We’re all about Meh here at CN — that Promised Land of acceptance where the pain stops and you don’t really care what your cheater does any more, or with whom. That said, a lot of chumps wouldn’t mind an exit ramp to Schadenfreude.
“D-Day was 6 months ago and I’m fine… I just want the cheaters to break up. Tragically. Painfully. Like maybe someone dumps someone’s possessions from a 10th floor balcony or sets a car ablaze.”
Or:
“I don’t want him. I don’t care who he moves on with — JUST NOT HER. Really ANYONE but HER. I can’t bear the thought of my children being around her. If she so much as bakes a cupcake with them, there will be bloodshed.”
Or:
“Do they have to get married? WHY? Why are they getting new toasters and a trip to Lake Como while I’m here suffering? How come HE gets someone and I AM ALONE? Toaster-less!”
Self-pity isn’t a good look, chumps. I know it’s unjust — let me repeat that — I KNOW IT IS UNJUST. Your future has been shattered by a couple of fuckwits, and now they get to enjoy the bedrock relationship status that you used to enjoy, that was part of your identity, your family, your financial security. WHY DON’T THEY FAIL?
It seems like the perfect antidote, really — the whole Twu Wuv thing blowing up in their faces. Ha! That’ll show ’em! Maybe they’ll come crawling back! Maybe it will be too late! (Maybe it won’t. Oh hey, is that a unicorn I see?)
STOP. Don’t make your healing contingent on what cheaters do or do not do. You only control YOU. You certainly don’t control the karma timetable. Needing (wanting, desperately praying for) the Schmoopies to break up is a rookie chump mistake. Trust that they SUCK.
Oh shut up, Tracy, with your Trust That They Suck. Is this just more of your inane branding? Go embroider that on a pillow. I KNOW they suck. And I just want them to fall flat in a vat of acid. Is that too much to ask?
If you need Bad Things to happen to cheaters, you’ve missed the point. THEY are the Bad Things. Being them is a punishment. I know it doesn’t look that way, what with the Nobel prizes, yoga retreats, and new trucks — but can you imagine being so vapid and selfish that you’d break up a couple families for kibbles? Do you really envy narcissists? So what if a couple of crappy people got together. I’d say it leaves them out of the dating pool, but it probably doesn’t. They. Don’t. Get. Character. Transplants.
And let’s say for the sake of argument that they do. Now they are Much Happier and It Was All for the Best. It’s regrettable that Mistakes Were Made, but sometimes you have to break a few hearts to make an omelet. They still did this. You can’t go back. That relationship is dead. It doesn’t matter how they move forward, YOU have to move forward with your one precious life.
Chances are the Schmoopies will break up. These things often do. (Look! Shiny thing!) But it will happen about the time you really don’t give a shit. And if they stay together? That’s about the worst punishment two narcs could endure — a bad kibble supply. Kibbles? I thought you were bringing the kibbles? No? So they’ll have to go out in search of new chumpy triangles (rectangles, dodecahedrons…. I never tire of that joke…)
God, aren’t you relieved to be out of that mix?
We don’t control fuckwits. I know it’s a shit sandwich to let them around your children, but just keep being the sane, awesome parent, and let fuckwits be fuckwits. Let them engrave invitations and invite everyone to their elaborately catered farce. What does commitment mean to people like that?
I have no idea what happened to the Schmoopies in my story. The internet has left a few clues. (There were other chumps, other triangles, more discovery of her long-standingness.) Doesn’t concern me. Those people suck. My life is pretty great. Certainly not without its challenges, but I’ve got some solid blessings, chief among them, I’m not a fuckwit.
I bet you’re pretty great too. Don’t look back. Forget the fuckwits.
****
A message that deserves repeating. Thus reran it.
Rerun and rerun and rerun it.
Where would we be without you Chump Lady? All the main messages here. Don’t EVER forget it Chumps – you do you (and your kids) and celebrate your fuckwit-free-ness every day!! Even while you are up to your eyeballs in hard stuff. Good days – and Meh – lie ahead. And I say that as a Chump who still suffers, but totally loves her cheater-free life.
My ex didn’t break up right away. But there was trouble in paradise. When? When I dropped the rope and broke the two against the world triangle. It was hard, too. Then was a lot of back and forth with settlement negotiations. In the meantime, Ow needed to be mom to my adult kids, attend every function, fix their bathroom, opine on their life choices. One day, I woke up realizing how relieved I felt without the beast in my life. His criticisms were always there. So once he had no one to argue with, the shifted. She stopped going to see his fam with him. Then they sold his dream house they built. Then she insisted separating monies. They bought separate houses. Then she told him to go. So I admit I’m glad he’s been dumped. The downside is how he leans on the kids which is not rosey for my DILs. He still doesn’t want me to know. Or his told you so friends. I do realize it’s better they are occupied elsewhere. But lol. Oh well, bud.
Bravo!
Now to keep this kind of thought process in my brain.
‘They suck, they suck, they suck, they suck….’
“If you need Bad Things to happen to cheaters, you’ve missed the point. THEY are the Bad Things. Being them is a punishment. ”
I really try to keep distain in my life down to a minimum…hating people requires a lot of energy.
And yet I do have Those Who Have Wronged Me. (Schmoopie and sub-Schmoopies among them).
I have finally gotten to the point where I can see each of them getting comeuppance just for being their own miserable selves. Even the things that seemingly worked out for them are more a result of people being afraid of them, not loving them.
Trouble is, Eternal Justice takes time and you dont have it. Life is too short to ruin time waiting for their misery. Go live and find out about it in the past tense, when it no longer matters to you.
I’d say seeing the cheaters as people who suck is not so much disdain as clarity, factually accurate apprehension after many years of spackle.
BTW, autocorrect often changes *spackle* to *sparkle.* WAY TO MAKE MY POINT, AUTOCORRECT!
Clarity rather than distain… well, yes. Except that once I saw clearly how much they sucked, I developed distain. 🐓🥚🐓🥚🐓
This is so apt for me today. Thank you for all you do CL and Chump Nation
I finally have my decree absolute and most of my settlement. I still keep waiting for his next, clownish move but am more prepared now
I have my wonderful son and amazing, supportive friends
I’m no where near meh yet and still have more bad days than good but I’m working hard at that gain a life thing
Your amazing advice has been invaluable and never failed me. It’s scary but comforting how alike these FWs are and it helps immensely to read other’s experiences
Here’s to you all 🥂
Congrats!
I am one year on from where you are today! The healing that occurred for me after my decree absolute has been phenomenal!! I am still a work in progress but I’m still moving forward. You will too.
Hugs to you
That’s wonderful Claire!
Thanks so much, hugs to you too 🤗
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
I didn’t know there was more to the Serenity Prayer. I’ve only seen it up through the wisdom part. Thank you for sharing the whole of this wise and meaningful message.
Thank you. Amen.
13 years post-divorce and cheating ex is still with one of her APs. I was married to her for 22 years, so I know the hell he lives every day. And I know I was a faithful, hardworking, attentive husband, so I’m confident being paired with a cheating, lying, under-employed fuckwit is a big come-down for her as well. It’s the closest thing to justice I’ll get out of the divorce, so I hope they stay together forever. Let the rattlesnakes marry each other, so we golden retrievers can live in peace.
Let the rattlesnakes marry each other, so we golden retrievers can live in peace.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Love it!!!>>>>”Let the rattlesnakes marry each other, so we golden retrievers can live in peace.”
Well said!
I didn’t want them to get married because she is sparklier than me and I didn’t want it to look like they “won.” In fact I quite enjoy that she dumped him before DDay (90% sure that’s how it went down).
Yet everything you said is absolutely the truth. Whatever the appearance might be, neither FW has “won” anything by staying together. Even FW himself recognized it pretty early on when he still thought we would wreckoncile: “OW and I could never be together. We couldn’t trust each other.” He had enough insight to apply the lack of trustworthiness to himself, just not enough awareness to realize that my response would be, “Well then why should *I* trust you?!” rather than “Oh good, that means the OW is out of the picture; commence pick-me dance.”
Trust that they suck. They would never admit it unless they thought there was something in it for them (reconciliation, kibbles for a sad sausage act), but I’d bet more FWs than we think know deep down that they do, in fact, suck. Why else would they need the validation of cheating? And, married to the FW accomplice or not, I can’t imagine a worse fate than that.
I think that towards the end, he knew that he had been a sucky husband and if the whole truth were widely known, his world would implode.
FW’s world did start to implode, but he still didn’t accept responsibility. He said in his suicide note that it “looks bad when two women are falsely accusing me of being abusive” rather than admitting to himself that he WAS abusive, and that’s why he was alone. OW left him, and I rebuffed his hoover attempts and had no sympathy for his plight. His public image was everything to him, and that was rapidly crumbling. Rather than try to make amends and be a better person, he checked out and blamed everyone but himself for his downfall.
Woof! 😉
x is spending schmoopie #18’s (or is it 19) money at a fast rate.
Not that I want to know but glad I’m not dealing with fuckwit any longer along with the poopy diaper face silent rage treatment when x doesn’t get what x thinks he deserves on someone else dime.
And all the rest of it.
Freedom from fuckwit is the reward.
Do you think she gets the silent rage treatment now? This is where my mind goes, sometimes. Is he just as ugly to her or did he change?
Like Chumplady says, they don’t get a character transplant…
Eve, they always get worse. I was married for 25 years and he got worse every year. They get older and angrier with every day that goes by.
FW was able to play a fairly decent partner to me for about 7 years before things got bad (and we’d been friends for 3 years before we started dating, so 10 years in all of being a “nice guy”). It took less than 4 years before he was abusing OW at the same level as he had been me at the end of our marriage.
They do just get worse. FW went from emotionally abusing me/controlling me, to verbally abusing me, to outright gaslighting/mentally abusing me, to physically abusing me. They he did all those same things to the new girl. They don’t change who they are.
Truth. For abusers, the “nice” interval gets shorter with each relationship. The length of time they go without cheating also gets shorter. So we can all rest assured that APs are not getting new and improved fuckwits. They aren’t mean to us because of who we are, but because of who they are.
There are some chumps who believe the cheater is in love and is therefore different for the other person. They are, at first, just like they were nice to us and thought they were in love with us at first. They just can’t sustain it. A sadist can only take so much of playing nice. As soon as they feel assured that the victim won’t leave, out comes the monster.
“As soon as they feel assured that the victim won’t leave, out comes the monster.”
Yup. Once they moved in together it was all over. She fled after less than a month in the same house with him. Yikes. I guess he thought a signed lease was enough to keep her roped in.
“They aren’t mean to us because of who we are, but because of who they are“
So very true.
This rerun couldn’t have come at a better time.
Needed this reminder.
Thank you!
I hear updates about my FW’s behavior. Schmoopie’s bar is so much lower than mine, and it sounds like he’s gotten worse. More checked out, more selfish. It was such an excruciatingly painful process, but I’m so glad that cancer is mostly out of my life now (we do share a child together, so not completely free).
They never change, only get worse.
It is so tempting to think if I knew their current story, I would know the truth of my story. But even when I was intimately involved in a triangle, I was left in the dark. They were sneaking around, lying to their families, friends and each other. Their relationship was born of deceit and they will never, ever have an honest history. They created their own nightmare.
Honestly, it was precisely when I stopped giving a shit that they DID break up. I think part of the glue that holds cheaters together is the excitement of torturing the chump, and the fun of sneaking around. Once I stopped caring (I was very much enjoying my single life, things were going well), and the two of them moved in together, it all blew up within a few WEEKS (after over four years together). The reality of dirty dishes and taking out the trash and caring for three kids under ten isn’t nearly as fun as weekend romps together. And FW most likely couldn’t keep up the “nice guy” act 24/7. I had stopped taking the bait when he tried to goad me into a fight, and went totally grey rock (aside from custody and some financial matters). Without a target, it appears he turned on OW, and started abusing her. Apparently she wasn’t much better than he was. It was a very toxic situation. The only thing I feel bad about is that the kids had to witness all of that. Anyway, after one particularly bad fight, she packed up her stuff and left.
FW tried to keep it a secret that OW had dumped him, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. I won’t say it wasn’t satisfying on some level. But part of me was angry that it had happened, because it wasn’t fair to my kid to keep blowing his life apart (they had hyped up their “new family” and his new siblings, blah blah blah), and I knew that without OW there as a kind of buffer, my son could become the target of FW’s rage and unhappiness. FW lasted about 4 months after that, and then took his own life in despair, once OW cut off all contact and he knew he couldn’t get her (or me – yes he tried) back.
It is such a relief to me that I was well out of it all by then. Now I’m living my best life, gloriously FW-free.
You should send her a card.
“Thank you for taking the garbage out for me.”
I’ve thought about it. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.
I’ve been watching ex-FW blow up his subsequent relationships and another marriage (not any OW). While I should be thinking, “hey, common denominator, asshole” and be smirky about it, I too am just angry that he keeps affecting our daughter’s life with his shit choices. That I am finding myself dating and have to navigate those waters with her watching me (i.e. me keeping it fairly private after making one mistake in not doing so) is reason enough to be upset with his shit choices that put us all on this course. At least I can try to be a good example for how to carry oneself in the fallout. The anger over the injustice of it does ooze out from time to time though…bad mama, sigh.
Ugh.
As horrible as it is to say, I was relieved when he died. In huge part because I knew that even if this OW was gone, there would just be a succession of new women in his life, and every time my son would have to go through the whole cycle over and over again. Now he doesn’t. I don’t want to date right now, but even if I did want to, I’m not sure that I would, because I don’t want my son to have any more upheavals in his life. It’s just too risky if things didn’t work out. (And I love the peace and freedom of being single.)
And just what I needed.
Valentines day just descending…. always a time for looking back even though I really try hard to not do this (35 years of them wasted on a FW).
However, I know that while he is still poking the howorker and playing the old ‘living the dream’ game with it….. He is leaving me the fuck alone. Which suits me absolutely fine.
I’m healing. A work in progress. Living my authentic life with peace and love around me in abundance.
Hugs to you all ❤️
35 years married here, too. Five years out from leaving him. Valentine’s Day this year was the first one since I left that I didn’t wish he had been a real partner and we could have made it work, or wish I had a partner now. Nor did I look on my friends’ long term marriages and feel regret or sadness. In fact, I felt happy by and in myself, and bought myself a big bouquet of tulips, because to feel that way feels like spring!
I used to think that if cheater and schmoopie broke up, it would validate something in my superiority, like I had won the pick me dance even after I stopped playing. I used to fantasize about him slinking back to me after being dumped so I could laugh at him and slam the door in his face. Then I thought that if they didn’t last, it was worse, because it meant that all the pain he caused me had been pointless, that he had destroyed our marriage for no lasting reason. Then I stopped caring.
I fully realize he will never dump her unless he finds someone better to monkey branch to.
Hopeful Cynic,
This is a good point and I perspective I have NEVER considered: “Then I thought that if they didn’t last, it was worse, because it meant that all the pain he caused me had been pointless, that he had destroyed our marriage for no lasting reason.”
We aren’t even separated yet, and OW lives on the other side of the country. It’s been YEARS of an emotional affair that I haven’t been privy to for all that long. He claims they only met in person once and didn’t have sex.(I believe neither of these statements) They believe they are soul mates, that once they are together they will both be blissfully happy forever. I think the whole thing is utterly ridiculous. They are living a romantic fantasy without any of the pesky real life distractions like laundry and bills. “We” are over. I fully accept that I cannot stay with a cheater of this magnitude. Nor do I want to. But I struggle a lot with the idea that our marriage has ended for this farce. (It’s a useless struggle because I logically can grasp the fact that our marriage is ending whether he has made a wise choice or not) But I have a kid and I do dread my kid being around OW. (The plan is she will move here once we divorce) Part of me is so desperate to see them fail. But as you stated, is that *really* any better? Will my being right about them being idiots make any of what I am going through less shitty? No. It really won’t.
They are the sort of people who do not value or respect commitment, but they are also the sort of people who can’t be alone, and are selfish. Whichever side wins in their case is a them-problem, not a you-problem.
Once you’re separated/divorced, what happens to the shit show over there doesn’t make a difference to you over here working on building a better life.
The key thing is to forgive yourself for being fooled and used. The qualities in you that made it possible are good ones – loyalty, trust, honesty, optimism, integrity, etc. Those are the qualities to model for your children, along with the lessons you learned about discernment, and they will be okay.
Your last paragraph made me cry (a good cry). Thank you so much for saying that. I honestly think the worst thing about all of this was the way I got played. I feel like such a ridiculous, utter fool.
Thank you so much for this. It’s a good reminder. I do often feel SO dumb. But CL and CN remind me that I am in good company. We didn’t suspect fuckwittery because we aren’t fuckwits. And hindsight is 20/20.
“They believe they are soul mates, that once they are together they will both be blissfully happy forever.”
Pure delusion and escapism from reality. This is so gonna be a train wreck but in any case you are losing a cheating scumbag that has his head up his ass. You shouldn’t dwell on “my marriage ended for this farce”…like most cheaters and escapists his whole life is a farce, affair or no affair. Best wishes going forward with your authentic life.
One of my friends said that she almost feels bad for him because she is convinced that at some point he is going to realize what a HUGE mistake he made. (there is a LOT at play here beyond just typical cheating- OW says that they are destined to be together and her fairy guides told her so. He was never one to believe in ANTHING paranormal previously, so if he were to ever come out of this fog? It will be a really doozy of a fall to earth) At the end of the day, whether he ever realizes this was a mistake or not is really none of my business. Most days I realize that. Like “what happened, happened. I now HAVE to get out of here. There is no going backwards so whether they live a life of bliss together or she dumps him the day our divorce is finalized matters not.” But SOME days I get a little bogged down and struggle with the idea that things could be great for them. Two incomes, taking my kid on vacays that I won’t be able to afford as a single mom. The possible future shit sandwiches that I will have to endure sometimes distract me. But deep down I understand that I WILL gain a life. I just get distracted occaisionally.
Sort OfOverIt, shitty character is at the root of it. You sound pretty clear about how you feel about him/them. Even if they break up, he still sucks. Even if you feel you could forgive him… do you honestly want him? Do you believe he is a worthy partner you can still love and respect? Your marriage did not be for a farce, regardless of whether they stay together: the twu web of FW’s is not chump love; it’s genuine Naugahyde, just like their remorse. They are phony and superficial. Give yourself grace and time. Your heart will catch up with your brain and you will come to accept that your worth has nothing to do with that fuckwit. In the meantime, keep coming here for reinforcements and validation. We promise (it’s virtually unanimous), you will never regret leaving that cheater once you recover from the initial shock and heartbreak.
Meant to write: Your marriage *did* end for a farce
I have a friend left for an older woman when son was 10ish. She’d have to drive a couple of hours every other week, then her ex moved out of state and she put him on a plane on long holidays. Son comes back from visit & says Dad says he may change things up, not really working out….Son says so all this was for nothing?!? Astute kid. Sadly he died as a young man in an accident.
I’ve had a lot of therapy over the course of my life. I was taught that affairs are dysfunctional, and that getting involved in illicit relationships is unhealthy and wrong, and that people who get involved in affairs have serious problems. I agree.
If I make a cake using dog poop instead of butter, and outwardly it looks just like a cake made with butter, is it going to be just like a cake made with butter? Taste just like a cake made with butter?
The quality of the relationship is only as good as the quality of the people in the relationship. The health of the relationship is only as healthy as the people in it. Long term healthy relationships are a skill, and cheaters prove by cheating that they don’t have those skills.
Traitor Ex was caught on Tinder and going to the massage parlors of a certain racial demographic after he moved in with the “sole mate” of the same preferred racial demographic that he found on Craigslist in Casual Encounters. I wouldn’t look for a healthy person on Craigslist Casual Encounters any more that I would look for a Michelin starred dining experience in a garbage can.
My OG beloved therapist told me “not everyone you’re attracted to is an appropriate partner for you.” I don’t consider people already in committed relationships available to date. If you have no standards, no boundaries, no integrity, no moral compass, no ethics, no self esteem, no respect for yourself or others, and a big tanker trunk of sparkle, I suppose you can do whatever you want. But there is a very high price to pay whether you see it or not. People pay far more for cheaters than they are worth.
“Together” means nothing about the quality of the relationship, as everyone here can attest to.
autocorrect made SPACKLE Into SPARKLE.
People often stay together for very sick reasons. Don’t place so much importance on “together”. It takes a lot of work to change character issues and behavior patterns, and cheating is proof that they haven’t done the work and aren’t interested in doing it.
You can turn up the stereo as loud as you want, but a stolen vehicle you found in a junkyard will never be or feel or drive like a Ferrari you bought new with money you earned. And if you can have either one, why would you want the stolen junkyard jalopy?
‘People pay far more for cheaters than they are worth’👍 It’s inconceivable how cheaters are willing to throw away a great spouse, investments, family, a home, a reputation etc. etc. for this mythical sparkly co-cheater from fairytale land, that they will ride into the sunset with… 😂
“People pay far more for cheaters than they are worth’👍 It’s inconceivable how cheaters are willing to throw away a great spouse, investments, family, a home, a reputation etc. etc. for this mythical sparkly co-cheater from fairytale land, that they will ride into the sunset with… 😂”
….Additionally, their successful adult children, precious grandchildren, their own siblings, talk about fantasyland 🤡
This is such a great one to repeat. I think all of us go through that horrible “HOW ARE THEY STILL TOGETHER?!! I NEED THEM TO FAIL!!”
And I was told by everyone — including a therapist — that they won’t last. Well, they did. And somehow that can feel like our failure… but it isn’t.
It took me about 3 years — and maybe some ups and downs after — to finally reach meh and sincerely not care. I worked hard at not wishing ill on them and just letting things go so that my son and I were my only focus.
It did help that my own mother kept telling me “I hope they get married! Let AP be stuck with him and his financial mess!”
Now it’s been 7+ years since DDay. FW and AP live less than 2 miles away. I have no idea what they are up to. I think they are still together. Not sure if they ever married. And I don’t care either way.
But it’s important for new chumps to know that that terrible feeling will pass! They may stay together. They may not. But it should in no way affect you. Live your best Life and move on for your own health and happiness … and be thankful that FW isn’t your problem anymore. And rest assured that we all went through this.
“It did help that my own mother kept telling me “I hope they get married! Let AP be stuck with him and his financial mess!””
I think along similar lines. Let her spend the next 20 years wondering what he is up to on his phone. When he says he is going out with friends, let her wonder if that’s true. It won’t be my problem anymore.
This>>>>”Let her spend the next 20 years wondering what he is up to on his phone. When he says he is going out with friends, let her wonder if that’s true. It won’t be my problem anymore.”
The XFW used to work with the OW who is now his wifey. God only knows what went on when they were working together. But I do know for a fact that the XFW spends a good majority of his time at work “visiting” all the women he works with on the daily. No doubt he spent a lot of time “visiting” the OW when they worked together. And when she quit, they would meet-up for coffee before work and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were other meetings that I never knew about. Oh, and she was married to someone else at the time of all these meetings. So, they both know what the other does at work and outside of work when married. The OW/now wifey was there when I called the FW around 1:00am as I was getting worried about him. I thought he was out with work colleagues at an important dinner meeting with business people from NYC. The truth was he was on a date with the newly divorced OW. She was there when I called. She heard him lie to me. The foundation of their relationship is lies, sneaking around and having no boundaries with the opposite sex while married. People with this type of character and ethics deserve each other. It is a huge blessing to live in peace and not being wondering who he was texting when he’d flip his phone over when I walked in the room. Or close the laptop down when I’d walk in the room. It’s a huge blessing not to live with a pathological liar who would lie about the craziest things and when caught in a lie, would say, “I never said that.” or “That never happened.” or other crazymaking shit! I live in PEACE in my own home. Absolutely nothing in the world, not even a billion dollars would be able to make me go back to living with a disordered FW!!!
“It’s a huge blessing not to live with a pathological liar who would lie about the craziest things and when caught in a lie, would say, “I never said that.” or “That never happened.” or other crazymaking shit! I live in PEACE in my own home. Absolutely nothing in the world, not even a billion dollars would be able to make me go back to living with a disordered FW!!!”
Amen. The crazy lies and denials were the worst. Mine would fly into a rage about me “falsely accusing” him of things he actually did. As a pathological liar, he would put the statements out of his mind as soon as he said them, so he really did believe it never happened. With that kind of psychological profile, their lies become truth to them because they have no reality testing ability.
“Mine would fly into a rage about me “falsely accusing” him of things he actually did.”
Haha. Mine did the same. I learned after a while that if he got upset about something I said/accused him of, it was because I had hit the nail on the head. The angrier he got, the more accurate I was. I once accused him of trying to get pain meds off me (we were split, I had had dental work done, and he texted to “see how I was doing”. Except he never gave a f*** how I was doing, so that was fishy. And then he asked if I had gotten “the good meds”. And when I said yes he asked if I was going to use them. It was weird. So I finally said something along the lines that it sounded like he was trying to see if I’d give them to him.) And he flew into a RAGE. How DARE I say such a thing?? Thing is, he was addited to opioids and wouldn’t admit it. But he somehow always managed to have another “accident” when he was running low on pain medication. I now 100% believe that was what he was trying to do. I knew he didn’t care about me, as he had made it abundantly clear he didn’t care what happened to me, but he hoped I’d suffer.
As it turns out, it sounds like he suffered too. However, his suffering was clearly his own fault, so no sympathy from me. There are certainly addicts I have sympathy for, like the ones who are self-medicating for genuine trauma and/or physical pain. Addicts like your FW (just going by how he sounds, anyway) who are addicts because they are weak and hedonistic, and who cause pain for others, can fuck right off.
I have a brother who is an opioid addict. He got addicted due to terrible chronic pain. Not his fault. A FW taking dangerous drugs because he wants to feel good all the time- totally his fault
Thanks for that reminder about the phone and laptop. Glad that’s over.
Sandyfeet, Agree with you on the phone and computer. I had never seen the fuckwit move so quickly to hide or turn over his phone and put his laptop down whenever I walked in the room. It was just so odd at the time but once I knew, I was able to access both devices and download everything FW was kind of stupid by writing passwords down or storing them in the family password keeper. Glad my days of being a PI are over!!!!
Or synching the phone with the ipad!! His “neato” moment turned out to be his undoing. What an asshole. (Laughing as I type this.)
YES! Martha. For a little while, the OW will think that SHE is special and he cheated on you with her because she is perfect for him, and now he no longer HAS to cheat. But that will not last. And at some point, it will be possibly worse for her than it was for you, because presumably at some point YOU didn’t know he was capable of this double life and you were completely blindsided. But she knows exactly how capable he is of this, she was there.
My mom sent me a valentine of a cartoon man at dinner looking at his lady & his thinking bubble is saying “I’m bored, I wanna go home & play Xbox!”; while she is telling him “I’m so happy we’re having date night!” My mom wrote “bet you don’t miss this?” & “happy valentines to someone who deserves so much better!”. Now that is a true Valentine to remind me of what I’m not missing out on! Schmoopies may see the best of them for awhile, but I have no doubt (and 100% faith) that our exes remain the shitty people they are at their core & they eventually show that to the Schmoopie too. They will hide it though like a top secret operation; worried we will find out, point our finger at them & laugh “nah na nah na!” because aren’t we soooo immature like them?! #noshittyvalentineshere
“Schmoopies may see the best of them for awhile, but I have no doubt (and 100% faith) that our exes remain the shitty people they are at their core & they eventually show that to the Schmoopie too.”
They both showed each other who they were right at the start.
Quality people don’t screw around with people in committed relationships, and quality people in committed relationships don’t screw around.
You get what you accept and settle for.
True VH! But they won’t see it that way. Not for awhile, maybe never!
I agree they don’t see it that way. That’s why they get involved. And if, whether, and when they see anything doesn’t matter. Denying the truth never changes it.
Like many of us, I spent (wasted) a lot of time trying to Make Him Understand. It was so important that he see, agree!
One day I realized the zebra was still a zebra no matter how much he called it an elephant. It became inconsequential what they thought.
I don’t seek the consensus of criminals anymore.
Velvet Hammer, I too wasted a lot of time trying to ‘make him understand’. I would have had better luck nailing jello to a tree, teaching a two year old college level algebra, putting a square peg in a round hole…
Many of us wasted time trying to get them to “see” how badly they were messing up. Before I found the drugs I really thought there was something wrong with him (yes, the popular brain tumor theory) or deeply depressed. I did feel a bit vindicated when his dr friend said I hope this isn’t anything organic.
VH-
“Quality people don’t screw around with people in committed relationships, and quality people in committed relationships don’t screw around.” I finally realized this one day. OW lives on the other side of the country. Soooo… she is a 35 year old conventionally pretty woman whose best case scenario in a partner was a married man with a kid that lives a 7 hour flight away? What ELSE is wrong with her? She couldn’t find anyone less messy than that? At least just closer, or maybe a married guy without a kid? (just kidding…that would be equally bad, but I can’t help but notice that he SHOULD have been seen as the MOST problematic choice for any ONE of those reasons, let alone ALL of them) She literally couldn’t find anyone that ticked LESS “bad idea” boxes? And obv I have similar thoughts of my husband. Really? The ONLY people that wanted you were ME and that “winner”? Did the rest of the female population get a memo we missed?
Thank you Velvet.
Valentine perfection! Way to go, mom!!
What a great thing for your mom to do!
God how I wish this were my mother! I have only ever heard my mom defend Homewrecker and say I can’t be mad at her. My standard reply, “No, I have enough rage to go round!” Wouldn’t it be lovely to have someone say I deserve better. Please hug your mom and let her know how great she is.
Hope FW and the AP live a long and miserable life together lol. My kids rarely spend any time with the AP (no overnights with dad- I have custody), but even those few times are a shit sandwich— mostly because I know my teens do not yet understand how disordered FW and the AP both are. I’ve been very tight-lipped about everything with my kids so they don’t know the whole story (finalizing the divorce now- they are 16 and 18). I do think it’s important that my teens understand the extent of how FW and AP lie and manipulate so hopefully as time goes on I will be able to give them a little direction on that. For now, I let the kids see them for what they are– a father that barely spends time with his kids and is content to let them live at a much lower financially secure place than they had when he lived here. I luckily know very little about the AP and they reside in the next state over so I’m grateful I don’t have to run into them in my daily life- it makes it much easier to never think of them. FW seems to want to marry the AP which worked out greatly in my favor during the divorce process (asked to stay legally married so I could stay on his health insurance, but received a large retirement contribution instead=WIN WIN) so I’m quite happy they’re getting married– they are both cheaters so they belong together and won’t be able to ruin anyone else’s life this way.
Sometimes I catch myself wanting to send some documented proof of fuckwit’s cheating, bad character, DUIs to his current schmoop, but I stop myself now and realize that 1. She either inevitably knows or will experience it herself as he’s Mr. Pattern, and 2. My brain bucks and energy are better spend elsewhere taking care of me. This weekend I’m having a little bonfire and I’ll toast marshmallows over the flames of his character burning.
Fuckwit, if they are still together, I am happy to let her spend a whole bunch of their nonrefundable life believing the stories they’re telling herself about who he is. Just like I did. I know firsthand he lies like a rug and is not faithful to her (at the very least I was the “OW” in her relationship with him, after all) I have no desire to let her know he was on Tinder while with her. Much better that she finds out on her own, if ever, and then she can trip on all the time she spent with him and wonder what was real.
As Napoleon famously said, “Never interfere when your enemy is making a mistake.”
I used to hope for their break up. In the mean time my ex and the AP got married.
Now I want them to stay together. For one I know what she’s like and how the relationship will unfold. But most importantly: I want them to stay together for the sake of my daughter. She now has a sister whom she loves. She is autistic and has trouble making friends. If they divorce now, for my daughter that would mean she would lose her best friend/sister in the process and that would break her heart.
Rest assured that the side piece will get everything you got and nothing you didn’t get. Cheating and lying and conducting a secret sexual double life are not character assets, and illicit relationships are a flashing red dashboard light indicating that the involved individuals are not into addressing character defects.
As for me, I still have the love and trust of my daughter. I am content on my own. I will use what I have learned in this experience to my benefit navigating any future relationships, which means I will be in a much better situation, whether it’s on my own or with a romantic partner.
I don’t want to be in a relationship with an untrustworthy person, and the affairs showed me that is exactly who he is.
I won.
That is the way I look at it, too, Velvet. I have learned a lot about narcissists and see the signs in the personalities I now meet. If I do decide to date (it’s been 6 1/2 years on my own) I will have a much better stocked toolkit to detect major relationship flaws. I know for certain that any abuse towards me will result in immediately pulling the rip chord. I stayed with an abuser 21 years because I was married and wanted to make it work. No more of that.
My xFW’s younger sister and I share a birthday. She suffered oxygen deprivation at birth, and has challenges as a result. Even though the FW and I split many, MANY years ago, she and I have stayed in touch. About 10 years ago we started having lunch for our birthday, celebrating together. We don’t talk about the FW, and focus on the good things in our lives.
Today would have been our 50th anniversary. I laugh because I “feel “ like he lived without any consequences. Who cares he is dead. Crazy how a part of us, want things to be fair. I got everything, he died. I still have to trust he sucked. Nothing would have changed if he lived. Bonus, I’m happy, deep to the bone happy
On the day my divorce was finalized, I ran around my house yelling out loud to myself that I was fuckwit free! It wasn’t until our divorce was finalized that married howorker filed for her divorce. About 7 months after her own divorce was finalized, my ex-H died of a heart attack. Even though I’m truly free of them now, I’m working on my self, setting boundaries with his family who are in our kids’ lives, and enjoying life including hobbies and travel that my ex didn’t encourage.
As I see it, anyone who wants FW can have him. Someone who is dishonest and deceitful is not the kind of person I want to be around. FW was dishonest and deceitful and tried to project his personality on me (called me a liar, cheater, greedy, deceitful, hateful, etc.). I don’t need that kind of person in my life. Primary Schmoopie and the secondary Schmoopies are welcome to him.
Once I stepped out of the triangle, she started putting herself back on dating sites and he was pleading with her to be patient because he was getting divorced, etc. These two deserve each other and all the drama that they create through their actions and words.
I am not at meh yet (still angry over some issues) but I have more than the cheater will ever have. My adult son is no contact with FW (of course my fault according to FW). My parents live close by. I have made some great friends and am open to letting more friends in. I have a nice home that I am working on, a good job and more blessings than I can count. I consider myself lucky and am trying to help others and help the causes I believe in. Although my life is not all sunshine and roses, it beats a high drama life with a FW.
I feel nothing but compassion for any victims of xFW#2. He is a bipolar sociopath who comes across as a charming gentleman. Ignore the words, pay attention to the actions. Do a credit check.
It took a while but I’m now at:
I don’t care if he wins 100 million dollars in the Publisher’s Clearing House Give Away or if he gets hit by the Publishers Clearing House Giveaway van as it delivers his giant check and balloons to his door
Made my day Lorie!!
So dear friends, I have a schadenfreunda that will hopefully give you some pleasure.. it makes me both glad and sad. Ex FW was with sons for Super Bowl last weekend. He told them he has “clogged arteries” which is severely restricting his activity and he has no health insurance. Yes he is still smoking and drinking and eating lots of crap fast food. The Schmoopie dumped him after a year and he has been with another drunk since then. He was playing with the grandkids and said he was exhausted. I am soooo happy to not be with him! In some ways, his fucking around was a gift. He is a horrible “patient”…a big baby. He hurt his back when we were together and spent a year sitting on the couch until I finally convinced him to have a fairly simple surgery that took 45 minutes and fixed it…one year doing nothing! This current problem will be a lifetime issue..self-induced. Also means he can’t take “boner” pills cuz contraindicated for this disease. I’m sorry for him..mostly for my sons but yeah he did it to himself.
“This current problem will be a lifetime issue..self-induced.” His lifetime ain’t gonna be a longtime……..
At least you won’t have to be his caretaker, which he will need very soon. He could last years as an invalid.
First schmoopie that I know of was a catfish scam, and he sent tens of thousands of dollars over the first two months of connecting on a website. They didn’t meet, videochat, or speak for more than a two minute phonecall, after which he texted back that he didn’t understand a word, and “she” sounded like a man. Nevertheless, he found an apartment for them and planned to marry, pay for her college, have a baby, etc. He emailed her that everyone would envy him because he had a “hot babe” on his arm.
After discovery, in an effort to get our friends to stay away, and probably to cover up how stupid he’d been, he spread a story that my brain injury got worse, and I was paranoid, dangerous and violent. He quickly love-bombed and proposed to a succession of women. Although I’d blocked him from seeing my electronic calendar, he continued to share his, although I don’t know if he knew that. I saw all the expensive places where he wined, dined and traveled with them. He introduced friends to at least three other “twu wuv solemates” within a year. They were smart enough to dump him.
He had moved to an expensive apartment complex designed for high-income single women in their 20s and 30s, with a 24-hour free wine and beer bar. That lasted about 3 years. He was so smug and condescending when he was squiring women less than a third of his age. I resented him wasting marital funds on expensive meals and trips I never got during our 4 decades together, while my only trips were to the Food Bank.
He’s now in a nursing facility after he was hospitalized for heart attacks, and was sent to psych facilities for suicide attempts, although he claims he staged them for attention. He emailed mutual old friends that he’s “a broken man.”
I didn’t need him to fail at these love-bombing relationships, but there’s satisfaction in knowing that he did. And knowing that former friends also know.
He’s been married to Asian massage parlor Schmoopie and is “Daddy” to her now teenaged son for three years now. I gave it a year. No idea if they are happy, but I’d be willing to bet he isn’t. She probably is. She got her ticket to the American dream by snagging a stupid old American man to marry her and support her and her kid. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care that they are still together, and it wouldn’t give me a sense of satisfaction to hear he was alone and miserable and she was back to giving happy endings. So, definitely not yet to meh. 😂 I just wish I’d stop dreaming about the motherfucker. Had another FW dream last night. Makes it hard to get to meh. April 2nd will be four years from D-day.
Mine married a woman half his age that he met in China on a business trip (they met for one night, then he got her to the country on a student visa then married her when that ran out). They’ve been married 5 years. I’m not going to lie that an evil part of me is wondering what happens now that she has her green card….though he’s refusing to help with college tuition for our kids because I think he’s trying to keep her with money now that the age gap is really showing….I’m pretty much at meh 7 years out, but wasn’t at all at 4 years. Hang in there. You are beautiful and of great value.
I’m late to this posting but curious…do you dream of your ex when you are stressed out? When I have some stress in my life (nothing noteworthy) I tend to have dreams of my cheating, sociopath ex back in my life and the dream stresses me out as I panic.
Cheating or being a side piece is a fail right off the bat. I don’t consider landing a cheater or a side piece a winning upwardly mobile move and have no idea why anyone would. People have different belief systems and my experience is that a belief system based on integrity feels better and the payoffs are far superior than a belief system which accepts dishonesty.
It’s best if people with the same standards and values (or lack of) stick together. It doesn’t eradicate the pain of having been emotionally assaulted and deceived, but it is a small consolation that I haven’t lost a quality partner.
I’m so glad that you re-ran this. I think that I’m struggling because I’m in the middle of divorce proceedings right now and don’t have a choice about whether or not I learn details about FW’s life with the AP. It’s part of disclosure. I do, however, have a choice in how I think about it. I face that choice every day, sometimes it feels like I face it every hour. I just have to keep setting it aside with a “meh.”
They went to visit his mom? Who cares. So did I, meant nothing.
Credit card shows a dinner at a fancy restaurant? Fine.
Eventually, I hope, my brain will not even register whether to care or not as a decision to be made.
It will just shrug, make a note if one is needed, and move on.
When I was going through that, I did not focus so much on what FW did with Schmoopie and the secondary Schmoopie. Focus on every dime he spent. That money is of more interest to the court and judges than anything. Knowing what went on with finances can only help your settlement.
I really struggled with that part too Melon
They went to all the same places we did. It’s much easier when things are finalised and I don’t get to see what they do anymore. It makes healing more likely
A lot of it in the beginning is impression management and ‘look at me, this fated love was sooo worth blowing everything up for’
Hang on in there
you’re in the trenches. keep going.
i used to repeat ‘fuck that guy’ every day, all day, when i was in the trenches. now i hardly say it anymore, although i did write FTG on the underside of the dining room table, the one that i lost in the divorce. because. fuck that guy.
This was just what my heart needed. I’m 5 months out and they still occupy my angry thoughts. He cheated for 21 years and left me and the kids for a woman he met on Tinder. They were together for TWO years! He had a long standing hooker habit as well. I had no idea about any of it. Apparently I didn’t meet his emotional needs and wasn’t encouraging enough to him so I “locked him in his sin.” “Unlike HER who tells me my sex addiction doesn’t define me!” I can’t wait until “meh” shows up.
Well, his “sex addiction” (🙄) is sure ‘nough about to define HER if she stays with this FW.
One piece of advice to new chumps, and chumps who (like me) are on a longer timeline to Meh: don’t compare yourself to anyone else in the healing process just like you shouldn’t compare yourself to Schmoopie. Some of us take longer to heal, don’t find someone wonderful to love who understands reciprocity, spend years helping our teens who were abandoned by a parent with their own struggles, take a while to recover financially, or don’t feel like the dating market is interested in a woman or man of our vintage.
Tuesday may look nothing like the life we thought we had before our world exploded, or the one we hoped for in the second half of our life. Now that I’m mostly at Meh, I realize Tuesday is just an ease with where I’m at, enjoying my home that is decorated by me for me, loving my kids and close friends and pets, and being authentic in a way I never have been in my life. I’ve dropped any illusion of a perfect life, but I enjoy far more perfect moments than I used to. I wasted a few years thinking Tuesday was “somewhere” I had to get, but it’s really right here, wherever that is, and with ease. Thank you to my ex for breaking me open so I could find this out. (And schadenfraude to him as he lives on a treadmill fighting aging and trying to make enough money to keep his Schmoopie happy, when all I wanted was to grow old with him).
I don’t care if my ex and his trash ex gf stop doing whatever it is they do. It gives me a chuckle to think about her needing attention from a phony liar who’s 15 years older, broke, dick doesn’t work, and has a shitty toupee. He’s so phony he can only talk about sports and the weather, and he love bombs with phony surface compliments. And in all the years of them carrying on (over 20 now) he’s never told anyone about her. She’s just a trashy secret he can’t be seen with.
But what more would one expect from a whore who’s on marriage #5 and still carrying on with him?
When I found this blog, the first thing I realized is how brainwashed I was by conventional accepted beliefs about deceptive sexual behavior. I was also brainwashed, by me, into believing a story about who Traitor Ex was that I had written about him.
My brain needed washing, badly, to rinse out all the inaccurate and replace with the right information. The process is SLOW. Just like cheaters and side pieces are deeply entrenched in their beliefs about their behavior, and resistant to conflicting information, so was I.
Reading here daily is the antidote. This is where my perspective and beliefs changed, very slowly. It has taken me a long time to see things, feel things, do things differently. It did not happen instantly, overnight, or in a week by a king shot.
For me, that was what was necessary to take the importance off of them, the “together” trophy. The gas for your car on the road to Meh is here, and it’s a long journey. I feel a lot better in many ways, and not so much better in others. Being cheated on is a chronic wound that needs periodic cleaning and redressing.
The progress I have made is that I do not miss him, I do not love him, and you could not pay me to be married to him. The primary schmoopie is no one special; he told me so himself. “If it wasn’t her it would be someone else.” He defined himself as a cheater at heart, independent of me or our fake marriage with that admission.
His parents are 86 and 96. They have been “together” their whole adult lives. His dad regularly beat the crap out of his mother and brutalized the children as well. He made a pass at me while drunk at a wedding of some family friends.
“Together” doesn’t t mean jack.
If he had ended the marriage ethically, taken some time to recover and process, gotten into counseling in earnest, and at a later point began dating, that would have worse because that’s what a quality person would do, and I would deeply feel the loss of one of the good ones.
If you’re here, you are in one of the Ttianic lifeboats. Cheaters and side pieces keep swapping deck chairs. I’d rather be here than either one of them.
Ex and schmoopie imploded within 2 months once I exited their sick triangle. I’m so glad the sociopath never met my kids (to my knowledge) and that she’s not in their lives. But on the other hand, it seems like such a huge waste that he destroyed our family “for nothing”. I know I’m so much better without him either way, but no matter how things go, it sucks and we can only move on and heal ourselves.
There’s this couple that did stay together until he died of old age. Younger schmoopie made a point of stating in his obituary that he was among other fabulous things a ‘romantic husband.’ I just found that such an odd thing to write in an obituary- especially when Mr. romantic dumped the mother of his children to set up his new life with schmoopie. They are an entitled different breed.
Some do stay together, we could waste our life away hoping for their demise…
Reminds me of an obit where man died after a long illness holding his wife’s hand. And he married the love of his life blah blah. Well obit was clearly written by OW promoted to Wife #2. Leave out the part where the deceased was slept with his fellow married law partner and then he dumped his wife & 3 young kids for her to become wife #2. Congrats childless wife #2 who got to witness his long illness and he died fairly young. I’m hoping Wife #1 is rocking her life.
Every time I’d complain, “But he doesn’t DESERVE to be happy! Especially before me!” my friends would turn me around and say, “Remember, he’s NOT REALLY HAPPY at all.”
I admit it I still hope for this 4 blooming years later !! I still pray she cheats on him then laughs in his face just as he did to me. You know to get a taste of his own medicine .
But nope they are married with 2 children and I don’t want their girls to come from a broken home . I want their little girls to have mummy and daddy they deserve a family none of this is their fault.
They really do have a nice life and family together
Maybe if she could cheat and they stay together but he’s the marriage police forever living in high alert for all time would suffice .
The mistress who broke up our marriage dumped him before the divorce was finalized. The new mistress/girlfriend came into the picture after we were separated but before we were divorced. They married after our divorce was complete, but he took his wedding ring off whenever his parents came over to visit. She ended up dumping him and getting married to someone else in a two week timeframe, so it is likely her relationships overlapped. I think he has someone new in his life, but I do not pay attention to what he is up to these days. My relationship with my children is my focus right now and I have a great life!
Thank you CL. I needed to read that message. It’s been 3 years since the final D-Day (slow learner) and this is something I still struggle with every day. Apparently he has found true love with AP #2 and is a changed man. Any tips for short cutting the process to meh on that one gratefully accepted.
In my mind these ‘happily ever scenarios’ only truly happen when one partner is willing to service all the partners needs. My father had a three year affair with an AP 12 years his junior who had had a crush on him since her early teens and finally got him when he was 40. Which is creepy enough to start with. She treats him like a king caters to every single whim and lets him be right about everything and ramble on in his highly narcy way. That’s her strategy for keeping him. So if that’s how they want to live their lives, so be it but he’s had several conversations with me when he’s been rude and dismissive of her and his entitlement has been blatant. So some do last but one persons gotta be willing to pay the price.
RHA, I’d hazard a guess that you are a changed woman too! And that changed woman would not give Mr Cheater and his ilk the time of day. He’s found his level and you are on a higher plain. I would satisfy myself with enjoying the view at my level and leave the ground feeders to squelch in the dregs.
I used to be stuck on the “being them is a punishment” thing, because my ex doesn’t see being himself as a punishment at all, so how could that phrase possibly satisfy me. It seemed so unfair to me that he was continuing on as he always had, with no consequences.
Now I realize that to “be him” is to be the kind of person I have no respect for, could never develop affection for, and emphatically do not want to be around. He is not the kind of person I would ever want to spend time with, so why should I care what he’s doing? Perhaps this is a version of “trust that he sucks.” But it’s enough for me; it works.
Adelante, you’ve articulated what I think perfectly (I was struggling to put it into words). I’ve no children and I went no contact nearly 3 years ago (dumped in September 2019). I’ve never looked at social media or googled his or her names. Others have. One friend said ‘she’s not all that’ soon after it happened. I explained that I wasn’t interested to hear about either of them. That friend was my SIL; she was married to the ex’s brother. The brother also cheated and is an alcoholic, like my ex. My friend has continued to keep contact with the ex in-laws and remains living in a small town just round the corner from her ex. Having been through the experience now, I can see that this interest and connection delays recovery and is damaging. On the last occasion of seeing the ex, he tried to hug me and I instantly recoiled. I told him that he’d lost that right. He seemed to believe that I would continue to be in his life. To be fair, this frog had been so slowly boiled that his belief was reasonable – I had been completely under his thumb. I felt as you describe. There are enough people in the world to enable me not to choose to be friends with someone who has proved themselves to be an abuser, a liar, and a cheat. I have a hoodie that says ‘his loss’ on the front and that is what I now believe.
As to whether he and exgfOW are still together? I have no feelings about that. They had broken up multiple times in their teens and twenties, with two ‘final’ break ups. History suggests that this is the way they will continue for the rest of their lives. I pity the people who are with them during breaks. They will not know that they are part of a toxic triangle until they get dumped when the soulmates rekindle their love. Some people thrive on the drama of break up and make up. It never ends. Except that for me it has!
Oh how I remember those early days of “why her and her two kids, and not me and our son and his stepchildren”… I went so far as to send copies of his personal ads (yes, he was still online cheating on her – so no, she wasn’t getting a prince)… my righteous anger compelling me to ignore Mr. CLs advice to never act on anger. I sent her copies, I sent copies to her sister, and I sent them to myself so I could feign ignorance (I’m diabolical when I want to be).
And guess what… it worked! She dumped him while my son and I were on vacation. I got a text from Mr. Sparkles informing me of the news and that he’d be letting our son know. I replied “ok”. I felt nothing. So much for that.
Not even a week later, my son remarked “I think Dad has a new girlfriend at the gym…” because that is how he would spend visitation with his Dad… watching YouTube on his phone while Dad picked up a new victim at the gym. Six months later she was introduced to our son, shortly after they moved in together. They’ll be getting married. She’ll be his third wife.
You really have to get it through your head (and heart)… their cheating HAD NOTHNG TO DO WITH YOU. Push the cognitive dissonance aside and really let that fact sink in. There will always be another victim/OW… and likely, another one always waiting in the wings.
I know it hurts like a MF to realize your love wasn’t reciprocated (doesn’t mean it wasn’t real FOR YOU). But there is freedom in realizing… the abuse isn’t happening to you anymore and that is blessing.
The first few months I was OBSESSED with Jackass and his married OW breaking up. In my case, that’s how it worked out, because having a SECRET affair was exciting but having an affair that I knew about and her husband could then find out about—no, nope, nopety nope. He wasn’t interested in getting caught boinking his mother’s neighbor. That breakup didn’t give me the peace that I had hoped for, though. Jackass and MOW breaking up didn’t rebuild my life. That was what I needed to do to find peace and satisfaction.
Married 35 years my cheating ex and the whore found twu love only 2 years after I divorced him. Whore died then he immediately moved into another woman’s house where he is today. Sick and old she can take care of him. Not my problem anymore. Karma 👍
I have evidence that FWs are out to prove they can end up “happier” than chumps and have “higher market value” in case of divorce because they get so rapidly defensive at any suggestion that they might not. Right after D-Day, I found an angry online diary entry that FW made in which he whined that I’d told him that all he was going to find was “shit women” after we separated. He was so insulted that I bet he would have tried to prove me wrong by putting up some frantic “twuwuv” front if the affair hadn’t blown up following D-Day.
Never mind that FW completely misquoted what I’d said but the basic gist wasn’t that far off the mark. What I’d actually said is that, while he was cheating, FW knew he could rely on the fact I wouldn’t do the same to him if only because I’d never go near the kinds of cooty-carrying losers who’d take up with married or committed people. I’d never let anyone like that near my children so FW had the advantage of his less discerning, riskier tastes. What I was saying was a response to his suggestion we stay married “for the sake of the kids” and I said I wouldn’t because I knew I’d never meet anyone worthwhile while still wearing a ring. I was speaking from personal experience based on the ass-clown men who’d approached me while I was married or from observing the ass-clown women who’d hook up with married overlords in my narcy-cheater-ridden former industry. I never saw a single prize in the whole lot of them, just a lot of desperate melted Barbies in poor physical health who couldn’t nab a wealthy trustfunder their own age or shambling douchebags trying to exude “master of the universe” airs while wormily concealing wedding rings.
Ugly really is as ugly does. But in the period right after D-Day before FW stopped drinking his lunch, he still had his beer goggles on and still wanted to believe his AP was an “enviable conquest” until he started catching wind of workplace nicknames for the AP like “Debbie-wise the Gutter Clown,” “Tammy-Faye Taker” or “Honey-BooFoo” because she’d alienated a lot of people while trying to bonk her way into money or up the corporate ladder and by shoving other women under the bus. Apparently she’d also gay-bash men who weren’t interested in her behind their backs regardless of whether they were gay or not. That tends to make people take the PC gloves off.
Of course if FW was even capable of “true love,” it wouldn’t matter what other people thought of his Schmoopie but, being the shallow, image-managing, objectifying misogynist he really is, he was that much more embarrassed to discover he’d hooked up with the office punchline and started having paranoid panic attacks that everyone was joking about his affair. It was his turn to experience agoraphobia, chronic insomnia, stomach pains and mysterious stress-induced health problems. He tried to turn himself around by devouring feminist literature and the usual reconciliation stuff while attempting to cling to the marriage he wrecked but there was too much water under the bridge.
Curiously, I started looking better and better to him as I was pulling away. I guess that’s typical for attachment disordered narcissists who can only appreciate what they don’t have and shit on what they do have. Meanwhile he started looking worse and worse to me. Thank God for that. The process that chumps go through while ripping loose our own attachment to exFWs probably typically involves scales slowly falling from our eyes about our exes’ relative attractiveness. I wish there was a switch where we could instantly stop seeing them “through the eyes of love” but, for me, it was enough to know that the “eyes of love” aren’t reality-based. For instance, dedicated people don’t really perceive their partners aging but the rest of the world will and, furthermore, FWs trying to pretend they’re 25 and who lack character tend to crumble more than they would have otherwise. And compartmentalized FWs often won’t show primary partners the cheesy or sweaty “hookup” demeanors that FWs cop when on the prowl but others see it without a filter. After D-Day, I started feeling embarrassed to be married to the type of guy I would have thought was repulsive and creepy when I was 25. He’d always been so seamless in presenting a certain “wholesome,” “stoic” face to me and the kids but once I saw the sleazy, cheap side he showed elsewhere, I couldn’t unsee it.
In the end, it’s the lack of character that makes people so unattractive. Once out of the orbit of an objectifying asshole, I feel like I went back to really being able to see the beauty in people of all walks and physical types whose integrity makes them appealing. But those aren’t the types who swoop on married/committed targets, cheat or prowl.
After Dday FW was “trying” to fire Howorker, claimed he might lose business for alleged sexual harassment then it was because she was racially mixed, he just didn’t want to. He told me all the injuries he’d lately had were inflicted from her. Allegedly she threw phone at his head, hit his ear with a chiropractic tool, she held his backpack & released it send him to the asphalt. He wanted to install a camera in his personal office. I got recording of him 60s being the biggest wimp to her because she discovered I was on find my friends with him (I had added myself) she’s telling him she doesn’t believe anything he says anymore until he goes home with her.
It was embarrassing to see how he was acting to this person, and when I played the video for him, he tried to tell me he was acting to provoke her. He could only watch about a minute of himself. I believe it was soon after when I realized he was on drugs maybe aided by her I don’t know. All I have to do is play that video and I can see, he isn’t the guy I married. Thank God I found LACGAL.
He was starting to have dental issues and said it was from surfing injury, probably the stimulants….
Definitely not “looking through the eyes of love any longer”.
Being them sucks. It truly does, so leave them to it.
Once I got that and focused on fun things like looking at houses, enjoying my work, and hanging out with our adult kids and friends, the clouds began to go away. I was able to travel to help an elderly relative who had been widowed and to see my sibling who cannot travel. I have a big “once in a lifetime” trip in the planning stages, something my ex had zero interest in.
At this point, I have idea how he spends his time. He was retired when we split, so that’s a lot of hours to fill. Not my committee though, as a friend of mine likes to say.
Bon voyage!
I think my ex hates women. He treated the OW badly and they split. He dumped his latest girlfriend in a very cruel way.
I imagine he is on the hunt for his latest victim.
It was validating to see how shitty he treated them. I know this sounds insecure.
M – nah you dont sound insecure – embrace your inner rage – he can burn in hell
and he will continue treat all his girlfriends like dirt.
I was friends with the AP (now wife) husband. He is a sweet, super good looking (think Tim Tebow), loving person. He told me that to live with his wife was hell….she had three affairs in the space of 5 years, and every night had either a package or a package was sent from Amazon to his house. They fought constantly over money and he said he finally gave up the fight. He said she was mean, selfish, never cooked, never cleaned and was always gone. My ex has married himself. Yes, trust that they suck and the punishment is that they get to be two cats in a bag….headed towards bankruptcy no less.
I knew the former student was never going to leave her young, fit, well-off husband for Slacker Boy. She just thought FW had enough connections to boost her career in art. Nope. If he had, he would have used them for himself.
Slacker Boy has to live with the knowledge that he was born with many advantages and some inherited money and managed to waste them all on self-indulgent behavior. He has thousands of so-called friends, but the only person who would take his call from jail was me, his ex-wife. One of his friends told me that FW had lived off his mom all his life and never learned to stand on his own. Even his art is derivative.
It was hard at first for me to realize that he’d taken advantage of my idealism and commitment to benevolence, but I’m working on making more of my life center on my own needs and best interests and learning to get better at reading social cues. People on the autism spectrum are more likely than others to be taken advantage of because we have trouble imagining how dishonest some people can be, and some of the worst can fool anyone for a long, long time. I still believe that most people are basically decent at heart; it’s now more of a “trust, but verify” thing.
I love your user name!
I’m autistic as well, and think that that may have been one of the reasons it took me so long to accept what FW really was. I’m extremely honest, and a very bad liar (aside from the fact that it makes me feel icky to lie, I also have NO poker face). It took me a long time to recognize that FW was lying because he did it so convincingly (real tears, looking me straight in the eye, etc.). I try and be more discerning now, and have learned to trust my gut again rather than explaining things away or giving the benefit of the doubt.
“She just thought FW had enough connections to boost her career in art.” A big reason why schmoopie was attracted to and latched onto FW was because in her eyes he was “successful” as a film maker and writer, and she DESPERATELY wants to be a writer (she has written two novels, but they are, like, so bad). She hitched her wagon to his rising star and used his connections to sell her stuff and get her face out there. It didn’t help her much. I was honestly embarrassed by her book being displayed next to FW’s films (which I had helped to make). He was an asshole, but he actually had talent and she…well, she THINKS she does.
“He has thousands of so-called friends, but the only person who would take his call from jail was me, his ex-wife.” Similarly, FW had so many friends, but when he killed himself, I (his stbx wife) was the ONLY person who noticed he was missing, the only person who went looking for him, and ultimately the person who found him, nearly a week after he died. Those “friends” showed up in droves to his funeral, and expressed regret that they hadn’t realized something was wrong, but in the end even the people who KNEW that he had attempted suicide previously did NOTHING to help him. FW’s sister and parents (whom he wasn’t speaking to) and I arranged and paid for his funeral. The only people who actually cared were the people that FW rejected (in favor of shallow people who flattered him).
I don’t know anything at all about my ex’s life. I Don’t follow her on social media and I’ve blocked nearly everyone who does.
I say “nearly” because I have a few allies who stay friends on Facebook for the purpose of seeing if she gets involved in a conjugal relationship. Other than alerting me to that I have zero interest in her life.
If she remarries I will be the first to send a wedding gift. That would mean that I get out of lifetime alimony!!!!!
Her happiness, or lack thereof, is irrelevant to me. But my payments to her are very relevant. They’re my primary source of bitterness.
I whole heartedly support her getting married again! I’d set up her profile on dating apps myself if it would help.
How do you end up having to pay lifetime alimony to someone who cheated on you? Or does it just seem like a lifetime? What state do you live in? I’m in Maryland, and my attorney told me there is no way I will receive lifetime alimony from FW even though we have been married 36 years and I am the sole 24 hour a day caregiver of our mentally disabled 14 year old daughter.
I’m in Illinois. Alimony is for life once you’ve been married 20 years or more. I was married 30. Illinois is no fault. Alimony isn’t affected by reasons for the divorce. It sucks for me, but that’s the way it is.
Whenever I get too frustrated by the system I think of people like you. If you lived in Illinois you would get lifetime alimony, and you’d deserve it. The system was meant to right the kind of wrong that was done to you, but I got stung by the down side of it.
Yeah, my STBX asked for alimony but eventually dropped his claim – he was obviously not going to get it. It really pisses me off, the way something that was intended to help stay at home wives like my mom and June Cleaver is taken advantage of now by stay at home cheating drunks.
Thank you for your reply. I guess I’ll just have to count on God to give FW the consequences he deserves in this world or the next. That will be good enough for me.
I would really love “Trust That They Suck” embroidered on a pillow.
I was sure that the love birds would break up, but it appears that four years later they are still together. I want them to stay together for the rest of their lives. I don’t care if they are happy or miserable. I just don’t want them hurting anyone one else. I’m happily FW free! The quality of my life is like going from drinking from the Flint, Michigan municipal water supply to having Fiji on tap.
I have had people say to me, reassuringly, “they won’t last.”
But, I see it lasting.
Here’s why.
THEY ARE BOTH GETTING THEIR NEEDS MET.
Xhole is maintaining his Image Management by playing the Family Man who AP’s kids all living together. AP is enjoying the marital monies from a booming business I helped build. That’s that. They are not deep. They are shallow, entitled, selfish assholes who did not care about blowing up 2 families.
If I had a crystal ball, what could split them up is when AP’s Pap smear comes back abnormal. Or, if she gains access to his computer and sees his Prostitute and Craigslist searches for Randos. That might do it. But, he will make up some lies and she will buy it because it’s the $ that she’s after. Not authenticity.