Did You Have More Than One Cheating Partner?
Did you have more than one cheating partner in your life? It’s hard to trust again after being chumped. But when you put your heart out there and it happens again? It’s devastating. What next? A permanent twitch and trust issues?
An new chump asks:
Dear Chump Lady. Your posts make me laugh out loud which takes a little bit of the sting out of my situation. Sadly, I too am a Chump, having put the clues together last summer. He flatly denies it with a ‘side’ of ‘its all in your head.
I am 60 years old in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting for the next bit of ‘fuckduggery’ to occur before I leave. We retired out to a foreign country and I am going to need to make a few trips back to take home all my things. The ordeal of moving my stuff and his anger throughout the process is holding me back.
I also have some hopium going on — hoping he’s gonna get a character transplant all the while he is hoping for the appearance of his next affair partner. His hope is no doubt more realistic than mine.
His previous fuckbuddy is now long distance due to a move he initiated. However, I discovered a cellphone on our Bluetooth which is undoubtedly his burner phone which he uses i am sure to get long distance kibbles.
I am taking your advice to consult with a lawyer when we return home. I’m not sure what i am asking you other than to express how hard this is. When I met him at 52 I thought I had beaten the odds to find a great second partner after getting rid of a previous abusive partner. The main difference is that this one had money. Do you have any words of encouragement for me?
Dear New Chump,
Encouragement comes after leaving the cheater and gaining the life. Right now, I just have advice for you, which is: GET OUT OF LIMBO. Talk to a lawyer!
He’s isolated you, moving you to another country, while cheating on you. Think about that. He was okay to let you invest that deeply, while enriching himself at the pussy buffet. Your vulnerability wasn’t a blip on his radar. And he responds to your trauma with gaslighting. You have absolutely nothing to work with.
But because you’ve had more than one cheating partner, you might stay stuck thinking everyone is a devil, and better this devil that you know.
Listen, being alone is better than retirement with Beelzebub. They don’t get character transplants. He’s gotten to old age crafting his double life. (But not the finer points of Bluetooth connections.)
It. Does. Not. Get. Better.
With him. But with you? It can only get better. I’m a two-time loser at picking a life partner. I wear the chump crown. When I got out of a marriage with a serial cheater, the stress illness went away. I built a new life. Had a lovely garden with fruit trees. My son could walk to school. It was a peaceful kingdom.
I wish you a peaceful kingdom.
Moving on doesn’t mean partnering up again, or right away, or even ever. But I can tell you from personal experience from running this blog and marrying a fellow chump, that not every partner is cheating and deceiving you. For one devil, there are thousands of other people, internet strangers, who hold each other up.
Good people exist. Good partners exist. You don’t have one.
Regarding isolation, I’m so glad CL jumped right on that one. As soon as I read “we retired out to a foreign country,” the alarm bells in my lizard brain started blaring like a klaxon. That is one of my biggest red flags in a relationship – is my partner trying to separate me from family, friends, or other sources of support.
My ex FW and I moved half way across the world for what was meant to be 2 years for his work. I never wanted to be away from my family for too long but I wanted to support him. Then he got a job in Europe so we moved again-when I had an 8 week old baby! He was never home and he was “working” etc etc. I begged to go back home after 3 years there but we had to keep following his jobs. At DDay he admitted he was fucking hookers and had girlfriends when we lived in Europe. I was always home with our baby. Now I’ve been overseas for 25 years and it’s only been the last 2 I’ve legally been able to leave the country with my daughter (he wouldn’t give permission). This isolation was a perfect abusive strategy to keep me off kilter and without my deep support. It’s part of the abuser playbook and it’s awful.
Yep. And a lot of times they’ll frame it as “rescuing” you or taking you somewhere that will just be sooooo much better for your mental health.
Moving is fine! Good, even. But you and your partner(s) should always plan out how you’ll be able to keep in contact with your outside support structures. It should always be a consideration.
ALWAYS a bad idea…..that’s the classic tactic for many psychos (who also generally cheat) – isolate the victim.
When I was in college, I fell madly in love with Jason. After college, Jason and I moved in together, and during those years, he cheated constantly. I finally got the strength to dump him and move away, but it was painful.
Fast forward six years, and I met the second man I’d fall in love with. He knew what Jason had done to my heart and promised that would never happen with him. We got married, and after 20 years together, I found out that he had a prostitute addiction.
During my short-lived months to see if there was any saving our marriage, I said to him “you said you would never be like Jason, but you’re worse than Jason.”
He looked at me with those dead black cheater eyes, and said “maybe Jason’s available”
He said a lot of cruel things to me over the years, but for some reason, this still sticks out as one of the cruelest.
That sent chills down my spine. Cruel and creepy. Something I finally learned was that if they say, “I will never be like your ex,” then chances are they will be just as bad or worse. Because why say it at all? That’s like saying “I promise I will never murder you in your sleep.”
Wow! That is cruel. He sounds like a psychopath.
Wow, sounds like that second guy just lost his soul entirely. That’s a really soul-less thing to say. Whatever people say about the lack of harm in prostitution (which is not true) it destroys people’s souls to keep engaging in transactional sex. People are not to be used and sex is a gift….not a financial arrangement.
I’ve been following CL since Aug 22 DDay). I’ve never posted, but check in constantly (about 2, but sometimes x3 times per day).
I do this because this blog is soul cocooning. I feel so grateful for an unseen community who care for one another’s experiences and to Tracy for creating a whole language (a series of vocab incantations), to give voice and meaning to the mind blowing abusive dynamic that cheating actually is.
I’ve often told myself that if ever there was a thread on the specific theme of twice plus chumped, that I’d post.
My story (and age windows) are identical to yours ChumpDchump. I had an abusive and of course unfaithful first marriage.
I came out of that and survived it.
I rebuilt myself after some earlier physical abuse in that 1st marriage , parental alienation, economic devastation, and gut reaching emotional cruelty.
I did extensive counselling, EMDR, my own reflections, you name it.
I thought I was wiser and that my perceptions were fine tuned. That I’d be careful and prudent in loving again.
I’ve always perceived myself as discerning and astute about other people.
When I agreed to marry my now ex second husband, I truly and absolutely felt that I’d found someone worthy of a deep, abiding love. That I had co-crafted a beautiful oasis with a unique and lovely man.
I thought that our values were completely aligned and that we’d grow old together. I thought we had lives filled with joy, true meaning and playfulness.
Yeah, nah. Not so much. The shallow Fuckwit took my tender, (Re) trusting and good heart and tossed it into the bin like a used Macdonald’s wrapper.
Merrily gaslighting his way through a co worker’s daytime pussy festival as if I might actually be stupid.
I had (notice that past tense) loved him more than my first husband and trusted him more than my first husband.
I had given him the precious gift of my trust and love after everything I’d been through the first time. And about which he KNEW EVERYTHING. I think that makes his conduct particularly heinous.
I have never been so shocked and dismayed at the conduct of another human being. I remember saying to him “you of all people?” (et tu Brutus?).
There are different 101 flavour skeins between each of my ex-husbands I think: the french vanilla asocial narcissist and the flaky borderline pistachio and cranberry that just makes no sense.
None of that matters.
What matters is that my goodness of heart and dignity were disrespected both times.
At first I felt like I was chewing off a limb. It was so shocking and painful.
But I haven’t regretted for one second getting rid of the second ex.
It was hard legal slog and we are living divorced under the same roof but that’s a different story. Many here know that one.
He’s not a good person (for whatever set of reasons) and his actions hurt good people. I’m just not interested in that.
There was a profound grief period – for the very special person I had thought he had been and for what I thought my ‘fresh’ ‘renewed’ and ‘blissful’ newly crafted future held.
That’s ok, I’ve really wept for those things, but I also accept their passing.
I’m grateful for many of the things that make me ‘me’ and that have travelled with me through both sets of betrayals with each ex husband.
My mind, my quirkiness, my creative self, my loving friends. My children who are now very, very close to me again.
I find that thinking of the constants that represent ‘me’ make me feel strong in my own identity and place in the world. Even if some relationships end because they’re not acceptable to me.
I have always loved the ‘quiet domestic hum’ of a meaningful life shared with another person (which is why the second betrayal felt the hardest).
But the beauty of that idyllic domestic world can’t be built on sand. It won’t last and it can’t have meaning that way.
I really do believe that the end of the marriage is his loss and my gain. Given who I am and who he is.
If I look back in retrospect I do see some red flags – they’re quite subtle but they were there. The asymmetry in economic contributions. The love bombing, the over dependency on my energies and time.
I’m not too fussed, going forward, Re my picker, because I think it will be fine and find it’s true North…..
Learning, thank you for your lovely post. So much of what you say plies to my situation. I wish I had been so clear and focused only a few months out. I. Over 4 years out and I still have difficult days.
Keep going Mighty Warrior
You are a Mighty…Warrior…💕
Dear Learning, what a beautiful, eloquent post. I felt, reading it, as if I was reading a (great) description of my own experience with two marriages that ended in my being chumped. Among so many things you express so poignantly, this is something I too feel: “I’m grateful for many of the things that make me ‘me’ and that have travelled with me through both sets of betrayals with each ex husband.” That feeling is solid gold! Sending hugs–I’m glad you posted!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️to all of us…..
I second, third, etc., everyone saying Learning’s post is eloquent and profound.
From your beautiful, profound writing, I can see that the loss was on the husbands’ side. They couldn’t appreciate a real jewel when they had one, they wanted tinsel instead. Once again I see from your post that nice people, kind thoughtful people, with a bright light in them, can sometimes attract those who have darkness in them and who think they’ve found a patsy because we’d rather believe in others and give them a chance than live in constant cynicism. Even now, I find that I’d rather think that maybe someone deserves a break rather than just thinking the worst right from the bat. But when you do find out bad stuff….get out right away. It sounds like you made a good life for yourself and your kids, no doubt better than what either of those men ended up with.
Thank you for your post! I had my own period of quiet viewing until something hit a particular “I need to speak up” nerve.
It’s terrible that you went through all of that. You go through awfulness and think it can’t get worse-and then it does with somebody that was supposed to prove us wrong.
Glad you’ve made it through STRONGER. Hope to hear more from you!
The dead black cheater eyes are terrifying… when the mask slipped, my XH’s shark eyes chilled me to the bone.
Those eyes are a shocker. I did not find out about the affair until after I had been dumped. I saw the eyes often in the 9 months discard, sometimes coupled with a cruel remark but not always. I’d look at him thinking ‘what’s wrong with his eyes?’ It was terrifying. Pure hatred beamed straight at me and I had no idea why. It was a relief to read here and discover that the experience has happened to many others. Intellectually it’s a very interesting phenomenon. Emotionally it’s heartbreaking.
I think this is definitely where we got the idea of evil as some sort of entity/power, possibly outside of the human experience. I understand it to be the complete lack of empathy which allows people to do just about anything. My theory is that these people have completely walled off their sense of vulnerability (usually because of abuse in childhood) and that because empathy arises from the wellspring of vulnerability they cannot access it. It is scary as fuck.
To me that speaks of a real profound soul sickness. The eyes ARE the windows of the soul, when you see that kind of blackness and emptiness it says what the internal condition is like. It’s like looking into the abyss.
I lived this too and wish I could’ve taken a picture, because it was something out of the Exorcist. I suddenly understood all the mythology about demonic possession.
I think it’s just as Motherchumper says it is- the mask slipping. You’ll also see that with serial killers. Most of the time they look relatively normal, but every now and then they slip and those reptilian eyes appear. If they couldn’t hide it most of the time, nobody would trust them and they would have a hard time getting victims. It’s the same with a FW.
Im Catholic and we believe that adultery is a mortal sin (so bad that the Holy Spirit flees from your soul and you are vulnerable to other things. When Cheater was deep in it, it felt like evil was invited to have a bonfire in my living room. I put Holy Water in his shampoo, prayed around the perimeter of my home and went to Mass daily for 7 years. The fact that he died at the end of my 7 years of Mass is telling. 7 is the number of completion.
I felt much better once I had done a ‘sage’ of the house. The energy changed immediately, as did the introduction of my bouncy puppy. I’m about to sell the house and I hope it will have a fresh start with a happy family because it deserves it.
PS. My STBXH is back in the village after his adventure with the criminal tarmac gang in France. I nearly ran into him when I pulled up to the village petrol station yesterday, and it was too close for comfort. Please say a prayer for protection for my son and me! God bless and keep you!
I’m a Catholic too and I genuinely believe that serial cheats, along with serial killers are under demonic influence. I’ve been learning a lot about the ministry of exorcism and the levels of demonic activity in human life, and most exorcists say actual possession is very rare still, but we’re in a spiritual war and I have come to see it that the demonic infulences and uses people like serial cheats and other varieties of Cluster Bs as weapons against those they hate most i.e. the vulnerable such as children, and those who love selflessly! I think that’s partly why chumps suffer such trauma, physical and emotional. Also, continuing to commit Mortal sin like adultery , or murder over and over again causes the sin to become habitual and it often takes and really severe event to break the habit, or to bring the sinner to the point they realise they’ve become someone monstrous and unbearable to themselves. Addiction comes to mind and I think of Blessed Matt Talbot, who was an alcoholic in Dublin but repented after he faced that monstrousness within himself, the morning after he’d robbed a blind beggar’s fiddle to sell for money for drink! His sort of repentance and contrition doesn’t happen often enough, sadly!
It no longer surprises me that so many cheats deteriorate as well as degenerate, and even die like your XH did. When one human being is used as a stick to beat another with hard enough and for long enough, the stick is going to get broken, possibly before and more severely than the poor person being hit!
Lord have Mercy on your X, please God he repented before he passed away!
I believe that at his death, he was living within the Grace of God by a hairsbreadth. I believe that he went to Purgatory and is likely still there. I believe that he had repented in confession but not to me, so there was a ton of accountability left outstanding at the time of his death
I still pray for my STBX. Purgatory would be a great mercy to him because the way he’s been carrying on, he’s at serious risk of going to the Other Place, which I don’t wish on anyone, not just because that’s a sin in itself, but because I don’t want to go there myself. It does sound like your X would have a lot of expiating to do alright, but if he’d in Purgatory now, he’s saved, he’ll get to Heaven and that’s what counts!
I try to remember to pray for the souls of all the people I dislike and can’t abide, because everyone in Heaven will not only be safe to be around, but an absolute joy to know!
I actually think demonic possession can be true, and I wonder if it might actually not be uncommon. The universe is bigger than we can imagine.
Honestly, I’m open to the idea now as well.
Chump Emeritus here (class of 2005)… I find it sadly fascinating to look back on the mirage and wreckonsillyation through the lens of time. He said thousands of terrible things to me over the years, but …
shortly after Dday when I was high on hopium, we went for a walk where the told me “My goal to so make enough money to get a trophy wife”.
I was so numb to his cruelty that it didnt even strike me as the assbastardness nor clear “writing on the wall” that it was. He wasn’t sorry for the betrayal and/or meanness and was hoping to launch more once the budget allowed for it. That I could not see that for what it was is something I now look at with sadness and incredulity.
I never did leave him…I trudged along from that point 7 more years until one day he dropped dead. Losing those 7 years of my life was a sad price to pay for unrealistic optimism. Let me be your cautionary tale.
My life now is so great that I fear dying because I dont want to miss any fun. I retired so that I can have more fun and less work.
I never cease to be thankful that your cheater had the best of all come-to-Jesus moments.
May he have an appropriate purification before joining the blessed souls in Heaven.
Yes, and I have a strong belief in the reality of Purgatory and I think he is still there.
Unicornomore, what a story–a kind of amazing FW moment!
Yes. That was extremely cruel. I remember finding out that my fuckwit, maybe 5 days after my DDay, went over to his skank’s house the morning of our 26th anniversary. I said, “How could you?!! It was our anniversary!!” And the fuckwit replied, “It was just another day to me.” And unfortunately it is just another day to these assholes. It’s all about them and will always be all about them. I hope you’re at peace knowing that it never had anything to do with you.
Mofo! What a horrible thing to say!
Mine used to spend every single anniversary with his whore, plus the weeks before and after it. He would use the excuse that he was volunteering for a two week event that happened at that time of year. They would both volunteer so as to have plausible deniability while still being able to spend every day together for weeks on end. Then he started volunteering for other events in order to have more excuses. The last year I had said enough. He had been planning to add a fourth event to his roster. He got caught at one of these events when somebody I knew saw him with her. In his case, I think the fact that it was our anniversary was the point. That made it extra disrespectful to me and he loved that.
Really nasty, piggish behavior and deliberate, calculated cruelty.
Yet according to some people, he’s still a “nice guy at heart.” 🙄
Deliberately timing betrayal to your anniversary is pretty much the definition of “desecrationist.”
Thank you for that. I have a new way to describe the experience. That’s exactly what it was. He was spitting on our marriage and on marriage itself.
File that along with the fatally twisted, sick weirdos who neg or mess with pregnant women. It’s like he was carefully maximizing betrayal and engineering a situation that would have driven most normal people to, at least for a traumatized spell, contemplate suicide.
I have a recent event that inspired some thoughts about this. The kids’ music teacher and college prep tutor intends to wed and start a family one day with his long term girlfriend and somehow the subject of negging pregnant women came up the other day. Probably because his first grad degree was in psych and I’m an armchair archivist of human fuckery, we ended up discussing how, though most people go out of their ways to be nice to pregnant women, the ones who aren’t really leave an impression. I didn’t include all the details of creepy encounters but explained how I’d run into several freaks like this over the course of three pregnancies.
There’s a particular emotional reaction that I was able to identify in myself during those encounters that’s actually separate from feeling particularly “sensitive” to or triggered by whatever these random weirdos were baiting me over. For instance, since a c-section had been scheduled for my first pregnancy for logistical reasons, I wasn’t really that set off by pure subject matter when some woman at a party cornered me (while I was a waddling six months along) to tell me all sorts of horror stories about gory 30 hour labors and how husbands would reject their wives over “stretched out vaginas.”
Obviously a c-section wasn’t going to include days-long labor or leave anyone “stretched out,” not to mention I’d read all the cutting edge childbirth books and understood that muscles bounce back and that, furthermore, any guy complaining about stretched out vaginas was an irredeemable piece of shit. My perspective on things like that was pretty solid. But what freaked me out during that encounter and made my heart rate go up was quite simply being in proximity to the black heart of darkness. I’d already explained the pregnancy was being treated as high risk (to explain all the blood test needle marks in my arms) due to early twin loss as in “don’t upset this woman and risk triggering pre-term labor.”
Basically I smelled the pall of death in the room at that moment. This person really, really meant harm regardless of whether I happened to be impervious to that form of harm. It has a heart-stopping effect. To me, that’s the essence of a desecrationist. It’s someone who leaks fatal fumes, a would-be “murderer” in their hearts even if they’re far too cowardly to ever overtly act on those impulses. Someone who means ill, very, very ill.
If you’re a normal, gormless human, I think you can never quite get over having ever been in the same room with someone who seriously wanted you (or anyone else) dead. I can’t think of any other reason why someone would consistently schedule betrayal on an anniversary. It was to fatally maximize betrayal. And for what? Bagged salad? Failure to properly fold boxer briefs?
My brilliant mother had a term for people like this: walking a
Great post. I think what you’re talking about might be part of why a lot of abusers start abusing when their wives are pregnant. They have that urge to desecrate.
Good grief, what a freak that woman you met was. I love your mom’s term for people like that.
What was even more telling in my case is that FW did not use condoms even though I am immunocompromised. He knew the bitch was promiscuous, therefore more likely to pick up STDs. I do think it’s likely he subconsciously wanted me dead, out of the way so he could live his depraved lifestyle more openly. Spiritually dead describes him perfectly, only he mostly did it to himself.
I’m not sure abusers only (secretly, subconsciously or outright consciously) want partners dead to get them “out of the way.” That can be achieved easily enough through divorce or just making a run for it. I think it’s partly territorial– bury the bone so no other dog gets it. I just quoted these lyrics because I recently heard them on the radio. Guns ‘N Roses “I used to love her”:
I used to love her, ooh, yeah, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, ooh, yeah, but I had to kill her
I knew I’d miss her, so I had to keep her
She’s buried right in my backyard, whoa, yeah
Ooh, yeah
Holy shit.
It might not be every FW’s motive, but it would be my FW’s motive. In his eyes, divorcing would show people he had failed. Otoh, if I died, he would get tons of sympathy and nobody would know he’d been a terrible husband. Everything is about image management to that fucker.
I always despised G&R and that song is terrifying.
Oops, posted too soon. My mother’s term for people like this was “walking abortions.” People who want everyone else dead or at least suffering the flames of hell because they themselves were spiritually murdered long ago.
I’d say it’s easier to pull something down then to build something up.
Any new chump. Living alone is much, much better than living with a lying liar who lies. And a cheater is a lying liar who lies. At least when you’re alone, you’re not being mindfucked. Gaslighting undermines your self esteem and can make you a neurotic mess. And it lasts for years, especially if you don’t get any help. My ex was handsome, dynamic, and was admired by everyone. It made me believe that the reason that he cheated on me was because there was something wrong with me. And then after I finally divorced him, he was still wonderful to everyone. That was another mindfuck because I kept waiting for everyone else to see what an ugly deceptive person he was inside. The fact is, he does do good things for others and they will never see the side of him that I did. Maybe his wifetress will, but he’s now 67 and not likely to fuck her over like he did me because, frankly, he’s getting old and fat, has a bad back, and not likely to spend his time looking to go screw another woman due to his bad back. But I’m sure he spends a lot of time flirting. So in a sense, the wifetress won. She got my husband for keeps, for the rest of her life. But though she probably won’t have to worry about him cheating on her, she is still getting mindfucked because he didn’t change and he likes to play mindfuck games. And that’s what makes my life so, so much nicer. I’m at peace. I’d rather be single the rest of my life living in peace, than having somebody play mindfuck games with me. Fortunately, I’m financially secure. Had I not been, I might have found myself having to put with it. I hope not, but that’s why you cannot put all your eggs in one basket. I hope any chump still has a means to survive without a fuckwit in his/her life. Peace of mind is much, much better than being mindfucked.
Testify, sister!!! Sounds like you married my ex’s twin brother.
This is my story, see my moniker is 2xchump and the last cheater I was 69 with a horrible D day…. but I whizzed by a million red flag including intimate abuse, ongoing pick me dancing 💃 that I did not know I was doing, financial abuse, bipolar rages.My body kept score tho and yours will too. High blood pressure, anxiety, paralyzing fear for my life,guns,police…OK at 69!! All I can say is SAVE YOURSELF!!! I was married 32 years to creep #2 and I stayed way too long. I am sorry now but made it up to my precious self by locking cheater out, packing up my house, finding a nice 55plus apartment far away and restarting my new life. Divorced by 70 I AM SO HAPPY!! Who misses an abuser and cheater and crazy person. Rich,handsome, cycling kindness to abuse you more?? These geezer cheaters cannot be cured, it’s part of the MOJO DNA ..so you are SAVED The RIC COMPLETELY. Go home and take care!! There is such a beautiful life unpartnered. Keep ready but get off your bum. You have less than zero to work with. Im.sorry you are chumped x2 like I was but it makes us better getting out and the recovery is amazing freedom. I wish you well.
I am so sorry the OP is isolated. I hope she manages to get out.
As to starting another relationship, that requires some work. The first thing you have to do before entering any relationship is to heal. That is work but I was happy in the end. I started dating a fellow chump and it is so much different from being with Fuckwit!!! A life without lies, deception, and deceit is incredible. My former chump proposed on Valentine’s Day (yes, a bit corny). It was super sweet. The great thing is being able to trust someone and be vulnerable without fear. We were familiar with each other through work but neither of us thought of the other as a potential partner. In fact I had an emotional vomit on him during COVID when our office did daily check ins. It was at the start of the divorce process and I was a sobbing mess. He understood and I found out that he had been chumped too. I fought two years with FW but once he saw that we were going to court in a fault state with all the documentation and videos that he had left on a shared account, FW caved in front of the retired judge who was doing our settlement conference. I got a very good settlement and have a great life. I went to counseling from the moment I filed to work on healing.
There is light at the end of the tunnel and you can heal but it is work. If we have differences my fiance and I have the adult conversations in a calm and ratonal way. It is so wonderful not to have to walk on eggshells for fear of upsetting a FW. Life is great on the other side and there is peace and contentment whether you are by yourself or you find someone who understands.
My abusive parents were alcoholic narcissists- who cheated on each other – dad died suddenly at 42. My mother kicked me out at 16. I couch surfed for a few years, got a retail job, finished HS. An older neighbor (24) offered me his bed. He was an addict and used DV to control me. He cheated with impunity, including with my gay sister, and he sexually abused my 10 year old sister. I had my baby at 19, got away from him at 21, finished college, went to law school at 22 where I met my XH in the first day. I mistook intelligence for integrity. He moved in on our first date, we were married 9 months later. 25 years and 3 kids later I was blindsided on Dday. He lied, blamed me, mask slipped and I experienced the familiar discard- he was diagnosed as a narcissist with BPD- psychopath. No remorse, no empathy. He can be extremely charming, though. Found out he’d been a serial cheater likely our whole relationship. Nothing was as it seemed. I told him to GTFO and have been divorced and NC for 7 years. I’m repartnered and engaged 3 years to a man who seems different- his actions are reciprocal. But, I’ll never really know …. I like my reasons for partnering after a lifetime of abuse, but I’m no longer naive. I don’t spackle. I have my own back and rock solid boundaries. I can depend on myself now.
My goodness you have been through hell. You are mighty AF.
I, too, was cheated on by two different cheaters. The first was my first love, whom I dated off/on for 6 years in high school and college. I kept going back for what I now know was more abuse even though he had gotten another girl pregnant while we were together.
Soon after I saw the light and ditched him, I met my Jesus Cheater whom I never dreamed would cheat on me because he was so different than Cheater #1 and the other abusers I had dated. I dreamed wrong, and finally divorced him after nearly 29 years of marriage and a ton of sunk costs including 2 kids. The body does keep score and recovering physical and mental health is a top priority for me.
After all the being chumped and only much later realizing how every.single.guy I have dated is abusive, I am rocking the single life which I don’t ever expect to change. I simply don’t want another man in my life. I honestly don’t think trusting a man is in my capacity anymore – and that’s just fine by me. 🙂
Yep, I’m a double chump. I had two *very* different men and *very* different cheaters. I was single for a few years between and casually dated. I did all the therapy during my divorce and after and while I was dating.
I met FW #2 and we got serious. I still had scars from FW #1, but pushed through them with some more therapy and communication. FW knew everything I had gone through. While I was healed, I had some scars, for example, the primary reason I never pushed for marriage with FW #2 was because of what I went through with FW #1. Thank God we never married, because I would have lost so much financially had I been.
Now, I’m back in therapy. While I may enjoy the companionship of a man again someday, I will never build a life with a man again.
The hardest part in all of this, is people somehow pointing the finger at me. Well, *you* had two cheaters so there must be something horrifically wrong with YOU. What are you doing to attract cheaters, drive men to cheat, etc. So I’m cautious about with whom I share the details. Most don’t know why FW #2 and I ended.
Nope- it’s not our problem they cheated.
People are absurd when it comes to divorce and leaving partners.
Reframe it as it’s because you won’t put up with shit from men- and why should you?
I think it might be because most Chumps are good people, it might be as simple as that. I don’t know if they’re attracted because they can take advantage of us, or they hope in some way that we can save them or help them be better people. I like to think it’s more of the latter – that people want to be BETTER people and others inspire them, but they just can’t live up to it so they live down to their worst impulses and nature. And so many Chumps are naturally forgiving and inclined to want to help people – we like reclamation projects and we have to be very aware of these tendencies.
Neither of my FWs were “reclamation projects.”
I don’t share my traumatic past with people either. I’ve found it’s like ringing the dinner bell for abusers. They think you’re a sucker and an easy mark.
Yes- that’s true.
Not everyone has our best interests at heart.
In DV advocacy we used to say that many abusers love a “limping tiger”– a confident, fab person who’s just endured some kind of cataclysm or trauma. All the other “hunters” at the douche lodge perceive is the magnificent tiger skin trophy and assume the one who caught it must be brave, strong and worthy. They have no clue the creature had been temporarily prostrate from a recent injury when it was shot by a cowering weenie at point blank range.
The concept was a way to reconcile seemingly contradictory facts about abusers and victims. On the one hand, abusers tend to specialize in playing “rescuer” and often gravitate to helping professions where they can publicly play hero. But, on the other hand, domestic abuse victims– rather than statistically skewing towards preexisting psychological weakness or chronic dependency as had been previously believed– actually skew in the other direction. For instance, more than average had careers prior to abuse and DV researcher Lenore Walker even observed that victims tended to have higher than average pre-abuse self esteem.
Otherwise there’s really no particular trait or quality that predicts who will or will not become an eventual victim except for victims being statistically more often female and heterosexual. All this really says is that abusers, like hunters, vary widely in their taste for prey. Some hunt bunnies, some prefer big game. But hey, what fun when they can bag big game in a temporary jam.
Wow. That certainly explains a lot. I had kind of suspected this might be the case.
Oh that’s interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Being cheated on by multiple partners really does destroy your self confidence. It did for me. Especially with each one knowing what the last one did and promising not to put you through that.
I even had one tell me he would be the end of men treating me like shit. After he confessed to canceling a weekend together so he could go fuck his ex, he said he wasn’t treating me like shit “I’m being open and honest!” I said cheating then confessing to it the next day isn’t open honesty. It’s still cheating and it’s shit.
The dashed hope when you realize the one you thought was different, promises to be different, is just different in their flavor of cheating.
It makes you paranoid.
‘Paranoid’ is probably the wrong word. ‘Cautious’ is probably the right one.
You have every right to be cautious about who you let into your life, and into your inner circle.
Behaviour is what counts, because that’s what shows character. You quite literally cannot believe what people say unless it’s backed up by their actions.
If I were in your situation, perhaps I’d simply not tell my prospective dates that I had been cheated on. Some cheaters are attracted to that – to the prospect of being able to hurt you that badly at some future point in the relationship.
Keep your story to yourself, and just watch and wait as you date. And trust your gut.
I only had one cheater (that I know of), but I’ve tangled with many, many, many abusers. I grew up with an abusive family, got sucked into a cult at a young age, and dated exclusively abusive people throughout my 20s.
Not just abusers, but legitimate psychopaths. I don’t mean to scare anyone, but psychopaths are everywhere. They’re shockingly common, and I seemed to find them like gum on my shoe. My picker was absolutely broken.
I have no doubt that psychopaths worthy of Oscar performances are out there but honestly, every single one I met showed obvious red flags. I either missed them, ignored them (denial is strong in chumps), or didn’t trust myself enough to take them at face value and do something about it.
These people started bouncing off of me when I went to therapy. Suddenly, dangerous people who would’ve stuck around for years didn’t last 5 minutes with me.
I’m a little aloof and skeptical these days, with strong boundaries. I’m also warm and loving with people who deserve it, and fortunately the good people out there outnumber the psychopaths.
Yeah, those red flags. I massively recognize them these days but the most important thing is my ability to walk away. For years I didn’t walk away and we all know what that looks like.
Me too. I once read that codependency was “addiction to potential” and phew, could I relate to that. I don’t bet on potential anymore. What you see is what you get.
Of course I had more than one cheating partner! There was alot of male entitlement from the time I hit middle school on up. Boyfriends cheated on me, a fiance cheated on me & my husband cheated on me. My bio-dad cheated on my mom & my stepdad left to unsuccessfully chase another woman. My trust in men is zero. I understand intellectually that there may be a few honourable men out there, they just haven’t crossed my path. I thought my husband was an honourable man, turns out, he just talked a good game. I could date casually, but will never trust my life with another man, and sad or not, that’s the way it is.
Greetings New Chump,
They don’t make character transplants. Get out while the getting is good. I went through the gaslighting thing myself-it’s hard enough being a chump BEFORE all of the reality testing you will be doing(and probably are already doing.)
We are here for you!
I have been cheated on by two different people(that I am aware of). The major one obviously is my FW and I have spoken(and will continue to speak) at length about her(so those that come behind me can learn-and it does me some good.)
My on-again off-again girlfriend in when I was in grad school also cheated.
I thought that was as bad as cheating got until my FW came along. Was very, very wrong.
Long story short, when we first met she was always flirty and I had really low self confidence and self esteem. She was with the friend of a friend at the time and started making overtures about being unhappy, etc. (Red flags abound looking back). I liked her but…yeah no. Leaves him, rinse repeat with another guy. When we started going out(ie, when it was finally my turn), she’d be around for a while, things would be great, then she’d break things off and come back around after a little while. I was too busy with school to overthink things and figured that was part of it.
Things got really good toward the end of grad school and when graduation hit and I started my career. It felt like things were really starting to work out. I finally had money and a car and was thinking about the future with her. We were both working on Valentine’s so we had a great pre-V-day. Was even saving for a ring…
Then I get a txt on V-Day (or should I say Diet D-Day) saying that she was moving in with this other guy. While I was at work.
She actually wondered why I was so mad. “Well, I never said we were exclusive.”
And then wondered why I stopped talking to her. Used my ring money to buy one of the first good HDTVs. It came out in the wash from the friend that introduced her that he was pretty much the only person he knew that she DIDN’T get with(and evidently there were attempts.)
I had actually sworn off dating all together when my FW came along.
When we had that 3am pillow talk about exes, my FW seemed aghast at the whole thing and promised she wouldn’t do anything like that. It meant the world to me.
The grad school girl chumping was quaint by comparison. I thought I knew what it was like and how bad it was. I was very, very wrong.
When D-Day hit with the FW, I called her out about her complaining about my complaining about exes and my trust issues-“was the reason you didn’t want me talking about that because you knew you were about to become the worst of them all?” She was speechless.
Have a FW-Free Weekend all!
I feel like there are two types of people who tend to you when you are at your lowest: 1) caring people who are concerned for your wellbeing, and 2) romantic predators who see a wounded deer that they can thrash around. Unfortunately, they all look human on the outside.
The longer it gets from D-Day, the more I tend to believe that I was my FW’s ticket out of poverty because she knew I was going to be a good meal ticket.
Sharks that smell blood in the water. Reminds me of when HoaC was talking about how you shouldn’t let men know if you have daddy issues early on. Manipulators love having an “easy in.”
Sorry, down on my acronyms today-HoaC?
That would be me. I wrote another comment today about “limping tigers”– something I learned about as a victim advocate, where predators seek out strong, confident, fab people who happen to be in crisis.
By the way, I really relate to, “I was too busy with school to overthink things.” I also missed a few cues because was pretty focused on and passionate about my studies and career. So, just as an exercise in perspective, about how many people get interpersonally hoodwinked simply because they prioritized some area of study or involvement in a pressing global crisis above considering whether their partner of the moment wanted rub their junk on randos. In conflicts like this, my sympathies are always with the passionate geeks.
Hey, speak of the devil!
Hehe, devil, Hell of a Chump… I’m funny.
The alias is actually in honor of what Schmoopie dubbed me before I knew she existed. On D-Day, I learned that, while she was guzzling buckets of top shelf booze and pigging out on overpriced bistro grub at the expense of my kids’ college funds, she had called me different renditions of “devil woman.” I wasn’t sure if this was really personally tailored to me or a general reference that her radical tradcon family apparently aimed at various progressive female politicians like Alexandria Ocassio-Cortez.
I thought it was sort of funny at first, obviously some classic Cluster B projection about feeling irredeemably evil. But, after the Jan. 6th Capital riots, use of “devil terms” became associated with various conspiracies to murder certain politicians so the epithet seemed a bit more “bunny boiler fatwa.” Sort of haha– yikes (checking brake lines…)
Hell of a Chump.
Damn, everything I wrote just got wipe out. How does this happen, LOLOL!!!! Anyway – 2. One for about 7 years in my 20s, complete waste of time. Everything I thought I wanted in a guy – handsome, sexy, dynamic, funny…I thought I hit the jackpot. Well, I hit a pot of shit. He was a….salesman AND a military reservist. I found out he cheated when he went overseas for training – EVERY time he went overseas….I found this out from his “friends”. But it was overseas, I was young and insecure and in love and thought he was the best I could do so I ignored it and spackled. Physically that might have been true, LOL. But far from it otherwise. We never married, but I discovered towards the end of our relationship that he was also fucking local. One woman in particular – a howorker – was just a terrible person and I always detested her anyway. I mostly found out through what people told or whispered to me over time or what I intuited. This was long before cell phones and social media. He ended up just leaving one day without notice or warning and moving to another state with another woman for a big sales exec job and of course, married her. I was devastated and it took me years to recover. Most of my 20s and a good part of my 30s down the drain. It’s probably why I didn’t have kids. Now I would tell people especially young women, not to waste their time, their youth, on people like this. JUST GET OUT WHEN YOU FIND OUT. Don’t waste precious youth on people like this. It never gets better. I know this guy became very well to do, but I also know he had serious health problems over time and I wonder why he left the way he did, without a word. Who knows.
The second is in a 25 year marriage, online bullshit that I’ve written about before, nothing physical. BUT….it always changes how you view them and how you feel about the relationship, don’t kid yourself. You don’t get over it. 8 years later and I’m still experiencing triggers. But I’m old, and times are tough, and health is a problem, and this is the best it gets, in my opinion. I think we would both have preferred other partners, but we are good friends and that’s probably the best either of us could do. C’est la vie. MAKE BETTER CHOICES WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG AND DO NOT PUT UP WITH BULLSHIT.
I knew both of mine for a long time.
The first pursued me relentlessly after my cousin introduced us as teenagers.
He was told no and just wore me down.
I was young and wanted that fairytale dammit- so we married at 23 and 22.
His ex girlfriend told him before we married that she was always available to him.
He cheated when I was pregnant and posed proudly with his bit when he graduated police college.
Cheated again with aforementioned girlfriend who he eventually married- left me, lied about how long we’d been separated so he could get a divorce and as a grand finale took my children.
It’s 18 years later- he’s now cheating on her and I’ll be spending the day with them as our son gets married.
Well…..the kind of person I am….I’d tell her before I left the occasion that he’s cheating on her. “He’s cheating on you, you know.” and then I’d just leave. I want these people to feel pain, real pain. If they can. But I’m that kind of person, I like revenge if I can get it, which is all too rare.
Yes she knows he’s cheating- but doesn’t know her worth like I do.
She won’t leave him- it’d look bad after all she’s done to me.
I had a cheating father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather. My uncles cheated, my cousins cheated and my sister cheated. I never cheated (except that one time the guy told me he was divorced and it turned out that his wife and kids were spending 6 months in China with her family . . . I dumped him so fast his head was spinning). I also had three cheating husbands.
I married the first one at 21, which was younger than I should have but I was anxious to escape the beatings at my mother’s hands. He cheated prolifically — co-workers — his, mine and ours, my boss, his boss’s wife, friends, neighbors, friends of neighbors, half of the church choir, the choir director, the nun who lead our pre-Cana classes, and my sister. Among others. My paster told me marriage is a sacrament, I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong and fix myself so my husband wouldn’t “Have to cheat.” My therapist said the same thing, more or less. Mother said I’d made my bed so now I’d have to lie in it. My father said everyone cheats, just get over it. I found that I couldn’t get over it.
My second husband was a fellow RN, and handsome and charming guy whom everyone loved. We were set up on a blind date by someone who explained that Tom’s wife had “run off with a patient.” I might have missed the cheating while we were married (I was looking for other women, not other men) but the abuse was unmistakable. I left after a nearly successful attempt on his part to murder me, and then discovered from the wives of his male “friends” that he was having sex with those “friends” and with Father Steve.
I was single for a long time after that, afraid that my picker was hopelessly flawed. I moved a few hundred miles away, started a new job and changed my first name, thinking that would keep my whereabouts safe from Tom. (My parents gave him my address. Did I mention that my parents were pretty fucked up?) A decade later, I married a man I’d known for five years, dated for four years and thought I knew well. I should have left him the first time he knocked me down, 16 years into the marriage. I DID leave him a year and a half later when I found out about the girlfriend. After I left him, people came crawling out of the woodwork to tell me about his secret double life and the women he’d fornicated with.
I’m happily single now, retired at 68 and not at all looking to date anyone. After more than five years of therapy, I think I may have fixed my picker. I hope I have. But I’m unwilling to change my life to suit some man when I’m happy and enjoying my life now. Besides, I am a nurse — I’ve seen too many men in my present age group looking for a woman to use as a nurse and a purse. I’m sure there are good ones out there. I’m just not sure I could choose one.
You are an incredibly strong person to have survived all that, I admire you. It occurs to me to say that I wish people would tell us SOONER about the cheating and abuse rather than let us waste years. I can’t say I wasn’t warned about my first cheater – I WAS, at least a few years in, but chose to ignore it because I just didn’t think I could do any better. And he WAS handsome and charming and all that bullshit. But I think if people would only put the bug in each other’s ears earlier on, maybe it would help reduce what could seem like a life’s sentence otherwise. It’s a moral obligation, I think.
Thank you. I wish people would tell sooner, also. But it occurs to me that my most recent ex-husband’s then roommate tried to tell me when we started dating, and I didn’t get it. It seems pretty obvious with 20/20 hindsight; but I didn’t get it then. So maybe other people tried and because they weren’t blatant or explicit about it, I just sloughed it off. At least, I kinda hope I’d get it now.
The second one I knew since we were 19 . I shifted countries for him and built what I thought was a good life but the foundation was pure spackle.
Alcoholic, committed to lies, financial disaster zone.
He ghosted me last year when I was working in my home country and put up a pic of his new girlfriend a few months later.
This one is so much worse because he knew what had happened with my first marriage but went ahead anyway.
He’s fooled others who have known him a long time too and hurt them.
He’s deleted our friend group and is on a new pathway with others who won’t call him out for lying , stealing and cheating .
This is worse than death, this living hell of abandonment and betrayal.
My lawyer is ready to serve him court papers- I’m not about to let another one rip me off.
Make sure you get a big chunk of that money of his.
I suspect my first serious boyfriend cheated on me. He became a drug addict, started to be abusive, and I dumped him. FW came along around that time and he was so different from my ex that he seemed great. My mistake was in getting into a new relationship too quickly after a breakup. I now know FW’s seemingly gentle nature was a mask to hide his depravity behind, and that he was even worse than the first creep. If I had waited long enough fix my picker, maybe I’d have seen it.
Yep, I’m a 2X chump. Went from a cheater to whom I thought was my savior and a really good man, to only be cheated on by him as well, almost 27 years later. I asked my therapist “do I have betray me” on my forehead or something? She said I just was highly empathetic, loving and trusting, and those qualities were weaponized by both partners to exploit and take advantage of me. I kept waiting for the 2nd one to have a character transplant, as he’d done several things over the years that were abusive and cruel, and i forgave him and moved on, but instead, he just got worse and worse, until he cheated about 2.5 years ago. Tracy is right in that they will never change, and only we can. We have to cut them out of our lives, just as you do cancer, because if you don’t, it just gets worse until there it total destruction, just like cancer.
I have learned a lot from this horrible experience, the 2nd time around mostly. I have a great therapist and am learning how to set boundaries and all sorts of helpful things. But like most people, I don’t want to be alone forever and hope that there will finally be someone for me in the future, that won’t cheat. Not holding my breath…
Tracy: Remember those posts you wrote a few months back about Amy Robach and TJ Holmes starting a podcast? Apparently they just interviewed Gavin Rossdale, who spent the whole interview whining about how much he hates being divorced… you know, after blowing up his marriage to Gwen Stefanie by banging the nanny, refusing to acknowledge his secret daughter, and the string of other affairs he’s had.
Figures two braindead cheaters would christen their new podcast by interviewing an equally braindead cheater.
Pick me! Pick me! I had four! I was the original Solid Gold Pick Me Dancer!
Round 1: I just pretended it wasn’t happening because a) I was young and stupid, and b) there was so much else wrong in the relationship that the cheating didn’t seem to matter as much as the physical, verbal, and financial abuse.
Round 2: This dude cheated after we’d broken up (my decision – the right one) and then gotten back together again (also my decision – the wrong one).
Still young, but slowly growing some smarts. He got dumped. He phoned me a year later out of the blue. I told him to stop contacting me. Years later he contacted me on Facebook shortly after I’d joined it. I blocked him.
Round 3: I was much older now (39), and should have known better, but he was the Last Chance Saloon, as every woman thinks when she’s 39 and hasn’t married or had kids.
He was a serial commitment-phobe and (as it turned out) deep-seated weirdo with a roving eye – but I was going to tame him, ladies! I was going to be the exception to the rule!
Narrator: She was not the exception to the rule.
After four years of on-off relationship-that-wouldn’t-die, he finally announced that he was moving on with his latest flirt. I felt the most wonderful and overwhelming sense of relief, because by this stage the Pick-Me Dance had evolved into the Masochism Tango and we were in folie-a-deux territory.
Ten years on, the latest flirt still hasn’t managed to wrangle him to the altar, and we’re all approaching retirement age, so seriously? I see him sometimes in public, and he ducks his head and slinks off.
Round 4: Oh my goodness. This was my last hurrah, and thankfully the whole thing was over in six weeks when I realised the Love Bomber was a heavily closeted gay man who was a walker for a rich older woman and had a harem of middle-aged female ‘friends’ who all looked suspiciously like me. Euw.
Still not married. Still no kids. Still not dating. Never will again.
In its place, I have the BEST life. I had no idea life could be so much fun, and it just seems to get better. I am busy, happy, productive, and gainfully employed. I have good friends of all ages, I have my sister who I live with, and I have other family who are supportive.
I am so happy. And so grateful that all of these went down the drain of history with barely a burp to remember them by.
“I was the original Solid Gold Pick Me Dancer!” This would be funny if it weren’t so sad and so terrible for you.
I have been chumped more than once (possibly in every serious relationship I’ve ever had, and I’m 64). Fortunately I only married two of them. The first husband was a 13 year end to end relationship with a short marriage included, during which he recognised that he was gay. I left him when I was 31, no children. The second husband was 26 years end to end, including an 18 year marriage. He discovered that he had always been in love with his ex gf from school and left me (the affair was never admitted but I found emails after he’d gone – I suspect that he had other work affairs as he had many ‘office wives’). I divorced him as soon as I discovered the affair, and it is 4 years since I last saw him. Therapy has been very important to me for one important reason. In every relationship, the men treated me badly even when ignoring the sidekicks and affairs. Their behaviour towards me was universally disrespectful culminating in the second husband who was sadistically abusive. He got a kick out of causing emotional pain to me and would smirk continually while doing it. He knew exactly what he was doing, which included moving me to a different part of the UK away from my close knit friends circle to which he had been admitted. I needed/need therapy to explore why I am more comfortable with this type of man. I’m not sure that I’ll ever have an intimate relationship again. Trust in my judgement remains a big issue. Interestingly, I’ve made similar decisions with jobs and friends – it’s something around ‘this is all I deserve and I have to be grateful for any scraps I can get’. All my time and energy is taken up with doing the therapeutic work and spending time (with my dog) in reflection. This is bringing me both sadness and peace but is worth it.
MW – Our timelines are similar and though I only married once, I’ve also been undervalued by boyfriends and employers. I’m spending my 60’s with a cat and otherwise living alone. I’ve found Stoic and Buddhist philosophy shift my thinking about what I can and cannot control. I am recovering from the shame of being chumped by my husband of 30 years, but I am gratified that my lifelong impulses were to be kind and stand up for the underdog. I have old friends and new friendships through my volunteer work. Society can be inconvenient for solo agers.
Thank you for your reply SbS. Society can be very hard, particularly for solo female agers who seem to get judged as ‘irrelevant’. I find Stoicism useful and have had a mindfulness practice since long before the second marriage broke up. I still work part-time as a lawyer which really helps. I also do some voluntary work which I enjoy. I think I’m working towards fulfilment rather than happiness because I will always have a deep vein of sadness about the breakdown of the second marriage. Apparently the ex-husband is ‘miserable’ which is no real comfort because it all seems like a futile abandonment! Doesn’t it all sometimes seem gratuitously destructive. Ah well!
My words of encouragement are
HALF of all marital assets!!!!!
I can relate. Chumped twice by what I thought were the loves of my life.
The only gift I ever received from them with true meaning behind it was an STD.
The last betrayer was doing 5-6 guys in just s few months. I almost needed a freakin’ score card to keep track. Covert Narcissitic Personality Disorder on steroids.
Naturally, one just HAD to be a coworker “friend” with whom I had to work with for years at an extremely stressful job (State Child Protective Services).
Oof. That’s the worst, when you have to see the AP every day.
Thankfully, he was in a different but nearby office, but I still had to work with the rat bastard on difficult cases, & see him frequently at meetings and trainings.
If I had had to see him EVERY DAY, I’d probably still be in jail for assault.
My sadistic cheater even told me what she was doing in bed with him, & she whipped out a pack of Trojans to show me how she was helping him with his premature ejaculation problem. SICK
I’m noticing a lot of our stories here include “we dated on and off” as a factor. That’s something I’ll never do again. When it’s over the first time, it’s over forever.
Never. Will never step back in again. Too much risk and waste.
I’ve never had anyone be faithful.
Ever.
I just seem to attract people who just either can’t be faithful or just don’t want to be.