UBT: My Spectacular Betrayal

Universal Bullshit Translator

I think all of U.S.-based Chumpdom sent the Universal Bullshit Translator the recent Modern Love column from the New York Times “My Spectacular Betrayal” by Samantha Silva.

Yes, the cheating was spectacular. Unlike those proletarian grubby betrayals one reads about.

In fact, it was so exquisite that even Silva’s therapist agreed. He teared up at the thought of her thwarted happiness.

Because — spoiler alert — the shrink was the product of an affair. His mother was kept from her older children and suffered after she left her first family, and he concluded… affairs should be encouraged. Not, “The family court system is broken.” Or “Those were shitty misogynistic times before divorce reform.” Or even, “Mum behaved selfishly and hurt a lot of people. I feel conflicted.” Nope, he went with:

“Don’t let yourself be punished for choosing happiness.”

Why is happiness the only choice on the Agency menu? As long as we’re exercising choices, how about ethically breaking up first? You know, choosing honesty before fucking a friend’s husband?

HAPPINESS, Tracy! Don’t judge!

Fortunately, I have a machine to do the judging for me. But I don’t know if there’s enough Lebkuchen for the job. This is a lot of bullshit. Strap in, CN. It’s long…

I was sitting at DK Donuts in Boise, Idaho,

I’m spectacular, yet relatable. I too eat donuts.

on a dreary November day, talking by phone to my therapist in London, where my husband was, and where I should have been too, if I hadn’t fallen in love with another man and upended our world.

Unlike you, however, I have complicated international love triangles with my crullers.

It was a spectacular betrayal.

A beautiful pageantry of cheating. Revelatory. Spectacular! I could’ve gone with “ruinous” or “devastating” but why expend empathy on little people?

I had been close with David’s wife for years, as he had been with my husband.

I fucked my close friend’s husband to win a guy who fucked his close friend’s wife. #Kismet

We shared long Sunday lunches, holiday meals, had five decades of marriage between us and five children. Although there was always a gentle attraction between David and me, we never spoke of it.

We never spoke of chumps’ sunk costs — the 20+ year marriages, the lives of five children our attraction. We thought, “Fates be damned. Gentle attraction only comes along once in a lifetime.”

But in the months between my husband leaving to work in London and the end of the school year in Idaho, when I planned to join him with our teenage children, David and I crossed a line. We found ourselves in an old western bar one night after a fund-raiser.

It could happen to anyone. Finding yourself in a random cowboy bar. Who put us there? Mysteries! One minute you’re chastely writing checks for a good cause. Next minute you’re boot-scooting across boundaries.

#AchyBreakyFuckwit

A band played, we danced too close and said things we couldn’t take back, even though we tried the next day, and kept trying, until the pull was too great.

We tried not to give into a lustful night of country western dancing. Think of the children! I shouted internally, gazing at the tuft of chest hair caught in his pearl-snap shirt. Then the band struck up “Hoedown Throwdown” and I succumbed to boom-de-clap-de-clap, Baby.

#check4clap

From spring to summer, we debated whether to tell our spouses, the harm we would cause by leaving them,

We never debated the harm we would cause staying and cheating on them. We did, however, imagine how crushed they’d be  without our awesome, irreplaceable presence.

the happiness we might miss if we didn’t.

I vote crush them.

Despite my husband’s dalliances, he and I shared a rich intellectual connection, a big life.

My husband had dalliances and I thought, “Well, you might swap fluids with him, but I share a rich, intellectual connection.” My superiority keeps me warm.

Sophisticated people don’t expect monogamy or honest breakups. That’s what I tell my formerly close friend.

Our children felt secure.

I felt secure in my entitlement.

David’s were grown but still in early adulthood.

Safely past the child support years.

We had compromised in our marriages, denied parts of ourselves, often felt lonely, but who didn’t? Weren’t we happy enough?

We tried so hard just to think. But reason was no match for our frantic, raw desire.

Soon after the children and I moved to London, my husband asked me one morning, straight out, if there was someone else. I had deceived him for four months and couldn’t anymore. David told his wife the same day.

I couldn’t deceive him anymore, which is why I bravely let him bring it up first.

That was the day I first met my therapist.

I walked to his office through neat Edwardian neighborhoods fringed with fall color, trying not to come apart. He opened the door, a tall, elegant man with silvered hair, a firm handshake, kind brown eyes. He offered me an alcove seat surrounded by trees, a place I could breathe.

Trembling, I told him the story, trying to be fair to what my husband must be going through.

Seems like a respectable place. I tried to muster up some faux perspective.

“You have an equal share in the failure of your marriage,” he said. “This doesn’t change that.”

It startled me how clear-eyed he was when I had no clarity at all.

This delicious lack of accountability startled me. My husband is equally responsible for my cheating? I usually have to mindfuck much harder to achieve this result.

Week after week he listened. I told him David and I wanted to be together but couldn’t see how without causing unimaginable pain. The storm we had tried to anticipate was a tempest. Our spouses might never forgive us; we didn’t know if we would forgive ourselves. I didn’t want to go back to my marriage but didn’t know how to leave it.

I am someone with Great Intellectual Connections and yet I don’t know how to call a divorce lawyer and leave a marriage.

My husband pleaded, cajoled. He implied my life would shrink to the size of a postage stamp, and then I would know the terrible mistake I had made. When he was sad and reasonable, I felt worse, his hurt almost unbearable.

I cheated on my husband yet he begged for me. The narcissistic high was almost unbearable.

My therapist said that when he asked me what I thought, I often told him what my husband thought instead. People who knew us had started to weigh in — I was a bad wife and mother, had ruined a good man. He wanted me to trust my own voice, not theirs.

I told him I knew there was dopamine coursing through my brain, but that I had found, with David, a way of loving I recognized as love. Being with him restored me to some essence of who I was as a human being.

I can only recognize love by fucking my close friend’s husband. Her human essence is irrelevant. Probably smells of obsolescence.

“Do you hear how lucid you are when you say that?” he said.

“Do you hear how ludicrous salt water taffy is when you flap your muffins?” he said.

(I’m sorry, the UBT is losing it. The bullshit overflow has started an engine fire. I don’t know if this machine can take any more.)

He counseled me through telling my children, terrified as I was. My son had left London for his freshman year in Cairo, where the Arab Spring was at full tilt. I had to tell him over Skype. He would not speak to me for almost a year.

My two daughters were paralyzed, in shock, and grew distant.

If I lost them, I didn’t know if my center would hold.

I never imagined consequences. It was hard on my children, but harder for me really.

My therapist told me I needed time — there was so much to discover about myself in this new place. Being true to that self might eventually help them understand.

The important thing, kids, is that Mommy’s happy. Mommy needs to be true to her affair. And only with the radical honesty that comes from lying to your father’s face for four months as I boffed his friend, will come acceptance. #Discovery

I went back and forth between London and Boise, trying to come to terms with what I had done. My therapist kept listening, wherever I was. The more I talked, the clearer my thinking became. I finally agreed to leave our London house for good when my husband promised to bring our daughters home after Christmas.

In Boise, even acquaintances took sides, called me names, averted their eyes in the grocery store, crossed the street to avoid me. Old friends dropped me without a word. Everywhere felt like exile.

HEY! ENOUGH WITH THE JUDGEMENT! I WAS PULLED!

I told my therapist the tiny table at DK Donuts felt like the postage stamp my husband had predicted. “My best friend says I’m a pimped-up, postmodern Hester Prynne,” I said, “who’d better start embroidering her own Scarlet A.”

Anyone who has a problem with me fucking my friend’s husband behind her back for four months is a Puritan.

I could almost hear him smile.

“Stand up for yourself,” he said. “She’s right. Don’t let yourself be punished for choosing happiness.”

Yes, don’t cast it as blithering narcissism or monkey-branching Plan B shitacular relationship-annihilating cowardice, call it HAPPINESS. What? You would begrudge me HAPPINESS?

With his gentle but sturdy support, I began to reclaim my voice, my power. Despite the fear and guilt, I sometimes felt a sense of expansive possibility, the exquisite beauty of being human. Frightened as I was, turning back would feel like cowardice — that I wasn’t brave enough to reimagine my own big life.

With his gentle but sturdy support, I began to perfect my mindfuckery. I don’t have shitty morals, I am an exquisitely beautiful human being.

The Universal Bullshit Translator would like to know — What if the chumped wife finds happiness clubbing Samantha Silva upside the head with a threaded pipe? Can the chump feel an expansive possibility of exquisite humanness too?

No, that would be HARMFUL. And UNETHICAL. And WRONG.

But, but! Happiness!

No. Only Samantha Silva’s happiness lives in a judgement-free zone.

We agreed it didn’t make sense for him to counsel me anymore, being an ocean apart. I needed to find someone at home.

I flew one last time to London before Christmas in hopes my girls would see me. I took a room in a nearby house, lingered in cafes and waited. Alone, I wandered the holiday bazaar at the Barbican, feeling its brutalist angles, the alienation from my old life.

Woe. Mid-century concrete. Cold and ugly like my curdled regrets.

But I knew I would get through it.

I had a sadz. But it passed.

And suddenly my therapist and I were having our last session.

Just before the hour was up, he said, “For the sake of closure, maybe you could tell me what this experience has been for you.”

I wasn’t prepared for the question, but I had so much faith by then. I said when I felt like I was disappearing, he saw me. When I told him what was true for me, he believed it. “I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”

He gazed out the window and steepled his hands under his chin, gathering himself. Then he looked at me. “I know this is unusual,” he said, “but I’d like to tell you what the experience has been for me.”

I knew he was asking my permission. With no idea what he would say, I nodded.

“I am the child of an affair my mother had with a man she loved and left her husband for,” he said. “She had three children, but she never saw them again. I lived with her grief, and her guilt, all my life. She never forgave herself.”

I felt my chest sink. Nothing could have prepared me.

“I’ve tried so hard to be your advocate. I want you to have the happiness you deserve,” he said with a wistful smile. “But the whole time we’ve been in therapy about this, I’ve been in therapy about you.”

I looked out the window too, trying to take it in.

My story had reawakened the hurt he had carried — the tragedy of his mother, who had chosen her own happiness and suffered for it the rest of her life.

(The Universal Bullshit Translator has so many questions. Did the mother choose her happiness over her other three children? Did she not want to see her other kids again? Did her True Love forbid it? Did her chumped ex-husband withhold visitation? Did she have any agency in this? Was suffering for the rest of her life worth birthing a fucked up shrink? Apparently the shrink thinks so. There are a lot of gaps in this story.)

But rather than turn away, he had stayed with me. He had used it to grow as a human being, the very thing he had encouraged me to do.

As opposed to growing as a hairy-nosed wombat. No one encourages that.

(I’m sorry, the UBT is absolutely exhausted by this Modern Love column. WILL IT END?)

Sharing his story felt like an act of deep compassion and generosity. He knew I could integrate it, as part of my larger experience.

He knew I could use it as material. Not to reflect on how it must feel to be my children, or my ex-husband, or the woman I feigned friendship with all those years only to conspire against her — but to boldly proclaim my smug HAPPINESS in the New York Times. #FuckYourFeelings

The story of women does not have to be repeated. We can rewrite it — and must.

WOMEN! All women! Except those of you with husbands I’d like to fuck, you don’t count, but I know I speak for the rest of you, the monolith of ME, WOMEN!

He believed in my agency, that only I could say what would make me happy, who I wanted to be, and with whom. He was hopeful my children would come to see me as more whole, and more capable of nurturing them, which they have. He accepted my vision of a loving, equal relationship with David, which we still have today, 12 years later. He trusted me with my own life.

Better parenting through cheating! Try it!

Maybe, in our time together, he was talking to his mother too. To all mothers, all wives, all women, across time. But mostly, he was talking to me.

To all the mothers and wives and women out there, across time and space. The Miocene epoch when women were still quasi-apes to today’s AI fembots.  This is dedicated to you. Be brave enough to lean in and say, yes, I deserve cheater happiness. With burner phones. And furtive fucks in Motel 8s. And abnormal Pap smears. Know this joy.

I walked away into wintry London, unsure of the future but not the path. With his help, I had found my way.

I bellyflopped into a wintry Latrine, unsure of the Fruitloops of future but not the wrath. With his help, I had found my gallbladder.

(The UBT is kaput. Samatha Silva killed it.)

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FuckWitFree
FuckWitFree
9 months ago

Lord. I think I lost my sprockets, too. And I didn’t get such fancy schmancy word Waldorf salad. All I got was, “I didn’t think I’d get caught, I wanted to do this, and I was tired of thinking about you and not me.” Well, there you go folks. Narc entitlement in a nutshell. Just like Silva. I hope she has a random choke on a donut #pleasechokeyourselfonabearclaw

Cas
Cas
9 months ago
Reply to  FuckWitFree

“I deserve to be happy”

Conchobara
Conchobara
9 months ago
Reply to  Cas

I wonder how many of us got this on DDay. FW told me he cheated on me for 7 years because he was so unhappy in our 20 years together. So unhappy that he literally never told me he was unhappy. So unhappy that he told me he loved me several times a day. So unhappy that we went on family vacations and date nights and all the things you definitely do when your marriage is a hellscape. I will never forget him asking over and over, “don’t I deserve to be happy?!?!”

When I asked him why I am not entitled to happiness, why our daughter isn’t, there was no answer. Naturally.

FormerlyKnownAs
FormerlyKnownAs
9 months ago
Reply to  Conchobara

Same! We had a lovely home, money, great life, friends, beautiful child, a business, travel, adventure. But damn he was so unhappy because I didn’t serve up the porn style fantasy sex every night so you know – misery. He turned from saying every day how amazing and beautiful I was into hatred and disdain in one day. I thought we were happy. He said so.

Cas
Cas
9 months ago

This. Omg “I can’t have vanilla sex for my whole life” without like ever communicating his wants and needs to me. Said that I would have been “judgemental” because apparently I got so mean and rude the last 8 years of our life.

Erin
Erin
9 months ago
Reply to  Cas

Cas, I have to admit I was judgmental when I found his life-like bottom half of a porn star’s molded silicone lady parts sex toy. I put it on the table next to him while he was eating breakfast and sang “Last dance with Mary Jane”

FormerlyKnownAs
FormerlyKnownAs
9 months ago
Reply to  Cas

Same here Cas. I was vanilla. Meanwhile I never heard what he wanted and the same – he said I wouldn’t have wanted to do what he was up to. Also he never once tried to fulfill any of my sexual fantasies.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago

“Also he never once tried to fulfill any of my sexual fantasies.”

THIS. Why is it all one sided? Not once did he do anything I said I wanted to try. But apparently because I didn’t wear pigtails every time, I didn’t love him.

weedfree
weedfree
9 months ago

Red flag no 876 that someone is a narc – Fake Epiphanies.

Rarity
Rarity
9 months ago
Reply to  weedfree

Well-said.

My XH’s AP ran a blog where she was forever having epiphanies to the effect of “I need to take better care of myself.” It was forever me, me, me.

Leedy
Leedy
9 months ago
Reply to  weedfree

Great point!

Goodfriend
Goodfriend
9 months ago

She was celebrating and monetizing her cheating years ago. Here she speaks on the loneliness of being the cheater…er, “leaver.” https://soundcloud.com/thelonelyhour/16-the-leaver
I just made if through a few minutes of her self-congratulatory overblown outcast status. On the plus side, it sounds like she was ostracized. Or at least people crossed the street to avoid her. I didn’t care to hear more.
BTW, her bio says she is a novelist “and a recovering screenwriter who has sold projects to Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema.” I wondered about those unnamed projects so I checked her name with IMBD, which lists only ONE project in production and no credits.
I don’t know why she sees herself or her cheating as spectacular. More like utterly self-centered. When her therapists tells her he’s been in therapy due to the second-hand trauma from dealing with her and her story, she sees it as a GOOD thing. “Sharing his story felt like an act of deep compassion and generosity. He knew I could integrate it, as part of my larger experience.” She didn’t integrate it, she monetized it. She seems to think everyone exists solely to be used by her.
Ugh.

Phoenix
Phoenix
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

I’m sorry but what part of “spectacular” haven’t you understood she is???
No need for fact checking!
She’s so SPECTACULAR even her scorched earth break up was SPECTACULAR!
And the therapist only confirmed how spectacular and devastating this can be.
A toast to SPECTACULAR!

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

She authored “Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft” as historical fiction which as a genre, especially when mediocre authors “reimagine” the lives of dead intelligentsia, often seems barely a step up from fan fiction. For extra conceit, Silva writes it in first person.

I don’t think I can stomach reading more from Silvabut I’m curious how much of the book is some kind of subjective apologia for mate poachers/cheaters. The novel reportedly cuts short before Wolstonecraft contradicts her own utopian anti-marriage position by marrying Godwin and dying in childbirth. I also wonder how much Silva romanticizes the humiliating, sometimes life-threatening “hump and dump” experiences Wolstonecraft had, like being plunged into poverty by the married Fusilli (whose wife didn’t appreciate Wolstonecraft’s bid to live as a throuple) and then by American fraudster/international playboy Imley who dumped Wolstonecraft and their out-of-wedlock daughter for an actress and left them alone in post-revolutionary Paris during the time when Jacobins were lopping of the heads of Wolstonecraft’s friends and literary contacts.

At least until the sappy reconciliation at the end, I thought the film Mary Shelley did an okay job as a cautionary tale showing how feminists in the past would get tricked– or bamboozle themselves– into conflating women’s freedom and equality with serving male sexual agendas. As Mary Shelley explores her dead mother’s life path, Shelley’s Frankenstein is a parable about how much fun it was to be the side dish to Percy Bysshe Shelley whose FWitting likely contributed to the deaths of two women and several children.

Alice Paul argued– and I agree– that women should have equal rights even if some might misuse them. And they do. Every ten years or so there seems to be some renewed push to confuse women’s emancipation with embracing sexual objectification. Part of every generation of women seems to fall for it again for whatever reason, either because it sugarcoats the typical fallout from being used and abused (sex workers usually only tell the full truth about the horrors of the trade after they “retire”) or because they want to exploit the loopholes this creates, whether it’s being able to cheat on and “better deal” a faithful partner, bang their way up the career ladder or poach someone else’s mate. Even in an age when women can vote, earn a living, divorce, use birth control and own property and are a bit less likely to plunge into peril from making bad choices, I still don’t see much to recommend making those choices. It looks like freedom in a cage and is often at the expense of others. I fail to see what’s “feminist” about women emulating the most reviled behaviors associated with patriarchy, traumatizing children or stabbing other women in the back.

Conchobara
Conchobara
9 months ago

Nice Alice Paul reference! Most people think Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton but rarely Alice Paul who is arguably one of the most influential historical feminists. 🙂

Ain't It a Shame
Ain't It a Shame
9 months ago

“.I fail to see what’s “feminist” about women emulating the most reviled behaviors associated with patriarchy, traumatizing children or stabbing other women in the back.”

Well said.

Cam
Cam
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

Ten bucks the therapist doesn’t exist or threw her out when he realized he had a dipshit on his hands.

Then again, terrible therapists ARE out there, so who knows.

FogChump
FogChump
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

I looked her up on an internal system here in Hollywood. Both her listed projects are inactive now. One of her two credits comes from a Lifetime movie in 2007 about a woman who struggles after divorcing an abusive husband. Right before she did the same thing to her husband.

Just awful all around. It’s hard to read what they think and how they rationalize their happiness in their head over the destruction that they cause people who loved them. I’ll be damned if she continues to monetize her story after hurting people. There are laws that stop criminals from making money off of their crimes. This is no different. I work as a producer and I know her manager. I will never work with this woman.

Apidae
Apidae
9 months ago
Reply to  FogChump

It’s interesting that she calls herself a ‘recovering screenwriter’. It’s much more lucrative to write scripts than novels. I guess “recovering” makes it sound like it was her decision to stop writing scripts anymore, instead of being wholly unsuccessful at it and having carpet-bombed any chance of using her husband’s network to sell scripts.

Name Changer
Name Changer
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

Therapy in that sort of house in London EXPENSIVE. That sort of revelation, even in the last session, seems unprofessional to me. Not sure it happened.

Susan
Susan
9 months ago
Reply to  Name Changer

And amazingly, the fact that the therapist’s mother NEVER SPOKE TO HER 3 CHILDREN AGAIN did not give her pause. Or make her think about the damage that she was doing to her own children.

MrWonderful’sEx
MrWonderful’sEx
9 months ago
Reply to  Name Changer

I think the same thing. There was either no therapist or not one who said any of this. She made him up to try to justify her cheating. She had to make herself the hero of her shitty cheater story.

Diane J. Strickland
Diane J. Strickland
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

Her slop here does read like someone trying to take a tired and unremarkable story of “I don’t care about who I hurt” and turn it into a psychological archetype so powerful that it pushes her older, experienced and damaged British psychotherapist into therapy for himself and he confesses to her he was healed by it at the deepest level of core wounding. So THAT’s how exceptional her story is! Someone buy this story now! Sheesh.

formerchumpnowbride
formerchumpnowbride
9 months ago

It reads like fiction. “And then everyone stood up and clapped” kind of thing that never happens. Of course, if it DID happen the way she says it does, it was extremely unethical of that therapist to take on patients who have been involved in any sort of cheating situation. It just seems all too easy, all too “I’m the hero of this story” to be true for me. Considering she thinks she’s a novelist, this stinks of fiction. Self-congratulatory purple prose makes me roll my eyes no matter what the topic, but this just takes the cake.

Kara
Kara
9 months ago

I agree. This story doesn’t sound real. And of course it’s difficult to prove that a therapist DIDNT say anything like this because she knows it’s illegal for a therapist to break patient confidentiality by naming her as one of theirs.

It’s ethically questionable for a therapist to tell an “I had a patient who” story even without naming them. So she can claim literally anything she wants and nobody can actually come out and say it’s not true.

lulutoo
lulutoo
9 months ago

I agree–that therapist sounded completely unethical to me. I’ve had therapists start pouring out to me about their own lives…and that’s when I find a new therapist. Also, it made me laugh when in her ‘essay,’ she says something about her ‘best friend’. If said ‘best friend’ is married, I’d say, “Run, best friend; run like the wind–she might find tru wuv with your husband next!”

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

They always seem to think their story is “spectacular” or “fated” or “written in the stars” or something. My FW and his OW sure did. Truth was it was a mundane workplace affair like tens of thousands of other selfish people.

That’s funny about the novels/films. FW staked his whole personality on being a filmmaker. He did at least have two films to his name, that even won awards. OW fancies herself a novelist (and she writes FEMINIST novels, with FEMALE protagonists, and STRONG WOMEN [i.e. women who fight/abuse/kill people with no remorse] because she HAD to do that as absolutely NO ONE ELSE was writing sci-fi/fantasy like that; she is BREAKING THE MOLD, she is REVOLUTIONARY – when, uh, clearly she just hasn’t read much fantasy/sci-fi because there are plenty of stories with strong female protagonists…it’s my favorite genre and I’ve read a lot), however, her book is one of the worst things I’ve ever read. Just poorly written, and amature, and cliche, terrible pacing, flat and uninteresting characters, etc. I only read a little of her second book in the series, but it seemed like more of the same. (She champions indie/self publishing, because that’s how she got published and says things like “just because you aren’t traditionally published doesn’t mean you aren’t a writer/your book isn’t good”. But like, sometimes it does.) So I think the delusion of thinking their lives are “spectacular” just invades everything they do, not just the affair. It’s a very narcissistic worldview, fancying themselves the center of the universe, special, unique, better than everyone else. And it’s because they think that they are so much better than you (the betrayed spouse) that they don’t feel badly about hurting you or depriving you of your life as you knew it, or lying to you, etc.

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

“My FW and his OW sure did. Truth was it was a mundane workplace affair like tens of thousands of other selfish people.”

Yes, same for me. My cheater got his dick caught in the office auger, and his house of cards collapsed fairly quickly.

Luckily for me he didn’t try to come back except for a short week where he lied and used me again.

Oh I know I would have in the early days given it my all, but I also know in hindsight that I would have booted him in fairly short order. I didn’t know how repulsive he would become to me while I was still in the agony stage of pain.

DrDr
DrDr
9 months ago
Reply to  Goodfriend

Agreed. She is cashing in on her tired old tale and framing it as “art.” #narcaholic

Kara
Kara
9 months ago

“Change the story of women”

Don’t lump all of us in with your narcissistic cheating story, you navel-gazing bent spoon. I absolutely don’t want that kind of story.

DrDr
DrDr
9 months ago

So many laughs here. But also a huge cautionary tale. If anything the shrink’s story proves that cheating is wrong. His poor mother lost her other children! How is that a sign of encouragement to Samantha Silva or to anyone?? Go ahead and blow up your life so you can lose your three children and then share a lifetime of guilt and shame with the one child you have access to? I don’t get the logic there. Also, doesn’t this cross the lines a bit? He is projecting his mother’s situation onto the client. Bottom line: the exotic locales don’t make up for the poor life choices and the legacy of pain for the children of the cheaters.

Although Samantha apparently made a life with the exit AP, it will always be hurtful to the kids that BOTH their parents were liars, cheaters, and cowards. That BOTH their parents lived so recklessly and thoughtlessly (dalliances).

I am also a child of such a situation and I DO NOT endorse it or romanticize it at all! No way!!! It only leads to intergenerational trauma, humiliation within your own family, a lifetime of pain and rejection, domestic violence, fear, isolation, legal troubles, repeated chumpdom. I have a chump mom and now I’m the chump mom…

Keep your choices clean, people. Don’t pass that shit on to your kids. They do not deserve it. No one does. Life is hard enough without being born under a scarlet letter.

walkbymyself
walkbymyself
9 months ago
Reply to  DrDr

“Also, doesn’t this cross the lines a bit? He is projecting his mother’s situation onto the client. Bottom line: the exotic locales don’t make up for the poor life choices and the legacy of pain for the children of the cheaters.”

This was exactly my thought. How can he serve as a therapist, when he has such a personal investment in the issue?

MrWonderful’sEx
MrWonderful’sEx
9 months ago
Reply to  walkbymyself

I haven’t seen many therapists but I would be appalled if a therapist didn’t recuse him or herself because of a situation that is too personal to them. I guess that is only done in court cases but not with therapy clients? Yet I have a friend who has spent a few decades in recovery from an addiction who says all their therapists are themselves addicts who have “been there.” Maybe that helps in that realm but in cheating? I don’t get it. I think the therapist is fiction. And if he isn’t, he has no business treating people who have trauma from cheating. Jeez.

Isawthelight
Isawthelight
9 months ago

Has anyone seen the movie “The Son” on Netflix? It is an intense story about the consequences of abandoning a marriage for a new life. Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern do a great job. I am pleased to see that Netflix is providing this thematic material the “Dirty John” series is another example.

Elsie
Elsie
9 months ago
Reply to  Isawthelight

Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to watch it at the right time because I’ve heard of the sad ending.

My kids had been begging me to leave for years but felt shattered when he finally took off and made the separation long-distance. My older one said later that it was like Dad blew up their childhoods and left them wondering who they were. Both of them had serious issues which I worked very hard to address, and both graduated from college and are successful both on and off the job. Believe me, I don’t take that for granted.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago

“WOMEN! All women! Except those of you with husbands I’d like to fuck, you don’t count, but I know I speak for the rest of you, the monolith of ME, WOMEN!”

OW is an outspoken “feminist” and self-proclaimed champion of women and the oppressed (whatever the flavor of the month is). And yet she had zero and no qualms about hurting me, a woman, or about helping a man (my husband) hurt me. She actually joined forces with him to abuse me and attempt to take my son from me.

It still bothers me that people laud her for her allyship, when she is really a selfish, self-absorbed, stupid, and horrid person. The fact that FW ended up abusing her too, so much so that she left him, doesn’t really help as much as it should.

FuckWitFree
FuckWitFree
9 months ago

I hear you. The fact that some people can’t see the stupid and reality is highly disconcerting.

IcanseeTuesday
IcanseeTuesday
9 months ago

I just don’t get it.

If her (defensive and self-absorbed) confession concerned nearly any other criminal act, it wouldn’t be published. Or maybe that’s where we are now. “I stole money from the church coffers” “I ensnared my neighbor’s dog” “I left a car running in my best friend’s attached garage”.

At least she wasn’t forgiven for the series of planful actions, except by her co-conspirator. Yuck.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  IcanseeTuesday

I wish OW in my case had experienced people crossing to the other side of the street, being ostracized, or judged. Instead, all my “friends” welcomed her with open arms, cut me off completely, told OW her her “love story” was a “fairytale” that they envied, and that she was an amazing person.

Society is far too accepting of cheating and the myth of the fated love or chasing your own happiness at the expense of everyone else.

I’ve reconciled myself to it. I cut all of those “friends” out of my life. In the end, OW and FW did me a huge favor, because my marriage was terrible and abusive and I didn’t even know how unhappy I was. My life is a million times better now. However, that doesn’t make what they did “right”.

Juniper
Juniper
9 months ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

“Instead, all my ‘friends’ welcomed her with open arms, cut me off completely…” Same here, Light. Yet another level of betrayal. This element of my story nearly killed me. I’m glad your life is better now but still sorry you had to endure such pain. Hoping one day my life will be better too.

MrWonderful’sEx
MrWonderful’sEx
9 months ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

Reading how she was shunned in town made me think there must be some good people in Boise. But I must say that in my own town, klootzak has been shunned. People don’t cross the street but they don’t invite him over and refuse his invitations to get together. He shows up to the ball field where our son is playing with his friends and the other parents say hello if he says hi first but they don’t engage him in conversation. It’s a relief as I think the more he feels like an outsider here, the more likely it will be that he will follow his genitals… errr… career and move out of town. It’s good to know there are good people who will refuse to associate with a FW.

knittedrobin
knittedrobin
9 months ago

I was reading a Reddit post where a wife asked for advice because her husband wanted an open marriage.What fascinated me was that different commenters told her that men always think they will have queues of women waiting to have sex with them after they open a marriage, but it doesn’t necessarily happen like that. (It is far easier for a woman to find no-strings sex. ) What was more interesting, though, was that they said potential OWs do not like it if the wife is perfectly OK with the arrangement and having flings on the side too; it puts them off. So it sort of looks as if, for OWs, hurting the wife (and kids) is actually a major part of the appeal of having an affair.

JustWondering
JustWondering
9 months ago
Reply to  knittedrobin

This kind of speaks to one of the most logical arguments against polyamory. If a guy tells me up front, I am not planning to leave my wife but she’s ok with me having you on the side…it’s him saying I will never be number one in his life. What’s in it for me? Sure he’s being honest, but why would I go into something knowing I will always be a sidekick?

Chumpasaurus45
Chumpasaurus45
9 months ago
Reply to  JustWondering

My ex FW felt he was totally honest and upfront with whoever he screwed because he proudly told me he always let them know up front he was not going to leave his wife and family. ( until he was done shopping around for the right one)
What a hero!!😑
He really relieved all his guilt with that simple upfront disclaimer.
Hey, he didn’t promise you anything, it was you who read into it!
Every action he showed them was that he was leaving his wife, loved bombed to extravagant levels, shopping for town houses to place them in and new cars, trips, meals, jewelry, letting them feel like they were absolutely his number one. But when he tired of them and moved on to another, his declared waiver get out of jail free card cleared him of any wrong doing in his warped sick conscious. Pretty dark.
None of them left when he told them he wouldn’t leave his wife either, it just made them stay in the pick me dance triangle that much longer to prove to him they were WAY the hell better than his wife.
Yeah, worked out exactly as he planned from the start, every time. A whole bakery full of cake for him on the ready.

Apidae
Apidae
9 months ago
Reply to  JustWondering

That’s not really logical argument against polyamory, that’s the reason it holds no interest for you. A guy throwing a line about how his wife is totally fine with him having a girlfriend, pinky swear, is not what all of polyamory is like (and 99% chance that guy is lying anyway).

Daughterofachump
Daughterofachump
9 months ago
Reply to  Apidae

I’d certainly assume that unless I had a private conversation with the wife.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  knittedrobin

In my case, OW had very low self-esteem, and “winning” my husband from me made her feel validated and special. If I’d been cool with it, there would have been no victory for her. She would have just been a plaything.

FuckWitFree
FuckWitFree
9 months ago

OWs prob get off on the power and control move of their position. Prob why they also get off on spilling the beans. Everyone gets their rocks off on the thrill of the power move.

It’s sick, abberant, and so unattractive to me that I’ll never risk another relationship again

Stephen
Stephen
9 months ago

As I was reading this I was thinking about how “women” want to behave like “men.” The reason this jumped out at me is because “we” all think “women” behave “different” than “men.” For me the problem is that when it comes to behavior “women” are just like “men.” Shitty people are just shitty people no matter the “gender.” (PS, maybe the therapist should have submitted his counseling flash back to last week’s “trigger challenge.” LOL)

Emma C
Emma C
9 months ago

I had read the story over the weekend and couldn’t make sense of it. Too much craziness on display.

At one point in my own life, I was going to do some therapy to deal with an abusive childhood and asked the therapist if she could share what events in her life had shaped her philosophies. She was put off, but I didn’t want someone who was going to blame me or sugarcoat or teach me to undervalue my own feelings. She was clearly put off and tried to sell me on the idea that they were trained to be passive observers.

Rebecca
Rebecca
9 months ago
Reply to  Emma C

Just my belief here. It is important to me to have a therapist that isn’t a blank slate. I need someone who can share their life experiences when it is important to what I’m going through.
My therapist has been my lifesaver and I know she gives every client what they need.

Conchobara
Conchobara
9 months ago
Reply to  Rebecca

I really appreciate that my therapist has been through betrayal, too. She completely understands all the stages of grief and betrayal, betrayal-related PTSD, etc. She is a great guide because she has experienced it all herself and can walk me through it with real-time understanding.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
9 months ago
Reply to  Rebecca

My therapist had been through a messy divorce, she gave me good suggestions about dealing with my attorney, seeking Divorce & Recovery group, and thinking about my future. She pointed out the strengths in some of my relationships. Best of all, she was an addiction counselor and had great insight in the mind of the late life addict ex. She and LACGAL saved me.

LadybugChump
LadybugChump
9 months ago
Reply to  Emma C

Exactly. That’s why I’m no longer all that interested in counseling as The Solution to life’s issues. The passive observer asking questions that are connected to a cultural norm or not, or simply the pursuit of happiness still moves the current that way. And why don’t counselor’s share their personal viewpoints? They do come out even if the are masked with the ethics of passive observation.

Luziana
Luziana
9 months ago

One of the things that malignant narcissists do very well is to invent enablers and flying monkeys where the supply is scarce.

So when the majority of family friends and acquaintances served shunning and consequences of COURSE the therapist was all supportive of the vibrant spectacular Adultery!

Her teenagers knew better, but just wait them out. It was the price of Twu Wuv.

It’s the long winded equivalent of ‘and then the whole room applauded.’

It didn’t happen.

JasonCh
JasonCh
9 months ago

“In Boise, even acquaintances took sides, called me names, averted their eyes in the grocery store, crossed the street to avoid me. Old friends dropped me without a word. Everywhere felt like exile.”

I read this as I am driving the Happy bus. Why can’t you be happy for me. Wait, what, you won’t be happy for me? Don’t you see the gaping hole in my heart that is currently covered up by my Scarlet S. I wear that Scarlet S with pride — because nobody understands true love — and it gives me super powers — like being able to throw my husband, family and anyone else that gets in my way under the bus I am driving. Get under my bus — pay no attention to my sadz — only my happy.

Also, without knowing for sure. Fuckwits take on what the therapist said sounds like shoe-horning what he said (or thought) into what she wanted to believe. When I first read it I took it as he was reflecting on how much hurt the therapist’s fuckwit mother caused during her own lifetime.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
9 months ago
Reply to  JasonCh

The ex tried to tell me that his addictions counselor told him to not show up at home and then observe the consequences. We all thought he had killed himself. I called BS. I’m sure the disappearing act was for young AP

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  JasonCh

““In Boise, even acquaintances took sides, called me names, averted their eyes in the grocery store, crossed the street to avoid me. Old friends dropped me without a word. Everywhere felt like exile.””

Yep, good old fashioned consequences. Cheaters/liars hate that.

Lemony Henry
Lemony Henry
9 months ago

OMG, thank you. I read this last night and just about had a rage stroke. Wonder how the chumped kids and ex-spouses feel about reading this drivel. Argggh I know how the UBT feels, and sadly, I have no lebkuchen

❤️ Velvet Hammer ❤️
❤️ Velvet Hammer ❤️
9 months ago

Nope. Not buying. Your an asshole, lady.
There’s nothing modern or loving about any of this. Would you mind fetching me a knife? There are plenty to choose from in the backs of your husband, your children, and your former close friend. Actually, there are a couple in each of their backs considering you wrote an article for the NYT glorifying your abuse of your family and close friend and rebranding it as a legitimate pursuit of happiness.

There isn’t a comment section in the article. Here’s her Instagram account if you feel moved to comment directly.

https://instagram.com/samanthasilvawriter?igshid=MmJiY2I4NDBkZg==

DrChump
DrChump
9 months ago

Of course there isn’t a comment section. For a paper that prides itself on being woke and not offending others NYT shit all over the victims of infidelity. I gave up on that media outlet years ago after Jason Blair scandal. This would be the only time I wish I had Instagram, I would love to see the comments.

ChumpedForANewerModel
ChumpedForANewerModel
9 months ago

Ugh, they really are all the same. These cheaters believe they can do anything they want for their happiness except be honest to the person they took vows with. Absolutely disgusting. If the “pull” is so strong why not get out of your marriage honestyly? Oh but then you would have to take the chance that Plan B will not be available. It seems like cheaters really do have a playbook. I am sure this BS is in that book somewhere.

CBN
CBN
9 months ago

Exactly, CFANM. A FW is dishonest, selfish, shallow, and amoral. He may truly be “unhappy” and want to leave his marriage (mine was, although he never told me, but in hindsight it was pretty obvious) but he won’t leave unless/until he has another fish on the line. He’ll never leave honestly because that would mean he’d be all alone while searching for the perfect woman he assumes is out there with no guarantee of finding her.

So mine cheated for at least six years until he found one he thought was worth jumping ship for (I found out later that he would have accepted many others, but they went back to their husbands, boyfriends, or just didn’t work out for other reasons). Hard to believe there were so many other suitable candidates besides me. I’ll admit we didn’t have much sexual chemistry, and I realize that’s important, but that’s essentially the only reason he left. He found someone sexier, with bigger boobs, and manicured nails. Those were apparently his only requirements. (Yes, he told me with great sincerity that she painted her nails and I didn’t, as part of his “explanation” to me.) Meanwhile, we had a child together, the same education and profession, 25 years of shared personal history, close family connections, a beautiful home, a lifetime of substantial savings and assets, etc. He didn’t even want to try marriage counseling. I still don’t understand it, except to say that this is who they are. They’re just not very deep and do not value the same things that I do.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  CBN

“I found out later that he would have accepted many others, but they went back to their husbands, boyfriends, or just didn’t work out for other reasons”

I never found out, but I suspect this was the case with my ex. OW was just the only one to bite, because she was gullible enough to buy his lies, and easy to manipulate. She wasn’t even close to being his type (in fact, she was pretty much everything he said he disliked in women/everything he ridiculed women for), but she was willing to do anything he wanted her to, so he just molded her into someone closer to what he wanted (i.e. me – it was scary how much she changed and how much she copied me, and I wasn’t the only one who noticed).

Leftbehindlily
Leftbehindlily
9 months ago
Reply to  ISawTheLight

Isn’t that weird how OW copy the wife? I have noticed how often it happens – it makes me wonder if the entire thing with APs has more to do with the wife than it does the MM. Some sort of sick competition in their little twisted minds.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  Leftbehindlily

My hair, my clothes, my hobbies, my musical tastes. She became completely unrecognizable from the person I first met. She tried desperately to copy my recipes (and failed – I saw the photos she posted of her pathetic attempts and they did NOT look appetizing; OW was not a good cook) – she even tried, via FW, to convince me I should write and publish a cookbook, but I saw right through that, and when I said I wasn’t giving away my secrets, FW got angry, lol. If there was one thing FW never stopped appreciating/wanting it was my cooking.

It was like a competition, “I can be your wife…but better”. Funny though, because why would you want to copy someone whom your “boyfriend” is cheating on and has rejected? I know FW had a lot to do with it, because he would compliment me in front of her (and wouldn’t you know, she’d be sporting whatever it was he said he liked, whether it was pigtails or a mini skirt or tight jeans or whatever, the next time I saw her), and I’m sure made both positive or negative comments about me to her in private, so she knew what she should and shouldn’t do (“my wife is so controlling/jealous/doesn’t want me to have friends/is lazy/is “vanilla” in bed, etc.”, “my wife always made my favorite meal, bought me X, let me X, did X for me, etc.”), although most of that was just lies.

If her Instagram is anything to go by, OW has completely reverted back to looking like the person she was before FW. Which just goes to show it was all put on for FW’s benefit and not authentic. She has no real core self, and has low self-esteem.

CBN
CBN
9 months ago
Reply to  CBN

And I guess he did try to keep me as Plan B, in that he couldn’t “decide” between us for two years. I finally got tired of being in limbo and filed (classic story of the chump having to file). When he came back to the family home for a brief period after I filed (I couldn’t yet legally keep him out), he feigned interest in reconciling, but I found out shortly thereafter that he was still seeing OW, so I pushed the divorce through as we had already signed everything. When he found out it was finalized, he said to me, “You know, I didn’t come back to get divorced.” WTH? What does that even mean? In cheater-speak, it means, “I was hoping I could keep eating cake, but you put a stop to that.” Sadz.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  CBN

“he did try to keep me as Plan B, in that he couldn’t “decide” between us for two years. I finally got tired of being in limbo and filed (classic story of the chump having to file). When he came back to the family home for a brief period after I filed … he feigned interest in reconciling, but I found out shortly thereafter that he was still seeing OW, so I pushed the divorce through”

This is exactly my story (except it was 4 years). When FW got wind I was actually going to file, he jumped in front and filed first (can’t risk ruining his narrative that I was the problem and he HAD to leave me for being so awful – can’t possibly have it on record that I was divorcing him for cruelty and infidelity). Shortly after that he and OW went public with their relationship. I guess he realized I had decided I was no longer plan B, so he had to go with plan A whether he wanted to or not. Turned out to be an error of judgement on his part, as OW left him only a few weeks after they finally moved in together. He came circling back to me (for sympathy? for another chance?), but by then it was far too late and I was DONE with him.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago

Exactly this!

On D-Day and after a multiyear affair, my ex said, “But, even in the last few weeks, I still thought that you and I would be together” and “I wasn’t sure it would work out with her [the AP].” WTF!!! He admitted that he was keeping me as plan B just in case and didn’t see anything wrong with that. 🤬 #entitledAF #unbelievable

And, honestly, it’s that attitude that permeated our entire mirage. I can see that now.

Chumpasaurus45
Chumpasaurus45
9 months ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Yeah, they always have the plan B. I imagine it as capturing as many beautiful, amazing butterflies as you can and sticking them under a dome on your shelf. No one else can have them and you may want to circle back around if plan A escapes your grips. Doesn’t matter that the butterflies have no life and are running out of air. They are only being held for the FW’s selfish purposes anyway.

Hopeful Cynic
Hopeful Cynic
9 months ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. In the months of false reconciliation I asked both cheater and schmoopie what they had thought would happen with their affair. My ex told me “I just figured she’d dump me some some day.” And schmoopie told me “I figured you would dump him when you found out.”

So the cheaters keep their chumps as a fallback plan B and schmoopies think they’ll win the pick-me dance the chump doesn’t even know is happening.

This story shows that married cheater-schmoopies are doing both simultaneously.

ChumpedForANewerModel
ChumpedForANewerModel
9 months ago
Reply to  Hopeful Cynic

Agree, they do try to keep us as Plan B. I am just extremely happy that I lost the Pick Me Dance. In the long run, I won. I have my freedom and am finding the new me.

Big City Chump
Big City Chump
9 months ago

The AP, my former friend of 25* years, could have written this. She and FW apparently have always been soulmates. Mmm hmm. She waxes poetic to my kids about how much she misses me though. Seriously. My kids have a severe eye roll perfected and I hope they whip it out when she says this. AP and my FW are living the life as small as a postage stamp. Consequences. F-these entitled to true happiness live love laugh a-holes. I could NEVER be happy again if I caused harm to my kids. Period.

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  Big City Chump

I didn’t really latch on to the postage stamp analogy. But I am starting to see it fits my cheater and the whore to a T. First they tried to go back to his life that I helped him build, and the only difference was he swapped out appliances. I assume he figured no one would notice or care if they did notice.

When that didn’t happen, he tried to keep her hidden away, but then he was busted in rank and lost his cushy office and relationhip with the mayor. (who on earth can trust an idiot who was boinking his direct report with admin security).

So then he moved her fat ass out of the county, worked a few more years and then retired early giving up almost half of his retirement, because he had a side gig which actually was quite lucrative. They could have lived in luxury, well except he had by then started gambling, and he gambled them into bankruptcy.

Then they fled to another state where I am confident they rewrote their story and fooled some folks for a while, until their real selves came out.

I didn’t really know any of this until many years later when they tried to fuck over my son and his family.

I got curious a few weeks ago and just to research for this column; went to whores FB page, and I saw that it was just a long string of those memes about how Whore is this and whore is that, and she is just a marvelous person who everyone loves, and my favorite was how whore hates liars and can spot one from a mile away (bwa ha ha ha). I hate those stupid self serving memes anyway, but what I noticed was that almost no one was reacting to her shit. Not even her own kids.

He died a couple years ago, and before that he never had a face book presence. I like to think he had enough self awareness to keep his mouth shut, but who knows. Maybe he was just like me and didn’t do much face booking.

ISawTheLight
ISawTheLight
9 months ago
Reply to  susie lee

“they tried to go back to his life that I helped him build, and the only difference was he swapped out appliances”

And he chose a faulty appliance. It became pretty clear pretty quickly that the person holding his life together had been me all along. OW couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. It all fell apart for them, and fast. My life got better and better, his spiraled down the drain. I never had to lift a finger to help that process for him.

“went to whores FB page, and I saw that it was just a long string of those memes about how Whore is this and whore is that, and she is just a marvelous person who everyone loves, and my favorite was how whore hates liars and can spot one from a mile away (bwa ha ha ha).” Very similar here. OW is a master at spotting a narcissist (LOL), champions abused women (after calling me a liar who was trying to smear my husband’s good name when I spoke about MY abuse), is a social justice warrior and an ally, and posts memes about kindness. She fishes for compliments from people, but has very little engagement. She blocked me on FB years ago, but I can still see her Insta and Twitter. I find them amusing.

Apidae
Apidae
9 months ago

This Modern Love column is the FW equivalent of those old Penthouse “true stories” letters, or maybe a worse-than-average self help book. All of these supporting characters who, in specifically-recalled and literary novel style dialogue, assure the FW that she is the real victim here. The silver-haired handsome therapist who gazes into the middle distance while revealing his own tragic backstory, the best friend who supplies a Hester Prynne analogy about how the FW is the true martyr here? I don’t think these people exist.

Also, interesting throwaway about her husband’s “dalliances” that never comes up again. Does she mean her husband was a serial cheater?

Daughterofachump
Daughterofachump
9 months ago
Reply to  Apidae

Apidae, I wondered about that.

SunriseRuby
SunriseRuby
9 months ago
Reply to  Apidae

Hmmm… Did I misunderstand the best friend’s Hester Prynne quote? I took that as a clever slam, actually, and thought she was one of the Idaho people who dropped Slutty Sam. I did puzzle over the therapist’s response to what she did, and I guess I also conveniently forgot Hawthorne’s compassion for Hester, it’s been so long since I read the book. I suppose I’m guilty of interpreting the best friend’s response in the way I hoped it was meant!

SunriseRuby
SunriseRuby
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

…the therapist’s response to what she SAID…

portia
portia
9 months ago

I chose my happiness over continuing to exist in a marriage with a cheater. I filed for divorce, figured out how to move myself and the kids, and move forward with our lives. My FW Ex didn’t seem to have a plan. I didn’t really care how other people felt about my decision to leave. I was done trying to fix something that could not be salvaged. I just didn’t want to listen to more lies, didn’t want to hear about my “duty” to forgive my spouse, again, and for a seemingly never-ending future. I really did not care if my Ex would be happy, or not. I knew I couldn’t be happy living in a lie.

Oh my! This is not exciting or dramatic click bait? I don’t have dramatic characters hanging on my every word? I am not commuting to international cities, or wandering through markets? I wandered through the grocery store, and then fixed dinner for my kids. Is that exciting? I am not devasted, I don’t have to wear letters on my chest proclaiming myself to be an outcast? Oh! Woe is me! I am not the most interesting person in the world. My sorrow, my desire, my random thoughts won’t keep an audience titillated for hours? How can I possibly live a life of predictable meals and medical appointments? Must I set the alarm everyday, and go to work? Must I be a reliable pick up after school for my children? How did my life ever become so mundane?

I guess I’ll just have to soldier on. This chump is going for another cup of coffee. Try to amuse yourself until the next episode of Real Life.

Trudy
Trudy
9 months ago

Wait. London vs Boise?? Yes. Her choices all make sense now! Was Professor Henry Higgins her shrink? I’m sure the children think back fondly of the year mummy went all round heeled twatty on daddy. I guess Ida’s Ho really does got it going on.

Doingme
Doingme
9 months ago

What’s truly spectacular is the postage stamp life. That’s the truth.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
9 months ago

Sometimes in my head I rewrite a cheater’s idiot story like this one. I change the script to one where the person immediately shares with the not-yet-a-chump that they are feeling things that are outside the agreement of the relationship BEFORE taking any real world action with anyone else.

Then I look at the rest of the statements about the person’s feelings like “I didn’t mean to feel love like this for someone else” and “I don’t want to hurt my children” and “I want to be happy and right now I’m not happy”. In the changed scenario, none of those feelings bother me, because nobody is being deceived and everybody is equally informed. It’s sad, and so hard, and very awkward, but it doesn’t feel like self-serving entitled bullshit.

These cheaters love shifting the lens of perspective to try to gain sympathy by turning the volume knob of the deception down and turning the feelings knob up. I grab that deception knob and crank it, because the deception IS the root of the cheating problem.

All the shit this idiot said can be summed up by saying “I’m a liar, and I believe my feelings are the only ones that matter, and I want everyone else to celebrate that.” If she wanted another story to apply to her, she should have resolved relationship 1 before starting up relationships 2+.

❤️ Velvet Hammer ❤️
❤️ Velvet Hammer ❤️
9 months ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

My MIRAGE (not “marriage”) was over whenever it was he was wondering whether or not to act on his attraction to others. He didn’t have to cross over into acting on it. Just mulling it over is enough of a dealbreaker for me.

I made a commitment to not act on attraction to others, aka “forsake all others.” I kept it. I never wondered if I should or not.

Cheating is wrong. Not a “should I or shouldn’t I” issue for me.

Wrong actions don’t bring you together with the right people, or good ones.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago

Yes! And it sickens me that my ex consulted with his friends at least a year prior to the start of the sexual part of the affair to see what they thought he should do about this nurse who, according to him, was really flirting with him.

These friends tell me they told him to “shut it down” because he’s married.

I content that he wasn’t so much seeking their advice as he was bragging.

His affair and the end of our “mirage” (thanks, VH) started when he began questioning whether or not to pursue this woman.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

*contend 🙄

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago
Reply to  Amiisfree

Yes!!! 1000 times yes!!!

Although I second everything you write, I’d like to highlight this part: “These cheaters love shifting the lens of perspective to try to gain sympathy by turning the volume knob of the deception down and turning the feelings knob up. I grab that deception knob and crank it, because the deception IS the root of the cheating problem.”

Ain’t that the truth!! My ex liked to do this: He waxed on about listening to “his soft voice of defiance” and how he “let love blossom,” and thought he’d be happier with her. He said I wasn’t perfect either. He said a lot of things about HIS feelings. As for my feelings, he was silent, except when he considered that I would suffer without him. #kibbles

The deception took a backseat.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
9 months ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Oh yeah, and also, if a person doesn’t want to be with me, then it shouldn’t be necessary to hyperfocus on one other person in order to make that decision. Why the comparisons? If growing feelings for another person raises your awareness that you don’t want our relationship anymore, then OK, but why should I be sloppy seconds for someone who can’t have the person they want more?

I don’t want anyone settling for me, and I don’t want to settle. If you want someone else, even for a while, then I’m not what you want, because that’s not what I want. If you want to try someone else on like a shirt because you “think” you’d be “happier” with that person, then you are dating, not committing. That means you’re not with me, you’re just around me.

I’m not a doll a person can pick up until they get bored, then toss in the closet until they miss me. I don’t have to let anyone treat me that way. Period.

Amiisfree
Amiisfree
9 months ago
Reply to  Spinach@35

Exactly, Spinach. Soft voice defying what, exactly? All reason? Any sense whatsoever of adult responsibility? Or did he mean he was a tween defying the mean monster enemy that was the person he chose as a partner?

He was just trying to put pretty pink glitter bows on ugly turds. Deceiving one’s intimate partner is abuse. He can stick his abuse right in his blossom. 😊

New York nutbag
New York nutbag
9 months ago

I’d say this bitch was a douche bag…but douche bags have value…… sorry this self pity bizzaroworld justification of shitty choices and behavior framed in a “we didn’t mean for it to happen we just fell in love ” horse shit premise is one of my many triggers. I explode when this is brought to the rehash. ” well you were always working and he showed me attention ” ah so you were showing me all the attention, mutual respect , affection and so forth I needed correct? Never do any of them think they have any culpability.

DrChump
DrChump
9 months ago

Bingo NYN!!!!

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
9 months ago

OMG!!! The best UBT of all times. Poor thing must be in the ICU! I am praying for its speedy recovery.

“We did, however, imagine how crushed they’d be without our awesome, irreplaceable presence.”
This is what cheating is all about…

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago

Bravo CL!!! 😂👏

Motherchumper99
Motherchumper99
9 months ago

I’ve written to ML editors several times regarding cheating as domestic violence and abuse…. Cheater apologists like them make me sick.

Spinach@35
Spinach@35
9 months ago

Thanks for doing that, Motherchumper. I will do the same. Perhaps our voices will help, although it’s hard to counter the prevailing attitude among cheaters and cheater apologists that monogamy is for peasants, not for people who go to a therapist in a “neat Edwardian neighborhood” and are oh-so sophisticated. #evolvedmyass

I would like to ask the author what she thinks of consent. I mean, the chumped spouses were deprived of their ability to consent. How would a sophisticated betrayer respond to that.

Dirty Water
Dirty Water
9 months ago

Maybe it’s time to write a letter to the NYTimes Ethicist and ask their opinion of a newspaper that prints pieces written by cheaters bragging about being willing participants in domestic abuse.

Char
Char
9 months ago

I read this over the weekend and started (rage) googling. Silva’s ex-husband directed a George Clooney/Michelle Pheiffer movie, “One Fine Day.” Her beloved “David” is 10 years older and a big-time criminal defense attorney. He was the lead defense counsel for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11, and has appeared on 60 Minutes for doing so. It doesn’t appear that they have ever married but reside in a $750k home in Boise. I found a photo of Silva, David, and her two daughters on social media that showed them goofing off. I suppose Silva is incredibly proud of herself for having snagged this Big Important Man away from his family and then getting her happy ending.

No Shit Cupcakes
No Shit Cupcakes
9 months ago
Reply to  Char

I suspect daddy Silva was a cheater too and liked to dress it up.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/idahostatesman/name/mike-silva-obituary?id=35527926

Chumpy VonChumpster
Chumpy VonChumpster
9 months ago
Reply to  Char

That makes sense then… If ‘David’ can defend an actual al Qaeda terrorist, he obviously would have no issues defending how he and Silva blew up two families “for frantic, raw desire.”

Chumpcat
Chumpcat
9 months ago

Love it Chumpy! A professional liar and a fiction writer, a match made in sparkly turd heaven!

Adelante
Adelante
9 months ago
Reply to  Char

10 years older. That means he’ll need her care; wonder if she’ll stick around then.

Char
Char
9 months ago
Reply to  Adelante

He’s already 74. She will be 65 this year.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
9 months ago
Reply to  Adelante

I’m sure his adult kids will jump right in….🙄. Guess it depends on who is named in the Trust.

TooManyTears
TooManyTears
9 months ago
Reply to  Sandyfeet

“Depends” being the operative word! Lol

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago

“He believed in my agency, that only I could say what would make me happy, who I wanted to be, and with whom.”

And yet, they take that very agency away from their betrayed spouse. Had I known my cheater was spending thousands of dollars on his whore(s), and that he was subjecting me to STDs and lying to my face, I am pretty sure I would have made some major different decisions. But, I wasn’t allowed that agency because it was all about him and his agency.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
9 months ago
Reply to  susie lee

Same, that feeling that something was amiss…. I would’ve done things differently.

Beth
Beth
9 months ago

I read this POS in the NYT over the weekend but really, I needn’t have bothered – the caption “My Spectacular Betrayal” was all I needed to know it was going to be another self aggrandizing narc stating their reasons “why I’m the most special cheater ever”. Yawn. Poor UBT. I hope it has time to recover before the next cheater narc decides to grace the world with the epic tale of their specialness [insert eye roll].

Best Is Yet To Come
Best Is Yet To Come
9 months ago

Love her reference to intelligence! I believe her intelligence level is equal to a feral cat in heat!

damnitfeelsbadtobeachumpster
damnitfeelsbadtobeachumpster
9 months ago

“I have complicated international love triangles with my crullers.”

ha!

mmmm. donuts. hey, have you tried cronuts? they’re delightful.

what a woman, what a therapist. nothing like creating a narrative, you know? they live in a fantasy world and it’s ridiculous.

Letgo
Letgo
9 months ago

She wrote he had dalliances. What!!? And she was ok with that!? That is way too “sophisticated” for me. So then she finds her true love in a cowboy bar… I must live the most boring life. I don’t do bars. I don’t snuggle up with my friends’ husbands. I do laundry and cook. Sheese!

Helena
Helena
9 months ago

What an idiot…..

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  Helena

I think that pretty much says it all.

No Shit Cupcakes
No Shit Cupcakes
9 months ago

He was rid of Samantha Carrie Silva by September 2012. Well, except for her pension plan grab.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
9 months ago

Is she the same “screenwriter Sam Silva” who was married to and had three kids with filmmaker Michael Hoffman?

No Shit Cupcakes
No Shit Cupcakes
9 months ago

Yes. The one and the same.

Magnolia
Magnolia
9 months ago

Looks so.

Char
Char
9 months ago

I saw that. I also noticed that Samantha Silva and her beloved (David) used the same attorney in their divorces, and their ex-spouses used the same attorney.

CurlyChump
CurlyChump
9 months ago
Reply to  Char

My ex used the same attorney as his current wife (she kicked off her divorce about a month before my ex asked for his). He tried to get me to use him as a mediator, but I refused. I he used him as his own counsel instead.

All a Blur
All a Blur
9 months ago

It’s a really specialized skill, building an entire sprawling edifice of epoch-spanning beauty, then enthroning yourself in the center of the glorious creation. While actually sitting in a doughnut shop justifying your fuckbuddy via Zoom. Impressive work. I guess my FW has serious competition now.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
9 months ago
Reply to  All a Blur

That level of delusion always reminds me of the Funny or Die bath salts skit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63VwBodcrGY

MichelleShocked
MichelleShocked
9 months ago

I’ll be honest, I got to a point where I stopped reading Samantha Silva’s NYT crap and just read the UBT’s responses. Because that snark was other level AWESOME today — thank you. Had to take breaks just to stop laughing. I’m truly looking forward to the UBT live in Baltimore in November.

As for the Silva insanity? I can’t even. The therapist she found was also just awful. If he had these personal issues that clearly affected him and created biases, he should not have continued as her therapist. The right thing to do would be for him to say “I can’t be your therapist” and recommend others. But hey, maybe they were meant for each other — zero morals or ethics. Bizarre

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
9 months ago

FW in my case started seeing a Lacanist who encouraged the affair and increasingly controlling treatment of me. No surprise because Lacan promoted the “vagina dentata” concept that women devour men unless otherwise restrained and that “men build culture and women destroy it.”

Lacan was also infamous for his neofreudian theory that toxic “overprotective” mommies cause autism in their children through the Voodoo power of their minds because, as Lacan argued, mothers transmute their babies into the penises they wish they had. Though my once-chronically ill son doesn’t have autism, I assume FW’s therapist applied the penis-transmuting thinking to me and presumed it the cause of my son’s illness (despite a repeatedly documented cellular disorder). I don”t think FW would have been on board with these ideas if they’d been stated outright but he obviously appreciated the misogynistic support so much that he didn’t ask the therapist for the bases of his analyses or overall plan for therapy.

The overall plan might have been ghoulish. Lacan felt that husbands needed to be gently persuaded to save their children from penis-transmuting mommies by taking custody away and, if they didn’t, this made them complicit. Lacan’s view led the French government to sometimes forcibly remove disabled children from their parents, deny the children behavioral interventions and stick them in institutions where they were tortured with things like being wrapped in frozen sheets for hours. Just ten years ago, the Lacan school was still still powerful enough to have censored “The Wall,” a film about the catastrophe. https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/reviews/documentary-review-le-mur-the-wall/

Lacan’s views seemed to be very naturally adopted by the Nazi-trained chief psychiatrist of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and became the underpinning for the “red gene” theory that mothers pass on the politically psychopathic “Marxist red gene” to their children. This led the Franco regime to steal over 300,000 children from suspected Republican women and adopt them out or sell them to families loyal to Franco in order to “lessen the expression” of the mythical red gene. Basically the entire philosophy of Francoism is that mothers in general are dangerous because their tendency to coddle children threatened to “emasculate” Spain. These views were in turn adopted by a slew of South American dictatorships during the 70s and 80s which led to the practice of imprisoning pregnant women, killing them after they gave birth and giving the children to loyalists.

The hilarious thing is that FW thinks he’s a lefty but he basically had to turn to a psychiatric fascist to find support for his behavior. Modern Lacanists generally disavow Franco’s use of Lacanist views, claiming there’s no association which is absurd because the views are identical and the remedy was exactly the same (repressing women and removing children). Basically Franco took Lacanism to its logical extreme. But apparently Lacanists, like eugenicists, are euphemists like GK Chesterton once wrote: “Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them “The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females”; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them “Murder your mother,” and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same.”

Emma
Emma
9 months ago

Thank you Hell of a Chump for sharing this fascinating insight. Wonderful to read and all things I didn’t know. Thanks. I like, “long words soothe them.”!

Journey's Rest
Journey's Rest
9 months ago

+1 for Chesterton quote. Flashback to LiveJournal

TheHappyDivorcee
TheHappyDivorcee
9 months ago

I am a liberal lady who loves the NYT’s coverage of business and politics, but printing this and those polyamory stories like it’s the modern thing to do is sickening.

Daughterofachump
Daughterofachump
9 months ago

IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with polyamory so long as it’s freely agreed to by all parties in advance of acting on it.

As to how well this works for people in the real world…I guess we’ll see.

SunriseRuby
SunriseRuby
9 months ago

“My best friend says I’m a pimped-up, postmodern Hester Prynne,” I said, “who’d better start embroidering her own Scarlet A.”

SunriseRuby
SunriseRuby
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

Whoops – hit “send” before I finished that:

“My best friend says I’m a pimped-up, postmodern Hester Prynne,” I said, “who’d better start embroidering her own Scarlet A.”

I so want to meet this (hopefully former) best friend who came up with that absolutely exquisite burn. I mean, BRAVO! Chump Lady, is she your cousin?

Embroiderer
Embroiderer
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

Thank you for that !

Embroiderer
Embroiderer
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

I’m afraid we’re not cousins, but I appreciate the compliment. My point with the Hester Prynne remark was about embroidering our own scarlet letters and taking responsibility for our actions.

Embroiderer
Embroiderer
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

I’m the former best friend. Of over 30 years. I didn’t hear about the “splendiferous” events until everyone knew. I ended the friendship after she repeatedly used my quips, stories, deeply personal confidences as well as written plots and essays in her own “work”. Obviously legality and ethics are not always in bed together. Worse to me was using my children’s traumas for fictional fodder. Unfortunately narcissistic personalities don’t realize that beautiful and authentically moving writing requires personal authenticity and cannot be constructed while piggybacking on the life lessons of other people, nor by feigning an integrity you haven’t earned. I’m still sick about my own experiences with the betrayal of a lifelong friendship. I was stupid, but still witty.

Stig
Stig
9 months ago
Reply to  SunriseRuby

Yeah, I was confused about whose side the ‘best friend’ was on.

SortOfOverIt
SortOfOverIt
9 months ago

This brings up a theme that I struggle with. I am curious to how other chumps feel. I was cheated on and my stbx obv had the choice to end the relationship before cheating. I think the real honest to god reason he didn’t do that was because he wanted to be sure there were better options out there FIRST. And then he found his amazing other option, but stayed for cake and kibbles. And to avoid the messy financial /emotional/social aspects of divorce.

But sometimes I wonder. If he came to me and said “I have come to the conclusion that I need something that you can’t give me, and we need to divorce because I am realizing that I am ready to start looking for that something elsewhere, and I don’t want to betray our marriage by cheating, so I want to breakup before pursuing others”. Well, would I have taken that much better?

I realize that would be the right thing for him to do, it’s inherently the right thing. People can decide they want out of a relationship and that doesn’t make them bad people, if they end things the right way.

I understand and agree with all that.

But we’ve been together 2 decades, I am now 50. At D-Day 1, I had a million horrible feelings, but one was definitely “I am too old to start over, I don’t WANT to and now I am going to have less security in my old age because I will be doing it as a single woman.”

I was really pissed that he waited 2 decades to end our marriage by cheating, at 40, I may have been more interested in
finding someone else. (To be clear, the shortcomings that he cites I have and uses as the reason for his cheating? Existed before he ever proposed, so he could have left 2, 5,10 years in vs 20+)

Do any of you ever feel like you would not have felt any better if they ended it the ethical way? Or at least, maybe you’d still have a lot of the bad feelings you currently have, but would have to find a way to get over them more quickly, since they did the right thing and didn’t cheat? I suppose it doesn’t matter, we are here because they DID cheat, often “spectacularly”. But it is something I think about a lot.

OHFFS
OHFFS
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

SOOI, I started over in my 50s and I’m endlessly glad that I didn’t let the fear of starting over at such an age stop me. I’d rather be dead than spend my remaining years with such a scumbag. In all honesty, I’s probably be dead by suicide if I had tried to.
As to whether I’d have felt better if he ended it honestly and compassionately, I’m certain I would not have developed PTSD if he had not betrayed and abused me. So that’s a big hell yes to that question.

Erin
Erin
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

I would have felt better if he had never married me. After D Day, a month after our 35th anniversary, he said he had never loved me and that our marriage was one of convenience only. That was two years ago. Today, I realize the gift of hearing the truth from him. I’m only 58 and have nothing but the best part of my life left to live FW free. It took me a long time to understand I’ve lost nothing. It’s impossible to cheat on someone that you EVER loved.

loch
loch
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

My 50’s were a great age.
Don’t let that define your future in a negative light.

FYI
FYI
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

Things I did after age 50:
* got a graduate degree
* learned French
* renovated my entire house
* bought my dream car
* snorkeled in Australia
* saw the Taj Mahal
That’s to name a few. I was not too old to “start over” on any of those things. You might surprise yourself.

Also, being a single person is MUCH more secure than being with cheater, and that’s at any age. Seriously. I don’t mean just more emotionally secure, I mean much more financially secure also.

Chumpy VonChumpster
Chumpy VonChumpster
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

I think its natural for us Chumps to ponder the woulda, coulda, shoulda theories. And yes, I think that if our partners had a difficult conversation with us about ending the marriage/relationship it would hurt tremendously, but in the long run we would have had respect for their integrity and honesty.

Anarchyintheukok
Anarchyintheukok
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

It absolutely makes a difference SortOf because cheaters and liars hold all the cards and have an unfair advantage

My divorce from FW is my second and my first divorce did not in any way, shape or form resemble this one

My first exh told everyone who would listen, the break up was his fault entirely and he deserved all the blame. His family members came to return some items to my mother and to confirm their regret and apologies that things didn’t work out

His mother wrote to me to say how sorry she was and that I was free to visit any time

He asked me to draw up my own financial settlement, which he would sign, without gaining legal advice as he said he knew I would be fair and not cheat him. He didn’t even bother to get a solicitor, just gave me half the legal fees of mine, as requested

Then he gave me more money than I had asked for. We remained friends for many years

Compare and contrast to the gas lighting, blame shifting and theft the FW conducts. Mine tried to screw me over in the divorce and I was character assassinated by OWhore and FW all round

FW delayed paying out and was as difficult as possible and tried the old 50 50 child custody ploy, even though he never did anywhere near approaching that before or since

He now tries to be the affable buffoon again but it’s too late, his mask slipped for long enough

We all had the same treatment from these clowns. There really is some Cheater Handbook out there. It’s terrifying

SortOfOverIt
SortOfOverIt
9 months ago

Anarchy, THANK YOU. (Really, thanks to everyone who replied, it’s all insightful) I think your particular response resonates. Without the cheating, divorce would still be hard, but the cheating makes it brutal. Not really even the act of cheating, but everything that comes with it. If you are entitled enough to cheat, you are entitled enough to make the split torturous.

NotFromVenus
NotFromVenus
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

When one values a relationship, he/she would do the hard work not to loose it. If there are major unmet needs that will cause the break of a relationship, why not talk anout it, be open, try therapy? I am sure those unmet needs are not one sided. There are so many ways to make things work. If nothing works, of course there is divorce. But pretenting for years that everything is fine and then suddenly breaking out the news of “I was not happy, I want a divorce” would have sounded really ignorant. It would have been a big disappointment. Perhaps not big as a secret double life.

Sandyfeet
Sandyfeet
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

Ending it truly ethically would have meant, no missing fund$, no bs stories to others, no fake reconciliation, no humiliation, no lies, no dragging out divorce due to uncooperative discovery 2.5 years., no excessive legal fees, still I would’ve been hurt but much less hurt.
Apples 🍎 and oranges 🍊 type marriage Enders

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  Sandyfeet

Agreed. My own mother in law before she went over to the blood side said to me “you would have been better off had he died”.

Her abuser (his dad) did die, and she never looked at another man in her life, simply because she didn’t trust them. And she was a beautiful 48 year old woman when he died.

susie lee
susie lee
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

The pain would have been likely the same in the short term, but in long term I would have had less of my life stolen from me.

I spend most of our 21 year marriage, working to help him advance his career. I did that because I thought we were working for both of us, as he assured me he would barring death always be there etc.

I was discarded at 40, and at that time found out most of our marriage had been a lie, with me actually working to build his life that he would then share with the town whore.

I can honestly say that I am relieved that he left me at age 40, when I had time to rebuild a retirement portfolio and also met and married a real man who I have been with for 28 years this Nov. I still resent the years he stole from me, and wish he had left me when I was 30, if it wasn’t for my son I would wish I had never met him.

I am convinced ethics and truth are better for everyone. The ability to make informed decisions is crutial to me. Even if I would have decided to stay in the marriage until my son was grown, at least I would have made other decisions, such as; I would have insisted on equal power of finances, I would not have given up two promotions because he didn’t want me to travel.

portia
portia
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

The problem with this “what-if” is many of us did not pick an honest person from the beginning. We did not know that we were love bombed or deceived. It took us awhile to catch on. So, you cannot expect honorable behavior from someone who was not honorable to begin with.

If you discover that there have been many little episodes of deception and theft, and that the basic character you expected from the person you thought you married is just not there, then you know they were incapable of telling you they want to leave and be fair. Wanting them to do the right thing is like sitting in the dark waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.

Your age will not keep you from finding a better life. You might find you are more cautious, or cynical now. You may desire different characteristics than you sought when you were younger. But you can find friends and companions who are much better for you than staying in a relationship with a FW. I think going through an experience like this teaches us to be a little more careful with our hearts. We don’t “just believe” in unproved statements and opinions anymore. For me, I observe behavior over a period of time before I ever start to trust someone else. Think of the dissolution of your relationship as removing a malignancy so that you have a better shot at living more happy years. It is a good way to get over bad feelings that linger.

Grey divorcee
Grey divorcee
9 months ago
Reply to  SortOfOverIt

I’m glad my husband of 45 years didn’t have the guts to do “the right thing”. It made the decision to divorce easy. As they age they only get worse

Adelante
Adelante
9 months ago

Ah, happiness! We all want to be happy! The difference is that I couldn’t be happy knowing the devastation I was causing.

Chumpasaurus45
Chumpasaurus45
9 months ago
Reply to  Adelante

Exactly! 👆
That’s how a FW IS recognized. They CAN be happy nuking lives. It’s the centrality they crave.
Keep the light glowing on them and they will have a great time creating a narrative that condones the massive destruction they cause to other peoples’ lives.
But they just need to be happy, why wouldn’t we want that for them?! That’s the crack of kibbles, they live to create that. They do very poorly in a normal contented and loving life, they deserve far more than that. They have no value if they don’t occupy the front and center positions in life. Hurting ppl is just necessary collateral damage in their eyes.

Daughterofachump
Daughterofachump
9 months ago

I was appalled when I read this essay in the New York Times. The writer had no remorse for breaking up 2 marriages.

Appalled, but not surprised after I got through the first 2 or 3 paragraphs. But wow.

DUDDERSGETSCHUMPED
DUDDERSGETSCHUMPED
9 months ago

I will only applaud her for the gall it must take to put something like this out there. To try to make this look like a grand and lauded and brave decision because….. because if it isn’t you must be a dog turd of a human and we can’t possibly face that. Amazing what people can tell themselves to seriously gloss over the hurt and misery they cause.

NotFromVenus
NotFromVenus
9 months ago

The cheater of the story is not smart enough to see that the terapist is not supporting her or helping her to find herself, the terapist is using her to justify his own birth and to feel valuable. But the cheaters love reading signs, do they not? The sun is shining because of their twu luw, the terapist or a colleague, or a complete stranger in the library is supporting them so they must be right.
If this is a true story, which I doubt, here is what the terapist says about his mother: “I lived with her grief, and her guilt, all my life. She never forgave herself.” To me, it does not sound like a woman who found herself and her happiness. Just the contrary.

IcanseeTuesday
IcanseeTuesday
9 months ago

I got a bit caught up in the word salad before remembering she is seeking attention, not understanding. Good lesson regarding most first person point of view content.

Hell of a Chump
Hell of a Chump
9 months ago

Going public with one’s past adultery is becoming a standard manner for desperate hacks with fading prospects to grub a last bit of relevance and a byline on their way down. It’s a lot like fading actresses finally agreeing to do Playboy spreads, including the fact that it’s almost always female writers dropping trou. I see one or two of these overwrought fuckwit screeds a week. Last week it was this one from The Daily Mail penned by– of course– a middle aged journo of fading relevance: “The day I realised my husband had changed the locks after I had an affair – and was left pounding on the door pleading, sickened and furious” : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12095299/The-day-realised-husband-changed-locks-affair.html

On my pet theory that many media companies– particularly ones that grub pseudo-progressive creds– are in the market for cheater defense screeds because they have some curious agenda to erode public conceptions of sexual consent– due to, say, A) backlash against #MeToo and its takedowns of many media moguls; and/or B) massive and growing cross-investment in streaming porn (Google: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/12/6/1167777/-Google-Spends-34-Billion-On-Pornography; Comcast, the old Time Warner: https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132001&page=1)– it would make sense that the authors are nearly all women. Using women to ventriloquize some corporate anti-consent campaign is the only way to imply that nay-sayers are puritanical, ungroovy and backwards as a distraction from the fact that the underlying agenda is likely grossly misogynist among other possible unwoke things. The distraction wouldn’t really work if the authors were male. In any case, the Daily Fail screed contained a similar coy little “puritan” trap to the one CL points out in the Times drivel. It casts anyone who would dare to judge the author’s sex pozzy bonk adventure as a puritanical misogynist by planting a quasi-biblical hyperbole in the center of a list of epithets she imagines others calling her: “I was a bad wife, a bad woman, a bad person.”

Yes, everyone who thinks adulterers are abusive are zealous bible-thumping puritans in Ebenezer beards waggling witch-hunty fingers and howling “Baaaad woman! Strumpet! Jezebel! I shall smite thee!” Barf. Interesting that Gallup polls find public acceptance of adultery has been rapidly sinking in the same time frame that acceptance of gay marriage has starkly increased, suggesting that public disapproval of adultery has less and less to do with religious prohibitions. But “condemning the condemners” is– along with “denying/blaming the victim”– on a list of mental tricks used by various serial offenders to reduce stigma for their crimes and how else can one condemn people who don’t think adultery is cool?

I think that’s the whole point of publishing this crap and every desperate, fading hack seems to be falling over themselves to capitalize on the last-ditch career resuscitator. The media is banging the gong on this so much it smacks a little of the feverish media war footing PR leading up to the Iraq invasion (which the NY Times was the most guilty of among all pseudo-progressive rags). It suggests some similar profit-aligned ideology. The clue that there may be cross investment in the porn industry is the NY Times general glowing defenses of the porn industry (search “New York Times + pornography” and behold the tone of everything written after 2013). But trying to pinpoint the exact source of profits is becoming more challenging. Corporate media cross investment in things like porn, the private prison industry, arms industry or anything else ugly and notorious has been made even more opaque as genuinely independent news sources die off.

Anyway, I misread the shrink’s final quote as “He was hopeful my children would come to see me as whore mole.”

Also get a load of the Yeats hijack: “I didn’t know if my center would hold.”

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The worst are full of something alright.

2xchump🚫again
2xchump🚫again
9 months ago

This is just a narcissist throwing her voice into newsprint for a paper that has lowered its standards to crassness. Tracy and her lepkuchen chomping UBT are on top of the game. This is just self serving BS and is just reheated ALL ABOUT ME ME ME stories. I have Switzerland friends who say my STBXH is happy, much happier with his OWs than with me after 32 years. Happiness to my STBX has to be all about him and his failing body part. He exhausted me. He did me a favor being so brazen in leaving me and allowing me to file and do all the heavy lifting to get him out of my life. I was up in stirrups at my.GYNs office when I knew I could never allow him access to my body or heart again. Happiness came to me late as it must come to.all those people hooked up to cheaters. But once you believe that they suck, we can all be happy with the exposed truth. Now we can make better decisions for our lives. I recommend the book Cheating in a Nutshell, it says it all. CL has a corner on the truth market. I’m listening now.

Chumpolicious
Chumpolicious
9 months ago

I found out a friend in college was a love child. Her mom had an arraigned marriage with an older man, maybe 12 yrs(which isnt unheard of). Her mom had 3 kids, met a hot young guy about her age, got pregnant with my friend, left her family to be with the hot guy. Got divorced, married the hot guy. The older man was left with the 3 young kids to raise with help of babysitter and his family. She barely saw the other kids because she was so busy with the hot young guy and the new baby. The hot young guy wasnt well equipped to deal with life. He committed suicide. The older man asked the mom to come back so that the other 3 kids would have their mom, and so that the mom and her love child wouldnt live in poverty and instability. Women couldnt work easily in their country. She went back and remarried him. He was a kind and generous man who took care of all of them. Sounded awesome. The older half siblings were a bit older than her. So werent really raised together. But they were always kind to her and they all helped each other. My friend had some issues as you would imagine. Nice person and her back story messed with her head. She is a successful person, but has had to deal with alot.

Veronica Tarnowski
Veronica Tarnowski
9 months ago

This was so amazing 🙌 i absolutely LOVE UBT even if it does burn out from all the fuckwittery sometimes !! You are so brilliant Tracy and I love you – please dont ever stop!