadn’t spoken to them in 8 years, and wouldn’t allow me to take our kid near them, though I kept in touch with my sister in law sporadically anyway – now my son has grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. who all want to be a part of his life). I’m nearly debt free (damn legal bills).
My credit is recovering. My divorce is over. I got full custody of my son. My ex’s life insurance means my kid will get a good start in life. My son is handling everything really well. In fact, he seems much happier now. He worried a lot about his dad, and I’m sure that house wasn’t a good environment, and now he doesn’t have to be shuffled back and forth multiple times a week. He loves his new school. He loves where we live. He has lots of friends close by.
It’s good.
I hope my story, as tragic as it is, can inspire someone that they too can find happiness and joy and peace in their lives. I never thought I’d get there, but I did. So for those of you still in the middle of your storm, hang in there! You can get through this to the other side.
Wow, impressive. Such resilience! Thanks for sharing.
It’s the lies, deception, entitlement and scheming that produces the emotional highs in affairs. The sex is the only glue that holds the relationship together. Relationships predicated on affairs have no redeeming components of which to build a solid foundation of reciprocal love forward. So, if two minds empty of redeeming qualities capable of sustaining love meet in an affair, sex is all they have to make a relationship work.
Cheaters and affair partners are adolescent in their perception of how relationships work. They build from the childlike whims of fantasy, desire, and feelings. Until or unless reality, discretion, and mature emotions develop, affair partners and cheaters use each other as figurative and literal pacifiers.
Just because people appear adult because of physical stature does not make them intellectually, spiritually or emotionally mature. These are physical adults operating with the pathologies of immature children. The world is full of them.
“The sex is the only glue that holds the relationship together.”
My x would argue differently.
“We bonded over taking care of sick people.” He even told me (ugh) that the sex wasn’t that great. (Yes, he told me that just after the D-day bomb went off. Maybe it was said to make me feel better, which is just…ugh.)
Perhaps it would sting less if I could dismiss the affair as a shallow sex act between two aging-but-immature entitled narcs. Instead, I’m left with the feeling that it went deeper than that.
And now they’re married, which only reinforces the feeling that it was true love. I know that’s his goal (their goal) but still. Wish the entire illicit relationship had fallen apart when the sex got old. That would’ve pleased me. I guess that remains a possibility.
I agree, it isn’t always sex. My EX wanted admiration and a parade for everything he did. He found that in a “soul mate” half his age who hadn’t heard his stories before and didn’t realize everything he claimed to have accomplished was a tremendous exaggeration. Even worse, I suspect he was more interested in how good it would make him feel to have others see him with a young girlfriend than how good the sex was with the new girlfriend. His whole life is a series of choices designed to make him the center of attention.
I am so much happier not having to make sure he is always being praised, recognized, appreciated, and celebrated. I am also able to see how unbalanced our relationship was. I now have many more friends than I used to because I have time to pay heed to those relationships. And they pay heed to me in positive ways, which the EX certainly did not!
Mine too. He needed constant adulation. That’s why he wanted to replace me. Sex was important, but he got that from me. It was the wide-eyed adoration he was craving. I knew him too well and didn’t fall all over myself praising every little thing he did. I was like “I don’t care about the latest article you wrote. You never apologized for calling me a fat stupid lazy cunt and screaming in my face last night.” His OW thought he was mind-blowingly brilliant and told him so constantly (she never realized that she was just…kind of stupid and inexperienced. She was ten years younger than he was and had grown up in bumfuck West Virginia – no offense to WVs- and had gotten married at 22, so of course everything a well-educated city boy said was incredibly insightful and something she’d never thought of.). She wasn’t much to look at, but she praised him to the skies and he ate it up. She could do that because he hadn’t mistreated her yet. It’s hard to still have stars in your eyes when you have been abused for years. He almost never praised me for anything. He nitpicked and criticized and belittled everything I did. He surrounded himself with “friends” who also thought he was god’s gift to the world. I don’t talk to those people anymore. Ugh.
I’m so done with men who have fragile egos.
In my case, they bonded over bitching about their current spouses and how miserable their marriages were. Great basis for a relationship.
Ditto. Plus booze. Lots of booze. Mommy issues, too. Hey, it must have been meant to be! What are the odds of finding another person who likes to drink, has no respect for his/her spouse, and resents mommy. It must be fate! That’s what they told themselves. ????
I suppose this is a big worry for people who are in a ‘relationship’ that is based solely on bumping uglies
So the letter writer figures non-stop mind-blowing sex without end is a reasonable relationship model, then?
Reminds me of five-year-old me laying in the back our family station wagon coming home from the circus wondering why the grownups wouldn’t let us eat hot dogs and cotton candy ALL THE TIME EVERY DAY. Cheaters are just spoiled brats that never grow up. #SoNotFair
There’s a business in my town that only serves hot dogs, different flavors of popcorn and cotton candy. Fine dining ????
The cheater even looks a bit constipated with his cockatiel hair poof going down and the rigid ness in his jaw line, those piercing eyes. He’s looking completely and mindlessly past her, mentally envisioning his toilet bowl seat and what satisfaction he longingly hopes from his successful bowel evacuation.
She has put herself in a deep delusional trance, head thrown back in that ‘devil-may-care’ way, imagining the next material item she wants from him, as she attempts to push past his looming limp dick and tries to only inhale small gulps of the air of character shallowness that permeates everything that encapsulates them.
She can feel the fake coldness of it all like a shocking splash of ice water, but she feels the angst of being forced to prove to the world their love is simply beyond their control, that rare magical variety that common people just can’t grasp. The truly unique variety, the kind well worth destroying families over, it’s that damn special people!
But first she needs to frantically prove these beliefs to herself, which has what we all know, a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.
Yeah, it’s true love for sure, lol!
I loved Spinach’s description of it. “ The deep dive into the shallow waters of a cheater’s mind”, as she makes that mental note to buy more lubricant. Totally, good stuff, lol!
And infidelity increases the level of stress in a marriage?! That really is some revolutionary research to uncover!
Tracy’s response “ also found: bears shit in the woods, the pope is catholic, Jeff Bezos is a space cowboy”.
Yeah, not all the coffee remained in my mouth after reading that, the perfect response, as always.
The drawing is most definitely a whole micro-fiction going on as Spinach says, it’s such a brilliant illustration from our off the charts talented CL. Sooo good!!
I can’t even comment on the article writer worrying about relationship drudgery messing with their specialness.
As long as they can keep up a 24/7 sprint to outrun the destruction, shame and accountability, the love will stay real, manifesting all the butterflies of aliveness that ever existed. (keep the online dating profiles active for extra good measure)
You have perfectly deconstructed this cartoon.
“The cheater even looks a bit constipated with his cockatiel hair poof going down and the rigid ness in his jaw line, those piercing eyes. He’s looking completely and mindlessly past her, mentally envisioning his toilet bowl seat and what satisfaction he longingly hopes from his successful bowel evacuation.
She has put herself in a deep delusional trance, head thrown back in that ‘devil-may-care’ way, imagining the next material item she wants from him, as she attempts to push past his looming limp dick and tries to only inhale small gulps of the air of character shallowness that permeates everything that encapsulates them.
She can feel the fake coldness of it all like a shocking splash of ice water, but she feels the angst of being forced to prove to the world their love is simply beyond their control, that rare magical variety that common people just can’t grasp. The truly unique variety, the kind well worth destroying families over, it’s that damn special people!
But first she needs to frantically prove these beliefs to herself, which has what we all know, a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.”
Lol! I think you have a future in screenwriting. I can vividly imagine the pathetic loser cheaters you are so aptly describing. I can even imagine the set decorations and costumes. Him; navy blue Fruit of the Loom boxer briefs. Her; a Victoria’s Secret red lace bra and panty set.
Of course, that’s a film that would likely never be made, because in films cheating is usually portrayed as romantic and positively transformative for the characters, cheater and cheated on alike.
One notable exception was The Descendents. You could practically taste the character’s agony and rage when he finds out his deceased wife had been cheating.
He does look constipated..,
Yeah, “boredom” is the problem…not these people that are self-absorbed assholes.
And “researchers” that need to research this (very obvious) shit, are likely (see above) themselves.
These “ researchers” make a lot of money telling us nothing new. People who cheat and lie are cheaters and liars. I think I will hang out a shingle.
“Are you worried about mundane sex?”
Learn how to fuck. It’s a skill, not a God given gift forwarded by the Amorets. Even the ancients knew it, hence many sex manuals 3000+ years old.
My sociology professor told us that people who can’t fuck and are emotionally defficient can’t enjoy usual sex. Instead, they always need something extra to experience at least something. They need to poke things into other peo0ple, put themselves into positions which would be the envy of acrobats of Moscow circus, have sex with multiple people simultaneously, have frissons of affairs.
Having been around a block a few times and knowing a few of these people, I wholeheartedly agree with her.
“Learn how to fuck.”
I come here for the pearls.
That’s the best illustration, genius! It’s a whole novel of information.
I read recently that having a series of shallow relationships allows you to repeat your favorite moves (conversational, romantic, sexual), so that instead of developing any deep connection with another you simply fall in love with yourself over and over again. Strikes me as very true in general and of my cheating ex-wife in particular.
That really makes sense. The FW was all about the seduction. He got off on seducing lonely women. I was one of many. He has since moved on to yet another lonely woman that he rescued. The “hero’ complex.
When I was sucked into the RIC, I brought that up in a counseling session. Klootzak liked nothing better than a damsel in distress. He had always said he liked that I took care of things myself and was very independent but then he was always “helping” all these women who “needed” him. Many of them cried the blues that they couldn’t keep a boyfriend and he would gush how they were so beautiful with perfect lips and whatnot. He would say anything to get them all juiced up for him.
That was always his excuse. These poor women needed him to text in the middle of the night when they were lonely. He was a shoulder to cry on. Such a good friend! Many of the APs he kept around were women he had known as far back as high school. When we were first married, these grown women were sending him Winnie the Pooh cards and crap. Stuff with sweet little sayings like you give someone you are crushing on when you are 13. I would ask what the deal was and oh, it was just another old friend of his who happened to be thinking of him. And I was wrong and jealous because I was assuming that men and women can’t be friends. These were old, dear friends who needed his wise counsel. Yes, in all the world, only klootzak could cheer them up and give them good advice. He was needed!
In counseling, he didn’t respond much to my bringing up his damsel in distress complex. He knew damn well it was all BS. He preyed on any woman who couldn’t get laid elsewhere. He was a bottom feeder.
It’s for that reason I was never jealous of the OW. They all seemed so messed up. The tramp in Portugal I think he liked the most because she is just as narc as he is. She knew he was married and didn’t care. She was supposedly married but liked to play behind her husband’s back. (If I ever had a way to find him, I would definitely tell him he is being chumped.)
The damsels are easy kibble and they know it.
Lying prevents intimacy.
Affairs are all about lying and deception. They are counterfeit intimacy. There is no authentic intimacy there. Sex in and of itself is not intimacy. Sex between liars is not intimacy.
Intimacy = Into Me See. Definitely not happening with two movie projectors merging their phony images onto a screen for each other and the world to see.
Like fool’s gold.
Delusions are powerful but not reality no matter what he or she who suffers from them thinks.
Right. Affairs are a way to avoid intimacy rather than a way to seek it as cheaters tell themselves it is. If they wanted intimacy they could develop it with their spouse through mutual honesty, openness and trust. But no, they choose to lie, keep secrets and hide who they really are so that there can never be any possibility of intimacy. They fear it because they know that they would most likely be rejected if they revealed the ugly truth about themselves. They know they suck, maybe not consciously, but their instincts tell them to not reveal their true nature, so on some level they have to know.”
“Intimacy = Into Me See. Definitely not happening with two movie projectors merging their phony images onto a screen for each other and the world to see.”
Brilliant!
Wow. That makes a lot of sense. Especially given that my ex basically recreated our relationship with his new woman, down to specific things like taking her to the same restaurants, concerts, destinations, showing her the same movies, introducing her to the same music, drinks, etc. He even tricked her into recreating the same food I cooked for him (MY recipes) by pretending to have just “come up with” the idea for them. It was pathetic. He got her to dress like me, too. I’m sure he taught her my sexual techniques that he liked, too.
It made me realize that all “our” places and special things were probably nothing to do with “us” at all. I was just the next in a line of people he’d done those things with.
Yes, this. He’s taken our kids to the same setting to meet 3 “serious” new girlfriends in 6 years. I realized mid-honeymoon that he’d been to the destination…vacationing with the “fiancé” before me. Whhhhhyyy.
It really is weird. My ex tried to tell me about his first sexual encounter with the whore, it was in the back seat of his squad car. He had such a romantic stupid look on his face. I told him to shut up, and then said do you realize you are talking to your wife.
It didn’t hit me until later that our first encounter was in the back seat of his moms car two days before we were married at age 18.
Maybe that was why he had the stupid smile on his face, like oh look Susie isn’t it romantic just like us. Gag.
Major difference there was we were engaged, it was my first time where as they were sneaking around, and she had fucked half the married men in town. I also assume he had fucked his way through quite a few whores before he found that gem.
I think he just wanted to be cruel. He wanted you to know how much he (allegedly) wuved the whore and not you. I subscribe to Occam’s Razor when it comes to cheaters. The simplest answer to why they do and say such bizarre, hurtful things is that they enjoy being sadistic and get a power trip off wounding you. They are by nature emotionally abusive, so this makes sense.
Mine rhapsodized, with a dreamy look on his face, about how his serial cheating skank had smiled up at him the first time he fucked her. This seems strange, and most people would wonder why on earth he would tell his wife a thing like that. Well the truth was that he never looked me in the face during intercourse. He wanted me to know he had done so with her. It’s not cruel enough for them to stab you in the heart, so they twist the knife over and over.
My FW used to look into my eyes during sex. At some point in time he stopped doing that. It was after he started cheating. He didn’t want ME to see HIS truth.
I never told anyone that his eyes looked reptilian. Now I know I wasn’t imagining it.
After D-day I mentioned how he stopped looking at me during sex. He claimed he didn’t notice. Bullshit.
Same here for most of our years we had a really good and quite adventuresome sex life. Usually his ideas, but I went along gladly.
I noticed about a yearish before he discarded me maybe and year and a half, that his eyes seemed darker. The pupils were still big, but his bright blue eyes just didn’t look the same when he looked at me.
Then the last couple weeks before dump day, he would look at me and his eyes were like slits and his eyes very dark. Do they do that on purpose, or it is the manifestation of their inner evil showing through.
Shark eyes. I remember them.
“The simplest answer to why they do and say such bizarre, hurtful things is that they enjoy being sadistic and get a power trip off wounding you. They are by nature emotionally abusive, so this makes sense.”
Yep as another poster said, they just aren’t that deep and trying to do a deep dive will likely just end up with us hurting ourselves.
My basic name for my ex fw is sadistic bastard; so yeah most likely.
‘It is not uncommon for the guilty party to try ramping up issues to force their unsuspecting partner to demand change, or even an end to the relationship.’
MW translation ‘it is not uncommon for the FW to behave in an even more abusive way, upping the abuse daily, until the unsuspecting partner is standing on a bridge at 1 in the morning contemplating suicide as a means of escaping from the abuse because the unsuspecting partner has no idea what is going on and cannot understand why she is being abused. But don’t worry. The main point of all this is you having an exciting sex life. The unsuspecting partner’s life is a small price to pay for your orgasms. May you rot in hell in a chastity belt’.
‘Nuff said.
????????????????
My FW ramped up his antagonism towards me and my family (he became progressively ruder and ruder to my parents) in the hopes, he admitted to me later on, that I would be the one to leave him instead of him leaving me. The plan was that I would leave him, he would fall into the arms of just-a-friend (who had been GF#1 for months) and then “we never expected this to happen” would happen. Unfortunately for him, I found their messages and they moved up their “Fourleaf leaves and then GF#1 moves in” plan from several months (to avoid suspicion) to one week. She moved in within the week.
Their plan sucked.
But yes. FW ramped up his… meanness towards me and the kids daily in a bid to get me to be the one to leave so he didn’t have to look like a bad guy. It was awful.
I love it when I read of their plans that derailed.
Same with my fw. I am sure he was trying to get me to ask him to leave. Then he and work whore could console each other and then… Unfortunately for him, just as he was getting close to his goal someone dropped a dime. His house of cards tumbled.
I swear the last month we were together, he was sweating like a hooker in the front pew. Looking back I am not sure how he kept from stroking out, or having a heart attack as he tap danced his little heart out to save his own ass.
After D-Day my soon-to-be-ex told me that her therapist said that she simply needed more excitement than most people. My eye roll almost reversed the rotation of the Earth.
???? ???????? ????
ahahahaha “My eye roll almost reversed the rotation of the Earth”
Wow Tracy- the UBT is both insightful and psychic! My ex had an affinity for booking rooms at the best Western for he and his Schmoopies ( serial cheater). He would actually book through Orbitz to get a discount – I can actually laugh about it now it’s so pathetic. When I read the line about Suite 402 at the best Western I nearly spit Coke all over my computer screen!
Why don’t they just get together and the have affairs with new people ? Nobody gets hurt, right ? It’s all about excitement and not about who empties the dishwasher .
The problem is : cheaters hate being cheated on . My ex was always pointing out how much she hated cheating . Until she cheated because then she was in a loveless marriage . I hate people. Is there any one normal out there ?
Normal – a setting on the dryer
There are good people true people empathetic people loving people kind people giving and receiving people balanced people healthy people.
Love bombing , sad sausage, rage and silent treatment actors are not the above. Am learning to adjust accordingly. No one gets the benefit of the doubt. Trust is earned.
“The problem is : cheaters hate being cheated on .”
Yep, if I could go back in time the only question I would have for my ex would be “at what point in our marriage did you decide you deserved a faithful spouse, but I didn’t”
Susie Lee
Wow – “at what point in our marriage did you decide you deserved a faithful spouse, but I didn’t”.
That is huge.
I remember telling him that he made the decision about our relationship for both of us, without my input. I told him he usually talked out his decisions with me, if he had talked that one out what would I have advised him? That made him think.
My ex got so furious when I took my wedding ring off after we’d been separated close to a year. He stopped wearing his while we were still living together. He was enraged when he thought I had flirted with a guy in a bar (separated for MONTHS, and I wasn’t flirting, I was making polite conversation, which was actually about my husband’s film career, so…). He constantly accused me of sleeping with his friends, of going on dates, of lying to him about what I was doing. Meanwhile he’d been screwing his coworker for TWO YEARS and constantly lying to me about his “activities” (“working late”, “going out with my guy friends”, “stuck in traffic” my ass). I was to be 100% faithful, even after HE DUMPED ME, while he was free to stick it wherever he wanted and I couldn’t say boo. (And here I am, four years out, still haven’t had sex with anyone [frankly haven’t encountered anyone who appealed to me at all]. Gotta love those double standards.
” Meanwhile he’d been screwing his coworker for TWO YEARS and constantly lying to me about his “activities””
For some reason this takes me back to the running out of salt incident that he threw a rage about. Evidently running out of table salt is a crime much more heinous than spending several years fucking and financially supporting a whore behind my back.
Yep, FW alwsys had the most uncanny radar for potential rivals. They say cheating is often a tactic of abusers who “mask dependency”– meaning that the try to quell ther worst secret fear by being the first to betray. It may be why they seem to act as if cheating were revenge against a chump, which baffles the hell out of most chumps who have no idea what they did to warrant such rage. But the offense was in the potential– what the victim “could have done.”
Abusers are abusers because they automatically blame partners for their own “dysphoria”– feelings of vulnerability, fear and depression.
I learned all this in victimology studies before being chumped. Free refresher course, ugh. ????
I totally agree with the “masked dependency” theory HOAC. It manifests (among other things) in a ‘kill or be killed mentality’ on the part of the cheater. Cheating is a pre-emptive strike in my view. It is the cheater’s latent competitiveness that allows them to mentally contort the delusional scenario that it is the unaware chumped spouse competing with them — and not the other way around. It’s not such a big leap to DARVO from here.
Yes , my cheater told me in one of the many excuses she gave me :
This affair was “hers” whilst everything else in our marriage was “ours”
But then it changed to ” just friends” , “crossing the boundaries of the marriage” , ” no affair “, ” I am finally free after being trapped in a loveless marriage “.
I have lost interest in her excuses , but they seem to change a lot , dependent on the flavor of the day.
I am with Chumplady : She did it because she felt entitled to.
This is honestly why I was a little bit gleeful when I heard through the grapevine that Best Regards had married the AP. He has always been a novelty addict, and even though I’ll never see it (b/c I’ve been 100% NC since the divorce 2 years ago and hope by the grace of God to remain that way until I die), I still have to say…my Grinchy little heart grows 2 sizes just thinking about the INEVITABLE moment when their sham of a marriage will lose its sparkle. Whether that moment comes in 18 months or 18 years, it will come.
This is also why Tuesday is inching closer and closer by the day–because I know deep down that any revenge I could ever dream up for them pales in comparison to what they signed themselves up for the minute they decided to get married: namely, all the things their shallow little hearts fear the most in the whole world–being trapped in boredom, being judged and found inadequate, being rejected by the person they’ve sacrificed everything for, and being alone.
Enjoy the Thunderdome, b*tches.
Yep I was thrilled when fw married whore. In real time I was scared he wouldn’t. I remember even praying for him to marry her (I later had to repent). But he did, and within if I remember right two years he had cheated on her and she had put on a show of leaving him over it. (she wouldn’t have stayed gone, she needed the meal ticket). Then after he retired he started gambling and gamboled them into bankruptcy.
I only know because my daughter in law and son told me.
Then they acted like assholes and blew up their relationship with my son and his family. Son maintained a relationship with his dad, because well it was his dad. But he died recently and after the services he (my son) left and they have not spoken to whore since. I doubt they ever will, I know his wife won’t.
But hey maybe they danced through each day hand in hand happily ever after. All I know is I am glad I missed out on all that.
Lol
I just could not stop laughing at the UBT today. In between feeling awful for the two chumped spouses who are probably losing hair, gaining/losing weight and having heart palpations because their spouse is lying to them and they can’t put their finger on what, exactly, is going on.
I don’t suppose anyone has a direct connection to Suzi Godson? She needs to read the roasting going on here.
Suzi and her ilk ????♀️
I’d suggest Esther Feral, but she feasts on the tears of the chumped. They’re the bubbles in her champagne.
I can never look at my toaster in the same light.
Thanks you
OMG Chump Lady used a Firefly meme. Be still my heart. Are you sure you don’t want a girlfriend?
I think it’s actually from Castle referencing Firefly, so BONUS points!
Just when I though I couldn’t love her more!!
Well-done UBT! When I read this, it made me think of how all too often I’ve read or heard that anger should be directed toward the wayward spouse rather than the AP. While the spouse who cheated is indeed the one who broke his/her vows, and should certainly be held accountable, APs are no angels either. There is no reason to minimize their abhorrent choices.
Right these like these whores never directed any hostility at us. They lied about us, they brought their nasty asses into our homes, they took money the knew the whoremonger was stealing from us and on and on.
But, they are right the whore owes us absolutely nothing, and vice versa. That means we also don’t owe them any respect.
I honestly never thought much about whore, other than she was one of many. But I will defend the right of any chump to say whatever they want about the whores(s). I did want him to marry her. I just found out recently that they didn’t get married until over a year after our D was final, for some reason I thought it was a couple months after. I guess time has muddied the waters. I do remember he called me to tell me just before they jetted off to Las Vegas to slap a bet down on that marriage.
I bet she danced her ass off all that time between our D and getting him to marry her. Listen to me, I am talking like she knew. Wouldn’t surprise me if he told her the D wasn’t final yet. Still don’t know why he stalled.
Like has been said you don’t need to take a vow to know not to engage with someone in committing a crime against another.
A good male friend of mine once told me that he felt sorry for the Wifetress: “I mean, none of what happened was her fault. He was the married one.”
I’m a pretty laid back person but I corrected him on that. Corrected him hard.
She knew he was married. She asked him when he could “come over.” She messaged that he should “use the back door so he doesn’t wake her kid up.” She gets no free pass just because she wasn’t in a relationship herself at the time.
Now her prize is that she will have to forever wonder if any of FW’s just-a-friends are messaging him the same thing. I may have my heartaches but I thank goodness I never have to go through that ever again.
Yep, they lie right along with the fws. In my fws whore’s case she was also lying to her employer and co workers. They were hiding their relationship until he could get to his pay off of Captains bars. That he would never have gotten if I had not worked by his side in the community and in politics.
She was conspiring with him to wring all they could out of me, then take it all and let me eat dirt. Don’t tell me these whores are innocent.
Having said that I was so tempted to tell her that just as a tip, “when he tells you he is going out to ride around with the guys, or work overtime, he’s not.” Then smile and say “best of luck” and walk away.
Thanks to the comment on Jeff Bezos, I have a song for this stupid cheater.
Sung to the tune of Space Cowboy by Steve Miller;
Some people call me a space cadet, yeah
Some call me a fuckwit from hell
Some people call me whoreface
Weet woo!
Cause I cheat on somebody who treats me well
People talk about us, baby
Say it’s gonna get old, gonna get stale
Well, don’t you worry baby no don’t you worry none
Cause today Vicoria’s Secret’s havin’ a sale
Cause I’m a smirker
I’m a shirker
I’m a douchebag
I’m your sex worker
Playin’ with pricks at Motel Six
Cause I’m a liar
A bullshit buyer
I’m a victim cryer
I sure deserve to get some kicks
Cause I’m a pick-me
Come and dick me
Two soul mate schmoopies gettin’ sticky
Our triangulation is so slick
I’m a gamer
And even lamer
I’m a husband defamer
I get my lovin’ in the butt
I’m your wuver
There is no other
At least not yet
I’ve got that covered
But hey, that don’t make me a slut
I’m the hottest thing
In Sunnyvale
I know you love my slop ass
When I shake my tail
Twu twu wuvy, twu twu wuvy twu twu wuvy yeah it’s twu
Ooo-eee baby, I sure won’t get bored with you
*In case anyone is unfortunate enough to be uninitiated in Trailer Park Boys, Sunnyvale is their lovely neighborhood
THIS is your BEST!!!!!!
LIS
you mean….’The honeymoon is over??” ….whodathunkit. Freaking morons
Oh, how I love your columns!!
FAVORITE…….
Also found: bears shit in the woods, the pope is Catholic, Jeff Bezos is a space cowboy.
I swear you’re my spirit animal
Theres some fucked up people out there. Maybe shes married or not, I think shes realised a chump has spoken about her, and realised its her, or its a sick joke. ow often like to play sick jokes they find it funny. ow often have kids, but dont want them, but dont mind getting pregnant again. its like people who only want puppies because their cute