Am I Overreacting to Emotional Cheating?
She’s got a lot of circumstantial evidence, but is she overreacting to emotional cheating? Or should she conclude the worst?
***
Dear Chump Lady,
I think it’s fair for me to be part of Chump Nation. My therapist certainly thinks my ex is a cheater, but my self-worth is so far down the shitter that I keep thinking maybe I’m over-reacting and maybe my therapist is just going along with it.
Here’s a list of some of his ‘not affairs’ (according to him).
- Got close enough to a girl in college that her mom would call him to look out for her. Maybe not wrong on the surface, but he consistently downplayed his relationship with her. Another time (it was honestly by accident) I saw him send her a string of heart emojis. When I asked about it the next morning (he always told me he would respond better to my concerns if I waited until I was less emotional 🤮) he said that if I had really been looking at his phone, I would have seen he was talking to her about me and that’s why he sent hearts.
- He got close enough to a friend’s younger sister that she gave him a present and card. She dotted all the I’s with hearts. When I suggested that maybe this was odd? He said it was ridiculous that I was jealous of a much younger woman.
- I used to travel for work quite a bit and in the evening one of us would call the other. Once I asked what he was going to be up to the rest of the evening. He said gym. I had no suspicions because he went to the gym very consistently. A bit later I got a notification from our ring system on my Apple Watch. The notifications would show up on my watch as a picture of what had set off the camera. It was my husband with a dozen red roses. Turns out he didn’t go to the gym. He went to the grocery store and got roses and then took ingredients out of our cupboard to go to a coworker’s house and make her dinner. When confronted he told me he didn’t tell me because he knew I would be mad.
- Texted a girl from work constantly. We would be sitting down to eat dinner and I would stop talking because he would not stop texting. He would get mad at me for not continuing to talk because he could do multiple things at once. AKA text her and talk to me. When I shared that this made me feel undervalued because they talked together at work all day, but I couldn’t even get the evening with him, he said I was being jealous and controlling. Because if he was cheating, he wouldn’t text her in front of me, he would hide it.
- Spent my birthday talking to different coworker (new state, new job) about smutty fantasy books. When I later expressed how that made me feel shitty, he said: A) It shouldn’t have taken me so long to tell him what was bothering me (weird because if you go up to #1 he told me I spoke up to soon with too much emotion, but I digress.) B) That if I didn’t want him to talk about those books with her, then I should have talked about them first. This wasn’t cheating because by that time he had discovered that monogamy (or as he put it “monogamy with me”) was the issue and we needed to open up the relationship.
Was it physical?
When I told my therapist about #3, and that I didn’t think that anything physical had happened, she kinda went “humph” and then caught herself and changed it to “I’m sorry but the story he told you makes no sense.” She doesn’t hold back.
I kept thinking about it after therapy and realized that one day he came home telling me about a ridiculous rumor a friend at work (from #4) told him about. Basically the entire office was gossiping that women from #3 and my STBX were having an affair. My STBX was livid. He was so up front with me that I immediately assumed that, of course, there was nothing to these rumors.
This probably makes me the chumpiest chump in the world, but I didn’t know how to describe what was happening to me (emotional affairs) until D-Day a month ago when he left me for the women in #5.
Did I mention that her 10-year relationship ended this past summer after she discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her? Guess who was all sympathy? That’s right the chumpiest of chumps — me. I fed him kibble/let him have cake for years and still need my therapist’s mantra “You owe him nothing/he is not your responsibility” to not keep doing it.
It sucks.
I feel like everyone knows what physical cheating is, but no one around me seems to get that emotional cheating sucks too. Almost like they think I should be grateful it was only emotional.
There’s so much more. I was depressed when I started this letter and now at the end I’m so angry. So really it’s just a journal entry I’m going to send to the very first person (you) that validated my experience. And also because I want other emotional affair chumps to know that what they are going through is real.
Your blog gave me the language I needed to describe what was happening to me.
Words have power. Over and over I’ve discovered that being able to name something takes away some of its power. You gave me my first glimpse of power in nearly a decade and I hope my story can help other chumps get back their power.
So do I get to be a part of Chump Nation?
Signed,
Chumpiest of Chumps
***
Dear Chumpiest of Chumps,
Sure. Come over here and sit on the squishy chump sofa. You’re among friends.
Your ex is totally a cheater.
I’m in complete agreement with your therapist. Honestly, I think you’ve been so worn down by his gaslighting, you’ve lost sight of reality. You’re not “overreacting” to his cheating, emotional or otherwise. His behavior is completely unacceptable.
Like many chumps (patting the sofa here, come sit with me), you’ve confused the marshaling of evidence with what you’ll tolerate. You MATTER. He’s HARMING you. He doesn’t have to agree that he’s harming you (he won’t), you have to value yourself.
By chasing his stupid excuses, you’re giving this freak the benefit of the doubt at great personal expense to your mental health. You’re allowed to call a timeout, whether he’s cheating (he is) or innocently playing tiddlywinks with refugees. You don’t feel safe in this relationship.
He is not ENTITLED to your time.
You were never OBLIGATED to invest in a toxically lopsided relationship. He checked out. Why would you invest further? Whether he’s chasing women or consumed with baseball cards, he’s signaled loudly through his actions that he doesn’t value you. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE.
Now he’s left for his Schmoopie du jour and you’re asking yourself if maybe your suspicions were right.
Let’s review how Not A Prize this FW is.
He accuses you of being emotional.
I saw him send her a string of heart emojis. When I asked about it the next morning (he always told me he would respond better to my concerns if I waited until I was less emotional 🤮) he said that if I had really been looking at his phone, I would have seen he was talking to her about me and that’s why he sent hearts.
This is a conversation stopper. He’s policing your tone, which is a total DARVO move. It’s not what I did, it’s your reaction to it. Gee, if you’d only been less emotional (rational, adult, above it like he is), we could discuss this. But you’re too hysterical, so we can’t.
Strong feelings are normal when you’ve been betrayed. Your reaction is completely human. He’s aggressively preserving his entitlement.
He accuses you of being jealous.
She dotted all the I’s with hearts. When I suggested that maybe this was odd? He said it was ridiculous that I was jealous of a much younger woman.
Great, you’re ridiculous AND jealous. You know what’s ridiculous? Dotting your “I’s” with hearts like the 8th grade. It’s immature, but not odd if you’re texting your fuckbuddy. Which is exactly what she’s doing. You’re not the problem here.
He lies about where he is.
It was my husband with a dozen red roses. Turns out he didn’t go to the gym. He went to the grocery store and got roses and then took ingredients out of our cupboard to go to a coworker’s house and make her dinner. When confronted he told me he didn’t tell me because he knew I would be mad.
This makes my heart hurt for you. I’d like to stick those thorny branches where the sun doesn’t shine. He’s ON A DATE. As a married man. You are not overreacting and this is not emotional cheating, this is dinner, flowers, and foreplay. Adults fuck, of course they do.
He’d rather be on his phone.
When I shared that this made me feel undervalued because they talked together at work all day, but I couldn’t even get the evening with him, he said I was being jealous and controlling. Because if he was cheating, he wouldn’t text her in front of me, he would hide it.
Oh no, he’s perfectly fine cheating right in front of you. Humiliating you is part of the high. Gaslighting you that he’s NOT humiliating you, your emotions are all wrong, is part of the high. He’s an abuser and he’s not hiding it. Take comfort in that knowledge when you wonder what he’s is up to with his next Schmoopie/victim. All that polyamorous mindfuckery — no tag backs. I hope he and his phone and rotating pussy buffet are all very happy together.
He blameshifts.
if I didn’t want him to talk about those books with her, then I should have talked about them first.
The problem, Chumpiest, is that you’re not a mindreader. You should know what raunchy books he wants to discuss before he shares them with his coworkers. (Perhaps you could share his reading list with Human Resources and alert them to this company book club? I bet they love this kind of sexualized work environment. Makes the plaintiff lawyers’ jobs so easy.)
You’re well clear of him. And I’m happy to publish your letter not to give solace to the other chumps “overreacting” to emotional cheating, but to give YOU validation what you aren’t crazy. He was/is cheating on you. Godspeed on the divorce.
I hope you have a lawyer who demands a good settlement. And when he objects say you’d love to discuss it further, but he’s too emotional. Then dot that shit with hearts.
Physical contact is a moot point IMHO.
LYING to someone does not require physical contact and the harm caused and damage done by LYING is catastrophic.
The inextricable characteristics of a healthy relationship of any kind (friend, intimate partner, parent/child, etc) are TRUST and SAFETY. You have them or you don’t. That means TRUTH. Lying destroys trust and safety, prevents it.
It has helped me immensely to stop looking at my circumstances through the lens of “cheating” and start looking at it through the lens of “lying”.
It clarified the very muddy water, made muddy by semantics gymnastics around the very elastic definition of cheating. Cheaters play games with the definition of cheating, laying mindfuck bear traps. I caught that semantics confusion football and ran with it, staying well past the expiration date of the relationship with my so-called former husband, Liar Extraordinaire.
My new standard formed post DDay is LEAVE AT THE FIRST LIE. And remind myself that if someone lies about little things, it’s an indicator that they will lie about big things.
LITTLE LIES MATTER IN VERY BIG WAYS.
“In lying, one is identifying the other as one’s opponent, even one’s enemy. In marriage intimacy is developed through confessions, explanations, and soul searchings. But of course intimacy involves equality, and people who are telling lies are not seeking any aspect of intimacy, especially equality. Liars are hoping for advantage, which will be produced by disorienting and distracting the other person. The liar is stepping outside the relationship. The lie may be a greater betrayal of the relationship than the misdeed being lied about. It takes very little misinformation to disorient and destroy a relationship. I often point out to people that if I gave them detailed instructions on how to go from Atlanta to New York City, and threw in only one left turn that was a lie, they would end up in Oklahoma.”
-Dr. Frank Pittman
Private Lies
(p. 59)
“It has helped me immensely to stop looking at my circumstances through the lens of “cheating” and start looking at it through the lens of “lying”.”
This is brilliant. It simplifies things.
D-Days are like a bomb dropping for most chumps. For me it was just suddenly SO many thoughts all at once and it makes it almost impossible to focus. And for me and I suspect many, when D-Day occurred, I would have given anything to just erase it and not have my life get upended. If you are in that space, maybe you WANT to think an emotional affair is not a big deal.
But it is. Because cheating isn’t just sex. It is everything else that comes with it, the lying, hiding things, going behind your back.
Not to mention the fact that often a chump is told it was “just” an emotional affair but it wasn’t.
In some ways for me, an emotional affair is worse, the AP in those cases is someone your partner got close to, shared their feelings and dreams with. Got support from. Planned a future with. All while your clueless self was under the assumption that YOU were that person for them.
“looking through the lens of lying…” I really love this. You are right, the cheating is way less important than the lying and that the lying is the destructive aspect, whereas the cheating is just the by product, so to speak.
I definitely moved from being so enraged by my FW’s cheating to being enraged by all the lies, gaslighting and deception. It is still the thing that gets me the most, 4 years later.
Cheating requires lying. Cheating is a symptom of profound dishonesty and character rot, a broken moral compass, a lack of empathy, an inability to love anyone.
Getting lost in the weeds of defining cheating is like taking an aspirin for a brain tumor.
The tumor is the lying and the real
issue. Intimacy requires honesty, truth. The cheater lies to everyone, including themselves, and is intimate with no one.
“like taking aspirin for a brain tumor.” I love this. So true!
Yeah, I always would think “how could he lie like that to me, to our children?” But your description of the character rot and all that goes with it, explains it perfectly.
Yes.
No one who loves you will be lying to you .
The truth isn’t hard.
It seems to be super hard for the FW’s of the world
This thread has me thinking about my sibling. Every now and then he’ll drop into a conversation, as he’s telling a story, usually about work and his bosses, yeah, so I lied and told them x. It breaks my heart that he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s unraveling the trust I might have had for him. Maybe he feels he’s with the people he ‘actually’ tells the truth to, but switch up the circumstances a bit, and I can only guess that we, the family, get half-truths now and then, too. I still, at 51 years old, want to talk to him like a kid and explain how his lying damages our connection. But I think I’ve done that already.
The difficult thing, I imagine, is that the FWs probably land a lot like my brother, who is handsome and charming if all that’s required is light family social interaction; he can show up for a day or so and help with building a fence, etc. People like my brother. I like my brother and have a lifetime of little moments with him to recall and treasure.
But he’ll get angry, dismissive, and pull out all the stops on making me feel judgmental and prissy, if a line is crossed into him being expected to act with a degree of integrity he thinks is unrealistic. It IS hard for someone so used to using lying to avoid conflict and accountability to remove it from their palette of options.
My brother, I believe, thinks he loves us. I believe that the rest of my family would not agree with me that his lies destroy our relationship with him. There might be sighing, and agreeing that it’s not the most mature, but we’d never sever our relationship with him over it. Even I have not.
Yep, you are right in that it is hard for people that don’t just weaponize lying to hurt people (cheaters and the like) but just use it daily in passing or as common as a thing like brushing their teeth or whatever. It isn’t second nature to them, it is first nature to them. A lot of psychologists say it is childhood trauma and that’s how they learned to cope, developing a personality disorder which usually means these people that lie a lot, among other unscrupulous traits, but I don’t care. I had a horribly abusive childhood and didn’t turn out that way. They know it’s wrong and do it anyway to meet whatever need they have in the moment and I can’t stand that. I tried to help my FW over the years with his lying to no avail, but that all stopped when he weaponized it against me to cheat. Zero help given after that.
Oh and if I get upset enough, he will sit and listen to me and agree that he could do better and promise to do better. In the moment it does seem that he cares about how I feel. He just never sustains it.
Yeah, they seem to have this sixth sense on when they “should” care or not, like fake empathy, or cognitive empathy, I think they call it. But it’s not real empathy, so that’s why they can’t sustain it or it seems to wane/wax,
If someone loves you, they care about how you feel. End of story. Someone who betrays and lies to you or participates in betraying you and lying to you is giving you all the proof you need that they aren’t quality relationship material. They are dangerous.
I wasted a lot of time I can’t get back trying to make him care, as if it were on par with asking someone to put dirty clothes in a laundry basket or put the seat down on the toilet.
You don’t need a lot of companions in this world. You just need a few really good ones.
And the good ones don’t lie to you and their own children and knife you all in the back.
“Leave at the first lie”
I wish we could impart this simple truth to all the young women in the world. It would have saved me a few decades of trouble.
NotAnymore,
I’d not just tell my daughters, I’d tell my son too.
LFTT
Chumpiest of Chumps,
It’s hard for a Chump to trust their instinct when their FW is going “all out” to undermine the Chump’s reality and to get them to second guess their own intuition. Few Chumps ever get cast iron guaranteed proof that their FW is cheating; rather it’s a slew of circumstantial evidence that indicates that all is not as it should be.
I would strongly recommend that you apply the “Duck Test.” If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes great with a cherry sauce, vanilla mashed potatoes and – maybe – some steamed green beans, then what you have right there is a duck.
From my perspective, your Ex is the duckiest duck that ever did duck stuff. If he wasn’t actually cheating, then he was doing his best to try and cheat.
Trust your instincts and act on them.
LFTT
“From my perspective, your Ex is the duckiest duck that ever did duck stuff. If he wasn’t actually cheating, then he was doing his best to try and cheat.”
THIS! Exactly. He took food from his marital home cabinets to go make dinner for this coworker, and brought her roses. If he isn’t sleeping with her, it’s only because she declined his advances, NOT because he didn’t try.
That’s where this all just becomes useless untangling of the skein. And one of my favorite Chump Ladyisms comes into play, “is this relationship acceptable to you?”
I think our letter writer here doesn’t WANT to join our club, and I don’t blame her. Everyone here is great, but our common trait is very painful. She is doing something I did early on, trying to find any way to make this NOT be what it is.
But at the end of the day, if your spouse is going on dates with other women, does whether he actually seals the deal with extramarital sex MATTER? He’s at her house, making her dinner, bringing her flowers and you are out of town. He either had sex, or tried. Does the fact that he maybe got turned down make it all ok? I totally understand why the letter writer is parsing all this out, I was there too. It’s hard in the early days to think straight.
In here today because the weight of everything is really getting to me and I perspective again. Your line about me nothing wanting to join the CN club was spot on. I didn’t really recognize it, but even now I feel like I’d do almost anything to not have to be here feeling these things. Thanks for identifying something I couldn’t.
I just noticed your reply today. If you read through the archives here, you’ll see a lot of people say “it gets better”. It truly does. And maybe you aren’t yet in a place where you can believe that, I wasn’t for a really long time. It took a long time to just BELIEVE it could get better, and then it took time to actually get better too. I’m not in a place yet where I never have a bad moment, but they are so much rarer and things seem so much less hopeless. They actually seem truly hopeful. I can’t go fully no contact because we have kids, and a lot of my not great moments are directly caused by him reaching out and acting like an ass. If I could be fully no contact, things would improve faster I think.
Don’t beat yourself up over the denial. I think it is just natural. A few Chumps react very immediatley and it’s rather glorious to see, but they are the outliers. So many of us join this club kicking and screaming.
And a lot of us just want to believe everything is fine SO badly that we just overlook the most obvious of red flags.
Here is my first example of not wanting to believe. We went on a family vacation and there was an amusement park. There was a big ride that he wanted to go on. The kids and I did not want to, but told him to go ahead and we’d just wait. He couldn’t bring his sunglasses, phone etc as this ride went upside down etc.
He refused to let ME hold his phone. He *insisted* on putting it in a locker 10 feet away from me. He gave absolutely NO explanation for this. Looking back, I remember seeing him with a look of panic. He was likely realizing he just opened a can of worms, and was weighing which was riskier, not letting me hold the phone and having me wonder why…or letting me and risking me seeing someting.
TWO years later I found out that he was having an affair. At the time of the vacation he was 1 year in. Now, in fairness to me, I did have a moment where I knew that there was no GOOD explanation for his not letting me hold his phone. But it was a long distance affair. He almost never left the house, I know his coworkers, he was almost never out of my sight, so my initial thought was “WHEN could he possibly be cheating?” I decided that he must have had porn he didn’t want me to see. (which in hindsight, since I knew he watched porn if he was hiding porn, that would be a whole red flag as well) But my point is, there was ZERO ok reason for him to not let me hold his phone. And yet, denial runs deep and I just let the whole thing go by without any questions to him. I bet a lot of chumps have done this.
It is natural to NOT want to upend your life.
I hope you are doing ok today. Just know that the whole thing sucks, but it DOES get better.
Your last paragraph put it all together for me. I don’t exactly understand how, but it did. “He might not have actually been cheating, but he was doing his best to try and cheat. Emotionally getting involved with someone else, and keeping it a secret IS cheating! But he’s doing it trying to make it become a physical affair, stroke his ego, or both. I also learned here that when he says, “they all hate me over there, (which would obviously include her), it’s a giant red flag.
“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes great with a cherry sauce, vanilla mashed potatoes and – maybe – some steamed green beans, then what you have right there is a duck.”
Geez. And all my life I’ve been told that English food is horrible (John Cleese: Please take this back to the kitchen and boil it for a few more hours. It still has some flavor in it.) 🙂
🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆 🦆
💯 agree. This guy was for sure screwing all these other women. For sure. This was not “emotional” cheating.
Now I’m hungry lol. Her ex is so ducky that if we roasted and ate him, not even Gordon “FW” Ramsey would call it cannibalism, just canard a la Montmorency.
It is a wearing down that no one who has not experienced it can even express. I liken it to spinning in a dryer…you get so dizzy, you feel loved then abandoned then adored then devalued. It is an absolute wonder any of us escapes. The devaluing is diabolical, precision attacks with lies and fact distortions. Getting you to buy the lies and forgive them over and over. I lost each time trying to find my soul after each blow. Remember that daisy where as a child you pulled out a little flower 🌼 section and said he loves me he loves me not? What happens to that poor daisy at the end? Same thing with us. It is deviations and abuse, calculated destruction of a beautiful heart. Find yourself, pluck yourself out asxquickly if possible. Stay with us at CN, listen to CL as she is the Sage of our time is giving us the true nature of evil..showing us the way out. It’s hard work. I’m 72 and got out twice. It’s terrifying but each time you see emotional affairs, there is much more underground, a whole life you have no idea about. Take care of yourself at every step. You are loved here.
I think Tracy has said that emotional affairs are just physical ones waiting to happen. My 2nd FW claimed to have only been having an emotional affair. My 1st FW of 9 years had a sexual affair while I was pregnant and gave me and STD not long after childbirth. But the 2nd FW affair hurt more because I was so in love with him and had invested 30 years with him. I never believed 2nd FW and it didn’t matter to me whether it was physical or emotional or both. Cheating is cheating and it destroys. Period. But 2nd FW tried to plead his case that it was only emotional, and therefore, not as bad as if it had been also physical.
IMO it’s worse.
I agree. I found myself, fairly quickly, not caring about the person he cheated with all that much, but was more wigged out by the lying, deception, gaslighting, etc., that really upset me. The emotional fallout was way worse than who he was doing whatever with. It was the why? how could you? and the skein of the emotional aspect that drove me nuts.
Yes, and I just can’t understand how easily he lied! I thought he was the most honest, loyal, and faithful person on the planet, until I didn’t. I trusted him completely. We went to counseling (where he did the “homework” about 30 minutes before the next class), and he continued to see the OW for about 4 years (he was her boss) until she finally gave up and moved out of state. In class, I found out he had been cheating both emotionally and once physically our entire relationship. After all that, he did it again, only this time I knew what I was looking at. I called him on it immediately, and he neither will affirm nor deny to this day. Now I have reason to believe he has another one. My problem is I’m 69, have cancer, and I’ve been afraid to leave. What if I’m paranoid and wrong? I will never be able to get over the lies. I’m not bitter at all. I’m just so sorry I wasted my life on a FW.
Sumatra1, I really feel for you, and I’m sorry you’ve been through this betrayal. I’m writing just to urge you to walk away from the following thought: “What if I’m paranoid and wrong?” These kinds of worries that one is overreacting–or that one is “wrong” in considering leaving–seem to be a pretty common part of the chump experience, though I’m not sure why. It may be a reaction to trauma, or a part of the bargaining stage of grief.
Anyway, this worry that you may be “wrong” in contemplating leaving is not your friend. Your partner/husband has 100% shown you who he is. Even if it takes some therapy for you to find more clarity and confidence in your thinking, it’s worth putting in the time and money. You deserve better than to be doubting yourself, at this point.
Somewhat unrelated, I left my cheating husband even though I’m 70 and have a bad chronic illness. I’m not sure how aggressive your cancer is or how demanding the treatment will be–and I’m so sorry you have cancer–but for what it’s worth I can tell you that living without a FW feels fantastic, even if you feel physically yucky every day (as I do).
Sending hugs.
I don’t think I’m wrong in contemplating leaving. What if I’m wrong and he isn’t cheating? I have no proof because whenever I mention the person that I think he cheated with after I found out everything else and we took those classes, he gets quiet. She is no longer around, and unless he’s talking to her in secret, they haven’t been communicating. Now I think he’s been trying his best with another one. When I started to get suspicious, I went hunting and found some things that fit right in with his emotional cheating pattern. However, I have no proof. So, let’s put cheating aside for the moment. There was a post here on a different topic that I copied and printed because it was me. She opens with fear. Here are some of her words:
“The reason chumps stay paralyzed is simple: FEAR. CL is right. It is fear that keeps us bound in place, spackling and smoking hopium like mad while inside our guts are screaming to get out” (credit to the respective poster whose emoji is a blue lady with springs for legs and some antenna for ears) I looked for this post and haven’t been able to find it.
I’m afraid. My cancer is stage 4, and I don’t want to leave and die alone. If I knew I had a few more years, perhaps 4-6, I’d probably feel better. But there are no guarantees. I feel fine most of the time, and I look great, but that doesn’t help the fear.
Then the poster said this:
“I knew my ex was a cheater (though I had absolutely no idea how MUCH of a cheater he was), I knew he didn’t really love me, I knew I was WAY down his list of priorities, I knew he cared more about getting attention from others than he did about me”.That I would never leave the house. I would just sit there alone inside, slowly withering away and dying. And the thought of that imagined dying was apparently worse than the reality of the living death of being married to a freak.
I didn’t know how much of a cheater FW was either. He’d been cheating the entire time. He doesn’t love me, and I am also way down on his list of priorities. If I’m not feeling well, and he has a two to three-day meeting in some fun state with fun things to do, he leaves and hops on a plane. If one of his work buddies schedules a fun time, he goes even if it’s across the state. We have cameras in the house in case I get in trouble. He never looks at them. He never calls me unless he’s in the car when he’s away. Never checks in to see how I’m doing. His family, especially my SIL, has been horrible to me. Yet, FW expects me to associate with them and be the “bigger person”. He lives to get attention from others, and he is one person at home, but when he leaves the house, he turns into someone else entirely. He’s Mr Charm, the life of the party. He’s always tired at home. Tracy said something in another post about a person should be the same person all the time, not change personalities the minute they walk out the door. I couldn’t find that comment, either. My daughters help as much as they can, but they have jobs and lives. I work from home.
Thank you for responding. I keep coming back here, hoping I will find courage. Perhaps I will. Sorry this was so long.
Hugs to you too.
Oh, now I do get it; your answer is clarifying.
My heart goes out to you for the ways in which the cancer complicates your situation.I just really feel for you. And I guess I want to say, don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t find the resolve within yourself to leave. I’m sure you’re doing the best you can, in a complicated situation.
Again, I send true, if virtual, hugs.
CGKC, we are twins..x2. It took me longer the second time as I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES. What I was seeing and hearing. But to me who endured multiple Emotional affairs, comparisons, the highs and lows with each one. Picking out woman at work at church, pointing out their flaws which helped me dance unknowingly…inviting one to the birthday party I threw..for her to tell me things that were between husband and wife? Back then I did not know that EAs were my Xs fishing expeditions. Hunting for someone to match him so he could leave or continue to torture me to dance. I can’t even describe what it was like, but it was mind altering forever. EAs are horrible abuse and it fills so many purposes to keep you off balance and wanting them. I read these people love the chase of OW but also the kibble of YOU TRYING TO KEEP THEM. CL backs this up.The agony for you and the thrill for them. If you were here KC, we could compare notes and cry together..but here I am, a freed servant in my own safe space. We lived through horror, now I want to live life to the fulles4. Thank you for reminding me of the torture of my 2xs fishing trips into the ocean of willing people who don’t care either. Let then go and live well. I am trying my best.
We are twins, for sure! I think we should compare notes to make sure we weren’t chumped by the same men! lol
Jokes aside, I am so sorry that you were treated so badly by your 2. It sucks so much to be treated so horribly, but then to have it happen again. So my therapist would tell me, “it’s you and your codependency that this keeps happening.” What? Thanks for the blame shifting as if I want to be cheated on? Whatever. It is the FW’s that are being shit heads, not me, not us chumps! But it is hard to get over and hard to learn to trust again. I have terrible PTSD and agoraphobia because is the trust issues. I have to force myself to still go out in public. I keep hoping, much like you, that things will get better. Keep trying, 2x, and living your best life without the FW’s!
Yes I have agoraphobia as well. I can go out but then want to go home very soon. I can’t tolerate many people for very long…my tolerance is low. Even my 12 step group I lose patience with who I think is enabling and I come unglued. I am on meeting in zoon so just have learned to keep the camera off and take notes 📝. Not saying anything until I calm down. Or just listen. You’re not alone and I know we will get better than now. I know I’m better than D day..but it’s been rough. I’m pulling for us!!
Omg, so sorry for your suffering. I am in the same boat and also behave just like you do with the agoraphobia, so I know exactly how shitty it feels. But like you said, we just have to deal with it. But it’s a shame that someone else, someone that promised to love and cherish us, did such damage instead. I’m 57 and feel I gave my best years to FW#2 but I have not given up on the hope that one day I can find a good guy and be happy, because they are out there! Yay to all the good guys and gals! But I also know it is okay to be alone and can be happy that way, as well. Just feel like if I give up all hope that he (they, since I have 2 FW’s) win. And I don’t want to give them that satisfaction!
You know I’m 72 and I’m too exhausted to get into any relationship at all. Men are pretty much looking for care givers. My friend remarried at my late age and he had a stroke soon after their big church wedding. I am not kidding. It was a wheelchair pushing after that..so no. Let X enjoy his OW and new life, I’m thrilled for him..now. but you my dear one .are much younger and have much more time for finding true love again. I’ve seen plenty of 3rd time charms..so Go for the gold. You will spot a fake from light years away. Blessings to you my friend
Aw, thank you 2x, for the kind words! And I get the being exhausted, I too, suffer from that and I think this might be the only thing my therapist ever said to me that is right, but she said it’s because I was spending too much time trying to unravel the skein and too much energy on why he betrayed me. She was right. After some time, and I mean years, I finally stopped trying to unravel and indeed felt better. I am also worried at my age I will end up being a caretaker, so like you said, will have to be very careful with my choices. All the best to you as well, friend 🙂
I’m sending you warm wishes that the next person you ❤️ love will want to take care of YOU!! What a thought!! It could absolutely happen!
Thank you so much! That is very kind of you 😊
Yes! 💯
Another typical cheater. He wants you to be of use and of course various side pieces for variety. My exFW loved to do very similar things. The phone was the biggest irritant of all to me. No matter where you were, the FW had to be texting Schmoops. On vacation, the phone was out and he was texting. Watching tv after work, phone was there.
They suck. Of course he was cheating. The fact that he tried to play games, blame you and then lie all show him to be what he is (a cheating piece of shit). Remember when he comes back (and they usually will) that you have values and that this behavior is not acceptable to you.
Get a great settlement and move on. Have healthy relationships. with people who do not lie.
Dearest LW — Let’s just take #5 as an example. You say he left your marriage to be with her. Do you really, really believe that he didn’t have sex with her until he walked out? Really!? He is a full-fledged cheater. He is not “just” an emotional cheater, and you do not have to wonder if you have suffered enough.
I dunno. I somehow feel it’s important for LW’s recovery to understand that she’s still under his spell if she thinks nothing physical happened. Maybe I’m wrong …
With the “he’ll only talk when I’m less emotional” believe me, with a man like that, you would never have met the metric. When a lying cheat tells you you’re too emotional, it’s just him telling you to make your needs smaller. But they’ll never be small enough for him. “No, we can’t talk right now. Your needs must be smaller before I can acknowledge you. Smaller, no smaller. Even smaller. Ugh! Why are you so emotional!!”
You could ask him for absolutely nothing and it would still be too much.
And “Well I couldn’t tell you because I knew you’d be mad!” Well yeah, no shit you would be mad at him cheating on you. That’s normal! But he’s trying to flip it over like a burned up burger patty and act like the cheating is normal and you’re the problem.
No. That’s not how it works. It is not normal for a married man to lie about where he’s going so he can bring roses and “make dinner” at another woman’s house. He knew you would be mad because you should be. And that means he shouldn’t be doing it, not lying about it and blaming you when he’s caught.
Amen to all of this.
“You could ask him for absolutely nothing and it would still be too much.” — The absolute truth. 🙌🏽
Yeah, this isn’t only emotional cheating, this is just straight up cheating.
I saw this part “if I didn’t want him to talk about those books with her, then I should have talked about them first.”
and went oh… before I knew my ex husband was a total piece of shit, this married woman we had become friends with through mutual friends was sending him nude photos of herself and photos of her fucking other people on facebook. He told me about it and we cut her off wordlessly. Well, I thought we did. He told her I was crazy and then HE told a bunch of other people about it and suddenly I was getting attacked for “bullying” her. What I literally heard from multiple people was “if you weren’t ok with her fucking your husband, then you should have specifically told her that, how was she supposed to know?”
I was supposed to specifically tell her and every other married woman I meet, “hey, just so you know, I’m not ok with you cheating on your husband with my husband.” What an icebreaker that would be! I’m sure that would have won me so many friends!
It’s just gaslighting. You were gaslit like crazy. He is a total piece of shit. I’m sorry you went through that. The more time you spend away from him and his insane abuse, the more you will heal and realize how screwed up it was.
This is my story in so many ways. The first text message to his emotional affair partner I saw while I was eight months pregnant and he said “I love you!” to her. When I confronted him he said he was saying it because she said something sassy to someone else on Facebook and he loved what she wrote
They would talk all day every day for years on Facebook messenger and he said they were just friends and I was the one overreacting. They’d go out for coffee or icee’s that were just friend catch ups but he had to hide them from me sometimes cause he’d knew I’d be mad. One time he told me he was going out to dinner with a guy friend from work and right before he left he said he was actually going with her, and tried to lie to me but couldn’t, and he wanted accolades for that.
When I found out about the presents including jewelry he was buying for her for birthdays and giving to her on dinners they would go out on, he said that was no big deal, she had just sent him a picture of a bracelet she liked so she bought it for her. I said that’s girlfriend behavior. He said I was overreacting.
It took a friend to tell me “He’s dating!” (not only this woman but taking out girls from work – one time took a girl from work to a movie on her birthday just the two of them, but it was just him being nice cause she had no one else to go with)
You’d may or may be shocked once I told him I wanted a divorce and to get out, the weekend he was moving out, he confessed he had feelings for this girl I’d been told I was overreacting about for 15 years, and he thinks it would have been better if they’d gotten married instead of being married to me. Sadly, predictably, I got no kudos or apologies for being right, as they only got close because of my terrible wife ways and his depression. So really he was still the victim.
So yes we belong here. I was a chump and he’s an FW. The end of the story is better. I’m two years out building myself an awesome life and he’s still a sad sausage victim talking to her on messenger in secret cause she won’t leave her husband. I didn’t make him do anything, and neither did you OP, but thank goodness we got ourselves of out of the twisted web. We were never the cause of any of this, but just unfortunate enough to be caught, here’s to our freedom!
Yup. I found out much later after D-day that the female who FW was calling on his way home from work back when we were engaged and living together, I found – 20 years later – an email chain he had saved as a txt file where he had told her he would meet her (she lived in NJ and we in CT) on an upcoming weekend when he told me he was going gambling with his old friend Jim. He had always accused me of being jealous and paranoid about her. She was calling our house while he was underway (he was in the Navy) and leaving messages for him to call her back. My voice was on the outgoing message. In hindsight, she was pick me dancing and trying to drive me off. He said I was imagining it all and that because he had done nice things for me, clearly I was the one with the problem because I couldn’t trust him and see that he loved only me.
We got married and moved to HI but I had always wondered what was up. Then 20 years on as I was preparing to file for divorce, I saw that they were in fact meeting up with each other behind my back. It’s insane and I wish I had had the courage to leave him before getting married but FW convinced me it was all in my head. My own mother said I just had cold feet. I could have saved myself so much misery had I gone with my gut.
This was me. I was SO convinced that he would never do such a thing, I looked at any and all concerning situations with the lens of “well he would never have sex with them, but is this friendship too close? Should I talk to him about it?”
This husband uses very similar tactics mine did. You are always too much something or not enough something…you wanted to talk about it too soon or too late or you gave too much attention or too little or a million ways of blaming you that your marriage wasn’t perfect and YOU need to figure out what was wrong because it is all your fault.
I was so convinced he would not have sex with coworkers that I found every excuse possible without him even trying. We had a contest here a few years ago about the stupidest excuse anyone had accepted to excuse a giant red flag and I won. He came home with a broken kneecap although he was otherwise unharmed and had not been in a car accident. Even an ER doc I knew questioned me on that one.
I thought we had a communication problem or an understanding problem or a sensitivity problem when what I had was a “he is fucking his coworkers” problem. Once you genuinely allow yourself to truly know that he fucked the gal who got the roses, you will look back and see a lot more weird things you dismissed in the moment but really were red flags.
It is terrifying to allow yourself to admit this because it demands a reaction of some sort. I was very very very afraid. In my case, I never did properly react to it because I only got to the place of admitting to myself (that he really DID have sex with the main OW) after he was dead. Reprocessing a 26 year marriage with a new understanding is why Im here…it was the only safe place to do so. Time after time, I would have a memory about a situation I long saw as harmless but was much more menacing when looking at it knowing he fucked coworkers.
I am SO SORRY you are facing this. Be kind to yourself that you were so devoted to your marriage that you were unable to connect the dots before – you are in good company. Read this whole blog, you will need it.
“I thought we had a communication problem or an understanding problem or a sensitivity problem when what I had was a “he is fucking his coworkers” problem.” I think maybe I’ll print this out and tape it to the bathroom mirror. lol. It’s perfect. I didn’t get us into therapy soon enough, I pushed too hard for therapy, wanted him to find out he was a bad person in therapy etc etc. I went thru it all because I really felt that we had problems we could fix, but as it turns out therapy does nada for the “he is fucking his coworkers. problem.
I’m sorry , I may have missed something. Did he tell you he had a broken kneecap and the ER doc said “nope” and questioned you about it? Or did he have a broken kneecap and lied about how it happened?
I believed his story and went to work (hospital) and told my colleague (ER doc) about it and she was like “Ive seen som bad accidents and traumas and never seen a broken kneecap” with a “I would be skeptical if I were you” face
This letter is the perfect illustration of how damaging and insidious emotional abuse can be. It can be such a slow boil that you don’t realize the danger until you’re fully cooked.
For me, it was a background radiation of tiny comments about me being judgmental, hypocritical, cold, unloving, or mean. For the record, at the time I was a total doormat, so these comments would spur me to try harder. To be more understanding, warm, loving, and nice – no matter what his behavior was.
The day I learned what DARVO was on this blog (Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender) was a turning point in my life. It made me realize that whenever I came to him with a legitimate complaint, he would turn it around, and within seconds I would be defending myself instead of talking about what he did. Every. Time.
Me: Why did you leave at three AM? Where did you go?
Him: You go on business trips all the time – I don’t keep track of your every movement! Who knows what you are doing? And despite that, I trust you, but of course, you can’t trust me.
Were we talking about business trips? Nope. We were talking about him randomly leaving the house in the middle of the night, but now suddenly I’m on the back foot, needing to respond to accusations that I am a judgy, non-trusting, hypocrite.
At first, I learned to redirect DARVO with “That’s not what we are talking about. We can talk about that after you answer my question and tell me where you went.” But eventually, I realized, like I should have at the start, that I had nothing to work with.
Interesting to note that the acronym DARVO was coined by Professor Jennifer Freyd based not only on her academic research but also on her personal experience of being gaslighted by the father who sexually abused her as a child and her enabling mother. In fact, the extreme lengths to which Freyd’s parents went to blameshift and silence her ended up affecting the entire world since the two founded the now (thankfully) defunct False Memory Syndrome Foundation which began as a monetized hub of researchers and expert witnesses who specialized in undermining the testimonies of sexual abuse survivors in criminal trials and the media.
Basically the group– composed of academic and scientific board members who were often themselves accused of committing sexual abuse against minors– cranked out its own in-house junk science negating victim perspective and memory. Over the decades the group was in operation, they began to expand use of their weaponized science to the defense of several serial killers including Ted Bundy and the Hillside Stranglers, individuals like Scooter Libby, the “Butcher of Treblinka,” various corporate scoundrels and Serbian commanders accused by the International Criminal Court of committing war crimes, including the systematic rape of prisoners. In the group’s heyday, members were being credulously quoted by major publications like the New York Times and led or guided entire academic departments around the country.
Despite having this globally influential and powerful propaganda machine– which was designed specifically to silence and destroy her– aimed at her for most of her adult life and career, Jennifer Freyd never wavered from her assertion that she had been sexually abused and, kind of like the Omnidroid from The Incredibles that learns enemy tactics from fighting them, she simply studied everything her parents and their “expert” colleagues did in order to codify coercion and blameshifting smear tactics into a science and expose the methods for the benefit of humanity. When the group eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bullshit and members began losing the media power required to whitewash their own dodgy histories, it eventually collapsed.
I have an image of Jennifer Freyd walking away from the fallout like a sole surviving western sheriff set against the backdrop of a burning town of bandits. She is now well respected and the group is disgraced and there’s been more media coverage of this harrowing history. https://news.isst-d.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-false-memory-syndrome-foundation/
as a heterosexual adult man, there are only 2 people who you might buy roses for. 1) your mom on mothers day 2) a woman your having sex with or trying to have sex with.
that one hurt me the most because i know what its like to be confornted with the most obvious evidence and gaslight yourself into thinking “oh its probably not cheating” only to feel stupid about it later when the truth comes out.
Agreed. You might get someone flowers for some other reason, such as being in the hospital, but not roses. Especially not red roses.
My father-in-law sent me a dozen roses after I had my son, and even that felt weird to me!
i could see how it feels weird but i’ll allow it
Maybe it wouldn’t have felt so weird if he also hadn’t earlier given me lingerie for Christmas (not a fuzzy robe!) and been dating a woman my age.
Roses are awkward because of universal romantic connotations but if that was the only gaff a person made, maybe. But roses AND lingerie on separate occasions? Good lord what a fucked up family your ex had.
And then there was the poster he brought me from Berlin, of an artwork that was supposed to symbolize the Wall that was a photograph of a woman lying down with a wooden facsimile of the wall between her spread legs.
But of course what would you expect of a man who when my ex was a boy was cheating on his wife with one of his grad students?
Yak– trying to imagine what I would have felt if my mother had given any of my boyfriends or FW sexually suggestive art or even cotton boxers as gifts. Clearly you were being groomed by a guy who’d poach from his own son. Disgusting and unsettling.
Yes, emotional affairs are cheating, but your ex exhibited all the classic signs of physical cheating, and he was getting more and more brazen about it. He was spinning a spider web of lies, and employing every abuser’s tactic to keep you off balance and doubting yourself. No question he was texting Schmoops right in front of you because he enjoyed the thrill of doing so, and it’s unsurprising that his next step was to abandon you.
Don’t question yourself any longer. Your perceptions were 100% on target. He is 100% an abusive cheater, and you are better off free of him.
i think, for me, the biggest issue is the disrespect he’s showing your person in the form of referring to you as “too emotional” etc.etc. you need to know that he’s likely presenting you as “crazy” or “difficult” to other people.
can you accept that? i don’t think so.
the details of his infidelities, emotional or physical, are irrelevant.
he doesn’t respect you.
if you have a child watching this unfold, they watch a man disrespect his wife/partner, and learn that’s normal. it’s not normal, not in the least. i suggest you go no contact and, further, get yourself into therapy–
take good care of yourself.
damnitfeelsbadtobeachumpster
Overreacting? No, no you are not.
This was my entire thirty plus year marriage. One flirtation after another. I let his “micro affairs” flow through our marriage because he loved me… right? I justified his behavior because he simply loves the company and attention of women. What’s the harm?
The harm came when inevitably one of the women reciprocated his “feelings”. That’s when the whip saw treatment began. Contemptuous silent treatments then trips and gifts and… back again. I had no clue because… I… trusted… him and he used it quite effectively against me.
Years later when the scales finally fell from my eyes. It wasn’t the emotional affair that temporarily destroyed me. It was his gaslighting, denial, paltering, lying, manipulating, blameshifting, equating and every other machination he used to not have to acknowledge the damage he’d caused me.
Accepting reality instead of desperately clinging to what I thought was my truth was a big step towards getting on the path to healing.
Yes, my Cheater was a bully in so many ways. Now, years later…I can choose to not ruminate on much of what he did but in the end, to manipulate me, he chose meanness. He was mean and hurtful. I trusted him to have my best interest at heart and he chose anger and meanness as his default mode. It was all a terrible betrayal.
If you don’t want to call it cheating, call it disrespect.
He spent time he should have been spending with you on his phone with another woman- in front of you.
Would he have been cool about you doing the same with another man? Of course not.
It’s an old familiar story- if they’re ‘open’ about what they’re up to, they convince themselves since you ‘ know’ you’re ok with it- which is a crock of shit but that’s their belief so must be reality.
Disrespect, no regard, no care- it’s all bad .
Lies are never a firm foundation to build or maintain a relationship on.
It is an important point about the power of words. I, too, was confused by what was happening and it was hard to articulate.
“He’s policing your tone” says so much and is something I experienced. Seeing it as just another DARVO tactic is much better than trying to explain yourself and your “tone.”
“Ever-moving goal posts” was another power phrase for me.
There is so much power in words but there is even more power in no contact. 💪
I read here once, If you’re going on a train in the wrong direction, you get off at the next stop. You don’t stay on until the end of the line.
This brings back not-so-fond memories of XW texting at dinner.
We have a strict no-phones-at-the table rule for family dinner. Everyone has always obeyed it, even our peak-social-media 15-yo daughter. But post-ILYBINILWY, when XW was emboldened to reveal how few metaphorical fucks she had to give, XW started bringing her phone to the table, nestling it in her lap, and “secretly” texting throughout dinner. It was blindingly obvious to everyone, but she refused to stop because they were “work texts”.
To be fair to XW, since she was having an affair with a work colleague I’m sure the texts were at least work-adjacent. Similarly, when she traveled to meet up with AP she always coupled it with a work event so that it had a veneer of legitimacy. Ironically, she used the fact that I didn’t question her travel schedule as proof that I didn’t really love her. Apparently if I’d really loved her I would have been calling her hotel room to verify her whereabouts. I think it’s a little unfair that I’m being blamed for trusting her while undoubtedly her current husband gets credit for keeping close tabs on her, when he has the benefit of knowing she is not a faithful wife because she was unfaithful with him. I mean, if she’d just told me she was sleeping around then I also would have known to demand that she share her location with me at all times, the way she does now with new-husband! Yet another test that I failed as a husband because XW carefully made sure I didn’t have the information necessary to pass it, thereby retroactively legitimizing her decision to leave me for AP.
Dear Chumpiest of Chumps’
As you might know, Chump Lady and this forum are all about defining cheating as a form of domestic abuse, very often aligning it with current legal definitions of coercive control– i.e., forms of subviolent emotional and psychological abuse which, statistically, most abuse survivors describe as the most devastating and paralyzing aspects of domestic abuse even beyond physical assault.
So, in that framework, what you actually are– what chumps in general are– is an abuse survivor and your ex is an abuser. He’s just one of the skilled ones who doesn’t have to take his hands out of his pockets nor wield a tire iron to cause injury. But give him time since, statistically, domestic abusers of all stripes have nearly 100% recidivism (even with therapy and jail time) and most get worse.
In any case, I would say that your ex was definitely in the opening stages of committing coercive control against you as well as sexual coercion at the very least. The big giveaway was the recognizable– if somewhat obtuse and sneaky– threat of cheating on you or abandoning you if you did not engage with him in reading smutty/pornographic material. As you reported, he said that, if you had read this stuff with him, he wouldn’t have had to engage in porn consumption with another woman. Even if he wasn’t this blunt about it, in pure logic, the reason someone would engage in porn with someone of their sexual target gender is as a form of foreplay– in order to get mutually excited about the specific acts being depicted and then engage in those acts. Read: “I will cheat on you/abandon you to punish you because you are not enthusiastically willing to do these acts.” Ergo, definable sexual coercion = coercive control= domestic abuse. If the specific acts in question were beyond your comfort zone– particularly humiliating or physically painful– it adds an extra note of sadism to the coercion.
I recommend following the writings of renowned coercive control expert Dr. Emma Katz on Substack or in other publications in order to understand the nature of coercive control and the clear meaning of that particular gesture and also listen to CL’s interview with Dr. Katz on the Tell Me How You’re Mighty podcast. I think if you do you’ll start to recall similarly coercive hints and gestures that have been happening all along or progressively since the beginning of the relationship.
A while back, CL published the letter of a divorce attorney and abuse survivor entitled “Domestic Violence Survivors Are Infidelity Survivors Too.” The attorney’s observation that virtually all DV survivors were also cheated on in some way matched my own observations as a former advocate for victims– that virtually all batterers cheat. Back in the day, I suspected that cheating wasn’t merely in the arsenal of abuse tactics but was actually a major driver of domestic abuse or, better put, the brutal “enforcement of one-sided monogamy” coupled with “rape by deception” may be the major drivers.
Back when I was working as an advocate, social research didn’t confirm my personal theory but, since then, there’s been more research pointing in this direction. In short, domestic abuse may largely be a form of protracted rape because it’s primarily about robbing victims of sexual consent. This brings up another of CL’s posts from last year titled “Is Cheating a Form of Rape?” which links to a Yale Law and Policy Review article titled Solving the Riddle of Rape-by-Deception.
Even if not all cheaters batter, virtually all engage in forms of coercive control which, due to advancements in statistics and social science, is now known to be a far bigger red flag and more reliable predictor for eventual lethal violence than even a history of assault. For example, in Australia it was found that about 40% of domestic murders were not preceded by any previous reports of violence, but this did not mean that violence “came out of the blue” since it was always preceded by acts of coercive control. That also doesn’t mean that all coercive controllers progress to murder but the risk is considerable enough for several countries to either criminalize coercive control or provide protective orders for victims.
Anyway, this is all that you may have dodged a much bigger bullet than you consciously know but, if you feel shattered and traumatized, it’s possible your unconscious lizard brain recognized the trap you were in and recognized that you were being robbed of sexual consent both through hinted threats as well as his engaging in secret acts that, had you known about them, would have led you to refuse sex if not leave the relationship and eventually form new and better relationship. The reason he lied was to prevent you from doing either. The reason he put you down was to grind down your self esteem and trick you into believing you didn’t have enough value to do either so that you’d stay in the trap out of hopelessness.
Because, when caught, some cheaters will engage in dramatic gestures of rejection of victims, it can be a red herring to distract from the “protracted rape” aspect of the abuse since the victim feels “sexually discarded” which would appear on the surface to be the opposite of sexually coerced. But I think that, in a sense, the rejection is a kind of sour grapes feint on the part of abusers in retaliation for the victim’s refusal to accept the abuser’s intolerable sexual demands and conditions.
Don’t be fooled by the parting shots, in other words. Even his last ditch bid for an open relationship was never real or he would have suggested this from the second he decided to stray. He never would have tolerated you doing in kind to him. This was simply meant to distract you (and probably others since this is likely his cover story) from the fact your consent and sexual and personal freedom were robbed for years. This is regardless of whether he actually had sex with multiple other people on your watch though, because it’s abundantly clear he was doing just that, be sure to get the fully battery of STD tests on top of seeking specialized support for definable domestic abuse and trauma.
Hi – thank you for writing so openly about sexual coercion. This part in particular really resonated with me. “I will cheat on you/abandon you to punish you because you are not enthusiastically willing to do these acts.” Ergo, definable sexual coercion = coercive control= domestic abuse. If the specific acts in question were beyond your comfort zone– particularly humiliating or physically painful– it adds an extra note of sadism to the coercion.”
This was absolutely true in my relationship. I just couldn’t connect the dots while I was in it.
All the coded language, oblique messaging and indirect threats are designed to keep us from connecting the dots because no sexually coercive abuser wants to be squarely identified as such.
In fact, according to research, most serial offenders spend enormous amounts of psychic energy denying to themselves and everyone else that they are such. If you want to have a moment of mindblowing “OMG, that’s it!” recognition, search “MPDI + Denying the Darkness: Exploring the Discourses of Neutralization of Bundy, Gacy and Dahmer” The paper has very clear and basic description of the learned mental gymnastics that a wide range of serial offenders from college exam cheats to serial killers use to deflect and “neutralize” the negative stigma of what they do, primarily by fabricating negative traits in their own victims or accusers, denying the harm they do, etc.
At one point authors of the above paper seem to speculate that, since “neutralization” tactics are so effective for quelling guilt and stigma, it almost makes the concept of “zero empathy” sociopathy/psychopathy unnecessary. This suggests that these individuals– even serial killers– may have been born with normal capacity for empathy like everyone else but they’ve learned and perfected the use of a selective “on/off” switch. Some are reportedly so practiced at it that it requires no conscious effort to shift into this mind frame (making it easier to deny the mental tactic I suppose) and, according to other research, abusive personalities also tend to “spellbind” themselves into believing their own blameshifting, self-exculpating lies. In any case, it seems pretty obvious from most survivor accounts that the full range of abusers do this, from domestic murderers to “subviolent” coercive controllers.
Speaking of which, according to the late coercive control expert and legislative spearhead Dr. Evan Stark, since the advent of stronger criminal enforcement against domestic assault, a lot of abusers have began to shift their tactics to less legally risky forms of abuse which is why yesterday’s domestic batterers have become today’s coercive controllers.
In short, abusers basically mutate like viruses to evade human defenses and prevent society and law enforcement from “connecting the dots,” not just their victims though survivors then take the double brunt of not only the traumatic abuse but also a re-traumatizing lack of social recognition and support and lack of legal protection.
Anyway, that degree of wiliness is not a mark of helpless “mental illness” but of criminal mentality. It’s also a spooky warning that violent ideation and capacity may lurk just below the surface of supposedly subviolent coercive behavior so keep yourself safe.
I hereby welcome you as a member of the Chump Nation in good standing. Welcome!
Permit me to, in welcoming you, to put to you the two core questions that underlie pretty much everything we do here:
-Are you ok with what this person has done/continues to do to you:
-As you are clearly NOT OK with that and are in fact are seeking guidance on the issue as you know deep down that you DO have value, you ARE beautiful, AMAZING, and don’t deserve this shit, what do you plan to do with this idiot?
Betrayal is different for all of us. It’s your relationship-you draw those particular lines.
Sketching it out, dude has definitely lied to you, alienated you from affection, had lewd conversations, definitely blurred some boundaries with “not you”(come on, we all know what Roses mean-even my dense-at-dating self knows that), and most importantly has not played well with your own feelings of insecurity(and even seems to be exploiting it.)
Having had the “open relationship” bomb dropped on me I find that quite triggering as well. The answer to “I need you to do better” should not be “well why don’t YOU outsource? (like I probably have.)”
If he’s not cheating in your book, he’s definitely auditioning for Cheating’s Best Local Cover Band.
Wherein he seems to have other ideas about where the boundaries lie it sounds like it’s time for renegotiation at best-here are my concerns and what needs to happen to address them. These are non-negotiable, no I will not hear what I did to provoke this.
More than likely, the actual outcome is going to be something closer to:
-Get your shit and get out.
The arc of the FW universe does not bend toward justice: it forms an infinity sign made out of lies.∞∞∞
Do you know, few things get me angrier than having my “tone” policed. As if I need to CONTINUE to ask humbly for you to stop treating me like garbage or I somehow deserve it? No. Absolutely no. The first few times I brought up my concerns and unmet needs I was polite, yet nothing changed. This “tone” you’re hearing is me trying one last time to get your attention before booting your butt to the curb.
My ex told me he felt emasculated by my tone. Well, I am being abused by your actions, so who is the real victim?
I am a very fair fighter…I dont scream, call people names, make accusations (unless I know 100% of guilt). When my Cheater could fault me for nothing else, he said he didnt like my tone. Fuck him
Oh my god this letter was really triggering for me. This is exactly how my ex treated me. For years he skirted around with this kind of behaviour where he was actually flaunting his cheating all around me and then letting me know I was the sensitive, anxious, jealous freak.
Here’s an example how it worked. He would go out on a Friday night for “client drinks”. On late Saturday morning when he finally got up, he would tell me about all of the clients he partied with who he said, “wanted to fuck me”. This could be men or women. So I’d ask a few innocent questions like “Isn’t he married to a woman?” or “how do you know they wanted to fuck you? Did they say so?” And he would tell me about how much everyone flirted with him, etc. He’d imply that he was just rejecting everyone’s advances on him. Then I’d get upset and say I didn’t feel comfortable with him going out without me and then it would start- I’m boring and I don’t like to drink so I couldn’t go, I’m uptight, jealous, I didn’t trust him blah blah blah. He’d spend the rest of the day in his iPad, doing some “work” and I just needed to let him be. Gee! I was so needy because I wanted him to spend time with the family.
This letter today was written about the dynamics of an abusive cheater. I know it well unfortunately. You are not alone Chumpiest! And yes- he cheated and cheated and cheated. They get off on the power to lie and make you feel small and sick inside. I feel for you 💕
Gee, I knew Calvin Klein models with rippling six pack abs and cheekbones you could cut glass with who didn’t get that many offers in a night in their primes. He must be (insert sarcasm font) the most irresistible man in the world!
Or, more likely, he either imagined all of it and simply projected his own sleazy sexual aggression and come-ons onto his sexual targets (statistically, most rapists delusionally believe their victims “want” them) or he works in a very booze-fueled industry that harbors a lot of unhealthy losers and wrecks for whom he’s simply the leper with the most remaining fingers and teeth.
Haha! All of this. He thought he was god’s gift to the world and he was also a sleazy predator who was always on the prowl. He used sex as a tool of manipulation. He even said our dentist wanted him and was constantly hitting on him 🙄
I’m imagining the type that provincial old church ladies think is “handsome” like Ted Bundy or bloaty John Meehan, the real life psycho from the Dirty John series. I’ll bet you even married him in spite of his appearance because he bio-mimmicked having character lol.
I don’t think it really matters if the guy is cheating — he obviously hates you. Please break up with him.
lol every time I read this comment I laugh. So succinct and so true. I think he did, in fact, hate me. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but truly thank you, especially today, I needed some levity.
Raises hand, peeks over the top of the wall. Hi, it’s me, chumpiest of chumps. Sigh. (To be clear, that sigh is directed inward and not toward CL or CN.)
I’ve not only read every word of this post and the accompanying comments, but I’ve also digested them. This particular line stood out: “It is a wearing down that no one who has not experienced it can even express.” I am both immensely grateful and sad that so many of us chumps exist. Without you, I may never have realized that there were other people in the world feeling just like me—that something wasn’t quite right, but I was so worn down that it was impossible to identify.
Thankfully, I wrote this letter after I was already out and finally filled with enough rage to name what my FW did—he cheated. Today, I’m separated (my state requires a period of separation before filing) and honestly doing… ok-ish? Most of the time? Maybe?
Really, I have come a long way. A therapist not afraid to call out either me or my ex, CL and CN, and finally digging deep enough to find the person I was before I got tangled in the FW net equals someone quite capable of getting through this. But man, does it suck.
I have a list of shitty things FW did that I keep to stave off those times when I feel weak and like I would just love to be comforted by my person (FW) again. Now, I get to combine my list with the CN list, and honestly? I feel pretty invincible against the emotional powers that be.
Basically, I’ll be popping in again whenever I need that shot of validation and/or hard truths to respond more specifically to comments that resonated with me. But for now—from the bottom of my chumpy heart—thank you. A group of internet strangers is helping me light my way, and I can only hope to pay it forward someday.
You will pay it forward someday I’m sure. As you recover you will be strong enough to help the next chump out there, whether on this website or somewhere IRL. Hugs to you
You said it– man, does it suck. At first. But as your knowledge about the intricacies of abuse and human iniquity begin to expand, something very non-sucky can happen. Once your hands and voice stop shaking every time you think of or try to talk these experiences and you’re really able to integrate certain ideas, that base of knowledge will give you more and deeper bonding points with other worthy people all over the planet because the things you’ll come to understand won’t merely apply to interpersonal but also to “macro” issues like politics, organizational psychology, etc., etc. You’ll start getting a telltale zing when meeting other people with integrity and experience. You’ll excitedly finish each others sentences and, even if the topics of discussion are dark, you’ll wind up laughing or beaming with the delight of mutual connection and consensus.
There’s actually nothing better and no better basis for true friendship and/or love in my book. Like my daughter’s favorite fridge magnet says, “Welcome to the dark side, we have cookies.”
I dealt with similar. The first affair, I was told was “emotional.” Emotional or physical, my FW was conversing with another woman constantly (even with me in the room), for over a year. I was pregnant when the emotional affair started. He was always on his phone and flipping that sucker over so I couldn’t see what he was typing and who was responding. I called him on it, and in typical DARVO fashion, he accused me of not trusting him and tracking his phone (I wasn’t). Of course, I then felt guilty for suspecting him of something he so vehemently denied doing. The gaslighting was strong. After our child was born he moved to the basement bedroom (so I could get up with the baby and he could get a solid night’s sleep). He stayed in the basement for 5 months. Our 3 year old even asked, “Why is Daddy always in the basement?”
I gave FW an ultimatum to cut the shit and re-commit to the marriage, or I was calling an attorney and filing for divorce. I did contact an attorney about filing 3 months after the baby was born and spoke with an ass hole who told me I needed to try to figure out how to make things works with FW. I wish I would not have listened. FW did finally admit to the “emotional affair.” He met the other woman online and said they never met in person. He cut off all communication with her. I stayed in the marriage for 8 more years until I knew it was happening again.
We filed jointly for divorce last February before I had solid proof of a new affair, as I was done with being his doormat. The psychological and emotional abuse I dealt with is mind boggling. I look back at it now, and wonder how I managed to live like that for so many years. He was of course having another affair. He met the current AP online through social media, just like he met the last one.
From everything you wrote, your FW was doing more than having emotional affairs. Even if there was never anything physical, all of the lying, projection, and gaslighting you were dealing with are reason enough to leave a man who was most definitely abusing you. You have every right to leave, and I hope the divorce goes smoothly and quickly, so you can get on with your life without a cheater. You deserve so much better!
He didn’t leave for somebody he hadn’t had sex with. No way. He was either fucking all of these women or at the very least was trying to, but it’s a guarantee that he was banging #5. It’s also a guarantee that if you catch your partner talking dirty with another woman and his response is that you should agree to non-monogamy, you already have one sided non-monogamy.
Oh yeah, he’s been cheating. And lying to you. And gaslighting you.Taking roses and dinner ingredients – from your cupboard! – to a coworker’s house, OMG! Yeah, as CL said, that’s a date! And lying about it!
Get your ducks in a row, find a tough lawyer, go no contact, and get the best settlement you can.
Oh honey.
It’s been physical.
My ex told me he and the OW hadn’t done anything. Turned out they’d been screwing for YEARS. He’s blaming you, expressing jealousy, doing romantic things with other women, being a sympathetic ear to other women, texting other women, not talking to you (but talking to other women). In short, this is a disaster for you and you deserve more. Say “Bye!” and go make a fabulous life without this jerk.
My new motto on the forgiveness mantras
Forgiveness is not a substitute for boundaries, nor should forgiveness eliminate consequences..