Cheaters Are Not Worth Your Precious Life

I felt sad and hurt, but not suicidal. Now I feel mostly angry and embarrassed that I had a life with FW. Obviously I am grateful to have my kids. But the rest of it I could do without.

Finding meaning and purpose in one’s life is always an inside job. I’m working on this now. Not suicidal, just lost.

I’ve found it to be so hard to find a pinprick of light in the pitch black tunnel to follow. Meanwhile, I still know it’s worth figuring out how to navigate this journey. The pain tells us lies about how it won’t end. But it does. Even if one lays on the couch and sleeps for months or years. Time and healing still occur. If I add any effort (like a list of things I’d like – see some prior posts – or going outside for a walk) things move a little quicker.

Also, I love how Tracy succinctly writes something that describes my experience when I can’t. Like this: “Fact was, I had sunk costs. I’d been whiplashed between sparkly impression management (KIBBLES! I GET A KIBBLE!) and straight-out abuse. I was EXHAUSTED. I had invested so much in that lie, but it was MY LIE. It was my LIFE. Please God, don’t make me start over.”

All the work I’d done on myself before FW, the whiplash, and my desire to be a wife and have a partnered life. Please God, don’t make me start over… PLEEEEASE.

Perhaps we can expand the scope of this discussion?

My youngest daughter started self-harming and experienced suicidal ideation as a result of her mother’s actions. Additionally, my son self-harmed and attempted suicide; again as a direct result of something that his mother did. I got both of them the help that they needed (at significant financial and emotional cost) and they are both in a much better place now than where they were 5 or 6 years ago …. but it was a long and hard road for both of them, and with absolutely no help at all from Ex-Mrs LFTT

My point is that we should remember that, in addition to understanding that no Cheater is worth a Chump’s life, we need to ensure that our children get this message too.

LFTT

As someone who struggles with almost constant suicidal thoughts since DDay and has been institutionalized twice, I feel the need to add that it isn’t always as easy as finding reasons and ways to stay alive.

It is important to understand that suicidality changes one’s mind to such an extent that rational thoughts cannot exist. That is the issue “normal” people need to embrace and understand.

The diseased mind only sees itself and shuts out all rational thought and even awareness of anything outside of one’s head. The view is so narrow and so dark that there is no room for anything else.

No one truly intent on suicide can be talked out of suicide but they MAY be able to be talked into thinking differently by a professional or accepting professional help. Any caring person wants to help but it is important to know that a layman does not have all the tools necessary to do that. If any of us know someone who is suicidal, please report it and not try to handle it yourself. The suicide hotlines are also for reporting others. Suggestions of yoga, music or meditation may make things worse if the person is truly desperate.

There was an excellent article in the New York Times that came about as close to explaining suicidality as anything else I’ve ever read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/opinion/despair-friendship-suicide.html

I’ve been very public about my ride from suicidal intention to better mental health and am happy to talk with anyone here who is struggling or knows someone that is.

My story is too long for the comments but Chump Lady can give anyone my contact info!

Every day I think I cannot be any more stunned, shocked or saddened by what I read here. Dear Honor, I am very sorry for your loss and I hope you can find the strength and support you need here. Please give yourself time, that is a very hard knock to take.

The shock of reading this post has really got to me. I’ve been sitting here feeling paralysed by fear all day. I know I need to take some very big steps in my life but I am procrastinating. I very nearly succumbed to the idea of ending it all a couple of years ago and literally have my cat to thank that I didn’t, she used to stalk me continuously and insist I held her, bless her.

Now I can’t believe I even had such thoughts because a FW isn’t worth even blowing your nose for, never mind blowing your whole life. But I find myself so damn stuck – again! I just wish I could find my courage today to take the next big steps. I don’t even know what I am frightened of. Perhaps just lack of self-confidence after being almost annihilated by FW over the past 20 years. I’m mad at myself for being so paralysed because I have already lost so much of my life to the FW and each remaining day is precious.

I never felt suicidal, not really, but I did think that I would never be happy again and that my life would be forever empty without him. My son kept me going. I decided I could live in misery if I had to, but I needed to be there for him. So I kept going.

But guess what? I AM happy. I am happier than I ever was with FW. “Happiness” in my marriage equated to a day without abuse. It was still a life where I basically didn’t exist except as an extension of him, filled with trying to keep HIM “happy” (he didn’t know what real happiness was), staving off his anger, catering to his mood swings, making myself small and ignoring my needs, setting aside every want that I had, for him. When he dumped me (via text message!) for his howorker, I didn’t even know who I was anymore. A decade and more of abuse had nearly erased my identity. The first day that my son was with FW and I was all on my own, I just sat on my bed. I had NO IDEA what to do. No idea what I liked to do (eat, read, watch, go). My life had been consumed by FW and what HE wanted. I always deferred to him because the consequences of disagreeing with him were … unpleasant. If I wasn’t thinking about FW, I was thinking about my child. Never about ME. It took several years, and it wasn’t easy, but I found myself again. I learned it wasn’t selfish to want things for myself. It was okay to take care of myself first. I found it very hard to not think about FW and OW just by sheer willpower, but once I started to add good things to my life and focusing on getting myself together, they started to fade into the background, until I didn’t care what they were doing. I brought back all the things I loved that I’d given up because FW had ridiculed, insulted, demeaned, and abused me for enjoying them and it wasn’t worth it. And I added even new good things I hadn’t tried yet.

I realized that my life with FW had actually been very small and narrow, and that there is a WHOLE WORLD out there. Without him holding me down, I was free to explore it. My life now is so much better than I ever dreamed. There are times I just find myself smiling because I can’t believe it. I work in my garden, I planted an orchard, I decorate my house (MY house, that I bought, by myself – FW told me I’d never survive without a man to take care of me, LOL. My house costs twice what our marital home did, and I don’t need anyone’s help to pay for it), I read books that I love (multiple times! something FW couldn’t stand me doing), I watch the shows and movies I like (instead of depressing, violent horror movies), I have a cat (and we adopted another kitten who will come home in a few weeks), I have a flock of chickens, I sew, I took a vacation to England (by myself) to take a medieval cooking class (I’m planning a trip to France with my son next year, too), I play with my kid, I spend hours in thrift stores, I go to festivals, I cook whatever I want to eat (or don’t cook at all if I don’t feel like it), I listen to music that I love, I can scroll Twitter without FW trying to paw me or getting mad that I’m not having sex with him, I talk on the phone with my best friend for hours. I have so much more time now that I don’t have to do everything for HIM. I have more money than I’ve ever had because FW isn’t spending it all on comic books and alcohol (or wasting it on traffic tickets and sky-high insurance rates). I no longer have to juggle my bills like I’m a circus performer just to stay in the black. I sleep like a log in my own bed. No one snoring, no one yelling at me because I shifted position, no one hogging my blankets, no one sweating, no one turning the A/C so high I’m shivering in the summer. No more depression. No more anxiety. No more abuse. No more fear. My son is so much more relaxed. He’s happy too (I’m turning him into a country boy – he loves our chickens, and he plays outside instead of playing video games all day). Our house is full of love and laughter, not stress and screaming and walking on eggshells so we don’t upset daddy. I don’t have to play secretary to FW and do all the adulting for two. I don’t have to nurse him through all his (mostly imagined) maladies. I don’t feel pressured to dress a certain way or weigh a certain amount (or be told I’m ugly). My health has improved so much – my lungs have healed, my tachycardia is gone, my insomnia is gone, I gained back all the weight I lost from depression. There’s less housework because I’m not cleaning up after FW too (I did it all anyway).

In a few weeks I’m heading to the beach with my son and my mom and we’re going to have a wonderful time. FW always managed to ruin vacations (when we could afford them, which was rarely, as we were somehow always broke, even on two incomes).

FW wanted to be famous, to be in the spotlight. He needed constant activity and validation to not feel empty and alone. He was always striving for the next thing (because THAT would be the thing that finally made him happy). I never wanted all that. I only wanted a quiet, simple life filled with small pleasures. I stand on my porch and watch the fireflies twinkling in the field across the street and sometimes think about how FW would never have appreciated that simple beauty.

Interestingly, it was FW who killed himself over a lover. OW left him and he couldn’t be alone. She left very suddenly, he had no backup plan, and his life wasn’t going well to begin with (lots of debt, especially, and the divorce wasn’t going his way). OW told everybody she could that he had been abusive (including his employers – I TOLD him that getting her a job at the same place as him was a bad, bad idea) and FW couldn’t take that . For him, his reputation (his carefully crafted good-guy persona) was EVERYTHING. His “friends” (really hangers on and acolytes) were nowhere to be found when he needed someone. He reached out feelers to me, but I had already gotten to the point where I didn’t love him anymore and would never have gone back to that life, and I had little sympathy for the fact that he was all alone. He wrote and recorded a lot of sad and angry songs about OW, and I read his suicide letter, so I know it was mostly due to her that he took his own life. He set the last song to auto-publish to YouTube a few days after his death (not a flattering song – it was about her physically abusing him and was titled “My Girlfriend is Punching Me”). He tried to kill himself 11 times before succeeding on his 12th attempt. By then it really didn’t take much to end him. Sleeping pills and alcohol. He’d damaged his heart over the years with alcohol and opoids, so he passed out and didn’t wake up. I was the only one who noticed he was missing. The cops and I found his body almost a week after he died. After the initial shock, I have to say my overwhelming feeling was relief. And anger that he left his mess for ME to clean up (especially having to tell our 9 year old son, which is something I wouldn’t wish on any parent). FW had always been someone who catastrophized, and who thought that whatever he was feeling RIGHT NOW was how he would ALWAYS feel. So he couldn’t see a way out or envision things getting better. I’ve always been an optimist (a realist, but an optimist), and think that there must be better things to come.

Ending your life over another person is NEVER worth it. The misery is temporary. There is always something you can do to better your situation. Death is forever. There are BILLIONS of people in the world. FW isn’t the only person out there for you. And there’s only one you. So yes, please get help if you need it. There are better days ahead, and you will be grateful you stayed to see them.

What kept me going, apart from my amazing friends, especially my special chump WhatsApp friends, was the certainty that I was not going to let exgfOW benefit in any way from all my hard work if I could help it. Had I done what I wanted to do in the first 6 months, the ex would have inherited everything. Pension, house, savings, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. I wanted him to walk away from the marriage with as little as I could accomplish. And he wanted me to commit suicide for that reason and because it made everything so much more convenient. My motives for staying alive (no kids, no pets, no job then), were spiteful and revengeful. Thank goodness for that! Sometimes we don’t have to be high-minded but just grub along until we get to a safe place.

A few years ago “Don’t kill yourself for a F**kwit” saved me out of a very dark place. I was home alone with six kids who were very small at the time, gradually turning in on myself with dark thoughts (due to the trauma and betrayal of the person who should have had my back) and spiralling downwards fast when I first read it. I even remember the room I was in at our old house. It was the wake up call I needed and helped me re-frame my thoughts towards survival rather than despair. A few years on I’m in a much better place, divorced, and always recommend this article. So sorry to hear of the loss of your friend OP. I hope this article will continue to help many today and that you are always able to hold on to your memories of your friend’s specialness.

I can only remember one time in my life where I thought about suicide. It wasn’t for a husband. It was because I was just exhausted from the constant fight with my father, and the lack of emotional support from my mother. I thought of the suicide as having a peaceful escape from my turbulent existence, and also producing a glaring piece of evidence that my home life was not as “perfect” as my parents tried to project. I decided that I only had to endure until I was able to go to college, then I could make a clean escape and live my own life. I was too stubborn to give into my father’s quest for domination.

So, contemplating suicide as an escape from pain, and to leave a lasting effect for a bad actor in your life is not a good idea. It is a clear indication of the toll constant stress and dysfunction takes on your active mind. The ghosts created inside your head from living in a gaslit world will haunt you long after you escape that world. Your logical mind sees the reality of your situation, and then you are told that all your legitimate perceptions are not true, and you think you have no power to change them.

Those ghosts clouded my thinking when I came of age and decided to marry. I thought my spouses were not like my father, but I later learned that some early programing by my FOO kept me from seeing the similarities. When these men tried to behave in a manner that was not acceptable to me, it triggered a deep rage within me that had never been rightly resolved. I felt like they were trying to force me to live under their will, due to economic disparity or some type of inappropriate pride. The difference was that I had achieved the means to make changes in my life. The choices were tough, but if I survived the total economic abandonment by my dad at the age of 18, I damn well was not going to let a husband make me live in misery.

This is the very reason seeking therapy is a life affirming act. My parents thought therapy proved you were weak. I believe seeking therapy means you are strong — you are ghost busting those old ways of thinking which have haunted you. You are seeking the help of a guide to see your situation with new eyes and point out the inconsistencies which hobble you going forward with your life. Seeking help does not mean you are unable to cope, it means you are willing to change, to find new strength, to find new allies who will help you build a better life.

Don’t ever kill yourself for a FW. If you survive and thrive because you find the will to live a better life without a FW you will be much better off in the long run. Eventually, you will look back and wonder why you ever believed the FW was worth your attention, at all.

Thanks Rebecca. I stand corrected.

Suicide has lived in my house as long as I’ve been alive, and it has lived in my mind as long as I’ve known what it is. My father was suicidal, and even when I didn’t know the reasons for what I felt going on in our house, I knew something was wrong, and our house felt unsafe. We lived in California, and I always think of those years as like standing in the surf and feeling the sand slip out from under your feet when the water retreats from the shore back to the ocean. My father’s unhappiness was palpable, and his violence unpredictable and volcanic. He also believed no one else had worth or value in our family apart from him. My mother was conditioned by this abusive system, and passed on her training to me.

By the time I was twelve I knew about my father’s suicide attempts, but I was already conditioned to his behavior, and it wasn’t until I was in college, in therapy, that I understood that I had grown up in a household in which suicide was normalized as a solution for life’s problems. I thought of my life in terms of “things going well, live; things not going well, kill myself.” One day in therapy that I realized I could recalibrate those poles, and take suicide off the table. Because my father was mentally ill, he never was able to do that, and he killed himself when he was 72.

Only after that could I fully process the abuse we’d all suffered living with him. As the daughter of a suicide I knew I was at risk. I fought survivor’s guilt and despair (“Why couldn’t I stop him? Didn’t he love me enough to want to live? What’s wrong with me?”) by deciding that if I killed myself he would “win,” in that I would prove that I thought I should have no life on my own terms.

In a perverse way, after D-day, I was glad I had this experience with my father, because I’d already had to overcome the idea that my worth was dependent on someone else and the use I could be to them. That conditioning is deep in me, and I haven’t kicked it yet, or drawn a healthy line between when being of use is healthy and when it isn’t, or of deriving my self-worth from my use to others. I still have despairing days. I’m sometimes lonely. I sometimes think the life I’ve built is not satisfying or worth living. But I remind myself that it is up to me to change what I don’t like and that I’m lucky I have resources. I practice gratitude, and take pleasure in small treasures (a red cardinal splashing in the birdbath this morning, for example–my own version of William Carlos Williams’s “red wheel-barrow). In extremity, I remind myself that I don’t want to kill myself and do to my son what my father did to us, and I don’t want my FW ex to get the last word.

I can remember feeling like I could not take the pain anymore. One month after D Day I kept hearing my x’s voice in my head. “No one likes you. No one ever liked you. Not even your daughter.” I took pills and drank Rum and called my daughter sobbing. Apologizing for being a horrible Mother. My daughter and elderly Mother came to my house and sat with me while I sobbed. I texted my husband at the time goodbye. He would not come home from work. He just called his Mother. Who came down and called me names while I was having a breakdown. Called me a liar and said she did not raise a cheater. My Daughter told her to leave. Thankfully I did not take enough pills. Chumplady is spot on. Never commit suicide for a FW.
Five years later I am myself again. It takes time to move on from the betrayal and emotional, verbal and financial abuse.

“a minor satellite to Planet Narcissist”

hilarious! but seriously, i just caught up with a high school friend and we spent time talking about this toxic group of boys in our class. i’m talking small-town living, here. a class of 33, so one group dominates. these guys were SO BAD.

we talked openly, shared it all, and it was, well, it was bad. there was a lot. and, as i sat there, i realized that my high school environment was so negative that it affected me in this way: when i met my X, he seemed SO NICE in comparison. i mean, i noticed that he was moody and particular, prone to criticism, and bit bossy, but he didn’t hit me, etc. etc. that was my social point of reference.

to be clear, i had a fairly good family life. i’m just referring to the social environment i was stewed into.

this conversation was a real moment. i need to talk this over with my therapist.

I had two Chump aunts that were divorced, both in the 1970s. One remarried, one never did.

The never remarried aunt (FW left with the church secretary), sincerely laughed every time I saw her. She counted her blessings daily, and there weren’t many material ones. What she had was an ability to see joy and laugh at what life brought her, and one time it was burning her trailer to a crisp, only her bible survived. She is the one true person in my life that I know went straight to heaven. And she died with the love and respect of her 6 children, which I’m sure their FW father didn’t have.

My aunt who remarried almost right away, ended up with a complete a**hole second husband, because she was afraid to be alone. She was miserable, repeatedy choosing her second husband over her children. She eventually did kill herself a few years ago, and I had to call her estranged son to let him know. He cried and I thought how sad for him, never having a mom he could depend on.

Watching two women through their divorce journey provided such a stark contrast in how a similar event can effect people so differently. Ultimately, I’ve realized I’m the one who has to decide how I’m going to navigate the rest of my life, with Door #1 being truly happy with what I have, not needing someone else to “complete” me even if that is scary or Door #2 being miserable and not making a change because of the paralysis of fear.

I’ve chosen Door #1, even if it’s taken me longer than I want it do. Life’s a journey, but now I’m the one setting the boundaries. I’ll get to meh…….on my time.

I saw this today: “Sometimes when you are in a dark place, you think that you’ve been buried, but actually you’ve been planted”. Asshat made every attempt to bury me, financially and emotionally; what he doesn’t understand is how much I’ve grown and changed. He’s still a lying, cheating Asshat, while I’m blossoming.