Every now and then as a Friday Challenge, CN tries to out-do each other with Most Outlandish Lie we were fed. Which is bad enough. What’s worse is that — trusting, foolish chumps we once were — we bought it.
Like the cheater who refused to wear his wedding ring “out of consideration” for his wife, because a wedding ring is a “signal” to predatory women, desperate to have affairs with him.
CN, we’ve swallowed some whoppers. Judging purely by the all the Bible study that goes on in hotel rooms around Chump Nation.
(The lies are not original. Which is rather the point of this exercise for the newbies — They ARE NOT original! It’s not just you!)
So today’s Friday Challenge is to share the Dumbest Lie you bought. (Aside from your wedding vows. Don’t play the obvious.) I’m talking gobsmacking lies that still have a scintilla of possibility. Okay, it’s possible he’s sleeping in his car in Vermont… in January… without cell phone reception…
Probable? No. Possible? — well it’s not against the laws of physics, so YES, I suppose it IS possible and to conclude otherwise would smash my world into smithereens…
So, what stupid lie did you buy?
Until you didn’t — because these things do tend to wake you up at 2 a.m. and make you cross-reference your data plans. Then it’s BUSTED. Then it’s more lies…
Then it’s CN encouraging you all to get away from the mindfuckery. And you do. And then later, as you approach meh, you can point and laugh at it.
So put your Stupid Lies out there, CN. Let’s laugh at it. And ourselves. Thank God to be free.
TGIF!
***
This is a rerun. The power is out at chez Chump since yesterday. I’m hiding in an air-conditioned cafe to type this. Say a prayer to the power line Gods for us. Supposed to hit 100 today. (Monty is at doggy care, for anyone worried about his Fluffiness.)
Chump: “Hey, where is your wedding band?” Sparkledick: “I lost it twirling it on my desk at the office”
Sparkledick after a “business” trip to Orlando: “Help me NOW to find my assistant’s lost luggage” .
I found pictures on “assistant’s” Facebook on the same travel dates: she is working very hard in skimpy shorts and a tight T shirt in front of Magic Kingdom…
How could I be sooooo stupid!?
You weren’t stupid. You were making decisions based on the information you were given by someone you were supposed to be able to trust. He abused that trust, you weren’t stupid.
I think he stole that wedding band line from the beginning of “Sex, Lies and Videotape.”
I’ll have to watch that movie… since I’m the one who submitted that Big Fat Lie.
I’m not sure why he didn’t say it was a safety hazzard at work, ( truly is on some jobs… if you’ve ever seen an avulsion, you’d realize it’s plausible.) but no… he went with “it shows women that I’ll have sex with no strings attached since I’m married,” and I believed it…🤦🏻♀️.
His assistant was Mini Mouse? Wow, that’s fuckin’ Goofy!
Not really “big” but it’s all I’ve got — I never fully “bought” her big attempts to deceive, her creativity leaves a lot to be desired . . .
Four months before the formal request for an open marriage (and thus the start of “The Troubles”), she announced, as if it was some big accomplishment:
“This is my new thing — 45 minutes of dedicated alone time, on our room, door closed, just me and my music and an opportunity to ‘be present’ with myself.”
I know now it was trolling for an AP.
Yup, request for open marriage followed by “working on myself” assertions here too. Mine also involved a supposed savings account (funded by the selling off of old devices, etc.) for funding hobbies that was actually cash secretly withdrawn on business trips in Germany for strip clubs and likely hookers. It definitely supports the theory that once the cat is out of the bag, they just take it further underground.
An FW who can actually stand being present with themselves is a unicorn. I don’t think you can be that shitty and still face yourself honestly. The monkey branching and kibbles are distractions and stop gaps.
My ex, who fancied himself as a hermit, was off with OWs much of the time he claimed to be in the woods or taking time and space. When he shut himself away in his office, he was often watching porn or communicating with OWs. He spent hours documenting his daily humdrum exploits and produced a weekly YouTube video focused on himself, for all the world to see. He started a daily morning meditation practice a couple years into his cheating double life (after getting sober and allegedly ending that double life), but I suspect it was yet another form of mental gymnastics, a way to escape consequences and ”let go” of his conscience.
He “lost” his wedding ring. He had been out in the world having sex with randoms for over two decades. (While we were married). Before he left me for his AP (from Tinder) as he was driving around in his truck his fingers got sweaty so he took his wedding ring off and put it under his leg for safekeeping. When he got out of the truck it must have fallen out into the ground he said. After he got home and realized it was lost he drove 45 min back to the parking spot where it supposedly would have fallen out of the truck and it was GONE. Hmmmm sounds ridiculous and sus. Who puts their ring under their leg for safekeeping???
After cutting off a chunk of my ring finger on a table saw at work, I immediately took off my wedding ring before the finger got swollen. A hand surgeon put me back together. After that experience I routinely put my wedding band on my key ring when I got to work. Having it on the key chain reminded me to put it back on when I started the car. Occasionally I would forget and XW would question grill me why I wasn’t wearing it.
It was annoying then, but now I see it as projection.
Great solution Bruno to put your wedding ring on your key chain. Women can always do the same thing or thread it on a necklace,if they wear one. Thinking of male and female surgeons and engineers or people who work with their hands and don’t want to damage their wedding band or engagement ring.
My friend who is a surgeon ties his wedding ring onto his scrub pants. They cannot wear it due to sterility issues.
Bruno, my dad was a programmer way, way back in the day when they used punch cards for programs (late 50 to 60s.) He told my mom he stopped wearing his wedding ring because he was afraid of getting it caught on some of the equipment they used. I figured the truth was that he was embarrassed about gaining weight and the ring not fitting.
But, after I found out he had cheated on my mom, many years later (late 70s), I wondered. Was he cheating even then? Was he trawling for women at work? I remember he sometimes had to work at night..or so he said.
I’ll never know, and maybe it’s just as well.
My former husband told me he lost his ring shoveling snow. It must have flown off his finger when he took his gloves off was his excuse. Months later when he still hadn’t located it nor bothered to get a replacement band, I remember having a family meal at a restaurant and while waiting for our food to come, I was scrolling thru Etsy and pointing out nice wedding bands for him. About a week later was my D-day when he admitted to his longtime affair with howorker.
Wow so many lies to choose from…the biggest “I just need someone to believe in me to be a good person”.
The more outlandish lies I heard from others after we split “please don’t tell my wife I’m having an affair she has just been diagnosed with breast cancer”.
Some of you may remember from a previous post where he told colleagues I was a can can dancer in Paris…..🙄
a can-can dancer????
ha!
💃🏻 🤣
This is easy. Early on in our relationship he told me, “I’m not good at lying.” I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Sigh.
I got this one too! Took two decades to realize that THIS ITSELF was a lie
When dating FW we used to watch the show “Lie to Me”. Now I just laugh. He was using it to test me.
I was also told by klootzak that he is no good at lying and can’t tolerate dishonesty! 🤣
I got this too!!! WOW
In addition to “I hate liars” he literally said the words “I hate cheaters” (after some disappointing paintball outings, but still…).
I’m sorry, Hopium. Also…made me LOL.
After dday, a male mutual friend who hadn’t been privy to the cheating told me about a time he and FW were driving together and a classic song about cheating came on. FW said something like, “Cheating is awful. Can you believe people do that?” My friend thought it was strange — it stood out enough for him to recall years later — but he didn’t even suspect FW was cheating on me, let alone that he was years into serial cheating at that point.
Projection? Feeling the friend out to see if he’d crossed over to the dark side himself ? Virtue signaling? Who knows. This challenge is a good reminder of the constant chaos and deception chumps shed when we LACGAL. Newbies, once you d’extraction yourselves from the cycle of abuse, this insane mindfuckery becomes a distant nightmare. Take heart.
Oh i got it delivered by our pastor……”New York Nutbag, I’ve known New Jersy landfill since she was a little girl and she has always told the truth” . Fooled you reverend
“New Jersey Landfill” — 🤣🤣 😜🤣😂🤣
Mine too!!
This is only slightly related, but my FW is moving out this month. He is sad sausaging that he “can’t talk to women” and will “die alone”. Dude, we are divorcing because you had a whole ass girlfriend for 6 years while married to me, I am sure you will have no trouble finding a new gf now that you are single and can search openly. The nerve!!!!
He can’t talk to women and will die alone…in other words a win-win situation for everyone female.
Got same. He was a ninja master at lying.
That’s a classic LL.
My fw on the official Dday confession he said to me he had been “dating” for ten years, and he never loved me. Within seconds of finishing that sentence, he said “I am just not a good liar”.
I stared at him in stunned silence. He just confessed to lying for the whole of a 21 year marriage, yet defined himself in the next breath as “not a good liar”. And this didn’t include all the other folks he lied to on a constant basis.
Note: “dating” was the word he used for adultery. He hated when I, or the preacher used that word. I guess in his mind adultery was what those other guys did. He went on to “date” after he married the whore, I am sure that was my fault too.
Mine told me at the beginning he “never made promises”. Not a lie, he for once was telling the truth, but I didn’t pay attention and married him anyway. ugh
I did a month of research on the possibility of getting trichomoniasis from something other than sex. Spoiler: I got it from sex because my husband cheated on me. Likely throughout the course of our marriage. I didn’t get trich from a toilet seat or from sitting on the exercise bike at the gym. I didn’t get it from swimming naked in a dirty pool with other women. I don’t use dirty wet towels and I don’t swim naked with other women. I’m a chump. BUT IM FREE of the mindfukkery that I lived in every day now that I KNOW. Thank you thank you chump nation!
Not exactly the same but I did buy “the doctor told me I got crabs from a toilet seat”.
This was after I discovered I had crabs and asked him why.
1983 so no Google and thought he was the kindest person I’d ever met.
🤬 Still want to smack him over that but there were so much worse since then. No contact except for grandkid birthday parties and now done with the last kid’s wedding.
And when I got genital warts shortly after we were married (I was 24), my physician ex said that he got them from a patient. I remember asking my ex: “Didn’t you wear gloves to treat a patient with genital warts?” He just shrugged. Note that my military gyn went along with that BS excuse.
I had no reason to distrust either my then-husband or the gyn.
When I went for a post-D-Day STD check 36 years later, a female gyn informed me that the only way he got genital warts from a patient is if he had sex with that patient. 🤦🏻♀️
Military gyn was a male, btw.
I figured that Spinach. No regard to the Hippocratic Oath. He did you a big harm!
A fellow cheater I bet
Oh my gosh, Spinach. They have no shame with the lies.
I had SO MANY vaginal infections while I was married to Edgar Suit and he was out (unbeknownst to me, of course) fucking strippers and who knows who else, that I should’ve bought stock in Monistat. 😏 After DDay#2 I never had sex with him again and lo and behold, never had another itchy veejay either. When we were dating and I thought monogamous, I went to an Urgent Care to get a prescription (this was pre-OTC treatment availability) and based on my symptoms, the doc tested me for chlamydia too. I was so insulted! Why would he do that when I told him I was in a monogamous relationship and had only had one partner ever?? I was so naive. It never occurred to me that he might be cheating on me.
Beth, I was lucky I never got an infection I had to go to the doctor for but (sorry if TMI) a really bad smell. I was 38 and never had that problem before. I felt so bad about myself, like omg he’s treating me badly, no wonder, I’m gross.
It’s double abuse, physical and psychological.
Also, Edgar Suit 🤣🤣🤣 so appropriate.
I’d never had a problem with any sort of yeast infection or anything like that until I was in my 30s and started getting slammed with them constantly. I pissed blood multiple times. It was a huge amount of pain. Couldn’t figure out why it was happening all of a sudden.
Finally, I had to endure an absolutely humiliating lecture from a doctor about how I needed to wipe from front to back because how else could this possibly be happening? I must be an idiot who is wiping shit into my vagina. I went out to the parking lot and sobbed in my car for about 15 to 20 minutes before I could get it together enough to drive home.
After that, I become extremely strict about my vaginal health. If he wanted to touch me, he needed to shower, brush his teeth, wash his hands with hot soapy water, etc. I stopped wearing thongs and silky underwear and switched to only cotton panties. He complained that I ruined our sex life.
I look back on that now and it makes me so angry. He was the one causing it, he knew he was causing me pain and health issues, and his response was to guilt and blame me for it. I hope there’s a special place in hell reserved for him.
I’m sorry the doctor had such shaming bedside manner.
I’m afraid a friend’s husband is cheating on her. She has a case of bacterial vaginosis that won’t clear and her doctor is dismissive.
What’s awful is that it could be something going on with her health or it could be him cheating. With something like BV, I don’t know how you could be sure either way. With me it was yeast infections and UTIs, which could be cheating but it’s not the smoking gun a STD would be. I hope whatever it is your friend figures it out and finds relief. This is the type of stuff people don’t think about when they dismiss cheating as abuse. They don’t think about women going to the doctor and stressing about infections and dealing with pain while the husband sits there knowing exactly why it’s happening and just lets her suffer. It’s so evil.
Why yes! An STI should absolutely clue a chump in to cheating. But I believed that the HERPES he gave me was from an infection he must’ve gotten decades prior. I won’t admit to my profession because… well, yes I will. I’m a doctor. That’s the degree of denial I was in. I trusted him COMPLETELY, even despite proof of cheating.
I appreciate your admission of your profession. It’s difficult to be a very smart and well educated woman who was so totally duped. We need to all help each other understand that this is well known effect of the intense level of the narc abuse cycle. This is nothing to minimize. Very highly educated partners also get duped.
It so striking to me, too, because the FW in my 40 year marriage was never, ever smart enough to do adult things. I took care of everything as if he were 12. Yet, he ran a full on scam of a double life the entire marriage.
All the while, I swore to people the reason we were still married was because he was the most honest person I knew. It’s mind boggling the amount of scheming and energy he devoted to running the scam that long. And he was the one who broke the spell – which is still puzzling to me. Why didn’t he just continue it another decade till one of us was dead? If I didn’t have LACGAL, I would want to ask him why he chose to reveal. And why her? Why at that moment in time? But, we here all know….lying liars lie. And I don’t want to hear his pathetic “I’m the victim” sputtering.
This thread has me wondering about the first and only bladder infection I ever had was after I married FW. I’d hadn’t been with anyone for like over 10 years at this point.
I am pretty sure now, 4 years past DDay, 1.5 years divorced, that just about everything X said was a lie.
I really think so. The only whopper I know of – that I caught him at – was after I told him to leave, and he moved in with the office secretary that very same night. When I questioned him, like in “you did what???!!! – the same night???!! He said (lied) “we aren’t living together, we are cohabiting!”
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
They lie, then have to make up lies to make that lie work, and on and on and on. It becomes a necessity to the point that they enjoy it. And I do believe they enjoy the lies. It is part of the adrenaline rush. It also keeps you off balance so you never know which way is up. You start to wonder if your perception of reality is truly real, since it differs so much from theirs. So abusive.
Yes, I think you’re right about this.
X lied to put one over on me.
He was a weak, cowardly “man” as it turns out. And he knew it. And he knew I was too good for him. By lying, fooling me, I think in some warped way it made him feel powerful.
TooManyTears,
Your story reminds me of discovering post D-day and post her moving in w/her POS AP and still boss at the time, the FW XW taking a picture of a ring (a cheap POS looking ring, but a ring nonetheless) she started wearing on her engagement/wedding ring finger (she left behind the family iMac w/her account still active on it, which I could get in to see what she was adding to her iCloud iPhoto roll via her iPhone, unbeknownst to her).
She was still coming over to what had been our house, but was now MY home, not hers, and acting like she still deserved to do whatever she wanted there, whenever she wanted (I hadn’t discovered CN or LACGAL yet, and so hadn’t added the deadbolts she wouldn’t have keys to yet on all my doors).
She didn’t realize I saw her photo of this ring on her hand, so as she came in the door I said something like, “what’s that ring that you’re wearing?” And she denied that it meant anything.
It took her about four years after that to get the asshole to “marry” her (hard to consider her actually married when both she and he have no understanding of real love or marriage since neither of them sees anybody as more than a temporary partner who at the first sign of not suiting them anymore, they will run away from w/someone else to provide whatever it is they’re not getting from the relationship that’s “failing them.”)
I didn’t buy the lie, but it’s the best I can come up w/at this late hour. TMT, it’s so simple to say, but so powerful in its reality: We are so much better off w/out these assholes in our lives. Peace, y’all.
I had gotten a terribly painful vaginal infection so I called the doctor and had a phone call appointment. The doctor asked me if their was any chance my stbx was cheating on me. I laughed and stated, “No way, I’m amazing.” I turned to my stbx who was standing next to me and asked him if he was cheating and he looked me right in the eye and laughed and stated, “No”.
It was his birthday two days later. I sat for the bday dinner that I paid for ($2000) in front of his friends with my vagina on fire.
That weekend he went to the doctor and paid privately then went to the pharmacy and treated himself. Still didn’t tell me until my swabs came back from the lab why I was sick.
He was fucking craigslist prostitutes unprotected.
I have remarked in the past couple of years that it was amazing I never got any STDs from him whoring, but you just reminded me of the Christmas that my vagina was on fire. Ick.
Anyone on here know why they NEVER use protection when the fuck strange? It seems so odd, becausethey would be so much less likely to get caught. (Even if they don’t care about putting their wife and unborn babies in danger.)
I wonder this all the time. It’s mind boggling.
My ex didn’t use protection when he slept with rando men. His excuse “I asked them if they had any STD’s and they said no”. Right.
I actually don’t think this is about sex. They are pure narcissists, consideration for anyone else’s health or safety just doesn’t enter the equation. This is about manipulation and control. It’s a way of saying “fuck you” to everyone around them, and not have to hide who they really are. My husband had a vasectomy many years ago, so I know in his mind he thought he was safe and so why bother with such a trivial inconvenience as a condom? (What a massive fucktard!) After FW died I found hundreds of emails and pictures of his numerous infidelities spanning decades. The pictures of the women had this little pick thing sticking out of them. I’m pretty naive, and when I saw it I thought, “well, at least he used a condom, but weird that it’s pink!”. Later when I tracked down the AP and I said something about condoms, she told me he NEVER used a condom, not ever. It was some pink dildo sex toy. I was shocked all over again that he would be so stupid and cavalier with everyone’s health. Major asshole. This is a FW that has been with numerous women and men.
I actually think they’re hoping to harm their wives. My theory is that it’s malicious. They want to damage us.
They don’t care if the needle’s dirty
knittedrobin , my best guess is, because they’re so special, superhuman, and above the rest of us that they couldn’t POSSIBLY get an STI!!! (/s)
I had a friend whose husband, (a chief of police), screwed around so much that he gave her venereal diseases several times through the years. Behind the scenes, he then paid off her doctor to tell her it was yeast infections and UTIs, though prescribing the right antibiotics. Eventually he got caught, then the doctor got caught, and all hell broke loose. My friend sued and walked away with everything, including some ridiculously large sum in the suit against the doctor. The worst part? Due to playing the games of telling her she was fine, my friend ended up diseased enough ‘down there’ that it turned to genital cancer. She lost everything, including the exterior parts. There is nothing in the world that can make this sort of thing right.
😩🤮🤯🤬
I will end the relationship with her tomorrow….
I ended the relationship with her yesterday…
“We are just friends! Why are you being so paranoid?”
Ugh this is exactly what FW told me, word for word!
“I dated someone else while we were separated, but I’ve broken up with her and I want a life with you”.
Why is there an open box of condoms (with one missing) in your luggage when you returned from the business trip? (We don’t use condoms)
I like to use them to masturbate in the hotel room…
A classic.
Girl, SAME!
He told me he was just not interested in intimacy while I was pregnant. That it was nothing against me personally but the baby moving around while he touched me freaked him out.
I bought it because yeah, that makes sense. It CAN be a turn off to know the baby is just there. I’ve heard about it time and time again so I didn’t blame him. I was a little sad but figured it was wrong to force it on him.
But it wasn’t that at all. He was masturbating to cam girls multiple times a day and communicating with them to get himself off, even at work. He didn’t have any arousal for me and couldn’t stay erect…
I figured it out when I noticed he wasn’t coming home from work on time and kept leaving very early. He was getting 3-4 extra hours with those interactions than being with his family.
Said no man ever
Lied every cheater ever
Hah! My ex also used condoms to masturbate into while on road trips! And apparently while alone at home. I found one tied up in his sock drawer. I asked him why? “I was embarrassed and didn’t want you to think I was cheating” WOW
Tied up in his sock drawer ? I’m guessing after he used it. 🤮 Time to throw up.
From a thank-God brief dating situation when I noticed the rapidly diminishing number of condoms in the box at his place. We dated for six months and only had sex a couple of times. No oral sex. “I use them to masturbate” said the porn slob who was NOT working his 12 step programs (CoDA and SLAA). Okey dokey and adios. I suspect Porn Slob had a hard time maintaining an erection even after popping his blue pill because his synapses were fried from watching hours and hours of porn. I was correct;one of his second wife’s sons confirmed this when I contacted HER via social media. She blocked me but the son responded and informed me PS was unemployed during his ten year+ marriage and ruined wife #2 emotionally and financially. He and wife #2 met when they flew across the country to California for a “Save Your Marriage” Christian retreat with their respective spouses.
We really can’t make this shit up, can we ? Happy Fuckwit Free Friday everybody !
Wife #2 has vulvar cancer and PS claimed she contracted it from her first husband. Yikes. Glad I insisted he wrap it up.
My ex came up to me and asked, “why is there an empty condom wrapper in your trash can?” and I laughed so hard at myself because I’d seen a TikTok about how you could put a condom over your whole foot and I wanted to try it myself. I showed him the video and he kissed me on the forehead.
It never occurred to me that he would think I was cheating and honestly? I don’t think he thought I was cheating either.
He was the one who never quit dating.
I believed him when he told me that he had a low sex drive and that’s why, even in our twenties, we only had sex about once a month. The truth, which took me decades to discover, was that he was having sex with men and having his needs met elsewhere.
This sounds like my experience too. How did you finally find out about the other men?
I hired a PI. I knew my ex was going to the downtown YMCA but it turns out there was also a gay spa in town that was his main hangout. There were other clues that didn’t make sense until I found the Straight Spouse Network (now called OurPath) and met other women who explained the way these men operate. My biggest question was how they identified each other outside of gay sites. Apparently, it all has to do with eye contact; gay men maintain eye contact with other men longer than straight men do.
To be clear, I was always for gay rights and supported them. Maybe that’s why he chose me. He’s still in the closet.
I’m really sorry you went though that. I hope you have peace now without him.
Yep. Out of all the lies I’ll have to agree the “I just have a low sex drive” would be the one that still eats at me. Married at 22 by 24 it was barely once a month, never had sex in my thirties. Of course I was worried but I swallowed all the lies, marriage was great except for that and what a monster I must be if I left just for something like getting more, or any, sex. It ended up that his libido was just tapped out. Sex with random men in gym in the morning, car sex with young female coworkers who thought they were such modern feminists having a married man on booty call while they were working …. digressing sorry…. so by the time he came home to stupidly trusting chumpy me he had nothing left in the tank except cuddles, chicken pecks and shoulder rubs.
Foghorn, I’m so sorry. I felt this way too: “what a monster I must be if I left just for something like getting more, or any, sex.” Especially as a Latinx Catholic woman. Really, it kept me in my place for a looooooong time. How dare I want to be loved and have any fun?
Until I finally confided in a friend (because I was so embarrassed that I never told anyone) and she mirrored back to me that the extent of intimacy in my marriage was FW and I watching TV together at night. She said, I can come watch TV with you at night! And I was like, you’re right. Why am I holding on to this hostage situation posing as a marriage?
When I told FW I can’t stay in the marriage the way it is, that’s when he went crazy and got violent and starting hurling accusations at me that I was unfaithful since before we married. It was like he had a script written in his head of every conversation we had ever had that somehow framed me in a bad light. It was incredible. Apparently he had been hating my guts since we met 30 years ago and was staying married to me why? He’s a saint? For his kids, who he ignored. I will never understand. He spent all his time on his phone. Helping random women with their careers. Who knows what he was really up to.
I think that happens A LOT
Pretty mundane stuff, as I ponder the wasted years, but yeah, he lied about: using drugs, using alcohol, his “friendships” with other women, his financial debt that was astronomical! He lied about his years long FB romance with his jr. High girlfriend, any woman at his job that took walks with him, (there were many over the years) he lied about wanting to get in shape, hence all the walking. (He smoked 2 packs a day, so I guess I should have caught on that getting in shape was not really on his mind)
He lied as he breathed.
I trusted him. What can I say? Seems so implausible now, but I really trusted him. I don’t beat myself up over it any longer, when I think of him now I think:
It must be so hard to be you.
That he hid his phone and text messages from me because he “had jealous girlfriends in the past.” We’d been married two years by then and I was on to his bs, but I still accepted this answer and asked him to work on it.
Oh where to begin.
I went out of town for my mother’s 50th birthday surprise party my grandma threw for her. My ex couldn’t go, so he stayed behind with our 8 yr old kid.
My sister and her then husband, my brother and his then girlfriend, and I continued the party at our grandma’s house, having some drinks where we were all going to be sleeping (no driving).
My brother’s girlfriend thought it would be cool to include my then husband and we called back home. It was nearly midnight there and it was my 8 yr old who answered the phone. His dad left him alone for hours “to meet a friend for some drinks at the bar”. We tried calling his cell phone but got no answer. We tried again and again and eventually I had to call my best friend to go pick up my 8 yr old. It was nearly 3 in the morning at this point.
Needless to say I was no longer in the mood to celebrate with my family and changed my plane ticket to that afternoon so I could get home to my kiddo. I left a voicemail for my ex telling him to pack his shit and get out before I got back and that no thanks to him, his son was safe.
When I asked why he didn’t answer his phone, he said he’d been drugged at the bar and woke up in his car. But of course he didn’t call the police about it, he wasn’t missing anything, wasn’t hurt and hadn’t been sexually assaulted sooooo, being drugged didn’t seem likely.
I made the mistake of feeling sorry for him as he groveled and let him come back home.
To this day I don’t know who he was out having sex with, but years later I finally left him when I found out about ANOTHER affair.
If I could change one thing about that night, I wouldn’t have told him that I’d arranged for my friend to get my son to a safe place and let him come home to an empty house.
It was one of MANY lies but since the truth was never revealed it still sits firmly in my memory of what a crappy father he was.
Not so much a lie as the typical self serving excuse. “She was your friend too!” Said Cheaty McLiarface after I lamented that he’d brought her and her sister into the sanctuary of my home to watch our children. No, she was less than a casual acquaintance to me.
He’d never heard of an emotional affair and since he didn’t touch her…plausible deniability. It was the emotional discard that gave him away.
He came home at five in the morning. I heard him come in, and after he settled into bed next to me, I asked him where he had been. He said he had too much to drink with friends so we decided to sleep in the car “you wouldn’t want me to drive home, drunk would you?“
About a year later, after we had broken up, I was in a bar with a bunch of friends. A gal who was there said she had broken up with her boyfriend because he had come back very early in the morning with the same excuse. Everyone there was rolling their eyes and laughing, saying it was obvious he was messing around,
I must have looked stunned because the guy next to me asked me if I was all right. I told him I just had a realization about something. He said “so are you all right?” I told him I would be after I made an appointment with my doctor.. (Lucky for me. I was all right.)
My ex also occasionally returned at sun rise… one time he said he fell asleep at a park!
Me: (texting FW at 2am after finding him NOT in bed, his car in the driveway, and the sliding glass door to the backyard cracked open) Where the f*ck are you?
FW: (arriving home about 5 minutes later) I couldn’t sleep so I went jogging.
Me: (incredulous) Jogging? At 2am?
FW: Yeah, I do it all the time.
Schmoopie lived around the corner and the man had never jogged a day in his life. He barely even walked anywhere.
Ha, there were many that had me at ‘huh?’
But the biggest one:
“I’d never hurt you like that! If there’s anything wrong in our relationship I’d talk to you first. I would never start something new before ending things with you. Stop making something out of nothing! You’re my girl!”
GD f’n ditch-pig!
My little grey cells knew he was lying but my heart was suffering some major cognitive dissonance.
The truth eventually exposed itself and only then could my heart except the reality of who and what this person, stranger was.
To realize and understand how underhanded, cruel, selfish, self-centred, dysfunctional, egotistical, sociopathic, this creep was and is and how I tolerated all this when deep in the core of my brain I knew makes me to this day 3yrs later, still want to vomit.
The time I wasted, I’ll never get back. I was used, useful, helpful and needed to make his sailing lessons and charters work. I have my ACC and instructors cert. and I was there in my mind/heart as a partner, giving him my skills, my time, my life to make his better.
Where the bucket? I’m going to puke….
I’m a magnet for those ditch-pigs out there. 3 dating to relationship since and in all 3 there were things said by them that made my grey cells spasm and my heart twitch.
1st lasted a year, 2nd 6 months, 3rd never got off the ground.
All 3 blocked.
Unfortunately, at entering my 62nd year I’m decidedly single and plan to keep it that way. I’m doing ok in my own company. No stress, no lies, no questions.
I can relate here. My most memorable is not really from my r husband but a bf I was very much in love with who kept telling how much he cared about me and he would never hurt me. He always said if he had an issue we would talk about it. He said he wished he met me years ago as I was the right one for him, blah, blah, blah. And then he just dumped me out if the blue. Came back two months later proclaiming he could not get over me and he missed me do much and he never wants to hurt me . Then dumped me again. And in front of me right before that, in my bed started going back in a dating app! Ugh!
I seem to attract the ones who really don’t care about me but are fine to use me and keep me a secret. I’m finally now taking care of myself and staying away from those men. I’m 64 and have no hope of finding anyone that would really want an actual relationship with me.
Yes I am 69 swore off men years ago, same thing, they will screw us while they are hunting for a 40 year old, I will never hurt you honey, what kind of a guy do you thing I am, blah blah blah its all B.S. they are all sickening pigs. No real men left out there. They all need blow up dolls, legs open mouth shut is there motto.
Still a Chump and Charmee, I’m dating 11 years older, which I’ve decided is definitely my max age gap, & while it’s going great I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Meaning someone younger comes along. Hopefully at least he’s not such trash that he would cheat, but who really knows??
RIght before we separated the phones (because I couldnt take the lies anymore and on my way out) I looked at the phone bill. His call log did show any calls coming or going to me but on my call log they were there plain as day. He said I dont know why. So we called tmobile. I swear the tech guy was almost laughing he had to put us on hold. the tmobile tech came back and said to me “ma’am I just want to let you know that even though the call logs on your end dont show the calls we can see everything, every text, every call, every app that is used to make a call like snapchat, google voice, whatsapp, every thing that goes through his phone we have in our system.” I looked at him and he was like “ok – so, im not cheating” then I heard the tech guy say “OK well is there anything else, just remember if you need any records we can provide them.”
The audacity of his lies straight to my face. Cannot believe this was happening to me… but I guess I can wear the chump pin now!!!!
Ah. that connected something for me. Shortly after we separated, he insisted that coverage was poor where he ran off to, so he decided to go with a different provider. I called our provider, and there was truly no reason to assume that he had poor coverage there. In fact, it was actually better than here. He also claimed that he “had” to buy a new phone in the process.
It was another way of hiding his activities, although of course, we could have demanded everything in discovery. Thankfully, we settled without that.
I consider myself fairly tech savvy. After I started to get suspicious (at my 26-year point in the marriage), he happened to be on a business trip. I called him on his cell when I heard the hotel phone ring. He said, “Wait a minute.” He answered the other phone and said, “I’m talking to her now.” He returned to my phone call and I asked, “Who was that? Was that ?” He said, “Wrong number.” I said, “I heard you say, ‘I’m talking to her now.'” He said, “You’re mistaken. It was a wrong number.” Well, later when he came home, that night we were picking up the skank so we could all go to a basketball game together. When she got in the truck, there was no greeting between them at all. So I said, “I find it odd that when you haven’t seen each other in a while, that you don’t even greet each other with a ‘hello’.” They immediately said hello to each other and ‘how are you doing?’ So later, I checked the cell phone messages and called him out on his bullshit pointing out all the calls he received and made to/from the skank. He said, “That must be a mistake.” I said, “Don’t give me that bullshit. I work with computers all day long. Computers don’t lie.” Why, oh why, did I want to believe him so badly that I was willing to accept his blatant lies?! No wonder he thought I was so stupid! I’m really quite intelligent, but geez! What the hell was wrong with me?!!!
Yeah, that’s hard for me to swallow too. He treated me like I was a stupid person, and I was so desperate to believe him, for a while, I was.
Looking into my eyes while I cried saying “There is no one else…”
Technically that was right, because DDay happened almost a year after Schmoopie dumped FW, August-ish. Cue the minimization!
“I haven’t so much as sent her a smoke signal since August.”
Other than this email, eight months later, saying you thought you saw her in x country and was she there during x dates? (She said nope must be a doppelganger, and recommended him a restaurant there, bye bye…. hahahaha, his excuse to reach out was pathetic and she completely did not take the bait)
They communicated on an encrypted messenger for their job, so who knows what pathetic crap he was really sending her after they broke up. He must’ve just forgotten he used unencrypted email.
I’m so thankful for those relatively minor and common FW lies that tipped me off to the fact that he is not my friend and cheating was a calculated action, not a “mistake” as he claimed. It’s when CL’s message started to click.
Omg… I have a doozy!!! I met a woman on the plane who lost her son and I told her I also lost a daughter and did a memorial and she wanted to meet to see it ( yes, he used our deceased daughter as a lie) That is pure desperation as of course I should believe that. Who would do that? He forgot that he is anti social and no way was he talking to anyone on the plane. Also, he used our grocery card to buy flowers and strawberries and cheese. When I asked. He said, I thought I should bring something, but then when I got there I realized it was not right so I just ate the food myself later, but I did give her the flowers to put on her sons grave. Seriously!!!
My ex husband also used our deceased son to facilitate his cheating. It’s fucking disgusting.
“He was such a sensitive and artistic soul that he makes better friends with women than other men.” OMG. No. Everyone always telling me how good I had it with him because he was such an understanding, feminist, relatable guy who OBVIOUSLY respects women, I mean he is married to a very outgoing, strong, professional woman!
I was told all our relationship how lucky I was to have him. I do wonder if I would have seen the neon signs as bullcrap earlier if the entire world wasn’t gaslighting me on how wonderful my relationship was. I never gush about others’ relationships beyond saying things like “they make a cute couple” because I refuse to participate in anyone’s potential to con their partners, even unknowingly. Many of those people later admitted that they knew usually one little piece of the puzzle but because of all the rest of his glamourbombing, they didn’t even believe themselves. They all apologized after everything came out. My poor best friend, in the last couple months he had propositioned her, sort of in a “plausible deniability” way, and she completely avoided him after that. Only after the DDay did everything make sense.
So many little lies that made a huge lifetime of complete illusion. Therapy was my only way back to sanity.
My friend and family all thought the same also. I also think an avoidant man can come off as the sweetest man on earth, but they are just avoiding conflict and harboring resentment. That was mine at least
Oh absolutely. Mine turned out to be a covert narcissist and avoidant (his childhood was a train wreck so no wonder he turned out the way he did). When it was apparent that I no longer bought into his “I’m a sweet, timid forest creature who has no idea when women are hitting on me” and other nonsense, you could see his face physically change. It was so scary and he still sometimes tried the mask with me when he wanted something (during the divorce and when coparenting) but when the real face comes out, it is almost like another person. My husband prefers if we have to meet in person for any reason (I try not to) that he is there with me because he hasn’t dropped the “face” very much in front of him, but it is scary that I have to have “witnesses” to prevent him from being straight up mean to me, and abusive. All this and he never laid a hand on me. But the damage is deep.
After everything on DDay, he laid it all out on me how horribly unhappy I made him and how my mom made him marry me (?) etc. etc. among so many other strange resentments that he never, ever said before. I realize now that nothing I did could have made any difference. We were doomed because he is incapable of any healthy relationships. I wasted 20 years with a man incapable of loving me. Thank goodness it wasn’t 21 years. Better late than never!
This is my experience too. Sadly.
I also married the nice guy mask! He is VERY scary with it off. Same with the crazy driving like Kim with me and my kids in the car when they were little, screaming. So much cognitive dissonance and everyone around me thought he was AWESOME and so wonderful. He cheated as much as he could, lied, did drugs, drove like a maniac, and abused his wife and kids. Then accused me of poisoning his food. That is when I ran. SO FAST. He sees the kids once a week, and I have been free for almost 3.5 years. We just deal with parenting stuff. I am so glad I ran after 28 years. It’s funny now he struggles with the mask ALL the time and people tend to avoid him. He has one friend no girlfriend. Reap what you sow dude.. for years I thought if I contorted myself enough he would love me. NOPE he loved him only.
Don’t feel too bad. I wasted 35 years on such a man.
Your post really resonated with me. Mine is also a covert narcissist and the mask drop is terrifying. It is all abuse. They don’t need to hit us to destroy our lives.
The face change is what finally dropped the rose colored glasses for me, too. He was so innocent, hard-working, never could get ahead in the cold cruel world but so loyal to me and trying so hard to make me happy…….. all the while he hated me. And whew – when the mask falls off – it is something you will never forget. I wasted 40 years trying to love a broken, cruel man-baby who needed a mommy to do the hard adult things in life so he could play with himself and with his fuck buddies. I feel so stupid.
You just described my ex to a T. My ex had a carefully crafted phony nice guy image, but he was actually a nasty conflict avoidant coward. He was terrified to address the things that bothered him so he became passive aggressive and nasty, but then would play dumb and pretend he had no idea what the problem was. If you really payed attention you’d see the smirk on his face as he painted a phony smile on and asked what the problem was right after he’d been a prick.
He’d even road rage by purposely speeding up and not letting people in, then when they’d cut in anyway he’d lay on the horn. A few times the person pulled up next to him and rolled down the window and the coward just looked straight ahead.
One time I was out running and crossed the street when I saw him running (after I’d left). He let out a nasty PA laugh and I yelled from across the street “why don’t you fuck right off”? Coward looked straight ahead and didn’t respond but then sent me a text later claiming he didn’t understand my hostility. My friends and I had a great laugh over it. Lol
He’s blocked now.
Kim, we were married to the same guy!!! I am so sorry.
Yes Tornup, my FW came off as a humble and gentle man. But inside is a rage-o-holic passive aggressive delusional dickhole.
We were married to the same kind of cheater. Conflict avoidant- I didn’t know this term but it matches. X was a blank slate that women of all kinds projected their desires onto him and he let each think he was their perfect man.
For 20 years people told me how lucky I was – and I believed it. Several told me I wasn’t good enough for him – and I believed it.
It’s taken six years to change my despair (and Ted Lasso’s character arc of Rebecca helped a lot, TBH)
THIS!!! Oh yes, he doesn’t have many male friends but so many female friends. And they NEED him for things whereas I’m an independent shrew who doesn’t need him. He is a hero of women!
Yes to all female friends. There are a lot of similarities with the covert types.
I was often told how lucky I was with both my ex-husbands. They both seemed like the world’s greatest. Crappy husbands in the end, great in the beginning. They put on a good show especially when other people were around. Good to the kids though, if you exclude causing divorce, which ultimately affects the kids.
speaking of kids I just thought of a good lie…
How about swearing on the life of your kids that you are NOT having an affair! Ugh
Same re passive aggressive and 100% avoided conflict -which is why FW seemed wonderful to live with… (until the affair). A people pleaser, very agreeable – I realize now, with hardly any opinion of his own.
If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Mine did that too. Swore on the kids that he wasn’t cheating.
““He was such a sensitive and artistic soul that he makes better friends with women than other men.” OMG. No. Everyone always telling me how good I had it with him because he was such an understanding, feminist, relatable guy who OBVIOUSLY respects women, I mean he is married to a very outgoing, strong, professional woman!”
Oh, so you were married to my ex too?
The hotel mistakenly put the restaurant/bar bill with my colleague as room service.
with his colleague
After Dday I found receipts for hotel, dinner and gambling. His lie- What if I was too drunk to drive and got a hotel? My response- you booked the hotel days before. I found the number on the phone bill with the date.
After Dday during the 18 weeks of wreconsillyation HELL the lies were truly ridiculous: golfing weekend in winter in rainiest part of the PNW with buddy whose wife had just given birth days earlier after a decade of infertility (lie!), sudden need to leave a family outing and go golfing in jeans and flannel shirt and hiking boots in the middle of a Sunday afternoon trip to visit our son at college (he left me and our two daughters at the college with our son… all lies!!!), telling me and our devastated 10 year old that he couldn’t go to the beach with us on a Sunday because he needed “some time (6 hours!) to himself at the public library” (he was a 48 year old partner at a big law firm with a corner office that was dead quiet on Sundays- the car was full of AP’s white dog hair and pine needles when ge returned)…., ugh! These recollections are making me furious anew. Fucker!!!! I’m so glad I told him to GTFO! divorced, went no contact. It’s the only path to peace.
My BIL’s “crazy” girlfriend tried to warn me about my ex but I wouldn’t talk to her. It came out that she was blackmailing my BIL with information about my ex. My then husband told me it’s because his brother had posted pictures of the the two of them (my ex and his brother) on his plenty of fish account. I believed my husband and wrote this lady off as nuts since she was engaged in extortion after all. Ten years later when I found my husbands burner phone and he fessed up that he was meeting up with couples he met on line I realized how stupid I had been! She could not have been black mailing my BIL if she didn’t have some proof that my ex-husband had been cheating. I should have hired an investigator. But I was very chump back then. It still makes me feel a little sick to write about it.
Ex-Mrs LFTT joined a choir and would attend choir practise every Thursday evening. She would also often be away on Sundays when the choir was performing. Whenever she was away I would look after the kids, and I went out of my way to juggle my work and personal schedules to ensure that she had the freedom to do something that she said she enjoyed. About 2 years after she left the kids and I to be with her AP I found out that she never used to attend either choir practise or the concerts; Thursday night (and Sundays when she could get away with) was date night with her AP …. with muggins here providing the childcare.
I guess, however, the joke is on me. I knew that she couldn’t sing for shit, and yet I never asked myself what was really going on.
LFTT
I believed that w
He was studying to become a therapist — he has a “full” practice now — and I found a link to kink.com on his computer. He told me that he was doing research on kink for a patient he was treating. Swore up and down that he had no interest in that sort of sex, and he knew that I did not. Oh wow — come to find out years later that he was regularly visiting bdsm dungeons throughout his relationship with me and with his first wife.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the vast majority of mental health care professionals (social workers, psychiatrists and psychotherapists) are sadists and psychopaths. I’m happy to read here that some chumps have found helpful ones but it seems to be pretty rare.
Or grossly incompetent regarding personality disorders and narcissistic abuse.
My ex made the separation long-distance, and there were all kinds of lies truly messed with me until I realized that he truly had no intentions of working on the marriage and was playing me with his family that I had to “fix” the marriage for it to continue. That was ironic because they were strongly patriarchal, and yet they were looking to me to save the marriage. Nevermind his long history of mental health and addiction issues, among other things.
Then he said several times that he was not accountable to me for his behavior while we were apart and that his schedule was none of my business. Last I checked, you are still a married man? I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t living like a married man. After deciding that any remaining trust had evaporated, I ended all relationship discussions.
We divorced. My STBX promised “quick and easy” which meant “let’s burn up everything” to him. Even his attorney got tired of it and ultimately changed sides in some ways to settle it. The attorney had been wanting to quit and related that to mine, and finally agreed to stay in until it got signed because he liked and respected my attorney. Of course, in my ex’s eyes, that made both attorneys crooked because he didn’t get his way.
Truly had to be though.
A few years into our marriage, Fraudster told others that he had a Harvard MBA. I asked how, since I’ve known him since high school, we married right after he got his BS, he’d been working full time since then with frequent travel– and he never mentioned applying, classes, assignments or graduation. He said he did it all during work hours. When I was skeptical, he said it was a “mini-MBA.” Kept the MBA on his resume.
Flash forward 30-plus years. During our divorce, he again claimed he had an MBA, and even had the university logo on his Linked-In page–but now he claims it’s from Dartmouth. The registrars from both the College in MA and the University in NH confirmed in emails that he never graduated or even applied for any classes.
He’s also claimed he’s a veteran, an MD, a radiologist, and two-time international music champion.
Latest thing I saw on Linked in was that he added an aeronautical engineering degree, so now he’s literally claiming to be a rocket scientist.
I didn’t believe the above, but many others did. What I believed was that he had integrity honesty and scruples. Sadly, those were frauds, too.
Yours too? GG’s mom graduated from Stanford, so he took her Stanford alumnus license plate holder and put it on his car, even though he never completed his degree and went to a less-selective state university.
The worst lie was his explanation for how he contracted HIV (told to me over the phone at about 2 a.m. on my 50th birthday).
Not that I asked … I was ever so slightly in shock at the moment … still trying to absorb the new reality … but he offered that the ONLY thing he could think of, was one time years earlier, well before he’d even met me, he was on a student trip and was treated in a rural clinic in India and he always suspected the hypodermic needle might have been unhygenic. Granted, he thought everything was unhygenic, but the explanation made more sense than him getting it from sex. He hated sex, hadn’t even attempted it with me in a decade or so.
So it actually was the only explanation that made sense, even if it meant that I’d been exposed years earlier before he lost his sex drive, including the period in which we weren’t using protection because we were trying to start a family, which was before I gave birth to my wonderful daughter by c-section and nursed her for the first year of life, as any loving mother would do.
I’d have to say it was his worst lie, although much later when confronted he denied that it was a real lie because he had no way of knowing it wasn’t the truth.
Walkbymyself, that is terrible. I am so sorry. Did you ever get the truth out of him?
I eventually got to a doctor who explained that my husband’s cover story was medically impossible, and that in light of my husband’s general health he can’t have been positive for more than 18 months. My husband never acknowledged the lie, or the trauma it caused to me. It was like being put through a mock execution that lasted for nearly a week.
Walkbymyself, I am so sorry you went through that. Thank goodness he did not expose you. I’m sending you lots of good vibes. These are heavy, heavy topics. I wonder about my FW. All sex stopped a decade ago. Who knows what he’s been up to in that department. It’s probably better for me not to know.
I believed that while on a business trip with OW (employee of our joint business) they would share a room for the sake of saving money…
He Loves Me Not
The biggest lie I fell for was that he was capable of love. I received intermittent love bombing cards filled with lies about wanting to spend the rest of his life together as one.
I found evidence of poems he wrote to other women. With a few scribbles he changed the name. He had a strange fantasy he re-enacted during the love bombing phase centered around The Dance/The Kiss. It creeps me out to think I married a predator.
I believed that he really needed to take a “walk” every night from 8:30-11:30pm even though he wasn’t getting any fitter. I really fought hard to believe this lie when he left without a coat in January.
Oh or that he was at the supermarket for two hours when it was basically across the street!
Lol I always thought my ex was so weird for spending hours at the store. I thought he was just super indecisive. I just now realized that he probably wasn’t spending that time at the store. Thanks for sharing!
My ex liked to use the word “pretend” instead of “lie.”
Example: I pretended that I was going fishing when I was actually going to fuck her in a hotel.
One time he accidentally sent our adult daughter a text that was meant for the AP. It was vague enough (I’ve showered. I’m eager to see you. The garage door is open) that I bought his excuse that a friend of his had fat fingered it to him and he in turn fat fingered it to our daughter. I BELIEVED THAT LIE in part because he was a ding-a-ling when it came to anything involving technology. For instance, he was the kind of guy who had to ask me every damn time how to attach something to an email. But still, I never should have bought that excuse.
To this day, it amazes me that I DID buy it. Was my subconscious mind keeping things from my conscious mind (assuming that’s such a thing) in order to protect me from a devastating realization? I don’t know.
Btw, he got one of his friends to tell me that he (his friend) had sent that text. The friend who lied for my ex said he never wanted to see or hear from him (my ex) again. He felt dirty by association.
I think “pretend” felt less bad to him. Children pretend. It’s pure, simple, play time.
To his credit, he would later tell me that he had lied to me every day for nearly 3 years. He HAD to in order protect himself and the AP. He seemed to think that was very good justification. Oh, and he said he only lied about ONE THING.
After D-Day, he announced that he’d stopped lying.
Nope. Nopety nope. I caught him in even more lies post D-Day.
I’m going to guess that he continues to lie, even to the sainted AP-now-wife, who began the multiyear affair while she, too, was married.
Both are Olympic-level liars.
Must be fun.
I’m sorry for your pain, but when I got to the part that he was a Rocket Scientist- I spit out my coffee! 😂
^^^This was a reply to
goodfriend. Those were some doozies, alright. I like that he put the Harvard logo on his LinkedIn- nice touch!
“Fidelity screwed up and didn’t do the 529 fund plan right. But don’t worry my mom loaned me the money to cover this semester’s tuition.”
He had emptied our daughter’s college savings fund to pay the bills after he got fired and didn’t tell me.
“I would never cheat on you because the anxiety of maintaining the lie would be too stressful” I don’t regret believing the lie so much as I regret accepting that as the reason he wouldn’t cheat.
Mine said he would never cheat because it would be “too complicated” and how would he even have time for that? He said it as a joke and more than once. I cringe that I ever accepted this.
Mine said this too! ALL THE TIME
I heard the same. And believed it. When I found out what he was doing behind my back I realized what a monster he really was.
I’m not that kind of guy.
I did’t want to tell you as it would upset you
Like i was a lose cannon
I heard that one too. Uh, I know how you get…,
as if I had no self control.
“I’m divorced.”
“We’ve been divorced for like 10 years.”
“I didn’t introduce you to (friends he encountered at a restaurant) because I haven’t seen them in years and they don’t know I’m divorced.”
Here’s the one I DID NOT believe: “I’m not having an affair.”
The man who couldn’t be alone for one night wanted to separate and live alone for, he said, “3 months.”
Um, no. Just no. “There must be another woman,” I said. His angry response, “You think you know everything.”
Three days later, he fessed up.
Texting on his phone all the time “for work” — even at 11pm. And one time I caught him laughing and I asked him “this is work?” And he said “yes! My coworker made a joke.” Well, AP was his coworker after all
A couple of nights he told me he had to go to his co-worker’s house for them to make calls to overseas clients.
He had to go to “work dinners”
I was no longer invited to “work functions” I used to be included in.
I trusted him and I forgive myself. But it still makes me sick that FWs can be so abusive.
Before this gullible Chump even married the fuckwit, I was sitting with him on a date when another woman came over, sat next to him, and rubbed her bare foot up his calf. I was appalled that he sat there across from me and let her. When she left, I shockingly asked, “How could you sit there and just let her do that?!” He said, “What?” I said, “She rubbed her foot up your leg and you just let her!” He said, “You’re imagining things. That didn’t happen.” And I honestly wondered if I really did imagine it! I didn’t know that people could blatantly lie. I was so, so naive! What a Chump!
Oh brother. Mine posed for a picture THAT I WAS TAKING by pressing his cheek against his nurse/co-worker’s cheek.
He never, ever posed that way with me, his wife of 35 years. Not even when we were first married.
I did think it odd but then dismissed my concerns.
Btw, that one was not THE nurse AP with whom he thought he would be “happier,” but perhaps she was AN AP from a different time. Who the hell knows?
Wow, that reminds me of the time, about a week after he’d forced me to leave, that my ex and I were at an event for one of his films. He was sitting between me and “she’s just a friend” AP and he got up to go to the bathroom or smoke a cigarette or something and I watched him stroke her thigh (hip to knee and back again) before he got up. I confronted him later about it and he said “I don’t remember doing that”. I said “it was a foot away from me, I didn’t make it up; if you don’t remember, that’s even WORSE because it means you’ve done it so many times that it doesn’t even register anymore”. He still denied there was anything between them, even though on that night OW threw a HUGE temper tantrum because she thought she saw him touch me (his, you know, WIFE) in an intimate way (he didn’t). She shoved me out of the way to walk next to him, hitting me with her backpack on the way, and when we later went to a bar after the screening, OW, who was behind me, threw her bag in front of me into the chair next to the one FW was sitting down in. I calmly pulled a chair over and put it between FW and the chair with her bag and sat down. She was absolutely insufferable that night, and when they left (he’d given her a ride) I heard her slam his car door so loudly. That must’ve been a fun drive home.
She had probably been told that the two of you were already separated, that you knew he was with her now. He’d invited you to the event just because he’s such a nice guy!
The one that pisses me off the most was the “I am going to ride around with one of the guys (police officer) for a while.
He knew I wouldn’t question it, at least not in the beginning. When it finally hit me he was obviously screwing around, I wanted him floating in the Ohio face down for that lie.
I want to go back in time and hire a cabbie to take me by the whores trailer in the middle of the night; but alas no do overs.
Susie, there’s a special place in hell for people who abuse our trust like that. Of course you wouldn’t think to suspect an officer who says he’s riding around in the car. Isn’t that what they do?
Shameful!
Yep, he knew I would buy it. Honestly I could have checked it out very easily, but it never occurred to me until the very end. He also knew I would never interfere with his job, by checking it out. I trusted him that much.
Towards the end, I was in the metaphorical festal position, just waiting for him to leave. I wish I had told the mayor and the police chief all the lies he had told me, but I was too humiliated.
my ex started a new job and told me she had to travel for work to a city 400 miles away, 2 nights.
Sure, have fun honey.
When I saw her bag it looked like she had packed enough that she was doing away from a month, and in it she included lingere, lube and sex toys.
I asked her what the fuck is all this for and she said “ohhhh well I’ve been under so much stress from this new job that I wanted some ‘alone’ time in my hotel room to relax…..yea relax with her AP it turns out. Took me months to get her to admit she didn’t go on that trip alone.
After DDay1 I was in a state of shock for a while and took everything he said as half truths. After I served divorce papers and my head began to clear and found out he cheated on me throughout our marriage.
One in particular I was very gullible about. He was love bombing me. However still had time to have a go with this mutual friend of ours while I was out of town. When I came back, I got projection that I cheated on him and then after that cleared he began to hate this girl. Talked really bad about her. Used to get really angry with her. She told me what happened just 3 years ago. Just know when a person flips a switch on any person and you don’t have a clear reason. Sucks.
Biggest lie of many: “Getting tested for STDs is just part of a regular annual exam. How did you see that anyway?” (married with joint health care, and the tests are itemized on the bill….)
I didn’t find out until D-day that FW was being tested every six months for STDs at work (bi-annual licensing medical). He must have told the company doctor about his slip-up:
Just after our first child was born he went to a walk-in clinic to be treated for what he told me was a UTI. He came home with a scrip for me, claiming it was to prevent cross-infection. This was a huge breach of medical ethics on the MD’s part, prescribing for a patient he hadn’t examined but I didn’t know that at the time. In my postpartum, exhausted state I didn’t question anything and besides, I trusted him implicitly. Only when I discovered the cheating 25 years later did the penny drop. Eventually he did admit it was chlamydia but he swore he caught it from the bed sheets in a hotel. Um, maybe from what was between those bed sheets beside you.
I am not gay!
Hahahaha. Mine said the same, told me sleeping with men made him feel more like a man. Well then, that probably means you are gay.
“I didn’t know what you meant by platonic.”
Me! Me! Pick me!
I have a veritable treasure trove of outrageous lies told by the Lying Cheating Loser and dutifully swallowed by me.
This, however, is one of his finest efforts.
When we first started dating, he claimed to be single with no kids. But he had names tattooed on his forearm as part of a sleeve – names that clearly belonged to a woman (call her “Sandra”) and two children (“Colin” and “Cassidy”).
So naturally – innocently – I asked. He claimed that Sandra was his most recent ex girlfriend, and that Colin and Cassidy were his beloved nephew and niece.
I distinctly remember taking a brief mental pause. Because who tattoos the names of a niece and nephew, how matter how close and loved, on their forearm?
But I took him at his word, and we continued to date.
I’m 15 years older than the LCL. My three kids were grown, and I’d had my tubes tied after my third. I was not going to bear any more children, and I worried about building a future together and depriving the LCL of a chance to be a dad.
Thankfully, after a couple of months, he was able to lay my worries to rest. He agonized, but finally “came clean” and confessed that Colin and Cassidy were his children, by his high school sweetheart (ironically also named Sandra), who lived five hours away and whom he never got to see.
I was so supportive! I listened to his remarkable stories of the two Sandras – his baby mama and his recent ex – and how hard done by he was by both these evil women.
Of course, it didn’t take much detective work on my part to determine that there was only one Sandra. She was his wife, though by that time they were separated, and lived with Colin and Cassidy a mere 20 minutes from me.
The shame I feel for not dumping the LCL then and there is something I’ll take to my grave.
I did eventually get to know Colin and Cassidy and be a reliable presence in their life for a couple of years, during a time when they sorely needed it.
I still miss those kids.
‘I didn’t get the job (again) because my ex wife has smeared my name and my boss doesn’t talk well of me in the teaching community, plus it was a set up and went to an internal candidate.’ Cue me making him his favourite meal and consoling him and telling all my friends and family how hard done to he was……
I find out that he didn’t get the job(s) because of his reputation of being lecherous, flirtatious, a show off and even at interview a complaint was put in by a member of staff about him being ‘too over familiar and handsy.’
After reading these, I experience seems so milquetoast. I found an empty bottle of ED drugs in his truck. He told me that he use them to beat off. Duh? Hugs.these stories suck so bad!
Me: “Ok so… how much debt do you have then?” (That he was hiding from me)
Him: “About 100K”
Actual: Multiply that by about 6…
Me: “It must be hard to deal with the bad behavior social pressure of your colleagues on your nationwide work trips.”
Him: “Yes when they invite me to go with them off shift to the strip clubs and “massage parlors”, I decline because I want to be a good Christian witness and husband, so I get just my dinner and retire to my hotel room all by myself while the guys make fun of me for being such a goodie goodie.”
Actual: All that PLUS prostitutes!
FW definitely pawned off/projected others’ bad or pathetic behavior on work trips or those times he accompanies his college friend to strip joints. “It was them – not me!”
Yup. Mine had the gall to blame that his “sex addiction” was fueled by my brother taking him to a strip club for his bachelor’s party! Like he couldn’t say no? And he neglected to tell me about all the porn and girls he had sex with before me.
This is a bit extra… for sure!
“CN, we’ve swallowed some whoppers. Judging purely by the all the Bible study that goes on in hotel rooms around Chump Nation.” 🤣🤣🤣 Oof! Good one! I love you so much, Chump Lady! This site was the ::Revelation:: which quickly led to my ::Exodus:: from fuckwittery. 💕
That a kid wasn’t his.
This guy was only in my life briefly. Thank goodness. The first time around it was only a month and a half. But he came poking back in my life a couple months later. Stupid me…
When we were together the first time, he left his phone on the floor and I saw a conversation between him and a “Megan” about if she could see herself with him. I was so fucking stunned that this was already happening only a month in, I was completely dumbstruck and frozen. I looked at his facebook, and there’s nobody named Megan on it. We ended up breaking up shortly after because he didn’t like me asking him to stop talking about how great his ex wife was and how much sex they had.
A few months later he pokes back around super interested. Slowly, I learn about his “friend” …Megan. Megan is ten years younger than him. Megan is pregnant. Megan wants him to help her raise this child. Megan’s “ex” boyfriend hates him “for totally no reason.” Oh and the kid is DEFINITELY not his and Megan is DEFINITELY not his girlfriend.
Stupid, chumpy desperate me believed the story at the time. Until he started pulling the same shit as before. Megan could never meet me, because “she thinks we’re together so she’d freak out if she saw another girl with me, she’s super jealous…” etc. This man, again, bailed for another “friend” very quickly (this was a blessing in disguise that the trash took itself out so fast.)
Time, therapy, and learning boundaries have given me the perspective that 1) This guy was a complete scumbag. 2) That kid was definitely his. I would bet dollars to doughnuts Megan’s “ex” boyfriend was probably her actual boyfriend and hated him because he knocked her up, thus destroying their relationship and THEN he became an ex. I would bet Megan didn’t want to see him with other girls because she probably was now with him and she probably expected him to help raise the baby because he’s the damn father.
This dude was probably the single most ridiculous person I involved myself with and goddamn was my picker broken, but thankfully he was such a slog that he left fast. Both times.
“I’m swimming at the YMCA with [Suspected Other Man]”. In the middle of the pandemic.
“I’m not playing video games. I got a new remote job in video game design.” In my defense his paycheck from his actual job went into his private bank account that I had no access to and he went to the trouble of making up names and nationalities for his imaginary colleagues.
“I got injured while snowboarding with the guys. I was unconscious for a few minutes.” Yet he managed to drive himself all the way home. Still can’t believe I took the attention whore to the ER and stayed with him until 2 AM when I had work the next day.
She had to go to her yearly company Christmas party (that we went to every year together, except this year I wasn’t allowed) seven hours early to set things up. Turns out she would rather screw sparkle dick than go to the party with her husband. I stayed home with the two very young kids for the millionth time.
I left my phone in my car all day and it overheated, so I didn’t get any of your texts or calls, and couldn’t let you know where I was all day.
“All we ever did was kiss.” -FW 🤦🏻♀️
Mine are BAD. And I have about a dozen more I could share.
1) He was on solo “meditation retreats” with a “Tibetan lama” which were held in expensive Air B&Bs over long weekends. Now the mediation retreat part wasn’t suspicious for him, as he’s a very spiritual person (I know, I know) and involved in many Buddhist communities, but he was with his AP at these times, as I’d eventually discover. When he’d come home from these “retreats” he had lots of interesting details to share to cover his tracks, such as “the Tibetan lama just wanted to go out and eat a lot” (to cover the expensive meals), “the Tibetan lama drinks a LOT” (the AP has an alcohol problem), “the Tibetan lama has long black hair” (AP has long black hair, and I believe he was afraid of me finding it in our car), “we were up really late meditating so I’m really tired” (self explanatory), “the Tibetan lama smells like dryer sheets… I think he uses a public laundromat” (AP uses dryer sheets and we don’t use any scented products, so this was to (quite literally!) throw me off her scent. On and on.
OK, this one is maybe the best / worst:
2) I found a small, stretchy woman’s socks with little flowers on it, hidden in his pillow (not mine). His excuse: “Oh that? It’s a little girl’s sock I found in the basement (we’re renters, and a lot of people left stuff behind here) on the same day that I read a certain book / passage about education (he’s an educational theorist), and it was a meaningful connection / occurrence that I wanted to remember.” Or something like that. “So you kept a random little girl’s sock… in your pillow?” “Yup.”
At least I didn’t buy that one.
The worst ones though, in terms of ethics?
3) “It’s just your brain injury making you think you can’t trust me / don’t know me / that I’m having an affair.”
I strongly believe that messing with someone’s reality is one of the worst things you can do to them, if not the worst. But gaslighting someone with a brain injury who’s struggling to heal and to interpret reality and trust her body and mind’s (often wonky) signals? Let alone your wife and so-called best friend of 23 years who trusts you implicitly? That is evil.
(And by the way… after years of extreme illness and a very, very slowly recovery, I seem to be healing at an exponential rate ever since we separated, and especially after the divorce was finalized (all my decisions, BTW). Funny that. I now believe he’s been cheating the entire time I was sick. I wish I knew… doubt I ever will.
Wow, Chump Changed, that is especially evil. Just when you think you’ve experienced/read/heard the worst, you see something like this. 🙁
I’m so glad you’re rid of him!
I’m so sorry you went through that too. I agree it’s one of the worst things you can do to a person. I have an autoimmune disease and it was affecting me neurologically to the point I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was struggling to keep a grip on reality while he was screwing with my head and lying to me. And he would throw my illness in my face to shame and guilt me when all else failed. Such a horrible thing to do to a person. Just evil.
I’m so glad you’re getting better. It’s funny, my healing also accelerated since I got away from my ex. They kept us sick in more ways than one.
KatiePig, there is a special circle of hell reserved for your ex. Evil!
Chump ( me of course): Just saw you bought a new cycling kit/jersey (using our shared account)….did you MEAN to buy a women’s size small??? In pink??!!
FW: yeah I’m not sure about sizing….figured women’s was the same as men’s and I wanted something to go with my pink socks. I’ll just send it back if it doesn’t work.
Fast forward two years when I discovered the three year affair with woman size small who had taken up cycling for the FW.
Just one of about a million big and little lies to keep me looking like a clown for the past 27 years.
Me 2014: What is this SugarBabies.com website?
STBX: a client asked me to look into that for trademark infringement. Not an interesting case.
Me 2 years later when website pops up: Is that SugarBabies case still going on?
STBX: What are you talking about? I don’t do that kind of law. You saw another site and are confused.
Me a year later: Why is the SugarBabies website open on my iPad?
STBX: What are you talking about? Let me see. There’s nothing there. You probably just mistyped something. I’ll download cooking apps for you, just search there for sugar cookie recipes.
Me the next year: The SugarBabies website is open on the family computer.
STBX walking in and reaching around me: That’s a site for the SuperBowl cheerleaders. Are you ok? Why did you think you saw something else?
Me 2023: The SugarBabies website is still bookmarked on the family computer.
STBX: it can’t be, I installed a new browser and I don’t use that computer. One of the kids must’ve used it (all young adults living on their own.)
Me: The site was just opened last night.
Him: Why are you spying on me?
Wow, that would be the ultimate modern adaptation of the movie Gaslight. You’re Ingrid Bergman and your ex is Charles Boyer, though possibly dumpier and with less hair.
‘I’m the most loyal person you will ever meet’ said at the beginning of our relationship.
It’s funny how our reactions to uncovering these horrifying lies shift so dramatically according to frame of mind. Getting proof of the same huge lies that– at first– gut, shock and tear your soul apart might become the things that make you rub your hands together and snicker “Gotcha, motherf*cker” once in fight mode.
In my case, I had hard evidence of all the lies in the form of texts and emails. Because I was doing extended trips far from home with the kids to seek specialized medical care for my middle child when the affair began and also because FW began avoiding talking by phone or video call because he was never where he said he was, there’s a written trail of the entire fiasco. This was in a fault divorce state so this was especially bad news for FW. After D-Day when I got access to FW’s secret “affair credit card” account, it was very simple to document that the lies were lies and oh such egregious, manipulative and cruel ones. For instance, on the same nights when FW was spending a fortune on bistro grub, hotels and bar tabs, he’d be crying by text about his mental health, overwork, claiming to be headed home to sleep at 6PM from the “depression” of missing the kids and whining that we were too poor for him to travel to see us. Meanwhile he was spending the equivalent of three round trip flights every week on the office doorknob and was apparently drunk the whole time. The total of what he spent on the affair could have paid for our son’s treatments two times over. Worse, there were therapies I didn’t pursue because I was told– in text– that there was no money for these things. When the facts came out, this made FW look absolutely evil and like the worst father ever. Then there are the post-D-Day texts about how FW was just using the AP for sex and as a binge drinking buddy and because she’d clean up after him and wash his socks. If FW hoped ever that the AP might lie for him if subpoenaed, that hope flew out the window. My lawyer got a glint in his eye like the cat who’d cornered a whole stadium full of mice.
When I went into fight mode, I did it with gusto in reaction to all the “fear/obligation/guilt” manipulations FW had put me through– and it was all there in writing which made me stop doubting my memories or perceptions. My fear that FW would change the narrative and paint me as an ogre and himself as my victim disappeared. The assignment my lawyer gave me to go over the entire text thread and document every lie and gaslighting attempt by lining the dates up with evidence of FW’s skanky secret activities also made me really appreciate the incredibly sweet, helpful and trusting person I was before D-Day because it’s all there in text– me being supportive in passages about how FW was loved and the sacrifices we were making now could lead to a bright future for our family, sending him jokes and funny stories to make him laugh, me researching and recommending natural sleep strategies for FW’s “torture camp insomnia,” finding him doctors for his many woeful health ailments, offering to budget more (by never doing anything for myself), reporting all the things I was doing for the kids and happy pictures of all their wonderful activities that I was cobbling together on mere peanuts or for barter, doing emotional labor, etc. I looked like a stoic saint in text on top of being kind of fun and FW looked like a huge whining baby on top of being the devil and so did the AP. My lawyer predicted that the mere existence of this evidence would compel FW to be far less contentious than he would have been without it.
“I’m going to the park to pray.” This, as Snakeface was heading out of the house, in January, after 9:00 at night.
Snakeface was particularly full of spiritual fervor in the early days of following his Lakota path, and the local regional park where he liked to hike was the perfect place to pray under the stars. He had a tarp he could spread on the ground and several sleeping bags in the trunk of his car so that he could stay warm while he prayed. I really wanted to believe him for the first couple of years he’d pull that one. Pretty sure he wasn’t “praying” alone.
“I’m moving in with my parents to help fix up the house.”
When, in fact, the married OW lived just around the corner.
That, and maybe all the “love” notes he used to write in lieu of spending money on gifts.
Stay cool, everyone. Glad Monty is OK. So far in my area the power is holding up. But think about bumping up the thermostat a degree or two so that you’re safe and in tolerable conditions but putting less stress on the grid.
There are so many it’s hard to choose. Everything out of cheater’s mouth was a lie. I’m telling this one not because I believed it for even a second, but just because it’s so weird:
“If you look through the garbage can, the used condom is because I was masturbating with it.”
*me just staring back thinking how I’ve never looked through the garbage can.
They are so proud of their own shit!
“loyalty is the most important thing in love. loyalty.”
at the devalue/discard phase (30 years married) he accused me of being loyal. “it’s not enough to be loyal. a man needs to be adored.”
clearly his AP was “adoring” him at the sheraton on thursday afternoons.
this isn’t a lie but an example of gaslighting, i think.
the reality is that he lied about everything. that’s a lot to unpack but here i am, clearer and freer.
My Pick Me Dance recital was thankfully short-lived after I knew of the long-distance OW, but at one point I DID give him the option of letting me know “I want to come home”.
The Colonel had scheduled some in-office knee surgery and as the dancing chump that I was, I offered to pick him up for the procedure and then afterwards take him back to his apartment. The more I thought about it, the more aggravated I got that I had swallowed enough of my pride to even consider letting him return home… much less relegate myself to being his personal UBER driver. I left a message that I couldn’t make it. A day later he texted me to let me know that I had really blown it! When I had offered to take him to and from his surgery, THAT was the sign that he needed to know that I really did care about him. He said he had ordered 17 dozen roses to be delivered to his apartment (1 dozen for every year that we were together) on the morning before the surgery and along with that overwhelming gesture, he had been prepared to give me the joyous news that he was coming home! Once I cancelled on him, he KNEW that there was NO CHANCE of us getting back together so he threw “every single rose, every damn petal in the dumpster.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that later that day I drove to that dumpster to see for myself all the floral destruction that my insolent behavior had caused. You’ll never believe it, CN. Not a rose, not a petal was in that dumpster.
I laugh at how ridiculous this all sounds now.
Not a single rose? hahahaha!!!! this one is awesome!
Biggest lie was that his ex-fiancée cheated on him and was emotionally abusive. Poor me, I’ve never been treated well in a relationship. After my marriage was over, I ended up meeting his ex-fiancée for lunch. She didn’t cheat on him. He cheated on her with multiple women!
Just after we moved in together after dating for 3 years, I look over his shoulder one day and see Match.com charges on an account of his. He says: “yeah, I keep forgetting to cancel that.” He actually was a subscription addict and never cancelled things but what a lie.
A few years later, with a full time job earning near $100k annually, he took up being an uber driver so he could be gone every night from Thurs – Sunday. He did uber, but what a cover.
In the end, he needed to lock himself in the basement because of his porn addiction. But he also needed to come upstairs before bedtime to scrub his face and put on a clean shirt to eatch his porn. He was actually waiting for neighbor to signal with a walkie talkie that she was ready.
After I filed and made him move out (a sunday), I see dinner reservations for two come up on the Alexa calendar for 7pm the following Saturday! He was still groveling to come back and later gave me his phone and I found the reservation email AND a confirmation email that they were seated! He said that his phone must have done it all by itself….he is master IT professional. I did not believe this last one. But I think my life was filled with these.
The summer he told me (rather proudly) that an ex-student had set up a Facebook fan page for him I raised the possibility of divorce. His reaction was a blasé non-reaction: he started talking about how we’d each be ok financially, and acted like he couldn’t understand why I would feel sorrow and regret. Later that day I asked to walk divorce back. He agreed, and said to me, “If we can make this marriage good, I’m all in.”
For the next year and a half he turned the “pick-me dance” screws, saying things like, “Things need to change around here,” but never saying what. I lived on pins and needles. Then one day he walked in and said “I’m a woman in a man’s body and I’m going to transition. I’m going to have my testicles removed and take female hormones.” Turns out that unbeknownst to me for an entire year before we had that first conversation about divorce he’d been “experimenting” with his “gender identity” with that same ex-student.
I’m so sorry. That sounds like a particular brand of hell. Glad you’re out of it.
“I love you”
Nothing too funny the good old ‘she’s just a friend’
but the ‘she doesn’t even know anything about this’ – that would be the him leaving me part, was a bit much!
Thankfully my Pick-Me dance recital was short-lived once I found out about the long-distance OW, but there was a time when I DID gave him the option to tell me “I want to come home.”
After the Colonel had scheduled an in-office knee surgery, I offered to pick him up at his apartment and then return him home after the procedure as he would be unable to drive. The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I was that I had swallowed enough of my pride to even offer to take him back… in addition to being his personal UBER driver. I left him a message that I couldn’t make it. A day later I got a text from him letting me know just how badly I had blown it! He said that my offer to drive him to and from his surgery was the sign that he needed for him to know that I really did care about him. The morning of the procedure he had ordered 17 dozen roses to be delivered to his apartment (one dozen for each year that we had been together) and along with that grand gesture he had been planning to joyously tell me that he was coming home! Once I suddenly cancelled, he knew that there was NO CHANCE that we would ever be getting back together. Due to my insolent behavior, he then threw “every single rose, every damn petal in the dumpster.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that later that day I drove to that dumpster to see what $ 1500 worth of floral carnage actually looked like.
CN, you’re never going to believe it! Not one rose, not one petal was found in that dumpster.
“Floral carnage” LOL. Liars gonna lie.
🌹 💥
The ladies underwear (not mine) that showed up in our laundry. He said it must have belonged to one of our teenage sons. It’s possible that one of them had a girl over who left it behind, and it somehow got into our laundry basket… but not probable given that they didn’t have girlfriends.
Ah, I had ladies lingerie and laundry excuses once too. Static cling! Who knows where panties come from?
The same place socks disappear in the dryer ?
These are lies that I didn’t necessarily believe, but that I didn’t call him out on & pursue the truth. I ignored them & continued to think he loved me and wanted a good marriage.
1. That he got a misdemeanor for indecent exposure because he was “readjusting himself within his pants.”
2. That he was unfaithful only once, “it never happened before, and it will never happen again.”
3. That the sample viagra from the doctor was because “I don’t feel the same in the morning any more, I want to have morning erections again.”
FW didn’t have to lie much because he had a job that took him out of town and Schmoopie lives 400 miles away. When FW insisted I get checked for herpes, even then I suspected nothing. I didn’t know until he told me (during an appt with a therapist) – eleven years later. Then the trickle truth that after a break they were talking on the phone again as recently as 3 months ago. That was easy because FW is retired and I’m not.
Of course, looking back I could see red flags I ignored. So many. Once I said to him: “If you’re so unhappy, just leave.” He said, “I have nowhere to go.” My knock-off UBT says: “I don’t want to do all the responsible adulting that you do for me so I’m not leaving.” Cake! So much cake! He’s clinically depressed and in bed all day. TMS, ECT and ketamine have not helped.
“Of course, I never participated.”
Cheater was a former Benedictine monk, and claimed that he left the monastery because it was “too worldly” and besides, he had discovered a new desire to leave the religious life and have a family. We had only known each other for a brief time and were exchanging our histories. Cheater was telling me about how all of the novitiates would drag their mattresses to the roof to “to sleep on hot nights,” because the monastery had no air conditioning. And then they had orgies and it was “great — everyone there could get it on with anyone else that was there.” My face must have been shocked, because cue the “of course I never participated” lie. He claimed he never participated because he “always knew he liked women.” After we were married, a friend of his from the monastery told me he was shocked that the cheater ever got married because he planned and instigated some of those orgies.
He always was the life of the party.
The Ex-Mrs. Sparkly Pants, a MONASTERY was too worldly??? SMDH.
He left the monastery because it was “too worldly” and NOT because the novitiates were having gay sex orgies?
Which he thought were “great”?
(It is nice when heterosexual men are tolerant of gay men, but feeling perfectly at ease trying to sleep while a gay orgy is going on in the same place is taking it a BIT far. )
Thankfully my Pick-Me dance recital was short-lived once I found out about the long-distance OW, but there was a time when I DID gave him the option to tell me “I want to come home.”
After the Colonel had scheduled an in-office knee surgery, I offered to pick him up and then return him back to his apartment after the procedure as he would be unable to drive. The more I thought about it, the more disgusted I was that I had swallowed enough of my pride to even offer to take him back… in addition to being his personal UBER driver. I left him a message that I couldn’t make it. A day later I got a text from him letting me know just how badly I had blown it! He said that my offer to drive him to and from his surgery was the sign that he needed for him to know that I really did care about him. The morning of the procedure he had ordered 17 dozen roses to be delivered to his apartment (one dozen for each year that we had been together) and along with that grand gesture he had been planning to joyously tell me that he was coming home! Once I suddenly cancelled, he knew that there was NO CHANCE that we would ever be getting back together. Due to my insolent behavior, he then threw “every single rose, every damn petal in the dumpster.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that later that day I drove to that dumpster to see what $ 1500 worth of floral carnage actually looked like. 😎
CN, you’re never going to believe it! Not one rose, not one petal was found in that dumpster.
They are like toddlers, screaming, “I was going to invite you to my birthday party, but now I won’t!”
😩 🎂 🎈🤣
“I’m embarrassed to admit that later that day I drove to that dumpster to see what $ 1500 worth of floral carnage actually looked like. 😎
CN, you’re never going to believe it! Not one rose, not one petal was found in that dumpster.”
Don’t be embarrassed. That’s effing hilarious!
One of the biggest gestures of trustworthiness the FW displayed, often left his unlocked phone lying around, sometimes in a different room.
Polar opposite of my serial cheating ex before him, that kept his phone locked, on him and/or or under him at all times.
So when passing through the kitchen one day, glanced at his still awake screen on the counter, that caught my attention. Literally just walking through when I saw an explicit message (in Google chat or something) which turned out to be spam/bots, but it tripped my internal alarm bells. So I grabbed the phone I took it with me to investigate
Having learned a bit about such investigation from the aforementioned serial cheater, went immediately to history of purchased apps, saw the tinder app that he previously mentioned never trying before, in the ‘not on this device’ side.
Downloaded it. Tried to log in, clicked “forgot password,” link sent to 1 of his 2 email addresses that I was aware of (already on file, or it wouldn’t have sent anything), and logged in.
Agreed to the 2 factor authentication, that sent a code to the phone number on file for that account (his phone in my hand buzzed with the code) and I’m all the way in.
1 generic profile photo (shower products iirc) and a similar but not “his” actual name. 1st 4 letters and a -y, which is a somewhat logical shortening of his real name
Obviously he’s not going to use his actual name and photo.
He threw the biggest screaming fit about being “set up” and how fucked up it was that I believed he could do such a thing.
He DID NOT now, nor did he ever have a tinder profile.
After all, he had nothing to hide, or he would not just let me have unrestricted access to his phone and such.
I later learned it was because he was either too cocky and thought I would never find out, because he was clearly smarter than me.
Or he just did not care what I might find, because he knew he could just freaking gas light or intimidate me out of following up on, or holding him accountable for, anything shitty he did.
If I had believed my own eyes and brain then, and dumped his sorry ass then, I could have saved my kids and I so much pain and bullshit. I don’t blame them for hating me, because I’ll never forgive myself for that.
“We are just friends” right before I tested positive for an STD.
Then had the nerve to say he was picking the ho over me because “she doesn’t make me feel ashamed about the affair”
After a 38 year marriage, the judge’s decision made him feel ashamed!!!
“Then had the nerve to say he was picking the ho over me because “she doesn’t make me feel ashamed about the affair””
He expected his partner in crime to chastise him about their crime? 🤡
“Now you know everything, I swear.” -FW
Can not fathom how I fell for that so many friggin’ times…
Just reading this gave me flashbacks. I heard that SO MANY TIMES! And it was NEVER everything. Not even close. Every time I turned around, I found more.
It’s so emotionally draining wanting to believe that all the secrets were out but knowing in my gut that it was just the tip of the iceberg. And feeling sucker punched when each new tidbit was discovered (by me, he never admitted anything I didn’t already have proof of).
His version of the affairs made it seem not so bad “just a BJ from a hooker” or a stripper 17 years younger that was “just a friend” I wasn’t supposed to know he was talking to but he “never slept with her”. What I have suspicions about but can’t prove could fill that same 747 and I just got tired of digging and being lied to.
I’m embarrassed I tried to work through it for as long as I did.
could fill a 747*
“My depression gives me ED so we can’t have sex anymore. No, I don’t want to use Viagra. It’s expensive and not covered by insurance. It’s okay, I don’t have any drive anyway.”
Well, he didn’t have any drive for me anyway. I aged out of his window of interest by 30, apparently. But when he was telling me this, he’d already been cheating for years and had a steady barely legal sugar baby. And had/still has an active subscription to ED pills (all unbeknownst to me, of course).
Oh, my favorite post-DDay whopper was, “I couldn’t have sex with YOU, I’m monogamous with my [child mistress]!” Said so proudly, like I would give my HUSBAND props for being loyal to his MISTRESS and not me.
Best part, though, is that it’s not even true. He’s been banging pretty much anyone/everyone under 25 who will take his money the whole time he’s been with her. I don’t know if she really believes he’s loyal to her but I’m not the one who’s going to tell her the truth.
“I don’t know if she really believes he’s loyal to her but I’m not the one who’s going to tell her the truth.”
Hell no. You don’t owe her a thing. Let her waste her life on the prick.
The $4000 in cash I found in an envelope in his nightstand drawer was ‘savings’ that he had been compiling for both of us, but just hadn’t gotten around to depositing yet. I chided him for keeping such large amounts of cash. Then I opened a savings account and deposited it for him. I hadn’t yet discovered his gambling addiction. But even though I sort of believed him, my gut kept telling me that nobody keeps $4000 in cash in a drawer for no reason–especially without telling their spouse.
I know a woman who found a shoebox full of cash (10k) in her wasband’s closet. When the money gets funny.
Convo w FW and me and our 3 daughters (ages 23, 21 and 17) in our kitchen…
“Why did you drop off our Life 360 (gps) family circle, Dad, when you’ve insisted we are all on it?”
“Ummmm…because it drains my phone battery” (after 2 years of not previously draining his phone battery).
17 year old…”That’s funny…it doesn’t drain mine.” (In super skeptical voice)
My daughters bought this line of crap way less than I did…I was completely unable to entertain he could be up to what he was up to.
I was oblivious to so many lies and red flags during my 36 year long marriage. Here’s a few of the classics:
FW: “I was just messing around with the Ipad.”
Truth: Dick Pics are not just messing around and it’s a big red flag for infidelity when one is on any device.
FW: “I need to fly to _____ for work for a few days.”
Truth: I’m going to a nudist resort with my long term whore/masseuse turned mistress.
FW: “I need to shave my pubic hair because it gets so long and gets pinched by my underwear”
Truth: The pictures of FW with men, prostitutes and SUBS look better if FW is hairless.
FW: “Gays shouldn’t be allowed in the military” (heard this one thousands of times in 36 years)
Truth: FW had an active BDSM gay secret sexual basement and left me numerous pictures and email descriptions of himself with men.
“We are already divorced,” after I busted him on travel with Schmoopie in Colombia…apparently he had filed papers a few weeks prior to the trip to absolve himself of whatever guilt he might have otherwise felt…so when caught, defended himself by claiming we were already divorced.
And after reading all the lost ring stories here, it makes me wonder about the 2-3 wedding rings he lost and replaced…he always claimed he took off the ring when he washed his hands…huh?
There’s a billion lies probably, but here are 2 that I remember first:
Lie #1: Over the summer of her affair, FW (now XW) had a whole slew of vaginal infections and problems. I thought it odd because we hadn’t been intimate in a while, and she had always prided herself on never ever having had an STI/D (she was a health care professional). When I questioned her about all of the OB-GYN visits, prescriptions, and product orders, she claimed she got it from excessive sweating and that she had a long history of problems down there due to her sweating disorder.
Lie #2: In order to explain nightly phone calls to the AP, she made up a whole backstory about how her best friend was in an abusive relationship that she couldn’t get out of, and she was the only one that knew about it and was trying to console and help her friend.
FW never wore his wedding ring. Said it was “uncomfortable.” Yeah, I guess it was.
But the biggest lie I bought? He asked me to drive him to the airport for a trip to Vegas with his buddies. I was the “cool” wife who let him have his space and free time with whomever he wanted. I trusted him, so I said of course.
I joked with him as he got out of the car at the departure area to “not do anything stupid there.” Ha ha. We both laughed. Little did I know he was leading a secret life and was going to Vegas to MARRY the OW. Yes, he MARRIED her. Felony bigamy. I don’t think she knew he was already married because I can’t believe that both of them were that stupid and messed up.
After he got back to our city (several days after he told me he was returning), he stashed her in a hotel and played married with her for several days until it all finally became too much, and he feel drunk down some stairs and threatened to kill himself. The OW, wondering what in the heck was wrong with her new husband, called an ambulance, and he was taken to the ER. They tried to put a psych hold on him, but he walked off. The hospital called the police to track him down, and they ended up at my house, spilling the beans to my 13-year-old son (I was out walking the dog) that my husband had married someone else in Vegas.
Still can’t believe it. I told many friends, and they admit they’ve repeated it to others (minus the identifying details) as one of the craziest things they’ve ever heard a man do. Oh – and FW is a lawyer. But really, who doesn’t know that if you marry someone while you’re still married, the second marriage is void? So incredibly crazy and stupid. Actually makes me laugh a little now, 7 years out from D-day, but at the time, of course, it was devastating. Married 24 years at that point; together for 27.
P.S. He married her on our anniversary weekend.
Wow- what a bastard! What was his punishment, and does he have a record now?
At the time, FW was still employed at a large law firm, and I needed him to stay employed during our divorce. So when the OW dumped him and called my divorce lawyer wanting us to cooperate to ruin FW, I reluctantly had to say no. I also got calls from Vegas police, but I ignored them, and when I didn’t want to cooperate, they dropped it and he was never charged. I’m sure it wasn’t worth it to them if I wasn’t going to pursue it. I also could have had him disbarred, but I couldn’t pursue that either because I needed him to stay employed. Totally unfair, but I had to look at the long game. That’s why I call him Teflon, though. Nothing sticks to him. Nothing.
CBN-
I’ve read your story here before, and it never ceases to shock me. You could honestly go on one of those reality “The nightmare I married” type shows. That must have been such a traumatic experience for you, I’m glad you can laugh about it now.
I also fell for proving that I was the “cool wife” 🤦♀️ It goes along with proving you are the low maintenance girlfriend/wife… Which is really just making your needs much smaller than your partner’s.
Everyone tells me that I should write a book. 🤣
Bloody Hell! I hope he got done for it and struck off?
Mine is so disordered he believed his lies. He lied about ALOT. He would tell me something maybe a story, nothing you needed to lie about. The story would change and he would deny he said the first one. He was diagnosed with OCPD and NPD. This is typical behavior for them.
Example early on he told me he played baseball as a child and liked it but he decided to quit at some point about 13 years old because the ball is so fast he was afraid he would get hit and injured. Then years later he said he stopped playing baseball because it was boring. I innocently called him on it because the first reason stuck in my mind, its much more vivid, scared rather than bored. He denied denied denied. What does he gain? What do I care? But that seemed really odd. I was puzzled at the time. It stuck in my mind.
Then this happens enough times and you see the pattern. Here is Another example after I had caught on and his behavior escalated. We were watching an old TV series. We watched it repeatedly, it is comforting and just great. He said one evening that he was bored and didnt want to watch it anymore because we have watched all the episodes multiple times. I was incredulous. What do you mean? We love watching it. You dont want to watch it at all? He said yes. So then we go to a friends house that weekend. They are avid fans of this show and one of the reasons we bonded in friendship. They are discussing this TV show. I said, yeah its too bad you dont want to watch it anymore. They said what do you mean? I told them FW said he was bored because we have seen every episode multiple times. He said I never said that, I said yes you did. We started arguing, there was another couple there we didnt know I saw the look on their face and decided to let it go. Whats the point of making a point? Who is it benefiting? I was just tired of this BS at this point and wanted to stick it to him. But I dont need people I dont know thinking Im that craxy B***.
Holy crap… my FW pulled that all the time too. So f’n frustrating!!
They tell so many lies it becomes part of their character, rather than something they occasionally do, I reckon!
During his failed hoover, my SIL rang FW on his mobile. He told her he was in town eating chips when he was actually on my property talking to me. It turns out she only wanted to know had he any idea where her son, his nephew, was. I doubt she gave a shiny shite where he was nor what he was doing really and only asked to get an idea would he know where her son might be. But he HAD to lie, didn’t he? It’s just 2nd nature to him now. What’s worse is I could tell he was enjoying it! That means he enjoyed lying to me even more, because the stakes were far higher! Ugh, they make me sick!
He was head elder at our church and claimed to be attending hours long elders’ meetings twice a week for months. Boy was I a dummy!
I have to say that I’m impressed by this one. I hope the church members and other elders were suitably horrified when they found out!
My dad was a multi ho cheating narcissist. He told my mom that he couldn’t wear his wedding band at work, because it could get “in the way of the controls” (he was a commercial airline pilot.) She was a spackle queen and bought that one.
After seeing a charge for a florist (and having not received flowers at any point):
“I sent them to you. Didn’t we even talk about them?”
Gaslighting POS.
I saw Burner app on his phone years ago and thought stupidly it has something to do with music…. I keep going back to that moment and think omg how stupid could you be… But I truly never thought he was the kind of person to have a double life…the cheating didn’t come tonight until a couple years ago. Then things started to really click.
Fuckwit told me his first wife and he were incompatible and his second wife cheated on him. So I would be #3 for him and he #2 for me. Actually, I was wife #5 and with at least two broken engagements (exchange and return of ring) somewhere in between, girlfriend #7 at a minimum. And of course he had quite elaborate excuses for lying about this topic and so many others.
My FW traveled to City X twice a month for work, where he often met up with a couple of college friends. I was happy that he had the opportunity to see old friends during a work trip.
Turns out he was just meeting up with one of them… and during the pandemic, she left her husband and moved to our town for no apparent reason, at which point he left me and moved in with her.
He admits that they made out once before they left their decades-long marriages for each other, but that’s all they ever did.
Cool story, bro.
The biggest lie was his “interest” in me as a person and supposedly being in love with me. In retrospect I realised he was only after me for an inheritance I was supposedly due. His extended family and friends were all so jealous of him for hitting the big time and dropped him, which I stupidly saw as being bad friends, when in reality they just knew what his true priorities were. I never got the inheritance, but he annihilated everything else I had. Probably saw it as his “right”. Overall he basically lies as soon as he opens his mouth. I have no idea who he really is, but I don’t think it’s anything worth knowing.
I love our family, she said that repeatedly.
Hmmm so many to choose from… probably the biggest was the half used bottle of Cialis I discovered in his work desk. “I use them to get hard to jerk off”. This after about a year of me begging him to see a Dr. about ED, because we hadn’t had sex in over a year.
I believed that too when my husband told me why he had Viagra. He’d rather jerk off than have sex with me? Riggggght…..,
Post D Day FW told me in a text he was supporting AP as her father had been murdered. I thought that was a bit odd , could find no details of it on google, but assumed by the looks of AP it was some drug related historical incident. About a year later I was telling an old friend who knew AP the whole sorry saga, including the supposed murder, and she said “i knew him – he died of cancer”.
I don’t even know why I didn’t query that a murder had even happened. I was more preoccupied with what the circumstances were.
He was desperately trying to make himself look like a hero who had no choice but to provide her with “support”.
Even now I doubt myself that he even said it, because he has reverted to looking and sounding like a semi normal person (I am NC but have seen him around).
Ergh.
Ouch! Mine was a whopper.
I’ll give you the bullet point version, which is much quicker.
Of course, he ended up being a serial cheater, stealing precious decades from my life. I trusted blindly thinking that I’d somehow know. Nope. Not a clue. I’ll stop now, you don’t need to hear the full rant.
Here are the 2 whoppers of my second cheater. I asked him by text one morning if there was someone else. He was matching my first cheating husband’s pattern of behavior so I asked. That was at 9 am. It took him until just before he got home from work at 530 pm. to text me back. He said ” No one I would call a girlfriend and no one I would leave you for”.Ahhh okeeeey… I did not ask anything else,I just sat there. Four weeks later I was reading my Bible, I kid you not .. and a voice in my head said…”no one he would leave me for, but someone he could have sex with???” What?? It hit me like a bolt that I had found, by a spiritual messanger, a piece of the disaster puzzle. A few weeks
later, after a Couples Counselor refused to confront my then- cheating husband with my truth. I confronted him. When I asked him point blank, x4 if he had been faithful to me. He was silent( another clue) He then spit out that a woman at work had jumped him in an empty patient room( he did maintanence at a hospital) and she forced him to have sex with her against his will, after he said “NO” TWICE!! He said it happened to lots of guys just like him. He had these guys phone numbers for me to confirm!!Woman can’t help themselves he said. After going into utter shock, I called his manager and found out this woman had turned my then- husband in to HR and there was an ongoing investigation. Two big lies. I kick myself as it still took me 10 days to file and lock the doors,as I felt my husband was capable of harm and violence. It was an awful experience. Sadly those were only two of the thousands of lies I wanted to believe to save my family, my home and the financial peace I enjoyed. That was until my divorce was final 3 weeks ago and I took my maiden name back. This past year was horrific and I would not wish this on anyone.( 32 years married)But I have joy and peace and my own apartment now. I won my freedom back from a life of lies I wanted to believe. Thank you Jesus and CL and CN for being here for me this past year. You have the truth, you confirm the patterns. Couples therapy is a sick joke when you are facing professional liars. It does such damage to the Chump. I did go back and talk to the Couples therapist and her excuse for soft peddling my husband’s lies, ( because he had told her the truth in a singles session).was that my then husband had grown up in trauma and she wanted to address his needs first. REALLY? While he passed on to me his STDs and I lost time, money and faith?
Oh, a third whopper was…he was taking care of me all along because he had himself tested by his urologist and he DID NOT PASS ANY INFECTION ON TO ME. Okeey,so was that a weekly or daily test? I could not believe that whopper. He was taking care of me all along…awwww!! Twwuuu wuv!
I’m also praying for the good men who get the power back on and never lie. God bless them!
Oh, oh, oh….I’ve heard about this too! In fact, I’ve warned my friends that they need to be very careful walking down the halls of our local hospital because evidently you can just be walking along minding your own business and the next minute you’re in a closet having sex! Dangerous place! Mine is a maintenance worker in a hospital. Schmoopie is an LPN. Rumor is that coworkers have filed two complaints about opening a door and finding her giving him a BJ. He’s 62. Try and burn that out of your brain! Coworkers should be entitled to hazard pay. And one day I may send schmoopie a garden mat for her knees. She’s no spring chicken and those are concrete floors….hahaha!
Knave man entertained sex workers in his hotel room “to get the story” because there was chaos outside after a disaster in South America. Bad on so many levels – betraying me, and taking advantage of vulnerable people in a disaster zone. How could I believe that?
Wow, that whopper took some brass balls! Was he a journalist, Bees, or was he just claiming he wanted the story for personal reasons?
journalism at its finest
The Jesus Cheater told the kids and I that he was going to be in a village overseeing the building of a church. His financial disclosures reflected him staying at a hotel in the capital city. I spent that weekend crying because we had a pipe that broke and I was sopping up water the entire time and he wasn’t answering his phone because of “poor reception” off of the grid. (He was super relieved that getting a satellite phone was too expensive for me to pull the trigger.) I swear, things always went wrong when the FW was out of town, but he really wasn’t any help if he had been around.
Yes, the FW network is known for “poor reception.”
He had run up a secret credit card bill to $10,000 in 90 days. first he told me he had a gambling problem. Then he left and said he would tell me the truth when he came back. Next he said he had been using human growth hormone to try and heal his damaged subscapularis, black market $1500/month. Said he owed a lot of people money and caught up.
Turns out he had a 33 years younger girlfriend. Hadn’t been paying bills from our office, he also said that the VA owed him money for treating patients.as chiropractor. His big payment was due any day.
Lie upon lie. He had become a drug addict and got cash advances off of credit cards. I did not find out until over a year later.
For the most part he cheated during work hours, so it wasn’t necessary to lie. The dumbest one I bought was that he was going to parties and special events by himself. Since I had been going to the things I enjoyed alone for many years (due to his lack of interest in escorting me) I didn’t think it was a big deal. He would half-heartedly invite me to these things, knowing that hanging around with his drunkass friends was of absolutely no interest to me, so he was free to date OW on those nights. A few times he invited me to something that was of interest to me, hoping I would go, so that his bitch could smirk at me from across a crowded room, but by that point, due to his behavior, I had lost any reason to pretend we were a normal couple on a date night. Consequently, that sick little game only worked a couple of times. OW tried repeatedly to get him to introduce me to his “friend from work”, but even FW isn’t that stupid. He knew I’d spot something was off about her.
I stupidly assumed he was as capable of being by himself as I am. He absolutely is not and was not by himself on a single one of those occasions.
So many lies, and some were pretty outrageous, in retrospect. Some are still dawning on me now, nearly three years after leaving and close to meh (if not there). I didn’t suspect anything for many years, although I never could understand what was going wrong. After the first dday, I never truly believed anything FW said, even though I wanted to. Something felt perpetually… off. I remember repeating that to my sister, before I had any idea just how “off” things were.
FW’s best intro to a lie (that I only superficially believed — see above) was, “I know my words have the weight of a bubble at this point, but…” Can’t remember if that was before or after he agreed to “radical honesty,” after I pleaded with him to at least give me that. I wanted the truth more than I wanted reconciliation, or even his love. I just wanted to lead an authentic life and to know what was real.
I still have a hard time handling liars. When someone looks me in the eye and lies to my face — especially when it’s someone I have a seemingly positive relationship with — I freeze. Even when the lie is bald-faced and I know better, I want to believe the person and avoid the discomfort that comes with confronting them. I really resent being put in that position, and I haven’t figured out how to handle it. Any other chumps struggle with this or have suggestions?
I keep my distance or end any relationship when I find out they lie or have lied. I don’t want dishonest people in my life. Once I find out someone lies I can’t believe anything they say, ever.
They’re not my tribe. =)
Yes, I hate it when people lie to me and I used to feel like a raging bull, especially those who lie to your face without blinking. However, thanks to FW (the irony) I have ended up living in a country where lying is just the done thing on a daily basis, and the mentality is that if you fall for it, then the other person has the fun of having won over you. It’s not seen as a serious issue, more a competitive mentality. However, getting used to that has really toughened me up. At first I felt very, very upset, like I was missing a protective layer. Now I give a flying F’. And in a way you just know much faster who you want nothing to do with. Not everyone is like that, so the few who are left are worthy.
IMHO the way to handle anyone who lies is not to bother pointing out that you know, because you never speak to them again. There are over 8 billion people on the planet, enough to discard the liars and still have more than enough left 🙂
“I wanted the truth more than I wanted reconciliation, or even his love. I just wanted to lead an authentic life and to know what was real.”
Yup. This is all I wanted too. Still is. Never got it. I suppose I got “enough” to know I’d been lied to for many years, but the feeling of being robbed of the right to know the full truth of my life still bothers me a lot. What was real? What wasn’t? When were my body and mind’s signals correct? I feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of random puzzle pieces but not enough to form a whole picture, and am trying to figure out what it is I’m assembling. If I could only have access to the box with the picture on it (the image that my ex knows every detail of), it would all make sense and I feel like I could find some peace. I’m hoping that eventually this feeling passes, and I can let go without getting the full truth. I’m only 8 months out from the last d-day, divorce day, and final conversation we had though, so maybe it’s still early. But to me this feels like the worst offense; more than the affair(s), more than the dissolution of 23 years of marriage and friendship, the cowardice and evil involved in robbing me of truth and agency in my own life, about my own knowledge of self and my past, will not likely be forgiven in this lifetime.
After thinking about it I think the biggest lie I bought was the answer to this question July 3rd, 1968.
Question: Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, and forsaking all others, be faithful only to her, for as long as you both shall live?
Answer: I do.
He lied, I didn’t.
Susie Lee you’ve nailed it! This is, indeed the biggest, dirtiest, rottenest lie cheats tell, the married ones anyway!
“She’s just my neighbor, I hardly know her really, she’s obviously older, doesn’t take care of her body at all, is too extroverted and talkative, and is totally asexual. Even though I flew all of my kids from both of my failed relationships to visit her and her family in a random, remote area, we’re not and never have been romantically involved at all! She most certainly didn’t uproot her kids from out of state and away from their dad for the sole purpose of moving into my neighborhood at my behest, and for my own selfish convenience, just to be with me while I was secretly professing my love to you the whole time… and banging others. It’s always been you who I truly love – you’re my one true dream girl.” 🤮
Nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong. Angary for no reason? Just tired. No sex for months at a time? He was stressed at work. He would get upset that I would want talk about things I was upset about, and shut me down. Everytime. I was not allowed to be angary, or hurt or anything. Appliances don’t have to be taken into consideration.
It”s all about them. No, you’re not supposed to get angry, or mention that you don[‘t like something. It’s interpreted as bitching, here you go again, you’re never happy. Eventually you keep your feelings to yourself and let things go as not to appear bitchy or unhappy.
Your feelings are also used as, trying to pick a fight.
One morning I walked in the kitchen and asked if he had made coffee, his response was, are you bitching again?
It’s their way of finding justification for outside interests (cheating).
I’ve tried to describe one of our last interactions that was similar. Anyone who hasn’t lived through this cannot grasp the meaning. I, also, had made myself so small and quiet – trying to keep from setting him off. It worsened and worsened over the years.
He came into the kitchen, headed for the coffee pot. And I was…..gasp…..STANDING…..in the middle of the kitchen blocking his path. He was disgusted, angry and aggressive with his body language. That’s the day I decided to move out after 40 years of marriage so he wouldn’t have to work so hard at tolerating me. I lived like a college student in a small rental house trying to figure out how to save my marriage. A few months later, he announced his schmoopie love.
I believed him when he said he’d NEVER cheat on me because it’d been done to him and he knew how it felt.
Mine did this too. He was so traumatized from the girlfriend who cheated on him in high school and broke his heart. Meanwhile he was cheating on me from even before we were married and the entire 20 years of the marriage.
I did the same Justine. He told me his previous gf had cheated with multiple men, so I really never thought he’d never cheat himself. However, he also let slip that she’d gone mad at him at a house party once because he was “chatting2 to another girl/woman. Hmmm!
I now suspect that the xgf revenge cheated because he was doing more than chatting and more than once! She was clearly not much better than him, but I have remembered other things he’d let slip as well now and I believe it was always in him to cheat , because he’s weak, cowardly, devious and has no integrity! I also strongly suspect a personality disorder, a very covert one!
Oh and the biggest whopper I believed? Not sure because he is such a filthy, chronic liar, but it might be the one where he kept telling me he needed to take big sums of money from his wages to give to the fella who used to deliver solid fuel to us for our central heating stove. Apparently it was for a huge amount of wood he was buying us for the coming Winter and he needed to give this fella 100s of Euros to “secure” it! The amount could have bought a small forest’s worth of wood and I did cop on eventually and got him to admit it was for cocaine and cocaine debts, the dirty lying little git!!!
Blimey I was so in the fog to fall for that one, but I forgive myself because I now know I was clinically depressed! Of course, the chap stopped delivering to us a couple of weeks before I made him confess! I kept asking him why he wasn’t coming to us and he kept fobbing me off but that bastard had told him we didn’t need fuel anymore! Grrrrr!
He had to go to a neighboring city to take a class for his FAA license. The class was legit. I went to pick him up at the end of the week and his face was all beat to shit. He claimed he had a seizure and during it he beat his face against the pavement. I was horrified and wanted him to go to the hospital or at least make a doctors appointment. He refused and became increasingly angry until I let it go but I was genuinely worried.
Cut to after the divorce when I’m still finding out terrible things about him and my boyfriend says “I can’t believe no one ever beat the shit out of him with the stuff he’s doing.” OMG! It honestly never entered my mind that he would lie about having a seizure or that he’d actually been beaten up until that moment. Now it seems so obvious.
Katie, you just reminded me of the time about three years before he left that he came home with a big black and red eye. He said at the baseball park he got hit with a ball. Yes is was possible, which is why I bought it; but in hindsight I knew what happened was she did that. This would have been when they were first seeing each other, and before he got her a job as his direct report, so she likely just saw him as another married mark for money. After he got her hired on, she hunkered down and behaved, they had a long term plan for me to help him get promoted, then I would be trashed.
We even went into the grocery store and the butcher was teasing about me hitting him, and he laughed and laughed. I doubt the butcher knew; but the fw did. I had known that butcher for years and to this day I wish I had gone back and told him. But, it was town news so he likely figured it all out.
I actually didn’t think of that incident until after he left, and he said to me once, “she is different than you, she throws things when she gets mad). That memory came flooding back and I knew then exactly what happened.
“I’m a man of integrity.”
Reading this again makes me laugh.
His integrity was a topic he lectured me on almost weekly.
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
He’s the most dishonest person I’ve ever known.
People with integrity don’t tell you they have integrity.
When I found out the second time I said “if you wanted to stay with me he had to break up with her immediately.” He told me that he had to think about it and he would think so driving back home. We lived about an hour and a half away from each other at the time. I insisted that he send me screenshots of telling the other woman it was over-very clearly, because he told me they communicated through an app that I thankfully don’t remember the name of anymore. Since I knew how long it would be to drive home, I was waiting anxiously for those screenshots. Took him an extra 20 minutes til I received them. I asked him why it took so long, and he said he was “thinking about how to word it.” Turns out he was really using that time to make another account so that he was actually breaking up with himself so he could send me the screenshots as proof. He never ended it with her, nor any of the other women and couples he was having sex with.
There are a lot of dumb lies in there that I believed at the time. Take your pick!
“I go to therapy once a week and group therapy when my counselor recommends it. I’m really taking care of myself now.” While she was taking prescription pain pills and smoking pot in her attic so no one would know. Of course that’s just the one that I should have challenged because it was the first and remained the most consistent even after she ran away on her drug bender with her boyfriend (who she broke up with because he was abusive, I believed that one too).
The biggest whopper I bought (for just a couple of hours) was that he had a “work meeting”..on a Saturday afternoon during Covid…in our BEDROOM instead of our home office. I caught him in this lie but foolishly believed he would end things with AP, as he said he would do when caught that day.
Prior to that day, silly me bought his spiel that only HE could pick up AP from the airport (before I chumpily hosted her overnight- twice!). He said they had work matters to discuss (to/from the airport). Yeah, sure!
“Yes in this new job they made me director (yay!) and there will be a board of director every Thursday from 5pm until beyond midnight. No overtime. No cushy director salary because young startup.” And chump me canceled my sport to care for the kids 😖. I also bought “Yeah we will organize coding weekends with the team of developers. Two full days. No overtime.” I was only suspiscious of “They all are volunteers”. I told him I was not volunteering so much family time without compensation, and he’d have to organize babysitting himself. That (or the “volunteers”) stopped him somehow. I have no proof. I had no DD. I leaved my wedding for other reasons, i.e. at first bruise. But now I think I was a chump.
I found condoms in his briefcase. He said “I don’t know. Maybe I put them in there because I didn’t want the movers to see them, then I forgot they were in there.” We had moved FIVE years ago. This was not a lie that I bought, it’s just one of the dumbest things he said to me. He later confessed he was using them to fuck whores in massage parlors.
I found a brand new, opened box of condoms: “They’re for you, b&r.” They weren’t.
There are enough condom, STD, viagra and sex toy lies for this challenge to be about these alone! Other frequent lie categories: bible study (as other chumps have noted); gone fishing/in the woods; just a friend/coworker; business trips and errands; bad cell service/ringer off. What am I missing? If you ever do conduct a chump survey, CL, you could make checkboxes for most of the questions, with the fodder you’ve collected here over the years. I just read a book with my four-year-old nephew with the refrain, “Same, same different.” It’s been in my head as I read through these comments!
Already thought of a few I forgot: lies to reframe texts for shmoopie accidentally sent to chump or kids; lies to explain cleaning up orb new grooming (especially when it’s genital); and of course, the myriad lies told to cover for financial abuse.
When I suspected FW was screwing his work colleague, I put 2+2 together and worked out he was meeting with her after dropping his daughter off at high school in the morning.
Early one morning I found his penis pump under the drivers seat of his car, and when I asked him why it was there, he replied that he was hiding it from his daughter because ‘she would find it in our bathroom’. WTF?
That he hadn’t met his new AP online. Literally laughed in my face when I asked him if this was the truth. That he hadn’t had sex with other people. Again, laughed at me. That he had spent all the missing money on paying bills. This one was in mediation in front of the mediator who apparently instantly wondered what he had spent my money on. But you don’t just bump into someone else who is also into ‘torture’ do you. And you like to try before you buy. And a double life costs money. Grateful every day that my health is okay, that I don’t have to listen to the lies anymore and his ability to steal from me will end with the financial settlement.
It’s not just the lies that he told me during the devaluing phase, it’s the realization that he lied to everyone about EVERYTHING his entire life! I cannot wrap my brain around this and cannot understand how someone can live like this! Some examples:
_The Camaro was his car in high school. It was mine in college.
_He “summered” in Italy in his youth. He had been ONCE.
_He owned rental properties with his brothers. We did own rental property with a partner that ended up suing us. His brothers do not even own their own homes (and at the time, two of them were living with his mother.)
_The costume idea that won us first prize on a QEII cruise was his idea. It was my idea, I put it all together with four of our friends. He did not have a creative bone in his body!
_He walks with his feet facing outwards because he had leg braces as a child. His mother confirmed that this never happened.
And, of course, there were all the lies while cheating.
So glad that he is gone. Have fun Schmoopie.
After another major cardiothoracic surgery (and a couple weeks before the final surgery he didn’t make it out of) and the biggest DD…I asked him who was the last person he had sex with (mind you, we HADN’T done it in like 10 years due to his “medical issues”-he had Viagra but that didn’t seem to help he said). He gives me the dumbest/blankest look that seemed to last for like a solid minute…and finally says “you”. Uh huh, no. Sorry…no. I could actually hear the gears grinding in his head trying to figure out the most believable answer.
So many! But the greatest hits would be:
1. They guy my 12-year old son caught her texting heart emojis to was only an “emotional connection” she knew only through playing “World of Warcraft” online and who lived 2,000 miles away whom she’d never met. The truth was they’d hooked up several times when one or both of them traveled for business or “to visit an old college friend.”
2. After 20 years of pooling our funds in a joint account she started depositing her paycheck into a new separate account at a new bank “because it’s just easier.” She left out, “to hide spending on the affair.”
3. The genital warts must’ve come from a hot tub used by several people.
Sometimes “fixing your picker” means learning to see clearly the person you picked years or decades earlier.
I can’t think of one defining whopper of a lie. What I know now, however, is that my FW began shoveling BS constantly at some point until it was multiple mountains of his lies. I can look back 4-5 years before Dday now and see even more lies. And because I have truly come to the sad conclusion that he is practically a sociopathic liar, when I look back even farther than I ever dreamed it went, I see more lies. When you’re lying in a hospital bed with a potentially fatal pregnancy and start to hemorrhage at 2.a.m. But can’t reach your FW on the phone despite four phone calls, then the nurses calling….then you finally wake your MIL on the phone so that she will call his boss, (her ex-liver) and find out where the hell FW is staying on his ‘business trip’…and that routes a call to whatever hotel he is at…and FW shows up two hours later claiming he “didn’t hear the phone!”….(“Then how did you hear your mom call??”)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was a lie.
And it only got bigger from then on.
I’m naive, but he is a loser and always will be.
I’ve got a couple good ones. I saw a Zelle of $1000 to a woman a never heard of. He claimed that it was his friend’s cousin. His friend has been down on his luck, so was only semi suspicious. He said the friends Zelle was not working. This same friend was then going through severe depression and was not answering anyone’s calls. He just had to go to Miami that weekend to check on him and make sure he was ok. Before he left, I saw a prescription for Viagra that happened to just be a “coincidence.”
I later realized that AP was the same woman he had Zelled money to after he had her babysit our 5 year old son. He introduced her to our son as his “helper.” Later, my son saw them in bed together and came home and told me along with her name.
After 13 years of normal pap Had high risk HPV and abnormal Pap smears (needing biopsy and cryotherapy). Already had red flags, and had the burning vagina during that time. He, a microbiologist said that the hpv could have smoldered for years. Me, asked obgyn who also said that. Him, “and here you blamed it on me!”(poor victim)
I believed it (for a time) but not in retrospect
The kicker is we had coffee together the morning of my cryotherapy. Trying to reconcile. Bye, I’m off to cryotherapy ! Good times!
He never even asked me how it went, or how I felt. I brought that to his attention a week later and he said he forgot.
😳
Good Lord! That’s is truly terrible. I am so sorry!
He worked at a Hollywood video and I popped in to say hey with our little girls. He was in those single toilet locked bathroom and came out of it with the AP. My eyes told me “He was in that bathroom having sex with that customer.” I was pregnant with our third daughter and so my brain believed the “He went in to fix the jammed paper towel holder and the door accidentally shut behind him with her in there” story. Later when I found the emails they referenced that day and how dumb I was and were incredulous that I didn’t bust them.
shagging in basically a public toilet that is filled with god knows what filth is a real class act
so romantic
pair of losers
My ex also told me that he couldn’t believe how dumb and gullible I was to believe different things. I think that’s called normal if you are in a relationship with another normal (honest) person.
At 62, I get told on a routine gyn appt that I have a case of active HPV. ( first time ever hearing that, ex FW my only partner in life). There was a big blow up with that one, but I had enough material to walk anyway, just needed to get out of shock first.
The FW then emails me two years after the divorce, all sadz and says he can’t believe I would hold that incident against him, experimenting sexually as a naive 19 year old.
Mind you, I know at this point of countless partners he has had throughout the entirety of our marriage and the six years we dated before our nuptials. Why does he want me to still buy the innocent 19 year old got HPV story still?! 🤷♀️
Another one was to my 31 year old daughter about 4 years ago. She was visiting with him post divorce saw him once a year at new years) and he was living with the mistress that he had cheated on me with for the last 5 years we were married. My daughter makes a comment about the huge rock of an engagement ring on Schmoopie’s finger when her dad told her her would never ever marry again. So her father tells her her they were faking an engagement! (because he was in a post retirement superintendent job at a school and he didn’t think it would be well received if they were living together with no plans of marriage)
He married her the next year and called my three kids three days before to inform them he was marrying and called them so annoyed the following week that not one of them called to congratulate him. I guess “never ever” has some wiggle room to it.
I really have so many, I’ll just give one more.
He told me the reason he cheated on me the first time ( was not the first time!) his mistress ( of 8 years who he later told me and very frequently that he talked to her every single day for those 8 years) actually saved our marriage.
She had lost her mom at a young age too, he said, and she helped him understand the grief I was experiencing.
How generous of her, to save my marriage, such admirable unselfishness! He didn’t marry that one, he went through several more before he lined up my replacement.
All these stories are really out there CN, but none of it surprises anymore about these dick heads, it’s just status quo for them.
I can relate! He was also my only sexual partner. I was 31 when I suddenly needed cryotherapy for cervical cancer. At 62! I am now 62, and would not want to go through that process. The physical pain wasn’t the biggest thing by far, the gaslighting and big question mark over my head as well as the intrusive and embarrassing treatment.
He had to gain sympathy for you through cheating on someone whose mother died? That’s some serious mental gymnastics.
Interesting how FW can have such concern for their AP and none for us. Fw came home from a trip with giant conch shells for his coworker because her daddy didn’t buy them for her when she was a little girl 😢- me at home with 3 kids got….HPV! He bought an expensive flower bouquet for a different coworker whose boyfriend broke up with her. And I got….HPV! The gift that keeps on giving.
I no longer think he was gone fishing for hours on end well into the wee hours of the morning. Yes, I believed him that fish bite better when it’s dark.
Reading through these I see a lot of patterns and some lies I definitely experienced from my ex too. But some of the most despicable were when he threw his coworker under the bus and used him as a scapegoat. Having met this coworker and liked him, I’m horrified at how my ex took advantage of this man.
He was friends with his coworker Tommy and thus, changed Schmoopie’s display name in his phone to Tommy in case I ever caught it on his screen the few times I ever grabbed his phone. At the time I still trusted him, stupidly.
Tommy was, according to my ex, gay. So he excused the smell of faint hair care product in his car as something Tommy wore when the ex took him out to lunch. Or the random hygiene related gifts he would come home with that seemed like something a woman might buy for him, like beard oil. “Tommy says this will make my beard more handsome, you always loved my beard,” he’d say to me.
I don’t know if Tommy was this kind of flamboyant gay or not. When I met him in person he did not strike me that way. I think my ex just did his best to cover for the things Schmoopie did for him and decided to pin it on his sweet, gentle coworker who had become an unwitting and unknowing accomplice to his affair.
I found “evidence” in my FW’s boxer shorts. It was “discharge” which is normal in “men of his age” and another price of evidence that he “was no longer capable of sex or sexual feelings”. The best part? FW was tight with money, so tight that we had to share bath water. Him, then me, then our son 🤢. I was desperate to believe that he wasn’t the person he is and was the person that I thought he was that I believed him.
ergh how revolting – having to stew in his filthy juices – my FW suddenly developed a penchant for long baths to “play online monopoly”, followed by a shower – my mother came to visit one time and wondered what the hell he was doing in there, it was literally hours – she said he came out with a big smile on his face – that was one helluva bath
the long bath thing…….. I still have not figured what the he** he was doing in there. With his phone. Likely don’t really want to know.
But, after a lifetime of loudly chastising anyone who liked hot baths (because it was only sitting in your own dirty water, etc.) all of a sudden he took a long hot bath every single evening. With his phone.
Ick. They’re just disgusting.
My ex was tight too. Come to find out he was generous with the whore, but we didn’t have enough money for whore and me go get nice gifts so guess who sacrificed.
He convinced me that we should buy a couple rental properties to invest for our retirement. I did, come to find out they were used to launder his whore money.
When they are servicing their dicks, no sacrifice on the chump/children’s part is too big for them.
Who is he ? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Ahnold grew up poor in Austria and part of his story was taking turns in the tub to bathe, using the same water. True or part of his personal mythology?
So… several weeks before D-Day, I found that my husband had signed up for Secrets Benefits, a sugar daddy site. I found communications with five different women. I confronted him and he told me that he had done it stupidly for some titillation and had never pursued it. He had never cheated and he most certainly never met any of these women. I said that you do not sign up for this service if you are not planning to cheat. He said he was happy in our marriage and had just done something stupid which he regretted. Why would he cheat? We had just brought home a new puppy and were several weeks away from a three week trip to Europe. I wasn’t happy but swallowed the lie.
Several weeks later, three days before our trip to Europe, I found screen shots of two PayPal payments to a very young woman. He had inadvertently uploaded them while adding pictures of our five grandchildren to our computer’s photo album. I understood then that he was a complete cheater and liar.
He denied, denied and denied but I wouldn’t accept what he said and I threw him out of the house and started investigating. Though the betrayal could be even greater, what I do know is bad enough. First he had been with at least 20 different women over the course of 3 years, had spent over $150,000 on his hookers and porn, had started this behavior at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, and had violated our entire family’s trust by meeting and having sex with women in a high risk group before any of us were vaccinated against Covid.
He had also continued a relationship with the woman he had left me for 32 years ago.
This wonderful prize of a man was my husband and life partner for 45 years. He begged me for another chance but I am divorcing him. I am starting a new life without him. I wish with all my heart that I had not given him a second chance 32 years ago but at least my eyes are open now.
Wow is that a terrible story. And a perfect illustration of the adage “there’s no fool like an old fool” (meaning your husband). I’m sorry you are going through that. We are with you, be string!
Thank you. It’s only been three months so it is very raw still but I know that life can only be better without him. Not strong yet but getting there!
Wow. 300 comments over one weekend about huge lies told by cheaters and huge lies believed by chumps. That one fact speaks volumes of the deception at the core of the cheater-chump dynamic.
I saw on my target app that my now narcissistic ex purchased a Valentine’s Day card. I didn’t think it was for me and I suspected that it was for his AP, which he has told me he had ended it. When I confronted him about it he told me it was for me. I knew it was not but he tried desperately to convince me it was for me before giving up and admitting it was for her. He told me that “I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression since we are divorcing”…. Yet I was still his wife and mother of his children, and had also just had a baby. And sleeping with me wasn’t giving me the wrong impression (because that was still happening). I used to believe his lies but now I’m armed with knowledge! He also told me recently he needed his passport back to put it in his newly purchased safety deposit box at the bank. I KNOW that he’s taking a vacation with her out of the country and that’s the real reason. In the past I would have convinced myself that his lies were the truth. Not anymore!
“I don’t want to f*ck her, I just want to do projects with her.”
“She’s cute, but she’s not my type.”
“She’s just a friend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“I’m not having an affair.”
I stopped believing him after a while because my eyes, ears, and gut just couldn’t deny it anymore.
Two come to mind:
“ I didn’t need to get married, I only did it for you”. Somehow marriage was the problem, not the fact that he was bringing women to stay in our house for days while I was away with our child in another country.
“We’d still be together if your mother was alive”. Guess he was more faithful to my mom?!?!
“The problem is you will never trust me”. Yep, that’s it, not that you did something to break my trust.
I used to think his cheating was something he did to me. Six years on I know it was for me, to see who he really was so I could get out.
His massage therapist opened Saturday to accommodate his schedule and those weekly 3 hours sessions of massage were really helping his back. Lol.
“I have to spend the night at my ex’s because I lost my car keys!” Yeah I was really dumb and naive.
The lying cheater was chasing after a woman for 5 months. My gut told me he was seeing someone because he was extra distant, mean, rude, and unkind. I checked the phone records and discovered excessive text messages between him and this woman. At times, it was over 50 to 100 text per day, at all sorts of hours. Those messages were during his work hours, while driving to work, coming home from work, extended bathroom visits, and way past bedtime. When I confronted him, he called the woman a bitch and said she knew his marriage was in trouble and she took advantage of the situation. What the lying cheater did not know was that, per the phone records, he was the one initiating the daily text messages 😳. He was more pissed that he was caught than the damaged to the marriage. He made himself out to be the victim even though he was the one pursuing the woman while married. Then, he had the brass balls to say he taught the marriage was over so he figured it was okay. Well, if the scumbag thought it was okay, why was he hiding and lying?
“I didn’t tell you that I knew she would be there and that we were going to share an apartment because I knew you would think we were having an affair, but we weren’t! I’m not the kind of person who would have an affair, especially not with a student! But then when we were there together we talked so much about how unhappy we were in our marriages and realized we had feelings for each other and needed to express them physically. And then when I was home again after, I didn’t tell you because I thought things would get better but they didn’t and I was so afraid that I would say or do something that would hurt you and so I stayed away to prevent that, and I was with her then because it was the only way I could feel happy and okay. And I’m so sorry that you found out because I never wanted to hurt you! We were waiting until after the holidays to break the news in a more gentle way! But now I am taking our relationship counseling seriously and I have completely broken off with her except that I talk to her briefly in the evenings because she is having a really hard time accepting the break up.” (Reality check: I believed this explanation for 2 years, until the financial documents required during the divorce process revealed that they had been meeting up for meals, traveling, shopping at sex shops, and staying at hotels together for 10 months before that “special time” when they were secretly sharing an apartment. Oh, and I probably don’t need to tell you that he was still seeing her while we were in counseling.)