Apparently, many of us stood in the way of cheater greatness. Reading all the stories here, I noticed how so many chumps just crush dreams and place unreasonable burdens of responsibility on FWs. Gosh, if it weren’t for you, he’d be a rock ‘n roll star by now! She’d collect ALL the beanie babies! He would’ve known what it is to truly LOVE!
Schmoopie is just a lifeline from the stultifying existence you created. Once released from your controlling grip, I’m sure they’ll move on to Greater Things. It’s their destiny after all.
So, you meddlesome kids, tell me what you did to thwart their ambitions? And how’s that better life working out for them now?
TGIF!
****
This contest ran before, but blameshifting is always in season.
While trying to discuss retirement plans with Sparkles he bellowed in my ear that he was a failure and that it was my fault. Later, when I confronted him about this feeling he said he never said that, that I made it up.
Yes they are so good at the I never said that.
Either he never said that or he “doesn’t remember” right?
“I don’t remember what happened, what I said, or what you said. I don’t remember that kind of thing. I just remember how I felt.”
Or the “…that doesn’t resonate with me…”. Same as ‘I don’t remember’ but with a flourish to sound intelligent.
I always had backup documentation to make FW’s statements resonate.
I got a version of that blame shifting by telling me first that I had a bad memory and then I had an audio-processing disorder. All of this was to make him so much smarter than me (I have a doctoral degree).
haha, I was told I couldn’t be trusted as a reliable narrator because I was suffering from toxoplasmosis. I had recently brought in a stray that he had not wanted me to bring in. Anything I said he blew off as a “symptom of my illness”. What an ass.
Just to be clear, I did not have toxoplasmosis, I had an asshole partner.
I was accused of being mentally ill. He claimed to be seriously concerned for my mental well being.
Now that I think about it, he’s right..
That’s the only explanation I have for why I married him.
I could also would show him what he wrote to his mistresses with copied texts and he’d say “ I don’t remember writing that”. 🤷♀️
He sure didn’t forget where she lived!
Or, he didn’t mean it — and you’re a horrible person for taking him at his word and believing he would say or do something to intentionally hurt you, and you’re also terrible for feeling hurt by what s/he said or did but “didn’t mean.”
I was just joking.., can’t you take a joke?
Where’s your sense of humor.
You’re never happy,
This!!!! Still, this. Divorce was finalized in 2019, and he just left a random can of Manwhich in my mailbox. We are court ordered to stay away from each other, even at kids events. We are court ordered not to speak to each other when transitioning kids. All because he has blown through every normal boundary in the history of divorce.
I will not acknowledge the Manwhich, because I know he’s going to say it was just a joke. To anyone else, it may even be believable, but I know that it was way more than a joke. It was a brand new way of pushing up against my boundaries, and he really does believe that’s funny.
It’s funny how we think our partners our relationships are somehow “unique” but when it comes to cheating behaviour they’re so cliched!
Really, really good at the I never said that.
OMG yes! My ex FW stated that I ruined his career because everything was about me. This coming from the man who filed complaints about all of his bosses, was continuously at HR whining and just made life miserable for anyone above him at work (don’t you know he was so superior to them). He wondered why he was turned down for promotions. Duh. Of course this was entirely my fault.
According to him, his life was a living hell and he never wanted a kid. Talk about a 180 degree turn. Then he met Schmoopie (32 years younger than him) and don’t you know he deserved to be happy. I am just glad that I don’t have to walk on eggshells anymore and worry about his moods. I am certain his Schmoopie will keeps him happy and take care of his need to film their sex acts (yep that’s what he did and what my son and I found). Of course, I did take some of his new found happiness away when I was awarded more assets than he thought I should be. He blames that on me as well but it was a judge that made that decision. I am just trying to heal, work on myself and head towards Tuesday.
I’m also to blame because he didn’t want a child.
I am 4 years older than him and I realize he was young when I got pregnant (unplanned) at age 28 and he left me when I said I wanted to keep the baby. We had been married for 3 years at that time so it wasn’t that crazy to have a child.
His parents made him come back to me but he left again a week after my first son was born.
He came back a month later and stayed; we had another son (planned) 5 years later.
For the next 29 years he blamed me for ruining his life. The feeling that I “trapped” him was a major hurdle that we just stepped around and never resolved.
His AP was never married with no kids. They’ve been together for at least 15 years that I know of.
He still seems pretty miserable so I’m not sure I ruined his life after all.
He’s a crappy father but I never did or would tell my oldest son the truth about his dad.
Yeah, your sons just need to know their father is a shit bum and that has nothing to do with them or you.
Yes. You must have trapped him because Christmas reminds us that virgins can get pregnant with no other human cooperation involved.
🙄
Velvet, have you been talking to Cheater #1? He swears it was an immaculate conception cuz, ya know, we had a dead bedroom. I don’t recall talking to any angels, having a host or the same sing over the hospital where I gave birth nor any wise men visit a while later. And if you ever met Jr., you would absolutely NOT mistake him for the son of anyone vaguely divine.
Were you married to my ex? Make schmoopie only 10 yrs younger and I could have written this. (I still haven’t turned on my nice MAC computer because I KNOW there’s homemade porn on there.)
Pay to have the hard drive wiped clean – that’s your stuff, don’t let him take anything else from you. Whatever else is on there is lost anyway because you don’t use it.
I know there are videos like my son’s first steps. I just don’t know how to sort through it. I’m thinking of asking the shop to dump everything on a drive and then eventually pay someone to go through it for me.
Shit! Same thing with the Mac. Afraid to turn it on and see what is on there.
with a mac you can sign in with your Icloud ID and you can wipe that computer CLEAN!!
When my new man spent his first night at MY house, we dug out an old dvd player to watch a movie. He found to my delight the most raunchy porn left by my poor sex deprived porn and online hooker addict of an ex.
I had a list of things she never said…or that I imagined according to her
I had “a little black book” of incidents that never happened too. They did, and I just happen to have a good memory because my brain isn’t sodden with alcohol all the time!
Of course he never said that!
🙄they are too predictable
Plus there is always:
a. you have a bad memory (nope, I am honest so I don’t need a good memory)
b. you must have dreamed that because I never said anything else
c. you don’t trust me (they love saying this after DDay)
d. you made that up (nope, you are the lying liar in this case)
e. that was not what I meant/said
f. your hearing must be off
g. that never happened
I know there are more but really it boils down to blameshifting, gas lighting and other FW craziness. Glad I no longer have to play in that game.
My ex had me convinced I had a shit memory, with all the gaslighting.
I have a stellar memory.
HE didn’t, though. His discovery documents listed so many incidents with the wrong dates, the wrong circumstances, mushing two occasions into one, putting things out of order.
I, on the other hand, not only remembered things correctly, but had documentation to prove it.
Why I let a man who was under the influence of alcohol or medication most of the time convince me HE knew what “really happened” is testament to how much he had broken me.
This illistrates what you posted……https://youtu.be/Iq1jzW7JdVM
Is there a cheater alive that never said they never said that?
Not a one.
@Timothy McHugh, I’m sure all the dead ones said it too. Probably the last words of many of them.
They either never said that or they do not remember anything.
They are so handy to be in denial what they say and do!
Hmmm he never wanted kids and I trapped him. We had no money and it was ALL my fault you know he had a new car and $10,000 in guitar equipment. Now it’s my fault for taking half his retirement and child support. I had zero retirement as I was bartending and taking care of our TWO special needs kids. He was very concerned that I was taking half because what would he have. If I ever need help with the kids I get….. I AM WORKING…. me too asshat. His MANTRA was we should have plenty of money I make $100,000 a year except he has been making that since 2007 with no raises. Don’t you know I don’t punish the kids enough. Especially the one with autism because if I punished him he would be normal. Finally. He can’t date 25 year olds at 55 because I stole his youth.
FW never wanted the kids he begged me to have…. weird.
I was “too stressed” by travel — with three small kids, and I was doing all the planning, packing, and emotional labor — and he was traveling overseas himself two to three weeks every quarter. I “ran down” his job and his toxic coworkers and hoss who were “great guys” and “loyal.” (Guess who got fired about 2 years after the divorce?) Worst of all, I stopped him from writing his book. 10 years later and I don’t think the book is done yet.
My ex always had a dream of his own bar & grill. I told him well you’ve never even worked in food service/bar/club etc. I had waitressed in the past for a family run restaurant and that family never had a day off. I told him I thought it was a terrible idea, so of course I was Debbie Downer from there on out. Now that I know he had narc tendencies and probably an alcoholic to boot, I’m sure he envisioned himself as the star bartender.
Lemme guess…his favorite tv series is Cheers, and secretly he knows he’s the Ted Dansig (sp?) character
Oh my. I think I held mine back from being a professional “regular” at Cheers like Cliff or Norm. He accused me of not having friends, not being able to interact with people and not like having a good time because I wouldn’t meet him like EVERY night after work at this snooty wine bar near our home. Well, that’s because, no, I don’t want to hang out with those borderline alcoholics….and I was already home from work in my sweats (after taking my hospital scrubs off). Ya, I’m definitely a friendless, antisocial wet blanket!
99 out of a 100 restaurants fail because every dip shit wants to own their own restaurant or bar. They have no clue how much hard work it takes.
As someone who spent 12 years in the industry as a server/bartender, I do NOT want my own restaurant, LOL. I love to cook so people are always like “you should open a restaurant”. LOL, no.
Oh mine always wanted to be a bartender and he never was. No one would hire him! He really discarded me when I stopped bartending. He had a bartending fetish.
And you doing the 16 hour days, 7 days a week!!! Loyal and loving chumps always do all the hard work!
It was my fault that his business wasn’t a massive success. I only worked part time for 20 years to take care of kids and do everything around the house so he could concentrate on the family business.
But if I had turned up at more of his business related dinners/functions/receptions then his business would have flourished. I didn’t know I had that kind of superpower.
Of course his 30 years of cheating and him spending the kids college fund and taking out a loan in both our names was my fault, too
At one point, he said he wanted to be a stay at home dad…the dude who raged if I asked him to do ANYTHING around the house. And, oh yeah, this is the dude who was a compulsive shopper. He outspends his full time paycheck, so I knew how that would end up.
Same here. He outspent both our (pretty good) paychecks. Wonder how that’s working out for him now that he no longer has access to my money! Then again Schmoopie posted all over FB that she was “retired” at 51. Couple of years later she was back working 10 hour days because they couldn’t make it on his VERY GENEROUS pension (which is double mine)!
Once we split our bank accounts, it was AMAZING how much “extra” money I had. My expenses had stayed about the same (rent is actually more than our mortgage) and my income was halved and yet somehow I had plenty and then some. I had no idea just how much of a drain he was until he was gone.
FW and schmoopie, despite sharing expenses and two pretty decent incomes, were broke as shit. He had no idea how to manage money (I guess neither did she), and always felt like he “deserved” nice things. He couldn’t afford to pay child support, or the electric bill, but he could buy a new PS4.
Since the divorce, my house is cleaner, long overdue repairs have been done, I’ve gone on vacation to the beach, increased my retirement contributions and have money for some indulgences each month. On less than half the income we had while married. What the heck was he spending all that money on?
I had this same revelation.
I can’t begin to count how many times I was told what the fuckwit “deserves” …
He “deserved” to have a size-2 blonde bombshell wife and I refused to shed the baby-weight fast enough so he “deserved” the affair.
Adios fuckwit!
Now both he and AP are getting what they deserve together.
I think I was with his clone 😂
Mine told me I wouldn’t let him have a boat. Later when I told him to go ahead and buy a boat he said he didn’t want a boat that I’m the one who always wanted one. Good thing he told me because I did not know that about myself. Almost seven years later and he still doesn’t have a boat. Guess OW doesn’t want one either.
Dayum, I forgot about the damn boat he was always grumbling about too! Dream-crusher me, wondering out loud how we could pay a mortgage, afford 3 kid’s activities (and feed them) & then a speed boat too! Schmoopie better work more than part-time, she’s got boat payments in her future 😉
What is it with boats? I’ve prevented that dream too. No money so let’s go buy a boat? Wtf!
I laughed so hard at this. Your droll humor is spot on.
Mine told me I wouldn’t let him have a boat, too. Until I realized that my motion sickness could be fixed using medication. Then I DID let him have a boat. Of course, then I crushed his dreams of abandoning (leaving with a babysitter) our 5 children for several months each year to go sailing. That’s what his parents did, so he thought it was completely reasonable. I guess he hadn’t noticed that his youngest sibling was a complete fuckup?
Later in my marriage I wanted a boat to have to unite our family and have fun and try to recover after his cheating and BS with the entire family, but he had a fit about that boat ” the one I bought with money from an injury award. I got a dog and he didn’t want that either! So glad I got the dog and kept the boat!
*My FW wouldn’t be an alcoholic (his dad was sooooo) if only:
1-I knew he only wanted 2 kids (he refused vasectomy and we have 5)
2-we weren’t all leeches and did more for him
3-I were more confident (I used to be!)
*His military career would have been better if not for us needing him home. (Several deployments, too many TDYs-where he effed hookers, long hours in his “den” by himself-son walked in on him watching porn)
*He would be healthier too if I could’ve just managed everything by myself so he has his alone time and can workout.
We would not have money issues if we ate all the leftovers and don’t waste money-tens of thousands he spent on hookers and alcohol is a better use of money I guess.
I got the “you used to be so confident” too. Waits to reveal to me he never wanted kids 2 days after giving birth to our son, and he lied before about it “because you wouldn’t have married me.” Guess what? The guy who never wanted kids now has 3!
Yes mine hid in the man cave and said we kept him from working out. He is bigger now I am gone!
My FW became an attorney because he got wait-listed for medical school and that was the only other thing that wouldn’t disappoint his mother. He really wanted to be a ship captain. In the beginning of our marriage (tiny house, tiny mortgage) I pushed him to explore ways to make that (or anything else that would make him happy) happen but he was too chicken. 22 years later I was blamed for “trapping him” in his miserable job because he carried our medical insurance. 🙄
I confronted the OW. I told her that he used her, and some other very unkind (but true) things. It was ugly. My husband told me I ruined everything.
This made me laugh. Jeez-louise. What a dumbass!
I guess that the dream that I crushed was the one where Ex-Mrs LFTT and her AP were going to waltz off into the sunset funded by an enormous divorce settlement, leaving me to bring up three children with no help (financial or otherwise) from her. She was demanding a settlement that was significantly larger than the UK would have provided for her had the kids gone with her rather than staying with me. Ex-Mrs LFTT (and her AP) are still butthurt about it 5 years after the event.
It’s funny how Cheaters translate a settlement that the Judge described as being “very generous to you given the circumstances Ex-Mrs LFTT” into “LFTT scr*wed me over in the Divorce ….. it’s his fault that I have so little money.”
LFTT
When you talk to people locked in prison they are all innocent. This is despite all the evidence and trial. Same with FW’s. They all got screwed over in the settlement. Despite disclosures, trials and judgements.
Speaking of prison, the room in San Quentin which stores confiscated weapons made from innocuous everyday items is quite the lesson in human determination, and a visual lesson in why you should never stay with a cheater because you will never never ever ever be able to know for certain what they are doing.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way” is the Cheater Credo, and there is no power, human or divine, that can control the will of another.
When they use their free will to eff you and your children over, use your
free will to walk away.
Bruno,
Believe me when I say that she got off lightly. I could have driven a much harder bargain, but I took the view that it was better to pay slightly more so that I could get out all the sooner. The Judge made it quite clear that if she insisted on our Divorce going to a final hearing, then she was likely to receive even less. But you are right; the entitled always believe that they should have got more. I just try not to think about what she had been stealing from the kids and I for the previous 10 years ……. because it was a lot and I was never going to be able to recover it through the Divorce process.
On a happier note, I’ve also though of another crushed dream …. although not one that I crushed myself.
I am certain that she dreamed of her new happy sparkly life (lavishly funded by me of course), whereby our 3 children unquestioningly worshipped her as their mother (it’s a real thing on her side of the family) and fully accepted her AP without question. Sadly for her, our children crushed that dream like dried dog sh*t; they took a very firm view on what she had done (to say that they disapprove is an understatement) and they refuse to have anything to do with her AP.
LFTT
“I am certain that she dreamed of her new happy sparkly life (lavishly funded by me of course), whereby our 3 children unquestioningly worshipped her as their mother (it’s a real thing on her side of the family) and fully accepted her AP without question. Sadly for her, our children crushed that dream like dried dog sh*t; they took a very firm view on what she had done (to say that they disapprove is an understatement) and they refuse to have anything to do with her AP.”
YES!! I crushed x’s same dream. All my fault! He had it all worked out apparently. In his fantasy, we’d keep our lake house and vacation as one big, happy family (well, minus Spinach–small “price” to pay–but he, the AP, and the kids would kayak and frolic in the water.) Our daughter would even want those two luv birds to babysit her kids! He’d bond with our adult son by drinking beers together while telling him the story of how the affair started and blossomed. And friends and colleagues would rejoice that those two were happy together. Kumbaya!
WTF delusional thinking is that? None of that happened.
My 3 adult kids want nothing to do with him or the AP/wife. As for friends, turns out a lot of them don’t like cheaters.
Good point, Bruno
He would have been happier if I didn’t want to spend so much time together. He “took a survey” and other husbands didn’t have to explain where they were on the weekend. And the projects he was helping his buddy with? Turns out he was spending lots of time with his best friend’s wife.
I had a great job in Switzerland when we met (he arrived later as a US marine at the mission). He wanted to move back to the US (I didn’t – I love Switzerland) but I gave it all up to move to D.C. where he was going to “take the White House and Secret Service by storm” (didn’t happen, they refused his application). I got a job at the World Bank and he had a crappy job on the night shift sorting mail. Then he wanted to move back to PA “in order for me to have friends”. I told him not to bother as I already had friends, but he nagged so much that we moved again so he could pretend to be John Denver his around his family. Four years later I got a call from Switzerland offering me my job back because they’d heard I was unhappy so we both jumped at the chance. I got the good job and he did pretty well on his own too. We moved just across the border into the French alps and bought a home. We now both had good jobs, good insurance, pension funds etc. and I had a generous education grant to put our kids in an international school. About 10 years later he wants to “move to Montana and build a log cabin” (note, we’d never been to Montana). At this point I’d had enough of giving up good jobs and then having to make everything work somewhere else so he could keep uprooting us so I told him to go to Montana, get the great job with medical insurance and pension fund and me and the kids would follow him later. Of course since it was up to him to make it work this time it never happened. I’m sure he’s still pretty choked even now about how selfish I was!
“so he could pretend to be John Denver” snort/laugh!! Thanks for that image!
He sounded like someone strangling a cat!
Ok. You sounds like a super resilient person.
It’s almost as if they want to see us fail and them get pissed when we don’t- we thrive where we land. This also seriously angered the FW I married. He admitted to it in the doomed couples therapy sessions. His anger came out in passive aggressive bullshit.
And doomed couples therapy because never do therapy with lying liars who lie.
Mega typos in my comments….
What is it with FWs and Montana?
On D-Day, x complained that I would never move to Montana. What? We’d had what I thought were very informal conversations about whether we’d ever move once we retired. I recall saying that I’d be willing to move out west but wanted to have a pied-à-terre near my kids and grandkids. Guess that wasn’t enough. I failed a test I didn’t know I was taking.
Lo and behold, earlier this year, after less than a year of marriage, the AP-now-wife and he moved to a state near Montana. He got his wish—the OW full time and non-stop fly fishing. He’s very far from kids and grandkids but that probably doesn’t matter because they have no contact with him.
No doubt he continues to blame me for so much of his unhappiness and for taking more than half our assets. #lovemylawyer
I wonder if blaming others–namely me–is getting old. Will he ever realize that he can’t escape himself by getting a new wife and moving to a new state? His shittiness is internal.
He wanted to build a huge log cabin – as big as his ego, I believe! WTF our home (now my home – I bought him out) is at 1,000 metres and there are tons of log cabins round here!!! He now lives under the flight path of a major airport😊!
Mine blamed me the whole marriage that we didn’t move back to Seattle when we had a chance. It was a mutual decision, but I’ll admit I was less enthusiastic in general. Anyway, when I asked him directly, he always swore he didn’t blame me, but during wreckonciliation he blew up one day and whined like a toddler, “and I wanted to move back to Seattle!” Wah, wah. 😩
Speaking of Montana, we used to visit there all the time bc FW’s parents live there. FW lives there now and I heard through my son that he’s going to move to Seattle soon. Guess he’s finally getting what he wanted. I hope a city compensates for having a distant, awkward relationship with his only (now-adult) child. For my FW, it probably does. It’s all about where he lives over anything else.
I almost envy those of you who have specific dreams of happiness that you supposedly crushed. KK’s constant refrain was: “You got to live your dream, but I never got to live mine.”
First off, my UX career was never a dream — this family of jobs didn’t even exist as a ‘thing’ until we’d had until we’d been married for 4 years. If I had any sort of “dream” at that time, it was changing to a career — ANY career — that would pay more than the $56k/year I was making when we had both of our daughters and she was contently entrenched as a stay-at-home mom (which we both agreed to). It was a transition from one type of work I enjoyed to another type of work I enjoyed that paid a lot more, not a “dream.”
But whenever I asked what her “dream” was, I’d get whatever the ‘trend du jour’ was that she’d read about on the internet — Tastefully Simple representative, personal trainer, pastry chef/pâtissier — or, far more likely, she’d cry “I don’t KNOOOOOW!!!!” and storm off . . . only to return later with an “Oh you know me, I’m fine” and an “I get over things quickly, unlike YOU.”
Counselor #1 actually called her on this in one of our sessions. She started crying about “whenever I bring up the subject of going to patisserie school, all I hear is ‘no’ (from UXworld)”, but C1 pushed back: “No, KK, he didn’t say that at all. Remember? He said ‘let’s find a way to make it work so that we don’t go into heavy debt’. That’s not a refusal.” That just made her feel even more strongly that “the world is against me, nobody understands.”
Took me a while to understand that the only “dreams” she ever had was to have constant affirmation (mostly for her appearance) and to be the center of positive attention at all times.
I could have written this myself. My stbx was constantly going back to college and dropping out, always with a different major. When I would say, “Sure, you can go to that school if you want, how much does it cost so we can make a budget?” He would throw a fit and say “Nevermind, I won’t go, you are never supportive of my dreams!”
When I would ask what his “dreams” were he would say “I don’t know” which eventually morphed into “I never get to do what I want, so it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Eventually I realized that never getting “what he wants” just referred to sex, and his entire life goal was really just to find a way to have as much sex as possible.
He was also fond of saying “everything works out for YOU and nothing works out for ME,” referring to my nice career which I put 15 years of hustle into while parenting and dealing with his drama. As if my job (also not my life dream, but good enough) just fell in my lap.
He is forever the victim.
I eventually realized – if he felt so chained and tortured, why would he want to be married to me? That’s when it hit that it was all a manipulation. Every time he told me I was unsupportive or mean or frigid I danced harder to please him.
NotAnymore — how’s this for a guess?
The “dream” was the immediate gratification of whatever “shiny new thing” that would put the near-term attention on him.
So he’d have something to bring attention and conversation back to himself.
So he could be “The [fill in the blank] Guy” at least for a little while, until the novelty wore off and either he got bored or other people lost interest.
So he’d have some superficial sense of self and purpose, because there was so little there to begin with.
I believe we were married to the same person.
I believe cheaters can never really develop dreams. They have fantasies, sure. But those of us who live in the real world of work and planning know that there is a big space between a fantasy (like winning the lottery) and a dream (like going back to graduate school to get the proper credentials for a better job). The symbol of this for me was the house. The EX always had a ‘dream’ of owning a lovely home with a beautiful, well-manicured yard where we could have barbecues for friends, etc. Well, we bought a home. It wasn’t super nice yet, but it was in a great neighborhood, and it was four bedrooms and lots of potential. He worked in construction, so I was sure we’d have it fixed up in no time. Five years later, it was a disaster. He did zero maintenance on it–not even painting. I pulled out a gross carpet in the hallway when he said he would replace it, and he never did, so the hallway just had bare concrete. The plumbing had issues (dirty water backing up in the tub every time we ran the dishwasher) and he never bothered to fix it. He also flatly refused to even mow the lawn, and I had health issues with my last pregnancy and couldn’t do it, so we got warned by the city about our foot-long grass. Then I found out he hadn’t paid the mortgage in a year, so it was going into foreclosure. I started trying to talk to him about the condition of the house and he got all excited and started telling me his “plans”–we’d put in a pool in the yard, build an addition so that we had a nice new master bedroom and bathroom, etc. I started crying and said, “It’s in foreclosure, and it’s a total mess. What are you talking about?” He said, “I guess I just have more faith than you do.” In the end, of course, it was my fault his dreams didn’t work out. I didn’t make enough money.
What an awful discovery.
Yikes. I’m so sorry. How awful.
FW also blamed me and my lack of sufficient income (in his mind) for the state of our home, even though I did my best to keep it nice and fix it up. Once I moved out, he let it fall into complete disrepair. He got multiple citations from the city for the long grass, for trash. He denied he had received them, but that was a lie, since they sent copies to both of us (since we were both legal owners) and I got mine. By the time he decided he wanted to move out and offered me the house (which previously he had said I would only get “over his dead body” – prophetic, actually), it was in such bad condition, I couldn’t have afforded to fix it. But most of it was due to neglect – he claimed the dishwasher was broken, but it just turned out to have a horrendously clogged filter (he never cleaned it). The tub had such a thick layer of soap scum on it you couldn’t see the grout lines in the tiles. When I brought the realtor over to value it (I hadn’t been inside in over a year), I was SO embarrassed at the state of the place. The toilet was BLACK, the walls in the bathroom were covered in mold. There was trash and rotten food all over the kitchen. Unbelievable. It took me $7,000 and 50 hours of hard work to get it in a condition where I could put it on the market. FW refused to help, either financially or logistically, with any of it.
Ugh.
But yeah. My fault for choosing a shitty house. (He also blamed his lack of success in his dream career on the fact that we owned a house. When I pointed out that we had to live SOMEWHERE and that our mortgage was far less than rental prices in our area, he just got angry and screamed “that’s not the point”. But he didn’t really have an answer for where he thought we SHOULD have lived. And he certainly signed his name to the enormous stack of paperwork we had to sign to purchase the home. But us having a house was 100% my fault and my decision. Riiiight.)
Honestly, I can only imagine what he blames me for. Most of who he became after DDay was so different from the guy I thought I knew.
He wanted a kid. But once we had a child, FW wasn’t became jealous. Then he left me for AP with 2 kids. And I think he told the story that he’s
Wow… super struggling with the ad pop ups on the site this morning. As I typed, everything popped around and I inadvertently hit “send”
So anyway… FW wanted a kid. But once we had a child, FW became jealous. Then he left me for AP with her 2 kids. And I think he told the story that he had 2 brothers and so he “always wanted 3 but MichelleShocked never wanted children” or whatever
And I think I kept him from traveling the way he wanted … because we had a small child (although we all went to London when son was 4)
And he “always wanted to live in NYC” but couldn’t because of me. (Or maybe because he was always fired from jobs and we had no money).
Now he lives in Maryland (he loathes Maryland) with AP (who lived in NYC at some point but doesn’t want to leave MD now because her parents are nearby). And her 2 boys… His own son wants little to do with him and won’t visit them. And spends way more time visiting his parents in Indiana (the parents he resents).
Not sure that’s the NYC fabulous traveling life of his dreams. Although apparently AP and FW went to Paris (he hates France). 😂
He always wanted to be a “body builder” and I kept him from that by demanding he come home to me and our two daughters at the end of his work day. Cue the gym membership, testosterone pills and notes about the girls he saw at the gym in his gym bag. (Nice to discover)
Oh and after he started the testosterone, I was told that during our whole marriage I should have given him sex anytime he wanted it.
Fast forward to now: His AP died of cancer and his second girlfriend moved out after only 6 months–which was right before Covid lockdown! He lives alone, had to give up the gym membership (poor guy) and he gained back all the weight he had lost going to the gym every day. Our now 21 year old daughter says he is “dating someone online” but has never met her.
Meanwhile, I am married to an amazing guy and we are living our best life!
Mine is so trivial and stereotypical that it’s just plain funny.
It seems that I stopped her from watching sports because I wasn’t interested in them and she thought that I should have been sitting in front of the TV instead of puttering around the house and running errands. Turns out that her guy was a big fan.
Of course there was nothing stopping her from attending games, or watching TV if she wanted to instead of scrolling through her phone and playing Candy Crush constantly.
👍
Yep, after I worked a full day, I would be running around the house, tidying, throwing a load of laundry in the washer, cooking his dinner, (that he insisted on eating in his easy chair) while he sat his ass in his recliner, talking on the phone to “one of the guys” for hours.
I am not proud of it, but when he left I took that lazy boy apart, reassembled it in the front yard and put a Free sigh on it. It was gone in 20 minutes. Still don’t know who took it, could have been a neighbor, could have been him. He never mentioned it and neither did I.
I’m proud of you for doing that Susie. Sounds badass that you put it back together so someone would take it away – you took care of someone else, saved more junk in the landfill and sent a message to a FW. Goodly done!
Such superpowers we chumps wield, it never ceases to amaze! FW declared himself repeatedly miserable in his job, the job that funded the mortgage, car payment, college fund, you know… adulting. Out of the blue one night he declares that he wants to leave this job in order to make… a podcast. With ZERO experience in any element of podcasting. When I expressed some genuine fear and trepidation about how this would work financially… you know, before he achieved the level of success that surely I could concede he would deserve, and therefore achieve… but… just, the when was unclear, and how would we pay the mortgage in the meantime… he raged at me that I never support him and I don’t want him to be happy. He finally, with great heaving sighs of injustice, agreed to start small, you know, as a side gig…but he would HAVE to buy a high-quality microphone (pre-pandemic!) so he could make these mythical podcasts and have good sound quality… and I was not allowed to say anything EVER about this purchase that could possibly be considered critical… that mic stayed in the box until he moved out nearly 2 years ago… for all I know, it’s still in the box. But it was DEFINITELY ME who crushed his dream, and he would be a famous podcaster if I hadn’t gotten in his way.
The meanie that I am: he would’ve had his old corvette long restored if it hadn’t been for me prioritizing $ for the kid’s needs over his. He bragged to our kids that the AP has decorated their house nicer than when we were together (in other words, it’s solely because of your mom that our house wasn’t designer-worthy). I’m sure I “held him back” from many other things that he tells the AP to triangulate her into getting what he wants.
I dashed his dreams to get his pilots license. Never mind that he had a bad driving record that they inspect. I told him to get a great life insurance policy to cover our daughter and me (I was sahm) then go and he did. But he ignored an eye problem and when I told him to get it checked he told me to “ shut up and stop telling me what to do you’re not my fucking mommy” so he didn’t go to the eye doctor. Turned out he had a clot that burst and he lost vision in that eye and couldn’t qualify to fly. This, of course, was all MY fault. As was the stroke, he had behind his eye due to all of my nagging, not his high blood pressure or beginnings of heart disease due to his extreme alcoholism.
Not a big dream, but a few days before discard he told me he wanted to get a tatoo but I wouldn’t let him because I don’t like tattoos.
Then I said “It’s your body. If you want a tattoo, you should get it.”
This is the guy who faints just seeing a needle on screen.
mine Would have been a rock and roll star. I held him back by financially supporting him so he could focus on music.
We weren’t able to have a second child. FW couldn’t get it up, or when he did he couldn’t finish or would get too winded and dizzy to continue (he’s fat and has many health problems). But post D-Day, the truth came out: “My dick was bored by you.” Oh, OK. Maybe if I asked him to pay for my mani/pedis like his sugar babies that would’ve lit his fire.
“FW couldn’t get it up, or when he did he couldn’t finish or would get too winded and dizzy to continue (he’s fat and has many health problems).”
One of those problems being porn induced sexual dysfunction. Those are classic symptoms.
“My dick was bored by you.”
Bastard. Rat fucking bastard.
“One of those problems being porn induced sexual dysfunction.”
Yeah. I’m convinced x’s porn habit caused him to become desensitized to sex with his wife (aka Spinach). I no longer gave him that little frisson of excitement that he got from porn and the OW.
As I’ve written here before, after D-Day he told me that he “doesn’t need porn” with her. I guess he thought I’d nod in agreement about that. You see, she’d cured him of his porn habit. Wasn’t that a GOOD THING? “Spinach, you should be happy for me.”
Fucking bastard.
Now that those two cheaters have been together for 3 years (married for 2), I’m betting that he’s back to his porn habit AND that he craves more of whatever he needs to “get off. ”
Then again, he’s in his 60s now and needs viagra, so may the whole shebang is shutting down. #shebang🤣
Mine also yelled at me “That’s was just you. I don’t have any problems with her,” when I asked about his ED problems. It was soul crushing to me after I had spent decades trying to love and please him with nothing in return.
He first puffed up and denied he had ever confessed his ED situation to me – and I replied with the exact date, time and location of that conversation which I know of because I wrote a journal entry all about it when it happened. I wondered if it would be a positive next chapter in our marriage where we could finally have a relationship rather than his erections always being the only thing that mattered. Schmoopie works at the urologist’s offices too – which is where the prescriptions are written….gotta wonder about his new found magic.
“#shebang” 😄
#tharsheblows
Seriously. Porn-obsessed noodle-dick rat bastard. I had a boyfriend with ED before marrying FW. We had good sex because he was man enough to face his issues, get help, and talk about things. Oh, and he bought me the vibrator that FW was soooo intimidated by.
The sad truth is I only thwarted my own aspirations and ambitions. I spent 25 years supporting all of his decisions and goals for our family, to my own detriment. On the cusp of his achieving his success, he dismissed me as I was no longer of need. On reflection I realize a lot of his talk in our final years of marriage was “me me me, I I I.” There was no “we” or “us” and definitely no “you” taken into consideration.
So hear you on this. I set my career back decades between the fog of abuse, obligation, and fear, and catering to him.
Similar in my situation only he had actually acheived his goal before he dumped me. He had to, otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten it as his whore would have been outed and she was his direct report.
However, I do remember the last year or so, I had mentioned I would like to get a new living room set (We had never bought a new good set, only hand me downs). He said we will get the River Property set up then once that is all done you can get what ever you want. H worked me like a mule getting that RP set up. I hammered, lifted, cleaned, even manhandled a fucking gas run auger taller than I was, to dig post holes for a deck, so her majesty the short fat whore, could easily access the trailer I guess. I am thinking what I didn’t hear in real time in that statement was the “you”. I suspect he meant that as, he would be gone so I could get myself whatever I wanted. I would have no money for that, but hey that was my problem.
Wow – that’s low. I might have lit fire to the property.
So Attila the Nerd tells me, after more than 25 years together, that I forced him into marriage. That it wasn’t the life he wanted, but evil me, I made him do it. I had told him, after we had been together five years, that if he wasn’t interested in marriage, I’d have to end things, because I was interested in it and I didn’t want to lose my reproductive years waiting for him. So FW proposed.
He would have me believe that the idea that he could just let me go never occurred to him. Yeah, right. It occurred to him. He just decided to hold onto me, all the while knowing he did not love me, because he couldn’t spend five minutes without a woman propping him up emotionally. Well now that he is alone, he’s discovered he can sort of survive. He has a poor sense of smell, so the disgusting way he lives is okay with him. He has hopes for finding another woman to prop him up, so I’m told. He wants to first be a “serial dater” (Atilla speak for a manwhore), then find a “real relationship” (Atilla speak for an appliance) when he gets too old for fucking everything in sight. I have most of the money, his affect has become so flattened that he’s got nothing to offer in the way of personality, he has zero charm and is passive and wimpy, so he’ll have to look under a bridge for likely candidates for sexy time. Even at that, they’ll get a whiff of his place and a look at the filth and they’ll beat feet for the exit. Naturally he’ll blame me when he discovers he’s not considered irresistible and he ends up alone, clutching his beloved dong in hand. Maybe then he’ll get the clue and realize the only “real relationship” he’ll ever have is with Rosy Palm, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
FW pursued me and hounded me to marry him for over a year and a half before I accepted. But ten years later, I apparently “tricked him” into marrying me.
Yes. After 3 years of dating and is moving to different states, I said we needed to get married or break up. Break up was a fully reasonable option but he proposed and later I was blamed for my “ultimatum”. It took me years before I figured out that he was TERRIBLE at making decisions.
What is it with people who knowingly marry for the wrong reasons, then are shocked that it isn’t 24/7 bliss. Morons.
FW father died (52) 6 weeks before wedding. Invitations had gone out. I suggested postponing wedding. His Mother told him his Dad had been excited about wedding, ( I knew this-his Dad had access to free long distance during the day & would call me at work occasionally, yes before mobile phones). We did get married.
FW tried to rewrite history telling AP he wasn’t ready. We had dated for 5.5 years. I couldn’t let it go. I texted him a copy of poem/letter he had written on 19th anniversary where he says he was so happy we carried on with wedding…..I knew that bitch read his phone. Married 36 years when I filed. She’s 33 years younger 🤮
Apparently if it weren’t for me he would have been a famous film director in Hollywood with lots of money. The fact that he had to hold down an actual job to care for his family was one of his biggest gripes with me.
Somehow, though, even when really good opportunities came his way, he self-sabotaged so that he could remain the great might-have-been. A well known Hollywood director wanted to buy his script. Nope, he had to make it himself, that was his BABY. Someone else offered him a $1 million budget to film his script. But, you know, that’s a $6 million movie and he won’t compromise. So he never followed up on the initial meeting. He had a publisher who had been asking him to finish his book for YEARS. Guaranteed publishing! And he wouldn’t actually sit down and do it. Doing nothing was better than making something mediocre, or not having his own name front and center. Better to be the misunderstood genius who just couldn’t get ahead. I was a convenient scapegoat.
He’s dead now.
Schmoopie, who was supposed to catapult him to fame and fortune (since she wasn’t a cold, sexless, mercenary bitch like me, I guess), dumped him and left. He hadn’t had time to make a backup plan for that and I was done with him (yeah, he put out feelers). He couldn’t face his responsibilities. I guess he thought it was better to die a martyr than try and clean up the mess he made. His suicide letter was one long “poor me”.
Meanwhile, I am making more money than I ever dreamed, have gotten debt free (other than my car), and am seriously planning to buy a little farm in the near future (next year, maybe). I am happier than ever.
Too bad you don’t have the rights to his script so you could sell it to the director!
I do now (I own the copyright to all his work) but it has been 15 years and that particular director has died.
No specific dreams crushed mentioned other than he felt like he “missed the boat.”
He missed the boat for 27 years?
Slow learner, I guess. Or the emotional wiring of a breadstick.
If we were talking about dreams of mine that he crushed there would be a very long list. But he didn’t crush the most important dream, which is having having my daughter.
Sadly, but appropriately, she wants nothing to do with him. He asked for very meager visitation time, claiming he was honoring her feelings. The reality is that being a parent gets in the way of his groovy new life so he’s actually using her feelings as his excuse to be scarce. Like the jerk he is. He and whoever is in his orbit like Little Hammer as a ghostly footnote just fine. But to add mindfuck on top of mindfuck, on Wednesday night he told her, “I’m a responsible person. I’m not the guy you think I am.”’ Gaslighting his own child with BS. And thankfully she sees right through it.
Hammer: Both my dad & stepdad have tried to gaslite us kids into “I’m not the man you think I am”. I respond back “who are you then”? That seems to stump ‘em. Honestly I feel sorry for them (not that you have to be with your FW at all!) because they really have been conditioned to look for validation on the outside instead of within.
I don’t know what I took from FW but I now what I gave and he coveted those things. These were things attributed to me that he wanted, and I supported in building in his personal & professional life.
What he called out as his main reasons of ‘stealing success’ from his is very slim. He pulled straws because I did provide the backbone for him to succeed, including a major Corp CIO reminding him that he gained his prof. success via my support!
So what he said, as provided by the long-term AP, was I EMASCULATED him because I was able to raise kids, organize the household and make his homelife easy = more focus on being great in his job. What-the-actual-fuck.
So, apparently he would have been more Manly if I could have become seriously codependent on him to make non-critical decisions on when to clean the house or where to find a pediatrician.
So, so many parallels.
He wanted a “sparse, cool home environment” with avant garde art (largely his own paint squigglies, of course) and lots of black stuff, but I “ruined the aesthetic” with homey things like handmade blankets and photos of people and things that weren’t all black and also weren’t made by him.
He wanted to “travel more to cool places” — which generally meant the less safe the place was for Americans, women, and/or people who weren’t strong young experienced athletes — the more stressful the travel, the more he wanted to go there. I, being aware we were chonky weak naive Americans, didn’t think things like — climbing to the tops of mountains with heavy gear — wandering outside a tour group in a country where we didn’t speak the language –wandering outside a tour group in a rough part of a large city where we didn’t know any of the local cultural rules — walking 15 miles in a day — were reasonable or “fun”. He didn’t want to go alone, so he blamed me for “not being able to live his dreams”.
He also wanted to join some band and be a full time musician to “live his dreams”. I never said he couldn’t do this, but he never got offered the gig he wanted, so obviously that was my fault (how convenient).
When we divorced, he was a highly paid computer guy (still is). My brother had just died. After he had taken nearly all of our around $30k in joint savings (travel fund, dontchyaknow) out, I finally checked the accounts and caught it. As account primary, I immediately froze the account funds and put a stop on the joint credit card. During divorce prep, I had the many musical instruments still in the house valued and asked him to pay back 50% of the value of the money plus the instruments over 18 months (a small fraction of his huge paycheck). He signed that plan, then told everyone I was “making him pay alimony and he couldn’t do anything else with his life because the payments were huge”. (His public online journal told the real story, complete with photographic evidence. Oh, and also, that money? Paid the credit card full of charges for 2-person trips that didn’t include me, each with a different woman.)
He stuck his penis in anything with an accessible hole for years (the younger the hole, the better, all the way down to high school freshman age) and lied about it and exposed me to all of it — so obviously, I’m the dream-destroying villain.
Ha ha, was he ever able to sell any of his “paint squiggles”?
Better question, was he ever convinced of rape? A high school freshman is a 14 year old child. Children cannot consent – he deserves to be in jail.
NotAnymore, no. He’s very, very, very good at not being provably caught at anything. That’s part of why I think he actually did want me to find the things he put in his LiveJournal. Just the right amount of what would hurt without any of the stuff that could get him arrested. I’m aware of his shenanigans because of things I learned about far after the fact, but there was never any evidence that would have stood up in court. I’ve always wondered if someone would press charges someday and he’d be in the news, but I haven’t seen it yet.
Attie, no, none ever sold that I know of. He’s an excellent musician — and I suppose there’s a buyer for every form of art — but really anyone can splatter paint on something and claim it’s genius in some way, I suppose. People will even buy art made by cats walking across a thing, LOL!
Klootzak was also against having photos of people framed and out in the house. I later realized it was because it made it easier to portray himself as not married if there are no photos of his wife out and about.
I don’t think I crushed any dreams because ex didn’t have any beyond not aging and getting his hair back (thus the shitty toupee) but I did regularly remind him of how inferior he was simply by existing as a 19 years younger woman who was a faster runner and ultimately surpassed him income wise.
The ex gf trash he kept on the side raved about his shitty 5k times and I didn’t ask enough about how his race went (he’d make nasty comments about my runs and then accuse be of being sensitive).
Since I left him my income has gone up another 60%, I still run faster, and my lovely bf is 10 years younger then him (8 1/2 years ahead of me).
Apparently I was instrumental in his aging, morphing into a 50 year old with gray hair and a cute little pot belly. He had the boat, motorcycle, boat club membership, truck, Jeep and fairly nice vroom-vroom convertible. He had five beautiful guitars which he had to have although he couldn’t play. Amplifiers and such. I kept him from a life of freedom to play with his toys and girlfriends while being a 25 year old. I discovered he did miss me paying all the bills because he started complaining to me AFTER the divorce that he had to pay several thousand a month in bills and blaming me. Yeah, I know, dude. Still ruining your life.
My ex was SO unhappy because of me. Therefore, because of me he was fat. Because of me he didn’t write and make Full Professor. It was all MY fault!
Now? He’s fatter than when we divorced four years ago. He’s retiring this year–at the rank he had when I left. I don’t know if he’s happier now, but I sure am.
Ah, failed academics who blame their wives for their refusal to work. Apparently, support and encouragement are really damaging.
To be fair he never accused me of twarting his ambitions. He knew and everyone knew how I helped him achieve his dreams. It was all out in the open, and certainly not wrong on my part, because I was operating under the illusion that we were a team. I was so proud of him, and for many years felt lucky that we had gotten together at a young age. Oh what a sap was I. 🤷♂️
I am sure however that once he got rid of me he thought it was going to be great for him and whore as they went on to enjoy what I helped him build. I was as surprised as he was that he lost his career gains via demotion. He was allowed to keep his salary level, but he lost his cushy office, his power and his standing.
Then unknown to me at the time he took an early retirement which cost him almost half of what he would have drawn had he completed his years. He wanted to do his side business full time and get rich like his buddy did, and it was a good business, with a lot of work and sacrifice he could have done just that. Unfortunately he succumbed to his love of the gamble and within a few years lost it all and had to file bankruptcy.
Still surprises me to this day that he was so financially irresponsible, I never saw that while married to him, well not until the year of discard.
He has passed on, and to be honest there is a part of me that just feels sorry for him that he had so much he had accomplished, and he just threw it away. Maybe because he was my sons father, and I know it hurt his son to watch him crash and burn by his own hand.
Susie Lee. Makes you wonder if he was asked to retire in lieu of being fired. That seems like a lot of $$ to leave on the table.
I robbed him of the chance to find true love — until intern AP came along, that is. When he met her, he had to take his one and only chance at experiencing real happiness and I could no longer stand in his way and he would no longer accept a life of misery with me (and our three children, in our lovely home or at the lake cottage, surrounded by a wide circle of friends).
I kept him from completing his doctorate. That’s right, when he had months at a time to do nothing else and produced nothing at all during his long days at a world-class university library (if he actually was there), I worked, volunteered, did the housework, and begged him to get help for his “writer’s block.” Yet somehow I was to blame because I was “too needy.” He dropped out of his program, went back to a dead-end job, and eventually stopped trying to hide the real problem, his porn addiction, which he also blamed on me. I had the temerity to want to be treated with love and dignity. Buzzkill.
Before proceeding, a quick question. Is tagging the New Zealand rugby team while licking your lips like a dog chasing peanut butter and talking like a prostitute from the 18th century “great?” Because as her memoirs revealed, my lack of interest in “greatness” that would make Voltaire dyspeptic caused her persistent ennui.
I was a dream crusher, I prevented trips and extra spending. She was always trying to live above her means. Oh, and I was a prude because I loved when she wore feminine dress and she wanted to wear very revealing clothing out in public (she wanted male attention). That was me be controlling to her (I just wanted a little respect as her husband, not dudes leering at her). Her own dad would get on her for it.
He blamed me for the loss of his Fishing tackle; gear, rods lines, nets, a fridge full of maggots etc. because he had to leave them behind when he moved in with me. He also blamed me for his putting on alot of weight because I did most of the cooking! He was the local takeaways best customer they all knew him by first name. Sales plummeted when he left!
Love this challenge!
I destroyed endless dreams and he just wasn’t happy for so long. The final straw was when I didn’t buy him a Porche that we could not afford. He left me days later saying it was because I had birthed him an autistic child. He now treats said child like a purse dog to parade around. (I hate sharing custody with FW and the Homewrecker – they suck).
“He left me days later saying it was because I had birthed him an autistic child.”
Just when I think I’ve heard the lowest, they get lower.😡
Oh god. I’m so sorry.
My son is autistic and when we got him diagnosed, my husband said to “keep it quiet” and not tell anyone. I think he was ashamed. He would do everything he could to get our toddler to act “normal” and would get angry if he had a meltdown or stimmed in public. Then after awhile I guess it dawned on FW that he could use the child to look like World’s #1 Dad. And so he did what yours does, it seems, and paraded our son around like a mascot. FW started working for an autism charity (always and only if it was a public role). He got so much praise from people telling him he was amazing for supporting his disabled child. It was disgusting because I am also autistic and FW would use the term as an insult to me, saying I was faking and was “just” an idiot (which tells you what he REALLY thinks of autistic people).
Now (FW died), schmoopie continues to copy me and is talking about how SHE is autistic. (She’s diagnosed ADHD, which is much more likely.) While she fully supported FW when he tried to call me bipolar and mentally unstable to the courts to try and get custody.
ISawTheLight – my ex often said I was autistic as a gaslighting technique. Thing is, I adore my kiddo exactly how he is, so why would I care if I am autistic or not. He hated that this never got a rise out of me.
I called FW a hypocrite and he blew up. I could usually tell how close I was to the truth by how angry he would get.
I was the one who discovered I was autistic (having your kid diagnosed really starts to make you think of parallels to your own childhood). I’ve had two “unofficial” diagones from medical professionals (but not specialists, because $$$$$). Interacting with the #actuallyautistic Twitter community has given me as much confirmation as I need, as has reading books by autistic women. I completely relate and understand exactly what they describe. I have no issues with it. It’s who I am. My son is an amazing kid and I love him to bits, with every quirk and stim. I don’t try and make him act more neurotypical, and I encourage his special interests. And I’m sympathetic to his meltdowns and frustration, even if it can be difficult to deal with sometimes (due to my own tendency to get overstimulated and frustrated). My ex would try and control our son’s interests (same way he did with me, with subtle criticism) and had a tendency to punish rather than try and understand/soothe him. But that’s not surprising. My ex needed outside help (i.e. me) to emotionally regulate himself, so how could he possibly show someone else how to do it or do it for them?
Apparently my lack of uncritical support for his derivative artwork and regrettable unwillingness to do all of the boring tasks for free prevented him from becoming the next Picasso. (The fact that I have more creativity is presumably my parents’ fault.) The ideal “Art Wife” is a tireless manager/nanny, enthusiastic cheerleader/publicist, uncredited source of funding, and willfully blind to the artist’s philandering and shameless exploitation of students/apprentices/interns and workers.
My mother asked rhetorically if he would treat a white woman like that; I replied that to be fair to ex-FW, he was a selfish jerk to everyone.
I am the wrecker of all dreams.
It was my fault that he retired from the military at a lower rant than his age peers.
It was my fault we lived in the house he chose in the town he chose in the state he chose.
It was my fault that he didn’t become a professional mountain climber.
It was my fault he didn’t learn to play the guitar.
It was my fault he got fat.
It was my fault we (with 3 kids) couldn’t jet to Rome with no planning involved.
It’s funny though… my forever husband retired at a high rank and didn’t mind planning the trip to Rome. He is a bit chubby but I don’t care.
Ha ha, what is it with these fuckwits & guitars…he would sit for hours trying to learn chords & waste so much £££££ on guitars… they are utterly pathetic…
“John Denver” here had 10 guitars. He would play the same verse over and over and over again ad nauseum. At a 50th birthday party he pulled out his guitar (I would have been pissed at him taking over my party, but still) and everyone sat around because they wanted to sing. Only thing was he only knew a couple of lines and could never complete a song so everyone got up and walked away!
FW was so afraid I’d take his guitars in the divorce, because I had bought them for him. Several thousand dollars worth.
I got them after he died.
just for laughs.
i’m in the last throes of divorcing and the irrational accusations of what i’m in control of are AMAZING. the pension company rejected wording of separation agreement and slowed down the process, seeking different wording–my fault. my X had to wait to buy a house and the interest rates went up. increased interest rates? my fault.
i have a lot of power. i’m in charge of a pension company + the bank of canada. who knew?
I was always blamed for not allowing him to have friends. The man traveled for a living and was gone 5 days a week. He had plenty of time for friends.
We would sometimes hang out with other couples and I noticed we would hang out once or twice and never see them again. Chumpy me always thought maybe I said or did wrong. Now years later of no contact I’ve realized the girlfriends or wives of his friends knew exactly the type of person fw is and stayed far away. It had nothing to do with me.
He is a chiropractor. He was very popular (on many insurance plans) with young and old and quite successful. He saw quick cash opportunities that he wanted to do. He rented out our office space on Thursdays for Disability exams, fine with me. Money never found way to me, I should’ve known something was up then.
I nixed cash outlay for VaxD gimmicky things. After I filed, he said now I can do the things I’ve wanted to do to make $. (How about quit using drugs?)
He lives in a 690 sqft apartment with howorker and dog. He got commercial property and sold it. He gets balloon payment 10/2025. Gone through his IRA, has some lame drop ship business thru howorker. Ruined his credit.
Yep, I was holding him back 😂
Those whores don’t come cheap, whether they marry them for not. The smart whores don’t marry them, so they can make a quick exit when the well runs dry.
Plus he signed over 1/2 the mortgage he holds on the commercial property to the whore right after she discovered I own life insurance policy on him, totally ignoring our 3 adult children. I hope IRS does a clawback. He hasn’t paid taxes on all the IRA distributions.
I never stopped any of his dreams , if he wanted it I’d bend over backwards so he could have it
But I am interested in the comments that said “ he then decided he never wanted children”
My ex never wanted children so I respected his wishes and we never had . Don’t get me wrong I’d ask every 3-5 years if he would change his mind and it was a firm no every time . Sparkle whore was pregnant before he even left me and less than a year after the birth of their first child , she birthed their second child . He’s now 49 with 2 children under 3
I do wonder how that’s working out ????
I can’t say, but I do know that I had my son when I was 19 and I did enjoy being a mom. However, my grandson was born when I was about 45 and I used to get him a lot, just because I wanted to; and I would be exhausted after he stayed with us for even just a couple days.
Also, you likely will never know for sure if he wanted those children or if she decided; no matter what he says because cheaters lie/liars cheat. For the kids sake I hope he is a decent dad; but it gets harder I assume as we age. At least it did for me and all the folks I know.
Every other man he knew drove a nice, new 4 wheel drive truck because their wife loved them and worked to support them in the style the deserved. He pouted about this for 40 years; all the while never asking for a raise or never earning enough to support his family; never requiring his employers to furnish tools and equipment, truck, gas, etc. but choosing to do all of that himself so he could be John Wayne-like.
His loud opinion to me was that he worked full time and gave me his paycheck. The rest of it was my problem. The fact that his paycheck and his lifestyle were not a match was my problem, not his.
Even in the latest few years of the marriage when we finally had extra room in the budget, he would bring it up about needing a vehicle and I would ask real world questions like, “How much do you need to spend to get what you need? Have you looked at trucks to decide what it is you want? Do you want to go look at trucks today?”, he would melt into the sadz because his wife appliance wasn’t understanding that this magical truck was supposed to just surprise him in the driveway! Like a shiny new monster truck from Santa! But, Mommy! I NEED this!!!! Dont’ you love me? ugh, ugh, ugh.
I figured the minute he got his divorce settlement check he would buy the first shiny, troublesome truck a slick salesman showed him…….. but the funniest part of this story is that schmoopie scooped his settlement money to afford the brand new house she deserved. He has zero understanding of finance and now (at 64 years old) is obligated to make payments for 30 years on a house I KNOW was not anything he would have chosen. He’s worked in construction his entire career. He always dogged the new slab, cookie cutter homes on little plots in town. Swore that was the most stupid people in the world to buy something like that. And that’s exactly what he owns now, in a new marriage, so she would take half of everything the minute he decides he might have made a mistake with his wedding 8 weeks after his divorce.
And he’s still driving his same old, worn out truck. It cracks me up every time I see it sitting in the parking lot of the job he hates and always complained he would never be able to afford to retire from (all the while I had tightly managed our income and had the home paid for and retirement accounts building in preparation. In fact, he could have retired from that job and worked part-time or independently for those last few years of the marriage and I kept telling him that it was an option and we should look into it.) But, he threw all of that away for blow jobs in the closets at work, took a cash settlement for his 40 years of investment in our life together and handed it over to his twu wuv. You can’t fix stupid.
And he never will be able to retire! Or buy a truck! His sadz victim status stays intact I guess.
I mentioned to FW that we could probably look at changing his car since we’d just paid off a large loan – thinking we’d go out shopping together for a reasonable second-hand car. He got drunk and went out car shopping on his own one Saturday. Came home with a signed contract for a €60,000 brand new car (this was 15 years ago) and a “aren’t I a clever boy” look on his face. I hit the roof and insisted he took that payment with him when we divorced. He took such good “care” of that car that after a couple of years he had to have a brand new engine put in because he never put any oil in it!
“His loud opinion to me was that he worked full time and gave me his paycheck. The rest of it was my problem. The fact that his paycheck and his lifestyle were not a match was my problem, not his.”
I am very familiar with this attitude, lol.
Cheater played drummers in his high school marching band.
After Dday, cheater contacted the few friends he had in high school. One of his high school friends asked if he still played drums.
Cheater replied, sadly no, he wasn’t allowed to play drums, sigh.., if it wasn’t for me he could have been drummer .
He never mentioned playing drums or wanting a drum set.
Funny, he forgets who encouraged him to have the career as an airline pilot rather than being.a high school PE teacher.
I doubt that Schmoopie would find him as attractive if he was a drummer..
.
Sounds familiar. My ex was a janitor when I met him. With my encouragement and support he got his bachelor’s and became pretty successful (until everyone found he was a con man- different story). But, it was my fault he didn’t get a doctorate. Ummmm no. He tried to go to grad school and bombed out so badly they kicked him out. I didn’t even know universities did that! So no, he wasn’t going to get a PhD and he always downplayed my master’s degree and discouraged me from going to my own graduation ceremony. I wish I could wind back the clock and left him there with his janitor job.
And that’s no disrespect to janitors! It’s just that he wanted to go to school but lacked the stick to it ability to get through so I helped him. I’d marry an honest and loving janitor any day of the week over a fake businessman 😊
That’s funny, FW was sworn in to military (officers candidate school?) he originally thought he wanted to coach/pe high school, I didn’t care, then physical therapist, then chiropractor. Then he got released from Military obligation due to orthopedic issues. I suggested he might want to go to osteopathy school and live with my grandparents. Nope, he chose chiropractic. At least he didn’t blame me for that decision, he did admit I was right. I still would’ve married him no matter which path he chose.
Just to let you all in on a little secret…I’m the most powerful creature in the universe. I am the ultimate soul destroyer. At least according to my ex I am. He once told me that it’s my fault he does not believe in God. If I had only done a better job of “defending the Gospel” he would be a believer. He WANTS to believe. He WISHES he could believe. But he doesn’t. And it’s all my fault. Just like everything else that’s wrong in his life. I have no idea how that’s working out for him. I’ve been no contact for years. I suspect that he’s gone back to pretending to be a Highly Respected Christian Businessman™ in between cheating on the second wife.
Why can’t we all come up with better ways to direct our awesome superpowers than transvecting exes out of the pants, levitating them into the beds of grifters and destroying their faith via telepathy– like maybe predicting the stock market, saving war-ravaged orphans and reducing carbon impact?
We could have used our super powers to prevent them from cheating..
Why didn’t we turned them into attentive and devoted spouses?
What were we thinking??
I did so very much, having superpowers. I was mentally ill and contributed nothing to his life despite several decades together. He told his attorney that I had ruined him financially. My attorney and I also were responsible for amping up the divorce, which the attorneys agreed was bogus. The two of them decided that I was the rare “Mother Teresa who married Attila the Hun” which I felt was a bit overblown but gave me a good laugh with my attorney.
I’m beyond dwelling on all the chaos he created before and after the split. I thank God for both legal teams who got me to the other side; yes, even his attorney and his paralegal. They were superstars in my eyes who got the reality.
My cheating dad told my mom once, “You know, you have kept me from meeting some very interesting women.”
Unbelievable.
Oh my god Phoenix that is such a cruel thing to say. 🙁
Sounds like something my dad would say to my mom, of course never considering the flip side… that he kept my mom from meeting some very interesting men. They are delusional, entitled hypocrites.
Other women didn’t want him.
Cheaters are delusional and overvalue themselves so much.
Cheater thought he could become the hero in OW’s family after he alienated his own extended family and mine
Failed at it spectacularly. Loser.
Apparently I ruined things for him by “making him stop drinking” (I did no such thing, I told him I hated his behavior when he drank, which generally included openly ogling and flirting with other women right in front of me, and he chose to stop cold-turkey for 5.5 years because I was fed up) and then “not appreciating how big an ask it was” and not giving him enough kudos and praise for it. He apparently “always wanted me to say he wasn’t an alcoholic.” I never said he was. Our therapist did and he hated it. After we split and I asked why his hookup site dating profiles now said he was a social drinker he said “because people think you’re an alcoholic or weird if you don’t drink.” So yeah, apparently my “making him” be sober held him back from being able to appear normal and from being himself. 🙄
I never was much of a drinker . I would have maybe a special drink on a holiday, or a glass of wine with a good dinner. But, on the rare occasion we have been at a wedding, or some event where folks were drinking, there would be questions, or someone encouraging us to drink. Never understood that.
If I wanted a drink I would have ordered one.
They sound like toddlers 🤭
Fw said that “I trapped him” by having kids. Also, he never wanted to be a foster parent, he just went along with it because I wanted to do it. Worst of all, I “kept him on a leash” and “wouldn’t let him have friends” because I objected to his howorker AP/work wives from over the years.
Ergo—parenting, being a family, helping people in need, not being inappropriate at work, not lying, and not having affairs are the things that I brought about to interfere with his happiness in life…which I’m sure will be awesome and full of good things now that I am no longer a part of it!
I restricted his drinking and held him back. I prevented him from being with his ex girlfriend from school. He was in fact ‘with’ her throughout our 26 years together. Being able to restrict his drinking is a superpower that wasn’t very super because he drank all the time. As to holding him back, his career took off when I was there to encourage and support him. Stupid and deluded!
What strikes me when reading all of our responses is how we all ‘took responsibility’ for at least examining the nonsense they spouted and thinking, well, is it true? Could it be true? Maybe I do have a part in what he or she is saying, or maybe he or she really does perceive it that way… (Mine said I never wanted him to be happy–so I examined the fact that he was quite a bit more social that I am/was and maybe I could become more outgoing?) But I took EVERYTHING he said so seriously, when really he (and everyone else who spouted our faults so readily) was just throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what would stick. In the future (and not just with any potential partner), my wall will be made of teflon.
Exactly. The littlest comment from him would send me spinning in circles. How can I show him I support him? How can I prove to him I love him? How can I make him happier? I would buy self help books, plan special trips or dates, or brainstorm endlessly on how we (ha, there was no “we”) could fix things.
I can see now that he just grasped for straws. By the end, he would just make up things that I supposedly did, or say I had character traits I knew I didn’t have. That’s when the one-way-mirror started to crack for me.
I married a late developer…apparently!!! he was 38 when we married!!!
I divorced him 28 years later, when I found out he had cheated with an ex girlfriend after I set him up on Facebook at his request….had a few worries over the years about him being faithful but he always denied & blamed me for questioning him.
He never apologised wince I found out, which I struggled with for a couple of years,
The only thing he said at the end, was, he hadn’t experienced much in life before he met me….🤦♀️ you’d think he’d have managed to do some stuff by age 38…
he’s now had a heart attack, been in hospital for weeks, he’s not at deaths door & has had plenty of time to reflect, I struggled thinking I should keep in touch or visit but not once has he ever asked about our sons, he has refused to talk to them for 4.5 years even while living in the marital home after they told him he shouldn’t be so rude & disrespectful to me!!! so finally I’ve cut him off..he’s really just an awful person, I guess the karma bus has finally arrived.
I’m no saint but I’ve always tried to do the right thing, I walked on eggshells for most of the marriage to him, finally I’m at Tuesday & it’s amazing, finally free
thank you Tracy xx
It was entirely my fault that my ex-husband and I struggled financially. From my point of view, we did as okay as two college dropouts, he African-American, me an immigrant, raising three kids, could expect. We owned a home, kept the utilities on, had enough to feed and clothe our kids and even keep them in competitive sports.
He would demean my chosen profession as a housepainter and express his admiration for the corporate career women in their business suits.
I chased every job and check like my life depended on it, hoping for a modicum of recognition from him of my contribution to the family. I’d come running like an eager puppy and hand him my paycheck. He would look at it with disdain and hold it by a corner, then quickly dropping it onto the kitchen counter as if I had just handed him a piece of dirty toilet paper.
Even back then, I knew two things on a heart level: 1. His demeanor towards me had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him, his insecurities, and lack of self-worth. 2. The goalposts were always moving. Had I been climbing some corporate ladder, he would have just found some other aspect of my being to disparage.
He definately would have found another way to complain.
In my case he never thought I was a good enough house keeper. I tried, and he always found something to complain about.
I worked part time most of our marriage, and full time for the last three years, and did all the housework and also the yard work. Still the only complaint he lodged against me was the house.
I realized in time it was never the house, my house keeping was as good as any of our friends who were both working. It was because that was the only thing he could think of to use against me.
Ironically, his whore/wife according to my son and his wife makes me look like Martha Stewart in comparison. He had to know that, as he was screwing around with her for at least two years and I know he spent time in her trailer.
I worked at a part time job with her oldest son for a few months before he was fired. He told me he hated FW because he was always complaining about the mess, and making him do work, and bossing him around. Lol.
I just said “well he is just trying to help you”, but inside I was laughing at the stupid FW. He had one job, and that was to find a whore who measured up to his lofty standards. Guess he couldn’t pull a higher class whore.
My housekeeping was never up to snuff either. Strangely, in the dozen years since I left and gave him the marital home, it’s been a lot less clean and tidy.
And as for me and my house? There is “creative clutter” here and there. I get to it when I get to it and nobody bitches about it.
Oh my, yes. I was a “slob” and our house was a “dump”. Yet somehow after I left and it was just him, it turned into a house that in honesty looked like squatters lived there (ever seen those awful places on Flip or Flop? Yeah.) And his house, that he shared with schmoopie, looked similar, when I went to get our (my) stuff after he died. I’m talking rotting food on the counters, filthy toilets, takeout boxes and trash everywhere.
My apartment is pretty tidy most of the time, it is definitely clean. And when I don’t feel up to it and put things off for a day or two, nobody says a word about it. It’s lovely.
I was a restaurant server for the majority of our marriage, and FW demeaned me constantly for it, even when I made nearly the same amount of money that he did, and even when I pointed out that the schedule made it possible for us to avoid paying for childcare. He was embarrassed to be “married to a waitress”. However, even when I got a position at the same company where he worked, doing the same job (and I’m there still), it wasn’t good enough. He told me OW had “ambition” and that I didn’t. Her “ambition” is to be a full time writer, which isn’t going to happen because her novels are terrible. He also was angry that I’d been a stay at home mom for about two years (since childcare would have been almost as much as I could have earned). Saying I mooched off of him. Yet OW hadn’t just been a SAHM, she’d been a stay at home WIFE before she had kids, and used to boast about how much of her husband’s money she spent. She had only started working when she and FW met (they met at work, yay!).
Nothing you do would have been good enough, as you say. If it wasn’t one thing, it would be something else.
I was preventing him from being the sexually sadistic Marquis de Sade he always wanted to be. I was simply too vanilla. So he HAD to do it and he was pretty quick to point out that it was all my fault. 25 years down the tubes. I don’t know what he does now – no one seems to know. Presumably he’s running a porn studio or club where he can “officially” do what he HAS to do. That way it will be cheaper than all our money he spent on hookers.
Just a reminder that vanilla is the most expensive spice on earth cultivated from the seed of a tropical orchid that blooms for only one day. 😉
Lol. I come here to heal my broken little hurt and for the wit of all you amazing women. I love how all these duds in bed want porn star wives.
Ditto apparently! He didn’t actually say it himself, but from the hellacious Instagram accounts he now PUBLICLY follows on an account work connections/employees and his own children follow him on (hardcore bdsm, heavy bondage, sex clubs) and the extreme kinks his hookup site accounts purport him to be shopping for, I was clearly holding back his sadistic sexual desires as well! Schmoopie (his employee) apparently is happy to go along with all of this. And yes his public dating profiles show his full face as a president of a company and say right in them that he is “exploring ENM alone and with his best friend” who people would clearly know who it refers to.
Sorry we share that horrible experience Warren. There’s something especially painful about being cheated on by people who have a completely and utterly hidden sexual agenda. I’ve wondered so many times since DDay-why in the hell did he bother marrying me in the first place when he really wanted a sexual slave? We shouldn’t have to be the victims of someone’s dark fetishes.
I always love this challenge. The absurdity is hilarious. First, if I had the power to “make” my XH do or not do anything, I would have “made” him stop fucking others and being cruel to me and our kids. God knows I tried, but I don’t have that power.
After Dday happened, XH said that “one” of the reasons he “had” to cheat (for 20 years or more!) was because I “made” him feel inadequate. WTF?! No one makes anyone feel anything. His feelings of inadequacy, if any, come from his own beliefs about his shortcomings. XH is a diagnosed narcissist with BPD/Cluster B (maybe even a sociopath) and I seriously doubt he ever felt inadequate — grandiose and entitled 24/7 more like it. I think he just said that to hurt me, because I am a kind and compassionate person, and he knew it would bother me to hear that. XH also lobbed other nonsense at me before I wised up and went no contact: he said that I prevented him from becoming a writer or a journalist (total B.S. — I met him in law school — he made the decision to pursue law years before he met me!). We did NaNoWriMo one year together shortly before Dday. I cranked out a 50,000 word multi-generational tale where my characters had rich dialogue, I knew them intimately down to what they ate for breakfast. XH, on the other hand, wrote only: “i have to write, i cannot write, i have to write, I cannot write. . . ” over and over on the blank page. It was horrifying. Reminiscent of the alcoholic and murderous character in The Shining. To say that I prevented him from realizing his passion of being a writer under these circumstances is ludicrous. Finally, XH said that our lifestyle (4 kids and two busy professional careers) “prevented” him from golfing as frequently as he wanted. How being a serial cheater would give him more time to golf is beyond me. I was happy to take care of the household and childrens’ activities while he golfed. Again, the accusation was completed unfounded.
Trust they suck. I’m glad he’s no longer in my life. Good riddance!
Shriek. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lQ_MjU4QHw
Eewww, that bit about writing like Jack Nicholson in The Shining is indeed creepy!
Not a dang thing , I stood beside behind and with both my exes. The first an abusive mind controller who would not hold a job who I supported while he became a journeyman and I babysat raising our kids and working at night in cleaning industry for 10 years, the second one was the serial cheater and marriage of 20 years and I stood with him until I could not any longer. Not trying to be a matter here but I might stay single FOREVER!
Maybe because I started laughing when he bellowed “You wouldn’t let me watch Survivor!”, FW cut short his list of dreams I’d squashed. But going by his post-D-day admissions, reports from anonymous coworkers and the secret “affair credit card” evidence of things he did with Schmoops that I never would have done or supported, I’m guessing that I crushed his dreams of:
1) Blowing tens of thousands of the kids’ college funds on bar tabs and booze, developing an impressive beer gut, double chin and destroying his liver and immune system to the point he had the flu every two months for more than a year.
2) Manscaping himself into a prickly hedgehog, wearing stretch skinny jeans and button-popping gigolo shirts.
3) Regularly riding shotgun on the freeway in a car driven by a long term alcoholic squawking out elevator rap lyrics in a gerbil voice who– according to itemized bills– just consumed three or four sugary cocktails and an entire bottle of wine.
4) Watching a drunk, stoned, rather dumpy, acne-scarred chick fake orgasms in gerbily German (she’s from Illinois??) while performing knee-straining porn gymnastics that never gave any woman an orgasm in the history of sex or orgasms.
5) Sleeping through the Disney teen films that a pushing-thirty Schmoops insisted on seeing in theaters.
6) Altering his bleeding heart, social justice warrior lefty politics and softening his antagonistic, church-mocking atheism in order not to trigger fundy Trumpian Schmoopie tantrums.
7) Getting sneered at behind his back by coworkers for the subtle-as-a-fart-in-church workplace affair with the big-mouth doorknob no one at the office would touch with a thirty foot barge pole… except one previous drunken, middle-aged, married punchline.
8) Secretly repeating STD lab tests because he wasn’t sure what he might catch from raw-dogging Ms. Tinder hookups.
9) Catching infections that smelled like Camembert.
10) Catching caries from Schmoopie’s gum disease (yes, it’s communicable: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/health/29really.html).
11) Watching GOT and Gray’s Anatomy reruns while drinking cheap bourbon, vaping pot and eating boxed mac and cheese in a tacky, mold-infested basement studio decorated with pastel Easter bunny copy art and weedy, dying house plants.
12) Pretending fascination with Insta posts about Macklemore and Harry Potter.
13) Humping in cars in gloomy commuter rail and mall parking lots next to industrial trash bins.
I am the killer of 13 dreams– beware!
My ex is, in his eyes, living his best life now that we are divorced. Running marathons and triathalons, building an in ground pool, dating a woman almost 20 years younger, going out with friends like they are in their 20s. All things I kept him from while we were married because, you know, those pesky marriage vows and adulting. Meanwhile I am left to 98 percent of the parenting of our 10 year old, who looks to have zero connection with his dad and probably less respect at this point. But he sees who the sane stable parent is, we have a great bond and he’s doing well despite my ex following his selfish desires. Wish the rest of society and all the Swiss friends saw through it, but thankfully my son is, even at a young age.
I am glad you are close with your son. It will likely always be that way.
I think honestly many times these FW’s are just not that deep. I have read it on here, but they seem to have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old.
Ex did the same, ran marathons then entered triathlons.., he and the AP dressed in matching workout ensembles, fluorescent cycling spandex. They both were had every workout/triathlon/biking gadget they make. He claims that he’s never been happier. It’s all about him, while neglecting our son.
.
Despite the statistics showing cheaters work out more in an attempt to keep fit and appear younger, cheaters expire from heart disease more often than faithful men. Researchers suppose the effort of trying to keep up with younger Schmoopies do them in. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/men-who-cheat-their-wives-more-likely-die-heart-attack-flna795283
Well I apparently made him work extra hard to provide for me and the kids. So hard in fact that he was hardly home. Then as the decades went by he felt he had lost his life. Guess where this is going?… He checked out. Right into the arms of another (& many more along the way) soon after I quit the relationship (34yrs). He stayed with her 6yrs and she took a slice of his wealth pie as well. Then 6months later another partner though smart enough not to live with her. Lasted 4yrs. Now another. All the while not connected to his kids or grandkids. Lesson: don’t work your butt off for your family. They don’t care!… aka… you don’t care. Mmm… now why did you work your life away?
His dreams of running a marathon. Never mind that he did none of the training or that he yelled at me when I asked how the marathon training was going. No it’s all my fault he sat on the couch playing COD instead.
I am self-employed as a company of one. He often lamented that I didn’t want to scale my business that he would then “run for me” (he knows nothing about my industry). He didn’t have the balls to be self-employed himself and wanted to ride my coattails. After D-Day he shrieked that “you could have a $2 million business but you’ll never make more than $200K a year!” First of all, what a fucking privileged statement to treat that as pocket change. Second, I explained for the umpteenth time that my friends who have scaled their businesses in my industry make less money than I do because they have to pay employees. He again refused to believe it…even though he works in HR.
He’d never wanted to be married to anyone, ever, at all – and “finally had an epiphany” at age 46 (I was his third wife, mind you; he’d spent all of a cumulative year being single from the time he first married at age 19. My bad on burying that red flag in the first place.) What did he want? To go build a cabin community in the Smoky Mountains. And he just knew I would hate being part of that lifestyle and he couldn’t “stifle his dreams anymore.”
Almost three years later he still lives a few short miles from the home in which we raised four children, still seeing (and maybe living there with) his whore. I fully expect them to marry at some point because SHE’S SPECIAL.
Mehhhh 🤷🏻♀️
Oh wow, I can certainly relate to this challenge! I moved from the UK to the USA with XFW (who was an American), sold my house to finance our move, and (surprise!) I was the one who got a high paying job (with my speciality qualifications). XFW tried to get a job but with his checkered employment history (unknown to me at the time), he struck out everywhere. Of course, he was way superior to any of the “idiots” who interviewed him. He had grand plans to which I was somewhat non-committal as they lacked an actual workable “plan”. Then of course I became an “anchor drag” to his lofty ambitions (meantime I’m the sole source of household income). Interesting how my life became a speedboat after I jettisioned the “anchor drag”, who had been him all along! He never did anything meaningful with his life after I left him in my wake…
Ah blameshifting! He withdrew all our savings, kept it in an envelope. It was 7 figures in my currency which was alot! The day I had had enough trying to wreckoncile while he played happy family with his AP and their newborn while imultaneously neglecting my baby and I, I called in movers to take my stuff out, in the process I kept the envelopes safely in case a staff of the moving company stumbled upon it and became tempted. He walked in looking for the envelope and raised hell when I retrieved it from the new safe place I had put it. In his words, I had no fucking right to touch his things and move HIS money around. What was I trying to prove, he had asked then. He then sneered,took the envelopes and left me to finish moving out. Well CN, 3 weeks after that incident, the whole loot was stolen. He had moved to a new neighbourhood and had not bothered to know of the security there. He came back from work to find the house broken into and nearly all his stuff gone. Guess who he blamed for losing his life savings……me. it was my fault because if I hadn’t been hell bent on not tolerating AP and their baby, if I hadn’t moved out he ‘ wouldn’t ‘ have moved the money, he wouldn’t have moved and he’d still have it. Such super powers I have to summon thieves.
He continues to blame me for his inability to be with his children daily and according to him raise them and shape and impart to them important life values. I’m the witch of East end. He loves this one, as I’m the bad wolf who has taken his children away. It was so bad that even when I was having constant miscarriage threats and was admitted with my now nearly 12 week old baby, he would call and berate me over the phone. These people are full of themselves
What an asshole. Karma works in funny ways.
Who knew you have to divide assets in divorce, like being married or something? Don’t like going halfsies. LIke sharing cookies. Such a bother. So unfair. 🙁
The she devil told me I had ruined her whole life, she was meant to meet this beautiful exotic lady in Texas and I had come in the way of a fairy tail lesbian u-haul and American dream. Shocking overall as we live in the UK and dumbass didn’t even have a valid passport to travel to the USA. She was out there talking to lots of women in a long distance relationship format and had promised them all a piece of herself. Shady bitch then said she never said any of this…Texas whooo? 🙂
I
–prevented his becoming a graphic artist;
–prevented his becoming a fine arts painter/printmaker;
–prevented his becoming a musician, and
–forced him to have 3 children with me.
Also, I refused sex for 6 or 8 weeks after each birth. He complained bitterly about this to his mother.
Alas, my cheater never denied himself anything on my behalf that I know of.
But after D-Day he told me a lot about his previous relationships, particularly his first marriage. The actual Schmoopie for whom he was leaving me, had apparently assisted in helping to break up that previous marriage, and oh, what a tough time that poor wittle boy had during that short marriage. Cue the tiny violins:
He said that he had become engaged to his ex-wife far too young (college) and stayed engaged and even married her long after he really wanted to leave her, because of social pressure as all their friends were getting married so she insisted on getting married too. Alas, this keeping up with the Joneses completely tapped out any adult agency that he might have had, according to him. Oddly, he later said the same thing about Schmoopie–that she had spent so much on their upcoming nuptials, sthat even though he no longer wanted to marry her, he couldn’t bring himself to say no. Not sure he realized how spineless he sounded during this recital. He kind of made Schmoopie sound like this all powerful zombie that kept reanimating and lumbering back into his life during his first marriage, all because he had told her that he needed to be saved from the “unhappy relationship” with his wife. During that short marriage, two children were born in quick succession, with an affair with Schmoopie before and after the second one. Ah, the tragic sacrifices of a mustachioed moron!
He could have been a famous harmonica player but I walked in on him practicing and laughed.
Not many people at 50 years old suddenly decide they’re going to learn to play the harmonica.
It was funny.
Did he really expect me to react any differently?
LOL!!! I crushed her dreams of watching Fox News, worshipping Donald Trump, smoking pot and taking drugs all day and then having anal sex. That’s her claim to fame with the fuckwit she was dating before, during and after we dated, got engaged, and married. It is the fuckwit she ran away to be with when her double life got to be too much for her. It’s the fuckwit she abandoned her children for. Based on how she looks physically now I’d say she’s moved on to other drugs otherwise I don’t know whether she’s living out her dreams of blissful happiness 😂
Apparently a then-28 year old college dropout could have been an astronaut if not for my unsupportive ways. If I had known then what I know now I would have bent over backwards to get the FW a one-way ticket to Mars. Don’t forget to write, dear!
After he moved out and had not collected his “stuff” yet I looked in a box that had mementos in it. Lots of papers and doodads like matchbooks and stocker and whatnots. At the bottom was a 2 page handwritten list of everything iwantmyfairytale had done to ruin his life.
My biological clock was ticking and I made him have kids and that ruin d his life. The birth of his son ruined his career. The birth of his daughter killed his art career. I cheated on him with his best friend. And so much more asinine things but those stood out to me.
I really wish I had those super powers, but I’m pretty sure he asked me to marry him and said he wanted children. And as for cheating on him with his best friend, I couldn’t figure out when I did that and who it was…. As painful as that list was, I kept it for the lawyer. And he came and got that stupid trinket box, but guess what ???? Did not take any pictures of his kids or any mementos of our kids.
I threw the list away when the divorce was final. Imagine keeping a list like that so when he or I were dead and the kids go through his or my stuff they find it. Jerkwad.
Upon his sudden discard and exit (before I knew about AP), I was told our marriage was robbing him of the “ concerts and travel” that he deserved. This from a FW who went to any concert he wanted and went on (golf primarily) trips for years….because I stayed in town to run our business.
Our marriage also prevented him from “having anything to show for “ us financially….funny how raising 3 kids, saving to send them all to college with no debt, owning a nice home and our own business gets in the way of a big windfall when FW and AP are with her attorney seeing what he’s going to take away with him upon his exit…again, long before I even knew I was being discarded.
It’s unnerving that they were busy with their plans while we were being told nothing is wrong. After Dday I was told by AP, oh we might have to pay you rent for office, they thought they were going to be some dream team-haha. His attorney had told him “you’ll never be able to recoup what you’re going to lose at this age”. All the while I’m thinking FW is depressed, or delayed midlife crisis. Then FW drug out divorce for 2.5 years. SMH. So anxious to be free…
“It’s unnerving that they were busy with their plans while we were being told nothing is wrong.”
I think this is the part that angers me the most. I could imagine them post fuck-fest, making their plans like two starry eyes teens. Instead of the conniving lying pieces of shit they were revealed to be.
I am so glad fw got the life he wanted, he deserved it.
The Limited had all the independence in the world and despite investing thousands in a drum set, he played solos in the basement daily. Never did he play in a band.
He whined about never having surfed, yet never went in the ocean.
He rewrote his dream girl poem and shared it with multiple OW calling each and every one, the ONE. Nancy still believes.
Mr broke rock star stud has an audience of 80 year olds to test out his desirability in the park where they landed. I’m thinking the bubble burst. Thankfully, free of all the limitations.
At the very end of 11 years together (several D-Days), he threw in my face that because of me he had to stop…
…wait for it…
…EATING VEAL XD
No, Im not a vegetarian. Early in our relationship, I stumbled into the great sin of saying I found this dish (cutlets) too chewy and couldn’t enjoy it. Apparently this was his cue to never, ever bring veal into the house again and to feel that he was PREVENTED for ever having just for himself – for the record, I would have had absolutely no issue with cooking different things for each of us, especially once in a while.
Apparently I made her fat and ruined her body. I didn’t encourage her enough to get exercise (despite the bike I bought her) and didn’t feed her the right things (she of course didn’t have time to meal plan or shop with her busy gaming schedule…or even suggest what she wanted). And of course I ruined her life by not keeping on supporting her ass while she made time with the guy who was “like her brother” which….ick. Dysfunctional to say the least. I also messed up everything by refusing to let her steal from me when she was moving out, and by packing up and forcing her to take her junk… apparently I was supposed to store it forever.
Needless to say, was very amused to run across her several years later and she was twice the size she’d been with me. And her “brother” put up with her bullshit for a couple years but ended up filing a TRO to get away from her. I feel lucky I got away from her after only four years or so and we weren’t married.
I think I might be the champion of all dream crushers:
“BECAUSE OF YOU I WILL NEVER GET TO BE A RANCHER!”
In the very last days of our marriage, during a six hour car trip from which there was no escaping, (and with our two young sons and my mom also in the vehicle), my FW let it all rip on me, who merely sat there crying and quietly asking him to please stop. Six long, shouting hours filled with his rage and nonsense.
“BECAUSE OF YOU I WILL NEVER GET TO BE A RANCHER!”
Golly, until that moment, not only did I have no idea he ever even wanted to be A RANCHER…but literally nothing in his life was geared toward it. He was a polished punk from the most mundane suburbs of Chicago. There were no farmers or ranchers anywhere in his entire family. The dude had literally never ridden a horse, and the largest animal he had ever owned was a purebred Dalmatian two decades before.
“BECAUSE OF YOU I WILL NEVER GET TO BE A RANCHER!”
FW was a forty year old lower-mid salesman, an alcoholic opioid addict with a penchant for porn and snapping pics of women’s body parts with his cell phone. He lived in his recliner most of the time and played endless video games. And do you know what made him feel drawn to and fully qualified to be A RANCHER?
He watched “The Rifleman” lots and lots. I’m serious. That was his reality. Apparently he secretly dreamed of owning a ranch and driving bad guys out of town, punctuated with occasional tense music and a quick, happy ending.
But because of me, only me, me alone…He will NEVER GET TO BE A RANCHER.
His cheating utterly destroyed our family, shook the kids’ reality to the core, left me climbing out of the blast zone for almost four years now. But he doesn’t ever get to be a rancher, poor baby.
His dream is crushed. My work here is done. 😉
Damn. What happens to these men? or were they like this the whole time?
I think they were like this the whole time, but knew better than to speak their nonsense. Something happens when they decide to cheat — suddenly they are bold and free, and because they no longer give a darn for or about us chumps, they place the failure to achieve fantasy on us. His dream of becoming A RANCHER was about as mature and realistic as a dream of becoming a blue crayon, but mine used it to emotionally bludgeon me.
Mine said if it weren’t for me, he could be with a supermodel.
Late to the party, here is one to chuckle over… hair, my evil supernatural powers squashed his dreams of luxurious hair. Forget genetics, all the men in his family are bald, both side, it was ME that sucked so bad, he lost his hair over it. Who knew my love, caregiving, house-keeping, support came with a health warning label.
This was a “close call”, LOL, according to him, when I became unexpectedly pregnant with our daughter. I put his future medical career in grave danger! Oh noez!!
You’d expect a future (now very successful) doctor to understand how babies are made, but according to him, no, it was all my fault, I did it to entrap him. Thus and therefore, he was perfectly justified in going furniture shopping with one of his sidepieces while I was in the hospital recovering from our daughter’s birth.
Down the road, he told our daughter that I was the only woman he’d ever really loved. (I thought that was super disrespectful to his current wife, whom he cheats on like crazy. Girl in every port type of guy, as he flits about the world, doing consults, giving talks, attending conferences.)
But he couldn’t even be arsed to show up for our daughter’s funeral last year. (She had disappointed him with some of the life choices she made, so, he stopped communicating with his own kid.) So, not sure he ever learned what “love” really is. I hope his stellar medical career has been worth one wife & one daughter.
I both feel an outlet for my sad anger in this line from a Lauryn Hill song:
“If you don’t change then the rain soon come,
So you might win some but you just lost one.”
(I recommend “Lost Ones” as a fantastic “angry breakup song” to anyone going through it. Lauryn says it soooo well!!)