Do You Need the Whole Truth of an Affair?
Does a chump have the right to know the whole truth of an affair? The reconciliation folks say no. Besides the cheater may not remember.
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Hello Chump Lady,
I was wondering if you’ve seen anything regarding Dr. Kathy Nickerson.
She’s a Reconciliation Industrial Complex therapist. She keeps popping up in my Facebook Reels and she is infuriating.
The latest tidbit which made me stop doomscrolling and immediately write you is as follows.
A chump writes to her and asks:
“How do I know if I’ve been given the whole truth of the affair?”
And her response started with: “Do you need the full truth?”
Now, I’m no expert on reconciliation. I’m 100% pure Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life. But I was curious if she was going to maybe go the route of “if you want to reconcile, you might not want ALL the details.” I’d still say a foundation of lies is not exactly a good idea. But I thought maybe she was going to say, “if you know they had sex multiple times, maybe you don’t want details of every position and furtive orgasm as those details may make it harder to get past”?
But no. Her first point was that “memory isn’t always perfect, especially with regards to things you weren’t supposed to be doing.”
I had to stop there as my head was in danger of exploding.
I’ve seen other reels, they were also full of utter BS. But watching this woman with her open smile and relatively sane looking face say THAT? Yes. I’m sure all the Fuckwits of the world don’t tell the truth because MEMORY is not perfect. That’s it.
Much gratitude to you,
Pamela
***
Dear Pamela,
What are you insinuating, Pamela? That cheaters lie? That they have hidden agendas? No, no, no. According to the reconciliation brochures, they all lead with unvarnished honesty.
Well, except for the parts the cheaters forgot. Or omitted. You know, this isn’t a good time now to discuss this. And I don’t like your tone. Perhaps when you can calm down and be less hysterical. No. I still detect a note of judgement.
(sigh)
Of course you’re not going to get the whole truth of an affair.
Not because a FW can’t remember the particulars. If they have the executive functioning to conduct a double life, they have the short-term memory to remember where they were last Thursday.
This guy isn’t getting the sordid details because telling the truth would be power sharing. And knowledge could lead to consequences. And consequences are to be avoided.
But! But! They’re sorry now!
Maybe they are. But it’s not likely that someone who acts out of entitlement (cheating) is going to suddenly now start reacting with humility and openness. They’re doing damage control. You know enough, any further details could sink the reconciliation ship. Which is probably why this particular RIC shill is pro-befuddlement. You don’t want all those therapy dollars going to a lawyer.
That’s so cynical of you, Tracy.
Read my mail. Look, I’m not saying every therapist is an RIC quack (by coincidence, Dr. K has a new infidelity book out!) but I would think the more skilled ones could tell when you don’t have anything to work with.
Why is this chump desperately reaching out to the Internet in a search for the truth? Because he’s being gaslit. You can’t cheat on someone without lying to them. Or questioning their sanity when they get suspicious. This guy knows he’s not getting the whole story.
Worse, if his wife was telling him the truth, he wouldn’t believe it because she’s a lying liar who lies. And that is some horrible mental gymnastics to live with. So, bargaining stage of grief, he’s reaching out for help. SOMEONE MAKE HER TELL ME THE TRUTH!
Instead he gets this mindfuck — sit down, chump. You don’t need to know.
Here I may surprise you. I’m going to agree with Dr. Kathy. But for an entirely different set of reasons. You don’t need to know because this person isn’t going to be in your life any longer. Let go of the fucktangle.
Did she do it with a fox, did she do it in a box? … walk away. You don’t feel safe in this relationship. This is not a marriage of mutuality and respect.
Denying you the details and claiming “she forgot” is a power move. The more sadistic cheaters get frissons of delight watching you struggle to learn the truth of your life. They’re so central! So fought after! Look at your upset — you care!
Please, caller, STOP CARING. Your power move is to step away.
And Pamela, your power move is to stop clicking on Dr. Kathy. Let the algorithm gods do their thing and send you kitten videos instead.
Whenever I get stuff like this in my feeds I always comment to check out chump lady! 💪🏼
Doing the Lord’s work.
I’m so thankful I found Chump Lady right away and never saw this reconciliation crap. It would’ve traumatized me further.
Excellent idea! Everyone reading her baloney needs the opportunity to see the other side.
“This guy isn’t getting the sordid details because telling the truth would be power sharing. And knowledge could lead to consequences. And consequences are to be avoided.” THIS IS KEY!
Cheaters are looking at the relationship through the lens of a power struggle. It’s jacked up on many levels!! But you have to put down your own “normal” desires to be seen with empathy them as that is NOT on their radar. They see your relationship through winning and losing lenses. Why would they give you power? They prefer stacking the deck in their favor. Best to simply walk away from the table and divorce such disordered individuals.
Yup.
I agree that the cheater holds power in not sharing details of the affairs.I agree that the true freedom to move on is not caring about details and looking forward not backward. Knowing they will likely never recount any details that are wholly truthful or make them look worse is just a fact. As CL says, trickle truths are the best we can expect. That being said, isn’t it human nature to want to know as much as possible? We Chumps have lost so much power in not having control of the situation(s), isn’t it human nature to want the knowledge as a feeling of regaining control over what we are struggling to understand?For far too long I embraced nee obsessed the overwhelming need to know the gory details of my X’s treachery and deceit. I am not proud of it, but it’s true. Then one day became two then three and I was mercifully done making his betrayals central in my life. It was not instant and it was not easy.
FW decided when he started with the OW to share some sordid info about what he has got up to in the past, horrible stuff which affected people close to me. He was. Also physically and emotionally abusive to me. It exploded my brain. It took me a few months to actually start divorce proceedings, as I was just a bag of mush. But once I had it on the road, I was told more stuff and that did lead me to do a certain amount of untangling, not for info about what happened but helping me to understand some things that hadn’t made sense at the time, heck I’d already had to rewrite history. Over the years it took to finalize the divorce I went to a support group for those who’d suffered abuse and it was so helpful showing me lots of things that weren’t obviously abuse ( but were) and tactics and patterns of behaviour. It helped me draw lines under so much that I’d experienced. I had ended up so depressed with the ongoing abuse holding up the divorce, I also did a mental health course, to help with looking forward.I have helped women identify such abuse too, I look on it as being a bit like going to the dentist and having decay removed and the holes repaired. I tell the truth anytime it is relevant. As we were together so long I needed to overwrite memories at places we went, that I want to revisit. Sometimes with friends, sometimes just on my own, I wasn’t going to let memories of him and how he behaved,control what I do, from the past. Still occasionally need to take a deep breath and do some new overwriting.
“““This guy isn’t getting the sordid details because telling the truth would be power sharing. And knowledge could lead to consequences. And consequences are to be avoided.” THIS IS KEY!”
I will never know the full story or even understand most of what actually went down with my FW’s long distance affair. It went on for years before I found out. And the info I got was mostly trickle truth from a liar. There are some very basic facts that I know for sure. But so much is a big mystery. I know he loved her and wanted to be with her. I know it went on for years. He says it was never physical, and as it was long distance it is possible it was 100% emotional, but there were a few times that he possible could have slept with her so I assume he did, but I will never know for sure as he denies it.
This is where Tracy’s mantra of “is this relationship acceptable to you?’ becomes a lifeline. I don’t need to know if they ever slept together. I don’t need to know any of the details that I don’t have. I am lucky in that he admitted freely to the affair, as he was hoping to leave me for her but it didn’t work out with them. So while I know very little, I know enough. Knowing he carried out a years long emotional affair and wanted to leave me for her is enough to say, “nope, this is not acceptable to me.”
All that said, I really am so curious. I won’t ever “go there”, I understand that untangling the skein is a waste of time. But their situation is so bizarre, I can’t help but wonder what the AP’s take was. She stuck around for years. Was it just fun for her? Did SHE want him to leave me for her or was she just enjoying long distance kibbles? It just seems so crazy to me that it went on for SO long. I understand why he did it. At the very least, he enjoyed the kibbles. And having a relationship that was possibly exclusively carried out online made it easy for him to have that Cake. I was here doing his laundry, while he was sending her “I love you” texts sitting next to our kids. It could have been much more for him than just kibbles, I think he was truly invested. But even just kibbles makes sense for a FW. But I would love to know HER take. I recognize none of it matters. We are divorcing. He has a new non-AP, serious girlfriend. The AP may as well be ancient history and I have better things to do with my time than untangle that skein. But it is tempting, and I think that is because we all want to know what really went down in our marriages. So it comes right back to this scam counselor saying that FW’s forget. No. No they don’t. They either enjoy the power of the secrets, or some of their behavior might have been so bad that even they recognize it as abhorrent and they don’t want to admit it.
I totally agree. There are two hard truths all Chumps have to accept as they try to move on: 1) your ex never had your best interests at heart, ever, and 2) you will never know the whole truth of what happened and why.
It’s a very unsatisfying feeling, like “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown,” but it’s the reality of the situation.
The FW excuse of “I forget” was embedded in my marriage to the funny, life-of-the-party guy.
How could he even carry out a plan? And why would he cheat when he clearly relied on me to keep our life running smoothly? If there were difficulties, it was because of my nagging or observations that history was being re-written.
This (already canceled) dark comedy is a great exploration of a wife appliance grappling with the reality of her marriage and the way society has primed chumps to stay. Spoiler alert: she should have left after the first episode.
Kevin Can F**k Himself (TV Series 2021–2022) – IMDb
On March 1, 2021, Chump Lady posted about an article by Dr. Anna Fels in the New York Times called “Great Betrayals” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/great-betrayals.html?pagewanted=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
https://www.chumplady.com/standing-on-lies-2/
I recommend all chumps read both links and CL’s take on it.
It helped me immensely.
Yes, I saw most of the charge card statements. Yes, I attended his deposition. And it has been MANY years since my divorce.
But the truth of my history, what truly were the details of my marriage will never come to light. It is something I have come to terms with and mostly put away. But it is my history and I will never have answers to many questions. I view it as a theft.
Do I need to know the truth of an affair? I’m still alive, at meh and thriving so is it a “need”? No.
Would it help? I will never know but maybe.
Is it fair? Absolutely not.
Do I hate my ex-spouse because of this? Yes, and that’s OK.
And lastly, “You don’t need to know because this person isn’t going to be in your life any longer.”
Yeah, as if that were true for anyone with children or grandchildren! In that case you have to see them over and over again at weddings, births, grandkid birthdays and all future lifestyle events. Blech 🤮
I tried being mean (table next to the bathroom at a wedding), nice (big smile for the sake of the kids) and, finally, now simply ignoring. The ex isn’t worth any thought or energy.
At least my children put the rule that the AP can never be where I am so I never have to see her again. My kids hate both of them but want the grandkids to know all their grandparents. When they get a bit older the grandkids will be told the truth about my ex having a partner when I was supposed to be the partner and didn’t know. About how married people don’t have secrets, especially secret people.
“In lying, one is identifying the other as one’s opponent, even one’s enemy. In marriage intimacy is developed through confessions, explanations, and soul searchings. But of course intimacy involves equality, and people who are telling lies are not seeking any aspect of intimacy, especially equality. Liars are hoping for advantage, which will be produced by disorienting and distracting the other person. The liar is stepping outside the relationship. The lie may be a greater betrayal of the relationship than the misdeed being lied about. It takes very little misinformation to disorient and destroy a relationship. I often point out to people that if I gave them detailed instructions on how to go from Atlanta to New York City, and threw in only one left turn that was a lie, they would end up in Oklahoma.”
-Dr. Frank Pittman
Private Lies
(p. 59)
Tell the truth and flush all that hard-earned duper’s delight dopamine away? Not bloody likely.
One of my favorite books on infidelity is Private Lies by Dr. Frank Pittman.
Paula Rader was granted an emergency divorce after finding out her husband and the father of her children was the BTK killer. She was not interested in doing a deep dive into the details of his deeds, which he is surely delightfully replayed in his mind all day long in prison.
Thankfully the need to know went away.
I will say that I did need to spend time finding out what really happened and I think it’s a normal reaction to the total disorientation that happens when your so-called partner pulls the rug out from under your life and the life of any involved children. I had a calendar where I wrote down what was he was actually doing written down next to what he said he was doing and what I was doing. I recently learned Laci Peterson’s mother brought a calendar with her when she met with Amber Frey and did the very same thing. But then came the realization that I would never know the whole truth and stopped. I did keep the calendar to remind me who he is. It was helpful to break the denial of who I thought he was and who he was presenting himself to be and see him for who he actually is.
The final takeaway is that I was being honest about what I thought, what I felt, what I was doing, who I was doing it with, and he was not.
That’s all that matters.
Lying and deception prevents intimacy, an axiom that flies right over the emotionally immature morally bankrupt self-centered empathy-free vacuous heads of cheaters and side pieces. The body does keep score as Bessel Van der Kolk says. People can tell their conscious mind stories all day long, but I truly believe the subconscious mind is fully paying attention when we are involved with someone untrustworthy no matter which role you occupy in the infidelity game.
The chump will never know the whole truth of the cheating sessions, the betrayals. Not beause the cheaterr cannot recall, but because he doesn’t want to recall. But why did I want to know what I could find out? I knew it could never be changed. But learning what I could at the time was a huge help in learning that I was never crazy and had been lied to for decades. It was also helpful for me, in a calm and controlled manner, to let the people he cheated with learn that not only was I aware, but they were one of many at the time. In addition, letting their family and colleagues know took away the secrecy, power and lies. Yes, it created problems in their lives. But I also knew, that when you choose to betray and cheat , there wil be consequences. So, if their partners or spouses were upset, or they had problems at work as a result, it was a consequence of their choice to lie and cheat. Always done in a calm manner, I let everyone involved know the info. Just the facts. Yep, he ripped off his employer, and yes, he used expense money to buy a prostitute, etc. No need to discuss sexual positions or that sort of details. He took her to his hotel room at the Hilton . He took her on a 400 mile road trip up the coast, and yes, she was married,too. (but there was a laptop in the car, so it was work) He took another one on a New England road trip because she had never been to New Hampshire or Maine before. And yes, she was married, too. No need to discuss if they made out on the beach or what they drank at theCheers bar in Boston. It happened. He did it. Now we all know. We all are a bit wiser, even if we do not know the whole tsory. Knowledge was power for me. It is okay if you never get the whole stroy. It is enough. For you and everyone else.
I was wondering if there was any science about this. I checked PubMed really quick and did find a reference to “unethical amnesia” in which people intentionally forget in order to not damage their self image, but then I found another paper indicating that ruminating on past behavior helps with improvement. I dunno. Not my field.
I do know my FW had the amazing ability to judge other people for ‘indiscretions’ similar to his own. I found it stunning. I do think he BSed himself before he BSed me. But that doesn’t change the damage his behavior caused.
What I ultimately did was go with what protected me the most, and that was to assume the worst-case was the truth. If they don’t remember or won’t tell, I run with what keeps me safe and sane.
On D-Day, I kindly asked him to describe the nature and scope of the behavior. Two months later he tells me he “slept with someone else.” I found out she was an escort, and he had seen her several times per month for a year. The truth sort of comes out, slowly, painfully, and it is never the whole truth. Get tested. Trust they suck.
I hate these types of RIC shills because early on I think a lot of chumps, I’d even say the vast majority, don’t want their lives imploded and would probably give anything to be able to keep the marriage together. (Spoiler Alert- the bomb was already detonated, unless one of these RIC Counselors has a time machine and you can go back and stop the affair, and implant a character reconstruction in your FW, it’s probably a done deal)
Much as I love reading of the mighty chumps that knew what to do and took immediate action on D-Day #1, it seems the least common move. Far more chumps are confused and scared, ripe pickings for someone that comes along and says “don’t worry, you can not only save your marriage but make it stronger!” And it;s just SO gross.
I’m sure there are marriage counselors who aren’t predatory and who think reconciliation is a valid option. There are possibly situations where it is, depending on the people. And the situation. I struggle to come up with an example but I figure people have very different boundaries. So there are probably some people who could possibly reconcile successfully.
But to see this woman say in all seriousness “The FW probably doesn’t REMEMBER the details”? She is saying this with a straight face? It’s just so clear that she knows she is full of it.
“I’d even say the vast majority, don’t want their lives imploded and would probably give anything to be able to keep the marriage together. ”
Exactly and from my experience I think it is because I didn’t know when it first hit, how I was going to feel 3 or 6 months out. I was just desperately trying to claw back what I thought was a good marriage. Anything to stop the pain.
I liken it to a horrific cut or stabbing wound, you grab a cloth or anything you can find, to use to stop the gushing; you don’t think about if the cloth is is dirty, or not suitable for the job; just stop the bleeding (pain).
These quests for ALL power as their only goal in life. Pathetic little cheaters.
This guy isn’t getting the sordid details because telling the truth would be power sharing.
Well, there’s a seriously mind-blowing insight. My FW got insanely (and I do mean insanely) angry when I pointed out that there was a major power imbalance in our relationship. She said something like “Oh, so you think of relationships in terms of power? That’s all this is to you?”
Because yeah, that’s what it was to her, and I was messing with it.
That “power sharing” idea is quite a Rosetta Stone moment. Thank you for that one, Tracy.
“Here I may surprise you. I’m going to agree with Dr. Kathy. But for an entirely different set of reasons. You don’t need to know because this person isn’t going to be in your life any longer.”
This is great.
In addition to the power imbalance, the pursuit of the “facts” is a dizzying distraction that keeps you focused on the irrelevant. For me, the farther away I get from D-day, the more I realize that the whole “who did what to whom” was not the issue. It’s sort of akin to Civil War obsessives who can tell you how many mounted units were present at Antietam, but can somehow manage to miss the entire point of the Civil War.
To this day, I acknowledge that the only person who knows what really happened is FW. When we were together, that truth imbalance gave her power, as CL says. But, the obsessive desire to chase my tail playing Columbo and try to figure out what exactly happened was preventing me from noticing the only truth I needed to know, and which was sitting right in my face the whole time: she betrayed me repeatedly, she lied about it, and she blamed it on me.
With a narcissist, the only way you can deflate their power is to truly not care about whatever shenanigans they are up to. So, in this sense, Dr. Kathy is right for the wrong reasons. The problem is that a Chump (or most normal people) cannot tolerate being in a relationship with a person where they truly do not care about what motivates their partner, nor should they be expected to. Ergo, the only way “fix” a relationship with a narcissist is to end it.
“In addition to the power imbalance, the pursuit of the “facts” is a dizzying distraction that keeps you focused on the irrelevant”
This is spot on. The details that I don’t have are truly irrelevant.
It’s funny, D-Day for me wasn’t some discovery I accidentally made, finding emails or receiving a letter from AP etc. He sat me down and TOLD me about his affair. Certainly not in any great detail. But he admitted that he found someone else and was in love.
And I still felt a need to know more details and “the truth”. I’ll never get that truth, but as you said, further details are irrelevant.
It’s one thing if your FW is lying and saying they didn’t cheat at all, or it was a week long “mistake, or they never had sex…or any of those various details that might make a chump question if leaving is the right call. In my case, I knew plenty to make that choice.
But I do think it is just human nature to want to know more. And yet, the more you know the more it hurts. I’m relieved to not have more info than I do. i have enough to know with complete certainty that this is not acceptable to me, and was spared a lot of noise that would just haunt me.
However, there can be a benefit in knowing how they spent money if your lawyer can make FW legally and financially accountable for “waste of marital assets.”
If they have the executive functioning to conduct a double life, they have the short-term memory to remember where they were last Thursday….
So, so true.
My ex watched “Catfished” weekly, howled at the stupidity of people who fell for online romance scams, and did the exact same thing. On DD, I immediately recognized the con and asked if he gave the scammer any money. He denied it. I found an email referencing a gift card. He said “maybe $5 or $10.” Then admitted to $25. And “maybe” more than one. He insisted that was all.
I found he had sent a credit card, and paid the bills for two months. He convinced the credit card company somebody had scammed HIM and got out of paying it. Then I found evidence on our bank statement that he charged dozens of gift cards to our joint account. Also made Zelle transfers to the catfisher, ID’d as business expenses. I showed him the statements, and he assaulted me and then-tween who tried to intervene. He packed a suitcase–he took MINE, and tried to steal my valuables– before leaving. Then demanded to come back to choose certain clothes. I refused, and emailed that I had volunteers to pack it all and document everything. We found bags of evidence stuffed in his closet. Hundreds of gift cards and emails to the scammer, many for $50 or $100, multiples per day. Receipts for wire transfers of $7K and $14K. Mentions of another gift card and payments to out of state stores for a high-end laptop and cellphone. All within a few months of “meeting” at a dating site.
Denying you the details and claiming “she forgot” is a power move. The more sadistic cheaters get frissons of delight watching you struggle to learn the truth of your life.
That was the tip of the iceberg. I found he had been stealing my premarital and medical settlement assets for decades. In mediation, he denied knowing how much I’d received in compensation for on the job injuries–money he had managed because I was so impaired– then on learning the statute of limitations had expired, he told them the amounts, to the penny. Of course he denied taking them, or the other marital assets he’d stolen.
His mask slipped and the marriage ended when he assaulted us. He was never honest about what he’d done, and although it was devastating to learn he’d betrayed me financially for over a decade, knowing that made it clear that his online affair of a few months was just the most recent betrayal.
There was no physical affair–they never met, spoke once for just a minute or two, then he emailed that he didn’t understand a word, and she sounded like a man. If there had been a physical affair, I would not have wanted to know those details.
As for the financial aspects, that’s essential information, especially if your lawyer is able to get restitution for whatever they spent on gifts, meals, entertainment, lodging etc. I didn’t–my lawyer got COVID, my next lawyer got long COVID, and my ex knew to drag things out so I ran out of money to fight. I hope other chumps can do better financially.
Absolutely this. The truth DOES matter financially. To me, it was worth it to pursue as much truth on that score as I could find.
I had the whole truth, and that truth was that my ex was a piece of shit liar.
Nothing else mattered once I realized that. Asshole kept changing his story based on what I could prove and threw tantrums when i didn’t believe anything he said.
He actually had the balls to look at me in front of our counselor and say “well it’s not like I met her at a hotel”. My response was that he wouldn’t tell me anyway and he’d shown himself to be a liar.
Crickets
Once you know they lie nothing else really matters since you can’t trust them.
There’s a great quote that I’m going to paraphrase: If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.
When my final D-day occurred, it was peak-Covid. We were all supposed to be working from home, isolating, cleaning our groceries, etc. My ex was out until 4:00 a.m. with “friends,” but was trickle-truthing who she was with. This became important to me because, in addition to the infidelity, I wanted to know who she may have contacted with Covid symptoms. She tried to explain who she was with and, like you, I said something to the effect of “well, I don’t trust you any farther than I can throw you.” I can still see the indignant look on her face when I said that. She finally moved out later that month.
It’s quite liberating because you realize that you don’t need to know anything beyond the fact that they lie. It takes a huge weight off your shoulders.
I never had solid proof that my ex’s affair was physical. I think it likely was given that it was an ex gf he kept around our entire relationship and obviously they’d fucked before we met. She didn’t live locally and was on marriage #6, but I found messages suggesting she’d come into town and they’d met for dinner. He also never mentioned me….not once. So I think it’s likely they did have a physical relationship.
But given how much he lied I just assumed they did and frankly didn’t care. The lying was enough to end things. I raised my sons to understand that once you lie nothing else matters, so it would be phony of me to accept it from a partner.
I only discovered LACGAL about two years after separating, so I didn’t have the plain question of “is this relationship acceptable to you?” What I did have was an amazing therapist who did the same thing. After numerous sessions of me parsing to my therapist about what I “knew” and “didn’t know,” she basically said “you don’t have to prove anything. This isn’t a court of law. If this relationship makes you unhappy, you can end it.” It was one of those liberating moments, as you say.
I’m glad you had a good therapist.
I knew my therapist would be good because she told me she wasn’t for or against reconciliation, she wanted what was healthiest for me.
She ultimately did our marriage counseling. I’d offered to get one that didn’t know either of us but ex was uninvested and only interested in shutting me up so he agreed to see my therapist.
After a few sessions she told me privately that I’d never get what I needed from him and it was best that I leave him. The cheating was a secondary factor to it just not being a good relationship for me overall.
For me there’s a kind of critical mass with truth that can be liberating. If, in the shock stage of discovery when “meh” is still way beyond reach, you get only a quarter or half or even 70%, it can feed the mystique of cheating and make it look more glamorous, romantic or alluring than it actually was– basically what FWs strain themselves pretending it was and wishing it was. But if you get the full dope or something close to it, the fluorescent lights turn on, mystique flips into a ditch and, at least in retrospect, it’s great comedy fodder. I realized this about a year ago when a close friend and fellow chump started sharing some of the grimier details of her ex’s antics and we both started laughing so hard we were on the floor. Something about flabby cam girls with unintelligible former Eastern Bloc accents and cum-covered credit cards.
That’s got to be every FW’s worst nightmare. So I’m guessing that’s probably a less recognized reason why FWs tend to keep back large chunks of the truth– to avoid getting laughed at and consequently having their delusions deflated. It may relate to the disordered relationship cluster B types reportedly have with truth and reality– that the truth is only what they can get others to believe and, furthermore, they can only fully invest in their own invented narratives when the delusion is shared by others. I think it’s the whole reason many have affairs to begin with or pay for sex– so they can pretend they’re the sparkly beings their APs reflect back to them and//or that the APs are dazzling conquests that increase their own transcendent status. For the same reason, if the truth has to come out, they only want chumps and bystanders seeing the soft-focus movie of the week version of events, not the cringy, clownish, shit-stained cinéma vérité version.
Yes! The fantasy they have to keep up and the humiliation of the seedy details coming out.
I seriously think the post-D-day laughter gave me back the decade or so of lifespan I might have lost from all the previous 18 months of coercive mindfucking horror.
I agree about the idea of a critical mass of truth. I think, for me, there was a component of my own image management. I didn’t want to have people think “oh, he ended a marriage because of a couple of flirty texts? What a control freak!” On the other hand, nothing ends a conversation faster than “she had an affair with a student.” In reality, none of those conversations ever really happened, because I have been extremely private about the details of my divorce (except here). Also, literally no one has ever asked me in four years to explain what happened.
So, now I realize image management is BS. If someone wants to end a marriage because of overly-flirty texts, I totally get it. One thing you learn from this experience is that you cannot control the perception of others, whether it’s the FW’s perception of your relationship, or your community’s.
The concept of critical mass gives them power. FW may have thought, “if CDC only thinks it was flirty texts, then he’ll look like a controlling jerk for ending the marriage.” Waiting for just the right amount of truth gives the FW all the power, because they control the truth.
The idea of image management brings a new level to the idea especially if someone senses they’re under social pressure to come up with morally acceptable reasons to leave a marriage. Not sure but I have a sense that actually decent men who want to maintain their reputations as decent men in order not to be mistaken for knuckle-dragging tools by other decent people they care about or work with, etc., might especially feel pressure to produce a morally acceptable reason for divorce. That might be true whether a guy is involved in some kind of religious community and getting religious pressure or if he’s a progressive agnostic and getting “woke” pressure to demonstrate he doesn’t mistreat women.
Maybe there’s a different dynamic for women who aren’t connected to any religious community because there’s no equivalent moral “woke” pressure to prove you didn’t bail on a whim. In any case I really didn’t care if randos thought I’d just tossed the marriage away out of boredom. Being taken for a femme fatale was almost preferable to being viewed as a doormat, but it wasn’t the reason the facts helped. Getting the facts just helped demystify the affair and, most importantly, shifted the power imbalance after D-day when I was still recovering from more than a year’s worth of heavy coercive control– DARVO abuse, attacks on my self esteem and, worst of all, attacks and threats against my parenting. Some of the icky, hilarious stuff that came out about the affair and AP managed to shake me out of my disempowered, paralytic state and also armed me with embarrassing ammo that FW would do anything to keep under wraps.
What I should have added is that, by saying “critical mass,” I meant it would have been better to know nothing rather than just the curated bs version that FW initially copped to. But he lost control of the narrative for a lot of reasons– like the AP’s drunken oversharing at work and bitchy alienation of coworkers which fueled a lot of gossip, one of those disgruntled coworkers turning whistleblower and then a humiliating trail of undeleted evidence which, all told, painted the affair as a big rancid puke fest.
At the very least it had the effect that FW quickly gave up trying to romanticize the affair or incite me into a pickme dance with the AP because this was downright comical in light of the ugly facts.
… you seem to think people generally care whether the cheater is a knuckle-dragging tool, but in my case, people know perfectly well my husband has behaved like a knuckle-dragging tool and they treat me as though I’m radioactive and he’s normal anyway!
Oh personally I’m under no such delusion. While working in (non-mainstream) media, whenever I or anyone else stood up to harassment these workplaces would split into camps and Team Rapey always had more members. That is, unless the accused was actually innocent and the accuser was lying.
That’s the rub. As a lifelong feminist it was really hard to stomach the fact that women who fabricate sexual abuse actually exist but, as I’ve said before, I saw it happen three times (all chronic cheaters and side-pieces as it happens).
I have to qualify that, in real life, this is very rare– about .01% of rape and harassment charges are false if its factored that 90% of incidents are never even reported. But the field I worked in is an infamous psycho-magnet (worse than people motivated solely by money are those motivated by fame and power) so every type of atrocious behavior is far more common in that arena. Anyway, what I learned is that the only men who can’t live down a knuckle-dragging tool rep are the ones who really aren’t knuckle-draggers. They end up scapegoats. And no one is more contemptuous of actually decent men than the patriarchy blowers. The same women who falsely framed would also cuddle up into furry little baby-talking balls at the feet of the worst offenders and would also punish other women who spoke out about genuine gendered abuse.
Go figure. I suspect this may be one reason why some actually decent men might find it dismaying to be falsely identified as abusers. The other reason is that being actually decent isn’t the easiest row to hoe for any gender because it often requires going against cultural pressure and standing alone at times. It’s a real investment and “the innocent love their innocence” as some famous humanitarian put it.
… what field was that, again?
I’m deliberately vague and muddled about biographical details and timelines online. Maybe it’s just paranoia or an excessive sense of my own importance but, because it was so unusual for anyone to stand up against harassment prior to #MeToo– much less criminally prosecute two knuckle-dragging tools in a row and then sue one– that, despite having been an obscure little behind the scenes elf, I would not want to be doxed, especially by the violent psycho I haven’t yet collected the rather large jury award from.
Tis a little early for Halloween, but let me quote ahead by about 60 days:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
(I will not dignify that racist asshole with a direct quotation, but hey, it’s in the public domain)
It is my personal belief that “full disclosure” is one of the supreme roadblocks to reconciliation. Why? Because honestly? Is there a classier way of saying “they get to rub in all of the horrible things they did AND basically get to get away with”?
Cheating is the crossing of a forbidden line(boundaries or betrayal by other names.) It simply does not matter what thinking drove the atrocity.
Remembering where I was sitting a year ago, teetering between “stay friends” and “no contact”, I felt like the only way we could remain friends was if she told me EVERYTHING.
It hit me somewhere in there how devastating that would be, though. I am naturally inquisitive and want to know EVERYTHING(my bedtime reading was about planetary accretion last night. It became that hot knife in my brain.) The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was just going to be more of her centrality and image management. I cannot count on her to be honest or trustworthy ever again.
And honestly, it was just going to make me angrier as I go through that emotional calculus of “here is the list of things she did to hurt me held up against all of that time I took off to go to oncology appointments with her”. Really just helps prove the thesis of “no contact is best contact.”
I, like the characters in (redacted)’s eldritch horror fiction, am simply happier not knowing. I have to treat the “known unknowns” the same way as you treat the Mythos here-nobody’s sanity survives contact with it, their lives are inextricably ruined trying to understand, do NOT read the book you were told to burn, you will not get to Level 10 so don’t plan your character that far ahead.
And remember kids-if you see a Reel like that? Report it for False Advertising. Or Hate Speech-depending on how saucy you are feeling.
Feliz Jueves!
Ultimately, short of hiring a private detective, you will only know what the FW wants you to know.
I would recommend hiring a private investigator if possible.
On a lawyer’s advice, I hired one to get the rock-solid smoking gun photographic evidence in a fault state. I’d never done anything like this before and it felt very weird. Typically I’m not the “prying” type. But I have no regrets because I think it made the rest of the ordeal less contentious and less stressful.
The PI– a retired cop who’s become a Whatsapp buddy since then– never had to testify because FW stopped trying to contest the facts. FW also stupidly charged the whole affair on one “secret” credit card so, once he’d confessed to the basic details, there was no way to muddle or hide dissipated marital assets.
But here’s the rub: The reason FW stopped denying anything about the affair is because, due to the PI, I was armed with so much detail that he quickly caved and confessed. In other words, the pump for basic truth was primed by the fact I’d hired a private investigator.
Because the PI didn’t have to testify, I never felt the need to tell FW I’d hired one in the first place and was never legally obligated to. To this day, I think FW believes I have telepathic superpowers because I correctly “guessed” so many details of the affair after D-day and didn’t waver or give him the benefit of the doubt when he initially tried to deny everything.
Anyway, nothing wrong with hiring a PI if the funds can be scrounged to do it.
“to this day, I think FW believes I have telepathic superpowers because I correctly “guessed” so many details of the affair after D-day”
Oh my god. That is delicious. I love this for you. FW has no idea how you know. Must have made them crazy for a time.
ah yes, the secret credit card… !
I should have added to my spiel above that it’s better to know nothing than only the bits FWs are proud of or use like a lash to cause pain and increase their own centrality.
there’s no need to know the details–it’s harmful. besides, can you believe a word he says? i know i can’t.
my X lied the entirety of our marriage., about everything. i do not know what is true or not re: his affair with his coworker. i will never know. it doesn’t matter anymore. i was tested for various STI, a traumatizing event if there ever was one. that’s enough for me.
i try to stay in the land of facts that i can see and read and prove. these tell me everything i need to know in my life.
the filing cabinet told me what i needed to know. to clarify, my X was “in charge” of the household filing cabinet for the final couple of years, or he was supposed to be. he barely took care of it. by that point he did less than the bare minimum in our marriage and family, showing up for meals and sitting in the LR reading/listening to music. he did make dinner on the weekends but the quality of the dinner was deteriorating–he frequently burned it.
D-day occurs, and separation unfolds. after selling the house, i move to a rental, taking the filing cabinet with me. i decide to look through it, in a concerted way, and tidy it up. what a mess. files stuffed with 4 different unrelated items. unlabelled files, mislabelled files, indecipherable labelled files. lotsa evidence of financial abuse in the form of receipts. a loose, largish stack of items that needed to be filed floating around the bottom of the drawer.
he left all of his personal documents behind: birth certificate, education transcripts/degrees, tax info, employment contract + annual renumeration info, etc. etc. he did take his passport because he was going on a holiday.
this was hard evidence.
this is when i knew the following about my X:
i needed this evidence to fully understand how poor a partner this man was for me. i just did. i do not need to know the details of his fantasy life with his AP.
find your evidence.
That’s where I was. I knew enough to know that the marriage had to end and that the terms of the divorce had to cut out any need for future contact as much as possible. The details weren’t necessary. He made closeout agony, particularly when he went pro se after his attorney died. To him, everything was an opportunity to show how little I meant to him.
Thankfully, he ran out of issues and finally got into a long-term relationship. Silence is golden.
It took me rolling around in my fuckwit’s filth after she moved out a year ago to start to cement why reconciliation would be impossible-like you, left enough of a mess to really solidify why further contact was just going to be harmful. Looks like both you and I hit the “lazy idiot” lottery, particularly in the end times! Aren’t you glad you’re free of that?
i am relieved to be free of him, and actively rebuilding my own life. D-day was 2020. i think i’ve crested the mountain and am on my way down the other side. the view if much nicer on this side of the mountain!
TBH i’m not sure he’s a lazy idiot, rather i think he’s incapable. his entitlement makes him act like he’s above it all, but i don’t think he’s capable–that’s it.
one day i’ll tell the story about the moving boxes, but not today.
I have no fucks to give to Cheater narrative today! They’re liars, sneaks, abusers, con artists!! Give Cheaters the boot 🥾people!! And the idiot apology therapists!
THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG that’s what you get. The tip. Just believe that. Now connect the dots. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN TREATED?
Coercion
Other lies
Disrespectful
Obnoxious
Rage
Anger
Meaness
Entitled
Arrogant
Abusive
Demanding
Neglecting
Dismissive
Not there
Don’t care
What family??
I could go on, but you know when the 💩💩💩piles up to a truck load ans you ask yourself the question…hey CHUMP, YOU OK WITH ALL THIS? Thats all the answer I needed after D,day.NO I AM NOT OK.
I had suspicions for years, particularly about a supposed ex-girlfriend. I wouldn’t say I liked dealing with the implications, so I was in some level of denial, too.
During our long-distance separation (he ran off to where the ex-girlfriend lived), he became defensive when I asked how he was spending his time. Then, the phone calls ended because I was asking too many questions. We were supposedly trying to patch things up, but?
So, I shared that background with my attorney when he asked about adultery because I live in a state where it still counts if you go to trial. He said he had never heard of a case of a “runner” under the circumstances I described who didn’t have someone waiting for them or a plan formulated to find “love.”
Indeed, the dirt began coming out. I found it so painful that I told my attorney to gather it but not tell me unless we were going to trial. If we were divorcing, I truly didn’t need to know the extent. I was not at all interested in sitting through a recitation of what a mess my marriage was in front of a judge unless I had to. Thankfully, we settled.
What I don’t understand is this: When I asked my FW if all the lying wasn’t against his own honor and values, and if there had been lying and dishonesty in our marriage before… So this is what he replied: “I confided all the pain, doubts, all the lies and all my dark secrets from my past to the OW. She knows the real me and all my faults. She now knows me inside and out.” Why does the OW get a clean new start and I can puzzle over the question what other dark secrets there have been in 30 years of marriage. Because in the end he wouldn’t confess them to me. He just left without another word. Does she now get the honest version of him? Is it easier to be honest with your partner in crime?
This is 4 days old and others have responded but I can’t help but add my 2 cents.
The one thing you know for certain about your FW is that he is a liar. And as such, you can’t assume that anything he tells you is true. Period. I’m still trying to remember this myself. Mine will say or do something and I will often try to make sense of it “why would he say x if he was going to do y”? etc And then I realize he is simply an unreliable narrator and trying to make sense of him will always be a problem because I don’t know what is true or not. But I should be assuming that MOST of it is simply NOT true.
I don’t have to know your FW to feel 99.9% certain that he did NOT tell his OW everything. A couple great reasons to lie to you and say he did are: 1) If you think she already knows everything, you are less inclined to tell her the truth yourself and 2) telling you that she knows him inside and out HURTS you. It could be as simple as that.
But as others have said, even if he did tell her everything and again, I refuse to believe he did, that doesn’t change his character. He’ll do it again. And the OW will be blindsided because she’ll assume that his honesty with her means she’s special.
“Does she now get the honest version of him?” Probably not the really sick-fuck stuff. If she was told about and “accepts” that he, say, pays to watch forcibly drugged, 11 year old trafficked cam girls from Belarus getting violently raped by middle-aged tattooed thugs he will extend his bottomless self-loathing to her as well and she’ll be lucky to get out alive. If she was told about this stuff and believes he’s stopped this behavior she’s in for a rude awakening at which point she’ll also be lucky to get out alive.
No way he told her all of it. He was lying just to make you feel bad. They always hold stuff back from any partner.
StillLaughing, I haven’t commented on this site for a while (I’ve just been too busy), but I felt impelled to reply to your comment, just in order to encourage you to walk away from any thoughts along the lines of “does she now get the honest version of him?”
These questions in your mind are understandable and maybe inevitable, as a part of living through the trauma of betrayal. But–and I can’t state this strongly enough–people who are capable of cheating on their partner and living a double life are character-disordered. For people with that kind of disorder, even years of psychotherapy–YEARS of it, with a well-trained clinician–will produce only a very small adjustment in their personality. It’s sad but true. This is to say that the mere act of confiding one’s worst secrets to a lover (even assuming your FW did tell the OW the whole truth about himself) DOES NOT CHANGE ONE’S PERSONALITY at all! Nor does it improve one’s integrity as a human being.
I think “I’m different now” is a part of the cheater playbook, and it’s also a lie cheaters tell themselves in order not to have to live with the cognitive dissonance of having done things that violate what they thought were their ethical principles.
So, just let your FW wallow in his own (pretty sad) confusion about himself. It will get easier with time! Sending hugs.
What utter BS he handed you there. To the extent that a cheater “confides” anything in an AP, it will be only ever be lies upon lies about how sad, lonely and abused he/she has been. How utterly awful, mean, unattractive, selfish, and so forth the spouse is. How, sniffle, the poor cheater has tried—really, really tried—to bear up under the terrible weight and pain of it all for the sake of the kids/dogs/history/or his/her own (nonexistent) moral code, but just can’t do it any longer, especially now that AP has shown him how glorious it can and should be.
It’s a given that no actual facts—much less truths—were shared.
If they stay together, which is the ultimate karma, AP will figure out the difference between pillow talk and the reality of the cheater soon enough. Not a life to envy.
Spot on.
She’s messed up if she accepts the dark secrets. I get if someone misbehaved in their teen/college years, but if I ever partner up, I want someone who has a long history of being a straight arrow. And NO history of lies or manipulation.
I doubt that these FWs are completely truthful with future partners. It’s a game to them to be dishonest and control the situation. They choose people who will go along with that.
“The more sadistic cheaters get frissons of delight watching you struggle to learn the truth of your life.”
I think they are all sadistic. After D-Day my XFW told me way too much, like when and where they did it (both geographically and anatomically) and it was plenty sadistic. He was so happy when telling me the details it was borderline bizarre. Another chump I know had the same experience, and when she asked her husband why he was telling her all of that he replied “Because you’re my best friend.” Somebody make it make sense.
I suppose it was a relief to get it off his chest, no?
Well that would require him having a conscience, and regret and remorse for what he had done. He had none of those, and so there was nothing for him to be relieved of.
oh, Best Thing, we must have been married to the same guy!!
I feel sorry for any chump that gets caught up listening to the RIC. It’s a trap! Thank you, George Lucas, and CL for that meme. Hopefully the chump that asked the bad doctor will see a post by Nancy, or someone like her, and get a clue that not everyone thinks the RIC has worthwhile answers to dealing with/infidelity.
Tracy, I’m wondering if anyone else here in CN has gotten sort of the reverse situation, that I was presented w/by my FW XW almost two years ago in an email to me. She wanted us to discuss what went wrong in our marriage, FIVE plus years after D-day. Now seven.
As if I would. I mean, my feeling is, hard grey rock aside (which makes me very happy), why the hell would I want to go over my marriage (mirage) to her now? What possible good could come out of it for me? Or any chump in that situation? Why would I think a lying, cheating snake of an ex-spouse would do anything but make me out to be the bad guy? Not to mention, she/they lie on big stuff, so how can you believe them? And/or trust them?
Ok, that’s all. I’ll be quiet now.😊
It’s our natural instinct, as Chumps, to try to ‘talk through’ what happened, in order to reach at least an understanding and gain some closure.
That instinct was so strong in me and never, ever served me well in my dealings with FW.
Your FW appears to be offering closure here, but she’s not really.
You were wise to dodge this Hoover because I think you would have inevitably trod into last week’s word salad with a big, slippery side of mind fuckery.
Classic hoovering move. You were smart to give that a big nope.
Thanks, Cashmere. I was thinking it was Hoovering of some type, but to what fucking end? For kibbles five years out? Wow. All I can think is, stupid much?!😜 She got no reply from me on that. Nor will she ever. Un-be-fucking-lievable.
Sorry, today’s post just got me thinking about the FW XW’s last big stupid move.
Hope everyone else in CN is doing ok. Or at least, working on getting to ok.🫤
I think the only details you really need are the ones that build your lawyer’s case. Assets spent, childcare responsibilities shucked, STD tests necessary.
Digging into the minutiae isn’t necessary because it can deepen the pain.
Know what your lawyer needs to know to make a decent divorce settlement.
Do I like the cheater’s lies?
I do not like them, fuck that guy
I do not like him, hope he dies.
Would I like him here or there?
Would I like him at the fair?
I would not like him anywhere
I do not like the cheater’s lies
I do not like him, fuck that guy.
Would I like him in my house?
Would I like him when he’s soused?
I would not like him, he’s a louse.
I do not like him in my face
I do not like him anyplace
I do not like the cheater’s lies
I do not like them, hope he dies.
Would I like him in the rain?
Would I like him if he’s in pain?
Not in the rain. Not in pain.
Not in my house. Not when he’s soused.
I do not like him here or there.
I do not like him anywhere.
I do not like the cheater’s lies.
I do not like them, fuck that guy.
Lol, excellent. Apparently Dr. Seuss drove his first wife, Helen Geisel, to suicide by cheating with her close friend so it cracks me up to think how he’s rolling in his grave over the way Seuss parodies are being directed.
still would like to know WHEN his hooker habit started. The urge to tic and tie the timeline of cheating to what else was going on at the time in my life or in the world is for some unknown reason strong. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Maybe just curiosity. Maybe I just like solving puzzles. When did it start? How many years of my life did I waste? Should this or that have been a hint? Was he already banging Asian “masseuses” when Tiger Wood’s waitress wanderings came to light? I remember saying, “How awful for Elin”. My Cheaterpants took Tiger’s part and said, “She probably wasn’t getting it done at home”. After my D-Day but before I left, I referred to Tiger as his “sex hero”. It was good to see that that really annoyed him. Was he already cheating when the Ashley Madison breach happened? I know he already was when Robert Kraft got arrested. I have photographic evidence that dates back to about a year before that. I like knowing that Kraft’s arrest probably worried my cheater a bit. It never occurred to me at the time that my husband would do anything like that!
It is useful to know details when they spur you on to leave. I found photos that told my betrayal traumatized self, “Yes, he really did put his penis in another woman’s vagina. That really did happen”.
It is helpful for CL to tell us that we will never know all the details because cheaters lie anyway; and they like to know that they are still fooling us; and that we can move on without knowing everything. At some point you know enough to go. And we will know that we’ve completely moved on when we no longer care about who, what, when, where or why.
True no contact is getting all that speculation out of your brain. He deserves exactly zero shelf space in there.
You were living your life honestly. Not an ability he shares or cares to share. That’s the whole of it.
I’m gonna agree with Dr. Kathy, too: they do lie. Well, they only confess to what they’ve already been caught at.
Which is why I strongly advocate getting into their phone and reading their messages.
Get what you need to secure a fair settlement, but then I think letting it go is best. Reading their texts/sexts, looking at pics they shared and so on can only hurt you. Nothing to be gained there.
The character traits needed to be disloyal automatically preclude the ability to be completely truthful. And gosh! Didn’t that take me too long to learn. Hence being told “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember”. When I stopped insisting on the truth, I began to mourn the loss of agency over my past. It’s been difficult knowing that every decision I made that I believed was based on a solid relationship was actually built on someone else’s facade.
I think Tracy is spot on. Of course we should get the truth, but then, FW’s are baked-in liars.
We don’t need the full ‘truth’ to get on with our lives and leave them behind in the land of Meh.
FW 2 was as shadowy, shady and nefarious as could be.
My gut tells me he was probably cheating as I entered the relationship with him, intermittently throughout and then the ‘known’ affair at the end. ShAAYdee…
The affair at the end was what I know about (through my own pieced together bits of evidence, he never admitted to it).
Now that I’m in full no contact with him I don’t even care about those other details. Sometimes I do a little hypothetical test on my zero interest.
If someone were to say pssst…Learning would you rather see a newly acquired video, detailing all the skanky goings on of your ex FW….or….use that time to get an extended sleep in? I’d take the sleep in every-time!
When I left I knew enough, namely: that I wasn’t emotionally safe, that I was being lied to, that he was a gaslighter and that my clear thinking analytics and instincts were trustworthy. I didn’t want to spend my future with him. That was enough…..
I so don’t miss the earlier phase of hyper- vigilance that is no way to live.
I think for many people knowing as much of the “truth” as possible is helpful – it’s helpful so that they can understand what bullshit the gaslighting was and that they can trust their own instincts and ability to spot red flags and lies, and also have an accurate sense of what happened. When you have been lied to, sometimes for years and often repeatedly, you kind of feel crazy….or maybe you start going crazy, which was the plot of the original play/movie “Gaslight” (which I always recommend to people). Knowing that those business trips weren’t business trips, that your things weren’t misplaced, that spouse really does spend and hour and a half in the bathroom texting, etc etc, can be extremely important for re-establishing a traumatized spouse’s sense of reality and ability to TRUST THEMSELVES AND THEIR PERCEPTIONS. I think that’s important. The other factor might be just collecting evidence for the divorce to whatever extent it will benefit the betrayed spouse. At some point, it’s not useful to dwell on all of this but I think each of us has to decide what that point is and when the need for knowledge and validation no longer exceeds the pain it causes.
I agree with this ☝️
I had an annotated list on my phone of the incongruent things he was doing and saying – in a sense to track my own judgment and sanity and to remind myself of what I was actually observing.
Once there was enough on that list for me to feel I really ‘knew’ that he was shady and having an affair and that I wasn’t emotionally safe with this man, I stopped adding to it.
I had made up my mind to leave and I ‘knew enough’.
I agree that we all have our own tipping point where we can say to ourselves, I know enough now……
Absolutely – we need to re-establish a sense of what “reality” is and was and that we were right in our perceptions. It’s validation for ourselves, and that we’re not crazy. At some point, we’ll find out enough and that should be it. There are people who obsess about this and for them there might never be enough, but at some point most people stop collecting info and try to move on.
I should add that I don’t think reaching sufficient knowledge about the FW is just an empirical or forensic exercise – our instincts and bodily reactions are additional precious gifts to guide us.
I started to sleep startle awake every night when lying beside him. That was something I had never done before and haven’t done since
I also felt this amorphous, vague sense of dread.
These things occurred well before any more objective signs started to pop up.
My body was basically telling me you’re not safe falling asleep alongside this man and something bad is happening.
I’ve actually heard of people DREAMING that their spouse was cheating and then found that the dream was true. They did not have any conscious knowledge of this but in some way this info was being provided. I do believe in spiritual guidance so I think that’s an element. Sometimes people are just prompted to look at phones or computers and the dirty deed gets revealed. People should never ignore their own intuition or gut reactions or prompts like that, as you found out, the body knows. Or something does!
I did read the article in NYT and IMMEDIATELY signed up to read your blog! FINALLY I am seeing that I am not alone in thinking leaving a cheater is not only ok but tbe only thing to do to preserve your sanity.
“Telling the truth would be power sharing” — yes, the lying is a power trip. ‘ I will stand here in front of you and lie to your face, and you will believe me.“. That’s why they do it. Out-of-control egos.