UBT: I Don’t Remember Meeting Sex Workers

This letter, like any other letter from a cheater, is a big giant glass of Kool Aid flavored anesthesia. It is actually antifreeze, which tastes very sweet and kills you.

You can expect anything that worked before to be served over the net to you to escalate, doubled. Walk off the tennis court and drive away.

I don’t talk to liars. I talk to lawyers.

And as for the getting sober thing, I’ve been sober since 8/15/86. I can’t say I am any kind of relationship Jedi, but I have never cheated in my life, before or after getting into recovery. I would steer very very clear of anyone who has an active problem with alcohol and lying and cheating. He will not be capable of a healthy relationship for a very long time. Years. If ever.

I’ve had a therapist and been in Al Anon since 1986 too. All this did not make me cheater-proof, but along with this site it has been lifesaving in terms of recovering from infidelity.

Speaking of Mastercard – does anyone else remember seeing this sometime in the early 2000’s? I think there may have been others!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydsuf37_Auo

I…oh my GOD what an absolute pile of naval-gazing trash. From the gaslighting of “not remembering” a hooker habit, to the condescending “you don’t understand mental health” to the insulting “I dont know why you won’t forgive me.”

From beginning to end this letter is flaming garbage. The UBT almost doesn’t need to do anything because there is so much blatant bullshit in this letter there’s nothing to translate. It absolutely astounds me sometimes that there are people who actually pull this in seriousness.

I need a shower after that…

My xFW was thrilled when he got diagnosed as Bi-polar, since he then could continue to engage in lying/adultery/fraud/abuse and have something to blame it all on.

Any time he did ANYTHING questionable there was an easy alibi: “I can’t help it! I’m bi-polar!!” Meaning I was a heartless bitch for not just accepting his abuse of me, our finances, his children (from a previous marriage). Medication was only spotty since he would miss the highs of the mania part of the mental illness.

Not taking his meds was a deliberate choice on his part. He CHOSE to be abusive. I chose not to be married to him any more.

I.I.I.Me.Me.Me. False equivalence, blame-shifting, gaslighting. What a child.

The first rule of domestic violence I learned in training as an advocate is that batterers don’t batter because they drink or drug, they drink or drug so they can batter. The drive to abuse predates and underlies everything else. They use substances as a disinhibitor (cup of courage to carry out the thing they wanted to do anyway and snuff any remaining shred of conscience) and handy alibi (“Demon whisky made me do it, yer honor!”).

The above brings up the debate over whether cheating actually is a form of domestic abuse and if general observations, statistics, predictions and warnings related to one can be extrapolated to the other. Below is my usual spiel on it. Sorry if this sounds cold and wonky. It’s a bit difficult to condense the highlights from DV research because there’s so much of it and a lot of it is counter-intuitive at first glance but then eventually makes mind-blowing sense. I’m trying to share the “mind blowing” part of it because I’ve found that it can be like a jet pack propelling people to freedom and meh a bit quicker.

For what it’s worth, something else I learned as an advocate is that the psychology and MOs of batterers are virtually identical to cheaters’ psychology and MOs in very specific, clinical ways. One flaming example is something called “masked dependency.” Theoretically, masked dependency is when– due to whatever childhood horror an adult abuser internalized– parts of their psyches never develop beyond that of a traumatized infant and they tend to form pathological, infantile dependency on primary partners. But since the dependency is hypothetically coupled with catastrophic shame over those very feelings of dependency, abusers with this particular quirk will go to great lengths to “mask” the appearance of dependency both from others and themselves.

If this sounds very sad sausage and pathetic, bear in mind that, statistically speaking, the most lethal abusers often “suffer” from this “quirk.” Even if an abuser isn’t overtly violent, those who mask their own dependency (by rarely or never expressing jealousy, rarely appearing overtly controlling, not engaging in the gender bias and other antics associated with cartoon batterers and possibly even going overboard to appear to be the reverse of all these things) may be far more psychologically dangerous because their primary motives are concealed and disguised. It’s gaslighting on steroids. Part of the process of “masking” or denying the dependency is blaming the victim for deliberately “causing” those vulnerable feelings– rather than owning the feelings as self-generated– and also “rebelling” against the imagined campaign of victims to foster that dependency. That makes it easy to see where cheating might be useful to that demented agenda. Not only is the abuser able to feign lack of dependence through betrayal (“Hah, who needs ya, bitch”), they’re hedging their bets against their own fears of abandonment by lining up potential replacements and also  attempting to “dilute” their own infantile dependency by spreading it out among more than one “object” (partner). If the demented mental defense worked most of the time, most abusers wouldn’t constantly circle back around trying to control and rope in their victims over and over. But it’s important for victims to understand that, every time the abuser comes groveling back, the abuser’s demented resentment towards and need to punish the victim will increase along with the abuser’s shame over losing the staring context and exhibiting this pathological dependence. Given time, they’ll get even for it and then some.  

Aside from masked dependency, there are a lot of other overlaps between cheaters and batterers in terms of psychology and motives. The tactics of overt abusers and covert abusers may differ (at first. If it’s true that cheating is on the same continuum as domestic violence, tactics might “graduate” over time) but the devastating impact on victims is virtually identical, give or take contusions and broken bones. There’s even something especially terrifying about cheating in that victims, as virtual hostages, may have had only one slim assurance that their abusers might “keep them around and breathing”– the fact that the abuser had “sexual use” for them. What cheating signals to an abuse hostage is that the last tiny window of mercy is disappearing as the abuser seeks to “replace” the victim with another sexual appliance.

Whether the worst fears manifest or not, the ambiguity and anticipation of living with probabilities like this are soul-killing. The survivor– who may already have the fear of God put into them about what the abuser is capable of when the abuser still has “use” for the victim– finds themselves in a one-sided game of Russian roulette and having to guess what the abuser might be capable of now that the abuser  may no longer have a “use” for the victim.  I think this may be why cheating is often the last straw compelling DV victims to make a break for it– because cheating signals that the risk of staying is starting to exceed the very considerable risk of leaving. Since the statistical risk of being killed by an abuser increases 70-fold in the two weeks after a victim attempts to escape, it’s a measure of how ultimately menacing the act of cheating appears to victims that it could drive some to court the staggering danger of escape.

The inherent threat posed by cheating seems clearer when direct violence is involved and is harder to identify when abuse is “sub-violent.” But now that the field of DV research has evolved its understanding that the “coercive control” aspects of DV– the sub-violent, intense psychological torment, conditioning, control and coercion that batterers typically subject victims to– are not only associated with increased risk of eventual lethal violence, those sub-violent abuses are generally reported by survivors to be more devastating and paralyzing than even physical assault,  this has led a worldwide campaign to add coercive control statutes to existing criminal and civil DV policies and laws (https://www.theacecc.com/post/not-all-bills-are-created-equal-a-review-of-coercive-control-legislation). It’s also slowly led to an increased understanding that infidelity may be a key component of coercive control. https://www.joplinlawyers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FINAL-COPY-Infidelity-as-a-Consideration-in-Domestic-Abuse-and-Coercive-Control.pdf

It’s about time. I can remember when DA’s would refuse to prosecute well-documented cases of domestic violence merely because victims described perpetrators’ cheating behavior along with evidence of assaults and threats. As a result, victims were coached to omit details like this because of the risk that bystanders and courts would assume victims’ “jealousy” drove them to fabricate the rest.  I think the bias and resulting omissions have effected clinical research and public and professional understanding of domestic abuse for years since there was rarely any discussion of infidelity other than a common stereotype of the overtly and paranoically jealous batterer (only one category among several). Abusers’ cheating behaviors were typically left out of general profiles along with victims’ reports of same. Bringing perpetrator cheating into the equation made arguing that abusers are primarily motivated by control more difficult because, er, uh, doesn’t abuser infidelity make it look like abusers are trying to escape their victims, not the reverse? And doesn’t this cast victims who are bothered by infidelity as “controlling”?

I think that conundrum was tabled for years. No one would go near it. Meanwhile, on the front lines, I never encountered a DV survivor who wasn’t also cheated on in some way. It’s made me wonder if, at root, domestic battering is nothing more than the violent enforcement of sexual double standards, the point of which is to achieve total sexual agency and freedom for the perp and total monogamy for the victim. In other words, battering is a sex crime– a type of protracted rape to coerce victims to continue to be monogamous to perpetrators under conditions (the abuser’s infidelity) that victims generally wouldn’t agree to if they had a choice. It’s also as if, by cheating, abusers create a diabolical thumb trap that prevents victims from speaking out or getting justice because, merely by mentioning cheating within a litany of other abuses, victims are instantly cast as prevaricators or worse:  if, in fact, the primary motive to abuse is sexual control, cheating artificially transfers this motive to victims. Voila, it’s the victim who’s cast as jealous and sexually controlling– the ultimate blameshift.

The thing about domestic abusers is that they’re always diabolical and tireless in their efforts to transfer blame to victims. In that sense, cheating is the perfect tactic. But is it conscious? Abusers, like many serial criminals, tend to violently avoid reflection but, a bit like how single-celled creatures will always mysteriously navigate towards sources of nourishment, abusers inexorably and instinctively navigate towards their own self interests above all else. I think this means “intent” should simply be identified by “effect.” Did abuser’s action X result in response Y in victim and, did response Y benefit the abuser in some way (by collapsing the victim’s sense of self, giving the abuser more control, etc.)?  If so, the abuser meant it. (continued in next comment)

Today’s letter is ick-inducing! I’m very aware of being a reader outside of the actual situation.

It’s also a glaring example of how hard it is to have perspective when we’re in the thick of things, still reacting physically to their tones of voice, to their gaze, to posture and little pats and touches. This letter is gross manipulation and bs, so easy for us to spot.

Yet I also have a letter sitting in my inbox with the “you know I’d never hurt you” and “too bad you can’t forgive” and when I see its author around, he has the capacity to behave with submissive affect, hunching, eyes down, as if he’s sorry, and that body language combined with all my own body memories of moving toward connecting with him and of focusing on his acts of kindness is so much stronger than words, that his “don’t be mean, mommy!” energy makes it VERY DIFFICULT to hear the manipulation in his letter’s words. My whole body just says, “oh, he doesn’t really mean it that way; he just isn’t expressing himself clearly.” Like, I can read the exact same words that if I saw them here on CL, would just make me think, ha! there! see! it’s so obvious he’s a manipulator!

TMC, I’m so glad you wrote in. If your mind/body is doing similar things that make it hard to accept that he’s a glaring manipulator and selfish git, trust that a whole community here can see clearly that he does not have any of your interests at heart.

This cheater’s letter reads like an addict manifesto.

Someone who is still drinking, taking drugs, cheating with HS Schmoops or paying for hookers is, as CL says, is NOT AVAILABLE FOR A RELATIONSHIP.

Someone in recovery would be counting days, weeks or months of sobriety, not writing about “getting sober.”

Saying who feels remorse would not compare his cheating with spinal surgery. Or say he’s the one who’s been hurt when he was the one who cheated.

Here’s a wild guess: he doesn’t want to lose Too Many Chances’s income. He doesn’t want to move out of the house. He likes someone who does good wife appliance work.

I’d block him on text and put any letter he sends through a shredder, unread. He’s busy trying to get his enabler back.

This variety of FW reminds me of a seagull hopping around on a fake broken leg trying to scam a hot chip. My FW wrote a letter to my lawyer explaining he left our 9yo son unattended for hours at night on a remote farm as he had to go to his umpiring training an hour away (he’s nearly fifty umpiring in the middle of woop woop but thinks he is Tom Brady) and then he hurt his hamstring at training and then he had to have his hamstring iced to reduce the swelling and woe is me the whole thing took a lot longer than he expected. I mean what the actual fuck. He expected sympathy from my lawyer, a fellow man, cos he pulled a hammy. He kept the seagull act going when he hopped along to collect our son the next day having signed an undertaking from my lawyer not to ever do that again.

oh the shame of having ever fallen for their daft tricks.

You know, it must have been a mistake when they left sex workers out of the section on mood disorders in the DSM. And I love it when the UBT breaks down.