Cheater Claims He Has a Terminal Illness
Her cheater ex, from whom she is still not divorced, now claims he has a terminal illness. Should she break no contact? What’s the ethical thing to do here?
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Dear Chump Lady
I am on year 5 of my legal journey to divorce my narcissistic FW. Three of which he tried to get me to remove adultery as grounds for divorce and fought for a later date of separation for financial gain. Funny how naked photos of him and OW shut that crap down. I have been no contact with him since 2020 and our teenage daughters have remained estranged from him since that time as well.
At our last virtual court date, his lawyer dropped a bombshell: FW has ALS — a fatal condition with an average lifespan of 3-5 years.
In emails to me last year, he had alluded to an awful disease for which I should get our daughters genetically tested. But he refused to give me further information unless the girls promised to meet with him. They refused. We were still in the dark.
I am tormented by my vacillating emotions. While I finally feel indifferent towards him and joke with friends about how I look good in black, I am (generally) not a bad person. I don’t wish awful diseases upon anyone. But I struggle to believe a highly manipulative man. He lied to me and the children every day for 5 years.
Is this even true?
I told the children what I was told and encouraged them to reach out to him. They refuse. Now I am plagued by guilt that I am not doing right by them, myself and even him.
I feel like I am being judged again by his family, friends and God knows who else he has spread his false narrative to in our small town. First, I was falsely accused as the scorned wife and now I am the cold and unfeeling wife keeping the children away from their dying father. I feel the same emotional exhaustion as I did when he was gaslighting and abusing me during his five-year secret second life.
To add to the dilemma: my lawyer informed me that should I become a widow before a divorcee, the ongoing court battle for assets will be with the OW he left me for.
Am I a horrible person for feeling the way I do and for not feeling the way I think I should?
Signed
That’s Mrs. Chump to You
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Dear That’s Mrs. Chump to You,
No, you’re not a horrible person. You feel what you feel. I can guess what those conflicted feelings might be. Relief that he could soon be out of your life permanently. Indifference to the suffering of a man who traumatized you with betrayal and litigation abuse. Sadness that a partner you invested most of your adult life in is dying. Skepticism that he’s actually dying, because he’s a practiced liar.
You have my sympathy.
On top of a never-ending divorce, you’ve been given complicated grief.
I think it’s entirely your business what you do with your feelings. Just don’t let them change the course of your divorce.
At our last virtual court date, his lawyer dropped a bombshell: FW has ALS — a fatal condition with an average lifespan of 3-5 years.
Oh, shall his lawyer be speeding up the divorce process then? What exactly does he want you to do with this information?
Now that your cheater can’t play guessing games about his terminal illness, your daughters can get genetic testing without him. Thanks lawyer! Beyond that, you should care about his neurological suffering… why?
This man has put you through FIVE YEARS of contentious litigation.
He cheated and then spent THREE years in court denying he cheated. That’s just fuckwittery and punishment. Dude, run off into your sunset already and pay your settlement. Oh, but then you could all move on with your lives. You know what could stop that? A Hail Mary terminal illness.
Maybe he has ALS, maybe he doesn’t. (I’m cynical enough to believe FWs fabricate a terminal illness, because I’ve seen it on this blog and in real life. Mr. CL calls this condition “Cancer of the Imaginary Glands.”) But it sure is handy to manipulate you with.
Refuse to be manipulated.
Focus on how this changes your material situation. I’m shocked that if you’re widowed before you’re divorced that he can leave his entire estate to the Other Woman. I’d get a second legal opinion on that! But unless he was planning to drag this litigation out ANOTHER 3-5 years, I don’t see why you can’t continue on the path of a divorce settlement. If anything, his imminent mortality should compel him to settle with you soonest. Can’t you just haul this shit in front of a judge already? You’ve TRIED negotiating. Let the court decide it. I can’t believe you’d wind up with a worse settlement than the no settlement you’re living with now. You might even get a better settlement given his foot dragging. Anyway, these are matters for the attorneys. We’re here to discuss your feelings.
You’re not a ‘bad person.’
I am tormented by my vacillating emotions. While I finally feel indifferent towards him and joke with friends about how I look good in black, I am (generally) not a bad person. I don’t wish awful diseases upon anyone.
None of this is your fault. You didn’t do anything to bring bad fortune upon your cheater. Cells divide weirdly. Genetics are a crapshoot. It may seem ridiculous to type this, but if you lived with a FW you’re probably used to feeling like everything is your fault. And that his illness is somehow your responsibility. Nope. It’s OW’s job now to spoon-feed him mush and change his diapers. No tag backs.
But I struggle to believe a highly manipulative man. He lied to me and the children every day for 5 years.
That makes sense. But you don’t have to believe him. His health good or ill doesn’t change the fact you’re divorcing him.
He might want to scare you into a settlement if you fear the OW might get everything if he dies. But that’s an issue for the lawyers. To me, that’s an argument to press forward and get a judge’s ruling now.
Let go of how other people see you, except the court.
I told the children what I was told and encouraged them to reach out to him. They refuse. Now I am plagued by guilt that I am not doing right by them, myself and even him.
Again, this is something to discuss with your attorney. Your kids are teenagers, so legally it’s probably up to them how much they want to see their estranged father. But if the appearance of you “not letting them” see their father affects your divorce settlement, that’s something to consider. As unfair as that is. Perhaps they would consider seeing him in a therapist’s office? Mostly, however, I sympathize with the kids. I’d want to respect their feelings too.
I feel like I am being judged again by his family, friends and God knows who else he has spread his false narrative to in our small town. First, I was falsely accused as the scorned wife and now I am the cold and unfeeling wife keeping the children away from their dying father.
You don’t control what other people think of you. If they want to believe the worst, they aren’t your friends. You’re a woman navigating a deeply unfair and terrible situation. All you want is a divorce and dead or alive this FW is trying to deny you one.
Ultimately, he will not succeed. No one can force you to stay married to this freak. Just remember, you’re the winner. Not only do you have your daughters, your sanity and freedom, you have your health.
Your ex doesn’t have your daughters, sanity, or health. What did he win? Five years of obstructionism to keep money he’s going to lose when he dies anyway? A new life with the Other Woman who gets to caretake him through a grueling degenerative disease? Assuming she sticks around for that?
Like every FW before him, he traded a faithful loving partner for a handful of magic beans. Imagine being the sort of person who has to implore people to give a shit about him. Who has to intimidate them legally to show up. God, what a loser.
If he lives another 5 years, or 50, he remains the loser. Go live your best life, Mrs. Whatever the terms of your eventual divorce, you already won.
Why believe anything his lawyer is telling you that would be adverse to your interests? What he is really saying is: “You had better stop fighting and give up, otherwise you might lose everything.” He is being paid to say that by your lying, cheating STBX. So why believe it? What does YOUR LAWYER say about any of this?
Let’s pretend for a minute that STBX is telling the truth about his diagnosis (a big stretch). If he was able to deprive you of his assets by willing them to Schmoopie pre-divorce, then he could do that right now, couldn’t he? By changing his will? Nothing you do will make it more likely that he is forced to give you your fair share.
I would not really assume he is telling the truth about his diagnosis anyway. ALS is rarely hereditary and the fact that he tried to blackmail his own children by withholding genetic information that would be critical to their health is telling.
By the way, in my state (as in many states) a terminal and exigent health diagnosis is a reason to accelerate a lawsuit. Might want to ask your lawyer about that.
OP is not in the US. Not sure how the law works where she is.
Yes, in some places it’s very hard to push a divorce through, and in others it’s so standardized that it’s frustrating in some cases.
I know from my friend in Scotland that divorce laws in Europe are abysmal. Hoping for the best for this sweet lady and her children. Thank you for always championing the betrayed.
Get the genetic testing for your daughters for your own peace of mind.
If he actually does have ALS, I’m sure at this point he’s finally telling you because either 1) OW doesn’t feel like being his designated ass-wiper when he can’t move his arms anymore and buggered off or 2) He thinks this will squeeze pity out of your heart and you’ll drop the divorce or give him a settlement in his favor.
Unless you want to fight in court with Madame Toilette Papier over assets, proceed with the divorce.
That’s Mrs Chump to You,
In your shoes I would recommend that you stay no contact, press on, get your case in front of a Judge and divorce him just as you planned to anyway. The time for playing “nicely” is a long way in the past and it’s there because of the way that he has acted towards you and your daughters over the last few years. He has dragged his heels, been difficult and manipulative and lied to you all; he hasn’t given you a single reason to cut him any slack whatsoever.
And as for those that would judge you and find you “wanting” in some way? In three words …. “F*ck ’em all.” They should be shaming your STBX Husband for his behaviour and not you. You didn’t ask and you don’t deserve to be in the situation you are now in; him, however, not so much.
LFTT
PS – Great “handle” by the way.
“… he refused to give me further information unless the girls promised to meet with him.”
And … we’re done. This is evidence that he does. not. care. about his children. 🤯 A normal parent would move heaven and earth to make sure that their kids were protected — with no conditions. He made a deliberate choice to withhold information that could help his kids. That’s sick.
He is absolutely hoping that this “diagnosis” makes you throw up your hands and say, “Oh, never mind then!” It’s ludicrous. Assume that he is lying because he always has — that’s a boy-who-cried-wolf consequence he created. No one believes him anymore, because he has lied so much. Even your teenagers know this.
This was my thought exactly. He was willing to withhold critical, life saving information from his own children for the benefit of his ego. He is a MONSTER. I would make sure the OP’s lawyer knows this and uses it to her advantage in court. Take him for everything he’s got. Disease or not. Dying or not. He’s horrible.
Exactly! If he doesn’t consider his kids first he is lying or a manipulative narcissist and too toxic for his kids to have coerced contact.
Whatever he has, you might consider what is needed to truly get this over with. I was OK with not pursuing the adultery route in my case because my finances were on the edge, and it really didn’t matter in the long run. My state still allows that, but I told my attorney, “Git ‘er done.” And we did with no trial. I was pleased with the terms. I was OK with whatever he wanted to do estate-wise, but my attorney said you can specify that in the divorce agreement.
But my ex had horrific medical problems for most of our marriage, on top of the rest. Certain people considered me a horrible person for refusing to reconcile for that reason alone. My well-being apparently wasn’t at all a factor, and he reportedly was in decent health during the divorce that he initiated. Mentally unstable and potentially dangerous, yes, but no health crises from what his attorney told mine.
Later, he claimed to be “near death” in birthday and Christmas cards to our college kids, but he’s still around, years later, as far as I know.
If he is dying, then why isn’t he eagerly working at clarifying his estate, especially for his daughters? Either he is a complete schmuck or he is lying. I vote for complete schmuck. Perhaps you should be as sympathetic and cooperative as possible in his understandable desire to settle considering the circumstances and see how he reacts? If he still stalls you have your answer.
My experience with a family member in a court case (not cheater ex) is that your lawyer can ask them to provide MEDICAL proof from his doctor of his diagnosis and presumed life expectancy, since he could have been diagnosed years ago or yesterday. Perhaps his doctor said his symptoms could be suggestive of ALS, not that they are. Although genetic testing can show if you have associated mutations, there’s not a single definitive medical test to determine if you have ALS. It requires multiple tests and still is a judgement call in early stages. He IS a liar, and could still be lying about this to rush you into an unfavorable settlement.
my lawyer informed me that should I become a widow before a divorcee, the ongoing court battle for assets will be with the OW he left me for. Which might give you the high ground financially. You might want to consult with an estate attorney to determine the likely outcome if he dies either with or without a will during your divorce. You and especially your teen daughters will still have rights to some marital assets and possibly a share of his income earned since then. You should also check with social security to determine how and when divorce will affect survivor benefits to you, if his social security payments would be higher than yours. You are still eligible if you are divorced, but there may be requirements such as the time lapse since his death.
There are some excellent articles about helping children, particularly teens, deal with the upcoming or actual death of an estranged parent.
You didn’t mention any efforts by cheater to see his daughters for the past five years. You clearly don’t want your daughters to feel the community pressure and censure you’ve been getting. When you’re accused of keeping your daughters from their dying father, perhaps you could answer that they’ve been estranged since 2020, and mention his lack of effort to connect with them. I would look very carefully for a therapist, so you don’t get one who pushes hard for reconciliation. You could contact a hospice program and ask if they have anyone skilled with dealing with situations where children do not want contact with a dying parent. And look for a therapist who is willing to testify in court. (Some will, some will not.) Regardless, it would be appropriate to get a therapist to help them with their feelings about the cheating, divorce, estrangement and their father’s death. He might be surprised, because your daughters may choose to share, in person or in writing, their anger and disappointment. The court may agree that no further contact is required.
I’m sorry he’s added this element to your protracted legal struggles.
Will let CL weigh in brilliantly on the emotional issue here. I’m more concerned with protecting That’s Mrs. Chump To You during her divorce!
I’m not a lawyer but want to point out that she should discuss the financial implications of FW medical situation with her divorce lawyer and possibly a trust and estates lawyer ASAP. Find out if assets need to be placed into a trust or how best to manage money for the kids’ maintenance and education and protect any spousal support.
The future is the long game and if he’s dying, she doesn’t want to find out after the fact that she and the kids aren’t protected. Unfortunately, chumps often don’t think that far into the future but those expenses come faster than one would think.
ALS? (insert clever “Ice Bucket Challenge but for his wandering dick” joke here)
As we used to say, “pics or it didn’t happen.”
Fuckwits lie. Lawyers lie. He has been trying to get YOU to lie (adultery as the reason for divorce? Change the date of separation? Please.) Get the actual printed result signed by a licensed physician.
And even then, what does that really change? He is still getting divorced. You still do not talk to him. His kids do not talk to him.
It’s manipulation. Watch you “drop the divorce” out of peer pressure and he MIRACULOUSLY RECOVERS!
He was only going to let your children know about some life altering diagnosis if they visited him-which they made it clear they were not interested in doing. If he cared he would just tell them. It’s just more manipulation and control and other abuse.
This probably should have all been in his mental calculus when he cheated.
You owe him nothing. Not sympathy, not mercy, not even pity. He made that decision when he betrayed you and your family.
Who cares what his family thinks? They were totally OK with him cheating and betraying you. Their stance on “their dipshit kid caught Lou Gehrig’s Disease so please everybody just give him what he wants before he maybe dies in the next few years” is pretty meaningless.
I have been meditating on the whole “deathbed visit” thing myself recently. I vacillate between “I need it for my personal closure” and “I will simply visit that idiot’s grave at the one-year mark so I can yell at it”. That is your call. The “I go for closure” version would likely require a lot of steeling myself (and a lot of alcohol and additional therapy to follow), so right at this very moment I lean toward “visit the grave to yell.”
Feliz Jueves!
You are bang on, Jeff!
She needs to push this divorce through and move on with her life, what’s left of it…no thanks to him for the total destruction. The F*cker.
Isn’t it amazing how the “our marriage has been over for years” story suddenly goes away when it comes time to decide how many years of our 401ks they’re entitled to steal?
Haha so true
If I recall my own debacle and tales of woe from other chumps, when the health crisis shoe is on the other foot, most FWs have the worst bedside manner on the face of the earth.
Mine certainly did. I got screamed at 10 hours after a c-section, when I had a case of Norovirus that put half the town in ER and five minutes after learning my father had died among other shocking incidents. What’s more, FWs seem to be even more callous when they’re actually responsible for other people’s health issues– for instance, if they infect partners with an STD or their tempers/toxic behaviors lead to accidents or cause stress related health problems.
But if FWs get sick or injured… look out. It seems no one ever suffers as piteously as FWs do from what are often lifestyle induced health problems and no one ever tries to milk as much advantage out of illness.
Hypocrisy and “one-sided sensitivity” seems to be par for the course but in the end I realized that that the “reversing victim/offender” part of DARVO had a far more diabolical purpose. It was how FW managed to rationalize betraying, endangering and gaslighting me. This was why my getting sick or injured threatened to humanize me and therefore threatened his rationalization system, aka “neutralization” or “guilt reduction strategy” in forensic psychology (free academic paper on the tactic: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/46).
In other words, abusers have stuck their flags on “victim hill” and will never concede an inch of that territory to victims. Any time victims have a single need, that is viewed as a threat to the construct and can trigger rage. I assume this is why abusers are so quick to accuse others of “playing” victim though, in fact, no one other than abusers actually does this. Actual victims hate being victims, feel humiliated and ashamed of the designation and therefore try to deny to themselves and others that they are such.
To the degree that the above patterns of behavior in “cheating” seem to be virtually the same as in domestic violence (give or take a few broken bones or black eyes), I wonder if it might help to use some of the same exercises that domestic violence/coercive control survivors are sometimes encouraged to do such as writing down every single awful, cruel, eerie, creepy thing the abuser ever did or said and then rereading the document over and over any time the survivor starts losing their perspective on who did what to whom again.
It’s funny that, back when I worked in advocacy, it was rather novel to tell survivors to do this exercise since mainstream psychology viewed it as “re-traumatizing.” But back then mainstream psychology generally disagreed with the view of the independent service I worked for– the idea that battering victims, no matter how independent and healthy they were prior to abuse, are systematically frog-boiled into dependency through years of coercive conditioning. Instead, the mainstream view was that DV victims all started out fucked up and “codependent” even before the abuse began and then “drew” abuse to themselves on voodoo tractor beams. Consequently, mainstream clinicians wouldn’t see the value in a survivor going back over every little bit of Pavlovian coercion and manipulation, every tiny fear tactic, intimidation or pity ploy they’d been subjected to which eventually led to victims’ false sense of being “responsible” for abusers’ welfare and feelings, also known as captor bonding/Stockholm syndrome.
Anyway, it’s good to hear that at least the clinicians trained in coercive control are now often recommending the exercise to combat what is sometimes called “perspecticide”– the way abusers insidiously destroy victims’ healthy perspectives, world views and self images and incrementally replace these with the abusers’ own nihilistic, twisted perspectives, world views and cynical images of their own victims.
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Yes, one time my wonderful attorney commented that gifted liars can make some of the very best people crazy and confused. It was in the context of me apologizing for not quite knowing which way was up at times. It was OK that I was still processing my mess.
Now, I can’t stand being around people who slip into a power-over mode and/or those who lie. I take responsibility for my mistakes, but I don’t own people’s emotions. It’s so much better living that way.
Love that phrased “frog-boiled into dependency.” I absolutely hate the victim-blaming “co-dependency” charge.
I had to laugh when I thought of how the “Ethicist” (the NY Times columnist mentioned in Chumplady a few days ago) would have answered this question. I’m sure he’d have given as silly an answer as he gave in response to his other questioner. Tracy’s advice is right on the mark with this one. And his liar (I mean, his lawyer – or do I?) sounds like he’s making stuff up, too.
Don’t even get me started on the “Ethicist”.
Chump Lady, I love you! Although I am 4.5 years past infidelity and have successfully reconciled with my husband (🤞🏻) I value your wisdom and know every day is a step not a “win.” I faithfully read your blog because I never want to wear rose colored glasses. I am grateful for the restoration of my marriage – dare I say I have a unicorn?, but I never want to be in the weeds again! Your advice is pure magic and in this post I just couldn’t agree more. I feel for this woman and her children – gosh, who wouldn’t? Thank you for your sage and sensible guidance. I owe a lot to you because during my firestorm, I leaned heavily on it. And… I keep you tucked in my back pocket should anything in my marriage change. Anyone going through the devastation of infidelity and betrayal should keep you and your book close. Thank you for keeping us sane throughout insanity.
Fantastic Tracy! I hope she takes your sound advice and gets away from this creep!
Hmmm…a man who denied he cheated until confronted with the photographic proof now claims he has ALS. What convenient timing! Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn’t. Seems to me this is the kind of thing he might have to prove with a doctor’s diagnosis. At any rate, I don’t see why it should alter your course of action.
I would certainly take his lawyer’s threat about having to sue the OW not with a grain of salt but with an ocean of it! This whole thing looks more like his latest ploy than reality. He can no longer claim he didn’t have an affair, so now he’s trying a new tactic: to panic you into a less favorable settlement. Don’t let him. Your lawyer ought to be able to tell you what your rights as a spouse are, in case he were to die before the settlement is final. It’s possible that as the spouse you retain rights to marital property, and he can’t just disinherit you.
As for your position in town and others’ opinions: that he was willing not to strong arm his own children, and threaten now to disinherit them says he is not someone whose opinion you should care about. And if others take his side, that’s a sign their opinions are worthless, too.
I would have been happy if my ex were to have died while we were divorcing, and I could have inherited it all. Now that we’re post-divorce, I’d still be happy if he died, and our son inherited all, which would take a big burden off my shoulders, as I live frugally to guard my assets in hopes of being able to leave my son something.
Yes, we discussed the inheritance issues during my divorce because my STBX was in poor health and had a history of suicidality.
It was complicated because my STBX ran to another state, but my attorney looked it up and said that technically my husband could not disinherit me with a will in that state. I still would have gotten 30% regardless. In my home state where the divorce was happening, it was more complicated but still a thing. He couldn’t entirely exclude me.
Post-divorce was another matter entirely. In both states, the law revokes provisions in a will intended for the spouse (now ex-spouse) when you are post-divorce. When I signed, my attorney strongly recommended that I schedule an appointment with my estate attorney to prepare a new will for signing after the judge signed off. He also said to make a list of beneficiaries to change then.
Get a well informed attorney. Believe NOTHING you hear from the other side. If your STBX does have a terminal disease HURRY THIS ALONG before he deteriorates!!! Mine had kidney disease and wanted help with transportation. I told him all his OW can help. Hurry and get this over. He is a jerk!!
I don’t know whether you’re in the US or some other jurisdiction, but if you’re in the US then your lawyer’s information is oversimplified. Yes, it would be possible that you might end up in court with OW, but you would be in no worse a position than you are right now, ending up in court with your FW — and probably with considerably stronger legal backing on your side.
I’m a lawyer and I have one piece of advice: when someone threatens you … call their bluff, immediately.
It was wrong of him to withhold important medical information from your children. That should have been IMMEDIATELY brought to the attention of the court. That’s not something that a caring and responsible parent does. Ever.