Did You Compare Yourself to the Affair Partner?
The Friday Challenge question is: Did you compare yourself to the affair partner(s)? Did you compete with some phantom person? Or know too much?
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In the early excruciating days of chumpdom, I tell folks not to compare themselves to the affair partner(s). Step out of the triangle (rectangle, hexagon, dodecahedron… I never tire of this line…) and quit the pick me dance.
Yet some comparison with affair partners is usually inevitable.
Even if it’s along the lines of WTF, I don’t wear dentures! Or my boobs are REAL. Or I can’t believe my FW’s taste in pr****tutes.
It’s all part of untangling the skein. You want to know how this happened. Maybe you read a stupid Reconciliation Industrial Complex book that blamed the affair on your deficiencies. Alas, had you only sparkled brighter. Been more game. Been a different race, body build, had 17 orifices. You know, DIFFERENT.
But you couldn’t meet the FWs needs (often unexpressed, you were supposed to intuit those) that they wanted 17 orifices. But Trixie can. You’re not really sure about the physics involved, but Trixie is everything you are not. In your imagination, Trixie never has a bad day. Her life is romance and the best s*x ever.
Until you realize, one day (it’s a Tuesday), that this entire f*cktangle has nothing to do with you.
It’s not about what you are, or aren’t. It’s about your partner’s lousy character and a Schmoopie’s willingness to believe they’re Special. And the FW’s lousy character is just in service of a Love That Is Bigger Than Them Both.
But today, and for a future podcast (please oh please leave me a voice message here!) tell me how you compared yourself and how you got past it. Help the newbie chumps stuck in the compare and contrast phase of suffering.
You’re fine. You’re enough! TGIF!
I have been reading for about five years, since my D-Day, and this site, these words, and the comments have helped me tremendously. (So Thank you to Tracy and all of you!!) This was the first post that pushed me to press the register button… I really am mostly meh. But this is the part that still messes with my head on bad days. My FW seriously traded down, in all aspects. Nothing special about my story, it’s a mish mash of things told here, not very sensational, FW just decided to move on one day and I was the last to know. She’s everything I’m not. Meek, underachieving, a bad cook (per my kids), boring (per friends that have met her). The comparison is hard to avoid. But when I go down that rabbit hole- I try to stop thinking of her, and remind myself that this was about him. And his inadequacies.
The OWs seem just like me- smart, attractive, accomplished. Just less in the know about his flaws and thus better able to feed his ego. Fresh victims for his bottomless capacity to lie to make himself look better than he is.
Alas, I was unaware for the eight years of Cheaty McLiarface’s first affair that I was in competition. I was conditioned with intermittent reinforcement as a means of coercive control. So, when he treated me like a nuisance in his life I just rode it out as usual. After all he loved me and my irritating behaviors were causing his irritation. Years later I caught him comparing me to Joyful Jil. Ending the comparison by stating that I “have some amazing good qualities too.” Those “amazing good qualites” I would later learn are that he considers me a good mother and a good housekeeper. These creatures are nothing if not transactional, completely lacking in the capacity to truly emotionally connect and bond.
” I was conditioned with intermittent reinforcement as a means of coercive control.” This was me. Mine left for someone younger, richer, socially connected, big breasts unlike mine. He had gotten new teeth- I found the dentist who would do it without breaking his jaw, he had terrible teeth- and in the 20 years we were marries, worked hard and was finally making a lot of money. I miss nothing about him. He was insanely cruel to me and I think on that- she is with a man who viciously hurt not just another woman, but the mother of 2 of his kids..that is who she has. Sometimes I think- he probably treats her differently because of her better “value”. Ha. I don’t care – it’s creepy and pure objectification. I take better care of my fancy jewelry than my beach jewelry! But the fact that I was trained like a dog- intermittent rewards is a dog training technique – sticks with me. I can and do- not always, but more than ever since I joined this group! Thank you Tracy and all the contributors!- relish my freedom from abuse. I am scarred, but I am free and alive. He was killing me, and there are some people here who feel the same. Death by humiliation, neglect and malice was escaped!
I did for a hot minute, then realized that I didn’t need to. I knew what he was chasing. She was younger and never had children. She wasn’t prettier, smarter, or any other qualifier that someone would refer to. He wanted to run away from his responsibilities and live the easy life. What he got was someone who had been married twice before and cheated on each husband for the next. Quite the catch, huh? They are married from what I understand and living 1000 miles away. I am meh, don’t care they can have each other and have to watch over their shoulders for the rest of their time together.
I have learned, as you probably know,that cheaters typically cheat down, or trade down. My FW was a serial and multiple cheater. Countless betrayal objects over nearly 4 decades. Once I began to learn about his cheating, I learned something quite common. These people had qualities I certainly lacked, and never wanted to possess. Things like alcoholism, arrests and convictions (yikes! Mug shots), STIs and STDs, lifelong rampant promiscuity and prostitution. Yes, I didn’t have these things and he was/perhaps is still attracted and aroused by this stuff. So, perhaps look at this comparison. I was unable (and unwilling to try) to drink him under the table. But a betrayal object who could drink all night was irresistible to him. I clearly saw that the characteristics I lacked only highlighted his perversity. He was not attracted to a highly educated, fit and trim, successful person. He wasn’t looking for a good-looking woman with a 401k and stock options. Whatever he stumbled upon in the alley was what he wanted. So, folks, remember this…it is a badge of honor to be rejected by a FW like this. Look for me, running the Colfax next month! I am the little silver-haired gal burning up the 70+ bracket. You are mighty for NOT being what these FWs chased .
My ex husband said his AP was stupid, and he liked that because he wanted a new partner who would accept his decisions and never question him. Hilarious because his online AP, with giant inflatable breasts and makeup that made her look like Minnie Mouse, was a fake, and he’d fallen for an online catfish scam.
I found out because he left a real estate listing open on our bedroom computer, with an email asking her to move in with him.
He told everyone that I threw him out because I was jealous that he was giving financial advice to an online colleague. Once I learned he was claiming this, it was easy to disprove because I’d found and saved their emails and receipts, including bank and wire transfers, showing the tens of thousands of dollars he’d sent.
He traded WAY down.
It has helped me enormously that my FW traded down. She is older, uglier, a hypochondriac and less well educated or qualified than I am. By comparison I am slim, healthy and attractive. I also have a kind and caring personality. Hers is fake and shallow (something my FW recognises from his own behaviour).
My family all love me and have taken my side and he has lost everything. For him the non stop lying and cheating (something I hid from myself better than he hid it from me) was his excitement in the boring landscape of family life.
Neverthless I torture myself from time to time with doubts. Is this 3 times married, cheater with married men and giver of sex on the first meeting kinder than me, better wife material than me?
Judging by my FWs desperate attempts to reconcile with me and his steadfast belief I was only ‘toying’ with him with my determination to divorce, the answer is no. He’s already found himself a new shiny thing behind this woman’s back, and, despite that, he looks and sounds miserable.
I think it would have been harder for me if I had seen them happy and in love and making a future together. Then the self doubt would have solidified into a belief I was somehow lacking, even though I know I wasn’t and it was all on him. As it is he is in my rear vew mirror and I am never reversing the divorce bus.
When the affair first happened, I definitely compared myself to her. It bothered me that she even looked sort of like me (dyed red hair, prominent nose). Was I not as glamorous? Was I not as fun? I was definitely smarter (he bragged about her being dumb, and I wondered if she had any idea how he really talked about her).
I should have realized there simply is no comparison, because *I don’t sleep with other women’s husbands*.
I got my nose fixed years ago, and now I wear my natural medium-golden-brown hair mixed with gray. But the most important difference of all continues to be, *I don’t sleep with other women’s husbands*.
No, there was nothing I admired about her; morally, demeanor, personality, or looks. Also, I was very busy working full time, part time and taking college classes at night. Surviving, it left very little time for me to obsess about either of them.
Of course in the early days I hated them both; but once I could stand again it was easy to see them for who/what they were.
I will never forget the pain of betrayal; but I was so blessed to be free of him. Sometimes it takes a while to see that.
This topic I wanted to talk about today! Thank you CL..actually all of them are 🎯.
With both my cheaters, I knew they were treating me like spoiled left overs in the back of the frig but WHY?? So both cheating husbands had basement closets for years. However the last one was a doozy with his lies. The biggest one was when I texted him at work and said he was acting exactly like my #1 ex when he had an OW for years.
My #2 Cheater waited 8 hours to text me back and then said..he had not found anyone as good as me YET!!! Nice compliment that other chumps would take courage from.
But that just loaded my gun ..
I didn’t find out until months later the exact extent of his cheating, that he said said I deserved by the way..
But the good news is, I had a lawyer lined up and was ready to lock my abusive husband out BEFORE HE COULD FIND a higher class AP to dump me properly for.
He had to go on line and find someone who was from another country and needed a work permit to keep going.
Oops..
She’s 10 years younger and a lot thinner. They like to rub this in by sending my 9 year old home OW’s hand-me-downs (AP is the same size as a 9 year old), and having OW show up to events for the kids dressed like a streetwalker (we’re in Canada. It was -25C. She came to the Christmas concert for a bunch of 6 year olds in a mini skirt and tube top… with her midriff out).
It bothered me for a little while, but honestly it’s just so transparent and ridiculous that I couldn’t take it seriously for long. She has continued to be an attention-seeking garden tool, rubbing up on dads at the kids’ activities, and moving a known mate poacher (a family friend from my side of the family) into their home. I love this for my ex. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. 🙂
There were nameless others but the Triffid and the Klingon got the ‘prizes’.
The Triffid had been there since the start, offering herself like an ice cream to a toddler but lived overseas so not a serious problem at first.
Loud, bossy and desperate- no I wasn’t like her at all.
The Klingon was part of a new committee that fired my boss and I because we didn’t put up with their bullshit – I took them to the tribunal and won damages.
I was truly deeply shocked when I found out she was the one- of all people.
A known liar, procurer of community funds and all round arsehole.
I couldn’t deny the superb matching of personalities there though.
They both won what they deserve.
I dont know if it would have felt “better” to have a spouse trade up or down but I feel like Im somewhat in the minority of seeing that (objectively) one could make an argument that Susan of Seattle was a trade-up.
She was single, well educated, corporate success with double the income I would ever see, polyglot, treasured by her family, and she had straight hair.
My whole life has included a battle with my curly hair. I have occasionally landed on a good cut that optimizes my curls but mostly, I fought the sort of frizziness that society sees as ugly across the board. The day I met her, right after she met me and shook my hand commenting that it was so nice to meet me, she soon turned around and I saw her smooth, straight hair and I internally winced.
Cheater moved away from me/kids for 1.5 years and claimed he was not involved with OW during that time, but (even though I accepted his unlikely story then) I now see that it was a huge lie. I think his return 18 months later spelled the end of their relationship but I have no idea who broke up with who or why. I know now that it doesnt matter but will take my curiosity about it to Purgatory where I expect to meet Cheater again.
If I were to guess what commonality the women (who I later realized) he likely cheated with … I think they were all nulliparous – they had never delivered a child from their bodies. He really wanted kids but seemed discontented by the state of my body after the second child was born. Im guessing that I took in the role of “breeding mare” and he set out to enjoy some strange.
I believe that “giving birth” is apt description for the process…we give much of ourselves and I see it as nearly a holy process. That a man would treat the woman who birthed his children as less-than because she changed in the process is abhorrent to me.
So while I felt less-than Susan of Seattle for a while, I worked my way out of that thinking. Add to that I had many of the traits and characteristics that he often told me he wanted in a partner. My only lingering dysfunction is watching out for Susan in airports when I travel (she has always lived thousands of miles from me) although I have no idea what I would say to her if I saw her.
Pettiness warning: I really saw my cheater as handsome but he had inferiority issues about being short, light-brown, middle class, and leaving the military at a lower rank than his peers. He always accused me of wanting a tall white guy. I really, truly never for second considered leaving him for a tall white guy. After his death, I married a tall, white, high-military-ranking trustfund baby who is a real joy. We revel daily in our mutual good-fortune of finding each other and I am smugly content that if cheater and I had divorced (rather than him dying) and he later met my second husband, Cheater would have been annoyed on some world-class level.