Cheating Wife Wants ‘Us Both’
His cheating wife “wants them both” — him and her college flame. He just left her, but can’t comprehend the cake-eating.
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Dear Chump Lady,
My wife of one year cheated on me over the summer with her college flame. I know it’s a story everyone has heard before, but I just can’t get over it.
We had been together for 6 years total, married for one, and when she got her shot she took it.
Your book has been very helpful but this is one situation I feel like I haven’t seen addressed, or maybe it has and I missed it.
She said she was in love with both of us, but couldn’t imagine not having him in her life.
She wishes she could have us both.
I left her two days ago, but I can’t comprehend this idea that she was in love with us both, that she held these feelings for us both. I found your chapter on things cheaters say very helpful, she tried the “I still love you” stuff on me. Is this just more cake?
Thanks for any guidance,
Starting Over
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Dear Starting Over,
Yes, this is classic cake-eating. Your cheating wife wants both her marriage and her affair parter.
You’re an option on the dessert tray. But gluttons never want to choose. They want an endless rotating display of options. And the freedom to shovel as much cake into their gob as possible.
This is not the marriage you signed up for. Which is the insidious thing about cake-eating — by the time you discover you’re vanilla ice cream going up against turtle cheesecake, you’re deeply invested. You’re Mr. Safe Bet and He’s The One Who Got Away. Which is its own bullshit.
The One Who Got Away
My wife of one year cheated on me over the summer with her college flame.
So, what was this marriage? A giant performance piece to catch the attention of College Flame? Harrumph! I’ll show him! Look! SOMEONE wants me! What are you? A stage prop?
One year in is literally the honeymoon period. This time should be joyous. You’re building the foundation to get you through the harder stuff in life ahead, like colicky babies and aging parents. Instead you’re a bit player in her narcissistic Torn Between Two Lovers drama.
The One Who Got Away is fantasy bullshit. She doesn’t have to adult and accept the challenges of commitment. Instead, she can compare and contrast you to the fantasy ideal of the Other Guy. Who curiously didn’t commit to her. But would’ve if the stars had aligned/he didn’t have that pesky wife/small pox/an imminent move to Idaho… Reasons!
But now she finally has a shot! You go finish those thank you notes for the wedding gifts, she’s gotta follow her heart!
So just go, bitch.
(Sorry, that’s my inner potty mouth speaking.)
Isn’t it funny HOW SHE DOESN’T LEAVE?
I mean, this is her heart’s One True Love! Her Twin Flame!
She said she was in love with both of us, but couldn’t imagine not having him in her life.
But, but — this is her one shot! Why hasn’t she galloped off into a sunset already? Perhaps College Flame doesn’t reciprocate her feelings, but doesn’t mind some extracurricular fucking? Perhaps you have some useful qualities, like a paycheck? Maybe “immediately imploded her marriage” has a certain character stain she’d like to avoid?
So, be a dear and just let her have College Flame. This way she doesn’t have to return the toaster and can avoid accountability. Eat the shit sandwiches! I’m sure Aunt Mildred gave you a nice serving tray somewhere in that wedding gift pile.
There’s nothing in this for you.
Stop wondering if she can “love two people.” Ask yourself if you want a wife who’s not into monogamy, after she just swore in front of your assembled friends and family that she was. Or if you could ever trust such a person again. Or if you want to share your marriage with College Flame.
I’m sure other advice columnists would love to plumb the shallow depths of Torn Between Two Lovers. Or the human ability to love more than one person. I love you! But also Bernie Sanders! That’s not the point. She may imagine she loves you and College Flame. But healthy love doesn’t harm you. It doesn’t goad you into humiliating contests. Healthy love shows up. Healthy love is decisive.
If she felt “true love” for her affair partner, she’d act on it. Make her apologies and exit. But she’s a gutless user. She wants to extract value from both of you (more especially you). Ergo, she can take her “love” and shove it.
There was a cheesy song in the 70s called “Torn Between Two Lovers.”
Synopsis: “Please understand, I can’t help it if I want you both. I’m begging you to stay, and let me have him too.”
It sucked then and it sucks now. You deserve better than being anyone’s “just in case.”
Geez. That’s a no. Our logical minds try to make sense of a sociopathic dumpster fire. Over time and no contact you will lose the bond and the trauma. It won’t last with Mr College, either. They need constant dopamine hits. I got the “this coworker is my soul mate” and then it switched to “I just felt like fucking her.” So it’s compulsive itch scratching. I’m sure you’ll start to see the cracks the further out you get. And get STD tested.
Yup, I just wrote the same thing about how the excuses gradually deteriorate from “I love him!” to “I don’t know, I just wanted to.”
They want to mind-fuck you that they are struggling with some #bigemotionalissues, but over time it turns out that their real reason is “because I wanted to.” That’s it. They just want to keep you on the hook so you supply them with attention and comfort while they get more attention and comfort elsewhere.
If she hadn’t been such a scary bunny boiler, I might have felt bad over how brutally the AP got dumped after D-Day. It must have given her whiplash to see FW go from “I am your slave” to calling her “it” and admitting it was all about porn fucking.
Some cheaters have rather bifurcated tastes when it comes to choosing spouse material vs. sidebang material. It’s rather a drag for all concerned though most of all for the blindsided spouse. You could call it Madonna/whore complex except many she-FWs seem have the same bifurcation regarding “decent good provider husband” material vs. “knuckle-dragging danger fuqboi.” Maybe we should we call that the “Mensch/himbo” complex? 😛
What a great summary!
Everything hurts right now, but you have an incredible opportunity to end a marriage before you sink years of your life into it. She couldn’t even hold it together for a year. It is not going to get better. Please please please trust me.
You write “I can’t comprehend this idea that she was in love with us both, that she held these feelings for us both.” That’s because your brain does not work like hers. You probably also can’t understand why people run Ponzi schemes or torture small animals. You can scratch your head and marvel at their behavior, but untangling that skein will get you nothing. Ultimately, 15 years down the road, her excuses for cheating will morph from “I love him and you!” into “you don’t pay enough attention to me,” and then into “because you don’t support me,” and ultimately, a shrug of the shoulders and “I don’t know why. I just wanted to.” Trust me.
But, honestly, is dual love the real issue that you are struggling with? It’s not that she “loved” another person, it’s that she treated you like garbage. She treated you like an option, a fungible romance unit. You are one of many adoring audience members for FW: The Movie, staring FW.
It’s hard to comprehend the awful, painful truth: you just don’t matter all that much to her. I mean, she says she loves you, but she knowingly engaged in an act of infidelity that she knew would hurt your feelings because her pants-feels are more important than your sense of self-worth. That is NOT love. That’s callous indifference.
“Everything hurts right now, but you have an incredible opportunity to end a marriage before you sink years of your life into it. She couldn’t even hold it together for a year. It is not going to get better. Please please please trust me.”
YES TO THIS!!!
I think being betrayed hurts horribly whether it’s a year in or decades in. A shorter time invested doesn’t make it hurt less. (Though it might make the divorce easier- less blended assets, maybe no kids etc)
I implore you, Starting Over, to learn from my mistake. I have said this before, but I saw all the red flags and rather than run away, I thought it was a carnival and plunged forward. He did 2 very specific cheaty-type things very early on. I say “cheaty-type” because they were suspicious but I had no proof and they were easily shrugged off. Decades later he had a marriage ending 6 year affair. Now in hindsight those “cheaty-type things” were probably straight up, full blown cheating. And there were probably more instances over the decades that I am unaware of.
But the real point is if they would do it one year in, during the honeymoon phase, NOTHING will stop them from doing it later. Sticking around just wastes your time.
Sortofoverit..like you, I am looking back and connected the dots of all cheaters comments through our 30 years. By my memory he had 11 “normal ” years and then more noticeable flirtatious, EAat work which I didn’t take seriously except for one. Once I wa angry he went underground completely and morphed into a full blown porn, massage stranger person. He was inappropriate in the Family and with friends. He went from job to job. But I thought he needed me, loved me and enjoyed my heartfelt gifts of a wife. But it was one sided and transactional. I could not wrap my mind around transactional and absolutely no love for me. I am 2 years out of DDay and 1 year out from divorce. Every few days my brain allows me to remember things he said and did years and years ago. I Had no Chump lady, no Rosetta stone to interpret this disaster. I only knew I could not take another cheater or another Divorce. So I buried my head in the mud. 30 years is alot of mud but if I can finally see what I had, throw up and move on. Anyone can. My advice to starting over..stay with us and welcome. Get another parenting calendar sitethat does include weddings, honeymoons ,vacations etc…let her be happy shallow…you be haply deep.
Notice how the “torn between two lovers” concept forces one to shift from the healthy humanistic concept of love that CL describes to some anthropological concept of human “nature” and law of attraction, etc. When I feel myself being tricked into shifting to the latter mental framework, I remember how our ape ancestors were, among other things, quite naturally infanticidal cannibals. In the end, some parts of our “natural” behavioral heritage are probably better left permanently buried and suppressed under 2m years of evolution.
I love this response so much and Tracy’s of course. But this (mine was over 20 years and 2 kids). “Everything hurts right now, but you have an incredible opportunity to end a marriage before you sink years of your life into it. ” You will (I know you are in the pain time, and that can be a long time, but the support here will help) look back and be so happy you got out when you did. Right now though, find people who are understand your pain, and go as no contact as you can. Otherwise, her story telling stuff will drive you further mad. I literally didn’t know what anything was anymore ( as in if he said the sky was purple I would just nod in agreement kind of brain washing) by the time my cheater was done with me- Hold onto the reality of what she did. She did something horrific.
Looking back, she used to mess with my mind in little ways. People here have told stories about how they caught their ex moving their keys on hidden cameras and then later gaslighting the Chump into thinking they had lost them. With my ex, I was always “forgetting” our plans, i.e., “I told you we were going to the Johnson’s for dinner this weekend. We had this conversation a month ago. Don’t you remember”
[Narrator voice]: “They never had that conversation.”
I have no proof that she was deliberately fucking with me, but MAGICALLY, after we were separated, I noticed that I wasn’t “forgetting” things any longer. Hmmm. Interestingly, I actually have a very good memory for events, deadlines, and conversations, but she made me doubt that constantly.
It was 16 years of this mind-fuckery, and I’m not sure what the point of half of it was, if not to just keep me off-balance and in a fog. I guess it was about control and manipulation. It was so messed up.
People who don’t understand infidelity think Chumps are just a bunch of controlling puritanical tightwads, and they scoff at the idea that it’s abuse – it’s just sex! However, I spent a decade and a half in a disorienting fog of her gaslighting. I could go on and on with examples, and I’m guessing I only know the tip of the iceberg as to what she was up to.
…Interesting…When separated under the same roof with FW2, my keys would go missing. He would make a point of asking me where my keys were? Had I found my keys? He was even unsubtle, and dumb enough, to reference the movie ‘Gaslighting’ once 🙄
I trusted my gut (thank you dear instincts) that it was him.
I didn’t let on, but on about the third time it happened just blithely said “that’s ok, I’m not too fussed. The find me tracker I have installed on them means that they’ll turn up.”
Didn’t happen again after that….
Cheating is almost never “just cheating.” With the exception of severely battered women who are apparently slightly statistically more prone than average to “monkey branch” in order to have a body guard on hand during their harrowing escapes (not a great idea since, 50% of the time, they just end up with another abuser who’s playing “rescuer’), abusive personality traits are necessary to commit cheating and abuse is required to enforce and facilitate it. Perel’s concept of abuse-less cheating is kind of like immaculate conception– nice fable but it doesn’t exist in the natural world except among water fleas and goblin spiders.
I think we saw that from the letter from a few days ago, where the cheater wanted to track down his ex-wife, who fled to Norway. Even if we accept as true that he only had sex with another woman “once,” it was incredibly clear from his letter that he was a dangerously controlling and possessive narcissist.
Some redditers thought that post had to be fake because no one could be that dumb or infantile. But, probably because of the freak-filled industry I worked in, I’ve seen at least a few obsessive nuts age-regress while spiraling into rage. Whatever their education or IQ, it’s like their logic devolves to that of six year olds. To me the regression alone indicates violent capacity.
Yes it really is about control and – power. It makes them feel powerful. They control your reality, they control your finances, your body -all power. But once I got over the finance(still an issue a bit) and my body was all mine, the “reality” controlling damage isn’t all back to normal. I have no “gut” to trust. And my actual sense of reality is still damaged. Oh, and I totally ended up with a string of other abusers when he left because- I was so vulnerable. Anyway! All good now! But I think this person has a great opportunity to not feel like more years will be wasted. He has reached out here! It’s amazing to not feel so alone.
I have seen women act like it was fun to see how shitty they could be and their husband would still love them. It was as if the love required to love a raving bitch must be huge, kinda like “Im gonna be bitchy and see how far I can push him and see how much he loves me”. A neighbor of mine was like this…we barely knew each other but she berated her husband in front of me and smiled during the whole thing. He dumped her ass and Im glad he did.
“I literally didn’t know what anything was anymore”
Oh yeah. It’s been over three years for me, and I look back on that time and it’s almost embarrassing how I lost my brain control. FW’s “reasoning”, lies, excuses, delusions, joyful retellings of his adventures with Schmoopie, expectations for our future (all three of us!! ??), etc. felt like an attack on my mind. I guess it literally was… Thus inside the marriage or out in the world, I didn’t know what was real, how to interpret everyday exchanges with people, questioning what people said, and what they really meant. Was everybody crazy, or just him or just me??? Someone several weeks ago on this website commented about a book called The Lies We Tell Ourselves. Even though I am only on chapter 2 it has helped me so much to reflect on that time and challenge myself to see things more clearly.
Yes it was an attack on your ability to see things for what they are. This is the most profound damage that was done to me. I will look into that book maybe. I’m new here so I’m just enjoying this for now and it’s a lot- a lot of “I’m not the only one!” and “it was bad!”. Thanks for sharing.
You are so right ChumpDchump- if this is the behavior after one year, imagine her behavior after several years.It does not feel like a gift Starting over, but as someone with decades of sunk costs with a serial cheater, revealing herself after one year is a gift.
OMG, if I had a time machine … right after killing Hitler, I would visit my 23-year-ol self and shake him by the collar and slap him across the face.
YEs, I think we all have these thoughts.
After which, since I’ve written a letter to my 20 year old self, can you make a side trip to visit me and drop it off? I’d be much obliged.
LOL, I’m sensing a business opportunity here …
If you stayed more than a couple of hours after finding out you wasted your time.
Im sure as your wife on her back naked, legs spread, her other man between them she was thinking of you. Nope.
You didn’t lose anything and looking back you can see you should have never married her.
We had been together for 6 years total, married for one, and when she got her shot she took it.
Not exactly. She had her shot when they were together in college. Then she had six years to end your relationship and pursue the other guy, if he was interested.
She said she was in love with both of us, but couldn’t imagine not having him in her life.
What did she “imagine” marriage was going to be? Two grooms on the cake, only one was invisible? You can have people in your life without physical or emtional affairs. They’re called friends. Has he remained in her life through your whole relationship? It’s possible you’re getting trickle truth, and the affair has been going on longer than the summer.
What really matters it that she led you on about her level of committment to you, and lied, probably much more than you know. Gotta wonder if the other guy knew she was engaged and got married. She says she’s “in love” with two people, but unless she lied to him too, only one of them knew she was in a relationship (marriage!) with someone else, and the one who had all the advantage of knowing the truth wasn’t you.
I suspect this is more than cake. Now that you know, I think she’s trying to keep you as Plan B if the affair with the ex-flame burns out again. None of this reflects on your worth as a person or partner. It just shows you who she is. Good luck moving forward.
She loves your checkbooks and security. Nothings else.
I love you are meaningless words.
Ahhhhh ….. a Cheater plays the old “I made a commitment to monogamy and then the one that got away came back on the market” gambit and then follows it up with the “Guess who is now in an open relationship that they didn’t know about and didn’t agree to” mindf*ck. I suspect that SO’s wife is hoping that he’ll “go along with it” so that she can avoid any adverse consequences for her.
When Ex-Mrs LFTT hit me with that I was absolutely certain that it wasn’t case of her loving both of us and not being able to choose. It was a case of her loving (and wanting to be with) her AP, whilst retaining all of the benefits of being married to me and avoiding any form of criticism or consequences for her being a Cheater.
Things did not go for her as she expected.
LFTT
Yes, I could feel the weight of a thousand advice columnists who would’ve gone with “hey, you can be modern and have an open marriage!”
Or the Save Your Marriage Industrial Complex selling hopium.
Just like they do in France!
HAHAHA
CL,
I am sure that the aforementioned advice columnists will think that I’m a reactionary old fart for turning Ex-Mrs LFTT’s kind and enlightened (and indeed modern) offer down.
Best decision I ever made.
LFTT
Untying a marriage (even a short marriage) requires a lot of logistics and paperwork.
This particular affair is still pretty new and most probably still in flux, so in this case “I love you both” might mean “I still want you! (and also him)” but it also might mean “I need the stable foundation of our life for a few more months while I’m figuring out the details of my exit plan. I’ll string you along with “I love you”s until I get all that sorted, and then I’m outta here”.
It’s hard to give up the assumption that what your partner says to you is the truth, but we’ve established that she lies (at least during her wedding vows, which are normally considered pretty important) so you need to treat all her statements skeptically. “I still love you” does not necessarily mean that she still loves you: it may just be good tactics.
Well said! Biding for time by saying I can’t make up my mind, or I want a recon, is just trying to get more time for a better outcome, frequently financial.
This right here. Particularly in the early days, it’s so hard to resolve that the person we have been in love with does not have our best interests at heart and is likely to be manipulative and dishonest.
As I have been saying-all promises, compacts, and accords deactivate at the moment of the betrayal and the end of the relationship(other than of course legal entanglements). She is no longer owed that stability. She made that choice when she strayed.
“it’s so hard to resolve that the person we have been in love with does not have our best interests at heart and is likely to be manipulative and dishonest.” I still have problems because I am so ASHAMED. But, I can talk sense into myself. And this place here helps a lot. But it’s TRUE that’s hard to integrate that we are “dumb” enouogh to have trusted someone so bad.
I struggle with the shame as well – but I try to remember it’s not MY shame it’s theirs.
My Stuart Smalley mirror mantra these days is “I am a good person.” I don’t lie, I don’t manipulate, I am helpful, thoughtful, loyal, kind. I am a good mom, good to others, good to the earth and animals. I don’t drink, don’t do drugs. I just live my life quietly in a my little happy corner.
Many people have been cruel to me throughout my life, and the knot I will constantly be untangling is that there is nothing deficient in me, no mistake I made, no personality defect so egregious that could possibly justify what happened.
I love your mantra.😊
I unfortunately struggled with alcohol dependence disorder after both my parents died horribly. But I got help and have been clean for 3 years. Sadly, after my parents died ( really really bad deaths) and I needed help, he saw an opportunity to demonize me and used that time when i was busy with taking care of the matter of my parents demise to hide money, date other women, constantly tell me I was crazy to think he was cheating, belittle and humiliate me and I was the one finally to ask him to leave because I knew it wasn’t ok to be so cruel. There was physical violence too, which everyone thinks is a big deal. But it was the endless emotional violence that really is hard to shake. He made me feel worthless. Anyway. All good now. Don’t miss him. He was wildly cruel to me. Kicking a dog when it’s down kind of person. He always had been that way, and it bothered me, but it also made me feel “bad” for him, feel for him, as it’s such a pathetic way to be. There is a saying “beware of pity”. It’s also the name of great novel. And it’s true. I always “felt” for him, for his cruel ways, as it was so often just – pathetic. Now I know. And I am free.
I am glad you are free from that monster. The dog kicking is a good analogy – would we ever blame the dog, or think that the dog should feel ashamed? Or does that dog deserve a safe home full of toys and all the treats?
It is a certain flavor of cheater that uses a “fog of war” technique to unleash so much confusing chaos into your life that you can’t keep tabs on your own life, let alone all the details of theirs. It is a situation that is particularly difficult to get away from, as they deplete your self worth drop by drop, and keep you in a state of chronic exhaustion.
I hope I didn’t offend with my comment about drugs and alcohol – I certainly had my own poor coping skills in my youth, and totally understand why people turn to substances to ease pain. You must be incredibly mighty to have come through all of those situations and into sobriety at the same time!
You did not offend me I just have seen a few other people here who are like me, people with substance dependency histories, but also victims of abusive partners and every now and then I just mention my health struggle. Love the “fog of war” comment. It was an ongoing thing, that whenever I was “weak” – pregnancies, health problems, life problem stuff, he would get furious or meaner. HAHA. Now I just laugh. Those were the times I tried to “teach him how to love” because he came from a terribly cruel family, to which he returned. Even in my darkest, earliest days of being abandoned, when i found out he was in cahoots with them (He hid it, they were very into “secret”) I thought Oh My God, back to them. Ha! I could laugh a bit at that, even at my weakest, because they were AWFUL. I feel sorry for my grown sons, one who is clearly barely in touch with him and doing well though, the other- more vulnerable one! Always the good choice!- I fear is being emotionally manipulated by him and his clan. But I do not talk about him, that has been a rule, so I don’t really know. And i can only offer so much advice to him as in “therapy is great!”. Anyway. The worst is over. And that’s what I try to focus on. My sons love me. I am doing well.
^^^ This guy gets it.
Somehow I doubt their future together involves them finding an apartment together and living as a happy throuple. Just for the pure fun of it, I would enjoy asking her the question “how do you expect our marriage to incorporate your additional other true love? Would we be week-on/week-off? Would we share one big bed? Can I get a girlfriend and have her live with us, too?” Sometimes the answer to bullshit is to ask really simple logistical follow-up questions and watch them squirm.
Mine had some very crazy ideas. Wanted to build a second home on our property for OW. Thought me and OW would be fast friends. Thought we’d do family dinners together and holidays with extended family. Sort of a Sister Wives concept except I’d no longer be a romantic partner, just his best friend.
All of it was completely insane, unhinged and not even remotely something I’d be ok with. He never asked.
In hindsight, I think he truly didn’t think any of that was a viable future. I don’t think he thought it through at all.
I think he went online and found women to flirt with and it pumped his ego. I don’t think he ever considered that he could get carried away and end up in a full blown affair nor did he think about how that would affect any of us.
I think he didn’t want to “BE” the guy that left his wife and kids for a younger model. Yet he became the guy that HAD a wife and kids AND also had a younger model. (the leaving part is a grey area… he didn’t leave voluntarily, but he also didn’t give her up. Refer to Sister Wives Concept above)
I think he didn’t want anyone to see him as the bad guy and so he didn’t HAVE a real plan as to how it would all work. Instead he focused on this magical fantasy version where we all got along like some kind of polygamous cult and then friends and family would see that he can’t be all that bad because *I* was onboard.
So, ChumpDChump, I think your idea of asking them ““how do you expect our marriage to incorporate your additional other true love? ” is brilliant. But in my specific case, he had ANSWERS for those questions. Not sane answers. But answers.
Wow, just wow.
This is so good. I think one would have to be in a pretty sane mindset to do this and I know I wasn’t. But – if one has the mental stability to do this – great idea.
This sucks and will suck for a while. But you know what will suck more? Staying with the scrunt. Next it may be, I found a really cool guy at work and really enjoy his penis, or the cute soccer dad that gives her the attention she craves. You pick, freedom or someone’s second option because she is a disordered person that allows other troubled men into her life.
Starting Over,
Welcome to ChumpNation! I think you’re going to like it here.
You made the right choice leaving. And I am proud of you for sticking to your guns and asserting a boundary for yourself!
It was on her to explain that she is in to polyamory, believes that she can love two people(spoilers: she can’t-that’s literally not how it works) and to find a way to either ethically conduct herself like that or, as most of us do, learn to live without our fantasy lives in favor of this thing called “reality.”
It would have been nice if these “people” would break these things to us before our relatives, Kay Jewelers, the Federal Government, and Jesus became involved in the proceedings.
I am a year past my D-Day now. I found that this was all a lot easier to deal with when I decreased(I will never quite stop-previous trauma be damned) asking what I did wrong or WHY she did the things that she did and started accepting more that she was ok with deliberately traumatizing me if that meant getting her jollies.
I am very sorry that this all happened to you and that she turned out not to be what she said she was. You are in the early days-you need to take care of yourself, shore up your supports, and give yourself grace. This is not an issue that is easy to talk about and you are going to experience things like victim blaming and remorse over protecting yourself. We are here for you!
This is not an adult you are dealing with. As our Fearless Leader indicated-she pulled this during the honeymoon period. I imagine what else she is capable of or not being all the way truthful about.
Mine pulled something really similar(wasn’t a previous flame-that I am aware of at least) and tried to litigate that she could love two people at once, that she “loves differently”, etc. She really didn’t like it when I brought up “servant of two masters will end up hating one and loving the other”-which is precisely what happened(and I have the therapy bills and the post count around these parts to prove it.) Even tried to get me to read a book on the matter to “change my mind” despite my making it pretty clear that I was not with that sort of thing.
She (your and mine) are welcome to their multiple loves and pick-me dance-offs. You and I simply will not be participating.
I am very sorry that this all happened to you and that she turned out not to be what she said she was. You are in the early days-you need to take care of yourself, shore up your supports, and give yourself grace. This is not an issue that is easy to talk about and you are going to experience things like victim blaming and remorse over protecting yourself. We are here for you! YES
My marriage to FW2 was only one year and a bit old when he started to see Euro-twat.
It felt devastating and humiliating that this could have happened so soon after we made reciprocal vows to each other, in front of loved ones. We seemed to have a blissful married life. It felt utterly inexplicable to me. My heart felt split in two.
WHO EVEN DOES THAT?
Fuckwits that’s who.
When she says she “loves” you both she’s using a butchered sense of the word “love”.
She’s dazzled by the mirror that each of you hold up to her – to her it all feels rather fabulous and kibble producing. It’s about what she can extract from each of you.
It’s not real love. Not for you, not for him and not even for herself. She wouldn’t know “love” (deep, true and abiding) if she was hit over the head with it.
Love is outside a Fuckwit’s realm of understanding. That’s a weird (and sad) thing in its own right.
It makes her a bit pathetic at the end of the day.
Imagine never knowing, feeling or experiencing real love? What an empty, interior life these Fuckwits must actually live.
During my DDay era and a year afterward (when separated under the same roof from FW), I lost two precious people in my life to cancer – a cousin and a best friend of 35 years. Both were like sisters to me.
I think of each very often. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to reflect on how I was loved, truly, deeply and unconditionally by both. How lucky I was to have had each in my life. How both have enriched my life in untold ways.
I think that’s precious love. I can see that it’s worlds away from what Fuckwit was offering up.
I’m so grateful now, 2 years on from it all, that I found out in the early days of marriage….Thank God for that.
There is no doubt in my mind that if I’d stayed – if the Hopium or his gaslighting, or both, had worked, that my situation would have become progressively much, much worse.
I feel no doubt and I’m so glad I’m out. In time you will be too.
I heard exactly that about his brand new soulmate..”I love you both in separate ways. My love for you is separate from my love for her” Also this is a good one… “let me go spend a week with her to see if it’s real love or infatuation.” (Coworker, serial homewrecker.) In fact, he was such a great guy he wanted to bring her back home to meet me, cos “I’d like her too”. I told him I wasn’t an option or a menu choice and he should just GO and then I filed for divorce immediately. And THIS one during the 3.5 yearlong divorce hell but before total no contact, when he said he was a “serial monogamist” after dumping the loony coworker cos she was a violent histrionic, “I reconnected with my high school girlfriend.” This from a man in his 60s after we had been married for 30 years. Now I have no idea what he’s doing as 100% no contact is really the best option since we don’t have minor children.
Its quite mind bending when you realize what was really going on behind the scenes in the ” I love you both” nonsense. There’s the high pressure pick me dance competition you the clueless chump never knew you had been entered in with all its dazzling kibble glitter for the FW then the real kick in the teeth is the ” I know you’ll like him so much” gobbledygook. When my career created a need to move about 100 miles away from the house FW had insisted we purchase ( because I later found out it was.just two streets over from where FW knew shmoopie Dr Slickdick had bought an estate) She urged me to become.one.of the.libidinous doctor’s male.patients with the plausible excuse of accompanying me when I needed an office visit or.procedure. The doctor knew exactly who I was as he had been invited to our house for several social gatherings in the.past. All the while I was completely in the dark. It became clear later that FW would arrange hook ops with the doctor after I drove back to work ( we invariably drove separately )and FW ” stayed behind to see friends in her old stomping grounds” This all happened multiple decades ago long before the internet, social media and before codes of ethical practice were set in place in the medical world.
Oh and by the way, fifty years later, I discovered long after the doctor’s death, that my eldest child is the biological son of the doctor. What a legal mess that would have created, had I known of everything in real time.
I’m so sorry these two dreadful people did this to you….
Unbelievable. and yet, it happened. sickening. So sorry.
Oh my goodness. What disgusting displays of deceit. I’m so sorry.
She tricked you into being his patient?? And he went along with that???
And didn’t tell you about the paternity of your child???
I am so very sorry. This is truly horrible. I hope you and your eldest are okay now, and that she is long gone from your life.
This is a horrible story, I can’t imagine the shock of finding out about your eldest. I hope you and he are still bonded by familial love if not by dna.
Dear Starting – if definitely may not feel like it, but you lucked out. She showed what she was early on and you didn’t waste 10, 20, 30 years or more and have kids with this crappy person. Cold comfort maybe, but believe me….so many of the stories of the investment of many years and building up a life with children only have it be blown up by some cheating asshole, are heartbreaking. You’ve avoided all that!!!! Hopefully you never meet anyone like her again. Be sure that you consider why you might have been attracted to this person enough to spend even 6 years with her and marry her so you never fall in with someone like her again. We can never be 100% sure but it’s called Fixing Your Picker, and many of us need to do that. I sure did. For a long time I picked one dud after another – they weren’t all cheaters, but they were not marriage material. NEITHER IS SHE.
I have noted that it’s not uncommon for a partner or spouse to cheat or leave on two occasions – right around or shortly after marriage, or during pregnancy or after having a baby. I think that speaks to basic lack of actual commitment and willingness to be a) a spouse or b) a parent. Or both. I suspect the college flame was an excuse to bail on your marriage. She doesn’t have the maturity for it. A lot of people don’t now, much of our society is extremely immature and unfortunately….they stay that way. During the honeymoon time of the first year or 2 of marriage, no one should be thinking of other lovers. That’s just crazy. That indicates a basic lack of willingness to be in a committed, permanent relationship. The fact that you were together for 5 years prior indicates to me that the college flame is an excuse to escape or she wouldn’t have stayed with you that long as a girlfriend – unless she was cheating during that time and you just didn’t know it, which is possible. But she definitely cannot handle long term commitment and what better way than to waffle between 2 people? Well, there IS another way which is just to find a THIRD person but I assume College Guy was just more convenient. Sometimes this situation of leaving for an old flame indicates that we were always Part B but that doesn’t seem as likely to me with such a long relationship prior to marriage…..I think she just didn’t want to be committed and if she had married College Guy, she would have cheated on him too, if they married.
As for loving two people….well you can love 100 people, I guess, if you have the energy, but how many can you actually COMMIT to? Consider the time, energy, activity involved with one person in marriage (or committed partnership). Now DOUBLE that. It’s a very different definition of love and marriage then most of us could possible have and the more you pursue multiple people, the less intimacy you have with any of them. Romantic, partner intimacy can only really be pursued with one person. Even with deep friendships, like the fictional Sherlock Holmes and Watson, usually involve 2 people. Someone who wants more than that is greedy, wants to feed his/her ego, or they’re unable to commit so they play people off on each other to avoid being too deeply involved with either. Moreover, marital commitment is a DECISION you make to put this one person first and unite yourself with them in decisions, living arrangements, family, etc. It takes a lot of work and you really can’t effectively do that with more than 1 person. Multiple person arrangements are a dodge and in general don’t work – often times they are just power displays where one person has centrality over the others who vie for attention, affection, sex, money, time, etc.
Sorry for the amount of text, I’m a long winded person, but I like to get all my thoughts out. Bottom line, as I say, is you are lucky to get out so early. And SHE is the one who looks bad because who bails on marriage after only a year because she’s “in love with 2 people”. That’s bullshit. Be sure when people ask if you want to give them any answer, don’t lie for her or excuse her. Just tell them right out, she wanted to be with someone else because….that’s the truth.
Good luck, I really do think, as painful as it is, that you had a fortunate escape. DO NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THIS WOMAN AGAIN – it’s never going to turn out right, she’ll cheat on you again. No Contact is the only way to go because I think she will be back after you as this other guy is a fantasy and this woman has fundamental issues with commitment.
No contact is a the first step to healing. SO important.
Notice how the focus is upon how she feels…. She caused harm by cheating and then wants the focus to be upon who she “loves.” The only person she really “loves” is herself. Get out as soon as you can! Run, don’t walk!!
dear SO,
sorry that you’re here, but here you are. you married a fuckwit and know it. i think you’ll learn a lot in the next year, about yourself, about narcissism, and about the next phase of your life.
it’s early days, so surround yourself with a few good friends, a good therapist, and a good lawyer for the legal stuff. also, please see your GP for a physical and STI testing, including blood borne illnesses like hepatitis. you really don’t know what your X (and her AP) has been up to sexually, and need to cover all your bases.
sleep is hard so exercise regularly, it helps. so does a regular schedule that you can realistically stick to, but there will be turbulence usually at 3 a.m. when you get to ruminating.
in time, you’ll figure out that your X has no empathy thus no capacity to love, so the question of “can she love two people” becomes irrelevant. she can’t love anyone because she has no capacity for love. things will be become clearer. you will see through her attempts to manipulate and simply say “no” to her various requests.
you’re younger, so you can change your cell phone number and go no contact. i, unfortunately, was married for 32 years and have 2 kids with a guy who has no empathy thus no capacity to love. i have a little bit of contact and it sucks. my kids still live with me and i hear about their dad a little bit, and i wish i didn’t TBH. it’s easier when you have no contact.
in solidarity,
damnitfeelsbadtobeachumpster
Great advice.
“Love” is a funny word. I love my children, and I also love chocolate chip cookies. Obviously I love my children by a different order of magnitude than I love chocolate chip cookies.
It seems SO’s FW loves people the way I love chocolate chip cookies. I love chocolate chip cookies today, but I also love Oreos, snickerdoodles, and – you can roll your eyes at this one – sometimes I just have a hankering for a warm oatmeal raisin cookie. I love cookies, and it would seem unfair to confine myself to one type of cookie for the rest of my life. Furthermore, if you made me eat nothing but chocolate chip cookies for the rest of my life, I might even grow to hate chocolate chip cookies.
That’s because cookies are not people, and they don’t have feelings. That seems simple and obvious to me, but for a person who lacks empathy, other people are just “cookies” to them.
Dear Starting, I know I’ve already said a lot but there are a couple of things I REALLY want to emphasize, because they are THAT IMPORTANT.
I think she will try to come back to you, at least on the surface (perhaps secretly maintaining contact with College Guy) and you have to be prepared for this. DO NOT ALLOW THIS. DO NOT EVER TAKE HER BACK. EVER. Tomorrow, 6 months from now or 10 years from now. EVER. You have seen what she really is and what her values are. This is NOT going to change – people actually rarely change and usually only if actual death is an issue. If things do not work out with College Guy or she gets better kibbles from you, or she wants more time to plan a landing….she will try to get back. Along with that:
DO NOT EVER HAVE SEX WITH HER AGAIN. EVER. It is quite likely she will try to get pregnant. You DO NOT want this, then you would be tied to her and have financial hooks in you for at least 18 years, PLEASE, don’t think with your little head or let her cajole or tease you into sex. YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS. Not even ONE time for old time’s sake, don’t get drunk with her, you shouldn’t even see her again if at avoidable. People like your wife are fantastic liars and charmers and they can be very seductive and manipulative. They know how to play you. Aside from the risk of STDS, it is very likely she would try to get pregnant at this point, and you may think that’s unlikely but you’d be amazed at what people will do to hold on to a Chump.
DO NOT GO TO A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR WITH HER. EVER. Or ANY counseling with her – it’s all a trap. Marriage counselors’ measure of success is keeping marriages together and that usually involves having Chumps agree to continue eating the shit sandwich. It’s about keeping the marriage together which generally only benefits the Cheater….not the Chump. Personal individual therapy by yourself is okay, of course, but NEVER go to any kind of therapy with her. It’s a waste of time and it’s a mental trap. And don’t waste time DISCUSSING WHAT SHE THINKS OR FEELS OR WANTS EITHER BECAUSE SHE’LL EITHER LIE TO YOU OR SHE’S FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD AND YOU’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND HER. It’s a waste of time for you and another trap.
Again, DO NOT EVER TAKE HER BACK. EVER. You WILL regret it. There are so many people here who had a cheating boyfriend/girlfriend before marriage or during the early marriage and took them back and then….10, 20, 30 years later they’ve had a miserable life, they are frequently married to serial cheaters (which I think yours will turn out to be) and there are kids and homes and finances, and it’s a mess to unwind. You are getting off early and lucky. Accept that and GO NO CONTACT. The less contact you have with her and whatever flying monkeys or Switzerland friends she has, the better. And don’t listen to ANYONE who urges reconciliation. My mother went through that as she realized immediately after marriage she made a terrible mistake and she was talked into staying by her mother and relatives and 30 fucking absolutely miserable years later….she was freed by his death. Don’t make the same mistake.
SEE A LAWYER AND GET THE DIVORCE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. DO NOT DELAY OR LISTEN TO PLEAS FOR MORE TIME. Don’t waste any more time on this or give her any more time to act against you or try to re-enamor you. Because she obviously was fucking around in your first year of marriage, you might even be able to get an ANNULMENT, which might be even better. CHECK IT OUT.
I have to emphasize these things because everyone thinks that they or their relationship are the exception…..you’re not, no one is. Keep Chump Lady’s book by you like the Bible and read the stories on this site, the Archives. That’s the real answer. STAY STRONG!!!!
This is amazing. Bravo! YES to all of this!!!!
Thank you. It sounds like our chump Starting has his head on straight, but I tend to get mommish and I’ve seen so many people start off strong and then weaken and try to recon or go back with them and it’s almost always a fail. There are so many stories on here of people who were cheated on while dating, or just married, and instead of breaking up, they kept going and 10, 20, 30 years later….it’s all comes to a head in a terrible life explosion with so much more at stake. If they’ll cheat on you at the beginning of your relationship when you should be so much in love and only thinking of and planning for each other….they’ll do it throughout your relationship. Their view of love and marriage is totally different from ours and that doesn’t change..
One hundred percent. I particularly loved the all caps on all the things that need all caps, especially marriage counselling. When I found this place, it was the first time I felt validation for my TERRIBLE experiences in counselling. Only one person I know had a good experience, because the therapist was like – No, I refuse to do this because he/she is not on board/committed to making this work. The therapist quit! I referred to the time in marriage counseling as abuse enhancement with my friends and with myself! And now here we have reconciliation industrial complex, which I love. It’s just a business of feeding off of people at their most vulnerable. Garbage.
She could probably “love” 3 people, or 10, or 1000 at once – because to her “love” just means wanting adoration from someone.
As CL often says, they’re not that deep.
A dear friend said one thing and said it instantly when I told him I found out Traitor Ex had a secret sexual double life.
“It’s cruel.”
Most people have no trouble drawing a line between individuals who are cruel to animals and serial killers.
Yet for some reason, most people do not respect the cruelty that infidelity and betrayal is. We still doubt ourselves when someone shows themselves to be capable of cruelty, and at the same time believe them to be zen masters of intimate partnerships.
You can’t be both.
Cheating is cruel.
Cheating is cruel.
Cheating is cruel.
And I don’t believe someone capable of cruelty knows a dadgum thing about love.
Very good new Netflix documentary about the Laci Peterson case. Her body and the body of the baby were found twenty minutes from where I live, and that case was in my face and haunted me. I never had any doubt he was the killer. But same deal then as now; most people see no connection between cheating, lying, and betrayal and a motive for murder (it is very much a motive for murder) and by doing so completely dismiss the damage, pain, and suffering of the victims. Until it happens to them…..
Cheating is cruel.
I don’t consider myself any kind of expert on love, but I know that cruelty indicates that someone knows zero about it.
I call it ‘Love crime’. It’s seems to be 10,000 times more common and more brutal than ‘hate crime’, yet the latter is blasted online by every channel and is enough to burn down a dozen cities and shut down a nation for one incident, while the former is just a yawn and a quick paragraph in the back page. There’s no hope for society.
Interesting detail from the documentary I never knew:
Amber Frey and Sharon Rocha were interviewed for the film. Amber recalled that Sharon had asked to meet her and Amber agreed. She said Sharon had a calendar with her and she wanted to know if Scott was really working on days he said he was or if he was with Amber.
I have been in the habit of keeping my wall calendars instead of a diary. I still have the wall calendar from the DDay year and the year prior, and did the same thing as Sharon, mother whose daughter was betrayed and killed. I needed to spend as much time and energy as I did piecing together my reality. It was a way of breaking through the denial and seeing who he was instead of who he presented himself to be. Writing is good for that.
At the end, Sharon shares that she has received countless letters from women who found out their husbands were not who they thought they were and left because of Laci.
I don’t want to ignore our guy chumps here. All genders are capable of deception, and murder. Sharon Rocha is just sharing her personal experience, which of course is not the only experience of betrayal.
My marriage vows said “forsake all others”. My therapist, who saw Traitor Ex and I before marriage and after, said that it’s normal and human to feel attraction to others, BUT YOU DON’T ACT ON IT if you are in an exclusive committed relationship. Acting on it is like watering a plant. The plant you water grows and the plant you neglect dies. There are billions of people on the planet with the access to others like never before in human history. It’s unreasonable to expect that you will never feel attraction. It’s extremely reasonable to expect someone to keep agreements they made with you.
I was taught this axiom a very long time ago. I agree and it’s been my experience. The times I felt attracted to someone, I headed in the opposite direction and the feelings died. I made a commitment when I took wedding vows and I kept them.
Too many people are dunces when it comes to relationships. I don’t want to be one, date one, or stay married to one.
There’s no bigger red flag than someone cheating or being a side piece. Leave the dunces to each other. Alone is light years better than being tethered to a dunce.
It’s unlikely that the old boyfriend is on the same page or that the cheating wife would ask him to accept that her existing marriage be prioritized.
I just watched a scene in this movie about infidelity
Hope Gap https://g.co/kgs/BhLGXMj.
The chump simply lets herself into the OW’s home while her husband of 30 years is there having a cup of tea. The conversation which takes place is gut wrenching, but the reciprocity of broken boundaries is also startling. It’s the best portrayal of cognitive dissonance I’ve ever seen.
Thank you all for the replies and advice. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s heard this before, although I guess it does suck others have been here before.
Like I said in the email I left, and I don’t intend to go back. This has helped me process it all a little bit better.
You’re doing all the right things! I wish I had an answer for the pain, but I don’t. I remember feeling, literally, like I was on fire. I also weighted 110 pounds ( normally a healthy 130) and my sons were so worried. Someone here talked about getting sleep, having people who can just hold your pain with you, and other self care stuff. I know self care can sound cliche but it is real. I would love to have done better at it, but I did the best I could with what happened. Eat, sleep, and surround yourself with the ones who love you. Someone here also mentioned the love she had from a cousin she was close to, and a dear friend I think. Find your people. Coming here and finding this group has been good for me, too. I felt alone as I did not have any friends who were divorced. Now I have this place.
Yes, this site is great to help you get your head straight. Cheats do have a diabolical ability to confuse and even spin your head right off your shoulders! CL and CN can always stop the spinning and put the old noggin back on properly again though, thanks be to God!
This kind of thing is always one sided too. We know how crazy these pricks get if they think the chump has a side piece.
My ex had the balls to demand to know if I was “cheating” on him. It’s in quotes because I’d found out about his whore ex gf on the side and dealt with his nasty attitude and stonewalling, and the signed divorce papers were sitting on the judge’s desk waiting for his signature.
I laughed in his face. No, I wasn’t actually seeing anyone but I got a chuckle out of him thinking I was. He was paranoid that he could be easily replaced. As it turned out, he not only was easy to replace…..it was easy to upgrade. Lol.
Could only be faithful for a year. Wow. I guess after a couple of years of frequenting this site, nothing should surprise me.
My guess is she cheated before. They usually do. You don’t just get these ideas in the first year of marriage.
Nope, she sounds like she’s never been faithful for a day… certainly not emotionally.
Cheaters were always cheaters at heart, it was just a question of opportunity and avoidanxe of consequences.
Not responding to this post but checking in to recommend my fellow chumps watch Fake with Asher Keddie. I am only part way through but gawd blimey the process of blinding oneself to betrayal, not trusting one’s instincts, the therapist encouraging the victim to turn her alarm bells off and “just trust”, will surely resonate with many of you.
Ooh that sounds good Weedfree, what channel is it on? If it’s on the Beeb or ITV I wouldn’t be able to watch it but usually one of the Irish channels or Netflix Ireland shows UK dramas after a while. I’m watching El Chapo on Netflix at the moment, he was a right thundering FW, 2 “wives” and a fancy piece and he raped a young one as well! Ugh!
In Australia it is on Prime, Paramount or YT. I’ve got a long day at work now as binge watched it. Someone did their research on gaslighting, crazymaking, future faking etc as the show nailed it. There is a part where she goes to work and googles “do compulsive liars believe their own lies”. Very familiar.
I better get stuck into El Chapo now. Maybe CL could have a Friday challenge recommending a book, show or movie that might resonate with CN.
I hope it comes on the Netflix, it sounds just my sort of thing! I’m enjoying El Chapo- it’s more about his rise to power in the drug world than how he treats women, but the misogyny and his regarding women as things for his comfort, convenience and use is definitely evident!
I think that’s a great idea! A CL&CN book, film and tv programme club!
My ex did this. He didn’t want to leave the marriage but unilaterally decided we would be polyamorous and told me he loved his girlfriend and also wanted to be free to sleep with anyone he chose. Funny thing it turned out my feelings weren’t a priority. Neither were the kids. Or my life.
Run, Starting Over. This one is bad news.
It occurs to me that these arrangements – I want you BOTH! or I believe in POLYAMORY!!!! generally only benefit the cheater. I never hear any arguments about how this is going to improve life for the chump in any way. In fact, when chump tries to date outside the lines once FW has brought this shit up, they usually lose their minds….because multiple partners only belongs to THEM. It’s always a one way street.
In one of the early Robert Parker novels about Spenser, a detective, his beloved girl friend has an affair with some guy (it’s been a minute since I read the book). What stuck with me is what Spenser tells her. “I can’t make you give him up, but I can make you give me up.”
That’s what we have to do–make the cheater give us up because we’ve left, for good.
The Issue isn’t if she can be in love with two people, it’s if she can commit to one. And it sounds like she can’t.
And I want to wear a size 0, but it’s not happening in this lifetime.
Funny how this FW ‘thinks’ she can have whatever she wants. I guess that’s true for all of them.