Every Piece of Crappy Reconciliation Advice You Got
Raise your hands Amazon chumps! If you’re the sort of person who responds to crisis with research, how many reconciliation books did you buy? Is “When Good People Cheat” still gathering dust on your shelf?
I have a job for you. Tell me what unicorn messages you got from the existing infidelity literature. Did you try any “affair proofing” programs and what was the outcome?
What were your feelings when you read these books? Hope? A nagging feeling that this was chump-blaming bullshit? Solace? A mixture of valid relationship advice, but directed to the wrong audience?
I’m doing some crowd sourcing here. I’m pretty sure this is one of the very few places that doesn’t ask chumps what you did to drive cheaters to cheat on you. Or ask you to “own” your part in not meeting their needs. Or doesn’t take the sad, broken sausage approach to “waywards.”
But please give me your own impressions. Bogus quotes, links, and resources if you can. I’m going to be giving a lecture soon (more details to come) and I need to be armed to the teeth with fodder for the Universal Bullshit Translator. Know thy enemy…
Thanks! And TGIF!
(We will return to our usual programming again on Monday. Thanks for the time off.)
One of my friends and she meant well asked me when I was pick me dancing, “Have you thought about doing The Love Dare?” We saw the movie together when it was in the theater and it didn’t help.
I essentially was already doing that! What he wanted and what I was willing to do (He wanted me to quit my high paying, breadwinner job in order to work for the family business so stroke his and his families ego) was two completely different things. He was already balls deep in the affair with Howorker, quitting my job would have put us in bankruptcy. Plus it would have allowed him and his family to continue the identity theft and continue to forge my signature on loans for said business.
**howorker** LOL — I’m sorry for the circumstance but I LOVE your turn of phrase!
Cheaters are so much like Hitler. Completely immoral and attack on all fronts.
Gaslighted anyone? I was no saint. In fact I could be a flat out jerk. I was led to believe that I was emotionally abusive. To the extent that I ordered the book on how to stop being emotionally abusive. The problem was that I was actually reacting to my instincts on her infidelity… I had even apologized deeply for my ‘abusive’ behavior. I also started meds for anxiety and counseling. All along however, she was carrying on her affairs as usual… Hiding texts, staying out a little later than usual, exchanging glances with co workers, and on and on. I was tricked to believe that my reactions to her cheating were abusive (and she had already cheated before…but thats a whole other story). Yep the paranoia, the controlling tone, the lack of trust, the anger, frustration and irritability. I was going CRAZY!!!! Tricky tricky. So then she felt justified to cheat. It took months of more counseling to realize her piece of the responsibility pie is alot bigger than mine. And Im still working on not blaming myself. Thanks emotionally abusive relationship book. You really messed me up.
Ah yes, I was told I was abusive too: and that was why he needed to be somewhere ‘safe’. Months of Gaslighting and financial abuse with close to a year of stonewalling from him and is it any surprise that I was emotionally distraught?
Well thank God for his bs because now I’m free and life has become simpler, calmer, sweeter.
Panchovilla I’m sorry you were carrying her weight of responsibility for her fuckedupness. It’s a reoccurring theme with these cheaters! I didn’t even know what gaslighting was 7 months ago. Thanks to this site, now I can make sense of many instances of that crazy shit. I hope you are giving yourself grace and mercy for having natural reactions to things that would bring out the jerk in most normal people.
A few months before my last Dday I remember thinking “I don’t like who I have become. I don’t recognize myself. Am I CRAZY?” I came across verbiage some where (in the many 2am searches) that effectively said “there’s nothing that will make you feel crazier faster than not trusting your instincts.” Yep!
And I failed to mention she got the kids, the house (which we built together), and I have to pay ALOT of money to her every month. Now Im in a 2 bedroom box 20 miles away and she had started dating my neighbor here. Her mom told me I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and accept my responsibility in all this… what the fuck…?
“there’s nothing that will make you feel crazier faster than not trusting your instincts.
That is for sure a keeper!
I know exactly how you feel! He made me feel like I was crazy, paranoid, depressed and should kill my self because I was so worthless and terrible. Just crazy and upset….I wonder why??!!! Living in this crazy fucking house of lies and deception.
My/our marriage counselor asked my STBX if he was mourning his affair partner during a session. I got angry and yelled. There was that “look” between STB and MC that said “she is emotional and hard to deal with.” I felt set up and worthless. The MC suggested another time that I shouldn’t aim any anger at STBX as it would drive a further wedge between us. I wish I had that wedge so I could drive it up her ass. STBX wasn’t trying and was still seeing his piece of work whore. Good God he exposed me to STDS, used our money and emotional resources, lied and forfeited our financial future!
We have to call out and expose people who act this way not pat them on the head and blame shift. MC did so much damage to me I should sue her for malpractice. I almost did not survive. After he left I had a few nights where it made perfect sense to be dead. I’m not a weak person and these affairs or what ever cute name you want to put on them are serious. They destroy people and families. They cost millions of dollars in therapy, doctors, lawyers. My 3 adult daughters don’t believe in marriage any more or church because of what he did to our family. But STBX praying for me.
I’ve never hated anyone until him. I never wished anyone dead until him. I wish him an empty, pain filled lonely life.
Isn’t kinda sad that we have to go to a web site to save ourselves. I’m so grateful for CL because I can say with all seriousness that I would have died if I had not found this site. I’m now in trauma therapy and am doing well. I’m on the down side of a couple of good weeks. Guess what?….I finally saw myself again if only for a little while. So I know I’m in there.
Thanks
I had a friend whose MC had an affair with her (Friend’s) husband during their marriage counseling! Just goes to show that some of the MCs are f-ed up! She sued the MC and receuved a financial settlement but the emotional damaged done to my friend is beyond what money could ever restore.
Same here Spoonriver, MC ended with me planning to kill myself, and the Traitor and the Whore discussing my state of mind and suicidality while the Traitor ignored me at home. CL, a VAR, and finding my rage kept me alive. It was so obvious they hated me and had been conspiring against me for months if not years. First it made me want to be dead, but then I just wanted to survive to spite them.
DO NOT TRY MC WITH A CHEATER. THEY JUST USE IT TO ABUSE YOU MORE.
Ditto 🙁
That’s exactly how I feel. My son doesn’t believe in prayer or want to go to church after being in a living church family for 18 years. My oldest daughter has given up on finding someone and plans on just doing foster care. All because their father has no character, ethics, values, or decency. Just a gross, selfish fucking bastard. Who fucked the nastiest whores on the planet- traded a beautiful family for gross fucks.
I am so you!!!!
20 years of marriage then Discovery of 10 years of lying and cheating followed by a year of ‘reconciliation’ (his plan was simply to work harder at hiding his other life) followed by a year of divorce drama and I still wish him every ill in the world. I’m having to visualize a huge STOP sign in my head whenever I start to stew on the past. It only eats at my soul and accomplishes nothing. It still sucks but I’m keeping my eyes peeled for the ‘meh’ I know is ahead.
Spoonriver, I’m so sorry that you went through that too. I did make a suicide attempt during a very dark place of despair. Today I’m glad that I had the wrong size of bullets (they were so much smaller they fell straight through the revolver, lol). I didn’t want to die, per se — I just didn’t want to tolerate being in that kind of pain anymore, and it was a relief to realize, hey, I didn’t have to hang around if I didn’t want to. I could just not exist. I hit that point about a month after D-Day, right after one disastrous marriage counseling session when the MC tried to make his affair my fault for being too bossy and for the solution to be him “taking charge” more in our relationship. ………… Sure, that’ll help my self-esteem too (eyeroll).
Hey Effie, so glad you’re still here! Love your tiny bullets story – love you too 😀 XXX
I too attempted suicide. Chickened out the first time & didn’t take enough pills to overdose the 2nd time. Ended in mental ward both times but the stay felt more like a punishment. It wasn’t that I wanted to die as it was I no longer knew how to live. Other than my therapist, I have told no one of how I tried to kill myself. Here at CN everyone understands & does not judge. I’m 5 years away from my darkest days so no need to worry about me now.
(((Hugs)))
I’m glad you made it through too.
Reading these posts makes me think that it is so easy to misunderstand our marriages as “failed.” Their implosion wasn’t a good thing, but in retrospect we can see we never “failed” in them. We succeeded–but our spouse failed. In the moment, suicide attempts might have looked like a “failure,” but of course they weren’t. And it is lovely that you are all succeeding in living. Thanks for sharing your stories. I think this community works because people are so often brave about their pain this way.
Hurt1 I’m glad you’re here.
Thanks, me too.
You’re very brave to have come through that and be able to laugh a bit now.
That counselor was ridiculous and full of it.
Spoonriver wrote: “I’m not a weak person and these affairs or what ever cute name you want to put on them are serious. They destroy people and families. They cost millions of dollars in therapy, doctors, lawyers.”
Effin-A, sister! I’m no shrinking violet, but my now-ex-wife’s “adventures” completely gutted me and destroyed our family. And all the gaslighting, lies, deceit and hack therapists merely added galling insult to injury. Looking back at that long path I walked through hell, it’s a wonder I survived!
Victims of cheaters are people going through immense shock and trauma and are in a weakened and vulnerable state. But what’s almost equally cruel (and evil) as the cheaters’ actions is that the RIC steps in and tells us victims it was somehow, or at least partially, our fault. F the RIC!
CL & CN are a lifeline for victims drowning in emotional pain, self-doubt and abuse. It’s time for CN to rise up and shine the light of truth on the infidelity blame game and the carnival barkers like E Perel who seek to profit from other people’s misery.
Yes, so much of the RIC industry tells the Chump to be strong and detach at just the moment they are weakest and are being made to feel worthless.
So Well put. Thank you for writing this. Don’t give up. In our society marriages need to be set up as business contracts.
That’s a tough story. Sorry to hear that and everyone here knows how you feel.
Cheating and then divorce sucks more for the kids than for the chump.
We can learn and grow from it and move on, and we don’t have to deal with the cheater so much, if at all.
Our poor kids have to deal with the cheater and the AP going forward most of the time.
I don’t believe in marriage…or marriage counselling. If people want to be married in the sense of the vows they made when they got married, they know what to do. No need to draw a conflicted marriage counsellor into it. Spoonriver – that was not anger – that was your intuition rising up in righteousness because you were being abused. They interpreted it as anger. “Drive that wedge up her ass” hahahahahahahaha.. First and best laugh of my day. Stay strong sister.
Why is it that when friends betray each other, there is no Friendship Counsellor and when employees betray their employers there is no Employment Counsellor? Employers fire your ass and walk you to the elevator, for alot less than theft of hundreds of thousands, exposure to disease, lying etc. Marriage counsellors are witch doctors peddling snake oil to hopium addicts.
Agree a hundred percent!!!! You either are committed or not…no middle ground..not sorta..maybe
Yah, me too, I could also sue the marriage counsellor for malpractice, and I might still. Also, yes!!, “the look” between the marriage counsellor and my spouse!! I said to MC: I thought you were trying to reconcile us?! Why do you pit us against each other?! Going at each other like dogs?! How does that help us reconcile!?
gotta give ALL 4 marriage counselors we saw, some credit. Each of them said in one form or another, that the DOCTOR was “thinking like a single man/not considering the other members of the family/not putting his wife first”.
The DOCTOR asked the Christian counselor why I didn’t “have to obey” him. This was literally the ONLY time he ever quoted scripture, since he knew no other. Too bad for him, the MC pretty much applied the “big picture” and informed the DOCTOR that he “wasn’t looking at the entire chapter.” (I recall that the words freaked me out).
I continued seeing the MC’s in 2 different states. The DOCTOR did not and when I asked him if he was going to return with me, he said I had “brainwashed them” and b/c I’m “good with words”, their opinions did not matter.
Look, I know that few if any MC’s can change a disorder bastard. But I did feel validated and sane, afterwards.
The male MC once told me in private that I was “ripe for an affair” and that I was NOT a “high need wife”, which I somehow needed to know.
OMG what gas lighting the DOCTOR did to me.
I may always regret that I let way too much slide and spent way too much energy on maintaining the illusion that my husband was invested in the marriage.
My eyes are open now. Better late than never.
CL
Not to whine (well, I do mean to whine a little), but I wish we had an edit button. Even if it only lasts a few minutes.
How else will I show everyone how great I am with words, if I can’t edit? And the DOCTOR said that’s how I “Brainwashed all the marriage counselors into saying (he) was being selfish” – when he insisted we live in Alaska, again…
Obviously, I need an edit button. Probably no one else does. Just me.
No, it’s not just yu (sic!!); there’s been more than one occasion that I would like to have been able to edit a post.
No, you’re not alone, I’ve also been in need of an edit button many times.
Ours did too. She also jumped to massive conclusions – blaming me for being a boring disinterested housewife, when I’ve been the main breadwinner for over thirty years. It later turns out that we work in the same hospital for her day job and was unethical for her to even see us. When I told her that i was the one who worked she branded me as argumentative and immediately blamed me for not appreciating him slaving in the house while I’m out doing the easy job, and being irrationally jealous just because he once had a glass of wine with a tennis partner. He doesn’t do a thing in the house – even leaves his clothes on the floor for me to pick up. I reckon I’m lucky he even flushed the toilet.
And the “single glass of wine” was a full blown affair that lasted over a year, and consisted of him hardly ever coming home before 2am, and then texting “sweety sweety night nights” – for hours, and included a blow job in the car park caught on the club’s CCTV.
She told us – to his grinning face – that the right to happiness was written in the constitution and by trying to stop the affair that made him happy I was practically abusing him of his human rights.
The dumb bitch left me suicidal!
“She told us – to his grinning face – that the right to happiness was written in the constitution and by trying to stop the affair that made him happy I was practically abusing him of his human rights.”
This just sent a chill up my spine. My adulterous ex-husband said exactly the same thing to me and our children. Word-for-fucking-word. It’s like they all share the same brain.
Gracie,
I just read your post about the “MC” who was so NOT helpful to your shitty marital situation.
I like to think of myself as a wordsmith, yet I’m left with only one question.
WTF????
What about your right to happiness?
Call her up and tell her that she’s a shit marriage counselor as well as a fucking asshole
GracieD, that is the most abusive, irresponsible MC I’ve ever heard of. Are you sure she wasn’t also an affair partner of your ex? That kind of hateful unprofessional style just reeks of disorder for her.
I’m so glad you got away and found CN. Hugs.
I bought dozens and dozens of IRC books, went to marriage seminars, watched the movie “Fireproof,” tried doing the love dare, tried to light the original match, on and on. I no longer believe that one person can keep a marriage together when the other partner is an entitled liar with multiple addictions.
But the worst “help” I received was a Christian romance novel that a good friend gave to me which was loosely based on the prophet Hosea’s life. The suggestion was even if my ex was a prostitute, God would want me to love him unconditionally and take him back time after time because look at how Hosea had obeyed the Lord and kept his wife, the prostitute. The book was typical Harlequin-romance level crap—it all turns out lovey dovey perfect in the end. I don’t know why I agreed to read it, other than I was desperate and my good friend was certain she could help save my marriage. But there is a reason this genre has never appealed to me–it’s rooted in fantasy. In the story, the “wayward spouse” whores around, but the protagonist just keeps taking it because it’s God’s will that he suffer in this way and remain faithful. Frankly, this mind crap is the Christian version of porn. And no, I don’t believe in that fantasy.
There’s a reason divorce is allowed when there’s been adultery, and all of us can understand the wisdom of why that is.
There’s a book I found recently that’s called “When Sorry Isn’t Enough” that references the scriptures a lot, and in one passage says something like “when a pastor encourages a woman to forgive a man who won’t reform his behavior, he is asking her something God won’t even do himself”.
I forget which verse this relates to specifically, but the bottom line is repentance and making amends is a staple requirement to obtain absolution even in Christianity.
FindingBliss, I’m a Christian but have a problem with how infidelity is portrayed over and over as something a couple can get through with enough forgiveness. I’ve told many Christian friends that I’d like to see a movie where one person does everything possible to save the marriage as suggested by the church, and in the end they don’t end up reconciled. Because that’s what happened to me. The church makes it look easy and like any couple can overcome their issues. They don’t portray what happens when one person does all they can to save the marriage and the other person just doesn’t care what anyone including the church thinks and wants out.
That book is soo crappy and cheesy — and completely unsupportable from any really close reading of Hosea. My sister-in-law gave it to me after my divorce, and I am still not sure what she was trying to tell me.
I thought the same thing, that the cheater was probably banging the MC
Of course she was. She risked her professional license seeing you when it was unethical for her to do so. Why else would she do that and then tell you it was the jackass’s right to have an affair? Sheeeesh.
To e honest, it’s crossed my mind more than once
I got off topic but my STBX’s therapist gave him a list of books to read on rekindling love (married 30+ years). I ordered them all and read them he did not. I made sure he took them when he left.
Very glad you found CL and are here to testify that marriage counselors can be enablers and abusers.
I’m so glad you survived and are still here to share your story, Spoonriver. You were psychologically tortured by both your ex and that worthless MC. I wish I had that wedge too! I hope your trauma therapy is successful and that you recover your beautiful self once again. I do wish we could sue for damages!
You could sue for damages-read about “intentional infliction of emotional distress”. One factor necessary you have-the medical intervention. But be wary of the statute of limitations.
I have read everything there is to read I think..at first I almost bought the “what part did you play in forcing your spouse to cheat” bullshit.. I had a far shittier end of the stick in this unholy union trust me and I didn’t bang toothless skanks in dirty dank basements like he chose to do…now if I read anything that even attempts to point the finger at me I read no further. I feel 99.9% of that crap is written by cheaters for cheaters and is complete garbage. Love this place..need to be more sites for us by us!
iM GONNA BE USING YOUR WISDOM A LOT A L O T I have no angel to guide me through this shit
Chump Nation has your back lovely Linn Gee, we (and that includes you) are mighty! Hugs to you x
I spent A LOT of time on the divorce busting website and am a “veteran” there. Reconciled for a DECADE and he did the same Alaskan adventure shit again, with a humiliating side of Tundra Schmoopie on the side.
Here is what I USED to believer and tell chumps (I don’t disbelieve it all, but it’s so one sided I shake my head at myself time & time again. Amazing). A few tidbits –
“While all affairs are wrong, they are not all alike. Most don’t happen in a vacuum.”
If you know an affair is not a certain deal breaker for you, then don’t snoop/ bring more pain into your life. Besides, you need to do your our own personal work. ”
“What would your spouse (CHEATER) say about the marital problems if HE/SHE were here? Are any of their complaints valid?”
“Forgiveness is our way out of hell” – Marianne Williamson
“Forgiveness is a learned skill. Your spouse may fear that you will hold the affair over their head like the sword of Damacles, or throw it in their face every time you fight. ”
– “Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum, they happen in context.”
They may not happen in a vacuum, but it still depends on character.
It’s certainly tricky to discern, but I can say the way a “normal” person handles him/herself in a spot on the cheating spectrum will be different from the way someone who is disordered does it. Also, to make matters more difficult, most people who cheat will be of the disordered kind. I would agree that anyone who lets themselves fall on that spectrum is, at least temporarily, disordered/disturbed/has crappy life skills. But context and time will point out the differences. I saw that difference in my own relationship.
With the disordered, generally the cheating is part of a bigger abuse pattern and in time they will repeat and escalate their offensive behavior, even in the absence of real marital issues. They don’t reform, they just take breaks and at best ditch one type of abuse (like cheating) to favor a different kind. You don’t get remorse in the form of accountability or making amends.
A non-disordered person may have reasons (like abuse from their partner!) that lead him/her to be more vulnerable to someone preying on them (usually another abuser, because affair partners who know that person is in a relationship are also disordered people) and will quite quickly stop themselves, draw a boundary and respect their partner by either getting out of the relationship or truly committing to staying, which means never again repeating the behavior, as well as not engaging in any other forms of abuse of course. That includes allowing consequences and taking full responsability for however long to do whatever it takes. The disordered just goes in the opposite direction!
One of the problems with reconciliation advice is that it neglects the existence of abusers/disordered people.
The advice is directed to people with a relatively normal moral compass, or with the skills to build one. The abuser mentality is much more resistant to change, and the disordered mentality is near impervious to change.
Also, many parts of that advice is the very voice of abuse (forgive and forget, don’t hold it over your partner’s head, etc.).
Age/maturity is also a factor. It’s much less likely to see a 50-year old reform than a 20-year old (although the path of being disordered is already quite set at a young age).
JGirl
I do NOT think the RIC believe in or admit that some people cheat. I’m not sure why the RIC is this way and I don’t think they are all crooks just trying to make a buck.
But some spouses lie and feel entitled to cheat, and that is just how they are. I was loyal and committed to my husband and we went through a lot. Gotta admit, I’m surprised he’s been such a prick, but he has.
I don’t know all the reasons why my husband lied or why he was so stunningly selfish. I don’t know all of his FOO issues, or when he started the lies or WTF happened. I just know he inflicted a LOT of pain on me and our kids, and none of us will ever be the same again.
We are healing – thanks in part to NO contact with him.
No longer matters why he is a bastard. I just want the money he owes me and to move the fuck on with my life.
Good luck to the unicorns out there. I pray you exist.
All of this makes me want to kill myself. ????
waffles,
Sorry.
If it helps, I’ve figuratively slapped myself in the face a lot.
No, please don’t think I meant you.
More of the it’s all your fault, and here is why ….
The first few weeks after DD, I was completely blaming myself, as was cheater. If I’d been given that advice, I’d of prolly killed myself (since I was already inclined anyway).
Every single thing on that bullshit website: Surviving Infidelity was horrible advice.
That’s where I learned that my wayward spouse was in a fog and I should do the 180 to help him.
The 180 I think is one of the best things I ever did honestly. After being with an abusive scumbag for so many years I was a socially isolated, angry, self destructive mess. My 180 literally may have saved my life. By the time the reconciliation lost its allure to her, and she started fucking the elderly again, I had changed back to who I was pre skank and was not prepared to let that go for anyone again.
Love this, DunChumpin! I’m glad your personal 180 brought you back to the original you, pre-cheater. They really do a number on us, don’t they? Welcome back! Enjoy your cheater-free life.
Thank you bliss. I ain’t free yet, but closer. At least she doesn’t live in my head anymore 🙂
Gray Rock isn’t a bad thing if you go into it to protect yourself rather than in hopes that your cheater will want you bad and baby baby come back. Pretty sure that my attempts at the Gray Rock 180 were what led to his final discard of me after the long, slow devalue. When I wasn’t crying or being the pick-me dancer anymore or trying to get him to talk, he wasn’t getting the supply from me that he needed. He decided he must have had his affairs because he didn’t want to be married, I left, and now he has my 19-year-old niece looking adoringly into his eyes, trusting every word he says, and never challenging him on a thing.
Oops, I meant the 180 isn’t a bad thing if…
I actually won her back for about 5 seconds. Looking back it’s clear to me that even the reconciliation industry understands that cheaters are cluster b and that’s why 180 works. You become shiny and new. In fairness on one of the sites, they say do the changes for you.
Gray rock is also a 180 of sorts too but one that gets them nothing back. Btw the threat to her ns brought about so much rage this morning…..shes such a fucking pig.
Can someone enlighten us newbies to the meaning of “the 180”? I know that means an abrupt change, but from what to what?
Whatever in the hell any of that meant. But that site did wake me up to just how many cheaters are out there. I felt so bad for the people who stayed, waiting for the mysterious fog to roll out. No, there is no fog. There is human agency and we all have it.
The worst for me advice I got, though, was precisely as stated by Tracy, when I was asked to “own” my part of the affair. Because, of course, my marriage had to have been terrible for him to cheat in the first place. That certainly was news to me. The therapist didn’t want to talk about the affair, she wanted to talk about what “led” to it. Easy-peasy. X was an entitled asshole, who needed that narcissistic payday. Ego, pure ego.
For me, the ultimate question was not what I had done to “damage” the marriage, it was why I thought so little of myself to stay married to a man who treated me the way he did. That was not viewed as relevant to the reconciliation process, but it damned sure helped the divorce process!
Violet
Your question”…why I thought so little of myself to stay married to a man who treated me the way he did…”is one I have asked myself so many times. I completely forgive myself and don’t go there anymore. I hope you do too.
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Violet, very perceptive. I’m still reflecting on this. I don’t get why the intrusive thoughts about the whole unraveling still hammer me even though I really don’t love him anymore and hope I never see him again, except maybe in court when the judge signs the divorce decree in January. Is it just that the trauma symptoms still need more time to work through? I hope it’s not going to be years of this. Already invested too many years in sunk costs and now I want to fly.
Yes, it takes a long time to become whole again. I feel like I am there 99.99% of the time. There are times when I wish I had someone to walk this journey with me, particularly when I am facing certain challenges alone. I am not willing to sacrifice my own well-being and peace of mind to have a mate, though.
It sounds like you are doing what is necessary to heal, and it is the desire to do so that will carry you through. It is perfectly fine to mourn the loss of something that was dear to you (your marriage), while at the same time knowing that you never want to reconcile with your X.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is considered a leading approach for alleviating trauma & PTSD related distress. It is working for me.
You can find EMDR how to videos on You Tube. Some are far better than the others. I used them and they helped IMMENSELY. Highly recommended. I still use the technique at times of stress or when I’m having trouble falling back asleep.
I would list the ones I used but the info was in my now deceased laptop…. 😉
Spoonriver, I’m glad EMDR is working *for* you, rather than against you. The last marriage counselor my ex-husband and I saw recommended it for me, to help me deal with the stress and anxiety that he thought were contributing to my depression. He totally played right into my ex-husband’s hands, because ex wanted to blame me and my (in his estimation) inadequately addressed depression for all the problems in our marriage. Depressed that then-husband was paying more attention to his best female pal/co-worker (yeah, the OW) and their close-knit group of friends than to me and our two sons? Yeah, that was MY problem.
Then-husband and I went to the one session with that counselor because within a week or so I was told I was going to be laid off. The counselor was expensive, and our insurance didn’t cover anything related to behavioral health , so we couldn’t afford to go back. Even though I resented the implication that dealing with my depression took priority over getting then-husband to address his shitty behavior, we would have gone back if I hadn’t lost my job. I wanted to see if the counselor was going to keep his word about “calling [then-husband] to the carpet”. I really wanted to see if how that was going to fly.
My therapist also uses Accelerated Resolution Therapy (A.R.T.)
Looking up EMDR and ART today — thank you!
Violet, precisely this: “…it was why I thought so little of myself to stay married to a man who treated me the way he did. ”
Thank you!
I love how they try to minimize the cheaters title…wayward..like he got lost on his way home from work and took a wrong turn down dirty skank lane and just couldn’t find his way back..
LOL best comment, really helped me today, thank you. I took all the blame, his family told him to “follow his bliss” and sometimes soul contracts end and supported his new solo life after 26 years. Affair, cruel discard, and NEVER an apology. Just ran away. Wayward makes me think of this old song… THE WAYWARD WIND
https://youtu.be/bD_4IzbsbOM
Nobody2u … “Dirty Skank Lane” made me truly LOL.
???????????????????????? so true!!!
Yes, the 180! Where you the faithful spouse do everything under the sun for the sad, wayward cheater, swallow your pride, hurt and resentment and “nice” them back to the marriage because they are the important ones here! Such complete bullshit.
Yes and wait out the affair- now I think WTF!!!?
I just Googled “it’s unfair but the betrayed partner needs to do most of the work in reconciliation” and reading the first page of the search results made my skin crawl.
Not on the Internet, but after calmly setting out (in a one on one meeting) to our briefly employed marriage counsellor all the abuse I had suffered – I was told that it’s “OK to stay in a relationship like that” . She was a fricken PhD psychologist. I am minded to report her for her utter disregard for my emotional wellbeing in suggesting abuse is ok.
RIC fuckwits. They can do more emotional damage than many criminals who get jail time.
That quote made my eyebrows ride up to the back of my head!
Speaking of criminals, I’d much sooner hand my wallet over to some meth head than my soul to anyone who is not capable of handling it with care! Yet the first one ends up in jail, the latter sleeping soundly in their bed at night.
You have to really wonder what kind of moral bearings these assholes have (marriage counsellors). Did they receive no spiritual and religious training as children? Do they have no knowledge of the importance of marriage to children, to the community, to society, and yes, and to the spouses?
Preach, QueenMother! You’re spot on. Maybe the profession appeals to the disordered in the same way marriage does? To give them a cover and appearance of being good or normal? Clearly, there are good and helpful therapists and counselors out there just as there are good spouses and marriages. But it does give the disordered a good place to hide.
I know of one psychology major who beat her then-husband. When her three year old child’s behaviour was annoying her, she said, “Oh, [name], just stop being you.”
She has worked with vulnerable people: the elderly, the developmentally delayed. I shudder to think … I think psych fields definitely attract the disordered.
OW to my STBX was a 23 year old (to his 45 years) who was getting her masters in mental health counselling with a focus on marriage and family therapy. She was screwing a married man with a family while his wife was pregnant. And now she is licensed to counsel couples and children. That is messed up.
Predators go where the prey is (e.g., child molesters go into teaching, coaching, scouting, the clergy).
I do think the worst was when I went into therapy initially. Why would I make him want to cheat? Really ME? I am the one that was shattered. A Tsunami crashed my world yet I was to accept blame. And worse divorce is not an option. Marriage is for life! And also the 180 bullshit!
Right! If I had such action-controlling powers to force a poor weak man to do things, wouldn’t I use it to benefit me, not destroy me and the kids? It’s not logical.
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you for this. He is always telling me I “make him” do things. I tell him I cannot make him do anything. He is almost a foot taller than me and weighs just about twice as much.
But this makes even more sense. Why would I use my magical controlling “powers” to screw up my own life?
HollowBunny
F yeah! What YOU said! I opted out of conjoint therapy this time (Dday3). I don’t care to “explore my part.” My part? I took back the known cheater 26 years ago after Ddays 1&2. Dumbass move! Now I know better. All cured. Yay. Thank you, CL & CN – the only effective antidote to RIC poisoning & hopium addiction.
BAZINGA! Yes we failed miserably at being the controlling spouses they accuse us of being.
DivineDoorknobs…
Do I detect a “12” in your nickname? Love that handle!
My counselor through my EAP at work was amazing! I loved her.
She was the one who point blank looked at me and said,”The affair was not your fault and you were in an abusive relationship.”
Darn you autocorrect! Supposed to be Gonegirl
But the answer to Gone Y is “because he’s a worthless cheater.” You gotta love autocorrect at times.
I bought a lot and there were bits of good and bad in all of them. Just the act of trying to “fix” things was healing (It led me to this site in its early days.) One book that did resonate with me was Transcending Post-infidelity Stress Disorder (PISD): The Six Stages of Healing” by Dennis C. Ortman. I found it very helpful. For me recovery was/is a spiritual journey and once I worked my way through the anger (it’s still there but no longer dictates my thoughts and actions) I saw it as a wake-up call to begin taking care of myself again. (I liken my own experience to Ulysses in the land of the Lotus-eaters.) Everybody’s journey will be different…
Funny, while the crap lead you to this website, it caused me to resist coming here the first couple months after I found it because it was negative and wreckonsilliation demands you be 100% positive to make up for all the awful things you did to cause the cheating. I must have been caught in the fog too!
I had the opposite happen! Had I found this website two years ago, I would have saved myself some time and pain.
I don’t remember what I was googling (something about cheating) I came across CL’s column about the TFC (Timid Forest Creature) and it framed my ex irrevocably.
I was looking for clarity on what I was dealing with, to know if I should stay or go.
The magic word “entitlement” made my brain click and lit up like a slot machine!
Yes. Same story here. I avoided this site until it got to the point where I realized I needed to get divorced because the limbo I was in hurt too bad. That’s when I started coming here because I knew this crowd would keep me on track.
Well, I came the week following DDay, and had to leave because the cheaters here seemed so horrible. I was under the impression then that mine had been weak, only that, even if he had stopped loving me and decided to leave me. It was only later, with the things he said, and how he went to the country of his cousin-whore to live with her, with me waiting for him to decide, that I started to see he was one of these monsters, although not a cluster B.
I didn’t buy any books. I didn’t see the point. He said he was done. I can’t force him to do anything even being married to him.
I was broke too. Idiot left bills unpaid and I was still on maternity leave so I didn’t want to charge a bunch of books I knew wouldn’t work.
I went to the library and they definitely need a few copies of “Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life.” I think I’ll do that to pay it forward to the next chump in my town.
I told him we were going to follow a reconciliation plan but not reconcile. We have 2 very young children together. I’m gonna have to co parent with this idiot for the next 18 years unless a miracle happens and the devil calls him home.
I gave up on any sincere apologies or view into his choices. His mind is not rational, none of it would make any sense to me if he did. It’s Pandora’s box.
Seriously though, we all need to donate copies of Tracy’s book to local libraries!! Poor people like me need to find her book there!
CheatersKilljoy….thanks for suggesting this! A great way to help future fellow chumps. I already gave a copy to the woman in the wine shop I frequent (LOL!). I had just come from kickboxing class, and we started talking about our gyms and how we got into it (anger management over divorce) and I point-blank asked her if her ex had cheated. Yep. So I showed up the next time with a copy of CL’s book. So gratifying to see the ‘light bulb’ moment after a fellow chump begins to ‘get it.’ I want to see that influence multiplied ten times over. The library is definitely one way!
CheatersKilljoy, I have the same problem with my X asshat, “co”-parenting with this fuckwit for at least the next 16 years (we have a 2 yo daughter). Just when I think his decisions (i.e. hookers before/during/after my pregnancy) were bad enough, he manages to continue right along on his path of idiocy. Yesterday, when I stuck my head into his car to say goodbye to my daughter (haven’t had my head in his car since I don’t know when), and I’m greeted with a wall of cigarette smoke. He doesn’t smoke (to my knowledge), but apparently new chickie does. And when I said something, he half-heartedly pleaded ignorance, followed up by feigned surprise at the dangers of lingering smoke (we’re in our 30s — they lecture you about this stuff now from day one). Totally oblivious to what he’s subjecting our daughter (and dog) to…still. Yup. I’m right there with you, waiting for a miracle.
Here in Toronto, there’s a form one can fill out in any public library, suggesting books you think the library ought to buy. I imagine that most public library systems have something similar. Perhaps we could make a concerted effort to make requests, all around the world ~ as far as the long arm of Chump Nation reaches ~ to our various libraries. Wouldn’t that be a gift to future Chumps?
I’ll do that for the public library here in Ottawa. Thanks, TorontoChump!
We had the same policy at the public library where I worked (slips for patron purchase suggestions). Direct donations are great, but they can also get rejected or end up in book sales if it’s determined they’re not needed. If enough people request the same book, that would help sway the purchaser too. There is a strong emphasis on what the overall population being served is interested in having at their library when it comes to collection development. …And that concludes my nerd-out.
P.S. Not sure if Tracy’s book would have gotten patrons (in that community, at least) riled up with all the F-bombs, haha…
I’ll do that in my library at Richview. Thank you for the tip, Torontochump.
“Only take responsibility for your fifty percent of the problem” from my pastor upon learning that my husband had left me with a one week old baby and a toddler while he ran off with his secretary. Much, much later I found out that said pastor had cheated on his first wife and that his currenct wife had been his mistress.
“have you tried sex?” From my well-meaning mother-in-law two weeks after I had given birth and one week after he left.
“give the boy some rope” from my cheater dad.
Your dad had it partly right. He should have finished with “make him a nice necktie from the rope, and then find a high tree limb and a box. A garbage can will do in a pinch.”
Hugs. Strength. Peace.
aeronaut
Yah, what did Chumplady name the parent (mother in this case) who kicked the cheating spouse’s ass? Brunhilda? It was a great article. It says that mama is here to cut through the bullshit when spouse cheats, and give him no slack.
Hah!
My father had already died when CheaterX’s affair came to light. However, he would have had nothing good to say about CheaterX. When I told my family that I was divorcing CheaterX, they called him oathbreaker and collectively turned their backs on him.
kb,
Love your family’s reaction-nothing like a good Quaker style shunning for cheaters !
You are fortunate to have such strong family support.
LOL, my first thought too, Aeronaut. Give him some rope, and then give him a nice, tall tree.
Bwahahahaha! That’s not what dad had in mind, but that’s what I ultimately did. Worked out great for me!!!
FYI not literally. But the court didn’t take to him not paying adequate support to the kids and me and that hurt him in the temporary support hearing and again in the final settlement. Then he made payments for a few months until the month he remarried. Over the years, he ended up racking up $66K in arrears and a pattern of not taking the kids during his time. I used these points as leverage to “give him the opportunity” to terminate parental rights so that my second husband could adopt the kids and we could move out of state. Worked out great for us! I still allow him contact with the kids and occasional visits so long as the kids want it.
MissDeltaGirl, reading that made my heart ache for you. I hope you’re to Meh!
I’m usually there. Only occasionally fall off the wagon. Saving a seat for you!
Hugs,
MGM
Glad to hear how well you are doing, MGM. For the record, I’m an “old-timer” here and I’ve been happily remarried for almost 10 years. I come around here to encourage the newbies.
My therapist absolutely was pedaling the notion that I could stop him from leaving. Dress sexy, break out some new sex moves, don’t upset him! Play the part of a wife he would want to stay with. Paint a picture for him where his future of staying with me is one of peace and not punishment. Swallow every bit of excruciating pain. Appeal to his sense of family responsibility. In other words, lie down and get abused some more!
She never questioned, or encouraged me to question that reconciliation was a worthy goal. She never asked me, why in the world would I want someone who would treat me like this?
Worst thing? She encouraged me to involve the kids in the pick me dance. So it became the Pick Us dance. She had me get the kids make him homemade birthday cards with pictures and heartfelt notes. And what was he doing on his goddam birthday while they were making these cards? That’s right, fucking his shmoopie. He came home from an exhausting day with her, spent about 20 minutes with his kids, and fell asleep.
So this therapist (and I hate to pick on her, she was a well-intentioned loving person), this educated professional therapist is routinely counseling women to do the pick me dance. I remember her telling me stories of other failed reconcilliations, a whole group of cheaters she was unable to change with her magic words. Well imagine that.
I wish I had found your book sooner Tracy (this was all two years ago), though I doubt I would have listened to you. I was so pathetically desperate, and this therapist was telling me what I wanted to hear, that I could save my marriage. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous: The notion that I could save my marriage, or that I should want to….
In what world does an intelligent/educated therapist think that you can control another persons behavior?
That was the very first thing I learned from my brilliant first therapist. “You can’t control other people.”
She is a fraud and a quack!!!!!
Also should mention she was my therapist but also trying to play marriage counselor. Yeah that was never a good idea
That just breaks my heart–for your kids. Kids are sorta resilient, but they are so hurt by being rejected by a cheater. It isn’t the natural order of things, to have a so-called “parent” put his or her wants ahead of a child’s (no matter how old) needs. Oh, the cheater rationalizes that the child can’t be happy unless the “parent” is happy, but we know the deal. The child’s concerns are a complete afterthought. Or they rationalize that kids are resilient, and the cheater isn’t rejecting the kids–they’re only rejecting you–but that often isn’t borne out by reality, either, sadly. (Or the cheater stays on, but only to use the kids as props or to torture the sane parent, or as emotional crutches, inappropriately, and in a further damaging way.)
How tragic, to give kids–vulnerable, impressionable kids–the false and damaging hope that if only they do something vague and unknown and impossible JUST right, then maybe the walk-away “parent” will be able to love them. Maybe if they just smile and behave and make their needs small enough, they will be worthy of love. I am resilient enough to reason after so many years of trying that this is so many ways wrong, but will my adult children really ever recover from that rejection? It’s ongoing, too, as their father distances himself further. I wish their father would get mental health treatment. I’m actually beginning to be concerned that he is isolating himself and may be tortured inside like so many mid-life men are who go off a different deep end. Part of me actually hopes he is at least content and pacified, even if he is selfish.
If he’s half the narc he sounds like, mental health treatment will not happen. Never. NPD is really untreatable and permanent, but no one ever tells that truth because our society really doesn’t like to admit the existence of incurable disease and we collectively do not comprehend personality disorders. The part of your comment where you say you are concerned for him? Please consider this the legacy of his abuse of you. It’s showing you where you need to love yourself more. Narc men with sparkle and or money are never isolated. It’s in his interest for you to feel such authentic, lovingkind concern for him though— please keep that in mind. Your goodness shows through in this comment, be careful you aren’t still projecting your own goodness on to him as you did for years when you were married.
I can relate to so much of what you just said. Ex does not and has never intended to discard his kids, and yet, they are not really the priority they should be. He put and is still putting time, energy and resources into a relationship that is of no benefit to the kids. They feel that and they can’t help but also notice that he is being friendly with Schmoopie’s kids too. No matter how many times he tells them they come first, it’s hard for them not to feel replaced as well. He has no idea of the damage he is doing to his relationship with his kids.
I also feel sorry for him sometimes despite the fact that he deserves whatever he has coming. It’s just all so pathetic and sad. He had so many other options but he just keeps choosing wrong and digging his hole deeper.
Struggling
Your counsellor was not well-intentioned at all. She was intending to diminish your equality in a personal relationship. That’s what she thought was good enough for you. She was intending to sacrifice your self-esteem in exchange for hope. She thought that grovelling was good enough for you. She was intending that you sign up for a buffet of shit sandwiches for the rest of your natural life. She did not have your best interests at heart. Oh – and she took money from you for saying all this.
Well, this is a fair assessment. Chumpy of me to defend her, I know! I have a very difficult time not being a chump. I’ve been a chump my whole life. Every relationship. It’s pretty bad, such a habit, my knee jerk reaction is to trust and see the best in people. Wish I could cut that shit out
I remember laughing when I saw people on the internet advertising “magic potions” to bring back your cheating spouse. Now, I think why not? It would be just as effective as all the other advice for wreckonciling with the disordered.
“Wreckonciling…” I love the clever pun, lol! For sure.
Feeling it, I think you’re right — in fact the “magic potion” might work better since it would take magic to change these disordered characters.
Here are a few words of “wisdom” our therapist told me
– Learn his love language, because that will help him to stop cheating
– That he is going through a difficult time and it is hard for him to keep up 2 personas, I need to give him time
– Allow him 6 months to figure everything out
– Learn my part in how I led him to cheat
Yep there are other key points, but those are the ones that killed me. 2 months of this crap and I said adiós and was done.
“Learn his love language, because that will help him to stop cheating”
My cheater brought up love languages…which…yeah…does not get at the problem that you CHEATED. So I’m supposed to believe that if I hug him more, he would stop getting “hugs” from hookers? As they say in Jerry McGuire, you had me at hookers.
Cheating is the 5th love language, it means “I don’t care about you at all. I just care about myself”.
The X bought a copy of the love languages book for every wedded couple he knew. He never read it (why would he think of how to better relate to another person? That would require empathy!). He knew it made him look thoughtful. Nothing matters more to him than how he looks in the eyes of others. Everyone else but me.
Yes, indeed, I have heard well enough of the Love Languages thing. I’m not saying it has zero merit, but it’s totally irrelevant to cheating, right up there with Mars/Venus and all the other “seek to understand rather than to be understood” stuff. Band aids are great for small cuts but not for broken arms.
“Band aids are great for small cuts but not for broken arms.”
Love this.
The expression I hear is,”You can’t put a Band-Aide on a gunshot wound.”
To steal from Chris Rock, the RIC advises us to pour Robitussin on a compound fracture.
I love the Robitussin bit.
Exactly, cheating is a whole different animal!
My counselor said give it 1 year. I started the full on pick me dance which I realized I had actually unknowingly started months before day because he was treating me like shit and I thought it was my fault. I was done trying at 5 months and went greyrock and no contact as possible and by 9 months had to file.
Same timeline. 19 weeks of pick me dancing and trying to “fix” the moving targets that he put on my back.
Surviving infidelity (Tim, thank God your wife left you), Marriage Builders (takes 2), after the affair (one prophetic sentence to the cheaters who probably never read this, mine didn’t: if you spend all your time and energy on the affair partner you will likely find your wife gone if you return…yup!)……
It was so hard to put down the hopeium pipe….no contact is the only path to truth and light.
The marriage counselor advised that I start having sex with my husband as soon as possible even though I had not yet been to my post-partum check up or been tested for STIs. I was so shocked and sickened. He had unprotected sex during his affair with his boss while I was pregnant with our second child. He came home and had sex with me. My water broke at 34 weeks so she came early but was fine. (No clear explanation why my water broke so early. There was some kind of infection in the membranes…) I found out about the affair when she was 3 weeks old. Her sister was 3 years old. I cried most times we did have sex for the better part of a year. I stayed in the marriage for almost four more years. I filed after DD #3 with coworker.
Sex you don’t want is always interpreted by your body as a sexual assault — always, even if you choose to do it when you don’t want to. That’s why it leaves you traumatized and responsive to triggers.
We should never have to make ourselves have sex. If you are doing this to yourself now, I hereby give you full permission to get out of that situation with all of your integrity intact.
Would you ever, in a thousand years, want any person to have sex with you for any reason other than that s/he completely wanted to do so? Of course not. No reasonable person would ever want that from, or with, you.
Your comment was like a light coming on! You are so right! It is sexual assault to your body and mind- forcing yourself to have sex with your cheater so he will stay or not be mad …..or to appease his sickening behaviors,..
It makes me feel like throwing up and just gross…I hope that goes away someday.
I am glad to help whoever this helps. I, too, wish I had learned this so much sooner in my life. So, now it’s one of the gems I try to pay forward. The concept was a total game changer for me. Hugs to you all.
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for sharing this! Reading your first paragraph was a “holy shit” moment for me. That’s it! That’s exactly it. Nearly every single part of me was reacting to having “unselfish” sex with him as abuse. Of course it would! You just threw a bright light on the reactions and triggers I’m still having. My body was responding to ongoing assault! I wish someone had explained it like this to me 3 years ago. Thank you!
This is why many chumps really NEED therapy, but with an expert on trauma and recovery. First, they recognize trauma instead of denying it. Second, they know how to help us recover.
THIS is a really important comment. Thank you.
Yes it is, so let’s repeat it. Copy this if you need it:
“Sex you don’t want is always interpreted by your body as a sexual assault — always, even if you choose to do it when you don’t want to. That’s why it leaves you traumatized and responsive to triggers.”
Similar here … ripped the stitches after baby #2 because I had to be a “good wife” and had sex far too soon. Then, pre-term labor with baby #3 … similar problems. Ahhhh … damnit. These assholes can ruin the most beautiful things in life. 🙁
I also cried a lot during and after sex (silently) near the end of the marriage as I was just starting to unravel his shit. STBX pulled the rug out entirely for me on the subject. Hopefully it will get better, but after everything he put me through and what I’ve discovered lies underneath the mask (he’s one sick dude), even the idea of sex repulses me now.
“I cried most times we did have sex for the better part of a year.”
*hugs* I was there too, JustdoneJess. It’s not a good place to be, and probably turned me off to any intimate contact for a while. With the adjustment to motherhood/hormones, the knowledge of what he had done, how much it hurt, and how much effort it took to hold back the reality of the situation (i.e. that the relationship was over), it was just too much.
I didn’t read any of those books, but the ex husband was BIG into the verbage–“I have been acting out”, “I suffer from an addictive personality” were my personal favorites…two statements that may be entirely true, but that he said with an air of “it’s not my fault so you cannot get upset and must forgive me or you are just a bitter bunny!” Also, it stank of “I’m the REAL victim here!” Absolutely no real accountability or remorse. I think he may be a true cluster b because he really has no authenticity when it come to his character….it’s like he thinks it’s not even him…he believes his own smoke and mirrors of being a good person but then does horrible things to people and is a pathological liar.
His parting words in writing were that he knows that he is a good person even though I may not believe it…my bitter bunny retort: “Your character is a measure of your behavior so you have shite character.”
One of the best statements I heard–here–that helped me put his contradictions in proper perspective was Dr. George Simon’s line … It’s not that they don’t see; they just disagree (close paraphrase).
My STBX loves to think of himself as a good person, but his most intense rages have come when I point out the discrepancy between how he wishes to be perceived and WHO HE REALLY IS (via his actions).
Near the end, (for the millionth time over two decades), I explained — in the most basic language possible — that lying was unacceptable. I laid out the reasons (he agreed). I laid out the consequences (he agreed). He cried and gnashed teeth with his “remorse” and expressed his OWN pain for having hurt me and our children yet again.
… and within one week, I caught him lying AGAIN. A new lie. To get what he wanted and to avoid my disagreement.
He knew EXACTLY what he was doing. Fucker.
Yep. We indeed were married to the same POS.
Oh yes, my X latched onto the psychological vernacular like it was his miracle get-out-of-jail-free cure-all. His shitty childhood led to his dissociative disorder, so, because it’s a mental condition, I couldn’t possibly be mad at any of the shitty things he did while he compartmentalized his “good” life over here while he fucked prostitutes over there, and vice versa. They are so delusional and anyone thinking any of that is “okay” makes me nauseous.
Omg! Yes! Blech!!! I am so glad to be rid of the constant talking about how HAARD his life was!
Cheaters make the decision to cheat knowing the risks involved, One of the most obvious risks is divorce and destroying their family. Cheating is well thought out even before they find their prey. Making conversation, being charming, to the act itself takes effort and careful planning. The marriage at this point is over.
Marriage, family, kids, a lifetime of memories no longer have value.
Nejla, X was also big into verbage, X, he was seriously concerned for my mental health. He almost had me convinced that I had something to be concerned about. A pathological liar, and clearly a textbook narcissist/ psychopath/sociopath.
X constantly lectured me on his character and integrity of which he has neither.
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2016/03/what-it-means-when-a-narcissist-says-i-love-you/. Chump Nation read this!!!!
While I haven’t read the books…..this is exactly what I put up with for five years and I am done with this FUCKING LYING NARCISST. Enjoy your life mind fucking someone else.
Excellent article although very very triggering and difficult to read– too close to home.
Mother Chumper
I am so sorry I hit a trigger that affected you. It was truly not my intent. Seeing that article triggered many things for me. I wish I had left him sooner. Now the OW can live it out with him. He has reached out to me since October 14th to tell me he’s done.
I meant he hasn’t reached out to me since August 14th and that is when he said it was over and he was done.
Thank you NOREGRETS for sharing this article! It hits home hard.
Hugs to you and stay mighty! I had 21 yrs (14 married) invested with a covert narcissist. I always thought narcissist were loud and obvious – boy was I wrong!
NotaddictedChump
Why do we stay? They promise they will change and you catch them in so many lies. Funny when you catch them they blame you and say you are threatening and controlling. God, if I only walked away. Now you live with no respect and no trust. Why do you stay????
Nejla, One afternoon in tears, I questioned X regarding stories that weren’t adding up, after discovering he had lied I questioned his dishonest. I said I thought you were a man of integrity.
(a line he often repeated) his response, “Brit, I’m comfortable knowing my integrity is intact.”
Evidently he’s also delusional.
These idiots redefine ‘integrity’ to mean ‘being authentic’…meaning ‘free to be their true selves enjoying ‘twu wuv’ without a shred of remorse. On the contrary, a total LACK of integrity can allow someone to cheat, lie, steal resources, shit on their spouse, family, spread diseases, gaslight, traumatize, abandon, etc. etc. But in mind of a disordered fuck, all of that is just collateral damage in pursuit of self actualization.
Yes, it all comes back to the Esther Perel…”pursuit of self actualization”;)
It’s just all too sophisticated for little ole me.
Wow! He sounds as awful as mine;)
I have been thinking about this post because I know “codependent no more” is not a RIC book, but it made me feel like shit when I read it because although I was married to an addict, he lied so much I was in the dark about it and the cheating. How am I enabling something that I don’t know anything about?! But when I read George Simon there was a page that described us chumps perfectly. There were several different qualities like the “over intellectualizer” or “naive” qualities that chumps tend to have. The way he worded it did not make me feel like I was somehow responsible which is how I felt a bit reading the “codependent no more” book.
I do accept that there was a dance going on in which he fucked up repeatedly and I tried to fix it all while making excuses for him based on what he told me. SO, I may have been naive to believe him when the behavior wasn’t adding up to how he portrayed himself and then over intellectialized the bad bahavior (bad childhood, depression blah, blah, blah).
Thank God at over a year out from DDay, I am making strides and his abuse is starting to look like it is in the distance. And, who the duck cares what they say! He know well enough to not talk to me anymore;) I wish that for you too, brit!
Nejla,
Did you want a divorce after DD#1? Or did you forgive him till he did it again? I apologize I am new the the Chump World.
No, I had no idea that he was a cheater until I accidentally found out about the last one just checking a phone bill (79 page bill-54 pages with one number.) I got 8 years of phone records and crazily looked up all the numbers I didn’t recognize…although it isn’t a smoking gun, that along with all the behavior over the years (working overnights all the time, driving friends home from work and then staying out all night but couldn’t call because “the phone died”-heck, in the beginning he would stay out overnight not answering my frantic calls-I had an infant at that time!-and his excuse was he had a few drinks and didn’t want to drive-“this is how they do it in england, nej! My sisters stay out overnight all the time! You are such a prude!”) I figure he was doing it from day one. He had already left me and my kid because “he has a right to be fucking happy”. He was staying (I thought) with a guy friend. Total bullshit. Once I phoned a couple Switzerland friends to ask what the heck was up, they told me that they couldn’t believe that I didn’t know he was an active drug user. I was absolutely shocked and had no idea. But, it really made all the weird behavior make sense-how he never had any money and I was responsible for most everything even though I made much less…I’m sure you know that if you are married to a user..I went totally no contact and filed. He left a ton of messes for me to clean up alone, but I’m glad he is gone. He got himself a Mercedes, a 20 year younger girlfriend appliance, went bankrupt and goes on fancy vacations AND after blowing off my kid for 6 months is now the quintessential Disney dad. He will never change. It’s all about how he is perceived.
SO, to answer your question…I never believed in divorce until I realized I was married to a complete conman who only was with me because I was of use. A mirage. I am so much calmer and happier now.
Nejl,
I am really sorry to hear about everything you went through. Mine is still very fresh and he is going back to the OW. All he did was lie and gaslight for 5 years. When I wrote the letter to the OW and her parents, he got mad at me and told me he was done and our relationship was over because I crossed the line and all I did the entire time was threaten and control. Narcissists have to be in control at all times. When they aren’t they leave you.
Nejla, I read the ‘codependent no more’ book as well. Made me feel like shit but I did recognize my want to “fix” things for others when I need to focus on myself. And if I remember correctly, it seemed to indicate codependency was a need to control outcomes?? I keep hearing about George Simon. I need to check it out. My STBX (I refer to him as The Tweaker) is an addict as well and it brings another level to the trauma and recovery (in addition to the lies, cheating, gaslighting and abandonment). Did you have children together? How do you help a child’s relationship with what appears to be a functional addict? I say functional bc he can hold a job and people that know him (on the surface) wouldn’t suspect the drug use but the hair follicle test says otherwise.
It’s very hard with my little one because she isn’t age appropriate to discuss substance abuse. I have told her when she asked that her dad has some problems that he needs to get help for…She has asked if “daddy drinks drugs” and I told her that he did but I don’t know if he does anymore. She is convinced he doesn’t because schmoopie tell him to be good. Ugh. …also, I had NO idea he was using cocaine throughout our 10 years although I did know that he had gone to rehab for it before we met.
Once I found out about the cheating (also had NO clue) and the drugs, I filed without telling him. In the settlement, X had agreed to take 4 drug tests after the divorce to prove he was cleaning up his act…he has yet to do one hair follicle test 9 months after signing on the dotted line. I was advised to just keep documenting and asking him for results every month. I have told him that because of this I do not trust him enough to travel with the little one out of the country (he is not from this country) and he hates me for it.
I have absolutely no clue about whether he still uses but he has shown up to parenting time very hung over, so I doubt he is clean. It truly sucks. I am worried a lot of the time especially his driving which is terrible/road rage, past DUI and suspensions because of high points. I have no choice. His schmoopie is keeping him stable for now because my kid tells me he doesn’t yell as much or get so mad anymore. And, I made sure to put in the settlement that he and schmoopie are not allowed to drink around her…obviously I have no control over it, but he is showing up now (when he first left, he barely showed up for 6 months.)
I get therapy to help me parent a child who has a substance abuser as the other parent and I will explain to her later, but itbis the hardest part of all this. The little one has a right to her own relationship with X and I have a right to no relationship with X AND to protect her from his bad choices.
My mom and dad asked me what did I do to make him cheat. That, by the way, is their explanation for my dad’s cheating on my mom more than 15 years ago. She was doing a master, had two teenagers, taking care of my sick grandparents at their home, and doing everything at our home. And he felt “abandoned”. But of course, the solution wasn’t say something, nah. That would have removed my dad’s excuse to fuck another woman and have 2 children with her (and he adopted her first one).
So they asked me what did I do. When I didn’t confess and exploded in rage, they stopped. But my mom told me I needed to take distance to avoid being even more hurt by his active affair with the cousin-whore, heal, learn to be happy by myself, so when he leaves the fog and returns, my love would be intact. My dad told me I needed to have a child with the asshole, for that “brings people closer”.
I could not understand how they are so fucking stupid. Of course, I understand they would not be together if she asks for any accountability like we do here. He is the son of an alcoholic batterer and my family is super messed up. They are extremely conservative, so their reconciliation fits their world view. And while I believe he is sincere in his efforts to be with her, so I’ve called him an unicorn several times, he would not pass any Chump Nation test. Nor mine.
My family and I are extremely conservative and, trust me, reconciliation in no way fits our world view. My parents were both deceased when DD struck, but one thing that helped get me through the Pick Me Dance Stage phase and to the I’m Leaving moment relatively quickly, was remembering what they’d always taught me: that cheating was a red line that, if crossed, absolutely meant the end of the marriage.
I went to many websites, boards and blogs. Some websites were good and some were just fooey. I also came here but I was still buying the fog theory. I read Dr. Glass Not just Friends but all of it was common sense to me. I have excellent boundaries. I’m a hard person to get to know b/c of them. So I didn’t get too much out of her book.
Rejoice Marriage Ministries. com. I bought all the books and most of the cds. It was horrible. I “stood” for the marriage for over a year believing that’s what God wanted me to do. I was hospitalized twice barely making it out alive. I had a sociopath abandonment cheater and no chance from the beginning. I just didn’t know it.
And this is the honest truth: I got better and became a force to reckon with when I found THIS website! Now the only book I have is Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life. I have a box of them in my trunk and I pass them out every time infidelity comes up in conversation or people ask about my story. No more hospital visits. Not on my watch!!
If you can comment, what was the trigger in your heart that led you to turn away from the covenant? I guess I’m not asking what the other person did or didn’t do, but what made your decision?
For me it was a more than one thing.
1) I read “Love Must Be Tough”. I picked it up because I thought it was about disciplining children. Could not put it down because it sounded so much like my marriage. My eyes were beginning to open.
2) I told my pastor of the abuse and asked his blessing to leave. He said if someone is abusing another, they are abusing the image of God in the other. And if your life is in danger then yes, you must leave.
3) I came across the book “Redemptive Divorce”. You may want to check it out.
4) I prayed for strength to leave. God opened my eyes to the reality of my marriage and that opened the door to anger. Not vengeful anger but primarily the type of anger aimed at injustice. It is very painful, but I asked for the strength to leave and this is what I got.
I know my very conservative parents will turn their backs on me when I file. I will lose friends and some family. But I genuinely feel this is what God wants me to do.
I’ve prayed about it intensely and received an unquestionable “yes, you must leave”. I even set out the fleece just to make sure the answer was from God and not myself. Got another strong “yes”.
It is incredibly difficult when your tradition, family, and subculture tells you to stay in the marriage no matter what. I know. But that’s my story. I hope it helps. Pray earnestly with an open mind and you will know what to do.
(Hugs)
You are mighty, StartOfSomethingGood! Awesome idea to hand out copies of Tracy’s book – I’ll have to start doing that!
While in counseling with douchebag, the therapist suggested:
1. Stop obsessing over what happened
2. Dress “sexy”- “you know, like when you two first met”
3. Make time for sex
Ugh, now I need a shower.
I was in graduate school at the time, studying to become a therapist. There are some really bad practitioners in my field. I would never, as a counselor, suggest these things to a client. I would tell him/her to listen to their gut and physiological responses.
What I don’t understand about this angle my X was also trying to take is…I’m not a “sexy” dresser/persona, etc. I never was. So…how was I supposed to be something for you now that I never was anyway? He knew what he was getting. Not my fucking problem.
Yes. Ex wanted a cross between June Cleaver and Glam Girl and instead he married me. I never pretended to be either of those things. I thought he actually loved me for who I was. Turns out he just thought I had potential.
Here is my confession that I can never speak aloud. After dday when I was furiously pick me dancing, I was seducing him for sex (ewwwww…….!) and I said do you want to punish me- have punishment sex (something like that). And he said “YES!” How sick is that?
I had felt like sex was violent for the last few years and frequently found myself praying for it to be over. Now I know why. Oh I hate him!!!
another of your posts that strikes a familiar chord Feelingit. X got into watching porn and it seemed that it inspired less caring more aggressive talk and actions too. Seems like another way that the disordered show a lack of empathy and reciprocity.
Turns out mine had been watching porn daily — after I went to bed and while he was at work — for decades. I never knew.
It’s shocking how well he played “dumb” when it came to computers. He would even to ask me help him search for fast food numbers, etc. — because he just didn’t understand how those contraptions worked! Seriously, this STBX had a master’s in gaslighting. Asshole!
But, definitely, he became more aggressive sexually over the years. I always thought my doubts and insecurities were from being abused as a kid. NOPE. In hindsight, I can see where he was objectifying the heck out of me. I just didn’t have the information to put the puzzle pieces together.
BTW: when I discovered the decades of porn on our computers, I realized his “go-to” porn was violence against women.
What an asshole!!! And after knowing your history. Complete predator! I am so glad you are away from that sicko. Mighty!!!!
TMI but favorite for stbx was doggie style in front of a mirror. Says it all: Dominance and look at me!
The few months before dday, ex insisted on doggie style only & it annoyed me. Looking back he probably didn’t want to see my face because he wanted to imagine the face of his OWhore. Makes me ill whenever the memory surfaces.
So – I may get put on moderation for this but “Bad Joke Time”
Why do Americans like to do it doggie style?
.
.
.
So they can both watch TV!
(takes a bow – actually from a novel by Nicholas Monsarrat)
I was seducing mine, too, don’t feel like you’re crazy because of that. I remember feeling like I’d do almost anything, to get him to care about me again! Crying and agonizing over a glittered turd. Then, he loved it- two women performing for him daily. Yes, it’s very embarrassing to think about now. I actually think it’s pure evil, to do that by tricking partners with love and attention, and then drop it straight down into the gutter. It’s a view of sex as filth, and he needs a ton of therapy, which he’ll never get!
I also bought into that love-bank stuff, I forget the website, and I was cooking favorite foods, never questioning anything, giving him smiles and massages…. trying to fill up that love bank! It took away all my humanity, it was so false, because I was in emotional agony (we had been together 32 years).
Screw those fake RIC people, who don’t even want you to have human rights!
FreeWoman, I did the same thing!! cooking all his favorites, not questioning where he’d been, house perfect, candle light all over the house, a smile plastered on my face.
I also read to thank him for little things he did. I was thanking him for opening the door to let the dog out.., complement your spouse, so what did I do? “Did you get a haircut? nice hair cut” “I can tell you’ve been working out, especially your arms.”
I could go on, I’m embarrassed that I was brought to that level. In our defense we made a commitment when we married and held on to that thinking they loved us as much as we loved them.
They abused our trust.
Yup !
Become a robotic Stepford wife/husband who adores one’s spouse and has no needs of one’s own. Become totally selfless
F*ck that noise
Look up hysterical bonding. It’s very common. I did it too and felt ashamed until I researched it and understood what was happening. Had never been so horny in my life! I couldn’t NOT have sex with him every day or I’d go mad, until that urge wore off. It was really just animal instinct, a primitive pair-bonding hormone thing, laying claim to your mate. If he were just a normal stupid guy who fucked up instead of a fucking narcissist, it probably would have worked if pursued along with work on communication, boundaries, etc. etc. But he didn’t want fidelity, he wanted cake and ice cream.
I had the hysterical bonding thing going too and it was torture because I was so horny and he was refusing me. “I just don’t feel that way about you right now”. “That’s just not where we are”. He was too busy lusting after Schmoopie and that just made me feel worse and inadequate, etc. etc. The night he decided to move out he was suddenly horny for me and the thought of saying no didn’t even enter my head. I was actually “happy” afterwards because even if it didn’t fix everything I thought we had finally at least broken through his sudden lack of desire for me. Nope, the next day it was right back to “That’s just not where we are” and “I feel like I am lying to you if I kiss you”. About two weeks later he was trying convince me that if I let him continue seeing Schmoopie before he moved out, he would go to individual counseling. I said no to that, but I actually proposed that if he gave me another night (with lovemaking) I might consider it. My thought was that all I had to do was get him to desire me again and he would realize he didn’t need her so much. He refused. I feel so ashamed of even having suggested that now. So much humiliation.Honestly I am not an unattractive woman. Of course he continued to see Schmoopie anyway and didn’t go to counseling either. I wish I had just kicked him to the curb the day I found out about Schmoopie.
Chumpinrecovery, you are mighty and I hope you don’t spend another second feeling humilated by the animal instincts that drove you. Forgive yourself. It was your cheater who put you in that abject position and now you’ve got yourself out.
I am a very balanced introspective person so looking back the “hysterical bonding” stage where my libido suddenly spiked to “teenage boy” levels is one of the most bizarre parts of the experience.
I was trying to reclaim him (and thus the intactness of my family) in the most observable, physical way possible. It is so odd though that it rose in me with no conscious decision to do so and was it was something physical that I felt in my protoplasm.
In the moment, I could not have been convinced to abandon that pursuit..I overlooked his abuse and abandonment and became the Queen Unicorn.
I had the exact same response, which seems revolting now, and it was combined with so many other unique responses such as rumination, obsession, 25% body weight loss with effort, sleeplessness, extreme energy (almost a mania) and a lot of daily crying and wailing/sobbing/screaming and falling to the floor in utter agony, but then being able to fake-function–get dressed, do hair/make up, cook, shop, go to work. But I could not read, watch tv, socialize, focus on work….. bizarre bizarre bizarre
Thank God those dark days ended
unicornomore, this explains it perfectly!
I had that too. What an unholy experience.
When I felt the compulsion, I googled it and wrote to CL. It’s mix of revulsion and super horny. Sure, you could get off by doing the deed with the creep, but I felt the action would be soul crushing, AND I would have a 100% more emotionally and physically rewarding experience by having sex with a random stranger. However, I was still married to asshat and doing that would make me as base as him.
So yeah, I am better than that fucker- my affirmation because he always tried the mindfuck of wanting perfection. Perfection in a relationship to me equates to honesty, loyalty, respect, trust. Cheaters aren’t capable of that by the fact they CHEAT.
Before he admitted to anything but the emotional affair, the marriage counselor recommended ‘just doing things for HIM’ ( hand jobs).
To make him feel loved.
After finding out about the harem, different MC could only comment on how sad I looked.
I read ‘When good people have affairs’. Well, I tried to. I got really angry, put it down, and read ‘Why is it always about YOU ‘ and then’Leave A cheater, Gain a life ‘.
I found the latter two to be far more helpful than the first.
I have no idea how an educated, licensed therapist could possibly think such suggestions are helpful or valid. What the actual fuck.
A therapist gave me a xerox copy of an instruction sheet that was typed on a typewriter in the 1980’s and had actual hand drawn stick figures demonstrating techniques for sex with someone with ED and/or premature ejaculation issues. All this for the low, low price of $180.
Absolutely none of those issues applied, at all. But the therapist said I should give it a try anyway as it would help “increase intimacy”. I really wish I would have kept that sheet, it was fucking hilarious.
The thing that always bothers me about these so called advisor’s, especially about providing sex to “increase intimacy” is that they don’t understand THERE IS NO INTIMACY with these freaks. They regard sex as some frenzied gotta have it porn inspired activity that is GOOD FOR THEM and ONLY GOOD FOR THEM.
I’m sorry, but if I was in an otherwise loving and faithful relationship with a man who had ED or premature ejaculation issues, or had an illness, or had been in a terrible accident — I would be willing to adapt technique to assist, and keep the intimacy we had alive. But when you have a cheating liar who is never going to be satisfied no matter what you do, and who never was and never will be faithful no matter what you do, you might as well take all your “stimulating massage oils” and new oral vacuum techniques and put them in a toxic trash bag and get rid of them.
Why should I pick me dance when I discover I have been trying to dance with an inept, corrupt, morally deficient LOSER, who wasn’t that good at the dance, anyway? Why would I want to continue to dance with someone so awful at dancing that he steps on my feet and drops me every time he attempts to do a dip? Why should I learn new techniques to “pleasure” him, when he has betrayed me and when he has marginal sexual skills at best? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life attempting to have sex with a partner who thinks it is all about him all of the time. If there is no joy and trust and true intimacy in sex, why bother? Reciprocity and true intimacy and loving and caring are what makes up good sex. If you can’t have fun without bells and whistles, leather and whips, trapeze’s and stripper poles — get some serious psychological help, but get it far away from me.
One of the many things that helped me to feel good about the OW “winning” the prize was that she was the one who was going to have to churn butter and practice being a living hoover vacuum for the rest of her “relationship” with him. I also knew it would only be a matter of time before she found out she wasn’t the only starlet on his agenda. The moment the OW finds out that she didn’t discover “Twu Luv”, and she is not the only “perfect snowflake” in his life is the moment I used to savor. Kind of like, “I shaved my legs for this?”