One of the mindfucks that surrounds infidelity, or really disordered behavior in general, is that it is “exceptional.”
Hey, this isn’t the real him. He was provoked and cheating was a bad coping mechanism.
Okay, she cheated, but it was just an emotional affair that never any went further.
Anyone can cheat. Good people cheat.
Once you’ve established that the behavior is an aberration, or something really common that anyone could do, then we can reject the idea that there are patterns between people who behave this way because it’s so individual. That idea then ties into the progressive notion that we shouldn’t paint with a broad brush and generalize. Especially because we don’t know this person individually.
Really this commentary is a subtle form of gaslighting — pay no attention to your observations. Draw no conclusions. Do not judge.
I sometimes follow my track-backs where people link to this site. Here’s one from Reddit recently.
Chump Lady for example, is very strongly in the “end it reconciliation is almost impossible” camp. And given that hers was a case of a serial cheater, that’s perfectly understandable. But it’s also FAR from universal. She doesn’t, IMO, seem to acknowledge that not every cheater is the same as hers was. Many here seem to have the same difficulty. We see lots of “cheaters are x” sorts of statements that are anything but true all or even most of the time.
Slightly different chemotherapy regimens work better for different people. True enough. But no reasonable person advocates reconciling with your cancer, living with your malignant tumor because it “didn’t intend to harm you” or “for the sake of the children.” That’s paralyzing and dangerous dim-wittedness. What would take you down from the inside must be cut out.
Love this
So true, Nomar. Another example–When most people have strep throat, they take some version of a penicillin-based drug. I’m deathly allergic to anything made from penicillin, so I take Zithromax. Some of us walk from cheaters after lining up our ducks, some run immediately. Either way, if you don’t take ANY medication for strep throat, it can cause kidney inflammation, rheumatic fever, or a host of other ills. (I know someone whose kidneys failed from strep, and he eventually died.)
Ergo, however you have to do it, as an individual, treat your strep throat, and get away from your cheater. Or parts of you will die.
And don’t they say that the pain of infidelity is worse than bereavement.
I think I know why.
Because when someone dies they die.
When cheaters cheat, the person you knew has died but the lookalike pod keeps coming back to mess with you. They just don’t die.
You have to walk away and convince your lying eyes that they are actually dead. You do have to kill that version of them you carried in yourself by yourself.
It hurts.
The motivations for cheating are as many as there are cheaters. The pain of the experience is the same.
I can certainly vouch for cheating being more painful than death of a loved one. Not something I ever had any idea about until cheating happened in my life! No contest. I think you can never ‘reconcile’ with death, it is final. Done. Over. Trying to reconcile never lets you go.
Carpaccio I think you said it best. I always said I wish my X was dead so I could move on (and his daughter could collect his social security) instead of him being a lier, cheat, and a dead beat dad. Sigh.
Capricorn, my coworker said the same thing to me. She had just lost her husband from a heart attack less than a year before, so she knew what she was talking about. She said at least I know where my husband is, but you have to see your x going around from person to person. Sad huh.
Per an old adage, Divorce is harder than death because the corpse is up and walking around.
I believe infidelity is worse than a death.
When someone you love dies they usually don’t chose to die.
A cheater makes a conscious choice to deceive and know the consequences of their betrayals should they get discovered.
Cheaters are fully aware their choices will shatter the lives of those who they promised to love and cherish.
Cheaters are actually zombies. They appear to be the same person to most, but a recovered chump who successfully killed that chumpy-kind-of-love now sees a cheater as the walking dead.
Ian, looking at Cheater now is like looking at a Zombie. I lived with this person for 25 years, had his child, I spent an entire lifetime with a this shell of a human being.
X shattered my life with lies, and deception Robbed me of my future, my life as I know it, my future, my son. X knows I devoted my life to him and sacrificed my career as we worked towards his
He can look right past me without any recognition in his reptilian eyes.
Unbelievably cold.
brit, I know the feeling ” after 34 years to walk by me with the OW with no recognition in his reptilian eyes”. I lost a breast to cancer so he told me the OW breasts are bigger..one of the reasons he stopped loving me. I can’t believe I loved someone with no soul. Divorced a year now but at age 69, I’m so sorry i didn’t leave him sooner. Hoping Karma comes around soon to both of them.
brit, I know the feeling ” after 34 years to walk by me with the OW with no recognition in his reptilian eyes”. I lost a breast to cancer so he told me the OW breasts are bigger..one of the reasons he stopped loving me. I can’t believe I loved someone with no soul. Divorced a year now but at age 69, I’m so sorry i didn’t leave him sooner. Hoping Karma comes around soon to both of them.
Sorry you have to see his carcass, brit. Stay Mighty!
I think they’re more like the Decepticons. All of them evil at the core with changeable parts that can come out and strike at will. Fucktard Decepticon is cousin to the Devastator Decepticon. He has the same Vortex Grinder but his ability is to expand his mouth and vacuum the truth away, never to be seen again.
Just watched the first Transformers movie again last week. I am more afraid of my STBXW than those alien robots. ?
Cheaters suck. They can wrap up their decision to betray you in all kinds of pretty paper and ribbons, but tear that away and you are left with a shrink wrapped, already broken, cannot be returned for credit dog turd. They can all take their reasons and explanations somewhere far, far away from us, please.
Yes, just don’t listen to them. No need to justify advocating getting away from cheaters. CN has read all the RIC information and knows there is wisdom in escaping the mindfuck. These master manipulators don’t change. They just make you think they have while they preserve cake!! I know RIC, it is shocking that people would stoop so low and make betrayal a way of life. They have no problem crossing that line and forsaking their vows over and over until their spouse is destroyed. I know. I lived it. And so have others here.
All anyone needs to do is read the stories on CN. It doesn’t take a genius to realize theres
a pattern here..
Cheaters are deceitful, untrustworthy lacking in integrity.
They’re imposter’s, Ted Bundy’s, except we haven’t been strangled physicaly.
I take that back, we have been strangled, and left to die.
Fortunately we’re mighty and not going to give Cheater the pleasure of seeing that happen.
We gain a life*
I am reminded of some “advice” our MC gave me after I said it was over…. “you could always find someone else, but there’s a chance they could cheat on you as well” as if this was a reason to stay. At the time I thought I would take a “chance” over a 100% certainty that my X had already cheated and (without a character transplant, would do it again…).
MC’s are only “successful” if they keep the marriage together and therefore engage in divorce avoidance, not reconciliation/character work.
“Well, you could give your retirement money to someone besides Bernie Madoff, but they might have some elaborate Ponzi scheme, too.”
Thank U, CL! In this world where there is no black and white and only “grey” amidst sweeping sage – like statements about ” humans are complicated “, ” no one really knows what goes on in a marriage ” and ” don’t be idealistic – no one leaves a marriage just Becoz they are unhappy – they always find the OW or OM before they leave “, ” U were stupid for not seeing it (my affair ) coming “… I am so sick of people sitting on the fence or trying to find meaning / valid reasons for the cheater’s cheating . Cheating is simple – it’s lying and an abuse of trust towards the most intimate partner U will ever have in any relationship. Thanks for the timely rap on the knuckles of the fence sitters , Tracey !
I’ve heard those same statements and more. Theses statement had me doubting myself and my perception of the reality. It takes two, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.., they’re right they didn’t know the verbal abuse are endured and covered up or ignored to keep the peace.
The people who made those statements I no longer talk to, including my brother.
I didn’t make the choice to cheat or torment anyone with lies, half truths, or moped around the house feeling sorry for myself. While I danced the dance trying to bring a smile to his miserable face, he was longing for something different.
You’re absolutely right Kiwichump, they can’t be alone, they don’t invest themselves in their families or children. It’s all about them.
brit, perfectly said, “While I danced the dance trying to bring a smile to his miserable face, he was longing for something different.”
They always long for something else, even when they “get” what they want, and they are never, ever alone!!!! Ever, never, ever alone, there is always someone “in line” for the “awesomeness” of them. Oh yay, for them.
Interesting isn’t it? Looking back, mine could never be without female attention, even in the early rosy years of the relationship. During rural university or work rotations he always ended up quickly forming an attachment to a woman. I thought he was just good at making female friends until I later met one of them, who looked unmistakeably guilty the first time she met me; it was exactly the same expression I started seeing on OW’s face in the last 6 months before D-day.
Roaring, good luck with your narc mother, that must be a real challenge!
My traitor always accused me of being anti-social, and complained “we” had no friends because of me. I never knew him to have any friends, only one dope dealer. He was estranged from his dad and siblings when we met (thanks to the whore in part). But he is always the life of the party and takes over conversations.
I had and have friends, not many but good ones, both sexes, and I am content in my own company. Traitor on the other hand has almost never been single. He jumped from his first wife who had been his girlfriend since teenage, to the whore, was single for only 6 months before we got together, and has jumped back into the whore’s bed. Can’t be alone for long. All the attention has to be on him, all the time, like a 2 year old. Basks in the phony fawning of the whore’s hyena family, especially her mother. He has secured that by pandering to the whore’s grandmother’s craving for constant attention and an audience for her religious/spiritual aphorisms. He has no identity, puts on various costumes and becomes this season’s character. Has been a member of 5 very different political parties that I know of, never completes anything. Had a court of adoring female fans on the teacher training course he dropped out of at the last minute, and got heaps more support from the female course director than other students did, as the only male on the course. His strongest supporter when he dropped out of his PhD is a very well know female professor here in NZ. I believe a lot of men see through his BS faster than women, so he avoids them.
Doesn’t get on with his siblings (6 brothers especially, okay with the 2 sisters) cos they know his flaws too well and a few have dared call his bullshit for what it is over the years.
He always claims he is a feminist, hence all the female courtiers!! Also claims to be in touch with his feminine side, and his inner child.
Anything will do to avoid being in touch with being a MAN!
I am very skilled at making female friends. I am equally skilled at not putting my penis in them.
Hey Ian, making friends of any sex is great, cultivating a court of admirers is what I believe is a red flag I missed. I’ve got really good male friends and when flatting, I usually flatted with guys. We were a gang of really good mates for a decade, flatting around in London. Guess what? Nobody EVER crossed the line.
I got from Cheater’s aunt, who usually supports me, ‘He (adulterous husband) must have been lonely.’ Yeah, he traveled for business a lot (nearly 100% of his business was elsewhere as he had a touring job) and sometimes he he lived in other countries and states), but I, who was just as lonely (and exhausted from working on a doctorate while raising two young children), never cheated on my spouse although I had appealing opportunities at my university.
RSW… and the inverse is true too… I travel about 50% in my job, usually internationally so I’m gone for a full week at a time. I never go to the hotel bar. I never invite strangers to dinner. I don’t flirt. I’m there to work and provide for my family. And yes, I’m lonely.
But, I don’t cheat. I’m married.
But, the ONE TIME Mr. Sparkles has to go to Atlanta overnight for work he finds himself in another woman’s hotel room – but stops before it goes any further. WTF??????????
Lonely is a feeling.
Cheating is an action.
These people can’t be alone with themselves, as in when travelling for work and facing the empty hotel room at night. They are also too lazy to invest themselves in caring for their kids and their families. So can’t be alone, too lazy to get busy helping others, therefore bored. What to do, what to do, what to do?…sigh… CHEAT! Distraction from the emptiness of their souls! But I am generalising and they are all individuals… No they’re not, there’s nothing in there, not even an original person.
Excellent description, kiwichump.
The rush of adrenaline while plotting & cheating is really good at (temporarily) hiding that emptiness from their view.
However, according to cheaterpant’s:”Your problem, Forge, is that YOU are afraid to be alone!” said when, once again, he was found to have yet another ‘strange’ on the side! I have never had an affair or other ‘inappropriate’ friendship, but I’m the one afraid to be alone?! Can you say ‘delusional’?!
Yeah, they all remind me of the Borg Collective from Star Trek…..
This is a great observation and one I had not fully understood before you wrote it.
I tend to be an introvert so assumed social people, like x, were all the same.
Nope. x just needs constant new attention from everywhere. He is a self-proclaimed ‘people pleaser’ and in our one attempt at MC, the therapist observed that that particular quality is self-serving. It’s not about pleasing others, it’s about getting kibbles.
I see both points as true for my ‘unique’ cheater: needs attention/endears self to others to secure that attention.
Therapist also observed that I was home providing attention but that didn’t register with x.
So glad to be cheater-free. My narc mother is visiting – for me, she’s like the Final Challenge. I love her but I recognize so much narc behavior, especially minimizing, lying, gaslighting.
Roaring. I have a mother without empathy. I am five years no contact. Best thing I ever did. So not there with soon to be ex- but I know how important and difficult it is.
I have mentioned before about a small book called The Empathy Trap by McGregor & McGregor.
It speaks perfectly and simply about having narc parents and what to do. Good luck.
Sounds great. Thank you. I will check it out – my Amazon account definitely has a “theme” (hahaha).
Applause!!! Exactly, Kiwichump.
Kiwichump
Yes. This. Exactly.
RSW.
That’s my story exactly. He is away with his job. Just that to do.
I’m at home raising three boys, one preparing for college, I am going to college and have clients most days, just exhausted all the time.
His mom says he must have been lonely. She was sure we could just work it out. He loves me.
It just takes your breath away.
Me too. I was always alone. There was never any question that my ex’s job was more important than anything else. At the end I told my ex that I was so lonely in our marriage. He replied, “I was too.” Since he was always traveling with the married coworker he was in love with, I thought that was a pretty ridiculous statement.
Lyn oh yes. The lonely thing. Only he never was without someone.
Sigh. Just a big sigh.
Cheaters could not live a single day alone. Ever.
I do believe cheaters can be lonely though. They go through person after person, sometimes marriage after marriage, and no one is ever enough. They are so desperate to feel special and be adored. No matter what the cost. They want more and more flattery and superficial attention. Kibbles!
“Lonely” requires a moral center rather than just an itch in need of a scratch.
And they will never have constant friends. Inviting yourself to an acquaintance’s home or event doesn’t mean they want you there or they would have INVITED you. After you invite yourself and outstay your welcome, you’re going to be avoided at all cost afterwards. But you’re sure to let everyone know on your FB page “great food with great friends.”
NARCISSISM in full bloom!
Yes, they want the flattery, the adoration, the “I’m special,” look at me..,
Absolutely no one gets in their way including their children.
I believe X would be jealous of the attention our son would receive for being gifted academically, musically and the attention our son received in school from girls..
I always remember one afternoon we were waiting to pick our son up from school as our son was walking out a pair of attractive girls stopped him to chat. I thought it was cute, X looked infuriated and didn’t smile, and mumbled, girls that looked like that never talked to me in high school.
One of those weird moments where I wondered at the time where that came from. Looking back, now I realize he was jealous.
Agree! But somehow we are seen as bad for leaving and telling the truth about what happened. That makes us awful! There is no grey in that area for them. Two-faced is an understatement for these people!
“Cheating is simple – it’s lying and an abuse of trust towards the most intimate partner U will have in any relationship.”
This 1000 times.
Anything else is noise meant to distract.
If the cheater cannot accept this statement as is and accept responsibility for its violation without amendment or justification, it’s time to pull the plug.
Agreed, 100% responsibility, with no guarantees.
+ 1,000,000,000 times.
Yes. An abuse of trust. That’s what I told my wife she did to me, over and over again. Yet, she sees me as the petty, childish one because I tell her I no longer trust at all in our limited dealings. WTH?
It’s delusional thinking that allows them to continue to take a the moral high ground on the trust issue. Afterall, she is so socially evolved and I am not.
My STBX said/emailed/texted me dozens of times “I know you have no reason to trust me…” Not, of course because he actually thought it was well deserved, but just to be manipulative. The next day he would berate me for not trusting him with finances or the kids.
Trust is not conditional. You either have it or you don’t.
Mine claimed trust should be domain-specific, “I never lied to you about money matters.”
Hm…except for those meals and condoms and other costs spent on APs.
He sucks.
Oh Tempest, those expenses were to further his “happiness”, you know that thing that you were supposed to keep upper most in your mind because that is really all that matters, his “happiness”. You, collateral damage, oh well, he will get you a trinket or two and you too should be “happy”. A win/win situation all around, except for your annoying claim of fidelity. Really you should be “honored” that he “never lied” to you “about money” matters, because in the end that’s all that really matters. “Until you get to that pesky settlement stuff, that you are so much of a hard ass about, that he will have to make you pay for, one way or another.” Besides all that “fuss”, everything else should be easy.
Thanks, Flutterby, you made me laugh by capturing EXACTLY a cheater’s way of thinking. And those aren’t marital assets they spent on APs, that was THEIR money, dammit!
Ha! His money because you’ve been discarded by him. His paycheck, his bonus, his stock, his…mine,mine,mine…sounds so unfortunately familiar.
My two year old granddaughter understands sharing more than my STBX; sheesh!
We shall see what the court says about long term marital assets in a community property state. Can you say comeuppance? It can’t come soon enough.
Wish me luck, that my evidence is in order and that truth will prevail. It has been the most surreal year of my life kicking his serial cheating butt to the curb and fighting cancer.
New perspective from 8 months of no contact and deep gratitude for being alive is making 2017 look bright indeed. Thank you CN for being there in the middle of so many sleepless nights and throughout many challenging days.
When my cheater wife huffs-n-puffs her righteous indignation at me, “You don’t trust ME!” I look her in the eye and remind her, “Sweetie, I do trust you. I trust that YOU are a lying cheating narcissistic piece-of-shit who will take advantage of your own family at every opportunity.”
To which she inevitably starts arguing how I’m such a bad person because I’ll never get over her betrayal.
Consequences suck.
Don’t waste your breathe with the bitch. Cold, hard no contact is the best answer!
Ditto this. No Contact reduces them to dust. No Contact will kill that chumpy love. It is such a great medicine and should be sold in Midnight Shopping TV Channels.
BNM – YES!!! And once you find that magical sentence, use it again and again (like Pavlov!).
Mine is: “What I KNOW is that you are a pathological lying bisexual whore.”
And, RIC – that is who he is as an “individual”.
I LOVE THIS!!!!!
“Sweetie I DO trust you . . .”
Betrayed No More, you ROCK!
I don’t see how she can argue with the truth. Then again, they don’t recognize it.
So much this Forest. My STBXH was talking to me about financial support stuff one day. I said something like how can I trust you on this? We went back and forth a bit and he just said “why can’t you just take this at face value”.
Seriously it’s hard sometimes not to laugh if it were not so chilling.
My estranged hubby always become “insulted” when I speak of not trusting him.
He fires back w, “I’ve been trustworthy my whole life to you, ((30yr)) you’ll never understand that I never left you and always love you! You can ask ow! She’ll tell you! She was jealous of you!”
OMG!!!
My husband said almost the exact same thing.
Susan and Twitching, that is very sad and crazy. Their thinking is so strange – especially in contrast to who they were pretending to be for so long.
It seems odd to me that after pretending for years, ‘normal’ doesn’t really rub off on them.
Susan, I’ve been lurking on CL, this is my first post. But when I read your Estranged Hubby’s “reasoning” I could not lurk any longer! Jesus Christ, just the address changes! I’ll start by taking issue with Lyn: your ex is not crazy, he is evil. Just as evil as my STBXH (just got an email from my lawyer and I’m extra angry today). Glad to know you have a built-in Universal Bullshit Translator. I used to swallow this kind of crap. I have learned so much with CN! Keep strong.
Of course he’s telling the OW he will always love you. It’s a sure fired way to keep her “pick me dancing.” Can you imagine how horrible it would be to live with that seed implanted in her head? Of course it isn’t true because the only people cheaters love are themselves but it’s a pretty good strategy…ya know for a psychopath.
Hahaha. I had this exactly!!
The OW (2/3) sent me emails telling me how great he was and how much he loved me and appreciated me. He was never going to leave me and I should really not let their sleeping together ruin my beautiful family.
What. The. Fuck.
Your ex is crazy, Susan!
As I was reading your article, ChumpLady, my thoughts went to “What does scripture say?” Adultery is categorically condemned. There are no clauses.
>Adultery is categorically condemned. There are no clauses.
**This**
This is the root of it, the end all, the cease and desist. There are no special snow flakes, no pick me dances, no “if only you were….”.
This is the NC, the rejection of “categorical trust” vs, trust overall.
This is the go fuck yourself.
Thanx.
Agreed. You made the promise to forsake all others. It’s called a vow. Nobody made you pledge to be faithful. Also lying, breaking promises, emotionally manipulating your spouse, being selfish and entitled…
Cheater said to me “You want a guarantee and life doesn’t give you guarantees”.
He was wrong. I have guarantees on my tires. I had (what was at the time assumed to be) a Sacramental Vow with him made in a Church with witnesses of God, The Church, our families and friends. That is many levels higher than a “guarantee”
UNM I was particularly hurt by that.
I thought our marriage vows were a covenant.
I thought sex was a sacrament.
Then I found that they weren’t. It was devastating.
I have told my ex repeatedly, “God has seen it all!”
My ex not only made a vow to me to “forsake all others”, but he made the vow to God, too. And it’s a bigger deal that he broke the vow to God again and again. AND he’s not the least bit sorry or repentent. His lying and cheating is all my fault, don’t cha no. He’s so deceived.
9 days after my STBX dropped the bomb that he had been cheating on me again was my daughter’s baptism. I sent the exact words that would be said and asked him if he thought it was appropriate to go up on the altar to make that promise to his daughter and God. He went up and did so.
“You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him (her) in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him (her) up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?”
He honestly does not see his choices and behavior as being morally wrong or get that he cannot promise to teach her about following God’s commandments when he disregards them. I guess he will find out at the end of his life…
The attack using every cheating situation is “incredibly individual” might imply assuming partial responsibility for the cheating. So what if there is variations? That matters a lot if one believes faithful spouses are to blame in part. I don’t believe that lie, though.
What has always been a mystery to me, is how people have such strong opinions about someone picking the very reasonable option to end a marriage after any type of infidelity. I get that some people would not, and that’s OK, but it is not an unreasonable stance to have infidelity as a deal breaker. How is this at all a controversial point of view.
I mean, we have no fault divorce in most parts of the country. People can get divorced for literally ANY reason under the sun. In CA – there are only two boxes on the form… “Irreconcilable Differences” and “Clinical Insanity”. That’s it. They don’t care why you are getting divorced, why do all these folks believe that a person saying “Yeah – he’s/she’s a cheater and I’m not OK with that. I kind of consider it a fundamental character flaw… so I’m gonna go.” represents making the “wrong” choice. You are not getting divorced because he chews his cereal too loudly… that’s kinda a petty reason to get divorced.
Interesting that infidelity used to be almost the only acceptable grounds for divorce, but now that nearly everywhere has no fault divorce, divorcing a cheater is frowned upon. I can’t see the logic in that!
I think you can’t win either way. If you stay, people can still say derogatory things behind your back. The only valid answer to all this is… Which kind of life do you want?
I think we just have to learn not to give power and credibility to what other people think. They can say anything they want, they’re not the ones living our life. We do. And we get to decide.
Who cares if he’s a serial cheater or a 1 time cheater. One time is already too much. He cheated, he didn’t respect you. Get rid of the cheater and find someone who would never cheat on you because he adores you and would never risk losing you.
“I’m sorry I only stabbed you once. I promise not to do it again.”
“I’m sorry I only stabbed you once. I promise not to do it again.”
Don’t forget the bit after that, the one that goes “No, I’m not going to put down the knife.”
Exactly
Staying with them is giving them the knife back because you believe them, again.
Two for me. I just couldn’t believed I’d been stabbed the first time. I stood there bleeding and in shock. I had to be sure, so I handed that damn knife right back. Although the first time i gave it to him handle first. The second time, he felt the blade. Fuckhead
That is exactly what I did. Twice.
Three times here. And that bitch kept that knife nice and sharp.
I too know of a sucession of three guys my ex was seeing behind my families’ back, and with the support of their enablers. Cheaters and their cronies suck. That’s what I trust.
And yet she still draws breath. You are mighty, Sure.
Exactly, great analogy Tempest.
The *one hit wonders* type of cheaters that mention their situation is so “incredibly individual”. Peleasse! What they don’t acknowledge is since they cheated once, the likelihood of them cheating again is very probable. Look at the stats!!
The cheaters that got forgiven for their first offense along with minimal consequences are almost *always* repeat offenders. Not too many if any stories that I have heard that a spouse cheated 20 years ago and hasn’t done so again.
Well guess what reddit cheaters, I am not willing to me a degenerate gambling fuck like yourself to bet on a unicorn.
Exactly, SureChumpedaLot–although I cut off marital relations with my cheater immediately upon D-day, there was a lot of pressure on me to wreckoncile because his affair had been from 8 years ago, and he had “come back” to the marriage.
It was stories on this very blog that made me realize 100% that he would cheat again if I gave him half a chance. All the chumps who related stories of forgiving their cheaters after an affair early in the marriage, only to find out they had never stopped cheating 2 years later, 5 years later, 10 or 20 or 30 years later, convinced me to put the bullet in the thing. I am eternally grateful for people who posted their tales here. Hannibal had wasted enough years of my life, he didn’t have the right to any more years.
(And, just to confirm the stats–after my divorce, I had at least 5 more D-days of affairs/dalliances he had had during the marriage, + the Ashley Madison hack info. But at least I could deal with those d-days after already have been cleared of him, and in NC. They.don’t.change.)
“It was stories on this very blog that made me realize 100% that he would cheat again if I gave him half a chance”
Exactly….& advice from people like you, Tempest, that made me make the decision to (finally) leave after the first D-Day.
The newly Chumped , myself included, need only read here to realize how unspecial and unindividual ALL cheaters are. There are variations the each story… but the mindset and responses are uncanny! I can’t tell you how many times someone posts something that my STBXH said verbatim. I’m sure we’ve all felt the well needed slap in the face from reading here. Right after D-Day, I really wanted it to be an “individual” thing. We are special, it’s out of character… blah blah blah. Well, maybe STBXH really only had a one time affair BUT it was a year and a half. In my mind I feel like that’s right there with serial cheating. It was an every single day choice to wake up and have sex with someone else and to lie to my face. EVERYDAY! Just unbelievable.
I cannot imagine so many D-Days. (Two was ‘all’ I had in my marriage–enough for a lifetime). You are mighty!
Aren’t those post-divorce D-Days a real kicker? By then, you think you know the marital narrative, and you don’t…
I thought I had a handle on just how many affairs my ex had, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Turns out, I didn’t know shit. Shortly after my divorce I started hearing all kinds of stories about my ex’s activities. The first few times people talked to me about his local affairs it was so random, so unexpected, I just stood there, nodding like I knew what the hell they were talking about. Up to then, I thought he (mostly) kept his affairs all out-of-state. Little did I know my ex’s skirt-chasing activities were talk of our (hobby) community. One guy told me a bunch of them discussed telling me but they decided against it because they “liked me and didn’t want to hurt my feelings.” Several others knew something they considered divorce-worthy and when we divorced, they assumed whatever they’d heard/witnessed was the reason why.
These conversations were useful if only to fill in the missing narrative. Puzzle pieces came together, and the picture which emerged was far worse than any I’d imagined possible. It took awhile, but I am profoundly grateful to be divorced.
I don’t even know what to consider the Hell of Dday after cheater is dead. I really thought he had one affair with Susan of Seattle. When I learned he had more before, it opened a rabbit hole into my past I will likely never close. It was creepiest when I realized that he had (what I now see as) cheaterish inclinations way back to dating and early in our marriage.
Its amazing that he hid it from me so well. He must have thought I was the stupidest human alive. I trusted the man I loved and was not suspicious. I was the Queen of Chumps.
Mine even left me in his room with his computer all day. Chumpy McChump me didn’t even take a peek. I could have uncovered all the evidence I need right there had I want to.
Still thinking. Every time I come to this site I read something that really hits me. Today it was your post. What an awful thing to go through after the divorce which is bad enough. I’m not divorced yet but I’m wondering if your post struck me because I feel I might find out more after the divorce is final. I guess I have suspicions still about the extent of his cheating.
I’m glad you seem to have survived all the further revelations. How did you cope with this?
Practical advice I learned here: Don’t tip your hand. Say: “I know everything,” to the cheater and wait for them to spill. Also, to would-be-corroborators: “Oh, I assumed you knew about the cheating.” And again, milk the nervous silence.
Capricorn, you asked how I coped. Flow charts. Yes, I’m aware it’s an odd answer, but at the time, I was experiencing severe memory problems and found it a useful method. I did it for me, to prove to myself I wasn’t and had never been crazy. Or even wrong. I did not misunderstand, mistake, mis-perceive anything.
To that point, I feel compelled to warn you that the gut is always right. Always. But, as you’re in the midst of divorce, don’t worry about it right now. Get the best settlement possible, go no contact, and then untangle his spin doctoring and get it out of your head.
I had to use “Mindnode” for flow charts after the destruction she wreaked on my mind.
StillThinking–I’m sorry you’re in the same boat; it does prolong healing to know that one’s whole marriage was a lie, not just the few years before the end. On the bright side–you can get to “trust that they suck” much faster.
Capricorn–it is a real kick in the teeth to know that your cheater had, not just one affair, but several, and was on Ashley Madison & Adult Friend Finder trolling to screw strangers.
Like StillThinking, people actually volunteered information about my X’s escapades after the divorce.
Part of me wishes I’d know the full extent of his treachery before divorce because I’d have been a damn site less sentimental about the marriage ending, and would have been a LOT less nice to the fucktard. But there was some safety in coping with my emotions when I was completely free of the mindfuckery. Since cheaters always lie, he would have had the opportunity to deny and obfuscate if I’d heard these stories early. Now I just believe them without doubting myself.
Yes! This logic is mighty.
Adding in any kind of ‘argument’ towards the facts you listed is full on blameshifting… it’s ‘complicated’ because the chump didn’t meet needs, didn’t allow or condone, etc… all things the cheater could have handled differently. But it’s easier to say it’s complicated and this shit just ‘happened’ because it leaves the responsibility out there in this ethereal cloud which is actually hanging straight over the chump. Bullshit. Absolute hokum.
No not all cheaters are alike. Not all murderers are alike but someone always ends up dead. Not all cheaters are alike but they all try to minimise, justify, rationalise and generally get away with it – like murderers. And this is soul murder. Stabbing the person you are supposed to love, respect and cherish in the back is mudering their trust. Then to try and wriggle free and escape the consequences by heaping yet more mental shenanigans on the spouse. They all have different excuses and shit of course but the result is the same. A devastated family.
And in my opinion I only listen to advice from those who have experienced infidelity. So if the speaker above has not then I am not interested.
There is a very nasty implication here too. A smell of “expert” telling others what to do without having personal experience. As if poor chumps really don’t know what is best for them and may be led astray by a site like Chump Lady. But all we ever read here is how much of a lifesaver this site is. Most of us bought into the RIC first and spent ages trying to figure out how to reconcile. We all thought we might just have one of those special cheaters!!! We would be different!! Our marriage would survive and would even prosper. And then that didn’t work out so well and we dragged our heavy hearts to Chump Lady where we learned it wasn’t us. It was them. And we could gain a life.
I love this site. It saved me. So that idiot can just fuck off.
I like your style, Capricorn.
Same. Capricorn’s musings make me pretty damn proud to be a Cappy. 😛
Same; yours too, Oak. Eddie Izzard is my jam, and I like to be reminded there are guys like you out their I could get along with. Match Girl was pretty successful in isolating me with our numerous moves for her career, so I relate to your stone-cold cheater exit too. Stay strong, oaktree.
Thank-you ?
Most of us chumps fall into a couple of categories, either we bent over backwards for months or years trying to reconcile with someone who does not respect us, or we pulled the plug quickly but after years of bending over backwards to please the permanently discontent cheater before DDAY. Not only are cheaters not original or individual, but we chumps also follow very similar patterns.
This site has shown me that the traitor follows a well trodden path, AND I DO TOO.
It’s shocking but true to realise that I am not much of an individual myself. The cheaters have their play book and so do we chumps.
Apparently our playbook was a limited pressing and is long out of print.
Ian, I don’t believe that. I think there are still plenty of chumps around reading from the same playbook. But I hope they are learning. I hope as more people learn about personality disorders and thanks to this site, many will avoid the traps we fell into.
So true – very accurate KiwiChump.
It’s a similar, selfish pattern of unilateral actions (cheaters) & a similar, too hopeful set of reactions (chumps).
THIS:
I love this site. It saved me. So that idiot can just fuck off.
There is certainly an air of moral superiority when those who have never experience infidelity in their marriage try to give advice. Especially when that advice is unsolicited. I know I’ve experienced this first hand. I’d like to submit that in these situations, I get an overwhelming sense that these types think that people just divorce frivolously and that there was no weight to the decision. It’s condescending and rude at best. When inexperienced people give this sort of advice you can be sure you’re being rolled into this imaginary category of ‘casual divorce’.
The one time I will admit to claiming moral superiority was once when I considered which of thenhusbands friends would be the first to dump his wife for a younger model. Jay? Tom? no, it was mine.
Cheater (when referring to his relationship with OW and the impending {at the time} destruction of our family) said to me “This happens every day” as a minimizing tactic. I told him that “Ax murders happen every day but that doesn’t make them ‘not a big deal’ ”
But we wreckonciled with me really believing that it was his only affair and him insisting that it was “just an emotional affair” (which I didn’t really believe) and I gave up the next 7 years of my life only to learn that the phrase “cheaters cheat” applied to him.
Mine said the same thing – “People do this all the time.”
Means “I do this all the time”.
Only “sophisticated ” “people do this all the time”. Chumps, apparently, are too simple minded to “get” affairs. What a crock.
“Not all murderers are alike, but some one always ends up dead.” ?
I love this analogy. It’s very fitting.
This virtual place, CN, is where I discovered that I wasn’t unique, and neither was my cheater, in the days right after my D-Day. And that was tremendous comfort, the notion that others have been here, have dealt with the same kind of mindfuck and humiliation, the same kind of excuses and manipulations, have survived it all and have thrived despite it. The gaslighting that comes with this notion that it’s all oh-so-special that no one can possibly understand or access is one of the most dangerous conditions that keep chumps in their cages, thinking that they can’t just push the little stupid latch up and get the fuck out in the big, un-special, welcoming world out here.
This. I had no idea how many ClusterFuck B’s there are in this world till I found CL and discovered there is no individuality among the disordered.
Lol. An honest cheater? Bitch please that is not individual. It’s just an oxymoron until you are blessed with the fallout of the “honest cheater’s” honest cheating?
CL has been instrumental in my healing from an abusive sociopath, of which cheating was the least of the mindfuckery. CL is now instrumental in fine tuning my picker so I never ever suffer another second of uncertainty or pain via a disordered fuckup. For me there is no gray area. plain and simple-this site saved my life, all these “Chump Lady” authorities elsewhere on the Internet can read my lips “fuck off” ????
“Once you’ve established that the behavior is an aberration, or something really common that anyone could do, then we can reject the idea that there are patterns between people who behave this way because it’s so individual. That idea then ties into the progressive notion that we shouldn’t paint with a broad brush and generalize. Especially because we don’t know this person individually.”
This thought would render all the social science disciplines — political scine, psychology, sociology, etc….. — irrelevant.
Yeah, apparently the hundreds of thousands of comments and stories on this site are not a sufficient data set.
However, “The Monogamy Gap” by Eric Anderson, published by Oxford fucking University Press argues it case on the basis of surveying 120 male college students. I shit you not. https://www.amazon.com/Monogamy-Gap-Cheating-Sexuality-Identity/dp/019994895X
I don’t have a Ph.D. — I invite anyone who does to study my site and make some academic, social science-like observations.
I’m not in this science-y field….however look at his sample population, horny 20somethings exploring their independence in a made up society. ( college-aged dependents living in a college setting, dorm, apt or Greek house)
Yeaaaahhh. That is really a reasonable sample population from which to generalize human relationship behavior.
It’d be a good use of my masters in stats!
Oh this bloody idiot again. He’s still peddling his shtick. Trouble is for him any one with two brain cells to rub together will realise his piles of bullshit from miles away. He has to say things like “its monogamy not infidelity that is the problem. No Eric, no one cares if you are monogamous or in an open relationship or whatever combination of the two you prefer – it’s all about informed consent. If both parties agree – fine!
If however one person is cheating and lying about it then it’s not about ‘cultural expectations of fidelity’ it’s about lying and no consent.
He also blows on about male difficulties with fidelity that old ‘ men are programmed to cheat’ twaddle. Eric -we don’t care how many people you sleep with or men sleep with or women sleep with we don’t care if your bed falls apart because it’s got so many notches on it. We are taking about deceit and lying and not honouring vows. Don’t promise to be faithful and then cheat. Find someone whose happy to be in an open relationship.
Culturally we prefer honesty and integrity and fidelity to vows.
Talk about missing the point Eric. It’s the lying stupid.
Informed consent. That’s it. Shorter book but better.
Wow. Just. Wow. Haven’t read the book but the intro seems to indicate that the fact that the cheaters are making unilateral decisions is ignored. An open relationship is completely different than cheating. . Not to mention the destruction of the family that his theory implies…total pile of shit that…
CN is a robust dataset.
This Redditor obviously doesn’t have the guts to come on here, say that, and take the heat, or he would have posted a comment directly. So much easier to make nebulous attacks from the safely of one’s own little echo chamber.
You nailed it, Chump Lady. It’s about personal boundaries. I have never gotten into a relationship without discussing my policy on extra-curricular fucking, i.e., NO! So, it’s not like we have just stumbled onto some out-of-the-blue dilema. Uh oh. You bumped uglies with another monkey? Never saw that one coming.
Special snowflakes and second chances are all well and good to kind hearted chumps like myself – when they are justified. Are you a person who made a mistake trying to repair your life? Welcome. Are you a slut who can’t keep it in her pants? Hit the bricks, bitch.
What’s that line from The Talented Mr. Ripely?
“You never meet anybody that thinks they’re a bad person.”
…all while he’s lying and killing to sustain the fake life he created.
I’d correct him, though. We humble chumps are quick to find fault in ourselves, perhaps even thinking we were bad spouses.
But a cheater think he/she is a bad person? I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve posted this here before but I like to repeat it because it so clearly encapsulates narcissistic delusion about what nice people they think they are. When I finally told X I was leaving, his response was, “It’s been so hard on me, knowing that you’re the only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t like me.”
Other Kat, I think I can safely say that the entirety of Chump Nation doesn’t like him.
I hate the bastard!
This!!! ?
Yep, don’t like him either.
Other Kat-I don’t mean to make light, because I know how painful betrayal is, but that line truly made me laugh out loud. *Jaw on ground*. Poor guy…how will he survive without you liking him! They are all delusional. Wow. Just wow.
Made me laugh out loud too. I hope you laughed too Kat!
This isn’t exactly the same, but your X’s quote reminded me of something Cheese Fries said as he was deciding whether wreckonciliation was worth it: “I’ll never find someone who loves me as much as you do.”
Maybe the two quotes feel similar because it shows how it really is all about THEM. We’re just an extension of their ego, a mirror to reflect back the image they want to see and the adoration they crave.
Excellent. My cheater spins himself into knots to convince himself he’s not a bad person – all while lying, blaming and gaslighting he’s wrapped up in his own self serving pity party that he will tell to anyone who will listen and preferably he can manipulate.
I think he actually believes most of his own lies.
My ex never thought that her actions made her a bad person. While cheating, she claimed she was a victim of her own confusion/choices (I live the division of self into two people to be the victim of oneself!).
Throughout the divorce and afterward, she made crazy excuses for her behavior.
And she kept asking for more chances. Because she couldnt accept that her actions changed how I saw her.
I saw her as a bad person; she just assumed that I saw her the same as always–as a good person who made mistakes. Not a “real cheater.”
But that’s what she is.
I think people can make mistakes — the point of character is owning them.
And after owning your actions, setting a new course (which takes years) of good actions and rejecting entitlement.
To the chump it comes down to investment — are you going to put in the years for the iffy proposition of character change?
The “good person vs. bad person” debate is really a red herring to the How Are You Going To Clean Up This ‘Mistake’ and go forward issue.
If we can keep the debate centering on JC saying ex is “bad” — then it’s “not what I did but your reaction to it” mindfuckery. You’re mean.
CL, I agree. “I think people can make mistakes–the point of character is owning them.” Who knows our cheaters better than us? The cheater I was with rarely owned up to his mistakes, big and small. Hence, for me, the past many times predicts the future unless there is change. I saw no change, therefore the relationship is dead.
Just heard a church sermon on this concept this weekend – Denial of sin eliminates the need to repent and change. They do everything they can do deny that their choices are wrong, because if it were wrong they would have to make a change.
My 6 year old daughter tells her dad that it’s inappropriate (her favorite word lately) to have a girlfriend when you’re married. His response: “Why?” Thanks for gaslighting my kids and acting as a terrible example to my daughters – only 3 months past DDay, and he has them staying overnight in his mistress’ house, pushing a big blended family concept on them. It’s awful, but I tell myself he just serves as a contrast to what real morals look like.
It definitely helps me on this site to see (and even predict) the patterns of his behavior – eliminates all the confusion that was there right after DDay. Also, ask any divorce lawyer, and they can see the same patterns play out – mine keeps telling me what she can predict and how they’re all the same when they leave in this way.
Gaslighting at its worst. Cheating is not about what I didn’t do as the faithful spouse. Look at us chumps, we don’t cheat yo “solve” problems, we confront, etc. if it’s supposed that my X cheated because I didn’t connect with him on certain levels eg. Sport level, what effort did you make as the X to help me connect with you?? So you thought adding a third party to our marriage would make me connect with you where sports is concerned.
Nobody has to cheat. They can ask for a divorce. Cheat one time or 10 times? Who cares? Its an attitude problem. Why are they special? Why do the “rules” apply to other people. (the minions)
Fact is, they like it, and have a giant ego.
Their happiness is paramount, and that is all they care about. In the moment, every moment.
Fine. So get on with it, and stop trying to make everyone else agree with you with all these crappy excuses.
We don’t agree that it is ever a good idea to treat someone else like a disposable item, to lie to them, to discard them, and leave your own children.
Not OK. OK?
+1
Keep preaching the truth CL, a lot of chumps will smoke the hopium because life is sooo much easier if you don’t have to make the hard decisions, if you can keep making excuses, my mother was one such woman,and her choice to stay with my disordered cheater dad has done serious damage to all her children. Some people are great swimmers and the river of denial is deep, but as for me, I will dwell with you in the House of Truth.
Amen! I smoked the hopium way too long! Now i am working on being hopium free the rest of my life. Show me who you are and I am going to believe it. You will not get multiple chances. I will cut you off and take the immediate pain over the days, months or years of gaslighting.
LOST, did you have to wear a hopium patch, use the gum or did you quit cold turkey?
haha!!!
Amen!
+10000
It’s true. I didn’t have a serial cheater like CL. Mine was not your typical cake eater.
I got the stone cold abandonment cheater. Your “typical” sociopath. The exit affair. Abandoned me and his special needs daughter. Never looked back. I wasn’t even worth the fight. But whatever. It’s so effin’ individual.
Awesome (rolling eyes).
+1 I got the same cold abandonment as well. She lied and cheated for 20 years, and when she no longer had use for me, just drove off to her next victim (who she’d been grooming for years). And yes, she’s just like so many others. Such an individual. 😛
Mine, the exact same. Acted detached and angry to me while getting his ducks in a row with the AP behind my back. Then, when all was ready, picked a fight and coldly left me and our 38 years behind. No communication, no explanation, and nothing but anger and hatred radiating through all legal proceedings. Freaks out people who’ve known us as a couple because “It’s like you never existed.” Tell that to our two kids.
Doesn’t sound all that unique and individual to me.
geekmom,
Me too! 35 years! Not a word and not a dime!
I came to this site and thankfully found that there are universal things about cheaters, even down to the exact things they say. What I didn’t find, was much about cheaters that leave and never talk to you again, even when you weren’t fighting when you caught him for the 4th time!!!!
Add me to the stone-cold abandonment list. She tried to eat cake for a little while, and I was giving her a way back in after DDay, if she was willing to show remorse, do all the necessary repair, etc., but she quickly decided “nah, too much work.”
It was funny (almost) that she wanted to hang out at home for 4-5 months until she could set enough cash aside to make it work. I called bullshit on that.
But the emotional break on her end was really quick and (seems to be) permanent. “Acceptance is gift you give yourself.”
Same story here. I gave her the opportunity back, but the discard was complete, and without remorse or empathy. In the end though, I too think she just figured it was too much work. Forever lazy and entitled. Page 6 in the cheater playbook, I believe.
Oak tree and Forest.
Actually that’s kind of funny that your ‘names’ are so similar.
I have an empathy free mother. I went no contact five years ago. I knew I would never hear from her again but others were forever saying she will she will. Nope. Nothing. Crickets. By the time the break happened I had accepted it but it still hurt so much to be right. She didn’t love me at all. Now it doesn’t hurt. It got better. Much better.
I just have to do this again with STBXH and I’ll be good to go!
Sigh.
It’s not easy which ever way they go. Complete silence or continued mind games.
Much luck and hugs to both.
“I wasn’t even worth the fight.” Yep, same here. Skankboy even admitted “I didn’t even try,” meaning to work on the relationship. Nothing to see here folks, time to move on!
And AFTER Dday after I threw him out he want’s to come back and live in the house and date me……Now tell me that isn’t a mental illness…..it’s called “I’m In Love With Myself”….look it up in the DSM, his picture is there. Idiot!!!
That’s what happened to me. My son has non-verbal autism, so I’m limited in the kind of work I can do (no night, no weekends). I’ve been looking for a job for months – nothing. Now he refuses to pay the house note or anything else. Gave me three hundred for child support – the first check bounced. As far as he’s concerned, neither one of us ever existed.
I know people say it will get better, but I just don’t see how that is going to happen right now.
Hang in there, DemHoez,
My daughter is non-verbal autism as well. She is also global develop. delay and has epilepsy. I’m in Canada so child support has standards based on income. My ex is a school teacher so he can’t get away. Still had to fight in court. You could be eligible for alimony and extra for your child’s extraordinary experiences. Also, I’m the same: can’t work weekends or evenings. I have a residential cleaning business and make a decent living. Self employed gives me the flexibility I need and the start up cost is minimal please check out TheCleanTeam.com out of San Francisco. They have business materials. It might be an option for you. Go after your cheater!!! You have a dependent. No mercy! And stay strong. It may look hopeless now but a great life is possible! You CAN do this on your own! Cheering you on from Canada! Hugs!!!
Please call a legal aid clinic — call your state bar association (I’m assuming you’re in the U.S.) and ask. Perhaps you can get some pro bono help with enforcement and social services.
And it also strikes me that these ‘experts’ don’t trust chumps to use their own judgement. I feel that if someone doesn’t feel right here they will go somewhere they do. We are not all here being brainwashed! We are being empowered and know it. We know our own minds.
Plus isn’t it time we started posting about why the RIC doesn’t advocate leaving??
What is it with people? The CL message is clear Leave a Cheater Gain a Life. Why all the comments about why this isn’t a good thing. If people don’t like it they can find a home elsewhere!
It’s that judgement thing isn’t it. We call out cheaters and cheater apologists and enablers.
We are mighty chumps who know our value… (well, we are working on it!) ?
Capricorn, yes. It’s called “confirmation bias.”
My name is AllOutofKibble, I left a cheater and gained a life.
Oh Chump, please stop generalising, we’ve seen others chow down on far worse shirt sandwiches than yours, and now their marriage is better than ever. Keep chewing, and while you are at it. Get over you self indulgent drama and forgive already. We have hope for your marriage, just because you don’t doesn’t mean you get to make a decision for yourself. What about the children? Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. this shit is fucking encoded in their DNA and if they are a Narc or a cluster B and have managed to embed themselves in the mothership of cheater apologists. Run like the wind.
Even now after three years and a marriage to another woman the leaders of the church cheater and I attended together think they are helping him, which came as a surprise because following D’day they claimed he cheated due to demonic possession and because I was a shitty wife. They now state they are fencing him in to prevent him from returning to his life of sin, and that even now he does not go unmonitored. If I was being an over reactive chump and cheater was redeem enough to remarry in March why do they need to do this. Why? Because they are dumb enough to think that his only “sin” was the sexual acts themselves, they have no concept that he is an abusive narcissistic moron, because they are all the same. They all feed of each other like some bizarre narc fungus.
For those of us who do believe in a Spiritual realm, I would tell those folks that they had their theology backwords. A person with a relationship with Christ and indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not normally in danger of evil entering him and causing him to destroy the sacred. A person who has freely chosen to enter Mortal Sin (thus intentionally evicting the Holy Spirit from their soul) is very possibly at risk for evil to enter the vacuum created when the Holy Spirit left. They got their cause and effect switched.
Isn’t it funny how cheaters can make decisions about their lives to cheat, the moment a chump takes a decision to leave the cheater it’s wrong??? What the hell?!
OMG YES! Fucktard is actually– dare I say hurt? — that I filed for divorce, and had packed up all his shit “and things that would remind her of me” a few days after he told me “I don’t want our marriage to work, and that there is another woman”.
WTF?
Seriously. it’s like he didn’t make the decision to divorce so how dare I? I honestly cannot understand the ‘logic’ there.
Mine did exactly the same. Serial cheater. Finally caught him and he’s acted like an ass. NOW that I’ve filed I get the “what if I don’t really want a divorce (right now)”? routine.
What he wanted was cake, lots of lovely cake. He had a “mommy” a housekeeper, childminder, gardener and income producer that he wasn’t even very nice to all while indulging in ridiculous games and fantasies.
His bubble just burst. Consequences, they’re a bitch.
Also, they pull that nonsense, “I don’t want to divorce yet,” only until they think you are roped back in. Once the cheater feels in power again, they start the same ol’ bullshit.
I told mine I wanted a divorce numerous times and he would pull the sad sausage and ask me to wait a few days to calm down. I would, and then again would text/email, “I want a divorce.” When it finally sunk in that I meant it, 6 weeks after D-day, then he BEGGED for a marital counseling appointment (which he had been resisting up to that point). After 1.5 hours of begging, I agreed to an appointment. Then the MFer felt in charge again (“Ha! Tempest must still want my lying, cheating ass if she agreed to MC!”), and started behaving like an entitled jerk all over again. This went on EVEN after I filed. If I was at all polite to him, he interpreted it as the ball being back in his court. It’s comical in hindsight.
Kick his ASS! He is getting exactly what he deserves. May his days living on the street and sleeping under bridges be long!
Funny you say that.. my stbx cried and whined about how he would be living under a bridge because I would not accept his generous offer of $500 a month when he averages $14,000 a month income, moved to $2600 a month house to fit $800 a month truck and 22 yo coworker. Oh the poor 50 yo sausage that is suffering at the hands of the mean evil bitch wife that helped him achieve a bunch of stuff over 11 years – from nothing but the clothes on our back. He left me with a mortgage and toy hauler payment he’s half responsible for… but I am a evil woman out for all his money!!! I forced him to marry me for the purpose of divorcing him to get lots of money, he says. But when we married we had basically nothing. Oh and when he married me I was incapable of supporting myself he says…..but at the time he was so happy to have me because I had job skills and got the first job I went after….we were at the laundromat with our baby girl. We were looking at the paper. I saw an ad for a cancer treatment center – I said, “I want to work there.” And got the job. Yep. I’m a sorry loser out for his money. They lie and rewrite history to suit their sorry script.
^^^this^^^, ^^^this^^^ and ^^^this^^^
D&D
I agree!!
Why are so many people so vested in NOT judging cheaters and holding them to account??
I guess that unless you have been through it you just can’t get it.
Hell I was married to a man for 22 years and he cheated A LOT and I still have trouble believing it. I can imagine a therapist wouldn’t think badly of him either he is so ‘nice’.
Unless you look at actions and stop listening to words and you follow through and think about the consequences of those actions you will never understand it.
There’s a big divide here. Most people need to believe that most people are good and that these disordered people are few in number. Most chumps need to know that they are not mistaken and that there are many disordered people out there and you have one of them.
If your argument had been that all cheaters are identical in every single respect then they would have a point. That wasn’t your argument and they don’t have a point.
This is exactly my view on it.
Most gaslighting starts with the logical fallacy of a fool’s choice a.k.a. sucker’s choice — either A is true or B is true. Like, it’s either true that each person ‘s motivation for cheating is totally individual and, therefore, open to interpretation, or all cheaters have exactly the same motivation and, therefore, we should treat them all the same.
However, in this case, both are true. Each situation is unique in its specifics. Also, there are easy-to-spot dramatic parallels. This is hugely true in the overviews, but it’s also often true in many of the specifics.
So, the fact that a particular cheater’s specifics are unique doesn’t change anything about how it is appropriate to deal with the person ‘s choices. If you harm someone, your arguments to justify the harm don’t change the harm itself.
Sure, if you shoot someone who is about to shoot you, chances are you won’t be convicted of murder. People will think you had no choice. Sneaking around and screwing strange hardly rises to the level of defending your life, and it is RIFE with a reasonable opportunity for choice.
Here’s another example of fool’s choice: you don’t have to lie to have multiple sexual partners. If you want and have multiple sexual partners and you are open and honest about it, that’s not cheating. Nobody is being played. Also, you can lie to your partner without ever lying about sex or having alternate sexual partners.
If you’re cheating, you’re lying. If you’re cheating, you’re harming. It doesn’t really matter why.
Agreed, Amiisfree,
Cheating is about betrayal, deception, and lies. Its not about multiple sexual partners. I myself practice ethical nonmonogamy, more specifically polyamory. Cheating is about breaking agreements, and violating boundaries.
You can cheat in various forms of ethical nonmonogamy too, by breaking the agreements you have between your partners, not using protection, and by not disclosing new partners to established ones, just as a few examples.
CL is very clear about the unilateral game shifting, decision making, and disrespect that cheaters enact. Respect is about acknowledging the needs, desires, boundaries, and level of risk that a partner has agreed to. Having multiple partners in a structure of ethical consent requires trust, good communication, and psychological and emotional maturity.
Cheaters are often poor candidates for ethical nonmonogamy because of their immaturity, entitlement, poor boundaries, and lack of reciprocity in relating. They signed up for fidelity to one person, and couldn’t handle that. I wouldn’t trust them to handle the risk and responsibility of multiple partners at all.
In the culture of poly, generally someone who has a history of cheating, and declares they are suddenly “poly”, elicits a lot of eyerolling. They tend to be the people cycling through their partners quickly, and while the expectation of one sexual partner is no longer an issue, a close look a the relational dynamics often reveals selfishness, entitlement, and lopsided relationships.
CL is right, they don’t get character transplants. People can change, but it takes time, lots of work, true remorse, taking accountability, and giving up the entitlement to have an affair in the first place. No one is entitled to reconciliation after cheating. I wish people success if they chooose to reconcile, but that was not my choice.
Also, it requires asking if you want to give up moments of your own precious life to deal with that process, even if they are genuinely remorseful.
ChefBella, this is an excellent post providing a much-needed clarification on cheating and sex. On D-day, x insinuated that one of my many problems was that I was sexually inadequate and so naturally his seeking of multiple partners was enlightened.
Even at the time, I knew he was trying to appropriate a sexual orientation rather than being an actual polyamorist. I didn’t have the words to call him a huge phony.
I’d like to sneak over to his house with a spray can and graffiti your post on the walls. But he’d probably figure out it was me. And I really ought to be more NC in my thoughts.
I was doing pretty well until my narc mom came to visit. Now I’m having those “this is so unjust” angry thoughts again. Really need to practice letting go of that which I cannot control.
He is a douchebag, also known as “the poly player” in polyamory culture.
Irrefutable!
Well, all hos are slightly different, but they do have one thing in common – they are all hos.
LOL ?
Seems to me that the RIC has its own “universal advice”-
Yes, how can the blanket solution they offer work for everyone in every circumstance if cheating is so individual it requires unique considerations?
Ding ding ding!!! a winner! Hoisted on their own petard.
Isn’t it weird how cheating is the only ‘marital crime’ that gets this kind of excusing, covering up and encouragement to accept?
If your partner is an addict, you’re encouraged to ‘detach with love’. If they’re violent, to get the hell out. If they can’t keep a job, verbally abuse you or the kids, or keep driving the family into debt by compulsive gambling or shopping, and refuse to get treatment or can’t change, you should get a divorce.
Only cheating is normalized, minimized, and blamed on the victim. Oh, and it’s the one reason for divorce that should be hidden from the kids.
I understand that some of this may be remnants of the days when divorce was near impossible, but we’ve managed to change the narrative around so many other marital abuses. I’m glad CL is helping change it around this one.
To me, the most helpful info is about real remorse and change, and fake. I experienced fake, and projected my own sincerity onto it. People need to know the difference, and what to do when we have fake. I personally don’t believe many cheaters are truly remorseful and will change, but there probably are a few; we should know how to recognize them, and more importantly, when to walk away,
I would no longer care whether a cheater was remorseful. If you have so little self-control that you can’t keep your privates in your pants while you are partnered with me, I don’t want you. If you are enough of a pathological liar that you can keep an affair going even for one week (what is that, at least 2 decisions every day, and at least 5 lies by omission or commission?), I don’t want you.
I would never want a cheater who is remorseful; I’d rather have someone with the foresight to know how much their actions would hurt me, and the impulse control to stay honest.
IMHO, something in the chump dies once they know a cheater has fucked someone else, even once. I no longer want to feel dead inside just to maintain a relationship. I’d rather have a healthy relationship with myself.
Yes. Cheating signals the death of the relationship. The only thing after that is keeping up with appearances.
Tempest.
Lovely. I have copied this. Well said.
I love this site where so often people just nail what you are feeling but can’t find the right words for.
Amen.
Very true. You are mighty.
Karen E. – your comments are spot on.
My individual counselor said that she will never counsel any couple where one person is: addicted to drugs or alcohol, suffering from untreated depression, or in an affair. Her reasoning: that person is currently unavailable to be in a healthy marriage/relationship and must first fix their own issues first.
Unfortunately, the marriage counselor I found after D-day ( extremely well regarded/famous in our city) had us in marriage counseling for 7 mos WHILE KNOWING THAT MY HUSBAND WAS STILL SEEING HIS AFFAIR PARTNER. I knew the affair was continuing but had never heard that reconciliation/counseling is a total waste while someone is still in affair.
Makes me so mad………….
Yes KarenE. I especially bristle when people say they divorced because their spouse is “crazy”. Oh crazy as in mentally ill and in need of treatment? Treatment that spouses get for each other?
And you left your children with a person you really believe to be so mentally unstable that they cant be a spouse? Hmmm when did “crazy” start? Often it began about the time you betrayed them.
A friend of my latehusbands said “she was crazy, at MC she just screamed” hmmm…what was she screaming about?
I certainly felt crazy at times in my marriage. It make you feel crazy when your gut is screaming what your head is denying.
*it makes you feel…*
Well, I actually left my first husband because of untreated mental illness.
I agree with you, however, I’m suspicious of the “bitch be crazy” narrative of why one’s marriage broke up.
However, there are people who leave marriages because of mental illness and I’m one of them. As for leaving your kids with the crazy person?
Let me tell you how damn near impossible it is to reduce or eliminate visitation on that subject. In the state I divorced, they passed a law that made mental illness inadmissible in family court. I’m all for fighting stigma of mental illness — but I think that law is insane.
Anyway — if someone says their ex was “crazy” — ask for more information. Crazy how? What was the diagnosis? How did you try and get help for this? Would they agree to treatment? Was your life chaotic and unmanageable living with this person? Etc.
Btw, that’s the same way to deal with this shit in family court — describe the behavior and how it effects your child.
There are people who chose not to treat their mental illness, and there are people who are resistant to treatment (through no fault of their own, we just don’t have good therapies for everything). In either case, you can’t help the person by staying and becoming a martyr.
I thought that marriage meant sacrificing everything for your spouse. But if you do, you aren’t really in a marriage. You are dead.
“I thought that marriage meant sacrificing everything for your spouse. But if you do, you aren’t really in a marriage. You are dead.”
Yes yes yes!!
Agreed.
We are dealing now with some mental illness and it’s tough. I see parents dealing with kids who are bipolar or schizophrenic and it’s incredibly tough on them, can’t imagine being married to someone with those issues who doesn’t follow through on medical care or doesn’t take their medications (very common).
Completely different from “crazy bitch doesn’t let me drink/do drugs/screw around/sit on my ass all day/abuse her and the kids”.
Yes yes yes.
That shit is right up there with “no one knows what goes on between two people in their relationship”. You don’t have to know that to understand one person lies about the most important aspects of the relationship. I always ask them if they’d remain friends with someone who lied to them constantly, and they say no. End of story.
Our two best Switzerland friends (now his and not mine) tried to make the argument on his behalf that he was malicious, he was just negligent because he lacks introspection. I asked them how they’d feel if they left XH in charge of watching their son and a playground and he wasn’t watching so their son fell and cracked his head open — you know, “negligence.” — No answer, or “it’s not the same thing.” I disagree.
I always answer people who say that with “Even when you’re in the relationship with a cheater you don’t know what’s going on!”
+1000. Great come back, I’ll use it!
In theory, I wasn’t married to a serial cheater either. One time (that I knew about) after many years (24) of marriage. I started running with the wrong crowd at first-a RIC marriage counselor and a RIC website and I heard all of these cliches. “You don’t know what’s happening in another person’s marriage.” “You have to own up to half the problems in the marriage that led to the affair” “You have to stop having blind trust” “Everybody cheats and so could you. When you start thinking that you could never cheat, that’s when you get into trouble.”
Blah, blah, blah. This Reddit person is giving CL grief but all these “experts” on infidelity sites have no more experience than CL. CL’s advice is the only advice that make sense for chumps because the advice is about them instead of the cheater for a change. Who cares why they cheated? The only thing chumps should be worrying about is what they can tolerate in this lifetime and how they value their worth.
I decided to leave a cheater and gain a life and I’ve never been sorry I did!
All cheaters are special snowflakes, huh?
Then tell me this, why do all of our cheaters:
*have cold dead lies when discovered
*I love you, but I’m not in love with you
*we are like roomates (no matter how many times a week we have/had sex
*we just drifted apart
*(Most cheaters) encouraging pick me dancing while continuing to cheat
*blaming their spouse for being mean, suspicious, crazy before the affair has been uncovered
*blaming their spouse for being mean, suspicious, crazy plus cold as reason for the affair
*lying
*diverting family money to support the affair
*hiding money during the divorce
I could go on and on. We could have a drinking game “take a shot if your cheating spouse says/does X” except we would all be dangerously close to alcohol poisoning within ten minutes.
Thanks for breaking it down – I can check off all of the above on your list of what all cheaters do. It helps to remind myself what I’m really dealing with, and keeps me sane through the blameshifting and gaslighting.