Friend Excuses Cheating with It’s ‘Love’
She discovered her formerly supportive friend excuses cheating with “love is love.” Yet, this friend had a front row seat to OP’s abusive divorce. Should she respond?
***
Dear Chump Lady,
My 26-year relationship ended 6 years ago when my ex told me “I love you but I’m not in love with you.” Long story short, I discovered my ex had been having an emotional affair with his secretary while we were married. (At a minimum.)
I was blindsided and devastated by the divorce and my friend who supported me through was amazing!
She was a great listener. This friend made sure I went out to social events rather than stay home. She cautioned me to calm down when I wanted to react to some new disclosure, told me to keep fighting when I wanted to give up because I was so drained. And she gave me a place to stay when I was between rentals.
I don’t know if I would have made it through without her support. The legal battle took two years. I had been a stay-at-home mum for 15 years, so I had to retrain and start over. My ex fought hard to pay me $0 in spousal maintenance and split assets 60/40 in his favour.
My friend got a front row seat to the divorce and the negative impact on myself and my kids.
For instance, how he chose his affair partner over his kids, how he excused his AP’s threat to ‘destroy everyone’ because she was upset, the thousands that were siphoned from our bank accounts as he was wining and dining her while we were married, how he manipulated me. All the usual cheating 101 behaviours.
These days whenever the topic of affairs comes up I’m always of the opinion ‘It’s wrong’ and she likes to respond: ‘I don’t condone cheating, but love is love.’
It feels to me like she’s saying abusive behaviours are okay if the people who were cheating are ‘in love.’ It annoys the fuck out of me because I think affairs are abusive. But I don’t respond because it’s only her opinion and I’m not sure what the best response would be.
Any words of advice about what to say if I do feel a need to respond?
From Lost for Words
***
Dear Lost for Words,
Let’s try a thought experiment.
I steal your friend’s bicycle and give it to my new best friend. Your friend objects, and I reply, “Hey, I don’t condone stealing, but love is love.”
I want my bicycle back.
I really love my new best friend.
Sounds absurd, right? I’m justifying unethical behavior (stealing) with my noble motivations of love. If you’re the person who has been acted upon unethically you don’t care about the perpetrator’s motives. Love, greed, or a campaign for the Symbionese Liberation Army. It’s a big WTFever.
In fact, it’s insulting to be asked to care about the motivations of the person who hurt you. Especially when that person has not apologized, and continues to inflict distress. Did “love” decide you deserved $0 in alimony?
Given that your friend has had a front row seat to your divorce misery, why do you think she excuses your ex’s cheating?
I’ll give you a couple possibilities. One charitable, one uncharitable.
She thinks “love” will comfort you.
In my charitable interpretation, she acknowledges cheating is wrong, but the man you spent 26 years with isn’t a monster. He’s just acting out of “love.” Perhaps misguidedly! But the heart wants what the heart wants. And instead of believing that monsters of entitlement walk among us, believe in Love instead. He hurt you, but there was a nobler purpose behind it.
I can’t even type these sentences without feeling revulsion. But look, there is a lot of internalized misogyny in our world that men’s entitlement is natural. (I’m not saying guy chumps don’t get a version of this bullshit, but I think most of the world condemns women who cheat. The double standard is real.)
“Love is love” is another way of saying his happiness is what really matters. If he hurt you to get “love”, well, his needs trump your well-being. And isn’t it better than he’s hurting you to get something nice for himself (love!), than some baser emotion?
Yeah. I don’t buy it either.
Love comforts her.
She needs this sop that your ex acted out of “love” to protect herself. How terrifying to be vulnerable. To think that one day your wife appliance warranty will expire and you’ll be traded in for a newer model and could become destitute. Let’s not look at this more deeply, let’s slather spackle all over this shit.
Your experience terrifies her. Yet, she responded to your distress in ways that truly matter. She showed up, she comforted you. But she might be feeling compassion fatigue about now. She might want you to stop grieving. Dwelling on this unsettles her, so “love is love” is the sharp pointy elbow in your gut to shut up already.
HE DID IT FOR LOVE!
Dicks don’t wander without cause! You’re better now, RIGHT? You’re divorced! You survived! Honestly, you might take her comment as a sign to find your support online or in a therapist’s office, and just enjoy your friend as your friend. She showed up for you in really important ways that matter, so I don’t want to totally drag her. Many people don’t show up at all. And in the words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, many good people have really bad ideas.
So, how to respond?
Draw a boundary.
I’d begin with telling your friend you appreciate all the ways she’s been a good friend to you, especially during this divorce. Then I’d ask her to stop saying, “Love is love” to you.
“Friend, it sounds like you’re saying abusive behavior is okay if the people are in love. You might actually think that. But it hurts me to hear it. And I don’t want to argue with you about it. So let’s agree to agree not to discuss this.”
Maybe work out some kind of truce. I won’t slop my divorce grief on you — two years of time served in the trenches is enough — and you won’t say “love is love” to my face.
What I would NOT do is try to convince her. She’s had a front row seat. If that didn’t convince her that your ex is a giant piece of shit, I don’t know what will. There are ethical ways to break up with someone that don’t involve cheating or theft of marital assets. That should be a pretty obvious point.
But for whatever reason, she needs her binky of “love.” Let her have it. Doesn’t mean you have to listen to it.
And if it really pisses you off (I validate you that it’s maddening and offensive), consider demoting her friendship. You control your degree of investment. But also consider that people who haven’t lived this shit don’t entirely get it.
She made a stupid comment. So long as she isn’t inviting your ex and Schmoopie to the next barbecue, or sleeping with your ex, or telling everyone you’re a bitter harridan, I’d speak up once, and then change the subject.
I divorce fatigued a good friend – who also helped me immensely after D day. She also shut me down one day with a thoughtless comment. I was hurt but then realized I had to stop trauma dumping on her. It’s a real thing & it was a sign to stop & start moving forward. ((hugs))
Hehe Divorce Fatigue could definitely be the culprit – though I don’t really talk about the divorce these days. But I will always speak up and say cheating is bad when it comes up. What sparked it this time – was King Charles and his affair partner being in Australia and I said I def would not be bending a knee to a cheater lol. So maybe she’s sick of my values.
I won’t be bending the knee to those 2 either! She was cheating on her husband with Charlie before he ever “married” Diana, so that marriage was never valid in the first place and not only have neither of them express a jot of remorse, they’ve been rewarded for it and we’re expected to play the “Let’s Pretend Nothing Ever Happened” game! I’m not playing! I was never a monarchist, having grown up in an Irish family who despite not being Shinners and definitely NOT pro-IRA, were nevertheless Nationalists and republican (Irish, not the US political party) but at least Elizabeth had morals and conducted herself with propriety and dignity! I can’t abide Charles and Camilla!
Ain’t that the truth- a cheater and a mistress- woohoo…🙄
I think this might be true but that particular comment that “love is love” is cheater speak to me. Or pedo speak. It’s an excuse. Personally this would be something that would get me revving my engines. But you make an excellent point that it might be divorce fatigue. Maybe she could clarify the comment or expand on it.
I agree about that glib “love is love” phrase! There are so many different forms of love and when it comes to the “love” that disordered talk about, it’s not really love in the true sense at all. What love really is, is willing the good of another. The only good that cheats and other disordered persons will is their own! And feck anyone else if it harms them!
I did ask her once when I first heard her say it – what she meant. From memory the conversation had a ‘you need to ‘forgive’ tone about it.
Yeah I would give a pass once because it could be the friend was irritated & fatigued….but if it continued. Nada. Definitely then cheater speak.
On the one hand I understand the concept of compassion burnout, especially in people in helping professions and first responders who frequently deal with the catastrophically ill or survivors of catastrophic events. But, on the other, I think too many people in relatively sheltered societies and classes tend to “burn out” too easily and quickly compared to people in less sheltered parts of the world where traumatic events are more commonplace. I’ve traveled a fair bit and you can really feel the difference in some places. What makes the contrast seem especially ironic is when you notice how much more naturally supportive and compassionate people can be even when they’re personally dealing with a boat load of stress themselves.
I’m not saying it’s some kind of desirable “education” for people to be exposed to a lot of traumatic events. Misfortune doesn’t always improve people and can also be numbing and violentizing. But those in sheltered societies seem prone to stubbornly unrealistic expectations of a trouble-free life and rigid expectations of how quickly survivors of misfortune are supposed to “get over it.” It can lead to a kind of social Calvinism and victim-blaming that I would imagine hasten the development of that “can’t take it anymore” attitude towards supporting people in trouble. This is especially true regarding domestic abuse which often involves escalating post-separation abuse so there’s no immediate “post” part to traumatic stress. Sometimes ending an abusive relationship is just the beginning of real trouble but, unfortunately, abuse survivors are under even more pressure than other types of survivors to bootstrap it.
It would be different in the case that the person suffering from misfortune had some cluster B tendency to go scattershot with resentment and anger and lashed out at the people trying to support them. I’ve been around people like this and they can be impossible to help not to mention that the same type can be pretty lousy when anyone else is in trouble. But too many psychologically normal survivors can instantly find themselves in social Siberia from the moment anything bad happens.
Anyway, I respect “emotional athletes” the most and try to surround myself with people like this. The ride or die set are always better to have around when shit hits the fan of course but I also feel like fewer bad things generally happen around people like that in the first place, maybe because they tend not to be denialists, are therefore more sensitive to cues of looming problems or problematic people and will communicate their concerns rather than trying to pressure everyone else to ignore pink elephants the way toxic positivity types do .
Yeah I get what you’re saying. There definitely seems to be a time limit & bandwidth on people’s patience & empathy. It can suck. On the other hand, sometimes it forces people forward who get stuck in a loop. In-between lies a perfect balance.
The balance is the thing and, quite interestingly, I’ve found being around people who strike that balance tends to shorten the scenery-chewing trauma stage by a lot.
There’s nothing like encountering someone who’s absolutely perfect in a crisis to make the less ride-or-die types seem pathetic in comparison. One particular friend (who had a really high pressure job, so where did she even find the time?) had such an uncanny grasp of everything going on in my stalking situation– from what I was going through to the behavior of the stalker to how bystanders and police behave– that it made my jaw drop. She’d also make these wry, side-mouthed predictions about the weird or manipulative or hypocritical shit people were about to say and do and, when these things happened just as she called them, we’d end up laughing our brains out. It became a kind of game. What’s more, she seemed so passionately interested in everything related to justice, inequality, sexual violence and the human condition, etc., that, instead of feeling like my saga was a big time suck and burden to her, it almost felt like we were doing anthropological field work together: “Observe in yonder brush the rarely sighted blue-footed stalker with its typical cadre of flying monkeys!”
When I look back at what could have been one of the worst periods of my life, what I mostly remember is a lot of animated conversations and how much fun we had. We would hang out with other people we knew and, somehow, whenever she was around, I felt less need to talk about or dwell on the ongoing drama so I was less prone to suddenly feeling compelled to dump on the wrong audience. It even made me understand the impulse to do this better– that trauma-barfing may be a way PTSD sufferers “test” their social environment to check if they’re in genuinely safe company and have allies in case anything bad happens again. She was such a solid ally that this compulsion to test and deputize anything that moved sort of lessened a bit.
This friend and I were led in different directions over the years and ended up living on opposite sides of the planet but, when my kids were small, I met another mom who reminded me of her a lot and we became great friends. Same curls, same dimples, same cheerfully blithe attitude concealing the same bass-ass intuition. She was a huge support for me after D-day and I tried to be an equal support when she went through an estate drama with her toxic sibling. Again, what I mostly remember from those dramas was how much we laughed.
When I think of these ideal, experienced, thoughtful friends, I remember the lyrics from Shawn Colvin’s “Trouble” and I feel determined to always be that kind of friend:
I go to the trouble like a light
Or like a dare
Trouble is just a friend to me, I know
It’ll always be there
It’s really hard to make your peace
So give me some credit for the hell I’ve paid
This world’s a blessing and a beast
Everyday
So come on baby let me show you how
The less you know the more I comprehend
You don’t have to drag me down
I descend
Whenever the issue of social bailers comes up– people who tend to disappear when anyone faces real problems– I always hear the song Underdog by Spoon in my head:
It can’t all be wedding cake
It can’t all be boiled away
I try but I can’t let go of it
Can’t let go of it, no
‘Cause you don’t talk to the water boy
And there’s so much you could learn
But you don’t wanna know
You will not back up an inch ever
That’s why you will not survive
The thing that I tell you now
It may not go over well
Oh, and it may not be photo-op
In the way that I spell it out
But you won’t hear from the messenger
Don’t wanna know ’bout something that you don’t understand
You got no fear of the underdog
That’s why you will not survive, right!
HOAC, this is my favorite Spoon song, for all the reasons ☺️ it’s on my old divorce playlist.
It’s so cheerfully dire lol.
Yes I was going to say after 6 years the friend probably has compassion fatigue. Some people truly don’t gaf from the get go – cut them loose – and some people care a lot but over time it does get a bit wearing to go over the same ground over and over. I have a lovely school friend who was married to a horrible man – in fact she had an emotional affair but he was abusive, used his position as an inspector in police to systems abuse her, just a horrible nasty man who alienated her kids from her. She is still years later sending me the same messages about what he is doing, I give the same advice, she ignores it, he does the same thing, yardy ya. It is wearing. You aren’t helping someone like that because they are caught in a loop.
I have a good school friend who from the get go did not “get” that my FW is not a “good guy” and still buys his nice guy act. There’s no point even talking to her about it so I don’t. If I was trying to get validation from her then I’m the one with the issue not her (her husband is also not a great husband so I think she is in denial herself. So I get that she can’t give what she doesn’t have.)
People aren’t perfect and I think sometimes it is a bit narcissistic-esque of us to think others will be there for us catering to our needs expecting them to say the exact right thing, validating how we feel the whole way through.
I should also mention beware the new fake friend that enters your life when you are at rock bottom and is suddenly there extracting every tear from your eye socket, loving every minute of the drama. I had one of those (a lawyer i barely knew who chased me down the street after court one day to have a coffee after she “heard the news” – in hindsight she was frothing at the mouth about it more than the coffee frother). When I started to get on with my life and didn’t want to spend every waking hour talking about it she went on a rampage saying what a terrible person I was for having a sense of humour.
A real friend who says the wrong thing from time to time is worth more than a fake friend who doesn’t want you to recover.
Affairs certainly open your eyes up to a whole new world of people out there you never knew existed.
Funnily enough I watched a film with that exact theme the other night. It’s called “Fall From Grace” and it’s on Netflix Ireland. In it a woman who was cheated on and booted out of her house by her xh , had this “friend2 whom she only palled up with since the breakdown of her marriage. She was very lonely and vulnerable. The so-called “friend” nearly ruined her life altogether and it had me in tears at times! I have felt like I wanted to look after her and be her real friend and she only a character in a film! I’m too soft at times! I won’t say anymore about it because it’d spoil it but I thought it was a bloody good film and would recommend it. It definitely is a stark and very dramatic warning about who you let into your life when your at your lowest and most vulnerable!
Good point to be wary about the people who show up when you’re down. To lift you up? Or pick over your bones?
Divorce fatigued is a good expression. I did that, too.
I would be less upset if a fw blew up their life, their childrens lives and their spouses life for actual love, and rode off into the sunset with schmoopie. Cause otherwise if they break up in 6 months, that meant the FW destroyed several peoples lives and got nothing in return (which happens more often then not)
I really don’t believe it’s humanly possible for cheaters and witting co-cheaters to form healthy relationships so I think the point is kind of moot. Healthy people don’t conspire to deceive, gaslight, rob, commit rape by deception, expose their families to risk of deadly STDs and traumatize kids.
Maybe in the relatively rare event that a battered woman gets help escaping a violent relationship from someone romantically interested in them there’s a chance of something healthy in the future because there’s a chance neither party would ever do this (cheat or poach) in normal circumstances. But even in the latter cases the “helper” will statistically turn out to be just another abuser about 50% of the time so it’s not really a good bet.
I understand your point, but I can assure you that the “ride off into the sunset” scenario isn’t as clean as you’re portraying it.
(1) if (as you posit) there are kids involved, the chump is going to be enmeshed with the cheater for years and years, which means schmoopie showing up on the porch laughing during pickups and inserting him/herself into parent/teacher conferences, birthdays, parenting decisions, etc. It amounts to years of rubbing it in your face.
(2) the true-love relationship that the cheater nukes his/her marriage for seldom turns out to be so perfect. People whose response to a normal marriage (with normal problems and tensions) is to delete and reboot with a new partner are unlikely to do the hard work and deep introspection that is required to do a better job the second time around. Monkey-branching means they have zero personal time and space to reflect and learn before starting the next relationship (even were they so-inclined). I luckily don’t have a lot of insight into my XW’s new marriage, but all the little clues I pick up from my kids indicate that she’s, if anything, a worse wife than she was with me. She wasn’t a great mother but of course my kids love her anyway, but she is certainly a disaster of a stepmother and I happen to know that her stepchildren loathe her.
I was actually happy when I found out through one of my kids that their dad had an argument with his AP. I was like ohhhh – it isn’t all roses and butterflies like I thought. It’s just an ordinary relationship like everyone else’s. But built on the tears of others.
First, “monkey-branching” is a great description. I snorted with laughter. Did you come up with that?
Second, you are correct: my fw is either much more involved with our children or slightly less, depending on the desires of the different schmoopies. The more involved times can be pretty rough on me.
I can’t claim credit for monkey-branching. It’s been around for a long time: some would say since before we diverged from other primates.
“…which means schmoopie showing up on the porch laughing during pickups and inserting him/herself into parent/teacher conferences, birthdays, parenting decisions, etc. It amounts to years of rubbing it in your face.”
IG, that sounds like the voice of lived experience and it sounds very painful. And made all the worse by knowing that he/she is/was thrilling at every effort to make you miserable, simultaneously burnishing his/her image as a caring step-parent of your children while gloating tin the knowledge that you can’t call them out for having fun around and caring about your kids. Ugh. So sorry for every parents who has to put up with that.
oh no doubt its rare, but it does on occasion happen. i have a friend whose mother started out as the OW, broke up her now husbands marriage and they’ve been together for 20+ years. im sure 9 times out of 10 though it blows up in spectular fashion.
I know a couple like that. I mentioned it to a friend – about how this couple’s relationship started out with deception and should not have thrived. The friend replied “Yeah about that – FW Husband learned his lesson with the first wife, that divorce is expensive. He’s been cheating on second Wifetress for the thirty years that they’ve been together.” So they are still together but I don’t call that a happy ending.
I robbed a bank that one time. It happens on occasion. But it’s been 20 years, and it doesn’t really matter who got hurt in the process. It worked out for me! 🤷🏽♀️
Why is destroying lives not-so-bad as long as the cheater (of all people!) gets something in return?
Yes – it makes no sense
i had a divorced friend named D who was so helpful to me during my divorce. it was pandemic times and we bubbled together so i could go over to her house and talk every friday. i don’t know how i made it through without her TBH. she knew everything about my divorce and the reasons why.
right before my divorce came through she casually mentioned that she was talking on the phone with some man from her tennis class, a married man. he had “just started calling her” and “she didn’t know why”. at the end of the tennis class, she had a “big talk” with him in the parking lot of the social club, saying things like “in another time we could date but you’re married and it wasn’t meant to be, but we have so much in common and i really, really, really like you.” they hugged.
barf.
i said, “that’s inappropriate and you’ve crossed a major boundary into a marriage. it’s cheating.”
and D replied, “you just don’t understand. it’s about feeling alive.”
ESTHER PERELLED.
i suggested she speak to her therapist about it.
she continued to “take his friday night calls” whatever that means.
NO INTEGRITY.
it was hugely disappointing to discover this about her and i decided to step way back from the friendship. if i see her in a social setting, i say hello and make a bit of small talk. that’s about it.
it’s a personal betrayal when it’s a woman, i find. i’ve tried hard to surround myself with supportive women during this difficult time, and i’ve found a couple women who i perceive as betraying me/women during the process. my real estate agent was another one, but that’s a whole other story.
There are people like this – when it’s their friend or relative, they may care or try to help them out – it’s almost tribal – but when it’s someone they’re fucking around on, as a cheater or AP…it’s “well, the hell with that spouse”. All’s fair in love and war – you would be AMAZED how many people live by that maxim. The empathy only goes so far. I really sense here that “love is love” is cheater speak and that’s where “Lost”‘s friend is coming from.
If anyone ever said that load of bilge to me I’d ask them if the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the starving and killing of children in Gaza and Yemen, the murdering of youngsters at music festivals and all the other atrocities that far too many armed forces have committed on civilians over the Millenia were “fair” because they happened in war, didn’t they?
Don’t some people talk absolute crap?
Her whole story sounds like bs to me. The old dumb act. Oh he just started calling me. Oh he just started giving me a huggle. Yeah right.
I’d be backing away too not cos of boundaries but cos she sounds like a phoney. Id also be reflecting on whether your friendship was ever as genuine as you thought. (I learnt from my ex those heartfelt exchanges are more testing the temperature to see what your attitude is to things and what you know about them).
Anyway I’m a bit cynical these days.
Yes I now listen for cues into all my friends characters, even if they were supporting me. Why, because my XHCheater had a nice kind side that was an act. Now I know anyone can be an underground cheater. I then simply rotate those friends from the inner circle of my life and move them to 2nd 3rd or 4th rings of Saturn and watch some more. I cannot be close unless they can be trusted just like my 2 XHC. Love means love and respect for myself too…and only the best of people can get close now . I don’t have energy for more.
Disappointing, and you handled this very well by disengaging.
You went over to her house on Fridays for support and fun, and now he’s calling her on Fridays for…? I wonder if she wants to feel needed, and initially was justifying their Friday night calls as “helping” him.
If you hadn’t already stepped back, I’d suggest sending her articles about emotional affairs. Seeing each other weekly at tennis does not logically lead to a personal conversation in a parking lot that culminates in a big hug and telling a married man that “I really, really, really like you” and would have liked to date him. That was at least three reallys past appropriate, and a standing weekly phone date is wrong. And also sounds like trickle truth.
Sad how morals disappear for so many people when they see something they want.
Ask her if “love” extends to his children, too. He “loves” them, but could justify stealing from them. (Stealing is stealing!) He “loves” them, but not enough to split marital assets (which impact them) 50/50. Heck, why is 50/50 even in this case??
Great points
My own mother, who supported me emotionally and gave me a place to stay in the early stages of separation, and who has heard all the stories of his character not changing for the next “victim”, was busted in pocket dial as she gossiped to my (deadbeat) father that he must have not been serious about me since we never had kids and he rushed to have kids with her.
After he spent 15 years with me, and did everything he could to get me to move in with him before I was ready and move three times to follow his job.
I also was a Fertility Awareness Educator at the time, so if I wanted to have kids, I would have, but we were actively avoiding the whole time together, so the fact I didnt accidentally get knocked up was actually evidence I was good at my job, yet somehow my mother decided it was proof of my unlovability.
Needless to say I am no contact with her now (as it’s sadly not the first instance of abuse from her).
TL;DR even monsters can do the right thing, just like your friend did initially because it’s what she wanted to do. That’s the root of all abuse, doing what they can when they want to. Not doing the right thing, regardless.
This might be a minority experience, but during my hellish 3.5 years of divorcing a cheater after 30 yrs, someone I thought was a good friend said something similar to “love is love”. I later learned that SHE WAS A CHEATER too, (not with my ex) and that was her excuse for cheating. She was “in love” so I guess that made all the deceit OK. That’s not the kind of friend I want in my life.
Wow. I wonder if it’s the difference between some people who see love as some magical thing that happens to you vs people who see love as a choice? I think my friend has a romantic version of love and probs also is sick of me saying cheating is wrong whenever the topic comes up.
I suspect she has too! She only thinks of love as a “romantic” feeling and doesn’t consider the other types of love nor what genuine love really is. Love is not just a feeling nor emotion, it’s action. We can do acts of love for total strangers we have never even met. We can even do acts of love for people we can’t abide, like praying for them and not seeking revenge when they wrong us! It’s the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do to you”. I think maybe your friend doesn’t even consider those types of love, they’re not as rewarding as romantic love, they don’t have as much of a dopamine hit!
This is EXACTLY my take on it too. I think the only kind of person who makes comments like that is someone trying to excuse themselves – a cheater/AP or some other kind of pervert.
I don’t think you’re in the minority. I felt like a huge amount of people I knew while married exposed themselves as cheaters through the mind blowing things they said and defended while commenting on my divorce.
Even after I cut them off, while trying to find new friends, I had women tell me about how they were cheating in their husbands when they would hear what I went through. Somehow they thought that me having my life destroyed would make me empathetic to them sleeping around. They didn’t seem to understand I was in their husbands shoes, not theirs, and then making excuses as to why they had to cheat because of their husbands inadequacies was justification of everything my husband did to me and spitting in my face. When I reacted with shock and disgust, they were baffled and still can’t figure out why I cut them off. It’s so much more common than people realize.
So true. I’ve cut off people too.
Recently I met a woman who I thought we had a lot in common and when I mentioned that i was still healing from being cheated on and abandoned, there was a weird silence/vibe, not the usual comments of being sad for me or having a similar experience.The next time we saw each other, she confessed that she was also divorced but she had been having a TEN YEAR AFFAIR with her kid’s coach. I mean they went on vacations together and deceived both spouses and broke up both families. She went on to say “sometimes there are reasons” Well, no way I could be a hypocrite and continue the friendship. No wonder she didn’t want to hear about my pain. She had caused the same pain to her now ex. My head exploded. We have nothing in common. We are not the same.
Bloody Hell! I don’t know how these people sleep at night and no wonder they don’t want to hear about the pain of the betrayed, because they’d have to face the fact they’re harming someone as well and that might spoil their “romantic” trysts a bit and they can’t have that, can they?
I’ve been stunned over the years to hear what some of my more….ahem….spiritual….friends, the ones who believe ALL the new age bullshit, are willing to accept from the people THEY know. Like dumping husbands for “better prospects”, stealing property, cheating, etc. I’ve got rid of a lot of people over the past few years because…I DON’T LIKE THEIR MORALS. We may get along with hobbies or chit chat or going to a crystal shop or whatever, but these ultimately are not friends as I don’t respect them. I don’t respect people who think like this.
I have found two cheater females among my friend group. One was more of an acquaintance but the other was a solid supporter at first. She was like an aunt to my son. The first one I cut off easily. The second one, I have been distancing from her but quietly. I no longer invite her to things I used to. I still answer the phone if she calls as my son likes to say hello. She sends him presents and has known him since he was born. Emotionally I have no closeness to her anymore. When my son is old enough I will let him choose whether he maintains the relationship or not but I am done including her in social things with my good friends. The FW she was cheating with passed away a few months back and she said she was sad she was excluded from the funeral and not even told by his mother, who apparently knew about their cheating. I stood firm telling her what I thought about it all. I’m surprised she tries to maintain contact. Ugh.
I don’t know how they sleep at night but I know that there’s no way I could even pretend to be friends with someone like that. I’m still suffering the pain of betrayal trauma and she’s telling me how they sneaked around for 10 years. All I could think about was her poor exhusband who was being deceived and trusted her. I asked her if it was worth it, and didn’t get an answer. She doesn’t even really seem all that sorry.
It might be because she knows you’re a decent person and respects you. There aren’t that many people like this any more. So many people are tin plated assholes and they all want to excuse bad behavior. Someone who actually has morals and sticks to them even at a cost to themselves is solid gold. They know this. Either they run like the devil from holy water, or they try to cling because you represent something better.
I think that those that try to justify cheating with the “…. but love” excuse are very closely aligned to those that say “….. but I have a right to be happy.” My fundamental problem with this relates to who pays the cost for this “exuberant defiance” and who benefits? All too frequently it is the Cheater and AP who benefit and it is the Chump and the kids who pay the emotional, financial and physical costs.
I would never deny Ex-Mrs LFTT her right to be happy ……. I do deny her right to stick me and our kids with the emotional, financial and physical bill, particularly when she acts as if someone has given her a blank cheque. Whenever someone hits me with the “….. but love” or “…. right to be happy” words I change the subject and start to prune the list of people that I consider friends. But I guess that I would say that, wouldn’t I?
LFTT
I believe we none of us have the right to any “happiness” that’s gained by knowingly and wilfully causing someone else’s misery, especially not a person we’ve made vows to be faithful to and even moreso, to any children the union have produced! So no, cheats, you DON’T have the “right” to be “happy” at the expense of your spouse and your own children!
If it was just about “happiness” they’d be honest, wait to leave and divorce before they took up with anyone else and NOT try to rob the betrayed spouse blind, and be good enough and very present parents to their poor children. They wouldn’t try to boot their own kids out of the family home either but loads of them do!
Yes – we are the collateral damage
In fact, the day he told me he found a new soulmate, he told ME I was “collateral damage.” Real nice. Too cruel.
Collateral damage also translates to ‘winner’ – not being with a dick!
Indeed. People have the right to be happy. They do not have the right to do direct harm to achieve that.
“I have a right to be happy” said by an abuser is the “it’s just business” of the Fuckwitian People. I remember about 25 years ago when Walmart was starting to encroach into more communities a news story about how small business where the news caster said, and I will never forget this, “It’s competition and there are going to be losers.” The same rings true here. “There are going to be casualties, BUT HEY, at least you’re happy, right?”
It’s the old “I’m alright Jack, screw you” mentality. It plays out in so many areas.
Yeah, you would say that. And so would anyone else whose head was screwed on straight lol.
I don’t know if it’s just because anyone who’s lived long enough is going to see certain social behavior patterns emerge or if I’ve had the unusual privilege of seeing how people who espouse abuse apologism and other forms of moral relativism tend to end up in the long run but, these days, when I hear that kind of bs, I immediately cringe on behalf of the speaker. Because– yikes– the universe probably has some special disaster in store for them. I have the urge to step clear of them like you would a bomb target.
I’m not talking about “karma” but something much more practical: people who buy into certain biased social fallacies in order to deny uncomfortable realities and/or as an attempt to conform to the views of their social contexts tend to have particularly stubborn blind spots regarding personal risk, who they trust, etc. I think the views tend to be particularly stubborn simply because these views are, at root, rather ugly and harmful so admitting to being wrong would be more difficult because one then might have to face having done harm to others in the past. Ouf.
Saying this could risk sounding victim-blaming in itself but that’s not what I’m trying to argue. Of course people who are simply naive can also run into trouble due to sheer inexperience. But I suspect the crazy-making emotional fallout is worse when the “blind spot” was held in place by something ugly and bigoted like victim-blaming or victim-negating because any resulting misfortune might feel more like biblical irony than biblical tragedy whether the two things are related or not. For example, the celebrity (forget which one) who once publicly scoffed at the rising rate of peanut allergies among children, describing most cases as “faked” or imagined by parents who want attention… whose own son was subsequently diagnosed with– oops– life-threatening peanut allergy. Obviously the poor kid’s peanut allergy had nothing to do with his father’s victim-negating snarkiness but I would guess that, deep down, that celebrity is rather haunted by the possibility or wonders if, on some level, he sensed in his gut what was coming and went into denial over at his son’s near peril.
It’s impossible to control everything that happens to us but, like in the Serenity Prayer for AA, I think part of life is discovering what things we do have control of, like critical thinking skills and beliefs and whether or not to cave to social pressure and wishful thinking in compromising critical thinking. Everyone who experiences misfortune is in danger of feeling as if they were somehow at fault for it but, in the case of negative social fallacy believers, that perception probably has an extra painful dab of truth to it.
One would hope people would shed the blamey or apologistic views out of pure self interest or for the sake of their own kids and people close to them.
People that haven’t had our experience just don’t understand how hard being betrayed is to get over, until or unless it happens to them. THEN they understand it. Otherwise, after a certain period of time they just get tired of the “whining”. Get over it already!
I had a few people that helped me early on and then got to that point, so I just stopped talking about it with them, which is fine. They were nice enough to help in the beginning when the shock was so bad I could barely breathe. But I do think there are nicer ways to say things than what this gal got, the BS “Love is love”. That is rude. Sit your friend down and have a nice, heartfelt talk to get everyone on the same page. No reason to be rude.
I got this from someone very close to me, “People do dumb things when they are stressed.” She was making an excuse for my FW’s cheating and also saying, “just get over it, it’s nothing personal they just made a mistake”, I think. I dunno why she said that, but it was rude and I was hurt by it.
Ye Gods And Little Fishes! “Nothing personal?” Quoi? We build our lives and futures around these idiots. Some of us have had kids with them and own property. Scheduled vacations. Went to family gatherings. Took FMLA. Co-signed loans. Late nights sobbing. Coffee runs.
I struggle to think of anything more personal than “thanks for all of that-but I’m going to go take everything you’ve given me and give it to somebody else. Sorry about your luck!” It’s like the Alanis Morrissette song-“the mess that you left when you went away.”
I remember when I was in grad school somebody talking about how they told an employee it was “nothing personal” when they had to lay them off. And apparently the employee looked them right in the eye and said “with all due respect, I have mouths to feed and bills to pay and you’re saying I can’t do either of those things. I take that very personally.”
There was a very specific thing that happened to a few former women friends who initially passionately supported me in prosecuting a workplace stalker. In the course of going through this with me, two of these friends seemed to be in the process of being freshly radicalized by the experience, as if this had sharpened their formerly vaguer views on gender inequality into a sudden acute awareness of issues related to rape culture and sexual violence against women like patriarchal abuse of power, lack of justice for victims, how widespread “rape myth acceptance” and victim-blaming are. Sort of like people having a Come to Jesus moment and deciding to spread the word, they went around talking about these things with everyone in their lives, getting into arguments over it, etc.
But, as rookies to any kind of real activism, neither were prepared for the predictable barrage of social backlash and social consequences they received for rattling the political cage and they completely freaked out. Both got the usual accusations of being scary man-haters from friends and acquaintances and the typical warnings of ending up as single cat ladies. Realizing that their new radicalized ideology was going to cost them in terms of social status and security, both started to quickly whistle Dixie and recant. They both began absorbing other people’s psychobabble armchair spin about my situation– the idea that I had to have “drawn” this negative attention to myself, was being pathologically negative by prosecuting and that there are “two sides to every story,” etc.– and parroting this crap back to me as if to placate the gods of rigid gender norms. I guess at first it could have looked like a case of “compassion burnout” but the volte face was so clearly in response to social pressure. And they both seemed distinctly angry at me for “causing” the social rifts they had experienced, as if I had actively tried to indoctrinate them and lure them into some dangerous cult.
It kind of reminds me of the “God that failed transformation” thing during McCarthyism when a series of radical lefties would suddenly swing to the far right and publicly recant their former misguided ideology. Noam Chomsky once said that, at least in the early days when it first started to emerge in the west that Stalin was a murderous maniac, some of these public disavowals were at least sincere but that later decampments were simply opportunistic reactions to shifts in power. But I think in the case of these two former friends, it was more about the shock of political neophytes that sexual violence is– gasp– deeply politicized in our culture. They didn’t really understand that rape culture would be so violently defended.
Because both women had so naturally leapt into action in response to my situation and seemed to initially be following their hearts in supporting me, the bigger theme at play seemed like a tragic failure of individuality. I can’t imagine that the politics of rape culture was the only heartfelt issue which these women backed down from to avoid controversy and social consequences. As awful as it was to lose support, I felt actually lucky in comparison because I’d been raised by feminist and activist parents and none of these issues were so novel or fresh for me. Yeah, the more critical and important an issue is, the bigger the backlash. That’s just how it is. Even the decampment of friends when shit gets too real wasn’t a big surprise. And it was actually my dad who was the more ride or die feminist between my parents so I couldn’t be so easily scared off by the typical “man-haters die alone and unloved” propaganda.
The ultimate proof to me that the concept of “cheating as abuse” rattles the same rape culture cage was the orchestrated backlash against CL and Sarah Manguso’s book Liars by some of the world’s leading news publications in which reviewers protested the equivocation way too much. Wow, who knew cheating was so intrinsic to toxic patriarchy, huh? Those hacks confirmed it. Consequently I could never be that surprised to see the same kind of “God that failed” switcheroo among chumps’ supporters, particularly if they were initially passionate in condemning cheating. We all know what they face if they go around trying to talk about these themes.
Compassion fatigue sets in. We are still living the nightmare, they need a time out from our sorrow. Don’t even try to make her understand. Lost cause if she doesn’t get it by now. My friends faded too…it’s impossible to keep that level of intensity up. What I did was invest in a therapist that does EMDR. I had to repeat some sad events over and over until even i was sick of it. I said ENOUGH ALREADY to myself!!! Or find anyone who has experienced a cheater and left or got left but are not still IN LOVE or hanging on, use them. Stay Here at CN and read Tracy day and night. It will all get better as you make changes and adjust. Let your friend off the hook, tell her to hush and youll get better
I agree–“Let your friend off the hook,” in all these senses.
I don’t like “love” as a concept. I demonstrate “love” by honoring my commitments, and being someone who can be depended upon, whether it’s convenient for me at the time or not. If I love a person, I’ll demonstrate it consistently by putting their needs above my own.
To behave shittily and then slap “love” on it as justification just… it icks me out. I’ve always taken crap from my friends for being unromantic in this regard, but really… I don’t want to hear that I am “loved”. Treat me fairly. Honor your word and your commitments. Interact with me in good faith. Behave out in the world in a way that makes me proud to be your partner. Anything beyond that is water-muddying fluff that I don’t want or need.
I remember reading a reddit thread where an OW was praising her married lover for being a “great valentine” to his wife for like… buying her flowers and shit. I about choked on my drink — how ’bout you like… keep your little pecker in your pants, and save the money on the bouquet?
They’ve actually done studies on this. People in secure, healthy relationships tend to have less need for grand gestures and affirmations after the honeymoon stage of intimate relationships whereas people caught in the cycle of abuse are always being broken, therefore are always needing to be patched together again. And of course abusers typically isolate their prey and set it up so that victims can only get comfort– if any– from abusers (the love bombing part of the cycle of abuse).
So maybe people could start seeing it as a red flag when they find themselves suddenly needing more flowery affirmations and grand gestures when they’d formerly been just fine without those things.
Determining a “before and after” could be more difficult for people who hadn’t had much experience with intimate relationships. And everyone’s probably different in that respect– like people whose families originated from Latin and Mediterranean cultures might be used to more demonstrative affection between family members than folks who hail from other cultures. But everyone’s got a baseline of what seems normal and, if they find this suddenly changing, it could indicate something is wrong, especially if there have been no other external events like a major catastrophe, illness or loss that could understandably increase the need for support. But barring the latter events, a sudden increase in need might mean their lizard brain is becoming deeply unsettled.
Most of us hear a version of this sooner or later from some who have supported us- especially if they know FW as well.
Some see you laughing and smiling and comment that you must be ‘better’ now and we can all live happily ever after, the story book closed and put back in the book case.
Nope.
Or a certain amount of time has elapsed and now you should be over it- nope again.
I’ve been aware from the start of overburdening people and tend to give bulletins, updates and cliff notes to most now and save my day to day for the one big support who I know would never say such things, even in jest.
This is heavy shit and not everyone will understand no matter how well meaning they are .
I think the thing a lot of people, particularly in our periphery tend to miss the boat on is that healing is a process, not a goal. There are good days and bad days. And agreed-people will not understand lest they have experienced it themselves. Gods know I didn’t.
What a timely post for me. “Lost for words” truly encapsulates the feeling.
This is something I struggle with a lot with one particular friend. Let’s call her Anna. Anna went through it a couple of years before I did. She’s helped me immensely, both before and after cheating, as I spent a year and a half taking care of FW before I divorced (5 years ago), since he became disabled after an injury, the most stressful and anxious time of my life. She threw me a surprise party because she knew I didn’t have the energy just a few weeks after discard, and generally held my hand and cheered on me throughout the process. We have been friends since we were 14. I basically grew up at her house. We share hobbies, we share other friends.
Yet Anna has managed to hurt me a lot about it several times in the past two years. I do get that it could be compassion fatigue, yet she’s never asked me not to discuss it. In fact, it usually happens because she’s brought up something related to it, such as dating, so I end up going back to it.
The last time was about a month ago. She was trying to convince me to go back to one of my hobbies, which I originally shared with her. I said I didn’t want to, because I dated someone there and I’d rather be NC with him as well, although he doesn’t quite wake the same emotions in me as FW does. I left him after 2.5 years together because he had a new best friend who “belonged to his tribe”, a tribe I do not belong to.
Anna and I argued about that back and forth for a while and then she said “Well, when cheating happens it is also because we allow it to happen”. I was so taken aback, I just said I did not allow anything of the sort.
It hurt me a lot precisely because she’s helped me so much AND she’s been through it. This still wrecks my thought process even now (so people who support me STILL think this), where did I go wrong trying to piece everything together (that she thinks I’m so off-base). It makes me feel unsettled, because where would I be without Anna? AND precisely because she helped me so much and continues to, even though we may clash about it, I can’t just decide she’s not my friend just because something she said hurt me. Sometimes I’ve said things that have hurt her as well, though unrelated to cheating.
So I do put up boundaries around FW and his previous injury now, as I end up being hurt. She has noticed though, because I’ve started saying ” I’d rather not discuss X topic”, but of course she knows why. She told me she was a bad friend just five days ago. I said “I do not want to lie, sometimes I’d kill you, but you are not a bad friend”.
It really is complicated. For me personally it would be much more difficult to lose her. I do try to have some comebacks ready, but it always catches me by surprise.
All suggestions/similar experiences welcome!
PS. I do give a pass to people who haven’t been through it. Even though I have always been against cheating, I did use to think some of the things that are usually said in RIC, mainly that the relationship could indeed have been abandoned. Not anymore (and certainly never thought they applied to Anna’s FW).
I’ve heard that sentiment as well plus ‘you need to be more interesting’ which made me laugh. Apparently being a stay at home parent isn’t interesting enough to keep a man.
The person who said that isn’t a very good friend. That’s a direct insult.
I know, I thought it was funny, because it was more a reflection of her perception rather than the truth. She thought she was being kind. I am many things but boring is not one of them – so it was water off a ducks back for me.
I did think she was very unimaginative when I read it though! 😂
Wow–the comment “Well, when cheating happens it is also because we allow it to happen” is WAY worse than “Love is love,” or anyway it would lead me to ruminate in just the way you are ruminating. I empathize, and can see how this is a complex situation for you.
In part I will admit it hurts because it does contain a little bit of truth, in that I accepted many things that, in restrospect, I never should have. So yes, I’m an idiot, but it doesn’t quite rise to the level of “allowing”. Allowing means knowing, and I was too busy trusting him.
Anna’s FW was able to manipulate her a lot because it happened when he moved away for work (and yes, his Schmoopie was a cheater too). I do think at some level she says these things because she hates to feel like a victim.
Yes, that makes sense.
The level of control needed to ensure it doesn’t happen far eclipses this whole “love” thing. I wonder how people that would say such thing would react to “what if you gave somebody everything they ever asked for and they still want more?“
THIS! That’s the thing. I do not have the time or the inclination to inflict that much control on anyone, not even on myself! LOL. To control someone so much that you can ensure it is not happening is a full-time job you do for free, and the world is just full of more interesting things.
I am not interested to be in a relationship where either me or the other party feels the need to do that. If I feel the need to do that, I will bow out, as that means I do not trust them, and I expect the other person to do the same.
Which is exactly the reason I left the other person I was with after FW. I wanted to control him, therefore, I didn’t trust him anymore. Continuing the relationship was not feasible. I’d really just rather watch something on Netflix.
I’m reminded of the words of King Charles III, when he was still Prince Charles. A man who is, some may say, an expert in adultery. When asked at their engagement press conference whether Charles and Diana were in love, she said ‘of course’ and he said ‘whatever ‘in love’ means’. Diana wasn’t a cheater then as far as we know. Times changed later. But then, for her, ‘in love’ was an expression of hope and optimism, and, we now know, a triumph of both over reality. Charles knew the score and was expressing the view that, to some, ‘in love’ and ‘love’ are very fluid concepts. My take on the post is that the friend has a view of love that is, like Diana’s, a triumph of hope and optimism over reality. She’s a kind, supportive person who was there for you. That very kindness tends her towards seeing the best in others regardless of the evidence to the contrary. I’d cut her some slack for that reason.
I had two friends who were there for me during my separation and divorce who are no longer close friends. They helped us move out and set up our new place. They constantly encouraged me. These were church friends, and I thought — wow, how wonderful!
And then, post-divorce (the pandemic didn’t help), they became iffy and weird. One of them became uneasy when I was around her husband as if she didn’t trust the situation. The other got into her head that I should be praying for my ex to return so we could remarry. She’d even blame me for not having enough faith that way. Really?
I pushed them both to the outskirts of my life. Thankfully, I made other friends during my mess who have stayed true, so I focus on them.
This article is right that trying to convince someone how bad everything was – when they were there watching the shit show – doesn’t work. My mother watched everything happening from day one, knew how stressful the legal battle was, and also sees how bad it’s affecting my child. My mother randomly brings up how much she “misses how nice cheaterX used to be.” She complains that I don’t interact much with my ex (unless it involves our child), says “how sad” that everything turned out this way, and even tries to guilt me into discussing his diagnosis/if there’s anything we can do to “save him.” I’ve been divorced from the ex for over a year and she still refuses to drop the subject despite being told by me and several relatives: “You need to stop. Celene is over it, over him, and wants nothing to do with saving him.”
The most recent iteration of “it’s so sad, we must save him!” happened within this past week. Despite me repeating: “I don’t care. I’m not saving him. Stop talking about him.” there’s nothing I or my extended family can do to change her mind or make her listen to that boundary.
It sounds like you need a time-out and re-evaluation of your friend there. And as our fearless leader said…probably some very firm and concrete boundary setting. Their ability to adhere(as well as their reaction) should prove…instructive.
I had initially wrote something far more venomous on your “friend” there-but unstable internet (and needing far more coffee, Happy Monday) seem to have quenched that.
In my 14 months in these parts, I’ve made a few observations about the periphery of chump-dom-that is to say, support systems. A couple of the big ones:
Empathy is a weird one. As I have oft intoned-I am a mental health professional by trade. And perhaps it’s my own cynicism from having my rose colored glasses ripped off(just like my fuckwit ripped me off, [rimshot], I’ll be here all week, folks), and I will of course nod and wave at “election season” on my way past to my point…but honestly? It seems like even if empathy didn’t seem to be at an all time low in supply that some people just genuinely lack the capacity for it.
And honestly? I kind of get that. Life is its own melange of horrors for all of us. It takes A LOT to look outside of oneself on the best of days. Putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes even by way of compartmentalization is straight-up terrifying in a lot of cases. And vicarious trauma is very much a thing.
That being said, when somebody you care about(“love”, as is above so it is below) is in agony, empathy SHOULD be the default response. I know I’ve made sacrifices for the people I love-I expect no less. It’s agonizing when that is too much to ask. In my own private musings on the Chump Experience-you DO find out who your friends really are. For me, there have been the people that go out of their way to check in on me and the people that have been happy to keep their distance until the rupture in my soul emits the safe amount of Roentgens.
Compassion fatigue is a thing. When you are compassionate, you have to take genuine care of yourself. Compassion and empathy are not and cannot be hobbies. They are not for tourists or the casual. What I am seeing alot around here is times where the people we got to for support simply cannot sustain that load. Compassion fatigue blunts empathy. See it far more “at th office” than I care to admit. And unfortunately…that has the tendency to come off in some ignorant ways…”but it’s love!” is definitely up there.
Can’t say anybody has said anything THAT ignorant-at least to my face. The most I’ve gotten is “people cheat because something is missing in the relationship.” I don’t think I need to tell the congregation that everybody that has blurted that thoughtless nonsense out was either a cheater themselves or had some personal dislike for me.
I guess that’s where “What is and is not acceptable” clicks on. We as chumps, obviously, do not believe that the wandering genitals are acceptable-nor the deception, the lies, the gaslighting, the out and out DSM supported abuse. None of that.
As stated above, you find out a lot about the people in your universe when you are in crisis. Some are your forever friends, some come out of the woodwork that you never would have expected, some mysteriously have other things to do(as you are no longer convenient or they have their own stuff going on)…and unfortunately, you start to find out which ones are able to easily justify absolute horror with a flick of the wrist.
“He did it because love”…we did what we did because of love, too! Pray tell, “friend” of my fellow nation-member here-why is this particular fuckwit’s love more important than your friend’s such that what happened and the anguish you witnessed acceptable? Our fuckwits supposedly “loved” us. Mine famously said “I love differently”…right when it was put-up-or-shut-up time. Perhaps it’s my status as a chump and a victim and a bitter pinniped here, but can we call the quality of something “love” when you can change your mind so conveniently?
Have A Mighty Monday!
The other interpretation is that she doesn’t actually think cheating is wrong per se, but she supported the OP because she likes her and wants her in her life. People she doesn’t want in her life who are cheated on, otoh, she doesn’t give a toss about.
Many people are like that. They’re not actually showing up for you because they have integrity and scruples and are outraged on your behalf, but because they want to keep you around and showing up for you is the price of admission as your friend.
I think this is very true ☝️
I currently have a friend who behaved close to identically to Lost for Words experience.
The phrase she used was “sometimes there’s an overlap, people meet and and things can get messy”
Uh huh….
If cheating ever happened to HER she would be incandescent.
Additionally, I do know that somewhere in her past, my friend has had an affair with a married man (she may have been told by him that they were separated at the time) – although I have some doubts on that. I simply don’t know 🤷♀️
More recently I’ve borne witness to her making what has looked a lot like a very needy play for a married man.
She has drawn him in to one on one phone calls (she is currently receiving treatment for cancer – so complicated) jokes about ribald witticisms that she has relayed to him, ‘joked’ that he was the one that got away and that if he and she were ever together and a bit drunk, that they could have had a roll in the hay etc.
Her concerning overtures signalling her availability predated her diagnosis.
I suspect that the only thing that has stopped anything happening is his setting up the boundaries to keep it strictly friendship.
I’ve attended social occasions recently and seen him do this and his boundary setting and off limits demeanour seems authentic to me.
She has acknowledged as much. But if he had green-lighted she would have gone there. Now to cover her embarrassment it’s all a light joke.
I’m very conflicted about this friendship and it’s ‘under review’ in my mind.
She has been a sterling support through x2 of my FW marriage breakdowns. I recognise I need to be wise enough myself to see that her empathy is highly selective. She likes our friendship because I am a very good friend to her.
When cheating conversations come up (either my experience or her own ‘joking’ flights of fantasy) I shut things very swiftly down and use the words “reciprocity” and “lack of consent”
I think there is a personality disorder at play in her make up. She is the only one of my friends like this.
I do feel obligations because of her diagnosis. There again I have my own similar health profile to consider too.
If there’s one thing we Chumps know it’s that life is too precious to squander on FWs and affiliates.
In an almost anthropological way, it does give me an insight into how OW’s or would-be OW’s think and behave – and it’s not pretty.
Intermittent with moments of grandiosity, my friend can be very needy and is not always cohesive on the inside.
So for me, the friendship is still under review. I suspect it will ultimately be a qualified friendship with my eyes wide open….
Based on my experience being chumped, I do think most people dislike cheating on a scale depending on how much they like the people involved.
So my sister hates FW, but does not hate cheating per se. Loves Esther Perel (send help). She already hated FW before.
Anna defends another friend of hers who cheated after being chumped herself. This is another thing we clash on. I now know I will never be close to said friend.
On the other hand, I’m still friends with a couple who are primarily FW’s friends. I wonder why they still call me, knowing the things FW’s said about me, but they do, and have never ever put me in an awkward situation. Obviously there is an implicit agreement that we do not mention him. I reached the conclusion that one of their parents was chumped, and the cheater was rightfully blamed, although this is based on limited information.
The thing I have found is I cannot cut out everyone who does this because I would have no social life left. These are just some examples, but it’s prevalent. However, I will speak up if the topic comes up, even if I ruin the party. I have learned to maintain internal distance (if there’s a better term for that, please let me know). And if someone asked, I would tell the truth.
Another thing that seems to keep coming up is that anybody who defends cheating is either defending themselves, or defending someone they love who has done it (a friend, a parent, a child…).
As you see, my primary struggles 5 years on are not so much FW himself, but how to navigate social attitudes to cheating.
My immediate response is that SHE is a cheater, either currently or in the past because I think these are the only people who make this kind of stupid comment. Them and pedophiles like Woody Allen. She’s excusing herself. There are people like this who will work to help a friend get through something but then they will go fuck over someone else in the same way, or maybe she did this in the past. You could just ask her this – have you ever cheated or been the AP in a relationship – see what she says. I’m a blunt person and I might do that, but…it probably would be the end of your friendship. You might just tell her that “love” is not made up of sexy affairs, it’s made up of all the things people are willing to for each other over the course of YEARS: the putting up with each other’s quirks that can be really aggravating, the boring repetitive conversations about something you don’t give a shit about but you listen because it matters to the other person (like how the football team is doing), taking care of each other when you’re sick or injured, cheering each other up and supporting each other when the world kicks you in the ass….so many things that are so much more important than some moronic “love is love” bullshit. That’s cheater speak. I understand you’re grateful to her, but I personally would think that we are not on the same page morally and I’d demote her if not drop her entirely. I don’t think you’re gonna agree on this and I think it’s gonna continue to rankle. At best, you have to realize this is an area where you are NOT going to disagree….and just like you never feel the same way about a FW again once you find out….statements like this make me feel that I’m never going to feel the same way about this person again. But I AM an extremist and most people are more moderate than me. Fuck ’em.
You know what love really is…..caring at least as much about the other person as you do yourself….and maybe more at times. Being willing to sacrifice and go without something you may want so you can do something good for the other person, or make them happy. Love is not sex, it’s not trips, it’s not jewelry, it’s not movies or concerts or video gaming…it’s about caring enough to sacrifice some of your time, energy, individuality, and sexuality to support another person through life. I think they need to go back and read St. Paul’s description of love, these people don’t have a damn clue. Their “love” is selfish desire.
This💯!!
Given their true beliefs and values, they should instead be saying:
“Well you know…..
“Desire is desire”
“Lust is lust”
“Base Self interest is Base self interest”
“Ego is Ego”
“Distraction is distraction”
Yes, yes Mehitable
There are two languages at play. Any affiliate/Switzerland friend who uses the language of “love is love” to flick away a proper acknowledgment of the pain caused by cheating is speaking another language entirely.
They are showing that they don’t truly understand what “love” is meant to be in the first place…
My sister shuts me down every time I talk about my horrific divorce now 1.5 years out. At first she was very Switzerland even though she had been Chumped. She liked my cheater for 32 years so it was hard for her. Now my sis is sick of my story and says with every phone call..but but you have a cozy apartment and you’re alone and he’s gone now, your troubles are over. Or starts talking about her abusive x from 40 years ago…so I know she’s worn out and not the person to share with. She put in her time and I might feel the same way too plus all of Tracy’s words. I get it. Time to find better friends or write in my journal or join Chump Nation!