Dumped By Speakerphone After 9 Years
He dumped her by speakerphone. At work. For maximum humiliation. How does she get over it?
***
Hello Chump Lady,
You’ve probably heard almost all of it, but I’m not positive you’ve heard this one. This happened in April: My partner at the time goes on vacation with his college friends two or three times a year; I’d been going with them for seven years. The day before he left, we were discussing whose last name our kids should have (since I wasn’t going to change my last name when we got married) and he said mine would be better since it’s easier to spell.
All anyone said was that it was so sweet how he’d stare at me anytime we were in the same room and that he just loved me so much. Literally more than six people said that to me without prompting over the years. We were best friends with dozens of inside jokes and went on adventures together every month.
He had broken up with me once, five years ago.
He asked to get back together 18 hours later and had said repeatedly that that was the greatest regret of his life. Obviously, he’d promised many times that we were indefinite life partners that worked things out. Obviously. We talked all the time about how we would parent, where we would live, what kind of childcare we wanted, what we would do if one of us couldn’t work for a while and so on.
Anyway, I had to work (as a paramedic at a fire department) so I was going to join him on vacation the next day. That morning he texted me asking me to bring the medications he forgot. That afternoon he called me while I was dealing with a choking baby. Then, on our way back from the hospital, I called him back.
I told him we were on speakerphone and that my coworker could hear.
He told me we were broken up, he was moving out and leaving me, that it wasn’t a negotiation and that there was nothing to talk about. Then he hung up and blocked me and has not spoken to me since. And I had to leave my shift in the middle of it and drive home while losing my mind.
I am not dangerous, I was not cheating on him, I have no untreated mental health disorders, I am not addicted to any substance, and I do not threaten suicide to get my way. I don’t use violence or even raise my voice. Sometimes when I get upset I cry. That’s really and truly it.
Here’s the explanation I was sent about why he left me like such a coward:
For (2): The reason I broke up with you in the way that I did — an intentionally brief phone call– is because I remember the first time I broke up with you that I just can’t deal with alternating audible despair, fury, and negotiation. After several hours of the same, I have learned there is no resolution I will actually hold onto in the face of that. I cannot handle you crying out of obvious and reasonable despair; in the moment I will do or persuade myself of anything to try and make it better. You angry is also hard to deal with, though not as bad as the crying. “I, Aaron, should be willing to look upon the consequences of my actions and the emotional devastation I have wrought” is a fair stance to take (hey, it’s justice), but one that’s incompatible with me actually going through with it. “Nailing the door shut” is a fair summary of what I was trying to do because I don’t think I could have done it any other way.
So I did what I did: tell you it’s over, and get off the phone before I can be persuaded otherwise, especially because in the moment — and in fact any time I think I’ve lost you — I have a really hard time sympathizing with the steady-state Aaron who was unhappy and wanted out. I didn’t mean to be cruel. I know you hate stonewalling. You didn’t do anything wrong that would justify that. But I also need to protect myself from how strong your emotions are at times like that, which I can’t in-person at all, and honestly can’t really do over the phone either, and I need to do that because if I don’t I’ll just end up in a state where I’m saying (and in the moment, believing) whatever to make it stop.
I’m not sure whether or not he left me for someone else.
I know I’m welcome here anyway. I’ve been reading a lot of your blog and am slowly accepting that he’s terrible, this is what he was always like and I just couldn’t see it, and I don’t make people abandon me the same week we’re scheduling embryo freezing. There is no narrative that I can string together to make sense of this. Even if I ignore my own perceptions and just refer to words he said with his actual mouth I can’t understand. Mostly I’ve stopped trying to and I’m doing a lot better at accepting I’ll never know why mostly because I can feel empathy.
Anyway, thank you for the sanity in the midst of the worst thing that’s ever happened to me (and that is not an easy contest to win). I’m only 32. I can start over. But I still miss him so much sometimes. I let him become the pillar of my life and now he’s gone and it’s hard to be in a world where that happened. My good friends that are absolutely horrified by this. I am no contact with him and he did me the favor of never coming back from vacation so we don’t run into each other.
But I had no idea. We spent almost all of our time together and I thought I was the most important person in his life, too.
Thank you for listening,
Naive
***
Dear Naive,
Aaron is a ghoul. And a future faker. And absolutely shit at apologizing.
This is a classic case of “It’s Not What I Did, It’s How You Reacted.” And! He’s blaming you preemptively. Things could get messy, so let’s be a sociopath and dump you in the cruelest way possible by speakerphone.
You asked for an explanation, which is a rookie mistake.
First of all, Aaron is beneath contempt and should not be spoken with. I know your broken heart is having a hard time catching up with that. Yet, he’s gone on the offensive — treating YOU as if you’re beneath contempt and should not be spoken to. Mindfuck! Don’t ask for explanations because they don’t exist. He did it this way because he could. Because that’s how shallow and cruel this freak is. Wanting further contact with him is just an invitation for more cruelty. Do you think a guy this callous has INSIGHT? He’s a shallow puddle of piss, not the oracle of Delphi.
Contact is centrality. He’s devalued you, but still he’ll accept your failed currency of attention. And if other sources dry up, expect him to circle back for more kibbles (aka “hoovering.”) He did it before after he dumped you, he’ll probably do it again. So be strong and stay NO CONTACT.
Before I feed his crap to the Universal Bullshit Translator, a word about future faking. To be a chump is to be future faked. Cheating is the theft of your reality, and so is future faking. They go hand in hand. You’re living a life of presumed mutual investment.
The truth is in their actions.
Now, with cheating, obviously you’re unaware of what’s going on behind the scenes. But the lies keep you invested. You’re of use, until the moment you’re not. In your case, he made plans with you and promises — we’re going to get married, freeze eggs, name future children — but in NINE YEARS — the best years of your fertility — did any of these plans manifest themselves? Did he DO anything other than make promises? People who want to do things DO THEM.
Yes, life takes planning, but most people work in tangible ways towards outcomes. Pay attention to what people do over what they say. Go watch this video about the power of “maybe.” The dopamine hook of “maybe” is hard-wired in our brains. You got intermittent rewards — he stared at you lovingly, he made a happy promise — nothing of value materialized, but you stayed hooked.
And then one day, like the bastard he is, he unhooked you and threw you back in the dating ocean. Not compassionately, not ethically — he lacks the raw materials — but cruelly (your humiliation is a high) and abruptly (your services are no longer needed).
Of course you’re anguished and want explanations.
An actual loving, invested person — even one who wanted to end the relationship — could not behave this way. It would HURT them to hurt you. What he’s doing is a sick impersonation of that — your upset upsets me — but that’s a different beast. If it truly UPSET him, he would take pains to lessen your grief — he would break up with you as kindly as possible. In person, with kindness, with a fair division of your shared life. He’d responsibly clean up his mess and not leave you wondering.
Now, let’s feed his stupid bleating to the UBT.
For (2): The reason I broke up with you in the way that I did — an intentionally brief phone call– is because I remember the first time I broke up with you that I just can’t deal with alternating audible despair, fury, and negotiation.
I can’t deal with emotions because I don’t possess them. What is this bother? Why are you moist? Wherefore snot?
After several hours of the same, I have learned there is no resolution I will actually hold onto in the face of that.
You’re so powerful, you force me to be cruel.
I’m an asshole because you emote.
I cannot handle you crying out of obvious and reasonable despair;
It’s obvious and reasonable that you’d despair to lose the wonderfulness of me.
in the moment I will do or persuade myself of anything to try and make it better.
Let me make it better and dump you by speakerphone.
You angry is also hard to deal with, though not as bad as the crying.
This is hard on me.
Harder really, than me breaking up with you via speakerphone. After you saved a baby from choking.
“I, Aaron, should be willing to look upon the consequences of my actions and the emotional devastation I have wrought” is a fair stance to take (hey, it’s justice), but one that’s incompatible with me actually going through with it.
Aaron being a grown-up is incompatible with who Aaron is — a sociopathic, avoidant baby-man.
“Nailing the door shut” is a fair summary of what I was trying to do because I don’t think I could have done it any other way.
I must dump you this way! Can’t you see your obsolescence? FOOL!
So I did what I did:
Promise you children, promise you a commitment, play make-up futures with pretend children…
tell you it’s over,
How was I to know you believed me?
JUNIPER ISN’T REAL, Naive! We don’t have a daughter named Juniper! She’s just a contrivance so you’ll suck my dick.
and get off the phone before I can be persuaded otherwise, especially because in the moment — and in fact any time I think I’ve lost you — I have a really hard time sympathizing with the steady-state Aaron who was unhappy and wanted out.
I have a really hard time sympathizing.
But if I do muster some, it’s for me.
I didn’t mean to be cruel.
I meant to be cruel.
I know you hate stonewalling.
This is me. Expressing myself by speakerphone! You don’t like stonewalling, so here, try abject humiliation and public rejection. Is that better?
You didn’t do anything wrong that would justify that. But
Always the qualifier…
I also need to protect myself from how strong your emotions are at times like that,
I hurt you to protect myself.
DARVO! I’m the real victim here. You’re a hysterical woman.
which I can’t in-person at all, and honestly can’t really do over the phone either, and I need to do that because if I don’t I’ll just end up in a state where I’m saying (and in the moment, believing) whatever to make it stop.
I’m not a man who built you up, then cruelly dumped you and made you cry. No, I’m a captive, imprisoned by your emotions. One wrong move and whammo! Waterworks!
I’ll do whatever I can to make it stop — like inflict more cruelty. That always makes people stop crying.
****
Naive, believe me, this freak thrills to your emotions. He’s got a whole fantasy built up in his head about how important he is, and how devastated you are. Well, it’s natural you would be after what he did. But I mean, he has a whole crazy idea that he’s some captive to your pining and unreasonable demands upon him. Versus someone who fronted a committed relationship that he was never invested in.
I shouldn’t untangle his ugly skein, but I think he’s projecting here. He’s the person who can’t deal with dependency or connection or emotions. You wanted real things — children, commitment — and he can’t operate at that level. It terrifies him, so he projects that on you. There’s nothing wrong with you for wanting authentic connection. You just chose from the barbed wire monkey pile. It happens.
As you move on, date for character, and pay attention to actions over empty promises. Big ((hugs)).
My ex was a master at the future fake and a cheater. I am now single, thankfully and no longer take the future fake… actions speak louder than words!
I’m the letter write. And thank you.
In retrospect it’s so obvious that he was going to leave and just said words so that I wouldn’t leave first but I couldn’t see it at all while I was in it.
CL should do a post on future fakers. It’s so utterly common and it keeps chumps (and non-chumps in relationships with shitty partners) stuck holding out for things that are never going to happen. It’s like love-bombing in that it is meant to keep you around by giving the illusion that you’re special and they care.
Mine talked about children, our future, etc. all while secretly hoping to run the clock out on my fertility. When DD came, he actually said he never wanted children at all (even while working with children as a career!) and had hoped he could put me off until it was too late. These future fakers are absolutely cruel. He even said he’d never wanted our son. I never ever forgave him for saying that. I told him if he ever uttered that around our child, I’d make sure he would never be a major person in his life ever again. They want everything for themselves, and have no concern for the NPCs in their lives who should only ever want what they want. Always. Narcissism at its finest.
That’s so cruel!!!! I am sorry you went through that.
My father used to say he never wanted us, when we were naughty. He also blamed me for my mum leaving us one Xmas. I spilt the sugar.
I never really forgave him and now just wish he was dead.
He’s probably the main reason why I keep choosing shitty partners.
I thought it was very telling that one of the times I saw FW gasp like a Victorian damsel is when, right after D-Day, I blurted that he should have told me when he first wanted to fuck around because, in the meantime, I could have already met, married and had more children with someone else.
Never mind that I have three children and don’t actually want more and that I’m not into rapid rebounding. The point I was making is that he was deliberately seeking to rob me of choices and a future. By his reaction, I suspect that when FWs try to run the clock out on victims’ fertility it’s likely because they can’t bear the idea that their “property” would breed with someone else. What is cheating other than the abusive enforcement of one-sided monogamy anyway?
That’s a great point, Hell of a Chump. I hadn’t seriously thought about running out the clock until seeing this today, but it does feel accurate.
And I said the same thing to FW about if he had just left when he “fell out of love” (aka decided to start f’ing around), I could have met someone else and had another child before it was too late. He just scoffed, as though nobody else would want me or to breed with me. It hurt a lot because it was pretty close to DDay. Now it just pi$$es me off.
If he was so sure no one else wanted you, he would have cleared off and stopped cock-blocking a long time before. But he was certainly invested in making you believe no one else would want you (said every batterer ever). A psychologist who consulted with the DV advocacy service I worked with said the chief things abusers engage in are “perspecticide” and “displacement.” They feel compelled to destroy victims’ perspective of themselves, the world and other people and replace it with their (the abusers’) nihilistic, hopeless, icky one. And they feel compelled to make their victims feel all the awful things they (the abusers) regularly feel as if making someone else feel these terrible things would spare the abuser from having to feel them. For instance, anyone who finds themselves feeling jealous, “ugly” or suicidal while in or following a relationship with a FW can pretty much bet the FW typically felt jealous and “ugly” and was secretly suicidal.
That is incredibly cruel. I wish there were some way to sue him for all the time he made you waste on false promises and premises. Someone like that is evil. I do think many of these betrayers are actually evil.
Evil is the exact word that’s been repeating in my mind whilst I’ve been reading about these future fakers and the lack of love for their own children! They are just plain evil!
FW wasn’t quite that overt but he did keep putting off having kids until I was almost 35. I told him it was then or never and never wasn’t acceptable to me. Especially because we had always talked about having 2 kids and we would have to have them pretty much back to back at this point. In retrospect, he wasn’t that excited or invested, I was the one doing the ovulation testing and timing everything. He was already having ED problems at this point (or, I guess, I was a problem by then because I wasn’t meeting his p0rn expectations??).
We had our daughter when I was 35 turning 36. He said he wanted to have another baby right away but I was so overwhelmed that I said we needed to wait a couple years. When I was ready for a second baby he kept coming up with excuses why not to. And then I was 40 and it seemed too late. We talked about how one child is perfect, we can do more for her, blah blah. I cried and apologized on many occasions for not having been ready for a second child until the clock had run out. He would magnanimously tell me it was ok, he was happy with just our daughter.
Now I know that he was already cheating at that point and he didn’t want another child. He just let me think he was sad that it didn’t work out. I’m not sure he genuinely wanted our daughter. He seemed like he was a great dad when she was very little and adored him but as she’s gotten older and more independent he shows less and less interest in her. He sees her once or twice a week, often for only a few hours, and it seems performative like he’s doing it because he should not because he wants to.
A child demands things just by its existence, even an adult child, that a selfish, narcissistic person doesn’t want to give. They only want to get, not give.
“Now I know that he was already cheating at that point and he didn’t want another child.” SAME HERE. And just like your ex, mine future-faked me into thinking we would, in time, try for another.
“He seemed like he was a great dad when she was very little and adored him but as she’s gotten older and more independent he shows less and less interest in her. He sees her once or twice a week, often for only a few hours, and it seems performative like he’s doing it because he should not because he wants to.”
Babies and small children are good kibble dispensers. A FW sees them as an extension of him/herself. Once they are older and individuate themselves from their parents, they can see the flaws of their parents. So those adoration kibbles dry up. That’s why they seem like caring, involved parents with little kids. They are high on kibbles. They behave in that adoring way with APs, only more so, as they are primary kibble dispensers. Kids would only be secondary. Spouses don’t rate as anything but a kibble of last resort.
My FW has no interest in my youngest. The most she gets is a text on her birthday and an offer of a gift, just to make it look like he is doing something for her. Like you say, it’s performative. The rest of the year it’s like she doesn’t exist for him. He sucks up to my oldest in order to have access to grandchildren kibbles. He visits her at least once a month despite her living an nine hour drive away, but has not seen or even had a phone conversation with my youngest in 19 months. She is a one hour drive away from him. She is okay with it on the surface, because she trusts that he sucks, but it’s got to hurt to be rejected by a parent, even a sucky one. You may need to be prepared for the day when your FW loses all interest in his dad performance. Sorry about that.
My father finally bolted for good when I was a teenager. Went through the house with a fine toothed comb for the division of material goods. Saw the photo albums (with negatives) yet didn’t take any copies of photos of his two kids growing up. Whinged about it years later because somebody probably pointed out that his third wife had tons of photos of her hideous clan hanging in their apartment . Where were images of HIS family/kids ?
He did take a macaroni portrait of him that I made in kindergarten.
Don’t underestimate young children;they see, hear and feel what is really happening in their parents’ marriage.
Yes! This is almost exactly what happened to me, same ages even. I am so, so sorry. No one should have to deal with that. It is a loss, and he caused it.
Yes, as SortOf says, this is “a new level of despicable.” Cold as ice, and cruel.
This deserves an entire post dedicated to … I don’t know what to call it, but I find out from my 27-year-old daughter that the Wasband is now complaining to her that he never wanted kids and I tricked him and got pregnant.
Let’s set aside for the briefest possible moment the question of what kind of fucking father would even say that to his adult daughter, even if it was true. I kept asking her if it sounded like maybe he was joking or something, and she said no, he was sereious.
He never once said he didn’t want kids. I was the one who wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant without a huge expensive painful effort. Now, maybe he thought he’d just hit the lottery, marrying a woman who was beset by medical issues that made pregnancy a doubtful outcome … but he always spoke about wanting kids, and never once suggested that he married me in the hopes that his bluff was never going to be called.
Whatever, I guess his newest excuse for cheating is that I tricked him. Needless to say, I did no such thing, but isn’t it nice knowing he’s not my problem any more?
Only in an age when birth control is easily available can one even consider that sex does not equal babies.
We always tricked them, or forced them, whatever. They just go through life as amoeba, bumping into decisions and floating along so they never make decisions. Then they can blame anyone else for their unhappiness. It was never their fault!
People who haven’t experienced it don’t understand that it’s not only what they did do to us, it’s also what they prevented us from doing for ourselves. Not just the opportunity to meet and marry an actually committed partner, but choices about kids, careers, family, etc. If I’d known just two months earlier, I’d have a different job in a different part of the country that shares my values, near family and friends. XW deliberately put me in that position. (Well, I guess if I’m honest I am actually free to go back to my old life: the only thing I would have to give up is my children)
IG, 💯
DDay was 2 months before the whole family was supposed to move to Doha, away from any family/friends/support system. I would’ve had no job. Boy did he scramble and offer the moon to try to get me to give up the life I have now and still go there.
As far as FWs preventing us from being in a loving committed marriage….I didn’t realize what FW stole from me until later. Now I’m in a loving partnership with a man that was left by a narcissist. He said the other day something like – I thought my ex loved me, at least at first, but after being with you I see she never did. She took 20 years from him.
He definitely affected my career in addition to family. He also caused us bankruptcy, but now I have a house, my little family, and my career is good, if not where I thought I would be. All this despite his efforts.
He has nothing that lasts. I got away and finally have what I want. CL is right. Leave the cheater and you gain that life. It takes a lot, but it is true. I would bet dollars to donuts the op’s ex is a cheater. That type of person doesn’t give up their kibble source without a new supply. Good riddance.
It’s a plausible theory. I am on call at work for 24 hours at a time so he could’ve basically been doing whatever.
I’m so sorry, that’s horrific.
I’m pretty sure my X was hoping to run the clock out on me too, but he was in a quandary. He needed a son, as the last of his name. He wanted a mini-me. So he dithered until I finally said this is happening now. I got pregnant at 38 – and without a lot of investment in the effort from the X.
But now its ‘his son’ and ‘you’ve turned my son against me’. And he can’t grasp that our amazing son is NOT and never will be his mini-me and has a mind and a life of his own.
Oh yeah. In public my ex tries to make like he is father of the year. Lately he hasn’t the energy to keep it up. I am waiting for his eventual discard of our son when he can no longer get kibble for dad of the year. The shitgiver keeps on giving.
He lied through his teeth to try to deprive you of children, instead of being honest from the start that he didn’t want any? That’s one of the most warped, wicked things I’ve ever heard! I was gobsmacked at first!
Naive, I was also gobsmacked at the cruel, vindictive way your X finished with you! He is an appalling excuse for a man, a waste of human skin! The sheer malevolent selfishness of him makes me shudder! I’m so, so sorry he did that to you. Thanks be to God you’re still young and will heal and find a real man who will love, cherish and be loyal to you. You deserve it! Hugs from Ireland.
Thank you. I really hope so.
My brother did this to his wife… future faked a willingness to have at least one child then got cold feet after the wedding and acted like a baby man until she was just too old to consider motherhood
Thieves! Cheaters are so many awful things, but most of all, they are thieves. They steal time and energy and fertility and hope in humanity.
Big hugs, Chumps. Naive, I’m sending you all the love, baby. This one hit my fury button hard.
One of the excuses he came up with for cheating was “you weren’t paying attention to me, it was always about our son”. Our kid was 3. Of course I was giving our son attention especially since his father would run off to hang with friends every single night and get back drunk. Apparently family life didn’t suit him.
Future fakers hurt not just now, but for years after. They also like to make you feel like everything bad was your fault. There is no talking to them. They just lie about everything.
Yuck. I got that from FW too. “You pay more attention to the baby than you do to me!”, “You take better care of the baby when he’s sick than you do me!” (Yeah. He’s a BABY, and you’re a grown-ass man, of COURSE the baby gets more care when he’s sick.)
It’s funny, people say “trust actions, not words”, but I get treated like I’m a stone cold bitch when I hold that standard with suitors. I didn’t when I was younger and constantly got future faked. I don’t do that anymore. Best advice I ever got was a few years ago to “keep men on clocks.” Basically what we say here in CN: don’t spackle, and only invest in people who invest in you.
No surprise, the tire kickers fall away fast these days.
Cam: I just had to look up “keep men on clocks”. I had never heard that before. Good one! Missy Denise has some advice about that to supplement CL’s on-point advice! https://www.kissydenise.com/keep-men-on-clocks-so-they-wont-waste-your-time/
Haha, Kissy Denise is exactly who I was thinking of when I wrote that!
This was a totally great article! FW did many of the “right” things except that he was future faking it all. It makes me so mad that I believed him and am paying the price for it.
Wow. I have read this blog for awhile, and am working through older posts from before I discovered it. Needless to say, I’ve read everyone’s horror stories. But the idea that he admitted to “hoping to run out the clock on your fertility”. That is a new level of despicable right there. I am somehow less shocked that he said he never wanted your son. (Prob because so often we see these FWs rewrite history, they aren’t jerks for running out of their marriage/family, they are heroes for sticking around as long as they did because all us chumps forced them to get married and have kids)
My thoughts exactly!! My STBX “stayed for the kids.” But didn’t do shit for them or with them. He was a shut down miserable lump counting the hours for my youngest to graduate from high school. But I kicked him out when I had evidence of his double life online. He wants people to see him as a hero.
Wtf?!!!! A hero who sat on his lazy ass and watched tv while his kids needed him. I didn’t realize what a toxic stew we were in.
Now he lives with his mom. I’m divorcing him. Good riddance!! 30 years of him acting like a toddler. I love my kids, but FW can eat shit and die, truly!!
I asked him why, when I was 35, he finally agreed to try for a baby. He said he thought since we had been married 13 years without kids, he thought he was sterile. Never mind that those years I was absolutely fastidious with bc. Oh no, it wasn’t me being responsible. Unfortunately given the timing of day and our divorce, and my remarriage, another child was not in the cards for me. I love my son more than life itself, it is too bad his father was such an ass. Oh well, menopause is hitting and I’m enjoying his teen years. 🙂
Me too 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻
Wow he wrote you a whole lot of nothing. The skien is very tangled in this one. It all sounds so familiar. FWs make no sense. Cowards. I’m angry and sad for you. Keep on taking care of yourself and don’t look back.
That is exactly what I was thinking reading this. “Coward”. He cannot handle her very appropriate feelings and reactions. If it isn’t exactly what he wants to hear, he cannot deal with it. She would have discovered later, if anything at all went wrong and she needed actual support from a partner, that he would be gone. Because he cannot handle anyone else having needs. He just needs adoration (which he got when people praised him for his relationship prowess, KIBBLES!) and when the hard parts come up he is gone without a second thought.
Yeah I think you’re exactly right. He is exactly the type that would file for divorce the same day I got my Stage III breast cancer diagnosis.
Thirding “coward” as I read this. What a useless manchild.
Cam, just have to point out, ex’s last name starts with the letters Cow…I refer to him as Kevin Coward if I’m ever forced to say his name. Thank God I kept my maiden name.
Sobbing by the Christmas tree as dday was the day after Christmas, I was told, “See, it’s this kind of drama I can’t take.” WTF? Drama? I had just discovered his owhore & I was the one with the problem. Yup, my reaction sealed the divorce deal.
My FW wouldn’t have a conversation with me bc i was “always angry”
at him after DD, really?? I was angry bc of DD and the absolute lack of explanation nor discussion… ghosted by your husband of 35 yrs?? yeah that’s no reason to be angry!! looking back i’m glad it ended this way. No explanation could matter.
This man seems dangerous. Unpredictable, and potentially violent. I’m glad this didn’t end like so many horrible stories: “He just snapped. He lived a double life and compartmentalized without remorse or emotion. Friends and family never saw it coming. He denies everything still. He’s cold blooded.” I am glad you’re physically safe now.
He seems so mild-mannered but he also always seemed kind, too. What about the letter is making you think True crime special?
I am interested. Obviously I can’t see him clearly at all.
Hi Naive,
In a professional capacity, my mother was in court for, among other things, several mafia trials, the prosecution of gang rapists and Ted Bundy’s final sentencing. She always talked about the “many faces of evil,” particularly how “disarming/charming” cold blooded killers can appear to be when it suits them. She would also say something along the lines of “Life would be so simple if the devil wore horns”– in other words, if evil broadcasted itself and was instantly recognizable.
Many of us here were married to very “kind”-seeming abusers. Until the mask dropped and they weren’t. So, in answer to your question, the parts of FW’s letter that smack of true crime might especially be his attempts to spin his sociopathic callousness as being somehow motivated by overwhelming empathy. Just like actually kind people never go around telling everyone how kind they are, actually empathic people don’t try to telegraph their “empathic” nature. If anything, tender-hearted people might try to appear to be a bit tougher than they are on the belief that appearing too vulnerable might invite exploitation.
Another really spooky mark against his character is that he tries to blame you for the fact he future-faked you for nearly a decade, as if you have some mystical power to make a perfectly honest person lie through their teeth. First off, if you actually had that kind of god-like power, wouldn’t you channel it to save third world orphans, stop all war and control the stock market? Secondly, if a decent person finds themselves doing something totally uncharacteristic due to extraordinary circumstances like their dog dying, a blow to the head or a bad medication reaction, they will never have at the ready a polished bunch of blame-shifting alibis for their actions.
At most an innocent person who finds themselves doing something uncharacteristic might break down into tears, seem terribly confused and say they have no idea why they did what they did and that they feel terrible for doing it. But that ability to instantly come up with half a dozen reasons why someone else (particularly the victim) is responsible for one’s behavior is not something that innocent people develop. I liken it to catching someone entering a shop carrying a magnetic security tag remover. There’s only one reason someone would carry that device around: to shoplift. And only a practiced thief would carry one. The same goes for the polished blameshifting mechanism: only serial offenders manage to develop and hone this tactic.
Speaking of true crime, the “guilt-reduction” strategy is sometimes called “neutralization”– a mental trick whereby various types of serial offenders (from college exam cheats to serial killers) attempt to reduce the stigma of their ill deeds by denying their actions did any harm, fabricating reasons why victims deserved it, etc. You can read about here (follow the link and tap “download”): https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/2/46
I share the study because I sense you might get something out of taking a bit of a deep dive into understanding abuser psychology if it helps to grasp that there’s nothing you’ve done to “cause” someone to behave this way. Another good resource is Dr. Ramani’s Youtube channel on narcissism which provides some explanations for why disordered people behave in disordered ways and how people can protect themselves from this kind of abuse.
I wish you a bright and shining future filled with love, warmth, sanity and support and free of Cluster B fuckery and strife.
I was smelling danger too. Referring to himself in third person is fucking chilling. It made me wonder what “medications” he’s taking and why (narcissism and psychopathy can’t be drugged away but it can help them be better, more thoroughly detached and delusional thugs and killers like the Tony Soprano character). And like I wrote in a longer comment below, I have a feeling that the real reason some “Houdini” cheaters do the sudden disappearing act on discard is because if they hung around and witnessed their victims eventually bouncing back and moving on to happier pastures, these abusers might be consumed with territorial thoughts of revenge or even murder.
In other words, it’s like they’re trying to outrun their own possessiveness. From the OP’s account of this FW’s prior attempted discard, it doesn’t sound like she’d even had much opportunity in that 18 hour turnaround to “tear down his resolve to leave” or however he put it. It sounds like he boomeranged back out of his own dependency. But he can’t admit that and so instead falsely defines her as the type who would cling to his pants leg and endlessly wail– a characterization that seems to baffle her. Anyway, his inability to cop to his own dependency is the scary bit since it’s such a common and specific trait among domestic batterers. That’s another brilliant little note in the Soprano series: when a side piece dumps him or when his wife leaves him, rather than admitting to panic and devastation, he tells the therapist and anyone who will listen the reverse story– that he was the dumper and that the poor things were heartbroken. Hello “masked dependency.”
I had the same thought, Mia. This guy is cold blooded and a smooth liar. Guys like this are capable of anything. So glad the letter writer is away from this freak.
Ah yes, this is very similar to how my FW acted. Our friend circle used to hold him up as the obvious “relationship goals” kind of situation, how he obviously adored me, etc. Until he didn’t. He had the same reaction to my reaction. When I dared to take a day off work to be alone at home (I was never alone, I had sole responsibility for our toddler) to be able to actually cry and mourn my 15 year marriage) he came home and wanted me to stop. He couldn’t handle me being upset so he would, and I quote, “Sacrifice his feelings and needs and come back to me” … so that I would stop ugly crying. I’m so glad I rejected his offer. Although I was tempted because I thought it would make me feel better, in the long run it would have been so much worse.
Be glad you didn’t reproduce with this FW, so you never have to see him again. He’s off to get cake and kibbles elsewhere but make no mistake, when he needs some, he will absolutely come knocking with his puppy-dog sad eyes and sob story about how you make him feel. DO NOT ENGAGE! It’s a trap.
Consider yourself lucky. He can’t find excuses to hang around you and try to pull kibbles. I have 2 years until I am no longer legally tied to my FW and I never have to see him again. My son already manages his relationship with his dad without me, thankfully, so it is already so many measures better. You dodged a massive exploding bullet on this one, because this self-pitying coward who cannot protect himself from your feelings would never let you be happy. Not really.
How did you manage to live with being so. incredibly. wrong. about how this man felt about you and what he was capable of?
And yeah no kiddos is very much a blessing. We were actually supposed to have kids last year but I said I wasn’t ready.
I realized that the defect was in him, not me. I took for granted that he was playing by the same rules as I was. Looking back, I realize he was not truly at all who he pretended to be for so long. I’m good about it now, I am happy and only have a little contact with him for our son. He means nothing to me now.
Seconding they ALWAYS come back… usually with a sob story about how they made a mistake and they miss you so much. The rare times they don’t is when they have no use for you or better options (victims) elsewhere.
Never, ever, ever take someone back. You won’t find closure from them and they won’t treat you better. You’re just reopening the door to a predator who’ll hurt you worse the second time. They’re never worth a second chance.
This can be so hard to internalize for victims when we’re still early in our healing process. One of the toughest effects of abuse is victims will often cling hardest to the person who hurt us. We have to know this and consciously work to go against our programming. That’s the trauma bond talking.
I also second that “they AlWAYS come back.” I have lived an eerily similar experience to Naive’s (minus the years and the horrifying extent of future faking). My first love, of two years–a textbook FW– broke up with me out of the blue as he arrived to pick me up for our scheduled attendance at a large party held by his friends. He even said that the reason he wanted to break up before the party was because there was going to be a girl there that he wanted to pursue. He said this in the context that I could still ride to the party with him, and maybe I’d meet another guy (a skein I have no interest in interpreting). Through tears, I said a hard no, and off he went.
In echoes of Naive’s 18-hour initial breakup, my FW showed up the very next day saying what a mistake he made. I was extremely naive as well, took him at his word, welcomed him back, of course it then got physical. Afterward he said well, he actually DID want to be broken up after all. I have always been a person that takes a hint readily and stoically, so I did not do any begging or negotiating. I cried, of course. And I wanted No Contact.
He stayed gone for a year, managed to date his new crush, but she was a lot more demanding than doormat me, and it didn’t last. Then he came hoovering back, via my friends. I was still too naive and did not see the pattern or the personality disorder for what it was, and again fell for the lovebombing. This led to another two years of emotional/verbal abuse before I finally sorted out for myself the one question young me could never move past before: which side of him is the “real” him? I finally decided: Nice people don’t pretend to be mean; but mean people have lots of reasons to pretend to be nice. So if he was both nice and mean, that meant mean was his authentic self. It took me five years of letting him repeatedly flip through the three FW channels before I saw that. (Patricia Evans of “The Verbally Abusive Relationship” writes about being in either Reality I or Reality II. During that relationship, I was repeatedly trying to relate in Reality II while not yet having the self-esteem to impose limits on the FW’s Reality I manipulations.)
So, to speak Naive directly: Please write down and keep posted somewhere you’ll see daily a list of the five most hurtful things Aaron said/did/faked as part of this callous discarding of you. Prime among them I would put his phrase “Nailing the door shut.” Because my crystal ball says he discarded you right before the gathering because he wanted to hook up with someone he knew would be there. That was his deadline to man up and get it done so he could pursue her (and being a coward, he couldn’t do it until the last minute, nor with a shred of dignity). The two of them will date, but at some point, she will see through him. A lot quicker than you did. And then he will come back. You will hear the most convincing words imaginable.
Your list will protect you. Keep that door nailed shut. Aaron’s a sadistic time thief, and you’ve lost enough already. You deserve far better. Hugs and courage to you.
It was SUCH a sweet reconciliation, though. The love shining from his eyes; the confession, “I’ve been a fool.” He got anoTher 7 years out of that (well, there were other considerations – the kids – but that kept me from imploding/exploding…. As bad behavior resumed, I said nothing, just started a file. Never had to bring it out to anyone, but the file straightened my back and gave me a stiff upper lip. Instead, I made plans, and financial arrangements. Drafted behind the last kid as she left for college, and never spoke to him again. Got all my grieving over with before I left…but I didn’t get to meh until CL and CN set me straight. Love y’all!!!
I’m sorry he stole more time from you. I got the sweet reconciliations too and loved them at the time, not realizing the only things I was “winning” was more abuse and more years of my life down the drain.
I look back now and see hoovering for the insult it is. A cruel ex coming back isn’t a compliment, they’re just telling us the grass wasn’t greener elsewhere and they think we’re the backup plan. I can’t believe I ever felt good about it.
That and they’ve learned what they’re going to lose financially
I honestly believe that I lived this same dynamic at the fork in the road but my story took the different direction. Your description of yourself sounds like an exact copy of me and how I function and react.
My Cheater was a future faker also and made nebulous promises (over the course of 3+ years, not 9). He tired to break up with me using stupid excuses and I talked him out of them. What he DIDNT say in all of it was that he wanted to break up with me because he wanted to break up with me…that is what I needed to hear to take him seriously but he did not own his shit. He tried to “postpone” our wedding 2 weeks before but didnt have the courage, so he went through with it and somehow, someway decided that I deserved whatever husbanding he chose to offer when he felt like it. This extended to parenting and he was mostly unpredictable and shitty.
Everything CL said is true, Aaron sucks and he wasted years of your life while he used you as a placeholder and was not sincere about his intentions. That is genuinely tragic.
My son broke up with his fiancé after they had a child and it seemed like the biggest asshole move ever. What I didnt realize at the time was that he saw in his dad a poor partner and didnt want to repeat history. Im now glad he did it because she deserved better than his lack of enthusiasm and commitment.
I vacillate in wishing my Cheater would have simply cut with a sharp knife and let me go live my life when I was 21 rather than acquiescing in the moment and resenting me for it. I cant truly wish he had in that I would be wishing my kids away.
What both of is needed was a man strong enough at about year 2 of dating to see that our natural selves were not compatible in the way he needed. They should have let us know kindly and we could have reentered the dating pool in our early 20s. What he had, were selfish users who would keep us around because we made life easier in the moment.
Im really sorry for your pain…as CL says, it hurts like a MF.
I’m very sorry for your pain, too. And especially that your ex managed to damage your son in this way. I can’t imagine.
Wow. Just wow. How exceptionally cruel. This must have hurt. Maybe even more, when you didn’t have a typical D-day with finding out about other women. Because even though being cheated on hurts as a motherfucker, it also comes with disgust and anger towards the cheater. And I think both are welcome in falling out of love with someone. But if I would have to guess, he is also a cheater. Or maybe he just found someone new and decided to cut you off. Either way, an unbeleivably cruel way to do it. Stay strong!
Yeah this definitely seems like a narc move. Just out of the blue while on vacation takes the time to call and doesn’t even care if on speakerphone just needs to spill out breakup speech. Wonder if he even got away from his bros to make the call private on his end. My guess is that he’s a cheater and had his eyes on some beach bunny. He’s a coward and thankfully you didn’t have any children with him.
I actually know for a fact that he was with his friends when he did this. He didn’t actually block me: he gave his phone to his friend, who screened my calls and texts.
He told me this via email, later.
Is it possible he’s secretly gay and involved with one of those friends? Or could he be involved with a girlfriend/wife of one of his friends right under those friends’ noses? Sexual risk-taking– including taking the risk of blowing up their personal lives, careers or families (or national security. Hello Petreus and Clinton) by “sh*tting where they eat”– is one of the classic traits of personality disordered cheaters.
There’s also the somewhat less likely chance he’s involved with a cult. For instance, he might be hanging out with rabid followers of David Icke and they’ve all decided you’re a lizard alien who’s come to earth disguised as human to destroy capitalism and the bankrupt the Chick-fil-A franchise. Or he’s a Scientologist and his little cabal has decided you’ll never be a proper Thetan. Worse, they’re all a bunch of child molesters and they’re worried you’re a natural whistle blower (says nice things about you, though).
Whatever the case, it sounds like he and his friends are a pack of raving freaks. What normal bunch of guys wouldn’t talk their friend out of ending a nine year marriage in this horrible, callous way? Either they’re all psychos or he’s been telling them tall tales about how you’ve tormented and victimized him. If the latter is the case, it’s still probable that he’s lying about how “awful” you are because he’s cheating. It’s just a stock thing cheaters do.
I sense he’s probably been cheating for quite some time and had very recently received an ultimatum from the side piece along with one of those test breakups advised on “how to be a side chick” sites. In any case, the two most explosive DARVO attacks on me that FW pulled during his affair followed Schmoopie’s faux-breakup/ultimatums. It’s the whole reason I even learned about the affair because the AP was so furious at only getting “side chick Valentine’s Day” rather than the actual day that she reportedly got skunk drunk at work, bawled in the bathroom and then blathered to coworkers about her plan to get FW into line by staging a temporary breakup. Apparently the little bathroom cabal decided that three weeks is the proper amount of time to teach a lesson. That must have been quite a scene since the gossip eventually spilled over and reached me.
I think FW understood the AP’s directive perfectly since he immediately followed “orders” and viciously tore my heart out. The weird thing is that when I reacted by suggesting separation, he flipped out and said that wasn’t what he wanted. Though he tried to take his cruel words back the next day, this is when I began to seriously suspect cheating and finally reached out to a friend who advised hiring a PI. Just as I was doing so, I was contacted by two of FW’s and the AP’s coworkers anonymously warning me of FW’s affair and naming the AP. I still hired the PI but saved time and money since I already had a name and address. Then I retained an attorney.
After D-Day, I told FW that, on Valentine’s Day, I felt like a human sacrifice burned on the alter of the pussy gods or something. It’s as if he superstitiously believed that being extra horrible to me would magically make the AP return. What she really wanted was for him to dump his family but would she take my bleeding scalp as a consolation? He tried to deny the events were connected but I knew the timeline and it seemed pretty obvious. In the end I think he didn’t want me to know how easily he could be dragged around by the dick, like it would be placing too much power in my hands. Such was the case though because he then viciously broke it off with the AP thinking it would stop me from ending the marriage. But the wife gods weren’t so easily appeased.
Naive – Spend this time to grieve that false future and recognize that Aaron tried to make you feel both unworthy and unmanageable. It sounds like you were doing the adulting in the relationship and he couldn’t keep up. Stay no contact and fill those hours with self care.
I definitely was the adult in charge. All the damn time.
Oh yes, NO CONTACT is vital to your recovery from this kick in the guts Naive!
Even if he hadn’t a soft landing waiting for him that doesn’t turn out to be as soft and snuggly as he’d thought, he will likely be back in a few weeks or months, all sad sausage and sorry for himself! Whatever you do, don’t fall for it as he’ll only kick you in the guts again, and it’d be even more painful!
Block and delete him on everything! Cry and grieve but remember you’ve no other ties to him and you’ll be really grateful for that in time. One day he will cross your mind or come up in conversation and you’ll feel nothing except glad you didn’t marry him nor have kids to him!
Thank you. That’s a future I’m really counting on.
Fill those spare hours with self care … or a new business idea, volunteer work, travel, or whatever else you might have done but for him. Grieve that he wasn’t the man you thought he was, but moving on with happiness in what you’re doing will help fade out any good memories of “what might have been.”
What a sniveling weak-minded coward.
Mine was like this too, so I have no sympathy for this whiny “boo hoo, you having emotions hurts my poor widdle feelings” bullshit. In their tiny little underdeveloped man baby brains, you say words and have tears, so it gives them justification to actually abuse you (lie, abandon, future fake, betray).
No. Just no. Even the fact that you had to write a whole paragraph about how you didn’t do anything to deserve this is evidence that his disordered thinking has seeped in. NO ONE deserves this, abandonment on speakerphone. He spent NINE YEARS with you, he was out and came back – clearly it couldn’t have been that horrible.
And how did he know you “don’t like stonewalling?” He must’ve been manipulative in the past, for that to have come up.
Truly though, speakerphone or not, he did you a favor. Could you imagine him with kids?? I can, ask me how!
Hard to imagine how someone could be more cruel when breaking up. I would bet money that he is having an affair. He’s too weak to be without a kibble supply.
In my experience, there is a weird dynamic where they lie – needlessly – up until the very last second. My speculation is that they have become so used to hiding themselves that lying actually becomes their default behavior and it’s hard for them not to do it (until the big climactic moment happens).
After ILYBINILWY, I worked on my then-wife for weeks to get her to go to marriage counseling; she finally agreed. Literally 20 minutes before we left for our first session we are having the most committed, domestic discussion you could imagine (sitting at the kitchen table debating how much to withhold from paycheck(s) for kids’ day care for the coming year). Naturally I interpret this as her being willing to try to save the marriage. Nope. She agreed to go to counseling only so she would have a neutral third party present while she told me “there is no way forward for this marriage and I refuse to even try” and a few weeks after that she was out of the house, never to return. This was all planned. It made absolutely zero sense for us to be collaboratively planning how to structure our family income to minimize tax liability when she already knew we weren’t going to be married by the time taxes were due. All she had to do was say “hey, let’s discuss this after our counseling session” and we could have saved the energy. But she was so accustomed to pretending that even though she was planning on “nailing the door shut” in half an hour, she was still faking it with me. Sometimes I blame myself a little for not seeing it, but then I think back to bizarre little head fakes like that one and I realize that she was absolutely 100% invested in keeping me in the dark until literally the last minute.
That is insane and yeah, being the sane person I am, I also would have taken those conversations as someone that was at least planning on sticking around. I just don’t understand how you have that chat with someone’s face knowing what you’re about to do to them.
I agree lying is their default behavior, I like how succinctly you describe it. Their compulsion to lie should not be under estimated. By the time we even find out about the affairs, lying has become ingrained and pathological, as natural as breathing to them. For my FW in particular, he was lying before we ever were married. His lies were so good, and he was so expert at it, it would be 44 years until I discovered the truth.
Naive,
On the upside, when he comes slithering back, asks you to reconcile and tries to gaslight you into believing that the phone call didn’t happen in the way that you remember it, you can at least remind him that he did what he did in front of witnesses and then hang up. Seriously, you deserve so much better than this.
Block him, go no contact and build a better future for yourself. Just please don’t rush back to dating until you’ve worked on your picker a bit.
LFTT
Dear Naive, I relate to all of this! My ex told me on a Monday after work that he wanted a divorce, no discussion allowed, no counseling, no hope. Things we had done the weekend leading up to this announcement: renewed our annual museum pass and spent the day at the art museum, cooked dinner together, taken the puppy he had given me for Christmas to the park, made plans for the coming week. Absolutely no inkling this was coming. They do not have normal emotions, as CL aptly says.
I know what a shock this is, when your seemingly loving partner turns on you out of nowhere. I don’t think you will ever know “why,” or that there is any “why” that would make sense to you. I tied myself into knots for way, way too long trying to figure out what I had done wrong. The answer is honestly nothing. It was a coward’s way out for a morally bankrupt coward. You will heal and recover and have a wonderful life.
What an absolute mindfuck. I’m so sorry.
Yeah I’m doing a lot better at setting the skein down but not knowing “why” definitely invited some really ugly extrapolating in the early days.
Mine let me know we were breaking up by making out with another woman in front of me at a party. When I tell you I was traumatized…
“They do not have emotions” is an understatement. I didn’t know lizard people like this existed until it happened to me.
Cam, there are no words. 😞
Wow. The blindsiding is so painful and confusing! Sorry this happened to you.
A normal person is left thinking WTF just happened? Because you would never conduct your life in such a morally bankrupt way.
Wait, you live together? So he cut off all contact and isn’t making any arrangements to come get his things, leaving you to deal with packing his stuff and figuring out how to get it back to him? Or did he clean his stuff out before he called you (in which case you should be double checking to see what things of yours he decided to liberate on the way out)?
Ha ha yes we did. For seven years. And yes, he refused to accept any phone calls, has not returned to the state and left all of his shit behind so I got the pleasure of living in the mausoleum of our life together for a while. The third time I emailed him about it he finally sent one of our former roommates to come get his stuff. But I was the only person in the world who could sort through things like our intermingled books and he left chores like that to me, exclusively. Probably didn’t occur to him that things like that needed to happen and if it did he surely did not care.
No, he left behind a bunch of really important stuff like his passport and work computer so he really did decide to blow up my life in a single day at the last minute.
He left behind his passport?! His work computer?! What an idiot. He must have really trusted you. I’d have been tempted to do something crappy like dump his ID and work stuff at his office. SMH
Naive, you aren’t your namesake— you were just unlucky to partner with a sociopath. I’m very sorry you were abused by him. Hopefully, you’ll stay no contact, heal, and go on to live a wonderful life free from abuse. The chances are very good.
Naive, this guy is waving red flags and I would advise “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” (Maya Angelou quote) Break ups are always hard, but give yourself time. After awhile you may realize that it isn’t him that you miss, its the idea of who you wanted him to be. Take it from us Chumps – This world salad he presented you isn’t an explanation or apology, its classic blame shifting and you deserve better.
1) You gave this guy wayyy too many years (to shit or get off the pot). You should have been married with a couple of kids by now. Or gone. You are a year away from being a “geriatric pregnancy”. (sorry)
2) I’d say it’s a 99.99% chance that this asshole has another woman.
3) No contact. No exceptions.
Naive,
You are not naïve, you are normal. It’s normal to trust the person in your life who presents as committed. My FW told me after disclosures that he couldn’t believe how gullible I was, to a normal partner that merely means trusting.
At this time when you are trying to get a grip on your reality, calling into question the last decade of your life, it would be hard to think you could be grateful for anything.
BUT be grateful you didn’t have children with this sociopath who has no true emotions, and cannot tolerate emotions in others.
The greatest regret of my life is not choosing a better father for my children.
I have the same regret.
They will always justify their behavior by blaming the chump. “I couldn’t tell you in person because of the way you’d react”. Especially when there’s no prior warning. Mine didn’t come home from a business trip I was frantically calling his phone wondering if he’d been in a accident. He finally answered the phone and that’s when he told me he wasn’t coming home. I asked why he didn’t say anything to me when before or in person. He said because he knows how much I like drama and was afraid of how I would react. It wasn’t that he surprised me that he isn’t coming home, it was how I would react to it. I forgot to mention that it was Mother’s Day weekend. I was in such a state of shock I think I asked if he was sure..,
During our marriage if I disagreed with him or cry when he’d be abusive, he’d say he was seriously concerned for my mental well being, that I was never happy. He almost had me convinced that when I didn’t like something or felt uncomfortable because of his abuse, there was something wrong with me..
It’s psychological torment.
What a truly terrible way to leave you. Holy crap. On Mothers Day weekend AND he let you just slowly figure out he wasn’t coming home?
How do these people walk the Earth with us? And ride busses and stand in line at the grocery store and we just have NO IDEA.
Just this week I’ve listened to a few podcasts interviewing Jessica Taylor who discusses her book, “Sexy but Psycho” in which she reviews the documented long-time history that men who abuse women have used the fake excuse of “she’s crazy/ she’s mentally ill” to, not blame shift, but…. what is the term……. turn the attention to the female victim in order to get off “scott free”, avoid accountability for their abusive actions, and maintain all the social power and control dynamics. (I’m talking about abusive, selfish, controlling men, not all men.) Many women in modern history (last 500 years) have been unjustly and involuntarily committed to psychiatric wards/ hospitals because they dared to speak up about their suffering, or about domestic abuse in general or speak their opinion about any systemic injustice to women. She says this is the biggest justice issue that has not yet been brought out into wide public discourse (in the West), much less seriously addressed. Reminds me that there is a growing movement to label infidelity as domestic abuse and make it a major factor (across the board) in family law proceedings. To get rid of this current “abolishing infidelity as grounds for divorce” situation what we have in many US states since I think the 1970s.
Psychological terrorists.
Brit, agree. FW said he didn’t want to see the disappointment and sadness in my eyes. Oh brother.
My FW said it was over because he couldn’t stand the disappointment in my eyes. I thought about asking if he’d ever considered not being a disappointment, but decided to say nothing, as usual.
What an utter shit goblin. Naive, I’m so angry reading this.
His letter is word salad. He refuses all responsibility, blames you for HIS refusal to do so, tells you he knows he’s hurting you and then in the same breath admits he doesn’t care. It’s such a blatant “fuck you” that words fail me.
I know this feels horrible. I know it’s hard to realize the partner you thought you knew never existed, that you spent years with this future faking thief. I know it’s hard to feel grateful about anything right now. But I’m so horrified by his letter that I’m feeling grateful you got away from this sociopath. This guy is a freak and though it may not feel like it yet, he did you a favor. He would’ve destroyed your life if you married him.
If you haven’t done so already, PLEASE block him everywhere so he can never contact you again.
Thank you. Yeah it was a hell of a thing to read this and realize that it did not hurt him to hurt me.
And I have him blocked on email, cell phone and Facebook but I’ll go through and think about what methods may remain to him.
This!! Naive – you dodged a bullet by not getting married even if it doesn’t feel like it now. This guy is a narcissistic douche and NOTHING else! Do whatever you can to block him and go no contact!
The FWs have a way of twisting everything, almost justifying their lack of humanity…so very sad sausage like….wow does he suck. In his own mind, he was protecting himself. Zero empathy or guilt. A total user. There probably is an OW. I hate these fuckers. Sorry.
Yeah. He genuinely believes he is a good person that had no choice which is pretty wild.
Breaking up over the phone — while you’re at work — is cowardly and selfish. Doing it in front of your co-workers when he knows he’s on speaker phone — that’s the worst! I am so sorry this happened to you. You are better off without this sad little man in your life, but I know you’re hurting now.
My ex-husband, a critical care nurse like me, used to start arguments while we were at work. (Yes, we worked together.) One time he was angry about something and wouldn’t tell me what — something that happened far too frequently — and slammed out of the break room where we were lunching with colleagues. After lunch, I went to draw my patient’s blood and, because I was upset and not paying as much attention to the needle as I should have, I stuck myself with a contaminated needle. The patient had Hepatitis C and HIV. On my way to the ER to have my blood drawn for Hep C and HIV, I stopped in my ex’s patient’s room to tell him what had happened. We were trying to have a child, and this could completely derail the process. Instead of displaying any empathy, sympathy or concern for me, he just pointedly turned his back on me and wouldn’t speak to me . . . in front of his patient. I was mortified! Another time, the two of us had been tasked with setting up rooms for OR admissions. As we cleaned and coiled the monitor cables, hooked up clean suction tubing and canisters, checked to make sure all the equipment worked, etc., he was berating me the whole time for something he imagined I had done. I hadn’t. ICU rooms are deliberately designed so the patient is visible to staff outside the room or in the room next door — our colleagues witnessed the whole thing. Again, I was mortified. I am thankful I wasn’t successful in breeding with him. I haven’t seen him in years now.
Sadly, the argument in front of others — so you feel constrained from responding to his bullshit — isn’t all that uncommon. I’m sorry you had that experience, but I’m hopeful that you’ll one day realize you are better off without him.
I’m so sorry you spent any time with him. And I am also genuinely alarmed to hear that he’s a nurse.
Ive done some time as a critical care nurse and being trapped in an ICU with ones abusive spouse sounds like 9th Circle of Hell shit to me. No matter how awful my job got, it was a place of calm and solace compared to the shit of the Dday era at home. SOOOOO glad you are out of that mess. I hope he is long gone from your workplace.
I also shared the experience of being so preoccupied that I hurt (or nearly killed ) myself…from driving to near electrocution to burning myself (and yet, here I am , alive and intact) the stress of life with him was not good or my spirit or body.
It’s not the same, but I was dumped, long-distance COLLECT by my boyfriend of 2 years.
Yes, of course he was cheating.
When he came to my front door two weeks later while I was studying for my final exams and I burst into tears he said, “This is why I called you instead of telling you in person.”
I punched/pushed him out of the door, slammed and locked it.
I wish I had punched him in the nose but at least I was rid of the creep.
Anyway – I am sorry Aaron is a creep and a coward. May 33 onwards bring you a much better partner. You deserve it!
What a jerk. Glad she didn’t marry him. I understand the shock, it’s so awful to realize your ex wasn’t who you thought he was.
Naive, all of us at CN know only too well your heart break. The searching for answers, the rewind of your relationship flipping through your mind. Unfortunately I know what this time is like.
In reading your letter though, I read about what an accomplished women you are. A women who is successful. A Paramedic is a highly demanding job, not for the weak. A job that is competitive and male dominated. You are no weakling. I know what your made of, I joined the military in the 70’s and was highly successful.
My point is don’t let this loser destroy your strong spirit. He has stolen enough of your time, fuck him, he doesn’t deserve such an amazing women. Hold your head up high, move on, and create your new life leaving that idiot in the rear view mirror. Your young and have years of happiness ahead of you!
Thank you. And I love my job and my Shift has been my rock. I am so lucky to have it and them.
Maybe this could be turned into a Friday Challenge: Things The Cheater Later Claimed They Didn’t Want.
During the slow death of the four-year clusterfuck that was my relationship with the Lying Cheating Loser, here are a couple of the things he claimed never to have wanted:
For me to meet his kids. I “pressured” him. Nevermind the fact that after he succumbed to my formidable pressure, I was more of a parent to those two sweet humans (every other weekend, holidays, a month in the summer) than he was.
I planned – and paid for – vacations and outings, grocery shopped and cooked, bought Christmas and birthday presents… all the things. What he did? Sit on his ass and play videogames. Because “the kids just want to hang out at the house with me while we roast each other.” Not true. They were just pick-me dancing, and fully aware that voicing any wants or needs would not go over well with Uncle Dad.
Move in together. This happened after I had already met his kids, hence why it’s #2. I “pressured” him into this too. And actually, maybe I did. Through my rose-colored glasses, it looked like living together would mean easing our respective financial burdens. We already lived in the same town and spent practically every night together anyway.
So when he finally, yet again, succumbed to the pressure, he simply blew off paying his last month’s rent. When the shit hit the fan mid-month and the apartment complex threatened to lock him out of his apartment and deny him access to his stuff, who had to leave work and make a panicked, massive moving effort in her truck? Yours truly. Of course, he lied to me and swore he’d paid rent, but the apartment complex somehow lost his payment. Sheesh.
You couldn’t have talked me out of my determination to build a life with this clown, no matter how many red flags slapped me in the face.
I’m grateful it was only four years of my life down the drain before I cut my losses and moved on.
I’m now five years out, blissfully single, living my dream life.
Great idea for a Friday challenge.
-Claimed he never wanted to get married. He said it was because he “wasn’t sure” he loved me. That’s certainly not what he told me at the time. He told me he loved me more often than I liked, actually.
-Said he had never liked my family and hated being around them. Then when my mom was dying not long after Dday he bemoaned that he wouldn’t get to see her before she died and oh, he just loved her soooo much.
Incidentally, his own family is a dumpster fire of dysfunction, full of addicts, narcs and grifters, so I suspect my family wasn’t enough drama and toxicity for him. Being around them was “boring” because we weren’t drinking and fighting.
Now he’s stuck dealing with his BPD mom’s financial problems as he has power of attorney. I got a nice inheritance from my parents and he’ll only inherit her debts. Sux to be FW.
Same here, OHFFS. The LCL’s whole FOO is disordered. Narcissist mom, abusive alcoholic step-dad (now deceased).
I used to get whiplash from his constant emotional pendulum swings with his mom. One week he loved her, the next he hated her and wished her dead.
Maybe the LCL was doomed to disorder by his upbringing, maybe it’s hereditary, maybe a bit of both.
At any rate, a sociopath or narcissist is incapable of being a true partner.
Oh Naive, this letter is heartbreaking, and heartbreakingly familiar! My ex also broke up with me at after several years of dating and living together (should have stayed broken up, but I was also incredibly naive, and it was the late 90’s, there was no real internet, let alone Chump Lady) because of my supposed emotions being too hard (for him) to handle, with the special sauce of “my parents never fought when I was a child, so if we are going to have a future together, you have to promise to never fight with me and never get angry again!” Reader, I married that FW!!! In your case, he’s “nailed the door shut” and even though it is so incredibly painful right now, I hope some day you see that he did you a favor. Don’t take out any of those nails, just go on and live your best life.
Yeah, if he’d been in charge of our relationship we would have just literally never had any difficult discussions ever.
I am sorry to hear about your marriage. I’m going to guess that was not amazing.
IMHO, there is no good way to get bad news. I hate future fakers too, but I also hate that I spent 20 years with a man who lied and cheated, and I had 2 children with this same man. I love my sons, but knowing what I know now, I wish I had chosen a better father for them. The only good news here is the pain is finite, and your life will get better the longer you are away from life with a FW.
Chumps learn by experience. We don’t predict contemptable behavior because we don’t think that way. We have to train ourselves to “fix our picker” and set boundaries and enforce those boundaries. I didn’t know what “no contact” was until I was an adult. I had heard of the silent treatment, but this is different and powerful and healthy. Chumps were conned into believing a mirage was a marriage. We have survived a horrible experience, or more than one, and we are determined not to live with a destructive FW ever again. It takes a lot of strength to get up off the floor after a destructive experience and rebuild your life.
Welcome to chump nation!
Wow I am so sorry. What a POS. He sounds dangerous. And he was DEFINITELY cheating. (Did anyone else feel the red flags with three vacations per year with “college buddies”? I’m all for spending time with friends outside of relationships, but that one made my ears turn sideways.) Sadly he did you a favor by breaking up and I hope you never have to have contact with this monster again.
It’s infuriating how they weaponize our emotions and reasonable anger against us. Throughout our marriage, FW would tell me I was too emotional and had a terrible temper. He said it so much that I truly believed it. I went through multiple therapists to deal with my overly emotional behavior and terrible temper. He would also regularly ask me if I was taking my anxiety and depression medications. I took this to be a kindly gesture from my best friend, making sure I was feeling my best but now I know it was another way to control the narrative and me because he could tell people I was so unreasonable without my meds or I wasn’t taking them so I was crazy. Whatever he needed to say to justify cheating on his wife and young child.
After DDay his excuse for cheating was that he couldn’t tell me he wanted a divorce because he was afraid of what my response would be. He said this multiple times and sometimes it was he was afraid of my temper and what I would do, sometimes it was he didn’t want to deal with the drama of my emotions, other times it was he was worried about how I would react (I guess implying self-harm?). So my supposed mental state was his permission to cheat for almost a decade/almost half our marriage. What a peach.
Amazing. Even my diagnosed dismissive avoidant FW was better at dealing with my emotions than this guy, and he suuuuucked at it.
This future faker is beyond just an avoidant man-baby. IMO, what he has going on is he’s an emotional sadist who lives in fantasyland. He learned from the first break-up that his cruel fantasies of your despair are much more intense than your real life expression of your pain is (crying, but not begging, rolling on the floor, gnashing your teeth, tearing your hair out and threatening suicide) so he’d rather not be disappointed by your more muted real life reaction. So what he’s doing is projecting those fantasies onto you and using it as an excuse to avoid dealing with you, which would depress him because he won’t get the reaction he craves. He’s probably cheated and found a histrionic woman who can give him that reaction.
Scumbag pig asshole has an infant child and pulls this shit? I hate him. HATE him.
Oh Naive! You are SO lucky you didn’t have children with someone who is terrified of, and hides from, emotions. Please stay strong when he comes sniffing back around (when whatever new, shiny thing he’s found goes away). Have an absolutely wonderful, joyful life. In a while you’ll wonder what you ever saw in him.
It’s funny, the post today has me thinking the lack of desire for children might be another red flag symptom of narcissism. I never noticed the connection before, but it makes sense. Children would take away valuable resources of time and money that my FW narcissist would prefer to spend on himself. My FW initially only wanted 1 child when we were married, and even that was an attempt to placate me.
Bingo!!
I’m so sorry. This guy is a loser. Cut him loose and move on. I get all the sunk cost and emotions, but he’s not worth it.
My ex ended a marriage of several decades by phone. We had been separated long-distance for over a year, but I noted how that choice spoke volumes. During the call, I decided it was all for the best because I could mute and make faces, laugh like a crazy woman, and pound the pillows. He said he had been crying for weeks over our marriage. Frankly, I was cried out by then. The trust-meter was at zero, and I saw no path forward with him.
He already had an attorney picked out, a brutal pit bull. I noted that as well. He promised it would be easy. I think I laughed because he insisted and emailed later that I had nothing to worry about. Yes, I did. Thankfully, I had already gone to a Second Saturday Seminar and had actually met the attorney I ended up hiring a few weeks later. The divorce just confirmed how very little I meant to him. It was like I was a bug to be squashed a flicked away. Thankfully, I hired a powerhouse myself. His attorney overshared with mine, and it was clear that my ex was trying to blame-and-game his own attorney, which didn’t go well.
We settled, and each chapter has been better since.
One strategy I think is a good idea, is before you talk to FW, to just go somewhere and cry and yell and throw things – get it all out of your system as much as possible so when you meet up with FW, you’re as dry eyed and emptied as possible. Basements are good…..I think graveyards are good because people are grieving anyway and nobody’s gonna mind the noise.
I would write angry letters in my Notes app, saying everything I WISHED I could say to FW and OW. When I’d actually see them, I was able to be much more calm (most of the time, LOL) because I’d been able to express my feelings. I’d also scream or cry in the car on my commute to or from work, or listen to rage music. It really does help to get the emotions out.
So many cowards.
So sorry, Naive. That was a horrible thing that your ex did, but it’s clear you’re well rid of him.
Something that struck me in your email that may partially explain the timing. You wrote, “I don’t make people abandon me the same week we’re scheduling embryo freezing.” It wouldn’t surprise me that he didn’t want to have kids (and was too cowardly to admit it and saying that he did to string you along). Perhaps the prospect of actual embryos in existence freaked him out?
But something about the timing of his call has a real odor about it. He called you that morning asking to bring his medications. He calls only hours later to break up with you. WTF?
In any case, you are more than welcome at Chump Nation. Maybe there was infidelity or maybe he was seriously contemplating it. But he’s a cheater, regardless, because by stringing you along, he was cheating out of your freedom to be with someone else.
“Perhaps the prospect of actual embryos in existence freaked him out?” This absolutely. I’ve seen so many cheating events start with either impending marriage or having a baby. The permanency and responsibility of it shatters Peter (and Petera) Pan’s placid life of eternal adolescence and they just go on the run. It stuns chumps because frequently they’re planning their new life together, the wedding, the house, the baby stuff and then they find out that FW has planned a whole new life with Schmoopie without them. It’s mind blowing how they do this stuff, but it’s so common. And also this is when they frequently ask for an open relationship – anything that serves as a release valve for the impending marriage.
☝🏻The last sentence. Plus stealing another’s time, precious the older we get.
Obviously this is a horrible, cruel, shallow person to do something like this, it’s unimaginable to anyone normal BUT one thing pops out at me in this lady’s case. It sounds like they had reached a CONCRETE point of getting married and having kids – to the point of literally having her embryos frozen. I have seen many times that cheating and break-ups occur around major life decisions like weddings, having a baby (pregnancy or actual birth). So many people cheat after they become engaged or even DURING the wedding process (like a weekend), the honeymoon, in the first year….and around having a baby. So many men cheat when their wives are pregnant or have just given birth or in the first year. Also during engagements, even just before the wedding, a fiance(e) will ask for an open relationship/marriage….which of course, is just permission to eff someone they’re already effing or eyeing. To me this is about immaturity, wanting to stay Peter Pans (of both sexes) and not wanting to grow up and into adult responsibilities. It’s fine when people are just “playing house” but when it becomes a matter of legalities (marriage) or responsibilities like raising kids…..they start cheating and/or cut and run entirely. In some ways, as awful as this is, it’s probably good if people can find out BEFORE the wedding takes place or even soon after if they can get an annulment, or early on in baby’s life so betrayed spouses don’t waste any more time on their Peter Pan cheater. And hopefully they don’t make the horrible mistake of wasting time in wreckonciliation, which is exactly what it is, and a complete waste of time and energy where the betrayed spouse is bullied into accepting and forgiving abuse and then waits for the other shoe to drop. And it does. BAM.
Just want to say it AGAIN….louder for the chumps in the back….CHEATING IS ABUSE. It is the worst kind of psychological abuse because it can destroy a trusting, loving person’s basic sense of reality about the world and about what people are “really” like. Personally I think it’s worse than physical abuse because that will heal faster and the whole world can see it. They can’t see your broken heart.
Dear Naive:
I’ll repeat the words my lawyer friend said to me before D-Day when I told her some of the horrible DARVO-y things FW was saying to me at the time: “Uh, he’s cheating.” I would say the same to you.
At the time she said these words, this friend urged me to hire a private investigator to get evidence of cheating and retain a lawyer immediately. Turned out she was absolutely right about everything but then she’s one of those uncanny people who’s right about a lot of things, particularly in terms of seeing through lies and liars. I’d previously done research for her on advocacy law projects and had seen her in action. She had this little quirk of bursting into fits of giggles whenever she saw people telling whoppers, which would unsettle the liars no end. In any event, the way she knew that FW in my case was cheating was because of what he was accusing me of which is pretty much what your FW was saying to you. Like you, I was initially naive about the fact that this is the typical shit that cheaters say. My friend wasn’t naive to it but bear in mind this partly came from 13 years of professional experience facing down the worst sorts of lying liars and cover-up artists (institutional child abusers) and triple degrees in law, behavioral therapy and criminology. Most of us don’t assume we’re going to need triple masters and trench warfare experience when we start intimate relationships. So naivete is relative. Another word for it is “normal.”
My friend urged me to dig up the dirt both for strategic reasons (getting a fair settlement in a fault state, getting back any joint assets FW spent on affairs, protecting myself from potential bunny boilers and protecting custody of my children in case FW went scorched earth as many cheaters apparently tend to) and because we’d worked together for several years and she knows how my brain works. I will pick apart a mystery forever to figure out all the working parts and suss out some unified theory.
For all those reasons I’m glad I took this friend’s advice and confirmed the cheating. By that time I’d been so beaten down by FW’s gaslighting and blame-shifting nonsense that I was actually relieved to learn the truth and the evidence certainly did help in a legal sense. But I can attest that it sucks when you don’t know and it also sucks when you do. The upside of knowing for sure might only come long after the initial trauma because understanding the MOs of certain disordered personalities can help in developing a list of red flags to protect yourself in the future and can also help to locate where your own psychic injuries are the better to address and heal them.
Something I figured out as a former advocate for survivors of domestic violence– aside from the fact that virtually all batterers are cheaters– is that when the nature of abuse is sexual (as it definitively is in domestic abuse), the injuries from the abuse will be sexual in nature as well. Those can be hard to see, therefore hard to heal. For women it can be like psychic FGM and for male survivors psychological castration. This is important to realize because sexually-hued abuse seeks to cause sexual injuries in victims. Personally I think understanding that damage was deliberately wrought can help in defining relational mistreatment as abuse. Secondly, if a survivor understands that the injury was intentional, it might boost their recovery efforts if just as a way of saying FU to the abuser.
I also think all intimate abusers (including cheaters– aka “oblique” sexual abusers) tend to be like dogs with two bones who can’t stand the thought of anyone digging up the gnawed-on “bone” (human being) they just discarded. So they seek (again, maybe “suBcOnSCiOusly”) to cause such monumental emotional injuries in their victims that the victims might be prevented from ever moving on to happier and more fulfilling relationships.
I’m convinced this is part of the reason that Houdini abusers– the ones who up and disappear out of the blue as yours did– do what they do. They want to preserve their favored delusion in amber forever: that of their victim lying inert and destroyed in a gutter howling the abuser’s name forever. If the Houdini hung around after discard, they might be confronted with a victim adjusting to and even seeing the benefits of being discarded or, God forbid, bouncing back, moving on to happier pastures and loving again. At which point the abuser might start thinking the kinds of thoughts that land people in prison. So to avoid prison or community service, the latter will disappear and seem to never look back. Except they mostly do because control is a chief component in abuse and these types never really let go.
I agree with CL that untangling skeins for the purpose of “fixing” abusers is a dangerous dead end. But if eventually you want to understand the enemy the better to avoid getting entrapped by one in the future, I recommend reading the book, “The Batterer” by criminologist Donald Dutton (whose nonclinical work I don’t recommend because he later sold out and spouted a lot of populist bs. But his earlier prison research on domestic abusers is studious and stellar). If you read the book, you might see there are many overlaps between the MOs, methods and psychology of domestic batterers and psychological abusers like cheaters– give or take broken bones and black eyes. CL is also spot on in suggesting that FW in your case was likely projecting or “displacing” his own pathological dependency issues onto you (accusing you of controlling him and being too dependent on him because of his own dependency on and tendency to control you). The latter relates to a theory Dutton discusses that I’ve mentioned before, something called “masked dependency” which is very eye-opening.
A short way of explaining masked dependency is that many abusers– due to whatever bizarre abuse they experienced as kids– tend to form pathological, infantile dependency on intimate partners and abnormal abandonment fears. But– also due to whatever horror show childhoods they had– abusers tend to feel catastrophically ashamed of this dependency and so seek to “mask” it, even from themselves. In the context of cheating, it could explain why 1) cheaters seek to “dilute” this shameful dependency by “spreading it out” among more than one partner. The diluting helps to mask the dependency as well as to hedge bets against paranoid, internally generated fears of abandonment; 2) cheaters progressively become more angry at and resentful towards their partners as if the partner were deliberately “fostering” the abuser’s sense of dependency. This is another way to “mask” the dependency– by blaming the partner for “causing” it rather than recognizing it as internally-generated; 3) By sexually betraying their partners, cheaters can “displace” their own feelings of extreme jealousy, fears of abandonment and sense of inadequacy– all the things that chronically haunt abusers’ souls– onto their victims, almost as if making someone else feel their feelings spares the abuser from having to feel them.
If any of this sounds very sad sausage and like a bid for amnesty for poor abused cheaters, bear in mind that the same theory has been applied to serial killers. Understanding isn’t synonymous with condoning or enabling. Sometimes understanding will make you run away screaming as, in this case, it should.
This is probably all a bit much to take in so soon after such a blow but the basic thing to take away is that this ex is an abuser, full stop, and abusers can’t be fixed. No normal person ends a relationship like this unless they were genuinely victims of abuse within that relationship which, as you quite credibly attest, this guy was not. That doesn’t mean abuse wasn’t occurring, just that it wasn’t coming from you. Another related topic to look into is the issue of “coercive control” or “subviolent” emotional abuse because, in looking back, you might start to realize that you were being boiled like a frog and undercut in the relationship in subtle ways all along, most likely by progressively manipulating you into a chronic “FOG” state (“fear/obligation/guilt”). As a lot of chumps will describe, cheaters/abusers can be endlessly creative in instilling that state in their victims.
I wish you strength and peace moving forward.
“Most of us don’t assume we’re going to need triple masters and trench warfare experience when we start intimate relationships. So naivete is relative. Another word for it is “normal.” ”
omg this is great— right!!?
After reading that line and laughing in agreement at the well placed sarcasm (which I love as a communication method)….. I read the rest of your comment, Hellofachump. And I got serious quick. Because I realize that everything you detailed applies to what happened to me. And now I realize that I absolutely need to find a way to help myself heal from this intentional marital sexual abuse that I endured in our sex life, before I had my D-day and left my eX– his hurtful, sexually coercive, humiliating, degrading, physically painful and emotionally callous (lack of empathy) sexual abuse (and rape).
I now understand that was intentional and intended to (psychically) sexually injure me to make me permanently “damaged” and destroyed sexually and emotionally. I know healing is real and I’m going to go seek that. What can you recommend for help— trauma therapist? Sexual abuse survivor therapist? Thank you for your insight and advice.
Hi Viktoria,
Many of us relate. As far as your question over types of therapy, I’m not a mental health professional. I previously worked for an advocacy org that provided pragmatic resources to survivors of DV. But part of the job was listening to every story and part of the training was reading a ton of research on DV with the specific aim of understanding the differences in therapeutic views of “victimology” and treatment approaches. That was not only so advocates didn’t end up steering survivors to the usual old-timey victim-blaming/abuser-coddling shills but also so we’d have a better idea how to support survivors who’d been secondarily injured by shitty, blaming helping professionals and bystanders. In fact, the latter was one of the major themes in every discussion group hosted by the service– what’s called “the second injury of DV” (aka, shitty blaming therapy). The CL blog seemed really familiar to me right off the bat because people in our groups had the same gallows humor attitudes towards lousy therapists, including running gags, song parody contests, etc.
Anyway, that said, I think seeking out trauma and sexual abuse specialists is a great call but might recommend that you quiz any prospective therapist over whether they subscribe to sneaky traditional blaming clinical concepts like the “psychological deficiency” theory of DV survivors (ugh). One thing that might help in preparing to screen therapist is reading the chapter on DV in one of the “bibles” of PTSD therapy by founding psychotraumatologist Frank Ochberg (original coiner of Stockholm Syndrome which Ochberg then applied to DV) titled “Post-traumatic Stress Therapy and the Victims of Violent Crime.” It’s expensive to buy but aldo can be ordered through the library. A lot of survivors described the chapter as the last word on good vs. bad therapeutic approaches to abuse survivors but it really rips apart traditional blaming approaches. One of the authors of that chapter, the forensic social worker and veteran activist Evan Stark, is currently one of the main spearheads of the movement to criminalize “coercive control” (subviolent domestic abuse like psychological or financial coercion, etc.). That’s another resource that might help– groups, lit and therapists focused on coercive control as an aspect or form of domestic abuse, including a book titled “Coercive Control” by Stark.
I wish you peace and strength moving forward. <3
Hell of a Chump, this is another brilliantly insightful comment from you. The conceptual resources you bring to the chump conversation are very powerful. For me, your comment is helpful in leading me to think–more deeply than I have so far–about the ways in which my ex’s cheating, and certain other peculiar behaviors connected with our sex life, might have been unconsciously geared toward injuring a deeply feminine and private part of me, the very part one longs to share in an intimate relationship. Psychic FGM, indeed. I think I know what I need to do next, in order to consciously regrow those damaged parts of me.
Leedy–
Sometimes it helps to take things to logical extremes to understand motives. Personally, I don’t think comparing cheating to battering is a “logical extreme” since, statistically, most battering victims report that emotional and psychological abuse and coercion are the most devastating and paralyzing aspects of DV even beyond assault. By contrast, comparing cheating to FGM is a bit of a stretch. Or is it? If FGM were legally enforceable in the west, I’m sure we’d soon discover the true nature of FWs. But until that FW dream comes true, there’s always the psychic form of it (or psychic castration for he-chumps). 🙁
“Sometimes it helps to take things to logical extremes to understand motives”–yes. It’s so awful to contemplate this, but indeed, what if the cheating that erupted in one or both of my marriages was MOTIVATED in part not just by my FW’s feelings of entitlement, his craving for kibbles, and so on, but also, at some subterranean level, by his desire to neuter me as a sexual being? My evening has been haunted by reflections on all of this–well worth the time and mental energy, since, in my own experience, healing goes better if you know exactly where you’ve been hurt. I LOVE your contributions to these discussions!
Leedy–
I’ve always been a bit skeptical about the way pop-psych “psychiatrizes” criminality because of the disastrous ways this impacts domestic violence policies and public attitudes towards DV (remanding batterers to therapy rather than jail, etc.). All the same, I’ve been impressed by Dr. Ramani’s discussions of narcissism, particularly that she doesn’t advocate fixing the poor dears. I still wish she’d just call it “abuse/abusers/DV” but as long as she’s not minimizing the effects I’m okay with it. Here she discusses a recent study in which researchers found that sadism is a common component of NPD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqV_WGlbRc
Ramani is describing this as a new and important finding which will deepen the understanding of how dangerous these individuals are because– it’s implied, I think– the concept of sadism implies “intent.” Add to this another recent study that found that people with explosive anger issues aren’t so much losing control as taking it and are, in fact, very controlled about how they rage and intimidate others.
I think these things speak directly to what you’re talking about because describing abusers as controlled and controlling and ascribing sadistic intent to do harm go a long way towards legitimizing that the actual harm caused may be far deeper than previously assumed. And what if these controlled sadists were aiming to destroy a very surgically specific part of their victims? Wouldn’t that help in identifying the specific damage?
Personally I think the intent to do harm is surgically aimed because it serves a specific agenda (psychic FGM and castration or a way of “clipping the sexual wings” of victims). As I mentioned, while working in advocacy for survivors of domestic violence, I never met a survivor who wasn’t also cheated on in some way or other. Though I’ve rarely seen anything in the literature about this (I think I know why this is: DV victims who also describe being cheated on are routinely cast by legal and helping professional and bystanders as having a nefarious motive to fabricate abuse “out of jealousy” so survivors quickly learn to shut up about that aspect of abuse), I started suspecting that DV may be nothing more than (again) the enforcement of one-sided monogamy. There may be many other kinds of sexually themed abuse and cheating is just one though it happens to be particularly diabolical and identifiable. Anyway, the point is that, from that perspective, even in cases where direct forceful rape didn’t occur, all DV is still protracted and oblique rape in a nutshell and, consequently, it can be assumed that all survivors are sexually injured. If infidelity is a common tool of this kind of sexually themed abuse, it suggests the intent behind it is also often to “clip the sexual wings” of victims.
Not a bad theory about “clipping the sexual wings”. Abusive bastards do seem to destroy any desire to date.
Very interesting, and powerful ideas. And I’m a big fan of Dr. Ramani! But I hadn’t seen her video on sadism and NPD–will watch tonight.
Cowardly is probably a charitable way to described how he treated the OP. I was also dumped similarly; My ex asked for a divorce over a Zoom call, while we were physically in the same house, although we had been sleeping in separate rooms and not talking or seeing each other for a few weeks (also, by her request). There was lots of DARVO on her part during the divorce process, conveniently forgetting that she was the one who had the affairs. I wished I had found this site and CL’s book at the time of the affairs instead of after the divorce as that would have helped me greatly. I hope that the OP continues no contact, as that’s the only way to heal from being treated so cruelly.
I was thinking the same thing, CaD (not that you’re a “cad” but it’s your alias acronym). “Cowardly” is way too generous. The OP’s FW meant harm and so did your ex. I even think it’s charitable to say these people “just didn’t care.” DARVO-ing takes energy. It’s not only insult to injury but sort of symbolic human sacrifice.
Maybe my acronym can borrow the h and I can be ChaD. 😉
Yeah, I agree that people like OP’s and my ex did mean to cause harm and hurt us, just because they could and knew us well enough to know what to say or do to maximize the hurt. It’s always best to never let those types of people back into our lives.
Interesting new study ascribing actual sadism to narcissistic personality disorder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqV_WGlbRc
Maybe it’s more than simply the fact they “can” but that causing harm fulfills something in their pickled little minds and shriveled souls?
You mean like the Chad reference that Incels make? I guess one way to mock what was meant as an epithet is to embrace it lol.
Whoa … stbx said some of those same things to me after I caught him cheating. And he did the loving looks too. And then I caught him cheating after 21.5 years of marriage and 2 kids.
Naive, it hurts right now, and it sucks, but you are so fortunate to be without this guy now instead of years from now. Hugs to you.
What a loser.
And coward.
Yes, you have been naïve, but you aren’t the mean fukked up asshole.
Write him off like an item on your grocery list and onto greener pastures. No contact protects your vulnerability and narc education fills in the blanks. Unfortunately you’ll find out more about what jerks they are.
Takes a couple years to get right with things, but hey, you’re worth it.
I thought mine was my best friend too. And I thought the friends were actually my friends too after 20 years. They were not.
You need to be no contact with all of those college friends he was on vacation with when he did this to you. They are not safe people for you and it’s not worth risking more damage or betrayal to find out which ones are decent and which ones actually egged him on to do this to you this way and thought it was hilarious. It’s not worth it. Trust me on that, I’m speaking from experience. Cut them all off completely.
Naive, your ex’s way of breaking up with you is one of the more soul-wrenching mindfucks I have read about on this blog. I’ve been greatly perturbed in the hour or so since I read your post and CL’s response, because there’s something so poisonous here (see Hell of a Chump’s response, above, about “masked dependency” etc.), and also because this post and the ensuing thread make me see more clearly exactly how my ex’s treatment of me tampered with my capacity to feel whole. What’s especially rotten about your ex is how SUBTLE his aggression is. He pretends (or may in fact believe) that what makes him balk at breaking up with you in person, or even by phone with no third party present, is that he’s so susceptible to sympathy! He pities you so much when he sees you cry! There is a cold, superior sadism here, well masked by his professions of seeing how unfair he’s being. All I can say about this is that you and I, and all chumps, should feel very, very lucky not to be like the people who can treat us this way.
Within all this, I note that your ex says NOT ONE WORD to help to repair your dignity in the face of the breakup. Not a single mention of what he valued in you, or of anything he’s grateful for in the relationship. Your years with him are reduced to a final image of you hurling yourself in “despair” and “fury” against a door that has been nailed shut.
We rely on our romantic partners to tell us who we are. This person, though, withdraws every spiritual support he might have given you, and instead presents you with an image of yourself as small and as somehow unbearably intense. Do not accept this image; it’s a device to shrink your soul. Surround yourself with people who can show you how much better, bigger, and richer you are than this. I’m glad you wrote to CL.
Leedy–
That was really elegantly stated: that he “reduced” Naive to a final image of her “hurling” herself “in despair and fury against a door that has been nailed shut.” The final image was the point, the fiction he wanted to freeze-frame forever in both his own mind and– for good measure– the OP’s (because truth is not truth to the personality disordered; truth is only what you can force other people to believe). It’s a type of narrative hijack and part of something called “neutralization” where a variety of offenders unfairly “alter” the identities of victims in order to justify the offenders’ offenses.
I also called bs on his claim that he’s so empathic that he couldn’t stand to see her cry. More likely is that he detected a little hint of ambivalence in her the last time he attempted a discard and didn’t want to see that ambivalence repeated. Any hint of ambivalence might ruin his preferred final image of her lying in a gutter forever crying his precious, sparkle-dick name.
It’s all so insidious. Okay, am about to read about “neutralization” (Sykes and Matza, I see–Google comes to the rescue again!). SO INTERESTING.
That paper blew my mind. Dutton references it in passing in “The Batterer” in his discussion of mental “reduction of self punishment” tactics that batterers typically employ.
I know these kinds of analytical deep dives smack of skein-untangling. But I think once we start comparing cheaters to serial killers it pretty much kills the risk of using psych theories to try to “fix” abusers and offsets hopium-huffing tendencies.
Every time I read something like this, I am so thankful that you are not Laci Peterson or Shanann Watts.
Naive, please freeze your eggs now while you search for a better partner!
As I read all of these horrible tales of deception via future-faking and other means, it just gets me angry. Angry for all my fellow chumps, who, like me, didn’t deserve the shit sandwiches of lies and/or infidelity we were served by our former spouses/partners.
What can I add for newbie chumps, to validate that they are not alone in dealing w/this crap (far from it. We are legion!)? Hmm…
Just to be clear, I’m one of the rarer chumps that got exit-affaired by his wife of almost twenty five years.
Towards the end of our marriage (not that I realized at all that I was being discarded at the time and it was the end. I only had a vague subconscious unease that something was rotten in the state of Denmark), the FW XW asked me to find a job that paid better money and had better hours than the mattress selling job I had taken to try to help support our family, since I no longer felt I could work as a pharmacist anymore (I was a victim of burn-out after over twenty years of doing pharmacy in various forms).
The only way I could think of to accomplish this was to go back to college to learn new skills (in my case, computer programming/web design) that would satisfy her request. Her job allowed me to do this for free tuition.
I realized I’d need a new computer to do all these new courses. I decided to get a new MacBook Air (so, a new computer, but less expensive than a MacBook Pro).
She immediately wanted to know if I could afford this using my own money (I had a checking account separate from our joint accounts. In retrospect, I’m so glad I did).
What she was really telling me, without actually saying it or me understanding it at the time, was, “though I’ve asked you to do something about my unhappiness regarding your current job, and even though you’re doing something about it, I’m starting an affair w/my rich older boss, and I’ll be leaving you soon, so I don’t want to be beholden for any big purchases now w/you.”
So, in a way, I guess I got future-faked by my FW XW. The promise seemed to be if I took the courses to get a certificate in programming, and got a more respectable job because of it, she’d stay w/me. But really, she was already exiting our marriage.
I’m an ordinary, loving, caring guy. I didn’t see this coming. Looking back, it’s clear what she was saying w/out actually saying it. But hindsight’s always way better than when you’re in the middle of dealing w/these scumsuckers.
But, now I’m in the position of gaining a new life, w/out the horrible, FW XW. And that’s what’s important. In the end, it’s the chumps that matter. Not those horrible fuckwits. Peace, everybody. Especially the newbies. It gets better. Trust us.
” But really, she was already exiting our marriage.” ” But hindsight’s always way better than when you’re in the middle of dealing w/these scum suckers.”
And here is the thing, I believe by the time the discard phase starts they have all already left the marriage long before. They are in a position to leave either because their house of cards is about to fall, or they have had time to get all set up. With us of course knowing nothing so that we are in a weakened position. They want us in the dark until they don’t; then the hell begins.
Your comment rings true to my experience. Years ago, I opened a bank account and wanted to add FW and he didn’t want to. Also, I bought a car and wanted to add him to the title and he didn’t want to. I thought it was odd, but I think you’re right. He was already “mentally divorced.”
My STBX could be Aaron! He voiced some of the same bullshit! Just know you are not alone. There are men out there who act like that and then blame you. Just give thanks you did not have kids with him. I have three and he now claims he never liked me and never wanted to get married. He said I ruined his life. Basically, he met me and lost all free will. He’s a spineless, covert narc coward. And now I have to pay good money to divide our assets because according to him, it’s been a shitty 30 years. Yes, he actually said that. He is a pathetic worm. Be glad you can walk away from Aaron. In Aaron’s mind you are some kind of monster. (You’re not!!) He’s the one who is incapable of having a real relationship. I wish I had been able to walk away from my FW in 1993!!!! Look at me now! 30 years with an emotionally stunted man who never grew up.
Adding another thought… him doing the breakup over speakerphone was a nastyass rotten thing to do.
BUT
Long after it was all over with my Cheater, I was glad that he did do and say some horrible stuff in front of others so that I had a witness. He was notorious for hiding his dark side well and it was vindicating to have had a few moments witnessed.
This is just horrible. I will never personally ever get over the pain of knowing that I was trying to get pregnant for the eighth time after miscarriages and at the same time he was having unprotected sex with the work bicycle, and admitted to trying to get her pregnant. She already had two kids from two different guys. I truly wish there was a way to legally prosecute them
FWF, that is a ghastly, horrible thing for him to do. It cuts to the very fiber of our lives.
I agree. They are (both) actively taking steps to destroy a human being and there is no way to get any justice. Yes I know they take a shitty person with them when they go, but that is not legal justice.
I love the “bicycle” description. I read it on here, and have used it with abandon. It might have been from you.
Learning about how narcissistic people “do” relationship may helped you. That changed my life. Google “narcissitic relationship cycle.” And look at the images to see what speaks to you.
https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-abuse-cycle/
Have you every found a gold nugget and were so happy? I missed a day somehow, even though i read CL every single day. Then I find this one with the wisdom and intelligence and Witt… oh my goodness and I just laugh so loud while I am reading on the tread mill… it is so much joy to read Tracy and get her humor and surgical precision strikes, like a drone with razor sharp target mode. She cuts right through the crappola of lies, cheater code and miserable low life’s. So this one, breaking up on the speaker phone? What a gem. He had no intention of making babies or having a family.No plans to marry and keep you in love. He was USING YOU the whole time Ms. Naive and HE gave you the blessing, yes it is a blessing, of breaking up with you before you were pregnant ( my first cheater stayed for the deliver and then scooted with Schmoopie), He is a giant looser, creep, not daddy material, he was a lying actor in the game of keeping you for cake and pretending to love which was my second cheater. He is a shallow puddle at the end of a ditch. I am sorry to tell you this. My 2 cheaters were thus, they acted all in love, could pretend like to get sex and keep stuff they wanted to keep, like a house, motorcycles, garage to work in, room to keep stuff in . But was not in love and used me to the max of their ability. I am saying, let them break up with us anyway they want to but please GO AWAY ! Give me my freedom from lies, STD’s faking love, masks,temper fits, moods and rages if they don’t get what they want. Your man was a living coward and he did you a big favor. Your heart is broken because you loved deeply. You showed up, this man was useless. His lies ended with a cowardly break up. Let them go. There are good people out there and he was not one. Chin up, be proud, dont’ take him back ever!! He will leave you with cancer getting chemo, or with a sick baby, or with a splinter in your finger. Let him go. NOW.