He Abandoned His Family and Acts Like Nothing Happened

Her ex is suddenly pleasant and acts like nothing happened. Is she losing her mind? Less than a year ago, he walked out on their family with no explanation after 30 years together.

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Hello Chump Lady,

It’s been one year since my husband moved out, about 11 months since D day, and 5 months divorced. 

Do you have any stories of how FWs can normalize seemingly crazy behavior and can seem “not that bad”? Because I am a mess of confusion. Is leaving so you can figure out how to be happy a legit reason to end a marriage? Sometimes I think I am the only one who thinks my ex is a lying deceitful piece of crap. 

I’ve been pretty much no contact since the divorce. But before that, in the few interactions I had with my wasband, he was nice and pleasant, acting like nothing had happened. It was bizarre.

He said our breakup was “the best for both of us”.

Also, ” you need someone better than me.” Also “You deserve to find someone who loves you.” And “I’m trying not to be an ass.”

The thing is, he is a “runaway husband” after 30 years of marriage. One random Saturday in the kitchen he said “I’m moving out.”  A few days later he moved out unexpectedly while I was at work. (I came home and noticed the TV was missing. That’s how I realized something was wrong.) In keeping with the theme of him “trying not to be an ass” as he puts it, he said he thought it would be “easier for everyone that way” if he moved out while I wasn’t there. (You see how sensitive he was about it? His concern was for me! Eye roll) Apparently I am crazy for thinking that was a bitch move.

Three weeks after he left, he bought an “I love you forever and always ” necklace for somebody. That knowledge plus other things confirmed to me that he was having an affair. I found further evidence that he had a girlfriend but I am not sure exactly when it started (but he definitely had contact before he moved out). When I asked him if there was someone else, he twice denied having a girlfriend.

It sounds so sanitized when he talks about the reasons he left.

Some reasons: An explanation about “not being happy, having too much to do around the house, feeling like ‘just the handyman’, and the dog waking him up at night so he can’t sleep.” Also he “Can’t pretend we have a marriage anymore.” (It was news to me that we didn’t have a marriage anymore. Distance in our marriage? Sure. But no marriage whatsoever? News to me.) He said: “We are not on the same page.” And “I’m trying to figure out how to like myself.” and “I want to be happy again like i was 30 years ago.”

Our daughters are 25 and 23. At one point about 3 months after he left, he came over to the house to do taxes. He had not seen our younger daughter in 3 months (she still lives with me and was home but sleeping), but he left without even asking about her! At all!! Not a “tell her I said hi”, not a “where’s daughter?” 

I think that’s weird. Am I weird? Am I overthinking?

When my daughter found out, my daughter actually said maybe SHE was overthinking it which made me sad. My daughters were just guessing what was going on in his head. He hardly communicated much.

He showed up 5 months after he left to my other daughter’s house to work on his car. (My daughter was sleeping because she works nights). He worked on his car with my daughter’s fiance but didn’t mention a word about not seeing them for 5 months. Acted like nothing happened. I think that’s weird. Am I wrong?

When he left me, he told me, his kids, and his mother “I wasn’t happy. I just needed to do this for me.” I don’t think anyone actually bought it, but yet no one felt able to call him out on his BS. It’s like we are all under his spell, or don’t want to make him mad or are afraid of losing the relationship altogether (his kids and mother, I know I’ve already lost the relationship). 

The smooth talking, the “all this is normal”, “it is what it is”, drives me crazy! I just want to scream to the universe, “You are an asshole!”

 “It is what it is” is one of his favorite expressions.

The victim card is also his standard go-to. (When I asked him if he was coming back, he said, “You have to understand, I’m really unhappy with myself in a lot of ways.”)

BUT BUT he was actually seriously abused as a child so I have excused most of his behavior due to that. So his unhappiness with himself may very well be legit.

I’m a helpless frozen puddle of passiveness in front of him, but afterwards when I’m alone, I’m like, “You’re not unhappy, you’re fucking someone else, you lying sack of shit! And you look happy to be rid of me. Stop lying.” But I can’t say a peep in front of him. His This Is All Very Normal attitude makes me doubt my thinking. Am I exaggerating that he’s a bad guy? Is this just a run of the mill divorce situation?

My daughters are angry at him for cheating on me but I think they also want to have a relationship with him.  Finally about 9 months after he left he started talking to the kids again. When I ask them how they are doing, my youngest says it’s a little awkward with her dad but it is okay. My older daughter says she is mad at what her dad did but she still has her dad so in that way “nothing has changed”. It feels to me a little like, “it’s all for the best-ism”

It’s all so confusing and bizarre but my kids seem to have just moved on. (Maybe I taught them that.)

Signed, 

Confused Skeptic and Exhausted Overthinker

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Dear Confused Skeptic and Exhausted Overthinker,

Oh yeah, this is the common mindfuck known as I Fail to Understand Your Hostility. I don’t know what you’re so worked up about there, Chump-o, but I’m glad one of us can be the adult.

It’s totally maddening. The problem isn’t what he did (bail), the problem is your reaction to it (grief, confusion, anger). The answer is to stop trying to untangle his skein and focus on radical acceptance:

He’s the sort of person who can casually abandon his family after 30 years.

Well OF COURSE! You’re obsolete! Services no longer needed! Do we need to call security?

You can’t understand it because you’re not a sociopath.

Okay, I don’t actually know what exact nut cluster this guy is in the DSM, but I’ll say it for the umpteenth time: normal people BOND. Abnormal people TRANSACT. To be this shallow and disconnected says everything about him and nothing about your lovability.

I’m not saying a person cannot end a long marriage, but most humans find breakups — even ones they want — painful. There’s a bond there to break. A guy that just goes poof one day never connected. You believed a comfortable fiction that he was bonded, based on an assumption that he was like other people. And that worked for him until it didn’t.

Is leaving so you can figure out how to be happy a legit reason to end a marriage?

There’s no jury. You don’t need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to leave someone. He can divorce you because he hates your haircut. But that would be obviously frivolous and reflect badly on him, so instead he’s gone sad sausage. Woe, he wasn’t happy! Surely you care about his happiness?

He knows how to be happy. He’s been happy at your expense for God knows how long, having an affair. The point is, he didn’t leave his marriage ethically. He cheated and abandoned.

But before that, in the few interactions I had with my wasband, he was nice and pleasant, acting like nothing had happened. It was bizarre.

Acting ‘pleasant’ after behaving unpleasantly is a deliberate strategy.

Who’s the bitter bunny here? Gosh, he just doesn’t understand where all this anger is coming from. Do you hate happiness?

It strikes you as bizarre because you expect that someone who left you after 30 years might feel a wee bit awkward and ashamed. Or even grief stricken. Greeting you with all the social niceties of the Maytag repairman is, yes, demented.

But how nice to have you off balance. All the better to manipulate you further.

In keeping with the theme of him “trying not to be an ass” as he puts it, he said he thought it would be “easier for everyone that way” if he moved out while I wasn’t there. (You see how sensitive he was about it? His concern was for me! Eye roll) Apparently I am crazy for thinking that was a bitch move.

He’s a coward. That’s what his behavior says. Don’t listen to his words. They’re completely incongruent with what he does. I’m abandoning our marriage but I’m being NICE about it!

When I asked him if there was someone else, he twice denied having a girlfriend.

He’s a coward.

but he left without even asking about her! At all!!

He’s a coward. And did I also mention — he’s a coward?

He worked on his car with my daughter’s fiance but didn’t mention a word about not seeing them for 5 months. Acted like nothing happened.

HE IS A COWARD.

Please, just call a thing a THING. Your ex is a coward. Overthinking isn’t necessary — bypass the pain and go directly to a conclusion: He is a Bad Person. Your Ex is a COWARD. Make a definitive pronouncement and drop the skein!

The smooth talking, the “all this is normal”, “it is what it is”, drives me crazy! I just want to scream to the universe, “You are an asshole!”

He is an asshole. You don’t need to shout it, you need to decide it. Blah blah happiness. Blah, blah he was abused. His abandonment of you is either acceptable to you or it isn’t. The person either deserves a place in your life or they don’t. I vote him off the island.

Gee, that’s awfully binary of you, Tracy.

If chucking your 30-year marriage for your fuckbuddy isn’t a deal breaker, I don’t know what is. He cannot smooth talk if you’re not there to listen to him. Total no contact. Showing up to do taxes or WTFever is him having a portal to your life. He wants out? Cast him OUT and quit asking questions or listening to his lame nattering.

Stop doubting yourself.

I’m a helpless frozen puddle of passiveness in front of him, but afterwards when I’m alone, I’m like, “You’re not unhappy, you’re fucking someone else, you lying sack of shit! And you look happy to be rid of me. Stop lying.” But I can’t say a peep in front of him.

Don’t be in front of him. If you shouted at him, he’d have the satisfaction of you losing your shit and him being able to be the smarmy adult in the room. It would have zero effect on him, except as kibbles of centrality. Don’t say a peep because he is DEAD TO YOU.

His This Is All Very Normal attitude makes me doubt my thinking. Am I exaggerating that he’s a bad guy? Is this just a run of the mill divorce situation?

If he dressed up as the Queen Mary would you curtsey? He has a delusion that he’s above reproach. You don’t have to share that delusion with him. Why are you doubting yourself? Only YOU decide what’s acceptable in your life and what’s not. A man who casually abandons you after 30 years of marriage and two children is not someone you want to make light chitchat with. He’s incredibly creepy. Who are you presenting evidence to? YOU ARE THE DECIDER.

Just because it’s not uncommon in the history of misogyny for men to callously discard women after they’re done using them doesn’t mean it isn’t WRONG. A “run of the mill” injustice is still unjust. This is YOUR divorce. No one gets to tell you how to feel about him.

My daughters are angry at him for cheating on me but I think they also want to have a relationship with him.

This is their cross to bear. Perhaps they can stare across a field as he changes his oil in their driveway.

The victim card is also his standard go-to. (When I asked him if he was coming back, he said, “You have to understand, I’m really unhappy with myself in a lot of ways.”)

Oh! He had a sad! You must understand.

No, you don’t have to understand. Leave that tangled skein and walk away. It is what it is — a fucking mess. Created by a cowardly, selfish goblin. You don’t know that guy. You probably never knew him.